Puck Soup - He's Allowed to Cross Check

Episode Date: January 21, 2025

Sean and Ryan talk about the McDavid suspension, more drama in Vancouver, the Penguins, and more. Sponsored by Factor (factormeals.com/puck50off)

I'm Ryan Lambert from Elite Prospects. I am Sean McNeue from The Athletic. And Sean, a bit of a controversial week in the NHL this time around here. So I'll leave it up to you. What do you want to start with? McDavid or the Canucks? Let's start with McDavid and get it out of the way. Great.

Okay. Here's my big take. Are you ready for this? Okay. It's bad that they don't call penalties when guys like tackle him and hold him on the ice. but it's worse when he cross-checked those guys in the face. Your thoughts. Have you considered watching ballet?

Well, look, you know, hey, the bear in the car we're talking about? That's right. Yeah. Look, I'll just say it. I'm surprised he got off so easily. It's been explained to me that cross-checks to the head when a game's been decided are six-game suspensions. even if you have no history. So I don't know.

I don't know what's up there. I thought it would be two games for him and Myers just to get him out of the rematch on Thursday. Yeah, that was my thinking as well. I don't think three is unimaginable. I mean, usually most of what I've seen has been people saying they expected one or two, but we always complain that the Department of Player Safety is too light.

So if they're a game too heavy, I can live with it. And beyond that, like I wrote my column on Monday, you can like it or not, but I think that being a guy who every couple of years will snap and cross-check someone in the head might not be the worst thing in the world for. Yeah, totally. Connor McDavid. You know. In the world of hockey, right? Like this, it used to be that that's what you were just, you know, obviously in the olden days, the stars had a different kind of protection of the, you know, you know, the Dave Semenko type, but it was also expected that, you know, if somebody got close to you,

you occasionally made them eat your stick, and that sent the message to stay away, or at least to keep your head up. And you could say that's ridiculous. You could say that's not how it should be, but it still is. So it's not the end of the world. Yeah. No, I've said before, like, McDavid, you know, it's a little bit of that thing in the NFL of like, you could call holding on every play. Like, if they gave Connor McDavid all the penalties he drew in a game, the Oilers would have nine power plays a game, right? And part of me thinks, well, then they should just have a fucking, like, call the fucking rulebook. You know, it's that simple.

But also, they're never going to do that for a whole bunch of reasons. reasons, not the least of which is like, you know, you just can't have a game that takes three hours because of all the penalties against McDavid and Dreyside were adjudicating. Yeah, and everybody always says, just call the rulebook until they do, and then everyone flips out and hates it. Well, so to that point, Sean, I was, I'm just going to read you some headlines from the Edmonton media here. This is the last, uh, this is the last few days, even before the suspension.

I know there's the one good one. Connor McDavid finally snapped. Are you happy now, NHL? Finally. That's Rob Tikowski from the Edmonton Journal. Mark Specter, why Connor McDavid is taking justice into his own hands. And the one from the athletic, a little more muted, but not by much. Dan Nugent Hopkins.

Nugent Hopkins. Nugent Bowman. How many times you think he gets that? Too many. Yeah. Connor McDavid deserves a suspension. But where are? the referees, big M-Dash little question mark.

Yeah, so like, I don't know. I feel like I've seen enough movies and read enough books or whatever that like vigilante justice is bad is kind of my read on that situation, but, you know, these guys love it. The weird thing about it is typically when you talk about. a star player having to take matters in his own hands. It's responding to cheap shots with a cheap shot. It's you've been slashing my ankles all game, so now I'm going to take a big hack of yours.

Or, you know, it's not, hey, there was blatant obstruction in the last few seconds of the game, which there was. But usually like, usually like, yeah, somebody getting away with a holding penalty. Typically, I would have to check the subsections of the hockey code, but I typically, that's not when you break out the stick sandwich for someone to gnaw. So, look, I get the frustration. I also get that you shouldn't cross-check guys, and you're going to get suspended when you do.

If you're the sort of, if you're kind of like, you know, where were the, well, where were the refs? They were the ones given the match penalty, you know? this is, and we've all had a discussion about Conner-McDavid drawing penalties again, so it'll probably result in a bit of an uptick the rest of the year. Yep. So, yeah, you live with it. Yeah. Now, what I thought was interesting is Josh Yohei also from The Athletic, sits down with Sidney Crosby, says,

what do you think of this shit? What do you think, Sid? I saw the cross check, Crosby told the Athletic, but I couldn't tell if it was his glove or his stick that hit him in the face. It's hard to say how bad it was from the angle that was available. You're splitting hairs. It's like anything. Sometimes your emotions get the best of you.

It's a physical sport. The one time you see that, you probably didn't see the nine hits that Connor took. Those ones are the ones that never make the highlights. When you retaliate, you make the highlights. Whether it's him or anyone else, it's an emotional game. That's going to happen sometimes. if there were calmer or cooler circumstances, he probably wouldn't have done it. That's hockey.

I think that's all correct. I think, you know, we want to fix the Department of Player Safety. All they do is bad over there. Sure, I get that argument. That's fine by me. Cindy Crosby should run it the second he retires. No one would ever be able to say a bad thing about a penalty they did or didn't give out again. I don't think he could take the pay cut, but...

Well, I mean, I'm saying if once he retires, he goes from not making any money to make him, you know, whatever... I have a feeling there'll be a job waiting for him. That's my prediction. Yeah, if he wants it. What if he doesn't want it? It's true. What if he just wants to go and suspend everybody except penguins? You don't understand.

All the guys that played for various teams, they don't favor anybody in the... Oh, right. Okay, yeah, I forgot. So, anyway, I don't have much else to say about Connor McGahn. David on this one. And, I mean, Tyler Myers, same deal, but he's tight. Yeah, he also shouldn't be doing that. Yeah.

He's Tyler Myers and so, oh, well. Like you said, three games, you know, they're getting them out of the rematch. And they're also saying one more for the road, how about, you know? I guess. I think that's fine. Yeah. Don't. All right.

Let's talk about the Canucks. Busy weekend up in Vancouver, I think, can say. So where do you want to start? Was it the Thursday game where Miller went to the end of the bench? That's right against the Kings? I think so, yeah. Yes, okay. So we'll start there, I guess.

The Canucks are delivering one of the stinkers of the year against the Kings on Thursday night. Cameras catch Rick Talket going over talking to J.T. Miller. J.T. Miller promptly gets up, walks down to the end of the end of the game of the game. the bench sits there, doesn't really play the rest of the game. And afterwards, apparently Rick Tocke was like, oh, I was telling, I was like yelling at everybody on the team, and he benched himself. That's red flag number one, folks. Yeah, that's, that's a pretty red flag.

