Puck Soup - It Was A Series Before

Episode Date: June 22, 2022

Sean and Ryan talk about the latest in the Stanley Cup Final, NHL awards, coaching changes, and more.

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 in tunes. It's your weekly bowl of Hockey and Nonsense. I'm Ryan Lambert from Elite Prospects. I'm Sean McEnacu from The Athletic. And folks, it's a damn series now, okay? It wasn't a series before.

No. But then Tampa won, so now it is one. But wait a second, the home team hasn't lost, so is it a series? No, that's true. That's true. Did you see the best part? I think it's a series, but I don't think either team is in trouble is the way that that works. You're not in trouble until they lose at home.

Okay. So apparently Tampa wasn't in trouble when they lost seven and nothing. Good to know. No, no, no. They got outscored 11 to 3 in the first two games. They were fine. Nothing to worry. Yep.

as evidenced by they just won six or two it's all it's all fine um but the best part about that was i can't remember who it was someone skated by the colorado bench and held up the fingers of like yes one yeah i've never seen that before cool thank you for sounds like you've uh only won one third of the game so far yeah you really i've never seen somebody do any version of the scoreboard taunt when they were losing before Like dog, we're only down one now. Yeah. Thank you for reminding us that we are winning the series.

Yeah, I don't remember who that was either. It wasn't like one of the big stars, I don't think. It was like Bogosian or somebody. Somebody like that. But yeah, I remember noticing that. I'm glad you brought that up because, yeah, that is, he's just being a nice dude. Just sporting. He felt like they were down a little bit.

He's like, guys. I know we're beating you pretty good here tonight, but don't worry, you're up to one. And here's the fingers to prove it. There you go. So I guess the big question here is, well, first of all, I guess have to say that we have not done a show since the Stanley Cup final started. That's right. And we will not do one until it is. So this is our one mid-series show.

We better bring it. specifically you better break it because I got nothing so okay so yeah let's um let's start with games one and two do you have any thoughts other than uh the lightning got their asses beat well the first game was great uh the first game was exactly what we were all kind of hoping for in this uh series that looked so good on paper um you know overtime uh and good you know it started off Colorado jumping out to the lead, you're sort of like, uh-oh. And then Tampa comes back and ties it and you go, oh, yeah, of course, Tampa. And then overtime being what it is, Colorado gets the win.

And then game two starts off kind of the same way. And you go, uh-oh, and then you go, wait a second, not all. It's Tampa. I know how this goes. And then they just got their doors blown off completely. And like I wrote a piece about it. it is, that really was a historic blowout. Like, it was one of only four times in history that a team has got beat that bad in a

Stanley Cup final game. And that counts the 80s and, you know, all the crazy high scoring years. It's, it is almost unheard of for that to happen in the Stanley Cup final. So did it mean anything? No, apparently not. Right. I guess the thing I was thinking about with that is it's probably a historic ass kicking insofar as you're not used to seeing a team that's actually good get beat that bad in the cup final. Because there's been plenty of times where a team wasn't that good in a cup. But even then, like. And everybody was like, eh. But even then you don't get that level of beating. In fact, like, I think the only other ones.

And to your point, like the one of them was the penguins against the North Stars in 91. So that would be, that's a team that wasn't very good, that North Stars team. And also the, the avalanche beating the Panthers, eight to one in 96. Another, you know, Panthers were not a terrible team, but certainly not an elite team. And then it was Boston beating Vancouver was the one that kind of stood out as a, the only, the other example of a really good team. Just getting stomped like that. And for Vancouver, like, that turned the series around.

They just weren't the same team after that game. So, again, it doesn't seem like that's the narrative we're going to get here because Tampa goes out and almost, you know, doesn't quite return the favor, but, you know, it delivers a very one-sided win of their own. So now we're kind of almost back to square one. as far as figuring this stuff all out. Yeah.

So, right. So let's talk about that then. What changed in game three? I have a theory. Okay. I want to hear the theory. Andre Masolevsky ordered the freaking spicy pork and broccoli. You can't say that.

You can't say that. He had it and then he was good. That's what happened. It's like a callback to the other guy on the team. did the thing. Yeah. But no, like, honestly, the thing that,

that I think changed is, uh, a, it's, it really might be as simple as, uh, one team had home ice, uh,

for the first time in the series. Mm-hmm. Helps. You get the last change out and all that kind of stuff. Um, but Tampa was, you know, I,

you hate to say, well, they, they wanted it more in this game or whatever. Like, that's stupid, obviously, but they were way more successful at getting into actual scoring areas. They didn't get anywhere closer.

I think they had one high dangerous scoring chance in game two. Yeah. At five on five. Yeah. And this time, whether it's because they wanted it more or because they had last change or whatever, they were way better at it. And specifically, they were way better at it when McCarr and Taves were off the ice. they put the boots to the bottom two pairs for Colorado in a way that they did not in games

one well certainly in game two and a little bit in game one. No, I think that's fair. And I mean, at this point, look, the lightning are basically, we can argue about game-to-game momentum, whether it's a thing, whether it matters. I think we can pretty much write it off as far as the lightning go. The lightning or the Terminator at this point. Like, they just have no, every game is a fresh reset. They can lose 7-0-0.

They could probably lose 12-0. It doesn't matter. It doesn't affect them. It doesn't do anything to the next game. Right. So Colorado, I don't know, the Colorado, the narrative would be, maybe Colorado took their foot off the gas bit. Maybe Colorado thought, oh, this is going to be easy.

And, you know, they didn't bring their, the problem with that is, Colorado scored twice in the first 10 minutes. One of the goals not counting on the offside review and then when I scored again, if, you know, if that puck is a fraction of an inch closer to the line, maybe the game goes very differently. Maybe it doesn't. Maybe Tampa still roars back and buries them. But, you know, it's not like Colorado just floated out there acting like this is going to be an easy one.

it was Tampa push hard and they're the team that made the plays this time which hadn't been the case in the first couple games

for sure yeah but you know again reductive to say well the puck went in for him but the puck went in for them and they certainly like did everything

that you would want them to do to make that happen I would be concerned about the power play if I was them it still hasn't looked particularly good, I think.

And, you know, I think that Jared Bednar is a good enough coach to make changes so that the bottom two pairs don't get as exposed as they did in game three. But as you say, the lightning kind of like rules maybe don't apply to them in a certain way. And so including, hey, how long it takes to get a face-off done after a goal? Yeah, so let's talk about that. The offside review where it seems like Tampa gets a long, long time to look at it. And it is not until the very last second that they decide to challenge. Like to the point where on the Canadian broadcast, they're like, oh, they're not going to challenge.

And, you know, everyone's going to say. And then we got the shot of them on the bench. And all of a sudden they all jump up and start pointing as it. if they just got the word to challenge or saw something or whatever it was. And I know there's a lot of Avalanche fans going, well, wait a second. Like, isn't there, aren't we supposed to be moving this along? Are you supposed to get that long to make up your mind? I don't know.

Is that a valid complaint? What do you think? Yeah, I mean, I liked John Cooper's take. And I think I said this on the podcast last week or the week before or something. But like, I don't think it should be up to coaches. Every goal gets reviewed. And if you can't figure it out in the 40 seconds it takes to drop the puck again, well, then tough shit.

But the coaches aren't going to accept that. The coaches want, because the other thing was the review then took forever, too, last night, even though it seemed, I don't know, it was one of those. It was one of those where, like on TV, again, on the Canadian channel, they're like, oh, yeah, that's offside. And I'm looking at it going, is it? Like, is that a pixel of white? Is that just noise around, you know, this little tiny long-distance view.

Parallax view, all that shit. I did think it was, it was probably the right call. And look, people who listen to this know that they know that I hate offside review. I don't want it to exist, period. But I also understand this is probably not the one to get up on the soapbox about that because they did. For sure. The puck was offside. And it was, you know, on a clearing attempt, it wasn't like, you know, they came into the zone in 30 seconds.

they got a goal. So I don't, there is that argument that John Cooper made, which is basically the NHL should do it like the NFL, where in the NFL, when team scores a touchdown, everything on that plate automatically gets reviewed by the league. There's no challenges. They have a challenge system in the NFL, but you do not challenge it. Someone scores a touchdown. And you want to say that guy was out of bounds, the ball hit the ground in the end zone, you know, whatever it is, all of that, all of that.

automatically gets challenged, gets looked at by the league. There's no challenge. And people are used to it. It's sort of like, yeah, touchdown gets scored. And then you wait until you see the extra point to know that the touchdown's going to count. We could do that in the NHL. We kind of do on some of it already. Like there's no challenge for puck over the line.

That's something that the league automatically looks at. Could you do the same for off sides? I guess you could. Could you do it for goalie interference? God, I hope not. because those are such a gray area. I mean, it would just be a nightmare. I still like the current system.

And I say this as someone, like, I don't like the system and that I don't want there to be review, period. But if there is going to be review, put it on the teams and give them a penalty if they're wrong. So you make sure, you make sure that you know that you're right is at least the way that it should go. I don't mind that. It was almost a weird situation where, I mean,

you can imagine if that goal had counted and Colorado goes on and wins the game by one goal. And John Cooper, after the game says, we didn't get a look at the view that told us it was offside until it was too late. Right. Then everyone's furious. But also, I mean, if we've got nine camera angles and only one of them shows it being offside by a fraction of an inch, then do we really need to grind everything to the halt? I guess we do.

The other thing to say about that is, it drives me fucking crazy watching these games and they're like, now remember, we don't have all the camera angles. Yeah. A quick question, why not? That's stupid. You should have all the camera angles. Like, why does the league get to hold just the blue line camera? The one that, like, would definitively show, allegedly definitively show.

