Puck Soup - Insert Fake Cheers Here

Episode Date: August 6, 2020

The boys discuss the look, sound and aesthetics of the NHL's season relaunch, from fake crowd noise to goofy NHL dad jokes to what we like and don't like about it. Plus, a series-by-series breakdown, expanding the playoffs, Draft Lottery Part 2, Matt Dumba's speech and the NHL's admirable but awkward racial activism, life in the bubble and the best and worst Nintendo characters. Sponsored by Mack Weldon!

Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slap shots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to what if you commute. We also cover movies, TV shows, it's and tunes. It's your weekly bowl of hockey and nonsense. I'm Greg Wyshinsky of ESPN, the worldwide leader in many different sports throughout the day. Ryan Lambert, working my way up the fall guy's world rankings. Sean McAnew, the Athletic. And you're in puck suit.

I feel like if we were going to do a proper evaluation of the playoffs, this is where the artificial crowd noise from the EA Sports Library would be pumped into the show. A delayed cheer or the murmur of the crowd. Right now would be appropriate. A lot of murmuring. Let's start with the aesthetics of the restarted NHL season because I think that's sort of the shared experience for hockey fans. Also, everything we talk about with the series themselves will be immaterial within like 24 hours.

Not even in a lot of cases, yeah. Yeah, exactly. So here's the thing. I think they've done an incredible job. I've watched a lot of empty arena sports and empty stadiums, in the last, like, month or so. And I know that I'm a homer on this, but I am evil homer. But I will say that hockey might be the sport best suited for this thing, where you can

kind of create the atmosphere for the game and the look for the game. And obviously, the benefit, it's the playoffs. So the games are pretty intense outside of the round-robin games, which have been pretty shitty. And, and the smartest thing they did was stick this race. in the middle of a giant TV studio. And I think it's fucking great. I think they did a really good job. I think the games are extraordinarily watchable.

Is it, is it hockey? Is it the NHL? No. But the example I've been giving is take the greatest cheeseburger you've ever eaten, the Stanley Cup playoffs, and this is the Beyond Meat version. Looks, kind of smells, maybe even tastes a bit like the best cheeseburger you've ever had.

But essentially, it's made of different ingredients. Yeah, I mean, the way Beyond Meat's, meat works is kind of like what the NHL is doing, which is like, you got to put some shit on there to make it to like kind of really fool yourself. You're going to have some, you're going to really load it up with condiments and toppings. That's a dude, that's my Beyond Meatburger, because Ruby's gotten eaten them and they're, they're fine. Like they're absent of being able to use a grill, which we can't because the restrictions are still in place on the, in the common areas of our apartment building. Like we make the Beyond Meat burgers, but I fucking load it,

is ketchup, mayo, raw onion, some kind of lettuce. Like, you can doll it up to make it seem like a real burger. But you have to, right? Like, that's the thing. Yeah, you can't, like, I can't imagine. The only times I've ever had it are in the Beyond Whopper from Burger King, of course, and in the, like, you can get it at Kudobo, which is a Mexican chain, and you can get it in place of beef.

And so, like, I'll get it in a burrito or something. And in both cases, at Burger King, they're like, oh, there's a bunch of lettuce and ketchup and mustard and whatever on there. And at this place, it's like, oh, I covered it in salsa. Like, it's fine. But I can't. But every once in a while you get that, that little bit of it that's not fully flavored. And you're like, yeah, that doesn't really work for me so much. So I get it.

But what do you think? You're a cynic. Have you enjoyed the way the games look? Yeah. I mean, I, again, I try to listen to games with the sound down because I just kind of get annoyed at what the announcers have to say a lot of the time. And yeah, I mean, it looks fine. I like the little video screens in the back. I wish they'd do a little bit more with them like the NBA does, where, you know, they have the virtual crowds, which if you've watched any of the NBA games, is kind of fun because you're like, oh, that's Paul Pierce in the background.

That's fun. Paul Pierce is just watching this game like I am. And that's cool. But, yeah, I mean, you know, again, apart from, I don't think the audio works because they're turning up the little knob or however it, like, functionally works. They're just cranking up a knob when the puck gets close to the net or something. And I don't, I think that feels a little weird. And then, you know, whenever it's, you know, a Doc Emrick game because he's not in the rink, there's like a little delay on every. call he makes, which when you talk a mile a minute, like he does, just makes you feel like

you're going insane. Yeah, it's certainly suffered a little bit as far as not having the guys in the buildings. But when the guys are in the buildings, because some of them are, I think it sounds fine. But yeah, you know, the crowd noise, I, obviously you can't have the live audience. because it's just F this, F that, and whatever. You can't let that out on TV. That's just the announcers doing that. That's right. Sean, what did you think of this grant experiment?

It's been good. I would say everything has ranged from either really good all the way down to not great but still better than I thought it was going to be. I wrote a few pieces about this before when it was all in the planning stages, basically saying, like, I don't know if this is going to work. I think not having the fans might be more distracting than we think. Or I thought, you know, maybe the intensity level of the games isn't going to be great. Maybe guys are going to be getting hurt and pulling groins and everything

because they've just, we've never seen guys be off this long and then go right into high intensity. None of that's really happened. It's, it's been good. The hockey's been good enough. And by some reports is maybe getting a little bit better. I don't know if they've tweaked something. You know, we've seen injuries because it's hockey, but for the most part, nothing more than you would normally see in the playoffs.

Obviously, nobody's testing positive. That's the key thing. So far, so good there. Like, it's all working reasonably well, and reasonably well is far better than I thought it was going to work. So I got to give him credit. Like, this has been good so far. You know, the thing about bad ice is that, you know,

both teams have to have to play on it. So it doesn't matter how good. of the ISIS. The, it's a very good point about the look and the sound of it and I think it's also very good point

about how the players aren't getting hurt like every game, which has been nice. I do think that the varying degrees of fitness of the players as they come back from the pause is pretty evident and especially when it comes to this parade of penalties we've had.

Most of the coaches, that I talked to for that story that I wrote this week, we're all like, yeah, it's all stick fouls because they can't catch up the guys yet. And I'm like, oh, it makes a lot of sense. I want to talk about the crowd noise real quick. So it is a button that people inside the arena are kind of pressing as they watch these games. And then it goes on the broadcast. I don't think there's every game does not have sound in the arena. There were a couple they tried, but I don't think that they're doing it as far as like the crowd noise in the arena.

but where where it gets lost is spontaneity and the way that crowds react to certain things because I don't think they really understand like I've seen the few overtime games that we've had there have been like a penalty in overtime let's say if your if your team on home ice gets a power play in overtime it is fucking deafening in that building with the anticipation that you might be able to end the game. And I think it was in what like the Penguins game where, you know, they end up getting a power play in overtime. And like the reaction was just like golf clap.

You know, just like what the fuck? Like it should sound deafening right now. It should, but here's why it doesn't because I don't know if you guys have seen, but Dan Robson wrote a piece on The Athletic Today where he basically interviews the guy who is doing who is physically up there sliding the little buttons around to make the noises. and the NHL pretty much told them to treat these as neutral site games, as World Cup games, and not to have, they don't want to try to replicate like an overwhelming home ice advantage. They don't want, you know, they don't want fans booing the ref when he makes a call that goes against the home team.

They don't want, like, they, and, you know, that's, to me, that's part of hockey, that home ice advantage. And yet I could see that really, I understand why they did it this way. And hopefully, maybe it's, this is just the league trying not to be like, you know, oh, this is the league. Nobody gets booed. No one's ever mad. We all get points for losing and it's fun and whatever. But I could see that really not working if you tried to replicate that.

And, you know, sitting there going like, if I'm watching game three tonight with the Leafs and the Blue Jackets and the Leafs get a power play in overtime and the crowd's booing because it's a road game and I'm sitting there going, there's nobody in the building and it's in Toronto. I could see it feeling even more fake than it does if they tried to get that extra little touch of it. But you're right, it's definitely missing. Like that is something that that's a big part of the playoffs.

And they're not getting that either because it's not possible or because they've just decided not to even try. Yeah, it really feels like they're just trying to keep everybody happy with it. Because, like, you know, if you get into a situation where, like, your team, for example, like, the way the Oilers played not there in game one, they get booed off the ice in Edmonton. Right. And, you know, and it's. Right. And, like, Mike Smith, somebody said it, I think, in the comments on one of my newsletters or maybe in my mentions or whatever.

But somebody was like, it would have been so fucking funny if, like, Mike Smith finally makes a save and you get the fake. Like, hey, like, yeah, yeah. That would have been so good. Like, that would have been, like, that would have been, like, that would have been con smithworthy. Like, whoever hit that button should have deserved it. But, yeah, I mean, you know, they're never going to do that for obvious reasons. And that kind of sucks.

Like, part of the fun of the playoffs is, you can also see guys get really mad at their teams because they're like, you guys fucking suck. Like, why are you playing Jack Johnson again? That kind of shit. Like, right, right. Or the dead silence that happens sometimes when, like, the fans are like, this is not going. I can't believe this is happening. These guys can't score.

They can't do this. They're not doing that. It's this friendly, polite buzz. And again, normally, this is the kind of thing I would jump all over because I'm so sick of this league being like the happy participation trophy league. And everybody makes the playoffs, even though it's not the playoffs, but we're counting it as the playoffs. And you get points for losing and all this stuff. But I also kind of get why realistically they couldn't go for that level of realism, because I feel like if it had not worked, it would have not worked in a way that would have really pulled you out of what you were watching.

Well, that and that and the fact that, like, this is the league where, you know, they have to not do the all-star draft anymore because Phil Kessel was the last pick and the guy. And, like, his GM complained publicly about it's not fair to Phil and all that shit. So they were like, okay, great, we won't do it anymore. And it's the same thing where you're going to boo my guys. You know, like this is like, you know, some GM's going to complain to Bill Daley or something like that. And then it doesn't happen in game two because it happened in game one. So, you know, this was always going to happen. That doesn't mean it's a good idea, but it was always going to happen.

