Puck Soup - Holiday Panic Meter

Episode Date: December 23, 2025

Sean and Ryan talk about which teams are worried right now, how worried they should be, and more.

I'm Ryan Lambert from Elite Prospects. I'm Sean McAnneau from The Athletic. And, uh, ho, ho, ho. It's, well, I guess today's Festivus, isn't it? Is that what, is that what it is? The, it's the 23rd. I thought, I got confused about what day it was. I thought it was the 24th for a minute.

It's the 24th. I'm in even more trouble. Yeah, that's exactly right, man. I was like, fuck, I'm going to get out of here. Yeah. I have places to be. People are going to be mad at me for being late. Anyway, it's the 23rd.

We're doing. I guess, you know, in a lot of ways we are kind of doing the airing of grievances, and that's just because it's a normal episode of Puck Soup. I'm just kidding. It's because we're going to talk today about our teams panicking, should teams be panicking, et cetera. And we're going to start off. Sean, I'm going to go take a nap for a few hours. Talk to me about the Toronto Maple Leafs. It's not great.

It is... Nope, nope, nope, nope, no. The vibes are bad, as the kids might say. So, yeah, as of this morning, the Toronto Maple Leafs, dead last in the Eastern Conference, technically tied with Columbus on points percentage. You don't want to be tied with Columbus. Yeah.

When you're saying things like technically tied with Columbus, that's probably not going great. And, yeah, they have lost their last three in regulation. Like, they had a bump there a couple weeks ago where it looked like they were maybe back. And then that's just all falling apart. And they, I think in just in the sports world in general, we are way, way, way too eager to talk about teams quitting on coaches. But they really look like a team. And the coach is kind of quitting on.

them back. There was, you know, like the one of the losses last week. And he was like, I don't know, ask them. Yes. That quote was when, so, you know, I try to keep a running outline for the show over the course of the week, just like, oh, something catches my eye or I feel like there's something worth talking about that happens like last Thursday. It's all, it's instantly on the outline. I'm not trying to think back to it too often. You know what I mean? And I saw that and I was like, Panic meter, number one thing we're talking about on the show next week. The Toronto Maple Leafs are, I'm going to say, pinging in the red on the panic meter at this point. Absolutely.

The Maple Leafs are the team you used to calibrate the panic meter for all the other teams. That's right. We got the coaching change last night. Sort of, yeah. But not the one we thought. It's not Craig Barube. It's Mark Savard, who is the assistant coach who, probably best known in Toronto for being the guy who got in trouble for doing fistpumps

when the Leafs would score in the playoffs. That was always fun. But more lately had been known as the guy in charge of the power play. And the power play in Toronto stinks. It's one of these, like, it shouldn't be possible to put those players out there five on five and barely outscore your opponents. to do it five on four. Like the Leafs have, I believe the numbers are,

they have 12 power play goals this year. They've given up four shorthanded goals. Right. So someone... So their power play accounts for one goal about every week or so. They get one goal on balance from having power plays. Not special teams in general. Having power plays.

It's really bad. Yeah. So someone on the puck soup, discord, and I don't have it in front of me, so I apologize to whoever had this pretty, I thought, interesting note here, which is that if the Maple Leafs PowerPlay was running at the league average, which I would argue it probably should be better than that, but let's say it's the league average. How many more goals do you think that would have gotten them over the course of the season to date? Ooh, I mean, it's got to be at least another 10 goals. Six. Really? Okay.

Yes. And so that's one win. Are we, are we one win away from saying the leaps aren't panicking? And I guess the other thing to say is, and also one fewer loss, right? Yeah, sure. But are we, are we one win away from saying that? Because I'm going to say the answer is no. Yeah, I would agree.

They are, that would move them ahead of Columbus, but they would still be behind the buffalo sabers. Right. Yeah. And believe me, we're going to talk about the savers. We can't talk about the Sabres in the panic meter section, though. No, no, no. Okay. So this is the other thing.

So, you know, they just let you pull up stats, right? You can just go look and see how the stats are going, right? Leifes, goals four per 60. Last year, 9.18. This year, four. That is a horrendous fucking drop, right? Yep. That's literally almost unbelievable.

expected goals for last year 9.76 this year what do you think it is well it's got to be higher than the actual output but i'll say 7 9.14 oh wow so they are dramatically underperforming look you can say there are reasons for that that show up on the ice blah blah blah what do you think there and you mentioned the short-handed goals What do you think the expected goals against difference is from this year to last year? Like put a percentage on it, whatever. It's got to be. Is it like 100% worse this year? No, it's like way better.

It's like 1.3 last year, 0.82 this year, right? So they're actually playing better defensively than they were last year. See, now you're making me feel better. I didn't know everything. Well, now let's talk about, now let's talk about, What I'm hearing from you is, uh, it's all good. All right. They shot everybody.

They shot on the power play last year, 17.2. And their save percentage was 940. On the power play this year, 7.9, 858. And again, there can be reasons that those change. I'm going to say they don't change a 90 point swing in, uh, in save percentage and a 10% swing in shooting percentage. What I guess I'm saying is

Mark Savard they're going to start calling this guy Jack Perry. He's the freaking scapegoat. Okay? The Leafs are scoring more goals per 60 at five on five this year than they did last year. They're also allowing almost a full goal more at the other end.

We should say they, you know, down to their third and fourth string goalie. So I totally get it. I get that. But what I'm saying is. But also the third string goalie is playing fine. Yeah. There is that. There's that.

First two guys. And look, I'm not, I'm not sitting here trying to say Mark Savard, perfect, beautiful coach, never did anything wrong. Again, I watch the leaps and I go, these guys stink on the power play and they've quit on their coach. Mm-hmm. But I don't think they've quit on. on the coach who's in charge of the power play.

You know what I'm saying? They were very specifically quitting on. Has any team ever quit on an assistant coach? I kind of like that there. Okay, guys, remember tonight, five on five, get out there and be adequate. Just kind of shuffle it around. Power play, we shut this down, right? We're all agreed.

Good. So if, if, if, go ahead. Yeah, let's just say, If they have quit on Craig Barouba, what now? From the outside. I mean, it almost feels like everyone is just assuming Baroube is gone. I can't believe he isn't already. Again, like, look, obviously the Leafs got worse over the summer.

There's no two ways about it. Like, what I'm saying is, I guess, like, people are going, oh, this is what happens when you don't have Mitch Marner. I think the power play thing is to some extent, just bad luck. And again, if you want to say the five guys they put out there are like, they should be better than league average power play,

I would agree with that. But they're shooting 7% on the power play. How many teams do you think in the history of, you know, like the advanced stats era, have a shooting percent? percentage that low over the course of 82 games. There can't be.

Has anyone ever done it over a full season? Over a full 82 game season. Let's see here. Yeah, a handful of teams are in the like 7, 8, 9 percentage. The Flyers two years ago, two years ago have the lowest in an 82 game season, and that was at 7.4%. But the leaves currently are. are fifth worst by shooting percentage in the advanced stats era, dating back to 0708.

So, and one of the teams behind them was in the COVID, like intentionally COVID short and see, the 56 game season. So, you know, I guess what I'm saying is there are bigger problem. The power play is a problem. I think there are bigger problems than the power play. And Brad Trillivings solution here is, well, the guy who's running the power play, he's got to go. Right. Which it does feel like you're just kind of throwing some red meat to the wolves. Yeah, absolutely.

