Puck Soup - Horrible NHL Contracts

Episode Date: November 5, 2020

The boys are reunited to talk about what the 2020-21 season could look like, including the "hub city" plan and whether the NHL will have an outdoor game; a deep dive into the 10 worst NHL contracts; whether Wysh could fraud his way to becoming an analytics guru; teams with a cap crunch; a rousing new edition of Name Pat Falloon and much more!

Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slapshots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to whatever you commute. But we also cover movies, TV shows, it's in tunes. It's your weekly bowl of hockey and nonsense. Pogsoux. Hey everybody. I'm Greg Wischinski from ESPN, Worldwide Leader in Sports Entertainment, and the Mandalorian by proxy. I'm Ryan Lambert from the Lincoln Project

I'm Sean McIndoo from Canada And you're in Puck Soup Hey Ryan congratulations then on all your funding Hey I think that's awesome We got negative 3% of Republicans to vote against Trump Just like we wanted And now we're all multi multi multi multi millionaires So it went great for us

You did get you did I mean like listen I don't think that you're really doing yourself a service. You also got some real sick burns in on Twitter. Yeah. Yeah. Bray, I don't know if you've heard, Orange Man, Bad.

What a grift. But hey, it's a chance for guys like Michael Steele to create their own wing of the Republican Party. So it's good times. This is not a politics podcast, by the way. As we do the podcast, we don't know anything. So it's just going to be about hockey and shit. I mean, that was true the day we started.

we didn't know shit. Yeah, I mean, that's absolutely, that's unimpeachably true. Unimpeachably. Sorry, it's not a politics podcast. Ryan, I wanted to ask you a question because this news did break before we started to do the podcast. Electronic Arts, the National Hockey League and the National Hockey League Players Association announced a multi-year renewal to their partnership to keep the NHL series on EA Sports going for a few more years. your thoughts on the continuation of this partnership based on what you've seen from the current product? I mean, who else is going to make an NHL game, right?

Like, that's, there's only one guy willing to do the job in town, so have at it, I guess. You know, I have to say after some initial difficulties with the product, I've enjoyed it a fair bit more. since figuring out some of the issues that were contributing to my being insanely pissed off about the NHL 21 launch. So, yeah. What if we gave the contract to Intersloth, the maker of Among Us? I still haven't played Among Us. The NHL games just become a game in which we all try to guess which player murdered someone, because that'd be kind of fun. I haven't personally.

I haven't played that. game. I don't know. I've seen people play it. I don't know anything about it, though. It's a fun game. Sure, why not? Sean, is there any other video game manufacturer you'd like to have seen get the NHL contract? No, I would have liked to have seen it in a perfect world go back to how it used to be, where they would make that deal with multiple companies, and they would compete and try to make the best games. But realistically, that stopped many years ago, as we talked. As we talked, as we talked, talked about on one of the Patreon podcasts or the EA

just dumped a big bag of money on them and if you're the NHL these days bring on the big bag of money. I can't argue with them taking any sort of deal to boost the bottom line right now and there was no reason to expect anything other than this so

let's roll with it. But your point is taken though. The WWE is better when there's competition like viable competition. Like, we talked about in the show where we were talking about hockey video games. Like, back in the early 90s, there were like five different games that all had NHL licenses and you could play as your favorite players. And they had different approaches and they tried different things. And the EA games were way better.

So they won. But even in, you know, when it was the 2K series or whatever, like there were some neat things that both companies did. It would be cool to go back to that. But again, big giant bag of money. It's not really hard to. crack this mystery. Give the NHL series to the makers of Breath of the Wild, and then you have to go on epic quests to find the puck.

Was it Nintendo America? Is that you want? Well, I just, I mean, it is Nintendo America, but I wanted to go to the people who actually made the game, you know, the director and the writers and the artists. Sure. And if you know my history on this show, trying to pronounce names, I look at this Wikipedia, I'm not going to attempt it. So I'm just going to say the makers of Breath of the Wild.

Okay. It's too early. Shigeromiimoto? Is that who you? Sure. It sounds good. He's great. Wouldn't you like to see Mika Zabandajan on a hang glider?

On an epic quest? Hey, why not? At some point during the game? You've got to do something. No hockey these days, so. Wouldn't you like to see Brad Marchand fight a mechanical guardian? hand-to-hand combat? They already tried that

Cardiens thing in the NHL. I don't mean having him fight the Maple Leaf and watch out for those sap bombs. Where does that rank in the worst ideas in NHL history? I know this is probably a bonus episode, but like just without listing the rest of them.

Is the Guardian Project top five? Now, here's the thing, though. Like, worst ideas. Let's do some cool comic book. thing wasn't a terrible idea. Worst executions. Worst executions. Worst receptions is probably more.

Like I actually, every time people roast the NHL over the Guardian thing, which they should, but I always cringe a little bit because I'm like, at the one time they went out of their comfort zone and tried to do something a little bit cool and it sucked. And bring in a new audience potentially.

Yeah. It's like the one, like the nerdy kid tried to wear the cool clothes one time, got on the bus, the part of the kid was like, you look like garbage, and they're like, well, that's it. I'm back to just, I don't know, I might be projecting on that one. No, I mean, that, listen, I mean, that happened when I tried to dress like a skater in middle school. Before I'm moving to San Jose and dressing like a skater again, where all I do is wear hoodies and shorts all the time and sketchers. No, I think that it's a very good point that you make, which is that there is a difference between a bad idea and bad ex-execkel. Bad idea going back to Atlanta, right?

Bad execution, the Guardian Project. That makes sense. I like that. Where does the Buffalo Slug jersey fall in that? There have been so many terrible, terrible uniforms. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. But, yeah. Those mid-90s uniforms are still, I think, the all-timer for terrible. Well, there are some that are, like, great, though. Like, for example, right, the coyote's Kachina jersey. I don't remember, like, I wasn't a big NHL fan around the time they were announced. I'm sure people were like, whatever, those are fine. But now you look at them and you're like, those are fucking cool because they're so not what most hockey jerseys are, you know?

Yeah. I liked the playing card one for the Kings But again Then you get into the neighborhood of like Is it a You know Is it a good jersey in comparison to the jerseys they already had Which of course it isn't

You know Right yeah Going back to the 80s Right I mean What the Kings should do is go back to the purple and gold We have enough black and white jerseys in the league We don't need more You know

Yeah And, yeah, this is my long-standing thing about the Kings, and obviously, like, the Ducks uniforms are horrible. Just awful, so. As we ease into current hockey talk, I do want to mention that COVID-19 very much does still exist, although Tony DiAngelo's Twitter account doesn't. I don't know if those two things are... associated or not. Yeah, it's a shame. That would be the same.

That was the same guy who was tweeting a few months ago, right, that the difference between him and the lips is that if his guy lost, he wouldn't freak out and have a meltdown on Twitter. Well, I mean, a lot of people said that. But he specifically said it and then two days after the election. He's, yeah. Look, Tony DeAngelo flailing desperately to stop a result that was already apparent to everybody.

I just can't see that happening you know, even once, let alone twice in a few months. Yeah. Uh-huh. I see what you're saying. No, I, so, I don't, the politics thing being what it is, because as you know, this isn't a politics podcast,

motherfucker said, you know, what happened to COVID in the last 48 hours? To which everybody said, oh, we broke records. for infections in the last 48 hours. Yeah. And 2,000 people died.

Yeah. And so there's your update. You could, you know, Tony DiAngelo is a, is a Philly, you know, old school, you know, red pocket district Philly guy. And that's fine. Like, it's, it's whatever, your politics or whatever. It's ingrained in you by your parents, probably, and your own predilections. But if you play in New York City, and New York City is, I was just there, is staggered by this pandemic. And 25,000 people in New York City alone have died from this pandemic.

And you're going to sit there and fucking tweet, oh, what happened to COVID in the last 48 hours? Because the news channels happen to be covering the most important election in a lifetime instead of the disease. Like, come the fuck on. And I hope that it was the Rangers that stepped in and ended this shit. Because, like, they handed him a new contract. They have in the past talked to him about this shit. And then, of course, for like 48 hours, he pops off until we get to the point of COVID-19's a hoax, which is basically the subtext of that tweet.

