Puck Soup - Key Players for the First Round

Episode Date: April 21, 2026

Sean and Ryan talk about the most important players for each team in the playoffs right now, then go through every series so far.

I'm Ryan Lambert from Elite Prospects. I'm Sean McAnew from The Athletic. And I'm going to say right off the hop here, unbelievable start to the playoffs. Just really, really good hockey in basically every game has been close except the one Minnesota-Dalice game. Mm-hmm. Within a goal or two, right? I, yeah, I think so. There was three, what?

Flyers was three nothing last night. Yeah, but wasn't the last one an empty netter, right? Yeah. So, yeah, just you really can't ask for more from the league. They're really delivering. There's a lot of the hockey's just been good. It's not like there's a ton of boring two-one games or whatever, you know. And when you're going head to head with the NBA playoffs, as they kind of are in a way that doesn't usually happen for the first round.

It's good to have a good product on TV at the end of the day. Listen to you. Just pumping the NHL's tires. I love it. I've been a supporter of everything they've done from day one. Yeah. I was there in 1994 and I said they should, they should do a lockout here. You know?

I remember that. Yeah. I remember your podcast back. then. It was just, it was just you yelling out a window, but it was still. Yeah, it was 11, the good old days, you know. Yeah. I do actually have, when the, remember when the NHL came back and they, they like made a whole

marketing blitz about like, we're actually doing hockey again. Don't you love it? And, uh, I actually have a hat of what they were used, whatever the catchphrase You have a game on hat? Yeah, game on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm going to check again But it was just one of those things of like back in the day

You could just go on eBay and type in like You know game on hat or whatever you know And like there were dozens of them Let's see if Let's see if they're still out there If you got 52 bucks I can get you a game on hat no problem my friend Dude

that's just making a note for myself. Here, I'll actually send you a link to one that's even cheaper. This is my gift to you, man. Anyway, so let's do it this way. This is how I figured it's a good way to talk about every series so far without just being like, did you see what happened in game one? By going like, who's the most important player to you through two games for the next three, four, five, six, however long these series last.

And let's start with by far the most interesting game from last night, Carolina, Ottawa. Double overtime, Jordan Martinuk, the hero, they call him. You know what he did? I don't know if you realize this. He called game. What did we start saying that for every overtime? I don't know. It's annoying.

It's a basketball thing, isn't it? Like, is that? It is. You steal it from them? Yep. So what's, explain to me what that's supposed to mean. Does that mean that, like, we're claiming that the guy, like, as he was in the process of shooting? Was, like, that one's going in.

We'll see you tomorrow. The Damien Lillard, like, I don't know if you remember Damien Lillard from the Trailblazers, like, the height of their competitive era, was known for just, like, he, would take a shot that was going to be the game winner and just already be walking off the court when it went in. Cool. Like that was just a thing he did. A lot of cool shots of this, you know? Yeah. So I feel like that's, how do I want to say?

Like the peak of calling game from a, you know, walking away from the explosion thing. Well, that's what happened last night. Yeah. Sure. Jordan Martin New called game. What a fucking shot, by the way. Oh, man. Posting in? Awesome.

Yeah. Not to be confused with earlier in the game where the, who was it, who scored the first overtime goal? Wasn't it also? Oh, no, Martinuk. Oh, it was Mark Jankowski scored. Yeah, Mark Jankowski called, he called goal question mark. And that's very different. He called game and game didn't pick up, okay?

Yes, that's right. Send him a fucking voicemail. There it is. What did you think of that? Like, it's one of those, I think somebody in the, in the Puck Soup Discord called it like quantum hockey when they have to go back and undo a disallow, like, undo the time between a disallowed goal and when they should have made a call. But because there was a penalty in that time, it had the potential to be a quantum penalty shot game. winner. Yes.

Which is very confusing to people, I was reminded last night. People have very strong feelings about how this should work, despite it being one of the rare cases where the NHL rule book is like, look, man, this is the exact scenario. Here's exactly how we want it called, do this. And people are still like, yeah, but what if they didn't do that? Well, here's how I would put it. You can go, well, it shouldn't count because, like, he hooked him, but the time was off the clock, like, whatever. Okay, so, like, what if a guy, like, baseball swings a goalie in the neck? Yep.

Are we not penalizing that guy? What if it's, what if it's, like, another Matthew Shane offside? Remember that? Yeah. The one that caused this review that we've been doing for 15 years and there hasn't been another Matthew Shane case since then. But imagine there was. And everyone's like, oh, that's definitely should have been offside.

Like, is it just prison rules then? That's what I mean, yeah. You know. And the other problem with these folks who say that if, you know, if something has, if there's a penalty called and there was an offside, then the penalty didn't happen, it shouldn't be called, etc. logically, you can't argue that without conceding that now we're going to do offside reviews on penalty calls. And I understand that there are some, no matter how, every time I try to sarcastically do the whole like, well, we just got to call the rulebook, like somebody out there is like, yes, actually, I do feel that way. I am so beholden and slave to the rules that I actually do think this would be a good idea that every time there was a penalty, we could then go back and go,

well, there was an offside 45 seconds earlier. So technically that puck over glass didn't happen. Yeah. That would be hell. So... Of course it would. Knock it off with this stuff. Now, the fact that it was...

was 30 full seconds of six on five is a whole other thing. Yeah. And, you know, the, man, like, there's so many different angles to this. What did you think of the penalty shot call itself? Looked like a penalty shot to me, I guess. Yeah. It was a penalty shot. I mean, it's, I can't, like, it's one of those things of, like, you either want

the rules called how they're called or you want overtime to be a different kind of hawk. Oh, hold on. What if there's a third option where if it's my team? Hmm. Okay, wait. Let me think about this. What I want is I want them to just call the rulebook but also just be consistent and it just so happens that coincidentally my team benefits from every scenario that I want. But I'm not a homer.

So here's what it really boils down to for me. If he gets the shot off, it's a penalty but not a homer. a penalty shot, even though, you know, by the rulebook, it should have been a penalty shot. But he didn't even come close to get his shot off. If he gets the shot, then it's not a penalty shot. That is, you know, a penalty shot has to prevent the scoring chance. If you hack a guy in the head on a breakaway and he still gets the shot. But it's not always called that way. That's all I'm saying. Like, this is the most egregious. It's not, they robbed him of a scoring chance with that hook. I think I've ever.

ever fucking seen. I would not have been surprised if they hadn't called it, but it absolutely was the right call. As I tweeted out, only the fifth time in NHL history, there has been an overtime penalty shot in the playoffs. It would have been so sick if he fucking scored. Well, and here's the thing.

Of those five, there's never been a goal. They're 0 for five. So we literally almost saw something. last night that has never happened in the 100-plus year history of the NHL. Do you, when were the other ones? Do you know this off the top of your head? Relatively recent, a couple of them.

Really? I feel like a couple of them happened, maybe even in the bubble playoffs. There was one in the 90s. I think that's as far back as you go. There was a game that ended up being a quadruple overtime game. And there was a double OT penalty shot between Philly and Pittsburgh. I'm pretty sure. That's just an easy article for someone to write.

Go track down the five guys who have beefed it on an overtime penalty shot and be like, what was that fucking experience like? I was all interested. I was like, hey, I could do that. And then you mentioned talking to other people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, we don't. We don't do that here.

I'm going to, I will look it up because it's actually the, as much as I don't love a lot of the NHL website, they're a little. records section is incredibly useful. All right. Yeah. 1996 was the first one ever. Joe Juno, double overtime was stopped by Ken Reggett. There was another one in 98. There was one in 2016, 2020, and then last night. And I do remember this, because some people flagged it to me. The first two, the 96 and 98, both involved the penguins. 2016 was the Panthers, which meant Yarmes. Mar-Yager was involved in each of the first three times in NHL history.

There was a penalty. He played in that game. But I don't think he was playing in last night's game. Did anyone? Let's get him over the boards for game. We should check. We can make this. You know?