You don't want to be in a situation where a guy's like, you know what, I'm not playing the rest of the game for whatever reason, you know? I'm surprised it was framed that way and not like he's quitting on. the team or whatever. Maybe it was internally. I don't know. Because I did see a little bit of an indication, I can't remember where on Saturday or maybe Sunday,

that was like, yeah, maybe Rick Talkett's fed up now, you know? Pedersen, okay, we knew about that one. Maybe you heard about some other players are also kind of sick of it. But if Talkett is the one that's fed up, maybe that's what kind of escalated the trade buzz on going into Saturday. Let's put it that way. It really feels like the Canucks have decided to trade this guy and they are hoping they can wait long enough for a better market to develop. Yeah.

And at some point, whether it's the coach or the GM or the guy who's actually in charge, Jim Rutherford, somebody goes, you know what, we're not getting that first. We're not getting that top prospect. Like, do what we got to do. Well, Cam Robinson over at Elite Prospects had an article this yesterday, I think it was, where he talked to a bunch of like GMs, assistant GMs, agents, that kind of thing. And it was just kind of like, what do you think the market for J.T. Miller is? Like, what do you think would be a reasonable return to expect if this trade happens in the next little while here? And the general consensus was a pick, a prospect, an NHL player, like younger side, maybe a center, that kind of thing. But nothing that's going to bowl you over.

Like, you know, maybe a B prospect, maybe like a, you know, 3C who's like 25 years old and a first round pick or something like that. Which honestly, that feels about right to me. Because here's the thing. Yeah, he's a good player when he's not sulking, right? Yep. It seems like he's been doing a lot of sulking lately. And also, oh, go ahead. I was going to say, yeah, he has.

And I guess the first thing I would say here, I hope he's okay because there have been a couple of times during this whole thing where I've seen interviews with him and he doesn't seem okay. So we, you know, clearly that's priority number one here. These guys are people before players. And you like to think that if he's, you know, the way that he's agam-me, you'd like to assume it's just sports stuff. You know, he's not happy with his role.

He's not happy with the team. He's not happy with whatever. And when he gets traded, that flips a switch. and, you know, he's back to his old self. I hope that's the case. Because there have been a couple of times where you're watching him talk and you're just going like, this doesn't seem right. Right.

Yeah. So, I don't know. I guess that just brings you into Saturday where Elliott Friedman reports during Hockey Night in Canada that like the plan seemed to have been at least for a little while, on Saturday to hold him out of the line up pending a trade to the New York Rangers that ultimately didn't happen. But it felt like it was getting close to happening because the Hartford Wolfpack held a few guys out of their lineup in their Saturday game.

Again, no like top prospects or anything like that. But guys that are like, oh, yeah, that's a good youngish. Rangers A.L. team. Yeah, that's exact. You said it perfect. And it's not really clear why the trade didn't go through on Saturday, but it does seem like the Rangers are one of the teams. I mean, they've been rumored since that first blow up back in like November or whatever.

I mean, you didn't even need to need the rumor mill to connect those dots. That he's a former Ranger that the Rangers themselves are a team that's struggling. that the version of the story that seems to be the most common in Vancouver is that he's on the outs because he's sort of a prick and yells at his teammates. And if you're Chris Dure, you might think I could use a guy in the room who's going to yell and break some stuff right now. Maybe jump into a painting or something. Yeah, yeah. I guess the piece of that that is important is that apparently, we don't know why the deal fell through, but apparently it was not the no-mo. clause.

Right. He has full no move protection. His agent told someone in the Vancouver media on Saturday that he hasn't even been asked to waive that. Which would be presumably the last step. And everybody assumes that he would waive to go to get out of Vancouver to at least some destinations and presumably New York is one of them. But he was not asked to do that.

The speculation from Drance on the athletic was that, one version they had heard was that it had to do with a first round pick being protected and what the level of protection was, which makes a lot of sense, right? If you're the Rangers, whether it's this year's pick or next year's, there's a lot of variance in where that pick could be. And if you're going, yeah, we'll give you a first round pick for, oh, but it's a lottery protected. If we miss the playoffs, we keep our pick.

And then if you're Vancouver, you're going, no, we're giving you this guy, this is the guy who's supposed to fix your team. We want the upside of if it doesn't work. We want the upside of potentially getting a high pick out of it. So that's the sort of thing that can usually be figured out. That's not a deal breaker. You wouldn't think. The other thing that I found interesting about this was

we've all been thinking Rangers for a while and then like last week it emerged that maybe the devils were in on this. Right. I wonder if that was sort of a kick in the pants for Chris Durary to get back on the phone, and I wonder if that's what it was designed to do. Right. Right, right, right. Somebody putting this out there in order to goose the sense of urgency from a division rival.

Yep, totally. Yeah, and so like, Let's talk about the other teams that may or may not be involved here. We've seen rumors, I think, to one extent or another that kind of indicated Dallas, New Jersey, Boston, Pittsburgh, and of course the Rangers. Any of those interesting to you? I mean, Dallas certainly, given where they've sort of been at as cop favorites who, for a lot of the season, have underperformed, somewhat. Certainly not in the range of a team like New York or Boston or some others, but they haven't quite been hitting on all gears.

I mean, I still think it has to be the Rangers. I just, which one of those teams stands out to you? Well, so Dallas is obviously interesting because they are also in the Western Conference, although I think I'd seen reports that that's not something the Canucks would be necessarily shy about. Especially within the conference. Like, come on. I guess I get if it's the division and you're like, I don't want to play this guy four times and then in the first round of the playoffs.

Totally. Like, what are the odds? Even if Vancouver and Dallas are the two best teams in the conference, which they're not, what are the odds they meet in the conference? conference final. Like, get the best deal. Yeah, of course. And I mean, Dallas, like, they, I don't think would have to take back any money.

Certainly not this year. They wouldn't have to take back any money because Sagan's probably done for the regular season. And then I think, is Jamie been a free agent after this year? I think he's done after this year. Yeah. So, like, they might not even have to worry about it next year, right? Which is interesting because that's, you know, for all the talk of what kind of player Miller is right now, it's got what, six years left after this, five? Yeah, something like that.

A lot. A lot of years for a guy his age left. Yep. So I don't, I don't know, man. I also don't know. I still think a lot of this is like potentially plays out well for Vancouver in the sense that they get to do the, oh no, we. We've been backed into a corner to trade this guy. We don't want to trade.

Act. And maybe end up getting out from a contract. They should want to get out from under. Yeah. I did see someone retweet the other day. The Francesco Aquilini tweet from like three or four years ago, I guess it would have been. Where he's like, I don't see a lot of people criticizing Jim's contract for J.T. Miller these days, do I? Whoops.

Interesting. And look, I mean, the first two years of that deal, he's been fantastic. Yep. I thought, you know, when that deal got signed, I was one of the ones going, like, that's terrible. It's going to be a disaster right after, nope, made me look bad for a couple years. But, yeah. I don't know. So, Sean, I guess the question is, what's it like to be vindicated?

