Puck Soup - Important Theories

Episode Date: March 20, 2025

Sean and Ryan talk about the latest news from GM meetings, the wild card races, the Sabres, and more. Sponsored by Factor (factormeals.com/FACTORPODCAST)

I'm Ryan Lambert from Elite Prospects. I am Sean McNeugh from The Athletic. And Sean is back from vacation. He was gone for a week and a half, was it? It was a week. Okay. And then some travel days. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, got it. So. So, yeah, I did a, go ahead. It was nice to be away. It was nice to be, I would say, semi-unplugged for mocking. Mm-hmm. I was talking to Greg yesterday. and he also went on vacation last week,

which really left me in a real pickle regarding bonus episodes and things of this nature. But I asked him what he kept up with, and he was like basically anytime I went to the bathroom, I was looking at my phone and otherwise I wasn't at all. And it's like, is there a better place to catch up on hockey news than taking a shit? Yep, that's it.

The NHL. Number one with a bullet, man. Absolutely. But, I guess let's start off with, do you have any, you, you were, you were here for the trade deadline, like you didn't go on vacation, but we did not have a show before you went on vacation. So, or after you went, you know what I mean. Shut the fuck. So do you have any quick thought, like just real quick, you know, micro thoughts on the trade deadline?

I think my micro thoughts are, it feels like it was a month ago. No fucking kid. Yeah, absolutely. I see, okay, I didn't know if that was just a me being on vacation thing or like, but, I mean, it was a good deadline. It was a fun deadline. Definitely.

Big names. You know, the rant and drama playing out. The Brian Marchand trade dropping at the last minute was, you know, very good TV and, you know, fun. Probably the last. fun Twitter moment that we'll ever have. Yeah. So good deadline.

Thumbs up for me. Well done, NHLGMs, most of you. It was, it delivered. I guess this is the only real question I have. Where were you on the rantan-in-in? Did Carolina beef it? No. I don't think so.

I think in... in poker terms, I feel like they got a lot of chips in with good odds. And then some of the cards that came down after didn't help them. But they still had some outs. You know, there's a concept in poker where you go in, you might think you have the better hand, but even if you don't, even if you're wrong, you figure, you know, you've still got some outs to draw to something that's going to help you.

And I think that's kind of their situation. It was a good bet to make the initial trade. Yep. And they knew that even if the worst case played out, which it pretty much did, which is, you know, I guess the worst case would have been renting and stringing them along and kind of screwing them over. For sure, yeah, of course. But the next worst case, which was him just saying, you know what, no, I don't like it here.

I'm not going to stick around. They had some outs. which included keeping him or making a deal that would, you know, on balance, I still feel like if you went back in the summer and said, here's what goes out, here's what comes back in, take rent in out of the equation, I think we're happy with that. Now, I would have liked it more if they had been able to flip one or both of those first round picks. I think that's happening at the draft.

but And it would have been better to do it Like it Yeah I get it They'd gotten like a Brock Besser Sure With one of those first And still gotten Stan Coven

And still had a first In their back pocket Then I think it's It's an A plus Yeah But as it stands We had Rachel Dory on last week In your stead

And you know She might know Some people Who work at the Canucks front office You know Oh yeah And she She mentioned

that, not to relitigate all this, I guess, but she mentioned that just like, they kind of had a deal in place for Besser, and they just kind of didn't have time to get it done. Right. So, I mean, that is, whatever that means, I mean, that could reflect maybe not great on some of this stuff. Also, can I just say to the NHL, like, I don't know,

maybe on deadline day, maybe hire a second. dude no process they can't do it nope it's just one guy and he's he's like one of those like comically old guys you know what I'm talking about

like the guy who played blue in old school who you know has since passed on but just like he scans is like way older than he is he's like you know 78 but you look at him and you're like is that guy 112

that's who the NHL has but he's actually 112 yeah yeah and and you know that guy He doesn't know how to go on computer too good. But maybe, just maybe a second guy so that we don't have an eight-hour backlog every day. Nope, not going to happen. All right.

Do you think when, like, if you're Tulski and you, like, call in and you're really hoping to get this rent and thing done so that you can. Keep willing and dealing. Do you think you hear, like, somebody say that they're experiencing a higher than normal? He just, I think, I think what you hear is a lot of. of like papers being shuffled around and they're like falling down and someone kind of in the background going on like oh shit and like you know just they have all the paperwork somewhere but it is being mishandled you know that's kind of that's kind of where i think it all uh it all i still feel like because because the thing out of vancouver was there was that sound bite where

it wasn't rutherford right it was it was it was all being saying you wouldn't believe the dog shit they were offering me for Brock Besser, who sucks, by the way. It was basically how everybody took it. And then later it comes out that they wanted a first and they just didn't get a first. Carolina had two first. Yep. If, like, Brock Bessor for a first round pick, how do you run out of time for that? How hard is it really?

I get that you have to argue over, like, which first round pick. Yeah, I don't know the answer to that, but... Yeah. All right. GMs have very, very hard jobs. It's really tricky. It's really an active heroism. Especially if you're not like super motivated to do things.

Yeah, they just, the fact that they roll out of bed in the morning is just breathtaking. Now, you mentioned adding a second guy. That might be in one of these things that Gary Bettman talked about yesterday at GM meetings or Board of Guard. whichever one they're doing at the golf resort in Florida this time, or maybe it's the one in California. It's impossible to keep track, but just another excuse for a bunch of old guys to be like, you know what,

let's just like spend four days golfing. What do you say? So weird how the draft and the All-Star game move around, but the GM meetings never get held in Ottawa. No, no, no. It's crazy. I heard, you know, the NHL might expand to the Bahamas next year. Really?

You know? Anyway, basically here's what I think is a pretty full accounting of what Batman said yesterday. No rule changes being proposed. That's good for me. I think they have it kind of figured out a little bit. But that does include no extended three on three over time, which people kind of have been pushing for all of a sudden. Yep. Any thoughts on that?

I mean, it's kind of I would have loved to have seen the extended three on three get some traction. You know me. I'm always hoping against hope that somebody puts their hand up and goes, hey, offside review sucks and everyone hates it. But nope. So disappointment, but not remotely surprised. Yeah.

Did you see his excuse for why, like what their concern would be? He's wearing terror on the players and ice conditions leading to injury. I don't know that the extra two minutes is doing it personally, you know. But, you know, the first guy to blow out his ankle at 501 of an overtime. See? We told you. It's in the same vein as like how you can't hear about the Olympics and the NHL not having a real stake in it without like, I don't know if you know this, but John Tavares got hurt in 2009 or 2009 or what.

