Puck Soup - First Half Review

Episode Date: January 7, 2025

Sean and Ryan look back at the first half of the NHL season for surprising teams and awards leaders, then talk about the news of the week. Sponsored by Raycon (buyraycon.com/puck)

I'm Ryan Lambert from Elite Prospects. I'm Sean McAnew from The Athletic. And folks, we're like halfway through the season here. A bunch of teams right around 40, 41, 42 games. I figure now is as good a time as any since we're starting a new year with a new full episode here. Why not talk about the first half of the season? Yeah. And I argued that we should wait a month and do it whenever one had played 50 games.

but yeah just to make sure yeah but i ran up by don't he said the math is actually on your side on this one so hey the long the the bigger the sample you know the better the better the uh predict projections projections can that be the right word i don't know anyway um i guess the first question i have for you we'll start on the team side of things what's really like stood i give me give me a few teams that have really stood out to you i mean the obvious ones as As far as the surprise, the positive surprise, Washington in a big way. Yeah, sure, of course. Minnesota, not quite as much maybe, but I would put them up there.

And over the last little while, I think kings have moved into that conversation, too, because I was pretty much ready to write them off as being a team worth thinking too much about. The downside, obviously the predators. Well, wait, okay, hold on. We'll do the bummers for a second. Let's let's talk about those L.A. Kings first. Like you said, things have been going insanely well since about like Thanksgiving for them. US Thanksgiving.

Canadian Thanksgiving, you know, they were still a little bit up and down. They are 13, 3, and 2 in their last 18 games. That's pretty good. It's interesting because Drew Dowdy's still hurt, right? Like, all of this is under the shroud of our, the guy who's putatively our number one defenseman has missed the entire season to date. Yep. I think you could probably say that a lot of this is, you know, percentage driven. They have a fairly high save percentage from Darcy Kemper, which I don't think a lot of us saw coming.

and they're shooting 11.4 right now, which is a scosh high. So it's a little bit smoke and mirrors, I think, but at the same time, like, you know, any goalie can be 920 for a little while, and you're not going to turn your nose up at that. And obviously also, I think you would say, L.A. can put goalies in a better position than last year's Washington Capitals could. Correct. Who stands out to you as like a kind of a driver, beyond camper, obviously, of the success in L.A.?

Well, that's the question, right? Because it's why the team was reasonably easy to write off, because in theory, at least, they actually got worse over the offseason. In some ways, for sure. As far as the skaters, right? I mean, I mean, they, I think when we did our off-season front office confidence rankings, I think they ranked dead last as far as obviously the Pierre-Luc de Blas, had taken a big shine off of Rob Blake and friends. And you just kind of looked at it and you went, well, the absolute ceiling for this team is first-round fodder

the Oilers. I think that's right. Yeah, I think, you know, I... And yet they've been... I mean, record-wise, they've been so much better. Now, the two things to say are, they did this last year. They did. I think it was about a month ago.

I was looking at standings and I said, you know, a year ago, December, 2023, the Kings were first overall. And they fired their coach six weeks later. So things can change quick. The other part of it is you look at the standings and you go, yeah, if the playoffs started today, they play the Oilers. And is anyone really picking them over the Oilers? So maybe we were right all along. But I got to acknowledge, like this is a far better team, far better results than I envisioned.

Yeah, you know, I wrote at the beginning of this, well, whenever the Dowdy injury happened, I was like, I think they'll be fine. how you want to define fine, you know, is up to you. Like you said, regular season, they're kind of in that Maple Leafs territory of doesn't really matter because they're going to get nuked by the Oilers, you know, ASAP, right? As soon as the playoffs start. And I'm not seeing a ton here that makes me think other than if Kemp, goes off, you know, that they're going to be able to say that for every team. Yeah, I mean, look, we'll talk about the Vancouver Canucks and that whole thing later. But one of the things I keep hearing about is, look, they push the Oilers to the brink of elimination.

And it's like, that's absolutely true they did last year. But it was kind of the opposite where Stuart Skinner was just like, I'm just letting in everything, this whole series. How's that sound? You know? and that that was like a lot of four three games or whatever it felt like um or it feels like in they lost in five games to the oilers last year it's they they've gotten gone down every year they went from seven to six to five oh no no right yeah of course but i'm just saying like percent like goalie performance totally randomized anything can happen so even if they beat the oilers

in the playoffs look we're getting ahead of ourselves okay let me let me circle back here. You know who's been awesome for them is Adrian Kempi. How about that? Let's just go there. He's, he's been fucking sick. 19 goals for them. That's, you know, I, I think that's maybe like eight or ten behind Drysidal for the league lead, but I don't think you would have had him as comfortably one of the better goal scorers in the league coming in. Um, Copatar still looks really fucking good. Yeah. Uh, at age, what, 37, 38? Um, and you know who's been quietly, like a really good 200 foot player for them is a Warren Fogel.

He's already got 11 goals. I got to, I got to think that's pretty close to. Yeah, his career high is 20. So he's on pace to, to pass that. Um, so like, they're just getting a. lot of really good play from the guys kind of up front. And then their defense is holding the fort. Jordan Spence looks great.

And Brandt Clark is maybe showing that he's worth all that hype. They've given him for the last couple of years. He's been real good. Yeah. I just can't get too far out over my skis on a team where, like, Warren Fogle is the third guy that we're talking about. You're exactly right, bro. The interesting thing is, is Quentin Bifield hasn't really had that next step. No, if anything, you're taking a step back.

Yeah, which is interesting. You would think that would be a big piece. Yeah, you would have thought that would be a big piece if it was a success story, but maybe not, which is it may be a good thing in a sense that it clicks over. You know, kind of took the second half for it. happened last year if it repeats. Maybe they've even got, the ceiling goes up, but, yeah. But, you know, that first round day with the Oilers lose pretty fucking large.

They got to be hoping they find some way to avoid that. That has to be, they would never admit to that sort of thing, you know? Doesn't matter who we play, et cetera, et cetera. You got to think they're like, give me Vegas. I don't give a shit, man. Like, we got to mix it up. When was the last time two teams played in the playoffs four years in a row, let alone one team beating the other four years in a row?

Yeah, I couldn't tell you. I feel like the end of the 90s, I remember Dallas and Edmonton played every year. There was that big upset year with the Kujo and the Todd Marchangle, and then Dallas, like, beat them. I want to say four or five years in a row. Yeah, that sounds right. But beyond that, I don't even, if it's happening,

happened in the cap era. I'm not recalling. Even the Leafs and Senators took a break for one year. Right. Leaves and Bruins is the one that you obviously think of immediately. Nope, I do not think of that one immediately. Oh, interesting. Okay. It doesn't come to mind at all.

You mentioned Washington as another of the positive teams. You can't ignore that they're... Are they still the best record in the East right now? Yep. Yeah. So, what's interesting is, Last night, they losing a shootout to the savers.

Not a team you want to be losing in the shootout too. I would just broadly, you know, speculate on that. But I saw a thing where they're like, whatever, five, four, and two in their last, I guess that would be 11 games. I think it's something like that. And it's like, well, yeah, I mean, they weren't going to win 70% of their games all year. They're the Washington Capitals, you know?

Like, we don't, I don't know. I think they're a good team, but I think also, you know, nobody, let alone this team can sustain the kind of start they had. Or this roster, I should say. And, and, you know, there's a bit of the slump has coincided with Alexander Rovetchkin coming back, the selfish. Mm-hmm. Can't ignore that. I mean, just. Yeah.

Can we talk about, since we're in the East? Yeah. Since we're talking about surprising teams, can we talk about your playoff-bound Montreal Canadians? What is even happening here? This snuck up on me. I got to be honest. I think it snuck up on everyone. I write about every team every week, at least a little bit.

And I don't feel like I was seeing even a week ago a lot of like, here we go. They're about to fucking take off. They just went on a six-game road trip through Columbus, Florida, Tampa, Vegas, Chicago, Colorado. Yeah. Guess which one of those they lost? Well, they also lost to Columbus. So the two games they lost were to Columbus and Chicago. Fun.

