Puck Soup - Mike McKenna

Episode Date: October 4, 2019

The boys welcome former NHL goalie Mike McKenna to the show to discuss Twitter infamy, the mental anguish of goalies and hockey on TV. Plus first impressions from the NHL season, which coaches will be fired first, bad announcer takes, Auston Matthews and an incredible new quiz called The Puck Soup Three-Way. Sponsored by Seat Geek!

Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slapshots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to what if you commute. We also cover movies, TV shows, it's in tunes. It's your weekly bowl of hockey and nonsense. I'm Greg Wyshinsky of the Worldwide Leader in Sports ESPN, and coming to you live from a hotel in the financial district of New York City in between the Ranger's home opener and the devil's home opener.

I'm Ryan Lambert. I'm just in my apartment. Sean McAnew, the athletic, also are not in a financial district. And you're in Puck Soup. I will briefly tell you about my travels this week. Vegas opening night, Wednesday, a great time. Vives, I would say, of the old Penguins' Capitals rivalry

in that nights fans put gummy sharks and urinals and bought signs that disparaged players. It was like seeing a revival of that rivalry, minus the years of contention between the franchises to begin with. Hopped on a plane at 5.25 in the morning after staying up all night, got here to New York at 1.30, checked into the hotel. I had a window of about 20 minutes to shower an iron before I had to go to MSG for a daily wager hit. Check into the hotel room. No toiletries. And I don't travel with like shampoo and shit because I'm not a girl. And so there was only two things in the entire bathroom.

One was a shoe shine sponge, which obviously doesn't do me any good. And the other was body butter. which is lotion. So I took a shower with lotion as best I could. So I still stunk. It did nothing to alleviate the plain stink and the having stayed up for, you know, 36 hours stink. But I was very smooth after the shower. I'm just, I just want to say I'm impressed that you apparently are irons in his hotel room guy.

I did not have you pegged as hotel room ironer. Now, why is that? How do you handle wrinkly clothes when you travel? Because what the way I pack... I just wear wrinkly clothes. But Ruby taught me how to pack. Ruby taught me that the way you pack is that you roll up your clothes into like big cigar, like, kind of deals, like your shirts and stuff. And that's how they all fit in one bag if you're traveling for a few days.

But like, are you saying that when you have to like wear a dress shirt, you don't iron in your hotel room? I have never ironed in a hotel room. I do the single man's hotel room. which is where you take a hot shower and hang the shirt in the, so that like it gets steamed, which kind of gets rid of some of the wrinkles temporarily, not really, but it's close enough. So yeah, that's what I do. I think that's actually a really good method because the problem with Hotel Irons, as I found out yesterday, is that one and of every four of them has some major malfunction, such as the cord

won't stay extended and or it drips water on your clothes like you've put your clothes in the shower, which is what happened yesterday. So fuck a hotel iron, but it was a very, it was, I needed to iron it. My clothes were wrinkly. I mean,

I certainly, I got to say, I'm not like, I'm not like doing TV hits on ESPN either. So I may, I'm, maybe it's like a slightly different, uh,

level of importance. It was, it was ESPN too. So, I mean, in theory, I probably could, you know, have worn something on.

Ryan Lambert's obviously back on the podcast this week. You did a little traveling recently. How did you enjoy your time at Disney World? It was great. It was really good. Hollywood Studios, obviously, has the new Star Wars, Edge of the Galaxy. A Galaxy's Edge. Galaxy's Edge, sorry.

And, boy, oh, boy. Wow, they did a great job with that. Although, look, there was a Sabak dealer. He was playing some weird, like, dollar store version of Sabak that I didn't really understand in a... Like, it was not the one I

was used to playing from whatever, Knights of the Old Republic or whatever, but I still won. Yeah, it sounds like someone was a little upset. You couldn't hide Sabak cards up your sleeve. That's right. Yeah. What did you think of the Millennium Falken ride? I went on it eight times.

And so, yeah, I loved it. It was really good. I kind of made a point of sitting in every position you could sit in. Missionary 60. Okay. All right. Well, yeah, no, it was, what a great ride. They did a great job with it.

It's a really cool ride. It's sort of a flight simulator ride, but not in the way that Star Tours used to be, where it was just a little bit jarring on Star Tours. But the cool thing about it is that, again, like the coolest thing about the Star Wars Land is that they really themed it perfectly. Like, you walk on the Millennium Falcon. You're on the Millennium Falcon. Like, it's just awesome.

Yeah, it's very cool. Yeah. When I went with Ruby and Vivian, you get to be one of three things. You get to be the pilot, the gunner, or the engineer, which is basically just somebody who presses a flashing button occasionally. Yep. So I was dad of the year. I volunteered to be the engineer.

Yeah, I insisted on being both pilots, obviously. And yeah, so one pilot's in charge of going left and right one's in charge of going up and down. But the one who's in charge of going up and down is also the one who pulls the lever to go to hyperspace. Oh, that's what you want. And that's what you want. And that was all of like that was all I wanted. and I got, like, to be the guy who pulls the lever and go to hyperspace, like, what more could you ever want?

Well, Star Wars dweeb. That's awesome. That's a really cool place. I mean, as you know, I work for the company that owns it. So I'm not trying to, like, pimp it out. This isn't a hashtag ad, but Star Wars Galaxy's Edge opened down in Walt Disney World and Walt Disney Land. Take an adventure through the galaxies with your family, It's a low low cost of...

Yeah, and the other thing I would say is, if you're an adult with no children, go in mid to late September. You will see only British children. Like, there were, like, so few kids there because school just started in most parts of the country that it was a really nice experience as someone who's, like, very easily annoyed by kids complaining. If you're just there with British children, it must almost feel like you're there during like an Empire Youth Academy Day. Well, yeah, so, like, as we're walking around our hotel, every child is just talking like a Harry Potter character. And like to the to the extent that like one kid literally just had the exact same accent as Daniel Radcliffe. And it was like, mummy, you know, whatever. and I was just like, oh, it's only British people and like, you know, maybe a few Irish and Scottish people as well.

But like, that's almost all the kids were not American and that was, or, you know, too young to be in school. And Lambert sauntered over and said, you're in Disney World Harry. I don't get that reference. Oh, you don't know that Harry Potter's? I've only seen all the movies like once or twice. Hagrid was a kind and gentle I don't give you a shit I mean like

I think we did like formal picks for the season after the last show I know Sean and I kind of like dithered about when it came to some of the formal picks but I don't know if you actually have gone on the record with your picks but I picked the Leafs over the Knights in the Cup final

Oh I would say Tampa over Vegas yeah I went Tampa over San Jose but yeah, those were kind of all in the same sphere. Oh, no, I mean, I picked the Leafs, though. I didn't pick Tampa. Yeah. So I'm the outlier. Yeah.

It's apparently Greg hasn't seen that Cody Cici's their number two defensemen this year. Yeah. I think there are always ways to correct things during the course of a season. I figure Cody Cici is just simply a placeholder for whatever defenseman that makes checks cap-friendly, $750,000. it will be available with the trade deadline. Cody Cici is going to play for the Leafs for the next 12 years, and Leaf fans are going to be convinced that his trade is imminent that entire time. He's the new Tyler Bozac.

Yeah, it's just the whole time it's going to be like Kyle Dubas, four-dimensional chess, man. Like, this was always part of the plan. He was going to bring him in, give him a one-year contract, give him a six-year extension, give him another four-year extension, and then spring the trap, baby. I saw having seen Vegas live I'm reminded that they're just so fucking good like their forward their forward group is is just next level deep and again as I've mentioned many times in the show don't love the defense as much just because of the lack of the foundational 25 minute a night championship level guy and now Nick Schultz is week to week right um Nate Schmidt I mean

What did I say, Nick Schultz? I don't know who that is. I mean, Nick Schultz could very well be week to week, but it made it affect the goals. Folks, we're recording early this week. Yeah, it's true, true. So he is, yeah, and he's arguably their best or second best defenseman, which speaks volumes. That's the only thing that bothers me. But then you look at the team and you're like, if Flurry can be good, I think it could be good for another year or so.

Yeah, sure. And they've got this, like, collection. of fucking incredible two-way forward. It's like maybe you can compensate for not having that guy. What do they have six first line forwards, five? Like, it's crazy. If you put, if you put like, they're not doing it, but they could. If you put William Carlson and Mark Stone on the same line together, does anyone ever

score against you? Well, right, but I guess the idea is if you don't put them together, still nobody scores against you, but it's for twice as many minutes. Yeah. And I would just like to point out, having been here in Ottawa, yes, you do still get scored against when those two gets one. as long as you surround them without absolutely nothing else and make them play

five on two. So they're really good and I'm comfortable with that pick. I'm obviously less comfortable with the Leafs pick when I came to the realization that they're going to have to win every playoff game, 7 to 6 and as the Lightning showed us last year, you can't do that. So I'm a little bit nervous there.

The only thing that gave me pause about the leaves was the defense and the bottom six, and yet I went ahead and picked them because the time line is broken and wouldn't it just be the way things are going if fucking the Leafs won the cup and Toronto became title town this year. Yeah, I don't think they got a Kauai Leonard type player out of the out of the avalanche. Although, hey, that assists on opening night by Titan Barry, pretty good, pretty good.

That's right, baby. You know it. And the soup boy. We should talk about the soup boy. I mean, with the podcast and everything. And his name. I only saw that in passing because I was working that night. What is this now?

I forget his name already. Mikaev. Miquayev, the rookie kind of the, this is, you know, every team has to have like the one guy who just kind of randomly shows up that none of the fans knew two weeks ago. And now we all have to pretend that we did. And that's, and he's scored in his NHL debut. His NHL debut. And he's.

He's the one who created my neighbor Totero and, oh, that's Miyazaki. Yeah, that's not even close. Okay. So he doesn't like soup or he's never had soup? No, he says Canada, he's like, I love soup. Why doesn't Canada love soup? Yep. I don't know the context in which that came up.

Well, Lambert, luckily on the podcast, we do have a resident Canadian. And Sean, can you tell us about Canada's relationship with soup? Yeah, I've never heard a Canadian stereotype. about soup before, but he's, he's Russian, right? Like, he's, he loves soup. He's, like, soup and borsh, especially. So I think, like, he came over and, like, it's, it's true. Like, Canada's the same as the U.S., right?