Yeah. You know? Completely and thoroughly vindicated. Once again, I'm writing my analysis. The other team I thought was really interesting there is New Jersey. just because from one Hughes brother to two Hughes brothers. And like, you know, there's been some implication. I hadn't thought of that, yeah.

There's been some implication I feel like that Quinn is maybe one of the guys who's fed up with all this J.T. Miller stuff. Well, I mean, he is the captain. Right. Presumably he has been involved in this in some way or another now. Yeah. Not publicly other than that one kind of time. That one comment.

He acknowledged it. He's not sure, you know, you don't hear rumors about, oh, okay, Quinn Hughes is taking this side or he got yelled at or, you know, yelled at somebody. But he has to be in the middle of it. Yeah, you'd think. And, I mean, if that's the case. Well, he's not very good captain if he's not. Put it out. Right.

And when I say in the middle of it, I don't mean part of the problem, but, you know, part of the situation. Yeah, he has to be, you know, he's getting C-Ced on those emails. Let's put it. Yeah. But the thing that's funny about that to me is, I don't know Luke and Jack Hughes from a hole in the wall. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know. I've never spoken to those guys.

But if I'm them, I'm like texting him every day. What's the shit? What's going on up there? You know? Yep. Give me the scoop on this. J.T. Miller, Elias Patterson situation. And, like, maybe New Jersey would be like, you know, we know, we know we can turn a.

it around for that reason, or it's just like, you know, the classic thing of like, once we bring them into the fold, we'll get it all figured out. Yeah. We have the culture. Our room will definitely. Yep. Yep. I could, I, now, if they're texting, do you think Quinn's like testing, text them, text

them back like, this guy's a psycho man? You can't, you can't deal with this guy run away? Or do you think he's like, oh, no, yeah, he's great dude. Yeah. He's fantastic. The trade goes down. and he just texts them like a gif of a tire fire or something. The middle finger. Yeah. The middle finger emoji.

Yeah. I thought Boston was interesting just because, well, first of all, they do need someone who can play center. They're still kind of casting about looking for one of those. They should have signed a guy for like 50 million in the off-season. Yeah, I agree. Maybe a guy from Vancouver. You think anybody? Maybe. Yeah. But the thing that's interesting about that for me, is like does ownership sign off on that because like we're starting to hear from boston like i think

charlie jacobs had some comments last week about like yeah i have full faith in dawn and cam or whatever and then cam neely had some comments um to to the boston media the other day and you know they were all just kind of like well there there's two ways we could go about this and that kind of thing and it's like i guess that's true cam thanks you know but you trade for J.T. Miller, you're taking a pretty firm. Let's try to save Don and Cam's jobs here, you know? Yeah. And you're basically saying we are, you know, it's like having a window that used to be wide open and it's starting to slide down. And so you put a little hunk of wood there to keep it open for a bit more. Yeah, a single matchstick. Let's see how long this lasts. You know.

And then Pittsburgh, I guess we'll talk more about the penguins in the second half of the show here. But again, it's not like they couldn't use a guy who's good at hockey. That's taking a crowbar to a window that's slammed shut and started to rust over. Yeah. You're like, if I really, really lean on this thing, I think I can crack at about a half an inch and get some fresh air in the room. Yep. I can't imagine Pittsburgh is, ends up being the... Yeah, I mean, just what are they giving up?

Like, I think both Boston and Pittsburgh do have their first round picks this year, but both teams, zero prospects. Really, you know, like, realistically. And nobody from their NHL, like, who from the Pittsburgh Penguins roster is Vancouver? Like, yeah, we'll take him back. Yep. And Boston, like, I guess we'll take Justin Brazo. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. There's not a lot there. Some other stuff about this. Patterson told the team he wants to stay. That's good.

That's good, but also, like, I did not view that as meaningful information in the sense that, first of all, he did, he, if people are somehow not aware, he does not have any trade protection until July 1 because of the way the CBA works. He's not old. enough to be a UFA. Right. It's meaningful insofar as he doesn't want out. But if he did want out, they would still tell us he didn't want out. Yeah, you're probably right about that. Like there's no scenario where if you call up Jim Rutherford and say, like, what's the deal? Give me the background.

Like, where's Peterson at? That he's going to go like Pedersen wants out. He's going to say he wants to stay. Even if he doesn't want to because, I mean, as soon as you say Peterson wants, out all the offers get 25% lopped off. Of course, yeah. Would you trade Pedersen if you're Vancouver, even putting aside the Miller stuff, is this a situation where you look at it, kind of like I just said with J.T. Miller,

that, you know what, we've got this guy locked into an $11 million deal. Yeah, it's a lot of money. He hasn't been good in the playoffs. He's, you know, he's clearly at least part of an issue in the room. Do we just move on from this guy get, you would hope, a significant return? For the sake of assumption, let's say you get a significant, nice return that people think is fair for a guy like this, but it's future assets. Do you move on from, do you use this as an opportunity to move on from Elias Pedersen and get out from under a deal that you're not going to be able to get out from under in the summer? Right.

Or once July 1st rolls around. Well, so the reason that's an interesting question to me is at some point it starts to feel like they're wasting the Quinn Hughes Prime. How old do you think Quinn Hughes is at this point? Is he 23? He's 25 years old. Okay. I'm going to look up his birthday now. I think he recently turned 25.

Yeah, he turned 25 in October. So 25 for a little while longer here. still, but like, he's only signed for, for two years after this one. And you're going to reach a point where it's like, this is, if not the best defenseman in the league, I think he has been for two years now. If he's not, though, he's got, at worst, he's like third best. And, yeah, I know, like, Ronick was hurt earlier this year and Carson Sousy or whatever, like, yeah.

Okay, I get it. But at some point, you got to make hay with one of the best players in the world at his position. And if you ship out Pedersen purely for futures, or even, you know, even if you're saying like, yeah, we'll get a 24-year-old third line center or whatever, basically futures, yeah. I think that's a huge problem. Like at that point, why not trade Quinn Hughes too? Because you're not going to be, they're not, they're barely competitive now in the, in the Western Conference, you know. So like at that point, you might as well just trade Quinn Hughes as well and start again and be like, you know what? That's your Demco, right?

Was the name that got floated. Yep. Doug McLean said over, over the, I think it was on Friday maybe that, on Kippron Bourne that Demco might want out too. I'll see if I can pull the quote here. Scroll down, scroll down. I'm hearing Demco. I'm even hearing Demco doesn't really want to play. As Mom used to say, I'm only telling you what I heard.

I'm not telling you it's the truth. I hear that he's not excited to get in the net right now. I'm sure it's not the industry because I know the Canucks would make sure that's 100% before he's getting in there. but he's got to be a motivated goal tender. He's the backbone of this team as recently as a year or two ago, I mean. So let's hope that he is 100% healthy and he's ready to play and wants to play. That's not good. That's not great.

