Puck Soup - Night Torts

Episode Date: April 1, 2025

Sean and Ryan talk about the John Tortorella firing, the standings, the Blues, and more. Sponsored by Raycon (buyraycon.com/puck)

I'm Ryan Lambert from Elite Prospects. I'm Sean McIndoo from the NHL. I got a new job. I'm the commissioner of the NHL now. Pretty cool. April Fool's. You did it, folks. Oh, I got you guys.

You should have seen the look on your face. You all bought it. I have a pitch for you, by the way. Yeah, let me hear it. What if it was like April Cool's Day? Okay. And we just all wear sunglasses all day. All right.

That's like a cool guy thing to do. Leather jackets, maybe. Slick bag hair. Smoke cigarettes? What do you think? Okay. I'm on board. I don't know.

I'm actually, I don't work at the NHL. I'm from the athletic. Just in case. It'd be weird if this was anyone's first time show when they were like brief. What a thing. Damn rugpole. Yeah. Yeah, so it was a pretty eventful week at the new employer, Sean McIndoo, the National Hockey League.

You want to start with the John Tortorella news? Yeah. Yeah, only because that all happened after our show, right? Like, we, yeah, yeah, yeah, Tuesday morning, and it was Tuesday night that things, I guess I was going to say started to go sideways. They had already lost to Chicago by then. Yeah, they were on like I think a 42 game losing streak at this point.

But the big, the thing that they always teach you in coaching school is wait until your team goes to Toronto to do weird stuff in front of the media. That's really what you want to focus on. And yeah, towards... did exactly that. So let's get into it. So he's out and there was initially some confusion as to whether he had quit because he's like,

I'm not interested in learning how to coach in a season like this. Okay, man, we get it. You're a cool winner guy. But then it was more like, no, he got fired for saying he didn't want to coach the team anymore. and maybe also getting into it with Cam York in a way that crossed the line details on that. As far as I know, still TBD, or to be revealed. But not the reports were, it didn't get physical, but certainly got maybe pretty heated. And that some of that may have been beyond just Cam York being mad that he wasn't playing.

again, Tuesday night, Cam York plays the first 10 minutes, and then he gets benched for the rest of the game. That the Flyers only had the six defensemen dress, so that means five guys had to play the rest of the night, and this is a team that's coming off a long trip, and they've had a lot of games, and they're kind of wiped,

and that some of it may have been like, hey, man, you screwed over five other guys to make a point with one guy. Yep. Which, yeah, that does sound like a little bit of a tortie thing to do. You don't say. So I guess, you know, from the point of view of John Tortorella isn't used to coaching teams this bad. I can see why at age 65 or however old John Tortorella is.

You're like, I got to fucking put up with this shit and, like, have people. stick a microphone in my face would go like, why, you know, to me, A, that's part of the job. But B, he's been around long enough and had enough success in this league where you're like, yeah, it makes total sense that he'd be like, fuck this, man. That sucks. Yeah. And I think the implication was that the this he's referring to isn't just the fact that the team is bad, but that they are intentionally bad, strategically bad.

Right. And I mean, okay, so I don't have the stats in front of me right now. I'll see if I can pull them up really quickly. But when he made those comments, they were like 8th, 10th, 12th in the league and expected goals 4 percentage. Like, they were playing pretty well in all situations and at 5 on 5 and that kind of thing. And they were getting, this is the stat I do remember off the top of my head, the worst goal tending in the advanced stats era. like bar none, worse save percentage,

like 870 something. Like, you know, we'd say this all the time. Goaltending that wouldn't have been acceptable in 1986. And he's getting that in 2025. And that's part of the like, the frustration I would have to imagine of,

again, like a bunch of reporters going, why is this team suck? And he can't just go, have you seen who our fucking goalies are? These guys couldn't stop traffic, man. Like, like, cars would pass through them. It wouldn't be a meet Joe Black situation, you know?

Yep. And, like, that's really kind of what it boils down to for me is, like, this. They're also getting, like, kind of historically bad, like, power play luck, I want to say. Like, their shooting percentage on the power play is really, really bad. And, like, you can't really have answers for that other than, like, you see. say, seems like they really wanted us to suck this year. And that's like decision being made above me and I'm doing the best I can. Yeah.

So he makes the comments on Tuesday night. And I had a conversation about it Wednesday morning on the other podcast on the athletic show. And I was sort of like, is this a big, isn't this weird that somebody would say that? Not that he would express frustration, not that he would, as several people pointed out, Tortorella has always been very good at diverting attention towards himself and away from players who maybe don't want to have to answer for things. So was this just torts being torts or was it something more than that? And the thing that I kept going back to was the I'm not interested in learning quote. Right. Which, man, and at the time, we didn't know anything about the, we knew Cam York had been bench,

but we didn't know there had been an incident or anything like that. And then it was, what, Thursday that they made the announcement? Yeah, Thursday morning. So pretty obviously directly related to Tuesday now. Although it doesn't sound like, I don't know, reading between the lines, I would say he was probably going to finish the year and then they were going to have a hard look at him moving on. And instead they decided to do it now. As opposed to he was part of the long term plan, everything was great.

And then Tuesday happens and they go, we got to fire this guy just based on Tuesday. It was more of a maybe not even a last straw because maybe that they had already reached that point. The last draw was three weeks ago, yeah. But this was the, okay, now we're not just going to. do this for three weeks of having this hanging over and we're just going to make the move. And make them to a very obvious interim coach with like not even, there doesn't even seem to be a nod towards. Oh, no.

Yeah, they barely said this guy's the interim head coach. They were just like, I don't know, you're up. Like you coached 20 years ago for like half a season. Get in there. Yeah. And the other thing to say is that Tortorella has one year left. on his contract after this one. So it seems like they were, you know, again, this is, this is maybe part of the, like,

he quit, he got fired, who knows. And then, you know, we did end up knowing. But it just seems like this is kind of the, this is what was kind of maybe not agreed upon, but understood to be happening, you know, two weeks from now when the season's over. And the Flyers missed the playoffs by a mile. but again, like, it makes sense because when they hired John Tortorella, I remember thinking to myself, why are they doing this?

Don't they know this is going to make them too competitive? Mm-hmm. Like, it just, it always seemed like it was at odds with what the, what the goal should have been. Well, I'm sure someone's going to go back and listen to me, you know, find that, fine that I said, I love. the whatever, you know. That's my opinion today, but I just, it always seems like Tortorella gets more out of teams than he should look at last year, et cetera, et cetera. Which maybe that is the reason you hire him because, I mean, how many times if we talked in the last, certainly over the course of this season about, does full on tanking actually work? or look at these teams, Buffalo,

forever now, Chicago seems to be falling into that territory. There are others where they openly tank and then they just can't get out of it. And is it a case where you say, you know what? Yeah, we'll get a few more loser points. We'll maybe get an extra half dozen points that keep us out of drafting, of having the 20% chance to draft first overall.

