Puck Soup - Goalies Are Bad Now

Episode Date: December 7, 2022

Sean and Ryan talk about the decline in league save percentage, injuries, Brock Boeser, and more.   Sponsored by Uncommon Goods (uncommongoods.com/puck), Raycon (buyraycon.com/puck) and Athletic Greens (athleticgreens.com/puck)

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 and tunes. It's your weekly bowl of hockey and nonsense. I'm Ryan Lambert from EP Rinkside. I am Sean McIndoo from The Athletic. And, hey, you know what? We were just talking about it before the show started.

let's talk about it right now. Shane Wright, back in the NHL, scores against the team that refused to draft him. Well, one of the three teams refused to draft him, I guess. That was fun. That was fun. That was fun.

Good goal, too. Yeah. We all kind of, like two weeks ago, when they sent him down to the HL, we all sort of looked at the schedule and went, okay, so he's going to come. Oh, Montreal would be the first game back. I wonder if they'll put him in the line.

lineup. And they did. And he got the goal. His first, first NHL goal, which I don't think any of us thought was going to take until mid-December, but here we are. Great moment for him. I mean, you know, and I mean, and I say that even as, like, it feels like we're trying to, like, will something into existence that may or may not actually be there similar to when, you know, on draft day, we're like, oh, he's staring them down. And maybe he was, maybe not. But I hope he was staring him down. I hope he's, you know, got a chip on his shoulder about it

because it makes him more fun and entertaining. Yeah, for sure. And last night he played 11 minutes. That's the second highest number of his young NHL career. That's twice as usual ice time. Pretty almost. Sad but true. I guess the other thing to say is he destroyed the AHL when they sent him down there.

He scored like four goals and five games or something like that. Yeah. I mean, he's still a very, very good prospect. I mean, he's a classic case of he's one of these guys that is like stuck in, really stuck in the middle of being too good for junior, maybe even too good for the HL, but not good enough for the NHL. on a team that is winning and focused on winning right now. Right.

So what do you do? Well, I mean, the answer is you probably release him to the team Canada for the World Juniors and that at least buys you a few more weeks where he's playing an important role in a big spotlight and all of that. And then you've got to figure it out for the rest of the year. But, you know, it's, it would, like, I was there that day in Montreal when, when the It was fantastic. Like, that was one of the best sports moments and crowd reactions that I've, I've ever been a part of.

Like, it was just, we've talked about it, but it was, it was just phenomenal to be there. And it's, it's cool to see it kind of get to continue the storyline in some way, even if we're maybe having to force it a little bit. Yeah, hey, look, we want everything to be wrestling, right? So this becoming wrestling, that's cool to us. There's no other way to really slice and dice here. We want the feuds. We want the hot feuds.

And, you know, hey, they're not all going to end up being this good. And, you know, as with any, like, highly rated young prospect, I do hope Shane Wright ends up like, you know, being like an actual good NHL play. Yeah. But let me ask you this about Seattle. What are you things going on with them lately? They're giving up a lot of goals all of a sudden. Yeah.

Well, see, I wrote a whole big thing on Seattle this week. Yes, you did. Where I basically said, look, like I, I whiffed on this completely. And I'm not alone. In fact, I mean, I know for the fact that nobody saw this coming. But what to me was interesting. interesting is it's not just that, oh, I didn't think Seattle was going to be good. Because like I say, I didn't, I don't remember seeing one single preseason pick that had them in the playoffs, let alone near the top of the league.

But if you had told me they were going to be good, I still would have been wrong about how they would get there. Like if you had said, okay, yeah, Sean, we get that you don't think they're going to be good, but give us some optimism. Give us a reason to think. You know, tell us what it looks like if they could be good. I would have been completely wrong because I would have started off like, well, you know, goaltending, right? That's always your answer when there's unexpected success anywhere. Oh, the goaltending's going to be good.

Philip Gruberauer's going to get back to Vesina finalist, stature, and they're going to be fine. Martin Jones won't have to play much. And that hasn't happened at all. Gruberauer has been awful, at least according to the numbers. I know every time you say these days a goalie's bad, you get like, Well, here's what you've got to understand. All the guys on the team, they're bad, and the goal is the only good player on the team. Yeah.

You know, if you actually watch the games, you would know, like, he's got an 860 save percentage. He's got an 860 save percentage. That means he needs to make... Is that true? Yeah. Holy shit. I don't know about after last night, but as of yesterday, he was at like 860, which means you need, if you're getting 30 shots a game, that means you need one extra save a game, which is to say one less goal per game to get up to 890, which is still bad.

So he's... I got to tell you, brother, you're way off on this one. He's at 868. Oh, did he bump all the way? Was he in that last night? I don't even remember. I don't think you will. I don't know.

868. So, okay, so yeah, you're still, he needs to get one goal a game better to get to below 900, which is still bad. So don't, you know, I know that you watch the games that you saw him make three good saves once and you've decided that he's a great goalie. But he is. And that's, in a sense, for Seattle, that's good, right? Like you, because if you're winning with bad goaltending, knowing how goaltending fluctuates

and all the weird stuff that goes on with it, you're in decent shape. And Martin Jones has played a bunch, partly because Guru Bauer is hurt. And Martin Jones has also not been great, but they haven't needed him to because one of the other ways I was wrong was I would have said, all right, you know what? They don't have a ton of firepower, grind it out. You win two to one, right? This is the NHL. Even the teams that have a ton of skill are trying to grind it out. They would rather win two, one than six five. So if you're an expansion team, no, not at all. They're high scoring, both ends of the ice. You get a lot of goals in these games. They played a nine eight game last week, which is insane. Yeah. They're fun to

watch. They're, you know, they're a great underdog story. They're, like, I feel like, I'm sure if we get three more months in and they're, you know, still they're at the top of the league, you will see some of that resentment start to bubble up that we saw with Vegas, where people are like, you know, it's too much. It's too soon. The league has made it too easy. But, you know, at least the crack. Like, they went, they had, they paid some dues last year. Like, they didn't, a due. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. They didn't jump right to the top. So I, like this is a very easy team to like. They're fun.

It's just a great story. And I apologize to Crackin fans that I wrote about how good they were. And then they lost to Montreal and to kick off what is probably going to be a 10-game losing street. Well, yeah. So now it's two because they just lost to the Panthers the other night. But in the last few games, they've given up 5-248-254. turn him back into a pumpkin a little bit, I think, is the issue. The eight goals is a win, right?

I mean, that's the old grand fear. Like, he'll give up eight, but he won't give you the ninth. It's a big W for them. But, yeah, no, I mean, it's a situation where, you know, I just look, they're shooting 12.3%. I have a feeling this particular team doesn't have the skill to maintain a 12.3% shooting percentage all year. I would agree that that is likely true. Maybe, maybe.

But, you know, they're playing okay. They're not, like, terrible or anything. I think maybe if you say both of them are kind of normalized a little bit, and, you know, they've banked enough points maybe that you can feel good about where they're at, especially because, like, Calgary's just kind of, like, muddling around, and Edmonton kind of just muddling around. Although, God, Edmonton has a little bit of a better excuse than Calgary does. But I don't know.

Like, I think, I looked it up. I had them 28th to start the year, right? So, me and you were on the same page here. So in other words, you had them getting better because they were 30th last year. Yeah, that's right. But, yeah, I mean, like you say, I was like, oh, their goalies will make them below average because their goalies are going to be bad. And their goalies have been bad.

Now, some of that is Jones more recently, but he's down to 890. Yep. So, you know. But that actually leads us into something I wanted to talk about more broadly, is this was going around yesterday. I don't know what, like, prompted everybody to suddenly realize this. But the league average save percentage is now down to 9.0.4.

which is the lowest it's been in quite some time. I think since like 0-607 maybe. And this is only the fifth time. Now granted, this is not a full season. So, you know, obviously things can change. But this is only the fifth time since like the mid-90s that the league-wide save percentage has been down to 905 or less. Yeah.

Basically other than the. certainly the cap era other than those two years where it was mostly power play driven I was actually surprised to look at it and see that the save percentages from like 96 to 2001 were actually similar you know in the 90 range just because I remember that as being like the you know the deadpock era has has definitely kicked in and that well Well, so that was just about limiting shots. Yeah, it was fewer shots.

