Puck Soup - Hot Starts, Hot Seats

Episode Date: October 19, 2022

Sean and Ryan talk about the teams that have started the season undefeated, and also the ones that are in the mud.   Sponsored by Athletic Greens (athleticgreens.com/puck), Brooklinen (brooklinen.com/puck)

Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slapshots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to what if you commute. We also cover movies, TV shows, it's and tunes. It's your weekly bowl of Hockey and Nonsense. I'm Ryan Lambert from Elite Prospects. I am Sean Magndu from The Athletic. And folks, I got to start out with a heartfelt apology. A couple of weeks ago.

Here's me. If you don't like the animated board ads, it's because you're dumb and I'm really smart. And it's because you have the brain of a child and I have the brain of a full-grown man. And then what I had not failed to consider, I guess. And I should have seen this coming, is that the NHL does not have this technology nailed down at all. We have, you know, like PlayStation 2 level. graphics of guys clipping through the Panago pizza ads and just being swallowed by, you know, dog food commercial or whatever.

And, yeah, it's, it sucks. Yeah. First of all, can I just say you do a bang on impression of yourself like that is? Yeah, well, you know. I was confused. I'm like, is he dropping in a clip from previous time? I haven't really seen this yet. Is this like?

is it specific channels? I mean, I would assume you know, I've seen it happen on a few different feeds. It's not it's not, again, it's not as bad as people are making it out to be, but when it's bad,

it's insanely bad. You know? And so you just end up with a situation where you're saying, oh, you know, like, the worst fears are being realized, even if it's not like this,

epidemic of like, you know, domino's ad totally just swallowed up Elias Patterson or whatever. Every single shift, it happens just often enough that you're like, yeah, they needed to spend more time in the lab on this one. I, you know, I don't know what to tell you. Yeah, I have, I have not been bothered by it all that much. I've seen a couple of clips, like there was the one clip where. There was this, like, giant animated puck slew line on the transition.

See, I didn't see that except on Twitter. Yeah. You know? Yeah. And I was like, yeah, that's just a thing of they got to do a better job of saying what does and doesn't work. Because, like, you know, if you're just flashing like $5 meal deal or whatever. Yeah. That's one thing.

That's not, I, you know, I think that's totally fine. Like I said, I compared it to watching a soccer game. And they're like, oh, you know, bet on this game if you want to. You know, that kind of thing? Yeah. And that wouldn't be so bad. But yeah, when there are pucks flying in the opposite direction that the play is going and stuff like that, like, you can't have that. That's, that's like basic shit, too.

That's, again, something that I would have thought the NHL would be like, hey, do me a favor and don't have, like, guys playing hockey on the boards behind them. And they're like, oh, yeah, sure. Yeah, or we should have thought of that. Or just saying, like, we're not going to animate these. Like that feels like pretty basic. I mean, yeah. So they haven't bothered me that much, but I have heard from a bunch of people on Twitter

and comment sections and that sort of thing who are like, this is ruining the game for me. Again, I think that's overstated. Like, it's not ruining the game. Like, there's a confirmation bias that kicks in. Like, once you decide you hate this, you will see the problems everywhere. And if you're like me and you're still like,

that seems fine. Now, I should point out that part of the reason it seems fine to me is I no longer have the attention span to just sit and watch a game without another, at least one other screen or something distracting me and then I look up when things happen. So maybe somebody who actually does watch the games

would get a little more credibility on this issue. But it doesn't bother me yet, but I'm sure at some point, something will bother me and then I'll see that thing forever. Yeah, no, for sure. It's the same thing about like, again, people are like, oh, it says milk on the maple leaf shirt. That's ruining the game for me. Like, relax, please.

But at the same time, like, again, it's not as bad as it could be where, again, guys are like clipping through the board on every fucking play or whatever. But again, it's just often a. enough where it's like, yeah, they did not think this through. And of course they didn't. It's the NHS. They did think it through because they've been testing this thing for years. It's clearly what just happened is they were like, this is good enough.

Let's start making some. Right. Yeah. I, right. I guess what I mean is like the technology isn't where they want it to be or whatever, where it's a totally seamless thing. And the difference is in soccer, like those aren't digitally projected. They are basically like big TVs behind the play that are showing it.

And that's, you know, and I do think like technologically different. It is. And it also is like in soccer, it's right there. You can't avoid it. But it's not on the playing surface. Yeah. Which the boards are playing surface.

So I do get why people would, I don't know. Again, I'm not there yet. But I certainly know that I've heard from enough people. that there is a non-zero contingent out there that seems sincerely bothered by this. Frankly, I haven't really heard on the Jersey ads and that sort of. Like, I saw a little bit, but, you know, I haven't seen anybody be like, I'm not going to watch anymore. Right. Whereas I have said people say they.

Well, look, people will say they're not going to watch anymore because, you know, they don't have fighting in the game or the NHL is too woke now or whatever. And that's all bullshit, right? Like, that's just, that's just fake stuff. Of course these people are going to keep going to fucking games and watching them and all that shit. But it's, to be fair to those people, saying I'm not going to watch this anymore, I'm not going to spend money on it anymore, is the only cudgel you have against, like, you know, vote with your dollar or whatever, against these like monolithic entities, corporations, whatever you want to say. And I do think there's... So, like, I get why people say that. There is a difference between saying, like, I'm not going to watch anymore because there's no fighting versus saying, I'm not going to watch anymore because I don't.

enjoy the viewing experience because of the ads or the other thing a lot of people continue to complain about is the onslaught of gambling ads and information and like everything just forced in. I can't see people not watching over that when they probably wouldn't over quality of the game. I will say I am not watching like between period stuff as much because they are going like Austin Matthews is a half a goal away from you know his over under for the night and it's just like shut the fuck up I don't fucking care about this like I really wonder what like what segment of the audience is like dialed in with that shit you know is like oh I got I got to know that that that the predators are minus 220 going into this game or

whatever the fuck. Like, what percentage of people are like, you know what? This is, this is not being done because anyone thinks it's useful for the audience. There are, they are doing it because it is useful to the bottom line and, relatedly, will be harmful to a non-zero chunk of the audience in a way that makes money for everyone other than those people. Sure. Which is why it sucks. Can't disagree with you there. All right. Let's, uh, that one on. longer than I expected. But anyway, let's talk about, there are five undefeated teams left in the

National Hockey League as of Wednesday morning. Can you name them? Yes, because I am looking at it right now. Okay, well, it's not. I kind of blew that. Now, first of all, hold on. When we say undefeated, this being the NHL, we have to clarify, are we saying like they haven't lost, or are we saying they haven't

lost in regulation. They haven't lost, period. Oh, good. Okay. Yes. Let's go down. All right. Well, if you're looking at it, Calgary, Dallas, Carolina, Philadelphia, and St.

Louis. But we're not going to talk about St. Louis. They played a game. So, you know, they beat the shit out of the blue jackets. St. Louis has played one game. Nashville has played five games. Yeah.

The season is basically. a week old. I love the NHL schedule. It's so fucking funny. You couldn't make it up. Like, you know, people were complaining about there's a day off on Sunday. Why isn't anybody playing on Sunday? Perfectly reasonable

fucking question, first of all. Yeah. But second of all, it's like, not only is nobody playing, but also like one team has played one game only. And they wouldn't be playing. What did they play Saturday night and now they're not playing,

they play tonight, Wednesday night. So how's that work? Yeah, it's fantastic. Very strange. So anyway, we're not going to talk about St. Louis in this discussion because like it barely counts. And especially because they beat Columbia, if they beat like Florida or Toronto, well, a lot of teams are beating Toronto these days, I guess. But if they beat like an actual good team, that would be one thing. They beat the Columbus Blue Jacket.

And also, blues fans are notoriously chill about their team. Yeah, they have a very normal reaction to everything that happens. If you, like, casually mention Joe Thornton, like, just sit down. You're going to get a lecture. Did you see this hit for 2012? Oh, Lord. Yeah, anyway. I'm lying on that one.

Yeah. So anyway, let's talk about the teams that are actually undefeated. Yeah, I feel like one of these teams. feels a little faker than the others. Yeah, okay, let's start with them. The Philadelphia Flyers, they have so far beaten the New Jersey Dowles, the Vancouver Canucks,

the Tampa Bay Lightning, lightning most recent last night. All three of those games have been comeback wins, which is interesting to me. Because if you need to keep coming back, that's not a good sign for your future, is generally how this thing kind of works. But I want you,

You said you're looking at the standings. Yes. I hope you're not looking at evolving hockey's team stats page right now, because I want you to guess the Philadelphia Flyers five-on-five expected gold or percentage. Okay. For a three-and-o team, are they even 50-50? Sean. Are they?

This is the Philadelphia Flyers. Again, this is the Philadelphia Flyers. Yeah, but how they've won three games. They can't be that. I'm pointing. I'm pointing down right now. It's got to be, okay, 41 is as low as I'll go. 39.6.

