Puck Soup - Evason Out

Episode Date: November 28, 2023

Sean and Ryan talk about the Wild's coaching change, the breaking Patrick Kane news, All-Star Thursday and more.  Sponsored by Gametime (download the Gametime app and use code PUCK for $20 off), HelloFresh (hellofresh.com/pucksoupfree) and Nuts.com (nuts.com/puck)

Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slap shots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to what if you commute. But we also cover movies, TV shows, it's and tunes. It's your weekly bowl of hockey and nonsense. I'm Ryan Lambert from Elite Prospects. I'm Sean McIndoo from The Athletic. And, you know, anytime we do these Tuesday shows, I'm going on vacation. starting tomorrow.

So we had to do this one on Tuesday. And I'm often worried. Like, are we going to really have to talk about like blank? Like, that's really all there is going on. I don't have to worry about that today. Yep. We got stuff. A lot's happened in the last, let's say, 24 hours.

And you can go even back further than that since the last show. But like in the last 24 hours alone, the news has been crazy. So let's just start with what I think is the biggest one. The Minnesota Wilde have fired Dean Eveson and replaced him with John Hines. Let's take the firing news first because I think these are two very important twin aspects of it. What did you say? I don't think it comes as a shock. I've been sort of tracking in my weekly power rankings.

I would say it was maybe two or hopefully three weeks ago where I was like, well, the wild are in trouble. But, you know, Evans is probably still safe. And then it was, you know,

they're still not straightening it out. And then I think it was this week where I was like, they're just flat out bad. Like they're, they're not going anywhere. And so, yeah, I mean,

when you get into that situation, And you've got a coach who's been there a little while, you start to think, okay, we're on the downside of our curve with this guy. So I wasn't shocked. You know, the timing you can always argue for having taken a little more time, but, you know, especially when Bill Guerin had kind of been doing the rounds lately, expressing that he was not thrilled with how things were going. I don't think it was too hard to see that this was maybe coming.

No, I agree. Like, I think it was, there was a story from when they went to Minnesota or to Sweden where, like, Bill Garron gave him, like, cut the shit guy's speech and then nothing happened, right? Like, the same speech that Mike Greer gave in San Jose that seems to have worked. Yeah, because the sharks now have the same number of wins as the Minnesota Wild. Oof. Okay. Uh-oh. Never a good sign.

Yeah. You want to know the real fucked up part, though? Mm-hmm. One more regulation win for San Jose than Minnesota. Imagine being, imagine cheering for a team that was tied with the sharks and regulation wins. Ah, wouldn't that be awful? Yeah, yeah, look, Sheldon Keith stays are number two. We can discuss that when the time comes.

Got an extension. I got to say, you know, just... Didn't Dean Everson get an extension? Am I wrong about this? He may have. I got to say, there is, I'm not saying that if the Leafs fired Sheldon Keith, that I think Dean Eveson would be the best coach for them to hire. But after watching this group, like, just drag their behinds through,

God knows how many seasons now, there is a part of me that just wants Steve and Everson to get hired just to go in there and wreck that whole dressing room. Like, yeah. By the way, Everson extension in 2021. Okay. Not last year. And you never know.

I find these days we hear a lot about extensions and then they turn out to be like, it's like an extra week. It was multi-year, it said, in the headline. I did not click further. You know, I'm trying to do a podcast here. Sure. But, um, rude. Yeah. So I guess let's talk about why Everson got fired apart from they weren't winning games, right?

Like, obviously they weren't winning games. goes without saying when a coach gets fired, unless it's like a Lou Lamarillo team, in which case, you know, your guess is as good as anybody's. But I think there were three things going on for the Wilde that killed them. Boldy and Caprizov, stinky this year. That's number one.

The defense, which has been like the hallmark of the Dean Everson Wilde, I would say, like one of the best, like, we don't give up anything teams in the league. league. They weren't giving up a ton. They were like middle of the pack and a lot of defensive metrics. But that's obviously way worse than you're used to there. And then the goal I can't make a fucking save. Yep.

And that last one is usually what gets a couple. That is like the reason. Yeah, I guess I went in a reverse order of what their problem is. Because if the defense was playing a little bit better, a scosh better, you might say, well look I mean you know the defense has been kind of hollowed out over the last little while and Jared Spurgeon obviously missed some time this year so you could say like oh you know if if they got him going blah blah blah but yeah man uh the the goalie who's playing better has an 881 save percentage which one is that who gave that goalie a bunch of no it's the other one

it's gustavson the guy you might remember him from super good last year yeah and you might remember him from the guy who got a pretty decent extension this season, or this summer, I mean. That's probably how you remember him. But I guess, do you want to just put it all on, not all, I guess, but mostly on the goaltending? Because it does feel like, you know, if they were getting even league average goaltending, we wouldn't have this discussion. I don't think it's all of it. I do think that those, the slumping forwards, especially boldy. Like, that's got to worry you. as an organization that you just gave this young kid. Yep. A great big contract that a lot of us at the time said, hey, you know, it's always a gamble,

but betting on elite young talent is usually a winning bet. And it's, you got to get him back on track. The other thing with them is that the special teams are just a mess. Penalty kill, especially. So that does typically get thrown at the feet of the coaches. The PK is interesting only because, you know, you say how much of that is goaltending versus how much of that is the team in front of the goalie. And I would say 60, 40, you know, it's the goal, again, the goalies are just like waving at three quarters of the shots they face and hoping it goes okay. And, you know, the team isn't, again, their team is just not playing great in front of them either.

but, you know, it's a little bit chicken and egg there, I would say. But again, the part of the game, the coach has the most control over his special teams. So, this is a classic thing of, to me, okay, yeah, you're mad at the coach. I get, I get why. He's not, he's not delivering how you'd like him to deliver. And the players are maybe like not playing for him or whatever you want to say. say. But you fire the coach and the question becomes who do you want to replace them with? And the answer is John fucking Heinz, man?

Is there anyone out there who has been fired a couple of times already? I mean, look, there's people in hockey that rave about this guy. All I can do is look at the results and the results don't necessarily have me thinking that this is necessarily. an upgrade, but... Yeah. Again, if you're going to fire your coach, who do you turn to? That is part... I mean, it's very easy for us to always say, you know, hey, go get that...

You got to make a change. But sometimes... Sometimes you make a change in hire John Hines. And that it's like, oh, you know, I think people who... Excuse me. I think people who have listened to this podcast for a long time. Well, remember, when he got hired in Nashville, I was like, huh? Him?

Mm-hmm. You know? I don't think it's a coincidence, let's say, that he gets fired in New Jersey. And, like, a year later, we're all talking about, like, oh, is Jack Hughes one of the best players in the world? You know? Mm-hmm. I also don't think it's a coincidence that, uh, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, he was one. you know, yes, we're brat.

You could say the same thing about, I have a very good friend who's a Devils fan, who it doesn't work for ESPN, who's like, you know, Nico Heeshire kind of took off, to a lesser extent, but kind of took off a little more offensively after Heinz got out of there.