And the goalies, even though they were bigger and had the big equipment and everything hadn't really, I mean, they were certainly better than they had been. But it hadn't reached its peak. And in fact, goaltending reached its peak just a few years ago, relative to, which is interesting, because I've been told the dead puck era ended, like, because, you know, 2005. But the goaltending itself got significantly better.

and then over the last four years or so, it's just not plummeted. I mean, we do this, right? We go overboard. Oh, scoring's through the roof. And you're like, it's up like 3%. Settle down. But more scoring is good.

And more scoring, you know, less goaltending is good because less goaltending. Every time I say more scoring's good, people are like, yeah, well, it's actually the scoring chances. And yes, but the more scoring. scoring you have, the more scoring chances feel like scoring chances. And if the goalies are no longer these impenetrable supermen, then it's more exciting to watch a game because suddenly it starts feeling like more of these shots can actually go in. So again, the fact that this is happening and

we don't know why is strange. But at the same time, it's been happening long enough that we can, I don't think, well, it's just a fluke is an explanation anymore. No, I totally agree. So I do want to dig in. What are your theories here? I mean... I have a few. Okay.

Some of which are backed up by data and some of which are totally anecdotes. Okay, let me hear your theories then, because I'm... Like, I've got a couple, but I haven't really thought it through, so... Number one, the number of empty net goals per game has basically doubled over the last five or six years. Right. And that is counted in the league-wide same percentage even if the goalies are not in the net to make. So I think that's part of it for sure.

Yeah, that's, I did not realize that was being counted because everyone's pulling the goalies earlier, right? This is. That would be my theory for why that is. Yeah. Okay. My other theory about this, they reduced equipment sizes. Yeah. Just enough to make a slight difference, I think.

Not a huge difference, but enough of one. Because when they did it, a lot of us went, oh, it's just they're tinkering. Like, it's this minor change. You certainly can't tell from looking at a goaltender that anything has changed. A lot of them still look ridiculous, skating around in these giant shoulder pads. But they did change something. And they're not as bad as they used to be. They used to be, like, comical.

For people who haven't seen it, like, go look at J.S. Jaguer's pads from the O3 Cup final. Yeah. It's fucking absurd. And they would be wearing these giant jerseys and everything. And it was just... Yeah, that was wearing like a nine-nex. That was part of what was so infuriating about that era is that, like, you're just sitting there. Like, just look at the TV, man.

Like, we can see what's happening. Like, look, like, where is Betman? Where is the leadership? Like, you know, this isn't a mystery. Like, look at these guys. Yeah. And they made very slight changes, mostly to, like, the upper gear.

Like, we've always been focused on the leg pads, it feels like. But my understanding is they kind of tightened up, you know, around the torso in that, which maybe makes them just a bit more leaky under the arm sort of deal. Yep. And so when I pointed this out last night, someone did say like and I'd never thought about it but I do I do again anecdotally feel like it's true you do see a lot more shots like trickle through a lot is overstating it but you see more shots trickle through a goalie than you used to so that feels like it's an equipment thing yeah um

and again like we we should we should point out it sorry no but you're like this this big drop we're talking about like four or five years ago it was nine ten now it's nine oh five so that's half a percentage right i mean we're talking one extra goal for every 200 shots so we're talking one extra goal every seven games or so right so this isn't a massive difference and in fact if if you go back to 1516 the average say percentage was at 915 right so like to be down 10 points and again if you really want to contextualize it, last week we were saying, oh,

Martin Jones hasn't been that bad. It's like a 901 goalie or whatever. Where seven years ago, if you said, oh, this guy's a 901 goalie, people would have been like, how's he still in the fucking league? Yep.

And now we're saying, like, he hasn't been great, but like that's acceptable. And it's true. So like that, that alone tells you how much, like,

uh, standards have changed in just seven years. Yep. And then my last theory on this, expansion. There's now, you know, like it used to be, there were like 70, 75 goalies maybe who would get ice time in the NHL. And now it's like 80, 82, 83, something like that. And, you know, if you just let in like five goalies who previously had been on the fringes of the league, and let them stop X number of pucks,

they're going to maybe allow one every extra 200 shots, like you're saying. Yep. And especially because teams are like, like, I guess Seattle specifically, was a bad expansion team. They didn't get a lot of saves and whatever. And that would be the interesting counter to that,

is that theoretically you would say, yes, you've let four or five or six goalies into the league that wouldn't have been good enough before, but also how many forwards are now in the league that wouldn't have been good enough and how many defensemen that wouldn't be good enough? Yeah, for sure. Shouldn't that counter out?

But the flip side of that is, and this has also been advanced as a theory, is we continue to move away from not just the enforcer era, which I think we can all say is over, but even the fourth line grinder era, like the idea that you just have four bangers on your fourth line who aren't expected to ever contribute offensively is fading. So yes, in theory, the forward talent is worse,

but teams are making a conscious choice to put better players in the lineup, which I know sounds obvious, but it took us a while to get there. So maybe that is countering it out. What I find really fascinating about this, And look, I've, I'm, my, my schick here is, I think, pretty well known in that I've, for a long time, I've banging the drum, we need more offense. I don't think we have enough offense yet. I get frustrated when people say, you know, they want to hang the mission accomplished banner and, you know, say off, say it's great. I think as much fun as we're all having with, you know, six and a half goals instead of six, I think seven is even better. I think seven a half would be fun as hell. But, all right, at the same time, I can accept that, you know, and I'm happy to see, see the numbers going up. But I'm skeptic. And part of the reason I'm skeptical is because the league hasn't, again, the league hasn't done anything that you can point to and say, this is the change.

We've seen it all around in other sports. In football, you know, famously, there was one playoff game where the defensive techniques overwhelmed the offense and the NFL changed the rules going forward. And they've had record offense ever since and all the ratings and everything go with it. We're seeing it in baseball right now where baseball is having a crisis, not so much of offense, but of entertainment. And baseball, the only sport that's up its own behind more than hockey about tradition and the way we've always done thing is making a bunch of forward-looking significant changes to get the game back to being fun to watch. And hockey never does that. hockey just tweaks and tinkers and says, well, we can't make any big changes because this is how we've done it and all of this stuff. So I'm always skeptical of it.

Now, having said that, a year ago, two years ago when we saw this trend kind of start to kick in, I remember looking at it and saying, you know what, as great as this is and as fun as it is that we have 100 point guys again and 50 goal guys and a 60 goal guy. a lot of it you looked at and my theory was this is the COVID effect. It was the fact that when you looked at a typical in a typical NHL season, we saw about 70, 75 goalies get in. And in last year, the full season of the COVID era, it was more like 80, 85 because guys were missing time. And if you just looked at those 10 extra goalies,

that kind of accounted for the difference. that these guys, you know, A, they stunk, you know, B, they were probably being put in bad situations where they shouldn't have been playing. And you could just kind of explain it that way. Now we're into this year, no more COVID in the sense of having big impact on rosters. And yet the trend is continued.

So maybe my skepticism, maybe my pet theory is being disproven in real time, which would be great news. it would be great if this was something more sustainable, not just an artifact of a weird blip in NHL history. Yeah, and I think that's a good place to leave it because we are like a third of the way through the season. So I get the last thing to say is,

and again, the skeptic in me, it has felt like the last few years, we've always had this discussion a month or two in. And I'm always sitting there going, yeah, but it always tightens up as a season. goes on. Yep. But if I understand it, like, well, it has been true, but last year, it didn't really happen that way. Right. Which, again, is good news, right? That, you know, the theory has

always been as the playoff races get closer and coaches spend more time with their systems and everything, everybody focuses on, hey, let's play a one-one game, get to overtime, get the, let the loser point fairy visit us, and, uh, and we go from there. And that, it, it, it, 10 years ago, even five years ago, did seem to happen, but the last couple years it hasn't. So again, good news. Maybe this is more sustainable than we think. Yeah. I hope so.

