Puck Soup - Image Rehab

Episode Date: November 10, 2021

The boys explore another NHL investigation into a general manager, the continued fallout of the Blackhawks scandal and another chance for Mike Babcock to speak. Plus, the McDavid goal, the best and worst in the NHL right now, Jack Eichel arrives in Vegas, Jeremy Colliton is out, the Cole Caufield bullying and the most overrated and underrated fancy stats in sports. Sponsored by Manscaped, Trade Coffee and Better Help.

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 Hagi and Nonsense. I'm Greg Wysinski of ESPN, the worldwide leader in sports, and also at home of the Disney bundle. Disney Plus Day is coming up. Go watch Jungle Cruise and then watch some hockey afterwards. I'm Ryan Labord from the University of Austin.

I'm teaching a course. I'm Sean McIndoo from the Athletic. What? Get out of town. The right Sean finally showed up. Yeah. I'm going to legally change my first name because we ran out of guest host. And you're just going to go by

Katie. That's, I think, the next one. Oh, all right. Fantastic. The University of Austin thing is, you know, it's like one of those things where people are like, hey, all these people are doing is a grift. And they're like, it's not a grift. It's what we believe. And then they're like, also, we're starting a college.

And we need a hundred million dollars. Right. It's like, come on, man. Help us out. Like, we just got done with Trump University, and now it's, like, come full circle. It's a giant boomerang. Anyways, as per usual in the world of hockey, we begin off the ice with a scandal. Great first year of the television contract, by the way, for the NHL.

Just killing it. Killing the game. Well, they got the money. Now they're like, okay, we can go through all. Like, we're ready. You know, now we can reveal it all. We've already cashed the check. Right.

Now we can pull back the curtain and all the cockroaches can scurry. Speaking of scurry, Bob Murray. Bob Murray is on administrative leave from the Anaheim Ducks, who released a statement last night to say that there was, you know, people saying that he was acting unprofessionally behind the scenes. And then the ducks said, we're going to look into it. And then they looked into it. And they're like, uh-oh, better call Maco.

And so then they called a law firm, and they're like, hey, can you guys look into it? The law firm's like, sure, that's what we do. And then they looked into it. And they didn't even get through the full investigation before they said, we think you should put this guy at administrative leave. And so they put him on administrative leave. And now the ducks have themselves a big old problem. Again, as I said on Twitter, the night the story broke, I was taken it back by how many sources I was calling, who didn't have a lot of information to share on the matter,

but all said, well, I'm not surprised it's this giant asshole that got in with the scandal. It was incredible. I don't think I've ever experienced anything where there was less surprise about who was in the middle of a scandal like this than people finding out it was Bob Murray. It was staggering. Yeah, you know, it's the classic case of my cleared of, uh, it's, of charges in chair throwing lawsuit shirt is leading to more questions already answered by my shirt. You know, like, this is just classic, like, old hockey guy stuff, you know, where he's like, oh, I yell and I scream and that's how I do business.

And, you know, it doesn't fly in 2021. Yeah, that's, I mean, we got to be somewhat careful. because who knows what will come out or not come out or be no one or not. But, yeah, initially it sounds like this guy was behaving in a way that is not all that different from how many people in hockey behave. And maybe to a somewhat higher degree. But, yeah, this is also clearly a fairly a fairly direct result of, of what happened with Chicago and the NHL going out to team saying you must not even be perceived as covering anything up when it gets to anything in this category.

I think we don't know, but I feel like if this had come to light a year ago and it probably maybe had come to light a year ago, maybe people knew all about this, nothing gets done or at least nothing of significance. It's maybe he gets called into an office and told to tone it down or something. But I think the NHL has put the fear in teams that if they're found to be dealing with something like this lately, that there'll be major consequences. And so Anaheim is, I don't even know if I'd say airing on the side of caution, but they are resisting the urge to just go, yeah, this is just how hockey people are and moving on. Put the fear in teams, but I mean, I'd be interested to know more about the timeline here because have they also empowered people that work for teams to understand that like the ground is now fertile for you to plant these seeds and and call out superiors that are acting like assholes?

Especially since at least in the initial reports, a lot of the behavior involves players and coaches. And, you know, when I first saw this, my thought was that, you know, this is going to be how he treats the employees around him, not necessarily the people on the on the direct hockey side, because right or wrong, the NHL has always been one of those leagues where, you know, you can't necessarily yell and scream at your secretary, but the players and the coaches just have to accept it.

And if we don't necessarily know, just because the behavior is, was aimed towards players and coaches doesn't mean that that's where the complaints were coming from. But if that turns out to be the case, that will be a very interesting wrinkle because we really haven't seen that before with guys who are still on the job. You know, we saw this, you know, an extent with Babcock and guys like that, but, you know, for somebody to be on the job and to have players and or coaches saying they're treating me inappropriately, that would be something we haven't really seen. Yeah, I didn't see it last night because it was on TSN and I don't live in Canada.

But apparently Drager said the allegations are based on how this is from NHL Watcher on Twitter, like posting a quote. But allegations are based on how Bob Murray dealt with coaches and staff members, threatening of job security, that kind of thing. So. Yeah. And it just seems like, you know, bad boss kind of a situation. It's the totality. And it's the totality of that thing. like all kind of everybody kind of coming to roost on it.

And there being one inciting incident, but just the totality of somebody's being. And as we know, as we all know, if you're a jerk to everyone for long enough, then eventually when the target goes on you, you'd look around and, you know,

nobody's stepping up to defend you. And, you know, you know what? It shouldn't be part of it, but it's worth pointing out. Yeah, Bob Murray's been on the job in Anaheim for a long time. team isn't very good. You know, this is not a Joel Quimville situation in terms of the seriousness necessarily,

but also not in terms of it being somebody who would be really, really hard for a team to walk away from. I don't like his odds at this point, but we'll wait. Yeah. Maybe we've got to see what comes out. A little hard to not look at these kinds of things like, you know, with 30, 35 percent cynicism, right? of just like, well, you know, but Barb Murray hasn't exactly done anything to keep himself safe the last few years.

You're dancing around the idea that Bob Murray's going to release a statement that includes the term woke mob. Am I wrong on that? Yeah, I don't think that's going to happen. No, you sure? Yeah. Okay. Because, I mean, without an inciting incident,

I feel like that's where we're going to end up is somebody, you know, eventually getting a sports net feature where he's just like the woke mob and blah, blah, blah, blah, is the reason I'm not in a job anymore. By the way, Lambert mentioned the chair throwing incident. We may have a lot of listeners who weren't cognizant of the NHL or at least the behavior of Anaheimducks general managers back in 2009. But we wrote about it on Puck Daddy at the time. He was alleged to have thrown a stool, I think it was, or a chair, one of the two. at Rachel Paris, who was then a stage manager for rights holder, broadcaster in Detroit. It happened after a game seven win by the Detroit Red Wings over the Anaheim Ducks,

and Paris claimed that injuries from the incident caused her job, her house, and her car. A jury decided that he would not have to anteat any monetary damages to Paris. That was because of a technicality in the case. Not sure if there was ever any settlement beyond that. For the record, Murray said his accident, this is his words, accident with Paris, wasn't a fit of rage in which he threw a chair or a stool. He said that he merely pushed aside two heavy chairs in the narrow press box in his rush to get to the team dressing room to console his players about the loss to the Red Wings, was his take. So he wasn't mad that they lost game seven and he threw a chair that hit a woman. He just pushed the chairs aside because he needed to get down to the dressing room.

to talk to his team that had won a Stanley Cup two years earlier. That was a think. You know, it's hard to say we don't know what specifically is being alleged, and we might not know for a while. It's going to be interesting. There will be a lot of people in the hockey world who will look at this and say, like, what, you can't throw a chair anymore. You can't scream to people.

