Puck Soup - Kane't Take It Anymore

Episode Date: January 10, 2022

Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slapshots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to what if you commute. We also cover movies, TV shows, it's in tunes. It's your weekly bowl of hockey and nonsense. Bootsu. Hey, I'm Ryan Lambert from Elite Prospects, EPRinkside.com. I'm Sean McIndoo from the New York Times. That's right.

And I'm sure that you're going to, you know, we got some mailbag questions about that for when we do the mailbag on the Patreon. And I'm sure you're going to be more than willing and able to answer every question we've received. Yep. Yeah, exactly. And the most overdone internal joke is, like I will now for this entire podcast be referring to every player as Mr. That's right. For the entire thing. Yeah.

We should actually start off with a little bit of sad news, I think. We lost Bob Saggett over the weekend. Yeah. And obviously everybody knows him from Full House. I, of course, know him as the director of one of the greatest comedies of all time, dirty work. Yeah, how is, somebody tweeted that out, and I never saw it. You never saw Dirty Work? I never saw it, but it looks.

Hilarious. Well, first of all, hold on. You can't be surprised that I have not seen any given movie. This is CanCon, though. Yeah. I figured... Norm McDonald, it's... I'm surprised that I didn't. Like, as I was watching the trailer or whatever it was, I'm like, this seems like the sort of thing I should have seen.

Yeah. The other thing about that movie that few people know, based on a book by Roll Doll. Sure. a very strange thing. But yeah, it's, you know, one of my favorite comedies of all time. One of the movies I have, one of those movies I've seen a hundred thousand times. Oh, man. All right.

I've got to go find this thing. Yeah, it's really, really funny. It's, you know, if you're a norm fan, if you're not a norm fan, I wouldn't think you would have a hard time. If you're not a norm fan, there's something wrong. I feel like we covered this. Sure. Yeah. Yeah.

But yeah, the very funny thing about dirty work is it's like, I think, less than a year after Sagitt quit America's funny film videos. And he was like, my first project is this really gross, like indie comedy or whatever. I guess it's not in indie. I think it was a 20th Century Fox picture, perhaps. But yeah, anyway, point is, you know, Bob Sagitt, I think, spent a lot of his career running from the fact that he was the America's Funniest Home Videos and Full House guy. Yeah. And that's, like, I knew him from the, I was never a full house watcher. Yeah.

That was not a thing in my family for whatever reason. but America's Funniest Home Videos. Like, I remember watching that with my family when it first came out and just dying laughing. Like, just thinking this was the greatest thing. And like somebody tweeted that that was YouTube. There was a time where YouTube was on for half an hour on Sunday nights and you just had to all watch it at the same time. And, you know, just right. People getting like, you know, having things fall on their heads and stuff.

And that's like the thing with Bob Sagitt was always this like amazing, you know, duality that he was, that became very, very famous as the host of two of the most family friendly friendly programs ever. And also was one of the filthiest comedians to ever, like to the extent that even other filthy comedians would stop when he got going. And because it was, uh, it was going to be horrific. You know, I think many of us, probably not you, saw the film The Aristocrats, and he has a really nasty... I did see that one. I did see that one. I think that strange.

But yeah, he has a really nasty joke in that. You know, very funny guy. And what am I going to say? I loved Full House as a kid. I thought he was hilarious on that show when I was, you know, eight years old or whatever. So, RIP to a legend. Obviously. Yeah.

It's very strange that we got to protect Artie Lang at all costs because I'm 99.9% sure. Yeah, we lost Jack Warden many years ago. Rickles died in the last several years. John Goodman's in the movie. Chris Farley, of course. Like, a lot of people from this movie are not alive anymore. Oh, the other thing about Durywork, by the way, Christopher McDonald. who you would know as

Shootin'R Gavin is the bad guy in it. Anytime that guy's the bad guy in a movie, it's a fucking 15 out of 10 performance. Yeah. It sounds amazing. And also, you just made me Google John Goodman dead, question mark?

No, he, I just watched, I just watched the Righteous Gemstone season premiere last night. Boy, that show. also unbelievable. Like I very rarely laugh out loud at a TV show. A lot of TV shows, you know, you get into the thing of, yeah, that's funny. I get that that's funny.

Righteous gemstones, there's a lot of laughing out loud I do. So, very, very exciting. And apologies to friends and loved ones of John Goodman. That's right. We made you worry there. there's also a big weekend in hockey news because of, I would say mostly because of the Evanderkaint. Yep. So the reports basically were that he, and tell me if I'm getting any of this wrong, because it was a little confusing, but he tested positive for COVID this after allegedly.

this after allegedly submitting a fake vaccination card with the sharks at the beginning of the season. They take him back the sharks and then he test positive for COVID over the holidays. And immediately goes to Canada. Am I getting that right? Well, this is one of those stories where there seems to be a lot of different versions floating around out there. and it will probably evolve and there's probably going to be some things that we thought were true or were led to believe that maybe end up not being. But yeah, you've essentially got the basics right. He, you know, he gets suspended. The sharks clearly don't want any part of this guy, even going back to the offseason.

They take him back because they really have no choice. but they take him back to the to the minor league team. Right. With no intention, I think, of ever having him come up to the NHL. And everybody assumes that this is moving towards get through this season. You know, he plays in the HL to show that he can still play. And then they buy him out in the summer, bite the bullet on whatever big chunk of money that costs them. And he becomes a free agent and everybody moves on.

But what changed over the weekend is that they, this story broke that he had violated COVID protocols. And essentially it seems to be that there are sort of two related things. One being that he traveled to Vancouver when he should have still been in his 10-day isolation period as per the protocol. Yeah. And the other being that he then stayed in Vancouver, Vancouver is, I think, where his home is, that he stayed in Vancouver past when the team expected him to return. He disputes both of those things, if I'm not much mistaken. I think that's a weird he said, she said, but okay.

Well, I think it's less about the actual timing of when he went and more about, I get the feeling that his claim is that he was given permission by the team, for example, to stay later and they're saying, no, we didn't. So I don't know when it comes to, you know, if he was supposed to be in a 10-day isolation period, that's not something where like your employer can just give you a, no, go ahead and hop on a plane and go home. But it also was during the time where the 10-day recommendation was getting shifted to 5 in a lot of places so maybe that played into it um but anyways the the result of it or at least the result as it stands now is the sharks have uh said that they're going to terminate his contract which means it's

he's he's basically done he's fired he gets nothing uh going forward uh and they don't have to buy him out they uh they're they're just done with him and in theory uh he becomes ununrestricted free agent now that will be the end of it. There will be an appeal from the NHLPA. That has already been filed. Yeah. They already filed the grievance. So this is far from a settled issue as to whether the sharks even have actually terminated his contract.

Like that's where we're at right now. I mean, I think at this point it's pretty much a given that he's done with the sharks. Like I think his contract will be terminated. The question will be, can the sharks walk away without any further obligation, or do they owe him some or all of the money that was left on his contract? Yeah, you've got some signing bonuses coming to him, for example. Yeah. Yeah. And because here's the thing.

I mean, NHL player contracts are supposed to be guaranteed. We all know this. You know, you all know if you sign a player on your team to an eight-year deal and he sucks after year one. too bad. There's no, there's no, you know, you can't get out of it. This isn't the NFL. This is, you can't renegotiate. You are locked in.

