Puck Soup - No Regrets, Coyotes?

Episode Date: April 16, 2024

Sean and Ryan talk about the Coyotes probably moving, the Sabres' coaching change, the playoff races, and more. Sponsored by Gametime (download the Gametime app and use code PUCK for $20 off), and AG1 (ag1.com/puck)

I'm Ryan Lambert from Elite Prospects. I'm Sean McAnew, the Athletic. And folks, I don't know if you heard about this. The Arizona Coyotes, they're not going to be the Arizona Coyotes anymore. They're going away. For now. Well, this is... I guess that's true.

It is completely wild how quickly this happened. One week ago, we were... What were we talking about? The mayor had put out his editorial... Yeah, the Scottsdale mayor. Yeah. And we're like, well, that's yet another chapter in the never-ending saga of the Arizona Coyotes. Yep.

Seven days later, the saga is ending. And it is, they're on their way to Utah. Not officially. Everybody keeps updating their stories. Like, there's very clearly somebody at the league who keeps reaching out to people saying this isn't done, done. Stop saying that it's completely. done. Yeah, no, that's the guy from the coyote, or the hurricanes, I mean.

But it certainly sounds like it's done enough that everyone is reporting it and could become official as early as what, tomorrow, Thursday? Thursday or Friday. They want it before the playoffs start. Yes. So let's back it up a little bit because, as you said, there's a lot that, uh, that, uh, that, That has happened in the one week since we last talked about this, obviously. I think it was Chris Johnston reported yesterday that this, like, the relocation ball really started rolling a month or two ago because Gary Bettman and Bill Daly sat down with Alex Morello, the guy who owns the coyotes.

And we're like, so, you know, we hate to bring this up, but what if you have you? have to sell the team and it gets moved. And he was like, don't even bring it up. You know, hey, it was a testy meeting. And then it got a little less testy when they said to him, so can you say for sure that you'll have an arena and everything ready to go locked in in the next five years. And he was like, I guess I can't say that.

And they were like, okay. So let's get the ball rolling on this one. Yeah. This is what it sounds like. And essentially, they figured out a way to, move the team and get rid of this guy without, at least in their mind, abandoning the market. Or getting sued. Or getting sued, which is a big part.

I think those are two equally important things to the NHL right now. Because they do have some ability to take a team away from somebody against their will, but that obviously gets into legal issues, even no matter how clear cut it is. You try to take a billionaire's toy away, you can probably guess how that's going to go. So instead, we have this somewhat unique situation where he has been promised that if he can get the arena in the next five years, that he gets an expand. He gets first dibs on an expansion team back in Arizona. And this is not, I think basically everyone who's reported on this is cautioned this. This isn't just like, hey, we'll check back in five years.

You've got an arena. You get a team back. It's more along the lines of you have to hit specific like benchmarks or whatever you want to say over the course of five years to be eligible to get this team. And I think it was Elliot said it's not exactly a lot of optimism that whatever those benchmarks are, they would be something he could hit. hit like with any degree of confidence over the course of five years. A cynical view of this would be that this is the NHL washing their hands of this guy in such a way that, hey, they gave him a chance. And he can't come back and say, you know, hey, you did like this is, they're setting up the

framework for a defense of, you know, whether it's a lawsuit or PR, whatever else to say, like, look, we set the bar, we told you what you needed to do. You didn't meet those criteria, then I don't know. Maybe the guy won't really build his little mini city that has no access to water or whatever else the plan is. Although, I have heard that if he's not ready to go this whole water thing, Immorten Joe is going to be the next bidder. There you go. That's good to know. Yeah. Real, real testy bidding process, him versus the bullet farmer, though.

Yeah. I can't remember the third one's name. But that's... Mad Max Fury Road? Okay. Little film, 2015? Good one. Yeah, yeah. All right. Immorton Joe's the main bag guy. He controls the water. He might be the guy we need. Look, I mean, if you want someone who's going to rule with an iron fist, you know...

And we do. That's really been. I mean, the NHL has gotten into bed with worse people than Immort and Joe. It certainly has. So, I mean, and I guess we should also say that there's nothing that I've seen that says that if Alex Murillo doesn't meet his obligations, the league can still come back to Arizona. Like, it really sounds like that is the plan. Five years from now, Arizona, somethings will return. it sounds to me like also if you hook Gary Betman up to a lie detector and said,

do you want current ownership to be the ones he'd say no? But if Marillo turns everything around, gives them everything on a silver platter they want, great. If not, we thank him for his service. Do we? I think the main issue here, that we should talk about with regard to basically the coyotes becoming an expansion team in the next five years is that the price of the expansion team will be the same price as what he is paid for the coyotes. Right.

whatever you want to 1.0 or whatever you want to call them in the next few days which is untethered from whatever the other expansion fees are. So like if in the next five years Atlanta gets an expansion team and the coyotes somehow pull this off and get the team back that one billion dollars, that's only coyotes

dollars. That's different from Atlanta would probably have to pay more than a billion dollars for an expansion team, which is crazy given how much even like Seattle cost. Yep. But yeah, it's, it's interesting. Okay, let's talk about the deal itself, the sale to Ryan Smith, not the guy from the oilers and the islanders, different guy. Um, basically the league is the go-between for this.

Like, there's no contact between, uh, the, the Utah ownership and coyote's ownership. That's right. Which, again, just doesn't make it sound like the most harmonious, uh, parting of the ways here, but how she goes. Um, a billion for the team. another, I've seen both 200 and 300 million. 300 seemed to be the first number reported and then it's been nudged down in more recent reports. Right.

And that just goes to the owners as what's called a relocation fee. And, you know, whatever the number is, divided 31 ways. That's how much every owner gets. And it's not related to the hockey. Related revenue. Not hockey-related revenue. Somehow they got that put in the... So the player spent 20 years having their slice of the revenue shoved down by the Arizona market not working.

And now finally that it's being resolved, all that money is going right to the owners. Well, so you say all that money. I really wonder about this. How much money over the last, let's say, 20 years? do you think the coyotes have lost? I bet it's over 200 million. Probably, yeah. Yeah.

So, you know, with revenue sharing and all that. As with all sports, that's before you factor in the increased cost of the team. Yeah, sure. So, you know, I too would like to lose money for 20 years and then get three times what I paid for something at the end of it. feels like a pretty good business model. Oh, well, I mean, he wasn't on the hook for all that. No, he wasn't. For all that time, right?

So when did he buy the team, 2018? Wasn't that long ago? And he's making a lot of money off of this. He really is. And, you know, I've seen a lot of people. You just like to see good things happen to good people. That's exactly right. That's exactly it.

When you think about it, I guess, Like, I think it's always been kind of framed as like the coyotes are almost like a loss leader for the Morello business organization, right? Mm-hmm. And so I wonder how much money he's lost in total on owning the coyotes, like as part of the bigger picture of, you know, it allows him to operate a sports book or whatever the deal is there. Mm-hmm. But I've been thinking about this a lot lately Because you always hear about, well, the NHL can't leave that market permanently Because like it produced Austin Matthews

And Matthew Nyes and all, you know, one or two other guys that you've probably heard of We're apparently counting Josh Doe now as a Yeah Which, yeah I'm not, I'm not diminishing him as a player, but it's like he he was developed there Because like his dad literally played for the coyotes. I'm not sure that really. Yeah, that's like me, like the software company that employed my dad in the 80s being like an old RL, you know.

That's a product of our role thing. But let me ask you this. There has to be a number here where it's like the amount of money that Austin Matthews is worth to the league, to the team that employees, whatever team employs him at any given money. moment to the people who use him to advertise to himself, that kind of thing. There has to be a dollar figure that Austin Matthews can reach where you can say 25 years in the desert, it was all worth it because Austin Matthews made up that difference by himself. I don't think he can reach that number, but there has to be a number. You know what I mean?

It's weird, man. You always hear about what a great market, Arizona is, just as far as it's, what, the fifth biggest TV market? Something like that, fifth or sixth, yeah. And yet, counting the coyotes, every, all the Big Four sports have teams in that area. Sure. And yet, like, I don't know, basketball, I guess, I don't know,

but, like, they're like a smallish kind of forgotten team in like every league. Like the Arizona Cardinals are not a team anyone he particularly thinks about very much. Sure. They go to a Super Bowl a few years ago. The Diamondbacks, you know, when they're good, sure. But. I mean, they won that World Series in 2002.

