Puck Soup - Down the Stretch

Episode Date: April 20, 2022

With the regular season winding down, Sean and Ryan talk about the continuing playoff races, new/old points systems, whether deadline acquisitions have worked out, and more. Sponsored by Athletic Greens (athleticgreens.com/Puck) and Birddogs (Birddogs.com promo code Puck)

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and five free travel packs with your first purchase. All you have to do is visit athletic greens.com slash puck. Again, that's athletic greens.com slash puck to take ownership over your health and pick up the ultimate daily nutritional insurance. Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slapshots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to what if you commute. We also cover movies, TV shows, eats and tunes. It's your weekly bowl of Hagi and Nancet. I'm Ryan Lambert from Elite Prospects. I'm Sean Maganou from The Athletic. Sean, I've got to ask you right off the top here.

What does the date January 7th, 2011 mean to you? Hmm. That was the date. I don't know. That was the date. Is it a hockey history thing? Yes. Oh, okay.

Yes. Yeah, now you know immediately. Well, you said Brett Leibbden. There's no... It's the only thing he's notable for. Yeah. He was a minus three in a game against the Atlanta Thrashers. This is when he's playing for the Toronto Maple Leafs.

He's a minus three in a game. The Leafs win nine to three. So put another way, his team scored nine goals. He wasn't on the ice for any of them. His opponent scored three goals. He was on the ice for all of them. And that was in the space of less than 14 minutes of ice time. The all-time...

greatest, like, well, I had made the case previously that this was right up there with like Tom Bladens plus 10 and Theo Fleury's plus nine on the all time great plus minus achievements. But so, so, yeah, the reason this comes up today, it's not like the, it should come up every day. I mean, it's, well, sure. But this comes up today because a young man named Justin Schultz the other day, his Washington Capitals, which if I had asked you with a gun to your head, what team does Justin Shultz play for? Absolutely not. No, of course. Absolutely not. In fact, I'm on his hockey reference page and he's still wearing like a Penguins jersey.

Sure. So. His capitals beat the Montreal Canadiens 8 to 4. He's on the ice for 16 and a half minutes thereabouts. And he is a minus 4 in that game. Yep. So, I mean, is this more impressive, equally impressive to the Brett Leavda game? Like, do we have a new face to chisel into that Mount Rushmore of?

Let me put it as simply, like, let me lay out the case four and against. The case four is he's a minus four in a game where his team scores eight goals, right? But the interesting thing is, and this is maybe the against part, or it could be the four part, depending on your perception here. He scored a goal in this game. He scored a power play goal. Ah. So does that make it more impressive that he even scored a goal? Not just was on the ice for a goal, but scored it himself late in the third period of what was already a blowout.

See, I didn't realize that. And I feel like that does kind of change it. But now I'm going to go and look at the Brett Lebeda game and see if he was actually on this. Because, of course, when you're talking about plus minus. No, he didn't do shit. He had one shot on goal and no points in that game. I want to see if he was on the ice for any of the goals for, because of course, plus minus, power play goals do not count. So it is, we say.

And the Leafs scored five power play goals. Also, he was Brett Lebeda. Yeah, so why would he be on the power play? Yeah. I would be shocked. But so my point is, is it more impressive that he was a minus four in an eight four game, despite having scored one of the goals? or does that make it like, oh, well, I mean, he was on the ice for at least one of the goals?

See, I'm kind of leaning towards that, that second interpretation. Although, you know, maybe this is just the Leafs Homer in me. And I'm really want to keep that lockdown for old. Exactly. I just, I really, all right, I got it. Sorry, I'm attempting to scroll on the NHL website. And if, you know, if you know how that works. Yeah, all right, Brett Lebeda.

I believe was number 23. You are correct about that. And he was indeed on the ice for one of the Leafs goals. A power play goal. He was on the ice for the ninth goal. A power play goal by Phil Kessel, which, you know, good on the Leafs. They were up eight to one at the time, still sending Phil Kessel's power play unit out there. He was really stepping on the gas.

They hated the thrashers famously. The team everybody hated. So, you know, to me, this puts Schultz right back. in the in the conversation i think that because i mean again like you to run the analytics it's 12 goals nine plus three equals 12 you know what a plus four is also 12 and you got to go 12 for 12 uh you know the minus four is is is a better more impressive sounding number but you know nine to three is a bigger blow than eight to four i don't know i'm going to have to i'm going to have to sit on this for a little while the the other problem is that with just and shawl

I don't feel like 10 years from now, this will instantly be the thing that people remember when you hear his name. No, because with LeBDA, it was months of Leif's fans going, this guy sucks. Can we get this guy off the team? Oh, my God.

And then for him to go out and be a minus three in a 9 to 3 game, um, truly impressive. People were like, see? And the other thing, bonus points. What else do we have to say?

Bonus points for doing it against a team that doesn't exist anymore, where Schultz did it against the Montreal Canadiens, so fingers crossed, but so far, they still exist. I haven't checked this morning, but I think they're probably still running it out. And while we're talking about the Canadians, I forgot to put this on the rundown, but nice to see Kerry Price back, huh? It's great to see Kerry Price back. Now, his teammates who have scored zero goals for him.

They don't like them, obviously. Yeah, they're pissed. They hate it. Get out of here. But yeah, and he's been pretty good, too. Like, he hasn't been unbelievable or anything, but he's been very solid behind a team that sucks. Mm-hmm.

Put it this way. He's been good enough so far. You know, if he keeps this up for the rest of the season, he hasn't hurt his market value as far as moving him. I think that's what you were maybe a little nervous about because everyone seems to agree that there's probably, that a trade would, would maybe be in the best interest of Montreal and maybe him as well and that that's going

to be explored in the offseason. It'll be hard to do given the contract situation. But obviously if he comes back and he's just garbage for a month, even though you could understand it, given the circumstances, that maybe makes him untradable. And no, he's played well. So we're going to wait and see which team, which contender loses in the first round because of goaltending. and then panics and goes out and gets carry price for 13 more years or whatever. In my, at the end of my what we learn column every week, I do like the worst HF boards trade I saw from that week. Like trade proposal, you know how they're like, oh, what's the value of whatever? And one from a couple weeks ago, or maybe it was just this past week.

I already forget, but it was basically like Jonathan Taves for Carrie Price and then some side items. And it's like, boy, Jonathan Taves, if he's going to be crying about how, you know, they're not including me in the decision making process or whatever. In Chicago, who boy, it wouldn't go great in Montreal either, huh? I think definitely if you're Chicago and you're going to tear the heart and soul out of your three-time couple. winning core. You definitely want to get a guy back who's just as old and has just as bad a contract. And signed for, I think, four extra years? Yeah.

Yeah. You want to make your cap situation worse. Absolutely. Absolutely. And then you send Patrick Kane to the Panthers for Sergey Mubrovsky. And there's your goalie tandem for the next generation. Who says no? Yeah. And then, okay, so speaking of the Washington Capitals, right?

They, I don't think they played last night. They think they play tonight. But they are within very close striking distance here of the Pittsburgh Penguins for third in the Metro, which is, yeah, they're a point back with a game in hand. So ahead of them. So ahead of them in points percentage. Yeah, when they inevitably beat Vegas tonight. Got an easy game tonight. That's right. So that

Did anybody see that coming? Like a month ago? You think the, you think the caps are going to pass the penguins? Now, look, we didn't see the penguins absolutely shitting the bed down the stretch. We didn't see Tristan Jari being weak to week with whatever

lower body injury he has. We didn't see the capital. They're not even like that hot. They were for a little while, but they've cooled off maybe slightly. I don't know. Like a shocking tournament of events. And then Tampa is pretty much doing the same thing

while Boston dealing with a ton of its own injuries also closes that gap. And that also could end up being flip-flop so that, you know, again, the wildcard teams, there's a very real possibility that they end up being Pittsburgh and Tampa. Which is pretty wild. And like, I mean, the, I know that I have for the last month or so, at least the last few weeks, been talking about, you know, Florida, Washington, right? This is it. This is the one matchup we know in the East. And, you know, Florida's going to get. Washington was maybe the only, you know, I remember it was like two weeks ago. I was writing about how the East is eight teams that are all pretty much the same, but maybe not Washington. Maybe Washington's the one. one easy team, and Florida is going to get them.

