Puck Soup - Don't Share Cups!

Episode Date: October 1, 2020

The boys look at the Tampa Bay Lightning's Stanley Cup championship win over the Dallas Stars, their boat parade and subsequent super-spreader event, what's next for Dallas, Conn Smythe vote, asterisks, Jack Eichel, Lundqvist and Ryan buyouts, NHL Draft and free agent previews, Borat and the best and worst of hot wing flavors!

Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slap shots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to what if you commute. We also cover movies, TV shows, it's in tunes. It's your weekly bowl of hockey and nonsense. Bootsu. I'm Greg Wysinski of the SPN. Home of many sports played in front of some people and not some people. And last night, a virtual Barack Obama, which was interesting.

Yeah, he only virtually drone strikes you. Oh, there it is. Yeah. I'm Ryan Lambert from this podcast. I'm Sean McIndoo from The Athletic. Oh, yeah, it's true. And you're in Puck Soup, where we all observed yesterday the cathartic celebration of the Tampa Bay Lightning in back home in Florida.

A real spectacle. Started the day on boats, socially distanced from the fans, partying and drinking. Alex Killorn, back on the skidoo, driving around with the cup, all full circle because he did the Doc Talk thing and he got the boys back in town

in that video beforehand. And we closed with, well, Probably the biggest super spreader event this side of a Trump rally and Alex Colorn on stage, praising the governor of Florida for reopening the bars. This did not set well with folks out there, Ryan. Yeah, I can't imagine why. We're going to spend like two months talking about how seriously we're taking this disease.

We're going to do everything in our power to avoid getting it. The second we're out of the bubble, we don't care how many fans die. We actually love that shit. He, I mean, in fairness, he did put the kill in Killorn, you have to admit. Yeah, that's true. That's true. Before I give a take here, Sean, what was your take on the parade and the celebration in the time, in these troubled times? Yeah, I mean, probably the same reaction that I think most of us had, which is I'm watching it going, that's, a, that's not good.

and B, I really hope in a week or two we don't start hearing some really bad news from that. I mean, I get it. I get why, I mean, obviously, it's Florida. It's, you're going to have a party that people are going to show up. And I get it from the players' perspective. Like, what they just went through for two and a half months was really hard. And I get that, you know, once they're sort of let out the temptation to cut loose a little bit or a lot is going to be there. But that didn't look great. I mean, when you're

passing the Stanley Cup around and random strangers are taking turns drinking out of it, any other year, that stuff is awesome. Not this year. I get it. But yeah, I didn't like it. I can't, I can't imagine anyone who wasn't there and directly involved thought any of that looked like a good I do. I think you hit on the thing, though, like that I'm struggling with, which is that, you know, obviously it's bad. And like you said, it's the last state that you'd want this to happen in because they haven't really done due diligence on this disease in months by design in the eyes of many because there's an election this year. So that was tough to see. And it was tough to see Desantis get a a shout out from Killorn on stage too because of all those reasons. But like we all recognize what these guys went through for the last two and a half months from a mental health perspective. I think we've all been very sensitive to it. I wrote about it a little bit today in the column.

And like there's a certain getting out of prison aspect to this thing that happened on Monday. We're two days removed from it. This is a once in a lifetime thing for these guys. they're all shit-faced by this point. So I get it. Like, I think, I want to try to say, Ryan, no, we're quick, I want to try to say it's like, I think there's a space that you could exist in where you can fucking hate it because

it's bad, but you could also completely understand why it happened. Yeah, it's not like other people have had a hard time mentally the last several months. It's just the hockey guys. So it actually makes perfect sense why they were. would want to behave like this. And it, I would say excuses it. So there you go. Well, I don't think anyone says it excuses it.

In fact, I think that I explicitly said it doesn't excuse it. And yet. And yet, yeah, yeah, but yet you can understand why it happened, can you? No, because, like, I'm not supposed to, like, go outside and, like, hang out with my friends and stuff like that. Oh, is hanging out with your friends a lifelong dream that you've had? Oh, so it does excuse it. Okay, no, that makes sense. Perfect sense. No, it, it, it, it, it, you fucking, don't conflate excuse with understand.

That's two different things. Well, like, would it, would it, would it be understandable that I want to hang out with my friends? Yeah. Okay. Well, there you go. But, but, but when you hang out with your friends, are you going to be fucking shit-faced and, and, and, and having the emotional buildup of the last five years just explode in, in a way that maybe doesn't necessarily conform to COVID standards? Yeah. Well, it's fucking.

Again, like. it's fucking stupid and like, oh, yeah, okay, I get that they want a party and everything, but the fact that they're like endangering themselves and like hundreds of others and stuff like that, like, oh, it's fucking stupid. There's no question about that. And it actually is underscored by what they went through, which is that they were able to win the cup by not doing this, by fucking getting tested every day, and by not interacting with people, and by being socially distant.

And so it's just a big fucking. mess. Like, it is obviously just like a sign of the times that we're even having this conversation where we go from a thing that happened only because they were careful to them celebrating that thing by being completely not careful. Like, it's just sucks. But I understand why they fucking acted the way they did. I think the fans are dumb or shit. That's, that's the reason why. Well, there's, there's, there's, this is a bit of a pro-athlete mentality, right? This is the super extreme version of the the pro athlete thing where you go through the whole season and you don't any carbs and for some of these guys even these days like you don't you don't even drink you don't do

anything and then your season finishes and you've got a couple weeks to just eat whatever you want drink whatever you want to just go nuts and then you get you get back into it and and get ready to go and this is the extreme and potentially life-threatening version of that. I don't, but I'm kind of with you, Greg. I don't excuse it, but I get it. I wonder what, if any, input the league head on any of this?

Like, the league doesn't organize this stuff, but was there nobody who at any point picked up the phone and went, like, you guys aren't going to, you know, be out there passing the cup around to hundreds of random? strangers, right? Or was it just sort of like, you know what, you guys did everything we asked for the last two and a half months, so you do whatever you want now?

I'm curious about that. I don't think we'll ever find out. I'm curious if the league with such a track record of caring about their physical well-being when they're away from the rink reached out and said, don't do this. Well, it's not even, I mean, then if you want to be a cynic just from a PR perspective, right? I mean, there's got to be something like, this is going to look terrible if we see exactly what we saw.

So, I don't know. And maybe they did make that phone call and the Tampa Bay Lightning or whoever said, thanks for passing that on. And screw you, we're going to do whatever we want anyways. Right, we've been waiting forever for this. I think it's a good point. And I think that you could see during the course of the day

how even on like social media, just like it went from being, oh, how cute. you know, they're on boats to it being, hey, maybe not have half of clear water drink from the fucking Stanley Cup, you know, maybe that's not the thing to do. So it's a tough, it's a tough look. And I, and I've, I'm with you on that sort of like athlete mentality thing. I was kind of bouncing around my head when I was watching that yesterday about the idea of not only the usual cathartic, I'm going to go home with my boys and fucking pound beers

and eat like shit for two weeks thing that happens every off season. But now it's probably, I mean, Like, to be super cynical about it, do you think that any of them were just kind of like, I'm going to throw myself into this because I know I'm going to have a few months to recover from it, like if I get it? Like, as fucking horrible as that sounds, I mean, would you put it past them? Yeah, like 20-something pro athletes, yeah, they probably do feel like they're invincible on this. And, yeah, they may be feeling that, hey, if I'm going to get it anyways, at some point, now's the time.

and I either aren't thinking about who they might spread it to or I guess are willing to accept that risk on behalf of other people. Yeah, that probably did factor in. I think it's one thing to say I'm not going to party during the season because I mean, we're seeing right now in the NFL what can happen, right? As we're recording this, the news is breaking. The NFL has postponed its first game because of an outbreak on a team. We saw it in Major League Baseball pretty constantly at the beginning of the season. We're going to see it during the NHL season. I mean, they're not going back into bubbles.

So this is going to happen at some point in hockey too. It's, I don't know. This is one of those things. Look, the nature of, of what we're dealing with here, two weeks from now, we could look back and go, oh, you remember that Stanley Cup thing that people were upset about? Yeah, nothing ever really seemed to come of that. Oh, good.

Well, I mean, the good news is Florida doesn't do contact tracing, so we'll never know for sure anyway. That too, yeah. But we could also be looking back on this and saying that was an absolute tragedy that that happened. And, you know, here's all the things that have come out of that. So I don't know, man. I guess now we could. cross her fingers.

The absolute last place in the United States, you'd want a team to win a championship at this point. Yeah. Well, I mean, your options were Tampa and Dallas, so you weren't going to come out on top either way there. That was a tough look, man. And to your point, Ryan, like, it is a real bad look to have been so careful and to be have been so meticulous and to, you know, have these guys talking about, you know,

your masks should be on, to give a good, signal to people back at home, you know, like being responsible and shit like that. And then, I mean, obviously, just like every other fucking bad decision you make if you're in your 20s, alcohol is probably a factor. But it's a tough look to end the season on that note, right? Like, they were so careful in the restart and meticulous and in the way they bought the sport back. And then to have the celebration not, I mean, it mirrored it for like a few hours and then they went to the stadium and then like all fucking bets were off where you know Alex Collin is running around having people drink from the Stanley Cup and smack in

hands like he's fucking Jay Leno during a monologue so yeah and it was weird a when he gave the shout out to uh to the Florida governor like I I expected my Twitter timeline to be flooded with people telling them to stick to sports and politics out of but it was weird that didn't that didn't happen that's so strange I know odd yeah Weird. Anyways, back to happier times. The Lightning won.

I think we could all agree that that's probably the result that is the most satisfactory in that they are demonstrably the best team, the best constructed team, the most talented team, the team that plays the best kind of hockey in that series against Dallas. What was your takeaway from the final run? Yeah, I mean the best team won. It happens so rarely in this sport in particular. that it's kind of nice to see every once in a while. It's like, oh, yeah, if you, you know, if you have like three all-stars at every position,

you can be a pretty good team. Right. And not just like, well, we got beat by this Finnish guy nobody ever fucking heard of before today. So, like, it's really those two teams were kind of like the two teams that ever win the Stanley Cup, right? is the team with the anonymous, the hot goalie and the anonymous, like, contributors or the guys you don't expect, like, fucking Cory Perry being the overtime hero of an elimination game and all that kind of stuff. And also, you know, the team with the best goalie, the best defenseman, and the best forward in the league, or in the playoffs anyway, like, those are the two teams that ever win. And, you know, more often than not, it's the, it's the one that kind of just gets there by the, by the seat of its pants as opposed to the one with all the talent that took forever to build. And, you know, they drafted right for eight years and got this roster.

And it's like, oh, you lost in the second round again. You just, so yeah, yeah, it's nice, it's nice to see the, the, I almost said the good guys, but now I don't know about that. but the good guys win. Yep. That's exactly what I feel. And like last year when the lightning got swept and there were all those other upsets in the first round last year. I mean, it was just, it was crazy.

And a lot of people were saying, this is great. And I was kind of like, I don't know if it is because like sometimes the best team's got to win. Like this is or else what are we doing here? And I had a lot of people put. back. A lot of people didn't like that take. But I just feel like the Stanley Cup final just ended. We all immediately go into off-season mode, right? The draft

is next week. Free agency. We're told there's a bunch of trades probably about to happen. And I love this part of the year. And I think a lot of people love this part of the year more than they love the actual hockey. Like this is the fun stuff. But it's only fun if you think that all these moves that are going to get

made over the next little wild matter. and they only matter if building the best team sometimes matters. And so I do think as a fan, it's great to see a team that has drafted well, both in terms of nailing high picks and finding those second day gems. They've been smart with free agency. They've made some good trades along the line. They've made some mistakes too, but recovered from them. The fact that all of that builds up to this team that from November on was the best team in the league

and it rolls through the playoffs and they win the Stanley Cup. To me, as a fan, that makes everything that's going to come more fun than just having some random team. And that's a really disrespectful way to talk about a good team in the Dallas Stars. But having some team with a hot goalie just win the Stanley Cup. And then you're sitting there going, well, what are we doing? Who cares what happens to the off season? Just find a goalie who's going to get hot at the right time for two months. And that's all that matters.

