Puck Soup - OGWAC Power Rankings

Episode Date: April 27, 2022

Sean and Ryan run down the latest Robin Lehner drama, what happens with teams that will miss the playoffs, rank this year's Old Guys Without A Cup, and more.

This week's episode of Puck Soup is brought to you by athletic greens, and folks, if I've said it once, I've said it a million times. I started taking athletic greens because they sent it to me. And before that, I never really thought very much about, like, gut health and getting all the vitamins and minerals I needed and that sort of thing. And I got to say, I tried it out. I've had it for a few months now, and I really enjoy it. Tastes good. And, you know, it's got, this is, again, we're going to circle back to the classic thing. It's got 75 high quality, vitamins, minerals, whole food sourced superfoods, probiotics, and adaptogens to help you start your day right.

This special blend of ingredients supports your gut health, your nervous system, your immune system, your energy, recovery, focus, and aging. So to make it easy for you, I'm going to give you a little secret. Athletic Greens will give you a free one-year supply of immune-supporting vitamin D and, and five free travel packs with your purchase. All you have to do is go to athletic greens.com slash puck. Again, that's athletic greens.com slash puck to take ownership over your health and pick up the ultimate daily nutritional insurance.

Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slapshots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to what if you commute. But we also cover movies, TV shows, it's and tunes. It's your weekly bowl of hockey and nine cents. I'm Ryan Lambert from Elite Prospects. I'm Sean McAnew from The Athletic. And today we regret to inform the good people of Vegas that we're laughing at them. We're laughing our little asses off about it.

You hate to see it. A long suffering fan base. Here's the thing. Like, I'm very much of two minds about this because it's always funny when someone with huge expectations doesn't come close to meeting. Right? Like that's always a funny outcome in hockey or any. I might dispute that it's always funny.

But with Vegas, I have over the course of the last couple of years, kind of grown to the opinion of like, you know, they always, is this a Greg thing of, oh, the league's always better when like Chicago and the Rangers and teams like that are good. Because I kind of feel that way about Vegas now. I think there is an element of that, and I think there's also an element where it's not Vegas specific, but that it is good, the teams that aggressively try to get good are good. Like it is It is a good thing when

I mean this has been the Vegas trademark Right for the last Ever since the Patcher Eddy trade And then you know Mark Stone pops up All right we're going to get him They get Alex Petrangelo They go and get Jack Eichel

They're going for it This is in theory what we want Lainer's another one right Like they were like oh we already have a good goalie We want an even better one Yeah you know like that Yeah Yeah we'll get into the Lainer stuff in a

But watching that game last night, you were like, these guys have it given up. They are dunzo. Yeah, it was bad. And I also got to say, I feel like it's only been in the last month that I've felt like I'm aware that there is this huge backlash against the Golden Knights. Obviously, there was some, I'll just say, jealousy the first couple of years that they were so good, so quick. And there was a lot of like, oh, you know, they rigged the expansion. draft and those people have all gone super quiet this year after what we saw with Seattle. But I guess this year it's, you know, it's the salary cap thing again and this feeling that,

oh, you know, these guys are playing with the rules. But it's only recently that I've realized that them not making the playoffs, he has brought so much joy to so many people. Like I said, objectively funny that this is happening. Yes. Unless you're a Vegas fan, in which case, you're not laughing. Yeah, it is funny and yet also there is a part of me that's like, oh no, here we go. The lesson from this is going to be don't go out and make aggressive trades.

Don't go out and chase free agents. Try to only sign extremely mediocre UFAs from now on. Yeah. Hey, because look what having a vase. They find a bunch of good ones and they miss the playoffs. Every GM who sits on his hands and doesn't do anything. anything from now on is going to go, well, what, you want us to be Vegas? Right.

And people will say, no, we want you to do your job, but we know how that goes. The thing that I'm getting from this Vegas team is, you know, remember when Tampa missed the playoffs a few years ago? Yep. And people were like, oh, they might make big changes. They didn't have to make any changes. That's, it's been lightning. That's the example that if you're a Vegas fan, you're looking at right now. because Tampa misses the playoffs.

2017, I want to say. They missed by one point. A lot of people go, well, you got to make changes. You got to fire John Cooper. Go on down the line. Steve Eisenman says, nope, I'm going to stay the course. 2018, they're back in the playoffs. 2019, they win 60 games.

And 2020 and 21, they win the Stanley Cup. Oh, I can hear about that. That's your example. Yeah, if you're looking for, you know, things are fine. the course. Now, unfortunately, there's also lots of examples of teams missing the playoffs going, well, that was probably a one-off. And then it turns out, no, it wasn't. That was the first huge crack in the foundation that you shouldn't have ignored. So we'll see. But yeah, I mean, like, I'm caught between the unmistakable entertainment value of, you know, it is, it is fun to

see somebody push all their chips in and go bust. But also, it's fun to see someone push all their chips in. And that doesn't happen much in the NHL. And to see it turn out so badly does make you wonder what direction we're headed with this. Yeah, this is a league built on risk aversion. So this is not helping. But I will say this. I'm getting big-time vibes of Peter DeBore is already.

Like, I have my office packed up already. The second season ends, I'm going to grab the box that I have like a phicus plant and, you know, a nameplate sticking out of the top of. And I'm walking my ass out of T-Mobile Arena and I'm never setting foot there again. Yep. And I'm going to go out and rev up my car. And then back over the bump that is Robin Lennar who, like he's been throwing Robin Lennar under the bus, dragging him out from under the bus just to throw him there again. And then like backing over him repeatedly.

I don't know. I'm not going to say I've never seen this before. I had the Mike Keenan era. So I, yeah. Right. Yeah. This happened with every single coach and goalie in the 1980s and 90s, regardless of how good the coach or goalie was. Yeah.

Yeah. Every single team. It was just like, oh, that guy gave up two goals. He sucks. I hate his cuts. Pretty much. Oh, okay. But let's do the, the, Lainer.

I've tried to reconstruct the timeline on this as best as possible. Lainer gets hurt at a couple of points this season comes back in, I want to say, like, mid-March. And is obviously playing hurt, but they need. need someone to be the goalie. I guess technically this can start with Vegas trades Mark Andre Fleury in the summer. But if we want to go a little more specific, it's more like this starts around mid-March. Okay. Lainer play, like I said, playing injured, he goes 4-4-1, 907 save percentage.

Not terrible, but not what you need if you're in a playoff race, right? And certainly not from a $5 million goalie or whatever he makes. They lose the Devils on April 18th. Yeah, that was the killer. Which probably killed their season, absolutely. And after the game, DeBoer is just like, this guy, we got out goaltended by a team that has famously had the worst goaltending in the league all season. There's quotes about like, we need a save.

etc, et cetera. Yeah. Yep. So that is, like I said, that's on the 18th. Then last Wednesday, which I believe is the... Last Wednesday is the 20th. Yeah. And Peter DeBore says he's healthy.

And this is a quote, he's fresh, he's got a lot of energy. This is the day after he pulled him for giving up one... Not great goal. the goal that Kuznetsov scored on him was bad because he just kind of makes a save on an Ovechkin shot, quote unquote makes the save. It trickles through and Kuznetsov just like taps it over the goal line. And we should point out that, I mean, the fact that Lennar is even starting that game feels pretty remarkable because Dabor has, like we said, kind of throwing him on a much. the bus for the devil's loss. DeBore seems to like Logan Thompson.

So, okay, you figure Wednesday night, big game against the Capitals, he's going to start Logan Thompson. And instead, he starts Robin Leonard. Right. But then pulls him after one goal. And not even after one goal. Yeah, one period where he gives up one goal and 13 shots. Now, we should say, I think there was also a disallowed goal in that period.

So, you know, it's not like Robin Lerner. Leonard was standing on his head. But I certainly, you know, on my other show, I talked about it with Jesse Granger, who covers the Golden Knights for the Athletic. Like, we were trying to think of cases where a guy got pulled after giving up one goal. And I think we said that, like, Brian Elliott in the playoffs a few years ago was the only example we could think of it. And certainly not a guy giving up a goal, playing 14 more shutout minutes and then getting pulled. So everybody's looking at that going, what the hell is going on? Is Leonard hurt? Is he? Is he whatever?

And so that's when DeBore says the thing about he's fresh. He's got a lot of energy. He's healthy. That kind of thing. Which sounds like a compliment, but was not meant that way because it was basically him saying, no, this guy's like he just stinks. Like he just wasn't. Yeah. Right.

I didn't pull him because he was hurt. Yeah. If anything, it was an opportunity to, you know, maybe help his guy out a little bit and say, you know, I put him in a tough situation. We know he's not 100% We thought he was good to go But you know we saw that he was struggling a bit So we you know He didn't do that at all

He says no he's healthy he's fine Yeah he was more than happy to Pointedly not do that Yes so on Friday Emily Kaplan and Jesse Granger They ever mentioned Jesse Granger Both report that Lainer told the team on Thursday

That he will have season ending surgery So this is the day So on the day after he gets pulled and DeBoer kind of throws him under the bus again. And says that he's healthy. And says he's healthy. He's like, I'm having season-ending surgery. Right.

And they were probably told, it's from what everybody can kind of glean. It seems like Lainer or his people or whatever, just kind of like put it out there to certain reporters. Like, he's done. The next day, or well, I guess that's, so that's a, so that's a, on Friday, a day on which later missed practice for what was termed a maintenance day

asked after practice about the report, DeBoar's like, oh, I didn't hear about this. As far as I know, he's healthy. So we're back to square one on that, and this is the quote, there has been nothing physically that would keep him from performing and going out

there and performing for us. There have been no red flags that way. Nobody's healthy 82 games in. Everybody's needs something. That's why at the end of the season, you get the laundry list of things that everyone's dealing with. But as far as my knowledge goes, that's personal conversations, and that's personal conversations with the player. That has not been a play issue. I'm not a doctor. You can either play or you can't. That same availability, he also says, like kind of goes out of his way to say, Mark Stone's been great since he came back for me and three.

