Puck Soup - Meet The Kraken

Episode Date: July 22, 2021

The boys discuss the NHL expansion draft and try to figure out what the Seattle Kraken are trying to accomplish; why they didn't do the "Vegas thing"; NHL Draft preview; Luke Prokop comes out; Logan Mailloux drops out; the big names that could move via trade; and the best and worst pets that aren't dogs and cats. Sponsored by Keep and Manscaped!

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It's your weekly bowl of hockey and nonsense. Part two. I'm Greg Wichenski of ESPN, your worldwide leader in Fish Tossing and MacLamore. I'm Ryan Lambert from elite prospects, and we, gave Ron Francis that weird Polly Walnuts necklace. I'm Sean McAdoer from The Athletic and I'm going to leak

everything we talk about to Frank Sarvelli. Oh no. Don't do that. So that he can ruin it for all the people who wanted to be surprised but spend all day on Twitter following hockey people. And spend all. Oh, doesn't it make you mental? It was very reminiscent of like,

I want to watch the Game of Thrones finale, but I can't believe people are talking about the Game of Thrones. Yeah, I got to wait until Wednesday. I got to wait until Wednesday to check it out. Fuck, shut up. And also people are like, what are these insiders doing? Why are they spoiling these things? Hello, have you ever, like, experienced trade deadline or free agent day?

I get very frustrated in trade deadline because I just want to watch SportsCenter and find out all the trades then. That's right. These stupid insiders doing their job and reporting on things instead of hewing to the NHL's PR needs. It's awful. Yeah, but that's why I watch Sportsnet, because then I will see the trades, like, well after they're reported. I'm kidding. Well, yeah. TSN's in the family.

Come on, TSN's in the family. And you used to work at SportsNet. Did I ever tell you that when I worked at Sportsnet for, like, uh, for, like, uh, trade deadline. There was a dude there. I forget his name. I'm sure whoever is listening who's into like Toronto media knows what I'm talking about. But like he would have these sort of Jordan Belfort, Wolf of Wall Street kind of like psych obsessions before like going on like trade deadline or whatever, like the night before.

Remember when Caprios did those fuckers at TSN bit? Yeah. That was very much in keeping with the vibe at Sportsnet before trade deadline where, you know, there'd be like somebody pounding his chest being like, we're going to murder those fuckers, kind of shit. It was very strange. What a very strange experience that was, and not only because I wore diarrhea pants. The other thing about all the stuff being leaked by Frank and Pierre and Chris and Elliot and O'em, I kind of feel like everybody still watched the draft anyway. Like there was a lot of people in my timeline being like, well, it's the little reason to watch the draft.

And then later on, they're like, hey, J.T. Brown caught a fish. It was, uh, it was sort of weird. I guess maybe like when there's nothing else going on in hockey, you're just going to watch something you already know the results of. Yeah, it's the thing we talk about all the time where it's like, we're all little sickos, uh, who we get mad at everything the NHL does. And it's like, oh, are you ever going to stop watching the NHL or, or change your consumption habits or not buy jerseys or not go to games.

And it's like, well, we're not going to do any of that. But we are going to be mad about all this. Okay, well. Right. Yeah, and I feel like a lot of people were watching because they wanted to rip on the NHL for putting a cheesy show on. And then it wasn't that bad. So people were like trying to force it.

Well, they did have. Marshawn Lynch said a name wrong. Yeah. I mean, yeah, the only thing is, like, Macklemore came out dressed as, like, a mid-2000s Johnny Depp character. Other than that, it was like, yeah, this is... Blow? Or, like, another movie? Uh, what's the one where it, like, you're, like, you're watching it and you're going,

this isn't going to be another fucking Tyler, Tyler Durden kind of a thing, is it? And then it definitely is. Oh, man. I know what you're talking about. Secret window, secret window. Secret window, right. Yeah. No, that's a good point.

I like that call. It's a very good. Sort of like, kind of like a quasi-Hunner S. Thompson look, but updated for Johnny Depp. Yeah. Like, if Hunter S. Thompson was French, that's Johnny Depp's whole look and deal, even though he's from, like, Iowa or some shit. He's not French at all. But then he does, like, the Dior commercials, and he's like, hello, I am Johnny Depp. deal. And it's like, okay, well, I don't know how that happened, but...

Oh, man, if Hunter S. Thompson was French, that means he could have coached the Habs. I would have paid to see that. Yeah, the show wasn't too bad. I mean, like, I think, you know, there was the typical Chris Fowler is not the biggest hockey guy, so he messed up some things, stuff, which is to be expected. And it had its moments of whimsy. I mean, I should say that for those I don't know, that was an NHL production. That wasn't like ESPN having our grubby myths all over the thing to make it totally ESPNized. But I think the whole thing came off. Look, I wasn't necessarily bored in 90 minutes and like we already knew all the picks.

But the reason I think a lot of people tuned in, I thought this is where you're going with this, Ryan, was to see all the trades. I mean, when Vegas did this four years ago, they made 10 trades during the draft, using their leverage over other teams to acquire such players as Jonathan Marsh is so, Riley Smith, Alex Tuck, Shea Theodore. They got two first round picks. They got a bunch of other draft picks. one could say that the foundation for the next four years of Golden Knight's success were laid on that very night and the Seattle Cracken made Nary a trade on their expansion draft day.

What do we make of that, right? Nothing we should clarify. Nothing as far as considerations for taking or not kicking anyone. We were told that there are trades that will have been announced. I'm assuming by the time people hear this, where they may have picked guys in order to flip them to other teams. And that might just be like Tyler Pitlick or it might be something bigger.

But as far as those Vegas style, you give us this and we won't take this guy or you give us this and we will take this guy with a bad contract, they went 0 for 30. Yeah, and it's because, you know, they announced, or, you know, it was reported a number of times that they were like, yeah, they're trying to hold everybody hostage. Like, they're asking for, you know, I think it was Pierre tweeted, like, the prices are exorbitant. And it's like, I still figured they would get something done, like somebody. That's exactly it. because like Ron Francis in his media thing after the draft said something that I thought was perfectly reasonable, which is basically that after what happened with Vegas, nobody was going to overpay this time around. And I get that.

I think we all expected that there would be kind of a reset on the market after what Vegas did, maybe even an over-correction where GMs got too cautious. So I get it. I get why there's no Chey-theodore deal here. I get why that wasn't going to be possible for Ron Francis in Seattle to pull off.

You probably weren't going to get anyone to overpay. But just because people won't overpay doesn't mean you don't make any deals at all. Because after you've tried to get them to overpay, eventually you got to lower your asking price to something that's more reasonable but still works for your team. Yeah, but then they think you're a, like, you don't mean anything you say. It is what, like, GM brain would say, you know what I mean?

I get that. Where if they're, oh, it's a first round pick or nothing. And then you're like, well, what if it was a second round pick? Like, or more to the point, like, they look at what George McPhee was able to get out of these teams, like draft pick wise. And if you're getting like, a fourth from the wild to lay off Capocococcanin? Yeah.

Like, then you're going to look like an asshole, aren't you? Well, but then, so what are we doing? Are we trying to build the best team or are we trying to make Ron Francis look good, is my question? Because, does it need help with that necklace? Let's be honest. It's great. And I mean, like, how does every GM operate?

Oh, I got to look good. I got to protect my job. It's not about building the best possible team. It's about building a team that's going to make me able to keep my job for another year and a half. I'm with you, but here's the thing. It's one thing to be a GM, and let's say at the trade deadline, you're a seller, and you go, I want a first round pick for these guys, and nobody's willing to pay, and maybe you say,

you know what, I said I needed a first. If I go back on it now, then I'm going to be the easy mark, and it's going to hurt me next deadline, and the deadline after, and the deadline after that. Okay. There's no expansion draft after this one. This was quite literally a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Seattle, as far as the life of their franchise, to have a very unique type of leverage over the rest of the league that they'll never have again. And I, again, I wasn't expecting them to be landing a bunch of first-round picks or a bunch of excellent young players. I don't think it was set up for that.

But to go 0 for 30 is, I can't get my head around how that's anything other than just a huge miss by this team and this management group. Because you're never getting that opportunity again, even though there's certainly there's lots of stuff they can do between now and opening night. And maybe they'll hit all that stuff out of the park and then have a great team. still, this to me sounds like they just really badly misplayed their hands, and I'm not sure how you can defend it. Yeah, well, I should say, I don't disagree with you. I'm saying like this, like the way GMs think and the way the league works and stuff like that. Like that's, that's why it happened. It, you know, it's the same thing of, well, why did, why did the oilers go get Duncan Keith?

It seems like it's stupid. It's like, well, it's not about whether it's stupid. It's about whether he allows Ken Holland to keep his job for another year. Right. I think the two things from what you just said, Sean, because I asked Francis that question about the Vegas comparison and why things didn't come to materialize. And the sense I got for him was not only that teams weren't willing to overcompensate to protect the players that they exposed. but the sense I got was like over the course of four years

they got nihilistic about it like Bill Guerin said last night that he wasn't going to ante up anything to keep either Carson Salsi or or Capo capanin and like he was willing to lose one

and with the knowledge that that's just the ballgame with the way that this expansion draft protection scheme goes like you're just going to lose somebody. And he's not going to make the Alex Tuck mistake that Chuck Fletcher made. And so I think a lot of... The teams had four years to get ready for this, not one year like they did before. Yep. That's fair. So a lot of teams weren't in the boat where they needed to even make a deal to protect somebody because they were willing to lose somebody and they had sort of game their

roster where they, you know, if they lost somebody, it'd be somebody they'd be willing to lose. I mean, if you look back at it critically at the projection list, like, how many teams were really in the boat that, like, Anaheim was when they made their dumbass Shay Theodore trade? Like, I don't know. Not a whole lot. Not a lot, but not zero. But not zero. Exactly. And so whatever the number is, I've said, oh for 30 a few times. Okay, maybe it was 0 for 10 or 0 for 15 or 0 for 5. But, you know, Calgary lost their captain, their face of the franchise. I'm sure there could have been something. they would have done there. You know, other teams had guys with big tickets available that they probably would have liked to have lost. That's the interesting part, isn't it? In Philadelphia, you look at... Teams, if maybe that was, like, again, we have to peel away the layers here and play a bit

of a guessing game, but maybe the situation this time was teams trying to sweeten the pot so they would take on Voracek and Van Riems, or Van Riems like, sweeten the pot so they would take. Matthew Shane. Sweeten the pot so they would take Jordan Eberley, who they took anyways for free, but part of it is part of the poker game is going to New York saying, ah, it's not a great contract. We don't hate the player.