So, hey, perfect. Washington gets a nice, or sorry, Florida gets a nice warm up. We notice the team doesn't have a lot of playoff success. They get a quote-unquote easy matchup in the first round to kind of find their feet. This is going to be great for the Florida Panthers. And now you're sitting there going, I mean, maybe at this point you'd rather play Pittsburgh based on how they're playing, based on the goaltending situation. But like, hey, congratulations.

You just had the single greatest season in the history of the franchise, where everything clicked perfectly in the regular season. You're going to finish probably second for the president's trophy, might even win it. Here's Sidney Crosby in the first round. Congratulations. Yeah, the Panthers look like they're going to be one of the 10 or 11 teams ever to clear 120 points in the regular season.

And yeah, like the loser point, all that shit, I get it. but that's a crazy achievement. Yep. And yeah, like you say, it's like, oh, yeah, good luck in the first round. Now, granted, again, Sidney Crosby in the first round, yeah, you don't like that. Casey DeSmith in the first round, maybe you're okay with it. You take that. That's a little bit better.

And then the Tampa Boston race, of course, will determine who plays the Leafs in a series where the Leafs at this point, it looks like, will have home ice advantage. And I mean, I saw somebody. tweet it last night where they're like the way Tampa's playing, they look like they don't want to play the Leafs. And I think it's more, well, go ahead. Yeah. And it wasn't like some Leafs Homer saying that.

It was somebody, and I was like, you know, maybe you don't want to play the Leafs, but if the alternative is you're playing the Hurricanes, or I guess maybe the Rangers, like, is that, are you changing your strategy down the stretch to get to get that? I don't know. to me it would be fascinating only because we've been talking all year long about Florida, Toronto, Tampa is the trio. Not just to have Boston jump in there, but to have Tampa go to the other division in the playoffs. How great is that? If you're Florida, you're sitting there going, all right, yeah, we got to play, yeah, maybe we play Pittsburgh.

But Toronto and Boston, you know, they're going to bash each other's heads in for seven games. And we don't have to worry about Tampa until the conference final now. Pretty good. Set up pretty well for them. Yeah, the other thing with that is, you know, like you say, it's not, I think it's more of a thing of Tampa playing like they hit a fucking wall because they've played a 190 hockey games in the last 24 months. And also being, you know, an experienced team that knows that ultimately you got to beat all these teams anyway. So they're not, you know, I don't think they're going to pedal all the way to the floor down the stretch. So who's looking at any team in the East?

Like, oh, that's a favorable matchup for us at this point? Yeah. Like with the way even Washington's playing all of a sudden, it's like, oh, no, every matchup would actually kind of suck, I think. Like, I'm a Leafs fan, right? I'm sitting there. Like, if you told me, yeah, it doesn't come up often. But it's, if you told me, Tampa Bay, the two-time defending champs, like, they're

basically an all-star team, have the best goaltender, arguably. in the world, you're going to play them in the first round. I'd be like, oh, no. And then you came to me and you're like, actually, change your plans. It's not them. But instead, you got to play Boston, the team that not only has beaten you several times, but also what's Boston's thing? They have the best defensive forward in the entire league and the best defensive first line

in the entire league that makes other teams first lines disappear. Hey, Toronto, you're not like a top heavy first line team at all, are you? geez. There's nothing. What do we play for, man? That Bruins Blues game last night was so funny because it's like they didn't have Pasternak. They didn't have Hamas Linholm.

And they, the hottest offensive team in the league right now, the St. Louis Blues, they were just like, yeah, we're going to hold them to like 22 shots. Who gives a shit? Yep. It doesn't matter. I feel like if you're a Leafs fan, you're, I think you, you're, I think you, you, you, you, You would rather play Boston than Tampa in the sense that I like the Leafs' odds against Boston better than a healthy Tampa team. Nobody clip that.

Nobody clip that. But, but here's the thing. But not only could Boston absolutely beat, I mean, you don't even have to imagine. You know, you, you, it's super easy to picture Boston beating the Leafs. And the other thing is, if you're, like, if the Leafs play Tampa and it's a run and gun series and they lose in seven games against the two-time champs, that's going to be very, very bad. And it's going to play very badly in Toronto. If you lose to Boston again, that is the nightmare scenario of, like, we have to blow this thing up.

Like, if you're, if you're someone who doesn't like the Leafs and you're rooting for chaos and for this, you know, the market to turn against the team and have to be blown up, Boston's the opponent you want because they're the ones that, you know, you can maybe twist it a little. If you're, if you lose to Tampa, you go, hey, man, we lost the two-time champs. We gave them everything they could handle and, you know, obviously if you get swept, it's a different deal. But you can lose to Tampa and hold your head up against Boston, just given the history, everyone's going to be sitting there going. You lose to these guys every year. You can't build a team that can beat these guys.

Forget it. Start over. Right. Yeah. And then it's chaos, which is fun for everyone. except Toronto fans. You? Yeah.

Let's go to the West. And speaking of hitting a wall and what have you, the Vegas Golden Knights have... It's not going to happen. This is... Seemed to have done that. The last 24 hours has been the first time that I've, like, accepted that this isn't going to happen for them.

I've been the whole way... That King's win last night, I was like, it's over. It's done. Yeah. And losing to New Jersey. I mean, that's just... Well, sure, yeah, of course. That absolutely cannot. I know they played well.

I know that this and that and, you know, they got goalied a little bit by Andrew Hammond. But it just can't happen. Like, these guys are going to miss the playoffs. I mean, at this point, L.A.'s five points clear. It's maybe more Dallas that they're chasing because they've got a game against Dallas. They've got a game against Dallas. and I think Dallas plays the Oilers tonight.

The Oilers are also a very hot team right now. We can talk about that a little bit more later. But not a super winnable game for the Stars tonight. And so that does make things a little more interesting for Vegas. But they also have the extra game played. With Dallas, because they have got the crazy overtime record. and all. Like, they don't have the regulation wins.

So they, they lose the tie record, everyone, basically. So, uh, that's good news in theory for Vegas. And, but they,

yeah, I mean, you, you have to pay, basically pencil them in to win that Dallas game in regulation. To even get to a scenario where it starts to feel realistic again. And then, yeah,

maybe. And by the way, if they did that, if they caught Dallas for the last wild card, how's Vegas versus Colorado in the first round? Oh, my God. Talk about here's your reward for a great, like, hey, you go, Colorado, 120 points, president's trophy. Here's the other team everyone else thought was the best on paper all season long.

And they added Jack Eichel, yeah. Yeah, with Jack Eichael and who knows what the goaltending is there. But yikes, and no salary cap. So they get their full $100 million lineup against you. Yep. I guess that comes down to will everybody be healthy and blah, blah, blah, as well, because I think it's pretty obvious that, like, Mark Stone still isn't playing at anything close to 100% and they activated them kind of out of necessity more than, so like there is that and patch

you're ready. I guess you would say the same thing. But, yeah, it's tough sledding. And as you say, the fact that the kings are five points clear of the matter. after that win last night. Like, I have, I wrote it down when I, when I put the, the outline for this episode together, uh, Kings also hit a wall, but it might not matter. That's, that seems like it kind of is the case because, yeah, they, they beat the ducks

last night, who cares, right? Um, like that, that's not, I guess in terms of, that's not that impressive. Everybody beats the ducks, unless they're the Arizona coyotes. Um, it was a tough game. Yeah. Jonathan Quick had to go old school. He did, yeah. No, he was unbelievable last night.

