Puck Soup - Free Agent Dream Booking

Episode Date: October 8, 2020

The boys wrap up the NHL Draft, from the awkwardness to the surprises to the rookie who loves "Revenge of the Sith"; preview NHL free agency with what we'd like to see happen and what will happen; debate Oliver Ekman-Larsson; talk "NHL 21"; cover the best and worst sports movies; and play a new game show that's so simply even Wysh can (almost) figure it out. Sponsored by Mack Weldon!

Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slap shots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to what if you commute. We also cover movies, TV shows, it's in tunes. It's your weekly bowl of hockey and nonsense. Oh, too. Hey, everybody. It's me, Greg Wyshinsky. I'm the senior NHL writer for ESPN.com, home of sports.

I'm real journalist, Ryan Lambert. God his ass. I'm Sean McAnew. I work at Corey Pranman's site. So, yeah. Yeah. And you're in Puck Soup. You know, I addressed the so-called journalist thing on my other cleaner podcast.

But I suppose I should acknowledge it off the top, because I'm sure there are some people that still care about it, that Gary Betman called me and Emily Kaplan's so-called journal. for doing the story on the bubble. He fake news your ass. He really did it. It was very, it was very Trumpian. But, you know, my favorite part about it, besides the incredible uptick and interest in a story that had been outside the news cycle for a couple of weeks, my favorite part about it was the nonchalant, I don't even care about the story.

It doesn't matter to me if you've got anonymous sources, yet he knows exactly how many we had, which tells me that he is intimately aware of this story. Yeah, he's not only concerned. Yeah, he's right. I am not the one who is owned action there. Dude, I don't care. Like, by this point... Now, you're not owned.

No, I'm not owned because, like, I've been... How many times I've been owned? How many times have I heard, like... Yeah, of course. So-called journalist bloggership from them after the Tim Peel thing or after the John Scott thing or any of the other, you know, incidences that I think... had with the league or any interactions they've had with the league through the years.

I'm pissed off that they took Emily down to that level. Like, I'm used to the so-called journalism thing. I don't think it's fair to her because, like, what did she do except good reporting? So that kind of ticked me off, but, like, it's just part for the course. And I thank them for giving the story a new life. I mean, like, a lot of people that didn't see it the first time around reached out and said, hey, this was great. So the edible arrangement is going to be sent to the Manhattan office courtesy me and Emily at some point.

Yeah. And just, you know, like just for the record. And you guys, like you and Emily, your work stands for itself. You don't need backup or you don't need me defending you. But just because this comes up these days, nobody's making up anonymous sources. And any time you see somebody try to dismiss this or, oh, it's anonymous, so-called whatever, that person is full of crap and they're probably hiding something. There's lots of legitimate ways to criticize journalism that gets done or reporting that gets done.

But if you see somebody go, oh, the sources are anonymous, you know, that's some Trump-level garbage from a guy who definitely knows better in Gary Bettman. So that was really disappointing to see him pull that garbage out on when he was asked about it. I appreciate that. And it's also when you see somebody criticizing anonymous sources that someone who knows intimately that they've either been one or they know their organization traffics in it, which the NHL very much does. I mean, it's no different than like when the chief of staff or Trump got caught on camera saying, all right, let's everybody, let's go off the record and I'll tell you what's really going on with this health. I mean, it's rampant in politics, right? The people in politics who complain the most are also the same ones who are the sources behind the scenes. It's often that way in hockey.

And look, what was the NHL's policy here? Did the NHL go to its players and say, hey, if you're not happy in the bubble, feel free to share that publicly. We have no issue if you, you know, for sure. They kept reporters out of the bubble that didn't work directly for them. They made it, I don't know if they made it directly clear, but it was pretty heavily implied that they didn't want to hear any negativity. So, yeah, of course, people are going to say, yeah, well, you know what? If you want to know what happened, I'll tell you off the record. This is standard stuff.

And it's just, what bothers me is, it bothers me a little bit when I hear it from people who don't know any better. It bothers me a lot when I hear it from people who absolutely know how this works. And they're just trying to score, they're just trying to score points with people who don't know. And it's, it was just really disappointing from a guy in Gary Bettman, who's had a real good year as far as dragging this league through some really tough times. And this is a small thing. But it just, it was kind of one of those things where you're like, man, just. just when, just not starting to want to give this guy some points, and he goes and pulls this. The biased media would not report that the bubble performed very strongly and did better than anyone expected.

Many are saying it's the best bubble. Lots of people are coming up to him and saying, sir, with tears in their eyes, lots of hockey players. Big, strong hockey players. Thank you, Mr. Bettman. We're going to go to Edmont, Tedman. And it's just going to disappear, like a miracle. It kind of did. But here's the thing.

Yeah, everything you guys said is accurate. And it is disappointing. And the thing that's kind of amazing is, like, when you write a story like that you know is going to be impactful because, you know, the NHL has done everything it can to keep journalists from reporting that kind of story. you never know how it's going to be received or what the takeaways are going to be. Like when Emily and I put that out in the world, we thought, okay, we've got a piece where three quarters of it are simply, it's so awkward being in the same hotel with Corey Perry kind of stuff, right? And, you know, kudos to the NHL for their testing protocol stuff. And I don't know if I want to do the bubble again kind of stuff.

We have no concept of like the other fourth of the story, which is the we were promised fly fishing shit. becoming the thing that people obsess over. So, you know, when he goes after the story and he kind of portrays it as like this hit piece or whatever on the NHL and the bubble, that's bullshit. Like, most of the story is just very much about their psychological dealings with this extraordinary thing and the awkwardness of it and how much they miss their families and shit like that. So, I don't know. The point of the story and the point of the players talking to us, I think was very much like, A, no one's, letting us talk and be in case we have to do this again, here's the shit that got fucked. So let's fix it.

And like, I wish that was the takeaway. It would have been very easy for Gary Betman to go on that radio station and just be like, you know, we did a great job. We kept them safe. We heard their concerns and we'll do better next time. Yeah. But, you know, what's the fucking point of that? It's 10 players out of hundreds and, you know, we stand by the job we did.

And, you know, we don't think criticism. There's any number of ways he could have done it. and he just he chose to just to pretend it wasn't real and you know what that's good and by the way good good job to the commissioner picking a fight with ESPN now seems like a really great time for his to be to be picking picking that particular battle it's it's whatever I mean I'm not concerned look at this it's probably worse for me if if you know there's like some kind of rights negotiation and they're like, yeah, we'll give you three years if you get rid of that asshole, you know, it could be very much that.

Who's the saying? You have to dress up as like the official mascot and just dance around at the start. Yeah, that'd be all right. Yeah, who's to say? I mean, listen, I've taken a pie to the face at Center Ice during a playoff game. I could easily, you know, make good with Gary Betman in some horrifically public way. But yeah, that was, I, I, you know, You know, it's whatever.

It was unexpected and kind of shitty. But again, good second life for that story, man. Wow. Jesus Christ. Nothing like the commissioner's endorsements. And now we've talked about it for 10 fucking minutes again. So, oh, well, whose fault is that, joke boy? All right.

Listen, I actually wanted to just buy some time because we're doing this podcast on Thursday morning. Second round of the draft just completed. So good news. We can talk about the first second round of the draft. Okay. Holy shit, that day. That was the day that would never end. It was incredible the second day of the draft.

I was on Steve Eisenman's call last night to do a story about the lack of nepotism in the NHL where Chris Draper drafts his own son. But I was listening to Eisenman talking. He literally said, I just want to commend all of you that watch that. If you stuck around for this. He actually said, if you've stuck around for this long, I'll answer any question that you have. And for those who've never watched or been part of a second day of the NHL draft, like normally it moves so quickly. They do six rounds faster than they do the first round.

It's insane. Like having been there for a few, like you're literally sitting there looking at each other going, how are they going this? Like everyone makes the same joke, which is my fantasy football draft goes slower than this. And it does every year. Like I'm like, dude, and here they are just drafting guys. it's literally they draft a guy the guy stands up he's walking down the stairs and by the time he's halfway there they've drafted

the next guy and there's like traffic jams it's crazy and then we get this the virtual version and I don't know what it I love for somebody to do like a dive psychologically on what it is that made this take forever because it wasn't

I mean they they were slower on the announcements but it would just seemed like I would think it was technological but Maybe. Yeah. The draft move 10 times quicker with a 105-year-old Jim Gregory running it. I honestly think that might have been to think.

Jim Gregory maybe is just that guy who's like, look, if we don't get our picking, he's going on to the next one. Right. He's like the Oscar host that you bring back, right? Like, he's the guy who knows how to make sure that you hit. Billy Bristol. Right. You hit the out for the local news, right? Like, he's the guy that you need running fun.

fucking day two in order to get out on time. That's a good point, Sean. That's a very good point. The draft itself, so let's talk aesthetics first because we're kind of on that tip right now. I watched the whole first day of it, the first round. I didn't really watch the second day. I caught up obviously with the Star Wars guy, which we'll talk about in a second. But, you know, I found it to be kind of, all these drafts are kind of good. Like the NFL draft was kind of good. The NHL draft in the first round was kind of good. as far as like a viewing experience. I miss being there.

I miss the energy in the building. I miss talking to the GMs and the buzz around trades and actually seeing the excitement of these kids when they jump up out of their seat when their name is announced. And I missed them going up on stage and like meeting the team owner for the first time. The team owner's 14 year old kid.

The team owner's uncle. The guy from entourage, you know, all those people that are usually at the draft. So I do miss that. But that said, Ben, like that first round, you know, was handled really well and done really well. And I enjoyed the use of guest selectors, like Alex Trebek and shit like that for the senators. That was tight. They did a pretty good job.

Now, I should say that, you know, I saw some people saying that they stole that idea from the NWHL. There is a tradition in the NHL of having, like, ringers come up and announce picks like Kevin Coddley, like, that it had been shown. it like that. So I think that there is sort of that DNA to the draft already, but it was really cool to see, and I actually wish that more teams had done it. And by that I mean, I wish that the Anaheim Ducks had someone else make their picks instead of staging what looked like a totalitarian speech from a post-apocalyptic movie when they announced their picks, and it was super creepy. I wish they had, you know, anybody, Snoop Dog, do their picks or some such. Yeah, it feels like somebody, and maybe it was the senators of Trebek, was.

like, we're going to do this. And then the league sent out a memo like that morning. Like, hey, if you want to have a celebrity, record your pit, go ahead. And then it was like a couple of teams were able to scramble and get somebody. And you had like, the Leafs were like, we'll just have Mitch Marner do it while Morgan Riley like stands in the background and tries to swallow it. 40 feet away. Like, yeah. That was cool.

How many times do you think Jim Belushi called Stan Bowman? I'm in town. Yeah, we're good. Thanks, Jim. We're all right. Thank you. Although, you know, CM Punk, live microphone, let's do this. That could have been good. Before I announce the pick, I have something to say, and he just sits down cross-legged

and Stan Bowman's like, oh, no. He's about to roast my ass. Yeah. Kid Rock in Detroit saying Lucas Raymond's name, like Kid Rock in Bahwatabah. That's all we needed. Kid Rock's a great guy to have around your events if you're the NHL. That's right. You like him.