Like, when was the last time you went to a restaurant and you ordered soup, like, as your meal? You were just like, oh, I'm getting the soup. It's not something you. Well, let me ask you, is gumbo a soup? I would say that it is. I think it can be, sure. But the point is it's not something that happens a lot, right? And he made the comment, and now it's, I guess, may be a thing until he gets sent down to the H.L.

in two weeks, and then we all forget about it. But I did like that one of the commenters on the athletic was trying to get Borschman gets paid going as a thing. Which I did like that was one of those where I kind of wish I thought of that. That's great. I guess my issue with it is that doesn't Tim Hortons have soup? Yes, but nobody has ever ordered it. It's like the fish sandwich at White Castle. It's just like the menu item that's there.

It's there. You know, it's there, but you'd never get it. That's fantastic. Like, if you order the soup at Tim Hortons, they hand you drugs. Like, that's pretty much how it works. Actually, I'm wrong. I don't want to besmirch the good name of the White Castle fish sandwich. It's the clam stream.

at White Castle that I think would be the thing that's on the menu that no one ever orders. What in the world? I've never been to White Castle. I now never want to go. They have or had clam strips, and it's one of those things where I have, and Sean, I think of, I felt the same way where it's like, if you order the clam strips, they immediately just slowly pull a straight jacket out of the freezer and come get you, come get your boy. Suit man.

Well, like, oh, I guess does that make, does that make Ilya Miyazaki the official NHL player of Puckoo? I think he has to be. We got to somehow hook up an endorsement or something. Okay. Well, there you go. Well, yeah. Well, hopefully he stays sixth around because it doesn't do the podcast any good if he's on the Marley's. That's right.

All right. Other first impressions here early on in the season. I guess we have one game of ample evidence that. Lambert's Ben Bishop Regression Tour maybe on this year. Not the strongest game against the Boston Bruins. He only gave up two goals, didn't he? Yeah, one of them was weak. Okay, well, I don't have cable anymore, and Nesson is blacked out on.

Oh. So I did not see the Bruins game. That's fine. Yeah. I didn't either. I was in the house last night for Jets and Rangers where... Now, that was a fun one. Yeah, I hope the Rangers win and lose every time like that, where they score.

The other team scores like 3.1 seconds later. Truba looked good. I mean, the two easiest bets to make this week were that the Golden Knights were going to beat the sharks by more than a goal and a half, and that Jacob Trooper was going to get at least a point against the Jets. You could have made money on that bet last night. Oh, yeah.

100%. And he looked good. Adam Fox looked shit. And David Quinn last night indicated as such. He also had a contender already for line of the year, saying that the Rangers effort, quote, wasn't exactly a Picasso out there. To which we all said, have you seen a Picasso? Picasso is very much slapdash and abstract and bizarre. And that kind of was a Picasso last night for the Rangers.

So Foxhit, true but good, panering great, and Capo caco. Um, Quinn had another good line last night about Kako. And I think this is a good barometer for rookies, which is that he says he's, he's always going to be good. He's not going to be bad. And he will sometimes be great this season. And I think that's all you're looking for for rookies. Like don't be a liability. Yeah.

And especially on a team like the Rangers where it's like, oh, they're probably not going to be great. Like you, if you're counting on a rookie to, you know, be. Be like rookie level Alex Ovechkin or whatever. I mean, you're never going to get that. So, I mean, you might get it. No points, minus one, bust. Yeah, he's finished. I'm calling it.

That's right. That's why I held up my Kako Fears Hughes sign last night at the Ranger game. Yeah, I don't see Jack Hughes with a minus one to start the year. Yeah. Nashville looked good. DeShane with a bunch of points in the opening night. Oh, let's talk about this fucking game. Buffalo 3-1 over Pittsburgh on opening night.

How about that? You know what I'm going to do is get really fired up for game 1 of 82. Sabre is going all the way this year. Book it. This is one of those games where you always see them in the NFL week one where it's like, it feels like it's telling us something about one of the teams, but which one? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like every year there's some like NFL team that like scores 40 points in the first game.

You're like, they're going to be good. And then they're not good. And it turns out that the team they scored the 40 on is just terrible. Right. And I'm not sure that like I I've written about this a couple of times. I'm not calling the penguins to miss the playoffs or to fall off a cliff. But I'm saying that there's there's a lot of signs on the dashboard that are blinking. Like this is and I feel like.

the penguins are either going to be good. The usual penguins, 100 points, playoff contenders, or they're going to be this year's, I wouldn't necessarily say kings, but maybe like ducks or blackhawks where they plunge down into the 80s. Like I don't see them falling to like a 93 point team. I feel like it's kind of either or. And yeah, getting beat by the Sabres on Home Ice is not a great start.

We have some breaking news. Yes, please. Blues, Braden Chen, eight-year deal, 6.5 million AAV. That's an incredible contract. Incredible. Doug Armstrong is locking that group down long-term. Hmm. How old is Braden Shen?

Braden-Han. Age. I'm typing this into it. 28. 28. Yeah, I mean. We're going to just automatically default celebrate eight-year deals for 28-year-olds.

I mean, no, but also he's the kind of player. He's more of like the Patrice Bergeron type where his game isn't like, oh, I'm going to go out there. Whoa, fuck. Come on. I mean, that's like saying, you know, type. I said type. Like a Howard Stern type radio personality. He's the dollar store version of, but like he's good.

He's really good. What are we talking about? I think he's fine. I mean, an eight-year term for a fucking 28-year-old, though. Yeah, unless... I'm fine with the cap number for him right now. I mean, is he really good? He's had one 60-plus-point season in his career

has never, in his entire NHL career, had so much as a single award vote for anything. Like, was his one good year coming... Did that come with the Blues when he was playing that one? That one year was Chen? I'm sorry with the Schwartz. The 70-point year. where he looked like, where that line for the first half looked unstoppable and was maybe the best line in hockey, at least offensively.

And then guys got hurt and that sort of thing. Last year was what you expect. And like, look, he's been on the positive side of possession. He's a fine player. The money is great for what they, I mean, it's a veteran team, right? And he's number two center on a cup winner. So, I mean, you always say with these older guys, like, well, can you win a cop if he's here? Yeah, they can and they did.

And I think there's an element of this where you go, you know what, when you win a Stanley Cup, you keep the band together. And if it's a few extra years, like I don't know that too many blues fans in 2025 are going to be sitting around cursing the Braden-Shen contract. If they remember that it came right after the first cup win. I just, I mean, cap hits fine. I would never, ever give an eight-year term to any player who's already into their UFA years unless it was like a Connor McDavid type of guy. And even then, I'd probably try not to. So it's, it's interesting.

And again, like kind of, as with everything that happens with the blues, we immediately shift into how does this affect Alex, Peter Angelo, and as far as are they going to be able to bring him back. the cap hits low-ish compared to what it could have been. So maybe this ultimately helps. Well, and that's the thing, right? Like, they're now the team where you can go, well, look, nobody's supposed to make more than blank, right?

And they have that with, say, Ryan O'Reilly, who was a, you know, a guy who could have been in the MVP conversation, I probably would have had him in my top three last year, or maybe just outside it. and he doesn't make a huge amount of money despite the reputation, I guess, that contract had when he was in Buffalo. Sure. And so, yeah, if you can get a guy for that number, like, yeah, you never want the

last three years of the deal to be your age 34 or 36 seasons. No, you don't. But, you know, at the same time, like, I think he's the kind of player who kind of will age a little. But, like, his game isn't predicated on, well, he's got to fill the net. He's got to be the fastest guy out there, that kind of thing. Like, he does what he does because he's just a really smart hockey player. And really smart hockey players kind of age a lot more gracefully, I feel like, than... That's a completely fair point.

And, I mean, it's... You look at the ages of this team. It's for the next four years. And honestly, the interesting thing for me would be what the trade protection is, because if there's not a no move in that first couple years of that deal, wouldn't you just throw them into the expansion pool? Yep. Like Seattle's probably not taking a guy with like seven more years on term.

He's like 29. Even as good as Shen is, like they're probably not doing it. Yeah, I guess what I would say is I'm more excited about the number than the term, obviously. And to get to the number, you got to get the term probably. That's exactly right. Yeah. Yeah, okay. I mean, I'm not saying that there's not a counter argument. I'm just, I'm just more on the Sean side things. You yelled at me earlier this summer when I said teams shouldn't be paying guys long term when they're 27, 28 years old, like I got shouted at. So it's interesting how that changed.

Well, it depends on the player. In the context of Barbowski, because that's a different kind of player than it is than Braden Chen. Yeah, goalies famously play so well for a long time. Goalies are the prototypical NHL player that play well the older they get. Okay. All right. Well, that's fine. What? Am I taking crazy feels?

Like, how many times are we talking about old goalies playing well? Look at Mike Smith. No, you know what? Yeah, look at Mike Smith. Goalies are kind of like defensemen in that we can all remember a few that stayed consistently great, like, right up to their 40s. And I think that disguises the fact that the overwhelming majority of them don't do that. Yeah.

So you're kind of rolling the guys. The other thing with that is, like, I feel like goalies are also the guys where they come back one summer and you're like, oh, he's not good anymore. Like, he was fine last year. And, like, look at Roberto Luongo, where it's like, he was great two years ago last year. He was terrible. And then he retired. I would only.

He's also like 58 years old. If I was building a team, I would only have goalies above the age of 38. That's smart. Never a young goalie. Only. I'm going to cast my goaltending like I'm casting a Nancy Myers film. I'm just going to find the oldest, most lovely people to be in my film and go from there. But Braden Chen, eight years.

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It's October 4th, folks. But that's the last guy you should worry about. It's really good. Yeah, but here's the one thing in Vancouver is we all kind of assumed that if things went bad this year, that this was the year that Jim Benning would have to walk the plank, right? I mean, if he made all these trades, he traded right, the first round pick. And if you don't make the playoffs, okay, the GM's going to be gone. And then he went and got a great big extension, which doesn't guarantee anything,

but kind of suggests that he's, which then leaves. it to, okay, this is the year that Canucks are supposed to move back into playoff contention, maybe even make the playoffs. They just lost to the Oilers. What happens if it goes bad? Who's the scapegoat then? And is it going to be the GM who just brought in a bunch of veterans and gave him to the coach and said, there you go, and now your roster is good enough to make the playoffs?