So, yeah, now he's gone. And probably for the best, maybe just probably for the moment, but probably for the best. But, you know, for the 10 people that listen to his podcast, congratulations, it's probably good content for this week. He could do the persecution complex thing. Yep. But I was like, I mean, listen, you could tweet out whatever the fuck you want about the election. But just like, I don't have time for COVID truthers. Do not have time.

Never have had time on this podcast for COVID truthers. And no longer have to have time for TOTI DeAngelo as he flies off into, you know, some cheese steak shop. But speaking of COVID, so I don't know, I admittedly did not listen to you guys last week because I only liked the sound of my own voice. How much did you get into what might happen next season? A little bit, I think. I think we more talked about it through the lens of some of the stuff that was happening. in the NFL, what Major League Baseball had gone through, that sort of thing. We didn't get into the nitty, gritty of the logistics and all of that.

What might next season look like, et cetera, et cetera. All right. So if we take the back of the napkin idea that they're working with, which is to try to open in four different hubs, one of them in Canada because of the border issue, all Canadian division, how we feel in about that? I'll start with you, Sean. I've got to be honest, there's a lot of excitement up here about that. Right.

I think when it first got floated, a lot of people went, eh, that's, you know, we're Canadian hockey fans, right? Like, you give us something that's different, and our first thought is, oh, that's different. That's not the way it's normally done. But I think more and more, like, people are kind of looking around going, like, man, that would be, first of all, it would be a fun division. Like, there's no clear-cut favorite. There's no other than probably Ottawa.

there's no clear-cut bad team. It's going to be maybe six teams fighting it out for four playoff spots. And then you get two rounds of all Canadian playoffs, which is I wrote about earlier in the week. It's been a long time since we've had a lot of Canadian matchups. I think there's been two in the entire cap era. We haven't had three in a season, which is what we get in 30-plus years.

We used to get them all the time because of the Smite Division, but not anymore. May that be fun as hell. Like, you know, like Winnipeg has never played Toronto in the playoffs. Like, how cool would that be? How cool would it be to see Montreal play Vancouver, let alone Edmonton, Calgary, which we haven't seen since 91, Toronto, Montreal, which we haven't seen since the 70s. Like, there's all these great matchups that could come in. Man, it could be a hell of a lot of fun.

Like, I think we're all kind of talking ourselves into it, not because of the logistics or how you're going to work. Like, it's just like, yeah, that would be, damn, man, that would be fun, especially to do it as knowing it's a, one-off. This is a one-time thing, man. Right. Right. But correct this I'm wrong, but hasn't there been in the past a small portion of the Canadian punditry that wanted

an all-Canadian division at some point through a realignment? Every once in a while, whenever there was a realignment talk, somebody would throw that up there, but I don't think it was ever seriously considered. It's just the time zones. I mean, you can't put Vancouver in a division with three

Eastern Time Zone teams. and unless you're going to really mess with the with the scheduling. Right. So I don't, you know, it wouldn't work and it's good. That's going to be a challenge this year, but this year's going to be so weird anyways. Like, have Vancouver fly out to Montreal and play Montreal three times and then go to Toronto and play them three times and then play out. Like, do it's baseball style. So what?

Like, it's, that's, nothing's going to be normal anyways. You might as well get crazy. And then they go home and they stay there for a month. what's your take on Canadian Division plus three in the in the US there Ryan? Yeah, I mean, it's interesting just because, you know, like, it's the most rabid hockey markets, generally speaking, all playing each other eight times a year for the whole season or whatever. Right. But, yeah, I don't know. It's, I think the real problem is that, boy, a lot of those Canadian teams just are mediocre.

you know um and so like i i i wonder you know like i i disagree with sean i think there is a clear cut best team in canada and it's the toronto maple leafs um and maybe he's just not saying that to not jinx himself or whatever but i i really feel like it would be like the maple leafs especially if you get them out of a division with boston and tampa where they're not going to win many of those games, you would think. You know, like, oh, we're supposed to think, like, oh, Montreal super improved or whatever. Well, they had, like, what, three more regulation wins than Ottawa, maybe less than that last year. So, okay, what is Montreal?

That's pre-Jash Anderson, though. That's true. He's going to figure it all out. This is how I mark time, you know? Yeah. It's B.J and A.J. Before, or maybe not B.J. Okay, continue.

Yeah, I mean, look, like Calgary certainly improved this summer. I think, you know, their biggest problems were in net, and now maybe that's not their biggest problem anymore, now that they have a goalie, who has been good for the last few years. But Vancouver took a pretty big step back, I think, just in losing all the guys they lost and not really replacing them. And Edmonton, I think they've improved, but not to, the point where you're like, oh, I'm very confident that Edmonton is going to be a good team

next year, because why would you be confident in that? So, yeah, I think it's a really interesting division just because everybody's kind of bad in their own way, except for Toronto, where, you know, I guess you can say they have problems that you would point to, but you're not like, and those are all like fatal flaws for them. So, you know, for a guy who hates Canada, you know a lot about. Canadian teams around. Yeah, it's almost like it's my

freaking job, Greg. Oh, right. That's a good point. So two things here. First of all, we've all known for years that the NHL is only good at marketing one thing. They've attempted to market a lot of things.

They're only really good at marketing one thing, and that's rivalries, right? Yep. And so this becomes the distillation of that. I mean, you can get Edmonton versus Calgary twice a week if you wanted to. Like, it's going to be crazy how many 60 rivalry matchups they're going to be able to get. So that's one.

I am intrigued, and I've talked to a couple of people behind the scenes on this. I am intrigued what NBC does with an all-Canadian division. They have not shown an appetite for showing a lot of those games. I do think that they would have an appetite for, like, Edmonton and Toronto, because they could sell. Connor versus Austin. McDavid and Matthews, yeah. Yeah. They probably can figure their way around marketing Vancouver as the Elias Peders and Quinn Hughes team after the playoffs. There's some juice there. But I mean, how many times are they showing Montreal? How many times they show in Calgary? Like,

it's going to be interesting to see how they would handle those teams and those players. Now, the American part of this is fascinating, only because of like, if they end up doing this where they could do it. You know, the common perception is that it's going to be some of the cities they looked at during the bubble search. So your Columbus's and your Dallas's and your Las Vegases and such, I don't think they're going to be slavish to time zones. I think they're just going to go where they can pull it off. And pulling it off is going to be a real trick. We wrote about this on Monday on ESPN.

doing it last time was was easier because hotels were shut down. Like they literally reopened the hotel in Edmonton to do the bubble there. That's not so much the case now. Like hotels have been open. You know, bookings have happened. The, you know, wedding blocks have been booked and shit. They've all gone great. And they're right.

But like, you know, it's not as if you can just take over a hotel for an indiscriminate, amount of months with the ease that you did in Edmonton. So that's one challenge. Like, to throw out an example. One of the easiest setups you could possibly find is the

one in Los Angeles, where the JW Marriott, and it is a big fucking Marriott, is right across the quad from Staples Center. You could just walk to the game. But that's, you know, hotel's been open. who knows what the bookings look like when you get into like March and April of next year. So that's going to be an interesting thing.

But on top of that, like the real intrigue for me, and I wrote about this on Thursday on my column, the real intrigue for me is that they're not going to do the same bubble. And it's not going to be an airtight bubble. Like they know the players aren't going to do that again, so they're going to let them leave for like to go back home for like a week and then go back to the bubble. And while there is going to be testing when you get back into the bubble and there may be even testing while you're back home, a lot of this is just going to be on faith. The same faith that people had in phase three when we had the training camps and while you're at your facility, you're under lock and key when you're back home, please don't go to a bar. And so how confident are we that the same results could repeat themselves now that we saw when everybody was on their best behavior in June? I don't know if you could do it for months on end.

