Puck Soup - Hitting Your Benchmarks

Episode Date: November 21, 2023

Sean and Ryan talk the problems in Columbus, the Thanksgiving cutoff, international "tournaments," and more.   Sponsored by Gametime (download the Gametime app and use code PUCK for $20 off), Betterhelp (betterhelp.com/puck), Hatch (hatch.co/puck) and Uncommon Goods (uncommongoods.com/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 tunes. It's your weekly bowl of Hagi and Nonsense. I'm Ryan Lambert from Elite Prospects. I'm Sean McIndoo from The Athletic. And it is a weirdly news and noteworthy week. I would say for it's funny because not a lot's going on.

In fact, there are no hockey games on tonight. Yeah. Why is that? Well, there's 14 tomorrow, so busy day. Okay. I assumed it's like Thanksgiving or whatever they come.

And then we have nothing on Thursday. That's usually how it goes. It used to be like you'd get like a random like Jets Oilers game or something. Right. Yeah. Well, you don't even get that anymore. Yeah. Even us weirdo countries that don't recognize American Thanksgiving.

Well, I think they're just running scared of football because now they're like, oh, football starts at 6 a.m. on Thanksgiving and said 3 a.m. And we got a Friday game in the NFL. You know what? I saw a commercial for that. That is fantastic. Yeah. And so the NHL wants, you know what? I think it is more than that is.

I think the NHL is terrified of trying to sell tickets on Thanksgiving. Like the idea that anyone's going to go to Grandma's house, eat the green beans and turkey, and then turn around and go to a Blue Jackets game is... Oh, I totally get it from the NHL's American team's perspective, right? Yeah.

Like, it totally makes sense. It doesn't make any sense to me why, like, there can't be a Habs Leaves game or something. Yeah. Let's just make it happen. Some of us don't like football. Well, I mean, there's like six of you in the entire.

Yeah, very few of us. But just enough. Look, I know, look, the, the, the, the, the, the, the CFL season is over. Congratulations to the Montreal whatever's. I saw Montreal one, so that's something. Yeah. It's a very exciting game. Oh, yeah, a guy kicked a ball or whatever.

That did happen a couple of times. Yeah. Why not, right? Got to kick something. It's football. I mean, it is called football. You would think there'd be menas. But yeah, I, uh, what if I wanted to watch hockey tonight?

Then you're out of luck. Maybe I'm fucking crazy. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, I don't have a good transition for this. So let's talk about the Columbus Blue Jackets. Okay. They stink.

They're really bad. So I do my weekly power rankings. Yep. And in a fit of whimsy, I think two or three weeks into the season. I have a little spreadsheet that I use to keep track of where I've put everyone and where and how many things have been mentioned. And I just went ahead. I felt like a silly goose. And I just went ahead and copy pasted the sharks into the bottom.

bottom spot for the rest of the season. I think that's a very reasonable. Because I'm like, I'm done, man. I'm saving myself some time. Why do this every week? There is no way that anyone is going to challenge the San Jose Sharks. And I now feel like we're...

The Edmonton Oilers, not so fast. I feel like with the Blue Jackets and keep mind, with my rankings, it's not like who's good or bad this week. It's like, by, by, By the end, let's figure out, let's unwrap this present of what the ending of the NHL is going to be. Let's figure this out. So, I mean, when the sharks are 0 and 11, I'm like, well, even if, you know, they're going to win some games, but no one's catching them. And now, I mean, the blue jackets are five points up on them, but good Lord.

Tire fire. Chicago and Edmonton are closer. To be nice to Columbus, Chicago and Edmonton are closer to San Jose. Well, I mean, Columbus started off. They didn't even start off that well. Well, the other thing is... They had points in five of their first seven. Yeah.

Well, the other thing is, too, that Columbus has also played 19 games already. Yeah. And they have 12 points. That's the real problem. They have nine straight losses, despite the NHL standings page saying it's four straight losses. It's nine. Yeah. And they had...

And they beat the lightning of all team, and they had four losses before that. So 13 out of 14, they're benching players. They're scratching Patrick Liny. Well, that's, I mean, that's the thing to talk about, right? It's the benching. It's the scratching. Like, I get, you know, I get that if a guy doesn't play well and you're paying him a lot of money, you're going to need to do something about that, especially if the whole team sucks.

You're like, okay, I've got to set an example. No one's safe from the coach's wrath or whatever. I get that. That is understandable to me, certainly. But when it happens repeatedly, and it happens to a guy coming back from a concussion. and when it happens to one of your best young players so bad that you send him to the HL, a league, he's, I don't know if you've seen his stats, he's obviously too good for it. He's got like 11 points in seven games or something like that.

And, you know, to me it's just like, well, I don't have a lot of answers here. So I got to do something to make it look like I'm doing something. Yeah. So why don't I just scratch these things? You do, but, I mean, Pascal Vincent's been scratching. a lot of guys. Well, that's what I'm saying. I gotta make it look like I'm doing something.

But do you? Because under the circumstances that he came in after the whole Babcock mess. Yeah. I would argue that as a rookie head coach, if anyone had a bit of a pass, it was probably him. I mean, we all remember Jared Bedner

coming in Colorado at the end of, like, in a September change when Patrick Waugh quit. Mm-hmm. And being terrible. Oh, yeah. that rocked. And then Jared Bedner is now considered one of the best coaches in the league.

Sure. So, you know, even he couldn't salvage a season under those circumstances. So I don't know. I'm wondering if, like, there's part of me that says, yeah, I'm with you. Like, Vince has got to do something. There's part of me that says he's overcoaching this. Yeah. And then there's part of me is just as a matter.

Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, Patrick Liny, a guy who in two months has already been. they tried to change his position. Have they, like, formally abandoned that? I don't think so. And they certainly... I think they're still hammering away.

Now, healthy scratch. Yeah, it's a mess. And here's the other thing. And knowing that, of course, you never know what's happening. And, you know, players are people and, you know, people have... You never know what's going on. Like, at what point can we just say Johnny Gros screwed up? I would say July 1st, 2021.

Okay. All right. That's, yeah. I mean, you know, it was one of those things where they made this signing, and everyone said this is a really good signing. I said that. Yeah. I was there. For Columbus, it was a good signing.

Like, oh, you got, you know, I feel like we talked about it at the time. time. Like, you know, they're one of these teams. If we hadn't. If we just, we just, we just missed it. Well,

they're just one of these teams where, like, they're desperate for anybody to sign with them. That's why I like. Number one free agent in not just of the year, but of several years, picks Columbus. And he picked them.

It wasn't even like they went all in and, and blew them out of the water. Like, he said, I got 15 different teams calling me. I want to go to Columbus. And you look. looked at it and you went, this is the turning point for this team that everybody just...