Here's the other part of this story is, you know, I use that metaphor. And I'm sure, you know, most of the vast majority of the people, people listening to this are fans of some other team, not the Leafs, and they're probably sitting in their own markets, their own fan base going, oh, man, it's, if it's going this bad in Toronto, we know what that market's like. It's got to be crazy there. It kind of isn't. There is an apathy. Yes. In this fan base that I have not seen, certainly in the Matthews era. And I mean, maybe in some of the, you know, the low points at like the Dave Nones years or that sort of thing.

But it's like, you know, they're not selling out the building anymore. So everyone who's ever played the whole, the reason the Leafs never win is because they always sell out card. That's out of the deck now, apparently, because they're not selling out the building. I haven't seen about TV ratings. I don't know.

But like, there's an awful lot, and I include myself as a fan in this group, who are just like, I don't like this team. So, like, I'm not, like, you want them to win because you're a fan, but it's also like there's no and I don't know what it is this year that maybe just because they're losing more

maybe I've seen a few people say that after a month of watching the Blue Jays in the playoffs like to come back to this lukewarm puddle of a hockey team was you know just just put it in even starker relief how little these guys seem to care yeah it's I don't know It is, it's not great.

No, it isn't. Now, the other thing we should say is, just as a reminder, they don't have their next two first round picks. Right. They would have this year's pick if they were bottom five. It is bottom five protected, which is certainly not. We're trending in that direction. Certainly not out of the, but it's like, so even this is the part on Puck Soup, where normally my friend Ryan would lay out all the reasons that they should just blow this thing up.

You kind of can't. And frankly, I would not be at, I mean, if they had their first round pick, I would be like they should try to get some more picks. But like, I don't think this is like a blow up the team worthy team. Right. Like they have so much talent and it's all still, you know, a lot of their best guys are still in their prime, let's say, or close to it. I mean, in their prime, but closer, closer to the end than the beginning, let's just say. Well, okay. If this was happening two years from now, I'd be like trade everybody.

Fuck it. Who cares? Right. But there's still time to ring something out of the Matthews thing in theory. The problem is Brad Trilliving is the GM of this team for me. And I think he's not a good GM. And I said that when they hired him. he's like going to make you mediocre

over a long enough timeline and I think you know bad bad bad luck aside um the Leaps would be a strike me as just kind of a mediocre team um yeah

and he's like what if I go get another like 32 year old defenseman that's the Braddra living like solution to everything yeah so I mean and that's part of it is that I everyone sort of waiting on the Burabay shoot a drop.

Mm-hmm. But Brad Trillivy has not exactly built a dedicated fan base in Toronto. That's crazy. Who could have seen that coming? So I don't know. It doesn't sound like something could be imminent at the very top. But who knows? Yeah, well, now he gets to fire the coach first.

Well, like he gets to buy himself the time. He gets to hire, I don't know, whoever he hires, Pete DeBoeuvre. Or maybe, but could be, no, I mean, who knows. But they make that, I think that's more of a change for the spring when they miss the playoffs, assuming they do. Yeah. At this point is far more likely than not. Yeah, like, why if you're him, why fire that bullet knowing that you'd need to go on a hell of a run just to make the playoffs? I think, yeah.

Well, I mean, True Living isn't going to have a... Hell of a run is overstating. Like, I don't... Like, we are very close to, you know, as a Leaf fan, this feels reminiscent of back when, like, the Brian Burke, Ron Wilson era,

where Burke very much he did not want to fire Ron Wilson and made that really clear. But, you know, fans are chanting and throwing crap on the ice, and at some point it was almost like a mercy firing. Totally.

And I could see us getting there. The other things going on in Toronto, and I should say they've had injuries. Sure. Lots of teams have injuries. The Leafs have had some worse luck. You know, both goalies, best defensemen and Chris Tanev, you know, some other guys.

We don't know what is going on with Austin Matthews. He is very clearly not the player he once was, but whether that's injuries or whatever. but part of it is this team doesn't tell us anything. They've become one of these teams that just says, shut up, give us your money, you don't get to know anything about what's happening behind the scenes. So, okay, I guess, you know,

if Austin Matthews was hurt, maybe that would mitigate some of the criticism, but you're not going to tell us anything, then we just assume he's not hurt, and we're going to continually point out how he's still a very good player, but not anywhere in the elite. Well, Dom had that article.

Was it yesterday or the day before? Yeah, he and Myrtle teamed up on. Right. Just like about, and, you know, reading that, you just go, it seems like a systems thing. Maybe this Craig Baroo, you guys, not a very good coach. Anywho, I guess we'll circle back to that this summer. There's definitely a part of that, right?

That this is, you know, all of it is a lot of the numbers have dropped with Baroubae, and, you know, some of it is, I don't. Not production, by the, to be clear, like, we're talking about scoring chance rates and, and even like speed and, you know, all of the stuff we can measure now. One of the things that I saw was that this is, as far as it being a Barubei systems thing, is that apparently it, the Sheldon Keefe leaves, if they lost the puck in the offensive zone, they went on the attack to get it back. Yes. And it was pointed out that Austin Matthews is arguably probably one of the five best players in the world at, like, individual puck battles. Yeah. Like you put him up against anybody.

Throw him out there. There's a good chance he comes out with the puck. He's just that good at it. Whereas with Barubei, you lose the puck in the offensive zone. Fall back. Yep. Fall back and defend, which kind of takes away Matthews, one of his superpowers. Now, his other superpower is supposed to be the shot, and the shot hasn't been there.

Correct. A lot of times you don't really notice him. And the other guy you don't notice is William Nealander, who, you know, the numbers still say is having a pretty good year, but has just been invisible and kind of feuding a little bit with Barube and all of this stuff. You don't say. Yeah. So basically what it comes like, I'll tell you this. I'm not going to sit here and get up on a soapbox for Craig Baroube because there's no point. it feels like the writing is on the wall.

Yes. But if the players are turning on the coach, to me that says more about the players and the coach. And it's just one more strike against this team, this core, this identity, whatever you want to call it. Like, these guys are just, again, they're just, they're being taken out of their comfort zone and they're rolling up in a little ball.

Yeah. And I saw speculation that, like, Savard was like the player's buddy style guy, like the good cop on the bench. And, you know, True Living wanted to take that away and really force them out of their comfort zone even more. And it's like, yeah, okay. I mean, sure, I guess, man. Like, if you think that's going to fix something, I think you're wrong about that. Like, because we've seen guys try to do that with these. Leafs players and they just go, fuck you, get the fuck out of here.

You know what I mean? Like, we're not going to put up with that shit. And like, if they're, if they're turning on the coach or, you know, he's lost the room or whatever you want to say, do you think this is going to get him back? A little tough love? No. I think this is just a case of we have to do something and so. Yeah, I got to look like I'm doing something.

Bradger Living's not going to. It's not like he's going to make a trade. This guy? He's been working on Callie Yarncrock for seven months now. Well, I mean, you've got to think there's no, there's no Scott Lawton's out there who's going to make a huge fucking difference for these guys. You know what I mean? Hold on.

Maybe there is. We haven't got to that time of year where suddenly you hear about some player who's not very good costing a first round pick. And you go, what? And two months later, it's your team giving it up. Yeah, of course. Yeah. I mean, look, Brad, I'm out on true living.