I think that's the big challenge is like you can do it maybe for a month or two at a time. But like if you're going, well, we need you to, you know, kind of color between the lines for us for the next. six months. Okay. Good luck. Yeah. I think the one thing that they may have going for them is they can learn some lessons from the other sports. And we saw what happened with baseball. Baseball started and it was a disaster. People were getting sick left and right. Teams were shutting down for two weeks at a time. You had giant gaps in the standings and they could make that up because of the nature of baseball. You can play double headers and stuff like that, but it was a total mess.

And lots of people were like, this isn't going to work. Baseball is not going to get to the finish line. And then they clamped it down. And the players got more serious about it. The teams got more serious. And they made it all the way to the end. And then had a guy test positive in Game 6 of the World Series, which if the right team hadn't won that game might have meant that you can't play Game 7.

Like, I mean, they'd narrowly avoid a disaster. Now, you look at the NFL, similar sort of thing. It feels like every week some team is shutting down, either because they have a positive test or because there's a close contact or maybe it's a coach or somebody who works there. And so far, the NFL has been wobbly, but they've been able to get all the games in. It looks like they're on decent track to finish the season,

despite some near misses and some scares and some people being irresponsible. The NFL is so different than the NHL. We talked about this before, right? The NFL, you got one game a week, and it's probably on Sunday. And if you can't play that game, if you need to push it back to Tuesday, okay, that's your one game of the week. The NHL, you might be playing, especially this year, you might be playing four games a week. So, you know, if somebody in the NFL test positive on Monday, or it doesn't even test positive, let's say they have a close contact, you test positive. You've got to shut them down for three days or five days or whatever.

They can still play in the next game. the NHL, you're going to have guys missing time all over the place. It's going to be, like, I don't feel like we have our heads around enough how big of a mess this could potentially be. And the good news is the NHL can just point to all those things I just mentioned and say to the players, like, we need you to take this serious or else this is where we're going to wind up too. But I still think it's going to be incredibly difficult to get anything, anything that looks like a full season in and and certainly it's going to be impossible to get anything that meets the expectations that are maybe set by what we saw in the summer where they had a bubble and everything seemed to

go perfect. Yeah. Yeah, this is, it definitely feels like there's going to be a situation where one guy fucks it up for everybody, you know what I mean? Like for real. Yeah. Like one guy is going to go, you know, whatever, during the NBA bubble, like, a, you know, a guy had a girl up to his room or whatever,

a girl who worked in the bubble. And they just fucking kicked him out of the bubble. They were like, that's it. Goodbye. Yeah. And he can't do that. He didn't even try to make it awesome, like in the NFL where that one guy in the Seahawks dressed up his girl like a player, which I thought was still one of my favorite stories to tell me.

Yeah, yeah. But, yeah, so I mean, you know, it definitely creates a situation where someone's going to do something. dumb because you know, you're dealing with 700 guys or whatever the number ends up being because we don't know how they're going to do like the HL stuff. The HL or any of that kind of stuff. And so, you know, you're adding, let's say it's just 700 guys. You don't think one of those 700 guys is going to do something fucking dumb in the next six months?

And it doesn't even have to be like, oh yeah, he went out to a crowded club or, It could be like, yeah, I went to my brother's house because it was his birthday. Yep. My brother's wife tested positive. Now I'm a close contact and I have to quarantine for five days. And oh, by the way, I'm my team's leading score and we've got three games in that time. And before I knew this, I went to practice. And so now, you know, all my teammates in theory or like it's, there's so many different ways.

It could be anything. Yeah. Like let's say you're like a young defenseman and you happen. to be a part of a massive crowd protesting the counting of votes in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Like, let's just say that happened. Theoretically, sure. Like, that could be it too, right? Yeah.

Yeah. One of the really interesting dynamics to this that we touched on in the ESPN piece was the idea that not every team is cool with this notion off the hop. There are, I mean, there are obviously some owners that are. like, let's not play. Like, I, I, you know, if we can't have fans in the building, uh, we're going to lose a shit ton of money, we don't know when they're coming back. Let's just wait until we can do this for real.

Like, there are some owners that kind of feel that way. They're not going to really have enough sway to, you know, change the, the trajectory of, of the NHL playing this season. Um, and they certainly aren't going to do opt-outs. I think the NHL reading between the lines is very much like, it's either all 31 teams where it's none of us. But the really interesting dynamic that I kind of came across

were that there are teams that are like, you know, all due respect to the San Jose Sharks and whomever who can't have mass gatherings in their arenas, like, we can. Like, if you're the Dallas Stars and you see what the Cowboys are doing right now with capacity.

And you just watched your team go through a full playoff run without getting a single dime of ticket revenue. Like, wouldn't you be like, why the fuck do we have to go to a hub? If you're the, Tampa Bay Lightning and you're seeing the bucks and their crowds, why do we have to go to a hub? Like, there are a lot of places in the country, as of right now, that could have fans in the

arena in some way and sort of ease open the revenue spigot again. So why not have the hub in the place where you can have fans? That's a good question. That's a great point. I don't know. I don't know if we approach this thing as a no capacity or a limit. capacity thing. Now, maybe they should go limited capacity. And then you just kind of sell tickets to whoever, you know, can go. Like fans in that city or fans that want to visit, who the, who knows?

But like, there are definitely places right now that are looking at their brethren in the NFL and they're looking at, you know, concerts and tours being booked for March in April in arenas. And they're just like, what is the sense of me not being able to take advantage of the easing of restrictions, rightly or wrongly. So I don't know. That's an interesting part of this equation. I love the... Just to highlight what a fucking minor league the NHL is, multiple teams are apparently

like, well, what if we just don't play? Like, what if we, the Arizona Coyotes, just don't have a 2021 season. We've seen it in other leagues. We're like... Yeah, the SPHL. The SPHL, the ECHL, the AHL might not have some teams come back. Like, you know, there's some precedent for it. And what are those?

Those are, what did I just say? Minor leagues, yes, of course. Minor hockey leagues, no less. Now you've got the intrigue. Like, how does that dynamic work? If you're a fan of, like, I don't know, like an avalanche fan and your hub is in Dallas, do you travel to Dallas to go watch the abs? You probably do.

If you miss the team that much. I mean, what kind of a person is that guy? I don't know. You know who that guy is, Ryan. Sure. That's a great fucking hole. He's got his Forsberg jersey. He just wants to scream, shoot on the power play.

That guy definitely has a couple of team logo tattoos if he's traveling to go watch his hockey team play a road game. He's like, you see this, this empty soda cup? It's a commemorative cup. Uveh Krupp once autographed for me And I keep it in this box on my mantle That guy That's the guy Going to Dallas

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Greg Wysinski endorsement. Awaybags. AwayTravel.com slash puck. All right. So maybe you could also take your way bag to an outdoor game. And by that, I mean, they're probably still looking to do the stadium series game in Raleigh, but more importantly, maybe you can sneak in and see a game at a giant frozen lake somewhere in North America, because although Lake Louise didn't work out, it turns out boys that the national parks in Canada frown upon massive amounts of infrastructure being built on its land to the soccer game.

Yeah, it's weird. Even though that probably isn't going to happen, there are probably other options. What say you about a mystery Alaska-esque beginning to the season where the boys are on the pond and they're skating around and passing around the old biscuit and mum's got the hot cocoa witty for them after they're done? I think it fucking rocks. I think that's such a good idea. Yeah, it'd be fun as hell if they can make it work.

I think it's going to be really cool if they picked the right spot. Percentage chance that the teams that play in this game eventually when they missed the playoffs by a point, blame this game. Yeah, they were like, oh, we got frostbite. It was... Right. It wasn't good, so...

We didn't see the Leafs out there on that frozen lake battling the elements. Yeah, I guess that is the big concern is that, like, Brad Marchand falls through the ice and... Is that... Is that a big concern? And it's like that scene in Skyfall where he... He has to figure out where the hole in the ice was and then he finally fires a flare into it or some shit.

Yeah. I got to tell, I got to, like, I've, I've done the frozen lake thing back when I was, I'm old enough where, you know, I was a child before global warming, warming, ruined winter. And that used to scare the shit out of me was the falling through the ice. And then, like, in movies, you'd see, like, somebody banging on the ice from under the ice. Yeah. you know, to try to get out. Like, that is a, that is a, that is a, that is fucking, that's got to be top five scariest things that, that, that I've, that I've, I can consider. Never even occurred to me when I was, when I was, when I would play on a pond growing up.