Wow. Yeah, they stink. They're really fucking bad. But, you know, I guess if you're the Flyers, going into the year, everybody's like, oh, they're really fucking bad. I'm not buying tickets to that. And now they're 3 and O, and the Flyers are like, hey, what if we got rid of ticket fees? Would you come to a game then? That'll do.

So that's what they're doing right now. They are doing like no fees for the next day or three or something like that. I saw this yesterday. That makes perfect sense to me. You try to con as many people into the building as you possibly can. But yeah, 39.6, that's low. That's not very good at all. But they've scored like 60% of the five on five goals.

What are you going to do? And it's, and you know, this is, is some of this the John Tortorella factor? Is this just what he does? Does he squeeze the most points in the standings out of bad teams? Yeah, like undeniably he does. Which is not the same as making a bad team into a good team. No, for sure not. Yeah, no, again, like the John Tortorella model typically is we'll just get to the,

we'll get to overtime 28 times this season and take our fucking chances, you know. but yeah, I guess what I would say is I don't think that the things the Philadelphia Flyers do well result in a 108 PDO. Yeah. That would be that would be my I mean, they're shooting almost 14% and they have a 943 team save percentage at 5 on 5. Or in all situations, sorry. Yeah, that's not going to last like plain and simple.

The thing is though, they've got some young players who have, have looked okay, or maybe a little better than expected. And the older guys are looking good. And maybe both of those things go away, but if only one of them goes away, I think you're at least making the team more interesting than it should be by rights on paper, that kind of thing. Yeah, I mean, we're not going out on any great limb here by saying we don't think the flyers are actually good.

I can't imagine that even the most diehard Flyers fan is out there thinking that 3 and 0 is a real start for a team that everybody wrote off. The one thing I'd say is, you know, you talk about that goaltending. It's been three games at Carter Hart. Carter Hart two years ago was considered the next great young goaltender. And then he stunk. And then last year he was, he didn't stink, but he wasn't great. and now he's three games,

he's still 24 years old, he's three games in, he's a 9.43. He's not going to do that all year. But if Carter Hart is back, that does change the equation for this team. For sure, yeah.

And that's, you know, a goalie I've always liked and have I, you know, would I say that the coaching the last few years has not helped him? Yeah, I would say that, you know? But, yeah, again, to expect this level of goaltending from anybody, like Igor Shusircant, like, that's just not really feasible, right?

So if the results, then out the way. 943, but if it's the fact that they're getting good goaltending, like there are certain goalies around the league that if you said they had three good games to start the season, I go, yeah, who cares? It's, it's goaltending, right? Any goalie can have three good games. you know, if Martin Jones ran off three games, I'd be like, yeah, well, good for him. He had his one good week.

Whereas, you know, Carter Hart, you can go maybe, especially for younger guys where, you know, some of the confidence starts to kick in and, you know, things become self-reinforcing. Like, that's the good news for Philadelphia if you want the Flyers to win this year. Now, I'm sure there's a whole segment of the fan base that is like, yeah, here we go. Well, so the other thing to say, though, right, is John Tortorella, has that guy had any goalies who had a lot of success in his past? Mm-hmm. You know? Yeah.

I believe both Bobrovsky Veznas came with him as the coach. Maybe not the first one now that I think about it. I don't remember, but let's look it up. But, yeah, like, you know, he coached Henrik Lunkwis. Now did Henrik Lundquiz need the help? no in fact it was the opposite right like yeah so it was it was just the second uh bovrovsky vesna he the first one he won torterello was not the coach then but todd richards was so works out great uh but yeah i mean the point being like in general i would think you would say

john tortarella teams have pretty good goal tending overall um So if you're a Flyers fan that is looking at a roster that on paper is bad, you're looking at a division where making the playoffs is going to be extremely difficult. And you're looking at a draft that is super top heavy. And you're going, this is the year to not even necessarily tank, but this is the year to have, what was it, 2007, where they just kind of out of nowhere, dropped down to last place. Yeah, and they got Van Riemsdike second overall?

second because they lost the lottery in Chicago, jumped up and got Patrick King. But it's one of those things where you might be sitting there like, great, this is Tortorale to doing exactly what Tortorale was going to do. He's coming in, he's squeezing more out of this lousy lineup than he should. And we're going to pick 11th this year. Awesome. Like this.

But if you're Chuck Fletcher and you're trying to keep your job and your boss doesn't think you're rebuilding, you probably got exactly what you were hoping for. so far. So any, okay, so. Now that we've said all that, let's go to another team that has looked good and is undefeated, but like, let's maybe take a deep breath here is the Dallas Stars. They've conceded two goals at five on five so far this year. They have a plus 10 goal difference in all situations, but here, here are their opponents.

Nashville, Nashville, Winnipeg. So, yes, the stars have looked very good. Not a terrible. It's not like they've played Columbus three times, right? Nashville is a playoff team. Winnipeg, you know. Sort of. Kind of.

And, you know, they just beat the shit out of Winnipeg, like last night. So, yeah, I think every game has either been four to one or five to one for them so far. So there's nothing to complain about for the stars except to say, I don't love the strength of schedule there if I'm trying to say like these guys are all set. Now, again, they have beaten, like badly beaten some pretty good teams, although they have been outshot more often than not. But they're generating a lot of high quality scoring chances and that kind of thing and giving up relatively few. So again, do I think... Another new coach. Right.

And a coach that, again, you would say this guy, especially in the first year or two of a new job, has it. You know, players seem to like him. I don't know if you saw that quote. Oh, shit, who was it from? One of the guys on the stars, they were like, what do you think is different this year? And he's like, oh, we don't have to dump it in anymore. Ah. Yep, that's right.

Yeah, well, that'll do it. And they have the personnel to not dump it in and still have success. Isn't that interesting? And much like the Flyers, another young goaltender. This one who didn't stink last year, Jake Ottinger. I mean, we all said, right? And I think for a lot of us probably maybe somewhat tongue in cheek, we're like, oh, if Jake Ottinger from the playoffs shows up in the season, look out for the stars. Well, so far, he has.

66 in all situations. It's their goaltending right now. So again, not sustainable at that level, obviously. No. But maybe Jake Hunter is just one of the league's best goalies revealing itself. I said it last week, right? Like the central division, you could tell me Colorado at the top, Arizona and Chicago at the bottom, and any order of the teams in the middle, I'll believe that.

Like if you tell me right now The Stars kind of keep this up all year Obviously not like the percentages or whatever But like if they keep beating perfectly good teams Like beat who you're supposed to beat And then win more often than not against the teams that are On roughly the same level as you You're all set

Yeah You know And I mean I'm I'm gonna make a comparison here that is I acknowledge upfront is kind of A big reach But just is an absolute best case. You look at the Rangers last year, a team where nobody really, you know, yeah, they might

be in the playoff mix. Wild card vibes. Yeah. A lot like Dallas. A younger team than Dallas is, but, and then Igor Shasturka is like, guess what? I'm awesome. I'm the best goalie alive, yeah. And then by the end of the year, we're all like, yeah, he is.

And that boosts everything with the Rangers, right? Not just you get better goal-tending, but it affects everything. affects a whole game. So, yeah. That could happen again with this Dallas team. Right. Now, same,

roughly same age, same experience, you know. Now, the Rangers as a team are getting sub-900 goal tend to start the year. Right. Well,

that's the other thing. It's just it's stinks now. So. And they're still winning a bunch of games and stuff. So, yeah. Where are you going to do? But I have been told by Rangers fans that they're,

they should be considered one of the best teams of the league because they've been completely dominant as long as you only look at the games where they've been completely dominant, which honestly, I ran the numbers and they're right. To be fair, I would, they played what, four games? In three of them, they've been completely dominant. And then one of them, they were like, fine and that's it. Right? So, I don't know.

I mean, they lost to the Jets. They lost to the Jets, sure. But, like, that was a, I think that was a game where they outshot the Jets pretty badly and still won. Am I right about this? Or still lost, I mean. Yeah, they outshot them 41, 34. If you keep putting up 41 shots a game, you're going to be fine. Probably will be.

Yeah. So I got nothing bad to say about the Rangers start, except, you know, it's just funny that they aren't getting the goaltending for Circon and still their 3-1. But they're not undefeated. Again, they lost to the Winnipeg Jets. So let's talk about another team that's undefeated. and another team with a strength of schedule where you would say, not so much. The hurricanes have beaten the brakes off Columbus, San Jose, and Seattle.

Yeah. Which is what you would expect that team to do. Correct. This is the first of our teams where you're like, yeah, we expected this team to be a legit cup contenders slash favorites. So I think this is the part where you go, all right, You can only be who the schedule puts in front of you. Now, the fun thing for Carolina is we don't have to wait very long for the difficulty to ramp up

because they're going through Alberta starting tomorrow. Right. And that's going to be fun. Yeah. And the other thing to say is, like, this isn't like Dallas where the hurricanes are getting outshot by mediocre or bad teams and still winning. They are picking these teams apart. It's 60% every percentage you want across the board. Or more, obviously.

