Puck Soup - How Many?

Episode Date: May 28, 2024

Sean and Ryan talk about the Conference Finals, front-office changes, and a new phrase they came up with. Sponsored by Gametime (download the Gametime app and use code PUCK for $20 off) and AG1 (drinkag1.com/puck) 

It never happens at a good time. The pipe bursts at midnight. The heater quits on the coldest night. Suddenly, you're overwhelmed. That's when HomeServe is here. For $4.99 a month, you're never alone. Just call their 24-7 hotline, and the local pro is on the way. Trusted by millions, home-serve delivers peace of mind when you need it most.

For plans starting at just $4.99 a month, go to homeserve.com. That's homeserv.com. Not available everywhere. Most plans range between $499 to $11.99 a month your first year. Terms apply on covered repairs. I'm Ryan Lambert from EP Rinkside. I'm Sean Maganoo from The Athletic. And we got a couple of 2-1 series here now.

We do. Do you want to talk about, as is tradition, the one that was last night, or do you want to talk about the one that is tonight? No, let's start with last night. Last night's game, the Dallas Stars beat the Edmonton Oilers. So I went to bed after one period. So a dominant performance by the unbeatable Oilers, and Dallas is cooked. I mean, it did look like that, right?

Holy smokes, did it ever? That was two games last night. It really was. Separate games. Yeah, what was it? I think Edmonton had two goals before Dallas had two shots. Might have. Yeah, came out flying.

Got the two goals, crowds going crazy. and you're kind of already thinking ahead going, man, so Oilers look like a powerhouse. And then, uh, I'm not really sure. Like, like, what happened? Because, like, I know it's easy to just go, you know, let the foot off the gas, whatever else. but... Well, I guess number one, you would say Dallas was pissed coming out of the first intermission.

The shots on goal through 20 minutes were 11 to 3, scoring chances 12 to 5. Obviously, the score is 2 to nothing. High dangers 6 to 2. You can't win hockey games playing like that. But I would say Dallas, like, just kind of. kind of took over the game a little bit at five on five. They didn't even like necessarily, I would say, dominate. But they were, it was more to their style of play, let's say.

There was a little more, you know, they were, they were cycling the puck a little bit more in their offensive zone. They were getting to the net a little bit, not even a little bit, a lot more. and I think what really happened maybe is Robe Haynson and Jason Robertson remembered that they're really good well I mean Robay Hanson's his first game back

good for him that's that's very needed for for Dallas but what was it like Robertson hadn't scored for 13 games 11 games something like that yeah he was cold and the puck jumped in the net for him twice I don't think either should, like, maybe the second one was just, was that the wacky one, like, kind of in traffic,

like it was a third chance at it or something like that? But that first one, the puck just jumped in the net for him. Yep. You know, that wasn't like an unbelievable look or anything like that. He just walloped it and it goes in. Somebody call it a shot like that sex on a stick, but not me. No, no, definitely not you. It's funny, eh?

Because, like, whenever a star player, I'll consider HIN's a start player. Yeah. Comes back from injury in the playoffs. You're sort of like, as a fan, you're like, oh, this will change everything. And then usually they play a period and, you know, they're good, but you're like, oh, right, there's still 19 other guys. This isn't going to completely, in this case, kind of felt like it did.

Kind of felt like they were a different team. especially after that first period. So are we at all back? Yeah. Now, we got to say, I mean, they come out, they have the second period. They dominate the first half of the period. Just total no-show by the Oilers,

total dominance by the stars. They get the three goals. Eventually they crack through, get three goals in like three minutes. Oilers to their credit, come back and get the late one to tie it. Yeah. And then another Jason Robert, it was the third period goal was the one from behind the net, right?

It was, yeah. Are we back on the Stewart Skinner watch on the basis of that? Well, I mean, certainly you don't want to give up four goals in a playoff game on, what was a 21 shot, something like that? That's bad. You don't want, you want to get that safe percentage up around 850, let's say. If you want to, if you're the oilers and you want a chance to win, 850 seems to be the number where you can, where you can make it happen, right? And, yeah, I'm not, I'm not worried about Stuart Skinner. That's a bad goal.

And what was interesting was after the game, Jason Robertson said, like, thanks to our goalie coach for, for the help on that one, which implies that they were like, hey, if you get Stuart Skinner to, you know, to spot you coming off the line or whatever, like the, a whole. hole might open up. It could be Skinner specific or it could just be like this. And Jesse Granger had a couple tweets about this. This is the whole like reverse, vertical, horizontal. Yeah. No, that. The goalies play up against the net.

And it could have just been Jeff Reese, who's the goalie coach in Dallas saying, like, hey guys, just so you know, like from this angle, this is the weak spot right here. But you just like the replay from in the net was a good one because it explained how the goal got in, but just when you see where, like, when a guy is shooting from behind the net, and there is net between him and the inside of the net, that shouldn't go in. Totally. That's going out on a limb there. This is the, this is the one of those things where it's like nobody really understands

goaltending, but Henrik Lundquist talked about RVH, like on three straight broadcasts. And now everybody's like, it's that freaking RVH man, I'm telling you. It's crazy. You know what I mean? Like this is just one of those like... Back in my day, it was just VH, and now it's RVH and it's... Boy. Is that a reference I don't understand?

No, it was. It was VH. It's RVH's reverse VH. And for a while, they were all doing VH and then... Oh, okay. They reversed it. I didn't know if this was some Canadian TV show for kids. from 1976 or whatever.

I wish. You ever watch Pocodot Door, Ryan? I've never, look, I feel like I know a lot of like Canadian pop culture just through osmosis. Okay. You want to talk about the border on CBC? I'm happy to do it. You know what I mean?

I've never heard of Pocodot Door. That doesn't. That's a rough one, man. I feel like that one, that one may have been Ontario only. Okay. It's, it's, it was a, uh, kid show and, uh, that, uh, There was a guy and a girl hosting different, different ones, and then, like, the guy would leave,

and then the pokeroo would show up. And the what, dude? Come on. The pokeroo, dude. Don't act like, come on. Google it. You'll, you'll... I'm gonna go.

Big, polka dot it weird thing. And, uh, and, and he would, like, interact with the... I hate to see the polkaroo. I hate looking at him. Yeah. He would interact with the lady host, and then he would leave, and then the guy would come back. and be disappointed that he had missed.

And as a kid, you're just on the edge of your seat going, like, come on. Like, Dennis, get back. He's here. And a real right of passage for Ontario children was the moment that you realized, oh, the guy is the one in the poker root costume. That's why he's never there. It's interesting you say that. Apologies, by the way, to anyone who is just having that realization now, thanks to me. I'm looking at the Wikipedia page for the polka dot door and it says here in the final episode,

the polkaroo killed him with a big knife. Yep. That was a good one. It sounds sick. Yeah. I thought when you were first explaining that, I was really, they went full de Grassy and just went with like the R-rated movie version. It was crazy. I thought you were setting up like a he didn't, like an X-Files type of a thing where he didn't believe the polkaroo existed.

You know? And she was like, no, I'm telling you. So it was like a reverse Mulder and Scully. That was it. And the tension between the two of them was just almost unbearable. That's exactly right. Yep. You know, I'd watch that.

That sounds like a great show. You know, I don't know if anyone these days has had the idea to do any reboots of anything from the 80s. A gritty reboot, are you saying? A literal gritty reboot. Okay. He's in the Polcaroos costume? That's right. Wow.