And like, it's not like they replaced John Heinz with John Cooper, you know, they went out and got Lindy Ruff, a guy who didn't have the greatest track record in recent. years. And now everybody's like, oh, Lindy Ruff, like the guy who probably should have won the Jack Adams last year? Is that the guy?

Mm-hmm. You know? I don't know, man. Like, I just, I look at what he did in Nashville. I'm looking at his resume right now. Yep. I'll throw this a. He has coached nine seasons of which two have been half seasons.

He was really well, it's the same season. He was fired by the devils and then. relatively quickly hired by the Predators. So seven full seasons, six of which were 80 plus games, so there was also the shortened season. Never had 100 points. Never had over 600 win percentage. Nope.

Never finished higher than fourth in his division. That one hurts to heat. Never won a playoff round. Yeah. And look, you know, he was coaching. Some of that was... Yeah, some of that was with a rebuilding Devils team. Some of it was with the Nashville team that, I mean, it's...

I guess we should say it's not like Nashville has taken off without him. I mean, they actively tried to make the roster worse after he left. No, they tried to make the roster more culture-based and character-based or whatever else. I don't think they thought they were getting worse. I'll say this, though. I'm seeing, oh, you know, 45 wins two seasons ago in Nashville, 42 last year. They didn't make the playoffs last year. Just missed.

And I'm saying, you know who did a great job coaching that team was Yossi Soros, the goalie, who was one of the best, the three best in the world for pretty much the entire time he was in Nashville. And has not been good this year, which, again, you know, it just goes to show. That's your answer. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, I guess the flow chart on the decision making is do we need to make a change to and to use the cliche for the sake of making a change? Sometimes coaching, maybe you feel like you have to do that.

That's the one card you can play to shake up a room. If so, and Dean Neveson strikes me as a guy where I don't know if he's a short shelf life coach, but when the shelf life ends, it, you know, it probably ends. I feel like this guy probably goes bad like an avocado. Like, this is not, you don't have a long time to think about it. So then you got to say, all right, who's out there? And I guess, you know, do you look at the guys who are out there? Boy, it would have been fascinating if they had hired Jay Woodcroft.

That would have been something. Sure. But here's the thing. Lots of people would say he's the best coach out there right. now, but... Well, here's what you're forgetting. Did Jay Woodcroft coach Wilkes Bar, Scranton, with Bill Garon? You know, that's a great point. That's a great point.

It's so funny. People were talking last week about... Carter McDavid actually hates that people are reading into all the guys they hired being like guys he wants, you know? The new president of the team, the new coach, the $4 million-dollar winger who's sucks, you know, or whatever, Connor Brown's making, you see my point. And it's like, isn't it every time someone gets hired or signed in this league,

oh, yeah, they knew each other from back at Cushing a cat, whatever it is, you know? Every time anybody, any personnel decision is made in the entire league, it always ties back to, well, he knows this guy from here. But then, you know, it happens three times in the space of six months with Connor McDavid. And it's like, don't say that about him. How dare you? Oh, okay.

Yeah, it makes a lot of sense, man. But it does rarely happen with players. The GM or the team president, you're right. It's just, oh, boy. Well, look, you can say what you want about hiring the coach or signing Connor Brown, right? But, like, getting Connor McDavid's agent to run the team, that's a Connor McDavid-based decision. I don't know how else to put it to you. I'm not saying Connor McDavid had anything to do with them making that decision.

Mm-hmm. But they made that decision. You don't think it was a coincidence that he just walked in and, like, first day on the job? They're like, hey, by the way, what did you used to do? He was like, well, it's funny. They're like, we should introduce you to Connor, and he's like, you guys are going to laugh when you hear this, but. The craziest coincidence here. Connor?

I actually have already met. You're actually signing a healthy, he's signing a healthy percentage of his paycheck over to me until 25 minutes ago. Mm-hmm. But, yeah, I, you know, it. It's just one of those things where it's like he just called the first guy he knew who had NHL coaching experience, which I haven't seen, I guess I haven't seen the term on this deal. Like they did name him, he's not an interim coach, but I wonder how much time he actually has with this roster. But this is the other thing that, you know, people have certainly brought this up. I'm not saying I'm a genius for thinking of this.

Do you think maybe the fact that this team is carrying like a $15 million salary cap penalty? or whatever the number is. You think that maybe hurt them a little bit in terms of like retaining guys they would have retained or being able to sign guys to replace the guys they let walk? You might think so. You think that maybe has an impact? You might think so.

But it's funny, right? Because they made those buyouts. A lot of us were very shocked with the suitor one, Paris A, not so much, but, and we looked at it. We went on, they got all this dead money. They're screwed. And I thought they'd be fine. I totally thought they'd be fine with it.

But, and they were last year. They were fine last year. The penalty wasn't that much different. And it, and I think a lot of us kind of looked at it and went, well, maybe we were a little too quick to, to jump on that. Maybe Bill Guerin figured it out. I tell you, man, Bill Guerin is the, if he was a stock, it's plummeting right now. Yep, totally. Totally agree.

I'm not even saying fairly necessary. because, you know, I think we probably get too caught up in short-ish-term results when it comes to GMs especially. But he kind of went from, man, this guy really knows what he's doing. He's handling this. And now everyone's looking at him going, dude, what are you even doing? And I see that, and like when I say that, like, I'm seeing a lot of wild fans who are. That's what I mean, yeah. Like I said, I thought they could weather the storm.

And they, and with the huge cap penalty. and they did last year. No question about it, they did. But nobody can weather a storm with 880 goal tending. I think it really does just boil down to that. Yeah, Caprizov, you know, it's one of those things. You can get away with it with the cap penalty. When Caprizov is, what does he make?

Like, nine and a half or something, nine? When he's playing like an $11 million player, which he did last year or two years ago, you're fine. but when he's playing like a $7 million player all of a sudden and you can't get the stops I guess all of a sudden it's like we gotta take a hard look at some stuff here

you know I'd be interested to see if Heinz can get the offense going because I think that the defense doesn't need a lot of working on you know these two goalies as much as I might you know, say it was a risk to go into the season with Mark Andre Fleury as your backup.

I don't think we're getting 880 Philip Gustafson all year. Mm-hmm. Which means it potentially puts Heinz in a good situation to come in. Yeah, he looks like a goalie genius. I told you a Csisaros to go out there be 920. Mm-hmm. Smart. Dean Evesant didn't think of that, you know?

Who do you think is next? Coach getting fired? Yeah. Well, anyone getting fired. If you want to throw a GM, I guess. Let me tell you about a young man. It's the coach of the Ottawa Senators. His name's DJ Smith.

That team sucks, man. Did you see his quote last night? I did not. I saw there was a lot of fun stuff in that game. I didn't see the quote, though. Oh, God. These two guys, this is going to blow your mind. Did you see Brady Kach and Matthew Kuchkechuk

yelling at each other? Well, they told their parents they wouldn't hit. They kind of yelled at each other. Okay, this is going to blow you away. Did you notice they have the same last name? Do you know why that is? They're brothers, dude. They weren't going to hit.

