Puck Soup - Good Knight, Panthers

Episode Date: June 14, 2023

Sean and Ryan talk about how Vegas won the Stanley Cup, there were some trades and rumors, and a bunch of front office changes.   Sponsored by Raycon (buyraycon.com/puck) Athletic Greens (atheleticgreens.com/puck) and Gametime (download the Gametime app and use code PUCK)

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 and tools. It's your weekly bowl of hockey and nonsense. I'm Ryan Lambert from Elite Prospect. I am Sean McInou from The Athletic. And we have new Stanley Cup champions. It's the Vegas Golden Knights.

You ever seen a beat down that bad in a cup winning game? Yeah, I have the only one that compares to that is the first year that the Penguins won. They were playing that underdog North Stars team. Way under. And they were given it. Minnesota was giving them a series right up until the end. I want to say it was 8-0 in the final. Like they just absolutely destroyed them.

And that one felt worse because I'm pretty sure. sure the game was in Minnesota. So, like, it wasn't even the party atmosphere that you had last night. So, yeah, that was, I mean, easily, I would think, the coolest way to win a Stanley Cup. Like, I know we all dream of the game seven overtime winner. But, like, imagine being at that game as a fan. And, like, you know for at least half the game that game that you. you're winning the cup that night.

That's got to be. Like, you know, or as a player, like there, there isn't that, you know, that tension to it. It's like, this is happening. It's just a hour long party. Yeah, it's weird, right? Because, like, I guess you would, in theory, say that winning it in overtime or whatever would be the best way to win it from like a purely dramatic standpoint. But, you know, you go up what, what was it?

three one halfway through the game and you're like oh yeah this game's over good night they don't have met we'll talk about all the Matthew chuck stuff in a second but like just and then to keep scoring goals you know like it was ridiculous that they did the classic thing the most humiliating thing you can do to an opponent is score into the empty net and then score again when they put the goalie back in yeah and to make it a nine three game too. Like, boy, oh boy, that's a baseball score. Yep.

You know? Like, truly, you know, I think you had nights in five. I had nights and six. And, you know, would you have said, let's, I don't know what the, I would not have thought there were, there was, like I did not see. I said nights in five, but you can, you can pick a short series and still think the individual games will be closely contested. I did not have 9-3 and 7-2 as...

And 5-2. A goal difference in this series, five games. It was 26 to 12. Yeah. Yeah, I don't... I'm pretty sure Paul Marisse isn't going to be giving us any Rod Brindamore soundbites about how they didn't... We were right there. Yeah.

We didn't really lose the series in 5. We should have lost in 4 is what should have happened. And, I mean, if they hadn't scored with goalie out in game 3, this ends up being a sweep, but that ends up being even better for Vegas because they get to do it at home. Yeah. Did you see all this stuff about Vegas was one of the luckiest teams and all this guy? I think Dom wrote the article. What are your thoughts on this?

Yeah, I mean, I talked to Shana about this on the athletic show last week. And, you know, like his premise was not. thought, hey, these guys are lucky in the sense that they don't deserve this. They're not playing well. They're just getting all the bounces. It was more a case that, look, in order to win the Stanley Cup, you need to have luck, like, of course, pushing you. Like, the luck needs to be blowing into your back.

Like, you need that. It's simply not going to be possible in today's league, no matter how good your team is. with all the parity and the margins being so thin, to have the bounce is going against you and still win. So to point to a cup winner and say, well, they're lucky. Yeah, of course they were. They needed that to get there. But the numbers for Vegas were like off the charts as far as not only PDO,

which is useful to an extent, but not the best stat. But, you know, when you looked at expected goals versus what they were actually doing, I mean, the puck was just going in for them over and over and over again. And it was staying out even though they had arguably their fourth string goalie in net for most of it. So where did you come down on that? I think, inarguably, the team that was lucky to be there was the Florida Panthers. Yep. You know, like, yeah, I know Vegas had a high PDO or whatever, but a bunch of that. That was like, you know, they were scoring into empty nets and things of this nature.

It's just a case where they killed everybody they played for two months. You know, I don't know what the final like goal difference in the in the postseason was for them. But like it had to be huge. They were putting up, they were putting up crooked numbers very like in a period very frequently. I saw somebody tweet that, and they were something like the second best goal differential of the cap era and even going back to like the mid-90s Red Wings.

Like it was one of these things where they were like ninth best, which doesn't sound all that great, but then you remember that like in the 80s... I just looked it up. They averaged four goals a game. Yeah. Everything was going in. That's crazy, yes. And, you know, that's...

some of that is is the talent absolutely you would expect these guys to score more goals than you would think that the you know the Columbus blue jackets are going to score but but they made like Jake Ottinger look bad you know like they I was going to say that they made Sergei Brobrovsky look bad but that only that only like makes sense if you're talking about you don't remember anything from prior to two months ago yeah You know, like that doesn't. But, yeah, I guess we got our answer on that whole 10-day layoff having an effect on a hot goal. But, like, they lit up, they lit up Winnipeg.

The Winnipeg has a great goalie, too, right? So, yeah, I, they just, man, they scored so many goals. They lit up a Vezna finalist, an All-Star, a guy who's probably considered the best young goalie in the league. and then a guy who was on an all-time heater for three rounds. Yep. And they did it with Aden Hill for three of the four rounds. Yep. I mean, guys that were worse than Aden Hill in the first round.

I just looked. They had only one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight games where they scored less than four goals in this postseason. Yep. That's crazy. It is. I know that anytime you talk about luck, people freak out. And there are certain fans out there who, they just believe in their bones that by definition, there isn't, nobody gets lucky in the Stanley Cup playoffs because the Stanley Cup playoffs are.

The ultimate arbiter. Yes, exactly. It's this perfect thing that shows us who the real best teams are. It reveals them to it. us. And so you're... What percentage of fans do you think still believe that? Like, it's certainly...

You're right. It's certainly not zero. But I feel like there's been a growing understanding of like, yeah, I mean, you know, it's hard to say. It can all go right for you. It's hard to say. I will say that the fans who feel that way feel very passionate about it. Sure.

Yeah. But the reality is, like, you know, it's also not the same as saying, like, well, just get into the playoffs and then who even knows, who, you know, what, you know, one team that's 16 is going to get lucky and that team's going to win the cup. It's both, right? Like, you know, sometimes as a player, the puck just bounces over a couple of sticks and deflects off a skate and lands on your stick blade. That's luck.

That's not something you draw up. That is just random, you know, a near random chance putting that puck on your stick in that situation. Okay, great. Now it's there. What are you going to do with it? Can you make the most of that opportunity? And you put that puck in the net, at which case everybody talks about the lucky goal,

or do you flub it, in which case nobody even remembers that play? And it's kind of the same thing with building a contender. Like this is what happens when a well-built team that has all the pieces in place, well-coached, everything like it, then you go into the playoffs and say, okay, if the wind start blowing the right way, we're in really good shape. and the winds did blow the right way, and they rolled. That's what the playoffs is. That's what you're trying to do.

So nobody's taking anything away from Vegas by pointing out that in addition to playing great and winning battles and all, you know, having heart and all that other stuff, they also had the bounces going their way. This is, it's what you need, and this is what you get. It was a fantastic, dominant performance by a really good team. and what about what are you where are you at on just where Florida stands right now a couple quick stats for you

8 and 2 in one goal game 7 and 0 in overtime right um this is what I mean about a team that got lucky and again they're a really good team but like you know the Sergei Bavrovsky thing and I guess I guess this is where we can talk about all the injuries right? Like, Goudis, high ankle sprain should have been you know, out weeks.

He missed a period, is the famous already quote from Paul Maurice. Aronekblad. I think they said two separate two different separated shoulders, a broken foot, something like that. Like, this guy was in rough shape. And of course, Matthew Kachuk

had a, I think they said, fractured sternum. Yeah. I wonder where that happened because the big hit didn't get him in the like I went back to look at the big hit that he took in game three and it didn't get him in the chest which isn't to say that you know the impact camp but I yeah I wonder I well I guess I guess we'll put it this way is game four is the first time you were like ooh he is laboring and the story was that Brady had to help him out of bed after his pregame nap for game four yeah so it

feels like it must have, maybe it wasn't on that hit, but it feels like it must have happened in game three. And, um, you know, I had said like, they're basically going to have to chain him up in the dressing room to, to keep him from, uh, playing in game five. And I guess a broken sternum is kind of the equivalent of that where it's like, look, maybe you could play in a couple of days. They said they were hopeful to get him back for game seven. Yeah. But it just, it just, it just, was never going to happen. They don't have Matthew Kachuk. It's kind of ships out to see on that one.