Anyway, the Dallas Stars. I think the other big thing that kind of can't go overlooked here is, yeah, like, things kind of slowed down as the game went on as far as the Oilers were concerned. But, yeah, and yeah, he gave up the two early goals, but Jake Ottinger, you know? Jake Ottinger is the reason they won that game in a lot of ways. So to me, you know, I just, I don't want to say it totally comes down to, you know, Ottinger's a good goalie and Stuart Skinner is maybe an okay goalie or whatever. But we'll talk about this again in a bit, but like having a good goalie really helps you. Interesting. Or Edmonton over on the power play, you know.

That's, yeah. Yeah, and that's becoming a story of the series, right? It certainly is. We looked at that Oilers Power Play and went, oh, yikes. Were they running at like 40-something percent earlier in the playoffs? Yeah. And I've said before, not only running hot, but like playing a style I'd just never seen before. Right.

That I'm looking at going. That I'm looking at going, you can't defend this. Like, if they are going to just run hot on this, I don't even know what you can do. Like most times you see like, oh, yeah, they're, they're scoring a lot because they get, they're working that download pass or they're working the, you know, the bumper in the bay. And you go, okay, take that away. But there was nothing to take away. Every, every shot they were taking was going in. Yeah, they are down to one for their last 15 on the power play.

It's not going to cut it. I would love to know from somebody. Is this a case? Has Dallas figured something out? Was there an adjustment? Did something happen in towards the end of the last series? that they saw or is this just, hey man, things run hot and then they run goal? Yeah, I mean, they are at the end of the Canucks series, they scored the one power play goal in game seven,

but they were over eight in their previous two games before that. And so, like, yeah, it just seems like if Vancouver figured something out, Dallas has replicated it, whatever you want to say. You know what I mean? Yep. But also, and this is, you know, they were over eight in games. games five and six of the Vancouver series. One for two in game seven.

O for one in game one, oh for two in game two, over two in game three. Right. So I can't remember which oiler it was. It might have been McDavid was just like, we're just not getting enough powerplays. Which, you know, and he, I think he said, like, it's not that it's not fair. We're getting the same number of powerplay looks as them. but they just don't call power or as many penalties as the playoffs go on. Right?

Like they gave how many power plays did the Oilers have in the first round? This is something I can look up very quickly, but it was a shitload, right? Like, yeah, they got 20 in five games. Right. So then in the Vancouver series, they got another 20. But that was in seven games. And now they're on pace for, you know, if this goes the full seven, they're on pace for 15, 16. Yep.

And the thing that we sort of often raise as a concern is if you're a team that runs off a power play, as a series goes on, typically you get fewer and fewer. That's right. You know, we always see, you know, actually power plays go up in the playoffs. Yeah, because each team gets five in game one, four in game two, two in game three, and then one the rest of the way. So use it wisely. Yep. So.

I mean, if the Oilers get eliminated playing like this, the story will be that they couldn't score on the power play, right? And that was, look, okay. was game two that that was also an empty netter, right? So this is three one goal games, basically. And one of them went to double overtime. And I don't know, man. Like, I just look at, I just look at this and I go, you know what? Sometimes, you know, if you're over-reliant on the power play,

and again, we'll talk about this in a minute with the Rangers. Like you said, sometimes you're going to run cold. And if you do, can you win those games? It looks like the Oilers need power play goals to win. And it looks like Dallas is the, which anybody would have said this going in. The Oilers need power play goals to win. And Dallas is the better five-on-five team, right? Yep.

So here we are. Still a tough one for the other. I mean, this is. Oh, yeah, for sure. You can't lose at home. We don't want to get way ahead of ourselves. But if this ends up being, you know, a seven-game series and the stars win, And this is the one that Edmonton looks back and goes,

I think it was the thing David said. Like we let one get away. And it's hard to win a series when you do that. Usually you can win a series with one of those games, maximum. They've used it now. They 100% had their boot on the star's throat. And they were like, okay, have a good one. See you later.

We're done here. And they eased up. And again, it's tough to. It's tough to say, like, they played badly or whatever, because I think on the balance, if you look at, you know, like, again, just shots on goal and scoring chances and stuff, I think you'd take this for if you're the Oilers, right? Like, I think you'd go, yeah, we'll take 16 high danger chances. We'll out shoot them 31, 22.

Every single game, if that happens, we feel like we're in great shape. But it just doesn't work like that for them, unfortunately. I don't know. Like I say, I think you're encouraged if you're the oilers. Like, you know, this is a little bit of a fluke. We're going through a rough spot, but it's not like disastrous if we're just losing a couple of one goal games. Yeah. And it does feel like, I mean, if you're going to have a problem that is threatening to cost you the series,

I think saying our power play with Connor McDavid and Leandro Sidel isn't playing well is not a bad one to have. Right. Because that one is, let's just say if that were to resolve itself spontaneously, I would not be shocked. Right. If you're sitting there going, our goaltending's bad, well, you know what? And it hasn't been good to be cold, but you better just cross your fingers and hope. Whereas the power play, I don't know.

You could very easily see them scoring a couple of powerplay goals on the first period of game four. And we're all like, okay, we're back on track. Yep. And off we go. Business is booming, absolutely. The other issue is Cody Cici. You know, they keep putting them out there.

I don't know if, I don't know, we were bagging on him and Nurse as a pair the other day. They got Nurse away from him for a little while there. Oh, Nurse's numbers really took a big jump. Interesting. You know, you hate to just point at one guy is like, this is the reason they're losing, but he sure ain't fucking pulling his weight, you know? I don't know if you guys got this down in the States, but there was a whole thing, I think it was it, especially when he, because he scored in game seven, right, against the...

Yes, he did. There was this whole thing about, like, the players love him. Of course. And in fact, at the deadline, they, you know, they thought about moving him to free up salary and, like, you know, the big burly men were coming up to Ken Holland with. tears in their eyes and saying, please, sir, don't trade Cody Cici. No, of course. I mean, you got to say something.

They got to have some kind of a justification for why he keeps getting ice time, you know. And he's good in the room or whatever? I don't know. They say that about a lot of guys. Some point, every Canadian team is going to get to do the Cody Cici experience for a couple of seasons. What other, what other, I can only think of. Ottawa and Edwinton. He had a stop in Toronto.

Oh my God, that's right. He did. Do you remember? Was it the Columbus series? I feel like it was Columbus or maybe Montreal were like in overtime. He had like a one-timer from the point that missed the net by 30 feet. Yeah, that's right. That might be the only thing from that playoff run that I remember.

Just Cota, just teeing it up. Al McKittas style. And like, no, I don't even think he hit the corner. Like I don't think he made it past. The end red line. It was great. Yeah. So, you know what?

Coming soon to a Calgary Flames team near you, I guess. The other thing I want to talk about here is the stat cast. Now, you don't have this up in Canada. No, we don't have stats up here. We have 200 hockey men. That's how we freaking like it. They come down from the mountain and they tell us who's good and who's bad. Number one on the tablet.

Cody Cici? Wow. There you are. Unbelievable. Maybe if you watch the games, Ryan. You know what? My problem is I'm watching too many of these damn games. You know?

Now I feel like I'm starting to see, oh, maybe Matt Rampi is valuable. He's got like a 71% on Ice Gold's 4 percentage. Maybe Matt Ramp. I mean, they're 2 and O when Matt Rompie's in the lineup, so I mean, hey. And I've said, I feel like wins is the only stat that really matters. This time of year, how could you argue otherwise, you know? Anyway, down here they added the stat cast, which we talked about on the show last week, I think, where they're just, they're trying something, you know?