Yeah. So yeah. And then after all that, I'll say the penalty shot was very cool and weird. And it's, as I said, something that almost never happens. And I understand why that's where the focus is. That was a BS offside call to take a goal off the board. Forget about playoffs, overtime, whatever scenario. Oh, yeah, the whole he didn't have full control of the puck thing.

Yeah, 30 seconds goes by, which is a long time. I know when you say 30 seconds, it doesn't sound very long, but like 30 seconds of an NHL game is forever. It's a full shift almost, yeah. and then it comes down to, because look, people know I, I hate offside reviews. I think it's ridiculous. I think these little stupid one-16th of an inch reviews that had nothing to do with the play are a very, very bad idea. And I think if you like that because we just got to get it right, I think you're a psychopath.

And I don't want to have anything to do with you. That having been said, I will acknowledge that. the overwhelming majority of the time, at the very least, yeah, maybe 30 seconds went by, maybe it had nothing to do with the play, but at least you can sit there and look at a freeze frame and go, all right, man, you got us. It was one pixel offside. Yep. Great job.

You got on the strictest of technicalities, you got it. Whereas last night, because it's the possession and control thing, it's kind of the only offside review. where it becomes a judgment call. Yeah. In which case, what are we doing? Like, the rulebook itself is very clear on replay review. It has to be an obvious miss. Definitive, yeah.

It has to, if there is any doubt at all, the call on the ice stands. That is the terminology and the rulebook. And I get you can say, hey, if it's one pixel, then it's one pixel and that there's your, there's no doubt it has to be overturned. But on this one, like how is that clear and definitive

to take a goal off the board? I'm not convinced it was offside at all. I'm certainly not convinced. I thought the other guy might have been offside. What was more offside than... That was the other problem, right? Yeah. It's playoff overtime,

and we don't even know what they're reviewing. There's one team celebrating, one team's complaining, they go upstairs. We don't even know. I mean, at first, we don't even know, like, is it a stoppage? Is it a goalie interference? You see that it's the linesman looking at the iPad.

So that tells you it's offside. There was that play at the line, like with the puck coming back out, that in real time, it looked like that might be it. But then they show the replay, and it's clear that, you know, that's... That wasn't it. The puck was on the blue line, and the blue line counts as in the zone. So, all right. right, that's not it.

And then they go to the original entry. And I don't know if the U.S. broadcast was different, but up here in Canada, they're showing the other guy, which happened to be Martinuk again. Yeah. They're showing him and they're going, you know, back and forth and his skate over the line is. And it's only afterwards that the NHL is like, oh, by the way, here's what we were actually looking at. Yeah. Which is great, great progress. Absolutely stupid.

Like, what are we doing? You can't. Yep, totally. You can't get the referee to go on and say, the situation room, remember, it's not the senators because it's overtime. The situation room's initiated a challenge. We are looking at offside on the zone entry, whether the player, like, no, okay. We just let the audience sit there.

And if the linesman can't announce it, like, there's not someone in the situation room with a direct line into the broadcast who can be like, hey, man, this is what we're looking at. Yep. Which they do in the NFL, I'm convinced. The NFL guys, like, they often have the ref in the booth thing are so on top of exactly what's being looked at that I'm convinced that they have like somebody in the room who is communicating to them, which they should. Yeah. Like, why would you not do that? Why would you not want the fans to understand what is happening?

But we don't get that. We get, so the goal doesn't count. We all go, oh, okay, I guess. we're not even sure why. And then we get the penalty shot, which was all sorts of fun. And it all works out as puck don't lie at the end of the day. Like the Carolina should have won that game and then they did.

I'm a little bummed out that we didn't get Rod Brandenmore post game after a loss on that whole situation. Sure. But you're right. For the NHL, it was, if you were neutral on the game last night, you probably got the good result because we don't, because we just spent 10 minutes talking about this instead of an hour and 10 minutes, which is maybe what it would have been.

Yep. Well, and to that point then, let's do the key players, because this game's not even in overtime without my key player of the game for the Carolina Hurricanes Freddie Anderson. Okay. All he has to do in this series is not be Playoff Freddy. And that second goal was a stinker. Yes.

And he was very good before that and he was very good after it. But yep, that was, I mean, I think, you know, forget about like Freddie Anderson trending on social media. I think like the exact phrase, oh, playoff Freddy just checked into this series was probably trending. because we all said the same thing. Now, the flip side and the player that I would pick for the series so far is Linus Ulbark, who has been phenomenal. He has, yeah. Which is both great news if you're a sense fan and also terrifying.

Because we all had the same take on this series, which is Carolina's the favorite. Ottawa's got a real chance. it's a lot closer in terms of the 18 skaters on each side than you would think Ottawa got really screwed by their goaltending all year long but he's warming up in time for the playoffs and if Allmark is just mediocre the senators can pull this off

and instead Almark's been fantastic he's been maybe the best goalie in the playoffs so far and yet they're still down two nothing and that's the scary part. Right. And to that point, my key player for the senators is Tim Stutzler. Mm-hmm. Are you, are you an elite forward or not, Big Dog?

You're going to make the decision here. You've got to step up. You've got to be the guy who's driving the offense in a way that they just haven't really gotten yet. It's that simple. Like, they've made a big deal. I don't know if this is on the. Canadian broadcast, but in the U.S., they've made a big deal out of, they were talking, or maybe it was a clip from Brady, the Kachuk Brothers podcast, where Brady was like, yeah, we try to play like the hurricanes. We want to be, you know, on top of it, blah, blah, blah. And it's like, yeah, the student has not become the master, if that's the case. The senators are getting pushed around pretty good year in this series. And when that's happening, you need your goalie to stand on his head. like you said.

But also, you need your best skaters to be your best skaters. And I don't think Stutzla has really risen to the occasion quite how you would want. And, you know, a guy that you're saying is an elite forward. Speaking of their elite forwards, it's going to get lost because of how crazy the overtime was. Brutal shift by Brady Kachuk on the winner. Absolutely. Whiff of a lazy dump in attempt. And then he's just swimming out there for the rest of it.

And that's not great. I mean, I understand that his main role these days is apparently to get a draw in fights against guys who don't fight. But maybe being able to execute a basic play with your season on the line would be nice as well. But I guess we'll find out in his next podcast. That's right, yeah. It's tough out there. Who do you have as the key player for Carolina then? I mean, I guess you got to go Anderson too.

Yeah. We don't want to just pick goalies exclusively, but... No, I really tried to steer away from that as best I could, for sure. But in this case, yeah, I think it is. Yeah. All right, let's move on to the other Eastern conference series that got played last night. The Philadelphia Flyers are up to nothing on the Pittsburgh Penguins, taking both road games. And in my opinion, that's a real problem for the Pittsburgh Penguins.

So here's my question. We all looked at this series and went, all right, Pittsburgh Penguins' last dance, question mark. Is there something here? Is there maybe? Could they get the easy first matchup at least? You know, could they get on a roll? Now, I guess my question is, have Penguins fans already seen the end of this playoff run?

As far as your chance to see Sidna Crosby at home in the playoffs, is it already done? Well, I don't think they're getting swept necessarily. That would be... Here's the thing, man, there are a lot of series where... And I would count the Carolina series in this, where one team's up to nothing, but you go, you know what? It's been pretty even so far.

Somebody's got to win both the games and sometimes it's the same. That's not the case in this, this pens flyers. The flyers are stomping them. And I'm done to be saying that because I was not a believer in Philadelphia. Well, I thought, you know, I thought this would be a relatively close series, you know, like evenly played anyway. I don't remember what my actual prediction was from last week. But like, I didn't think that this was going to be like. you know, the flyers doing the thing where they're holding out their arm and the penguins are just swinging at them and can't reach, right?