I don't think I said that. I believe you said... Hold on a second. Blue Jacket Stanley Cup, 2023, engraved. Yeah, it's, you know, it was one of those things where it was certainly a coup for the organization, right? Like, they put out the behind-the-scenes video, like, oh, Erica Brances says Johnny Goddrault might want to come here, and they're all like, holy shit, whoa, are you serious? Okay, we're going to get something together here.

fast, you know? Like, they, they were caught off guard by it, and understandably so, like, you know, guys just don't pick Columbus. Guys just don't pick Columbus. You know, when they have, when they have other options, Columbus is always the second choice. And so from that point of view, totally understandable that their reaction would be, let's go, this rocks, you know. But there, There was never a point to me where I'm sitting there going, and of course they've turned a corner now. This is an annual playoff contender. They just added a really good player to a team.

That kind of sucks. A reasonable deal. He didn't get crazy money. He got okay money and is now spending what is left of his prime being not very productive on a terrible team. Like, again, hey, I'm maybe, you know, the family's happy in Columbus. He's closer, you know, obviously to his extended family. He may be absolutely perfectly happy. But boy, wouldn't you like to hook him up to a lie detector right now.

Yeah, it's... You didn't want to wait a couple days and see if Jersey could do anything. You didn't want to see if Philadelphia could have knock something free? I thought the flyers just straight up told them. The flyers basically said no. Yeah. So, I mean, I guess that's, but, uh, it's bad. What do you do if you're Columbus?

What's, how do you fix this? If you're the GM, which you might be by next week. Well, that's what I was going to say. I think this is a decision that needs to be made above the GM at this point, right? Like, I, this is a phrase I use a lot. This is a loser franchise. Right? And I think I'll say it again.

People get mad at me when I say this, but I think the worst thing that ever happened for this team was beating the Tampa Bay Lightning in the playoffs. Oh, Yaro Kekyllina, this guy's a genius. Yeah, yeah, you're right. That's the element of it because then everybody left. So it wasn't, you know, it wasn't like anyone looked and said, okay, these guys are ready for prime time. Everybody knew that the lineup was going to take a step back. And look, that was great. That was, was that the first?

That was the first series. Win. Yes. The team has ever had. The only one, if you don't count the bubble. And they, of course, would because, again, this is Yarmow being a genius. Well, the other thing is they beat the Leafs, and we all want to make fun of the Leafs. So we have to count that as the playoffs so that we can say the Leafs always losing the first round of playoffs.

So it does count. I got great news for you about how I feel about the bubble playoffs. Yeah. Uh-huh. It's all fucking fake. It's all made up. Does that also apply? Is it so fake that it radiates out to the three years before and after?

Because that would be great news. That would be really helpful to you. Yeah. Look, I've said it before. I'll give you one or two after. Yeah, why not? I don't care. You know?

You said it's got to be above GM. I mean, John Davidson. There's an interview with John Davidson, who's the president of the Blue Jackets. Aaron Ports line on the athletic got got a few minutes from him and kind of held his feet to the fire a little bit, but he's saying like there's no changes come. No rash moves is what he says,

which is always what people say, right? They go, we're not going to panic. We're not going to do something dumb. But yeah, he doesn't sound like he doesn't sound like he's got any big changes coming. And the thing is, like after the whole Babcock fiasco, remember, like the owner basically said, I'm really ticked off at at the upper management,

but like we need some stability right now. It was like the most, it wasn't even an endorsement. It was, and, you know, I'm putting words in his mouth and reading between the lines, but it felt a lot like, I'm so pissed off right now.

I'd fire everybody, but I'm going to intentionally, like, try to have a cooler head. Yeah. Um, But you can't imagine, like, unless it's already so bad that you just say, you know what, the season's lost. Try to develop players. Try to get Liny going.

Try to get Johnny Goodrow back on track. We will have new management the day the season ends and a nice high draft pick. Well, okay. So here's the thing with that. The season's lost, right? It's not like this team has a big win. It feels like it has a big winning streak in them. Other than, of course, like if, you know, they get a 109 PDO for two weeks, something like that.

But I'm looking at it right now. You know what their points percentage is? Call Stone Cold Steve Austin. It's 316. That sucks, dude. In the NHL, that's unbelievably bad. Right? And like you said, they've lost nine in a row or whatever.

It doesn't feel like they're about to make a big move that's going to turn every. around. They could win a game or two. And, you know, this is the NHL, of course. But, and I guess their next game is against Chicago. So that helps. But, you know, they lose to Chicago. Okay. I'm not surprised. You know? And when you're in that mode, when you're in the,

yeah, look, sometimes you're going to lose to Chicago zone. Just forget it, you know. But I'm just so fast. fascinated that this coach who, you know, they bring him in last minute. They're like, you have cartwatch to bench whoever you want, make them look like an asshole out there, you know? And again, like, I'm not saying Johnny Godreau or Patrick Linaire are playing well. I'm saying, well, like, you're not going to bench like Boone Jenner or Zach Wrenski or Damon Severson. Like, you're not going to bench any of those guys, like the other highly paid guys.

He did bench Severson for a period. Yeah, you're right. that's true yeah but you know and he was like their big free he's shoring up the blue line in Columbus uh huh okay yeah great awesome how's it how's that going you know um i

i i i think what you do is you just go okay who do I have that I can trade and the answer is not many people I don't think they have a no they they're only pending UFA is uh Jack Rosavik and Spencer Martin Those are their only two. Mm-hmm. Now, you know, Alexander Texier and that might be it for guys you would actually trade who are pending RFAs,

because everybody else is like, you know, Cole Cillinger or Ergoroshenikov. And, yeah, man, this is, this is brutal. Oh, Kent Johnson's appending 10.2c as well. So he has no rights. Yeah. obviously they would keep him anyways of really good. What was he a top five? Yeah, well, I mean, there was talk that he wanted a trade and that apparently that got tamped down.

Yeah, we'll see. I mean, we'll see how long he spends in the AHA. I'm guessing everybody wants a trade right now, probably there. Yeah. The only way out is through, man. You got to. Yeah, they're not going to let you just, like, not play the rest of the season, right? Yeah.

Probably. And so. I don't know. To me, I just, I don't know what you do. You don't have anybody you can really trade. You just signed this coach and gave him multiple years of them remembering, right? Well, who's the guy who put this team together and signed the coach? And also signed the coach who he then had to fire.

Right. Yeah, I mean, I think at this point, what kind of odds would somebody have? have to give you that you're almost the GM on opening night next year. I mean, it feels extraordinarily unlikely at this point. Unbelievable. Yeah. I can't imagine a world where it happens because, like you said, the owner goes, oh, we don't want to make any rash decisions or whatever the quote was. We don't, we don't want to, you know, introduce further instability.

Yeah. And I'm not saying, like, if they fired him in. September, like, this team still sucks, right? Like, that's not, that's not changing. So, but something, something has to change. I got it. Why don't we bench Johnny Goddrow again? Helvet scratch them.