This league doesn't make any sense. No, it does not make sense. But to your point earlier, eight and two in their last 10 games, outscoring their opponents, 40 to 20. That's crazy. And, you know. Currently holding down a playoff spot in terms of points, not points percentage, but with a minus 14 goals

differential. Yeah. Which is better than the Bruins. Yeah, right. Now, question for you, are they shooting 14% over these last 10 games? You know, I think the things they do well. Yeah, it's all that pre-shot movement

that we're hearing about. That's it. But I guess we'll use the Montreal thing to, how about this playoff bubble? Tampa has 42 points. Montreal has 41. Pittsburgh has 41. Ottawa has 40.

Columbus has 40. Philadelphia has 39. Detroit has 38. And even the lowly New York Rangers and Islanders have 37 apiece. So they're not like totally out of it. especially because with the Rangers, you're like, Shisterkin could figure it out.

Yep. And then they win four games in a row. They're back in it. But I think what we're talking about here is there's a whole bunch of teams that are between like a five, 10 points percentage and like a 475 points percentage. Yep. And it wasn't that long ago.

Oh, Ottawa. Whoa, here we go. They're doing it. And then O'Mark gets hurt. And it's like, Oh, never mind, they're still the senators. Yeah. You know?

Well, I mean, most teams, starting goal, it gets hurt. You're a $1 million goal that gets hurt. That's going to ding you a little bit. But still holding the spot by points percentage. Because, of course, God forbid, we have schedules where any teams are within three games of each other. Yeah, there are, you know, Pittsburgh has 47, Tampa has only 37. Tampa has a better points percentage than Boston.

You know, blah, blah, blah. But, yeah, Montreal, I mean, look, they're getting the saves all of a sudden. They're shooting 14% all of a sudden. Here's the thing, though. They're also significantly out shooting their opponents over these last 10 games, plus 29, it says here. And I don't know, like, that Washington is getting out shot by their opponents over the last, however, many games. So, you know, if we're talking about foundations for success, I think you could say the Canadians have it to a certain extent.

And, you know, look, they, they're the team that they've been saying. We need to get going. We need to get going. And they're doing it. I don't know that I need to, that I need to like really put all my faith in Sam Montembow. Yeah. as like a guy who's going to be a warrior in the second half. I feel like I got suckered in on that earlier in the season, right?

Where it was, you heard him mention, oh, you know, he could be a dark horse for team Canada. He's this and that. And I was kind of like, all right, I'm in. Got the shut out on the opening night, if I remember, right? And then like a month in, he wasn't playing well. And you're like, oh, okay, right, Sam Monimo. So now, I don't know, fool me once. Well, I mean, more recently, I think you would say,

look what their backups doing. Jacob Dobish, two NHL games, one goal allowed on 57 shots. And I'm going to go out on a limb here and say, I don't expect this guy to be 980 forever. Hmm. Okay. That's just me. It's but, you know, I think if as a, you know, we're talking about a battery, like multiple goalies have to carry the water for you look at, you know, look at Vancouver just for example of like you can't rely on one guy. Look at, look at Ottawa, you know.

But yeah, if you can if you can get around 900 goals. goaltending, which is roughly the league average right now. And you can reliably outshute your opponents. I can see a world where Montreal is at least competitive for, you know, does the thing the senators say they want to do every year and be like, we want meaningful games in March? I can see the Canadians doing that, given how bad the rest of the East is. Yeah. Let's put it that.

I mean, it feels like there were so many teams in the East where we're like, man, if they could just just play meaningful. Everybody in the East might be doing it down the stretch. Even Buffalo is close enough that they're like a winner to a way from lying to themselves. Well, I mean, Lindy Rough last night said something to that effect. We're, you know, we're this close to figure. I can't remember the exact quote, but I saw a tweet that everyone was like, what is he fucking talking? about, man. Maybe, I think the thing somebody said on the Discord was, next time, try not to lose 13 games in a row and you'll be right in that fucking mix, man. It's true.

You know? Take out the 13 games that they lost. Yeah. I've heard that there's a lot of petitioning in the NHL to, you know, in the interest of, you know, parity. Take out the 13 best and 13 worst games of your season. Okay. Suddenly everyone's like exactly 500. Wow, we did it, you know.

It's great. So we've finally got the most exciting league in the world. Yeah, we're just trying. We don't want a grade on a curve, you know. That's all. But yeah, anybody else really stand out to you? Minnesota, I guess, would be the other big one. Yeah, Minnesota, and to some extent, Winnipeg, in the sense that, you know, I think a lot of us figured they would be a playoff team, be in the mix, but not a, certainly not running away with the Central, which is how they started.

Now, I think if I'm not wrong, they've lost more than they've won since their 15-and-1 start. So again, much like the Sabres, if you take out the most interesting stretch of their season, they end up pretty average. But I did not, I thought they were third place ceiling and third place behind Colorado and Dallas, so shows them right as far as how the Central would work out. Well, I mean, we'll get into this when we talk about player awards. but, you know, to me, I just say, like, oh, I guess I didn't think Connor Hellebuck would be kind of by far the best goalie in the world in the first half of the season, again, basically. Like, obviously you count on him to be great. You don't think of him as putting up, like, 2014-15 carry price numbers necessarily. And that's almost what he did.

He's not quite at that level. he's pretty fucking close. And so, you know, that helps. But with the wild, obviously, Caprizov's going nuts. Phil Augustivson, going nuts. There's a top Vesna guy for you as well.

But what you got to really like if you're, the wild, Marco Rossi finally looks like he's gotten it all together. He's pulling in the right direction and all that kind of thing. Matt Boldie. saying, you know, living up to the contract. And then, you know, they're kind of weathering the storm despite some injuries to guys like, you know, Joel Erickson, Jared Spurgeon, et cetera, et cetera. So, you know, like they, they just look like a plain old good team with a couple of awards candidates on the roster, which again, I don't think anybody would have said at the start of the year.

No. I didn't. Nope. I'm sure some people did, and I'm sure there are some wild fans out there going. Yeah, they all live in the fucking Farabobo, Minnesota. Yeah. If you would watch the team, you would have known. All right. We got an email here from Dave from Apple Valley, Minnesota.

This is actually the best team in the league, he says. Wow, well. And it's dated October 1st. Wow. That's crazy. You knew. But, yeah. So, like, again, I think the, I think the other thing to say, and we'll kind of start here talking about disappointing teams, the reason those teams are running away with the Central is Colorado's goaltending was so bad for two months that they traded both of their opening night goalies.

Yep. And Dallas, it seems like it's always, you know, are they figuring it? No, they're not. They're not doing that. Sorry. So we thought they were, they weren't. Yep. You know?

And those are two, like, especially Colorado's really come on lately. It looks like getting rid of those two goalies worked out really well for them. Getting healthy, helped a little bit too. Yeah, of course. Gabe Landskog, potentially in the future. I will believe that when I see it. Sure. But, you know, Colorado has, what are they on right now, like an eight-game point street, nine, something like that.

8-1-1 in their last 10. Well, there you go. And the least recent of those games was the regulation loss. So, yeah, nine straight with a point. And, yeah, they look fucking awesome as one can kind of expect. And, you know, I think the thing to say is, like, if you're even Minnesota, let alone, let alone Winnipeg, you're kind of hearing the footsteps. now. Yeah.

You know? Nice run. It was cute. We let you guys get the, get the, like, 50-yard head start in this 100-yard dash, but we're going to be running you down

like fucking crayhounds, man. And even, I mean, even Dallas has won four in a row. So, right. Yeah. Seven, two and one in their last 10.