Like that's what's really happening here. And to that point, I guess, like, remember when everybody was, this is maybe a month ago now? Man, is Eric Carlson back? Has he regained his Norris form and all this kind of stuff? And it's like, okay, has he done anything in this fucking series so far? Yeah. That's the key guy for me. Like when when the oilers were bad in like the early years of Connor McDavid's like career, I guess you would say.

Like I'm more ascendancy though. Like once we started going, okay, this guy looks like he's the best player in the world actually, right? When they were bad back then, in my opinion, a lot of the problem was when they needed him to do something, he had to go all 200 feet with the puck. They didn't have anybody at the back to really help him get the puck up the ice quickly and easily. And that's going to be Carlson's job because Chris Latang's not fucking doing it, right? Yeah, LaTang has looked.

Overmatched? Extremely. Extremely cooked. So Carlson's job is. and should be and has to be whatever you want to say, you get the puck up the ice man. And he's like, I don't know. I don't know if I want to do that.

And to that point, on the broadcast last night, Ray Ferraro's like, so what's going on? They're really pushing you around, and Carlson's like, yeah, I don't know if it's us playing badly or them playing really well. And it's like, you don't want to be given that.

I know it's the heat of the moment. It's 30 seconds, whatever. you don't want to be giving that answer on national TV, big man. You got a couple of Norrises in your closet, don't you? Three, maybe? Does he have three? He's got, I think he's got three. Yeah, he got two in Ottawa.

And then he won the 100-point year, I think. So in my opinion, you've got to have an answer there. He's not been good. I'll make the obvious pick off the Penguins, which is Sidney Crosby, pointless through. two games, and I'm 99% sure we're both picking the same guy from the Flyers. Who do you got for the Flyers? Carter Martone, the

Grizzled veteran, unstoppable grizzled veteran. Where has this guy been? Like, isn't there supposed to be some sort of adjustments, some sort of learning curve when you break it in the NHL? Unbelievable, man. I'm actually going to write about this later this week, like just how good he's been. And even in the regular season, too, like he, you know, the, what was it?

There was some stat of like his shots per 60 was like third in the league if he had played the whole season. And it's like, well, yeah, rookies just shouldn't be able to do that. I'm afraid, you know, like, he, yeah, I got to save my big Porter Marte, don't take for the column, but just suffice it to say, like, I, I think he might be. like this is why you this is why you send elite guys to college now kind of a thing I think a lot of teams might be looking at this going wait

we sent the guy to college are we getting this dude? Yeah well that's exactly yeah because you know when they talked about like when he signed I can't remember the numbers that they were spitting out but they were like oh yeah

Daniel Reier's like oh yeah he put on like 14 pounds of muscle and cut his body fat like 2% or something like that. Just some crazy numbers like that. And it's like, oh, and he was one of the best college hockey players in the country. He played top minutes every night against the other team's best players. And those teams' best players were like 23, 24, 25. And I think that I think you can, again, I'm a biased party here. But I think you can say that college hockey more adequately prepared him for doing this

in the NHL playoffs than he would have gotten in the OHL or whatever just speedbagging a bunch of 17 year olds. So, but no,

that is not actually my, my top flyer because Travis Sandheim has been kicking the dog shit out of the penguins when Crosby's on the ice.

Like, just, they're, he's giving up like shots or whatever, but like they're not really a big problem. They, as you say, they have not scored a goal at five on five with Sidney Crosby on the ice, let alone giving up points or whatever. And if you're, again, when Crosby's out there, and it more evened out in game too when Crosby kind of tried to take over the game. But like, let's see.

Okay, it actually more than even... I thought he was awesome in game one. Game two, he was a little less than awesome. But nevertheless, like if you're... They're asking him to be the shutdown guy. And he's like, okay, I'll shut him down. You know? If he can keep it up, which, you know,

maybe he can't, maybe he can't, but they're hard matching him against the Crosby line and it's working. So keep that up. And when you got home ice, you can do that even more. You only got to do it two more games. So that's why I picked Sanheim.

Sure. Let's move over to Buffalo and Boston. Was that a fun game on Sunday night? It was a fun third period, for sure. The first 50 minutes was Boston Bruins' classic road playoff game. And I mean... They score one goal and said, please don't score on us. Yeah.

And said, we're going to... We will open field tackle you for the rest of the way. And it'll grind this to a halt and quiet the building down as much as we can. And to their credit, they executed it perfectly for 50 minutes. And then it all fell apart. I mean, look, you can imagine all the takes that were brewing about the Sabres, right? Like, you know, here we go again. They finally got to the playoffs, but the playoffs are a different beast.

This Boston team knows that and et cetera, et cetera. And instead, nope, bang, bang, bang, bang. Game over. And building was rocking. It was fun, man. It was, it was fun. I got to tell you. So my big take watching that kind of meltdown or whatever you want to call it in the third period was kind of, does anybody want to

take back those and didn't Don Sweeney do a brilliant job fixing this team. Anybody feel like they kind of jumped the gun on those? That's interesting. Because to me, and I said this when we did the bonus episode last week, the Bruins really only chance to get out of this round, and I picked them to win this round, to be clear. Now I feel a little stupid. but they have, I think, probably the best player in the series, which is Jeremy Swayman. Okay.

And he was just kind of under siege most of that game. And it ended up that he couldn't, you know, hold back the flood or whatever, right? And I, you know, they still need Buffalo to beat him three more times. I don't know how likely that is, you know. Again, I think he was one of the two or three best goalies in the league this year. And I just, you know, if you have a top three goalie, that's the best player on the ice every single night, no matter who you're playing pretty much.

Unless you're playing, I guess, one of the other two goalies. But he can be that much of a difference maker. And he wasn't in game one. And so my key player for, for Boston actually isn't Swainman because it kind of goes without saying. My key player for Boston is David Posternak. They need you to be as good as Tage Thompson, my friend.

That's what it boils down to for me. So you got, you got whatever you want to say, like shortcomings with the roster. Let's put it kind of politely. Top of the roster isn't that much of a problem. If you have David Posternock playing David Posternock level hockey. And I kind of didn't think he did that in night one. And the guy I'm picking is similarly Morgan Geeky because if he's going, then you can't just sell out to stop Pasternak.

And, you know, we remember the first half of the year where it was like, oh, Morgan Geeky's going to win the Rock at Richard. And then in the second half, he was like, oh, not the 39 fucking goals, though, man. Like, it's not like this guy. He did have that long stretch where he didn't. score at all. He really quiet it down because he wanted he wanted to get 39 to match his jersey number. That was obviously

what he was playing for and he got there. But he looked really good in game one. So if he's back to first half, Morgan Geeky, that does change the equation a fair amount. What you got for Buffalo? Tate Thompson. You're playing an elite goaltender.

The biggest of the big dogs. He won the battle in in game one, you only got, much like Sandheim, you only got to do it three more times. So I think it kind of goes without saying like, Dahlin,

yeah, you need Lukin to be as good, maybe even a little better than he was in game one. You know, the Bruin scored three. It's not like, but I think Tage Thompson, like everything's going to run through him offensively

to a certain extent, especially on the power play. So just keep it up, man. Like it worked really good in game one. So that's my pick. Yeah. Tage Thompson is the, you know, I can't remember with the quote I saw, but it was like the big dog's got a dog or something like that,

like one for one so far. Yep. That's exactly right. you know, there's sort of to really simplify it and maybe even turn it into a cliche. When you haven't been in the playoffs

in that long, there's there's guys who think they want to be in the playoffs and then they get there and it's a little too bright for them at least at first. The adjustment is bigger than you want it. And then there's some guys that are like a dog let off the leash. And that's what Tage Thompson was.