You can't tell your coach that you're going to fire him or, you know, tell whoever in the organization, that's part of your job is to hire and fire people. Like, you know, there is going to be, mark my word, somebody who will do the whole, like, what is happening to this league that, you know, people can't be passionate and emotional, you know, whatever it is anymore. And then knowing how these things go, the day after that, something horrible will come out and make them look very bad. But, I mean, there's a lot of people who act like this in the NHL.

And maybe this is the story that helps change that. But we'll see. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Speaking of Anger Management, Mike Babcock back in the news, a big feature on SportsNet, chronicling Babcock's new coaching gig with a college team. Yeah, university or Saskatchewan or something like that. A Canadian college team, which is very different in terms of the prestige and you know, then if he was in the U.S.

It's a very well-written story. You know, I didn't read it. Well, I read it because I didn't want to judge it without reading it, right? Like, I think, like you, the, you know, any attempt at image rehabilitation from Mike Babcock, and there have already been several attempts made, I find to be abhorrent. But here's another example of it, and it was a well-written story. You know, I went to there. and he talked to the player, you know, talk to everybody that you need to talk to you for the story.

I just don't, like, I don't understand the drive behind. I mean, I understand the drive behind it. Like, Babcock's people probably set it up, right? Well. Because, like, there's jobs that are open. But, like, I don't understand the desire to, you know, explore this subject. I, I disagree. I thought this, first of all, I thought it was a good story.

And I get why people cringe a little bit at, you know, like Babcock's been accused of some bad things. And if the timing couldn't be worse, let's put it that way. Sure. Yeah, that's, you know, that that's certainly, certainly true. But, you know, as far as two things. First of all, this wasn't a puff piece. And this wasn't, you know, just a PR.

You know, obviously Babcock is doing it partly because he or the people around him feel the need to put a shine on his image. But that clearly was. wasn't the driving goal of this piece. This is an interesting story. This is one of the most successful and at a time respected and highest paid ever NHL coaches. And two years later, he's basically in the equivalent of the low minor leagues. You know, this is a guy who coached two Olympic teams and now his reputation is in tatters. It's an interesting story. And I think it's a story worth telling, and I think it's worth giving Mike Babcock the chance to tell his side of the story. You know, obviously, what he was accused of is specifically with the Red Wings and

Yon Franz. And the Mitch Marner thing is completely overblown. Overblown. Agreed. And, and, you know, honestly, the fact that the, the fact that the Mitch Marner story led to Akeemaloo tweeting about the Bill Peters thing has kind of tied those together, and they shouldn't be. And even, you know, players of Ander Cain and others came out and said, please stop talking about Mike Babcock and Bill Peters as if it's the same story, because it wasn't. But the Friends and stuff was a serious allegation and, you know, some of the other stuff, Chelyos said.

But it was bad, but it was not bad to the level that this guy should not have the ability to say his side of the story or to dispute it, which he is doing, at least in terms of the martyr stuff. He's saying it didn't happen that way. Okay. he's got a right to say that, and that can be part of the story. And I'll also say, and it's the same thing I said when it was, you know, Pair LeBron and other people writing about Mike Babcock, I actually want to hear from Mike Babcock, if only to help me know that he's full of it.

And I think every time he opens his mouth, he doesn't come across well. But that's fine. That's then part of the story. And there is value to, you know, as a journalist, to just going to. to somebody and saying, what's your side of the story? And then give them the rope and let them hang themselves if that's what they do. And Babcock's done that a couple of times. And that's, there's value in that. That's, that's, you know, I thought it was a well written piece, certainly well researched. It was good journalism. And, and it was, it was a story worth telling.

And if you came out of it saying, you know, man, this just makes me think Mike Babcock's even bigger jerked than before, okay, there's value in that. Uh, and, And, you know, this idea that based on the, you know, what Mike Babcock was alleged to have done and been like that, that he just has to be disappeared and never heard from, I don't buy that. That this is, this is a, this is a worthy story and I thought it was told well. I don't think it's disappeared and never heard from, but you said it yourself. You've, you've heard, you've read this before. If you've heard him react to it, you've heard the rap on the market thing before. I've heard him react to the accusations.

I haven't seen the on the ground. kind of what he is doing now and why and look, part of this is part of the reason that this is important is whether we all like it or not, Mike Babcock is going to get another chance at an NHL coaching job. That doesn't mean he'll necessarily get one, but he's going to be. So, you know, this isn't Bill Peters where it's like you can just say, you know what, he's gone, he's never coming back, so we don't have to think about this guy anymore. Mike Babcock is going to be in the mix for every coaching job for the next couple of years,

whether he gets it or not. So it's, you know, whether we want to talk about them or not, we kind of need to. I feel like this is one of those deals where we talk about what we want out of hockey writing and then we know and actually want it. Like when all of the stuff with Kyle Beach is going down, we're like, there are so many stories that we need to tell and there's so many places we need to explore. And there's so many, you know, things that we don't write about that we need to write about. And now we're on our fifth Mike Babcock story. Like, I don't need to. I don't know who this is for.

That was my issue with it. Is it just like, who cares? I mean, I guess the sports net audience cares because he was the Leafs coach. Like, maybe they can. I mean, but maybe that's who you're writing for. I mean, I read the highest paid coach in the history of the NHL two years ago. He's a prominent, significant name. I think there are a lot of fans who are interested in what's up with this.

guy and what happened and what he thinks about it, even if their interest is coming from a place of, I can't stand this guy, and, you know, I hope he never comes back. But if that's the case, if that's the motivation is to throw some chum in the water for those people, like, why are we wasting resources to do that? Like, isn't there a better way to use a talented writer in resources than to give Mike Babcock his fifth platform after the Lebrun piece and getting hired by NBC? and so on and so forth. I don't know.

I feel like, I feel like, you know, out of one side of her mouth, we're like, we need to tell different stories. And the other side of her mouth is, I want to be angry about Mike Babcock again. And it's, I'm sure that story did great traffic for them.

If it's five stories in two years, I think that's an appropriate amount given the, the prominence of the person involved, you know. But aren't you trying to tell, I mean, the nuance of the story was where he's coaching now. Like, we haven't explored him in his college years, you know, Mike Bagpock Cole in the college years.

But we've already heard him. Like Rodney Dangerfield on the cover of back to school. Precisely. We've already heard him relitigate the martyr thing and completely ignore the franzin thing. So from that aspect, I mean, there's a reason why that stuff was like in the 105th paragraph. It's because there was absolutely no information coming from him about the two things that people actually care about vis-a-vis his future employment in the National Hockey League. the rest of it was sort of, I don't know, I mean, it was reputation mending, wasn't it? I mean, I don't think it was...

He's been humbled? I don't think it was reputate. I don't think it's set out to be reputation mending. If there was some of that in the piece, then, you know, that could just be the, you know, either the facts or at least the sound bites speaking. You don't write a story like this without necessarily building in some, reputation mending just because like he's not going to talk to you about like oh man i was such a i was such a bad guy you know he's going to be like i was actually well but again it's it's fair

for him to yeah and that's his side that doesn't necessarily mean that anyone who goes to anyone to get their side of the story is is doing PR for them it's no that that's completely right but but but i think ryan's points a very good one where inherently when you're covering somebody at rock bottom, there's going to be a sense of pending redemption or, you know, how does this person get back to his purge, right? Like, that's why you write about somebody when they're at rock bottom, like inherently, right? It can't. That's one reason you can. I don't think it's the only one. You know, I think there's, I mean, there's drama in the story, even if there is no redemption, that this guy fell from this height. And what is it?

that say about him? What does it say about hockey? Why is he where he is now? Is this actually him, you know, making a choice for his family or is it something else? I think that's an interesting and dramatic story. And if it leads, you know, if he comes back to the NHL, which I think he will, then it will have been a worthy story from that sense. But even if he doesn't, And, you know, I just think this is a, it's an interesting human story, which doesn't necessarily have to be a sympathetic story. You know, there are very interesting stories to be told about bad people and they're worth telling. Yeah, there's a whole podcast industry about it. It's called true crime.