That's a good point. Yeah, it sort of validates the meticulous building and the, and the word I think I heard from in talking to some like GMs this week was patience. Yeah. And that's to me the key. Like the opportunity was there to blow up the core. I think Cooper, I would have been very interested to see what would have happened to Cooper last season if he hadn't signed an extension in March. Like, would the regular season success of counterbalance? the playoff failure.

And not only last season, but this October. Like, remember, they started off as a 500 team through October. Stephen Stamco's saying, we have to change something or it's all going to have. Like, they were not in bad shape relative to a typical team, but for a cup contender, they look like they were really fighting it. Yeah. Like, how quickly could that have become Nashville and, like, them firing LaVuette because the results are middling and their, and their playoff results.

remittling. Like, it could have gone fucking sideways there. I mean, I wrote about this earlier in the week where I was, I looked at, you know, because the one danger with a team like the Lightning is they've been among the very best teams in the league, if not the best team in the league for the last, I would say six or seven years going back to that one, that really bad lockout year they had. Ever since, they've been, they've been real good year after year. And a lot of, that makes a lot of people look at it and go, well, it was inevitable.

They were going to win a cup. Of course they were going to win the cup. five years ago, I wrote a column where I said, who's going to win the cup in the next five years, and I gave everyone odds, and I gave the lightning less than 50-50 odds, and people were blown away. They're like, how could you, there's like an 80 or 90% chance they're going to win. Of course they are. Look how good they are. And it almost didn't happen. And the reason is it's never, it's always inevitable in hindsight, but I looked at a whole bunch of times where there was an inflection point where things could have gone bad for the lightning, and,

but they made the right decision. And I was surprised that, you know, when I sat down to write it, I kind of did each thing individually. And it wasn't until it went up. And one of somebody in the comment section was like, do you realize that like seven out of your eight decisions were just them being patient and not reacting to something? Yeah, not pulling the trigger on. And not overreacting. Yeah. They didn't.

They didn't overreact to missing the playoffs in 2017. They didn't overreact. Obviously last year and with Cooper. They didn't overreact to Stephen Stamco's heading to free agency. They didn't trade them or turn it into a whole big dramatic thing. They just really were a team that they had a ton of talent, and it didn't take any special insight to know that, but they believed in what they had.

They believed in the program. They understood that there's 30 plus teams in the league. Even the best team isn't going to win the cup every year, and they didn't overreact and they didn't listen to a lot of the voices telling them to overreact. and they stuck with it and they were ultimately rewarded but there was no guarantee they would be we've seen lots of teams get really good stick with it and and it never happens but but the lightning clearly in hindsight did the right thing at almost every one of those points and usually the right thing was keep calm keep going and and stick to the plan you know it's funny though you

mentioned the voices and i think i mentioned it on the show before like I think the fact that this was in a bubble helped them immeasurably. Like, maybe it's just my time covering the capitals and seeing the fucking psychological thesis paper that you could write on how many times they gripped and stick too hard in front of their home crowd or how many times the failures of playoff past came back to haunt them in a series. I really felt, and it was one of the reasons I picked Tampa on top of, you know, the fucking talent, that playing in the bubble and not having the fans there. and not having the media up in your face asking you about Stamcoast every fucking day while they're crowding around your locker and all that shit that they've had to deal with in the past, not having that was going to be hugely beneficial. And Cooper's talked about that, like the ability to close out the noise and to try to put your phone away

and to not hear what people are saying about you. And I feel like that was an aspect of it. But I also feel like the other aspect of it was they never put themselves in a situation where they had to hear that shit. like they were so fucking efficient. Yeah, they ripped through the playoffs. They really did. Like five games against Columbus, five games against Boston, which is I don't think

something that any of us anticipated. Then six against the founders where, as we saw in the past with Washington and Pittsburgh series, they would lose game six and then fuck up in game seven. Well, they didn't do that here. And then the same deal against Dallas where they just took them out in game six and didn't have to worry about the demons coming back from your game seven failures. It was a fucking assassin-like the way that they rolled through these playoffs. And I think that really benefited the mental health side of this thing of not having to start believing that your voodoo-hext or whatever the fuck in the playoffs like they've had in the past.

Well, you know, it's kind of for me that stuff is kind of the stuff about the ducks for a million years. Oh, you know, it's they can't win a game seven. I don't know. On some level, it's like, sure, but also, you know, if you give a talented team, I keep saying it, but like if you give a talented team enough wax at it, they're going to not fuck up one of these times. Don't you think there's something to be said for not going to a game seven though? Yeah, well, I mean, right, like you're in any given game, the best team has like, what, like a 58% chance of winning, right? So like sometimes you lose 42% of the time and you can lose 42%.

But if, yeah, if you don't go to a game seven, like, if you don't face elimination at all, then you're going to be in fucking good shape to not get eliminated. Yeah. No, agreed. And so there's that aspect of it. And, you know, one thing I wanted to say about Cooper, and I've been having to review the Quest for the Cup show on ESPN Plus, which has been okay in some spots.

but they kept up the tradition of the second to last episode of these shows, whether it's the Road to the Winter Classic show or the Stanley Cup shows, always being really fucking good. And the one they put on last night, I'd recommend that it's got the Stamco stuff. It's got a lot of really cool shit in it, including like Barkley Goodro's parents being inside the bubble for your little tear-jurker moments and shit like that.

It doesn't cover the cup win. That's next week, but it's got really good stuff in it. But the thing about Cooper that I, Cooper's been really kind of revelatory in this series and being able to see how he handles the room and what he says. And I'll never forget something that Victor Hedman said to me a few years ago about the way Cooper coaches, which is that the guys love playing for him because the style that he wants them to play is a style that they love playing. Yeah, it's fun to play lightning hockey. Right.

And so, like, in the locker room last night on the episode, there's a great moment. I think it's an intermission at game four where he's talking about, you know, every time Dallas is playing well, it's because the lightning are skating backwards. And his thing is just like, just go keep coming forward. Like just go, push it, push it, push it. And the thing Edmund said is that it was like, even as a defender, the thing that you love is that you're not asked to collapse around the goalie. You're not asked to fucking play Islanders hockey.

Even as a defender, your mode is to attack. And there's just something beautiful about that. Because like you said, Ryan, like at the end of the day, some of these playoffs that we watched were a battle for the NHL soul as far as like stylistically. You had teams playing anti-hockey at times versus teams like the lightning that play such a beautiful, well-rounded game, like offensively thrilling with the talent that they have, but also great defensively in the way that you're, want to see defense played, which is possessing the puck, which is pushing the tempo, which is

pounding the other team with your forecheck and not simply just putting five guys around the crease. And yes, I am saying that as a fucking Devils fan. Fuck you. That was a different time. But it was great to see. It was great to see the team that plays good hockey and the kind of hockey you'd want to see win. And like Sean said, I hope that's validating. A little bit on Dallas. What do we think about them going forward? First of all, I, I, I, I'm really interested in this Rick Bonus thing now because it's one thing to, like, put the guy over and be like, if he wants to stay, he can stay. And Rick Bonas at the end of the playoffs being like, well, turns out I kind of want to keep going. But, I mean, there has to be some semblance of is this lightning in a bottle kind of deal for a coach that historically has never been able to find success on a regular basis in the National Hockey League in the postseason or in the regular season, right?

Well, I mean, look, you know, I think I can't remember the stat now if it's, you know, since, bonus took over or for the full season or whatever it was, but they were one of the best expected goals teams in the league this year, one of the best possession teams in the league this year. Like, I, on some level, I think it's a fluke just because you can definitely say, like, well, you know, the Lightning were, or the Avalanche were on their third goalie, and their backup goalie got hurt, and their starting goalie got hurt, and, you know, they had this guy come out of nowhere and have, like, two monster games and, you know, who,

knows what Kiveronta really is, that kind of thing. Like, that's all true. But, again, like, the process they played, like, the way they played all season, it might not have been, like, the most beautiful hockey in the world or anything like that. But you had to say, you have to say that they were, you know, playing a kind of style that is conducive to long-term success. I don't know if, you know, like, if, because we've seen teams do. that for a season or two and then stop being able to do that, especially because, you know,

Dallas's core is so old. But I do think that, you know, just based on the in-season track record, he deserves a crack at it. Yeah. What do you think, Sean? Yeah, I mean, I don't think there's any question, really. I mean, at some point, look, is Rick Bonas a better head coach than Gerard Gallant or Bruce Boudreau or any number of guys that could be available, I'm not convinced that he is. But he was their guy. He got them there. The players seemed to love him.

He's more than paid his dues. I don't know what message you're sending to that team if you do anything other than bring him back. Assuming he wants to come back, he's 65 years old. He might decide that this is a good place as any to put an end to it. But assuming he wants to come back, then, yeah, of course. Of course you bring them back. I can't imagine how you go into that room as a GM or whoever and say, we thought we had a better guy.

And then every single player is looking around going, well, is there a better guy than me out there? Because, you know, am I next? And for a lot of the answer, there's got to be. For a lot of guys on that team, the answer is yes, they're definitely fucking in. There is. Exactly. Yeah. And to bonus is credit, like the thing that you have to say is that even if you want to give,

as Ryan mentioned, the expected goals and the underlying numbers credit to the system that Jim Montgomery installed there. And you could give a lot of credit to that system because they've been pretty good for two years. And they basically just kind of had a continuation of what they were doing under Montgomery with bonus for the majority of the regular season. He did make the adjustments, though, to make this a cup finalist. Like getting the defense more involved, tweaking a few things, understanding his lineup up really well. I think he moved pieces around really well during the postseason. He coached really well during the postseason. And I'd be intrigued because, again, like, the window is still there for them to win. I mean, if you sign Joe Pavelsky for three years, you're obviously

hoping to win something within those three years. And I mean, I know, I know. Don't open, you don't have a leg to stand on the Pavelski thing right now. Come on. You're wrong on Pavelski. Pavellini got him to the cup final. Did he get them there or did Anton Houdob and get them there? Here's her leading goal scorer. Yeah, great. Yeah, right. The thing I always said was, you know, can you count on like Ben Bishop? Turns out you couldn't. That's, oops, yeah.

Oh, and to go back to something you said, by the way, if you ever, again, want to prove the existence of the hockey gods, it is the fucking cruel fate of beating a better Colorado team because Colorado was missing fucking half their lineup. And then losing in the cup final while missing three of your top five penalty killers and one of your goalies. Like, it all comes back around at some point. And not only that, but Ben Bishop, man, he goes to the cup final with the lightning five years ago. Absolutely. It's hurt. They lose that series potentially because he got hurt.

Five years later, they've moved on and replaced him. Your new team gets to the final against your old team, and you can't play because you're hurt. Like, that is. That sucks. That is awesome. Look. But you bring up a good point, though, and I think we should probably talk about this. Because I've been trying to kind of figure this out for the last week.

Like, what do you make of Stamco's at this point? Like, I mean, yeah. I mean, it's, first of all, let's talk about the guy first. Okay, you've lived your life for this moment. You get in the final. You have that incredible fucking three minutes of hockey and score a goal on your only playoff shot. Insane. Like, insane moment.