Geez, you know, if you coughed up a pick, maybe we take them knowing that you want to take them anyways. Didn't happen. Well, playing hardball with Lou Lamarillo always works out great. So, yeah, good point. But again, like the only thing that we know about, with regard to this team now is that they value cap space. They valued cap space,

and we'll get to the carry price thing in a second, but they valued cap space in not taking on carry price without having to give up a single asset to acquire him. That was the reason they didn't take him. None of the moves they made in the expansion draft. I mean, they only have four guys on this roster. Sorry, no, three guys in this roster right now

that make more than $5 million against the cap. It was an incredible pivot. Like, we went into the expansion draft looking at the exposed players and being like, these fuckers are going to build an all-star team. Like, they're going to be a playoff team straight away. They're going to challenge Vegas for the top of the division.

They're going to be so good because of the amount of players that are available. Who said that? Everybody did. No, but I'll tell you what nobody said, Ryan. Nobody said, oh, man, at the end of this expansion draft, when they take, you know, Carl what the fuck from the flyers, you're going to marvel at how much cap space they're going to have. Oh, my God, the bountiful caps space.

Or if you had shown us this roster a few days ago and said this is what they're going to come out with, then we would have said, oh, wow, they must have made some sweet side deals. They must have got some real nice picks or whatever to get this, because I don't even know who Kerbal McDurbel is. And they're drafting guys like, I mean, they basically passed on at least a half dozen teams. I mean, taking guys and, you know, I've already seen people say, well, they got to flesh out the age. They're like, do they? They don't.

You're one chance to do this and you're worried about A.L. They're splitting their AHL team with Florida next year because Palm Springs isn't going to be ready yet. Yeah. It's so funny that people. Now, look, when it comes to the cap space, yeah, if we're sitting here a a week from now and they've signed Gabriel Landisog and Dougie Hamilton,

okay. Yeah. Then we're sitting there going, all right, you know what? They say, you know, and even today, there could be trades announced today where, you know, they're flipping Giordano to the flyers for some huge windfall. And we go, okay, well, we, there was a plan and we just didn't know all the pieces yet. But like, cap space is key and it's something you can weaponize, but it doesn't roll over year to year. You've got this cap space. Now you've got this offseason to use it.

And one of the key inflection points for how you could use it was the draft. And for them to just let that go without taking any deals, anything that some team would have paid them to take is surprising. Well, and it's, we got three months for this to all work out. And I think I don't know about you guys, but I feel there's a part of me that feels very gun-shy about criticizing Seattle because of the Vegas. Vegas experience, right? Like, I didn't, I didn't think Vegas had a good team coming out of that draft. I thought they'd screwed it all up. I saw, I was sitting there who's William Carlson?

I've never even heard of this guy. Right. And the thing is, they, they, they, you know, Vegas got super lucky in that first year. We can all say that. That's fine to say that, like, Mark Andre Fleury went from being a guy that Pittsburgh was like, please get him the fuck away from us to, oh, he's like a 930 goalie for 85% of the season. And, you know, William Carlson.

shot 58% in that first year. And it's like, you know, you know who hasn't been William Carlson since then? William Carlson? Like, nobody, he hasn't even been close to that kind of a contributor. And that's fine. But, like, I think the point is that there, it's very conceivable to me that, like, Jared McCann becomes the, the William Carlson of this draft. Sure.

Or the Chris Dreger goes off. But also, if you're Seattle, you're looking at not just the 2022 draft, but the 2023 draft and going, oh, there's like multiple franchise players available. Right. You don't want to be great. Correct. Right off the back. And the other thing to say. So you know what would be a real smart thing to do?

Get some extra in 2023 first round picks. Well, I think they're going to be pretty. I think they're going to be pretty. Because, like, that's the other thing. is it's not side deals now, it's a post side deal, like post draft transactions and all that shit. And so, like, you know, they're going to flip guys for picks. They're like Tyler Pitt, like we already know is out of, is gone.

They're going to get like a third round pick for him. And that's bullshit. Like, they should have just said, yeah, we picked Tyler Pitlick and he's going straight to the flyers or whoever. And, and we're getting a third round pick. form. Like, that should have been included in the show last night, I think. And so, like, there is another path. Like, the UFA path, if they get, you know, some of the bigger names like Dougie or Lannis Cog, like that's one path. But to go back to Sean's

point, the easier path is to amass a treasure chest of picks and prospects and then use those to acquire players the teams already have under contract and then bring them on your team. Because that's what Vegas did, and it led to Mark Stone. It almost led to Eric Carlson. It led to Tomas de Tar that then led to Max Patcheretti. Like, that's the path. It's a much better path than UFA money, in my opinion. Yes, absolutely.

Spending in UFA is, like, by definition in inefficiency. And, you know, if we're going to say, oh, this is an analytically minded team and all that shit, Well, first of all, they would know that spending in UFA is an insane thing to do. But, you know, for the most part, like, obviously there are always deals that end up looking good. But, like, if you're giving Gabriel Landis Gauz's $8 million a year until he's 36, that's not a good idea, you know? Yeah. The other thing to say is that they don't even need to be that good, and they're going to be third place team in the Pacific. They're going to make the playoffs. They can be terrible and at least have a fighting

chance to be the third place team in that division. They will have a fighting chance. I don't, I mean, I still think that Vancouver is going to recover. I think Edmonton just based in the strength of two guys is a playoff team. Well, I mean, look at their goaltending. Yeah, but who cares? Like, their goaltending sucked for like the last few years. And Connor and and Leon, I've been able to drag that carcass to the playoffs. The, the wild cards are Calgary and and the Kings. Like, is this the year the Kings throw all the kids in the mix and become something, like, new and exciting and challenging for a playoff spot? Does a full year of Darrell Sutter mean that the flames, like, get in the final seat in the playoffs?

I don't know. Yeah, let's... But I'm with you. Like, Seattle has a better than good chance of finishing third in that division. Yeah, and, and, yeah, they just have to finish ahead of two of Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver, and L.A. That seems easy to me. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, I know. But like you said, the UFA process leaves you just pulling your hair out. And speaking of hair loss, today's episode of Puck Soup is sponsored by Keeps. Now, folks, and by folks, I mean, gentlemen, the hair goes away at some point. It leaves you. It runs away. And I am more and more becoming Will Arnett, the older I get. You know, the Will Arnett, with the Widows Peak that goes back.

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They're good. I don't love them. I like the home ones better. Sean, you have professed absolutely no desire to care about jerseys at all. But what did you think of the cracking jerseys last night? They're fine. The jerseys are fine.

Still think the logo's cool. I still like that a lot. The logo's cool, but did you feel it was a little bit big on the jerseys? It's funny. Somebody said, somebody said, wow, the blue jersey, the S looks so much smaller than on the white jersey. And the photo they posted was Jamie Alexiak, who's, I think, eight feet tall. next to Chris Tanev, who's 5'9. And it's like, yeah, it's crazy that they didn't right-size the logo for the shirt.

And that, like, that's just forced perspective. That fucking Peter Jackson figured that out early. Right, right. Right. The real fashion football last night was apparently they decided to put Sean Kemp in a cracking t-shirt from the boys department at Sears, which I thought was unfortunate. But everything else was fun. Well, again,

Again, where you get a t-shirt that fits a guy, Sean Kemp's size, because he was standing next to Gary Payton and made Gary Payton look like Chris Tanev. Right. Brandon Tanev. I think I said Chris both times. Yeah. You got Tanevves all over the place. All right. Let's talk about Kerry Price. First of all, as we're doing the show, Mark Bergevan is doing his media availability.

does not expect Shea Weber to play this season or probably won't be back for his career. So all the Shea Weber stuff that we were speaking about last week or whenever it was kind of coming to pass. Remember, though, if you say, boy, that's awful convenient as he gets to the end of this contract, it's illegal. You're not allowed to do that. Yeah, no, it's completely coincidental.

This keeps happening. He has an ankle, a foot, a knee, and a thumb. Same. Simply cannot play another day beyond all the games he played in the playoffs. Carrie Price. Carrie Price, I think I saw a report could miss six to eight weeks with the procedurously have in the offseason. But Carrie Price, I think the big news is still a member of the Montreal Canadians. Ryan, was there ever a moment when you thought the Cracken might dabble in the dark arts of selecting Carrie Price in the expansion draft?

I made this point on Twitter, but it's like if they could get some dumb team to be like, oh yeah, we want Carrie Price and then, you know, like they could talk to Carrie Price and go, hey, would you accept a trade to so-and-so? I thought they might do it as a means of flipping carry price. but there was never a question to me that he would not be on the Seattle Cracken's opening night roster. What about you, Sean? Yeah, I tried to talk myself into it because it was easily the most interesting thing that could happen. But it always felt very unlikely, even to flip him, because A, he has the no move clause. So you can't flip him unless he's willing to. to be flipped.

And he could have behind the scenes just told around Francis, look, take me if you want, but I am not waving. So I am yours if as soon as you pick me and I'm not going anywhere else. And even if he was willing to go somewhere else, that there's so many years left on that. Yeah, I mean, if you retain 50% this year, would some team want carry price for $5 million? Absolutely.