Kevin Smith makes picks for both Edmonton and New Jersey, being that he's, you know, fake Devils fan. Look, none of us know anything about these. Wait, that's not true. Labr, you know these prospects, right? Did everybody do a good job? No. I mean, you know, no, there's always one, you know, one team where it's like, what the fucker? And it seemed like that was, well, I mean, okay.

The Boston ruins went off the board a lot for some. for some reason, to the point where a lot of people who know these kind of things were like, I have no idea what they're doing at all. Like, I don't get it, period. And then, you know, the other big controversial pick was Jake Sanderson at five. Too early? Oh, yeah. You know, let's put it this way.

And I think I've said it before with like more at Cedar, when Detroit took Moritz Cedar last year, where it was like. Germany's own. where it was like, well, yeah, I mean, he's definitely an NHL player. Like, he's going to be in the NHL probably for a good long while. But, you know, it's kind of playing it safe there, you know? Yeah. Where, you know, on the NHL network, they're like, oh, you know, he does a lot of, like, stealthy, good stuff offensively and defensively. And it's like, yeah, at, like, the five-pick and, you know, a draft we've been talking of, this is the deepest draft in however many years.

like I want a guy who is like unsubtally good at those things. You know what I mean? Like I don't want a guy where it's like, oh, yeah, he really sneaks up on you. I want a guy who's like, oh, he's like obviously fucking unbelievable at this stuff. And, you know, I don't watch enough O HL or whatever to know that Jamie Driesdale is 100% definitely that guy. But I do know enough to say that, you know, there were definitely wingers who filled that slot in a way that, you know, Jake Sanderson doesn't. So, yeah, it just seemed like Ottawa kind of, they were like, okay, well, we don't have to make a decision at three because whoever gets picked at two will just take the other guy from that.

And that's what they did. And then they were just kind of like, I guess we don't have to make any decision because they kept trading down for no reason. And it was very strange. It was just a very strange draft for the senators. And the other thing to say is I don't really want to get into the – well, they took – teams took the guy that they should have taken so they win the – like, you know, the Rangers took the number one guy in the draft, so they're winners. And it's like, well, no, I mean, they ended up getting the first pick.

Yeah, they won the lottery. It's usually pretty unambiguous as to who they should pick there. You know, and the NHL loves to be, well, we're not really sure. We might go off the board. We might trade. Shut the, no, you're just going to take the guy everybody's been saying is going to be the number one pick for years. That was what was interesting. Like, there was legit noise.

And I think. Oh, there always is. Legit, yeah. And then they picked the guy. I think, no, no, no, not for the Rangers. But, like, Prondon had Stutzla at number two, I think, in his last mock draft. Yeah. I wonder, I wonder why a bunch of NHL guys.

were like, oh, I don't know, I think I like the, uh, the German guy. Oh, God. But, yeah. If it's between a German guy and a, and a Jamaican descent player, you think that there's going to go with a German guy? Hmm. That's interesting question. I don't know. But yeah, no, I mean, again, like, I think a lot of that was just like, NHL teams were like, oh, we got to, we got to play it as safe as humanly possible, so we

don't look like idiots when, you know, because like Stuzla is definitely, you know, more pro-ready and he comes in next year and, you know, and, you know, and, you know, And he got the same thing Domi did where it's like, well, he could be a center and it's like he's a fucking wing. Come on. Well, let me ask you this about the black player. What if his father is director of amateur scouting for your team? Okay, well. Black guys in an NHL front office?

I don't know. Oh, that's true. This is a complete fantasy land. Yeah. Scenario. Yeah, the first round was what it was. Like, I, you know, listen, as a Devils fan, I was very interested to see the picks that they were going to make. I thought, I wanted him to kind of go for Ascaroff, as everybody knows,

but I'm completely fine with him going with Holtz. He seems like he's one of the best pure goal scorers in the draft. There's a lot of people like Dawson Mercer, so I'm very excited about that. And then the Rangers traded up and took the guy that we wanted, and then the Devils drafted Mukahamudulin from the KHL because he was like their next available defensive defenseman, and they were drafting for a position, I think, at that point.

So that was a weird one. Yeah. That was off the board. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, what is it? Sheenhov, the Russian kid, the Blue Jackets drafted. Everybody was like, Right behind. Isn't he like the 90th best player in Europe this year? Like, what's going on? Yeah, like, it was the classic. Oh, we actually heard the team right behind us was going to draft him and we couldn't pass it. Okay. Yeah, sure.

Yeah, no one did that. That's, this is, when I, when I saw that pick from, Yarmokokalinen. And again, like, he's forgotten, you know, more than I'll ever know about the fucking draft, right? So, like, caveat there. It reminded me of, like, when you make a horrible pick in your hockey fantasy league, and you're just like, I was really worried he wouldn't be there in round seven. And it's like somebody who was injured all season last year that is in none of the rankings and that you know inherently probably will still be there later. And then you just rush and take them anyway. Oh, Russian, I get that. Sure. Oh, shut up. Yeah, Russian attack. One of my favorite Konami games for the NES. Yeah, there's no reason to take him that high.

Trade down. Who cares? So two things on that. First of all, obviously we're watching for round one different broadcasts here in Canada and the U.S. Oh, boy. That was absolutely the highlight of round one on the Sportsnet broadcast because they had no idea who the kid was. Like they had not that they had no idea, but they didn't have anything ready to go. And like, they announced the pick and they cut and it's like Sam

Costantino is the, and he's just like, I got nothing. He's like, he's a Russian winger. That's like, I've got to, I got to look through my notes because he's like way down my list. And so they then they cut to Brian Burke and he's like, uh, winger, I think. And they're like, thanks. And they cut back. And then they go to Elliot Friedman and he just starts roasting everyone. He's like, you should have seen everyone go running for their notes as soon as like, it was, it was legitimately funny. Like they didn't, they didn't know, but they didn't try to cover for it. Like, they just had fun with it. And it was, it was really good. Yeah. In the U.S., we had Pierre McGuire, and he said, like, he knew it was middle school teacher.

And, yeah, it worked out. So, yeah, it was, it was Bob McKenzie saying really intelligent things and trying to create banter with Liam McHugh, which didn't work. Not to Bob's, to Bob's credit, he did a great job, but just it wasn't really, the chemistry wasn't clicking. then it was Pierre McGuire lamenting the fact that the Russian kid never went to Shattuck's and then it was Craig Button fucking yelling screaming the entire draft my god like what the thing that maybe that be my favorite my highlight of the first round Sean as an American viewer was when like in a sort of like almost Touretti in way Craig Button just screamed you know they impuged the reputation of Corey Perry

I don't even know it was related to. It was just something bellowed. The best was, the best for me was when Nashville took Ascarov. And he's like, all these idiots who say you can't take a goalie in the first round. Well, they took Andre Vasselowski in the first round eight years ago and it took him five years to get into the league. And it worked out great. He won a cup. So it's like, okay.

Well, I mean, it's like, all these people are always talking about how you can't the first round. Well, here you go. Sir, what about Jack Campbell? All right, I got, I got to go. Yeah, nobody, nobody said, what about Jake Ottinger? What about, what about, you know, like, there are plenty of other goalies who, yeah, like, for every carry price. There's a Leland Irving or a Jack Campbell or whatever, and it's like, yeah. Hold up.

So, wait, so, Sean, you had a second point. I guess my second point is just, I'm, like, I am fascinated by the strategy here of, of taking a guy, like, if that's your guy, if you get, you've just got him ranked higher than everyone else and you get your checking names off as they get called and it gets to your pick at 21 and he's your guy. And the fact that, yeah, he's, most lists had him ranked as like a round two or three or later talent, do you not just take him there or do you take somebody else assuming he'll be there for you?

Do you trade down and take the risk that somebody, there's, there only needs to be one other team that's got him up there is that's seen what you saw. You know, and it's tough because the Blue Jacks didn't have a second round pick. They weren't picking again until like 80 or something like that. So even as a reach, there's no guarantee he's still there. Like, yeah, could you trade down four or five picks? Grab a couple. Yeah, you probably could.

But sometimes those trades aren't there. You know, he call up the team at 25 and they go, no, we're good. And he had them, he was in their top 10. Like, it's, they, they, they, They had them rated quite high. And it's one of these, because I've seen people, you know, I was kind of having this discussion on Twitter with some people. And, you know, I saw, like, there's kind of the different ways to approach it, right? Because I saw one person who said, even if he turns out to be the best player in the draft, it's still a bad pick.

Because you could have had somebody else, and you probably still could have got him later on. And it's like the Pavel Datsuk thing. Like, are the Red Wing smart to draft Pavel Datsuk in the sixth round? Or were they dumb to pass on him five times, knowing he's the best player in the draft? And, you know, it's, I don't know, it's one of those things that we're going to look back on probably many years down the road before we have any sense of it. And we're either going to go, you know what, great pick waited to, you know, go against the grain. And if it turns into a great pick, no one's going to say, yeah, but they could have picked up a third by trading down. Right. Yeah, for sure. But, you know, it's just what are the odds that a guy that, you know, every draft board had 90th or whatever.

it, right? It's like free agency, right? Like, if you're the highest bidder, what are the odds that you're right and 30 other teams were wrong? I mean, maybe you are. The thing you said that to Liam McHugh's credit in particular was, you know, they were really defending some of the reach picks. And Liam McHugh was like, that doesn't mean, like, just because, like, it's not necessarily a bad pick, but it is definitely a reach. Like, you can separate those two. things out. And the other guys were like, oh, I don't know. And he's like, no, definitely that's like a good way to view it. Yeah. That's because Liam McHugh works on the NFL. Yes. And understands what makes a football guy. Right. And that's what makes, and he understands what makes draft coverage fun, which is not to have every fucking pick come out and have them just slobber over them and be like, here's another guy. This guy's the next Scott Niedermeyer. It's fucking sucks. It does. Like, I mean, it's, it's, you know, just, and you know what it is, It's not for a lack of knowledge, and it's not because it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's in the NFL and the NBA, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's

those players are going to play this year. Those players that are getting taken early in an NFL draft or getting taken at all in the NBA are expected to step in right away. So you can look at the roster, you can look at the player, you can say good fit, bad fit, this is what they need it, this isn't. Whereas with the NHL, once you get past the first five picks, you're talking to guys who are years away. So that's what you end up losing.

All right, a couple of aesthetic house cleaning things. The sharks did a really nice bit of business. doing the sign language thing for the 31st pick overall Ozzy Wiesblatt. Ozzy awesome first name. And then in the Zoom call with the media, having Eric Carlson, Logan Guterre, Brent Burns, and others join the call to welcome him to the team. Very cool, very cool stuff for like the 31st pick and a guy that, you know, couldn't go on stage and meet people and the whole thing.