That, that, why would the league get to, like, keep that under wraps? It doesn't make any sense to it. I would love to have someone explain it to me. I would love to, I mean, what I would do, if I was the league, and I actually cared about making sure the fan base was understood what was going on, I have a little inset camera view. Show me exactly what they're looking at in the war room. Like literally exactly.

Like show me them going fast forward, rewind, pausing, all of that stuff so that we know exactly what they're looking at. Now, of course, the NHL would never do that because one time out of a hundred, they won't be looking at the right thing and then everyone freaks out and somebody's feelings will get hurt and then the NHL can't have that. But that would be a good way to do it. And yeah, every view should be the same. And again, like I know every time I start ranting about offside review, people always have their suggestions. And one of them, they say, well, you should have to look at it in real time or you should only get to look at their, if that was a rule last night,

that goal would have counted, even though it did seem to be offside. I still like that, again, I've made this suggestion before. To me, it's a five count. The goal goes in. The referee at that end of the ice is signaling the goal. The referee on the backside immediately looks over at the bench. He holds up five fingers, gives them a slow countdown. That's how long you have to say we want to challenge. You don't have time to get to look at it. You don't have time for people upstairs to say we just watched a freeze frame review. What did you see? What did your players see? Now, maybe last night Tampa still would have challenged because I think it was a, uh, uh, Hegel was like kind of right there. And he started complaining right away.

Maybe he goes over to John Cooper and says, you've got to challenge that. That was definitely offside and they challenge. But this nonsense of we're going to wait and we're going to watch replays and then we're going to decide two minutes in would be gone if we did it that way. And if we missed a few, hey, too bad. I guess the coach missed it too. Go yell at him, not the league.

But at the end of the day, it was a big one because it could have changed the whole tone of the game. I do think they got it right. I don't love that we're so obsessed with getting it right on this, but I know that this is probably not the one where people want to hear me go on and on about it anymore than I already have. Yeah. Are you at all concerned, if you're Colorado, are you at all concerned about goaltending?

Are you at all considering a goaltending change? No. All this stuff about, well, I don't know, do they go back, like, do they go back to Franco? Really? like the the second Kemper was available they were like well let's get Frantos

the hell out of there then like he was fine but he has played well like he's played fine yeah for sure I'm not saying he's bad or anything but like I'm saying if you're Jared Bednar or if you're looking for what's Jared Bednar thinking

well he played I would say pretty well against the Oilers in the last round and the second he didn't have to use him, he didn't. Mm-hmm. You know? Bednar was like, oh, we have a number one goalie.

His name's Darcy Kemper. And I would agree with that. I think especially now, and, you know, it's, look, you just want your best goalie that that's probably the extent of it. But when I've got a young-ish team that hasn't been here before going up against a dynasty, it would feel like a bit of a panic move to me to make a move after one loss. I saw people saying that after game one, after they won in overtime, but Kemper led in a couple of iffy ones.

Do they make a goal? Do you consider a goaltending change? I thought that was wild. So let me ask the follow-up question, though. Like at what point are you into the Dave Lozo mode of treating it like the World Series? He was a TV writer. I don't know if you. Got it.

you treated like the World Series and like as soon as you see him fighting the fight you get him out of there and you switch like is it is it a short leash at any point or you know as opposed to Tampa where Vasaleski clearly I mean the fact that they didn't pull him in game two

Brian Elliott doesn't even need to be there like I feel like if they'll play six on five if they're just getting paid to be there he's like he's like the e bug yeah we're like Masolevsky's going to be taken out on a stretcher, and he just is kind of like maybe, maybe now's when I start limbering up.

Even then, I don't, I think he just put the stretcher on its side, cover the bottom half of the net, and you're all right. Let him wave his arm around, yeah. But yeah, no, I think it's a pretty, a situation where short leash might not be the right word necessarily because, again, like, Frantz O's is like a good goalie, but certainly not. The kind of guy where you're like, oh, this is going to stem the tide of goals by the Tampa Bay Lightning, one of the best teams of the modern era, probably the best team in terms of how much postseason and regular season success they've had. So for me, I think if he gives up like three bad goals, you know, and it's like three to two,

or something like that. Okay, well, get him out of there then. But, you know, again, like, what was he really supposed to do? The lightning were all over him. They were in the slot constantly. What's he supposed to do? I agree that he could have let in maybe two fewer goals, but then it's still only a four-two game.

So, or whatever. When they made the change, it's still three-two. They're still losing. I think that's my attempt to kick up a goal tent. controversy has failed. I'm not the guy. I'm not the guy that you're going to convince especially when it's, again,

I like Pavel Francois just fine, but there's a reason he's like a 32-year-old backup with five years of NHL experience, right? Yep. Okay, let's talk about the various injury situations here. Kudrov expected to play for game four after that if he cross-checked by Devon Taves, um did you have any thoughts on on that whole situation i i'm a little bit surprised that he is

going to play if it if that is where it's leaning because it did look like a a bit of an ugly one um and interesting to me that for that we we talked about it with brayden point a couple weeks ago but this is now the second time that the lightning have had a superstar level player injured and sent him back out there for a shift, only to have him then immediately leave. And we kind of wondered about it. But Braden Point, it was in a tied game seven that he at least gave it a go. For sure.

Kutchevvv, I mean, I guess maybe you figure it's late in the game on the power play, so let them try it out. But, I mean, I thought it was, I almost hate to say this, but I thought it was, I thought it was a dirty cross check, but I didn't think it needed, like, a suspension. You know, I think, there is a level of dirty and there's a level. I think it was Cooper who said, like, these guys know what they're doing. And I think, you know, it was kind of the downward cross check to the hit. Like, I think he knew what he was doing. And I get that some people will say, well, wait a second, if you're saying it's dirty and it causes an injury to start player, you have to do, maybe you

do. You know, if he's, if he's going to play, then that. I mean, the decision's already been made. They're not the, they didn't, the lead didn't do anything with Taves, but I don't know. I didn't, I do think there's a level, and maybe this is just me as an old hockey fan. I think there's a level of dirty that's still hockey, and I didn't like it, but stuff like that happens. I think, I think it's a classic situation where you just have to say, like, well, the penalty he served on the ice, that was sufficient for what the play was.

Yeah. And I think that's, I mean, you're not going to find him at this point of the season, right? I mean, yeah, so. We even cares.

And he did get, he did get the minor penalty, right? Like, yeah. Yeah, you got a penalty for it. And, you know,

Couture of cross-checked him first. Yep. You have to find the Zapruder film to, to see it because it was, yeah. But, you know, he did,

again, instigate it. And it's not that, okay, you cross-check somebody you deserve to be injured. But if we're doing cross-checks away from the puck, then yeah, I mean, this stuff kind of happens. There's an edge to the series. Both of these guys were playing that way. It happens.

Yeah. I mean, you just hope that Kutchev is okay because, you know, having an elite player even be impacted by injury, is a tough one. Yeah. The other thing I'm surprised by regarding Kutraub in that game

is like nobody's talking about that hit on Josh Manson where he like, I don't want to say left his feet, but like went in with some force and hit him right in the fucking numbers. So I got to make a confession. I didn't see this. I saw somebody tweet

because I'd flipped away And then I saw somebody tweet like, Kuturov's lucky that Manson got right up there. And I flipped back. And then I saw Kutraev, like, leaving the game. And I was like, oh, like, wait, did he hit? Did he get hit? And because it was right before the Taves play. So describe to me what happened there.

So it's a dump into the right corner. And Manson is going back to get it. And Kutrov is right on his back. And I think Kutrov and the lightning and lightning fans and all that, they would say Manson turned it the last second showed him his numbers right you know

no way to avoid the hit but like where it was on the ice it was like well what's where's it what he can't keep skating you know back toward the puck

in a way that isn't gonna lead to him getting hit in the numbers if the guy wants to hit him and he hit him really hard I thought like as I was watching the game I was like whoa okay, that's a penalty and then nothing happened.

And yeah, like the whoever tweeted that thing, I didn't see that tweet, but like whoever said that is right. Like if Manson stays down, that is maybe like a five-minute penalty. Especially at that point in a game that's decided, you know, 62 game management kicks in, which ironically, in hindsight, site you probably wish had happened if you're Tampa because then Kutra is out of the game and he doesn't get cross-checked the next shift and potentially hurt but uh all right i'm gonna i'm gonna send you i found a video okay i'm gonna send you the video um but yeah just like re-watching this

video i'm like oh this is not a great hit honestly i'm a little surprised all right so i am It's my live reaction video to Josh Manson. Ooh, yep. You know, pretty hard, right? Yep. I mean, that one is, it's another. I guess I would put that, again, in the category of, like, uh, dirty. And yet, it's, it's dirty hockey.

It's dirty playoff hockey and, uh, you know, again, I'm not. Nikita Kutrov's game, right? Like, he plays on, he's not a guy who really has a reputation for it, but he plays on the edge. Yep. Yeah, and you never know when he's going to step up to that edge, which helps him be effective. So, yeah, I mean, again, like, that is one of those plays where if Josh Manson doesn't pop right back up, then he's laying there and, you know, you find out he's got a broken collarbone or something, then we probably all react very differently. But yeah, yeah, there's some nastiness last night, man.

this, and this is the time for it, right? Usually in the playoff series, this is right around the time. They played enough that the bad blood is starting, but there's enough of the series left that it's worth it to send a message. By the time you get to game six and seven, nobody's doing anything because it's all about winning or losing the game. But, I mean, that at least made the third period. It had some entertainment value, but I don't think either team is.

shaking at their boots right now over. Yeah. All right. Let's do the two major, will they, won't they, injuries for Colorado here. Nazim Kondri, Andre Burekowski,

both listed as day-to-day. I believe Kodry is in Tampa. Burakovsky is not, last I saw. Right. Maybe joining them later. Well, he would have to join them in the next like six hours.