And you'd be weaponizing your cap space. like we just talked about, that's perfect. But the problem is you're still stuck with that $5 million cap hit four years from now. And as we've seen with Vegas by four years from now, you could really need that cap space. You can't make that commitment. So it always seemed very, very unlikely. And I'm not, I mean, this was the right call. The risk factor is just too high, especially for a team that is probably not going to be contending for a Stanley Cup as an elite contender right out of the gate.

I don't think you want to buy all those years on carry price, as interesting and fun as it would have been to see them try. Yeah, it didn't make any sense from a team-building perspective. I kind of thought they might take them. Like the idea of carry price being available and you don't have to give up anything for them. the fact that, you know, Ron Francis worked for a team that kept Cam Ward and employ well beyond the point of where he should have been their goalie. Throw the veteran goalie and the goal and forget about it, set it and forget it, if you will. But there were a lot of reasons they might take them. Ownership kind of wanted their own Mark Andre Fleury, I was told.

But ultimately, like, you can't, between him and Dreger, you would have dedicated 17% of your cap to the goaltending position. Yeah, who were you? The Montreal Canadiens? So you couldn't do that. That would never work. The only reason I thought it was possible with the cap pit was because rather than like throwing that contract into a pre-existing salary cap situation, you could have drafted around and built around that cap hit. So maybe it becomes a little bit more tenable. But, you know, that and the age and the rickettiness of his body coming into this season, like there's a lot of reasons not to do it.

and I think they were probably smart to not have done it. But it was fun while it lasted, man. That was a huge curveball thrown into this entire mock draft situation for the expansion draft. And I really appreciated that. It appreciated us having a little fun. Anybody that was exposed to the Cracken that you were surprised didn't go, that you were convinced would end up there because for me, I think he was probably James Randename Stake.

I really thought that, like, that's a contract you could take on a player that if he plays is going to play really well for you and give you a net front presence and all this other stuff that comes with him being on your team. He's a good dude, good personality. Two years left, so it's very tradable if your team is what you want. You gobble up, yeah, you gobble up two million off that cap hit and all of a sudden he becomes a really tradable commodity. I really thought that was the one, I won't say shocked, but that was the one I thought, I put it this way. I thought one, I thought they would either take probably Van Riemsdike. Vorichek maybe, but Van Riemstike is the best option,

or they'd get bribed not to take either of them by Philadelphia. And because that was the other thing, you looked at Philadelphia's list and you went, well, if it's not those two guys, I've never even heard of these. What are they going to take someone I've never heard of? Well, lo and behold. Lo and behold, so that was my surprise. I thought they were going to take Gostisvair. If they were going to take somebody like, you know, JBR and Jake Vorich,

it's like, okay, well, you know, they're probably a little too expensive, probably a little too old, whereas with Gostis Bear A, the whole thing we heard about for months of like, Ron Francis loves his defenseman, and that's maybe more of a, I don't know, like you'd say a reclamation project or something like that, where clearly he was out of favor. Although, you know, Ron Hextall didn't necessarily seem like the biggest, uh, shangor, or not Hextall, Hacksdall. See, this is the freaking problem. But. That's what Betman did. did, though. Batman called him Dave Hextol last night. I didn't notice that. He was the greatest thing ever. He called it Dave Haxdall, and then he called it climate change arena, which is incredible. It's climate pledge arena, by the way, for those who don't know in Seattle. And Fetman called it climate change arena.

Well, Gary is not wrong about that. Don't. Right. Right. But yeah. So, like, I thought Gossus Fair would be the guy. Like, I, if, you know, if I was picking the team, I would have wanted nothing at all to do with Van. and Reimsdyke or Forrechecks

contract. So that was why I thought for, or Gostis Bear was the guy, but he wasn't, and I get it. That's fine. Yeah, that was interesting. And besides the guy from Philly,

do you have a favorite, like, unintentionally hilarious pick from the expansion draft? I have never heard of Alexander True in my entire fucking life. Alexander True, for those who don't know, was selected from the San Jose Sharks. He is a center right wing, 24 years old, restricted free agent with arbitration rights.

So something to look forward to there. Well, that's the other thing I wanted to say is they kept going, you know what? He's a young guy, he's 24, he's got 18 NHL games played, and it's like, you can't have an entire team of guys like that. The entire... Are you saying you've never heard of Alex Trude, but you have heard of Gavin Bayruther? Gavin Bayruther went to St. Lawrence, Greg. He was a very good college hockey defenseman. This is why I knew college hockey.

Gotcha. There we go. Like, yeah, I know who the college hockey guys are. I don't know who the Danish equivalent of college hockey guys are. For me, it was less about, like, a no-name that they selected. I think the most unintentionally hilarious thing was them. signing Adam Larson because like

Edmonton's entire cell job on acquiring Duncan Keith was A he's going to play with Adam Larson he's got cup rings and B he's going to play with Adam Larson and I mean I understand now that there's like a number of reasons why Adam Larson wanted to like move on from

Edmonton probably on and off the ice but um it's still kind of jarring to think that that acquisition was made and and what literally like the chief on ice justification was oh man, you know, he's going to have so much taken off his plate by skating with Adam Larson, then Adam Larson goes in place for an expansion team.

So I think that's probably my favorite unintentionally hilarious in the draft. I'll throw two out there. Maybe not hilarious, but at least vaguely interesting. I was surprised to see Brandon Tanniv go. Yeah, an insane choice. Again, that's another one. Not to beat a dead horse, but if you had said a few days ago, they're taking Brandon Tannave, you would have said, they probably got something real nice from the penguins

to make that happen. Now, when you say you were surprised, as surprised as Brandon Tanniff is in his headshot? Nobody has ever been that surprised. And by the way, how fun was it on the show where they showed that? And like, you had the Seattle crowd saw it for the first time. They're all just laughing, like, just, it's one of those great joys as a hockey fan. You can only experience it for the first time once. and we got to share that moment with a whole bunch of Seattle fans.

So that was cool. There's that one. And then the other one that's just, I guess we have to talk about a little bit, is the Leafs trading for Jared McCann and then losing Jared McCann. Well, it's one of those things where, like, if you take a step back and you just look at both transactions, the trade and the draft as the same thing, they basically traded a seventh round pick and a prospect they weren't very high on to sit out the expansion draft.

They got to get out of expansion for free card, which I think is a deal that a lot of teams would have happily made. But the problem is, you know, the deal, the trade happens, leaf fans get a couple days to talk themselves into this guy and then he's gone. And it's like suddenly like, oh, no,

we've just given up this, you know. Well, right. Like when they made the trade, I was like, oh, that's a smart trade for them. Like, that's the insurance of losing Kerrfoot if you really want to protect Kerrfoot. Or if they had just gone 7 and 3, you lose Justin Hall and who cares. Because Justin Hall's a 29-year-old middle-payer defenseman, and that's everybody Seattle wanted to take, basically. Yeah.

So, and that was it. It came down to them deciding they'd rather have Justin Hall, who's a decent player and cheap. which is obviously on the Leafs is key. I'm pretty sure if you hooked them up to a lie detector, they were hoping that Seattle would take Kerfut. The Leafs are probably one of those teams where I'm not surprised there were no side deals because they don't have any picks left. So they just, they don't have anything to move to Seattle to get them to take Kerfut instead.

But yeah, they basically, it sounds like to them, they basically went and got off-brand Alex Kerfurt. and then had two of them. And we're like, pick whichever one you want. He's better than Alex Kerfoot, right? Yeah, like. And cheaper. And cheaper.

And that's the critical thing. It's like, okay, you know, you want him to take Alex Kerfoot. He's a good player. But Jared McCann's a... When we did win the athletic, we did our war room mock draft, and I had the Leafs, and I picked, I picked Jared McCann. I said, for the exact reasons we just said, a little bit better and curfut, cheaper and everything.

And then, by the time... it came out, that piece came out on Tuesday morning, I had people yelling at me on Twitter because a fish had told them that Alex Kerfoot was the pick. And this had been leaked, which was the dumbest story of the entire week. The idea that like they're doing dress rehearsals and they're calling up Ron Francis like, we need the Leaf's pick for this dress rehearsal. And he's like, why don't you just pick any random? No, we need the actual pick. You're not going to put it on Twitter, right? No, of course we're not going to put it on Twitter. That would be stupid. And then they went and did that. So yeah, I just thumbs up to all the people who were very, very angry

at me because I didn't know that the magic fish had already leaked the Alex Kerfoot pick. It reminded me of like when they're testing the big board at the NHL draft and like they put names up on there just to make sure like the thing works. And then somebody takes a picture of it and they're like, looks like the first round just got spoiled. Yeah. And that's actually exactly what happened when Seattle took Carson Torrinsky. They were like, oh, that's just a fake name. Nobody's a fake name. But now that you mentioned that fish on...

Now that you mention that fish, I think my favorite unintentionally hilarious pick actually might be Dennis Chilowski from the Red Wings. One, because he was the last name that was leaked because no one could find him, according to Mark Specter, to tell him that he had been selected by the Cracken. And two, because a fucking octopus revealed that he had been selected. The octopus should have done all 30. The show of the octopus. And all I could think of when I saw the octopus was, was it like the fish?

Did they have to do like 25 different takes with the goddamn octopus, revealing the name of the Red Wing that might go to the Cracken? I honestly think they might have just let the octopus pick the Red Wing. Like, just throw 20 names in whichever one the octopus picks up, that's our pick. Who cares? Yeah, I mean, because that's another, like, oh, that's what. weird, everybody on earth thought they were going to take Troy Stetcher

and somebody found an old quote of I think it was Ron Francis going like, I would kill to have... It was Haxhaw. It was Haxhaw. It was Haxhaw. Yeah, going, I would kill to have this guy on my team. I'd run over my own mother to do, like, just

such a fusive praise for this guy who's like a pretty good defenseman or whatever that I was like, well, there's no way they don't fucking take them now. Like, it was the smart pick. And Here's the old quote where he's like losing his mind over how good he is. And it's like, and we took the guy who sucks. It's been, it's been, I was, I had some Seattle fan.