Yeah. Yeah. Never, never, never even, never even entered my mind. Wow. Yeah. Just a dumb kid, that's all, but. I, I think I told this, I said, mentioned this in the pot to gas before, but I, I once bonded with James Van Riemesdyke, because he grew up in Middell New Jersey, which was one town next to me in central NJ. And we both had the same experience growing up, which was that before you went on the ice,

you had to find like the biggest cinder block you could find. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I just throw it on the pond to see if the ice was solid. Because in Jersey, I mean, it's clearly not in Minnesota. Like, you know, it's not like there's a certain point in the winter where you just could, you know, drive a truck on the lake. it was always sort of specious. And so you did several attempts of testing the strength of the ice before you went out on it.

But yeah, that used to scare the shit out of me, the like falling under the ice and then not knowing how to get back through it. Yeah, I guess I was just braver than you. I mean, sure. I mean, that's probably part of it. But, you know, I think it's a cool idea. I was talking to somebody the other day. They bought up an idea that I can't remember if the NBA did it or if they talked about doing it. But a game on an aircraft carrier?

I believe they did that for college basketball. College basketball. Okay. But that was also an idea that had been bandied about for the NHL at some point. In which case you would really like to see the barn fight between Vinnie Viola and Bill Foley as to who gets to be in the We Love the Military game and an aircraft carrier. Finally, the NHL, more deeply intertwined

with the American military. Can't wait. But it would be a real cool fucking spot. The not having to have fans there thing opens up a million different avenues. I don't think they're going to do it in Central Park or the National Mall, which are two of my favorite off-the-board ideas

for like a Winter Classic, just because it's going to be impossible to keep fans away. But if you're doing it, it in remote locations, any number of places are going to be open to you. And that's going to be really fun. I'm excited about it. And I think they're going to do it, too, to try to get as much attention on the season as possible. Anything else to say about the potential 2020, 21 season? I mean, the league says they haven't talked to players about prorating their salaries yet.

That'll be an interesting conversation. That's going to be a mess. That's going to be a real mess because there's in the... They already took a pay cut. They took a pay cut. And, And in the memorandum of understanding, that seemed to be addressed to say that they wouldn't be asked to reduce salary for this coming season. But now there's some talk that maybe the wording was a little more specific than it appeared on first read. And it doesn't necessarily rule out the league as a whole doing that. But it's going to be a mess. And, you know, this is, Gary Bettman can talk all he wants about wanting to be partners with the players. but when you make absolutely everything a fight for 20 years

and then you suddenly come back to the table and say, hey, guys, we need you all to take a big pay cut this year so we can have a season. I'm interested to see what the response to that is. It's a tough sell, yeah. Yep. Yeah. Well, and that's, I mean, to tie a bow around it, that's kind of the thing that you're hearing from a lot of different people

from the player's side and from the owner's side is that this negotiation is so, night and day from what we saw in the lead up to the bubbles because one although it's going to have some labor issues tied to it it's not tied to a new CBA and then and then two everybody was just kind of lasered focused on the same objective which was let's finish the season let's finish what we started basically and and do it in the safest way and and players are willing to take concessions and and you know live in a bubble and do all that shit just to get it done and it certainly isn't going to play out that

way now, and especially at a time when it's not, you're not restricted from doing a lot of other things like you were in the summer. Like, you couldn't go play in an arena, you know, necessarily anywhere in the country during the summer because of COVID and everything else. And now there's a lot more avenues to do that if you're, if you're these teams and these players. So it's going to be really interesting to see how it plays out. And the clock's fucking ticking. I mean, it seems like the NBA has really put the pedal down and try. to get their season started around Christmas time. The NBA is going third week in December, according to everything we've seen.

So maybe that's good for the NHL. Maybe it, A, moves them along, but B, also gives them another league to sort of, yeah, you know what? You guys go out there first, and we'll kind of watch you for a few weeks and see what works and what doesn't and what mistakes you guys make. And you can use that to affect our thinking. That wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. Yeah, I agree. And, you know, smart money is middle of January, maybe around all-star time for the NHL, but teams still believe it could be as late as February.

They've been saying that since September. I saw our old friend Steve Simmons, you know, act like that was new news, new information. But it's something the teams have been talking about since September. All right. Dom from the Athletic, anybody want to fill in the blanket in the last name? Lecision. Sure. Just like Curtis.

God damn it. That's it. It's just like Curtis's last name. Is it licision? I'm pretty sure, yeah. This seems like there's a lot more Z's in there than it would just be lecision. Well, look, Eastern European languages. I don't know.

Don from the Athletic had the top ten worst contracts in the NHL through his usual analytic wizardry. The honorable mentions are Eric Carlson, Brady, Shea, Kevin Hayes, Logan Couture, and Tyler Myers. Those are the honorable mentions. So you can only imagine who made the top ten. I'm going to take you through it real quick. Number 10. Josh Morrissey. 6.25 million over eight years.

That's the AAV. It doesn't seem like that's a bad contract or a bad player to give that contract, too, especially considering what spot they were in when like like Truba you know knowing what Truba situation was going to be but I don't know. Right. But I mean like so I'm the thinking at the time was well he and Truba are great together. And then Truba left, which they I assume knew was coming. They had to know it was coming.

And I mean everybody else did so why wouldn't they? But then they were like, well, we got to lock down one of these two guys. and it's got to be Josh Morrissey, so we might as well pay him whatever he wants. And then it was like, oh, maybe a lot of his success was dependent on playing with Jacob Truba. So this is like if the capitals let John Carl Carl Olson go but re-sign Carl Alsner kind of deal? Yes. They threw no fault of their own. They might have just chosen the wrong guy to hitch their wagon to for that kind of cash.

So number nine is Mike Matheson a huge coup for Jim Rutherford. Really good pick up there. 4.875 million A.AV over six years. I mean, I don't think anyone's really going to have any issue with him being on this list. Justin Falk is a – see, this is why I like Dom's list, because it makes you really think about some people you don't consider. But yeah, Justin Falk, 6.5 million over seven years. Terrible contract. And on a team whose blue line has shifted and changed and morphed pretty significantly since then.

Let's put it this way. They effectively chose Justin Falk over Alex Petrangelo. One would assume that to be the case. And I remember I was in St. Louis when they made the Falk deal. And everybody was like, this is the insurance policy. but it turned out to be the replacement policy, I think, actually. And keep in mind with that deal hasn't even technically started yet. I mean, I guess it has because of the new league year, but he hasn't played a game under that deal.

They acquired him in a trade. He had one year left on his deal rather than risk. And instant re-signed him, yeah. Yeah, rather than risk, you know, maybe waiting and seeing how it worked out, see how the Petrangelo talks went. They did the shiny new toy thing where we trade it for him. we got to keep them. And yeah, seven-year deal that starts now.

Jacob Truba, number seven, $8 million A-AV times six years. I don't know about this. I understand the AV is high. I really don't know if you can judge him based on his first year in New York, because New York was an atrocious defensive team last year. Yeah, I wonder, did anybody play for that team defensively that maybe had a big contract and had just signed out of Winnipeg? I'm trying to think, who could have played a role in that being bad?

Well, we'll never get to the bottom of it. Not a Jacob Trooper guy. I think he's good, but like if you're going to go, well, you can't base it on the one year of that contract. Why not? I don't, that's what I don't get is like, they were a bad defensive team and he was one of the reasons they were a bad defensive team. I don't think it's fucking out of bounds to say that if he keeps playing like that, that is an awful contract. Now, where I do think that Dom makes a good point is that if you're, the acquisition of Truba at the time was very much like he's going to be our power play quarterback.

And that job has certainly gone to someone else during his time in New York. it's got to Tony DiAngelo while they've both been there. So if you signed Troubita that deal thinking, okay, this guy is going to run our power play. He's going to put up a million points. Yeah, he's going to be our de facto Chris LaTang, you know, just passing the puck to fucking Panarin.