Can you imagine siblings yelling at each other, though? Like, that's never, oh, these guys want to win so bad. Oh, what a great, fiery family that is. The absolute worst performance. by the way, in that game, the referee giving everybody misconducts. Good the hell. Dude, don't you wish you could just not do your job like an NHL referee? Just be like, all right, this game's getting rough, so I'm just kicking everyone out.

Yeah, that's right. I'm going to hand out 100 penalty minutes for a scrum. That's, yeah. What was I going to say? Oh, DJ Smith. Yeah, DJ Smith. After the game, and the game was in Ottawa and the Senators lost five to nothing. to the

right he says we weren't we weren't ready to start weren't ready to go that's on me and I'm looking at that like don't say that man don't

I'm not saying it's not true and I appreciate a certain level of like the buck stops here but like DJ maybe Ixnay on the that's on me quotes for the next little while because

you may want to find a different angle I don't I don't love DJ's odds right now. No, no, I don't, I don't, I don't think so. Again, like, this was a team that was supposed to be good this year, right? Like, maybe not, maybe not in the playoffs. Again, you know, we can keep moving the field goals here, but they're a game below NHL 500, 17 games into the season. Yep.

They're bad, man. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know how else to put it. They are just not a good team. And they have more regulation wins than the Leaves. Well, look, I mean, you want to talk about coaches in Ontario who deserve to be fired. So do the Blue Jackets.

But we're still up on the Blackhawks, so it's okay. It's fine. So remember Ottawa had like those three wins early in the season? Remember those wins? One or something, I think. Yep, that's exactly right. You know how many regulation wins they have since then? I do not.

Three in 13 games. It's not ideal. It's not ideal. That's what I'm always saying. But, I mean, Brady Kachuk, man. He yelled at people, so it's great leadership. It's all going great. It's great leadership.

It's all going really, really well. Fantastic. I'm just, I'm scrolling. Like, is there anyone else that we're worried about? I don't. I don't think so because I mean nobody ever gets I don't know if he saw in the NFL

yesterday there was a coach fired midway through his first season which has now happened three times in three years but it does not happen in the NHL no barring outside problems I don't think I mean Dan Quinn at some point

you would think there has to be a point where it's not good enough but they're shark's been okay lately. Yeah. Dave Haxstall, maybe. I don't know. No, I think DJ might be the guy right now.

Sorry, DJ. Yeah, it really seems that way. The other big bit of news happened just this morning. Literally, I opened Twitter when I got out of bed this morning. First thing I saw was, I think it was Elliot retweeting somebody else saying, Patrick Kane one year in Detroit. Oh, is that one year? One year, yeah.

I'd seen he was going to Detroit. There was a lot of talk that he wanted a multi-year deal. Yep. Two or three. He gets one. Do we have a number yet? I don't believe that we do. Because that'll be interesting.

Is it a big number or is it a slide in there sort of? So here's the thing. I think it doesn't really matter if it's a one-year. year deal. And it's going to be pro-rated. You know, I think that, like, because it's pro-rated, the number will look insane. It'll be like, you know, like the season Willie Nealander was like a $40 million player or whatever. Good point. I forgot about that. Um, so the number I think will look insane on their cap-friendly page, but, you know, I think the fact that it's one year and they they got plenty of money to spend. They have, yeah, they got about four and a half million in cap room right now.

Yeah. Yeah. I don't any sort of LTIR games. Yep. So to me, I'm not, I'm not sweating it too much. Because, again, only because it's one year. If it's two years, I'm having a panic attack, you know? One year deals are almost always very low risk.

I mean, there's, when cap space is tight, there's opportunity cost. Sure. Yeah, you go to two years, and especially since we had talked about how he doesn't turn 35 until the summer, so it couldn't be like a 35 plus deal with bonuses rolled over. Well, he just turned 35, but it has to be one of those things where he's 35 at the start of the training camp or whatever. Start of the league year, I think. Correct. League year is right. So, yeah, good work by them getting a get. in a year. I don't, I think this is good for Detroit. I don't find it that interesting for Detroit.

I think if you're Steve Eiserman and there's a one-year deal available there, youngish team, they've been playing well late. You know, they had a great start, wobbled a little bit, and then they've, they've had a few wins lately. So it's, you know, a chance to reward a youngish team. You bring a Hall of Famer into the room. You know, there's value in that. if he can be, you know, even what he was, you know, even what he was last year with the Rangers, where he was certainly not a superstar, but was a, you know, had some production. That can help you. Totally.

There's the, there's the Alex de Brinkett, the connection. I don't think this is one you have to think all that hard about if it's a one-year deal. What I'm fascinated by is Kane picking the Red Wings over. some of the other options out there. And what does that say? How does that resonate in Buffalo especially? Where there was a lot of talk and a similar situation potentially as far as the young team. Bring the hometown kid back.

Is this a case of him looking at the wings and the sabres and saying the wings are just closer and that's the better team and that's who I want to go to? which has to sting if you're the sabers, or is it something else, which depending on what something else is, might also sting if you're the sabers. Yeah. No, I think it's interesting that they chose each other,

I guess, is how I'm looking at it, because, you know, you, again, look at the underlying numbers. Detroit's, like, bad in a lot of defensive metrics, right? Patrick Kane is not a guy who's going to help you defensively, even when he's 31 instead of 35, right? And so I think some of it is, I think some of the decision making is this simple. It's like so far we've outscored a lot of our defensive issues

by I think they have the second or third highest all situation shooting percentage in the league. And it was even higher earlier in the season. It leveled out a bit like you said. and now it seems to be on the upswing again. And also we should say Alex Lyons playing pretty well all of a sudden. And, you know, I read this as if we have a Patrick Kane, we can keep outscoring whatever other problems we have. Because I think a lot of the defensive problems aren't, like,

fixable with the roster they have right now. And I don't know if you heard this show. It's hard to make trades. Is it? So going out and getting defensive help, maybe a non-starter for them. So you go out and get a guy where even if it's just on the power play, he adds an extra half a goal a game or even a quarter of a goal a game,

that can add up over the course of a season. I don't have a lot of optimism that he can do that coming off the same hit surgery that Nick Baxter had. Who's the other guy? Just had it a couple of years ago? There's a tennis player. Andy Murray had it, but I don't know. I feel like there was somebody else who recently got this.

There is not a long history of guys recovering well from this. Right. And, you know, people have said that like the travel time was a factor. Detroit's very, Detroit is probably honestly closer to more teams than Buffalo is. You know, I think it's probably a negligible difference. But if people, you know, but my point is that's why people are saying he didn't pick Dallas,

because Dallas apparently was quite interested. Yep. But and Florida is the same thing. It's like every road trip is a bit of a tough one when you're down in Miami. Before Nicholas Baxter, we know how that went. The only other NHL player to come back from hip resurfacing surgery was longtime defenseman, Ed Jovan. He played 37 games and then that was it.