Can happen. I think. Yep. And again, like, by the time people are hearing this, we probably will know or be close to knowing. You know, Cadry has always sort of seemed, you know, Cadry seems, actually a little bit like, like Braden Point, who I guess we'll get to, but Cadry seems like a guy who should not be playing.

If this was the regular season, he'd be out for two more weeks easily. But it's the Stanley Cup final, so it's sort of, you know, how do we balance? what percent of them are we getting versus what else we would have? We saw that with Strom in the Rangers series, right? Where the guy plays and he's just, he can't. You know, with Cadre, it's a thumb. Like, if he can't shoot the puck, how much does he really bring to the table? But also it could come down to, like, how desperate are we?

And maybe it's a case where it's like, hey, as long as we're leading the series, we won't rush him back. But as soon as, you know, we lose game four, okay, Cadry's back for game five. or we lose, you know, we're trailing. Or maybe not. Maybe it's just, hey, as soon as I know coaches would say, I don't get involved in that as soon as the trainer tells me he can play, he can play.

And that's it. But yeah, Cadre is, it's a tough one. Like, it kind of comes down to with something like that, a little bit of pain tolerance, but it's also like, I mean, you can't tolerate not being able to shoot. Like if you just can't grip the stick properly, then, you know, he can bring other things to the table. and I'm sure to be inspiring, but I guess it maybe depends what their other options are.

Yeah. I think, you know, they're, they hurried Andrew Cogliano back into the lineup when he became healthy. And I'm not saying he's been bad or anything like that. But like, again, like this is kind of the Darcy Kemper thing where it's like, if one of our like top 12 forwards comes back healthy, he's in the lineup. it's not a bad way to do it. Yeah. You know?

But what's healthy, right, is the question. Sure. Like you look at, you know, Ryanstrom was healthy enough to lace up his skates and go out there, but he wasn't healthy enough to help the team remotely. So that's what you run into. But I guess, I guess we see. Yep. Yeah.

John Cooper is just this second said same lineup tonight. that answers any Braden point questions are you getting and I guess also the Kutra of question are you getting the impression that point maybe had a setback somewhere

because it felt like he was imminent and now it feels like he's not yeah my kind of feel I didn't think he was very good in game one and my kind of feeling was that it was kind of a Ryan Strome thing where it's like he's healthy, but, and maybe he did have a setback?

I don't know. But like, I would have said that, you know, for where he was playing in the lineup, he shouldn't have been there. And if you want to say, well, then you just move everybody up a spot and you take him out of the lineup. Because, like, you don't put Braden point back in and go, and you're on the fourth line. You know what I mean? Yep.

So that's a tough, tough line to walk. I kind of think he's still. still not 100% or particularly close to it if I had to guess, but, you know, he had surgery a month ago or whatever. So it's pretty quick turnaround. It'll be a quick turnaround for Cadre if he's able to come back. And it's the sort of thing like with point, it's like that is with Cadry like the one thing with a with a thumb is you're probably not dealing with high risk of re-injury. You know, obviously you get it, you get slashed on it or you know, something like that. But, you know, it's it's not like just by trying.

to play through it, you're going to wreck it even further in the same way that you could with a groin or a core injury, you know, whatever it is with point. Like that is the sort of thing where you get out there a little too quick and suddenly, you know, or even in practice, which is why I, I really feel like we're going to get to the end of this series whenever that is. And they're going to say, actually, point was never close down this. Like he or, or that he was close and there was some sort of setback. and they knew that he wasn't an option the rest of the way. Yeah, it sucks because you want to see the best players,

and especially like Braden Point is fucking awesome when he's fully healthy. But, you know, if it's that or like watch Braden Point at 75%, I guess I'd rather not see him. Yeah, I mean, it's tough, man. Like these, no disrespect to. Ryan Strom, but Braden Point is a different level where maybe if maybe 75% of them is. But what's the risk? Like, I mean, that's one of the things you got like what you got asked a trainer like what's

the risk that he's going to go out there. You're worried about two things. Obviously you're worried he goes out there and he seriously injures himself and now opening nights in question too or you know he's got a whole offseason of rehab he has to do. You're also worried about what happens if he goes out there and he plays two shifts and goes, you know what, I really can't go, and now we're down a guy for an entire Stanley Cup final game. So it's, it worked for Stephen Stamcoast that one time. It did.

That's right. Works out really, really well. All right, let's move on to the NHL Awards. They were last night, Tuesday night, as we record this last night. And first of all, I got to say, the award show itself was fine, which is, you know, You know what? Like an improvement. Usually it's bad.

See, I like the bad. I like the cheesy. I understand. But the fact that they've got, well, let's start. Like, what did you think of them just doing the four big awards and, you know, not to no Selkie, no Lady Bing, all of that? It was a nice, tight one hour. I was just going to say, like, they used to schedule this thing for like 90 minutes or whatever. And then it would always run over.

Mm-hmm. Where, like, I'd be looking at my channel guide going, this was supposed to be over, like, 15 minutes ago. They haven't even gotten to the Vesna. What are we doing here? You know? And it's like, again, if an award show is, like, good, like the Oscars can be good and you're like, oh, it ran a little long.

Okay, whatever. That's fine. Usually these are bad. And so for every extra five minutes they're doing, you just feel like it's an extra hour off your life, you know? Yeah. And so this was like, a very regular, like, you know, they didn't try to make too many jokes about, uh, whatever,

like spicy pork and broccoli, right? Like, they didn't try to get too epic like, hey, remember this thing that happened? That was, that was too recent for them, I think, to, yeah, to work. Because they did have a, they did have a sketch where, um, Keenan Thompson was like a, uh, and like a, whatever, like an art nouveau, what I, like, uh, like, uh, uh, Avant-garde, that's the word I'm looking for, avant-garde artists who specializes in goals. Like, here's how to make a new goal. And it was just like, hey, remember Trevor Zegroar's scored all these wacky goals this year?

That was like the whole sketch. And it was six minutes maybe, like multiple cutaways to Mark Messier going, oh, I loved working with this guy. Okay. I didn't see that, so that's... Okay. Yeah. Yeah, that's, I'm surprised that they did. But they didn't have too much of it. That's the point.

Yeah, I'm surprised they did one if they're only going to have an hour to work with. I thought, I saw the beginning and the second half. I thought Keenan Thompson was good. He's exactly, that's why you hire that guy, right? It's not because you want super edgy. You know, you want good, competent, professional comedy host. And, you know, that's what he gives you. And he always does come across, like, as a, as a decent hockey fan.

Like, he's, you know, he doesn't have that, like, I'm just faking this for the paycheck sort of thing. So that's good. The one thing, and I didn't actually mind that it was an hour that they tightened it up. I don't care about the lady thing. I'm fine with, you know, the Jack Adams maybe would have been the one that you would have argued should have been part of the main show. But, you know, that's fine. I did find, and again, this is going to make me sound like a grumpy old guy. Ryan, did you know that some of the people involved in the NHL are good people?

You know, I feel like it comes up every once in a while, but not as often as it probably should, dude, how nice everyone is. There are some nice people. It's such a nice league that certainly is not embroiled in any scandals or anything like that. No, no, no, not a single one. And it's like, so they were really. really hitting that. I mean, they, it felt like every moment that wasn't Austin Matthews getting a trophy was the NHL patting itself on the back of how wonderful or inspirational or, you know, look at, you know, look at these people. They all have

hats and, and like each, each one of those individually is fine. Like, nobody's watching that going like, ah, get that guy off my screen. But, uh, and some of it was very good. Like, I love Chris Snow. Like, his, him and his whole family, that was fantastic to see. Um, but man they were they were leaning into it like really yeah no they're they do it every year well they do maybe it's because it's it's it's more spread out every year like we talked about how they have all the awards and maybe it's just the fact that they cut so much out to get it down to an hour but they didn't feel like they cut any of the back padding out absolutely no that's what i was going to say i felt like that got a lot half an hour of the hour award show yeah and i'm

They tried to play Austin Matthews off because they were like, we need to cram in just one more reference to the guy with the cancerous mole. Which, like, what a great story that is, but also have we now seen it at every NHL event this year? And again, it is a great story. But, I mean, I was watching it. And, like, at some point in the night, like, I clicked over, I think it was when the guys all had their hats on that I was like, okay, we get it on the, you know, And then, like, they came out to present the award. Now it's just like, all right. Like, I get it, man.

It's been a rough year PR-wise for the NHL. You're about to give your biggest award to a guy who has a pretty spotty track record of how he treats people. Sure. You know, all right. Let's, you know. But I just, at some point, I'm like, who is this for? Like, are there any diehard hockey fans that are loving this? Are there any...

Yeah, you're not watching this show if you're not like a sicko who knows, who has seen this exact, like, video package seven times. You're not like a non-hockey fan who just happens to be watching the NFL Awards going, wow, these guys are. Maybe you are. Maybe you're, you know, maybe your spouse is watching

and so you're stuck sitting there going, oh, you know what, maybe this is okay. I don't know. I just felt like it was, I felt like for a lot of this, the intended audience was like Gary Bettman, you know, to like... For sure. Tell him how wonderful everyone is.

and, uh, but other than that, hey, look, each, each of the individual stories was great. I thought the whole thing was put together pretty well. Let's talk about the results, though. Oh, you think people want to hear about that? Yeah, what are we? Um, mad maybe isn't, I think they got all the awards, like, pretty much right. Like, who actually won?

