Puck Soup - NHL on ESPN!

Episode Date: March 10, 2021

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We've got sportly commentary to what if you commute. We also cover movies, TV shows, it's and tools. It's your weekly. I'm Greg Wachian nonsense I'm Greg Wichinsky of They haven't announced anything So the SPN

Yeah I was good to say they've announced that you work there though, right? I mean I do I work there And one might say hopefully I work there For quite a while Yeah I'm Ryan Labor from Elite Prospects rinkside Sean McAnew from The Athletic

And you're in Puck Soup Now, I'm not going to ignore the elephant in the room As a proud member of the GOP I'm kidding I can't really talk about the TV thing Because as we're doing the show on We're taping out Wednesday morning There hasn't been like the official announcement of things yet

So allow me to speak in the hypothetical Were ESPN to get the rights of the National Hockey League on a seven-year contract, as has been reported but unverified by Chris Johnston of Sportsnet, it'd be fucking awesome. And would be super excited by it. Would be very, very happy for the people that have been at ESPN, not simply just like Linda Cohn and Bucci Gras and Barry and all the people. that have tried to keep the light of hockey lit over there. And that includes, like, you know, people that have come before us, too. I mean, like, you know, I've, as people know when they read Puck Daddy, like, while I would have my quarrels with the way hockey was covered on television on ESPN because of them not having the rights, like, you know, LeBron and Burnside and Custence

and Strang and all them, like, really worked their asses off to keep it in the conversation. And I've always appreciated that, too. So to get the rights now is. if it happens, would be incredible. And it makes me happy for a lot of people, not only that you know their names, but also people behind the scenes that really love hockey. I've been trying to tell you guys. The perception of ESPN and hockey

has always been really out of whack with what you see and hear and experience within the company and when you go to Bristol and stuff. And there's so many hockey fans there. And again, hypothetically, they're all very excited. I've been asked by a lot of people what this means for me. I have no idea. I imagine it's good.

But I think the thing that it does more than anything, in theory, were it to happen, is that a lot of the knows that we've gotten on things that we wanted to do, or in some cases, things that we used to do and no longer do, might become yeses because there's a reason to invest in those things and to back weird ideas if you have a large investment in the property. And that's the way things work there. And hopefully that's the way things work for me and for Emily and for whoever else's, whoever else would maybe join the family, were this to happen. So it's been a week, boys. That means Mike Milberry, Mike Babcock.

Greg is going to host a podcast with Don Cherry. Okay, now we're talking. Two guys agreeing that illegal hits to the head should not be resulting in any supplemental discipline. I think Don Cherry and Stephen A. Smith together would be, we got to get Stephen A on hockey. We got to get Stephen A. up about the Washington capitals. It's going to happen.

Let's fucking go. Everybody talk about Daryl Sutter. Nobody's talking about Bradshaw living. Yeah, I, like, I saw the, the, the, the, David Roth, crab rangoon, things of that nature tweet again the other day, and I was just like, Stephen A, a national treasure. And, and again, like, I would say this. And I don't think it's really speaking out of turn.

say this. Like, there is a learning curve with our sport. There's going to be a lot of people that don't normally talk about our sport that will not talk about our sport. And this is a good thing. The more people talking about hockey is a good thing. They're not all going to be, well, what? A learning. Okay, so let me let me just finish what I think you were going to say. All of us who spent the last 10 years complaining about hockey not getting enough coverage should wait for people to make one minor mistake and then crap all over them and then crush them. And throw a big temper tantrum because somebody said the wrong, somebody, somebody said off sides plural instead of offside.

And then we can spend the next 10 years wondering why nobody else likes this sport. Okay, cool. That's a good plan. Let's do that. Now, I think the good news is that there are so many different entry points to the sport for like a casual commentator, not only because there's like great players now that you can talk about and scoring is happening more than it used to. And I mean, there's so many engaging personalities, you know, so that's another.

Well, listen, that's the beauty, right? Like, you know, you could throw somebody in a, this is a sports center type commercial and just have all the action go around them. It's like, it's like when they have a non-wrestler and a match against like Dolph Ziegler. Just have him do the flips. And you just stand there. Sure. So it's a super fun time.

And yeah, that is the point, Sean. Like, don't crush them. Just, like, give them a little bit of runway to, like, figure the shit out. And then also, like, be happy that it's going to get a huge boost. And it's a huge boost. It's really great if this is happening for any number of reasons. And I'm really excited to see where it goes. I mean, you get pushed to the moon if you're part of the family.

Being, like, I'm not talking about me. Like, I'm talking about, like, a sport. and so it's going to be really cool. I'm not talking about me. No, come on. Look at me. I got a face for podcasts. If they put me on the air, they'd have to do the Eklund thing and put a paper bag over my head during this during trade deadline.

That's what I would have to be. Oh, boy. Remember that? Oh, yeah. I remember that because who was the, who was the guy who wrote about me? Was it Dow Viggin? Was that the dude, Sean? Bruce...

That sounds like something he might do. That sounds right. No, it was one of those guys. It was him or Schultz or somebody who was comparing TSN to SportsNet on their trade deadline coverage. And was doing like a timeline of it. And like all this shit was like, TSN breaks this. TSN breaks that. TSN does this.

TSN does that. And then it's like Sportsnet. Pretty sure Eklund just ordered a pizza. Then back to TSN. TSN does this. TSN does that. It just was such a fucking savaging. But yeah, really good good stuff.

It is good news. It's a positive. I'm so happy about it that I even like Greg getaway was saying scoring is up without jumping in. Scoring is slightly down this season. But it's a four-year trend of scoring being up. Yeah, well, that's the point, right? It's like scoring is very slightly down this year. But like compared to four or five years ago,

Compared to four years ago, we're getting one extra goal every five games. It's awesome. It's great. Wonderful job, NHL. Anyways. The TV thing. The TV. Go ahead.

I wish I had anyone in my life who was as easy to please as hockey people saying that the dead puck era is over. But the hockey thing, the TV thing. Oh my God, Sean. Where are you talking? The dead puck era is over. The TV thing. It's good news for the NHL. It's going to be.

it's going to be good news from publicity standpoint, but it's the, the finance is a big part of it too. This is going to be a big shot of revenue, not just the ESPN deal if it happens, but the other half, because remember this is only, they're splitting the package up. I think people are going to be surprised at how high the number is based on just where TV rights have been. The NHL, their current deal, the one that's expiring, the 10-year deal with NBC. Sucked so bad. Well, it turned into a disaster. And it was a disaster partly for reasons that we can't really blame on Gary Batman or the NHL. Like, they signed that deal at the beginning at a time when TV rights were going up.

And TV rights spent the entire decade of that deal continuing to go up exponentially. Well, right. But that's why you don't sign a. 10-year deal. All while the NHL was locked in to this 10-year deal, which was, yes, their biggest deal ever and, you know, it was there were reasons to

do it, but they cost themselves so much money, not even based on anything other than that the, you know, the tide was rising so rapidly and they were anchored into this thing. So, you know, when this deal comes down, it's going to be great for the NHL. When you

hear the numbers, there's going to be a bunch of people taking a victory lap about this, just proves how popular the NHHA. It's not any of that. It's just that they're finally getting back into a market that has been rising rapidly and in fact is kind of leveling off a little bit now. So the timing is not great, but it's going to, it'll work out well. And it's going to be a shot in the arm, obviously, for a league that needs a boost in revenue given everything else that's going on. Yeah. Again, we've talked about it before, like the issue with the previous contract, was that you were severely, severely limiting your audience by making a monolithic deal with one property.