Man. If you, Colorado looking at them like, fuck you. That sucks. The order for the central of those four teams. Uh,

give me, Colorado, Minnesota, Dallas, Winnipeg. Yeah. Every Jets fan is like, please agree with them, Sean, because you're wrong about the Jets. Literally every time, please do not pick the Jail. I'll do Jets fans in favor. I'll agree with you. I'll flip Dallas and Minnesota, which basically means I'm just going back to my preseason

picks and ignoring everything I've seen in three months. You know, here's the thing. You're right enough that like that again with the like I think this when I say like Colorado, I think maybe Colorado wins it by, you know, six or eight points by the end of the season. That's a lot of ground to make up, I understand, but they're that good. And more so I think that Winnipeg and Minnesota are going to start leaving a little more on the table in terms of points as opposed to Colorado is going to play at this pace forever, you know. but I think we're talking about kind of thin margins between all of these teams apart from maybe Colorado.

So, yeah, and it's kind of the same thing in the Pacific. Like, Edmonton and L.A. probably are going to finish a decent amount behind Vegas, but like the difference between Edmonton and L.A. probably won't be that big, you know? And even, I mean, we're all. I wouldn't say we're all expecting, but none of us would be shocked if Edmonton went, you know, had the best record in the league in the second half. Yeah, for sure. Gamed that ground. We're all kind of waiting on that.

But yeah, Vegas has been a big story, best record in the year, or best, best records in the league on the year so far. And you wouldn't have said it coming in, you would have said they'd be up there, but. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I wouldn't have been, like, super confident first half president's trophy. winners. Sure. We've had a few coaching changes this year, you know. You got any, you got any thoughts on like where those teams are at?

Boston is sort of all over the place. Yeah. They string together a couple and you go, okay. And then not so much. St. Louis, I think, is. just they are what they are. They're a slay better than 500 team, and that's about it. Well, since Montgomery took over 10, 6, and 3, they started out pretty hot under him,

if I'm remembering right, but, you know, if you can get 23 points from every 19 games you play, you're, yeah, that's roughly a playoff base. Like 10, 6 and 3, that's 10 wins and 9 losses. That's, yeah, I understand, but again, 23 points from 19 games is, I don't know, I got to pull up the calculator here. But that's a 99 point pace. You take that. Yeah, you would.

Especially the way they start. Three years below NHL 500. Of the other two. Chicago is, I mean, I had very low expectations for the Blackhawks, but I think they still qualify as a disappointing team. This was not supposed to be another dead last season. So. Well, I mean, they said that.

I don't think I said that, you know. I mean, I thought bottom five, bottom eight, I certainly had them in that group in my preseason groupings, but I did not think they were going to be this bad. And I certainly, if you had, you know, if I had made my projections and then you had said, okay, are they going to be, are they more, likely to be 10 points better or 10 points worse.

I would have said 10 points better because Connor Bredard is going to level up. Maybe he pulls everyone along with them and it just hasn't happened in any sense. Yeah, I said it a few weeks ago when they made the coaching changes, I guess, of like, I didn't think they were going to be any good. I had them 29th in the league in my preseason ranking, power feelings, I guess I meant to say. it's not a ranking it's my feeling so you can't get mad at them um and yeah i mean like you said if you had said well connor badard underperforms i go oh okay then they're the worst team in the league you know what i mean um i thought he'd bring it along a little a little more strongly and he

did not um so but yeah so far yeah and you know they've shown all the all the like you know they're this close in the world to make me feel great about their second half chances. Yeah. And also, I should point out just because it is the time of your, Connor Bidard is only 19, so you're not allowed to say bad things about him. Yeah, he actually should have been at World Juniors. And if he had been, everything would be different. And, you know, if you're, it's a little boy.

You can't, you can't make fun of a little tiny baby like that. That's right. And then the final, the most recent coaching change is Todd McLean. in Detroit. They lost his first game and they have won four straight. Have they figured it out? Well, if you think so, I would encourage you to look at the underlying numbers and get back to me. They seem like they're still not very good, which I don't put on Todd McClellan or anything like that.

But nights to win some games, let's say. Sure. And they've won enough to be right back in the race. 17 goals on 107 shots in those last four games. 16%. I'm putting Buffalo in my disappointment list, even though... I get it. You know, it's...

Were they going to make the playoffs? Maybe not. This is being dead last. Tough. Yeah. Obviously, the Rangers are the biggest stunts. of the season as far as disappointments, the Islanders are there as well.

But Sabres are behind both of those teams. By the way, we didn't mention them in the positive surprises, but the full credit to the Blue Jackets, especially after everything that happened

in the offseason there. Yeah, of course. They're humming along. Like, they're... They're 500. I don't think anyone's picking them. They're dead even 500. Yeah, they're dead even 500,

which in the NHL is fake 500. Yeah. But I don't think any of us would have been stunned if they crumbled this year. Of course, yeah. They haven't at all. So that's a good story. I can't remember.

A couple of weeks ago we were talking about some team had a crazy home record. Maybe the Kings had a crazy home record. The Kings have the best home record in the league. Columbus has to be up there. 13, 5, and 3? Mm-hmm. That's all great for them. 4, 12, and 3 on the road.

Not so good. Only the Leafs and Hurricanes have more wins in the conference at home. Tough to turn your nose up at that. But I will use that. The Leafs have a conference leading 17 wins because it's just, it's such a tough building to play in. It's very intimidating. You hear that a lot. Yeah.

I mean, well, that one guy like coughs in Section 302. Right. Yeah. And it's like, it's really distracting. Ooh. But let's use Columbus as a way to pivot to talking about player awards. Okay. Because.

I don't think that sentence has ever been said before in NHL conversations. So later this week over the next several days here, I have my top 10 rankings for like every award major award in the NHL. I didn't pick the Messier. that's always tough to project, you know. People were very disappointed we didn't do the Messier in the bonus episode. You want to do it right here? Who's been the greatest leader of the, well, I mean, Mark Messier played the first four years of the. Yeah.

Well, okay. So to set it up, on the most recent bonus episode we did, I guess, yesterday, me and Sean said, like, you know, who's the best goalie of the 21st century so far? We said Martin Brodour, because he won four Veznas, you know, that kind of thing. And we did that for every one of the major awards. We didn't, as people pointed out, pick the Mark Messier Award. I have an answer for you. When people said it, I was like, oh, right? Yeah, I guess that would have been funny.

But, like, I have a sincere answer for you. Okay, so do I. So I want to hear yours. Jerome McGinlay. Nailed it. Boom. Same unanimous. All right, folks, have a good one.

The other finalists, I would put Zidino-Chara. Sure. And I don't even know. I'm trying not to say Crosby because it feels. You know what? Jonathan Taves. Screw it. Captain of three Stanley Cup winners.

Yeah. Oh, I mean, yeah, if we're using like the hockey man, like this is a leader, you know. And look, Jonathan Taves, you know, there are rumors he might try to make a comeback this season now. And teams would be interested all that. 100%. Yeah, okay. Yeah. All right.

That's fine. But the reason I say about individual awards in Columbus, I don't have anybody in my top one on individual awards from Columbus. But I have one finalist. And I have, because, you know who's had a great 200-foot season is Sean Monaghan. Okay. He's been, if you look at like, you know. That's not where I thought you were going there, but all right.

No, well, we'll, we'll get into other, uh, other rewards in a minute. I think, I think Zach Wrenski's, I mean, that's the obvious one. I think his case for the Norris is being overstated because he's putting up a lot of points. You know? Yeah. But, um, Sean Monaghan, point a game, 14 goals so far. and I don't have it right in front of me. But I think he's one of these guys where, like,

they're not scoring when he's on the ice. The other teams aren't scoring, I should say. So, like, he's just having a really good, really, really good season. And I thought, I think right now, if I'm voting, which I, of course, don't have a vote. If I'm a voter, Sean Monehan, right now is second in my Selkie voting.

Okay. and I want to give a big salute to the guy because they're, like you said, unimaginable circumstances. Sure. Yeah. Let's see here. Second in the league and five-on-five goal difference for Sean Monaghan

behind only a guy who is on his line. 23rd in the league and expected five-on-five goals running it close to 60%. That's all you're looking for a minute. That's, you know what? It's a good argument. Second on Columbus and P.K. minutes too. So the second they take a penalty, he's over the boards.

