Puck Soup - Julie Stewart-Binks

Episode Date: October 10, 2019

The boys talk about the glory of player rivalries after Drew Doughty's WWE routine, cover the best and worst starts of the young season, James Neal is suddenly the real deal, who the next Batman villain to get his own movie should be and a Down Goes Brown game show that deals with shared NHL superstars. Plus, Julie Stewart Binks of Fubo's "Call It A Night" joins us to talk pucks and media! Sponsored by Seat Geek and The Athletic. 

Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slap shots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to what if you commute. We also cover movies, TV shows, it's in tunes. It's your weekly bowl of Hockey and Nancet. I'm Greg Wyshensky of the Worldwide Leader in Sports ESPN. I'm Ryan Lambert from Yahoo. Hello, I'm Sean Magnau from The Athletic. And you're in Puck Soup where today we have to begin the show with a sense of rivalry.

And I'm not talking necessarily about Maca Chuck and Drew Doughty quite yet. I'm talking about the rivalry between this very podcast and our line starts the NBC Sports Hockey Podcasts. Jumping into the pool. Think of like the scene in Jaws before the shark shows up, how everybody. in the entire northeast is in the ocean at that point. That's pretty much hockey podcasting right now. And NBC has now decided to dive in. Yeah, there's a Kintner Boy.

Wow. I've seen Jaws a couple of times, folks. They're jumping in. It's a new podcast. And just like we all hoped, does it involve new town? Does it involve fresh voices? Does it involve people that could cater to new audiences and get people excited? Not only about hockey, but about NBC's product, no.

I don't know. Hold on. Hold on. I don't know anything about this. Is the answer definitely no? The answer is definitely no. The answer is going to be the same five people you see on TV all the time. It's going to be like Pierre McGuire and Mike Milbury talking hockey and telling stories, as Keith Jones said.

And the words of my friend Scottie was, in a preview podcast spoken through a plastic cup, Pete Jones, as he did this. So NBC now has its own podcast, and I guarantee you it's going to be fantastic. It's probably going to be just as good as the one Ronik had for about a minute before he lost interest in that. Yeah, remember that podcast? I do. And Billy Jaffe. Billy Jaffe.

What a nice guy, Billy is, though. You can always tell that the podcast that NBC really has tapped into the zeitgeist because the graph. The graphic that they've created for this podcast features a tooth on the ice, playoff beards, the Stanley Cup, a hat being thrown, the Hanson Brothers Broken Glasses, and an octopus. So these are all things that if you haven't paid attention to hockey in the last 30 years might be aware of still. What are things you would see at a hockey rink? Oh, ding. There you go. Yep. Okay. Oh, here we go. Here we go.

You can hoist me. I'm silver. Drink from me. Things the Gagarin Cup would say. My ride's here. Sean, in Canada, you have a lot of podcasts created by Sportsnet and TSN. That seem better than this, I have to say. Yeah, probably. I mean, I don't know if it's, if it hasn't even even start it yet. I'll be honest with you. Like, I, I, I don't really want to sit around and listen

to Mike Milbury and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, if it actually is just going to be them shooting the shit and telling stories, I would listen to that, because every old hockey guy, um, whether you like their, whether you like their takes or not, they have amazing stories. And if that's, if that was actually what they did, they just got in there, tell them that they're not actually, none of the, you're, not, you're, not of them. these guys know how podcasts work. Tell them you're not even recording and just have them talk to each other and tell stories about. Yeah, that actually would be fantastic. So I'm going to withhold judgment until they're actually out there. I do wonder, first of all, I'm willing to entertain

that thought. I am skeptical that anything NBC puts out could be that casual, because I've said for years, like one of the biggest issues with their coverage is that there is no conversation. It's every intermission is like eight. Yeah, a guy talks, then another guy talks. Yeah, it's eight minutes of, of, uh, of just talking about the shit we already saw. And we were, if, if we're still watching an intermission, then we already saw that play broken down six times during the game.

Like, we're not, we're not hopping over from the fucking mask singer to catch Mike Milbury and Keith Jones chat in hockey in the intermission. Like, we've been watching that game. So don't talk about the game. Just talk to each other about anything. That's not the game. Like, I never understood that logic of being like, you know, take a play that we've already showed you 15 replays on and had all three people covering the game give their opinions on it.

And now it's intermission. And now we're going to have three more people tell you their opinions about the play. There's not enough plays in hockey where you can do that. Unless you're going to find, like, plays that maybe you miss the first time around or, you know, if you're going to break down something that I either didn't notice or didn't get, didn't get explained properly, then that's one, like, that's something I find SportsNet does pretty well.

Elliot Friedman's getting really good at that of picking stuff out. Like, he had one on the weekend where Connor McDavid's helmet got knocked off and, and they ended up giving up a goal on that same shift. and he went back and actually explained the rule, explained how it might have affected that play. He even had the referee's audio of what the referee was saying to Connor McDavid, which I don't know how they had access to that.

But like, I thought that kind of stuff is great because I'm like, okay, yeah, that may answer a question I didn't even know that I had versus just showing me a Connor McDavid goal and going, he skates really fast and he's good. Here in the States, that behind the play thing is, Mike Milbury observing someone skating away from a potential fight and being like, yeah, what a woman. Yeah.

It's great. The thing I would say, though, about your don't talk about the game thing is given that it's the NBC broadcast, they'd just be like, so how about those damn Rangers? What do we think, folks? The Flyers are looking pretty good. And it's just like the Metro Division breakdown again. And, you know, like, that's the other real issue is that you end up, or, or, it turns into like Milbury's version of Coach's corner where he's like, now, this guy didn't

finish his check last Thursday and I'm still steamed up about it. And it's like, I don't, you know, I don't need to hear about that. I, you know, and that's why I've always said that Pierre, you know, this is one of my soapboxes, like Pierre belongs in the studio. Because I think if you're looking for banter, like he can't go more than a few sentences without trying to reach out to someone to make sure that they're still his friend. You know, he'll give trivia for 15 minutes. And it's like, of course, you know, he went to Shattucketty. And then they have to be like, yes, Pierre, they went to Shattucketty.

And then, you know, there's acknowledgement. There's actual interaction. They don't want to interact with him, but there's interaction. And I feel like if he was in the studio, there'd be more of that than just like standing out a thing and talking to the camera, which is just like, who cares? And why do they stand? Like, the NFL guys get to sit down. Why do they have to stand all the time?

I never understood that either. Is it because the set's too small? It's got to be that, right? The NBC didn't buy a real set. They're hockey guys. They're tough enough to stay. They don't need to sit like a bunch of football players. Sitting for basketball, Greg.

Gosh, we hate it. I remember when I was with Yahoo and me and Leahy or whomever would have to shoot like video and they didn't have a stage that was big enough for like more than one person. So we would have to kind of clink our chair arms to get. We'd actually have to overlap our chair arms to make sure we could both get in the shot. Hell yeah. So I imagine it's kind of the same thing.

So there you go. We are declaring war on our line starts. The NBC Sports Podcast. Puckseep already has vanquished one Jeremy Roedick podcast. We'll do it for this one as well. It is a radio war like you've never seen before. And we'll encourage all of our pests to call in and do funny voices. Oh, wait, there's no way they're taking calls.

Speaking of rivalries, of course, the big news as we do the podcast today, the Drew Doughty, Matthew Cichuk, Smackdown, lived up to expectations. All of the wrestling accouturemalne that went with us was bought to the forefront as Drew Doughty scores the game winning goal and then cups his ear to the crowd in Calgary. That was my God, boys. It was pretty cool. How beautiful was this? How beautiful was this?

Yeah, no, I mean, you just, you wanted to be. all gimmicks. Like, this is an entertainment product. Let's start treating it like that, et cetera, et cetera. Like, you know, it's all the old arguments, like, that rivalries are good for the sport and, and you want guys that legitimately dislike each other, but aren't trying to, like, actively murder each other on the ice and that kind of thing. That's it. They're not breaking sticks over each other's heads. Right. They're just being assholes to each other. Yeah, they do seem to hate each other. So, like, time. There's still time.

There's still time. But, there is a certain amount of showmanship here that I appreciate. I mean, there's real heat, maybe not on a Vander Cain, Ryan Reeves level. Right. It's more professional heat than it is, like, I'll beat this guy up in a bar if I see him kind of heat, which I appreciate. It's almost like doubt. That's why I think Dowdy, like, kind of is in on the act because he very much keeps it at a, you know, this guy should kiss my ass because I'm better than him kind of level versus like, I mean, he's wrong about that, but, you know. Oh. Oh, man, I don't know.

It's your dowdy. It's a hot out of the gate. Yeah, so is Matt out of the gate. Yeah, so is Matt. Chuck. He also had three points in that game. And he didn't have the benefit of shooting on the flames goal tending, so. The thing about the Dowdy part, though, is that, like, as many people pointed out, post-game interview, I mean, that you could throw that on WWF superstars in the 1980s.

And I'm thinking to myself, that's exactly where it belongs. It was beautiful. It was cutting a promo. Yeah. God bless that. God bless that performance. Yeah, no, agreed. It was very, you know, it's sad that the bar is so low in hockey that something like this stands out as much as it does.

But you know what? I'll take it. The bar's that low. I'll take it. You know, it's interesting. I wonder if there's a happy medium between the NBA and the NHL on this one, because I feel like in the NBA, every single player has a beef with somebody. Like, it's just constant beef. Another reason the NBA is cool.

But is it cool, though? Like, is there too much? Is there too much beef in the NBA? Like, is there a midpoint between the NHL? We have two good player rivalries in an era and the NBAs. Everybody is always shooting at each other. No, I think that's cool. Literally.

Yeah, I mean, I guess so. I like that. I like the, it's good. I like the NFL. I like the receivers and the cornerbacks all hate each other and, uh, and, and talk crap. Which is especially fun because you, you tend to actually, when they then play each other, get a winner and a loser out of it. It's, it's, you know, Durdowdy and.

and Matthew Kuchuk both had good games. They both lived up to it versus two guys. But Matthew Dukuk didn't score the overtime game winner on the road, so you're going to give this one to Doughty. Yeah. Right. And that's why he didn't get the cross-shot. Although we did have that crazy, I don't know, puck out of the air goal, which was. That was great.

Yeah. The illegal goal that should have a high stick. Well, did they review that? I don't know if they did, but I saw the replay of it. And I'm like, wow, is that? Yeah. That happened. Are they, is that reviewable or does it have to be to a team?

for that to be, because I would have thought that was something they could review. I mean, you can't play it with a high stick. Like, you can't knock it down in front of you with a high stick and then, like, play the puck. So, yeah, that's, that's, it has to be reviewable. I would think so, but I'm just, I'm not, I don't know if this is one of those things for the NHL.

It's the NHL. You never know. But, like, everything's reviewable now. Like, doesn't that fall under the draconian, uh, referees can stop, can review anything that may have stopped play kind of rule? Probably, right? I would think so. I'm going to look at that way.