And again, that's what you would expect them to do. Would you expect them to outscore those teams 11 to 3? Well, maybe not. But, you know, all you can ask for is that you beat the shit out of the bad teams, which they have done. So, you know, I got nothing bad to say about Caroline. And again, for the third, this is a theme anytime you're talking about early season. and success just about. Goaltending looks great.

Sure does. Freddie Anderson and Ray Red are going to be 960 goaltending. Gosh, you know what? Probably not sustainable for the full year. But, well, but again, so. Right.

Freddie Anderson, you know, had a legit Vesna case last year. Mm-hmm. Right? And so, and that's not entirely, but largely due to, the hurricanes don't let anybody near their net. So it's totally reasonable that this would continue for another season.

So, again, like, what can you say? Like you said, you got to play the teams that are on the schedule. They're not going to be like, you know what, forget the Columbus game. We're going to fly to Calgary, see what's up over there. But, yeah, let's talk about the Calgary Flames. They look like the best team in the league right now. A team that has had a nasty looking. schedule.

Colorado, Edmonton, Vegas. They have outscored those teams 12 to 8. Like, if you wanted to say those are the three best teams in the West other than the flames, I don't think it would be crazy. You know, Vegas obviously didn't make the playoffs last year. There's, you know, and people. Well, you want to talk about a team that looked really good going into that Calgary game last night.

They looked unbelievable. So. And again, maybe any team that can beat the avalanche is impressive. And Vegas and... Yeah. On the road in a game where, you know, it was... It looked like it was the same Edmonton game that they had against Vancouver, right? Vancouver comes in scores a couple of goals.

And then Edmonton's like, ah, you know what? I think we're going to win this game. And they power up and the Canucks have no answers. So the same thing happens against Calgary, early lead. Edmonton goes, ah, you know what? And Calgary goes, I'm going to stop you there. No, I don't know what. We're better than you and we're going to hold you off in the end.

Now, close game. But the Flames are really good right now. So here's the interesting thing. Unlike all these other teams where we're like, oh, well, they're getting like 960 goal tending right now. They're shooting 15%. The flames are shooting 11%. So that's kind of high.

But they are also getting sub 900 goaltending. And they're still 3 and 0 against those teams. Uh-oh. That's not good for everybody else. It is not. And close games and that, but... You got to win them, and they'd have. The other thing to say, though, is like last year, the flame started out.

I'm pretty sure. I think I'm remembering this right. For the first, like, six weeks of the season, they had, like, 9.50 goaltending. And it sort of chilled out after that. Right. But Marchion was still good enough for the whole season that, you know, they ended up... He ended up as a Vezna finalist. Right. He was top three, right?

I believe he was. Yeah. Or if he wasn't, he was the fourth guy. Because he was, yeah. Again, we can just look this up. I don't know what I'm fucking assing. I guess I could just. Yeah, he was second in Besna voting last year.

Yeah. So there you go, right? So much of that second was built on the first six, eight weeks of the season. That having been said, those games count just as much in the standings as the ones in like March, right? But, but this is, this is my point, though, is like,

uh, the, nobody should be worried about the flames now. Everybody, the question about the flames is, can Markstrom play 55 games without dying? Yep. And so I guess we'll see.

But let me, let me ask you this. So we just talked about all these teams. Rank them from five to one in terms of where you think they end up at the end of the season. Now that they've, laid down, you know, two, three good games in a row here. So I will, Carolina, Calgary is a coin flip.

I'll still go Carolina. I predicted them for the president's trophy at the beginning of the year, so I guess I have to stick with that. But already feels like the gap is narrowed. Then a pretty big gap to the next tier, which I think is St. Louis, Dallas, not super far behind them because of the audits. Fender Factor, and then a gap, and then another gap, and then another gap, and then the Flyers.

Mm-hmm. Sure. I, so when I do the power feelings for EP Rinkside, at the beginning of the year, I do like a color-coded thing from dark red to dark green. Dark red means you're insanely bad. Dark green means you're like one of the handful of the most likely. teams to win the Stanley Cup at the beginning of the year. I do this at the start of every season. I have flyer, I have the flyers in kind of like, uh, medium red. They're not Arizona and Chicago bad,

but they're right there with like Montreal, Seattle, Buffalo, San Jose, New Jersey. Those are the teams I have in like medium red, like just regular red. Yep. Um, I have, uh, I have, uh, I have, uh, St. Louis and Dallas as both like the lightest green that I can put them in, where I think like those are good teams, but they're not. So specifically, I have them at 14 and 13 in the league by the end of the season. I think those are good teams with some obvious question marks. Which one ahead of who? Dallas is one ahead of St. Louis. Interesting.

I trust the goaltending more. That simple. Yeah. Calgary I have as the bottom of the second darkest green. I have four shades of green that I use. And what's funny is I just look at the teams in alphabetical order and like assign them a color. And then I kind of sort after once I get all the colors nailed down. And so I actually have 16 teams in green this year.

Isn't that funny? I just kind of organically ended up with that. But Calgary I have is the eighth best team in the league this year, I figure, a step behind Edmonton in the same category as Florida and Vegas. I feel like three games into the season, I might be. I might have them a little low. And then Caroline I have is the number two team in the league behind Colorado. Yep. So.

I feel like those. are all reasonable. But yeah. Yeah. Anyway. And obviously subject to change a ton, but we're slowly but surely. But again, that's like preseason. Nobody had played a game when I put that together.

And I have as the playoff bubble just for people keeping track here. Winnipeg, Nashville, Vancouver, and the Islanders from 20th to 17th. Sounds good. Islanders a step behind the cap. And, uh, yeah. Are we going to do the winless teams? Well, hey, why don't we take a break and do that when we come back? Beauty. Great. Brook Lennon knows that a good set of sheets are essential for all bedroom activities,

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That's B-R-O-O-K-L-I-N-E-N dot com. promo code Puck for $20 off plus free shipping. All right, we're back. We talked about all the teams that are doing really well. Let's talk about all the teams that are doing really poorly. And I guess you can't start. It's very more fun. Of course it is.

I guess you can't start that conversation without saying the Canucks were the first team to blow three multiple goal leads and lose to start a season. And then they became the first team to blow four multiple goal leads and lose. Although they did get a loser point last night. So things are trending in the right direction. Like I read that stat right. This is the first time not at the start of a season, but ever that a team has blown four multi-goal. leads and lost, which feels amazing to me. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, I can't. I mean, I guess it's not amazing because it is the Vancouver Canucks, a team that is accursed. Yeah. Right. It feels amazing to me that the record is that. Sure.

Yeah. But apparently it is. Well, like, I guess the thing is you got to be pretty good to establish multiple goal leads in four games in a row. Yeah. I guess I would have thought it would have happened in the 80s or something when the goal scoring was crazy or whatever, but yeah. To do it in a row is difficult, I guess, you know?

But yeah, last night, obviously, like, the greatest indignity because it, not only because it happened again, but because, like, now they're already in panic mode, right? They're already, like, healthy scratch and Connor Garland and all this kind of stuff, and it's like, oh, no, you guys have no fucking answers, it turns out. Yeah. And they were playing a Columbus team that was 0 and 3. So you're kind of looking in the mirror going, all right, one of us is going to get our first good news of the season. And one of us is going to be really.

And then they go up multiple goals. Hey, you know, they do say two goal leads, the worst one in hockey. They do say. Vancouver's like, yeah, no shit. Tell me about it, brother. But yeah, it's, I don't know what you do if you're Vancouver because, like, you have, you have the good coach. He doesn't seem like he's the coach who,

um, who management wants to have around long term. No, not at all. But, but he's good. Like, I think any team,

you know, uh, if he, when question mark, he gets fired, uh, there's going to be teams that are like, you know what?

We got to kick the tires on this. But, yeah, doesn't seem to have a lot of answers here. Like, they, they asked him, why do you healthy scratch

Connor Garland? He's like, I had to healthy scratch someone. It ended up being him. Now, if it's me, you know, who I healthy scratch is the guy who has been on the ice for every goal you've allowed basically all season. And that's

that's J.T. Miller, right? Because that's how you endear yourself to the GM is you scratch the guy who just got the crazy extension. Well, crazy is right, huh? But Yeah, J.T. Miller not good. No, he's not started.

He's already zero goals for, 10 goals against. I looked it up this morning when he's on the ice. That all but ensures he cannot finish the season with a positive goal difference. Yeah, he, and I know, like when I was looking at it for the first three games, it was, it's not that it's misleading, but he plays on the penalty kill and the penalty kill sticks. So he's getting up a little bit there. But, uh, yeah.

I can look up as five on five goals against. They're not good. Again, he hasn't been on for, he does. He scored twice on the season. So he's, he's got, uh, he's been on the ice for goals, but not, is it, is, is, is he minus 10 at five on five? Is that? Uh, let's, let's see here.