Mark Stone has not been great since he came back from injury. He's been like obviously not good. So this is kind of more fuel for the, oh, there's like a problem between coach and goalie. Yeah. And the other thing here, I guess two things to say, I will defend DeBore a little bit in the sense that I don't think what he's describing is an unusual attitude for an NHL coach. He's right. He's not the doctor. If you're a coach in the NHL, you've got guys who can play and guys who can't play.

And everybody's banged up. And when somebody says, is somebody healthy? I don't think it's necessarily that unusual for a coach to say, look, this guy is in my, he can play. The trainers have said he's available, so therefore he's healthy. And if he wasn't available, then he'd be not healthy. I kind of get that. And I don't think it's unusual. Maybe it's not the right way to look at it.

but this isn't a Peter DeBoer thing at this point. But the other thing is, you know, when he says there's been nothing physically that would keep him from performing. Yeah, I don't know if he leaned into the physically about that, but yeah. Yeah, but I mean, he says, you know, there's that, when you see that quote, given that it's Robin Lennar, and we know what he's been through, you know, as far as, you know, his mental health and he's been very open about that, it certainly seems like, you know, if somebody, and again, you're right, I'm putting emphasis on the wrong words here, but if someone says, you know, he's physically fine.

And, well, not only that, it's also a situation where if you're Robin Lainer and your, and your coach is saying, well, he's physically fine, aren't you as a guy who kind of famously has had mental health issues or struggles or whatever and, uh, and, and, and, and, and, your coach says physically there's nothing wrong with him. And you're like physically my ass, I want to have season-ending surgery. Because I'm just in a lot of fucking pain. He's had multiple injuries throughout the year, you know? Yeah, I'm beat up.

I broke. I'm not healthy. I'm maybe playing. Well, I mean, I'm definitely playing through an injury or two. I'm, and it sucks, but I'm doing it, you know, because I'm trying to be the good soldier. You know, this is my team. I'm a competitor. But if I'm going to do this, and first of all, I'm going to get yanked for giving up one goal, which is embarrassing if you're a goaltender.

I mean, no goaltender likes to get pulled, but, you know, you give up six goals. You know what's coming. And then my coach is going to get up there and tell everyone, oh, he's healthy, he's fine, he's physically fine. And, oh, by the way, isn't Mark Stone great for battling through his injuries? You know, there is a part where you go, you know, let's screw this. Yeah. I'm out. I'm not healthy.

I'm hurt. I was going to get, you know, I was going to torture myself for another few weeks or however long it was going to take, but screw it, I'm done. Yeah. Now, that's the dramatic interpretation. The other thing is, you know, maybe he just was hurt and it, you know, tweaked it and whatever, and now it's, and we're all reading more drama into it, but we'll do that anyways because it's fun. Here's more, here's more fuel for the, maybe we should be reading the drama into it. So, Lainer meets with team doctors on Saturday. doctors go, yeah, he should get season-ending surgery.

The doctors agree with him that he should get surgery. Yeah. Yes. Which is not the same as them telling him he should get surgery. And the reason I'm parsing this, we'll get to it in a minute because I think the next quote you're going to read or one of them is the one I want to talk about. Sure. So, but then the issue is, that's on Saturday.

The issue is, Vegas cannot call up Yuri Fatera from hands. Anderson in the AHL because of the cap implications of doing so. They've got a guy coming back from injury. Yeah. That guy coming back, a carrier, I think. Carrier.

That puts you over the cap, or that puts you right up against the cap. You are allowed to call up a goalie. The NHL doesn't make you play with one goalie. They will let you call up an emergency guy, but you can't, the emergency can't be that you capped yourself, out by activating somebody else. So they can activate Carrier or they can call up a goalie to replace Lanner, but they can't do both.

Right. So as a consequence of that, on Sunday, Lanner is back up to Logan Thompson. And we're told he would have played if he was needed. And then Vegas loses that game in the worst imaginable way, which is they give up a goal to their biggest rival with 0.9 seconds left. And I believe they had a lead or a two-goal lead with like five minutes to go or something like that. Now I'm forgetting the exact timeline of that game.

But it was something like that where they completely shit the bed. Yeah. And then I mean they the last say, yeah, they were up four to two with just over two minutes left. Yeah. Okay. So that's what it is. So and the end in addition to that, they get a full power.

play in overtime that they don't score on and then they lose in a shootout. Yes. To a guy who's been in the NHL for like three weeks. Sure. And we should point out, Logan Thomas plays good. He's fine.

He's not the reason, you know, Logan Thompson isn't the reason that they lose this game by any stretch. But this whole thing happens. Yeah. This whole thing happens with Robin Lainer sitting on the bench,

needing surgery, but there only because of all the cap stuff that we were talking about earlier. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So Monday, the team finally puts out a statement. Robin Lainer will have season ending surgery.

And here's a quote from that. We were hopeful that Rest and Rehab would allow him to compete this season. At times, rest and rehab were effective, but ultimately Robin, in consultation with the team medical staff, determined that this is the best course of action. That's not a quote that frames Robin Lainer particularly with. No. Okay, so this is the quote I wanted to talk about. I'm not crazy, right? They make it clear that this is Robin Lainer's call.

Yeah, absolutely. Robin, they do say in consultation with team medical staff, but usually what you would see is, you know, ultimately we decided that he should have surgery, or sometimes they'll go passive voice, right? Ultimately, it was determined that they're saying ultimately, Robin determined that this is the best course of action. They're basically saying, not that he quit.

I don't, you know, no one's saying that he took his ball, went home. But they're, they're making it very clear that he wanted to have the surgery. This is his call. Right. Which is not usually how it's, how it's done. And again, it, that to me just feels like, and again, I'm being uncharitable here. I'm reading all sorts of things in this is not reporting. This is just us kind of speculating.

But man, doesn't that feel like a statement that originally said, we determined and somebody went, no, no, no. You put that it was him. Well, it wasn't we. It was Robin. You put that it was Robin Lainer who. And then, you know, the PR person goes, all right, but I'm going to mention the medical staff because otherwise this sounds ridiculous.

Right. And so Tuesday morning, nothing further is said on Monday, as far as I know, Tuesday morning. DeBoer, this is a quote from Peter DeBoer. The announcement speaks for itself. I'm concerned about the guys that are here battling with us tonight. Battling. Ouch.

The guys that are battling. When they, when, and I'm not concerned about Robin Lainer, basically, is another way to read that. But when they read that on the Vegas broadcast, I don't think that quote had been published anywhere at the time because I went looking for it. And I was like, there has to be more to it than that, right? No, there wasn't. That was it. Oh, okay. Well.

And again, this isn't on its own unusual coach behavior. I mean, if I think people know, like, in hockey, there's this weird thing where if you're injured, you're not around. Like, you just get disappeared until you're ready to play. Like, you know, your teammates don't even see you around the building half the time. So, you know, the idea that, hey, we're focused on who's here, next guy up. is not on its own, but it's just all of this. It's the totality of it. It just feels like there's so much little passive aggressive,

there's so much pettiness. And again, maybe once I saw it, my mind clicked over to that, I'm seeing everything through that lens. If there's a Vegas fan or, you know, Pete DeBore fan out there who wants to say, no,

no, you're making them out of a molehill, maybe. But I can tell you, I don't think, I don't think I'm alone on this. And, you know, like,

Jesse wrote a story where he basically summarized all this and, you know, there's, you look in the comments and people are like, people are seeing it this way. So at the very least, at the very least, I think if you're Vegas, you're Pete DeBoer or whoever, this perception is now out there. So you can fix it. You can get up there and be like, hey, for the record, this is not, you know, this is not what we meant. We love the guy. He's our, he's our goal of going forward, blah, blah, blah. hasn't happened yet. And if you're Pete DeBoer, you better do it soon because you've only got a few days left

to make this happen. And I don't think he's going to and I don't think it's going to matter. And all of this culminates with Vegas goes up 1-0. Jason Robertson scores, it's 1-1. Vegas goes up 2-1. Jason Robertson scores.

It's 2-2. There's a late 4-on-4 after there's a scrum after a whistle ends up in a four on four Vegas pointedly does not pull the goalie yeah that was interesting and there and everybody as you know uh it went unmentioned on the on the broadcast but um everybody i was talking to is like why aren't they pulling the fucking goalie i think it's a tough call i i don't think it's an it's an obvious one but certainly and the reason for this is obviously to you want to win in regulation and then you gain two

two points on Dallas to let it get to overtime. Normally it'd say, yeah, get to overtime, make it a three-point game, but you're guaranteeing that Dallas is going to get at least a point. You're not going to get as much ground. That would be the thinking. Yeah.

And so... In a tie game. Yeah. Well, because even if Vegas picks up the extra point last night, as they kept saying on the Vegas broadcast, an extra point. they're still what they have uh Dallas has 94 and they would have been two points back with two games to go so they I mean

so this is the tricky part of that Vegas is both both teams are playing tonight um Dallas has I want to say either Anaheim or Arizona Arizona I think and Vegas has Chicago. Yeah, Dallas has got two easy games left on the schedule, basically. And then Vegas ends the season with, yeah, and Dallas ends with Anaheim, Vegas ends with St. Louis, that's not an easy game, obviously. Not an easy game, although we don't, you know, not an easy game if St. Louis has something to play for. If they don't, then maybe they, maybe not, but we don't know yet. But Vegas, or that's, St. Louis is done otherwise. They don't have any other games on the schedule.

Yeah, and in fact, I'm looking at it. They will have something to play for it because Minnesota, by virtue, losing last night, cannot wrap up home ice before then. So I don't. Well, there you go. So Vegas is already pretty screwed no matter what. But here's the thing. You can argue that the strategy, and I had people in my mentions working through the math of, you know, well, if there's this percentage chance that you give up the empty net goal and this percent and everything. I think it's a harder question than maybe it sounds like.