We haven't had a hand pass yet. We haven't had a hand pass yet in the first week of the season. I'm waiting for it. I'm waiting for the big, the big, the big Sharks, blues kerfuffle moment like we had under these new rules. Yeah. And hasn't happened yet. All right. We have had a couple, a guy was a millimeter offside four minutes before the goal got scored.

Oh, man. Yeah, we had one last night. Yeah, there was one on a leech game, maybe. Yeah. I don't know why they, though, why they're. why they're so reticent to change that rule. I have no idea why. Like,

just give the refs more discretion. Because this is the NHL. They will never admit a mistake until it is way too late and it's disastrous. The only time they've ever actually nip something in the bud and say, you know what, we got this wrong. We're going to get rid of it relatively quickly was the coach GM compensation draft picks. And the only reason they got...

And even that took like three years. And the only reason they did that is because Gary Bettman, always hated it. And so he intentionally let them pass a rule that didn't work the way they thought it would and embarrassed everyone. And then he kind of said, all right, are we done putting things in that I don't personally approve? Okay, get rid of it and fix it. And that's not the case for this one. So it's, I mean, it took six years or whatever to get rid of the skate in the crease and it needed a Stanley Cup final getting ruined for it to happen. So that's, this league just doesn't acknowledge and fix mistakes. It's just not part of the way that they work.

I mean, I mean, I think the other one probably would be allowing Jim Ball Silly to own the Nashville Predators. It was a mistake that they fixed pretty quickly. Yeah. That's true. By the way, we don't talk about this enough that. So for those who don't know, because there's a lot of people that kind of came to this NHL thing recently and also to this podcast recently, Jim Ballsillie purchased, I believe, the Nashville predators, right? Or he was going to purchase them or whatever. And he was in the process of it. And then he started selling season tickets in Hamilton, Ontario for the predators under the

auspices of them relocating. Yes. Even before he owned the team. And that's really great and hilarious. And the NHL's like, you know, to quote the great Logan Roy, fuck off. And then like, one of the greatest thing that's ever happened in sports. And this really doesn't get talked about enough. he then reemerged to try to buy the Arizona Coyotes by having their current owner bankrupt the team and then getting the team through bankruptcy without having to get the NHL Board of Governors involved or because the NHL Board of Governors

already had approved him as an owner, I think was the thing. So like, what a fucking supervillain move? That's succession shit, dude. Yeah, that's succession. It's exactly right. Succession shit. It's a super villain succession move to like come back around and find some fucking loophole to buy another team after they told you to fuck off. Like I know that we all kind of lived through that that Arizona Coyote's thing and you know, many of us were forced to watch

city council meetings in Glendale, which is a Guantanamo level of torture. It was awesome. It was so cool. Everybody's staying up and making fun of like a guy in a sweater vest on Twitter. It was sick. Rating ratings for Parks and Rec just dove because you had the real thing in front of you. But like the diabolical nature of that gambit on the part of Ball Silly, I don't think necessarily gets chatted up enough. Sean, you're a student of history. Wouldn't you agree that this is something that people don't talk about enough? Well, I mean, I don't know, but not. It was a pretty huge story in Canada for quite a while, but yeah, it's...

But he was treated as a hero in Canada. Yes. as well he should have been. Caesar coming back to Rome. Exactly. He is. It was, yeah.

Can I just backpedal here for a second? Because as we were talking, I looked up the new challenge rules. You can now challenge glove passes, pucks that go out of play, pucks that hit the spectator netting, and pucks, and I'm quoting the NHL site, pucks that are high-sticked to a teammate in the offensive zone.

Huh. So apparently, Apparently, that play would actually high-sticking the puck to yourself and playing it would not be reviewable. Also, pucks in deep, two girls, one puck, puck from the real world. There's all of the things that are not covered by this rule. It's on the night's dream puck. Yep. Feeling puckish, if you feel puckish.

By the way, did you guys know? I found out this yesterday when I was Googling something on Drew Doughty. Did you know that the word Doughty is actually a word? and I don't mean Dowdy like Frumpy. I mean like Dowdy, like the word, there's a word dowdy. Dowdy means brave and persistent. Cool. I had no idea.

This guy's been in the league for how long. I had no idea that his name was actually an adjective. I did not know that either. Yeah. Great. Now we're going to have to hear about that for every time they play the fucking flames from now on. You know, Duck and Eddie, they say Dowdy. and being brave and persistent.

Greg, they would not be having a King's Flames game on NBC. Come on. Doc Kennedy Webster's Fictionary defines Dowdy us. But that's the thing too about, like we talked about

the rivalries and hatred in selling the game. Like, to your point, who the fuck would ever care about a Flames, Kings game were it not for this hatred between these two players? It's great.

Probably not even the Flames and Kings. That's probably true. I bet Daryl Sutter would care. So the other thing that happened last night before he did the show was the continued rocket Richard Chase of James Neal. Holy shit. There was a moment last night where James Neal had as many goals as the entirety of the Calgary Flames, and it was a beautiful moment. Yeah, I mean, he already surpassed what he had last year in Calgary. He's done.

He's like, that's worked out for. the Oilers, although I did see some Flames fans doing the drill tweet of, it's impossible to say which ones worked out better because Milan Lujich fought somebody. Yes. It's one of those beautiful things where you know that it's one of two things. Either he is extra super motivated because of what happened in Calgary last year with Bill Peters, or he was completely fucking dogging it last year because of what happened in Calgary with Bill Peters

and both might be right. It could be both. Well, can I offer a different theory? Go ahead. Gets to play a lot of power playtime with Carr, McDavid. I mean, there doesn't hurt. There is that. And I know that, I don't think McDavid had the assist on this,

but there was a goal last night where he was literally standing right outside the crease and just had to stick his stick out. to tap the puck in. I don't know how many times that happened in Calgary or was skidding up the ice with fucking Derek, Derek Ryan or whoever. Who did they have last year at Center?

Was it him? Yeah, it was him. He actually had a pretty good year last season, despite everybody's expectation. Yeah. So, I don't know. It's an interesting redemption story, I guess. Do you guys think that this is sustainable?

Yes. Is he going to score 100? 64 goals this year. That's right. Yeah, I think he is. Yep. Yeah, no, I mean, like, he's going to actually play with good. Like, he's played with McDavid on power plays and stuff like that, but his main center so far has been Ryan Nugent Hopkins.

And they've been very good together, as a matter of fact. You know, I actually wrote about this for Yahoo on Thursday. Oh. Or Wednesday. What's today? I don't know. And, yeah, like, the Oilers, as you might imagine, are getting outscored when McDavid and Drysidal are off the ice and dramatically outscoring their opponents when they're on. And James Neal has been a part of that.

You know, do I really buy that they've, you know, short up the team's depth problems? Of course not. But, you know, but, like, say what you want about James Neal and he had a bad year last year. Like, he's an NHL winger. And the friggin oilers don't have a ton of those besides him. They don't. Right. One more thing on hate that I wanted to bring up, which is I had the pleasure of covering opening night in Vegas.

By that, I mean getting to see a real good rivalry game, not just my company picking up my bill to go to Vegas, although. I got to tell you, man, the early Penguins Capital's rivalry vibes I get from Sharks Nights. are palpable. There's a mutual animosity between the players and also the fans, and it is inspired a great amount of comedy. Like, I'll never forget for the first time going to those Penguins' Caps rivalry games when Sid and Ovi were just starting to battle. And, like, everybody in the lower bowl at Verizon Center would bring a different variation of

Sidney Crosby as a baby. You know, Sidney Crosby's in a crib. Sidney Crosby's sucking pacifiers. People handed out pacifiers one game because Crosby was playing. And I'll also never forget walking into the men's room at Verizon Center

and seeing Sidney Crosby's stickers in the bottom of the urinals, which remains. It remains one of the single most fucking twisted and horrible things. Not only because the sticker was in the bottom of the urinal, but because it was a sticker

with a cartoon bubble coming from Sid's mouth that said, I'm thirsty. That's an extra level of fucking savage that you just don't get in other rivalries. So the Knights Sharks one hasn't reached that level yet. There was no, like, Logan Couture, you know, 3D printed mouth over the urinal or anything. But there were like gummy sharks inside the urinal. So that's like a baby step towards greater and grander things.

But, you know, the signs, the animosity, guys going into the game with sharks and nooses, you know, little dogs outside the T-Mobile arena chewing on little shark toys. Like, fucking, it's fucking great. It's, it's the best, I think it's the best rivalry right now. If not the best, definitely my favorite rivalry right now. Yeah, I think that's, I think that's fair. The only thing I would say is I, I feel like this is very much like a, I feel like Vegas has a super intense rivalry with San Jose and San Jose has a decent rivalry with Vegas.

Like, this doesn't feel like a full two-way, because of the way the playoffs ended last year, and rightfully so. Like, I mean, this is, and I kind of said, like, I don't put a ton of stock in the fact that the sharks lost both of those games, even though it's a division rival and it's the team you're, you. And they got their asses kicked. And yet, it's kind of one of these things where, like, one team had this circled on the calendar for four months. And the other team, I'm sure, wanted to win, but it's not the same level. and, uh, but it, it might get there, especially if, if they get their, their butts kicked a few more times. But, uh, yeah, it does feel kind of, uh, it, it, it feels to me not quite, but a little bit like

the old Ottawa, Toronto rivalry where it was like a, a blood feud in Ottawa and in Toronto was like, oh, right, we play the sense tonight. And then, uh, you would, you would go and remember that there was a rivalry happening. There's a lot of those. I was going to say your points well taken because as it, as as growing up a Devils fan, that's how it was with the Rangers. Like, we fucking hated the Rangers. And the Rangers are like, hi, we've got the Islanders and flyers to worry about a young puppy nipping in our heels. Like, we don't give a shit about you. And I feel like, I feel like the sharks and their fans have been through it with the Kings and the ducks for so many years.

The Kings in particular that this like new rivalry, while intense and while incredible and, you know, at the heart of it is, you know, the Reeves and Evander Kane thing. I feel like there's probably guys in the team that are like this is really exciting and new and we hate these guys but man did we hate the Kings a lot more than this you know? But you know what? It's great for Vegas, great for Knights fans because this is like the one piece

that have been missing over the last couple years. They've all fallen in love with hockey and the show is cool and the pregame and everything and they've connected with the players but they needed that like that hatred rivalry where you just had that visceral reaction to some other team's logo, and they've got that now.

And that's awesome. And I know that we've talked about before, like, Stanley Cup droughts and things like that, and people scoff at the nights being, you know, in their third year and trying to pretend that they have any modicum of postseason anguish. But, I mean, they've crammed a lot in these two years. Like, they lost in the Cup final, and they got royally jobbed by a call in the first round of the playoffs

against the rival team. Like, that's a lot of growing. It's a good start. It's about as much as you can cram into two years. Yeah. So, I mean, while I completely agree that I, you know, there are teams that obviously have a much, much stronger lament about not winning a cup, Knights fans have lived a little life here, I think, so far.