They're trying to make something happen and make it, like, interesting and look at the game a different way. It's Steve Mears, it's Colby Armstrong, and it's Mike Kelly. And I would say they do a good job. of talking about these kinds of things. And just kind of, you ever watch a soccer game? Like a Premier League game or something? Not often, but occasionally. Well, you know how like, unlike a lot of North American sports where they're just like really

married to what's going on on the ice at that exact moment? They're just like, this guy passed it to this guy. And then this guy got it and he shot it. And then this guy saved it. But this guy over here, he got the puck and he shot it out of the zone. You know, that kind of thing? Like, that's just the rapid fireness. On the statcast, there's that going on,

but they're just more talking about, like, process in a way that's interesting, in a way that you also will hear them talk about. The reason I bring up European soccer is they're not quite so, like, you know, holds it, holds it, holds it. You know what I mean? Like, to do The Simpsons joke. And they're doing that on the statcast, which I really appreciate. I've really enjoyed so far.

But what I don't like, and this is a note for all the people producing the stat cast. You know how your TV's big? It's a big rectangle, you know what I'm talking about? Yep. They take it, and they take the game, and they shrink it down to be smaller than the size of your TV, so that they can show you even more stats at all times.

Now, to me, I'm saying, why don't you overlay the stats on the image? Okay. You know what I mean? And part of it is a big part of the reason why is across the entire bottom of the screen is everybody who's on the ice and the length of their current shift. Okay. Which like, you know, the numbers turn red when they tick over like 45 seconds or something like that. It's cool.

But also included in that is the guy's full headshot. Oh. So like you have a little picture of Connor McDavid when he's been out there for 36 seconds or whatever. I don't need to see that shit. Get it out of here. Have his number, you know, that's fine. Are we using AI to like make the headshot look more tired as the shift goes on? Yeah, he looks like the guy in doom when the monsters start fucking you up, you know, blood streaming out of his nose.

Yes, that's what I want. Yeah, no, it's, uh, it's very, it's taking up a lot. lot of real estate on the screen. And I understand part of it is you don't want to have a million numbers and like the Pucks under, uh, you know, the, the, the distance traveled for a specific guy. Yeah. You know what I mean? But I got, I feel like there's going to be a better way to do it than shrinking the size

of the game down to be some. I got a big TV, you know, but I pay, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, look, it's 55 inches. So I'm not, I'm not saying it's huge. It's like a. good size TV, you know? But to me, I don't, I don't want to feel like I'm at a monster truck show where, you know, you buy,

you pay for the whole TV, but you only need 75% of it to watch the game, you know. And I wonder what the calculation is there. I wonder if they're saying like, these fucking nerds, all they want to know about is like, whatever, how hard the shot is. that kind of thing. But I want to see the whole game. I want to see, you know, like when you're playing the NHL games, like the guy who has the puck, his number or his name pops up over his head.

Yep. They do that sometimes. Just have it that way. People always say, what's the hardest thing for casual hockey fans? They can't tell where the puck is. Yep. Just have a pop up over the guy's head. I'm trying to, oh, they.

They do have the little black trail on the puck. So, like, when they shoot it, the trail follows it. And again, do you feel the need to get really performatively angry about that? I, again, I kind of, I don't need it. But I wonder if they're just going these fucking nerds. They don't know where the puck is. I got to have the thing. The other problem with it is it's only when it's moving, but like when it's in the goalie's glove or whatever, it starts wiggling around like,

crazy on the screen. And it's like, you know, I don't think you need a guy like riding the switch on that, like to just be like, okay, the goal is got to turn it off. But it is disoriented. That's weird because like 20 years ago with the Foxpuck, oh God, it was way more than 20 years, wasn't it? I don't think so.

It was the 90s. Oh, yeah, I guess it was more like 25, huh? It was like they didn't have that. That actually worked well for the time. time. For sure it did. Because I do get, you know, I've never, I know we kind of roll our eyes at the whole like, where's the puck? And it's like, you know, just look at the screen. But when it comes down, especially along the lower boards, like the fact that there is a whole area that you can't see

what's happening. And we're all just kind of accustomed to it. But somebody knew I could see them being like, um, the puck is not on the screen right now. Yeah. Well, I mean, it stands to reason, right? Like it makes fucking sense. Now, look, again, there are so many plays in football where it's like, I don't really know where the ball is right now. Like when there's a fumble, the fact that both guys on both teams jump up pointing into the race is because it's hard to figure out where the ball is.

Well, they're just, they're trying to help the rest. Oh, I mean, it's really nice of them. Okay, good for them. I do not, I don't think it's binding, though. They're, uh, okay. But you know what I mean? Like, it's, no, I'm, I'm with you.

I, but I get why anybody would say it's hard to follow the puck. It's a little, you know, it's three inches around or whatever. It's not that big. And especially, I mean, 25 years ago when we didn't have high-def TVs. Totally. I'm writing a poster right now where I got to go back and, like, pull some highlights from that era. Yeah. Good Lord.

What were we doing? Well, I mean. Even the ones that aren't filmed on a Calico vision are still like. Well, the issue is, like, TV, it's hard for TVs to be backwards, compatible resolution-wise. You know what I mean? So, like, what happens is they are trying, like, if you were watching a 480P highlight on your TV, it's stretching it to be 1080P size, so it makes it look way worse than it actually was when, you know what I mean? Like, if you were actually watching it in the proper, like, resolution, it would be a little square in the middle of your TV or computer screen.

postage stamp. Yeah. I mean, that's what it would be like. Yep. And, you know, I don't know how all this works. I'm just like kind of speaking from experience more than expertise. And so like if anybody out there's like, oh, actually the way it worked, shut up. I don't want to hear about it.

That's right. As I always say, you know, if you feel like you need to like note a correction or omission that you have for this podcast. or any podcast in the Puck Soup family. Just pretend we already knew about that and we just forgot momentarily. We don't ever need to hear about that shit. That's correct. Because good news, somebody has already let us know. Absolutely, man.

Absolutely. Anything else you want to say about Dallas Edmonton series? No, I think that's a good series. I'm enjoying it. And it feels like we have. Well, I mean, everyone's going to pick the Oilers to win tomorrow to even it up because it feels like that series. And that always worries me because every now and then that's when the visiting team goes, no, actually, we'll steal another one and suddenly we are really in charge.

Oilers on the damn ropes at that point. Like I say for just about every game in the series, any series, I feel like the team that wins this next game wins the series. Yeah, okay, sure. Because here's the thing, right? Now it's all doom. Oh, the Edmonton Oilers, they lost two in a row. Right now it's two to one in the series. It's not that big of a fucking deal, you know?

Hmm. So, I don't know. To me, that's always funny. Like, somebody at this point in the series has to be up to one. That's just how it works. I've run the numbers and I think you're right. Yeah. So, somebody is.

Unless it's three nothing, but that that feels statistically impossible. So there you go. All right, why don't we take a break and we'll be right back to talk about Rangers, Florida, and all that other stuff. This week's episode of Puck Soup is brought to you by Game Time and Folks. I don't know if you guys have been following the NBA. The Boston Celtics just swept the Indiana Pacers. Looks like there's going to be NBA final games in my home state. I love those damn Celtics.