Let's see here. Five on five, no adjustment. Um, Miller. J.T. Miller is the man's name. One power play goal, one. Two and four. Two and four. So yeah, it's actually going

great for him. Yeah. For, oh, you know what? Those, I don't know, I don't know what the fuck happened when I looked at these numbers, because it said 0 and 10, and that can't be right, because he's four and 12 overall. That's still really bad. And again, all but ensures

he cannot finish the season with a positive goal difference. Like, the idea that he's going to catch up with that. That's a deep hole to start out in, man. And so is being 0 and 4. So is having one point through four games. Like that is, you know, I know like we're a week into the season.

This is the tie. Everyone's always like, it's too early. It's too early. And it is too early to write any team off. But like they're already five points back of the teams. they're probably going to be chasing for. Yeah, no. You know, people, people always, like, what's the saying?

It's like, you can't make the playoffs in October, but you can definitely miss them in October. And that's what's happening here. It gets late early if you're a bad team. It certainly does. It certainly does. And, you know, I don't even think the Canucks are a bad team, right? But, like, here are the results.

So what do you want to do? The one thing that we got to point out, and it's to say we've done this for every single team. So when a team feels like they're having unexpected results, you go down and you look at the goaltending, Thatcher Demko stinks this year. Yeah. Do we think that that is going to continue? I don't think that the Thatcher DeMco is going to be pretty good.

Like that's the good news. If you're a Canucks fan, you go. 850 is a big ask to keep up, right? The 4.48 goals against. I'm going to say probably probably not just down a little bit but so that's where you're if you're like where is this team going to get better

that right there is what you're looking at yeah honestly a lot of their a lot of their like other stats are not horrible um are they good no obviously not right but um they're they're not awful like they're what here's what's interesting

they're out shooting their opponents are out coursing their opponents, they're out, fenwicking their performance, their opponents, 44% of the expected goals. It's 26th in the league right now. And they're underperforming 44% of the goals, right?

So, so, let's stop there. Can you explain to listeners? Okay. When you're out coursing out, fernwithy, like you're, you're getting more shot attempts, which you think would translate to more expected goals. Like, that seems like a huge gap. Is that just a team that's, are they just getting all

their shots from the perimeter? Are they just? I, I got to go to a different website to look this up, but my suspicion based on the two games I've watched at least a part of. I watched, who did I watch the entire game against? It's great that I already don't remember this. Oh, no, I watched the entire Flyers game. That's right. God. Tell me about it. But it's, but it's, but was just like on a Saturday afternoon or whatever. So that was why. But my suspicion is based on everything we know about the Vancouver Canucks is that they're just giving up a shitload of high danger chances.

But natural statric isn't loading for me right now, so I can't pull it up quickly and easily. But yeah. So like I suspect that's the problem. I don't know that that's a Bruce Boudreau problem. I think that's a look at the team that they gave him to play with problem. And I, you know, I don't think that's telling tales out of school. I think that's a... Man, I don't feel good about Bruce Brewd's long-term security.

Yeah, let me stop you there. Me neither. Right? But like... We're on the same page. We both like him as a coach, but I'm not investing in... No. ...stock right now.

Partly because, I mean, obviously the fact that... that if people don't remember in the offseason, he had an option year and, like, he wanted an extension. And the team was like, no. And he was like, well, then maybe I don't want the option. And they were like, that's fine. You go, you go think about it. You go talk to other teams if you want to go somewhere else,

which is typically not what a team says when a guy has done a pretty good job as an interim coach. And then he eventually came back and said, I'll take the one year. They're not locked into them. And then the other thing is, like, we talked about this last year with the Canucks, when they made the coaching change,

how many times did we say if they had done that a week or two earlier? Absolutely. I have a playoff team. And I wonder how fresh that lesson might be for the Vancouver front office. Man, it feels ugly in Vancouver already. I would say as well it should.

It feels more ugly than maybe it even should. Yeah. By the way, Vancouver, 13 high danger shots against and 23 medium danger shots against. And that's only at 5 on 5. That's a tough one. And they only have four high danger 4, which is surprising in 25 medium 4. So like they're not getting to the net and they also have conceded the second most high danger shots on goal in the regular. seasons.

Which, according to Moneypuck. What's going on with Thatcher Delt. Yep. Maybe. The other thing with Vancouver, and I wrote about them in my Monday column, which is, they were 0 and 2 at that point. Right. But the schedule for these guys is fascinating. They're starting the season on a five-game road trip.

Never good. Which started off. Yeah. When the schedule came out, you went, oh, that's going to be tough, you know. Hopefully they can get home at three. in two or whatever, and it's, you know, clearly it's already in crisis mode. But they start off against Eminton, Philadelphia. They were 0 and 2.

And then I said, man, look at their next three games. Because the next three games are all against other teams that are potentially in panic mode early on. Washington. Okay, well, they lost to Washington. Columbus was 0.3 with Johnny Goodrow. They go into Columbus. They lose to Columbus. Now look who they've got next.

Minnesota. Yeah. We'll talk about, let's talk about the. wild in effect. Well, so I did want to just say one thing besides that is that not only did the Canucks blow multiple, like a two-gole lead last night, they also gave up a goal. Like they went up three to two, like halfway through the second period. And then immediately gave up another goal.

Like it's the way they're losing is fucking brutal. Like that could have been like the, ah, like we just put the dagger in the goal. We figured it out. below leads thing. And then the other thing I'll say is not to get ahead, but if they lose to Minnesota and they come home, 0 and 5, who do they have in the home opener?

Buffalo Sabres. Their expansion cut their misery. Who just beat the Edmonton Oilers last day? And can you imagine, like, I mean, in a way, obviously if you're 0.5, you want as easy an opponent as you can because you need a win. But 0 and 5 on the road, you come home, those fans are going to be ready to start booing at the drop of a hat.

Absolutely. And you're playing a team that nobody thinks is a contender for anything. If you lose that game. Yeah. Like that's already a scenario where you can see the jerseys raining down on the ice. You can hear the fire everyone chance going. Like you could see, we could be two weeks into the season. And we're just like the Canucks have the whatever it was, 18 wheelers gone off the road.

Man. It's it yeah, it could get really dark, really fast. So, okay, you mentioned the wild. Let's talk about the wild. They're 0 and 3. They've played the Rangers, the Kings, and the Avalanche. That's a tough schedule. Now all of those games were at home, but that's a tough schedule, for sure.

I think having watched bits and pieces of two of those games, what I've seen is they've looked thoroughly mediocre, I would say. Like, they haven't really impressed me, but I don't think they've played badly. You know, who's played badly is Mark Andre Fleury and Philip Gustafson. The team save percentage, not counting empty net goals against, which I think they have maybe one. 821. You think that's going to get it done for you? Mark Andre Fleury is 776. And so, again, we're looking at the goal that inning.

This is like 11 goals. Every single team, we say this. right. Good or bad, we go, well, goaltending's not sustainable. And no, they're not going to be 820 all year long. And Mark André Flurry is not going to be the worst goaltender on the planet. But how many other guys that we talked about Carter Hart? We talked about Jake Onger. We talked about Thatcher Demko.

All young guys near their products. Yeah, Mark Andre Fleury is my age, right? Mark Andre Flurry is old. Yeah. So you look at, like, for example, a Thatcher Demko. And you can say, goaltending's weird, but this guy did. suddenly get awful over the summer. You look at a 38-year-old goalie?

He might have got awful over the summer. It's at least a risk. Like, we all know how this can go, right? We all know next game out, Mark Andre Fleury, has a shutout. 58 saves, yeah. We all go, you know, Alan Walsh sends 87 tweets about it, and we all go, I can't believe we counted out the flower. What a great guy.

I'm just saying he's 38. I'm not, he's 38. The backup is not strong. The whole trading camp Talbot thing might feel like, I mean, Talbot's injured, so he wouldn't be helping you now anyways. But, yeah, another team. Let me put it this way. Not only is he 38, he's played almost a thousand career games. He's at 9.41 right now.

That's a lot of fucking miles, not to mention multiple deep playoff runs with the Penguins and Vegas a couple years. ago, right? So, like, this is a guy who's played, what, like, 1,100 games at, like, the highest level in the sport? It's a lot of miles. And so we say it all the time. Guys turn, like, 32, 33, 34, and there's an increasing chance that it doesn't matter if they were good the previous year. And let's be honest, Flory wasn't that good last year. Two years removed from a Vezina at 36. Yeah. And at Vesna, last year. not like a not like a lifetime achievement Vezna.

And and yeah, like part of the reason he wasn't good last year is he played for Chicago, a team that was fucking awful, right? But he wasn't much better after they traded him. And there's, there can be a million reasons for that. But the idea that now you're like, okay, we got our goaltending figured out. It's this 38 year old who's played 1100 career games. in the NHL, he's, he's going to be fine.