Yeah, they definitely have. They, like, I wouldn't have said it after last season, but, or after the cup final loss because, like, it was their first season. But, yeah, they got, the way in which they, the way in which they got obviously screwed, makes you go, yeah, I get it, man. It sucks. But also, welcome to the NHL. It all sucks.

Precisely. And that was, and I talked to a Sharks fan outside the arena before the game for a story. And that was very much like his message was, you know, everybody's upset about what happened with the call and the nights and the whole thing. He's like, they grow the fuck up. Like, welcome to the NHL. Like, this is how it's supposed to be. You know, you pretty much, you know, you had an expansion draft.

everybody gave you good players and then you went to the cup final. Now you realize what the NHL really is. So I thought that was a salient point. But again, hot rivalry, fucking great arena, every seat filled. So obviously, if you want to see the Knights and Sharks, you best find another way to get a seat. And you could use our friends at Seats seat for that. It's fine.

It doesn't have to be friggin Shakespeare. It's good. Highest rating of the season. So forsooth, young puck, with millions of live event tickets from sports and live music to comedy and more Seekek has the tickets you're looking for all in one place. By the way, I wanted to just point out,

I couldn't do a Shakespeare bit for the entire ad read because I'm not the biggest Shakespeare fan, to be quite honest with you. He's got some hits, I'd say. Oh, no, he's got some hits. And I like Shakespeare as a sort of like basis of all things that came afterwards sort of thing. Like, you know, I recognize... There were ten things I hate about you guy.

well like in a west side story kind of guy uh i like you know hamlet or whatever like sure like i like all the stuff that came from it but i never got to that point where it didn't read like homework and i never got to that point where someone grabbed my hand and said we're going to shakespeare in the park and you're going to hear patrick stort do it in the original cling on and you're going to love it. Like, that never happened for me. So I never gained that appreciation. I will point out something while I was watching Pretty Woman last night. Richard Gere and Julia Roberts at one point were on in a park like bonding during their like bonding montage. Not bondage, mind you. That's a different movie.

A different movie, yeah. Runaway Bride. And so they're on the grass and he's reading a book of Shakespeare quotations to her. Not even like quoting from his favorite play or anything. It's just like reading quotations to her. And I'm like, what a romantic gesture if I had taken my new love to a park and called up brainy quotes on my phone? Yo, you ever hear this shit? Damn. Did you believe what Steve Jobs said back in 87 about the IMAC?

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Go find yourself a Thai restaurant in your town that has that. I've got the Seekykeek out of my phone. It's the easiest way for me to find tickets. If I'm going to a sold-out NHL game and I need to find myself a good seat because I want to be by the ice to see blood rivalries play out. I just use the C-KeeK app, find those big green circles, and get the good deal. Seekek will even give you $10 off your first Seekek purchase. All you have to do is use our promo code.

That's soup. S-O-U-P, that spells soup for $10 off your first purchase. That's promo code soup. $10 off your first Seekkeek purchase. Seek, a proud sponsor of the Puck Soup podcast. Sean. Are you now marking time as the era before the Carolina Hurricanes went 82 and O in all time that follows the Carolina Hurricanes going 82? God bless the Hurricanes.

The unbeatable juggernaut. You know what? They're good. They're good. I don't know. I got yelled at by Hurricanes fans because I didn't have them in my top five of my power rankings like after four days of the season. But they're good. And the start's been great.

And, you know, even to some extent, more impressive than what it says on the scoreboard, the, you know, they speedbag the lightning. It's weird that you can say that an overtime game feels like a blowout, but that one kind of did. So they've looked really good. You know, we've got 78 games to go. It's early, et cetera, et cetera. But also, you can only base things on the games that you've played. and teams are only allowed to play the games.

The schedule gives them to play. And they've had four, and they've looked really good so far. They've looked really good. I mean, look, like, it's a stat that you kind of can't say enough, but they held the Lightning without a shot for like 45 minutes. It's insane, right? How's that possible? Well, I mean, if you listen to Stephen Stamcoast, it's possible

because the Lightning, inexplicably, haven't learned a fucking thing since the last playoff. We're still skating around trying to win on skill instead of going to the trenches and going to the corners and playing the kind of hockey that you actually have to play to win in the playoffs. Can I just say, I know we love the guy and I know that he's basically reading

out of the Bible of good Canadian boy hockey cliches. Yeah, that was what I was going to say. I got to say, man, if I'm a lightning player and I'm hearing Stamco's talk like that like three or four games, I'm looking around going like, are we really fucking doing this? Like, it's the first week of October, second week of October. Are we doing this already?

Really? There's a... Also, also, I mean, I think the other thing, too, is if I'm a lightning player and I'm seeing Stephen Samcoe say this, I'm thinking to myself, dude, you're not fucking Mark Messier. Yeah, aren't you the fucking Cassie? Yeah. But also, like, if your complaint is guys trying to win on skill versus doing the

things necessary to be victorious, fucking here's a mirror. Like, you've been on. how many teams now that have gotten, you know, to a game six, folded into game six and got their ass kicked into game seven, and then also got swept by the fucking blue jackets. Like, I love Stamcoast. I want to see this kid raise the cup at some point in his career. But man, there's a, there's a common thread here that I think is kind of being ignored when he starts spouting off about skill and not. Tyler Johnson. I agree. I'm sure his heart's in the right place, but I would not, I don't think that's helpful for games into a season. to have a, it probably helps his reputation, but I don't think it helps his team. Let's put it that way. Well, it's helpful for us.

The Buffalo Sabres are, so here's what I think about the Sabres. I am excited by the fact that they have, I didn't think the splitting up the top line was going to work, but it has so far. It doesn't mean it's going to always work, but it's worked so far, and that gives them just that little extra modicum of depth that they didn't. have on paper. I always thought the goaltending would be all right. I continue to believe that. I don't know if they're a playoff team. I would say they're not, but yeah. But I'm very confident having seen this small sample, as confident as you can be about a small sample, that maybe they are a bubble team versus hanging in the basement playing Xbox with the senators and redwings. Maybe. Yeah, I mean, I think if any fan base is going to understand that you can't get over-excited over a couple of weeks, it's going to be a Sabres, because we all remember last year with the big 10-game win streak, and then first place overall, and then it didn't end very well. But this is also a team that, like, you go back even previous to the Connor McDavid tank years when they were trying to lose. This is a team every year.

year, you go back and look at their first five or ten games, and they just start badly every single year. Even the years where, you know, the tank tanking was done and they had Eichel and they was like, all right, now we're going to go. Now it's, this is our year to be playoff contenders. And then they would win like two of their first six or two of their first seven and, and be right behind the eight ball. And it was just kind of one of those things where I think that you, you don't want to overreact to a start one way or another, but sometimes you do. And sometimes, you do. And sometimes, not just as fans, but the media does it. Teams do it. GMs, coaches do it. And I think the Sabres are a team that was them and the coyotes who are not off to a good starter, the two teams that just

do this every year. And I think would be the sort of teams where if you're two weeks into the season and it's not going well, you're just looking around going, here we go again. Like this is, I can't believe this is going to happen again. Yeah. So I think it's important that the same, even though, yeah, you know, it's five points. It's ultimately not necessarily going to tell us a ton. I think it does mean more to them to start well than it might to a lot of other teams, just because they don't have to be looking around saying, here we go again for once, if they can keep this going for a little bit. Yeah, for sure.

We talked about the Oilers. Dallas Stars get a big overtime win in Washington last night as we do the podcast, thanks to Alex Ovechkin trying to cut to the middle on three guys and a three on three. Two observations here. Tyler Say again, not horseshit. Jamie Ben, still sort of horseshit. One assist in four games. Also, Radic Faxa, old and busted, minus seven in four games.

Rupa Hints, new hotness, four goals in four games. Yeah, him and James Neal are looking great to start this new season. That's right. Long may continue, I'm sure. And also... They're not going to suck, right? This was a stumble, right? Ben Bishop, not looking super great, which I wish somebody.

had flagged as a possibility. I mean, that's so crazy that... Listen, as the charter member of the Ben Bishop Appreciation Society, his October suck. The October Ben Bishop is very much a thing that exists. Yeah. That's certainly true. I'm not surprised that he's doing this right now.

I think he'll be all right. I think they're going to be all right. It was a weird bad start for a team that a lot of us thought could maybe even push for a division title. I, you know, I'm still going to be fine. They're going to be fine. I really do. Like, it just redounds to the idea of, like, you know, they added Joe Pavelski and they were pretty good last year. So this looks like a cup contender. And I just spent the entire summer going, what the fuck are we talking about? Yeah. You know, like, I think they're going to be good. I think they're going to be a playoff team. I think that, you know, is probably about it unless the younger guys, like, really take a step, which. hasn't happened yet, but there's still whatever, 78 games to go. So who knows?

Yeah. Don't be all right. Do you guys think that Rupa Hance will shoot 50% for the rest of the season? Probably. I do. I do. Yeah. Probably.

Speaking of Joe Pavelsky, the San Jose Sharks, oh, boy. Yeah, that's right. O and four to start the season. season. And here's a fun thing that's happened. They've signed Patrick Marlowe to a one-year contract for the league minimum. And Doug Wilson said, you know, we didn't sign Patrick Marlowe before the season because we wanted to give all of these kids a chance to play. And maybe some of them aren't ready as much as we thought. And then sometimes you get injuries and sometimes guys get suspended. So we're We're going to bring back Patrick Marlowe because of this. And I find it interesting that at no point is Doug Wilson ever say, oh, by the way, the reason we had to play so many kids is because I'm paying veteran players so much fucking money that we had to fill out our lineup and replaced Jonas Donskoi and Gus Nyquist and Joe Pavelsky with literal children. And that's why we're in this fucking pickle.

Well, I mean, yes and no. Like, you know, it's the thing, like, if he didn't do that, you'd be like, where are you not resigning Eric Carlson for? Were you not resigning Brent Burns for? You know, like, you can make the argument kind of both ways on that. And that's, you know, it's the cost of having a lot of talent, I guess. And the real issue for them is much like the St. Louis Blues. They're spending a lot of money on potentially not good goaltending.

And it hasn't been good to start this year for sure. And he's terrible. And people are always asking, like, I saw somebody asking like, how could, I think it was Sharpen Basu last night was like, how could you possibly bring Martin Jones back? I'm like, because he's making like $5.9 million against the cap through 2024. It has a no trade clause. Like that's, they're stuck with them. Oh, they're for sure stuck with them. And like I, I've said it a million times that by now, and I wrote about it earlier this week. Like, it's a thing of, you know, he had a long track record of being not great, but like a solid goalie. And it would have been a

pretty solid bet to say, you know, he'll be not great or anything, but he'll be, like, he can be a league average goalie again. And it hasn't worked out so far. And again, it's only, I think he's only played three games. But the real thing is, Aaron Dell is both, I mean, he's not cheap, but he's expendable and he doesn't have trade protection. So fucking get rid of him. Like, even if Martin, even if you're bad, it. Martin Jones can bounce back and maybe he does, maybe he doesn't. Arrendel has almost never been good. Yeah.

