Puck Soup - Kubler-Ross Stage 2

Episode Date: May 20, 2025

Sean and Ryan talk about the playoff losers, the Conference Finals, coaching changes, and more.

I'm Ryan Lambert from Elite Prospects. I'm Sean McIndoo from The Athletic. And go ahead, Sean. Did something happen over the weekend? I don't know. I really got caught up in, my wife and I were watching Severance, and I kind of forgot about hockey. So I, I TiVoed it.

I'm sure it's going to be awesome. Tvo? What year is this? Yeah, really. What do people say now? Is it like... DVR or PVR depending on the country? That never worked for me.

We need a verb. I never had a TiVo, so, you know, it was always DVO. I don't know anyone who ever did have a TiVo. My uncle had a T. Like, I have an uncle who is fairly well off, and he was the first person. Maybe the only person I ever knew that I actually had a branded TiVo. We love a rich uncle. My rich uncle's story is that he had the saddle.

He was the first guy I know who had, like, like satellite with the special card where you could get everything for free. So I could watch wrestling pay-per-views. Yep. Absolutely, man. I was living the dream. Yeah. I never had an uncle with any of that.

I had like a dirtbag friend who had the black box we called it. Cool. All right. Well, good show. Thanks, everyone. Thanks, everybody. Talk to you next week. Bye.

Have a good one. Maple Leafs Law, Sean. I'm just going to, I'm going to, you know, do spoiler alerts for them. I'm kidding. Now, great news. They looked awesome in the line. Okay.

Well, that's the main thing. They looked so sick, man. Okay. Yeah, they, so they got their doors kicked in. They did. And twice since the last time we've talked, right? Because game five was a disaster. And then at which point, every single Maple Leaf fan went, oh, they're going to

win game six now on the road and then game seven will be a disaster again. Like every Lee fan said that and it happened. Yep. You ever watch a movie where

the movie unveils like what it clearly thinks is a twist? And you're like, no man, we all saw that. But like you can tell the movie is so proud of itself. Like you didn't see that coming, did you? and you're like, we 100% did. Yeah, I use this example all the time,

but it's like when we saw the village, the M. Night Shyamalan movie, the village in theater's opening night, I turned to my girlfriend at the time and like five minutes into the movie and I'm like, this is all modern types. And she was like, damn, that's crazy. And then I was right, of course.

Yeah. So that's kind of what it's like watching the Leafs these days. is like we all, I don't know, man. Like, the hockey guards aren't even trying. Like, it's not even... They are not, no. This is, like, the hockey gods have become, like, the demon guy turning out to be Vince McMahon.

And he's like, I fooled all of you. Famously, I was at that Monday Night roll. You were. You were, you can, if you go back and watch that clip, they had camera cuts to Ryan. I was hard camside, unfortunately. With a single tear rolling down his cheek. Yeah

Yeah Anyway I read your piece about blowing up the maple leaves Wow As everyone should Yeah What would you do As a neutral

I would blow it up You read the thing And when I posted that Someone on Twitter was like They have like a one in one thousand chance To have a better window to compete At any point in the next three or in a three-year period at any point in the future than they do right now.

And I was like, this is why I shifted to being more of a vibes slash analytics guy is like that exact argument. Where it was like, I can obviously understand that that's probably mathematically true. But I currently consider this Maple Leafs team with Austin Matthews and William Nealander and Morgan Riley as their best. players, if we're assuming Tavares and Marner move on this summer. I consider them to have a zero percent chance to win the Stanley Cup. That is the key piece of this. And I've, my piece is coming out tomorrow. I just did a mailbag this year because I don't, I don't have another

Leafs Lose column in me. I've used all the different combinations of those words over the years. The Leafs have lost. They should make changes. Of course they will. They can't possibly talk themselves into staying the course, rinse and repeat for literally five straight years now. So I don't.

But I've got my mailbag. And as I say in that piece that you will all read tomorrow, they're going to be worse on paper heading into next season. Yeah, that's my big. take is like if they go get, let's say Sam Bennett, right? Well, Sam Bennett's not as good as Mitch Marner. He's maybe in terms of impact this year, roughly as good as John Tavares, maybe a little, John Tavares had a good year.

Mm-hmm. You know? And like I just, I don't see Sam Bennett taking like a huge step above what, what Tavares brought to the table. Yep. And you're going to give Nyes a big chunk of the money. you were giving Tavares and Marner and then Sam Bennett or whoever the other, Brad Marshand, whichever Florida Panthers they go out and sign this summer.

That gets a huge chunk of the money and suddenly all this cap space you have from not resigning Tavares and Marner is gone. And like you say, I don't think the team's that much better. And I mean, they're going to have cap space, but so is almost everyone this summer. It's not like they maneuver themselves into a spot where they're the only team that's got this room. So they're going to be worse on opening night. But so what? Like this, if you stay the course, you have no chance with this group.

It is not happening ever. So let me ask you this. Any changes you make up that up your odds from zero to something above zero. Maybe, but. Well, not maybe. Like it's... Well, no, no, this is what I'm saying, though. If it's one in a million, that's still better than where they are now, isn't it?

So let me ask you this. What do you assess as the big issue here? Well, first and foremost, the team is not good enough. Even if you want to put all the narratives aside, Florida is better than them right now. Tampa Bay might still be better. them to be determined. There's, I mean, none of the teams in the final four right now, you would take the Leafs against them in a neutral site seven game series right now.

So as far as winning the cup, there may be the fifth or sixth or seventh best team in the league right now. If you hand wave away all of the history and all of the narratives and all that, but you can't. Because there is clearly something fundamentally broken inside of this team. And whether it was always there or whether it was not there initially, and we all just made it up and conjured it into existence, like at this point, this is a broken team when the games are important. Unless they get all the bounces, unless everything clicks their way, they completely fall apart.

We've seen it enough times. At some point, you just have to accept that this is the reality of this group. So, and a new coach wasn't able to magically fix it. I don't know. You know what was so funny was when they didn't lose game six, all these media people in Toronto, to be fair, but all these media people were like, you know what? Craig Barubi just instilled

a lot like his his mindset his mentality his level of confidence he has instilled that in this team and then they go out and get fucking nuked in game seven and what what is uh what does Craig Barooby say after the game

I don't know what happened yeah damn that was crazy it's like man that is that is so fucking funny to me Oh, he's got all the answers. He's pulling all the right strings. They lose one game in like, the, again, very classic Leafs.

We might as well have not even shown up fashion. You know, shot attempts, 25 nothing for the first like eight minutes of the game. They lost that game six to one and the score was flattering. Yeah, I think that's right. I said this in the article, but like, when they had that big pushback like late in the first period and they didn't score,

I was like, this game is fucking over. Like, if they had scored one or two goals there, I absolutely would have said they're winning this game. And then if they didn't, I'd have been surprised.

But the fact that they didn't score there, I was like, that was their best chance and they couldn't do put the puck in the net, ball game. See you. Yep. Enjoy your summer,

you know? But yeah, again, like, Burui just going, like, you know what? I don't have an answer for you. That was fucking nuts that that happened. It's like, what?

You can't, even, even if that's the thing, like, how do you get up there and say that? And nobody's like, this guy's horrible at his job. Yeah. The whole job, the whole reason they hired him is that he was going to not Sheldon Keefe this and just be like, oh, no, this is crazy. He gets up there. What's the first thing he says? I don't know.

This is crazy. But you know what the difference is? He does know. Now, he's not going to say it at the postgame press conference. But when he said, you know what, he said, I don't know, but then he said, we need to have some conversations inside the organization. That's basically him saying, figure out who my boss is going to be next year so that I can go into their office and tell them how much I hate player X, Y, and Z, and how much I don't think we can win with this guy. interesting. Yeah.

No, I agree. I agree that that's very possible. How do we know Sheldon Keefe didn't do that? Because nothing ever changed for five straight years. Well, okay. So to that point, I don't know how much appetite there would be to change except Mitch Marner doesn't want to play there anymore. Nope.

It seems like. Mm-hmm. Right? Like, if he's still signed for another two years. And Tavares has another year on his deal or whatever. I don't think they're changing anything. We finished whatever, fourth in the league this year. I'm going to disagree with you there just based on how brutal the fans were in game seven.