I don't think it's completely out of the realm of possibility that Travis Green is the guy who would have to kind of take the bullet on this, even though I agree with you that he is a good coach and should not. Yeah, he's going to be Pete DeBore 2.0. Like, if he gets fired from that team, he's going to go someplace that's good and immediately, like, be allotted coach. Yep. We didn't talk about the fact that I picked Vancouver for the playoffs.

How do you think about that hot take? I mean, I could see it. I think you would need a pretty above average season from the goaltenders there. But, like, you know, they have at least the skeleton of a team that could theoretically make the playoffs if things go right for them. Yeah, I'd agree. I think that's a medium-spicy take. Yeah, exactly.

I think they're, I like their goaltending a lot. I don't know, man, Markstrom. No, Markstrom's good. He was really good last year. I think he's going to be good this year, too. I can't see it going either way, for sure. My concern is that the pieces don't come together. It's a lot of disparate pieces that can move around the lineup,

like your J.T. Miller's and such, like, they don't come together. And, of course, the fact that, like, Besser has never played a full season and Pedersen got hurt last year. And, like, they don't have the depth to have any of the core four guys, which I would say right now are Peterson, Horvatt, Besser, and now Cues. Like, they can't lose those guys. Well, and again, I mean, now we're talking about a rookie defenseman. And you're like, yeah, if he gets hurt, they're screwed.

Like, he just might not, you know, he might be in a not great rookie year. Like, I don't think he will, but like, it's certainly within the realm of possibility. But if we're counting on, you know, Kail McCar to be a top pairing defenseman for Colorado, isn't it fair to? Are we? I don't think they need to. He is one. I understand that, but, like, I don't think they need him to be that, though. Oh, I don't know.

I mean, Gerard, in theory, could run a power play for you. Boy, he looks good. Yeah, they're both good. Yeah. It's a pretty good team out there in Colorado. Yeah, you got to give him that one. I'm looking through the list of teams. I mean, like, if the penguins do descend into the Blackhawks King's abyss, does Sullivan get fired?

I don't know. He just got extended because I wrote about this. He got four years in the summer, which in theory takes him off of the hot seat. And I don't know. I say in theory because this is the penguins. Like, they have won three Stanley Cups in the Crosby era. and twice they fired their coach in the middle of the season of seasons that were headed down a bad path, fired their coach, brought in a new guy, new voice, turned it around, won the Stanley Cup.

So you would think if any team was going to play that card again, that it would be the Penguins. And Mike Sullivan, he's been around a few years. Again, I think he's a real good coach, but he's been around a few years. This is the point where sometimes either the voice starts to fade a little bit in the room, or at least GMs can convince themselves that that's what's happening and you bring in some new, like all the signs are there except for the fact that he signed a four-year extension. So I don't really know. My hockey brain doesn't quite know how to calibrate that as far as his risk factor.

I'll give you two more. John Hines. Yeah, I can see it. It's a lot of money invested in that team. You've got to make the playoffs if you're that team. Yeah, they probably. do. Yeah, I don't know if you have to make the playoffs, and I don't know if, yeah, I mean,

if they miss the, that's, if you're talking about first coach out, like midseason firings, I think you would have to go real bad, but it could. This was a 70-ish point team last year and the idea that they're just automatically going to be, be a playoff contender. Yeah, maybe not. So he. The other thing, the other thing I think it, that matters is how much does Taylor Hall? like him.

Yep. Right? Like, because you don't, you don't fire a guy if you're trying to keep your, your best player and your best player is like, oh, I love him. I think he's great. He does like him, but, I mean, that's a real dicey proposition, because if you're going to sign Taylor Hall to, like, an eight-year deal, like, John Hines isn't going to be there for years.

Well, sure, but you're just going to create the illusion. Yeah. You're going to be like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we love him, too. Taylor, he's awesome. How about, I'll give you one more. And I don't think this is going to happen because anything can be pretty good. Todd Ruden in Washington. I could really see that one.

They're a team where I, like, just default will go, they're a hundred point team. But, you know, things, like, things could get dicey with those guys. Like, they don't have a ton of depth. All their, not all, but a lot of their best players are, like, 30 plus at this point. And I, you could convince me that Brayden Holby's cooked, you know, and if Brady... Oh, wow. Well, he was very bad two years ago and then had a great playoff.

And then last year he was fine. And, you know, I think... Not a time to get cooked if you need a new contract. Well, yeah. I mean, but again, who knows? And, like, if they struggle and, like, you know, Sampsonov isn't what people think he is as a rookie. I could see it where they got to make a coaching change.

But yeah, I could see it going either way with them. But when in doubt with the Capitals, just go, well, they're a hundred point team. That's fine. And obviously the other guy would be Craig Ruby because, you know, got to fire the guy midseason. What is he done? What is he done? I can't. I cannot fathom how you didn't mention the Jets and all this.

That was my pick when we had to do ours is. That's the obvious one. I think Maurice and Peter Labelagel are the two guys. And also the two longest serving coaches that aren't John Cooper, which is one we didn't mention, but I think Cooper is all based on the playoffs. Like I can absolutely see him getting fired, but not until however their playoff season is.

I think that's the same thing with Lobby, though. I mean, the reason I left him out is because David Poil has fired one coach one coach in the history of the franchise I mean that's just not what he does as far as Maurice I'll tell you why he didn't come to mind

because my lizard brain looks at that roster and says how the fuck is that Paul Maurice's fault and it would be a shame if he had to pay the price the answer is last year was Paul Maurice's fault

and then this year you need a GM to pull a shoot they have the moose they have the fucking Manitoba Moose defense this year. The idea that a coach not being at fault would protect his job and that a GM is going to

necessarily step forward and say, you know what, the roster's not good enough, it's my fault. I don't, especially when you're a GM who's been around for going on nine years now and has had one season where you want to playoff round, I don't think you're sticking your neck out for your coach if you can help it. So, yeah, I understand. Yeah, I, I, I'm not, you know, I'm not saying Paul Maris is a bad coach. I'm not saying he's going to be fired, but I could absolutely see that being a situation where they get off to a tough start. I wrote about it this week.

Like, their schedule is in a way like the worst possible schedule it could be for the first week or two. I know. Because they're on the road. They're playing good teams, but not great teams. Like if you open against the lightning and the Bruins and you come back and you've lost a few games that people will. Yeah, fair enough. That's life. Like Florida is in that thing where it's.

Like, well, what are you going to do? You played the lightning opening night. Devils and Rangers, like the two young up and coming made a lot of changes in the offseason team, including one of them that has your best defensemen now. Islander is kind of the same. Like, it's just one of those things where I could see them getting off to a bad start. And next thing you know, like the central is not necessarily super top heavy, maybe, but is going to be like one through seven. Yeah. And you're looking up and you're like, we're six points out of the playoffs.

What are we going to do? And, you know, Winnipeg's not a market that's necessarily going to sit around patiently and wait for you to. And we know Kevin Chevaldeo is not a make big changes to the roster guy. That's not his style. So I don't feel super great about Paul Maurice if it goes bad, which I'm not saying it will, but it absolutely could. Ryan, did you have the, I see that you had the Jets in the playoffs? I have them at 91 points, 8th in the West, yeah. Okay.

But, you know, if they don't meet that number, I would very, like, I would be very credulous that that happened. That's perfectly within the realm of possibility for me. I think, like, I think most of the West is. Pascal Vincent, by the way, Pascal Vincent is the head coach of your Manitoba Moose if you're looking for the minor league guy getting the promotion kind of situation. So, that's fine. I don't think it would be Maurice's fault, but definitely. somebody's going to face the axe for them struggling last year to be as good as everybody thought they would be. In the NHL.

Two years ago, we thought this was a cup contender. Yeah, we really did. What coach should be fired and what coach will be fired are very, very different conversations in the NHL. Unless you're talking about a very small handful of GMs who have pretty ironclad job security, and then maybe we get into that discussion. I don't think that's a case. guy. Yeah.

Go ahead. I wouldn't be shocked, Claude Julian. Yeah. No, that's fair. Yep. I mean, it's Montreal. You get about two years before the clock starts ticking on you. Yep.

He's there. And you got to find another French guy. Oh, and did we, sorry, did we mention Tortorella? Did because that would seem like another situation where, just where Columbus, Like if that situation goes bad, it could go really bad. And I don't want John Tortorella's but coach of my young team if it's going really bad. Now, it makes a lot of sense. But I think the last, I think last season by some time.

Like I barely squeaking into the playoffs. And yeah, sure. And then taking the team further than it's ever gone on the postseason. Like that's another classic case where it's like if the team goes from 98 points to being junk, that's not on the coach. It's the roster and what happened with the roster. but again, I don't. And maybe I'm like,

and he's only locked in for this season and next. Like it wouldn't be a huge. It wouldn't be. I will say, I will say that you are dealing with a team president though. Oh, wait, no, you're not. That's right. J.D.'s not there anymore.

Yeah, he's fucked. Maple Leafs Canada's captaincy. The Leaves used John Tavares' child as a prop and announced that he's the captain of the team. always the right pick for me. Like, you know, that just always seems like it was the way you got to go about things. It would, yeah, I mean, that's the only choice outside of, like, Riley, because you're not going to give it to either Marner or Matthews because they're a bunch of fucking catty siblings, you know, when it comes to this shit. So, like, you're not going to give it to one of those guys.

So it was the only choice you could make. Yeah. And I think I never fully under, like, I, I, I, I, Austin Matthews was a strong candidate to me right up until he he blew it with his behavior over the summer, and he at that point had to be a non-starter as a candidate. Marner, unless you're his dad, I don't think anyone had him very high on the list. If it came down to Riley and Tavares, I never fully understood the case for going Riley. I like him a lot, but, I mean, you've got John Tavares.

You're either going to make it be the number one draft pick that you're building the entire team around in Austin Matthews, or you make it your best veteran player who's been around and is a leader. Already was a captain. Yeah. I mean, it was the right call. I'm glad they made it that way. I kind of like the fact that they waited until opening night to do it. That's not really a very leaps way of handling things in the past, and I kind of like that. Yeah, that was like a pro wrestling move, like to have them come out like that.

Even having them come out for the warm up with like nobody wearing a letter, I thought that was a nice attention to detail. And yeah, and the thing with the baby was cute enough, I guess. So yeah, the right call. And now, you know, let's see, see how he does. But I think he's even in that market too, he's the perfect guy because he's as much as we talk about how we want. players to have personality. A guy with no discernible personality being the captain in Toronto is probably a good call. That's very true.