You know, like, it's just like, yep, there's the one thing that they always point to. And off we go forever. And not so much with ice conditions, but this whole like wear and tear thing and like, you know, Nathan McKinnon talking about how tired he gets during overtime. I'm just going to throw this out there. What if we allowed coaches to use more than six guys for the entire overtime? Yeah, that's a bit of a money ball thing where they're just not going to put out a third guy. third line guy. Okay, here's the deal. If you're worried your guys get too tired, put out the third line guys. Or the other option... We look into it and no. It's not going to happen.

Shut up about this because it's obviously a fake problem if you're, you know, not, like, I have no sympathy on the whole like, oh, this is bad for the teams if there's a very obvious strategy that fixes the problem. They just choose not to use. Right. Because... Well, look, Nathan McKinnon, this guy, he's got a, he's got an MVP case to try to uphold that, you know, I don't want to get into the, we'll talk about awards races next week. But like, this is just another thing where everyone's like, well, we decided Nathan McKinnon needs to be in this awards race. And it's like, doesn't he have like 25 points with an empty net or like three on three? Yeah, but, you know, hey, that's, that's hockey. Okay.

All right, cool. Sounds good, man. So that I think definitely plays into it. That like that's an easy way for guys to pick up points that, you know, if they can add eight points onto their season at the end of the year by playing, you know, three and a half minutes of the three on three. Why wouldn't an All-Star do that? That's just kind of how I view it. Decentralized draft. This might be a one and done.

It sounds like Betman's like, this sucks. Fuck this. Which is interesting to me because the only other time that I can remember the NHL going forward with a change that the teams wanted GMs and Board of Governors and what have you that Gary Bettman publicly didn't want was when, you remember a few years ago when they had that draft pick compensation for. coaches. And front office guys, right? Am I wrong? The GM? They made it so that, you know, if you hired somebody who was under contract to another

team, it was automatically like a second or third round pick. I think it was a third, yeah. And then guys started hiring, you know, people would hire somebody who had been, you know, quote unquote, fired, relieved of their duties, but was still under contract and they still to pay the con. And people were like, oh, we didn't know it was going to be like this. We didn't really think this through. And Gary Bettman was just kind of sitting there.

going like, I fucking told you. You fucking morons. He told me he didn't like it, but he let them go ahead with something he knew. It was like, it was like letting your kid, not touch the hot stove, but like letting your kid do your kids like, I can do it. You're like, go ahead. And then they come back with a black guy. And you're like, yeah, you're going to listen to me next time? That's exactly.

That's exactly what this is. So I'm sitting here wondering, like, is Bettman doing the same thing with this? Like, is there going to be something that we haven't thought? about that's going to go wrong so that Gary Bedman can sit and fold his arms and be like, all right, now we flip back to the other way and don't question me again. I kind of think there's just going to be less trading, honestly. Like, I just, I just think it'll be a less, like, good television product at the end of the day. You know what I mean?

And I have they, there's doing it like a theater instead of the, the crypto.com, right? That sounds right. Yeah, I think, I think that's right. And so, you know, here's the thing. They shouldn't have gone to the sphere because now everyone's just like, I need to be in sphere mode. I need to be in Vegas. It needs to be like the huge wall of highlights and all this kind of stuff. And it's, anything.

is going to pale in comparison. And so I get the teams don't want to spend the money. What do you think it costs a team to send all those guys to the draft? Like 20 grand? And all of them were just like, it's a little steep for me. I don't know. I'm going to turn out my pockets here. That's going to go up, though, if you have to buy them all matching suits.

Yeah. So they all walk around like kids on a daycare. Tied together. But yeah, so I think Cam Robinson, I can't remember where I saw him say this, but Cam Robinson from Elite Prospects said he had heard that either it's going to go to Montreal every year or Montreal every other year after this one. Okay. I don't, you know.

I mean, maybe. I'm fine. To your point earlier, I'm fine with them just being like, who can, who, who, who, you. fucking whatever. We'll just have it in Montreal every year. That's honestly way better to me than just like, this time it's in, it's in St. Louis.

And everyone's like, yeah, except a lot of people are like, I don't want to fucking go to St. Louis. You know what I mean? Like, I get that it's exciting for local fans or whatever, but this is not the winter classic. That's a,

yeah. Local fans, you want to get excited for something, try to host the Winter Classic. That's a great one for you. Or even the All-Star game, because the All-Star game stinks and everyone I don't know.

But having it local is fun. I feel like everyone who goes to the draft tends to kind of walk away being like, eh, that wasn't as good as I thought it was. Especially day two. Day one maybe in the season. Oh, why would you ever go to day two? Crazy thing.

But, you know, day two always sounds fun. And then you get there and you're like, wow. You're hearing a lot of names called on day two. Yeah. You can't say the action's not. coming fast and furious. They're just like Tampa, Europe, Florida, Europe, Toronto, Europe. And they're just like, some guys are the USAHL.

The dudes are walking down the stairs after getting drafted and they've already drafted the next guy. They've all drafted three other guys. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I wish they would apply that kind of speed to the first round. Let's just get in and out of there. You know what I mean?

Like 10, 15 minutes or done. Yeah. Do it in a commercial break on some more popular broadcast. Speaking of the All-Star game, though, it's supposed to be on Long Island next year, or, you know, next season, I guess. And it's currently being quote-unquote reevaluated because it's like the day before everyone goes to the Olympics. So no one's going to like want to play. No one's going to be interested in doing anything that's like fun or like the skills competition. because everyone's going to be like,

I'm trying to get into Olympics mode, man. Yeah. And we all said when this got announced, we all kind of went, what? Yeah. Why would you do an all-star game in an Olympic game? So is this like the most NHL?

You know, I saw people saying, you know, scheduling all these games against March Madness, which they are doing tonight, is like stupid. But that's just the NHL schedule, not just they're like, whatever, 14 games. I don't get, I can't get worked up about that.

I, okay, I just, I again, don't think the casual NHL fan exists at the end of the day. You know what I mean? Like the guy who's like, you know what, March Madness versus the NHL, I guess I'll watch this like, I don't know who's even playing tonight, this like Jets Hurricanes game. Mm-hmm. Those people don't exist.

There are people who want to sit down and watch the Jets game, people who want to sit down and watch the Hurricanes game. No casuals, you know? Mm-hmm. Or not none, obviously, but what do you think? Four, ten thousand people in the entire United States? Yeah, it's the old joke about how, like, nobody has hockey as their third favorite sport. That's exactly right.

It's either first or a close second or, like, 17th. Yeah. So my question is, is it the most NHL thing ever to schedule an All-Star game and then go, oh, wait, this is going to suck. This is going to be horrible. How do we fix this? I don't know. We'll figure it out when we cross that bridge when we come to it. Mm-hmm.