Yeah, we'll pick nine. guy who's going to teach the young players. We do have the right way, the right things, and set us up for success, whether it's with him or somebody else down the line, instead of putting in a guy who's maybe over his head who gets us to dead last, but then when it's time to flip the switch, what have we got? Right. Yeah, I mean, I think that.

there was an understanding, you know, again, this is, this is me looking back like two years ago and trying to remember what I thought. But you can see what the Flyers were thinking with that to your point. But also, you can see like, oh, that probably isn't going to work, right? And also, like, is that what they need? Because they, you know, it's the same thing with what the Bruins are doing now, or it's like, will they tank? Will they actually go all, like, and maybe hiring Tortorella was seen as the middle road where it's like, you know, we might not pick like fifth or first, but we'll pick seventh or ninth, you know. And I don't know. I just think that there always was going to be a situation where the older guys were, you know, timing-wise misaligned for, like, they were all going to be out of their, their primes or, or, or,

you know, relatively close to it. Um, by the time the Mitch Cove's of the world were, were ready to be, you know, 23, 24, 25 years old, right? So I don't know. To me, it's just like you, like I say, you get it from every point of view, why the Flyers were like, oh, this isn't working. Why Tortorello was like, I don't want to be even fucking involved in this shit. I'm, I got two Jack Adams at home, you know, that kind of thing.

But ultimately what happened. is like they just they just kind of spent two years being not as bad as they should have been. Yep. Yeah. I don't know. They kind of did. And we'll find out. I mean, two years from now, if we're talking about, oh, they rebound it pretty quickly and maybe we say, you know what?

Yeah. They did the right thing by focusing on development rather than tanking. Or, yeah. Two years from now, they very much could be in a situation where it's like now we have to start tanking because we didn't bite the bullet and do what we had to do. Yeah. Well, I'll tell you, you want to talk about development. It seems like, you know, John Tortorella going away turned Medvedev into Wayne Gretzky. This guy loves not playing for John Torterella anymore.

Yep. He doesn't get ban. He doesn't get healthy scratched. He doesn't, you know, get yelled at for not backchecking one time. He's like, ah, I guess what I'm going to do now is just go score a goal on every other shift. How's that sound? Yeah, and that works. That has, that has helped.

Hard to argue. But, yeah, other than that. You think he's back in the Calder race with that? No, I think I think the ship has sailed. Well, I mean, look, if you keep scoring like this, the rest of the? the season. He's going to get up around like 30 goals or whatever. And then you're, you're like, okay, well, we can talk about it. But no, I think, um, it's funny because I think in the last week, week and a half, maybe even two weeks, Hudson, Elaine Hudson has really

emerged as kind of the favorite, I think, um, because it looks like Calgary's not going to make the playoffs now. And, although, you know, hey, one pretty good for them last night. But it just, it feels like people are, we thought about it with Dustin Wolf and now we decided no. I think that's probably, yeah, I think we're probably back down to the two-man race, but. Yeah. Just trying to find some optimism for Flyer fans. Yeah, I mean, Mitch Groff just had that huge slump in the middle of the season. Yeah.

You know? So, tough. But it was always, it was always going to be a stacked year. So, correct me if I'm wrong. wrong, but wasn't it at the beginning of the year? It was like Celebrini had, like, was the favorite, but like Mitchcoff was pretty close behind him. And then Hudson felt like more of the value pick. Yeah.

So, yeah. For me, Mitchcoff was never really all the way in the race, although, you know, started well in January, not so much, you know. What do you do with, what do you do with Cam York for the flyer? Cam, thank you for your service. You know, we're going to, there's a lot of reasons I wouldn't be like super psyched to have Cam York on my roster in, in 2025, 26. But. And he's, he just never feel. Am I?

I believe that's right. So they. But he just never feels like he, um, reached the, the way that the flyers viewed him as a prospect. You know what I mean? Yeah. And I guess, you know, we. four, 25? 25, I think I just saw.

Sheesh, man. So not really a prospect anymore. Young player. No. Upside, but not so young that you're necessarily willing to put up with a bunch of disruptions. Although, again, we don't know the situation. It could be everybody in the locker room was completely sick of Tortorella, and the 25-year-old was the one who stood up and told them to go stuff it. and, you know, everyone, everyone cheered.

Everyone did the slow clap. And, you know, Walt Tortorella does the, you know, Tim Robinson leaving the haunted house, walk out the door. But the fact that he was, I guess we should mention, benched for the entire first game under Bradshaw, would suggest that he, uh, the Flyers didn't necessarily love. whatever happened, was benched, was dressed, but did not play the entire game.

Basically what happened the game before that in a lot of ways. Which is, when I first heard that, I really perked up because that is like, that's the ultimate humiliation for a player. Is no, you're going to put on your uniform, you're going to dress, you're going to take the warm up, and then you're going to go sit on the end of the bench for 60 minutes. Now, like, if you're a Bruins fan or a Leafs fan, you remember them like Steve Casper doing it to Cam Neely at Maple Leaf Gardens and it was just a huge thing that how could you possibly do that to a guy

who's given that much and blah, blah, blah. But as it turns out, they had no other defensemen that they had access to. So it was maybe understandable. Like, had they benched him, like scratched him, go sit in the press box, they would have had to play with five defensemen. So it was kind of like, and which, of course, means they did play with five defensemen,

but if somebody gets injured or kicked out of the game, now you're down to four. Now, let's just, let's have them there. So. Yep. So when is the Rick Tocet press conference? Yeah, I mean, so I think you got to start with what's going on in Vancouver when you talk about Rick Tockeet. And it seems like, again, probably not going to make the playoffs. I haven't actually looked at the odds today.

But I got to think they're pretty low for the Canucks at this point. Let's see here. The Vancouver Canucks are at 7.7% to make the playoffs. That's, in my opinion, not where you want to be. Okay. Yeah. So you would like to be higher than that? Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Well, again, you know, if I'm the sharks, I'm loving 7.7%. That's right. Yeah. I'm like, fuck, man. What a season. That's the fire. We got to get this guy.

Yeah, that's right. But yeah, if you're the Canucks, like, you can say, you know, guys got hurt or whatever this year. But this is a fucking disaster for you. Yeah. And it seems as though, from the reporting, I can kind of suss out here, Rick Tock, it has a team option for next season. And it seems like the Canucks like, don't want to necessarily exercise that or he wouldn't want them to exercise that and he would make make that a problem.

So it's more of a situation of he wants a new contract, which according to Elliot Friedman, they have offered him, but he didn't like what the number or whatever the terms were. They've offered him something and he said no. We all know from previous situations that it is completely impossible for a coach. on the final year of his contract to do his job. Players can do it. Players do it all the time. But a coach, you just, you know, everybody will just cover their ears and not listen to anything you say if you don't have a multi-year contract. So.

Well, that's the, that's where the team option thing comes in because they could exercise it, but it seems like they don't want to. But if they do, he's not going to be. He's then a lame duck coach. Right. in the sense that he's in the last year of his deal. And would be even lamer than most because, yeah, we all sort of assume. It just makes too much sense to say, okay, Vancouver's had a bad year. They've had the sort of year you would be looking at a coaching change, I think, under the best circumstances,

especially given all the drama and crap that happened in the room and around that team. plus your coach isn't signed. Plus your coach doesn't necessarily seem like he wants to say. Plus there's an opening at the organization that he played for where the fans still love him and dot, dot, dot. Yep. Or this is all a wonderful coincidence that's going to help Rick Tocket get a much bigger contract than he normally would.

