Puck Soup - On Island Time

Episode Date: April 7, 2026

Sean and Ryan talk about the big changes for the Islanders and Devils, the playoff races, and more. Sponsored by Raycon (buyraycon.com/puck) and Mint Mobile (mintmobile.com/puck)

I'm Ryan Lambert from Elite Prospects. I'm Sean McNer from The Athletic. And, you know, folks, I'm sitting here. Easter morning. I got a whole bunch of chocolate in front of me, you know. And I'm like, okay, well, doing the little podcast prep. Let's see here. Playoff race.

Are we mad about the Senators podcast or the Kichuk's podcast this week? Yeah, we are. Okay, cool. Patrick Waugh fired. I go, oh, okay. Well, I guess that changed. things. That's probably enough to do one segment early in the show. And then last night, the devils are like, oh, also Tom Fitzgerald's out of here. We're done with that guy.

Over. Oh, okay. Well, I guess that's the first half of the podcast taking care of. Thanks, the National Hockey League. Two weeks in a row, we get a coach. It's crazy. So basically, if I understand it now, the updated list is Saturdays for the boys. Sunday is for firing the coach. Yeah. Monday night is for firing the GM. Yeah. All right.

It doesn't make sense. Tuesdays for the podcast. That's exactly right. And then, I don't know. And then Wednesdays for making all of the trades and everything usually, but. Yeah. Not right now. Well, you know, you just fire the GM.

That's when everybody else feels like they need to start looking busy. Mm-hmm. It just, it really, like, it's such a weird coincidence. Could you even call it a coincidence? Like, we, we all, let's put it this way. We all saw the Fitzgerald firing coming, right? But with, what, six games left in the season for New Jersey? Yeah.

It's not like they, you know, they did this with 15 games, you know, or after the season. Well, and, and, I mean, the thing with New Jersey is they didn't even name an interim guy. Nope. It's just like there's nothing to do. But to me, like the GMs being fired is less weird than the coaches. Because I mean, we had the conversation last week when it was when it was Vegas, like how rare it is for a team that is still playing for a playoff spot to fire a coach this late in the season. You're 20 games out of the playoffs, you fire a guy and, you know, bring it.

Sure, nobody cares. You know, Craig Burby gets fired tomorrow. tomorrow, it's barely even a headline. But to do it when you're headed to the playoffs or when you're like right on the coin flip of making the playoffs is is pretty wild and pretty unusual. And I do wonder if like Vegas doing what they did moves the needle for the islanders at all in the sense of, okay, well, you know, if I'm Matthew Darsh, I'm doing some something, if I'm thinking about moving on from Patrick Waugh, oh, geez, I'm going to do this

with a week left. Oh, it's almost unprecedented. I'm putting such a target on my own back. Oh, maybe I'm not, because it happened a week ago. Yeah. I don't know. It's... And also, from reading the quotes from yesterday, it does seem like that, like the, Vegas by the Cassidy firing made it sound like, uh, they were like, oh, shit, we thought we had a pretty good chance to get DeBoer, you know, two weeks from now. Yep. We might as well jump on it right now. Mm-hmm.

Because you don't want that little extra competent. Not that he was going back to Vegas, but if one coach gets fired, it usually results in several getting fired, you know, musical chairs or whatever you want to say. So that was kind of my read on it was they were just like, well, we both. We better fucking do it now. Because if we don't, somebody else is going to try to get Pete DeBort, Toronto, for example, you know. Yeah, which now there's a whole bunch of reports that they weren't really, which, I mean, whatever. Okay, great. Yeah.

So. The one thing I got to ask, did I imagine it or did we not have like a whole news cycle a few months ago where when creating, Baroube's was on the hot seat and Pete DeBore did this whole like, I sent him a note to tell him, I would never. Yeah, you're right about that. I would not take his, uh, it's a terrible thing. And I guess, I guess Patrick Waugh didn't get the note. No. He was probably waiting by the inbox. They hit and refresh going, that's weird. I thought I would have heard from him by now. Oh, here's an email for my boss. Hold on. Mandatory meeting in seven minutes with me and the boss and a member of HR and its schedule for 15 minutes. Oh, that's probably good.

Do you think the HR people get involved? What's that? Do you think the HR people get involved like it's a real job? You know what? That's a great question. I can't imagine because usually it's like, oh yeah, you know, we talked on the phone. He said he understood. Anyway, that was it. He got fired. But, well, you know what it is?

It's because he's keeping his job. Like, he's going to still get paid. That is true. They're just like paying him not to coach anymore. of his duties. Fuck, man. I love that phrase. Oh, I bet you Patrick Waugh right now, if you asked him, like, how are you feeling?

He'd be, like, relieved. Of my duties? Absolutely. Oh, man, those duties were piling up, and now, what a relief. I mean, being the coach of the Islanders the last little while does seem like it was not a good duty. No. So. Fair point, yeah.

It all makes sense to me that this happened. Like, you know, I don't think anybody was ever sitting there going, and Patrick was the reason these guys are having so much success, you know, relative to expectation or whatever you want to say. So to me, I'm just sitting here going, yeah, this makes sense. They're right on the playoff bubble, basically, like, it feels like they've been moving back and forth between eighth and ninth for a week. Yeah.

Because nobody in that conference wants to win a fucking game. That's it. It's all, like, I get people really mad at me yesterday and into today, unexpectedly, which is always the fun way to do it, right? Oh, sure. When you didn't even realize you were trolling people. But because I called the, I used a line about the Eastern playoff race being a pillow fight. Yeah.

And, you know, they're like, oh, the team's going to miss with 96 points. that's not a pillow fight, that's a great. And it's like, yeah, yeah. But half the teams are on a four-game losing streak right now. That's right, yeah. Like the senators are like, have champagne chilling because they won two of their last five games. And they're basically locks.

They're in, yeah. That's the pillow fight, you know. Yeah. And which the thing, the other thing, though, that is interesting is, the islanders have a very unusual gap in their schedule for this late in the season. Yes, they do. Yeah, they don't play till Thursday. Yeah.

I think they last played on like Saturday, I think. Saturday, yeah. Yeah, they had like a four full days off. So, I mean, I guess if you were going to do it. Like you and I have done the bit before on this show where when a coach is, on a hot seat where you look at the schedule and you try to figure out where would you make the change? Because it's usually three things. You want to be, you want a gap. You don't want a coach having to come in, you know, with like 24 hours before the next game. So you want a few days off.

You want a weak opponent coming up so you can get off to a good start. And preferably you'd like to also be at home. And the other just check all three of those boxes. Totally. I just never thought. that, you know, I never thought to look at something like that this late in the season. You know who they've got on Thursday? Columbus? No, their old pal John Tavares. Did you know he used to play for the Islanders?

It's never come up, actually. He's going to be there. So, yeah, Pete DeBore and maybe Pete DeBore can hand deliver a note to Craig Barubei. Like, just, hey, man, you're screwed. I got eight phone calls from Keith Pelley in the last two weeks. That's why I had to take this. I didn't even want this job. I just, this is the only way I could get him to fucking leave me alone.

So we should say DeBoer, obviously, for the rest of this season. And then conflicting reports, I believe Emily Kaplan said three years after this one. And Andy Strickland said four years after this one. Okay. But Emily also included the caveat that three years after this one, lines. him up with Matthew Darsh needing a new contract. So, you know, if it works, it works. And we can we can both re-sign together, is the idea there, I think.

Yep. But not a John Tortorella slash Rick Bonus situation. No. Which, you got to figure the coaches union, if there had been such a thing, probably pretty happy that that little trend got nipped in the bud. Yeah. Well, I mean, the thing with those two. A, for A, the Columbus one is going sideways lately.

We'll talk about the East Playoff race later. But with Tortarella, it's like, yeah, I mean, aren't both those guys pretty old? That's the big thing for me is that I think of both of those guys as being just like, even as NHL coaches go. Well, I mean, bonus is on the old side. Bonus has been coaching since the 80s. That's exactly right. Yeah, bonus should be on like a month to month, Conner. He should be signing NBA 10-day deals.

I love a 10-day deal. They should have those in the NHL just to see. Be great. You know? Yeah. Yeah. So let me say this about Pete DeBoer. I think he's a really good coach.

And I don't think Patrick Waugh was a particularly good coach. You can say they had success, you know, this season to a certain extent. That's all Ilya Sorokin. And to a lesser extent, Matthews. Shafar. I would say to an equal extent, Matthew Schaefer, but yes, those are the two guys. Seroquin is a guy who should be in, until he had that really awful game last week, like, was maybe at the top of my MVP list if they made the playoffs, and probably even if they didn't, quite frankly, because this is a team that isn't very good. The roster's not that good,

but he was just like, I got it, guys. Don't sweat it. You know? And what is, what does DeBore have kind of a history of is putting goalies in a position where they're going to look really good, you know, look at Jake Ottinger, look at all the guys he cycled through in Vegas, you know. He makes them look really good right up until he drives the bus over them. Yeah. And gets fired for it. Right. I didn't say he didn't do that.