I like Burra. I've got a soft spot for Craig Barrabe, but it's pretty clear where this is trending, let's just say. And, you know, maybe this is just as simple as, I mean, I think a lot of us were thinking, well, they probably wouldn't fire a guy right before Christmas, but they just did, to Mark Savard. They certainly did.

Now, I will say, if I got to look someone in the eye right before Christmas and say, get out of here, it's going to be a little four-foot-three Mark Savard and not Craig Grubé. Yeah. But, yeah, it's not good.

The other fun thing, tonight, they play the Penguins, who we can get to next as another team that is, it's not going well. There is, like, a weird history with the Leafs, where it's happened two or three times

where they, for some reason, end up playing the Penguins right around, Christmas and get absolutely stomped. And then like that sets off a chain reaction of misery. Like I feel a couple years ago we went through that, there was a famous one like a week before the Doug Gilmore trade where they lost 12 to one to the penguins. And Cliff Fletcher was like, screw this.

I'm detonating this whole team. We're out of here. Yeah. And everybody was like, yes, please do. That's great. No problem here. Yeah. That would be Cliff Fletcher, the GM we got from the Calgary Flames, who then came into Toronto.

and actually did things, which was a nice, that was a nice change. But again, yeah, Leifser, the panic is high, and the only reason I wouldn't say it's a 10 out of 10 is panic implies like people really caring about something, and I think there's more apathy in Toronto. The panic is lower in the fan base, which means it should be much higher in the accounting department.

Sure. But I guess we'll see how that goes. Yeah, so put a number on it for me and then we'll move on to the Pittsburgh Penguins. Go nine. Yeah, I think that's fine. I think that's about right. Well, okay. I think it should be nine.

I think for them it's more like a six and a half or a seven. For them being who? Braddra living. Yeah. Well, I mean, he's got a really hard job, Ryan. What's he supposed to do? Yeah. Hey, who could disagree?

All right. let's do the penguins. Turns out this team that we all went into the seas of going, oh, what if these guys like, I don't know, like what if they suck really bad? Like really bad. Does Cindy Crosby get traded? Is this of Gennie Malkins last year in the league,

et cetera, et cetera? Turns out they're not very good. They were good for a while. They were a fun story. Yeah, and like not even a bad team on the ice, right? Like, that's the other thing. Like, in fact, right now at five, on five, their expected goals percentage is still north of 50.

And it's north of 51 in all situations. So like, my hat's off to them on that front. They're a competent hockey team. In fact, their XG is top 10 in the league. XGF percentage is top 10 in the league right now. But they're starting to get scored on a lot, which is, I'm going to say this. A thing, bad teams with bad goal tending, not even bad teams. even mediocre teams with bad goal tenders, that tends to happen.

Mm-hmm. You know? Middling offense, bad and trending down defense, defensive numbers. And, you know, again, I think we all saw this coming. So I don't know what you want to really say about it other than this was kind of always, the outcome we were trending toward. Even with the hot start. Yeah, it was, I mean, it was a nice story, right?

Because you had the... Yeah, of course. Oh, Sidney Crosby is not going to let this team and all of this stuff. And Malcolm was off to the brinkyard. I think we all want good things for Sidney Crosby in his career, right? Like, I think we all just on the same page. I think we all want Sydney Crosby trade rumors for the next three months is what we all want. So good news.

Well, that's probably, is that not at the end of the day part of the, of the good things for his career. It is. Yeah, the penguins are two, four, and four in their last ten, it says here. And they've lost whatever it is in a row that's more than they're doing that thing where, oh, sorry, they did win. They won last thing. They won their last game.

But they had had the, like, eight-game losing streak that the NHL was trying to say was a three-game losing streak because there was a a loser point in there. A classic situation. Yeah, that's right. Oh, well. So. The penguins are, like, I feel like this is not, like if you're Kyle Dubas, you're probably like,

oh, no, now I have to potentially rebuild and move some guys. That's exactly right. And what do you do with Evgeny Malkin? Because we had a piece at the athletic last week where they were saying, like, the penguins had kind of been clear that this was it for Evgeny Malkin this year and then they were moving on,

but he's been really good, what he's healthy. Yes. Does he stay? Is he now tradable? Is that something that could? I think at a certain point, I mean, it depends on what kind of money he wants to me, to a certain extent,

just because you go, well, I can't give this like, what is he, 39, 40? I can't give this guy like $8 million or whatever, the number he wants is. And so even if you're rebuilding, like I guess that's the other thing, is you've got to kind of go, look.

We pretended for a little while there. That was a fun October and November, but then December hit. Sean, do you want to guess the last time the Penguins allowed fewer than three goals in a game? Oh, boy. How long is it been? Fewer than three.

It has been since December 1st. Hmm. That's a lot of games between, no, that's like 10 straight games, three, four, five, six goals, you know? Mm-hmm. In fact, what's funny is they're win the other night against the Canadians was in a shootout.

It was their first shootout win all year. They were 0 and 5 before that, it says here. So even when they're winning, Sean, it's like fake winning. Yep. So that's tough, man. That's tough. So, I mean, let's put a number on them. Uh, like four.

What do they came? Yeah, I was going to say five out of ten. Because, because we knew. Well, that's, that's right. And, like, the only panic is, is everyone going to be mad at me if I trade Sidney Crosby? Yeah. And they will.

And the answer is, yeah, they're going to fucking kill you. Yeah, they're going to be super mad at you, man. But you kind of got to do it. He just passed Mario the other night. I don't have that on the thing, but, like, that's cool. He passed Mario and career scoring. Cool as hell whenever you, like, you're, like, you're passing Mario and

anything. Yeah. It rocks. Yep. Sure does. Hell of a goddamn player. That's Sidney Crosby. I think he's good.

Now let's look up their respective games played. Well. Oh, okay. That's one of those things. You just, every once in a while you'll forget, oh, Mario didn't even really

get all that close to a thousand career games. Nope. It's like 9-17 or something like that, right? It's like low 900s, if I remember it. He was, uh, yeah.

It's crazy. Anywho, yeah, four or five for the penguins, like, again, this was always a pretty predictable outcome. Doesn't feel like they're going to start trending up anytime soon. I'll say this. No team is as bad as its worst losing streak. No team is as good as its best winning streak. And we'll talk about that again with the savers in a minute. But I think if you take it as a whole, the penguins middle of the not in the,

not in the playoffs conversation. Honestly, if you said that to a Penguins fan in September, they'd go, that doesn't sound so bad. I'll take that. We're mixing in some fun wins or whatever, and you're like, sure you are, man. Okay, great. Let's talk, let's go out west for a minute.

Let's talk about the Seattle Cracking. Third coach in three years. Yeah. They stink again. New GM. And now look, to be fair, to the new GM. The old GM did a really bad job.

And so there's a lot of mess to clean up. And the old GM is still your boss. Yeah, that's right. Makes it a little tough. It's a really good point. Fuck, man. So, yeah, they're a bad team, I think, predictably so. And here's what I would be worried about if I were them.

They're beautiful young guy, Maddie Baneers. Remember him? Mm-hmm. He has 19 points in 34 games. Yeah, he's... That's a tough one because he really... Like, he popped in his rookie year. He looked like they had something.

Yes, absolutely. And... I mean, we've said it before with this team. Like, they... Obviously, the kind of the original sin in Seattle was around the expansion draft. and that Ron Francis couldn't pull off the Vegas

trick because not because other GMs wised up because other GMs got scared and overcorrected and all of that but they weren't able to land a ton of picks so you kind of go well where's the

future coming from? Shane Wright's been okay but he's clearly a work in progress prospect as opposed to a guy who's going to drop in and be good to go. But that's the other thing. Benares is only a year older than him. They have a combined 10 goals in 34 games this year.