And you're paying them almost two million bucks, I want to say? In a league where it seems like, oh yeah, that's a fixable problem. Yeah, there seems like there's a lot more NHL quality goalies than there are NHL jobs. Yeah, I'll just, I'll say it again. I wrote this in a couple of spots. Jimmy Howard to the San Jose Sharks makes a lot of sense to me. It does. he doesn't want to be dealt.

I know that's why he wasn't dealt last year. They like him in Detroit. He wants to stay there. But at some point, you're rebuilding. He got one year on a deal. There was no, no trade protection. I think it just, it makes a little bit too much sense if you're the red wings to look into that, especially if. And if you're the sharks.

Well, I mean, the sharks. That's the thing. If I'm, you know, we always say this every year, you know, that, that, that. There's always like five goalies who would make sense to be traded. And then we always say halfway through the year, yeah, but what good team actually needs goaltending? Here you've got a team that, in theory, at least is good, has a window that seems to be closing, should have some pressure to win now.

If I'm Steve Eiserman and I'm pretty good at this GMing stuff to start with, this might be where I go. I can squeeze Doug Wilson a little bit here and get a pretty nice return from a GM who might be a little bit desperate to make sure. he he he he he he he he he whole thing doesn't blow up in his face because of a problem that everybody knew the roster head yep they should uh banish arundel to errandel the mystical kingdom from the movie frozen just send him there sure um I have a daughter um so the other thing too is that the sharks don't have anything to give up I mean the problem like if you looked at cap friendly before they signed before the the marlough deal was officially had seven thousand

dollars in cap right I shit you fucking not $7,000 in cap space. And so, like, and they don't have a first round pick this year. They are, as you can see by this roster, the pickings are somewhat slim as far as prospects go, sort of a victim of their own success, but also shipping out some guys too. So it's fun to kind of fancast a Jimmy Howard trade, but. How do you make it work? Yeah.

How do you make it work? You can't even make it work under the cap, let alone have the, asked us to send back Steve Eiserman. I, I, well, I disagree because I think that, uh, I don't, and I've been on, on this hobby horse for a long time. I don't think the cap makes things as difficult as we make it out to be. Uh, you know, you, you, you can, you could retain salary on Jimmy Howard and put, and have Aaron Dell going back the other way and that takes care of most of it right there. And then, you know, there's, there's other things you could do to get a little bit creative.

But I don't, I don't, I don't think it's, I don't think that should be a deal breaker, and I'm kind of tired of hearing GMs talk about how the cap is oh so complicated. I mean, Jimmy Howard makes $4 million against the cap on a one-year deal. You can retain 50% of that. That's $2 million. Arndelle makes $1.9 against the cap on a one-year deal. So that pretty much does it almost right there,

especially if you wait a little bit into the season where things start getting prorated. What you do have to understand, though, Sean, is that a lot of these GMs, like you're saying it's not as complicated as they think it is, well, most of them don't have a college education. No. But we're talking about Steve Eisenman and Doug Wilson, who are two actual good GMs, who actually do things and actually seem to have a priority other than just convincing their dumb owner to keep the status quo for another few years so that they can keep sailing through on a job.

but I, I, if, it just makes a lot of sense. I'm not saying it's going to happen and I know these, we don't see a lot of goal-tending deals in the middle of the season. They're, they're very rare for a reason, but I, it makes a lot of sense. It does. Oh, and so can I just say one more thing on the Sharks because we sort of skipped over. Oh, absolutely. It's your show too, yeah.

I just, in all sincerity, I was really happy to see them sign Patrick Marlowe to see him go back there. Because it, you got to, with Patrick Marlowe, the way that he left. the Leafs. You got to remember, like, he waived a no trade to go to a team he knew was going to buy him out. He didn't have to do that. He absolutely could have had every right to hold for him and say, no, I'm not going anywhere. I don't, I'm not, or I'm not doing anything unless it's a trade where I know I'm guaranteed. He sort of took a chance and it looked like it was going to blow up in his face and he was going to end up maybe not finding a new spot or not finding somewhere he wanted to go. I was just really happy to see him wind up back with the team that

I think he always wanted to go to and, you know, to have a good thing happen to a good person was just nice to see and had took away that that nervousness I was feeling that he was going to get screwed on all this. I agree. By the way, December 5th, San Jose visits Carolina. And if those little fuckers don't have, well, if they don't have a video tribute to pass, That's right. It's bullshit. That's a Carolina game. It's such bullshit. You can't be the clown princes of the NHL with your storm surges and your bunch of jerks

and not do a video tribute to Patrick Marl when he comes back. Absolutely right. That's your mandate, Tom Dundon. Pittsburgh Penguins, you know, I made a really bad bet yesterday on Daily Wager, thinking that the penguins would defeat the Winnipeg Jets in regulation because the Jets had an AHL defense. Little did I realize that once you take out, Patrick Hornquist and Jake Gensel were part of that game, the penguins are an

HL team with Sidney Crosby. That's right. Pretty much. Holy shit. What's going to happen to the penguins? Well, I mean, we were promised like a week ago that Jack Johnson was 48 hours away from getting traded. And, well, last I checked, he's still on that team.

So. There was also talk now that Good Branson might get traded. That was a Bob McKenzie. Isn't that so weird that the two guys, everybody was like, why the fuck did the penguins go out and acquire them, are now they're being talked about as trade bait? Is that so weird that that keeps happening? Very strange. I don't know. It's three games, and I've certainly been burned in the past by kind of hanging the old mission accomplished banner before it was warranted.

But I kind of said that I could see. friend Alan. Yes, my pal, Ellen. Yeah, like I said, there were indicators that this season could go very bad for the penguins. And certainly, having Evgeny Malcolm get hurt for a month is not going to help that. And, yeah, it's three games. We've counted out veteran teams before. But, yeah, not a great start. And yeah, nobody should be losing to, the Winnipeg Jets when they're icing that that back end. Yeah, it was pathetic.

I did hit with my picks of the ducks and the over-in-Stars capitals, so good on me. Finally, the Devils, who I saw blow a 4-0 lead on home ice on opening night and have Taylor Hall say, even when we were up 4-0, we weren't playing the right way. This podcast is probably going to drop just before or just after they, play the Flyers. That is such a fucking litmus test for this team to see where they are, because it's two really, really bad losses. I mean, one in overtime, granted, they pick up a point, but my God,

they follow blowing a 4-0 lead on home ice by getting their asses handed to them in Buffalo. I don't know, man. I don't know. Buffalo looks like cup contenders, Greg. I don't know what you're getting so upset about. Do they fire John Hines if this goes sideways in the first like 12 games of the season? Did we talk about coaches who might get fired last week? I feel like we did, right?

We did, yeah. He's one I don't remember if we talked about, but I don't know. Because, again, oh, we did because I said, like, well, what if Taylor Hall likes him and you're trying to keep Taylor Hall? Right, yeah, right. Yeah, I mean, I think you have to kind of acknowledge, like, the devils got better this summer, but they were a pretty fucking bad team last year. So to improve on that.

you know, doesn't necessarily bring the kind of returns that, you know, it's nice to go get a 30-year-old P.K. Suban or whatever, you know, from a marketing standpoint, maybe more than anything else in 2019. But, you know, at this point, it's like you kind of got to be more realistic about what adding talent actually gets you in the NHL, where even the best players are only worth like eight points in the standings. I don't even know who, like, who would be the first guy you'd hire if you're going to fire your coach? That's the thing I don't even know right now. It's, like, would fucking Shero call up Balsma? Balsma is on the staff right now?

He's in Detroit, right? Yeah, we kind of did. Like, all the veteran coaches got snapped up in the, in the off season. There was that sort of hiring. So it's, it is tough. Ken Hitchcock, line one. Okay. I mean, the thing with the devil's,

it's sort of the same thing I touched on with the Sabres is like it's on the one hand it's early it's it's you know the it's the season just started you don't want to overreact but you do have to think about there is some psychology involved in and in what happens in the room and I think when you're the devils and you're a young team and you've been bad for years and you were terrible last year and then you have this off season all this new talent comes in you win the lottery get PK all this stuff everybody's blowing smoke up your behinds about how this you're you're going to be really good this year. And then if you come out of the gate like 0 and 3 and 0 and 4 and suddenly you're already like four points out of the play,

you're just like, oh man, like this, like we got to chase it all year. Like, or is this just going to be another one of these years? Like I could see it really weighing on guys more than maybe it would, even a team like San Jose as much pressure as they're under where they're kind of like, we've been here. We've had a bad few games before we know we can get passes. I don't know. It's, it feels like the sort of thing where, you know, again, they could go up and play a great game against Flyers tonight, and yeah, that's it.

We don't, you know, off they go. But there are certain teams where I think a bad start hurts them more than it ordinarily would on a different team. And the devil has strike me as maybe being in that situation. Yeah. Jack Hughes looks like he's not ready for this shit. I wonder if anybody could have said that early in the season. Although, you know, Cabo Taco also maybe doesn't look super duper either. Well, I liked what Dave Quinn said about Caco, which is that he's not going to look great all the time, but he's never going to look shitty.

Yeah, and sometimes he's going to look incredible. Right. And the problem with Hughes right now is last time I looked, lowest coursey percentage in the NHL for Jack Hughes. Pretty good. Yeah. Well, you know what, guys, speaking of not being ready for things, I didn't prepare anything. for this year, this week's transition. I'm also starting off slow, but that's okay.

I'm a veteran. Oh, wow. Amazing. This is the first time he's ever handed in a blank test, and you've not given him a fucking A, just for the balls of it. Settle down. Take it easy. Jesus Christ. The Athletic, as some of you may know,

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Okay. Julie Storkebanks has a new show called Call It a Night on Fubo. And we're going to find out what Fubo is in this conversation with Julie. Julie, you have two shows on, what's the name of the network? Is it foo? I don't want to mess it up. Well, this is a great start. No, it's Fubo TV, which is, I would say now working with Fubo.

I didn't realize how strong brand Fubu was until I started here because everyone thinks it's Vibu, even though when was the last time you saw anyone wearing anything Fubu, it's been at least 10 years. But, yeah, it's Fubo TV, and then our shows are on a new channel called Fubo Sports Network. Oh, man. you're going to really upset Damien from Shark Tank with your Fubu slites. So is it streaming? You can grab it on Apple TV and stuff?

