Puck Soup - Not-In Or Nice?

Episode Date: December 21, 2022

Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slap shots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to what if you commute. We also cover movies, TV shows, it's in tunes. It's your weekly bowl of hockey and nonsense. I'm Ryan Labrott from Elite Prospects. I'm Sean McAnew from The Athletic. And folks, the world is different now. A little movie called Avatar

The Way of Water came out. It changed my life. Before I didn't, you know, like everybody made fun of those people who saw the first one and were like, I want to move to Pandora. My life is ruined because that's fake. You know? I didn't get that.

I saw the second one. I'm like, oh, now I want to live on Pandora. Oh, boy. Wow. It rocks. It's so good. You've seen it twice, right? I've seen it twice. So that's like nine hours of your life

that you've devoted to. It's only like six and a half. Oh, okay. Well. I mean, unless you count the time, I watched Avatar on, like, one on Sunday, in which case, yeah, I guess that is. That's awesome. That's because it would be hard to, like, be more excited for a movie than you were for this. And that, my experience is that usually leads to, like, at least some degree of a letdown.

Yeah. I'm not, I'm not sensing that. No, not at all. I thought it was like, you know, again, my strongest urging, Sean, see this movie in theaters when you can, as big of a screen as you can, all that kind of stuff. Because, you know, watching Avatar on my perfectly good, you know, 4K TV or whatever, doesn't really, you know, tell the story. And then, you know, there was a review that was basically like, oh, if you watch Avatar 1 now,

and then you see Avatar 2, you'll feel like Avatar 1, the highest grossing movie of all time for like 15 years or whatever, was like a test run for Avatar 2. Wow. Something else? Yeah, I guess it was a little crude and whatever.

And then you see this and you're like, oh, they're on a whole different fucking level now, man. That's fair. Are you seen it again? Is this going to be like... Oh, yeah. There will be a third viewing for sure in theaters. Are you?

Now here's my question. Are you like, you talk about wanting to live in, in Pandora Land? Like, have, have you ever been to, like, the Disney World or? Yes. Okay, you have. I would say, I would say, honestly, that, like, really kick started my, like, damn, do I like Avatar? Okay.

Like, I thought the movie was fine at first, maybe even, like, a little disappointed. But I didn't see it, like, premium large for, like, there just wasn't an IMAX that I could go to and see it easily in my in my town at the time. But then, you know, now there's an IMAX in every other movie theater, basically. So. Did you see the story with, is it Edie Falco? Mm-hmm. Where she is in the movie, but I guess had filmed her part four years ago.

Yeah, they filmed a good chunk of this one before COVID. Yeah. And then they filmed the rest of it during COVID. So she filmed it four years ago and apparently just never really heard anything else about it. So she just assumed the movie had already come out and had bombed. Yeah, right. That's very funny to me. Yeah, I like when it's...

Yeah, it's much like a hockey player. Like if you go, oh, you know, are you... You got a long road trip coming up and they're like, oh, we do? Yeah. Interesting. I mean, I just... Because I know that feeling right of when you've heard of a movie, but you're like, I honestly don't know if it's come out already or not. Except I'm usually not in the movie.

And it's not like the biggest movie ever made. But, yeah, you think she would stay on top of that. But, you know, people are busy. The other thing I guess we should say is I tweeted last night that I had seen it a second time. It's just as good the second time. And a guy tweeted at me saying, I work on the crew of Avalanche. The Way of Water and the untitled third one, rumored to be titled The Seed Bearer, I believe. And he said there are multiple Avatar crew members who he knows for sure listen to Puck Soup.

Ducks fans, Kings fans, Bruins fans, Sharks fans, which is really cool. And so to you, we say O'elniati, Kama E. do we Kame'i? Yeah, that means I see you in the movie. Oh, okay. Yes.

That's like their thing that they say. Thank you to crew member James C. That was very nice. Dude, if I, man. I'd be like, get us in the movie. I want to be doing that. Like, why, was there, are there any, like,

fuck soup Easter eggs hidden in the movie? Well, not, hey, a great way to enrich the third viewing. Yeah. I thought it was weird. one seed where they open up a box and there's a dog's head inside, but now I think I get it. Yeah, I wonder, I wonder if I watch it again, does like Paya Khan say, uh, that rocks? Let's find out.

Let's see it again. But yeah, uh, see Avatar the way of water. Not that, uh, James Cameron needs my help. It's the number one movie, uh, right now. It's going to be the number one movie, probably for the rest of the year. Um, if my like 85% sold out, uh, Tuesday. night showing of Avatar the way of water is any indication.

They're going to be making money hand over fist with this one again. Big Jim did it. Nothing else to say about that. Yeah, it rocks. The other thing I wanted to talk about that isn't hockey real quick, the World Cup final.

Do you know about this? Yes. Was that, you watched it live. I watched it from the point where France tied it because literally what happened is I my, you know, we're not a, we're not a soccer house. But, you know, we're aware of the World Cup.

It's a big thing. Thank you so much. Yeah. I guess I've heard of that. I will, you know, sure. I will acknowledge your trifling little. And my son was playing video games down on the, the Bain TV. And I looked at the score and it was 2-0.

And I said to him, I said, Argentina's winning 2-0-0. Do you want to flip over and watch like the last 10 or 15 minutes? And he was like, yeah, well, let me wrap up what I'm doing. And I was like, that's fine. And by the time we flip back, like, the game was tied. Like, I was literally, like, I'm like, you're not going to believe this,

but I feel like France just tied it while you were saving that game. And then we watched from there on and were like screaming at the television. Like, I can't even imagine. imagine what that would have been like to watch with like a rooting interest. Stakes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because that was insanely entertaining. Yeah, especially like France goes up three to Argentina ties it, you know? And you're just like, you know, because in the first half especially,

Argentina was up to two nothing for like a good chunk of the game. Yeah. And in the first half, they're going like, what is for, like, everybody online in like the coverage is going, what is France doing? They made, they made subs. And like Argentina subbed off. It's the guy who had been their best player on Haldia Maria. Like, they pulled him out of the game early. And then as soon as they did, France was like, no, we're back in this one actually.

It was fucking crazy. How do you pronounce the French stars? I'm Bappe? Hillinghambape, yeah. I mean, in a sport where famously one-nothing results are not at all rare, to score three goals in the final and not win is, I mean, it was so good because. Joe Thornton shit, right? It is.

Yeah. Except, of course, they won the last World Cup, so not really. Right. Yeah, that's true. It's like, to sit and watch, you need it to have no appreciation of soccer whatsoever, because I'm very close to no,

and that's not a knock, that's not me saying I don't like soccer. I just, I don't understand it. I don't watch it. I don't, you know, I don't, there's nothing in my brain that helps me get into watching something like that. And yet, all you need to know is it's a championship.

This matters an insane amount. Arguably the two best players of the world are on either side. And they're both playing amazing. Go. It was per, like, you couldn't look away. You know, Leo Messi widely considered the greatest player to ever put on a pair of soccer cleats. just absolutely incredible

finally wins it in what is definitely going to be his last World Cup he's 34 years old even if he's still playing four years from now would like playing for inter Miami or whoever

in MLS he's definitely not going to be making the Argentine well I shouldn't say definitely because he's Leo Messi but the odds are quite good that he will not be playing for Argentina

four years from now which is is fine. Again, he's 34 years old. That is ancient in soccer turn. The oldest player in the league. A miracle. But, like, actually, though. Yeah. Because it's like, if you think about it, like, how many miles do you think

Leo Messi has run in his illustrious career? A billion? Something like that? Sounds right? Probably up there. Yeah. So, you know, you just, and you could see it in this World Cup. There were so many plays where, like, two years ago, Messi would have just, like, sprinted away from the guy who, and now the guy can catch up with him, the defender, you know? But anyway, so it's him, the greatest of all time,

versus Zimbabwe, a guy who people are like, could become the greatest of all time. Already won a World Cup, et cetera, et cetera. I think somebody said he is now the highest scoring player in the history of World Cup finals. Oh, wow. He has four finals goals. and nobody else has that many.

And this is his second final. And, you know, he's, what, 24, I want to say. So, yeah. That is something. To see the, to see the, um, it wasn't even a passing of the torch, really, because again, Messi won for the first time. And Mbapa had already won.

But like, to see two guys who will likely go down as, you know, top five players of all time or whatever. minimum that rules. That's really cool. Yeah. Like, I mean, we never got the Gretzky-Lamew

Stanley Cup final. Right. You know, you go on down the list and to get it and then, like, you know, it's like the

Crosbyo-Wetch dueling metrics. But, yeah, that's exactly right. That's exactly right. So, yeah. How do you,

you know? And then the stakes, of course, too. It's the World Cup. Yeah, exactly. I mean, there's literally billions of people watching. And I mean, the

like, you know, that was great and the fact that there was a save in the final seconds to decide the game. A huge fucking, in a state save. You don't see a ton of saves, right? Like there's a lot of

you know, it's certainly not of that caliber. No, I was going to say there's more than you would think, given that the net is the size of a school bus. Yeah. You know? But, like, there's still not a ton. If a guy gets a guy, especially a guy that good, gets an open look at goal, that should go in, you know? But it didn't.

Wild, wild shit. Unbelievable. And then, of course, Emmanuel Macron was there to console the French. So that probably made it up to them. Yeah. No, they were like, oh, I got to talk to. the guy who made France a startup nation. Perfect.

But yeah. A really, like, I really wonder, like, have I seen a single better game of any sport in my life? Yeah.

The only thing that's close is like, you know, there have obviously been some game seven overtimes I've watched in, in hockey, or like, the game where LeBron had the chase down block.