I'm just saying, we're not worried about that right now. two, three years from now when his contract's winding down, maybe he starts screaming and yelling about how Elias Seroquin's a loser. That's fine. We're trying to get into the playoffs right now. You know? And the senators feel a little vulnerable, let's say. So do the flyers who they're,

the flyers and the senators basically have the same point total and points percentage, but not record is the interesting thing. The Flyers have a, oh, wow, only 24 regulation wins. That's not good. The senators having the regulation wind tiebreaker is really starting to come into play. And the Islanders, well, the Islanders have, have it over the Flyers as well. Yeah. So that feels like it's going to be important.

The Florida Panthers have the regulation wind tiebreaker over the Flyers. The Rangers are tied with them. Guys, maybe finish a game in regulation every now and then. The king's sitting here going, no, fuck you. God, the Kings. Well, again, we'll talk about all that. But I'm very interested to see, like, because I have to think the edict is, I don't know, try to get into the playoffs this year. Who knows?

You just, you can't say to Peter DeBore, we need to be in right now. You just can't do it. That's a crazy ask. It's four coin flips or whatever it is, right? Well, yeah, it's, I mean, I think you certainly make this move now in addition to maybe because you want, you know, you want to lock down Pete DeBore. But it's to get into the playoffs. I mean, this is a case of a team that looked pretty strong up until a few games. I mean, they've lost four in a row, all in regulation.

Can't do that. Mm-hmm. Cannot do that. They've got, you know, and I keep... The Red Wings sitting here going, oh, wait, can't? Sure, we can't. Watch me, motherfucker. The important thing with the Islanders and the Blue Jackets to remember is they've got two paths,

unlike the Red Wings, right? They can get, they've got the third spot or the Wild Card. Third spot in the Metro. So it's right there for them. but it, I mean, it would be a huge collapse for them to miss, given where they were a week, two weeks ago. But, and I think you were getting at this, and I wrote about it for, on Monday,

like, the season is a win for the Islanders. Totally. Even if they lose their next four, and they finish the season on an eight-game losing street, they miss the playoffs by one point. Like, how do you, after you, you know, You'd take a couple of days to kick over some furniture, but then you still have to view this as a huge win of a season.

Totally. Yeah, absolutely. They're relative to expectations. And look, I know they just picked first overall. What were they like 10th worst in the league last year? They won the draft lottery kind of out of nowhere as opposed to they were, you know, they should have been up there or whatever. But I don't think anybody in.

And I'm sure somebody will be like, in October, you said that, okay, well, I didn't think they were going to make the playoffs. We say a lot of things. Yeah. Fucking relax, you know, but it is a, um, the only reason it doesn't feel like a win that they're even in this position, quite frankly, is because everybody else is doing the thing of like, after you, sir. No, no, no. I couldn't pause after you, sir. You know, like nobody wants this fucking last playoff spot in the metro. Nobody wants it.

so that's what makes it feel like they're actually huge failures. And again, is it sustainable success they're having? Absolutely not. Their underlying numbers stink. They have the best goalie in the league probably this year. And I guess that means to me is like, DeBoer coming in is like all those big moves Vegas made after their first year where a lot of their success was unsustainable,

but they went to the cup final, where they were just like, well, we got to make it sustainable now. How do we do that? Let's go get some players. It's the same thing with DeBoer, where it's like,

okay, now people are going to expect us to be like a 93 point team next year. How do we do that? We have Pete DeBore, who's a really good coach, you know? So that's how I'm kind of looking at it, but I don't know.

I just, I can't believe it happened to man. Because people were like, there's only eight games left. How are they going to hire Tortarella now? The Islanders are like, what if there's only four, my friend? You know? Like, it's, it's, and I wonder if this, wouldn't it be fascinating if this became a trend, right?

Yeah. And I, you would imagine we're probably done for this year, although, I don't know, who knows? Todd McClellan's probably got the phone on mute just in case. But, yeah, maybe this becomes a thing where this unwritten rule that, I mean, you don't make changes on good teams late in the season. Maybe that just becomes a thing where, you know, instead of Black Monday or whatever it is in the last day of the season, it becomes like, uh-oh, it's April now. Yeah. Any team that's, any playoff-bound team that's underperforming look out, especially if it works, right? I mean, if we get.

Yeah, if it works one time, let alone. with both these guys. Like if it works with both these guys, which is a distinct possibility. This Knights Islander's Stanley Cup final is going to be the worst thing to ever happen to the coaching fraternity. No kidding, man.

But yeah, like I said before, I also just think it's like, oh shit, there are more teams than we kind of predicted would be in the hiring a coach market. We need to jump on this ASAP. Yeah. You know?

Well, and I honestly wonder if maybe a little, like, if you hook Matthew Darsh up to a eye detector, if you're like, yeah, you're doing this maybe a little bit also to circumvent the possibility that Patrick Waugh wins his last four games and gets to the play. And now you're stuck with them

because you can't make a coaching change after this guy gets this team. And it's sort of like, yep, sure. I know this is an upgrade. So I'm going to take the opportunity to do it now. Because I do. I'm with you. I think it, I think it is an upgrade.

So. But I do think Patrick Wad did a good enough job with the Islanders. I think we'll see him behind a bench again. Yeah, I think so too. I don't think anybody's looking, again, nobody's looking at this roster going, I can't believe they're only on the cusp of the playoffs. This isn't a great roster, man. Like, there are very good players on it, but they have depth problems.

They have ceiling problems as well, you know, like, I've said this a billion times, like you can't have a successful franchise of Dylan Larkin is your best forward by far. You know, like, and boy, has history borne that one out for me, right? But it's kind of the same thing with the Islanders where they have maybe a couple of guys who are a little worse than Dylan Larkin offensively. But just the high end of their roster doesn't get you where you need to go. on top of, again, just not having the greatest depth. So I think, you know, taking, when did Darsh get hired? Like last summer, right?

Yep. Last off season. I think it was last off season. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The season ended, but yeah. Right. So if you were taking 11 and a half months or whatever it's been of his tenure as a whole, I think they've made some real big strides in the right direction.

part of that's getting the ping pong balls to bounce for them but they made some good trade you know there's a lot to like with the islanders but not enough and like i said i think deboror adds to that in a way that you know like you should be encouraged if you're an islanders fan even if they miss the playoffs this year because it will feel like they they fucked up by not making it after it looked like they were going to make it you know so again you're just just trying to make the success more sustainable and getting out in front of a coaching hire is a good way to do it. Let's talk about the devils now, though. So it's kind of along similar lines as my theory of, oh shit, predators are still doing their GM search. The Leafs are now doing their GM search. And there's a lot of interesting names in both of those mixes. doesn't it feel like we the New Jersey Devils should just start the hiring process right this second?

Yeah. You know, where seven points out of a playoff spot, we're not making it in five games. It's just not going to happen. Let's just get the ball rolling now. Let's talk to everybody, all these other teams are talking to

and try to, you know, beat them to the punch a little bit. I can't believe this Predator's one is going on this long, right? Well, I mean, the Predators one's been weird, though, because they sort of, like, they started a GM hunt without needing a GM. Like Barry Trotz is like, I'll stick around as long as you need me. The other piece of it is a lot of people, as soon as that happened, went, oh, that's going to be Tom Fitzgerald's next job. Yeah, right.

So, I mean, you do also wonder part of this. Remember, like, this time a week ago, we were kind of going, oh, it was weird that the leaves fired Retro Living right before a game and then it came out that it was going to happen and True Living was like if you're going to do it, just do it. I wonder if maybe Fitzgerald, it was the same thing, especially. Yeah, I think it said like they mutually agreed in the press release, you know. Yeah. So it becomes like, I mean, you can read the writing on the wall.

I'm sure, you know, he goes to his boss and says, look, I'm committed to being here. I want to win here, but I understand we haven't had a good season. If you guys are looking to make a change, there's an opportunity probably out there for me. Let's go ahead and part ways, phrase it however you want. I still think Fitzgerald winds up in Nashville. That has felt like it made too much sense. Yeah, but I guess what I'm saying is,

doesn't it feel like they're super far, down the line on that higher. Like, the fact, I agree with you. Obviously, they're hanging around the playoff bubble. So Barry Trotz is like, maybe I'm actually really good at this. Maybe I'm actually killing it, you know? Yeah. I mean, the thing is, like, they're far down the line, and yet you can only do so much during

the season, right? Like, you're not going to, well, you're probably not going to get access to other team's assistance, for example, during the regular season. It sounds like they mostly have, though. Have they? Okay, well, maybe, yeah. I saw a couple things where, like, they're, you know, they're narrowing down their choices.