But so, you know, again, like, that got them five points clear. If they lose that game and it's the three points and Vegas has a game in hand, you're like, okay, this is still doable. I don't think it's doable now. And, yeah, I mean, what a wild race it's ended up being where, again, like, it's four teams, maybe even five. If you want to talk about Vancouver, we'll get to them in the second as well. You know, the Pacific feels locked in now, and so it's four teams effectively playing for the wild card. Yeah. And how excited are you if you're the Oilers right now?

Not only are you playing great, your gold heading's been better, but you're going to get the Kings without Drew Doughty. Which is not an easy, but I mean, that is, like if you had to pick one, team out of the 16 playoff teams for your team to play it's the kings right like and yet it's the oilers who are going to get that matchup probably you know might not even get to 100 points on the year they're going to get in theory the best matchup and and maybe even the matchup with the 16th seeded team in terms of total points and god bless the uh the takes we're going to get out of that if that's what ends up happening that yeah that's right um but yeah this So as you mentioned, the oilers, like, the, so I was looking at this the other day.

I wrote an article about like, oh, how good. Because they, uh, who, they, oh, they kicked the shit out of Vegas, right? They beat them like 4-0. And it wasn't really even close. Um, and I was like, yeah, but like, how much of this just is the goalies? And the answer is some of it, obviously, but like, the goalies have improved a lot under Woodcroft, but they're still only like 905 or 908 or something like that. Not even like above league average, like right around league average.

And that's been plenty to get this team to like, oh, this is one of the hottest teams in the league. And the underlying numbers for their bottom six all still stink. And in fact, in some ways they've gotten worse under Woodcroft than they were under Tippett. But McDavid and Drysiddle are just like, oh, if you can give us like 900-ish goals, We're going to win like 10 games in a row pretty consistently. It's fucking crazy. Yep. And it's, you know, I've already seen the kind of the narrative getting spun out of

Edmonton that actually it's not that the goaltending is better. It's that the defense has become better in front of the goal to ending and that's what's allowed the goaltending. And like you say, there's some truth to it. But it's not a. The expected goals. Look at the scoring chances. They're not that much better.

The other interesting thing in Edmonton is this, you're kind of seeing it play out in the media, which usually means it's playing out behind the scenes, although not always. But has Jay Woodcroft already earned an extension? Versus should we wait until we see how the playoffs goes? And you can see some people pushing that. No, no, lock them up right now, which, of course, if you were Jay Woodcroft is what you want. but we'll see if Ken Holland takes the bait or if he wants to wait and see what happens in the playoffs. Yeah. I don't know. I think it's kind of academic at this point that you got to extend him.

If you go, oh, you know, our first coach, whatever, I don't remember how many points that he had, you know, at the time he was fired. But in roughly the same number of games, Jay Woodcraft has weight. more fucking points than that. You know? But I mean, if you're Ken Holland, do you extend, like, do you extend them regardless of what happens in the playoffs, knowing that, you know, this is, some of this is just the goaltenders got hot or got better, at least. Yeah.

They stopped being cold. Yeah. I mean, you know, we often joke about, you know, coaches coming in and telling the goaltenders to make a save. And that is a little bit of what's happening in Edmonton. Do you extend the guy for that? or would you say, no, I want to see the playoffs and then see how the off-season looks

and figure it out from there? I guess I'd rather make my decision based on like the 40 games in the right... Because, you know, like Chicago beat these guys in the playoffs a few years ago. Well, not the playoffs. I guess the play in.

Right? I'm not making that up. So it's like, yeah, you know, playoffs are really random shit. Like, if, If they, if they, let's put it this way, if they lose to the kings and it's because the goalies turn back into a pumpkin, that's Ken Holland's fault. What's Jay Woodcroft supposed to do? These guys stick, you know?

That's true. Yep. So, um, so yeah, really interesting in Edmonton right now. But the, the team that's most interesting in the Western Conference, I think, is the Vancouver Canucks. Um, they're on a bit of a heater right now. Uh, a classic, uh, a classic, uh, Yeah, right, sure. But I don't know.

They're making it way more interesting that it ever should have been. I feel like I've written them off several times. And understandably so. Look and they're back in it. I mean, last night hurts a lot. They got the point against Ottawa, but it's Ottawa. You've got to win that game. But points in, what is it now, eight straight?

Something like that, yeah. They're making it interesting. And they've gotten to the point where they have a better goal difference than both, than a ton of teams, but at Los Angeles and Dallas specifically, they're closing in on Nashville in that regard. And it's like, oh, shit. You know, and we said it at the time.

But it's really, really, really hard to look at what they've done. under Bruce Boudreau and go, or to arrive at anything other than, boy, they should have made this coaching change like a month early. Yeah, yeah. Even a week could end up making the difference, but...

Absolutely. But like imagine where they'd be. It feels like they'd be comfortably third in the division if they pull the trigger even two weeks earlier, you know? Because that all comes with, you know, whatever, like a five-game losing streak, something like that. So, yeah, they're just a fascinating team. I think I said it on here last week, but like, how do you not watch every single Vegas, L.A., Dallas, Nashville, and Vancouver game the entire rest of the season?

Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's so, it's been so fun because there's all these teams losing these extremely winnable games. including Vancouver or like, you know, still getting a point out of not a well-played game like St. Louis last night and that kind of stuff

or even Vancouver. But yeah, just it's really cool. I guess the last thing we should mention is that the blues, they look like they're gonna probably end up not having home ice in... Still, they went absolutely on a tear. but the wild to their credit have been holding them off.

Also on a tear. Even losing to them the one OT game. But yeah, those are two really good teams. And it's the one playoff matchup we already know, right? That one is locked in. Locked in. It's going to be a hell of a series, man. That's going to be really good.

Yeah. And home ice might matter. I mean, these teams are both, you know, just pure wins and losses. Minnesota's 21 and 19 on the road. St. Louis, 20, and 17. not great records and much better than that at home this is going to matter

and the other piece of that is the blues record against the wild head-to-head is very, very good and people are wondering, does that tend to matter? And the answer is not necessarily. You can certainly find examples of teams dominating a season series or even over a course of a couple of years.

and getting the same result in the playoffs, and you can find examples of that generating the exact opposite. So to be determined, but, you know, maybe if the Blues can get in their heads just a little bit, every little bit might help, you know. The other thing, how about this, Sean? How many, what, so the Blues have the highest shooting percentage in the league this season. They're a rush team, they score a lot on the power play. Like, it makes a little bit of sense that,

that they're going to be pretty effective shooting, I guess. But what rank do you think they're all, like, their shooting percentages in the entire cap era, or the advanced stats era? Are they top 10? Yeah, they're number two. Yikes. Okay. The second highest shooting percentage since 2007-08, the St. Louis Blues team.

And, like, you know, again, they have some really. good players. They definitely improve their forward group this summer, Buchenevich and all that. Like, yeah, absolutely. They are not the second most skilled team of the Cap era. I think a Tampa Bay, one of the Tampa Bay teams of recent vintage is the one team ahead of them, or maybe a recent Colorado team. But it was a team where I was like, obviously they weren't that good, but they were really good. They had a really good roster. And the blues doesn't really compare to that. And so what's interesting,

and again, this is something we'll get to on the other side of the break that's coming up here in a second. But they're going to be going up against the best goal-tending tandem since the trade deadline. Yep. It's going to be... Immolable object, irresistible force, etc. Yeah.

And the other thing is you look at the schedule, the next six games for both Minnesota and St. Louis, they're pretty similar in that they play. play their next four mostly against, quote, unquote, bad teams, and then finish against good teams. Minnesota finishes Calgary, Colorado. St. Louis finishes Colorado, Vegas. But those games probably won't mean anything. They won't mean anything to Colorado or Calgary.

Vegas will probably be, by that point, out of the playoffs and deflated and nobody, you know, all the injured guys won't be playing. The one that's a little tricky in there is Minnesota's got Nashville. which could be in Nashville, which could be a really important game. And I said six games, St. Louis has only got five. So it's completely up in the air.