Mm-hmm. But like those feel like they're the only two. Yeah. That really measure up. It was a real sports rock kind of weekend. Because I know you're not an NFL guy, but there were two absolutely insane NFL games as well. And it turned into one of those like... I saw the end of the Patriots game.

That was the... Or I saw the, you know, video online. That was absolutely the... Like as a non-football fan, did you understand how stupid that was? Oh, of course. Yeah. I used to be a huge football fan. I just kind of like lost my interest in it.

There is no NHL equivalent to that. I had a few people ask me that. Like what's the NHL equivalent? There isn't one. Like there. We've had guys shoot pucks into their own like empty nets. Yeah. You would have to do it intentionally almost.

Like you would have to be like it's the game's tied. There's a delight penalty. Your goalie is out. And you just like, I'm going to pass it back to the goalie. You declare out. loud and then you do it and shoot it into your own net. And even that, I'm not sure, would work because at least then you don't get your quarterback absolutely freight train on the way behind.

Yeah, I guess a similar equivalent is like if a guy does the thing where he beaver tails at you, but he's the guy on the other team, and you just pass it right to him for like a breakaway in game seven of the Stanley Cup final. Yeah. Yeah. Like it's tied with a minute to go and a guy coming out of the box or something. It's like, and you're like, oh, I better give it to that guy. Just throw it in the direction of the sound, you know.

That was just, it was so beautiful. It's, it's, it is the dumbest NFL play I've ever seen. Not, not like, not up there, not in the running. Rest easily, Unlet and others. This is, this is the stupidest thing I've ever seen. Yeah. So it was so great. Really incredible.

It was such a, yeah. Got a lot of sports. Really got both ends of the sporting spectrum on that day. That's right. All right. Let's move on to actual NHL talk here. And let's, I'm just going to, here's what it is.

This is called Not In or Nice. And we're just going to go and we're going to tell each other what we think of the various divisional races and like where teams stand. And are they going to end up making? the playoffs, or are they going to not do that, basically? And so let's start, we so rarely do this. Let's start in the central division. Oh, okay.

Let's shut our East Coast bias here. Let's start in the central, where right now, Dallas is out in front. Winnipeg actually has a higher points percentage, and Winnipeg's or Minnesota is a step below them and like kind of in line with Colorado. And then the next closest team is the St. Louis Blues who are dead even 500 with a negative 18 cold difference. Yep. So what do you, what do you think?

I mean, to me it's it's it's the first four are in and the next four are not. I mean, St. Louis is safe to say the Pacific's not getting five teams in the. Yeah. St. Louis is tough. St. Louis is very tough because they have been all over the map this year. So you sort of feel like, you know, who knows what could, they lost, what was it? They won three, lost eight, one seven, I think, to start the season. And it hasn't been, you know, it's been similar, not quite as pronounced since then.

But no, I mean, I, Dallas and Winnipeg have put enough. enough padding up that they're safe. Minnesota, I think, is a good playoff-worthy team who have also banked a decent number of points. Yeah, they started slow. They've been much better. They're eight and two in their last 10, it says on the NHL standings page.

They've been much better in recent weeks. So, like, they feel like they figured out whatever was wrong with them. Obviously, the goaltending remains a question with them, just because of Mark Andre Fleury's age and the state of their backup situation. Yep. But yeah, I'm not super worried about the world.

And then Colorado, I mean, they're Colorado. They're the abs. They'll get people back from injuries. Exactly. That's it. They've got a ton of injuries, like a brutal list of key players out. And yet, none of those are season ending. None of those are like, you know, there's some long-term injuries,

but those guys will be back. I think they will be fine. Now, I don't know, at what point if Colorado is still like sitting in a wild card spot, do we start to have the Golden Knights from last year conversation where, I mean, I don't know about you, but last year I spent the entire, literally the entire season going, the Golden Knights are not missing the playoffs. Yeah. And then they get.

No, I agree. But I think the comparison I would make is remember, probably around the time they started winning their back-to-back cups. There was always one or two good players injured on the penguins. Hey, Artem Zub just signed a four-year extension with the senators, 4.6 million.

That's pretty good number for that team. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, anyway, we'll talk about that in a minute, I guess. But yeah, yeah, so, when the penguin started being really good, they would go through huge stretches where it's like one of Crosby or Malkin is out for like a third of the season.

And it never mattered. And I feel like this is going to be kind of the same situation for them where like they're going to, especially because Edmonton and Caligan, we'll talk about them in a minute obviously. But those guys, those teams are just kind of like, yeah, we're pretty good,

but we're going to lose three in a row. We're going to win, three in a row and it's going to go like that all year. I'm not worried about Colorado. If they were kind of in the St. Louis position where they were needing to fight into a playoff spot, that would be one thing. But they're missing all these guys and they are comfortably

in a playoff spot. They're I think sixth in the west by points percentage. Are they that comfortable? I mean, you're right, they are, but they're, yeah. They are because they have. have games in hand on basically everybody in the west. I think they're comfortable enough that that they're comfortable, but I mean, it would take one bad week, time to it's, you know, one good week from another team to. Well, again, it's the fact that it's the, yeah, but they

would still be in a playoff spot at that point. It would be diceier, but they would, they would be in a playoff spot. They're, you know, and any team is, is capable of losing three games in a row, I guess. But, you know, I'm with their personnel and everything like that, I'm just not, that's not a team I'm worried about until I absolutely have to be. That makes sense. But, okay, so let's talk about the Blues and the Predators, because those are two teams that are 500. The Predators actually have a better goal difference than the Blues do, and they've played fewer games. that maybe helps.

But it's funny to think about, I look at the National Predators, a 500 hockey team, and I go, they are dead in the water, they're dog shit, they should get rid of everybody. And I look at the blues and I'm like, they could very convincingly turn this around. And again, maybe not end up in the playoffs, but end up like at least close to it. Like, well, you know, there are decent ways back of the wild cards. See, that's a, but that's the nightmare scenario if you're the blues, because they've got. Totally. They've got Teresenko and Ryan O'Reilly.

Yeah. Final year of their deals. I mean, they could be huge players at the deadline. If they decide to sell, I can't remember the last time a team had two rental stars like that. Yeah, two is incredibly, because I was going to say, and this is the thing I was going to say is like, Doug Arstrong is not afraid to be like, yeah, fuck it. We'll trade a good player even though we're kind of in a play. They did it with Paul Stassany, and I feel like they did it with Kevin Shatn Kirk. Yeah.

So, like, they're not afraid to do that even if they're close, which is no, no NHLGM is that brave, you would think. Well, that's it, right? Because I, like, I said, well, I can't remember the last team to beat. Well, actually, I can. It was Columbus a few years ago, and they didn't move any of the guys famously. Yeah, in fact, they loaded up, right? Like, that's... Tried to add to it.

So, I mean, to me, though, if you're like, if you're like four points out at the deadline, but you're right, Armstrong might be the one GM or one of the few GMs that would... Maybe trade one of them. Yep. I don't think you would trade both of them if they're, you know, a point out of the playoffs. But you would be able to get so much for Ryan O'Reilly from some playoff team. Like, you're, you don't got to convince me. I agree with you.

But I'm just saying, like, If Tarasenko gets moved and they're a point out or whatever or a point in, I don't think you would be allowed to be surprised by that. That's all. And then with Nashville, I'm with you. I don't think they're a good team. No, they're not. And, you know, they're, what do we say last year?

Like, everybody's like, oh, they, they turned it around. And it's like, no, they got 30 goals or whatever out of Tanner-Junho. They got 40 goals out of Matt Dushain. like guys that nobody expected to score that much. And then they have a very, very good goalie who, if he took a slight step back, they would be in a really tough situation because you really couldn't expect those goals to hold up. And Vegas had one of those, everything goes wrong seasons to open up the playoff spot. Nashville snuck in and then got their doors blown off once they got there.

And Soros has been like very good this year. but like not Vezna quality good and that's the difference and so everybody's looking at this team like fire the coach fire the GM trade a bunch of guys and it's like yeah this was always the like the likely outcome for me it wasn't like the stone cold lock I guess but like it was because they do have the goalie but yeah for me it's it's a tough look and then obviously Arizona and Chicago they're where everybody thought they would be. I mean, Arizona is, I think, doing better than everyone thought. Yeah, for sure. They actually seem somewhat competitive, whereas Chicago has just completely pulled the shoot. As well, they should. They may not win again all year. God, they are really awful, huh?

They've lost seven in a row by, like, NHL standards. Yes. That's not even like OT losses or whatever. That's seven straight in regulation. Ouch. Okay, so let's do the Pacific now. And so I've got Vegas in

is the easy one. Yep. And then we both agreed on the four teams from the Central. So that means we've got four spots in the Pacific. Yes. And I would say, I mean, there's five teams

that are well over 500. So somebody's got to go. Yep. L.A., Seattle, Edmonton, Calgary. Seattle's got the best

record of that group. Yeah. Do you trust them? So that's the thing, right? I think we talked about it before. I really don't trust them for obvious reasons. Their goaltending is still bad, which is the amazing part that they've won this many games with 887 team goaltending.

It's incredible. Like, good for them, obviously. But, like, they're shooting 12% as a team. And, like, as much as I like, a lot of the players on their team, Yanni Gore, Jared McCann, Maddie Baneers, like Jordan Everly is a very useful player. Berkowski's a really good player. I, you know, I just don't see them keeping up this kind of thing.