Um, I would love to get into the individual, like, oh, my God, someone gave, uh, whatever, Petrangelo thought Alex Petrangelo was the fifth best defenseman in the league this year. I would love to know who gave Nathan McKinnon his right-wing all-star team vote. I'd love to know that. That's a weird one. That's an insane one. Absolutely ridiculous. Because Nathan McGinnon's been a center his whole career.

This isn't Ovechkin or this isn't like Leondra Seidel where it's like he bounces around a little bit. That one's just weird. And we should say as we're doing this, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, HWA has not put out their, that's what, that's why, that's why we don't know who put those. Yeah. Which they normally do. They normally, in fact, I, I believe, right after they normally put out, like, here's who everybody voted for, everyone's balance. Yeah.

And they haven't done that yet, which is strange. A little, and I have not, I'm in the, I'm in the, I haven't seen anything like, you know, there wasn't, like, any email saying, hey, just so you know we're not doing this this year or whatever. So I would also love to know who the five people who didn't vote were, considering they bumped a lot of us out so that they could get the number down. It was five people didn't vote? I think, well, because I think there was a hundred and ninety five ballots. Got it.

Somebody said, at least, Kale McCarar got 195 votes. And none, they were all top three. So either five people left them off the ballot entirely or it was a 195. five total. Yeah, and then someone left Roman Yossi off their ballot, which like, look, I don't, I didn't think he was the best defenseman in the league. I might not have had him in my top three if I really sat down and thought about it. But to leave him out of your top five, I think is pretty surprising.

That, you know, him getting more first place votes than McCar, I think is a little silly. That's like, you know, click on NHL.com, sort by points. shit to me. But also, I get the argument for him insofar as his team wasn't that good. And he was pretty good all year. And, yeah. Very good. And, you know, he showed up on MVP ballots too.

Yeah. I mean, I didn't. I, if I had a vote, I would have voted Kiel McCar. But it was very close. And basically McCar won it on on the balance of his second place votes. because like he said, he had a half dozen fewer first place votes, but 22 more second place votes. Basically, Victor Headman, and to a lesser extent,

Charlie McAvoy, were the ones that cost Roman Yosey the Norris because they were the ones getting second place votes from people bumping Roman Yosi down to third, which is, yeah, again, that's how the voting works. So, yeah, that's the award. The Vezna, I don't think anybody, wow, Igor Shusirkin, one in a runaway. I am curious, as always, to see who the three GMs who had Freddie Anderson, Andre Vasselowski, and Ilya Serochin, as their number one goalies of the league. Yeah, very weird voting for the Vezna because not, you know, Shisterkin obviously wins, but then the other two finalists, Marksram.

and Saros end up not getting any first place votes, but three guys that weren't finalists did Anderson Basilevsky's broken. We won't find out on that. The GMs do not put out who votes for who. So, and then Demko, Yuso. Sure. I mean, those are a little weird, but I can't get to worked up about somebody getting one third place vote.

Right. Yeah, and that's the other thing is the Vesna. They only do the top three. They don't do the top five. The Calder Award goes to Mordshire. I think everybody decided that was going to be the case in, like, early November. He runs away with it. 171st place votes.

Sigris 15 is the next closest guy. How about this, though? One person was like, there's a really good rookie. The best rookie in the league was on the Detroit Red Wings this year. And of course, it's Lucas Raymond. Who is that guy? That was a little luck. Or girl?

That was a little lot, but. Yeah, that is, that to me is right. Voter or? No, if you were a Detroit voter, you were, like, legally required to be just mad that Michael Bunting even got consideration. Right, yeah. Came in third. Seven first place votes.

Yeah, and I mean, I, That to me reads like, I'm really mad that he's 26. Yeah. That's the only, you know. This guy who had a really good season and is qualified for the award, God votes for the award. Yeah, like I think if you want to say he wasn't better than Sider, I disagree, but I think that's a totally reasonable thing to say.

If you're like, I don't think he was top two in the league, that is when you get into, okay, well, like you're maddie was on Arizona last year or whatever. Is that it? Mm-hmm. So, yeah, look, like, I've said it a million times already, so whatever. But I think it's a pretty easy case to be made that he was at least the number two rookie in the league this year. A couple of first place votes for Jeremy Swimming, which was cool.

And, oh, also, I'm just looking at this now. I didn't notice this last night, but one fifth place votes for Alex Nadel Trevich. who gets, so he does get back-to-back Calder notations on his hockey reference page. That's fine. Good job, but he dropped. That's bad. You never want to be dropping down the Calder voting. Well, especially because if you look at it, he was awful this year.

Yeah, he stopped. If you watch the, you know, hey, I hate to be a watch the games guy, but even look at the fucking stats. The stats are bad. Yeah. So. He was bad. I don't get it. Cole Coughfield cracks the top 10 after all, after all of that.

And you know what? Fair enough. I think that's totally reasonable. He had a great last 55 games. The only guy below him that I would say had a better season than him. Definitively is Seth Jarvis. I thought Jarvis was fucking awesome this year. And then everybody in the playoffs realized, like after all the ballots had been cast,

we're like, oh, this Jarvis gets really good. Yeah, that's right. But yeah, so that's the Calder. Again, nothing too crazy there. You want to talk crazy, though. Let's talk about the Norris trophy. Like the deep cuts on the Norris are very funny. Jacob Slavin gets one third-place vote, really?

Oh, okay. Chris LaTang finishes seventh. He didn't have a single third-place vote or any votes in the top, I should say. showed up on a lot before... And fifth place balance. This guy was the fifth best defenseman in the league this year. And then Chris Tanev got a vote for fifth place, which was funny. And Tom Drant said that was his call.

Oh, is Drans who did? Okay. Yeah. Vancouver homers coming out. They're making sure their boys get in. And then Justin Paul got a fifth place vote. I was like, what? Okay.

Yeah. And then Quinn Hughes got a couple of fourth and fifth place votes each, I think. That was weird. But, yeah, let's go to the Hart Trophy. Austin Matthews wins it, runs away with it, quite frankly. 119. Yeah, after all the talk of it being a close race, he, more or less, yeah, I mean, it was pretty clear. I got to say, I think the rule of if you score 60 goals, you get to.

be the MVP, that works for me. That's a lot. In addition to, he, he's like, maybe not an elite defender, but he's upper echelon, certainly. He was very good. In the league, so. Yeah.

So, like, yeah. So, I think, you know, I would have gone Scherkerkin. I think that's. Yeah. So I think the two arguments against Matthews is, Scherkin, you know, as a goaltender, he's out. you know, has a bigger impact, you know, being the best goalie in the league, in theory,

makes you more valuable than being... Every year, yes. Best forward. But for whatever reason, goalies don't get a lot of hard trophy love. And the argument for Connor McDavid would be Connor McDavid is better than Austin Matthews. And we're all just, we've all just baked in such high expectations of him that, you know, we don't, we kind of got bored and started looking for somebody else. but the playoffs come along and remind us that, oh, yeah,

Connor McDavid is, like, easily the first overall pick if we redraft the whole league right now. So doesn't that make him the most valuable player? And then you go on down that road of arguing. Yeah. And, you know, it's an interesting way. Because especially, like, you know, it's not like Matthews was on a team that just snuck into the playoffs. So, I don't know. It's, uh, it's stuck right back out too.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, it wasn't much. Not very sneaky. It was a very loud accent. No, no, no. They were jingling the car keys for seven games. But yeah, like I said, I think if we're going to say Kerry Price the year, he wins the MVP,

fully deserved to be the MVP, and I think he probably did without going back and looking at it too closely. Why are we not saying that versus serving? And the argument is nobody scored 60 goals. 2015. You know, I think clearly for a goalie, you have to be either Dominic Hasick level insanely better than everyone else, or it has to be a year where none of the forwards do something incredible. And, you know, you could argue that both just, you know, McDavid does something incredible every year and Matthews getting to 60 did it this year on the goal scoring. So, you know,

There should be more goalies getting votes, period. I mean, Schisturkin was the only goaltender, once again, who got any votes? Romaniosi, the only defenseman who got, oh, no, sorry, Cal McCarar also got votes. But of the 15 guys who got votes 12 over forwards, I don't know, man, if you're drafting a team from scratch, you're not taking 12 forwards with your first 15 picks. So I do think we're a little off there. I did like that Jason Robertson got some votes. You've got to be happy about it.

because I think you were you were pushing that. I was. J.T. Miller gets a vote. A little surprising. Yeah. Not that I have a problem with J.T. Miller, I thought he had a very good year, but was he the fifth most valuable player in the league? Yeah, but again, that's, you know, well, it's one vote out of almost 200.

Kirill Kaprizov gets two first place votes. So two people thought he was the most valuable player in the league, only finish seven. And I get the argument that such a theoretical voter would make. But, you know, obviously, Austin Matthews, much better player. A little surprised to see Hubert O get so many first place votes. 13. Baker's dozen. That sort of became the divisive guy that...

Yeah. Well, look at all the assists. Yeah, all the assists. and then, you know, his, and then Dom wrote his thing where he wasn't in his top 10 and his agent flipped out. Oh, I remember. You know, doing all sorts of saying stupid stuff about it. And at the end of the day, didn't, I mean, he finished behind Johnny Goodrow in both hard voting and all-star voting. So not even the top guy at his historically weaker position.

