Puck Soup - Farewell, NHL on NBC

Episode Date: April 28, 2021

The boys discuss the NHL joining Turner Sports, the end of NBC's run as a rights-holder and the whole "Charles Barkley of Hockey" thing. Plus, a debate about what the NHL needs to become to attract new fans; Connor McDavid's MVP mastery; the remaining playoff races in the season; "Mortal Kombat" and "Godzilla vs. Kong"; and another few brilliant rounds of "Name Pat Falloon!" Presented by Sunday and Violent Gentlemen!

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, it's in tunes. It's your weekly bowl of Hagi and Nonsense. Part two. I'm Greg Wysinski of ESPN and TNT sucks. I don't know if you're legally allowed to say that now. I'm Ryan Lambert from Elite Prospect.

Did you know we're some sort of a presenting sponsor or something like that of the World U-18's currently going on in Texas right now? I had no idea. Yeah, it's crazy. What a world we live in. Sean McAnew from The Athletic. You're in Puck Soup. No, TNT used to be one of my favorite stations. You guys know watch AEW every week and enjoy their NBA.

coverage whenever I'm flipping around and I want something to watch because I'm old and still flip around. You know, sometimes like end game will be on and that's exciting. But they suck now. They're my enemy, my mortal enemy. It actually fits nicely Lambert because, you know, as you know, I've hated Bleacher report for a long time. That's right.

Yeah. Going back to the fuck that years. I can really hate them again. Yeah, they're my sworn rival. It is a blood feud now, and the next seven years of my life will be dedicated to reducing TNT to rubble. Like my name was Vince McMahon, circa 1997. But other than that, would you guys think of the next leg of the NHL TV deal? Really shocked that NBC is just out now.

That's, you know, even when the ESL. SPN deal got signed. Everybody was like, well, surely NBC will get the B package. And NBC was like, nope, not interested. Yeah. Yeah. It's, I don't know. This is more a you guys thing.

It's always funny. Sean, do they have TNT in Canada? Everybody cheers. He said it. I'll tell you right now. Honestly, man, one of the thing that I have learned about myself this week is, I apparently didn't know that TNT and TBS were different things. I don't know why I didn't know that.

Because I mean, we don't, I'm sure we do get the channels up here and all the shows that are on them would show up on different things. But no, it's always just like there's this vague awareness that there's this Turner thing and they have the Atlanta Braves and wrestling. And that's, yeah. So it's just, it's funny whenever there's like a, in the NHL, Like, I'm sure it was the same thing for you guys when Sportsnet got the Canadian deal. And it was like, oh, my God, this is the biggest news ever. And you guys are sitting there like, sure. Well, I don't know.

Because I mean, like, as an American hockey fan, you have an understanding of the media dynamics in Canada. Yeah, you have to know the difference. Right. And it was a huge change because, you know, TSN had the rights for so long. and we had come to really know the crew at TSN as the people that give us the hockey. And then it went to Sportsnet, and it felt, it felt weird. It felt, I mean, it felt a little bit like, you know, Letterman going to CBS. I was going to say, Shane McMahon showing up on Nitro.

So I think the magnitude of that was palpable for U.S. hockey fans. I completely understand why this doesn't feel the same way, to the point. point where you thought that TBS and TNT were the same network, which is odd for me, because as Lambert will tell you, all of the shows on TBS used to start five minutes after the hour. That's right. And that was the big difference between TNT and TBS. But yeah, sorry, go ahead, Sean. Your thoughts on this, this, like, reaction I saw yesterday.

I mean, it's interesting. It's, it's, we were all kind of waiting to see what the money would come in and see who the partner would be. see if it was something prominent or if it felt like the NHL was taking a backseat again. And I think this landed somewhere in the middle. It's, you know, the fact that just from a prestige standpoint, the fact that the NHL can't point to a major broadcast network and say we're partners with them, it maybe matters, but probably doesn't. I thought NBC did fine over the years from what I saw of it.

but ESPN and TNT and whoever else will do fine as well once they get their feet under them. Yeah, and also I'm sure Greg would know better than me, obviously, but I would imagine that if you have a partnership with ESPN, you get some games on ABC. Well, the entire Cup final will be on ABC. Oh, there you go. That's what was interesting about the TNT deal to speak to Sean's point, was that it's a straight up cable deal. I mean, you know, Steve Simmons hilariously and erroneously and still has not corrected his reporting that CBS was going to get Stanley Cup games, which isn't the case at all.

The Stanley Cup is going to be all on TNT and I guess HBO Max by proxy. So it's, that was really surprising. I got to tell you, like, listen, I'm a TV sports news nerd. I've always been into this stuff, which makes it awkward for me to talk about it now. that I've got like skin in the game. And, you know, I'm going to do the Eric Bischoff, Conrad Thompson podcast thing here and be like, I'm going to be careful with what I say here. Because I know I can't speak too much about it because I am sort of a representative of ESPN. But I will say this.

When we got the rights, I knew why we went so hard to get them, which is that, you know, we felt that the sport was one that could skew young, which I think Turner believes too. obviously live sporting event rights are coin of the realm. They're really the only thing that's getting money these days. Scripted television is not. It's got real value. But above and beyond that, we were bidding to get the streaming package and put it on ESPN Plus, which is going to exponentially increase the number of subscribers for ESPN Plus. So I completely understood why we did what we did.

The second part of this deal, I'm with you, Lambert. I'm fucking shocked that NBC didn't get it. Yeah. Like, really shocked. Reading between the lines and talking to some people, it does seem like they're financially reordering things to try to keep as much soccer as they can internationally. Sure. Like, that's a real big deal for them.

And I think once they were no longer the primary rights holder, they, you know, kind of did what ESPN did 16 years ago, which is. just nickel and dived the NHL and hope that the relationship they had with them was going to allow them to keep the relationship going for much less than another network would have given them. And that's not what happened. And the NHL and Gary Betman said, all right, who wants us? And sort of buried in what happened this week with Turner was that Fox didn't really want him. CPS didn't really want him. I mean, luckily Turner did.

But it was sort of interesting to see how that B package of games, which includes three cup finals in the winner classic every year. I mean, my God, it's not as if it's not valuable real estate, along with the Stanley Cup playoffs. Like half the playoffs are going to be on TNT and TBS and probably True TV. I was really surprised there wasn't more action for the second half of this contract, to be honest with you. I think they ended up in a good spot. I think that Turner played, my rivalry with them aside, is really small. one, especially for what audience they're going for. But the lack of interest overall in the bidding process and the fact that NBC kind of ducked

out was a real surprise. If Turner hadn't stepped up, it would have got really interesting on that second half, because, yeah, there wasn't. I don't know. I mean, overall, it's good news for the league. I don't want to turn it into another round of pointing out that this league. remains relatively unpopular despite all these years of telling us otherwise. If Turner hadn't been there, this could have gone south for the NHL.

But Turner was, so they got the deal they were looking for. I don't know. It's a bigger number, obviously, than what they had. I'm kind of with Sean Gentile, where he pointed out that if that is just for their evidence that the last deal was a disaster. And we spent, we spent 10 years talking about how what a great job Gary Betman did for getting this record TV deal. It was a disaster.

I don't think anybody did that. They did. Oh, no, no. They did. When the word billion was attached to that deal, there was a certain amount of praise for him having secured that deal. Now, the real ones like us. Yeah, the real ones like us know.

I mean, the previous record was seven cents, but, yeah. The real ones like us know that the minute they struck that deal and made it a monolithic rights deal at a time in the U.S. when every single sports property has multiple media partners, it was fucking dumb. Well, the real dumb thing. They're locked in for 10 years. That's the real dumb thing, yes. So to that end, like, spreading it around is good. And I think what you're going to, what you, what you already.

see is the properties that both of these networks have are going to be entry points for people who aren't watching hockey to watch it. And to speak to Sean's point, I love the NHL. I love hockey. I love hockey fans. There aren't enough of us. They're just aren't. There aren't enough of us. And we've spent decades trying to figure out why that is. Why don't more people play it? why don't more people watch it? Why don't more people follow it? And one of the reasons why people don't follow it is because they're not sold it properly. It's not cool to them.