And, you know, they've won, I think, both of their last two games. One was like a schedule win over the Jets who had played the night before, and I think Seattle hadn't. And then they beat the Blues last night. but like, you know, before that they had lost like five out of six or something. So I guess what I'm saying is it wouldn't surprise me to see the wheels come off a little bit. Even before the end of the year, because they're playing Vancouver, who, you know, they're a walkover, obviously for most nights.

But then Calgary and Edmonton at the end of the year. And, you know, if Calgary and Edmonton win those games, everything starts getting much, becoming a much bigger question. Yeah. I mean, I guess that's the thing with Seattle, right? As you look at it and you go, I mean, that 31 games in, their record is what it is. They banked those wins and those points, but I don't think this is a 629 team. But have they banked enough that it's not going to matter and they get in versus,

because if Seattle gets in, then it's one of L.A. Evanton, Calgary, one of the playoff teams from last year that has to miss, if we're right about the Central sending four teams. I can't, I'm not going to say I can't imagine, but I can't say Edmonton's going to miss the playoffs. I mean, that would just, well, I mean, again, it's the fact that they are even remotely in this position is insane. They have two of the five best players in the world. more give or take.

Maybe you want to say Dry Seidel's Sixth Best or whatever, but like it's ridiculous that they're in this in this spot and like I understand Van der Kaine's been hurt for gotta be coming up on a month now, right? Three weeks, something like that. It did a while, yeah. So I understand that, but it's like,

you know, they still have Mcdaven Drycival. Like what are you paying Darnell Nurse for if not to help you through this stuff. And boy, that Jack Campbell contract looking great, huh? And that is, I mean, they seem like they've reached the point where it's, they're willing to bite the bullet and consider Stuart Skinner the starter.

Yeah, you don't give them that contract if you don't think he can go for you, man. Well, I mean, it's a couple million. Like, that's, yeah. But that's more than you would than you would want to pay a backup. It's more than you want to pay a backup when you just gave. Signed a guy for $5 million. You know, 25 million do a starter for sure. But yeah, I don't, man, I is. I still think that, like, I mean, if they're in this position going down the stretch,

like a month to go, they're still fighting for a play. Like, what's the ceiling on Connor McDavid? Like, four points a game, average? Average? For the last four weeks, like, you know, three or four points a game? Like, like, I mean, when he just realizes like, I'm literally going to have to do this by myself. All right. Here's how you know they're in trouble, by the way.

Woodcroft is playing dry sidle and McDavid together a hell of a lot more. Yep. That's how you know they're running scared. We're out of ideas. Now, their fallback position of putting, again, two of the five or six best players in the world together at the same time, that's going to result in a lot more goals for you. Yeah. But also, like, you know, what's even better than that is those guys playing apart and putting up insane numbers. Mm-hmm.

You know? Yeah. Yeah. No, I'm, so I, but I'm not, so are you putting Edmonton on the outside of your playoffs? I can't do it in good conscience. I think Seattle drops off in both, and Edmonton and Calgary kind of overtake them. Yeah. What about L.A.?

Do you give any thought to that? Because I'm kind of going back and forth. between L.A. and Seattle is my team too. I don't trust the goaltending with L.A., but I trust it even less with Seattle. I think L.A. has enough players, I believe, are actually this good, I guess, as opposed to

again, there are players I like a lot on Seattle, but like... L.A. had really been wobbling the last of a while. They've won three in a row now, so maybe they've got it sorted out. Yeah, but I mean, it's Phoenix Copeland? Like, is it this? We're really doing this as the,

I mean, I made a joke about how, in my column about how, like, this is the Kings, right? They constantly, throughout the Jonathan Quick era, always have a backup goalie who is doing surprisingly well. And now Phoenix Cofley's going to be that guy?

Cal Peterson's been shot into the sun. Yeah. Jonathan Quake has not been good. Like there hasn't been some, you know, renaissance down the stretch in his last year of his deal. I don't know. It's really interesting.

I think obviously the answer is one of those two teams doesn't make it. And if you want to say L.A. because they have a negative seven goal difference, yeah, that checks out for me. But, yeah, I don't know. I think, again, gunned to my head, it's Edmonton, Calgary, L.A. are in, and Seattle's the one that kind of just misses out. But they got all those points banked.

Obviously, L.A.'s got way more games played than them, so I don't know. All right, I'm looking at Dom's projection. And yeah, he's got all five of those teams. So first of all, in the central, he's with us. He's got, you know, Dallas, Colorado, Winnipeg all north. of 90 and Minnesota at 86. And then in the Pacific, he's got... We should say that's percent, not points in the season.

Thank you. Yeah. And then in the Pacific, he's got those five teams that we're talking about all at over 50%. And if you're going, wait a second, that doesn't work because he had four teams in the central. You can't have five teams in the Pacific that are all likely to make it. Well, you can because they're all borrowing the percentages from each other. He's got Vegas as a lock.

He's got Calgary still at 93%. His model really loves the flames. Edmonton 74, and then it's Seattle 63, L.A. 59. And then... Yes, and Seattle being four points up is because they have four games in hand, and they bank the points already. I think that's a totally reasonable read on that. Okay. Yeah, I'm...

So who did you say to miss? I said Seattle miss, is my... Okay, I'll say L.A. just so that we're not completely on the same page. And Kings fans all hate me this year anyway, so I can... Oh, well, it's fine. I mean, how would you even know, right? Yeah, fair. So how about this?

Why don't we take a break and we will come back and talk about the Eastern Conference and some news and views from this week and that sort of stuff? Sounds good. All right. Our sponsor this week is a product that continues to be very popular. in my household. It is our old friends at Athletic Greens. One delicious scoop of athletic greens. You're absorbing 75 high quality vitamin minerals, whole food source, superfoods, probiotics, adaptogens. To help you start your day right, the special blend of ingredients supports your gut health,

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and five free travel packs with your first purchase. All you have to do is visit. at athletic greens.com slash puck. Again, that is athletic greens.com slash puck to take ownership over your health and pick up the ultimate daily nutritional insurance. All right, we're back. Won't we talk about now? I think the more interesting division

in the Eastern Conference, let's lead off with the Metro here. Yep. And look who's in first place in the Metro. Yeah, Garolina Hurricanes, It's white fucking hot these days. I think it's a 10-game point streak. It might even be more than that now that I say that.

But they're insanely good all of a sudden. Part of that is Peter Kachetkov. You know, he's come back. 10-0 and won in the last 11. So, yeah, 11-game point street. But Kachetkov's running at almost 9.30. The other two goalies, the less said the better. But yeah, Coachekhov, he showed up briefly in the playoffs last year.

They gave him a big extension, and then they're like, okay, you have to be the goalie. And he's like, no problem. So. And that is. Yeah, man, that is just so fascinating to me because they, you know, a little bit of a goalie factory going where they had the Jelkovic a couple years ago show up. Yep. and they were like, yeah, you know what, we're going to trade you. And everybody was like, what?

That doesn't make any sense. Why wouldn't you keep that guy? And they're like, no, we're going to trade you for a third round pick. And then he goes to Detroit and he's not been great. And could catch, the new guy, the new guy comes along. And he's very similar. And they're like, yeah, we do believe in this one. we're going to sign him and he's been excellent.

So, yeah, I mean, I'm, I'm, Carolina is, is fascinating. They're rolling, but like, I feel like we have to, we can't talk about them without talking about the devils because I feel like we all kind of anointed the devils as the metro team. Yeah. And now they look, the devils are deviling again. Yeah. I guess what this really reminds me of is, remember a few years ago, the wild, or the islanders went on like a huge, huge run, like they won 13 games in a row for points in 18 of 20 or whatever it was.

And then wrapped around those, they were thorough. early mediocre at best. This kind of feels like that, where the devils lose the first two games, fire Lindy, fire, Lindy, all this stuff. Then they go 21, 2 and 1. God. And then they lose all these games in a row again.

Yeah, six losses in a row. Yeah. Have now not only been passed by the hurricanes as of when we're recording this, but have got the penguins two points back. Hot on their tail. a penguin's team that started bad. Yeah.

Penguin's team that's been all, I mean, they've been like Blues East where it's just, yeah, who knows. Yeah. You look at any given moment,

they're either red hot or ice cold. And right now, they're pretty hot. And I, I mean, the devils are still going to the playoffs. You can't have a 21 and, you know,

two stretch. Yeah. Without making a play. Well, I mean, the HABs, was it, what did the HABs start that year when they missed the playoffs? 10 wins in a row, something like that, 10 and 0? Yeah, but that's, that's a little different from, that's not 21.

21's a quarter of the season, you know? But suddenly it's, you know, I guess, I guess if the question is, are they making the playoffs, you got to say all three of those teams are making it, but if you're saying are the devil's really a I mean, for the devil's just to make the playoffs coming off the season they had is an achievement, but it's, it's not going to feel like, like if they

get into the playoffs as a road team and losing five games, it's going to feel like the disappointment given how legitimately good they were. During that stretch, they weren't just going on a PDO bender and crazy goaltending and all of that.

Like they were legitimately just crushing teams. But it's the magic is temporarily worn off at least. And not even, not even doing it like, okay, they have like a 109 PDO the last 20 games or whatever. They were badly outplaying many, many teams over that stretch. And so, you know, it's a tricky situation because, boy, you know, it would be really good for this team is one more elite prospect.

sorry for the plug or whatever but um and like the thing is over these last however six games they've badly outshot their opponents still so they're still playing great but the goal tending has just like fallen off a fucking cliff which everybody said coming into the season boy I don't trust that goaltending as far as I can throw it and then the bottoms dropped out yeah

they're they're running it close to 59% coursey over their last six games and they're 05 and 1 because, let's see here, they've allowed 24 goals on 160 shots. So, I mean, that's obviously very bad, but if you're a Devils fan, you'd much rather have a six-game losing streak where you're playing great, but the goaltending stinks than the other way around, right? Like, you'd much rather lose that way than, you know, you're getting shelled and your goaltending's doing fine, but not enough to steal wins that you don't deserve.