They're having in-person interviews this week, blah, blah, blah. And again, maybe it gets easier to have an in-person interview when you're interviewing a guy whose team has been effectively been eliminated from the playoffs. But isn't it funny that there's only, like, five teams league-wide eliminated from the playoffs right now, given how bad everybody feels. But if everybody's bad, nobody's bad. So that's kind of how that works. Anyway, it just feels, didn't Trots announce this like before the Olympics?

Yeah, I think you may have, yeah. So that was a fucking long time ago. Now, the Olympics feel like they happened in 2022. The Olympics were canceled this year, I believe. I think the most recent Olympics was 2000. 2014. I'll have to check. You're going to get the Hughes Brothers mad about cancel culture again.

Uh-oh. If you're canceling these Olympics. It's the one they won. I went to see the, uh, I went to see the puck at the Hall of Fame and it wasn't there. So it couldn't, must not have happened. It was all bullshit, man. That's my opinion. That's, um, but yeah.

So I'm, I'm a, like, I agree with you that now he just kind of jumps to the front of the line for, for, for national. Not that I'd be fucking enthused about that if I was. Adam Vingen, friend of the, friend of the show who's a sports radio guy in Nashville, was like, it is a fucking non-starter for Tom Fitzgerald to be the next hire of this team. Like, you just can't let that happen. And a bunch of people were like, what are you talking about? And he's like, have you seen the New Jersey Devils? Like, we can't get into a New Jersey.

devil's style situation here in Nashville. Okay, but does Adam know that Tom Fitzgerald used to play for the Predators? And in fact... I think a couple of people might have pointed that out to him. In fact, was their first captain. Yeah. And what a crazy coincidence that he would be moving to the top of the list. Because here's the thing.

He knows how it works in Nashville. Because he was the captain 30 years ago. Yes, exactly. He knows he's got it all figured out. Well, the thing is, to a lot... certain extent that's true because Barry Trots will not fucking go away. Yes. This guy's like, I just

fucking love being with the Predators. Fitzgerald's in there just like, hey man, is the crazy guy with no neck? You guys remember him? They're all making the he's standing right behind you. Yeah, that's right. Yeah.

X-Nay on the Echene. Don't say that. He's sensitive about that. So, yeah, Like I say, I tend to agree that that's what's going to happen. I just, I can't believe they haven't hired somebody already. It's been fucking three months. Let's pick up the pace here, guys.

But maybe they were always just kind of like holding the, holding the last seat for Fitzgerald in the hiring process. And here we go. You know, who does? Yep. But it's interesting what New Jersey is going to do because their like whole thing is we love data. We love the numbers. And a lot of the candidates out there, you heard it with the Maple Leafs hole. We need an AI guy or whatever the fuck he was talking about.

Yep. Chat GPT is going to be the Leaf's new GM. I, man, remember when, was it, was it Ryan Huska? It was somebody with the flames was like, oh, I asked Chat Chepti to do my lineup for me. It's like that is disqualifying. You shouldn't have this job anymore. Yep. Jerome McGinla, Joe Noondyke, and that, and scorch, scorch the mascot.

Oh, man. Anyhow. Yeah, I, the devils, like, they're in a weird spot, like, organizationally, where they kind of like the Islanders, they have players you would want, but also a bunch you really wouldn't. And, like, guys who don't seem to be, you know, know, like, how many guys were the subject of rumors, like, this guy doesn't want to be in New Jersey anymore, blah, blah, blah, like, I don't know how a new GM gets the lay of the land there and just goes like, okay, who's what the plan is. First, you take a year off to.

You're right about that. But I do think you look at the devils, they've got Jack Hughes, right? They've got a guy that we still. They've got Luke Hughes. They've got, oh, wait, hold on. No, two at a three. ain't bad. One and a half out of three ain't bad.

Now, Sean, did you know this? There's a guy named T.J. Hughes plays for Michigan. No relation, but played for Michigan like Luke and Quinn. He's an unrestricted free agent.

He's a Hobie Baker finalist. If they don't sign this guy and just go, look, we got a third Hughes guy. Play for Michigan. What more do you want? Boom. They could do that. They should do that.

And honestly, PR win. I don't think they could convince Devils fans that he was secretly a third Hughes brothers, but I feel like they could probably convince Jack. If they're like, you don't remember him? Was it your third birthday party? Oh, yeah.

Just Photoshop. Get the same guy who keeps cutting Quinn Hughes out of the photos to add T.J. Hughes. And, yeah, I feel like that would work on Jack. He should, they, they, this is such an easy decision. for them. You give him, you give him like the number 34 or whatever. You're like, this, you know, basically the same thing. They all go, we agree. We love this guy.

And I believe Luke would have played with him at Michigan. It could be your friend from work. There you go. This is a good idea. They should hire me. Because if they room together, then it's impossible for me to say. Yeah. This is a good idea.

Do you stand by it? Yes. Okay. Do you think, on the subject to the Devils, do you think the Brendan Chanahan rumors that are, according to Greg, already started

and certainly will be prevalent. Yeah. Because again, Brandon Shanahan used to play for the Devils. Is that true? Yeah. I feel like nobody ever mentioned that. Okay.

It's going to be very weird when Brendan Shanahan gets hired in New Jersey in his first order of business is to fire Sheldonkeith. Just immediately be like, get out. We're not doing this again. I mean, look, I've said this before. Like, when I was watching the like kind of downfall of the Maple Leafs like three, four years ago and I was just like, this Sheldon Keith guy doesn't fucking have it. You know, I don't think he's a good coach. Certainly not in the playoffs. Just Brandon Shanahan coming into running into Shell and Keith and being like, hey, man, do you still lose in the first round of the playoffs every single year?

And Keith's like, uh, no, not anymore. I pretty much stopped doing that almost entirely. Yeah. So my thing is though, like with him, I don't think this is his fault. Again, like, this is the classic argument of like, why would you just first order of business fire the coach? Like, it doesn't make a lot of sense just in terms of keeping your job. and keeping the boss off your back? You're right.

And I hate that that's such a part of it, but yeah. Well, I'm saying even beyond that, I'm saying, like, I don't think Sheldon Keefe is the problem in New Jersey at all. Like, the vibes have been really bad for, I guess, since they lost, they didn't get Quinn Hughes. The vibes have just been fucking awful. And even before that, like, oh, we're going to try to trade Dougie Hamilton. He doesn't want to go to fucking.

San Jose or whatever. And it's not like they were crushing it before that. Like they missed the playoffs two years ago. They won one playoff game last year. Yeah. So. I'm just saying I don't think that's necessarily a Keefe thing. I think that as time has gone on, I've come around more to the, it was a Tom Fitzgerald thing.

Sure. But you're right. A new GM coming in probably does make a lot of sense, especially since all the good coaches are going to be hired over the next. next week. Yeah, no kidding. So, yeah, they're just in such an interesting spot for me, the devils, because, like, it's not like the division's that hard, you know? It should be pretty easy to get back into it, given some of the core pieces they have

and all that kind of stuff. I just don't know what they think the plan is. Like, what, you know, every GM goes in there. Here's what I do to fix your team. You know, they're not, they're not doing the thing of, I'll only tell you after you hire me, you know? Yeah. So I just don't know what they think the issue is internally, and therefore what that means

for who they want to hire. That's all. Mm-hmm. I'd be really curious to see what everybody, like, says they would do on day one. So that's all. That's all my whole thing with the devils. What about you? You got any crazy takes on what they're going to do here?

Not really. No, I mean, I'm kind of looking at, I'm wondering who else is going to be. Who will be next? Well, the other thing, yeah, well, let me say this too. The other thing is, do you think Brendan Shanahan, after being president of hockey operations or whatever his title was in Toronto, do you think he's like, yeah, I'll take like the, whatever, the downgrading title to just be the GM? I'm thinking Shanahan as a president. Yeah, okay. That's what I think too.

Yeah, sorry, I didn't mean to imply that he'd be the, the GM. I think it's a president's situation. So what do you think? Like, Sunny Mehta is the guy? No, that's, he's the Leafs guy. Don't, knock it off. You could bring Delo back. Now, the Leaf should hire Delo.

That, I know. Hey, Steve, I can't wait for that first press conference. I'm sure you saw it, but yeah, his name was mentioned is in a group of, uh, of Leaf candidates. And, yeah, everybody, everybody just, you know, half a dozen, half a dozen killed reaching for the same Steve Simmons joke. But that's right. It's, uh, it would almost be worth it just to see that, just to see that play out. Absolutely.

Not even a question for me. So. Yeah. Anywho, I guess that's, uh, that's it for huge change. Now, again, Puck Soup curse and all that kind of stuff. Everybody's getting fired in Boston tomorrow, like, you know, 1 p.m. Dude, it ain't going to be Boston, man. No, they're in.