Right? Like it's not like, oh, Maddie Baneers, you know, it's because he popped in that rookie year and we say it all the time. The thing about like, and you can just kind of put a guy on your PP1 and he's going to get a bunch of points and it doesn't really matter how good or bad your team is. You know, I'd have to go back and look. Now I'm wondering if that was just what they kind of did with Maddie Baneers is they put him in a huge position to succeed and he did it. And then they were like, okay, time for you to take a step up.

And the next year he was like, I am actually not going to be able to do that for you. Sorry. Yeah. But the real thing I'd be concerned about is. 24 goals that that rookie year, 57 points, 15 and 37 the next year, 20 and 43, which is a totally respectable number, but it's not what you would want from a guy who was your second overall pick. And then again, this year, he's he's on pace for like 10-ish goals. We're going backwards, it seems like. And I mean, the Cracken are dead last in goal scoring.

Correct. The three guys ahead of, man, I'm assuming you've got it open, but the three guys ahead of Maddie Baneers on the scoring list, it's... For the Cracken? Yeah. Oh. It's a hell of a mix, man. You mean Jordan Ehrlich, Chandler-Stefonson and Ely Tolvinen?

35-year-old Jordan Emberley. Yeah. Has 22 points. And he leads the team in scoring. Aye, yeah, man. And, uh, yeah, which... somebody was telling me that that would have been like sixth on the Sabres Hell yeah

And we are going to talk about the Sabres, don't worry But yeah, he would be, well, he'd be fifth right now On the Buffalo Sabres But yeah, 35-year-old Jordan Emberley Chandler Stevenson, the free agent signing that none of us liked Has 21 points Frankly none of us should have liked Yeah

He liked one The guy who was the Best player outside the NHL, like 18 years ago, is somehow, 26. Or whatever. Did they trade for them? They traded for them a little bit. I don't remember.

They trade at Mason Marchman. Yep. Which is that them selling or is that them realizing that an offseason move hadn't really worked in recouping their assets, basically? I don't know. I think they would say, can it be both? Yeah, because he had not done, he had not done much. Nope.

Yeah, a classic boy, this really isn't working for either of us. You want to like get this annulled? Yeah, that's actually great for me. That would be all right. So, yeah, what's your number for Seattle? Well, we didn't even, here's how bad it's going. They got their little butts beat last week. week and the, uh, the PR people were like, okay, no media members are allowed to ask any questions here.

Right. Yes. That's, uh, and then they had to be like, uh, we, we actually shouldn't have done that. It's like, man, you fucking knew that night. Like, I'm not going to, you know, they're like, it'll never happen again. I'll take their word for it. That's fine by me. I don't, you know, whatever. But it's like, presumably these guys are, like, PR professionals. They, they would have known that this would have pissed everybody off before. You know, like they didn't need to have someone go, you know, you're actually not supposed to do that. They go, really? Of course they fucking knew what they were doing.

It's because the team sucks. They don't have any answers. And like they, I mean, this is the thing. When people pretend that like the people who cover the teams for their little websites are like real media people. Mm-hmm. Geek shit, man. I'm sure they're all nice guy. You know what?

They are. Anytime I've dealt with like the Bruins people over the years, really nice guys. But at the end of the day, they're like, well, we're on an 18, eight game losing streak or whatever the crack and were at that point. Let's talk about how actually these guys are having a lot of fun out there. They're actually nice guys that everybody likes them. Well, I mean, what are you going to do? Throw them to the rabid dogs of the Seattle hockey media. Yeah.

You can't. No kidding. You need a break every now and then. No kidding, man. Put Seattle, I'm going to say five out of ten again. I feel like they are more coming back to expectations, but. Well, I've said that maybe this is me just like being on a hobby horse for a couple of years. I think the number's got to be higher because we're getting closer and closer to the day when the NBA goes, welcome back Seattle Supersonics.

We love you. We've always loved you. That's true, yeah. And when that happens, a team this badly run making like PR blunders that sucks. And I just saw someone on the Discord complaining about how fucking expensive everything in their arena is. And it's like, all of that is not a great way to build up goodwill in what is, quite frankly, a basketball town. that is yes

so I think the number has to be higher than a five because they gotta be they if they're not hearing the footsteps they're like those footsteps

gonna be out there somewhere you know oh that's fair so I'm gonna say it's like a seven and a half because again like you don't

you don't make the PR mistake that they made this week without being like just wide eyed like oh fuck it's all curate

caving in on us. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So I think it's going really bad there. Let's stay out west. Let's talk about the Winnipeg Jets. Yeah.

You want to talk about a team that had, that couldn't have seen it coming. Holy fuck man. Yeah. This is the team I would put ahead of the leaves. Yeah. Because President's trophy winners last year. Yep.

And I mean, And it started fine, too. Well, we'll talk about why in a second, but yeah. They did start fine. Yes. And they had the reigning MVP get injured and miss time, which is going to hurt any team. But they are below 500. They are, as of this morning, they are one percentage point back of the Calgary Flames.

Remember the Calgary Flames? The team we all thought we were going to finish absolutely dead last? Yep. And absolutely still might. But the Jets are... That's the thing nobody's saying about the flames, huh? Yeah. Yeah.

The Jets are, as of now, six points out of a playoff spot. And flatlining. I mean, two wins in their last 10, Hellebuck's back. You know, Murat at the Athletic is already writing pieces. Like, should they blow it up? Do they sell it all off? When do you make that decision? When do you pull that trigger?

I think this is a team and a market where I'm not saying you can't rebuild in Winnipeg, but when you have a theoretically contending team, you've got to make some hay while the sun shines in a market. Absolutely. And this season is a disaster for them, the way it's going. 10 out of 10 for me on this one. Yeah. Disaster doesn't begin to cover it for me.

They are, there are a lot of things I'd be really worried about if I were a Jets fan. They are not a very good, like all situations are five on five team, for one thing, right? When Hellebuck is out of the lineup, let's, okay, let me reverse it. When Hellebuck is in the lineup, they have the third. third best team save percentage in, like if it was Jets with Hellebuck is a separate team from Jets with out Hellebuck or Jets with any other goalie. Jets with Hellebuck, third best save percentage in the league, and above 500.

Crucially, one game above 500, which kind of tells you where the other problems are in the roster. But when Hellebuck is not there, they would have the, like again, Jets, no, They would have the worst safe percentage in the league. And that, wait, let me check that again. No, I lied about that. The Oilers, Blues, and Senators would also, would all be worse. But those are three teams where we're like five alarm fire.

Mm-hmm. The goal-tending situation is a fucking disaster. And to a certain extent, you just go, well, Hella Buck's going to play whatever, 75 games this year. So we don't have to worry about it that much. Well, then he got hurt. How did they do when he got hurt, Sean? They went 6, 9 and 1.

That's not good. And it's not great, but this is what I'm going to say. In theory, it should have been a lot worse than that. Like the way people talked about it and the way they looked, you're like 6.9 and 1, I guess I'd fucking take that. You know what I mean? And so, I guess my thing with the Jets is this. They have always been kind of like we talked about the Rangers a few years ago.

