Puck Soup - It's the Great Pumpkin Patch, JT Miller

Episode Date: October 26, 2022

Sean and Ryan talk about the Canucks, Phil Kessel, hot teams, and more.   Sponsored by Trade Coffee (drinktrade.com/puck)

Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slapshots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to what if you commute. But we also cover movies, TV shows, it's and tunes. It's your weekly bowl of hockey and nonsense. I'm Ryan Lambert from Elite Prospects. I am Sean McIndoo from The Athletic. And we're recording live at a pumpkin patch this week. we're making sure that no one is here to bully the multi-millionaires who are doing bad at their jobs.

Please explain to me what this is, because I'm only vaguely aware of this. So, the Vancouver Canucks, you might have heard they're not doing so well. Okay. And now, like, I want to say around the time they lost their home opener. So what was that? Like Saturday night, right? Yes. They got smoked by the same.

We'll talk about the savers later in the show. So they get smoked, and like the next morning, I want to say, I might have the timeline a little bit wrong, but I think this is correct. The next morning someone was like, I saw J.T. Miller and his beautiful, nice, perfect family at the pumpkin patch. And people were, you know, throwing gourds at him. It's decorative gourd season. It is. You know. And, and hey, in Canada, it's always decorative gourds.

It's always gore season. Yeah. Yeah, hold on. When you say they were throwing gourd, so they're like each other, like this random Canadian babies, that's, I'm against that. Can't do that. But yeah. And so a lot of, let's say, credulous people. Okay.

We're like Folks, I know we're upset here But you can't do this kind of thing Let the man pick out his damn pumpkin You know, all this shit And you know, this is as real as people giving out $18,000 worth of fentanyl On Halloween

And spray painting blacks rule on their driveway And all this stuff This is the kind of thing that you see All the time when a team is doing very badly, especially a Canadian team, that they just go, oh, you know, Tyler Myers got mugged and they said it's because he's bad at hockey. Right. And it's like, oh, yeah, no, this is definitely a real story that I believe for sure. So that's that.

And apparently it has, as I'm like Googling this to figure out it, first of all, it all seems to have come from like a Reddit post. Yeah, I forgot to say it was on Reddit. It has now been deleted. And I'm also You know why it got deleted? Because it was too much truth and Reddit couldn't handle it. Because J.T. Miller was like, yeah, that didn't happen. Yeah, that feels probably important.

But yeah. You would think. So, yeah, that's what's going on. And then, of course, they immediately lost the next game. That's the other thing to say. Is that they are now, I believe, 05 and 1. Am I right about theirs or is it O-6-7? They are 0-5-2, which is to say they're 0-7.

They've lost seven games. And hey, wouldn't you know it? For those freaks out there like me who watched that Hurricanes game with rapt attention on Monday night, you know, they got destroyed in that game. It was a three-to-two game, but it was one-one after the second period. And they gave, I want to say they gave up two goals like 40 seconds apart, two minutes into the third. And then proceeded to put, I think, a total of three shots on goal in the entire third period. Yeah.

And it was one of those things where, like, they started the season with the five-game road trip. Yeah. Which was not like a tough trip in the sense of the teams they were playing, but, you know, five-game road trip is tough. and they come back and then they've got Buffalo for the home opener, which on paper is, I won't say the easy game, but that's the game you should win. And then when they lose that,

you're like, okay, up next is Carolina. Oh, that's not good. Maybe not so good, yeah. Yeah.

It does have to be said that at the time they played the Sabres, you know, the Sabre to just run through. Yes. Alberta very easily with shocking ease. And so, like, even that game, you were like, they're really going to get beat by the Sabres, like, bad, aren't they?

You know, like, that was kind of, that was kind of the vibe I was getting. And there was, fans are booing already. Fans are throwing jerseys on the ice. Which, my, now, I said this on Monday night, and I want to get your take on it. For my money, the one broadcast you should always be tuning into when you're watching hockey is find the team that is on the longest losing streak. Yeah. They will have the best broadcast.

No question about it. Especially if they are at home. That is excellent. Yeah. That is. And I'm all, I mean, I have said this before, but I have memories as a kid of seeing fans throw their jerseys on the eyes of Maple Leaf. gardens in a playoff game that the Leafs lost eight to nothing. Well, playoffs, but this was like they made the playoffs in the north.

So they had like 50 points that year. Sure. And fans throwing their jersey and just being like, holy crap. Like that was like it's one thing to boo. It's one thing to throw garbage. But to actually take your jersey off and throw it on the ice. So that, to me, that is, it's protest. It's peaceful protest.

Don't do it during the play, obviously. Never throw anything on the ice during the game. But in between, yeah. I mean, I don't know that I'd want to throw a $300 a piece of merchandise myself, but yeah, it's a good way to send a message. And then the other thing with Vancouver is, after the Saturday game,

Jim Rutherford goes on Hockey Night in Canada. He's a post-game guest, and he gives a weird interview in which... I thought it was extremely regular and good. He gets asked, among other things, like, how come you don't rebuild? And he says, well, I think people have to realize how long rebuilds are. And it's like, yeah, no, I think fans do know that. I don't, and I think he also had a comment about like, you know, it's not fantasy hockey, which is always great. It's, I, the one thing in my experience, fans really enjoy when the team is, is going into the toilet is being condescended to. Like, they really enjoy being talked down to, like, they really enjoy being talked down to, like, like their simple children than told that it's not fantasy hockey.

I mean, he basically, you know, he didn't say this team doesn't need a rebuild. He just said it was going to take too long. He also said they might be in one the direction they're headed. Now, I want to talk about this because this is very interesting to me. I was listening to the new Canucks-centric podcast. I hate this team. Okay.

And they made the point, which I'd never really thought about it this way, but it's true, that, like, this Canucks team has been tanking for the better part of a decade without getting any of the benefits of actually tanking. Yeah. It's like how they, how they kind of phrased it. And I thought that was very interesting. Uh-huh. Because, again, you know, like, when you're bad and you're, I don't know, what's the word, like, trying to convince yourself that you're, you know, trying to convince yourself that you're bad. you're actually good or trying to convince the pain that you're actually good. In denial is a great way to put it.

You're trading a lot of your picks in addition to being bad, right? Yeah. So like if you want to go back to let's go back all the way because let's be honest, this started in the last few years of the Cedines playing NHL hockey, right? Right. and they were like, look, we got to try to win one for the Siddines. And it's like, by win one, you mean get to 97 points and barely make the playoffs. Is that, is that right?

Get losing the first round. And they were like, yeah, no, that's exactly what we mean. Thank you. So they have a couple of first round picks in the years following that, including Elias Patterson and Brock Bessor and Quinn Hughes, I think was. Well, so Quinn Hughes is like the year, yeah, right, sure. It's like the year after Pedersen. But I wanted to go a little before that, like Bo Horvatt, 9th, Jake Ratan and 6th, Brockbassar 23rd, Oli, Uleve, 5th.

Right? Like, what's interesting about that, and I forgot Jared McCann, who they traded for, was it good Branson they traded Jared McCann for? Yes, that was a really good trade that worked out great. but like around the time they can start saying okay we're gonna breathe a little easier here now that we don't have the Siddines around we're gonna take Oli Ulelevy one slot before Matthew Kachukachin next defenseman taking in that draft Miguel Serkachev yeah another another defenseman who was on the board at that time Charlie McAvoy heard of them yeah yeah pretty good player

And, you know, I was at that draft. I was at the 2016 draft. And I remember everybody kind of looking at each other like, Oliye Levy 5th. Yikes. So even at that time, not so good. But then, you know, like you get to even 2019 when they're supposed to be okay.

And they have some podkoulson who like looks fine or whatever. And Neil Hoaglander, who looks, again, fine, but they kind of don't want to keep them in the lineup. And it's like, yeah, they hit a home run with Patterson and Hughes. And maybe you want to say Bessor is like a ground rule double? Yeah.

I think that sounds fair. But other than that, when, when, like, Horvatt was their, was their one good first round pick. Mm-hmm.

In the last, so what's that, like four or five good first. first round picks in the last decade. Yeah. Which isn't terrible, though. I mean, that's two home runs in a decade is... But the point being, they've been bad this whole time.

Yeah. Jake Furtt and picks six overall. Yeah. Who was a bust even before he got released. You know, a couple... The next winger taken was William Nealander. Yeah. Yeah.

Some swings and miss. is for sure. And so, like, this is a team. They've made the playoffs twice in, in the time since, like, the Sedeen's farewell tour really started. And one of them was, uh, the fakesest playoff in the history of North American sports, which convinced them. Yeah. Well, obviously, this is a team that's ready to compete right now. Mm-hmm. I do get the argument. I do get the argument that you, you might look at it and say, like you've got Elias Patterson, you've got Quinn Hughes Now I think we could argue about like what tier both of those guys belong in

whether they're truly in the like superstar franchise player tier or if they're like one below that but if either guy is and certainly if both guys are then there is an argument that says like hey man they're in their prime right now you don't rebuild and try to come out of it when Pedersen's 28 or, you know, something like that.

So, I mean, I get the hesitance. And I even get like, you know, if Jim Rutherford had said that, if he had said, look, we've got a guy, Elias Pedersen, we believe he's a franchise first line player. We think we got a franchise defenseman in Quinn Hughes. They're both in their prime. We're not going to do a tear it down, rebuild and trade veterans and strip it down and miss the playoffs strategically for three years with those guys in their prime.

I feel like that would have been one thing. But to just be like, rebuilds are hard, they take a long time. Like, this is Chuck Fletcher stuff, right? This is, like, that answer isn't going to play well. Well, the thing that's really interesting to me with that is what he should say, to your point, is look at all these fucking bums we inherited on the roster who we cannot get rid of ever. We can't get rid of Ekman Larson. We can't get rid of Tyler Myers.

Like these are guys with trade protection. We can't get rid of Tanner Pearson. We can't, well, I mean, so this is the other thing, right? Is like say all that. That's 100% true. We have all these boat anchors on the roster, specifically on the left side of our deep, well, the right side, I guess.