Point a game. Third on the team in total scoring. He's having a great fucking year. You said you had him second. Is it, uh, you still have Barkov first or are you? Barkov having a bit of a down year, but I do have a guy on the Florida Panthers, Sam Reinhardt. Okay. He was second in Selke voting last year.

And, you know, he's kept up the goal scoring. Barkov not so strong of a candidate. this year and also voters hate giving a guy an award two years in a row. True. So Sam Reinhardt, let's mix it up a little, but you know, keep the award in South Florida. That's who I have number one.

And, you know, the rest is a lot of the same guys that you would expect. Heeshire, Matthews, Barkov. You know, he's having a great 200-foot years, Tom Wilson. I don't have him like high on my ranking or anything, but he's in my top 10.

All right. So. Note it, Tom Wilson fan. You know, this is the thing. I'm a huge hater and a loser, all this kind of stuff. You have a good season. I'll fucking tell it to you. You know, I'm happy to do it.

Unless you're Jordan Bennington, in which case, you know, I'm just, clock's ticking, you know what I'm saying? Sure. Anybody else stand out to you for Selke? No, and I'll be very honest. It's a tough word. really sit down to dig into the Selke

until late in the season and if I don't have a vote maybe not even then. I do think voters will like the Anzi Kopitar don't forget about me season and especially if the king stay in this range

the voters will want to recognize somebody so I wouldn't be shocked to see him in as a finalist. All right. Well, I mentioned Werensky. Let's do the Norris Convo. Who do you got? So it's, it's McCar and Hughes, I think, are the two big names. Yeah, of course. The same as it ever was. Same as it ever was. And unfortunately, the Hughes injury is maybe derailed that a little bit because it seemed like we were

heading towards another, another big debate. I'll tell you, if it wasn't for the injury, I don't think there's a debate. Okay. He's, the underlying numbers when he's on the ice versus off, did you see, you know, Jayfresh had a chart the other day? Okay. Of like, Canucks with Hughes-on, connects with Hughes-Off, like, as two separate teams.

And Hughes-on, they look like the best team in the league. Hewes-off, they are off-the-charts bad defensively and offensively. So, like, they're not, you have to, change the, what do they call it, like the range of the chart to get the Canucks onto it. That's how bad they are when he's not on the ice. So I personally, like, if it weren't for the injury, I would say Hughes number one with a fucking bullet. With like not even a bullet, like a bazooka, like rocket. That's how good he's been this year.

But I don't know if you saw it today, but ESPN has their latest update. on the awards race. Oh, do they indeed? And they have Kill McCar, number one again. Yeah. No, I mean, again, with the injury, they had Macar. And that's, I wonder if anyone in Vancouver has thoughts about it. Well, I'll tell you, man.

I'd advise these people watch a fucking game, you know? I'm one of these big watch the games, guys. Yeah. And I don't know. Like, watch the Canucks when he's on the ice. and they look like the fuck. This is what I put in the article. When he's on the ice, they look like the Harlem Globetrotters.

And when he's off the ice, they make the Washington generals look like the Harlem Globetrotters. Okay. Yeah. It's that big of a difference. And, you know, Kail McCarr, I don't know if you've seen who he plays with. Any good players in Colorado? No, I don't, yeah. Look, he's awesome, obviously.

He's the second best defenseman in the league, having the second best season by a defenseman in the league. But we don't have to pretend, man. You know? And again, I have Werenskiy and, like, comfortably in my top 10, but not. He wouldn't be a finalist for me. You know, who's having a great year? Victor Hedman. Thomas Shabbat.

These guys are having great years. Okay. Yeah, Hedman would be another. Like a renaissance season for him. I don't think he got any votes last year. But barring big injuries, it's a two-horse race. And it might be for the next decade the way. I totally agree with you.

Here's an interesting one that's getting maybe less interesting by the day, the Calder. So, I mean, right now it's celebrating. He's clearly caught up to and past Bichikov. Yes. And then third is that guy on your favorite team that... See, here's the thing. Hudson? Yeah, it is.

Hudson, but like big trending up arrow for Hudson and Celebrini, big trend, like, to the point where like, I don't know if you saw Tortorella's comments about Mitch Gov's slump the other day where he was just like, I think the schedule, the grind of being in the NHL is catching up to him. And so that that might mean they do the Stamcoast thing where it's like, we're just going to healthy scratch you like one on, one off for a while or whatever it is. Yeah. let him kind of catch up with everybody. And regardless of how they handle it, I think it's a, a 2BU guy race right now. And like you say, Celebrini's kind of pulling ahead pretty convincingly. But Hudson is on pace. And deservedly so.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, this isn't voters getting caught up in a narrative or whatever. Like, he's just... He's so sick, man. Yeah. He's getting, you know, like, people clip, like, just little... Like, you know how they used to do it with that suit? Like, oh, here he is just, like, going through a guy.

It didn't even result in a goal or anything, but, like, he just made a guy look silly. I've seen that with Celebrini a few times in the last month. So, he's getting to that level at age 18. Uh-oh. You know? Yikes. But, as you say, narratively, if Hudson gets or if Montreal gets into the playoffs

Hudson might not be like the team MVP but he's going to be up there and he's going to have a lot of fucking assists to do it you know so he could he could make the race interesting if Montreal keeps winning we'll put it that way but I do want to also shout out Dustin Wolf he's been great this year for Calgary yeah and again we we almost never seem to consider goalies in that yeah A word. For reasons, I do not understand, but... Well, it's so rare that a rookie goalie, like, gets 40 plus games.

Yeah, but even then, like, I mean... I understand. We put guys in the Calder race some years who are on pace for, like, 40 or 45 points, so a goalie with 20 wins should be... I agree. ...in there. I agree. And, again, if Calgary's even around the playoffs, that speaks to Dustin Wolf went

psycho this year. And his track record really indicates that that's possible, perhaps even probable, that he keeps this up. But, yeah, it'll be, I think, I think top one isn't so interesting, but like two through four is pretty, pretty fascinating for that. But we mentioned goalies. Let's do the Vesna. Who you got? I'm going to go out on a limb here and say Connor Hellebuck. Bingo.

Who do you have after? Connor Hellebuck. Does it matter? Well, yeah. So in Gorg's voter roundup, did you see the other goalie who got a first place vote? Well, I didn't because I did not know that this got published. Somewhat surprisingly, although not indefensibly,

somebody threw a vote to Logan Thompson, which if you're going to go purely on the kind of, you know, the Vezina is the MVP of goalies sort of deal, then okay, you know, maybe that's, maybe that's where you go with it. To me, I think it's crazy to do a guy who's, to vote for a guy who's doing a pure one-in-one split of the starts versus a guy who leads the league in, you know,

goals or goals games started minutes played shots against all that kind of stuff sure all of which applies to hellibuck who by the way has like a 10 points higher save percentage than Logan Thompson yeah I think that this is just someone who's like I follow the Washington capitals around so it's it's it's it's Connor hellabuck and then it's a gap and then it's it's what's Gustafson next gustavson is my two yeah for sure yeah he's He's been awesome. The Wild are great, et cetera. And then where do you go from there?

Because if, you know, well, this is where the NB. Numbers are guys like Blackwood installers and that that I don't. You go Vasilevsky? Do you go? I think Vasilevsky is easy. He's easy in the top five for me. Okay.

But only because I think this is kind of an MVP award. All right. Like you say, Dostel's not getting in. And if he had more wins, he should be in the top five, but he wouldn't be. But he won't be because the ducks suck so bad. Yep. So the other two guys I have in my top five are Markstrom, having a really good year on a good team. And Darcy Kemper, again, just kind of helping power that, whoa, the Kings.

Is, okay. Did you come close to putting Allmark in there and did the injury fact? Oh, if he hadn't gotten hurt, he's easily, maybe not in my top five, but easily in my top 10. Okay. But he's hurt. So. Yep. And seemingly not a really strong timeline.

Week to week or the other. Yeah. But he's not skating. Am I right about this? I have not. Yeah. I think he's not skating yet. So that's not encouraging.