Has anybody had a better glow up this year than Don Sweeney? Oh, yeah. He looks like a genius now because he made a bunch of, like, frankly, not very good roster decisions. Yeah, he, but. His trades have kind of all worked. And he also, I mean, look, man, if you're, if you look around the room and you realize you're the fifth dumbest. guy in the room, find the four guys

dumber than you. Get to work. Absolutely, man. That's what he did. He did. There's no two ways about it. He definitely did exactly that. But yeah, I, you know, I think people are people are going to maybe look back on this Bruin season as a little

bit of everybody got that Elyosarokin bump. You know, like, oh, we're all playing over our heads right now and our underlying numbers aren't very good. Oh, interesting. Anyway, that's probably fine for next year. Like, we're not going to be,

we're not going to be singing Don Swinney's praises at this time next year. It would be my prediction, but. Yep. You may very well be right. Who do you think is next? Because I got a, I got, the last time I got a next coach fired. Yep.

Was on Wednesday. Yes, I got that as well. Patrick Waugh was, I think, 13th. on the list. So could have made some good, yeah, Patrick Wall was 25 to 1 tied with Spencer Carberry.

Whoa. He was behind, among others, Rick Talkin, who it's amazing how fast things can change in a week, right? Because now the flyers are in a spot,

and you're like, well, obviously, I'm talking, might win the Jack Adams. He might. Top three were, not surprisingly, Craig Barruby.

Ryan Huska, Sheldon Keith, number three, then Todd McCollin, then Andrew Burnett. God, Andrew. I can't wait until the day that Andrew Burnett is the longest serving coach in the NHL, which will probably be like six weeks from now. But he's, the guy has been on my top three next coach fired list. And he's going to have like the Barry Trots run. He's been doing the thing from Indiana Jones where he's like diving on. under the swinging blades and dodging the arrows and jumping over the pit full of snakes.

You know, like, he's been doing that for like six years. It's crazy. Everywhere he goes, you're like, surely this is it. And he's like, definitely not. I know how to spell Yahweh. Like, what? Yeah. You got to respect it at a certain point, but.

Absolutely, you do. Yeah. Yeah, to me, I think, let me ask you this because I don't have the email in front of me here. Where's Adam Foote on that list? He was, where I just had it, in the, let's see, he was ninth. He is, sorry, tied for eighth with Scott Arnale at 10 to 1. So I think. This was a week ago, Travis Green is ahead of them.

Right. So I think they've done enough in Winnipeg to at least make you think, okay, Scott Arneal's safe. They're around it in a way. They're six, three and one in their last 10, all that shit. I would normally agree with you, but one of the narratives that seems to be coming out of Winnipeg lately is this team is too loyal and they shouldn't, they can't let this late surge trick them into standards.

standing Pat again. And that's more on the... Now, obviously, I agree with that. Right? Like, you're not going to get me to argue that. But, yeah. It's, uh... I think, I just think, like,

I think I said it last week. They brought in Adam Foot to be the Quinn Hughes whisperer. Well, Quinn Hughes isn't on the team anymore. So what would be the point, you know? It's not like he's doing a good job otherwise. Mm-hmm. But... That's it.

I would not be, it is very rare to see a one and done. But we saw it with Seattle. We did. It wasn't that long ago, you know? Yeah. That's maybe the safest coach in the league right now. We can't go through three coaches in two years. You're actually, you're all set.

I had it pointed out to me that you and I trashed Seattle like constantly. And then like two weeks ago, we were both like, well, I think I said we have to to accept that Seattle's make the playoffs and you grudgingly agreed. And they're like 0 and 17 since then. So, we did it.

We got them. Look, none of this is betting advice. I guess what I would say. You know, like this is all... This is the only hockey media where it's not betting advice.

No, it isn't. Our betting advice is don't bet. I did a mail bag for the Frozen 4 on the Patreon yesterday. We'll talk about the Frozen 4 in a bit as well. And someone was like, a few months ago on the mailbag, I asked like if people are undervaluing North Dakota and should I get them at like 25 to 1 and now they're in the Frozen 4, you know?

And I, because I said, this is not betting advice, but yeah, you should bet on those guys. And then the guy said, do I owe you 10%? And I said, that feels a little light, but yeah, you do. let's make it 20 So yeah They're you know North Dakota is a good team Anyway why don't we take a break

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Sean, do you want to start with the West or the East for playoff race discussion? Let's start with the West. The West it is. There are three teams, as of Tuesday morning, who are locked into a football. playoff spot. They're all north of 100 points at this point. And, you know, no surprise here. It's Colorado, Dallas, and Minnesota.

Dallas and Minnesota basically jockeying to see which one gets home ice in their series. Otherwise, Colorado winning the West by a fucking mile. And then you get to everybody else. Sean, how many teams do you think Besides those top three teams in the Western Conference, have a positive goal differential out of the other 13. I'm going to say probably Vegas and Edmonton and probably Anaheim, and that's it. Anaheim minus 14.

Tough break for you. Oh, no. There is a third team, and somehow it's Utah, and they are plus 30. But they only have 86 points. Yeah. Same number as Vegas, a team that just fired their coach. Hockey's funny like that. Everybody else is at least a minus 13 goal difference.

And that team is the Winnipeg Jets. Then you get Anaheim and then, you know, a ton of teams. Then you drop into the 20s for teams like Nashville, L.A., and then the 30s, San Jose. St. Louis, Seattle, et cetera. So, you know, you say the East is a pillow fight. These are a lot of bad teams, three of which are looking like they're going to make the playoffs. Yeah.

It's crazy. And it, so I, the, the playoff odds I was looking at for the newsletter. this morning, which should be in your inbox by the time you hear this. Wow. Give it a read. Edmonton, Vancouver, or sorry. Edmonton, Vegas,

Anaheim, Armin, Utah's in. So it's basically one spot. It's nice and simple in the West. East gets a little weird because of the multiple spots that are only available to certain teams. West is nice and simple.

And it feels even a bit simpler after last night Because we The two teams with the best odds Were the Kings and Predators And they played last night LA wins Kind of in a shootout So wait a minute

The Kings went to a Went to overtime This is gonna buy that They should just skip Regulation and just start This is they already Have the record Like as of last week

they had the record for most overtimes in a season. I believe they've gone to overtime 31 times or something like that, 32 now? How's that possible? It's possible because every team in the league is playing for overtime every single night. Yeah, you're right. Because our garbage stupid point system

has absolutely torpedoed the integrity. Folks, when he's right, he's right. And he's right, he's right. It's that simple. But yeah, it's, um, it's kind of looking like the Kings. Well, just by games played and the number of points and how bad everybody else is. The Kings have the inside track here. Yes.

For sure. Um, doesn't look like they're going to be able to work their way into the top three in the Pacific. Nope. So it's them Nashville or San Jose is what it really feels like. Yeah, we're Winnipeg. still sort of kind

ever so slightly in the race and yeah as we said with when we were talking about the the tiebreaker

in the east the kings lose the tiebreaker to everybody to every team in the history of the national hockey league

basically yeah there yeah there teams back when there were 24 games on the schedule

still have more regulation wins the kings are one point up, but really think of them as being half a point up. Yes, that's right. Which in theory means San Jose being the only team to have a game in hand out of that group.

I mean, I guess do we still have to consider St. Louis in the race? Well, they're six, two, and two in their last ten. They would probably have to make the push. Yeah, you're probably right. Yep. And even 6 and 0 gets them to 90 points, which is... Right. Maybe enough.

Maybe not, right? It's shaking out. I don't know. It's tough, right? Because you look at, I find, you look at, oh, it teams three points back, four points back, and you go, that doesn't seem that much. But then you start figuring out, like, what records teams would have to have, and it's, it's tough. The, now Winnipeg, I believe, has got, they've got the sharks in their last.

game. Okay, I thought they had, for some reason, I thought they had the Kings at some point, like a little more control of, but apparently not. So it's... The Kings have, I think the projections have the Kings about 60%.

And everybody else dicing up the rest of it. That seems about right. Far from a sure thing, but if that game last night had gone the other way, and certainly if it had been a regulation game, it would have had much, much more impact.

Yeah, well, I mean, you say, if you're a Kinspan, a regulation game is one that ends after 60 minutes. Well, you say, like, if it had been a regulation game, this is like saying, well, if the sky had been purple, you know, we'd be, we'd be all set. Exactly. So it's, uh, it's one of those things where it's like, why even bother trying to predict it? Who knows? And also, who cares?

Oh, congratulations to Los Angeles Kings who made the playoffs in Anse Copa Tars, final season. Here you are about to get absolutely fucking smoked by the Colorado Avalanche. That one is- Because that's who they're playing. Like they're not catching Utah. Utah's not going to end up in that spot in all likelihood, right? It would really take a collapse by Utah for them to lose that spot.