But also, I mean, the guy had a ton of points and he broke an assistant. I don't, you know, I don't, it's not outrageous that he finished in the top five. I don't. I think it's a little outrageous. I think it's a little outrageous, but I think that just gets into a thing of like, who do you put in instead of him? And I, for me, I guess my answer would be Cal McCar. And after this playoff run, there's no way he doesn't finish in the top three next year. if he's like even a little bit good and stays healthy.

Yeah. But I would agree with that. The one other interesting one was Leon Dressidal gets a second place vote, which means either there is somebody out there who thinks Leandro Sital is more valuable to the Oilers than Connor McDavid, or there's somebody out there

who had McDavid recital 1-2 on their ballot. Right. Which would be easier to defend. You know, I know, again, you get in, to value and you're like how can two guys on the same team be valuable but if if you view it as value just being a synonym for best player then i don't think it's well there's that and also uh you can very easily make the argument have you seen the edmonton oilers play last few years yes yeah so you take those are the two best guys yeah you take either one of those guys off the team and

they're not in the playoffs and you take both of them off the team and they're probably picking Shane right uh so Yeah, I get that. I'm just, I'm curious to see that. And, you know, obviously curious to see if it's an Oilers voter who has the top two. Yeah, they were very upset that McDavid wasn't a first-team All-Star, even though, you know, the guy who won the MVP award and had, like, the vast majority of the MVP votes, plays the same position as him, like famously.

Mm-hmm. That was the big. thing Oilers people oh sure well okay it's not the MVP but like clearly well I mean yeah that's which is weird because that's not typically how it works if I'm that's not how it works at all though

but hey the again like the the right guy won I'm not gonna be too mad about this you know yeah it's disappointing like I don't feel like there's anything here no it can be just outraged yeah this isn't like um

when uh when Esselindel got like a third place Norris vote a few years ago where you're just like, what the fuck? Excuse me? But yeah. I'm, uh, you know, like I said, I think, I think pretty much all the award winners, including the ones that weren't given out last night, like, nothing I had any kind of real quibble with, you know?

So, congratulations to the PHWA. I'm not like pissed off and mad about it. Oh, and the other thing we should say is, um, They just announced who's going to be the finalists for the GM of the year, and it's sackic, Jewelry, and Breezebois. That's crazy. Three of the final four teams represented. Condolences to Ken Holland.

I think you called it. You said Ken Holland was going to be the guy left out. I thought he was going to get more respect than that. But Ken Holland didn't do as good a job as, I mean, You got to give it to Chris Drury, right? Boy, that Rangers team, Panarans, Zabanaj, Sturkin, Fox. He really built a, but let's hold on, Czech's earpiece. Okay.

Oh, the Andrew Cobb trade was good, so. It was a good trade. Such stupid, such a stupid award. Get rid of this award, please. Just call it like. Absolutely. Or have it be like a front office award or something, a best run tea or some stupid like that. But don't, like this is.

this is so dumb. Yeah. Well, look, like, Galant got in, was he top three for the, yeah, he was for the, for the,

Jack Adams. So that's a, I mean, at least with the Jack Adams, if you get, if you're a finalist for the Jack Adams, you know that you are a great

and well respected coach with a long career in front. Yeah. You know what, let's talk about that now. While we were recording the show, I, have heard me audibly gasp while we were talking about the cup final.

That's because I saw it come across Twitter. Paul Maurice will be the new coach of the Florida Panthers. What are they fucking doing? I don't. I've already seen like half a dozen people say that there's got to be more to this story. And I kind of get that. And I say that as someone who, like, Andrew Burnett did a good job. Obviously, the team was fantastic.

but the team was fantastic when he took over. There were 7 and 0 when he took over. I'd said when they were down 2 to 1 to Washington, I was like, man, if they go in the first round, maybe you got to make it a change. But to do it for Paul Maurice, like I get that, you know, if you can get Barry Trots, maybe you just go cutthroat and you just say that's an upgrade.

But I don't know, man, Paul Murray, boy, it's been a good year to be a familiar name as an NHL coach. This is literally unbelievable to me. Paul Morrie's a guy who quit hockey because he was like, oh, this sucks. Yeah. Being the coach of the Jets is the worst. Okay, fair enough. This guy, I saw someone say this earlier.

This guy has been a coach 24 seasons in the league. His teams have made the playoffs nine times. Wow. Yeah. That's an unbelievably poor track record to me. Yeah, and I mean, he took a not very good, we thought, Carolina team deep. But yeah, he's, I don't know, this isn't the move that I make. It's crazy.

I'm shocked. With obviously the caveat that if there's something else going, and it doesn't even have to be some scandalous, I'm not suggesting. Like, it could maybe Alex Barkov, you know, was like, I hate this guy in the exit meetings. I really don't like play. Or this guy's a mess. Or, you know, this, we have no idea what we're, the reason we lost to Tampa is because,

you know, this guy didn't drop any plays and we didn't know what we were doing. I don't know. I get what you're saying. But, like, okay, yeah, you got to move on from this coach for whatever reason. You got to move on from Andrew Prudette. Paul Maurice is the guy you fucking bring in? Yeah. Are you shitting me?

Yep. How many years did he go, oh, man, it's crazy. The defense just keeps turning the puck over. It's crazy how much they're turning the puck over and just making it so easy for the other team to score. At what point is that like your problem as the coach? Yeah. No, that's hard to argue. It's crazy.

Three now coaches who started last year coaching a different team. on opening night are already rehired with a new team. Cassidy, DeBoer, and now Barrease. John Tortorella is the fresh new face of the recent hires. And look, I think DeBoer, we'll talk about that in a minute. I think DeBoard's a good coach. I just look at this Florida Panthers team, what their window to win is. and I say to myself, you looked at all that.

You looked at the, they won a president's trophy last year. And you were like, Paul Maurice has to be the fucking guy we bring in. I can't wrap my head around it. It doesn't make sense to me. What is the argument for hiring Paul Maurice over any of the other guys who are still out of a job right now? Paul Maurice? I really want, yeah, you know, Here's the only thing I can think where this makes some sense is that they look at the end of the year, they say, okay, we got an interim coach.

Circumstances forced us into bringing this guy in. We've got to look at other options. We just, we had a great season. We had a disappointing playoffs. We got to look at other options. And maybe they start looking at other options. Maybe they talk to Barry Trots. Maybe they talked to Cassidy.

Maybe those guys aren't interested. Maybe the money's not great. You know, I was going to say, the Panthers, you know, they paid a ton for Joe Quinville, but, you know, how much of that are they still paying or potentially having to pay? I don't know. Maybe they're low.

But, and then maybe by that point, you're sitting there going, well, we've hung our, we've hung Andrew Burnett out to dry so much that now we have to make a change. And now we're down to the third or fourth or fifth. pick on our list. You know, maybe he even is saying like, hey, no, I don't want to come back. I don't know. There's been reports saying that he's going to be offered a chance to stay in the organization.

I don't know how he could. Cool. Thank you. I don't know. I guess it's the sort of thing where we just say there's, there probably does need to be more to the story here. And again, that doesn't mean some, you know, super behind the scenes intrigue, but something going on that.

Claude Julian's still available. Elaine Vigno's still available. Like, you know, let's say you don't love Elaine Vigno's long-term track record. This guy's usually a pretty good coach for a little while. Paul Maurice, like, this guy can't win. I guess that's not true. He's got probably like the fifth most wins in NHL history or whatever. It's got a lot of wins.

In a lot of years. Again, 24 seasons as a coach, he's made the playoffs nine times. It's less than half. Yeah, that's pretty wild. How does this guy get the chance over, and this is the thing that really blows my mind? Like you say, okay. Andrew Runa has to go. He's a fucking Jack Adams finalist this year.

They won the president's trophy. Mm-hmm. That's it. To me, it's not like, you certainly wouldn't be looking at this going, the coach is the problem with this team. We got to make a move. I do wonder if they kind of 4D chess themselves into looking at an upgrade and then it sort of becomes, well, wait a second, you know, either.

Like at some point, because we were saying even a week ago, like, is it weird that he's still got the interim tag? Is it weird that they haven't, you know, maybe at some point you've just undermined your guy so much that you have to to move in a different direction. And again, that could be him saying, I want to. You know what? You guys, clearly, if I put up 120 points and you guys don't want me as coach, I want to go somewhere else where I'm going to get a chance. Fair enough. Yeah, totally makes sense. And now he's, who knows, he's available now as, uh, but I mean, there's only four openings left if we count Chicago. And that's another situation where you

still got an interim guy. So wait, what are the four? Boston, Chicago. Boston, Chicago, Winnipeg, Detroit. Winnipeg and Detroit. Okay. So let me just say one last thing about this. Like if, to your point about, well, look, maybe we, maybe we need to change things up and make it,

make a little bit of an upgrade while we have a chance, blah, blah, blah. Like Pete DeBore, like Bruce Cassidy, those are the guys you go up. and get. You know? Neither have won a Stanley Cup, but they get their teams deep into the playoffs pretty consistently. DeBoer, I think, went to conference finals three years in a row recently, like the last few years, right? And obviously went to a couple of cup finals in the 2010s.