And that is something for all of the restrictive conditions that players have come to accept over the years as far as a hard cap and all the other stuff, that is one of the things that they still have is ironclad guaranteed contracts. Once they signed them, you're getting every dollar of that. money with the exception of buyouts and in buyouts you're still for a veteran getting two-thirds of it so it's uh you're you're well protected and the other thing with the buyout is if there's bonus money uh you get all of that bonus money right so which is why like the luch each contract for example is by is considered buyout proof so pain is owed uh four million dollars in in uh bonus

money over the next four seasons um right and so plus his, all of his, his other salary, which would have to be paid at two-thirds over twice the time, as per the buyout rules. So the point being, you can think whatever you think of Evander Cain, and I imagine there's probably not a ton of Evander Cain fans left out there. And you can think that the sharks are justified to want nothing to do with him, Sky. And you could think that he should ever play in the NHL again and whatever else. all fair but the nchl pa needs to to go hard on grieving this because you you simply cannot crack the door open on teams being able to say well you know what this guy's a jerk so we're just done with his contract uh we kind of went through this with the mike richard situation and

this this will be another round of it so i'm just over the next over the coming days and weeks i'm sure there's going to be people saying why is the pa you know standing up for this guy don't they it it's not so much a case of them standing up for evander kane you It's them standing up for everybody who has a contract that is supposed to be guaranteed and could become vulnerable to, you know, it's not guaranteed unless the team doesn't want it to be anymore. It's guaranteed unless there is an extreme violation on the part of the player, and they've got to fight very hard on how that gets defined. So the players association will do what they need to do, but this is, you know,

There's no circumstances where this ends with Evander Kane going back to the Sharks. Right. Yeah. No, he's done in San Jose. And you would think that despite everything or with everything that happened the last few years with him. And, you know, everybody knows what that is at this point. Teams would be like, oh, no, not interested. But here's a thing.

He scored like at a 30-goal pace last season. And so teams are interested. and I kind of can't believe that that's the case, but it is. And so let's think about this. Who do we think might be interested in a guy who can play either wing? I believe he's naturally a left wing, but he has played plenty of right wing in his career, and is a huge shithead who none of his teammates like, apparently.

who would want this guy? I'm trying to think, like, who is a good team that would want a left wing this badly? I'll tell you one that I did. We just posted a piece at the athletic just a few minutes ago by Alan Mitchell saying, should the Edmonton Oilers want to take a look at everything. Okay. Let's go. And that's the sort of, right?

It needs to be a good team. You're not bringing him into any sort of. sort of rebuilding situation. No, of course not. Yeah. It's got to be a team where you're, you know, you're thinking this is our final piece for the cup, so we'll hold our nose. And it's got to be a team that needs a winger. Yeah. That's, you know, Edmonton always is looking for more forward depth than a, you know, somebody to play the wing. And it's got to be a team where the people running the team are already kind of under the gun. Because as soon as you bring this guy in, you're in a lot, you're getting a lot of

bullshit thrown your way. Yeah, absolutely. You're getting absolutely. You're getting absolutely. a lot of and a lot of it is deserved and if it doesn't work everybody says yeah of course that didn't work and it's all on you uh but if you're you know ken holland and everybody's screaming at you to do something does that does that make sense i you know it's i i i think that the conclusion is still like you know no, this is not something the Oilers should or will do, but it was, you know, it was a team that as soon as I saw it, I thought, yeah, that would be, yeah. I mean, Duncan Keith's got all his magical leadership powers. So you could really. Yeah, I'm along similar lines. I'm kind of thinking, St. Louis maybe. I don't even, I can't even think of who their, like, second or third line left wings are off the top of my head. Um, oh, probably like, isn't everybody mad at Brandon Saad this year? He's a left wing.

I mean, you have to say I mean, Carolina could maybe use another piece up front. And they love signing these kind of value reclamation projects, yeah. Exactly. You know, it's,

there's a lot of teams that you can get yourself to maybe. I don't know that there's any teams I can get myself to, yes. anytime soon. Right. And the other piece of this that's kind of interesting is let's say they do the grievance. Let's say that as I suspect the end result is that the sharks do have to cut this guy a check for a big chunk of money.

And I could normally in a situation like that, if a player for whatever reason, you know, you see this in the NFL too, where you can release guys and they walk away, they get their money. And then you can say, okay, I can sign anywhere I want. I can find the best fit for me, the best place where I can go win. And I don't have to worry about how much I'm making. So I can sign at a discount. And, you know, which is, you know, what Tony DeAngelo did, even in Carolina, where he was sort of like, all right, I'm going to rebuild my reputation here. I don't know if Evander Cain, with all his ongoing financial problems is in a position where he can do that.

Yeah. Or does he need to, does, you know, if he's offered something, he need to take it. If he's offered something at below market value, can he take it? I do not know the answer to that, but it's a very unique situation with this guy, as it always seems to be.

You know who I just realized might be a good, a good fit, and they have like all the leadership stuff that you would want to say, and they probably do need at least one left wing is the Pittsburgh Penguins. Oh, boy. You got

Jake Gensel on the top line. And then Zach Aston Reese is your next best. Mark Dunk. Yeah, exactly. It's, you know, Evander Kane is an on-paper upgrade over Mark Dunk, but, you know, I'm sure the penguins are up against the cap pretty tightly. And it's going to be interesting, that's for sure. I can't decide if Evander Kane strikes me as absolutely not a Brian Burke type of guy. or 100% of Brianberg type of guy, but I feel like it's one or the other.

Yeah, and also, like, would Sidney Crosby put up with this, right? Like, that, I guess, is the other thing. Yeah, I just, I'm not thinking of a lot of really, like, solid teams that could use in a Vander Cain off the top of my head. Maybe Anaheim, but they're not, like, great or anything, and they're kind of building. Yeah, I don't think you want, it's a young enough team. I don't think you want that. I mean, I guess we, I don't know that they did. We have to mention Vegas just because Vegas seems to be in on absolutely everybody,

although they have less than no cap room at this point. Yeah, they actually have to trade somebody soon to squeeze Eichlor. And it can't be somebody even relatively cheap. It has to be a fairly expensive player. Like, I think I saw, like, it would have to be like, for example, Evgeny Dadaunov and Laurent Brassois, or, you know, William Carlson and a lower-end guy on the roster. Like, it's expensive for Vegas. I can't see that being a fit just financially.

But how many times if we said that, right? That's the Vegas Golden Knights team slogan. I can't see it being a fit financial. Oh, wait, they just did it. And they just catapulted Alec Martinez into one of the craters of the. moon. So. What about Nashville?

David Poyle, you know, he's got going for broke. Yeah. For broke. Not, I think there's a lot of, and I mean, look, this is sports, right? I know it's a lot of people are feeling like, no, the answer should be nobody. And maybe, yeah, but this, it's a 32 team league. You need one team.

Like, we've seen it in the NFL, right? Antonio Brown is different situations. largely to a van der kane but you know the same sort of guy and you know they there's always a team out there saying you know we can will be the team where he'll be on his best behavior and it's always we can fix him it's always on the understanding of zero tolerance and the first time you're you know two minutes late to a meeting you know but then you know well i mean that's what happened with the sharks this year right yeah like yep uh oh i don't know yeah it's it's a strange situation it will be evolving.

Nothing will happen, I'm sure. And, you know, there's also the question of if he is grieving, which he is, this termination of his contract, if that process takes a long time and it might, can he even sign anywhere else in the meantime? Or is he like in limbo where he's still kind of under contract and kind of not, but not a free agent? So it may be something where we don't have to worry about it for a while.

But yeah, at some point, this guy is going to want to try to be back, and then it's going to be very interesting to see how that plays out. The other piece of news where everybody's like, I can't believe they did this or would do this or whatever, is Mark Bergevin is now a senior advisor to GM Rob Blake, who reportedly signed an extension for four to five years. Yes. likely not unrelated

stories. Yeah, that's right. Very weird to me. Again, even leaving aside whatever PR implications you might think exist because of the Logan Mayu thing or whatever.

Just like, we need a guy to be a senior advisor to Rob Blake. Who's a guy who's never built a good team in his entire career. Who can we get? And they're, like, that's the thing I don't understand.

It's like, again, NHL teams are going to talk themselves into, you know, we actually are bulletproof in terms of any, you know, PR mistakes he could make. Sure. Okay, that's fine. but the guy's track record in Montreal stinks right like that's that's the ultimate thing that I think should be

oh here's why we don't hire the final right by accident and then and then not only went to the final but the team sucked so bad that he was immediately fired like less than six months after going to the final or whatever they were like we can't let this guy be around our team anymore Yeah, I mean, his track record Montreal was, he certainly had some things that worked out well and some that didn't like any GM.