I was a long time ago now. Oh, one, beat the Yankees. Oh, right. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, we're good last year. But, again, like not a team that you think about as a big market team. Sure. Well, I mean, look, it doesn't, it's the NHL, right?

They should, it, it, I understand why they're going back. And I understand why they might feel like this never had a chance. And when the new Arizona team, which I can go out on a limb and say, will not be called the coyotes. Right. Shows up in a few years. We'll see. See how it works.

You know, if you get the Golden Knights right out of the gate, it's going to be a huge success. And if you get what the coyotes got right out of the gate, it'll fail. And the question is how far to one side or the other can it be before you reach a tipping point? And we don't really know with that market. Right. And just for the record, the sons are pretty relevant in the NBA these days. Okay.

They are Not as good as they should be this season Like on paper But they went to an NBA finals a few years ago I think the Bucks kind of killed them If I'm remembering right But they have like Kevin Durant And all these guys

So you know Like name brand players And that kind of thing And of course like the Charles Barkley era We all loved the sons back then didn't we They got the gorilla They do have the gorilla They do have the gorilla.

Is the gorilla the most iconic Phoenix Sun? Yeah, probably is right. Because even Barclay is like more, he's more a Philly guy, isn't he? Like, do people consider? Yeah, he, I mean, Rockets, he certainly had some success as well, if I'm remembering right? It's the gorilla. Gorilla might be the most iconic sports figure in Arizona. Him or Louis Gonzalez is.

I was going to say Randy Johnson, is he up? there. World Series era, Randy Johnson. Yeah. He fucking smoked that bird that one. Yeah, was he with the Diamondbacks when he smoked a bird though? Okay, in that case.

I think he was. It's the gorilla, the bird. The bird. Shane, and then to be determined. Yep. Larry Fisher might get on the podium. Right, yeah, sure.

That's a, how I know he's good, that's a football guy I've heard of. Yeah, there you go. What else do we go to talk about? Oh, yeah. So I might have mentioned this already, but like if the coyote, when the coyotes move, Alex Morello will retain the rights, the logos, the name, all that kind of thing. To if he brings the team back, he could just be like, these are the coyotes.

Or he could not do that, I guess. Yeah. Again, I can't imagine just from a marketing perspective that they'll be called the coyotes. Right. But they could come in as the, yeah, whatever, whatever you want to call them, but still maintain, like, you know, we've had the running argument on this show about, like, are the Jets the Jets and, you know, different other stuff. But in this case, we don't really need to have that because the league seems to be making it clear that while the team, while all the hockey stuff. is moving from Arizona to Salt Lake. Salt Lake is going to be treated as,

it sounds like a new franchise. And Arizona, the history and everything stays in Arizona at least until, and there's precedent for this, if it sounds confusing, the NFL did this a few years ago, well, more than a few years ago now, but when the Cleveland Browns moved to Baltimore,

they picked up, they moved everything. Every player, every contract, most of the front office, coaches, etc. All went from Cleveland to Baltimore. And yet the Baltimore Ravens were considered an expansion team. There was no expansion draft, but they were considered an expansion team. And then a few years later, when the league came back to Cleveland, that team just picked up the history and record book and everything of the old Browns. Right.

So I guess technically what you would say is, Ryan Smith isn't paying a billion dollars for the coyotes. He's paying a billion dollars for the contracts and everything. Like basically he's buying all the deals that the coyotes have. It does not sound like we're going to have to do the stupid thing where like on opening night in Salt Lake. We're like, well, you know, the Salt Lake, whatever record is held by Timu Salani in 1992. like we're not going to have to play that game. Right.

Now, the league can officially clarify that. But my point is the precedent is there from the NFL. I'm not aware of it happening in baseball. I wouldn't know on basketball, but. Yeah, in baseball, it might have happened like, whatever, when like the Seattle pilots move to the Twin Cities or whatever. I don't know. I straight up don't know the answer to that.

I don't think they were thinking about it that way in 19, 58 or whatever year that happened. You know what I mean? Like it just, that's just one of those things where it's like, yeah, sports was different back then. I don't know how else to put it to you, you know? Yeah. So what would technically happen in that case, and again, this seems like it is what's

going to happen, is that the coyotes, like the ice cream machine at your local McDonald's would just be declared an out of service franchise. Okay. Yep. You know what I mean? It's out of service. It's a fucking escalator at the mall. Coyotes temporarily stares or whatever.

That's exactly it. But if that sounds stupid, don't worry. It's because it is. It's very dumb, in my opinion, to do it that way. But again, you're just trying not to get sued, you know, so I get it. Well, and also, I mean, if, you know, what's unusual about this situation is, obviously the NHL has left markets and come back in the past. We've seen it in Winnipeg.

We've seen it in Minnesota. Calgary. Or Atlanta, we might see it again for a third time. But what's unusual here is like even when the North Star has left Minnesota, almost immediately everyone was like Minnesota is going to get a team back at some point. Obviously, as soon as Winnipeg leaves, almost immediately the work begins of how do we set the stage for this to come back at some point. But in this case, the league is actually carving.

it out and saying we have a plan in place to bring a team back. So, yeah, I don't mind them saying, like, you know, you will inherit the hit. Like, you know, when that new Arizona team comes in, like, all, those, that fan base of anyone who's an established fan are going to be coyotes fans. So to come in and be like, this is a brand new thing. Your team is actually over there. You know, that's, Shane Done never played for this team. Shane Done played for Salt Lake.

Like, get out here. Like, let's, let's, again, like I always say, talk to fans the way the fans talk to each other. It'll be, you know, the same history and everything. Again, they will probably not, they, maybe they do call it the coyotes. Maybe they, by then, five years and now into retro, whatever. If you, if you call them whatever, the Gila monsters, I'm just trying to think of local animals. If you call them the Gila monsters. right.

You're like, oh, and of course, we used to be the coyotes. And it's like, did you really? Well, no, us personally? No, not us. But like a team that was here was the same name. Like, then you're just getting into like fucking branding or whatever and it's... Maybe. I don't say let's go branding personally.

Thanks. Yeah, it's really weird. The other thing that is happening with this, which is, I think it was Pete Blackburn repeatedly called this just like kicking Coyote's fans in the balls and I think that's about right is that the rumor right now is

the Coyote's current HL team which was still owned by Alex Morello in this scenario would just like move into Mollett Arena move from Tucson to Mollett and it's like look I understand you

been making us watch HL hockey for the last few years. That's fine. You don't have to rub it in my face. You know what I mean? That's just a step too far. Like, and look,

apparently this is in part so that they can like still have like that continuity of hockey staff in the area and that kind of thing. Oh, we should say all the hockey people will move with the franchise or, you know, a number of the hockey people will move with the franchise. But the business ops people, you're out of luck.

And so. Which they apparently learned on Twitter. Yeah. I guess we should talk about that in a second, too. But, um, so part of the idea of moving the roadrunners to Phoenix, uh, or Tempea, as the case may be, um, would be to help at least some of the like hawk or business side people keep their jobs. Now what that says about the business side people in Tucson. You know, oops. Tough luck, I guess.

But you're also, you know, you want to keep hockey fans in the year. I mean, you don't want to just take all the hockey way. And then five years from now show up and be like, hey, you guys still like hockey, right? And they were like, well, no, actually, we had nothing to watch. Now, that's not to say that, you know, if I'm a diehard Coyotes fan and they're out there. Like, this team was there for almost 30 years, man. Yeah. Like, we talk about it as a new team, but there's lots of.

lots of fans who've had that team. They moved in 96. How many, how many NHL players are in the league and have been? Different. That are, that are younger than when, you know, we're born after the coyotes moved to Arizona. It's going to be a huge number. All the good ones, according to you. So. Absolutely true. It's, like Sidney Crosby gets the, gets the special dispensation, but everybody else I don't think so. So, yeah, you know, I don't think. you know, you're seeing your team ripped away. It's a pretty small consolation prize to say that you're going to have the AHL, especially the HL of your former team.

Well, and that's the other thing is apparently there is no agreement in place for them to continue being the HL team. So like you would get the roadrunners or whatever the branding is, but you might not get the players. Well, that's fun. Yeah. I don't even know what would be better. Like, do I want to see, like, some prospect come through at 19 and playing the age and tear it up? Be like, this guy's awesome.