It's interesting that there have been a couple of instances where they did sort of do a negative crowd reaction. They had that one thing where they had the sad Flyers fans on the screen after the Bruins scored. And it's like a picture. It's like in the middle of the screen, you see a Bruins guy celebrating and all the sad flyer fans are in boxes around him, kind of like the beginning of the Brady bunch, which was kind of interesting. And then the predative, they had all the fans record all the chants they usually do in these arenas. And they did the Predators chant where they count the number of like goals and do the, it's all your fault chant towards the opposing. goal tender, which I thought was sort of an interesting thing as well. So they dabbled in it, but they're certainly not going to leave it in the hands of the guy

pushing the buttons to figure this thing out. That's for sure. But I think what really comes home from me and watching these games is that like, and we always sort of talk about the natural sounds of hockey, like being a beautiful cacophony. And in some ways they are. But like you can you can throw a little crowd murmur behind the natural sounds of hockey. And sounds normal. And it tricks your brain a little bit, and I think that's fine. The look of the games, I know that one of the more divisive things so far for a lot of fans is the giant crane camera that comes in and kind of gives you the video game glance at, say, like, a power play or the beginning of a faceoff and stuff like that. Totally video game influenced, like most camera shots are, I think, in sports these days, to be quite honest with you.

I like it. Yeah, it's cool. It reminds, yeah, it's, it's, I don't know why people have a problem with it, because it's essentially why you should sit upstairs. Why the people who sit downstairs near the glass don't understand that those are not good seats compared to, like, being able to sit upstairs and actually see plays develop and shit like that. I think it's a really cool camera angle. Do you like that, Sean, or no? You know what? I like it.

I like it for replays. I like it when they're setting up, you know, show me where guys are on the face off. It, it's okay during the games, but I find that. it's the movement and just the fact that I'm not used to it. And I find that it's some of the views they're using are a little too close to the regular view. So when you go from regular to overhead or back, it's like some of the players jump to completely different places on the screen, but other ones don't. And it just sort of like it almost feels like it needs to be either a bigger change so that my brain goes, you know, immediately resets to whatever I'm looking at versus where it is now. So I'm not, I don't love it, but this might also just be my brain being wired in a certain way from 40 years of watching hockey that other people don't have.

And I get the value in it. You got to try new things. It's going to take a little while for people like me maybe to catch on to it. But so far, I haven't, I haven't loved it, but I see the value. Yeah. I feel like there should be more. I know that there are definitely additional camera angles, although amazingly not. one that actually like focuses on the goal line for for close plays.

But I really thought we'd get like the rail cam back and shit like that. Remember the rail cam where it was on top of the glass and followed the play and shit? I thought that thing was so fucking cool. I'm sure the technology is even better than when we had it the first time. I don't know. I feel like I thought there'd be actually more visual bells and whistles and maybe they're saving that for later rounds. They don't want to, you know, blow the whole thing now. but I felt like there would be more camera innovation than what we've seen so far

I mean, they should be doing it now. Yeah, exactly. It works now. Absolutely. Don't break out experiments in the Stanley Cup final. Like, let's figure it out right now. Yeah.

I can't remember it was somebody in the NBA, they have a rail cam and somebody in the NBA almost got like taken out by one trying to go get a, like a loose ball. And maybe it was just during practice. But like I, let's say it was like Luca Donchich and it might have actually been Luca, that, but yeah, he almost got clocked by it and was like, whoa. You mentioned the fans in the NBA. I actually watched my first NBA game in a while when I watched the Nets somehow

fucking beat the bucks. And I did not like the virtual fan thing there. I think it was crazy distracting and almost took me out of the experience. The thing I like about hockey is that it feels like a normal NHL game. if you just watch it on TV. I completely agree with people saying that the NBA looks like it's being held in like a practice bubble or it's like it's like a high school gymnasium or some shit. It does not look normal to me.

And maybe you can't replicate it because of the fan situation. But I think compared to the NBA's virtual fans and baseball putting up a bunch of fucking cardboard cutouts of people, like I think hockey's aesthetics are much better than those two sports. Fair enough. That's fine. Yeah. I also like the weird shit.

The NHL has towed the line so far of being too goofy and being goofy enough to acknowledge how weird all this stuff is. So like the stuff they're putting on the Jumbotron saying the attendance is zero and please exit your couches safely and shit like that. Very funny, very cute. Kind of an NHL awards level of humor, but clever. Well, then it's not NHL level. It would have been better if I'd fuck up saying it, but oh well. Why did they bring the magician into the bubble so you can do more card tricks for players? Speaking of fucking up, remember that?

He's like, is this your card? And the guy was like, no. What are you talking about? I also, again, loved the hat lady. I loved the lady running down to the ice and throwing the hats on the ice for the hat trick. The interesting thing about this was they were supposed to do it also in the Toronto bubble for Svetnikov, but they weren't ready for it or something. So they just ended up putting all the hats they were going to throw on the ice into his locker afterwards. But Connor McDavid gets the hat trick.

Hat lady runs down to the ice. Her form was sort of reminiscent of somebody throwing a catfish on the ice in Nashville. But she throws the hats on the ice. And then, of course, Connor, after the game, fucking, what did you think of the hats? And he says, they were unnecessary. Come on, you fucking robot. Yeah, he, like, I mean, again, that's the reaction you expect from literally any NHL player. But with that having been said, the proper way to do it is to have like a big, like, you know how they drop a balloon on New Year's Eve where it's like a big net holding them all up?

And you just dump like a metric ton of hats on the goalie who gives up the, who gives up the hat trick. and, you know, maybe he gets hurt. Like it's like it's the brood dropping the blood bath on somebody. That's exactly right. 1997. Raw. Which, which, by the way, they should do for somebody who's ejected from the game is put them under a spotlight in center ice and drop blood on them in the middle to shame them.

That'll be all right. I like the hat lady. I like some of the goofy shit. I'm interested to see the other stuff that they do. I'm in for it. There has certainly been some awkward moments. I think no more awkward than the Jake Muzzen injury, where they didn't tell the guy with the sound machine what to do if there's a catastrophic injury on the ice and they have to bring out a stretcher, which has led to it being silent. Or they did tell them what to do, and that was what they told them to do.

I mean, I don't know what better option there is, like playing fake crowd noise, even just... What if they play that Chumbabwamba song? Which one? That's my chubble-it-winder joke. That's fantastic. That was the one time where, yeah, you were very aware suddenly that it was an empty. But at the same time, a guy has just suffered a neck injury. Maybe we should be aware at that point.

Like maybe this isn't the time to just kind of distract us with noise or something. but yeah, it was... What they needed was the injury theme that like Fox plays for the NFL, which is the Fox theme song, but it's just like a piano version as they go to break. Oh, yeah.

That's what they need. That's right. You got it. The dramatic... It was just like you could hear... You could hear them constructing the stretcher. Well, at one point you could hear... You could hear like the guy who had like not a phone, but like a radio or a CB or something.

Like you could actually hear that going on. And that was the one point where I was kind of like, are we going to hear something here that we maybe shouldn't hear about, you know, whatever the medical situation is. And I don't think we did. But yeah, I don't know how you handle that. That's that there's there might not be a good answer there. But yeah, that was very strange. Mm-hmm. What can they improve?

What could be better as they go on with these games? I know one thing, probably not having Mike Milbury on color commentary to accuse players of faking an injury. Oh, he walked it back pretty quickly. Yeah, I'm a Leaves fan, but when I actually heard what he said, I had a very hard time getting worked up about that. Because that was one of those where people on Twitter are like Milberry just said he's faking an injury. And he was just kind of like, oh, yeah, good idea. to stay down and get a whistle here, but, you know, he might not be, I didn't, I didn't think

that was that bad. And I, and I like making fun of Mike Milbury a lot. So I, I, it's not as harsh as the people who only tweeted the first part of the statement, but it was very much, like, he put the idea into the world before walking it back. And if you're going to walk it back, then don't say it. Well, but at the same time, like, it, that's what people, overthinking. The whole Columbus bench jumped up when the whistle blew, saying, like, why are you blowing the whistle? That's the guy's just not hurt. Like, it's...

Especially because of how innocuous it all looked, right? Like, it's not like he got run into from behind at a million miles an hour, and it was an obvious boarding call and all that kind of stuff. It was just like, oh, yeah. I mean, he just fell weird for lack of a better explanation. Like, he just fell in a way you don't usually see

guys fall in hockey games. And so, So, like, it looked like, yeah, he might have been. Like, I understand why somebody's immediate reaction would be like, yeah, he might be a little banged up. And, you know, maybe it is a good idea to stay down and get a whistle. Like, that's what, that's the unspoken thing. It's a six on four. There's a minute and a half left, like, you're defending a lead. I don't think it was, that doesn't mean every broadcaster has to say every thought that pops into their head.

For sure. Yeah, of course. Having the thought pop into your head makes you an awful person because I think probably a lot of people were thinking it, including John Tortorella and most of the Blue Jackets. And, you know, you're not saying it was an awful play. I mean, Ryan, you clearly are not on the Ken Campbell ban the crosscheck bandwagon. I feel like they have banned the cross check. Okay, call the crosschecks, I should say. They have banned the cross check, yes.

I want to see more weird camera angles I actually want to see them do more like we're on a giant TV set shit in the sense of like like I don't know putting cameras on the bench more yeah fucking give me some fireworks occasionally when shit happens put the

put the cane ring post flames on the goal when they score and fire those off just do fucking cool Thunderdome shit Yeah. Yeah, I would like to see more angles on replays. I don't know. Absolutely. Like I said, during the game, but yeah, go ahead and get crazy.

Yeah, especially because, like, Paul Maurice is going, oh, well, you can't see it in the broadcast footage, but in the footage I saw. And it's like, well, why the fuck do I not get to see that footage then? Like, if it's, if it's this definitive thing. That whole situation is so. Yeah, I mean, that's another level of bizarre. But, like, if you're going to say, oh, well, you know, like, we have this angle that the public doesn't have. Well, now's the time for us to have that angle, too. I think, generally.