And it's going to be about banking the points against the bad teams and then, you know, probably facing backup goalies against some of those better teams. We'll see. Yeah. All right. We'll take a break.

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And Pierre LeBron the other day had a story about how the NHL almost went to a 3210 point system. in 0, 405. And then instead they didn't have a hockey season. Yeah. Which, you know, same deal. And then I guess talked about it for a few years after. And then at the time felt like they were already making so many big changes that they didn't want to go any further, which maybe makes sense. And then it doesn't sound like it's come up since.

And it, uh, partly because. it sounds like partly because Brian Burke just yells at anyone who brings it up and partly because they believe the current system works great. Now, the reason this became

interesting to me, because otherwise it had been like it happened fucking 15 years ago, who cared, whatever, you know, more than that, actually. But so Alex Faust, a buddy of mine, and he's the King's broadcaster, or play-by-play guy, obviously.

he had like a little Twitter thread where he's like, it's actually not as, 3, 2, 1 actually isn't as good as, uh, what we have now in terms of, uh, incentivizing, like actual exciting play. Really? Yeah.

Because his, his, so his contention is, um, it does kind of the current system doesn't as fully incentivized conservative play

in the third period basically um when like when you're tied or whatever like you're just like oh fuck it will go to overtime

and you know like it's interesting so and so I'll just quote him here he goes the current system is at times artificial, but IMO

this would further incentivize conservative play latent games because the downside of a regulation loss is worse. Do you see the so would a 3-2-1 system be more fair? Perhaps but the joy of our current system with the 3-on-3

overtime is that we encourage fun because there is less downside risk and yes, I still hate the shootout. Don't know how we fix that. Okay, so I'm sorry. And this came from who? Alex Faust from the King's broadcast. Okay. I don't see how that follows.

I mean, the downside of a regulation loss is zero points under both systems. Yeah. So, I mean, I guess the idea that you're concerned about what your opponent is going to get, which I think we have ample evidence now is not something that teams, except for specific playoff races. Obviously, if you're, you know, when Dallas plays Vegas. in a few days. They will be looking at regulation versus.

But I think it's become very clear the way that teams play for overtime now. And there's been multiple studies that have shown that, you know, scoring plunges laid in tied games. You can see there's clips going around you can find of 30 seconds left tie game and the team is just standing in its own end. While the other team makes no effort to go and chase them. it doesn't seem to me that teams are right now playing like, oh, you know what, we've got,

you know, let's win it in regulation because that will hurt the other team, even though we're getting the same two points. I don't see it. Because that's the other argument against 3-2-1 that I have seen that I got to, I would like to think about more and see more evidence for or against. But the argument is basically, yes, we very clearly have teams playing for overtime now when the game is tied, the third period of a tied game in the NHL is nowhere near as fun as it should be. However, under a 3-2-1 system, if a team has a one-goal lead in the third period, do they then just

shut it down even more than they do today? Because today, they know if they get scored on, okay, I can still go to overtime and get my two points, whereas under a 3-21, they've got the extra point for winning in regulation, so they lock it down even more. I think that's what Alex is saying. That makes sense to me in one sense. My counter argument to that is, like, look at what the NHL has become. Do we think teams aren't locking it down with one goal leads?

Like, look at the record of every team when they're leading going into the third period. You know, the, the Leifes are like 37 and 1 when they go into, this is the Leaps, the team that always blows the leads. And even they almost never lose in regulation. it's a league where everybody locks it down. Could it happen even more, I guess? But does anybody else really feel like there's a dial somewhere on locking it down when you have a lead and coaches aren't turning it all the way to the max already? I don't buy that.

And I don't buy it to the degree that outweighs all the other positives that this brings. One of the interesting things about LeBron's, piece is that I guess originally one of the thoughts was let's do it in the HL for a year or two and see how it changes things and then they just didn't and that seems to me like a no-brainer like let's let's find out you know maybe Alex or whoever ends up being right we see you know I'm always saying whenever we change anything there's always unintended consequences so if we can find out what those are great but that you know the HL guy was like yeah they never called back we were ready to

do it you could tell that he was like I don't understand why we didn't test it because it's clearly better. I understand why. It's the NHL. Yeah. The one thing on this whole debate is, at the very least, if I accomplish nothing, which seems to be what I'm on pace to do on the subject, but if I accomplish nothing, let me at least get people to stop saying or accepting that the current system makes the

playoff race is closer. And that's, because that still is the NHL's go-to argument. They go, the playoff races are closer. There's current system works. And that's, it's wrong on, on multiple levels. Because first of all, it doesn't, having a loser point doesn't make the playoff races closer because everyone gets loser points. That's just basic, you know, if you're giving out free points to everybody at roughly

the same rate, you're not helping anybody keep the playoff races closer. And by the way, why should we want to keep the playoff races closer? because by saying that, what you're saying is closer than they should be. You're saying, we're going to put a thumb on the scale and help a team that should be five points back be closer than that. Well, why? The playoff races should be as close as they deserve to be based on how well the teams are playing. But even putting that aside, by giving out extra points for regulation wins, you're not making the races any less close other than in the very raw numbers.

Like, yes, if your team is three wins behind the team they're chasing, today that would translate to six points. Under this system, it could translate to nine points. But that doesn't mean the race isn't as close. It just means you're still three wins back. We just give out, I mean, in the way the NHL tells it, we should make all wins worth one point and make ties worth half a point. The races would be really close. Everybody would be like one point apart. But that would be stupid because that's...

Yeah, of course it would be. But I honestly feel like when the NHL says, oh, the playoff races are closer, they think that you as a fan are so dumb that you're going to see a bigger number and be like, oh, team further away, me, no watch game. Like, how dumb do they think you are? They think hockey fans are very dumb and they are correct. Yeah. Look, if you ever see anything that says like, well, but look, the playoff races are closer, we have a hard salary cap. it was put in place specifically with the goal of creating

parody of making the bad teams have to come back to the pack of making the good teams have more ability to pick up those players and get better. Of course there's more parity now. If somebody tries to compare the playoff races now to like the 1980s and then says

see the loser point works, they're conning you. There's really no nice way to put it. They are just conning you. And the reason the league has to do this is because of course, they can't say the real reason they like the current system is that it inflates everybody's record, it's a marketing exercise, it makes it so that we take all the wins and put them in one big pile and we take all the losses and divide them up into two smaller piles and it looks great

as long as you don't think about it too much. And our GMs like that because our GMs like to be over 500. That's it. That's the whole reason we have this. And at the very least, I need people to see that. And then if we don't fix it, then fine. But every time Gary Bettman says, well, it makes the playoff races closer. Like 10 hands in the room should go up from people saying follow-up question. Do you think we're stupid that that continues to be the explanation that you offer? Yeah. I guess we need to fly you to wherever the cup final is.

So when Gary does his state of the league, you can be the one to actually ask that question because nobody else will ever ask that question in that way, certainly. certainly. Yeah. And look, the problem here is I wrote a piece a week ago, I guess, about the loser point. And it was, it wasn't about the loser point being bad, although of course I went on several rants about that, but it was about the whole idea of, is it here and there? Yeah. Is it a loser point? Is it a bonus point and everything? And as always happens, whenever you write about this, comment section just fills up. People love diving. in and arguing about this stuff. And what they do is everybody gives you their formula of what it

should be. So some people want it to be 3-2-1. Some people want it to be just two points for a win, no points for a loss. That's it. It doesn't matter if you lose and shoot out or overtime or whatever. Some people want to bring back ties. Some people want to extend overtime, have, you know, there's a ton of different visions out there. And that's part of the problem. We all, everybody has their own little system they prefer, and it creates this scenario where it feels like nobody agrees on this situation. There's so many, everyone's just arguing. So, you know what, if everyone's going to argue, keep the status quo.

But what's interesting to me is I had 400 plus comments. There was not one single comment in that whole section from anybody going, I like the current system. And, like, you would know. as well as anybody, anytime you write anything about the NHL should change something, you immediately hear from people going, no, it shouldn't.