Yeah. I mean, it's, okay, so it's kind of confusing, I guess. But you can either get the streaming service, which you can get if you have like Roku TV or Samsung TV, Zumo, all these like different enterprises for free. You can sign up for it and you get, you know, all the channels minus a couple. or for my shows, you can literally just type in FuboSportnetwork.com into a computer, and that's free to watch. That's awesome. You are in such an awesome position because, like, what an awesome flattering thing to be treated

as like a brand name and have somebody be like, you're someone who's going to bring eyes to the thing that we're doing? Like, that's got to be an amazing feeling. Well, that's a really nice thing to say. That's a great perspective on it. Yeah, because, I mean, I guess I didn't really know kind of what I was getting into, but like a woman I had worked with a year before on a big soccer tournament in the States had kind of put my name up for the job when she heard that this whole station was being started,

which was great because, like, I never would have known this was going on because, I mean, even just me starting into it, then people are, like, you know, I booked guests for the shows, their agents start to hear about it. Like, no one really knew about it before. So I was lucky to sort of be ahead of the curve in that regard. I'm sure if they found anyone else who wanted to do it, they would have picked them over me. But luckily, I signed on that dotted line, and I'm not going anywhere. But I'm really excited because this is like, you know, this is just so much fun.

It's, you know, it's comedy, it's sports, it's not taking ourselves too seriously, but also being able to have commentary on stuff that maybe you couldn't at different networks because we don't have any rights yet. Like, we don't have any technical relationships with places, which we don't want to burn bridges yet, but, like, we're not tied to saying things in a certain way. So I can kind of really say what I want. Obviously, we all have relationships with different athletes, with different networks, so we're not going to be idiot. But we do get to have a little bit more leeway than other place. Yeah, so do I here at Disney.

Anyways, so you got two shows. You have Call It a Night, which is Tuesdays and then. Thursdays, I believe, correct? And then you have Drinks of Things, which is an awesome name, and that is a show on Fridays. And so what are the differences between these two shows? Yeah, well, they're just very different in format and nature. So Call It a Night is much more like it's super scripted, it's constructed, like scripted in the way that we have games, we have guests, we do a monologue of jokes, and it's 24 minutes. So it moves really, really fast. and I really like it because I kind of try to model it off of the late night shows

and more so late night than we've seen other sports comedy shows do. And that's why the name is call it a night because when we were coming up with a name and it took us 600 different names to come up with this. One is something that felt that late night vibe, but we do shoot it at 11 a.m., so it is kind of a weird juxtaposition. then drinks of thanks, which is one that's literally I just do on my own, I book the guest, I produce the entire thing, is a longer form conversation, 48 minutes. And it's just an opportunity to kind of dive into a bunch of different topics with one guest.

Like, you know, we see different podcasts than I've worked on a number where it's sort of like, here's the headlines, and then here's our guest. Well, our guest is the headline. So we offer them, they can have any kind of drink they want. It doesn't have to be alcoholic, but they get to pick. And then we go somewhere in the world that they want. And then we have, like, a backdrop. That's cool.

Go there and have a drink. So we have Grant Wall on Thursday, and he wants a Mezcal McGrody, and we are going to go to Glenis Ares. So that should be fun. Also, our staff is learning how to make drinks. We realized that was the loophole and the drinks with drinks, drinks of things, excuse me, that we didn't really know how to make drinks. So, yeah, it's fun.

And surprisingly, like, everyone wants to have a drink. I'm like, it's okay. We can just have coffee. We don't have to have alcohol. They're like, no, no, no. I want rosé. It's like, okay, I guess we're doing it. It's very kind.

You know, I remember my world being shattered when I found out that the Andy Cohen show on Bravo, the one that, like, comes on at, like, 11 or 1130. My world was shattered when I realized that they taped that at, like, 11 o'clock in the morning, too. And I always, it's a great illusion because you watch that show, and it's like, oh, it's a late night hang with people that are a little tipsy. And then you realize, no, they're just tipsy at 11 a.m. Yeah. Changes your perspective.

We're recording at 10 a.m. this Thursday with Grant. So that makes it a real difficult day for me because then I shoot calling a night right afterwards. And, you know, I'm a pro's pro. I can do my show while I'm drunk. And luckily my bosses know that I am. So I get a little bit of a leash in that regard. But it's not ideal once like four or five rolls around in the afternoon.

noon and I'm not feeling so hot. There you go. You could do this show while loaded. You know, you can take the girl out of Canada. You can take the Canada out of the girl. Yeah, hopefully that workers' comp covers a new liver at some point. Why? I've seen interviews with you where you have mentioned the obvious comparison that people are

going to draw between Call in a Night and Katie Nolan's various shows throughout history. the way that you guys seem to be sort of DIY reminds me maybe a bit more of garbage time than the current incarnation. But is she an influence on you? Or is it just one of those things that inevitably happens because you're both funny women talking about sports on television? She's definitely been an influence on me. Like I think it was, it's almost like I didn't know I could see these colors until I sort of style her do it. And so you see Katie do when she at first had no filter, before that on Crowd Goes Wild. And I worked at FS1 when she was there.

It always really was drawn to her personality and her quirkiness. And I was like, you know, I'm more like that. And I was always, you know, more on the professional front of reporting and anchoring and all this stuff. But like, I'm a real weirdo. And like, I really want to do this kind of stuff while I like my past and that. Like, I want to create something new and different and kind of get my hands dirty. So I saw her do it. It gives you inspiration to say it doesn't just have to be one person.

And, you know, we do work in a world where whether it's sideline reporting or anchoring many times. At least it was like this five, ten years ago, it was like, oh, well, there's only one woman doing this. Like that's the girl. She's doing it. And like, oh, we only can have one woman on this broadcast. Like, no, that's not really like what we do anymore. and so seeing her do it, do that show, it's like, cool. Katie's doing always late, crushing it, has figured out her lane with all that.

We can also make a show that's kind of got a late night feel of sports comedy, that my personality is different than hers, my interest in background different than hers, try to create something a little bit, yeah, we are, well, we're a startup for for sure, so we don't have any rights to literally anything. so we have to be a way to do a show without anything. And so I liken it to the fact that maybe she's Fallon or Kimmel and we're like John Oliver. I mean, he would be more actually like how her format is. She'd probably be more like John Oliver, but we're just another or another voice.

And like, you know, so many dudes can have the same type of sports talk show. But it's always sort of like, oh, well, Katie Nolan does it. like, how can you do it too? It's like, well, there's, you know, we have a new streaming service. So, yeah, we're going to do this as well. So me and her have bonded over this. She's been great. She reached out to me and was like, I'm really happy to have you in this space so that

we can vent about how shitty this job is. So, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And writing monologue jokes, I mean, we do it two days a week is, it is, it's awful. Like, it's like you churn out the content. It's not like when I do stand. up where I think like, oh man, I got this great idea. Ha ha. Notice this funny thing. Work on the joke. Go to some open mics, then perform it.

It's like, oh, you have a joke? Okay, is it decent enough? Like, all right, let's put in the show. So it's a lot of scrambling. But it's great. Yeah, she's been awesome. And I hope then that, like, you know, you see people like Mina Kimes and Charlotte Wilder and just on the sports side. And then women on the comedy side who like sports as well. And it's like, hey, we can all do this thing as well.

and I hope that inspires more people too. There you go. Of the four people that you've just mentioned, including yourself, three have now been on this podcast, waiting on you, Mina Kimes. Drop the dog, get on the podcast, Mina Kimes. Yeah, I mean, she's your co-worker, so you should be able to. I have to bow down at ESPN to get you guys on my stuff. What's funny is, like, I've been on her podcast now that'll be hitting soon, I think. But like, you know, not on Puck Soup yet, but that's because we're rebel.

We're not part of the Disney family. I wanted to ask you about comedy because I found it fascinating that you actually, you know, took a deep breath and hit the stand-up stage to kind of figure out your comedy, which is something I've never had the guts to do ever. What drew you to it and how did you find the experience? Honestly, I never thought I'd do it either. And then I did like improv and obviously really like that. just fun playing around and a lot of people like I've mentioned this before we have to do

early stages at UCB where I did my improv where you have to come up you come up with a premise for a scene based like you got a suggestion we have to tell um like a story a monologue based off like a real life story right for people to get suggestions and I would always have something like someone would say like car and I'd be like well I got a story about this like anything that you can kind of think of and my friends are like dude like you should do stand up you have so many weird things that have happened in your life that, like, you can tell in a good way. I'm like, hmm, I never thought about that. And then I do like Instagram stories.

And I realized when I was doing Instagram stories, I was, like, making each one of them a bit at the point where, like, I made a bit. And, like, my ex-boyfriend's, like, sister-in-law messaged me because she was like, I can't believe you'd make a joke about that, blah, blah. And I was like, no, that's a bit. Like, that's not even half real. Like, and I realized I was, like, doing comedy. I'm like, oh, you know. And then I had a friend just be like, go try Caroline stand-up class.

Like, she's like, I did it. I think you'd have fun. And so I signed up and I was like, I was unemployed at the time. I was just like, unemployed. I'm like, whatever. I'll just try this. And then I was going to bail out. I'm like, I don't want to do this.

Like, I don't want to do this at all. Like, why would I want to do this? And then the lady who was running the class, Linda Smith was like, listen, I work with a lot of broadcasters. At the very least, she'll have fun. And I'm like, no, the very least I'll have crissling anxiety. you want to move on. But I did the class and like you have to come with like two two new minutes each time. You go up, everyone sucks for the most part. So it was like, good. We all are just swimming around here with like our heads cut off. So we, I did that. And then I was going to retire after my class show. I was like, I did it. That's good. But then obviously you do it. And, you know, we come from a world where we all prepare so much. We work so hard. I worked so hard on that.

best that when I did it, like it did really well. And I love that feeling of people laughing in that, like adrenaline. It feels like you're doing like a million drugs up on stage. You're like, I'm the king of the world. And I was like, I need to do this again. And so you get addicted to that feeling of like, I'm just like power almost. And so I hired my like feature to kind of just like help me. I still didn't really know how to write a joke. I was just like freewheeling it, figuring out as I went along. And then I now understand like so much more of the anatomy of me of a joke because we're writing jokes every day.