But that was long enough ago that maybe we don't make the comparison. But if Patrick King comes back, plays the full season, you know, finishes on his, he will be the first NHL player to ever do this. And it's, you know, you hate to say it's impossible or whatever. I just don't think it's very likely. Yeah. I mean, he'd be the first out of three. It's not like there have been 30. and no one's made it.

So yeah. And again, like if you're just using him as like a, because I think the other thing they said was, you know, he's not necessarily looking to be on the first line on getting like PP1 minutes, that kind of thing. And if he's willing to accept a lesser role, you know, I think he can be a real weapon on your second power play unit.

Yep. But I also, you know, who do they have to get in the puck on the second? second union. There's a lot going on here, but I don't think it's the worst use of cap space I've ever seen. I just, I'm not like super optimistic. This is going to work out for all involved.

That's all. Yeah. And again, as we're recording this, we don't have the, uh, the number. I mean,

if it's, it could come in low. Yeah. Maybe he's just decided, you know what? I'm going to, nobody wants to give me a multi-year deal. I'll take a cheap deal. go prove it and if so all the better. I like that he's doing the tour of the original six.

That'll make his trade to Boston at the deadline, even cleaner. Yeah. Yeah, I literally, there are no tweets containing the word Patrick Kane, A-A-V today. There will be soon. Yeah, probably by the time. we are finished, they'll go, okay, we'll now just give it one extra minute. Okay, they're done. It's $5.5 million.

Yep. But we'll find out. So why don't we take our first break? We'll come back and we'll talk about some other news of the last few days. This week's episode of Puck Soup is brought to you by HelloFresh. And folks, what do I always say? HelloFresh is one of the sponsors where I used it even before. They were a sponsor of the show.

So I'm happy to help spread the word here. with Hello Fresh, you get farm fresh, pre-portioned ingredients and seasonal recipes delivered right to your door, skip trips to the grocery store, and count on Hello Fresh to make home cooking easy fun and affordable. That's why it's America's number one meal kit. I'm always saying this. Look, we all got stuff going on this holiday season, right? There's always something going on. You're always got to go to somebody's house or party or whatever. And Hello Fresh helps you manage your time better.

Like I said, you don't have to go to the grocery store. They have plenty of recipes that are ready to eat in just 15 minutes, so they're, you know, wholesome meals right on the table and less time than it takes to get a delivery or certainly to go to the store. And they don't just have dinner either. They have lunches, breakfast items, snacks, all that kind of stuff. Really, really good. You'll enjoy it. We're trying to eat less meat around the house these days, and they have plenty of really good vegetarian options. We had a lemon brussels sprout pasta that was really, really good.

We're always getting Mexican stuff because obviously, like, you can do beans and things of that nature very easily as a substitute for meat. And I'm the one making it all. I'm never having a problem with the recipes or anything like that, and I'm pretty dumb. So, you know, if I can do it, you can too. So here's what you're going to want to do. You go to hellofresh.com slash puck soup free and use the code puck soup free for free for free. one breakfast item per box while your subscription is active. That's free breakfast for life at hellofresh.com slash puck soup free with the code puck soup free.

Again, this is all why HelloFresh is America's number one meal kit. This week's episode is brought to you by GameTime. Game time is your app for finding tickets to sports, music, and other shows. And I've been opening it pretty frequently lately because my kids, kids want me to take them to see Green Day next year. I don't know how I managed to pull that off. I don't know how they've even really figured out who Green Day is, but they want to go.

So don't think they're coming to Ottawa. Apparently they're coming to Montreal, but tickets have not gone on sale yet for that. But when they do, I will be on game time looking for them. And when I'm looking for them, I will know that I don't have to worry that I'm going to get stuck with something I don't want. Game time is the fast and easy way to buy tickets for all the sports, music, comedy, and theater events near you. They've got killer last minute deals, all

in prices, views from the seat. That's important to me. I do not want to get stuck behind some big barrier or get there and realize that the reason I got a good deal is because I can't see the stage. And I will get a good deal because game time has a best price guarantee. Takes the guesswork out of buying tickets. It's the only ticketing app. It gives you complete piece of mind with your purchase. You can see that view from the seat before you buy so you know exactly what to expect when you arrive. All in prices. That means your total is upfront.

You know you're getting a great deal before you check out. You're not suddenly going to get a hit with a bunch of last second fees and who knows what else. And you can do it all nice and quick. Buy those tickets in seconds, a couple of taps, and you're there. Take the guesswork. Out of buying tickets with GameTime? Download the GameTime app. create an account and use the code Puck for $20 off your first purchase.

Terms apply. Again, create an account and redeem code Puck. That's PUCK for $20 off. Download game time today. Last minute tickets, lowest prices guaranteed. All right, we're back. One other bit of news that broke last night while I was out having dinner. Thanks very much.

All-Star Thursday. They're adding another day to the All-Star weekend. And on this day, it seems like three things will happen. Number one, with a bullet, they are bringing back the All-Star Draft. I'm happy about this, man. Yeah, it's really cool. Look, and if people didn't see, we're not getting, they basically figured out a way to do it without having a last pick. Because there's going to be four teams, four captains, plus each captain's going to have a celebrity.

although it's the NHL, so we'll see if they're actual celebrities or not. And then they're going to pick until there's four guys left, and then some other celebrity is going to assign those four to teams. So we won't get the spectacle of, like, Phil Kessel's sitting by himself in the chair. Which, all right, you know what, again, hockey players are the toughest, baddest guys in the entire world right up until they get their feelings hurt. about anything, and then we must protect them. But so what?

Like, this is still, like, this will be 90% of the fun of the previous drafts, which is last time I checked a lot better than 0%. By the way, do you remember what year that Phil Kessel last pick thing was? I want to say 2011. Bingo. That's a long fucking time ago, man. Connor Bredard was six years old when that shit was happening. Am I doing that math right?

Yeah, I'm around. it anyway. Yeah. That's, yeah, it was forever ago. That's crazy how long ago that was. I hate this shit. Finding out how the passage of time works. Yeah, it's got to stop. Knock it off.

P.U. But yeah, obviously, like, this is the thing. Look, an idea is so good that the NBA stole it from the NHL. Yeah. And then the NHL said, you know what? You go ahead and have that because we don't want to do it. We'll give it another couple of years. Let it breathe a little bit, and then we'll bring it back.

But look, I can't knock the NHL for bringing back something they should have never gotten rid of. Now, are we going to have the players get liquored up for it, is the big question. You know, if we're not doing it, why do it at all? Yeah, I'm with you. Going to knock back a few cold ones before you get out there. A couple of vodka tonics. I know that's a big drink among the NHL set. So let's just make that happen.

You know? But yeah, we'll see. I'm excited for it, obviously, what, like, cue list celebrities they're going to have will be funny. Although, you know, I saw immediately someone say, one of the captains will be Austin Matthews and his friend, Justin Bieber, will be his assistant or whatever. That sounds like. You know what?

Hats off to them if they make it work. That's a legitimate star. That is a celebrity. I mean, we can roll our eyes at it, but that is an actual celebrity. I know a lot of people are wondering if Drake will be involved. October's very own, Drake? Here's my question. Is he from there?