Like, you couldn't even fucking script it better. except for the part where you're not a part of this championship run and they also look fucking amazing without you. And is it the old Patrick Ewing effect where if he's in the lineup, maybe this doesn't happen? And maybe if he's in the lineup in the past, it doesn't happen. I mean, like, I'm so. No, it's not good. But, dude, but like with your stamp. So there's two ways to, two questions.

If the lightning, how do you view Sam, Stancoast? And if you're Stamp Coast, how do you view your name on that cup? Like, how do you process it if you're Stamco? I think I look at it and I go, oh, that's cool. I'm right on there with all the other guys. But, I mean, the thing with the Lightning is, you know, Stamco's, he had two health. It seems like a thing where he has two healthy seasons in a row and then he's just going to miss, you know, like 30 games. Right.

And, you know, like I think I said it last week, like he probably have like five. hundred goals or more right now, right? If he doesn't only play 17 in 2016-17, 17, he played 37 and 13-14, you know, he played 57 this year. And he was great when he played, but he, you know, doesn't seem like he can stay healthy. And the fact that he's now going to be 30 for next season, like, that doesn't, that doesn't portend good things for him, I guess. And I'm not trying to say he's Carson Wentz, right? Like looking at Nick Foll's name on the Super Bowl poster or whatever.

Like, he clearly played a role in the last decade in the Lightning being the Lightning. And he was certainly somebody behind the scenes, according to everybody, that was, you know, an important part of them doing what they did in the bubble. You know, and that moment that he had in the final, you can't take away from him. But, man, I just try to put myself in his shoes and be like, I, I, I, I, I. I'm an important part of this team. I'm the captain. I'm one of the best players of my generation. And here is the accomplishment that I've wanted.

And I was a, I had a cameo appearance, like, in the effort to win it. I can't comprehend how that feels. Yeah, I mean, I'm not going to try to get in his head and figure out how he feels about it. But I would say that I think this is, the fact that he got in for those three minutes, the fact that he scored a goal, and it wasn't just, you know, know, three minutes of chopping around out there and then he's out of the game. I think that makes a difference. I also think it makes a big difference that he was there.

He was there. He was, I mean, we saw it. He was part of it. He's greeting guys on the way of, like, if it had been one of these situations where it was a different kind of injury where he's, he's just gone, you know, like this is the way the NHL treats injuries a lot is, like, if you're hurt, you're gone and nobody even sees you until you're ready to come back and, you know, you're almost not part of the team.

if that had been the case and they win without him, I think it's a different narrative maybe. As it is, I don't think we overthink it. He's a great player. He is a guy who gets hurt sometimes, although I mean, you look at his history of injuries. He broke his late, you know, getting, you know, sliding into the net.

That's not something where, oh, you're injury prone. That's just a freak thing that happens. But is he a cursed? Yeah. Because, you know, the blood clot and then the shoulders or whatever, Did they ever say actually what definitively it was? Yeah, I think they haven't yet. And he mentioned some off-ice stuff through.

The whole thing's kind of a fucking mystery, and I'm sure we'll find out about it at some point. Just like, you know, we found out from Sagan's age and all of his injuries within two minutes of the final ending through Jared Rager. But I also think, no, your points really well taken. And it's such a weird sense of deja vu to have had gone through this with Stamco's postseason where like you're hearing all these questions about when are you coming back when you coming back it's it's exactly what happened in that pittsburgh series a few years ago where

you know i think that was the series where he came back for game seven yeah and uh and that was the only game he played and i just remember covering that series and it was the same stuff it was just like what's stephen status like skating but we don't know when and just to have that be like a reoccurring theme for your star players a i don't think i don't think we overthink it i don't you know as far as like what does this mean to the lightning are you sitting there going, geez, you know, we, we never won with Stamco's, and now this year. Trade his ass. You don't go down any of those words.

I think my thought as far as, as far as what does this means, the lightning is, holy crap, will they ever be terrifyingly good if Stephen Stamcoes is healthy and at full, you know, even if he's in his 30s a second liner, like, oh, he's not a 60 goal guy anymore. He's only a 30 goal guy. You drop that into this lineup. Oh, my Lord, they're just going to be. unbeatable until they run into a hot goli and then they'll be very beatable and then they're very beatable we'll do the whole dance all over again yeah well they're going to have to also make a couple of

cap decisions too which we could talk about we get down the line um but i also wanted to talk about the cons smith i don't think this is a uh sid has phil's cons smith level uh robbery but i kind of i didn't have a vote emily did um i think at the end of the day she put point at the top of her ballot. And I think I probably would have done the same after game six. Like I feel like if you're voting midway through game six, and I'm looking at the final, and I'm looking at how many points, point had, and I'm looking at those two goals in game four, and I'm looking at the first goal in game six, which obviously powerful goal, first goal to game.

Oh, yeah, yeah. A playoff award, not just a final award. Right. I got to give it to, I love Edmund. And I think that there's no wrong answer between those two. But I think I've got to give it the point. I think there's no, I think there's no wrong answer between those two Kuturov and Vasilevsky. Like, they were all unfucking believable.

And that's why they won the Stanley Cup so easily. They had their four best players play maybe the best hockey of their lives over a two-month period. Like, I think, yeah, all those guys are really great players. I think you've got to give it to headman just because, you know, the load he carried defensively and he played with fucking, like literally every other defenseman on the Lightning. He played like with a hundred minutes with him because that's just. And like I think that, you know, again, like you're not allowed to win an MVP award in the regular season unless you're a forward. So, like, let's give it to the fucking defenseman who played, you know, every, that's fair. Every fucking minute with, or all these minutes with, like, all these different guys.

It's not like he was just playing 26 minutes with one other guy who was playing 26 minutes. Everybody else was playing, you know, 22 or whatever. And he was like, oh, I'm just going to play with everybody. It doesn't matter. And I'll still be insanely dominant. And he scored, whatever, 10 goals. So it's not like, you know, he had three goals and, and, and, point. Point had, what did point have?

14. But, yeah, had been set a record for, or tied a record maybe for defensemen goals in a season or a postseason. Yeah, okay, fair enough. I think that, I think that all checks out. Yeah, again. And it's funny you should say that's also a really good point about the, their star players. There's a lot of parallels to be drawn between this team and the capitals, I think, as far as, you know, don't blow up your core, show a little patience. exactly what your lineup needs and go out and get it kind of shit.

But the Capitals won because it was the first postseason where Ovechkin-Kuznetsoff, well, I guess you could say Ovechkin-Kisnets-off, Baxteram-Karlson, like, all played well in the same postseason. Yeah. And it's maybe, I mean, it's such a hard, I mean, like, simple formula. Have all your best players play real good at the same time. That's it, obviously. Have all your best players played well at a hot goalie.

Yeah. But you've got to have the best players to start with, right? Like that's the hard part. That's absolutely right. If your best player is David Legg won, then you're not, him playing his best hockey is probably not going to make a big difference. So, yeah, I mean, it's, again, it's one of those things. It's always simple in hindsight, and it's always easy when you look back. But, yeah, full credit to the lightning.

And I don't know. Where do you guys think the stars go from here? because we did that thing again where we started talking about the stars and then shifted over to the other team and we're going to make their fans mad. Are they... It's tough for the stars. Are they in your top three for the West next year? I think so.

Vegas, Colorado, I'm assuming. I'm interested to see what happens with Kudobin. Right. So that's the real... That's the real thing. Like, I think he's almost certainly gone from Dallas, right? Interesting. Okay.

I mean, he's 34. He's going to have multiple offers probably of way bigger money than he's used to. The stars can't afford to keep him because, you know, they don't have too much to resign this season, but, like, you know, they're going to have to give Heiskenen a new deal next year, and they're going to have to completely rebuild their defense and most of their forward group next summer. So, like, they, unless they're getting some, but they're getting him back on a one-year deal, which why would he do that? It's tough to see it with them just keeping him.

And their real problem is, you know, do we go out or do we, you know, just say, well, it's Jake Ottinger's our backup now? Or do you say, well, we need somebody more reliable than that because Ben Bishop's only going to play 39 games or whatever the number? I mean, it's the right summer to have that problem. Correct. Exactly. Right, right off season to have that problem. Dallas, if we assume Ben Bishop is going to be healthy going into next year.

Okay. I'm going to say healthy all year because he's at that age. Just to start the season, yes. Game one. It's not a situation where we're going to find out he has surgery and he's out for six months or something like that. Like he's your guy going into next year. I think Dallas is a team where it makes a lot of sense to say, you know what, there's 10 different goalies out there that we would be happy to have as our backup.

Let's wait until eight of them have signed. And then we just because here's the thing. It's one thing to be, you know, the senators trying to go out and get a goalie. It's another thing to be Dallas where you're like, we just went to the Stanley Cup final and our backup played a ton. Yeah. So come down to Dallas, pay no taxes, you know, do all this. Play for Rick Bowness, who everyone loves.

Yeah. You know what? If I'm, you know, a Braden Holpey or whoever it is and maybe I didn't land the big deal I wanted, yeah, that sounds pretty good. I'll take that phone call. Yep. Yeah. And playing back of Miroskenen and John Klingberg for a while. Yeah.

Yeah, you're okay there. Yeah, they've got some stuff to build on. I mean, the two defensemen, they seem like they've got something in Gerionoff. I mean, their window is still wide open next season. I am concerned about the grind of this playoff and then like a condensed season and what that could mean for some pretty old bodies on that team. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. That that core is not young. I mean like.

Spry. Yeah. Yeah. Like Tyler Sagan's probably the youngest of their like big name forwards and he's 28, 29. Jamie Ben's like you don't think of it, but Jamie Ben's well past 30. He's like 31, 32. So, yeah, I mean, they have some really good young players, but I don't think they have enough, like, even like Foxa and like Matias Yanmark and Ropei Hance. Like Rope Hance is like 24.

He's not like young, young. He's, you know, in his prime, but he's not, you don't look at him and go, oh, this guy is just coming into the league, blah, blah, blah. Like he's. Yeah, and it's one of those things. Every time you say a team is old or, you're. you know, they, the fans always go, what about this guy? What about this? Like, every team has young players.

Every team has some prospects. Like, they're not, you know, this isn't the 2002 Red Wings because that's not how you can build teams anymore. But I would be concerned if I'm, if I'm Dallas, I'm looking at this going, okay, are we, you know, remember, this, this team like didn't make the playoffs last year. Or no, they did. They made the playoffs last year. But then, you know, for. didn't make it for a couple years before that. You know, I'm sitting there going, you know, is this a good team that's finally clicked

together and now we've got a window of a couple years at least, even if, you know, yeah, Ben's getting up there, Pavellski's not going to be necessarily a prime guy that whole time. We've got a window now. Or am I sitting there going, we're a good team, not a great team, we're one of those teams that needs everything to break right in the playoffs for us to make a run. And it happened. and we ended up two wins short. And now we're going to be one of those teams that goes to the final.

And I mean, how many times have we seen it, right? The Predators, you go down the list of teams that make the finals. You talk yourself into it, yep. You know, they make a push, and then they just don't find that level again. And you don't, in today's NHL, like, we're not taught, you don't have to suddenly drop 20 points in the standings. You can drop five points in the standings and suddenly you're in a very different world. So I don't know.

I'd like to be wrong because I like this team and they were interesting to watch and I think there's some interesting stories here and players that are fun to roof for and Rick Bonas obviously but I'm not completely sold that they're a part of the long-term conversation as far as contenders in the in the West. Also Colorado is going to win the cup next year so I mean it's kind of hard to Well they're going to get Hall and Petrangelo so why wouldn't? Right. That's right.

So, yeah, it's a tough one. Yeah, and that's the other thing to say. If they were in the Pacific Division, where it's like, oh, maybe Vancouver or something, and Vegas is there, but everybody else is kind of a question mark at least. That would be one thing, but they're in the Central Division. And that's a tougher division. Like, Minnesota is probably going to be better this year. We haven't said anything about St. Louis.