They don't understand why they should watch it. They have a vision of hockey in their heads, and that vision has never been shattered by anything that NBC or the NHL has done to change their impression of the sport. ESPN and TNT have properties that if they, you know, sort of feed. the NHL through those properties, whether they're the talk shows or the other sports or the other media stuff, it's going to make people interested in checking out the product. And what they're going to find is, you know, a galaxy of young stars doing really cool shit and a game that is more offensive than it's ever been in years. And so this is a good thing. And so like, NBC

could put the NHL ad on like Sunday night football and Notre Dame football. and the classic car show, and in between the sitcoms, nobody watches, because we're binging everything. And TNT's going to be able to put it on the NBA, AW, and all the other shit that Turner does, and ESPN's going to be able to put it on SportsCenter,

and, you know, Stephen A. Smith's shows. Like, NBA and MLB. And you know what, man, that's great. We said the same thing for NBC. We said the same thing for Fox. We said the same thing for ESPN pre-lockout. We say it every time. And yeah, there's truth to it.

That gets somebody in front of a screen to give you a try once. And then you've got to deliver something that they want to stick around for. You can throw all the ads on AW that you want. If somebody sits down and what they watch is a one-nothing game with a bunch of guys getting all those superstars having nothing to shoot at, 30 blocks, shots, a bunch of Connor McDavid getting cross-checked in the back with no personalities

and no nothing, they're going to say, okay, that sucked and they're not coming back. So you can advertise it all you want. The product, if you are not already, we've been over this a million times, if you're not already a hockey fan, the product

is not very entertaining on a lot of nights. Some nights, it's amazing. Some nights, it's the best thing you can watch. You better hope you get one of those nights Because those are the nights that create new fans Way too often. Way, way, way too often.

And this is Gary Bettman's entire time As the leader of this league, way too often, this league just delivers a dud And just assumes you'll be okay with it Because you're probably already a diehard hockey fan. And if you want new fans, we better cross our fingers that, you know, because, yeah, it's more offensive than it's ever been in the 25 years that offense cratered and the league did nothing about it isn't the selling point that maybe we'd like it to be.

And I'll say this too. I think if your plan is to market the league around young stars, we're in a better place than we've been in a long time. Yes. But I think to Sean's point, what really hooks you is some of the stuff that the sport doesn't have enough of right now. And it is physicality. And it is violence. And it is what young fans look for in the media properties that they watch. Like, you know, do UFC and shit like that?

But the thing is that what the league really misses right now. and they've tried to get it back through their scheduling and their realignment and all these things. But for whatever reason, it's just not there is the intensity of rivalry. It just isn't there. There aren't enough of them. There aren't enough of them right now. And maybe you get an intense playoff series and maybe it's just me with pandemic brain not remembering what it was in the before times. But I don't know.

I think about Penguins Capitals 10 years ago for Penguins Capitals now. And, like, there's no comparison, is there? Yeah, everything was better however many years ago, uh, 1991, 2008. Whatever, whatever year you want to say, it was, it was always better then. So, I'm talking about 2010, buddy. I'm not talking about 2008. Oh, yeah. Well, huge difference there for sure.

I mean, are you, are you, are you saying that I'm wrong, that, that, that rivalries are just as intense as they were 10 years ago? I think with certain teams, like, I don't think, yeah, I think, yeah, I think Penguins, uh, capital, isn't as intense as it used to be because they don't play each other in the playoffs as much as they used to you know and and the look like the idea that the NHL is not trying to fucking

am I the only person who remembers rivalry night? Yeah, that's what I'm saying. They're trying to do it but it's not there. Yeah, because you can't force it. Well, you and you can't, but Greg's right. This is and

nobody on it, not nobody But we kind of skip over this part when we talk about the NHL entertainment value. Because look, the goon stuff that was going on, the hits to the head, all of this stuff, that needed to come out of the game. Just it was a safety issue. Like it was just, it was a moral thing. You can't put the players out there knowing what we know about the damage that this stuff can do and expect them to play that way and have that be part of your product. It had to come out.

And I'll applaud the league for doing what they needed to do to mostly get. that stuff out of the league. And at the same time, that significantly lowered the entertainment value of the product. It just did. People used to watch hockey because I've said this before. There were four things you watch a hockey game for. Goals, big exciting saves, big hits, and fights. And the big hits and the fights are almost gone.

The big exciting saves are pretty much gone, even though goaltending is better than ever before because the goalies just drop down and let it hit them in the chest. And the goals are what they are. I mean, we can argue over that a million times. It's, you know, and you're not supposed to say that, that the fighting and the hitting coming out hurts the entertainment value because then it makes it sound like you want it back. And then it's like, oh, so you're okay with guys being concussed

and having their delight? And no, you're not. But at the same time, it did have an impact on how entertaining the project is going to be to casual fans. And Greg's right. Like, you know, we can sit there and say, oh, you know, young kids don't go for these toothless goons. They're not going to be into that. But a lot of them do.

They watch this stuff. They watch these garbage YouTube boxing matches and stuff like that. The NHL used to have an element of that. They don't anymore. They shouldn't. It shouldn't be part of it. But, okay, what's going to make that up? All right?

Bumping the goals up from 6 to 6.1 and doing some cool ads around Conner David or whatever isn't going to cut it. You know, we can talk all we want about how we've got all these great young stars today. We do. I've said it before. There's never been more exciting offensive talent in the league. But in the mid-90s, we had a young Eric Lindrosse, young Pavel Burra, young

team of Salini, young Peter Forsberg, Sergey Federov, go on down the list, marketable, exciting guys, and the product became garbage. And that was with the Wings-Aves rivalry. and all the other stuff that was also going on that we will never see again. It's great to have the names and the talent and all of that stuff. You've got to do something with it.

It's not enough to just say we have Connor McDavid and Austin Matthews and Nathan McKinnon if they're not allowed to put on an entertaining product and too many nights, this league does not put an entertaining product out there. And the audience is going to see that and you can do all you want to get them to give you a try, but that's all they'll do is give you a try.

Well, the idea that like, oh, you know, people used to love fucking, oh, my God, when there was fighting and hitting. Yeah, hockey, the most popular sport in the world, circa fucking 1986 or whatever, right? Like, the idea that, like, people have left the, have been turned off by the sport, like, that's probably true of old people. But, like, the idea that, well, young people like playing fucking Fortnite's So they like seeing guys punch each other in the face. Like, has that ever been proven true?

Or is that just like old guy talk? Well, I mean, how do you prove it true, right? Like, what do you want? If the bar is hockey has to be the most popular sport in the world, then no. It's, I guess we haven't, we don't know anything about what makes hockey entertaining because it's never been close to that. But I do think that, I mean, if the argument is that nobody in these 80s or 90s or 2000s watched hockey. even partly because of big hits and fights or that you need that proven, then I don't know what to tell you.

I think that's self-evidently true. I think the game's in a good spot, but I kind of think what we're dancing around is that we're in sort of a nebulous moment for hockey in the NHL, which is that it wants to be this fast-paced offensive game built around stars. It's tethered to a model that we remember being a lot more compelling and doesn't necessarily work as an entertainment product all that well when there isn't those when there aren't those elements of violence and and physicality that made the game

what it was. I mean, I feel like we're at a moment where we have to kind of course correct. And if you really want to be the league that market stars like the NBA does, then lean into it and go four on four. Like, go lean into it and continue to push forward towards becoming this different sport. die hard, old school, fist of cuff fans be damned, right? Like, like, I feel like we're in just sort of this purgatory between what hockey used to be and where they want to take it and they're afraid to take it where they want to take it. Yeah, again, it's like inherently the most conservative sport.