He's from the sick. Well, you're not from October. Yeah, that's true. Is it, is John Hamm allowed to be a. celebrity or did he get is he has he been put in time out by he's on he's on the new show Fargo right now

I feel like there was a thing in the summer where like we found out he had done some bad things in the past yeah there don't Google if you want to continue enjoying the work of John Hamm don't Google what he did when he was in college right um but uh you know I think

that uh he he's a he's still a well liked working actor I think he would definitely qualify as a... And then the other guy that I'll just throw out there, especially since, obviously, it's in Toronto. Apparently, Brendan Shanahan has had a great deal to do with this. Will Arnett.

Will Arnett would be... And look, he's the voice of the Reese's commercials. So... I did not know that. At least in the state, I don't know what you got. Probably not. Canadian celebrity. Like, the guy from the border or whatever that...

We have at any given... time there are two or three actors in Canada who do all the commercials for like two years and then it just switches to different guys. So I don't know. I haven't been watching enough commercials lately to tell you who it is. But yeah, Will Arnett is, I think, your other... That's it. Will Arnett, John Hamm, Drake, and Justin Bieber. Look, if they can get... If that's the line up... I feel like you'd like a maybe... be at like a... That's real celebrity shit, man.

That's not bad, but... That's all four of those people, you know, Will Arnett. He's the voice of Lego Batman. Plus, I mean, how funny will it be when... We've made a billion dollars. How funny will it be when, like, whoever Drake's team is finishes last in the tournament, like, continuing. Yeah, see, that's the thing. Now we got to worry about protecting celebrities' feelings.

Oh, God. Uh-oh. And I'm just going to... I'll say it now. I'll say it at all-star time. I've written about it. the past to the players, just please just pretend to take, take this kind of seriously. Not even like the draft itself, but like who you pick, don't just pick your teammates.

That's the one thing that really from a fan perspective. How about that? That's what ruined it last time. Because I was going back, somebody sent me a link to something I wrote where last time it was like, I think the first time in 2011. I don't remember who the captains were, but they just were like, yeah,

we're just picking our teammates. And then in 2012, it was in Ottawa. Yeah. And Eric Carl, Daniel Alfordson was one of the captains. And he like, pre-announced,

he's like, well, I'm just going to take Carlson with the first pick. And this was like, when Carlson hadn't even want to Norris yet, he was still like,

and so it was like, oh, cool. So you're taking, like, someone who's clearly not the best player, and you're ruining the suspense. Awesome. Like, that's,

that's really cool. Don't do that. Have it, like, And I'm not pretending the players should actually care. Just pretend to care. Just fake. A little bit of cave-fabe is all I'm asking for.

All you're going to do is make it you can't pick a guy who's on your team. That'd be all right. That would make it so much more interesting. Call the NHL. Get Betman on the horn. I got a great idea for her. I'll text them when we're done here. Oh, thanks very much.

The other thing that's really cool that they're doing. doing on an all-star Thursday, I think they're calling it, is they're doing the PWHL 3-on-3 showcase. Perfect. Awesome. Yep. Like that? And then they'll presumably be involved in the skills competition.

Boy, I can't wait to see, here's how we're going to fix the skills competition this year. Apparently, it's gotten a nice overall, but we'll see. I mean, the skills competition is, I still like the concept. The problem is the number of, the number. one thing for fixing it is just move it along. It doesn't have to be like a four hour or three hour thing. I know that that's the block that your TV partners want, but it doesn't have to be this super complicated thing where you do the event and then everyone stands around for 15 minutes

and you get like awkward interviews and like the crowd is not into it because they've been sitting for so long and like move it along, man. Squeeze it into two hours. It's got a nice, Like, skill competitions are like movies. They don't need to be more than two hours, ever. Well, slow down. Ever. Killers of a flower moon, I mean. Look, I'm not saying there's ever going to be a skills competition.

Do the skills competition. Hey, you know what? He'd have some pretty good ideas. Actually, you know what, if he's available, let him. If he's available, so long will Arnett. Let's get Marty out there. I think you might have to go with that, yeah. But yeah, I think the only other thing I want to say about the skills competition is, of course, get the guys who are like actually not the fat.

I don't want to know who the fastest All-Star is. I want to know who the fastest guy in the NHL is. You don't, Ryan, because it's like some third liner on the Blue Jackets. Good. That's cool to me. Let me know who that guy is. You don't want that. I absolutely do.

We did that in the past. And then we had like the hardest shock update was like Stefan Kintel showing up at all. All-Star week. Great. That's awesome. No. It was bad. Let me see the guy who can rip the puck.

Fucking rip it. Really step into one. You know what I mean? Disagree. Okay. Well, disagree. Anyway, the one other thing they're doing on All-Star Thursday, and this is right up Sean's alley.

Finally, we're honoring the 1967 Toronto Maple Leafs. Yep. Which I've seen, like, people are, like, mad about this, and it's like, oh, yeah. finally the NHL All-Star game gets a little up its own behind about the market that is hosting the All-Star game. That's never happened before. This hasn't been a local event for the last 30 or so years. So yeah, this is... My thing is, if you want to do it, do it.

But don't make it like, oh, here's another big part of it. Who fucking cares? Nobody outside Toronto should remotely care about this. I would agree with that. Absolutely. Now, if they were going to honor every living member of the last team to win a playoff round, that would be, that would be cool. I just love that you have to have been born in fucking, you know, like before the Vietnam War to remember that. Yeah.

And they're like, oh, we're doing it, folks. Like, can you believe it? It's like, yeah, man, my dad's going to be fucking psyched. Who cares? Who are you courting here? You're not going to believe it. We found a bunch of old guys. I want to...

Nostalgia plays, buddy. We love our nostalgia. What I'm saying is, who's we in this scenario? It's me. Yeah, that's, well, right, like... Are you the one person below the age of 50 in Canada who's like, they're honoring them? Yeah. Honestly, even I'm not that excited about it.

No, I mean, it'll be a chance they will bring out, you know, all the... I mean, however many are still left. Everybody will cheer. That's cool. Like 15 minutes, man, in and out while you're scraping the ice between the women's games or something. That would be cool. If it's going to be like a one hour, then you know what? It'll do fine for ratings in Canada.

Nobody else who is an elite fan. All the greater Ontario nursing homes, it's going to pop a huge fucking number for them. Yep. Do we want to talk about the Florey mask thing or do it like, you know. I mean, the league looked stupid for a day and then slightly less stupid when they relented kind of. I mean, it sounds like he broke the rule, but they're not going to do anything about it. Yeah. So why does the rule exist?

Like, you know, I think somebody said like, oh, it's so that like if someone puts, puts like, you know, the Chinese flag or something. There's a big picture of Xi Jinping on the back. Then we're going to get people upset. That is what it is. I mean, that's they, they, and, you know, we're all kind of like, you know, you can't, who cares? But every one of us has something that somebody could put on there that we would care about.