And it's like, okay, here's Paul Maurice's track record. He quit the Jets. And they've been bad for a long time. After, admittedly, they did go to like a conference final that one time. They had the one big run. So he,

yeah, his playoff record, he got the Hurricanes to the Stanley Cup final. To the cup final in 2002. Yeah. Oh, that was 20 years ago. When he was 35,

he was a young whiz kid back then. Doesn't make the, playoffs again with Carolina, doesn't make the playoffs with Toronto, goes back to Carolina, gets them on another decent run in 2009. And then other than that, it's basically the only other time he's won around is Winnipeg. How many? So he's had three seasons where he's been out of the first round in his coaching career, or as the Maple Leafs would call it, unprecedented success.

How about this? I'm looking at his career coaching page. How many seasons do you think his, a team he coach cleared 100 points out of 24 seasons? See, I'm looking at it and yeah. Okay. Well, then there you go. Not a lot. One is the answer.

One time his team cleared 100 points in 24 years. 2018. And look, that Winnipeg team was really good. I believe that's the team that went to a conference final. It was. But that's also the team that... It got smoked by the Vegas Golden Knights. And that's also the team that everybody looked at and went, this is the next big team.

This is the team that's going to, you know, they had all that young talent and, yeah, like, they're... And here's the next power out for that. 99 points, 80 points. And that admittedly is in the 71 game season. So call that 95 points or whatever the math works out to. 63 points in 56 games, which is like, again, good but not great. And then they were third in the in Canada that year. And then 31 points in 29 games this year.

So like you say, Sean, he took a team that everybody was like, they're going to take a huge fucking step forward. And then they extremely didn't. The only reason, is that the only reason they won the, they had 99 points was, yeah, Connor Hallibuck and Laurent Poisois were unbelievable in net. And then the year after that, the only reason they were any good was Connor Hallibuck was,

should have won the MVP that year. Yeah. That's, this is a weird, I think moving on from Burnett is slightly less weird to me than a lot of people seem to think it is, but I don't think, I don't get,

like I say it. I get your reasoning for it, makes, I totally understand why if you were like, we can make a big upgrade here. You move on from a guy who has no other head coaching experience except this year. Totally get that. But then you're like, we got to bring in the guy who, like, a long time like loser. Okay. Sure, man.

All right. Let's move. We talked about torts to Philly last week. That's officially official. Seems like he's going to have him doing more punching this year. So you can't beat that if you're the fly. buyers. DeBore to Dallas.

What's up? That plays well in Philadelphia, the punching. Yeah, for sure. DeBoer, yeah. Good coach. I don't know what he's going to be able to do there. But an upgrade. Yep, for sure.

That's a guy where I saw people like kind of being like, really, if he deported him, well, look, like he gets teams into the playoffs. and Dallas has a problem doing that consistently or without at least like chewing their nails down to the down to the quick right like that's that was the problem with Dallas the last few years of like I mean they got in well they didn't get in two years ago but you know what I mean

like they're getting in but like barely like they are scraping into the playoffs and DeBore's teams typically this past season excluded and it wasn't really his fault they're pretty successful on a consistent basis. Yeah. I think you can make a pretty good argument for Dupor going to Dallas and making them respectable in that division.

Yeah. And if that's what they're looking for, just to be respectable and, you know, more power to get in bed and contracts. It's fine. I think, like, DeBore lost a lot of his shine in Vegas, partly because he replaced Galant

and everyone was kind of like, what? And then, you know, the fact, you're right, it wasn't his fault this year, but he did take, on paper, a top five talent team and not get him into the playoffs now. Yeah, I pissed off the goalie. I, yeah. Yeah, that too. Yeah, that was a weird, weird one. But yeah, the other one, this happened, like, officially it happened this morning, but word started getting out yesterday. Woodcroft locked in with Edmonton.

Um, makes sense to me. I get it. Yep. Again, that was a little bit of a Florida situation that people were wondering why it hadn't happened yet. Um, now it, now it has. And we'll never know probably whether they looked at other options or even considered them or if it was just a case of getting the, uh, getting the numbers hammered out. Three years, two million bucks a pop. That, that works for me. That's fine. Um, I'm not, I'm not, you did a great job. job. Yeah. Now look, did he do a great job or did Carmen McDavid and Leon Dricidal do a great job? And Evander Cain, I don't think it's a coincidence that that that team took off when they added a 40-goal guy that can keep up with Carr-McDavid. But McDavid and Dracidal were great in the first half, too, and Dave Tippett couldn't get it. Right. So I guess the question is, do we call Mike Smith having a decent second half, do we call that like,

like Woodcroft did that. I guess we'll find out. Yep. But again, like, if they want to stick with them, it makes perfect sense to me. That's fine. All right, let's move on to some other stuff that is going on around the league here. And we'll start with the revelation earlier this week that Nick Baxter will have hip resurfacing surgery.

I almost said replacement, obviously. It's resurfacing, which is similar, but. different. I looked this up on the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons. It says the head of the hip socket, like the bone that goes

into it. That's not removed. It's trimmed and capped with a smooth metal covering. The damaged bone and cartilage within the socket is removed and replaced with a metal shell just as in a traditional total hip replacement.

And then the website said, this is of patients with advanced arthritis of the hip. I don't want to find that I have that when I'm 35 years old. No, that doesn't sound good if you're a professional athlete. He says he wants to come back. They're taking out your hip and they're putting a bunch of metal inside it. I don't know. Yeah.

So Ryan Kessler had this and never came back. Never played again. And who is somebody else I thought that? And Joevonovsky. Yes. Ed did come back but played like half a season and then was out. Now that, especially Jovanowski, you're talking multiple years ago. This is the kind of thing that can advance, like the technology can advance pretty quickly. But this is not, definitely no sure thing that we will ever see this guy again.

For sure. If we do absolutely no guarantees. that he'll be close to what we've been used to, which is, you know, quietly, sometimes one of the best playmaking centers of his era. Yeah, no, like a good player for a long time started losing his fastball in the last few years, right around the time he signed a nine,

or a five-year $9.2 million extension. It was still a point of game player even last season, like, 2020. Yeah, he plays with Alex Ovechkin. He scores a lot of goals, I get it. But yeah, I think that this is this is a thing where it's like, boy, what do we, what do we think this does for the capitals? Because Tom Wilson's out to like mid-season, maybe a little earlier than that. Yep. Also, you know, like I don't know what you do.

Those are two guys who like make your team go. Yep. Do you, I saw somebody raise this. And obviously if you're Washington, this would be sort of signaling the, the, the. Would you consider moving Tom Wilson? Well, so here's the thing with that, right? Like, is I think that they're just going to do everything in their power organizationally, and I've said it before, they should do it, is to get Alex Ovechkin the goals record.

Like, whether they make the playoffs or are particularly competitive in any given year, I think is kind of beside the point by now. Like, you don't give Alex Ovechkin at his age five years and nine and a half million dollars. And like full no move, all that kind of stuff. You don't give him all that without saying, we're getting you the fucking goals record when in Washington Capitol Jersey. Right?

And so if you trade Tom Wilson, it's for futures. Like, you don't get him, I'm looking at their cat-friendly page now. I'm shocked to learn Tom Wilson is already 28. This is a guy where if you had said, like, gun to your head, How old is he 26, 25?

And so, like, you're trading Wilson, you're doing it for futures. Right, exactly. Two years left on a deal that he has lived up to, even that we all hated it at the time. For sure. Yeah. All right. Yeah. I can't see where you move him if you're trying to, like, no, Joe Vetchkin.

What's it? How many more goals does he need to pass Gretzky? Like 150 or something? Yeah, he's got a ways to go. And I guess also related to that, you don't rebuild when you've got arguably the greatest goal scorer ever still playing at a high level. Maybe you just keep trying to run it back. But it's tough. I mean, if you don't have Backstrom.

And it looks like maybe they won't. That's. They really have to find a replacement for him. Like, I think, I think at a minimum, you kind of say, well, this season is a write-off, right? Right? Like, he's just not going to play this year. Yeah, yeah. And so do you go out and, hey, you know what they could do?

Oh, they couldn't do it actually. They don't have their first round pick this year. Oh, no, it's next year, right? So they would need to get their third round pick back next year. I'm thinking offer sheet. I go out and I give someone one year, someone who maybe isn't a $9 million player. You just give them Backstrom's money. One year, $9 million.

Maybe. And you see what there is to see. It's kind of like what, a little bit what Carolina did with, or do you know, I guess there aren't a lot of great young centers out there that are going to be available in trade. But like, you got to kick the tie. You've got to replace Baxter somehow. You can't just like not have Nicholas Baxter from all year if you're the Capitals. Let me throw this at you. Okay.

Joe Thornton With Alexander Ovechkin Yeah I think you can't do that I think that should be illegal That's probably not going to work great But so here's the thing that's really interesting to me For next year like Who do you get to replace them or whatever

All that stuff aside Capital is going into next year No Baxter no Wilson For maybe the first few Several months of the season and maybe the entire season, who knows. Their goalie situation is a fucking mess, right? There is no guarantee that the Capitals,

who are a wildcard team this year, make the playoffs next year. This is also true of the Boston Bruins who are not going to have Marshand, they're not going to have Bergeron, they're not going to have McAvoy, they're not going to have Grizzlic. Early on, yeah.

for the first like two months of the season, let's say, thereabouts. Does this open the door for someone who's not either of those teams to make the playoffs next year? I think we can maybe say with some amount of confidence the Islanders just kind of slot back into one of those spots. Potentially, yeah. Right? Potentially. But then you got... I mean...

go ahead like they you know every year we look at the playoff teams and go oh they'll probably be the same but they're you know we do see turnover every year we see two or three new playoff teams and then you look at the way this year went down in the east and you go maybe not maybe this is the year just as the same eight teams I don't know who like is Detroit ready is Buffalo ready no Ottawa seems to I can see Buffalo like if they kind of bottle the feeling they had last year and maybe get a like this is the ukopacalucanin season and tage thompson is like a 30 goal guy again next year like i can i can see it maybe working with buffalo it would all have to come together yes cbj i can see if again like if the goaltending improves the goaltending was awful last year um if if if it's the goaltending kind of improves a little bit. It's going to be the same guys. The young guys take a step.