I don't think it would have been an easy call. But am I surprised they didn't do it? No, of course not. This is not a coach who's about to get fired is not going to pull his goalie with a minute left. Because if he pulls the goal and they give up the goal and they lose in regulation and now they're eliminated, the headline is Pete DeBore pulls goalie cost team their season. And if he does what he did, which is play it straight, the headline is

Golden Knights, players can't get it done. So, you would have to have an enormous job security and confidence to make that move. And I don't know, but Pete is... DeBoard does not. Confidence, but I know his job security

is pretty much zero, so... Oh, and that's the other thing to say, speaking of, you know, like Vegas players blow it, they went 0 for 7 in the shootout. Yeah. Ouch, you can't do that. That's not going to cut.

Cut it. But I want to wrap up the Vegas discussion with this question that we got on the Patreon from Tim, who says, is there a funnier outcome than Vegas missing the playoffs and then winning the draft lottery just to piss everyone off? Hadn't thought of that, Tim, you're a genius. That would be the funniest thing. That would be phenomenal. They wouldn't get the number one pick because of the new rules this year. But they could, in theory, move up to whatever it is, fifth. or something.

Yes, that would be utterly hilarious. Yeah, that would wrong. Let me just throw this a. We agree Pete DeBore is getting fired. Yeah, I think we all agree with that, including Pete DeBore. Do you, does Kelly McCriman get fired for this? So here's the thing. And this is, this is kind of how I feel about DeBore as well.

Like if you, you know, if you're the coach of this team. You have lost so many man games to injury from all-stars, not just like guys on your roster. Like, oh, you know, think about any other, like, heavily injured team in the league this year. Oh, they've all missed, like, we had, like, our third line guy missed a bunch of games or whatever. Jack Eichael, they knew the Jack Eichael situation. But, like, William Carlson missed, like, 10, 15 games earlier this year. Jonathan Marsha So missed maybe a few.

Lainer obviously missed a bunch of time. Alec Martinez missed a huge chunk of the middle, pretty much the entire middle of the season. Patchy-ready missed long stretches, stone missed long stretches. Like, these are all guys were- They really did get. I know that they're the heel in this story and we all want to point in lap, but they really did get absolutely decimated. And to be fair, if you don't like to talk about it the other way, if you don't

make your roster so top-heavy, all those guys getting hurt. Colorado is another good example of every single year. Like Nathan McKinnon misses 12 games. Yeah. Kail McCarr misses 10. You know, Gabriel Landiscagg misses 15, whatever. It's happened almost every year in recent memory. Yeah.

Right? Yeah. Look at the least last year. John Tvers goes out in game one. And on the one hand, that probably costs in the series. But on the other hand, if you load up on four guys, you need all four of those. guys to be healthy and productive and one guy goes out then yeah and and this was the even more extreme version of that because one of their top guys was a guy they knew wasn't even coming back

until a couple of years left in the season and so you you can make the argument like is missing jack eichel for that long um versus having Alex tuck like what's better you know like is Alex Chuck playing all those games that Eichel didn't, is that worth

the extra the extra point that you might need. Yeah. Yep. Fair question. And I,

look, yeah, probably it is. But like we said at the top of the show, the alternative is that you don't try to get the best players

available at all times, which I think is a philosophy that we should say is good. Yep. But just, man, this, first of all, boy, this sucks for Jack Eichel. Number two, boy, this rules if you're like a Sabres fan or someone who doesn't like Jack Eichel. And, you know, three, imagine going back in time to like the beginning of the season when, you know, Sabers are going to trade Jack Eichel. And who did we all look at, right? We all went, Rangers,

Kings. Those are the two teams that can make it happen. They're rebuilding. They're young teams. they can be patient. Those are the teams that should go get Jack Eichel now and for the future. And then Vegas swoops in out of nowhere the team that's already a contender

and goes, no, we're going to get them. Imagine at that moment going, oh, by the way, the Kings and Rangers are going to make the playoffs, not the Golden Knights. Yeah, we're going to circle back to the idea of who did and didn't make the playoffs in a bit

right after the break here. But one thing I want to say before the break is the other thing that happened last night in the Western conference is Yossi Saros got hurt like on a yeah whatever nobody touched him nobody crashed into him that kind of thing um and Nashville ended up losing an overtime still clinched a playoff spot but if you know as we're recording this there has been no update on this but if Yossi Soros is hurt that's it bye bye and maybe even you never would

I want to say never, but there's... Yeah. And it was a fantastic game. Yeah. But they're not beating, presumably, Calgary is who they'd end up playing. Yeah. I think somebody said last night that every single Calgary National game has gone to OT this year. Mm-hmm.

That's fun. That is. That's with... And they're technically tied with Dallas now, meaning... They could, and still end up playing Colorado, which... Yeah, Dallas doesn't have the tiebreaker. Yeah. Which feels like it could be important.

Nashville has 35 regulation wins in Dallas. Because Dallas has won like three games in regulation all year. 30 games in regulation this year. And we're going to act like this is a good team. That's the other funny thing. Dallas at this point has a worse goal difference than both Vegas and Vancouver. Oof. Again, this is the.

loser point bonus point thing, right? Because you're looking at it going, you know, maybe the only reason this was even close is Dallas doesn't have a lot of loser points, or maybe it's because they keep winning in overtime. And I don't know, that's, uh, that'll be, but I'll tell you right, if, if Nashville without a goaltender beats Colorado in the playoffs. Curse team? Shut it down. Curse team. Shut it down, man.

Yeah, the thing that I guess I wasn't thinking about when I was watching the game last night was like had Dallas, it was Dallas in the middle of like, or coming off, I guess, like a two or three game losing street, because that it perfectly explains why they won. But I just looked it up and they had lost three games in a row, but then they beat Seattle. So there you go. They're doing the Dallas stars shit that everybody has come to know and love. We'll take a break. We will be right back.

This week's episode is brought to you by Trade Coffee. I think I mentioned this in the past, but I'm a big. Coffee drinker, drink a lot of coffee, but I've never been really picky about what I drink. I'm the sort of guy that when I'm in the grocery store and I'm sitting there looking at the shelf, I'll just grab whatever's handy, whatever's cheaper, and I just go with that. And it does make a difference. I've noticed that. Whenever I do get good coffee, I taste the difference.

It's just that I don't know what good coffee is, so I don't know what to get. And that's where a place like trade coffee comes in handy because they, sent me some free stuff, but before they sent it to me, they had me fill out this little survey that my wife and I sat down and did to sort of get to the heart of what it is that we were looking for, what would make good coffee for us. And then they sent us a batch of four different types. And it was fantastic. It made all the difference, even somebody like me, not a coffee snob by any stretch, but I could taste the difference between just grabbing the cheap stuff at the grocery store and having something that was actually picked out. And,

you know, that is the beauty of trade coffee because what they do is whether you're a coffee snob or whether you're somebody like me, they've got actual coffee experts. They personally taste test over 450 rows. So they know exactly what to recommend to you based on what you tell them. You answer a couple of questions. You get your own personalized variety of coffees delivered fresh to you as often as you like. No gimmicks. Just coffee. that you want. So right now, trade is offering new subscribers a total of $30 off your first order, plus free shipping when you go to drinktrade.com slash puck.

That's more than 40 cups of coffee for free. Get started by taking their quiz at drinktrade.com slash puck and let trade find you the coffee you'll love. That's drinktrade.com slash puck for $30 off. And don't forget, but Mother's Day coming up, a trade subscription, it's a perfect gift for the coffee lovers in your life. All right, we mentioned on the other side of the break the thing about, oh, the standings ended up being pretty crazy this year.

That's true. You know that thing about the standings at Thanksgiving are pretty much going to be the standings at the end of the season in some form? So here are the playoff teams from top to bottom in the Eastern Conference by not just total points, but point. percentage, okay? Florida, Carolina, Toronto, Washington, the Rangers, Tampa Bay Light, Pittsburgh Penguins, Columbus Blue Jackets, they were playing at a 106 point pace at the start of the season, and then didn't make the playoffs. That's kind of surprising.

Also, the penguins were playing at a 95 point pace and ended up, they're going to end up, I think, well north of 100, right? And I think the blue jackets, like, that was right at that I don't remember when Thanksgiving was, but they, like, immediately lost. November 25th, okay. So, yeah. So they, like, almost immediately lose. Like, so within even another week, they're back to being the blue jackets. So even that is, is.

Yeah. And I feel like it was a lot of stuff about, like, Boston was playing really well. But Columbus just got off to, like, a, what you would think of as, like, a Buffalo State. sabers type start to the season. You know, like where it's like, oh, they came roaring out of the gate. They're a surprisingly great team. And it's like, not really, though. Yep.

So, one change. And also we should say with Columbus, because I'm looking at it right now, they had up to that point played five games that went past regulation, and they were five and oh in those games. So a classic situation. Seven and six in regulation, but. It's like John Tortorella never left. Yeah, exactly.

So, again, that's one team. You occasionally will get maybe two or three teams in the entire league who are out as of U.S. Thanksgiving and back in at the end of the season. Now here's the Western Conference. Calgary, Edmonton, Minnesota. So far so good. Vegas? Uh-oh.

That's weird. They're going to just miss. Anaheim. Hey, wait a second. St. Louis? Okay, we're back to normal. Winnipeg, what? Colorado.

You have three teams in the West that are, I mean, unless Vegas somehow pulls this off. Like Dallas absolutely shits their pants. Vegas wins both of their next two games. That's the only way this is going to end with more than, or fewer than three playoff teams going from out of it to back in it. Yeah. I don't know. that that's ever happened before. Certainly not common.

I think that would be... To have three in one conference do it. Yeah. Like three in the entire league, sure. That's almost certainly. And the other thing... Three in one conference. It's not even quite like the blue jackets where...

Like, they were there, but I feel like if you've gone up to any hockey fan have been like, who you got Bruins or Blue Jackets. I mean, come on. Sure. You know, Winnipeg and Vegas were both expected to be good teams. Vegas, I've... You know, I didn't accept that they were missing the playoffs until like two weeks ago. So certainly back then I would have thought, yeah.

And in fact, I even think, had they made the Eichel deal by then? Maybe it had like just happened. Yeah, like he was on the way. You're going, yeah, they're fine. Winnipeg, I would have said was fine. And the thing with Anaheim is Anaheim out of all those was the one team that wasn't expected to be good, but they were really good. Like they were, I think I look back at it. And they had, they had like an 11 game losing streak in, I want to say starting in like January, maybe even February.