I like how it currently is. Whatever it is, no matter how obvious it seems to you, when I write that we should treat the puckover glass thing as icing and not make it a penalty, I hear from a ton of people going, no, I like it, that it's a penalty. And here's why. You can't say anything.

Right. This league should do differently without people furiously defending the status quo, except on this. Nobody thinks the current system is the right one. Nobody thinks this is good. So let me say this about 3-2-1. Is all of college hockey moved to it this year? It made things insanely fucking confusing. And like, I think that's a really good argument against it.

How so? How did it? So let me pull up the college hockey standings, right? So in the big picture, right, like in the national picture, everything just still counted as win-loss tie, like for nationwide standings and stuff like that. But in conferences, you had to parse out what was a regulation win, what was a regulation loss, what was an overtime win, what was an overtime loss, and shootout wins and losses counted as ties. um in the national standings like if it went to a shootout it was a tie but in conference play the shootout still counted as a two and a one okay well i mean that that seems to me like a poorly implemented system not that's correct yeah no it definitely was but with but with that

having been said even like so so here was the issue right is if if it's wins and losses but like then the way the national tournament rankings are calculated like overtime wins counted for 55% of a win and overtime losses counted for it was just like I can't

you can't fucking keep it straight like win lost tie should be win lost tie like if we're saying ties still exist right and so the thing that I have increasingly come around to is again if we're saying ties still exist it should be the soccer style 310.

Right. Because that really rewards you for winning a game, no matter how you win it. You are penalized for only playing to a tie, and then if you lose, you don't get shit. So what would that look like? Are we talking? No shootouts as a tie.

And then maybe you make it like a tie breaker or something like that. Like, okay, if you have X number of shootout wins and you're tied with this team. in the standings, whatever team has more shootout wins. If you're going to do soccer, I'd say you just, you get rid of the shootout. You're preaching to the choir, but... And then you do 10 minutes of three on three.

Because part of the problem, when we got rid of ties, it wasn't that the concept of a tie was so awful. It was, teams had like 20 or 25 of them a year, like a quarter of your games. I think if teams had three or four a year, which is maybe what we would get if we had three on three overtime and probably even less than that because there'd be less overtime under if we were giving incentivizing wins you know if you knew you couldn't just sit back and wait for the loser point ferry to show up uh it'd be less overtime and most almost all the overtime would get resolved after 10 minutes of three on three um you know i think if you had three or four ties in

your record it wouldn't be the end of the world um but i don't know i know some people again that's a situation where I say, hey, we can bring back ties. And I will hear from a ton of people saying, I hate ties. No ties, absolutely not deal breaker, which is fine. It's just very remarkable to me that nobody does that for the current point system. But the problem is then everybody says, you know, somebody says three, two, one, somebody else says this. Somebody else has their view. Somebody else comes in and goes, what if we gave four points for this?

And you're like, oh, Christ. And somebody else is like, what if it was five points? And someone else has half points. And it's at one point in the 90s. college hockey had a 54, 321 system. Which, like, again, that just feels like you're slicing it too thin, but also,

you know, if the difference between a regulation win and a regulation loss is five fucking points, holy shit, you know? Like, everybody's going to be playing regulation with their hair on fire. Yeah. You know? It's, it's, yeah, and I don't, and I get that, you know,

some people, the other argument against 3,21 is it's just, it's different and, you know, it would take some getting used to, you know, now what used to be a hundred point team is a hundred fifty point team. And you could have teams could get 170 or 180 points. And all those old HAB's teams and Euler's teams, all the records go out the window. But it's not, it's not that tough to adjust, right? You divide by one and a half, multiply by one and a half and you can compare the records. And it's at least, it would be different and the standings would change in an honest way, as opposed to how they've changed for the last 20 years,

which is in this weird unspoken way where they still look like they used to with the three columns, but the three columns don't mean the same thing and all the number, all the points numbers are higher. It would just be, I don't know, I think it, I'm at the point now where give me a system that's different than the current one that no longer has more points for games that go past regulation, because that incentivizes teams to just play for the tie, and that, you know, give me that. And I'm happy. I will support whatever you've got.

But unfortunately, there's 10 other versions of the system out there. Everybody picks their favorite one, and then there's nothing resembling a consensus to overturn a system. that nobody other than the 32 GMs and Gary Bettman actually like it's it's maddening yeah um all right let's move on to the other athletic story that made headlines uh big expose on uh recently departed Eugene Melnick prompting many to say too soon and many others uh to say uh well if the story is that a bunch of people wouldn't speak out because they were afraid of reprisal until the guy was literally not alive anymore, that actually makes it more of a story.

Yeah. So, I mean, I don't think we have to guess where both of us kind of fell on the too soon debate. We both were like, no, the appropriate time is any time. The appropriate time for a story like this is when the story is ready. And I can tell you, you know, the reason this story didn't. go out when Eugene Melnick was still alive is that it wasn't ready yet. It hadn't, you know, everybody, especially when you're talking about some of the allegations and some of the stories that are included in this, you've got to be sure and you've got to

really know that you're being accurate and you're being fair and all of that. And there's, you've got to get it to the finish line. And it wasn't there yet. They, that team had been working on this for a long time. This was not something that just Eugene Melnick died and everybody said, hey, let's write a story about him. This was, I think Ian has said 95% of the way there, but it had been sort of stuck at 95% for a little while. And the unfortunate truth is when Eugene Melnick passed away,

some people who had been afraid to speak up were now willing to speak up. And that's what, nudget it over the finish line. An important story is like if people were so afraid that he would fire them or try to ruin their life or whatever. Yep. This whole time, that actually, again, that like makes it more important. Yeah. Because it's like, you know, the culture of fear or whatever, like, or, you know, the detail in the story that people would get fired and then show up the next day like nothing.

happened and nothing would happen. You know, like just, you know, it's not a really, it doesn't sound like the best place to work. And so the fact that all these people were like, yeah, I literally want to wait until he's not alive anymore to, like, speak out about this because I can finally breathe easier. Like, that's crazy. And as I, as I said on the other show, and if, you know, if, you know, if, if, If you haven't heard it, I mean, first of all, please do read the story.

And then on my show with Ian, who's one of the reporters on the story, we talked more about the timing and everything. And then there was a roundtable with he and Katie and Dan to go over the sort of the process of reporting this out. But the point I made on that show is this story doesn't belong to Eugene Melnick. This isn't a Eugene Melnick story. We've had a million Eugene Melnick stories. This is a story about the people who worked for him and were around him and had to deal with him. And it's their story, not his. And you don't just toss this story because he's no longer here.

And in fact, the reporters, I think it was Katie, who said that, you know, they, they, you know, when he did pass, they heard from some of the sources in the story saying, please tell me you're not going to spike the story now. and, you know, they couldn't. So then it came down to the timing and when do you, when do you go with it and when is too soon, if there even is such a thing? And look, if they waited two months, had a story that was done and ready to go and they waited two months, then, you know, in two months, first of all, there's still going to be people who say too soon. And there's going to be other people who say too late. Who cares?

It's, you know, it's moved on. The other piece of this is a lot of the behavior of Eugene Melnick that's outlined in that story, was not a secret as far as, you know, there were people in the senator's organization who must have known about this, including some who were still there. There were people in the league office who were alerted to some of this, including some that are still there. So the story's not over just because Eugene Melnik has gone. There are some tough questions that I think need to be asked of some of the people who are around it saying, you know, did you know about this? What did you do about it? Did you do anything for the employees who were having to work

in these conditions. Those are all fair questions. And, you know, I will say that I, I mean, obviously, Ian, I've known Ian since we were kids. And I'll, I will stand up for, for him and his, you know, his ethics. More cronyism at the athletic, right, folks? No, I mean, I will, like, anyone who wants to go after Ian, it's, put it this way. People, people listen to this podcast, they think I'm the nice guy. I go out with Ian. And I come back going like, wow, I'm a piece of shit because, man, I'm awful compared to this guy. He's, you know, he's beyond reproach in my eyes. And, I mean, Katie, Katie Strang and Dan Robson, two of the great, you know, investigative reporters.