I had some Seattle fan in my mentions. It was telling me that like the experience for, for him. And I'm guessing probably a lot of Seattle fans where he's like, from the moment they announced this team, they just did everything right and every new thing, every person they hired, every decision, everything they did with the arena. Like, it was just all so perfect. And then a few weeks ago, they hired Dave Haxdell, and I was like, oh, wait a second.

And then the draft comes. And it's like, it's, it's been a bit of a bit of a whiplash. But no, but the good news is, other than the coach and all the players, things are going great. But that's the thing. Like they even, you could still feel that hall pass being given to them last night where, you know, The Hacksball gets hired, we're like, I don't know, but maybe. And part of this is the Vegas factor.

Nobody wants to get, nobody wants to be that dummy again who's like this expansion team is bad and they don't know what they're doing. And then 109 points later, they're in the Stanley Cup final. And you're on old takes exposed. Right. But it's also like respect to the front office knowing that they've got some really brilliant analytics people there. And they've got some pretty good guys, 200 hockey. man. Like, Baderl, I think's good in the role he's cast there. I don't think he's a good GM, but he's a good assistant GM. Norma Kiverr, like Francis is a good, is a good GM in theory.

So, like, I think there's still a lot of goodwill built up. Um, but then you let an octopus make your, your pick, which takes balls. Speaking of balls, today's episode, a puck soup is sponsored by Manscaped. You know this ad reads coming, folks. It's the summer. It's time. I would have gone with speaking of tentacles, but, you know, you do, you do you. problems are out, but hopefully your pubs aren't out. Flop season is upon us and you're out here with those post-pandemic toenails. Come on. What are you doing?

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It's when people like me pretend to be junior hockey pundits. Anybody on the draft board that you're very excited about? Lambert, you actually know a little bit about this shit. Who should we be looking out for in the draft? I mean, I've said it a million times. This is more your Ryan Murray, maybe not Nile Yakobabob, maybe more of a Ryan Nugent Hopkins type draft. Like, Maddie Ben-Yers is like, oh, I want to be the new Patrice Spurs run.

And it's like, yeah, he's going to score. probably like Patrice Bergeron. He's going to be like a 50-point guy in the league. He's going to be a good 200-foot player. And that's about it. Like, this is just not that draft, you know. There are plenty of pretty good players available and nobody where you're like, this guy is going to change the franchise that drafts him. If you were the Anaheim Ducks, would you take Dylan Gunther at 3 or Simon Edvenson? I like Edvinson. Edmondson, for those that don't know, is a big old 6-5 Swede defenseman, a lot of raw skill, which gives me a little bit of the creeps because it does remind me of how they used to describe Tyler Myers.

But for me, I just feel like he seems like he's got more upside and could be kind of a foundational defenseman more than, like, Genther is just kind of like a good goal score. I kind of agree with that pick, but I don't think Anaheim's going to do that. Luke Hughes at four to the devils? No. Hopefully. No? You don't want Luke Hughes at four.

Come on. Well, I mean, I... Does that cause Greg as the devil's guy? Like, if they pass on Jack Hughes's brother, does that, is that anything or does he just go, yeah, it's hockey, whatever? No, it increases the chances that he goes and plays in Vancouver at some point when Vancouver takes him at nine. Yeah, I like... I like Eklund.

The TriForce is... The TriForce is going to be... is going to be united at some point of the Hughes brothers. It's either going to be in New Jersey or it's going to be in Vancouver. I don't know. But you like Eklund there? I probably like Eclan over Edvenson. I think Eclan is really good.

Wow. You know, half a point a game in the Swedish league as a, like, 17-year-old. It's pretty good. I don't know. Is that an E-4 or an E-5, the fact that he's better than Edvenson? I don't think I think that's just my opinion. Okay. It's not reported out.

It's not a rumor. Yeah, no. I think that's just how I have personally looked at it. And yeah, I mean, I don't know. There's a lot of guys. There's a goalie Walsett who people think is going to be like a top 10 pick. I don't know. I didn't watch them play or anything.

But, you know, that's what they say. This is like the one goalie that you're definitely going to see go in the first round. And then everybody else is maybe not. There's two goalies that are going to the first round. There's Walsstad and there's Sebastian Casa or COSA. And the thought is that for the first time since Vaseleski and Malcolm Suban, where there's a gap, went in the first round in 2012, that these two guys are both going to be first round picks.

And in fact, if you look at how the first round sets up, there's even like an outside chance they could go back to back, which is kind of crazy. Yeah, and Ottawa at 10 seems to be the kind of the tipping point there where a lot of people are thinking they're going to take a goalie, but they don't know which one. Right. And so then you have Chicago right in back of them because Arizona had to give away their picks. So there's a possibility we could see them go back to back in theory. The one I was curious about Lambert, because I really kind of like this kid a lot, is. is Mason McTavish. And I've been told that he's sort of rocketing up the draft board for people.

He's getting some Nazim Khadry comparisons, but also getting some Ryan O'Reilly comparisons. Where is he going to end up, this Mason McTavish? I think he should be a top five pick, whether he will be, I mean, you know, it's the NHL. But he's a big boy. He's a center, you know. He's relatively young. He's on the younger side because he's like, you know, he's, you know, he's, 18 and a half right now, so he, I don't know.

I, I, I think you should probably be a top five pick. I, you know, everybody else is more like, more like top 10. But, yeah, I like the player a lot, actually. I liked him since media availability for the prospects during the playoffs when his Wi-Fi sucked, so he had to walk outside and do his entire interview in the middle of a Windstorm in Ottawa. I appreciated that. He held, like, the phone under his chin.

Kind of like when you're, like, talking to somebody who doesn't really want to be on the phone. Yeah, the other thing to say about him is that even though he is Canadian, he played in the Swiss League last year, which Austin Matthews famously did. And I'm not saying this kid's Austin Matthews, obviously. But, like, to be the kind of a player who a foreign team would use a foreign roster spot on as a 17-18, year old, like, that's good. You want players like that because they, you know, the rules in European leagues say you can only have so many imports, and usually you would spend those on like a 28-year-old guy who was appointed game in the AHL two years prior or whatever. But for a Swiss team to be like, yeah, we're going to actually use it on this teenager. like that's really impressive actually.

I wanted to ask you about the two Russians, because I know you have an affinity for the Russians. There's this Svechkov, who I think there's some concerns since he's under contract, Nikah, Chil won't jump. And then there's this Nikita Chippercoff who was really good at U18s until he played Canada when he didn't have any points and only two shots on goal, which means that obviously his drag.

is draft stock plummeted for not having excelled against Canada? Yeah. Do you know anything about either of those guys? Well, I guess what I could say is I just pulled up the elite prospects ranking, and Chippercov is not in the top 32. They don't have them close to being a first-round pick, it seems like. Okay. And so, yeah, I mean, the Svechkov thing, like that's a first-round talent,

but also the thing you said. That's always a concern and that causes guys to drop but I don't know. Maybe that's a situation where it's changing a little bit where it's like,

you know what? If he comes over when he's 22, so be it. I think that's a thing that some teams are more comfortable with than others, I guess you would say. But yeah. I think everybody is kind of

in agreement that he's like a, a top 20 pick probably. Yeah. Well, that's good info. Sean, do you pretend to be a draft pundit like I do around this time of year? Not really. But I am interested in it, especially this year, because this is the first year in a while where we really don't know what's happening at the top of the draft.

It certainly sounds like... It's going to be Owen Power. The Sabres are settling on Owen Power, but even there, it's... You know, most... The last few years, we've been pretty sure one, two, three, four, and then it gets hazy. And so this will be a fun draft. But no, I don't know.

I don't know any more than I have picked up from reading smarter people who actually do know. I mean, like Corey Promin, who mocks out the entire draft, like, through all seven rounds. And the crazy thing is, every year he's exactly right. It's nuts. It's just really good. Cool. Well, yeah, entry draft is always a good time. By the way, Owen Power is such a perfect hockey name that I've thought in the back of my mind,

there's at least like a 30% chance that his parents change their name when they knew that he could maybe grow into being a hockey player just to give him an awesome hockey name. Like, Owen Power is too good for a defenseman who's like 6'5. So I was on the PDO cast last night doing like instant reaction to the, um, to the expansion draft. And we were talking about, yeah, maybe Seattle just wants to load up on picks and try to finish relatively low for next year because next year is a very good draft with Brad Lambert and Savoy and Shane Wright. Is that the Shane Wright?

Yeah. And then, so I was looking at other highly rated prospects, and I forgot that a kid who plays for, I think he's going to play for Notre Dame next year. His name is Rutger McGroorty. And it's like, that's the opposite of Owen Power. That kid, they got to stop his parents. When he's getting interviewed for the draft and they're like,

tell me about a time you've faced adversity. He's like, well, my name is Rutger McGroorty. And, yeah, like, I, you know, we make fun of the H.L names. for a good reason, but like, I think Rutger Magrorty might be an all-time bad one. Rutger McGrody sounds like Barclay Goodrose Butler. Like, that's how bad it is. Yeah, it sounds like a fake name from the Simpsons. Right?

Yes, right. Little Rutger here, right? Rucker McGrody. All right, before we get into a little over-rate, underrated, you should probably go through some of the names that are on the trade block. Oh, we also, one minute after we stopped recording last week, the Wilde bought out Paris and suit. Oh, do you have any feelings on that?

It was very clearly intentional. Well, it was really funny that, like, they did the classic Boston thing afterwards talking about how shitty those guys were in the locker. Yeah, they shiv those guys hard getting out of town. Oh, my God. Wow. And, like, you would kind of gotten that impression with Paris in particular, where when they started healthy scratching him, they were just like, yeah, he's fucking pissed off about it.

And you go, eh, I get why he would be pissed off about that. That makes sense. You didn't hear that about Ryan Suter. And then it was like the second you cut his ice time by one second he was complaining to teach her, you know. I do love the fact that Ryan Suter hung up on Villgarren. That's going to be like that much like that Paul Fenton, what was it, like lizard tongue bullshit. What the fuck did he say that? that one time, Sean.