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Rangers and Panthers. What do you think? Rangers up 2-1. Rangers up 2-1, Panthers dominated game three. Yeah, didn't win the game. I mean, that was, like, we just finished talking about a series where the Oilers dominated a big chunk of a game three

and lost. I mean, the Panthers dominated pretty much the entire game. But there's no judge's scorecards here. And it's a tough one, right? because again, you always, this is every playoff series when you have a game like this in what's expected to be a close series, which path do you want to go down? Did the Florida Panthers just play their very best game of the series

and still lose, still blow it? Or is this just the difference between these two teams and we're going to get four more games of maybe not this big a gap, but four more games of the Panthers, being better, in which case you still feel pretty good if you're Florida. Yeah, I think, I don't remember the exact quote, but I do want, I'll paraphrase Ray Ferraro on this one. And he's like, look, you can't say the Panthers have been, or the Rangers have been the better team in game three. This is kind of late, maybe early, like late third early overtime, something like that.

he's like, but whenever you say that kind of thing where it's like, who deserves to win on the ice, blah, blah, blah. One of the things that kind of ignores is they let you have a really good goalie. They do.

You're allowed to do that. And that's where the Rangers are, right? Like, if we're talking about the difference in this series, the difference in this series is, let me just look at the save percentages real quick, 913 to 909. You know, like that, That's the difference in this series so far.

Which is not a big gap, but in a series where... It's three one goal games. Yep. Mm-hmm. Or two one goal games. And both of the games they lost went to overtime. Yep. Right.

Technically, I guess, game one was a two-goal game because of the own goal by... Was it Lafranier? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then the empty there. But that was really a one-goal game for all intents and purposes. Yeah, 81% deserve to win a meter for Florida. And that feels low for a team that where a got, you know what final shot attempts in that game were?

No. 108 to 43. Yeah. Now, here's the other thing I do want to say about this. 108 to 43. You know what unblocked shot attempts were? 66 to 28. The Rangers got in front of 42 attempts.

Yep. And that, you know what? that that's them embracing like we kind of can't keep up with these guys we might as well get in the fucking way yeah and look like i fully acknowledge that i i'm sure there's some fans out there who kind of get sick of hearing about oh you know this team had more expected goals or they had this where it's you know 55 45 it's like so what so what look at the scoreboard but this game was really really tilted in in just every every number. But, and how, how interesting is it that the Florida Panthers for two years now, they've been the overtime team, running the table in overtime? Totally. Just unbeatable, 93 HABS level of OT dominance and now lose two overtime games in a conference.

I think Paul Maurice, whatever he had done before. He should probably tell them to do that again. I don't, I think he made a mistake telling them to stop being a bunch of clutch winners who. Well, here's what you're not thinking about. He, he was up on stage at yuck yuck yucks all weekend, working on his fucking hour. Sure was. I will say this. Got a tight five every night.

He's ready, he's ready for the fucking tonight show, whatever the Canadian equivalent of the tonight show is. Yeah, he's going to go on Mike Bullard. See, that's a guy. don't know who that is. No, neither do any Canadians. Two for two on my old school Canadian TV references. I've alienated 99.9% of the audience. And I came in alienated. So yeah, that's true. But yeah, I will say this. Big shout out to Al Maris for going, poor Jacob. He's out five grand? Oh, damn. Pass that. What were your thoughts on that? Is legitimately funny. I just Well, it's the spicy pork and broccoli thing.

It just, yeah, it more bums me out how unfunny everyone in hockey is. That's, that's exactly what it is. Compared to anything else that ever happens, it's like, that's not that funny. But in hockey, this guy is like peak of his powers fucking Andrew Dice Clay. You know, like he's just, people are in the aisle screaming, jumping up and down. Oh, my God. That's the comedian you pull for that reference? we're gonna have a little talk

I'm talking about raucous crowds when I think of comedians who are just getting people who are going apeshit in the crowd not like doing very well they're funny you know

but like people who are just like they're getting up and they're hitting each other over the head with mallets like that's how much I think of Andrew Dice Clay at like Madison Square Garden and he's saying

hickory dickery dock you know yep people people folks we're not getting give away the punch line to that one, but Google it because, wow. I can't say stuff like that. I'm going to do you one better.

Don't Google it. Couldn't get away with that stuff today, I tell you. No, because of woke. Yep. Yeah. Yeah, the Jacob Truba thing. Yeah. A weird play.

Sure. Because, a weird set of circumstances, right? because he the, the hit happens, hit slash attempted elbow to the head happens. They call it a major so that they can review it. They review it. They reduce it to two minutes.

And then the league finds him. So the league, and I mean, I wasn't expecting him to get suspended. Evan Rodriguez did go, you know, As Ranger fans, literally every single one of them on the planet has pointed out, Rodriguez went down and rolled around and then was okay for the power play. So no injury on the play. But does the fact that he's fined, does that feel like a repudiation of the fact that they reduced it to a minor? Or do we say, no, it was a minor penalty and a fine, but not?

Like, I don't know, where does a fine versus a major fall on the... I know which the Rangers would prefer. The last time, the time he got suspended in like January or something wasn't even a penalty on the ice. Yeah. So now it feels like we're kind of meeting in the middle. It's another thing to review it. Yeah. To originally call a five.

And again, I think everyone understands that when you see them, when the original call is a major, that that's meaningless. That's just them wanting to review it. but to reduce it down to two. And then, you know, because you've looked at it, and then the Department of Player Safety looks at it and says, that's a dangerous play. I don't know. I would like it if Ranger fans stop sending me the freeze frame

taken from the wrong angle after the impact to the head that shows his elbow, like, touching his back, as if that is, like, don't. don't send freeze frames like it's a little this is just a little tip for everyone so if you're sending a freeze frame to prove that something did not happen

you're probably losing the argument like if you want to show me a freeze frame to show me in losing arguments at this point man it's just like no you have to admit my team is the virtuous one and and we have to I think we all have to admit that the NHL is rigging the playoffs

in favor of the Florida Panthers I mean, I'm sure, I mean, what can Gary Betman do? ESPN's on the phone to him every night. Like, dude, we need that Florida market, not New York. We don't want the Rangers chasing the Stanley Cup. I don't even know. Is ESPN or TNT at the finals this year? That's a hell of a question.

I do not know the answer. You know, if it's TNT, I'm sure they're like, we don't want Mark Messier to be talking about a Rangers Stanley. Or is he on ESPN? He's on ESPN. You're thinking of Wayne Gretzky. We wouldn't, yeah, I get it. There you go.

I mean, you couldn't have that. Couldn't have that. It's got to be the Panthers, man. Hook us up. Ranger fans, I'm asking you. Stop and listen to yourselves. No, because, look, okay. He's defending.

The Dice Man here is defending the Ranger fans. Oh, no, here's what I say. I think that the minor penalty, I think, should have been fine. for sure. I would have given him the gate. But I think a fine is about right because I think there's enough gray area on any actual replay with any actual angle where you can go, look, does he maybe get a millimeter of the shoulder with the part of his jersey that's like kind of flapping in the breeze a little bit? I think you can make the argument that that that's the case. sure.

I really think you can't. And what I think player safety is doing is going, because of that, we're going to take into account the fact that you got suspended for a nasty play earlier this season and that you generally have a reputation for elbowing people in the fucking head. And we're going to say because of the gray area, we're not throwing the book at you. Yeah. And look, it's also. it's the conference final.

He's the captain of the team. Not necessarily. I mean, he hasn't been one of their best players. No. Recently, but is an important part of their team. They're not going to suspend for a play that does not cause an injury unless it was very, very blatant. And it didn't rise to that level. So, I mean, I think.

Can I, this is another, this is another area, by the way, where, I think being a wrestling guy would really come in handy for a hockey player. Okay. Do you need Evan Rodriguez on that power play? Exactly. K-fabe, man. You've got to be fucking working all the time, man. Miss five shifts.