They're like, you know, obviously this was a long fucking time ago now, but the NBA introduced the three point line, right? Like, there's no, there's, I mean, you can't add like a, if you score from out here, it's where. two goals or whatever. You're like, you can't do that, obviously. But like, you know, the NBA and the NFL and the NFL and Major League Baseball have at various points in their history fundamentally changed the way the game was played. Whereas, you know, I don't, I don't know that that's necessarily true with the NHL, you know? Right. No, I agree. And that's why, go ahead. You're not, again, man, we can, McDavid's, MacDavid's awesome. He's on a different planet from everyone else right now.

He else plays in Edmonton. If you're going down the list of the other guys, when you get down to the next tier of human beings, yeah, I mean, you can market Nathan McKinnon or us. Nobody's tuning in to watch a bunch of guys get one point a night, average a point a game. That's just not enough to get somebody to invest three hours of their time because Nathan McKinnon might get an assist that night.

There's got to be more to it than that. And you've got to figure out a way to do it. And part of it is just literally the marketing side that the NHL has always been terrible at. So I'm not making it sound like the marketing isn't important. It is. And you can gain something from just doing a much better job of that. But at some point the product speaks. And you either think the product is good enough right now or you don't.

and the audience will let you know whether you're right or wrong. The other thing to say about, oh, there used to be so much more scoring in like 1992 or whatever. I mean, you look at the fucking the league back then, and it's like, oh, like half the fucking teams in the league are absolutely dog shit, the Hartford Whalers. Like the expansion San Jose sharks, the expansion Ottawa senators, the Quebec Nordiques, like, oh, all these teams were terrible. And there's like five Russian guys and nobody knows how to play goal yet. That's right. So like the idea that, oh, well, if we could just get scoring back to 1982 levels or whatever the fuck, it's like, well, you can't. Like, it's just physically fucking impossible.

You can if you change, if you fundamentally change the rules to the sport. Now, the question I have for Sean, though, is, because I've been asked us a billion times about hockey, how do you square the argument that, well, you could watch a one-nill soccer match and be entertained? Why can't you watch a 1-0 hockey game and be entertained? Well, I mean, that's what everybody always says that, like, anybody who doesn't like soccer says that about soccer. Well, every game's fucking 1-0-0, 2-2, whatever, you know, and it's like... But to speak to your point, though, Lambert, it's the most popular sport in the world. Yeah, so I mean, right, no. There's some appeal to it.

I mean, at what point do we say this is dumb American shit? Yeah, this is, the NHL isn't trying to be the most popular sport in the world. They're trying to be popular in North America. So I'm not too worried about how soccer is viewed in Portugal. It's, you know, is it, I don't know enough about soccer to tell you why 1-0 maybe works in that sport. And look, again, we've all seen, if you've been watching hockey long enough, one-nothing games that were edge of your seat fantastic. And we've also seen many, many, many more 1-0 games that were just garbage.

and you're like, why am I even watching this for? Why am I, more than that, why am I spending $300 to take my family? I mean, can you, like, there are games where you watch them and you're just like, this is somebody's first. Yes. There's never going to be a second game for this guy, ever. And then the thing is, like, because, look, part of this is also, it's pro sports. Not every game can be great.

There's just going to be garbage game. Sometimes you watch an NFL game and it's just garbage. It's just two teams slugging in the mud and they kick three field goals and it's a six three final. The difference is that in the NFL after that game, you go to the coach's press conference and he goes, yeah, that game was garbage. We'll take the win. We got out of here, but oh, that was awful. We're going to go back and try to figure out what went wrong. In the NHL, the coach goes, that was perfect.

I love that. That was great. That was exactly what we wanted to do. And the other team goes, that was exactly what we wanted to do. we just, if we've gotten that one more bounce, it would have been the perfect game for us. And you're sitting there as a potential fan going, oh, this was on purpose? This is what you want it to serve up? Okay.

See you later. Well, again, it's inherently a conservative sport, right? Like, that's the ultimate issue with the sport is that both in terms of how it's played and how it's administrated, like, they want everything to be as boring as fucking possible. And so, like, you need coaches, like, you know, again, we always talk about, he's one of the best coaches in the world, but, like, we need Perry Trots hockey to be outlawed. You know what I mean? Like, they have to just find a way to, like, legislate that shit out of the game.

Or there needs to be Barry Trots hockey, but then also, like, I've said this before, in the NFL, when your team needs a coach, there's different coaches available, and it's like, this guy's an offensive coach, this guy's a defensive coach. Who do we want? You know, is this, like, who's the, who's the Kyle Shanahan of the NHL? Like, there isn't one. You've never, you don't even hear Barry Trots referred to as a defensive coach. The last one we had was Boudreau.

That was the last offensive guy that we had. Maybe, yeah. Like, you know, Sheldon Keefe, you know, like, but then everybody gets fucking mad at him. Well, you don't have been the whole season trying to get the Leafs to play. Play defense. Yeah. That's, well, why? Event hockey.

Everything. And so it's, it's, it's. you know, I don't mind having a Barry Trots in the league who is trying to shut it down and be the defensive coach if he is then matched up against an offensive coach who's trying to open it up. But just the idea of that. Like the idea, if Sheldon Keefe had come in and said, hey, I'm looking at this Leef's roster, I got a ton of offensive talent. I want to play high event hockey. I want there to be as many scoring chances, both ends. We'll open it up.

We're fine. We'll trade chances because we think we've got more finishing talent than any other team we're going to play. So let's go. Let's run and gun and we'll see who's standing at the end. It would have, I mean, he might as well spread wings and fly around the room if he's going to talk about. It would be just as weird to see, even though what I just described to any other sport would make perfect sense as something to say when you've got an offensive, like you've got a roster full of offensive talent and you say, how do we play low event hockey to turn it into a three, two game? because that's what we're supposed to. Look, if you're a diehard fan, you get it, and you probably appreciate it on a certain level.

You might love watching this and seeing like the kind of back and forth of this defensive mindset and, you know, who can get their strategy to prevent. But if you're a new fan, just understand that this sucks, and nobody's going to watch it no matter how well you market it if they sit down to try the product out, and this is what they get. So the NHL can either do something about that or they can just shrug and go, well, hopefully we, you know, maybe hopefully we get some great games and that's what hooks people in because that will do it. Hockey is still a sport that when you get it played well and an exciting game, it hooks you. But at this point, we're just crossing our fingers that we get some of those games and not the far more prevalent garbage games that we shrug off because we're fans.

but the people who aren't fans yet are not coming back. Right, which is why, like, you know, a lot of people aren't going to tune in to watch the, you know, Dallas stars and Los Angeles Kings on a Tuesday night, but you might tune in to watch the Dallas Mavericks and the Los Angeles Clippers. Speaking of Clippers, this episode of Puck Soup is sponsored by Sunday. I appreciate the effort.

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Get sunday.com slash puck. I feel good about the discussion we just had because I feel like, unlike me and Merrick, we don't do too many battling for the soul of the NHL discussions on this podcast. So it's been a while, so we have one of those. But I do want to just belabor the point a little bit to talk about NBC and TNT a little bit. Lambert, a brief eulogy for NBC, if you will.

Uh, much like the NHL itself. Uh, they settled on a formula, however many years ago and they were like, we will never change from this formula, no matter how much anybody says this, this sucks. That's it. You know, a classic situation of like, you know, very talented people, really smart people. And, uh, what, and their answer was always, but what if Keith Jones was frowning more? You know, like, and, you know, I, they, they, they add. at Dominic Moore to the to the broadcast in recent years. And, like, last night I was, I was watching as, as they were discussing who should win

the Norris trophy. And Dominic Moore said, well, look, you got to look at Adam Fox's plus minus. It's fucking unbelievable. And it's like, I, you know, you got to be smarter than this, man. Like, because he did the classic shit of like, look, it's a flawed stat, but. And then used it to, you know, say whatever he wanted to say. And it's just like, boy, if that doesn't tell you everything you needed to know about that. And, you know, when I pointed that out on Twitter, everybody's like, oh, you think TNT's going to be better.

And it's like, well, they might be different. You know, like you didn't. At least be more fun. Yeah, exactly. Like, you know, they're not going to look like they're fucking reading from a ransom note and a hostage video. They're going to be like, oh, I actually like hockey. And I don't just say, like, plus minus and you got to play defense and all that shit. like 100% of the time.