He said he was like a lizard, one of the prospects. I think, no, he said it about Zuccarello, right? A Zucarillo, right? Oh, yeah, that's right. The prospects, he was surprised because they were tall. He's like every time they came in and were taller than me, I lit up like a Christmas tree. I couldn't have been happier to see the big boys.

Right. Come and shake my hand. Ryan Cedar hanging up on Bill Garen is going to hang on Bill Garen, much like the lizard thing hung on, Paul Fent. But you, famously, Ryan, have, I think, dogged the double signing of those two guys

since, what was it, 2012 when it happened? Yeah, that sounds right. I don't think you were ever a fan. I think you've been taking victory laps saying you called this. Yeah, of course. Like, they signed these two fucking guys

for $7.5 million a piece against the cap, a little more than that, actually, until they were like 40 and 41 years old. Why did anybody think? And especially because, and this is the critical thing, right? Like this is the classic this is why free agency is inefficient

because those are the two best guys and it's like were those two, Ryan Souter you can make a case was at one point a top five player at his position. Nobody ever would have said that about Zach Porese right? And so to give them twin contracts at 28 years old

or whatever, especially if you're the Minnesota, why? You're not, because they weren't a Ryan Suter and Zach Perise away from fucking anything. you know at the time nobody was like this is what gets them over the hump like yeah into the second round who gives this shit so it's the classic thing right whenever we see deals like this you always say it it probably doesn't make sense for the team but it might make sense for the GM because when it goes bad it's not going to be his problem and here's it's bill garren I mean we're two GMs removed from from chuck fletcher signing those deals and obviously it was the owner signing it as much as chuck fletcher but Yeah, that's kind of what happens. But just, I got to say that my favorite part was not just Garen hanging or not just Suter hanging up on Bill Garen,

but that apparently Bill Garen calls Ryan Suter, Suter misses the call. Right. Then Bill Garen calls Zach Porese, says, we're buying you out. Zach Pruise calls Ryan Suter who picks up and says, oh, my God, I just got bought out. Bill Gareth just called me. Ryan Sura goes, oh, that's weird. I just missed a call from Bill Gerson. and doesn't put two and two together.

And then I guess figured Bill Garum was just calling to check in on the morning he was buying. Just letting you know, Zikvriese, we bought him out. Thought you'd want to know, okay, have a good one, bud. If you ever want an illustration of the confidence that it takes to be a pro athlete, because if I was in that situation, I 100% would have been like, oh, I just missed a call from him. I'm definitely getting fired. It's curtains for me, yeah. He was apparently really taken off guard.

I love that. It's like a guy in your department gets laid off and he's like, oh, I must be a courtesy call to let me know he got laid off. Dude, if somebody tells me like, yeah, I just got laid off.

I'm like, oh, my boss sent me an email six days ago. I'm definitely gone to. There's no chance that they're keeping my useless. You know, that's, love that part.

I, I, the gamble at the time was that the wild had enough prospects in their pipeline that, could manifest into being a contender. But the fact remains that, like, I think the, when was the last time they got past the second round, like fucking, like, 2014 or something? No, they got out of, no, they got out of the first round once since signing.

Oh, no, no, that's what I mean. The first, like, played in the second round. Yes. Yeah, so it, I, with the benefit of hindsight, it, it didn't work. But I didn't, I remember not hating it at the time. it was pre-CAPRA capture. Am I correct on that? Yes.

Yeah, because that, so this is who they're... Like, just pre. Like, they signed it in the off-season. They did the press conference with the smiling owner, and then the owner turned around immediately and was like, we need a lockout, contracts are out of control. No, that's exactly right. So I just looked it up.

Here were the Wilde's prospects in 2012. And it's actually not a terrible list. It's not terrible. Because it was like, it was Charlie Coyle, right? So this is what Michael Rousseau said were the top prospects in 2012. Grandland, Brodeen, Dumba. Okay. Charlie Coil.

Then a couple of guys that didn't work out. Jason Zucker and Darcy Kemper. Yeah. But here's the thing. That's not a bad gamble if you look back at it, right? No, I mean, but here's the thing. What's Brodine? like a three, a good three?

What's Dumba? It's a really good. It's your top four, and so is Dumba. They're both your top. Okay. And what's Grandland? Maybe a second line option? What's Charlie Coyle?

Second or third line option? What's Jason Zucker? What you've described, though, is a supporting cast in service of Ryan Souter and Zach Porese, which was the thought, was you get these two star players, and then you fill it around it with young players. Yeah, but like that, that, If everything had gone exactly right with those guys, what does this Minnesota Wild team look like? If they have all those guys for the last however many years, what do they look like?

Because they kept a good... Yeah, exactly. And they kept a few of those guys for a good number of years. Like, Coil, they only gave up on, what, three years ago, two years ago, right? And Kemper hasn't been in the organization for quite a while. Zucker has been gone for quite a while. And it's like, yeah, you know why? Because those guys were never going to be the kind of like solid supporting players

that were going to turn the Minnesota Wild into anything, but maybe a team that occasionally gets to the second round. You can't buy fucking titles. You got to draft and develop. And the Wild have never done that in part because they've always been mediocre. They have the like early 2000s Calgary Flames thing of like, yeah, we pick no higher than 7th, every single fucking year.

Be good enough to get people through the door kind of thing. Yeah, that's right. They had the sellout streak for like a billion years. They never felt any pressure to be any better than what they were. We're going to finish with 93 to 97 points in perpetuity. We'll either just miss the playoffs or just make it and lose. Before we get to the trade market thing, I want to jump back on the Ron Francis thing for a second.

Because someone sent me a conversation between. between Steve Wino and Darren Drager. Wino said, there's a lot of recency by us, but many of us thought after expansion draft Vegas wouldn't be very good, and we were wrong. But does Ron Francis have the George McPhee

in him to get more aggressive? He has never shown that, which is very accurate based on his time in Carolina. Here comes Darren Drager. You ready? Francis is patient, methodical, and historically conservative. He will make moves,

but as he said last night, not as many as some expect. Not many big money guys on his roster from the draft. He will play this out like a game of chess. So, again, we've gone from like the greatest bounty anyone could ever ask for in draft rules that will allow you to fleece other teams to... Actually, he was playing the Queen's Gambit recently. Yeah, he knew exactly the whole time. We were the ones that were wrong.

We were the assholes. I do think that if Seattle... is not very good. One of the nice things is that I think it's going to force us to finally admit that Vegas just did a really good job. Things weren't rigged. They did an amazing job. It wasn't set up.

They got lucky, but they also, yes. They also acted like a bunch of Italian restaurateurs on the old strip. They went into everybody's bent their hands back and said, give me a person. They've been good for four years. At what point are they, I mean, I guess there's been, there was obviously some luck. You hook them up to a lie detector. There's no way they think William Carlson scores 40 goals. Right.

Well, they went in. They must have seen something. They understood that they could start using, like, they had to follow up that first season with, with like similarly good seasons, if not as good, right? And so what did they do that first summer? Is that when they went out and got Stasney? Or was that a mid-season acquisition? They got Stasney and Patchy ready.

They made the talk. They made the Tatara trade in year one, flipped Tatara for Patchy Ready. Keep in mind, in year one, they were also trying to get Eric Carlson with the bounty that they had. And Ottawa, for whatever fucking reason, didn't take the deal because it would have been a better deal than what San Jose gave him. Then in the offseason, they had Patchy Ready and Stasney. Then in year, that season they added Stone, I think, right? In year two, was it? I think that was maybe year three.

Stone was 2019. I think. Okay, so that's like year three. And then they go out and they add patrangelo. So what they've done, and I think it's really smart, like they've gone out and said, well, look, you know, yeah, we have the horses a little bit. And we also got to say Robin Lanner. But. Right.

That too. Like they said, okay, we have the horses to be pretty good in this division, but we now have to be better than pretty good. We have to be like a consistently above average team. And they've gone out every summer and been highly aggressive about acquiring top talent and saying, we'll figure the rest out later. We can give Mark Stone $50 million or whatever they gave them. And we'll figure the rest out because we like the group that we drafted. There's a lot of solid players in there. but those are not guys that you count on, much like Souter and Perise.

Those aren't guys that you build around for the long term. Those are guys that are the supporting players to better players like Stone and Patchy Ready, who's in the late goal scorer, or at least, you know, had been for quite a while. And now Petrangelo, right? And they got, and they got Lainer as Flurry insurance and ended up not needing it. but so yeah I mean like they they went back and retroactively made it look like not a fluke but it was a fluke I would say they were lucky but also opportunistic is that fair to say

yeah I think that's right yeah I mean like they don't like they're also lucky in so far as they were like Florida was like hey please take these two top six forwards off our hands we're begging you and they were like yeah that's fine we'll do that you know as long as we can agree that what didn't happen is that this wasn't, Vegas wasn't the inevitable result of a sweetheart, easy expansion draft setup that made it a guarantee that they were going to be contenders right out of the bat, which is what the, yeah, no, we all thought they were going to be bad. Staggeringly large amount of the fan base seems to think, or fan bases of other teams seem

to think happened. And I would, part of me is so sick of hearing. that that I wouldn't mind seeing Seattle not instantly be a hundred point team just to force us to retcon that. Because you're right, we all thought they were bad after the draft, including Bill Foley, who was kind of like, yeah, you know, we're going to stink in the year one, but we'll get better. So, by the way, speaking of supporting, good supporting players on long-term deals, Zach Hyman sounds like could be done by the time people hear this. if Edmonton and Toronto work out a trade,

eight years in a number that starts with a five. It's a lot of money for Zach Hyman, man. I don't know. I just talked to somebody about this morning. Like, he's got an ability that GMs really value that I think a lot of us don't, which is for the style of player that he is, he can play with high-end talent.