And that doesn't happen. It does certainly kind of transform your view of the contract a little bit. And we should be clear on what Dom is doing here. He is, these are, he's putting the numbers into the model and the model is giving his answers. This isn't,

This isn't the sort of piece that I would write where I would just sit down and with my own opinions and just pull stuff out of the air and be like, here's my list. And then you could be like, well, you're dumb. That's a bad list. And you'd probably be right. In his case, it's, you know, he's looking at how many years are left on the deal. How much is it worth? How much should the player produce based on that and how much do they project? And, you know, the model doesn't care that the Rangers used Tony D'Angelo instead of Jake Truba, but he did this in Winnipe.

The model looks at it and goes, this guy was not very good last year. He's got eight years left. And if he's not significantly better, that's going to be a bad contract, which I think is fair. And there's always context. There's always other things that we know about that a spreadsheet isn't going to know. But at the same time, sometimes we put too much stock in that. And we let teams off the hook for bad decisions when just the numbers tell you that it was a mistake. Yeah.

And the other thing to say, too, is especially with Jacob Trubo, when he signed that deal, I think a lot of people's reaction was, that's more than I thought it was going to be. But okay. You know, it's, it didn't feel like a terrible deal at the time. No, sure. But I think what is interesting is that, like, it's not taking into account, well, the open market and blah, blah, blah. Like, someone else would have given him that contract. because like, yeah, maybe that's true, but like, you're the team that did, you know? And the other thing I think that you need to say with Truba going to New York is he was only going to go to New York.

So they shouldn't have had to also overpay him. Yeah. You know, it's the, it's the fucking Panarin thing where it's like, oh, he just wanted to play for the Rangers and that's it. Be honest with me. If I created a persona like Dom and I just, just invented a methodology and just like faked numbers. Could I, could I pull, do you think I can get away with that? No. I think I could pull a fast one?

Absolutely. You don't think so? No. You don't think if, if, if we believed John Chaker's numbers without ever seeing him prove the work, that I couldn't just like. Who did that? Who believed John Chacon's numbers? What are you talking about? Nobody bought that shit. You don't think I could take 10 obvious bad contracts and just be like, uh, the, uh, contract, uh, virtuoso ratio for this one is two.

2.3. And people will be like, well, he's got it there. This is a bad contract. You don't think I could do that? The reason it works for Dom is that Dom has years and years of really strong evidence to back up like, oh, you know, he's continually worked to refine this model. And it's typically the most accurate when it comes to, like, projecting the outcomes of games and player production and that and player value and that sort of thing. What I need then, what I need then is I need it to be like the Eddie Murphy classic, The Distinguished Gentleman, where he just happens to have the same name as someone else and then gets elected to Congress. So what I need is to buy the domain war on ice and then just like, or buy Corsica and then just like put my bullshit on there. And then there will be enough marketplace confusion where I might be able to pull this up. Keep in mind, I am not making a value judgment at Dom.

Dom is one of my favorite writers in the fucking planet. I think he does incredible work. I'm not seeing he's a phony. I'm asking if I could be a phony and do this. Greg, I don't think you're smart enough to pull off the, like, and I'm not even saying that as an insult. Like, I'm fucking not smart enough to pull that shit off. It is a, well, first of all, I am smart enough to pull a scam.

Let's be honest. No, but not that scam. Right. But I'm not smart enough to do a math scam is what you're trying to say. Yeah. You're right. Okay. I will accept that.

I will accept the fact that I could not do a math scam. I could do a scam. I could do like an oceans heist maybe, but not like a fake analytics site, putting value judgments on Jacob Trubba's contract. Fair enough. Number six is Nikita Zytev. No quarrel there. Horrible contract. The only thing that's notable on that is,

Nikita Zyicev has only four years left on his deal and this model very heavily is waiting. This is looking at the worst contracts over the remaining life of the deal. So it's not which one's bad this year. It's how much. And he's only, and I put that in quotes, but he's only got four years left. And only 4.5 million. So this is by far, I'm pretty sure, the smallest contract that's anywhere near this list. And it's still easily in the top 10.

It's a bad, bad. you how bad Nikita Zytes. Yeah, it is. It's a bad contract. It was a bad contract when the Leaf signed it. It was a bad contract when the senators went and acquired it. They, yes, they thought maybe they could, you know, DJ Smith thought he could get something out of this guy. Doesn't look like that's going to happen.

This is, it's a bad deal. Now, it's the senators. You got to hit the cap floor somehow. So maybe it's not as damaging as it would be for other teams. but, oof. Okay. Next up on Dom Sitlis is a contract that really came into sharp focus in this offseason. Oliver Ekman-Larsen, the fifth-worth contract, no quarrel there.

I think the big winners this off-season were the teams that didn't trade for this guy. I would love to know what was going on behind the scenes there. Did that not happen because the coyotes just couldn't get anyone to make a significant offer? or was there actually a bidding war? Did the coyotes try to squeeze a little too much? Yeah, my understanding was that they kind of, they did the thing that Buffalo does where it's like, yeah, this contract is bad for Restma's Ristola.

And this contract is bad. And, you know, the player is not even close to being worth it. But we are going to ask for nine first round picks and seven grade A prospects to acquire him. because, you know, he has a reputation from eight years ago that he's good. And even that reputation, I mean, he's been a good defenseman, maybe even still is a good defenseman, but this is, like, players in big markets tend to get overrated.

Players in small markets tend to get underrated. But every now and then a player in a really small market gets overrated, because we all have that collective guilt and we're like, oh, man, we haven't. Yeah, I don't know. He's the most underrated player in the league. Yeah, I don't know anyone on the kind of. I better pick their best player and just decide that he's an elite. You know, oh, this guy played in Toronto.

He, well, yeah, probably pretty good for him that he didn't. He's a real Trevor Lyndon. Okay. All right. Connects fans, that was Greg. You know what? I'll stand by Greg on this one. Okay, that's Greg and Ryan.

You can address this either of us. Look, like, I'll just say this. I find it hilarious that, you know, I've seen sort of these Canucks Mount Rushmore type conversations happening recently. And it's like, obviously the Sedeans. Obviously, Barry. Should we put Elias Pedersen on there? Roberto Luonga.

And then you'll see like Trevor Lyndon on the list. And like, there'd be people would be like, well, you obviously would put Trevor Lyndon on there instead of Marcus Naslin. I'm just like, what the fuck you're talking about? Like, right. But it's like, because they're looking at it as like from a fans perspective of what players did I enjoy watching the most and not who generated the most points or whatever like that.

I mean, but again, like growing up. I didn't have all the access in the world to watching Canucks games. So there was a certain mystique to Trevor Linden for me of being like, wow, he's, he's their messier kind of thing. Like he was like their king's shit player. That mean outside of Burray. But yeah, I mean, come on. Number four is a great pick. Ryan Johansson.

Terrible content. Dom says he's now being rated closer to a strong third line center. I don't know if I'd go there, but certainly not a player that is worth $8 million times five years at this point in his career. Every time I think about that contract, I'm just like, what the fuck? Well, I know what the fuck. What the fuck is that they, that was at a time, I believe, where they were having a lot of trouble finding a top line center. Correct. And then they traded Seth Jones for him because he was coming off like a 30-goal season or something like that in Columbus.

And then he clicked with Arvinson and Forsberg. I think that contract does not predate that line. He was traded in the middle of a season, finished that year, played, I think, one more full season. And then they gave him the contract. But again, they had just traded a young Norris caliber defenseman for this guy. Potential Norris caliber defense. Potential. You've got to give him the best.

you've got to give him the big contract. We saw it with Justin Falk. We saw it with Jacob Truba. Ryan Johansson, to some extent, it was a little bit delayed. And there's one more coming up on this list that fits into this category, too. If you're an NHL player and you want to get paid more than you're worth, get traded to a new team that gives up a lot for you right around the time you need a new deal. And you will cash in big because GMs are sitting there going, I, I, I, I, I, I just, I mean, how do you even negotiate somebody to take a reasonable deal?