I think if they had given the C to Matthews, even before the shit the summer, or in May, I guess it was, you're given a guy the sea in the hopes that he grows into it. Because I mean, you know, I just, I don't necessarily see. Right. Like, I mean, Carter McDonnell wasn't the leader of the Oilers and Steve Eisenman wasn't the leader of the Red Wing. you give it to them as kind of an aspirational thing, which, again, if Austin Matthews hadn't been an idiot over the summer, I would have given it to him. And I think they probably would have. I don't buy this idea that it was always going to be Tavares, although that's what they have to say.

But yeah. But it's good to have Tavares there because it's not like when the capitals gave Chris Clark the captaincy because they didn't want to give it to Ovechkin. Yeah. Like, you know, this is a guy who's a pretty good captain, Tavaris. So it's fine. Speaking of Austin Matthews, we have three NHL announcers saying dumb shit this week. And you can tell me which one you thought was the dumbest shit.

Jim Houston, legendary, play-by-play man, discussed Austin Matthews' offensive output on opening night as, quote, putting a little problem behind you. Yeah. And then compared it to Patrick T. Kane playing well. Now, I think if you read the comments and listen to hear the comments, he's trying to talk about Patrick Kane when he was being the summer of Wisconsin. Yeah, he's very clearly talking about that. He even mentions Wisconsin. So it just, he's not referring

to the rape allegations as a little thing. So we should at least have that context clear. That contact is important, but also, let's be honest, it's the entire notion that anything that you do on the fucking hockey rink after acting like an asshole off the hockey rink. Like, just expunge that from the vocabulary. It's not even that, right? It's like, don't say Patrick King's name in this scenario. Like, there are plenty of guys who had a bad thing that they did over the summer who aren't a guy who was, I would say, credibly accused of sexual assault at one point. Claude Chouroo might have been a better.

better like that and so and I agree with Ryan 100% like that was the absolute wrong guy the context that you're saying no he's talking about the Wisconsin getting drunk and wandering around yes but still like why would you he was definitely saying that for sure like any you know but but Patrick Kane cannot be your example of a guy who put bad behavior behind him like you can't say from 2012 on, you know, then we all, like, I mean, there's a reason that we've all forgotten about the 2012 thing with Patrick Kane. And it's not because he was just a good hockey player and kept his nose clean the rest of the way. It's because he was later accused of something so much worse.

But it was also because all he did was go drinking on a college campus and get photographed doing it with a shirt with his picture on it being drunk in a limo. He wasn't charged with a fucking crime. This is like a double-bladed lightsaber. Like on one hand, you're doing this bullshit thing of like redemption arcs for hockey players because of shit they did off the ice. On the other hand, you're comparing a crime, an alleged crime with a guy getting drunk on a college campus, which is fucking nonsense. So two things on that, okay? So first of all, with Patrick Kane on the college case, like he was accused of some bad behavior. He was accused of getting handsy.

But he wasn't charged with a crime. He was in charge of the crime. And that, you're right. Like that makes it, that part of the comparison bothers me because what you're doing, if you're comparing Austin Matthews to Patrick Kane in 2012, what you're essentially doing is turning the Austin Matthews situation into just a guy having a few too many drinks, engaging in some embarrassing behavior. And what you're essentially doing is you're completely erasing the victim from the story. And we always do this when it's when it's a celebrity or an athlete. is we put the focus on the celebrity and kind of tend to diminish the victim. But, I mean, this is just erasing them entirely.

This is taking them right out of the story. So that bothers me. And in a sense, while I think it's important to get the context correct on which Patrick Kane incident he's talking about, in a way it was almost worse to be talking about 2012. Because at this point, we're just into full-on, boys will be boys. you know, no big deal. I will say this, as much as it might bother you or offend you or upset you to the implication that if Austin Matthews just plays well, this is all going to be forgotten, that's probably actually true. And I would just say, like for Jim Euse

to point that out, it's, you know what, he's right. If Austin, I mean, forget about winning the cons might in the cup. If Austin Matthews just has a good season and scores 40, goals. We probably do all forget this. And that's not right, but that's how it is. I completely disagree. I mean, I think, I think perceptions of this guy have changed now because of this. Maybe they change. The only thing that changes is time. The only thing that changes this is time. It's not, it's not putting up 45 goals in a season. And, you know, it's, it will be erased if we allow it to be erased. And that was always my thing with all the Patrick Kane shit, was that, you know, the minute some people in the media, mostly in the Chicago media,

started writing fucking redemption arc stories about Patrick Kane, then now we're getting the eraser out. Now we're getting the white out about this shit. And we have always done that in the past. Yeah, and it's fucking bullshit. So maybe it doesn't happen this time. But I think, again, like if you just want to purely focus on what Jim Houston's point apparently was, which is we're all going to forget about this,

if Austin Matthews just goes out and stalks some dingers. Unfortunately, I think he's absolutely right on that. Yeah, well, I think the we in that is the important thing to wonder about. Like, is the PHWA going to remember it come awards time? I would say probably not if he has a big year. Well, I mean, Patrick Kane was the MVP. Yeah, exactly. So that's what I think the we, like, I'm not going to forget this about the Austin Matthews thing.

and many people aren't, but like, is the media writ large? They're not going to talk about it every game on Sportsnet, you know? So that's kind of what I think, though he probably meant by that. But like, yeah, you can't. I'm willing to be charitable and say that Jim Husson was trying to make a somewhat reasonable point and just did it in almost the worst. possible way that he could have as opposed to the other option of Jim Houston just being a jerk who was being a jerk intentionally.

It's such a sports cliche. It's like if Jonah Carey came back next year and wrote some beautiful articles and we're just like, you know what? Look at the beautiful articles he's writing. Everybody will forget about it. We've done it. I mean, the list of NHL players past and present who have been accused and in some cases convicted of far worse and to this day have had that almost completely erased from

their public story is long to the point where I I'm and I don't want to do it but I'm sure that if we started listing names there would be people diehard hockey fans listening to this going wait that guy that guy had had yeah they would have no idea so see see see Washington capitol's limo incident every time that gets bought up yep and among many, many others. And so, yeah, I mean, maybe Austin Matthews becomes the first one where that doesn't happen. You know, times have changed. Times have changed, yeah, that's for sure.

I will believe it when I see it and not a minute before. Because up until now, everyone else, and this isn't even a hockey thing. This is, everyone in pro sports pretty much, you know, it's, they, they, it gets forgotten. It gets, it gets, it gets, it gets, it's, it gets, it. And again, it comes, it's like I said, though, like I think the two things, the two things that would do that are the legal process, which is still playing out, obviously, and time. And I don't think, you know, two years of great offensive output in the cup win, even get rid of it. I just think it just over time, it'll dissipate. Yeah.

So the other two things that we should talk about also kind of shitty. Jack Edwards, our good friend, play-by-play voice of the Boston Bruins, the former. Good friend. Is that something? Yeah, good friend of the podcast. Oh, okay. If you say so. Roman Pollock of the Dallas Stars

transported to a local hospital to undergo further evaluation after plowing headfirst of the boards. Jack Edwards said that, quote, he has a little bit of bad hockey karma. Yeah, I didn't. Like, was he saying that because he nudged the player from behind and ended up being the one who spilled into the boards? I think he's saying that he got injured because he is someone who tries to injure.

He's somebody who wants to throw a body check against a Boston Bruin. Right. I honestly, like, I saw that I wasn't, again, I wasn't watching that game. So I only saw the clip. And I, like, the way he, the way it sounded like he was saying was like he nudged whoever he was trying to hit, like hit him, like tapped him in the back. That guy, like, went a little bit to his right. and, you know, Polack lost his footing. But, yeah, I was just confused by it.

Like, I expect him to say dumb shit about the Bruins every once in a while. Like, it's just how it's going to go. He's done this before. I want to say it was Roman, somebody, Hammerlick or somebody, like, he's done this thing before of, like, you know, what goes around, comes around kind of idea. I remember, I forget exactly who he was. talking about. It might have been Steve Ott. I seem to recall something by Steve Ott.

I feel like it's probably been more than once. I will say this. Oh, no, of course. I'm not a big Jack Edwards fan or defender, but just if people are hearing this, if they haven't seen the clip, he says this like seconds after the hit. Like the second it happens. Like he goes into the boards. He's down.

He's down. It's clear that he's hurt. But it's not clear the seriousness of the situation. I've seen some people tweet that he said it like. as he was being stretched out the ice, that's not what happened. It was in the immediate aftermath before it was apparent that it was a serious injury situation. But, yeah, did you guys see the Alan Walsh tweet? I have it in front of me.

I have tremendous respect for the Bruin players that sent Best Switches All-Class. As for Jack Edwards, the St. Roman's injury was bad hockey karma while he was lying on the motionless on the ice. You are truly a piece of shit in an absolute disgrace. Maybe Jack Edwards was talking about having Georgia W. Bush drop the opening pot. That must have been. That must have been. Leading everybody to talk about Dallas getting at least one W last night. I think that was the joke literally everybody had.

Yeah. But, yeah. Finally, Pat Foley, Chicago Blackhawks, Venerable Play-by-Play, Play, broadcaster took criticism for saying that East Barren, German team, Berlin player Austin Ortega, quote, sounds like he ought to be a shortstop, is what he said during the game. It was pointed out this was during Latino Heritage Month and Foley and the Blackhawks released a statement saying that Foley has personally spoken to the team.

to express his deep regret and that he and the organization sincerely apologize to Austin Ortega and will not be commenting any further on the matter. So sort of, I don't know, who the hell knows what he actually said behind the scenes, but at least some acknowledgement that's saying that a hockey player named Ortega sounds like a shortstop might be a fucked up thing to say. Yeah. Yeah. I hadn't heard that until just now, but that seems like an appropriate apology for a not

very smart thing to say by a guy who- Very dumb. Is pretty good at his job, and that's disappointing. There you go. But he said, I'm sorry. So there you have it. Do I don't think Jim Houston will do, by the way. Well, he hasn't yet.