But right before that, they were in first place in the Pacific at one point. Like they were right there with Calgary. So it wasn't like, you know, they weren't just good through Thanksgiving and then collapsed immediately like Columbus. They were, they were right in it. And then when they, but when they shit the bed, they really. They really, yes. Fell apart immediately. Yeah.

And then more recently, they've been back to fine. Yeah, now that it doesn't matter. By the way, this is my favorite time of year for all the bad teams getting excited because they've like won five of their last eight and they're like, yeah, have you heard anything about what the Buffalo, the Buffalo say, oh, the vibes are incredible all of a sudden. Yeah. We love it.

We love the Sabres. They're going to be great next year. Senators have figured it out again. That's, uh, senators are great, just like last year down the stretch. So senators, the team that like the er example of this, I feel like, is maybe two or three years in a row, it would be Columbus where they got to game 50 and they were 60 points out of the playoffs. And then, you know, they win whatever, 20 of the next 30 games and everybody's like, next year, baby, it's all, it's all going to go wild for. And then, of course, they were the Columbus blue jackets the whole time. So it's always like, oh, wow, geez, we're making every goalie we face look like a backup goalie.

Yeah, it's almost as if you've got nothing but backup goalies and teams that are like, oh, we're playing the blue jackets. We'll take it easy. Yeah, it's funny. The Winnipeg, like, is supposed to be good thing. I thought they'd be like, okay. I thought they were going to be so good. I really. I don't know why everybody.

Like, because I think Elliot said that he was like, oh, I predicted them as, like, the best Canadian team. I know Frank Sarajevoly did, like, an old takes exposed of himself. and said, like, oh, I think they're going to win the Stanley Cup. I fucking what, dude. I had them as a top, I said they were going to be the top five team in the league. And I'll tell you why, because they had a ton of talent up front and arguably the best goalie in the league. And I thought the defense would be good enough. But I thought they were, you know, a tier in two of the three positions and good enough on the blue line.

And I didn't think they were going to beat out Colorado. But I thought they were easily the second best team in that division. Yeah, I did not think that. I thought certainly Minnesota, like I thought they would be around the playoff bubble. They've been, well, up until like maybe three or four days ago, they could have made it case that they kind of were. They were in that denial zone of, yeah. Yeah, 100%. Hey, we still have something to play for.

All right, buddy, whatever you say. But yeah, you know, it's fun. funny because you mentioned they had one of the best goalies in the world. I was looking at stats the other day. He actually had a fucking really good season, Connor Hallibuck. And, you know, the team in front of him just isn't very good. See, the thing is, I looked at that a little while ago, too, and I was a little bit surprised because I was under the impression that he had been bad, at least in the second half.

He had a lull around the middle of the season, for sure. But he's 10th in the league and goal saved above expected right now. Yeah, like that was it. He was not as bad as I thought. Like, he wasn't like John Gibson, for example, who was good for the first half and then just fell apart at the same time the team did. Oh, my God. Yeah. Like, was awful.

And He wasn't, he went from great to fine was kind of his floor. And then it was bouncing back. And so, I mean, the good news, if you're a Jets fan is, like, there's. unlike with Gibson, there's no reason to worry that this is, you know, this is now who this guy is. Even if this is his worst season, you're fine. You're all set. Yeah, absolutely. But the bad news is, he's 10 goals saved above expected.

But the bad news is he was still pretty good and you didn't even really make the playoff race. Yeah, that's right. So, yeah, I, it's all, it seems like Winnipeg's going to make some big changes, right? Like, they, they kind of have to at this point. Obviously, it doesn't look like Dave Lowry is long for the, for the coaching job, you know. I wouldn't imagine so. I think. They're going to, they're going to lean real heavy into the interim aspect of interim head coach, I feel like.

Which is fair. Like, I mean, the, you know, make a change. There's going to be a bunch of coaches available this summer, probably. So go for it. But also, it seems like everybody just kind of, like doesn't like each other in that locker room. Yeah. This is kind of one of those teams where

whether it's on or off the ice, and I won't pretend that I know which of the two it is, but it just feels like the mix isn't working. And a lot of times that's a cop out when you say that, but you know, the individual pieces I like a lot of it,

especially up front, but it just doesn't feel like the mix is there and so there's been a lot of talk that they're going to make some potentially major moves. You know, could be Mark Schifley, could it be somebody else going, which would be interesting.

Should be Blake Wheeler. He's cooked. Yeah. I think he's done. Kevin Chubble Dayoff is not a trade guy, though, or at least for a lot of his career hasn't been. I don't know if it's going to be up to him because I don't know if he's going to be keeping his job either. Well, that is. How many kicks at the can does this guy meet?

I mean, the answer with him, as with any long-serving GM, is often as many as the owner wants to give you. Yeah. But yeah, you know, you're right. it's maybe not maybe it's... And the other thing, it came out this week,

like keep an eye on the Pierre-Luc Dubois situation. Yep. He's been okay this year, maybe, as charitable as you can be. He's going to end up a couple goals short of 30. So, you know, nice season on that front. But, like,

you just didn't hear a lot about him on a guy who, you know, they traded him. He was supposed to be really, or traded for him, I mean, He was supposed to be like a guy who's going to make a difference for him. And I don't feel like they're regretting moving on from Patrick Lainey, but...

Who had a very nice season for himself in Columbus. Up and down, but did wind up with some good numbers. But yeah, the Dubois... And, you know, after the way things ended in Columbus with him, this is sort of like, all right, you could write off Columbus as, you know, this is Tortorella not liking a guy. guy, this is whatever else. But yeah, for a guy his age, he's at that point where he should be starting to show us the best that he can be.

And maybe he is. And this is just what you got is 60 point kind of a poor man's Ryan O'Reilly. But I don't think that's what Winnipeg thought they were trading for. No, I certainly not. But this is a classic situation of, well, he was great in that one round of the playoffs. You remember that? I do remember. Thanks, Ryan. Well, no, I'm saying, like, if you're the Jets, you're like, remember how good he wasn't

that one round of the playoffs? This is why we traded for him. He's going to be that guy. Yeah. It's like, oh, is he? Oh, okay, great. Shut down, Connor. If everybody's as good as their best series, you know, then awesome. That works out great. But, yeah, this was a, you know, the autopsy on Winnipeg is like, the coach just made, like, bizarre decisions. The coaches just made kind of bizarre decisions all year. And, you know, they didn't have enough talent. There you go. Anyway, the other team that I guess is going to be making some changes this summer is the Vancouver Canucks. There was a report maybe late last week or over the weekend of they want to change, and this is a quote here, the culture and chemistry in the room.

That's interesting. What's going on there? You don't hear that kind of report if things are going well. No. In the room behind the scenes. And, you know, I'm interested insofar as everybody was like, oh, they're going to trade all their vets at the deadline and this kind of thing. They didn't do that at all. They, you know, again, kind of like Winnipeg, we're like, no, no, we're still in the playoff race.

And everybody's like, are you really? And they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And they kind of were just at the very end because they did run off a bunch of wins and then they just hit the ball. But that's what happens. The classic situation of maybe they should have fired their shitty coach and GM like two weeks earlier. Then they are in the playoffs. The interesting thing to me with the Canucks is when you look at their record under Bruce Boudreau, it's basically a playoff. record.

Oh, absolutely. They've been awesome underbrook. Because I did my piece today where I had like, you know, here's the positive outlook for all the non-playoff teams. And the one thing I said with Vancouver was you've got 15 other teams saying how can we get better to get into the playoffs. Vancouver's the one team where if Boudreau is back, you're not even saying we need to get better.

You're just saying we just need to be this, that we were over the second half or the last 60 games. But it doesn't sound like they want to stay the course. And maybe they're not able to. But it sounds like some big moves are coming. But you never know. When you hear stuff about the room, who knows where it's coming from. I'm really interested to see what they do with J.T. Miller.

Because he might get 100 points this year. That snuck up on me. But those are legit superstar numbers. If you're going to move a guy. So the thing with Vancouver is they don't really have a lot of guys they need to re-sign for next season. Brock Bessor's arbitration eligible RFA, and they got a couple, like Will Lockwood and Matthew Highmore are as well. But those guys don't, like those lesser guys don't really move the needle at all. Obviously Bessor's going to want a good amount of money and that's going to put them in an iffy spot.

but they, you know, they're finally getting out from under, you know, the Luongo Cap Recapture. They don't have like huge buyout obligations. I don't know that they need to do very much to make, to bring back pretty much this entire team, you know. But if, which makes the, whatever, the reports about the culture and chemistry even more interesting because they're like, Like you said, we just have to be like we were under Boudreau all year. And that may be as easier said than done, but they can bring back everybody pretty comfortably under the cap and maybe even make some better decisions in goal or whatever. And all of a sudden, you're like, oh, yeah, we're a playoff team in a division that still maybe is kind of a little weak next season, depending. I mean, maybe not because maybe Vegas is back to what everybody thinks a team with that much talent.

it's supposed to be. But yeah, I just, I look at this, this Vancouver lineup and I go, if they can play like this under Boudreau, and they can resign everybody, which all indications are that they can, then I don't see a huge problem here. Yep. But it seems like they all maybe don't like each other. And there's been a lot of time, Connor Garland's name's been on the trade block for a while now, which is strange considering.

Miller's another one. The deal that they made. We had a piece on The Athletic where Harmon wrote about Vancouver and this, there's nothing here I didn't know, but just putting it this way was interesting to me

because he was talking about the the Connor Garland trade where they get him and Oliver Ekman Larson. They give up a first round pick and all their bad contracts. And he says, put it this way,

would you rather have Oliver Eckman Larson at 7.26 million annually until 2027, yikes, and Garland, or an elite blue chip prospect with the number nine overall pick, a second round pick, a seventh rounder, and 12.2 million in extra cap space in a world where cap flexibility is one of the most valuable team-building assets. When you put it that way, yikes, that trade was a disaster. And most of us didn't like it at the time. Hold on a second. A Jim Benning trade didn't work out?