Yeah. It's going to be interesting to see where they go from here because there were a lot of quotes last night saying, like, we'll be back. You know, you haven't seen the last of us. We'll be back. We've heard that before. I was going to say, how much do you buy that?

Yeah. We've heard that from. Every Stanley Cup final loser, and a lot of them were not back. Now, most of those, you know, especially the Cinderella teams. Now, most of those Cinderella teams weren't a year removed from a president's trophy. So. Bingo, yeah. Maybe. I guess that's the question. Like, which team is the real Panthers or can we get a combination, right?

is it the team from last year that was dominant and, you know, scored a ton and all that stuff and then petered out in the playoffs, or is it the team from this year that was not as good for six months but then caught fire and did all the right things during the playoffs? Obviously, you want to get sort of the best of both worlds if you expect to win a cup with this group, but it's it's tough. I mean, I don't, this certainly is, you know, to say, state the obvious. This isn't a 2021 Canadian situation

where you're looking at this going, yeah, you guys are maybe not even going to make the playoffs next year and it turned out to not even be a maybe. But, yeah, I don't know. It's so tough, man. It's so hard to have

all those balances go your way and get this close and then not be able to finish it because you might not get there again. Yeah, it's, You know, like, I feel like there's, if they straighten some things out with this roster, and I mostly mean the goaltending position, obviously. But they have a decent amount of cap space for next year,

and I think the only, like, actual contributor they have to resign is Radco Gudis. I think both stalls are out of contract. Like, bottom of the lineup guys are going to need new deals or to be replaced. But, like, they could 100% run it back with this exact same roster. and I would guess like perform better than 8th in the East I don't know how much better but like

if two years ago was like weirdly overperformance from guys like Hubert O and all that maybe you say this season apart from the Kachuk performance was underperformance from some from some key players and

I don't know like I'm totally convinced that these guys could be like sixth, fifth, fifth in the east next season. That wouldn't surprise me at all. No, not at all. But that's, they could go higher than that. Yeah. But for, to say like that they can run, like, because, you know, Boston, I think we all

understand it's going to have to take a step back for, for a minute or two just because of the, uh, the overages and all that on their salary cap for next season. But like, you know, can, can this team? be up there with Tampa and Toronto and I don't know, maybe Boston too, depending on how you feel about the Montgomery system and all that? Yeah, maybe.

Maybe. I don't know. But yeah, to say, oh, we'll be back. We'll make another deep playoff run. They got to sort out the goaltending. Yeah, you have to, I mean, and obviously you have to say that and

yeah, of course. You hope that, you hope that this run maybe reignites Sergei Bavrovsky in a way that you know you get something from him

over the last few years of that contract. Obviously everyone's rooting for Spencer Knight to get back. Yep. There will be it sounds like there may be some guys missing from the, you know,

at the start of the season. It doesn't even sounds like like Maurice said will, I thought, yeah. Yeah. So a bunch of guys need surgeries with like four to six month recovery times. Like that's not just the start of the season. I mean, this is basically what Boston went through.

Remember that when everybody was like, oh, no, the ruins are going to be bad for the first two months because like Pasternak and Bergeron and all those guys are going to be out. And then it was like, oh, no, it's fine. And in fact, they all came back early and it was great. So yeah, it'll be interesting to see. one last thing. You mentioned it earlier. I do want to shout out Aden Hill a little bit because I think there's a wide perception and a not an accurate one that like Vegas, I've said it a lot. Vegas is a team that makes just about any goalie look good.

You know, like they don't let you get anywhere near the net. The Bruce Cassidy effect is part of that. Undeniable at this point. but there were, you know, there were more than a few moments not only last night, but throughout this series, where, you know, someone got in one-on-one on Aiden Hill, and Aiden Hill was like, yeah, you will not be scoring today, my friend. So like last night, right, two minutes in or whatever it was. Absolutely. Florida made a big push early. And then Vegas was just like, no, we're going to actually spend the next six minutes in the attacking zone.

That's enough of that. Yeah. But like Aden Hill absolutely kept it from being one or two nothing in the first five minutes of that game. Absolute. And that's not just being a system goalie. Although again, he got a huge, huge, huge, huge benefit from playing behind that team. But 932 in the postseason for Aiden Hill, 16 games. games 932.

Really interesting to see what they do with their goaltenders, what he goes on to become. So the thing is they have both Thompson and Lainer signed for next season. Now, what does that look like? I don't know, you know, just because, well, first of all, it doesn't cost very much. I believe combined, it's like 5.9 million or 5.75 million combined on the cap for, on Thompson and Lainer. Yeah, that is. I'm looking at it now, 5.7 of which five on the nose is Robin Lainer, who is ready to come back. Well, no, we shouldn't say that that he's ready to come back. He's presumed to be back next year, although to be determined. I went looking for this yesterday.

The latest quote I saw was from like a few weeks ago and it was Kelly McCriman going, I don't know what the timeline is on him. You know, he's got to rehab both of his hips. I don't know what that means. And I don't know. I couldn't find anything on like a Logan Thompson update either. So really like who knows. But in theory, if those are your two goalies entering next season. and they're, you know, 100% healthier or pretty close to it.

These guys are in great shape. And Aiden Hill goes and makes $3 million dollars elsewhere, you know. They don't need a $3 million third goalie, obviously. But, you know, whatever Aiden Hill is. The third goalie. I mean, the guy just won you a cup. Do you not feel like we got to bring this guy back as our presumptive number one? Well, it depends.

I mean, can you? Can you do something with land? You have the cap-friendly page open. He has, does he not have movement protection? He has, according to this, no trade protection. Okay. So, but he's a goalie, right? I mean, if you go to him and say,

you're our second or third string, would you like to be a starter somewhere? I imagine he's going to say, yes, go ahead and trade me somewhere where I'm going to play. again, presuming he's even healthy, presuming that any team that could trade for him would be able to see that he was healthy and all of that.

Yeah, Hill and Pesois, both UFAs, as well as Jonathan Quick, but we assume that we assume he's done, right? I would have to imagine, yeah. Done in Vegas, for sure. No reason to bring him back. and got the handoff before any of the other goalies, which a lot of people found amusing. Yeah, and I think that is kind of the ultimate sign that, like,

here's the cop, have a good one. Yeah. And it was, people didn't see it. It was out Martinez who gave it to him. So his longtime King's teammate that he had won Cups with, it wasn't, you know, it wasn't some sort of snub on Aden Hill. This was just a guy giving it to his buddy, which is a cool moment. Let me ask you this

How did you feel about the first six guys to get the cup Were the, well, after Mark Stone obviously Were the original six Yeah, we liked that right? The original misfits, I guess, which Yeah, they went They've been, it feels to me like they We only really started leaning into that

Like in the last few days, that nickname, but sure Yeah, it was Well, I definitely remember it from the time. Yeah. Like from 20 years. Oh, yeah. Originally, it was like, yeah, the whole team was like the island of misfit toys. And then it was only that the last few weeks that I remember people referring to those guys again as the original misfits.

But it's cool. It was a cool concept. Yeah, branding rocks. Yeah. It was, I'm not complaining. I'm the guy who sits here and complains that there's no good nicknames anymore. Like, this was a good one. Yeah, I like that a lot.

I mean, God, not to. Not to beat the dead horse, but if you're Florida, Marsha So wins the Kahn-Smith, Riley Smith gets the first handoff. Nice work. Well, you're going to think about all the cap flexibility. You're going to put Dale Tallon's name on the Cup. Yeah. But yeah, I don't know.

Do you have any other thoughts on the Cup final on Game 5, like whatever? Just you know, Kahn-Smith, we're good with March. Yeah, you know, I thought for. sure after that Ikel play to, I think it made it three to one or three nothing maybe, three one. Just the one where like they spend two minutes in the attacking zone. He comes back, back checks, forces a turnover and then gets the primary assist on, I think it was the third goal now I don't remember. But I was like, he just won the consmife with that one.