I'm a little bit surprised there wasn't some sort of statement or something. I think that guy has got, I think he's protected. I don't think sports. I don't think sports. I mean, even part of protecting somebody sometimes can be finding the lowest, friction way to kind of put something in the rearview mirror. I don't think, I think it would take the Canadian media rising up and having an issue

with it and I don't think they gave a shit. I think, I think half the Canadian media thinks it's boys will be boys anyway with Austin Matthews. Yeah. So, speaking of boys, I would want to talk to this boy for a very long time in this dumb podcast. Mike McKenna,

journeyman goaltender turned Vegas Golden Knights television analyst. A guy that you may know from, honestly, like, outside of Paul Bissonet, maybe the best guy on Twitter as far as, like, players when they were playing. McKenna's great. Oh, well, I'll get Dan Ellis the bad news. Remember that? Remember that one, folks? Deep fucking cut.

Thank you. Dan Ellis. How did Dan Ellis not end up on Fox News or Fox Business News as an analyst? Like, what's his face? John Bradshaw, Lefield. Give a ton. Oh, yeah, that's right. Mike McKenna is an awesome dude, and this is an interesting conversation.

After the interview, stay tuned. I have a quiz for Ryan and Sean. We were Twitter friends for a long time, and you were one of the few players. Why do you think Bissanette got over and you didn't? It's because he used to video too many more homeless people than you. Why, he got over? I mean, he got over because he played in the league for about eight years. I mean, and he had to do it the hard way.

He even punches, you know? I was just trying to get a page. checks kicking around the Iron League. I think that's the biggest reason why I don't think I was as out there as him. I've never been afraid to give my opinion. But he definitely made a name for himself and he's run with it. He's done such a good job leveraging that. And I know he's had people in the past try to rein him in, but at the same time, he's also had people within the league and outside of it that secretly loved what he was doing because he was bringing attention to the game. Right. Look what's happening with Spin and Chickles. It's huge. They can't sell enough Pink Whitney

right now. You know what I mean? They can't keep up with it. And that's because they've kind of built that own culture within. When you embraced Twitter for the first time, why? Why did you do it? Were you bored? Because that's why I did it. First time it happened was I was in Norfolk in 2008 and they approached me about doing it. I said, no, I don't want to do that. That's not my thing or whatever. Looking back, it's funny because a year later I was using it, you know? But I think I was always kind of hip on social media in terms of St. Lawrence where I went to school was one of the first 50 schools that had Facebook. Oh, wow. You know, so I was already kind of in that door a little bit. And with Twitter, all that happened for me was truly seeing everybody in my other passion

of racing using it. Indy car guys were using it way ahead of anybody else. And they were leveraging it, sponsor hits, using their own brand, their team, everything. So they were like the first mainstream sport to really accept it and embrace it. And so, of course, I signed up. Great. And then I kind of just started using it a little bit. And then I got to the Devils and I couldn't use it. And then I started using it again afterwards.

To such at that point. We were going to talk about it at some point. I figured as much. I was a little fan, as you know. For those who don't know, you were being called up to the Devils and you tweeted about the traffic on I-87, indicating that you would then be making the journey to join the team. Lou Lamarillo is the GM and the ruler of all he surveys at that point.

And the legend is that your call-up got kiboshed because you tweeted that you were getting called up? That's wrong. Okay. So I want to dispel some things first. Please. Because I'm fascinated about us. And nobody's really giving me the voice to do this, I guess.

Well, here we are. And it was always, oh, Mike, Twitter idiot, you know? What really happened there was that, yeah, like, I mean, it was probably cryptic. you know and I said it but I'd also in previous time said I'm driving down I 87 because my in law has lived in Saratoga are some north of there in Glens Falls, Queensberry. So it wasn't outside the realm of what I'd already sent out before. But somebody caught on that yeah, I'd be traveling, you know. I didn't announce my call up. You know, that's what that's what it always is. It's like I put out a press release that said I was being called up. So should I have sent that?

No, dumb, right? Infancy at Twitter, infancy of the usage with it. What year was this? Oh, 20. I can tell you for sure. Look at it at, the current date of when I joined Twitter on my name. Yeah. And that's when my burner account started. And later turned into my current one. So it wasn't really a burner. It's just it was my undercover one.

I started to use so I could keep following people. That's funny. So yeah, I walked in and, you know, they'd like to see you. Did you talk to Lou? Yeah. And what did we say about Twitter? Well, he told me to get rid of Facebook. And it was actually Twitter.

and I said, you'll never hear about it again. And that was it. That was it. No big deal. But what happened with your call-up, though? Oh, I was there. I was in Jersey. You were in Jersey?

Nothing changed. So the urban legend was that they somehow like reverse course or something? No, no. I mean, there may have been somebody else with that. But, you know, what was kind of frustrating about it, though, was that I came from an outside organization. There had never been any talk of social media. There were no ground rules.

There was nothing that we had to follow. So I didn't know I was doing anything outside the realm of normal, which, you know, maybe that's naive. But again, coming from outside, you know, I mean, we had guys that they'd be told to get a haircut and they'd come in almost bit down to their scalp because they were so scared of it. You know, like those overreactions would happen. So, I mean, it's clearly half my fault, too, but it was just kind of that footnote story of how clandestine things were back then too. It was crazy. Yeah.

But you didn't lose your will. You stayed on. You kept with it. Yeah. I mean, I just still enjoyed it. That's what it was. It was never like a brand-building exercise for me or anything until probably a couple years ago when I started to tweet in-game and playoffs and things. But all it was back then is fun.

I liked following people that I was interested in. And it was a fire hose of information. And as much as everybody made fun of it when it first came out and, oh, the Twitters. And I don't care about what you had for dinner last night. It's turned into your most relevant form of way to digest information. Unfortunately, yes. Yeah. Because then you have to sift.

But, yeah. I mean, there's a lot of Nazis and dipships. It's true, which is always the problem. And you have to self-filter. You have to always look at everything who it's coming from. Right. Just because it's on the Internet doesn't mean it's true. This is true.

You know, so you do have to be very aware of who you're getting it from and what their original source is. And sometimes you've got to be a little bit of leery of it, too. Okay. So when you called it a career, you had played for 14 or 15 teams. In the 20s. I mean, in the NHL. The NHL, I dressed for nine teams. I played for seven.

You played for seven. Yeah. Okay. And I was in 16 organizations, if you count about Vegas now. Okay. 15 playing. So if you travel back in time and told young you, like fucking 14-year-old you, that that was going to be your career, what do you think 14-year-old you would have said?

Oh, I never believed it. You know, 14 years old, coming from St. Louis, nobody had ever played in the NHL. We'd had a couple draftees. I mean, we'd had youth hockey since my grandpa helped people start it in the 50s with people. but there wasn't really a defined path or a course to do it. Right. You know, and guys from my age group, Cam Jansen was our first player, myself, the Stasney brothers, one of which Paul's with us here in Vegas, ironically enough, which is amazing.

Ben Bishop, you know, we were that first wave of guys. Yeah. I was just playing hockey for fun. That's what it was for me. I think at 14, if somebody would have said, hey, you might be able to play college someday, that would have been it. That would have been amazing. You know, and it just kind of kept progressing for it.

me. You go try out for the U.S. team. You get cut. They take two kids and never play pro. You know, you go to another junior team at 16, though, and now things start to roll. Next thing, you know, you're in college. Next thing, you know, they're talking about drafting you. And it was a whirlwind for me. I couldn't believe how quick it happened. When did you know you did it, that you were a pro? Oh, man. Like, and again, like, pro hockey, even after being drafted and everything, still seemed kind of far, far away. You know, I was drafted by Nashville. I didn't sign with them.

They signed a guy named Peca René. Things seem to have worked out well for them. I'd argue for myself, too. I ended up playing almost three dozen games, right? Like, I lived my dream. But when they didn't sign me, it was kind of like, oh, shit, what do I do now? And so I came to Vegas in the coast. I was lucky to get a deal out here with Glenn Gallatin coaching,

who's gone on to do great things in the NHL. Yeah. And had two amazing years. And, again, it just kind of progressed. So I think probably by midway through my first year, like when I got a call up to the American Hockey League with Norfolk, that's when I thought, hey, man, there might be something to this. I'm going to get back to Vegas in a second, but you bring up an interesting point, which is that a lot of us go back and look through the drafts, sold drafts, and you see guys that became stars, and you see other guys that didn't. And I always look at the games played. And I'm saying to myself, you might not necessarily have been the guy that they thought they were drafting.

But you hung around. You did the thing. And there's value in that that I don't know if fans always appreciate to having A, made the show and then B hung around long enough to accumulate as many games as they did. Well, and I'm sure there's plenty of punchlines associated with my name. You know, that guy was terrible in the NHL. Well, okay, let's look at this from 30,000 feet. How good were the teams I was playing on when I was there.

Let's be honest about. You're throwing your teammates under your best. I know, I'm not. I'm throwing the management. No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding out there, guys. I'm kidding. I don't mean that.

But that's reality as a goalie, though. If your team's not good and you don't have juice behind you as a prospect, it's tough. The teams I played on that were good. My numbers were decent for those. And, you know, I never really felt comfortable with the NHL. And that was part of it, I think, too. Because I never was there. I never had, I never made a team.

You feel like you had imposter syndrome? I was a spare part. Right. And I was a fill-in guy. Like, if you had to make a movie about it, about me, it'd be the layover guy. That was me. It was like, okay, we got a prospect. Let's team them up with McKenna for a year. Okay, the prospect got better. Now we got another prospect coming in. Thanks, Mike. I psychologically diagnosed you as imposter syndrome, but that's not it. You felt you

belonged, but you didn't necessarily feel like you belonged in that culture quite a year. I was never in the club. Right. You were in the club. You're good enough to be there, but you weren't in the club. Right. And I felt, I truly, my heart of hearts felt like if I'd had a time where a team truly believed in me as a prospect, you know, by the time I was 30 or whenever, right? My best hockey was after 30, ironically enough. But if I'd been there with some juice with a team that put something behind me, that believed in me that actually gave me 20 games on a good team, could I have done it? I think so, because I see a lot of goalies that have played in the NHL past them that I knew I was just as good as. Yeah. But whether I was too old or wrong timing or I just didn't play well enough

when I was there, that's what happened. But I just, it was hockey. It was my job. I loved it. And, you know, thankfully I was able to make a good living, too, even as a number three as years went on. You were here with the Las Vegas Wranglers, like 2006-ish? 2005 to 2007.

So what was it like living here then? Because now all these guys that play for the night, see, all live in, like, this area here, and it's an easy cell to come live in Vegas. But when you were playing here, like, when you were playing here, what was it like living here? It was so much fun. Yeah. And I don't mean that because I don't gamble and not a club guy, you know.