Power play and a goalie, that's it. Right. There were other things to like about that team. High quality players at every position, that kind of thing. But this is what happens when you give every. Every, like, 29 to 31 year old on your roster, multiple years and trade protection and a bunch of money and all that kind of thing. And you're really only a power play and a goalie at the end of the day. And, and I mean, you kind of have to do that when you're Winnipeg, right?

I totally get it. No, I'm just saying this is always like a potential outcome. This is the nightmare scenario you're looking at out. Because like... The one good thing. Okay, go ahead. Yep. is if it does come time to rebuild, I don't think those no trade clauses are quite as big an issue maybe as.

You're probably right about that. But again, like, to me it's more about like, hey, do you want a 32-year-old Mark Schifley who's signed through 2030 at $8.5 million? What about 30-year-old Kyle Connor who's starting an eight-year deal next season that gives him $12 million in a full no move? What about Adam Lowry? He's signed through 2031 and he makes $5 million a year. How's that sound? What about Neil Pionk, 2013, $1,000, $7 million a year, partial trade protection? Like, there are so many, as we always say, Sean, red arrow contracts on this roster where you're like, yeah, that's like a $3 million overpay on that guy.

That's like $2 million bucks here and there and it all adds up. But this is the other thing, Sean. they have the lowest cap expenditure in the league. And that number ain't going up. They would not seem likely to... When you're approaching... I think it could temporarily go up. They could hoard at a deadline if they were pending.

But it's, yeah, they're not going to be one of these cap teams in the $120 million cap world. They're not even... They're going to be one of these cap floor teams in that. They're like, what's the absolute bare minimum we can get away with spending? Unless, as you say, they're contending. I think there was a quote to that effect that we read last week. But this is the other thing. You want to talk about like how you're spending your money and that sort of thing?

This Jonathan Tave's contract is a fucking calamity. He has been horrible this year. And they, that was like one, again, if you're, if you're going to say we only have, we have an internal cap, we have limited amount of money to spend, blah, blah, blah. It is really looking like Jonathan Taves might have been one of the absolute worst players in the league they could have spent that money on. How many players in the league, and this is, this is only one website, this is a metric that maybe not everybody buys into, how many players in the league have a worse, like, goals above replacement than Jonathan's? in Taves this year. You're bumming me out, man. I want John and the Taves to be good.

Why? Who cares? Because he came back from, you know... So what? You shouldn't have! Oh, Scrooge. It's, uh, yeah. How many people were at 10?

Uh, lower than that, please. Oh, okay. All right. And you know what? How, okay, let me, let me amend that. How many, how many, forwards are less valuable than him. Five?

You're going to want to go lower. Oh, come on, man. Is he the worst of the worst? The absolute worst forward in the league, Jonathan Taves, cost them six point three goals above replacement. That is about one win. And I'm not saying the one win turns everything around for them, but it's the spending however many millions of dollars in bonuses and all that kind of stuff.

What I'm hearing is that Jonathan Tate's, Dave's is the human embodiment of the Leafs power play. Statistically proven. Yeah, that's right. He's been awful. And his cap hit, if he hits all his games played bonuses, which he is, how many games has he played this year? Let's see.

Jonathan Taves has played 35 games. He is 25 games away from being, a looks like about a five-ish million dollar player, maybe six. Some of the bonuses are based on like how far they advance in the playoffs. Great news. I got some money savings coming your way, man. But if he gets, he gets 550K for every 10 games he plays after game 20, up to game 60. So he's going to cost them a lot of money.

And he's been the worst forward in the league. and if you're going to, again, if you're going to have an internal cap, you can't be setting aside we're paying Jonathan Taves up to $7 million. No. It was a, I think it was a worthwhile

gamble that has not paid. Not even a little bit. Not even a little bit. A guy that was slowing down before he didn't play in the league for two years. Mm-hmm. You know, like that's the problem with John. Again, you're talking a future hall of

famer who wants to come home to Winnipeg. Sure. You do that deal 10 times at a 10. And you hope that you're getting a good third line center out of it. I hope they, hasn't happened. For their sake, I hope they sold roughly $7 million worth of Jonathan Taves's jerseys. Because other than that, this was a huge loss for them.

And again, one that any dumbass could have seen coming down the street. Like, again, you were. want to say this is like the worst of all possible outcomes. How good, how good was he in an ideal scenario? Tell you this, he wouldn't have been worth seven million fucking dollars. So I, I have, you know, I have no sympathy for the Jets on this one.

This was extremely foreseeable to me. Are you with me on 10 out of 10 on the, oh yeah, well, so I wanted to say, what do you think they do here? I mean, I think they, they wait and they hold. and probably in another couple weeks, they, that's an option, I guess.

And then in a couple weeks, they probably start selling. Like, it feels like there's already a sense. There's an inevitability to it, yeah. This is not it. And unless they flip a switch, which they adds it,

with Connor Hellebuck, you could. Because Connor Halibuck might just be like, I'm not going to go 940 for two months. And, okay, we're good here. But until then, I think it, it almost like this is one of those years where it just feels like by the time you realize what's happening, it's almost too late.

Yeah, totally. Because the other thing is, and, you know, at least if you want it, it's not even, it's not even something positive. But if you, you know, if you wanted something that wasn't a disaster for the Leafs, you could look at it and go well, look at the rest of the division, man. Yeah. We're maybe not in the mix to win the division, but nobody is really, like, Winnipeg, man. The rest of the division has left you in the dust. You've got arguably the three best teams in the league all ahead of you in your division. So, like, you're already going for a wild card at the very best.

Yep. Best case is you get a wild card and you get to cross over and play Vegas or Edmonton instead of, like, it's tough, man. what about let's go back to the eastern conference here the new jersey devils they're getting guys back everybody's going to be healthy again soon but i don't know like they're they're in a they're in one of these um what do you want to say like they're still in the mix for the playoffs obviously in fact now that i say that they're technically in a playoff spot right now but i don't know man It feels, for them, it feels extremely precarious. Let's put it this way.

Florida, a team that everybody's like, yeah, they're weirdly disappointing this year, huh? And Ottawa, a team that is, I mean, you're local. How do people feel about that Ottawa team? Yeah, ups and downs. Up and downs, right. They're hot now, but, yeah, they are teetering, I think would be a good word. Yeah, and so my point what the devil says, they're below both of those teams in points percentage right now.

And they were, I'll put it this way, they were not supposed to be at this point in the season looking up in the standings at the Islanders and the Flyers, you know? And by the way, this isn't like a games played situation. In fact, the Flyers have one fewer game played than the Devils do. So that, in my opinion, is bad. And I don't know what they think they can do about it.

it, you know? Yep. I'm with you. It's, uh, they've got Jack Hughes back. They certainly do. They,

yeah. I mean, I guess that's what you kind of plant your flag in is if you're, which is tough to do with the guy who's missed as much time as Jack Hughes over the years, but you just go like, hey man, our best player was hurt. We're not whatever we were. Sure.

Whatever our record said we were during that time. So the reason I, now they lose this for, gave, you know, like give him, give him some time to ramp up. Totally. Now, so the reason I bring up the devils in this scenario, because again, like, they're not like the other teams we've talked about so far, right? But what I do think about here is one of my very good friends is a devil's fan.

And he, when he, like, reports back from, from base to me of, like, what Devils fans are saying, they're like, the fucking how. is falling down around us. This is a humiliating situation for us to be in. And I, you know, to me, I don't, I don't know that they're that bad, but relative, I guess my point is relative to expectations the devils feel like they could be in a bit of trouble. You know what I mean?