But yeah. And then a bunch of guys where if their team. makes the playoffs, wow, that'll be really good for their candidacy. Vamelka Wolf, et cetera. But yeah, like you say, I think it's got to be hellabuck, number one with a bullet.

And this is the thing about goalies when we're talking about the heart trophy, right? The problem with voting for a goalie at this point is, like if Leon Drysidal has two bad weeks, Well, I mean, he's already banked all the goals and points, so whatever. If Connor Hellebuck has two bad weeks, suddenly his numbers start looking a lot worse in comparison with Gustafsen or Markstrom or Kemper. I think the lack of a strong, like Gustafin's the only guy right now who feels like he could realistically catch him. And you're right, we can be sitting here even a month from now going, oops.

Oh, you know, Vastelowski had those three shutouts and now he's right there and blah, blah, blah. but I'm with you. So, Hart, who do you got? Again, I would put Hellebuck as Preaching to the choir, my friend. Certainly in my finalists. Do you have them won? Yeah, I do.

Yeah, I think that's a right call. I think that's, and I know, like, we, as we've said a million times, it's a forward award de facto for reasons that we're not quite sure on, but it shouldn't be. Yeah. Or even if you want to say, you know what, it should go to a forward unless somebody's having a bra.

Okay, well, there's your, I mean, we talked at the beginning. We didn't think Winnipeg would be this good. As we were talking, I went back and read my preview of the Jets and I was like, unless Hala Buk goes Vesna Mode again, this team can't, yep.

Well, here it is, folks, you know. I'm with you. I have Hughes's too. Yeah. For all the reasons I said earlier. would be up there as well. And then is, of your fours, is it Caprizov still? Caprizov won, Drysidl, 2, McKinnan, 3,

and I think it's pretty close between all of them. Right. And that's the order that Gooks got them on his voter roundup. Those three forwards, Caprizov, Drysidal, McKinnon. It's interesting to me that Drysiddle has moved into the conversation, despite McDavid being healthy. McDavid is still the betting favorite if you were to go and, you know, if you want to. I thought that was interesting.

I got that email yesterday as well. Yeah. Yeah. And I get, I get why, but Dry Seidl's just, in addition to McDavid's having a down year for him, which it means he's only on pace for like 130 points or whatever. Dryth Seidl's having a really good defensive year. Like, do I have him? I don't think I have him in my Selky list, but. like he's not not up there.

You know? Like if I had done my top 15, he'd probably be in there. He's awesome. He's having such a good year. And again, voter fatigue, how many times we've got to vote for fucking McDavid? Jesus Christ. Well, here's this other guy who kicks ass in Edmonton. Let's vote for him instead.

And, you know, obviously McKinnon having one last year, that hurts him. By the way, looking at these future odds, you've probably, if you're the sort of person who who likes to throw a couple bucks on an award for the end of the season, you've basically missed the boat on Halebuck as far as getting him at any kind of underdog odds.

Yeah. But Quinn Hughes is still way down the list. And some of that's the health, but... Yeah. A lot of that's what else is going on in Vancouver. You know? Two more guys I wanted to show that. That helps him in a way, I think, right?

Like, if the two other best players on the team are basically quitting on the team because they ate each other and you're still dragging that team, obviously you would have to get them to the playoffs. And that's the problem, right? We'll talk more about the Canucks after the break, which we have coming up in a second here. Two other guys I wanted to shout out. I do have Werenski in my top 10 for the heart. Okay. For this reason. If they make the playoffs or even get close with everything.

that happened. They're going to look at a defenseman leading his team in scoring, if he is indeed still doing that at the end of the year, and go, well, that's why. Plus, he was like, oh, and you don't like the Columbus Blue Jackets, guy who used to play here? Fuck you. We love the Columbus Blue Jackets. That's like such a good narrative thing, you know, where he came out and he had the comments about Patrick Line.

I can totally see the narrative. reason for Werensky being in there, even if I don't think he's been the best defenseman in the league. I can see him getting into the convo just because of all the other stuff. And again, he's been awesome this year. I don't want to take away from that. He just, to me, hasn't been the best defenseman in the league. The other guy, I want to get your thoughts on this one. He recently returned from injury.

He's scoring almost a goal a game. He's maybe going to run down Wayne Gretzky this season. And if the capitals are still way up there in the standings, which who knows, I can see people being like, Alex Ovec, good baby. Let's fucking do it one more time, you know? Yeah. I mean, the writers love a narrative. And I also don't think there's another like super standout guy on the capitals that you, with all due respect to the Logan Thompson voter. Yeah.

I don't know that you can point to another one guy on. on the capitals where it's like he's the fucking engine here. You know? Yeah. And, you know, it goes against the typical thinking in the sense that their record with him out was still very good. Yeah.

Which is why, I don't know if you're doing Jack Adams, but in, in the ESPN piece, they've got Spencer Carberry running away with it. And maybe that's the right, maybe that's where the voters recognize the capitals is they, they do the...

But that's a different voting block. That is true. Yep. Broadcasters vote on that award, not the writers. Yeah, I don't, you know, I don't, I have Ovechkin and Werenski low on my top 10, but I did want to be like, there is a possibility that these guys make it happen for themselves. Again, at least to get into the top five or something. I can see a lot of voters just being like, you know what, fifth on my ballot, Alex Ovechkin, and why not, for old times' sake, et cetera.

Again, especially if he breaks the record this year, I'll put it this way. There's going to be a lot of people watching a lot of late season Capitals games, and he's going to be scoring a lot of goals in those games in all likelihood. You know what I mean? Might get a little bit of attention down the scene. Yeah, that's all I'm saying. Yeah, I have here, let's talk about the Jack Adams,

but Spencer Carver, what are we doing here, you know? I was surprised at how in the ESPN piece they hit him as like the runaway, like the near unanimous pick, just because you don't often see that halfway through a season. Yep. But what can you say? Yeah, I totally. It would take a real drop off and then like Montreal would have to take a big step forward. and then it's Martin San Luis instead.

But those feel like the two guys most likely to make that conversation happen right now. So, yeah, I don't know. I guess that's a good look back at the first half. And then we'll just take a break. And we'll come back and talk about the news of the week. This week's episode of Puck Soup is brought to you by Raycon and folks, it's the new year. You might be thinking maybe it's the new me as well, right? and, you know, some of us don't want to make those big resolutions.

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I guess the biggest news of the week is, in a lot of ways, the Frank Vitrono contract. Mm-hmm. Three years, 18 million, but $9 million of that money, half of it, is going to be paid to him probably well after he retired, starting, I believe, in 2035. Yeah. And $900,000 a year per year for 10, for 10 years. So this is, it's a, it's a big change for, we never see contracts. Like, you know, oh, was it Jacob Slavin like deferred like 120 grand or something like that? Yeah, and everybody freaked out for three days.

And then we're like, oh, it didn't really matter. But this is the first of the significant deferrals. It lowers the cap hit to $4.5 million because they basically, it's, it's not. that the deferred money doesn't count towards the cap. It's not that it goes away. It's that it gets its value diminished because future money is worth less than the same number of dollars today for various reasons. And the idea from his perspective is, A, he gets guaranteed income later in life. And he if he is not, if he is not, living in California or any other high tax state. I don't know if you know this, but states have different tax rates. I've never heard this come up.

It doesn't come up often, but it's a little, little Easter egg that a lot of fans don't know about. So if he moves to Florida, let's say, he then is not going to pay taxes on that money at the rate he would if he were earning it in California. Yep. Now, all that said, I don't know if you saw Alan Walsh had a couple of a tweet or two where he explained why this probably still costs Frank Petrano money in the long run. So it's not like, oh, we found it. We found the loophole that everyone's going to use going forward. But depending on the player, depending on the team, you know, who knows what the true value of a. Frank Vitrano contract should be at this point for 31 year.

Well, I'll tell you, it's not, it's not $6 million a year, which is what they're kind of paying him. I mean, that that is, yeah. If it was, if it was three years 18 million without the deferral, that's what it would be. And that's way too much money for Frank Vitano. Right. But because of this, now we can have a conversation about whether it makes sense, you know? Right. And also, we should point out for a guy who's 31.