But, you know, Ekman Larson's on the left, right? So we got all these boat anchors. What am I supposed to do? that's a perfectly reasonable argument that I would be like, yeah, absolutely. Now, obviously, you can't say that you can't like name names or whatever, but you just kind to say like, look, the economic situation we're in from the previous regime, that's what the problem is here. But if they're going to say that, they can't, they also have to be like, now, did we just

spend almost $5 million on Neelya McKeye of this summer? Did we give J.T. Miller, who's going to be $30? It's $8 million. That's the decision that locked them into they're in win now mode. A hundred percent. And you can't even suggest, you know, even saying a rebuild might be where we're headed after you just sign that contract. And, you know, to remind people that contract was an extension that kicks in next year.

It wasn't like this guy was going to hit free agency tomorrow. And you're like, man, do we lose them for nothing? to we did. Like, they had all off-season to trade him. They had all of this season to trade him if they, if they chose to. And I mean, he was coming off a career year last year. Like, they could make that move. They bought him at the absolute height of his value. They bought high. 99 points last season. Yeah. And he's a good player. Like, I absolutely get where, you know, it's hard to get good players in this league. And when you've got one, I get why as a GM, you're like, we're not letting this guy go.

but, you know, there's, it's hard decisions. And keeping a guy can also be a hard decision. Maybe it's the right decision, but to then start the year 0 and 7 and go, yeah, we should probably be rebuilding. Like J.T. Miller's contract has not even started yet. And it's already looking like potentially a mistake. And it's the sort of contract that I don't think it completely destroys any trade value he has. this year, but it massively reduces it.

Like, it's a weird thing in the NHL, right? Like, if you sign J.T. Miller to a seven-year extension and then try to trade him, GMs don't want any part of that. Whereas if you don't sign him and you trade him when he needs an extension, GMs in this league will happily trade for him and then give him that same extension. But it's like their extension. Yep. Makes no sense.

No, it, I mean, it makes. sense if you say the people who are in charge of running this hockey team don't run this hockey team. Yep. Right? Because Jim Benning or well, yeah, Jim Benning

like goes out and you know, he's like, look, if I just get another like eight, nine years with this, I think I can turn this ship around, right? Jim Rutherford comes in and he's like, we need to get cab space. Undeniably true. We need, you know, we need to figure out, uh,

ways we can lean into the positives of our roster, like you said, the, the, you know, elite player at every position, right? You got an elite goalie, well, maybe not so much this year, but you know what I mean. I still think they do, though. Like, yeah, they're, they're sitting goal. I like him. He's been horrible, but right, but my point is, they go, we got an elite goalie, and he was awesome last season. We've got an elite center who, you know, maybe he needs to do a little work to get back to where he was a season or two ago, but he's awesome. Although Mark Specter pointed out this week that he was the reason they lost on Monday night, which, boy, the best.

And like you said, Quinn Hughes, you can make the argument he's an elite defenseman. Like elite elite, no, but like certainly operational on like a clear number one defenseman, all that kind of stuff. He's week to week now, by the way. So that's also going great for them. comes in he says all that oh we're gonna we're gonna do this we're gonna do that and then uh doesn't do any of it like I said

he just he just does the same shit Jim Benning did he gives Ilya Elyamukh who's like a perfectly good player 4.75 million dollars for four years and it's like well you I thought you wanted cap space you can't give like a middle six guy almost five million dollars if you want cap space yeah

Like, again, I like the player. There are things he's really good at. But are there cheaper options that do a very similar thing? And maybe, you know, you don't spend almost $5 million on him and give him a 12-team no-trade list? Yeah. And it's tough, right? Because if they don't sign J. Let's say they trade J.T. Miller.

And they trade him for futures, mostly. Which they would have to for. Pretty much. Pick some prospects. And so now they've got the same lineup this year minus J.T. Miller. Like, do we think they're better? No. So if they're, and if they start 0 and 7, though, minus J.T. Miller, nobody in the fan base is going, well, at least we didn't give a bunch of money to J.T. Miller. At least we're not locked into that guy, given that the team is bad. Everybody's going, we're bad because you didn't bring back Miller. We just, you know, he was our best. player last year and all this. But that's what you get paid for. And, you know, I guess to the point that I think you were getting at is, is this, you know, when Jim Rutherford, who I think is a smart guy, he's won Stanley Cups, he's, you know, he's been around the league, maybe old school, but, you know, he's, he's a smart guy.

And he comes in and he says initially the right things. then he doesn't do it. I think you have to ask, okay, did Jim Rutherford just get dumb? Did he forget what he said? Or did his boss go, no, we're not, we're not doing that. Yeah. I mean, that's obviously, that's obviously what's going on here, right? Because, because you, look, like, it's the same, again, it's the same shit.

It's Jim Benning would have made, would have made these exact same moves. These exact same moves. He would have been like, oh, we need, we need wing help. Let's go get, like, the seventh best forward from the Maple Leafs last season. You know, we need to make sure we signed J.T. Miller when he's never going to be more expensive. Never, ever. When there are, you know, I seem to recall that there was, like, a trade offer from the Rangers that got rejected or something like that. I might be misremembering that, and, like, that was just, like, a rumor.

And we never know, right? Like we never know what's going on in the background and what would you have had the guts to go into the season with Miller unsigned? Well, I would have fucking traded him. Well, but let's say you're not getting an offer that you think is worth trading him. Yes, because I don't think he's doubling down on a 99 point season. I don't think he's coming back with 95 or whatever. I think, you know, he's again, like you said, he's a good player. Nobody would say he's not.

Well, nobody's smart anyway. Really good offensive player. Not so good defensively, but it kind of doesn't matter when you're that good offensively. Yeah. And with that having been said, you know, this guy's historically like a 75 point guy, not a 99 point guy, right? So if you go, well, look, J.T. last year, you had 99 points, but this is. year, you're on pace for 68 or whatever, I can't give you $8 million.

Like, they just refuse to make the bet that he wouldn't be this bad and, or you know what I mean, like that he wouldn't, that he wouldn't repeat the season that is a complete outlier in his career. So I can't imagine why they wanted to jump on that grenade. other than, you know, because, oh, Vancouver, this is a market that won't, that won't tolerate a rebuild. When the Canucks are bad, nobody buys tickets or whatever, you know. And it's like, if you look at the attendance, like,

by percentage of people going to a game versus capacity of the building, the Canucks have, over the last few years, routinely not been in the top, like, third of the league or whatever. They haven't had they haven't sold every seat since I think I think I look this up and I think it was like 15 16 or something like that. It's been quite a while. And the reason is the team stinks, right? So if you at some point you have to go is selling 95% of the tickets better than selling 92% of the tickets or whatever. Because there's got to be a baseline.

where the tickets are getting sold one way or the other. And it won't drop below that level, right? Like, there just has to be a number. And if, you know, ownership doesn't want to eat the losses on that, which this is the other thing about rebuilding is you can cut your costs and so you don't have to sell as many tickets. Yeah. And it is.

And it's, and it's, I hate that whole like, oh, the market. won't accept a rebuild because it always gets flipped around the other way, right? Like, right, it's both. As a Lee's fan, we hear both of it at the same time. Oh, Leaf fans, they won't accept a rebuild. They don't, these fans, they don't, they're not patient enough. But also, oh, plan the parade. You guys are always, you guys are too accepting. You accept, you know, you're too willing to accept a loser. That's, that's why you don't demand excellence. But then if you do demand excellence, then you're not willing to accept a rebuild and all this it's yeah it's it's it's it's it's the management and the fact that it has uh lasted multiple

iterations of a front office makes me think that it's it's coming from the owner which is which is which is which is which is which is tragic because he seems like such a cool guy otherwise so a couple other things i want to talk about with this right is uh first of all um um i want to to say how funny it was speaking about how funny like a losing home broadcast is. David Amber calling Canucks fans booing and throwing jerseys on the ice. Toxic behavior. That made me laugh really hard on a Monday night. All right.

And Anson Carter being like, listen, folks, I get you're mad, but don't throw your jerseys. I love when like pundits do that. Like fans have earned the right to say whatever they want. First of all, have they really? Okay, sure. But like, let's go with that premise. You can say and think and do whatever you want as a fan. You've earned that right.

But don't do the following nine things. That's disrespectful. Don't do these things that would actually communicate your frustration. Yeah. But I guess the other thing to talk about is I think I saw on TSN last night or this morning too early to make significant changes. Okay. what are your thoughts on that is that is that true or is that i think it's it's it's too early to

make significant changes based on the seven games but that's not all that you have this guy fucking gets it folks this is why this is why shan's uh you know making the big bucks that's that's that's the exact right take there is seven games isn't isn't the problem it's like the previous 150 or whatever. Right. Yes. And I mean, there's always this, man, like you always hear, right? Like, I don't think he's broken it out yet, but we're pretty close, I think, to

Elliot Freeman breaking out his quote about how you, in a situation like this, this is when they throw you. What does he say? The other GMs throw you anchors instead of life preservers. Yeah, something like that. And this is, again, this is. You know, I talked about the double standard with fans. Here's another one that we always hear in the NHL, right?

Like when things are going good, well, you can't make a trade now. I mean, things are going good. Why would you break up the chemistry? You'll break up the magic. And then, oh, things are going bad? Well, you can't make a trade now. You're, you know, no one's going to give you fair value. You're, you'd be panicking, you know.

So I feel like a clever GM would almost like use this as an opportunity to make the moves they should have made under the guise of, oh, it's, we're 0 and 7. Oh, no. Hope nobody throws anchors. And, you know, then your phone starts to ring and then you get to work on making a good deal. No, I mean, obviously, you can make people who know me know I'm going to say you can make big moves anytime. And I have very little patience for saying that, you know, all the various excuses of why GMs can't do it. But yeah, you don't do like, like for example, to use a very stupid example, you don't go and trade Thatcher Demko. Or you don't go and trade for a goaltender because, oh, no, we have terrible goaltending this year.