I'd be remiss if I didn't bring up, which obviously was the highlight of the draft for me. Help me out with the name here, Ryan, if you know it. New York Rangers draft pick William Cooley. Yeah, I don't know it, honestly. I have no idea. That's fine. That dude. You know who we're talking about.

That's beyond my. And he's not a college guy, so I just have no fucking clue. Okay. Well, you know what he is? He's a Star Wars fan. That's right. And Jamie Hirsch and E.J. Radick had him on the NHL Network

and it was really funny to see the people on NHL Network talk about Star Wars and treat it like it was like talking about porn

like oh I don't watch it I mean I'm familiar with it but I mean I don't watch it kind of thing they asked him about his Star Wars fandom and asked him what his favorite movie

in the series was and his response Ryan was Star Wars episode 3 colon revenge of the Sith, which is an interesting answer on his part. What were your thoughts when you found a young drafty? I respect it.

I think that's like, you know, because you have to think of it in terms of this kid was born in 2001, 2002, probably. So the idea that you're going to watch a movie that came out when you're what, what's Revenge of the Sith? Oh, five? Yeah, I think it's around that time. So, yeah, you're going to be like, oh, you know, this is the movie that I have on DVD that is the newest one, and it came out when I was a little, little kid, and I just watched it a hundred times. I get that. And it's not like, and it's not like he said, Attack of the Clones, which is borderline unwatchable at this point. It's like, Revenge of the Sets, yeah, you know, there are problems with it.

But it's, I think, the best of the prequel trilogy by far. and if you grew up watching that as the one you watched the most, and it's got a bunch of cool shit in it, I get that 100%. If he had said, like, if he had said, oh, I love Rise of Skywalker, and it said, this kid's a fucking bust. Worsticking the drab.

This is your Wonderlic test? Is which Star Wars movie do you put over? Yeah, and like, I think, I think revenge of it, like I saw a bunch of people ragging on it, but I think that's a perfectly acceptable answer. Let's put it this way. It's the last straight from the tap George Lucas stuff you're ever going to see in the Star Wars universe. And the sad thing is, like, when he said that, I was like, oh, man.

And then I started doing math, and I realized, like, for him, if he had picked, like, New Hope, that came out so long before he was born. That would have been, like, me saying my favorite movie was Ben Hur when I was. I love stage coach. Yeah. Like Citizen Kane, it's like, get out of here, nerd. Like, come on, that's not, that's, that's like your grandparents' movie. So, yeah, I don't know. I, you know, to Ryan's point, I was a, a 1977 baby.

So that's the year a new hope came out. Yeah, it's like you saying Jedi's the, like your favorite Star Wars movie. And it's watched it the most. It came out when you were that age. Yeah. Before I understood, you know, the quality of film and the language of cinema, Jedi was definitely like my favorite because it was the one I grew up with. It's the only, it's the first, it's the only one, well, not the only one, but actually the first one I remember seeing in a theater with my mom.

My mom took me like, I think we cut school and watched it. I know, right? How cool is that? So, yeah, for me, Jedi was very much like what Sith is to this kid. So that's fine. I wanted to bring this up, though, because they actually went to another level in this interview if he didn't see. see it, which is that E.J. Radick asked a question of, what's the, like, he didn't really have a question to ask about Star Wars, because, you know, none of them watch it. And, and so he asked

him, what is the hardest question someone's asked you about Star Wars? And he responded by, by talking about the origins of Anakin Skywalker's birth and who his father is. And it brought us to a moment that I never thought I'd ever see in an NHL draft broadcast where someone made a midi-chlorians reference during the NHL draft. And it was E.J.? Is that right?

It was not E.J. Weird. It was Brian Lawton. He was actually checking his levels. And I was just like, how fucking amazing is that? Some kid, you just got drafted. It's getting peppered with Star Wars questions. And he's just like, well, you know, the popular theory is that Anakin was created

by the force through the power of minichlorians. The bittichlorians are found in all living things. I'm like, holy shit, man. This is great. Talk about bansas now. Yeah, we should, we should ask him if he really wanted to see that Will's trilogy. Yeah. You should have just kept to go and, like, during the seven.

Let's get him on the show. Let's get him on the show and just only talk about Star Wars stuff. I have no interest in what his junior career is like, any of that stuff, but just be like, all right, you think you're cool? We're going to, we're going to make sure that's true. The way it should 100% work is that Sean, like, we do a question each, and Sean asked the hockey questions, and you and I are like, are you upset that they weren't able to incorporate Grand Admiral Thron effectively into the sequel trilogy? Just get real hardcore nerdy. I love it. Anything else in the first round of the draft, or the draft itself?

Oh, we didn't talk about lack of trades. That was kind of a stunner. That was disappointing. Hold on. We should say lack of trades involving a player. There were actually a fuck ton of trades. That's right, yeah. That involved draft picks, but nothing that involved players.

And for all the talk about internal salary constraints and the flat cap and, you know, Vegas trying to move, Flurry and the whole thing, like, I have actually stunned. Everybody made their picks, basically. Like, nobody tried to do the Patrick Marlowe thing that we saw last year. And there were a lot of teams that were actively. trying to move picks. Like the Leafs were trying to move their pick. The HABs were trying to move their pick.

And just, I don't know what happened, but it just felt like they got to the day. And there was just this paralysis set in and nobody wanted to take the swing. So I guess, yeah, I think this year people don't want to be the first through the door on that stuff, you know? Like, oh, we don't want to be the first team to, like, actively cut salary. But then when one team makes one trade, it's going to be a fucking field day. Because there's the number of teams you can cut salary too is not high. Of course. So, I mean, boy, if you don't want to go first, you'd be second or third.

You know, I've been saying it, I've been saying it for a while. But like, you know, I really think that we're just going to end up with a lot of teams trading problems and seeing if there's a new fit and that kind of thing. As opposed to like, oh, you know, Florida was just able to offload Jonathan Huberdough or somebody like that. Right. Yeah, it's interesting. I don't know. I thought we would see more of that type of trade happening, but it's all gummed up the works, which is sort of disappointing. And again, it makes you wonder exactly what these teams are going to end up doing now that they don't have this year's picks to trade. It's very strange. It's honestly, I mean, what they'll do in that sense is they'll move on to trading 2021 picks. but yeah it's it's it honestly feels like some of these teams we know it's an unprecedented situation and we know it's a really difficult situation but they've known for months that this crunch was coming and it literally now feels like for some of them the plan is to just sit there do nothing

stare at the headlights get run over and then say well it's an unprecedented situation what could you have expected us to do and for other teams they're going to actually do things and make tough decisions and it's going to be interesting to see how that plays out and how we all look back. You're like, there is something about, obviously the whole situation is horrible, but there is something about hitting the league with something unexpected and seeing who's actually smart and can figure this stuff out and who is just following the patterns that everyone else has done. And yeah, this week, at least so far, I mean, day two, there were a couple of deals, but you can tell There's a few GMs that have the self-confidence to just move forward and do what they need to do.

And there's a lot of GMs who seem like they're just looking around at the crowd going, okay, somebody else do something first so then I can follow along. Yeah. I don't know. And again, maybe, you know, I was thinking a lot about the Vegas expansion draft this week because I feel like any time you introduce a new variable into the processes for these guys, whether it's the flat cap or internal budgets or even doing the draft remotely, I feel like they all get freaked out. They don't know what to do.

They panic. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. And it's like that's what being a smart GM is, right? It's finding the inefficiencies. And when you jolt the system like this, a bunch of inefficiencies in theory should shake

loose. Who's smart enough to find them and who is actually just trying to do things the old way because that's all that they know how to do? It's interesting. It's not like we're going to know in a week. We're going to go, oh, these GMs are smart. There may be some where we look and go, they overreacted. They pushed too far.

They made too many moves. But it's going to be interesting. But I thought for sure that by the time we were doing this show, you know, if you'd asked me a week ago, we'd have a ton of big trades to talk about. And we're sitting here 24 hours from free agency. And it's Matt Murray and a couple of, you know, B-minus trades. And that's it. way to jinx it

Jesus Christ I've got like another hour I'm hoping something breaks now like while we're well famously

that all the that that stampcoe Suban trade thing Taylor Hall thing happened during a show with me and Lozo or recover oh fuck off

don't don't just you know put put faith in that name sir he was a good soldier for this podcast before his untimely demise I think you're right

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It's really high quality and super comfortable. Provided that all the trades and signings haven't happened in the next hour because of Sean's jinx, we got free agency coming up, boys. Now, the first part of this equation is the qualification offer restricted free agent part. I had a lot of player agents telling me in the weeks leading up to this, hey, watch out. This is going to be the big trend this year. People walking away from these deals. and lo and behold, they were right. You're seeing tons of restricted free agents not get their qualifying offers,

whether they're bigger names like FNUSU from Edmonton, Detroit did a few. All over the league, we're seeing guys that otherwise would have gotten, you know, short-term, low-money deals, not even getting anything out of their teams. Yeah, it's, I guess not surprising again, just like given the environment But there are a number of, like, pretty useful NHL players that maybe, you know, they don't live up to what people thought they would be or that kind of thing. Like an Athanasiou or, you know, Troy Stetcher in Vancouver is another guy where it's like, yeah, he's a perfectly good bottom pair, maybe even like, you know, number four defensemen. And they just couldn't find a way to make it work with the cap and that kind of thing. and yeah, I mean, like,

Cardiff, Hagee got a non-qualified by Tampa. Yeah, you know, just guys that they can play in your bottom, on the bottom half of your roster, and they can make a difference for you. And, you know, if there's a team that kind of didn't have a lot of cap commitments this summer and wanted to really round out the bottom of their roster with guys who were in their mid-20s and, like, useful, but not game breakers, well, you know, that team could clean up right now.

So, it'll be interesting. The one that I found interesting was the Anthony Declare with Ottawa. Yeah. Yeah. Because that's a situation where in isolation, maybe it makes sense to walk away from that. We don't know, apparently, according to Pierre Dorian, he's acting as his own agent. And who knows, maybe he's got it in his head that he's a $7 million player. And the senators are like, yeah, we're out on that.

But it. Senators are out if he's a $3 million play. That's the thing, right? Like, I mean, we're looking at these other teams where we're going while they're capped out. So you've got to make some tough choices. The senators are going to have a hard time reaching the floor. And to let a guy, a 25 goal guy who's like in his mid-20s, you know, and he had the

great start and then he was really cold the second half of the season. So I don't think anyone's looking at this guy is a guaranteed 20. goal 50 point guy, but that's what he was on pace to be. And I remember at the deadline, there was talk about, is this a guy that the senators would move? And there was a lot of pushback on that saying, well, you know, don't move him because he's a young guy, he's still under team control. And you got to have players. Even in a rebuild, you got to have some players.