But it's, I mean, even in the summer, right, everybody was when he was going in the last year of his contract and he had no extension, everybody was saying he's going to end up in L.A. Like, it felt like this had already been decided. And it was kind of a question of, you know, to the point of, okay, is he going to L.A. as the next GM? Like, is Rob Blake in trouble? And, you know, I think any time in hockey or any sport that you bring a reasonably big name into a front office not to be in charge, you're thinking, okay, how long until this guy's in charge? And that's where the extension of Rob Blake kicks in, where it's a very clear message that, no, this is Rob Blake's team. But Mark Bergevin will be sort of the senior advisor, which, again, it's a little bit, I mean, I guess it's similar to what Ottawa did with Pierre McGuire coming in with Pierre Dorian.

But it just always, it seems strange to me whenever a guy's been on the job for a few years and then you decide he needs the senior help to come in. Right. You know, Rob Blake's done a decent job, I think, with the Kings. But yeah, we don't really know what this looks like, right? I mean, this could be Mark Bergervan's big return where he's going to go and be, you know, maybe even a de facto co-GM in L.A. Or this could also just be Mark Bergervan going, you know what, I spent the last decade or so smashing my head against a wall in Montreal,

all, which is arguably the toughest market in the entire NHL. Now I'm going to go to L.A. I'm going to go to the office a couple times a week, sit in on a few meetings, hit the beach, hit the golf course, and just get, you know, at which point the rest of us are probably making a too big a deal out of the rest of it. But look, I mean, the Logomaiu thing we covered, we talked about quite a bit when it happened. I think all our feelings are known on that. but that, I mean, that didn't cost him his job in Montreal.

It certainly wasn't going to cost him his next job. No. Unfortunately, depending on your perspective. But we always knew he would be back when he wanted to be back. And I guess this is when he wants to be back. Yeah, I think that that was kind of, like him taking not a GM job is not at all surprising to be based on everything you heard. about, you know, Montreal. Like, Montreal had offered him an extension, whatever, last summer,

and he could have signed it at any point, but he was kind of like, unless they really blow my doors off money-wise, like, I'm kind of sick of this shit. So I don't want to be just a day-to-day GM anymore. And so now he gets to be a senior advisor to Rob Blake, whatever that actually entails, whether it's co-GM or whatever. I don't know. Like I said, I don't think that if I'm the Los Angeles Kings and I'm trying to power out of this rebuild that we've been through for the last few years and, you know, everything the Kings have done since the summer has kind of indicated they don't want to be rebuilding anymore.

I just can't see why you go, and Mark Bergevin is the guy who's going to give us all the good advice about this. Yeah, I mean, the answer is probably that he's the same as the answer for most of the hirings in the NHL. He's friends with somebody. Yeah, that's right. He's ex-roomates with somebody and, you know, they're giving their buddy a job. I got to see who he played Adam with, you know. Yeah, exactly.

And we're going to find out. Yeah. He had Luke Robitai were buddies. And that's, you know, that's probably how it works. And again, we don't know, you know, advisor can mean a lot of different things. It could be, you know, the number two guy in the whole organization for hockey decisions, or it could be glorified consultant who's just going to chill out and golf with his pals. We'll see.

How do you get that kind of girl? Boy, oh, boy. Sounds nice. Yeah, well, I mean, what you got to do is first you've got to play in the NHL for a lot of years. You don't have to be good, but you just have to play, make lots of friends, have lots of good stories to tell over a steak dinner, and you'll be set for life. Yeah. And anybody tries to tell you. Ideally, don't make a scandalously stupid decision that tarnishes the reputation of your whole organization.

But that part's optional if you can look past that. Yeah. And if anybody tries to tell you that you're wrong, you can just say you're going to beat the shit out of them. And if you're Mark. Yeah, that helps. It works. That's right. That may have been how it went.

He just may have shown up at the King's office and told Luke Robitai, like, yeah, I'm the new advisor to the GM. I don't think you are. And then he just, you know, I'd love to see you remove me from one hand. That's right. Yeah. So, you know, Luke Robbitae, just going to Rob Blake, just get me out of here. You can have an extension. Just let this dude, let this dude do whatever he needs to do.

That's right. The last bit of kind of surprising news on the weekend, I guess you would say, is that it seems like John Klingberg kind of requested a trade out of Dallas. Yeah. He denied that he requested a trade while also making it clear. That he would like to be traded. It seems like he'd be okay with a trade. Yeah. Yeah.

And the reason behind this, apparently, is that he wants $64 million over the next. next eight years. And Dallas wisely said, oh, that's not something we're interested in at all. John Klingberger, a guy who has been declining following a lower body injury maybe two, three years ago now, I seem to recall. There was a stretch where he missed a good number of games and then has never really been the same since. Like, it might be difficult to remember.

was a point four or five years ago maybe that everybody was like, oh, John Klingberg is like the next great young defenseman in the NHL. He had like a 70 point season or something. 67 points in his fourth season. He came in, was all rookie team his first year, 40 points as a 22-year-old, had 58 points the next year finished sixth in Norris voting, had took a bit of a step back, and then in his fourth year, 67 points, career high, and sixth in Norris voting again. So a guy with two, by the time he was 25, he had two top six Norris years. And since then, has been good, but not, not, he has not been that same guy. Yeah, I would say he's been productive.

vote since then. Yeah, he's been a guy that... But he hasn't been like, he was pretty good in that, in that Dallas Cup run. Yeah. But, or, you know, run to the final, I guess.

But like, yeah, he definitely isn't what people might think of John Klingberg as being anymore. And I'm not saying it's related, but it's the overlap to Mira Heiskenin and showing up and kind of becoming... Yeah. It's the, not necessarily stepping in as the number one guy there right away, but becoming like the, the blue liner of the future as, as clingbirds sort us took a step back.

Yeah. And he, more to the point, like, even if you want to say he's worth the $8 million, which of course he absolutely isn't, he has had some injury problems the last few years and he'll be 30 this summer and he wants eight years. You know, this would be to me a classic guy who ends his career, not with the team that signed, whatever his next contract is, and also on LTIR. That seems like a pretty likely outcome to me. So this is one of those things where, you know, for the team to not be interested in eight times eight on a guy. That's been there since he was like 20. Yeah. Yeah.

Who, like you say is, is about to turn 30 in the off season, makes absolutely perfect sense. Absolutely. That's the sort of deal that you would be very nervous if your team signed. That said, I don't think he's being unreasonable saying that's what I'm aiming for,

knowing what the defenseman market has been like over the last little while. Like, yeah, man, take your shot. Like we kind of just said in the can to, discussion, there's 32 teams. If that's your number and if you're just need to find one, it's your top priority, so only got to be one. 31 out of

32 teams can think that's a terrible deal. If you can find the one that will do it, or something similar, right? I mean, he's putting his price point out there and, you know, he ends up getting seven times seven and everyone goes, oh, yeah, he got less than he wanted.

And then you go, wait a second, he's still got a $49 million. Yeah. So, Yeah, I mean, for him to say, like, yeah, I want Jacob Truba money. Well, yeah, maybe. So, you know, the stars have already given Heisken in more than that. Yeah. The thing that's interesting.

You're still slotting it as your number two guy on your own team. It's not a ridiculous ask, even though it is a ridiculous ask. Yeah. The thing that's interesting is, you know what? like if the stars think Essel Lindell is worth almost $6 million, like, yeah, okay, I can see why John Clayburn thinks he's worth eight, right? Like, that makes, that makes some amount of sense. But the other thing about him is, you know, I just said he's not what he used to be and all that kind of stuff, but he's still a perfectly good defenseman. And I can see why any team would

want to acquire him. The question that I have is, is he only going to want to go to a team that's going to give him eight by eight because if he goes UFA this summer, he instantly loses out on that last year of his deal getting packed on, right? He loses the first date. So like a maxed out term on July 5th or whatever day free agency starts this summer, a maxed out deal that day is quite a bit different from a maxed out deal before that. Like even a day before that. That's right.

Like I said, I wonder, because there are a million teams that could use a right-hand defenseman as good as John Klinger. He'd have, if he gets, $4.25 million, right? And if he gets to UFA, they'll be, he'll probably, well, maybe be one of if not the number one defenseman. Like he'll, he'll get a ton of offers. And then it's just a question of that, you know, can you squeeze anyone enough? But yeah, the question of where he would go if he was traded, long, long list. Yeah.