That's my hope. Obviously, you know, it's probably too much to hope for, but... A couple of things about NBC. First of all, from a production standpoint, I love their games always looked good. Obviously, not on a Canadian level, but they did good. I mean, it felt like hockey people making a hockey broadcast as far as, like, the camera work and things like that.

So, kudos to them, and I'm sure they'll all get a job somewhere now that. you know, two networks have the rights. I will always think of miscasting on NBC. There was absolutely no reason why Pierre McGuire should be between the benches. Everybody knows I am not a fan of his in-game work, but I do think that he has something to contribute. And I think that studio show, which was just more abundant, boring and strained and horrible,

would have really benefited from having that egghead in there. I think it would have been a different weird energy and probably more watchable. They also miscast Ronik. And this is where I'm going to sidebar into TNT for a moment. I know everybody is very excited about going to TNT because Charles Barkley is on TNT. And that means Charles Berkeley could get involved in hockey stuff. That's awesome. Love Barkley.

We'd love to see him do hockey things. What I don't want to see is them try to recreate the NBA show and find the, air quotes, Charles Barkley of hockey to do so. They already tried that once. His name was Jeremy Roanick. He fucking sucked. He was horrible at his job. And we all thought he could be Charles Barkley, but he couldn't.

And that's because there's no Charles Barkley for hockey. There was maybe one, and it was Don Cherry many years ago. Well. But we're not going down that road anymore. I mean, I guess my point with that would be like, well, throw some shit at the wall and see if it works. And like, unlike with Rowanick, when it clearly didn't work immediately, don't keep trying that for four fucking years. years, you... Agreed.

You keep trying like, oh, let's do this weird thing. Let's try out this weird thing. And if it works, great. And if it doesn't, let's pretend it never happened. But as, as you know, like, TNT is now my blood rival.

I should be trying to help them out. Well, ESPN should do the exact same shit. Where are we taught... Like, there should be a Stephen A. Smith for hockey. Sure. I'm going to try to help them out. And try to help out some of the fans that are struggling with how the, the NHL is going to be on TNT.

The secret to the NBA show is not having Charles Barkley there. It's having the entire panel there and the camaraderie they have and the fact that they all seem to kind of like each other. And when Charles has something outrageous, Kenny Smith takes the piss out of him and Shaq's there to be funny. And you have these icons of the game commenting on today's players and you're like, wow, this is coming from a point of gravitas. No, disrespect to Keith Jones, but it's Keith Jones, right? So there's a lot of sort of alchemy involved in what makes that NBA show great beyond simply having Charles Barkley on the panel. And so, like, I think, Sean, you're seeing it in Canada. Like, if you could put, say, Kevin BXN and Ryan Kessler on a panel, right, you need that kind of chemistry going on that makes you want to hang out with.

people. It's the difference, for example, between the Fox NFL show and the CBS NFL show. On Fox, I genuinely feel like all those people kind of like each other and they probably hang out for a beer afterwards. I don't think anybody on the CBS panel really likes each other. I think they maybe just like they walk in, they say hello and they do their thing. You need that camaraderie that you have on the NBA show on an NHL show. And I think it's a lot fucking harder than people think it is. It's so much harder. Of course it is. Chemistry is, first of all, TV is hard.

This, the idea that you just take someone who, you know, we all do it, right? We take somebody, you go, oh, P.K. Suban is going to be great on TV. Well, maybe. Maybe he will. Maybe not. It's a really tough thing to do, and not many people can do it. And then to find three or four people that can do it, and then to have them have chemistry and have it work is really difficult, which means you're going to have to try some things

that aren't going to work. And you're going to have to move things around and mix them around. And we've made this point before. And you said how the panels that work, they seem like they like each other. They also seem like the sport they're watching. And that's been the thing for hockey, both here and down in the States, NBC, Sportsnet, everywhere. It's too much cranky guys sitting around talking about how hockey used to be better. And I'm very aware of the irony of saying that, given the rant, I just

did in the first segment. That's why people like me should not be the face of your product when you go on TV. Don't listen to people like me behind the scenes, but don't put people like me on TV to talk about hockey. Put people on who think that this is, that this is great. And not, I don't want, I don't want homers. I don't want you to sell me that this is the greatest thing and everyone's better than Wayne Gretzky. But put people on my TV who seem like they actually enjoy the game that they're watching and they're not just a bunch of sacks. our old faces telling me how things were way better 40 years ago. Yeah, I would agree with that.

Yeah, so there's a certain chemistry that you have to chase. I will say that it was, and again, I think as I said on the show when ESPN got the rights, we have to give people leeway. Everybody's just kind of finding their way through hockey right now. Be patient. Understand that mistakes will be made. such as using Andrew Ferrence's photo to promote the new NHL package that you got, which is what happened on TNT last night.

I typed Oilers Captain into Google Image Search, and I just grabbed the best photo that I could find. I mean, like, again, patience, everyone's going to improve, everyone's learning a new thing, but holy shit. I mean, holy shit. I bet that if you asked a hundred people who say their hockey fans, and you showed them that picture of Andrew Ferrence, Oilers' Captain, and he said, what do you think of Connor McDavid in this picture?

Not one of them would go, or not one of them, but like 40% of them would be like, looking good. You know, like it would not register to them at all. I think, you know, that's, again, this is a league. marketing problem rather than anything to do with like, how dare they not know what this nondescript white guy looks like? It's good times. The one thing I wanted to mention was about tone.

You know, we talked about how... Yeah, you're going to watch it from what I understand. You got to watch a tone. Wow. We talked about how vanilla and boring the NBC cover. was, you have to remember that that is not like Patrick Sharp making the choice to be boring. That is an edict coming down from Sam Flood, the now former head of the NHL production there at NBC. I say former because they're losing the rights, not that he's leaving.

And they decided to make their mission to chase the casual fan with their coverage. And so you end up with a product that is not satisfactory to the diehard NHL. Right. It appeals to no one. And doesn't appeal to the casual fan. And I always said this to my friends at NBC. Who do you think is watching Carolina and Dallas on a Tuesday? Sickos. Who do you think is watching that?

Who do you think is watching that? Do you think it's somebody who needs that three-minute feature on, I don't know, some piffle that you decide to highlight about one of the teams? No, it is absolute sickos that just want you to dig your heels in and get hardcore with them about the game they're watching. Cater to the people that are actually watching the game, not the people that you imagine could be watching the game if you throw enough hooks in the water. And that's going to be the real challenge for both us and for TNT. is to strike that balance between, and this is kind of full-circling the conversation, strike that balance between bringing new people into the tent, but also doing it in a way that doesn't just water down the thing that we all like about it,

that makes us passionate about the coverage. It's very difficult, and I've dedicated my life to doing it. It's the thing I did at Puck Daddy for years and the thing I've tried to do at ESPN now, but that's the challenge. And at NBC, they made their call. They made their decision for 16 years. they were catering to an audience that wasn't watching. And it's going to be the real challenge and the real key for these new media partners

to find a way to get the casuals in, but also cover the sport in a way that caters to the diehards. They're actually watching the games. So, yeah, we've mentioned McDavid about a billion times. Let's actually talk about the guy. The 100-point season is on track. I think if you put a carrot in front of Connor's face, he'll no doubt try to bite the carrot. 81 points so far for him,

blowing away the competition in the scoring race. You're probably, well, let me rephrase this. Should be unanimous MVP, but as I think it was Sivian pointed out, you know someone in Boston or someone in Pittsburgh, rather, is not going to vote for Connor McDavid. Yeah. It's the truth.

Yeah. Like, it's so fucking funny to me, you know, every, I don't know how long this has been going on, but I'm really noticing it this season of like, anytime Brad Marshand scores a goal now, you know, at least one person in the Boston media will tweet, that's a heart candidate, Brad Marchand. And it's like, first of all, it's not your job to like, you know, again, pump that guy's tire, whatever you want to, whatever term you want to use. But also, like, even if it was, how could you fucking do it with a straight face this season? You know? Yeah. Like, it's, I think we said it last week. It's Connor McDavid is the heart candidate.