Every other sports league in the United States is on multiple platforms and multiple networks. And the idea that, um, you didn't have the NHL on another station getting, like, think about like if it was on just in the last contract like TNT, right, or something and getting a boost there, getting, getting publicized during NBA games, right? it would have been it would have been huge and the other thing too is when you're on multiple networks there is sort of a competitive spirit of like trying to be better than the other guys and you know in discussing the again complete hypotheticals of this deal with with some people you know we're gonna we would make stuff in theory that the other guys

and the contract are going to want to make two. And it ups everybody's game. And that's a good thing. And I don't think it's really, you know, harsh to say that NBC for a long time was kind of resting on their laurels because they didn't have any competition. Like, what's the, what's the new thing that they made in this contract? A podcast nobody listens to? Like, like, what is the thing? I mean, they, you know, they bought on Bobby and Drager.

That was good. But, I mean, it's not as if they created a new weekly show around the NHL or anything. So I think it's just going to be competition's healthy. And competition makes for better products. And that's another exciting thing about them splitting their rights. Yeah. I feel like this whole contract, NBC has basically been WWE after it bought WCW and was like, we don't have to give a shit about anything.

People just watch this garbage. Right. Right. That's a good point. Speaking of watching this garbage, no, it's not, okay. Tom Wilson, I understand that the three of us have different views on this,

or at least two of you might have the same view, and then I don't share that view. Would that be correct? I don't know what's your view. He should have gotten negative one games. He should have added a game to his C. season. No. He should have gotten suspended for it because it was a silly, slimy hit. Yeah, you just, welcome to the fucking Tom Wilson experience. Okay. That's all he fucking does.

But let me give you the timeline. So as you know, I was driving across the country. When this hit happened, I was doing what I was trying to do during the trip, which is to look at Twitter to see if anything was going crazy and then finding out what that thing was. And that went for news and also hockey. And so I saw the reaction to the hit before I saw the hit. And I saw, you know, Ken Campbell's reaction to the hit. And I think maybe Bruce Arthur's reaction to the hit.

And like Mark Lazarus's reaction to the hit. And I'm thinking, what did this guy take out a machete? Like on Brandon Carlo in the corner? and then I watched the hit and I'm like, oh, it's because it's Tom Wilson that we're doing this. Yeah, that's the point.

It's always fucking Tom Wilson that we're doing this. That's the fucking point. But we hadn't done this with Tom Wilson since 2018. We had done this with Tom Wilson fucking six days earlier when he hit Mark Jankowski

an hour after he got rid of the puck. What are you talking about? But that wasn't an illegal hit. Like, that wasn't a suspendable okay, maybe it's an illegal hit but it wasn't a supplemental discipline issue. That's the thing. What's what I'm talking about? Like, guys can throw hits in hockey. It's loud. Sometimes they're legal and sometimes they're illegal. Just because they're illegal and it's

delivered by a guy that's been suspended before doesn't default mean that that guy gets suspended again. And so, on this. Tom Wilson has totally earned the benefit of the doubt on all these kinds. There's no benefit. But that's the thing. The benefit of the doubt is on the play. It's not about the player. It's the play. Like, just be like if Tom Wilson, the example that I've been giving to people about, the length of the suspension is if Tom Wilson had speared Brandon Carlo, like, what do you give him? It's not part of a pattern of behavior. It's in a legal play.

Of course it is. The pattern of behavior is what he did to Sunquist. The pattern of behavior was him picking guys' heads and hitting them in a completely shitty way. This was a check that he fucked up. That is a complete difference. I don't agree. Because, like, if, okay, if a guy commits a bank robbery, like, three ways, or three times the exact same way, and then commits a different bank robbery with a different method, it's still, he's still doing bank robberies.

But you're, but that's the thing. This wasn't a bank robbery. This was shoplifting. Yeah, I'm pretty sure the shoplifter is still going to get his history of bank robberies. Well, this kind of love Dr. stuff. The fact that he like holds up a convenience store instead isn't. But to use your example, he's not going to get the same punishment he would have gotten for a bank robbery for stealing a pack of batteries from Kmart. Would he? No. And Tom Wilson didn't get the same. That's why he didn't get 20 plus games like he did the last time.

So don't conflate me saying that my reaction to the reaction on the hit and my absolute just blunders. Lazy attitude towards anybody who thinks he should get like 21 games for this. Don't conflate that with me saying that he shouldn't have been punished. It's a punishable offense. He hit the guy in the head. He hit him wrong. It was clearly boarding. And he's got a history.

I think, I thought they could have gone 12 and I would have been fine with it. They went seven. They went low. But like, that's the other thing to say is that, you know, there have been, like people that are acting like,

oh, he's been such a little choir boy the last three years or two years or however long it's been. And it's like, no, there's like a Tom Wilson hit every three months where people are like, what the fuck. Because it's Tom Wilson. Again. Well, again, no, but the point is, Greg, that the NHL was like, well, fuck, you know, like the thing of, oh, we can't, if we suspend him for, for this, we got, we got to throw the fucking book at him.

And we don't want to throw the book at anybody because we don't, look, again, it's the thing, I can't, who is it? The fucking guy that was in the hockey news like three weeks ago going like, look, The people getting hit need to protect themselves, and it's their fault if they get their fucking head taken off. Oh, you mean Ray Whitney? It was Ray Whitney, yeah. I wanted to say Ryan Whitney, but I knew that wasn't right. So I was like, oh, that, but yeah, that's the point, right?

It's like the league, the default position of the league is that if you get hit in an injurious way, you fucked up. And so, like, the fact that Tom Wilson's out there, you know, throwing these hits that, you know, you want to say they're borderline or whatever, for me personally, even the stuff that's borderline, there should be, like, bigger consequences. And there was. Two things I'll say about this. First of all, I know you're big on the they didn't want to suspend him because they knew they'd have to give him more than 20 games thing. but I don't, A, that that doesn't, that doesn't jive with what they just did. And B, well, no, they made up another, a different fake reason they couldn't give him the suspension he deserved. No, they, that's completely wrong.

They, they found a reason to suspend him. Like, the initial analysis of this play was for an illegal check to the head. And it could, they couldn't suspend him for it because it wasn't that play. Like, it didn't, it didn't fall under the purview of that rule. So then they went deeper into it and said, We want to suspend him. We're going to find a reason to suspend him. Okay.

Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Because I, okay, two things. First of all, I agree with Greg in one sense, which is it is a, I'm finding it a very common experience these days to if you, if something happens in hockey and you read about it on Twitter first or you see the takes first and then you actually go and sit down and watch it and you're like, oh, that doesn't live up at all. because people get so over the top. And, yeah, for certain players, especially, and Tom Wilson's one of those guys.

So I can definitely, like, I saw the hit first and then saw the reactions, but if it was the other way around, I could see how you'd come down that way. But this idea that they went and found some, boarding is a rule. That's exactly right. And the people who were like, you know, arguing about, when it first came down, like I think Frank Cerrevelli,

and there were some other people who were like, I don't think this is a hit. hit to the head. And if it's not a hit to the head, then really, what rule did it break? And it's like, guys, look at the rule of the rule. It's right there. Boarding is hitting a guy into the boards really hard, hard enough to hurt them. So it's, they didn't find anything. They, they used a rule that is in the rule book and it has been forever. I'm here. Here's something. This isn't someone digging through the fucking town charter. And in 1889, it was actually illegal for sheep to wear pants on a Tuesday. Like, It's like, it's like, fucking a rule.

