Puck Soup - Frenzy on the Edge

Episode Date: October 25, 2023

Sean and Ryan talk about NHL Frozen Frenzy, new advanced stats, pride tape, attendance, and more.   Sponsored by HelloFresh (hellofresh.com/50pucksoup) and Gametime (download the Gametime app and use code PUCK for $20 off)

Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slap shots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to what if you commute. But we also cover movies, TV shows, it's in tunes. It's your weekly bowl of hockey and nonsense. I'm Ryan Lambert from EP Rinkside. I'm Sean McAnneux. And how much hockey you watched last night, Sean? You know what?

I watched a lot, but probably. Probably not as much as you did because we didn't get the ESPN Red Zone thing up here. Yeah, I saw that. I don't know why I kind of thought we were. I just when it had originally been announced, I was like, oh, Sportsnet will pick that up on one of the channels. I think it's partly because some of the Canadian games were on TSN, so they probably... Yep, that's exactly why. It's a rights issue.

Yeah, there you go. Um, you know, that's one of those things. And we'll talk something about this later on, obviously. Um, but it's like, oh, the NHL came up with a cool idea. Now, can all the NHL fans, uh, enjoy it? Well, no. Of course no. Yeah.

You know, um, it, they, they just can't get out of their own way. And it's, you see it once a week, twice a week. it's unbelievable that they couldn't figure out a work around with that. Like, I get it with like rights fees and stuff like that, but or rights issues, I mean. But like, it's just, it's so funny to me that they immediately were like, oh, yeah, sorry. What percentage of NHL fans do you think are in Canada? I believe it's roughly 97%. That sounds right.

And they were like, oh, yeah, what you can do is you can flip between TSN 9, 14, 32 sportsnet and the CBC. Watch all the games you want pretty much. How NHL was it last night when they're like, here we go, all 32 teams? And then briefly they were like, well, maybe not because there's a power failure. And we might not. The Columbus game. Like I don't, not just Columbus. It had nothing to do with the NHL, but yet it still felt like the most NHL thing ever that there, there would be a game canceled.

But they, it happened eventually. Yeah, they got around to it. And of course, you did have coaches bitching about, like start times. Oh, sure. Yeah. Now, okay, to be fair, it was the Red Wings coach. So there's your ready-made excuse for why they lost to Seattle. But, you know, can the Red Wings just like act normal about when a hockey game starts?

Oh, our fans are so seepy. They're going to stay up so late to watch the game. They're so tie-tie. Shut up. They were fucking pathetic. We're putting you back in the Western Conference. That's what I'm saying. Yeah.

We could make that. change right now. Look, we got an Atlanta team coming in. Someone's going to move west. Really, really, really, really fun. Yeah, when they, and for the game that moved or almost got delayed to be between, what, two of the four worst teams in the league this year.

You know, somebody brought this up. I thought this was an interesting point. We got all 32 teams playing tonight, and you go, oh, how many good matchups? Like four. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was interesting, and I can't actually, I'm not sure if I like this or not, they didn't really lean into the rivalry matchups at all.

No, yeah. Which, you know, part of me is like, oh, why wouldn't you like, why wouldn't you do that? But then also part of me is like at some point, like rivalry matches in the NHL are the same. It's like, all right, Toronto Montreal, we got, you know, the Rangers and Islanders. Like, yeah, maybe you'd do something a little bit different. And, you know, the schedule was fine, I guess. It was kind of a, like you talk about that Columbus Anaheim game. The teams are bad, but you looked at that and you're like, hey, Fantilla versus Carlson.

There's a storyline, yeah. Right. And then the ducks are like, well, you're not getting Carlson. Yeah. Because speaking of being sleepy, he's, yeah, all this hockey is tuckering him out. Our little cowboy is all tuckered out and we're going to have a rest. But, you know, like... So tell me, but how was it to watch the ESPN experience?

Because I got like 10 minutes of it because on... I think it was the Chicago game before it started. The feed that we were getting up here was just ESPN. And so I saw about 10 minutes of it. And the 10 minutes I saw wasn't good from my perspective. Because it felt like they were just randomly jumping game to game. nothing was happening. They were just like dropping in and out of games with,

it didn't feel like there was any rhyme or reason. It didn't feel like red zone the way that they do it in the NFL. But from what I've seen, as the night went on and more games were in play, it sounds like people started getting into it more. What was, where did you land on it? Was it good? I would say overall, I had a really good time watching. it. There were, as you mentioned, like a few dead spots that were kind of, in some ways

unavoidable, like if you're doing basically an eight-hour broadcast, because the Toronto game started at six o'clock, right? And so they did that basically for an hour, just only that game for an hour, because that was mostly the only game on. Obviously, Buffalo and Ottawa started, I think, at 6.30 or 6.45. But, you know, that was part of the Columbus game getting moved. It threw off the schedule a little bit. And then, like,

you know, there was one point where Kevin Weeks went and did the intermission for the Chicago game, maybe. And, like, the camera followed him through the building, and that wasn't very fun. And, like,

When, go ahead. I was going to say, I heard that they did like five minutes of offside review in the Chicago game. They certainly did, yep. Wonderful. And I believe when the Vegas game started, they just, because at that point, you know, there aren't a lot of games going on, but they just did like a good chunk of the Vegas pregame show on to the point where I was like, did, did, do I have to change feeds to see like the highlights in Calgary, New York or whatever? Um, so yeah, it's interesting because when it was going really well and they were just like, okay, Tampa's on the power play. Okay, Florida has an empty net. Like, you know, whatever it was.

Not that Florida pulled their goalie at any point, but it was the other way around. In fact, but that game has an empty net. You know, just go down the list. This game's an overtime. time. When they were jumping between those, that was really sick, actually. Okay. I'll say this, though, and this isn't something you're going to hear me saying often. Really could have used less staggered start times.

This was too staggered. This was too staggered. Wait a second. No, this is hockey fans being, you can't make hockey fans happy if we're going to complain about it. I get what you're saying, and I know why I sound. ridiculous saying it. But to the thing you're saying about like they went through five minutes of a goal review, part of the reason why is, I suspect, they didn't have anything of note to cut away to. Now, they could have just cut away to like live action and had picture and picture. And it didn't

matter if it was like a high leverage or a high goal expectation situation. They could have done that for sure. But you just kind of got the feeling that they were like, yeah, these guys are just kind of knocking the puck back and forth in the neutral zone a lot of the time because they were cutting to goals and stuff like that. Now, how were they doing that? Like, let's say they're on the, uh, let's say they're on oilers wild and there was a goal in the Canucks Predator game. Like walk me through that.

What did that, what was that like to you as a viewer? They just, they would just kind of do, excuse me, they would just kind of do, um, Like, oh, let's go over to Nashville. And obviously you knew something was going to happen. And more than a few times, because you mentioned, like, on Red Zone, they won't tell you anything that is about to happen. They're not like, okay, they're going to kick a field goal here. Yeah. And there were a few times where I think, you know, just they have never done it before and maybe they just like got caught up in it.