And a team like stepping up big time as well, not just the collapse. So. I'm always fascinated. Like this time of year, I start thinking ahead to like predicting the predictions. And I'm always like, okay, because we all know. Everybody knows when you sit down to do your playoff, quote, unquote, predictions. You never pick all the teams you actually think are going to win. Because the teams you think are going to win are all the favorites.

And you can't just put, nobody puts a bracket out where it's like, oh, look, I have, I have the number one team in each division in the conference final. You got to do some upsets. And I love to kind of look at it and go, where is that going to wind up? I honestly think if the Kings play the abs, it might be 100% Colorado across the board. Like every major publication, you know, when ESPN does it and suddenly there's 47 people and you're like, how are there that many people? Right. Yep.

I think that one's going to be, and the athletic and everyone else, 100% Colorado. I think we might have done it. There'll be one guy on Twitter who'll pick the Kings. And knowing, you know, knowing how ESPN works, there'd be like, you know, Jonathan Quick, though, they love bigging up Jonathan Quick over there on ESPN. They do. They do. And then the Kings will win at five, of course. Yeah, of course.

But goes without saying. So I just looked it up and playoff status. which is a good website for this kind of thing in my experience. They also are one of the few that also does it for the NCAA hockey tournament. So that's why I know about them, basically. But they have it as 5% chance Utah ends up in eighth and 3% chance they somehow miss the playoffs. Okay. Pretty likely to be seventh.

Honestly, a bit higher than I would have thought. Yeah, I agree. But Utah has, they would have to collapse and they won three in a row. And by the way, can we just, oh, I don't even know if I should say this. I've already started. I'm doing the two outs in the ninth inning thing. Mm-hmm. The Utah Mammoth have not had a single shootout all year.

That rocks. Good for them. That's so cool. We can do this, Utah. Focus. You got to do two things. Number one focus. Number two, don't play the Kings.

Yeah, that's exactly right. They're going to wrestle you down to that level. They're going to make you sink to their level, you know? Hold your goalie with 30 seconds left in a lot. Let them fucking win. Yes. Don't do it into your own net. Do not sully yourself.

And again, no shootouts this year and they're a plus 30. That's fourth in the Western Conference. That's really good. Shout out to them. I didn't think they were going to. to make the playoffs this year. They've just been a very good team. Not like a great team, but a very good team

basically since the word go. I don't, I can't think of too many times where I was like, oh, this is it. This is the Utah collapse. It's happening. You know, they probably had like a three game losing streak or something like that, but everybody does. They started off eight and two.

Yeah. And everybody was like, here it is. We've been waiting. This is the end. And then they just sort of, it wasn't like a collapse, but they just kind of were just, what I thought they would be. Yeah.

Yeah. But then they did, they did grab it back. Better record away than at home, too, for them. Good for them. That's great. I don't know. I don't have a ton else to say about this. Let me ask you this.

Pacific Division. One point separates first from third. I don't know that it's super matters. You know, like, you're not, you're, this isn't like a, like a situation where you're saying, oh, I'd rather play, like if you're Carolina and you have it locked in, you're like, okay, well,

now I don't have to play like the penguins or whatever. You're not running scared from anybody in this division, right? Give me your one through three right now. What do you think it looks like? For the Pacific? Yeah. I'm going to say Edmonton, although Vegas is coming on very strong right now.

are. And then I'm going to say Anaheim Vegas, probably with, or sorry, Anaheim Vegas in round one, probably with Vegas with home ice. Okay. So you're saying Vegas, too. That I tend to agree with that. The ducks are kind of fading. And it looked like, and I was all excited because it, it really looked like that Oilers

Golden Knights first round series was going to be a banger. Because, A, you had two teams with a ton of talent on paper, but also. both of them were like head to win. Absolutely had to win. And now it looks like instead we're going to get it. I mean, an Edmonton, Utah series is a sneaky decent series, but it's... Oh, yeah, for sure. I don't think...

I mean, the ducks could still pull it off, but I don't, I don't think it's going to happen. By the way, I... Speaking of the shootout... Can I just... speaking of the shootout, I just looked it up... No team has ever gone into a full-length season without a shoot. Yeah, I think I, for some reason, I think I knew that. The Oilers did it in a, in the COVID year, which is 50s. Which COVID year?

Okay, the 56 COVID. Yeah, okay, sure. But let me say this. You want to talk about how shootouts play a role in things? Edmonton Oilers, 0 and 3 in the shootout. Vegas Golden Knights, 1 and 7 in the shootout. Anaheim Ducks 8 and 0 in the shootout. If they're even 500, we're like, these guys suck, they're not making, like, if they go four and four, I'm saying, we're going, these guys are an awful team, they stink.

And instead we're like, they might be a problem in the first round for somebody. Yeah, I don't know, you know. Overly reliant on that kind of thing. How many teams have gone undefeated in the shootout in a season? It can't be, it's got to be single digits or, or. it's that... Zero? Maybe it's zero.

Maybe the Ducks will be the first team to do it. Maybe I'm jinks and now. I don't know. I can look it up, but yeah, somebody pointed out to me that, yeah, the flyers are nine and four in the shootout. And apparently, the Flyers have been terrible in the shootout for years. And then this year, they just... Like, it's not... Buffalo also 5 and 0 in the shootout this year.

It's too dismissive to say that a team is... like that shootouts are total coin flips because there is, you know, there's a skill to it and there's, I mean, you get the T.J. Oshy at one end and Nick Suzuki at the other where he just like, Nick Suzuki at this point in a shootout is just like a broken Roomba. He just wanders off in random directions. Let me ask you this.

When I say shootout specialist, like the guy who is the best at shootouts ever, who do you think of? I think a T.J. Oshy and then who was who was the guy at the very beginning? It was a Yokinin, wasn't it? It was Yucin was my answer. Yes, yeah, yeah.

It wasn't only. It was the, um, UC Yokan is my answer. Although that's one of those things where you think that and then you look it up and he was like, you know, 58% or whatever for his career, I'm sure. Like, he just created the impression with maybe like three good shootout goals ever. Sure. That he's the greatest to ever do it.

Well, he, he was good in October. October of 2005, and we're all like, okay, I will never update these priors again. I bet there's a way to look this up. Is this on NHL.com has got pretty good shootouts, that's actually. By the way, 9 and 0 is the record for most wins in a year with no shootout losses. It was the Red Wings in 2016-17 were 9-0. There have been several other teams that have been undefeat. defeated with fewer games. So the ducks are getting close. Let's see here.

Shootout. There's not an easy way to filter out. Peteri Newman was in 10 shootouts. This is a guy you've never heard of, right? This is the guy I've heard of only because he is the guy who was 8 for 10 career. He's 8 for 10 career. And he's a defenseman. That's right.

It was one of those weird things. But yeah, other than him... Mason McAvish is number two on the all-time list among guys with at least ten attempts. Then Jack Quinn, Coral Marchenko, and Trevor Zegrois. What's Yus Eokinan coming in at? Zegroos makes a lot of sense to me. Of course.

Yusie Okina does not appear to be on the top... 50, but let me, you know what? I'm going to go, I'm going to find him. Okay. I'm going to find you, UC. Thank you. Maybe I'm not going to find you. Dude is not, uh, oh my God, are we going to find out that UC Yolkin and actually wasn't

very good. This is what I'm saying. Like, he created this impression for himself and then maybe he's not that good at shootouts. Okay, hold on. I'm on his hockey reference page here. I think they've got metrics. Penalty. No, I don't want penalty shots.

All right, we're going to get to the bottom of this. We'll continue, but this is going to be, we're doing some investigative journalism here. I'm also Googling furiously. Just furiously. Neither one of us paying any attention to what we're saying. On Austin Matthew Stray just slips by on Twitter. Career 37 for 96. That's not even good.

That's not. But to your point, Sean, this is what happened. 0.5.06, he went 10 for 13, and we all said, that's it. There it is. We're done here. This is the greatest shootout guy of all time. We have found the king. And then he scored 27 more shootout goals ever.

It is like 12 more years in the league or whatever the fuck it was. That's really funny. And he did. I mean, he has 37 goals, but that is, even that is not that high. He trails Brad Boys. And again, that's, that's 27, but 12 were in the first season. He trails a Radam Verbata. I mean, and of course he trails T.J. O'Shee.

I mean, that it goes. That guy's famous for the shootout. And Franz Nielsen. Okay, he's not. You know who the top two all-time shootout goal guys are? No, I don't. Patrick Kane and Jonathan Taves. You know what?

I should have known Patrick Kane. I wouldn't have guessed Jonathan Taves. But it just goes to show those mid-2010s Chicago teams shootout merchants. Yep. Bullshit. Not actually very good. Nope. Anyway, the East playoff race.