Yeah, absolutely. Finally, and Montreal. Fun, fun opener? Yep. I'm a little worried if I'm Tampa. I know it's only one game,

but I don't, the lightning have this weird pattern of laying an egg in game one and then sometimes shrugging it off and going on to win the series and sometimes not doing that. And I guess tonight

will give us a big indication of which direction we might be at it. But full credit to the haves, I think the big takeaway from this is, even through just one game, like, there was no intimidation factor. And I'm not talking physical intimidation. I'm talking like, these guys have got multiple Stanley Cups. They're the favorites. They're the veterans. We're the kids. We've, you know, we haven't been at this stage. We've never come into a series with any expectations. We're going to maybe back down a half a step.

Not at all. Not Montreal looked like a team that was absolutely convinced they belong. And they pulled it off. Yeah. So for me, the key player for Tampa is J.J. Mosher. Because it's like, yep, Kutrov looked really good. You can go down the list. All the guys you think need to look really good.

looked really good. And Mosher, you know, whether we like it or not, is kind of being put into the, okay, you have to go out there and be Victor Headman now for us, please. Yep. Victor Headman, not healthy. And even when he was healthy this year, he didn't look like Victor Headman. J.J. Mosher, I believe, led them in P.K. time all season.

And especially if they're going to take one million penalties like they did in game one, they need Mosher to be like kind of the anchor back there and I just kind of didn't see that in game one. Fair enough. And I'm going to be cheap and I'm going to say Victor Edmonds, my key player just through his absence and when and if he's going to get back because I do think that's,

I think as great as he is and as great as everyone acknowledges that he is, we're maybe not factoring that enough into our projections for the series. Well, again, to me, it kind of, it does boil a little bit down to he looked quite bad this season, Hedman did. And I mean, you're right insofar as he would be a key player if he were what we imagined Victor Hedman to be.

But the question is, is he? Even 60% of Victor Hedman is still moves the next. needle for for the lightning, I think. Yeah. But yeah, you're right. We'll see. And for Montreal, do we go with the obvious? Who do you think is the obvious?

Big, big game slap? It would be really nice if he kept it up for sure. Yeah, there's no two ways about that. But I do, this is another one where I'm going to cheap out and pick the goalie. You know, we said going into the series that, like, the Lightning's biggest advantage was probably in net because they have Andre Vasselowski, one of the two goalies, I think, was better than Jeremy Swain in this year. Mm. They were probably right around equal, I guess, now that I say that. And in Montreal, they're like, yeah, is it dobish?

Is it foul? are like they kind of weren't sure for a while there. And if you're going to say Tampa has like one kind of kill shot ability, it's that the top of their lineup has a lot of really good forwards who can do a lot of damage to you. And so, again, all Dovish has to do is three more games. Can he withstand it? I kind of don't think so. I pick Tampa to win this series.

and I don't know how many more penalties get called. You know, what did Montreal have five, six power plays in game one? Something like that? I don't know that they're getting that many as this goes into like game four, five, six, seven. It won't. We all know that this is how good, especially in a series involving a team like Tampa. And, you know, Montreal is not a big physically scary team, but they don't back off. So you know the refs are, okay, let's call a bunch of penalties in game one, maybe game two.

and then we completely put the whistles away and people will still fall for the hole. Actually, there's more penalties called in the playoffs than in the regular season. And you're like, yeah, because you know, you give everyone a misconduct at the end of game one, bump the numbers, and then shut it down. So, yeah, that's not going to be an issue going forward.

No, I don't suppose so. Anything else you wanted to say about that? series? Um, no, other than, uh, the, you know, game two tonight and then head to the bell center, which is going to be loud. Yeah. Oh, I wanted to say this about Slavkovsky. Like, the whole thing with him was that they kind of went out on a limb to draft him,

right? And not that, not that you're looking at it going, oh, they, they might have some buyers remorse or whatever. That just isn't the case. He's been very good for them this whole time. But what I do think is interesting is like, what's the ceiling? You know, like that I think that's an interesting question to ask about him. And I don't know how replicable what he did in game one is, but boy, he looked fucking good.

Yep. Oh, he looks so fucking sick, man. Damn. So I guess that's my big slap cough. There was a funny moment on the Hockey Night Canada broadcast where they were talking about like the last Montreal Canadian to finish a hat trick in overtime in the playoffs was Eric Desjardin back on the famous Stanley Cup game

and they were like awkwardly realized as they were saying it that those goals all came against Kelly Rudy who's part of it was like, oops, okay. Maybe we won't show the highlights, but since you're up that five hole, Kelly. That's tough. All right, why don't we take a break and we'll come back and do the Western Conference. All right, we're back.

And let's start with Minnesota, Dallas. Because that first game was, I guess you would say, not what the stars were looking for. You don't think? And then the second one, I think, went a little better for them. Yeah, I would agree. And I'll admit it, I got a little worried after game one. I think you had to. This classic series that we've all been expecting would maybe not be that.

And, you know, it's not like the stars came out and dominated game two, but it's a series now. And I feel good about, you know, this is the series where it's like, look, you owe us a game seven. Game seven overtime? Yeah, if not you guys, then who? But let's please get this done. So we'll see. But yeah, it was a good. I mean, I will admit, I didn't see a ton of it last night because I was fixated on.

A lot of flipping around last night for sure. Yeah. Yeah. That's the real problem with, even if you have two TVs last night, which, you know, I always set up the iPad for the second screen experience. And even then, that wasn't enough last night. So. Now, one play that I did see as it happened, that Colin Blackwell hit. Oh, crazy.

You do not see a lot of those in the NHL anymore. And it is, it's tough. And I'm not saying this is what happened. But I feel like you see some of those in like earlyish in the playoffs because it's just that that kind of hit is just not part of the NHL regular season anymore to anywhere near the extent that that it used to be i've made the comment before and i know i sound like an old man when i say it but there are hits today in the regular season that people freak out about that wouldn't even have made a highlight real in yeah like i'm

talking like you're absolutely right that hit would have happened in a uh you know, a Red Wings Hawks game in 1993. It wouldn't even have been in the package that you would have watched on Sports Center that night. Totally. I think part of that, can I say this, though? This might be a controversial statement. I just think part of that is like there are, like the guys who are receiving those hits

back then, not quite as good as the bottom of the roster guys that we got now, you know? Sure. Like, it's, it's, I think it's just harder to light up better players. And, and we just also understand. stand and are more respectful of the health factor, which impacts both players. Like, yeah, I might, you know, if I got a chance to hit you like that in game 14 of the regular season, maybe in some level I'm, I'm respecting you as an opponent and saying I'm not going to, you know, but I also know that hits going to hurt me too.

Not as much. And that and also like, you could be on the receiving end of it in game 61. So do I really want to, you know, just to just to. to what? Maybe I knock you, you know, maybe I take you out of the game. So what? Maybe I take you, maybe you miss a month. Big deal. We're not playing you for the next month. It doesn't. Yeah. The cost benefit doesn't work. Versus in game one or game two of a seven game playoff series. Yep. I'm going to take that. I'm going to take that shot. So boy, that was, and it comes against Yak of Trannett, who's who led the league in hits. So it's not like. Nobody, nobody did more hitting this year than him. Yep. Not a guy you would expect to get caught with his head down, but just, you know, that, that, like, it's almost like, like, there was a time where a play like that as it was developing, you'd be like, oh, you know, like, you used to have what, you know, some people would call like a suey, like a suicide pass where you would pass up to it and you just put the guy receiving the pass in a really bad situation.

Yeah, hospital ball, they call it in football. Yep. Absolutely. And I like watching it live, I didn't feel that. I should have because it was the classic setup like that. But I'm just like I'm so used to guys not taking the full advantage of that situation that. Totally. Yeah, that was that was something else. And it's it's only going to keep elevating those two teams. So I'm glad that Dallas won because I'm glad the series is tied.

sure yeah because I don't want this to end in four or five games I want to this yeah I want every series to be nice and long yeah for sure mm-hmm yep who do you have as your as your key player for the the stars who got up off the mat and all that kind of stuff who okay uh I you know what I'm not gonna say Jake Odinger even though you know we all had our vision of like in game one of to Bore doing the Leo point at the at the TV. I'm going to say, well, I'll say for Dallas, give me Miko Ranton, who hasn't really landed in the series yet.