And he's not 35. He's 25. He can be a part of what you're building going forward. And to not move him when he was having the first half of a career season, hold on him, go into the offseason and then let them walk for nothing. It just seems like horrifically bad asset management. And it does, you know, lots of senators fans are saying, like, does this team have any money at all? Because to walk out, like, remember, you give a qualifying offer. He's not going to accept the qualifying offer, but you retain his rights. And as part

of that, that means you could wind up in arbitration. But if, you know, arbitration, first of all, the guy always picks the number halfway in between. So you have a pretty good sense what you're going to pay. And if for some reason you get an unexpectedly high award, you can walk away from that. And so I think somebody said with DeClera, the walkaway number would be like four and a half million. So, I mean, this is the senator saying we can't afford to risk paying this guy four million for a team that has virtually no other cap commitments. And you're talking about a one or two year deal. It's not like you have to worry about, well, you know, down the line and, you know, Kachuk and all these other guys. I, it's, this is the sort of

thing like on on what was a really good week for the senators just because they had all these picks and there's lots of excitement and all these these guys they brought in this is this makes me wonder like you know that like do they how are they going to even get to the floor let alone how are they going to remember next year is the first year of the five years of unparalleled success where Eugene Melwick promises he's going to spend the cap and they're walking away from a guy who can absolutely play in their top six uh and and getting nothing in return at all. Well, don't worry, Pierre McGuire was on the radio in Ottawa this morning and said they

have more than enough talent to replace him. Oh, good. What is there to worry about? Fantastic stuff. You know, to me, Sean, the canary in the coal mine about the senators is if they don't, if they don't do one of these deals where they pick up the contract to someone like Flurry, like they've got so much fucking cap space. That's what they're going to do.

They're going to be the partner for a team to launder salary retention. But to me, that's the thing. Like, if they're not, if they don't traffic in that, then you really, then that's to me the alarm showing off of the financials. That's the only way they're, that's the only way they're getting to the cap floor. I'm actually not clear on like, if you, if you're a guy who gets your salary retained, that's only for cap purposes, right? Like, that's not. No, no, it's real money too. Oh, really? So like, yeah, like, so the, the senators would have to give 25% of Mark Andre Flore. his money. Like he's getting three different paychecks at that point. Yeah, you're basically buying a draft pick is what you're doing. Yeah. Well, no, I understand that, but like, I could have, okay,

I guess that makes a little more sense then, but that's still strange. Teams like Ottawa and I mean, Ottawa's had cash problems, obviously, for years, but there's going to be lots of teams. The Ottawa senators? Are you sure about that? There's going to be lots of teams that are,

that maybe were in better shape before that aren't going to be like, what you're going watch for is a lot of these teams are going to go out and they're going to make a trade and they're going to bring in a guy with a $5 million cap hit and they're going to pay virtually nothing for him because the other team was capped out and they're going to say well you know what a great move we made look at the real salaries you when that guy yeah like Nick Benino is the perfect example yeah right because Nashville had already paid his bonus so like yeah they're you know Minnesota's taking on $4.1 million but they don't owe him $4.1 million dollars.

And that's what you're going to want to see. If some team goes out and says, oh, look, we only had to give up a fourth-round pick to get a $5 million player, yay for us. Is that $5 million player making $5 million this year? Or is he making $1 million because he had a front-loaded deal, and this is just a way to bump up to the... A Freddie Anderson situation. Potentially a Freddie Anderson situation, although, you know, that's not one where I think the Leafs are going to be purely looking on load. But there's guys like that out there, yeah. when Sean said that Ottawa has money problems so that we were getting one of his spicy political takes about the seat of government in Canada.

But he was talking about a hockey team. Yeah, he's always mad about Justin Trudeau. He's furious. All right, free agents. What we're going to do to pre-view free agency, because you probably are listening to this after like half these guys signed, we're dream booking, right? We're going to say where we think and then what we'd like to see is that the day? deal? Yes.

All right. Alex Petrangelo. I'll go first. I think he goes to a place like Florida that'll like pay him the contract that he wants. I'm not going to lie. I love to see him on the Leafs. I think that is the thing that they need is a guy with his skill set and his, I mean, I hate leadership, such a nebulous concept, but his leadership, like, he'd be perfect on the leaves,

but I just don't think there's a chance in fucking hell they can make the money work. Yeah, that sounds right. Yeah. That is the right answer for like, I mean, just bring on the chaos, put him in just, Kyle Dubas just being like, oh, you don't like it when I had my entire cap tied up in four players? Well, how about my entire cap in five guys? How about all the donuts in the world? Yeah.

I'm going to have five players and just. just 15 dudes on minimum salary, and we're going to roll. Yeah, do it. I guess I think he's going to end up staying in St. Louis. I don't know that the market's going to be what people think it is just because if teams are, again, like, not even willing to make trades. I don't know that they're going to be like, yeah, we'll give this 30-year-old $9 million a year or whatever the number he wants is.

Like that and you know to to the point we always bring up like it's easier to just stay where you're at. So I wouldn't be surprised. But dream booking, I've said it all along. I want him also in Colorado. I just want to loading up. I want I want super teams, man. I want teams that are just like, oh, we're insanely dominant and fun to watch. And a large reason for that, I think, is that I don't like the whole NHL like, oh, we're actually all.

in it. We're only six points out of a playoff with four games left. So we're technically still alive. Like, I want Colorado to run away with the West so fucking hard that everybody's just like, yeah, what are we even doing here? Like, this is this isn't going to happen for us. And

they just kind of all call it and we have to face facts, I guess. So that's where I want him to go. All right. Taylor Hall. Well, Sean didn't say his. I said, well, mine is I want him to go to the Leafs, but I think he stays in St. Louis.

Oh, okay. There you go. Taylor Hall. Sean wants him to go to the Leafs. We don't know what the money's going to work. I'll, I'll, right now the field as we do the podcast looks like Montreal, Columbus, and Nashville for like a longer-term deal. I think there's probably a lot of opportunity for Hall if he wants to go shorter term. So prediction, the winds seem to be blowing towards Nashville clearing.

space for something. And given his relationship with John Hines, it's hard to not think it's for Taylor Hall. So I'll say he goes to Nashville, where he should go. All due respect to what I believe will be another Ryan Lambert

builds the Miami Heat of the NBA pick in a second. I'm going to say Boston. They've been looking for the second line left wing for most of my adult life and he'd be it and he'd be great there and he wants to play there and let's fucking go.

Well, again, like, I think the Bruins are a good team, so that works in my theory as well. But I think both will and want is Colorado. There it is. Here LeBron said last week, he's willing to take short term if it puts him in a position to win and maybe not, like, insanely cash in.

Well, Colorado has all the fucking cap space in the world this year, maybe not so much next year or the year after. But go get Taylor Hall. all fucking load up that, you know, he's a good, he's a good option, he's a better option than, say, I don't know, like, whoever you want to say is their, their fourth forward on the power play, he's better than that guy. And so, yeah, I think, I think it just makes too much sense that he, you know, people have been saying for months, like, oh, he should go to Colorado. It just, the reason is, it just makes too much sense for him to go to Colorado. So he should do it. RIP, Gabe Landiscaug fantasy owners, who now have a second line center, a second line left wing, rather, if Taylor Hall goes to Colorado.

Sean? I mean, I agree with everything Ryan just said about going to Colorado. I agree with what you said about him probably going to Nashville. But I'm going to, I'll throw an extra wrench in. As far as where I want to see him go, I would love to see him go either back to Edmonton. I think that becomes fascinating. or go to Calgary. I would love to see him faint towards Edmonton have a whole bunch of talk,

and then he ends up going to Calgary instead. That would be cool. Big heel turn, hell yeah. Or the other way around, you know, talk to Calgary, let us have a bunch of stories about how Calgary, and then he goes back to Edmonton. That would be, I think that would be great. He's from Calgary.

Am I right about that? Yes, he is, yeah. He's a Calgary guy. So either one of those I think would be all sorts of fun. But yeah, I mean, just big picture. I would love to see some guys start taking short-term deals. Big money, short-term. That's the way Free Agency works in a lot of other leagues.

It's probably how it should work in the NHL. I get that now especially, if you can get seven years at big money, of course you're going to jump at that. But otherwise, yeah, go someplace. Go be like the mercenary. Go play for a couple years and then hit the market again. Ain't it weird how like Mary and Hosa didn't start that trend? Like I, I, I, it's kind of strange, isn't it?

Yeah, cup chasing. Yeah, I agree. You'd figure that there would have been more of that after Cien Hosa, but that, it just didn't materialize like that. Well, I think in part because it took him a couple of years to actually win that cup. Like he did it, he did it, well, he got traded to the Penguins, but then he signed with Detroit and the Penguins immediately won the cup. Right. And then he went to Chicago the year after that, and they did win, and he stuck around for the rest of his career. Right. And it's crazy how the Blackhawks mini dynasty erased the

Marion Hose is a cup jinks thing that was very much like the anchor around his neck for a few years. Jacob Markstrom. Now, I'm conflicted on Markstrom. He demonstrably maybe could have been the top goalie last year. I mean, I think Hallibuck better, but Markstrom right there in the conversation. And the year before wasn't bad either. there's just something about him that there's a certain like playing for your contractness to his year last year that makes me a little bit wary and I'm also very much not a fan of this idea of like give him the no move clause of your Vancouver and then figure out something with Demko like eh nah um I think he stays in Vancouver though and uh where would I where would I put him

I mean I would put him in Calgary like Calgary clearly needs a goalie they're they're hot for him um I think they're going to be the runner-up at the end of the day, though. Yeah, Vancouver. He stays in Vancouver sounds about right, just because I don't think it's a good idea, and Jim Benning loves signing free agent contracts that are not a good idea. As far as where I want him to go, well, like, you know, I don't necessarily think it super matters, but, like, you know, he could, he's a 1B kind of a guy, and like, you know,

there are a lot of teams that could use that. Calgary, Edmonton could use a legitimate guy who can actually play 40 games for you. Yeah, I don't know. Let's say like 15 teams in the league could probably use a Jacob Markstrom, even if I think that signing him long-term isn't maybe the best strategy. Yeah, I did say, I think last week, that I thought he'd stay in Vancouver, but I could see it being after a few days on the market where they rather than making a deal to keep them off the market

that they go, you know what, if you think you're a $6 million goalie, just to pick a number out of the air, head to the market, see what you get, come back to us if it doesn't work out. There's a lot of plan Bs out there. I think, again, both the Alberta teams would make sense if he's going to go somewhere else.

Or the other one would be Carolina. Like, let's get a good goaltender in Carolina. Yes. You know, that seems to be what they're missing. And I just got to say, like, I love that Markstrom's the goalie we're talking about. There's a bunch of other ones. But to me, he's the most interesting because he was very good all year. And then in the playoffs, he was really good.