And then everybody else is like, well, we got to have somebody in the, like, I can't not vote for anybody else. It can't be Connor McDavid and nobody else is a finalist. The rules do not work, though. Right. Like, if you submit a ballot with one name on it, they'll say you didn't fill out your ballot right and your vote doesn't count. Correct. But there has never been, as long as I've been writing about hockey, a more clear-cut

case for any one player, I feel like. Sean, your student of history. How have you handled the Mario McDavid comparisons lately vis-a-vis what Mario did in 2000, 2001 with his season? I mean, you can't ever compare anything to Mario in 2001 when he just, you just. just basically got off the couch and was like, I'm going to go skate with the team. Yeah, I feel pretty good. I think I'm going to come back, even though I haven't played in three years, and then scored at the rate that McDavid is scoring this year. That is maybe the most ridiculous

season that I've ever seen. If you really want it to make the case that Mario coming back and playing the way he did in half a season was more ridiculous than anything Gretzky did, or even pre-retirement Mario, like, I think that's an argument. But also, this McDavid season is great. This is, like, this is awesome. And it's, the fact that anyone is even mentioning any current player in the same breath as what Mario used to do or whoever else is great. It's, it's, I hope it's 100 points.

In which case, it's illegal. It's against the law to say that anybody, like, I obviously, I saw what Greg's talking about. where he got yelled at by a bunch of hits for people for saying, like, this is the highest scoring season since Mario. And everybody's like, well, you don't understand all the context about, you know, like, okay, relax. Take it easy. Nobody's saying he's as good as Mario Lemieux. Everybody's just saying, like, this is a crazy season that he's having. Carter McDavid, he's really fucking good.

He's the best player in the league. It's the most dominant season. Anybody's done. And, of course, we do have to say it's a fake season. and he played the Ottawa Senators 115 times. Yeah. Like, that's, that's, but the great thing is, he's a racking up points against the Jets and, like,

they're one of the best goalies in the league and all that. Like, I, no, look, believe me, I understand, but, like,

you're never going to convince anybody in Pittsburgh. Like, this is actually an impressive season on the level of anything, Mario Lemieux, because, again, this is a sport where it's like, you know what was better is,

uh, hockey 30 years ago. Nothing was ever better than that. whatever the fuck, you know, like, you're just not allowed to say that current stuff is as good as old stuff. Or in any way comparable. You're just not allowed to fucking say it. Did we talk about the idea of doing four separate awards this year that was floated? You know, because no one has played each other and no one's really watched each other.

I talked to Dean Eveson yesterday during a press conference about that very thing, and he's just like, we have no, basically we have no fucking idea what's going on in any of the other divisions. Like, we've not watched a single game of, like, the central division because we're just knee-deep in our own division. Like, should we just kind of, like, not do single awards? Okay, this is the John Butchagross. There should be an Eastern Conference and Western Conference Award for everybody for now on because, like, it's too hard on the voters. Watch the fucking games. It's your job. But what if you're watching a lot of college hockey and not watching the NHL?

I managed to pull it off. I don't know why it's so hard for every way else. Renaissance, man. Yeah, I think it's, this is, yeah, that'd be great. Look, we don't have losing streaks. You get points for losing games, and there's four MVPs every year. This is, why not? Every team, every team in the league will have a major award winner because their

GMs are so smart and good at their jobs. Every time I bring up this, uh, multiple awards thing, like, Amber just gets, like, violent. It's fucking idiotic. that's why. I'm just saying you should try to be more like a gentleman. Speaking of violent gentleman. That sucked.

Ooh, that was fucking horrible. Today's episode of Puckoo is funny. Got out over skis after the first one and just, yeah. Flew too close to the sun. I had too much swagger. I was winning on team totals and I tried to like bet a puck line. The team over at Vital gentlemen, you know this brand, a favorite here at Puck Soup. They're celebrating their 10th year as a brand this year.

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Contrary to popular opinion, the North Division team, if they have to play in an American city will not necessarily play in a city close to where they are in Canada geographically. It's going to be more based on the team that they play in the final four. So all the people that were kind of default setting the maple leaves to move to Buffalo, if they have to, because of the border issue, if they're playing Colorado, it may not necessarily be Buffalo where the leaves are putting up shop if they are so lucky to advance from the North Division. That was one thing.

The other thing, too, that I find interesting about the border issue is, so the third wave in Canada is very bad. I understand that things are starting to improve a little bit. A couple more months of this. More people get vaccinated. We're going to see a little bit of an ebb and flow. If the weather gets warmer, this was all something that the epidemiologist sort of predicted. It could be a situation by the time we get to June where having an American hockey team fly over the border to play a Canadian team. is not a public safety issue.

It may not even be one right now, but it is going to be an optics and politics issue. And that's really what the NHL is looking at. Can the Canadian government overcome the, we're going to give this American hockey team a pass, but no, you can't do XYZ Canadian citizen thing? Can they make that happen at a time when things are still closed up a bit? And I'm going to ask the Canadian on the panel this question.

Can they do it? Um, it's, it'll depend. It's, we're two months out and if right now, it doesn't look good. And it's, uh, but, but we'll see. Uh, if, if things start getting significantly better. And, and part of it is because of this is, this is about the optics, public pressure will play into that too. And you, you'll see it to some extent. I'm sure the NHL will, will, will attempt to nudge certain things in that direction where you, you, You might get people saying like, hey, you know, they at least haven't won a cup them forever. Why do they have to go on the road? Shouldn't they be allowed to, you know, this and that? But the reality is, I mean, the Blue Jays aren't here. The Raptors aren't here.

We just saw it with the women's world championships being canceled at the last minute. The situation here is not great. And it's, look, you had it in your piece. It's exactly right. It's nobody seriously believes that having an NHL team, of vaccinated athletes fly on a private jet into Canada is endangering the public. It's about the optics. It's about the sacrifices that everyone here is being asked to make consistently, continually.

It's about all the things that have been canceled and put aside. And it's about what does it look like when you then turn around and say, okay, but the rules are different for the NHL? And how does that play when, you know, we still have a, problem up here where there's there's lots of Canadians who go down to the states, either because they have homes or for whatever other reason, and then they come back to Canada and they're told you have to quarantine and they don't do it. They say, no, screw you, I'm not going to. I don't want to. I'm worried about me and nobody else and they go off back into the community and it's a bad scene.

And there's all sorts of things being done to try to push those people to make the right choice and to do the right thing. But how do you do that when those rules don't? don't apply to Nathan McKinnon or whoever else. Are you just opening the door to let's be honest,

bad faith arguments and bad faith interpretations and what does that mean for everyone else? It's a tough situation. And, you know, maybe two months from now

things will be looking much better. And the one interesting thing from your piece was that apparently this is something that can come together relatively quickly. So it's not like, we're talking about in June, it's not like we need to know by the first week of May.

It's two weeks. They waited as long as they could on the bubble last year, and they can wait even longer on this. I think, you know, there is some availability issues creeping into arenas as things start to open up and concerts are being booked. But I think from what I gather, they're not really concerned about that. They think that they're going to be able to find places to put these teams in short order. like 10 days might be all they need to really kind of work it. The other thing that's going to be interesting is as it gets down to it is, will there be any sort of appetite to say, okay,

if we can get cross-border but not in a normal looking series, you know, a normal playoff series is 2-2-1-1-1. So you've got four trips back and forth. What if the Canadian government says, you know what? Okay, we'll shorten, we'll make it four days. on the quarantine instead of seven or 14 or whatever was going to be, do you do a series where you play the first three or four games in one country and then come across and play three or four in Canada?