And St. Louis, yeah. You were removed from a Stanley Cup, had a really good regular season. and everybody gets COVID. And they lost Tarasanko for a lot of the regular season and shit. So, no. But again, like Dallas has some pieces left. I mean, they've got another kick at the can. There's a bit of a ray of light there.

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Now, what were you going to say, Ryan? I was going to add me to our earlier point about, you know, anybody can get hot and blah, blah, blah, blah. is Dallas, like, I don't know that it matters if Dallas is one of the top three teams in the West, as long as they're one of, like, the eight best teams in the league overall. And I think they're probably right in that, the lower end of that group overall, right? Like, you know, you're kind of expecting Boston, you're kind of expecting Tampa to come back. You're expecting maybe Toronto, Vegas, you know, maybe the islanders, but I'm not super bullish on that.

And then out west, you know, obviously, yeah, they're either top three or top four, depending on, like I said, Vancouver probably is the one big one to worry about. And yeah, if they're like one of the eight best teams in the league, your odds of winning the Stanley Cup really aren't that much worse than the best team in the league. So, you know, like, they have another kick at the can at it for sure, but, you know, that is also true of seven or eight other teams in the league. So it is true. And yet at the same time, like, we just saw, if not the best team in the league, one of the two or three best teams in the league win the Stanley Cup. Last year, the Blues were among the best teams in the league for the second half.

The Capitals have been one of the best teams in the league. for years, even though there'd been a dip. But they were coming off, like, back-to-back President's trophy caliber seasons. Pittsburgh had been... Like, you go back, we're not really... I do feel like there's this kind of feeling that, hey, anyone can win the cup. And, yeah, probably... Anyone can.

And we've certainly seen some anyone's make deep runs, but... You know? Well, you know what? I think there's too many years where we've been shocked. Let me imagine. that then. Oh, okay. Anybody can make the, any of the top, like, eight or ten teams in the league can make the

cup final in a given year. And once you get there, you know, it's just bounces, right? So, yeah, I mean, your odds of being, quote, unquote, in it are pretty good if you're, if you're in that realm. And so, yeah, like, again, like, if anybody, if you, I don't think anybody I saw was, like, very seriously like, oh, Dallas is like the, you know, one of the, one of the two best teams in the West, and they're going to go to the cup final and that kind of thing. But if you had said, hey, by the way, Dallas is going to go to the Cup Final against Tampa, you'd go, sure,

okay, that makes sense. And if you said, you know, who's going to go to the Cup final from the West, and, oh, by the way, I'll give you a little hint, half of Colorado is going to get hurt in round two. Oh, yeah. And then, and then suddenly you kind of nudge. But it is funny, because you you look at Dallas and, you know, I feel like the fact that they got the buy and they were one of those four teams that skipped the playing round kind of elevated them in a lot of our minds. They finished with fewer points than the Oilers. Yep. Yeah, you're right.

I'm fascinated by this because the Oilers had more points in the stars, but they played more games. And so points percentage Dallas was ahead. But the NHL absolutely could have just said, we're going to give two spots to each division. And then Edmonton gets a buy and Dallas is in the playing round against Chicago. and how different might both of those teams look going forward if, you know, maybe Dallas just rolls over Chicago and still has the same run. But, you know, especially from an Edmonton perspective, I'm just sitting there going like, we had more points than these guys. And now we're hot garbage and they're, you know, they're this, they're playing for the Stanley Cup. It's small, small margins everywhere in the NHL.

It's pretty fascinating. Well, speaking of the Oilers being hot garbage, did you see the thing about Clefbaum might be out for like long, long term? And boy, that defense without, that defense isn't good to begin with. That defense without Oscar Clefbaum, like, holy shit, dude. I don't know. That's why they're dabbling in the dark arts of all of Reckman-Larsen now, apparently. You know, they're one of the teams. Oh, yeah.

Just, boy, he just needs like six or seven more seasons. think he'll finally be at the point where everybody said he could be when he was 22 years old. I'm on the over-rated train, too, on that one. Yeah, I think... I was going to say, though, before we go to, like, off-season stuff, I do want to tie a bow around this because I stopped you, Ryan, during the bonus episode from, in the words of Dennis Miller, getting off on a rant here about asterisks. That's a timely reference.

Yeah, thank you. But apropos, considering the timely references that Dennis Miller makes. The, uh, tell me, look, fucking LeBron came out with, oh, there shouldn't be an asterisk on this one. And then Sarvelli's wrote a column about no asterisk. We've talked about it before. This, of course, it's a fucking asterisk. But go on. Of course there is.

Son. Yeah. Yeah, no, like, you could tell it was a kind of coordinated thing where the second the fucking final buzzer goes, there's like nine insider guys who are like, By the way, there's no asterisk on this. You're not, you're not allowed to say there's an asterisk. And, in fact, the only asterisk you could add is that it was even harder than usual. And it's like, okay, we all understand why you're saying that. But come on.

I don't, I mean, I don't buy that it was harder, but I do think. No, it's harder. Did you not hear it was harder? Oh, listen to Damien Cox over here. Not harder. Holy shit. Wow. But I, I, like,

I said at the beginning, when people were talking about, is there going to be an asterisk or whatever, I was like, it kind of depends on who wins. Like if one of the really good teams wins, then it makes it a lot easier to go, okay, that was something versus like if the Florida Panthers had just gotten hot and rolled and you'd be like, what the hell was that? That was really strange. So, I mean, there's an asterisk in the sense that this was clearly unique and different from anything we've seen.

But I don't think, I don't think any lightning fan has to, you know, remotely feel like this is any less worthy of a Stanley. up than it would have been under other circumstances, partly because we just watched two months where, you know, before this started, we didn't know it. Like, how was the quality of the game's going to be? Was the ice going to be garbage? Were we going to see crazy injuries everywhere? No, we didn't see that.

We saw NHL hockey and it, you know, and we also said, like, what happens if some team is contending and then suddenly a bunch of guys get COVID and then they have to, none of that happens. Yeah, that didn't happen. So I don't, yeah. If there's an asterisk on this, it's a very small one. And it's one that I think people are free to disregard. They waited until the off season for that.

Exactly. No, your point's taken it. But again, like, I just, you know, you know who should feel shitty about their champion? Houston Astros fans, right? Like, if you're a lightning fan, of course you shouldn't feel shitty about it, because everyone played under the same conditions. But the conditions were so untypical, much like they were when the devil's won the cup in a short in season. Like, I'm fine.

Asterisk just means. Things were different. It means, hey, take a note of this season that was prematurely ended. For everyone, and they weren't different in a way, I don't believe, that benefited any teams over any other. Let me put it this way. To your point, to your point about, you know, the best team won. Like, if the stars had won, you would go, well, look, I mean, the Avalanche's goalies, the fact that they played Vegas, which was coming off like seven games in nine days or something like that,

because of how much they had to pack the schedule because they wanted to get this done as quickly as possible. Like, there would be a way bigger asterisk if the stars had won. And you're right. Like, we don't have to fucking think about that. Or the Islanders. Or the Islanders would be in that category too.

Sure, but we don't have to think about it now. Now we can just go, well, the team that we, like, people were saying in fucking, like, the previous September, we're going to win the cup, won the cup. So I don't think we have to be as concerned with it. It just makes me mental, though. Like, no, the, oh, yeah, no, the messaging, the messaging about it. No asterisk for a play, a playoff that was played inside two cities with 24 teams and an additional

playoff round that probably won't happen again in any other season ever. Like, what the fuck? Like, of course, this is an asterisk. Good news for the 2021 season. Well, we should talk about that real quick. So the latest on that, I wrote about it this week in the column. Here's where we are. The NHL and the players aren't negotiating yet.

The players haven't even gotten their committee together to start talking with the league and figuring out what the next steps are and what next season should look like. There's already been just a mountain of speculation about one of these plans being suggested, which is a hybrid bubble plan. You do it in a few regional spots. the NHL gets their rivalry games because it'll be an all-Canadian division it'll be like a Patrick division kind of hub

like it's the kind of shit the NHL you could see them doing because it's like oh what's the easiest way to try to make up for revenue losses have the Rangers spread the flyers all the time like you know it's like pretty easy call is it going to be safe the scientists are going to back the epidemiologists I don't know

because they're talking about doing a bubble where teams can kind of come and go and see their families and then come back in and who the fuck even those. But the idea that the team executives told me and Emily Kaplan this for a story last month, like the team executives all kind of think, or a lot of them think, there's a good chance that we start in a format like that, potentially in an empty building, gradually bring back fans during the course of the season, with the season maybe starting as early as January,

as late as February. And that's kind of where we are right now. But the idea that we're not going to do a hub-bubbly thing again, it's kind of unfounded. Like, I feel like there's a better chance of it happening at some point next season than not. Yeah, I mean, we don't know when this fucking thing's going to blow over, right? Like, that's the real problem. And, you know, they can say, oh, we want to do this safely and blah, blah, blah. But, you know, everybody's saying, oh, it cost them a million and a half dollar.

a day to just do the bubble for 24 and then, you know, whatever it boils down to at the end of it. Like the idea that they're going to do that for 31 teams, given that, you know, they're going to be concerned about revenues and all that kind of thing. I don't know. I think on some level it all goes back to the almighty dollar, my friend. Oh. Yeah. And here's the thing. I mean, yes, they want to do these bubbles or hybrid bubbles or whatever for.

the sake of safety and because they don't want what we're having in the NFL right now and all of this. But they also want it because this league needs fans in the stands. Yep, absolutely. And so if you can, rather than have a situation where some teams have fans and some don't, and, you know, if you can put at least, let's say if we're doing it by divisions, three of the bubbles somewhere in the United States where you can have fans in the building, I don't think you're going to find anywhere in Canada that's going to let you do that. But somewhere in the States where you can have fans, that's part of this too. Okay.

Bubble in Miami, a bubble in Tampa, a bubble in Dallas. Jacksonville bubble. But here's the thing. Okay, so if I'm the players and I don't want to go back in the ball. I did it for two months because it was a Stanley Cup and because it was unprecedented times and we made the sacrifice to have it happen. But I'm sitting there going, you know, I don't know if I want to do this again. the big issue here, and you've seen it raised a couple times this week, is are the players going to get paid for a full season if next year is 60 games or 40 games?

And it's, don't sleep on this issue, because this really has the potential to blow up because it certainly sounds like the league's position is that that is to be determined. and that the player's position is or should be, it's already took a fucking pay cut. Not only that, but they, yeah, this memorandum of understanding that they signed last year, or last year, they signed like two months ago, but it feels like last year, for the new CBA, it addressed this specifically. And it said that for this coming season, the NHL, the players are getting, not their full pay, because they're getting the, it's like a 10% goes, gets kicked down the road. Yeah, they kick it down the road.

It's an escrow. Yeah. But the rest of it, they get paid all of that, regardless of whether the season is 82 or 62 or 42 or whatever it is. And the NHL has, in the CBA, the ability to almost unilaterally reduce everyone's pay based on, you know, cataclysmic events or something that might happen. They agreed to waive that right. and now the fact that the league seems to become, you know, maybe a few months ago it felt like 80 games was doable.

And now that it's not, and the league's coming back and saying like, oh, you know, this is still on the table. It, you know, maybe the players give. Maybe the players say, you know what, if we're going to play at all, we got to figure out a way to work this out and be good partners, et cetera, et cetera. But I will tell you, man, if I was a player and I've watched the last 25 years of how player-owner relations has worked under Gary Bettman, I'm like, screw you, man. Like we put it in writing, you agreed to it. This is not open for discussion unless you want to put something else huge on the table for us to get back. And if that's the case, boy, this could get ugly because there's some teams that might not be able to play if they're paying full of salaries for half a season with a quarter of the arena's filled.