It's like, you just gave up picks, prospects, star players for this guy. And now you're going to tell me you don't think he's good? I know he's good. I'm his agent. I want you to max out the offer, and you're probably going to do it. Is the player referring to the next one on this list, Sean, number three, Jeff Skinner of Buffalo? And again, if Jeff Skinner has the third worst contract, you can only imagine who the top two are. This was a horrible contract for the minute the fucking pen hit the paper.

And full no move. Well, also, what? So I think we talked about it on a mailbag recently. But like Jeff Skinner is a guy where you can't figure out his career. You just can't. Like every third year he has 30 goals. And then one of those two years he has like 21. And you're like, oh, well, you know, maybe it's an off year.

and then he has like six and he can't stay healthy. And so like he's having a great year. Like I, this is one of the ones where I kind of get it because you kind of talk yourself into, well, Jack Eichel is what unlocked his real potential. You know, like I obviously I think the contract is bad at this point. But like at the time you were like, well, look, if he and Jack Eichael have this kind of chemistry, Jack Eichael's not going anywhere. Yeah, okay. And like he and Jack Eichael have this kind of chemistry, then, you know, why would that all go away in one year? And it did. So like I get where Buffalo was coming for it. Again, obviously I think the contract is bad now. But like at the time, there was a certain kind of a logic to it that is tough to explain today.

For sure. For sure. I know, I get it. And Dom, in his, his, his positive value probability rating doesn't, I don't think, factor in no moves and things like that. But again, like the idea that you handed Skinner this amount of money and full protection is fucking bonkers. It is fucking bonkers. Number two is Mark Edward Vlasic. And again, like, as you said Lambert, to summarize what you said, context is king. And there was a time when this was not a bad contract at all. Yeah, he just hit a fucking wall at 100 miles an hour in his career.

That's it. This is one of those deals where the lesson here is not, unlike with some of these other guys, this player wasn't good. The lesson here is don't give eight-year extensions to your defensemen who are going to be mostly in their 30s for that. Yeah. Because if you do, basically when you're looking at the risk, risk reward. The reward is he might live up to the deal, maybe even surpass it by a bit. And the risk is it could be catastrophic if it doesn't work. And that's what this one looks like. And especially with a defensive defenseman, like you're really gambling and aren't likely to get the positive in the end, just because, you know, like a defensive defenseman by definition does not drive offense. And offense is more valuable than defense. offense. Right. And again, like, as you said, as we said, it wasn't always as atrociously bad as it is now. But I will say that it, I think it is an example of paying for past performance, though. I mean, the Sharks made the Stanley Cup final in what, 2016? Yep.

They give him this eight-year contract a year later, July 1st, 2017. And again, no move through 2023. Cap hits not, I mean, it's not, it was. it was 9.33 percentage of the cap. Again, it's a contract that went bad. Yeah, but you could have seen it was going to go bad because of his age and his style of play. But I also think that this was clearly a deal that they make, thinking they were going to get a few more kicks at the can. Oh, absolutely, that's true. And they were like, well, if we win a cup, then who gives a shit?

But I forgot they were the San Jose Sharks. That is exactly correct. If they thought if we win a cup, who gives a shit, that's very true. Speaking of paying for past performance, number one, Drew Doughty, $11 million a season over seven years. And so he's number one. And we were talking off there, Ryan, that it is not exactly a bold decision to put Drew Doughty at the top of this list. Tell me why. Well, because you just say he makes $11 million for another seven years.

He was bad, like bad bad last year, not like kind of bad, not kind of bad, not. Bad for a number one defenseman. Like, he wasn't close to what you would want, even like a middle-payer guy to be, I think. And they paid him $11 million. The other thing, obviously, again, he's going to be 31 in December. So, like, he's about a month away from being 31 years old, and he has seven years left on this deal. And so if he's bad at 29 and 30, you know, the odds that he's going to be good are in a team that is

plainly rebuilding. Like, it's not going to fucking happen. So, and, you know, again, full no move. He's not going anywhere. Probably for the, for the entirety of this deal. And so, you know, what do you, what do you say about it other than it's the worst deal in the NHL? Yeah, but here's, I guess, the only thing you would say with,

with the Drew Dowdy deal. And this doesn't get taken into, factored in with Dom's, calculations. This is the one everyone remembers Drew Doughty basically fired his agent and did it on his own. That's true, yes. And, you know, which doesn't, I mean, that doesn't reflect great on the Kings. You get taken to the cleaners by somebody who's doing, doing the deal on their own. But year one, which was the season we just finished, 11 million, mostly signing bonuses. The next three years, a little bit of signing bonuses. And then the last four years of this deal, it's straight salary. no signing bonuses, at least according to cap-friendly.

The no-move does get flipped into a modified no-trade. Like, there's ways out of this deal. I remember when this got signed and Drew Daddy was still good when it was signed and some people went, yeah, that's the new, sets the new price for elite defensemen. A lot of people went, oh man, that's going to be really easy to buy that contract out if it goes bad. And that's maybe the one thing. I mean, easy still means you're taking a big cap hit and all the other stuff that goes to the buyout. But there is at least more of an escape hatch on this deal than some of the other ones on the list.

There you go. It's not, I mean, one thing to keep in mind, though, that we haven't really talked about with Dowdy was like, somebody else probably gives him this contract, right? Yeah, let him. Yeah. Fucking let him. Not only does not only that, but I mean, if it's the Kings, if it's 2018, because I think he signed in 2018 the deal, he still had one year left on his old deal.

Yes. If you trade him in 2018, you're going to get a ton. A king's ransom, if you will. A king's ransom, if you will. Lining up, yes. There'd be teams lining up to give you all sorts of assets for Drew Doughty and then give him this same contract, probably even a little bit more because they just trade it for him.

Like we said, that would nudges perceived value up. So, I mean, and now, if you do that, everybody flips out and says, how do you treat your franchise player like that? This guy got you two cups. He's one of your most, but your fans are protesting outside of your arena and all that stuff. So easy enough to say in hindsight, but there was a window there. I'm not saying I would have had the guts to do it. When you say the fans are protesting outside the arena, is that because they're counting legally cast votes inside?

Yeah, they want you to start and stop counting the years on Drew Daugher's contract at the same time. Well, all right. It's fair to say that on that one, the king's got cream. Speaking of cream, today's episode of Puck Soup is sponsored by Hawthorne. Now, what is Hawthorne? That's not a good one. Hawthorne is a premium-tailored personal care brand that's making it easy for guys to feel and smell our best. Now, here's what's fun about Hawthorne.

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Ryan, on the recent newsletter on the Puckold u Patreon. You covered teams that are facing a cap crunch due to their restricted free agents that are still out there. I covered it a little bit in the column today as well. The Islanders are the ones that I think a lot of us are focused on because they've got to scare up some money from Matt Barzell. The assumption being that they could use a buyout in the next 48 hours or 24 hours or whatever it is to help with their cap situation. They have just over $3 million, I think, in cap space. But this is Lula Murillo we're talking about. So any possibility is possible.

Yeah, all options are on the table. Yeah, all options are on the table. They could put Leo Kamaroff and Johnny Boychuk on a Mars colony, and the NHL would probably allow it to get their money off the cap. But what do you think as far as teams that are faced? I mean, obviously the two that a lot of people focus on are the Islanders and the Lightning. Yeah, well, so what's crazy is I just went to cap-friendly to look at something or other over the weekend and one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine teams right now are over the salary cap.

The Islanders could soon join them. Tampa could soon join them. I think there's one or two other teams where it's like, you know what? If they sign one or two outstanding RFAs, they might also end up over the cap. And so we're talking about like a third of the league that is not just like spending a lot of money, over the salary cap and we'll have to clear, like, roster space and money. And what's interesting is, of course, that it's a flat cap league this year. And many teams are like, oh, we don't want to spend anywhere near the cap because we're not going to have, like, fans in the building and stuff like that.