And it felt like, you know, everyone's like, oh, man, they got to sign this guy. And then he got hurt. Thatcher Demko came in and had two good games and completely flipped the script on Jacob Markstrom to the point where now it's like, do we really need them? And I, you know, it's one thing to overreact to a goalie having a good playoff run. But we're talking about guy having a good playoff a week. Thatcher Demko's young. He's the future of that position for that team. But man, I could see a situation where Vancouver's like a month into next season going,

we really screwed up because a young goalie got hot for 48 hours. And we made a years-long commitment based on that. Well, the other thing is, like, Thatcher Demko is not like young, young. He's like 24 or 24. He's not like, it's not like, you know, Markstrom's 15 years older than him or something. They're, like, maybe five or six years apart. Yeah, he's a rookie goalie, which means he's already like 26. That's right, yeah.

He's been drafted eight years ago. Man, I, like, I watched him. He played for Boston College, so I saw him play a lot. And I was like, man, this kid, like, he's going to be in Vancouver sooner than later. And, yeah, like, I think he graduated or left BC like eight fucking years ago now. It's been forever. It's crazy. A couple more.

Torrance Aloysius Krug, aka Tori Krug, defenseman for the Boston Bruins. Man, you know, the destiny has always seemed like Detroit. Sure has. So I guess we'll go Detroit. Where do I want them? I mean, Colorado. There you go. To hop on the Ryan Van.

I mean, it'd be really fun to see him in Colorado. Yeah, because the thing I'm. I was always saying that they really need as a quarterback for the power point. Totally. You know? Why not? They just don't have a defenseman who can really make a difference back there. No, like, I think, I think you're right that he goes to Detroit.

I think he should stay in Boston. Yeah. You know, like, that, that's my, that's my dream booking, all this fucking Oliver Eckman-Lars and stuff. Yep. I think that's, I think that's them kind of saying like, oh, yeah. That's what I was going to say is, Tori-Rook should go to whatever team is about to give up a bunch of assets for Oliver Ekman-Larsen.

He should go for the same money and make that he's younger, he's better. He's not that much younger, though. He's like not even a year younger. But it's younger, right? And, I mean, you're not giving up assets to get the guy. I do not understand the... Yes, no, I totally agree with you. Like I, especially because I think Tori Krug is just better than Oliver Ekman-Larsen.

He is. Way more proof of concept there. And the idea that the Bruins would let Krug walk so that they could then... I'm assuming to give up good assets. I think the implication here is that Krue wants more than what Ekman-Larsen makes, which, yeah, do I think Tori Cruz is a $9 million defenseman? No. But is he the reason their power play works?

Maybe. You know? And I don't... Pastor Nac that probably... Pasturek has more power play goals in the last three years than Novetschkin. I mean, like... Yeah, but, like, they had other guys with Pastor. act before Torrey Krug got the chance on the top pairing or the top unit and it wasn't working.

So I, you know, I think that there is something there. But with that having been said, obviously, like, you know, Tori Krug is a guy where you have evidence that he is good at a certain thing. And I don't know that we have any evidence that Oliver Recman & Larson is anything other than a classic Arizona or, like Florida guy where it's like, well, if he was on a better team, he'd be unbelievable. There's a special breed of brainworm in Arizona where like guys like Ekman Larson and executives like John Chaka and Don Maloney get like pulled put over as being like fucking great because they're in a bad like a bad market. It's 90% of the players on those small market non-traditional teams get underrated because

they don't get enough attention. But then there's always one guy that we all just collectively are like, we don't pay enough attention to Arizona. so let's all agree that this one guy is a super star. That it's all of Reckman-Larsen, yeah, absolutely. Not to get old Bill Simmonsy. He's a good player, but. Not to get old Bill Simmonsy.

It's Dominique Wilkins syndrome. Like, it was what used to happen in the old days of the Atlanta Hawks were like Dominique Wilkins would be the best thing on a horrible team that nobody really gave a shit about. And then it just becomes, his stock rises to, you know, the stratosphere. Yeah, but at least Dominic Wilkins was a legitimate offensive superstar. Oliver Ekman-Larsen looks to me like a two-three defenseman who's been by because they just don't have anybody else. Like Dominique Wilkins could have played in any team starting lineup his entire career, basically.

I don't know that that's true for Oliver Recman-Larsen. What do you think happens here? Do you think they keep them and they're just like, they'll keep them in hell for a year and be like, how about you expand your trade base now? Yes. Yep. That makes sense. All right, a couple more. Braden Holpey, former Washington Capitals goalie.

Let's just get this out of the way. Lundquist is going to the Capitals for a year. It's going to be great. Everybody agrees. Holtby, though, interesting guy. Edmonton, I think, is where he ends up. Hmm. Mm-hmm.

Where do I want to see him? I don't care. I can see, whatever. I could see Edmonton. I wonder about Carolina as a possibility. But I think if they just say we want to see them get a good goalie, though Oh, man. Two of the last three years have been horrendous for him.

He had an uptick last... And he's how old? Okay. He's a little bit old. That's interesting. Everybody's going to... But he's going to find suitors because of his playoff numbers and his playoff experience. Well, yeah, because he won a cup.

Capital, W, capital A, capital C, won a cup. So... And he also... But he's, like, say percentage in the postseason. Like, 923. Like, he's really good in the playoffs. Yeah, his career... That's probably around his career regular season save percentage.

But that's counting when he was like 26 and stuff. So Edmonton, you see, that's the place he shouldn't go. He needs to go to a place that could play a little defense, and it'll be all right. Right, but I think Edmonton's going to pony up the cash for him. They're going to talk themselves into it. They're going to work themselves into a shoot, is what you're trying to say? Yeah, that's my theory on this. He needs to go to a place that where he doesn't have to be Jacob Markstrom and fucking, you know,

absorb, you know, 1,600 shots and fucking, you know, be the last line of defense. Yeah, I agree. But is that opportunity up there? But how many of those teams are out there desperately looking for a goaltender, though? And a goaltender that is Braden Coltby in, uh, in, uh, in, we're at 2020 with this market. Yeah, it's fucked. I'm going to go here, ready for this? I'm going to go where I think he's going to go.

And also, who gets him? Or where I'd like to see him, wait, where I'd like to see him go and who gets him, I think he takes a very low salary and very low cap hit and reunites with George McPhee in the desert. How about that? I can see that as a backup. What about reunites with Barry Trots? Islanders need a backup. One B kind of a guy.

Well, no, because they got the Russian kid and they got Varlam off, though. That's true. I forgot about Mozart. Yeah, because that would make the most sense. I completely agree with you for him to reunite with Mitch Korn and those guys. But, like, there's no room at the end there, unfortunately. Yep, that's a great point. I'll throw a couple more out there, and one is just really more for the fun factor.

But the first one, I could see him being a fit for Vancouver if they don't, if Markton doesn't come back. He becomes your veteran split time with Demco. You're going to have a little bit of money to spend. And, you know, the defense obviously is the issue. But, yeah, I think I could see that. Just for pure fun factor, Pittsburgh needs a backup now. How fun would it be, have the Capitals guy go over there and slutt in? They're about to get Mark Andre Flurry, though.

Well, yeah, maybe. Yeah. Let's see about that. All right. Any other free agency guys want to opine on? Those were the only ones I was really super interested. I don't really care about, like, Mike Hoffman. or Tyson Barry.

I think Mike Hoffman's an interesting one because I do think he's a good player. And I think that given here's the really interesting thing about this market is the center position is not very good. No. And so I wonder, like, not that he's a center, but like that just made me think of it. But yeah, like, I wonder what centers end up going where because like what about Joe Thornton? Does he sign in San Jose again? Or does he go chasing a cup? That's a really good question, and I don't know the answer.

I hope he chases a cup. Joe Thornton, realistically. Boston is, you know, what we're all hoping for there, right? Realistically, back to San Jose hoping for Boston. Yes, absolutely. Tyler Tofoli was one that I found interesting, too. Yeah, Vancouver's not going to keep him around. He's a fascinating guy.

He's kind of like the anti- Mike Kaufman, where, like, his underlying numbers are incredible. He just doesn't know how to finish. Like he's he has one 30 goal season. He had sub 10% shooting percentage for like three straight years. I mean, I think he's a great complimentary top six guy. I'm kind of fascinated to see where he bounces to. But like that's a, I wish he could stay in Vancouver because he was really making some fucking magic with Patterson. But the money situation just doesn't work out.

Yeah. All right. And unfortunately, he plays the right wing and not the left. So he's out for Boston. Oh, and keep this in mind. A guy named Pat Maroon, wherever he goes, they probably win the Cup next year. So just keep that. I think he's staying in Tampa, right?

Like, why not? Oh, if I was, if I was in fucking Toronto. Millis-second Toronto. How great would that be? Oh, how great with that thing? Oh, how great with that thing? Yeah. You know what you got to do, though?

You sign Pat Maroon and Taylor Hall, Stanley Cup and draft lottery. Boom. Booking. You got all your bases covered. Is the Toronto Star headline writer being like, okay, do I go with Pat Clark or Wendell Maroon? What's the headline? I don't know. I don't know what you do there, but yeah, that's that feel.

I haven't heard a lot of buzz about the Leafs and him, but that just seems like the smartest thing. Like, and even, even as, you know, Kyle, I realize Kyle Dubas is probably like, doesn't want to play into the narrative. But Pat Maroon's a good player. And also, you can just, you can shut off the narrative. Or you can be like, there, there's your guy. leave me alone. And if we don't win, like, it's your fault because I went out and got the guy you got. Yeah, it's kind of amazing that, I mean, full marks to Wayne Simmons and his representation

for being in the ear of all of the powerful media guys in Canada, where there's more discussion about fucking Wayne Simmons and there is about like Taylor Hall leading into free agency. But if you're looking for the lower line guy with net front presence, that could still play, and your first thought is Wayne Simmons instead of Pat Maroon, Like, what the fuck you did watch him for the last couple years? Like, Wayne Simmons is cooked. Yeah, I hate to say it, but he's cooked.

Yeah, he was much better at his peak, but. Oh, completely. Oh, he's a better player than Pat Maroon, no doubt. But, like, you watch him in the last couple years, and then you watch what Pat Maroon did in the playoffs for the lightning. There's no comparison. Guys, like, especially physical guys at that age, you never know. When the wheels are going to come off.

We don't know. We never know the wheels are going to come off, but also you never know when somebody's just like, man, his, his shirt. Shoulder's just been messed up for two years. And now you got four months off or who knows how much. That's a good point. And you're banking on. He's going to come back.

You know, that information floats around for the front offices. We don't typically hear it. Maybe. But, yeah, I think you're right. I think that's a little bit more past reputation. That's a low-key thing no one's talking about, by the way. A couple players mentioned that to me during the pause about, like, the usual sequence of things. where guys get their work done in the off season,

then they rehab for a couple months, and then they come back. Like, if we're all full speed ahead for January 1st, like Batman says, I mean, it's kind of the same window off season-wise. It's a bit shorter. But, I mean, when do you go under the knife? How long do you recover? We might see a lot of guys not answer the bell for the beginning of the season.