Like that, people love that shit. I get it. People love that. Here's what I will say. You know what's interesting to me is the idea that Babcock does this for more than just like, a year like I want like it's way more interesting to me if this is like Babcock and his dotage he's put all the you know you know what I mean like he he's put all this fucking money in the bank and he's like I'm coaching these like 23 year old like you know uh junior A and and oh HL washouts

basically who um you know they have almost no chance of ever making it to the NHL the NHL. The number of CIS guys who have gone on to the NHL is probably you can count it on two hands, you know? And like I, like the idea that he's just doing this for the love of the game, it, and not just something to do until, you know,

ex-NHL team, uh, like, takes up the phone. Um, that is way more interesting to me. But, yeah, again, like, how,

How do you look at this and go, well, this is just him angling. Or say anything besides, this is just him angling for another NHL job. Well, I think that's what Babcock is doing, for sure. But, you know, again, it's almost anyone who ever talks to you for any story is going to have their own interests in mind. That doesn't mean that the story isn't worth. Yeah. Well, listen, this is why, Ryan, you should, you should read the story. I encourage everybody to read.

read it's a long one so you're going to need to grab like a cup of coffee and if you want some coffee how about you use our friends at train coffee really felt him winding up for that one huh i was like i would read a story of him explaining and redeeming himself from that ad read i would think it would be worth doing did this motherfucker just stepped on my ad transition is that what happened here ryan is that what i would say deservedly so i haven't i haven't done this in a while i kind of forgot Today's episode of Bucks Soup is sponsored by Trade Coffee. You need to get your coffee. Sean needs to get his coffee.

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Michigan. It was Michigan, right? Yeah. Another alleged victim of Brad Aldrich. And it was, again, extraordinarily emotional and sort of centered the story once again on how responsible the NHL should be in all of this. It's kind of the follow-up and one might say a calculated follow-up to Westhead's question to Betman during the NHL's press conference on whether or not the league would pick up the tab for the therapy and other services that the the victim had to deal with, to which the NHL, I think, has balked at it from everything that's been reported. And so, I don't know, you watch this, Sean?

What was your reaction to it? Yeah, I mean, it was gut-wrenching to watch. But people should watch it. This is, again, one of those things where we shouldn't turn away, even, you know, Even if it's uncomfortable, because it's uncomfortable. It was, it was very hard to watch. And it's, you know, there's a direct line from what the Blackhawks did and didn't do to, you know, the events that were being described. And, you know, as far as the NHL, like, look, this is, this is the lawyers taking over, right?

This is somebody somewhere saying, don't do this. You will be admitting liability. You will be whatever the thinking is. Because the amount of money at stake here, I'm sure it's not insignificant, but for a $5 billion league that is desperate for some good PR, you know, it feels like it would be a no-brainer to step up here and say, we're going to do everything we can. the fact that they're not suggests that as usual, you know, that it's, it's, the lawyers are making

the calls. It's the bottom line. It's, it's, it's all of that. And the rest of it is just, it's, you know, it's, it's, it's PR. And it's a PR calculation. And their calculation is that this is, they'll take a hit for a few days and everyone will move on and it'll, it'll be worth it. So as Westhead wrote, John Doe 2 is the former high school hockey player, is sexually assaulted. in 2013 by Brad Aldrich, and that the NHL informed a lawyer for John Doe 2, that the league will not cover costs of counseling therapy for him and his family. And NHL employee wrote an email in an email of the league will leave that matter for the Blackhawks to manage.

Now, it breaks my heart to have to defend the NHL in a situation like this, but I'll say this. This is the Blackhawks failure, yeah? Yes. Like pushing Brad Aldrich ahead for jobs, not taking care of the situation when it occurred within the context of the team. People have obviously resigned over this. There's been a fine levied. We all know the Blackhawks are inherently what their failures are in this situation. If the NHL, the NHL's money is the 32 teams money.

And if you are asking the NHL, and I understand it is a pittance compared to. to what the league brings in. I understand that you could easily just do this for this. It's a rounding error. Absolutely. Yeah. And it is not, it is, it is, it is, it is, it is, it is, it is, it is, it is, it is, it is, it is, it is, it is, I mean, we all know this. I mean, we all think the Vegas golden nights pay for something that the

Chicago Blackhawks did at a time when the Vegas Golden Knights didn't even exist. I mean, I, I mean, I, I, I, I, I, I, I mean, I, I, I, I mean, I, I, it's a minuscule amount of money. And I know we all think the NHL should do right here. But if you understand how the league works and then also understand who the fuck is, is it fault for all of this? And it's the black hawks. Well, that's the thing I was going to say is it's like, isn't it kind of letting Chicago off the hook a little bit by having the league pick up? Like Chicago should have to pick up the tap. Completely.

Right? Completely. Yeah. So I, and there's no, it's a bad look. I mean, there's no getting up. But, I mean, you know, there's been a series of bad looks at the league. And even given that, there's a difference between the answer they got versus saying, you know, this should come from Chicago, but the league is going to do everything in its power to make sure that, you know, this is interesting. Yeah, that's more of a phrasing situation, I think.

But the fact that they didn't even bother with the phrasing just tells you how little concern they actually have that any of the many, many fans expressing disgust at this. are actually going to back that up in any way that will impact the bottom line, which is very clearly all that this league ever cares about. And like I said yesterday, too, I think there's a certain amount of precedent here as well. I mean, like, it would certainly open the floodgates for... Yeah, to go back to Sean's point about the lawyer's taking over, I mean, like, how many steps away are we from taking care of the young man's counseling and therapy costs for something that a video coach from the Blackhawks did to him after his NHL

employment and like then paying you know CTE stuff like that's how they view it I'm not saying that it's right or wrong I'm just saying that's how they view it right like you know the after effects of things that happened with within context of the NHL which probably tells you all you need to know if this this league is concerned about how many people out there have been chewed up and spit out in various ways that they would need help that's you know know, they're probably not wrong, but that should really make it back. Yeah, and like, it's the NFL. It's, you know, you could go down the list of just about any sports league, like they're going to look after their financial interests on all this kind of stuff and like legal liabilities and things like that.

And, you know, like I've seen a lot of people trying to get their little, their little likes on Twitter for, oh, Gary Betman's got to go. Well, like, what do you think they're going to do? to introduce someone who's like three percent better and then you'll just be mad at that guy for the next 20 years? You know what I mean? Like there's just no. Yeah. They'll file the New York lawyer and hire the Toronto lawyer.

Yeah. Right? It's just, you know. Look, like, I'm not defending Gary Betten by any means, but what I'm saying is you're going to hate the next guy too. Like, and if he's just come, the, or like, whoever they hire is just going to come in and and maybe say things a little bit more nicely than Gary? Is that what we really want is like nothing to fundamentally change except how we're

talked to about it? It would help in some cases to have somebody who's a little got a little bit more finesse. You know what the thing? I was talking to some people behind the scenes. You know what the thing that he should have done was and the league should have done was, was they should have had someone like Kim Davis, their, you know, vice president for diversity and the growth of hockey and all that stuff, sit there instead of Bill Daly. on that press conference.

Like having Betman and Daley as your front-facing guys in a situation that required a scosh of empathy was probably not the best decision. That was kind of my take on it, but also other people's take on it. Let's talk about Chicago for a second because I don't think that we're, I don't think our No, he got fired on Saturday. So we weren't. Right. So our long national nightmare is over.

Jeremy Coulton gets fired. First of all, I will say this. I fully expect this to be the next Bruce Cass. where in like 10 years, like Colleton gets another gig and is like good at it because he just wasn't good at it now. And from a defensive system standpoint, Chicago is one of the worst teams in the hockey during his tenure as head coach. And he had no business as still being the head coach.