Hockey's more fun when there's the occasional 9-8 game where you can laugh at everybody involved. And it's, you know, it's not just the 9-8 games. It's the comebacks. It's feeling like when your team's down 2-0 that the game isn't over or even 3-0, that you don't feel like you need to turn the game off. off. It's fun. And look, I'm simplistic, right? This is my dumb caveman sports brain. But yeah, it's more, you know, people go like, oh, so is it more fun when guys are scoring 50 goals instead of 48? Yeah, actually it is. Like, it's just, it's more fun when guys are getting 100 points rather than 90 or

whatever it is. It just, it just is. I'm sorry. And, you know, that's, that's cool. And for years, we just wrote that out. For years, we were like, oh, I guess the Brock Richard winner is going to have 42 goals. this year. Seems fine. Seems normal. And yeah, it's it's, it's, it's, uh, it's, uh, it's, it's, uh, it's, it's, uh, it's way better when, you know, even if the numbers are going up everywhere and it's not really given any one team or style and advantage. Big, big, big numbers more fun. Yeah. Um, right. I, I just pulled up on Micah's chart of like, uh, goal scoring by 10th of the season. And it seems like the, it doesn't really dropped that much from the start of the year to the end of the year, really started in about 1718, which is when a lot of these trends of like more expected goals, more empty netters,

that kind of thing. Like all of that seems to have started around 17, 18. Okay. And I wonder what happened that year. Like, I, again, can you go back and maybe find like, oh, that's the year they tweaked whatever, goalie pad sizes or something like that, maybe. The one that did seem to help far more than we thought is the slashing crackdown. Which was, what was so interesting about that is when that happened, that wasn't,

let's create offense change. That was a player safety change, right? Yes. Like Sidney Crosby slash Mark Matha and not the tip of his finger off. And it was like, all right. And then that got the discussion going, and then you're looking at it going, like, why is that a legal play to just whack someone in the hands? And so they cut, they crack down on that more because they, it was, it was about safety. It was about preventing injuries. And yet, I don't think we realize how ingrained that had become in playing defense and in the sense of disrupting offense that when you let these skill guys be able to skate through without thinking they're going to get, you know, get cracked on on the thumb or the finger. It maybe has had an impact.

So again, like, that would be very NHL if the, you know, the one change they made that really helped was accidental. But we'll take it. Can't complain. Yep. Hey, speaking of injuries, Colorado Avalanche, maybe, like, I'm sure somebody has had more injuries, including injuries to, like, important players. But this is crazy. Like, if you go on their hockey reference page, there are 11 guys listed as injured right now. Some of those are like day to day or whatever.

But a lot of them are four to six. Nathan McKinnon added to the pile yesterday. He's out four weeks. Shane Bowers is in the middle of being out six weeks. Bowen Byram is week to week. Darren Helm is practicing in a non-contact sweep. sweater, but no timetable for his return. He's been out since October 11th.

Gabriel Landisg is expected to return at the beginning of January. Nathan McKinnon, like I said, four weeks. Josh Manson, week to week as of like a week ago. Valeri Natchewskian returned, recently returned to skating and could be back soon, but he's been out since October 28th. Evan Rodriguez out two to four weeks since November 26th. So, like, this is crazy how many guys get hurt. But how many times in recent years have we said, like, oh, but like McKinnon missed 15 games last year and McCarr missed 12 and, you know, you can go down the list.

And this just feels like it's kind of like a thing for them. Every year somebody's missing a sixth of the season. Like important players are always missing at sixth of the season. And, yeah, and you wonder how much of it is, I mean, A, bad luck is probably the key here. Sure. But also that the avalanche are so good that they, in theory, know they're locked into the playoffs. So can they give a little bit extra time? Can they be a little more proactive on this versus a team that was, you know, right around the bubble?

Although the avalanche are right around the budget. They're in fourth place in the division right now. but they're still the avalanche. Like I've been putting them near the top of my power rankings all year, and people get mad at me. They're like, oh, they're 13 and 10. How can you rank them ahead of Winnipeg? And I'm like, yeah, because I think they're better than Winnipeg,

and I think they're more likely to win the Stanley Cup than Winnipeg. And again, like, they're hanging around despite the fact that half of their best players are injured. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, we should point out there are a ton of injuries, but none of these guys are expected to be season ending or anything like that. No, sure. These guys are coming back, I guess. But yeah, it's the longest list in the league.

Maybe Washington would be the other team. Washington, for sure. But what I'm saying is, like, if you go back to even, like, last year, right? Taves missed a bunch of games. McKinnon missed a bunch of games. Landisog only played 51 last year. Nitchushkin only missed. 20. Like, Sam Gerard missed 15. Like, like, almost every good player on their team missed significant

time. Like, the guy who was in the lineup most often was Kail McCarr and he missed five. So not that that's like a huge problem or whatever missing five games, but like, it just goes to show you that like, there's always somebody of great importance injured until you get to the playoffs. Right. And then they're all like, I'm actually 100% fine. never, it always happened. And at that point, you know, is it actually better to have Nathan McKinnon with 60 games of wear and tear versus 80 something? Yeah.

I'm not, I'm not remotely concerned about the avalanche. Now, we have been down this road with really good teams in the past, the lightning a few years ago, the Golden Knights last year where you're sitting all year long, you're like, yeah, they're going to make the playoffs. And then suddenly you get to the last month and you're like, oh, crap, like they're still in a fight and then they don't make it. But I'm not anywhere close to there with the avalanche

even though. No. Purely by points, they're 8th, tied for 8th in the conference tied with Calgary at one point behind Nashville, but they play fewer games and everything. They'll be okay. And then even if, you know,

again, this is the lesson we've learned from the lightning over the years. It doesn't matter where you finish. Oh, they're not going to get home ice advantage, so what? The lightning happily finished third, every year and then come out of the division. And I'm sure the avalanche aren't exactly tearing their hair out over whether they're going to have whole mice against Dallas or whoever they end up playing.

They'll be fine. Yeah, especially because my big theory on the Western conference is that it's kind of bad. Interesting. Does that link at all with the fact that an expansion team is, I think, second? Are they, they say, oh, they've fallen back behind Winnipeg. But, yeah. Well, how about this? The Eastern Conference, there are five teams with a negative goal difference.

Including Buffalo is plus four, isn't that funny? In the Western Conference, that number is one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine teams. There's only 16 of them in the whole conference. Nine of them have a negative goal difference. Yep. Yeah, a lot of. And another team is a zero. So if you want to count them, there's another one.

That's 10. That's bad. Yeah. That's really bad, actually. So I don't know. I mean, I guess the thing is you look at it and you go, well, Calgary was supposed to be in it. They're out of a playoff spot right now. Washington or Colorado is technically in.

Edmonton is like barely holding onto one. And not by points percentage they're not. So I don't know. Like you say, I think Colorado will be fine. But it does feel like someone's going to get left holding the bag and finishing ninth. Yeah, especially when you look at it. Yeah. And, you know, you look at it and you say, well, you know, Seattle might make the playoffs.

That's a playoff spot that wasn't, you know, Winnipeg. If they look like they're going to be back in, that's a playoff spot from last year. Don't forget Vegas. That's a playoff spot from last year. It is. So that means, you know. a lot of playoff teams aren't going to make it. And, you know, Nashville will be the first one.

Everyone will point to. St. Louis has got a ground to make up. But even then, somebody else has got to miss. And unless it's L.A., and L.A. has been fine. Like, they've been playoff-worthy, you know, whether, I mean, let me put it this way. What odds would you give me if I said one of Colorado-Edmonton, Calgary, will not make the playoffs? this year. Is that 50-50 at this point?

Is it, that feels too much, right? That does feel a bit too much. Like 60-40 that they, that one of, or 40-60, I guess, that one of them misses. Yeah, I still feel like I'd even go higher on, I don't know. On, you know, that. I'm betting famously. Yeah, to flip it around. Like, I guess if we said, you know, what a percentage chance that all three of Colorado,

Evanton, Calgary make the playoffs, like 75%, I don't know. Going into the season, I would have said, like, that's as close to a block as you're going to get. Yeah, I mean, that's it, right? Because you'd be sitting there going to go, like, wait, well, who's going to, in the Pacific? Like, yeah, Vegas might be good, but what's going to happen? Like, what Seattle going to magically be good is? Right. L.A. still going to be, yeah, well, those things have both happened.

That's an interesting one. I wonder what's true. So, okay, I'm on MoneyPuck right now. Moneypuck has Calgary at almost 80% and Colorado at almost 78%. To make it. They have Colorado at 78 to make the playoffs? They're currently third in that division

by points percentage, I think is why. And then Edmonton is only at 26.4 right now. Yikes. I would not have guessed that. So if you run all of those, that would tell you that the odds of all three teams make the playoffs would be 16% if you treat them all as independent

events which they aren't quite but that's incredibly low and even look at him doing that math and is it folks he just magically came up with that number I couldn't have done that with a freaking calculator 64% for

just Calgary and Colorado to both make the playoffs so how's he doing this? You just do 0.8 times 0.8 You're just, you're multiplying the percentages by each other. What the hell? Maybe this is just I'm a stupid guy or whatever, but like that, that was magic to me. That was the craziest shit anybody. I'm rounding.

I'm rounding. I did, I did 0.8 times 0.8, which gives you 0.64, right? Because the same is 8 times 8. Because you said, you said 80% for both of them to me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sure. I get it. And then.