You know, because they just had to put off their surgeries or they don't have enough time to rehab. It's going to be really fascinating to see. Because keep in mind, it's not simply just like the end of the postseason is when the offseason begins. It's also, you know, when teams are eliminated and stuff like that. And with the uncertainty about when next season is going to start, because if you were eliminated at the end of August or beginning of September, your information was December 1st, let's go, you know, at that point. So it's going to be really interesting to see how that plays out with those surgeries and stuff. The one thing we know for sure is that Brent Seabrook is ready to go.

Day one. Here we fucking go. Absolutely. Turnkey. Ready to go. Move and ready. Speaking of moving ready, Ruby, I was working last night,

and Ruby called me into the other room because there was a house hunters on that was taking place in my hometown of Madawan, New Jersey. Wow. How fucking crazy is that? And we're like, this couple is like, this woman was like, we have to find a place to stay here in Madawan.

I'm like, why? That's where my parents live. I did it like turn out to be your house The thought did cross my mind That the third house they were going to look at They'd walk in and it was just my dad And his underwear in the living room Being like, who the fuck is that?

Yeah All right So one thing before you get to some fun The NHL and the hockey diversity alliance appear not to have found common ground The HDA put out a statement yesterday that said that they don't really have a working relationship anymore with the league. They've sort of cut ties with them.

I'll read you the bit. The Hockey University Alliance is grateful for the support from the public we received. Unfortunately, the support we hoped to receive from the NHL was not delivered, and instead the NHL focused on performative public relations efforts that seemed aimed at quickly moving past important conversations about race needed in the game. they had a pledge that they put out in August for the NHL to sign that included hiring targets, included working with black-owned equipment businesses, things like that, also included some pretty hefty funding, like $100 million for the HDA over the course of like a decade.

So, you know, there's parts of the pledge that I thought were a bit of, of a reach, especially for a new organization that doesn't exactly get proof of concept yet. But it's pretty clear that the NHL is comfortable having created its own players committee and kind of doing its own thing. And quite frankly, I think this is the best thing that could happen for the HDA. They work so much better as an ombudsman, checks and balance organization on what the NHL is doing than being under the umbrella of the NHL. They shouldn't be there.

They should be on the outside calling bullshit on stuff. And I think that's kind of the place they're in, not by their own desire. I mean, they'd probably want to get the funding from the NHL. But that's kind of where they've settled in, I think, right now. Yeah, I think on some level, I guess maybe it's a bit hyperbole to say it would be a deal with the devil to just take the NHL's $100 million. but, you know, like they're, they're going to try to co-opt anything that you, like, I don't want to say necessarily revolutionary, but like with that kind of a spirit that you want to do, like a really transformative change, the NHL is going to be like, well, what if

we sand the edges off that? And then, you know, like, we can promote you, like people, you know, talk about Martin Luther King Jr. these days. and just to ignore his, like, more radical ideas and beliefs and stuff like that. And so now everybody gets to like it and not just, like, the people who actually get to benefit from it, but, like, also the racists who want to feel good about all this stuff. Like, now the Hockey Diversity Alliance doesn't have to worry about that shit. I think that's a really good, a really good thing for them, honestly, at the end of the day.

maybe not funding wise, but in terms of credibility and credibility, it's good, but when you were asking for $100 million and now you're setting out on your own, where... Well, you can still shame the NHL into doing stuff. You could. I'm not joking. I'm very serious about that. Do you guys feel Ugi about the fact that the HDA was at the forefront of some of the things that they did inside the bubble for, especially post-Jour. Floyd. I mean, you know, Dumbach comes out wearing the sweatshirt and stuff and their logos are on. The videos are doing and stuff like that. And now it's kind of like, I mean,

I don't want to say they were used, but maybe they were kind of used. Again, the NHL tried to co-opt it and then they were like, oh, like you guys are full of shit. Fuck off then. And I think that's good. Like, I think like if they had just continued to do it even knowing the NHL was full of shit, that would have been stupid. Yeah. But they, they didn't. They I think it's to their credit that they pulled the shoot on this. I think that's good. Yeah. Before we get to a quiz, Eddie Van Halen died, which is a thing that happened this week.

And so I was born after the David Lee Roth Van Halen was like rulers of the world. I'm like, Sammy Hagar is my Revenge of the Sith, basically, in this scenario. But I wore the fuck out of a VHS tape that had a Van Halen concert on it when I was a kid because I was obsessed with Eddie Van Halen for a while and just like the things that he could do with an instrument that other guys couldn't do. And, man, was he a fucking good guitarist? Did you have any love for Eddie Van Halen, indie boy? You know, the problem with Van Halen, of course, is that like their hits are insanely overplay. Right. And so, like, you know, Panama, jump. Like, a lot of that stuff sounds very of the time.

But, you know, there's like a bunch of undeniable fucking, you know, most of them for me anyway are on Van Halen 1. I think Van Halen 1 is fucking a classic front to back. And, yeah, like, I'm even younger than you. So, like, the Sammy Hagar Van Halen is like a foreign concept to me. Oh, so you're a Gary Sharon guy With the one album Gary Sharon was on But I mean, like that was when I was listening to like rock radio

And so yeah, like I Do do do do do do do Yeah like I know all that stuff But like the stuff Like I said it on Twitter when he died But like If any if you're any artist that comes up with something as good as the opening to ain't talking about love Holy fuck

That song is incredible and also like, you know, it shows his virtuosity at this, at this instrument. And, you know, like, he, he fucking ruled. Like, he was so talented to an extent that, like, nobody is. And I also respected that he was like, I do not listen to popular music. I only listen to classical. Yeah. That's so, that rocks.

And it was amazing. Like, the way that his guitar could kind of like just take a song and then just like, put the window behind it. Like, dance the night away is just like a lighter than air fucking song. And it just hangs on what he does in that song. It's so, he's so fucking good. What about you, Sean? Did you like Eddie Van Halen?

I wasn't, like, a diehard Van Halen guy, but I like a lot of their music. And I'm actually of the age where my first Eddie Van Halen exposure was the beat it, guitar solo. Oh, hell yeah. Where it was, and I, like, I remember that being one of the first things where like as a kid seeing that and like you know the video is awesome and he was a big big Michael Jackson fan and I was like right in that age range and and I was like oh this is this guy's great and then finding out like that's like the guy from Van Halen like that dude is from that dude

from that thing is also the dude from the other thing and just being like blown away like I just assume like my that was Michael Jackson's guitarist or whatever and no it's like no that's just a guy dropped in and just killed it and then went back to his day job, like the guy who does the guitar solo on jump and being like, oh, this guy's cool as hell, I like this dude. Did you see that stuff going around that

apparently he did that for free and one take? He was just, like, came in. And like changed the whole, like, changed the song. Rearranged it, yeah. Yeah. Completely redid the arrangements. But like, the article I read was like, you know, quoted him

as saying like, oh yeah, you know, I came in as a favor to Quincy Jones and I figured, oh, I'll help this kid out. And it's like, this kid is fucking Michael Jackson. But he, again, doesn't listen to pop music. So why would he know who Michael Jackson is? Like, other than, oh, yeah, I guess that's a name I've heard. Like, he would have no context for it. And that, to me, is insanely fucking funny. Michael Jackson leaves his studio and Eddie Van Halen goes over to the engineer. He's like, you know what? I don't think it beat works. What if we went beat it? Oh, dude, do you think Michael would go for that?

Didn't Michael Jackson also have slash on a song, too, at some point? Yeah, I think that, well, Sean would know better than me, but I think that's right. That's wild. Yeah, I don't, I think he was in, uh, I feel like that way. He was on black or white. Like, that was like, slashes riff. I think he was in like the post video. Remember there was like the video for that song?

And then there was this whole weird second video that came on after it. When he smashed the car. Yeah. Yeah, and it like only, that was controversial. I feel like Slash was involved in that somehow, but, yeah. Slash was like, I'm just happy to work with somebody normal for a change. Much easier. That post-black or white car smashing part was one of the single greatest moments in living color history,

where they had Tommy Davidson playing Michael Jackson doing the crotch-grabbing car smashing part of that video. and at the end of the video he gets arrested by the cops and he turns to the camera and he goes, I guess I am white I guess they am black I booed the joke

but yeah, no, it was a really, really funny thing in the living color. A great comedic show. Did you have a living color in Canada, by the way? Dude,

that was like my favorite show. Is it like we can do a whole It had a you in it though. Oh, God damn it. Swish, baby. You're going to ask a Canadian if I was watching

like the Jim Carrey sketch show? Oh, that's true. That's true. The Jim Carrey being on that show clears the Canadian content minimum, right? And that's right. It was on CBC. Canadian on Canadian violence when he destroyed Snow's career with the imposter parody, which just that was it.

The entire country was like, okay, you don't get to be a singer anymore. Sorry. I'm reading a book, by the way, that I think you'd really like. It's about comedy in the 1980s. maybe it's like the funniest guys in the room or some shit like that. I'll fight out the title. I'm sorry that I don't remember it. But it's about all the great comedy stars of the 80s and all the great comedy movies of the 80s.

And I didn't know this. It's probably well known to you, Sean, but I didn't know this. But Bob and Doug McKenzie on SCTV were created because they didn't have enough Canadian content on the show. Did you know that? I think I have heard that. Yeah. Yeah, and so, so like Dave Thomas and Rick Moranus just like, they created those characters as kind of a fuck you to the concept of needing Canadian content to fulfill the minimum requirement. And then it became like the breakout thing on the show.

It's, it's incredible to me. Can I ask you this in reading the book? Does the book reveal what the deal is with airline food? Can we finally put that mystery to rest? It's amazing. Chapter 8 is, why don't they make the entire plane out of the black box? Wow. That's crazy.

That's a good one. That's a good one. I hope they have some thoughts on how black people and white people are different. That would be. I hear they dance differently. Breaking news, courtesy of Sean via me, via Brian Lawton. The Devils are expected to buy out Corey Schneider. It's mostly hip.

I'm not really breaking it in it. Hey, you pasted it into the chat. That counts. You're right. Yeah. So there you go. Just take the credit. The down goes brown jinks is hitting the show as we have news breaking.

Not really a surprise on Corey Schneider, huh? Yeah, he's not really good anymore. But what's this contract look like? I'm going to look that up real quick. It's not good. What, it got three years left, maybe? Two years left. Six per?

Two years left. It's per, though, right? Yeah. Yeah, I don't know what that's in service of, but, you know, obviously getting Taylor Hallback. There. We'll just make that prediction, bold as it is. All right, we got a little trivia time now. Ryan has the stick.

Yep. It's a new game. And I created it with Greg in mind because it's very simple. Oh. Right. I'm going to give you Greg and Sean, I guess. Tooth. I will give you an A or B.

option. Okay. You have to tell me which one is the bigger number. The bigger number. That's it. That's all, there's no further rules than that. Okay. So who wants to go first?

Who won the last game show that we did? Well, I won the draft. I know that. Yeah. Okay. Wait, did we ever put the pole up or anything? I don't think we did. You didn't even put the rosters up.