And it is. It's that, and we see this with some teams from time to time where the season's going bad. The GM is dead man walking. So what do you do for the next 60 games? Because on the one hand, if you, if you, If you fire Yarmal right now, do you have your long-term GM ready to go? Right.

Maybe. I mean, there's guys out there. You can dig around. We know how the business works. You can, you know, try to sneak a guy in the back door while your GM is still working. And you make the big switch. That could happen. But it's tough.

And a lot of the candidates you'd want to talk to aren't available to you. Do you fire the guy and put an interim? GM in place. That's also an option. But you know, who's, okay, so that guy handles the trade deadline? Does Yarmo handle the trade deadline? Is anyone authorized to make big blockbuster moves?

Probably not. I mean, if Yarmal walks into your office and says, I got a blockbuster, I want to pull the trigger on this big trade, do you let a guy you've kind of already made up your mind to move on from?

Is he allowed? to do that? Yeah, he comes in and he's like, okay, I've got it. Why don't we trade our next three first round picks? Well, hold on, Yarmo. Wait a second. You know, it's brutal, man.

I don't know what you do. They have painted themselves into a corner where, again, like, it's a loser mindset of like, well, you know, maybe we could make the playoffs this year. We could do it. And it's like, cool, man, awesome. Then what, you know? because it's not like, you know, for all the young guys in the pipeline and like the players that were rightly high on

for three or four years from now, there are a lot of guys on this roster who are like 30 years old. Mm-hmm. You know? And line A is older. He's 25, 26. something like that.

You know, like he's a finished product. You know, oh, there's so much there with Patrick Linae. Like, you can see so much if things go right for him. It's like, well, I mean, you know, how many guys get better at like age 27? Not many. Again, he's 25 or 26, but I'm just saying there's no, there's no elevating his game there in all likelihood unless, you know, you get a coach that really unlocks him, right? And I'm not defending line A's play.

To be clear, you know, he's been bad this year, absolutely. But they were like, yeah, let's try this guy at center. Because we don't have any other ideas, you know? Yep. And then that didn't work. And it's like, now what if we moved him back to wing? Hold on. That would be crazy, you know?

And I don't know if you saw this, but like Murat also pointed out that I guess the benching came on like the anniversary of his father passing away. Oh, very nice. Which, you know, I don't know that the team. team necessarily new or if you even take that into account, I mean, this is, you know, it's a pro league and all that, but there is, you know, there's that human element of it. But you do kind of wonder, like at what point when we come out of this season, do you look at Columbus and you go, you know what? Coach laid down the law. He got everyone on the same page and they're ready to

go for next year? Or is there a possibility that you look at it and go, coach went too hard, he took a sledgehammer to a nail and now the guys who were supposed to be key parts of this team hated here and won out. I don't know. I mean, I guess I guess we'll see,

but it's a bad situation and it's a bad situation for a team like a fan base that has had so little to cheer about. Like that's kind of the thing, right? It's one thing to see a total mess in San Jose and you're like, you know what, you guys were one of the best teams of league for 20 years.

So, you know, everybody takes their turn. But it's not pretty in Columbus. No, it certainly isn't. Along similar lines, I guess. Minnesota and Calgary also seem like there's something weird going on there. Minnesota, it's like everybody's playing badly, kind of. Not everybody, but enough guys, and certainly the guys who were supposed to be the best players on the team. or playing badly, and it's just, uh, it's certainly not ideal for them to the point where

Bill Garron had to give like a get your shit together speech apparently. Yep. And, uh, you know, you never want to be in, yeah, you never want to be in that position. We saw it from Mike Greer and it worked, kind of. They won a game. But, uh, that's not, that's not good. No. Um, yeah, they, they, they don't have a, a professional.

professional wrestler I can invoke with their winning percentage of four or points percentage of 412 but um that's bad man that that's really really bad and they are a team where it's like if you look at the underlying numbers they're actually pretty good but um they're they're certainly like not unbelievable and um it actually seems to be getting worse and at five on five they're not good. I think their overall numbers are slightly better. Yeah. But they, they, A, they can't get a save and B, like their, their quote unquote, best players are not delivering. Like something, if you watch a game, something just like, like, like looks off with Capriza. Yeah. Yeah. And he's, you know, there's questions of health and that sort of thing.

And the other thing there is that the special teams are. extraordinarily bad. Yeah. Which is one of those elements that often gets attributed to coaching. So you do kind of wonder if we could see a change there at some point. Yeah, man, you weren't kidding about the special team. They, 65.5% on the PK. I didn't think it was that bad.

I knew it was bad. Like, they can't even get to two-thirds of their penalties they're killing off. That's crazy, man. I think they had a game last week where they gave up five power play goals. Yeah, okay, so that's skewing it. Well, I mean, it does skee, like, maybe it would have been 70% other than that. I mean, it's horrific. Yeah, and like I said, to me, you look at it.

Mark Andre Fleury, 875, Philip Gustafson, 882. Those are two goalies that, like, make a good amount of money. And for a team that's, like, self-constrained, like, mile below the cap ceiling because of all the buyouts and stuff, you just can't have a goalie suck or really any high money play. And like I said, Caprizov is also the problem. I don't have their cat friendly page open in front of me, but what percentage of their overall live non-dead cap money, let's call it, is committed to guys who have been like bad

this year? Yeah, well, that's, that's it. And Boldy hasn't, like, not only has he not taking the step forward like you would have hoped, but it's been a step back so far. I mean, the one thing, though, is the dead cap money. I mean, they had that the last couple years, and they were a good team. They were a hundred point team. And Philip Gustafson, like, you felt last year when he came over and had that season,

like, wait, maybe we found something. Like, goaltending's weird. There's a couple of guys every year who just popped. up and become legitimate NHL stars seemingly out of, not out of nowhere, but, you know, who weren't expected to, you know, didn't seem to have that trajectory.

And if you're in a wild, you're kind of thinking, we might have that guy here. And through the first month, no, as that has not turned out to be the case. Yep. No, it's, um, Gustafin, like, would have been around my, my Vesna ballot last year.

You know, obviously, you know, GM's vote on that. But he was in that conversation for me. And yeah, he's just been bad. And Flurry's been worse. It's really tough. They're a talented team. I like the coach.

I think that there is plenty of stuff to like with this team. But they're going ASAP because they just, you know, they're watching the playoffs slip away for sure. It's not like, look, Seattle's in a playoff spot right now, so like it's grabable, is what I'm saying.

Seattle and St. Louis. But they're five points back of a playoff spot right now and a few teams are between them and that number eight slot. So, yeah, something's going to happen soon,

or the, the horses are out of the barn. Yep. Barn doors open. Horses are kind of looking at it. Like, oh, do I go through that? Anyway. And then, yeah, Calgary,

obviously they've won a couple of games lately. The schedule softened up for them a little bit, I think you would say. 12 points in their last 10 games, which is kind of, you know, that's sort of the generic six and five playoff pace. But clearly they need more than that because they've, got ground to make up. Yeah.