I mean, you're not going to see me fist pumping with the DJ or anything. But I think really more so than it just being Vegas is that we had really good teams that everybody was friends with one another. The team, the front office, the coaches, we all live together in an apartment complex. Oh, my God. Which is just, it's so much fun. It's got to be the greatest thing ever. It was. You know, we're eight miles west of the strip, but we're all hanging out together.

We go to all these things. And it was kind of self-limiting. When you're making $450 a week, it's not like you can go blow all your money at the casino. Right. But we did have a couple guys that would go play poker on purpose to make money, and they'd double their paycheck. Oh, shit. Like, my roommate, Lee Green out of Alaska would do it. He'd go double his paycheck.

But every once in a while, he'd come home just pissed, right? Like, I took a bad beat, you know, and you can tell he had a tough day at the officer. Did people in town know you as the hockey guys? I mean, like, I'm not saying you got recognized, but, like, would you go en masse to a place and be like, oh, the Wranglers are here? So we had a guy named Jason Chris Chuck that went to every bouncer in town, or doorman, I guess I should say, if I don't want to be on the wrong page of anybody. But he greased everybody. He gave tickets to every doorman he could find. And we're talking at the win, at the Bellagio, you name it, the top end places, Mandele Bay.

And we're playing for the Wranglers making $500 a week. And he's greasing him with tickets. Guess what? Every weekend we were on the list somewhere. That's awesome. And it was, you know, I try to bring some girls with you. Right, right, right, right. That was the requisite, you know?

Yeah, yeah. But, yeah, it's not like we'd be recognized around town, but we had great connections. Like, Cirque de Soleil was a sponsor. You want Cirque to Soul A, we can. That's awesome. Blue Man group. I'm friends with a blue man. You know how cool that is?

That's a cool thing. Right. So it was really unique here, and we were lucky. We had good ownership, good rink. We had everything going for you that you would want in the ECHO. You played for a team in Nebraska that I'm fascinated by. Because from what I guess, from what I guess. gather through my intense internet research, the name of the team was Nebraska spelled backwards?

The Omaha Ex-Arbon Knights. What is that even? I didn't get too deep into the history of it. The Ex-Arban name actually meant something in Omaha. I apologize that I don't know the full history on it. There was some group of people that I think they had partnership of the team, even along with the Calgary Flames. It sounds a little Illuminati to me. It's interesting. It might be on a dollar bill. in some country I don't know about. I don't know.

Do you tell the guys back home here in Exhaarbon night? Were they stoked? I think they were just happy I was in the American. The irony, though, the head coach of that team was Ryan McGill, who's the assistant here in Las Vegas now. We've had a couple chuckles over it. I got a nice five periods playing for him. And about a month and a half,

I was a warm body behind Curtis McElhenney that time. What's the most underrated AHL city you played in? What's the one where people are sleeping on, how good it is to play there? That's a really good question. Portland I love, but I think enough people knew that Portland is really good. Crunchy and beer and goods. Yeah, I think people kind of knew about that one.

I do think that some of the Midwestern cities like Milwaukee and Grand Rapids go under the radar in terms of how fun they are. Those are really good places and the guys that play there can be there a long time. I mean, Austin's a sick city. Everybody used that, right? You were there in Texas, right? Yeah, and one of the, just an incredible year, probably my favorite year of hockey. Yeah. Going to the Calder Cup finals, being with the Stars for a while.

while, having my kids there to enjoy it, all those things. But yeah, like, those two come to mind immediately. I could go through all 31. I'm sure, but those are, I think those, some of those cities, like, even Cleveland, like, people don't realize it's a really cool city. Yeah. It really is. What was your favorite NHL stop? Like, where was the place you felt most comfortable? Probably Dallas, and I played five periods for them. Yeah. Why is that? Just because the vibe there? I think it was the vibe, and it was because I had been with the team all year, and I knew a lot of the guys. and at that point in my career, I think they really respected me, to be honest. And when I was younger, and even when I'm 30, 31 filling in, I'm not sure I always had that.

And that was always frustrating because you work so hard just to get an opportunity and you feel like a spare guy. Especially as a goalie, you can kind of be cast off a little bit. So there was just, that was a blast being there, even though, you know, we're playing for Hitch and he's yelling at the boys. But we were pretty good, too. You know, like we didn't make it far in playoffs, or we didn't even make playoffs, but we were like right there and competitive. And just that organization, the way they treated people, was really first class.

And that left an impression on me. I always like to ask always this question. What is the thing that you think the rest of us don't understand the most about your position? I think people don't understand how difficult it is to make a save when something happens to the puck on the way or if we don't see the puck off the stick. I can talk about the metal side and all that. I think people kind of grasp it's not an easy position that way. When I run into people talking about it, and oftentimes on Twitter and other things,

if a shot comes from the blue line, it doesn't matter if it hits four bodies, if the goal is green, anything. It's just that the shot came from the blue line and it can't go in. Okay, how are we going to rectify this? Do you have a better solution than all the rest of us that have been made foolish by these shots?

Yeah. You know, if something happens to the puck on the way, it changes everything. matter how minimal it may be. And conversely, too, if you don't see the puck, the shot, the release off the blade, it's way harder to find the thing and make the save off. And you can't really teach that unless somebody's actually been in the cage. And we were talking about this before we started recording about broadcasting. You're now kind of in the game. You're an analyst here. And like, you never, you never hear anybody be like, you know, you always hear, I should

I made that shave. And then you're like, yeah, but you never hear, but the puck was on edge. or something happened to make a change trajectory where he would have made the save nine times out of ten, but this time some weird shit got turned on the shot. That's a horrible goal. He's got to stop that.

That's the classic one. He's got to make that same. Oh, he wants that one back. Do you know how many goals we went back? All of them. We're goalies. You think we like getting scored on? We could be halfway to the bench

and it goes in and it doesn't matter. We're mad about it, you know? That's the way it works. And we know when we allow bad goals, right? allow a field goal from the red line, everybody's going to know it. Yeah. But to me, that's something, though, being in broadcasting that I'm hoping I can bring is to try to explain why something happened. You know, you may not always have time, but maybe you can give a clue as to why. Watch this. The puck gets on edge, takes a dip right before, or whatever

it may be to try to bring that extra element. If I asked you to remember your worst goal or your best save, what would come to mind quicker? Man, you're going to have to give it a pause here for me. Worst goal is, oh. man that was a thought experiment by the mate to see which one you could dig up quicker i know it's probably worst goal right oh man i don't know i feel like i'm so scrambled after all these years at this well no because i think what it is is you probably self-edit yeah you're not going to remember your worst goal because you just got to move on right you really do like i mean i've i'm trying to think i never allowed any i don't think from past the redline that's good i was always solid like that's

one that i was always really proud of i never had that clunker that was a high highlight real one, you know? The ones that always killed you as a goalie were like bad angle goals that didn't look good or something like that or that you just straight up missed. You know, I've had those before. And more so bad goals allowed, but really timing, right? Right. Like I know for me in playoffs a couple of years, I didn't have good playoffs at all in the American League.

And I didn't think it was particularly because I was playing bad. It's just a couple of bounces here or there and it snowballs. and then you're out of a game and you don't have a chance to fix it. Wow. And that's a hard feeling. And I finally had a good playoff. We only went in the first round. We lost a Hershey, but then the next two years I went to the Calder Cup finals.

It was almost like a switch went off to like to do it. When you can't get out of that funk, is it just you're succumbing to bad puck luck? Or, like, what is it about it that you can't seem to then turn it when things do snowball? I mean, it's certainly luck and bounces. You just feel like the hockey guys are. You know, you make your own luck a lot, too, for sure. Thank you, Billy Zane from Titanic. Yeah, you make your own, and luck is a residue of design.

That's a friend of mine has that on his race car. And I actually really like that quote, but I'm not a big motivational quote guy. You know, a picture of a cat hanging from a tree in your office? I'm not superstitious either at all. But you're right, though, like you can, because a goalie, when things start to go bad, though, it feels like all the bloods left your body. You know, like you've ever had that moment in life where something terrible. terrible happened and you just felt like you can't move, your blood's gone.

Yes. And you can feel like that as a goal. You guys feel that often? Thankfully not. But it's happened, you know, and that's kind of what I mean. Like in those high stakes moments where all it takes is one or two things really quickly. And it's your ability to get that Audi right away. Right.

And it can be tough. Like the most mentally strong guys in the world can fall victim to it. I'm going to ask you a couple more things. You mentioned racing a few times. What is your relationship with racing? My dad raced open wheel cars. Shut up. In SCCA, Sports Car Club of America.

So what year is that now? My dad raced from 1970 to 19, almost 9. What do the cars look like back then? They looked like Indy cars. Open wheel formula cars. He raised Super Vs, which essentially are the close equivalent to Indy Lights nowadays, AAA level to IndyCar for Indy 500. National champion several times.

President's Trophy, which is the highest honor for Best Amateur Driver in the U.S. Roger Penske, Jimmy Vassar, Bobby Rahal, I won this, you know, Indy 500 winners, some of them. So, yeah, he was really good. We followed him around in the summertime, and then the winter I played hockey. And so it's been a passion of mine for years. I raced carts a couple summers, and I was horrible at that.

And you can only have one expensive hobby as a kid or sport. And go-karts went away quick when we started to buy goalie game. But I still love this sport. Is there any comparison in adrenaline rush between being behind the wheel and playing hockey? Similar. Yeah, really? I think, though, the fun factor for me for racing is all the time. Yeah.

And I shouldn't say racing. That's not right. Like, if I go pound out laps at indoor carting, I'm just laughing. Right, right. But I smile the whole time. Yeah. You know, it's so much fun for me. Yeah.

But there's not that big rush. Like, and maybe if I was racing and I could complete a pass on a last lap, I might have that feeling. But, man, if you're a goalie and you make a big save at a huge moment at the game. Yeah. Or, you know, a minute left. And you're just grinding to get. get that game over with, you're up by one goal. That feeling and you win the game afterwards or make that safe,

I've never felt that in anything else in my life. Also exponentially smaller chances of death in hockey, I imagine. Yeah, and we can talk about that in real terms. Yeah. I mean, we have family friends that were killed racing. Right. That's real. It's dangerous sport.

It's dangerous. It's still dangerous. If anybody thinks it's not even nowadays with all the safety devices they've had, I've had IndyCar drivers on my own podcast, right? They know the risks. And as a fan, it's tough, though. Let me pause on that, because I remember there being a backlash during the years when they tried to make racing safer. Were you ever a party of that, or did you just be like, you guys were being dinosaurs about this shit?