And I just signed up for like a hosting and crowdwork class because I'd really like to, there's always a need for like hosts at so many shows. We do that. Yeah. We, you know, we already are hosts. So kind of learn like I'm not comfortable throwing it out to the audience. I'm starting that next week and then, but I'm invited to do a couple of roast. And I really want to get back on stage because like now, once you go, up there, like, you realize there's a lot of really bad comics. And, like, if you can just have some idea of how a joke goes, like, you'll be okay. So it's, honestly, though, Greg,

like, if you're ever thinking about it, I highly suggest even just going, like, if you want to take, like, a class, I think the class is the best way to sort of start building, like, a set, because then it forces you to write, because that's the hardest part. Like, we're so busy, you're like, yeah, I don't want to do that. Like, why would I go to an open mic on a Tuesday. Like, I'd rather watch, you know, Succession instead. So, yeah, but it's, it's a great activity. Your comment about there being bad comics just reinforces that you've been around the clubs in New York. Do you watch Succession? I do, yes. I've just started season two. Oh, you just started Season two? All right. So I'll hold off my, no, no, listen, you and I are,

in the same boat, which is that season, so I'm a, I was, I'm a big billions fan. And I always felt that like, yeah, right. So I always felt that, and maybe this is because of what Brian Copplin has said about, about succession being a little bit derivative. I felt like I had to be either team billions or team succession. So I didn't watch season one a succession. And then like, everybody that I ever respected was like, watch the show. You'll really like it. And of course, I loved it. And then we binged it, you know, we binged it fast enough to catch up to this season. So. I think we were in the same boat. It's an easier one to understand, I think, like, Succession and Billions is, like, a little bit more. Oh, yeah, Billions is all... Yeah, it's all Labrantly and Slyde Hand and the whole thing. And Succession's more like a soap opera, but, like, funny. It is, yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Do you see yourself in any of the characters? Well, I did, like, Charlotte Wilder put up, like, one of those, like, what character are you? And I got Logan Roy, so that's not right. I think that might have been the part. I might have gotten Logan as well when I took like a BuzzFeed quiz. Yeah, right? Like you're entering control and you're going to make sure that everyone is your bitch, basically. Right, exactly.

Never allow anyone in your life to get over. Just keep your foot on their throat at all times. Yeah. It's a really good way to go through life. I love, Karen Culkin in it is so good. He is just, I love his character. Yeah. And it's, it's, you know, it's fun to see the dynamics.

and it's also fun because I think they've done a good job, as you'll see through season two, kind of, listen, everybody needs their Game of Thrones proxy now. And the fact is, is that on succession, you have no idea who's going to ascend to the throne at some point. That's so true. It is a game of throne. And I appreciate that about it. How, how, tell me, tell me what you found out about writing a joke now that you are, you know, a talk show host. What is the, what was the most complicated thing to, what was the most complicated thing that you were able to, able to kind of crack when it came to crafting a good joke that would say work on stage?

Well, the biggest thing I learned is like, even though you have a format, like, that doesn't necessarily mean that joke will be funny or that other things aren't funny. The biggest thing is like you take a point of view and then a relatable idea. So, and I have actually started when I'm on SNY. It's like, oh, the Mets bullpen is flaring up. Like it's, oh, you know, whatever. You don't notice it until it's bad. That's like herpes, right? So I've been doing that.

I've been using the point of view-related idea when I go on S&Y because I do the show called The Thread, which is just like kind of like a fun millennial show. And I'm sure it makes every sports writer who used to be on Daily News Live, like literally want to murder me. But I just like to have fun with that. And so that's when you see people these tweets and again I'll say Charlotte

and Nina are very good at the you know watching Antonio Brown go to the Patriots is like this right and so that's and you want to take people as far away from what they think they're going to read as possible good ones are always like dating ones

like when your boyfriend or when your girlfriend or when a guy or whatever like people can relate to that kind of stuff too but even right now you know we'll do what was it? You know, we'll have one like, oh, this is the biggest upset in Washington's

2016, and like, everyone thinks like, oh, you know, obviously election related. And then I was like, no, you know, the penguins beat the capitals or whatever. Like you have a little fun with different tags or, yeah, it's, it's, my, the jokes I like on our show are ones where we do get a little bit like, ooh, or like edgy.

what was it like we did one on Carlos Martinez blowing a kiss to Ronald Ocuna Jr. And then it was like, oh, and to make sure his point was heard, he blew the lead. Right. Like you could also, you can take these in different ways. The joke I really liked that. The joke I really liked on your show was the video that you guys did of the in-memorium of Fantasy League team names based on what had happened in like the first three weeks of the NFL season was pretty genius. Yeah, and again, the NFL season was so ridiculous that it was like, okay, let's do something on this. And those cold, those are cold opens that we try to, you know, we just go right into it.

My goal is to have them either some kind of like commentary on, like some kind of like trope that's either in sports or comedy, then we can just like parody. Because we don't, listen, like, we don't have any budget. We don't have any, like, we don't have like cameras that we can just go out and. shoot stuff. So many people are like, oh, wow, like, if you shot all these sketches and stuff, I'm like, where with what? Like, how? We don't, like, don't have anything. So if we can do it in our studio, that's where we have, you know, we're trying to bring sports and broadcasting together in, like, a weird way. And sometimes, like, they work. Sometimes they don't. Like, I did one the other day where I was sitting there, like, pitching ideas for how to make our show, the best show in the

world. And it was like, basically like I was pitching for a take, oh, that's already done, or Fox Santa Fe, or Game of Thrones. And then I realized when I was creating an idea that's like, oh, this is like in Austin Powers

when Dr. Evil was like, oh, what are the things we're going to do the mess with people? So then I just did, I literally got the script

and I had, I wrote it to the script from Austin Power. So then it was, you know, it kind of, it's just parenting what we've already kind of seen,

but putting in it as sports broadcasting. So I think the more, yeah, the more we do it, the quicker we'll get with our idea. and then maybe we'll get some money to go do something a little bit more extra, but that's what we're doing. But not half of the money breeds innovation.

Like, you know, it's, I always, like, my favorite time is working was when I was working for a community newspaper in Virginia because we had to, like, buy our own batteries and, you know, do all that shit. No one gave us anything. And we ended up, like, outworking the Washington Post at that point because, like, they had all these resources, but they got fat and lazy. And we were the little hungry puppy weekly newspaper that did. didn't have the same sort of access that they had or didn't have the same sort of resource that they had. So there's something, it breeds ingenuity, I guess, of the thing I'd say. No, and that's true. And it's like, I can't even imagine with Katie, like, her jokes, you'd probably have to send

them up to, like, a million different executives to sign off on them before she says them or different sketches. Like, I just say whatever the hell I want. And I have sworn, and, like, I'm not going to do that all the time. Right. We don't want it to be, like, some sort of stupid show, but, like, we can kind of have a bit more fun with it without like we have two people that are in our office that will just read over the google doc and be like yeah looks fine but not even sometimes they don't and sometimes i just know

goes on air so it's just uh that's the fun part of not having like a huge enterprise right now all right i want to ask you about a couple year old gigs but first i need to ask you since this is technically a hockey podcast as a canadian as a canadian what is your relationship with hockey these days. Oh, it's, I love it. Like, I'm obsessed with it. And I miss having it around a lot. Like, I love to say being in the East Coast now is great.

We work right near MSG, so, like, most of the time I just kind of want to go find a scalper and, like, go into the game. I should just get a press pass. You probably could finagle a press pass for the Rangers at this point. Yeah, I guess at this point. Yeah, I love it so much. I play. I just started playing in my, I play like an immensely good Chelsea Pierce. Chelsea Pierce.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, the one and only basically placed to play in New York City. But it's great. I will say I miss doing sideline for hockey. And like when I watch the games, like I loved traveling. We travel with anti-decks for three years and you, you know, you get to have so much fun with like your TV crew on the road and all these different cities. and we were so lucky to also stay in all these amazing hotels that the players did. So it's like a really comfy job.

But, yeah, it's so much fun. And so I kind of miss that. Like, I'm sure guys who retire miss that kind of stuff too. But, yeah, I mean, I'm a Leaf fan. I've been, like, open about that. And I think now not being, like, a reporter for any network, I've been, like, flashing my colors a little bit more. And I also feel of people have been, people, whether you work at ESPN or Fox or NBC,

like, well, maybe not NBC, but the other ones, people are kind of being a bit more bullish with like their passion for their teens in a way. Like people know it. Yeah. Not the reporters, but like the host, the anchor, like we kind of show that stuff a little bit more. And so I've been showing my Toronto colors a lot. And we'll have to see.

I mean, I'm curious to see how the Leafs do this year. Interesting start to the season. There's a lot of good things about it. the division is dicey to me. I'm not sure what we're going to see from Tampa or even how much gas like Boston has to be able to continue as they've done.

But I, you know, it's like someone asked me, you know, what, I was listening to Anthony Stewart on Hockey Central and he's like, you know, scoring a goal at ACCC is just like all he ever wanted. And I'm like, that's when I broadcast there when I was with the ducks. Like, that's all I ever wanted as a kid was to like be on hockey night in Canada and do that kind of stuff. And so that's kind of the, you know, when you see it, you get nostalgic for it.

So that's my relationship. I picked the Leafs to win the Cup, but I've become pretty aware of the fact that in order to do that, they might have to win every playoff game eight to seven. And I don't know if that's, I don't know if that's a possibility. Like, that's a toughie. It's just like, I mean, I know it's still so early, but I mean, they already look kind of in midseason form against the blues. still it's just like it's almost not even about what you have it's just like about what you you

know playoff you run up against and I'm just freaking over the Bruin destroying everything in my life every playoff and I'm like I'm not even going to well I'm not watching this game I'm just like yeah whatever do you think I know that you're a huge fan of the raptors run um is it it would it from a Toronto perspective would a leif's win be a bigger Toronto party than the raptors win I know nationally the Raptors became Canada's team. The least will never be Canada's team. But do you think that locally, that celebration would eclipse that of the Raptors? I'd say, I'd say on just hearing that, yes, I would say at least when the Stanley Cup will be so, so massive.

But then what I learned watching the Raptors this year was like just the, first of all, everyone in Toronto was start for a championship. So even my mom that doesn't watch basketball ever was like a massive Raptor fan. And then like her and their friends are talking about it. And they're going out honking their horns after games. And they're like, okay, if you have all these auxiliary people that just watched hoops for the last series. But and the fact that the whole country was into it. But I don't know. I want to say hockey is a, is number one like first in Toronto.

But then like you see such a different cross section of fans or hoops that like that doesn't. doesn't transfer over to hockey a lot of the time. But, like, hockey fans are still hoops fans. Like, I don't know. I mean, I would say, like, everyone's like, oh, well, wouldn't you trade this for a Lee Stanley Cup? I was like, 100% in a heartbeat. But, like, I'm still, can still be a fan of this team.

But, like, I guess, I guess it still would. The city would still blow up if they, they want. Like, it would be mayhem. Who was your guy on the ducks? Who did you appreciate interacting with? with on the ducks when you were with them. I don't really good question. I'd say, obviously, when he was there, Pat Maroon was great.

Oh, man, absolutely. Such a good guy to be able to talk to. And when they were losses, it was like, who could I talk to? That would be good. Frantel Beauchman was good, too. These are older guys. Yeah, yeah. Looking younger, Hampas Windhelm is always a joy to talk to, really nice person.