They'd be like, okay, let's go check out this Pittsburgh goal or whatever. And it didn't happen a lot, I will say. It happened three or four times over the course of the night. But generally they were not telling you why they were going somewhere. And they were, like, for, there were a couple of big saves I remembered where the reaction was like, I don't know if they're acting or if they genuinely hadn't seen that save and they didn't know what they were cutting to. Yeah. And so that was pretty cool. That's cool.

I mean, that's, I've said over and over, that's how you have to do it. It can't just be like an extended highlight show. It's got to be this feeling. If it's done right, and again, I'm saying this people, people know, I'm the world's biggest NFL Red Zone fan. When it's done right, you just feel like, oh my God, there's always something awesome happening in this league. Like they're just, you know, even though they're manipulating you a little bit by like being

a few minutes late on things. And it just feels like you're sampling this league where something cool is happening all the time. Correct. So that's neat. It sounds like they had at least the right approach. Yeah. Like I say, I think obviously I like staggered start times because you don't want to have it be a situation where like six games are in intermission at the same time. So it's like three.

I think if it had been like three and three. had all started within like five minutes of each other, that would have helped you feel like you're bouncing around between action and that kind of stuff, just a little bit more. Because like I said, there were just times when it was like, oh, I guess we're getting like a pretty good chunk of this Colorado Islanders game, you know?

Yeah. Not that, I mean, there were 11 goals scored in that game, so not that there was anything wrong with that. But yeah, I wonder, I'm not going to do the math all night on the frozen frenzy, they called it. They were like, NHL record for goals in a day is 104. Okay. They didn't get there. I don't think they got there now.

Because it was, no, I saw they sent something right. It was, I think, 102 that they got. Pathetic. And at least two that were waived off on coaches challenges. So there you go. Cost yourself the record with your stupid reviews. Look, you know, this is one of those things where they go, oh, you know who has the most points in the history of the NHL is the Boston Bruins?

They had like eight more than some team that did it in 1927. And it's like, oh, and like somebody, parentheses, my friend Sean, goes, Back then they didn't have overtime. Yeah. So it actually, that team is better. That's right. Yeah. So it's that.

They actually didn't have 32 teams back. They probably, when they scored 104 and one night, that was probably like original six. Yeah, that was actually, no, it was one night in 1984. The Oilers and penguins were both playing at the same time. Yeah. Sure, there were only 14 teams in the league. but, you know, they were playing the 13th and 14th best teams in the league. The one goalie who played for the devils and the North Stars was sick that day.

Yeah. But yeah, I had a really good time with it. You know, there's, let's say there's, it says here there's 11 games coming up on Thursday. Let's fucking run it back. Let's do it. See, that's the dream is that this catches on. They get good at it. Because I am not, you know, it sounds to me like they,

they approached it the way I wanted to, so I'm not going to. Yeah, growing paid, I'm not going to, yeah, I'm not going to pick on it. They tried something new, cool. But, yeah, like, imagine if they, this became a regular thing. And obviously, you're not going to be, get dedicated time on one of the ESPN channels every night for it. But, I mean, this, like, if they were doing this really well, and I know I'm a broken record,

but if it was as good as Red Zone, I'd happily pay for like a separate service. 100%. Every time there's, you know, and you could schedule around it too. You could, you know, try to group the games more than they do. That would be fantastic. I, you know, it's so, you know,

it's so much fun when it works. And obviously it has, the games have to cooperate with you too, right? if the game's all stink, then... Yeah, there were a lot of good games last night. Yeah. So, all right. You know, in that case, good job to the NCHO.

NTSPN. They tried something. Sounds like it worked well enough. Sounds like they took the right approach to it. I'm sure it wasn't perfect, but, you know, this is what we want, right? We're always saying, like, don't, you know, try some new things, like, get out of your comfort zone. So good for them that they did. Yep.

Totally agree. with you. Yeah, I think you'd have to have a pretty high tolerance for Butchagross and Kevin Weeks. And it got a little much with the Butchagross and Kevin Weeks isms sometimes.

But, you know, that's an easy fix. Have two other people on there, too. Arda and Greg, there you go. There's two other people that could probably do it on any, you know, if he gave him enough notice. But like I said, Thursday, there are 11 games. You want to guess how many of them start at 7 p.m.?

12 somehow. Yeah, no, it's only more than half, six. Okay, yeah. So that's why you probably couldn't do it that much. But like, you shift two of those games, three of those games to 715. Suddenly, you know, it's not going up, you know, last night it went eight hours, six to two. You know, like, and I watched every rotten fucking second of it. Hey, here's a question.

for you. Because I was going to try to make a note of this last night and then I didn't. Did the games act, did it feel like there was an effort to actually get the games to start on time, given the staggered starts? Or was it still like, all right, now this is the game that's supposed to start at 745 and it's 8.05 and they're still doing some stupid ceremony or like, no. Yeah, I mean, they did the thing of like, why don't you tune in at 712 for the 7 o'clock puck drop, you know? They did that a little bit, but I would say for the most part, I guess the thing is they weren't cutting away like, okay, here's puck drop in Tampa. You know, like they weren't doing that.

They were just kind of like, yeah, we're going to watch a little bit of Buffalo Ottawa because nothing else is really happening right now. And then, you know, something would happen in another game and they would cut to it, you know, like, so I wasn't noticing when games were starting very much. I'll say that. but yeah, I had a blast with it.

You know, you can't, you can't say it went perfect, but it. And when's the next one? When are they? It's like in February or something like that, I think. I don't remember off the top of my head now, but yeah, you know what I would really love is if this was on like, like, like I said, like a night where it's like, yeah, we're not, like not every team is playing, but, you know, two-thirds of the league is playing. Like, let's just make it more of a.

regular thing. Yep. I hope, I mean, I don't know if we're going to get like ratings on this or whatever, but hopefully, you know, we will if they're good. Yeah, that's right. We'll hear all about it. I understand. Every ratings thing I see, I'm constantly getting press releases about like another record

being broken. And then like about once a month, sports business journal has a thing about how ratings in the NHL are down 20% across the board. So, but it's always like, this was the highest rated Bruins game. And then like in a little type, it's like since 2021. Yeah, no, this will be, I'm going to put my ass on the line with this one. This will be the highest rated frozen frenzy in ESPN's history. No question about it to me.

You think, eh? Okay. Yeah. Ratings up 1 billion percent from the previous frozen frenzy. Not bad. a zero last time. Yeah, last time was a total. It turned out ESPN didn't have the rights, so they just...

Yeah, they tried to do it during the NBC era. And Eddie Olcichick went over and beat the shit out of Arda. That's right. Yeah. Just drove across the street. That was it. The other thing, I guess, that's new and exciting in the NHL this week. They finally launched the NHL, like, puck tracking.

and player tracking stats portal, NHL Edge. You have a lot of time to play around with this? Not a ton. And honestly, my feeling on this is kind of that I'm going to, I'm going to kind of let others play around with it. I'm going to let the smart people dive in because as cool as this is, as a few people flagged, there is danger here in like what numbers are.

actually meaningful and which aren't and which ones are descriptive and which ones are predictive and all of that. And I can see myself getting tripped up by that very easily. So I'll say this. Yeah. I don't think you're going to, you are going to fall into the trap of looking at, oh, this guy had 52 speed bursts over 20 miles per hour last season. Okay. Yeah. That actually means anything at all. Okay, the stats for skaters, I'll just go, is offensive zone time at even strength. I don't know if they're defining even strength to mean five on five, four on four, three on three, just five on five, blah, blah, blah. Maybe there's something somewhere on the website that says it. In fact, there's a whole glossary tab.