He was the Jack Adams winner last year, was he not? He was a finalist, I know. He was a finalist. I'll look that up, but, yeah, to your point, you know, I think everyone was like, oh, maybe this guy's a really great coach. And he did win the Jack Adams last year. Yeah, great. That sounded right.

He was the best coach in the entire league last year. It's crazy how this keeps. happening. Yeah. Wait a second. The guy who's the best coach in the league is going to like not have that job anymore. I wonder what, oh, his team stopped shooting 12%.

Huh. Yeah. It's crazy. Anyway, congratulations Jim Montgomery on your upcoming. Yeah. Would would talk it be your choice if you're the Flyers? I mean, because for all the jokes, he's, he is a good coach. He's an experienced coach.

He is, even if you, like, I'm, and I think you and I are on the same page on this, as soon as I hear about a team hiring a former player, a former star player, I kind of go, there's, what are the odds that this guy is the best, is actually the best candidate? But if the reigning Jack Adams winner were to become available, that might be the best option, wouldn't it be? Yeah. Well, I mean, it's going great, obviously, with former flyer Keith Jones and former flyer Danny Breyer locked in there.

You know, everybody seems to be really loving that. Apparently, Bobby Clark is back involved now again, like giving advice and that sort of thing. How old is Bobby Clark now? He would, I mean, he must be in his 70s, right? He was a star in the 70s. And the 1970s was, well, that was like 20 years ago. So you do the math. He's got to be an old guy.

He's probably well into his 40s by now. I don't know. But yeah, you know, it's, you don't want to get into a situation where you're the, where you're the like 2000s Edmonton Oilers and you're just like, you took a shift here 40 years ago. Come on down. Like, let's make this happen. Yeah, like I think Talkett is the coach who gets you to the coach that, you ultimately have success with or, you know, maybe don't if your, if your rebuild doesn't go too

good. Good news for the Canucks, I guess. Well, that's exactly right. Like, I think that you can, you can look at what he did for the Canucks in a lot of ways and say there were certain positives in it. There were certain players who's like, hey, didn't we, didn't we always think Brock Besser was going to figure it out? And then Brock Besser figured it out under Rick Tocket.

And then they were like, actually, we think Brock Besser. best or sucks and we're going to trade him and then they didn't do that either. So I don't know. Like, I guess I'd have to see the list of other options. Like, I'm not, I'm not sitting there and going, well, you know, it's either him or John Cooper is taking the flyers job. You know what I mean? Where there's like a super obvious guy you'd hire instead.

But at the same time, it's like, I don't know, man. I've watched the Canucks the last two years. I don't think that team's any good. So how much of that is Rick Tocket? Seems like some. Maybe. I think you could do worse. Yeah, you could certainly do worse.

Although it was interesting. Kevin at the Athletic had a piece on some of the candidates, including not just Rick Tocket, but Mike Sullivan. He had listed, which is very interesting. Okay, sure. I'm trying to remember there was one other guy. that is currently employed somewhere that could shake free. I didn't see this list. I'd have to think about that.

But the other name that was, it's just funny to me, I'm scrolling, and I just hit Jay Woodcroft. And I was like, oh, damn, yeah, Jay Woodcroft is still kicking around. And remember, remember at the beginning of the season, Jay Woodcroft showed up in Philadelphia with torts. Oh, that's right, yeah. There was that where I had completely forgotten that. But so, I mean, that's, uh,

that's maybe an option too. So there are some pretty good names out there, and there is still Joel Quinville kicking around. Peter Lavillette was the other name. There you go. That one makes sense. Former Flyers coach. They went to a cup final last time, right?

Quite possibly. Let's just say currently employed, but check back. The Monday after the season ends, and yeah, we'll see. All right, so we talked about the Canucks. Let's talk about the rest of the West Wildcard situation. You wrote about this over the weekend. Flames seven points back of the Blues, but with three games in hand.

So technically kind of still around it, but not. really. But the team that is, to me, the most interesting, the blues are the hottest team in hockey right now. What is it, nine in a row? Yep. For them. But the Minnesota Wild, these guys, you know, for a litany of reasons, have played their

way out of a divisional playoff spot and now playing like they don't even want to be in a wild card spot. Yeah. And the divisional, I'm not surprised. I think we all, once Winnipeg got off to the crazy start, we all kind of figure it was going to be Winnipeg, Dallas, Colorado. Like, you're almost playing for fourth place at that point. But yeah, the wild have been up and down, I think, would be a polite way to put it.

And so the question is, there's still a point ahead of the blues. But is this now, is it the wild spot that is up there? They're a half game ahead of the Blues now because they have 87 points with a game in hand. They both have 87 points, but the Wild have a game in hand. And the Wild, did they not use that game last night? Oh, wait. You know what? I had not hit Refresh.

Yeah. Got to hit refresh those. Wait a second. No, I just hit refresh. Oh, wait. Uh-oh. I did hit refresh. And it's the stupid thing now where the NHL does the date in the URL.

Dude, I get tripped up. showing me yesterday's standings. I get tripped up by that so much. I hate this fucking website. You're right, though. They did use the game in hand last. I would be embarrassed to tell you how far I have gotten into articles. Righting of those teams based on weak old standings.

And then like, oh, oh, no, they won three in a row after that. Damn it. Okay. And then I just swap in some other Western Conference team because nobody. Every once in a while, I'll type in like NHL. dot com slash standings and it'll be like and you want this from like January 19th right and it's like fuck off yeah you got it an annoying stupid website how do they make it well how did they make the functionality worse this isn't this isn't like an old problem that they haven't fixed this is a

new thing what was the website that it used to be that you there used to be a standings website that you could go back and check the dates yeah and that was the only thing anyone ever used it for because it was like pretty useless otherwise. Yes. The NHL was like we're going to crush these guys. They did it. And in doing so hurt them. Well, did they hurt themselves or did they hurt sick fox like us?

You know? Just like losers who are, you know, obsessively reloading to see if the Dallas stars have used their game in hand on the Colorado Avalanchea. Dude, I once had a like a full-on conversation. with like the guy who does the way, or at least the guy who a few years ago did the standings page for the NHL because they took away the, there used to be a column for like their next game.

Mm-hmm. Like next opponent and the date. And I found that really useful because if I was writing, I wanted to like write away know like, okay, who's got a game tonight, who's not playing for a few days where I can safely say some things about them and, you know, what do I need to be aware of?

and the guy like they took that off and I was like come on man you gotta put that back and he was like you're literally the only person I've ever heard who used that call like that is that was just for you and I was like all right put it back they didn't yeah so what's the problem here it sounds like you're talking to you know if you can read one person that's right you got to meet people where they are they always say. But yeah, anyway, so that means with me having reloaded to the correct page, the Calgary Flames are five points back of the St. Louis Blues with two games in hand, just to get that on the record. But also, you know, it's funny because people are like, oh, wouldn't it wouldn't now be the best time to have the play-in games for the playoffs? And because all these teams are fighting for these last spots and, you know, these

games would matter and blah, blah, blah. Obviously, this applies more to the east where there's a lot closer, you know, four teams are within three points of the last playoff spot. But to me, it's just like, I don't know, man, the Calgary Flames have a minus 23 goal difference. I don't feel like I need to see these guys in the fucking playoffs, you know? That's fair. That is fair.