That's it. It's over. You know? but I feel like they just said look the guy only had six goals in the playoffs man I don't know I don't know playoffs in scoring but only six goals in the men yeah and you know his linemate led the playoffs in goal scoring so maybe you say like is that a big reason why yeah yeah probably it is but there were like three four like if you had said Aiden Hill I would have been like I don't agree with that but I get it yeah you know

I think those were the three guys. Marsha, So, Eichl, and Hill. Maybe Stone also. I think if Stone, like, Stone maybe was on some ballots, but that would have raised my eyebrows. It felt like a stretch for sure. Yeah. Although, I mean, with the, with the hat trick, who knows. Yeah.

No, that's what I mean. And even William Carlson. And he's their captain. Was really good. He was. But, and Stone is their captain. and he is viewed as like one of the most complete 200 foot players in the world. And he seems really likable.

Like that all could have like, again, I wouldn't have objected to it. I would have been like, oh, that's not what I would have done. But, you know, I think Marsha is so. Is the correct choice. Like all his underlying numbers, like even if you go beyond the just scoring and all that, all his underlying numbers are some of the best percentage. and stuff like that, that we have literally seen, like, since 0708 when they started doing advanced stats. Like, top five, top 10 in almost, like, most of the categories.

I don't want to say almost all of them, but a lot of categories, he's like top five, top 10 ever in underlying percentages. So the fact that he also led the playoffs in goal scoring and was second in the playoffs in totals ever, like, or not ever, but for this year anyway. Um, totally makes sense to me that he would be, that he would be the cons. I got no problem with it at all. Um, and yeah, Bruce Cassidy. They hire him, he wins the cup immediately. Yep. Pretty good.

Pretty good. First, I think I saw that he's the first guy in 20 years to get hired in the off season and win a cup in his first full season. a bunch of guys who came in midway through. Mike Sullivan, I think most famously. The two penguins guys, Daryl Sutter. But he's the first guy since Pat Burns, 20 years ago, to

get hired, do camp, get his system in play, which is weird, right? I mean, you would assume that it would be the other way around, but. Yeah. And they were the, they were the second best team in the league this year. Yeah. This rocks. Like, this is...

He did a hell of a job, man. Like, he... Yeah. And, you know, they were behind the team that he left in Boston. This guy might be good at this. I don't know. Yeah. And a coach where it's like undeniable, like right there in front of you, this is the impact he had on this team. You know what I mean?

Like, again, just the goaltending situation. We cycled through five different goalies. Our team save percentage was 916. How's that possible? You know? This is what we said, right? Like at the beginning of the year, I. pick Cassidy, I said, this guy's going to win the Jack Adams because Vegas has got a great team.

They need to get back in the playoffs. He's a new coach, but they had just lost Robin Lanner. And remember when we found out about that? Because it was late. It was after the goal to the moves. It all happened. We were looking at it going, who the hell is Vegas is goalie? You can't go into the season with Logan Thompson.

You can't go in with Laura. They just got some guy from San Jose. I don't even know who that guy is. and I remember thinking if Cassidy's reputation as the goalie whisper holds up here, he's going to win coach of the year. And that didn't happen, but... Yeah, he's not even a finalist, huh? Yeah, somewhat surprisingly.

But other than the Jack Adams part, I mean, it really did play out. You know, this is a guy if I know we're always trying to unlock what is it that makes go and you and I joke often about, hey, you know, if this coach was smart, he would just tell his goalie to play 920 all year. Cassidy seems to figure out how to actually do that. Yeah, this is why he's one of the best coaches in the league. Yeah. He just pulls all his goalies aside.

He's like, I'm going to need you to stop 92% of the shots and they go, got it, no problem. And it works every year. Like so much, like so much of Vegas. And we will spend the next few days, I'm sure, breaking it down. talking about what they did and didn't do and what can you copy. Again, like just if there's one word for the Vegas Golden Knights, it's aggressive, right? They just, and it rules. They don't dick around.

Last year, Pete DeBore is a really good coach, too. Pete DeBore's a great coach. They missed the playoffs one year. Sorry, you're out. Peg your shit. You're out of here, brother. The guy that we replay, and by the way, we brought you into replace Gerr Glant, who was the coach of the year for us and got us to the Stanley Cup final.

And now you're gone too. And you know what? A year and a half from now, they'll have a four game losing streak, and Cassidy will be gone. And somebody else will come in. But it worked. It all worked for these guys. And like you say, aggressive, like they go out, they get Mark Stone, they get Jack Eichel.

They get Chandler Stevenson. They get Ivan Barbashev, like Petrangelo. They moved heaven and earth to get Petrangelo. They traded one of their best defensemen. And they were like, because we got one that's even better, actually. They went out and got Max Patcher Ready. They'd up big to get him on the trade market, gave him a big contract. And then when it didn't work anymore, they gave him away in the offseason.

Just moved on. They gave Mark Andre Fleury away to clear Capram when they needed to, when they felt like Robin Lennar was the better option. Trade it for Robin Lennar at a time when they already had a goalie. this is just like this team was designed in a lab to make your team's GM who's always talking about how his job is too hard look like a fool. Mm-hmm. Which he is, by the way. Now, that having been said, we can also acknowledge, as you're probably aware, Ryan, that

the league rigged everything for the Golden Knights so that they could win this. Yeah, that's why it was shocking to me. It was shocking to me when they, when they booed Gary Betman. He gave them that team. Yeah, he handed it, handed it to them. Like, that's,

they got, all those guys we just mentioned, they got them in the expansion draft. Remember, they were like, the Sabers can't protect Jack Eichol, and you were like, what?

And Ottawa had to give them Mark Stone for a six defenseman and, you know, all of that. Yeah, it was, uh, that's such a stupid narrative.

I hope it dies, but it, in this sport, come on, who's going to believe that? It's going to just, yeah, it's going to just keep going now.

Um, But yeah, like just a fun, really good team that honestly, if, like, if you were managing a team in like NHL 23 or whatever, not dissimilar to how they do it in real life, you know? They might even be more aggressive about trading picks and prospects and stuff like that. You know, I don't know how, yeah, and I used to play those games. If you'd see somebody pop up like on the trade market, oh, I don't have cap or whatever, screw it. I'm going to figure out a way to how do I

who do I have to screw over to get this to have to work. And you know, people will also go, Mark Stone on the LTIR, yeah, that's again, welcome to, like how many years in a row are we going to do this where it's allowed under the rules and yet people still complain. You know, I was going to

say like nobody actually believes that shit anymore, like it's all, it's all fake, but I saw some fucking guy doing it last night and that's only one guy or whatever, but he, but he was like both teams did it this year. Yeah, exactly, dude. What do you fucking want for me?

I get, like, as a fan, I get it. You, especially this Vegas team, they did not exist six years ago. They've been to the final twice. They've just won the Stanley Cup, made the playoffs five out of six years. They're kicking everyone else's butts. If you're a fan of a team and, you know, you're not a fan of like Tampa, Colorado, maybe one or two other teams, Vegas is running circles around you. And I get, you're frustrated. That's annoying.

And whenever we see anybody else doing better than we are, we like to make up reasons why that's the case and make up fake advantages that they must have. And this is why they've, oh, everything's rigged for them. There's people's whole identities out there in the world are based on that. And so we're doing it as hockey fans. But I'm just here to tell you, it's BS, man.

They didn't get handed anything. I'll say this. And this is, uh, this is from a Larry Brooks article a few weeks ago that, uh, this guy Grinch Wadinsky, uh, wrote about last night as well of like,

if you went to every GM in the league and said, you get to clear out your, like you clear out your entire organization, but you get 80 million dollars in cap space, $83 million in cap space. How much of the league is like, deal, see you there? It's a huge percentage. I would say it's more than half.

I don't know. I don't think it is, but I'd propose this like years ago. I said, like, we need to have the nuclear option. The end of the season, you can say, I'm hitting the button, you take everything. Remember, this is like all your prospects, everything, all gone, and we just completely start over it as an expansion team, basically. I mean, I don't think it would be that many teams, especially knowing that the GMs would make that decision.