No, I think any chance they have to make it safer for the drivers, to me, is good. I mean, you grow up in it and you see it. And I'll give you a great example. Right now, Indy cars today at Indianapolis Mower Speedway testing what's known as a, it's a halo device that Formula One brought in. It looks like a flip-flop on a car, actually. It's this carbon fiber piece around the head. Huh. But Indy car is actually putting a clear arrow screen they're calling it.

That's Lexan or whatever material that'll deflect anything away from the driver's head. Wow. You know, and this is a big thing. It's something they haven't had that could potentially save lives. It would have saved Justin Wilson's life a couple years ago. Yeah. And guess what? The Internet trolls out there.

It looks terrible. Yeah. Like, all right, buddy. Go get behind that car at 230 miles an hour. hour that you would never have the balls to do that, much less with the arrow screen and tell me that. And tell me if your husband or your wife or somebody's driving that car, you wouldn't want that. If the car's a little bit ugly and the racing's still good, I could care less. You got to park it sometimes. Hey, we're at a rink right now. I'm looking out at this netting.

When I was a kid, they put the netting in after what happened in Columbus or with the blue jackets. I hated it. I was like, I grew up without this netting. I don't like it with this netting. I don't look looking through the netting at the rink. Guess what? I don't give a shit now. And it probably saved how many lives with pucks lying into the crowd? These stitches for sure. Yeah, shit, right, yeah. I mean, I look at baseball and I think they're insane for not putting those fences, putting the heading all the way down to the foul poles, you know?

For sure. Those things come screaming in at 90. If you take one of those things to the head, you're getting lawn darts, you know, you're getting coloring books for Christmas last your life. Yeah. It's crazy. Yeah, and I always err on the side of caution. And, like, even with goalie equipment, that's always been a hot topic. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. And it's that battle back and forth between safety and size and all that. We walked a fine line, but ultimately as long as we're safe, that's what I was always going for. They don't get him a shit out. See if you guys are. They just want goals. Come on, let's be honest. Well, that was our refrain.

It's the truth, though. Well, maybe some of the people running things, but I do think that's a disservice to Kay Whit. Yeah, I mean, Kay Whit Wars, I'm not the lesson Kay is part of that. But, like, obviously, like, they would like to shrink you guys down to where you're wearing a fucking green man suit. and just have nothing going on and so Pucks fly past you if they had their druthers You know last year when they took away size

on our arm and chest protectors guys were getting killed Yeah Like they were bad It hurt it yeah It wasn't the regulations though It's that some of the companies Did a really poor job

Of making a new piece Like one company made an entirely new piece to buy the specs, buy the rules And guess what? There's was the best Yeah It was protective and fit it worked The other companies

That just tried to retrofit their existing stuff It was garbage Right. And so that was a problem. But we're also facing it that the companies aren't going to see me return on revenue with this either. Right. You know, they're spending all this money to rent to fit us that they're not going to recoup in retail. Right. So that's always been an argument, too, is that if you really want this to be bulked up, like, maybe we should help a little bit here. And you could talk endlessly about it because it's a big game of cat. I've definitely talked to many a gole about it. It is a tremendously interesting issue to me. Yeah. Finally, you are someone that I've long respected.

because, like you said, only recently have you started to grow the brand, as it were. But you are always someone who put yourself out there and seem to understand communication with fans is a good thing. You know, you seem to understand the marketing side of things a little bit more than most players. I know it all comes back to hockey culture, logo on the front, not the name of the back, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But if you had your druthers, if you had the ability to start to plant the seed into some of these guys on how to better grow, the game through their own personalities. First question is, do you think it's getting better with this generation? Second question is, what would you do?

I think it's getting better. I think guys are finally being willing to show themselves a little bit. And I think social media has aided that. You've seen some guys go the other way and not use it at all. But I think we're finally getting to the point where guys are a little bit more open to it. But I think that that's also been born of the teams realizing that they need to do this. they need players to be able to feel connected to fans and vice versa. Those fans have to latch on to the player.

And I was open and honest because I felt people deserved a window into what we were doing sometimes. And to know that we're real human beings and that I would never have a career if they're one of fans. Right. You know, there's been teams in the past that wanted to exist in a bubble where the fans didn't matter. And that's finally gone. Teams have to connect. Yeah. And you see Vegas.

Right? I mean, we had an event yesterday with the first. responders who were affected by the events of October 1st two years ago. And our players are up there immediately, and it's genuine, it's wholehearted. These are people who invested in the team, we're invested in them, and it feels like a partnership, like truly. It's not fake. Right.

And that's what we need to get to in a lot of cities. And you don't have to have a stupid amount of access. But you do need to encourage guys to show what you're interested in to be honest in your answers. Don't just give hockey answers. You can give a real answer without burning a bridge. Right. You know, and just the more that we can allow our personality to shine and our interests in life,

some people are more private than others. But the fans latch on to that stuff. And that's really, like for me, I mean, can you, you know how weird it was when I was playing with Ottawa last year? And I had signs in the stands for me in cities that we were going to. Like a guy who's dressed like 100 games in the show, right? And there's like, there's like, I'm going to reference myself in the third person, which is going to freak me out. But there's Mike McKenna fans out there are Mike McKenna fans up there.

You know what, you know how weird that is for a guy like me that's an absolute nobody? But it's real. And, you know, why? It's because they've, whether I've had an interaction with them or maybe they take pity on me or they think my story's humorous, which it kind of is, what everything that has happened. It's real. Yeah. You know? And I'm truly appreciative of that.

And it always just felt good. You know, and people were having fun with me when I was doing. Yeah, you're a good dude. So, right, put your stuff over. So you're doing pre-enduring game analysis for the nights. Yep. Where can people find your podcast? You still doing that?

I am. So the podcast, it slowed down at the beginning here until I got, until I'm kind of getting back into things. But the podcast is called Six Degrees with Mike McKenna. They're usually about, and I know ironically, right, you can connect me to anybody in hockey dating back to about 1980 within two degrees. really, but I've had guests from Glenn Hall to indie car drivers to a bus driver to, you know, Marty Turco, Marty Buran, Chico Resch, you know. Oh my God. A lot of really fun.

So on Chico's, did you just say, go, and then you just step back and... But, you know, like, when I'm doing this, though, like, the most gratifying thing is when somebody's been on there and they've gotten a little emotional about something. And that's when I know that I might be doing a somewhat decent job at getting their story. And, you know, like, Ron Tugnut was amazing. Who would have ever thought? Like, great. Like, I didn't know Ron's story at all. He was unbelievable.

And so they're, like, hour-long format. You know, they're free form, but they're mostly career retrospectives for guys. And so that's available on all the major streamers. And I do pre-game between periods, post-game for Golden Nights, and a package of games this year. And I was writing for NHGEL.com. I can't do that anymore. So. But, yeah.

I'm very happy to do this because this has been kind of my secondary dream and Golden Knights have given me a chance to do it. There you go. I'm really thankful. Well, thank you, Mike. You bet. Our thanks to Mike McKenna, interesting sort, and a guy who may be on the rise in the broadcasting ranks. Yeah, I thought he was pretty good on the game I saw him cover, or maybe he only did a period

or something like that, but I thought he had a good presence on TV. He's real good. And he makes the good point. that like it's been the same people talking about hockey on American television for the last 15 years that's right so maybe college hockey guy just saying mm-hmm all right it's time for the puck soup quiz and this week we're going to do a little something called the puck soup three-way I don't like this I am I'm listening I am I am importing a classic bar trivia game to the podcast I think we've done the

before I want to say, where I will say three things, names, whatever's, and you tell me what they all primarily have in common. Like, by this I mean, obviously, if I say three players, you could be like, they're all humans. And that's technically true. Three people who have never been in my kitchen. My kitchen, exactly. We're looking for more specificity than that when it comes to these three things all groups

together. There are eight questions with one bonus tiebreaker question. And that's the quiz. So do you guys remember who won the last time you guys did a quiz against each other? I don't. The last quiz we did was Ryan trying to stunt me on movies. And I won that, but that was like just me on my own. I wasn't competing against it. Okay. Well, we'll just say that you're winning champion. Do you want a kick or receive on this one? I would like to, I'll receive. Okay, question number one in the Pucksieb three way for Down Goes Brown. Sidney Crosby, Ben Bishop, Mark Stone. Sidney Crosby.

Ben Bishop. Ben Bishop. Mark Stone. Mark Stone. Okay, so we got two former senators, but I'm pretty sure Sidney Crosby never played. I feel like I would know that. Crosby. Ben Bishop, Marks down.

We know that one of them is going to regress this year significantly, but... Bad news for said Crosby, but that's life. Okay, I don't... Man, you know what, in hindsight, I should have... I should have... I should have kicked, because I don't have maybe as great a sense for this as I thought I did. going to say, did they all play in the Quebec Junior League? I mean, it's possible, but...

Well, Ben Bishop played at the University of Maine, so... Is that in the Quebec Junior League? The answer is they all finished second in 2019 NHL Awards voting. Sidney Crosby for the Heart, Ben Bishop for the Vesina, Mark Stone for the Selke. Nice. I love it. All right, so no points in that one for Sean. That's okay.

more questions. Ryan? Yeah. Pavl Datsuk, Sergei Shirokhoff, Nikita Kusev. The Russian I win. I was just going to say, there is a broader answer to he had, but specifically, what do those three players have in common? Can you give me the players again? Once I heard

the last guy had a Russian first name, I was already, I had my joke ready to go. Pavl Datsuk, the Magic Man. Sergei Shrokov, former Vancouver Canucks prospect, I want to say. That sounds right. Nikita Gusev, current New Jersey Devil. They're all Russian. Is that right?

That's true, but there's something more specific we're looking for. I'm going to say they all at one point led Russia in scoring at, or led to KHL or something like that in scoring. That's what I'm going to say. I don't think Shirokhov did. Okay. I think it's possible the other two might have, but that's not what I was looking for. What I was looking for was all...

Can I go ahead? Yeah, go ahead. Because I got to be honest, I have no idea who the middle guy is. But were they both seventh-round picks? No. All three were gold medal winning players for the Olympic athletes from Russia. Okay. on the 2018 Winter Olympic team.