Yeah, I don't know. I mean, they're good. They're a good team. They're a playoff team. But now I'm starting to quit. And part of it's that I was late getting on board the bandwagon here. So maybe I'm late adjusting my priors on them. I don't know. I'm not sure. I feel confused by this team. I'm not confused by Carolina.

No. Great elite team. I'm confused by Pittsburgh. I am. You are confused. I have been for two years. I've been saying for two years I can't figure out. Yeah, I think I just kind of threw my hands up maybe two years ago and was like they have Sidney Crosby and of Gennie Malkin and Chris LaTang. Everything else kind of sorts itself out. I'm not super worried about like until they miss the playoffs, I will never count them out of a playoffs. spot as long as those guys are playing for them basically. Yep, reasonable. And I mean, I would have said that about the capitals and yet here we are, right? Well, let's say, yeah, let's talk about the capitals because they're reasonably hot lately. We are that, yeah, they are, but I don't know, like they just, they have a longer road, right? They got to, they got to pull ahead of the, the Rangers and the Islanders and the Rangers are playing great all of a thing.

Rangers Islanders, Capitals are the, the three. other team. I mean, so flyers and blue jackets obviously aren't in the mix. No, and yeah, we'll talk about the flyers a little bit later, because there's a lot going on there. And the Rangers right now have the edge there, but I mean,

it's not, right now, Rangers caps have played the same number of games, caps are three points back. Now, it's not nothing. In fact, three points can be pretty tough to make up in a loser point league, but you could do that in a week. I mean, it's not, you know, especially when they're going to play each other.

Yeah, I mean, I guess the problem with you could do that in a week is now you're thinking like Francesco Aquilini. Hey, you know what I mean? You take that back. You take that back right now. Words hurt. Yeah, I understand. But like, Schisurkin has been really good of late. And they, and the, the Rangers have Panerran, Zabandad, Fox. You know, like, go down the list.

Chris Cryder. like really good players. And again, I cannot fall for, you know, the kid line, they have three good games in a row. They're back. They figured it out. I cannot fall into that, that pit again. I can't fucking do it.

Capo-Cocco is going to have two assists every three weeks until the sun explodes. That's right. And like, he's running at 14 points a game. That's not bad or anything. But then you look at what he was hyped to be. and he's the second overall pick and all this kind of stuff. And you're like, I guess like 14 points is like, whatever, 40% of the way through the season that's actually not that good. With the capitals, though, here's.

Yeah. Here's the one thing hanging over. Nicholas Baxter might be back soon-ish. Yeah. Tom Wilson, same thing. Like, not imminent, but like they traveled with the team recently. Backstrom skating again. which I mean, in Baxter case, it's huge because there were legitimate questions

whether he was even going to play this year or ever again even. No, for sure. People were definitely saying, you knew Tom Wilson was coming back at some point. But if there are three points out of the playoffs and Baxter and Tom Wilson both get back, I wonder about like how effective Baxterom will be. Yeah. Just because like hip injuries are a real bitch for hockey players to come back from. that is true yeah and even like we've seen excuse me we've seen guys come back from hip injuries

and i don't know if like they're the same hip injuries or procedures or whatever as what baxterm had but like they were perfectly good before that they come back and they don't have it anymore it happens that's like just one of those things like the one the one injury that made like a knee injury is kind of the other thing of like oh you just lose a step and that's the end of that. Yeah. But it feels like with knees, we've gotten a lot better.

Yeah, for sure. Okay. So, I mean, am I, am I reading you right? Like neither one, we flagged three teams, but now neither one of us is really talking about the Islanders.

Are you, how do you feel about the Islanders as a playoff team? Or is it down to, who knows? Rangers, like, I think, I think you could tell me any combination of those three teams,

two of them make the playoffs. And I wouldn't be surprised. And hell, you could tell me all three of them make the playoffs, and I wouldn't be surprised. Well, but then, I mean, how do you possibly? Not mathematically possible. Right, right, right. Never mind. No, no, no.

Right. Two out of three. Okay, so I'll tell you what, let's do. Let's- Divisional playoff thing for a second there. So let's put a pin in that then and go to the Atlantic because if two out of those three teams make it, that means the Atlantic's only sending three teams. Boston obviously is.

I think that's extremely likely. Boston, Toronto. I think Boston, Toronto, and Tampa are all fully safe right now. Tampa lost last night, but that dropped them to 13, 4 and 5, or 4 and O in their last 17 games. And they lost two to the Leaps, so it's... And they lost to one of the other teams. ...the second hottest team in the league, right? And then, like, Boston, obviously, like, it would be a flat-out shocker if they didn't win the President's trophy, the way things have gone.

They're so good. 25, 4-2. They have a plus 54 goal difference in 31 games. They've scored 123 goals already, only allowed 69. I believe both of those numbers are the best in the league. I don't think anybody's scored more than the Bruins. I don't think anybody's allowed fewer goals. No, that's correct, yeah.

I just looked. That's... It's ridiculous. Insanely good team. It's ridiculous. And they still haven't lost in regulation at home. Did you know that? I did not know that, but...

Yeah. Wow. How's that possible? There's 19 home games. They're like, oh, yeah, we haven't lost regulation yet. And their two losses have been in shootouts. So it's not even like, not even, not even anything close to real hockey have been able to beat them at home. Wow.

I mean, how often do we say like, ah, seating doesn't really matter. Home ice doesn't really matter. You go through the whole season never losing at home. I'm going to go ahead and say home ice might matter a little bit. Maybe. So yeah, I mean, Boston, Boston in Toronto, Tampa, in barring something really shocking. It would take a catastrophe for any of those teams to come close to missing, I think, just because of the way the playoffs work. Yeah, yeah, that's it.

I mean, the top three teams in a division are locked in. guaranteed to make it. So, and then you look at the next five, fighting for potentially up to two spots, but not even necessarily any. Buffalo, Florida, Detroit, Montreal, Ottawa. Talk about one of these things doesn't belong. There's the four bad rebuilding teams

that we all knew going into the season. Hopefully you crossed your fingers and thought maybe they could make one of those teams or some of those teams could make a run. but you figured they would be not playoff teams. And then the Florida Panthers, last year's 120 point president's trophy winner, sloundering around barely over fake 500, trailing Buffalo, trailing Detroit.

Yeah, 15, 14, and 4 of the Florida Panthers. You can't, dead even goal difference. They've allowed 111 goals in 33 games. Like 111 goals is a lot for this point in the season. and they're like, it doesn't. The penguins have 111 goals. The lightning have 111 goals.

Mm-hmm. And the Panthers are like, oh, that's how many we've given up, too. I mean, it's really grim. I know, partly because we're still only 30 games into the season.

And partly because it's the Panthers and they're not a big market. Like, I feel like there hasn't been enough talk about what an unbelievable disaster this would be. not just as a hockey team, as a franchise, as a team that has been scraping by for decades. And what did we always say?

Anytime anyone made fun of the crowds or anything that people would say, yeah, but the team's never good. Wait till they have a contender and then we see. And last year they built a legitimate contender, a fun team, great story, running. Oh, that team was so great. They run into Big Brother again in the second round, get sand kicked in their face again.

But you're sitting there going, okay, we can build on this. They go out, they make the biggest trade of the offseason. Go and get a guy who's been fantastic. Matthew Kuchuk's done everything they could have asked him to do. Use their MVP, for sure. And everything else is just,

it just falls apart. I mean, to the point where not only do they maybe miss the playoffs now, but they maybe aren't even in the race. they may be playing meaningless games in February. Yeah. Obviously, Spencer Knight hasn't been great lately, but he's still above league average for the season by like a decent margin.

The real problem is they're paying a sub-replacement level goalie $10 million a year or $10.5. I don't remember what his contract is, but this is their problem. And I said this was their problem. I guess I shouldn't take credit for that. Anybody could have said, oh, I bet it's bad to give a goalie

who's maybe going to be an average, like eight figures. Yeah, that's true. But it's a millstone around their neck at this point. Like, it's not just something you can live with anymore. And obviously, the other thing that everybody said, you know, this is insane, is they fired their coach who won them the president's trophy after their other coach got fired like eight games into the season or whatever. Mm-hmm. and they got rid of that guy and they were like,

let's get Paul Maurice in here. This guy has a long track record of getting it figured out. I mean, does that at this point stand is the worst decision of the offseason that any team made? How could you argue otherwise? I guess the only thing you would say is Jack Campbell to Edmonton has to be up there too. But at least like they don't have a backup coach that they can make. their number one coach. Yeah.

You know? And, and I mean, that as bad as it's been, you know, has maybe cost Edmonton a place or two in the standings. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, this is, and not to mention, I mean, I know sometimes this podcast turns into like the, you know, little Paul Maurice kick circle, but look at what's happening in Winnipeg. You know,

their first year, I mean, last year, season, okay, it's, Winnipeg, arguably the best team in their conference without Paul Maurice, a team that he couldn't get into the playoffs

last year. Yeah, and you know, part of that obviously is they have the best goalie in the world over the last five years. Yeah, like, I don't know that you can argue a guy who's been like top four in Vesna voting three of the last five years is like... Paul Maris had that guy too.

well that's what I'm saying though like but the what do we say when the Jets signed bonus was like you know hey look he's not an inspiring coach but like he seems like he's perfectly good yeah I did I thought it was

I thought it was less than that I thought like this is a placeholder you want it Barry Trots I definitely I totally agree with you but I didn't I didn't think it was like what are they to do it Rick it was it was more like, oh, Rick Bonas, huh?