But in this case, I mean, it was just so. like unanimous. Like even the crazy right wingers in my mentions were like, hey, you know, blah, blah, woke, but also let them wear the mask. Like, what are we even doing here? Right. So all as well, that ends well, I guess.

And we'll wait for the next, the next stupid thing to pop up. Yep. I don't have a ton else to say about it. So that's fine. The NHL continues to look stupid on this whole thing. One last bit of a bit of news, I guess, from the last few days is Jacob Trubba, a baseball swing hits a guy on the head. Could you do that, or is that not a thing?

Well, it turns out you can't do it because if you do, the Department of Player Safety will come to your locker and say, Tisk, Tisks, sir. Oh, no. have you no decency Yeah They didn't slap him on the wrist, did they? That would be Well no I mean we're not gonna go nuts out there

Okay good good They put them in time out Mm-hmm You know go sit in your locker And look he's contrite about this You're gonna tell me he's not he's not contrite I'll read you the fucking quote Mm-hmm

It was obviously 100% accidental Obviously No question about it At the time, I was kind of shocked that it happened. I think Frederick was a little surprised, too. Yeah, I fucking bet he was. And he was like, actually, that just happened. And I was like, sorry, my bad.

I did not mean to do that at all. Okay. Well, there you go. He didn't mean to do it. I mean, what more do you want from the guy? The quote continues, however. And this is where the contrition really comes in. Yeah, okay.

But it's also something that can't happen. I obviously have to control my posture and stick better. So I deserve the fine for sure. Learn from it. Move forward. Don't let that happen again. So what are we worried about here? You know?

Yep. He knew right away that he shouldn't have done it. Mm-hmm. And so it's all fine. Yep. Yeah, what does Larry Brooks think of this? Larry Brooks, of course. Has a fantastic column on it.

Just highly... I'll read you the... lead on the Larry Brooks column. Headline here is, of course, Jacob Truba is the villain the Rangers have longed for. Lead is this. The axe murderer on the Rangers, who otherwise goes by the name of Jacob Truba,

doesn't much care about the outrage he constantly elicits on social media. It's all these keyboard warriors. You know what I mean? It's, look, Jacob Truba is a guy who put someone in the hospital twice a year. right? Yeah, roughly, yeah. And you can say the hits are clean,

because you know who says that is Washington Capitals fans about Tom Wilson? Yep. I bet if I went back in Larry Brooks's archives here, I'd find a couple of columns about how actually it's really cool that Tom Wilson did all the stuff he did. Probably, yeah. It has to be. That's the thing for me. Like, I'm, I think it's ridiculous that it's only a fine.

Even if it's one game. Oh, it's an accident. Well, yeah, you baseball swung and hit a guy in the head. You know, I don't think he's ever been suspended before. Am I right about this? That I don't know. I would not be surprised. Oh, no, he has been suspended in the past.

But it was in 2017, so he doesn't count as a repeat offender or whatever the fucking rule is, right? illegal check to the head of Mark Stone. And this was back when Mark Stone was on the senators. That's how long ago that was. But so, yeah, he doesn't count as a repeat offender. And again, like the Department of Player Safety is like all those times he hit a guy right in the face. He actually made very slight contact with his chest first, so it's fine. You know?

It's good enough for me. Yeah. And like, I don't know. I don't fucking care if it's like a guy on X team or Y team or whatever. You know, I just, I think he is in the Tom Wilson mode of a dangerous player who doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt. Yeah. And he constantly gets it, just like Tom Wilson does.

The NHL, and this is I guess Larry Brooks's point, the NHL wants players like this. Guys, the play on the edge, etc. I don't want the game to be played like that. I don't want guys getting hurt because the guy's like, oh, I have an opportunity to hurt a guy, I'm going to do it. You know, I don't think that I, look, I never played the game. But I don't think that's the quote unquote right way to play the game. Well, at the end of the day, you know who is a player that plays on the edge but plays on the right side of that edge?

is the guy on my favorite team. Yep, that's right. And you know who plays on the wrong side and is dirty? The guy on the team that's playing against my team. It's just, it's weird how that works out. It keeps happening. But here we are. Like, I can't, you know, for years, I was, I was like, this Tom Wilson shit is fucking outrageous, you know?

And so I can't sit here and be like, but of course, when Jacob Trubit does it, it's good. Mm-hmm. I guess I would say I do think I do think of Tom Wilson as being like a greater menace at the end of the day Yeah But yeah I

I just don't want to see this shit in the league That's it Yeah And I want to see guys fun Like yeah he felt bad He didn't mean to do it Okay well it's still like he said Again I'll quote Jacob Truby here

Can't let that happen I got to control my posture and my stick better That's right. Yeah. But I deserve the fine for sure is like an extremely funny quote to me. You know when an NHL player is like, yep, yep, no, absolutely. Where do I cut the check? Let's move on.

That maybe, just maybe it was a little too lenient. Yep. Why don't we take another break? We'll come back and we'll talk about a few more bits of news. This week's episode of Puck Soup is brought to you by Nuts.com. And folks, how many nuts are there out there? You know what I mean? You got cashews, almonds, pecans, pistachios, peanuts.

I'm just going off the top of my head. There's a whole bunch of them. And you might be saying to yourself, surely that's all they have at Nuts.com. Wrong. They have way more than that. They have dried mango, crystallized ginger, dates, jelly beans, jawbreakers, root beer barrels. You want it in the snack world?

They got it. The variety is vast. at nuts.com. This stuff's good for snacking around the house. This stuff's good for taking to work or send into school with your kids, that kind of thing. You can't go wrong. Because nuts.com is your one-stop shop for freshly roasted nuts, dried fruits, sweets, pantry staples like specialty flowers, and more.

They have a wide selection, which means no matter what you're looking for, they got it. Gluten free, they got it. Organic, they got it. Other dietary-friendly options, they got it. Sweet, savory. Go down the list. And at nuts.com quality is the top priority. They roast their nuts and pop their corn the same day it ships, so they reach you deliciously fresh.

Satisfaction is guaranteed. Now we got a big shipment here at the house. And I was excited to try some of these, but someone else who lives here called dibs. And they did not last long. Let's put it that way. The ones I did try, I tried the bourbon pecans. Awesome. Unbelievable.

Great stuff. Cashew's awesome. They're just really high quality stuff. better than stuff you're just going to buy at the store. Because again, we used to go through a lot of cashews and that kind of thing around the house, and these are way better. So here's what you're going to want to do. Right now, nuts.com is offering new customers a free gift with purchase and free shipping

on orders of $29 or more at nuts.com slash puck. So go check out all the delicious options at nuts.com slash puck. You'll receive that free gift and free shipping when you spend $29 or more. That's nuts.com slash puck. All right. We're back. I was kind of putting this off because I don't even really want to talk about it that much

but it got a lot of traction yesterday so here goes the Cory Perry rumor is bad you know. Is it funny? Sure. You know, I get it. I get why people were laughing about it sending it all around social media yesterday but like, you know, it's the most basic like,

oh, they're not showing us anything. So we're just going to make things up and see what sticks. There is an information vacuum. It is a weird story. It is a high profile player. It is a team that does not have a great history of being open and honest about things. So, yeah, people are going to speculate, unfortunately. And that's not even to say that the team is wrong for the way they've handled it.

there was a pretty obvious cone of silence around this. Yep. That might be appropriate. There are in various situations that that might be exactly the right way to go about it. Inevitably, though, that's going to lead to rumor mills churning to life. Yep. And yesterday it was, I mean, I had seen that rumor in multiple places days before because people were just throwing stuff at the wall. Yes.