Yeah. But you got three nice. comments and that's that's and you and you won the EA sports thing the the thing that we all care correct right i mean yeah it's pretty much the quinapiac poll of of uh of of uh of puck soup uh drafts remind remind me later me and sean wanted to talk about the uh NHL game coming out this year oh cool we'll do that um all right let's let's do this game Sean you can you can go first you probably won something recently kick or receive buddy uh I'll I will kick you go ahead okay all right Greg, I need you to tell me which is bigger.

The number of episodes of Weekend Update hosted by Horatio Sands or the number of goalie goals scored in the 2010s. Weekend updates hosted by Horatio Sands or goalie goals in the 2010. So Horatio Sands was a co-anchor. He might have been there for a full season. So I'll go Horatio Sands. I'll go A. It's four to two for goalie goals.

Ah, fuck. Yeah, he only hosted two episodes, apparently. All right. They bailed on that concept pretty quick, I guess. But, yeah. All right. Sean, I need you to tell me, which is bigger. The number of playable characters in Super Smash Brothers Ultimate or Yari Curry's single-season career high in goals.

I have, see, I feel like I'm being set up here because my son had asked for Super Smash Bros at some point. And we were like, maybe for Christmas. And if we had got it for him, I would know, I would have some ballpark idea of how many characters are in that. Yer Curry had a 70-goal season, though. So I'm going to say Yuri-Curry. You're wrong on both cons. Yari-Curray's career high-end goals was 68. And the number of playable characters in Ultimate is,

74 as of when I did this list. That's too much. I think they've announced it even more are coming, but I don't remember. I think they said like the Minecraft guy is going to be in it or some shit like that. In fairness, I mean, Sean was rounding on Curry. Okay, hold on, hold on. I'm still wrong, but I just looked it up. He had a 71 goal season. He did? Okay. Okay. All right. Well, either way. That was also his jersey number, if memory serves. He was 17. He might have flipped it.

Okay, Greg, I want you to tell me what number is bigger. The number of career goals or assists scored by Martenbrador or the number of unique Taco Bell food items on the menu. And this doesn't include like, you know, combo meals or drinks. This is just food items. So you've tailored these questions. have you. You know what? No, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, see, all right, uh,

point of clarification. Oh, boy. When you say unique items, are you including every flavor of soda or just soda? Well, I, again, said, no drinks are included, no drinks are included, you. in this list. Oh, okay. You did say that. And so it would just be a hard taco, right?

Not like... Yeah, and I'll even tell you, Greg, that I included tacos and Taco Supremes as discrete menu items. It means, I mean distinct. I mean, discrete means that you're not telling anybody about them. No, I mean it means the same thing. All right, I'm going to go. I'm going to go, I mean, he played forever, so I'll go Bredor on this one. Yeah, you're right, 47 to 45.

Damn. Yeah. Well, tight. But to be fair, I was. Definitely answer that question. Martam Broder. Marty Bordor. Yeah, absolutely.

I was trying to trip you up with Taco Bell having removed. They used to have like 60 something, but they just removed a shitload of them. So I think I left my cup at your Taco Bell. Mr. Bordor, we don't have any... No, I think I left my cup there. I'm going to be there in a second to find my cup and, you know, maybe pick up a few things. Mr. Bordor, we don't have your cup. Is it a Baja blast?

That's a cup. Okay, Sean, which is bigger? The number of weeks, Crocodile Dundee was number one at the U.S. box office. Or the number of times Jean Belavow got his name on the Stanley Cup as an executive. Holy shit. Oh, boy. Okay, as an executive. Hmm.

Hmm. See, that was back in the day where, like, you could be number one for a while if, if, uh, there wasn't always like. I actually thought you were talking about Montreal. I thought you were talking about Montreal. I thought you were talking about Montreal. That's a fucking scenario. Um, I'm going to go with, uh, I'll say Crocodile Dundee. That's right.

Nine to seven. Oh, wow. Nine to seven. Nine weeks? Oh, my goodness. If I'd known Belvo was seven, I would have never, never gone that way. Holy smokes. Nine weeks. Yeah, I looked it up, and when I was, like, Beverly Hills Cop was number one for, like, 14 weeks or something like that.

It was, like, every movie from 1983 to 87 was just at the top of the box office for at least seven weeks. It's fucking crazy. Father of the Bride was, like, eight or nine bananas. Um, so yeah, so Sean has two and Greg. No, Sean has one and Greg has one. Yeah, one a piece. That's right. That's right.

Okay. Greg, uh, what is, what is higher? Um, Peter Nedvedd's career rank among check-born players in all-time NHL scoring, or the number of Simpsons episodes featuring sideshow Bob. So his rank would be like, like, like, Yager's first. and he's second, it would be second. Correct. It would be two.

Two would be the number. Yeah, this couldn't be clearer. Well, now it is. Sight show Bob probably appeared in like a dozen episodes, I bet. So is Ned Ved, like 12th all-time check? I'm going to say the larger number is the Sight show Bob episodes. That's correct. It's 13 to 7.

And Peter and Edved is tied with Martin Straff. Look at. 13. I was like, Baker's dozen. Come on. Yeah, I just figured, like, when I looked up the Czech leaders in scoring, I was like, oh, Peter Nedvett's only seventh. And also I was like, oh, yeah, I guess he would be, huh?

So, yep, two to one, Greg here. Huge fan of this game, because I don't have to think too much, and it's a 50-50 shot. All right. This one, this one, see, and this is how you know these questions were not. necessarily tailored to who's getting them. Sean, I need to the number of Ewoks who, okay, go ahead. Sean, I need you to tell me which is larger, the number of sub-500 seasons by the New York Jets, or the number of sub-500 seasons by the two franchises who have been called the Winnipeg Jets.

All right. And so this includes coyotes and thrashers seasons as well in the sub-500. It does. Okay. Yeah. Well, hmm. I mean, it's obviously easier to go sub-500 in the NFL. I'm assuming we're saying in the NHL points percentage, right? Or are we saying wins and losses?

Okay. Oh, Luke is asking questions now. I'll say the NFL team has had more. 29 to 28, it's the NHL Jets. Oh, wow. There you go. The 80s were rough. The smite.

I call the New York Jets the best. Jets. You know what? You're not wrong. All right. Greg, the number of NHL seasons Shane Donne played in, or the number of formal non-touring Guns and Roses members according to their Wikipedia page. You've made like the perfect questions for each one of us, and then I screwed it up by

kicking instead of receiving. That's all right. This is, okay. So this is, this is the number of. So this is like, Guntheroses Prime, then also like Matt Sorum, G&R, and then like fucking buckethead G&R? The fucking head version, yeah. Everybody who has been an official Guns N' Roses member that wasn't just a touring member, because if you do that, then the number just goes to like 700 or something. It was crazy.

All right, I'm going to play the questioner on this one. Because I feel like you chose this because you find the number of official members of Guns and Roses to be so outrageous and wanted to share that fact. So I'm going to go G&R members. Yeah, but it's not by as much as you think. Yeah. They're a band that famously had a shitload of members because Axel Rose is a psycho to Sean's earlier point. And so the number is 22 to 20. for Guns and Roses members versus Shane Donne seasons in the NHL.

But the other thing to say is Shane Don't played a fucking shitload of seasons in the NFL. He really did. Speaking of the Jets. So, yeah. Yeah. All right. Sean, the number of career goals that Jeff Carter is from hitting number 400 in his career, or the approximate number of minutes dinosaurs are actually on screen in the,

first Jurassic Park movie. Okay. I have no idea how many goals Jeff Carter has scored, but I feel like I saw a thing recently that really surprised me that said like dinosaurs are only on screen for like 15 minutes in that movie, and I was shocked. So I'm going to say the dinosaurs is lower, so I guess the Jeff Carter goals from 400 is is the higher. That's correct.

Jeff Carter is 18 away from 400, and you were right. It's 15 minutes for Jurassic Park. Wow. That blew me away when I, like, I just happened to see it a couple days ago, and that's shocking to me. Yeah, yeah. So, let's see here. How many questions are in this quiz? Like, a thousand?

There are 11, yeah. Okay. So we're almost there. Let's see here. Greg, I want you to tell me the number of millions in millions of dollars earned by Tron Legacy at the domestic box office or the number of career postseason wins for Ken Hitchcock. Tron Legacy had a big, a fairly big opening weekend, I think. It probably tapped out at like 35 to 40 million domestic. Right.

Mm-hmm. Kitchcock's been around. Four wins in a series. He's Dallas, Philly. I'll go Hitchcock. Nope. 172 million for Tron and 168 for Ken Hitchcock. Oh, wow.

Yeah. Okay. All right, Sean. Here's one for you. The number of mainline Tomb Raider games that have ever been released, or the number of goals Joe Pavelsky scored in the regular season. Okay, I'm going to pull a Greg here and like, because my first thought is that there were like three Tomb Raider games and Pavelsky must have scored a lot. But I'm going to say that you're, I'm going to play the psychology.

I'm going to flip it and say, yeah, I think the Tomb Raider games is the higher number. Wouldn't you know what, Joe Pavelski only had 14 goals in the regular season? Oh, my gosh. A wonderful signing, unimpeachable. And there were, there have been 17 Tomb Raider games. Isn't that crazy? That there were more Tomb Raider games than Joe Pavelsky scored in the regular season, and that's just like a great contract that everybody has to love 100%.

That's so weird. That's so weird. I'm glad you the only video games that I like are like Skyrim and Fallout. come out every 10 years. But apparently every other video game series, like every six months is just like... Yeah, I almost did one of like, how many Mario games are there or how many games does Mario appear in? And I was just like, I can't count this high.

Which is like there's... Mario games or NHL games played in the league's history. Yeah. Pretty close. It's got to be right up there. I really love these questions now because now it's like, Greg, how the number of lions in Voltron or reasons socialism works. That's right.

All right. This is the last one, and it's a tiebreaker. You're tied at three to three. Greg, I need you to tell me the combined original A.A.V of all the contracts the Rangers are currently sitting on that they've bought out, or the number of times the Undertaker has wrestled at WrestleMania. Wow, that's really good. And obviously the combined AAV is in millions of dollars Because otherwise the Undertaker has not wrestled in the millions of times at WrestleMania. So they would need to be sitting on like

Clearly more than like 30 million in cap. I'm trying to think of the contracts they've bought out. Let me let me put it this way for you. There's a lot of them that they are. currently still sitting on. Chatton Kirk, Longquist. There's probably a few more. I'm going to go take her.

Nope, it's the New York Rangers. Oh, boo. Brad Richards, is that still on... Brad Richards is still on the books for them, even though it was a compliance buyout. What's the totals? 31.3 to 27. Brad Richards, Dan Gerardi,

Ryan Spooner, Kevin Shatt, and Kirk Henrik Lenkrist. So you tied three to three. Wow. In the end there. I don't have another one that I've cooked. That's fine. I mean, I think ties are okay. We are a tie friendly podcast.