No, but I completely agree with that. But Sean, before you continue, I'm just trying to tell you what happened. And it's the same thing Frank wrote about what happened, because we're talking to the same people. They tried to get him for an illegal hit to the head. They saw that there wasn't anything on the play that would, that would rise to that rule. And in fact, would probably get overturned because it's not, it doesn't, it doesn't meet the criteria of the rule. And then, and then I don't, I don't, I, this is the. the part I'm hazy about, but there is definitely something that happened internally where they said,

but we want to suspend him. And so they correctly applied the boarding rule, because it should have been boarding for the beginning, because it wasn't a legal check to the head. They correctly apply that. It wasn't as if they were, they were combing through the charter to find the bylaw. It's that they were going in one direction to suspend him, realized they couldn't suspend him for that, and then went in a different direction. But again, the, the primary drive of this, entire thing was we want to suspend Tom Wilson for this. It is not what we are afraid to because it would have to be 21 games. Okay. Well, I mean, maybe. I don't, I don't know what was the discussion on. To me, they had two crimes that they could have nailed them on. One was,

would have been a little iffy to get the conviction and one was a slam dunk. So they, they went with the one that was a slam dunk. I don't. Yeah. My question, my question about, about the whole, like, you know, they pivoted. And, you know, because it was only boarding, it's a different penalty than if it was a hit to the head. Like, has that ever been applied before? Like, I've never heard that that's how they do it. It's the first, I talked to a couple of the player safety folks, and they think it's the first time they've ever applied the rule where there hasn't been a straight hit from behind.

Now, as many people have pointed out, there is nothing in the. boarding rule that says it has to be a hit from behind. But usually when it's boarding, it's just somebody getting crushed in the numbers. You're correct. So this was actually, so again, I think this bolsters my point. They applied the rule in a way it's not typically applied in order to suspend Tom Wilson. But you're giving them credit for doing their job now. Like, oh, they actually suspended Tom Wilson for an illegal hit.

Yeah, that's the fucking... And the nature of boarding is that usually it is part of some other foul as well. So I don't really find that convincing this idea that we have never suspended for a boarding that wasn't in these other situations where we have suspended for boarding. Like, I don't know. Here's the thing on Tom Wilson. And I wrote about this this week and some people got mad at me and whatever. In hockey, there are times where hitting is part of hockey, but there's kind of two ways you can hit. You can hit to make a play, to knock a guy.

out the pot to do whatever else. And then you can hit to hurt. Yes. That's right. And the reality is 20 years ago 25, when we were kids growing up watching this game, lots of guys, there were lots of guys who

hit to hurt, including guys that we grew up like, Wendell Clark hit you to hurt. Scott Stevens hit to hurt. We could go down the list. There were guys, that was just part of the game, is that you knew if you were on the ice with a certain guy and he got a chance, he wasn't going to try to knock you off the puck and turn it up and go the other way.

He was going to try to knock you out. And maybe that had an influence on how you played when he was out there. Maybe it didn't. Who knows? But that's almost completely disappeared from the game. These days, they're still hitting in the NHL, but with a handful of exceptions, most guys today when they hit are hitting to make a play. There's very few guys that are still hitting to hurt.

Tom Wilson hits to hurt. and I for some people would say that's an awful thing other people probably feel like it's a throwback and they wish the game was still like that and there were more guys like Tom Wilson the one reality is that in today's NHL

if you are going to hit to hurt you can there's nothing in the rulebook that says if you hurt a guy it's an automatic penalty it's an automatic suspension you can still hit to hurt in today's NHL but it better be squeaky clean yeah if you're going to hit a guy to hurt him

you better be 100% sure that you're going to be within the letter of the law. And Tom Wilson, for whatever reason, can't seem to do that. And when you're Tom Wilson, and yeah, he's got a reputation, he earned that reputation. He's heard a lot of guys. Yeah, Jeffrey Dahmer has a reputation, right? Yeah. So if you're going to hit a guy, and that was one of those hits, right? Like, he's got a guy who's already looking down.

There's not even a lot of benefit from making that hit. and you certainly don't have to go high on the guy and crush his head into the boards. That's a hit that you make because you're like, I'm Tom Wilson and I got a chance to make a Tom Wilson big hit here. And maybe it does something in the momentum. Maybe it gets my team fired up. Who knows. At least not Brian and Carl over the game, right? Yeah, and you do it.

You better be sure that it's a clean hit. And that wasn't a clean hit. And yeah, if you hit a guy to her and the guys in, you know, for all the talk about Department of Player Safety and how it's all ex-players, and most of them are, you know, guys who have, you know, rap sheets a mile long, these guys know the difference between the two types of hits. And if they see a guy hit to hurt, it better be clean. And this one wasn't. And if it's, if you hit to hurt and it's not clean, there's going to be consequences.

And I don't, I don't have an issue with that. And also, I mean, I think the other thing, too, something that player safety takes into account that people might not realize is because of the way Tom Wilson hits, he also has to be cognizant of the fact that he's, six foot four and 220 pounds. Like, list. Yeah, he's a big boy and he's a fast. He's a fast skater.

So like, you know, it's a force multiplier, right? Yeah. So he and he's not, and he doesn't take that into account and hasn't in the past that, you know, the way he hits, it's going to be, you know, like you said, a force multiplier compared to someone else laying out somebody with a check. Completely agree on that. What are you going to say, Ryan, sorry? I was going to say somebody on the, I don't remember who, but somebody on the Patreon was like, you know how you get Greg to change his opinion? on this is you lay out the exact thing and like in a time to kill you just at the end say now imagine he did it to Jack Hughes. Yeah, I saw that.

Like, bang, I'm in. Throw the fucking book at him. 48 games. He's done. Oh, yeah. That's right. Because I'm a huge devil's homer and I don't have a logical bone in my fucking body. Now, I judge the play.

I judge the play whether it's my favorite team. I judge the play whether it's the team I like the least. I judge the play. And that's the difference between me and all of the people that were treating this. like he fucking threw Brandon Carlo into a wood chipper is that it's a check that he fucked up. If you compare this to what the Sunquist hit was, it's not even in the same universe of hits. And that's the part of this that I think people like you, Ryan, there's the benefit of the doubt, right? But there should be benefit of the doubt.

The guy has clearly has not done a hit like the Sunquist hit since he got 20 games for it. Oh, and by the way, I keep saying 20 games, it's 14 games. It's 14 games, yeah. For all the people like Ken fucking Campbell that take a run at the NHL for being the ones to enable Tom Wilson, the NHL pays off scot-free. Yeah, it's not only from the writers, not only from the writers, but also from the players. And I would have been really interested to see if the PA stepped up and appealed this, what someone like Patrice Bergeron would say about it. Because it's not the, the NHL gave this guy 20 games. The PA appealed it. And they, good, good luck finding anything from Ken Campbell or Larry Brooks or any of the PA enablers who completely are one-sided in their coverage, rather than being, you know, fair and balance like me. That will take a run at the PA for being the ones that actually enable the people in their organization to keep doing this shit. Because that's the truth. Yeah, I mean, there, I think, I think it was Samantha Powell report. that like the PA was like it's not fucking worth appealing this time.

Like 20 games, I totally get why you appeal 20 games. A, because he's a union member, but B, because, you know, like 20 games is a huge chunk of the season and like money coming out of his pocket and all that kind of stuff. And, you know, as the, as a labor union, it's their role to protect the union member. And, like, I, I think that, you know, protecting a union member is as much a part of, like, getting Tom Wilson to stop trying to kill his fellow union members all the time. That's the thing. But also, they're also the ones that collectively bargained for that mechanism to exist. Well, right.

But, like, you, they also, my point is they also, like, can't, like, what the arbitrator should have done was gone, like, fuck you. It's 20 games. what the fuck are you talking about, you know? And like, yeah, I mean, I, let me put it this way. The argument you're doing is the thing of like, well, they can't even fire the bad teachers. And it's like, okay. I mean, you know, like, this is literally how, how the whole system is set up to work. Like, you know, that's why the fucking, you can't, you can't, I agree with you that like,

there should be more attention paid to the. idea that, you know, union members are being hurt by this guy. And so, like, you shouldn't protect. But, like, this is just how it works. So I, you know. That's, that's it. Can I just make two more real quick points? And then we'll move on.