Oh, I forgot to say, there was a baby born at the Oilers game. Is that anything? At least somebody delivers in Edmonton in the spring. Ladies and gentlemen, we got them. That's it. It's over. Anyway, yeah, the East Playoff race here. Looking like, okay, so the locks currently with like the little X next to their names on NHL.com.

Tampa, Buffalo, Montreal, Carolina. How about those fucking Buffalo Sabres? They did it. They did it. And you're missing a team there because Montreal is also clinched. Oh, did I not say Montreal? Montreal. Okay.

So basically if you have 100 points, you're in. League-wide, that's true. And then Pittsburgh, I think, has become like a 99% or... Yeah, Boston and Pittsburgh are both, you know, near locks, I guess you would say, borderline locks. Where... Just the passage of time is probably enough to get them in, yeah. By the way, just because we probably won't discuss it elsewhere, Sabres have clinched, had already clinched,

but they beat the lightning last night to move back into a tie for first place. Really screwed me on my freaking Jersey mics. Oh, did you, did it cost you if that hurts? Yeah. That does hurt. Did you see, two things, did you see the Holmberg penalty box injury? Yes, I did.

And did you see John Cooper's comments about the officiating? I saw John Cooper's comments about the penalty box, not the officiating. So if people didn't see it, um, nasty situation where Ponnis Homer gets knocked into the boards on a somewhat innocuous play, but the penalty box door was not like securely all the way closed.

It wasn't latched. Yeah. And so, uh, he ended up, uh, getting sort of a nasty. I, I don't know if we know exactly what the injury scenario is, but it was, it was an ugly.

It looked bad for sure. And John Cooper. basically said that, you know, whoever's, that guy probably shouldn't have a job anymore, which is hard to argue. But Cooper did a, he did what may have been the only good coaching

rant about refs that I've heard. Okay. In that he, he, and I'm paraphrasing him here, but he was basically like, come on, man, this, they called everything. He's like, everybody came to the building tonight to see like a good game quote, like basically saying

these two teams hate each other. They had a bunch of fights last time. Everybody was here to see like a good, to see an entertaining game and the refs wrote it by calling everything to keep it under control. And he was like, and that game sucked. That wasn't like a fun game for anyone to watch.

And I was like, you know what? Maybe you should win the Jack Adams. He's back. He's so sick, man. I think maybe that rant gets him the Jack Adams, honestly. All these GMs are like, yeah, they shouldn't call any penalties. Lock them in. Or is it the broadcasters?

Broadcasters. It is the broadcasters. Yeah. I always get that mixed up between that and the Vesna, which of course is voted on by the GMs. And the GMs get to vote on their own award as well because. Who watches the watchman? That's what I always say. That's exactly it.

But yeah, so. Yeah, like I said, Boston and Pittsburgh in. Boston, Pittsburgh, and so two spots, one wild card and third place in the metro, which again is important because it keeps the door open for the islanders and I guess technically. Too soon. Now, John Cooper's mad at you for keeping the door open. Now, you're going to get fired. Don't, don't, don't fire me, John. Come on.

I just said you're cool. Yeah. How are you going to do that to me now? To state what should be obvious, but given the weird format, maybe not. Third place in the Metro, only available to Metro teams. So if, for example, if, well, unlike the wild card, which is, you know, the, the, it's wild. The Metro Wildcard spot is available to everyone in the east. So in a world where let's say,

and this is stretching things for one of these teams, but let's say Ottawa and Detroit each run the table the rest of the way, they can't both get in. Right. Even if they both, well, what if, you know, if Ottawa wins their last five, they're going to have 100 points. Detroit would get to 98. Well, too bad.

What if they blow past the Islanders and the Flyers? It doesn't matter. Only room for one. So it's as if Detroit fans needed any worse news. By the way, who's not tuning in to see which team refuses to win that Detroit Columbus game tonight? That's must-see TV for me. That is. Just two teams absolutely refusing to fucking win.

Totally flatlining. And yet, whoever wins that game will move into a playoff spot. at least very temporarily. Yeah. Yeah. Islanders have lost four straight in regulation. Yeah. Detroit.

Plummeting. Columbus three straight. I mean, can we talk about Washington in the past tense? Like, we should. Yeah, I think we can. Yeah. Well, okay.

So let's go kind of team by team here. The Ottawa senators. Right? You know what? Let's start with the flyers actually. Ottawa's making it. It feels like they're making. It does feel like they're making it. You know, there's some drama there lately because, of course, there is. It's the Ottawa senators. Sure. But I'll tell you what that podcast appearance by Keith Kachuk last week, kind of solidified for me.

Brady's out of there, man. I know he was, I know he was talking about the Panthers. Brady's fucking out of there. That's my, that's my big theory here. Yeah. And I don't,

I don't think too many. Now, do you, do you think he's out of there this summer? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know,

but it's, it's certainly, it's certainly possible. That whole podcast is so weird. Did you, did you see like, the video clip of it? Yeah.

I get to... I don't listen to it for Christ. I get that they were in Florida and all that, but like, to see, like, Matthew Kuchuk and Brady Kachuk sitting there in a room filled with Panthers gear. Mm-hmm. And, like, nobody even, like, knocked out a senator's logo on the color printer

and taped it up anywhere. Like... They should have. That would have been a funny visual. It would have been. But, like, just nothing. Like, I get... Nothing.

Nothing. Matthew's house or like, but just put, I don't know, man. Well, it's Brady's future employer. What does he care? This has happened. I don't, like, I, I'm, I'm, I'm one million percent convinced that this is going to take place this summer. It, I think it depends a little bit on where Florida's pick ends up. Like, if it's top three or whatever, maybe not, but otherwise, you know, Brady could chuck for the seventh overall and maybe like a fifth round pick or something like that.

Lock it the fuck in. man. Again, it might get a little more difficult if they win the lottery, which knowing this fucking league, they definitely will. But that's just, that's how I see it playing out. But I just don't think Brady wants to be in fucking Canada anymore. Everybody got mad at them, you know? Fuck you.

I'll take my, I'll take my business elsewhere. That's what I think is. I wouldn't be shocked. I don't think it's anywhere. close to a lock, but, yeah. But in the meantime, hey, they're going to make the playoffs, good for them. They are, they certainly do seem like

they're going to make the playoffs. And also, to their credit, like, you know, I made a reference to them winning like two out of five or whatever it was. They had a very tough stretcher schedule. They did. No two ways about it. They survived it.

And now the rest of the way is not, it should be pretty manageable. Again, you know, there's a lot of teams... But they are the senators, so that's where the should be becomes a little tricky, in my opinion. They are, but... So they can...

Again, and it's tough for Ottawa because they can, like, they can't pass Philadelphia, but Philadelphia can pass that. Like, you know, it's this weird thing, but they've got home to Tampa tonight home to Florida. So maybe we'll get another episode of the podcast.

Maybe this one will have. And then on the road, Islanders, which is, that's the big one. Consequential, yeah. But then they finish with New Jersey and then the Leafs. So two teams that should be. Wouldn't it be fucking funny

if the Leafs ended their season? It would be very funny. It would be very funny. I can't imagine it because this Leafs team is so done. Oh, yeah. But it would be. extraordinarily funny. Wouldn't it be funny if the Toronto Marley's ended their season?

Maybe that's a better way to put it. In Ottawa, too, that game. The final, well, I don't think it's the final night of the season, the penultimate night of the season. So it's possible that game ends and then the senators have to go watch TV the next night. But I certainly put it this way. Of all the teams, I like their odds far better. And so do the odds makers and the projections and all of that have all got them at basically like a 70 to 80% chance, which feels about right.

You got any thoughts on the flyers? I'm impressed. I kind of had written them off. Oh, I think you, me and everybody we know. Is that that movie? Something like that. It's a movie title. from the early 2000s.

Miranda July, maybe directed that one. Anyway. Yeah, they're a team where it's very difficult to figure out if they're any good because I personally don't really think so. Their numbers aren't very good, but they've just been really good, like basically since the Olympic.

break ended. And I was looking at some stuff. You know, you know Sam Erson, the guy who's been like starting all their games lately for them?

Heard of them. You know what is save percentages for the season? I do not. 867. This is the guy they're starting in a bunch of must win

playoff games. Or, you know what I mean. Basically playoff games. 867? Seven? This is the guy that you're like, we can't move away from this guy? I don't know about this, man. I know we love, what's that?

Dan Blatter has been pretty good. Yeah, he's an okay. He's an okay, like one of years. I think he's okay, but he's been better than okay this year. I saw somewhere that only two teams are over 900 on the year. You know what? I really do still struggle with, like, I see not, he's got a 906 save for signage. I'm like, yeah, that's acceptable.

Yeah. No, that makes him one of like the 15 best goalies in the world. What? But yeah, no, he's going to split time with the 867 guy for sure. All the big games, 867, man, you're up. So are we, do we, do we think the Flyers are going to do this? I kind of do, yeah. They are at 90 points.