You know what I mean? Again, you're dominating the game. Miss five shifts. Come back, act like, oh, you know, sell it a little bit. That's all I'm saying. Get that five-minute major. Get that fucking suspension for yourself. That's just good business.

What are we doing here, Evan? Come on, man. As I tweeted out, the rule itself is bad and should feel bad. Because the rule itself when it comes to the things that determine minor or major for an elbowing penalty is the degree of violence, which is obviously an incredibly ambiguous term that can mean pretty much anything. and also injury. If there's an injury to the head or neck, it is supposed to be an automatic major. So the fact that they reduced it suggests

that the referees saw Evan Rodriguez go down, hold his head, roll around, and we're like, that dude's not injured. Yeah. Now, maybe they were right. But what are we doing? Like, how are we...

I don't think people realize the degree to what? which the rulebook expects referees to be able to tell who's injured and who's not. Which is completely ridiculous because who was it last year in the playoffs broke their neck and still came back and played for a little bit. Right. I don't remember. Cogliano or, like, and it was, you know, like,

but referees are supposed to be able to figure out who's actually hurt and who's not and all this stuff. Anyways. To bring it back to Paul Maurice. Funny line, but dude, you employ Sam Bennett, so maybe pump the brakes just on the pearl clutching. Yeah, it's, like I say, I totally get where player safety is coming from because, again, there is enough of a gray area. Now, the other thing that we definitely have to consider is Kevin BX's argument, which is that, yeah, you're allowed to forearm guys in the head. Maybe, or not in the head, but like, you're allowed to forearm guys in the chest all you want.

or the shoulder or whatever. And that's more what he does. Like he's going bionic forearm as opposed to bionic elbow. Yes. And more Lex Lugar than Randy Savage is what we're. Well, bionic elbow, of course, is Dusty Rhodes, the American Dream himself. You know what? I apologize.

I'm not going to say a lot more about the way I feel about Sean McIndoo, right? I apologize and I'm now going to allow you. to finish your story. But, like, he's right that you're allowed to do. You can't lead with your elbow. You can lead with your forearm all you want. Now, what often happens, you know, the human forearm's not that long. So what often happens is you're getting a guy with your elbow pad if you're

forearming him in the chest or the shoulder. Especially considering the elbow, kind of like wraps down a little bit. Like, it's, yeah. Yeah. It's a very weird distinction. to make, but the rulebook is full of weird distinctions. And what Kevin B. X has said, and I think this is so important to get out there, it couldn't be a dirty hit because he won the Mark Messier Award.

That's not quite what he said, but it is very... It's enough what he said that I'm spiritually correct about this. I think you're spiritually correct, yeah. It was a very funny intermission to watch because it was, look, I'm, we all know the game in In sports media, podcasts included, but especially television, it's boring when everyone agrees. Sure. We like it when the two guys argue. Yeah.

You know, we like it. Why I think Sean's a huge piece of shit, shut up, idiot. That's what I'm always saying. That's it. Our rating is just, I'm watching the little graph right now, just through the roof. We like it when the big film critic and the skinny film critic argue. It's, that's a good stuff. But he was kind of one against three and he was, uh, he was, uh,

He was fighting for it. And his argument was not, hey, Mark Massey Award should give you one free. No, of course. Which would be a good argument. I would be in favor of that rule. It would really honor the spirit of the man, you know? Very much. Very much.

It was more along, because somebody else on the panel said, like, hey, Trub has got a reputation for being a dirty player. And he sort of won, well, you know, he's also good reputation. Well, he won the Mark Messier Award. His peers, his peers view. And it's like, well, I mean, a guy. who is also former captains of the Rangers. That is a peer of Jacob Troopers in that way. Looking forward to tonight's game.

Good series. I'm going to keep saying that about all the series because people made fun of me for saying that a bunch of good series were going to be good. So you know what? Should we talk about Alexi Lafferian? Okay. Let's just, yeah, well,

We'll do that, but like, what's your pick on this? Because it feels more so than the Edmonton Dallas. We have a one team, we got a better, we got one team's been better and one team's leading to one. And there's only four games left, max, in the series. So, well, again, I think. Over a long haul, you, you know, things even out, but over four games, they don't have to. So. I think there's a lot of panic going on, you know.

and again, it's two overtime losses. I think if you, again, say the same thing that you said about the Oilers series, right? Where it's like, yeah, we're down to one. That's not good. We lost two in a row. That's not good. But would I take the last two games as a general rule, results aside, goals going in the net aside, and say that we're in the series.

we're the better team or we've been the better team. Yeah, I would take that if I'm Florida. So I'm not like panicking. But I am starting to get that thing in my mind of like, uh-oh, maybe the goaltending is a problem again, you know? Yep. And of, you know, not to, you very obviously need the game four. Don't want to be going back to New York down 3-1.

although they have the Florida Panthers have been in that situation. Last year against Bruins, so. I'll hit you with this real quick here. High danger chance or high danger save percentage. Game two, the New York Rangers 100. The Florida Panthers 778. Game three, 917, 667.

That's the difference in the series. 917 being the rangers. Yeah, of course. That is a great percentage to put up, but that is also a terrifying one because that's one of those numbers where I don't know what the number was, but you can't be 917 on like a handful of chances. 917 is a number that tells me there were an awful lot of high danger chances. 12, 12 high danger chances. And that's just a 5 on 5.

That's just a 5 on 5. So 12 high danger chances at 5 on 5 to the Rangers 6. But two of the Rangers 6 went in and one of the Panthers 12 went in, or whatever the number is. So that is the difference in the series. And, you know, Bobrovsky is generally a guy with a good high danger save percentage. Like say what you want about a lot of the other stuff he does as a goalie. He stops the ones that he maybe shouldn't stop. at a higher rate than most goalies do,

which is why the Panthers are where they are the last two years, you know? Yep. That said, they can only lose two more of these, you know? They got to win three before the Rangers win two. That won't be easy. But, again, if we're going to say, you know, they're going to have a hundred more shot attempts in any given game or whatever, I think I give the edge to the Florida Panthers.

even with that acknowledgement. But they need Bavrovsky to get going. Some guys that are going on the Rangers right now, I want to talk about this. Alexei LeFrenier. Yep. Awesome. I'm glad I never called him a bust.

Well, so this is a, I wanted to talk about this specifically because people are like, where did this come from? Holy shit. Wow. This is unbelievable. And to me, I'm sitting there going like,

didn't we, didn't we talk? about this on the show where it's like, you know, he's putting up 40-ish points a year or whatever the number was, playing third line minutes, not getting much power play time. And it's like if you, I think we said it last year or the year before or something, like if you put this guy with guys who can play, the puck's going to start going in the net for him, right? and now we're starting to see that because he plays with Artemie Padherin and Vince Trojeck.

Am I crazy for remembering that we had this conversation? We did. We did. And look, I mean, even this year, he almost hit 30 goals this year, but he had 57 points. Like for a first overall pick in year four, you'd like to see more. And now they are. And it's, you know, it's playoffs. It's a small sample and everything.

but he looks the part now. Like he looks like he's not like, you know, a guy on a team. He is looking like the guy on the ice when he's out there. Totally. And like Capo cago is a healthy scratch. Yeah, I mean the one out of two ain't bad. I think they'll take it at this point. Yeah.

And look, here's the thing, man. This is the other thing we got to say about him getting to, What did you say? 56 points? 57. 57. How many minutes do you think he played on the power play this season? Probably not a lot.

That's right. Look it up. 95 is the answer. I have it right in front of me. 95. And again, 57 points where you're not even getting 100 power play minutes. That's actually really fucking good. He had six points on the power play this year.