Like, no GM is going to be like, I've done such a bad job. Oh, yeah, no, it's like we're talking the new GM hires. You're Kyle Dubis's, right? Kyle Dubis would go, well, so who do you think, like what teams do you think would actually take that option? Let me see. Like, I don't think Pittsburgh would, right? Like Pittsburgh's going to.

Pittsburgh probably wouldn't just because of, Yeah, but like... I think you would all... Let's, let's for the sake of argument, say that as part of that, you can't resign any of the guys. Because Pittsburgh, like, yeah, they probably would do it, and then immediately, Crosby, Malcolm, Latang, I'll come back. Let's see here. Caps, flyers... Caps aren't going to do it with Ovechkin.

You don't think so? No. Boy, it's going to be a tough few years. Flyers might. Yeah, maybe, maybe more than half was a dramatic. overstatement, but like, I would say... I'd be surprised if there was a team every year that did it, because it would just be so extreme, but it'd be fun.

Islanders? Islanders probably should, but I don't know if they would. Winnipeg, I don't think does, because they've got so much trade equity to work with this year. San Jose? San Jose might. San Jose is a good one. So what did I just say, like six, seven, 18, something like that? That you would at least consider it.

Yeah. Yeah. But anyways, I mean, that's the only advantage that Vegas had over everybody else was cap flexibility based on not having any anchor contracts. Like literally not having anybody on the book. Yeah, because they didn't have anybody. So, yeah, like, oh, yeah, they had cap space. Yeah, because they didn't have any superstars. They didn't have anyone good at all because they didn't have anyone.

And then even after the expansion draft, remember, they had to use 60% of that cap space in the expansion draft. Nobody liked their team then. But all they had was they weren't locked into any stupid contracts, which any team in the league could replicate within a few years by just stopping, stop signing stupid contracts. So if you're going to point to Vegas and be like, well, they didn't have, they had cap space. your team could absolutely do this too. Just don't spend $5 million on a third line depth winger this year. Oh, but we want that guy. Well, okay, so this is how you're going to wind up back in the same situation you always are.

Just don't cry above Vegas, man. They had nothing. I'll say one last thing. I thought both calls that I heard for like, and the Vegas Golden Knights have won the Stanley Cup was, One of them was, and the cup is staying in Vegas. Yeah. It happened in Vegas.

The cup will stay in Vegas. Yeah. I thought that was great. And then the other one, the one on the American broadcast, was the Golden Knights get the silver trophy. Pretty good. That's, you know, it's okay. Not as, certainly not as good as the other one. I always feel like when I hear one of those that's very obviously, like, been workshopped, I have,

the bar is pretty high for me. Yeah. But whereas if it's like, you know, if a player does something and the guy has to do it off the cuff, that's always. I just, I just always flash back to the first time. I think it was the first time LA won. The Doc Emmerich call was the Kings, our Kings. It's like, come on, man.

You had a whole, you had a whole off season to come up with this. No whole summer to think of it, man. That one, boy, oh boy. But anyway, why don't we take it? a break. We went a longer than I wanted to on that one. And we'll talk about boy, all the player rumors that are going on right now. And there's a lot of them.

It's the off season. The best part of the year, we've finally got the stupid playoffs over with, and we can get to the good part. That's right. All right. We'll be right back. This week's episode is brought to you by Athletic Greens. So you're thinking of taking supplements. Great. Good idea.

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And we'll start. So last week, I believe we talked about, the pending contract for Vladislav Gavakov to stay in L.A. The rumor was it was two years, five to six million bucks or something. I think this is a classic. It was announced one minute after we finished recording the episode. I think so, yeah. So two years, $5.875 million.

And we were saying, why would he only want two years? Oh, maybe it's because the cap's going to go up. but then you poke around, you learn about it. These next two seasons are the ones with the escrow is capped at 6%. So it's two really low escrow years, plus the cap is low anyway, right? The other thing is almost all of the money he's getting is in signing bonuses. I think he makes $7.75 an actual salary both seasons, something like that. and this is the thing.

This is actually Vladislav Gavakov being insanely smart is they don't take the escrow out of your bonus check up front. I'm pretty sure about this. Yeah, you were educating me on this off the air because I was not aware of this stuff. Yeah, so basically what they do is whatever your escrow is, like your escrow is, whatever your signing bonus amount is, plus whatever your salary is,

6% of that. They just take all of that out of your salary and cut you the, in his case, I think it's $5.875 million check on whatever it is, July 1. They cut you that check, and then they take out your escrow from your salary.

So his actual take-home salary is going to be like 300 grand this year to, you know, over the course of the season. But he gets that 5-875 or whatever it is up front right now. Yep. So that's actually really smart. And I wonder, the reason I bring this up is,

I wonder how much of that we're going to see come July 1. Or even in the lead up to it with, you know, RFA's resigning and stuff like that. And we've kind of always seen guys ideally want the bonus because. Yeah, of course. For various reasons. You get the money up front, the escrow. impact is worth considering.

And it also makes the contract buyout proof. Buy out proof, although in this case, he wouldn't really think that that's a concern on a short deal like this. And it can obviously have all sorts of ramifications around potential trades down the line and that sort of thing.

But again, like we said last week, very interesting to me that this is the guy betting on himself with the cap getting ready to shoot up while we're seeing other guys take seven and eight year deals. It's kind of interesting to see which way guys go. Yeah. It's going to be a really weird summer

because I wouldn't be surprised at all to see a lot of RFAs in particular just go, give me a year, give me two years. I want to have my contract coming up when the cap is $93 million or whatever. And who could blame them? we still, we should say, don't know what the cap is next year. Gary Bettman said, looks like it's going up a million,

but apparently the door is still open to figuring out a way to have it go up more than that without increasing the escrow. Because that's a non-starter for the players. But apparently, we're at the situation now where it's almost paid off, it's not quite paid off so the cap only goes up a little bit but it's going to be paid off next year and then the cap will go up a lot and so does it not make sense to take some of that a lot from the future that's pretty much locked in and shift it towards this year

to have a smoother transition and that's obviously good news for anyone who's heading into free agency or needs a contract this year and maybe not as important to players who are signed going into future years and would like to see that cap shoot up. It's going to be interesting to see what happens. But in the meantime, we're assuming it's going to be relatively flat. So some really interesting decisions that have to get made.

Yeah, it feels like there's going to be some wheeling and dealing between Gary Betman and Marty Walsh, and maybe nothing comes of it because Marty Walsh's whole thing is I'm not letting them touch the escrow. The escrow number is staying where it's at. His players, I think, have been very clear to him that... And understand, please so. Yep, absolutely. So they might be able to find out another way to do it. And apparently, like, there's even...

They aren't fully done calculating the HRR from the last, like, two seasons before this one. So if that works out, that, you know, that could get them over... It probably won't, but that could... That alone could get them over the hump. and, you know, but again, it's just one of those things where it's like, how do, it's June 14th. We don't know this yet. Like, what are we doing? Wasn't it last year that we didn't know, was it last year or was it the Vancouver draft

where we didn't know the cap like as we were leaving the draft? Free agency was like two days later. Yeah, I think that's right. I think it's the Vancouver one, but now I don't remember either. But, you know, recent, let's put it that way. It's crazy to me. But, you know, where are you going to do? It's the NHL.

So, yeah, that's not a terrible contract for Gavrikov, especially because I was thinking he was going to get five or six years, obviously. Yeah, no, I'm fine with that if I'm out. Yeah. And I know, you know, the downside of your Kings fan is, well, if he's really good, then he either costs us a lot more in a few years or he leaves in a few years. But I take that risk over committing five or six years. and,

yeah, and, bro, I wouldn't be holding my breath on that one. I'll just say that. Let's talk about another defense

in getting a big contract. This is, you want to talk about big. Columbus pulls off the rare sign and trade

with New Jersey. Second one ever, I believe, right? Yeah. Eight years, six point two five million smackaroos.

Well, they have a, this is, This is a guy. They have a couple new defensemen in Columbus. They are loading up. They are building a Mike Babcock team for Mike Babcock. And this is, you know, you talk about, you know, do you go two years, eight years?

This is the guy who should be going eight years, right? Classic case. Lock in now. Some team wants you. Some team's willing to give up an asset to get you early. And I know a lot of people are like, wait, why would you trade a third round pick for a guy you could just, just sign on July 1st for nothing. And it's the answer is you get that advantage.