Especially when you're using it to accuse somebody of intentionally trying to injure and or end the career of somebody that they train with in the offseason. That's a pretty serious accusation. Like, we all just kind of, you know, coaches being coaches. That's a serious accusation. If you've got an angle that we haven't seen that proves it, show us the angle. and let us decide if it actually does prove it or stop saying that because that was really... That was bizarre.

It was fucking horrible. Like, and we all kind of, I mean, we all, like, there was not enough made of the fact that this guy made up shit. Like, he just knows the Bruder film of the hit where it looks like Kachuk intentionally tries intro. Well, there is. If you have the secret ones. Like, I'm not...

But if there was, I don't... The NHL would have it. They can control. all the fucking cameras. Which is why they should show it. At this point, they should show it no matter what. Whether if it shows that he's trying to injure, which clearly it doesn't, because they would have suspended him if they had an angle that clearly showed.

But then show us what, don't just let it hang there. Like not to compare different situations, but if a coach was up there saying that player on the other team used like a slur on the ice and we have audio that proves. it, but you can't hear it because it wasn't on the broadcast, you got to play the audio then, and we got to make up our lines as whether it happened or not. And the same thing, you're talking about, this wasn't just like, oh, a sloppy hit. This was that kid tried to end his career. You can't throw that accusation around and then say you have secret footage that goes to school in Canada and nobody knows it, but you got to show the footage at that point. Because I'm not like,

I'm not necessarily the world's biggest Matthew Kuchuk fan, but he does a lot. He doesn't deserve to have this hanging over him. Well, yeah, and neither is the NHL. Like, they would have fucking thrown the book at him if there was evidence that he intentionally hurt Mark Schifley. Yeah. And Jeff Warb said it exactly right. If that's a play where Johnny Godreau does that to somebody, we don't have, we don't even talk about it. We go, oh, that's, you know, it's too bad.

And that's it. That's all. Yeah. But then we have to have a three-day fucking discussion about it because of, uh. And it's the Matt Cook thing again, right? And the story that you hear is that when Eugene Melnick and his forensic investigators went to the NHL for Matt Cook, that part of their argument was his skate comes up on the hit. You never see that on a regular hit.

Guys keep their skates down. So the fact that his skate comes up tells you that it was that he may have been intentional. And the story is that the league then proceeded to show them five minutes. of nothing but hits where guys skates come up. It is a common thing. Not every hit, but it's fairly common that skates come up sometimes. So the fact that you've got a view where his skate is high and you're sending me that screen grab going,

oh, what about this? It happens sometimes, man. Like there are hockey plays where bad things happen, and that's what happened this time, unless there's some mystery view that proves otherwise, in which case show it to us or shut up about it. Yeah, and now we're just talking about that hit. instead of like the broader idea of like having more cameras in the building or whatever but like the thing with that hit is if matthew kachuk in that split second was like i'm gonna try to take out this guy's fucking achilles or whatever you know and he could do it well tip of the hat to you that's you know that's that's a skill and uh yeah that's like like connor mac david couldn't move his skates that quick no yeah it's just fucking figure the shit out it would take such an incredible

level of precision that I can't imagine any player is capable of. So what are we talking about? Yeah, I guess he could do it last year to Nathan McKinnon, but I guess he learned the skill leveled up over the offseason. Well, that's what he and Schaigley were training for all summer. That's it. Ironically, yeah. I feel like now we've just reached the point in society where conspiracy theories are

just sort of like acknowledged and shrugged and we just move on. Like this is like it's a Q&on world and we're just looking at. at a veteran coach like top 10. Yeah, top 10 wins of all time just being like, yeah, he tried to injure my guy. I have the secret footage. And then everybody's like, oh, well, you know, that's bullshit. But that's just what guys do now. It's just what we do.

I don't know. Up here in Canada, some people did. Like Brian Burke, to his credit, called him, called Paul Marisa on it fairly strongly. He didn't go over the top. And he said, you know, I like Paul Marisa a lot, but you can't say that. And certainly, if he said it in the heat of the moment and then walked it back the next day, I think a lot of us would understand. But the fact that he doubled down on it. And it just felt very calculated.

It felt very like I'm going to give something. I'm doing that coach thing where you guys are going to talk about this instead of the fact that my team didn't play well. But you're accusing somebody of trying to end someone's career. He's up there going Matt Cook, tried and sent to Guantanamo Bay. After you to Chuck. tried, executed, and replaced by a body double. MacKichuk has a collection of Achilles' tendons in the basement of a pizza place in D.C. Well, he might.

I will say this about coaches in the restart, though. I'm all here for alternative clothing options. The Arizona Coyotes coaches wearing Lulu Lemon jackets on the bench, the blues. Like, Craig Maruby never wants to wear a seat. suit. Craig Ruby is a guy who should never wear a suit. He's up there in a zip-up fucking blues fleece. That's great. Let them always do that. Yeah, that's like in, I mean, I don't know how much international soccer you watch, but there's a lot of coaches, there's a lot of managers, rather, who they wear the full suit on the sideline. And there are other managers who are like,

I'm going in a track suit every single game. You will never see me in a shirt and tie ever. And it's like, you know what? I respect that. Like, some guys, they want to make it like professionalism or whatever and some guys were like, I want to be comfortable when I'm yelling at my guys to move up. So I think that's cool and I think that, you know, I don't know when they, when they started wearing suits instead of like, you know, whatever other clothing you wanted to wear on the bench. But what it should really happen, of course, is that they all have to do like baseball managers and get in the full. the full pads and everything. Yeah. Yeah. Once you wear the socks and...

Yeah. I just think it's cool. I think coaches... No, you're totally right. Yeah, and I think that, like, if you want to go out and just wear your underwear, just wear your underwear. Speaking of underwear, today's episode of Puck's been sponsored by Mac Weldon. D. That wasn't very good. Fuck off. That is not a D.

I know what a D transition is, and that is not a D. That's at least a C. Plus. No, absolutely not. There's a different angle from which it's much better than it sounded on the one you saw. Mac Weldon is the industry leader when it comes to underwear and all the men's essentials, the basics we're talking about. Sox, shirts, hoodies, underwear, Vesper polos, four-way active shorts. And this stuff is of a high quality, and it is awesome.

They believe in smart design, premium fabrics, and simple shopping. And the shopping is quite simple. if you go to the Macwell website. Comfortable underwear, socks, shirts, undershirts, hoodies, all of it. They have a line of silver underwear and shirts that are naturally anti-microbial, which means that they eliminate stink. If you're a big stinky guy like me, it's essential. And Mike Roe is the guy from Dirty Jobs, so he knows they're anti-microbial.

Microvial, thank you. The folks at Mac Weldon have even created their own totally free loyalty program called Weldon Blue. Level one gets you free shipping for life. Just like NWO. And once you reach level two by spending $200, Mac Weldon will start giving you 20% off of every order for the next year. That, friends, is a loyalty program. The Mac Weldon underwear that I wear is super, super comfortable. It's certainly come in handy during these trying times.

of not leaving the couch, you got to be able to, you know, lounge. It gets the job done. Here's the deal. For 20% off your first order from Mac Weldon to get these awesome menswear things, you visit

macwellden.com slash puck. That's M-A-C-W-E-L-D-O-N dot com slash puck. Enter the promo code Puck. There you go. I love this stuff, and I think you will too. You can go check out the different varieties on the website.

Good for gifts. Here's the thing. Open up your underwear drawer. Look at your underwear, look at your socks, and say to yourself, self, when is the last time I hit the upgrade button on any of this shit? Because I occasionally have to do that maybe, listen, I'm a guy, once every 14 months, right? you look at your stuff, you're like I could use an upgrade. Well, get your ass to macwellden.com slash puck promo code puck and upgrade your essentials drawer.

Upgrade it. Let's talk about these series. All of them are going to be immaterial by the time you hear this podcast because the games are happening like every day on the hour. Which is amazing, by the way. That's the other part of this that is fantastic. Is there not a game that's starting in four minutes as we record this? I feel like they're in. No, no, because of the, because it should have been the

Carolina Rangers. Oh, that's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But because they had to go and screw up by ending the series too early, we have to go two hours in the afternoon without hockey, which is unacceptable. I'm already, it's been like six days and I'm already locked in on this. Yep. I, I, uh, let's start with that series. Uh, I don't know where the overwhelming love for the Rangers from some of my peers on ESPN came from. Uh, this was a very, fun offensive team, a not-play-off caliber defensive team in front of goal-tending that looked like it could be real good, but, you know, is still essentially playing behind a two-line team with suspect defense.

Yeah, I mean, the hurricane, the only chance the Rangers had was for Panarin to do what Sebastian Ajo did and have eight points in three games and have Igor Shetzerkin play all three games and play well. Right. And he played one game and didn't play well. And Panarin, what did he have, three points, four? He had a goal and assist. Yeah, he was fine, but he wasn't.

I mean, they, the way they talked about him in game one where like, it's like he didn't do anything at all. And it's like, I mean, have you seen the rest of this? Like, he's playing with Ryan Strom and Yesper Foss still. Like, he's not, he's not Superman, you know. Yeah. And he was certainly, let me put it this way. if you had said, who's the one guy in this series you think is going to go off for three goals and five assists in three games, you would go, oh, that's Artemmy Panarin.

And it wasn't. So I think that's the difference. Could follow in the footsteps of Nikita Kuturov and having a Hart Trophy regular season, followed by a disastrous brief playoff run. So there you go. that the hurricanes are this good without Dougie Hamilton and Brett Pesci is pretty impressive and I think speaks to that even if you think that part of your team is really good and hella deep, it never hurts to go and get that extra guy. I think that speaks to Vegas getting Robin Lainer, which may not be a hell of deep thing.