And, you know, to then forwards of, like, Jacob Silverberg. And, I mean, that's pretty much it that I could, I'm like, I mean, Getsoff always did stuff, but, like, he's not really much of a quote machine at all. But no, not at all. Yeah, the other guys are kind of take of a bit of time. I went through a lot of different players, I realized, like when Sean Horcoff was there before he had suspension, and then two guys like, PXA, Kevin BXA

always gave me a hard time on air. I never knew what I was going to get. What was interesting? What was the biggest rib that he had with you on the air? I think that he always, what was it? One time I asked him two questions, and then I went in for a third,

and he was like, wow, you're asking me three questions, like really working for your paycheck tonight, and I was just like, kind of rattled, and I wasn't expecting him to say that. And then, yeah, and then I said at the end of an interview like, thanks so much, you know, whatever, good luck in the third year. Thanks so much, whatever.

And then he's like, yeah, well, I didn't have a choice in doing this interview. So, like, you shouldn't be thanking me. I was like, oh, you just kind of caught off guard. Was he, he, he was joking, right? Or was he being a dick? Oh, yeah, you was joking. He always, then everyone always picked it up because they were like, oh, this is weird for a hockey player to be this, like, open and forward.

Yeah, but that's great from, like, Chris Stewart was on the team, then, like for points too, but they were always super, super nice to me. That's awesome. Last thing, I saw in an interview that you did that you mentioned a number of people that helped you out in your career. And one of the names was Mike Francesa. And I grew up in Jersey. I was a huge Mike and the Mad Dog fan.

I still follow Francesa, obviously through Twitter like everybody else. And I was, it was just kind of left hanging there in the interview. And I'm fascinated how what Mike Francesa did in your, your career to lend you a hand? Well, yeah, I know that, you know, it's so funny, Mike actually just phoned me, and my phone went off, like, really loud, and instead of answering it, I accidentally press decline, because I thought I was, I thought that it would be on my sound, like, on my computer. Yeah.

And I message his producer, because Mike's kind of an enigma. Like, you don't, you don't message Mike. Mike calls you at some point, and you better be ready. Right, exactly. Last year when I was off, after I left Barstool, I kind of really wasn't sure what I was going to do. Mike had always been helpful to me in, he did my first show ever at Barstool, and he always sort of was like just good at giving me advice. And, you know, we would go for lunch, and he would tell me, you know,

what would be good for my career, things to steer away from. from things he thought were helpful, not helpful. He set me up meetings with different executives that normally would never have even answered my email. He's going to do my show again. He's obviously doing these things just to help me out. So he let me co-host with him for one of his shows last year, which he was like, I'd never let anyone do that, but I know that this is good for you. So he's kind of gone above and beyond.

I mean, I ask him for certain things, too, but he's. certainly has kind of reached out in that regard. But he's been honest with me, like, about certain career choices I've made. He hasn't necessarily been a fan of them. And he's kind of helped me navigate those. But that's, like, cool. Like, I don't think a lot of people think Mike Francesa and think mentor to peers. Right, right, exactly.

So that's a different side of him, I think, that you've just brought to the, is he going to be mad at you that you've made him look like a good guy now? Um, he doesn't care at all. He would not. I mean, if it made it, if he even knew I mentioned him in that piece, I'd be surprised. But maybe he did hear about it. You never know.

Like some, his words are more, like, he might not talk to me all the time about my career, but when we have talked about it, he's been like, you need to do this. This is, you know, you're good at this. This is who you should do. Blah, blah, blah. There's an opportunity over here. set you up this meeting. And it was like, wow, I'm kind of like a very godfather in a way for your career.

He one billion percent knows you mentioned him. That guy's got more Google alerts than Belichick set up for his own name. Come on, let's be honest. Yeah, that's true. He'll be like, you talk about me again. Stop it. All right, Julie. Where can people find your stuff?

Yeah, I mean, just follow me on the old IG, you know, Julie SB underscore and then Twitter, JulieSB underscore TV. and Bubo Sportsnetwork.com would be the best place to watch our show because it's a lot of fun and weird and like we do crazy stuff. James Wuzniewski and I actually did like a chirp madlib last week where we did madlips but it was chirps to different hockey players at hockey players. And he, this was his idea, but he wanted to do a shot of whiskey before we did the chirp. So it was got a little weird out there, but it was a lot of fun. I love it. That's so good.

You're brilliant, and I'm so happy that you found your niche, and you found what you wanted to do, and continued success. Thank you so, Greg. Well, I want to have you on my show, so when you're in New York, let me know in your town and we'll do this again. Well, can we be in the drinking show? Yeah, we'll get hammered. If you really want the true me, let's do the drinks with binks. That'd be the true me. be the full Greg.

Perfect. Thanks, Julie. Awesome. Our thanks to Julie Stark Banks for her time on this very podcast. Of course, as per usual, while the mics were not on, a salient conversation occurred in which you were talking about the Joker movie and which Batman villain would then be the next one to have its own solo movie because Joker made a lot of money, which means that we're definitely going to get gritty reboots of other Batman villains.

Sean correctly pointed out that a gritty penguin, probably isn't long for this world. Probably isn't going to happen. I said Clayface from the old animated series would be awesome. Like an actor who gets stuck in goop and then can morph his body into different things would be kind of awesome. Like from a body horror perspective. But the answer is TwoFace. The answer is, you know, like...

Harvey Dent, yeah. Yeah. Like he's... I mean, obviously it's like another sort of fall from grace thing. he wouldn't be, you know, mentally ill, like the Joker, I guess, is in this movie. Yeah, only in this movie is the Joker mentally ill. All the other iterations of the Joker, he's a very normal fucking guy. It'd probably be Two-Face would be the guy.

I mean, like, personally, you know, I'd love to see someone trouncing around as the riddler who can't stop riddling people. but like what's the end game on that one? There isn't one. Yeah. So the answer is King Tut from the old 1960s Batman series. A guy who... It's got the man that in there. I'm saying.

Firefly. A big Batman who becomes summarily obsessed with Egyptian culture and wants to rule Gotham as a pharaoh. You know, they really should just like do all the good Batman. graphic novels, the long Halloween and things like that. Like, that would be sick if they just made a bunch of those into movies. They wouldn't cost a lot because they're just, you know, kind of regular. They don't really have big action set pieces for the most part.

And I guess they kind of already did the Dark Night Returns with maybe Superman. And they already did. Was it No Man's Land? I think it was called when they did The Dark Night Rises. But no, your point's taken. I know this is just you try to get Calder Man on. the big screen, obviously. He's so cool.

He loves the calendar, Greg. Did you see the trailer for Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn? No. Not really interested. Ewan McGregor plays Black Mask without the Black Mask and appears to be basically playing Jared Leto's Joker, but he's not the Joker. So just in case you had high hopes for that movie. You know, I didn't, interestingly. I didn't go in going like, I bet this one's going to win.

Finally win Margot Roby or Oscar. Yeah. Now, don't you disparage the good name of Margarabi. She was awesome in Wolf of Wall Street and I Tanya. She's good. Yeah, I agree. Second best figure skating movie of all time behind the cutting edge. Blades of glory.

Sure. All right. Sean, you have a quiz for us? I do. Are we finished with the Batman talk? We don't have to be We haven't even gotten to Maestro Or

You know The ventriloquist guy Who I can't remember his name But I think the dummy's name is Arthur Hear me out Solo Catwoman movie Never been done Yeah that's true

Can't miss That's not true That's not true That's not true I know it's not true I'm fucking sarcastic First time on the podcast I don't know

You're not not always the smartest guy, so I got to keep it on this. Oh, how dare you? Why? Because I'm from New Jersey. That's right. Okay. And I think that's fair to say. Now that you've called Greg not smart, that segues nicely into a quiz. I'm smart. Do you guys like to do a hockey quiz? I mean, yeah, that's the one that you're offering. Here's how this quiz is going to work. I haven't done this format before. So hopefully, hopefully this is going to work. Well, it's pretty straightforward. What I'm going to do is I'm going to give you a, I've spent some time combing through the various leaderboards of various teams. They're their career leaders and their single season leaders. I'm going to describe, I'm going to describe a leaderboard and then I'm going to give you two teams.

And I want you to give me the player who would appear on both of those team leaderboards. And let me give you an example. I'll give you a couple of examples to how this is going to work. So if I were to say that I wanted the player who is in the top three career wins by a goaltender for both the Montreal Canadians and the Colorado Avalanche, you would say... Dave Avescher. Exactly. Yes. This is going to go great.

This is going to be fantastic. That would be Patrick Waugh would be the guy that we'd be looking for. If I were to say the top three... single season point totals for both the L.A. Kings and the Edmonton Oilers, you might think of a guy by the name of Wayne Gretzky. My Camilleri. Yes, exactly. Oh, wait, Camelary never played for the Oilers. That's stupid to say. Not yet.

There's time. Wait, didn't me? No, he was there. Remember they bought him on for like a minute? Didn't they? Am I crazy? Well, I said it. So I think it would be me who is crazy here,

but now I have to look it up, don't I? Yeah, Mike, Cam, I think you're smarter than the average bear on that one. I think he was there for like a cup of coffee. I don't think so. They were like, oh, it's not offense Camilleri. And then he, wait, that's right. And didn't they trade, it was, he went there from the L.A. Kings. That's what it was.

The King signed him. He had three goals and 15 games, and they traded him to Edmonton for UC Yocan. Oh, at the very end of his career, at the very end of his career. Yeah, there you go. Boy, this guy fucking bounced around, huh? So wait. So, wait. Sean, was the answer my Camilleri?

Yeah, I totally was my Camel. Now I need a confirmation on that. Okay. So there you go. Good quiz. Thanks, guys. All right. Have a good one, folks.

Bye, everyone. All right. So here we go. And it's going to be the typical kind of Pucksoo format. I've got five rounds. And just we'll kind of go, most points after after five i don't know do you guys want to do you guys want to have stealing we we mentioned that last week yeah stealing's cool stealing all right uh who who wants to go first

what is what is how do we steal like well well is each of you yeah you get it wrong yeah you get it wrong we'll give the other person one guest to uh to to to steal it all right uh so i don't know who who wants to go first or who wants to take first crack at it uh Greg i won last week but i'm I'm going to defer on... Okay. I'll take it. I'll go first. Probably the right call.

I'll dive in the pool. So Greg's going first. All right, Greg. Top three career points by a defenseman for both the St. Louis Blues and the Calgary Flames. Who would that be? Al McInnis. Very good.

So we're starting off with the easy ones. Greg's got one point. Ryan, top five points in a single season for both the Pittsburgh Penguins and the New York Rangers. Points in a single season. Alex Kovalev? No. Greg, would you like to try to steal?

I'll steal it. Did we forget about the incredible mulleted Yarmier-Yager? Yarmier is correct. Oh, Jesus Christ. Oh, man, you're over here being like, is it fucking Brian. Brian.

Boy. All right, so Greg's got a two-nothing lead after one round, And I'm not a math guy, but that seems bad. You hate to see it. It does. You could clinch this by round three. Greg, top three wins in a season by a goaltender for both the Dallas Stars and the Chicago Blackhawks. Oh, come on now.