You get the ability to go to him and say, we can do eight years right now. Here's an aggressive offer. Yeah, maybe somebody would beat it on July 1, but maybe not. We've seen defensemen of this type bet on themselves going into free agency and have it not work out.

So he's probably sitting there going, do I want to take the risk of being Chris Russell or do I want to just lock in now on a really generous offer? Go live in Columbus for eight years, I think probably made the right choice. Oh, yeah, he absolutely made the right choice. Is Columbus making the right choice, or are they, are they like paying the bluejack attacks on all of these contracts and trades and that? Well, and if so.

Not for Proverov, I would say. Like, they, you know, they actually got them at kind of a discount because they routed it through through LA, right? And, you know, again, like we said it last week about ProVrob. You can think what you want about the guy, and I certainly do. But like, he's a perfectly capable middle pairing defenseman, right? And Damon Severson is a perfectly capable middle pairing defenseman. And I guess the thinking would be like Werenski is your top pair guy.

you can put Boquist with him or somebody like that. And then you got two pretty solid pairs. And that helps a lot. That helps a real lot. But again, if you're paying the premium for all these guys, like, yeah, Columbus has 10 million bucks to spend this summer and they don't really have anybody they need to give a big contract to, which is nice. But like, I don't know, they're a year away from needing.

to give like Cole Cillinger and Kent Johnson new deals. And if you're going to pay the Columbus tax to everybody, that 10 million bucks dries up pretty quickly. You can't go out and get as much help as you think as this team probably needs, right? That's it. And like when I talk about the Columbus tax, this is the same thing you see in places like Winnipeg, where it's the idea that it's hard to acquire players.

Yeah. in free agency obviously and also trade situations where the player might have some control because we figure Columbus, Winnipeg, Ottawa teams like that are probably on a lot of these lists. When you're talking about drafting guys and getting them to lock in, that tends to go a little bit smoother for teams like that. So, you know, I'm not suggesting that Kent Johnson is going to have one eye on the door. No, for sure, yeah. Yeah, it's, I mean, they've got themselves. for solid defensemen now.

The question is for how long and at what cost and what can Mike Babcock do with them. Yep. Well, it's at least two years for all these guys, right? All these guys are signed through 2025. So do you think

do these guys play any playoff games for the Blue Jackets in that two years? If things keep dropping on off in Pittsburgh and free up a spot in the in the, and Washington and free up like a, a competitive playoff spot, not even necessarily a playoff spot,

but like one where they can be around it in that division. May, maybe. I don't. They, they have, they have the third pick. You know,

maybe Lucas Carlson. I don't know if he's next year. Doesn't it feel like there's already like one playoff spot that feels like it's really up for grabs in, uh, in the east. And we say this every year, and then somebody surprises us,

but the four teams in the Atlantic, you feel like have a real good shot. Carolina has been good for a long time. New Jersey is on the way up. The Rangers, I know, are in a little bit of disarray, and we'll talk about Laviolet a bit, but it's hard to see them dropping out of the playoffs, I would say.

Totally, yeah. So now you've got every other young, up-and-coming team aiming for one spot. I don't know, man. Good luck. Yeah, it's really tough. Like I said, I think it's plausible. I don't, you know, their goal-tending situation is iffy to me, although, you know, they have, they have this Tarasov kid who they, I think, is going to be pretty good, but, you know,

the returns in Columbus this season were not. not solid. So it's really, they would have to go out and get someone really good. Like they would have to kind of make themselves into that destination for, for like a pending RFA and, you know, like maybe not even Alex to Brinkett style. But like that type of a guy in the next two years. And I don't know that they can do that without, again, paying the Columbus. It sucks to live here tax.

And obviously the perception is. Yeah, we're talking about all the Columbus tax and it's so tight. And they got Johnny Goddreau last year. So, I mean, they did. You know, clearly there is, maybe we are overstating the challenge. Here's a question, though. Did they pay a Columbus tax on Johnny Goodrow at 975? Well, certainly at the time, it did not feel that way.

Like, I know that when, like, when that announcement trickled out that, hey, it's going to be Columbus, the first thought was, wow. What is it? Like $11 million. And then it was, okay, they must have really blown out. And it wasn't.

Like, I mean, that was a very reasonable UFA contract for a guy coming off 100 plus point season. Now, whether it lives up to that,

you know, who knows, but, uh, yeah, I don't, I don't, I don't,

I certainly didn't feel like they, you know, they, they overpaid, um, last year. Especially considering they, like,

that was a day one signing. It wasn't like he got a week in and was like, all right, let's squeeze. Let's find one team we can squeeze. So, yeah. Yeah, they'll be an interesting team to watch because like I said, they have cap space. They don't really have anybody they need to throw a lot of money at. So they could be a wheeler dealer on July 1 or even at the draft. Like they, I don't, I think they would obviously keep the number.

one pick, but if they traded all their other picks that wouldn't surprise, when I say the number one, their number one, the number three, obviously. But like, it wouldn't surprise me at all if they were like, yeah, we don't need our second round pick this year. Who cares? You know, it feels like they're trying to power out of something. Obviously, you take Lucas Carlson or God, if Fantilly drops to them. But, yeah, it'll be really interesting to see.

But we kind of alluded to the Winnipeg tax earlier. seems like things are going real sideways with their, not even pending free agents necessarily, but just the guys that will be coming up on free agency in the next two years. Seems like Pierre-Luc Dubois is like gone, and I believe it was Pierre LeBron reported, Hellebuck is not going to be resigning with the Jets. Yeah, in an interesting way, right? Like it was just kind of slid into a piece. It wasn't the headline.

It was like, oh, by the way, in case you're thinking about Hellebuck. about signing an extension. He's not going to happen. Not going to happen. The ship has sailed, I think, was maybe the line. So, yeah, time to, in theory, time to make some moves if you're Winnipeg. Now, both of those two guys are under contract next year. Yep.

While Dubas not under contract yet. He's under control. He's under control. They will have him next year if they want him unless he was willing to actually go home, which feels unlikely. at this point. You never know. Could happen. We will, you would assume

that both guys get traded. And then you sort of go, okay, how much, how many other moves do we have? And this is the interesting question to me, because I'm going to read you, first I will read you a list of all the Jets signed beyond next season, the 20, 23, 24 season. This is a complete, list of those players.

Kyle Connor, Nick Eelers, Adam Lowry, Mason Appleton, Josh Morrissey, Nate Schmidt, Neil P. Yonk. End of list. And Eelers, Appleton, Schmidt, and

Pionk are not signed past 2025. So... I mean, it's it's... We just talked with Vegas, right? Starting over, that sort of thing. Like, having not a lot of guys signed isn't the worst thing in the world. Totally. No, I agree.

But it does get a little scary when you phrase it like that, right? Because you're listening to that list. And that's, you know, there's some good players there. For sure. They're sitting there going to go, man, like, what are we going to have in three years? Yeah. And so, it's going to be up to you. So the question is, and we'll get the, I feel like we'll get the, I feel like we'll

the answer when it comes time to do the Dubois trade first and foremost and then maybe the hellibuck trade you know within a month or two after that or you know almost certainly before the trade deadline we'll put it that way they will I can't imagine they would allow him to walk for nothing um although we've seen stranger things happen it it kind of depends how the season is going but sure doesn't seem like it's going to be going too great well but but it depends And like what they get back for Dubois seems like that'll tell us plenty. Because if they go futures like picks and prospects, this team could be reentering or entering a rebuild. And if they don't get picks and pros, like if they get like NHL roster players, guys who can contribute now, blah, blah, blah, blah,

you know, what can you get for a Connor Hellebuck, you know, in that regard? like it feels like something pretty decent but you would imagine yeah i mean although having having aiden hill lead a team to a cup maybe doesn't uh oh i'm saying i'm saying it's it's more um the other way like where you go out and you get a forward with connor hellabuck and and you do the aiden hill game maybe yeah although you know they don't even have a backup goal he's signed right now so that's what i'm saying like as far as their trade market there sure Maybe some of it. But, yeah, I mean, Buffalo needs a goalie.

New Jersey looks like a team that's maybe just a goalie away from being really solid. There's teams out there. I don't think you're going to get a massive haul. Just because, I mean, you look at the history of goalies being traded and you don't see a lot of guys. Well, it's very rare that. You're not getting like top prospect and a pick and a 40 goal score. Like the, that's tough. No, for sure.