Yeah. First thing, the, we're talking about the suspension in 2018. Like, it was a decade ago. That was, yeah. That was two years ago. Like, Tom Wilson has played 150 games since that suspension. That's less than two. season. So, like, let's, he doesn't get a cookie because he lasted that long before he

threw another suspendable hit, ignoring all the hits in between that could have been potentially borderline that he wasn't suspended for. Like, he didn't even make it too full season. So let's, let's maybe ease up on the whole, like, he's a changed guy. Yeah, I, on that point, like, people were like, oh, but you like Brad Marshand. And it's like, the last time Brad Marshand got suspended in the NHL was, was, uh, before. for the Oscar song. No, or whatever, whatever Tom Wilson's 20 gamer was.

Was that the same? And the other thing with Brian Marchand, we can all go like, oh, he's changed. If he goes and does something like that again, then we go, oh, maybe he didn't change. Exactly. And he gets nailed with whatever.

And then the other thing, and this drives me crazy, and I know there's a bit of a balancing act here, but people who are like, oh, he only got suspended because Carlo got hurt. If Carlo gets up and skates away, people, you know, it's not a big deal. and the NHL needs to just suspend for the act and not the injury.

Like, guys, if you run a red light, you get a ticket. If you run a red light, you run over somebody, you go to jail. Like, that's how it works. Yes, if you are careless and dangerous and whatever, then the consequences of what you do is going to factor into the punishment you get. This idea that we just completely ignore the injuries or whatever else is ridiculous. I know you can go too far the other way, and you can make it all bad. You can have a dirty hit that doesn't result in an injury and you just ignore it.

You can't do it that way either, but that take drives me nuts. And the Department of Player Safety is like, well. Yeah. Can we? Yeah. So real quick, like, because I don't, I, we've gone all over the place on this. Ryan, were you, were you, where were you on seven games? Were you, were you, no, no.

He should, he should have gotten 50. I'm sick of this shit. Okay. 50 is a lot. Fuck them. What do I give a shit? They probably appeal that. He has a lower career high in goals per game and goals in the season than Jake fucking

Debrusk and we're like, we got to protect this guy. Thank you so much for saying that because that, sir, is the reason Brad Marchand has not been suspended. Absolutely it is. But what I'm saying is we act like Tom Wilson should get that treatment and he shouldn't. He's like, you know, a perfectly good, like he, when he was getting. suspended all the time. He was like a five goal a game guy.

And everybody was like, oh, but the potential's there. And it turned out the potential was fucking there, but like he hadn't met it yet, right? And now we can go, you know what? Like, we don't have to act like, like Tom Wilson is fucking, Hvgeny Kvgeny Knetzov. He's a perfectly good player. He's, he's, ugh. Sean, where were you on seven games?

I thought it was roughly the right ballpark. I was okay with it. I heard it was going to be from like six to 12, and I thought it would be 12. I thought they'd go double digits on them. I think it's actually a little bit low. But the other part of this that we didn't mention is the fact that there is a mechanism in the collective bargaining agreement that says that repeat offenders. And while technically not a repeat offender when it comes to the punitive phase and the financial hit that he takes, he is a repeat offender. That also is fucking psychotic, by the way.

the way, but that's... It is a little bit psychotic. I kind of agree with you. Like, and in fact, I think one of the, the changes they should make to this process is that currently it's 18 months, it should very much be a number of games. It is insane that it's a months instead of games thing. Think back to the Bertuzi thing. I was just going to say, that's like the Bertuzi thing where they're there. Yeah. It's nuts. That's, I don't get, I don't get, that's probably another PA machination, but it's insane to me that that they go by months or not a game. The other thing was that that part of the CBA, the repeat offender thing, and that they get incremental increases or whatever, it's very much related to what the average suspension would be for the infraction.

This is something I didn't know until last week about this, over, over the weekend, about when the Wilson thing happened. So like if, it's almost like suspension above replacement, right? It's like, this guy would get this number of games. This guy would get two games for a boarding penalty. Well, if it's Tom Wilson, if he's got four suspensions and a couple fines on his ledger, well, then he gets seven games for doing the same thing. So I honestly, I've been covering player safety since it started. I didn't know that that was the thing, that the repeat offender thing when applied to an infraction that is not the same thing as the thing that got him 20 games, that's how they view it. So... Because in the case of Tom Wilson, like,

it's not the same type of hit, but it's the same basic thing. It's the disregard for the safety of the other players. It's playing a game that is designed to hurt and all of this stuff, which is, again, on its own, not a bad thing in hockey, but yeah, it is the same thing. And I don't, you know, if a guy's going around elbowing people in the head and you say, we're going to suspend you the next time you do that. And so he starts going around low bridging guys and blowing out their knees, that doesn't earn you extra credit or that doesn't earn you like it doesn't start over again because it's a different offense. It's the same basic thing.

If Tom Wilson jumps off the bench for, you know, for an infraction and it's an automatic 10 game suspension, he gets 10 games. We're not going to give them 30 because it's a multiplayer across the board. But when it comes to questionable slash dirty hits that injure people, that's the same category. Right. And the other thing, the other thing, because people were like, oh, well, it should be about intent. And it's like, oh, Tom, did you, did you mean to put Brandon Carlo in the hot? No, I didn't. I was just trying to separate him from the, you.

You know, like, the idea that intent should matter and not the result is fucking psycho because, like, the guy's just going to go, I didn't mean it. Yeah. Okay. If you can prove intent to injure, then, yeah, kick him out of the league. But that's not good. Good luck on that. Yeah. It was a whoopsie.

It cannot be something that gets you out of suspension. Yeah. I don't know. I just thought that the, I don't know, the blanket covering outrage of some people on this was a bit much. Speaking of Blankets, today's episode of Puck Soup is sponsored by Brooklyn. Now, Brooklyn is a company that I'm going to be using a bit now. We're back in Brooklyn because we need bed stuff. Take a look at your bed.

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Now, Ryan, you're a huge Flames fan. What did you think of this move? I'm shocked it took this long. Jeff Ward was doing a bad job. Now, look, I will say, of course, that I don't think the Flames roster is any fucking good. You know, they, but they are worse than they should have been. Like, their problem last year was goaltending. They went out and spent maybe a little too much on a goalie, and that goalie's been not very good this year.

So, you know, I think it's definitely a thing of Jeff Ward did not do a good job coaching this team at all, but also, you know, kind of the Vancouver Canucks thing where it's like, well, what was he supposed to do? I mean, look at that roster. Right. What about you, Sean? I mean, to me, it's less about Jeff Ward getting fired because obviously when the team, invests heavily and you have a GM that maybe is feeling the heat, obviously the coach gets fired. The Darrell Sutter part of this is the part I saw a lot of people kind of like speculating that it could happen, but in more of a wouldn't it be weird if this happened kind of way?

Yeah, when I saw people saying like they're going to hire Daryl Sutter, I was like, oh, that's funny. But no, they just did it. Yeah. So. Yeah. I mean, I'm fascinated to see how it plays out. Like it just as a, if you're neutral as far as. as the success or failure of the flames and you're just kind of looking for entertainment value,

this is about as good a hire as you could. Well, unless you actually like watch their games, in which case entertainment and Darrell Sutter don't totally go ahead. That is very true. And it's, you know what, it's, let's see. Let's see. You know, Jeff Ward did a good job, I thought, with a impossible situation last year. and he earned the right to have a shot at it.