So, 51 even strength points. 51 even strength points. In 22 years old, not bad. That's pretty good. What, what, uh, am I looking at this right? Okay, hold on. Let me, let me just double check that because 50, 50, you had 42 at 5 on 5. Where do you think 42 at 5 on 5 ranks in the entire national hockey league among forwards?

You tell me. 35. Okay. That's as good as you can get for a guy who, as you say, is 23, 24 years old and like not necessarily playing every game with, you know, let's put it this way. The guys in front of him, Alex Tuck, Nico Heeshire, Tim Stutzland, Nazim Kodry, Lucas Raymond, Jason Robertson are all at like 43. Alex DeBrinke is at 43. guys below him. Malkin, Marsha, So, Shifley, Barzol, Horvatt, Garland. These are all awesome players.

So to get Lafranier up that high and, you know, in terms of goals, only 29 guys in the entire league forwards anyway have more five-on-five goals than Lafranier did this year. Yep. Sometimes it takes an extra couple seasons. We have seen it. And again, his coach was Gerard Gallant, and he was putting him with bumps and going, you figure it out. And he's like, okay, I can get to like 15 or 20 goals in every situation. And Galant was like, fuck you. Get down in the lineup again. I don't want to hear about this. You put a guy like that with the pedigree and all that in a position to succeed.

Odds are pretty good. He's going to succeed. It's not always going to work. Like you said, Capo caco, the less of the better, you know? but I'm just saying. I'm just saying. Now, the other thing, someone added me on Twitter about this, and I had to laugh. Remember how bad I was beating the shit out of Barclay Goodrow?

Yeah. He was horrible in game one, like beyond bad. I can't remember the number off the top of my head, but he was like one shot attempt when he was on the ice or something like that and like 17 against. Horrible. and he's like, okay, fair enough. I wasn't, I wasn't good in game one. What if I shot 58% in games two and three? Okay, I mean, that'll turn things around for you.

What can I say? I mean, let's just call it what it is. He heard the podcast. He heard what you said. He did some self-reflection, and he was like, Ryan's right. Well, I think he listened to the podcast, but I also think, Pierre Lavillette listened to the podcast. He said, won't you get up?

out there, a score on one and every three shots you take or whatever. Goes without saying, but yeah. Yeah. I'm going to look this up really quickly. Why don't you talk about this a little more for a second? I really want to find the answer to this question very, very, very quickly. What am I, sorry, what am I talking? Just Barkley-Gneux.

Talk about Barkley-Goodro. And we should also say Alex Winbert gets the other overtime goal, which for a guy who had not done very much since coming over. Not at all, man. Was looking like kind of a, yeah, one goal in 19 games after the deadline in the regular season. And then in the playoffs had not scored yet. Well, I mean, they don't ask how many.

They ask, well, they do ask how many and also the how part. And in this case, the timing of the Howe worked. So not even getting into individual shots on goal. All shots on goal when he was on the ice, Barclay Goodrow, the last two games, three for nine. Okay. He's scored all of them. But the really funny number here is only 16 shot attempts for the Rangers in the last three games when he's been on the ice, which is bad. three of them went in the net.

Yep. Almost one in five shot attempts. I mean, that's crazy. I can also tell you, let's see here really quickly, 0.44 expected goals, three goals. I love it. It's just, this is how you turn yourself into like a Rangers legend or whatever, you know, like a garden legend. Yep.

is by being Adam Graves for three playoff games. Remember, Adam Graves had that one season, and that's about that. You had the one season, you got a, hey, Stefan Mottoe has never bought a beer for himself in New York in 30 years. Because sometimes, it doesn't even have to be a nice goal. Nope. Just put the puck in the net. Just a goal. No, I don't know if you've ever heard this.

They actually don't ask how they ask how many. I've never heard that. No. No. That's when I came up with person. Never heard of a reference to that. That's something. But yeah, look, I mean, it's important that the Rangers are getting these contributions

because their better players are not playing very well in this series, let's say. You know? You know, you're not hearing a lot from, I mean, pick a guy, right? Pick a, pick, pick Sabanajad, no points at five on five. only two shots in this entire or no I'm sorry I was looking at one game only two shots felt wrong to me so I'm glad I caught that um but yeah I just you know like they they're not getting big contributions from their best players yep and yeah um Panarin one assist and it's a secondary at five on five you know uh I was Zabanajad no points at five on five Crider, no points at five on five. Somebody's going to score, you know, and somebody is. And that's, but again, what, that leads you to wonder what's the, what's the most likely outcome?

Like, can Florida still keep shutting down Artemmy Panarin and Mika's advantage at and Vincent Trocheck? That's it. If you're the Rangers, you're going, yeah, we got our doors kicked in last game, but we're up to one in the series. Yep. and a lot of our best guys haven't even been our best guys. Feeling pretty good. You're feeling pretty good right up until you lose tonight and then the momentum all swings the other way and we go the whole deal. Yep, absolutely.

You got anything else to say about this series? I don't think so. Great. I love it. Then let's move on to the news of the series. the week here. Dan Bilesma is expected to be named the next coach of the Seattle Cracken. Feels very on brand.

To which I said, this is the Dan Bilesma from before. Is that right? Yeah. A coach you'd forgotten about, Phil is a job opening you'd forgotten about. Yeah, and like, you know, he was, he's just the guy who was their HL coach this past season. Yeah. So, um. Oh, a very weird.

career arc for him. Oh, yeah. Because, you know, he gets, you know, obviously he wins the Stanley Cup, which I'm told is important. He, he has the stint with the sabres that does not go well. Oh, my God, I forgot about that. And then after that, remember, he went to Detroit as the assistant. I do remember that, yeah. And to Blasill. And everybody was like, oh, there's your next Detroit. coach in waiting, clearly. Totally.

And then it just never happened. Yeah, well, here's the really weird part. So he goes from that job to being the assistant of the Charlotte Checkers in the AAHL. And then, but that's only for one year. And then he gets the Cochella Valley head coaching gig, which he held for the last two years. I don't, maybe I'm wrong, but I don't remember them having like a huge amount of success the last two years.

but obviously, you know, you're an HL team for an expansion franchise. There's not going to be, you know, you're not going to have like unbelievable stats or anything like that. Like the guys they're sending down, they're not like good or anything, you know. It's not like they had a ton of picks or, you know,

bingo, slowly but surely building. Yep. But yeah, to me, like, just kind of a, not obvious choice in, in so far. as you wouldn't say like, oh, you know what?

I'm looking at this. They actually have had a ton of success. They went to the five, I forgot about this. They went to the Calder Cup final last year. Did they really? Yeah. And. With who?

Who's on that team? Let's. The cracking art. Have a look. But like they've actually, in regulation, in regulation over the last two years, they've lost only 30. two games. So they're actually,

they actually had a lot, I mean, you know, it doesn't look like they did a ton in the, the postseason, uh, this year. But they,

you know, overall, you can't really knock how, how well they did. Um, they finished second in their division last year. And that team had on it. Let's see.

Uh, not, not a ton of guys you'd necessarily heard of. They're leading score. was a guy named Max McCormick. But like Cole Lind, Ty Cartier, Cameron Hughes, Esper Froden was on that team, remember him.