But it is very rare. that a Vezna quality goaltender hits the market. Now, granted, this is a guy who's going to be 31 when this contract is, his current contract is over, and he's going to want, whatever, $9 million for six years or whatever. And it's like,

well, that doesn't seem like it's too encouraging. Which leads you to wonder, is this a situation where does Winnipeg let potential trade partners talk to him? Or not? Yeah. Which helps their bargaining position. position because you're right they could you know if I'm Buffalo let me talk to him and I call

him up and he says you know what I love what you guys are building there like I'd I'd sign a reasonable deal to go be a part of it cool all right well I feel more comfortable giving up a high draft pick for this guy totally whereas if he says yes six times nine million you know what Kevin Shevolde Av I'm going to look elsewhere thanks yeah which means it might be in Winnipeg's best interest to say no we're not going to let you do it you're going to take your chances. Boy, is this team ever, have you, I can't, I can't remember a team ever being at this much of a crossroads in a way.

You know what I mean? Like, where it's like, they really could go either direction. It feels a little bit about like, maybe a little bit like Ottawa a few years ago when they had Carlson and Stone and had, were coming off of the playoff run and had just got Duchen and then it was all starting to fall apart. But different because by the. the time Ottawa got to that point, it had already started to crumble on them. But, uh, and whereas Winnipeg, who knows? And, you know, you got Rick Bonas as your coach and,

oh, I don't know, it's good. They're going to be a really interesting team in the offseason. Really, really interesting. Yeah. Like, not, maybe not the team to watch because there are obviously more than a few that have some interesting decisions to make, but if you were going to do a ranking, they, they might be number one. Pretty close to the top, yeah. Yeah. For sure. All right.

Why don't we wrap this up with one other guy who looks like he's going to get traded soon. And, you know, doing the same thing as Pierre-Lupe-Doubaugh, it looks like. Is Alex DeBrinquet in Ottawa? Yeah. So this is that thing where when they made the trade last summer and everybody thought, wow, what an amazing trade. summer appear great job and some of us were saying you know what value wise yeah that is great trade and it's a good risk but there is a risk here right because what if he doesn't want to stick around

or what if he wants big big dollars that you don't feel are appropriate and he goes out and has an okay season not a great one no and now the thing that we were told not to worry about seems like it is exactly playing out in that it doesn't sound like he's interested I don't think it's he's not interested in staying in Ottawa, point blank. I think it's he's not, the, the numbers that he's looking for don't fit with what Ottawa wants. And he doesn't have the attachment to, you know, sort of like, well, then why don't we just, you know, it's like, we've, we've only been on a few dates. Let's just break up. Like, why are we fighting our way through this? Like, let's just go our separate ways. And the fact, the ownership situation, the, the, the, the, the, the,

The fact that the ownership situation leads to a front office situation and the uncertainty just trickles down everywhere, coach, as well. Probably makes sense to move on, but how do you make that deal happen? When does it happen? Is it something that happens in the lead-up to the draft, or do you maybe do it later in the summer when ownership is locked in? It's a tough one. and it's going to be very interesting to see whether Ottawa gets back the investment they made in him.

It kind of feels like they couldn't possibly, right? It would be tough. And that was a deal that, again, last year, a lot of us looked at it and said that that's a good deal for Ottawa. You know, they gave what, like a mid first round pick and a second, I think? Yeah, something like that. For a guy, you know, for a 41 goal score, that felt like pretty good. a pretty good move, but hasn't really worked out that way. So, you know, if they can move him for something approaching what they gave up,

even at a bit of a loss, it's not the end of the world. But it does put an interesting player onto the market because he's young. He has a pair of 40-goal seasons, if I'm not mistaken. You are correct about that, yeah. So. And another where he had 32 and 52. too. So for a while there, it was looking like he was rocking and rolling.

And then a season last year where he didn't put up those numbers, especially on the goal scoring front, but also, you know, some of it was just, you know, the shooting percentage went down and, you know, it's... Played for the Ottawa senators, yeah. Played for the center. This is a classic, you know, we always say like it's so easy, right? Hey, man, just buy low, sell high. This is a classic buy low.

except this is the problem with buying low is you're always kind of like, am I, wait, am I buying low or am I buying on the way down? And they always look the same until you have the hindsight. So somebody is going to roll the dice. Somebody might end up getting a really, really good player at close to the lowest price point you can get.

But let's see. And if we know that, then Ottawa knows that. And Pierre Dorian is going to be GM. for his job over the next few weeks. It's interesting. It'll be an interesting situation. Yep. I, you know, how about this?

Why don't we take a break and we'll get into the, the senator's ownership stuff in a minute. This week's episode of Puck Soup is brought to you by Raycon and folks. You've been to the grocery stores lately, huh? You've been to the coffee shop. You've been to the gas pumps. They're trying to turn you upside down. Shake all the money out of your pocket.

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and I was like, you know what, we'll just save it for the next break here. And so Michael and Lauer has agreed to buy 90% of the Ottawa senators, the Melnick daughters keeping 10% of the team, for it looks like about 950 million smackaroos. Right. So not quite the billion dollar mark we were teased with, but only you're up for 90% though.

I think they said the highest, the highest price ever paid for an NHL team. Wow. And obviously that'll last right up until the next one is sold. But, yeah, I mean, it's a big number and it goes, again, it goes to the financial stability of this league, as much as we can point at the ratings and all these other things. Being the fifth or sixth most popular sport is still a very good business.

these days. And of course, I imagine I'm preaching to the choir here, but this is why you should never, ever, ever believe an owner who tells you how much money they're losing or why they need you to close a few libraries to build them a new arena. Even if they lose money, you make money at the end when you sell. So it's, I don't know a ton about this. I'm assuming that tomorrow on, on, on, the athletic podcast that Ian will explain it all to me because he's very plugged in but it basically sounds like the from if you're outside Ottawa

your impression of this whole process was probably like the glitz and the glamour of Ryan Reynolds and Snoop Dog and the weekend and all these celebrities kept zooming in and out of it and in the end they got bought by a relatively boring group fronted by

a hockey guy who had previously owned a chunk of the HABs and he owns an HL or a HL team rather. Kind of on brand for Ottawa as the sleepy, boring government town that we are, but also not necessarily the worst thing for this senator's organization to just see. As Ian wrote a piece today or like having somebody who's just calm and professional and knows what they're doing come in is maybe, just what the doctor ordered for these guys. But it sounds like also the deal won't close any, officially close anytime soon.

Yeah, because he's going to sell his piece of the habs first. So now we're into, it's sort of, what does this do to the off season for this team as far as Pierre Dorian and DJ Smith? And there's lots of rumors about Patrick Waugh. I don't know if that's showing up outside of Ottawa,

but that he just, he just resigned his junior job. Yeah, he up and quit his job. with the Crovet Rampart. And, you know, this is a guy who obviously has the name value for a team that's looking to sell some tickets, has done a lot of winning, is bilingual, which is a nice plus in Ottawa. So it could make some sense. And DJ Smith, I think, is a good coach who's done a solid job in Ottawa, but not a guy that you have to keep. Put it this way.

No. And I think a lot of people had speculated that if this was the winning bid, that this was sort of the worst case scenario for Pyridorian, because it was a guy coming in with the hockey background, meaning he already has some people maybe in mind. Steve Steyas is apparently one of them, the former NHL player who has been doing front office work. I guess it worked with him on the junior team.

He is in Edmonton, is it? that's a good question he certainly played for Edmonton once upon a time I don't know what his job is so he he I believe is already working in the NHL and so is not necessarily a situation where he could just become the GM today but maybe if they're going to make the change

down the line maybe he's the next guy so it doesn't look great for Pierre Dorian right now which sure doesn't makes for a fascinating dynamic as they set out to deal with Alex to break it and whatever else. So, yeah, I think if you're disappointed that we didn't get Ryan Reynolds or Snoop Dog involved in the NHL, your fallback is at this point the non-zero chance that maybe it's Patrick Waugh coming back to our NHL lives.

Now, maybe we can get this Michael Landlauer guy. Maybe we can get him into Deadpool 3, though. Could be. How would that feel for you guys? Yeah. Oh, and then we should say the other piece is that, And we knew whoever won the bid, Daniel Alpherson will show up in some capacity. Yeah.