Like that, you cannot. I'm not saying they wouldn't end up in the same place because I don't know if you know this, Ryan, but it's really hard to make changes to an NHL team. That's right. Super difficult. And hard things aren't worth trying. So you just, you throw your hands up and you don't bother. But this was a absolute rejection of a team by a fan base in a way that I'm not sure we've seen in that situation,

meaning game seven of the second round of the playoffs, as opposed to game 82 of a season where you miss the playoffs by 20 points. when you've got in game seven you've got fans booing and throwing jerseys and chanting for other teams like even in MLSC even all of the you know accountants and executives and all of that up and down the chain even they couldn't watch that and go it's going fine let's try it again Now, the fact that Marner has had one eye on the door the entire season kind of takes a decision out of their hands. Right. He clearly has talked himself or been talked into this being it. And so here we go.

by the way, can we just say right now, I mean, as always, like, whatever's going to be the biggest kick in the dick to leave fans is what's going to happen. Marner's going to sign with Carolina in the offseason, right? The team that he refused to be traded to, he's going to go and sign there now and be like, yeah, like. Oh, I think he's going to like an Anaheim. Like, Carolina is, I think, maybe along the right lines of just like the media pressure isn't as intense there. People are just like, you know how like if you say the hurricanes are boring, a million hurricanes fans will go, actually they're not boring. And it's like, okay, well, I mean, I feel like we had this discussion last week, but it's the same thing. Mitch Marner is a loser.

He's actually not a loser. It's just the fact is he's never won. So, like, okay, I mean, that's functionally. I'm interested in your view from the outside. Yeah. At this subplot of this story that we see that plays out every year and right on time we're doing it again this year. But it seems like it's catching a little bit more than it normally does.

This idea that you just can't win in Toronto. There's too much pressure. There's too many expectations. The fans boo you in game seven. Can I say? Yes. All time. All time great work by the Florida Panthers on that one.

To make that the narrative is being like, oh, and by the way, go fuck yourself. Are you, wait a second. Are you suggesting that the. coach of a division rival does not have the Maple Leaf's best interest at heart when he gets up there and defends this version of the, are you suggesting that Paul Maurice wasn't just doing some free consulting work? This is, with the best interest. This was so fucking funny to me, man.

I was dying, reading these quotes. I was laughing really hard being like, man, they're just twisting the knife after the body is already cold. All the blood has run out of it. Brad Marchand dropping the... I was a Leafs fan growing up. Awesome shit, Brad. That's fucking A plus stuff.

The one, when after 48 hours of hearing about how this was the biggest game in Toronto in 20 years. And he goes out, wins the game, and then goes, by the way, that wasn't even a big game. I played Stanley Cup finals, man. This is only wrap too. He rocks. That's so good. That's such good shit, man. Oh, I hate that guy so much.

I'm so glad we gave up more to get Scott Lawton than the Panthers had to give up. Did you see Scott Lawton's underlying numbers in the playoffs? Did he have any? Yeah, like his, I think someone said his expected goals percentage was in the 30s, and his actual goals was in the, like, low 40s or something like that. Like, man, again. And he's a classic guy. that they tell you, you know, when the trade happens, they go, don't look at the stats, don't look at the, you're going to love this guy.

I watch two, two rounds of the playoffs. He stinks, man. I forgot, like every three games, I'd be like, who's 24? Right. Okay, cool. Who's the guy that just turned the puck over three times on one shit? Oh, right, okay. Yeah, no, yeah.

But hey, don't, don't, you know. Don't pick up the phone and call the team that owns you in the playoffs and go, hey, is out of all of you guys who own us in the playoffs, is the one guy who really owns us? Is he available at all? Any chance you trade him within the division? Maybe just for a conditional second? Well, it's a first now, isn't it? Sure is.

Who's laughing now, baby? Don Sweetie Masterclass. He did it again. The Leafs trick the Panthers into losing their first round pick. Suckers. No, so can we just get back to... We can talk about however you want. Yeah, I don't, you know...

So it's too hard to win in Toronto. It's too hard. Yep. Too much pressure. Yeah. You occasionally will mention the concept of loser talk. Yeah. Is this the greatest example of preemptive loser talk that you have ever heard?

Well, again, I think it's, I think it's them adopting a narrative pushed, as you say, by their enemies. Like, they hear, they hear, oh, it's really hard to win here from the coach of the team that just eliminated them for the second time in three years. And they go, you know what, he's right? that's what's funny about it to me is like not that like they did it from Florida's point of view, but that it worked. Everyone was just like totally,

he's totally right. And again, I've been saying they're fucking losers for years, right? So like, what do I, you know, he's just,

he's just like reifying what I think. So that I like that he's doing that, you know? Right. But at the same time, it's just like, man, you don't have to agree with him all the time.

Like, that's, that's the thing. But this is the other thing. And this came up because, like, Rick Vive wrote an article that was like, if these guys don't have what it takes, get rid of them. It's like, well, first of all, I seem to recall you being on the Maple Leafs and not winning shit. So there's, that's one thing. But, you know, because you didn't play in like 1967.

Yeah. So, like, that's how I know you didn't win. Yeah. But also he didn't cry about it constantly how hard it was. Right. Well, so, you know, but this is my other thing with all that. I never. Can you imagine, Sean, if I was like, okay, I just read an article on Yahoo and I'm going to like go in the newspaper and say like here's what, here's what like, here's what this guy over at Yahoo's doing wrong.

I don't work there anymore. What do they give a shit what I think? You know? Yeah. No, I like any, because they say that about the Flyers too. The Flyers alumni have such like political power there and it's like I don't understand. Guys who used to work there, we have to, like, care what they think. It's insane to me.

But, see, I do care what guys who used to be there think about the specific issue of, is it too hard? Is everybody too mean? Is it just this crushing pressure, which apparently only affects hockey players? Because, as we've said before, star-level players in baseball and football and basketball, gravitate to the biggest markets. The biggest spotlight, the biggest stage. But apparently in hockey, it's the only sport where these big, tough guys who will crawl through glass to get to a championship cannot handle actual expectations and pressure.

Only hockey, apparently. Yeah, again, like... It's garbage. man. It's... Yeah, of course it is. What I was going to say is, I think it's these specific guys can't handle it.

But like, you know, the idea... I've said this a million times. You know what the Maple Leaf's biggest problem to me is? Apart from, like, just, you know, they think they're losers, so they're losers or however we want to put it. Here's their biggest problem to me. Morgan Riley is their best defenseman.

I've been saying this for years. He's a good number two defenseman on a good team. You know? Is he... Should he be the number one team, the number one defenseman on a team that, you know, has like Stanley Cup aspirations? I would say no. How many? I'm being serious.

I don't know the answer off the top of my head. I'm going to pull it up now. But how many, like, Norris votes do you think Morgan Riley's ever gotten in his entire career? It can't be that many. I think he's had some, but he's certainly never finished high. He's had a couple of sprinkling of fifth place votes. Yeah. So, like.

You know, yeah. It's just like, that's such a huge problem to me. There was a year he finished fifth in the Norris voting. So he must have gotten a good number of, a, and how long ago was that?

This was, 2018-19. He finished fifth. He got, actually, he got a decent amount of votes. No first place votes. That was the year Giordano won it.

And he got all but six of the first place votes. But Riley got the fifth most second place votes. So I don't know, whatever. Point being, there's been one year where a bunch of people were like, yeah, he's the second best defenseman in the league. And those people, by the way, were wrong in addition to all that, you know. But yeah, only two years ever he's gotten any Norris votes. And that's just my big thing.

on what's wrong with the Maple Leafs. They think Morgan Riley is a key cog for them, and he just can't be if we're being serious about this, being a real cup competitive team. Yeah. But maybe you disagree. I don't know. No, I agree.

Defend, you know, defensemen are hard to find, but absolutely they could have. They didn't, but it's this thing that it's, ultimately, so much of it comes down to, I would have thought it was the player's fault or management or the coaches or whatever. Apparently, it's mine. Apparently we're too mean to these guys. Mitch Marner is going to go to a small market.