And coming off some pretty good years, signing him to a three-year deal is smart. Totally. And look, the ducks are, I mean, they'd probably like to think that their contention window opens back up during those three years. But it's not there yet. So they've got cap space and that kind of thing. Yep. But no, no, even though they are deferring, it does not, that deferred money doesn't carry a cap it. in the future.

Correct. I'm very... I believe the way it was explained on 32 thoughts yesterday was that it doesn't affect their cap number, but it does come... When they start paying him the $900 grand a year, that counts against the players half of revenues. Sure. But it's not like they are kicking their cap hit down the road.

They are essentially making a chunk of this, what we would expect, $6 million cap hit, go away. But they're, you know, it's not like they're doing accounting tricks here. They are paying him money that is worth less than it would be, which is a weird way to describe it. But it's, so. And you could understand it from his perspective, too. Like, he's probably sitting there going, you know what?

I'm going to make good money in my career, but I'm not, you know, I'm Frank Vitrano. I'm not going to retire super wealthy. not going to immediately get offered a, you know, a job on ESPN or something like that. Having $900,000 a year and guaranteed income for a little while, not bad. You know, when I'm settled down with the kids and whatever else, yeah, why not do it down? And the other thing about that, too, is like, you know, this is money he might not have gotten otherwise. Like, if he hits the open market, no one's giving him $6 million. dollars, right?

So the only thing is maybe he could have extended his, his term if he had gone, like, let's say, maybe he gets five at four instead of three at six. And then technically he's making an extra two million dollars. But with the taxes and everything, like, I think, I think he probably, you know, if I had to guess, like he probably had someone sit down and be like, okay, this is exactly what this is worth. You know, like you at five years versus you at three years, but then you get $9 million over a decade, 10 years from now, that kind of thing. And look, here's the here's the other thing. Like inflation, yeah, that $900 grand is going to be worth less than $900 grand is today.

But like, if someone's writing you a check for $900,000 once a year, you're doing fucking okay. I don't know how much inflation has to go up where you're not doing pretty fucking well for yourself on top of everything he's made. Don't forget, inflation's canceled now. Oh yeah, we've only got two more weeks of it

and then we're done. I'm trying to find what his career earnings are for Vitrono, but I don't know, he's probably made... Career earnings $21 million dollars according to buck media. And is that,

is that can't be counting the 18 he's already made or he's just signed up to make, I should say. No, it does not. So, you know, if you cash out at like 40 million bucks in your NHL career, hats off to you, Frank Vitrano, you know. Do you think we're going to see a bunch of this going forward, or do you think that's... I think we probably will in certain situations. guys like Frank Vitrono may be more likely to take this deal now. And again, perhaps shorter term. I think you do have to get into the kind of like early to mid-30s guys who don't want to necessarily sign for,

or who teams don't want to necessarily sign for four or five years. But they'll go, we'll give you that extra money a decade from now, four years from now, whatever it is, to bring down your A.A.V. in the meantime. Because I think, even with the cap going up, teams are always going to want to find that extra half million dollars here and there. And if you can get three, four guys on, three or four maybe is a lot. But two, three guys on your roster to do this deferred money thing and save yourself, whatever, a million and a half dollars against the cap, you're in great fucking shape all of a sudden, you know? let alone a guy who is maybe going to save you a million and a half by himself against the cap.

So I could definitely, I don't, I don't think like, like Connor McDavid's ever going to do this. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like. And in theory it would have to be players in high tax areas. That's exactly right.

Yeah. As it was explained, part of the appeal for. Right. And like, I've heard people. Get the hell out of there. I've heard people mention this in conjunction with Shohei Otani. And it's like, well, yeah, I guess he is like the elite player. And he took a bunch of deferred money.

He took an insane amount of deferred money. That's what I was going to say. If the oilers say to Carter McDavid, you know, signed for, uh, signed for 900 grand this year. And then a decade from now we'll give you a check for $100 million. Maybe, you know, then we can have a different conversation about what, what Carter McDavid's AAB is. but I don't think guys will be like, you know what, let's bump it down to 12

and you can give me the rest of the 15 you owe me, you know, three years down the line or whatever. I don't think it'll work like that, but I think, and just because of the economics of the sport, like I said, I don't think teams are going to be like, oh, you want half a billion dollars 25 years down the line? No problem, brother.

You know what I mean? I just don't think that'll happen. So, yeah, I think the Vitrano type is like the exact right guy to at least think about this kind of contract for. Sure. You want to talk about the Vancouver Canucks a little bit more? Of course. What's more fun than talking about the Canucks? Love talking.

The most interesting team in hockey. I keep saying it, you know. But it is like that old Chinese proverb. may you root for an interesting team no don't you know uh oh

so i am yeah go ahead i i got to say i we've been talking about this for weeks i am a couple weeks removed from the point where i was like you know what there's always some there's always some team we talk about stuff like oh they're going to make a big move or something and then they don't and that'll just be the conucks this year i moved officially

into, okay, there is, there must be a fire here because of how much smoke there is. But even I was not ready for the latest twist, which was Elliot Friedman's report on Saturday night on Hockey Night on Hockey Night Canada, that he essentially was saying almost fans need to be prepared for the fact that they might not trade either one of these guys, of course, they might trade one. of these guys or they might trade both. I love it. Which is the sort of thing that that had never occurred to me as an option that they would move both guys. And it is the sort of thing that is, I mean, a guy like Elliot doesn't report that on hockey night in Canada.

A million percent. This isn't, you know, this wasn't like some radio hit where, you know, maybe it came out wrong or whatever. Like, he's on hockey night in Canada. clearly somebody has somebody somewhere isn't necessarily the Vancouver front office although you would you would start there has told him this is a legitimate possibility and we want this out there because you know the fan base might riot if we do it we need to start managing expectations you see something like that and your first thought is well if

that's wrong we're going to get the full court press denial from the And there were tumbleweeds. None forthcoming. Yeah, that's right. So I don't know, man. This is, this could be massive. This could be really seismic. Like between, I was thinking the other day, like between the Rangers and the Canucks,

I'm not sure it's in the cap era. We've had a situation where there could be two teams willing to make as big jaw-dropping moves. during a season. Totally. It used to happen all the time, but that was before the cap came in and made everyone's jobs hard. Do we agree that the funniest possible outcome here is for Miller and Patterson to get traded to the same team? Oh, of course. I mean, that would not happen.

That would be the best. Come on, man. Like, just without telling them. Well, the funniest possible, maybe the funniest possible outcome is they trade for Jacob Truba. Okay. They need a leadership type guy to come in and really take it over. He's the reigning best leader in the league. Trade them both.

Imagine them both just awkwardly sitting next to each other at the airport, trying not to acknowledge each other. And they getting on the same plane and being like, oh, God, damn. Why are we both? We both go to New York. There's got to be a crazy Rangers Canucks trade that we can put together, right? Yeah, I would think so. I think

Elliot, if I heard him right on Saturday, like Rahm McLean asked him about Miller to New York and he was sort of like, it feels like that would have happened already. It's just so obvious that the fact that it hasn't happened yet makes you think maybe it won't. But I don't know, man. It's like that got me to sit up straight

when I heard him say both guys. Oh, I mean, that is, that is the, like the all-time game-changer news is that it, because here's the thing, if they trade both guys, who are they getting back? Yeah. Like, you, I think the thing that was funny is like, Elliot was like, if they, if they trade both of them, they would be wanting a center back. Yeah. Yeah, I know that. There are two centers. You can't trade both of them.

your top two centers and then be like, yeah, we'll take a winger or something. Yeah. And you do it. Like this is, this is a team that where they're at right now, you would imagine they're not trading certainly both of these guys for like picks and prospects and that kind of. Yeah. Like they won. Which again, that's why it all, it points back to New York, right?

Like everyone's saying make us advantage it as a piece of the deal. Oh my God. Can you imagine, man. If I was a Canucks fan, I would be dreading that. He has no trade clause. Yep. Played in Canada in Ottawa for a while, but I don't know that that affects anything. I feel like it's like a pretty good DJ scene in Vancouver, not quite New York level, but.