You know what I mean? Whereas when, when Florida hired Paul Maurice, definitely we were like, what are they doing? I was more, you know, it's more like, ooh, I don't know, let's wait and see. And you, you planted the flag right on day one saying like, but even then, you, you couldn't have imagined like 515 through. No, I think he's an extremely like mediocre replacement level coach. I guess mediocre and replacement level don't seem, don't mean this. same thing. But like, you know, he's, he's, again, the NHL definition of a mid coach,

like deeply average. And I don't know, like, if you're coming off a president's trophy season and you're hiring the average coach for what I'm assuming is a lot of money, right? Like to, to get a guy who lived in Winnipeg for that long to, to like uproot his entire life move away from his kids, that's probably not an insubstantial amount of money, you know? And so for it to be for that guy, oh, boy. And not to mention to watch the guy, the Jack Adams finalist that you already have, leave and go to a bad team that immediately wins 20 games in row or whatever, yeah. Okay, so are we, do we want to give any thought at all to a team?

like Detroit or Buffalo making a push. Well, so Buffalo is interesting because they had that long losing streak also. But since that long losing streak, they've been really, really good and not just like, look, they get outshot a lot, but like they have talent in a way that, you know, like, Paige Thompson alone, you're like, okay, well. They're so fun. They're really fun. And I guess the thing with them is, do you trust?

Craig Anderson and Uco Peckalook and then to be goalies who, you know, kind of dig you out of a little bit of a hole and get you where you need to go. I don't think so, but I think the Sabres have enough talent elsewhere in the lineup to at least make it a little bit interesting, give like, you know, the playoff put, like bubble something to think about a little bit before they ultimately fade. That's kind of what I'm at with them. Okay. So, and Detroit, I mean, Detroit was right in the mix, standings-wise. Yeah, they got to pretend they were a playoff bubble team for a minute. That's cute. That was cute. But they're still the Detroit Red Wings. They, you know, they're not getting. Yeah, they're not getting the goaltending. And, you know, I feel like without looking it up,

they kind of did get the goaltending a little bit last year. Like they weren't horrible, maybe, and I might be wrong about that. That's how I remember. Like, Huso's been okay. Like, Huso's been 9-13. Right, but like their backups have been so bad. Adelkevich has not been. Nadelcovich and all.

Well, Helberg, I guess, only has played one or two games. But, so, yeah, well, I mean, progress for all of those, yeah, I mean, all of those teams have made progress other than, I mean, Ottawa is probably the only team that hasn't been better in some capacity than we thought. And even Ottawa, you could make the case that the record is deceiving.

The Red Wings just don't have anybody who can put the puck in the net. Yep. And so if the goalie has an off night, that's it, you know? And I guess the other thing to say is cider really not following up the bit of a sophomore slump for more at cider, you know?

Yeah. Well, I mean, we, and it, a lot of us, myself included, probably expected a little too much. I think we got a little carried away trying to figure out, like, who's the next Macar, Fox. Oh, okay, it's going to be this guy in Detroit. He's going to win the Norris. Again, this was just the thing people decided, like, halfway through last season, this is the best rookie defensemen in the league.

One of the, and it's like, you know, we've seen plenty of rookie defensemen have really good years. And then I don't think anybody expected him to be this bad. He's been bad. Like, there's no two ways about it. If people want to get into the St. Louis Blues. talking about the goalies thing. Like, actually, everything around him has been bad, and he's actually been, okay, sure. But, like, the results just aren't there.

Yep. And, you know, people get out over their skis about young defensemen. It happens all the time. Sure. And, like, I don't think he's going to end up being bad or anything. No, no. But maybe, maybe we pumped the brakes a little on the, yeah, that's true. car. Okay, so it

we're, it sounds like we agree the three the big, the big three locked in in the Atlantic Florida, too much ground to make up. So bounce back to the metro. That does give us five spots to play with.

Who out of Islanders caps, Rangers, who are you given those spots to? I'll stick with the New York teams. Okay, I'll go Rangers caps. I just kind of don't, don't buy it with the capitals. I get, I get, I get why you would, obviously, but I think this is, this is the year, because I don't, I don't trust Baxter to come back and be what people think of Nick Baxter being.

It could happen, but I think it's not the most likely outcome. That's all. That's fair. And then, do we want to quickly touch on, well, I guess let's talk about the Artem Zub contract. That's a really, that seems like a perfectly good contract for all involved. Yeah, it's a good. number. He's a good player. He's probably

better defenseman than a lot of people outside Ottawa realize. So, and that's a very reasonable number for him. Now, here is my concern with that. And this is, this is kind of the

Edmonton thing from a couple years ago, where it's like, we stink all the time. Right? We're in agreement about that. We stink all the time. But also, we couldn't possibly lose this, like, third defenseman. Uh-huh. And we could, that's just, you know, that's just not going to work for us.

And, you know, obviously the senators are kind of building toward some of, or think they are anyway. Uh-huh. But I don't know. I, again, this, this kind of feels like NHLG. Again, I like Artem Zub as a player, but I just look at it and I go, How many guys are you resigning to keep this band together when this band has been bad? And that's, your time it's been together.

That's perfectly reasonable, but I would say that he's one of the guys you do want to keep in the band. Because he is, other than Tom Shabbat, he's been the only good defenseman. Yes, I totally agree with it. You know, obviously Jake Sanderson now in the process of joining that group and then some. but um well yeah again i'm i'm just saying in terms of um i get where you're kind to me it's like if they start resigning money in a core that if they start bringing back austin watson and tyler mott and guys like that then then i will be right there with you but uh yeah and i guess the other thing every time the senators make a signing like that still nothing on alice de brinkett

that's going to be an underrated story to watch he and he he continues that he's not putting up good numbers. And early on, you kind of went, well, shooting percentage or whatever. But that's still the case. But he just hasn't been, like, I mean, as somebody, you're outside Ottawa, like, do you go through stretches where you just forget that Alex DeBrinkechette is a senator for weeks at a time? No, I don't. I will say this through DeBrinke. In my head, he's been pretty hot.

Yeah, okay, he's got 17 points in his last 14 games. What is his issue is he's not scoring goals. Right. I mean, this is the 40 goal guy, right? Right. How do you trade a 40 goal guy? Well, he's got four goals in the last 14 games, but also 13 assists. And he's shooting 8.2%.

That number should come up. But, yeah, it's just a situation where I look at this guy and I think he's really, really good. but, you know, if you're the senators, you sign them to a big... Unless you can get kind of a comparable package to what you just gave up for them, which I don't remember exactly off the top of my head what it was. I think it was they gave up definitely their first,

which was like 13th-ish, and there were other picks involved. The number seven pick, the number 39 pick, and a 20-24 third-rounder. Okay. first a second and a third, and the first is higher. Okay, that's higher than I remember it. I mean, if you can get a similar package to that,

maybe you shed one of the picks or whatever, one of the other picks, but like if you can get like a kind of low, low end of the high first rounders, you know, like if you can get a vaguely top ten pick for them and maybe something else, I think you at least think about it. And I think some teams would be

curious to see how they can make that work, but the money for him is not super tradable right off the hop unless the senators are taking back a bad contract, which obviously they could if they wanted to or they could eat money, whatever. I'd at least think about it. But I think my long-term bet on Alex DeBringit is he's going to still be, like, maybe not a 40-goal guy, but like a consistent 30-goal guy. those guys are really hard to come by and really valuable to have.

So I believe in the player still, but I get why you would have hesitance to hit your wagon to them for eight years or whatever. That's fair. Yeah. So there you go. That's what we're thinking for the near future anyway. Let's talk about Let's stay in that realm of like Are we maybe looking to make deals right now

And let's start with the flyers We kind of alluded to it earlier Boy, things are going sideways for them real quick Mm-hmm Looks like obviously guys are getting injured And they're like done for the season And that kind of said, Cam Atkinson They announced yesterday, I believe, done for the year

I believe Ryan Ellis is done for the year. I think Sean Couture is pretty close to done for the year. He was done for the long term. It was like. It wasn't. Yeah. But he's, I don't see him coming back in March for the last 15 games when they're 30 points out of the playoffs or whatever. No, totally.

Yeah. And so you're in kind of a tough situation if you're the Flyers because you were very convinced that this team could be competitive. And then this team was like, what if we weren't even remotely competitive? Remember there's like they won three games in a row to start the year? They were like, this is it. John Torrella. The haters and losers, they got it figured out. And then they ended up, I guess, winning a few more games and then the wheels completely.

fucking came. Well, yeah, they got to five and two to start and then it was all downhill since then. They have won six more games since then. Jesus. Including wins over the avalanche and devils in the last couple of weeks because

this is the NHL. It makes no damn sense. They're going to be the new pesky sends, right? But they lost to the coyotes. Yeah, they lost to the coyotes and like didn't even play. play that well in that game or whatever. They probably did. I didn't watch.

You know, it's going to shock people. I didn't watch a coyote's, uh, Flyers game. Huh. And the news now is on like a Saturday night. Yeah. John Tortorale bench is Kevin Hayes, the leading score on the team that can't score. And, uh,

as of last night, uh, is now refusing to talk about that because you guys, being the media are just trying to make a thing out of Kevin Hayes. and John Torrelle is not going to let that happen. So he's going to sulk and grumble his way through his eight-second post-game press conference because people are asking him about the $7 million leading score that he benched. Yeah. And, you know, like, this is not his first time sniping at the Flyers media, who's usually like, you know who's good as the Flyers?