But, you know, do you trade to shore up a blue line that you knew was needed help all along? I'll say, yeah, absolutely, you can do that. And if that means making a big move, then, yeah, that's what we pay these guys for. Right. And with Hughes week to week, that implies, you know, a trip to the LTIR. and if that's the case, well, you just freed up just at least a little bit of money.

Now, it's early in the season, so, you know, maybe you can't reap the benefits of that until a month or two from now. But, you know, I think it's fair to say the horse is already out of the barn on this season for these guys.

You get two points from seven games. It's not impossible to come back from that, but it's really fucking different. You know, it is, except they were really bad to start last year. They weren't this bad. They weren't this bad over the first year. But I mean, over the first month.

And then they fired Travis Green, they brought in Bruce Boudreau. And, you know, what did we say for the rest of the year, right? We'd say, if they had made that move a week or 10 days earlier. Now, I'm not saying that the move is fire the coach, although I feel like that's really, you know, I mean, Boudreau's not even on a hot seat. Like his seat has vaporized.

and I think at this point, given how the offseason went. But, you know, is there a trade out there? Is there something you could do? And if you don't do it now and you wait until 10 more games have passed, are we having that same conversation at the end of the season looking at the Canucks going, man, if they made that move a little bit earlier. Well, so that is the other thing I guess we've got to talk about here is the whole Bruce Boudreau thing where Jim Rutherford says, I didn't know he had a second year.

on his deal, which again, makes it just sound like ownership gave him that second year and then didn't tell the president of hockey operations, which tells you who's really driving the bus there, right? But that's one of those situations where, like, who's going to, who that, again, like, the Canucks kick the tires on various coaches over the summer from what we have been led to believe. and then they circled back. Like, you know, Boudreau is the best of the bunch here.

Like, is John Torrella... And they told him to kick tires too. Yes. There was absolutely, you know, it was like the classic couple that like agrees to see other people and then it's like, nobody wants to. Oh, no, we both are awful, actually.

So we can't. But I guess the point is like, you know, if they had somehow convinced John Tortorella, no, it'll be different this time. Is this team any fucking better? right? Like, you know, part of this is just Thatcher Demco can't make a fucking save right now, right? But I'm going to look it up real quick. Thatcher Demco, 872, Spencer Martin, 879.

So there's your goal-attending situation, folks. It's bad. But, like, we talked about it last week. We're like J.T. Miller's on the ice for eight goals in the first three games or whatever. It's insane. Like, what's, what's anybody supposed to do? Oh, you know, what I would have done is, you know, stopped like 92% of the shots I face instead of 87. Yep.

Like, I don't think, obviously, that's not like the only problem, but if you want to say that's the biggest problem right now plaguing this team, that's absolutely true. And I just looked it up. So the, the Canucks were really bad last year, we said, right? So through the end of November, or to start the season anyway, through the end of November, they went 7, 14, and 2. Currently the Canucks are 05 and 2. So do we think the Canucks are going to go 7 and 9 over their next 16 games?

Yeah. I don't know about that. I'm looking at their schedule coming up. Put it this way. If 7 and 9 feels optimistic, then yes, you've got to make a move now. because... Yeah. But again, like...

You fired the coach? Like, what's that going to do? I don't know what that's going to... And who do you go and get, you know? Right. Well, so here's the other thing. I have this written down. Oh, God.

You know who's already working for the Vancouver Canucks? Mike Yo. Already there. This guy, he has head coaching experience. We can't possibly be considering it. You can do whatever you want. Like, I get that... you know, I think sometimes we go overboard on the whole, like, oh, it's a, it's a club, it's the same guy's getting the same job.

But there's a difference between a successful coach, like John Tortorell, like getting five different jobs with five different teams. Yeah, like even if you don't personally like his style or you think he's annoying, which is both very valid, you can't say the guy doesn't have regular season success. Yeah. Makes playoffs a lot. that would be the only reason that you hire Mike Yo is to fire him and replace him with someone who will make your team much better. So now, if you fire Bruce Brewd, and you give him the interim tag for one game,

does that trigger the, like, do we then get the magic that tends to follow this guy around where whoever replaces him is such a huge upgrade? Um, maybe that's it. But other than that, like, good Lord. I just did the math real quick. Mike Yo, career, uh, 82 games, like number of points per 82 games. 89, baby.

That's big, that's big time shit. Don't feel like that's going to get it done. No, I. And, and again, that included a St. Louis Blues team that immediately won the literally won the Stanley Cup that year. Yeah. Like he had a Stanley Cup. up winning team,

except minus the ECHL goalie. They were at one point dead last in the whole league. Very cool. So, yeah, I mean, you look at everything going on with the Canucks, and you're just like, is there a way out? I don't know at this point,

because the problems that they're having, If you had said, hey, the Canucks are going to, like if you had said to me, I've come to you from October 26th. The Canucks are 05 and 2. They have two points from seven games. What do you think the problem is? And I say, oh, their defense is horrible. And you would say, no, that's pretty much correct. Yeah, you got it.

You got it in one. Yep. Right? So, but again, look at, look at this defense. I'm, you know, if Hughes is hurt, your, your two best defensemen are probably like Luke Shen and, ooh, is it Riley Stillman? Is, is better than Ekman Larsen, Tyler Myers, like at this point, the way things are going right now? That was such a depressing sentence that you just said. I'm honestly asking.

Here's another option is Jack Rathbone, who, uh, you. you know, his underlines have been bad this year, but, you know, is that really his fault? I don't know. That's, yeah, they're, it's a bad blue line. And, man, I don't know. Who would again? I bought into this team heading into the year again. Maybe I'm just bad at this, but.

Yeah, well, so that's the thing, right, is all of this having been said about whatever optimism you might have had for the Canucks. I had them as a borderline playoff team coming into the season. Like, if things went well, they were going to be like a 95-point team. I don't remember exactly what I had them ranked like in the league. Let's see if I can find it real quick. But I had them 18th in the league coming into the season. Like, I think they're going to finish 18th. And now that obviously looks overly optimistic.

but I think we said it with the islanders when we were talking about them. Like they were bad last year despite getting very good goaltent. So if I thought Demko was going to come back to Earth a little bit, obviously he has crashed into the Earth with the force of an extinction level event meteor, right? But it's one way to put it, sure. but like I just figured if the if the goaltending is like a little bit good they're going to be fighting for the playoffs and ultimately not make it probably and not and you know the goaltending has been actively bad and they're like oh that's that's why we haven't won any games at all so I don't know I don't know

I do not know what you do other than beat Seattle which is their next game and which is in Seattle, but also like, yeah, a lot of times with stuff like this, I go, you know what, it's going to be good to get on the road. Get them out of there. Yeah. But, I mean, I don't know. Are you that much on the road going to Seattle? Like, there's going to be some Canuck fans there too. So.

Yeah. I mean, the number of jerseys that are going to get thrown on the ice, which again is toxic behavior. Pretty, pretty low, I would think. You know, look, if you get a jersey thrown on the ice and a road, game, sell the team. Maybe move it. That'd be it for me. If I saw that, like, Canucks fans are throwing jerseys on the ice on the road,

I can't, I can't in good conscience stick around. Now, if that's true, am I, or maybe I'm a rascally Seattle fan and I'm just buying a Canucks jersey to throw over the glass and really have everybody freak out. That would be good. I did it as a joke. You've got, they've got Seattle on, what, tonight? Tomorrow, right, tomorrow.

Tomorrow, right, Thursday, yeah. They're in Seattle. Then, if they don't win that game, they get to come back home the next night to face a rested penguins team that is already in Vancouver, chilling out. And has played poorly the last two games.

Yeah, has been, was great to start the year and has not been great and is probably feeling feisty, let's just say. And then after that, your next two home games are Devils, Ducks. Then after that, Predator, Senators, Canadians. So you've got to string winnable games after the Penguins, which means one of two things. Either you get to that stage and you regroup and you start stringing some wins together. Or you lose to Seattle, you get your doors kicked in by Pittsburgh,

and you make a coaching change so that the new guy gets to come in against some have some winnable games. Which we'll see. I like Bruce a lot, man.

And he pointed out correctly that he had a team in the 2015-16 ducks that started as bad. Even worse, you know, if you look at the... They were awful, yeah. They were like one win out of 11

and they won the division. Like he got him to 100 points. and won a division because that's typically what he does. But I don't know, man. I just don't feel like there's a ton of patience. Anytime you're like, now, listen, eight years ago I had a season where we started even worse than this and it worked out really good.

Like you are extremely grasping at straws at that point. True. So the other, you mentioned the Anaheim Ducks and like that's a winnable game. It's funny. I was looking at all the, I did the power feelings this week on EP. rinkside and I was looking at all these teams and going oh yeah this team has more wins than I thought this team has more wins than I thought they would and then I looked at looked at like you know their

schedule so far and almost all of them had already played Seattle Anaheim and San Jose and I was like oh okay that actually that kind of checks out for me and speaking of which the ducks they have they are ahead of the Canucks in the standings they have one extra point from one fewer game, as a matter of fact, because they beat Seattle on opening night in overtime. That's the differentiating factor there. But the other teams they beat, the Islanders, or they lost to, I mean, the Islanders, the Rangers, the Devils, the Bruins, and Detroit.

Which those are teams that, a team that, hey, remember coming in, you're like, oh, Anaheim, they should, they should, uh, probably want to improve on what they did last year. And they're like, what if we lost to a bunch of teams that didn't make the playoffs last year? I remember really liking Dallas Aiken's as a coach when he was in the list organization. But I mean, at some point, he's got to win a little bit somewhere. Now, they're having kind of the same problem that Vancouver is where they have two goalies with, say, percentages in the 800s. Yeah.

So, like, that isn't good. but they're also barely scoring two goals a game. So, you know, there's some give and take with that. I, you know, they're the ducks. I didn't think they were going to make the playoffs. So they're not going to, it looks like, now. That's fine. They get, hey, again, if you're going to be bad in a given year,

you know, it's a good year to do it is this one. If you can finish last, you are guaranteed like a franchise altering talent. Yep. Like, because you are guaranteed to pick in the top three. There are three guys. Have you seen this about, have you seen this about Adam Fantilly? Yeah. He's got 15 points in 70.