By the way, did you see that Scott Oak on Hockey Night in Canada a couple of weeks ago told, informed Maclin Celebrini of where his parents met. They met at the Roxy. Oh. And Maclin Celebrini was like, no way. Come on. He's like, don't tell me that. Yeah.

He's like, I knew it was a bar or something, but. Yeah. I thought that was really funny. But yeah, so I just feel like, obviously the only thing that we have that's even kind of close to this in terms of comparison is the. Jack Eichael trade. Mm-hmm. Like, I was just racking my brain when's the last time a star player with a ton of term on a huge

A.A.V. Got traded mid-season. And even that, like, he wasn't playing for them at the time. Right. So it's not like, geez, man. Like, we're going to have a situation where, like, you see somebody go and tap a Lice Pedersen on the shoulder and he, like, heads down to the room. Then you see the coach lean over and whisper.

for something to J.T. Miller, who does a cartwheel. Right. Hops on the ice scores three goals on the same shift. Yeah. Well, so the thing, too, with the Ikel, again, this is in the trade both scenario. Trade one, and it's a little easier to understand, I guess. But like, unlike the Vancouver Canucks, the sabres at that point are like, fuck it, we'll take it.

Who cares? We're not good. We're not competing for anything. So they get Tuck, they get Peyton Krebs, and they get a first and a second, I want to say, something like that. And obviously Tuck's a good player. If you want to say he's comparable to Mika Zabandajad, I'm not going to fight you on that. I'd say maybe he's a little bit better, but that's fine. But if you trade both of them, how, how?

How do you make that work financially for both of the other teams and then you're bringing back presumably less money than you had before and then like what are you spending it on? That will help you this season because again, I think the Canucks are trying to compete for something. They don't want to waste another year of Quinn Hughes, which by the way, we haven't even talked about. He came back from injury and I don't know if you saw this. The cameras caught like caught him on the bench and he had his glove off and his hand was in. I don't know, like if you call it a rap or a splint or some kind of a medical device, but like there was a thing on his hand that was clearly like, oh, I don't think he's 100% man. And so now you're rushing Quinn Hughes back on top of everything else?

What are we fucking doing? Insane. What an organization. Maybe you let like both of their GMs trade one guy. Yeah, and they don't even consult with the other guy. Yeah. We said it on the bonus episode yesterday, I think, but there was a question to Patrick Alvin about, like, making a big move or something. I think it was a Sportsnet interview, maybe.

And he was like, well, you know what Jim's like? You never know what he's going to do. And it's like, oh, okay, I get who's running the show here. Yeah. Fucking assistant to the regional manager over here. Oh, man. If I was a Vancouver fan and I got suckered into thinking that like 13% shooting percentage they had for most of the last year was real, I'd be, I'd be on a ledge right now. This would be crazy to me.

But, man, it's brutal. It is, it's fascinating to me. Like, I'm, you just don't see this anymore. They are the team to watch. By the way, if the Vancouver Canucks do trade both guys mid-season, can we forever shut up about how you can't make trades during a season? And like if they trade like $19 million worth of centers. Sean, I asked the GMs just real quick and they said no, we can't. All right.

Okay, fair. I appreciate you asking, but it's going to be a no. All right. Worth a try. Yeah, some other news from the league here. One last bit of news from the NHL itself. The ratings came in and no one wanted to watch a game between the worst team in the league and a team no one outside of a 20-mile radius of their rink cares anything about. Isn't that crazy?

No one wanted to watch. Oh, by the way, it was their second game at this one stadium and I think the third time these teams met outside. So, so. And no one knew when the game was having the same matchup in the same place at a different time than everyone's been trained to expect the world. The winter classic. Oh, and don't forget the teams are way worse than last time. Cool. Yeah.

Cool, cool, cool. Here's the thing. I say this about professional wrestling. I say this about like TV shows. If a show is good and the ratings are bad, like who cares as long as it's a good show, that kind of thing. You don't, you shouldn't, you don't work for the NHL. You shouldn't give a flying fuck about what the ratings are. Mm-hmm.

First of all. But second of all, we need to just like stop, like, I guess ESPN cares or whoever. Was it Turner had the game? I don't know. Whatever. I didn't watch it, as I'm making clear to you. Yeah. And I was joined by roughly 370.

million Americans and not doing so, you know? 370 million people can't be wrong. I just think, like, we need to, I wrote this before when I went to the Fenway one last year, two years ago, two years ago. I had a blast at the game, but that's it. Like, we should, like, it shouldn't be on national TV, and it should just be a thing where it's like, this is for the local fans. We love you.

Thank you for paying $200. to come to this game or whatever, you know? Yeah. Like, at some point, we just have to accept, oh, you know, this isn't for a national audience. Have they announced the next one yet? It's not announced, but it seems like it's going to be Florida in the Marlin Stadium. At least we'll get a different matchup. Yeah.

That's enough of Chicago for a little while. I would argue maybe forever. let's get them into the playoffs one time and we'll reassess. That's fair. But the Florida thing is interesting because they're also saying that Tampa will have an outdoor game. I would have thought Battle of Florida at Marlin Stadium would have been the way to go. But Tampa will apparently also have an outdoor game next year at the Buccaneers Stadium that I don't know the name of. I mean, we've been waiting for a Florida game for so long.

why not do two in the same season to really make sure that one of them has no impact whatsoever? Yeah. No, I personally can't wait for the Nashville Tampa game on February 19th or whatever. Who fucking cares about this shit, man? Like, I've been to three of them, and I haven't left the Greater Massachusetts area, you know? Three of them in like 12 years. Yep. It's crazy.

What was it like, wasn't there some guy where it's like, oh, yeah, this is like sixth outdoor game? Yeah. It's, it's. Who gives a shit? It's not special anymore. That's why people don't watch it. That's it. And, you know, the spectacle of doing it somewhere interesting doesn't really work when you've already been there once before.

Yeah. Oh, wait a minute. They put this one in the outfield of a baseball stadium. This changes everything. Who fucking cares? Now, if they put it in the grandstand. That was... Okay.

Well, yeah, then it's on a slope. Yeah, that's exactly. Well, I mean, that's... Maybe that's the only way the Blackhawks... That's... Tilt the ice, right? Tilt the ice, literally. Yeah.

Anyway. One last bit of hockey news here. USA number one. We did it, folks. First time ever the U.S. one back to back. I was surprised at that. Yes. It feels like something that you should have done a bunch of times,

like some other kind of. I could mention, but whatever. Yeah. Hey, speaking of back-to-back, how can it to do in the... You know what? I stopped watching after the Latvia game. That's smart, yeah. Let's just say the checks in the mail, you know what I mean?

It is, it is interesting. The reaction up here... Well, Trudeau resigned. Has been very negative, as you would expect. But it's been more... It's the way it's been negative. It's been more negative about, like, the people who put the team together as opposed to we are having some sort of crisis. And, like, I know everyone does.

They're like, oh, we need to have another summit jokes. But that's not the reaction. The reaction. They did have the summit that one time, though, you know. The reaction is we need to put the front office and coaching staff on an ice flow and push them out into the Bay of Fundy. I saw, I saw someone make the argument that, like, instead of just like, oh, let's just hire this. guy to be the world junior coach for three weeks or whatever, which to be clear, is working for the U.S. just fine, apparently, as long as it's David Carl, who I want to talk about

more in a minute. But I've just seen the argument. Why isn't there just like a permanent world junior coach? Is there enough work to be done for that to be your... Here's the thing. Sure. Like, this is, look, it's, with the amount of money hockey Canada brings in, it's a, it's kind of a rounding error for them to pay someone like 200 grand to work three weeks a year or whatever, you know. Um, and I just think that, you know, look, in international soccer, and obviously it's a different schedule and all that kind of thing.