I don't know if you remember this, but a few months ago, I think Elliot Friedman had basically said, like, they might do a fan fest. Yeah. where you can like go shake Austin Matthews's his hand or whatever. Yep. But not too tightly. Shake the hand that shook the world. That's what I always say. Maybe you can wave at him.

There he is. He's just like behind glass. Yeah. Hi, Austin. He can't hear you. Does he acknowledge us at all? No, that is not part of the fan fest. Yeah, it's, uh, it's the glass that like, I know they call it a two-way mirror,

but it's like a one-way mirror. You know what I mean? I guess all mirrors are one-way mirrors, but you know what I mean. He can only see his reflection. So he doesn't get riled up by the people, you know, like a zoo animal. This is a good idea. But yeah, I just, I laugh at it every time where they're like, like any time it comes up, they're just like, we really should not have announced this.

We should not have committed to this. It's too late to go back. They got to do something for Islander fans, but. Yeah, you can't, like, have them watch an Islander's game. They'll get mad. Like, you told them they were getting a bouncy castle for their birthday party. And now they're definitely not getting the bouncy castle, but they got to get something. Little, little pool filled with.

I was going to say a dunk tank, maybe. It's the best we can do. I don't know. Dunk tank might be better than a bouncy castle. I mean, if you get, like, one of the Kachuk brothers in there, the line's going to be out the fucking door and down the street. That's right. This is a good idea. Gary Bettman had no comment on the proposed by Vladimir Putin himself.

KHL, NHL crossover. It was unexpected that that would come up. And they were like, oh, that's crazy. And then, you know, of course, they are also not sure what to think about the whole tariffs and how that would affect the Canadian dollar. and blah, blah, blah. But I'd just say, let's reel in those salary cap increase expectations. Yeah.

Which is going to be fascinating. So the cap is going way up this summer. Yes. It's already been decided. But the previous predictions that it would continue to go way up for at least three years are now potentially in question. Mm-hmm. God bless.

Whoever gives Mitch Marner is $15 million this year. That's right. Oh, no, in three years, it's only going to be a small percent of the cap. This is where all those people who are always saying, it should be a percentage of the cap. Yeah. Maybe they're right all of a sudden. It may have had a point. It should actually be a percentage.

Now the owner of the Chicago Blackhawks is like, I agree. That's true. It should be. Um, so yeah, I just, the, the funny thing about the KHL and HL crossover event, like, not really clear whether that would be international hockey or club hockey. Um, you know, I, I, I would, you know, probably guess that like Colorado is really angling to play Koonloon Red Star. Yeah. You know? And Siska Moscow is like, ah, we'll take the San Jose Sharks.

Try to, try to even out the things as much as possible. but it's funny that that was just like kind of tacked on to the end of, I believe like a Russian memo that was like, oh yeah. And by the way, President Donald Trump himself said when Vladimir Putin said they should play each other. Trump was like, yeah, that sounds good. Which you will never ever, ever catch me defending Trump on anything. Yeah. But you can absolutely see how like Putin would say that and like anyone would be like whatever. Yeah, all right, man.

Okay. So again. Yeah, he's doing the thing. I got to go. I got to go. KHL and HL. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely.

Click. I'm going to play on one of the teams too, by the way. Absolutely. You do that. Yeah. And then hang on and be like, what the hell is the KHL? Yeah. It's, uh, okay, sure.

I think they got to start with some I-I-H-F stuff first, but. Yeah, just a few. Might be a few things. A couple of wrinkles. But perhaps related to the tariff stuff and some of the other things we just talked about, CBA talks resume. It says here, April Fool's Day. Hmm.

You, you know what? So Walsh guy has a chance to do the funny. thing ever. Well, I'll tell you, they're saying April Fool's Day. I'm calling it Apropos Day. Ah. Because that's... Kind of.

Yeah. A real meeting of the mindless. You know what I'm talking about? Just get in there and be like, Gary, I've been talking to the players, and one thing that they're not a fan of is guaranteed contracts. Is there any way we could go to a more NFL-like system? And also... The Leaves put the franchise tag on Mitch Marter.

And also, you know how Sidney Crosby needs everything to be 87 and he's weird about it? Well, our new head of the bargaining committee is Nazim Cadrian. He wears 43. So could we go to 43 percent? Just kind of a happy number for us. Gary Bettman's all excited and then just pulled a rug. He's doing the finger thing that means money, you know? Yeah, of course.

But yeah, I think it's good that they have. the date set and really the way it seems to me is they figure this is going to be a process that takes about two and a half months and then around the time Gary Bettman does his state of the NHL presser before game one of the Stanley Cup finally is like oh and you know Steve Jobs mode one last thing we do have a new CBA it's all good here it is Marty Walsh comes out of the back wearing an NWO shirt you know Yeah, I feel like that's just what's going to happen is there's not a lot to really go back and forth about. Did you see the thing?

This isn't directly related to the GM's meeting, but about how they are already prepping for the inevitable Alexander Rovetchen replay review? Well, this is good because to me, every other question in the mailbag for the last four, Four months has been, okay, what if this improbable Alexander Ovechkin record-breaking goal scenario plays out? What do you think? Mm-hmm. I think it's great that they're covering all their bases. Yeah. And in case people miss the story of how they're covering it, by just closing their eyes and hoping that it doesn't happen, but not actually preemptively changing anything.

That's right. Yeah. Again, you know, he could be 12 feet off sides playing with a basically like a high lie thing to put that into the net. He doesn't have a helmet on. There's 14 capitals on the ice. They're like, looks good to me. Other teams coach is like just leaning over the boards, frantically waving and the refact just got his back. Waves back.

Hello. There. Yeah, that was fun. So, yeah. Why don't we now transition to talking about the only thing there really is to talk about at this point in the season, the wild card races. So I looked at Moneypuck, hockey reference, and the athletics playoff projections. And in both conferences, there are seven teams that are north of 96, or at 96.3% or better. It feels like even a week and a half ago before I left.

Mm-hmm. That, and for months before that, like going back to Thanksgiving, we were like, well, the West race is going to stink. Yep. Vancouver, Calgary, and that's it. The East is going to be crazy, man. The East is going to, there's 19 teams going for two spots. It's going to be fantastic. And now here we are.

And it's kind of the West actually feels like it's going to be the better race. Well, I mean. The thing that has changed in the two weeks since you guys have heard my voice is Ottawa has gone from bubble team to pretty much in. I was wrong, by the way. It's 94.5% for the senators is like the average of the three websites I named. Okay. They're all around 94, 95 for Ottawa. And then everybody else is 96.