Yeah. In fairness, though, Sean, the owners had their fingers crossed. Well, yeah. Is there a no-take-backsy clause in that? The giveaway owners are going to come up with is, what if we let you guys go to the Summer Olympics, too? Yeah. Not playing even. You can go. Pat Maroon on the bobsled. Fucking A. Let's go. Love it. By the way, you used the term earlier, Ryan, for all this to blow over, which of course, reminds me of Sean of the Dead and the classic

Go to the Winchester have a nice cold pint and wait for all this to blow over a line which is one of my favorite lines in any zombie apocalypse movie. We should probably talk about the draft for a second. There it is. Moving on. No, listen, the draft is great and I'm very excited about the draft.

It's always a fun time. But again, I'm an American who doesn't spend nearly as much time as Ryan watching NCAA hockey, certainly doesn't spend as much time as many people watching Canadian junior hockey are paying attention to it. This is the time of year that I love because I get to pretend that I'm smart on something that I have no fucking concept of. Speaking of the Olympics, that's every four years, it's like, that freaking, that double axle

was horseshit. Fuck you. Oh, okay. I mean, I definitely know that. I have a, a, like, baseline familiarity with maybe. be like the top 12 players in this draft. And I just have to have that for my job. Beyond that, if like, looking at this mock draft I'm looking at now, if the Ottawa

senators at 28 take Helgi Granns from Malmo, I mean, I'm not going to have an opinion on it. I'll leave that to Corey, Chris Peters. Yeah. Like, who gives a shit? But I do know this. Like, I do know this. I think it's interesting that they've said that Byfield is less NHL ready than

than Stutzel is. I think it's interesting that I'm fascinated to see what the devils do at seven. I think if Drysdale's still there, they have to take them because their defense is so thin in the system. But the indication I've gotten from talking to people around that team is that they're seriously considered taking Askerov, the goalie, at 7, which would be in the eyes of a lot of people of reach, but then again, a lot of people have them going at 13.

So how much of a reach really is it if, you know, six picks later he's off the board? Well, I mean, you don't want to gamble with goalies, I guess. You know, like the number of goalies who get taken in the first round and end up being something is probably not dissimilar from the number of goalies who get taken in like the fourth round and end up being something. It's not, except we just saw a first round goalie. Right. Win the Stanley Cup, right? Right. Right. And like Carrey Price, but like for every carry price, there's like three, I don't know, fucking Leland Irvings, Jack Campbell.

Yeah, Jack Campbell. But to your point, Ryan, like somebody made the comparison for me that drafting a goalie in the first round is like drafting a running back in the first round of the NFL. Like it is the position where, you know, it's much more contingent on the system that you play, your development, you know, how they fit in your scheme versus like best player available. Like, yeah, you're always going to have some guys. that are just generational talents. And so that, but that's the thing that comes back to this Askerov kid, which is that, you know, all accounts could be that he is a Vaselowski good type of. Yeah. And the thing to say, I think, about drafting a player out of a pro league versus a junior league is that matter a lot. And, yeah, he's like a good goalie in the KHL, which is the second or third best pro league in the world. So, you know, like, I have a little bit more time for that than, oh, you're. you're not going to believe this kid from the winter fucking spitfires. Oh, my God, he's unbelievable.

Like, I think, I think that definitely matters. And, and that's, I mean, that's why Tim Stutzel is more pro-ready than Quentin Bifield. He's been playing in a men's league for two years, you know? Right. And so I think that definitely matters. But, you know, if all things being equal, like, if you want to take a flyer on a goalie, like maybe this is the goalie to do. it on, but I still, you know, I would still maybe do the Rangers thing where it's like, why would we draft like a, you know, whatever, like a defenseman in the sixth round when we could just as easily

draft a goalie and then that goalie becomes something, you know? Right. No, that's a fair point. And, again, like, I think there's a lot of McKenzie Blackwood fans out there that just, like, watch what the kid did during the season and be like, well, you know, maybe that's not where you look to improve first. Yeah, I mean, if you're the devil's. like you just have so many fucking needs that like, yeah, you're not, a lot of needs.

You're not like, oh, boy, I mean, never really draft for need unless it's like a home run kind of a pick. Like, like you have the first or second pick overall, but yeah. Yeah, and do you trade down if you're the devils would be the other thing if you want that? Yep. But the other piece of drafting goalies is they take so long to develop. That's true. That's a hard sell when you're even a new GM or whatever it is. unless you get a Carter heart,

you might wait till this kid's 25 before he gets in it. Like, how many? I think there is something to say about, you know, goalies maybe, like, they even tried to fucking delay Carter Heart, and it didn't work. It ended up being quite bad for the Flyers. And then they brought in Hart anyway.

And it all worked out pretty fucking quickly, because I think, much like, oh, it takes longer for defensemen to develop, is that true? Or is that just like conventional wisdom has meant that defensemen and goalies don't get a chance at 20, 21, 22 years old. I mean, we've seen, you know, Aaron Eckblatt came in as the number one overall pick,

and he's been good, but he wasn't a guy who made a big impact at 18, versus if you get the Connor McDavid, Austin Matthews, Elias Pederset, like, I mean, and look, it shouldn't be that way. Goalie is, we're told, the most important position. If you have to wait five years, but you're going to. going to get a vesinac caliber goaltender, then that's what you should do. But if I'm a GM, I'm sitting there going, I got a top 10 pick or top 15 or whatever it is. Am I just gifting my replacement his goaltender five years from now, making his job easier? When I could draft a guy

right now who's going to sell tickets, score goals, make me look smart. Well, the thing, to your point about Eckblad, it's like maybe he was never, like he, you know, there are some years when the best guy in the draft is fucking Ryan Nugent Hopkins or something like that, you know? So. And I guess this is the year that we'd look and say, yeah, I mean. Yeah, like you might have fucked up pretty bad, yes. But yeah. Yep.

So there you go. The draft where everybody is always super smart about players had never heard of. All right, moving on to some off-season stuff. Let's first talk about something that didn't happen. You know, I wish at some point in my life I had the cool factor. of a Bob McKenzie, where you're in your hammock, and you're sipping your margaritas, you are known as Bobby Margarita for that fact, and you just casually toss off a bomb. Like, hey, I started making phone calls, and I heard Jack Eichael trade rumors, and here's, like, a thread on Jack Eichael

trade rumors, why they're not going to happen. But enjoy yourselves in the next eight hours as everybody comes up with Jack Eichael trade proposals. Pretty fucking great stuff. And started a couple of day news cycle where Kevin Adams, the GM of the Buffalo Sabres, had to come out and say, yeah, we're not trading Nykel. But good solid speculation and a good chance for everybody to kind of ante up with their Jack Eichael trade proposals, which is a fun read I felt for the last couple days. Yeah, this felt very much to me like one or more rival GMs really being like, we're going to get Jack Eichael out of Buffalo. We need to send in CLTN6. get him out of there.

Right, exactly. And, you know, just trying to gin something up and make Kevin Adams go on the record and up the pressure and all that kind of stuff. Like, that's what this felt like to me. That's what this would have felt like to me if this was coming out of, like, some certain market or if it was a couple of beat writers. And I know a lot of Sabres fans saw this and were like, yeah, I mean, end of the day, the report. court was he's not being traded. Nothing to see here. Let's all move. This is Bob McKenzie. Yeah. Bob McKenzie is not out there, you know, Bob McKenzie, at the height of his powers, was never a guy who went looking for the one day of attention that some media guys look for,

let alone semi-retired Bob McKenzie. And I don't want to read too much between the lines here, and I don't think Jack Eichols getting traded ultimately. but Bob McKenzie isn't going to go out with this. He knows exactly what kind of impact this is going to have. Yeah, sure. He doesn't go out with this if there isn't something to it a lot more than one or two GMs whispering in his ear. Like there's something going on here. And again, something going on can ultimately result in nothing happening.

But there's maybe three guys that I would pay any attention to. if they reported something like this and not just roll my eyes and go, this is just somebody trying to make a headline. Bob McKenzie is one of those guys. So I, you know, I don't know, man. There's a good point. There's something here, which probably still results in nothing happening. But this is, and I know, God knows,

there's no fan base that just needs some good news more than Sabres fans right now, so I don't want to pile on if you want to play. your ears and just say nothing to see here, go ahead. But I think there's something to see here. Well, the other thing I was going to say is, you know, if you had said, oh, like if he had come out and said, oh, you know, Connor McDavid is on the block or whatever, I'd have gone like, come on. But are the Sabres dumb enough to trade Jack Eichel? Well, dumb enough or get enough players back to fill out the Moribund lineup. But, no, I mean, it's the classic thing of if you're, if you even think about trading a Jack Eichael, you've got to be 99.9% sure.

You're getting 90% of Jack Eichael back in his immediate replacement and then other stuff. And who's making that offer, you know? Well, let's, before we get there, I want to, I want to say this. The difference for me on this one was it was much more focused on would Jack ask out. Like every new GM gets hit with this bullshit. Like I was talking to Bill Zito a couple weeks ago from the Panthers. Used to pitch for the Oakland days, is that right? Yes, he was.

He was on dance. He was on the mass singer as well. And he mentioned that like every new GM gets hit with this shit. Like the minute Kevin Adams got that job, the first phone calls about, what do you think about trade in nickel? Like Bill Zino got calls about Sasha Barkoff. Like it's obviously not trading Sasha Barkoff, but like he gets calls from guys. asking, okay, well, have you considered maybe trading Barkoff? And, like, so that happens.

The, the interesting thing here was that it wasn't simply just teams calling up being like, what about Jack? Because that's probably happened to Jason Botterol. It's probably happened to Tim Murray to everybody. It was, has he had enough? And is it time for, is he wanting out? Is it coming for him? Yeah.

And, and, like, again, like, Bob McKenzie knows if he wanted to, if he had just knew that this rumor was out there and he had it on great authority, that there was just nothing at all to it, and he wanted to just stamp it out, he knows how to do that. And, you know, again, this threat, he's got quotes for Michael's agent saying, Jack wants to win.

He's frustrated. That's interesting. And yeah, he goes on to say, no, he doesn't want out. But then, even then, Jack is preparing to head to Buffalo at some point here. Does that sound like an adamant, like he's all in on the Buffalo Sabres?

He's preparing to head. I mean, it's his team. You would think so. And, you know, even at the end, when he wraps it up, the tweet that Sabers fans are holding onto saying nothing to see here, you know, McKenzie, and again, this is Bob McKin. This guy, before he was a TV insider, this guy was like the top newspaper guy, he was the editor of the hockey news. He knows how to choose his words. He says, the face value review appears as follows. Face value and appears are two awfully interesting qualifiers to put on your,

Eichael doesn't want out of Buffalo Again, man, I'm not I'm not trying to stir the pot and I'm not sitting here saying Eichael's on his way out but I don't think you have to read very carefully between the lines to see that

there's at least something to this and maybe it's as simple as Eichael is frustrated and he is starting to at least consider what his future looks like and so he or his agent or somebody decides to fire a little warning shot up in the air just to get the Sabres attention, which is fine. That's how the game's played. But, man, I found this very interesting.

And I was somewhat surprised at how quickly a lot of people seem to want to dismiss it as just another rumor. You don't get McKenzie out of the hammock just for any old rumor these days. That's true. And, well, the other thing. The banana hammock. The other thing to mention, obviously, with all this is, you know, yeah, Eichel wants to win, and it's really a shame that they force him at gunpoint to sign that eight-year deal. Yeah, the Connor McDavid issue, right? Like, like, oh, poor Connor. Well, poor Connor is getting compensated quite handsomely for having to be wagging that team. It's like, if you think, like, what, what has Eichael seen that would make him, you know, when he signed that, when he signed that deal? What has he seen in the previous three years that would make him go, you know what?