Although, I mean, if we had the play in, then it would be, we'd have Utah in the mix now, too, which. for a new team would maybe be good news. But the interesting thing is the wild seven games left, they do play the flames and the Canucks one time each. Back-to-back games on the road. Feeling like maybe that won't matter much for the Canucks. But I think somebody was basically said,

like, the Canucks would need to go like seven and one and then hope the Blues go 500. Not impossible, but... Quinn Hughes, how do you feel about playing 61 minutes a night on average for the next eight games? We're going to go to overtime a couple times where you're not allowed to come off the ice in overtime either. Here's my question on the West. How long does this blues hot streak have to continue before you stop thinking, oh, they're going to make the playoffs and then get crushed in round one.

And you start going, I'd be a little nervous if I was the Jets and or Golden Knights because those are going to be the top two seeds. I, man, do you want to, like, there's lots of research to show that being hot or cold heading into the playoffs doesn't matter as much as you would think. It's not zero, but it's not much. but I mean, you know, they go into the playoffs And a 16 game win streak

Are we really Picking them to lose in five To the Golden Knights? I wouldn't pick them to lose To lose to the Jets in that scenario Just because, you know, It's all percentage It's not all percentages with the Jets

But it's a lot of percentages What would the goalie matchup be in that series? I don't want to think about it. Bittington, has that happened before? I don't think so. No? Okay. I feel like it did, but I'll take your word for it. I'm trying to remember. I guess, no, I think it hasn't. I think they've never had a game against each other.

Okay. Interesting. That's weird. Yeah. But yeah, you're going to catch me up on, oh, so this is when I knew, so I saw this, I think, on like, Sunday night, Monday morning. I can't remember which now. But this is when I knew that the NCAA tournament had like taken my full attention over the weekend. There was a tweet that, you know, got a fair amount of likes that was like, hockey Twitter has been so funny the last three and a half. This is from 37 Kinectney. Hockey Twitter has been so funny the last 3.5 days because Torts fired and suddenly

Mitch Koff is God and the flyers are decent again. And Torts and Cam York went at it in Toronto, question mark, question mark, question mark. then poor Maclin Celebrini's car got hit by the Rangers team bus and Matthew Cichuk has lice question mark, question mark, question mark. The Matthew Cichuck thing I maybe got to the bottom of and it seems like it was a joke that people like thought was plausible enough that it wasn't taken as a joke. That seems to be it. I should say I am slowly but surely vanishing from Twitter. Yeah, same here. So I did, and this, the, like, I heard about Macklin's celebrini getting,

See, that, that completely passed me by. Yeah. So he is the Rangers team bus and somebody made the joke that like, oh yeah, normally it's Chris Drury, puts his own players under the bus, but this time it was, apparently his Macklin Celebrity's little, I don't know what car he's, rookies drive in this league. Oh, I'm sure. It's a 1998 Honda Civic is the car that he...

Something like that. Got hit by the Rangers team, which as far as I know, means now somebody on the Sharks has to fight the Rangers team bus. You just... You got it. I mean, what do we do at the... Well, someone on the Sharks' car has to fight the Rangers team bus. Does that...

You know what they need to do? We need to get the Sharks and the Rangers on top of the arena in monster trucks. Yeah, you're exactly right. 195 Halloween Havoc style and just have them fight it out sumo monster truck. And then Matt Ramby gets thrown off the building. I'm going to keep going with this metaphor until there's two people left listening. So who's driving who's driving grave dicker? I feel like that's, uh...

It's probably Pete Levea Lett, right? I mean, it is, yeah. I guess it will be. I'll tell you, when I went to the draft in Nashville, I'm walking to the arena for day two. They're back in in all the famous monster trucks. I saw them all. I saw that, man. That was exciting.

They were all there. They didn't do anything. But they were, I've got pictures on the camera roll that I sent to like my son and got like no reply because. He's just like who's Bigfoot? What? It's like, is this like real life Rocket League stuff? It's like, no, you little brat. They were so loud.

That's the thing I remember about the monster trucks. I couldn't believe how fucking loud they were. And I was like, and people go sit in an arena and just watch these guys? Wait, is that why Craig Burubei was in such a hurry to get out the door later that day? Did he have like a monster truck situation happening? He climbed into Bigfoot and drove away. He got to sit in it and do the, do the rope ladder. they lowered for.

Trump in a fire truck, you know, honed the horn and get all excited. Um, so yeah, what else happened in the NHL this weekend? Anything of note? Matthew Kichuk has lice. That was the one that was a,

like I said, Celebrini I heard about that one. I had no idea until I saw like, some trending something. And I, that was the first, I feel like in a long time, that was the first purely Twitter thing

that I was like, nope, no idea. Do not, don't get it, don't understand. Yeah, and it was like two days early for damn April Fool's Day, which I think should be called April Cool's Day. No, I don't know. Matthew Kuchuk has a leather jacket.

Now, that's a joke we can all laugh about. That would be, that would be hilarious. Oh, man. What else? I mean, the Columbus Canucks game on Friday night was absolutely insane. That was the 7 to 6 game. Where they kept scoring. like dramatic goals with like 30 seconds left.

And it was like, unbelievable. And then the other team would score 10 seconds later. And you'd be like, okay, I guess we're going over. Nope, no, we're not. That's another go. Oh, hold on. That was fun. And then I think it went to shootout, so who cares?

But, yeah. I feel like the playoff races aren't that good and fans are making their own entertainment now. That's fine. Yeah. That says it should be. Here's the thing is it seems as though, again, I didn't see a single hockey game in the NHL this weekend. I watched every NCAA game instead.

But it seems to me that nobody in the East really wants to be... I'll just read you all these teams last 10 games. Montreal 4-3-3-3-3. The Rangers 4-5-1. Columbus, 6-1. Detroit, 4-6-0. Islanders three, four, and three. Like, nobody wants, they all stink.

That's, that's my, that's my expert opinion here is all these teams are bad. This is all going to end with the Rangers making it after all. Yes, we've been saying it for two months, but yeah, it is. And winning two rounds. Is that the, is that the, the, the way that this ends up? Yeah. Um, but that's not true. We haven't, because every, the Rangers have been doing this, they go six,

three and one and then they go four, five, and one. And then they go seven, two, and one. You know, they're always just giving away enough points, even when they're winning that you're like, the Rangers, though. But to my point earlier, the Rangers are a plus two goal difference team right now. And the team ahead of them is minus 26.

And Columbus is the team immediately below them, minus eight, you know. Right now there is a team with a negative goal difference in a wild card spot in each conference. This shouldn't be allowed. You don't have a positive goal difference. You can't outscore your opponents over 82 games. You shouldn't be allowed to be in the playoffs.

Just first round by to. Ironically, it would be the Capitals who were that team last year. That's right. But then they proved us all wrong in the playoffs. Then that's why Spencer Carverie, a guy. Yeah. Oops. But that's why Spencer Carverie.

can't win the Jack Adams this year. Unfortunately, they made the playoffs last year, so it's not surprising that they did it this year. The one other thing I thought was really funny looking at the standings yesterday is four teams in the West have been official. They have the little E next to their name. And no teams.

