Puck Soup - Nucleus of Body Language

Episode Date: April 15, 2025

Sean and Ryan talk about who's out, who's in the NHLPA player poll, and more.

I'm Ryan Lambert from Elite Prospects. I am Sean McAnew from The Athletic. And we're getting down to the real nitty-gritty here, folks. There's three days left of regular season games. Most teams are at like 80, 81, something like that. And it's getting interesting out there. Let's say that. Do we want to start, Sean, with the teams that are kind of getting eliminated in the last little while here are the teams that still in it?

Up to you. Let's do the teams being eliminated. Sounds good. And then if you don't hear your team, that's good. Close one. All right. Then I got to start with the funniest possible team. The New York Rangers.

Whoops. Oops. So, look, it hasn't been going great for a minute over there, you know. And boy, was it, was it Molly Walker on Sunday was like hey so Calvin Dahan just walked by all the reporters who was basically like yeah hey how they're using me since they traded for me at the deadline is fucked quote it's fucked um and then he comes off the ice and the and oh and he said like I'll be very transparent about how I feel blah blah blah yeah and then he

talks to the Rangers PR after he comes off the ice from practice and he's like, I actually I think got tackled by them. Yeah. But, yeah, he then he's like, I actually love the New York Rangers. They're a perfect team who's never done anything wrong. And then he posted on Twitter about like, basically what you could have surmised. This is a guy who when they traded for him, they put him into the lineup. The Rangers went 2-0-1, and he was like, oh, it's going pretty good.

They'll keep playing me wrong. He hasn't played since like March 15th or something like that. It's been quite a while, hasn't gotten into the lineup. And he, you know, he's like, look, was I the reason that we went 2-0-1? You know, I'm man enough to say, probably not. You know, I could have been part of it, but I wasn't the guy. or anything. And then he's like,

and I don't want to be playing like 20 minutes a night, but like, you know, they haven't played me in a month. That's crazy. This seems, reading between the lines here, he's like, it's all like we're doing good.

Yeah. So let's fucking mix it up. But I'm not trying to be, this is the quote that I thought was funny at the end here. I'm not trying to be the villain or gain attention or throw shade on the organization.

Well, I would have referred a scrum setting to chat about how my time with the Rangers has gone. As a player, you have to respect the lineup decisions whether you like them or not. It's just been frustrating not being able to compete and do what I love. I hope everyone understands. I think we all do understand.

Including Peter Lavillette, who's like, if I thought he was happy being scratched this often, I would think that sucked. You know, I want him to want to be in the lineup. I just don't want him in the lineup. It's kind of what he said.

So, You have any thoughts on that? Yeah, my first thought was, oh, cool, Calvin Dahan is on the Rangers, apparently. Yeah, he was the cap dump in the, what's his name trade to Colorado. Yeah, Lingered. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, Ryan Lingard. So.

I wanted to say Braden Schneider, and I'm like, I know that guy's still on the Rangers. So I don't know who I'm thinking of. But, yeah, beyond that, I don't think that, like, seven. The seventh defenseman on teams missing the playoffs who were cap throwins are really the guys that your PR team wants dropping F bombs in their sound bites. But I get. What's he make? What's he make against the cap? I don't know.

Probably too much. Oh, it's definitely too much. Is it four? Four and a half? Something like that. Let's look this up. But, yeah. I mean, look, this is one of the classic things.

The Rangers, I think, are going to be the fourth team to win the President's trophy one year and then miss the playoffs the next. Something like that. I believe that. By the way, Calvin Dahon makes $800,000. So he doesn't make $4 million at all. So the fourth or fifth team, you know, low number of teams to win the President's trophy, then miss the playoffs. and I've said it all year. I've said it going back to last year.

This is a team of the power play and a goalie. When you don't have the power play, you don't have the goalie. Suddenly, a lot of the flaws are pretty obvious to everyone. And, you know, they're going to finish above 500, NHL 500. So it's not like it's a total disaster. Like they're not, you know, like the Bruins, for example, a team that everybody, including me, thought was going to be good and they're the worst team in the conference, you know.

But again, relative to expectations, this is about as bad as it could go for the Rangers. And so the question is, Sean, how do you fix the Rangers? Well, two things. First of all, if you're looking for a little dose of optimism, one of those teams to win the President's trophy. And then missed the playoffs the next year was the 1992 Rangers. They won the President's trophy in 92, missed the playoffs in 92, 93. I don't remember if anything interesting happened to the New York Rangers in 1994.

But I think they improved. So there's your optimism. The other piece of optimism, the even better news, is I don't have to fix the Rangers because my understanding is Mark Messier already has. Well, I think he's proposed some, let's say, very intriguing ideas for fixing the Rangers. I mean, I hadn't seen this until you sent it to me, but yeah, they're fixed. Well, okay.

Five easy steps, and you'll never guess what theme most of them have to do with. Number one, identify captain slash leader. Now, personally, I would have done this before. I would have had an idea of like who the leader was before, especially since they traded the captain already, you know. But do they have an identity? Well, you're going to create an identity. That's step two. That's step two according to Mark Messier.

I wonder what their identity will be. What will this NHL team's identity be? Will it be a hardworking team that's tough to play against? Well, look, I got to tell you, Sean. that's not really what the Rangers identity was when they were having success. Again, they were a power play and a goalie. This is one of those situations where like a team is like, we need an identity. And it's like, no, you have one.

You had it. You might need a new one, but you definitely have an identity. Well, again, like the thing about identity is, you know, you build a team around what the identity is or you let the identity come to you through the team you build. Right. And I think it's fair to say that if you're, that there's a certain amount of square peg and round hole in the way a lot of this works, right? Where I circle back to this all the time. When Milan Luchich destroyed the Buffalo Sabres franchise forever by running over Ryan Miller.

And they were like, we got to go out, we got to be hard to play against, we've got to get a bunch of tough guys who suck. And it's like, weren't you guys like one of the best teams in the, Eastern Conference for years. Right? And they were like, our identity is the problem here because no one tried to murder Milan Luchich, because he was bigger than all of them, you know? And they were like, we have to go build a new identity.

And the new identity was bad. The previous identity was good because they had, well, A, built it over years, but B, built it to like, we have a bunch of players who are good. You know? Mm-hmm. And people say, like, oh, you know, the, the Tampa thing, if, like, you, if you bump Andre Vasilevsky, there's 40 guys jumping on you or whatever. And it's like, yeah, that's true.

But also it's like, you know, you had Stephen Stamcoast and Braden Point and Nikita Kutra. Like, you know, their identity was that they were a really good hockey team who, it just happened to be they were all, like, nasty guys, you know? Mm-hmm. on the ice. But when teams talk about creating an identity, it's always the same one. Yeah, of course. Win two to one, grind it out, pucks in deep.

Now, I mean, I could get philosophical and ask if all 32 teams have the same identity. Does anyone actually have an identity? Right. All right. So we've got leadership and an identity. Yeah. Well, the... What different way.

to say leadership has he got next. Well, you define a nucleus to drive the culture. Uh, culture, yes. It's, to me, it's all about defining the nucleus. So identity comes first and then culture? It's interesting. Yeah. I would have thought culture would be first and then identity, but this is why I'm not

Mark Messia. Well, so, okay, define a nucleus. This is just a good idea, right? Like, this is, again, what I'm talking about of like, okay, who are the key? players for the next five or six years on this team. And we know what some of them are, or who some of them are, I should say, because a bunch of these guys are signed long term, right? And that, look, the Rangers proved this year.

You don't, that doesn't necessarily mean anything, but it gives you the framework of what that is. So who do you think? You think it's probably, uh, Lefranier? You think it's probably, I would guess that you, you probably, you probably have to. to say it's J.T. Miller. Adam Fox. Adam Fox.

I don't know. This is one of these things. Does the goalie count for culture or core or identity? I think he counts as part of your nucleus. Okay. Goleys cannot be part of identity or culture because they're all weird cycle paths that should not be allowed to speak. But no, piggy-eighy gets to be part of the nucleus. Okay.

So that's, if you want, do you have anybody else you would add to that? Like, I guess you'd say Gabe Perrault because he, you know, he's a first-round pick and he's going to be. Yeah, no, you got to earn your spot on the nucleus there, buddy. Yeah, okay. I think that's fair. You're not getting handed to you. I think that's totally fair. And I'm not, like, I'm not even doing a joke here.