Can't wait till he goes to live with my ex in Utah. That's right. Yeah. No, I know. Like Pete said, it's just kicking them square in the balls and being like, you like this shit, right? Well, I don't know. I think maybe the big kick is better than the, constant daily dick flicks we've been given them for 20 straight years.

Yeah. Can I say this, by the way? Is, you know, when it started to look like this was happening, one of the big things you saw everybody on Twitter saying, this is about the fans, is like, I feel so bad for Coyote's fans. Oh, I feel so bad for him, you've got to feel for him. And it's like, you spent, and I'm certainly including myself in this group,

You spent how much of the last five or six years going, we got to get this fucking team out of there. This is a joke, man. You can't. You are part of, you were part of the reason that, like, all the, you know what I mean? Like, to be like,

oh, I just, I know I just spent five years saying how stupid this is. And like, like, yeah, you can feel bad for the fans, but like. But they're not moving the team. Like, the fact that people recognized, God,

the writing has been on the wall for, a decade, at least. Like, I'm, I don't think the fact that people recognize that is necessarily should prevent you from saying, and also it sucks that the fans got strung along. It does. It does. It does. Right.

Yeah, sure it does. But again, it's just all these people that were like, this is a fucking joke. This is pathetic. How do they let this guy own an NHL team and all that? Oh, but the fans, I feel so bad for that. Like, again, yeah, you're right. They're just commenting on what a bad state of affairs it is. Sure, of course.

But like, I don't know, man. To, to, like, you don't think those fans were looking at that being like, look, you know, we care. Please stop making fun of us. Yeah. You know? Now you get all the empathy in the world. But again, like, not. And I feel like.

like this is something that a lot of people, myself included, probably bent over backwards to make the point maybe beyond where need to be made was, you know, you could say that the fans in Arizona, the diehards, were great loyal fans, while also acknowledging that there just weren't enough of them. Yeah, there were 35 of them. That's exactly right. So, you know, beyond that, I don't, like, I feel terrible for those fans. But also, I just, there wasn't a scenario where it was going to work long term. I don't think. I will say this. Like, you mentioned the hockey ops is moving over now. Obviously, with a new owner, he, he's.

may want his own people in different roles. So, you know, we don't know contract situations and that sort of thing. But as far as Bill Armstrong, if he doesn't stick around, boy, Ryan Smith should cut him a check on the way out the door. As a thank you, because holy smokes, are they ever getting a team that is, absolutely ideally set up for a clean slate. This is much better than an expansion team because the cap is clean. The only guys signed up long term really are good young players and they've got a million

draft picks. Like Bill Armstrong intentionally or otherwise set this up absolutely perfectly for a new owner in a new market. Right. Like it was intentional, but not for the, it was intentional for like the last owner, you know. He, what do they have? Oh my God, they have 10 second round draft picks in the next three drafts. Yep.

Wow, man. And like you say, they don't really. Which they can use to draft guys or they can use this summer. Which, yeah. Which you would imagine would be the better scenario. I was just going to say it looks like they're going to have like 40 plus million in cap space

and I don't know that like the names that are going to be unrestricted free agents this summer like I don't know that they're going to necessarily be like the most impactful players but there are a lot of brand name players I would say you know you're Stephen Stamcoces I don't know you know how much it costs to sign Steven Stamcoes

but like you could go get Sam Ron That guy scored 50 plus goals this year, you know? Jake Gensel is available. You know, like, you can go down the list. Like, there are guys who it's like, that's a guy I've heard of, like, that the, you know, maybe not the casual sports fan, but certainly like the casual hockey fan. It's like, yeah, I know I know who Steven Stamco's. Of course. And, you know, if the whole thing with Stephen Stamcoast in Tampa is, like, he wants to play center in the lightning or like,

I don't know, bud. You know, or you can probably play center is on a team with like eight players on the roster right now. What's the Tiki Bar situation in Utah? I'm going to guess not good. Reputationalally speaking. Okay. My assumption is it's not as good as you'd probably like it to be. Gotcha.

If you're an enthusiast. That's disappointing. Yeah, you can't win them all, you know. But yeah, I mean, this is going to be the fun thing about being a, uh, a, uh, a, Salt Lake Coyotes fan or whatever they're going to be called. Is that like they come in with a relatively clean slate and guys who even if you're like, yeah, I'm not like super invested in having Alex Kerfoot on the roster long term. Well, he's only got one year left.

Like the number of guys signed beyond next season is like four or five. And again, some of those guys are Logan Cooley. You know, guys where you're like, I'm fucking psyched to have this guy. signed in, you know, for another three or four years. That sounds sick to me. But also, it's cool because this is a, this is an owner who is clearly going to be motivated to be like, we're not like these other guys. Remember how bad those owners were?

We're actually going to spend an insane amount of money on this team and like, we're going to invest very heavily in them in a way that previous ownership didn't. Like, I totally get that. coyotes players and staffers and whatever, they're like, fuck, man, I don't want to move to Salt Lake City. Of course.

You know, you signed up to be in Phoenix. You have a life in Phoenix. Everybody, that makes perfect sense that you'd be like, I don't want to fucking go. Although apparently they're going to get compensated for the move, like above and beyond.

So that's good, you know. Sure. But if you're a player that's, like, locked in long term and you don't really, you know, maybe you could demand a trade or whatever, but like if you're just like fuck, I guess I'm moving to Salt Lake City,

at least you can understand that the owner is going to be highly motivated to like invest in you and the organization in a way that just was never going to happen in Phoenix or Tempe. If you've ever worked for a crappy company that's been bought or had like brand new management come in or even just had like a crappy manager that everyone hates and then they get rid of him and they bring in someone new. You know that initially, oh, it's all sunshine and. Yeah. Now, that sometimes lasts like a week, but.

Right. Not a bad place to be, I guess, at the very beginning of things. Yeah, right. And like, obviously, even Salt Lake City is not ideal because, you know, their basketball, their arena is a basketball arena. And it seats. 11th. I was so at the Frozen 4 this past weekend, I was sitting next to a kid who covers BC. And he mentioned in passing that he was from Utah. And I was like, what do you think? He's like,

people fucking love the Grizzlies there. Okay. There were a huge deal. They sold a lot of tickets. Like, you know, this kid's probably like 20-ish. And he's, he's. And he's. He's like, yeah, I went to games all the time growing up. They were really fun. A lot of people there all the time, that kind of thing. And so he is optimistic about the enthusiasm in the market. But he's like, I've been to, you know, one of their two of the NHL exhibition games that they've played there over the last several years. And those aren't good.

Those are, it's not, it's just not an arena can do. He's like, he said, what he said was, it's as bad. bad as Barclays or worse. Wow. For the, the fan experience. And it seats like what? Like 11,000, which,

I mean, that's not Mullet, but it's also 11,000. Have we had a building that small other than Mullet in? No, not even close. In modern NHL history? No, the smallest is, I can,

Yeah, Winnipeg is. Right. And for a while, it was the smallest buy a lot. Yeah. And then it obviously got a clips pretty hard. But, um, yeah.

So like, you know, again, it's not ideal. It, but I'm just going to crunch the numbers here real quick. It seems like it's at least twice as big as Mullet Arena. We'll verify that.

We'll get Dom to run it through. Mm-hmm. Thank you. Um, so like that, you know, if that's their home for the next like six or seven years, that's a problem. But apparently, Ryan Smith was like, look, you know, we were planning to build a new, a new rank for the Olympics, which I can't remember what year, like the 2036 Olympics or something like that.

It feels like if they were already planning on it, they could speed up that timeline. And, you know, if they can get a new. new rank open in four years instead of eight? I don't know how feasible that is, but like at that point, you're just like, okay, well, who gives a shit then? You know, like, it could be a good market except to say that it's like a third of the size of Phoenix or something like that, like, you know, in terms of just the sheer volume of people who live there.

But who knows? Interesting times, man. Again, I just, how quickly this all. came together both as a public story, like with the news breaking. I mean, I don't think it was that long after we recorded last week, but in a week how all this has developed. But also the fact that apparently, according to CJ,

it was like a month ago that they sat down with the game, they pulled it all together. Like I said on Twitter, your team's GM doesn't think he can trade a third-line winger in four months in the middle of the season because it's too complicated. But we just worked out a, a multi-billion-dollar franchise move slash expansion side deal. Gary Batman gets things done, man. Can't say he doesn't.