So they make the right call. And as as Ryan pointed out before, hey, here come to Blackhawks, baby. Two straight wins, both after regulation against Nashville and Pittsburgh at home. The coyote is up next coming to Chicago. And that Pittsburgh team didn't have Sydney Cross. We didn't have a game Malk and didn't. I think Brian Russ. Did Brian Ross not play last night?

Is that another guy that anyway? Right. Yeah, like a severely short-handed Pittsburgh team. And they're going to be fine. They play the Coyotes next. That's 3 and 0. And then they have a very manageable road trip of Seattle, Edmonton, Vancouver, and Calgary.

So they're going to be great. Like, they're going to probably have one seven in a row by the end of that road trip, right? Yeah, sure. No. So you don't believe that they're turning. the corner. You know, for some reason, I feel like after seeing, seeing them get outshot by a severely shorthanded penguins team like 44 to 30 or something like that, and blowing a third period lead at home, you know, and then just like not conceding a goal in overtime. Like, for some reason,

I don't feel like this team has figured it out yet. I don't, I don't feel like the Seth Jones contract has come good because he wasn't abjectly horrible on a Tuesday night in fucking November. Sean, do you think that they hire a new coach, or do you think that they let this play out and then let the next guy hire the coach? Well, that's it. I mean, they said that they won't. Oh, I didn't realize that. I'm sorry.

I didn't see that. is, like they've basically said they're King's the interim coach for the rest of the year. That would be a really long time to be an interim coach. That's unusual to go like 70 games. It, you know, it could happen. It's sort of, you know, there is a part of it that where you look at it and you say, well, Kyle Davidson is the interim GM. We don't want an interim GM hiring a new coach, but you let the interim GM fire a coach.

So I'm not sure why one would be okay and not the other. And Kyle Davidson said at the time, I've got full power as GM, like I'm going to run this team. So it struck me as a little bit odd. I suspect that maybe part of it is just they want to have a look at Derek King and see what he does. But if we're a month or two months into the Derek King experience and the team isn't any better and John Tortoralla is like, hey, man, I've got other offers. It wouldn't shock me if they decided to hire a full-time coach during the season. I see no way that Torts would rather coach an NHL team than talk to me on occasion.

I mean, I don't quite understand when you weigh those two possibilities for his life. I don't know. Yeah, I just, you know what it is, is I look at this team and I go, well, the season is already over for them. Like, what are they going to do? It's funny. for elite prospects, I think it'll be up, like, while we're recording this episode here. But, like, the pace they would have to play at to make the playoffs now is, like, 110 points or something like that. Like, the entire rest of the season, they would have to play at 100.

Let's put it this way. They have the same number of regulation wins as the Arizona coyotes who are running out fucking Jay Beagle as their first line center. Right? Like, the Arizona Coyotes are trying to be as bad as possible. And Chicago's like, oh, yeah, no, I was wrong. It's 104.4 points is how many they would need to make the playoffs right now. I say they do it. The only team with, well, no, that's not true.

Ottawa, Montreal, and Arizona are the teams with worse chances to make the playoffs based on how many points they've already put in the banks. Ottawa absolutely fucked me last night on the puck line against Boston. My God. If I'm, I swear to God, if I never hear about the fucking puck line and like prop bets about who score. It is ruining the way people talk about sports this shit. Is it though?

Yes, it definitely fucking is. I don't need to hear about it on the broadcast ever in my life. Okay, I know. Like you're a gambling addict. I get it. I'm not a gambling. What do I give a fuck if the NHL has a bigger audience? Who gives a shit?

Exactly. You don't like your garage band to become a major label. I understand. Yeah. Oh, that's why I like the NHL. I'm like, this is the best kept secret in fucking sports. The worst run league imaginable. I mean, listen, I will meet you halfway and say that there, the problem with the

oversaturation of wagering information is that it's not presented in a compelling way. It's just kind of like thrown at you. It feels like advertising. Right. That's 100% what it is. Yeah. Right. And I think that that part of it makes it feel repellent to people. I completely understand what you're saying. I think that it's a fun and an interesting way for people to get into the sport that aren't into it. But if you present that information as being part of an ad read or it's coming at you like it's just, you know, it feels foreign to what you're watching. It's not. Like a fucking fantasy football team.

That's all it is. I don't give a shit if you won an extra $38 last night because the Edmonton Oilers covered the fucking spread. Who gives it shit? It's poorly integrated is what it is. It doesn't make it feel like it's part of the conversation. It makes it feel alien. It feels like sometimes like they're trying to put an organ into the body that the body is rejecting. Right.

And there's a way to do it. And we just haven't figured it out yet because it's like too new. And teams don't know what they're doing yet. it. So I understand. I'm not nearly, I think we fundamentally disagree about gambling's place in sports and in hockey. But I understand how you feel about the overwhelming nature of it. Sean, where are we in Canada with that being integrated into broadcasts? Not quite to the same extent, but it is definitely becoming more and more prominent. I don't think they've cracked the code on how to do it any better.

than you guys have. Let's put it this way. Like how, Bally, a gambling outfit, like I believe they're a casino and things like that. Am I right about this? Right? Not sure. They, they're, yeah, they're a casino owner or operator. Yeah. They own the fucking stations that multiple NHL teams are broadcast on. So like, I'm not, I'm not like naive to think that this is going to, like, go away because people like me think it sucks. it's only going to get worse, as a matter of fact. But with that having been said, it sucks. Are you trying to put our friend Pete Blackburn out of a job?

He works for Bali. I know he does. And like, you know, get that gambling money. I don't care about that. That's fine. But what I'm saying is I do not need to hear about, because it's, you know, people every night are also tweeting like, oh, I made so much money because fucking Louis Erickson scored the first goal for Arizona tonight.

I bet on. They're like, okay, cool, great. Who gives a shit? See, I think that would be indicative of a problem. If you're laying money on Louis Erickson and or the Arizona Coyotes to score. That's indicative of the problem. It was, it was, I changed, you know, like Dragnet. The names were changed to protect the innocent.

But, boy, how fucking old am I? I'm bringing up Dragon. Jesus. Well, I mean, were you referring to the Tom Hanks film or the original? Which I'm sure came out. Jack Webb series. The Tom Hanks movie. It's probably late 90s.

I do remember. No way. No, no, I'm sorry. Late 80s I meant to say. Late 80s. Yeah. But it was 1987, it says here. But it was somebody tweeted out like I bet on this person to score the first goal in the Canucks game, I think.

And whoever scored the first goal had like zero goals on the year and was a guy you would never expect to score the first goal. And they were like, oh, I made like $500 on this. And again, it's just like, yeah, great. Unless I'm getting a cut, I guess I don't give a shit what you bet on or not bet on. Do you remember Tom Hanks' character's name from Dragnet? I do. Was he Joe Friday or was he the other one? He was Pep Strebeck.

Cool. Man's name was Pep. That's great. All right. We've dealt with a lot of heavy subjects here on the show so far, which means it's time to transition to something that hopefully will help everybody, which is BetterHelp. It's one of the sponsors of this week's show. BetterHelp, as you know, is a service that we've talked about before in the show. You can check them out at BetterHelp.com slash puck.

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I'm a believer in therapy and as you should be two. Now, moving on, Connor McDavid goal. What do you think? How great was that? One on four, slicing and dyson.

Goal of the year? Probably. It's going to be tough to be. I think, like, my immediate reaction was, is that the best goal I've ever fucking seen? I think it might be. It's that instant acceleration that he had before crossing the blue line is just remarkable.