Not quite a lock, but enough. I mean, that's enough of a lock that I would call them a lock. So we're down to one spot and, well, five teams within three points, six teams within four points. But it doesn't feel like there's six teams in the running for this spot. Right? Like Boston has given up. Yeah.

So I'll give you the percentage odds again. I just took the average of Moneypuck hockey reference in the athletic. Right now, the team most likely to finish eighth in the east is the Montreal Canadiens at 41.6%. Hmm. Then you have the New York. Hottest team in the league. Then you have the New York Rangers at 25.1. The Islanders at 21.1.

at 21.8 and folks, if the islanders are the third most likely team to get a playoff spot you're competing for, you are fucked. You know? It's about right. Columbus at 13 and a half, Detroit at 6, Boston at 1.3, everybody else at zero. So it's basically Montreal or the two New York teams is what it feels like now. I know Columbus is still kind of kicking around. And Moneypuck is what's really dragging them down.

Money puck only has them at 7.2. And otherwise, hockey reference in the athletic are kind of in the same ballpark, like 16 to 20%. But, you know, I think I think the, they're turning back into a pumpkin. Stroke of midnight kind of stuff. You know what I mean? Sad but true. I would, of all these teams, Columbus making it would be the best by far. Yes.

Like, you know, story-wise. The team we've all been rooting on all year. Yep. And there is enough time left on the schedule for a few more twists and turns here. I am as susceptible as anyone to fall into the trap of whatever's been happening for the last few weeks must continue to happen. But I think it is very possible, let's just say, that Montreal cools off. A bit. Mm-hmm.

Columbus could still get back in it. Detroit could still get back in it, although they've been terrible. Boston... You don't say. Boston basically quit on the race at the deadline. They tried for a minute there. Remember that? Like the first two games, they beat, like, coming out of the deadline, they beat Florida and Tampa, and everyone's like, oh!

And they were like, no, just kidding. No. See you later. I still think it's the Rangers, but... I've been saying that all year. I feel like that's probably true. But look, I mean, I don't want to get into the whole Stan Fishler article, but every other day for the last three months he's been writing, these guys are fucked. They are terrible.

They should trade everybody. They should fire everybody. And are the Rangers the greatest team in the history of the sport? There's only one way to find out. Mika's Abadadad is that a Hall of Famer? You know, but I just, you know, to your point. I believe in the goalie. And that's all I believe in, really, at this point?

But that might be, I'll put it to you this way. Sean, who do you believe in more? Igor Shasturkin or the entire Montreal Canadiens roster. Yeah. I will say this. And I talked about this yesterday because Frank Carrado on the athletic podcast covers Montreal a lot. I do love that Montreal has got an old school first line that is carrying them. And when I say old school, I mean, who's our best center?

Cool, you go stand over there. Who are the best wingers? You guys go stand on either side of that guy. Okay, you're the first line. You guys are going to play 23 minutes a night, maybe more, and the rest of it will figure it out. But we're not going to have two good players and then like a plugger to go get them the pocketer. anything like, no, we're putting our three best guys up front and we're just going to roll with that.

That game against Ottawa was fun on Tuesday night. I don't know if you got any of that. I was clicking around, but yeah, I saw a good percentage of it. So, but yeah, I still, I still think the Rangers. No, and I think, you know, uh. So Shastrican, like, has not been good for. Well, it seems to come and go with him. You know what I mean?

Like he'll rip off like six games where it's like, there he is, the best goalie in the world. And then they're like five games in a row where it's like, has this guy ever played hockey before? You know? And I think, you know, given what they're paying them, that's all you can ask for. Yeah. We actually got a question in the mailbag. And I don't like to do other people's bit. So I didn't put it in the mailbag.

But one of the questions was like, if you could do the biscuits thing of like, somebody finds a loophole in that contract. If you're the Rangers, do you tear it up? And I think the answer is probably no, but you're thinking about it. You're holding it in such a way where one hand is about to go in one direction and the other is about to go in the other, you know? Yep. But I don't, I think, I think you got to, you got to, you know, dance with who you came to the dance with at the end of the day. And the other, I guess the other way to put it is.

The Rangers have bigger problems than Igor should start it. And whether that contracts. They sure do, yeah. So, yeah, I'm with you, I think. I think we're going to see pretty soon that maybe, you know, this is just like, if Montreal had done this in November, a la the Buffalo Sabres. Yeah. We'd all just be going like, yeah, I mean, it's November, right?

Like, there's enough of a track record here that I'm not. I'm not ready to fall for it yet. Mm-hmm. But here's my question. Yep. If you are Buffalo and Detroit, how furious are you to see Montreal shoot by you? You know, I guess if that ends up being the case,

if you're the Red Wings. But I mean, Buffalo already, like, it's one thing to be like, all right, Buffalo, Detroit, Ottawa was that Trinity of Optimism. Okay, Ottawa found it. It finally clicked. All right. We wish it was us, but we can live with that. But for Montreal to be like, hey, hey, just going to scoot you right by you here into a wildcard spot.

It's got to be infuriating. Yeah, I want to talk about Buffalo after the break here because there was a lot of while you were gone. There was a lot of discourse around like, how do you like even fix this? Okay. And I did not hear that, so I'm fascinated. to find out what people are proposing. Well, the thing is, I think nobody's proposing anything. Again, we'll talk about it in a second.

But so let's let's move to the, so we're both saying the Rangers probably do it. Wouldn't be a surprise. Montreal has a little bit of the inside track here. They, you know, they have the games in hand and a point in the standings. But that's about it. To your point earlier, though, the West is really interesting. because all of a sudden, here come the fucking St. Louis Blues. It turns out that going out and getting the guy who coached the, you know,

best regular season team in the history of the NHL, who's like per 82, like, average point total is like 112 in his career, turns out that getting that kind of guy helps. Mm-hmm. Isn't that crazy? Yeah, that's interesting. So right now, the average odds are the Canucks at 42%. The blues at 34.5 or so.

Calgary a little above 19. Utah a little above 9. And two of the three projections do have Anaheim technically still alive at 0.1 and 0.4. Okay. So it looks like it's probably between Vancouver and Seattle at this point. Like Utah did a little thing a couple of, like last week where they were like, maybe us, not really us. And Calgary is just kind of like sinking into the mud that we all expected them to be in. But how about those dang St. Louis Blues?

They're going crazy all of a sudden. They are. And a team that a lot of us were keeping an eye. on heading into the deadline. Should they trade their top center, Captain Braden Chen, should they trade their starting goalie? Turns out the answer was probably no

to both of those questions because... Well, so I got the stats right here for you. In their last 12 games, they're 9, 2, and 1, which is good. Yes. They've outscored their opponents, 49 to 28. They've outshot their overall. opponents, 328 to 279.