Okay. I routed Edmonton down to 25%. So sorry Oilers fans. That's crazy about the Oilers. Wow, 26.4%. Lower than Nashville. Lower than Nashville? And Moneypuck, right?

Like, I'm right. They, their model does, like, they are accounting for quality of team. They're not just purely going on like here's based on the standings. Right. It's, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to check what. Dom has for his. You see, I started to do that and then I was like, I can't get involved in like navigating the labyrinthine way you need to go through to get to that page on the athletics.

Too much content. I hear you, man. No, that's literally it. They're like, okay, we have it like, you know, you're going to scroll a full page down four times and then click on Dom's picture and then find it in his past store. Like, I can't. I can't get involved. So dumb is significantly more optimistic.

And again, this is on all three of them, actually. He's got the flames at 96%, which is surprising, considering they're the worst of the three purely based on points. Point bank, but oilers is, no, I thought it was oilers are worse by points percentage. Oh, okay, maybe. Maybe. Yeah, very slightly. Very slightly. Colorado at 92% to make the playoffs.

and then Edmonton way down, but Edmonton at 64% still. And as far as where that's coming from, he's got the Kings at 56, he's got the Predators at 36, he's got the Cracken only at 70, the Jets only did it. So, I mean, it's actually, I mean, his model has got 10 or 11 teams over 50%, which is completely valid. Now hold on. It can work that way. Let's think about it.

But yeah, no. I don't know. I think that I guess I hadn't thought about it, like that the Oilers are in such a jeopardy. But here we are, I guess. I don't know, whatever. The Oilers missing the playoffs this year would be funny. Disholing. Disaster.

And also extremely funny. Oh, see, I was right. Okay, great. Very funny. Conner-McDadeade demand when, you know? Yeah. Anyway. I mean, he could just wait out free agency at this point. Yeah, he's going to be close, huh?

Getting there. All right. Did you see somebody was asking about Eric Carlson to Edmonton? Sure, why not? Ken Holland panic move of bringing in an old guy. Like, doesn't that feel that feels a bumerant? I think he's too good of an old guy, though. You'd need to find a wayward.

Like, he'd need to be like, I need to get Matt Martin on this team. Accountability. Hard to play against. You know what, that's a good point. Duncan Keith out of retirement, when? All right, why don't we take that break and we'll be right back. If you have not finished your holiday shopping yet, don't panic. We've got a secret source for incredible original gifts, and that's Uncommon Goods.

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And I guess let's start this off by this guy. He writes for ESPN. His name's like Gronk, Grankowski. Cool. He had a list of coaches on the hot seat, basically. But like where every coach in the league ranked, I guess, is basically the best way to say it. And at the tippy top of his list with... The burning up, call it.

The burning up, that's, yeah, that's right. I was scrolling. I was a little lost looking for it there. Bruce Moodrow, Vancouver Canucks. I don't think anybody's surprised by that. Dallas Aiken's Anaheim Ducks. I don't think anybody's surprised by that. Although that he kind of indicated,

old gronk did, that this is more of a, off-season move maybe. Yeah, I think that that's... If they keep going in this direction. The ducks are so terrible, and yet Pat Furby doesn't seem to have... And the explanation for that, because I've been wondering, like,

how bad does a team have to be before he fired the coach? Especially a coach that the GM himself didn't hire. Eric Stevens had a piece where he was like, look, Pavarbeek is focused completely on player development right now, and the young guys in Anaheim are developing well.

everyone else stinks but as long as like Zegra's and guys like that continue to look good Aiken's is safe for the year and then almost certainly gone after that you would imagine but and then the other two coaches here

well let's let's go with the last one first here is that DJ Smith from the Ottawa Senators a guy we brought up on a recent ish episode about like do they do something here it's a good coach he got the vote of confidence but, I mean, they just can't keep losing.

Now, let me ask you this. Is he a good coach? I think he's a good coach in the sense that I don't think he's, I think roster construction is much more the issue here. But I don't think he's such a good coach that you can't possibly make a move here. Like, this isn't a case where you're like, we can't let this guy go. I think he will continue his career. I think he's a perfectly okay coach, and that's about as far as I'm willing to go.

He's a guy that will, you know, if he gets fired in Ottawa, he'll go and become either an assistant in the NHL somewhere or an HL coach. Do that for a couple of years, and then his name will percolate up for, you know, future opportunities. All right. And then this last guy here on the burning up section of this. Gerard Gallant from the New York Rangers Now remember how much shit me and you got for For suggesting Let's be honest

It was you I was not You had to sell me on it And you know I I think I remained partially sold But still Well again mine Mine was just like

If you're betting on a dark horse candidate To get shit canned this year Or be the first coach to get shit canned Yeah Dark Horse candidate This was my guy Because you're looking for a team that is going to underachieve expectations, and you saw all the warning lights on the dashboard

for the Rangers potentially being the team. That's right. And what's interesting is they're bad in a way I didn't expect, right? Like they had a nice little run where their underlying numbers looked very good to start the year and have just kind of slowly declined. And do I want to advance the theory that part of it? of that is like they played like the ducks and the sharks

and the blue jackets and the islanders and the islanders when they were bad I guess I should say and the coyotes and the flyers. They played a bunch of those teams early in the season. Now they also played like Boston and Colorado and stuff like that but my point being

it's like remember last year when they when they got like insanely good five on five numbers for a while and then you looked and they played the New Jersey Devil's 17 times in a row. Crappy devils. Those are the days, huh? Mm-hmm.

But, yeah, the Rangers are like, are they out shooting teams on a regular basis? No, but like they're doing it more often than they did it last year, certainly. And I don't know, like, it seems like a situation where the stars aren't being stars. Like, Panarans kind of had an up and down season a little bit. I mean, I guess he's over a point of game, but like, who isn't these days, right? The kids aren't coming along. And if I may quote, the goalie himself, goal has been shit.

Yeah. By his standards. By his standards, right. There's lots of, you know, 9-10, which, as we just said, is above league average, there's lots of teams that would love to have that level of goal-tending. But for a guy who looked like he was the new Dominic, Pass it coming into the year, that's not great. Yeah, 896 over his last five starts.

Oof. Not going to get it done for anybody, let alone a team like the Rangers that kind of relied on a little bit smoke and mirrors. And those five games against L.A., Edmonton, New Jersey, Ottawa, St. Louis. So really only one A-plus offensive team there and only one especially good team there. Yeah, the other thing is the power play, which one of the best in recent memory, a little under the league average. 21% the league averages closer to 23. Yeah. Which is what that's what everybody said going into the season, right, is what would happen if they, the special teams weren't amazing and the goaltending wasn't amazing.

could they fix the five-on-five game to compensate for that? Not enough, it looks like, because I would argue that they kind of sort of have fixed the five-on-five game. Exactly. And yet, the thing is, they were so bad at it from so much of last year that, like, kind of of sort of fixing it, like, you're still kind of going to be in that, like, mushy middle of the league where you're just kind of like, oh, everybody's maybe not great, you know?

And like we say all this, the Rangers are by points percentage. They're below Florida and Montreal. Like Florida is, we'll talk about them in a minute, I guess, because they're another team that's in the same boat. But I don't know, you look at the Rangers and it seems like every week now, there's a new, like, what's wrong with these guys? Something like this, do we have to make a trade? do we have to fire the coach?

And I don't know that doing that fixes anything. Like, you know. I can't see how it does. I mean, like you bring in Barry Trots is everything magically fixed overnight? Maybe because he's like the guy who fixes goal or makes goalies look great. I guess that's the move that you would make, right? Because what I was going to say is like, Gerard Galland is a good coach. And I said DJ Smith's a good coach and you were like, yeah, but is he?

And then I was sort of like, oh, you know, he's not bad. Gerard Caland is a really good coach. He's a really good coach. He's had great success in the league. I really like him, I think, like, who are you going to bring in that's better? But maybe it's, maybe it's Trots. The answer would be Barry Trots, and that's pretty much it. Like, unless you're getting Mike Babcock out of fake retiring.

Yeah, that's, could have had that guy a year and a half ago when you hired Galant. So what's the thing with the. Rangers is, because in my Monday power rankings that everybody reads because it's mandatory, you're not allowed to listen to this podcast, if you don't read everything that both of us write. That's right. In fact, by clicking the play button, you have legally warranted that you've read all of those. It's a binding contract.