Their backup was kind of bad, maybe a bad example. But getting Sammy Vatin and Brady Shea at the trade deadline was the rich getting richer. but in this case was really important because Vatinin basically was quarterbacking their power play. Well, I mean, they thought Hamilton was done. And, I mean, he's still not back. So, like, that wasn't done. I mean, he wasn't going to be back until August. That was done until it wasn't.

So good stuff there. So the hurricanes advance. All right, rest of the east. We're doing this podcast hours after the penguins lose to the Montreal Canadiens in game three. Game 4 is Friday night as we do this podcast We're doing it on a Thursday

Holy fucking shit What is happening here? You know what? I'm amazed At how amazed people are Because I feel like Before this all started We were all like

Hey, who knows It's a five game series It's been a four month layoff We're flipping coins Anything can happen And then like I saw somebody tweeted yesterday They're like

Man I thought anything could happen But I can't believe the Oilers and the Penguins are both losing. And I was like, no, that was firmly in the realm of anything. Anything. When anything could happen, that was part of it, that the two top favorites could be down, like, they haven't even lost the series yet, could be down two games to one. Like, I'm not amazed.

Like, it's, it's, Pittsburgh's played well. I mean, they played well enough to win game one. They played quite well in game two, game three, not so much. But Montreal's a reasonably good team. And it's a five-game series. Nothing that should happen should shock us all that much. And I get that, I mean, part of being a fan is that it's fun to be shocked and have upsets and that.

But this is not that big a surprise to me. The thing to say, obviously, is that Mike Sullivan's like, well, I'm just going to keep putting that Schultz-Johnson pairing out there. And we'll see what happens. And the Canadians are like, well, here's what's going to happen. We're going to just go score a bunch of fucking goals. on your goalie who's also not very good right now. Yeah.

Which is the other thing they... And... Yeah. It's really, you know, like it doesn't take a hockey genius to go... Oh, maybe you, like, don't play Jack Johnson anymore. Maybe you just don't, because they've given up eight goals at five on five, and he's been on the ice for five of them. Well, I have a good idea of what you can do.

And maybe you just say, like, Chad Rui, and I don't know who their other, like their eighth defenseman is, but like maybe you say those other two aren't like appreciable upgrades over Schultz, who they probably like on the power play, and Johnson, who seems like a nice guy, you know? Or you're Sidney's friend. Yeah. Yeah.

But you got to try something. Like, Chad Ruehiel can't be worse than this, right? Like, that's what we have to just kind of understand here is that if you put Chad Ruehiel out there for 50 plus minutes, he's probably not going to get five goals scored on him. I think, so Sean's point is a good one, which is that there was always a theory this could happen where Carrie Price plays a great series, and he has, especially in the right moments. Game one, yeah.

And that the Canadian scrounge up enough goals and that the penguins are just maybe like a step too slow or whatever. but I think the shock for me was this was a penguin's team that excelled defensively throughout the season and was able to overcome their injuries and guys missing and shit by playing that style. So I kind of thought that would cross over to the playoffs

and I kind of thought if you have a 3-1 lead against Montreal that you're not going to blow that lead and they blew it. And face a potential elimination from the series, which would, again, like, would throw the whole fucking thing into chaos

if the 12-seat advances from that series, which is fun. The Islanders and Panthers stay alive for another day. I'd be real shocked if they were able to rally from a 2-0 deficit

considering, I think, one team has in NHL history from Game 5th. Oh, oh, oh, yeah, well, yeah, we should talk about this. Yeah, oh, I just triggered you, I forgot. Go ahead and explain what this, because you've gone fucking bat shit about the revocation of, or the, or the, uh, the, uh, uh, hearkening back to the game, five game series of the, of the 1980s. I don't, I don't know if I've gotten that, but there have been all these stats thrown around about the team that wins game one of a five game series wins 85%. And the team that if you go up to nothing, it's only one team has ever come back. And it's being presented as if like, wow, like the importance of these games, et cetera, et cetera.

and it's it's kind of like first of all we do this every year for every you know the team that wins game one wins 66%. Yeah, that's how winning a game works. Like you win a game in a series that increases your odds of winning that series substantially. But in this case, it's even worse than that because the history of NHL five-game playoff series is we're basically going back to the early 80s for a few years where they had a five-game series in the first round only, which means we're talking about a sample of like the islanders against the capitals, where it was like the 130 point islander dynasty versus like some dudes from Washington or the Oilers playing the jets.

Like, yeah, the team that won game won usually won back then because the team that one game one had 50 more points and swept the series every time because it was, you know, easy. Like to take that and apply it to today in the parody. age to a game between like the blue jackets and leaps who had the same amount of points and be like oh yeah 85% chance just stop it's a completely different thing it doesn't we're not getting any value out of this and even cute the first 10 times but good lord like enough and even beyond that again like this is a handful of years in the early 80s like they didn't let goalies

kneel down before this. Like, the extent to which it is a completely different sport cannot be overstated. Yeah, exactly. You know, there was like two Russians in the league. And back then, the better team, you know, if two teams are playing it, one team was better. First of all, they were going to be better by 50 points, not five.

And second of all, they would probably win that game eight to four, not two to one. And when the game is two to one, then, yeah, you can, obviously the chances of, the result being different than what they should be is going to be quite a bit different. It's the same thing as saying as when you're watching a baseball broadcast and they're like, oh, you know,

nobody's done this since Mordecai Three Finger Brown did it in 1894 for the Cleveland Spider. And you're just like, I guess, man. Like, that's sure. The ball was a potato back then and they didn't let black people play for another 80 years, but other than that, yeah, you're right. And they walked from game to game holding a knapsack,

you know, no buses or anything either. I wrote about this today on the SPN in my column. I kind of like five-game series. I know that we all love the War of Attrition that is the round of 16 Stanley Cup playoffs. It's a perfect entity. We don't have to fuck around with it too much.

I kind of like five-game series. say. But what my argument is about to presuppose is what if we did? Like, what if we did? Like, what if we just got done with the first round? Like, like, like, like, like, you know, I was talking to, uh, who was it yesterday on one of these dumb zoom calls? Uh, oh, Taylor Hall about it. You know, about like, does, does a five game series feel different than a seven game series? And he's like, well, essentially at the end of the day, you know, we're up to one of the series. It's, uh, it's, we can knock them out next. It's like being up three, two. And that's what I said to myself, that's a very good point, Taylor Hall, because it's basically just like we skipped to the good part.

We've just skipped over the first couple of games. It's not a war of attrition anyway in the first round. It's the first round. Just like fucking get to the good part. All right, hear me. Just keep in mind that the good part might mean no Connor McDavid and no Sidney Crosby when you shorten the series and make it even easier for the underdogs to win. So that's the flip side of the good part. Well, then you give the better team an advantage.

Play all the games on home ice or some shit. I don't fucking know. That's working well for Edmonton right now. But like we go to the... This is not real home ice. Just because they know where the bathrooms are, doesn't... Now, Greg, I've seen many, many people go, you know, this is going to be a little weird. The Edmonton Oilers, they got to play in their freaking opponent's dressing room.

Chicago Blackhawks, they're in the freaking Oilers dressing room. Oh, my God. Did you see the picture of the Bruins in the Leafs dressing room? That, now, this is crazy. Just bird brains. Five games series. I have no problem with it if you want to do that. That's fine.

Everybody complains about the postseason going too long anyway. Well, I mean, I thought it was interesting because, yeah, I've found these, wow, this series is like over, over after two games. Okay. Like, I think that's very fun and interesting. And then so it's like, oh, maybe we should just have a play-in round for like, you know, there's not ever going to be very much separating like the eighth seed and the ninth seed and the West. Anyway, so let's just mix it up and have those guys play a playing round. And then Pierre LeBron's like, nobody wants to do that.

Everybody thinks it's stupid. Okay. Well, that's not true. That's, that's bullshit. The only guy doesn't want to do it is Betman. Yeah. Like, there are people in the board of governors that I've spoken to that want to do it. Well, right, but not enough to, not enough to, like, build up the kind of.

Well, it doesn't, the way it works is that it doesn't matter if you have strength in numbers. Like, if Gary doesn't want to do it, they're not going to do it. That's the problem. Like, they don't even introduce it during meetings because they know what you. just going to get shut down by the commissioner. But the perfect way to do it would be seven plays 10, eight plays nine, throw it into like a three-game series or some shit. Then you go to your round of 16.

And if people are like, oh, it's going to make the playoffs too long, then do fucking five-game series in the first round. Who cares? You can squeeze in it. I mean, they give us four days off before the playoffs starts anyways. Yeah, so have them play. Slide it in. Have them played like even, you know, a best of two where goal difference matters,

you know, in the result of a tiebreaker. Like, who gives a shit? If you want to do it, and I'm not saying I do or I really don't care what they do with it either way, honestly. But like if you're saying like, oh, we all think this is actually kind of cool and fun, like, okay, well, so fucking do something about it. The thing that bugs me is the arguments against it that Batman is offering are bad arguments. Because it's, he's like, well, first of all, Gary, Batman bad arguments? Come on. He's like, but our playoff race is so great.

Yeah, your playoff race is quote unquote great for eighth spot. now you'll just have the same race for 10th spot. Like, it's, it doesn't, it's not like there's nine good teams every year. And we're screwing it up by. And we need to get revenues up. How do we fix that? Well, not by having their games. But then his other thing is he's like, well, it's going to diminish the importance of finishing

seventh or eight. Good. Good. So let's make it more important to finish higher in the standings instead of just anybody can slip in at eighth and then you have as good a chance as the number one team. It makes the playoff races. Yeah. The playoff race, now we'll have a playoff race for 10th.

to get in to the wild card. We'll have a playoff race for sixth to avoid having to play in the wild card. And you'll have the playoff race for like the top spots still because you'll want to then play a team that isn't as rested as the other teams. And maybe we'll have more injuries or something like that. I think it's a good idea. I understand there's reasons maybe not to do it and maybe tradition is one of them. But this whole like, oh, what we have now is working great. Our playoff races are so great.