Certainly. He had very notably stayed out of the process just so that he could drop in. And look, I mean, there's nothing to say that Ryan Reynolds can't come back in some capacity. But we'll see. We'll see where it goes. But for now, the next thing is they still have to figure out the arena. That is still an open question. and there's going to be, that'll be an ongoing story.

But for now, getting the boring but relatively professional and put together bid is not the worst thing in the world, even though it's not as sexy as having Snoop Dog and Deadpool hanging out together. That's right. Calgary Flames have named Ryan Huska head coach. I think it's Huska or Huska. I'm not sure. But I hope you're not pausing for me to jump in and correct.

Now, of course, I know all the Calgary playing. Sean just knows all the Flames assistant coaches or whatever. Exactly. So he's the coach. And it's interesting because I think I even said last week, like I had heard a couple of people saying like keep an eye on you know, like Gerard Gallant or some other veteran coach here,

but they go with a guy who's never been an NHL head coach before. And I got to wonder if that's because they don't have a lot of faith that they're going to bring back all their guys who were signed for one more season and then on their way out. Or potentially on their way out.

So you got Backland, Lindholm, Tofoli, Hanofin, Tanev, Zedorov, and Schillington are all pending UFAs after like the 2020, 24 season.

And obviously they've been talking to all those guys and it seems like the message they've been getting from some of them is not interested in coming back.

And so you wonder if Huska is a hire either to say, well, look, give it a shot with this guy you already know and maybe maybe, you know, that'll change your mind.

Or it's we're bringing in a rookie NHL head coach because we are now recognizing that the way this roster is structured is kind of untenable and we've got to start turning it over to the kids a little bit. Yes.

And we don't know the answer to that, but it is very interesting to me that like there have been some reports that we're saying that, you know, we all know Darryl Sutter isn't necessarily a players coach, let's just say. I think that's fair to say, yeah. And he's, look, that's been his reputation everywhere.

He wins, but you're not going to like him. You won't like him until it's time to, you know, hand out the trophies and then you're okay with them. But now there's talk that, like, there were flames saying, like, I'm not back. If Daryl Sutter comes back, I'm out. Forget it. I'm done.

so now you wonder you would assume if those conversations were happening that they tried to figure out, okay, what do you think of this assistant guy that we have? You would imagine. But you're right. I mean, is the rebuild, is the tear down coming? Remember, new GM in place. So those are the guys who have typically the opportunity to do that if they feel like that's the need. So yeah, it's nice to see a new guy get a shot. He's, I'm looking at it now. He's 47, so

not a younger guy. I almost, as coaches go, sir. As coaches go. God, this dude's my age. And I was like, that's still pretty, oh, right, never mind. But yeah, I don't know, man. The flames are going to be a tough team to pick next year. You talk about, I mean, they're, they're not that far off from being the Panthers, right? I mean, the Panthers were, God, did the flames finish first in the West last year? Yeah, I believe they did. And then they missed the playoffs by a few points. So you don't want to panic and say well they, yeah.

Yeah. And, you know, a lot of that was just, they had a good goal tender two years ago and the same guy was bad last year. but they've got some interesting pieces. So, God, I hate that Hubert O contract, though. Oh, I hated that one who signed. Who it stinks. Whoever gave that contract out, boy, I wouldn't want him running my team.

I'll tell you. But yeah, I mean, it's interesting because they are kind of like Winnipeg in that they have like one, two, three, four, five, six players signed beyond the 2024-25 season. Now those players are Hubertow, Cadry, Blake Coleman, Mackenzie Weger, and Jacob Markstrom.

Yes. All of whom are going to be comfortably past 30 at that way. I would rather have that Winnipeg list that you gave me. Totally. Absolutely. Which is weird, because as you were starting to say that, in my head, I was like, man, which one of these teams would I rather have, Winnipeg or Calgary?

And I was thinking, it's probably Calgary. but then when you read that place. Calgary has no prospects. Yes. They, they, they, they're, I shouldn't say no,

like Dustin Wolf is going to be, well, every, every team has some prospects. I don't, I know, whenever you say a team's got a bad pipeline, like some fan is,

they do have a bad pipeline. Apparently, apparently you've never heard of this 24 year old HL guy and you're like, all right, you got me, man. Yeah. No,

like they, they have Matt Coronado. He looks like he's going to be, a decent NHL player. They have Dustin Wolf who looks like he's going to be maybe even a good NHL goal. He's been very good in the AHL. And they will probably clear a space for him to play next year. Yeah, you would think. And so yeah, like, it's not that they don't have prospects. They have so few that you would say, well, you know, they might as well have none in terms of how much it's going to help their team next year, even the year after they.

that unless you can trade Noah Hanofin for a pick and a prospect and which and trade absolutely could yeah trade Michael Backland for a pick and and Elias Lindholm would get you Linholm to Foley like all these guys these are these are good players on good contracts for one more year though for one more year like it's totally plausible that Calgary could get good shit for them but they got to want to trade these guys and kind of admit we got to run up the white flag a little bit here. And this is where

the GM change helps you, right? Because I think that whether it's Trilliving or whoever, like if the GM who signed Cadry and gave the extensions to Hubert O and Weger is still there, you almost feel like it's, you got to

throw the good money after bad. But the new GM can step in there and be like, hey man, this is the situation I've walked into is what it is, but I'm not committed to following any path. And the other thing here is just with Calgary is you have to say that Conroy was very clear that he's not going to let guys walk for nothing in free agency. Yep.

We said in Winnipeg, you know, you don't know for sure and it would be hard to imagine. But Conroy specifically said that in the Johnny Gros situation, he was like, I would not let that happen. is very easy to say in hindsight. I would have loved if somebody had put their hand up and say, like, what specifically would you have done to prevent that? But it's, you know, I don't think, you know, he's, he's, if,

if Christopher Tannav wants to walk as a free agent, you probably are okay with that. Go with God. It sounds like, you know, Lindholm, probably Hannafin, maybe Tafoli, you put in that group, you're three guys that it's got to be, you got to sign them or trade them,

and then it becomes, okay, when do you trade them? Because as we know, once the draft passes, the trades get a little tougher, but you can't sign an extension until July 1st, so how does the timing work out? Another fun team to watch. Yeah, for sure. The New York Rangers have hired Peter Lavialette

to be their head coach. Yeah. I think it was three years, five million or something like that. or am I getting those numbers? That's what somebody reported, which is... I can't imagine they're giving it five years. I was very surprised. I was by five million, though?

Yeah. For a guy where... Is it though? I mean, Jesus, Babcock was six million. You know, this is years ago, but that's the going rate... That was a Lebrun report. Yeah. Three years at just under five million.

So, I mean, Pierre knows what he's talking about. Like, five million is the going rate for elite level coaches. And Laveolette, I don't know. It's hard to shake the impression that, you know, when they moved on from Glant, the question you always ask, whenever team makes a move is who's out there that's better? Yep. And you kind of looked at it. And when you first moved on, we talked all year about Glant maybe being on the hot seat.

And it ended up happening that way. But then you go, wow, who out there is actually an upgrade over him? And it's tough to shake the feeling that considering Peter Lavillette was out there through this whole process. And considering it took as long as it did, that this was just a case of the musical chairs. And when the music stopped, you just got to, you end up grabbing the best spot you have, which is Peter Lavillette's a good coach, has had a lot of success in this league not as much recently. and is a guy with a shelf life, which probably doesn't bother you if you're the Rangers,

because you're in win now mode. But I don't know, it just doesn't really feel like a super inspiring pick. Totally. It feels like they got the best, most recognizable name out there of a guy who probably didn't have a ton of other options, but maybe did if he was able to shake him for that much.

Yeah, it's one of those situations where it feels like Heinz shaking loose in Nashville, where they made a huge upgrade at Coach, obviously, and him having the history with Drury. Like, Drury at least had to think about it and then was like, no, it should be Laviolet, which I think given a choice between the two, I'd probably also take Laviolet, quite frankly.

But as you say, totally uninspiring choice. Um, and look, it's not, it's not about getting me all like, oh, what a, what a crazy. They went off the board and they made a daring choice and I'm excited about it. Like, you know, pick the coach you think is going to get you across the finish line. But the results with Labielette the last few years have been, I think it's fair to say, diminishing returns. And granted with a team that was just getting old and banged up and stuff. So under a little bit understandable. but I just...