But I wrote about some early season stories that I'm not buying quite yet, and one of them was the Rangers. I said, you know, I just, I can't see this team not making the playoffs. And somebody, I can't remember if it was in the comments or on Twitter, was like, all right, you're saying that they're going to make the playoffs. Who are they going to pass that's ahead of them right now? Right. Because they're 10th right now. So they need to pass two teams.

All right. I feel like we can all say Detroit would be one of those teams. Even though, I mean, Detroit is ahead of them with games in hand. But I think we, of all the teams that are in the playoffs in the east right now, Detroit looks fake. Totally fair. They got to pass New Jersey No, I mean No

They got to pass Carolina The islanders The islanders are maybe in range Pittsburgh, who knows? Pittsburgh is all over the map Up and down But they've got to It's really got to be one of Pittsburgh

Or the Islanders because You know, you look at the Atlantic Boston, Toronto, Tampa Florida is one of those teams that's ahead of it But you figure Florida's going to find it So there's not going to be two wild cards in the metro, you would think, and we can get to Florida.

But if there's not two wild cards in the metro, then you've got to pass one of the Islanders or Pittsburgh, really. Are you only two options? Yeah, again, the Canadians are one point back of the Rangers with a game in hand. That Montreal Canadians, another team nobody thought was going to be any good this year. Yeah, and again, like we're... And frankly, they're not that good. They're not. And again, this is all based on, we're writing off a Detroit Red Wings team that's got a 620 points percentage.

So, yeah, I mean, it's, it's tough. But, you know, like, the fascinating thing with the Rangers is the, one of the subplots to the season has been that they're on everyone's list as the favorites to get Patrick King. Wait until a little bit closer to the trade deadline, accruism cap space. and boom, they go get Patrick Kane, reunite him with Panarin. He gets to go to a big market, chase a cup, and then either that's his new home or he can go back to Chicago or he becomes a free agent, whatever it is.

It felt like it made a ton of sense. Now you're looking at it going, like, are they even going to be good enough to get Patrick Kane to want to go, let alone for it to make sense for them to give up futures for him? But, I mean, does Patrick Kane want to go go to a playoff bubble team, like remembering that he has full control of his destination.

Is he want to go help them try to jump from ninth to eighth knowing he could miss the playoffs? I don't know. Not necessarily. Yeah. It's really tough just because, like, again, you know, the expectations were so high. But I do want to read this quote from, uh, this quote from, uh, from a gronk's story. Do I think Galant is on the hot seat?

No, I don't. I think Chris Drury is going to be able to talk sense into James Dolan. I wouldn't be so confident about that aspect of the brother. That's a scary sentence, if you're a range. That was from an unnamed NHL source. Because that's always been the thing. Like Dolan, like you know better than I do, but Dolan is like in... Would it be that far off to say that he's kind of like considered the Eugene Melnick of the NBA?

Hmm. No, because he spends money. Fair. Okay. But as far as just being like a crappy, hands-on, embarrassing owner. Insanely hands-on owner, yes. And yet, it often surprises basketball fans to find that as purely as a Rangers fan, he's been a great owner. Because he's generally been hands-off.

again, spends money. And he's so busy screwing up the Knicks that he tends to leave the Rangers alone. And then that kind of changed a couple years ago when there was the whole thing with Tom Wilson and the letter and all of this. And at that point, like a lot of Rangers fans are like, oh, God, please don't let James Dolan remember that he owns a hockey team and start nixing it up. Yeah. We'll see.

We'll see. Because the Knicks stink always. universal truth yeah um but yeah i i just think if you're counting on literally anybody to talk quote talk sense into dolin that oh that's not a bet i'd be making brother that is that is a real tough one for me yeah um but anyway yeah so let's move on to the florida panthers who uh who our old buddy gronk kind of had pretty low on the list for hot seat but on twitter and you know how far does that go right but on twitter i've seen more and more people being like i don't know i think this is fucking not working out with paul maurice yeah but i mean it's it's he's he's just

started i mean they started for sure they made this decision and this is one of those things where GMs, owners, anyone, like people have a real problem admitting they're wrong. Like there's the concept of like this sunk cost and all of this stuff. But I mean, imagine you let, you know, like imagine how that would play it. Like we let, we had a Jack Adams finalist. We let him go. He went to New Jersey.

New Jersey immediately got way better. And we brought in the veteran. guy who knows how to win and we're not winning with him. Now, everything I just said is true regardless of what you do. But to just put a spotlight on it like that, I don't know. Yeah. But that was a lot of us in the offseason kind of went, what are they doing? For sure.

Yeah, I think I was like the leader of that little band. Probably were. I mean, like I said, this before. He's just like the most mediocre coach I can possibly imagine in the NHL. You know? Like the very definition of a guy that just hangs around kind of inexplicably.

And Christ, there's a lot of coaches like that in the NHL. I don't know that there's anybody more than Paul Morey's. And we should say like Arneck-Bladd hurt for a chunk of the season. Yeah, and Bobrovsby's like an 880 goalie. Well, yeah, Barcoves missed some time for sure. Yeah. I mean, it's

It's the, do you, can we say Spencer Knight's the number one goalie now? Like, he should be. Yeah, he recently passed Bovrovsky in terms of the number of games he appeared in. There's still kind of a one, one, A, but. It's not even that. It's like they're both, you know, Knights started 14 games and Bobrovsky started 12. Like, maybe you say in the last like week and a half, it's become the Spencer Knight, show, which it definitely should be.

But Bovrosky's contract alone dictates that they have to give him X number of starts because you can't have a $10.5 million backup or whatever the number is. Yeah. Again, though, I mean, sunk cost, right? I mean, you're paying him whether you play him one game or 50, but you're right. I mean, the pressure to... When's the last time you saw a guy with an absolutely fucking horrendous contract that like everybody is like this not only is the contract bad but this guy like is outright he stinks right

how often have you seen that guy consigned to like backup goalie status fourth line role what like yeah you know in and out of the press box like it never fucking other than the guys who are like fake injured retired you almost never say Jeff Skinner comes to mind and that was a big story in Buffalo of why are you doing this to this guy who makes so much money, you've got to fix him. That should be the priority. Yeah. So, yeah, no, it's a fair point.

Florida still scares me as a fan of a team in that division. They definitely should. I don't want to be playing. Yeah, they outshot their opponents by 226 games. Ooh. It's pretty good. Yeah, that's good. And Matthew Guchick's been fantastic when he's not sticking guys.

Like, uh. And even then, Like, that's the Matthew Kachuk experience. He's going to do shithead stuff out there. Yeah. And he's a hundred shots on coldest. He's been great. And, like, I think maybe, and I'm not going to say this was an under-considered story,

because I did see lots of people flagging this in the off-season. But, you know, you looked at that trade as Hubert O for Kuchuk, and you kind of went, and you know what? I like that. Panthers got a guy who's younger, they got him cheaper. Better. You know, better. does more things, all of that.

But did we underplay the McKenzie Weger factor? And what that did to Florida's, you know, it's not like he's gone to Calgary and set the world on fire, but the fact that Florida... He's been good. Florida was their problem for sure in Calgary. The fact that Florida is sitting there going, you know,

there goes our number two defensemen and didn't really replace him. And then, obviously, as soon as they're Eckblad misses time, that's no longer a playoff-worthy defense. Right. So. Maybe that's the issue in which case. I don't know. They were, yeah.

I think the issue is like they, although apart from Barkoff and Lundell, I think is still hurt. But like they look horrible against the Jets last night. I watched a good chunk of that game and they were just, as a team, they just didn't look that good. Now, they put up 41 shots on a goal, but I didn't watch that game going, now this is a team that's beating the hell out of a Winnipeg Jets team. It's just Connor Hullabuck and Kyle Conner. Yep. You know, and Mark Shifley, I guess.

But, boy, Helibuck, what a season he's having. Holy shit, man. Yeah. He's good. He's good. He's good. Boy, oh, boy. Anyway, one last team that kind of feels like they're maybe in a little bit of deep shit is the St. Louis Blues. Just a little bit.

Just a little bit. Just a little bit. I haven't checked lately. Are they on a five-game winning streak or a five-game losing streak? You know, it's funny you say that. I think it's neither. I think they're now doing the thing. They just won to snap a four-game losing.

They lost last night, didn't they? No, they beat the Islanders last night to snap a four-game losing stream. I was thinking of that game against the Rangers, but that was on Saturday. Yeah, 7-4 win. Yeah. So as I was, remember I was like not home at all last week, I watched the only NHL I watched during that time off was. I watched the first period of Blues Rangers at a bar where that wasn't like the main thing that was on TV

because the like Michigan game was on or whatever. So that was my experience. But hey, do you want to guess the last time the St. Louis Blues gave up less than four goals in a game? How long has it been since? I don't know how many days this is, but it's been since November 21st. Holy smokes.