The Buffalo Sabres still are technically alive in the Easter conference. Right there, baby. What a disaster. That's unbelievable. 68 points for, I mean, The three worst teams in the league are in the West. But, yeah, now they're cracking her out.

And savers, the Bruins could be the first team out. They're certainly trending in that fucking direction. Negative 51 gold. I was shocked. In my weekend column, I was like looking at, I was like, the Bruins could still finish bottom five in this league. They could finish bottom four. Let's do it.

Five straight regulation losses. I mean... That's how you tank, baby. Got a tank. That's how you do it. Yep. Oh, and the other thing, I guess, is I did see that Ovechkin scored again on Sunday. He did.

Yeah. So are you... Five away with nine to go? I have seen some people starting to get nervous about this, whether it's going to happen. Or whether we're going to have the crappy scenario of, like, waiting all summer for him to score one goal. Did I say this last week that I knew the Ovechkin thing was a big deal because my friend who isn't really a hockey knower at all texted me. He's like, is Ovechkin going to do it this year? And I was like, seems like maybe not now.

But he could. Hell, they play the ruins tonight. Five goals incoming, you know. Do it. So, yeah, I feel like that's all that happened in the NHL otherwise this weekend. I do want to talk about the blues after the break here in a second. But is that it? I think that's on ice stuff.

Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Great. Okay. Well, then why don't we take a break? And we'll come back and we'll talk about the good old St. Louis Blues. This week's episode of Puck Soup is brought to you by Raycon and folks.

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when you go to buy raycon.com slash puck, that's buy raycon.com slash puck. All right, we're back. And let's talk about the St. Louis Blues. Again, the hottest team in hockey winners of nine in a row. And what's really interesting, of course, is that we've said this plenty of times recently. But it turns out that hiring a guy who averages like 110 points per 82 games, that's good. Yeah. Since they hired him, they are 12th in the league in all situations expected goals.

And let's see here, if the thing wants to work. They are seventh in the league in all situations goals for percentage. So they're playing very well, and they're getting maybe a little lucky, but I would argue they were probably a little unlucky before they hired him. And so maybe that's these things coming out in the wash. But I guess what's your, you know, we kind of talked about it a little bit earlier. But like what's your big like blues take for, you know, as the playoffs approach? I am not yet at the point where I'm considering them a contender.

But yeah, I mean, they've been a great story. The coaching change is the big piece of it. It's impossible to not at least think a little bit about 2019 when they made a coaching change around the same time of the year, went to Craig Barubi, and we know how that turned out. This feels different, but I just think it's a fascinating lesson for GMs around the league. Because keep in mind, they had a coach. their coach was fine. It's not like they fired the coach because he stunk and then Jim Montgomery fell in their laps.

They had a guy who had just started the job. Frankly, had not been given a fair opportunity. But the opportunity presented itself to upgrade. And, you know, I say that not as a knock on Drew Bannister, but just because Jim Montgomery is potentially one of the better coaches in the league. Absolutely. Doug Armstrong jumped at it. He made a move that it feels obvious,

and yet I feel like most teams would not do this. Most teams who had a guy who had had the full-time job. Remember, Dubanister takes over from Burubei last year as an interim. He gets the full-time job. It's his first full season. It's the first time he's got to run a camp. He's 20 games in. There are a few games under 500.

They're not expected to be a very good team. and a Jack Adams level coach shakes free. And Darg Armstrong goes, well, sorry, life's not fair. I'm going to go and get the guy. It's the sort of, I'm fascinated when this happens because as somebody who like played a lot of sports video games as a kid, there are certain things that like you would do in a sports video game, but you know in real life they don't do. Like this is what you, right, if you had a coach and you're, Your coach was like rated a 70 and suddenly a guy rated an 88 was available.

You'd be like, oh, screw it. I'm just going to fire this guy and hire the new guy. Who's better? Sometimes video game logic is right. And it seems like it was potentially, I don't know if I say season saving, because I don't know what it means to save a season if you're still probably going out in the first round. But season defining, at least, it's a hell of a move. It was a big swing.

like it. Huge swing. Yeah. And, you know, I think it's obviously worked insofar as they're winning a lot of hockey games these days. And, you know, setting themselves up for success really well. And not just that, but, you know, it seems like he's kind of figured, like Dylan Holloway, over a point of game, since, since Montgomery came. on board. Robert Thomas well over, not well over, six points over a point of game, but that's a

decent amount, I guess. Jordan Kairun, not exactly on that level, but also does have 25 goals in 53 games, you know? Um, Zach Boldock has 16 goals. And again, some of this is just like shooting percentage, et cetera, et cetera. But like, it just feels like he's kind of, um, getting a little more out of all the players that we were like, hey, that guy got a big contraction. That guy'd be better, you know? And with Holloway, you know, like you said, it was like 20 games before the coaching change happened.

So maybe not. But I don't know. I just look at it and it feels like he's putting these guys in a position to, you know, be really good. And they're delivering on that. with the exception of Jordan Bennington, who continues to be, sometimes, you know, there will be like a five-game stretch where he looks like the Jordan Bennington who won them a Stanley Cup almost single-handed. And then he looks like the Jordan Bennington that I think of Jordan Bittington as being. You know what I mean?

Don't you dare talk trash about Canadian National Hero Jordan Biddington? You know what? Those were four games or whatever. he looked like that, the Jordan Bennington we were all talking about earlier. I mean, it was kind of one period, if we're being honest. Sure. That was enough. And here's the thing that I think is interesting, because we just talked in the first segment about Tortoralla and, you know,

saying, oh, yeah, well, I mean, Rick Tock and, oh, they shot 12%. And I get where some people listening to this might be like, well, isn't this just what's happening to the blues? And you guys are doing the same thing, giving the coach credit and this and that. And maybe we are, but Montgomery does have the reputation as a very good coach. And when things do coincide with the new coach coming in, it's not necessarily cause and effect. But it's hard not to connect those dots. So.

Yeah. And again, like the, the blues are in a different position than the flyers are. Right. Right. Like, are they? I mean, were they four months ago? I think in in terms of like Cairo and Thomas's age and and like

just the best players on the on the blues are are a little on the younger side you know and I'm not saying they didn't they they didn't need to rebuild and certainly they um they were setting themselves up for for being a rebuilding team right like the succession with their GM and all that kind of thing, like getting announced two years in advance or whatever. Like, that made you think, okay, this is going to be kind of a down couple of years. But like, if you think Jordan Bennington is the way people are now talking about Jordan

Bennington, well, he's not going to be better two years from now, you know? And you don't give. Kairu and Thomas those contracts thinking we're going to be bottoming out. We're going to be like, you know,

30th in the league or whatever. You don't, you don't sign Holloway and Broberg to those contracts thinking and for the first three years of those deals, they're going to suck. Or we're going to suck.

You know? It's a little tricky because like Pareco is, I think you would say clearly not what we think of Colton Perrako being, you know? The fact, and God, same with Justin Falk, right? Like, Justin Falk, since the coaching change,

Justin Falk has the most minutes on that team, and this is in 2025, you know? So, I don't know. You wonder what the long-term plan is, especially on that blue line. I think that blue line is just like flatly bizarre. I think is the word, like just who the personnel are and how they're used and that kind of thing. Like, they're going out and trading for camp or getting Camphaler and Ryan Suter the last couple of years.