I think it's totally fair to be like, yeah, this 19-year-old who's played two. NHL games or whatever is not part of our nucleus at this point. I think you've got the key guys. I'm sure there's one or two other guys that... Will Coley. There. We did it. You know? Okay. Well, so, but then you get to push youth into important roles. Here's my question. And again, I'm being really serious here. What youth? Is that not like a legitimate?

And I mean, I guess the... Maybe the implication is the youth that you acquire by moving out anyone who wasn't identified in steps one through three. Maybe. But also, again, like, okay, Will Cooley? Like, are we saying Matt Rempey here? Like, is that what we're really getting down to? I cannot believe I forgot Matt Rempey is part of the nucleus. Well, again, like, he shouldn't be part of the nucleus.

He's bad. That's one of the key things about the Matt Rempey experience. It's not very good. Well, right. Yeah, of course. But I don't know. Again, are we saying like Brennan Othman needs to be in a bigger, you know when the time to move the youth into bigger roles was? It was like two years ago.

I mean, yeah, but they won the president's trophy. Right. It was working. It was working. Like it's. And again, like, this is. something we've, I hate to keep saying again, but this is just something we talked about on the show every time we talked about the Rangers. It's like, part of the problem for their,

their, you know, youth movement or whatever, where they had all these relatively high first-round picks was that they weren't putting those guys on the power play, right? Like, they were just like, no, no, the power play is for all the old guys. And it made sense because the power play was working. But this year, when the power play stopped working, they weren't like, you know, who needs more power play time is literally any of those guys necessarily. And I don't know. It's tough because it's like, well, you know, in theory, you would stick with what worked

and the percentages would even themselves out over time, maybe. But the larger point is that, like, they had the youth and now they've traded all those young guys away. Capocaco's not on the team anymore, you know? Philip Heedle's not on the team anymore. That was the kid line. Remember the kid line? I do.

Yeah. One good shift every four playoff games and that was the future. But they just never put those guys in a position to succeed. They never did. And so now they're now they're getting around to it, I guess. Okay. So we've got, we have done four of the five steps in the Mark Messia. plan. The first three were all kind of

wishy-washy leadership things. And then the fourth one was an actual piece of roster building. Take us home with the last one. What do we got? Body language. It's just body language. Body language. Again, Mark Messia is... One of the five most important things.

Body language. Yeah. He doesn't say whether it should be good or bad. I had assuming he went on to explain that it should absolutely suck. It's like, I want to see people slumped over. I want to see heads hanging. Yeah, I did not watch this segment live.

I just saw the image that everyone was making fun of. And rightfully so. So, yeah, to me, I'm just, you know, the classic, I hate to say I told you so, but I did try to tell you. Did. You know? And if you're the Rangers, I think you're, you're preparing to fire the coach. I think you're preparing to probably fire the GM.

Yeah. What percentage would you put on both of those? Like to happen? Yeah. Like 95 on the coach and 70 on the GM. Okay. Does that sound right? It sounds within the range of right.

I think, yeah, the coach feels like a sure thing. GM, I don't know. and I suppose it is possible that if they bring back Chris Durry, he could say, no, you know, Lavalette's my guy and or Lavalette's my shield that I want to go into next season with. Still have that card to play. But I think, yeah, that's, I, I think you probably have it about right. So he got hired in May 2021.

So I'm just trying to figure out what his first team looks. looked like, like what, who was on the first team, Chris Drury brought to the table here. Just sorting by points, Panarin, Zabanajad, Crider, Fox, Strom, Truba, Goodrow, Lafranier-Heidel, Keandre Miller, Cop, Cop, must have been a guy they traded for, Coco, Dryden Hunt, Frank Vitrano was on that team, Ryan Lindgren, go down the list. A lot of those guys are still on this team, you know? And isn't that interesting? Cops not, obviously, again, I think that was just they traded for him at the deadline

and he actually had a pretty good little run at the end of the season there. Heidel gone, Goodrow gone, obviously, Truba gone. I don't know. I guess the thing is the vibes here are insanely bad. it seems like everyone's angry it seems like nobody feels like they are guaranteed anything you know the

the good dro and true betrays are just kind of like didn't we sign big contracts that gave us protection and you just were kind of like go fuck yourselves and that's fascinating to me because there's a lot of situations we've seen in the past around the league where you go man the players

are running the show here. The inmates are running the asylum. You got to, you know, the team needs to send a message that we are here to, like, the Goodrow stuff was like, they won the president's trophy, went out in, what was it, the second or third round? Did they make the conference final last year? I think they made the conference final. And then they said, that's not good enough.

We are pushing even further. And, you know, yeah, we're going to, if we got to break a few eggs, we'll do it. and we've seen that in Tampa, we've seen it in Vegas, and yet in New York it's like, you know, you look at teams like Vegas and you go, why doesn't everyone do this? And then you look at the Rangers and you're like, oh, right, because it is a little bit of a narrow path to walk to get it right.

Or maybe there is no getting it right, and we're just filling in right or wrong after we see the results. Nobody would be mad at, about or everybody would be mad about Vegas if they didn't keep winning after doing all this. You know what I mean? Same thing with Tampa. Yeah. Like people aren't mad because they keep winning.

Winning fixes a lot of the problems. Oh, I'm mad that they traded the captain of the team. Well, what if what if I told you we're going to play at 115 point pace? Nobody's like, I still miss Jacob Truba, though. Fuck Jacob Truba is what they're all saying at that point. But because I don't know what the pace is since they traded Jacob Trubo. Truba, but it's not like good. No.

I mean, it's awful, but it wasn't... Well, I mean, the thing is, they started the season pretty well. They did. Weren't they like nine and four at one point? Yeah, something like that, yep. But even then they were making these changes, and it was sort of like, at the time, you could have, if you squinted, you could say, this is Chris Drury saying that, you know what, the record is good, but I don't like what I'm seeing and we're making the big changes and we're, you

doing all of this, but it really does seem to have had an impact on, I mean, we saw the stories in the middle of the season, right? That, like, no, this isn't a team that hates their coach. This is a team that hates their GM, which is something that you almost never, never see. What an interesting team. Like, I did not see this, like, the Boston thing you could have maybe seen coming. I don't think so. I think again like the Boston was they were like a good five on five team last year or whatever you know maybe not great but and Boston I mean not only you know we talked about the Rangers winning the President's trophy last year not only did Boston win it the year before they had the best regular season record wise ever in the history of the league and two years later they're a complete complete mess can I give you can I give you a pretty interesting stat on this that I just pulled up stats.

the Rangers have the fourth worst power play shooting percentage in the league this year which you wouldn't expect given the talent that they have on that roster and recent results no the Bruins have the third worst and then the Islanders and the ducks

have the two have the two worst and they're basically the same 8.6 and 8.3 like I figured out what the problem here is You know, if the Rangers are shooting at a bet, you know, they were 10th in the league last year. They shot 15.0.2%. And this year, it's way worse than that, you know. So that's not their only problem, but it's a big part of it.

And if your team is like, well, you know, if we shave four points off our power play shooting percentage and we go in the toilet, that's probably just not a well-built team at the end of the day. So I don't know. I guess that's my big take on the Rangers. Some of this is like I don't know how repeatable it is that the Rangers will be this bad again next year, no matter what changes they make. Because they just do have talent at the top of that lineup. It's going to be a good job for some coach to come in at the very least. I mean, tough market, James Dole and all that stuff. But just purely in terms of teams that should be able to rebound.

Yeah. And again, Here's what I would say, and then we'll move on from the Rangers. I don't think they were, President should have won the President's trophy last year, good last season. And I don't think they're going to finish with like 83 to 85 points this year. Bad. I think they're right in the middle. I think they're like a 98 point team on paper.

Okay. You know? And I don't think, I don't know. I don't think that's like, would that be disappointing to people? This year it would have been. Next year, I think people will be like, you know what? but I'll take 98, 100 points. No problem from me.

Yep. So, let's just shoot over just a little bit away from Madison Square Garden out to UBS, MSG to UBS, I guess. We're the New York Islanders. There is some question whether Lou Lamarillo and Patrick Waugh are both out when this season is over. Mm-hmm. That would be, I think it would be good news, but let's see.