Like, I wrote about him at the beginning of the year as being like the key to this tank's season. Yeah. That if he emerged as another legitimate franchise player and he's, he's done more than that, I think so far. He's insane. Yeah. He's Jack Eichel Plus, I think, was the way you described him. Yeah. as his start.

Five goals, ten assists in six games for the University of Michigan. He is a, you know, he, I think he is 18, but yeah, he just turned 18 two weeks ago.

So, you know, I, now granted, Jack Eichel was, I think he turned 18 in January of his first and only year of college hockey. But this kid,

I mean, you know, he, Jack Eichael basically set the modern college hockey draft eligible player record with, I believe, 71 points in 40 games through six games. This kid's already got 15. So. Yeah. Man, we talk about teams like the Canucks being like if we had made that change a week earlier.

Yep. There's going to be some team going, man. If we pulled the shoot a week earlier, we could have got. in the mix for one of these guys. And the only, the only, so this is the other thing I wanted to say about the potential for rebuilding. And then we will take a break and come back and talk about anything that isn't the Canucks. I apologize for all this Canucks.

Especially to Canucks fans. Sorry. They earned it. By supporting a team that should have been tanking this whole time. If we're, you know, I'm doing the opposite of saying, anyway. The other thing to say about. tanking this year is that if you don't if you aren't picking first now is the perfect time to start the rebuild because you know fantilly obviously i think i think everyone would say he's

going to be in the nchel next season and playing a decent role for whoever drafts him but if you are picking second mat vey mitchcock is signed in the kh-h-l-h-h-l-h-h-h-h-hals I think, till 2025. So it's going to be a situation where, like, Caprizov in Minnesota, or Kuznetsov in Washington where it's like, we drafted this guy. We aren't getting him for three years minimum. So that's why you should be tanking right now. Yes.

Get the picks now. Yep. This is easy. This is, that's a situation. That sucks for a fan base, but that's great for a GM. That's what I'm saying. to blue chip prospect and then be like, but, it's not my fault.

He can't be here for another three years. You can't have any expectations for three years. And here's the other thing. Does it suck for the fan base? Because they also get to go, well, look, I mean, we drafted second overall. We drafted a guy who's going to be maybe not a generational talent like these other, like Fantilli might be. And like Bedard almost certainly is, like a game to find.

talent. But, you know, if Mitchcov is in that conversation at all, it's like, well, look, what am I supposed to do? He's got a contract in the KHL. Do you think Fincili goes second? Is there a... I think he's going to make that case for himself, A, because I think Mitchcove is like kind of off to a slowish start. But B, because teams are going to be like, well, I'd rather have the guy who's roughly comparable, you know? and yeah, and I can get him next season. But yeah, Mitchcoff has five goals and two assists, but he's playing in like the VHL,

which is like their AHL. Okay. So he's not on the big team in SGA St. Petersburg. So, you know, maybe, obviously he's destroying a men's league, right? Like he's got seven points as a 17-year-old in a men's league. He doesn't turn 18 until December. But at the same time, you're like, oh, maybe it'd be a little nicer if he was in the KHL,

which is obviously a lead that's kind of between the AHL and the NHL and talent. So, I don't know. I got nothing against the kid. I'm just saying, to your point, can a GM talk himself into, uh, into, oh, Fantilli should go second. Yeah, I think that's very easy thing to do. Especially some GM that's like under the gun to win now. Who isn't going to get those three years?

Yeah. And hey, if Shane Wright taught us anything, it's that GMs will absolutely overthink slight underperformance in a draft year. Yep. Mm-hmm. So anyway, that's enough Canucks talk for now. I can't promise that I don't know. It's enough Canucks talk for the season.

That's it. You're done. Until next week, at least. Yeah. So, yeah, we'll take a break. We'll be right back with other stuff. Thanks. This week's episode of Puck Soup is brought to you by Trade Coffee and folks.

I know what the real heads out there are thinking, if you're a truly sick fan, you're thinking, but Ryan, I know you don't drink coffee. That's true. You got me. Got me dead to rights. However, here's how I know. Trade still does a great job sending coffee to your home.

is we get it sent to our home for my girlfriend who loves coffee and loves the trade selections that we have gotten over the last several months. That's because Trade sends delicious local coffee to our house, and she makes a fresh cup every single day. It's like you get to, you know, the whole thing of like you're getting a real good cup of coffee from the coffee shop, but you don't have to go to the coffee shop. You don't need any fancy equipment, anything like that. Why?

Because Trade is a coffee subscription service. that makes it simple for you to discover new coffees and make your favorite cup at home every single day. Trade partners with the nation's best independent roasters to send you coffee that they know you'll love, fresh to your home and on your preferred schedule. And you get to support a small local business. It's a big time W for you, folks. So whether you already know what you like or you want to get a little help, dig into something new, perhaps. makes it easy and convenient to discover new coffees. And heck, they'll send you whole beans, they'll send you ground coffee.

Whatever you need, they got you. Right now my girlfriend is drinking the Marco's Organic blend from DOMA. And she's really loving it. It's a big hit around here. So, you know, like I said, whether you're an aficionado, you're just trying to find something new, that kind of thing. Trade guarantees you'll love the first bag they send you. or they'll send you a new one for free. So here's what you're going to want to do.

Upgrade your coffee with trade coffee. And let them take the guesswork out of finding the perfect cup. And right now, trade is offering our listeners a total of $30 off your subscription plus free shipping. Wow. At drinktrade.com slash puck. That's drinktrade.com slash puck. For $30 off your subscription to the best coffees in the country, drinktrade.com slash puck. All right.

The other big news this week. little man named Phil Castle. You ever heard of this guy? I have. He set the NHL Iron Man streak and also scored his 400th goal. Yeah, a win. Twice. Yeah, that's true, yeah.

This is, you know, we all knew it was coming, obviously, and it's weird to be like, wow, what an accomplishment. This happened seven months ago. No. What a rough year for Keith Yandall. Just, oh shit. He sets the Iron Man record and retires and gets like nothing.

And by the end of the year, he's just like a footnote. Poor guy. Yeah. It's funny that it happened to him twice. It is. It really is. I apologize, you know. But yeah.

So I guess let's just talk Phil Kemp. Cecil. This is, uh, yeah, it's awesome. It's, it's one of those things where, you know, starting out his career, you, you, you wouldn't have said, oh, like, you would, obviously you would have said this is a guy who is, uh, you know, he's got a bright future ahead of him. He was a fifth overall pick. He was really good, uh, in his draft year and all that kind of stuff.

But like, he wasn't like, unbelievable, uh, you know, in, in those early years of Boston. I'm a good player, but nobody, that you'd be really, like, excited to... Well, unless you're Brian Burke, then you'd be extremely excited. So that's what's interesting, right? The first two years in Boston, he's like a perfectly good player, but nothing special. Then he scores 36 goals in 70 games at 21, kind of out of nowhere. And Brian Burke's like, I got to have this guy. And the ruins are like, yeah, I'll trade a 36 goal, 21-year-old.

that should work out pretty well for me, right? Mm-hmm. And it kind of did, actually. Kind of did, yeah. Yeah. A little bit. Except they then traded away those other two guys, too. Sure.

Oops. Oopsie. It happens. Now, this is what I wanted to talk about with Phil Kessel. Is we had a question in the mailbag this week. Is Phil Kessel a Hall of Famer? I tend to think he is not. Yeah.

I think he is a very, uh, He's on track to be a very borderline case, which means, unfortunately, you kind of have to start looking at the meta case around him going like, how, is this guy a beloved player? Does he have one fan base that's going to line up behind him? And I don't, I think there will be enough people in the room who will have, like, heard a story that he, like, awkwardly made eye contact one time when he was 21. I don't think he's going to make it. Although, I mean, it gets to a thousand points. If he gets to this and that, he's at least in the conversation.

But no, I don't think so. I think the 200 hockey men who make this decision will not view Phil Kessel as a Hall of Famer. Yeah, I think that's right. So are we in agreement then that, you know, if this was how it worked, he would go in the hockey hall of fame if he made it as a Toronto Maple Leaf. I think he would. You could make the case for Pittsburgh because he won the two cups there. And also the HBK line.

Like, that was nice to get the reminder that that existed. Yeah. But he played what, let me look at it. He played four years in Pittsburgh, six years in Toronto. So, oh. Not, yeah, but. Three in Boston, three in Arizona. If you had said, I'm going to, you know, I got a gun to your head.

I'm going to pull the trigger. How many years did Phil Kessel play in Arizona? I wouldn't have pulled three. I honestly feel like if you had said, if you would put a gun to my head and said, name all five of Phil Kessel's team, there's a non-zero chance I would have forgotten Arizona, even though it was the most recent before this year.

I would have gotten it only because I spent all last year going. Well, they got to trade him, right? And then they didn't do it. No. Yeah. So he's got the record. He's 10 away from, a thousand, which would also be cool.

Because, you know, round numbers are cool. But, yeah, he gets... Did you see that they did the photo of the Golden Knight pointing at him? Yes. That was very funny. I enjoyed this famous old cheesy photo of Doug Jarvis, who held a record before Keith Yandel in his, like, Whaler's uniform with a knight pointing at him. I guess iron metal, like...

armor, whatever. They should have had freaking Tony Stark. They should have. But that was back in the day where Tony Stark was like one of the loser characters that nobody cared about. And they redid that photo except with Phil Castle and a Golden Knight, Knight. A plus to whoever came up with that. I will allow the Golden Knights Twitter to be wacky and silly for two days before I roll my eyes at them now. Yeah, I don't, yeah.

Like, hey, any and all. like fun around the whole Phil Kessel thing, I'm all for it. You know, I got, I got nothing bad to say about Phil Kessel. Can we talk just briefly? I won't sidetrack it with a whole rant, but the fact that the goal that he scored against the Leafs in the game where he tied the record, his 400th goal, that then got taken off the board on one of these stupid offside reviews, like, were you watching this at the time? Well, so I have that on mute on the iPad while I was watching Canucks hurricanes on the big screen.