So they're winning all this, mostly by shooting percentage, obviously, but they're not getting particularly good goaltending lately. 28 goals on 279 shots against. That sub, I'm sure there are some empty netters or whatever mixed in there. But that's sub-900 goaltending, and there's still 9-2-1. And again, out-shooting their opponents by a wide margin. They're plus 49 in 12 games. games. That's good.

So, you know, I'm, I think Vancouver just has a little bit more of the inside track for me. I'm not predicting the blues to make it. But if they did, who could ever be like, I'm shocked that the Canucks blew it? You know, that's kind of my take. Is it like, yeah, they're the Canucks. But they have been better lately. Yeah. Elias Pedersen's been better.

Like, are they figuring? it out enough. In fact, not even figuring it, writing the ship enough that like in the sense of okay, maybe now we're not going to sink and we can just make it into port where port for them is probably

getting destroyed in the first round. Yeah. I mean, that is the thing, right? Like, if you're Vancouver and you're competing for a playoff spot with Calgary and St. Louis, you have to consider this season a huge fucking disaster, right? You had to trade J.T. Miller.

You have to, I think the word I saw on Twitter the other day that was fascinating was reprogram your highest pay, your $11.5 million player. Maybe you don't have Thatcher Demko in your long-term plans anymore. And you're like, our goalie of the future is Kevin Lankin. Uh-oh. You know, like, I don't know. Like, I don't think Lankan's been bad for them, but that's just not where you wanted, where you thought you were going to be at the beginning of the season. Certainly not.

So I don't, I don't know what to make of these Vancouver Canucks, but like you say, I'm, feels like they're going to have new. I think they're the playoff team. Yeah, I think that's, like I said, inside track. But I don't know, I don't know what you do if you're the Canucks. I said it last week, like, aren't you kind of wasting Quinn Hughes's prime at a certain point? And Pedersons to a degree. You know? I mean, Pedersen, the bigger question is...

Maybe he's wasting his prime. Or, you know, is his prime already past tense? Yeah. There have been players who peaked in their early 20s and then never were that guy again. Yep. Yeah. But he is doing the Chesterkin thing. We're like every few months, he's going to give you 10 games where you're like, there's an MVP candidate.

And then the rest of the time he's going, maybe not so much. Yep. So who do you, you're Vancouver as well. I, you know, as much as I think obviously things are just trending so well for the blues. You know, I just kind of look and I say, does the game, no, you know what, I will just to be interesting. I'll go with the blues. I don't believe in either team. I don't think either team's earned that, you know, but...

Someone's got to take it. Yeah, again, like, the Canucks were doing this with Calgary a couple of weeks ago. After you, no, after you, you know? I think Calgary is just kind of trending down a little too much. I'll put it this way. There was a headline that was like, how are they going to do without Michael Backland in the lineup? And it's like, you know what? if you're a Michael Backland away from not making the playoffs, maybe, you know, you got bigger problems.

That is fair. And I like Michael Backland. That's a good player. But it's like if he's your make or break player, your odds, whatever that good in the first place, it feels like. But, yeah, I don't know. I can't, like you said, it seems like kind of neither wants to really be a playoff team. Like they do, but not like that bad. You know?

And it's, I guess, a little bit the same in the East where it's like, you're going to let Montreal to it. Okay. And the interesting thing is in both cases, it's very tempting to say ultimately this, it matters, but it doesn't matter all that much because they're just going to get stomped in the first round. I mean, I made the reference already. But you look at the teams on top of the, both teams on top of the conferences. Winnipeg and especially Washington and still feel a little shaky. They feel beatable.

This isn't like you're going to get to the and the first round and like the fully powered. Yeah, the 1976 Montreal Canadians are across from you. Yeah, of course. I don't know, man. We will see. Yep. With that, why don't we take a break?

We'll come back and we'll talk about a little more news stuff. you know, not the busiest week in hockey. So stay tuned. This week's episode is brought to you by our friends at Factor. Folks, are you ready to optimize your nutrition this year? Factor has chef-made gourmet meals to make eating well easy. They're dietitian approved, ready to heat and eat in two minutes, so you can fuel right and feel great no matter what life throws at you.

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Are we going to fix the sabers? How are we going to fix the sabers? I don't know why this came up so much in the last week, apart from, you know, they're not going to make the playoffs. They were sellers at the deadline again, kind of. Although I would say not as aggressive as people maybe wanted them to be. You know, there was talk that Alex Tuck might get moved and that kind of thing. That didn't happen.

But there was a big article on ESPN by Ryan Clark, who I finally met at the, the Four Nations. The nicest guy. Wow. Wow. I had a blast hanging out with him. Yep.

But the headline was basically like, inside the Sabres never-ending rebuild. That's not a word, a combination of words you want to hear about your team. No, it's not. And then it was, how do the Sabres reverse their historic playoff drought? And it's just talking to a bunch of different players

and, you know, guys who have played there, who currently played there. You know, that kind of thing. And, you know, like, oh, there was a quote from Kevin Adams, too, that was like, have I done a good job? No, I haven't. And it's like, huh, interesting. All right. But by any measure, this is like an all-time historic.

Because you're not looking at these guys going, and of course, they'll just, like, make it next year. They're like two free agent signings away from, you know. Yeah, they're going to have cap space. They're just going to sign some guys. Sure, they will. Yeah. All they have to do is sign Mitch Marner. Every other free agent trade for Connor Halebuck,

and maybe they'll make the playoffs next year, you know? So I want to get, I guess, your thoughts on like if you were not not, like running the sabers, but like if you were being interviewed, like if you're sitting down and you're saying, okay, you're hiring me to replace Kevin Adams or like be Kevin Adams's boss. What is your prescription for fixing the Sabres? Dude, I have no idea. I really, a few months ago, I was really big on the they should go after Patterson idea. Sure.

Yeah. I think a lot of people were. no trade protection, bring him in, he's locked in. Let's be honest, this is not a guy that you're going to be able to attract as a free agent or that you're going to be able to trade for and extend the only way that you can lock in a potential franchise player is to trade for a guy who's locked in and his team is willing to move. And I felt like it was a very rare opportunity to do that.

I still feel that way, but I would have gotten nervous heading towards the deadline. The way things were looking between the four nations and the few weeks after that, I might have lost my nerve if I was in that spot. Yep. So as far as what else? I don't know, man. I probably, if I'm interviewing for that job, I probably go in and go, we need to do another rebuild. And then they say, thank you very much.

and we're going to go in another dress. Well, I think if Kevin Adams is getting up there and saying, we stink, you know, I haven't done a good job, blah, blah, blah. That's kind of a tacit admission of like, maybe there does need to be another rebuild to a certain extent. I think, you know, they're not like, okay, like they just resign Jordan Greenway. They want to resign a couple other veterans, that kind of thing.