And again, they've played Seattle, Nashville, Ottawa, Montreal, the Islanders in Seattle again. Like that's, you know, not including the good teams they've played. Include, you know, they beat the Canucks. That's hard to do, you know. But I, you know, I can't get too excited for, for, oh yeah, we beat Seattle twice in the last couple of weeks. We're all set.

It's hard not to worry a little bit that Calgary might be making a charge at exactly where they don't want to be given their circumstances this year, which is like playoff bubble at the deadline. The worst case scenario for the flames to be four points out of the playoffs in the week leading up to the trade deadline. talk yourself into something. Absolutely. And sitting there going, do we have, you know, boy, we've won six of our last 10, geez, do we have to, you know, if you go back to, you pick some arbitrary end point, since December 17th, we've been the seventh best team in the conference. Do we owe it to the guy? And then next thing, you know, it's, you lose the first two games after the deadline, you're eight points out. And you're sitting there going, we've, we're really screwed down. Yeah.

Long way away, but that's, I feel like every Flames fan hearing me say that is nodding right now. I said that, I said this when the, um, the talks with Noah Hanofin, like, broke off. I feel like, I think I said this. I definitely thought it. I'll put it that way. But to me, anytime you're like, well, we won three in a row, we need to completely reimagine our, uh, our, like, long-term strategy. now. That's not a place you want to be as an organization, right? Like, if you're like, you know what, we've turned the corner, yeah, we had that rough stretch, but we turned a corner,

now we're all set. And it's like, no, you cannot base a long-term strategy where you're, like, deciding whether you're going to resign three or four guys or any number of those three or four guys based on, well, look, we beat the Islanders in Seattle. So, and they didn't even beat the Islanders, they lost in a shootout. But you see what I'm saying, right? Where it's like, oh yeah, we had a week where we played Montreal, the Islanders, the Cracken, and the Canucks. And we won three of those four games.

So we're actually fine. Like you can't, you can't be that swayed week to week. So, I mean, I guess you can. This is the Calgary Flames we're talking about. Yeah. You shouldn't be. Hey, let me hit you with this. Okay.

Only because I hadn't clued into this and it surprised me and maybe it won't for you. Without looking at the standings page. Mm-hmm. And let the listeners try this too. Considering we've just talked about some of these, you know, how bad it is in Columbus, San Jose, obviously, Minnesota, all these other places. Which team in the NHL has the fewest regulation wins? Right now. Few is regulation wins.

And it is not Columbus and it is not San Jose. Really? It is not Edmonton, Minnesota or Chicago. A team that I am kind of like constantly going, wow, they're this bad, huh? Is Nashville? Nashville would be another good option. It is not Nashville.

Then I straight up don't know. With two regulation wins, seven wins total, but only two regulation wins, which is one fewer than Columbus, one fewer than San Jose, the Montreal Canadians, have two regulation wins in 18 games. They're seven, nine and two. Yeah, they stink. Which looks quasi respectable, but they have only two real wins all year. Well, they're getting the job done, you know. Their whole thing is like, you know, who should suck this here with us? Is that their whole thing?

I kind of think it has to be. Has anyone told their fans? Well, I shouldn't say. Their fans know the team is not going to be good, but I feel like there was a feeling like this team was making progress. Like, I mean, they were 500 up until a couple of games ago. And, you know, I said, you know, real wins. I mean, overtime and the shootouts, a, a couple of games.

coin flip, but, you know, there's some element of, of hockey to overtime. But, yeah, that's just surprised. I mean, if you're behind San Jose in anything. Oh, yeah, shocking. That's appalling. Yeah. That's very, very bad. But I just think the point for them was not like winning a shitload of games this

year or anything like that. You know, this isn't a, now I am going to pull up the standings page really quickly, but, you know, I, I, I'm not looking at, like, Ottawa with six regulation wins from 15 games, and I'm not going to, like, listen to, well, their fans thought they were going to be good this year. Oh, fans are dopes. I don't know what to tell you, man. You know, it's Lucy in the football. Oh, wow.

We got it going this year. We got it all figured out. Yeah, you have six regulation wins from 15 games, man. That's bad. There's no other way for me to spin it for you, you know? So, yeah, to me, it's like, that is a rough statistic for the HABs, but I'm not sitting here going, I can't believe it. That's unbelievable to me. It's kind of believable.

So whatever. Why don't we take a break? We'll come back. We'll talk about Thanksgiving curses and all this kind of stuff. This week's episode is brought to you by Uncommon Goods. All right. We are officially into holiday shopping time. You've got just a little bit over a month ago.

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All right, we're back and, you know, we're a couple days out from Thanksgiving. Obviously, we're recording this a day early because of the whole, you know, I got to go places tomorrow kind of a thing. Including, how about this, Sean? One of the places I'm going tomorrow is the B.U. Quinipiac game. This is a game between the number one and two teams in the country. It's exciting. It's like, yeah, it's really cool. A 5 o'clock Wednesday game before Thanksgiving, let's make this a tradition, man.

This is cool to me. That's all right. Yeah. Yeah. Now obviously you're not going to be able to book in advance. We're going to be the number one team. I think BU is the number two. It's at BU.

I don't think you can book that in advance. Like, oh, we're going to have a top two matchup here. But, you know, I'm just saying, like, let's get. these games going. This can be a great little tradition. That does sound cool. By the way, in the break, Jeff Merrick tweeted out an explanation of why there's no games tonight. So if people are interested, go find Jeff Merrick's Twitter. If you're wondering about that, he has answers. Oh, great. I'm sure they'll be satisfactory. I haven't seen the tweet.

Said he wanted to, the NHL wants to give everyone a chance to rest off for the big college hockey game, the next day. You know what? Hey, who can blame them, man? This is going to be a big one. 85 people will be in the stands, but that's beside the point. I'll be there. That's all that matters.

Exactly. But anyway, the other thing that's ever so important about Thanksgiving is basically, if you're in a playoff spot on Thanksgiving, it's very likely that you will still be there after Thanksgiving and at the end of the season. And unlike the whole November 1st thing that Elliot Friedman dug up years ago, where it's like if you're four points back, this one is just basically, if you're not in the playoffs and Thanksgiving, historically the playoffs are about 80% set. Now, if you're not in the playoffs right now, you go, look at that. That means there's 20% of the spots are going to free up, and maybe that's all you need. but it's, it is like the November 1st thing.

It's far, it's, it's a lot more than you would think. Because you're sitting here, I mean, God, like, we got still four and a half months to go of this regular season. We're just, teams are just starting to hit the quarter pole, as I love to call it. So, I mean, we got forever to go. And yet, we know that by now, well, by Thursday, you look at the standings, You're probably looking at 13, 14, maybe more playoff teams that you're going to be looking at at the end of the year. Yeah.