Or do you do, you know, or do you say, no, what, we're... I like your thinking here. I mean, the thinking is, it's obviously you say, well, that's, this isn't how we do it, but there's also the competitive, well, you know, one team doesn't get any home games. One team has to play two rounds on the road. It's just one of those things where it's like, it's not going to be perfect. It's not going to be ideal. And if the answer is, and I suspect you guys are both right, is the NHL saying, no, we're not going to do things differently,

then the Canadian government says, well, if you guys aren't going to do things differently and you're going to stick to your way of doing things, so are we. And you're out of luck. I like that. I think pushback is good. But I will say this. I talked to somebody this week who said this very thing. it's not the NHL that doesn't like two three two it is specifically Gary Batman who doesn't like two three two yeah well like I I feel like in the

past like the AHL has been even three three one you know wow I'm pretty sure that that's the case and and you know like yeah I think that you do get creative but then you know do you do the first two rounds like two two one one one do you do the first two rounds, two, three, two, do you do it three, three one? Like, does only one series, like the one series involving a Canadian team go that way? Like, I, I think there are just so many, like, like, moving parts to it that the NHL would be like, nah, it's not really worth it to us. Yeah, and at which point, then there's your answer, right? Then the answer is no, and you, you find a U.S. home for whichever Canadian team comes out, and that's the end of it.

But I think the NHL is going to have a tough time from a PR standpoint trying to convince Canada that they've got to change the rules if the NHL is saying. But, you know, our rules about how a playoff series works are immutable and can't change. But your rules about how to keep people safe in a pandemic should be negotiable. Well, you know, it's funny, though, because like you said the thing about like, oh, well, people just fly from the states. And it's like, okay, so the rules Canada could implement then is if you are. fully vaccinated and you're flying private. You don't have to quarantine. Like, you know, like, I don't think that's a, that's an outrageous thing for a government to say. Like, you know, it could. Like, I, I really, I really think that, you know, the, the, the data suggests so

much, there should be so much more available to people who are vaccinated, you know, and like, they're just, like, all these rules are in place because of, let's face it, the assholes or, uh, or, you know, people who think vaccines are fake or whatever the fuck, who don't want to do it. Like all these rules have to, and so like it's, you know, it's punishing.

It's the classic situation of punishing, like people who did everything right to, to make sure like dip shits don't fuck everything up for everybody else, you know? And so, like, I have a tough time with it because I don't know what I'm, I'm assuming that like a lot of the guys on like the maple leaves or the oilers or whoever aren't vaccinated because of the difficulties Canada has had vaccinating people. But like, yeah, like if everybody on the Colorado Avalanche is vaccinated, then why the fuck shouldn't they be able to do whatever they want?

At the risk of people thinking that we're, you know, really high in the amount of sort of like, let's talk about what the NHL should be kind of talk. I mean, this is the kind of conversation I'd be having it two in the morning, usually. Should they allow higher seats in the playoffs to pick what format they want their series to be? Like, if you were a higher seed, would you want it to be like three games on the road than four at home? Would that be like a huge advantage, do you think? I, you know, it's interesting because it's like, you know, just because you're a high seed doesn't mean you're a better team and blah, blah, blah. And like, the other thing I think would happen is they would just, you know, just. go, you know, we're not going to change anything.

You know, we're going to, because again, this is an inherently conservative sport that, like, people aren't going to try to fuck with anything too much. It's another one of those ideas that's great on paper. And then an actual front of actual NHL GMs, like the first GM who picked three on the road and then four at home and came down, came back home down three nothing would probably feel like he was going to get fired for that. And nobody else would ever do it again. Right. It's like saying that it's it's like the idea of pick your playoff opponent. The first GM who picks wrong, who doesn't pick, you know, what the numbers would have normally said and pick somebody else and they lose, it never happens again.

So it's, I love the idea. But these GMs who are, I mean, it's like the last week. Two guys protecting their own jobs. Yeah. Yeah. Like last week they were they were complaining about, uh, it's actually. cap circumvention to launder money, even though it's literally in the CBA, like you can do it up to twice. It's in the CBA.

They thought about it and like they're going, oh, well, it's against the spirit of the rules. No, it's the actual language of the rule is in there and it says you can do it twice. So a couple of teams did it and now everybody's mad because they, you know, wanted to use the fucking fifth round pick to get someone to buy it. Like, it's just any GM's thing is like, listen, you can do whatever you want as long as it doesn't make me look slightly less effective at my job. Right, exactly. So. All right.

We've talked a lot about hockey. I want to talk about two movie things. Lambert, I caught up with Godzilla versus Kong and Mortal Kombat over the weekend. I had a really nice day where all I did was sit on the couch and drink a couple of beers and have a slice of pizza. It was very exciting. A New York classic. Oh, yeah. Well, as I said on Twitter the other day, the rules here in the city where you have to buy food to drink at a bar, I was sitting outside with sneakers, I was having an old speckled hen on draft.

My God, what a pleasure. And I had to buy a small fries, which I'm obviously going to eat as I'm drinking. And it almost ruined my plan, which was to then go get a slice of pizza to soak up the beer. But they're changing the rules now, probably for the betterment of everybody about having to buy. food at the bar. Anyways, Godzilla versus Kong was everything that I wanted. It was a fucking giant ape and a giant Godzilla and they're punching each other and shooting each other and the human stuff was stupid. But the actual, like, kaiju fight, awesome. Yep. And I would definitely see another one of these. Agreed? Did you see it? Yeah. Of course I saw it. Yeah. Fucking

wrong. It's terrific, right? Yeah. Yeah, it's good. Mortal Kombat. Did you see it? Thoughts pretty good You know, I I know that there's a lot of people Like goofing on it because Sean, the Mortal Kombat movie didn't actually have the Mortal Kombat tournament in it. They're like saving it for the secret. Yeah, it's the, when are they going to get to the fireworks factory of video games?

Yeah. It's basically the greatest movie ever made about the preseason. That's right. It's just like It's basically Was the Shao Khan Sending his minions to go Kill all the Earth world Earth Realm people

Before the tournament can start Which is kind of a fun Conceit and then leads to a thing that I sort of liked Which was Mortal Kombat Combat fights on Earth Yeah Right

Well I think there was only maybe one or two on Earth But yeah There was there was three There was Goro On the far There was the fight that There was the Cano fight in the trailer As sort of that Kill Bill homage

Oh yeah And then for some reason The final fight that I won't spoil Happens of course Because it's a low-bushed movie A giant warehouse of some sort So yeah So I liked that

One of my favorite movies as a kid Was the last starfighter Where the dude Plays a video game And then gets drafted into an intergalactic you know, Air Force, basically. And part of the appeal was seeing like alien shit happening on Earth at like a simple trailer park or whatever.

And I always appreciated that. And so that part of it appealed to me. What didn't appeal to me, though, is the super seriousness of the movie. And the fact that the 1990s in World Combat will always have a special place of my heart because it knew how inherently fucking goofy this whole thing is. Yeah, well, it... And I mean, the fatalities were goofy in this movie, but all of the other stuff. Like, this is a movie about a Mortal Kombat tournament where the lives of two children are threatened and one of them dies.

Yeah. Like, that's cool. It's pretty heavy. Like, no, like, I think, I think if you're saying, look, this is a life and death, like, fate of the universe kind of or fate of the planet kind of a tournament, right? Yeah, people got to die, you know? And like, I don't know. I thought the real problem was the lead of the film was... Cole Young.

Was, first of all, a character made up for the movie, and second of all, a dud. Zero out of ten for that guy. There's no reason why that shouldn't just have been Lou Kang again. I guess they didn't want to do it because that's what the previous movie did. But yeah, like the audience proxy character who I couldn't even tell you what his like power ended up being. No, no clue. I was thinking about that yesterday. It was like a fan.

He thought about a fancy vest and then all of a sudden it appeared on him. Yeah, that was a huge miss. But I don't know. Like the more I think about it, the more I kind of enjoyed it and the more I think about like how the sequel would be something that I'd watch. but it had enough Easter eggs and really fucking gory fatalities. Yeah, that was the best part. Although, I will say, all that CGI blood didn't work. There were multiple scenes where, like, blood landed on something and then wasn't there one second later because they didn't CGI the blood on from a different angle and that shit.