But like, there's just a guy who's like the coach of the, the U.S. under 20 team. And like he oversees all the under 16 people or whatever. Like there's a whole system in place that, you know, the Ivan Hulinka Cups for a U18 tournament, have him be the coach of the Ivan Hulinka as well. You know what I mean? Like there can just be a Canadian youth national hockey coach or U.S. Or, you know, other countries do this.

It's not impossible that the U.S. and Canada could do it too. That's all. All right. I've seen the argument. It's a compelling one to me. And it, you know, Dave Cameron, full time coach. I love it.

But it does just kind, again, just kind of reduce the, the Dave Cameronness of it. Like, I don't want to take Zane Perrick because he's whatever, you know, I had a bad dream about it, that kind of thing. You don't have to get into all that because it's like, well, I've seen, now I've, I personally have coached Zane Perick a bunch of times because he was at the Ivan Blinkin and all this kind of stuff. Like you can build those relationships.

You can have a better, just like kind of top down view of it. You know? That's the argument. Like I say, I think it's a compelling one. Makes sense. But the other thing with them was just like they didn't practice. It was just a very strange way. And I think everybody's right to just be like, yeah, the, the, the,

coaches and GM, like whoever put the team together, fuck this one up. They didn't bring the right guys. They didn't put those guys in a position to succeed, the guys they did bring in a position to succeed, that sort of thing. Sure. But the guy who did do that, I guess, is David Carl. Second straight gold medal for him coaching the team. And a lot of people are saying the NHL is going to come calling.

Do you think as a head coach, like you think he'd move right into? Well, so this is the thing that he keeps bringing up is the job security that you have in the NHL is extremely limited. And if you're a first year coach, head coach in the NHL, you're not making, you're probably making like one and a half million bucks or something like that a little over, you know, into the seven figures, but not like insanely so, right? And to do that, he has to uproot his entire family. He has a bunch of young kids. He's like a few years younger than me. He's in his late 30s, David Carl. So he's got a bunch of young kids.

He's at Denver where he's had an insane amount of success. And you can look up how much he makes. It's like north of 800 grand a year. So is he going to give up just having that every single year for as long as he wants it to maybe go coach Chicago next season, lose 50 games, whatever. And then everybody, like David Quinn, everyone's like, well, this guy's a bum. Dave Hacks stole, another super successful college coach, made the jump to the NHL. Everyone's like, this guy sucks, right?

I think he would really have to be stepping into a really good situation where he feels like he can succeed to some extent right away. You know, maybe not make the playoffs, but not be saddled with a rebuilding, a team that's still in the midst of a rebuild, let's say. But just the amount of good things he has going for him at Denver where he's been, I don't know, do you know his whole backstory? No, I do not. Okay.

So Matt Carl's his older brother. And he was a good junior player. And before he ever played a game. game at Denver. I think in like scout and combine testing, they found like a heart defect or something like that that made it he can never play hockey again, basically. And this happens from time to time. Guys are just told like, this is too dangerous.

You have a heart condition, whatever it is. And so he instantly just becomes like a coach with the team, kind of. And has been on the Denver coaching staff base at. ever since. So, you know, we're talking to him at Denver for probably close to 20 years. Now, I'll pull up his elite prospect staff page here. But he has been, here we go, here we go. So he has been, by the way, I was wrong, he's 35 years old.

He has been at Denver, apart from he had two, he had a season and a half in the USHL. But he had four seasons as a graduate assistant coach at Denver, one full season and then a half season in Green Bay of the USHL, and then an assistant coach in Denver since 2013-14. So he's been at Denver in a coaching role for all but a year and a half since 2008. So the amount of like things that would have to entice him to not do that, we're coming up on 20 years of him being there, you know? I just, I just, I think the team would have to really blow his socks off financially. And I think a team would have to be in a position where it's like, we're competitive, you know? And how many teams are going to do that with a guy who has never coached in the NHL? Yeah.

Low single digits. It's, it's, I'm thinking. It's not a lot. Yeah. And so like, you know, You know, well, oh, well, why doesn't he go coaching the AHL first then? Don't let if you, if you want to see why, what the answer is, look up what an HL coach makes.

David Carl probably makes like three, four, five times what a lot of HL coaches make. Mm-hmm. So that's why. Yep. That makes sense, but it's just interesting because, I mean, it, it partly is, my brain is in football mode because we're into that part of. the season where plucking the most successful college coach

out of football and putting in charge of a billion dollar NFL team makes perfect sense. And yet you don't see it as much in hockey. Hasn't work great in a handful of cases, but it's a small sample. Yeah, I just think the way college hockey is set up now and coaches' salaries have really grown over the last like 20 years.

You know, every once in a while, you'll get to like, you know, this guy's actually a really good college coach. Nate Lehman is a guy who really jumps off the page to me. It's like, he's probably interviewed for a bunch of NHL jobs at this point. He's the coach at Providence College. Kind of took a program that wasn't really anything. And, you know, like they were fine a lot of the time, but they weren't like super competitive at the national level. Within three or four years, he wins a national championship. They're in the NCAA tournament. a lot. They're one of the best teams in the country again this year. And like, just, same thing. He makes a shitload of money at Providence College. Now that he's won a national championship, what, why would they ever fire him? He's got young kids. He's a fair bit older than me, so maybe his kids aren't so young anymore. But, like, he's got a great setup in Providence. Why would he, why would he leave to, you know, take the David Carl route and take over the Buffalo Sabres and then, you know, be the coach of the Sabres for three years and then get, you know, even the best NHL coaches get fired after four or five years a lot of the time, you know? So it's just, it's very easy for me to see a world where David Carl is never an NHL head coach or isn't an NHL head coach for another 10, 15 years.

Interesting. That's all. Mostly, again, it's the financial aspect of it and the family aspect. But, you know, I think he could do a great job as an NHL head coach. The guy's really smart. But, yeah. Anyway, that's it. We're done.

Want to hit him with the plugs? We'll get out of here. Find me at The Athletic. We are back with other Sean and Frankie on the podcast tomorrow. and I also have a couple of pieces coming up this week, including one where I'm going to try to rank out the biggest and best trades of the last 25 years, which somewhat amazingly does not take us back to the 1900s anymore.

It's crazy, huh? It sucks. Yeah, I saw a tweet the other day that was like, you know, if they made the wonder years, like the same distance in time that the original Wonder Years was looking back, the Wonder Years would take place in 2005. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's the same with like that 70s show would be like that late 2000s show.

Have you seen the thing where it's like the question of why like, you know, like if you grew up in the 80s, watching something from the 70s was like a different universe. And the 60s obviously, you know, the hippies and all that. And the same for the 90s. And then, like, in the 2000s, it's like, eh. Like, it's like how, do people have cell phones and how big are the monitors? Yep. On the computers.

And that's pretty much it. Like, small fashion changes, but not a lot. Anyways, what I'm trying to say is, I'm in favor of this. Please stop changing things. And this makes it easier on me. Yeah, there's a theory called the end of history. Okay. You know?

that it's a there's a Wikipedia page on it it's it's kind of interesting but yeah it's basically like we've figured it all out you know this is as good as it's going to get guys

we perfected it incremental improvements blah blah blah um anyhow for me you can go to elite prospects com

you can sign up for all our We still have a ton of World Juniors coverage in the system waiting to be published. You know, the team did a great job as usual. Nobody does it better. And yeah, you can read all that. And then I, as I mentioned earlier, have a few articles about, you know, why I think this guy or that guy is in the top 10 for every major NHL award. I just did this for college hockey a week or two ago.

and then, you know, continuing college hockey coverage. I'm going to three or four games in the next week here. So lots to look forward to on that front as well. And go to patreon.com slash puck soup. Get the bonus episode where we did the top 25, or I'm sorry, let me say that different. We do the best awards guys of the top, or the last 25 years. I can't talk today. Damn.

and a whole bunch of other bonus stuff coming your way, as you, if you're a patron, would have come to expect. Two or three bonus episodes a week is usually how it goes over there. So keep an eye out for all that and we'll keep it coming to you. And we'll go record a mailbag over there right now. Thanks for listening. And we'll talk to you next week. Bye bye.

Bye bye.