And is it, so is Lou out, and what would that look like? Like, is it an actual firing, or is it, you know, he moves upstairs or he does, I don't think you can let him, yeah, I don't think you can let him touch hockey ops,

hockey decisions anymore. Okay. You know, it's, we've seen how it's gone. And his bright idea is like, let's put Matt Martin out there. You know? You assume when a GM goes that the coach probably goes, or do you think Patrick Waugh is working the behind the scenes saying, like,

put me in charge of the team? Yeah, sure. I've seen this once before, right? Like, this is how it went down in Colorado. Patrick Quad has not seemed to view himself as purely a coach. or at least he didn't back then. Right. And we know he's got the, you know, his hands-on experience in Junior.

So, I don't know. I mean, I think I've got all the respect in the world for the nearly 40 years of success Lou La Merello's head in the NHL, but I think it would be good news for the Islanders to have a fresh set of eyes. It gets away from you. That's fine, you know? I'm legitimately asking how old is Lou Lamarillo. Is he 82, 83?

Yeah, he's in his 80s. He's 82 and he'll be 83 in October. Yeah. I think that's fine. I think we can say, you know what, thank you for your service, Lou. I don't want, you know, this is the thing. Like, you don't want to be like, oh, I don't think you can do it. What was it?

Like, we should have the 50 over 50 list. Remember that take? We have the 30 under 30. What about the 60 over 60? Yeah, what about it? Lou Lamarillo is on the 80 over 80 list. There's no two ways about it. But we don't, you know, we don't need to do all that anymore.

I think there are people who have more, let's say, modern takes on the game. Then what if we go out? Because this is the thing. I'm going to read you the numbers on, this is just a series of numbers. And I want you to tell me what this series. is 29, 34, 33, 23, 33, 33, 32, 25, 26, 30, 30. Well, I heard a 33 in there, so it's not rankings. No.

It's kind of what it felt like. What is it? That is the age of the Islanders top 10 scorers from 1 to 10. Oh, no. Yeah. Okay. One 23-year-old, a 25-year-old, and the 26-year-old. And look, I'm just.

just, I think that, I think that you can make the argument that Lou's like 35 years old. He's in the prime of his life. You know, like that's, like, it just, it's, it's a pattern that's gone on a little too long for you to say that's not just like Lou Lamarillo doesn't think age and curves matter. Yeah. And so there needs to be someone to come in here and be like, maybe we don't extend every 33. year old on the roster. But there was an article in the New York Post today, and it was behind a paywall, and I'm not going to pay for the New York Post paywall.

But it was like how the Islanders went from cup contender to this. And it's like, cup contender. Yeah. I saw a few people kind of question that. They were in the conference final back-to-back years. Yeah. Sean, remind me scale of one to ten. And how fake were those two playoffs?

You know what? I don't have a spreadsheet in front of them. I have a spreadsheet. Do you want me to pull the number? I'll pull the number. I'm not afraid. But yeah, it's like they did it in a 60-something game season where, you know, they stopped the season for three months and then got everybody together. And there were 42 teams in the playoffs.

And some of the rounds were best out at six and some of the rounds were best out of 12 or something like that. And so the cup fakeness in 20 and 21. 0.45 and 0.62. These are very fake cups, folks. It's extremely cup. That's extremely fake. Although that does add up to one season as a contender. Mm-hmm.

But one point. Yeah, a little over. But yeah, to me, it's just like, yep, you had two good playoffs, one of which was like about as fake as I can imagine a season being the the the first COVID season. So and again, part of that too was much like the Rangers. They just had the goalie. Remember that? Remember how good that guy was?

What happened? They brought in a superstar goalie as the coach and he decided to let the Yeah, they're going to be the starter for half a season. That's interesting. But yeah, so like, I don't know. This is one where I don't know what the fix is here because this is the other thing. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, nine, ten, eleven guys on the island. Twelve guys on the islanders have some form of movement protection.

And most of them are full no trade clauses. maybe not most. Half of them are full no trade classes, it looks like. I don't know what the fix is. Yeah, this I think is a much tougher fix than the Rangers, let's just say. Totally. But I'm sure they'll figure something out, no problem, you know. What if they just put Lamarillo's kid in charge?

What a track record. I mean, he was running the HL team this year. Look up how they did. Oh, nobody's ever lost more home games than the AHA ever? Oh, okay. I believe that, I believe that's the record. Home record. I'm pretty sure this is what it is.

Yeah, they went 428, 1 and 3 at home this year. Fewest win, fewest home wins in HL history in a season. Yep. Four. Minus 70 goal difference at home, it looks like. Can that be right? Seems bad. Or is that a minus 70 in all situations, you know, home and away, whatever.

Yeah, that's unbelievable. They were last in the AHA last season as well. So I wouldn't personally put the kid in charge. But, you know, hey. Also, the kid, he's probably 65 years old, you know? Yeah, you know what? He probably is. Let's look up how old Chris Lamarillo is.

All right. Is there a great-grandkid available? He's 53. Okay. He was born in 1972. He was born in the same year as they released The Godfather. So, you know, not exactly an Al Pacino's kid. Since you know about this, Al Pacino has like a newborn child, relatively.

Al Pacino. Al Pacino, like the actor. The 97-year-old. The guy who was in The Godfather. Yeah. He is, it looks like he is two years older than, uh, than Lou La Merillo, Al Pacino. Yep. Um, so yeah, again, like, I don't, I don't think it hurts you to fire Lou.

I don't think, or, you know, ask him not to come back or however you want to phrase it. And I don't know that it hurts you to, to do the same with Patrick Waugh. But I don't know who's, I don't know who's fixing this problem anytime soon. Yeah. It's tough. I said with the Rangers it would be a good job. I'm not sure this one is a good job to, if I'm a coach with my pick of opportunities. I don't mind the goalies.

I don't mind the goaltending situation. But other than that, this one's going to be tough. You know, I have here written down Detroit. I'm interested to see what happens there, but I don't really have. a take on it other than, again, if you didn't see this one come and I don't know what to tell you. You know?

It's disappointing, though. It's got to be... Well, yeah, we're on year 14 of the Eiser plan, you know? And the fact that Montreal and Ottawa passed you. Ottawa blowing past you hurts,

but Ottawa was at least in the same viewed as being in like the same tier as you. Sure. I see. Montreal was supposed to be two years behind. And they just, you know, beep, beep, move over, please. We're just going to zip right ahead of you.

I don't know, man. Like, they got the bounce midseason from the coaching change, and then it didn't stick. If you need that bounce to even get to where they are now, that seems like a huge problem to me. Mm-hmm. You know? McClellan is going to end up a few games above regular 500, it looks like. It looks like under him they are 24 and 21 if, you know, if you lump regulation and overtime slash shootout losses together. Eesh.

But, you know, I was reading an article about it the other day and it's like, yeah, they just didn't get as much goal scoring from the veterans as they kind of thought they would or whatever. And it's like, yeah, man, if you were, if your, if your big plan was like, we need Teresanko cop and J.T. Comfer to all score like 20 goals apiece. that just wasn't going to happen. You know? And that's even leaving aside the whole goaltending situation. We have 14 guys who might be at NHL goalies this year. I don't know. How many of them worked out?

Talbot. Talbot is probably the only one you would say was like right around the league average. And everybody else was just a little below it or worse. Yeah. Again, don't know what the plan is. Because, I mean, that one. I got, I'll tell you what the point. plan is. Let's go to the Messier

plan. Put the youth in the positions to get on the power play and stuff like that. Like there's a lot of... Well, I mean, it goes without saying. But there's a lot of reason to believe that a guy like Lucas Raymond or Yonatan Bergren,

these guys can kind of do it for you if you play them whatever, like 20 minutes a night. Maybe. It's certainly better. I'll put it this way. It's better than playing 36-year-old Patrick King.

Like, I saw a quote the other day, Patrick Cana. It's really disappointing to be missing the playoffs. It's like, you joined the Red Wings. You can't be disappointed by this. This is what was going to happen. If you're a 36-year-old away from making the playoffs, like I don't know who thinks that. The thing with the wings is they're the first team that we've hit

where it's like they're not going to fire the GM. Nope. They've already done the coaching change. So that part is out. I know we kind of touched on them briefly, but I want to go back to the Bruins because did you see there was a report that the Bruins, they're keeping the front office? Yeah. So Sweeney and Neely are staying. Yep.