Yeah. I think 11 years into my career, we're going to fucking really be somewhere. It, you know, it's the thing of NHL players just try to max out the money because the money is relatively short in this league compared to other leagues. And, you know, if Igel was smarter and didn't want to commit to a team long term, which, you know, that's his prerogative, you know, he should have signed like a three-year. four-year deal. Oh, well, you have to remember that it was years before Austin Matthews revealed you could actually take a shorter-term deal as a superstar player. So they didn't know.

Yeah, it's like, again, I understand that Eichols want like, oh, well, I just want to have like $80 million owed to me over the next eight years. Yeah, that sounds fucking great, obviously. But, you know, if he can get $30 million and then three years from now, well, shit, now he can get $80 million for five years because, The cap has gone up and he's even further improved in his career. Like, you know, I get why guys want the financial security in a league where, you know, your career could basically be over, you know, on one play, basically.

But, man, the trend of guys signing for eight years, I think. Yeah. I think that's going the way of the dinosaur. That should end. But here's the flip side of that, right? maybe Jack Eichael's agent puts that deal in front of them, says you're going to be, you're financially set for life, you've got security, you don't have to worry about it. And maybe Jack Eichael goes, yeah, but what if we get like three years into this and the sabres are garbage? And his agent goes, if that happens, there are ways to put pressure on them to move you out?

And I know how to do that. And are we seeing stage one of that? I don't know. Maybe this is me just looking for, you know, this stuff used to happen. Players used to hold out and go, I want to go to a new team and it doesn't have. happen anymore, but I don't know. And I'll tell you who's watching this is Edmonton fans, because if you think you're sick of all of the Connor McDavid is going to want out at some point crap that you have to put up with now, imagine it actually happens with Jack Eichel.

I mean, everyone's going to turn and stare at Connor McDavid at that point and wait for him to see. But I will point out, as much as bad as the others have been, and as much as we all like to laugh at like Connor McDavid looking like he was trying to swallow his own tongue on the draft lottery night and all this stuff, you've never heard any of this stuff coming out of Edmonton and Connor McDavid. So, yeah. Well, I mean, there was, what was it, two summers ago where he was like, where everybody said, oh, you know, if there's two more years of this, we're going to be in a lot of

trouble here. And like, I know Edmonton fans were like, oh, that's just the Toronto media trying to get our superstars out of Edmonton. And it's like, I mean, it could have just been like McDavid's agent running it up the flagpole of like trying to light a fire under the oiler's ass and you know you can go in circles with all this stuff but yeah uh the other big news this week uh that did happen was uh buyouts uh bobby ryan bought out by the ottawa senators uh good job by the senators uh getting rid of the masterton winner uh from their roster and uh and he'll find a place to play pretty quick i mean

He's going to be the new Chattonk-Curray-type to latch on a million bucks. Put him on your second or third line. You're in great shape. I think he can still play. He really wants to go play for the Flyers, but it wouldn't shock me to see him latch on somewhere else instead. And then Henrik Lundquist gets the buyout of the last year of his deal. Obviously, the Rangers with the goalie log jammed there, with Gregoriev and Cheshirkin, and goodbye to the king.

The king. You know, live in New York for as long as I did. I got to say, it is, he might be the biggest homegrown Rangers star, maybe since Rod Gilbert, I'm going to say. Like, he was a bigger star than Richter. He was a bigger star than Leach. Everyone else was imported. Like, he was a megastar in New York, which is not something you often see for hockey. Yeah, I mean, he, uh, he's the best player in their franchise's history.

So, is he, though? I read a, I read a, a headline of a column that Ken Cancanty. Campbell wrote saying, who's better? Henrik Lindquist or Eddie Jockeman. I'm not 150 years old. I have no fucking idea who Eddie Jockeman is. I mean, he remarkably good player. I'll let me put this to the panel here.

Was his status increased by how bad and or middling the Rangers were? like when you see how good he is compared to how bad they are, if he was on a good team for the last decade is what I'm trying to say, would we respect him as much as we do him being the best thing about a bad team? If he was on a good team, he'd have like four fucking cups based on how well he played behind bad teams, right? Like that's the big theory. Again, yeah, obviously in theory.

So he could be like Patrick Wyer saying, Like if he was on a better team. Yes. Versus, yeah. Yeah. Well, I got time for that. Sure. Yeah, like Lunkwist has certainly like kind of the lovable loser thing, you know, where like everybody, when people were saying, oh, we, we, Stephen Stamcoast is one of like five guys in the league that nobody hates.

Henry Lunkwurst has to be one of them, right? Like, even if you're a hardcore Islanders fan, can you really be mad at like Henrik Lunkwist for anything that he's ever done in the league? Like, he just seems like a pretty chill guy who happens to be one of maybe the five best goalies of all time. Right. And then, like, even as a Devils fan, like, when we would do the Marty's Better stuff, I mean, that was with respect to Lundquist being really good. It was never like, fuck this guy.

He's a fraud. You know, it was, it was, our guy was just the better of the two great goalies. And what a weird time, man, like a good, what, 10, 10 years, more than that reign of two goaltenders, two of the best goalies in the league being almost in the same market. It was kind of crazy. Where do you think he goes? Long question, who? Oh, come on.

You bastard. I've walked right into that. Where do you think he goes? Do you think he retires? Do you think he goes somewhere else? I can, you know, where I think it would be great to see him is Dallas. He's your 1B. He's on a team that is very close to a cup and isn't like 100% reliant on the goalie to get them there.

that'd be interesting. But I think any team that is looking at a goalie should certainly look at him as long as you're not like, he's our definite number one guy because I don't know that he has that in him at whatever he is, 37, 36. But he's in that area, you know, like he's at least earned the look, I would say. And if it doesn't work out, well, he's still your one B slash. back up. Yeah. But does he want that?

You know. That's the question. Who knows? It's not just does he want to play, and he may not. He may say, I'm done. I'm, it ends as a Ranger, the only team I ever played for, and off he goes. But then if he does want to play, what's his expectation? Is he saying, I want to go somewhere where I can be the, you know, not the 60 games a

year starter if there was a full season, but at least like the, the. 40 game guy 1A situation or does he maybe say you know what I want to go win a ring somewhere and you know I mean he could call his agent go tell the Tampa Bay lightning I'll play for a million bucks to be their backup next year you know and and go chase your cup that way uh some guys would do that some guys never would because they their their pride won't let them be perceived as as writing a winner that was already built so I don't know. There's so many different scenarios. There's going to be so much churn in the goaltending. If he wants to play, there's going to be places where he can play. And certainly, you would imagine that given the size of that contract, given the size of the buyout he just had, that he's, you know, he doesn't have to squeeze every dollar out of this deal. This can this can be a situation where you find the best fit. It's just a question of what does that fit look like and how much of a backseat is he willing to take, if any at all?

Right. And I think if he wants to play, he wants to play. Like, he's not going to be a passenger. Like, he's going to keep pushing to get playing time and stuff like that. So it's going to be real interesting to see what he ends up doing. I mean, I've often, the only thing I've heard about him is that he didn't want to leave New York. I mean, it's where his life is. So, I mean, if you wanted to look at that and say, what about the devils? I mean, you could say that, I guess. But I mean, that would probably mean getting Corey Schneider out of there in some way, shape, or form. I don't think... That would be horrible for the devil's. Oh, boy. Yeah, right. I know. I think, I have heard that the immediate connection between him and the Flyers, because of the Elaine Vigno thing, may be overplayed a little bit.

Like, maybe that's not necessarily the guy. You're not going to be a starter. You're not going to go bump Carter Hart. Not even. Carter Hart. Right. Yeah. So, I'll be fascinating to see where he ends up.

Toronto Maple leave Henrik Longquist. Now you're talking. No problem there. Everybody in the same boat. Everybody row in the same way, all trying to get to that promised land. What do you think the Leafs do with their gold-thending, by the way? I don't want to turn this into fucking Leafs lunch for a second. No, let's do it.

What do they do? I got to say, like, all the reports are that the plan is to trade Frederick Anderson and then bring in a new 1A who's cheaper or at least under control, because Anderson's a free agent after next year. He's a UFA, so he's got one year left on the deal. It doesn't sound like there's been a lot of talk of extending him, which there probably shouldn't be. I mean, it's a goaltender who's, he's in his 30s by now. He's good. I mean, he hasn't been so good that you can't let him go. So it probably makes sense to write out that deal.

That makes a lot of sense. If you can trade him and bring in either, you know, sign somebody or go get like a Darcy Kemper or, you know, whoever. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I can't figure out where they're going to trade this. guy to. Like we're about we're going into the off season of goaltenders. Who is who is out there saying you know what I want to do is I want to give up assets to get a five million dollar goaltender coming off an average season who's got one year left on his deal and is going to want an extension. Like I don't, if Kyle Dubas can pull this off and make any sort of deal where it's there's value coming back and it's not just a pure salary dump, I'll be really impressed because I just I can't imagine who's out there.

I mean, Montreal gave up a pick for Jake Allen, so I can't say it's impossible, but I just don't see who is out there going like, yeah, yeah, forget about Holpey, forget Kemper, forget Grice, forget all these guys. We got to jump now on Frederick Anderson. I can't see where that's going to come from. Yeah, it's going to be fascinating. Speaking of free agents, you should touch on this real quick. All right, best guesses.

And this next episode might have more on this, but just, you know, to get ahead of it a little bit, because I'm sure we're going to have news on all these guys in the next week. The common perception, by the way, amongst GMs and player agents, tippy top guys go real quick. Everybody else, TBD. No one really knows what the fuck's going to happen. The most interesting little pressure point, by the way, is, and it's kind of interesting. So, Sean, Canadian Thanksgiving is coming up a week.

from Monday, correct? That sounds right, yeah. Okay, so I'll be honest. None of us know when it is until like the Thursday before. And then we're like, oh, right. Okay. So that's important because I talked to a GM the other day who said that usually the way it works is that free agency opens and then all your work gets done.

And then everybody fucks off for July 4th. And so now you have a situation where it's like free agency opens. Are they going to get all their work done and then fuck off for Canadian Thanksgiving? Is it the same vibe? Or is it not? Is it the same pressure point? Well, I mean, we're used to, right, the free agency usually starts on Canada Day, which is like the Canadian 4th of July. So it starts on a holiday.

Right. Right. So, I mean, it's kind of like, God, all us Canadian sports writers are like, finally, we'll be able to do free agency without burning a holiday. And it's like, no, maybe not. Yeah. Yeah. Because I don't think Columbus Day necessarily has the same point of demarcation as July 4th here in the U.S. necessarily. So it'll be interesting to see how that happens.

But all right, so you might know all this shit by the time you hear this podcast. I don't know. But like best guess, Alex Petrangelo, I'll go first. I think he resigns with the blues. I think they figure it out. He doesn't want to move his stuff. He just, they'll figure it out. Yeah, that's right.

Okay. That's what I think, too. Taylor Hall. The only thing I've heard, and it could be Echo Chamber time, is that there's a perception he's going to go to Alberta. and it could mean some kind of reunion with the Oilers or it could mean he's going to play for the flames and then they adjust accordingly. But I can't tell if that's something

that people are trying to will into existence. They've been saying that for months. So Taylor Halls are the flames. They'll trade Johnny Godreau and get him. Right. Okay. Yeah. Right.