Right. And so the question becomes, well, who's taking all these bad contracts on? like I you know when I when I made the joke about the I are not even a joke the observation that the islanders have like four million dollars to give to Matt bars all a bunch of people were like well you know here comes Steve Iserman and he's going to take a bad contractor to and get a first round pick and it's like maybe but also like the Red Wings roster is pretty much full and and you can say that a lot about a lot of teams that uh you know have do have caps right now. They would need to have both the appetite and the roster space to take on a bad contract from, again, one of 11 teams,

and I just really, I'm not sure where all this money's coming from for a lot of teams. So, there's another 11 or 12 teams that are within like $5 million of the cap. And it's like, okay, well,

somebody's going to take on this bad money, but who's going to do it? I really don't know. Yeah. What do you think, Sean? I mean, there's a lot of teams that are in tough, and we still don't really know how that's going to play out. I think that this reinforces the idea that if you were a team with Capspace, waiting was probably a pretty good call because there's going to be a ton of bargains,

and there's going to be teams that, in theory, are going to get increasingly desperate. And I say in theory, because who knows, and we might see the guys mysteriously going on long-term injured reserve, we still could see as part of a plan for next year some sort of cap relief baked in somewhere. I mean, this is, it would have to be negotiated with the players. But, you know, who knows? I don't think normally things like compliance buyouts are actually good for players, at least financially,

because they get bought out. They get their money and they go somewhere else and get enough money to make up the difference. But I don't think it would be right now. So, but there's still ways to work this. the NHL is not going to go into a season with 10 teams over the cap and no way to get out. So this will either work itself out through the teams themselves or the league will have to step in and do something. Because it doesn't, if it gets to a point where teams like Tampa have to like just drop good players off the roster because of this cap and that's happening league-wide, that doesn't, that's not good for the league. That's not what they want coming back here.

So it'll get worked out. I just have no idea how. Yeah, that's what's interesting is, you know, I think that they're going to have to go way outside the box with it, kind of just because, again, like teams are either going to not want to spend money or won't be in a position to spend money, even if they could. Or even if they wanted to.

So, yeah, there's just going to have to be a solution that, like, I feel like just nobody's thinking of right now, maybe at, like, a league-wide level, just because you can't, You can't do it any other way. And by the way, one of those teams that you would have thought, oh, they want to be like a real bargain team this year. The Arizona Coyotes have the highest cap commitment in the league right now.

That's the sins of the former GM right there. Oh, sure. Yeah, and got the hell out of Dodge. Good move by him. You know, but. No, that's a good point. I mean, again, they're going to have to be, like, creative. Like, you know, I fully expect Lou LaMerello to.

make, you know, Josh Bailey and Andrew Ladd emergency backup goalies that also happen to play forward or some shit. Like some, some cap reach around. But teams are going to have to be creative. Speaking of creative, this isn't an ad read, by the way. Speaking of the. I was right there. All right.

Ryan, I understand that you have cooked up a couple more name Pat Falloon episode, a Categories? Well, no, these are just ones that have been cooking for the last little while, and I just want to get them out of my spreadsheet. So, is this a full-fledged named Pat Flouin, or is this more like B-sides? No, these are, these are categories that we have not that we've heard about but have not touched yet. But what I'm saying is that are Sean and I about to enter Thunderdome here and play a game? Yes. Or is it

more of an informal Half balloon session. You can't, you, you can, you're asking questions about just whether the game's going to be played. It's literally unbelievable. But yeah, so because these are just kind of leftovers from last time, um, we're,

we're just, we're going to go, uh, three out of five, because I have five left. I know that people want to believe that it's not a bit. I, I genuinely did not know.

And I'm just asking. It's never a bit. I just have a lot of questions. And this guy was like, remember earlier listeners when this guy was like, am I smart enough to con the entire NHL? All right, let's go. Are we going to get the results afterwards or do we have to wait a few days? Yeah. No, you know what?

I think we're going to get this pretty quickly. But yeah. When I get to three answers, Ryan just say, okay, I've seen enough. I'm calling it. Yeah. So, yeah, like I said, these are five categories that we have talked about on the show before. And I also have like 10 categories that listeners have suggested, but we'll clear out the ones I came up with first. And so-

Clear out your system. So this is a bit of an enema, if you will, for name Pat Falloon. I won't, but we'll go. So this one is, who goes first, first of all? I guess that's the important question to ask to begin. Sean clearly goes first. He seems to win all of these. Okay, Sean, it is.

Sean, I don't know about that, but okay. You get to pick from, looks like, Mete's back on the menu, and that's guys whose names sound like food. Oh, that's such a good. We didn't pick that category first time through? Nope. Holy shit. I don't think so.

I have three, let me put it this way. I have three names locked in. it. Yeah. I think we did guys whose names sound like countries last time. We did do that, yes. Yeah. Anyway, then we have, they don't make them like that anymore, and these are great players

who were drafted in rounds that don't exist in the draft anymore. Then there's their great late, and that is players who have multiple, multiple overtime goals in their NHL careers. So pick one of those three. Multiple, multiple overtime as in. More than once scored in double overtime. Yeah. More than once scored a second, third, fourth overtime goal, yes.

Okay. I want to do the food one. That one sounds fun. Food one, it is? A, B, or C? Food one, it is. A. Okay. A, and I clicked on the wrong guy's name.

Okay. Sean, oh boy. How many clues do you think you can get? Yes. Let's do six. Six. Okay, so six would give you His amateur team

His height and weight His draft position The team that drafted him The years he played in the NHL And his career point total Greg, do you want to shave any of those off? The years he played in the NHL And his point total

So I would shave off point total If I wanted one more Yes Yeah, Yeah, sure. I'll take it down to five. Five. Sean, do you want to go lower than that?

Yeah, I'll go down to four. Okay. Oh! So that's amateur team, size, draft spot, and draft team. See, now I'm in a, I can't get rid of draft team, so go ahead and name him, Sean. Okay, Sean, this guy's amateur team was Yokeret, Helsinki. He is a six-foot-tall,

194-pound player. He was drafted in the fourth round 69th overall by the Edmonton Oilers in the 1980 entry draft. Oh, for God's sakes. That would be, I'm assuming that's Yari Curry.

That's correct. Yes, it's Yari Curry. Come on. You had that, Greg? Yeah, okay. Yeah, I had that. Yeah, Finnish guy drafted in 1980 by the Oilers. I might have had a fucking beat on that. Could have been S. Etikinen, you know, we've all, you know.

We all had a big old, good order of Tikinen every Thanksgiving. Yeah, absolutely. Tiken and Masala, is that something? Teganah Massala, yeah. All right, Greg, you get to pick eight-bit characters, and that's guys whose names are the same as people from Nintendo games. Uh, eight pick characters. Okay.

All right. A, B, or C? I'll take, uh, I'll take, uh, I'll take C. C it is. Okay. Uh, how many clues do you think you need? Seven. Seven.

So that would give you, uh, all of the six we, we already mentioned. And also, uh, what country he is from. Uh, go six. Okay. Greg. Oh, I, I, you know what? I'm going to expedite this. I'm going to go zero.

Ooh, all right. Zero. Wow, okay. Sean, you can go, if you think you know who this player is, you can go negative one. Yeah. No, I do not. You, you, you, I'm going to shoot, I'm going to shoot my shot here. Okay, name, I'm going to shoot my shot here.

Link Gates. Uh, no, it was not. Sean, let me, let me give you, let me give you five here. All right. Okay. His amateur team was the Saskatoon Blades. He is 6'4, 197 pounds. He was drafted third overall in the 2019 entry draft by Chicago.

Oh, fuck you. Fuck me. How do you not pick a link? Kirby Doc? The Kirby games suck. He didn't say they're good. Nintendo characters, yeah. Was Link Gates one of the three that you, one of the three categories?

Of course it was. Yes. Ah, I just picked wrong. The other guy's Mario Tromblay. I was going to say, I was looking for Mario. I was like, I was locked in on Mario Tromblay or Mario Marwa. I knew you weren't going to go Lemieux. That's right.

I did not go to the Mue. All right. So Sean is now a 2-0 on this game. So this could be a quick one. Yeah. Yeah. It could be a quick one. Um, okay, folks, you got to shoot your shot.