And that's really important. And that's really good. And I think he'll make, I mean, Conner's already great, but, like, he'll thrive on Conner's line. Yeah, I mean, the issue is that they're, that they're not going to put fucking Jujar Kara on, on McDavid's line halfway through the season now, right? Like, that's, that's really what it is. And, you know, this is a classic situation of, oh, yeah, he's probably going to be pretty, pretty much worth that money in year one, year two, year three. and then the rest, maybe Ken Holland doesn't care about because it's not going to be his fucking problem.

Might not be his problem, but also, like, what is he, what is he going to make against the cap, Sean? Five-ish. Five. Five, it sounds like, it sounds like it's basically going to be the New Jin Hopkins deal if they do a trade with the Leafs, which is interesting because I don't, you know, what do you even ask for if you're Toronto there? But, or a bit higher if it's seven years.

I don't know. There is, I'm almost always of the mind that you're kicking a can down the road, you're making problems for the next guy. But you got Connor McDavid in his prime. I think there is an argument to be made that if you're Edmonton, you don't care about,

you know, to use the words of Dave Nonesis, you don't care about year six and seven. You need somebody who's good year one and two. I mean, or the fans will love the guy for at least the first couple years. Right. And that's the thing you got to say is it's about,

you know, understanding the circle. I was saying this yesterday about Barclay Goodrow, right? Where it's like, oh, he's a good player. They're giving him way too much money and term. And then everybody's going to hate him at the end of this contract because someone was dumb enough to give him that contract. But I think you could move Hyman down the lineup, like once he starts to maybe get a little less effective and that cap hits not going to look murderous. But at the very least, you know, hey, what a novel concept.

Do Connor a fucking solid? What a novel idea to try to like give that guy. something that could make him happy. Well, they did that with Duncan Key's team fall apart. That's what I'm talking about. Conner McDavid is going to love playing with Zach Hyman. The only thing that concerns me a little bit, if I'm the Oilers or an Euler fan, is yeah,

he's perfect to play with an elite player. He can go and get the puck. He's absolutely, if you've got a win now window, yes, yes, yes on all of that. Except all of that also applies to the, Leaves and the Leaves are like, and plus he's a local Toronto kid and the Leaves apparently are like, you know what? Off you go because we're not locking in that long. And I am reminded of what happened to the Leaves in the playoffs where they neutralized the other parts of his line and all of a sudden

it was like, yeah, it was like watching an NBA team that let like some small forward get his shot because they weren't worried about it. He did nothing at all in the playoffs and it didn't get a lot of attention because Martin Matthews did nothing and it's their job, not his, but he wasn't very good. And he's been hurt too. He's had knee problems now. He got hurt because somebody stuck their leg out and blew his knee out. It's not like it was some sort of chronic condition. But there are some definitely some flags, but I do get where Edmonton's coming from. Yeah, I can't remember. I think it was a local Edmonton writer put it perfectly like he has his Nugent Hopkins now. Because if you're saying

dry-sidal is is with Newgen Hopkins well like this is a pretty comparable player in terms of his impact and that sort of thing and and you know again McDavid like doesn't have to play with fucking Zach Cassian anymore and hope you know like hope that

that he can like bounce the puck in off Cassian's ass like he's like oh Zach Hyman's gonna like actually go to the net and create stuff like that I again like I like the player I think that this deal is maybe a scosh rich. Yeah.

It's always a problem because Cassie and Zass is usually on Matthew Kachuk's face. So always tough to angle that puck. Matthew Kachukh, Flames Captain now. Can we put that out there? Or trade it. Absolutely. Love it. One of two. How dare you?

How do you? We have to actually touch on a few things that I didn't realize we didn't touch on. first off the bad story, which was Logan Malew, the 18-year-old, renouncing himself from the 2021 NHL draft after paying a fine for an offense of a sexual nature in Sweden last year. He was passing around a photo he took of himself and a woman in a sexual situation on Snapchat to his teammates. he was fined for invasion of privacy and defamation in Sweden by the police. He paid those fines. And he renounced his draft status, which is something you can't really do.

Like anybody can still draft him. But he basically said, hey, look, you know, I don't want to be drafted this year. Please don't pick me. I'm going to hopefully go back to the London Knights and continue doing my work off ice to show you that I've reformed and yada, yada, yada. And then you can pick me, you know, much higher next year. really rough story. The Athletic has a lot of great reporting on it from Katie Strang. But this situation was an interesting one.

I can't remember the last time, or if any, time, a pick has been like, don't take me in the draft. Yeah, I don't think. No, not publicly at least. Probably best for all concerned. Yeah. And you're right. I mean, I can't imagine.

imagine any team would pick him now. Not that they necessarily were beforehand, but, uh, yeah, see, see where it goes, but just a very, uh, yeah, not a great story. Better story.

And a story that came, that, uh, came out. Jesus, you're such an idiot, Woshensky. Uh, that, uh, was released since the last episode. Luke Procopp comes out as the first NHL player under contract or under first player under an NHL contract I guess is what we're saying to come out as gay

lovely statement that he dropped on Instagram did a bunch of interviews with Emily Kaplan with Pierre LeBrun with Elliot Friedman with the NHL NHL

the NHL donated $100,000 to causes that Luke was passionate about two things here First off, the reaction to this was obviously heartwarming and lovely, and it was beyond time for this to happen in the NHL. And it was really great to see that the sports in a place where the vast majority of the reaction was positive and supportive because it matters that kids that are wondering if they should continue to pursue this sport because they get bullied or because they don't feel like they're welcome, get to see someone being welcomed. It's very important. I'm wondering if this happened five years ago if we see this level of coordination or what it would have looked like.

Because the NHL orchestrated much of the coverage that you saw of this and clearly we're ready to also make a charitable donation as part of the rollout of him coming out. And I was kind of astounded by it. I was like, wow, the NHL taking this as a moment to really like blast the hockey is for everyone. Megaphone as a part of this was from sort of like a media PR perspective a really interesting side note to an historic moment. What did you think about when you saw this, Sean?

Yeah, I mean, I don't know what it would have looked like five years ago, but it's not five years ago anymore and it's that's, this is what progress is supposed to look like. I got to tell Ken Holland, hold on a second. Yeah. I don't know.

I don't know. Good for him, good for the players stepping up to publicly support him. I guess the only thing I would say, I know there's going to be people out there who say, oh, why is this a story? Why does he even have to tell us? Why, you know, the phrase that always comes out is, oh, it's being shoved down our throat or whatever. I would just ask you to remember how many NHL players, you know, do we see, we see the wives, we see the girlfriends, you know, they have kids, they bring the family out, they get an honor at center.

or ice. It's always the wife standing next to them. You see the wives and the girlfriends' club and the charity work that they're doing all that. We are constantly being reminded that so many of these players are straight. This is just the same thing. Nothing's being forced on you any more than it's being forced on you when you see a picture of Connor McDavid and his girlfriend. It's just somebody saying, this is who I am. I'm a hockey player first and foremost as far as the fans are concerned.

but I do have a life outside of that. And I don't have to pretend that that life isn't what it is. I can just be open and honest about who I am. And it's no different than all of the other players where you see this stuff all the time and you don't think anything of it because in your mind being straight is the default setting and it shouldn't be.

And it isn't. And now it's good news for everyone that that won't have to be the kid. there you go what did you think Ryan yeah I you know I was I was not obviously like I wasn't expecting there to be a bunch of NHL players being like well this sucks I hate that you know like that wasn't going to happen obviously um obviously but I was very encouraged to see just the sheer number of people who were like this rocks this is cool like that was maybe a little bit more than I expected from this particular sport just because, you know, it's hockey and you don't want to be a distraction and all that shit. And like, I

do wonder if you know, if this kid doesn't make it to the NHL or whatever. Like if that doesn't happen, do people kind of go, well, you know, because he was so focused on it, you know, like cynically or whatever, say that.

Like, I do wonder about that a little bit. But, yeah, like, how do you not, how do you not think this is, like, an overwhelmingly positive thing? I don't know. And there will always be people who make bad faith bullshit arguments. And I think we're well past the point where we have to pay any attention or take them seriously. Yep.

For sure. The NHL schedule comes out tonight officially, 6 p.m. Sports Center, check it out. But it will have an Olympic break built into it. Reported that earlier this week. It's going to be like, I think February 5th of the 22nd was the dates that I had heard. And the All-Star game is going to precede it. It's going to be the last on-ice NHL event before the Olympic break if there is an Olympic break,

which, by the way, if there isn't, like, it's not guaranteed we go. But I'd have to say that having an Olympic break in the schedule is a good step. forward. Well, they, it's a little bit better about life. They had to put it in there because the new, uh, CBA that they just approved last summer, like they were like, we, we got to, we got to at least pretend we're going to go to the Olympics. Like that, that was, this is all just a pantomime. This is all just, uh, yeah, they are, they are contractually obligated to be like,

oh, yeah, the Olympics. We know how important that is to you guys. And then the first opportunity, like, because it doesn't say you have to go to the Olympics. It has, it says you have to make like a good effort to go to the Olympics. And the NHL is going to be like, oh, we tried so hard, you guys. Oh, boy. But we just, we just can't make it happen. China's so far away.

And COVID, I mean, the Delta variant. I wish we could go. I feel so bad. Like, I mean, if they go, I will be very surprised. Commissioner Steve Karell over here, apparently. It was very Steve Karell-esque by you. I appreciate it. Yeah, I'll be, I'll be surprised if they go.

I think that the NHL had been up a bullshit excuse. You know what? I don't even, I shouldn't even say bullshit because I think that if they go, like if COVID's a thing still, and it seems to be in Tokyo, so, you know, it's only like six months from now, so why not? Yeah. I don't think it would have to be a bullshit excuse, but the NHL will look for any excuse it can find to not go. To not go. Yeah. Makes sense.