That's got to be, you know, I don't know if the prize at the end of this quiz is a billion dollars, but I'm going to go with Eddie Belfour. Well done. I was briefly concerned you might fall into the Marty Turco trap, but you avoided that minefield. Ryan, you're down 3-0. Yeah, that's right. Wrong Marty for a trap, by the way. You got it.

Yeah, that's very good. Thank you. Thank you. Ryan, top three points in a season for both the Boston Bruins and the St. Louis Blues. Oh, I got it. Don't. Yeah, I bet you do. Don't.

Do I got it? He's just trying to get in his head. I might not have it. I've got two that I'm thinking of, but I might be wrong. Tune them out, Ryan. Don't listen. Esposito? No, that can't be right.

No. No. Espizzo did not play for St. Louis. Greg. Yeah. All right, I'm going to steal, and it's one of these, it's one of two guys. I'm going to go with the more logical one, which is Adam Oates. It's correct.

Jesus, great. Nothing. I was thinking it could have been Craig Janney, but I don't think he played all that well in St. Louis. Definitely not. I mean, top three, you think about, like, Adam Oates is one of the top three scores in Boston Bruins history. Like, that's a, that's a fucking new. I straight up, don't think of when I think of the Bruins, I guess. It's, it's, it's a perfect sense.

He had the one monster year in 93. Yeah, he had that one insane season. Who are the other two? Is it, like, what, like, Neely and Middleton? I think it's Esposito, both probably twice. because Esposito had like 150 point seasons back in the 70s and or would have got close. He'd be on the top 10 list. I thought you said, you said single season.

Okay. That's why I got fucked up. My bad. It must be. All right. But that's why I didn't think of freaking. I did prepare a tiebreaker, but I feel like maybe we're not going to eat it. I don't know that it's going to be.

No, it's fun. Listen, I'm the Carolina Hurricanes right now. It's so things can come crashing down. any moment. I might have to go call up Justin Williams to come save the day at some point during this quiz. Could happen. All right. Great. Top five points in a single season for both the Detroit Red Wings and the Los Angeles Kings. Interesting. I'm going to go Luke Roba Tye. No. Incorrect. Ryan, you want to try to steal? I honestly have no idea. This is not. This is not.

Not my forte because I only started watching... Yeah, that's right. I only started watching the NHL in like 2002. So, like, these are all just guys that are like, I think that might be right. L.A. Kings. Yeah, it's a tough one. It's a tricky one. Who would be?

Yeah, I got a pass. This would be a tough one for Ryan because this is going back a little bit further than some of the other ones. It's Marcel Dion. Oh, shit. Oh, sure. I had no idea he had that kind of season for the Red Wings. He did. I think he had one. I think it's like he's like got one appearance on that leaderboard. Always good where the quiz master says, I think he.

I think. This could be right. I think it's possible. We may edit this out. And I love what I watch. Alex Trebek all the time. The top points in a single season for the Red Wings, it's Steve Eiserman, Steve Eisenman, Steve Eisenman. And then Marcel Dian had a 121 points season. in 1975. I love watching Jeopardy and hearing,

sorry, sorry, I'm pretty sure the answer might be. It has been confirmed. Can confirm. It's correct. All right. It's Ryan's turn. Ryan, top three points in a season by a defenseman for both the Red Wings and the Pittsburgh Penguins. By defenseman, Red Wings, Penguins. Ah, oh, yes. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Can I give you a hint? I'll give you a hint.

It's not Jonathan Erickson. Oh, see, I was going to say Nick Lidsstrom, the famous Pittsburgh Penguin. See, this is the thing of, I don't know if he played for the penguins, but I'm going to say Paul Coffey. That is correct. Oh, I'm a really smart guy. I knew it, dude. Got it. It was either, I was thinking maybe it was Larry Murphy.

Larry Murphy was the trap on that one. And Murphy never had the big, like, he was very good for like a 35-year-old with the Red Wings, but he was either. He was the solid veteran by that point. Yeah, and that's always the thing with the Red Wings where it's like, oh, I guess I could say like Dallas Drake and that might end up being right or something because they just signed so many like old guys at the very end of their careers or whatever. But yeah. Yeah. All right. It is, so it's 4-1.

He's alive. He's got a bunch of his chance here. It was 4-1. It was 4-1. This is, it's, yeah. These, by the way, are incredibly. increasing in difficulty as we go. So that's maybe a bad sign for.

Greg, you just got to play defense here. So it's great. It's great, right? Greg. Yeah, but isn't playing defense just getting shit right? Is defense basically offense? Dude, I'm an NHL fan. I've never heard that philosophy before. No.

Defense is you just hem and haw and the podcast is really boring for 45 minutes and then it ends. Gotcha. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, you're speaking my language. as a Devils fan. Greg, top three single season penalties and minutes for both the Montreal Canadians and the Boston Bruins. Top three single season and penalty minutes, Montreal Canadiens, Boston Bruins.

I am going to say Chris Nyland. Correct. Yes! Good job. Knuckles! Nice one. That makes it 5'1. Technically, this is over.

That wraps it up, yeah. I, I, I, let's, we'll, we'll finish the round. Uh, this one is maybe also not. Well, you know what, Ryan, you got a shot at this because I think it's, I think it's, your team is involved. Oh. Top 10 single season goal scored for both the Calgary Flames and the Toronto Maple Leafs. Um, single season. See, this is another thing where it's like, well,

I can think of a bunch of guys who scored. Is this top what for a single season? It's top ten. Although, you know what? Since the winner's already been decided, I'll even slide Ryan a hint. This guy is actually number one on the Flames' all-time single-season goals list. And he's not Jerome Aginla. I know it's not Jerome.

Again, this is a thing of like I'm not totally sure he played for the Maple Leafs, but I think he might have is Joey Mullen? No. I didn't think so. It's actually Lanny MacDonald. Lanny McDonald. Yeah, I should have gotten that. One of those weird, like, 60 goals?

Yeah. 66? I just looked at it. Holy smokes. He had 66 goals. Just to be clear, not Gary Lehman. Not Gary Lehman. Well, see, this is tricky because the Flames and Leaves actually have a lot of crossover.

It's not Gary Roberts. Dougie Gilmore. Although Gary Roberts is number two. Gary Roberts would have been a good... Not Joe Nundike. So there's... There were a lot of... There were a few minefields in there.

But yes, that's... And I'm sorry, Greg. I didn't give you a chance to steal there, but I... I wouldn't... I'm stopping the fight. I'm stopping the damn fight. I feel you. That's fine.

Five one win for Greg through... That sucks. Through four rounds. That means I have to write a quiz soon, huh? Shit. Okay. I guess so. Yeah.

Okay. Well, that was... First of all, kudos to Sean for creating an exciting new format for the quiz. I enjoyed that one as the winner. But good quiz. Good trip down memory lane, Sean, on that one. All right.

It's Puck's here for this week. Thanks to Julie Storpeanks. Thanks to everybody for listening. You can read my stuff on ESPN.com where this week I had a feature on the Devils and Rangers having spent some time in New York with both those teams at the start of the season. And my column, the wish list publishes on Thursdays, and I am in charge of doing power rankings for the month of October, which means that you can look forward to probably some fucking NHL teams as Halloween candy or costumes by the end of the month, because you know that's going to probably happen.

Let's see, what do I have to plug? I also do power rankings, which sucks and I hate. Um, because, uh, people just email you. Clearly, you didn't watch the, you're right, I didn't watch this fucking Tuesday night, Winnipeg Jets game. You got me. Um, uh, yeah, sign up for the Patreon. I have the newsletter on there. Uh, we have the new slash old podcast stick to sports that we're doing on there with me and

Sean Gentile, also of the athletic. Um, we're going to do those like once a month, but the newsletters for, four bucks. and you get one newsletter and one newsletter a week and then a bonus podcast episode as well. I also have power rankings because we figured that there were very few of those. I do mine a little differently, so if you would like to read them and then go into the comments and tell me I'm doing them wrong and that I should instead be using a format that helps your favorite team, that would be great. That's always valuable feedback that I enjoy getting a lot. And I've also got a post that just went up today on Wednesday.

If your team is off to a terrible start, I've got maybe some optimism for you because I went back through history and found a half dozen teams that got off to really, really bad starts. And then it ended up not mattering at all because they were just fine and everything worked out. I'm trying to think, was there one last year? Was that? Somebody would have mentioned it. Somebody would have said something if that had. if that had happened. So I went through and did that and then I picked a bad team from this year and tried to pair them up and some were, some were easier than others.

We completely forgot to mention one thing that we should probably talk about, which is the Flyers Rage Room that debuted this week. That sounds fun. This is a very relevant to Puck'siop conversation. For those who don't know, rage rooms are a thing that have started in Japan. They came to the U.S. It's a literally you pay money to go into a small room and smash dishware, guitars, flat screen TVs with baseball bats and sledgehammers. And now in the Flyers case, a hockey stick. It's got to be the single most on-brand promotion for a team. Yeah, no shit.

Right. Ever fucking seen in the history of the world. Yeah. The only way it could be more on brand is if they had a goddamn plate of snowballs in there. Freakened some batteries to throw, right? It's a batteries. You guys remember when they did that one time? and we still fucking bring it up 50 years later.

Cool. Does the concept of a rage room appeal to either of you? I don't think so. I mean, I wouldn't use a rage room. I've definitely seen some people at hockey games who could probably use one. So if that gets those people to chill out, then, yeah, by all means. Craig, I got a freaking rage room for you. It's the freaking oval office these days.

Have you heard of this? Have you heard of this? President Trump? If Radko Gudis was still on the flyers, would that be his room? Would he just live in that room? Yeah, I mean, they missed it by a couple of years just because now they actually have a goalie. So that would have really helped, I would say, four years ago. That would have been a great idea.

Now it's just kind of little, too little too late. How many times does Bobby Clark pay to be in the rage room? Or does you just get to go there as a member of the franchise? He's like the ambassador, the team ambassador to the rage room. Yeah. Can you guys come back in two hours? Bobby's in there. Most rage rooms, by the way, around the country have an option where it's like a BYOB option,

but it's like bring your own breakables, I guess it is. Like you could pay 25 bucks and bring your own shit there and hit it with a sledgehammer. Yeah. So, like, if you hate the China that you got for your wedding, you could bring it there and just beat the shit out of it with a sled camera. What if you said it like China? Like, remember, freaking President Trump himself? The drump did, yeah, he did. The freaking.

I got to look into this guy. He sounds like a hoot. What if you wanted to go hit a giant Cheeto, orange cheetahe. Okay, Greg, come on now. All right. Okay. Maybe go in there with a cup of freaking kofifi. Oh, no, come on.

I know what you're saying out there, Clay. Stick to sports, am I right? Geez, hot takes all around. All right, that's the show for this week. We already did the plugs. Thanks for listening. We love you all. Mailbag on the Patreon coming up.

Bye-bye. See you. 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 show. It's in tunes. It's your weekly bowl of hockey and nonsense. Puck Soup.

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