Like, dude. I don't know. Yeah. So expand the playoffs is the point. And on top, we didn't even mention the fact that, like, fucking 32 teams when Seattle comes in and half the league doesn't make the playoffs every year, it's just nonsensical. Well, I mean, I think that's the argument in favor of it is like it's a nice round percentage now. You're a playoff sport. Advance more teams to the playoffs. I mean, we used to have 16 out of 21 teams.

Yeah, and that was ridiculous, too. That was ridiculous the other way. Nobody thought it was. It's only ridiculous. in hindsight because now we had more teams. We thought it was ridiculous back then. There was a lot of people back then going, this is, especially people that weren't hockey fans were like, isn't

that the league where the entire league makes the playoffs? As a fan of a Norse division team, we were aware of how silly it made the 80 game season feel. And it made you feel really shameful if your team didn't make it because fucking everybody gets invited. And as a

devil's fan, it took a while. We got invited. Anyways, Expand the playoffs. Panthers, Islanders, Islanders are going to win that series. How are you feeling about the Leafs against the jackets? You know what? Blue Jackets are a good team.

I was talking to Ryan. No, I was fucking. I'm talking to you. Go ahead, Sean. I'm sorry. The Blue Jackets are a good team. They know what they are. They know how to play.

They have basically got the Leafs to play their game twice now. The downside is one of those games. the Leafs played it a lot better than they did. Game two was, you know, Myrtle wrote a piece where he said that might have actually been the least best game of the entire season. They look fucking phenomenal. And, you know, you're kind of sitting there going, you know, we expect to see the Leafs win a few playoff games six to five,

but when you see them lock it down and win a three-nothing game like that, they looked really good. Oh, but except the Blue Jackets sucked, I've been told by a source close to the team. Which, you know, I'm sure that's, I'm sure they appreciate that, a little boost of confidence. But the Blue Jackets are a good team. They could absolutely win this series. I think when we did our picks, I said the Leafs are my pick because they're the better team. But Blue Jackets could absolutely win that series, and it wouldn't shock me.

And I still think that's the case. It's, you know, they need to find some offense, obviously. They've scored one goal against Freddie Anderson in two games. They need to be better than that. The Leafs are going to miss Jake Muzon. That is, you know, other than the big four and the goalie, that that's probably the most important player on the team, maybe. Morgan Riley might be the other guy.

But it's, that does hurt. But it's there. This is a coin flip series. It's there for the Leafs. They know how they need to play now to win. But the Blue Jackets aren't going to make it easy. They're a good team. And I think we saw Columbus's worst.

game at the series already. So it's, it's going to go up from here. But if the Leafs play even like 80% as well as they did in game one, I don't know, man. I think that's, or game two rather, I think that's a wrap. You know what I mean? Like, they were just so fucking good. Like, there was one point, I think they showed the shot chart on NBC. And by the way, the fact that they don't just have the shot chart live 25 or, you know, 100% of the time. And they only flash it every once in a while. That's ridiculous. But, um, yeah, they, they should. showed it and it was just like, oh, it's, um, shots are like 28 to 7. And it's like, what the fuck?

Yeah. It's wild. Um, I, I think the Leafs are going to win the series, but, uh, but they're a tough out. Oilers, Blackhawks, again, the theory beforehand was the Blackhawks could give them trouble because of those scary good veterans and, uh, and the Oilers not being all that deep. All the, yeah, all the holes in the Oilers. roster that we've all been talking about for years now are still there, and they're turning out to be

problems. Right, and like, here's the thing. They spotted the Blackhawks a game by starting Mike Smith in game one. Like, it's undeniable that that's what they did. And, of course, then, like, I've seen, I think it was Jason Greger after game three when Blackhawks won was like, well, Dave Tippett, go back to Mike Smith. I'm like, why does he have a fucking vacation plan? Yeah, he doesn't want to. Doesn't want to stick around any longer.

Like, what the fuck? And, Ryan, to your point from, I think we're talking about it before we started recording, not only is it the Blackhawks veterans doing Blackhawks veteran things and getting some help from maybe a little bit of an underrated supporting cast, but it is, of course, time, once again, for the deification of when Jonathan Taves. Jonathan Taves, I think, you know, one more game like this, he takes the crown of best player in the world. I think this is, that's how good he's been. that's how good he'll continue to be.

And it's, is it only two or three games? You think you'll move him ahead of Drew Dowdy based on this? You know what? I might. Sure, it's only, it's only two or three games, but the Blackhawks are back. They're going to win the fucking cup this year. They're unbelievable. Everybody was down on them, and yet here they are.

Up two games to one on a team everybody else kind of thought was dog shit. Can I just say that, like, NBC put on a thing during intermission that was like a short interview between Catherine Tappen and Drew Doughty. And I was thinking it was like, they found a way to get fucking Drew Doughty mentioned on this broadcast somehow. They did it. Kings haven't been in the playoffs for like three years and they found a way to get you guys. Legally obligated to mention Drew Doughty. I mean, this is fun, right?

Like, I'm torn. I'm torn because there's a certain amount of joy I get in seeing the old dynastic team getting another cracket glory when everybody's written them off. a very fun narrative. And obviously Chicago is a very popular team. So from a personal standpoint, it may benefit me to have Chicago advanced versus Edmonton. But at the same time, these are two of the biggest stars in hockey that might get, you know, eliminated in the first round. And we, once again, it will be robbed of seeing Connor McDavid play important games, and that fucking sucks. Well, that's, I think, I think the reason this series is fun is that it's been nothing but one team or the other showing its ass the entire game, right?

Like that's what, like, it hasn't been, oh, these are two really close, or three really close games, blah, blah, blah. Now, these have been three basically like, oh, one team just didn't even get off the bus today, games. Yeah. And that's, especially with these two teams, that's very funny. So. Well, what sucks is that the first two games were like Firewagon, and then in game three, the Blackhawks were like, oh, shit, that's right. we can just slow this shit down. Yeah.

And play like Little Turtles. And then it became a little bit less, a good intensity and drama. I mean, you get a game winning goal late in the third period. It's very fun. But the pace was certainly different than the first two sort of break-neck games that they played. I have to confess that I keep falling asleep like 15 minutes into the 10-30 games. I just can't do it after watching 12 hours of hockey before or 10 hours of hockey before that. I just can't do it.

I'll say it. We didn't talk about the Round Robin yet. We will. But like, the only game that I couldn't make it through, like I just, I just didn't like watching it was the Flyers Bruins game. I thought that game was fucking... Dudd. Fart. It was just a fucking fart of a game. A shart, if you will. Predators, Predators, Coyotes. I picked the Coyotes in this series because I thought that Darcy Kemper could steal a couple and he has. I thought, that their high-end offensive players would squeak out some goals. And in game three, they did. And I was wagering on the predators being poorly coached and maybe being a bit dysfunctional,

which they appear to be. Yeah, it's weird. It's like they shouldn't have hired the guy who made the devil's bad. Yeah. For multiple years, they hired him. The Predators were a weird team, man. On paper, this shouldn't even be a series. There's so much better on paper than the coyotes are.

That's right. They should be, yeah, but Matt Dushane not really doing anything other than going offside. Catching those catches. You talk about, you enjoy the irony, right? The irony. You get, of all people, to get caught by an offside review. If that tourist goal counts, it's an entirely different game. I mean, the margins are so thin between these two teams.

But, yeah, he'll be a scapegoat. Heinz will be a scapegoat. I don't think you're necessarily a scapegoat when it's your fault, though. No, yeah, it's true. I guess that's true. And maybe the coyotes advance, we'll see. The first team in the history of the NHL, Sean, to advance to the quarterfinals after their GM quits before the playoffs. Yeah, I'm pretty sure, although maybe it happened in the 80s, and we're all going to just...

Yeah. That's Adam. Newsie Jones quit from the Vancouver Millionaires. Not newsy. Oh, no. Speaking of Vancouver, Canucks and Wild, that's a game that's being played before you'll be hearing this podcast. Fun one, because we're either witnessing the education of the young core of the Canoxy for our very eyes from one game to the next, or we're witnessing a back-and-endixie-offer-to-the-nex.

or we're witnessing a back-and-forth series that inevitably will end on Sunday in a game five. Yeah, this has been the real, you figure it out, because neither team seems all that interested in playing particularly well or anything like that. They're just like, eh, we might be good, we might not be. We'll let you know when we get there. We should pause and talk about Michael Furland real quick,

but, Sean, you had another thought on this year? I was just going to say a shout out to all the Canucks fans who complained whenever they play the Leafs, have to watch a game at 4 o'clock local time. Enjoy watching your team play a crucial playoff game at 11.30 in the morning Pacific. I'm sure that'll be fun. Good times. On a Thursday.

Furland makes the training camp roster plays in game one, immediately gets into a fight. This was a guy who had such bad concussions symptoms that he attempted comebacks during the season that failed. because of how bad they were. Gets into a fight. Travis Green, his coach, is like, oh, that's kind of what he does. I don't know. He did it for himself.

And then by game two is out of the series and out of the bubble with an undisclosed injury. Just a baffling fucking trajectory for Michael Furrell. And it is, it's undisclosed, right? We don't know for sure that it's a concussion, but, you know. That's what people are saying anyway. Make the assumption. Yeah.

Even though it could, you know, he could have tweaked a knee or something, but... But if he's out of the bubble, I mean... Yeah, it's not a minor thing. And you know what? Honestly, I get it. He's a physical guy. I get that if you get back in the lineup, there's pretty much two ways you can go, right? You either say, I got to be careful, or you say, I can't be careful, so I just got to test it out and let's see, you know, let's try to get past that hurdle.

And let's find somebody to fight. a big hit or something like that. And so I get it, but this is, this just sucks. Like, this is, if it is what it looks like, it's, that's awful because he, he really worked to get back. Like, he worked so hard. And, and you, you can't help but feel like someone in, in the team leadership, should have been like, we're going to be so fucking pissed if you fight.