He is probably unintentionally going to say something on the way out the door that's going to throw shade at the Leafs market. Unintentionally. There's an interesting take. Unintentionally. I think unintentionally because he, Marner has always wanted. to be the guy and wanted to say the right thing and he just can't. It just, it always comes out wrong. It always, you know,

I honestly feel bad for him in that sense, among some other things. But he's, this is what's going to happen. And then a stunningly large percentage of media, other fans, hockey world, etc., are going to

follow right behind and go, yep, can't win in Toronto, man. And we've said it before. One of the two things we all know to be true about Maple Leaf fans. Number one, big loser energy. Don't demand a winner, right? Building's always full. Team makes a ton of money.

That's why they never win. Fans don't demand it enough. And also, too demanding. Too demanding. They're blue players. They, you know, there's media coverage and all. this stuff, you can't win like that. Two completely opposite viewpoints, both somehow simultaneously true at the same time that it's

all, it's the fault of the fan base. Let me ask you this. Beyond loser talk. And by the way, if that was true. Okay. Yep. If it's true that, look, man, it's just too hard to win it for whatever reason. Pick your, you know, because of all the media, because of,

the fan base because of taxes, because of whatever, if that was actually true that you can't win in Toronto, what do you want us to do with that information? Because I'll tell you what an awful... What they seem to want us to do with that information is keep showing up, keep buying tickets, keep pumping huge amounts of money into revenue sharing to go pay salaries in all of these other markets,

but just don't complain about it. I think it's a lot more likely that if you convince a fan base that you can't win in this market, they stop being your fan base. But I guess we'll find out. It's a hell of a marketing strategy. Let's see how it goes for everyone. Let me ask you this and then we'll move on.

What would you do? I would be open to absolutely everything as far as roster moves. I would absolutely take phone calls on Austin Matthews and Nealander and all of them. I don't know that I would make it my goal to do a full tear down, but let's see where it goes. I do think Brandon Shanahan is done. I don't think that'll – I have no inside information there, but I wouldn't – I suspect that'll be framed as a mutual parting of ways. Remember, his contract is up. His contract's up.

That's exactly right. So it doesn't, at least as that's what we've been led to believe. So it doesn't have to be a firing, so to speak. It can be a, you know, we've all decided it's best to move on, et cetera, et cetera. I would not say that Bradger Living should be safe, but that'll be up to whoever replaces Shanahan, assuming somebody does, which I think in a market like Toronto, it does help to have. a president there. And I would basically bring in somebody new,

and if that person sat down at their opening press conference and said, well, I'm going to need a year to sit around and not really make changes and just figure stuff out, I would fire them immediately and hire somebody else and co. You want to try that again? You want to, I can't imagine any message leave fans want to hear less right now and then, oh, we just have to take her time. We have to think about it.

We did that once. We did that with Martin or two years ago, and it turned out to be an absolute disaster of a decision. And it was Brad Trilliving who made it with help from Shanahan. Yeah. So my concern, if I'm the Leafs, would be like, okay, now you're letting Bradtrill living decide how to fix things. The man who once was the, this is the stat I always bring up, but there was like a three four-year period several years ago now, where 10% of all contracts bought out in the league

were Brad Trillivings buying out contracts he gave out. So that was why I was always like, oh, they're signing Brad Trilliving to be the GM. And this is like a no-brainer decision. The guy who like the Troy Brower contract and the James Neal contract, which he didn't buy out, he traded for Milan Luchich instead. Um, uh, the, the, the, yeah, Michael Stone, like, you can go down the list, yeah. He signed the Jonathan Huberto contract. He's, he's, he did indeed. Yep. And now he's got a ton of cap room in a week free agency class.

Yep. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and as you say, everyone else also has a ton of cap room. When I do my, like, uh, my, like, where do they go from here articles to just see, like, what, what I think maybe they might do or whatever. I obviously look up how much cap space every team is going to have. And most of them, it's like they have $15 million. They have $22 million, whatever it is. And that's just teams that made the playoffs. So I think there's going to be a very competitive.

Like Mitch Martin, people were saying like, oh, what's Mitch Marner going to get? And it's like, don't be surprised if it is the biggest number in the NHL or close to it. There are a ton of teams that will happily pay Mitch Barner the going rate for his regular season production. And they will say, if I'm Chicago or Detroit or Anheim, I'm going, you know what? We'll deal with playoff Mitch if and when we have to. Well, and even beyond that, that'd be a great problem to have. You can tell yourself, well, he won't be playing in Toronto, the loser city that's too hard to play it.

Yeah. So it'll actually all go different. So I think Marner gets a huge number. 13 is my guess. I will just say this. Do not rule out the possibility of the Paul Correa situation playing out, where the guy doesn't get the big money from his home team that drafted him and, you know, that he spent 10 years with.

And instead of turning around and taking that big money somewhere else, he takes little tiny money to go someplace and win. Hmm. And just flips the bird to his home indirectly, but yeah. Paul Correa famously that worked out for him. Yeah, it worked out great. But he went from 10 million in Anaheim to 3 million in Colorado. And that was getting the band back together with Salani, too, right?

That was with Salani. Yeah. So maybe Tavares and Marner a package deal. Wow. You heard it here first. Wow. And then give a, and then give like a press conference where you're like, I've never been about the money, man. I've always been lots of cap room for my, for my teammates.

Yeah. Why not? That's right. That's what's up. All right. Let's talk about some of the other loser teams here now that we've done half an hour on the Maple Leafs. The Washington Capitals, what do we think? I mean, it all, feels like it kind of all ended right about where we thought.

Yeah. Hell of a season. Hell of a season. Like, especially factoring in the Ovechkin chase. I mean, I'm not sure. Tough to top, for sure. I mean, I'm trying to think of a situation where a team that didn't win the cup would have had a fan base, enjoy a season more than this one. Absolutely.

I am curious to see how sustainable it is heading into next year and beyond. Is that allowed to say? No. Well, I'm genuinely curious because, look, nobody is going to be picking the capitals to win the president's trophy next year, which they nearly did this year. Yes. I think very few people will be picking them to finish first in the metro. But, okay. Are they still a playoff team?

they a hundred point team? Are they in the mix? Are they almost? I think they're right around 100, obviously depending on what changes they make. They don't really have much to do this summer, if I'm remembering, right? Like in terms of signing or resigning guys or filling roster spots.

Like, I think they just are kind of in a position where running it back just makes perfect sense and why not do it. But do you want to hear something funny, Sean? I was looking stuff up the other day and I stumbled across this to, here. Let me just pull the stat up really quickly because it's important to get the stat right here. So the Washington Capitals shot 12.5% in all situations this year. How many teams, since they started doing advanced stats in 2007-08, how many teams have a higher team shooting percentage than the Washington Capitals? I'm going to say it's single digits.

Well, zero is a single digit. So you're absolutely. right. The highest shooting percentage in advanced stats history, or advanced stats era history. Now, here's the interesting thing, though. The second highest was the Tampa Bay Lightning this year. The sixth highest was the Dallas Stars this year. The seventh highest was the Winnipeg Jets this year. The Canadians, the Sabres had a super high shooting percentage this year. 11th highest since 07-08. So like this is just a thing.

The Sabers? The Buffalo Sabres, yeah. They shot 11.65%. The Sabres this season? Yes. Done in by 879 goal tending. Oh, God. Sorry, Buffalo.

Yeah. I had in my mailbag one person set the question, they're like, who has it worse right now? Lee fans or Sabers fan? And it was like, dude, that's not even a question. I know it's bad in Toronto right now, but don't even come on, man. Yep, that's right. So, yeah, the caps probably not going to shoot the highest in the history of advanced stats again.

My impression of the team. But also, they probably don't need to to again, just be like kind of a hundred point team-ish. 98-102, something like that. That all makes perfect sense to me. as long as we think the goal tending holds up, which I obviously do not. So, yeah, I think they're a good team next year, but unbelievable. I'm also curious to see how busy the offseason is, given what they did last year. They were aggressive last year for a team that had made the playoffs somewhat unexpectedly.