Why don't I click on that and I'll circle back to it? But the other stats, so it's offensive zone time. top skating speed speed bursts over 20 miles an hour skating distance top shot speed shots on goal shooting percentage goals goals goals shooting percentage shots on goal yeah man we already have this stat this isn't an NHL edge anything I just feel like they were like oh look we cannot just roll out a new stats thing with only five stats yeah you just can't do it there does feel like, I'm looking at the team comparisons. The team comparisons are so funny,

because it's just all those same stats I just said. And they're like... Top skating speed. Oh, okay, thank you. The HAB's top skating speed is 22.91 miles an hour. The Leafs have only got to 2265. But according to their little graph, it looks like they're...

It makes it look like the HABs are like twice as fast, but I don't really... Now, what would be very cool is if I could, like, click on that number and you took me to a video clip of that moment. Yeah. Which, in theory, you should be able to do. I mean, that would be cool as hell. Well, again, we'll give them time to get there, but. Yeah, the thing that was really making me laugh is if you click on, say, a goalie, here are the stats they give you.

GAA, overall save percentage. Okay, two things I can just look up on NHL.com slash stats. Now, this is interesting. High danger save percentage, mid-range save percentage. And then we're back to stuff that doesn't really matter. Percentage with games of a save percentage above 900. Goal difference per 60. Who fucking cares?

Goals for average, so like run support, basically. Yes. and points percentage. And it's like, again, like so much of that is just like it doesn't matter. But what I do like about a lot of these stats is they'll tell you what percentile a goal he is or a player is or even a team is. They'll tell you the percentile. And you're like, oh, that's pretty interesting actually. And then they go, but if it's below 50, all it says is below 50.

Yeah, which is just, I saw somebody, you know, suggest this. And I, like, they're just doing this to protect feelings, right? Yep, 100%. So again, we're onto this whole, like, hockey players are the toughest guys in the world. But we can't do anything that might make them sad. Now, I did see someone pulled this. Fuck, what team does he play for now? What team does Jack Johnson play for now?

Is he out of the league? So this must have been last season. Yeah, that has to have been last season. Anyway, someone pulled a stat from Edge yesterday that Jack Johnson had the single highest burst of speed in the league last season. Oh, really? And it's like, you know. Jack Johnson is playing for the avalanche right now. Okay, so he's on the avs.

So maybe this was from this season, but it was like, yeah, I got to tell you, I don't believe that. yeah and i think part of this also is we need like a bigger sample size especially you know right now i'm looking at like this you know this season six games you know it doesn't tell you anything but it could be interesting there there's definitely a few things the the percentile thing bugs me there there's just

and again this is like in my previous life when i was like a web design and usability guy. Like some of the stuff they're doing it. Like they have, like, looking at the team comparison, when they're just listing stats, the stats that are dark mean that team is better. But when they're showing stats like on the ice map,

lighter is better and dark is worse. So stuff like that, they need to figure out what they're doing and get some consistency. But again, like, we've wanted this for a while. I don't think any of us would have expected it to be perfect or even especially great right off the bat. Sure.

Again, like with everything on NHL.com, it feels clunky and slow, just how long it takes for things to load and all that, which is not great. But hey, you know, let's give it some time. And again, I'm very interested to see what the smart people are able to figure out from this. Well, the other thing I want to say about this is, you know, it would be really nice, is if, like, if you go to stats down at NHL.com or whatever, NHL.com slash stats, I mean. And, you know, like how you can click and sort by, like, ice time or goals or whatever.

Imagine if you could do that with this. It's fucking psychotic that you can. can't. Full stop. There's no other, by the way, Jack Johnson top skating speed last year, 23.17 miles per hour. That's in the 93rd percentile, Jack Johnson. I got to think that is an error. That feels off. That can't be right. But again, it's kind of like, when you get into this, like, top speed and everything, and, you know, yeah, I can, you know, when I was growing up, we would have love to have, you know, who's faster, Burray or Salani? Like, oh, okay, well, totally.

But, you know, what are we going to find out? Like, are we going to learn that, yeah, it turns out, actually, the guys with the top speed are often, like, crappy defensemen because they're always out of position. And, you know, especially the skating distance one. Yeah. I'm very interested to see when we have a full season or two, you know, and you start looking in, like, what are the top and bottoms of those? as a list look like because...

Sure. I could see a bow. I could see, you could tell me like Eric Carlson skates, you know, more than anyone else because he's just, you know, and Kel McCar, because they're just, they're wizards out there. Or I could see if you told me like, yeah, it's actually Zach Bogosian is skating all over the place. And Kyle McCar doesn't skate at all because he's always in the right spot. I don't know.

I think it'll be neat to dive into it, but... By the way, if you mouse over, I'm just on Jack Johnson's page on this from last season right now. But if you mouse over his top skating speed, it actually tells you exactly when it happened. So it was March 27th at Anaheim at 1128 of the first period. So in theory, you could go pull that up and see Jack Johnson just hauling ass up the ice. Yeah. Or possibly down it. That's interesting to me.

So that'll be the next thing is when they have all of these. all of these, you know, video, not even like sliced in the sense that, you know, somebody's manually doing it, but just automatically able to pull, to pull everything. Because I believe, am I wrong, that I think the NBA has something like that, where I can pull any shot or any whatever, but. I don't think that, I'm pretty sure that's not public, but they do, they do have it. They just, like, you can't do it, I don't think. That is extremely cool that they have, they actually do pull that right there.

That is, uh... Well, yeah, and they've had it for like years and years and years. And it's funny because there was an old, back when Deadspin was good, there was an article about like someone pulled video, because like, once you have all this data from the overhead cameras or whatever, like, you can go like, oh, this is where a guy should be in this situation is basically the idea. they just can use computers to be like second to second to second this is where a guy should be standing to do ideal defense or offense. And they found that LeBron outperformed the computer.

Oh, wow. And like obviously that's LeBron. Most guys aren't going to be able to do that. And who knows if that's even real, like if the computer is actually right, you know? but like I remember they had like basically you know a moving image of like graphic of the court and like every player was an individual dot and the ball was a different dot and it just showed them moving all around as you would in a basketball game but just as little dots on a on a digital court it was really cool and hopefully the NHL can get there one day I don't know that they that they will because it's a it's a much harder sport to track

the puck so little, you know, and it ends up under guys a lot more and that sort of thing. Yep. It's not often, for example, that you see a guy like block a shot in the NBA and the ball like ends up in his shorts. Happens 25 times a year in the NHL. Very rare in the NBA that happens. So, yeah, I'm excited to see where both the Frozen Frenzy and NHL Edge go. But, you know, too early to tell right now, I'd say. But you know what?

It's new stuff. They're trying things. I'll give it the A for effort and while hoping that they continue to work on it. Let me leave you with this. What was it? 23.19 for Jack Johnson. Was his top skating speed last year? 23.4 for Cal McCar.