And in goal, they went with Joey DeCord for the bulk of their games. So that helps. Got him to, yeah, that would. Now, did, do you remember hearing about Bilsma interviewing for any of the many, many, many other openings? No, I do not. Which leads me to assume that he maybe didn't.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you never know, but, yeah. Yeah, so like, like you said, just kind of a very Seattle-y kind of a move. This guy's been around the block a few times. And I'm not saying it's like a bad coach or anything. I don't watch enough HL hockey to know anything about that. You know, especially if I did watch AHL hockey, it would be like the New England, New York kind of AHL hockey and not so much the West Coast Enclave, the Pacific Division or whatever they call it out there, you know?

So it's tough for me to be like, stupid move. Why would they do this? Although, again, as I said, what I, that was certainly my reaction was like, the same Dan Bilesma from like the Penguins? That guy? Yep. And I did see a couple of people who follow it a little more closely than me, the AHL, a couple of people being like, wow, interesting. Okay. You know, like, kind of like, it's not that he doesn't deserve another chance or anything like that, but more like, I'm kind of surprised they went there.

Mm-hmm. So. Yeah. I mean. I feel like I would be surprised for other organizations, but the fact that, I mean, A,

the fact that he's already in the organization is obviously a huge. And also, I don't know, Ron Francis just doesn't really seem to be swinging for the fences very much over there. No. Very slow but steady. Doubles. Doubles.

You know, just, just hitting them into the gap and that kind of thing. Mm-hmm. I just don't, I guess my thing is like, do we do we think they think they're taking a step here next year with this hire well because i i don't i i'd like i right i don't know if for me where they're not sending their best and brightest

is what i would say for for their roster you know what i mean there's just there's just not a ton there they could do some stuff over the uh over the summer to maybe change my mind but i'm just looking at that roster, what they have locked in for next year and going, I don't know. Yep. I'm with you. The other thing is I saw Andrew Rinaldi, who covers the AHL, suggests that Jessica Campbell, who is an assistant in Cochella Valley and, you know, has been connected to a handful of PWHL jobs over the last several months.

suggested that she might get a look for the head coaching gigging Coachella Valley. Get a little bit of a promotion for herself. I don't know much about her. Obviously, like I say, I'm just, I can only follow so many leagues closely, you know, and the AHL isn't really on the list, unfortunately. One thing I can say about her is having Googled her, one of the first things that comes up is her Instagram, and it will, hockey fans will be happy to know she is clearly one of us because apparently her nickname is soupy.

Big salute. Thank you, Jessica. Wouldn't want, we'll have it any other way for somebody named Campbell. Has to be. She, the other thing to say is she's a woman and she's 31 years old, so I don't know that she's really in this sport going to be the front runner for that job. But it's nice to see her getting her name out there. And she seems like she's like a skills coach for them,

like a power skating coach for like private power skating coach in the offseason and that kind of thing. So that's cool. But yeah, I just, you know, in this sport you're like, okay, who's the next 55 year old white guy to get this job? It would be a huge change to get a 31 year old woman in that job. I'm interested to see where this goes because that's not a name I've necessarily heard a ton about, but if it works out, more power to her. That would be cool. And we put her in an excellent position to move up to the NHL ranks when Dan Bellsma is fired a year and a half from now.

I don't know about it. I might not go quite that far. A year and three quarters from now. The other thing I guess we should talk about Personnel moves-wise behind the scenes Don Waddell out as the GM of the Carolina Hurricanes It seems like just like a contract wasn't renewed thing He didn't get fired or anything like that

Right Sounds like he was doing the whole Tom Dundon dance About similar to Rod Brindamore And was given the opportunity to look elsewhere and has taken that opportunity. Now, has he been hired in Columbus? No, it's just a rumor. And it's one of those things where it doesn't seem like he would be the GM.

He would like head up the hockey ops department. Right. Which if we know, so two things would happen. Either he heads up the hockey department becomes interim GM while he searches for a GM and then names himself. Or there was, Did you see the rumor that Ken Holland would come over? Yes, I have seen that rumor.

Absolutely. And that he would potentially bring his son to be the GM. It's crazy that his son would be so qualified. That's wild. Can you imagine being like Ken Holland and you walk into the job and then like you're like, all right, who's the best candidate for GM? And like your son walks in and you're just like pointing at each other like, what?

You work here too? That's wild. How did he get that job? I wonder. He must have worked really hard at it the whole life. Probably did. Yeah.

Do you think Tulski gets the full-time job in Carolina? Certainly seems that way. But it's one of those things where you never know, not only just because Tom Dundon is kind of inscrutable as the owner of a team, but also like they, it does seem like Tom Dundon is the guy who like ultimately signs off on a lot of decisions. And it's a way more collaborative process there.

And like basically the way it works, I guess, was that like Don Waddell, like they got, they all got in a room and they were like, okay, what do we think of this guy or this trade idea or whatever? And everybody in the hockey department kind of talks about it. And then Don Waddell was the guy that like picked up the phone, you know, ultimately. as the GM, he probably had more weight than a lot of other guys. But they would all talk about it. That was the idea. And then Don Waddell picks up the phone and goes, okay, let's make this happen. I know, you know, I've known Ken Holland for 75 years.

He breaks out the dusty Rolodex and. Totally. Spinning through. And so I wonder. I wonder if, you know, obviously Eric Tulski's been in a, in a, And in the Carolina front office now for a good long while, right? So the idea that he doesn't know, like, anybody in the, like, you know, if he, if he ran into, like, like, if he was talking to Don Sweeney, Don Sweeney, Don Sweeney would be like, who the fuck are you again? You know what I mean?

Like, this is a guy. He's known. He's respected that kind of thing. But there has been some suggestion that maybe an older, you know, hockey man might still get the, you know, number one job. And maybe that pisses off Eric Tulski. I don't know, you know. Well, I mean, I guess all we can say is we reportedly Tulski has interviewed for GM jobs elsewhere. Yes. Which suggests that he would like to hold that role at some point, maybe sooner rather than later.

It'll be very interesting. He's a super bright guy being in charge of the entire organization, entire not necessarily hockey ops because you could bring a president in, but, you know, Being in charge of everything is different than being someone in the room offering advice and opinions. But just about everyone makes that leap eventually to get there other than unless you're a former player and you can just have the job handed to you. Or your dad's a guy who's been a GM before. Or your dad is GM. So yeah, I'm really interested to see where this goes. just because, like, it does sound a little bit like Don Waddell got sick of the whole Tom Dundon thing, you know?

And there's a little less oversight in Columbus, as we know, like, the ownership, not exactly eager to make changes when changes should have been made a few months ago. You know what I mean? That is, yeah. So, yeah. Yeah, I'm very, I'm very intrigued. I'm very interested to see where that goes. Do you have any thoughts before we get out of here on the PWHL final? Yeah, so game four.

Game four. Elimination game because it's the best of five. Go-tender interference overturn in overtime. People didn't see it. Yes. Yeah, go ahead. Literally have a, the cup winning goal is scored in overtime. In overtime.

By Minnesota. right have I got the yes teams right yeah you buy Minnesota against Boston they they score an overtime they win it all they pour onto the ice gloves by the way a one goal

one goal game it was that the goal made it one to nothing before it got wiped out and double and then they review it and they an extremely obvious goal tenor so that's the thing right because I'm like I had a bunch of people because obviously this coming after my call to get rid of replay review and you know I had people

asking like saying to me hey this this proves your theory because here is you know we just you got a championship winning goal gets taken off the board and then other people going like well what if this happened in the NHL and you didn't have review and it was as seemingly obvious a call um I don't know man where where were you on it. I mean, it did feel like, I mean, it did feel like the right call. Maybe we just don't let the referees off the hook for missing what seems to be. Yeah, I mean, she was right there. She pointed immediately, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So missed the call. Missed what was a seeming. But at the same time, like, there didn't seem to be a huge reaction from the goalie from like, I don't know.