But Ryan, If you did watch the games, you'd know Jordan Bittington is still good. It's not his fault. Yeah, my God, look at this is what, eight games. Six, five, four, six, six, six, six, and four. And by the way, I should say that win over the on-lenders last night, they go up five to one, midway through the third period, give up three goals to close it to five-four, and then score two empty netters.

So, I mean, a win's a win, but very nearly disaster. Yeah, that's. Yeah, no, they're in a lot of trouble, I think, in terms of the way they're playing right now. Because even, like, look, even if we want to give Jordan Bennington the most popular player in the NHL today, if we want to give him the benefit of the doubt and Thomas Grice to, you know, hey, go nuts. Blues fans are right insofar as the way this team is playing is scary, bad. Yeah. Yeah, they have two wins, only one in regulation in their last eight games.

And yeah, they're giving up a ton of shots. I don't know what the... The penalty killing is historically bad or on pace to be historically bad. On pace, yeah, for sure. Like in the mid to low 60s. A shade under 65 right now. Is that good? So basically, if when every time they,

take a penalty, the other team turns into like the mid-80s Oilers for two minutes. Right. That feels like something you shouldn't necessarily do, especially when, you know, you have Craig Barubi as your coach. So I don't think going out and playing penalty-free is always an option. By the way, the comments on Jordan Binnington. Yeah. It was pretty funny, eh?

Or is like, knock it off. Stop the puck. Maybe try playing goal is right. Like, you know, look, I think my, uh, my opinion on Jordan Bennington is, is well known. And people are going to say like, love him. Yeah, he's cool. Uh, he's never done anything wrong. Um, no, like he's a huge shithead and a cry baby.

And, uh, especially on the ice, a fucking asshole. Everybody agrees with it. Like, at this point, how could you possibly disagree with that? Now, you can be a guy who thinks that's cool and good. Right? Like, you, you, you, you. can say, I like that he plays like this. I like that Matthew Cichuk plays like he plays.

But with a goalie, that shit drives me crazy because you're not allowed to hit this guy. Right. If you, if this was some, you know, fourth line guy who was playing like this, well, I guess the big body check behind the net, that would just be part of the game or whatever. But like extending his glove or doing the thing where you, you go, oh, you want to fight me, you want to fight me? Oh, it was, it was Jason Zucker, right? that he like just hit him in the face on the way by.

Yep. And then that was any other player. Gored on by him. Immediately gets scored on by him and pulled from the game. And then he talks shit to the bench on the way out of the building. He does like the Dan Clu Kluje. Like, and did you see the shot of like Zucker's reaction on the bench? Yeah, being like very funny.

Like he's making like Larry David face like. Yeah. Okay, buddy. He's an 890 goalie right now. And again, if you want to say, well, the team in front of them stinks, blah, blah, blah, okay, sure, but like 890s bad no matter what. Like at what point does it tip into this is just exclusively, not even exclusively.

This is at least partly his fault. I, you know, I don't know. Like for me, like, I'm kind of just waiting for someone to be like, I don't care that he's a goalie. I'm going to beat the shit out of this guy. Well, I mean, the guy, the guy, the guy. start so many fake fights that's what I'm saying like somebody at some point has to call

him on it. Yeah. You would think. You would certainly think. But yeah, I don't know. Like, again, do I think the blues are like in kind of any existential trouble here with this with this

like playoff race or whatever? Maybe. I mean, there are two games below 500 with a negative 20 goal difference. but they're in the west which is right the saving grace this is you know if people are like well wait a second why are you panicking about the Rangers but not the Blues yeah they're in the west now on the other hand though they're uh two games or there uh one point and a and a 20 standings points percentage wise 20 of them uh behind the Vancouver Canucks a team that everybody

agrees stinks so I don't know And if that's the case, like... Where did Grog have Baroubae on his? You know, I closed that window. Let me see if I can find it again. I think I still got it here. He's got him on centrally hot, depending on the week, alongside Dean Eveson and John Hines.

Two other coaches in the central, yeah. Yeah, he says Baroube was just handed a contract extension last season. He signed through 2025. So that can help. Yeah, that makes it tough. Makes it tough to move on from that guy. and I don't know it definitely seems like

the more likely outcome is that you trade Tarasenko and O'Reilly Mm-hmm Kind of try to build it around your Thomas and Bouchnevich and what's that other guy

He's not doing so good this year Ky Jordan Kyrie that's right I had the blues as like a sneaky high team on my tank index where it was like

Who's best position to tank? Not saying who's going to do it or who's going to finish last, but because they've got those two guys, you mentioned, Teresenko and O'Reilly, like, there's a lot of teams where you go, yeah, they should tank, but what would they even do? Like, who, how do you get worse? And St. Louis has got two pretty good players that they could move and get worse. Yeah, another way they could get worse is to start Bennington more.

No, if you watch the games, you know. By the way, I said Cairo has been bad this season. He definitely started out bad. He's gotten insanely hot. He's got like 10 goals this season. Yeah, he was a point of game in November. But he only had three points in all of October. That's why I had the perception that he hadn't played that well this season.

Because for like eight games, he was bad at the beginning of it. All right, let's stay in the Central for a minute. Jason Robertson has become MVP candidate guy. should have been one last year, but you're, you know, he's so good. He's so good and so fun. Unfortunately, he ran into the buzzsaw that was the Toronto Maple Leafs last night. Matt Murray, Matt Murray, kind of.

There goes the scoring streak. Sorry, buddy. Go sit on the bench with the devil's win streak and while the lease hang out with Brock Lesnar and wonder who's next. That's right. But yeah, he's been fucking unbelievable. He's amazing. He's so good.

Oh, my God. He rocks. By the way, good luck to every NHL coach who's after Jason Robertson wins the heart and the art rosis this year, convincing everyone they got to work hard in training camp. Like, come on, guys, this is important, is it now? You know what? I think I'm going to have a contract dispute until. Jason Robertson, like, leaning against the wall next to the bike rack, smoking a cigarette during lunch.

Whatever. Who gives a shit? Aren't you supposed to be in class? You don't have to go. They can't make you. They can't make you. He is. I'm going to go to McDonald's for lunch.

You want to come, brother? I did a piece last week that I, the 10 guys that everyone likes in the NHL. I feel like Jason Robertson was the only guy nobody was mad at me for having on that list. Like everybody I put on that list, there's always some weirdo comes out who's like, no, we, this weird fan base hates that guy. Everybody was like, yeah, Jason Robertson rules. That dude just That guy rocks Yeah he does

There's no two ways about it There's nothing more fun than like Dominant professional athletes Who look like they're 13 years old Mm-hmm Absolutely Like it's fantastic It's the best combo

And that guy is just I mean even last night Like I mean yeah The Leaves won and got a shut out The Leaves got speed bagged By the stars last night And the goalied him And the I mean

I mean, he was fantastic in that game, too. Yeah, and I don't blame his mom for rocking the Robertson jersey and being like, I guess I'll put on the Leaf's hat. Yeah. She's back in the winter in this one, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, exactly, you know, she's, we all, we can all see which, which way that pendulum is tilting. So that's, yeah. Not a jury in the world could convict her of being like, oh, no, there's one son that

definitely deserves a little more attention here. You know, but she's the one who's best in the world. But, you know, she's a mom and she loves both her sons equally, both Jason and Jason brother. They're both great. So we mentioned. That's right. We mentioned the leaves. We got to talk about Mitch Marner is up to a 20 game point.

20 games. A team record. Yeah. Now, see, I don't love it when they're like, you got to tune into this game. This guy's about to set a team. record. Yeah, I don't give a shit about that, man. But when the team is 100 years old, and I will say, because we mentioned last week that, like, the whole idea of, you know, a record is only a record if you actually had heard of it before

it changed. I do remember Ed Olick chasing and tying Daryl Sittler's record. And when did he do that? Like, 1991? Before then. 89. Even worse for me. So it's like, but, I mean, five years old. Right. So, but, you know, it just shows that this is, you know, even through the crazy 80s and 90s and everything, like, scoring records are cool. The problem is, you, like, you look at, like, a list, you know, like, they throw up on that, like, here's all the all-time, and you're like, oh, wow, he's six behind Patrick Kane, and he's three behind Sidney Crosby.