You know, sometimes the key guy is the guy doing all the scoring, but sometimes it's the dog that didn't bark. And especially in a series that I keep saying over and over again, I'm expecting to go long, did Miko Rantan do anything late in the first? first round last year? Probably not. Yeah, I don't.

We definitely didn't write him off as a bust like four or five games into, nah, that wouldn't. We wouldn't do that. So I'll make him my pick. Yeah, for me, it's the pending free agent. The guy, is this guy good or does he actually get 90 points and 35 goals every year? It sucks shit. We can't decide.

It's Jason Robertson who had the game winning goal last night. You're going to, again, you want to. be the big dog get up we're letting you off the leash man are you gonna are you gonna stand around in the front yard or are you gonna fucking chase down the mailman you know yep and again scored the game winner last night i thought he looked pretty good the whole game so more of that please absolutely he's and again this is a player i i like i've i've always liked all you want everything you want to say about that so um yeah i i just Let's keep it going for him.

What about for Minnesota? I mean, so far, the stars have been the stars scoring-wise. Sorry, the star players on Minnesota. Yeah, the top guys. Yeah, exactly. Or the pros are the pros. I will go Matt Boldie, who has had a couple of those moments where he looks undeniable. He had, yeah, absolutely.

Hasn't done it consistently, you know. which, I mean, if he did, he'd be a 60 goal score, so, you know, give him some time at 24, whatever he is. But he's looked quite good. Yeah, I tend to agree. For me, I'm going to go in the cheap route here, but it's Quinn Hughes. Like, let's be really serious here. Let's just say it's Quinn Hughes.

when he's been on the ice in this series, four nothing at five on five the goals, and seven to one in all situations. Now, let me ask you this. Are we going to make it a thing that he stops skating on the empty net goal? No, who cares, man? That's what I thought you would say,

and I'm on board with that. But I have seen the clip a few times. The guy plays like 27 minutes a night. He did shut down, though. I do feel like other players would take a little bit of heat on that. It's an empty net goal, so it's not like that cost in the game. And I'm not convinced he gets there even if he goes all out. But it was a bit of a tough look.

Yeah. Look, we're always looking for a reason to get mad at a top guy, you know? Yeah. But to me, in a certain way, I guess you would say, like, don't you kind of wish the other guys were stepping up for them? And I think that would be a reasonable criticism. Like, is he going to be able to do it all? Blah, blah, blah. Like, maybe not against a team like the stars.

but it's not I guess what I'm saying is it's not like he doesn't have a lot of practice with this like are we saying like Brodine and Spurgeon have to be the step-up guys for the wild so that they're not like if Quinn's not on the ice we just want to make nothing happen maybe

but Hughes I'll put it to you this way Hughes has to keep playing at the outscored the opponent's seven to one level. Yeah. Which is probably not an ideal position. It's not, but he can fucking do it. But you can picture Quinn Hughes going, all right. Yeah, he's like.

Oh, I get, I get, I can give up one every eight. All right. Cool. So, yeah, that, that's my, like, again, it's not, I'm not a genius or anything for, for saying Quinn Hughes is the guy. But Quinn Hughes is the fucking guy, man. He's the best defenseman in the league. Edmonton and Anaheim. Oh, boy, I tell you, so I will admit this.

I shut her down. I went to bed after two periods of, uh, of that one. And I went to bed thinking, uh-oh. And, uh, to their credit, the Oilers finished the comeback. They did. They win at four three. Really fun third period. Really fun third period.

You felt like the ducks were kind of, clinging to it. And I, man, it's, it's, it's, it's a tough one for the ducks. I think, I don't think too many people are expecting them to win the series. And when that's the case, you, you just feel like when there's this big of a mismatch on paper, not in the standings, but on paper, you know, I think we'd all agree that Oilers, two-time conference champs and all that are the big face. favorites.

Even then, and we can talk about this a bit in the King's Ave series, there's going to be a couple of games where it's close. Yeah, you get a nature of hobby. And you got, if you're the underdog, you've got to find a way to win those ones. And it's nice to come out and say like, hey, man, we didn't get blown out. We gave them everything they could have. You know, we were right there. But it's like at some point, you got to win the we're right there games because the Connor McDavid game is coming.

There was this, the stat, wasn't this, the first game all year that the Oilers won without Connor McDavid getting a point? Which is why. I didn't see that stat, but that is extremely plausible to me that that's, that's a real staff. It's the big two of Jason Dickinson and Casperi Kappaninan. Well, I'll tell you. All the scoring, but.

They, they slaughtered a guy where's the number 29. They slotted him back in the lineup for the first time in a while. Yep. And his entry on the game that led to the game winning goal was fucking electrifying. It's like that's what they pay this guy the big bucks to do. He's just like, oh, Connor's not scoring today? No problem. I have an MVP in my back pocket too.

Fuck off. Here's your $14 million check for the year. Thank you very much. Yeah. Just unbelievable zone entry. And again, like just a pure. That's a star moment. That's a guy rising to the challenge.

whatever you want to say. So sick. So awesome. But neither of those guys are my, they have to step up guys. Okay. Connor Ingram is. We, like you say, we got it all figured out up from. We're going to score four goals a game.

What we need you to do, Connor, Ingram, is not give up five. Can you do that? You can? Awesome. Sounds good. See you out there. That's the whole thing here. And look, like, I get that I'm very guilty of this.

And I don't apologize for piling on the Oilers about the whole Tristan Jari debacle. But we've been saying for years they need a goal or they need to go. They might have their guy. And I don't mean their guy as in their Vezna candidate. I mean they're good enough guy. we said it a little bit in the first half with the senators and all mark, like you just need them to be mediocre. That's all they need.

Edmonton ever needs from a goalie? Yep. They got a pretty good guy in Conneringham. Did you see his quote about how, like, how different it was at Rexall than he was like, yeah, I'm used to playing at the Mollet Arena, so playoff Edmonton was a little bit different. He's probably right about that. I imagine he is, yeah.

Yeah. So that's my, that's my guy for, sure. I'll go, I didn't pick one, but I'll say dry. Oh, give me, give me, give me, give me, Leo, I think that. What I mean, Mick David, obviously, is going to determine this, their whole playoff run, but, like, dry saddle coming back from injury, too. You know, we kind of set it a bit with Edmund, you know, he's not going to be 100%, but what are you going to get? well, they got 14 million worth last night. Oh, man, that was such a sick play.

And then for Anaheim, we need Leo Carlson. We need them. Again, I think it's very easy to make the argument. You're just not going to stop McDavid Drysettel from scoring two or three times a night. You need somebody that can keep up with them. This is going to be a high-scoring series. theories in theory, you know. Let's get it going, Big Dog.

We need more. Yep. So it's not, you know, it's not rocket science here. And I'm just going to go with the, I haven't picked the goal in a while. So give me Lucas Dostov because he could steal it. He's got to steal it. I mean, he's just, and he wasn't the problem last night, but. No, no.

Four goals a game isn't going to do it, one way or another, whatever it is. Even if you're giving up 50 shots a night, like that's... Yeah. So, oh for one, not his fault at all, but, I mean, it just, he's just... Yeah, it's one of those things where... If Anaheim's going to have a chance, he's got to be better. It's one of those things where you're like, me and you can sit here and say, we have to accept that the Oilers are going to score three goals with McDavid and Drysidal

on the ice every night. We just have to take that as a given. For him, he can't think that way, you know? Yeah. He's like, I don't think I want to take that as red, actually. That that's what's going to occur here. So, like, he can't think that way, even though, you know, the hockey world at large certainly will. So there you go.