You're going to go after them. It's crazy. I mean, it's, I think reading the story, I think it's pretty clear that they bent over backwards to be as fair as they possibly could to Eugene Melnick under the circumstances. And I guess I'll leave it at that. But there are, you know, there's a lot to this story left as far as, you know, maybe some follow-up questions to be asked and whether somebody will ask them, you know, maybe the same reporters will or, you know, we'll see where it goes.

but I mean it's I don't think it's ever too soon to tell the truth about powerful people who have had enormous influence. And whatever you think of Eugene Melnick otherwise, he certainly fits that description. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, we'll move on here. So with the season winding down, one of the things I wanted to do is I haven't seen a lot of this is like circling back to the deadline or the run up to the deadline. deadline and looking at like the big trades that people made. And the thing that really kind of inspired this for me is like the Wilds turnaround in goal. I mentioned it earlier.

Since the deadline, they have the best team save percentage in the league are pretty close to it. Talbot's like 927, Flurries, 921, 922, something like that. So it's just like, like, I wanted to check in on how everybody is doing with this, basically. So, first of all, I just took the guys, like the 10 or 11 guys who seem, I don't know, the most impactful. So, like, I don't want to hear about, well, you guys didn't talk about, like, Nick Letty. Yeah, okay, that's fine. I feel like nobody's, nobody's hurt by us neglecting to talk about the fucking fifth best defense.

As long as Travis Hamanick is on the list, I'm good. Yeah, there you go, right? So let's go in alphabetical order by player. And we'll start with Andrew Copp in New York. Scoring a lot. Yeah, I didn't realize that he was scoring a play the game. Yeah, more than that. Yeah, he's been very good.

All indications are that the Rangers want to resign him. which he's going to cost a fair bit of money, and I don't know if he's a guy whose game necessarily holds up long term, but like that's really all you need to know about him. And like his underlying numbers with the Rangers are also insanely good. He's 56.6.6 expected goals in all situations. That's bananas. So it's super duper worked out for the Rangers.

And, I mean, he's shooting 17%. Sure. And I'm sure, you know. I'm shooting percent. I can look it up right now. But it's quite high, I'm sure. Most of his, you know, over half his assists or secondary assists, et cetera. But you know what?

Maybe sometimes it's just a good fit. And I'm with you. I wouldn't be given this guy like six, seven, eight years. But sometimes it legitimately is just the right fit. And maybe that's what's happened here. I mean, it's certainly at the very least, if you're the Rangers, you're not. regretting the deal at all. No, absolutely.

You're getting everything that you were to ask for. And to your point about he's got a high shooting percentage, he's only exceeding his individual expected goals by 0.08, which, you know, I guess that is 20% above what the expected number is. But it's not like insane. Yep. So he's just been a solidly good player. Like I think that worked out.

The less said about Justin Braun, who was their other Big Deadline. pick up the better, I think. But yeah, how about this one? Jack Eichel to the Vegas Golden Knights, has it worked out? Well, I mean, it hasn't worked out obviously in the sense that this was supposed to be

the final piece that put them over the hump to being cup favorites, and it certainly has not been that. I don't know that you blame Jack Eichel for it. Right. Right. And, you know, this is a guy who doesn't play hockey for, I don't remember, 14 months, something like that, like more than a year. And, you know, really can't even, like, skate very much during that time. And he comes back and he has 12 goals and 21 points and 29 games on a team that's pretty badly banged up. I mean, obviously, we got to wait to see how the cookie crumbles with the impact of having Jack Eichael on the cap. They're going to have to make the decision.

And that would be the argument, right? The argument would be at least as far as this season, not only, you know, has, like, Jack Eichael's been good, but it doesn't be. I mean, I think even coming off an injury, you probably expect point a game from a guy like this. And he hasn't been that. And meanwhile, over in Buffalo, Alex Tuck has been productive and, you know, at a similar rate at half the cap hit. And that would be the argument is, you know, if you're Vegas, you're saying, if we don't make this trade, we've got maybe a similar level of production from Alex Tuck. And we don't, we're not in cap hell, you know, or at least we're in $5 million less of cap hell. You know, they took a big swing, and so far it hasn't worked.

The other thing on this is, you know, unlike a lot of these trades we're going to be talking about, Jack Eichols got years and years left on his deal. This wasn't a one-time, let's see how this season goes. Yeah, it's not a rental, yeah. It could still work out great in hindsight, but not off to a great start. And I don't know that that's Jack Eichael's fault. It's definitely not his fault. But, yeah, I think I think you're right about that.

But this is going to be like he's now the new Taylor Hall, right? Like as far as being the guy where, you know, losing seems to now follow him a little bit. I got two words for you. Born loser, Jack Eichel. That's it. You know, like, yeah. Next up, Mark Andre Fleury, we mentioned it. I think Minnesota does this trade over 500 times.

No problem. No questions asked. I don't even really need to talk about it too much. much. He's been very, very good. And, you know, it seems like, you know, maybe this is a little bit storyline making, narrative making, but like, it seems like it kind of made Cam Talbic go, oh, maybe I should stop playing like shit. Yeah, yeah. Like that like it's a little. That obviously that's dicey, but like we, we've seen it before where like having a guy who's like pretty clearly a starter but isn't playing that well, gets pushed a little bit by a guy

who is 100% intended to take his job. We saw this. I'm trying to think we're, oh, Vegas with Mark Andre Fleury a couple years ago. Yeah. Yeah. Would you buy into this idea that like part of the nightmare season in Vegas is that they made the same mistake that Pittsburgh made, which is they didn't realize that like basically Mark Andre Fleury is such a wonderful guy that his absence dooms teams, much like it did with, you know,

the penguins took a step back when they moved on from him, Vegas. Chicago doesn't really have a step back to take, but... Yeah, I think it's more that Lehner was hurt for a good chunk of the year. That could be part of it too. Did not help. All right, Mark... Maybe Flurry would have told him not to do that. That's a good point.

How about Mark Giordano in Toronto? He's been real good. Boy, has he? Obviously, he had that overtime winner last the other night and then combined for that really nice old guy goal the other day. Love an old guy goal. 62% expected goals for this guy? Whoa, boy.

He's playing with Lilligan, right? Yeah, mostly, yeah. Yeah. They've looked unbelievable to you. together. Like every underlying number is like, oh, no, it's actually insane how good they've been. And I think the Leafs are something like 12 and 2 since the trade. He has really, really helped. You know, Jake Muzzins out again. Like he's, Giordano has really stabilized that. In fact, it, like, it reminds me a little bit of like when, when the Leafs made the Brian Leach deal back in 2004.

And like, he came in and you're like, oh, crap, this guy's still really good. A different level of player and, you know, more of an offensive guy. But now, that year, the Leifes went out in the first round stills or in the second round. And so, you know, nobody looks back on that as being like a huge successful deal. And obviously, like anything else in Toronto, it's going to be judged on the playoffs. But he's been, if not a perfect fit, a really, really good fit in Toronto. Yeah, he's been exactly what you would want. For a couple of second round picks, not even a question.

The Leaves wouldn't take that again. How about this. When he's on the ice, they score six. 60% of the goals, despite the fact that behind him, the Toronto goaltenders have so far given him an 881 save percentage. Wow. That's how dominant they've been. Yeah. That's fucking crazy.

I have been, I mean, obviously, you know, he'd been in Calgary his whole career and then he goes to Seattle. I didn't realize, I mean, I realized how good he was. He got won the Norris, but I didn't realize how good he still was for sure. Yeah. I mean, he honestly, like, wasn't that great. like he was very good but he wasn't like he wasn't anywhere near this in calgary last year and then in in seattle uh he was awful well not awful but like very much below what you would expect from even like a middle pairing defenseman you know um and yeah you put him with a guy

who can with a couple of guys who can actually play uh-oh look out yep you know um so yeah an unequivocal win. But as you say, that won't be so unequivocal if they don't win in the playoffs. So who cares about the regular season? Claude Giroux. Great. He's, I think I mentioned this when the Leafs had that wild game against the Panthers. Again, I didn't expect him to be this good, but he was everywhere in that game. Like he was very, very, and you know, that's the danger, right? When you trade for an older guy who said success in the past, but not recently, like, am I buying name value?