I'll just walk through how it went down, especially up here watching on the Canadian broadcast, is if Phil Castle comes in, he scores a goal. It's his 400th goal. It's his big night where he's tying the record. It's against his former team. Place is going crazy. It's a great moment. and the camera cuts over to Sheldon Keeve, who of course being an NHL coach,

it's just staring at an iPad, not reacting, not saying anything, just staring at his iPad. And eventually it becomes clear that there is some sort of delay. Everyone's standing around and we know by now that means the coach is looking for something to challenge.

And the announcers are like looking at the goal going, there's nothing there. Like he doesn't kick it in. There's no interference. This is, I don't even know what they're looking at. And then the Leafs called, timeout. And the announcers go, oh, okay, they weren't looking for a review. They were just, they're calling timeout. They're going to like, you know, it's been a bad start for the Leafs.

Sheldon keeps going to, you know, give me an earfollow and whatever. And then at the end of the timeout, they do challenge. And it turns out the time out was just so that they had more time to think about challenging. And they challenge on an offside from 20 seconds before the goal. Yeah. 20 seconds and possession changes and all of that stuff. And they freeze for, you know, We go into the freeze frame and the review takes six minutes. And they look at it. And it probably was offside by the end of it, although you had to sort of reconstructed from different shots.

By this point, the building is dead quiet. All the energy is gone. And eventually they rule that it was no goal. And they then have to have this other extended conference because they're like, oh, right, we've got to set the clock back. So we've got to go back to that moment. And then they drop the puck and immediately the Golden Knights squirrel. again, which was the perfect ending to it.

And this is so stupid. And it just, I hate this so much. And I'm flagging this one partly because it was the Leafs who got the goal taken off the board. And people always say to me like, oh, well, I'm sure when it's your team that benefits, you don't say the same thing. Yes, I do. This is incredibly stupid.

I'm not blaming Sheldon Keith. He's just doing what coaches are supposed to do. That's the job, yeah. But this is so lame and so stupid. And can we please, like, You know, it's, have you ever heard anyone in the last 25 years ago? You know what the problem is in the NHL? There's too many goals being scored.

If we could only reduce that. Obviously. You never hear that. And yet we're doing this. It was so stupid. And I hated it. But good for Phil Kessel comes back the next night, gets it anyways. So good for him.

Yeah. I guess, you know, the thing that I always say about this is like, much like any, Like if you get a timeout, they start the clock. Like you have a minute on your time out or whatever. Two minutes on a review. You can't figure out whatever the call on the ice was that stands. I don't give a shit anymore. This shit's fucking ridiculous.

It's so stupid. And you know what else? That goal goes in, that red light goes on. You've got five seconds to tell us if you want a review. That's it. The ref in the zone is concentrating on the goal. The trailing ref looks over at the beach. looks over at the bench that just got scored on,

he holds up five fingers, and it goes five, four, three, same as they do in line changes. Did you see something in real time that you want to challenge? Okay. If you want to stand around and wait for your video coach

to buzz down, no, we're not going to, we sure as hell shouldn't be giving you extra time because that happened in the last leave game where they were sitting around trying to figure out, are we going to challenge? And like, the refs just stood around

and wait, like, are you guys sure? Can we start? Can we play or do you want to? It's ridiculous. Yeah, who's in charge here, right? Yeah, there's no way you should ever delay the face off. Like, it's like in football, right? If you don't get your red flag onto the field by the next snap, you're out of luck.

We don't make everybody wait for it. But it should be five seconds. If you saw something, if you saw that and went, I think that's offside, you saw it in real time, same as the linesman. You can do a better job than them. Go ahead and challenge. Other than there is, too bad, man, where it's so stupid. Anyways, Phil Kessel rules. Let's get back to the happy stuff.

Yeah. Did you see Cal Ripkin was like, damn crazy? That rocks. And also clearly Cal Ripkin. They didn't have to turn out the lights to get your streak. They didn't have to pretend there was a big power outage. Yeah. Allegedly.

Yes. And also that Cal Ripkin clearly had no idea who Phil Kessel was. Because he's clearly a devoted athlete with commitment. You're just like, all right. Maybe not. Now, I'm Googling it here. I can't see a Cal Ripkin quote about Keith Yandel. I can't find one.

Interesting. I don't know why that is. He probably got, I don't know, not a Lou Gehrig quote. Like, I don't know. You got Billy Ripkin. Yeah. And, you know, Billy Rickon used some choice words, let's just say. Yeah, Billy Rickon wrote him a message on the bottom of his baseball bat.

But, yeah, that's, uh, that's, uh, It's so cool. Like, the reason it's cool for me is that this isn't a Zadanochara type. Like, this guy's a fitness freak. He's vegan. He rides his bike to the rink every day. You know, this is a guy where it's like, oh, what does Phil do in the offseason? Well, he mostly plays poker.

Yeah. Oh. He doesn't skate. He doesn't. Like, I feel like, I feel like, and I'm under. underlining the feeling part of this, but I feel like I could beat Phil Kessel in a foot race. I know I couldn't. I know he's a phenomenal athlete that, you know, is an absolute freak of nature, but I like having that feeling that, you know, looking at him being like,

I bet I could beat this dude in racquetball. I like that. He would destroy me. Yeah, the thing, the funny thing is, like, as a, as a Leaf fan, I remember when they made that trade, he was injured. He had a bad shoulder. I think he had surgery. And like Dave Pullen, who was with the Leafs front office, was on TSN. And he was saying like when they made that trade, their big concern wasn't

the draft picks and, you know, did we just trade the Tyler Sick End pick or anything like that? Their concern was can this guy stay healthy? And they showed a clip and I remember this, like in his very first game, he just gets smoked on a check. And they're like, this guy's, there's no way this guy's going to stay in the

lineup like this because he's so squishy soft like obviously and and that was the last that shoulder injury that was the last game he ever missed like that night was the start of the iron man street that continues to this day i love it yeah the other the other thing about that uh is i feel this is another thing i feel like this is true feelings can't be wrong i see that's right uh i seem to recall this and then maybe maybe you can maybe you can clarify here was there a point where like he he shows up in Toronto it might not have been that first season but he shows up in Toronto and they're like would you do this summer yeah he's like oh I was I was on my boat fishing in Florida all summer and they were like did you get in like a lot of time uh you know skating too

yeah where were you skating Phil and he's like I wasn't I don't skate in the off season and people freaked out 100% you remember correctly great that absolutely happened awesome that's cool yep and And they would analyze it. They would watch him on the bench, like in Toronto, us in Toronto, he would go to the bench after a shift and like, you know, hang his head down and they'd be like, he's out of breath. Look at him. Look it up.

He's out of shape. Like this, like this was the thing. This guy was pudgy and out of shape. And that was the knock on him for so long. Yeah. He's the iron man now. And the reason it's funny too is, did you see the goal last night? You just beat a guy to the outside cut back in.

At 37 years old. He's still got the fucking wheels, folks. He can still go. It's awesome. I fucking love it. The other thing, I guess, we got to say, is this guy, he writes for ESPN. His name's like Krang Pichensky, I think. Okay.

He asked a bunch of... Always happy to support new writers. He asked a bunch of former teammates. Like, hey, give me a Phil Kessel story or two. Did you see this story? I did, yeah. The JVR story was very fucking funny. Yeah.

For those who didn't see it, I believe it's JVR's first game against Phil Kessel, who he knew from college because... Was it that Phil had played... They had played together in Toronto, and this is Phil's first game as a penguin. against the But even before They knew each other

For years Because JVR played with Phil's brother Blake at UNH Okay That's what the connection was And so he knew each other Even before they played together

In Toronto So they had this like long existing relationship And so yeah They're like you say They're lining up It's Kessle's first game With the Penguins

And JVR happens to be across from him on waiting for the opening face off and he kind of like slashes him across the the top of the skates. As a little tap. Yeah, nothing too bad.

How's it going, buddy, tap. Sure. Yeah. Like, oh, this will be funny. Like, I'll slash my friend a little bit. Yeah. And Phil Kessel says to him, never forget who made you a player in this league, James.

Which, like, it's funny because as JVR points out in the story, nobody calls me James. Because it's like, it's an oddly formal name, right? Like, to call someone James is to, like, call Charlie McAvoy Charles in a way, you know? And he's like, he's the only person who calls me James. And I was like, he seems like the guy who, like, you know, like he plays with Nathan McKinnon. And he's the only guy on the team who calls him Nathan.

Yeah. He's the only guy on the team who calls Jack Eichael John. Yeah. He can't figure out why nobody calls him Philip ever. That's right. And then, of course, when he scored last night, I had the distinct pleasure of going back and finding the Phil tweet. Yes, I saw that. I saw that get retweeted.

And I'm like, oh, who put this in my timeline? Yes, it was you. Phil. He's the best. I believe that was because of like Phil Mickelson, if I'm not much of. mistake. I think so, yeah. Nevertheless, just having a guy named Phil, just tweet, Phil, exclamation point. I still prefer that, like, I pretend that he was Googling himself and, like, typed it into the wrong feel, and that, like, when he searches his own name, he only searches

with an exclamation point because he just really wants to, he only wants enthusiastic feedback. Yeah. Oh, how about this? This is the other thing that was revealed in that story. Phil Castle doesn't like hot dogs. Like, not only didn't, what wasn't doing the ordering or anything. but straight up does not like them. Wow. See, this is the sort of thing where, I don't know, sometimes as a journalist, you have to make decisions about what you report and what you don't. And, you know, does the public need to know this? Like, if you find out that Mr. Rogers was like, you know, secretly, like, kicking his dog,

like, you don't need to put that out there because it's going to, it's going to hurt so many people. Right. You're going to be like Bob Woodward and sit on that information until after Phil Kessel is out of the lead. You can't do anything. And then write a book. And, yeah, that's 100%. Yeah, you got to do that. Like, I love the idea of Phil Kessel, like, constantly being forced to, like, hold up a hot dog to show that he's a good sport about that.