So what I did is on Monday, I sat down and I figured out which teams were already locked into, they were not going to be in the playoffs on Thursday. So that meant, you know, looking at some teams had a couple of games. And so I didn't, I think like Pittsburgh and a couple of other teams, I didn't want to, I didn't want to, to include them, but I tried to figure out the five teams that will be out of the playoffs on Thursday that I think had the best chance to get back in. So, yeah, why don't you run through them real quick? So of my five, I started with, in the five spot, the Sabres.

And as I said, man, like, I'm rooting for them, but the math is not bathing very well for them right now. They're digging a hole. They are currently, quote unquote, only three points out. But they got to pass the Islanders, Devils, Penguins, and Red Wings to get in. And of course, Carolina, who's actually holding down the last playoff spot right now. Yes. All of which have games in hand on them.

Yeah, they would have to pass a lot of teams that are on paper better than them. Yeah. And that is really the. And also the Islanders. Yeah. That is the thing. You know, a lot of this is, and this is more the case when you get towards the end of the year.

But whenever you're talking about, oh, you know, we're only X points out of a playoff spot. Okay, how many teams you got to pass? If you're six points out and you have one team to pass, that's a better situation than three points out with five teams. Because you've got, if you're six points back, you have two paths to the playoffs. We get really hot or they get cold.

and as long as we get hot and they don't also get hot, we're okay, we're going to make it. Whereas when you've got a bunch of teams, some of them are going to be hot. Some of them, you know, the loser point and all that is going to inflate everyone's records. Like, it's really hard to pass them. So I'm rooting for the sabres.

I don't mind saying it, but I don't think they're there yet. Number four, the wild we talked about them. I mean, the talent's there, but it's just all kind of looking very ugly right now. Number three, and this is, you know, I know you have your thoughts on this, but the senators maybe got back on track in Sweden a little bit. Yeah, two non-regulation wins, though.

Yeah. That is. Now, look, like they give you the same number of points, right? But they're, and, you know, points percentage and games played and all this. But, like, again, they are below the savers in the standings, right? They are. And, yeah, they have three games in hand on Buffalo.

But, you know, to me, I just look at it and I'd say, well, that that's one extra team that they have to get more points then. They probably will just because, you know, they're, I think that they're, like, their points percentage being 533. That feels about right to me, like a $5.50 team, something like that. If you sort by points percentage, as of right now, they're not only ahead of Buffalo, but also the Islanders Devils and penguins. Right.

Now, that still leaves Detroit and whoever they're going to catch. Carolina, yeah. And it is, I mean, it's tough because the East is, you look at the teams in the playoffs in the East, and, I mean, I think we all, I don't think anyone's picking Philadelphia to stay there. Nobody, well, not nobody. very few expected Washington to be there, but they're... Totally. They're posting a really strong record.

They're rolling right now. They're rolling right now. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, if Washington can actually make a playoff push, that kind of look, because that was on very few lists. Totally. And then you've got the six other teams in the East are all teams that people

expect to be there. You've got New Jersey that's out. I mean, I'll skip ahead. New Jersey is my number one team with no question. New Jersey is making the playoffs. I refuse to say that this team is not going to get in. They're, as of right now, three points out back of Carolina. Carolina's also getting in.

But they're, you know, three points back of the capitals, four points back of the flyer. The devils are in. Are you at all concerned? Do you hesitate in the slightest to say New Jersey? I'm concerned because, you know, they spent a good chunk of time with two of their best players hurt, so like that's up. But the big question is, goaltending, right?

Like if they can't get those two guys going, kind of ASAP, you know, doors closing. I know there's still like 60 games left or whatever for them, but the door is closing. So I am concerned about that. Like, you know, we've talked a lot about like, oh, Edmonton's going to fix the goaltending problem. Well, fucking devils do too. Yeah. But I guess the difference there would be the devils feel like they actually have the ability to go out and get a goalie if they need. Maybe.

As far as cap space, assets to move. Yeah. All of that sort of thing. Now, you know, that doesn't mean, you know, you don't just go, oh, we, you know, we, you know, we, you know, need a goalie and the islanders go, okay, here's Ilya Sorokan, you know, here's, there's, there's not going to be stars out there, but there could be people. Edmonton was number two on my list.

I am still, totally made. I am very clearly going down with this ship where I still, and this was before another regulation loss last night, but I just, I can't, I can't imagine the others are going to miss the playoffs. Man, that would be so crazy. It would be insane. But, again, it. If you look at the standings, they have to pass right now, Minnesota, Nashville, Calgary, Arizona, Anaheim, and Seattle, or, well, one of Seattle or St. Louis, because those teams are tied in points.

But see, and this is the difference in the West, all of those teams. Well, bad teams out there. Bad teams. Yeah. Or mediocre teams. Or maybe a Minnesota team that you might want to say is good just playing very badly. But I don't, like, there's nothing there where I'm like, man, you know. You can't.

You're not going to catch those guys. Now, it may be that it has to be one of those because we're getting some serious separation in the top six, assuming you put the jets in there. I mean, the jets like Washington, they're banking a lot of points. So, but I don't know, man. I'm just, I can't see the order's missing. They're too good.

But. I mean, at this point, I can see it. I don't know that it's like super likely. I don't have, I can pull up the like make the playoff so meter from Moneypuck and we'll see here. Yeah, you pull that up. I'm going to pull up Dom's and see what. Okay. They're still at 44.5% but that's below Calgary.

They're ahead of a lot of the teams I just mentioned as being in front of them. Yeah. Dom has got the Oilers at 53%. So, yeah. Again, we're flipping a coin at this point. Yep. It's unbelievable. Yeah.

Just the, he's, he's got Minnesota and Ottawa also at just north of coin flip. He's got the Devils at 83%. So he's with me on that one. Yeah, no. What I said is the other team, Buffalo? Damn, he's got Buffalo down at 5%. What does MoneyPuck have the Sabres at? 38.1.

Okay. Well, so if you're a Buffalo fan, go to Moneypot. Yeah. And that makes sense to me insofar as, like, there are a lot of, like, mediocre teams in the East that, you know, we got to figure out when the Sabres are doing their annual, we're going to win nine out of ten. You know, it happens every year. Well, it's usually, and it's often, like, down the stretch when they're always playing games. backup goalies and then they go. Yeah.

We got it figured out for next year. Well, either that or it's in November and it's like, right. But that's, you know, that's fake. So it'll be a, I guess my point is they don't often do it in like January when they could actually use it. But anyway, so I have a little quiz. I almost said quizzes. quiz is maybe overstating things. But I have put together, I went back and I looked at since they went to the, whatever,

divisional playoff format, let's say. Okay. How many teams that were in a playoff spot on Thanksgiving dropped out by the end of the season? Okay. All right. So how far back were we going? How many seasons? Since 13, 14. So I didn't include any of the like bubble playoffs and I didn't include any of the shortened seasons, just like the 82 game seasons since 13, from 13, 14 to present. So that's what, what are we, we're talking like eight seasons maybe? Yeah, something like that. I'm going to say, I'll say 18 teams dropped out.