So he's almost there. Jack Johnson, almost as fast as Kale McCar, a thing we definitely all knew. Okay. There you go. All right. Yeah, we'll take a break. We'll be right back with more news and notes. This week's episode of Puck Soup is brought to you by HelloFresh, and folks, I say it all the time.

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and use code 50 puck soup for 50% off. And soon you too will know why HelloFresh is America's number one meal kit. All right. We're back and we got to talk about it right off the hop. Travis Dermit is just like, you can't ban pride tape. And the NHL was like, oh, you're right. Yep. Sorry about that.

The most predictable outcome possible? I think so, yeah. Yeah. Somebody was going to do it. I don't, look, everybody's saying this, but full credit to Travis Dermott for, he's on a two-way contract. He's like barely in the league. He's not making a lot of money.

He's just like, fuck this man. I'm not fucking doing this. Right. And good for him and somebody was going to do it. And this was all inevitable from the moment that the NHL screwed up by passing this dumb rule. And it's a rule that by the way is, even if, you know, almost regardless of what side, I don't even want to say what side of the debate,

because to me, like there isn't a debate. You're, I mean, you're either a dickhead or you're not. Correct, yeah. But even if you're a dickhead, you know, this is what you said you want it, right? Like let everyone just have the freedom to express themselves or not however they choose. Don't mandate it as a team-wide thing.

Okay. But then when you say nobody's allowed to do this, then you're mandating a team-wide thing. thing. And so this is now, you know, leave it to the individuals. This was always the way it had to end up. And I don't know why the NHL kind of took a self-inflicted PR own goal for a couple of weeks. It's because they're stupid. That might be it. They 100% thought, oh, we do this. It won't be a fucking problem. And I'll say this, too. I don't know if this was so much a Travis Dermott thing. Obviously, he, you know, he did the right thing and he put the tape on there. So much as a

Scotia Bank thing. That too, yeah. Yeah. Scotiabank was like, we're giving out five, we bought 5,000 rolls of pride tape. You come in, you can get one. And Scotia Bank, for those who aren't familiar, a pretty big sponsor of the National Hockey League. And so when they were like, we're actually going to put like a bunch of money. I don't know what a roll of Pride tape costs, but like, let's say they spent 15 grand, 20 grand on it, right? And maybe they got a discount for buying in bulk.

But like, that was, that's all it really took, you know, was one sponsor saying, we actually like Pride tape. And the NHL was like, oh, we hadn't thought about it. You like it? We don't give a fuck about the fans, the players, fuck them.

Oh, the money people? they like it, well, turns out it's good. Mm-hmm. Yeah, no, absolutely. But, you know, Travis Durbin helped because it put the league in the position where it was like, are we actually going to find this guy? That, are we going to have the headline of NHL finds player for completely innocuous, you know, show of support, would look terrible on the league? Yeah.

Or they don't. in which case the rule doesn't exist for all intense cases. I was going to ask, you're a parent, I'm not. Are there any rules you have around the house where like if your kid breaks them, you're just like, oh, what are you going to do? Kid broke it. Fuck it. Who cares?

Yeah, pretty much all of them depending on what kind of day I've had. Well, you know, not that I grew up with a curfew or anything like that, but it's like, well, it's 10.30. Your curfew was at 10. Yeah. I guess I'm not going to do anything about this. Yeah. No, it is.

It's, but you know. A loose guideline as opposed to a rule. My wife and I'll sit down and be like, we need to clamp down on this screen time. We need to make it so that the kids don't have six straight hours of watching YouTube on their phone when they get home. And then we're like, yeah, we'll definitely do that starting tomorrow. And then nothing. So, uh, yeah. I mean, I don't even know what else to say on this other than, well, here's what I'll say.

Because there were a few pieces that I read about this that did make this point. And I think it is worth reiterating. As much as we all correctly, I think, criticized the NHL's lack of standing on a lot of social issues. And especially, you know, you look at a couple years ago where it felt like it was pulling teeth to get them to even acknowledge what was happening in the world. They have been pretty good on LGBT issues on, you know, the work with you can play and that sort of thing. They, it is, it would be correct to say that they have been ahead of other leagues.

And I get that that bar is so low that it's buried in the ground. And there is almost a point where it's like, you know, how much credit do you give for, for doing the bare minimum? But in this case, the bare minimum is, is more. than anyone else is doing. And so I do hope that this whole debacle doesn't completely erase that. It was a step back, clearly. It was just insane because it was, to your point, like they were pretty front and center

with this, what, 10 years ago? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, a lot of it's been Brian Burke driving it from the inside. Of course. You know, he deserves a ton of credit. it for it. There have been others, players.

I do want to shout out Brian Burke, by the way. He gave an interview, you know, a week before the Travis Dermott thing, I think, where he was like, if the NHL bothers, like, dares to find any players, I'm paying the fine. I'm not, they're not, I won't worry about that. I thought that was really cool. And like that's, you know, Brian, like you said, Brian Burke putting his money where his mouth is. Sure. Very, very frequently on this subject over the years.

as everybody knows. But to your point about like, look, let's give the NHL credit, I'm not really, fuck them is kind of my attitude on this one. Just because they were like, yeah, we did a lot of good work on it. And here we go. We're going to press the little plunger down, flush it right down the toilet. And see, I get that. But from my perspective, and maybe this is the cynic in me,

I think there are probably a lot of people in the NHL office. or in decision-making positions going, we shouldn't be doing this. Why are we putting our necks out? And then if something like this happens and everybody says you're right back to square one, I can see those people saying, well, see, this is why.

This is why we shouldn't have bothered. We don't, you know, we don't gain anything from it. And, you know, the fact that it's just the right thing to do probably wouldn't enter their heads. So, yeah, I see what you're saying. I do still want to recognize that the league has been pretty good on this, even as they did. you know, it's, to put it in hockey terms,

they've played a pretty good game right up until that shift where they just scored into their own net for no reason. And that was a dumb play, but they had been better than dumb before that. And with the point you're making here, like, if any league was going to do the thing of like, well, why would I ever play a good game then? if you're all mad at me for scoring in my own net.

Yep. Like, it would be the NHL. So I, maybe you're right to say that. But to me, like, this is the, this was the only outcome that was ever going to happen. They looked stupid as shit. And they deserved it, you know? And not just stupid. They look like huge weenies, too, where one guy was like, where they were like, yeah, we're banning

this. Where are you going to do about it? One guy was like, I'm going to do this. They were like, thank you, sir. We appreciate you. And we'll never. What a stupid fucking league, man. Yeah. God. I was going to say like you can't make it up, but like, anybody could have seen this coming. So I guess you can make it up. The other thing that the NHL seems intent on doing, hey, everybody likes going to the draft, right?

you would have thought yeah it turns out okay so they're not I don't think they're going to announce this anytime soon but it seems like they're getting a lot of GMs to go on the record and be like

yeah I don't want a centralized draft anymore where everybody goes to Nashville or Vegas or Montreal or whatever we don't want to do that and the reason this is funny to me is because they were like well, last year and this year,

the draft was on the 28th and the 29th and free agency starts on the first. And that's just too little turnaround time because like qualifying offers are due on the 30th. So that's a lot of work with travel, blah, blah, blah. I get that. But like, it's not like a law that the draft has to be on the 28th and 29th.