I thought he would get more time than he did, especially since it's not like the flames have been a total disaster this year. But this is, you know, we kind of talked about it to, I think, last week, where it was, you know, Travis Green and Jeff Ward, and the problem with Ward was he was a little, his team was a little too good because they were still close to the playoffs. So you had to make the move now, whereas Travis Green, it's sort of already over so you can wait potentially.

I really want to see what Daryl Sutter does. This is a guy who had great success in Calgary in 2004. And he had phenomenal success in L.A., but even that, I mean, we're talking almost a decade ago that he starts there. Yeah, like, and it's, and, you know, if a manager of baseball hasn't managed in four years, okay, like, you know. Games aren't that different. Yeah. Yeah. But in hockey, it just feels like four years, it just feels like, four years.

just feels like potentially a long time. Now it's not like, you know, most coaches, they get fired. It's not like they go home and they don't watch any hockey or think about it. Daryl Sutter on the ranch, maybe he has. I don't know. But I really want to see it. Well, he was working for the docks in some sort of an advisory capacity. He was a special advisor to Dallas Ekins. And he was like, and he's a smart guy. Like he's not going to show up. And yeah, it's not like he's going to show up and be like, hey, guys, be careful about that two line pass. And they're like, no, that's not a rule anymore, Darrell. It changed. And he's not going to be confused by the trapezoid or anything like that. But he's, it's going to be fascinating, especially this guy

who has this reputation as kind of a hard ass and kind of like the guy who gets the most out of his players, but certainly not a, not a guy who does it in a way that necessarily endears himself. And how's that going to play with, especially some of the younger guys on the team? They might love it. They might love having an old school guy. Or it might be, you know, the kings were winning Stanley Cups. And they locked Daryl Sutter out of the dressing room. So that kind of gives you a sense of what it's like when things are going great. Who knows in a situation where at least initially it's not going great.

I don't know. I want to watch. I want to find out. Pretty easy math for me. They invested very heavily in a goaltender. They have a negative nine goal differential right now. I've been given up 80 of them, which is too late. less than Edmonton.

And you are bringing in a guy who is notorious for having turned to the Kings into not only a possession monster, but one of the best defensive teams in the league for a good stretch of time. And the thing with Darrell Sutter is like if you look at, yeah, the Kings were a possession monster and they scored like 2.8 goals every game and they just gave up 2.2 because there are no scoring chances at either end of the ice. Right. And I really wonder if that works in 2021 hockey. I really don't know. Like, I wouldn't be surprised if it does because, again, I think he's like a really good tactical coach. But if it doesn't work, like, I can't be like, oh, wow, that's amazing. That's really defensive hockey in an era where, like, scoring is at the highest point it's been since the early 90s.

that's incredible to me. I can't believe. And he also had a Jonathan Quick in his prime. He also had a Drew Dowdy in his prime. Yeah, I think the Drew Dowdy is maybe a little bit more than, like he, let's put it this way. When he came aboard, I can't remember exactly how it all played out. But when he came aboard in L.A., Jonathan Quick was like a perfectly all right goalie. And then the King stopped giving up scoring chances and he became a really, really fucking good goalie.

But yeah, but I mean, like he, but he was really good then. And, and, and then obviously, like, you know, Copa tar is better than, you know, Monaghan. Maybe a little bit. Maybe a little bit, right. So, so there's a, there's a certain amount of better quality of criminal in L.A. Yes, absolutely. Has in Calgary. So there's that aspect of it, too.

But, again, like, to me, the math is very much, like, your Brad for Living, you know this is most likely the last coach that you hire. because I believe it's your fifth in seven years. Am I right on that? It's the fifth coach that he's head. Right. Which is, you know, some of it, like, again, Bill Peters. And he inherited whoever the coach was back then. Right.

But everyone always died in time. He knows the situation, right? Yeah. Like the Markstrom signing was a classic GM move where it's like, if this works, it will be good for me. If it doesn't work, it will be somebody else's problem because I'm not going to be here anyways. Correct.

sort of contract. So I think he knows. And Darryl Sutter is like Ryan said, like low event hockey, bring it all back to a defensive front, you know, try to eat your way into that fourth spot maybe in the north or, you know, or third, whatever it's going to end up being. And then play the leaps of the playoffs, man. It's not that hard to try to envision yourself having some success. Oh, before we leave the North Division, how are we finding? this talk of now the Winnipeg juggernaut. I'm finding that people in Canada have the brains of goldfish, where they, like, oh, wow,

unbelievable. The leaves of the least who I just watched kick the absolute dog shit out of the Edmonton Oilers for half a week. They've lost three in a row, and two of them were schedule losses because they were like back-to-backs or whatever, and they haven't been home in a moment. a million years, um, they suck now.

They're fucking terrible. And actually Edmonton, a team that gives up like 35 shots a game, they're great. They're unbelievable. And not, hey, I feel like last year,

Winnipeg sucked, but, um, they had a really good goalie. Is that possibly happening again? No, that couldn't be it. Fucking unreal.

Um, I mean, I, it's impressive that they've gone on this run, but like, I still think, I don't trust their back end at all when it comes to... Or their front-hedge.

Winnipeg is... Winnipeg is a... They've got a great top six and arguably the best goalie in the league. And that's about it. That's not a bad formula. No, there's a lot of people who like to have that. There are situations to be in. Yeah.

But like watching the Leafs last night, like the Leafs, they didn't dominate the game, but the Leafs controlled that game. And Connor Hellebuck just stole it. And a lot of times in that happens in hockey, you kind of roll your eyes and go, yeah, that's hockey, whatever. But, I mean, the Jets are a team that is designed to have their goalie steal some games for them because he's really good. He literally has to, or they're going to go. And he does.

So, you know, that was kind of like, that wasn't one of those games where I think if you're like a Jets fan, you're like, who, we escaped with one there that we didn't deserve. It's sort of like, yeah, this is a team that's occasionally designed to do this. But yeah, Dave Poolin on TV last night saying I'd rather have the Jets top six than the Leafs top six. What the fuck are you? talking about. I agree. That's Dave Pullen. That's insane.

You saying he might have something against the Leafs, Sean? Oh, that's weird. I don't even know if he has something against the Leafs. I think he has interesting takes that I often challenge my conventional mode of thinking. Let's put it that way. That's a very kind way to say. That was Canadian polite. I'm very Canadian.

Do you have a Canadian polite assessment of the Buffalo Savers? Uh, no. And I wouldn't, even if I did, I wouldn't share it because, uh, this is, the Sabres are one of those teams where, like, the fan base doesn't want to hear it right now. Like, you guys know there are a lot of teams where you say, this team is bad and their fans come out of the woodwork going, no, how dare you say that about my precious boys? They're, they're wonderful. And the Sabers is one of those fan bases where you're like, they suck. And the fans show up and they're like, that wasn't harsh enough. Yeah. do it again, but this time, like, drop a few F-bombs in it and all of this. It's, no, it's a total mess.

I don't like seeing people fired, but it's part of the business. I hate seeing guys just left to twist in the wind, and I don't, I get that there's a rookie GM, and you probably don't want to play your cards faster than you would like to, but what a nightmare. That whole situation, top to bottom, and, you know, now with Eichol, potentially. eventually being out, I mean, my goodness, it's, uh, it's just a mess. It's a nightmare. And it's, and it's, and it's like some of my favorite fans in the world. And, and I, I, I hate that, like, that just, they're having to go through this. Again, like, it's a decade of this. I don't know. It's, it's, it's amazing that there's, that there's anyone left. It's, uh, it's,

crazy. So do you, I mean, I think the, I think Elliott wrote about it this week, but it's sort of been the obvious move since January. Like, this is where Jim Rutherford ends up, right? Like, to pair with Kevin Adams and be the overseer of the organization. Yep. That's a definite possibility. Last time they brought in a GM from Pittsburgh, that worked well, right? I'm really, I'm really fascinated to see what happens this off-season.