And it's like, that's a huge fucking risk for this team. I think it's signed next year too, right? So even, even worse. But,

yeah, it's a, uh, it's a tough situation because, like you said, if you're Dean Eveson, like, you can't turn to your backup.

Not, not often. I mean, it's not, uh, it's, you certainly don't have a, one-A situation like you did last year.

Right. Yeah. It's Philip Gustafson, for those who don't know. It's a guy who wasn't good enough in Ottawa. Right. Yeah. He's, uh, yeah. So yeah, it's, you know, again, are, is he going to be a, uh, a sub 800 goalie for the rest of the year? No, of course not. But is the seat warming up a little bit? Because like, this isn't Dean Everson's fault. Can the team play better? Absolutely. I definitely think that like, how about that again, plus minus bad stat or whatever. But generally speaking, I don't think you would say there is going to be any three game stretch in the regular season where Kirill Caprisov is a minus eight. My God, is that what he is right now?

Yes. Oh, boy. Okay. Yeah. And here's the other thing. Everson's already healthy scratching like Marco Rossi. Playing him whatever. You know how many minutes he's played in two games?

He's played two games. You know how many minutes he's played? Seven and a half. Oof. On average. That's fucking crazy. Yeah. I'm...

Oh, boy. I can't wait for this Minnesota Vancouver game, man. This is... It's got a rock. The one thing with Minnesota, rather, again, I always try to find a little nugget of optimism. And I'll just say this because it's weird. It makes it...

It's weird to me every time. time I hear this, I'm always surprised. Unlike a lot of teams, they actually have a little bit of a cap room, not as much as it maybe looks like, but they've got a bit of cap room to play with, even with all that dead money. So, you know, there are some teams where you go, oh, you know, they stink. They should make a trade. Well, they can't. There's nothing they can do. Yeah. Pilgaran, maybe there might be something he can do. Maybe. But, you know, especially if they got Matt Dumba, you got... I was just going to say that Matt Dumba trade is creeping up on us, it feels like.

Although, hey. Matt Dumbina, Vancouver? Is there a way to make that work? I don't know. Yeah, I mean, yeah,

well, do they, do they need defense on that? Is the right side where the, where the Canucks are like, oh, we're fine and the left side. I refuse to learn

what hand defensemen do with. I'm just not, I'm going to write. No, the right side is their problem side because that's where, that's,

Tyler Myers is, is bad and Tucker Pullman is bad. So there you go. This, this is a match made in heaven. But the, I guess the, the thing you would say if you're

if you're the if you're any GM I guess is that oh we can't stop the goalies from giving up goals here's what we should do is trade a defenseman good point yeah so yeah anyway point

and I think the other problem is you'd want to get something back from Vancouver and boy they're not I mean who do they trade like Beauorad or something right yeah because because he's there He's the guy that seems like they're going to trade him at some point. But anyway, yeah, that's the wilds problem is they can't get a fucking save.

Like, call up someone from the H.L. Or something. I don't know. I mean, they'll, they're going to get some saves from Mark Andre Fleur. He's not going to be dog water all year long. But if, put it this way, if you went into this season as a Minnesota fan going, hey, maybe we get the Vezna flurry back, you know? And last year was weird. He was on a bad team in Chicago,

get straight a midway. Maybe he settles in and we get like that version. Doesn't look like that's happening. Yeah. All right. Let's talk about another bad team. The New Jersey Devils. They won last night, to be fair.

But this is just, it feels like, you know, going into the next game, if they give up one goal, fire Lindy immediately. That's what everybody's going to do. At this point, it's beyond, or it feels like it's beyond rationality.

Not that I think Lindy Ruff has done a good job at all. Don't get me wrong. But it's just to the point where it's like, anything that goes wrong, you're saying fire, Lindy. Because a lot of people thought that was going to happen in the offseason, and they bring in Andrew Brunette as associate coach.

Yeah, right. And they shit-canned all of Ruff's assistant coaches. Yeah. Like, they should just have Andrew Burnett stand on the bench behind Lindy Ruff with a knife in his hand. Just eyeing him. And just doing the throat slash gesture every time there's like a two-on-one. Yeah. Again.

Exactly. Right. So, I don't. I hate to do this, but I, like, I went on the record and, like, predicted first week in November for the coaching change. Yep. because they have a tough road trip, and then they come home, and they've got like a couple of easy teams.

And I always think that's a great time to make the coaching change, right? You want the new guy to start strong. It feels like we might not even get there yet. Although that win last night certainly helps. Yeah. Now, the thing to say about the Devils, too, is I'm going to read you the first seven games on their schedule, three of which they've already played.

They've already lost to the Flyers and Red Wings. They beat the ducks. Next up, they have the Islanders, the Sharks, the Capitals, and the Red Wings again. I don't think those are tough games. I think those are all winnable for sure if they can get the saves, which, let's be honest, that's been their fucking problem again this year. McKenzie Blackwood, 864, VTec Fanec-Vec-773. In one game, but again, like, I said this a million times.

at the Devils. This was a team that last year, the goaltending stunk. They were one of several teams this year going into the offseason that we said they need to address the goaltending. And the way they addressed that goaltending was by getting the second best goalie from another team that thought their goaltending stunk, the Washington Capitals. No, absolutely. And keeping the other guy who, I mean, look, McKenzie Blackwood's 26. I understand we say, you know, we want to make sure that we're not writing a guy off or But I would have catapulted his ass out of town Like on a like on a literal catapult on a trebishe maybe

In the summer that no like I'm done with this fucking guy if I if I'm the devil's I cannot imagine why they brought him back other than I'm you know he was under contract This was a guy like a year and a half ago he was being mentioned as a team Canada candidate Which speaks more to Canadian gold-tending correct granted but You know this this guy was in that, in that, you know, whoa, this guy might be a good young goaltender of the future. And, I mean, he was not good last year.

And obviously the stuff with the vaccine and all that, they just made you really wonder about him. But I get why they wanted to double check. You know, let's, let's not cast a guy out. And then he goes somewhere else and he's good. And everyone's going, well, he had one bad year. Why did you get rid of him? But I'm just going to read you his season-by-season save percentage.

You tell me if you notice a trend. 9-18 as a rookie. 915, pretty good. He played 47 games. 915 goalie. That's good. 902, 892, 864. This guy's going to end up in the 500s by the middle of next season.

And they'll still be like rolling them out there. Well, his contract is up after this year. I just looked. So this is an easy call. He's a pending restricted free agent. We're not going to qualify you, McKenzie. How's that sound? You know, if things continue this way, which I kind of suspect they will.

The other thing that's interesting about the Devils is, again, three games in, and I'm not even drawing any conclusions of this other than just noting it, is I feel like almost all of us were looking at this team going, this is the Jack Hughes explosion here, right? Like, this is where Jack Hughes goes from potential to Superstar, 90 points, something like that. And he's not done that yet. Well, he doesn't have a goal yet, but he has 12 shots on goal in three years. games. I think that's a good rate for him. You know, he has two, he has two assists, like, whatever. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not saying he's playing, like, unbelievably well or anything like that, but. Yeah, two assists both last night, but it's just, again, you want the optimism of your devil's fan.

You're going, hey, this, it's coming. Yeah. Yeah. No, he's, it's going to be. I think, I think he's a good player. Now, do they need more from him than he's given them? Yeah, of course. like that's true of most of the players on the roster, I think you would say.

You know who their leading goal scorer is right now? I do not. Dougie Hamilton, he has two. Ah. You don't want to be led in goals by a defense minute. Basically any point in the season is what I would say. Although it is nice to have our like monthly reminder that Dougie Hamilton plays for the devils. It's all I think about.

Well, no, so here's the other thing is, um, Dougie Hamilton, uh, I mentioned. mentioned last week that I, that I'm on the, the, I'm playing NHL and I ended up on the devils. And in that game, they're always having a teammate be like, hey, you want to go to the bowling alley? You want to go to, you want to go to the movies, whatever? And Dougie Hamilton is always the guy asking me if I want to go to like the museum in Columbus or whatever, you know. And so that I get a near constant reminder that Dougie Hamilton is on the New Jersey Devils. There we go. Because he always wants to hang out with me.

Just like I'm sure he would in real life. Yeah, definitely. Hey, we're both museum guys, you know. That's true. I love a damn museum. So, but yeah, that is my constant reminder. No, that's exactly who Dougie Haldon plays for. Anyway.

But yeah, I mean, their problem is goaltending and maybe coaching. And I feel like one of those is getting sorted out sooner than later. And it's probably not going to be the goaltending. So anyway, there's one last team. I'm the only one brave enough to say this, but it's true. Sheldon Keefe, hot seat. Wow. No?

Is that crazy? I don't think it's fucking crazy at all. I don't think it's yet. But. Brother, they lost to the fucking Arizona coyotes. What do you think the coyotes are going to finish this year? Like, how many wins? They're going to win 20 games.