Yeah. Are I crazy here? the first. Like, yeah, just... I mean, you have to change the the CBA because that's what the lead starts, but so you go to the players and you say this is the situation. Yeah, and don't

they always say it sucks that it starts on the first because that's Canada Day anyway? Mm-hmm. Okay, I got a great fucking solution here. It starts the 15th. Whatever. Who gives this shit? Can we just like shout out to the Nashville

airport for being such a nightmare. I know. That really is what happened. And everybody is like, we will never do that again. But, I mean, this feels like, I can't get too worked up on this because this is how the other leagues all do it. Sure. But it's just kind of like, you know, of all the things, like, I saw there was a controversy this week in the NFL where a player was not listed on the injury. report, a prominent player, and then, like, didn't play in the game.

And the team was like, well, he was sick. But they had, they never told anyone beforehand. And so there's this, it's this whole big thing because you can't do that in the NFL. You have to disclose. And people are like, you know, meanwhile, of course, the NHL is still doing the upper body, lower body thing. And it's just sort of like, everything we're going to copy from the way more successful leagues, it's going to be taking away something that a lot of fans kind of like and

think is cool. and that's the thing like because people go oh well you know the media likes going it's a free it's a free listen to the fucking podcast I did not have a good time in Nashville and that's only the second time I've ever

been to a draft ever so like I'm not drawing from a ton of experience of like oh I've only ever had a blast at the draft I would say generally my experiences have been a little bit negative um you know taking on the average of the

two drafts I've been to. That having been said, what this really boils down to, I, you know, that I think a lot of the leagues just wouldn't even think about or care about is, you've heard a couple of people go, well, you know, the hotels are so expensive. Bro, aren't you like a two and a half billion dollar franchise? Mm-hmm.

What are you turning out your pockets about like, oh, I got to spend eight grand, hand on fucking hotel. Shut up. And here's the other thing. Like, you know, and these teams are like, yeah, so many hotel, we have to bring the whole scouting staff. So don't. Right. Don't bring.

Let the 30 people on the scouting staff stay home. They can be on the Zoom call that, you know, you want just you don't need. Like, I know it's like you don't need to bring your entire scouting staff just so they could all put on the same colored suit and, you know. That is actually pretty epic, though. If you look at the lining of the suit, it says Minnesota Wild on there. So that's like the coolest thing that could ever happen. Like you can just, and, you know, you can just get up and make your pick without bringing the entire front office. Like, that's totally up to you.

If you have, if you're one of the, especially if you're one of the pores out of all the franchises, go ahead. Like, that would make it even more fun. You could sit down and be like, oh, look, the Leafs have 80 people at their time. And there's three Ottawa senators. It's, uh, okay, cool, you know, that would just be more fun. One thing I think is they're just really not thinking about like the assistant GM's son who gets to hand the jury. Yeah, exactly. Like, what are those kids supposed to do all summer now?

Yeah, but how about how expensive is that kid's hotel room? Why is Darrell Cates's kid got the presidential suite at the marriage? Two other things on this just, just real quick. First of all, I don't know if anyone has thought this through, but if you don't have everybody in the, if you have the decentralized approach, like in the NBA, like in the NFL, you know, typically that means you still have the draft in A-City

and you still invite fans from that. So there's still fans in the building. That means that Gary Bettman has to announce all the picks. Okay. Which means Gary Batman gets booed 32 times instead of just once where he comes out with like, you know, like in Vegas, like he'd come out like hiding behind Jonathan Marshalo and Mark Andre Fleury and, you know, trying to deflect the boo. Like he'd have to come up every single pick. That'll suck. And the other thing is, well, yeah.

The other thing that I've seen, though, is a lot of these teams are like, well, this way we get to put more, you know, We can do the local draft parties. Okay, this might just be a me thing. I have never, in my life, heard anyone tell me that they went to a local draft party and, like, had a great time. Like, I've never had anyone be like, you know, it was great when we went to, like, the, you know, Gus's wings and things for the local team draft. boy, that was awesome. I can't wait for the local team draft party. I know they exist because they get a shoutout on the stage.

I know there are people going to them. I imagine they're a decent time. I've never heard anyone be like, I really like, you know what I'm looking forward to this year? Local draft party. Now, I have, I think anybody can look at what happened with Chicago's draft party this past July or June. And, oh yeah, that I bet is a fucking blast.

But like, I want to know who the freaks are who are like, I'm going to go to the Canucks draft party. And when they fuck this pickup, I'm going to be like, why did I come here? But it's like, well, because it's the Canucks dog. I'm going to go to the, I'm going to go to the devil's draft party and watch them pick 27th. And then they trade down. And you're just like, oh, okay. Well, I guess I did, I guess I did pay $18 for this beer. So it all works out for me.

So anyways, I'm assuming this is going to happen because I just look at it and go, well, this would be worse for the fans, but it would save like a couple of bucks for the league. Oh, yeah. It'll save a couple of teams some rounding errors. And that's all that really matters. Again, this is the most pathetic league in fucking history, right? Like just, oh, geez, we, you know. We were so positive in the first section that, you know, first segment we had to. Well, look.

I feel like now we're talking about the NHL, brother. Like the reason I think this is happening is that insiders are talking about it. Like if it was not a subject that like insiders were bringing up, nobody would ever even think. Well, obviously the NHL might one day think about decentralizing the draft. But because insiders are talking about it, they have the green light to talk about it, you know? that means this is 100% guaranteed to happen. When's the last time a big league-wide thing like this was getting talked about by Elliot and Drager and Pierre,

like go down the list. Frank, all these people are just like, yeah, you know, there's a lot of talk about this and teams will have the vote. Like, the votes are in.

This is a classic, this is a classic lawyer thing of like you don't ask the question you don't know the answer to. This is what's happening here. you know, this draft in Nashville, it's over. That's the last one that all the people are going to be at. Maybe this year. Maybe.

Here's the last point on this on this is. Yeah. Because that has been, what's been reported is that this change won't necessarily impact this year. That they, you know, it may not. If they, because as much as I'm not complaining about this from a media perspective. The draft is a fun thing for the media generally, maybe not in Nashville, because it's like the last chance everyone sees each other and then go away for the summer.

It was described to me, my first one was described to me as it's like the last day of school, right? Yep. If they take that away, but there's one last one, one last day of school, and it's in Vegas, people are going to die. Like there's, this is, 100%.

This is how you, you want to downsize the sports media? This is it right here. Look, the NHL doesn't need, doesn't need help with that. It's just, we'll take care.

We're going to lay ourselves off in, uh, in, in, in Vegas in late June. And our last chance to make asses out of ourselves at a draft. It's going to be bad.

Yep. There you go. Yeah, why don't we take another break and we'll come back and talk about a couple of other lingering issues, let's say. This week's episode is brought to you by Game Time. Game Time is the fast and easy way to buy tickets for all the sports, music, comedy, and theater events near you. Emphasis on easy, because that's what buying tickets should be. You shouldn't have to worry when you're buying tickets to your next big, event. There's not too many feelings worse than spending potentially a big chunk of money to go to a

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tickets with GameTime, download the GameTime app, create an account, and use the code Puck for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Again, create an account and redeem the code Puck, P-U-C-K for $20 off. Download game time today, last-minute tickets, lowest price, guaranteed. All right, a couple more things that we should talk about here. Connor McDavid is out a week or two with some kind of. of an injury. Have they said what it is? I don't think they did, no.