He's got a turbo button that nobody else in the league gets to use. It's insane. It's insane. It's, um, and it was great. I mean, like, I've seen lots of great goals that sort of build slowly. And that one just like, by the time you even realized what was happening was done. It was just like, which just made it even, even better. It's, uh, it was, it was fantastic. And she's like, you're a hockey fan. needed that. You need it something to, you know, after this week that we've had and are still having something to go, oh, right, this sport is really freaking cool sometimes. And guys like

Connor McDavid can do insane stuff. The best part of that goal for me, obviously he goes through four guys very effortlessly, you know, but it's the fact that it's to cap this huge comeback, what was it, two, three goals, something like that late in the game. And also, So he gets the puck in the offensive zone, kind of like misplays it at the blue line, winds up back to center ice, waits for an outlet, everybody's out of position. So he's like, ah, fuck it. I'm doing this myself. It just goes through poor guys like they're not even there. Yeah, it really was that moment.

Like, he has the puck. Yeah, it was that moment of him saying. He has the fuck for a good 10 seconds before that fucking goal goes down. I can't, I don't think I've ever seen a goal before where someone kind of has this look that says, fuck it, I'm scoring. And then just goes and scores. Like, you're absolutely right. It was, it was incredible. It was like he decided he was going to score,

but, and then was, like, upset that none of his teammates came with him to, you know, it was like, okay, I, like, won against four or didn't want to have to do this. It's like, I will. And the fact that, you know, the fact that it was the comeback, right? Like, this, it would have been a phenomenal goal in the first period or any,

you know, if it was a seven to one game or whatever. But, like, it's one against four against a team defending a one goal lead late in the third period. Like, if there was ever a time where a team would be like, everybody just sit back, defense, defense, defense, you know, we don't care about anything other than just keeping the, oh, it's in. Yeah. And it's a Gerard Gallant team, right? Like, that guy, oh, that's like his thing is that they play tight defensively. It's against one of the better goalies in the league, right?

And he's just like, oh, yeah. It is as though none of you losers were even there. And, like, just, and, you know, everybody, the reaction of him doing the freaking face and all that kind of stuff. Like, it's all so cool that he's like, fuck, I did that. Whoa. That was wild. It's truly hockey. That really is awesome.

Hockey's good, Roy Jenkins moment where he just said, I'm going. And then no one came with him. Yeah. But if the Leroyer Jenkins guy easily defeated the big boss in the video, instead of getting everybody fucking killed. Exactly. What do we think of the Oilers? Pretty good. I think I said it last week, but, you know, they're, I mean, as we record this, they just lost to the Detroit.

The research in Detroit Red Wings. Detroit's doing work, though, man. There's no shame of losing Detroit at this point. They're doing work. Well, I mean, yes, sure there is. It's the Detroit Red Wings. They're like best player is a 19-year-old or whatever. They're very talented 19-year-old.

There's some shame. You know, once upon a time, the Oilers best player was a 19-year-old. The 19-year-old named Connor McDavid. So, I mean... That's right. You know what I'm saying? That's right. Yeah, no, like Detroit is playing, like, punching above their weight, for sure. But, yeah, anyway, point is the only thing I don't trust with the Oilers is the

goaltending, right? Like, everything else, you're just going, you know what? Okay. I thought maybe they'd give up more scoring chances against or whatever. And in fact, they are, I looked this up last night. They're still like second in the league from the bottom, I should say, in expected goals against per 60 minutes. So like they are just goalying a bunch of teams, you know, right now. And I don't know that Miko Koskinan is the guy I think can keep that up.

If this was, you know, Tampa, Winnipeg or somebody like that where it's like, oh, yeah, have a proven good goalie. That would be one thing. But, you know, again, they're just, they're going to score enough goals to, to keep them in games, but, you know, let's, let's not look past the fact they needed this huge comeback because they had given up five goals earlier in the game, right? Like to the New York Rangers who aren't exactly lighting the world. They're not lighting the world on fire.

This is correct. Florida is sticking on the chin in a couple straight games once last night, courtesy of my devils, which was an exhilarating to see. You know, that's an interesting situation there because, like, now these last two games have sort of, like, spoken to my curiosity about what a post-Quinville situation for this team looks like because they really kind of need to regroup a little bit. And so now what does the interim coach do to help to that end? And it's going to be the real first test to see if they have to maybe stick with Brunette or if they have to go out and find someone to replace Quenville eventually this season. Yeah, it's interesting. So they have two games left on their, on their current.

road trip. Neither of their losses were at home, we should say. And in fact, they're undefeated at home as a matter of fact so far this season. But then from, I'm looking at it here, November 16th to December 4th, they have one road game.

And out of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. So they play 8 out of the next 9 at home once this road trip is done. That will be what I think ultimately decides whether they go out and get another coach. Because if they lose two, three games at home after whatever, one and three, one, two and one road trip, something like that, even two and two at this point, right? Maybe you hit the panic button a little bit, but also they've banked, I think, in what, 20-something points, right? Like, they're a really good team.

They're playing well. They're pretty good. They do okay. Yeah. Carolina's good. Yeah, that's right. We're breaking a lot of news on this. They're pretty good.

Their only loss of the season is to the Florida Panthers. Yeah, they're pretty good. Can't complain. And the thing with both Florida and Carolina is it's not just a case of how good they are. but also you look at the rest of the division and, you know, it's kind of falling into place reasonably well for them. Like, you know, unlike, for example, with Edmonton, you know, they're great. They're in first place. But Calgary looks a lot better. Vegas is, you just got Jack Eichol, so, you know, you're still kind of looking at that going, I don't know.

Whereas you look at the Atlantic, Tampa hasn't been great yet. Toronto has been really up and down. Boston's just okay. You know, nobody thinks Detroit's really going to hang in the whole time. So, I mean, the path there for Florida looks pretty clear. And the metro, you know, Washington's kind of divisive, but the islanders haven't been great. Pittsburgh hasn't been great. Well, the thing is the rest of the metro, they are the worst team in the division by, again, I wrote this yesterday. So, you know, it's all fresh in my mind.

The penguins are on pace for like 90 points or something like that, and they're by far the worst team. in the division. Like, everybody else is on pace for, like, 98 plus points. Yeah, but there's so many loser points in that division. And I know that's part of it, but, like, Washington is, you know, playing at a 667 points pace. They won six games and lost six games, you know. Pittsburgh's 4 and 7. New York's 5 and 5.

New Jersey is 6 and 5. Like, everyone, other than Columbus, everyone's record is really inflated. So, and then you got Carolina at 10 and 1, and, you know, it's all legit. Yeah. Well, just, you know, I guess my point is that, yeah, like the same, like you were saying with Detroit, nobody thinks Columbus is going to keep this up, right? Right. But, you know, like just being able to, with respect to the Atlantic in particular,

it's starting to look, it's starting to really look like it's going to be five teams out of the Metro taking playoff spots. And so if you don't finish top three in the Atlantic, you're going to be in tough shape to... If that happens, that's Toronto, Boston, or Tampa. Yeah. Oh, no, that's what I'm saying. And the thing with all those teams is, like,

it's going to be a razor-thin margin between any of them, because, like, you know, the Bruins are a few points back right now, but they also have more games in hand than anybody in the league, right? So I don't know. I think the East is going to be really fun. Like the West is just kind of like, you know, whatever you think of the best teams in the Central, we're all just kind of waiting for Colorado to get their shit together. The Pacific, you know, nobody expects San Jose Anaheim or Los Angeles to keep up their current paces.

And so you're just kind of waiting for Vegas. but it's going to be a knife fight in the east, I guess is my point. Speaking of razor-thin margins and knife fights, today's episode of Poxi was sponsored by Manscaped. Ho, ho, ho, gentlemen. The holidays came her early here at Manscape. Wow. He didn't even tee himself up for that one.