First, let's start here. short-term deal or long-term deal for Taylor Hall? I think he's got to go short. I think he's going to go short. He's coming off one of his worst years in a while, and the market's fucked. Like, you know, if he goes two years, like, who would be surprised by that? Obviously, the risk is that you're closer to 30 and whatever, so. My only thing is if I think somebody out there,

or will offer him a long-term deal. It may not be his first choice. It may not be where he wants to go, but I could absolutely see a team like Edmonton offering to go, if not the full seven, to go five or six. To my mind, and I acknowledge this is mostly wishful thinking, but to me, if you're going to go a short deal

because the market's not there or whatever, then don't sign with the oilers or the flamethrs. No, of course not. And again, I know we've talked about it a million, But go to the avalanche, man. Go play one year with the avalanche, have a career year, probably win a Stanley Cup, and then if knock on wood by this time next year

or by next off season, the market's getting a little bit better, then go sign your long-term deal, probably more than you would get right now. That would be what I'm hoping for. But personally, I think he winds up in Edmonton, but on a longer-term deal, that just seems like something Edmonton

might want to do, especially with Nugent Hopkins, we're not sure where that's going to go. We keep hearing that all of a sudden, all the insiders are saying, like, kind of dropping these hints that the trade market might actually be a lot crazier than you think. Nugent Hopkins got one year left on a deal. Maybe he's a guy who's in play.

There's lots of teams out there always looking for centers. Maybe this is Edmonton's way to rectify the big mistake from four years ago. I don't know. Man, when you get both Taylor Hall and Adam Larson on your team, oh, baby, look out. Yep. Crazy. I'll go Boston trades. Jake DeBrusk and Taylor Hall is your short-term contract with the Bruins.

That could be, that'd be smart for Boston. I think Taylor Hall is better. You think he's an upgrade? Well, like, I mean, you know, I guess what I mean to say is I think Jake DeBrusk is, I think Jake Debrusk is overrated. Speaking of Boston, Tori Krug. What do you think, Ryan? Detroit, right?

That seems to be what everybody's saying. He's from Michigan. He went to Michigan State. He's tired of winning. Yeah. Well, I mean, Detroit's just going to be like, oh, you want like $11 million fucking dollars? Sure. No problem.

They don't have any. Their defense sucks so bad. Like, they need somebody who's not, like, fuck, Alex Biaga's on this team for next year. Jesus Christ, I just pulled up their cat-friendly page. It's a nightmare. So, yeah, like, they need defense. They need a guy who can sell a ticket. I think Torrey Krug checks that ball.

And, you know, it's not like Detroit is completely without talent. And if we've seen one thing, it's that Tori Krug makes your power play really good. So Dylan Larkin, Anthony Manta, Tyler Bertuzi, come on down. You guys are all going to get twice as many power play points this year. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah, I think you sold me on that, but with the caveat that I'm going to say, if I'm Tori Krug, yeah, Detroit. Oh, I don't want to go. I'm not like, oh, hell, yeah, let's go Red Wings.

I'm telling my agent, yeah, Detroit's fine. Let's use the Oilers to bump up the asking price because they need a defenseman. And let's just see what happens if we could create a bidding war between Ken Holland and Steve Eisenman. See how that might go. But do not under any circumstances actually sign me to a contract to play for the Edmonton Oilers. How old is Troy Crook? Like 27-ish? I wonder if Jersey would be up for.

for him. He's 209. He's 29. You don't want that. He's too old. Let's, picking a goalie out of a hat here, let's,

I was going to say Jacob Marksher, but really, any goalie, give me a goalie prediction. March from back to Vancouver. They'll figure it out. Yeah, I think they'll figure it out too. Well, I think back to Vancouver, but I don't necessarily feel like it's the same as the

Petrangelo's situation where it's like they'll figure it out before he hits the market. I could see Markstrom going to the market and being one of those guys where the Canucks just say like, look, nobody knows what's going to happen with goalies. If you can hit a home run out there somewhere and go get a six year deal, you've earned it, go get it. We're not giving you that. We got that. Your Demcoe ready to go. We want to do something shorter.

Go out there, see what the market has. If you find it great, no hard feelings, if you don't come back and we'll talk. And I could see playing out that way where he comes back and decides to decide. to stay there for good money, but doesn't hit the home run that he would like to in a market where there's, in theory, going to be so much goaltending out there. I think, yeah, I think Crawford stays. I think Markstrom stays. Lennar's staying in Vegas?

Lennar's definitely staying in Vegas. I think Flurry stays. I don't think, I don't know, man. Like, I feel like Flurry stays. I feel that he likes that team enough where he might want to just stick it out to try to win next evening. You can't spend $13 million on goaltending, though. You just can't do it. But what are you going to do with him, though?

I mean, you know, you... Buy them out or... Yeah, you just make it clear to him, like, we don't have a spot for you, bud. Like, thanks for your help the first couple of years. But here's the thing that I agree with you. And there's a lot of water under the bridge there. But the reason they acquired Lainer was because they felt their goaltending position needed two guys. So you know what you have in Flurry.

He's really good. Yeah, but he costs $7 million. But like what is the conundrum on that team where you need to open up that money? They need to sign like four guys, don't they? Yeah, they only have 18 guys under contract for next year. are five million short, so they'll be up to 19 and maybe even a little bit over with Lainer. And they need, like, look, they don't need to make a big deal out of resigning Stevenson and Chandler, who I, they're the only two RFAs, yeah.

But you need a couple of defensemen and you need. And you need to tweak because you didn't win. And you didn't, I mean, you want to make some changes. You didn't win last year. Listen, I get you. But I wonder if they would be creating a problem they don't need to create by switching up the goaltending, which by all accounts was the best thing about that team this year. It is. So two things on this.

First of all, at least according to CAF friendly, Fleur's deal doesn't have bonuses or anything that make it hard to buy out. So it's the base. Two years left. Does he have limited trade protection or a full? He does hit. No, he's got trade protection. Ten team, no trade list. Yeah.

So it's, but yeah, so you can buy it out. You're paying $2 million in change over four years instead of a $7 million cap hit over two. So it could make sense. The other thing is like I know we're saying, oh, they might be making a problem if they let, like, are we forgetting the whole sword in the back thing? Right. No, that's what I mean. Yeah. And I understand that, you know, Flurry might say, I'm happy.

I want to stay here. Okay, great. What's going to happen a month into the season when he's not playing? Like, does this flare up again? I don't know. It's, I could see a buy out there. And then at which point,

there's a ton of interest in the guy, obviously. Yeah, obviously. And here's how you can maybe make it work with both of them if you can keep the egos and check and all that kind of shit. If you can find a buyer for Paul Stasney, well, I mean, you know, that frees up $6.5 million for a guy who's like a third liner at this point in his career, you know?

And so I, I'm not. super optimistic, but like everybody said, like, there's going to be more, uh, there's going to be more movement than people think and blah, blah, blah. The few teams with Caprum could, in theory, just get a ransom for some of these, for taking some of these guys. Well, you say that, though. But like, Detroit only got a second rounder for taking Mark Stahl, from a team that absolutely needed to clear space.

And so, like, I mean, you know, based on the, the Patrick Marlowe and the first round pick. I said it in the newsletter, but the fact that they're going to get a pick, that they got a pick for taking Mark Stahl and apparently have every intention of using him, you know, I don't know that there's any indication they're going to buy him out or anything like that, although maybe they should. You know, and they're going to pick like 40 spots lower than the pick Carolina got. That's fucking crazy.

And the other question is, like, of the teams that have caps, space, who can actually do it? Like, Ottawa's got a ton of space, but they just bought out Bobby Ryan, which only makes sense if you're worried about cash out the door. Like, they seem like they might go super cheap. Panthers might go super cheap. Oh, every, yeah. A million teams are going to be budget teams this year.

The Avalanche have a ton of cap room, but they're not looking to add dead weight for a year to get a draft pick. They're looking to win a Stanley Cup. So, yeah, it's a tough. It's going to be really, the internal budget thing is really the, the, the one that no one really knows what the what's going to be. I mean, like, that's, there's, no one knows what it's going to mean. So we'll see.

All right. Oh, breaking news, by the way. Stephen Stamcoast had sports hernia surgery, according to Julianne Brisebois, before the pause, okay? He fully recovered. But he had a, in his rehab, it triggered, it triggered a compensated, it triggered a compensated. it triggered a compensation injury. And we fully expect him to be ready for next season.

So he has the surgery for Sporternia, and then he recovered from it. And then during the rehab, there was another injury that was related to the surgery. Yes. Well, there you go. And that's what his deal was. So there you have it, folks. Stephen Stamco's mystery solved. Can we talk about that for a second?

When I was at Yahoo, that was one of the editorial rules was that the more articles where you could get the words mystery solved at the front of the headline, the more of those you should do. And the place where you found the most was the Olympics. That was a big thing in the Olympics where it was like, mystery solved. Why swimmers close their noses when diving into the pool. pool and shit like that. That was, that was like the clickbaiting thing that they had. That was a rule of as many mystery-solved stories as you could do, they would always, like, make the front page of Yahoo. Boy, they must have hated Robert Stack and were at Yahoo.

Fucking unbelievable joke. It was a great joke. I appreciate it. Wow. I appreciate it. In his trench coat. All right, let's, uh, by the way, uh, new Borat movie, boys. What do we think? Hell yeah, let's fucking go. Like, the problem with the Borat movie is that... Not the Morat movie, is that what I just did?

Correct, yeah. It just became too much of like a meme. Like, I rewatched it, I don't know, a year or two ago. And I was like, this movie is so fucking funny. It's unbelievable how funny that movie is. And yeah, just like, you know, Napoleon Dynamite's the same way where, like, people liked it too much and made it too much of a thing, and now it's like, oh, okay.

You know, I don't know. Borat truly is on a level of, like, airplane as far as, like, the depth and number of, like, the hit-to-miss ratio on jokes. It's incredible. Full title of the new movie, boys. Borat subsequent movie film, colon, delivery of prodigious bribe, bride, bribe to American regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. So that's the full title of the movie.

You have to say the whole thing when you buy the ticket or else they won't. Apparently the plot is that he is going to try to marry off his daughter to someone close to Donald Trump and chooses Mike Pence as his target. Exactly. Now we're off and running, right? Oh, my God. But he's a genius. Apparently also the movie is going to have a thing where he became.

became such a celebrity in the U.S. based on the previous documentary, the Borat documentary, that he is now having to deal with people noticing him and being an American celebrity as well. So it's a whole thing. And I'm looking forward to it. Amazon Prime. Yeah. Oh, and to your point, Ryan, in this AV Club story,

there's a really good quote from a Simpsons writer named George Meyer, who I hope wrote Good Simpson stuff. Yeah, he did. Yep. Good. He said the first time he watched it, it felt like someone had just played me Sergeant Pepper's for the first time. I think that's a good, like, proxy. Like, it's something that is completely, like, ingrained in popular culture and it doesn't feel special anymore.

But at the time, you watched Borat, and you're just like, holy fucking shit, this just shifted the paradigm. And it was great stuff. Yeah, I mean, I had been a fan of DiLiG Show, which is where Borat, of course, premiered and famously he met with Donald Trump in one of them and Donald Trump is like, I was the only guy to never to never get tricked. And he didn't. Like he walked in the room, Borat or it was Allie G actually, but Allie G made like a little, like started to do the thing and Trump was like, this sucks and left. It just left immediately. But yeah, I mean, Borat is just the reason it's the breakout character is that it's so good. at in a way that even Bruno isn't, at getting people to be very comfortable with this buffoon that doesn't understand their ways. And they're like, oh, yes, we treat black people like slaves.