Well, and that's the thing, though, is they didn't rest on it. They delivered on the promise of the previous year. They were like, okay, we're going to actually make that. sustainable, you know, like making the playoffs, obviously they then overperformed again. And I guess you can say, if they keep overperforming, isn't that just like what their performance level is? Sure. But that's why I'm giving them 100 points next year and not the 112 or whatever it was they ended up with, right? Mm-hmm.

So I think they're a good team with some very good players, but I don't, my big, my big issue with them is do I think there are any like superstar players here you know like guys who can be in the MVP conversation and that kind of thing next season that probably not you know and that's that's what separates good and even very good teams from great teams for me fair um Vegas golden nights yeah talk about a team where you're interested to see where they go in the off season it's always something with these guys guys. It's always something, even when they win, and going out in round two again is that's, it's

not good enough in Vegas. Yep. Now, I mean, they, they ran into a real good Oilers team, but we all thought that series was going to be closer. Oh, yeah. It was a five-game series, and the Oilers scored the winning goal in every game. So that's not good. No, it certainly isn't.

I think the big question I would have for them is in goal, right? Like, Aiden Hill did not have it in the playoffs. I don't remember, I think he was like fine in the regular season, but that's about it. And they're paying him an awful lot of money. Yeah, and it was interesting, too, that not only was he not great in the playoffs, but they rode him pretty much the entire way. Mm-hmm. Considering a couple years ago when they win the cup, you know, Thompson and Hill

then kind of back and forth, and they seemed happy to go with the hot hand. And despite the fact that everyone else is kind of doing that in this playoffs, Vegas stuck with their guy. Yeah. So I say he wasn't that he was like fine. He was quite good in the regular season. 9-06, which doesn't sound great, but in, you know, in an era where like whatever I just read off, like eight of the top 20 all-time shooting percentage teams were this season. 906 is pretty good.

You take that. And you can maybe chalk it up and say, okay, you know, it's one bad series against Connor McDavid and Leon Dreisle. It's going to happen, especially when you have guys injured and all the, you know, have they done the thing of like, here's the laundry list of everybody's injury? No. No, I don't think they have. Not that I've seen.

You know, obviously Mark Stone was visibly playing hurt and all this kind of stuff. You can kind of, and again, if the oilers make it to the cup final, you can kind of chalk it up and say, that's not, that's not on Aden Hill. But we know this is a team that doesn't rest on its laurels, so who fucking knows what they're going to. Aiden Hill, you know, sent to a mining colony on like one of the moons of Saturn. That wouldn't surprise me at this point, you know? Yeah. Like, so I'm very curious what the, what the move is, is for them, obviously. But I also don't know how you talk about it because...

Yep. Yeah, this is going to be... They're just going to do something wacky. And, you know, not to keep bringing it back to Toronto, but the difference between talking about a Vegas golden night's off season and a Leafs off season is just so striking. Right. Everything's always on the table in Vegas.

With the Leafs, it's like, well, it's been nine years in a row. Should we maybe consider trading someone? Whereas Vegas is like, you want Jack Eichel? Have them. Go ahead. Screw this guy. No loyalty to anyone. Whatever makes us better, we do it.

Yep. That's right. The Jets. That was tough, man. That was tough to see them go out. I had them number one in my rankings for, like, the teams that needed a big playoff run. And, man, just a dream season where everything clicked and, close-ish, but that was tough.

What were your thoughts on the Mark Shifley stuff? I mean, like, one of those things. The second I heard the news and that he was playing, I was like he's scoring tonight. Yep. I didn't also have him taking the penalty that, you know, resulted in the power play that resulted in the power play goal that won the game for them.

That sucks. That's really, but like what a, you know, what a moment for Shifley to get that goal. And, you know, I don't know, I don't know what it's like to lose a father at this point in my life, fortunately. So I can't imagine the, the weight, you know, that he was carrying that night. But like I say, that's just one of those things where it's like, he's playing a night. And it's like, yeah, he's going to run through a fucking brick wall for this. He's going to lose his mind. And he did.

And he scored the only goal of the game. And would have been nice if they could have gotten some run support for him and Connor Hallibuck, quite frankly. Yeah, Connor Hallibuck was good on the road, finally. Yep. Not enough. But I guess maybe at least that makes you feel a little bit better going into the future with him. But yeah, it's this. I was rooting for this Jets team.

And again, I'm curious to see where expectations fall for next year. Anyone picking them to win the president's trophy again next year? No. And again, you know, you got to, you just got to think like Connor Hellbuck can't be this good again. But I just read it. They were also one of the highest shooting percentage teams of the last like 20 years or whatever it is, you know. and so I think that's coming down and you know I think that if Morrissey's healthy

that that whole he missed a bunch of time in one of the games right yeah he down the stretch and seven yeah he got hurt in the St. Louis series right but yeah anyway point being if he's healthy maybe it's a different series that sort of thing yeah um

but again This is just a roster where I look at the blue line in particular, and I go, if we're thinking this is a cup contender, like, I think there's a very fundamental lack of understanding about how bad this blue line is. Yeah. So that's obviously the thing to fix. They're going to lose Nick Eilers for nothing this summer in all likelihood, which feels crazy to me.

But they also refuse to play a more than like, 16 minutes a night. So why wouldn't he want to leave? He's an awesome player. He should just follow Mitch Martiner around all summer and just like Mitch Martin. And just like let Mitch Martin. Oh, you didn't sign Marner. You should sign me instead and I'll cost you $1.5 million.

Eight teams are bidding on Marner. Okay. Well, to the seven of you who didn't get him, I'll take half a million less. Let's get this done. Yeah. So yeah, like you, I don't know how good I think they're going to be next year. As usual, they're as good as Connor Hellebuck is going to let them be. Right, which could be very, very good in the regular season.

Do you think he, because for, well, I know what the reason is, but for some reason, like the big, the big talking point in game six and seven is, is how does all this affect who's starting for the U.S. at the Olympics next year? And do you think the way he played in game six and seven where he allowed two goals on whatever, 45 shots against a very, very good Dallas team? Do you think that in any way changes the narrative

that he's a playoff loser? Probably not significantly. It helps. But, yeah, I mean, the U.S. starter is going to be whoever is playing well at the time. Right, yeah, of course. But, yeah, I mean, it's certainly, I just, there's so much, we're talking three years running now of this guy being bad in the playoffs.

So I think stand on your head, 55 safe shutout probably puts a dent in that narrative. I don't think giving up two goals in a two-one. one game is what does. I mean, if anything, it's just, it's amazing how low the bar has gone. Like, you're just like, oh, he didn't give up any terrible goals. This guy's three-time Vezna winner. Yeah. Future Hall of Fame.

And we're down to didn't give up any goals. It's wild. Yeah. I was just curious your thoughts. You know, obviously I'm more of a, again, if I'm thinking, the Jets blue line is a big problem. I'm maybe more of a meat in the middle between he's a loser and he gets literally zero help. I mean, you know, one goal of run it's important in regulation or the whole game, really.

You're probably, you know, if they get two goals, you feel great. And so, but that's the guy. That's the guy he's fighting for the number one spot in, uh, I wanted to say Torino. I know it's not Torino because that was the, that was like 2006 Olympics, somewhere in Italy, let's say. Milan? Maybe it's Milan. Anyway, I guess that's it.

I don't have any other thoughts for losers' corner. Okay. We did half an hour on the leaves and I think maybe six minutes total on the other three teams. That's great. I think we nailed it. Mm-hmm. All right. Let's get into the conference finals then.

and I wanted to start out with something I thought was pretty interesting that Myrtle posted the other day. Basically, it was like, here are the seedings for the teams in the final five. It's very funny to frame it like that just because Toronto is still alive, but okay, sure. Toronto was fourth, Dallas fifth, Edmonton 9th, Carolina 10th, Florida 11th. Do you, I don't know, do you take anything from that other than, obviously they're all in the top 11? Like, do you take anything from the fact that it's 9, 10, 11, and 5 in the top four? What that tells me is the regular season standings really don't. Don't matter slash don't seem to be as heavily connected to who we view as the true contenders.