And you know what? In all fairness, man, like, again, it stinks for Arizona hockey fans, but, man, you can't say Gary Batman didn't try. That is ultimately the thing. Like, again, oh, I feel bad for all the fans. They really, again, they had like 30 plus years to build a fan base and it didn't fucking work. No, I don't blame the fans for that.

I think, like you said, the series of horrible fucking owners and like bad arena situations and all that. It's like when a TV show with lousy ratings gets canceled. You can say, like, I feel bad for the people who invested in that story and they're not going to see how it ends. But also. sorry, man, like, there weren't enough for you. It wasn't going to...

You got three seasons of arrested development out of this. And if we're being honest, really only like the first one and a half is all that good. Yeah. And the coyotes got 28 seasons and about one and a half of them were any good. That's right. And I guess the other thing we should say is the, you know, we're talking about Batman and Daly and they went and met with theirs. The real...

thing that seemed to have nudged this and got the ball rolling down the hill was Marty Walsh. Yep. Apparently noticing something that previous leadership in the NHLPA had not noticed, which is, hey, this seems to be, A, costing us a bunch of money and I'm guessing also maybe some of the players for the organization aren't really thrilled. in my opinion, it hasn't been going great. That's what Marty Walsh said and everybody's like, huh? Is that true? Yeah, turns out it was.

And at some point, having a place with casinos and golf courses that can also launder salary cap money turned out not to be as beneficial to the players as millions and millions of dollars in potentially lost revenue. Let me ask you this. Someone asked us in like the mailbag and I didn't include it, but it is a good question. And you're saying about laundering, laundering cap dollars or whatever. Who does that now?

Who's the new team that's like, look, you got an LTIR retired guy? I'll take them. Is it Vegas? I think it might be Vegas, honestly. Well, I mean, Vegas is the, yeah. Did you see the Travis Yose piece on Vegas? I did not. A couple weeks ago.

He basically pointed as a total sidetrack, but he pointed out that they have completely like they have their own model where they are buyers at the deadline and sellers in the summer. Which is kind of the opposite of most contenders.

Like obviously contenders try to buy at the deadline, but you know, they say, well, it's the summer. That's when we have cap space. That's when we'll address the goaltending. That's when we'll add, you know, we can't do it during the season. It's too complicated.

Whereas Vegas has figured out that prices are low on elite players during the season. So that's when you buy. And then in the summer you ruthlessly sell. Even if you've just won a cup, even if you've done whatever, you sell because everyone else has cash. It's like it's a total market inefficiency, I guess, based on how everyone else treats it. And how they've exploited that. Seems to be going well. I can't remember if they've won anything.

but anyways. Yeah, no, it's... Chuck Day, if you... If that sounds interesting, I would encourage people to find that piece that he wrote because it was very interesting. Yeah, I just looked. The coyotes...

Do you know the four guys who are on LTIR retirement? Oh, or three guys, sorry, three guys. Do they... Did they wind up getting Shea Weber back? They got Shea Weber back. That's one of them. Is Brian Little still there? That's another one.

one more. I don't know the other one. Jake Vorichick. Oh, wow. Yeah. That's a name I haven't heard. Voracek and Little come off the books this year. Shea Weber's locked in for another two.

If I'm Vegas, I'm calling up Ryan Smith every day going, listen, you don't want to be paying this guy to not play for you, huh? What do you say we give you a seventh round pick? You send us that contract. Vegas. We go over the cap. I have another $40 million. Who cares? No, I know.

I will never under. That's the one part of all the things in the NHL that I, like, work hard to understand. And I just do the Homer Simpson staring blankly when they're like, oh, yeah, this team, they had to trade away that guy with the big cap hit because, you know, cap hit. And I'm like, yep, got it. And they're like, oh, they had to acquire this guy with the big cap hit because that makes their cap better. And I'm like, yeah, sure does. and then they trade them away again

and they're like, you know, cap hit and I'm like, yep, absolutely. Big thumbs up for me. I love it. Yeah, who is going to be that team? Columbus, maybe. Ottawa. So, yeah, I guess

I guess the thing is that now I don't think there are any teams at all that are trying to just reach the cap floor. Because that's why Arizona always had all these guys. We're just trying to round out that. The bottom of the roster. You know, remember Ottawa was, I don't know, several years ago now was like really only paying out like whatever the number was, like $28 million against a $60 million cap or something. Yeah.

Do you remember that? Yep. I don't think anybody really is trying to do that currently. I guess it'll just be whoever's rebuilding at the time. Yeah. It'll be different teams doing it for two or three years, but not. Maybe. Permanently the way the coyotes seem to.

Yeah. Well, there you go. Why don't we take our break and then we'll come back and we'll talk a little more about the coyote stuff, but then also the firing news and all the playoff stuff. Sorry, you know, a lot going on with the coyotes. It feels like a pretty seismic thing. Yeah. So what do you want from us? All right. We'll be right back. This week's episode of Puck Soup is brought to by Game Time and folks, we've all been there.

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All right, we're back. And I said we had one more coyotes thing. We mentioned that they're not going to be called the coyotes in Salt Lake City. There is, of course, a lot of back and forth about all the possible names that the team could come up with. And a lot of them are bad, as you might imagine. And a lot of them are simply freaking epic, of course. But there was an article that it seems like it seems like it ran first in the St. Louis Tribune and then got picked up by a bunch of... I'm sorry, the Salt Lake Tribune.

I don't know why I said St. Louis. It was stupid. But it got picked up elsewhere. And it's a guy just like throwing shit against the wall. like, what names could they come up with? I just want a thumbs up or a thumbs down on all of these, Sean, from you. All right. It's a list of insanely bad names.

Specters. Like Mark Spector? Yeah, I like that. Yeah, that's great, actually. Sliders. Shakers. Nope. Slapshots.

This is a guy who's never seen a hockey game in his life. Skin walkers. Now, what is a skin walker? I'm going to say no right off the bat, But do I agree. From Native American folklore, this is, I'll just read what the guy wrote, scary shape shifters, a bit too scary from Native American folklore, alliteration though. Okay. The isotopes.

No, no, no, no, no, that's terrible. The freeze. Any singular names are, we're not doing those. Wait a minute. But for the freeze, he says, why not? I got a list of reasons. Why don't you sit down? All right.

then, you know, he makes a good point. He's winning me over. The Blizzard. The chill. No to both of those. Interesting. The Ice Breakers. No.

The Black Diamonds. That one's not bad. I don't hate that one. I don't know about having, like, I don't feel like you can go to two words on a Salt Lake Nail. It's going to screw up the initials. But I don't hate Black Diamonds. Yeah.

Blade runners. No. Hold on. Never saw the movie. But because hockey players run on blades. They do run on blades. They don't run on blades. That is classically the way hockey fans talk about player movies is.

Boy, have you seen that Connor McDavid run on blades? I just love, I just love never saw the movie. But. Come on, dog. It's a pretty fucking good movie. I've never seen another. Never saw. Me and this guy should hang out.

Both of us have never seen Blade Runner and apparently don't like to watch hockey. So. Uh, the storm. Now. The spirits. Nope. Okay. The pioneers.

Now we're into the people category. Yeah. I mean, that, that one's okay, but then, like, he immediately says no to his own idea. Don't go there, he says. Yeah. Hockey can't be played in boots and bonnets. Yeah, you can't, you can't run in boots? No, you can only run on skates.

Everyone fucking knows that. The Saints. I feel like that one is taken. Well, you know, look, there's a lot of names that are being suggested that are at least adjacent to names that are taken. I think they're just going to try to steer away from the whole Mormon thing, in my opinion. The Jacks, short for Lumber Jacks. Sounds like you should have just suggested Lumber Jacks. Lumberjacks wouldn't be terrible, but.

Jacks is no. The Skateful Dead. Okay, I think we're done here. Unfortunately, I have about 30 more of these for you. Christ. The Slashers. No. Oh, okay.

The Gladiators. I like that one. Well, here's the thing. I love this one. By the way, Salt Lake Slash, I'm on board. Yeah, you're loving that November rain. Yeah. Top hat, sunglasses, cigarette hockey stick.