And he's like, oh, very nice. You know, like, that's it. I showed Ruby the, she had never seen the, throw the Jew down the well song before. Yeah. From, from, from, from, from, from, from, from, and fuck, man, that it is, he goes to the, he goes, for those who don't know, he goes to a country bar, and it's an open mic, and he gets on stage, and eventually it's throwing different problems in Kazakhstan down the well, and eventually he gets to Jews, and everybody claps along and sings with it.

They love it, yeah. It's fucking incredible. My favorite L.A.G. Show moment, of course, I think we've talked about it on the show before, is the go find the interview with Buzz Aldrin. It is one of the greatest things of all time. Yeah, it's pretty good. I will say, though, I think the funniest thing is he's in character as L.E.G. And he's on a farm and he's like, what is this cow do and all that kind of stuff? Right. But there's a chicken with like a strange look. And he almost breaks.

He starts laughing really hard because the chicken just looks insane. And the guy's like, what's going on in character? he goes, what is him wearing? And it's, that honestly is the best thing to ever happen on the LG show. Asking Buzz Aldrin if the moon is real. Yeah, sure. And Buzz Aldrin's reaction is. Famous, famous cremogen, Buzz Aldrin.

My favorite moments of all time. All right. So to close out the show, boys, we've got ourselves an overrated, underrated, favorite, least favorite. There's a couple of different options. Sean, I want to get your input on this one. pizzas, potato preparations, which I don't know if we've done, but it sounds like we maybe have. I feel like we have, yeah.

Wing flavors, mythical creatures, and types of berries. Any of those strike your fancy show? Let's do the wings. All right, an honorary crook. Yeah, exactly. Overrated wing. overrated wing is regular barbecue. I do differentiate spicy barbecue and regular barbecue.

Spicy barbecue gives me what I'm looking for in a wing and makes me feel okay about eating something that is so fucking sloppy that it makes your face all gooey. I would say regular barbecue for me is overrated. Yeah, I think that's a good one. Unfortunately, the answer is Buffalo. Buffalo is an overrated hot sauce. It's too vinegory.

Hmm. Sean? That's a terrible take, and we'll get to it in a minute. But I'm going to say overrated... I'm going to say overrated is any hot sauce that's just like too hot. Like settle down. Oh, yeah. Wings, anyone who listen to Bisky.

I have very strong feelings about chicken wings and what they should be and what they shouldn't be. And wings are supposed to be hot, but you don't have to get nuts about it. Oh, that's right. If it's going to make you physically sick, you're not impressing anyone with your manliness, because it's always a guy who goes out in orders like the extreme, you know, 9-1-1 sauce. Settle down. Get something that's as hot as you can comfortably enjoy, and that's it. I think we've talked about it before, but like the,

the whole culture around like, oh, this is like the ass ripper hot sauce or whatever. And it's like, fuck off. We don't like, we get it. You're like the dangerous guy who's like, I can handle it. I love something of a heat seek or I love spicy food. But like, you know, one time, so I get along those lines, one time I went into a wing place or a pizza place that had wings. And, you know, as a person who really enjoys spicy foods, like, often the things that they're like, oh, this is like a five out of five spicy. I'm like, yeah, that's a little bit spicy, sure.

And one time I ordered that kind of a wing. And it was so hot that, like, I ate one and a half of them. And I was like, I had tunnel vision. You know what I mean? Like, I could just kind of not see anything in my periphery. free. And it's like, to your point, Sean, that sucks. Like, that's, that's not fun. One of the most embarrassing moments of my life was like being in a bar, same situation, and it was like, get like the super spicy and the waitresses like, you know, they're really

hot and you're like, yeah, you always say that. I'm sure I can handle it. Anyways, long story short, it's the only time I've ever ordered a glass of milk in a bar. Which is never a situation you want to be in, man, because that's not even that's not even something you can hide. Everybody sees the waiters bringing that glass of milk through the bar and yeah, I literally the milk drinker in the bar because I ordered chicken wings that were. You're like, oh, it's a white Russian.

I'm actually very cool. I forgot that you and I, Sean, I believe we both did a podcast with a maniac who likes boneless wings. Yeah. Yeah. Which is unacceptable. That was one of Loso's worst takes.

It's not, and there is no such thing as boneless wings. That's like having potatoless french fries. But it's certainly not the preference. They're chicken nuggets, which is a totally fine, but completely different type of food. Thank you.

Yes, that's exactly right. I just, the boneless wing thing just bothered me because, again, like I'm, you know, part of the joy of eating a wing is just being a fucking carnivore,

just ripping the flesh off the bone with your teeth and just, like, you know, I'm all about that. So, okay, underrated. I'm a huge fan of garlic parmesan wings. I find it to be a nice change-up. I know it's sort of like, you know, you're at a red sauce place and you're like, I'll get the Alfredo.

I understand there's a certain amount of change-up to it. But I'm a big fan of garlic parmesan wings, and I don't know if that's necessarily everybody's favorite go-to wing. I don't know that it's a go-to, but every time I have it, I'm like, oh, that's nice. Yeah, it's really good. So that's my underrated. Yeah, I think that's a good one. I mentioned earlier that the reason I don't like Buffalo is that it's too vinegory.

And there is a place around here that it's called Wings Over in it. So it'll be like Wings Over Boston, Wings Over Summerville, that kind of thing. And they have an orange garlic or a citrus garlic, and that is just right in terms of heat. and flavor and all that kind of stuff. I love that. That one particular kind of the mix of the citrus and the garlic is really, really nice. Yeah. If I had to pick an underrated, I would say that there are some places that can do like a dry chicken wing that's actually pretty good. Like, you know, by which I don't mean plain, obviously, but like a powder spice.

A Cajun spice. A Cajun spice one. Yeah, that can work, especially if you're in a situation. where I don't know, like me, you're on your way to a job interview. You don't want to get sticky sauce all over the play. Like, that can be fun. Favorite for me, I'm going to put a spoiler warning on this one for Sean's. Buffalo.

I fucking love a Buffalo wing. I love a buffalo wing. I love the taste of it. I love the vinegareness. I love using it as a delivery system for blue cheese. And it's also like a sense memory thing where I think about all the great times I've had eating buffalo wings at a bar watching football, you know, out with friends at a fucking TGI Fridays or some bullshit.

Like it's a food that, like pizza. Like it's a food where you're eating it and there's probably a reason why you're eating it because you're having a good fucking time. So a buffalo wing without question is my favorite delivery of wings. It's the only correct answer. Yeah. Okay. But not the only one because there is someone who's about to hit us with another one.

Well, he's going to hit us with an answer. But it's not correct answer. The correct answer is the Bonchon spicy wing. If you ever been to Bonchon. Oh, yeah. You know what I'm talking about. Yep. It's fucking incredible.

I mean, both of Bonchon wing are fantastic. Like, I think they're the basically platonic ideal of the chicken wing. But, yeah. I like the spicy one. Just a smidge better. just a smidge. But, man, Bonchon fucking rules. Borat, Colin, the platonic ideal of the chicken wing for make better glorious nation of Kazakhstan.

I don't think he, I don't think that's the name of it, Greg. Oh, sorry. All right. A least favorite. So the real answer is just oven roasted, undressed wings. Yeah, but that's not. But that's not, I know, that's not a real answer. Yeah.

So I'll give you a real answer. lemon pepper. Never a fan of, like, lemon pepper is the donut that you leave in the box. It's still a chicken wing, so it's pretty good compared to, like, not having a chicken wing. But much like I'm not a huge fan of, like, lemon chicken from a Chinese food joint, I'm not a fan of a lemon pepper wing. It could just be one of those of, like, by comparison to my other options, not good, versus being, like, disgusting.

But it's my least favorite chicken wing. wing of the ones that are usually commonly found on the menu. Yeah, I think here's where I'm going to go with regular barbecue sauce. Just because you have so many other fucking options, you're just going to put some, like, raise on there? Come on. Yep. There's nothing wrong with it as a side condiment, but if you're doing that as your main option,

I have to question your judgment. My answer is literally anything that isn't buffalo sauce or at least buffalo sauce adjacent. I get it that if you're eating wings every day and you're living your very best life, maybe you want to mix it up every now and then. But if you're getting barbecue sauce or sweet and sour or really anything. Oh, sweet and sour is a great fucking call. Just order chicken. Just get chicken, which is an excellent food, which is a completely different category than they chicken. wing. A chicken wing has got to have bone, it's fried skin, it's a little tiny bit of chicken,

and it's orange sauce. That's what that type of food is. Anyone who tries to pass off anything else as a capital C, capital W chicken wing, it's like, it's like the people who are like, hey, have you tried our version of putine? It's like, well, does it have, does it have gravy and cheese curds? Because if not, it's not putteen. It's French fries and gravy with something else on it and french fries and gravy is great and chicken is great but every time i walk into a place and they're like we have the biggest chicken wings intent well wrong i'll stop you right there what you have is a way to order chicken for people who don't just want to order chicken buffalo sauce or something pretty close to it it's got to be orange uh anything else is just a waste of a good chicken wing

yeah you say that have you had bonchan before i haven't and what you're describing to me sounds like, I mean, maybe that falls into the circle of being close enough that I'd be like, yeah, this is kind of a twist on it. Yeah, it's more, like soy based. Like, I think it's soy garlic is

their main flavor and then you can get like a spiced up version of it. That sounds like something that would be absolutely delicious on chicken. But I'm getting chicken wings. I better have an orange mustache by the end of this meal. The spicy one is definitely you will have like red fingers.

I also don't like one that's like overly wet. A wing that's just like you need nine napkins and stuff like that. I don't. That's too much for me. Indeed. All right. Great show. I think we gave you a lot of content.

Thanks to us. Thanks to Raycon for sponsoring it. And we'll talk to you next week when it will be post draft right around free agency. My God. The action never stops when there's a pandemic affecting your season. You can read my stuff on ESPN.com. I wrote about the bubble 2.0 next season and the lessons that we've hopefully learned from this season, as well as a little bit about the lightning winning, as well as some winners and losers stuff.

And my other podcast with Emily Kaplan was a deep dive on the Stanley Cup final this week. It's called ESPN on Ice, and you can check it out on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. While you're doing that, sign up for the Pucksu Patreon, where we did this week, we did the finale of our ultra-specific draft. It was a shade over an hour long, and everybody is mad at us for different reasons. And also, I have a newsletter on there twice a week, so sign up for all of that stuff. Yeah, I'll second that the draft was this may have been my favorite bonus episode. It was really something, man. I really hope people listen to that.

Yeah, I don't want to spoil it. There's already controversy, but we'll talk about the next week. Yeah, and let's leave it open as to which one of us is the one who cheated. Exactly. We're not going to say who cheated. We're not going to say which one of us misunderstood the rules. Well, I mean, now you're narrowing it down. But we'll talk about it next week.

I want to give people a chance to listen to the bonus. A lot of people checked it out on day one, a highly anticipated podcast. But yeah, it's on the Patreon now. It's the ultra, what do we call it again? Ultra specific draft. Ultra specific draft. It's really fucking fun. At the end of it, I just kind of like was, wow, I can't believe we actually were able to pull it off.

and it also made it a pretty good episode, too. So do check that out. The biggest landslide winner of the Sukolet we've ever had, we should say as well. Yeah, it was not close. So good stuff. And thanks again for supporting the show. We will continue on the regular basis for the next few weeks. We actually don't think actually even talked about what the fuck we're doing yet for the offseason.

So we'll figure that out and let you know. But yeah, I mean, foreseeable future we're pushing on. There's just going to be a ton of fucking news. through the month of October at the very least. So thanks for supporting the show. It's been great to see everybody hanging in and listening and getting on to Patreon and a lot of good stuff too. Keep your eyes out for that Taco Bell article, by the way.

And we'll talk to you next week. Take care. Bye. Bye-bye. See you. 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.

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