It's a bit of a strange. Again, I don't think it was as completely obvious as, as people, some people want to paint it. Because again, this is all, there's a lot of subjective stuff here, but it, and the other piece was, you know, some people would say, well, yeah, there was interference because the player coming in was tripped into the goaltender.

But you missed the tripping call, so now you've got, so now what do you do? I don't know. It didn't make, it didn't make me come away feeling like I regret being anti-replay, but I can also acknowledge that if that exact scenario happens in a no replay world, we're in for a world to hurt from the other side of the argument. Yeah.

I think what you would say is you don't want your first ever cup winning goal in double over time looking like that. Probably not. Yeah. So like I say, I think you could. very much make the argument of this is this is pretty clear goaltender interference and, you know, not the kind of goaltender interference that rises to the level of a penalty,

but certainly the kind that takes a goal off the board, let's say. So that's kind of where I was at with it, and then obviously they're going back to Lowell for game five. I think that's tonight, right? Isn't it tonight? Is it tonight or tomorrow? It's tomorrow. It's tomorrow.

that'll be really interesting. I wish it wasn't going head to head against a game I have to watch for work, you know. And we should say game five is the Yeah, it's a five game series. Best of Five series. And it's interesting because I don't think you would say that Boston has necessarily been the better team in this series. And yet, I don't know if you've heard this, John. They don't ask how they ask how many.

Nope. Not to, I wish you had brought that up before. Yeah, it's, it's just what, like, one of those little aphorisms that I personally know, and I think a lot of people don't know otherwise, you know? That's fair. But, yeah, they are, the scores in this series have been 4-3 Boston, 3-0 Minnesota, 4-1, Minnesota, to 1-0 Boston. Yeah.

But the final is on Nesson in New England. Apparently, it's on TSN in up in Canada there, which is cool. That's awesome. And tickets, from what I understand, tickets for Game 5 were pretty available for, like, midway through that game. and they don't have no more tickets. Like it sold out within like five minutes of the game ending. Yep.

So that's really cool. There will be like 7,000 people in the building, something like that. Pretty cool. I hope it's a good game and I hope it is not a low-scoring game because that has been my one knock on this league is the games more often than not have been quite low-scoring. And, you know, one-nothing overtime series on the line is always going to be its own form of entertainment. but let's go four three

like the first game was that's fun yeah that'd be nice now so here's the thing there have been five to your point Sean there have been five goalies used by any of the teams

in the playoffs what do you think the lowest save percentage of any goalie is is anyone below 900 not even fucking close and Renee Davien

the worst goalie, terrible performance, just a 931 save percentage. Unbelievable how bad she's been. She only allowed seven goals on, she allowed seven goals on 102 shots. Get her out of the league. Unreal. Yep. So, yeah.

I'll read it down for you. Tomorrow night's going to do a good night of hockey. Yeah, Kristen Campbell, 962, Aaron Frankel from Toronto, Aaron Frankel from Boston, 953. That's the reason they're here. Maddie Rooney from Minnesota 948, Nicole Hensley, also from Minnesota, 935. They basically split time, five games for Rooney, four games for Hensley. And Dabien, three games, all of them lost in overtime to Boston, 931 for Montreal.

That is the problem with, you know, you want to talk about the dead puck era. They're starting in the dead puck era. Yeah. And like if the dead puck era was on mega steroids. Which, I mean, the NHL, they didn't start that way, but they, within the first few years, were getting like three goals a game. So it's not. But it'd be nice to see them.

Nice to see the offense crank up a little bit. The total number of goals, not including empty netters, scored in the playoffs. 23, 29, 36. Mm-hmm. They got to have more goals. It's that simple. Maybe they're saving us up for a big finale. Eight to seven final game five.

Boston wins, presumably, unless the fix is in. If the fix is in Minnesota is going to win, because the fix is not in Boston's going to win. Mm-hmm. But I guess we'll see. You got any plugs for us before we get out of here? Find me at the athletic. I'll be on tomorrow with Sean Gentile.

and I also have yesterday I looked at my all-playoff disappointment team. Today we are doing the Cond Smythe that is the award given to the team that made the dumbest trade with whoever wins the Stanley Cup. And like I hinted at earlier,

something fun coming towards the end of the week with a bunch of old YouTube clips and stuff like that. Hell yeah, let's go. For me, I guess the thing to plug is the Elite Prospects draft guide is coming out, leave this week, maybe next? Yeah.

I think next Monday or Tuesday it comes out. So I'll just read you the stats here. More than 375 player profiles. Reports on more than 2,500 games. 110 plus ranked prospects. Hundreds of games with manually tracked data. If you want to know about the guy your team is going to draft, high, the odds are very good.

There will be some very in-depth coverage. It's that simple. And all you're going to do is sign up for Relief Prospects. EP Premium, which gives you, as you might imagine, EPRinkside, the draft guide, and some other stuff over the course of the year, too. That, you know, again, if you want to be a prospect head, this is the only way to do it.

Nobody's doing it like the fine people over Delete Prospects. And again, I say that. that obviously I have a little bit of skin in the game, but I'm not involved in the draft guide in any way. So they're just, it says right on the cover. The draft guide used in the draft guide used in war rooms across the NHL, 100% proof. There you go. If your team drafts a bad player, it's Ryan's fault.

I'm not going to agree to that. They don't ask how. You're, they ask how can I blame this on Ryan Lambert? They really do. Look, I was, I was on the phone with the people at, putting together the draft guide. And I was like,

do not put Capo Kako near the top of your list. Don't do it. They wouldn't. They didn't listen to me. And look what God hath rot. You know? Use the code I love EP.

When you sign up, you will get 15 months for the price of 12, draft guide included and all that kind of stuff. And then head over to patreon.com slash puck soup, where me and Sean and another guy named Sean and another guy named Gorp, we do all kinds of,

of bonus episodes over there, all kinds of hockey stuff. Just last week we did an episode where we looked at the top, I think, 31 cap hits in the league and evaluated whether we would rather have that player at that price or just the free cap space and what goes into that decision and all that kind of stuff. We had a lot of fun with that one. It was. Yeah. Don't take my word for it. Take Shant's. I go, yeah, I don't lie. He would never lie about Ryan lies all the time.

Constantly. If I may quote Brian Danielson, Cody Rhodes taught me how fun it is to lie. That's what I'm always thinking about. Like when people say stuff in the media, what was it? Matt Rempey said Jacob Trub was really into like fantasy novels? Yes.

I was just like, this is Brian Danielson, Cody Road shit. There's no way that's true. Like, you, the amount of overwhelming evidence you would have to present me before I believed that is staggering. Like, I don't, because I don't want to hear about, like, oh, this guy, like, read the game with Thrones books. So what? They made the fucking HBO series out of that. That doesn't really count. And I'm not, believe me, I'm not a big fantasy novels guy.

So, but, like, if I'm not hearing about, like, the Wheel of Time or, like, whatever, the King Killer Chronicles and all this kind of stuff, like, Like, that's entry level shit. Now, I wonder how deep into it he is. But if I was an NHL player, I'd just be like, oh, yeah, this guy? This guy over here? He's always reading like Proust. You believe that? And then the reporters go over to ask him about it and you just laugh.

Yeah, yeah, no, I love Proust. He'll act like he doesn't, but the fifth or six time you ask him is when he finally admits it. Yeah. Anyway. Thanks, everybody for listening. and we'll talk to you again next week. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.