Remember how that one guy went to prom with Margot Robbie or whatever? No, I don't. Shoot your shot. Um, okay, so, uh, we have the guys who were drafted outside of the, uh, seven rounds that are present today. We have the guys who have multiple, multiple overtime goals. Or we have guys who went to UMass Lowell. Uh, and that was because I had also done a category where a guy, all the players

played for both the Leafs and the Devils, and so I needed to get some representation as well. And that one somehow didn't get picked. That's incredible. Well, again, these are all players you have 100% heard of and who have had, I would say, illustrious NHL careers to some level or another. I want the first one, the draft, the late draft pick. Okay. Who among us couldn't have seen that coming? Yeah.

Sean, A, B, or C? I feel like I had a strategy last time we played this, but I think, I don't know, I picked A last time and it worked. Let's go A again. A it is. Loyalty. Okay. How many clues do you need? Let's go six. Let's go with six. Okay. Six is everything up to career points and or save percentage, depending on whether this player is a goalie. It's an interesting caveat that we haven't heard in other categories. I'll go five.

Four. That's all the draft details, amateur team, and size. Yeah, go ahead, Sean. Okay. Okay, this player's amateur team, if I'm not much mistaken, was, yep, I'm right, the Harvard Crimson. The Harvard Crimson, he's 5'10, 185 pounds. He was drafted in the eighth round, 166 overall, by the Boston Bruins and the 1984 entry draft. Oh, boy.

Is it 84? 84 Bruins' eighth round, regular-sized guy. Went to Harvard. Went to Harvard. There can't be that many Harvard guys, but I'm trying to think. Not regular Joe. Yeah. You know what? I don't know.

I guess I'll make a guess then, yeah? Yeah, go for it. Yep. Is it Ted Donato? No, it's Donnie, but you're very close. Oh, okay. When was Ted Donato drafted? It was probably a little bit later than that, but.

87 entry draft, yeah. And he was a fifth round pick as well. I got to be honest, man, I was really had my fingers crossed. You were going to come in with like a very small size, and I could go feel flurry because, other than that. sure all right okay what am I

what are my category they're great late which is multiple multiple overtime goals or UMass little players you know what I'll throw you a fucking bone

and do the UMass one A B or C it's not UMass UMass UMass is an Amherst A B or C Greg I'm already put off by your combativeness

B B it is okay Okay, let's see here. Let's see here. Oh, I've been, I fucked this up the whole time. I forgot to say, this player is 50 years old currently. He played 606 NHL games, and the last team he played for was the Tampa Bay Lightning. I completely forgot about that part of the game.

So I apologize. I mean, it is important, but, you know, it's okay. Yeah. Yeah, right. Like Kirby Doc when I said, oh, this kid's a 20 years old. You would have been like, oh, well, it's only one guy, I guess. But yeah, anyway, I fucked that up real bad. I apologized to all involved.

And this person is, this person is 50, you said? 50, that's correct. I mean, I'll take, uh, I mean, I guess I'll take six. Six, okay. I'll go five. Five. 50 years old. I'll go, uh, so if I say four,

What do I get again? You get draft team, draft spot, size, and amateur team. I'll go four. Yeah, go ahead. Name Pat Falloon. Well, Greg, bad news. This player is undrafted, so there go two of your clues, but it might help. He's 6'1, 170 pounds, and his amateur team, the UMassol Riverhawks.

Oh, Jesus Christ. 50 years old. played 606 games, last played for the Tampa Bay Lightning. I have a very limited knowledge of who played at UMass Lowell. And what I do know, though, is I know a couple of goalies that did. And the 600 game thing might be this guy. I don't remember if he played for the lightning to be honest with you. but if he did it probably was towards the end is it uh duane rollison it is dwayne rollison that's right

oh oh shit the games gave it away yeah that did suggest goaltender yeah that's i do remember him playing for tampa bay uh it was i don't remember it was the year they went to the eastern conference final um against the bruin's he was their goalie they had traded for him the The only reason I know this is because I did a feature on Halibuck that also talked about Rollisyn and talked about Carter Hutton was also. Carter Hutton, yeah, sure. Yeah. I remember him playing for the Lightning, but you could have told me he ended his career with literally any team. Yeah.

Including Vegas. And I would have been like, yep. I mean, he pretty much ended his career in Edmonton, right? Like, I mean, never to be heard from again. Well, he played 50 games for the Islanders the next season. after he left Edmonton and then played 40 for Tampa in 1112. So, and that's the crazy part. He was, the reason that was a little tricky, I thought, was because he's 50, but he only

retired eight years ago. Well, when he played for Edmonton, he was like in his late 30s, right? Yes, that's correct. Yeah, but he retired at 42 years old, which is an uncommon thing. So the last one. Look at this. The rally begins. The last one, I believe it's to,

Greg, Greg, you get to pick... I think it's mine. Yeah, I picked... Oh, that's right. You're right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So, you get to pick, Sean, one of three players from the multiple, multiple overtime.

So, A, B, or C? A. A, it is. This player is 40 years old. He played 1,104 NHL games. The last team he played for was the Nashville Predators. How many clues? do you need?

Sorry, how many games? 1, 104. Okay. 1, 104 games. And the last team he played for was the Nashville Predators. That's right. Let's go six. National Predators.

I'm trying to get in their right headspace here. Multiple, multiple, overtime goals. National Predators. Five. Four. If I go three, what do I get again? just where he was drafted and when like the year in the spot and

how big he was and his amateur team Jesus you're going for the win here am I? Do I? Yeah, we're high right now. We're tied to two, two. Jesus Christ. All right. Hold on.

Okay, so National Predator multiple, multiple overtime goals. And what's the other bio-information we have? 1,104 games played, and that's it. Okay. And he would get, like, weight and an amateur team. He would get the draft. If you go with three, you get a draft spot size and amateur team.

He would get the team that drafted him if you have him name it. All right, I'll have him name it. All right, Sean, this player played for the Sudbury Wolves. He is 6'1, 21616 pounds. He was drafted second overall, or second overall, sorry. In the second round, 44th overall by Ottawa in 1998. Drafted by Ottawa, 98, played a long time, finished with Nashville, multiple overtime goals.

I'm pretty sure this guy scored one of those against the Maple Leafs, which is why, if I know it, I'm going to know it. Is it Mike Fisher? It is Mike Fisher, yep. That's right. Of course. Of course there had to be some fucking leaf connection. It's always the Leafs.

God damn it. It's all about the Leafs. Fucking every fucking time. It's like, oh, I have two bits of information that go on. I believe this guy had a turnover in the third period of a game back in 82 against the Leafs. Yeah. It works. What do you want me to remember?

Like my kids' birthdays and stuff? There's only so much room in there. Is it Brett Sutter? Oh, it is Brett Sutter. You do it. God damn it. Undone again. All right.

He's unbelievable at that game as it relates only to the Toronto Maple Leafs. Yeah. And luckily, as everybody up here in Canada knows, 99% of the things that happen in the NHL, relate to the Maple Leafs. Right. To the point where it's a meme. All right. Show's gone on far too long for it being an off-season show.

We thank you all for listening. Do patronize our sponsors. The more that you patronize our sponsors, the more of these types of shows that we'll do during the off-season. Let's just be candid on that. Cards on the table. But we'll do more fun on the Patreon, including an overrated, underrated this week.

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was, the hell was it? What did we do? Oh, we did five teams with no hope over the next five years. We had no hope, right, yeah. And then I got a Smashing Pumpkins article on there and, of course, Lambert's newsletter. And, you know, the Taco Bell thing will

be on there soon. One of these days, baby. Yep. There you go. All right, boys. What else you got? That's it for me. I'm good.

Yeah, I find my stuff on the athletic. This week I did a ranking of every all-Canadian playoff series of the modern era. And today I have what's kind of an annual piece where I pick the six teams I'm most confused about midway through the off season. And it takes me some time to narrow it down because I'm a very confused guy these days. Oh, we should also say, check out the piece that Emily and I wrote on the next season of the NHL. It's still on the ESPN NHL page. And then my column that drops every Thursday is on there, too, dealing with more of those issues.

And some winners and losers and other shit. So do check it out. All right. To the Patreon we go. And thanks everybody for listening. Bye. Later. Bye.

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