Yeah. I wasn't watching the game where he got hurt, so I have no idea. I think it's shoulder-related, but I'm not 100%. Anyway, that's bad news for an Oilers team that's off to a shitty start. Regardless of Carmen McDavid attendance. And I just want to put big ups on the goat, Jim Matheson. out in the Edmonton media. He makes a great point here

where basically he says, hey, you know how it's early in the season? Well, Seattle finished with 100 points last year, and they were fourth in the division. The Oilers need 97 points from their last 76 games

to get to 100 points. And he's basically like, just saying. So they need, I'm going to break out the calculator. They need out play at a hundred and five point pace, which is totally, yes. Yeah, so that doesn't actually seem. Yeah, that doesn't seem that. And I don't think it is going to take 100 points.

Like that's kind of. No, I would agree with that. Because you want to talk about how good Seattle is this year? No. These guys suck. These guys stink out loud. Boy, impossible to see that one coming. But it is interesting.

that it does kind of seem like maybe the horses aren't out of the barn yet but that barn door is open. Yeah. And I even, like, I'm not panicking on the Oilers yet. No. And I wrote that over the weekend. But last night, it was that third period.

People did, they were up going into the third period, right? Up three to two. And they lost seven to, four, I think. Yeah, that's right. I'm running the numbers. That feels like maybe they gave up five goals in the third period of a must win, like, let's get right and turn this around night.

That's not good. It's not good. And the reason they're bad is they can't get a fucking save. Yep. Which is kind of that. 856 team save for 70. 856. And that's what we would have pointed to, right?

If you had said the Oilers are going to be bad this year, they're going to struggle, your number one concern would be the goaltending. And so the fact that it is exactly what you would have worried about. Now, you know, I looked at it. I'm, it's not that I'm writing off Jack Campbell, but I'm at the point with Jack Campbell where it's like, I need to see it for a while. And then we can say that he's back. I feel like there is a good goalie in there somewhere, and it's just, you know, for whatever reason, even going back to the Toronto days, it's not showing.

I need to see it for a while. And not in the preseason, like some Euler fans were ready to declare. But I kind of, I was in on Stuart Skinner, and he was the guy that bailed him out last year, right? Like, Jack Campbell wasn't good last year, but this kid comes along and plays. 814 right now. Is that good? 814? I think it's

It's only like 100 points below where you want to be That's fine No big deal Ultimately like It's I still think they're going to be okay You look at the teams ahead of them Like maybe Seattle turns around Calgary's a mess

Boy are they You know Vancouver Vancouver looks feisty But I'm not I'm not banking on it quite yet But They're the one You're always better off erring on the side of

They're not good The one thing though That has been pointed out. And it's not that, this doesn't really matter a lot because, you know, seeding and home ice and all that. But you sort of went into the season going, man, it's, it's Edmonton and Vegas for the Pacific. Well, 100%. Yeah. Vegas is 11 points up. And we're two weeks into the season. And they're 11 points ahead. That's crazy. I'll say this about me. There were only 14 points available to them. And they're 11 points.

points ahead. That's right. I'll say this for Vegas. It's not just that they're winning. They're beating the dog shit out of every team they play. Yeah. They're scoring four goals a game. They're giving up less than two.

Yeah. What was it? I think last night was either the first time they've trailed at all all years. Yes, I believe that's right. But definitely the first time they trailed heading into an intermission. Like the first time they went into an intermission not. being like, all right, guys, here's, let's keep it up, you know,

like, oh, that, yeah, no, I'm wrong. There was someone who scored last night where it was the first time they'd let all season. Must be San Jose. Yeah, that's, oh, geez, San Jose. But it's just like, oh,

there's six games into the season. They haven't had to lead once. I think, I think that's what the stat, and it doesn't matter. If you were, if you're the San Jose Sharks, Hey, six games into the season, you're only two back of the Oilers. It's not bad. They would have taken that on day one for sure. But yeah.

Speaking of which, you know who stinks? Who's that? The Washington Capitals. Oofy-dufy is right. Boy, they are bad, bad. Alex Ovetian won goal. Yeah, and that came. Last night.

Completely meaningless. But like it's just like. They can't score at all. They have seven goals in five games. For a team that, I mean, you kind of looked at and went, well, they've still got offense at least. Goaltending. I don't know. Defense not so good.

Yeah. I look. Now when we did our season preview episode where we said the capitals were going to be bad and the penguins were going to be good, we got a little bit of shit about that. I certainly heard about it. I'll put it that way. And to be fair, the penguins also suck. They're also extremely bad so far the season. But I think the capitals are going to be good.

Hold on there, brother. What are you talking about? I'll say this. The standings in the East are psychotic. Yeah. It looks like somebody just picked up... all 16 teams and just drop them in a random order. And you're like, all right.

Yeah, Philadelphia is better than Carolina. Why not? Sure. Yeah, up until last night, Philadelphia was first in that division. Yeah, for sure, absolutely. Makes a perfect sense to everybody. Along those lines, you got any teams that you think are, let's go positive here? Any teams that are on, like, bad starts that you think?

You think they're actually good? Well, I mean, the one obvious one, and I'll throw this out there, is, you know, we just talked about how terrible the Oilers are and they can't get to say. Do you know the only team in the league that has a worst goals against average than the Edmonton Oilers are right now? Is it Carolina? Carolina hurricanes. Yeah. They can't get a stop.

And they can't get to stop. And this is a team where, I mean, look, the goal tending in Carolina has always been a question mark. It just always seems like they've just got a couple of guys that play better than anyone else expects. And then they trade one of them and they're out of the league in two months. But the blue line is fantastic on paper. And it just isn't clicking yet. They will be fine. They're currently three and four.

They're behind Philadelphia club. They will be okay. I've got no... Yeah, they're 12th and expected... to say that they're all set. Yeah. I'm just, you give me one while I.

Yeah, sure. I just want to say real quick about Carolina. Is that their expected goals difference is, let's see here, I just saw it. Their expected goals difference is like plus two and a half, and their goal difference is like minus four. So like that gives you kind of an idea of how much.

Plus two and a half. Like that doesn't great. Like it doesn't, that's not a team that's playing fantastic. It's 12th in the league. It's 12th in the league. Yeah. They're too good to not be fine. Yeah.

I think that's exactly right. The team that for me, I just look at them and go, they should be better than this. Is leaving aside Edmonton, obviously. I don't think the sabers are this bad that you want to talk about a team. They're giving up more than three goals a game, and they've had, let's say, their fair share of struggles offensively,

which I don't think anybody... Because here's the thing. I don't know if I... Going into the season, I didn't think they were a playoff team. But I also don't think they're this bad, if that makes sense. And, like, they're a game below 500.

So, you know, they win their next game. They're right back in business. Nobody, nobody, you know, 500s. roughly where you want to be if you if you want to at least be in the the playoff conversation a week from now. Yep. And, you know, they win two, three games in a row.

Okay, that's fine. I will say the thing about the Sabres that is interesting to me, because this is a team that's been crushed by bad streaks over the years. You know, they're the classic team where it's like, if you take away their worst 10 games, they're pretty good.