But again, does that boil down to he would only want to leave Dallas if the team acquiring him, you know, was already willing to pony up the cash? Like a classic, not only are we trading for him, we'll sign him immediately to an extension. Yeah. And he probably would prefer that. At least according to cap-friendly, as I'm looking at it here, he does not have any trade protection. Right. So it really doesn't matter what he wants. Except that he's the one out here asking for the trade, sort of, from a team that's sort of in a playoff race.

Yeah. But the thing is, even if he doesn't want a trade, if you're Dallas, if you're not going to go eight times eight or whatever you think he would come down to to to stay, then you probably should trade him because you're going to get a lot for him and I don't think any of us think that Dallas is a legitimate cup contender. Obviously we're two years removed from them making a deep run so you never say never

but I think you move him anyways. And the thing is, the way this whole situation is played out, even with him saying that he wasn't demanding a trade or even asking for one, he had some comment where, Didn't he say something like, I don't feel respected or I don't. He indicated that the relationship with Dallas is maybe not great. Which, okay, you know what?

Sometimes it's just time to move on for both sides. But, you know, there's some guy who used to have a podcast used to talk about how players in the NHL just like to stay where their stuff is. I've never heard about this. It's a, yeah, I don't know. It was more of movies and stuff. but he and he uh this this doesn't sound like a guy who's worried about his stuff anymore he he sounds like he's ready to be somewhere else so uh you know if you're the dallas stars it's just a question of convincing yourself that uh you know even though we're x number of points out

of the playoffs we should move this guy get probably a you know a first round pick or whatever else uh you can get and uh you know and that's it it doesn't even have to be something that ends in bad feelings. We got seven or eight years or whatever it was out of you. You played great. Thanks very much. Go on. Get your big contract somewhere else.

It's not going to be us, but you wish him the best and you move on. Yeah. It'll be interesting to see what Dallas does, like if they feel like it. The point arrives when they do want to trade him. And hey, speaking of trade, did you know 90% of coffee from? the grocery store is actually stale. You heard that right. The coffee you know and think you love needs an upgrade. Instead of rebuying the same old, same old, let trade coffee send you something freshly roasted that you're literally guaranteed to love. Trade sells the freshest roasted and

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That's drinktrade.com. slash pock for $20 off your first three bags. The other thing, I guess, that came up this week that isn't a surprise, unlike all the stuff we've discussed before this, is that seems like the coyotes are getting closer to selling everybody who's not nailed down, which makes sense because they stink. And you know what? Montreal has passed them in their race to the bottom in points per se. Or if briefly did.

I think they reclaimed it. Have they taken it back? That's good for them. That's nice. But yeah. And selling everyone who's nailed down and has any value whatsoever, which might be the tricky part. But holy smokes. I'm looking at their cap-friendly page right now.

And they have Clayton Keller signed long term. They have Nick Schmaltz signed long-ish term. and they have Andrew Ladd signed through next year because that's... Shane Gostisbear as well is also signed to be in this season. Yeah, but like just next year. And other than that, it is just red and blue free agency bars everywhere. Like, they don't have a team next year. And now they're talking about...

And then Jacob Chichler... Well, because they're going to trade Jacob Chichickman. He's on injured reserve right now. Right. But he'll... All indications are. he's being traded as soon as he's healthy, basically. They have five players signed. They have 18 standard player contracts for next season out of the 50.

18. So they don't have enough guys. Like if the NHL just today was like, you know what? Screw it. This year's fake. We're starting the 2022 season right now. The coyotes would be like, we don't have enough players in our entire organization signed. that we can ice a team.

Incredible. So, I mean, this is, we've all seen tear downs and rebuilds and all that, but I mean, this is an extreme version, even of that. And now they probably, yeah, I'm sure they re-sign maybe a few of these guys. And some of these guys are RFAs, so they can, they're still under team control. But, yeah, there's, who do you want, man? I mean, Chickren's the big name. Phil Kessel is his deal.

is up this year, so he suddenly becomes cheap. Louis Erickson apparently still exists. Anton Straulman is... Yeah, the other guy that's getting mentioned is Losson Krause, who's usually awful, like a bad player or at best replacement level. He's actually having a pretty good season this year. I don't know that I would personally be betting on him as a long-term, option for my team. And he's a pending RFA who's going to want a raise from the like one and a half million dollars-ish he's getting.

And I don't know that I would want to be the team to give it to him. But like if you're trying to round out the bottom half of your roster, like the way he's playing this season, and granted, it's a lost season for a terrible team. So, and also it's a contract year. but there are worse options out there probably i'd rather have loss and crouse than like half the leadership grit defense only guys uh that are 32 years old and are going to get moved for a third round pick and juan russell just say his name that's that's who you're talking about and they have him too they do uh they have what what's interesting to me is you know we met i mentioned shane

Goss to spare. I bet you can get Shane Goss to spare out of there if you had the right offer on hand. And I think he's not having a bad season either, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah, he's, he's been pretty good. Well, I mean, pretty good is relative for the coyotes. But I mean, this was a guy, anyone in the league could have had last year when he was waived, remember. And anyone in the league could have had, in fact, that that was a deal, wasn't it that they, they got something to take him. Yes. If I remember. but he's got two years left. And the other thing with Arizona is, you know, you don't normally think of smaller market teams being all that eager to take salary. But they might because they have to. They literally would have to just to get. Well, the one thing, the one problem is they've already got two retained salaries. And I believe there's a limit of three.

they've got two for this year in Darcy Kemper and Ekman Larson. Yeah. So they would only be able to take one. But you could go on a guy like, you know, Phil Kessel or Louis Erickson, for example. You might say, like, you know, who in their right mind would want Louis Erickson at $6 million, even for the last six weeks of the season? Okay, what if it's $3 million? And, you know, now suddenly you're talking just, well, it's a guy, he's a defensively a responsible guy. I plug them in our bottom six, hmm.

And, yeah, off you go. And they're going to need to hit the cat floor somehow. Well, that's what I'm saying. Like, so not only can they potentially retain salary, but also, like, they can go, and you know what? We'll take back your Charlie Coil types or what, not that the Bruins would trade Charlie Coil. But like a guy who, I'm just thinking of it in terms of a guy who's slightly overpaid. Yeah. And who's, who's your worst guy who's got, you know.

one year left on his deal preferably but but even if you know with with ghost beer they they took the extra year yeah you gotta have you gotta have somebody they're clearly not looking to contend next year so yeah that's why i'm thinking like to danov out of uh to donov i mean out of Vegas like oh there there's a there's a trade partner right there they're not in the same division anymore so there's that as well um that that that just like jumps off the page to me. But like, do they... Yeah, they're going to be the team that launders the Eichel.

Yeah. Deal for, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. But yeah, I mean, it's amazing that a team can just be this. Like, I think it's cool that a team is this open about it. Like, yeah, we don't even want to try. Christ, take Clayton Keller. We don't care. Clayton Keller is not going to be...

Let me ask you this, because I just, because I have a piece coming out tomorrow where I get into. this. I want your two cents. Clayton, where are we at with Clayton Keller? He's fine. As far as being, he's fine, but is he, he makes seven million on a long-term deal. He's 23. He's leading the team in scoring, but he's, you know, never been more than like a 60-ish point guy.

Like, is he still a, are you happy with that deal if you're just generic team? Put aside the fact that you're the coyotes and you have. I mean, he's, he's overprivile. paid for what he's providing, certainly. You know, he, I'm trying to look it up really fast here, but he's not in the... He's 7.15 million, and he's in year two of an eight-year extension. But the extension ends when he's still in his late 20s. Yeah, and the other thing is, but like, he makes $7.5 million or whatever the number you just said is.

and he's currently 217th in war right now in the league. Now that's not among forwards. Obviously, you take a bunch of defensemen out of there and he's maybe in the top

well, I can fucking look. I don't need to speculate here, I guess. But, you know, he's not a top 100 forward and he's making $7.5 million a year and you're trying to be bad anyway. Like, again, you have to have guys on the roster who are making some amount of money. Like, you can't just have a bunch of guys making three million.