Come on, man. The logo. You can't run on those though, you know. Good point. But with gladiators, here's his reasoning. Because you're thinking, wait a second, did they have ancient Roman gladiators in Salt Lake City? It turns out they didn't.

Oh, okay. What the reasoning is is loved the movie, loved Russell Crowe was Maximus Decimus Meridius. I could have only pulled Maximus, the Spaniard, some might say. Now, that guy would make a great defenseman. Salt Lake City gladiators. Glad's for short, uh-huh You lost me on glads for short

This guy's just thinking of movies He either has or has not seen Movies he's heard of Yeah Loved loved the movie Okay man Ridley Scott fan Yeah sure I get it

The Racers The Rockers Pairs nicely with jazz What's Marty Jennetti up to these days You don't want to know. You straight up. I know for a fact that you don't want to know the answer to that was. Probably not living in Salt Lake City.

Is that what you're suggesting? Yeah. All right. The stone cutters. Okay. We're 23 in and we've already had two Simpsons. That's right. The Ice Men.

No. Oh, okay. The miners. Nope. I kind of like the miners. That's not bad. Dude, can you, you don't like the epic. bacon dudes, can you imagine the first time

the Predators played the Miners? Yeah. How many hilarious jokes you would have to endure? No. The Butchers. Garth Butcher. Well, I didn't see this, but I'm assuming this is another reference to a movie from the early 2000s, a little film called Gangs of New York.

Could be. Bill the Butcher. You know, he's mentioned the movies he either has or hasn't seen, so I don't think this one occurred to him. Yeah. The Plumbers. No. And why does he say that, why does he mention Bobby Hall here? Good solid blue collar types.

That's Bobby Hall's game. Classic Bobby Hall, 650 goal scorer. Yeah. Classic plumber. Third, fucking third line guy. I'm not a guy who was known from scoring from a distance with any sort of specialized shots. No, no. No, absolutely, man.

Yeah, that, again, I don't think this guy, this guy, again, he's just naming guys he's heard of. Yeah. The Moose. Nope. Taken. It is taken. That's true. The ice dogs.

Taken. You know what? That's true. The salty dogs. Stupid. Really fucking stupid. The vultures. Yeah.

Look, I love a good bird name for a team, man. I love the vultures. That's my number one with a bullet so far. All right. The scorpions. We've talked about this in the past, like, team names that you're supposed. surprised aren't used somewhere. And I always mentioned dragons, but scorpions is right up there for me.

As a Scorpio, scorpions are cool and scary, and I'm surprised that, you know, when I'm sitting down and making my little fake sports leagues as a kid, the dragons and the scorpions, that's a rivalry right there. Put them in different conferences so that those are going to be your two big marquee teams. So I'm all on board on that. So when I was a teen boy, I had an uncle who lived in Arizona. And we went down on like a vacation. I think the Patriots were playing the Cardinals or something like that.

And we went to an Arizona Fall League game. And we went to see these Scottsdale Scorpions. And they had like one of the coolest hats I've ever seen in my life. So I think about them a lot as just like, like you said, how do we not have scorpions in hockey anywhere that I can think of. I mean, there probably is like a junior team or something like that. You know what? I can go on elite prospects and just type in Scorpions.

It'll tell me every team that's ever used the name. Let's see here. Scorpions. Hanover Scorpions in the German 3rd Division. Yes, of course. The New Mexico Scorpions is an inactive junior team. And then there's, yeah, like I said, like a bunch of, the Tampa Scorpions

U-18 AA St. John's Scorpions Moncton Scorpions U-15 So it's being used But just like not By anybody Sounds like it's available

It sounds like that That's true Did it have scorpions in Salt Lake? Oh yeah It says here Okay Typically but they're menacing But typically not deadly

Which is perfect for a hockey team That's what I like to think of. The team that's like, we'll keep it close, but we're not going to beat you. Menacing, but not deadly. Several species such as the giant hairy desert scorpion and the northern scorpion are right at home here. Alliteration. I mean, the way things go, I feel like the Salt Lake giant hairy desert scorpions would, it just rolls off the tongue.

Yeah, the, uh, the SLGD's S and grimacing. SLGHDSs. There you go. One of the best teams out there. The wolves. What I like about this? You're right that that's true. The Chicago wolves, obviously.

But what I like about this is, it's like a coyote, but what if it was big or meaner? Good point. You know what? That's a good point. I don't like that. That's fun. Big horns. That one's okay.

I like it because it's like, again, it's just like a native animal. not used as far as I know. But again, I just like the description here. It's a sheep, but it sounds rough and tough. Your salt lake big horns. Great point, brother. Yeah. Porcupines.

Hold on a second here. Next to porcupines, it says, I've played a lot of hockey and nobody on ice wants anything to do with the prickly creatures. It's going to be a big citation needed for me there. I'm not getting the play. made a lot of hockey vibe off of this guy. Okay, I got another.

Blades, I can't wait to get out there and run around. I got another one for you. Wood rats have no clue what these are, but they sound difficult to deal with. You're just suggesting things you don't, you've never heard of? What is this? Goats.

Nope. Yeah, of course. Skunks? Nope. They stink, but they live here. again, you just don't, you don't want to put into the mind of the ticket buying public. No, it really didn't. We could have gone 25 and maybe, you know, that would have been fine.

You just don't want to put into the mind of the ticket buying public. You know the thing that stinks? Yeah. Buy a ticket, please. The sandpipers, again, a bird, so I'm in favor. Okay. That one's all right. The links.

Uh, I mean, the good old Ottawa links, AAA baseball team. we used to have up here. WNBA, Minnesota links. Sure. But again, this guy, and in the description, this guy is conceding. Not as common in Utah as its cousin the Bobcat. Well, why not say fucking Bobcats dog? You know? Rattlers, Condors, Cinnamon Bears.

That's a real bear, by the way. Is it really? Mm-hmm. All right. Sidewinders. I like that one. Soul Lake Sidewinders? Yeah, I like that.

Okay, yeah. The coyotes. I just love that he slipped that in at 45. At 45, yeah, absolutely. The cutthroats, which is a type of salmon or trout, trout. I'm asking this guy to read the room a little bit on hockey news of 2024. Well, he literally says, some have suggested this name for various pro teams in Utah in honor of trout. But for hockey, it just conjures images and injury. Nobody wants to think about. That's

right. Yeah. That's, that's a hundred percent correct. The stingers. If you're going to go stingers, I think, I think first of all, he's retired. And second of all, you just go scorn and then of all, you just go scorn against. Right. Well, so this is the thing, bees are, Utah is the beehive state. Bees are used in a, I believe on the state, flag or at least the beehive is on the state flag and like bees are on various things around the state like signage and stuff like that something to do with bees works for me a lot okay um but stingers the problem is well among a number of problems that is apparently the name of the Columbus blue jackets mascot it's a hundred percent the name of the blue jackets so he's gonna

he's gonna sue you yeah the guy in the suit unless can you acquire it like I mean I feel like, what's his contract status? Everybody's got a price. Everybody's got a price. You know, there's got to be a number where the Columbus Blue Jackets would say, like, not only can you have him, we're bringing back the penis

cannon. Yep. There's something to think about. Stallions. Apparently there was a football team there. Baltimore Stallions were a CFL team. Okay. I imagine there have been others. The Raptors?

I feel like that's been used. Well, so it has been, there's a minor league baseball team called the Ogden Raptors. Oh, okay. That must be the one I was thinking of. But, I mean, obviously, the Toronto Raptors, but. Is this the only dinosaur one that they've got on this list? It is because there is a dinosaur called the Utah Raptor. Okay.

So you couldn't be the Salt Lake Raptors, in my opinion. If you were the Utah Raptors, you just feel like we're named after the thing. I don't know what you want from me. But I believe they were discovered up around Ogden, which is why... What was the last time we got a team that had like the same name as an existing big forward team? I mean, I guess was the Jets coming back. Yeah, that's right. Beyond that, I can't remember the last time somebody would like sat down and was like, we're going on this.

I got one for you. The Eagles and everyone was like, hold on. Yeah, hold on. I like this one too. The mag pies. They're just a very common bird out out in that state. a Corvid I feel like there were

three or four good ideas yeah and they only had to come up with 50 this is as someone who worked in the in the newspaper business for a little while there this is what they call

filling column inches yep we need 2,000 words from you this is what we call barely filling column inches but are they filled no further questions your honor

you know Scorpions is my pick out of that list. Out of that list, I think I would have to... Sidewinders wasn't bad. No, I like sidewinders. And a couple of the bird ones were okay. Yep. But I will defer to you on the subject of the birds.