Because as much as normally I would take numbers like that, you know, 5, 9, 10, 11, and do my rant about the randomness of the playoffs and what does it even tell us and we're flipping coins and blah, blah, blah. These are four really good teams. And in fact, it's three quarters of the same conference finals we got last year, right? We've got a rematch in one conference

and we've got a rematch from two years ago in the other conference. Right. So if anything, it feels like the parody is less now than it has been in the past. the same teams succeeding over and over again. Yes.

Apparently not in the regular season, but that just more than, certainly with a team like the Panthers. It just feels like this is a team that knows that this league is about the playoffs, and they're going to go just hard enough to make the playoffs in the regular season and then figure it out.

Right. And the other thing I wanted to say about that is like, Dallas obviously had like the Tyler Sagan injury, but all these other teams did have like notable long-term absences from guys you would think, you know, I don't know that a Vander Cain being in the lineup for 82 games is getting the Oilers much higher than ninth, you know? But Carolina had the, Freddie Anderson injury and Florida obviously had,

had the kachuk injury and I just thought it was it was pretty interesting to see it put in those terms you know so yeah that was it I just thought that was kind of fascinating to me for a minute so let's start in with the the new and exciting Eastern Conference final that's only a replicate replicating two years ago instead of instead of last year

what do you think I'm looking forward to it I think it's maybe a little bit too easy to look at this and after what we just saw the Panthers do and go oh they're they're going to roll

I think I don't feel like Carolina's been challenged that much they've probably had the easiest path to this spot of any of the other teams which I know again Washington fans are going, no respect, but yeah, fair enough.

I mean, I don't know how if you're even a Washington fan and you watched that series, you walked away going, and we looked actually great against these guys. So, you know, Caroline, it's interesting more time off also than other teams. Yep, for sure. Yeah, tough on Florida, but right back at it 48 hours later, right? traveling between. Well, you didn't want that. You should have won in game in game five or six or whatever, you know.

They should have. I am picking. I don't know who I'm picking, man. And I mean that partly literally. I'm trying to remember who I picked in our staff survey. Yeah, I didn't. I guess I didn't put out my official predictions, but I'll go with Carolina while you should look that up.

I think I went Carolina too, and I'll be honest, that is at least partly me just doing the thing of, all right, we're tired of the Panthers being there every year. So I'm going to pick a different team. Well, I guess the reason I give Carolina the edge, obviously it would be helpful if they could, like, get to their system and play their game a little bit. But I think, I guess I just think that, like, Florida's star power, you know, like with Matthew Cichuk and everything, like, clearly playing hurt. Like Matthew Gucucchuk, a shadow of what we, what we've seen last year. Having just watched seven games of the Florida Panthers and watching it wanting to hate those guys,

you know, there's Bennett, there's Marchant, there's, I mean, Aaron Eckblad's sneaky, dirty scumbag player. I barely noticed Matthew Guchick in that whole series. No, that's what I mean. Like, it was, it was surprising me. The only time I'd notice him is when there was like a scrum or. or something, and then he would, like, run over and sit right next to the nearest TV camera and then, like, start chirping and that, and you'd be like, right, that guy. Which, I mean, I don't know that with no downtime, his injury situation is going to get any

better between now and the end of the playoffs, but he does. I wonder if they'd consider sitting him at all early in a series. I mean, we don't know. It would depend on what it was, but. I just got to think that if they didn't do it early, why would they do it now? You know? But like, I think that like him being not,

let's say he's at 75%, you know, whatever. Him being not 100% is what makes me confident that Carolina can get to its game, you know, and isn't going to be a, like, Florida isn't going to be able to just be like, okay, you're playing your game, fine. We're just going to pull two goals out of our ass because we have, you know, the higher caliber of star player. That's kind of why I see it playing out with like a Carolina win. But I think this is like a super close series.

And like, believe me, if Freddie Anderson gets nuked or elbowed in the head as the case may be, who's going to be surprised by that, right? Like, he's not, he doesn't have a hugely strong track record of playoff performances, and Florida is going to be, you know, finishing one in every five shifts lying on top of him. So, you know, that is very much within the realm of possibility. I'll say Carolina in seven, and I'll say they're like a whatever, 54% chance to win. I'm going with 53%. Okay. I think that's, I think that's very bold of you.

that when we fight and argue, but I mean, I just, I still have to speak my truth. But yeah, obviously these are two great teams. Carolina just seems like they're healthier. And again, if they get rolling downhill playing the dominant, like, you know, it's funny. When Florida was beating the Leaf's ass early in game seven and the Leafs couldn't even clear it past the Red Line, basically, I was like, oh, am I watching the Carolina Hurricanes right now? out like they just, that relentless forechecking style and all that kind of thing, like, that was, that was happening. So anything else on the series? No, it's going to be, it's going to be a fun, fun series.

Shout out to fans of the Carolina Panthers in the NFL who will get confusing Google results for two weeks. Or not. Yeah, I wonder. Maybe not that many. I think, I think the algorithms and things of that. nature. It will keep them going pretty strong. But yeah, I don't know. Oh, let me ask you this. They were saying like Sergey Bobrovsky, one of the best big game goalies in the world at this point. Do we think that's true?

I don't know if I'd say that. I mean, based on what, based on shutting down the Leafs when games are tight? Like, I mean, he's, he's a cup last year. He's been on a good run. I don't know. The idea of like the big game goalie, to me a big game goalie is someone who's good all the time. It's not just someone who's like league average to slightly better and then elevates for a game seven because that could just be small sample size. Like the big game goal is like the Patrick Waugh who, you know, is good from start to finish.

And Bobrovsky's been up and down. But he was, I mean, he's certainly. certainly did what he needed to do so far in the playoffs and so far for most of the last few post seasons. He's been 901 in these playoffs, which is quite good. I saw somebody say the other day. It's like right around 890 something, like 892 is the league average in the playoffs, which is crazy to think about. So like him being 901, I think you take that every time.

Now, I don't know that that's like stealing you any games, though, you know what I mean? Yeah. So that's my thing. It might be enough against Carolina, though. Yeah, absolutely. This could be, like, I think this is going to be a fun series, but it could also be a whole bunch of two-one games. That's kind of where I would lean. If you, you know, maybe mix in a four-three here or there.

We just got some news, Sean. I don't know if you saw this. I can tell by the laughter in your voice what you've just seen. So yes. The Don Sweeney two-year contract extension. Which we kind of knew was coming. Yeah. Well, what's interesting is...

So the fact that it's only two years is maybe... Well, his contract is up after next season. So this is kind of a three-year. Okay. We can talk about that again later. I just saw that come across the wire here. Yep. Because I was looking at my phone to look at Sir Gravrovsky's save percentage.

Which coach do you think is going to say the funnier stuff in this one? Oh, boy. Because these are two cutups. This is going to be like Farley and Spade in the movie Tommy Boy. We're going to be like, I don't know which one of these guys is funnier. Is Brindamore going to be a big guy in a little jacket or? Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, but it's only going to rip at the biceps. Mm, yep, that's right.

Um, I think Rod Brindamore will be unintentionally funnier, and Paul Maurice will try really hard to say things that really aren't even funny and don't even have the structure of a joke, but we will still all act as if they're very funny. I got to say, one of the funniest things he ever said was this is why guys want to get paid more to play here. Yep. I was fucking dying. Comes at a human cost. Boy. Unlike some other markets I could mention where you could just wear flip-flops to practice

and just go, Mitchie. Just go. It'll be a panther. You saying that, Sean, just made me realize he did the reverse palm tree thing to them. We don't have palm trees here.

Damn. Oh, man. Say what you want about him, and we do. We think the, you know, the jokester of his generation stuff is overblown. But he's good at saying stuff. Yeah. You know? Mm-hmm.

It's pretty good. He's getting everyone to be like, damn, they should get some palm trees in Toronto. It worked. Oh, good shit, man. By the way, underrated Paul Maurice revenge tour potential in this place. Oh, yeah, true. It would have been great if he, like, he's, he's, he used to coach Carolina, he did coach the Leafs. You needed the Winnipeg finish, though.

That's what we should have been building towards. Yep. Anyway, instead of that, we have an Edmonton, Dallas conference final for the second year in a row. Very interesting. I, I, um, last year, you know, I guess if you could go, you could go back and listen and I said, I think it's, I think it's Dallas in a walk or whatever. but like I feel like Dallas should be the favorite here. Like, I don't want to say like considerably so, but comfortable favorite Dallas is what I would say.