Like, I don't even know what's going to happen. I know that there's a lot of speculation about Eichol and. and what he's going to end up wanting to do. I think the Rangers are in prime position to pull a trigger on that trade if they ever wanted to. It's just going to be really interesting because, you know, is it, I guess we talked about this the other episode and we talked, you know, we went deep on Eichol and a possibility of a trade. Like, does it ultimately help them to trade Eichael or does it hurt them to deal away a guy that they should be in theory building around? Well, you know, maybe we'll talk about it later. I don't, you know, it might come up, it might not.

But like, you're talking, at some point you're talking about it on the Jim Benin, and give me another two years timeline, right? Like when, when could the Sabres in a, you know, in what we would normally say is like the, their, their divisional setup with the Bruins and the Panthers and the Leafs and the Canadians. and the senators are going to have to get good one of these days in theory. And I forgot to say the fucking Stanley Cup champion Tampa Bay Lightning. Oh, yeah.

And so, like, at what point can you go, oh, yeah, we can be reasonably competitive and compete for, like, more than just, like, sixth place in this division if you're the, if you're the savers. And I don't think there's an answer that is in the next two years. So. So you're saying that you, you pull. to trigger them? Yeah, because, you know, like by the time you're even remotely competitive, Jack Eichol has gone through another two fucking years of losing, and he's going to be, I don't know, he's what, 24 right now, he's going to be 26, you're going to be paying him a shitload of money, but you're also going to still be paying probably, you know, like who's going to take all these

other bad contracts off your hands? So you're going to be paying all those guys, and how do you build a team when you have like nine bad contracts on the books and Jack Eichael is pissed off. Like I just I just go, you know what? We got to fucking blow it up again. Yeah. It's it's really, really hard in the NHL to trade a guy like Jack Eichael and come even close to doing well on the deal. Like it's just kind of the nature of it. It's, it's really tough.

If you're going to make that move by. choice, in other words, not because Jack Eichel comes to you behind the scenes and says, get me out of here, but because you think it's the best move for the team. You better find your Peter Forsberg in this

modern equivalent of your Eric Lindross trade, right? Like, that's the gold standard of trading what we imagine to be an elite young in his prime guy that a team did great and it turned their fortunes around when the Nordiques

traded Eric Lindrosse and got that package back. It's got to be something like that, where you get like that. You've got to identify that Forsberg-level prospect who's going to come in and not five years down the road, but within a couple of years, become a key piece for you. That's tough. It's tough for anybody, and it's extra tough for Kevin Adams. Let me guess. Jack Hughes, is that the...

Oh, no, I wouldn't trade Jack Hughes for Jack Huckold. Oh, okay. If you're Vancouver, would you do PD and a package for Eichel? Well, it's interesting because of how bad Vancouver's cap situation is, right? Because if you can get like three bad contracts off the book and you've got to give up Edison who you're going to have to resign for Mondo fucking cash this summer for Eichl who's locked in and like that's interesting. Interesting. Isn't it, though? That's really fucking interesting.

Oh, I've intrigued Ryan Lambert with my trade prognostication. That's really good, man. I like it, right? What contracts do you attach to that then? Let me pull up their cap-friendly page, because I think a lot of them are... Yeah, look at the same thing right now. Skitter's the one that you just... I mean, I don't even know how you get out of that one.

No, no, no, we're talking about Vancouver's back on. Vancouver. Okay. Like, if... I mean, I mean, I mean, see, the problem is I assume, do you think Buffalo's and Tyler Myers is no trade, limited no trade? I don't know. I mean, did he like being there?

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. But like, yeah, Tyler Myers is the obvious one. But like, you know, it's funny because they were talking, Elliot was talking about they don't know what they're going to do with Nate Schmidt last night. And it's like, well, Nate Schmidt's 29. He's signed for four more years. he's, again, if we're going,

give me two more years, right? Like, the thing with give me two more years is that gets literally almost everybody, but Tyler Myers and Nate Schmidt off the books or on a new contract. So like that, you know, that the number of guys you can. I think not to rehash the other other episode, but I think, I think Sean's right where like, I think, I think Buffalo would be the one that'd be trying to hitch. Bad money to Eichel.

Oh, yeah. I mean, of course. But even like, again, like not to pick on Jeff Skinner, but I don't even, if you attach Jeff Skinner to Jack Eichel, put aside how you even fit that under someone's cap. You obviously can't do that during the season, maybe in the off season. Like that torpedoes so much value out of Jack Eichel that what are you even going to get back at that point? Like it's one of those things.

I remember like years ago with the, with the Blue Jays when they had Verren Wells on a bad contract and they were like, they should get rid of, they should dump that contract and somebody ran the numbers and they were like, you would have to trade four Roy Halliday's to get somebody to take one Vernon Wells. And Halliday was like, what the best pitcher in the league back then? It was like, what? Because when you have a terrible contract, it just drains so much value. Like, I think at some point, like, if you're calling, if you're Kevin Adams, you're calling up teams like, all right, it's Jack Eichel, but you've got to take Jeff Skinner. There are some teams that are like, okay, I'm going to stop you there because that

better be the whole offer. Like, I'm not giving up anything to take all of that back. Oh, it's just... It's tough. Yeah. Is that the worst contract in the entire league right now? Oh, that's a great question. Skinner? Yeah. Let me look. Either him or Bob, I'd say. Bobrovsky's bad. Bobrovsky's even worse because of the context now, where you've got Dregor and now you have

Spencer Knight. No, the answer is Eric Carlson, who looks cooked and is signed for $11 million against the cap. That's also good context, too, because that's a team that has so much money committed to other veteran players that, you know, maybe they, maybe they could, they could build something if they weren't tethered to that contract through any number of different, you know, flat cap machinations, but as long as that's on the books, they're fucked. Carlson's definitely up there.

The thing with Brobrovsky is it's an awful contract, but this guy was in the Vezna conversation two years ago. Yeah, in theory. Jeff Skinner, Jeff Skinner was like, I mean. Was he ever even a top five player in his position? Well, he was coming off a monster. He was coming off a monster gold score in season. Oh, God, did you see the...

And he was a new acquisition. This is the thing I always say, like, when you acquire a player and then you have to give him a contract, every flashing light on the dashboard should be going off because that's when the worst mistakes get made. Remember when Jim Bennett did that with fucking Brandon Sutter and gave him a retroactive no move clause? Yeah. Did you see the quote from Kruger this week, by the way, about Skinner? Like when Skinner finally scored and Kruger's line was something like he's always measured his success through goals.

He basically said this guy can't do anything but score. He finally gets a goal and his coach is. basically, like, doesn't even give him a moment. Well, apparently what the local media said was they didn't, in the room, like, on paper it looks bad, in the room, they didn't read it as a slam at all. In the Zoom room, yes. Yeah. Like, you know, actually hearing the quote as opposed to just reading it, because it looked

fucking insanely bad. And by the way, like, in some places you'd be like, oh, well, that's the local media. Like, no. The Buffalo media right now. Holy smokes. You see Mike Harrington go. I said to Ralph Kruger the other day, this team is a disgrace. I said that exact word to him.

Everybody's all in on them. It's great. It's great hockey market, man, and it's a terrible team. And again, like I say with the flames, if you're just from entertainment value from the outside, it's like the Sabres are one of the most interesting teams in the league right now, as long as you don't have to ever watch them play. Yeah. And you just hope that they have some kind of plans.