Twelve? 20, yeah, sure. That sounds right. Yeah. So they're going to beat. going to beat some teams. It's, look, I mean, a lot of the... They also lost to the Canadian. How many they... Exactly. And this is the thing, right? The Leafs, this has been the knock on them for

years now, is they just play to the level of their opponents. Yeah. Including playing down. I wonder who could be responsible for that kind of thing. Well, it could be anyone. Look, it did the, absolutely, I was ready to tweet and then I decided I was already being too negative after the Arizona game, but like, Sheldon Keith doing the whole like we weren't ready to go, we weren't ready to like it's become like like Sheldon Keith in the hot dog costume saying we're all

trying to figure out a hundred percent. Yes. So I don't disagree with that. I think I mean, I mean, Sheldon Keith is gone at the end of the season if they don't break through. I don't think there's any questions. They should have fucking turfed them in the summer. I'm telling you.

Well, that would have involved, that would involve making changes in response to losing in the playoffs. And that's, what if instead we changed the minimum wage guys on the fourth line? I was going to say, you're going to say they didn't make changes. They brought in Callie Yarncroke. They didn't make changes? Yeah. Sean.

So, again, I've been saying this for years. And I did tweet this. I wrote two years ago, I wrote about the Leafs that this is a team that the knock on them is they quit when it gets tough. And that's exactly wrong. When things are tough, this team actually tends to do pretty well. It's when things are easy that they go, ah, we don't, they hang the mission accomplished banner. And they ease off. And sure enough, this year, same deal, right?

Opening night, you're playing Montreal. Well, Montreal stinks. We'll beat them for sure. Nope. Now everyone's freaking out because it's Toronto and you lose one game. It's a big freak out. So they go home, they beat Washington. They beat Ottawa.

Okay. Crisis averted. Now they're two and one. Here we go. Well, got a two-game win street. guess we don't have to try against Arizona, and here we go. And now you watch, they're playing their next games against Dallas. We just finished talking about Jake Ottingers on B.

They'll go out and score seven goals on Jake Otting. Sure. And then in a couple of- And you're putting that down as an official prediction. A official prediction. In a couple of games, I didn't say they're going to win. I just said they're going to. And then they'll look great for a cut. And then I think like the week after they play San Jose at some point.

And that'll be the game that they'll go up. No, they'll lose that too. So I, Sheldon Keith hot seat. Look, everyone's hot seat if things go really sideways in Toronto. But I will point out last year coming off that loss to Montreal where I have never seen a Leaf fan base that wanted changes more than than that they did last summer. And it didn't happen. They got off to a really bad start last year too.

You know, everybody. The record wasn't good. Matthews wasn't scoring. Mitch Marner wasn't doing anything. Yeah. And then they had 100, and they had 115 points. So it's, I don't think there's going to be a big panic. And I feel like Kyle Dubas is sort of like, man, I've hitched my, I've hitched my anchor to this guy, this, this boat anyway.

So let's, I'm not saying there's no way Keith gets fired, but I don't think it happens based on two bad weeks. Yeah, no, but I think, I think it's definitely something to keep an eye on. because as you say, they host Dallas tomorrow night, and then they have a five-game road trip out to the West Coast. Which by that point might be a good thing. But, yeah, and they're playing five. It's the West Coast. It's the West Coast road trip, which means they don't go through Alberta.

They don't have to deal with Calgary, Edmonton on this trip, which is. But what I'm saying is, apart from Vegas, every one of those teams on this road trip is a team they should beat Winnipeg, Vegas, San Jose, L.A., Anaheim. They should beat all of those teams. Shout out to people in Winnipeg who just found out that they're on the West Coast.

Well, you know, they're headed in that direction, certainly. You're just, I mean, you're close enough. But, yeah, no, I mean, it's, look, it's the Leafs. It's, the Toronto market probably does overreact to everything. There's other teams out there that would love to be two and two, but you're supposed to be beating the Montreals and Arizona. And the thing with the Arizona game especially, it's not like they played great and got goalied.

And, you know, we shot them 50 to 20 and we lost 2 to 1. That's hockey. That happens a couple times a year, whatever. You roll with it. Arizona was better. And, you know, again, I tweeted out when it was 2-0 and, you know, as the intermission and people are all like, oh, the Leafs are leafing again and all of those super clever things that people say.

And I was like, man, they're going to score three goals in five minutes and get points out of this game. Because that's what they do. They mail it in for 55 minutes and then they flip the switch because they think they can do that. And they did score three goals in five minutes, except one of them didn't count. And that was probably a good thing.

It's probably better that they lost that game in regulation than that they like, snuck in a point or two points that they didn't deserve. Because let them take the heat. But yeah, don't be surprised when they show up and play a great game against Dallas. And then, you know, a week from now, they're getting smoked by the Anaheim ducks. The other thing you got to mention with the Leafs, obviously, is Matt Murray's already hurt. Isn't that crazy?

Who could have seen that coming? Yep. And they're in a situation where, you know, Eric Chalfrey. Grin was, you know, supposed to be the backup. And then maybe, you know, could have been playing injured or whatever. And then it ended up not mattering because the Alia Samsonov came in. They won the game. And Samsonov's been fine.

But like now they're already in panic mode, goaltending wise. Yeah. And Chalgr started against Arizona. So again, like third string goalie. But this is, Samsonov's going to get a lot of. work. Yeah, and that's probably not a good thing based on his career. And injuries happen.

And, you know, Matt Murray's had a lot of injuries. Well, that's what I was going to say, right? Like, it's not like the groin has been his injury over the last few years. So maybe you say, hey, that he can't predict injuries. He's never played more than 50 games in a season. And you're going to have him be the starting goalie for a team that's like, it's second round or bust. for us and even maybe the second round doesn't get it done. So, like, that's your fucking starting goalie, a guy who's never played more than 50 games

in the regular season. It's crazy to me. You're going, oh, yeah, no, I'll play him like 30, 32 games, something like that. No problem. That's fine with me. Okay. Well, Jesus Christ. We said it, we said it when the deal went down.

We said it after. And, you know, it's, and this part is unfair to Matt Murray, but it, people are pointing at, like it's the Peter Marazic thing all over again. One game, groin problem, you know, he was never the same. He never got back on track for the leaves. So we'll see. But boy, I'll tell you, like, you know, the one thing, like, Murray wasn't great against Montreal.

But goaltaining hasn't really been the issue in Toronto to the extent that there's been any issue. No. You watch and see what happens if Dallas comes in and put six goals past Samson. Sure. Like now, oh boy. Now we'll be in.

The thing I wanted to say, though, is like you don't, if you're the Leafs, you don't get to go, well, look, what we're supposed to do? We were playing our third string goalie. Like, this was an extremely predictable outcome. Maybe not three games into the season, but, you know, that, and so that, that's the issue for the Leafs is that, is that they get, they can say, oh, you know, circumstances beyond our control. It's like, well, not that. Not that beyond. And also Arizona was playing their third-string goalie, because that's all they have.

So, listen, Carol Velmelco is like not terrible, honestly. That's definitely a guy whose name I knew. So, like, is he good? No,

but he's, you know, he's in a, he's in a situation where he probably, uh, on a good team would be like half decent, honestly. But he's on a team.

It's an offer, Arizona. No shit, like I'm saying, right? But, yeah, anyway. So I guess the question is, of those teams that are on the hot seat, which ones leaving aside Toronto, do you still are like, oh, yeah, they got something left to give. They can show me something here. I mean, Vancouver and Minnesota, I still feel. Like, I had Minnesota on Monday as a team I wasn't panicking about yet. That was when they were two games in.

Right. Vancouver, I didn't. But I still like it. a lot of this town. I got to be honest. I liked Vancouver in the off season. I was sort of like, man, this is a sneaky, like, not only playoff contender, but maybe even, you know, make a little noise in the playoffs. And I watched the first five minutes against Edmonton. And I was like, I'm so smart. I should have been louder about how much I like Vancouver. Because look at them. They're rolling the oilers. This is, this team's great. And I, I'm glad now that I didn't.

but yeah, I think both of those teams have the potential to be fine. I'm not remotely worried about Tampa being one and three. Columbus, I don't think it's going to be good, but we'll see where it goes. We didn't mention San Jose at 0 and 5, but they... Yeah, I mean, but are they bad? Yeah, did everybody expect them to be bad? Yeah. Did everybody expect them to be this bad?

No. I guess is what you would say, right? Like nobody said, oh yeah, coming into the season, this team's going to be whatever, outscored like, what is this? Doing the math real quick in my head. So far. So 19 to 8, yeah.

They've been outscored 19 to 8 in five games. They're not good. They're, again, this is. They're not this bad, but they're. They're not this bad, but they're not good. They were never going to be good, right? Now, I don't think there was any point where someone would be, Like, hey, you know who the leading score?

Again, this is like the Dougie Hamilton thing. You know the leading score for the San Jose Sharks? He has two goals and three points. Ebgeny Svetnikov. The worst Svechnakov brother. So there you go. They're very bad. Is there anyone else that we should?