Yeah. But I would have said that about Vegas too, so here we are. Yeah. So, I mean, Dallas does seem to be the team that the momentum is building behind as far as who people are picking. Yeah. rightly so. I mean, they beat a phenomenal Colorado team

without key pieces of their lineup and now they have those key pieces back and gearing up. I picked Dallas in this series, but also, you know, the Oilers, it feels like the Oilers haven't fully clicked in the playoffs yet. Like, doesn't it feel like we haven't seen their A game quite yet?

And it's been good. Well, I would say down the stretch of that Vegas series, like, I don't know how much better you want a team to play. Yeah. They were getting goals from guys who weren't McDavid and Drysidal, which is obviously always the concern. Like, you expect those guys to score, but you need a little bit of help. And, yeah, like, I wonder how easy it's going to be to establish. that game against Dallas. That's all.

Dallas is scary. Yeah. Right now. Everything's working for him right now. It really is. I cannot, I cannot say that this is a series of Edmonton can't win. I mean, this is,

we can all, it's, it's very easy to imagine any combination of, of a Stanley Cup final at this point. And they'd all be real good, too. Yeah, I think so. But I think Dallas feels like the favorite here. And maybe this is, isn't this always the way in the playoffs?

Right when we all kind of congregate on one favorite, that's when they get knocked out and leave us scrambling. So we'll see. Well, you know, again, to me, if you want to say these teams, you know, offensively, defensively are roughly the same. And apparently Edmonton might get at home back like, midway through this series. That would be big. Yeah, well, so the reason I wrote about this the other day, but the thing that is interesting to me about that is, you know who looks good with literally anybody they put him with right

now is Evan Bouchard? And so I wonder if, you know, if Ackholm is available to them at some point in the series, do they just put Echholm back with Bouchard? Obviously, that's a great pairing. Or do they go? Bouchard looks great with anybody. Jake Wallman's been really, really good in these playoffs. Why don't we put Eckholm on a third pairing?

So we're not leaning too much on any one of them. And nothing prevents you from putting those guys together if you need to down the stretch of a close game or whatever. But like if you can have three earrings with like a very good defenseman out there as opposed to what Edmonton has on their third pair now, I don't know why you don't do that. Other than Bouchard and Neckholm are so good together. Yeah. And especially if he's coming back, I mean, you assume he's not going to go from out of the lineup for two months to 25 minutes a night. Correct. Now, if he comes in midway through the series, it'll obviously depend on how the series is going.

Sure. But, yeah, that's a definite, definite some potential there for a way to ease him back. in and also get that, get the top guys spread out through the lineup. I like that. Yeah. And then the other thing is obviously Miro Heiskenen came back midway through the last round. And, you know, by the end of it, you were like, oh, that's Miro Heiskenen. Right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, you know, I think he never looked bad or anything like that. No, but he didn't look fully charged. I mean, even by the end, he didn't look like the Norris candidate sort of. No, he was showing flashes of it, though. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, so, like, I think that's going to be really interesting.

And again, if you want to say the series comes down to one team has Jake Ottinger and the other has Stuart Skinner. Mm-hmm. I think if you want to say that's what ends up being the difference in the series, obviously that's extremely. easy to see coming down the pike. Yep. That's all, you know? But then again, Stewart's getting to look fucking awesome

in the last couple of games of that series against Vegas. So. So. So. Yeah. You can't, literally you can't do better than that.

I mean, I could have, but. I don't know. I guess you could have faced more shots. Yeah. And boy, if you were out there,

they'd be throwing a lot more shots. I would have, I would have told my defense. Fear out, man. Let it just fly one old. Let me see it. Let me see it from. far out, yeah, as far out as possible.

If you could, if you could limit them to shooting it from, like, the red line, I'd feel pretty good about... Dude, one shot from the red line against you as an NHL goalie, you would, like, be like, I'm out. No, well, for sure. Yeah. I wonder, though, like, you know, um, did you see the most recent jackass movie? I did not.

No, I never did. First of all, you blew it. I did. But, uh, remember in the old, the old jackass bit, the cup check. where they would just like have somebody kick Johnny Knoxville or whoever in the balls and he's wearing a cup. Mm-hmm. So they did that with Danger Aaron McGahey. And the gimmick was they got the world's fastest softball pitcher.

I can't remember her name off the top of my head. The UFC's hardest puncher, which I think it was Francis Ngano. Okay. And P.K. Suban. Mm-hmm. And they were just like, hit him in the balls as hard as he. you can with your specific style. And P.K.

from the, from the hash marks, just gunned it one, at least how they edited it one shot right down fucking main street. Uh-huh. And, uh, it's really funny,

but it's like, yeah, I don't, even if I had like a Kevlar vest, you know, full pads, all that kind of stuff, I don't know that I want to be,

but like how far out, like, from the other end of the ice, if, you know, Shee Weber or whoever is like, ripping them at you from the complete opposite crease. Are you feeling good about stopping that?

Like, I feel like I have an over 50% save percentage. But I, some of those would get by, yes. I wonder. I wonder, I wonder how, how the average guy who has no goaltending experience would do against that. Because that's a puck coming at you from almost 200 feet away. You got a long time to figure out what it's doing, you know? And yet, like you say. I feel like 75% is the highest I could get.

That feels a bell right, yeah. Yeah. And the rebound control is going to be shaky. Oh, yeah, I'm kicking that one right into the slot, man. There's no, there's no. Every time. Yeah. Anyway, any other thoughts on, on, is that the one that's tonight, the Dallas?

No, it's Florida Carolina tonight. You said that earlier. They get the extra, they got the extra rest in the West. That's right. That's right. Yeah, any other thoughts on that one? Not really. Cool.

Good matchups, though. Oh, yeah. Okay, great. So you're saying Carolina, Dallas final? I guess I did say that, didn't I? Yeah, okay. I'm with you. I'm with you.

Okay. Let's do a quick tour of the coaching changes that are or maybe will happen in the next little while here. Since the last time we spoke, Rick Tocket has become the coach of the Philadelphia Flyers. Your thoughts? Probably no different than the thoughts I had the last six weeks or whatever it was. We've been waiting for this to happen. Well, sure. I don't, I mean, I'm kind of with you and that I don't know that he is.

Five years, five and a quarter is the number. Big, yeah, well, we were wondering what was taking so long. I guess now we know. That extra quarter million bucks a year. Good job by, good job by him. He, uh, and his people, they got a, they got a hell of a contract out of it. Yep. Just fine with me.

There's no cap on contracts, man. Let's put the money in the pockets of people who actually do something rather than the owners. I'm okay with that. Yeah. Um, I, again, I don't know how much, uh, of the one time the Canucks had a lot of success. Oh, by the way, speaking of this, did you see that what Rick Tock, one of Rick Tockett's quotes was about, like, why he was so excited to be in Philly? Oh, no. What?

He's like, I got to the practice, Rick. There were three sheets. This is crazy. It's like that rocks, man. Keep twisting the, same thing. Keep twisting the knife. I love it. Yeah, I, uh, I sat down with the players.

and we made it half an hour into the conversation, and nobody was crying. That was nice, like that. Nobody pulled a knife on any of their teammates while I was talking to. It was pretty cool. None of my best defensemen put up their hand and asked about tax rates in New Jersey.

That was good. I mean, they probably will. I bet a bunch of those guys live in New Jersey. You know what? It's good point. Not living on the Philly side of the river, I wouldn't imagine. But I thought it was interesting.

They asked Daniel Breyer about Talkett's coaching record, and he's like, look, you've got to understand. Those lightning teams were dog shit, man. You know, like, the fact that it came up is very funny to me. I don't disagree with them. Obviously, those lightning teams sucked, but, like, I thought that was funny. He's like, I coach the coyotes. What do you want from him? Fair enough, Dan.

You know, I can't argue too hard. But, yeah. I'm curious to see what they think the move is there. for next season. Like where do they think the flyers are in their, in their rebuild? Yeah. They're going to say they want to make the playoffs,

but do they think that's feasible? I don't know. They're going to have a busy summer, I think. I would agree with you, and that is probably going to make very funny headlines for the rest of us. That's right. I got the coach, though. That's where it starts.