Uh-huh. You know what I mean? and he's like, that's a stupid, that's a stupid question. I'm not going to answer that. You figure it out. You know, that kind of stuff. Like, he's doing that. But he was doing that like two weeks ago.

And things have only gotten worse since then. And he's like, oh, Kevin Hayes, I don't like his 200 foot game or whatever. And it's like, yeah, have you ever liked Kevin Hayes' 200 foot game? Like, you, you know, you got bigger problems. But the other thing is, like, all they asked him last night was like, okay, so you benched him because he didn't like. to what did you think of his game tonight? Like he could have easily said like, you know, I saw some improvements. Yeah, whatever.

That's it. You just say that, right? You give a little bit of a boost to the player. You make yourself look smart because it looks like your move, you know, the message maybe got in. And you move on to the next question. But he can't even bring himself to do that. Like he just has to pick a fight. And so, I don't know.

So I guess the question is, do they as an organization now realize, like yeah no you know what we're cooked we're done uh we actually do have to like rebuild rebuild there's no there's no real path forward they got some good prospects but nothing that you'd be like oh my god whoa they got this guy coming in and there are there are really good young players on that team i really like joel farraby you know like i really like cam york noah kate seems like he's going to be a pretty good player at the end of the day but beyond that like I don't know. Like they have, I guess my point is they have guys they can build around, but like most of their roster is like 26 year olds or older who aren't carrying the water the way people thought they were going to be able to.

Yeah. Yeah. No, like this is in a way, they're sort of in a situation like Vancouver where it's like they're do, you know, if we rebuild right now, We could still get, you know, can we do it quickly enough that we can still use the Peterson Hughes Demko core as the basis of a contender, except Philadelphia doesn't have that core minus Carter Hart, you might say, is. Yeah, no, they don't have a defenseman anywhere near as good as Hughes. I think they're like, you can pretend York might get into that neighborhood. I don't, you know, I think he's going to be good. I don't think he's going to be that good. And obviously, they don't have a Patterson.

Patterson's one of the best players in that division. So when you're, my point is when you're looking at, when you're looking at the Canucks and going, man, I wish. I like that. We are too very, very, very hard to find players away from being as screwed up as the Canucks are. Yeah. Now, I mean, win the draft lottery this year and you take a huge step.

But, uh, although, I don't know, it's, what do you think Philadelphia would do if they came, if they won the third pick? The third pick? Yeah. Do you think they took the Russian and wait three or four years for them? You know, that's interesting. So the latest elite prospects, like rankings of the, uh, the, what, the top 32 prospects, had him fourth, actually. Oh, wow.

Behind Leo Carlson. He just hasn't had that great of a season to start out. But he was playing for a really good team. And they're, I think I just saw that they're going to trade him to a really bad team where he's just going to eat monster minutes and lose all the time. All right. Well, that's good training for where he's going to wind up for the job, probably. For playing for the flyers, yeah. So I, yeah, but like, Leo Carlson has, it looks like, firmly moved into a lot of, a lot of rankings number three spot.

Okay. Maybe in part because you're not going to get Mitch Cobb for another couple of years or so. And Carlson, maybe he's not like NHL ready, but like he's, he's going to be available to your team earlier than Mitchcove is. again, it's just a situation where all these guys are really good. Obviously, Fantilli and Bedard are like the one-two punch. And if the flyers end up in one of those places, they're, you know, they can do like the accelerated rebuild or whatever. You get rid of some guys.

You trade James Van Riemsack. That's another guy that is in the rumor mill now for them. but you can kind of talk yourself into some other stuff if you have one of those two guys. And if you don't have one of those two guys, maybe it's a longer discussion about what the, what the future is for this team. Maybe you have to take a longer view of it than just a year or two and we're right back in it. Okay. It's tough.

But you mentioned the Canucks. There's another team. Boy, things are going sideways. for them. We talked about the Horvett thing last week. The play has only gotten worse since then. Jersey got thrown on the ice Saturday night again. And, you know, that feels like it's getting to a point where that's not even notable to say. Oh, they threw a jersey on the night.

The guy said a Canucks game. Yeah, it was a Canucks game. But yeah, yeah, they're in a really interesting situation where they have a bunch of guys. they probably would like to be able to trade, but can't, either because of the contract or because of the movement protection the guy has. And I don't know. I think the TSN report last night was something along the lines of around January, you're going to start to see some movement there. Besser feels like he might be on his way out, et cetera. Yeah, we're hitting the holiday freeze. Yeah, that's like tomorrow, I think, or maybe even tonight. So, um, they've, they've got to do.

And, and they got to do something. There are a lot of times you do look at a team in, in a situation like this and it's like, ah, you know, the fan base is still holding out. Like that fan base is ready for change. They are the frustration. Absolutely dumbest people who are, who are also going like, look, if we just give Benning another three or four years, you might be it. That's it.

They, they just went through, God, whatever it was, eight years of Jim Benning constantly, say, you know, figuring they were one $3 million death player away from getting back to the playoffs. Yep. Like, it's, uh, they, but again, it comes down to is, is the owner on board. Similar to Philadelphia, right? Philadelphia's, you know, chairman and Comcast and all that, are they going to let you do what you obviously need to do? If the boss isn't on board, then none of the rest of it matters. Yeah, it's, uh,

It's really tough, man. I don't know how to how else to put it. Like they're not, I don't, I don't know what the answer is, you know. Just, again, just because of their long-term contract situation, is there a reasonable, like, path forward for these guys? I'm not sure that there is. But that doesn't involve, again, like Elliot Friedman said on Saturday, like, they listen to a Quinn Hughes trade offer. You would have to blow their socks off,

but they would listen to it. And now I think like there should be, I say this all the time. Nobody should be untouchable. You want to, you want to trade for Carmen David? You should be listening to absolutely everything. Like say when teams say we'll listen,

it's like, yeah, that's the bare minimum of your job. Right. No, like I say, like if I'm, if I'm the devils, I'm like, call me about Luke Hughes. Call me about Jack Hughes. Call me about Nico Heeshire. I probably won't say yes to anything you have to say.

And I'll lie and deny that we ever had the conversation if I'm ever asked about it. But, yeah, sure. But I mean, look, like the GM's going on hockey night in Canada going, look, we have a pretty young team. And it's like, you do? What are you talking about? You know, like he apparently, I didn't see it, but apparently he was like, look, Riley Stillman still has some growing to do. And it's like, if you're waiting for the fucking ship to come in on Riley Stillman, like just fold the franchise at that point. Like, Jesus Christ, what are we doing here?

He's not even a player I dislike or whatever, but it's like, if you're going, look, if we can get it, if we can get it going with Riley Stillman, we're in great shape. Yikes, dude. That sucks. Yeah, indeed. And then the other team, I guess we should talk about is Chicago in terms of teams that look like they're headed for rebuilds. Or, you know, more trades at least. Obviously Chicago's already in a rebuild. But more trades coming for them, it seems like, makes perfect sense to me.

Did you see the report that they talked to Ottawa about, or maybe Ottawa talked to them about Seth Jones? And they were like, yeah, it didn't go anywhere. Oh, I did not see that. Yeah, yeah. Now, Jones has a full no move clause, so maybe that's why it didn't go anywhere. That's definitely concerning if you're a senator's fan, but all right. I guess we don't know what kind of retention or other.

Yeah, like if you eat half his contract and he waives his no move and we only give you a fifth round pick. I get like, yeah, there's scenarios. Then it starts to make a little bit of sense. But, yeah, I mean, you presumably find a way to get Zyts have in that. trade to. Yep. But okay. Huh. Interesting. No, I had not seen that. Yeah. And apparently the other thing is like Taves and Cain still not really asked where they would want to go or any of that kind of stuff.

Yeah, that's, I don't know. I don't know how you play that. That's one of those things where they trade both of them. You don't. Well, you do. Obviously you do. But how do you play the, you know, approaching them and all that. I feel like that's. You say, hey, check where we are in the standing. We're trading you. Yeah. And then they say, no. And you've hurt my feelings. Okay.

Then fucking, well, I have a good rest of your career after the season ends. Yeah, and then you miss out on the first round pick or whatever you're going to get for Patrick Kane. Like, I feel like you do have to manage this. The ego is involved in, it is probably a tougher job than people like us would appreciate. But I don't know because, like, if I'm Patrick King, am I sitting here going, oh, I definitely, I definitely want to stick around for this.

That's it, right? I mean, you, like, how do you not know what this? How did you not know what this was three years ago? Well, you know now for sure. That's what I'm saying. There's no question that the team stinks. But here's the thing.

Like, do you, just hypothetically, if you're Kyle Davidson and, either Cain or Taves or both are kind of hemmy. Because they just, you know, I want to be a hawk for life. I want to be, this is the only team I've ever known, this is, et cetera, et cetera. I want to play my whole career here, even if that means I've already got my three cups. I don't have to go chase another one somewhere. I want to stay.

Do you, are you willing to play the card of we will not be offering you a contract? in the summer. Yeah, I totally am. This is your last year as a Black Hawk. Yeah. Forget discounts. We will not be opening that conference. So you can either be traded now or you can, all right.

It's tough, man. It would be pretty cold-blooded, but you might have to. Like, you know, this is a classic thing of, like, Kyle Davidson, like, he didn't sign these guys. Obviously, he, like, came up in their organization or whatever, but this is, this to me is, like a GM coming in and there's a coach already there and you're like, well, I don't need to have any loyalty to this guy. You know?

Huh? Like, if I'm Kyle Davidson, the job is, the job is obvious. Make this team good for like five years from now. And what do you think a Cain contract looks like this summer? Even if he takes a hometown discount to stay in Chicago. six million dollars for three or four years minimum. Yeah. Right?