Like, who knows what's going on, you know? But I don't know. I feel like they're better off. Let's put it this way. They're better off being not a tanking team than the Flyers. Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense to me, yes.

But are they good? We always talk about teams that are going to, in fact, there was a question in the mailbag last week. Like, who's going to be the team that learns the wrong lesson for making the playoffs? Is there danger here that the blues are actually not that good? This is a heater and they're going to draw bad conclusions from it? I think because of who the coach is, I would say that, there's just like there's a way higher floor on these guys now you know um like again when barry trots was was coaching the islander i always think of that as like the high floor relatively low ceiling team

and i know they made two uh two conference finals in a row but you know look how that worked out um so i i think that um i think that montgomery just is a torterella like figure in that you're just never going to be able to be horrible, you know, with all due respect to this year's Boston Bruins. I think you're just not going to be able to be horrible with him as your coach. And if that's the case, then, like, I don't know that you can really learn the wrong lesson, right? Like, if they go out and they won't be able to do this, but, like, if they were able to go out and get Mitch Marner or, or, or,

you know, an equivalently, uh, high money player, not necessarily high talent, but just like a guy you would pay a lot of money to and not feel like it was completely insane. If they did that, I wouldn't think that was like a horrible decision just because again, like the age of some of their contributors now, you know, you want to get, you want to get the foulers and suitors and fulks like in a position where you're not relying on them so much. But I don't know. You know, I think, again, do I think they're a cup winner or anything like that? No, I don't.

But could they continue, not continually, but like, could they reliably be a second round or later team? Yeah, sure. Yeah. I guess, yeah, that sounds about right. But what if they gave Justin Falk this many minutes next year? Then I'm like, oh, wait a second, you know. Okay. Hold on.

Maybe I'm a little more skeptical. But I just hope the lesson they learn is offer sheet everyone. It works if you put yourself out there, you know? Exactly. Get some fucking lines in the water, guys. But to your point, that is the other thing about this. It's like if they're giving up picks to get Broberg and Holloway, they are kind of saying we need to be more competitive. This isn't about the future.

to a certain extent. You know, how old are those guys, like 23, 24, you know? So, yeah, to me, that's just what, that's just what that boils down to as well. It's like they've already kind of burned the rebuild bridge. So, yeah, that's all I have to say about the Blues. I think they're a really interesting team all of a sudden, but again, how good are they? They're not on the, you know, they're not a top four. team in the Western Conference to me.

Right. Yeah. That makes sense. Long term. They could, you know, if they make the, if they get out of the first round, obviously, people would say that. But, you know, anyway. We got some other news yesterday.

What was this? Like maybe 8 o'clock last night the news broke on this. New Canadian TV deal staying with Sportsnet or Rogers or whatever you want to say. 7.7 billion U.S. it's 11 million or 11 billion Canadian, right? For the next 12 years. And that's important because a lot of the reporting has sort of been just dollar value. And obviously these days, the difference between U.S. and Canadian dollars, pretty enormous.

And getting enormouser. So we should say this is a bit weird because the story broke last. last night. It has not been confirmed as of Tuesday morning. The league has not announced this. Sportsnet has not announced this. I haven't seen any sports net personalities report it. I've seen very few period reporting this. That having been said, my understanding is that it's generally accurate. and that's partly based on some things I've heard and partly based on just the fact that if this was false, somebody would say it was false.

Right. So whether the exact figures or details are right or not, this certainly sounds like it's happening. And it's sort of a, it certainly caught me off guard. I guess there was no reason to think the NHL couldn't make a deal a year and a half in advance, but somewhat surprising that they did. I guess it's a decent increase in revenue,

so I guess I get why they did it. I'm not completely sure how this works for Rogers and Sportsnet, given how much pain they seem to take on on the previous deal. but I mean, we continue to live in a world where live sports rights are gold. So I guess we see how it goes,

but 12-year deal, I mean, that's a big chunk of time. And a lot of time for markets to change in one direction or the other. I mean, the last time the NHL did a big long double-digit deal was when they did their 10-year deal with NBC right before the sports bubble

really took off and cost themselves a huge amount of money. Yes. And that's the interesting thing about this to me. But this does seem to be the trend, right? Like, I mean, other sports leagues are going, they're getting much, much, much more money, obviously, because they're more popular, but they're going long-term, too.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, and you know, like, it's the 12 years that makes me go, wow, that's because the, you know, the ESPN Turner deal in the U.S. was not nearly that long, I don't think. The eight, seven, something like that.

And I don't know. It's just like, right now, that is equal to about 20 million U.S. per team per season, assuming they don't add teams and whatnot, which over the next 12 years, it feels like they're going to be adding a couple of teams. They just might.

I'm going to go ahead and say, yeah, possible, must credit me. Yeah. Turns out to be true. But 20 million per team per season is a lot of money. You know, that's, obviously that would raise the salary cap, But right now that's, what, like 16% of your total salary cap expenditure?

Something like that. I'm not doing no math good in my head right now, but you know what I mean. And the thing that's interesting about all this to me is like, to the point you made earlier about like Rogers kind of going, this is a little financially difficult for us to bear, blah, blah, blah, blah. how does any of this get spun off to say Amazon or Netflix or somebody like that two, three years down the, or even before that? I think I think that certainly happens. This is this was something that initially I was a little bit surprised because I was like, oh, I thought Amazon was going to be bit like that. I had been led to believe that Amazon was going to be a big bidder for national rights. And to see them frozen out was surprising to me, except they're not frozen out.

Because SportsNet can sub-license or whatever you want to say, much like they have done now. Like, that's why there's games on Amazon and Canada now, even though there was no new announcement with the league. It was because SportsNet spun off some of their inventory. they can do that again. So if you're somebody like my dad who was complaining to me over the weekend about not being able to watch the Leafs because he doesn't have Amazon and you are happy, well, stop being happy, I guess is my. So, yeah, you know, again, interesting to see where all this goes. but I guess it's good for the NHL to lock in a bunch more billions of dollars coming in. I guess.

The question was never, were they going to get a lot of money? It's always how much for how long and is it enough. And to be determined, but I'm very interested to see how this plays out for, for SportsNet as a network because they, like you said, we were led to believe it was a big burden on them previously, and now they're taking on significantly higher costs at around the same time that they get ownership of the Maple Leafs too. So keep that in mind.

So. Be interesting to see how it all develops. Okay, so I mentioned I was at a bunch of, bunch of NCAA games over the weekend and watched even more on TV. But it is now officially college hockey signing season. We're down to the Frozen Four. It's going to be BU, Western Michigan, Denver, and Penn State. Penn State making it for the first time ever in program history.

Now, granted, that program's only existed for 12 years, 13 years. but what's funny is Sean, do you know who put up most of the money, I guess you would say, for Penn State to get a men's and women's Division I hockey program? Is this the Pagula? Yeah. I'll tell you, man, that guy knows how to build a winner. That's what I was going to say.