I guess you can technically have a bunch of guys making $3 million. But there's going to be a few guys who are making, you know, 5, 6, 7. And, yeah, he's not that. And I, the thing is, if you're Arizona, are you confident he's ever even going to come close to making it with you in the middle of a, or being worth that with you in the middle of a rebuild for another two, three, four years.

Probably not. Yeah. And then you get into all the kind of stuff around that, which is, you know, but also we're Arizona and we need to hit the floor. And also, we have not given this guy anyone good to play with in years. So, but yeah, you're right. He's an all-office guy is the thing with him.

And so, like, there are a bunch of teams that you can reasonably say, well, know, if we put him next to our second line center, he's going to be five times better than the first line winger or whoever that he plays with in Arizona. So, like, I can see teams talking themselves into that. But again, at that price point, it's a, it's a tough sell, I think. Yeah, I don't think you're, if you're Arizona, he's one of your guys, you're actively pushing out there.

But if someone calls, I mean, clearly, what rationale do you have? have to say no on on anybody, which is, you know, where it kind of gets, the reason we know that is, if Chikrin's on the, on the block, that's, uh, absolutely. Yeah, because he's, this is not an expiring contract. Uh, this is not an older guy. This is not an overpaid guy. No, underpaid. If, you know, yeah, I mean, he, he went from last year looking like a, uh, uh, a Norris, future Norris winner. He's taken kind of a big step back this year as far as, you know, the goals aren't there and, you know, all the other defensive numbers, of course, look lousy because he's playing on a Bandom team.

But even factoring all that in, he's still underpaid. So, I mean, if you can get him back up to the level he was at last year, he's... Which, again, shouldn't be too hard. You put him... Yeah, I mean, he could literally get into that Nathan McKinnon, Barkov, like, super underpaid guys' conversation. So you would expect to be able to get a ton for it. But again, this is also, if you're a rebuilding team, he's signed for three more years after this one.

So a typical rebuilding team isn't looking to move a 23-year-old who's under team control for three more years because you're thinking we're going to be good at some point in there. But obviously, Arizona's just going so scorched earth that up there apparently even willing to consider this and Pierre LeBrun had a piece this week where he was like, yeah, it's heating up. It's, there's, and, you know, the word is out, so I'm sure just about every team in the league is calling. Boy, you could really get something for this guy.

Jesus, imagine if they retain salary. Like, if you're Arizona, why not just say, yeah, you know what, we'll retain half the salary. You're getting a 23-year-old former Norris candidate for multiple years at $2 million, a C. season. You tell me every capped out team in the league wouldn't trade half their farm system and picks to get that piece locked in? I mean, that's going to be

a fun one to watch. Yeah. The other thing with the coyotes is Craig Morgan, who there isn't anybody more plugged in with that organization than Craig Morgan. For sure. He tweeted the other day, or yesterday, I guess, as we record

this, the coyotes don't have the votes in the Tempe City Council to get their arena proposal passed. And a big part of that, apparently, is that the Tempe City Council kind of looked at, oh, they didn't pay their taxes for how long? And it was like, oh, maybe we don't want to get involved with any of this. Which isn't that crazy that something as simple as not paying your taxes or your rent? for a while there, even by accident, is going to make a city council be like we're not interested.

The thing is, though, that there is a backup plan that I have never seen really brought up in any kind of great detail, which is that they might, the coyotes might be able to put together a deal with the Salt River Pima Maricopa, native community and that they would then, I guess, just be able to build their big idea on reservation land, I guess.

And that is right next to Tempe. And if they do that, then all the traffic and stuff like that that comes with a new arena district and everything, all the, like, what's the word? transportation headaches and

and infrastructural issues. Tempe has to still pick up the bill for all that stuff and deal with it. Pick up the bill is not the right way to phrase that, but they have to deal with it, certainly, all the traffic and everything. And they would get none of the benefit of like, you know, that you would normally say an arena slash entertainment district provides like the tax base and people spending money there and all that kind of stuff. So like it seems like maybe the coyotes are pitting these two opposing forces against each other maybe.

But, you know, it's becoming a lot more interesting even as it's being reported that the Tempe City Council might not be all that interested. Yeah, and, you know, again, you get into the whole, where do they play, even if they can go build a new arena somewhere, like new arenas don't just appear. So what the heck do you do for the intervening couple of years? Yep. Yeah, what a mess. And, you know, of course, everyone, especially up here in Canada, is saying, well, they got to move. And I don't know. I don't rule it out.

because as we've said before, we were told that Atlanta wasn't moving right up until they were, and then it was like two days later. But everybody says that's not an option at this point. So we'll see. If you're thinking of buying this team and moving them, you might want to get in now before they, while they still have a couple of players left. That's right. Completely, completely strict.

Or do you want to not do that? And then you don't have a bunch of people on them? the payroll. Typically, when an asset is being sold, you try to balance out the bottom line as best you can't first and strip away any expenses. I'm just not sure that if you're buying a hockey team to say

we don't have any players. Norris guy. Yeah, that's that might be one where you'd rather hold on to them. Yeah, I'd be really surprised if they sold, I you know, I'd be shocked if they found a place to play

in Arizona next season. That's what I would say. I don't think Marullos are going to sell, but I do think that as things stand right now, they can't play in Arizona. So I don't, I don't know. It's a, it's a tough situation. They literally might be playing in 5,000 seed arenas for a couple of years while they get something new built. Man, oh man. Yeah, not a great look, but, uh, Yeah. What would the NHL be without an Arizona coyotes? Where are they going to play story?

That's right. Yeah, it's that. It's everybody's mad about the Olympics. Like these are just things that never really go away. They go away a little bit for a little while. And then every like six months somebody goes, hey, just so we're clear, this is still a problem. Right? And everyone's like, yeah, of course it is.

What are you talking about? Yeah. Why wouldn't it be? I mean, basically, this whole episode has been Evander Cain is in trouble and the coyotes are potentially, like, we should come clean. We pre-recorded this episode. That's right. In 2019. And we're just assuming that it'll be good to go at some point in the future.

Yeah. You know, speaking of franchises being healthy, kind of. That one's not very good. But it's time for the weekly pre-recorded ad read. And our partner this week is product called Athletic Greens. And I'm going to be honest with you, I've got a little bit of a problem right off the bat with this ad read. Because in the intro, I'm supposed to give you my personal experience with the product. They sent me a whole supply to try out.

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Hope we make it. Yeah, he then didn't get to play any games with the Providence Bruins because they're games against the Lehigh Valley. Are they still the phantoms? I should check on that. I don't know. But their games against Lehigh Valley did get postponed or canceled. I don't know which one it is. And he didn't get to play. And so now the Bruins are like, I think he'll just play for us now. Mm-hmm. you know that which I would imagine if I were Linus Olmark or or Jeremy Swayman who have both been playing very good hockey for the last month if I were those guys I'd be like well wait a second and specifically if I was Jeremy Swainman because they are 100% sending him to Providence since he is waiver exempt.

Yes he's clearly the guy going down and I was I was actually surprised because when this first broke, I was like, yeah, well, I mean, Almark's been a bust. I've been hearing about that from Boston fans for a while. And then I went and looked up his numbers and they're decent. He's 918, same as Swayman, which when you're getting 918 goaltending from both your guys, goaltending isn't your issue. But maybe it is because the Linus Almark experiment does not seem to have played out well in Boston. So I think the The plan here is that RASC comes back and then either you, maybe it's short term and you just roll with Rask and Allmark for the rest of the year and then Swayman is the next guy up next year. Or maybe it's not short term in which case you try to ditch Linus Allmark on somebody and, you know, Swamen becomes the guy who will take over from Rask eventually.

This was always very strange. Like, we knew in the offseason that Rask was, you know, he was hurt, he needed surgery. We didn't even know where his head was at as far as did he want to come back. He was technically a UFA, but, you know, all indications were it was Boston or nothing. And it was always said that, you know, around midseason is when he could make his return. And yet the Bruins not only went out and got a veteran guy in Allmark, which makes sense. when you're a contender and you got to make sure you're solid there. But they gave him four years.