That's a stupid contract to give out. If I'm a team, I mean, if I'm a team that's trying to rebuild, like I look at how Patrick Kane has played this year, parentheses badly. And I go, oh,

maybe I do want this guy around eating up a huge chunk of my cap money. Well, I mean, and you know that contract would have the no movement clause and everything locked into it again because he's not, you know, he's not going to want to go through this air.

year. Yeah. No. And like both of them, I'm just like, look, thank, you know, thank you for your service. However, we have to take the team in a different direction. I can't believe you spent four summers acting like you didn't understand that. But like this was always going to be where we got as an organization. Like this was the road we were heading down.

Yeah. I'm sorry you don't like it. I'm sorry you liked playing here for. 15 years or whatever it's been. However, like, I just love, I'm sorry you liked playing here.

That's, like, that is very good. Well, no, because, I hear you. No, I'm,

yeah. Like, we've loved having you here. John, Pat, thank you for everything you did for this organization. You made us extremely

fucking relevant. And, and we had not been before you guys showed up. The, the value of our team has exploded because of you guys. However, we are trying to do something here that doesn't involve you anymore. It's that simple. And like, these contracts are coming to an end at the exact right time for that conversation.

It's not like they're 32 when you go, okay, they have a little something extra to give. And it's not like they're 36 where everybody involved is like, yeah, okay, I get it. that's fine. If Taves and Kane want to win, and that's what they've said they want, right? How at this point can they tell themselves Chicago is the place to do that? That's the question.

If they want to win, it's easy. And if they have other priorities, which could include loyalty and, you know, well, again, they were like, I can't believe we traded Alex to Brinkett this summer. It's like you fucking can't. Yeah. And so, okay, let's say you couldn't believe it if you're those guys.

Because even I kind of thought they'd re-sign it. But like, let's say for sure you're like, damn, that is crazy. Right? How do you then say to yourself as 34-year-old doesn't have it anymore, Jonathan Taves and Patrick Kane? But I got to stick around, right? You know what I mean? Yeah. that's the that's the thing that I just I just straight up don't don't understand from from their point of view so I there you go Kyle Ryan is available on a consulting basis to have that conversation I'll tell them to pack their shit just that's fine they just I'm just picturing like the taves and Kane walking into like Kyle Davidson's office together and they sit down and there's like one extra chair Kyle's like I've invited the door closes I was standing behind the open door that's right

Yeah, with just a big novelty push broom. The Sandman Kane from Showtime at the Apollo. Get them out of here. Yeah, no, that's exactly it. Like, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they should be. And, you know, I think there are, I, someone asked me this in the EP mailbag, uh, last week. Like, what do you think the return on Kane is? I think the return on Kane is huge.

Yep. Because he's Patrick Cain. Yeah. It's going to be more than it should be from a purely hockey perspective. Yeah. And like teams will 100% talk themselves into, well, of course he's having a bad season. Yeah. He's playing for Chicago.

Those guys stink. Yeah. So that'll be it. All right. Let's move on here. Stuart Skinner gets that big contract extension. We mentioned it earlier. Yeah.

This does feel like they're hitting the alarm on. Jack Campbell. Well, they're certainly buying very pricey insurance at the very least on that. But again, $2.6 million a year. If he becomes even your part-time starter, that's not terrible. That's reasonable value for a guy that I think is a decent goalie. Like that's... Your combined cost is about $7.5 million for your two goalies.

Like, that's not outrageous. Yeah. Obviously, you wouldn't want to have a $5 million backup who also isn't good. but like, you know, I think it's totally reasonable to expect Campbell can turn it around, maybe not be like, you know, get himself back to league average by the end of the year because of how bad he's been so far. And like how often do we criticize NHLGMs for not recognizing sunk costs, right? I mean, even if you think Jack Campbell is a totally, like you whiffed completely, he's a bum, oh, we back, okay, then lock down another goalie. Like you can't just sit there.

and say, well, we've already wasted five million. So, yeah, I mean, if you have, then you have. And if you haven't, then maybe you have a little too much goaltending, and you live with that. Yep. Now, again, part of the problem here is they're trying to, like, win a Stanley Cup, or at least meaningfully compete for one for these two guys who are. Right.

You know how old Connor McDavid and Leon Dreisdahl are now? they've got to be 25, 26. McDavid's going to be 27 in January, and I think Dry Settles' birthday is over the summer, if I'm not mistaken. No, it was in October, so he just turned 27, but they're both going to be 27 within like three weeks here. Isn't that crazy to think about, like,

I'm not saying, like, oh, you've got to trade these guys, they're past it or whatever. Again, two of the six best players in the world. but like this is I was you know looking at stuff the other a week or two ago and was like oh shit thatger Demko is 28 years old

and it's the same thing with drysidal and McDavid it's like how are these guys how have these guys been in the league seven years already yep that is six years whatever oh man that's that's bananas to me yeah that is that is well the thing that with me with McDavid is always that like as soon as he signed that

contract in my brain, I was just like, oh, McDavid signed a lifetime contract with the oil. And now you look at it and it's like, what, three years left? Three years left, which is still, that's three years. And it's the biggest value deal in the entire league. You should be making $20 million. But it's still like, oh, okay. I'm sure when he gets towards the end of that contract, we'll all be very reasonable in how we handle that as media outside of Edmonton.

Yeah, yeah, and you definitely won't engage. age in any of the Toronto he's coming home stuff, right? Definitely not. No, no, no, no, no. Running him and Matthews won two up the middle. Yeah. We'll figure it out. Exactly.

But yeah, I don't know. I like that contract for the Oilers. I like Stuart Skinner. Yeah, that feels pretty reasonably low risk to me. Yep. Okay, I guess the other big bit of news is, looks like we're coming up on the end of the Philcastle Iron Man Street. Yeah, I didn't know this until I saw it in your list, but I'm, yeah, got benched.

Got benched for a good chunk of the game the other night. Midgame benching. Yes, yeah, yeah. And apparently, you know, the talk is he's only in the lineup because they don't have enough healthy forwards. Yeah, played according to this is from Jesse Granger. He played two shifts in the final six. 16 minutes of the second period. Buffalo scored on both.

And then he only got 42 seconds of ice time in the third period. You know what? He got the record. He got over a thousand games. I think at this point, if it's time, maybe it's time. Yeah. I don't have a problem with that at all. You know, again, like last year when everybody's like,

oh, he's going to get traded to a contender, the concern was that contenders would be like, well, we don't want to like play him every night. Yeah, we're not going to guarantee we're going to play you every night, especially. Yeah. Then he did get. No, he signed with Vegas as a free agent. Yeah. And then so, I mean, it was somewhat surprising that he wound up in Vegas purely from that perspective.

Yeah, not from any other perspective. Not from any other perspective, no. But from that perspective, it definitely was a surprise. And, you know, he had a pretty okay start to the season for them. He scored a couple of big goals or whatever and got to a thousand games. He's been okay offensively. But the problem is, you know, the knock on him his whole career has been the defensive game. And guys like that, as they become veterans, sometimes the defensive game kind of comes into focus.

It snaps into place because they're just, you know, how many, how many times have we seen guys. that were one-way offense-only guys who become like even Selky candidates to where, you know, the Ron Francis, Steve Eiserman sort of deal. And with him, it just feels like it's gone the other way. Like his, his, his, the defense has never gotten better. And now that he's, you know, maybe half a step behind what he's used to, it's just non-existent. So, yeah. Yep.

It's, uh, it's tough. But again, like, that's, that's, that's, life, you know, the guy's Yeah. I'm glad he got to the thousand. Absolutely, yeah. Again, one of my favorite players of the era from like, at the height of his powers,

he was super fun to watch, you've got fun personality, all that kind of stuff. Yeah. But like, time comes for all of us, maybe. Like, I don't know what you want me to say, you know? Yeah.

And he's got, I think, I think Brent Burns is next behind him, and he's like. It's going to be 600 games ahead of Brent Church. It's like three or four hundred. So, I mean, it's not, he's not going to get Keith Yandled. Nope. Again, this feels like a truly, actually unbreakable record.

Yeah, maybe. A thousand games straight? I don't think it was Phil Kessel who did it. And it's Phil Kessel. Pudgy, winded, sucking wind on the bench, Phil Kessel. Just, yeah. One last. thing here and then we're going to

call it and we're oh I guess we'll say here we're not doing an episode next week we're going to take the week between Christmas and New Year's off because it feels like most of the NHL is going to really try to get the same thing done and who can blame them so what's one thing

or maybe a couple of things if you want to go that far you want to see happen in the NHL that like we did this a little bit on a bonus episode the other day but like I'm gonna say more of like a wish list thing than then because we were like oh we hope scoring stays up or whatever like what's one thing you want to see happen for sure I hope we get a great playoff race down the stretch yeah uh didn't really have one in the east last year uh and and like a and not even like let let's get three or four teams just like you know really and and and I guess I mean we we kind of just went through it I suppose it could it could still come into play in the West,

depending on how things go. But certainly doesn't seem great. The East, the East isn't finished yet like it was this time last year, but. No, there are, yeah, there's, you know, I guess the thing is like, it's going to end up being a nine-team playoff race

instead of an eight-team non-race, right? Like, there's going to be maybe one-team, team hanging around the fringe, the fringes. Maybe two, but. The other thing I would say is let's, uh, let's get Connick gave it to 150 points. Yeah, that was going to be mine. I want to see, I want to see multiple players get to 60 goals this season. I don't think it's particularly likely.