Like, I don't think they want to do like a full rip-it-to-the-studs kind of a thing. But, like, I think there is an understanding. that they aren't like two years away right now, you know? Oh, and I also think I realize this while you were talking. Like, I think that just the fact that Dylan Cousins, of course, hit the fucking ground running at a million miles, like the fucking flash, you know. It just made them kind of go, fuck, man, it happened again? How many guys are we going to trade and they immediately become all stars?

Like, this is insane, you know? and something that I want to say Butchagross tweeted it maybe. And it was just kind of like, you know, a guy they might want to think about hiring is Ken Holland because like that's a no nonsense guy. And like he has enough cachet to, to, you know, maybe impose his will a little more or push back on like what Terry Pagula wants to do a little more. And I don't know that he personally said all that, but that was kind of my read on what he was getting at, you know. And but he did say Ken Holland specifically. And I don't know that like I'm sitting there going,

we're at Ken Holland. Like, you know, Ken Holland did actually pretty way better than I thought he would for Edmonton, honestly. But like, you know, they weren't as, they weren't anywhere near as far away as Buffalo is, right? Like, they already had the vast majority of the pieces. But I don't hate that, right? No, I don't hate the idea of a guy coming in with a fistful of rings and just some,

it's not even that he knows how to build a winner because, you know, most of those rings came from the pre-cap era. Yep. Or remnants of it. So, I mean, you know, all the objections when he went to Edmonton that this might be a, you know, yesterday's man kind of guy. Yeah, this is the guy who signed Justin Abbot. cable to that.

This is now. Like, that's the thinking. This is, like, he was yesterday, yesterday. Yep. But. Can't say he didn't do a good job in. Somebody who can just walk in there and be like, hey, you can win in this league. Like, you know, here's somebody in this building has experienced something other than constant failure.

And they're looking around, go, who, though? We're the Buffalo Sabres. Oh, right, right, right. This is, this is, you know what? This is off-brand. I'm just going to throw something, because you said, like, they're a couple years away, acknowledging that. I'm going to just throw some numbers at you. You see if you can guess.

I'm going to throw three numbers, and we're going to start last year, okay? Last year's number is eight. Okay. Two years ago, the number is 23, and the year before that, the number is 20. I'm going to guess those are draft positions. But I don't... Not a bad guess. I don't know what...

No. That is the number of points in the last few years that the Buffalo Sabres finished ahead of the Montreal Canadians. Mm-hmm. Okay. A team that now might be making the playoffs is in the driver's seat for a playoff spot. Yeah.

And I don't know if that tells me that maybe the Sabres aren't as far away as they think or if that is just the way that a dumb guy convinces himself that the sabres are not as far as they think. But I bet whoever says, hey, we're two more

years of hard times away from the playoffs. Terry Pagula probably goes, what about Montreal? How come they can just zip by us? Well, I mean, I say this all the time, but a lot of

a lot of what makes a rebuild successful is draft luck. Like, not just winning lotteries, but like the guys that are availed. Like, you get two guys you think are going to be number one defensemen in the draft. That's great. But, you know, it would be even better as like a, like a legit number one center that maybe you don't piss off due to a broken, while he has a broken neck. You know what I mean?

But like a number one center, a goalie, a winger, like, you need to do a better job of drafting than the Buffalo Sabers have. And Montreal, say what you want about how else they've been run. And like not every, not every one of their picks in the last six, seven, eight years has worked out. But, you know, I think they would take the guys they've drafted over a lot of the, quote unquote, young cores in the league right now. I don't know what the ceiling on those guys is, but I think the floor is pretty high. Yeah, that's, that's always been the concern is the ceiling in Montreal. So that's what I would say regarding the comparison to the Canadians, right?

But the other thing, I think, like you were saying, the Ken Holland, it maybe shouldn't be Ken Holland, but someone who has experienced a lot of winning in this league, you know, a guy who was like the number three guy at the Colorado Avalanche or something. But this is what I'm saying if I'm one of those guys and I'm walking into the room. I can work anywhere in this league. I might not be the GM or the president of hockey operations, but I can make a good amount of money and be extremely respected any organization I want to go to. And those teams will be happy to have me. Right? So you, as much as like I'm interviewing with you for this job,

you're talking to me and you're trying to convince me why you should, as the Buffalo Savers, the fucking all-time loser franchise in the NHL, them or the Canucks, take your pick, I guess. Yeah. You got to sell me on you. And because we've talked about this before, doesn't it feel like the problem's the owner in Buffalo?

It does. Doesn't it feel like? It certainly starts there. Not the only problem, but the, yeah. it's a top down thing, right? And doesn't it feel like, you know, Kevin Adams was getting up there going, like, we actually think it's good to have $14 million in cap space at the beginning,

whatever he said, you know, well, I don't remember what the numbers were, but like they had a huge amount of cap space at the beginning of year. Kevin Adams was like, that's actually strategic. Oh, yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, definitely. Absolutely.

So my thing is, if I have the cachet to be, to kind of like say, I don't want this fucking job. Fuck off. You know what I mean? I go in there with that attitude and I say, here's what's going to happen. I basically have a blank check for the first five years.

And I never hear from you. If I need something, I'll call you. You don't call me. You don't have any authority over me. And Terry Kuhl is like, that doesn't work for me. Well, I don't need to work here. You know what I mean? Mm-hmm.

Like, that's what it kind of has to be to me a little bit at this point. because what was the perception when they hired Kevin Adams? He was the yes man slash the only guy who would want to take the job under the circumstances that it was presented. That's exactly right. And has anything happened to dissuade people from that, that like perception, like how the outside. view look. Like, I would argue, no. I know we all pretended Kevin Adams when he made the, they actually didn't get like their

brains beaten on the Jack Eichel trade. True. How's Peyton Krebs doing, by the way? Is that really working out for them? Okay, great. I just kind of think that you have to go in there with the attitude. And this would never happen because this is a league where like you would say, oh, and of course I spoke with Mr. Pagula and all this.

Like you're giving you're being overly deferential to the guys who have the money for obvious reasons, you know. But this is the Buffalo Sabres. You kind of have to be in a situation where you're walking in there and just going, I can I can work. I'm happy to work in the HL, the AHL, the AHL, whatever. I just like, I'd rather work in those places where who knows what goes on. And there are way more like controls placed on. me in theory, then like, that's way better, way more beneficial to my long-term career health than working for the Buffalo Sabres.