Yeah. Which was a big commitment. And this is the crucial part of what you said about, well, maybe you just dump him in the offseason if it looks like Rask is going to sign for more than one year. Linus Allmark in the next two seasons, say, full no move clause. Yeah. So that's a tough sell, obviously. And five million a year where, you know, it's a few. It's not expensive for a top-level goaltender, but it's certainly not cheap.

I will say that when it comes to the No Movement Clause, goalies want to play, right? Yeah, for sure. If you sign to be a starter and you're told that, well, you're going to be backing up to Garask. And I think you're probably going to say, you know, with maybe a couple of exceptions, go ahead and send me anywhere where I'm going to be the starter. Yeah. But again, like even if, I mean, for example, the joke is now, well, Christ, you just train them to Edmonton, right?

Like, you take one of Edmonton's worst players or whatever, and you get O-Mark out of the town, and then you have Swayman and Raskin, and you're all set. Well, you take Kosken is what you do, and drop them in the minors, and you're all good. But, you know, if I'm Allmark, do I want to go to fucking Edmonton? Ugh, no way. Yeah. You know? Well.

And so, so it. It's a real, it's been a weird situation from the get-go because they had Swamen and Dan Vlodar, who is also having an unbelievable season as the straight backup in Calgary. And I totally understand the thing of neither of these guys has played a significant number of games in the NHL. We can't waste a year of Patrice Bergeron at age 35 or whatever he is. And he's in the last year. of his deal. We can't lose out on potentially the last year of the deal because we entered the season with two rookie goalies. So I get why they went out and got Allmark. But then they

immediately were like, oh, we might sign Tukarask at midseason two. And it's like, but like, that's good Jeremy Swainman insurance. And again, they obviously traded Ollmark or Vladar for, I think a third or fourth round pick. But, like, if you look at Jeremy Swayman's career statistics at every single level, you're like, this guy is a elite level goaltender at whatever level he's at. And there are, granted, there are guys who do that right up until the NHL and then they don't do that anymore, you know? But, like, the odds that you're getting, like, even a Carter Hart level performance out of him where it's like, yeah, he's not like, he's not like. great and he can occasionally be quite bad. But like he's a good

player, you know? Like that always seemed like Jeremy Swayman to me. So. Yeah. It's tough because like you said, the window is closing and it's, do you trust a young goalie? Right. And teams typically don't want to

do that. And it's, you know, it's the old classic thing, right? I mean, you can't do the job because you don't have the experience and you can't get the experience until you do the job. and how many times, I mean, every year, right? There's some team in the playoffs with some 20, you know, mid-20s kid in his first playoff run, and he does great. And at that point, he then enters the club of trustable goalies. But until you're given that opportunity, you don't know.

Even though, I mean, I would argue you do know. If a guy's got a, if his entire track record is that this guy's a good goaltender, then he's probably going to be a good goaltender at the playoffs. And I say probably because who knows? small samples, bounces, all of that stuff, streaks happen.

But it's not, you know, we always talk about how the playoffs is different, but it's not that, especially if you're a goalie. It's, you know,

it's the same game. And yeah, you could trust him, but you've got Tuka Rask with 300 wins and, you know, has taken you to a final and been part of a cup winning team

and all of that stuff. Of course, that's your guy. And plus, I mean, if you're a Bruins fan, you need too harass for a playoff run. This is the guy, this is the whipping boy that you can blame for everything that goes wrong and you have been for years.

So, I mean, you got to have him back. Yeah. The thing, the thing obviously, like you said, with the Bruins is, goaltending has not been the problem, right? And there have been problems. And like David Creachie's like, oh, I wouldn't have moved Marshand off the top line or whatever. Or a posture knock off the top line. All that kind of stuff.

Like, sure. I get all that, but like, I've said it a million times. Everything that you thought was going to be a problem for the Bruins in terms of, oh, yeah, they don't really have a lot of depth and the goaltending could be a little iffy at times. That was like the first month of the season is the at times. And then the not scoring very much from the depth guys has also been the problem of late. So, look, like, these are all predictable outcomes, and that's why the Bruins are, whatever, they're, like, fourth in that division, right? And granted, they have way fewer games played than, like, everybody in the league almost. Solidly fourth.

And that's the other thing. The Bruins are, I mean, this could certainly change, but they are potentially one of those teams that's going to know where they're going to finish halfway through the year. Yeah, they're going to be going to make the playoffs. Seventh-or race, I think. But probably not finish in the top three of that Florida, Tampa, Toronto group. So that kind of takes the, you know, it's not like every game. You can, you know, you can have a couple of games to find out if Tukarask is, you know, is, you know, is. Yeah.

Let's put it. Because that's the other thing. You don't know. If he can even play. If he can even play, who knows where he's, you know, you assume that he's, you know, mentally he's, he's ready to be back. but physically you don't know for sure. And, you know, at his age, obviously, you're not taking anything for granted after a major surgery. So, yeah, let's cover your basis.

So this might be a case where you just say we keep all three guys and then we figure it out in the offseason. Sure. When we have more of a picture of what Tukurask is. But I do want to just say Tukurass rocks. Yeah, he's cool. He's great. He's going to be one of those great underrated goalies of his generation, I think. at the time he's all set and done.

Porterline Hall of Famer, I think. Yeah. Boy, I wish my team could draft a guy like that. So here's the thing with the Bruins and where they, to your point about the standing, they just pulled them up here. They are two points clear of the Detroit Red Wings for 8th in the East with five games in hand. So they have that one sewn up, it feels like, barring everybody on the team gets hurt. And they have to dip into the taxi.

squad and half of Providence's roster and all that kind of stuff. But they have no worries about making the playoffs. We said it like a month ago or whatever, but at least in the East, the playoff teams are locked in and have been for quite a while. I sure think so, yeah. It would take a miracle from any team that isn't, like I'm looking at it, Detroit, Columbus, Philadelphia, New Jersey, the Islanders. Buffalo, Ottawa,

Montreal. Those are all the teams that are out of the playoffs right now. The only one you might say is capable of going on like a nice little run here is the Islanders, but they are 12 points behind the Bruins. So we're all waiting for them to have like the 10 game win streak,

but they would need that just to get back to the conversation. Wild card bubble. Yeah, that's right. So yeah. But the other thing that is interesting about the Bruins having this problem where they maybe have too many good goalies is two other teams in the Atlantic. Florida and Tampa, they might not even have, well, I mean, Tampa obviously has one, but they certainly don't have two. Tampa's backups this season, this is, do you know these

stats? Tampa's backup stats this year? No, no. I assume that they are very bad. It's insane. Brian Elliott has played in eight games. He's an eight-99 goal. Holes. Maxime Lagos, legacy, I don't know, whatever, is... And when even Ryan isn't bothering to pronounce your name properly, you know you're... That's right. He's gotten into two games. He's 828. And now, Sean, I know this is a guy you're a big fan of. Hugo Alnifelt. Yeah. Do not put some respect on Hugo Alnifelt's name. Yeah, he's allowed three goals on 10 shots. It's a 700.

save percentage. Hold on. Let me do the math. Yep. So when Andre Vasselowski, who's 923 this year, isn't in goal, these guys can't stop fucking traffic. So they're awful. And I, because I think both, I think, like I said, and Alnifeld were the two goalies

in the, the game where they just got stomped by Florida. It was like a 9-3 game. And I remember seeing that and being like, oh, wow. And then I clicked on it. And I was like, I have literally never heard of either of these two goalies that was, but here's the thing. If you're Tampa, right, on the one hand, there's going to be a dog fight for Top Spot in the Atlantic.

And you've got to, and you really want to get Top Spot because we just, you know, we talked about the Bruins and it could be the Bruins or it could be a crossover team. But you don't want to play Toronto or Florida in the first round if you can avoid it, if you're the Lightning. So you want to finish first. So every game's important and, you know, your backup spot is important.