The other two series that didn't happen last night in the Western Conference, Colorado and L.A. Yeah, I mean. LA gave more of a game than we thought, but just like we said with the ducks. When you're the underdog, you kind of have to, you got to find a way in those games. We all pick Colorado and four.

I think you went five. You were the most optimistic Kings backer that I saw anywhere. Yeah. But, yeah, not. The Kings were this close to getting that one to over. time though and then anything can happen yep they were for example the kings can get to the

playoffs um uh-huh and so to that point this is another goal guy where i'm just like their goal he just needs to not fuck up like that's the that's the whole gimmick here as are going to get their goals they're not going to they're not going to be too worried about uh what the what the kings are putting out there but they just need scott wedgwood to be like like, yeah, I got this. It's fine. Did you see the clip of the Jared Bednar interview during the game where he was asked about, he was asked about Wedgwood and the, I don't remember who it was that was asking it, but was like, you know, Scott Wedgwood looks very good.

It's his first playoff start in his entire career. What are you, and Benar was like, what? It is? I didn't know that. I don't think I saw that clip. Which does feel like the sort of thing a coach should know, but also very, very... Well, if I'm Wedgwood, do you think I'm bringing that up voluntarily? Yeah, exactly.

You're not... When the coach pulls you aside, you're starting tonight, Big Dog. I've never done this before. You know what, Big Dog, go... Now, starting in a playoff game, is that harder or easy? It's like, uh-oh. Go get me McKenzie. And, uh, yeah, I get...

Yeah, I'm just going head down on this. one, you know, sitting in the back of the classroom trying to slouch, I don't know the answer, you know? That's me. Key players, for L.A., because he was very noticeable in game one, give me Quentin Bifield. We're kind of still waiting for the breakout here, like the big breakout. We got the medium-sized breakout a few years ago, but he had seven shot attempts in the game, led the team. Didn't get a lot of them through. didn't turn any of them into offense.

But I think if there's any chance of the Kings doing something here, I think we look back on the series and go, oh yeah, that Bifil really flipped a switch. Yeah, I went back and forth between him and Panarin, because it's like, you just got that big new contract, you know? You're going to show the Kings that they didn't goof it with, uh, was giving you that because if you're saying at age 35 or whatever he is these days, you're still one of the best, the very best players in the world,

you have to go toe to toe to against, playing in the Western Conference, you have to go toe to toe to against Nathan McKinnon and Connor McDavid and Leon Dries Seidl, somebody in the first, you're going to get that level of guy in the first round in the Western Conference, you're going to be as good as them. And we've seen Panarin have MVP quality seasons. Really love to see him have an MVP quality playoff round. Tough ask at 35, but...

Absolutely. But that's what he's getting paid the big bucks for. Some of the biggest bucks we got. Some of them. And Colorado, I feel like you could, I mean, you could pick the goal. You could pick any number of the stars on that team because none of them really had dominant games.

No. That's the scary thing for L.A. You can sit there and go like, oh yeah, as long as all of their six guys who are all better than our best guy have quiet nights, we can almost win. That ain't going to be enough. Yeah.

And finally, Vegas and Utah. Vegas didn't really steal one, but they sort of escaped. with one, felt like. If you're one of the, I think, many-ish people who took Utah to win that series, you're not necessarily that discouraged after the loss, but Vegas looked good. Yeah, and you would expect them to. They're a team that's been to many, you know, they're the opposite of Scott Wedgwood.

They've played in a lot of playoff games. over the last little while here. So I don't, you know what I really think happened here is, you know, who was, I thought quite bad for Utah was Clayton Keller. He's supposed to be their best player. Yeah. Led them in scoring this year, all that kind of stuff. I thought he kind of sucked in game one, honestly. Okay.

And if they're going to win this series, they need their best players to be their best players. They don't have the depth to go toe to toe to with Vegas and like, you know, their third line guys are driving the bus. You know what I mean? You're saying Kevin Stenlin can't be the difference maker in this series? I guess I am. I mean, he can be, but that would have to come in addition to their top guys being able to match Vegas as top guy. Because it happened a few times in game one where, uh, Tortorello was like, we need a spark.

I guess we'll put Marner Stone and Eichel out there at the same time. You know what I mean? And that just like completely wipes the board of any of any progress Utah felt like they were making. And at that point, you know, like that's where you need Clayton Keller to be the guy that, was he a 90 point player in the regular season? Something like that. Yes, I believe he was. Yeah.

So you need them there. And like I say, I thought he was like actively bad in game one, not just, not just like didn't have a huge impact. Yeah, I think he's a good pan, was on the ice for he and he and Nick Schmaltz were on the ice for, I don't think all the goals against, but. Enough of them at least. It's a problem for sure, yeah. I'll just, just to avoid copying you, I'm going to throw J.J. Paterka out there. A guy who maybe I don't watch enough mammoth, but about once a month, I go, right, yeah, they did make that big. That was their big offseason move.

And unfortunately, usually it's happening while I'm watching a Josh Dohn highlight, but this is. Yeah, that was tough for me. I believe I said that that trade was two quarters for a dime or two nickels for a dime or something like that. No, I think Buffalo did pretty well in that way. Buffalo is for a guy who wanted out, Buffalo did pretty well, which doesn't mean Utah can't get what they want, but first year, he was fine. It was great.

Playoffs would be a nice chance to rewrite that little narrative. We'll see. Still time. Wasn't great in game one. Vegas, I don't know. Who are we picking? Which of the stars are we? Again, to me, I am going back to the goalie well here,

but for like the not don't fuck it up reason like somebody has to be the goalie here. Yep. Did you see anything in game one where you're like and it's got to be Carter Hart? Because I sure didn't. Yeah. Yeah. And I'll go with, you know what, give me, I'll go the easy way. Give me Jack Eichael.

Yeah. I mean, you know, he's one of those centers that like he's not just. counted on to score. He needs to be a shutdown guy as well. Mission accomplished in game one. I was just saying how Utah's best player was awful in that game. So, you know, like, I actually don't have the numbers in front of me about, like, how hard matched they were or whatever. But, like, Eichl's going to be a shutdown guy, Utah got pretty, Utah's best players got pretty well shut down, like, by the group or whatever you want to say.

So I'm with you Like he's He's got to be their best player Their best skater for sure And that's all the series We did it But other stuff happened this week And I've been

And the big one for me Is on On the Winnipeg Jets Like a locker cleanout day They say to Connor Halibuck What do you think? And he goes Uh-oh

I don't think very good at all. Mm-hmm. Yeah, he was... The quotes were crazy. Yeah, that, I mean, and the funny thing is, I can imagine Connor Hellbuck in his head probably thinking that he walked a line of not going too overboard. And he didn't in the sense that, you know, if Carter Hallibuck had been like, I'm the best

goalie in the world, please stop putting an absolute dog's breakfast of a team in front of me. Yeah. I don't think any of us could really blame him. But, yeah, it was still kind of a yikes moment. Absolutely. And I've already seen, like, there's, I've mentioned Morat's coverage a couple of times, but I think it's been very good where he's kind of held the Jets' feet to the fire a bit on, like,

staying the course is not good enough. You have to pick a lane right now. And if, if, if that. Yeah. If that hadn't sunk in, boy, Connor Hellibuck saying what he said, certainly. Well, I will say that they then got quotes from the coach and the GM. And the coach and the GM were like, well, he's not wrong. You know what I mean?

Like they. Not, but. No, he definitely isn't. But like, I would have, I'm honestly a little shocked we didn't get more pushback on. Well, actually, you know, if you look at it, like, they were kind of like. yeah, he has a point, which I feel like you don't see a ton. So like, I think that's probably a positive sign. And I mean, the, the worst part of it as a Jets fan is it would be beyond bad enough if you're, you know, not just your best player.

the best player you have ever had in 2.0 version of Jets history by a mile. If he was saying what he said, expressing dissatisfaction, expressing frustration with the team in front of him, seeming to maybe crack the door open, we're reading between the lines a little bit here, but cracking the door a bit on, hey man, if things don't get better, I'm out of here. Yeah.

