Puck Soup - Our 2020 Stanley Cup Predictions

Episode Date: July 30, 2020

The boys break down the Stanley Cup Playoffs, including qualification round picks and who will play for the Holy Grail at the end. Plus, John Chayka quits the Coyotes, life inside the bubbles, initial thoughts on how games look and sound in the "hub" arenas, player fights inside hotels, which NHLer will cure coronavirus and an intense debate about the best and worst bakery products.

Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slapshots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to what if you commute. We also cover movies, TV shows, it's and tunes. It's your weekly bowl of hockey and nonsense. I'm Greg Wyshinski of ESPN, the worldwide leader in sports played in front of no fans. I'm Ryan Lambert from the thing you're listening to. Oh. Sean McAnew from The Athletic.

It is. Yes, from The Athletic. And you're in Puck Soup. Before we get to playoff previews, which obviously are going to take up the glut of the podcast today, because we all know that you want us to, you know, prognosticate all of the series and whatnot. We should probably talk about a story that is almost like a perfect Puck Soup

story if it had any pop culture relevance. It's a story of analytics and catiness between the Arizona Coyotes and general manager John Chaka. All right. I'm going to stop you right there. It's not a story about analytics. Well, listen, let's begin there. I know that there's been some pushback from the mainstream media, the lame stream media, as I call them, that. John Chaco was never really embraced by the analytics community. When in reality, he was never really embraced by the analytics community. Like, there was always this sense of, like, him as a snake oil salesman. The analytics community didn't feel like he proved, showed his work. I've talked to at least one person that saw a paper that either Chaker or Statleiths had put out

regarding a pretty high profile trade and it was a mess. So there was always a sense that although he was seen as the harbinger of an analytic approach to hockey, one, his analytics were never really embraced by the majority of the community. Well, how could we embrace them? He keeps him secret. That's the point. And two, there's kind of been some evidence that maybe. his approach to the coyotes wasn't all that analytically based?

Well, I mean, look, the point of analytics, quote unquote, you know, is to find inefficiencies in how players are evaluated and exploit those inefficiencies. Can you think of a single contract, the coyotes have signed since John Chaco was the GM that did that? Because I saw a lot of contracts where it's like, oh, you know, we think this guy could be really good three years from now. So we're going to start paying him like $4.5 million now. And then three years from now, it'll probably be worth it.

Or, you know, a bargain or whatever you want to say. I think that's an excellent point. You know, when all this shit broke down this week or last week, my first thought was, this seems like a lot of trouble being put in by a team to try to retain a general manager who needed a global pandemic to make the playoffs. Like, there's been, like, there's a lot of people that are under contract on the coyotes. Like, he was giving credit for kind of signing your, you know, Christian Dvorax for several years. And your Jacob Chikrin's for several years.

And, like, every time I looked at that roster, I just said to myself, it's great that all these guys are under contract, but, like, is the core of this team actually any good? No. Right. So that was always the issue there. But Ryan, what was your take when you saw the announcement from the Coyotes that he had quit before the playoffs? I mean, I guess that it was weird that he would do that right then and there. And then, you know, because there was initially anyway, very little other information, everybody was like, what the hell is going on out there?

It wasn't even clear. It wasn't even clear if they fired him, you know, right away. So, yeah, it was, it was strange. it was very, very strange. Sean, strange, yes? Yep, very strange. And it's, I mean, the idea, when did this all break? It was last Friday.

Last Friday. The classic Friday news dump. Right, yeah, the Friday news dump. I mean, if I had woken up on Friday and you had told me that by the end of the day, John Shaky is not going to be the GM in Arizona, I wouldn't have been shocked because there had been. signs that it was heading in this direction. The timing would have struck me as odd just before we had into the postseason. But especially, we had already heard the reports about the owner

meeting with Taylor Hall without Jacob being there. And it was pretty clear to see where this was headed. But the way it went down, and particularly that Coyote's announcement, I mean, that you we have seen some ugly breakups in hockey that were still marked with the you know we wish you well in your future endeavors sort of uh sort of announcement and and then everything leaks out through other channels and the knives come out but right i mean this statement went like this was as close as like an attempted ethering of a GM as i've ever seen uh from from an NHL team and like and that's what you know I I saw that the thing go by you know coyotes announced their parting ways with John Jake and I was like oh okay and then I saw people reacting the announcement