But Andre Vazelowski's playing every second of every minute of every game in the playoffs, unless something has gone horribly wrong. At which point, like, you have bigger fish to fry than your backup. Like you're less concerned. Tampa's almost the only team that almost doesn't even need to dress a backup in the playoffs. Like even, you know, other teams, like the Leafs. You got Jack Campbell. Yes, you know, he's been great, but you're still, you know, you could picture Jack Campbell. if he gives up seven goals in each of the first two games,

then he's not starting game three. Vasilevsky is starting every game, unless he's hurt. And if he's hurt, you're probably screwed anyway, so what do you do? Yep. So to your point about you got to avoid Florida, the question at this point I have is do you? Because I just wrote about this for EP Rinkside earlier today,

but Sergei Bavrovsky 917 on the season. That's solid. But you have to remember, first 12 games of the year, 940, most recent 12 games, 892. And so, you know, we're now right back to... We're right back to where we were with him, except coming into the season, you went, Bobrovsky might not be good anymore, but he got Spencer Knight. And Spencer Knight. He's the backup plan.

He'll take over. He's your guy. Spencer Knight hasn't been 896 on the season. Yeah. And so because they're, Knight's been through some COVID issues and maybe even an injury, which is why they went out and got Jonas Johansson from the Colorado Avalanche. And Jonas Johansson's career save percentages, is 892.

So the thing with all of that having been said is in Pavrovsky's last 12 appearances, he's 892, he has the ninth worst gold saved above expected in the entire league over that stretch, and the Florida Panthers are 8, 3 and 1. Yep. What the fuck? And just beat the hurricanes. So, I mean, not like they're just... Well, so they beat the hurricanes in...

overtime. In overtime. They gave away a point to the team that they are currently competing with for the president's trophy, right? And it was only because Brodsky led in two dog shit goals. Okay. Yeah. But, I mean, they've won five of their last six.

Their only loss was in a shootout, so fake. And that includes wins over the Rangers, lightning, flames, and hurricanes. They have played almost exclusively good teams in Burrador. He said. And I think they had like two against like St. Louis or somebody like that. And there, another really good, yeah, here it is. No, it was two against the capitals, the blues, the avalanche, the Rangers, the flames, the stars, and the hurricanes.

Those are all solid to excellent teams. And he's been awful against them. And they're winning anyway, which is great news for them. And the thing is, I think there's kind of a little bit of proof of concept with the Panthers in terms of they can do this against anybody, you know. But with that having been said, and to your point earlier, who do you play in the playoffs? You play almost certainly Florida, Boston, Toronto, or Tampa, Toronto, or Boston, right? Like, those are the teams you're most likely to face unless you draw, oh, I don't know, Pittsburgh Penguins as the as the as the wild card team out of the Metro yeah and you yep yeah and

Florida a team that famously has not has not one in the playoffs since literally 1996 right hasn't won around so yeah they did give the lightning a pretty pretty good run last year but but you know and you would say goaltending didn't wasn't the reason they lost that series they no ran into a fucking buzzsaw Fair enough, that's fine. But, you know, I just, I look at it and I go, are the Bruins who I think we all agree are the fourth best team in that division, are they the one with the most certain goaltending picture? And that's a goaltending picture they didn't even like as an organization three weeks ago. That's interesting.

That makes this entire division fascinating. For as much as we are saying, look, you can just never watch an Eastern Conference game for the rest of the year. You're not going to see anything that has any real impact on standings. For as much as we're saying that, hey, what happens in the Atlantic is going to be fascinating and will have significant playoff implications because nobody feels like they have their goaltending figured out. And here's the other thing. We're talking about, oh, the Carolina Hurricanes, they're fucking unbelievable this year. They're getting great goaltending. Yeah, from Freddie Anderson.

What's going to happen when they get into the playoffs with Freddie Anderson? And what's going to happen when the Washington Capitals get into the playoffs with like Fetek Vanichek is their goalie? Right? And Tristan Jari, like we just finished talking about Bobrovsky having this great comeback and then suddenly remembering what he was. are we completely convinced that Tristan Jari's Vezina caliber all year long? We are not. I feel like the Rangers are pretty set. They're like the only team.

Yeah, that's right. We're like, yeah, you guys are fine. Like even the Leafs, like Campbell's been good, but Marazic is still hanging around. What do you do with that? Yeah. I don't know. Campbell's never played like 60 games as a starter. And so, yeah, it's interesting.

And, you know, seating, matters in theory, matchups matter in theory, maybe not, but yeah. All I'm saying is this opens the door for the Boston Bruins to start calling every team in their conference and just go, you need a goalie? We can help you out with that. We can help you out. And someone will bite, right?

Like, again, you don't want to end up giving a team a goalie that beats you in the playoffs, but. Or you do what every team with extra goaltending, I think, is doing right now. which is you just wait and watch the temperature go up and up and up in Edmonton. Yeah. And you call Ken Holland every day and say, look, when you're ready to make a ridiculous panic move, call us first. Right. That's right.

Yeah. And then you just hope you can take them to the cleaners because, you know, look, there's pressure to get a goalie in Edmonton right now. but we're one post-game Connor McDavid quote away from it being doubled and then minimum doubled yeah absolutely minimum doubled and Colorado too might who knows maybe they're they're in the market so yeah the goalie market I we say this every year right the goalie market could be really interesting and then nothing happens because it's hard to trade goalies in the middle of the season but I feel like this year we might actually see it yeah to your point much like all these other teams.

Colorado can be fairly confident in Darcy Kemper, and then you're like, I guess Pavel Francesos is okay. Like that's all you're saying at that point? I don't know. It's tough for them. But now, Sean, we're going to move on. You told me, you gave me very little information here, but apparently there's a quiz.

No information. It's a quiz or a game or whatever. And here's what we're going to do. This is a little bit of an experiment because we have currently scheduled the live call-in show this week for the Patreon people. It is this week, right? It is, yeah. Later on. So if you are, if you're signed up for the Patreon, thank you very much for that.

And you'll get access to that. If you're not signed up, still have time to get in. And we like to do a lot of quizzes and games and stuff on that with the listeners who can quote unquote call in and, take part. I had an idea that I originally wanted to do that night, but I'm not completely sure it's going to work. Okay. So you're the guinea pig. We're going to do like an abbreviated version

test run and then we'll see if it works or not. Basically, if you are on Twitter, and God bless you if you're not, but if you are on Twitter, you have been inundated over the last week or two with a game called

Wordle. With people posting their results and talking about it. And if you haven't seen it, it's basically a game where you're given a five-letter word and you get six tries to guess it by entering your own words. And if, basically, it tells you, you know, whether the letters are in the right place. Pretty similar to games we've all played before. But for some reason, this is completely taken over everyone's, everyone's Twitter. So we're going to play a hockey-themed version of that, where we're basically going to play wordal,

but instead of a five-letter word, you were looking for a five-letter name of a hockey player. Last names of well-known, I would argue, players. And we're just going to see how this goes. And I've got two sets of lists here that you can choose from. Let me get out a piece of paper so I can write this shit. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I've got the classic,

which is like the all-time, well-known, famous players of the past, and then I've got current players as well. Okay, and I have a pitch. Yep. This game is called Hurtle. See, that was what I was thinking of. I ended up going in a different direction. I think since we're dealing with old-time hockey player names,

I'm calling it Gordal. Okay. G-O-R-D-L-E. 10 out of 10, no doubt. But, yes, it did come down to Gordle versus Hurtle. That was absolutely it. what's going to happen again if you're not familiar with the game uh Ryan's just going to give me a guess presumably his first guess uh will not be correct and I will then tell him which of his letters are in

the right place which of his letters are correct but in the wrong place and which of his letters aren't there at all and then he will try to figure it out and Ryan you do not have to give me player names as your guesses um obviously to get the right answer you'll have to give me a player name but you don't have to like start. Right. If you want to just give me five letter words to try to try to figure out, try to get your letters in place, that would, that would be fine. Because otherwise, it's just going to be you trying to think of five letter player names, of which there are not as many as you might think. Yeah, I'm trying to think like hurdle immediately jumps off the page to me.

Yeah, I got to stretch that one off my list. There we go. I guess we won't be using that one. But yes, you go ahead and think now. Before we start, do you want classic or do you want current players? Let's do one of each. Let's do, and we'll start with current. Okay.

Let's go with TAVES as our first one. Okay. And again, as I say, you do not have to, if you would rather give a word. I'm going to go with all-player names. Or I'll try anyway. I'll try. All right. Okay.