Yeah. Is that, could that be true? Jim Benning trade in which a GM on the hot seat sacrificed future assets and flexibility to get better and cheaper right away. Because they, you know, they dumped the Jay Beagle and all those guys to get under the cap for that year. And Jim Benning, correctly... Now, to be fair, Jay Beagle was a number one center in the NHL.

That is true. Yep. And didn't smirk once the whole time. No, never would do that. But, yeah, Jim Benning correctly assumed that the cash. Cap problems would be someone else's problems, and he was right. It all worked out. All right.

Let's move on to a little thing, with the playoffs pretty much locked in. Let's just assume Dallas is going to make it over Vegas, right? Yes. And by the time we do the next show, the playoffs, we'll have started. So we've got to do this now. Old Guy Without a Cup power rankings. Yes. I will do my offense.

official list next week, but let's let's throw some names out there, and by which I mean, how about you do the research for me? Way ahead of you. Done. All set. Good. At 16th, because they don't really have an old guy without a cup, everybody over 30 won a cup with this team, I believe. The St. Louis Blues.

Okay. David Perron is the oldest player on the roster. He's 33 years old. So they just basically don't have one. Yep. Good news. They also probably won't win the Stanley Cup. Next up, we got a couple of teams that just kind of don't have old guys without a cup.

They have a lot of good players without cups, but nobody where you're like, oh, he's been in the league forever. One of them, for example, is the Calgary Flames. Michael Backland is 32 Jacob Markstrom You know 31 32 years old Something like that They have a couple of older players Trevor Lewis and Milan Luchich

But both those guys have won Stanley Cups before So Tough to call them a team That we want to win To get an old guy a cup Nashville is kind of in the same boat Borvietzsche is 32 And I think the entire team doesn't have

One guy who's won a Stanley Cup but none of them are like Oh wow I'm pretty Going down their roster I was like I don't think any of these guys Has ever won a cut

I might have missed like one guy Um But like like Yeah just going down their list And Matt Dusha Even though I think he's 37 Is not into old guy He's 31 years old yeah

Okay Um but otherwise Eckholm Yosi Granland Ryan Johansson Uh Nick Cousin

You know Like just go down the list, Philip Forsberg. Like, none of those guys have cups, but they're all like 29 and under. So, again, doesn't really count as an Oggwack. Now we're getting into teams where they do Brian Elliott, right? Isn't everyone a Stanley Cup? Okay.

Yeah, sure. Goleys is always tricky, especially backup goalies. Like, I don't know. Because he will not play a minute if Tampa has their way, which is. No, and the other thing is, of course, I don't think anybody's out here rooting for the Tampa Bay Lake to win a third Stanley Cup outside of the greater Tampa area. Yep. So, you know, that's why I had them 13th is because it's like, great, I like Brian Elliott.

It'd be nice to see him win the Stanley Cup. But, yeah, that's it. 12th, the Washington Capitals, they really only have one that's Matterwin. Okay. Nobody's really thinking about him. Eleventh. Carolina has Freddie Anderson. He's hurt right now.

He is hurt. Supposed to be back at some point in the first round. We will see. We'll see. But, yeah, not a... I mean, he's... He is a guy that... He's not particularly old either.

One of the things I always look at is, when you're looking at a good Oggwack story, you want, like, the previous suffering. Either somebody who went, like, right to the final, just missed or in Anderson's case a guy who's got like the reputation as the guy who can't get out of the first round. He always chokes in game seven to see him if he came back as the starter and led them to a cup. That I think would be a pretty good story. I mean, he's not super old, but yeah, that would be there. A guy where I just, and again, he's only 32. So that that is

the other aspect of why I have them only 11th. Tan, the only guy on the L.A. Kings, who kind of fits the mold here, is Alex Edler, guy who got close. Ooh. 36 years old, just turned 36 a couple days ago, actually. And, yeah, just a guy where you're like, yeah, he's been in the league forever. He's a good one. That's a good call. Yeah.

But, again, like, do I really think the L.A. Kings are going to win the Stanley Cup? Not really. another one with really only one old guy but with a better chance to win the cup I think Boston the only guy is really Nick Felino who you know again like kind of chasing a cup the last few years yeah did he not win one last year I can't I thought

I feel like he did not yeah we're not to what's Taylor Hall is he's like 31 31 okay he's he's getting there Because he's an old 31 as far as, but. Oh, yeah. He's been in the league since he was 19, right? 18, 19 years old.

Yeah, he's not even 31 yet. So I can't in good faith. In three or four years, he'll be a real good candidate, but he's, you know, assuming he hasn't won. Next up, another team I really don't think has a chance to win a Stanley Cup, but they do have a ton of guys who qualify as Oggwax. The Edmonton Oilers have. Mike Smith, Derek Ryan. Chris Russell and Derek Brassard Brassard went

with one of the Rangers team that went to the cup final So he got close But You know And you know The reason I think everybody would say Well look

They don't really have a great chance to win a cup Mike Smith is one of their goalies Yeah Like they're going to play a lot In the playoffs presumably I just looked up Derek Brissard has played for 10 different teams.

That sounds right. That sounds right. Sounds right and wrong at the same time. But yeah, God, I'm looking. He's had some long runs. He was on the Ottawa team that went to the conference final. It was on the Islanders.

I feel like every year at this time, you could play off, like, that should be our game show. Just what team does Derek Brissard play for? We just go back and forth and see if we can make all 32 guesses before we figure it out. Yeah.

But yeah, so, like, that's a team where it's like, damn, that's a lot of old guys. And none of them have cups. Yep. But the other thing is, of course, Edmonton had their fair share of Stanley Cups in my lifetime. Yes. So I'm not exactly rooting for them to win another one. Another team with a fair number of guys who, who, all of, pretty much all of whom I like or have a fondness for. The Minnesota Wild, number seven, they have Jordy Ben, Cam Talbot, and Matt Zuccarello.

Nice season for Matt Zuccarella is the good one there. Talbot, again, like, if he had been the starter, sure, but Zuccarella, because he came close with the Rangers, a guy that everyone likes, he'd be, yeah, he'd really be a good one. Yeah. The Rangers are up next. and I have them hired just because they have the goalie. You know, he's really, really good. And they have Ryan Reeves and Justin Braun.

Not the, like, best, but everybody likes Ryan Reeves, I feel like, unless you're a Vander Kaine. Yep. Yeah, I don't know that everyone likes Ryan Reeves, but, yeah, he would. I feel like he's generally, like, well regarded as, like, an affable fun guy, you know? Yep, I would. That's my perception of him anyway. I would say that's probably fair.

And I guess the other thing that we could point out, and we mostly haven't been doing this, but Gerard Gallant also never won a cup as a player, has not won as a coach, went to the final. Devin Evanston, too, never won a cup. So, you know, sometimes the coach can be, it's not the same, but there is this kind of sense of, you know, we're going to get it for this guy. Yeah, and then the Rangers obviously have a couple of, like Chris Crider, for example. Good player, everybody likes him having a great season, but he's only like 30. Yep. And I'm trying to remember, Panarin did win a cup with Chicago, right? Or did he not?

He came in 2016, didn't he? He was a rookie. Oh, yeah. So then I guess he didn't win one. So he's another one where he's not quite old enough, I suppose. But he's 30. He's, you know, like he's another two years away from having that status, it feels like. One guy I think everybody's kind of rooting for to win a Stanley Copp, everything he's been through, et cetera.

The Pittsburgh Penguins, they only have one guy, but it's Brian Boyle, who everybody thinks rocks. Yep. Every year he's high on my list, and, yeah, that would be fantastic. Good guy. So yeah, that's the only guy on Pittsburgh who qualifies, though. Everybody else, you know, they won a couple of Stanley Cups fairly recently. So kind of disqualifies them. Next up is Colorado, the Colorado Avalanche, Jack Johnson, Eric Johnson, Andrew Cogliano.

Those are your real. Again, they have a bunch of guys where it's like, surely Nathan McKinnon's 41 years old at this point, right? He's been around forever. Gabe Landiscag. Same thing. but those are the real guys who kind of qualify. I don't think anybody is like, oh, it'd be so nice to see Jack Johnson get a Stanley copy. Yeah, Cogliano is the guy that's...

Cogliano is probably the one real, like, you know, he's bounced around the league forever, been on a million different teams. It was on the Dallas team that went to the final a couple years ago, so he's head the near miss. He'd be a good one. Yeah. And then the top three is fucking insane. how many guys where it's like, yeah, it would rock if he won the Stanley Cup. I would love it. So I put these in order basically at least to most likely to win the cup as opposed to like,

because all three of them, it's like, yeah, I would love, for example, number three here, Dallas, Joe Vavalski, Ryan Souter, Alex Radulov, Andre Sakara, would love to see all three of those guys. Obviously, some of them play a bigger role on the team than others. But no, most years, Joe Pavelsky would be the guy that you would look at and go, that's the old guy without a cup, we're all going to rally around.

Yeah, Ryan Suter, same deal. Suter would be up there too, yeah. Especially, you know, the way that things ended in Minnesota and everything, but, you know, Pavelsky, well, Pavellski was on the Dallas team that went to the final two years ago. Sure was. Went to the final with the Sharks.

Plus, I mean, playing for the Sharks that long gets you all sorts of playoff heartbreak and misery. Pavellsky is a great one. Any other year he'd be number one. I'm not sure he's even in the top three this year. Yeah, well, because number two, the Toronto Maple Leafs, Mark Giordano, Jason Spetzel, Wayne Simmons. Yep.

Everybody would love to see any one of those guys. All three of those would be great. Simmons isn't as old as you think, but he's, he is. He's oldish. He's in the neighborhood. He's, you know, the, the, The model is not as old, but the mileage has added up. And Spetsa...

He's 33. It's not like he's like 31 and you're like, oh, he's been in the week forever. He's 33. He'll be 34 in August. And he's not a guy that you look at right now and go, he's got five years left in the league. I mean, he's... No, absolutely. And both him and Spetsa, you know, local boy comes home, etc.