Yep. Um, well, very relatedly here, the other coaching hire, I think announced actually technically before the Tocket deal was Vancouver hired Adam Foote. Yep. Who had already been there. So, I mean, I think that's what you're looking for in Vancouver right now is stability. Is that, is that right?

If it, if it ain't broke. Yeah. Yeah, that was interesting. I'll tell you exactly what I think. think this move was. One, hey, Quinn Hughes likes this guy.

Number one with a bullet is the answer for that. And also, to your point, the fact that he was already under contract, so it's like, whatever, we'll give you an extra like quarter of a million dollars.

What does that sound like for you? And he goes, oh, that's great. Yeah, perfect for me. Thanks. Whatever. I don't think they've announced

what the foot contract is. but yeah, I don't know about this one. It feels like a team that went from being willing to pay a coach, $4 million or whatever the reported number was, and not being willing to pay one of their top prospects, his entry-level bonuses to, now we don't have to pay a coach that much, I guess you can have the entry-level bonuses.

And also, doesn't Quinn Hughes really like you? Mm-hmm. That's what it feels like to me, just kind of spinning their tires. I know a lot of Canucks fans are pissed about this, and I feel like they are right to be. It's certainly not the most inspiring hire. But we're always saying it's the same guy's getting hired for all these jobs. So here's somebody who has worked their way up through the system and is now a new rookie head coach.

See how it goes. I mean, he's earned the chance. I guess now we see. Well, so the other thing with that is, do we feel like the Canucks problem was that they weren't good enough defensively last year? I thought that, like, that was their whole thing

was that they were pretty good defensively. Their problem is they couldn't put the puck in the net. Right. And where did I hear that? I think it might have been the I hate this team podcast. They were like, So do you think, like, Adam Foote was sitting on an answer to unlock the offense? And he's like, as an assistant was like, I mean, that's not really my thing.

I'm more of a defense guy. Yeah, Adam Foote, the defensive defenseman for 20 years in the NHL was like, right. But I know how to score. But their point was, he was an assistant last year. If he thought he had a way to fix the scoring, wouldn't they have just implemented it already? You would think, although, I mean, with a guy like talk it, maybe.

Well, so this is my other theory is they didn't want to lose foot because of the Hughes thing. And so they were like, and they were very much expecting him to go to Philly unless they gave him the head coaching job. Do you see what I'm saying? That would make some sense, yeah. Yeah. So there is that as well. By the way, as we're recording this, the Leafs like Locker Clean Out Day is happening.

Did you see this quote from Willie Nealander on Game 7? I haven't seen that yet. Let me guess. Are they close? William Nealander, quote, just a shitty game. That's about it. Hard to disagree. Will you nailed it.

I mean, kind of got it. There was, I just scrolled past it here. Tavares says he has positive conversations with Triliving in Burubi today. Very optimistic that it can work out where I'm back. but obviously none of that is for sure at this point, says Pierre LeBron. The other funny quote, Craig Barubi, I really like this team. I think this team is a very good team. To get over that hump, we have to learn from this game seven here going forward and we will learn.

Oh, well, that's reassuring. Oh, okay. Well, run it back then. I didn't. As long as they're learning. That's exactly right. So yeah, Adam Foote in Vancouver, you know, I don't think he himself is fixing what's wrong with the team, especially because they're going to lose at least Brock Besser this summer,

among other guys who are supposed to be able to score for them. And I don't think you lose Brock Besser and like, that's it, you're never going to score again, obviously. But again, does Adam Foote know how to get the most out of Elias Pedersen? That's the... questions one through 12 for me right now. And I don't know what the answer there is. That is. No trade clause kicks in July 1st.

Yep. Speaking of, did you see the Mitch Martyr quote? Mitch Marter asked if he wants to be a Maple Leaf next year. Quote, I've always loved my time here. Loved being here. Mitch, that doesn't answer the question. Except it kind of does.

Yeah, sure does. doesn't it? Are you breaking up with me? I've, you know, I've always enjoyed our relationship. It was a great. It was great. Yeah, a lot of past tense there, Mitch. I don't know. A lot of past tense. A lot of, uh, somebody's been, someone's been studying their grammar. He's, he apparently also said he hasn't processed anything yet. Well, yeah, we knew that. We, we saw game seven, man. Sure hasn't. You know. Um, one other hire that I, I actually neglected to put this on the outline due to foolishness, but Ken Holland introductory press conference

in L.A., whatever, Wednesday or Thursday last week. It must have been Thursday, because I listened to it while I was leaving the movies where I saw Final Destination Bloodlines. You're pretty good. Yeah, okay.

Yeah. I mean, look, are these like fucking A-plus masterpieces of horror? No. But they've come up with funny ways to like squish people. You know what I mean? Dude, I'm a least fan. I get that in the playoffs. Okay. Timely.

Can I say this? Yeah. There is a death in like that, you know how like the first scene of every final destination movie is like a bunch of people experiencing the most horrific death you can imagine? Yeah. There is one that got like a, an applause break. Because it was it was so well earned and so funny. So I would give a soft recommend to Final Destinations Bloodlines, especially if you're listening to the Ken Holland press conference afterward.

Yeah, that's the combo. That's the secret sauce. All right. Well, it worked for me last Thursday. I'll tell you that right now for free, you know. So he said a lot of interesting stuff, including he mentioned their team's, like, season point total. a lot. He was like, this is a hundred and five point team.

Three minutes later. They had 105 points last year. This is a good team. You know, all that kind of stuff. And he's like, I don't want to mess with everything too much. Good team. Obviously, you know, Darcy had a great year. It's hard to be a Vesna finalist, blah, blah, blah, all this stuff.

Bring Jim Hiller back for sure. Lock that one in. But also they were like, if you need to add some, like, a really expensive player, do you have the ability to do that? And he's like, yep. Absolutely. And he said that Copatar and Doughty felt like losing in the first round again was a wasted opportunity, I believe, was the phrase he used. Okay.

And I think he thinks they're like one player away. And I think that's really interesting. It's interesting, all right. Who is the one player? that I mean I the reading between the lines he was like I don't feel like we have to do much but

he kind of implied like it would be really nice to be able to spend a shitload of money on a guy who makes a big difference for us yeah um I think Austin Matthews would like it in L.A. Yeah well and that's the other thing

they have so many like good players and like who are on the younger side that if we're trying to maximize the winning window for for doughty and copatar you don't care about these guys who maybe are going to be second and third liners for you five years from now so maybe you do go out and get an austin matthews or a mitch marner or you know nick eeler's another example of a guy that like could make it positive difference but i i honestly don't know what what he's going to do this summer and i'm i'm

I'm fascinated by that. Because there are a lot of different directions he could go, you know? Yep. Fair enough. Do you? Yeah. What's your view with the Kings now? I feel like Ken Holden's become like the guy that everybody just rolls their eyes at because he's been around forever.

But there's still a place for guys like that in this league. And I kind of get why L.A. went in that direction, given where they're at. I'm not convinced it works. but. And so if anybody should understand the power of a star player, it's Ken Holland. Right?

Absolutely. I'm just going to, I'm going to pull up my article than when I wrote about this last week because I'm just going to give you a list of the guys who were already on that Detroit team when he got hired. Okay?

Like the mid-90s Detroit team. Where was it? Shit. Okay. Eisman, Fedorov, Lidstrom, Shannahan, Slava Kozlov, Slava Fetisov, and Igor Larianov. We're all already on that team. And it's like, you know, did he help make Detroit good for several years? Sure he did.

Absolutely. But also, I feel like you could give 95% of guys who were ever NHL general managers. And I'm including like Mike Milberry. If you give those, Mike Milbury, those guys in 1996, like high to their, not all of them are high to their power. Slava Fatsov's probably like 38, 39 years old at that point. But if you give most of those guys that lineup, they're winning at least one cup, you know? Could be right. Yeah.

Unless there's too much pressure. It's true. By the way, I'm taking everything in the whole. I'm stretching, relating it back to the Leafs. Yeah, why wouldn't you? Yeah. You're a hockey media guy. This is what we do.