Am I buying memories and reputation? He looks re-energized and he looks like just a fantastic fit for that team. Yeah, and he's got a ton of points, even though he's only shooting like 5% or something. Like, he only has two goals. but he's still contributing to the offense and blah, blah, blah, like, yeah, you know, like you, I was a little skeptical just based on, well, look, like, you know, he hasn't been himself, but they, you know, Florida, unlike Philadelphia, was in a position to, like, help him succeed.

Yeah. I thought he was going to be good. I did not, you know, to me, I hate to say it, but it was almost like the idea. test even. It was just like, you know, when you were watching the Panthers, you know, obviously he's, you notice Barkov all the time, you notice Huberto all the time. I was like, man, this, who's that? Who's that kid out there flying around?

And it's, oh, that's grizzled veteran Claude Jaroo. Awesome. Yeah. And, but just to speak to the power of the Panthers overall, Ben Chirot, do you know what his expect of goals, uh, percentages at five on five this year? Um, I'm going to say. Did they get them all the way up to 50%? 61.5.

Yikes. That team's good, man. Yeah, they're really good. I hope they go. I really hope they just, as a neutral fan, if I was one, man, I hope they could go all the way. Yeah. What a fun team.

Absolutely. Let's see here. Where is he? Where is he? Brandon Hagel to Tampa. Yeah. Is he given two first round picks worth of? production?

So he only has three goals, no assists in 16 games, so no. Maybe if the lightning had some finishers, he could get some assists. Yeah, that's exactly right. But, you know, his underlying numbers are fine, but here's the tricky part for him. They're shooting less than 5% when he's on the ice, and their save percentage when he's on the ice. far has been 851. Oof. 8.51 folks.

Wow. That's like one in every seven-ish shots going in the net, seven and a half-ish. That's not really sustainable in either direction when your P.O is like 90-ish, 91. He's a minus six, which is, you know, plus minus is bad, of course. To only be a minus six with those numbers is actually. pretty impressive. I'm going to be honest with you. So, yeah,

you know, I think, I think what I would say is every underlying number, except goals for percentage, is solid. And so the, you know, the,

the, the low cap hit and the locked inness of his contract. Like, I think this is one the lightning would do again. But obviously, like you just kind of got to go, hey, where are you going to do? Percentages run against you sometimes, you know?

Yeah. Although I'm looking at like his on-ice say percentages in, well, I was going to say his entire career, but I don't know. It's because he was 88% last year, 87% this year with Chicago, now down to 86%. But that's, it's still a really small sample. And Chicago's goaltending famously kind of stunk last year. Huh? Is that true?

Yeah. Yeah, they traded for a guy in the offseason. And a defenseman. So they fixed it, though. It's good. Oh, okay. That's good. Yeah.

And I'm just going to look up really quickly who he plays with. Yeah, Cerelli and Colton. Yeah. He's third line guy. They're trying to sort of get that. Colorn. Yeah. Yeah.

Trying to get that Coleman Goodro Magic back on the third line, which, yeah. They got time to figure it out. He's not there to score. He's, you know, he's there to be the, you know, need a little bit of scoring from your depth in a playoff run, but no, I did see the other day Ross Colton's up to like 20-something

goals this year or something like that. Like, whatever the number, he scored in whatever game I was watching. And I was just like, really? Ross Colton has that many fucking goals? Yeah, 19. Would you have ever guessed that in your entire life? That Ross Colton could be a 19-20 goal guy in the NBA?

I would not have no. No. Yeah, crazy. So good for him. It scored a Stanley Cup winning goal. recently. All right, let's go on to Marcus Johansson to the Washington Capitals. A guy that he's only gotten into 12 games. I don't think he's produced very much. But again, like, yeah, two goals of a secondary assist.

His underlines are fine. And so if you're ringing him in for depth and he didn't cost very much, like I think that all makes sense. And plus, he's like a known quantity to them. he's another guy with like an 850 something save percentage when he's on the ice so it's not really his fault that they're getting outscored when he's on the ice they I don't know if you heard about this Washington maybe has a little bit of a goaltending problem I'm surprised it hasn't come up um so yeah they're you know again but he doesn't cost him very much I think

that's fine I believe he's you know he's playing a little bit of power play time he's kind of been nudging up playing a bit with backstrom on the second line. Like, you would like some more production. But if anything, you're right. He didn't cost much. If anything, the question when the capital's got him was, did they, like, did they get enough?

Is that what they should be getting versus, you know, should they have addressed the goaltending or something else? And I think if they do end up making an early exit, it's not going to be because Marcus Johansson didn't do enough. It's going to be because maybe Marcus Johansson was all that they went and got. Right. Yeah, you know, it's, yeah, if you're making decisions based on, well, look, we got to, the guy we can bring in is Marcus Johansson, you're not exactly like, and we hope he saves our season. Yeah.

So. Yep. Hamas Linholm in Boston. Hasn't played a ton of games. He's only played seven games so far. But everything he's done besides stay healthy. he's been fucking incredible at. He's been exactly what they thought they were trading for.

Just a question of, you know, it's into that, he's not playing this week and we're into that kind of section of the year where you never know what that means. That can mean anything from, you know, he's day to day, I believe, as opposed to anything that they've said is long term. But day to day can mean anything from he's got a very, very slight injury, and we're just resting him up for the playoffs versus he can barely walk, but we're going to throw him out there anyways because it's that time of year.

So it really doesn't tell you anything. But when healthy, yeah, he's been a great fit. Yeah. Not a lot else to say that they're exact. He's exactly what they've needed him to be, which is help on the blue line, especially. Again, they can't stay healthy back there. So that's great. Defenseman, maybe we're less enthenths.

about Josh Manson. Yeah. It hasn't been particularly good. Cheap, for sure. But, you know, on a team like the Colorado Avalanche, you don't want to be in the 45% XG range. No. You know?

Or, or indeed, the 39% goals for range. So, you know, I, they brought them in for depth. They didn't cost very much. I think that's fine. but knowing how some of the other defensemen we've talked about shook out, maybe there's a little bit of buyer's remorse, but also, again, like. And you got to remember the timing, right?

Like, they went and got him, he was like the first big move of the days leading up to the deadline. Didn't cost a ton. Didn't have to give up the first. And people kind of went, okay. And then like the Ben Chirot. deal happens and a couple of other forward moves happen and prices seem high and everyone goes, oh my God, the avalanche did great. They got in before the market went crazy. And then you had like Giordano and Lindholm and guys like that where now maybe you look at it and say maybe they

should have waited. But Joe Sackick's pretty good at this. Yeah, far be it for us to second guess old Joe Sackick. He seems to have a plan for everything. does you know that's fine Ricard Raquel to Pittsburgh I always forget that that one even happened

he's been I think the penguins kind of forget that as well he's actually been pretty good but like he's not um is he like the the like

oh this is what's going to kick our offense into high gear no not really you know and I mean and has been playing a little bit on the first line with Crosby. So I mean, but again, like, it's Pittsburgh.

That's not necessarily a, you know, they could get a, you know, random fan could be a 45 point there. The Mark Donk scenario. I always got the feeling with, with that deal that like, you know, Burke was on deadline day, one of the shows earlyish, like around lunchtime. And he was like, we're not, we're probably not doing anything.