Thank you. I appreciate that. Let's talk about this. This happened, I think, two minutes before we started recording this morning. Don Granato fired. Yeah. Hard to argue is what I think I would say. to that one.

Yeah, I mean, it's tough, right? Like, did not have the success. Certainly was the right coach coming in to replace Ralph Kruger, got Jeff Skinner back on track, seemed to unlock Tage Thompson, but we've talked about this before. Sometimes you are the coach for the rebuild and not the coach for the actual winning part of the plan. Yep.

There had been talk that he would be back. Apparently, according to, I think it was Pierre, I saw a tweet, had signed an extension that hasn't started yet. So he'll be all right, I guess. Yeah. But, yeah, on to the next. There's lots of good coaches out there. Yeah, right now there really are.

This would be really good in Buffalo, wouldn't he? Doesn't that feel like? That is the immediate line that I think everybody I saw drew. was just like, you know what, what can we say? That seems like the move. Question is, how much will the Pagoulas pay a coach, given that they're already paying one, not to coach? The other question, for me anyway, is even beyond the paying the coach or whatever,

how sure are we the Jay Woodcroft is a good coach and not just a guy who coached Connor McDavid? I mean, it wasn't his, obviously his record was very good. Yeah. I thought the underlying numbers and everything were real good, too. No, of course they were. I think we had lots of signs. I guess we'd find Ode if we.

I just think there is, like, I agree. I think, I think in my head, I go, that guy's a good coach. But would I be surprised at all if it turned out not so much? Like you get to, look. Yeah. I feel like, Coaches with better track records than Jay Woodcroft have gone to Buffalo and not had it work out very well, let's say, in the past 15 years or whatever, you know? So we're now, that is, somebody said 15 coaches since the end of last year.

That's crazy. So we could absolutely get to half the league of turnover. In the next week. Yeah. Pretty soon because, I mean, yeah, Rick Tocke hired in the middle of last year. So they might be counting him because I'm only counting 14 here. But either way. A lot of turnover and potentially more to come after the playoffs.

And not to mention, obviously, the interim guys swam. Well, but I was just thinking, like, you know, we're going to find out who gets eliminated from the playoffs. Yeah, like Sheldon keep will be gone. potentially if they, oh, I'm just talking about like the penguins might. I don't think so. Yeah.

No, you never know if they miss the playoffs. Detroit, if they miss the playoffs. Could San Jose make a move on that? That wouldn't shock anyone. No, no. Yeah, Detroit definitely.

Seattle. Seattle. Yeah, we're going to get there, I think. Yeah, it's possible. Not to mention who even knows what happens with Arizona. By the way, apparently Andrei Turinier was loudly ruffling some feathers on behalf of his players, which is good.

He should. Good for him. Well, I mean, he should. But in his situation, you can understand if he was like, Amy, not sticking. Do you remember what his situation is vis-a-vis contract? No. He just signed like a three-year extension, I think. Okay.

Like end of last season or so, around then. So he's locked in for a while, is my point. So he can be like, yeah, fuck it. You want to fire me? Okay, great. I'll take my three years worth of money and I'll chill. But again, I just think Ryan Smith has to be like, look, anybody who's mad about this? Like, I fucking get it, man.

Like, how could you not be? Like, he just has to have, I would say, a pretty dim view of everything that happened in everything. Like, the whole thing with, like, not even. You know what? It was bad. We've done enough coyotes talk. Yeah, yeah, yeah. For sure.

Treat people better, man. So, yeah, let's circle back to this whole Don Granado thing. I don't really put this on him, this underperformance, if you want to call it that. Again, I didn't think they were like, everybody thought they were going to make the playoffs this year. I thought that was people getting out ahead of their skis. Like, I thought it was a very real possibility that they missed the playoffs by how. however much. And the real question for me anyway is you mentioned Tage Thompson earlier. How much is him clearly playing with an injury for quite a long time and then missing a bunch of games?

How much is that just like, yeah, look, we missed out on like four or five points? I don't think you like he personally is worth that. And you know, you never want to get into like, oh, if this guy had just been healthy, this team actually would have nine more points. If our team had been completely healthy and everyone had had good seasons. We would have been better. But, you know, Tage Thompson went from what did he have last year? 40-something goals. He's still going to hit 30, but, or he could hit 30.

He's at 29 right now. But like, yeah, man, Alex Tuck can't be your best forward. Yeah, there's a lot of work to do on the team. And also the not unreasonable gamble of just going with what they had in net. didn't feel like it worked out. Even though they've got two pretty solid assets, I really wonder if they don't feel like they have to get a veteran. Lugan had a good year.

He had a good enough year. But do you go in with him and Levi's your two next year and just... Or do you move one of them for someone who helps now and the other guy is your goalie of the future? I don't know that, like... I don't think you can move on from Levi. The track record is just so strong. And in that case, like, who are you going out to get that's guaranteed to be better than Hugo Pekalukin and was this year?

What you really need is just Levi to come along and be above 900, I think, is the answer. But again, like, you know, you look at the guys on, a lot of guys on this roster kind of underperformed a little bit, I would say. You know, relative to expectations. like Jeff Skinner, he was a point of game player last year. Now he's at 46 points. You know? Yep.

Dylan Cousins, again, you're waiting for him to have that breakout year and it just hasn't fucking happened yet. 47 points for him. Again, not the points for the B-L-E-L-end-all, but I don't think you look at Dylan Cousins and go, now there's a guy who's an unbelievable defensive player. And the points who just aren't coming along.

He's good at he's good-ish at a lot of stuff, let's say. But for where he was picked and what his age is, again, just like you would maybe hope he would be further along. Dahlene had a great year, obviously. Owen Power, a good year, let's say. Not a great one. And even Dahlene, like, a lot of people had him as their Norris pick this year. And it didn't, you know, didn't take that next step. He scored 20 fucking goals, man.

He's a good player. That blue line is well set. Yes. Yep. In good shape. God, Henry Yokohari is only 24 years old. How's that possible? That's a guy I was watching in like 2011, I feel like.

You know? Mm-hmm. And yet here we are. Yeah. I just wonder like what they, I'm not, I don't have their cat-friendly page open, but I'm wondering what they can do. to like, because they're a team that is in a position at this point, in my opinion, that is more the like, fuck, man, we just, we got to do the Eiser plan thing of going out and getting a bunch of like 31 year olds to contracts that are kind of inadvisable. Because kind of like the Red Wings, but like further along in their development process where it's like, yeah, they have a bunch of good young players.

And those like good young players have to, you know, old Tage Thompson? he's going to be 27 in October. Hmm. Okay. Not a guy you think of as being that old, and yet here we are, you know. It took him a while to find the game. They don't have a ton of guys signed for next year, man. They could make some stuff happen.

Mm-hmm. They could. Right. Well, that's what I mean. Like, that's... That's what I mean. Oh, yeah. Uco Pekalookinan is a...

a pending RFA with arbitration rights. He might cost them a bit of money this summer. Interesting. Well, anyway, yeah, the Sabres fired their coach. I don't think anybody's surprised by that. Oh, you know what? I just realized last night was their last night, right? It was their last game.

My first thought was, oh, that's a weird time to do it because sometimes you do see teams fire guys with a game or two left because the coach basically says, like, look, make a decision. But in this case, we actually have some teams that are done. Yeah, that's weird. Including the Rangers. Congratulations to them on winning the president's trophy.

Yeah, they did. I'm just going to point out. I'm just going to say it. They had all year to win the president's trophy. Could have done it anytime they want it. Could have clinched first place in the division any time they want it. Didn't do it until like an hour after the Islanders clinched third. Sounds to me like the Rangers are afraid of the Islanders.

Sounds to me like the Rangers did not. They got them on the run. As soon as the Islanders were locked in at number three, the Rangers were like, we do not want this match him. Just saying. It's just something for everybody to consider. Just a lot of people are saying it. And you're hearing it more and more.