That's, I mean, I think Spets is probably maybe the best of the whole bunch as far as stories, just because he's so far up there. any this this literally could be it for him he's not playing a ton for the leaf so i mean we'll see he could end up maybe even being odd man out um and then giordano has been great since he since he just came over um is is another fantastic one yeah but number one with a bullet as far as i'm concerned the florida panthers they have joe thornton yep they have closed your route they could arguably they have sergey bovrovsky but again Like, is he really that old?

Not really. But, like, Thornton and Jeru alone are, like, number one and two on this list. Yes. Yeah. So. Absolutely. And, you know, it's, it's Thornton and then everyone else. Because, you know, Joe Thornton is the guy that everybody loves, except for St. Louis Blues fans.

Don't. Please don't flood my inbox and scream at me. I know blues fans all hate Joe Thornton. But everyone else, easiest guy to root for. I mean, I guess the thing with him is how much is he playing, right? Like, not even how much is he contributing, but is he in the lineup? Do we have situations where he's sitting in the press box? But as long as he's on the ice for the final game, then it's absolutely the best.

If they're up like 3-1 in that series is like we're putting him on the end of the bench, he doesn't even have to play a second for us. He doesn't, he hasn't been good this year. No. He has five assists this year. And that's Joe Thornton. This is Joe Thornton. Like, he's done.

Averaging 11 minutes a night. He's 42 years old. He's been in the league since he was 18 years old. Yes. 24 seasons. It's nuts. And again, like 24 seasons with the sharks, mostly. You know, that's a lot of misery.

15 years in San Jose. Holy shit, man. Yep. And a lot of that is the captain. I mean, the collapse against L.A., we can still picture the look on his face after that. You know, we know how it went in Toronto. We do. How to go? Great.

Yeah. Great. Yeah. Well, and now in Florida, yeah, impossible not to root for him. As long as you're okay rooting for someone who is clearly cooked. Like this is not Ray Bork still playing at a star level desperately trying to get that. I mean, this is, he's done. He's hanging around to get the cup.

But, I mean, in a way, that adds more pointancy to the story because this feels like it has to be it. Like, this has to literally be the last chance. Versus a guy like Giroux where he's not that old, but it's getting there. Yeah, absolutely. And Jeru looks fantastic. He does. He's been phenomenal. So, I mean, if you go, I know, I want my old guy without a cup to be playing at a high level, that here's your guy.

It's, you know, you move from Thornton Spetsa over to the Giroudi-Jordano side of the scale. But, yeah, I think they've got the two best guys on the list, I think. Yeah. And here's the thing. I just looked it up. Sergei Virovsky, he's turning 34 in September. So it's not like he's young either. Like, he's certainly, if he's not an old guy without a cup now, by next year he certainly will feel that way.

Yep. You know, he's been in the league since 2010. That's a long time. Mm-hmm. Yep. Especially for a goalie. And Ben Chirot's not old, but he's, you know, he's got who feels old and he went to the final with Montreal and I think had at least one run with Winnipe. 31?

30 or 31, yeah, something like that. He turns 31 on. May 9th, it says here. So he'll be 31, you know, around the time of the playoffs. I'll start. Around the end of the first round, I guess. So, yeah, those are, those are the Oggwack guys. Let's, let's move on here to.

And just one last, Andrew Burnett played 16 years in the league and never won a cup either. So, you know, played for Colorado and went to the final. Went to a Western Conference final, obviously. with the wild. Yep, yeah, it was part of that team. Went to the finals with Washington back in the day, I believe. Oh, it looks like he didn't play that. He was on Washington, but he didn't play.

I wonder if he was, he may have just been a rookie, but I'm going to just say he was injured, tragically injured on the last night of the season. Yeah, he was three days away from getting his pension. Yeah, exactly. And finished his career, I totally forgot this, but with the Blackhawks in 2012. So the one year.

The one year they didn't win and didn't do anything. Well, two, I guess, because they didn't win in 2011 either. So he's a good one too. Yeah, great. I like Andrew Brunette. Fun player. Like, I've said this, but I understand if your team is playing them, whatever. But other than that, if you're not cheering for the Florida Panthers, you're a bad person.

This is everything you could possibly want in a bandwagon. I do my bandwagon rankings every year. I don't even know if I'm going to bother this year because the answer is so obvious that you have to be cheering for the Panthers. Just based on the stories alone, let alone the fact that here's this firewagon offense first team scoring four goals a game.

Like if you're not horrified by the idea of them like losing to the capitals like two to one every night, it's you're, again, you're bad person. Yeah, absolutely. Human being. Yep. Okay, let's go now to our thoughts with the regular season two days from ending. One?

It ends Friday, right? I'm not wrong about that now. Yeah, it ends Friday with a wopper of a lineup where I think there's one, two games maybe between actual playoff teams? Yeah. Three? We're pretty much done, yeah. Yeah. But a ton of games on the slate, but actually not anything of any real consequence at this point.

But anyway, just general thoughts on how this regular season went. I think the number one, like, headline on everything is the higher scoring numbers, right? Like Greg had a big story about that last week. What contributed to it. My answer is COVID and all the guys that, you know, all the goleys that got used this season. that kind of thing. There were a lot of them. Yeah, I wrote about this a few days ago.

It's great. But scoring went up by like 0.1 goal a game per team. Eight goals a year for the average team, which is to say a goal every two or three weeks. And yet it's indisputably been better. So my argument is imagine if we kept going. and I'm really getting frustrated with all the back padding and all of the like, uh,

I, I listed like a bunch of head. There was like headlines like scoring boom, scoring explosion. What's, and it's like, it's like, it's like,

we didn't do anything to cause this, which makes me worry that it's not repeatable. But even if it is. The novel coronavirus did something to cause it. Yeah. That's, that's certainly part of it. COVID-19.

You heard about this? Um, it's, it's like, the desire to hang a mission accomplished banner every time scoring ticks up slightly and then we're surprised when it drops back down again like it's fun to have guys getting 100 points it's fun to have guys setting records it's fun to have guys getting 50 goals

or even 60 goals. Yeah we didn't even mention Austin Matthews got to 60 goals last night it's crazy it's great and you know so imagine if we went from like instead of going from 3 to 3.1 we went the way to like three and a half, you know, like, I'm not even talking 80s levels. I'm talking like, you know, early 90s. That was pretty fun, you know, Gretsky, Lemieux, guys like that, you may know. It was pretty cool. I know I'm old and I'm ranting and there's a whole generation of fans that

grew up thinking that three to two is the default score for a hockey game, but it really doesn't have to be that way. And I'm glad that we're headed in maybe in a direction where it isn't going to be that way. That'd be awesome. But let's save the back padding and the congratulations to the NHL for fixing this when they didn't even do anything. Like, let's, if anything, enjoy what we've got, absolutely celebrate it, and remember the fact that, you know, I used to always say, yeah, scoring needs to be upscoring. People go, no, no, we love defense. And then scoring went up point one of a goal. And everyone was like, this is the best season ever. Trust me, man.

Like, we can keep going on this and make it even more fun. It is possible. I will say, I don't want it to go. Like, I would never want it to go back to 80s and 90s. That's insane to me. Yeah, okay. I mean, I'm not saying we want, and I know every time you say the, you know, the 80s, people are like, oh, you want it to be like 12 to 10. It's like, no, that's not, there weren't 22 goals a game.

There were eight instead of seven. You know, there were seven goals a game in the same. 70s. I don't know, man. Bobby Orr, Phil Esposito, Gretzky, Lemieux, like, it was pretty fun. I got to tell you, it was, you know, guy scoring 70 goals was pretty fun. Yeah. You know, obviously nobody's, and nobody thinks that we would ever go back full on to like insane blowouts like in the 80s. The goaltending is a million times better. The defense is a million times better. But the forwards are also a lot better. And it would be cool to see them show. that, it would just be cool to look at some point to have like my kid be able to look in the NHL record book and see something on the offensive pages from his lifetime and maybe not see every goal-tending record. Right.

From his lifetime. Like, you know, I know people are like, oh, the sanctity of tradition. How about the tradition of we don't have a record book that everything stops in like 1987? That'd be cool. Yeah. Well, I will say this. I just look this up.

The number of expected goals per 60 and goals per 60 this year are the highest they've been since 2007. It doesn't seem to just be bad goal. Right. The league is driving, is getting more scoring chances. Yes. So. But how much of that is guys that, you know, we talk about the goalies, because of COVID, but there's a lot of bad defensemen.

Yeah, of course. No, I'll take that back. Not bad defensemen, but there's a lot of seventh and eighth defensemen who are playing more than they should. There was a lot of teams not doing practices, not, you know, coaches maybe didn't get systems in place quite as much as they want. Yep, absolutely. But I'll say this. You know what else helps? Expansion team.

Maybe, yeah. And also the Red Wings giving up 10 goals every but once a month that did. I remember sitting down and looking at that and going like, if we took out like the worst Red Wings game, does that explain the entire score? And it's not quite. But it's it's the opposite of the Pedro Martinez thing where that in that whatever, it was 2000 where it's like, oh, he accounted for like whatever, the entire league's ERA going down like 0.02 or something like that. Like just an insane number. But yeah, anyway. We're in an era where there's amazing offensive players.

both forward and defense, and not really any standout goalies. You know, like, Vasselowski is still a superstar. A lot of other guys either, you know, Schisturkin is certainly establishing himself as that, but we seem to be kind of in between eras of goaltenders. And maybe that's because the shooters are so good now that we're having to readjust what good goaltending is, or maybe it's just that we're just in between. and, you know, I just, I hate the idea that even two years from now we're going to be looking back going, same as you do with 2006, right?