And I actually believed him. Like, I didn't feel like a smoke screen. I feel like that just kind of fell into their lap late. I agree. I didn't move them and they circled back and said, you know, slapped the 20% off discount sticker on him. And Pittsburgh was like, yeah, what the hell? So, you know, it's sort of anything they get is,

I'm not going to say anything they get as a bonus, because obviously they did give up assets to get them, but I don't think they were expecting the world from him. And he's actually been pretty good. Yeah. Yeah, he mostly played with Malkin. at least to start, and then they didn't really do a ton. And the numbers have gotten better with playing with Crosby more recently.

So I guess what you would say is hopefully it's trending in the right direction for them. But again, they didn't have to give up a huge amount to get them. So that seems like it's fine. Like you say, if this is a trade that dropped into their lap and it's a player, I think, We can all say, oh, yeah, we like that guy. You know? You take it. Last one here.

Tyler Tofoli, obviously, he's played almost as many games with the Flames at this point as he did with Montreal. Started hot, maybe not so much lately. Yeah, he's cooled off. Yeah. But again, like a player the team controls, a team that, or a player the, the, again, everybody recognized, yeah, that guy's good. you can play, you know? Yep.

So, yeah, I think Calgary, again, does that trade a hundred times out of 100. This is Godrow, Kachuk insurance, all that kind of stuff. Like, very easy decision, but, yeah, he has cooled off. He has cooled off, and the only thing you maybe worry a little bit about is, you know, he was on Montreal, and I don't know if you remember this, but Montreal had a long playoff run last year. What? And they, yeah, it's, uh, it's, uh,

Is he may be hitting a bit of that, that wall that we talked about, fatigue-wise? But I'm not, I'm not worried about that yet. Let's see. Let's let them get back on. But yeah, he definitely, he was, he looked like an A-plus a few weeks ago, and it's cooled off a bit since then, but still, you know, still a solid move. Yep. And you're right.

Not one that is just being judged based on. this year. Yeah. This is what? What's you got? Two years left after this one? Yeah, I think it was a four-year deal, wasn't it? Yeah. So there you go. All right. We'll wrap up here with two quick things. Some sad news. Mike Bossy obviously passed away. Everybody knows about that. And it seems like Gila Fleur is also maybe, you know, there were some jumping the gun, let's say, on his. Canadians put out a statement basically. saying that they understand that people are concerned with his health but have asked for privacy So much like the bossy thing a couple of weeks ago, it gets...

Almost identical. So, I mean, just two guys that, you know, I'm at that age where I didn't get to watch Gila Fleur in his prime. You know, I saw him later towards Ian in Montreal and then his comeback. and just I was so young with Mike Bossy's prime that it was like to me I was like oh I guess there's just always a guy who scores 60 goals every year

and then only later realized that it wasn't just I mean two of the greats two absolute legends you know just phenomenal offensive players Mike Bossy you could make a case as the greatest goal scorer in the history of the NHL period

and Gila Fleur I mean, at this point, right? I mean, if we could say Gretzky Lemieux, there's other guys, but bossies, you can't put it this way,

you can't have the conversation without my bossy at all. Bingo, yeah. And then, you know, Gila Fleur, not just, you know, a legendary player, but, you know, just the look, right?

The hair flying back, you know, in the forum, going down the wing. I mean, this is, even if you weren't a hockey fan, if you were a sports fan in the 70s, like, that's what a hockey player is.

player look like to you. That was, you know, a Montreal Canadian, uh, it was, uh, you know, just, just an absolute, absolute legend. So, um, yeah, I mean, thoughts with, uh, you know, with them, families and, and, and the fan bases, because it's, uh, you know, and especially in Montreal where, you know, not only Lafleur was a legend, but, but Mike Bossi was a Montreal kid and always they had a lot of affection for him there and it was you know maybe in some sense a little bit fitting that the islanders were in Montreal the day that he did that he passed and there was yes nice tribute there that was yeah um but yeah you know we're we're we're we're getting to that age where all the

players that everybody talked about when we were kids are just gonna this is gonna keep happening you know yeah unfortunately I mean both of them still though you know relatively young in their 60s. It's very, very tough news. Yeah. And then the last thing we wanted to talk about today is you had asked me to explain what happened with Hobie Baker-winning goaltender, Dryden McKay. Because he has been banned by an anti-doping agency, the U.S. antedoping agency, I believe,

for six months for taking a supplement that can. contained an unknown but banned substance. So, yeah, I mean, the story is that, like, around the time he was going to be an alternate for Team USA going to the Olympics. I was a little surprised that they didn't fully name him to the team at the time. But he was always going to be an alternate. and around that time he started taking a supplement, which contained a banned substance that it didn't advertise on the label or anything like that. And so, yeah, I mean, that's basically what happened.

He tested positive. He's like, that's really weird. I don't know why that happened. And the company that, made it like shipped a sealed bottle to the testing lab and they were like yep it's in here and it's not on the label so yeah we should say that because i i'm i always am very very skeptical whenever you hear the oh it was a tainted supplements yeah uh you know like we've heard that a million times but in this case you know actually now now was it the like did the the

Olympic doping, not clear him, but reduce the penalty, or is this all coming from the U.S.? This is all coming from the U.S. ADA, yeah. Yeah, okay. And, yeah, so it's a situation where, you know, people, people are a little bit mad about it because he, how do I want to put this? He, so like, he just went through the full appeals process of like, you know, okay, well, we got, like, yeah, I tested positive for this band substance, but like, let's start the process of being like, this isn't my fault, basically. And that all happened during the college hockey season. Yeah. And nobody knew about this, right?

Or was this, were there rumors? Were there anything like? No, no, I didn't hear a single word about this at all, all. day, or all season, I mean. Like, it just came out. You know, he got cleared or his basically, if he hadn't appealed, he would have missed, like, the NCAA tournament, the entire thing. Yeah. But because he appealed, it gave him just enough time to make it all the way to the national championship game and when the Hobie Baker.

And then all this comes out. Right. So it happens. He was originally banned four years. They knocked it down to six months because they were like, yeah, this is pretty clearly unintentional. But like, you've got to be smarter about what you put in. Like, that's the lesson. And also, at least according to him and again, take him with a great assault, because we hear this all the time.

But the amount was so small. Like a trillionth of, like he had just started taking the supplement. So it's not like one of these things where, you know, some people would say like, yeah, even if you were accidentally taking performance enhancing substances, if it was still enhancing your performance, does that take? And you did it for six months or whatever, right, but. And the answer would seem to be no. Yeah. So, right. Like, he, I fully buy that this was unintentional.

Now, again, like, this becomes a question that some people might have about like, well, part of the reason. that he won the Hobie Baker over other players, including a goalie who won the goalie of the year award and not the Hobie Baker, is that like his character is such a big aspect of it.

And when people in college hockey say character, they mostly mean he played more college hockey than the other guy. He played like three or four years instead of one or two. Yeah. And now, so the question everybody has is if people knew about this, did they vote for him to win the Hobie Baker, I think even if we're going to do what I'm doing, which is saying, you know, he didn't mean to do this.

There was no intentionality there. I think that probably does cost him some votes, honestly. And it maybe means he doesn't win the Hobie, but he's still in the top three or something like that. That totally makes sense to me. but the only thing I got to say is, boy, I'm glad I didn't get up on my high horse and get all sanctimonious about character matters and this kind of thing. And then the guy gets banned by an anti-doping agency. I'm glad I wasn't the one that that happened to. But again, I don't think he did it on purpose or anything like that.

Okay. All right. I will take your vouching for him into consideration and maybe give him the benefit of the doubt. Yeah, like I say, I mean, the lesson here is obviously, like, if you're an athlete who is subject to this kind of testing. And to be clear, like, there is this kind of testing in NCAA hockey, but it's fully randomized. And McKay says he was never tested once in his four years, which I guess is just kind of how it goes for a lot of guys. but under greater scrutiny, this kind of thing can happen to anybody. So that's the lesson here.

Sean, what do you got to plug, my friend? What do I have to plug? You know, I'm at The Athletic. You can find my writing there. The weekly power rankings are winding down, obviously, for the season. so you can see how that all shakes out and check out my podcast with Ian Mendez

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