They are one ahead of the Islanders, two ahead of Columbus. And they have a game in here. hand on the islanders, not on Columbus. Columbus and Philly have both played. So again, this can all shift. I love this time of year because you know those little, there's various sites and they'll tweet it out where it's like, if they win tonight, the percentage of them going to the play.

And it's like plus 30% at this point. Yeah, every game, yep. Every game, huge wild swings. Man, is it too early to start getting a little bit hyped about a Pittsburgh Philly first round? I don't think it's too early at all. I think... Look, they could take it from us,

but I think it's worth getting excited for. We didn't mention, by the way, speaking of Pittsburgh, Cindy Crosby guaranteed over a point of game yet again this year. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's a cool stuff. 21 straight seasons.

He's so fucking sick, man. Oh, I'm the best to ever do it. Pittsburgh, Philly. Tampa, Buffalo, Montreal, Ottawa, Bruins, Whalers. Well, we can make this happen. There's not a lot that has to happen for that to play. You're right.

Other than Carolina moving back. Sorry to the fans in Carolina. I just stole your team. But it makes for a better uniform matchup, so I don't know what to tell you. Islanders, we talked about a bunch, so it's hard to say, what the, you know, the impact of the coaching change will be.

Just literally impossible to figure it out. And then we get to Detroit and Columbus, which is two teams that are basically facing very similar situations, where there was a little while there two, three weeks ago, where it's like, lock it in. They're back in the playoffs. We're doing it. This is the stat that I saw about Detroit is on January 25th, they led the division and were 12 points above the playoff cut line. Now they are in sixth place in the division and they are two points below the playoff cut line.

That is an unbelievable collapse. I know they collapse in March, but that is literally like how did that happen? level shit. And I think you can blame the roster. It's not very good. I think you can blame the coach. He's not exactly ringing good results out of guys who need to be producing good results. And you got to blame the GM at this point.

This is a fucking disaster. You gave up a first round pick for a guy who stinks. And now that first round pick might end up in the first round pick might end up in lottery. Wolf, man. This is awful. And I just don't know how there's any justifying it. I know Sean Shapiro, who covers the wings and the stars and obviously works for elite

prospects. He had a thing about like, here's why I think Eisenman safe a week ago, maybe. It feels like all of that is obsolete now because they keep fucking losing. And like he made some, you know, Sean made some good points, of course, about like, why he should, why Eisman should be safe? I don't know how you can say that now, a week later, you know, week and a half, whatever it's been. So in today's newsletter, which should be in your inbox right now, give it a read.

I did the thing where I grabbed one of our beatwriters, so I grabbed Max Baldwin. Yep. And I pointed out that, because I've been trying this year to get to as many of them as I can. And once, and I had already talked to Max a couple months ago about it. And so I was like, ah, should I do it again? And then I went back and I, at the time, this was the end of January, right? The timeline you were talking. I had written, it would take an epic late season collapse for them to miss the playoffs.

Uh-oh. Here we are. And so I asked him, like, about Eiserman. And I'll read his quote. He says, ownership doesn't do much media here in Detroit. I'm still skeptical he would be outright fired by the Illich family. But it collapsed like this in what was billed as a make or breakier could force ownership to explore some manner of front office shakeup.

With a lack of concrete information, it's hard to say anything definitively, but I can at least envision a scenario where he doesn't hold the GM title next year, and that's the first time in seven years I've said that. Man, that's... And with the obvious implication there that he gets booted upstairs, or even boots himself upstairs. But this...

I love the idea that he would be allowed to be like, you know what? I've accomplished all I need to here. I'm going to go actually take an even better job. Yeah. My decision. I mean, the guy, he's an absolute franchise legend. I...

Sure, of course he is. I get it. I absolutely get it, but... This is such a disaster. This is fucking disqualifying. Like, this is... It's straight-off. upfireable.

If he's anybody, if he's, I was going to make a joke and say, if he's Sergei Fedorov, right? But it's inexcusable that this keeps happening. And again, this looked like the year. Now, does this coincide with like the very slight decline in Morrit Cider's play? Sider was an MVP candidate for me,

like halfway through the year. and now he's been more what you think of Mo Cider as is like a good defenseman. And with that goes, okay, bye-bye, season's over. Thank you for coming, everybody. But hey, Alex DeBrenk, it's going to break 40 goals. So that actually worked out perfect, you know. It is, you know, it's unbelievable. Not only did they trade their first round pick for Justin Foll.

Mm-hmm. And that pick is not protected of, you know, missing the playoffs or anything like that. Don't forget, they made their big goalie trade. They did. Last summer, finally, went and got John Gibson. In their last... And Gibson's been fine, to be clear. He's been fine.

But, I mean, it's... He's been fine. In their last... They're probably about average goaltending-wise as a team. I'm going to do to you. you do to me. I'm going to throw a question at you make you guess. And you're hopefully going to do what I do and get it horrifically

wrong. In their last 26 games, so this goes back to right around that time frame. On January 21st, they beat the Maple Leafs in overtime to run their win streak to three games. In the 26 games since, how many times

do you think they have won back-to-back games? I'm going to guess one. Look, man. It couldn't have been zero. Exactly one time. And it was a couple weeks ago. They beat Calgary and Montreal back to back.

They were the last team to have beaten Montreal up until very recently. But that is it. And since then, they've won two out of eight, and all six losses have been regulation losses, including one to Ottawa, one to Philadelphia, although they did beat Philadelphia. They lost to the Rangers one, man. In Madison Square Gardens,

the Rangers never even score on home ice. The Rangers are openly tanking, and to lose that one is, that is crushing. It's brutal. It's unbelievably bad. Now, they've got Columbus and Philadelphia this week. Mm-hmm. They certainly do.

So, you know, they can flip it. They've got New Jersey after that. Then they finish at Tampa, at Florida, and who knows? You never know. The last couple games of a season, you never know. Because you can be like, oh, no, we're playing Colorado. Yeah, Colorado might be resting everyone for the playoffs. You know, in their case, you know, Tampa, Tampa might be fighting for the top seed,

trying to avoid Buffalo and Montreal. That might be a must-wing game for Tampa. Or Tampa might not remotely care. hard to say. Yeah, I wouldn't imagine they do. But that's either way. So is it fair to say that tonight Columbus, Detroit is an elimination game? Yeah, I think that's right.

It's a game seven for. Well, let me say this. Not if it goes to overtime. Yeah. Sure. If it's in regulation, whoever loses, I think you can stick a fork in them for sure. But yeah. So let me ask you this.

It felt like Rick Bonas had this fucking job locked down. If he wanted to extend. Ask that exact question. Yeah. If he wanted to extend, which, you know, maybe he didn't because he said he was done coaching and then they got him off the beach. But if he wanted to extend, they were like, here's a blank check. You fill it out, you know. Now there is, even if they make the playoffs, there's no way they can bring him back.

because it really you get I think so because it's like the playoffs if they make the playoffs he fucking fell ass backwards into let me put it this way if if his record was the same

and it didn't involve like whatever winning seven games in a row to get back into it you know what I mean like if it was uh let me quickly pull up what his record is since he took over here Rick bonus is 19 8 and 5 since he took over. If they spread those 19 wins out

over the entire remainder of the season instead of going like, we are 18 and 1 and whatever the numbers were, and then absolutely shitting the bed in the last two weeks of the season like they have, I think it's a very different conversation than, sorry, Rick, you shit the bet on us, man.

I don't know what to tell you. You know what I mean? That's kind of how I, I think if he can pull them out of the dive I well yeah if they win four games in a row down the stretch I guess that's true but I don't have a lot of faith in that happening but you know it's interesting just I personally would be saying especially because like he's had some weird comments lately about guys not trying or whatever and it's like oh they were all trying when you were

winning. But they stopped now. They stopped for your job as the coach is to make sure they try. I don't know what to tell you, man. This seems like a you problem as well. I just tell them how to do everything good and sometimes some of the guys won't do it. It's crazy. Yep.

I don't know, man. I wonder about that. I wonder if Zach Werenski's Norris could be on the line here because he seems to have He seems to have weirdly emerged as not just a candidate, not just the favorite, but now, like, he's the overwhelming favorite. Yes. Which seems a bit off to me, but okay. Man, I don't, I don't know. I kind of can't wait for the game tonight.

Like, I really, I'm not joking when I say this is must-see TV. This is, this is, they're going to have Dylan Larkin out there in the damn Rachel here. cut. This is how must see TV it is. Okay. Exactly what's going to happen. I used to break at doing the thumb dance and just Rick Bone is going, did I do that? That's ABC though.

I think that might be the wrong network, but that's still. Was the Fresh Prince ever must see TV? I feel like MustCTV was Thursdays. And in my recollection, the Fresh Prince was a Monday show. Am I right about this? I don't believe it was a Thursday show for very much. It could, you know, maybe they slid it in there. But no, must-see TV was...