So Russian national team, I was in the right ballpark, but... Yeah, you were close. You were close. I still have no idea with that second guy. I look that up. Okay, Sean, here we go. All right. Pay attention. I'm paying it.

The problem is not lack of attention. It is everything else. Pete, Pete Perram, P-E-R-R-A-M, Rhonda Englehard, Colton Orr. What do those three individuals have in common? Boy, I'm really glad Shaw went first. What? Jesus Christ.

Give me your names again? Pete Perram, Rhonda Englehart, and Colton Orr. Okay. I have no idea that first guy is. I'm going to say only because the second, I don't know the second name, but Rhonda Englehart. The fact that you're... Colton Orr. Throwing a female name at me.

I know Colton Orr is currently coaching women's hockey. So I'm going to say women's hockey coaches. I'll accept it. It's NWHL coaches. Pete Param of the Buttes. Rhonda Englehart co-coach, the white caps. And of course, Colton Orr, your head coach of the Connecticut Whale. So a point for Sean on that one.

Very good. Good reading of the question. I might have to. I could see myself holding on for a one-nothing win in this one. Yeah, no shit. Jesus. Right. Sean's going to play the trap the rest of the Yeah, absolutely.

All right, here we go, Ryan. I think this is, we're getting into maybe a little bit more friendly territory here. Okay. Ron Hextall, Kerry Huffman, Peter Forsberg. Come on. Oh, shit. Come on.

Uh-oh, man. I mean. Sean putting his foot down on this one. Jeez. All flyers? They were all flyers. There you go. Again, I win. So it's two to one.

But specifically, what is it about them that are all very unique when grouped together? They were all flyers at one point, and then they weren't. Right. Ron Hextall, Carrie Huffman, Teeter Forsberg. I don't know. Go ahead, Sean. Maybe Mike Ritchie as well would be in this group. Yep, Steve Bouchain

And lots and lots of money This is the Flyers who went in the Eric Lindross trade That's correct Oh, okay Mm-hmm 1992s Eric Lindros trade

All right Sean Yes The Brampton Beast The Rapid City Rush And the Jacksonville Icemen These are all

Hockey teams that don't end in us That's so true But there's a more specific answer I know This one I know. That's a really good fucking answer. I want to almost give you a half a point, but we don't have those in this quiz. This one I know.

Brandon Beast, Rapid City Rush, Jacksonville, Iceman. I have no idea. They're ECHL teams. ECHL teams is correct. Ryan, I should have done a thing where you could steal it. Yeah, you should have. Yeah, well, next time. Okay.

We still have the 95 Devils quiz going on here. Sean with the one-nothing lead. hanging out for deal life. Ryan? Yeah. Steve Cangelosi, Steve Mears, and Ken Daniels. They're broadcasters. I'll take it.

Yeah. Play-by-play. The current play-by-play man in the NHL is the answer you're looking for. But when I was thinking about when you guys answer these, I was thinking about the $100,000 pyramid or whatever the fuck, where in the last part of the game, you don't have to be specific with the actual phrase that they're looking for. Right.

You just have to kind of say, get the ballpark, yeah. Right. If the category is like things a leaf might say, you just have to say leaves and then you'll give it to you. Right. Okay. All right.

Ready, ready, this is the classic, right, when you're trying to sit on a one-nothing lead and the other team ties it, you're just- give up a lay one. It's just, it's,

I'm trying to hold on for overtime here. Okay, here we go. Yaroslav Halak, Adam Kraknell, Jonathan Erickson. This is hilarious, by the way, that you're getting this question. Yarrasloff Halak, Adam Kraknell, Jonathan Erickson. Like, I'm trying to focus on, like, I feel like Adam Kraknell is the guy I know the least about, so I'm trying to pluck some, something about him that I know. and I'm not really coming up with very much.

Oh, man. Yaroslavalak. Geraslapalak. Out of Krecknell. Oh, I know it. I got it. I got it. Jonathan Erickson.

I got it. I think. I think. They all made the Washington Capitol sad in the playoffs at some point. I know. I do not know. Do you remember before when you guessed seventh round pick? Yeah, I was going to say these are all the last pick in the draft.

Well, these are all ninth round picks. Oh, ninth round picks. Wow. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, was not going to get that one. But yeah, I love anyone who got picked in a round that no longer exists. Yeah, Tim Thomas is a classic.

We don't even need that round anymore. Nobody good ever got picked. And then you're like, yeah. So Lambert gets last licks with a question I think is doable. and if he gets it, he takes, he takes, he takes, he takes, he takes, he takes, he takes, if not, we go to the, the bonus, the bonus question. Here we go. Alex Galcenaic, Kaspari Kappanin, Dougie Hamilton. Galchiniuk, Kapanen.

Alex Golcena, Kaspari Kappan, and Dougie Hamilton. You have this one, Sean? I'm, I'm, I'm, Thinking through a couple of scenarios. I didn't immediately get... I feel like I'm circling this one, and I'm not going to necessarily... Were they all traded for Phil Kessel? Yes!

They were all involved in Phil Kessel trades. Duggy Hamilton, of course, was the first round pick. Toronto gave up that eventually became Douggy Hamilton. I didn't put it together, but I got Kappan and Galchanyuk were the two that immediately sprang to mind. Kappan going from the Penguin. to the Leafs, and of course, Galcenaic being traded from Arizona. And then I'm sitting there, I'm like, I know Dougie Hamilton's been traded twice, but I don't think Phil Kessler, but then I remembered he was actually traded kind of three times

because of the pick. It was the pick and not the player. There you go. Damn. There you go. Well done. Ryan Lambert, gentlemen. Thank you.

Next time we do this, I'm definitely going to do, you can steal shit. Yeah, this is a very good quiz, by the way. I really liked it. Thank you. Can we get the bonus? one anyway? Sure. And it's one of those where one of you has to buzz in when you know it. Sure. So just say, you say, say, say, say your name as the buzz in. Okay, here we go. Sean Weiss, Eldon Henson, Joshua Jackson.

Ryan, Cast of the Mighty Ducks movie. There it is. Yeah. Very good. Actress in the Mighty Ducks. All right. I'm... The Puck Sube 3-Wing maybe. I'm glad to know that the last one was a pop culture question that I had no chance of getting it. If I'd known that, I would have pulled my goal and played for the win in regulation. But yeah, no situation. It should have been members of the hold steady to really kind of throw the whole thing to Ryan's favorite.

Or gotten it too. I bet you would have. All right, that is Puck Soup for this week. Thanks everybody for listening. If you dig the podcast, do give us a rating on the old iTunes and a review on the old iTunes. It helps people find the podcast. I'm Greg Wosinski of ESPN. Boy, did I rate a lot of shit this week.

All of our preview stuff is up. Wrote a feature story on Dallas Eakins and the 100-mile race in the Rocky Mountains he does every summer. Wrote a piece that ran, when you hear this, on the Sharks Knights rivalry that I reported. out from Vegas and so on and so forth. It was a real good week of shit. So do check it out. And also, Emily and I are back with ESPN and ICE, my other podcast, where we had Henrik Lunkwist and Taylor Hall on this week.

Pretty good. My other podcast, apparently, that I have now, is called Stick the Sports, and you can sign up for it through the Puck Soup Patreon, through my newsletter feed. And also, I guess you can sign up for the newsletter, too. We're going to just do one episode a month. It's me and Sean Gentilly from The Athletic. Bringing back an old podcast that people seem to like, and I guess we're excited about it is what you would say.

So, yeah, it's good. And like I said, we're going to do it probably once a month toward the end of the month. And, yeah, sign up for the newsletter. Sign up for the Puck Suit Patreon, generally speaking. And, yeah, I don't know. Yahoo Sports. You can find my stuff on the Athletic. I have a bunch of stuff up this week, including my annual 31 oddly specific predictions,

in which I embrace the idea that since my predictions are always wrong, I might as well be really wrong by being very, very specific. And yeah, check that out and see if you can become the first person to find the hidden Easter egg that is in that week's column. I snuck in there. and nobody has flagged it back to me yet, although several people are trying. And I also have the Friday grab bag went up today. And we are breaking down in way too much detail that crazy NBC back-to-school portrait thing that they did, which was fantastic.

Very good, very, very good. Yeah, that was really, really good. Stuffed with little detail. Like, even to the point where I stared at this thing for an hour writing about it and people in the comments are flagging things that I didn't know. bonus the first time around. So it's great. Check that out. And if you're if you have not subscribed to the athletic yet, uh, Craig Custins wrote a thing this week where he talked about all the things that we're doing this year. And it's insane. I mean, there's, there's a million hockey writers covering a million different angles. Um, it's, it's only a few bucks a month.

Definitely, uh, take a look at that and see if that's something you, you'd want to jump in on. my two favorite things from that picture, by the way, were Jack Eichael looking absolutely blitzed in front of a plate of wings. Yeah, while holding something in his hand that had smoke coming off of it, and when I first looked at it, I did not realize it was a chicken wing. And I thought they were going in a very different direction. And then the best touch was the three old-ass Pacific Division guys all. all seated in the back. Yep. And, and, and just, like, you could just tell that, like, just back there and fucking goofing

on everything. And then, you know, Joe Thornton leaves to go take a piss at some point and doesn't come back to class. Like, it's, it's pretty much the best. The best part of that is Drew Dowdy running his hands through his thick, luxurious hockey hair as he's sitting right next to Ryan Getslap, which is 100% something the real Drew Dowdy would do in real life. Yep.

Yep. And the artist, by the way, is Azure. Mizoa is her name. It's A-S-U-R-A-R-T-A-R-T-A-R-T as your art on Twitter, and she has a Patreon. That's important because in the early parts of this when it went super viral, there was absolutely no mention of her name by NBC. So we all had to kind of... And I've seen these in the past, and I've even written about them, and this is the first

time I've seen the artist's name. So she's linked in that piece, like, check her stuff out because, yeah, we shouldn't give if we're all going to talk about something let's at least mention the person who created it correct by the way i can't remember who had the joke but somebody had the joke that uh that ikel in that picture had more wings than Connor macdavit has in his entire career and it was like why are we even having jokes about this anymore that's the end of it that's over done that's that's fantastic all right so thank you everybody for uh uh uh uh joining the podcast, and we will talk to you next week.

Take care, bye. Later. Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slapshots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to what if you commute. We also cover movies, TV shows, it's and tools. It's your weekly bowl of Hagi and Nonsense. Book 2.