Yeah, for sure. And then I think the other argument you make us for New Jersey if they can get a goalie. Because if they had a goalie last year, they're probably pretty good and everybody's healthy, which is the other thing, right? Like Hughes only played 50 games or whatever it was and Hamilton didn't play a good chunk of the season. So if they can get a goalie and everybody's healthy, I think New Jersey is like a, border line playoff team if we're saying both the capitals and Bruins drop out. Let me throw one more name at you for the capitals.

Okay. Evgeny Malkin. Wow. That would rock. That would be cool. Wouldn't that be cool as hell? And part of the appeal is, you know, if you got to, and he apparently wants a four-year deal, so it's not, but maybe, maybe not.

Maybe if Pittsburgh walks away, maybe he's ticked off, goes to a rival, go play. with Ovechkin, they've apparently maybe iron things out. And you make a rival that you're probably fighting for that last playoff spot for worse in the process. And I mean,

if I'm a pretty agent center... I don't... And especially if it's, you know, if he maybe doesn't... Maybe nobody's out there offered the four years. Come play, you know, it's sort of like how anyone who can't get a long-term deal. Okay, go to Edmonton and go play with Connor McDade.

it for a year and then come back and try again. Sure. Go be Alexander Ovechkin's setter for a year and then hit the hit free agency again next year. I don't know, man. Could be fun. Yeah, that's, I like the way you're thinking here. I think this is really, you know, this is the Mark Andre Fleury thing. Let's get Mark Andre Fleury to the Capitals.

Let's get, let's just get all the penguins who aren't Sidney Cross. Let's get Chris Letang down there too while we're at it, you know. Mm-hmm. Why not? Unfortunately, we've got to talk about the very nasty hockey Canada stuff. Boy, oh, boy. Yeah. Here's how you know you stepped in it.

If you're like the guys who are doing the hearings. Justin Trudeau condemns you. Whenever the leader of your country is condemning you, that's bad. Yep. And this is continuing to develop into a big story. You know, up here in Canada, I don't think it's full on reached its full impact yet, but it's certainly trending there. And if hockey Canada was hoping that by testifying on Monday that they would maybe be able to stamp this down a bit,

that hasn't happened. It probably wasn't something that could have gone well, but it didn't go well. And there are... It went as bad as it could have, I think. I mean, I think we can imagine ways it could have worse, but it certainly... From a PR standpoint? Yeah. The big revelation, and this course is in regards to the alleged sexual assault that took

place in the summer of 2018 with members of the Canadian World Junior team, at the, it was, it was some sort of event. It was like a golf term. It wasn't even a hockey thing, but they, they brought back members of the team. And there was a woman who alleges that she was assaulted by multiple people, including many players. I think the number is eight, eight people involved. And this was apparently brought to the attention to hockey Canada. They settled with the, with the woman.

we don't know the terms of that. She hasn't spoken or addressed it publicly and may not be able to because of provisions in the agreement. But the big surprise for me at least was that Hockey Canada, we've all been kind of wondering like, well, who are the players involved?

That's certainly, you know, who are the people involved? And Hockey Canada is now saying they don't know who was involved. So it's not a case of, hey, there's up to eight players involved in this thing and, you know, it's being kept secret. Hockey Canada is saying they don't even know. And yet they settled this situation, paid money to do it. And yet, you know, they presumably investigated it and yet how much could they have actually investigated it if they don't know even the identity of the people involved.

and why would they settle something when they know so little? And one of the potential explanations there is that they didn't, they settled quickly because they didn't want to know who was involved. They wanted to get this out of the way before, you know, they didn't even want to hear any names, which is obviously not acceptable. The other thing about that is they apparently encouraged players to participate in the investigation, but did not require them to. And, you know, the thing about, like, like, legal,

they couldn't have had a legal requirement to make the players participate, apparently, which makes perfect sense, like that there's no, there's no way to legally compel them to do that. That is very understandable. However, they could have said, well, you know, you won't get to be a member of hockey Canada anymore. and they apparently didn't do that.

Yeah, there was no attempt to compel anyone to speak to investigators and that's going to be a big part of this already. Because when this story first surfaced, there was a lot of, you know, and there were some reporters who were reaching out to players' agents because, I mean, we can all look at the roster of that 2018 team and see that there are some recognizable NHL names on it and people were reaching out to agents and saying, you know, do you have a comment, do you have a statement? And there were a decent number of players who, through their agents, put out statements saying,

I was not involved in the assault. Yeah. And, you know, that you can take them at their word or not, but they at least addressed it in that sense. That's now going to be the question is, did this player take part in the investigation? or is this situation where they didn't. I mean, we all, among the many things that infuriated so many of us about the Blackhawk situation was when we found out that guys like Duncan Keith, for example, didn't participate in the investigation. They declined.

And you're sort of sitting there going like, dude, if you, you know, you hate to say if you've got nothing to hide, how come you're not, you know, helping out with the investigation. But that certainly does resonate a little bit. And you can understand, you know, in this case. case, you're dealing with young players and, you know, if they're told by a lawyer or something, no, no, don't get involved in this. Maybe they listen to that. But there's part of what went so badly for hockey Canada at the hearing was they were asked like who, how many players participated in the investigation. And initially they said four to six, which, you know, out

at 20 players would be outrageous. And then later they circled back and said it was a higher number. and that it was sort of suggested that maybe four to six was the number who did not participate. But yeah, whatever it was, it certainly wasn't everyone. It certainly wasn't, there doesn't seem to have been a lot of pressure from Hockey Canada. This all does very much feel like Hockey Canada wanted this to go away as quickly as possible. Absolutely, yeah. And now it's not gone away, and it's going to be continued. I think to be a big story and the reality is whatever happened in that room, there are

multiple players out there, including probably some in the NHL who were there. And if they've clearly spent the last few years figuring that that would remain unknown and I don't think we're headed that way now. So it's, and you know what? It's the kind of thing where we know how this goes, right? There's a lot of people who are really shocked and bothered by this. And if and when the name of a player on their favorite team comes out, suddenly it's going to change.

And, you know, so, yeah, an evolving story, a big story. And, yeah, as you say, when the prime minister is weighing in on something, any thoughts that this is going to quietly be swept away is. and the NHL says they're investigating too. Yeah, so that is the other thing is that people think that the NH, like maybe hockey Canada, and I feel like this is maybe giving hockey Canada more credit than it they deserve, but maybe people are saying that maybe like

that hockey Canada was thinking the NHL would have more of a power to compel participation than it does. Mm-hmm. at which point, like, you know, because, you know, if they can, if they can make sure Joel Quinville gets fired, and then that he has to be interviewed by Gary Bettman or whoever to be reinstated, then maybe they also have more power to do that kind of thing with the players that may or may not have been. They didn't. They didn't with Chicago, though, right? I mean, that's true. Lots of players didn't.

Now, given the timing, maybe this is, you know, this situation in 2018 with Hockey Canada happens first. The Chicago story breaks after that. And, you know, maybe there are some players who back then might have said, you know, hey, I was 18. My lawyer told me not to talk. And so I didn't. But now they're sitting there a few years older and also having seen how much criticism came the way of guys like Duncan Keith and others. to say, you know what?

Yeah, I'm willing to talk now. And I mean, it's going to be very, very difficult to investigate and determine exactly what happened in that room. There, I'm sure, will be conflicting stories. But as far as who was in the room, that can't be that tough. You know, you sit these guys. Were you in the room? Yes or no? No.

Okay, who was? And, you know, if you're going to tell me, oh, gosh, I don't know. Yeah, really? This word never got around. You never heard anything? Yeah. I don't know. I think if the people who were waiting for this to go away or stay hidden away have to be understanding now that that isn't going to happen. And so how do you handle it now going forward? Here's a report that just came out while we started the record from Rick Westhead. The Canadian government is freezing hockey Canada's millions of dollars in federal. funding until the organization signs up with a new federal agency that has the power to

independently receive and investigate abuse complaints and issue sanctions for inappropriate behavior. Minister of Sport Pascal Sant-Ange said in an interview on Wednesday. Announced the funding freeze two days after, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, Hockey Canada received 14 million from the federal government in 2020 and 21, including 3.4 million in emergency COVID-19 subsidies. So yeah. That's,

because that was also part of the here. There was a question about like how many, you know, assault accusations or allegations do you deal with? And they said one or two a year, obviously not to say at the same level of the one that we're talking about here. But it doesn't sound like they have a really good process. in place. And, you know, it gets tricky because this is, it's hockey Canada.

Hockey Canada doesn't employ these guys. Hockey Canada doesn't, you know, this isn't an NHL team that has players under contract. Hockey Canada is kind of borrowing players. And yet, there has to be some responsibility when it's under your watch. So it doesn't sound like there was a real good process in place for dealing with this stuff. And maybe this is, this is how they're going to get it because clearly with your funding is on the line, you've got to go along with whatever you're asked to do. Yeah.

So yeah, that's, I don't know, I don't have anything else to say about it. It's bad. There you go. Like, yeah, it's, it's bad and it's, you know, if you're, it really is. And if you're wondering, like, hey, is this, you know, as a fan, like, should I be following this? I don't know. It's hockey Canada. Is it the NHL?