No. Especially, and it's a bit of a stereotype, but the, like, you sort of think of goalies as a little bit removed from the rest of the team in terms of the dressing room drama and stuff like that. Yep. So you would think it's. maybe not as much of that. That could be completely, I mean, that's based on nothing. They might be like, no, he's right in the middle of it, and that's what's ticking them off. But, yeah, kind of a mess in Vancouver.

Huh. It's interesting. It's crazy because everybody was like, well, they fixed it last year, and they fixed it by shooting 13% for three or four months, and then, you know, don't look up how things went after that. but I just, I don't know what the answer is because like a lot of their best players with the exception of Miller and Patterson are up in the next like two or three years. Garland, Besser, Demko, Hughes. I guess Roanick isn't up till God, 2032 it says here. But like all their best players, with the exception of Roanick are like good. to be tradable or walking within the next two, two, three years. I don't know what the, what the fix is here.

Like, can you imagine? Because, like, here's the other thing. Demko's 29. He's got one year after this one. He's still, you know, who, to Doug McClain's point, I'm not saying, you know, I'm not saying it's, he's right or wrong. I tend to kind of doubt that, like, this is a guy who's just like, I'm thinking maybe good.

You know, like, I don't think that's the case necessarily, but also the way things have gone in Vancouver the last few years wouldn't fucking surprise me. No, it wouldn't. And the other funny thing is like Vancouver is not to get to inside baseball, but like a notoriously secretive organization. They put a huge priority on not letting things spill out in the media. And there has not been a team that has had more mess. see drama leaking out to the world than Vancouver. Oh, well. I mean, you said you don't know what to do.

I think it starts with Miller. You move. Yeah, of course. J.T. Miller, you get out from under that contract. You get some assets back that, you know, maybe don't help you right away. But they could because you can, you know, This was another thing that Drance mentioned in his piece that he wrote with Harmon, that they made the Bo Horvatt deal, didn't actually get a great return in hindsight,

but then use that as a reason to flip a pick for Roanick, which was a deal that a lot of us didn't like at the time, but has worked out great. So, you know, you can... Well, has it? I think it has. Maybe on an individual... I mean, look, here's the thing. he's signed until 2032, you know, like, and he's 27 and I think a full no move clause kicks in next season.

So I just say there's a reason on Puckpeda that a no move clause is signified with an anchor. Fair. You know? But again, like I... Here's the thing. It's Vancouver. If you just make everyone so miserable that they want out, you don't have to worry about the no-moving clause. But yeah, I mean, that's the thing is like, even if obviously Ronek when he's been in the lineup has played well for them.

But, you know, they're no closer to being like a real contender, a competitive team than they were when they acquired him. If anything, it feels like they're farther away. Again, apart from they made the playoffs last year, pushed Edmont into the limit, all this shit, you know. I don't uh I don't know But I'll tell you this The thing I thought was really funny They're using two retention spots right now

So Sure are Ilya McAev and Tucker Poolman They're retaining salary on those guys For how long? This year only Uh McKayev spills into next year

But Pullman's up after this year It's a funny one It's a funny old story Um Anything else on the Canucks? I don't think so. Okay. Good win over the Oilers for all of that.

Yeah, that's true. Arguably the best team in the league, so. Yeah. Didn't get him into a playoff spot, though, did it? No. Nope, not by points percentage, not by total points. It's tough. It's really tough.

I have a lot of friends who live in Vancouver. They love to see the damn Canucks maybe figure it out a little bit. And it's like, yeah, unfortunately, the Calgary Flames have passed us. They were supposed to be tanking this year. Uh-oh. Uh-huh. You know?

But yeah, hey, they should, the Connock should have drafted Dustin Wolf, you know? Maybe you should have. It's working out great for Calgary. Anyway, why don't we take a break? We'll be right back. This week's episode of Puck Soup is brought to you by Factor. And folks, it's a new year. You're looking to change things up maybe a little bit, huh?

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Get started at FactorMeals.com slash Puck50 off. and use the code Puck 50 off to get 50% off your first box plus free shipping. That's code Puck50 off at FactorMeals.com slash Puck 50 off for 50% off plus free shipping on your first box. We're back and we have even more drama around the league to talk about. Sean, we mentioned them both of the teams really in the first half there. Do you want to talk about the Penguins or the Bruins first? Oh, let's do the Bruins. The Bruins it is.

Not much really going on here, like I kind of alluded to earlier. Neely says a reb— sorry, he didn't say rebuild. Very pointedly didn't say rebuild. He said retool might be in the cards. Here's the quote. I think right now we've got to look at two paths. One that we're buying and one that may just be retooling a little bit. We still feel like we've got a playoff team here,

and we certainly don't want to jeopardize getting out of the playoffs because we made some moves that may be good for the future, but not so good for the present. That's it. That was from Ty Anderson at the sports hub here in Boston, Massachusetts. And I thought that was interesting. Because I don't know what retooling is if you're not, because he's like, there are two.

ads, buying and retooling. And you're like, okay, what does retooling mean? And he's like, well, it means we're not going to jeopardize getting out of the playoffs because of moves that may be good for the future, but not good for the present. So that doesn't sound like anything then, man. Well, the way I took it is it sounds like we might trade like a Trent Frederick who get a pick, move on from that. But not somebody who's going to significantly change our play.

off odds. Like a rebuild is we trade Brad Marchand. Yeah, of course. A retool is, you know, maybe we move some pieces around the edges, but, I mean, the, the pessimist's view is that a retool just means you get half pregnant and don't act. Well, that's kind of what I think is. Yeah. That's kind of what I think he's saying, basically. We're not going to, Because, like, okay, Trent Frederick is part of, like, a, what do you want to say? Like, part of, like, the kind of move that, like, maybe brings in a J.T. Miller or something. That's one thing.

I don't know that that's a good idea for them, but that is just kind of what you might say is, like, retooling without having any kind of an eye on the future. I don't know. I don't know. It's just really, really strange to me. Well, I mean, it's a team that has been good to very good for a very long time. Yeah, of course. And in order to do that, you do have to, you know, they've been good long enough that they have kind of managed this retool on the fly thing in the past. and most notably when like

Pastonac and that cohort came in to sort of pick up from eventually Bergeron and Kreachy and those guys sure but whether they can pull it off now

it's tough it's tough because the system is designed to you know you get a certain amount of time near the top and then it's it yanks your back down into the bucket. So I do think, I mean, I, I think, I don't think anything Neely said was unreasonable in the sense that it is a kind of a tough call.

And it also felt a little bit to me like he's managing expectations in that, sure. A fan base that is so used to this team almost always buying to say like, maybe not. Maybe this is the year that we kind of take a step back and say our team is what it is and let's see how it goes. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think that that is ultimately what they're going to do is they're just going to kind of maybe move some pieces around and that kind of thing. But ultimately, like, what they got is what they're going with.