And he's, like, almost gagging because he thinks they're going to. He hates them. Yeah. He has that actually a severe food allergy, and that's what's going to take him out of the lineup. That's right. he finally eats one hot dog Yeah Vegas like presents him with like his own personal hot dog cooker And they're like take a bite Phil

He's like oh no Yeah did he get anything usually Like you would think the team would like Give him a little a little gift or anything But I don't think he got it I didn't hear anything I didn't hear anything And I also remember that like the game was like the start of the game was delayed

Because there was like another national game It was the Colorado New York game was going long and I had like low level anxiety that something was going to happen to fill in those 15 minutes he's going to like walk under like a anvil or something and just lose the streak but no let's get him to a thousand

get him to a thousand and then if we need to whatever happens happens he needs a rest he needs a rest who are those who are those games who are those next 10 games against do we know off the top of our head we don't we will look it up yeah I sure I sure will let's see here

Anaheim, Winnipeg, Washington, Ottawa, Montreal, Toronto. That's only one, two, three, four, five, six games from now. So that would have been nice to get him to a thousand dead even a thousand there. In Toronto. Yeah, but he got to do it against, he got to do it against the leaves, and then he gets to visit, and then he's, they're at home for the buildup to a thousand. And that thousandth game looks like Arizona. There you go.

Former team, apparently. If you say Even Phil's like Oh right Yeah He goes up to Clayton Keller Before the game Why do you look so familiar

Yeah Why are you We played together For three seasons Huh Huh Did we know Okay

All right He's going up to Nick Richie Is that Boston? He's going up to Nick Richie Like hello Nicholas Oh I don't know man That's

Infinite love and respect For Phil Castle Yep the glitter poster, all that kind of stuff. How about this? I just saw this on NHL.com. Trots not ready to coach again, comma, original six team could spark intrigue.

Yes, I was going to mention that to you because I'm trying, I'm going through my head of the original six teams. So let me think, there's Detroit, there's Boston, there's Chicago. They all have new coaches. So they probably wouldn't be in the market. for one.

Montreal. They got Martana, San Luis. They also have a new coach, yeah. New York Rangers. You know, I don't, I feel like Juric Lant is pretty, on pretty steady ground.

What's the sixth team? I'm trying to, is there a six team? Oh, yeah, the Toronto Maple Leafs and their coach, who is on the hot seat. Days away from getting fired. I, yeah.

Boy, this was, this, this. Okay, so I mean, the fact that, because I was going to bring this up, the fact that we didn't, this wasn't on our list to start with, but the fact that you brought it up. So I'm not crazy, right? Like I saw this and my, let's just say my eyebrow went way up. Like hovered over my head like a cartoon character. Yeah.

So here's the quote. Original six for me, I have never coached an original six team. That would intrigue me. Those teams always intrigue you. But the Canadian teams, you're under the microscope. you sort of are in New York too. I think it takes a special coach, special player to play in Canada because there's different pressure. Now, so he's putting some thought into what kind of players you need in Canada.

Well, what's also interesting is because I saw the thing of you sort of are in New York too. Obviously, he just coached in New York. Yeah. But my mind immediately went to heel turn, you know? And introducing the new coach, and it's the Jimmy Hendricks song. Gary Trots comes out. He's got the shoe black in his beard. He's playing his, he's playing his, like, Trots jersey like a guitar.

Uh-huh. Yeah. He's playing Mitch Corn like a guitar. That's right. Mitch Corn is in the Brutus Beefcake role, just, like, falling behind, pointing at him. I Larry Brooks What are you doing

associating with these men Right? Yeah. Power bombs them through the floor and then That's right Spray paints a yellow stripe down his back Yeah, NYR

Yeah It's good man I think number one is I'm not quite there I think probably to get everything I'm going to be into early December before I feel comfortable Oh, okay, so not next year.

That's so funny. I'm not there yet. Give me three and a half weeks. I'll be ready. That was the one, that's the quote that really made me laugh. I'll feel like I got everything settled down. Just let me get past the U.S. Thanksgiving. He literally says, I'm probably going to have to take a little break a week or two to maybe go somewhere warm in the winter.

And then after that, dot, dot, dot. Barry, man. This guy is, like, if I'm Sheldon Keefe, I'm like, you know, at the beginning of Silence of the Lambs where Clarice gets in trouble because she didn't check the corners when she kicked in a door. Yeah. That's, if I'm Sheldon Keefe, I'm looking in every corner. Where's the attack coming from? Every time I'm in a room, I know exactly where the exit is. I'm never facing away from the door.

Kyle Duba's was legally allowed to hire any other coach ever in his life. This could really be. By the way, it leaves heading through California, San Jose, L.A., Anaheim. That should be an easy four or five points, right? It should be. Will it be? Two weeks. Let's give them three weeks.

Three weeks, November 21st. Oh, look, they're at home to the islanders. Hmm. I wonder if you'd have any interest in that. Interesting. Oh, man. By the way, you know the jets are loving this, eh? Like, they went all out to hire this guy and he's like, I'm not ready yet.

And two weeks into the season, he's like, I'm almost ready. You know, the Jets, they should have thought about, we won't have a single game until December 8th. What do you say? Yeah. If they had come up with a way to make that happen. Oh, we got a problem with our arena. We can't play. Yep.

Wow. Hey, speaking of which, I didn't have this on the agenda either here. but boy, it's really not going well for Rick Bonus. Healthwise, yeah. That was a weird situation yesterday. Are they saying it's COVID-related or? I don't, I think that's been the implication, but I do not think. So he had COVID a week or two ago.

And I had a pretty bad case, apparently. Like, I don't think this is one of those things where- Dealing with COVID symptoms here. Yeah. So he, he wasn't like he tested positive, so, you know, he felt fine, but he wasn't allowed to coach. Like he was, he was positive on October 14th and missed the opening game. Return from COVID for just one game. That was the Leafs game on Saturday. Did a media availability and like, and cut it short because he was getting dizzy. This is scary. So he's, he's in front of the media and he basically says like, boys, I got to shut this down. I'm not feeling well. And, you know, obviously Rick Bonas is an older guy. And look, I mean, it's, I mean, you hope it's nothing serious, but coaching an NHL team is a stressful, like, 18 hour a day job a lot of times. And, you know, if you're to try to do it without your full energy is got to be difficult.

And so, yeah, they shut them down. And hopefully it's just a case to get in a couple more days of rest and it'll be all right. So we wish them the best. But yeah, that's, that was a strange. situation for sure. Yeah. All right, let's move on. We talked about it briefly during the Canucks segment.

Let's talk about the sabers. Now, me saying like, oh, the sabres start, it's really hot. That would have worked a lot better until they lost to Seattle last night. Right. Yes. So they sweep through Alberta and then they lose to Seattle. So the Cracken are better than the flames and the Oilers. Transit property.

How could you possibly disagree? But, yeah, so like, let's, Let's talk about this because I'm going to really blow people's minds here when I talk about the Buffalo Sabres having success early in the season. Doesn't seem sustainable, folks. That's where we're at with this. I think most Buffalo fans, now they get the gimmick, right? You start out maybe it's not usually this early. Usually it's in like mid-December or November, I mean.

but yeah they start out they they I think win on opening night let's see yeah they beat Ottawa opening night lose to Florida a couple days later and then as you say they outscore the oilers and flames a combined 10 to 5 then they absolutely beat the brakes off the Vancouver Canucks and then only put 16 shots on goal and it lost to Seattle yeah now granted that's at the end of a four game road trip where you know, they play four games in a week. It's not easy. No.

Especially a West Coast road trip. You're getting on a plane for every, for every game and blah, blah, blah, changing time zones and this kind of thing. However, you know, on the season so far, they've been, I think, kind of badly outshot. And, you know, the XG numbers are not good or anything like that. Sure. And they-

105 PDO. Yeah, and they were having a lot of success because until last night, Eric Comrie and Craig Anderson had a combined like 950 save percent. Yeah, the best two goaltenders in Sabres history, I feel like it's safe to say. Yeah. Yeah, I don't feel like that's going to continue, really going out on the limb there, that Craig Anderson isn't going to go 970 on the whole year. Like two players in the league who is older than me is going to keep it up. I don't think as a team they're going to keep shooting 14 percent. Probably not.

Another, another bit. But you look at what they've done so far, and Rasmus Dallin is absolutely crushing it. And this gets 22. I've said this before for Queen Hughes, but it applies to Dallin as well. Like another young defenseman who, like, it feels like there was like a half dozen young defensemen who came into the league around the same time. Like I would sort of, like the Aaron Eckblad. to like Kale McCar.

Yeah. Coor. Fox. Mort Sider, I guess I would include in that as well. And then Quinn Hughes and Dalling. And it was sort of like all six of these guys were in, you know, we're doing the Hughes versus McCar debate. And then like McCar and Fox sort of separated from the pack. Cider, you know, as a rookie got all the hype and he was sort of the next one.

Meryl Heiskinnan would be another guy in that group. Heiskenin is the guy I was thinking of even more than Sider. Yeah. Yeah. It's having an unbelievable. He'd miss him. He looks great, too. But boy, he, uh, he looks unbelievable so far this year.

And it, and it just feels like, like, with Rasmus Dallon, it's, it's like, okay, it feels like it's like it's not like he's been a bust by any stretch. But for a first overall pick, you sort of felt like, yeah. The ceiling was starting to get lower than you wanted it to get. Correct. Yeah. And, not a bust, but definitely airing more toward like the Ryan New Jersey. Hopkins style first overall

pick. Yes. Yeah. Like four season, last year was his fourth season in the NHL and he has 53 points for an offensive defenseman. The guy was like, you know, potentially going to be a next Eric Carlson. That's fine. But it's not great. And certainly if you're

a Sabres fan, you're looking at, you know, Kail McCar and Adam Fox have already got Norris trophies and you're looking at that going, man, it would have been great to have that. I guess we don't. Owen Power comes in and, you know, now he's your new guy that, and, and, but I remember thinking, like, man, if Dallin had that breakthrough, that suddenly changes things a lot.