What's his track record with the younger players, I'm thinking? I mean, it basically doesn't have one recently. Okay. Because that feels like, you know, the difference between, like, what's the difference between the Rangers now and the Capitals a few years ago is, other than having recently won a Stanley Cup, is the Rangers do have that younger next generation coming, but that generation hasn't lived up to the standards yet,

which is a big part of why. by Galant had to go. Totally. It was a tough spot. It was always going to be a tough spot to hire, right? Because you can't necessarily, it's tough to bring in a new guy in a market like New York with that owner, with the expectations, with this team ready to win. You know, it's tough to go to a first time coach, a young, bright mind who, you know, hasn't necessarily had the chance to do it. but when you just go looking for veterans,

it turns out it wasn't a great market for them. Totally, yeah. It's going to be really interesting because, like, we had a lot of criticisms about the way the Rangers played hockey the last couple of years under Galant, right? Like, not particularly good at five-on-five, overly reliant on the goaltending,

unbelievable power play, right? in what way is that different from how the Capitals played when they were at their best under Laviolet? I don't remember specifically, but I feel like there was no time when I was like, oh, the Capitals won the best five-on-five teams in the league, you know? No. So I wonder what the Rangers look like next season. If I'm a Rangers fan, like I said, I think this is kind of a safe pick. And I don't know if as a Rangers fan who's like been saying for a couple years now, we're ready to take the next step, we're ready to take the next step.

I don't know if a safe pick is necessarily what I'm looking for. No. Because it seemed like Galant was a safe pick and how'd that go, you know? Yeah. And we're now at the point where all the vacancies are filled. not counting Columbus, who technically have not hired Babcock yet, but by all accounts will. Although we don't know what's going to happen to Toronto yet, and we don't know what's going to happen in Ottawa. We talked about Patrick Waugh being the option there. I don't think there's anywhere else where it doesn't feel like we're locked in.

so that means that Gerard Gallant big name that's not going to be coaching Heinz won't be coaching on opening night any other big name veteran guys that had recently been in the mix

I mean I don't think anyone's expecting like Dallas Akins to get a head coaching job or anything like that Sutter obviously will not surface for a while if at all. I think those are the guys. Boudreau, I guess, would be the other one that you might think of as an option.

Okay. Yep. So those will be your mid-season names to watch, I think. And I don't know about you, but out of that group, I like Galant. So let's see. Yep. We just saw two teams make the finals that made coaching changes. So how much patience he got?

Yeah. All right, a couple other smaller things here. And then we're out of here. Shane Dohn, I don't remember what the title is, but he's with the Maple Leafs now. Yeah. Some consultant or whatever. Yeah. And as someone put it, it seems like his job to just walk around the Maple Leafs practice facility and be like,

I don't have stuff like this in Arizona. I'll tell you that. Yeah. Just like within earshot of. of Austin Matthews the whole time. Yep. And look, I mean, there is, I know a lot of people as soon as they saw that,

they're thinking like, oh man, it was just like Austin Matthews' favorite player growing up and all of this stuff. But there was, for living, it used to work in Arizona. So they had a connection there to some extent. Yeah. I mean, if you're trying to teach a bunch of young players,

what it takes to win. A guy who won like four playoff rounds in 20 years is the guy, right? You got to bring him in. Shane Don't, she's like, holy crap, how have you guys been having this much success? You guys are amazing. Just really pumping the tires there. Whoa. You made the playoffs consistently?

No way. That's wild. I guess the other news in Toronto is just that, as of now at least, other than Spetsa, no one else has left, which was a concern. There was lots of reporting about how miserable everybody was that the dubas had left. And at least for now, there hasn't been that flood of exits. And Pridim would be the guy to watch. Like, he's the guy that is a Lee fan you want.

He's their cap guy and he's very, very good. So almost as if he personally designed the NHL salary cap. So that's the guy you want him to keep. And then one other one while we were recording earlier, Jason Spetsa, again, kind of tangential to the Leafs here, obviously. Jason Spetsa, the assistant general manager with the Pittsburgh Penguins. Yeah, which is interesting because they don't have a GM. So he's the assistant to nobody right now. I think everybody assumed that he was following Dubas wherever he would go.

so him coming in. It's just the title is interesting. Although somebody said that somebody online was like, oh, is this the first time someone's been hired as an assistant to a GM who didn't exist? And someone said that, I guess, in Vancouver, they hired all the assistants before Alvin came in. Oh, okay. Not unprecedented, but unusual. And if you're going to model yourself after a franchise, right?

And, yeah, yes, exactly. It's worth pointing out, though, that like Spetsa, hey, we all love Jason Spetsa. Last year was his first year in a front office. He's learning. So this is not a guy. This is not like you're bringing in some grizzled veteran and saying, like, this guy's going to be the assistant. And then, you know, some GM's going to be looking over their shoulder. I think any new GM in Pittsburgh, if there is one, because I still think that it may end up just being.

Dubas, I don't think he's going to feel especially threatened by Evan Jason Spetser there because he's years away from being ready to move up. Yep. And I think, unless I miss something big, I feel like that's it. Should be. Should be. That's it.

Yeah. Congratulations, Vegas. They did it. Congratulations, Jack Eichol. He did it, you know, all this stuff. This is a real feel-good cup win for a lot of people. Obviously, a lot of people also fucking hate Vegas, so fair enough. But, yep, it'll be an interesting off-season.

I can't wait for it. I say, let's go. Yep. And, Sean, why don't you hit him with the plugs, brother? You find me at The Athletic tomorrow with Ian. We'll be back. So we'll be talking, I'm sure, lots of Ottawa Senator's sale. He will have the details on what's going on.

And you can find my stuff there. I had a quiz. Go up today. The return of the fun old, who didn't he play for a quiz? This one is Stanley Cup winning goals. I'm looking at the numbers. People are doing a little bit better on this one and in the past. So I think I went a bit easier on you guys.

And I got some other fun stuff coming up, including later this week. I think I'm going to write on which team should win the Cond Smythe. This is the concept I introduced last year, where whichever team made the dumbest trade with the Stanley Cup champion gets the Cond Smyth Award. Lots of candidates for Vegas. So it becomes an interesting debate.

Let's see where that goes. Yeah. And then for me, EP Rink side, obviously. If you want to get the draft guide, now's the time, obviously. And I said this on the PDO cast yesterday. But, you know, you're like,

oh, I don't want to read like 440 or whatever it is, player profiles. My team's not going to draft most of those guys, obviously. No, you get the draft guide so that when your team draft so in the third round, you can look up what all the geniuses who do our scouting have to, say. That's right. And argue with them because you will suddenly have a very strong opinion about a guy you had never heard of until your team's... You only had him 378th? I would have had him

372nd. What do you mean below average skating? What the hell? They're just mailing you a picture of a gun. Uh-oh. Yeah. Anyway, if you want that, sign up for... Not if you want the gun mail, the picture mailed to you. If you want the... the prospects guide and all that kind of stuff. And all my articles and Dimitri and J. Fresh and Mitch and J.D. and Lassie and all these guys. All right and good shit. So check it all out. E.P. Ringsside and use the code.

What is it? 2023 draft guide, all one word. Case sensitive. So all capital letters. And they will knock 50% off your annual subscription for a new sign up. So check all that out. And then check out patreon.com slash puck soup where we're doing all the bonus episodes for the rest of the month, obviously. And then the other day, me and Sean watched a hockey movie from 1937 starring John Wayne called Idol of the Crowds.

Very exciting. And he. It was fun. John Wayne learned to skate. Had never seen a hockey game when he made this movie. Yep. So. It was a, that was a fun one.

I enjoyed, I enjoyed the movie and the episode. Pretty good movie, honestly, yeah. So, yeah, check all that out at patreon.com slash puck soup. And, hey, we'll, we'll see you next week. I think, maybe. I think. I don't know. Why not?

Maybe nothing happens if we don't have a show. That's possible. Stay tuned, I guess. Thanks for listening, everyone. Thanks for the support. Have a good one. Bye, bye. Bye.

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, eats and tunes. It's your weekly bowl of Hagi and Nonsense. Book two.