Like, they just gave him a big contract and everything. Like, they, you know, he's newly signed. Well, not newly. you know what I mean. It was a free agent, you know, acquisition last summer. Last summer, right. And what did they give him? Four years, like four per or something like that.

That seems like Jim Benning. And it's just like, well, I mean, he was really good for Carolina in the playoffs last year, but also like, you know, he gets a concussion, I think, right away. I don't remember his exact history, but he gets a concussion pretty quickly. And he's out for most of the year and tries to come back a couple of times, like you said. And it's just like, you got to say to this guy, like, that's not what your role is anymore. Like, if you fight, that's going to be, like, we're going to look at that negatively. But he did, like, let's just be clear, though.

Like, he fought in game one. He finished that game. He played game two, played four, three or four shifts, and then left. So if he got hurt in the fight and was allowed to keep playing, somebody really screwed up on the Connoffield. Well, sure, yeah. It needs to be serious. but we shouldn't net like we're making it sound like he fought got hurt in the fight and right yeah no

they're saying he like fell or something at some point yeah so i guess we should also be related we should also ask the question whether he should have been even playing in game two considering he speared a guy on the bench there is that as well yeah uh the n hl uh department of player safety's relationship with spearing is uh fraught they love it they're fucking they kind of do like it they never suspend for it They, they, and what they really don't love, though, is anybody getting involved from the bench. And I think that's what happened here. They really don't want to do anything that suggests that if you get involved from the bench. Not that, not that if you get involved to someone from the bench, you get whatever's coming, but they're going to, there's going to be a different scale because they really don't want anyone who's not on the ice getting involved in any way.

And that's kind of what happened in that one. Right. And there was a situation, I think it was Kachuk maybe, that had a spear from the bench and got a suspension for it. They're spearing thing. Basically, the only times they actually will suspend for a spear are if somebody from the bench spears somebody on the ice or somebody on the ice spears someone in the dick. And then they get suspended for it, like Marchand. And even Marshand was like, well, you know, look at his body of work. Like, this has been coming for a while.

This is a lesser masterpiece for Marshand, but we'll still give him a suspension anyway. Bubble life. Anything stick out to you from these teams being in the bubble. No fights inside of Hotel X yet, unfortunately. I did see one video that I thought was interesting, which is the Colorado Avalanche, apparently, and I don't know who assigned rooms or whatever, they have a block of rooms in the hotel. they're staying in in Edmonton, where they have basically like a sun deck, where they all go tanning, and also watch the games on a giant Jumbotron screen on the outside of the arena.

It's pretty fucking sweet. You'd figure the blues would have gotten it for being as good as they were in the regular season, but the avalanche were there instead. Anything else in the bubble that really struck you besides the miraculous nature of the fact that we haven't had any positive tests yet? Yeah, I think that's the big takeaway. I really don't care who was playing fucking top golf all day. Like, it doesn't matter to me. No, you see this guy playing cornhole?

Yeah, I mean, you got to do something, right? But, yeah, I mean, you know, I am not here to, like, get all excited about who's playing settlers of Catan or whatever, you know? Like, I just want to know that there's nobody getting in or out and there are no positive tests. Like that's all that matters to me about the bubble. Yep. That's pretty much it. I mean, everyone's finding their own way to have fun. The Islanders are going pretty hard on the ping pong.

But it's, I guess the one thing I'd say is it's, they've been in there for a week now. Most of us can last a week in a situation. In a hotel, yeah. In a hotel, whatever. When it gets into four weeks or six weeks or eight weeks, let's see where it's, let's see where it's. set. But like I said, so far so good. Let's reevaluate on Labor Day. Yeah.

Oh, you know what? I should mention, did you guys see the video of the Bruins playing basketball? Did you see that? Yeah. I did not know. I don't remember exactly what it was. It was something along the lines of like they're trying to do like free throws or something, but it just looked like they were all intentional, like not intentionally missing. and just being really bad at basketball. And so, like, that really seemed like a post hoc. Like, oh, yeah, we were trying to miss. Like, we were...

It was that bad. Like, it was comic. The classic Puey Herman, I meant to do that. Yeah, it was... It was, like, the opening montage of, like, an inspirational kids basketball team movie. Or, like, they just can't fucking make a shot. They're, like, nobody's even around them

and they're missing by 40 feet. Like, it was that bad. So that was my big takeaway from the bubble. The movie is called dribblers. It came out in 1994. And who's the head coach? I'm making up this movie, by the way. Okay, I was going to say, because this sounds like just.

What can be, so, you know, you have your Emilio Estevez as the Mighty Ducks coach. You have your Rodney Dangerfield in Ladybugs. John Candy and Cole Runnings. Yeah. Who would have been the guy? are we progressive enough in 1994 to have like a black guy as the coach? No, I think the answer is Daniel Stern. No, it's got to be like a, he's not a big enough star.

It's got to be like a comedian or an actor. Daniel Stern was in like every movie in the early 90s. He was working, man. He was like a friend though. He was in the friend zone of those movies. Would Tim Allen be the guy at that point? Ooh, Tim Allen's a great pull because, that's like pre-home improvement really being big,

but he's like a huge stand-up comedian at that point. Yeah. I think that's a good call. If it's like 98, it's probably Ray Romano, but if it's like 94, it's probably Tim Allen. Paul Reiser wouldn't be a bad pick either along the same line. Oh, that's pretty good, too. That's solid.

I'll go off the board. I'll say Kelsey Grammer. His big bid for a childhood, child franchise because Emilio Estevez made so much dough with the Mighty Ducks. That's it for bubble life. All right, let's talk about the serious shit that went down because as a hockey fan for all my life,

I really never thought we would ever see a playoff season begin with an inspirational video about diversity and the fight for racial equality. produced by the NHL ending with a giant graphic that says end racism and then having a player who does not play for either of the teams in the game walk out and give a heartfelt four-minute speech about ending racism in hockey and in society and then taking a knee during the U.S. National Anthem. This was shit I never thought I'd fucking see in hockey

and yet here it was over the weekend. Yeah, no, it's, you know, after, after, they botched it so bad in the bubble exhibition games or whatever you want to call them. They had to do something better than that. Yeah, and it's sort of like we've been saying for a few weeks now. Is it enough? Was it the right message? Do they get a pat on the back and, you know, mission accomplished?

No. a lot of it still compared to what we're seeing from other sports, especially the NBA, doesn't feel like it measures up to the moment. And yet, as Greg said, this is much more than we would have expected even a few weeks ago, let alone years ago. So, you know, I'm willing to give them credit and certainly, I mean, the individuals involved in Matt Dumba and what some of the other guys are doing is fantastic.

Even seeing some other players come out of their comfort zone, even if they're not going as far as you would like them to. You know, we are seeing it. I give them credit for that. I don't give them a finished grade yet because there's more to do and it would be very NHL and very hockey to do this for a few weeks and then forget about it. there's still a lot more to be done, but it's progress. It's steps forward, and it's more steps than I think most of us thought they were going to take. Yeah, and you get the whole thing of like, on the one hand, it is inspiring that what Matt Dunba did led in some way to Ryan Reeves and Robin Lainer and Jason Dickinson and Tyler Stigand, all taking an E together before a game, like kind of seeing the lack of support Dumba got led in some ways to that happening.

In another way, Matt Dumbah stood amongst 80 of his peers, or 79, I guess, because he counts towards the wilds total. And none of them raised a fist or took a knee. You know, the closest thing you got was Malcolm Suban and Darnel Nurse standing with him before the Chicago Edmonton game. So, you know, it's a lack of real support, especially compared to the NBA. And that was sad.

Like, you're a Minnesota wild player. All this shit happened in Minneapolis, and you can't raise a fucking fist with that guy on the bench during the anthem? Yep. Come on. I mean, give me a fucking break. Yep. Well, the other thing to say, though, is that I think the fact that Ryan Reeves did it,

Like, that's interesting insofar as they asked him about it. And he said, I don't want to make my teammates feel uncomfortable or whatever. And it's like, that's the ultimate problem with hockey in this whole situation is that everybody's like, I just want to tow the line and just kind of keep. But like people rightly pointed out, like the point of black protest is to make white people uncomfortable. Like, they have to realize that this is what's going on. And, like, you know, I was glad to see Ryan Reeves kind of break down the military part of it. Well, not, no. No, I wasn't pleased to see that because then that allowed Catherine Tappen when Anson Carter's like, oh, yeah, this shouldn't be a political issue.

This is about people's lives, blah, blah, blah. And Catherine Tappen was like, and it's also about the military. We'll be right back. Like, what the fuck? So, no, I would, you know, I think that, you know, just the fact that, like, Matt Dumbah getting no support kind of made, maybe made Ryan Reeves go, oh, shit, okay, well. Yeah. You know, like that. And I got to say that in a weird way, and this is maybe not the right way to view it, but seeing Ryan Reeves not get much support from his teammates almost bothered me more than.

More, yeah. Dumbah, because of the role that he played, like, look at what this guy's job is in the NHL. This guy's job is to literally bite for his teammates, is to literally, when his teammates are in trouble or something has happened, he goes and physically bites and gets punched in the face for them. That's his role. But you can't go out of your comfort zone for five minutes to support him on something far more important. I just, yeah, it's, and I don't want to get caught up in that because, like I say, it's progress and I don't, I, I don't want to jump immediately to why it's not enough. Like, I think there is value in stopping and appreciating the progress that's been made. But that did rub me the wrong way.