And then obviously he gets to Edmonton and it's like, okay, what do we have? Like, you know, he gets off the plane and they're like, hey, I'm Connor. This is my friend Leon. We're going to be, we're excited to be working for you, you know. It's not that hard to, you know. But Hyman and God, he added several good to very, very. good players to Matias at Holm-trade, he pulled that off.

Like, there are good players. Now a big part of his problem in L.A. Yeah, that's right. There are good players available to him in L.A., but none, I would say, on the same level as Prime Connor McDavid and Leon Dries' Idol, or Prime 10 or so Hall of Famers. When they won the Cup in 0203,

there were legitimately 10 Hall of Fame. famers on that team. Yep. It's crazy. A lot of them pass their primes obviously at that point, including Luke Robatai.

Yep. Amazing how this all comes together, isn't it? It really is. It's all about who you know. And hey, speaking of the Detroit Red Wings, it seems like

Jeff Blaschel might be the next coach of the Chicago Blackhawks. Your thoughts. Yeah. I'm a little bit surprised to see his name circulating as much as it is.

I legitimately, the first place I saw it, someone posted it on the Puck Soup Discord, just like, oh, Blaschell to Chicago looks like it's going to happen. And I had to respond to them like, is this real? I think I might have been coming out of a movie or something

where I was like, I was offline for like an hour and a half, two hours there. That can't be right, can it? And they were like, no, here's so-and-so saying it. And it's like, what the fuck? Once I started thinking about it, I got it a little bit too. Mm-hmm.

A little bit. Yeah, what was your reaction? Well, I mean, my reaction was surprised. My reaction was I had kind of assumed Blasheel would be a one and done as an NHL coach. But we don't know, you know, we don't know so much about these guys as far as how they interview, how those conversations go. I mean, if I sat down and talked to him and picked his brain, I probably wouldn't understand 80% of what he was saying. Because he thinks the guy.

game on a different level than people like you or I. So I'm not going to sit here and be like, oh, yeah, bad, bad move, bad higher necessarily. But I was surprised. Yeah, I mean, obviously the track record in Detroit is horrendous. But he was also coaching the Detroit Red Wings for like six or seven years, you know? So like that's a good team. They stink. And like a good chunk of that was the I's are playing.

It's like we're stinking on purpose. So I don't necessarily hold that against him, you know? And also the fact that he was an assistant coach on the lightning the last three years, you can pick up stuff from John Cooper, all this kind of thing. Yep, absolutely. Totally agree with that. But the reason I think I'm less surprised than, like, once I really thought about it, is just like you look at the other guys who are out there.

And it's like, Chicago kind of already did that a little bit. Young guys are out there. Guys who are longtime assistants who have no head coaching experience. They've done that, you know, HL coaches. They did that briefly with Sorensen, you know. And they say what you want about Jeff Blashell.

He's, A, not going to cost a lot, which might be a consideration given where they are in their competitive cycle. But B, this is a guy with a lot of head coaching experience at the NACF. level. And unless, and unless you're going out and hiring Peter Leveillette, who maybe doesn't even want the fucking job, quite frankly, who were you getting that met, that like, brings that level of, I don't know what you would want to say, like professional expertise or experience to the job?

Like, do I think Jeff Flashel's a good head coach based on what I've seen in the NHL? No. Could he be? There are a lot of guys who took a step when they took their second. and then a shell head coaching job. It's just that a lot of them didn't coach for seven years of loser hockey before that. You know what I mean?

I am curious to see how that hiring plays in the Chicago market, assuming it happens. Because it doesn't feel like it's not sexy, let's just say. Oh, no, no, no. Nobody's like, oh, the guy who always missed the playoffs with the Red Wings is our new coach. Yeah, and he's not a Paul Maurice where he's. you're like, oh, but he's so affable, he's such a good guy. You know, he seems pretty standard on that front to me, you know, like if you can win over the local media, that does really go a long way for, for, like, how they frame you to the general public. At least initially.

Yeah. Oh, for sure. And initially is like, if it doesn't work initially in Chicago, the idea that it's ever going to work, nobody's going to buy it. you're just going to give this guy three years everybody's going to be like fuck off no I don't I've been giving this team three years for 10 years so like he I kind of feel like he has to hit the ground running a little bit

at least in so far as like Connor Bedard needs to come out and be like I love playing for this guy oh it's awesome you know because otherwise people are going to be doing the Connor McDavid like when's you go into the Canucks thing Remember that?

Every time the oilers, like, would miss the playoffs, he's going to be a Toronto Maple Leaf any day now. Mm-hmm. Everybody's just going to be counting down the minutes. Of course, now we know it's not happening until he's a free agent next year. Right. But it's the same idea in Chicago with Bedard, where it's like, when's he going to be sick of all the losing?

And, like, what, this is year two. So, like, let's take it easy maybe. But two more years of losing? losing like this, Jeff Lash will probably not going to be in this job. You know? So they got to do something. It's not, like you say, not a sexy pick at all. Couldn't be a less sexy pick, quite frankly.

It's harsh. Sorry, Jeff. Am I wrong? Yeah, you're not wrong. Yeah. Look, again, I just don't think that there's a sexy pick out there right now. If they hired Lavie-Let, are people in Chicago like, yeah, we fucking got up. No.

There's nobody out there that like Chicago could be like, here he is. The guy that got fired from the Oilers and they immediately went to two Western Conference Finals in a row. You know? Like people aren't losing their minds over any of these candidates at this point. All those, all the sexy names have been scooped up because a quarter of the teams in the league turned over their coaching positions already, you know? Yep. So I'm interested to see if it actually happens. but I like I said, couldn't believe it when somebody reported it last week.

Any other news and notes around the league right now? Don't think so. Yeah. Kind of scanning through and no, we're no, no more funny quotes out of the Leafs cleanup, which by the way is still player interviews now. So if like Brandon Shanahan gets fired over lunchtime, you're wondering why we're not talking about it. That's not my fault, yeah.

Nothing we can do. No. Oh, you know what? Alison Lucan from the Seattle Cracken just posted, and I didn't even consider, we didn't talk about this. Austin Matthews, they asked him why they lost game seven, and he said too many passengers. And Allison rightly questioned,

why isn't anybody asking them about the passengers thing? Yeah. I saw that as just, I kind of don't pay much attention to what players say in the immediate aftermath of a loss because they're just, they're zoned out and trying to say whatever they think they should say. So that's how I viewed that. I have seen a couple references to it as potentially suggesting that he was talking about Nealander and Tavares, that there was maybe a bit of a crack there. but clearly Matthews and Marner were garbage

when it mattered so you know there's nothing about saying too many passengers that doesn't include yourself in there but yeah

I don't there's there's nothing he could have said that would have made me feel better about the team so I guess I can't complain too much

about it feeling worse but yeah there were quite a few passengers mm-hmm Quite a few. Quite a few. All right.

Why don't you hit them with the plugs and let's call it a day? Find me at the athletic podcast tomorrow with other Sean and Frankie, I think, I think is joining us. I will have my Leafs Luz mailbag and probably some more Leafs content at the end of the week. And also check out the newsletter. Myrtle is finally going to get back to helping with that. He had been on leaf duty every night for the last couple weeks. So, yeah, you can get a break from me, but I'll be back later on next week. More newsletter stuff.

There you go. And then for me, sign up for Elite Prospects, of course. Coming up on the draft guide, I know they're putting the finishing touches on that, and that should be released at some point in the next week or three here. I don't know the exact date. Don't get mad at me. And then also head over to patreon.com slash pox soup. We got all kinds of bonus episodes, including a recent call-in show where we got Greg and Sean with a couple of teams of listeners.

And we played a good old-fashioned version of Soup Feud, which is, for copyright reasons, distinct from a different show. I had never even made that connection. Oh, yeah. No, I mean, it's a subtle, it's a subtle nod, I would say. Okay. Soup feud. But yeah, we had a lot of fun with that. You can listen to that on the Patreon.

And that's it. Thank you so much for listening, folks. We'll be back presumably when the Florida Panthers and Edmonton Oilers have swept their opponents next week. And thanks for listening. Have a good one. Bye bye. Bye bye.