According to reports. They're getting the higher the new coach and we'll see what happens thing. And then when that maybe doesn't work out. And again, I think the Bruins can reasonably expect a bounce back season from, uh, from Swayman. And that solves a lot of their problems. I don't know that it's, I'll tell you, I don't think it solves most of their problems,

but it solves a good percentage. Yeah. And I saw it in the globe just the other day. Sean, why didn't they think this? They should get an elite center. Oh, really? Okay. There's probably a lot of those in free agency. Definitely.

No, I think the article did say, like they should trade for one. Trade what? Well, okay, you know, the less said the better, I suppose. But, you know, do you want the Bruins trading a first round pick for an elite center? Because that first round pick next year could be pretty high. Could be pretty fucking high. Now, I guess they do have two of them.

Would you have brought back, Sweeney? No, probably not. I feel like I would have. I honestly think he's done a good... I can see it either way. I can see it either way. I think he's done a good job and it's like a mess of a season like this. Nobody comes out looking good, but I wouldn't.

And I know that there's definitely some Bruins fans who have sort of worn out on this guy. But I totally get it. I don't find the plan of letting him and Neely have another coach. No, it definitely makes sense like why you would do it. Like, because they can say, look, we didn't have our top two defensemen, both of whom we think are all-star caliber defensemen for most of the season. Mm-hmm. You know, or, you know, a pretty good percentage of it. The Jeremy Swamen thing, that explains itself.

Did they kind of beef it with the, with the, uh, the Lin-Homan's door-off contracts? Sure they did. Yep. You know. Big time. Lin-home especially looks. Oh, yeah. And again, like, you can go.

back day of I was like I don't know about this you know it doesn't take hindsight I guess is what I'm saying to say like they shouldn't maybe not have given those guys like $13 million. Um, um, but again, it all circles back to what has been the Bruins problem since before Patrice Bergeron retired.

They didn't have two to NHL like top six centers. Now they have zero. I, I might argue, you know? Mm-hmm. But, you know, hey, Casey Middlestadt, we're feeling great about it. Sure, we are. What about Vancouver?

And then we'll stop talking about these teams. Most confusing team in the league for me all year long, um, right up until the final weeks. I guess the, the two big things in Vancouver. one you've got to figure out Talk it

Sure Is he coming back Do you want him back Do you want him locked in? And then The other thing is Elias Pedersen You have until July 1

To move him Mm-hmm I'm not even sure That you could at this point I feel like that That window may have closed But maybe not Gotta figure it out

You can't have an $11 million $55 point center for the next seven years. So you've got to figure out what he is. And if you think he's an 80, 90, 100 point center who just everything fell apart this year, great. Figure out how to fix him. And you've got a real important piece to build around. But if not, there's no more kicking the can down the road.

Yeah. So I wrote about this over the weekend, but like, I've seen people go, oh, it's, it's really too bad. Brock Besser is going to be allowed to walk? And it's like, is it? Brock Bess, like, you want to be the team that gives that guy $60 million or whatever it is? I think you want to be the team that traded that guy at the deadline. Bingo.

That's exactly right. To me, I don't like, this feels like it's the end of an era for Vancouver in a lot of of ways. Like, I don't know how many more games that you're Demko has in a Canucks uniform. Mm-hmm. I think Brock Bessor's probably gone. I think Rick Tocke's probably gone. And my take is, I don't think you need to be romantic about these guys.

They're not that good. They're just not a good team. They're not well-built. All the guys that you're like, that's, Quinn Hughes is the only guy that has ever lived up to the hype, you know? And I'm as guilty as anyone on the Patterson thing. I thought this guy was a superstar. I really did.

Doesn't seem like he has the goods. Doesn't have the juice to be what we all thought he could be. It is such a bizarre situation with him. Yeah. There is not a lot of precedence for guys being as good as he was early. Then turning into, for the long term, what he was this year. And again, we don't. don't know that this year was the long term.

Maybe the J.T. Miller stuff was weighing things down even more than we thought, and it wasn't an immediate fix as soon as he was gone. I don't know. But they got to know. They've got to figure this out. They should have figured it out during the season, but they either couldn't or didn't or maybe did. And the answer is we're keeping them.

And that's, you know, we're trying to figure out the answer to a question. already been answered. Yeah. I mean, the thing is they're another team that got tricked by percentages. They shot what, they legitimately shot like 13% for a good chunk of last season. And they, what did they get to like 100, 8, 110 points, something like that? And they were like, all our problems are solved here. Whatever problems, same thing.

Winning fixes everything. Our two best forwards hate each other? Who gives a shit? We're a 110 point team. one of the best teams in the Western Conference. And, like, they bought it. You know what I mean? Like, they, they believed that was the case.

And, you know, it turns out one of those guys hated, hated the other so much that, like, it seems to still be negatively affecting him even after that guy got traded. And the goalie they thought was the franchise goalie couldn't stay healthy. and, you know, a couple of the bets they made in the offseason didn't really work out. Jake DeBrusk, et cetera. But their answer to last year was let's just like keep adding middle six guys on slightly better than middle six contracts. And let's see where it gets us, you know. Patterson, right? Like you can go down the list.

Like guys, they were like, I think this guy's a huge difference maker for us potentially. Marcus Patterson here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. Sorry. It only narrows down like half the roster. It really does, yeah. The Dakota Joshua thing is really anybody's fault, but like they committed to him and he couldn't really stay in the lineup for a decent chunk of the season.

This is another one where it's like, okay. Okay, coach is out. Let's say the GM is out. I don't think that's going to happen, but let's say it does. Who comes in and fixes this? Because the problem's the owner, and everybody knows it. Yeah. Yep.

It's, I don't know what they do with Target. That, that to me is. But what they would have to do is extend him. Can't coach your team with one year. That's exactly right. It's impossible. Can't be a lame duck cup. But, I mean, I guess part of that is also one way or another.

You're going to find out what he actually wants. Like, dude, if you've got one eye on Philly, go. Have fun out there. I'd be, if I'm the Canucks, I'm certainly not sad to see him go if that's the case. I don't think that guy's a huge difference maker behind the bench. Yeah, I mean, Jack Adams last year. And you're right. a lot of that was getting tricked by percentages, but...

I mean, that's what the Jack Adams is. That's what the award is for. It kind of is. You're right. But no, I just think, like, if you take it as a whole... I did the math over the weekend, and I can't remember now, but, like, if you take it as a whole, his per 82 since, like, their per 82 games since he took over was something like they're, like, a 93-point team or whatever.

And you look at the roster and you're like, yeah, this looks like it should be like a 93-point team. or again, whatever it was. If it was 95, you're like, okay, it's 95. That seems right given they had Patterson and Miller and Demko and Hughes and all this. And again, how many of their problems are masked by, well, when we have Quinn Hughes out there, we look like the fucking Harlem Globe Trotters. Good news is you do still have Quinn Hughes. You got him.

He's locked in. Couple years. Yep. A couple years. Two years after this one. So he needs the extension next summer. that yeah that's that's how that would work good times yeah he and then he's over there like uh he's got a pen pen and paper in front of him on the team jet and you're like hey that looks an awful lot like

the state of new jersey's like i don't worry about it you know i i don't again i'm just kind of like almost everybody who who makes any kind of money on this team is locked in besides besser and now they're like well you got to give pew suitor like a bit a bit of big extension. He's been great this year. And it's like, if you feel like you got to keep Pew Souter, man, I don't know what to say to you. Yeah, I know he scored 20-something

goals this year. 24, it says here. But... What were your thoughts of the Dallas game? Were you watching that at the time, the comeback game? I was not. No. I wasn't either. I didn't... When was that? Was that? Like, I feel like I had a good reason

to not be watching that game. Was it over the weekend? Is that a Friday? You may have been doing. That's what I'm thinking, yeah. Well, don't call it that. But yes, I think that is what happened there. Man, it, I'm taking us off the path here, but did that game break, Dallas?

Are we worried about, let's get into the playoff team. Let me hit you with this. I hope so. That would be, that would be like one of those cool things where it's like, I like I like this Dallas team and all that, but to me, there's nothing better than when a team gets its brain broken. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Okay.