That's right. That's right. I was going to do an overrated and underrated, but you boys wanted to opine on the NHL 21 stuff. Well, it's just real quick. They are, because they're doing like a kind of a throwback thing where it's like, oh, remember when Alex Ovechkin first came into the league, blah, blah, blah. And so apparently they are releasing a revamped version of NHL-94 with completely updated rosters,

all 31 teams, that sort of thing. And what they're not doing, because this is classic EA, is, saying whether it's going to be a standalone game or only something you can play if you buy NHL, uh, 21. Yeah, which and, but the other thing that they're apparently not doing is screwing around with the game. Like, like, what was it like five or however many years ago? They were like, yeah, this new version is going to come with an NHL 94 throwback.

And it was just like the same crappy version with like worst graphics and like a little star around your player, but it wasn't NHL 94 at all. Right. And this one, apparently, it is just NHL-94 updated rosters. That's it. And I know everyone's going to, I'm going to get a bunch of tweets from people who are like, actually, if you go to this website, you can download a ROM of the game. Yeah, I don't want to do any of that shit.

I want to turn on my PlayStation. I want to pick up the controller I already have and I just want to play. And this is a, yeah, this is a potential game changer. If we get, if we get, like, updated Super TechMobile with updated. at rosters, like, that's, that's it. I'm not going to be on the podcast anymore because I'm just going to be... You're going to be a Twitch guy.

Yeah, give me that. Give me NBA Jam and Techmo, and we're done. We're done here. And so we were also thinking that if it is a standalone game and we don't have to pay like fucking $70 for the new one,

we should do like a puck soup league. If it supports online play. Oh. If it supports online play, we should, 100% to a Puck Soup league and like have, you know, do it for charity or something like that, have people buy in. I don't know. And I'll be honest with you.

I'm 100% going to spend $70 on like NHL 21 to get the game. Yeah, I'm never playing NHL 21. All I'm doing is waiting for the clarity on whether I'm going to be able to buy this for like $20 or, like, once they tell me one way or the other, that will govern my decision, but I will definitely just buy the game. at the end of the day. And I do, I do want to see if, uh, if there's online play. Because if there is, like, that's fucking unbelievable.

I just can't wait to like play the game that I was probably the best at out of any. I was going to say video game, but maybe anything that I've ever done when I was like younger. And I can't wait to do it again now and just find out that I'm terrible and everyone is better than me. It's going to be like the last crushing shred of my ego will be, will be gone. when I lose 19 to 1 to some 7-year-old, because he knows how to control the goalie, and I never bothered to figure that out.

Yeah, it's like the revamped version of Tony Hawk where it's like, oh, I can tell that I'm way worse now because I'm old. Like, I used to be insanely good at that game, and now I'm, like, pretty good, but I can tell I've lost a step. I feel like fucking Brett Hall in Arizona, Just like, oh, this isn't working out.

You're going to last five games and you're done. Speaking of NHL 21, they've revealed the six alumni players. For what? What is this? This is the alumni that are going to be in the game. I don't know what to tell you beyond that, except to tell you that it's the Sedeens, Jerome McGinla. Okay. Eric Lindrosse, the aforementioned Shane Dohn.

And Todd Bertuzi. What? Well, all I can say to that is they're based in Vancouver. Yeah, right. Todd Bertuzzi? Todd Bertuzi? Yeah, Todd Bertuzi and Shane Donne, you can either paralyze someone or just give them a concussion with a chicken wing elbow. Jeez, okay.

Also, to clean up a little housekeeping, Tyler's say again, torn labrum in his hip out four months. was the injury he was dealing with in the playoffs. Yeah, that'll do it. Yeah, that'll do it. Do we have time for overrated, underrated real quick, or is it very long? Does it stink or is it good? It's sports movies.

Okay, yeah, I got time for that. Let's do it real quick. Overrated sports movie. Most baseball movies. I'm going to say, I'll, I'll, just general. I'll go field of dreams, but there's a lot of sports, of baseball movies where it's like, yeah, this isn't that good, man. I've said this before. I know it upsets people.

Mighty Ducks. You liked it because you were a child when you saw it. Yeah. It's fine. It's not a terrible movie, but it's not great. It's not some sort of classic. It's a movie for children. I'll go the natural to kind of.

bite off your baseball movies thing. It's got one good, it's got like one iconic scene. Not really sure why it gets put on a pedestal otherwise. Because it, it mythologizes baseball, like, to an almost ludicrous extent. That's why. You know, he strikes out Babe Ruth and all that shit. Like, it's literally like a god of baseball. And the, let's be honest, you know what else does it?

The Randy Newman score. Mm-hmm. Fucking unbelievable. Underrated. There's a lot here. There are a shitload of really underrated. I'll give you two. I would say the damned United, which is a soccer movie.

Good movie. Yeah. What's that actor's name? Michael Sheen? Unbelievable. And another really, really great sports movie. Love and Basketball. Love and basketball.

I hadn't seen it before. I saw it recently. It's fucking great. I'm going to say underrated, just for cult value, Youngblood doesn't get enough love from hockey fans. I know we all agreed at some point that Slapshot was the King hockey movie of all time,

and I'm fine with that, but Youngblood is just, it's hilarious. Not when it means to be, but always, but it's great. It's fantastic. The cast is amazing. It's ridiculous. It's, it's, nobody has ever watched Youngblood and not enjoyed the hell out of the experience.

Mm-hmm. Underrated for me is Diggs, Diggs Town. The classic Louis Goss Jr., uh, James Woods movie, classic of my mind. No one's really seen it. Uh, about, uh, boxing and scandals in a, in a, in a, in a city. Uh, Brian Denny he's in it, I think, too. I want to say it's Brian Dennyhe. Maybe I'm making that up.

That may be importing him from the movie Gladiator now I think about it. I think it's actually Bruce Dern that's in it. Really cool movie, really fun movie, and it's got an incredible twist at the end. So Diggs-Tal would be my underrated sports movie. Favorite sports movies, Sean? Ryan. Well, I mean, you know, this is like, I guess, the obvious answer just because it's the greatest sports movie of all time. but I think the sports scenes in it are impeccable,

and the rest of the movie is just, you know, fabulously acted, directed. It's Raging Bowl. It's the greatest sports movie of all time. One of the finest American films ever made. Hard to argue. I'm going to go the opposite direction. We're doing favorite, which is not the same as saying it's the best. That's correct.

I still love any given Sunday. Al Pacino is a football coach. Jamie. Oh, sure. L.L. Cool J. Lawrence Taylor. And the Inche's speech is still one of the greatest scenes in recent sports movie history and just maybe movie history, period. So put me down for any given Sunday. I'm torn because there's a couple that really are on my mind right now, maybe because I've been wanting to revisit them, which are Moneyball and The Wrestler. I've been thinking about I want to rewatch a bunch of Aronovsky movies, include I haven't seen a wrestler since it was in theaters probably.

Yeah, I haven't seen it since it's been in the theater either. So those would be two off the top of my head that I really enjoyed. But if I was going to go favorite, I think I'd have to probably go comedy, which would then put me in the realm of Talladega Nights,

but probably more in the realm of Slapshot or Major League. And so I think I'd go Major League. I've probably watched Major League more than any of their sports movie, just like, because it was always on and also because it's really fucking funny.

And eminently quotable. Not just the Jobu stuff. Yeah, sure. My least favorite. It's Rudy. It's fucking awful. It's an unwatchable movie that really stinks. Okay.

I don't have much more to say about it than that. It's bad. I feel like you're going to get feedback on that one from, yeah. I'm going to take a pick that I don't think anyone's going to argue with. My least favorite sports movie of all time is The Love Guru. When I found out that Mike Myers at the height of his Austin Powers, fame was going to make a hockey movie about the Leaves Winning the Stanley Cup, I was like, this is the dream scenario.

And it is so bad on every light. It's not funny. It's extremely racist. It's terrible as a hockey movie. Like just you would think at least they'd get the hockey stuff right because it's a hockey fan and it's just oh it's awful. It was just, I remember being like like I felt physically deflated when after seeing how bad that movie turned out. Yeah, that's that's a really good choice. And I'll not use it just so it can it can live there.

So I'll say Rocky Five. Rocky 5 was the one with Tommy Morrison one. The Tommy Morrison one. Just an absolute turdburger of a movie didn't need to exist. It's kind of a miracle that there were other Rocky movies and then the Creed, the two Creed movies that were still made after that. Because it really felt like a franchise killer. And the Creed was good. The Creed was great.

The second one's not very good. But the second one was unbelievable. If you told me the first one, like we're going to make, you know, in Rockies like an old man at this point. It's Apollo, Creed. came. Yeah. And it's just going to make the same movie. I'd be like, no, there's no way that's going to work. And I was like, I was kind of on the fence for the first half. And then when they got to the motorcycle scene where the music kicks in, I'm like, I'm on board. Dude, when he, in the final fight of Creed, when he gets out of the corner and the rocky theme starts, I was just like, I am ready to run through four fucking walls right now. This is incredible filmmaking. Yeah, and Coogler's a genius, Michael B. Jordan's a genius, so... And Stallone was really good in it. And Stallone is great in his lane.

He's so good. He's so good because he was smart enough to realize, oh, I should like take a step back and I should not be... This is not really Rocky's story at all. Rocky can be the catalyst for his success. Yeah. Yeah. That's such a good idea from Stallone. Creed 2 is money-grabby.

Like, Kugler didn't direct it. It's fine, but, like, you know, compared to, you know, it's the Rocky 2 to root to Rocky 1. You know, you don't want, like, you had it. You nailed it. You don't need to go back to that well. Right. All right, that's Puck's suit for this week. Probably a supersized edition.

We don't know what the total tally is on it. But thanks to Mac Welton for sponsoring it. Thanks to all of you for listening to it. Check out the Patreon for our mailbag, bonus episodes, all that stuff for this month. You can read my stuff at ESPN.com. I have a column on the site about the free agency and, like, the danger ratings for each guy, which guys you want to sign and which guys you want to avoid. Oh, and we had John Cooper and P.K. Suban on ESPN and ICE this week. It was great.

Sign up for the Puck Soup Patreon. We have bonus episodes and mailbags and newsletters. and stick to sports is. So, you know, there's a real lot of stuff going on. And one of these days, we're never going to get that Taco Bell article. Maybe I'll write it. Indeed. Find me on the athletic. We've got just an absolute ton of draft stuff, like for every team, ratings, rankings,

grades, everything. So if you're not for some reason on board, the $1 a month thing is still going on, but not for much longer. You didn't hear that for me, but you might want to get in on that now. And I got a thing on Friday where I decided to rank every all-rooky team in the history of the NHL from worse to best. So I haven't done an insane ranking in a couple of days. So I figured I'd break that one out. So look for that tomorrow.

There you go. All right, everybody. Thanks for listening. Off to the Patreon for a mailbox. stuff we'll talk you soon take care bye see you yeah sticks and hits and goals and saves and slap shots and goons we've got sportly commentary to what if you commute

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