And what does that mean for them? What does that mean for Fitsy himself? Yep. You know? Yep. And I don't know that there's a good answer to that. Tommy Fitz could be in trouble because if this team were to miss the playoffs or even make the playoffs and go out meekly. Yep.

I think the year feels very much like a failure. And fair or not, the Quinn Hughes thing hangs over it. The Quinn Hughes thing, look, I would agree that it's fair insofar as. This was what the setup was. You know, the setup was at some point here, the devils will be getting Quinn Hughes this season. And not only did they not get him this season, a different team team. Well, that's it, right? If it had been, it was either we're going to get him.

Or Vancouver didn't trade him, yeah, of Vancouver will be good or stubborn or stupid or whatever and not trade him. Right. But Quinn Hughes does get traded. he doesn't get traded to New Jersey and he goes to a team, lights it up, that team gets red hot. All of those things. It's a tough one.

By the way, I can pull this up really quickly, but I was looking at speaking of goals above replacement, I was looking at the separation, like the split for Quinn Hughes between his time in Minnesota and his time in in Vancouver this year.

2.9 goals above replacement in 26 games with Vancouver. 2.9 goals above replacement in five games with Minnesota. Yep. He fucking rocks, man. He is unbelievable. Dude. What's the number for New Jersey? I'm going to say it's like a four.

It's not that high, but it's. I think it's higher. I would go like, I'm going to go a six and a half because. You know, they call me the optimist, though. Yeah.

That's, that actually. Well, it's because, like, they're in a better situation than all the teams we've talked about, but also I think the stakes are,

are certainly higher. I don't think they're higher than Toronto or Winnipeg, but I think certainly higher than the other teams. Like, this is a team that is, I mean, a lot of people, we're picking a Dark Horse Stanley Cup

that sort of thing. Like just getting in as a wild card and losing to Carolina in round one is not going to cut it. Yeah, them being a bubble team is a big bummer for them for sure. Okay, one last one here, the Utah mammoth. Remember for like a week

in October they were the everybody was writing stories about like the age of the mammoth has arrived. This is... I wish I was a sucker, Sean. I say it all the time. I wish I was dumb as shit and I thought the mammoth would be good this year.

Unfortunately, I saw through it. This is what happens when, like, your owner is friends with a bunch of writers. You know what I mean? He actually goes golfing. Okay, who gives this shit? They are one percentage point behind the San Jose sharks. Is that good?

I'm going to say, yeah, it's awesome. Oh, wait, it's not 2,000. 2014, okay, it's bad then. Yeah, I mean, they've steadied it a little bit recently, but yeah, I just don't, I think this is, this team is still the coyotes.

They don't have the talent, man. It's that simple. They didn't, yeah, they don't have the talent. They didn't add as much as a lot of us kind of hope they would in that, like, oh, now the coyotes have a rich owner. Now, you know, surely they're going to go out and land a bunch of, no, they did more, you know, It was reasonable as opposed to, you know, they didn't go full-on fantasy hockey, but not doing that has resulted in a team that this team is about right.

And I think Andre Tournier is a good coach, but not quite the miracle worker that... They're actually not a bad, like, five-on-five team at all. So, like, credit to them for that. They're doing a lot with a little, but at the same point, time, it's just, again, relative to expectations and how everybody was talking about them and probably how they felt about themselves, quite frankly, of like, oh, we're a potential playoff contender, blah, blah, blah. It's like, yeah, I don't know about that, man.

Well, I mean, they still are a contender, but I think a lot of, like, there are a lot of people who looked at that team and went like, oh, this, like, they're a playoff team. And you're going, okay, well, whose spot are they taking? because they weren't a playoff team last year. And, well, now we know that there's always spots that open up that you don't expect, Winnipeg being won. But that's kind of the spot that they're chasing because they're not getting in the top three of the central. So to quickly state, right now they are in a playoff spot as of, you know.

By points. Yes. Points per cent. By points. By points. You want to talk about a games played situation. They've got more games played than just about everybody. Yeah.

In the Western Conference, save for, yeah, just St. Louis. So, again, it's about being relative to expectations, and I feel like I just saw a story about, like, there's, oh, they were offering some crazy discount on tickets the other day. And I was like, that's probably not a good sign for how things are going with, with them. And, like, they, I will say this. They do a really cool thing where, and this was awesome for me when I was in college.

When I was in college, you could get, like, a Bruins ticket for $27 on Thursday nights. They weren't, like, great seats or anything, but you got in the building for $27. And this is, like, the early 2000s. Student tickets for the mammoth, for, like, you know, college kids around. town, there's a few colleges in Salt Lake City. 15 bucks. That fucking rocks. That's so sick.

And that's how you build a fan base and all that kind of stuff. Like, I think that's awesome. So, like, that's cool. But I do wonder if, you know, there is a point, like, we're getting to, because remember when Seattle, like, was kind of middling the first couple of years. And this is obviously before they beat the avalanche in that one series and everybody was like, well, they've arrived. here we go, you know, all that.

There was a little bit of that, like, these guys are going to start winning suit, or people are going to get bored with them. I wonder, based on, again, how, like you said, how everybody talked about them before the season, do people in Utah just kind of go, I don't know, I guess I'll go skiing or something instead. Well, that's it, right?

I mean. Like, that's what I'm thinking about with this. Just again, relative to expectations, they're just kind of not. So what's your number on? I think like internally it's probably like a three, but for the market as a whole, it's probably more like a five. Like if they miss the playoffs by an okay margin this year, that that would be a problem. But, and this is, I wanted to build up to all of this,

the bottom of the West is so bad. Yeah. that, like, who could be surprised if these guys do make the playoffs? Now, they would play right now, the Colorado Avalanche, who have 20 more points than them in three fewer games. Yes. So I don't see that series going well for Utah. Okay.

But, yeah, it's the bottom of the West, like you look at the teams below them, right now in the standings. And other than Winnipeg, There's not a single team there that scares me as a playoff team. By the way, we didn't even put the Blackhawks on the list, but just because I think they were expected to be bad, but are we where are the Black Ox? Two out of ten because they wanted this all-long kind of deal?

Look, I'd love to be Charlie Brown backing up eight, ten feet, ready to kick that football out from under Lucy's finger. I would love to be that guy. But, like, I read all these early season stories. They figured it out. They figured it out. They know how to play winning hockey now, blah, blah, blah. And I'm just sitting there going,

you think this team has figured it out. Are you watching these guys? Like, whatever, one in every five shots they're taking is going in the net. It probably wasn't that high. It was one in every seven or whatever. Is going in the net right now. And you're watching that and going, and surely this is proof, they've 100% figured it out and there are no problems here.

Yeah. That's my thing with it. I'm just going, you guys thought this was real? I'll go four to ten, Utah, two out of ten Chicago. I think both of those sound about right. Yeah. Okay. And with that, why don't we take our break one hour into the show?

How does that sound right? Sounds fantastic. Awesome. Here we go. We'll be right back. All right, we're back. And hey, we teased it a couple of times. Let's talk about the Sabres.

So when we talked last week about them and we were like, you know, maybe he'll do a good job, but who knows if he's running the show? I think probably at the exact same second we were saying that on the show, he was having a press conference going, I will be running the team 100% by myself. Did I say Yarmou Kekeleinen in all this? I didn't, I don't think I did. So we're talking about Yarmou Kekalina. We were talking about full autonomy, and he's like full autonomy. And in fact, he called him Terry. He didn't call him Mr. Pagula, which we said was another thing that Terry Pagula probably insisted on.