By the way, did you know? Did you know they have not played the Bruins yet this year? Oh, my God. Or the penguins. Or the penguins. And the penguins. We need to factor that in. Like when we're like, oh, you know, the Islanders are for, yeah, but the Islanders have

already used up a lot of their free Sabres games. They should just mark every game against the Sabres as a 5-2 win and just let everybody stay home. reduces COVID risk. Oh, my God. I just hope that they've got some. idea on how to get out of this and they're not just flying by the seat of their pants speaking to the seat of their pants today's episode is sponsored by mac weldon a premier premium men's essentials brand of believes in smart designs and high quality fabrics i am currently wearing mac weldon boxers underwear and nothing else oh no i'm definitely wearing other things uh i've seen what i look like sitting in a chair uh so their stuff is awesome man it's super comfy the underwear is super comfy the underwear is super comfy the

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Chris Johnston, who's just breaking all the news this week. The NHL's proposing changes of the draft lottery that would see teams limited to no more than two lottery wins in a five-year period. teams only allowed to jump 10 spots with lottery win and a reduction in the number of picks decided by the lottery from 3 to 2. Let's take all these one at a time. Teams limited to no more than two lottery wins in a five-year period. They'll be fine with that right up until a team that they feel like deserves to have won the lottery doesn't win the lottery and then they'll go, this is actually unfair.

to them. Is it wrong that like I kind of feel like five years might even be a little like I've maybe go like three? I don't know. My proposal years ago was I said that if you if you moved up to first

you should be out of the lottery for three years move up to second it's two, move up to third it's one. This feels like a little much but the other thing with this is and I don't know if this has been concerned but Drance had said that he was told that this refers to moving up in the lottery,

which is to say, Yeah, which is to say if you, if you finish dead last and you pick first, that would not count against you. So again, it's kind of like, and if that's true,

that is, you can absolutely see why they do that, right? Because all these GMs get in a room and they're all like, what if we're terrible at our job? How am I going to keep my job if I finish last every year? If I can't sell to my owner in the public

that this is all part of a grand plan, and I'm collecting all these great prospects. So you can see why they would do that. But at the same time, if the whole idea of the lottery is to discourage tanking, to say that the only way you can win the lottery is by finishing dead last, if you've already won it a couple of times, that seems counterproductive. I don't hate these changes, but it's kind of typical NHL, right? Like they create a system, the system allows certain things to happen.

Those things happen. They go, that's not what the system's supposed to do. And then they tweak it to something else. else by making relatively minor changes. It's, it's, it's, it's okay.

I don't, I don't, I don't hate these changes, but it's, it's certainly not like big, epic thinking on, on their part. It's,

it's, it's the same as almost everything in this league. It's 31 GMs, getting in a room and going, what makes our jobs as easy as possible, and that's, that's the only criteria for, which,

you know what, respect. I agree that, like, anything that just makes your job easier. Like, if you're the, if you're,

if you're, in a position at your job where you get to go, what if I took stuff off my plate and reduced my responsibility and people were just like, yeah, you get to decide that, that's fine. I'd be like, fucking let's go. What are we waiting for here? I've said before, like, if I get where the GMs are doing this, if I'm an NHL owner, I am calling up my GM and I'm saying,

how did you vote on this? And if he's like, yeah, I was all, you know, I don't know about, it. I'd be like, wait, so are you already thinking ahead to how we might finish last multiple times in the next five years? Because if you are, I don't want you to be my GM anymore. I want somebody who's in that room thinking, this won't apply to me because I'm going to be good at my job and my team's going to win games and not be at the bottom of the league year after year. But maybe that's just me. I mean, that's why I don't get to own an NHM team. I think I agree with, yeah, that's the only impediment. That it. Yeah. I agree with you guys that like, I think

it should be much more focused on teams that get the first overall pick. That's the real issue, right? Like is, you know, collecting multiple potential franchise players by finishing first and, you know, getting the first pick. I would come up with, I don't think winning the lottery necessarily, you know, then you get what the third pick at this point or something like is a big deal. But it's having that first overall pick like the Oilers had done, which would be the issue. But if Durrance is right, then this wouldn't impact what happened with the Oilers, because the oil is. That's what I'm saying. It should do that. And the other weird thing, and I'm not saying this should be a factor, but if they put this rule in as it's been described and enforced it immediately, like the one team that would be affected is the New York Rangers. So your biggest market U.S. team gets screwed over by a rule because they've moved up twice in the last couple of years. So, yeah. The other really interesting thing here was what I will, you know, colloquially call the Detroit Red Wing's rule. A reduction in a number of number of picks decided by lottery from three to two. That is Detroit saying, what the fuck,

we were historically terrible last year and we picked fourth. That is all this is. Yeah. And then Colorado goes, yeah, so were we a few years ago when we just drafted a franchise player and got good? But go ahead and I mean, it sounds like it's important. I love Red Wing fans who are like, it's not possible. It's like, dude, it happened three years ago. Our memories are not that short. They must have had a real hard on for Tim Sto. Goodslay. Yeah. Because, you know, to get this rule rolling is pretty amazing.

Three picks instead of four is, is okay. It's, it's, the problem is as soon as whatever the number is that you're guaranteed that if I finish last, I can pick no longer than X. If there are X franchise players available in a draft, the incentive not the tank goes away. And you get the 2015 situation, right, where it was you can only drop to two. You had McDavid and Ikel, two franchise players. So the coyotes and sabers and ever.

everyone else tanks. If three, I don't know, that would be, I can't remember the last time there was a draft where there was like three absolutely elite, like these are the three guys, franchise players a year out we know are going to be super good. So I'm not too worried about that. It was the Yakopov draft was the last time that happened. That was it. A couple quickies.

Friday is the one year anniversary of the pause. I got a big story kind of looking back on that. It's coming out this week. And it's pretty remarkable. It's remarkable because my context was being in Santa Clara County and experiencing the COVID thing maybe a week before the rest of the country started to experience it as far as like shit getting shut down. I still remember the sharks leaving for their road trip,

us doing a socially distanced media availability, and the sharks very much thinking that they were going to either play games in empty arenas on the road or just come back and play in an empty arena in San Jose after they were done with their road trip. And in no way, shape, or form ever thinking that this was going to be like the last time that we saw them until next January at home. Pretty crazy stuff. What do you remember about that moment? Yeah, honestly, I feel like, um,

I noticed it with college hockey even before because... A college hockey. No. Because, like, this was the week that, like, the conference playoffs were going to start. And they were like, okay, we don't know what we're going to do. And then they were like, okay, we're going to play them in empty arenas and only the press can show up. And then they were like, we're not doing them at all in the space of life. three days.

Like the, like they went from, oh, yeah, maybe we should play it a little bit safe to. We're definitely playing it safe to, uh, we're not doing it at all. And we'll see you in November. Hmm. Yeah, I remember one year ago today, I was trying to get organized because the next day we were flying the whole family down to Myrtle Beach for a vacation and to see the in-laws. and that felt like a rational thing to do. Like we knew that this thing was happening and going around and having an impact,

but it was like, yeah, we're still going to get on a plane and go down to a tourist location and spend the next week eating meals and restaurants. Just kissing everybody to eat, yeah. And it was like, you know, and I was, it was my kids' last day at school for a whole week. And I was trying to find time to, like, get to the gym because I wasn't going to get to go again for a whole whole. for a whole week. And it's, you know, and it was, to me, the date is always the March 11th, because that was the day that we flew down, got there, head lunch, went back to the in-laws place, got settled in. And by that evening, it was like the whole world had gone to hell because that was like, there was Tom Hanks and the NBA.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I remember when the NBA, I mean, that's everybody's marker. I guess. Most people's. That crazy moment where it was like the officials are meeting at. center court, like right before tip-off and like the players have left and now they're vacating the building and you're like, what the hell is going on? And then by- That was one of those, yeah,

and then by like Friday, we were like, we got to get out of here. Like, we got to get back to Canada now and figure out how we're going to do that. And it was this whole mess of a situation. It was crazy how quickly it changed in a few days. I remember being at the dog park and seeing on my phone that the NBA was going to postpone the game. And I'm just like, oh, boy. Just got your car, drove home. Yeah, exactly. You just could just see where it was going.