Sure. Like, that's suddenly. And Owen Power. Like, too, you know. That's your, right. That's your, that's your pronger Niedermeyer. Yeah, I was going to say, maybe you hesitate to compare those two guys to two absolute guaranteed, like, you know, five years into their career guaranteed Hall of Famers.

But, you know, even if you're getting the diet, the local. calorie version of that, right? The Niedermeier Primer 0. You're still like, oh, yeah, that's really fucking good, actually. Yeah, so he's been great. And then, you know, you can sit there and go, well, you know, it's not

sustainable, etc. Yeah, okay, maybe not. Of course not. But, I mean, you look at some of the like, Jeff Skinner hasn't done anything yet. Tage Thompson hasn't really done anything. Like, there's other pieces here in Buffalo, you know, like, yeah, I don't think Alex Tuck's going to score a goal of game. but I also don't think that Skinner and Thompson aren't going to score anything. So you kind of look at it.

It's a fun group there in Buffalo. Yes, it's a very fun group. I don't think they're good. Correct. I did a piece with my rankings this week. I did like five teams that have good records that I'm not buying yet. And I had for four of them, I had like an explanation. And then for the Sabres, I was just like, look, Sabres fans have suffered enough.

Let people enjoy things. I'm just going to put them on the list and that's it. That's all I'm going to say because enjoy white. You don't need to say anything because they're the savers. They do this every fucking year. They either start terrible and the season is meaningless or they start great and trick themselves into. Right. And to your point about, you know, like Tage Thompson and Jeff Skinner aren't scoring and all that kind of stuff, I think even coming into the season, you would have said, well, this team.

strength really isn't up front, right? And obviously, in gold, you're like, well, I hope Eric Comrie can be something and then like Hugo Pekalukin and can finally assume, uh, the role that it seems like he's been flirting with for years and all this kind of stuff. But the defense, Dahlene, very good. Owen Power. Very, very good. Or, you know, potential to be anyway. And so far, it's working out. I always like Jacob Bryson, who's like a depth defenseman for them. Um, Lawrence Pellat, who, you know, Sabres fans know better than anybody. This guy can play a little bit if you give them the right opportunity. Ilya Lubushkin is like a perfectly good middle of your lineup defensemen.

Like, they have strength on the blue line. They need more guys who can put the puck in the net. And I'm not going to knock them for getting guys to put the puck in the net early. Now granted, maybe you don't want five of your 23 goals coming from Ratton. Miss Dahlia alone. But you're not, you're not going to argue with that. And so,

as you say, this is a team that does not seem particularly likely to make the playoffs. And again, if this is a year where you're going to not make the playoffs, well, hell,

like, go for it. Because even if you're not looking at a likely top three or even top five pick, this is like a draft that's almost all forwards, right? Like everybody at the top of this draft is a forward. And even if you get like Matthew Wood, who's killing it at Yukon right now, much like Tage Thompson did, that's a guy who looks like he's going to be a top 10 pick. And he's been really, really good.

I believe he is the youngest player in... in college hockey right now, and he's like a point of game player, scoring a lot of goals and that sort of thing. Not bad at all. Yeah, three goals for assists in eight games for Yukon as the youngest player in college hockey. He's a big boy.

He's going to be really, really good. He doesn't turn 18 until February 6th. And he's almost a point of game for a pretty good team. So, I don't know. I guess, I guess my point is that if you're the Buffalo Savers, you're like, I don't care if we don't make the playoffs. Hell, I wouldn't want to this year. What's the point?

You know? Because you're not going to go too far. Well, I mean, the point is, uh, yeah, sure, right. You haven't made it in forever. Yeah, I get that. But you know what I mean. Now, the other interesting thing is, though, you look at the standings in, uh, you in that division, right?

Toronto is third to less. Tampa is second to last. Tampa is actually below 500, which is something else. But I don't know. Maybe the window feels a little more open than I would have thought for Ottawa and Detroit. I still don't buy it with either of them, but...

No. No, I don't either. There's a little bit more... I feel like for both those teams, too, and all three of those teams, Ottawa, Buffalo, Detroit. Like, you don't have to make the playoffs. It'd be nice to play meaningful games down the stretch.

Yeah. I feel like that's more of the goal. And they're well positioned to do that, all three of them. Yeah, for sure. But I guess the one thing we're going to talk about is the team atop the Atlantic Division. And indeed, the entire league, the Boston Bruins, six and one, the only team they've lost to is the Ottawa Senators. And, like, what was that game, like 7-5 or something? Yeah, that was the home overall.

opener in Ottawa. The Bruins look unbelievable. Now, granted, I've only seen them play, I think, once or twice because they, you know, again, I don't have Nesson, so I don't get to watch the Bruins very often, unless they're on national TV.

But, you know, their underlying numbers are ridiculous. And they're winning all these games. David Pasternak is looking like he's, going to be an MVP candidate already this year. Obviously, it's early. But the reason this is interesting to me is that they are doing all this without Brad Marchand and Charlie McAvoy.

Right. Which is that was what we all said going into the year. If they can hold on. Treadwater. To play off contention while those two are out, they're going to be in good shape. We won't know what the Bruins are until those guys. come back. Just survive. Don't fall out of the race. Well, yeah, I'd say they're surviving.

They're surviving, yeah. They are, uh, they look really, really good. Linus O'Lmark is obviously not going to be a 930, whatever goalie he's been so far. That's not going to last all season. Um, but like everything you would have said, oh, they need this guy. But also Jeremy Swayman isn't going to stink aloud all. which he has in his two games, one of which was the Ottawa game. But like Taylor Halls looked good. He's got four goals already.

Padreuse Bergeron's got four goals. He hasn't missed a step. David Craichie hasn't missed a step even though he didn't play in the NHL. Hampas Lindholm has looked awesome for me in the bits and pieces of partial games and the one, I think, full game I watched. Even Nick Filino. got a couple of goals. Nick Folino's playing one.

He seemed like he was done. However, with all this having been said, I do unfortunately have to cancel the Boston Bruins this week. They dressed up as

the Mario family for Halloween and only Nick Folino briefly did a Wario voice. Nobody else did a voice. And as Nintendo fans know, there's a Super Mario

Brothers movie coming out soon. with Chris Pratt playing Mario, he is also not doing the voice. I was going to say, like, I can see why maybe they were reluctant to get into trying to do the voices because Nintendo fans notoriously chill about

who does voices and how well they do. Well, it's more that much like Patrice Bergeron, Chris Pratt's not doing the voice. In the trailer, he's just kind of talking like Chris Pratt if he was from Brooklyn or whatever. Yeah. He's going like, hey, it's me.

Chris Pratt from Mario, you know. That actually is exactly what he sounds like. Yeah. And so I want to see Patrice Bergeron. It's a me. Patricio. Yeah. You know, he didn't do it.

So the Bruins are camping. Who did Marciandras is? He was Luigi, I believe. See, missed opportunity on Wario for sure. Exactly. I mean, come on. That's. Yeah.

Yeah. Nick Felino was Wario, and I believe somebody told me he did a wehe-ha, you know, the classic. My problem is I don't know who most, like most NHL players, I don't know them by sight. I have face blindness for like 6 foot 198 pound white guys, I guess. Okay. Yeah.

You know, so like if you were like, oh, freaking Pavel Zaka was Yoshi, I go, sure. He also didn't do the voice, though. Disappointing. Yeah, it's a major bummer. Nobody did the voice. And also a major bummer, no one was Waluigi. Oh, I mean, so I mean, this is, so they were six and one, but if the season goes off the rails now, we know why.

Mm-hmm. Like, it'll be a clear. Yeah. And it'll be Nick Polito's fault because he's Wario. He did the voice. And he's the only one who did the voice. The only, you know, the Italian guy was the only one willing to step up to the plate. Now, I believe canonically, Wario is Albanian or something like that.

Is he? I don't know. I think he was canonically not Italian, maybe. Okay. Yeah. I'm going to take your word for it on that one. Anyway. But the Bruins are not the only team that look really, really good this year.

We also have to talk about the Calgary Flames, five and one. Again, the only team they lost to is the white-hot buffalo savers. which, you know, by the end of the season, you'll be like, oh, they lost a buffalo, but, you know, for now. Context is king. And they have beaten the avalanche, the Oilers, the Golden Knights, the Hurricanes, and the Penguins. That's what I was going to say. And they lost to the savers. The start of their season, on paper, you were like, oh, if they go 500, that'll be really good for them.

You know, they got to figure out life without Goddrow and Cachuck, and they're like way ahead. brother. They beat the, to your point, they beat the avalanche, Oilers, Golden Knights, hurricanes, and penguins by a combined score

of, if I do the math, very quickly here, 15 to 9. No, 15 to 11. 15 to 11. So, like, close games,

but, like, convincing, convincing to be plus four from those games. Yep. And, um, yeah, they lost of the savers.

Hey, you got to lose some time, right? I guess, apparently. But yeah, and again, much like the Bruins, like this isn't smoking mirrors, they look fucking unbelievable. Gerald Sutter is good at this. Really, really good. Cadreys fitting in, yeah.

So, you know, I don't know what you want to say. They got Edmonton again on Saturday, which is always, like, always a fun matchup, but especially where both those teams are at right now. And also, it's one of their only games left against the Oilers. Yeah, yeah, which sucks, but they do. They've got very few matchups. Yeah, but, you know, if they can beat the Oilers again on Saturday, which, hey, very doable, I think.

their next games are against Seattle, Nashville, who look awful, by the way. The Devils, the Islanders, the Devils again. Those are also extremely winnable games. Extremely winnable games. So, I mean, you never know, but. You never know, but obviously, like, you just, like, you got to play who's on the schedule,

and if the fans can come together. I don't know. know what did I just say like six teams they got to play if they can if they can go four and two in those games or three one and two or something like that you know they're gonna they're gonna be at like 20 points already yeah 10 15 games into the season they're gonna they're gonna be in great shape you know the i'm always thinking about uh the pace that a team has has to play at like we like we talked about with vancouver last year you know if they played it 110 point pace instead of a hundred.