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He did not get met at the airport by the showgirls and the Elvis and the Knights and the mascot. He was very upset about that. But then he found out that they were all waiting for him at the team headquarters and he was a happy boy. He sounded the siren at the Vegas game. He looked happy. Yeah, on Wednesday. He held his first press conference And didn't really say anything we hadn't heard before

But had his big intro to the Vegas community And seemed pretty happy about it So Jack Eichel in Vegas Any other fallout from that deal that you guys wanted to talk about? Sean, did you get your shots in about the Eichael deal on the mailbag? Yeah, I think so or I wrote about it or, you know, it's kind of disappointing for Buffalo, but probably realistic given the situation. Is it too early to get excited about McDavid versus Eichael in the Pacific file?

That was one thing he talked about in his press conference that was legitimately funny, which was somebody asked him about being in the same division as Connor and being, like, linked with Connor in perpetuity because of the draft. And yeah, and he's like, I fucking love it. He's like, he said something like, you know, of all the guys I had to be linked to, right? And he's like, I really got the Shroydon to the stick there. And it was very, very, very funny. I appreciated it.

Well, there's like, I like the fact that, you know, I want to see him against McDavid head to head. But like, he's got Mark Stone on his line, which is a real, like, I'm bringing my big brother to school to help deal with the bully energy to it. Right. Like, that kind of does even it up a little bit. That's, yeah, that'll be fun. Yeah, I saw Dom already wrote his, how great will the Eichel Stone and Patchy Ready line be, which to me was an attack on Chandler Stevenson,

more than anything else. That poor bastard, that poor bastard had it all set up for him to be the center, to be like the Andy McDonald of the, like, gets-laff Perry line. The Chris Coonet. Right, right. Like, he had the chance to be that guy,

and then they go and trade for Jack Eichol, and now he'll have to skate with like whoever's on the third line now that they got rid of Alex Tuck. I don't know. I'm happy for Jack. He seemed like he was in his element. And I have a piece on the Sabres coming out this week that kind of looks ahead at a situation that while I wasn't crazy with the trade return and I got my reasons for it. Like I really do think that despite what Kevin Adams said, if they retained salary on Eichl, they could have opened up the trade market. If not found a better package, at least found market forces that could have influenced maybe a better.

package. I do think that they're in better shape than people give them credit for. I think they've got some pieces that are on the way that they could be pretty good in short time, even if... You're famously a big Casey middle stack. Well, I'm not. And then, you know, when I talk to Kevin Adams, he's putting over T.H. Thompson, I'm like, okay, sure, buddy.

But, like, you know, they've got two good goalies in the system now, Owen Power, provided they could... You know what the key to that team might be, honestly? is like, you know how Eckblad has his McKenzie Weeger and Dougie had his Jacob Slavin? Like, they need to find that guy for Dahlian, and then I think he'll be fine.

Like, they need to find that type of defensive defenseman who can let him grow and do his offensive things and not be necessarily the liability that he is on the defensive end. They need to find that guy. And I'm not sure who he is, but once they do that, he'll be okay, and then Owen Power is going to be great. So they've got

some pieces that are solid, even if they don't have... I got two words for you. Nikita Zedore. Now you're talking. What do you think? But they pluck, you know, losing Eichl is like losing, you're a young galaxy and the sun just went out, right? Like now all the planets are all going to go witch away.

And who even knows is going to happen. But they'll be fine. Let's touch on the Cole Cawfield thing for a second. Oh, wait, wait, no, can we say one more thing about the savers? You could say whatever you want, buddy. Okay, great. Elliot reported that apparently Eichl asked for a trade after the 2019 season. That's what Eichl told him.

Yeah. Yeah. And the Pagoolas took it very personally that he wanted out. And that's insanely funny to me. How dare he ask out of such a great situation with the Buffalo Sabres? Oh. Well, I mean. The temerity.

I understand what you're saying, but isn't there something to be said for the fact that they just handed that guy the contract they handed them? Like, what is the $80 million contract or whatever it is? And, like, he's asking out. Like, could you see some level of sympathy there? No. They're, you know, they're not like Melnick levels, you know, of bad ownership, but they're bad owners. And certainly taking it personally did work out great for them because they really maximize the value on the ask. waiting until the last possible minute.

I've said it before, but it really seems like a lot of the situation around the trade was very motivated by spite. Like, fuck you, Jack Eichel, you want out? Well, we're going to make your life miserable about it. And you could still see, like, inklings of that in their reaction to the salary retention. Like, in Kevin Adams' comments, he's like, we shouldn't have to retain salary for a player like Jack Eichel. Like, you know, so. All right, the Col Cawfield thing, if you're not familiar with it, the Utica Comets of the American Hockey League. This story is so funny.

Oh, my God. So, so Cole Cawfield, a presumptive rookie of the year front runner, was demoted by the Montreal Canadians, the HL after having one assist, I think, in his first 10 games this season. Yeah, something like that. the Utica Comets on Twitter tweeted, yo, at Cole Clawfield,

you hear? Everyone keeps saying you're here, but we haven't noticed. Did you not play in the first period when they played the Canadian's HL affiliate? And that is absolutely brutal. Well, his dad got mad about the tweet. That's the funny part.

Like, you know, again, like the epic bacon epic baconification of like team PR stuff like is he he they did not just say that oh my god like okay we get it that's fine but the fact that his dad was like how dare you tweet this about my son that rocks that's so fucking funny to me i think this is fine except for one thing which is that they they used his twitter handle in the tweet and so that kind of crosses over into a little bit of the bullying accusations that his dad was making, like, you didn't have to fucking link his Twitter and have a bunch of your fans all goofing on him on Twitter, like, you know, directly add him. That's stupid.

But I don't have any problem with teams taking a run at opposing players. My God, what the fuck are we doing? This is professional sports. Like, you know, hand out posters that deride a player. Who gives a shit? But, like, you know, actually, like, adding him on Twitter is, I think, a little bit, was their misstep in this that opened the door to it being maybe a little bit more. untoward than it was.

But the HL stepped in and kind of like slapped the Utica comments on the wrist and said it don't do that to players or whatever, but I don't know. Sean, what did you think? Yeah, start doing it to coaches. Are NHL players like actually checking their mentions like every night

like the rest of us? I don't know. The whole like, oh, they shouldn't have tagged them thing. It's, you know, it's like Ryan said, every team social media account now tries to be the hurricanes and, you know, walk that line of like look at our cute little whatever it is and and sometimes they're going to

go over the line or or misfire and i feel like this was kind of that um but that's all it was i mean i i don't know there's i i hate to it feels kind of cliche to say that like there's a hundred worst things set on the ice every night but there are and i i just have a really hard time thinking that like Cole Coffield got back to the hotel after the game or whatever and like fired up his phone and was like, oh no, my mentions, what's, what's going on? I mean, if he hasn't already stopped doing that, like, dude, you're on the Montreal Canadians, you probably should just ignore the, you're going to hear a lot worse from a lot dumber people.

So, you know. Yeah, and that's just in the Montreal. I think it's more likely I'm not trying to be dismissive of like player mental health and all that stuff and you know I'm not saying you just have to grin and take all of it but I thought this was a bit overblown this was a weird place to plant the flag

of unacceptable behavior that these guys have to deal with and I don't know again it came from his dad maybe his dad knows more about the situation than the rest of us it just struck me as I think it may be like came from his dad because his dad has at Cole Cawfield in his tweet deck and then just saw the thing. Yeah, absolutely.

Get lit up by comments fans goofing on his son. All right. Is there anything else to talk about before we get to overrated and underrated this week? I think we've covered most of the bases. Yeah, I think that's about right. Very exciting. All right, so there's three choices. Songs played at a wedding reception.

Fancy stats in all sports or toast spreads. Now, we already started noodling through the fancy stats part. Did you like that idea, Sean, or do you want to do something different? We could do it. I think you guys were talking about it before I popped on, so I may be wolffully underprepared, but why, you know, why mix things up? Let's go with it. Here we go. Overrated.

Wins above replacement. I don't understand the stat at all. I think it's fun. I like to use it my writing. What's not to get? I get. Tell me, explain it to me. Okay, so like a replacement, do you know what a replacement level players?