And so, you know, it just seemed to hit a tipping point. And I think, you know, because of partly who the player is, it's one of those things where everyone just goes, you know what? Deep down, I know there's nothing to this, but it's funny. It confirms my priors. I'm going to just run with it. And that's it. I mean, and hopefully even by now, it's all run its course.

and you just kind of are left going, whatever's going on, you just hope the best for whoever we need to hope the best for. Right. Because again, we're just, we're not being given it. And the thing, like, the reason it's run its course,

I think is, A, everybody kind of knows it's ridiculous. But B, Charlie Ramelitis, who covers, like, kind of one of those guys where it's like,

I cover the team, but I kind of work for the team. I believe. He came out and he's like, well, that rumor is 100% false. I can confirm that. And it's like, okay, let's just make up another rumor and get them to deny that one too. You know, like we can do this all fucking day because they're not saying anything. And the reason that all this is running is spinning out of control, it's very simple.

When they first announce it, they're like, this is an organizational decision. Corey Perry is going to be away from the team for a while? And people are like, is it a trade? Is he like taking, you know, time away? way for his personal life, blah, blah, blah. And the team's like, no, no, no. You know, that's not it. But we're not going to comment on it at this,

and further at this time. And then... It was a very weird situation, right? Because he was at the morning skate. Yes. There were, you know, he was signing autographs for little kids and everybody was like, what a great guy. And then suddenly he was just gone.

Right. And again, they're going, we're not going to, talk about it. The only comment we'll make is that he's not being traded. Okay. You know, so what's going on? And they, again, later reiterate. Okay. This is what the deal is, whatever, blah, blah, blah. And then he, his agent puts out a statement. He's taking personal time away from the team to whatever the, whatever the quote was. I don't have it in front of me. but it's like, oh, you know, he's taking time away to deal with personal matters, respect his privacy, blah, blah, blah.

It's like, well, why didn't they just say that first? Like, this is only making it more fucking confusing. Yeah. I mean, and it didn't really give any details because also Kyle Davidson seemed to at some point in that availability be fairly clear that this was a team decision. Yes. This was not Corey Perry on his own saying, I need to step away and take care of something, which the fact that it was a team decision and they'd,

he would feel that he'd specify it does lead you to think that okay, this may be something bad has happened somewhere but we don't know. We just don't know. It's just, it's okay to say we don't know. And maybe

we will know soon. It reminds me a little bit of the and I'm not saying it's a similar set of circumstances, but the Jim Montgomery's situation in Dallas where you know, nobody was telling us anything for a little while and then the story came out.

And it will probably come out here. Until then, we just sit tight and don't believe everything you see on some random Reddit account. Or some, man, as I was clicking around the rumor stuff yesterday, I was seeing like Twitter accounts that I forgot existed.

Like we're talking years and years ago and I'm like, this guy is still at it? Still going. Wow. And the really funny thing was, we're talking about the hockey insider guy. Can't believe that's still a thing. Literally unbelievable to me.

But as somebody pointed out, it's one of those things where where it's like he also was like three hours late to reporting that rumor. And it's like you can't, if you're going to be a guy who makes something up, like actually make it up. man. Have some self-respect.

No, you're just the guy who knows people are going to be searching something on Twitter, so you put it out there so that they will either retweet you or yell at you for it, and either way you get your precious engagement, and you make 17 cents, you got a 17 cent check for Milan Musk at the end of the month.

Worth a man. So who's really winning here? Not me. I'm not getting shit from that guy. No. One last bit of news here. Andre Vasselowski is back for the Tampa Bay Lightning. Yep. How much does this change your view of the lightning, if at all? Because he's back sooner than we thought, and he looked good at least on night one.

Yeah, not so much night two. I guess the thing is, this is all is about weathering the storm. Just accepting we're going to not have particularly good goal tending for the first. for the first little while of the season. How she goes. You know, your starting goalie goes down. That's just life. It happens.

It happens to a lot of teams where, you know, a really important player is hurt for some stretch of the season. It just happened to be that this one was the beginning of the season, which makes it feel like more impactful somehow, where you're like, fuck, we've got to go six weeks without this guy or whatever. Whereas if he got hurt in the middle of the season and they'd already ripped off a bunch of wins, you're going, oh, okay, I guess, you know, that's something. But credit to the Tampa Bay Lightning, they weren't like great or anything, but they're tied

for 10th in the league in points right now. And by points percentage, they are a little below that, but not very much. Actually, they're below the St. Louis Blues. I take that back. That's not good. But this to me is the important part. They're third in the league in goals right. now.

And they played more games than a lot of other teams, but like, 79 goals in 22 games, that's really fucking good, man. And, yeah, okay, they gave up 78, which is a lot, but, and it's actually the third most in the league. But we knew they were going to give up a lot of goals. So the fact that they scored even more goals than that, that gives me a lot of hope that this Vasilevsky thing, they're going to start out scoring their opponents by more. they're a plus one in goal difference right now.

And, you know, if they can get up to like plus 20 by like, you know, the all star break or something like that, nobody's going to have any doubts. And I think, I think Vasilevsky is the kind of goalie that he doesn't need to be great. He just needs to be better than Johansson, right? Yep, which he likely will be. And he could be great. He could absolutely step in and again, you know, he's got to be healthy and get back into the swing of it. But this guy could be one of the five best goalies in the league. Totally.

Lots of years. So I feel like the lightning were kind of a team that maybe we were a little anxious to, not to write off at all, but you're looking at it going. You just didn't know how it would go. Especially since, you know, at the time it was, you know, could be December, could be January. And, you know, here we are late November. and he gets in. 2.75 million for Patrick Kane, by the way. Hey, look at that.

Just come in. That's the pro-rated. So that's the cap number. So, again, I don't... Can't be mad at that number. Yeah. One year at 2.75, like, that's more than a lot of the teams that he was being talked about with, could afford.

Buffalo, I think, could probably squeeze that in. I'm not looking at their cap-friendly page, but that feels right. Um, but, you know, the, the concern was he wants four, four and a half for two years. If he wants two seventy five for one, fucking go nuts, man. This is a good signing for Detroit. Because it doesn't, if he can't skate, put him on LTIR, bye, bye. That's it. Doesn't matter.

It's a relatively negligible amount of money. Mm-hmm. So, you know, good, good for Detroit. That, that works for me. Yeah. Yeah. Can't complain. May or may not end up working, but all you can do is make the smart bets.