I still think they go, though. I'm more of an optimist than you. All right, real quick, let's talk about some of these names. We're going to see a move this weekend. We're going to see a Jack Eichael trade? Probably not. The New York Post reported that the Rangers haven't even gotten a chance to see what's going on medically with him yet. And that kind of seems like it'd be the harbinger of any trade.

But always the possibility, I guess, that we see a Jack Eichael trade. Will it happen this weekend? Yeah. Probably not. I think, yeah. Not without the medical records. I get Buffalo wants to get far down a path. You know, it's sort of that that's just kind of basic psychology and salesmanship that you want somebody to really get their head around making this deal and feel like they're close before you potentially unveil a medical report that might concern them.

But it doesn't sound like, I mean, this isn't going to be something where somebody takes a look at a medical report and goes, okay, yeah, we're good. And 10 minutes later, you have a deal. Yeah. Speaking of medical reports, Vladimir Tarasenko, not taken in this Seattle expansion draft. Doug Armstrong is still looking to move them. I mean, there's like problem on top of problem, on top of problem with his value right now. The injuries, the lack of production, maybe some attitudinal stuff. Like, it's all very not the time to be selling Vladimir Tarasanku if you're the blues.

And in fact, Doug Armstrong this morning, as we were doing the podcast, kind of said, like, he should prepare like he's going to play here next year, which kind of gives you a sense of what that trade market looks like. Which is weird considering, yeah, there were a lot of stories in the last week saying it's broken, he has to move on, they've got to move him. So it's not hard to figure out which side those stories are coming from. So I think he gets moved soon. Seth Jones.

So, you know, part of this deal is, a team trading for him at a certain cap hit next season and then also signing him to a long-term deal. That's kind of like the two-pronged thing about trading for Seth Jones. This feels like one that might happen a little bit later past the draft, but you never know if, because apparently Yarmokika-Kalayan is looking for like roster players back for Seth Jones and not like picks and prospects deal, which, you know, decreases the chance that we'll see a trade at the draft. because, like, why would you need any picks in the draft? Yeah, I mean, well, the thing with that is, like,

it kind of has to be because it's a flat cap league, and he makes, what, like, 5.8 or something? Yeah. So, like, he, they have to get players back. It's just about the quality of the players they get back. Right. Yeah, but the thing is, if you're Columbus, like, you might want roster players back,

but do you want guys who are going to be hitting free agency any time soon, and now you just got a deal? With that whole thing. I was on the radio in Columbus. They were asking about, apparently there's a rumor about John Klingberg. You know, on the surface,

okay, yeah, maybe that's, gives you the foundation of something, but he's a UFA after next year. So what if you trade for him? And he goes, oh, by the way,

I also don't want to be here and I'll be hitting the market. Then where are you then? So it does, it does feel like it kind of limits you. Yeah. A couple more. names that are floating around in the ether, you've got it because Netssoff. He's 100% getting traded,

by the way. It's just a matter to where. I know there's been some talk about like a potential match with George McPhee in Vegas. There might have to be some financial ramifications there and also the idea of bringing you've getting his nets off to Las Vegas. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, I think that there are a few teams where a fit could be good. But, much like you with the Olympics thing, I'd be absolutely shocked if he's on the capitals next year. Yeah, I think that's a, it's a classic situation where, you know, he's, he should be the kind of player that, oh, he was a key part of us winning our first Stanley Cup and all that kind of shit. Like, he should, he should have free drinks for life in Washington, but he really fucked it up bad, it seems like. Yeah.

And so, like, why, you know, why would any NHL team be like, oh, yeah, you really want to get rid of this guy who's like a top six center and blah, blah, blah? Yeah, we'll definitely help you out with that and give you, like, everything you're asking for. Like, why would anybody do that for the capitals who have, you know, a bunch of financial obligations, let's say, coming up? So, I don't know. Like, yeah, I think he's done in Washington, but, like, the idea that they're going to fucking get anything for him, that's more of a tough sell to me. Yeah.

And then finally, the one we all love to talk about every offseason, it's Oliver Ekman-Larson. They just stuck with him. Like, is he ever going to move, you think? Or, like, is there a move they could make? If they retain half his salary, he's easy to move. But they won't. But they won't.

Right. So. Right. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah. I mean... I think their window to do that was either early in the deal or later. When there's one or two years left, some team will talk themselves into veteran Oliver Ekman-Larsen.

But right now, I think last year, you know, with Boston, Vancouver, it sounds like there was maybe something there. I think it's going to be harder now than it was then. And the other thing to say is, I mean, like, you know, with Gandal being bought out and with Souter being bought out, you're like, oh, there are cheaper defensemen who are probably as good, maybe with Souter, you'd even say better, who are just going to be available. And I don't have to trade anything to acquire him. And I don't have to marry myself to a player for, what does he have left? Four years?

I think so. Let me check that. Yeah, Ackman Larsson. He's... 2000, 27. Oh, my God, he's got... Oh, geez. Okay, yeah. No, thank you. No, thank you. Yeah, no, like, so... So, there's all these issues that the only way this gets resolved is if Arizona eats half the money, and even then it would be a really risky trade for you to make. So I don't know.

I have a hard time seeing him moving, but also like I have a hard time seeing him staying, if that makes sense. Like I just, it seems like he wants out. So how did you resolve that? I don't know. Yeah. All right. In the remaining time here, what's due to an overrated, underrated. It's from Eric Brown on the Patreon.

Overrated, underrated, favorite, least favorite pets. These types of pets, not specific pets I was going to say, favorite, G.H. Well, do we take dogs off the table since obviously you and I both will put that as our favorite? Yeah, sure. We can take, okay. Well, we take cats off the table as well since Sean has a cat. Oh, my gosh, and dogs off that.

Wow, all right, now we're talking. All right, overrated pet, a parrot. No way. Squawkey. the gimmick of talking, like, who gives a shit? It's like, it's whenever like somebody invites you over to, like, meet their baby, and they're like, my baby knows how to say, like, a word. Then you hear the word, and you're like, that's not actually what it's saying.

That's like when I hear a parrot. I had a somebody I worked with once who had, like, was into fancy birds. I don't know if it was a parrot or, but one day their husband was walking around with this bird on his shoulder, which I guess is something. You do and forgot and walked outside to like get something out of the mailbox and the bird was gone. Like just instantly. The bird is like, thanks for everything over the years, but I see the sky and I'm out. And that was it.

They like put up signs and stuff. Like if you've seen this, like you're not getting the bird, man. Throw a big net over it, please. I don't love your odds if it's a dog or a cat, but you got a chance. But you're not, you're not getting that bird back. Yeah. When I was when I was in. junior high

I don't know what possessed us to do this, but we got a handful of ducks, like little, like mini ducks to live in the backyard. And they were great. They were fun to hang out with, and they'd like follow you around, and you could pick them up, and they, you know, they were really nice.

And then, yeah, it turned to fall, and they flew away, and we were like, oh, yeah. That's what ducks do. That's what ducks do. And then every once in a while, you would see one of them hanging out with some other ducks that lived in the area. Because they were like smaller than mallards and white instead of, you know, mallard colors. So they were easy to pick out, you know.

And you'd be like, oh, there's one of them. They're doing great. Think they remembered you guys? No, no, no. Like they would just be quacking around our stupid town. And you'd just see them in like. like a lake or a stream or something and be like, that's one of my old ducks from before. I think that was a Springsteen lyric, right?

Quacking around in my stupid town. That would be cool. What's your, uh, so wait, so parrot overrated for me, and you said overrated what? Anything yet? Oh, I hadn't said yet. Like a, like a, a rodent of some kind, like a hamster or a mouse. You know? Like a guinea fig?

Like any rodent. Yeah. Okay. When I was growing up, my sister had turtles, like those little, which you would think, I mean, they're cute, I guess, in a way, but they are not remotely cuddly or fun. And also, they stink. They smell very bad. And maintenance and cleaning and everything are a huge pain, which I know because my sister didn't do it, and I sure didn't. So my mom got stuck cleaning these, their environment out and just, yeah, they stink a lot.

And if you ever, like, take them outside because you've got a hose down their living environment, they will take off and then come back a week later at twice the size. So that's, that part is cool. But the rest of it is, yeah, no. They fall into some radioactive goo in the sewers. Yeah, they, it's wild. They literally go missing and come back there. go missing and come back. I don't know how they know to just do all their...

Because they don't grow very much when they're in their little aquarium or whatever it is, but you put them outside. They overnight just... Yeah, have you seen that thing about, like, I think it was in Wisconsin or something. There's a pond that just has like a goldfish population because some people flush their goldfish. And like goldfish grow to the size of whatever thing you put them in. So like, they're like carp-sized goldfish. Carp-sized goldfish.

look so gross. Like they're little cuties in your little bowl, but they look disgusting when they get big. And also they're very bad for the local wildlife, so. I'm sure. I'm sure.

Underrated for me would be an alpaca. I don't even know if an alpaca counts as a pet and I don't even know what kind of like hang they are. I just fucking love an alpaca. Whenever I drive past an alpaca farm, I'm like, I'd love to have one of those.

So alpaca for me, underrated. Yeah, you can get one in your apartment in Brooklyn, right? I think, I mean, I see some dogs at the dog park that are bigger than alpacas. So I figure that the alpaca is going to be all right. That's not bad. That's not bad. Underrated for me, I guess, I don't know. I think a lot of pets are, like, I almost said fish, and it's like, everybody has fish, though.

Like, fish are properly rated, aren't they? Yes. Yeah. I was going to say fish as, I was going to say like a simple fish in a fish bowl. You know what you're getting. Super low maintenance. I'm not talking about like being the crazy guy with the huge aquarium and you got to keep the water the exact temperature. Yeah.

But, you know, simple fishbowl. As a kid, as a starter pet, they get to learn a little bit of responsibility. Two weeks later, they get to learn about death. It's fun. and it's an encouraging learning moment. I'm putting the simple goldfish is my underrated. Yeah, you're not buying Mel Brooks here. That thing is dying within the span of a year.