Well, scoring's up, we fixed it. Oh, no, and now it's right back down. What if it turned out, like we could actually figure it out exactly, and it was because they were like, oh, no, when you get a power play, you get to choose what circled the face-up. Yeah, that's right. We do a study, and it's like, it turns out making the defense put their stick down in the defense of them actually did account for an extra.

or 400 goals. Yeah, that rocks. Let me, let's, the other big topic, I guess, in hockey this week was that Greg wrote a thing. I don't know why I'm talking about Greg so much this week, but anyway, Greg wrote a thing that was basically like they should expand the playoffs. And a lot of people were like, this is the stupidest idea ever. And a lot of people were like, this is the best idea ever. And I got to say, for the first time ever, I, see, for the first time ever, I, see,

Someone said to me an argument that I actually buy, which was... Unheard of. Somebody actually changed their mind on... Yeah. On this topic specifically, the argument, because my argument was, do we really want to, like, reward these absolutely shit teams that are like ninth and tenth in their conferences? Right? Because if you look at who's ninth and tenth in the Eastern Conference, it's the Islander.

and the Columbus Blue Jackets. And I know the Islanders went on a little run and everybody had to pretend like, oh, nobody wants to play the Islanders all of them. But come on, let's be real. And then the Columbus Blue Jackets, everybody agrees. They stink. They, in fact, how about this?

The Blue Jackets, rather, have one fewer regulation loss than regulation, or one more regulation loss than Regulation win. They're 36, 37, and 7. Yep. It's a bad team. But, if you go to the Western Conference and you go, well, look, like Vegas and Vancouver, you know what?

They probably are just as good as Dallas and Nashville. And so the argument that got through to me was, don't the seventh and eighth teams also suck usually? And I go, oh, yeah, I guess that's true. Yep. I guess I'm usually not convinced they're any good at all. So who gives a shit if those dumb-ass teams make the playoffs or don't, especially in a sport that is this highly randomized? Yeah. That's it.

So now I'm in. Now I'm all in. Now I'm like, yeah. Expans the playoffs or in fact make it like as Greg said. Phrase it like a couch it as this is a play in tournament. Yes. This is my argument. We don't see a huge difference between the shitty teams.

And then the 16 teams that make the playoffs, we call that the playoffs. We're very clear the playoffs is 16 teams. We're not expanding the playoffs. We're just creating a little play in tournament. I know it's semantics. I know it doesn't matter. but it does matter to people because people are like, I don't want more than 16,

okay, people, 16 teams, 7 game series, 4 rounds, like you've always known it, were just adding a little intrigue to the end. I'm all in favor of that. I do think that what happened in the Eastern Conference this year probably sets this idea back another many years. Right, where this is... This is the first time ever.

Every team in a conference has at least 100 points at the end of the season. Which is fucking crumption. From an entertainment perspective, it's an argument in favor of this maybe because we didn't have any race at all for the playoffs in the East and we could have because we're the Islanders and Columbus, whoever. But I mean, even that wouldn't have been much of one. But Buffalo and Detroit maybe would have been in the mix. But I get that people will always point at this year and be like, you want it Columbus to have to get to play a hundred point team. I am I've actually what's changed for me this year is I become more open to an idea that I dismissed before which is that we set this up we have a play in round but there's a cutoff of some sort to make it I was going to say the same thing where it's like look if you're I think I've mentioned this in relation to the NCAA tournament where they go look like you can back into the playoffs but like you're not getting an off a

an automatic, or a, sorry, you're not getting an at-large bid unless you are a 500 team, at least. Yeah. And I think it should be the same thing. Like Columbus, yeah, Columbus, they're a game below even NHL 500, which is so fucking hard to do. Even make it 90 points, let's say. Yeah, sure.

And you sit there and you go, okay, you know what? So on this year's Eastern Conference, we would just say there's no play in because nobody met that time. That's a 90, yeah. Whereas, you know, in the West, where we've got, you know, 90 plus point teams. Vegas and maybe Vancouver will get there. Vancouver's one point down. I feel like that's a way to do it.

And here's the argument for me is I've always viewed it as, okay, top six teams make the playoffs. Seven plays 10, eight plays nine. Do a three game series. You can do it in four nights. You let the, and the reason for this. is, you know, people always go, the argument that always gets thrown is, oh, well, you're making the regular season meaningless or even more meaningless. But my argument is you're not, because what you're doing is right now, the only thing that matters in the regular season is who makes the playoffs. That's it.

Seating doesn't matter. Home ice doesn't matter. We're just flipping coins when we get to the playoffs. All it matters is who makes those eight playoff spots. And sometimes, as we saw in the East, if those are locked up, you've got none of the rest of it matters. but if you do it this way, suddenly you've got an inflection point, obviously, between 10 and 11 to make the play-in. You've got a huge inflection point between 6 and 7 because you don't want to be in the play-in. So you're trying to finish in the top 6.

And also finishing in the top 2 gives you an advantage because if you're in the top 2, you get to play in a tired beat-up team that's just come through a play-in instead of playing a team that's rested. So suddenly there's all these spots in the in the season that that matter. Now, I'm going to need you to explain this to me, but I understand that I think with Greg, he was pointing to how the NBA does. How does the NBA do their plan? Because we should point it, the NBA now does this. So once again, hockey is looking at copying somebody else who got there first.

But what is, how does the NBA play in work? So it's like both complicated. and not complicated. It's a weird thing to explain, but it's basically I believe it's the 7 and 8 seeds play each other, and

then the 9 and 10 seeds play each other. Okay. And then the winners of that play the winners of the 9-10 play the loser of the 7-8. Okay.

And then the winner like and if and then the winner gets like whoever wins the the seven eight tournament they're in yeah okay and it's a two game series and then whoever wins the series between the loser of the seven eight and the winner of the nine ten is the eighth seat so seven eight basically each get two chances to make correct seven and eight play each other winner goes through loser plays the winner of 9-10. So if you're finished 9-10... I kind of don't like it

because it's a little complicated to explain. Yeah. Maybe a little complicated, but I think it's the sort of thing that once you see it, you go, okay, I get it. Basically, if you're... It makes sense, but it's difficult to explain.

Yeah. 9 and 10 have to win twice to get in. They have to win against each other and then beat, in theory, a better team. 7 and 8 get two chances and need to win once. So there's still a big advantage to being 7 and 8. I actually like this a little bit better

because now you've got yeah those like now the difference between 8th and 9th is pretty big because that's a difference of you know you got to win one game and you know now is it is it so crushingly unfair

if Washington misses the play well you know it's like Washington you lost to Boston then you lost to the islanders no you're right you're out the islanders take your spot and the other thing is it guarantees that one of you know of that you've got 7, 8, 9, and 10, one of the two teams that were traditionally,

so there's really only one spot up for grabs. We just don't know if it's the 7th or the 8th spot. I like that a lot, man. Yeah. And plus, it just, the artificial entertainment value of creating, you know, what's essentially these game 7s, that's fun, man. And I know you might say, we shouldn't artific, but the NHL already claims they do that with the loser point. They say, well, we're making the playoff races closer.

and it doesn't, well, okay, here's a chance to make playoff races, just out of nowhere. And again, don't call it the playoffs. Call it the playing game. Call it like, you know, in baseball when there's a tie and they play game 163. Call it game 83 or something and, you know, market it. And I don't care what you do with the stats. If you count them in regular season or whatever. But then, okay, now the playin's done.

Now the playoffs start. We have our 16 teams and off we go and the tradition. And it's exactly, in theory, it's exactly like what they did in the bubble where they were like, oh, yeah, 24 teams made the play in. But then the playoff started when it got down to 16. And it was like, oh, I get, yeah, okay. Like, clearly, to your point, they value, no, 16 teams make the playoffs. I'm just saying, if that's the, if that's the, like it's a semantic thing, but I, if that's what, if that's what's stopping people from getting on board. Now, we know the NHL.

They probably wouldn't do that because the GMs would be like, no, no, I need to. My owner says I'm getting fired if I don't like the playoffs. So this needs to count. But whatever, you know, it's just to me, if you're like a traditionalist, you're like, no, no, no, playoffs, 16 teams. Okay, that's still what you're getting. Whatever it's called, you're getting. Yeah. We're not talking about creating a fifth round of the playoffs and other seven game series and all of this.

So let me, let me say, though, the argument that to me sucks. It's so stupid. Well, you know, back in 1992, there were only 21 teams and 16. Who gives a shit? Shut up. The hockey was a backwater back then. It was a joke. The league sucked.

Sorry. It was great. It was pretty awesome. But a lot of the platforms were terrible. Yeah. Like, that's what I mean. That is not a good. Yes.

I would agree. Yeah. The league in terms of like the quality of the one through 16 or even one through 21, there were like seven good teams in the league. So that sucks. Like that's like watching the English Premier League, but without relegation. And it was also like there's only four teams that can. Back then there were five teams missing the playoffs and a lot of the teams that made the playoffs stunk and they were playing like the Gretzky Oilers.

So. Yeah, the Detroit Red Wings. The first round was like, you know, you just easy sweeps, which sucked. but also it did make the upsets actually feel like upsets. And you were like, I can't believe the whatever lost to who, as opposed to now. And they happened once every 15 years. Yes, exactly. But it was like Columbus beating.

But yeah, no, I mean, that was too many. But also the fact that 16 out of 21 is too many does not mean that 16 out of 32 is the right number. And I think the fact that baseball, football, and the NBA have all expanded their playoffs in the last. few years. Well, yeah, but baseball and football did it where they were like, we let like two teams in. Two extra teams. No, no, no. I'm saying like we currently, we have like the smallest playoff fields in sports. Like nobody makes the playoffs in major league baseball in the NFL. And they were like now. They're up to 14 now each, right? Yeah. They're not quite. And this was the Bill Daly argument when Greg asked him because he said like, hey, everyone else is expanding and Bill Daly went

Yeah, but baseball and football are expanding closer to us. But the NBA has already gone beyond. So if you want to be like, oh, hockey will be a joke. Oh, we'd be way more successful. I don't know. To me, when you're hockey and the ratings stink, I don't know if people are following this, the ratings are awful on TV in the first year of the new TV deal.

Could that possibly be true? We're getting our butts kicked by the USFL, which I didn't even know existed on TV. until a few days ago. Is that the one owned by the Rock? No, that's a different one, is doing double the ratings of the NHL down the stretch in their playoff run.