29. Oh, wow. Okay. So that feels like a lot more than, I mean, that's three to four a year. Okay. I guess, all right. How many different franchises have been in a playoff position and blown it in that time?

I'll say 20. 21, you were very close. All right. How many teams have blown it more than once? Oh, boy. Of those 21 teams, how many have been more than once? Let's say three. Seven.

Really? Yeah, and I'm not going to do the thing of name them. Yeah, yeah. Well, let me, I mean, Buffalo, I'm assuming, is probably there. I don't think Buffalo has ever been in a playoff position and dropped out as of Thanksgiving. Okay. Montreal. No, one time it happened.

In 1819 it happened. Didn't Montreal have a, this may be going back too far, but remember the year they started 10 and 0? And everyone was like, oh, they're... Well, Montreal is one of the two teams that blew it more than once. Yeah, they did it twice. There was a year, and, okay, yeah. Well, this is another stat I pulled. The tie for biggest, like, cushion blown is the 15-6.

16 Montreal Canadians in the 1819 Minnesota Wild with 11 points each. They were up on the playoff cut line and didn't make it. See, I mean, that's pretty extraordinary just because, like, you have to be really good to be 11 points up. I mean, thanksgiving. We're six weeks into the season. Or, yeah, that could be it too. But, I mean, boy, that's, you would expect.

Yeah, that's tough to do. That's a lot. If I had had to guess, like, the biggest gap, I would have been well under that. That's pretty, yeah. There's two 11s and one 10. Yikes. Yep. The 10 was, I believe, the 17, 18, St. Louis Blues.

And I think, I think what I'm using as the number there is the number of points they were up on the team that was ninth in the standings. If I'm remembering my own process correctly. So, you know, those are big gaps that those teams blew. But let's go the other way. How many different teams have made a comeback from out of the playoffs to jumping in? I'm going to say that it has happened 29 times. Yeah, no. It's 19 different teams of me to come back.

Yeah? How many has anyone done it? A bunch of teams have done it more. than once. Yeah. Let's see. Six came back more than once. Okay.

Those six are the Rangers Wilde and Boston have all done it three times each. Okay. And Philadelphia, Dallas, and Anaheim have done it twice each. Wow. Okay. It's a big... It feels surprising to say Philadelphia, just because you don't even think of them as making the play. stuff. They were good.

Yeah, I'll... Let me look really quick. Where do I have Philly here? Let's see. Let's see. Philly came back in 13, 14, and 15, 16. And they were... So the other thing that's worth noting about this is the number of teams that came back,

like, it's very rare that they came back from, like, a huge deficit. You know? The biggest, it's not going to surprise. you is the Stanley Cup winning St. Louis Blues. They were seven points out of a playoff spot. And headed even further down. Yeah, that's right.

Famously that it didn't turn around until January. Right. But they were seven points out of a playoff spot on Thanksgiving and made it. I believe that is the biggest gap anybody overcame. And I should say to, there is one team that was technically in a playoff spot and quote unquote blew it, but they were zero points up on the last team below them. Okay. And that was the 15, 16 Bruins.

So just to go, so you're saying the blues, you believe, at seven points is the biggest comeback. I believe that is the biggest comeback. Edmonton Oilers eight points back. Unless I missed something. As of right now. So this Euler team that I'm expressing confidence in is. Do they have a game on?

on Wednesday night? I would assume they do. Let me see. Let's find out. I'm not seeing one here. So the gap can only get bigger for them. Oh, they play the hurricanes. They play the hurricanes.

They play the hurricanes. Okay. Yep. So, yeah. All right. Well, like I said, I don't think they do it, but that's interesting perspective. Yeah. It's, um, most leads that get blown are like one or two points.

Not actually not most at all I take that back That's that's not true But a good chunk of them You know Most of them are three points or less Let's let's put it that way But like a lot of them are two or one

So you know The teams that you think are vulnerable Probably are the teams that are vulnerable But yeah I I thought that That was interesting, just going through. The fact that it's happened that many times and just a handful of years is pretty interesting to me. So, yep, that's that.

Why don't we, uh, won't we take another break? We'll, we'll come back and we'll talk about some other stuff that happened this week. This week's episode of Puck Soup is brought to you by GameTime and folks, we've all been there. We've all bought tickets to a concert or a sporting event. And then we've gotten our seats and we're like, oh, these seats kind of stink, don't they? That's not fun. And especially if you paid a lot of money for those seats. You don't want to be in a bad situation like that.

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create an account, and use the code Puck for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Again, create an account and redeem the code Puck, P-U-C-K for $20 off. Download game time today. Last minute tickets, lowest price, guaranteed. This week's episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. We're into the holidays, holiday season. A good time of year, fun time of year. Also a stressful time of year for a lot of us. especially it's a time of year for travel and family situations and all sorts of things that can really add up. It can get to the point where it feels like a lot. It can even feel overwhelming. And it's natural to feel some sadness or some anxiety about it, especially as we really get into it.

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kind of an international tournament, I guess you would say, it's going to be pointedly not be the World Cup of hockey, I think. Mm-hmm. But for next February, it looks like, it's going to be the U.S., Canada, Sweden, and Finland

playing, like, a handful of games against each other's basis. That's what they want to do, yeah. They're still working on it, but a 14, team mini tournament. Some guy at ESPN had like a bunch of details, so I mean, go search for that. But I feel like the general reaction has been, oh, this sounds like it's going to suck.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I share that. But at the same time, I don't, I'm not sure that I can blame the NHL that much on this. I mean, if the decision is going to be taken to not include Russia, then I don't know. Like, what other format do you do this in that is going to feel like a legitimate best-on-best tournament? How many countries do you include?

Like, do we really? I know that, like, you know, it's like, well, you know, Roman Yosi and Kenfiel won't get to play because they're from Switzerland. Okay, so do we want a team Switzerland to come in and then get like their doors kicked in 10 to 1 by Canada? Like is that really? Well, I think I think the issue with that is just like there are this is going to be an NHL player's only tournament. There aren't enough guys to fill out a Switzerland roster. Well, yeah, that. Right.

Like that. But with that with that having been said, here's a crazy idea. Don't fucking do it then. Yeah. I mean, doesn't that seem like, because, oh, we always hear about, oh, well, the problem, the problem with going to the Olympics is the NHL doesn't make any money off the Olympics. Mm-hmm. Okay, sure. Maybe that's true.

How much money are they going to make off this one-week tournament that people are just going to be like, I don't fucking care. They'll make more, they'll make something because they, it's fully in their control. So they sell all the tickets, they sell the TV rights. Yeah. They get to put all the, you know, sponsorship patches and everything on there. I mean, everybody is dying to get best on best hockey. Best on Best International hockey is amazing. Sure.