You have to have that attitude to me, you know? And the thing that concerns me is, obviously, when you're talking about sports owners, they're some of the most stubborn head-up their own behinds people. Yeah, of course. Ever. These are billionaires who made their money in other fields who are. or just assume that because of that, they must be the smartest person in any room they walk into.

So you're starting with 2.99 strikes against you whenever you have this conversation. But you go into the Pugulas, right? Terry and Kim, and you sit down and you go, you're going to give me this blank check and you're going to stay out of the way because you're going to recognize that you don't know what you're doing. You're hiring me to do it. And potentially they're going to hit you with that. doesn't work for me, brother.

Well, they're going to say also, but hey, we also own the Buffalo Bills. Well, I was going to ask you about that. More complex league, and the bills have been a great success story. So clearly, we are pretty smart. We're good at this sports thing. And the reality is they hired a good coach and they lucked into drafting the right quarterback. But they haven't been a disaster in the NFL at this level. In fact, if in a separate world where there was like,

nothing was different in Buffalo other than the two teams were owned by different people, and all the decisions that had been made were exactly the same, everybody would be like, please let the bills guy buy the savers. Totally. Totally. So good luck getting them. Because you're right. You have to walk in and be like, dude,

I know this is your hockey team, but you've got to treat me like you've hired me to build a deck on your mansion. That's right. Do you know how to build a deck? No, you don't. So here's what's going to cost. Here's the plan.

Sign off. And go on vacation or something, and you'll come back and the deck will be there. Hey, don't you have a yacht with an IMAX screen in it? Yeah. But if I see you in the backyard holding a hammer, the deal's off. I'm out of here.

Yeah. You're not going to help. Get out of here. Yeah. I'm not saying my idea is realistic. Yeah. But that is what you do. Yeah.

But I think that is like the only way absent, they get the number one pick and they take Michael Misa and Michael Misa turns out to be as advertised. You know what I mean? Like that's, they get Gavin McKenna. They, you know, like they just get a couple of like actual franchise level players that make that would make anybody look like a genius, you know? Oh, by the way, so I went to, did you see about this movie Last Breath that came out a couple of weeks ago? Maybe a little more than that now. It's about like a guy who, uh, a real story of a guy who like almost died in a scuba diving accident. Like, you know, he's, he was like a deep sea diver, like working on an oil rig or something like that.

Okay. And he almost died. Jump scare of all time to me in this movie. Like, you know, opening credits, executive. producer Darrell Cates. I was like, what? But the reason I bring that up is, you know, remember when Darrell Cates was like the dumb shit owner

of all time in the NHL? Yeah. It was like eight, nine years ago. Mm-hmm. Oh, they're wasting Connor McDavid, blah, blah, blah. All he had to do, you don't hear about Darrell Cates anymore. You ever noticed that? That is true. That's interesting. We just had, um, the athletic had a survey of owners.

Yep. basically like a ranking of owners based on fan surveys and everything. And it was just all the winning teams at the top and all the losing teams. Yeah, I like one the, I like one the team that wins, or the guy that wins owns the team. Yeah. That's crazy. That's it. It's like it, you look at that list and it means one of two things.

Either owner is the most important position in the sport, or our view of owners is massively influenced by just whoever has most recently won. It's not even like over the time they've owned the team or whatever. No, totally. But what I'm saying, what I'm saying about Kate's in particular is he used to be at every Oilers game and they'd show him and he's like, you know. Up on the draft stage with his kid who was a full taller every single year. When's the last time you saw Darrell Cates at an Oilers game?

Like they cut to him on TV or whatever. I don't think it happens very often. Nope. You know? And I think that, not that Terry Pagool, like, you know, it makes news when Terry Pagula goes to a Sabres game, it feels like, right? Mm-hmm. But I feel like that is just kind of like, again, there's the perception that there's just a puppet regime. And Terry Pagula is the one pulling all the strings and all this.

And you want to fix it? I got a great way to do it. Let me do everything. and me being not like me personally, obviously, but like me, a guy who, you know, a Julian Breezebaw type where I can just go, I win all the time. Do you want to win?

I can do that for you. And again, like, did Julian Breezebaugh build like a huge percentage of the lightning team? Because that was always the thing. Like, oh, Stan Bowman actually did a great job in Chicago. And it's like, how many of the guys that like were the, like, future Hall of Famers were already on the team when he, out there? Oh, all of them? Interesting. Okay, cool. You know? Um, so there, there is a little bit of that

with Breezeball, but like, if you can, if you can do the rings in the room thing, you kind of, like that, I think is kind of the only way they're pulling out of this anytime soon. That's all. I wonder if, you know, you mentioned Bowman. I wonder if Dale Tallon would be. Well, Dale Tal was making news this week. Did you see his, no, what have I done? Oh, he, he was just like. expected goals. What does that even mean? Oh, okay.

Never mind. I take it back. No, no, never mind. We're good here. And again, this is a guy who hasn't really been in the NHL for a long time. I don't expect that guy to know what expected goals means, you know? But if this is him like interviewing for a job, like backdoor interviewing for jobs and stuff, it's like, oh, here's me if I'm in his position and I want to work in the NHL again. I love expected goals.

I know what those are. Yeah. My plan is to get as many as possible. I love it. On my team. They're the best. Yeah. So I think we've come to the agreement that there's no way to fix the Sabres.

Yeah, I think that's right. Again, maybe the guy sells the team. They do this all the time in like European football. You know, they'll just be like a blank out. Yeah. Pagula out. But if you're the Sabers, Sabers fans, you can't even do that because you're a small market and who's going to buy this team?

They've got to get some freaking palm trees, you know? But, well, so, I mean, the Boston Celtics just sold this morning. I don't know if you saw this. I have seen something about that. The highest sales price for a team ever, at least in North America, $6.1 billion. Now, granted, they just won the NBA title. They look like they're going to at least compete to do it again. And they sold to a Boston guy, crucially, like a billionaire Boston guy.

but yeah, that's, you're just got to have local benevolent billionaires. You're Ryan Smith. Oh, that guy's a great owner. Is the team any good? No,

but I mean, like he's asking me if I want the mammoth to be the name of the team. Yeah. So that's actually pretty good. I get to go in and press a button on a little ATM that has a logo on it. Yeah, and for some reason it ran my credit score. I don't know why that happened.

Anyway. But yeah, you know, you're just going to be like the benevolent local billionaire and people, even like people who don't work for you or like need money from you like players and agents and things like that,

they'll just start calling you Mr. Blank, you know? Like, Sean, you get a billion dollars and you're like a half decent owner. Mr. McIndoo everywhere you go the entire life, you know? Jeremy Jacobs was Jeremy Jacobs

until the ruins won the cup and now it's Mr. fucking Jacobs. That's right. That is the official formal name. Anyway. Good time.