That's all one thing. but then to have him go even further and say, hey, we got to figure out if we can even get good players to come to Winnipeg. Yeah. And he wasn't knocking the team as he said it. He said, you know, I live here. I love it here. But if we can't get guys to come here, then what are we doing?

And that's a great question. What are we doing? And it's the answer might not be a very good one for Winnipeg hockey. And NHL hockey, I'd argue, if this goes where it could be going and where Connor Hellibuck is obviously seeing it going. It's tough. Yeah. I, you know, like, I think the thing that is interesting, and maybe I'm not as plugged in on,

on, like, Jets fandom or whatever you want to say, but like, the thing that I think is interesting is I haven't seen, usually when you say, like, oh, no one wants to live in Winnipeg or Buffalo or whatever it is, there's some local contingent that's like, it actually is beautiful here and 100% is the nicest place to live on Earth they'd never want to live anywhere else. And I have not seen a ton of that

coming out of Winnipeg in the wake of these Conrad Hellibuck comments. You know what I mean? Yep. So that is the interesting wrinkle in it for me is just like, maybe there's some acceptance on that. front now? Maybe?

Mm-hmm. It's pretty interesting. Now, I mean, I guess if you want an optimistic take... I don't, but continue. If you're Winnipeg, and this is... Oh, okay. I'm really stretching

what optimism looks like here. But if you are a fan who looks at this team and says, they're not good enough, there's some great players on this team, but they're all getting old. They certainly are. you can't possibly trade Connor Hellebuck because then he committed to the team and everything

and how are you ever going to get well this does as I say crack the door open just a bit and maybe that would be the best thing trade Connor Hellebuck for a boatload to whichever team goes out in the first round because they're goalie craps the bed

and and there's your rebuild and you can say, hey, we didn't give up on him. He didn't give up on us, but it just, this is where it was going to go and we didn't have a lot of choice.

I don't know. Maybe that's how you look at it. But best player we've ever had doesn't play here anymore is not much of an optimistic take. I'll acknowledge. Yeah, I think the other thing with that

is like, Isn't this a big Greg take of like, oh, you're having trouble like getting players to commit there and want to play there and blah, blah, blah. You can just draft them and trade for them. Yeah. Like, isn't that like the thing? Well, I mean, you can trade for them if they're young enough to not have a no trade clause,

which is probably who you should be trading for. but yeah, it's, it can be done, but man, I, I tell, I know, like, Oilers fans are furious because SG's writing about McDavid's future again and all that, but it's, it, this is all, it's all realistic stuff to talk about. Calgary's going to have a nice new arena and can they put a team around it. At the end of the day, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know what the NHL does if the markets that drive a big chunk of the revenue can't survive because nobody wants to play there.

Winnipeg's not a big market, obviously, but they're bigger as far as what they bring in than some teams. Sure. We got a problem as a league if this, if we keep going down this road that I think a lot of Jets fans would tell you we're already on. And Oilers fans would tell you we were on until we had. the best player maybe ever drop into our laps. I don't know.

Yeah, and isn't that the thing, right, of like, if you create a winning environment, players are like, oh, I'd love to go win there, actually. And the Jets have never done that. You know? Yeah, I mean, that is true, but they won a president's trophy last year. A few years before that, I mean, but 2018, I think it was, was they just missed

president's trophy, went to the conference final. Like, and there was no lineup. And in the wake of that, they were getting, they were getting guys to commit there. Now, maybe they had to do the Columbus tax thing. But again, like, that's right.

I think it's fair to be like a Winnipeg and say, how do we compete with Vegas? Or, you know, one of these teams where players just seem to be lining up to go there. And for us, the absolute best case scenario is we can keep most of the guys we have. Yeah. It's tough, man.

It's, and- It is tough, but like, you, you can't move the fucking city, and they already tried moving the team. How'd that go? You know what I mean? Like, you can't, if you're the Jets, you can't just throw up your hands and go, well, fuck it. No one wants to play here. You have to, you have to have a plan for this. And again, the plan is as simple as.

You draft guys, you develop guys, you put guys in a position to, like, play on the team. How many times have we heard, oh, the Jets make it impossible for their young guys to develop and be in the NHL for consistently? And it's like, yeah, you know, who's probably getting pissed off about that is the young guys that you're eventually, in theory, going to want to extend and get to do the Connor McDavid, or Conor McDavid, Connor Hellebuck, Mark Schifley thing and commit to you for their entire careers. And you're just like, we actually can't put those guys on the ice. We need, you know. That is a big part of it. It's just, I don't know. If markets like Winnipeg, Calgary, maybe Edmonton, Ottawa's not far from it,

and maybe you want to lump in Columbus and place like that too. Like, we have small market teams in every sport, and we know what the plan is. is, right? You do the Pittsburgh Pirates thing. Draft a ton of great prospects, bring them all together, at the same time, have one or two year window where you say we're going to actually try to win, hope for a miracle during those couple of years, and then sell and repeat. And if you're, you know, the Tampa Bay raise, maybe it works pretty well, but the Tampa Bay raise are not important to the Major League baseball's bottom line. Neither are the pirates. And half the Canadian teams, a little more important. But I guess we'll see how it goes. I just bummed out myself, let alone all the kids. I'm sorry about that.

I'm sorry, Winnipeg. Let's talk about the Leafs. That makes everyone happy. Oh, yeah, everyone loves talking about those guys. Well, I mean, it makes you feel better about your own team, right? Sure. You're the Leafs guy. What do you got? where apparently they uh well i i i guess i will start with the with the good news like in in the sense that i crapped on the leafs when keith belly did his press conference about his whole like oh we want to get a GM in place by the end of May like it's going to take six weeks for you guys to get a GM this is no apparently not apparently as apparently we have finalists I think a couple of the insiders were saying that this week might be the week.

I don't know if they're going to pick the right guy, but the timing is at least better. The timing at least reveals that you are not completely paralyzed by your corporate structure and org charts and board meetings and all of that, and you can actually do things that every other team is able to do. Now, that haven't been said, the two finalists who've been named are Evan Gron, and Ryan Martin, who Evan Gold is an assistant in Boston, Ryan Martin is an assistant in New York,

and let's just say one of those is being received much better than the other. And if you look at the standings and or the current playoffs, you can probably guess which of those teams. People are more excited about looting for an assistant GM. Evan Gold from Boston, I think, is a good candidate.

Ryan, Put it this way. I have seen a lot of confusion from Rangers fans that Ryan Martin is featuring this prominently. And I'm saying confusion instead of saying, I'm seeing a lot of Rangers fans going, please take this guy. Because, yeah, the Christury front office

does not seem like the model you want to emulate. Well, you know, but it's one of those things of like, I, this is one of those things. It's completely opaque to me what any given AGM does. for any given team. Absolutely, yes. And so it becomes a little bit of a,

remember the dubous lamarillo thing, where like every good move the Leafs made that I liked, that was the dubus one. But Olu, anytime they made a bad one, oh, he's at it again, that old skunk, you know? Like, I can't, especially with an organization owned by James Dolan. Yes.

You know, like I cannot sit here. and go, we have to really, really think about everything they're doing as like granularly as which AGM is fucking us over this time. Sure. And the one thing on that is that apparently that as far as his public facing portfolio, Ryan Martin, was the cap guy in New York. Which, putting aside how well New York's cap has been managed, because again, you can play that guy, oh, you know, he, it was, it was Drury who signed the bad contracts.