And maybe it shouldn't, you know, the role somebody played. But it's just like, Ryan Reeves, how many of these guys has he literally been punched in the face because they got cross-checked? but you can't be uncomfortable for five minutes and answer some questions on something so much more important than that. And the thing that I can't, somebody made the point of like, Tyler, so the thing with Sagan was that he went back to the Star's room and was like, oh, Reeves and Lainer are going to kneel down. Anybody want to do it with me? I'm going to do it. And Jason Dickinson's like, yeah, I have a black uncle or whatever he said. and nobody else. It was a real strong Jerry

McGuire vibes. Yeah. With Jason Dickinson as Renee Zelliger. And then everybody else looking at him like he's a fucking psycho for being like, maybe black people have the rough. A bunch of Jay Moors. Exactly. No, but Ben Bishop was on the ESPN podcast to be an Emily and said that like, I guess

Sagan did it at a time when it wasn't like everybody was in the room kind of in a circle or anything and he didn't walk in and be like, hey, he was taking a knee. I think there were some guys that like, everybody was kind of scattered about when he did it. So it wasn't as if, you know, the awkward moment of him standing before team. He got one out of ten instead of one out of one. No, no. I'm not, I'm not. It's, it's totally shitty what happened. I completely agree with you.

I'll say this, though, to Sean's point, on top of Ryan Reeves being the guy who fights the fights for these guys that, that, so they don't have to. if anybody out there in the NHL is going to make the point that having some sort of demonstration during the anthem is going to put them in an uncomfortable position like with their team Ryan Reeves took a knee during the U.S. national anthem on a team owned by Bill Foley. Did you understand that? Like fucking Bill Foley is the military. Like if you if he could do that for that team Then you certainly can do it and and and and be like well what'd you think mr. Vinnick

Like what the fuck? It is it is astounding to me that people The excuses that are made two more things of this first of all It should be said that all this stuff is very important Representation matters and and leadership matters and if you see players doing these things and demonstrating and making these statements it will only help others eventually to do so. Actions ultimately will speak louder than any of this, and the NHL committing to this financially, from personnel-wise, from a, you know, diversity amongst hiring for teams and the league,

like all of it has to happen now in the aftermath of this. And then the other thing I'll say is that I know there's been a sort of a lot of examination of the media's role in trying to find out where these guys actually stand on this stuff and ask them questions about, hey, why did you kneel? Or, hey, you know, what is your team doing? Or, hey, you know, in the months since all this happened, you know, what have you done to kind of educate yourself about racism and racial injustice? And there have been questions asked by myself and others during these Zoom press conferences. And there's been a lot of deer stuck in headlights on this stuff. It's uncomfortable for these guys to talk about it. I don't know

if it's because of the venue or what. I think these are conversations that are probably best had face to face. But there's been a variety of different answers. Some of them good, some of them not good, and some of them kind of just kicking the ball down field and we'll just talk about it later. So everybody's kind of just kind of maneuvering their way through this.

I think some guys have been very thoughtful about it, but others simply just don't want to talk about it. And that's to be expected, I think. But I give full marks to fucking Matt Dumbah because what he did was incredible. Without a teleprompter, without no cards, without anything, speaking from the heart and conveying his message perfectly. Really, really, really strong spokesperson for the Hockey Diversity Alliance, which is, as I wrote about in my piece earlier this week, about the NHL's sort of history of diversity efforts, kind of having some growing pains a little bit in its negotiations with the, the league. But I think that they should be really proud of the fact that Dumba put the organization

to the forefront, represented it well, and that they had their... Listen, the Hockey Diversity Alliance had more branding on the beginnings of these games than the NWA shell had at any point during the All-Star game when its players were playing in it. So it should be pretty happy about that. Anyways. Yep. All right.

So that's a whole lot of stuff about the NHL restart. I guess maybe we should just end the episode with nonsense. No game show this week. We'll bring it back next week. Overrated, underrated, favorite, least favorite. I apologize. I don't know who sent this in. Whoever you are, just know that you did a good job.

Overrated, underrated, favorite, least favorite Nintendo characters. Of any, any stripe. I'll go first. overrated as Toad Toad became kind of a cult icon I think he's memeable I think his existence is funny because is it a hat or is it actually his head?

Canonically it's his head Right But overall I mean like I mean what is Toad The introduction for me to Toad Was he was the guy in Super Mario Bros. 2 who lifted heavy things and couldn't jump and I don't need that.

Toad's overrated, in my opinion. This is going to be a controversial take. I think it's Donkey Kong. Oh. He's a bad guy. Why? He's a bad guy. He is.

And then they were like, oh, you got to see it his way. I don't need this revisionist. Like, they're doing a nurse ratchet, like, origin store. series. And it's like, ooh, they shouldn't do that. You shouldn't be allowed to do that. You know, it's the, it's the Pat and Oswald bit about

Angelina Joe Lee. Like, oh, she's beautiful, but I don't want to see John Void's balls. Like, yeah, no, that's, that's true. It's an excellent point. Yeah. So, yeah, you don't need, you don't need to say the origin story. I mean, this is a

broader problem in, like, we're just out of ideas for culture and stuff. But, you know, like, do we want to say Donkey Kong country started that? Yeah. And by the way, whatever happened to Donkey Kong Jr. Are we just saying that's Diddy Kong now? It's Diddy Kong now. Yeah.

D.K. Jr. erasure, I think. But I agree. Overrated, Sean? I don't know. See, I wasn't a huge Nintendo guy. I'm going to go. See, I feel like I'm going to get yelled at for this. Uh,

Wario. What? Why did, you just took a guy. You just, you just turned the one letter over and you, and, and not only that,

but I feel like in the Nintendo, I've been playing with my kids, I feel like Waluigi now is like the better, more developed character. How does that possibly happen? Like, dude, you were first,

but all they did is take him, give him an evil mustache and, and plump them up a little bit, which is body shaming. Uh, and turn him into the, the big bad guy. Here's my counter argument to that.

One of the best Nintendo games ever made is Wario Ware, which is just a series of stupid little, like, five second mini games that is incredibly fun and good. And like, it really leaned into the, like, he's not like evil like Bowser, but he is

mischievous and not a nice guy. And that, I think that strikes the right tonal, like, balance between, say, a Mario and a Bowser, where it's like, you know, he's a shades of gray character. He's the attitude era. He's 94 Diesel. That's right.

If you were going to put this in Batman terms, Bowser's the Joker and Wario is the Riddler. Would that be safe to say? Yeah, maybe, yeah. Yeah, sure. Yeah, he's just having a little bit of fun out there. He just wants people to solve his riddles. He loves gold. What are you going to say?

Yeah. Underrated Nintendo character. I'm torn between two. I'm going to go Lakitu. Ketu, sure. I know who Lakeyles. Come on. The little Turtle Man in the Cloud who throws spiky creatures at you.

And also in Mario. CART rescues you when you don't successfully make jumps. I see him a lot in that game. That's where I know from. He's the most common. You think he's the most famous Nintendo guy? Yeah. Yes, exactly.

Le Kittu Kart. I feel like what an omnipotent sort of character. Like on the one hand, saving people's lives. On the other hand, murdering people with spiky shells thrown from his little I will say they, the whole Mario crew is really admirably able to put aside all the murder attempts. That's right. And go-karting or play tennis or golf or something. Or Mario Party.

Yeah, Mario Party is literally like, we're just going to sit around and play a party game together, guy who wants to kill me. Yeah. Underrated, Ryan. Little Mac from Mike Tyson's punchout. Nice. Because. he's a little Well, he's in one game ever

Well, I guess he's kind Is he technically the guy you play as in Super Punch Out? But they haven't done a Punch Out game in forever And the extent to which he looms so large In the public consciousness of like Nintendo games Broadly speaking Like if you said, oh, you know, what's one of the best Nintendo games ever? You get a lot of people who would say Mike Tyson's Punchout

And little Mac is right there in the heart of it all. So we stay in a short king. Sean? Underrated Nintendo Nintendo? Underrated, so I mean, I don't know this well enough. So I checked in with my kids. Oh.

And they gave me, their suggestion for underread it was Rosalina, who apparently, as I'm, is explained to me, you've got Princess Peach, who is Mario's girlfriend. And you've got Daisy who is Luigi's girlfriend. And then you've got Rosalina who's just this single on her own, don't need no man. And they told me a bunch of other stuff she does, but I immediately forgot. And then they also told me something that there is another one, Pauline or Paulina, who is apparently the girl from Donkey Kong, the original Mario's debut,

with the girl that he's saving in the first one, and then he dumped her for Princess Peach? Are you kidding me? And she's still got to hang around and watch her ex-boyfriend hang out with this updated version of her? Are you kidding me? That's pretty cool.

It's tough. I was pretty shocked. I'm more into this dynamic than I thought I would be. But yeah, I'll go with whichever one I just said. Uh, my favorite, my favorite, that's tough, man, my favorite, uh, character. And again, I'm just going by like, I'm thinking, like, when I think about playing Mario Kart and when I think about playing Mario Party, like, who am I choosing more often than not? And in Mario Kart, I usually play as green shy guy.

And in Mario Party, I tend to play as dry, bones, I'll go with dry bones. Like a skeleton of a cupa, reanimated, a dead cupa, cursed to walk among us. Yeah. The worms are his money. The worms are his money. And just is kind of friends with everybody, despite being one of only two undead creatures

is that are friends with everybody, the other one being boo. So I'll go try. Well, you also have Dry Bowser, of course. We can't forget Dry Bowser. That's what he gave up booze for a little bit, right? That's right, yeah. Yes. The answer is obviously Waluigi.

Everybody's favorite Albanian tennis player. Introduced just because Wario needed a doubles partner in Mario tennis. That's literally why he exists. And he's cool. There's of course the famous fake quote from Mitt Romney about

about Waluigi. About Waluigi, how it's actually I gotta find it. But yeah, Waluigi is fun and funny and he's just a big yeah, okay, so

Mitt Romney, this is a real fake Mitt Romney quote. Nothing's more infuriating than those who criticize Wau Luigi's name. Do they honestly think just taking the Wai from Wario and affixing it to Waluigi? In Japanese, Wariu translates to bad, and Ruiji is the phonetic equivalent of Luigi. Luigi is a portmanteau of Wau of Wariu and Ruiji, bad Luigi. It's a clever pun. Anyone who says Waluigi's name is stupid is actually betraying.

their own ignorance of the Japanese language. And I agree with Mitt Romney 100%. On everything. Yeah, that's right. And, yeah, of course, Waluigi is... I don't know that they're actually Albanian. We do know that, of course, the Mario and Luigi are Italian. So what would an evil Italian be?