You are. So, yeah, let's talk about that whole playoffs deal. Things are getting very. interesting in the East. Yeah, this is so sick. That Detroit game last night was fun as hell. That was really good to sit down and watch

the third period of that. Down two goals, you know, like, there is something kind of fascinating about games where like one team is playing a playoff game and the other team has nothing on the line. Right. Other than getting kind of caught up in the,

in the atmosphere of it all. And that was, man, that was really, that was really something. Yeah. And I mean, they're doing it again tonight. Tonight's the big one, man. This is what it's all about, folks.

Philly, Washington, Philadelphia must win in regulation. I've seen a lot of takes where people are like, isn't it crazy that Philadelphia might have to pull their goalie if the game's tied? And it's like, yeah, that's, that's happening. I don't know what crazy is the right word. Yeah, it'll be interesting, but, yeah. Philadelphia has to win in regulation. To stay alive.

To stay alive. Washington is winning in. Yep. And it's any kind of win and they're in. Philadelphia is, if they don't win in regulation, are out. And the other teams are waiting to see what happens in this game to figure out what they need. Right. And then Pittsburgh, I think, plays tomorrow night.

Am I remembering this correctly? I should have just written this down, I guess. but I'm pretty sure they don't play tonight, and they do play on Wednesday. Hittsburg plays Wednesday. Against the islanders. Which at the time seemed like it could be a big one. But that is, yeah, and that's their last game of the season. And they're the other team that's in it.

So someone on Reddit, this got posted in the Puck Soup Discord, someone on Reddit figured out that if games. If games break a certain number of ways tonight and tomorrow, we could get down to the sixth tiebreaker to determine who makes the playoffs, which is cool. It is cool. Although, I got to say, it sounds cooler than it is because when you start listing the tiebreakers, you're like, oh, that's just the same thing four times until you get to the weird stuff. Sort of, yeah. So the number one tie break, well, we love running down tiebreakers on that. the show now apparently.

Number one tiebreaker, all teams, is number of games played. Obviously, everybody here will be tied at 82. The greater number of games won, including games won in overtime or by shootouts. So basically like,

I'm sorry, excluding games one in regular. So basically regulation wins. Then the greater number of games one excluding the shootout is the third one. So regulation and. overtime. Greater number of games won in any way. So then all wins. So now they're including shootout wins. Yeah. It's all the wins. Then it gets interesting. So many ways to win in this league. And this is, again, this is just so reflective of how dumb this league is. The fifth

tiebreaker, ahead of goal difference, which is the sixth tiebreaker, is the greater number of points earned in head-to-head games, uh, for the purpose of determining standings for two or more clubs that have not played an even number of games with one or more of the tied clubs. The first game played in the city that has the extra game, the odd game it says here in quotation marks, shall not be included.

Mm-hmm. So, because of that, the Flyers and the Capitals have played an odd number. of time, will have played an odd number of times by the end of the season. The first game played in the city with the extra game shall be excluded. The Flyers won that in a shootout. The next game, the Capitals won at home in regulation. So should this scenario play out and the Flyers win on Wednesday in regulation,

this tiebreaker is also deadlocked. And then you get to goal difference, which the Flyers would win. But this is what we should all be rooting for to happen. This is the scenario. Flyers Capitals, Philly wins in regulation, as Sean said. You want Detroit to lose in regulation. Then you want Philly or, sorry, Pittsburgh to lose in any way, but preferably they would lose in a shootout because then it creates a situation where there are a number of one extra team tied in the standings. Okay.

Basically. But the penguins would lose tiebreakers to both Philly and Washington, so it wouldn't matter. But so if it's flyers win in regulation, Detroit loses in regulation, Penguins win or lose in a shootout specifically, that creates a situation where everybody is tied with 89 points, all four of those teams. That's so sick. It would be fun. Yep. That rules. But definitely we can't have a play in where the teams just played each other to get into the playoffs.

That would be wrong. We're going to go to the six tiebreaker. If it's up to me, I think goal difference should be the number one tiebreaker. That's just me. If it's up to the Washington Capitals, it should not. Yeah. Wow. Are they ever bad at that?

Minus 38. I'm going to give you a list of teams that have a better goal difference than that. The Flyers, the Devils, the Ottawa Senators, the St. Louis Blues, the Minnesota Wild, the Calgary Flames, the Seattle Cracken, and the Arizona Coyotes. All have a better goal difference this season. Among non-playoff teams. The Islanders also have a better goal difference, although there's two is negative. They're pretty bad, yeah. Oh, by the way, speaking of the Islanders, just to put a bow on the Don Granado thing,

Islanders have one game left to try to tie the Buffalo Sabres for wins in this season. Sabers right now have won one more game than the Islanders, but they are like 47 points behind them in the playoff race. This is a great league. It's such a great system. It makes so much sense. Yeah, to your point, the Islanders have 28 regulation wins. Can I read you a list of teams that are not in the playoffs right now?

Sure. Yeah. That have more than that. More than 28. The penguins, the flyers, the sabers, the devils. The blues, the wild, the flames, and that's it. The blues. The blues.

The wild. The terrible failure of a team, the flames. Yep. The NHL, you finished 39 and 43 the way the sabers did. You fire your coach. Mm-hmm. But you go 38 and 43. You're in the playoffs, baby.

That's hockey. Probably going to win around. How about this? The Islanders only have one shootout win this year. Big ups to them. Good for them. One in five in the shootout. How about this, though?

The Ottawa Senators, five and O in the shootout, baby. You know what? They can build on that. That's right. It's totally repeatable. So one thing that has really annoyed me, this week. Maybe I'm crazy here. Is all the people who have PHWA votes this year going, I'm going to get yelled at for saying

who my top five in the MVP race are? Someone's going to be so bad at me. Who cares? Shut up. You know what a good way to avoid people being mad at you is? Be one of those people who is not important enough to ever get a voting. Bingo, baby. Be one of those second. Second and third tier types. Not that I know anyone like that. You'd be like me and be on like the fifth tier and not in the PHWA at all. Don't want to be.

Don't want to be. You don't want to be involved. No, I don't want to be. You don't, you're too cool to hang out with us. I just, the amount of bullshit you got to put up with, I feel like, you know. People being like, oh, you're not allowed to write that article. You're in the PHWA. Shut up.

I don't care. I'm writing whatever I want. I don't think that's ever. happened. I've gotten scolded for writing articles by PHWA members. Not recently, but you can't have a take like that, man. I apologize for that. Shouldn't have done that.

I'll tell you off the air who it was. I don't give a fuck. But yeah, the MVP race, McKinnon, McDavid, Kutrov, maybe Crosby, Panarin, maybe hellabuck, and in my opinion, if voters were really being serious, Quinn Hughes would be in the conversation as well. So who would be your five? Because this is, again,

turning it, because it's an excellent rate, it's a fantastic race this year. There's also... Awesome. So cool. But it's like everyone's like, well, this guy's got to be top three. And it's like you've just named five guys who have to be in the top three. That's not how math works. You know, I... Where are your five guys? Because you're

right. There are... At the very least, there's the four guys having ridiculously great offensive seasons. There's Hughes, there's Hellebuck. Crosby, if the Penguins make the playoffs. Panarin probably gets left out. Wait, you said four guys who were having great offensive season. So, Fucharov, McDavid, McKinn, and Matthews.

Oh, fuck, I didn't even put Matthews on my list. Yeah. So he's not in there, I guess, is my answer. So Austin Matthews is not. You know, well, so here's a thing. 70 goals and it was a selky finalist. I get it. You're right. No, look, I don't disagree that Austin Matthews is great. However, I think I would go McDavid, not in order. I haven't really thought about it this strongly.

I think I would go McKinney, McDavid, Kutrov, Hellebuck, and then I'd really have to think between Matthews, Panarin, Hughes, and Crosby. I'd have to really think about it. Just, I mean, it goes to show how great a season it's been that, like, awesome Matthews could score 70 goals and be the runner-up for the Selka. I don't think he's going to win. Like, Barkoff's going to win. But could be the runner-up for the Selke while scoring 70 goals and legitimately, like not outrageously, be left off some heart balance.