Yeah. Go to the IMDB goofs page for all those, I'm sure. I will say, though, like, the last third of the movie worked for me in the first two-thirds were kind of a slog as he had to set up all this shit. And there's so much exposition. And a lot of it's just joyless. Yeah. And I set it on sick to sports. Outside of Cano. But the CGI on Gora was terrible.

We're talking original Avengers movie level bad. Yeah. But not Mortal Kombat Annihilation Bad, which is... Well, no, but I mean, you know, it looked like a movie from 10 fucking years ago. True. Which is inexcusable in 2021. Suppose we should probably mention the playoff races as they are. In particular, Lambert, you have a bit of a burr under your saddle about teams that clearly aren't going to be in the playoffs that we keep trying to keep afloat just to make things interesting.

Yeah, I mean, you know, the last couple of weeks when Vancouver played Ottawa after coming, because, you know, they beat the leaves. Everybody thought it was very fun. money and that's fine. They're right. It was very funny. But then like they beat the senators a couple of games and all these people in Vancouver are like, you know, if they just win their next six games and Montreal loses out, there's a 58% chance Vancouver could make the, and it's like, there, come on, you don't have to do this. You can, you can just act like, you know what, this is a nice little thing that happened here, but let's be serious. And, and I saw somebody had a very similar thing about like, hey, what does it mean down the stretch for, for Ottawa to have,

to have won a bunch of these games that are ultimately meaningless? Is it a sign of things to come? Or is it, you know, it's just the end of the season, the pressure's off. And it's like, it's the latter one. Like, everybody knows that. Columbus, Buffalo, like, oh, Buffalo under, under this new coach, they're unbelievable. Yeah, okay. Don Granato is the coaching genius who saved the Buffalo sabers and not just like nothing fucking matters there. The problem for Buffalo is never the end of the season. The problem for Buffalo is like 12 games into the season every single year. And how many years in a row before like Columbus really, you know, like got Panarin basically?

Was it like, well, look, down the stretch Columbus went 18, 10, and 6. So, you know, they're really right on the precipice of something here. And then same thing. The next year they start out like, you know. 10, 10, and four. And everybody's like, well, what, what was that last year then? What happened? That's exactly right.

And, you know, especially this year, like with the Rangers even, you know, it's totally a situation of, oh, I just, I noticed that they won these two games against, like, an absolute bottom of the barrel team. Like, the Rangers beat Buffalo two games in a row. And everybody in New York's like, oh, these games mean so much, these next four games they have against the capitals, the islanders, and the. the Bruins, they're going to determine the fit. And it's like, no, the fate of the season was determined when they started like

9, 7 and 5 or whatever. Like they just were never going to catch up to these actual good teams because they started so bad. And you can say, oh, well, you know, if Zabandajad didn't get COVID and Panarin didn't take a leave of absence and the Tony DeAngelo thing. And it's like, right, nobody else dealt with COVID. Nobody else dealt with injuries of any kind. only the Rangers are uniquely bereft because of how things have gone this year.

Okay, sure, yep, that's right. Uniquely bereft is a good line. All right, let's go through them real quick. Does Calgary catch Montreal? No, come on. Not after Monday. It was starting to look dicey, but Monday with the Habs winning and then also Vancouver lose in Ottawa, that kind of settled the Canadian division.

I guess we'll go ahead and say that the Islanders in Boston will not be caught by the Rangers. The Islanders, I think, have a pretty easy stretch the rest of the way. Yeah, and the Bruins, I think next four games are against Buffalo and New Jersey as well. Yeah, there you go. The Islanders have got the Rangers back to back this weekend, and that's, like, if the Rangers take four points in both games in regulation, it gets interesting, but that kind of needs to happen. So I don't think that one's over, over, but it's pretty much over. And I mean, if you've got to face it, like, if you're a team and you're like, we got to win in regulation, you do not want to be playing the Islanders because the Islanders are allowed to get to over.

I will say, though, that, you know, the Islander's offense has been dog shit for like more than two weeks. Palmary, I think, has one goal in nine games since coming over. Yeah, I mean, it's not on the realm of possibility the Rangers could take four points for them. Yeah, but again, like, it would require them, those teams to also lose extremely winnable games against bad teams, whereas the Rangers, I think their remaining opponents are Washington twice, Boston twice, and the Islanders twice. So, like, if they make it, they will 100% have earned it by playing, you know, three of the top four teams in the division. and it's just a real tough sell for me. Again, especially based on everybody else has an easier schedule the rest of the way than the Rangers do. Yeah.

Does Arizona catch St. Louis? No. I'm going to say no on that. St. Louis has three games in hand and they kind of seem like they figured their show. And they're up a point, right? Like three games in hand and like they are ahead in the standings. It's not like the other way around, you know? Yeah.

And that's the other thing to say about the Rangers too is that. They have played more games than everybody else. So not great. Nashville, 56 points and 51 games, Dallas, 54 points in 49 games. Chicago is still kind of lingering there, but I don't think they really have a chance. This is a really fun race. I love, I kind of like both of these teams as eventual cannon fodder for Carolina. But it should be a fun race down the stretch.

literally the only thing I care about in the Central Division right now is Florida and Tampa playing in the first round. Like, give me that series, finally. My God. Yeah. Especially because Florida cannot beat Carolina, right? Like, if it somehow happens that that's the, I think they've beaten them twice in overtime or maybe even the shootout and that's it. Like, every regulation win has been not just like a Carolina win, but like a decisive one for the most part. And like, you know, give me Bob versus the left.

lightning. Yeah. Well, it'll be Spencer Knight at this point. Until he implodes. He'll get the game one start and then he'll explode. That's exactly right. Yeah. All right. Let's finish up this week with a little game show action, Lambert.

All right. And the game show is I still have a bunch of categories we haven't used for name, or, yeah, name of the thing. It says it right here on the spreadsheet. Oh. Oh, the classic, yeah. Yeah. So let's let's get that going. I don't know who goes.

first. It doesn't really matter to me. You two can choose. Sean, do you want to kick or receive? I will kick. Okay. I will go first then. All right, Greg. Refresh my memory on the rules again. So I'm going to give you

a category, and there are three players in that category. I will initially give you their age, the number of NHL games they played, and the last team they played for. Oh, okay. And then, as a Doug Loves movies veteran, you should understand there are, you know, 10 clues. Starting from, if you say 10, you get NHL teams, all the NHL teams they played for.

The current number of points they have this season, if they're playing, or the last number of points, if they're not playing anymore, their last or current cap hit, the nation they were born in, their career points, or save percentage, the year. years they played, their draft team, their draft position, their height and weight, and the amateur team. If you only get one, you get the amateur team. All right. So how many is that? 13, was it? 10.

Okay. All right. Give me the categories. Okay. So you can choose from one of three categories. At Jammin' Cracken recommended 200 hockey men, and these are guys who were drafted 200th overall. I'm sorry, at N.

Slinger said bridge and tunnel and that's guys who have played for all three of the Islanders, the Rangers, and the Devils. Oh shit, okay. And then at Devils in the details said not exactly exclusive and that is goalies who gave up a 100th goal to Yarmir Yager either is 100th is

200th is 300th, whatever. Wow. And so those are your three options. Why don't you go ahead and choose one? Well, as I look outside my window at the freaking Empire State Building. Let's do the Bridget Tunnel. Was that Trump? It wasn't not Trump. Never revoked that.

name on this podcast. I actually call him freaking Donald Drumpf. All right, so do you want A.B. I thought you called the orange Cheeto. I was mistaken. Do you want A.B. or C, Greg? Let's go C for Scott Stevens, the captain. Okay.

This is a player who, again, just to refresh everybody's memory, he played for all three of the Rangers, Devils, and Islanders. and so this player is currently 37 years old. He played 491 NHL games. His last team was the Nashville Predators. Greg, how many clues do you need to get this player? His last team was the Nashville Predators? That's right.