Oh, Edmonton, I guess, is the other team. They're one and two. Lost to Buffalo. needed to come back against Vancouver lost to Calgary which I don't Are we at all concerned about Edmonton Jack Campbell has to look great? Right, I guess that's the thing to say about them.

Otherwise, you know, otherwise it's the same oil or shit as always. McDavid and Dryside will come over the board you're like, oh shit, here we go. And then everybody else is out there and you're like, oh, these bombs? I don't care about them. Right. It's that simple. Okay. I mean, I think Edmonton's going to be fine.

Here's my big question as far as teams that are worried. How worried should Chicago and Arizona be a weekend that this whole tank battle is not going to be easy? They both won a game. San Jose is 0 and 5. Yeah. You know, Anaheim doesn't look good. Are they at all going, uh-oh, we should start throwing some things overboard already, or do you just kind of take it easy and? Yeah, I, you know, hey, it's never to,

if you're tanking, it's never too early to trade your good players. Yeah, those points in October count just as much as the ones in the arch. Yeah, said it early. Really be careful. But, yeah, they're, the sooner they can get everybody convinced, like, I guess with Chicago in particular, it's a situation where they're like, we got to convince Kane and. taves that like the bottom is fully dropped out here.

Like it's not even dropping. It's gone. And then you trade them. Obviously the issue is that like that's a lot of money to move early in the season. That's all. For sure. Oh, you know what? I just looked this up.

The, uh, the oilers, uh, when Connor McDavid on the ice at five on five, uh, so far this year, you know what the, you know what the oilers are done? Scored one goal. Oh, really? Yeah, one goal for, one against. Well, I... You gotta trade him, he's a bum. Here's my prediction.

I don't think that's going to continue. No, yeah, he's... Well, I think the one goal four is going to continue. I think the goals against are going to keep skyrocketing. This guy's cooked. Yeah, he's done. He's only got six points through three games. Power play looks really good in Edmonton, though.

Oh, yeah. No, that's, right, that's the other thing to say is... No penalties against... Five goals when he's on the... on the power play. So, yeah. Pretty good stuff. But yeah, so I think to run it down real quick,

the only teams that are like in bad shape that we just talked about that I, that I do actually believe in are Minnesota, Edmonton, and maybe Vancouver. And Toronto, I guess, obviously. But, yeah, that's it. That's it. Everyone else?

all hope is lost. Pretty much, yeah. Let's quickly talk about, did you see Evgeny Kuznetsov, speaking of Evgeny's? Yeah. Did you see him take a baseball swing at Kyle Burroughs' face?

A little whack. Connect. And you're watching, I don't know, this is my experience. I'm watching that NHL suspension video. And they're like, the guy is responsible for Eric's stick ends up.

He says he didn't mean to hit him in the face that's tough shit. Too bad. this is an intentional act to slash a guy. He slashed him right in the face. And I'm like, oh, they're winding up to give this guy like seven, eight games. And at the end of the video, they're like, if Kenny Kuznett's office has been suspended for one game.

Yeah. It seemed light. For sure. Now, I saw people going like, oh, this should be 20. And it's like, I, again, I'm a throw the book at him guy. Yeah. Right? Like, it should be 20.

but it's never realistically going to be 20. No. But even still, you're watching that video going 100%. They're going to do their equivalent to throwing the book at this guy, minimum four games. And they're like, yeah, he has to set out a game against the senators or whatever. And you're like, what? Especially since it was like, you know, people didn't see it. Like they kind of, they come together, they're having, it's not really a board battle.

They're, but, you know, they're a little battle in the corner. They got tangled up in front of the net. And he swings at them like, you know, know, he gets pissed off and takes a whack at the guy and hits him right in the face. Right in the face. It wasn't like, I mean, you're responsible for your stick, but we see accidental high sticks all the time and those don't get. This was not that.

Well, it was that in terms of he says he didn't mean to slash the guy in the face, just in the chest. He's trying to slash him in the chest and like the blade of the stick comes up and hits him in the face, which is not, yeah. And, you know, no serious injury, I don't believe, you know, not premeditated in the sense of, you know, he wasn't looking for him on the shift or anything. But, yeah, the NHO for a while went away from one-game suspensions, which I think was smart. Like, I don't know really what message you send with a one-game suspension.

I thought it was going to be two or three. I thought if you made me bet on it, I probably would have said two, and I would have already been ready to say that that was low. Yeah. One. I don't know. Like, but you can't slash a guy in the face. but it's not that bad if you do, I guess, is a message.

I don't know if these guys. Yeah. How's that for a hot take? Department of player safety. These freaking guys, come on. These bozo the clowns. Yeah. No, like I said, watching that video, I'm like,

well, they're going to really fucking give it to them. And then they're like, no, we're not. Oh, okay. Well, I guess that's hockey, right? Or at least that's the NHL. Why don't we take another break and we'll be back to talk about a couple other newsy things that happened this, the last little while here. We'll be right back, thanks. This week's episode of Puck Soup is brought to you by Athletic Greens.

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ownership over your health and pick up the ultimate daily nutritional insurance. All right. A couple other things. Board of Governors was, well, I think it's multiple days, but it started yesterday. Gary Betman addressed the media. One of the things he said is the salary cap could go up to about $86 million by the end of the year if things go well. That would be huge news because we've all been waiting for it to go up a

another million. And, I mean, even earlier this calendar year where he said it, the next year might be the end of the flat cap, that felt like big news. And now he said it could be this year. Yeah, like they, there was a report like less than a month ago maybe that it was like, okay, no, they're definitely saying like not next season, but the one after it'll be normal again. Could be as much as, you know, 90 million five years from now or whatever. and if it goes up to like 86, 86, 5 by next season, like that would be crazy.

Boy, you want to talk about a team that would benefit from that. How about, well, I mean, a lot of teams would benefit, but the one that immediately springs to mind is the Boston Bruins because they have to resign David Creachie. And as we've talked about on this show many times, they also have the overage bonuses for Bergeron and Creachie. and so David Pasternak must have been so excited when he heard that. I mean, honestly, what's the difference to him? He's going to make, he's going to make like Connor McDavid money regardless, right? You got, he's, he has to. He's fucking unbelievable.

Did you know, we'll talk about guys who are scoring a lot in a minute, but did you know he has eight points through four games already this season? Yeah, he's. That's great. God, he's so good. He looks like a dude. who he seems like

he would like a new contract an elite player in a contract here is what he looks like yeah maybe a little

bit yeah no but but yeah that that would be crazy you know obviously the

the reason there's a flat cap for people who are not paying as much attention to this because

fucking why would you but the reason why is that basically the players could have I think we're given

the choice right between we'll roll back your salaries for during COVID, or we can keep the salary cap more or less where it is, but you owe us a bunch of money. The players get 50% of revenue, so when revenue unexpectedly craters, either their pay head to crater

or they had to borrow against the future, essentially. So they chose that, and now it sounds like the escrow debt might be paid off sooner than expected. So, um, good news for everybody involved. Big thumbs up to all of those players who signed eight year deals like a month ago.

Well done. Yeah, no shit. You did great. Your agent, your agent did a hell of a job for you. Yeah. A lot of agents getting fired in the next couple of weeks if this, if this holds, I think.

It would be. Um, but yeah, it's, it's really crazy. Uh, the other thing they talked about at the, uh, at the board of governors is that the NHL put out a report on diversity in the national hockey league.

And wouldn't you know it? Not a lot of that. No. No. Who could have guessed? And not just in terms of the players, but it was more focused on. Front offices, yeah. Like, who works for this league?

And I, you know, I'll say, I spent some time with the report. Certainly nothing shocking in there. But credit to the league for putting the numbers out there. Mm-hmm. And that's about it. I mean, that's all they get credit for this. All the other leagues have already done this. So, I mean, the NHL isn't breaking any ground here.

But I guess, you know, credit to them for at least putting it out there. And then other than that, there are lots and lots of promises and nice-sounding things in the report for which the league should get no credit until they begin to act on them. It all sounds great. It sounds great. Let's see them do it. Yeah. Just real quick, the numbers here.

Employees across the NHL, like all employees, I guess, and teams. League offices, team offices, everybody is about 84% white, 4% Asian, a little, under 4% black and Hispanic slash Latino, et cetera. That includes almost 66% of interns are white and 70% of human resources departments are white. 62% are men, 37% are women. Other people chose not to answer, so blah, blah, blah. 93% straight. You can go down the list.