That's right, yeah. Sure. And then that's fine. Then you learn some good life lessons along them. You learn that sometimes people you care about things, people you care about die, and then you flush them down the toilet and go back about your life. It's fine. I will say, I think,

Maybe some birds are underrated. Like a little zebra finch that you can get at the pet store. Those are nice. Those are nice to look at. Those are nice. Yeah. There's better than parrots. Et cetera.

Favorite with dogs and cats off the board. Keep in mind, I should probably say off the top, the only pets I've ever had. I've never had a fish. I've never had like a hamster. I've only had cats and dogs my entire life. In fact, Sneakers is my first dog. Wow. That's crazy.

I only had cats before that. Yeah, I know. And she's, I'll never go back. So with that all, I'd have to say, I know that they only exist to shit and eat, but boy, are they snugly. A bunny. A little bunny. Yeah, they're fun.

I had a friend that had bunnies in his backyard in like a cage. And yeah, the ground is covered in shit. It's just, it's terrible. But boy, are they sweet. They're like, you see the meat and their little celery, you're just like, boop. So a bunny would be my favorite. Yeah, I put that as my favorite as well, just because it's the other pet that I have other than the cat. But they are a lot of work to clean up after, and they are loud.

You would not expect that when you come home with a rabbit that you're going to have noise issues, but they at three in the morning... What does the rabbit sound like? At three in the morning, they don't sound like anything, but at three in the morning, they decide they have to rearrange their entire living environment. They scurrying and they start dragging things around and clanging and then. chewing on things. And also, the other thing with rabbits is don't think that, you know, oh, it'll be cute. You just let it hop around the house because it will eat

every electric cord you have immediately. And I think bunnies are all Amish or whatever. They don't like you to have any power, electricity to anything. So, yeah. I put them as my favorite and then just ran them down for

a couple of minutes. So know what you're getting into. My favorite, uh, I didn't obviously have one growing up, but one of my uncles lived on a farm, and he had horses. And they weren't like for racing or anything. They were just like rescue horses for lack of a better term. And maybe only like one or two. But horse is a lovely freaking animal.

Just wonderful. Really nice. Horses are awesome. Yeah, they're cool. Very cool. All right, least favorites It's an easy one for me. Much like our hero,

Indiana Jones, I fucking hate snakes. I don't like snakes. Yeah, you are a freak if you are a snake person. Full stop. I hate him when I see him on hikes. I hate him when I see him in a fucking, what is it, dranium or terrarium?

Terrarium. Aquarium? Terrarium. Wherever, the big glass box you put a fucking snake. Get out of town. That's how it's how to do it. snakes. My brother-in-law, he has, like, snakes in a drawer.

He feeds the snakes to mice. He's like, all these snakes are the best. I'm like, fuck, fuck snakes. Yeah. There's only one person that is allowed to have a snake. And who is it, Lambert? Jake and Snake Robert. Brent Burns. Jake the snakes robbers. That's exactly right. Keep him in a sack by the side of the ring. And if you win your match, you take out Damien and then your opponent,

gains consciousness and runs away quickly. I recently watched the, uh, watched the, Randy Savage dark side of the ring, and they have Jake talking about SummerSlam 91, where they had the cobra bite him. Yeah. And the cobra was like really pissed off and bit him really hard and wouldn't let go. It was a cobra that didn't have venom. Yes, they obviously devenomed. But it bit Randy Savage.

Like the gimmick was that it was going to bite Randy Savage. Right. They tied him up in the rope. it did. And then it did. And a whole generation was traumatized because it is... It's scary. Yeah, it would not let go. Apparently, Jake Roberts said in the documentary, like, they had worked to really piss this fucker off. Because they were like, it's got to look good on TV. This is SummerSlam. Like, it's got to look good on TV. This snake has to really bite the shit out of him. And boy, did it. Yeah. You know why the snake was so aggressive? They did. They did. They did.

I'm right on the night of the morning. You know why the snake bit him? Because they had lust in its eyes. It's my favorite machin man thing of all time. He rocked, man. Well, all the stuff. Ready Savage? All the abuse he did to Elizabeth. Whenever we talk about a wrestler, like, it's with the caveat that they were probably just a gigantic piece of shit away from the rain.

Yeah. Like that's kind of the whole thing with him in a little. Elizabeth is like he was just so controlling of her and that sort of stuff. So like, maybe I shouldn't say Ranger Savage Rocks, but like as a performer. But combination of promo and in ring work,

like he probably pushes close to top five all time. Like, I wouldn't maybe go that far, but he... We're not going to do it. That's a bonus episode if I ever heard one, but yes. Just congratulations to everyone who heard that the topic of this was cute pets

and trying to figure out how it was We got a segue to pro wrestling. We pulled it off, baby. We did it, folks. All right, what's your least favorite pet, Sean? Very similar to yours. Spiders. Oh, yes.

People who have, like, tarantulas or whatever. I hate spiders in all their forms, even the little tiny ones. So you can imagine how I feel about people who have big giant ones. In my, I want to say, grade eight class, they had eight tarantula. and I sat next to that damn thing for like four months, and I swear it just spent the entire time tapping on the glass and pointing at me. Doing the throat slash motion.

You. Yeah, throat slash pointing at all its eyes at the same time somehow. Like it was not fun. It spun a web that said 1967. I thought that was a little bit. That was much. That was bullying, I thought. All right.

That's the show for this week. A lot of shit covered in this show. My goodness. Thanks to the Seattle Cracken for holding their expansion draft at a time where we can still do the podcast. Obviously, next week, we will do the pod after the Free Agent Frenzy and at least hopefully get a few of the things that happen and get that covered. And most likely, just like as is tradition as we do the show, like, you know, Taylor Hall get traded or some shit. It's tradition. And we'll talk about the NHL draft too and all the stuff that happened over the weekend. My God, get to ESPN.com right now. I've got tons and tons of stuff. My mock draft, coverage of the Cracken. I wrote a column today as we did the podcast where I asked the Golden Knights to give their best advice to the new Cracken players on what comes next.

And I found out, boys, the Golden Knights had a drunken six-hour scavenger hunt together the first time that they all met around Las Vegas. and then rented out the spa at the Belagio to continue partying. So good luck again. They already set the bar too high for winning the cup. Like we're challenging for the cup in year one. Now they set the bar too high for team bonding as well.

But read all my stuff on ASPN. Step one, shoot 28%. Step two. Get 930 goal tending. This is a foolproof way to succeed in year one. And Seattle's going to have a six-hour scavenger hunt to try to find anyone who can score goals. Right.

Sign up for E.P.Rinkside.com. To access to both E.P. Rinkside, which is all my articles. Demetries, Rachel Dory, Abby Mastroko has been doing stuff for us recently. Good shit all around. But also, that gets you the Elite Prospects Premium, which is you get the draft guide, which is over a thousand pages. And, hey, is it right around. the time of the draft and wouldn't you like to be the smartest person who knows all the draft stuff.

Yes. So sign up for that and then of course sign up for the Puck suit Patreon where we will be doing our monthly listeners choice bonus episode and it won't be a draft of Seattle Cracken anything. We aren't doing that. Yep. Find me on The Athletic lots and lots of expansion stuff this week. we did our big mock draft. I did an all-time expansion protected list for every team

and then drafted a expansion team based on that from all of NHL history. Wow. And we also, oh, I did one with Mendez where it was kind of fun. We redid the 92 Senators Lightning draft using

the modern Vegas Seattle rules. And that turned out kind of interesting. And then tomorrow I've got a year ago, I did an all-time ultimate best first round you could draft from history using players and one player per team and the picks they were actually picked with. And people wanted me to do the same thing, but do the worst possible round. So that's going to come out tomorrow. And then after that,

I'm going to disappear for a while. All right. Not write anything. So get in now. Well, the getting's good. Yeah, and apologize for some coffin and such. I've been fighting a cold for like a week and a half my kid. Delta variant folks. It's not the Delta variant folks. It's not my chest and I can still test thing. I actually, I could still taste things.

I was really sick last week and while I was like in bed feeling horrible, I got a notification. You were recently exposed to COVID-19 and I was like, is this it? Did I finally fucking get? And then no, I was just like sick for one day. But I took a COVID test.

It was my first time taking one. Oh. Scary. Didn't like that. We went to Hawaii and had to take them. That was the only time I ever took one. And it was not as harrowing as I thought it was going to be. After hearing, like, the horror stories in the bubble about, like,

Q-tips touching your brain and shit like that. Finally, Ryan, I know you didn't watch the trailer, but there are jokes in Dune. Thought you'd like to know that. Yeah, that shouldn't be. If it's any constellation, most of them, come from Aquaman. Yeah, well, I mean, he's playing Duncan Idaho. That is the guy who would be doing...

My real concern is that they're like kind of the... They Fly Now. I guess Loki should have had his freaking coffee this more like that kind of joke. And I don't want that to be... Like, not everything has to be the fucking MCU. With that having been said, like, will I see Dune? Of course I will. I love Dune.

But like I said on Twitter, this is a movie about frowning in the desert. And so why Why would it be And why would Or the book is about that Why would the movie be anything less? So it's I mean it was a little weird in the trailer When Paul Atreides says

Do they have Schwarma on Iraqis? Okay Anywhere? Can I get the freaking bacon must flow Right folks? All right There's no need to make this a seven hour podcast with us Marvelizing Dune

Freaking again Pickle Rick is going to going to show up. Oh, boy. This is going to rock. Oh, now it's just space jam. Now it's just all the IP. Okay. Yeah, we're done with the podcast. That's like, I don't want to get started on fucking space. We can't do it. We can't do it. We can't do it. Thanks everybody for listening and supporting the podcast. Head over to the Patreon for the mailbag this week. Thanks, everybody. See you. Bye. Bye. Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slapshots and goons. We've got spoiled the commentary

to what if you'll commute. But we also cover movies, TV shows. It's in tools. It's your weekly bowl of Hagi and Natsin. Box, too.