And for various reasons, you know, with the Olympics, I do not understand why they haven't done a World Cup in so long. But, you know, it's, it's, I kind of get. where the NFL is coming from here, where it's like, all right, everybody wants to do this. They're acknowledging, by not calling it the World Cup, they're acknowledging that this is a lesser than solution. But also, let's do something to sort of maybe rekindle that international spark heading into the Olympics the next year, which they have not confirmed that they'll go to,

but that seems to be the direction. You want to talk about Lucy holding a football. Yeah. They're going to do it this year. Okay, sure. So, I mean, I get it. And also, like, look, if you're the NHL, yes, you want to have the international tournament,

international this and that. But it's really Canada versus U.S. is your marquee matchup. And the format they're talking about, it would be like two games between Canada and the U.S., two games between Sweden and Finland, and then some sort of crossover. semi-final and then a final.

So in a perfect world, if you're Gary Batman, you get three games between Canada and the U.S., including the championship. Yeah. Not a bad week. Not a bad week until somebody blows out their ACL and that fan base never shuts up about it. I would be happy to watch Canada and the U.S. play hockey, Sweden and Finland.

and play hockey. Great, that's awesome. That sounds like a lot of fun to me, you know? Like, I'm not saying the hockey would be bad. I just think it's like, now, if we were going to go out there a really half-ass this, how would we do it? You know what I mean? Like, this is, this is following that playbook to me.

Yeah. You know. Yeah, I mean, the, doing the World Cup in September is a far better format to me than. Without question. Than this. I mean, a real. tournament takes more than a week.

Oh, that's interesting. But... You think so? Yeah. But the flip side is the NHL is going, you guys want international hockey, you want best on best, we have a week. That's what we've got. So... Do you think it's like a poison pill at all where it's like, we're setting this up to

maybe not be very good or not be very legitimate or whatever you want to say? And then they go, well, everybody thought that sucks. and a guy got hurt. So we can't let you go to the Olympics. I don't think that, but it does kind of, yeah, maybe. I don't know. Well, remember the last time they were acting like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll let you go to the Olympics. And then, like, two guys got the sniffles.

And they were like, oh, what are we going to do? Like, you go to the Olympics? Yeah, all right. Okay, Rogan. But, like, you know, it's, obviously it was a COVID thing, but it was like, right, that was the only outcome that was going to happen was that. Everybody in the league was going to get COVID. And then the league was going to go,

Korea, man? That's not going to happen. Yeah. What are you talking about? So it feels like it's the same thing to me. Like, I guess people can forgive me for not reading into the NHL, the best of intentions regarding international hockey. That feels fair, yes.

But that's what it feels like to me. It's just like you would have to, uh, you would have to really believe the NHL thought this was going to go great and was designing it to go great and all that kind of stuff. They're designing it to shake a bunch of money out of people's pockets. Oh, wow, it only cost $3,000 to go to the U.S. and Canada. Awesome. I can't wait.

I got my tickets to the final. What do you mean it's Sweden versus Finland? Exactly, man. And the other thing I guess I saw was, that they're thinking about like Sweden and Finland would actually play in Europe. Right. Which would be cool. As a guy who just flew back from Sweden a couple of months ago, that jet lag wasn't fucking joking around.

I'm not usually a guy who gets jet lag or has to deal with it too much. But that one, I was like, oh, okay, I got to sleep. I was going to ask because, I mean, we send teams to Sweden to play over the weekend and then like they fly. back and get like two weeks off to recover. Right. So I'm not quite, well, again, I mean, what you talk about, this is like the evil heel commissioner comes out and he's like, yeah, you can win the match, but the timekeeper is going to be this guy and the ref's going to be that.

Like, yeah, maybe that's the whole plan. You get jet lagged, Finland, Sweden, arrive, they get picked up a deer before. Yeah, it's crazy. The U.S. and Canada won their semifinals by a combined. score 14 to 3. Interesting. Honestly, that could be it. Yeah.

And look, the finals in Columbus, who's not making that trip, you know? For this prestigious tournament? Wow. So excited. Yeah, I mean, everybody's rightfully saying, like, this can't be the plan, can it? Really? And the NHL's like, oh, of course it is. But like, it's, and I get that.

I'm totally on board. It's just so often the NHL or something within the NHL does something, and I'm like, no, that's not the right way to do it. You should do it this way. Here's how it could be better. With this, I'm just, other than waving a magic wand and making the war go away and Russia can come back in and then you can, you know, I mean, yeah, you could also include Czech, Slovak, you know, there's other nations.

But this just kind of feels like the best of a bunch of not great options for reasons that are outside of the NHL's control. Well, again, to me, and this will be the last thing I say about it, to me, the NHL is like, well, what are we going to do? Not do this tournament? Yeah, man. That sounds great, actually. nobody is like forcing the NHL to to do this. That's all. That's my only thing with it.

Yeah. There could be, there could be bad stuff going on with this and they're going, oh, well, you know, what are we supposed to do? Not have it. Yeah, that's exactly right. You don't have to have it. Nobody's making you.

So that's just my thing. Like they're just acting like it's an inevitability. They've never done it before. They don't have to start that. After all these years of not doing it. That's what I'm saying. Simple. Anyway.

Hey, speaking of Sweden, as a Leafs fan, were you able to watch the Sweden games? Because I sure wasn't. Yeah, I was. I will admit. What a nice country. I was able to. I didn't get up early on Sunday to watch a Minnesota wild game. But yeah.

Early. That game was at like 11 a.m. brother. No, no, no. the last one was at 8 a.m. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. Okay, that's borderline early.

That's before my wake up time, certainly. So. But I don't have two teenagers. I think I just figure if you have kids, you're like up at the crack at don't. No, when you have teenagers, you don't have to get up until like, like at two. You're like, I got to get up. You know what? Now that I think back on my teenage years.

Yeah. I think that checks out. Wonderful thing. I will admit, I was more interested in it than I thought I would be. At the beginning of the year, when I was. saw that they were doing that. I remember being kind of like, eh, just going to screw with the schedule. There's going to be games at weird times and no one will care.

I do think the whole William Nealender coming out party kind of did add an entertainment value to it that was more than I thought it would be. Sure. So it went from something I thought I wouldn't care about at all to something I cared about a medium amount. Mm-hmm. Yeah, as much as you can care about a regular season game in November that's on TV at 8 in the morning. And, you know, they were up the four games, yeah, they're decent. Three of them went to overtime. And the one that didn't was the Leafs having a late comeback to beat Detroit in regulation.