Um, but like, I don't know, it definitely started out the year like everybody, like all the high scoring, uh, or goal scoring players were scoring a goal a game. basically. But I want to see, I'm going to say I want to see eight 50 goal guys this season. And I think that's, I think that's within reach. Let's see here. You got eight at 20 right now, it says here. Ovechkin, dry sidel, Pasternak, Rantanin, Horvatt, Robertson, who hasn't scored like

in seven or eight games, I think I saw the other day. Oh, really? Yeah. Tage Thompson and Connor McDavid. I want to see at least two of those get to 60, and I want to see all of those, well, not all of those guys in particular, but eight guys get to 50.

Do you know Crosby has 18 already? I think I did know that, yeah. He is. I'm scoring a lot this year. Good for him. Still good. Yeah, crazy that he's still good. And I want to see some new blood in the mix

for like legitimate cup contender. Because again, you go down the list and you're like, oh yeah, there they are again, the Tampa Bay Lightning. Obviously the avalanche are kind of struggling a little bit to start the year. But like I would love to see a cup final with two teams we haven't seen in a cup final in recent years before. Like if it's... You can just say the Leafs, it's fine. Well, it's not even the Leafs.

I'd love to see Carolina get there because I think they've been. a really good team for a really long time, you know? I don't know. Maybe it's maybe when you're talking about it, like you're only talking about Carolina and Toronto. But in the West, like I'd love to say, I guess Vegas was there kind of recently, but Carolina Vegas would be. Unreal.

Carolina Vegas would be fun because it would destroy the traditionalists. Yeah. But like I think it's within Minnesota's power if the goaltending gets hot to make it to a cup final. That would be awesome. Yeah. You know, like that because, yeah. We said it last year.

How about, how about Minnesota Vegas conference final, Mark Andre Fleury? Sounds awesome. Let's get that. I mean, that sounds awesome. But yeah, I just, I just like to see it a little bit more mixed up than it has been. You know, if you go back to basically like the start of the 2010s, the same teams are making the conference finals almost every year. It's fucking crazy. Like, I don't, if you definitely, if you go like by the cup final.

Yeah. It's, uh, Colorado was kind of a new entrant last year, but Tampa Bay went to three straight cup finals in like four and five years, four and six years or something like that. The Bruins go a bunch. The penguins obviously won a couple. Chicago had a few. Uh, Los Angeles was there. So, like, it would be nice to just have it a little bit more mixed up.

That's what I'm hoping for, meaning no offense to your Tampa Bay is and your Colorado's, because those are fun teams that I like to watch. Dude, as a Leafs fan, you do not have to sell me on this one. Sure. Fully on board. Stop hogging all of the round two and beyond playoff spots, guys. Yeah, you're looking up at the Montreal Canadiens going, how do we get what you have? One thing I've been meaning to say for a little while,

and because we, you know, we shit on the NHL as an institution kind of a lot, right? But one thing I want to say here is there has been an, I don't know if, again, like, I don't know if this exists in Canada, but down here in the U.S., they've been running ads that's basically like, the new, like, golden age of hockey, we're in it. Okay. Um, basically the pitch.

I haven't seen those and I feel like you couldn't run those in Canada because people would get very mad. Yeah. But like the pitch of the ad is basically like you don't want to look 20 years from now and go, man, I should have gone to see Connor McDavid play. I should have gone to see Austin Matthews play. Yeah. Should have gone to see the the three time cup finalist Tampa Bay Lightning. Like I could have done all of that and and I've never done it.

And now I regret it. You don't want to be there and like, you know, doing the thing of, oh, no, I was at the no hit or whatever. Like, yeah, I saw Conradiv play. Now is the time in the NHL. There have never been this many players that you're like, fuck, that guy is really good for a really long time. You know, like how many years was it just like, yeah, let's have the Crosby-Ovetchen debate again. You know? And I think that's an awesome pitch from the NHL.

I think the idea that they're going, look, but not only that, because like we have a bunch of old guys who are not going to be around much longer, like Ovech and Crosby, Bergeron. Stamcoast is getting up there, right? And you're like, fuck, man, we really did have a lot of great players. And there's even more now. And like, it's lining up in just such a way that, like, all the greats are leaving and all the young guys are coming up. and now's the time to watch the NHL, maybe more so than at any point since I've become a fan in the last like 20 years or whatever.

Yeah, you know. That would be. So I love that pitch from the NHL. I hope everybody does go to more NHL games this year because it, you know, even if your local team stinks, there's probably one or two good players on almost every team in the league that you're like, fuck man, I could say I got to see Patrick Cain play live.

Yep. I got to see, I don't know, I was going to say Clayton Keller. That's not a good example. But like, you know. You don't have to go see Arizona. No, you don't have to go see Arizona. But, you know, there's a lot of teams where it's like, fuck, man. Like, yeah, the Canadians don't have it.

But like, you could say you saw Cole Cawfield. And 10 years from now that's going to mean something. something, you know? Uh-huh. I don't know. Like it. Yeah. Like they say, the new golden age is now.

Fucking go to an NHL game. Watch them on TV more. So, so sick of hearing Lambert chill for the NHL. Yeah. Just carry that water, buddy. Gary, I'm going to the winter classic. You can just hand me the check in person. That's fine.

There it is. All right, Sean, hit them with the plugs. Uh, you can, find me at the athletic, doing, I don't know, doing a few things. I'm kind of taking it easier over the next few weeks, but I will have a show with Ian Mendez this week. And I think I'm doing a mailbag towards the end of the week. Check that out. Oh, it's easy.

Yeah. Write a quick mailbag. Oh, that was a real tough one. You gave me the ideas. Yeah. Anyway. Yeah, hey, I did one last week, so I know, you know. Anyway, so I was told right before we started recording that there is a new promo code for EPRankside.

because World Juniors is coming up. Do you have any World Juniors predictions, Sean? I predict that Canada will win. One of those scrappy Canada teams, real lunch tail, none of these guys are highly regarded. Can I tell you something that this just tells you how bad I am with prospects? Until I saw the Team Canada roster, I just assumed Adam Fantilli was American.

I think because he's a college guy with most college guys but like Cal McCar's not American you know yeah so I was like wait we've got that guy on team candidate oh yeah because I was sort of like oh Bader versus Fenta this will be great

nope though they're going to be on a lot on a power play together at the very least so good luck good luck everyone else yeah it's not going to go well for everyone else but to celebrate now I always give the code I love EP gives you three months

tacked on to the end of your annual subscription. You can still use that. That's fine. However, if you're like, I don't want to commit for a full 15 months, I don't really know what goes on over there. Well, first of all, fair enough, I get it. But second of all,

if you use the code WJC 2023, the number is 2023, of course, you get 60% off the first three months of a monthly subscription. So I don't know what one of the subscriptions costs. I have no idea. I get it for free, obviously. but if you want to knock 60% off whatever it is,

eight bucks a month or whatever, you know, this is the way to do it. You get three months, 60% off. And if you like everything, you can then use the code, I love EP,

sign up for even longer than that. If you like your EP, you can keep your EP. That's right. And folks, you didn't build that, right? Never said that.

So yeah, do that. And then, of course, check out the Puck Suit Patreon, bonus episode. a lot of them, again, like we did a 2022 year in review for the Supotle this month with this guy, Gurperski. And yeah, all sorts of other stuff over there as well. So check it all out.

We're always trying to pitch you on this kind of stuff. And hey. Real quick, before we go, give me the five second reaction to the Survivor finale. Oh, yeah. much like last year, I kind of was like, you know what, that guy made a great case for himself at the end. I didn't think he was going to win. He was my dark horse to win. He was.

And I tried to talk you out of it. And you were right and I was wrong. Once again. Tale is oldest time. But yeah, I thought he made a great case for himself and the way the final three shook out. Yeah. Legitimate all-time great. jury performance.

Yeah. By the old Gabler. So, satisfied winner. Did you feel like, the Alligabler, did you feel like, you know,

because there's nothing worse than doing a whole Survivor season, especially in like real time, like months stretched out, and then getting to the end and being like, I didn't like that winner. That felt like a,

like a disappointing result. Early on, I was not really a Gabbler guy. I thought he kind of came across a little bit of an asshole, a little bit. assholes maybe not the right, like he didn't have the right temperament for the game maybe.

Right. But then as time went on, yeah, he was just like doing a real good job for himself and staying out of trouble. And I think the point he made was nobody ever wrote my name down a single time. Yep. In the entire season. He was one vote away from the perfect game,

which is when you never get a vote against you and then get a unanimous jury for you at the end. He was one vote away from joining that club. Has that ever happened? It has, like a handful of times, but it's quite rare. Yeah. And then, you know, I'll say this. Here's my note to the people who cut the episode together.

Having him say to the camera, if I win, I'm donating all my money to charity. That's, by the way, this guy donated his entire million dollar winnings to charity. Yeah. Having him say that in the middle of the episode and like a talking head, like candid conversation thing, totally took the wind out of him revealing it to, like if he had said that after he won,

I would have lost my fucking mind. Yes. Yeah. But he never, it was interesting that he never said that to the jury during the game. No. Yeah.

And I wonder if they told him he couldn't. I wonder if they were like, dude, don't. Because then it becomes, I don't know, almost too easy. It tips the scales, yeah, for sure. But yeah, no, I thought that was an awesome finale. Somebody in the comments on the Patreon was like,

I watched it for the first time because you guys talked about it. It was, I'm totally hooked now. Yeah. So it's great. Yeah. Good show. Really, really good show. Okay, folks, enjoy your holidays.

We'll be back first week of January. And until then, have a good. one. Thanks so much, everybody. Bye, bye, bye.