That's what it's all about to me. But yeah, okay. Yeah, let's get into the playoff races that are still going on. There's two of them, really, if we're being serious and honest here. I'm sure everyone was watching last night, the Montreal game. That rock. That game was sick. Everyone up here who can figure out how to work Amazon.

That's right. By the way, sorry, and also everyone but the replay room, but we'll get to that. We will. By the way, the new rule on the Puck Soup family of podcasts is that when you open a beverage on the show, you have to say what it is. This is a spin drift blood orange tangerine. Nice. Someone was like,

are always open and beverages on there. You've got to explain what it is. Happy to do it. That's an easy fix for us, you know. Blood orange, tangerine spin drift, really good. But anyway, the Montreal Canadiens. I got to tell you, I'm not rooting against the Canadians to make the playoffs. I think that'll be a great story.

There's a lot of really fun players that I've liked for a long time on that team. But if you're not rooting for Columbus, you're a Montreal fan. And that, like, that's your only experience. excuse. And so I was really kind of pissed when Slavkovsky scored the game tie and goal late last night. I was mad at him. So to catch people up, Columbus is four points back. Columbus has two games to play.

And they would have been three if Montreal hadn't lost in a shootout last night. So the magic number is one, basically. Yeah. Montreal had they won in overtime or the shootout would have. clinched. Would have won. Or what a clinched. If Montreal gets one more point or Columbus, leaves one more point on the table, including,

basically Columbus needs two regulation wins, which does put us in that fun kind of pulled the goalie with the score tied situation. That's right. Winning in overtime for Columbus is not enough. They need to go two and no regulation wins. Montreal would need to lose. I think Montreal has Carolina. Carolina is their last remaining game.

I need the hurricanes to step up big time. Well, I mean, if you head to, like, if you head to every game, if you're the only team left fighting for a playoff spot, every game you play is going to be meaningless to the other team. But there is still some bad blood with Carolina. Mm-hmm. So that would be a fun way to knock them out. So I think Columbus plays to not.

and Thursday, Montreal plays Wednesday. So nicely spaced out. The blue jackets. Yes, the blue jackets play the flyers tonight. Very winnable, you know. And then on Thursday, they play the Islanders. So it's very winnable. It's doable.

Like the schedule is lining up such that it's really, I would say not probable, but it's very possible that, that Columbus gets this done. But yeah, that's... That being said, Dom still has Montreal 97%. Blue Jackets 3%. So...

And I believe that, yeah, that is updated as of this morning. So it's tough. Again, if they didn't get that point last night, I would feel so much better about this. Yep. But they did. They did. They did not get two points.

So we got to talk about what happened in the shootout. which I did not watch because as people know, I turn games off when the shootout is on, and this may be the first time in like six years of doing that, that it bid me a little bit. Yeah, I also tend to have that attitude toward a shootout. I don't need to watch this. Who gives a shit?

But because I was very invested in the outcome, because if they got the two points, that's it. I was like, I'll stick around for this one. I'll gut it out. And so they score. Chicago scores in the shootout, but no one notices it. Bizarrely.

Yeah. And when we say they score in the shootout, we don't mean like, oh, the puck was in the goalie's glove and it crossed the line, or it was, you know, like, guy goes to Frank, it was Frank Nassar, right? It was Nizar.

He goes in, Deeks the goalie out, puts it right in the back of the net, even puts his hands up, like, yeah, I just scored. He had a quote, that was really funny that was like, I was going through the line

and like high-fiving guys, and they were all like, what are you doing? So two referees sitting right there, including one who is like staring right at it. Do not signal goal. The puck gets stuck in the back of the net, so it doesn't bounce out.

That's the problem. And just, I mean, I would love to know if the goalie knew, was in. Because again, goalies are big liars. And like, I, I'm amazed

that there isn't a clip of that goalie, like, trying to sneak the puck out while nobody was looking or something like that because, but yeah, so, so that happens. So no goal is signaled. But because it's,

because it's not like in the game, because it's the shootout, it's not like they have to line up for a face off and do all this other stuff. So it's just kind of like, some people are like, wait, was that a goal? Was it not a goal? As this is happening, Patrick Liney takes the puck for his attempt does not score. Right.

And then, oops, we're doing a replay review of the Chicago attempt, which, I mean, you have to look at it exactly once to be like, yeah, that definitely went in. Yeah, they showed the goal line replay, and it's like, that's the most in goal I've ever seen, you know? but Montreal fans are not incorrectly pointing out that like, hey, I thought once the next play it started, you can't go back and do replay. But apparently, the explanation was that

Linae just went? The explanation was that because Elliot Friedman interestingly enough happened to be in the war room that night. I guess they were doing, they do this sometimes. They invite media to come and see the process and he was, I guess, working on

something. And he says they definitely saw the goal. They did, they, they, they buzzed down beforehand. Now, whether Liny went on his own, which I mean, you can't do, you have to wait for, you're supposed to wait for a whistle. So, or, or it just got missed or whatever it is. I don't know. It was a bit of a mess. Like something got screwed up somewhere. starting with the refs not noticing an obvious goal and continuing to however it is that the next play got started and then from there ultimately I still think it's the right decision to say look that like this guy scored this guy but but this is

part of the problem with replay review right you get everyone so in love with nitpicky little technicalities that Montreal fans are not wrong to be like wait a second even though we absolutely did get scored on and our guy absolutely didn't score and we absolutely should have lost, we shouldn't have lost because nitpicky technicality, I guess.

I mean, I don't know. It's kind of a mess. I have not heard like an uproar coming from Montreal on this. I don't know if maybe I just follow the right Montreal fans or whatever. Like I've seen some people question it and be annoyed, but this doesn't feel like it's bluephrer. blowing up as big as it maybe could have. Yeah, I think.

This is a playoff spot off for grabs. I think it's because Linae didn't score. If Linae had scored and then they were like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, you know what I mean? But they counted his attempt, right? Because they didn't come back and let him have another one. They didn't say like, no, no, no, you went early. That didn't count. But I think if he had scored.

If they had, if they had gone the other way, if they had said, like, no, sorry, it was too late. And Montreal makes the playoffs over small market Columbus by one point. I mean, people would be absolutely flipping tables. Yeah. And they'd be right to do it. Mm-hmm. But, yeah, I can't, again, I think it's, I think it's just because if Linae had, if Lainey had scored and then they were like, actually, we got to have you redo that one, you know?

Yeah. Or it, you know, it just extends the shootout or whatever it is. Like a common sense standpoint, I think they got it right. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know that there's any good fix is kind of also my thing. Well, I'll tell you with the fix. I've said this for years. I think we should be able to review anything at any time because we just have to get it right.

Yeah, you're a big get it right guy. If we find out we made a mistake in the first period and it's the third period, dude, we got to go. But you have to get it right, Ryan. That's right. this 120 minute hockey game because something happened on the opening face off and we only realized it at the end of regulation. We found out that on the opening face off,

a guy skate was over the line. It was a face-off violation. And we have to get it right. It's not about entertainment value or being fun or anything like that. It's about slavish devotion to the rulebook at all times. That's right.

Okay. The other thing we've got to talk about with Montreal. Demadov. Yeah, I, uh, I, I checked this morning, uh, the, the word demigod is trending in Canada. Just wondering how that went. You know, look, it's one of those things where any time a guy's coming over from the KHL, I kind of take a wait and see attitude, you know, I don't watch a lot of KHL hockey. But there have been enough guys who have been, this guy has, is the highest scoring under 21 year

old born on a Thursday. You know, like they really. slice it thin and then they're like oh this this oh what god Vitaly Cravtsaw remember him and I think that's right I just remember this because I wrote a thing

saying you know let's let's give it a minute before we we decide this guy's the future of the Rangers and all these Rangers fans got insanely mad at me and you know they tried it it didn't work in New York or Vancouver never heard from again, right?