And it's like, yeah, every team is that. But they always seem to have, And so you looked at them and you were like, they got to have a good start. And they already have had, they started 0 and 2. And then they had, remember that game against Tampa where they were leading?

And Tampa tied the game with like five seconds left. Yeah. But then the Sabres won in overtime. And you're like, okay, that was almost disaster. And then last night, Ottawa,

they go in and, you know, kick Ottawa's doors off. They're up five to one or whatever. And they almost blow that lead with five minutes left. They went from like five to one, five minutes left to, 5, 4, and then they get the empty net.

Like, the sabres are doing, like, the Royal Rumble guy who keeps getting thrown over the top rope and, like, feet dangling and then gets back into the ring, which. Yeah. Very often means that guy's going to win, but it's not a great way to go, you know, it's, it's dicey. How many teams, how many teams in the Eastern Conference right now do you think have a positive goal difference? Oh, man. Probably not a lot. what's, say six out of 16. It's seven out of 16.

Okay. And, you know, a bunch of teams are like minus, Tampa, for example, is minus one. But like, Tampa's not playing that well, man. No. It's beyond, it's beyond, you know, they're three, two, and two. Did you, right now, all situations. This is unbelievable. to me.

They are 29th and expected goals percentage. Wow. The only teams below them are the Sabres, which, okay, maybe I shouldn't have said the sabers will turn it around. The Canadians and, of course, the sharks. The sharks are on pace to be probably the worst team in the cap era. 35% of the expected goals so far this year. That sucks.

And that's crazy for Tampa, right? Because you would think, you know, we said with Eminton, right? The problem was going to be the goaltending. Yeah, Tampa's same thing. You go, well, I mean, maybe they just, they've just got to tread water until Vasilevsky gets back. But if they're not generating offense. Let me look really quickly and see how they're doing generating offense. The lightning are 16th and expected goals.

and 31st and expected goals against. So they're just playing bad defensively. The offense is okay. And it's not the goal-tending. The defense is horrible. You know, it's not the goal-tending letting them down. It's almost the other way around.

Interesting. Their team safe percentage is 907. Can't do better than that, really. With those guys, you can't do better than. Yeah. With those guys, you can't. You take it. You absolutely take it, yeah.

That's, and here's, and here's, thing. The only reason they're any good at all, and we'll talk about this in a second, or their record is any good, I should say, they're shooting almost 11.5%. That's 10th. And yet, you know, through it all, they had Saturday night, they blow a two-goal, a late, two-goal third-period lead to the Leaves. If they hang on to win that game, they're four, two-and-one, and we're all going, yeah, it's all good in Tampa. It's... But again, the underlying numbers are like, I'd be,

terrified because it's like, oh, the top guys really aren't performing that well. And because they've spent so much money on retaining the guys who won them the Cups, understandably so they don't have the depth they used to either. Yep. So it's really tricky. Speaking of high shooting percentages, the Detroit Red Wings, 15.3%. So far. I don't know after last night's game, but going into last night's game, they were shooting like 33% on the power play.

Yeah. One in every three shots they took what's going in. Larkin and De Brinket are just on mega heaters right now. Yeah. And, you know, like, what's to Brinket have now? Like seven, eight, nine goals, something like that? Yeah, I don't have. Nine goals.

Nine goals. He's got nine goals and seven games. Nine goals and seven games. obviously that's not going to last. He's shot. I just looked here. He's shooting 39% currently. Sustainable.

Well, so here's the thing. He does have like a decent number of shots. He's like tied for 21st in the league in shots right now. So that's not bad, you know? That's, you take it, certainly. And if he's going to shoot like that much all year, obviously he's not going to score nine goals on every 23 shots he takes. But like there's there would be basically no stopping him from getting to 50,

which is I didn't see that coming honestly. But with that having been said, you know, he's got nine goals. What's what's Larkin have? Larkin's got four. So that's 13. And they have 34 total. Like I don't know that you that you can go through. a whole season with two guys scoring

whatever, like a third of your goals. No. More than a third. So they got to figure out some offensive balance there. But, you know, you don't argue with the start. That's for fucking sure. No. Dylan Larkin, tied for the league leading points. That's what we've been waiting at, right?

That we would always say that with Detroit. We'd look at them and go, yeah, you know, pieces in place. Eisenman's doing a nice enough job, but who's the star? Who's the, you know, where's the, you know, it's not Dylan Larkin. If Dylan Larkin's your best forward, can you actually win? And now, yeah, maybe. By the way, just speaking of weird stats, did you see the one that last night, Alexander Ovechkin's power play goal was the 300th of his career and the 3,000th for the Capitol?

So he has scored 10% of that teams, of the power play goals that they have ever scored in history. That's insane. The franchise is 50 years old. They're 50 years old next year. That's fucking crazy. And Alexander Roveskin has 10% of their, that's... Wow. And it's not even the highest.

I think there was a couple of, but I mean, it was newer franchises. I think it was Salani. Yeah, for sure. And I don't remember who the other one was. but that that's literally I don't believe that stat that's really crazy yeah um his team was around in the 70s like

that's right yeah uh one last thing that I want that I want to say apart from like the Red Wings or fake team not not really that good how about the Dallas stars only one regular one loss it wasn't in regulation There's a shootout to Vegas.

Yep. And like if you're going to lose anybody, Vegas is a team you definitionally so far this season have to lose to. I just, they look really fucking good. Them Colorado and Vegas, the top of the west, like, look out. I don't know who's winning that rock fight, but that's really fun. Definite separation. As much as we said with the east, there's like,

Nothing. You're seeing very clearly in the, in the West, we thought there were going to be four good teams, and one of those teams stinks, and the other three are just absolutely crushing everybody. Annihulating teams, yeah. And I guess we should mention the Bruins are a perfect six and no to start the year. Yep. As long as we're mentioning undefeated teams. Haven't played anyone really good, but. No, and by the way, neither has Detroit, really. the only the only quote unquote good team they've played is Tampa and obviously and we were just saying Tampa's playing badly so but yeah look you only get to you only get to play the teams they put in front of you and the Bruins are just like yeah we'll fucking kill them that's fine I was saying earlier like Vegas is plus 15 in goals Colorado is plus 16 Boston's plus 12 and they're and they're not doing the Detroit thing where it's like oh but surely you know it's all shooting percentage and stuff. Like obviously it's a little bit shooting percentage.

But their seventh and expected goals, which I get maybe you look at their schedule and you say they should be. Look, man. I think we're at the point where we can just go ahead and say Patrice Bergeron was overrated. Well, look, I mean. Was Patrice Bergeron holding the Bruins back? Well, look, I mean, they did set the league record for points last season.

That being said, they're on pace for 164 right. And then what happened in the playoffs, right? Because I don't know about you, but I only look at the playoffs. Look, I understand. I mean, but their first round matchup right now would be Columbus. And if it's Adam Fantilli going head to head against like Charlie Coyle, good night blue jackets.

Okay? Ball game. See you later. But yeah, no, like, it's just really interesting to me that like, five teams are just out to outrageously good starts. Hey, look, I mean, it's a long season and you're going to hit some bumps and it's not going to be, it's nice when you're in January and you've lost three in a row to be like, oh, right, it's good thing we banked a dozen points. All you can do is win.