Seinfeld Friends, the single guy, of course. Yeah. Caroline in the city. Carolina City. Was Blossom in there as part of that? You know, I think that was an ABC show as well. Ah, okay. Let's see here.

I still wouldn't mind seeing all the Blue Jackets doing the blossom dance at the start of... Me watching them blow it. Whoa. There it is. There was one episode of the Fresh Prince on must see TV Thursday. Really? November 5th, 1992. My gosh.

Take advantage of a huge audience according to Wikipedia. It might be the one where Will says, how come he don't want me or whatever. I get emotional when I think about that episode, man. That might be the one. Anyway. What are we talking about? Probably wasn't important.

All right. You got any points? No, no, no. Well, there's one other thing. You brought this to my attention right before the show started. I hadn't heard fucking word one about this. Now, granted, I've been in the college hockey bubble here for the last little while. But apparently there is a rumor that Alex Ovechkin will be retiring imminently.

I had no idea about this. I don't know how I missed this. Feels like a big deal. And obviously, you know, he's 40 years old. He's in the last year of his contract. He's broken the goal's record and done all of that. And now it certainly looks like the capitals will not make the playoffs. And the rumor going around is that it could be, this could be,

that there could be an announcement coming at some point. And if you look at the schedule, interestingly enough, they've got a home-and-home this weekend with, of all teams, the Pittsburgh Penguins. In Pittsburgh Saturday, home on Sunday. It's not their last game of the season, but that's their last home game of the season. And I mean, you can, you don't need to have much of an imagination to picture the Crosby Ovechkin, you know, goodbye. The storyline that would play out there. Sid might get so emotional he smiles.

He might. Or cracks him over the head with a, I don't know, steel chair. That would honestly be pretty sick. I know. Ovechkin does the Mark Henry fake retirement thing on Cid. Comes out wearing like the salmon. Don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about. I actually don't.

This is, this is an era of wrestling. This is, this is when Mark Henry, they did like a whole tearful retirement and John Cena came out and gave him the bell and everything. And then he, like, just body slam scene and was like, I'm not retiring, you idiot. I just. That's actually pretty sick. It was pretty. I'm frankly not familiar with that era of WWE or any wrestling, quite frankly, at all. Dude, you've gone back and watched.

There was so much good stuff. There was the Mark Henry thing. That was it. That was all you missed. I just, I got you all caught up. Yeah. So anyways, I mean, we don't know if, and I'm not, this is, when I say, you know, rumors are, like, it's not like there's, I'm not plugged into anything. I'm just talking about the same rumor mill that everyone else has access to, but that seems to be, there seems to be at least some murmurs that if this is it, we might find out this week rather than midway through the off season.

and he just kind of says he'd. And then that doesn't mean he couldn't go to the KHL or whatever, but that his NHL run could be in an end. Crazy. I mean, it makes sense, but I always said what I need from Alex Ovechin, a thousand career regular season goals. You must do it. But he's...

He got to a thousand total. Yes. I don't think he's getting to a thousand regular season. No, it doesn't look at... Yeah. He did get... He got to 30 again this year. 72 away is a few too many, I would say.

They really fucked them on these lockouts and COVIDs, you know? He'd be there. He'd fucking be there right now in all likelihood. It's crazy. I'm like looking at his... Or he'd be close enough that he'd come back for next season anyway. Looking at his hockey reference page and it's like, I'm like, what does it mean when something's in gold?

Oh, okay. The best ever. That's the all-time leader, and there's like multiple. All-time leader in goals, power play goals, game-winning goals, and shots on net. But shots on net is a stat that I think only goes back to the 70s. Just a shots merchant, this guy. And yet career series. Really just a compiler.

Just a compiler. It's true. Just another Marlowe. That's... He led the league in shots. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Eleven times in 21 years. He led the league in shots more than he didn't.

So sick. How many Rocket Rescharts is this? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. Nine rocket Richards. You want to talk about Unbreakable Records. I think that's going to be fucking one of them. That sure... I mean, it's...

To do it for as long as he has done it is crazy. Because there was a time... He also had multiple 50 goals seasons that didn't win the rocket. There was a time 15 years ago where you would have gone... Oh, it's going to be Ovechkin and Stamcoes are going to be the guy.

And then Stamkels faded. And then even a year ago... Ovechkin and Matthews. Matthews. And now Matthews looks like, you know, he's... I don't know what Austin Matthews is. anymore, but I don't think he's

on, I don't think he's got Ovechkin nervous about the career goals record. Now, who knows, because Ovechkin had that little dip for a couple years too. But, oh man. Anyways, worth keeping an eye on. Do we hear anything?

I would assume I don't really have anything to base this on, but I'd assume we hear about it this week. Like, he doesn't seem like the sort of guy to just retire, you know, he's not doing the retirement. Tour. And it's also possible, as we said, Washington's kind of on the outskirts of the

playoff race, so they may not want to dip into any. Like, obviously, if Washington wins a few more games than they're one point out of the playoffs, is he going to sit out against Columbus if that game is for a playoff game, or for a playoff spot, that's the last game of the season in Columbus? No. I don't think so.

So maybe, maybe that. That's what we're waiting on. But anyways, there's buzz about it. Yeah. I hadn't heard. It's very cool. And then one last thing here. The Frozen Four is on Thursday and Saturday, NCAA championships, of course.

And I'm really excited, Sean. I think I mentioned last week. This is a Frozen Four between the four teams with the most NCAA tournament victories ever. and the way the bracket shook out, it's number three and four versus number one and two in the Thursday games. And then, you know, whatever happens, happens on Saturday's game. But this is just an awesome field for the Frozen Four.

Like Wisconsin kind of came out of nowhere to beat Michigan State, who is the number two or three team in the country for most of the year. But they're the only underdog. Denver is, I think actually Denver was technically an underdog, but they started very slowly and since probably like December have been maybe the best team in the country. Michigan, the number one team in the country for most of the year. Certainly the team that when I saw them in October, I was like, that's a team that's

winning the national championship. Those guys are unbelievable. And then North Dakota is. the other team. I haven't North Dakota, the only team in the Frozen Four I haven't seen live this year. So I, you know, harder to get a real good impression, but they look very, very good. If I had to say who's the most likely to win, I would probably go in order, Michigan, North Dakota, Denver, Wisconsin. This is not betting advice. But Michigan and Denver, I kind of think as even though that's the semi-final, I kind of think that's the national title game.

Okay. The hottest team in the country since December versus the best team in the country since October, in my opinion, versus two teams that have had some ups and downs this year, let's say, about North Dakota and Minnesota, Wisconsin. Minnesota's had its own problems. But that would be my guess. And then also, of course, this weekend, you get the, the Hobie. Baker, the Mike Richter Awards, the Tim Taylor for National Rookie of the Year. And there's a lot to stew on in those. You can read my article that I just had published while we were recording about this very subject.

But I think it's a pretty wide open race for all three awards, honestly, which is cool. So yeah, why don't you hit them with the plugs? let's get out of here. By me at the athletic, I've got, I'll be on the podcast tomorrow on the athletic hockey show. Newsletter is out. I've got a piece coming up probably tomorrow. I'm going to take a look at every team's best individual season

they've ever had by a player on a year. They miss the playoffs. Okay. Because, you know what, just because you miss the playoffs doesn't mean the season stunk and nothing good came out of it or any of that. nonsense. It's still worth celebrating. Yeah, sure. Yeah, sure. And more to come after that. And then next week we'll get into all of the kind of pre-playoff stuff.

And we'll have the playoff contest. We'll be back. And we'll do bandwagon rankings and Ogwax and all that stuff. So that's one more week to go. And then for me, you head over to RelieProspects.com. I will be doing all the Frozen Four coverage you want, including, as I just mentioned, my annual and very, very, very in-depth comparison of who's going to win the Hobie, the Richter, and the Tim Taylor, and who should. I have a pretty good track record, borderline perfect, I think, of guessing who is going to win those awards, even if I don't necessarily agree with them.

And then I tell you, here's who should win. and why. So that's over there on Elite Prospects right now. You can check that out. And then on Thursday morning, my, my super in-depth Frozen 4 preview will also publish, and then I'll have coverage over the rest of the weekend of everything else. So lots going on with all that. This is, it's the Frozen 4 weekend.

It's what it's all about. So do that. And then Patreon.com slash Puck Soup, all kinds of bonus episodes, including, as I mentioned, earlier, I did a bonus NCAA mailbag. That's on top of all the other bonus episodes that will be coming your way this month. But I got to get on the other side of the Frozen Four before I do anything on that front. So thank you for listening to this show and subscribing to the Patreon if you do that.

And that's it. Have a good one. Bye, bye.