Yes, I do. And I like other replacement stats, as you'll see, but wins above replacement, I find it to be nebulous. I don't understand. What do you mean, nebulous? I don't get what your objection here. Do you find that, what about in baseball? Like, does it make sense to you in baseball and it's just a hockey thing? It might be just a hockey thing.

Yeah, maybe just a hockey thing. Because I love it in baseball. In fact, I'll skip ahead. The one number stats are my favorite stat when they work. I make my own rules. He's making all the rules, folks. I love these stats when they work. I don't think we're there yet in hockey, but like in baseball, it's fantastic.

Yeah, maybe that's my issue is that we're not there yet in hockey. Look, I've had my issues with like these kinds of things. There was one that came out several years ago that more than that now probably. That was like the most. valuable player in the NHL is, you know, Andy McDonald or whoever it was, it was just like, yeah, you know what, like, if this is what your stat is spitting out, like, you're going to take this back to the drawing board. But, like, when you look at the current war models, I think you go, yeah, that's a rough

approximation of who the best players in the league are, you know? And so, especially if you break it out by position, you're like, yeah, okay, like, it's hard to quantify, I guess. like defense versus forward and that sort of thing. But I think they mostly do a pretty good job of getting it right. What's your most overrated stat? This is a long time baseball stat that people sometimes still bring up. Catcher ERA.

You ever see this one? It's like the combined ERA of all the pitchers that a catcher catches. So, like, it is, it signifies absolutely fucking nothing. Like, it's a total garbage stat. But I think, I think you hear about it. A shocking amount for how useless it is. I think that's an amazing stat because in baseball,

aren't there certain catchers that really good pitchers prefer to throw to? Like, I remember that being a case on the Mets. some years. Maybe, but like if you're a catcher who catches, like I don't know who the catcher for like the 96 Atlanta Braves was where it's like, oh yeah, we have like 15 Cy Young

winners on the, it's like, oh, I bet that guy had a pretty good CERA. Yeah. First of all, this Greg Olson erasure will not stand. The fact, the thing, the fascinating thing about catchers in baseball

when it comes to fancy stats is like for years there was this old view that like there was such a thing in catching as like being able to get calls like you could some guys frame the pitches and people were like no that's that's not a thing or if it is a thing it's it's going to come out in the watch it's going to be such and then like over the years the stats started like actually backing that up and showing that yeah this actually does seem to be a pretty significant thing for certain guys i found that fascinating like the idea that fancy stats helped us potentially change our mind on something that as they got more and more clarity.

And I'd be interested to see that happen in hockey if anyone was ever willing to change our minds about anything. It's your most overrated stat there. Oh, less. I'm going to say PDO just because I feel like it's useful up to a point, but it now, and I don't even know if it counts as fancy anymore, but it sort of gets overused to the point where it's like, you know, some team will win three games in a row and someone's like, yeah, but their PDO is 100.4.

And it's like, right, that's what happens when you win a lot. Yeah, of course. Yeah. Or it's like, you know, or it's like, you know, this team's PDO is high. And it's like, yeah, they have like amazing goaltending and like really talented shooters. There probably should be. Like it's just this idea. Yeah, like how the Bruins led the league in PEDO.

Yeah. You know, and again, this is kind of similar to like how expected goals work. It's like, yeah, there are some guys who. have a naturally higher safe percentage or a naturally higher shooting percent. Like Alex Ovechkin is always going to, you know, have a, or Stephen Stamco's is always going to have a higher shooting percentage than fucking, a random defenseman, you know, like so, of course, that, but, you know, and let's put it this way. No, nobody who's dead serious is using PDO.

That's like getting into the combined plus minus territory. of like, oh, this is just a guy who's brain doesn't want. It was useful for a time to, like, sort of let us know that, hey, if it's a big flashing warning sign on the dashboard, that this is either, that there's a lot of randomness or luck or chance or whatever we want to call it playing into these results. But, yeah, at this point, I feel like we can mostly let it go. Underrated. I like, I like what the NFL is doing with some of their next gen stats. or at least attempting to. And I'm a big fan of above-expected stats.

And one of them that I was fiddling around with this morning that I'll spotlight here is yards after a catch above-expected. So, you know, the average number of yards after a catch you'd expect a receiver to get, and then which players go above and beyond that insofar as the offense they create after-a-catch. It's a fun stat. And I think that, you know, baseball and hockey, I think, are very both. analytically driven sports and, you know, basketball's got its moments. Certain members of the Edmonton meeting.

Yeah. And be in a lot of trouble. I think football is a sport that I would like to, admittedly, I don't know enough about the next-gen stats in the NFL and would like to learn more about them because I think there are probably ways to really analyze the game that aren't being utilized quite yet. I know it's not like the best stat or anything, but in terms of, of the NBA's win probability at a WPA is really interesting to me because it's all based on box scores. And so, like, you can go back and you can go, oh, like, Bill Russell in 1956.

This was his WPA. And here it is. And here's how it compares to, like, LeBron James now. And I don't know. That's cool to me that you can just go, yes, like, here's a guy who played. before they let like black people play the game. And, and here's how he compares to today.

And, you know, it's, again, it's like much like, uh, it's much like war, right,

or in baseball where you, you can just go, oh yeah, this is what this guy is played in, 1988, uh, or, or 1888 or 288 or 2088.

Here's how they all compare to one another with a single, a single, a single, uh, stat. That's the greatest thing about baseball. I don't know basketball very well, but baseball stats where you can just, like, how does Babe Ruth compare to Mike Trout? Yep, that rocks. You at least have a starting point versus the NHL where it's like we don't have any meaningful numbers before 2007.

That's right. Sorry. We didn't keep track of shots on goal until 1987. Yeah. And you're like, you fucking didn't? What about you, Sean? Um, mine, underrated, I would say in hockey, anything involving goaltenders and, and that's sort of a vague answer, but just I appreciate any efforts made because I feel like partly because there was so much work to be done on skaters and partly because it seems so difficult, we kind of just skipped over so much goaltending stuff. Um, you know, to the point where even now, a lot of the major models, like, just don't really account for goaltending.

Uh, or, or not that they don't account for it, but they can, at least at individual level. I don't. Yeah. And it's like, I get it. And they're sitting, they're saying, like, we don't have enough good inputs to put into the model that it's going to spit out something useful. But let's get those inputs. And so, you know, when I see stuff like expected saves above average and that, you know, even if they're not quite there yet, I'm happy to see that because it's nice to have something other than just save percentage and goals against for what's probably the most important position in the sport. when I hear people talk about goals against average in 2021, I'm just like, what the fuck? It really is mystifying to me. And when you watch a lot of NHL games, you hear about it constantly. And it's just like, yeah, I mean, who gives a shit? It's a team stat. It tells you very little about the goalie in question.

Correct. Favorite. See, now this is where I will make you. and both the evolving wild twins happy. My favorite stat is goals saved above replacement. I love this stat. I think this is one of the best. That's not what the stat is.

What? Isn't it just goals saved above expected and gold saved above average? Like, aren't those the two measures? Like, I don't think replacement comes into it. Goals save above average then? Who gives a shit, fucking verbiage point? I love the... These would be two extremely different stats.

I love the idea of using the average goalie X to explain the success of a goaltender. It's one of my favorite things. And actually, like, any advanced goalie stat is really my favorite thing, because as we were just discussing with goals against average, a woefully misunderstood position and poorly quantified position. but I'll go with that as my favorite set. I really like Pocoda, the baseball stat where it's projecting player. Right, I love that it is named after a player.

I love that it's pretty accurate, honestly. Like even in 2021, where we're well-past things like VARP or Warp 3 for evaluating player performance. It's like, yeah, Pacota still like pretty much holds up. You know, it's been revised a few times over the years, I'm pretty sure.