It was the guys before that that signed the bad contracts. He just made him fit. Okay, cool. If cap management is your big criteria, like the Leafs have got a pretty good cap management guy and Brandon Pridum, who's the interim GM now. Like, I understand that it might be tough to sell an internal hire. in Toronto, but I mean, I'm looking at the standings

in the Eastern Conference and I got to go way, way, way, way down to get to the Leafs. And then there's one team below them. So I don't know that that's a guy. The other thing we should say on this is the fact that both of those guys, and it was Frank Saravelli who

was the most prominent one that I saw putting their names out there and he said there could be others. He basically said these two have both been invited back for I can't remember if he said second interviews or final interviews, but both of these two are far along in the process. He said there could be others.

But it would certainly seem that given that those are two names that are not super familiar and super established, that there is, in fact, going to be a president of hockey operations in Toronto. And it feels potentially a little bit backwards if they're hiring the GM first, but who knows? There's been some speculation that maybe the president is largely in place already in participating and just hasn't been announced yet.

It's Keith, it's Keith Pelly's chat bot. That's interesting. That's a great point by you, Keith. Yeah. Yeah, tough sledding for the Leafs these days. Austin Matthews also speaking of guys not wanting to commit long term to a situation. Yeah, I mean, I didn't see anything really in his statements that, you know, he's got a couple years to figure it out. Definitely one year before he can sign an extension.

So, you know, if he wants to wait and see, that's probably very valid and that's probably what the leash should do too. and it doesn't really matter because it's the only choice they have. So I didn't see anything from his comments that made me go, you know, I didn't see anything that made me go, oh, wait a second, this guy is locked in. But I didn't see anything that made me think he's got an eye on the door any more than I think a normal player would. Hey, I like it here, but I'm 28 or whatever.

And if you guys are going to do a five-year rebuild, maybe I should. No, thank you. Maybe I should be part of the rebuild portion. Not the sitting around losing for five years portion. Yeah. Well, we got some GM news as well this week. The Devils.

Yeah, the GM news was that we found out Patrick Alvin was actually the GM in Vancouver. I'd forgotten that. That's what they say. Let's start with the Devils hiring Sunny Meadow, though. I like it. I mean, that was a guy I was certainly hoping the Leafs would be in on, but and initially when that when it dropped that the devils had got him and you know we didn't even really hear about him interviewing in Toronto it was kind of like oh god did they drag their feet on this

so much that the best candidate chose New Jersey but then when you see that like yeah it was his childhood team he posts the photo of himself in the starter jet you're like hell yeah man go take that job of course and and I got to say that on that front this is the the reverse of the John Tavares Sheets thing. Okay. You know what I mean? Like, you got a guy

because he had the PJs? You lost a guy because he had the PJs. That's the way it goes. Simple. Yeah. Nothing bad to say about any of it, you know? Yeah. And, you know, we'll see.

See how it goes. You never really know. There have been guys who have been well-respected assistants who just haven't had success as the guy. But he's earned it. He's earned his shit.

his shot at it. And honestly, even putting aside, even putting aside the childhood connection of the team, he's going to have more fun in New Jersey than he would in Toronto. So that seems likely, yeah. And great hire by the devils. Yeah, it should go without saying that's, that that was the, for what they were looking for, they got their guy. Yep, absolutely. And then, yeah, Let's do Patrick Alvin here. They made a movie about this recently. It's called The Fall Guy. We looked around.

We're trying to figure out why do we suck so bad? Turns out it's all the guy that everybody agreed for the last few years doesn't make any decisions. It's all his fault. Kick him in the ass. You got it. No parachute. Thank you. Have a good one.

So who are they hiring? Or are they promoting for? Because that was the thing there. It seems like promoting from within is the way they're going to be going on this one. I mean, anyone who helped that team become what they've become can't let them go. You got to keep things. Unless it's Patrick Alvin. Get out of here, buddy.

I said anyone who helped. Oh, yeah, sure. I don't know, man. They're certainly an NHL team. There's no two ways about that. They're in the NHL. The roster doesn't reflect that, certainly, but they're in the NHL. There's no two ways about that.

They are indeed. Can confirm the report, originally reported by Ryan. So this is one of those, there's only 32 of these jobs. Well, then, here's what I wonder. Do you, if you're Vancouver, do you hire someone before the lottery? or do you hope you win the lottery and maybe that. I mean, I don't think the draft is so good that it's not like winning the McDavid lottery where suddenly everyone's like, oh, I would like to be the GM here, yes.

Right. But I don't know. Yeah, if they're hiring externally, then I guess, I mean, if you're doing it internally, you've got to go quick because otherwise all the other teams with openings are going to raid. Yeah, but if you're doing it internally, you can also just go, yeah, you can't hire him. You know what I mean? Like you're not allowed to interview him. You can do that.

And this is all going on and we should point out Nashville still needs a GM too. They've been the other team that's been lurking and has been linked to some of these guys. I think they were linked to meta. They were linked to – I heard them with Martin. I didn't hear them with Evan Gold necessarily. I'm saying here as if I'm an insider. Like I'm reading the same tweets everyone else is. That's right.

Yeah, so there's some churn for sure. Yeah, that's, it'll be really interesting to see what Vancouver does. That's all. Other than that, I think we're all good. I don't know that I missed any big news here besides that. Oh, I think we're. Oh, you know what? They changed, I saw they changed the rules for how GM of the year gets voted on.

They did do that, yeah. It's now after one round instead of after two rounds. After the first round, not the second. So it'll be three of the eight teams left instead of always three or four. That's right. I knew I was forgetting something. I missed that because I did like that the way they did it before was like a de facto. Okay, out of the four guys, here's the one guy we think did the worst job. Yeah.

That was fun. I mean, the GM should have to vote at the end of the regular season. If you guys are so smart. It's ridiculous. Yeah. Wouldn't that be fun to like watch everyone pick, you know, I don't know. Kevin Adams, you know? Well, pick whoever.

Pick, oh, this guy did the best guy. And then the team gets swept and they all got to act like, oh, yeah, we knew that for sure. Mm-hmm. Yep. I'm with you. Anyway, got any plugs? You can find me at The Athletic. You got lots of stuff including newsletter just went out with,

my rulebook nerd explanation of what the hell happened in Carolina last night. I'm going to have that. Oh, and the old guy without a cup rankings. That's an annual classic. That went out on Monday. And it's, I got to say, it's getting completely unacceptable some of the players who are passing the old guy line.

Yeah. When I saw Ryan Nugent Hopkins on that list, I was like, you know what, go fuck yourself with this stupid fucking list. Teenage phenom. Ryan Nugent Hopkins somehow. He's 33 years old guy without a cup.

Yeah, it's upsetting. It made me go, what are we, three years away from Connerick, David, being on that list? We're getting there. Like, there are definitely, I can't remember who it was, but there was somebody who missed it by, like, a couple of months.

And I was like, there's no way. What are we doing? Yeah, it's deeply upsetting. You know, I'll have a bunch of other playoff stuff throughout the week. in the coming weeks and all of that good stuff. Yeah, and then for me, Lee Prospects, the college hockey transfer portal is open.

A lot of, hell, speaking of Winnipeg, one of their first round picks from a few years ago, is transferring from BU to Wisconsin. Sasha Bumetian, good defenseman. Had a bit of a down year, but that's okay. That's all of BU did. But yeah, so we're doing a lot of coverage of that kind of thing. I think the transfer portal is open for another like week or so.

And so I'm doing write-ups on that. And I'll be doing a little bit of NHL coverage while there's still college hockey news and then more NHL coverage once the hockey, the college stuff kind of dries up a little bit. So stay tuned for all that. And then, of course, you know, we're getting into draft guide seasons. So that's, you know, that's coming very soon. You're going to want to, of course, be subscribed for all that. And then head over to patreon.com slash puck soup.

You get all kinds of bonus episodes, including a bonus episode, me and Sean did just last week, where we talked about our NHL series picks for the first round and that kind of stuff. So, yeah, that's a deluge of bonus stuff coming your way on the Patreon in the next. little while here. So check that out. And thank you for listening. And we're going to keep watching these playoffs and having beautiful takes about them. Have a good one, folks. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.