But the thing that is interesting to me is last week we talked about the whole maybe real, maybe fake Brad Marshand, David Pastor, knock beef that may or may not have gotten squashed and, you know, what does that mean and all that kind of thing. And then this week, Brad Marchand gets benched for overtime against the Ottawa senators on Saturday afternoon. In a game where they blow a two-goal lead. Yeah, they chunked it, man. In regulation with against a team that they are right in the wild card mix with.

So that was very, very bad. In my opinion, you're right. I'm going to say bad. Three point swing. Three point swing, indeed. And it could have been worse, quite frankly. At least they got to overtime. Yeah.

But very weird moment in that game where, and we'll get to this topic with Pittsburgh in a bit, but they were up by a goal and in the final minute. and Jeremy Swayman tried for a goal or at least tried to clear the puck himself. And it did not go well. No. The senators recovered and I don't think Boston got the puck out of the zone before the senator scored. It's not like they scored right away. Right.

But it was I kind of, when I saw that, I was like, oh, that's going to be a thing. And then nobody seemed to talk about it. So, okay. Yeah. Just stirring the pot up there in Ottawa, huh? You know, just, yeah, Jeremy Swayman was. It was a good game, by the way, though. was a, it was a, but I watched the third period. I do have to say I did find it a little funny when like, you probably saw the quote that was

going around with Brady Kachuk where he was like talking about the fans and the atmosphere. And he was like that was really, you know, that really felt like, you know, it was a great atmosphere, which it was. But I think Julian was maybe the only one who had the first part of the quote, which is he was like, obviously I've never been anywhere near the playoffs. Yeah. So it was more like, this is what I imagine. the playoffs to be like.

And that was fun. But I've been in the NHL for seven years and, you know, I'm really just speculating here. Yeah. It's funny because there was, um, not to, not to go too far off course here, but like the,

the quote from, um, I can't remember who it even was, but about Montreal and Toronto and that game and on Saturday and, you know, how it felt and like, I think one of the quotes from the Montreal guys was like, this is like the most one of these games has mattered this late in the season in years or whatever.

And it's like, hey, man, it's January 17th. Yeah. Like who gives you, like, fucking relax. This late in the season, you just got past game 41. What are you talking about anyway? Mm-hmm. But yeah, so this is the thing I was thinking about with all this. I kind of didn't realize until like this week that Brad Marshand is a pending free agent.

Yeah, you haven't heard as much about that as you think, right? And the thing that I was thinking about is either why hasn't he resigned or why haven't we heard about this one way or the other. And part of that is, I think they were talking about this on 32 thoughts yesterday. there's a lot of reticence on the part of players in particular, or agents or however you want to put it, to lock in a deal now before we know what the salary cap is going to be next year

because for people who don't know, the salary cap has been like artificially delinked from revenues since COVID. And the league actually owes the players more, Like, it hasn't been a 50-50 split. It's been more in the owners' favor these last few years. And, like, the players are going to get that money back in theory at some point in the future. But the guardrails for that were supposed to continue into next year, I believe.

And now the league and the players association might agree to, like, do away with that and have, like, a kind of bigger jump in salary than was originally planned. which from a league perspective, it sounds strange that they would voluntarily pay more than they need to, but it's like putting a down payment on something. They don't want to have a situation where there's like a $20 million jump in the cap in one year. Right. So they're taking some of the, from their perspective, pain now rather than have it all hit at the same time. Yeah, this is a long time, long-ish time ago now, but I don't know if people remember, There was a thing where the NBA's, like, TV deals came up and they just got, like, fucking insane money. And the NBA salary cap jumped, like, a huge percentage and got, you know, I don't know who I would compare them to.

Not necessarily, like, Trent Frederick types, but, like, one step up from Trent Frederick in the lineup started getting, like, what used to be, like, who's, like, a nine and a half million dollar player. Like, that kind of guy's money. he's getting Mark Stone money all of a sudden. That's a great example. Yes, that's exactly right. And so the NHL and the NBA and probably other leagues as well, although, you know, their salary caps are a little different. The NHL would be very wise to avoid that. And so, yeah, like, you know, gradually working their way up to a scenario where, like, I don't know what they think, the, the, a reasonable

split of the revenue would be for next season if like it was pure 50-50. But let's say it's $108 million, right? They don't want to have a situation where two years from now it jumps to 112 from 90. So I think there's a middle ground where maybe the number jumps up to 95. But if you're Brad Marshand, you'd much rather sign knowing that the cap's going to be 95 than knowing that the cap's going to be whatever, 92. You know, it's just a little extra money in your pocket.

That makes perfect sense to me. But the other thing is, go ahead. But it was explained to me that Brian Marchion was one of those guys who intentionally took less money because he cared about winning so much. Are you suggesting that maybe that was just a much of nonsense from a guy who suffered from some bad timing on a previous contract? Well. That I'd just love to win.

I mean, here's the thing. I seem to remember there were people in Boston who didn't like the current Brad Marshan contract. Right? What's he at now? Six and a half or something like that? Yeah. No, I mean, that's the thing.

He signed for like six years, I think. It was eight-year deal. He's at six point one in the last year. Yeah, okay. Okay. Well, there you go. Wow. I did not realize he was still on that contract.

I thought that was like a shorter term one. I just assumed he had got a boost somewhere along the line. Nope. But like the reason that the money is so low is they paid him into his age 36 season when they, you know, most players you don't want to do that with on a long term, let's say, middling money deal, you know. But I think maybe the hang up here is term, as it so often is for guys who were 36, 37 years old. where, like, you know, Stephen Stamco's, he wanted however many years. And Tampa was like, that doesn't work for me. I don't know what to say.

And, yeah, he's turning 37 in May, Marchand. And so, like, if he wants two years and the Bruins want one year, or God, if he wants three years and the Bruins want two, like, I can see that being a big impasse. I don't know who else is giving him three years, but you just got to find one sucker, you know. Yeah. We should point out that with that contract, he signed that contract, he was coming off a 61-point season, career high. He was 27 years old, too. Yep.

Good second-line winger. And then in his late 20s, he goes 85 points, 85 points, 100 points. It's still when scoring is low and everything like that and immediately is like one of the great value. guys. In fact, he's been over 61 points every single year of his deal. That can't have ever happen before, I'm thinking. No, probably not. Other than maybe like guys signing two years in, but like to sign a contract that was eight years plus one. It was like a one year in advance and deliver nine straight years of better than your previous career high has got to be. Yeah, and he's on pace to do it again this year. It's crazy.

I wonder if part of the reason that we don't hear about this is just that he's been there so long that everyone just assumes he's a Bruin for life and it's like. And he's the captain and all this. I get why that like they, but again, I just kind of felt like maybe, maybe that that Marshan Pasternac thing was like a little bit of trying to lay the groundwork for. Brad Marchand for J.T. Miller. I don't even know if they trade. him, but like, if they let him walk this summer, he, him and Posernock didn't get along anyway, you know, he's 37, you know, all that kind of stuff. On his way out, yeah, and they'll be, yeah, that'll be inscribed on the dagger in between his shoulder blades on the way of Boston.