It's not a huge amount of money and it's, you know, whatever, six-month contract. Totally fine. Totally fine. Again, I don't know how much it's actually going to help them, but it's not nearly as harm. as I would have guessed. And they also called up Bergerin from the AHL. So where I think he's doing quite well, if I'm not much mistaken. So just a little more offense for him.

That ain't bad. That ain't bad. Now again, the defense is the problem. But look, they're paying Ben Chirot, the big bucks. Patrick Haynes making less than Ben Chirot against the cap. I think you take that every time. Of course you do. Absolutely, you do.

But yeah, going back to the lightning for a minute, they are, I would say, well positioned to, they're tied with Detroit and points, but Detroit has two games in hand. And it's maybe kind of absurd to be talking about games in hand in fucking late November. But to me, they're really well positioned to run down like Florida

or, you know, Boston's hit a bit of a skid. That further opens the door. The East is going to be fucking fascinating, man. You know, Carolina and Philadelphia are the two in three seeds in the metro. Washington's hanging around, the Islanders, the Sabres are all within a point of the playoffs. Mm-hmm. Pittsburgh. You want to talk about, by the way, a coach that might get fired?

Pittsburgh? Yeah. Yeah, that's a possibility. They're dead even 500. I actually got some odd sent to me as we were having the last conversation. And the other name that makes sense is Lane Lambert. I don't like to hear this. If you can fire a Lambert, you do it.

Wait a minute now. Hold on. I was not going to say in that. Yeah, they were chanting that at a game a couple of weeks ago, and I was like, I can't condone this behavior. Normally I don't care if a fans chant to fire a coach That's you know As they always say

That's their right they bought the ticket whatever You can't I can't have people out there saying shit like that Giving people ideas No no no no not allowed No In fact I want fans chanting Next time you're in a game folks

Do me a big favor start chanting Give Lambert a raise Give Lambert a raise Yeah But don't ask them to do more words but I feel like a soccer crowd could make that work. Sing a little song about it. Give Lambert the Brock Lesner deal.

Show up five times a year. Make it happen, folks. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, people might hear, oh, the guy referenced Brock Lesnar. They're winding up to talk about CM Punk. Nope, my stomach hurts, can't do it. Nope. Shows over.

Not talking about it. We'll leave that to the, we'll leave the CM Punk to, talk to 32 thoughts. Did you know they did a segment on the punk man yesterday? They did. No. They did. Oh, yeah, okay.

I was going to be surprised, but it's Merrick. All right. How about this? Elliot brought it up. See, I'm a punk, noted hockey fan. He is a noted hockey fan. We love the punk man on this podcast. Probably the,

I don't like where he's working. One of the most famous people to ever retweet one of my jokes. So I got that going for me. Fuck, man. What a dream. So we're basically best. friends. Best in the world's retweeting you?

Yeah. You're in great shape. And I mean, once you're friends with that guy once, he's got your... No, Phil, I didn't say that, brother. I would never say anything bad about you. The place you work, I would say plenty of bad stuff and have and will. Yeah. But we're not talking about it because my stomach hurts.

All right. Instead, why don't we hit him with the plugs? Find my stuff on the athletic. If you did not get in on the $1 a month deal, you screwed up. You're a fool. You messed up, man. Sorry. It's over. It's probably like $2 a month now. So do that too. I've got a... Actually, I've got a post... It's a hundred percent increase. I've got a post going tomorrow that, uh, on a topic that I think has, I don't know if we talked about, but it was mentioned on the Discord a few times. And I said, you know, I've actually got something

coming on this. Um, it's a quiz. And what I've done is I've gone through hockey reference has recently added nicknames to the player pages. And they are nuts. They have seemed to have scraped the internet for every possible reference to any nickname. A player has ever had. Really? And they list that as a nickname. And so I am going to give you the nickname and you tell me which player this applies to.

First player I clicked on Just went to a random team Went to a random player Kestbury Kappan and you know what his nickname is What's his nickname? They don't have one listed Yeah there's a few teams That they don't have anyone but

Really it's just for whole teams It just well it it feels like They're kind of in progress But let's just say that like some Like go to Sidney Crosby He lists like nine nicknames Does he really? For Sid the kid Crosby

A guy I um I clicked on it. Sid the kid, Sid, the next one, Darrell, Creature, the Squid, Bing, Golden Boy, Captain Canada, Squidney. Yeah, these are made up, man. So a lot of them feel very made up. Or they're like, there's some reference in Junior to like somebody calling him that. Do you know who Raccoon Jesus is? No, I don't. By the way, I was looking in the wrong place. Casperi Kappan's nickname is Kappy, Kapp, or Kapp star? Yeah. There are a few like that. But and there's honestly, there's some decent ones in there. But yeah, I've got you, you can learn, find out how good you are knowing nicknames.

If you know Raccoon Jesus, Mr. Sensitive, the Justin Bieber of hockey is one. It's a good mix. I was just, again, on the St. Louis Blues page. And I clicked on Tori Crew. you know what his nicknames are? Uh, no, I did not check that. Kruger and Rocket Man. Nobody's ever called this fucking guy Freddie in his entire career, man?

Wow, that's disappointing. Especially because they, you know, if it was Kruegy, that would be one thing. But if his nickname is Kruger, so listed on hockey reference, none of these people ever came around to Freddie Kruger, pathetic. Mm-hmm. Sad. You hate to see this. Yeah.

So anyways, check that out. That's my next post and I got a mailbag later in the week. Yeah, good times. And then for me, you also missed all the elite prospects deal. We had a Black Friday deal, which was half off an annual subscription. We had a Cyber Monday deal, which was, I think, half off a three-month subscription, so you didn't even have to commit to the full year. And if you missed the boat, well, you can still use I Love EP and get three months added on

the end of an annual subscription, absolutely free of charge. And patreon.com slash poxsoup. We have a lot of bonus episodes coming up, given that it's the end of the month, and we tend to do that kind of thing. And yeah, you want to you to swing over there? We just did an episode where we got Sean McIndoo to do the stick-to sports format, where we did a, you know...

Got that guy again. Yeah. It's not good on podcasts. Yeah. We get it, man. I'm like, oh, I'm nice, I don't swear. Shut up. Shut up, dude.

Just say a swear word. Just say one. Just say one, man. You get this guy off the air, though. It's like a fucking sailor. Well, that's the thing. Everybody who's met the guy in real life says he's a complete dink. But, no.

That's right. So, yeah, Patreon.com slash fuck soup. And there's all kinds of stuff over there. You'll enjoy it. And if you don't, you can just quit. I don't care. Well, I do care. I take that back. I care. I hope you enjoy it. I hope you don't quit.

Cures deeply. That's right. Thanks so much for listening, everyone. We'll talk to you next week on a Wednesday, I think. I guess we don't know what the week holds, but the plan right now is back to the normal day. All right. Have a good one, everyone. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slapshots and goons We've got sportly commentary to what if you commute But we also cover movies, TV shows, it's in tunes It's your weekly bowl of Hagi and Nancet

Bork 2