And even then for a while, it was like, oh, you know, we're going to be a few weeks without hockey. And then. Oh, yeah. All the people being like, they'll figure it out. I thought what they're going to figure. You know what it was for me was when they canceled the March Madness tournament, when they're like, we're just not doing that this year. That's where I was like, oh, okay. this might be a thing.

And I remember being like on a beach, like walking along the boardwalk in Myrtle Beach, like on the phone with work as we're doing like a company-wide conference call going, like what the hell are we going to do? The sports just shut down. That's nuts. That's the one thing I've learned from doing the story is how many people thought it was going to be so temporary. And then it ended up being awesome.

Well, we've done that. I mean, for the last year, it feels like we've constantly been like, all right, the finish line is here. And then it's like, it never is. Restaurants are open again, folks. Let's go. Yeah. All right, real quick, let's do an overrated, underrated real quick.

Lightning Round style. Alexi in the mailbag had a good one that we could do fairly quickly. NHL team logos. Overrated, underrated, favorite, least favorite. Ryan, overrated NHL team logo. I think people, I don't know how people feel about it, but I think the current Pittsburgh Penguins logo is, like, not as good as it could be. You like the more futuristic one?

No, I just think, you know what I really like is the old one with the, you know, like it's a little more cutesy. I kind of like that better than the current one, which is like, oh, he's actually very mad. What? Okay. Strange. Overrated. I'm going to go with the Canucks, partly because I really liked what they used to have.

It's just an angry animal kind of emerging from a letter. It's very standard issue. I don't know. I know a lot of people like it, but I'm not a fan. Overrated for me would be probably Tampa, to be honest with you. I think there's a number of different things that you could do logo-wise, where other than the sort of retro Flash Gordney thing that they have on their chest now, it's fine, but I think it could be better.

I think it's a little bit overrated. Underrated logo, Ryan. You know, I think it gets a lot of shit, and I think it's not as bad as people make. I don't think it's good, but I think it's not nearly as bad as people make it out to be, and that's Carolina's. Oh, wow. I think it's fine. And people are like, it looks like a toilet bowl, and it's like, I guess that's true, but also, like, if you're going to have a logo that's a hurricane from, like, satellite. photos, can't really like mix it up too much. You know what I mean? There's not a lot of

area to work with there, I guess is my point. I don't even know if this qualifies as underrated anymore, but I feel like there was a time where a lot of people didn't like it. I think the Golden Ice logo looks great. I agree. I really like it. And I, even when it first came out and people were like, oh, we don't like it because it was a new thing and hockey fans don't like anything new. I remember at the time being like, I think that's actually pretty good. And it's, it's thrown on me. For me, I'd say the Islanders are underrated.

I think I've got all the time in the world for a crest, like a real good looking crest. Yeah. And I think that we saw when they tried to pull out the NY and make it its own logo on those like janky black alternative jerseys that it doesn't work. But in totality, that's such a great logo. And, you know, maybe there's a little twinge of nostalgia there because my dad was an Islander fan before it became a Devils fan in our house had a bunch of dynasty shit in it. But I think that's, I've always loved the look of the, I was just, I was watching one of the Islander's Sabres games the other night. And I was like, damn, that is a really good logo. It's a good logo.

Yeah. Favorite logo. This is a ton one. There's a lot of good ones. There's a lot of good ones. You know what I, you know what I like? And Greg, you're going to love this. I fucking, I think the New Jersey Devil's logo fucking rocks. It's a good one. It is a good one. It's a good one. It's an NJ. It's got horns and a tail. Yep. It's perfectly balanced. It's a great logo.

And you could draw it. You could draw the logo. Yes, that's a big thing about logos. You can draw it. Dude, this is my pencil case test. A good sports logo is something a little kid can draw in their pencil case to show their fandom. Which is, if it, if, yeah, if those sharks brought back their old logo, that was one I felt like I drew all the time when I was in, like, third grade or whatever. they should really bring back that old logo

because now they're wearing like the reverse retroes and the throwbacks because it's their whatever 30th year anniversary or whatever it is. Like they should just bring that shit back. Everybody hates the new one. Everybody loves the old one. Very easy decision. My favorite is just, I mean, almost any old school one.

I like pretty much all of them. They were simple. They have history behind them, which is maybe not part of it. of the logo design, but it's hard to separate. So, I mean, any original six, even the seconds, like the flyers and blues and, and it's not that much more recent, but I also like the Buffalo Sabres one, because it's a Buffalo and then some Sabres.

Like, they're not, they're coming right down Main Street on you. Pretty straightforward, yeah. I would go, I mean, sharks are in contention just for being how cool it is. But again, not even the best logo. and team history. Yeah. Since you took the devils, I'll say the flyers were in contention, too.

I love that logo. I love the fact that it took me a long time to realize that it was a P. But it could also be a puck. It could be a lot of things. Boston. The Bruins logo. Hub of hockey.

It tells you all you need to know. Passes the pencil case test. It's, uh, yeah. Yep. Great logo. Ryan least favorite. Racism one. Go ahead.

Yeah. Okay. Am I not, you mean Montreal? That's right. Hey, this logo is racist. Remember we were saying last week? Yeah, that's right. Italians.

For me, Minnesota Wilde, I don't, I shouldn't have to read a 14 bullet point explainer of what exactly you're trying to do. I do, you know, to some extent, like, yeah, they got a little clever, but that one fails the pencil case test badly. Yeah. And look, I don't, I don't need to still be discovering subtle details in your logo years later. I will say though, that seeing it in the

golden and like bright green Yes. They're retro. It really wakes it up. Getting the red out of there, I think, makes a huge difference. They're really great. Least favorite for me. So the Colorado one, as you know,

I feel like should be refreshed. It's not my least favorite. At least it's attractive. I just think it's a little outdated and can use the refresh. Least favorite for me comes down to two. It's either Anaheim or the Capitals. And it's a tough one. It may be a tie.

I think ultimately it's probably Anaheim because they clearly have a much better logo than that to go with. But the Capitol's current logo, go look at that fucking retro jersey, man. Go back to the Eagle. Just do something. Because this logo is... I think the Eagles suck, too, though. Yeah, I didn't like the... The Capitol Building.

Do something different. The writing is doing. Yes, I agree that this one stinks. But what was the other one you said? Oh, fuck, no. Ducks. No, the one where you said it should be... Oh, Avalanche.

The Avalanche. They should do that... Remember that, like, all over Jersey they did last year? Yep. They should do that, but, like, shrunk down to logo size, because I thought that looked fucking awesome. Yep. All right.

So... That's it. I'm Greg from ESPN. Read me at ESPN. Hopefully for a long time. It's exciting times. Ryan? E.P. Rinkside, sign up. We got all the good people over there. Dmitri and David San Luis and Jack Frazier and I'm probably forgetting some people, but that's all I can remember off the top of my head. We're covering the NHL now. We're doing prospect stuff, so check it out.

Find me on the athletic. Listen to my podcast with Ian Mendez, the athletic hockey show. And I don't necessarily want to tease it too much because I don't know if I'm going to get it done for the end of this week or early next week. But Sabers fans, keep an eye out. I got something that I think you will appreciate. Are you talking anonymously to five different captains to have them shit all over the team? Yeah. No, I'm breaking news of the Jack Eichael trade.

Are you kidding me? Oh, great. That's awesome. Oh, yeah, and all the details of the bonus episode this month are on the Patreon. It depends on when you hear this podcast. It's a live call-in show. We are doing it Thursday night. The people on the Discord are the ones that can call in.

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