So, yeah, it was pretty good, you know, again. It's, you know, it does kind of mess with the schedule and all of that. and we'll see if that, how annoying that ends up feeling. But it was, it was pretty cool, actually. And, and, you know, the Leafs are also a team that has, like, you know, a pretty decent history with the Swedish players. Salming, obviously, Matt Sundin was over there. The senators with Daniel Alpherson, Lydstrom for the Red Wings. Like, you know, it was cool to see some of those older players and see the history being,

acknowledged. So I was surprised at how I did enjoy it by the end. All right. Yeah, I mean, to be clear, not available to watch in the NHL or in the U.S. Unless you had the NHL network. Yeah. Or lived in Detroit. Detroit, there were local games, obviously.

But if you didn't have the NHL network, you were straight up not allowed to watch these games. Unbelievable to me that this keeps happening. Yeah. That they're like, no, this is an NHL network exclusive. Well, brother, my cable provider does not offer it as an option. And I guess I should say, I don't have like traditional cable. I have direct TV stream or whatever it's called.

But straight up, I don't think I can have the NHL network. I've never seen an option to add it. Let's put it that way. Because I happily would if they would let me. but I and I just I really wonder what number of people have the NHL network and were like, oh, I'll watch this game. You know what I mean? Like even if you're, you know, like a Maple Leafs fan living in Washington, D.C. or whatever. Do you like, what, what percentage of people fit into that category?

Mm-hmm. It's going to be like 80,000. Or like, oh, yeah, I'd actually love to watch a wild senator's game. And I have the channel that allows me to do it. It's crazy to me that they would silo it off like that. Yeah, but I do not understand the strategy that they have on their TV coverage in general. It does not make sense to me. Yep.

Yeah, you can't watch the early Hawking. Night in Canada game on Saturday nights. I don't, I, I, I, I understand from like an archaic point of view, the idea of a local blackout, you know, I can't watch the Bruins because I'm within three hours of, you know, 90 minutes of Boston, whatever it is. And that's not even getting into, like, if you live in Iowa, you can't watch like nine different teams play for some reason, that kind of thing. They're not even getting into that, but just like,

I get that part of it. I do not get the NHL network exclusive. You can't watch it on ESPN Plus. And it happens more than once where it's like this is one of two games happening today. It's already happened a couple of times this year. Crazy to me. Very strange. This stupid fucking thing.

But yeah, they're big on, that was a big success for us right now, apparently. good times or had by all kind of a thing. So I'd expect it to continue. I don't know if, you know, like the Czech Republic or Switzerland or somebody like that is up next. Yeah, I think they'll figure that out. But yeah, I mean, it did sound like it went, like it went well. So. Yep.

And, yeah, I don't know. Did you see this? There was an article in one of the Detroit papers. that was talking to all the Red Wings like, oh, what was the best part of the trip? And they all said, this Swedish dish called Toast Skagen. No. Which is just like, yeah.

Like, they all were just like, damn, that, it's basically like a shrimp toast kind of a thing. It's a little hard to explain. I had it when I was in Stockholm. It's very good. Okay. But it's like, hey, the leaves. Oh, you guys had a blast on this trip. And they're all like, yeah, it rocked.

The senators say, you won two games. Oh, yeah, that was really great. It's nice to be over there. The Red Wings. Well, look, we had this toast that was pretty fucking good. There was good toast. That's the absolute NHL player encapsulated. Hey, man.

Like I said, I had it when I was over there. I had a blast with it. It's really good, actually. The NHL fancy toast. All right. It is very fancy. There's no two ways about that. Folks, what I'm saying is, if you're ever in Stockholm,

him take some advice from me and like Dylan Larkin, you know? Uh-huh. It's good. It's good toast. And you're like, oh, what about the hockey games? And they're like, let me tell you some more about this toast. Yeah. You're not going to believe how good it is.

Okay. Yeah, anyway, let's end on a down note as we so often do. We try to save the bad news for last on this podcast. Milan Lucci, Chirrested over the weekend. Yeah. Not good if you read the police report. And of course, you've got to say this is all allegedly. The police report is not necessarily 100% truthful or whatever you want to say.

Like, again, it's just all allegedly. Yeah. But it should be a really easy decision for the Bruins to be like we're cutting this bum loose. That's it. Yeah. Yeah. So the big, the big fun, feel-good comeback story where. he returns to where it all began.

He's already been out injured, and now it certainly seems as if... Played his last game in the NHL? Yeah, it wouldn't shock me. Yeah. Again, allegations, let the process play out, all of those things, but... You got to say all that.

But, you know, this... Looks bad. It does not look great. Yeah. Yeah. So you hope everybody gets involved gets the help they need. The ruins have said they're going to support the Loochich family at this time. I don't know what that means.

But, you know, they said he was involved in an incident and they're, you know, they're doing what they can to help the family. So who knows what any of that means. But yeah, it's a really unfortunate thing. that shouldn't keep happening. I guess my only other thing is I'll be interested to see what the league has to say about this, because they haven't said anything as far as I know. I believe, yeah, they just pointed to the Bruins statement.

Yeah. And did not make any statement of their own. Right. So there you go. Sean, why don't you hit them with some plugs? It is Black Friday Week at The Athletic. with the return of the $1 a month deal that is typically up around this time of year. It's a great time to get in.

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it's going to be lots of fun stuff. also lots of links out to other things that you may never have seen before. And it's going to make some people very, very mad, which is always fun. I'm looking forward to it. So keep an eye out for that. And when you see it, click on it and then sign up to subscribe for one measly dollar a month. It'll be worth it. If it's not, you can come to my house and I will not give you your money back, but I'll pat you on the shoulder condescendingly. tell you that I'm sorry it worked out that way. That's right.

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Yeah, a discount is. automatically apply to checkout is what it says here. So if you ever wanted to, you know, look, you don't have to read my stupid fucking articles, you know. You can just use it to like track down players, keep track on the, on the prospects your team has, read articles by smarter people than me, that kind of thing. And now's the time to do it because, you know, World Junior's right around the corner. you're going to be excited for World Juniors, you've got to have EP Rinkside. It's that simple, folks. So yeah, go over there and they'll give you a really good deal, half off an annual subscription.

So check that out. And then also check out Patreon.com slash Puck Soup. Get our bonus episodes. We are doing one later this month where Sean will be doing the stick to sports format, which is no sports talk allowed for a whole podcast. Can I pull it off? Can he do it? I'm not sure.

This might be the first time of my life I've ever gone an hour without talking about sports. I think we can get you going on some candies talk. Okay. Yep. We could do that. For people who don't know. This is me and Sean Gentilly do a podcast where we mostly talk about like candy in movies.

McDonald's. comes up a lot, you know. So we'll figure something out, as we so often do over there. And then, yeah, there's other stuff, too. There's all kinds of bonus material over on Patreon.com slash puck soup. Check all that out. Thanks for listening. Enjoy your Thanksgiving if you're in the U.S.

And enjoy Thursday if you're not. Mm-hmm. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slapshots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to it. commute, but we also cover movies, TV shows, it's in tunes. It's your weekly bowl of Hagi and Nancet.

Borg Sue.