He's 37. Yeah. Shade under 500 career games. Just say a number between 1 and 10 for 11. Okay. I'll take 9. nine it is Sean can you do better than that yeah I feel I feel like in the past my magic number has been four on this okay so I'll say four so with four you get the team that drafted him the number he was drafted

his height and weight and his amateur team Greg do you want to do you want to beat that bid I his last his last team was the was the Nashville Predators yeah so we've got four teams at this guy. Shit, I'm blanking on who this could be. No, go ahead and name him. Okay, Sean, this player was drafted 264th overall. It's a ninth round pick of the Anaheim Ducks in the 2001 NHL entry draft. He is, as with many of these players, six feet tall, 200 pounds.

And his amateur team was the, well, he played for a number of Q&L. MJHL teams, the Sherbrook casters, the Chacutomi Sanguinines, and the Moncton Wildcats. Hmm. Mm-hmm. Like how Greg's back there making noises as if... Yeah, like he has any

fucking idea. No, I have a feeling I have a feeling I know what position this is, but I don't know who the player could be. Hmm. Uh, yeah. None of that really helps except uh-oh. The ninth round pick,

just because there aren't many ninth-round picks who make the NHL and most of them who do are like weird European guys. And I'm assuming this guy isn't European, because if he played for a whole bunch of different Quebec junior teams. Could be weird, though, for all you. Could be. Yep. 37.

I mean, in theory, I guess he could still be active, but it doesn't sound like he is. Three New York teams plus Nashville. So I got nothing. I don't know it. Greg, do you want to venture a guess here? I don't really have one. I don't really have one.

Okay. I feel like it's probably a defenseman. That was my inkling on it. Oh, left wing, Greg. The young man's name is P.A. Parento. Oh, my God. Jesus. Now, he played for the Devils.

He played 59 games for the Devils in his last season, 2016, 17. He also previously played 22 games for the Rangers and combined 161 for the Islanders. So he didn't get a lot of time with anybody in particular, but he did play for all three of them. How many did he play for Nashville? Because I don't remember that either. 59. They signed him one year and they, or no, I'm sorry, he played eight. He played eight for Nashville.

Clearly New Jersey traded him at the deadline. And he, 2016, 17, he. That wasn't the year Nashville went to the cup final. That was a year before. So, yeah. All right. There you go. All right.

Sean, you get Legends of the Fall, and that's the guys who have the most points in the month of October in a single season. All right. So the three point leaders there. And that was by at Reese Albrecht. At Kelly Toomey didn't have a name for it, but it's guys who were dressed. drafted in the expansion draft by the Golden Knights but never played for them. Oh, my God. And at F. Skysa? I don't know.

Is I have the high ground, and that's a big tall guys. All right. I just want to say, sending in a category but not having a name for it is completely unacceptable. I would agree with that. That's the whole point of this game. So I'm going to take that one, the Golden Knights one, just to get it off the list. All right, A, B, or C? I'm going to take the, you know what, I'll take, give me A. A it is.

Okay. This player, currently 28 years old, 364 NHL games played, and his last team is the Washington Capitals. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So how many do you need? Hmm. Let's go six. Like four last time.

I didn't really. So that gives you career points or save percentage. Years played, draft team, draft spot, size amateur team. Oh, is me? Yep. Yep. Zero. He knows it.

He's got it. Sean, do you want to go negative one? We've never had a negative. Remind me what the negative would do? What do you like? You would say who the player is, and then any one of amateur team, I can't imagine you're going to get size on the money. DraftSpot, draft team, years played, any of the things that I would have given you as a hint, negative one, you just give me one of those. Ooh.

No. No, you know what? I admire Greg's confidence. I'll let him take this one. All right, Greg, what are you got? I only know this because he's the current capital, I believe, but is it Trevor Van Remsday? It's TVR. There we go, baby.

Yep, that's right. Yeah, he was one of those players were just like, they took them and you're just like, how many fucking defensemen do you need? They flipped them? Is that, yeah, they traded them off? Nice. Yep. All right, Greg, you have two, we have two leftover untouched categories here.

So at T-Reg MMG suggested sorry buddy And that's the first goalie to play for an expansion team And at Brandon underscore altar suggested an unfortunate typo And that's guys whose names are spelled wrong on the Stanley Cup Oh man Let's go with the expansion team one I like that. Okay.

A, B or C? Let's go, uh, let's go B. B, it is. I clicked on it. This is a guy I have heard of, so that helps.

Uh, this player is currently 88 years old. Okay. Oh. He played 906 NHL games. I was really hoping it was like a modern expansion to you. Well,

there was only one guy on the list and he is also no longer in the league. So from a modern standpoint. Anyway, 88 years old, 906 NHL games played most recently the St. Louis Blues. And remember, this is the first goalie on an expansion team. I'll take all the categories. Okay, 10. Sean? I'll take zero because I know who this is. Okay.

Oh, fuck. I know who it is too, I think. Well, can you give me? me, can you give me a minus one if you know who it is? I do, but like, so it's any of the other categories? Any of the other categories? So you would have to tell me all the NHL teams he played for. His save percentage in his final season, which I don't think you're going to get,

you're probably not going to come up with cap hit. You might come up with country. His career save percentage, I feel like you'd just be getting. guessing, obviously. Give me... Wait, I have to give you his country? Country is one of them, yes. Oh, negative one.

Okay, Sean, do you want to go negative two? Well, I can give you his draft year, because he wouldn't have been drafted. That would count, yeah. God damn it. Greg, do you want to go negative three? Yeah, I'll go negative three. I'll go... The teams he played for.

Sean, do you want to go negative four? Hmm. What are my... You do, buddy. So if he's going, teams he played for, draft year, you probably shouldn't have tipped your hand with that. Greg would have been like, sounds like he would have been a 1948 draft year.

Yeah. So, and what was the other one? Country. So those are the three. If you want to go one deeper than that, you can. Yeah, I don't, I think that's probably far enough. I had the teams in my back pocket, but if Greg's going to take that, then... All right, Greg.

I'm not entirely confident I know who this is, by the way. Oh. Okay, well, it's too late now. You already shocked at three? No. No. Oh, okay. What's the point?

Sean, what do you got, bud? That's Glenn Hall. It's Glenn Hall. Oh, it's Glenn Hall. The other Hall of Fame goalie who got... was part of that expansion draft. Yep. Glenn Hall played,

he was part of the blues, right? Yes. Yep. And Jacques Plott was also part of the blues, right? Am I wrong on that? Yep. He did have a stint with the blues. I was,

I'm disappointed because now I want to hear Greg just to rhyme off all the teams Jacques Plont played for. Well, he played for Montreal, St. Louis, and Toronto, but I don't know anything beyond that. I think there's probably more. There's two.

Played for the Rangers. There's, yeah, he, played for the Rangers, the Bruins, and the WHA, Edmonton Oilers. But I've had to say WHA? I don't think so, right. No, but Jacques Plont did not play for the first. He came in on the second year of the blues existence, it looks like. Yep.

Well, that, that I feel, I feel good about that because I feel like I gave the audience their money's worth. A lot of drama. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. So, there you go. For the record, Glenn Hall, a Canadian.

of course, who... So, Jacques Plont, for the record. That's true. Played for Detroit, Chicago, and then St. Louis. Those are the teams he played for. 5-1180 pounds also. So that's it. We're done.

There we go. Well, there you go. Another thrilling edition of named Pat Falloon. Anyways, great show. Good discussions. Again, very nice to tumble down the rabbit hole of what the NHL should be. I'm glad we don't do it every week, but when we do it, I think it's insightful. It makes for a good, good chatter.

I'm Greg Wysinski. You can read me on ESPN. My column appears every Thursday on ESPN. This week, I had a bunch of shit. I don't put yourself down like that, Greg. Come on, ma'am. A bunch of good shit. Oh, okay.

Great. Yeah, the story about the Islander's new arena. I have a big story coming out on the Penguins on Thursday. and then me and Emily and our hockey friends will be doing a roundtable on Friday ahead of a big weekend of hockey. And then, of course, listen to me and Ruby and Lambert on Musum Pod. That's right. The Patreon. Yep.

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