It's all exactly what you would expect. But it does seem like to everybody's credit here, things are at least trending in the right direction. Yeah, I mean, you can only imagine what those numbers would look like 10 years. Five years ago. Yeah. And I think I want to see if I can find the tweet from this guy, Craig Mininski, who, he, he.

posted something about the percent of female fans is like the fastest growing demographic. Now, it sounds to me like, you know, there's only, if you're, if you're slicing and dicing it that way, there aren't too many other demographics you can really say, oh, look how fast this one's growing, you know. but, you know, women make up like something more than 40% of NHL fans at this point, that kind of thing. So, yeah, I can't find the tweet now. But anyway, point being, women make up like 45-ish percent of NHL fans and you got to wonder how, but that's over. and like the number has been going has gone up like four million or something like that since like 2018 or 2019. Again, this tweet is like seemingly disappeared. So I don't know.

But you got to wonder about maybe that number is starting to shrink a little bit, given everything that's happened in the last couple of months. The quick follow up, I guess, on the Ian Cole thing is that they couldn't really find anything to substantiate the claims made in the anonymous tweet. And so they were like, well, I guess that's that. Yeah, which, I mean, this is what was supposed to ask. Including they attempted to reach out to the person who tweeted it and didn't get a response. Did not get a response. So whoever it was that tweeted the accusations, presumably chose not to participate in any further investigation, which is their right, of course.

But given that, I don't know what else the NHL could do. I know. No, totally. There's not a lot of benefit of the doubt here. And, you know, obviously, you know, we're all ready and looking to hold the league to account on stuff like this. But if you have an anonymous accusation, it's going to be difficult to substantiate that. And if you can't substantiate it, then this is how it was going to play out. We said this last week.

and I don't know that there's all that much to add. Yeah, no, that's about it. And then one last thing I wanted to talk about. I mentioned David Creachie has eight points. Boy, it seems like we're saying this every year, but a lot of guys are scoring a lot this season so far. Yeah, the scoring rate not crazy high, but again, one of the nice things about... It's mostly driven by individual guys.

That was kind of the deal last year, too, right? Like, scoring went out a little bit, but it felt like it was more because you had suddenly all these guys getting 100 points and that. And that's cool. That's much more fun than having it fourth line guys going from 20 to 30 points, and that's what makes the rates go up. Yeah. I want to run down some numbers real quick here. Four games into the season, Artemi Panarin is already 10% of the way to 100 points. Yep.

It's pretty good. David Pastornak and Mika Zabanajad both have eight Gabe Volardi, how about that? Los Angeles Kings, seven points in five games. Boy, it's crazy that the team has played five games already, but here we are. Nathan McKinnon, Stephen Stamcoe.

Steven Stamcoe has six goals already, by the way. That leads the league. McDavid has six points in three games, blah, blah, blah. But like, I look, I like, I guess I'll put it this way. I like when guys are averaging two points a game and 10 guys, more than 10 guys actually. Let's see here. 14 guys are doing that right now.

That includes Braden Shen, who had two points in one game. So maybe slow down a little bit, but. I'm going to run the numbers, find out what he's on pace for. Butchnevich and Tarasenko, same boat. But all the other guys have played multiple games, they're averaging two points a game. I like that. Yeah. I think that's cool.

That is it. That's what makes it fun. And we'll see. It's a week, hard to read the trends. But that is, you know, that was low-key one of the stories to watch heading into this year was with the, the massive scoring increase. Did you hear the dead puck era is finally over? They fixed it because scoring went up like 0.03 or whatever was last year. Would that continue?

Or would coaches have spent the? offseason figuring out how to tighten it up. We don't know yet, but scoring's cool and scoring by star players is even cooler than that. Now, what do you think of how the rookies have gotten out of the gate so far here?

Obviously, Maddie Baneers is like the headliner here, but like, Mason McTavish is having a nice start to the season, even if he doesn't have a goal yet. Caden Goolies look pretty, good on the back end for Montreal. You can go down the list here.

But yeah, I don't know. Do you have any thoughts on the rookie situation? Thank you for that preamble because it's given me time to look up the rookie scoring. But yeah, I mean, Benir's and McTavish and then Owen Power, but that's a different situation with the defensemen or the big name guys to watch. I don't think anything really jumps out at me here. Benir is a point of game It feels maybe a little high

You know, but like he's a really good player So everybody knows that And Yeah I mean I guess the other one would be Shane Wright Barely playing Yep Which again

Points six minutes a game Send this kid back to the fucking WHL or the OHL That's I mean he's he's gonna This is a classic guy who'll play out is eight Eight or nine games and then will be sent back down. Yeah, but just sending him back now.

What benefit is it giving him to play six minutes a night? You know, because next year when he comes in, maybe he's more comfortable because he's got a little bit of that base of NHL experience. He knows not even the games, but he knows the process. He knows what a game day is. He knows all that stuff. And I'm sure they're also trying to tease the fans a little bit for the future,

but not teasing them very much because it's, I was going to say, this guy you saw, this guy is the future of our franchise. That's right. He's playing six minutes a night. Six minutes a game, getting caved in on possession, starting. He looks like shit out there. Great zone starts. Are you excited?

Yeah. But one shot on that. But, uh, the other, the other, uh, rookie to talk about is Arborzakai, who I like his story, he went from, uh, working at Costco to now he's an NHL player. Mm-hmm. I, you know, I want to, you know, I want to talk about. talk to this guy about Costco. Just be like, you ever get one of those big hot dogs?

What a deal. You can't beat that. This guy, I'm glad he's one point through four games and I'm glad he's not doing better than that because I am going to just refer to him as this guy for the entire season. I'm not even going. I get enough crap about mispronouncing names

without... Now did you say it for me once? Arbor Jacques. Jackai. Yeah, I'm not doing that. That's fine. Now, did you see, I think it was Eric Engels yesterday tweeted, he asked Arborzackeye, what, what's your nickname? Yes, that was really good. Yeah, I like that.

For those who didn't see it, he's like, is it X? And he goes, yeah, a lot of guys call me X. Some other guys call me Wi-Fi. And Eric Engels is like, why do they call you that? And he said, because my name looks like a very secure password. Yep. It does. That's good, man.

That one needs to stick. Let's, uh... Yeah, it's X-H-E-K-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A. AJ. Yeah. You know the other guy that... I love it. If we're talking rookies, the guy who would win the Calder if such a thing was being voted on.

And he doesn't feel like a rookie, but technically he is Logan Thompson. Playing pretty good for Vegas. Playing pretty good. Rookie goal is a dicey. And I mean, this guy, he played 20 games last year, but he's like just under the cutoff. for Calder eligibility. So yeah, he's been good. So we'll throw that out there as well.

Yep, yeah. And we said that earlier, right? Like the idea that this guy could have a good season behind a team coached by Bruce Cassidy. Bruce Cassidy. Extremely believable to us. So maybe not this good, as you say. But yeah, a guy's a player.

Yep. So anyway, that's it for this week. Not a ton going on in the NHL other than a bunch of teams where we have to go, now it's early. But, yeah. So, yeah, why don't you hit them with some plugs? Just find me at the athletic. Get in for a dollar a month if you're not on board yet for your first six months, I want to say. I've resumed my weekly power rankings. I had a piece this week on times in history that teams acquired a goalie who stunk right away. but the goalie ended up being pretty good after the first little while.

Just throwing that out there for you, Leafs or Oilers or other fans, Devil's fans out there. And yeah, I'm going to have a piece later this week where I'm going to look at that contest that I ran, not so much from the perspective of the contest, but it occurred to me that because of that contest, I actually have a survey from 2,000 hockey fans on what they think is going to happen this year.

and there's some interesting stuff in there as far as what people, teams and players and coaches and that that people believe in and that they don't maybe more specific. Sure. I'm going to dig into that. And you can find me with Ian Mendez

on the athletic hockey show on Thursdays. Yeah, and it said you found that everybody's saying Austin Matthews traded by November 1st is what you would find. You wouldn't think, but. Yeah, for me, elite prospects, EPRinkside.com, as I always say, use the code I Love EP and they'll tack three months on to the end of your 12-month subscription.

You've got to sign up for that 12-month or to get the three for free. Much like Sean, early next week, I will be firing up the power feelings once again this summer and this season. And of course, you're not allowed to get mad about what I say in there because those are just my feelings. And feelings can't be wrong. I also started my college hockey coverage for this season. I went to see number one Denver at number, I don't know, 16, 17, something like that. UMass, number one Denver got swept, got badly outplayed as a matter of fact. I think it was seven to two on aggregate.

And so I wrote about how UMass is good, but also, you know, they got some questions that need answering. And then all the normal stuff, what we learned, three stars. take town, all that kind of stuff. You get all that normal as usual. And then, yeah, pucksuit.com, or nope, that's not right, Patreon.com slash puck soup for all the bonus content you could ever want, including a mailbag, we're going to go record. Me, Sean Gentilly, and this guy, Craig Buduski,

did stick to soup the other day, where we talked about everything that is not sports, that we wanted to talk about. So yeah, check all that out. Patreon.com slash puck soup and very affordable for a hell of a lot of content

every month. So check that out and that's it. Thank you so much for listening to this show and we'll talk to you again next week. See you later. Bye-bye. Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slapshots and goons.

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