So big shout out to Yarmo. Hey, that sounds great to me, you know. But TBD on whether I actually buy it because the Buffalo Sabres have won, I think it's 42 games in a row now. We've never seen it before. We've never seen in the first half of the season, the Buffalo Sabres go on a big run and get everyone all excited and say,

is everything fixed? We're solving all our problems. And then nothing bads ever happened ever after that. Dude, I don't know what you're talking about. The Sabres are good. They're fixed. Kevin Adams was the problem. And, uh,

so it sounds like we're running. on the same page. Awesome. Yeah. Yeah. This is, I mean, here's the thing. Okay. They're on a win streak. We've been down this row before.

You've, you know, we've already used the metaphor of Lucy with the football. This is the most Lucy football thing ever. But. Of course it is. There was some evidence that the Sabres were playing better than their record. And in this conference, man, this. This might be the year where the random 10-game win streak in the middle of the season that doesn't mean anything is actually enough to just get you into the playoffs.

Yeah, you're probably right about that. Which in Buffalo is, that's got to be what you're looking for right now, right? Well, is it or isn't it? It is. You haven't made the playoffs in 14 years. I understand that, but what I would be worried about, especially after a new GM gets hired, is they come in, or he comes in, they make the playoffs.

and all these UFAs and RFAs that were like, what's the future look like? I don't know. Jacob Bryson, here's eight years, brother. You know, like, Alex Tuck, come on down. Here's 12 million bucks. And that's the thing that I would be very worried about if I were them. Because are you rebuilding still?

Are you trying to build around a young core, or are you giving all your veterans? That is, you're right, that is scary because that was part of what Yarmalkechalin was talking about at his press conference, right, where he was like, I'm going to take control of this Alex Tuck situation. Yeah. Which would imply that, all right, I'm going to, I'm going to call him up. I'm going to say, here's the number. Are we close enough to keep this conversation going? And if not, let's work on an exit plan.

Yes. And you're right. It does become a little tough to trade Alex Tuck at the deadline if you're three points out of a playoff spot that you haven't had in 14 years. Or three points into a playoff spot. Even more so if you're three points in, I'm not even sure that it's on the table at that point, even though we all know. But again, this is, like, are the Sabers going to win the cup this year? No. Of course.

But if they can make the, like, at some point, you've got to give your fans something. I totally get what you're saying. And it does, like, it does, with Alex Tuck specifically, start to feel a little bit like that 2019 Blue Jackets team. I was going to make this exact comparison. Who was the GM of that team? That was Yarmo, and he was the one who ultimately decided we're not trading Bobrovsky, we're not trading Panarin. We're not trading Matt Duchyne. They had at the time.

Yep. Because they had gone out Nat and they had traded for him. around. We're going for it. They did end up making the playoffs. They won around. They, against a lightning team that we all thought was going to absolutely destroy them. Yeah, of course.

They swept them. It was the greatest moment in the history of the franchise. Sad as that might be winning one. And then, you know, how have things gone in the subsequent six years? Five, six years later, you probably wish they had moved those guys. But I'm not at the same time, man. Like well, but what I'm saying is I agree I agree with you the savers number one priority should just be like eking into the playoffs by half a point of course obviously But it's what you take from that do you see what I'm saying like do you go yeah hey we got lucky

And it's nice to get lucky when you have when you've been incredibly unlucky for 14 years that having been said we should keep all these guys that's what I would be worried about if I were a Sabres fan you certainly don't want them buying to try to get into the playoffs or maintain a playoff spot

as the case may be two months from now right like you don't want them giving up assets for a team that as you say we all know what's going on here this is a pretty pretty good team at best, at the absolute tippy top of their performance, this is like a seventh place team probably, right? And one does not have to look too far in the Eastern Conference to find teams that are like, oh, the Detroit Red Wings? Yeah, they're the second best team in the

Eastern Conference. If you are a fucking psycho Red Wings fan, day one of the season, you weren't like, I think they're right up there with Carolina. You know? And in fact, how about this? The Detroit Red Wings, second in the conference, negative goal differential. The fuck are we doing here? I love the East, man.

This is what I'm saying. You can just, I think every team in the East should just kind of write this season up, with the exception of the Toronto Maple Leafs, because it's always funny when they're in panic mode. They should just write this season off as who the fuck? knows what happened there. That was crazy. Let's circle back this summer and see if we can...

Nobody should be taking any lessons from this. You know? The Maple Leafs dead last in the conference. Yep. Again, it's this simple, Sean. The Maple Leafs dead last in the conference. A 500 team. That doesn't make sense.

Nope. I would... Not just the NHL. Do you think there's one... league where a division or a conference winner or a loser like the last place team in the conference is fucking 500 in the entire 100 plus year history of North American big four sports I can't imagine the answer's yes to that question yeah even even fake NHL 500 I'm not sure if if that would be out there and certainly not in any other sport where they have a

There's winners and there's losers every game. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, like, it's crazy. It just doesn't make sense that anything in the Eastern Conference should be happening right now. The Islanders and the Flyers are comfortably in playoff spots. And maybe not so much the Islanders, but maybe a week ago you would have said they are comfortably in, so whatever. But also, they're two of one, two, three, three. four, five, six teams in the entire conference with a positive goal difference.

I don't know what anybody could be taking from this, you know? So my hat's off to the beautiful Buffalo Sabres, who, by the way, are still three points out of a playoff spot with all this. With a game in hand. They needed to win six games to get to worth three points out of a playoff spot, parentheses with a game in hand. They did. So they did.

that's great. That's great. Good for them. But I just wonder how real they think this all is. Who's seeing through the BS? That's all. And when I say BS, I mean Buffalo Sabres. Okay. Put it this way. I don't think Yarmo, after everything that's happened in the last couple weeks, it's going to be like, you know what? Actually, this team that Kevin Adams built was actually good all along. And I don't have to change anything. I just don't get a sense that he's going to. try to play that card. Yeah. Good news that, I mean, from his perspective,

and probably Sabers fans, good news that they moved on Kevin Adams when they did because, I mean, imagine if if they've been a new way, the next loss, suddenly it's, you know, it's the Rick Flair angle. The next time the Sabres lose, that's it for Kevin Adams.

He'd have an extension by now. Are you kidding me? There'd be a well being drilled right now. Okay, some other news here from around the league. Last Friday was the deadline for that stupid 75-day rule where, like, you have to do double retention, like, with a certain amount of distance between it. And nobody did double retention on Friday, so that means there will be no double, or nobody did single retention on Friday. So that means there will be no double retention at the trade deadline. Yep.

Cool league, awesome stuff. But two trades did come in very shortly. I think both less than an hour before the holiday roster freeze. Filled a note to the Habs for a second. We talked about that last week. That's fine. They needed some cover at center. Although apparently his whole thing was like,

I don't want to be a third line center. Well, now you're... Dude, you got to bump up the offensive output before you're a third line. Yeah, you get, you score one goal and we'll talk about it, you know. Anyway, I don't know that he's a number two center in Montreal, but I do know this. He's from there. So that's nice. And then the other one, as we mentioned, Mason Marchment to CBJ for a second and a fourth.