And this is great. And then you go, oh, wait a second. There's a thing there that says, like, since 1995. Like, who, what's the actual record? And then it's like, yeah, well, Wayne Greskes scored, like, seven years in a round. row. So it's like one of those completely unbreakable Kretzky records

and like all these guys. But it's still, it is cool. Now, did you see, and did you have thoughts on the game? I can't remember who they were playing. But it was the game where he got to 18, I think. No, I was out of town for that. That's right.

We're not watching hockey. He gets to, this was either the 17th or the 18th game. And it's like at the end of the game and he doesn't have any points, but the other team's got the goal. out. And so they leave him on the ice for like three minutes and everyone's like passing to him and everything so that he can try to get the record. And it was actually quite entertaining because he had like two golden chances to do it. Like one where he passed when he shouldn't have and the other guy

couldn't score. And then another one where, you know, he shot it down and it like ticked off the outside of the post. And then with like seconds to go, he gets a partial break and scores, which was very cool and dramatic and also I can imagine some people being like that's a cheap way to extend Yeah, this is the Phil Kessel gets one shift and gets flown out of the building on a helicopter. It was, yeah, it was a little bit like that. But it was still, yeah, I've, it was, it was one of the only entertaining, uh, empty neck goals I'll ever see. I don't know. I did not check to, I didn't check with Ally Afraid to see what he thought of him, but it was, it was.

The other thing I did want to talk about with the Toronto Maple Leafs now, they're fucking killing everybody, I think, is the general take to have with all this. Yeah. Since the start of November. They are 12, 1, and 4. Yeah. Like, you have to go back to, they've lost one regulation game since before Halloween. They have gotten a point in every game since a loss to the Penguins on November 11th.

So that is, whatever that is, 12 games in a row. Can't win in overtime. They stink out loud in overtime, but that's not... They give you a point just for showing up to that, you know. They do. And it's not the worst thing in the world because this is, you know, again, like, on the one hand, you could look at the lease and go, like, look at all those loser points. They're actually, you know, they're on a pure one loss record, they're 16 and 11. That's not, that's good, but it's not amazing.

but the flip side is they don't play three on three in the playoffs. So if all you're worried about is the playoffs, then a team that does great in overtime like Florida Panthers last year is maybe a little bit fake, and a team that doesn't do well in overtime is maybe set up well. And also, they've been great. They have. And the other thing about that, though, is that means that, yeah, they don't win in overtime ever, but that means that they have 12 regulation wins in their last,

whatever, 17 games. Yeah. Can't complain about that. Yeah. They win in regulation and when they lose, they get to overtime and get a point, which is what you're supposed to do. And the goal tending has been

shockingly good. Which, again, in this weird way, you know, the goaltending being great is obviously a good thing. And yet it's also kind of, if you're sick of the Leafs and you want to see them do poorly,

that's what you focus on. you go, Samsonoff and Murray are not going to be 925, 930 goalies all year long. When that comes back to Earth, you know, who knows. But the thing with the Leafs is they are, they don't give up goals. And that's, some of that is the goaltending, but it's also like they're really, and I know. The team defense is like the reason to have a lot of faith. I know it's the Leafs. They were like this last year, too.

They were a very good defensive team last year. based on the numbers, they could go all season playing like this, and people will still, if they give up one goal, people will go, yeah, same old Leafs, can't win in the playoffs with this flashy offensive style and not notice that Sheldon Keith has been not playing that way for a couple of years now. But again, you know what? None of it's going to matter until the playoffs. And there's a lot of season left, but it's going to be awfully hard to catch the Bruins.

And if you don't catch the Bruins, hey, guess what? great season guys awesome great season fantastic work you guys were amazing guess who's sitting there in the first round of the playoffs it's your old pal the Tampa Bay Lightning and right good luck with that

so I just look this up since the start of this streak or whatever the hot run here they are a 12th in the league in five on five expected goals against which isn't like great but like you know

in theory, if you have Austin Matthews, Mitch Martin, John Tavares is having a great season, Willie Nealander. If you have all those guys, you don't need to be, like, great defensively. You just need to be, like, perfectly all right. And we should point out,

they've been doing this with three of their best defensemen injured. Yeah, that's... No Morgan Riley for most of it. No muzzan for any of it. No, T.J. Brody's been out. So they've got got... Like, there was a stretch last night where they were down five on three to the stars for an extended period. And they had Lulgren and Sandine out there, two guys who don't kill penalties.

But that's who they had to put out because they lost another defenseman to injury last night. They just didn't have any penalty killing. I watched the first, like, half of that game. Those two guys look awesome. And they were just, like the penalty kill, they didn't get scored on. They gave up. up a ton of big chances, but they were blocking shots and everything. Like, it was really fascinating to watch because, I mean, these are just two guys who

don't kill penalties, but they're having to kill penalties on a five on three because the Leaf, all their defensemen are out. And Brody and Riley should be back. Muzin, probably not. But, like, there's a lot of room for, I know it's Toronto and people roll their eyes, but there's a lot of room for optimism there. I'm glad I didn't write any overreact. columns about how much I hated this team like six games into the season.

That who, who. Yeah. Look, like, again, they're just with the caveat about their defensemen, they're like a pretty good team with a lot of high-end talent, right? And if you're a pretty good team with a lot of high-end talent, you should win most nights. Yep. And so if you're saying we're going to add two of their top.

three defensemen back into the mix, they should get even better than they have been in terms of how they're playing on the ice, not in turn, hard to be better than 12-1 and 4 over a 17-game stretch. But like in terms of how they're actually playing, and if they get, and if they end up in the top 10 in, you know, all situations expect a goals percentage by the end of the year, like once again, you just kind of have to tip your hat to them and say, yep, the Leafs are good. I don't know what to tell you. Yep It's that simple So yeah

Why don't we take another break We'll be back And talk about a couple more Pieces and news And then that's it Thanks Be right back This week's episode of Puck Soup

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and five free travel packs with your first purchase. All you have to do is go to athletic greens.com slash puck. Again, that's athletic greens.com slash puck to take ownership over your health and pick up the ultimate daily nutritional insurance. All right, we're back. And one of the last things I want to talk about here is the Brock Besser drama, or drama, depending on which side of the U.S. Canada border you're on, which even I as a guy who is trying to not actively seek out,

ignore would be too strong a word, but not actively seek out hockey stuff. This one was all over my frickin' radar all weekend. He's going to be healthy scratched. Then he's not healthy. healthy scratch because I think it was Dakota. Joshua got hurt. And then there was also the report that his agent has been given permission to facilitate a trade, which has never a sign that things are going well. No.

But he has not asked for a trade, we're told. But his agent is attempting to facilitate one, which is sounds a lot like you want a trade. And we should also mention part of the drama was on a Saturday, was the hockey fights cancer and and Brock Bessor lost his dad to cancer recently so it was a bad he had some family. Very recently. Yeah, it was it was you know not that you can be

making lineup decisions based on that especially when Bruce Boudreau's out here coaching for his job but it was maybe a more important game for him personally than it normally would be and he was going to be a scratch like there was no

for sure, yes, it was only a last minute injury and then of course comes in and scores the big goal to tie the game and Vancouver wins. But still very much sounds... Still very much sounds like he'll be on the move.

And I mean, the other thing, like, if you're not following the Canucks, A, congratulations, you're doing something right in your life. But B, like, you might be like, oh, is this like a, you know, classic case, a bad team, coach on the hot seat, so he picks a fight with a star player, but like, Brock Besser has not been good this year, by almost any measure. Like, he's not,

he's not scoring goals, he's the metrics, whatever you want to look at, have not been good pretty consistently. Yeah. Yeah. No. It's, it's just one of those situations where it feels like

Brock Besser is never going to put it all together and totally figure it out. Because, remember, coming to the year, he was like, this is the season I'm scoring 30 goals. Yeah. It's like, I don't know, bud. He had 29 goals as a rookie in like 60 games. Yep.

No, he didn't win the Calder, right? I think he was, but no, he sure didn't. He came close. Who did win it? 20 years old, that was what? Barzal, yeah. Barzal, okay. And, yeah, but 2018, like that, it feels like he's one of the,

guys where it, yeah, it feels like he's younger, like in terms of, like, if you told me he was in third year of his career, I'd believe you, but he's, this is year six for him as a full-time NHELder. And the goals have been 29, 26, 16, 23, and then 23 last year, which was the first time he played 70 games. And this year, only four through 20. So, yeah, it's more a, he can't stay healthy thing. Some of it, but, but also, like, you know, when a guy, when a guy scores 30 goals and 60 games as a rookie, you're sitting there going, we got a 40 goal guy on her hands. Maybe someday a 50 goal guy when he figures his out. And now it's starting to look like, no, he might be a 20-something goal guy, which is still

has a lot of value. But that's not, you know, that's not what you signed up for. They did give him an extension. He's making $6 million for the next two or three years, which is if a guy can score 25 goals, that's maybe a little much. Totally. Yeah, it's like reasonable if a bit of a... It's not a contract situation.