I don't know. It seems like maybe Albanian would be the answer. Of course, as we know. Right. I don't know if you're familiar with the series, but like, Polygon has like a YouTube channel, and they have, among several people, they have this, like, hipster nerd guy who does really complicated videos about very simple topics. Oh, is this the guy who did, like, the, he read every book in Skyrim? He read every Skyrim book. He tried, like, he physically experimented on himself using, like, every stamina boost from video games to see which one would work.

He's got one on why Waluigi doesn't have his own game and like his pitch for what that would look like that is excellent. I didn't understand 90% of it, but it's good. I love Wai Lwagliji. My pick for favorite, I just did the same thing Greg did. I just went with who I usually choose when I'm playing the game. I like Yoshi. He seems like a friendly dude. And we have like the original Yoshi's Island or whatever on whatever system that's on.

Nintendo, Super Nintendo. It seems, it seems fun. The kids like it. So, yeah, I'll go Yoshi. I like him because he eats everything. He can't fucking stop eating shit. It's great. We've all been there, yeah.

Yeah. Least favorite, this is going to sound weird because he's such a essential part of an incredible series of games. But he's also just kind of a cipher. Seifer or Seifen? Which one of my look? Which one's the draining one? Well, it doesn't matter. I don't think either one's correct?

It's, it's, It's, it's, like, come on. Come on. Come on. His favorite character is Link. It's just, what's the fucking point? Like, it could be, well, he saves high rule, you know,

multiple times. I agree that. I agree that. I mean, so what's the point is saving high rule is the point of Link. My, my point is that this Legalis cosplayer is not worthy of the hand of Zelda.

She comes off in Breath of the Wild as being like the coolest chick you've ever met. And this guy is just hell of lame and mute. Yeah, you're a big Gannon fan. Is that right? You were rooting for it. I'm a huge. I am Team Gannon. I don't like the fact that he makes those little yelps every time he jumps.

He's incompetent in many ways. At least that's what I think when I die on that game, because it's obviously not by my hand that he dies. And Link is my least favorite character A complete nothing broker If you replaced him in that game With Luigi

Can you imagine how great The fucking Zelda series would be? It'd be incredible I just can't picture a game Legend of Zelda A Luigi to the past That doesn't even make sense Can you imagine how amazing

The cooking scenes in the Wrath of the Wild Would be if Luigi was doing the cooking Okay, what if it's Wau-Luigi? Well, then The problem of Waluigi replacing Link and Breath of the Wild is that all the climbing that's necessary would be very... I don't know. Waluigi, Waluigi big tall guy. Lanky.

Oh, Waluigi, not Wario. I'm sorry. No, no. Waluigi as Link. I could work. I could get down with that. I can get down with that. Also, like, you would never pay for anything in the game.

He would just steal it and go, ha-ha-ha. And run out of the... Right, run out of the fucking hut. So, Link's my least favorite character. You complete nothing, Burger. A slippy toad from Star Fox. I was just yelling at you. I don't like him.

No, you don't want that. A real Michael Ironside's kind of character. Yeah, sure. I don't have much to say beyond that. He just shouts at you the whole time. He doesn't really seem to help you very much. So, yeah. This might be in a similar vein, but I'm picking the dog from duck hunt.

Sure, yeah. Dude, I'm doing my best here, man. Like, I don't own Nintendo. I'm at my friend's house. I already know I'm going to get my ass kicked. I'm trying my best with this stupid little infrared gun that doesn't even work half the time, which isn't my fault. I don't need you popping up on the screen and laughing at me every time I don't win. Well, the real problem is...

Support me or get off the screen. Well, exactly, because he's supposed to be your dog. Right? So, like, the fact that he's making fun of you, like, that sucks. Yeah. And then what does he do? He's not a good dog. No. If he's not laughing at you, what is he doing?

He's then lifting up the ducks that you shot like he did fucking something. Yeah. He jumped into the marsh to scare the ducks and then you did all the work. Yeah. I don't like him. I think that's a pretty big. He's a big old division of labor, quite frankly. And if anything, he's doing more.

His job could be accomplished with an air horn. Well, let's be honest. She's not doing more for me because I'm not giving them very many ducks to retrieve, but he could be on my side for once. Right. I think that's fair. I think that's a fair criticism. You need teammates that build you up, not tear you down.

Exactly. Or teammates that recognize that you're the sole reason they eat and they go and shit and they have shelter. Like, don't fucking turn and heel on your master like that. Yeah. You know, am I doing my best? Is this a real landlord logic, though, Greg? I hate to tell you. I'm doing my best.

Look, do I occasionally point the gun at him and try to shoot him? Yes, all the time, every single time. But that still is no reason for him not to support me. And, you know, just maybe a thumbs up. A supportive thumbs up would be helpful. Rada boy. Yeah, just have him, like, support you. All right, that's Puck Soup.

for this week, our thanks to Mac Weldon. Go check out the website. They've got an incredible array of really comfortable stuff if you were due to need some new essentials. Mac Weldon's the place to go. You can read my stuff in ESPN.com. My column up today is about expanding the playoffs and maybe taking pieces of this postseason and applying it to future post seasons. If you haven't read my story on the NHL Diversity Task Force that existed back in the 1990s, do check it out. It's a bit of a long read, but I think it's good context

for all the stuff that we're seeing today. And my other podcast is ESP and Ice where I don't curse. Ryan? Do you rank Nintendo characters on there? No, we don't. We do have a segment each week called Phil Kessel loves hot dogs

in which we make fun of the hockey media, though, so that sounds like it's right up your alley. It does. Yeah, we're going to sign up for the Patreon. on here. We got good stuff. I have a newsletter. I do stick to sports with Sean Gentilly from the athletic once a month.

And yeah, we do all the bonus episodes. We just recorded a bonus episode earlier today about the 2005-06 Stanley Cup playoffs. So it was the last time the playoffs were insanely weird.

We figured it was worth revisiting, so check it out. Yeah. You can find my stuff on the athletic. I got a bunch of stuff up there this week. More on the way. So subscribe if you have not. And enjoy the draft lottery, everyone, part two.

Oh, yeah. We didn't talk about that. We didn't really talk about it, but it's, yeah, speaking of very weird things. So teetering on the brink would be the potential of penguins, oilers, predators, the Rangers are in it, the Panthers, either the Canucks are wild. Everyone's already preemptively mad about... I'll say the blue jackets get in.

The jets get in. So it's going to be very interesting. You're going to have some teams that if they got left for in the air, you'd be like, oh, okay, that's good for them. And there are going to be other teams that if they got left from year, you're just like, all right, I, you know, I for one celebrate our new hockey overlords. You want to hear my hot take?

Sure. I don't mind if the penguins win the lottery. I wouldn't have an issue with that. I get why people would be mad at the Oilers. or the Leafs or some other team that won recently. Pittsburgh hasn't had a top, has had, I think, one top 20 pick in the last 15 years. Yeah, they lucked into Crosby.

They tanked into Lemieux. But getting one or, you know, star player every 10 or 15 years doesn't strike me as that bad. And I think it'd be cool to see a star player on a star team. I know the penguins are really good. And you don't think really good teams should win the lottery, but also really good teams shouldn't have to get upset in five-game miniseries just to make the playoffs. And they did.

So I wouldn't have a problem if the Penguins win. I'm going to say that preemptively in case it happens on Monday. I don't want him on the Oilers, and I would rather him not be on the Rangers. I think the Rangers are pretty set going forward. The Penguins would be fine for me because it would. would mean that they actually won the top overall pick fair and square for once, rather than tanking or having it rigged for them. Fair and square is in losing.

Fair and square is a... In a weird season with many playoffs that aren't playoffs, but do count as playoff stats. Yeah, cool. The three teams, the four teams that I'd like to see get them are... Maybe it's three teams. The three teams I like to see get them are... either, or no, four teams, either the Canucks or the Wild.

I think the Wild, I think the Wild, really, they could use them. And, like, that's a hockey market. Like, yeah, they do well, but, like, when you think of the Wild, you go, oh, right, they're in the NHL, sure. Yeah, okay. I do remember that. Where, like, I think, oh, man, it would be, it would be nice to have, like, a team in, like, that market actually have somebody to be fucking excited about that isn't.

Well, you know what? We might be able to get them for next season from the KHL, but also we're not totally sure how that's going to work because next year we might not even play until January. So we'll see. And, you know, like, it's just like, fuck, can these guys catch one break with like a superstar talent? Yeah, it would be like. That's my thing. I hope it's the wild. I agree.

I, I, I, the wild would be great. Like, it's like, it's like when, you know, the fucking. You know, the Timberwolves went from being the team of Poo Richardson to the team of being like Kevin Garnett or whatever, right? Yeah. Yeah. But I would go either the wild or the Canucks would be great. And then I would, the other two teams that I would love to see get them are the Panthers. Oh, yeah, they've earned it.

They, they, they're a great team really well run. So. Yeah. And then the, uh, the blue jackets would be great. give Columbus the foundational plan. Well, they just had their nice high pick, you know. Pierre-Luc Dubois is a good player, so. Yeah, so give them somebody to play with. Very exciting.

What about that night with? I mean, the real answer, the real answer is the Leafs, because it would, I mean, that, for all of the chaos talk of, like, Lafranier playing with Sid or with McDavid, like, the ultimate chaos talk is, like, the Leafs getting three years of a rookie contract. Objectively the funniest outcome. Objectively the funniest outcome. Without question. Yeah, without question. All right. Thanks for reminding us about the draft lottery. That was an oversight of my part. All right, that's the show. We'll talk to you guys next week. Bye. See you.

Bye-bye.