But yeah, it's a cool stat, and I like that it's named after a guy. Nate Silver, wasn't it? His thing? Yeah, that was his thing. Way back in the day. I, you know, I

mean, I sort of already said war, but I'll pick another baseball one, which is the batting average on balls put into play. Babibbip. We love babbitt. Which was just so great because what they, you know, we're always thinking of stats as telling us useful things and like telling us, you know, who's good and who's bad. But what they did is they found, you know, if people don't know, they basically found that for a pitcher, pitchers have control, obviously over how many strikeouts they get, how many walks they get, how many home. runs they give up, but once the ball is put into play, in other words, the batter hits the ball,

but it's not a home run, the batting average of those balls seems pretty random. It doesn't seem to have, you know, at one point they thought there was no pitcher control, no correlation. There may be is a little bit, but it's not very much, which is very counterintuitive. You would think somebody with good stuff who was hard to hit would give up more weak rounders and, you know, pop-ups and that sort of thing, but it doesn't seem to be the case. And what was so fascinating is, you know, here's a case of a stat that turns out to tell us nothing, but that kind of tells us everything, because it has such an enormous effect on ERA and, you know, all the other things, a pitcher measures that here was this magic number that you could look at

and figure out, like, if a pitcher suddenly had a bad year unexpectedly, well, was it just bad luck, or was it something else? And it was such a fascinating number. And, you know, if any team had figured this out before any of the other teams, they would have had such an enormous advantage because you would have just been able to look at pitchers and know magically how much of their results were luck-based and how many weren't. I would love to see something like that developed in hockey. Maybe it has been. Maybe some team has it. And we don't know.

But like, wouldn't that be amazing if you could just look at, you know, oh, this guy had 50 goals three years in a row, but he only got 25 last year. Is this it? Is he done? Is something? And you could look at a number. number, a secret number, nobody else was even really looking at and go, no, that was fake. He's going to go get him now while the price is low. You know, you'd be able to buy low and sell high on everybody.

And it would just, I love the story behind that. Well, to that point, like, it is kind of shocking to me that, like, even now we have teams selling low on guys who had, like, bad shooting percentages and. Or on a nice save percentage for, you know, especially on defensemen is maybe. It's incredible how much that, like, is still a thing in hockey to me. But to your point, and, like, another stat I was just telling before we started recording that I was telling Greg I like is FIPP, fielding independent pitching statistics, which tries to get the luck factor removed from the equation, for lack of a better term. And, like, there's also XFIP where it's like, well, if a random pitcher, uh, gave up these exact, you know, opportunities for the ball and play and that kind of thing.

How would that affect? Like, it's fucking amazing. Like, the amount of shit you can do in baseball because it's such a kind of, like, static sport in a lot of ways, is really amazing to me. And, like, it's so interesting. I'm sure it's, like, badly out of date now. But, like, the book, Baseball Between the Numbers. that shit is fucking

like it changed the way I thought about sports Wow you know so impressive Yeah it's fucking really good All right Or it was in 2007 or whatever Least favorite for me I mean honestly It's got to be

Fenwick Fuck Fenwick I'm a coursey man Through and through Till I die Till I die Corsi through and through Corsi for life

You know what Block shot at 10 they matter. Factor them in. Fuck off Fenwick with your refuse to acknowledge blocked shot attempts. Yeah. So get that.

I get where you're coming. And what is Fenwick, if not the inferior product to an accepted thing, right? You know, like, like, it's like the Mr. Pib to course he's Dr. Pepper, if you will. I will say, I will say that when I was first getting in, into all these kinds of things.

Could I have told you the difference between Fenwick and Corsi ever in my entire? No. Like, I had to ask people smarter than me like 50 times. Okay, which one means what again? That was it. I knew the difference. But which one was which? Yeah, that's right.

I was like, and I feel bad because I used to read Matt Fenwick when he was blogging about the Calgary Flames. And I don't want to be the one taking money out of his pocket from the lucrative trademarking of Fenwick. as I'm sure he's made, you know, a considerable amount of money. That's right. But listen, Jim Corsi got to eat, and I'm a Corsi, man. So Corsi over Fenwick.

Fenwick is my least favorite stat. Yeah, full credit to Jim Corsi for inventing that stuff. Right. In a lab with the notepads and calculators. They tried to like reverse engineer that actually he did invent it, and it wasn't just like the guy who came up with the stat. Like his mustache That was the best part

Literally like this mustache Yeah that's it Right All right Least favorite Ryan You know You love all stats

They're all your children It's like picking your They rock Stats are so cool I don't know I don't know if we're gonna If we're gonna say Like this is an advanced stat anymore

But like WOWI It counts You can Okay great WOWIs are Meaningless And it took me a long time to understand that, obviously. But maybe not like totally meaningless just in terms of like, yeah, if you play a bunch of hockey with Nicklidstrom, you're probably going to have things work out for you, you know?

But like, for the vast majority of NHL players, it is a meaningless fucking staff. Right. But we should point out at least a good name. It's a great name. That's a song. Yeah. The problem is that there's never, in those cases, usually a. enough time spent away from the player you're trying to, you know.

I mean, there's a lot of reasons why it's stupid, but that's certainly one of them. Yeah, I mean, it's like one of those, like, let's see how good Aaron Eckblatt is away from McKinsey Weger. And it's like he's played 13 minutes away from McKenzie Weaker. Like, like, what's the point? There's no point. Okay. Uh, for, I mean, I'm, I'm kicking at a corpse here, but, uh,

arguably the worst stat in the history of sports, the original quarterback rating in the NFL. Just completely incomprehensible. Like a ridiculous scale doesn't measure anything of particular value. And old timers love it. Like they still will break it out. They'll be like, oh, this passer rating was like 14.6. And you're just like, nobody knows what that means.

It doesn't tell us anything good. It doesn't tell us anything about how the position is played because it doesn't include rushing. We have better alternative. Like, fire it into the sun. Why is anybody ever ever mentioning this anymore? I personally love any stat that there's like a max that you can reach in terms of what the stat is. And it's 158.3. I love a nice round number, like 158.3.

And the low is like, can you get a zero? Or is there like a... I think you start... As a Jets fan, I can assure you you you can get a zero. Absolutely can get zero. But you have to like actively dig. You have to run into your lineman's ass. Yes.

All right. All right. All right. Listen, that's a puckster for this week. It's great to have Sean back. And you can read my stuff at ESPN. Like I said, column this week's about the Buffalo Sabres. Also wrote about the Chicago Blackhawks on ice product earlier this week.

It's good, you were saying. It's many people are saying. And also, we'll have a glance at the rookies. They're back. A glance at the rookies on Friday on ESPN, a glance that got much more complicated with Spencer Knight's last two games. This kid stinks now. We all agree. We all agree now he stinks. What about you, Ron?

Yeah, like I mentioned earlier, E.P.Rankside.com. I wrote about the paces that teams have played with so far this season and will need to continue to play at to stay in the playoff picture or get into the playoff picture, I guess. And then I'll have a take town tomorrow, I think. And on Friday, I'm going to be writing the three stars like I always do. So, you know, the takes never stop. And when you want to sign up for EP Rinkside, use the code I Love E.P. all one word, at checkout, when you buy an annual subscription, and you will get an extra three months added on to the end of your sub for free.

So that, I would say, is a huge bargain, and that's it for me for plugs. Find me on the Athletic. It's Hall of Fame Week. It's one of my favorite weeks of the year where I get to write a bunch of Hall of Fame stuff. I remember being told once by an editor that those, like, never do well. but I don't care. They're fun. So today I've got the Hall of Fame argument for it against for a half dozen current players that are kind of on the fence. And later this week, I am going to attempt to rank every Hall of Fame class ever from worst to best, which I shouldn't do because there's way too many of them.

But that hasn't stopped me before. So check it out and prove my editor wrong. Keep in mind that some of those classes There's people that exist Only because they want people from Toronto to come to the event Right Sure Yeah

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