Yeah. That's, see, that's the thing. Like, you get, I know we're still at that time of year where people are like, oh, it's early, it's early. But you see some pretty big swings where it's like, all right, we need a 96 point pace and we'll feel good about the playoffs. That's six points every five games. That's doable.

And then you have like two bad weeks. And it's like, all right, now we have to be at 108 point pace the rest of the year. Yep. It's just like, damn. But conversely, if you start out like the flames, and again, like, let's say they get to they get to 20 points in their next six games. They basically, like, replicate what they just did. They have to play, like, at an 85 point pace the rest of the year.

Like, the number of points you bank at any time in the year is important, but, like, especially early, it just, like, the amount of pressure that takes off you to be insanely good all year. Because, again, like, I think coming into the year, we were all like, the flames will be good. but they had some obvious questions they need to figure out. And the thing I always say about the flames is we know Jacob Markstrom can be good in like October, November, December. That's not the question for them. So, but again, you're just trying to, um, to bank the points and, and feel good about it. And let's put it this way.

They only need 90 points from their last, uh, 72 games. and they're a 100 point team. Mm-hmm. Or 76 games, 90 points from 76 games. That's all, you're already like kind of on easy street. That's not difficult if you're... To put it a little differently, it's pretty much impossible to make the playoffs without having at least one really nice hot street during the year.

Sure. Probably a couple, but at least one. Yeah, I... Get it out of the way early. And you can probably only survive one really cold streak. So... Yep. If that streak, you know, I know that sometimes we get too caught up in the first eight games where we would ignore it if it was eight games in early February.

But yeah, you get that streak out of that stretch out of the way early, then yeah, you're in good safe. Yep. And then the other team, we have to say this too. The flames, the team that we just praised up and down, we think they look really good. They're not even winning their division right now because Vegas is six and two. Yep. and looking very good. And looking scary.

Looking exactly like what you would have wanted them to look like heading into the season, which is the stars all look good, the top line looks dominant, and the goaltending is fine. And in fact, the goaltending has been better than fine. The goaltending has been excellent. Yep. But even if you downgrade that to just being fine, there has been no reason to think the goaltending is going to be the issue that we worry it might be.

Yep. And there are only two losses are to Colorado and California. Calgary. Two teams where it's like, yeah, you lose to those teams sometimes. It happens. What are you going to do?

And both of those were one goal losses. So that's kind of just how it goes. The other thing, though, is unlike the flames, they haven't had the toughest schedule. L.A., Chicago, Seattle, Calgary, like I said, Winnipeg, Colorado, Toronto, San Jose.

But again, you just could beat the teams in front of you. And you know who looks great? Jack Eichel. Yeah, Eichel and Stone together have looked fantastic. Forget it. Forget it. And the numbers back it up.

Like a lot of, like I follow Jesse Granger on, and he'll tweet out, like, line by line scoring changes. And it's like eight to two with them on the ice every night. And I think that's what you would have said, right? Like, if you put Eichel and Stone together, those two guys can be two-thirds of the best line in hockey. easily. Like they can do basically what like Godreau and Kachuk and Lindholm did last year. It's like, oh yeah, they were like plus a hundred when they were on the ice or whatever. Like or no, I think I think it was they scored 100 goals together when they were on the ice and only allowed like 35 or something like that.

Just ridiculous numbers. Eichol and Stone absolutely have that in their capability to do it all season if they can stay healthy. which, boy, isn't that the fucking $10 million question in Jack Eichel's case, right? Yeah, it is. Yep. But, hey, you know, and like you said, like if you're getting 930 goaltending out of Logan Thompson and Aden Hill, it just kind of feels like everything's kind of going downhill. Or, you know, you're running downhill, basically.

Like, it's just all going your way. So, yeah, I think if you told, if you. tell me at the end of the year, those are the three best teams in the league. I might not have believed you starting out the year, but the way they've all looked so far, I'm like, it's pretty plausible, you know? Yeah. Like the other elite team, we already said Tampa, they're below 500 right now. You wouldn't have ever guessed that.

Which doesn't concern me, but you're not here, right, you wouldn't have. You wouldn't have said they're three and four through their first seven games. Like, you would have been like, ooh, did somebody get hurt? No, everybody's perfectly healthy. Uh-oh. You know. Yep. I mean, I still, I,

Sirelli's not. I don't worry about Tampa, and I think, you know, obviously Carolina and Colorado are still in that discussion of the very elite teams. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. In Carolina 4-1 and 1, they also look very good.

But they're just, you know. And of course, the Oilers have the talent to get there into that group. As other teams do. At the top of their lineup, they do. Hey, how about this? I looked this up yesterday. When he's on the ice so far this season, McDavid, like, below water in XG, I believe,

and 50% in goals at five on five. Again, much like Tampa, totally something that you can absolutely see empowering out of, and yet you would never seen that coming in your whole life. No. Any three-game stretching on McDavid's career, surely he outscored the opponents like five to two, right? Not so fast.

But, yeah, so I don't know. that's the trip around the league for this week, I guess. And the one last thing I wanted to talk about. We touched on it maybe a week or two ago. You see what they're doing with Shame, right? How much? Well, right, yeah. Send this kid back to the OHL. This is fucking ridiculous. Yeah. And they will, clearly,

but. But they, like, healthy scratched him, I think, in the last last night. They just healthy scratched him. Like, what's the point? Yeah, it does, you know, and again, like, we talked about it last time and we're saying it's, you know, you can get that, get the experience, be around a team, that sort of thing, but you really do wonder, like, how much is this actually?

He's playing under seven minutes a night on average. Yeah. One game where he played more than $6.50 so far this season. I'm looking at it up now. Is that it, that's got to be close to, if not the lowest in the league, isn't it? Yeah, I would imagine. So I don't have that in front of me, but. Looking at it, a couple of guys who played, no, there's, there's a, it's 12th lowest in the league.

And among guys who have played, nobody who's lower than him has played as many games. And there's only Dylan Holloway, Jason Magna, and Brad Malone who have played multiple games. And Holloways is totally skewed because he got knocked out in like the first shift. Exactly. Yeah. And like Nick Schmaltz got hurt, you know, really. So, I mean, if we took out guys who have been hurt, there are, this is, this is. And I was on the PDO cast last week and I said this at the time.

Like, I get you want to have him around because you want to show the fans like this kid's the future of our franchise. He's going to be our number two center behind Maddie Baneers, whatever. you know and it's like this is this is what you're showing him the fans that this kid can average under seven minutes a night not look particularly good

he has one shot on goal in five games um like who does this serve at this point just send him back to Kingston what are you doing yeah I mean they'll get him to the the eight game mark or whatever it is

and yeah that'll be that but like I I guess I don't see the point, especially because Haxstrel's like, yeah, I got to find him more minutes. And then, like, he looks around, he's like, I guess there weren't any. Couldn't find him. And, hey, when it's a team is playing as well and as deep as Seattle is, how can you possibly find your number four pick?

Yeah, that's it. More time on the roster. Oh, God. Yep. Again, like, this just kind of pisses me off at, at this point, honestly. And, like, I'm not even like the world. biggest shame right guy, but it's like, it's not fair to the kid, more than anything else. Yeah.

So, yeah, anyway, I guess I don't have much else to say about all that stuff. Yeah, well, we'll get to the, by this time next week, I bet you he's played his three games and he's, and he's done. So, but. And then go back to, hopefully go back to junior with a chip on a shoulder and just absolutely tear it up. Yeah, because that was the criticism last year. It was like, oh, he looked bored in the OHS. And so that hurt And that hurt his draft stock

And it's like Yeah maybe they're trying to light a fire under his ass Like oh I didn't think you could do it Without me really really trying to fuck you up With that having been said I think tomorrow night Vancouver Canucks Shane Wright's seven point game What do you say?

That seems low But yeah could Could happen Yeah for sure And Vancouver will look at that go, wow, these guys that you take at the top of the draft are really good. We should probably trade our first round pick for second pairing defensemen. That's right.

Oh, boy. All right. Let's go to plugs. What do you got for me, brother? You know, the usual bunch stuff on the athletic this week in coming weeks, including this week I had that we're doing an NHL. It's called the NHL-99 project. We're ranking the top 100 players of the modern era.

and I'm going to have a hand in writing a few of the profiles, including one that I had this week for Alexander McGilney, who should absolutely be in the Hall of Fame. I can't figure out why he is. I use the piece to try to piece together why this guy is not in the Hall of Fame. And frankly, I couldn't really do a great job of it because I don't think there's an argument for keeping him out.

But if you're a fan of his, go check that out. And listen to my podcast with Ian Mendez on Thursdays. And for me, EPRinkside, Eprinkside.com, you want to sign up for an annual subscription. You'll get three months tacked on for free at the end. If you use the code, I love EP. So that's, you know, I can't do the math.

That feels like an extra 25% of value, though, right? And then, of course, you've got the Puck Soup Patreon. Patreon. Patreon.com slash Puck Soup, where we are doing a bonus episode. all the time, basically. Constantly. A couple of week.

Too many, to be honest. Hey, your lips to God's ears. Me and Sean are going to hop over there in a minute and do a mailbag. Me and Sean Gentile are going to do another classic episode of Stick to Sports where I'm sure we'll talk about Halloween candy for 45 minutes straight. Let's see, let's see. We're going to do a listener choice episode beginning of next week with the aforementioned and uh,

Chen Benutski. And, um, I don't know, there's probably some other stuff mixed in there that you can, you can check it all out at, uh, Patreon.com slash puck soup. Uh, five dollars a month gets you the, uh, the puck soup bonus episodes and, uh, eight bucks a month gets you all the bonus episodes,

including, uh, the food, the, the food and cooking show and cooking movie, podcast, meas and pod. and overrated, underrated, and all the other good stuff. So check it all out. And we'll see you over there. Thanks so much, everybody, for listening to this show and those shows and everything else to support the Puck Soup family of brands. Have a good one.

Bye-bye. Thanks, everybody. Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slapshots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to what if you commute. But we also cover movies, TV shows. and tunes. It's your weekly bowl of hockey and nonsense. Bork soup.