They took a team that existed as a club team and built them in arena and funded a lot of their, whatever, their operations for, a certain number of years. And those guys got to the Frozen Four before the Buffalo Sabres made the playoffs. That's very fun to think about. Yeah. So there were a couple of things.

I don't want to get it. Maybe we'll do like a Frozen Four corner, you know, next week ahead of the actual Frozen Four. but I wanted to talk about the free agent and just, you know, drafted player signings that are happening now. We saw a handful of like notable moves. Jimmy Snuggarood signed with St. Louis, Oliver Moore, and someone else besides Oliver Moore signed with Chicago. I'm blanking on that right now.

Ryan Leonard signed with the Capitals yesterday. We'll play tonight in Boston. Very convenient for him. Gabe Perrault signed with the Rangers. Anybody you're interested in hearing about or... Talk to me a little bit about Leonard, because he's the guy of all of them that I've heard the most about. Yeah, he, he...

I'm very curious to see whether he wins the Hobie Baker. I kind of think he won't. I think they're probably going to. to give it to Isaac Howard, who is a Tampa draft pick, and I don't think has signed yet, actually, now that I say that. But, oh, yeah, it seems like maybe this is a cap space issue for the lightning, but not clear. So anyway, yeah, Ryan Leonard scored a ton of goals last year, scored a ton of goals this year as well.

I'm pulling up exactly how many now. But I think for my money, he is this single most impactful player in college hockey this year, just like if he decides he's going to score a goal or create a goal, it happens. He scored 61 goals in, it looks like, 78 college games as, you know, draft year plus one and two. Just an unbelievable player. so dynamic, could really add some pop to the, you know, to the, to the, to the capitals lineup and just, this is, this is the story I tell for, for basically like what kind of a player you're getting in,

in Ryan Leonard is, so he is from Amherst, Massachusetts, which is where UMass is. And his brother, John, played for UMass. and originally Ryan Leonard also was going to go to UMass. Ends up going to BC to keep his line from the National Development Team program together. And he is just like hyper, hyper, hyper competitive. And in his first game at UMass, Ryan Leonard gets a hat trick and like way overreact. to, like, you know, he was very fired up to get that hat trick. Let's put it that way.

And after the game, you know, you talk to the coach and you're like, now, you know, was Ryan up for this game? It seemed like he was really fired up. And his coach was like, I actually thought I was going to have to calm him down before the game started. And I was like, then big salute to Ryan Leonard. Like, if he's that much of a psycho that he's like too fired up for his coach's liking, that's an awesome kind of player to be getting, you know, late in the season, like he's going to really want to prove something and he has the talent to make it happen. You can find a Ryan Leonard highlight reel.

He's scored some pretty spectacular goals at the college level. So I think he can be maybe not like a huge difference maker, but a guy like a Chris Kreider type where he was like, damn, this kid is NHL ready, you know? Really cool player. I really enjoyed watching him a lot the last two years. So, yeah, that's the, that's the one really, like, notable draft, not really notable, but like drafted player who signed, you know, he, because he's going to the second best team in the league by points percentage or whatever you want to say. Yeah. Is he, so, I mean, is this a potential difference maker in the playoffs? Yeah, well, that's what I'm saying is like, I don't, I don't want to say that, like,

you know, they're inserting Maclin Celebrini into the lineup. But, like, impact-wise, if you want to say he's like, you know, 80%, 75% of Maclin Celebrini, A, that's a great addition to your team nonetheless. And B, that sounds about right to me. Again, he's just a guy that can kind of create goals out of nowhere. Yeah, he's an impactful player. but you know, you never want to say that for sure coming, coming from a lower level to the national hockey league. Dude, I can't wait until he shows up and, like, starts taking all the shots at the empty nets in Washington and just gets absolutely destroyed.

Yeah, he gets traded this summer. Yeah, yeah. Get this fucking kid out of here. But the one other, the one other guy that I wanted to. mention, I guess, really quickly. I said Gabe Perrault signed with the Rangers. They also signed Jackson Dorrington, who was a big minutes guy at Northeastern this year.

And I want to say he was a Rangers draft pick as well. But Calum Tong is a goalie. They just signed last night, and he was a goalie at Yukon. And I don't think he's NHL ready or anything. But he's one of these guys where, like, he was, kind of an older side for a freshman, I want to say, and just like, you know, didn't have like the super high profile that a lot of other, yeah, he was a 21 year old freshman this year. He turned 21 in November.

And he was unbelievable for Yukon this year. And so, like, to me, I always think of the Rangers as trying, as being able to like find good goalies out of the college ranks. and then, you know, maybe those guys don't play for the Rangers at the end of the day because they always have, you know, really good European goalies in the NHL. But I really thought Calam Tong was awesome. He's a big boy. He's like 6-2, 6-3, 6-4, something like that.

And he just looked really, really, one of these kids where it's like, how did this kid not have any, you know, other real college opportunities besides, you know, his age 21 season at Yukon. Awesome player. I'm really excited to see where that goes for them. But otherwise, you know, there are a few guy, you know, Zeve Booiam who had an unbelievable regional in Manchester, New Hampshire, doesn't seem like he's going to be able to sign any time soon

because his team's back to the Frozen Four for, for I think the third time in five years or four years, something like that. Denver's unbelievable. Man, oh, man. So, yeah, I don't know. If there's any other guys that are on the list of guys who signed recently you want to know about, you can ask me on the Discord or something like that. But, yeah, always exciting this time of year.

Did you see, speaking of, did you see Cam Lund score? for San Jose? I did not. Okay. So I'm going to look up the game states for when these goals happened. But Cam Lund, I believe his first NHL goal came in his first NHL game. That's what you always want, right? And it came with the sharks, or it was his second NHL game.

It came with the sharks down six to one, or it was six to nothing at the time. So he made it six one, and that was the final against the range. Oh, yeah, I did see this. And he looked like... Yeah, and he was just like, fuck me, man. Yeah. God damn. I didn't...

The name didn't ring a bell, but I had seen like, yeah, I've never seen anyone look this sad. Scoring their... Yeah. The next game, he goes out and he scores again, this time to only make it to one to the Kings. And the sharks end up losing that game eight to one. So, tough start to his career, but... Yeah, folks, it. If you haven't seen this, go seek out Cameron Lund's first goal.

He does not get to celebrate. And everybody just kind of sadly skates over to him like, oh, yeah, welcome to the show kid. Okay, have a good one. Let's just go back to the bench and sulk. So, yeah, that seems to be all that's going on. Except there are two other things I want to mention with college hockey really quickly. Caden Lindstrom, who is 19.

He was drafted this past year, fourth overall by the Columbus Blue Jackets. And he, obviously, he played for the Medicine Hat Tigers of the CHL. And you remember, Sean, you must remember this. When the NCAA announced that the CHL players would be able to play college hockey starting next season, the CHL was basically like, oh yeah, Any 20-year-olds who want to go after their overage seasons, if you want to go, have fun over there. And there was a certain amount of, like, could they stop high-end draft picks at their age 18, 19 seasons from doing the same thing? Caden Lindstrom has committed to Michigan State for next season.