That's right. Okay, let's talk about the penguins. They had a little bit of news this week. They put Tristan Jari on waivers. He's got three years left after this one at five. 5.375 million against the cap and a 12 team no trade list, at least as of right now. Yeah, which I feel like we can probably disregard the no trade list at this point. When you've been buried in the miners, sure, probably willing to go to Buffalo.

But this is one of those things where it's like, no, the contract itself. the salary, the cap hit, is the Yeah, of course. It would just be funny for him to invoke it. That's all. Man, it was a... This is the floor of what the outcomes felt like when they signed the contract,

which is to say, I didn't like the contract when they signed it. I feel like most people didn't really love it. I didn't know. I didn't think he would get to the point where he was unplayable. Yeah, but you're not thinking this. I mean, you know, again, like we've,

We say it all the time on the show. Whenever a deal gets signed and extension, whatever it is, what's the upside, what's the downside? And so often the upside, the ceiling is the deal ends up being worth it, and the downside is it ends up being a disaster. Goalies are hard. I mean, who knows, but to go five years on a guy that had been up and down, first, kind of the first big Kyle Dubas move. Totally. This is, like, any. Anyone who says a year and a half from now this guy's going to be out of the league was lying to you, but it's a mess.

Did you see the Frank Serevelli column just basically ripping into Dubas? I did see that. And I don't know. To me, it's like, yeah, especially that first year, he kind of was just like, I got to do something here. You know, like, it felt like he needed to make something happen. And I think he would say a lot of the stuff that he did didn't work out. And I think it's fair to criticize those things, those deals he made or whatever, trades and signings and that kind of thing. But at the same time, it's like, you know, how do you fix these penguins?

Like, the idea was that you can't, he wanted to, like, let Malkin and Latang walk across. Crosby was like, no, you can't do that, allegedly. You know, I don't know. But, like, it seemed like they were going to let two of those guys walk and just have Crosby be the guy to, you know, keep building around or whatever you want to say. And then it was like, that's not going to happen, actually, you know? And so, go ahead. It was, just to remind people, so Dubas gets to Pittsburgh, Jari is on. his contract is expiring.

He's becoming a UFA. And they actually, if I'm not mistaken, let him get to UFA status. Like they let him get to the market on July 1st before resigning him. Whether that gave him enough time to get out there and see what was available and decide they liked Pittsburgh's offer enough

or, you know, it wasn't, it didn't really matter that they let him get to UFA because it wasn't like they were going to go eight years. You would hope. But he was not a penguin for a couple of hours. Right. And then they gave him the deal. And the penguins didn't have a goalie.

Right. But now they still don't have a goalie. Mm-hmm. Yeah, like I say, I think there's a lot to criticize, but given the constraints on what they were trying to do, organizationally, I'm not sure that like, again, obviously this contract sucks. It was so bad.

Right? But the only thing you can do if you're a GM who fucks up, which Kyle Dubas did here, is say, that's on me. I got to do something to fix this. And given the constraints of like how the salary cap works, this is the only thing you could do. I guess I'll put them in the minors and like buy them out this summer.

that's not good to have to do that but it's better than to like just have him on the roster you know um yeah and you know there's there's the stuff about sunk costs and and and all of that and yeah you have to be willing to move on for mistakes yeah um that shouldn't you know there's also like you you can take that to a certain extent but then it becomes like the Dave Nones thing of like, I'm a great GM because I've managed to offload the David Clarkson contract. Right.

That's, you, you, you're paying millions of dollars Well, I don't think, I think the difference is, to get out of your own mistake, like. Yeah, I think the difference is Dubus isn't taking a victory lap on this. Like everybody, everybody did, or no, and nobody in Pittsburgh is doing it either,

like what happened in, in Toronto, you know, Wendell Clarkson and all this shit. And then a year and a half later, Like, we finally got rid of that bum. This was your idea. Shut the fuck up. Anyway, you know, did you see the final?

Maybe not final, but like, as of him being sent down, the stat on him being sent down, what his season had looked like to that point? I think this was Jay Fresh had this. Okay. He allowed, in 22 games, he allowed the first, he allowed a goal on the first shot he faced six times. the second shot four times, the third shot two times, the fourth shot four times, the fifth shot three times. And what was the number for getting to shot six without any goals? Six times in 22 games.

Yeah. That's a problem. That'll be a problem. But again, this just kind of reinforces my theory that I kind of put out there last week, that like the first team in the Eastern Conference, wild card chase to trade for a goalie is going to be able to just be like, okay, bye, everyone. We're in now, you know. You know, Columbus needs one, Philly needs one. Maybe Pittsburgh needs one, although, you know, they got a, they got a scorer back there now.

So maybe not. Montreal. So let me ask you about Montreal, right? I was talking to someone on Saturday. and they said to me, you know, and this was when Montreal was up like 3-1 or 3-0 or something like that. In a game, they ultimately lost 7 to 3. He's like, look, I have seen a lot of Sam Montembow at the AHL level, and that kind of like never struck me as like a real NHL goalie over a long period of time or whatever.

And I was like, I didn't see him for one second. in the AHL, and I agree with your assessment, you know? Mm-hmm. And so I do wonder, like, okay, maybe they feel like Jakob Dovich is like the guy now, or at least is trending in that direction. But, like, if you're the Canadians and the vibes are so good, can you continue this?

Like, can you keep being where the, we're the Sam Montembow team? See, I mean, obviously the... The short answer is it all depends on what you think of Sam Montembow. I know that my buddy Jesse loves him. Jesse Granger, the goalie whisperer, was trying very hard in the offseason to sell me on the Sam Montembow experience. I don't know, it's tough.

Like, if you go and trade for a, like, if you go and bring in a depth piece or something, that's one thing. But if you go out and beat, like, if you're the team that goes out and gets like a John Gibson, Right. Yeah. You're at that point, as a GM, you're planning the flag saying, we have now turned the corner. This success we're having this year is real. And now off we go. Right.

And now you've just changed the dynamic for how your team is viewed. I just don't know if they're there yet. Yeah, I think that's a reasonable. And that's kind of my read on why Columbus shouldn't do it, but also maybe, you. Again, the vibes are so good. Like, why wouldn't you? Kind of, a little bit. But the team I keep thinking about is the Flyers.

Yep. Because as it stands right now, their five-on-five expected goals percentage is the sixth best in the league. And I'm just going to read you the teams that are ahead of them. Carolina, L.A., Edmonton, New Jersey, Florida. Not a bad list. Now I'm going to read you the teams that are believe.

them in five-on-five save percentage. I just named every team that's below them in five-on-five-save percentage. That's it. 889 at 5-on-5. This is incredible how bad this is. Now, I'd hate to be one of these guys who was saying in the off-season, oh, Fadotov, like that guy's guy is going to figure it out, you know, blah, blah, blah. You know what their five-on-five save percentage was last year?