And so anytime it's a young-ish K-HL guy where it's like, you wouldn't believe the scoring records he was breaking over. I'm just like, let's wait and see. One game in, I'm like, okay, this is one of the best players in the league. Holy fuck, Ivan Devadoff. This kid looked insanely sick. I've seen a bunch of Montreal fans ticked off that he didn't get to shoot in the shootout. Straight up dereliction of duty from Martin St. Louis.

go. He was on the number one power play unit in the second half of the game. San Luis was like, look, what am I going to do? Not let him out there? He might have been like the fourth guy to shoot for Montreal or something like that, maybe, but didn't get that far. Holy fuck, man, this kid looks incredible. Him and Cole Cawfield together? Oh, I can't wait.

Oh, this is what it's going to be all about for me, you know? And don't you dare disrespect number one center, Nick Suzuki, by that's going to be an unstoppable line. And Slavkovsky? Look, now we're talking about a four-person line, but that's a really good four-person line. If they only had an insanely good young defenseman that they could throw in the mix there.

Uh-oh. And what about a goal? Oh, no, now we've all decided. Jacob Dobish is the next Ken Dryden or whatever. Okay. Yeah. I mean, look, he's been good since he got to the NHL. I'm not shitting on him, you know?

but yeah man, what a fun team. It is consequently too bad. They will be a very fun consolation prize to Columbus. Yeah, unfortunately, it just works out that I don't want them to make the playoffs. Tough bounce for you guys. I don't know what to say. I'll put it this way. If you gave me the choice between Columbus, Montreal, and Ottawa, and only two of those can get in,

smell you later senators I'm not interested oh what did you do oh you just went out and got one of the best goalies in the league who gives a shit get lost you know

yeah that's not fun it's not fun to just like go sign a guy and it works yeah you can't be just like going and getting

good players like boring it's hardly fair yeah but let's move on then to to the west hey only two teams

from this group can make it. You know what I mean? Minnesota, St. Louis, Calgary. I'll tell you, there are two teams in that three-team group that will make the playoffs, and there are two teams of that three-team group who look like they want to. Yeah. It's not the St. Louis Blues, folks. Yeah.

The Blues in the Wild each have one game left. Calgary's got two. That's right. Minnesota's in 95 points. St. Louis, 94, Calgary, 92. So the flames don't really, they don't control their own destiny, but it's a little less convoluted than the Blue Jackets scenarios, partly because they're chasing two teams instead of one.

Right. And they only need to catch one of them, obviously. Calgary, let's say Calgary wins twice than both the Wild and the Blues. are winning in in their final game. Correct. I think that's right. Minnesota would be get a point and be in. Minnesota just needs the one point.

That's right. In addition, because they have the regulation win advantage. Yes. So Minnesota plays Anaheim tonight. Calgary hosts Vegas. And I believe the blues are off tonight. So we're going to know a lot. in about 12 hours.

Yeah. And the other thing to say there is Calgary is, if the flames win twice to get to 96 points and the blues win to get to 96 points, then we get into the regulation wins and who wins. And Calgary is one regulation win back of the blues right now. Correct. We're assuming that they have to get an extra win to get. to catch up to them.

So basically, if the flames win twice in regulation, St. Louis needs their win to be in regulation. Right. If the flames do not win both in regulation, then St. Louis just needs any type of win. And I guess you could also get into the weird situation where the flames could win or get two single points. A regulation win, you know, down the,

down the road. It does get to, and then the blues hold the second tiebreaker. So if they wind up tide and regulation wins. Yeah. The other thing to say, though, is that Calgary plays Vegas, like I said, and then L.A. That's their end of the season. Two good teams, but good teams with nothing to play for. Minnesota, like I said, has Anaheim, and St. Louis is played.

Where is that? Who the hell are they playing? I can't find this. Hold on one second, folks. Here we go. They're playing Utah. Tonight. That is tonight.

Okay, great. I glossed over that, I guess. So we are going to know pretty much. We'll know tonight, yeah. Unless St. Louis loses to Utah, in which case we'll know on Thursday or whatever, when Calgary plays the Kings in what is going to be the last race. regular season game of the of the season because that is a 930 start on Thursday, the very last

game on the schedule. It would be kind of cool. Man, again, you know, I don't really have a preference between any of these teams. I don't know how good either St. Louis or Calgary are. And, you know, Minnesota, they, they had the injury problems this year. And I feel like they're safe. What is, do you know, do you have it in front of you, what Dom says they're odd? of making it are at this point.

I'd have to imagine they're really good. Dom has got it as blues, 87% wild 98%. That's what I figured, yeah. Flames, I think, are at 15. That sounds about right. Yeah, I

don't know how good I think any of these teams are, but, so I don't, this isn't, what I'm saying is I have no preference between the three of them. Yeah, I get the other thing we should say is with the wild, part of the reason their total is so high is even if they lose, if the blues lose, wilder in. Right. So that's pro, I guess, so what's your team chaos that you're rooting for tonight would be wild regulation loss, blues get one point or do the blues get two points? I guess we're going to be in a

one of the wild and the blues are getting in tonight. Yes. I don't think there's any scenario where they're both in play because they're both going to be done. So we're going to know which one of those two teams finished ahead of the other. Correct. And then you want the flames to win to set up

a meaningful Thursday night game. Yep. Hey, it's not like the flames have any recent history of playing absolutely meaningless games after everybody else is done playing. That's right. I forgot about that. Let's do that again.

Still one of the funniest things in the history of sports. Damn. That sucks, man. Okay. We got some good news from one of the teams that's been in for quite a while now. And they're actually, the Colorado Avalanche are done playing for the regular season. I don't know how they got the week off, but they did. But they got some interesting.

interesting news, insofar as Gabe Landisog played two AHL games, had a goal and an assist. Yep. First time in like three years he had played a competitive hockey game, played more than they expected him to. This is, you know, I don't think, I don't know that I'm, I'm counting on him to be in the lineup at any point in the playoffs here. But I think we said it last week. Certainly moves him much, much closer. Yeah. The fact that he played

The goal in the assist are nice But the fact that he played two games is big And back to back Yeah He didn't play one game And then wake up and be like Oh my God I feel miserable

He probably didn't feel great But he didn't He was good to go in another game And in game one He played 15 minutes And they had basically said like minutes restriction 10 and he was like 15 it is sounds good

so I mean I it sure sounds like he's going to play for the avalanche in the playoffs now he's not going to be 2019 Gabe Landiscaug who comes in and you know it was a power forward and you know all that

necessarily right but this is happening just cool as hell yeah it rocks I I never thought I'd see him play pro hockey again. And, you know, I didn't watch those games, but that, that was wild. That's, that's so cool that he's, that he's back doing it.

Ultimate respect. I don't have a ton of else to say about it. The reaction when he scored and like, you know, got to do the bench flyby and everything was very cool. Yep. But it's worth seeking out if he didn't see it. It was a great moment. Absolutely.

We got the NHLPA. player poll today. And yeah, it's just as boring as you would think it is, but there's a couple of funny things here. So it leads off who is the best overall goalie? Sean, who do you think the players said

is the best overall goalie? Carrie Price for the 19th year in a row. You're not that far off. Give me a real guess. I hope they said Hellabuck. Big Connor Hallibuck, the guy who is going to win two's consecutive Veznas. He came in third.

Oh, that's tough. There are two hoodies in the league. They are always five years behind. So is it Vasselowski or maybe Shisterkin? That's one and two in that order. Okay. Yeah. Rounding out the list, Sergei Bavrovsky and UC Soros.

UC Saros. Okay. I don't, I feel like, again, they conducted this. this poll in 2023, to your point. This is, this just doesn't make sense. You're having an easy time out there scoring on Connor Hellebuck? Mm-hmm. Easier than Igor Shusirkin this year?

Okay, if you say so. Best overall forward, who's your guess? So it's McDavid. Yep, that's right. But they love Sydney Crosby. He'll be a top three. Crosby is fourth. Oh, okay.

So McDavid, McKinnon. Yep, yep. And dry saddle Kuturov Drysidl not in the top five Caprizov was fifth Defenseman McCar

In a runaway it's Macar 72% Okay And then Do they have Queen Hughes second They do indeed Okay So they're good

This is a semi respectable Top five to me Okay Who else would they have in there. Is Warensky in there? Nope. He is not. Yeah, see they, okay.

That's why semi-respectable. Well, I mean, it takes more than more than a year to kind of earn that from players. Sure. Do they still have like a Roman Yossi or a Hedman or somebody like that? Hedman, third, Yosey fourth, who's fifth?