So you have given TAVs. Uh, so now I've got to think a little bit here. You've got, okay, your T is in, is in the word, but in the wrong place. Okay. Your O is in the correct place. Yep. And your EW and S are not it at all. So I think, I don't remember the color code for work.

Green is locked in, yellow is, it's in there, but not where you think it is. Okay. So you've got yellow, green, and then three grays. Hmm. Now I immediately need to um need to pivot to just saying words, I guess. Mm-hmm.

Um, which I hate to do. I feel like it's kind of not in the spirit of the game a little bit. Um, but, uh... I encourage it because there are a limited number of five player, five-letter player names. And if you exclusively guess, those, my list will be decimated. Sure, yeah.

For future, so I don't mind at all. Okay, great. Again, the point here is you got six guesses. You just got to get it within six. And, you know, the sooner the better, but... Right. Okay. It's really a winner-lose. I will say Hotel.

Okay, let me just. Even though I know that the E is not in there. Okay. Hotel. H is not there. Okay. O, as you already know, is in the right place. T is still in the wrong place, and the E and the L are both not there.

Well, shit. Didn't gain a lot of information. No, I sure didn't. This is where you miss the wordal keyboard that, like, graze out the letters you've already used. That's right, yeah. I mean, I can kind of eyeball it a little bit, I suppose, but let's go with... See, this is the thing, too, is this is why it might not work, is I really feel like I have a lot of trouble, like, in visualizing a letter or a word that has, you know, for example, O and S and all. The interface of the actual game is, I think, far more important than people would give credit for.

Yeah. Um, hmm. Let's go with Again, I know there's not an S in here, but let's go with boats. B-O-A-T-S. B-O-A-T-S. Oh, no. You're always in the right place.

Your T is not, and the B, A, and S are not in this. Jesus Christ. In this. I'll tell you the other. thing that's tricky. And, you know, this is maybe a bit of a hint in that it, it doesn't, I wouldn't say it really applies to this one. But one thing I do notice is, like, when you're playing regular wordle, we know that there are certain letters that are just more common in basic words and certain letters that aren't. And that doesn't necessarily apply in, uh, when it comes to

names. Correct. Like, there's certain letters that show up, like, there's a lot of K's showing up in, and there's not in this one. There's a freebie. But, uh, you know, a lot more Ks show up and hockey player names for some reason. Jesus Christ. That's not five letters. No, it sure isn't. And I know there's no A. God, man.

I'm going to pivot back to a hockey player's name, even though I know that it, just to, I'm going to go with Matt Dumbah just to make sure there's a U somewhere in there, because that will, if it's either a you or an eye at that point. So I'm going to go with Dumba. It's a good five-letter name. Yeah.

Nothing. Fuck off. God damn it, dude. Completely. You've got two guesses left. You know your O. You know there's a T in there somewhere. The T's the last letter.

The T's the last letter. I know this now. You do know that. That's true, actually, yeah. So you know it's something O something something T with lots of letters eliminated. Yeah. And, you know, as is usually the case with this kind of thing, everybody at home is screaming. Well, you know what?

They're probably, I don't know. This would be a, I feel like, and this is part of why I wasn't sure how well it would work, it feels like this is a little tougher to play on your own. I mean, if you've grabbed a pen and paper or something. But do you want, since you've got two guesses left, do you want the division this player is in? Sure. Yeah.

Okay, let's go with it. Okay. They are an Atlantic Division player. Atlantic Division player, huh? Okay. Atlantic, Atlantic Division. Let's see here. There's an O and a T in there.

And that's all I know where they are. And I know where they are. And I feel like you've eliminated almost every other letter of the alphabet. I know, right? Jesus Christ. God, I can't even think of players with five-letter names at this point, right? Yeah, there's not as many. If they had made this game with six letters, we would have been golden.

That seems to be the spot for the NHL. Now I'm just going through like, like, uh, like, uh, It's not, you know, it's, it's a reasonably well-known player. I have not, like, picked some depth guy or backup. Right, yeah. I figured that would be the case. Although it would be hilarious if I did that. O, T.

You know what? I think I got it. I think I got it. I think it's Brady Point. It is. Yeah. He's got it. All right.

It is. Because I'm sitting there going, I can't think of a single guy who's, whose name wouldn't be, would be like, a letter then the i then the t right yes yeah so i'm like okay it has to be it's probably p o i or blank oh i oh i blank t and then okay yep great point there you go all right there you nailed it boy that sucks that was hard that was very difficult yeah i think we're definitely learning this is this is a tough one do you want to do one more just yeah what the hell classics and uh yeah we'll sort of last of our proof of concept okay so this is a uh uh retired player, but reasonably well-known.

And you can start at the beginning. You get a clean slate. Okay. I'm going to go. My strategy on Wordle often is just use a... Make your jumping off point noise or, you know, raise. Use a bunch of bottles. There's a lot of debate as to what the best first word.

that you should pull out and yeah a lot of those work well so I'm going to go with a NHL adjacent word and I'm going to say Mario because that has three

vowels in it got to nail down the vowels okay so your M is not there your A is there and it's in the right position your R is not there okay your I

is there and in the right position. Okay. And there's no O. Okay. That's a strong start. And it's a retired player, you said? Yes. So not an active player.

Okay. Because the one that immediately jumped, the word that immediately jumped to mind, and we can just pivot a little bit on the, no, you know what? I'm going to say Richard Ponick. Okay. That's all those letters in the right places, but three different letters.

Okay. And that is, yeah, that P-A-N-I-K is his name. Okay. You've got no P. Yeah. The A obviously is in the right place. No N. The I is in the right place.

And the K is there, but in the wrong place. Okay. All right. So you're cooking with gas now. So it's probably in the middle. Okay, let's see. No, R-M-N-O-P. There's a K in there.

I'm going to pivot away from the format here, and I'm going to go with tasks. Tasks, T-A-S, K. S. Okay. So, you have no T. Okay. Your A obviously is in the right place. Yeah. Your first S is there, but in the wrong place. Okay. Your K is in the wrong place.

I got it. It's Joe Sack. It's Joe Sack. It is. Yeah. Joe Sack. There it is. That one went a little easier. That went a little smoother. Yeah. You know what? It's like the real game. It's kind of that what you get out of the first couple of guests. You're going to get that bounce early on. Yep. So there we go. I think if anything we've learned that this maybe works, but it's a tough one. So if you're on the Patreon, if you're planning to do the live show, let me know in the Discord or wherever else whether you would like to see this played on the live show. And if you're willing to give it a shot, be ready because it's harder than maybe it seems.

Yeah. But good way. You went two for two. Yeah. That's really all that matters. They don't ask how many. They just ask. No, it's the other way around.

Yeah, it is. You're right, it is. It's a results-oriented business is what I'm trying to say. That's right. That's right. That's it. Yeah, we're done here. Go to E.P.Rinkside.com for all my writing.

Like I said earlier, I just wrote about Florida's goal-tending problem. And it's a real point of concern for them, I think. So check that out. And if you sign up for an annual subscription with the code I Love EP, all one word, all capital letters, you will get an extra few months tacked on to the end of your one year subscription. So it's, I think, 15 months total. But it might be 14. Don't quote me either way.

But yeah, that's it. Good deal. And you can find me at The Athletic. I got a few things this week. My rankings are up today. my, the return of salary cap court is tomorrow. Oh, hell yeah. New names that we can argue over, including Clayton Keller, and Evgeny Kuznetsov is on there.

Logan Kuture is a tough one. Or maybe not, but you can find all that there and I'll probably have something else later in the week as well. So check that out and listen to my podcast with Ian Mendez on Thursday on the Athletic Hockey Show. There you go. And like we said, Patreon this week, let's see, what was the line up here? Me and Greg did an episode of two overrated, underrated, favorite, least favorites with Josh Gondelman from the Deezes and Mero show. We have an extended stick to sports single topic episode coming up this week. We have the Colin show, as Sean mentioned.

I don't know. There's probably something else, too. But there's a lot going on on the Patreon at all times these days. So check it out. Thanks for supporting it if you do. And thanks for listening to this show as well. Have a good one, folks. Bye-bye. Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slapshots and goons.

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