Another bit of news that came out in the last couple of days that I thought was extremely funny. The Olympic teams are getting six players named to them in June. Didn't we just do this with Four Nations and it was like kind of a fucking disaster for a couple of teams? People didn't like it. It's not that people didn't like it. It's that people didn't like it eventually based on how those guys ended up playing. People, well, people like it at the time, but even like, yeah, leading up to the Olympics, you're like, why did we put this guy on the team? And, but the good news, you're bearing the good news, which is that the NHL learned from it.

I would never do that. Yeah, they've learned from their mistake. And instead of naming the teams in early December, which everyone agreed was way, way, way too early, they're now going to do it in like mid to late December. Perfect. Nailed it, man. Well, honestly, at least with that, like maybe you've got to get. your travel visas go. I don't know how it all works.

You know, at least there's a little bit more runway, whereas, like, they could have named the teams the week of. This is, this is what you do at the All-Star weekend. Oh, yeah, man. Dude, it's, okay, here's, here's what it is. It's like, you get all the great players. This guy's a fucking genius, folks. And it's, it's like the accuracy shooting, except it's like, you know,

an agenda reveal, you pick two, like, hey, man, red and white comes out, powder comes out, you're on Team Canada. beach sand comes out. See you in Aruba, man. Yeah. And Brad Marchand just comes in and smokes the top corner and we all find out one at a time. I love this. And then you literally like put on a plane.

It's like that one season where they let the fans vote on who is going to be on Survivor. And then they like pulled the people out of the audience and put them directly on an airplane. We're doing that. I think this is a great idea. The only thing that's better is that you have. basically every single person who is even in consideration. Like if you're, if you're team Canada and you legitimately look at 45 guys,

you grab all 40, you have all 45 guys there. Yes. And we can do, 20 of them are just fucking going home. It doesn't all have to be like accuracy shooting. It can be like you tailor it to the individual person. Like Jordan Bennington throws a water bottle and it explodes and whatever comes out.

J.T. Miller punches himself in the face. and we just see what, you know, what color liquid leaks out of his nose. Red, white, and blue? Oh, no, it's just red. Sorry. Sorry, bud. Tough bounce. Yeah, I think, I think you cracked it here.

This is, or you know what, I'm not joking. Honestly, they should do that with the last guy. Sure. Like, they know who it is, but they invite a couple of smoke screen style players to, to, uh, do Do the smoke screens know their smokescreens or is this? No, that's what I'm saying. Let's say there are four smokescreen guys. One of them is in.

The other three, you're just there for the entertainment. This is a good idea. This is a good idea. Or have it before guys and have them do that stupid, complicated obstacle course. And whoever wins, you're an Olympian, buddy. Yeah, but it should be the obstacle course from Legends of the Hidden Temple. Sure. Okay. Olmex there.

Now, you want to talk about a star. Olmec, there's a celebrity, you know. Anyway, one other piece of news this week, I think, and that's about it, honestly. Aden Hill, six years six and a quarter from Vegas. Yep. Another goalie, getting too much term based on a limited-ish track record, although this is not a guy who had one good year. He won a Stanley cop.

I get it. He's been good for a little while now. And I do think that Jesse Granger made a good point on this that I've sort of missed on some of these contracts, which is, especially now with Hill signed, there's nobody else out there for free agency. So there was kind of an idea where, you know, Aiden Hill can sit down and go, guys, maybe I'm only a $5 million goalie, but I'm getting $7 million in free agency from somebody. because I'm, it's like me or James Rimer. So give me something that starts with a six. That makes some sense, I think. Yeah, I agree.

And, you know, he, it's not eight years, so that's good. And again, like, you know, Vegas is just, their goalies are always good. You're never going to get, like, really bad. He hasn't been, like, great or anything this year. But he, you know, he's got, he's going to be a goal or three above expectation. and yeah, if you're overpaying for that, it's better to have that and feel like you can rely on it for six years

or four years, as the case may be, you know, than to be like three years from now going, ah, fuck, you know. Especially for a team that, like, Vegas is like, we're just competing 100% of the time. We're never taking a year off. Yeah, yeah, you're right. So, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm less offended by this one, even though the money and term, I think, are bigger than the two Washington goalies.

Yep. But, you know, I think there are just two different, like, long-term realities for those two teams that makes this, you know, if I, if I was putting a grade on it, I'd say it's like a B-minus. It's not like good or anything. Yeah, I don't think six years is too long for Aden Hill. I think six years is too long for any goalie. Yes, right. But goalies do get six to eight years. So yeah, why don't you hit them with the plugs and let's get out of here.

You can find me at the athletic, including the athletic hockey show podcast, which I went up yesterday. So we're all screwed up here because of me in my vacation schedule. I apologize. Apology accepted. Yeah, find my writing there, including tomorrow. we are bringing back the contrarian. Oh, hell yeah, man. Argue, and I'm going to convince you why the Alexander Ovechkin gold chase is bad, actually.

Right. And so, like, if you're writing into the contrarian folks, you would go like, hey, I think the saber's stink. And Sean has to go, here's where you're wrong, my friend. That's right. You know? It's a good bit. And then for me, college hockey championship week. where all the conference champions are crowned.

That's starting tonight. I'm leaving straight from here. That's why it's a more abbreviated show than usual. I'm leaving straight from here. I'm going to Boston for hockey East champion. The semifinals are tonight, the championships tomorrow. And this is the best time of year for me. I love this shit.

This is what I live for this. This is what they say, you know? And yeah, I, I, I, I, I, I'm very excited, and I will be doing an insane amount of college hockey coverage for the next three, four weeks. Between this and the NCAA tournament starts next week, and then the Frozen Four is mid-A April in St. Louis. And so, yeah, there's just a lot going on. And, you know, I'll still check in with the NHL occasionally, but that will be more of a part-time job to my full-time college hockey writing job. Very nice.

So stay tuned over. Elite Prospects. There is a deal going on. I don't remember what it is off the top of my head, but if you just go to Elite Prospects, download the Elite Prospects app, which is actually a really good app. I would just tell you to do it

without saying it's good otherwise, but it is actually good and useful to me. It's just a good place to get a lot of transaction news and that kind of thing and all the articles that get written. And hey, CHL playoffs are right around the corner as well, I believe. And then we're into draft season. We've got more rankings coming out every damn day, it seems like.

So now's the time to be signing up for elite prospects, folks. That's all. And then Patreon.com slash puck soup. Me and Greg did a bonus episode yesterday. Me and Sean are about to go record a mailbag right now. So all kinds of bonus episodes over there. And check it all out. Thanks for listening to the main show.

We'll be back on Tuesday next week as far as I know. And that's it. Have a good one. Thanks so much. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.