Maccavoy. No. Think another team USA guy who we decided sucks now. Adam Fox? That's the one. Really? Okay, I'm surprised at that.

That's right. Who is the most complete player? Plays all 200 feet. That could be Crosby. That is Crosby. Yeah, okay. Very, very slightly ahead of the next closest guy. Of Barkoff.

That's correct. Then you got four more made the way. Matthews came in fifth out of six. Okay. Geez, who else? 200 foot forward. Not Marner. No, no, no.

These are all centers. Didn't have to laugh at the guy. I mean, that was, uh, McKinnon? Correct. He's third. They do like, okay. And he said, uh, so not Kutrov.

Nope. Did they count dry saddle? They do not. That's a weird thing, eh? A lot of people are pushing for him to get Selky votes. Heart votes, yep. Not the most complete player, not the best overall forward. You know, it's tough out here for O'Leon.

Sure is. Who's the last guy? McDavid and Copatar, or the other two. McDavid, fourth and Copator sixth. Sure. But he tied Matthews, so I guess that's why they included him. Okay. who is the best playmaker?

Well, that's, that's got to be McDavid, but then Kuturov would be up there too. Kutrov is actually first. Okay. I'm surprised at that, but sure. I mean, that's, that's the right top two. I don't agree, honestly. Really? These guys would know better than me, I guess.

Though, you know, they said the thing about the goalies, so who knows. But, uh, Dreysital is three, Panarin is four. Crosby is five, I would have Dreisidel ahead of McDavid. Really? Mm-hmm. Okay.

You see the way this guy passes the puck? It's unbelievable. I've seen it, but I've also seen, like, McDavid came back last week and played three games and had nine assists. Yeah, yeah, I understand. Well, you know, it's the, it's the, it's the, dry sidel thing is like, he's shooting as often as he's passing. McDavid, not so much, you know?

Yep. If you need to win a faceoff, who would you have take it? Again, this feels like there'd be a lot of overlap with the two-way player. Is it Crosby again? Crosby is number one. There is the three other, two other guys on the list are from the complete player thing, but two are not. Barkov.

Barcov is fifth, tied for fifth, interestingly. Or tied for fourth, I should say. Then who are the, man, who are the face-off guys these days? I don't. Yeah, I was going to say I would not get too wrapped up and who do I think of as a face off guy here?

Okay. Who do I think of as a good defensive forward would be the direction I... So is it... Who also scores a bunch? Matthews? No, I'll just give them to you.

All right. It's great. O'Reilly, Copatar, Jordan Stahl. Okay, sure. Yeah, all right. Who is the smartest player overall? This doesn't get into how they're defining smart.

But it's Crosby, right? Crosby is number one. And then three of the other guys are guys we've meant, or no, you know what? We've mentioned all four of the other guys here. Yeah. I'll say McKinnon. Nope.

Really? Mm-hmm. Wow. Yeah, I'm surprised by that as well. Nathan McKinnon. Stupid. Dumber than dog shit, unfortunately. Guy doesn't even know what color past is supposed to be.

Like, dumby. Uh, Barcov? Barkov is fourth. There is a winger, a center, and a defenseman left. Oh, defense. Okay, so Kuturov. Kuturov is correct. Did they just go McCar for the defenseman?

Nope. No, okay, good. Good. Well, I'm saying good because otherwise you're just picking the best players. Yeah, of course. Dry saddle? Nope. McDavid is the other center.

Okay, yeah, yeah. And who's the other defenseman? And the smart defenseman. And I think this is a good shout for them. Okay. Who is it? Adam Fox. Adam Fox.

Went to Harvard. He did go to Harvard. No two ways about that. Best overall skater. McDavid. Yep. to be. Who else you got on there?

Are we still doing Dylan Larkin? No, we're not. We're righting off of that. All-Star skills from... We're off it. We're past that. Okay. McCar would be...

Bingo. On there. And then... Another defenseman. Go ahead. Another defenseman. Hughes? Yep, that's right.

Is Martner on this one? No. That's the only one I could see him because he does. Yeah, he's a good skit. Kuturov? Nope. Who else?

McKinnon and Jesper Brat. Jesper Brat bringing up the rear on that one. Fashion sense. Who cares? McDavid. McDavid. Posternock and Matthew's Tide. Then Neelander, Line A and Hints.

Mm-hmm. Who would be a good broadcaster once they retire? First of all, the guy who's number one on the list, under 5% of the vote, so who cares? But it's Kevin Hayes, Ryan Strom, Brad Marsh,

and Patrick Maroon, Eric Comrie, Eric Johnson, and Marcus Folino. Now, this is a good one. Which PWH rulebook change would you like to see in the NHL?

What do you think? I'm going to say that number one was probably like none of them or didn't answer or, huh? That is not the case.

I'll say the jailbreak. Jailbreak is number one at almost 30%. I think that's a good call by them. And then what else? They wouldn't have... Did anybody do the draft your playoff opponent? That came in third at around 17%. Okay.

Top seat picks the playoff opponent. Yeah. The goal plan, I don't think, would have been second, but did it get anything? Does not appear as though that's the case. Yeah, that's too complicated for... Hockey players, especially Nathan McKinnon, that moron. Mm-hmm, dumb, dumb guy.

Geez, I don't know. What else? What are the other ones? Second place, the 321 point system. Oh, big salute to the NHL players. Hell yeah, that's great call by them. Great news that they, yeah. Okay.

The next one is the ability in the shootout to, you can just like run the same person out there as often and whenever you want. Okay. And then finally, fifth place, there's no trapezoid. Get rid of the trapezoid.

Okay. So there's the goalies weighing in. That's right. Which NHL arena has the best ice? Who cares? It's Montreal. Then Edmonton, Winnipeg, Minnesota, Vegas. And that's the end of the list. Okay. We did it. So there you go. They did it again. They could have so much fun with that.

Yep. Most hated player. I feel like there was a year or two where they did kind of ask those fun questions, and then they were like... Did they do it in the official PA one? Because I know like the athletic and I think some other places do player surveys. Right. And they ask questions like that. Maybe that's what I'm thinking of.

Which player would get absolutely destroyed if their trash talk was picked up on an open mic? And what specifically have they said? Yeah. That would be fun. It would be. All right. So we got one surprising bit of retirement news, well, semi-surprising bit of retirement news yesterday. Logan Couture will hold a press conference later today to announce that he is retiring due to all the injuries and all that. Sucks.

It's not played this year. Not a surprise, but, you know, especially with Landisog, you're kind of hoping that until you hear it, you never know, but now we know. Mm-hmm. So good player. Really good player for a while there. Good player for, you know, for a while there was a really important part of some very good Sharks teams. Yep. But yeah. And then I guess last night was also the last games for both Patrick Maroon and Alex Martinez.

Yeah, did they even play last night? I think they may have even done the last ones on Saturday, which was. Well, Maroon played last night. He's on Chicago. He did. No, I'm saying, but did they play, like, I thought I, Oh, you know. Play on Saturday and that was going to be their final games.

Okay, that makes sense. I guess I, I guess I didn't pay that much attention to that. Chicago had another shootout Saturday and they were like, they should have put those guys out for the shootout. Yep. Let the last image of Patrick Maroon be him, like, humiliating himself. Try to. Yeah, I think, I think you're right about that now that you mention it.

But, yeah, again, too, I mean, geez, Martinez, guys. A guy had a lot of success. He got his moments. Yeah, you're right. Now, there were them played last night. Yeah. I think they just kind of get the last game at home sort of deal. So, yeah, both of them, both of them, lots of, lots of cup wins, lots of big moments.

And, yeah, DeLac Martinez's Stanley Cup winning overtime goal, not a lot of guys can say that. And then the only... And scored that goal to win the cup in overtime and then did not dive through the air like a big faker. Yeah, that's right. We got some breaking news here. The way rough sounds... This is from Chad D. D. D. D. Minicus covers the savers. The way rough sounded this morning about Owen Power confirmed some things I heard last night and this morning.

I don't share exact details as a personal philosophy, but he's... He had an MRI yesterday as planned, and there's concerned the injury could be significant enough to push it into next season. An absolutely a cursed franchise. Yikes. That's unbelievable. But yeah, there you go. Then the only other bit of news, I guess, is a bunch of NCAA signers. You got any questions on anybody?