You know, when all three other leagues are doing something, it's something you might want to look at. And what makes me tear my hair out on this is not that the league hasn't done it, but it doesn't sound like there's even a debate because Gary Bettman is just like, no. Nope, I don't want to do it. Which, okay, you're the commissioner,

but where is this on anything else. Where is this on any other problem the NHL has? Have you ever heard where it's like Gary Betman is adamant that this is the solution? You never hear that. All you hear is, well, the GMs voted on it and Gary Bettman was like, I don't do whatever you want. I don't care. Like, why is this the one place where he's got to bug up his ass and refuses to even consider alternatives? But apparently, that's, apparently it's done, done deal, because Gary doesn't like it. So just remember that the next time somebody tells you this guy has no power, he has no influence, he's just there to do whatever the owners want. Yep.

Apparently, apparently he could. He just chooses not to. All right. And then one last thing that we're going to talk about today, and Sean is making me talk about it. I don't want to talk about it. I'm too mad about it. This is a poll from UGov America. And the headline on this is, most Americans say they would not want to bring back dinosaurs from extinction.

This is infuriating. I'm assuming this is SpawnCon for the upcoming Jurassic World Dominion, which I believe comes out in early May. But this is where it gets interesting. Nearly three quarters of Americans, U.S. adults, I should say, strongly or somewhat support scientists trying to prevent animal species from going extinct. Far fewer are strongly opposed or somewhat opposed, and 15% say they are unsure. But bringing back extinct animals to the current world is a different story. Only one third of Americans say they would strongly or somewhat support scientists trying to do this. Far more, 45%, say they are strongly or somewhat opposed to the idea.

Men are more likely than women to say they support bringing back extinct species. Hell yeah. These women, you know. It's ruining everything. We could all be riding dinosaurs right now, but the old ball and chain won't let me. that's not really scientifically accurate for a bunch of different reasons. But here, so

in addition to asking about that, they gave the people they pulled a list of animals. Would you like to see this brought back from extinction? Okay. Number one with a bullet, with 50% of people saying, no, let's bring it back.

Fucking let's go. The giant tortoise. That's it. 50%? And people are like, Number one for me, I would love to see a big, big freaking turtle walking around again. Because I think that feels non-threatening. I feel like I could out, I feel like my odds of being eaten by a giant turtle are low.

Yeah. Sure, they are, yeah. Whereas if you bring back a brontosaurus. That was not an animal they brought up, by the way, as an option. Isn't that interesting? Hmm. Number two, well, tied for second. the passenger pigeon, an animal that was hunted to extinction in the 20th century,

in the United States alone pretty much, used to be like billions of them, and over the course of like 20 years, all of them gone. Okay. Hold on. What was the, do you have the numbers for the passenger pigeon? Because if you're telling me that the numbers for don't know,

not sure were lower than 90%, I would not believe it. 44% said they would support bringing back. See, I do not even, I've never even heard of this. creature before just now. And I'm sorry, this is percent of those who say you should bring back extinct species. So 44%.

None of them had a majority, like I said, giant tortoise at 50. Passenger Pigeon and northern white rhinoceros. Those are the two tied at 44. Next up, the Dodo Bird. Sure. The go-to extinct animal. The king of Mauritius himself, the Dodo Bird, hunted to extinction for being two stupid, hence the name.

The Caribbean monk seal at 37%. Couldn't tell you what a Caribbean monk seal looks like, but hey, we like seals. Why not? The Tasmanian tiger, an animal that may not actually be extinct. Do you know about this? No. This is like a small animal in Tasmania. And every once in a while, somebody will be like, I think I saw one.

That would seem to be... Evidence against them being extinct, or is it just like you saw a cat that was... Yeah, that's usually what it is, or like a weird dog or something. But, yeah, every once in a while now, people will be like, you know, I actually think I just saw one. Like, there was one that came up, like, maybe during COVID. Somebody was like, pretty sure I saw one in my backyard. Let me go hunt it or whatever, you know? And then people tried to find it and couldn't.

Next up, giant slots. You ever see a giant sloth? Boy, every time I go to my teenagers. No. Okay. Never have. This is an animal that went extinct, like I think a million years ago, maybe. Maybe 100,000 years ago, something like that.

It was, when they say it was giant, it was fucking enormous. You can see a skeleton of them, like the fossils. in many museums, and you see it, and you're like, oh, yeah, this is, like, bigger than me, and this was just, like, a tree sloth. Fucked up. Really big. 30% for both the Tasmania tiger and the giant sloth.

24% for a woolly mammoth. Wow. Yeah. Did you know? We got to, like, should be bringing all these things back. What the hell? The world's ending.

Should or no. Just get a woolly mammoth and a giant sloth and at least have some fun. Yes. Bring them back. So a woolly mammoths. Except those pigeons. I don't know what they're all about.

Mammoths, I don't know if you know this. Mammoths went extinct like while they were building the pyramids. Not that long ago. I see that fact show up every now and then and I just kind of assume it's one of those fake internet facts because it just is so unbelievable to me. Yeah. There are a lot like that. Like, and specifically one involving the pyramids is Cleopatra lived closer to our time than when the Great Pyramid of Giza was built. Wow.

Isn't that fucking crazy? Yeah, that is crazy to me. My history that I learned from watching like one movie when I was five years old has apparently lied to me. Sabretooth Tiger next up at 20%. Yeah, I don't see the argument for bringing back a saber tooth tiger. It's scary.

Yeah. See the size of those teeth, they're huge. Yep. Sabre-sized. Yeah, I'm not fucking around with that. Bad news for the Nashville Predators, I guess. Yes. The Smilodon will not be making a big return.

80% of Americans who support bringing back extinct species are like, no, that's a bad idea. Here's a crazy one to me. Triceratops, 12%. People are like, I only, like, whatever, one in six of people of the, like, 30-something percent. So, like, 5% of Americans are in favor of bringing back triceratops. I don't understand how your brain Plinko chips down to, I support bringing back extinct things, but like a cool, fun dinosaur, no. I want the pigeons. But because, I mean, the argument here is not that you're going to like make a billion triceratops and just let them run loose in the forests and stuff.

My argument would be you should, but I get it. Yeah. Okay. That's a fair counterpoint. Sure. That having been said, an animal with, you know, horns that are like, you know, a couple of feet long, they're really big. And also the animal is the size of a minivan. Yeah, I can see not wanting to fuck around with that.

We're just walking down the main street of your. town? Yeah. Talk about being horny on Maine, hey? Okay. I don't know if you're allowed to say that. I don't think so. We'll delay. 11%. Just one point behind the triceratops is the teradactyl. Perfect argument to not, oh, we don't want this like flying 90 pound

animal. We don't want something that's like three times the size of a like a stellar seat. I feel like, yeah. Just swooping down and snatching kids out of the park or whatever. Yeah. It makes a lot of sense to me. Eat all the pigeons. But yeah, that is one, I don't think you want to bring back the flying dinosaur.

Well, it's not a dinosaur and everybody knows it's a dinosaur. But, yeah, you don't want to bring it back. And then with 10% bottom of the list, the king of the ancient world, the terrible lizard king himself, the Tyrannosaurus Rex, top of the food chain. I mean, I'm not saying let them run free, but... See, I am. Surely if you, like, if you built some sort of park, that would be fine. I can't imagine why people got the impression that that.

Okay. And then the U-Gov poll, like the people who wrote up the, like, press release for the poll, when it comes to certain very large extinct creatures, most Americans agree with Dr. Ian Malcolm from the film Jurassic Park, quote, dinosaurs had their shot and nature selected them for extinction. Seems like that is the prevailing opinion on dinosaurs. They're by far the least popular. I guess you can make an argument that everything above that was just like hunted to extinction by man. You know?

Okay. I don't know the specifics. It didn't go extinct naturally from a... Yeah, I don't know the specifics of like the woolly mammoth like, you know, coming out of the Ice Age or whatever. But that makes a little bit of sense to me. I will say that pretty much across the board men are like, bring it back. Famous for believing steadfastly in natural selection, it is the American population. But yeah, it's funny that across the board men were like, yeah, bring it back, absolutely.

Way more than women were. For sure. For the dinosaurs, like, two to one every single time. That is not remotely surprising. No. But yeah, that's it. That's the show this week. We're done.

So just to be clear, though, you're on pro, bring the dinosaurs back for everything. Fucking absolutely. Yeah. Okay. And I guess here is where we should say dinosaurs never left. They're birds now. We got avian dinosaurs. That's right.

So anyway. Yeah, that's the show. Sean, plugs. Find me at the athletic. I have my positive thoughts. for bad teams, just up today. That's usually a popular-ish one. I try very hard to come up with three nice things to say about every team that miss the playoffs.

It's easier for some teams than others, but I try very hard because I'm just Mr. positivity and sunshine. That's right. And I'll be on tomorrow with Ian Mendez on the Athletic Hockey Show. There you go. For me, I think all the big discounts for Elite prospects are over except of course for I Love EP when you buy an annual subscription they will tack an extra three months on to the end of that 12 months for zero extra dollars what a what a

bargain and of course check out the Puckoo Patreon uh we just did a game show all game show's bonus episode uh the other day um i did a another episode of our wrestling podcast the superplex with adam vingen from the athletic and me and sean gentilly will have a stick to sports coming up on Friday. So another busy week. And Greg says he still owes us an essay that he's going to write, presumably not about Taco Bell, but. Probably.

Yeah, that's it. Thank you for listening. Thank you for the support as always. I've been reminded that maybe it would be a good idea to say rate review, subscribe, but only do that the review part if you think the show is good. That's right. don't want to hear from the people who think the show is bad. Their opinion is worthless to us.

We actually think the show is great. Yep. Goodbye. Thank you. Have a good week. Thanks. One of the playoffs start. Bye, bye, bye. Bye, sticks and hits and goals and saves and slap shots and goons.

We've got sportly commentary to what if you commute. But we also cover movies, TV shows, it's and tunes. It's your weekly bowl of Hagi and Nancet. about two