894. They're fucking unplayable these guys. And they have been for two years. year and a half now. What's their, I should know this, but what's their future outlook like for goaltending? Like, where are they, do they have anyone on the way? Like, is there? Not that I can think of off the top of my head, although, you know, I will again say that I'm not a prospects guy. I'll pull up the latest EP rankings and, and we'll see what it says. But I can't think of anybody off the top of my head.

We had them in our big goalie rankings thing. We had them 26th, largely based on the current guys. Samuel Erson was the future piece that we were looking at. Yeah, no, that's the only guy that I can really find. We have them as the sixth ranked prospect pool in the league going into the season. I'm scrolling. I'm looking for a goalie. I'm looking for a goalie.

I'm not really seeing any goalies here. I'm now out of the top 10 for their... Carson Bjarnison. From the Brandon Week Kings is their highest-ranked goalie who's not Samuel Ererson, because I think he probably graduated out of being a prospect. He is considered their 12th best guy. he has a 907 save percentage in the WHL for the second year in a row. So that's one where it could make sense for them to go and get a Gibson type where it's like you're not,

because the other piece is if you're a team like Montreal and you still believe in Montembow and you say, okay, well, if we go and get a guy who's signed for a couple more years, then, you know, we're just creating a backlog. There's no backlog to be seen here. Right. You know, the other piece of this is if they do decide, if Philly went out to get Gibson, they still got Cal Peterson kicking around.

They could put him in the deal as a, to even out the salaries. Make the money work, yeah. And also give, if Anaheim says, we want a veteran, you know, a guy, maybe you put him in as a, you know, Reclamation project, play him a couple of times, hope he looks good or something, and you know, you can do something with him in the summer, but that does make a lot of sense, doesn't it?

Well, yeah, I mean, and the other thing is Peterson's coming off the books this summer. Yeah, it comes off the books, right? So you're not, if you're Anaheim and you say, like, why would you, why would you do that? You're still taking money off the books for this year, and you're taking a lot off for future years, and maybe it increases what you can get back in. in return. That can make some sense. Yeah. That's just the team that I think it, in that mix that I think it makes the most sense for.

Like I just keep thinking about like, I can't remember where, I think it was on Broad Street Hockey. They had an article this weekend that was like, what if the Flyers had league average goaltending? Okay. And it's like, yeah, that's a great question. They'd be really good, probably. Maybe not really good.

But they'd certainly have more. than 48 points. We'll put it that way. And 48 points. I was just wondering why they wouldn't call Kyle Peterson up and give him a try. And I looked at his stats in the H.L. And now I know the answer to that. Yep.

Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. That's right. But hey, speaking of Penguin's goal is Alex Nadelcovic goal in an assist. Yep. He did it, folks.

This was a. Yeah. Without giving too much away for later in the week. This was a very fun goalie goal. one of the better ones. And if people don't know the Delcovic has scored in other leagues, HL and ECHL, so he's now the first, I think, to score in all three,

which is... And I think also the first to have a goal and an assist in the same game in the HAL and NHL? There was a lot of history. So, I mean, the... But he is a guy who has wanted... this for a while. And in fact, if you go back and look at the Tristan Jari goal from a couple years ago, um, the Delkovich is on the bench. And like, you can just see he's like so excited,

but also got that like, oh, that should be me. Like he's trying to get Jari to come and like, come over to the bench to celebrate and, uh, and he won't. And then, uh, when, when the, when the Delchcovich got his, he like went over, basically did the Lambo leap into the bench. It was, It was really fun. But yeah, a lot of history. So it's first goalie to ever have a goal and an assist in the same game. First goalie to ever have, first team to have two different guys score goalie goals. Real goalie goals.

Right. Not the, like, Damien Rhodes version, but where the puck bounces off you and you get credit. The earliest goalie goal ever scored? Oh, really? That's right. I didn't see that part of it. So that was nice. And the worst part of all.

And we, like, we talked about this a couple weeks ago, didn't we? Didn't somebody have a mailbag question about a goalie getting a Gordie Howe Hattrick? Yeah, that's right. Could have happened, man. It was right there. He had three minutes. And he even got bumped on the play. I don't remember who the, but one of the guys coming in, like, kind of, certainly didn't run him,

but gave him a bit of a bump. Like, dude, have a sense of the moment, you know? I agree with you. Yeah, when they gave them like the player, like the team player of the game award after the game, I can't remember. I don't remember what their, like, gimmick is that they do over there. But whoever gave it to him was like, only a fight away from a Gordyhow Hattrick. How did you not fight?

So, you know, that kind of thing. but the thing that I thought was really funny about this, to your point about like he's been gunning for this for a while, after the game he's talking about it. And this is from the NHL.com article. Nadelcovich rattled off some of the goals he remembers seeing, starting with Brodor and mentioning Ron Hextall, quote, he's got two, one in the playoffs, then one in the regular season.

Mike Smith, Chris Osgood, Jars last year was really exciting to be a part of, of. Then you see other guys around the leave. Gustafson did it earlier this year. Allmark the year before, or maybe last year. And it's just like, oh, yeah, this guy's so obsessed with it, he's like writing down, like he keeps a mental log of all the other goalies who have done it. And he's like, I'm going to fucking do it one day, man. I'm telling you. That rocks. I think that I think it's cool to want it that bad, you know. His fourth career professional goal, he did it in the ECHL and twice in the AHA. And I'll say, he's doing it in the NHL again.

Like, he's going to... Yeah, why wouldn't you? You know, assuming he can stick around. This is like, he, I would say, is the goalie in the NHL who wanted this the second most. Mark Andre Fleury, it feels like it's killing him that he's like just running out of time. Well, Scherkin's the other guy. Schisherkin's always fucking going crazy. And he went for it a couple of games ago even.

Yeah. Um, it's good. I like it. Yep. Um, was it, was it, was it, did somebody email me where they were saying, like, should they make it so that? Goalies can't ice the puck. Yeah. Gollies can't ice the puck. Yeah, that was in the mailbag. Was that, was that on the list? Did I just screw up our, uh, um, I'll look at the list. I don't think I included it. They, I did not. I like that idea. I, there's no actual reason to do it. other than it's fun.

But yeah, let the goalies. If a goalie shoots at an empty net and misses, it doesn't count as icing. Yep. Let's let these guys. It's a good way to juice score in one way or the other. Either they turn the buck over. Resubmit that to Rules Court, and I'll get it in the next edition. Yeah, great idea.