Yep. I'll tell you who's going to be left off heart ballots. Hella-Buck and Hughes. Those guys aren't forwards. You're not allowed to win it if you're not. one of those. Well, I mean, it's, you're not allowed to, we do default to the, to the forwards. And, yeah, it's, uh, oh, it's going to be, uh, I still think it's McKinnon. Yeah, I agree. It's been McKinnon all season. Like, even earlier this year when he didn't have like,

you know, wasn't, wasn't like lighting the world on fire like he has in the last, I'd say, two thirds of the season. People were like, well, he's going to win it. You're the only one of the big four forwards who had. hasn't already won one, which shouldn't matter. But it does. It can. Totally does. I tell you, if I had a ballot, which I don't, but if I did, I would give real consideration to,

and I don't know if I'd have the guts to do it. But I would really consider going Hella Buck 1 and then the four forwards. It should be Hella Buck 1. In my opinion, I think it should be Hella Buck 1. The Jets are like... I'm going to keep working hard and see if I'm pretty. My ballot back someday. You're not going to earn it back by having someone who's not a forward win it.

Yeah. You want to get yelled at. There's your answer. And just for the record, like, look, when these ballots come out and you want to get all mad, yes, absolutely. If somebody is either, occasionally you see, and I don't think it's really an issue anymore, but you'll see like a ballot for somebody who barely even covers a sport anymore because they had one back when they were the high, you know, that's no good. And every once in a great while, you do see people who are clearly, seem to be voting just for attention or so they can get a call them out of it or whatever.

Okay. Go ahead and be mad at those people. But this whole, like, oh, I'm mad because this guy, this guy voted for, like, there's 200 voters, man. You're supposed to get some variety of thought. You're supposed to get, like, that's how it's supposed to. work. It's not, we don't have 200 voters so that every award can be unanimous. Stop complaining. The thing I always say, you know who do a perfect job of this? Me.

I'll decide every award. It'd be great. And if it happened to be your favorite teams players that won every award, then that's just the way it goes because they're great. Well, that's the thing. I don't care. Nice people, too. Every single one of those guys. Just

biggest sweetie you can imagine. But we got a really interesting mailbag question so interesting that I wanted to bring it up on the show. This guy, Tom, on our mailbag on the Patreon, asked, I'm already hearing a lot of if the penguins make the playoffs, I have to rethink my heart ballot for Sid. In that event, from whom does he steal the most votes? This is a really interesting question. So in my end, I thought about this. And I think it's, I think it comes down to two guys. Because clearly if, if the penguins make the playoffs by one point and that puts Crosby on your ballot, you're clearly a very much a old school, like, value type of guy.

You're the sort of person who voted for Taylor Hall. Sure. Yeah. So I think it would have to be, you know, you're not going to, that's not going to take votes away from McDavid or Matthews or McKinnon or the teams that made the playoffs by. 20 points. It's got to be to me either Hellebuk or

I guess Kuturov would be the other one that you could Well I was going to say Panarin I think Panarin's going to get a lot of consideration Like Explain to me the thinking of someone who has Panarin on the President's Trophy winning Rangers As they're on their heart ballot But he was their best player by far this year

It was but I mean what's the value in Because, I mean, we're assuming this person is not going to vote for Crosby if the Penguins miss the playoffs. Right. But if they make the playoffs, he's the reason they made it. Okay, great. Well, so I'll give you the reason. You just mentioned Taylor Hall. Artemi Pinaran has 120 points.

Vincent Trocheck is second on the team in scoring with 77. It's a big gap. 43 points is a huge fucking gap. So that's why. He would be kind of like the Taylor Hall style. Although, you know, obviously, Taylor Hall, like, got a bad team into the playoffs. Yeah, see, that to me is the thing, right? Like, that's the whole, it's this stupid thing of, like, just get them into the playoffs.

And then if they absolutely get their doors kicked in in a round one, well, who cares? Honestly, you know who's... Bouts are already in at that point. You know who's probably the Rangers MVP? I'm not joking. Is Jonathan Quick? If he doesn't go 950 for four months or whatever, remember that, he just was, like, insanely good. like beyond good.

He was insanely great for quite a while in my recollection a kind of slow start and then he hasn't, I would say, ended up like super well. Again, just in my

recollection. But there was a stretch there that he was just like, oh, I'm going to stop 95% of the shots I face for quite a while here. That is what got the Rangers out of that

morass in the middle of the Metro for sure. So you know what? You talk about teammates. Somebody pointed this out and it kind of, I hadn't thought of it, but it makes sense. But Austin Matthews is going to finish with more goals than the next two players on his team combined.

Oh, I mean, he's unquestionably the best player on that team. Again, like I also, I think the other thing is with Matthews is, you know, people look at the points. But I think if you look at primary points, he's like right there with at least a few of the other guys. Somebody pointed out, I saw this on Twitter this morning and I, you know, I just scroll past it. Since the All-Star break, Nikita Kutrov has as many goals at five-on-five as Cody

Cici. Wow. Yeah, because he's doing nothing but getting assists. That's right. And also Cody Cici. I mean, this is one of the great players of league. Cody, I've, the Cody Crybaby is out there. That's exactly right, brother.

Boy, I tell you. That's exactly right. Adrenaline in his soul. That's what I'm always saying. Something. Cody Rhodes. Cody Rhodes. You know what?

Why don't we get the hell out of here? Why don't you hit him with the plugs and we'll beat it? Find me at the athletic. Got a lot of stuff this week. I'm going to have the... First of all, if you didn't see it yesterday, I did my top 16. It was the last of the weekend ranking, so I went to my full rankings of who I think will and won't. Have a chance at the cup.

I've got bandwagon rankings this week. And I also have a, let's just say a new contest is going to be dropping this week. Oh, we're going to be very close to the end of your current contest. Well, yes, except that. Oh, yeah, you have some that goes into the draft, right? Yeah, some of it does go into that. But yeah, forget it. We do have that as well, and you guys are not doing well.

It's not going great. I actually did perfectly in everyone. Yeah, Ryan did perfect because he texted me his entry. but he was like don't because it's a spoiler, right? Look, you know, I don't want to give the game away, you know? Yeah. It's not good for business. No, it's not.

I don't want to be exposing the business, I guess. Yeah, exactly. You can't do that. So, yeah, for me, I guess if you really want to go back and read all my college hockey coverage, now that we're out of the Frozen Four. By the way, speaking of the Frozen Four, there is a very strong thought, I think kind of depending on what Washington does. Like if they don't make the playoffs, I think if Washington doesn't make the playoffs, I think there's a very, very, very strong possibility that all three of B.C.'s freshman, Gabe Perot, Ryan Leonard, and Will Smith are back next year. but I would count on two of those three guys coming back to BC next season.

Okay. Which would be, I mean, they all scored 60 points as freshmen in 35, 40 games, whatever the number is. They'd be tough to beat next year, in my opinion. Yeah. If all those guys come back, obviously Cutter-Go T-A signed. I think they announced Rutgers McGroorty's going back to Michigan too. That's a pretty surprising. But I think what you're seeing now, and this is part of a larger trend, sorry to derail plugs.

But I think what you're seeing now is that there are a lot of college players who are saying, if I'm just going to be in the AHL, I'd rather be in college. Pretty interesting. pretty pretty interesting. So, yeah, something to keep an eye on there for everybody. But yeah, go to E.P. Rinkside and, you know, we'll have a lot of playoff coverage coming up in the next little while here, including, obviously, for me. But later this week, I will have a final power feelings of the regular season, just, you know, who I think is going to win the Stanley Cup. Correction, who I feel like is going to win the Stanley Cup.

That's right. And feelings can't be wrong. Feelings cannot be wrong. And I'll also have a ranking of teams where it would be cool if they won the Stanley Cup. Okay. Of all the playoff teams. I'll give you a hint. Whoever wins the last year, I'm usually pretty down on there.

It would be cool. I don't need to see these guys win again. You know what I mean? Vegas, whatever. That's right. So yeah, check all that out and then head over to patreon.com slash Puck Soup, where we have a lot of bonus content coming your way in the next week or two because of, you know, we're trying to get everything done before the playoffs start

or as much as we possibly can. So because then that's when schedules get hectic. I don't know if people know about this. I've heard. When you're trying to get four hockey writers to find a time that works for all four of them at once, not easy or even three of the four, two of the four, not easy. So, yeah, stay tuned for all that kind of stuff. We got plenty coming your way.

And thanks for listening to this show. And we'll talk to you next week to, I guess we'll be knee-deep in the playoffs by then. We sure will. Yeah. Going to be cool. All right. Have a good one, everyone. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.