It's just... So where does he go? I think, you know, I guess the problem is that any good team is kind of capped out and will be, right? But this is a guy that I think if you look at the talent level, you would say, you know, if you put him with guys who can play and specifically, you know, who can maybe cover for him defensively because that's like the real hole in its game, right? Like he's a perfectly good offensive player, uh, went healthy, but defensively not so much. And part of that is he was on the Canucks.

Look at the Canucks defensive core, right? Like they're group of six defenders over the last three, four, five years, whatever you want to say. And you go, oh, well, you know, I think I figured out your problem here, right? Mm-hmm. But if you can, you know, maybe get the Canucks to take a bad contract back, and, you know, it seems like maybe the front office is finally just like, yeah, you know what, let's just try to get the, like, let's make a trade for the sake of saying, look, we made a trade, we shook things up, we recognized something needed to change. But then, like, secretly it's a let's trade this guy we know is pretty good for whatever we can get for them and then kind of go into the tank where we,

think maybe we should have because remember because that was the thing of like some people were like oh yeah no we need to trim the roster and maybe get a little worse so we can get better in the future and then it feels like ownership was like you're not allowed to do that that's that's always been the concern in Vancouver and even now like they they've won two in a row they won seven of their last 10 not even up to 500 yet but you know in in range of being in the playoff hunt So who knows where it goes. I don't know. If he gets moved, obviously the team everyone's going to think of first is Minnesota, just because he's the local. But cap-wise, I don't know. They would need to do a lot to make that make sense. Elliot Friedman mentioned Washington.

I was just going to say, like the answer to me feels more like an Eastern Conference team, just because teams are always a little gun- unshy about trading in division or whatever. But there, you know, like, there are some, there are some, like, okay Eastern Conference teams that might be able to make that work a little bit. Like, Brock Bessor to the Islanders, I'd like that for them, you know. Again, like, they would have to maybe move on from an Anthony Beauvillier, but like, I, I don't know, do I feel like I'd rather. have Brock Basser than Anthony Bavillier? I don't know if I do.

One way or the other, you know, but if you're, you know, if you're looking to to juice your numbers or whatever, I think that that would kind of work for the, for the islanders and, you know, they're both this similar age so you can kind of pitch

it as making sense for everyone involved. Like if you're, if you're the Canucks, oh, we're getting a pretty good 25-year-old coming back, too. It's just a change of scenery thing, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, which I don't get the sense is necessarily what their fans want. Like, if they're going to move a guy, they would rather get the new get the collection of magic boxes that could turn into something.

But maybe the owner is saying, no, that's, we don't want to get worse. I don't know. The devils don't have cap space. Carolina could, but I don't know. We never know how Carolina thinks necessarily about players, but Brock Besser is certainly not a...

Would Carolina have cap space? You know what? Maybe not. I don't think they do. I don't think they do. Patchy ready. Because they're counting on patchy-ready coming back. The only thing, it's like if you can trick Vancouver

into taking Cockton the Emmy off your hands, then you're like, okay, we're rocking and rolling. But... Yeah, you're right. has got a lot of cap space right now, but it's LTIR space set aside for patch ready. So take them off the list. Now hear me out, the New York Rangers, finally a guy who can put the puck in the net for him. Yeah.

Problem with the Rangers is you do that, you're out of the Patrick Kane sweeps. For sure. You know, here's one that is interesting to me. And again, maybe it's not for like this year, but it's for going forward, the Buffalo Sabres. Mm-hmm. Yeah, like a rebuilding team. You maybe don't want to move that first round pick, but they got three seconds this year.

They got three seconds this year. There you go. Two seconds for Brock Besser. They don't need to make the cap room. They can just put him in the lineup. And off you go. This is a great idea by me. I could see Detroit and even Ottawa, too, being two teams where, you know,

you're not mortgaging the future for a short-term guy, Like you're figuring he's going to be in your lineup for the next few years to come. Now, for Ottawa, is he going to play defense or something? Like, that's their problem, right? Like, they don't have anybody who can play defense. But then you trade Alex to Brinket for a defenseman. See, it's easy. Oh, sure.

You know what? Pierre? Call me. I think, yeah, the Capitals might be the team. I guess another team that doesn't really have the cap space you wouldn't think, assuming that they're holding out hope that Backstrom comes back. would be interesting though because I mean those are two teams with basically identical records like imagine getting called in and like hey man you're you're out of here in Vancouver thank God where am I going to the same team but with worse weather have fun also you are never allowed to shoot in an empty net you have to pass a talaxovac yeah that's right oh shit that doesn't sound good to me but yeah it'll be interesting I I think they do end up moving him.

And then, you know, who knows. And then one last thing I wanted to talk about. So there was some like big report from the International Olympic Committee the other day about like how the Winter Olympics are going to work. Okay. Going forward. And basically there, here's the quote, the future host commission outlined proposals for future winter Olympic. This is from like an NBC report for future Winter Olympics, which included rotating hosts within a pool of cities or regions and a requirement that hosts have an average minimum temperature below freezing for snow competition venues at the time of the games over a 10-year period. Okay.

So what that basically means is there was just a report that was like the number of places where the Winter Olympics is feasible. or would be feasible for like outdoor events is like going to dwindle rapidly over the next 30 years because of global warming. Right. And so it is a situation where they're just going to be like, no, there are like six places that we can hold the Winter Olympics.

And we're just going to do it in those six places on a rotating basis forever. I mean, I was going to say are there really that many cities that want to bid on, especially the Winter Olympics anymore, but yeah, there probably are. There always are. I mean, the rotating, yeah, the idea, like we're seeing this in the next World Cup, right? Where it's like, instead of picking one city and saying this is where it's going to be,

you spread it all out. So that part doesn't surprise me. But yeah, if there's only a few, well, I guess it's Canada. Six was my I'm not sure Vancouver could get there Well so Vancouver is One of the teams that was thought of it

The rest of the article said this Current bids for 2030 Are only Sapporo Japan and Salt Lake City Okay Vancouver was in the mix for a while Apparently And then the BC government was like

We're not doing that So it looks like it's just Japan and Salt Lake City. And even that, the report said Salt Lake is considered more likely for 2034. Okay. So it feels like just Sapporo, Japan is where you're going to be thinking about for 2030. Yeah. Which obviously from a hockey perspective, if the NHL was back in the Olympics, is not ideal. deal in terms of time differences.

If it's in Salt Lake City, you put them in the, like, as soon as the Olympics goes back to Salt Lake City. The NHL is back. The NHL miraculously, all of those concerns that they have will disappear. So, 2013-14. So what, Connor McDavid will be, what, 40 by then? He can still make his Olympic debut against a 39-year-old Austin Matthews. It'll be great.

It would be fascinating. fascinating and well worth the weight. Although maybe there will have been one World Cup in between. God, Connor Bedard would be like almost 28 at that point. Yeah. Oh, boy. Boy, oh boy. Anyway, yeah.

So I thought that was really interesting. Like, just the idea that we're just going to be like, Oh, no, like every other Olympic is going to, uh, Winter Olympics is going to be in North America just because like those are some of the only places on the planet that can reasonably host a Winter Olympics. Even all the like weird dictatorships that use the Olympics to like, uh, prop up their regimes or whatever. Even them, they're like, no, forget it.

But they can still have the summer Olympics for that, right? Hey, there's always the Summer Olympics. Um, coming soon to, uh, also. Qatar, great, perfect. And we will hold those in November and December. We will hold the Summer Olympics then. So yeah, that's it for the show this week. Sean, why don't you hit him with some plugs? You can find me at the athletic, both my writing and my podcast at Ian Mendez. I got that piece on the Cracken that's up right now. If you want to watch all the ways that I was wrong about a team, might do another salary cap court later in the week. Might bring back

Some guys, including our old pal Jordan Bennington, is on the list. Find out if he has a bad contract or not. He does. Let me stop you right there. But yeah, everybody loves salary cap court. That's one of the best ones. Hall of Fame court, salary cap court. You put court in a hockey article.

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