Yeah, which is just kind of interesting in that the blue jackets are not necessarily a team you would expect to be buying right now. But this is not a bad time to do it. Like, I actually get the logic of... Totally, yeah. They're slumping. They're underachieving. You go out and get a guy who can maybe come in and give you a boost, and he certainly did in game one. It might be a bit of a distressed asset.

Yeah, absolutely. If it doesn't work, you can move them again. There's nothing that says... You're locked in on them. And, you know, I've made this point before, I think, but like, you know, Mason Marchment is better, in all likelihood, is going to, right now, at whatever point you think he's at in his career, is probably better than the combined value of that second and fourth round pick to the blue jackets in the long term. So I think this is a totally fine trade that like, you know, whatever, it's only one year left. If the experiment doesn't work, like you say, you can flip them or you just fucking eat the loss and that's life too, you know. But yeah, like we said before, it just kind of wasn't working out in Seattle for him.

So there you go. Any other thoughts on these two traits? No, I don't think so. I mean, I wasn't expecting any retention stuff. I think it's asking you. I was hoping for one. I was hoping for like one that would like. Somebody pointed out that like two bad teams,

if they had relatively equal guys, should have swapped guys at 50% retained. Just to do it. Just so that they could then, at the deadline, they would have the only guys that could be 25% for a buyer. Yep. That was interesting, but way too complicated for, like, an NBA GM would have been all over that.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Okay, I wanted to quickly mention about the ECHL. I don't know if people have seen about this. But their players have been, there's been a talk off and on this year, like it'll bubble up every once in a while of like how fucking miserable it is to play in the ECHL. Guys are making like shockingly little money and, you know, all that kind of stuff. Like, and that's before they pay their agents and everything, you know.

So like it's, it's apparently quite bad. and it may be heading toward a player strike in the ECHL. Of note, I will say, is that they are represented by the PHPA, the Professional Hockey Players Association, which covers both the ECHL and the AHL, but the HL and the PHPA have a separate collective bargaining agreement than the ECHL and the PHPA. Right.

And so the AHL players are seemingly well on their way to getting a new CBA locked in that would be retroactive to the start of this season. So that's probably going to get done in the near future. But the ECHL players sent out this message last night via the PHPA's Twitter account. To our loyal fans, we want to update you on the state of our negotiations with the ECHL. And then there's a lot of stuff about like they're not conducting themselves lawfully, basically, is what they're alleging in this letter. But I just wanted to highlight a couple of the things that they're talking about here. This is an I'll quote from it.

It has taken almost a year to persuade the league that we should be entitled to choose helmets that fit us properly. We still have clubs supplying members with used equipment. The league shows no concern or regard for players' travel schedule, and has said that the nine-hour bus trip home should be considered a day off. Until a few days ago, the league was not prepared to give us a day off per week, and they refused to negotiate a meaningful holiday break that allows players to be home with our families, which would be consistent with professional hockey in North America.

In addition, the league's economic proposals to date put players below where inflation has taken us since the last collective bargaining agreement was signed prior to COVID, we also gave the league a two-year no-cost extension to assist them in recovery. Most concerning, instead of spending time negotiating with our bargaining committee this week, the league sent a, sorry, the league sent at least two direct communications to players through team management regarding bargaining-related matters in an attempt to bully and intimidate players with tactics that violate U.S. labor law, these communications bypassed the league's bargaining representative and contained statements that were inaccurate and inappropriate. As a result, the

PHPA has filed yet another unfair labor practice charge with the NLRB, the National Labor Relations Board, addressing the league's direct dealing with bargaining unit members and its coercive conduct. Many players have shared that they feel disrespected, undervalued, and taken for granted. as of today, after reviewing the league's most recent response, there has been no meaningful movement toward a fair resolution. So it seems like they're going on strike. And that, you know, I'm going to say this. We love the players.

We love the players in this situation. And the situation where they're saying, like, they're making us wear used equipment and stuff, that's bad. They should have new equipment. Yeah. If they want it, they don't want it, you know, it's up to you. But looks like that's going to result in a strike in the near future.

Sure does. Not good for hockey as a whole. Well, not good for hockey as a whole, but sometimes you need to draw your lines or the owners will just keep taken. Yeah. Okay. That's it. We're done here. Why don't you hit them with a plug, Sean?

Let's get out of here for the freaking holiday season. You can find me at the athletic, although no podcast with Sean and Frankie this week or next week. I'll be back in the new year, but the newsletter is still running. A new one go out this morning. And, yeah, I'll have a post this week where I'm going to kind of borrow from the conversations we had last week about who exactly is the best player in the Eastern Conference, if anyone. Well, somebody's got to be definitionally. No, no, they could all be tied.

Yeah, but then they, okay, well, I don't want to get into like the goal list versus scoreless tie and all that kind of stuff. You and your participation trophies. And then for me, Elite Prospects, obviously World Juniors is right around the corner. It's just a few days away here. And I said it before, I'll say it again, the good people over at Elite Prospects have the best World Juniors cover. in the world. Nobody else is even really coming close, in my opinion, just in terms of boots on the ground and the number of people who have seen so many games by, like, you know, the fifth defenseman on Latvia, I'm sure there are like multiple pages of scouting reports in the files

back at the headquarters, you know, so nobody to deeper knowledge base, nobody covering it more seriously than the people that will leave prospects. And if you sign up for an annual subscription. I don't know when it ends, but like in the next little while here, 33% off an annual subscription. So that's a big savings from EP to you. So I would take advantage of it right now. And then I would head over to patreon.com slash puck soup and get all kinds of bonus episodes,

including one that is publishing on Friday, where Sean, Greg, and I were tasked with drafting a team of 18 skaters. with their collective plus minus in their entire NHL careers adding up exactly to zero. That was fun. It was a really fun one. I love drafts, man.

That's right. And we're going to go do a mailbag over there right now. But I wanted to say this before we go, Sean. People know I like birds, right? It's come up once or twice. Yeah, okay, great. So there's a documentary.

I'm doing a lot of year. list stuff like I'm sitting down, I'm thinking about what movies I like the best. There's a documentary I saw earlier this year, and there's a hockey tie-in with this. It's two brothers who don't really know anything about birding, and they're two like hockey guys, like at least one of them has an elite prospects page and all this kind of stuff. And they're like, uh, we're just going to spend a year trying to see as many birds, like unique birds as possible. It's called, it's called in the birding community a big year.

This is a documentary called Listers. It's free on YouTube. It fucking rocks. It's so sick. And I just, again, like, this is a movie that I saw, I don't know, July maybe. And I was like, this is what it's all about. This is so good. And it's two hockey guys.

You see all kinds of, I think they're from the St. Louis area. So there's, like, blues stuff. They even play roller hockey in the documentary at one point. So this is right up everybody's alley. it's so good. You know, they're all saying, they're saying sinners, they're saying one battle after another.

And I'm saying those movies as well. But I'm also saying Listers is awesome. Again, just go type it into YouTube. You're going to be rocking and rolling. Great shit from that, from that brother pair of documentarians. That's it. Thank you so much for listening, folks.

And we'll be back. Not next week. We'll be back in the new year. We are also taken next week off, although we will have a deluxe mailbag where we'll talk a little bit about the news of the week before we do questions and that kind of thing. So check that out over on the Patreon if you're that desperate for our takes on what's happening in hockey. Which other than that. Sean? Fucking goes without saying, brother.

Happy holidays. Thanks for listening. and we'll see you in a time when I'll be still freaking right in 20, 25 on all my checks. All right, have a good one. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.