I can lobby that one through for you. We'll get that. That's right. I don't know if people saw this. This feels like it passed without much comment the other day, but I feel like this is like kind of a big problem for the NHL here. Chris Johnston on TSN the other night was talking all about how four nation tickets are moving very slowly. Just that's not good, in my opinion. Now, did he say, because I didn't see this, in both countries?

I think it was specifically referring to Canada, or Montreal, I mean. But, you know, I looked it up. It's not going great in the U.S. either. And he's like, oh, they got a big marketing blitz plan for the next week or two here. And it's like, clock's fucking ticking, isn't it, man? You would think. I mean, if we've already had the rosters for a month, maybe it's time to start selling tickets. Yeah.

But so I've already had the rosters for a month. I was like, I want, you know, there could be any number of reasons for that, but like you would think that there would be more interest here. And then I looked up, like I said, I looked up like what ticket sales looked like and just going off like not even resale tickets, but just like the tickets that are available from the league, of which there seem to be plenty still, which is not, again, not a good sign. The cheapest tickets to Canada, Sweden, as of Sunday afternoon when I, when I, like, made these little notes here, $264 Canadian, which is like 180s, U.S. The cheapest tickets. And the cheapest ticket for the championship game was 190 U.S. To, like, sit in the last row in the corner or whatever.

For what could end up being Sweden versus Finland, you have no guarantee that. So I cracked why tickets are moving slowly. Yeah. They way overpriced them. And I don't think that, I think CJ said something about, like, you don't want them playing in front of half empty buildings. I don't know that it's going to be that bad. You know, I think ultimately, you know, prices will come down or, you know, on the people who. bought, speculatively

will have to sell them for cheaper, I guess is what I'm trying to say. But I just I kind of can't believe the league fuck this up this bad. Oh, sure you can. Well, again, the cheapest ticket being like

$180, $190 is crazy to me. You know? And that, and that, I think that was for like, if you were buying in pairs, maybe there's single seats that are cheaper, but regardless, you know, it's just, um, this is such an easy mistake to avoid. Make the cheapest ticket $100. That's still really fucking expensive.

But it's like not that crazy in comparison. And obviously, this is, it's not an NHL or a hockey thing. This is all of pro sports, but damn, like I, I remember getting cheap. nosebleeds to see Canada, US in the World Cup in Montreal. Yeah. In 96. And a bunch of us hopping in a crappy car

and driving down there to see the game. And yeah, like, I don't know. When you don't have cheap tickets that allow people to get in the door, you lose something, but you gain millions of dollars and we all know what's more important. Yeah, you know, at some point it's like,

you want to sell just enough seats that it doesn't look bad at a high price point, right? And then, like, you've got to find the balance between selling out the game or, you know, coming close to it, and really gouging the people who do, who have the money to buy those kind of tickets, you know? 190 for the last row. It's fucking psychotic to me. granted, I don't know what it costs to sit at a Bruins game in the last row. You know what I mean? I'm guessing that's not cheap either.

No, it almost certainly isn't. Let's see, let's see. Let me go on here and see if I can find tickets for Bruins senators here. But, yeah, it's just, you know, I, you know, I love tying things back to professional wrestling, of course. Sure. And, you know, this was an AEW problem for a while there where they were like, okay, we're going to have a big building and tickets are going to be insanely expensive. Okay, row 10 in the balcony, the, the, the, for again, Thursday night, Senators Bruins game, 115 plus fees. I guess I didn't make a note of if the 190 was fee inclusive.

So I guess the Bruins are really squeezing your regular season or not, you know? But, yeah. Again, 115 plus fees isn't 190. Will it show me what the fees are? Probably it won't, right? Yeah, I got to click through on that, I think. I'm not going to do that. Anyway, yeah, I just thought, like, oh, the league can't figure this out or whatever.

I cracked it in two seconds. Anyway, one last bit of news here. John Klingberg makes his return to the NHL signing a deal with the Edmonton Oilers, one million pro-rated in the $350,000 signing bonus. Right. Your thoughts? Guy who was a good player for a while when he was healthy was very much not a good player in Toronto, but that was he was not healthy at the time.

I wish him the best. It feels like a reasonable gamble to me. I do not understand why this felt like front page news in the hockey world for days other than presumably whoever was negotiating on his behalf is pretty good at getting a name out there because the John Klingberg bidding war between all of the league's biggest markets was a weirdly large story. Yeah.

But yeah, go to, go to Edmonton, try to get some power play time, juice your numbers. Well, okay. So that's what I was thinking about, is like, why would Edmonton be the team? I guess it's like Evan Bouchard gets hurt insurance. Yeah. But like, he's not going to get power play time with McDavid and Drysidal. You wouldn't think. So what's, okay.

But you still, I mean. get a guy in a second unit if he can earn his way into there. Yeah. I guess. Some depth. Whatever.

You know, it's a million bucks. Well, don't they also have Darnel Nurse as a guy who used to be pretty good on the power play? Am I wrong about this? He used to be. Yeah. Well, that's what I mean, man. Like I said, I think it's insurance

if one of those two guys I just mentioned who were already on the team get hurt. But I just I would have thought there were teams that were more, would be more interested in the services of a guy coming off his hip problems and all that kind of stuff. Anyway, why don't we hit him with the plugs and let's get out of here. Find me at the athletic. I'll be on with Sean and Frankie tomorrow on the Athletic Hockey Show podcast. I also have a piece that I am looking to finish for tomorrow.

I am going to rank every goalie goal ever scored in the NHL in way too much detail. Wow. I'm going way too deep on all of these. So, yeah, if you want to read, if you like goalie goals and you're like, hey, that's cool. I'll look at a few clips. How about 3,000 words instead? And if you're like, no, that's way too many. Too bad.

Yeah. You're getting it anyways. Tough shit, man. Yeah. For me, you can head over to Elite Prospects. We have an app now. I don't know if I've mentioned that, but the app is good. I wouldn't be going out of my way to mention it if it were bad, but it's good.

It's, I would say, preferable to the mobile site, if you want to put it that way. And you can find all my stories, cams, David's, like basically everybody who writes, like, articles. over there, that's all just like a little tab in the app right on the front page there. So very helpful. And I will be continuing my college and NHL coverage over there. I don't really have anything specifically planned for the rest of the week, but another article or two coming your way. This weekend, BCBU, we excited, folks? Wow. Biggest college sports game of the month. For sure. Absolutely. So, yeah, check that out and then head over to patreon.com slash puck soup where we have all kinds of bonus

episodes. We've got a couple bonus episodes coming your way, I think, between now and Monday. In addition to the mailbag that me and Sean are going to go record, $5 a month gets you the puck soup. Specific bonus content, $8 a month gets you all the other podcasts that we do over there about wrestling and, you know, overrated, underrated, and stick to sports and all that. we're kind of turning out a lot of podcasts over there, as you people may know. So again, patreon.com slash puck soup. And that's it. Thank you so much for listening.

And we'll talk to you next week. Bye-bye.