All you can do is win. And it doesn't matter if like you kind of stink to get there, like in the, you know, the final accounting or whatever you want to say. They don't look and go, yeah, you got like 102 points this year, but like 15 of those were in October. Yep. So you're actually not in the playoffs. They let you in, no matter when you get the points. So the other thing I guess we've got to talk about this week, is it good? Do you think, I'm just asking your professional opinion, John.

Is it good when like the president of your team or whatever has to go on TSN and be like, Like, we're not moving the team, though. Don't worry about it. You know, I think that's probably not ideal. Okay, interesting. It's better than having the president go on TSA and be like, hell yes, we are absolutely going to be. We're thinking about it.

This garbage stuff. Yeah, Winnipeg, attendance, poopie, really stinks. So there was like a quick hit on this on TSN last night. The attendance has been bad. everybody knows it and they're not the only ones Detroit I think has been singled out Buffalo obviously more than a few teams are kind of struggling on that front

but it always will feel more pointed in Winnipeg just because that's not a big building to begin with yeah and a team already was like we're getting the fuck out of here one time it happened already you know

and what's interesting to me was that TSN report they were like and this is of course why we invest so heavily in Connor Hella Buck and and who's the other guy that? Mark Shifley. Shifle, yeah. I wanted to say Kyle Connor. I knew that was wrong.

Because we can't afford to go through a rebuild. And it's like, I wonder, like, I'd never heard it put in those terms of like, we can't afford to do it. I wonder what the relative cost is of like, whatever the combined total. total amount of money they just gave those two guys and whoever else they're going to need to resign to be in win now mode quote unquote for the next like five or six years versus what like a four year rebuild cost them yeah in terms of uh attendance and and and you also wonder like how much of that when because you've heard that said about

other teams ottawa was one Columbus it comes up um How much of that, I really wonder, is them internally budgeting for playoff gates? Because, of course, as the playoffs is when the NHL makes its money, right? The players are being paid. You ticket prices go up. You typically sell out. And for a lot of teams, it's like even making the first round and getting swept. Like those two home dates in the playoffs are what?

The difference between breaking even and not. Yeah. So I wonder how much of that is, you know, it's one thing to say, look, we can't, we can't finish dead last because that's going to cost us, you know, 3,000 fans a game that aren't going to be coming to watch. And that adds up. Times 41. Yeah, of course. You kind of see that versus saying, like, we need those, you know, we need three playoff games every year to break even. And then what does that do as far as the pressure on Kevin Shevoldeoff?

What does it do as far as Rick Bonas and, you know, every, you. You go on down the list and how many panicky short-term decisions potentially get made just so that. Because that really is the last thing as a fan that you want to hear. As much as it's easy for guys like you and me to say, this team needs to rebuild, whatever. It's not easy as a fan to hear like we're going to have a stink for three years. But it's even worse to hear like we're just our only goal is to get in the playoffs and lose in the first round every year. Like, that's, that's, that's, that's miserable. So I don't know.

It's, uh, does Atlanta need a team? You know, that was the joke I made, uh, this weekend of like, hey, you know, I'm hearing a lot about an expansion team potentially, or a new arena getting built in Atlanta. Maybe this is what we do. Just every 15 years, we just pass this franchise back and forth. Atlanta to Winnipeg. Two dead end markets. You can't. You just have, you give, that's enough time for a new generation of fans to show up and be like,

oh, we, we'd love hockey. And then, you know, you just tip it back and forth. It's, it's really tough because, you know, you heard so much about, uh, oh, it really, it really, uh, this is one of the great markets in hockey. The team's like 500 and people are like, I'm not fucking going to that. And look, the economy's bad, right? Yeah. And Winnipeg, you know, for people in the States you don't know, is not a big city.

No. No. No, I think it is, I think it's the smallest market in the NHL. I would not be at all surprised to. Like, the metro area like 800 grand or something. Still 40% of Winnipeg's population is going to the game. But they need it at 50%. So.

Yep. It's rough, man. Like, I don't know. I don't envy the Jets having to make the decision of do we rebuild, which they probably should. But in doing so, do we risk having to fucking leave Winnipeg? Right. That's tough. And they've made their decision, right?

I mean. Obviously, yes. Rebuild's gone now. That ship is sail. Yep. Well, here's the thing, though. There have been plenty of teams that, quote, unquote, tried to win now and ended up with, like, the ninth pick in the draft a lot. You know, and maybe you can rebuild that way.

But, you know, let's put it this way. If I'm Kevin Shevoldeoff, one thing I'm definitely not fucking doing is trading any draft picks or prospects to make the playoffs ever. And, you know, not to hammer the point two part. But first of all, you are doing that if the owner tells you that make the playoffs or you're fired. And, you know, I remember the thresher's going all in on getting They sure did.

0708, 08, 2009, something like that. 0708, and then they got swept. They got their two home dates, and then they were in Winnipeg three years later. Yep. So, yeah, not fun times if you're a Winnipeg fan. And by the way, Connor Hellbuck, not very good so far with his big new contract.

Yeah, now I guess I would, in his defense, say he's playing behind that Winnipeg Jets blue line. Yep. That's going to be a problem for a lot of teams. for a lot of goalies. And a guy, it's Connor Hallibuck. It's a little slum.

He'll be fine. Better than that. It's not, it's not a Jack Campbell situation where it's like, I'm pretty confident this guy's a bad. You know, it's the opposite with Hallibuck.

But again, maybe not what you want to see if you just gave this guy 70 million bucks or whatever the number is. Especially on a contract that hasn't even started yet. Yeah, that's right.

So there. There you go. You got any plugs for us this week, brother? You can just find my stuff at the athletic. I'm going to do a... We're going to have a quiz at the end of this week. Wow. A little twist on the old who didn't he play for.

And then, yeah, my weekend rankings are back in full swing. So feel free to come by and get mad that I didn't list your team. My favorite are the comments who are like, well, not even a mention. and it's like, it's a top five and a bottom. Like, what do you want me to... Yeah, but you didn't even mention my 12th place team? I'm going to start putting a little disclaimer at the bottom saying the other... The following teams also exist.

You know, along similar lines, I used to do just like, when I did the power feelings, I would just do like, oh, here's like something interesting I have to say about this team. And I got the same shit. Oh, you don't have anything to say about the Minnesota Wild, and it's like nobody ever has anything to say about them. But now I do all 32 teams. And a lot of times it's just like, well, it seems like these guys are extremely

mediocre. Okay. You know, I, you wanted your team mentioned? Here's me saying I have no thoughts on them. And I guess that counts. You can't complain about it. Yep. So I'm with you. For me, E.P.Ringside.com use the code.

I love EP when you sign up for an annual subscription. You get three three, three, three, free months stacked on at the end. Yep, I got there. Patreon.com slash Puck Soup. We got all kinds of bonus episodes coming out this week, as we so often do at the end of the month.

And that's it. I have nothing else to plug. Oh, I guess I'll say I have a power feeling coming out later this week, so keep an eye out for that one. All right, everybody. Thanks for listening. Have a good one. Bye-bye.

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