Like, this is going to continue as a story. And, yeah, expect to. hear, expect to hear more as we go. Yeah. Some other stuff that happened in the league this week. Apparently, Ethan Bear is being made of, like, he can negotiate with other teams. The hurricanes will let him negotiate with other teams. They'd still like to resign him, but, you know, it's interesting because I've seen conflicting

information about why he wasn't playing in the playoffs. I've seen some stuff he was injured and couldn't play. I've seen some stuff he was healthy scratched. Maybe it's a combination of the two. That is interesting to me, but there was a little while there where Ethan Bear was maybe not like a first pair guy,

but a guy who could play on Carolina's first pair. And then as the season went on, he just kind of like maybe seemingly played himself out of that spot. I think he's a good defenseman. I think if you're looking for a guy that you can sign for relatively cheap, but, you know, three, four million bucks.

And maybe Carolina matches that and that's the end of it. But like, you don't let them negotiate with other teams. Yeah, that's clearly, that's an unusual step. And, you know, he's negotiating with other teams. That doesn't mean that they don't still hold his rights. So obviously they would have to be. Yeah, they do still hold his rights. But that is not something that you do.

if you have any serious thoughts, I think, of holding on to a guy, unless they feel like his ask is so unreasonable that they're like, you know what, go talk to every other team with that. And when they all say, no, come back and be ready to give us something more serious. But I think that's unlikely. Yeah. Yeah. Like I say, if I'm a team looking for a right side young defenseman,

I'm like, oh, Ethan Bear seems like a guy that we can make it work with. I don't know, again, like you say, I don't know about the money or whatever, but a friend of mine just texted me. Paul Maurice, question mark, exclamation point. So words getting around, looks like it's going to be three years for Maurice in Florida. Oh, and the other thing is as we're recording this, Cadre is skating with the main roster. With the main group, so maybe... And Darcy Kemper in the starters net.

So there goes that theory. The other transaction this week is Andre Kuzmanko signs with the Vancouver Canucks. I think he was required to sign a one-year deal, and so he did. One-year entry-level had to, you know, with the bonuses and that. But this was one of those situations where it wasn't... so much a bidding war, it was just where did he want to go? Because he was going to get the same contract, pretty much any team. And he chose Vancouver, which is nice feather in their cap, I guess.

Yeah, and, you know, a free, at worst, middle six forward. I don't follow the KHL at all, but I saw some people who do follow it, who work for elite prospects saying, like, this is a good player. I do wonder how his game translates to North America and I wouldn't like immediately pencil him into the top six as a result. However, he absolutely has that talent level and probably should end up there. But hey. And sounds like a guy who, and I'm reading this, I'm on sports net,

but I'm reading it's a quote from a guy who's the director of film scouting for elite prospects. Are you familiar with that group? Yeah, I've heard of it. Yep. First of all, we should say, the guy's 25. So young player, but not, this isn't like some prospect coming over with tons of upside in front of him. But he has, he sounds like his game has taken a big step forward each of the last two or three years. So.

Yeah. Yeah, good. And, you know, he'll, uh, they get a year. to look at him and low risk for the Canucks. It's not like they can really get stuck if he doesn't work out. So it's one of those situations where you're kind of putting your organization and your program in front of somebody and saying choose us and as well as the opportunity and everything and he chose him.

Yeah. And like, you know, the thing to say, obviously Canucks fans are excited about this. But this is a thing where you're getting a guy out of the KHL. and you haven't seen a play in all likelihood, right? Like you, the average Canucks fan or whatever. And so just think about the range of guys who have come over with a fair amount of hype from the KHL. You got your Artemi Panairns.

That's like a best case scenario. This guy's an MVP caliber player. Then you've got on the other end, like Nikita Gusev. you know and like nukita goose have a really good player in the khl really good um not so much in the n hl barely played for Vegas etc etc um actually had one had that one decent season for uh for new jersey right um but yeah yeah then he kind of washed out after that and and i don't think this is a paneran or like a real Caprizov level

KHL superstar that you know to manage expectations well like I was saying I was saying like I'm leaving Caprizov out of it because he was like at least drafted. Yeah it was a draft pick him so like Coosemko is not in that

boat but yeah that's I would as with it like an NCAA free agent signing any of that kind of thing just kind of air on the side of This guy might kind of stink a little bit. And then if he doesn't, you're like, oh, okay, great, this rocks. But it's free, it's free lottery ticket.

Yeah, free wallet. So yeah. So there you go. You know, we had it on the thing of, on the rundown here. Let's talk about the French's ketchup popsicle. Sure. But I don't know if you saw like the fine print on this, Sean. No, is it the fine print that it's not real?

The fine print is that it's not real? The fine print is that it's being distributed in three cities in Canada once for one day. Okay. All right. So we got. We got flick baited. Yeah. It looks completely disgusting.

And I don't get, let me ask what may be a dumb question. But are Canadians viewed as like a ketchup loving people? I know we have to ketchup chips, but ketchup chips do not taste like ketchup. Yeah. I definitely think of the ketchup chip as being a Canadian. Like, we have it down here for sure. But, like, it's a purely Canadian invention to me. Right.

But that'd be like me being like, you Americans love grape soda. You guys just love grapes. Ooh, boy. And it's like, no, man, it has the two things taste totally different. We probably eat a lot of grapes down here, is my guess. We use ketchup up here. But, I mean, we're the people who invented a way to eat. French fries without ketchup.

It's a good point. I don't, the one thing I have noticed, the one big difference is up here in Canada, nobody gets really weird about putting ketchup on hot dogs the way that you guys do down there. But other than that, like,

you're, you had a president to put ketchup on his steak, man. I don't, uh, I don't know if you can throw this ketchup thing at us. And he did it, and he did it freaking bigly. Yeah. Do you remember that?

Biggie. Yeah, he was, he was, Or president Trump he called him. Wow, got him. Oh boy. He's never coming back from that one. Certainly not in 2024. Yeah, definitely.

Definitely. So yeah, those things looked terrible, but I was like surprised at how many people were like, ah, you Canadians, what will you not do for ketchup? I don't know, man. Now if it was made up maple syrup. Now I'm, yeah, all right. What do you want for me? We got clickbaited.

That's it. It happens. It certainly does. So folks, we're done. We're going to have Sean do his plugs now. Find me on The Athletic. I have a bunch of stuff about hockey. Whoa.

Is that true? Yeah. Today I've got my rankings. I ranked every playoff series so far from worse to best. And it's crazy. Everyone agrees that I got it right. People are just like, yep, one through 14, you nailed it. So that's fun.

I'll have my show with Ian Mendez tomorrow, and I don't know. I don't have anything specific to plug because we don't really know when the finals are ending or that sort of thing. I'm just patiently waiting for off-season mode so I can start writing truly weird stuff. That's the plan here. Absolutely. And then for my own self, you know the score by now, EPRinkside.com. And then if you sign up for an annual subscription with the code, I. love EP, they'll tack three months on at the end for free.

Whoa. What a deal, right? But now I hear the people out there. They're saying to themselves, but this is a little risky for me. That's a long time to commit to something. I don't disagree. Years a long time, right? So with those people in mind, I would say.

There's a new special offer from Elite Prospects. Five months for just $5. pop. So you give it a try. You're not paying the full freight for a month on an annual subscription. I get, you don't want to get involved with that. So here's what you're going to want to do. With the draft coming up, you want to be a little draft freak. You want to know all the guys that are going to get drafted pretty much. I think there's pretty much everybody got a write-up of at least, you know, a paragraph or two, including guys who are going to go in like the sixth round or whatever. And that is the code five for five. When you sign up with a

the code five for five, you get your first five months of an EP subscription for five bucks a piece. And folks, you can't beat that. You can't? Now, there is a time limit on this. I'm scrolling through the email I got. I don't know when it ends.

So, that'd do it soon. So that would be my advice to you. And then the other piece of advice I have for you is sign up for patreon.com slash puck soup. And we got a lot of bonus stuff going on over there these days. I am recording the mailbag in mere minutes. Tomorrow I will be recording an episode of our wrestling podcast, Superplex, with Adam Vingen. We're going to be talking about Forbidden Door, the AEW New Japan Pro Wrestling crossover event.

Forbidden Door happening this Sunday. on Friday, me and Sean Gentile are recording an episode of Stick to Sports, and then later in the month, me and Greg are going to have to do a bunch of episodes because he's been like, quote unquote, traveling for quote unquote work. So me and Greg will have a bunch, and we're going to have

me, Greg, and Sean McIndoo, probably are going to do Supoelay, which is like a, you know, listener choice bonus episode. That is going to be fun. And this is all for like eight bucks a month or five if you just want to puck soup bonus stuff? Wild. What a freaking steal. That's

so much content for your money. So all we can say is you're welcome and sign up for all that. Thanks very much for listening. One more thing to plug real quick because I forgot but you mentioned Gentile he and I are live blogging game for tonight on The Athletic. I'll have to

not check that out. Come check it out. It's all shons all the time and we're going to be watching Get Shapiro in there, huh? No. Fitzgerald Bigley does he wouldn't get in, but... Well, I didn't even assume Fitzgerald would pick up the phone. He sees you ring in.

You got it. That's exactly. Straight to voicemail. So, all right. Yeah, check that out too. Why not? Thanks for listening. Thanks for the support, as always.

You're welcome for no ads this week. We did this show out of the kindness of our hearts, quite frankly. Sure. And I can't say we're not saints. And that's it, folks. Have a good one. Bye-bye. Enjoy Gameful.

Bye-bye.