Anybody of note that you're kind of... Who should I know? Give me, like, the one name where I'm like... Who should you? That is that we haven't talked about because we, you know, we got to. That is an interesting question. Who should you know? I get, like, obviously he's not a free agent, but Z. Booium is a guy that you're going to probably see a good amount, assuming Minnesota makes the playoffs.

Is he going to play? Do you think in the play, like, he's going to play tonight for them. He's going to play tonight for them. Do you think they'll, like, I mean, forwards there, they tend to be iffy on, but defensemen in the playoffs. Yeah, he. He kicks ass. He's so good. I would have, I mentioned last week that I, I wrote my Hobie Baker take.

He was one of the finalists. And I wrote my Hobie Baker take and I was like, I changed my mind about who it should be. The guy who I thought should be first ended up being third. The guy who did it. This is actually, you know what? I didn't have this on the outline, but did you see the Isaac Howard news? I did not. Okay.

Isaac Howard wins the Hobie Baker. Should have won the Hobie Baker. He was the guy that I was like, you know what? He actually deserves it. And Zee Buoyah moved up from third to second on my ballot when I wrote that article. Not that I voted, but, you know. But Isaac Howard, he's a Tampa Bay draft pick. And they could not come to terms on a contract that would bring him into the league this year.

And so he is returning to Michigan State. one of the very few Hobie Baker winners to ever. I'd have to go back and look. I can't imagine a Hobie Baker winner in the last like 20 years has gone back to college for a third or for a final season. So they can't sign them for this year, but that that rolls out signing him in the summer? He is already committed to going back to Michigan State. Okay. as has their their Richter finalist goalie

who I personally I was a little iffy on him being a Richter finalist at all but now I got now I got to look it up really quickly I can't remember who drafted him but where is it where is it

scroll scroll scroll scroll Tray Augustine was drafted by Detroit and he's going back for one more year. I just feel like for him, that was A, he kind of ended the season pretty poorly for a guy that you would think is an elite goalie. And B, Detroit has like 60 goalies under contract. You know, he wasn't going to be able to burn a year

because they don't have any space for him in the organization. And so, Trey Augustine, like a guy who was in theory like a top five, top eight goalie and the Hobie Baker winner are going back to Michigan State next year. I think I'm going to pick them to be the NCAA champions in my predictions at the start of next year, but I guess we've got to see how things shake out. So anyway, I'm trying to think who's a college guy that, um, That you're going to see this year. And if it's not Zeebue, I don't know who the answer is. To be that guy.

And also, I appreciate you teaching me how to pronounce his name. It's simply my player. I guess the, Zeev Booium, yeah. It's fun to say. I guess the other guy that you would say is Ryan Leonard, but you, you know, we're all sick of that guy at this point. I feel like we get over that one. I mean, geez, the commissioner showed up to watch his first goal. Like that's crazy.

Yeah, the only other one I think you would say is like a notable one. He got into the game in Edmonton last night, Quinn Hudson, Lane Hudson's brother, and Cole Hudson's brother. Cole Hudson, there's a guy that it looks like he's going back to BU for next season. And he was already the best defenseman in college hockey this year, probably. If he wasn't one, he was two. And he's going back. but Quinn is the, you know, notable because he's a UFA who is,

who left school a year early and is already playing in the NHL. Do I think he's like a, you know, a guy who's going to be a huge difference maker for them? Not really. But like, could he be an NHL, like a bottom six NHL player for a while? Sure, he could. He's pretty, he's all right. He's pretty good. But,

Hey, the way things are going up in Edmonton, he might be their number one center at the start of playoffs. Jesus. Everyone's hurt. Everyone's getting, I don't know if you saw while we were recording, Darnell Nurse is going to have a hearing

for his cross check on Quentin Byfield last night. I didn't watch that game. I was a little hockey note. It was not great. Yeah. No, I saw the replay. I just didn't watch that. He will definitely get suspended.

The question is, do they give him one game? The one game sounds a. Or do they go to get him into the playoffs, where, and of course, they are playing the Kings. And that could, do we know yet if Byfield's hurt? Like, he didn't. I did not see that he is hurt or not hurt one way or the other. Let me see if anybody has updated that while you do plugs.

Find me on the athletic. I've got my, I'll be on with Sean and Frankie tomorrow. I've got the playoff prediction contest is, returning later this week, as is the bandwagon rankings. And also some fun news, I will be launching a

newsletter at the Athletic with James Myrtle. Me and My and Myrtle are going to tag team on this thing, and I think a couple times a week you'll get fun hockey stuff in your inbox. So keep an eye on my

social feeds. I will tweet out the link to subscribe to that. And please do subscribe to it because they like it when the numbers go up. Not immediately able to update on byfield according to stuff from overnight. So that's the latest we have.

If by the time this episode comes out, you know, they're saying, they're saying he's A-OK. Great. If not, that's bad. I don't, you know. But hey, So in the seeds for that first round matchup, aren't we? Mm-hmm.

So there you have it. And then for me, head over to Elite Prospects. Now's the time to sign up. We're getting into draft season. I think there's a promo code going on right now over there. I don't know what it is off the top of my head. Let's see if it's on the front page. They might not show it to me since I am already signed up through work.

Yeah, they're not showing it to me if it's there. And if it's not, well, again, now's the time because the draft guide is coming. I have seen the behind the scenes rumbling about how it's all going. And, you know, draft lottery is going to be, when's the draft lottery? Now that I think about it. I don't know if they've formally said, but it's usually a couple of days into the playoffs. And I thought it was the Monday. Is it this coming Monday?

May 5th or 6th, it says here. Okay, so that's later. That's a Chris Johnston report. Yeah, that's into the second round. Yeah. Okay. Interesting. And gee, don't the playoffs start this weekend, too?

They do. Yeah, we don't know the full schedule yet, but Saturday, I think they start, right? We're expected to see some games Saturday. Apparently, any of the teams playing Thursday night have been told they don't play Saturday, so. I think that's fair. I think that's reasonable. The Leafs and Senators is at least one. matchup?

Yeah, how many matchups do we know? We know basically all of them at this point, right? I mean, we pretty, other than obviously the teams that don't have their spots completely locked in. I don't know if we, do we know.

Carolina and New Jersey's locked in. Yeah, Dallas, Colorado's locked in. Leaves and Senators is not fully locked and Lightning and Panthers, but it's like well into the next. 90%, yeah. Tampa would have to win twice,

the least would have to lose in regulation twice to change that scenario. I believe in them, though. Yeah. You know? And Washington will play Montreal or Columbus.

Winnipeg has, by the way, have clinched the President's trophy for the first time in franchise history. So good for that. Go thrashers. Even though we... Please don't listen to the beginning

of this show where we talked about what happened to the last two presidents trophy winners but very cool for them. Yep. And, yeah,

Vegas will get the other wild card. Yeah, we're pretty locked in with a couple of question marks left on just who the wild card teams are. Yep. And then head over to patreon.com slash puck soup. You will get mailbags

like the one me and Sean are about to go record. A recent bonus episode where we tried to build a cup contender taking players from teams that had already been eliminated from the playoffs and how many teams could we really cycle through before we got what we thought was a very good roster. That was a fun one that a listener suggested. And yeah, all kinds of other bonus stuff going on over there, as always. You know, I didn't check in with Adam, but maybe I should see. about a WrestleMania weekend preview because that is this weekend.

If I'm the NHL, I'm not going head to head against Cody Rhodes versus whoever he's fighting. Yeah, you definitely can't. John Sina? Is that? Yeah, he's, yeah, it's John Sina. Yeah. Evil John Sina. Yeah.

Don't act like you don't know that. It took me a minute because I was like, is he facing Roman Rains again? That was my legitimate question. I don't watch the problem. No, that's your, your boy is, uh, and Roman. Gabe Kidd? That's right.

I wish. No, I don't wish. I take it back. I don't wish that. Let's never have that match. Hey, I heard Jericho might be heading back to the WWE. Are you going to be all right with that? Thought your tummy hurt before.

Have a good one, man. That's fine. I wish them well. That's how I would put it. That's exactly right. Okay, thanks for listening, folks. We'll talk to you later. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye. Thank you.