So, no, they can't do that. Very nice. A hugely impactful move that, you know, I think we're going to. to start hearing about Michael Mesa is a name that has been connected with B.U. and B.C. a lot in the last few months. And obviously, the way he's played this year, it looks like he might just go straight to the NHL. But if, you know, whoever drafts him is like, college wouldn't be the worst thing for you. It seems like that'll happen.

Gavin McKenna, kind of the same thing. You're hearing a lot of a lot of talk. about him being connected to a school out west. So something to really, really keep an eye on there. Caden Lindstrom kind of first guy through the door, though. I'm really excited to see him in college next year, especially with the expectation that they would lose Ryan Howard or Isaac Howard. Ryan Howard, of course, played for the Philadelphia Phillies.

Yeah, I feel like the loss of him would not be as big for the hockey player. But the other big news, and this impacts the Detroit Red Wings, is that Trey Augustine, the guy who, for me, was like the fourth or fifth best goalie in college hockey this year and will probably get higher awards voting than that, quite frankly, when all said and done in the Mike Richter voting. But Trey Augustine announced he's going back to college next year. Huge for Michigan State. Interesting for the Red Wings. Now, do you think this is the Red Wings just not having a spot for him? Like, do you think that's him going outskirts? Well, there is certainly that I believe they have at least two goalies signed on, signed at the NHL.

I'll say, I don't think Trey Augustine is necessarily NHL ready. He was rather ordinary to me in the, and I'll write about all this, you know, in the, in the next week. or so when I talk about like college hockey award stuff. But to me, Trey Augustine, just kind of like ordinary for the last third to 40% of the season. And that's fine. He's a really, really, really good college goalie, but like as far as elite college goalies go, like Jacob Fowler at BC, who I wouldn't be surprised if Montreal signed him in the next few days here.

but might be a similar situation where he's like, ah, the opportunities for me to get a lot of starts and even the AAHL might not be there. So there is that, but also I think Augustine just maybe needs another more year, another year in college. Makes sense. Yep.

But yeah, keep an eye out for all that kind of thing. And just as a general rule, I say this every year, if your team is signing a college free agent, he's way more likely to be Jimmy VZ than Kevin Hayes. Let's put it that way. Okay. You know, don't expect these guys to be all-stars. You're getting, you're getting free lottery tickets.

Say that again, sorry. I was going to say, it could be Tyler Bozac. Who's the best in like the modern era undrafted college free agent to like sign at the end of a season? I know like Adam Oates and that way back in the day. Right. It honestly probably is Tyler Bowes. Like the Kevin Hayes thing would be the answer, but he was a player who was drafted and then just kind of refused to sign with the team that drafted to Chicago.

He refused to sign with them. So that's a little different than just like a pure undrafted guy. There's not really anybody that's like super springing to mind, I guess. not off the top of my head anyway that would be better than Tyler Bozac who just had like a long and really good career but like that is you know that's the level of guy we're talking about

you know like Tyler Bozac good college player not like an elite college player I would say but like a good solid college player who yeah like went on to be a millionaire basically off you know he had a pretty good he had a pretty good run there I don't know

I'd have to think about it maybe the answer is a goalie but like that kind of feels like cheating just because goalies develop differently but yeah anyhow I guess one last thing here this may or may not happen today tomorrow something like that

But there's been a rumor going around the last few days that PWHL expansion will be announced this week. And it's looking like Vancouver in Seattle to me. That's cool. I don't have anything else to say about it. Yeah. And especially since, you know, you've heard Vancouver mention quite a lot, but it's tough to have just the one team out west. It gives you the natural rivalry. Yep.

Two teams coming in, that means actual expansion draft, not just expansion list, which is always fun. Depending, of course, on how they decide to set that up. It's interesting that they're going so far out west, though, you know? Yep. Well, I mean, there have been talk of maybe a team in Alberta, either Calgary, Armington, or both. Maybe that happens next. still 18 so I mean you don't I wonder do you think they would they split to divisions I think you would kind of have to right well you've got what Minnesota

yeah I mean you can't you don't have another Western team and even you know Minnesota is obviously not not that far west but yeah I feel like you can get away with eight team still but yeah especially could be determined we'll see the details but you know, looks, but especially because it, like you say, like, it's just such an easy trip. Okay, we're doing the West Coast road trip. We go to Vancouver. We go play at Vancouver. Two days later, we play at Seattle and we go home.

You know, like that's, that makes it relatively easy. It's not like it's Vancouver and Anaheim or whatever, you know. But yeah, I think, I think it's cool. I think it's, here's why I think it's good for the league. You know what the league doesn't have a lot of. right now is scoring. All these teams are a little too deep. So you add more team, you know, we talk about it with like when scoring goes up in

the NHL, it's because they expand and it thins out the talent pool a little bit. Yeah, watering down the talent pool is actually tends to be good for entertainment value because it's good for the better players. Somewhat counterintuitively, but if you actually think about it, it makes sense. Yeah, it just And, you know, how many teams, when there were two women's pro leagues operating at the same time,

how many pro women's teams were there? You know? Mm-hmm. Was it 12, I think, was maybe the number? 10? Something like that. Yep. So it's not like they're doing the NHL thing where it's like,

oh yeah, you know, we're adding six teams to what had previously been a six team league. And all the expansion teams are in one conference. they didn't really do that. So it works out okay. But yeah, I'm looking forward to that. You know, always excited to see what the branding is.

The waves. Wow. You know, it'll be something stupid like that. Yeah, do you think these teams will get names right away, or do they have to do the one year of no name? I don't think they will announce the names today, but they will, you know, they'll tease it. and roll it out for before the season starts, I think.

Would be very funny if one of them grabbed a mammoth. I agree. Wholeheartedly. And the other could be like the, I don't know, something like the Wasatch. The Seattle, Utah Hockey Club. Damn it. Fuck. All right, why don't you hit him with the plugs?

Let's get out of here. Find me at the Athletic. I'll be on tomorrow on the Athletic Hockey Show, as well as writing about, well, I think it's going to be a lot of goalie stuff this week. But I'll leave it at that. And I have a cool thing happening at the athletic that I have already teased in the Discord, but I don't know if I'm allowed to officially announce it yet, but maybe by next week.

So this is me just dropping this out there so that everyone will be all excited. I apologize in advance if you're too distracted to work or care for your family over the next seven days while you wait. But yeah, it's going to be a neat thing that I will be able to talk about very soon. Cool. And then for me, I'm getting, you know, for the next little while, I'm getting back to a little bit of NHL stuff. But then the week after that, over elite prospects, it is all college hockey all the time. Once again, with the Frozen Four.

And, hey, who don't know what the damn Frozen Four, you know? It's the best. Um, so, uh, head over there. Again, they are doing a deal right now. I think it's, uh, 33% off if you sign up for an annual subscription. So, you know, I don't think that's going to last forever. Go check that out, uh, ASAP. If, if you want to get ahead of the, uh, the draft coverage and all that that, that will

be coming in, in May and June and all that. And then I have, head over to patreon.com slash Puck Soup and get all kinds of bonus episodes. that, you know, me and Sean and Greg have done in the last little while here. All kinds of stuff. More on the way, as always. And until next time, we're going to go record the mailbag

for the Patreon right now. Thanks for listening, and we'll talk to you later. Bye-bye.