I was like I got to go read this thing and yeah I mean when they're it like I said on on Twitter the word quit is just about the worst four-letter word that you can have in in hockey yeah and they used it twice in like two paragraphs uh on on their own former GM. So this is clearly very ugly. I know you had a piece where you had kind of more details and more background information on what's going on here. It's a soap opera in a league that claims they don't have them. And I'm interested to see how it turns out. But yeah, that's what really caught my eye was just, you know, Cheka in his statement, he played it the other way, right? He tried to do the everything's nice and we're just, you know, go in our separate

ways. But, man, it's clear that the coyotes, in particular, and I think the owner, are just furious about this. And that's what really grabs my interest, because we don't usually see this play out this publicly, this quickly. Yeah, exactly. So the, the story that Sean referenced that I wrote on Wednesday, and, you know, tried to get as much information from both sides Like, could, Cheika didn't want to talk. I mean, kind of ghosted me. But that's all right. I mean, there's going to probably be a lawsuit at some point.

Not against me, against the coyotes. So what I was able to be. He's also in his 20s. That's just how they communicate. He just sent you a meme and a GIF and that was it. Like, that's, that's his entire comment. Yeah, he's going to be responding to all inquiries through TikTok. The thing that I, so basically what I was able to glean was that he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he,

The devils, apparently, I got it from three sources independent of each other that it was the devils. Came to the coyotes. At least that's the public, you know, response because, like, if they went to Cheka, it'd be tampering. Came to the coyotes and said, we would like to have a conversation with Cheetah. And Alex Morello, the new owner of the coyotes, is like, how about no? He's like, how about I just gave this guy a contract extension in November? He has signed for three years after this one. He is our guy.

I opened up my wallet. I let him spend to the cap. The coyotes and the Leafs are the only two capped-out teams right now in the National Hockey League. Money well spent. And they're both paying Phil Kessel. So that's how much money the coyotes increased. I think last season they were like $7 million under a lower cap ceiling. But now they're a cap team.

And so Morello was like, no, that's all right, we're good. And then Chaka came back and was like, look, actually, this is according to a coyote's team source. Actually, the conversation between me and the devils will just be informational. It's the kind of thing that the former owner of the coyotes had let me do all the time for networking and to gauge the marketplace and yada, yada, yada. So Morello's like, all right, you could talk to these guys. Spoiler warning, it was a job interview. And Chaka comes back about two days later and says, hey, by the way, so this opportunity's come by way.

They want me to kind of come and be like an overseer of several of their teams in their portfolio. And keep in mind that the owners of the devils have a European soccer team. They've got an e-sports team. They've got the Sixers. They've got some minor league teams. They'll have the Mets maybe at one point. And so he's like, I'd like to do this.

This is not a lateral move. I'd like to do this. And the coyotes were like, no. We just signed you to a contract. And we want you to be the GM. That's the why we signed you. And we let you spend all this money and trade, you know, people for Taylor Hall and all this shit. And so this became pretty acrimonious behind the scenes.

It got to be like a lot of sort of like threats and things like that. And so finally it got to a point where the coyotes were like, all right, listen, you know, this might not be a situation that could be solved. How about we reevaluate at the end of the season? Just like, don't go now. Don't cause a ruckus now. End of the season. We'll figure out a way to divorce each other. And Chik is, A, like, no, I don't trust you to do it at the end of the season.

But then the other thing was the coyotes said, we think based on your contract that if you resign, there's a non-compete where you couldn't take another hockey operations job. Now, because this job, hold on, because this job isn't hockey operations, then we should be golden. But that's what we're going to ask for if we let you out after this season, which is that, you know, we just ask that you don't go into hockey operations. Well, turns out the job was very much hockey operations. And this became a real issue for Chaka now to have the team hold the silver his head. And that was the huge breaking point between the two sides.

And then that's sort of what led to his quitting on the eve of the playoffs. Now, what were you going to say, Lambert? I was going to say, yeah, like, you know, I think an argument could be made that it's not real. Like, it's not totally a hockey. It's kind of a hockey operations job. but if he's going to be running the, you know, or doing something for the Sixers and maybe the Mets and minor league teams and all that, like, it's not all the way a hockey operations job. So I think that was the, or that was the way the argument was being presented anyway. Right. And I think that's a fair point.

I also think that, like, it's pretty clear that he was going to be involved maybe more in hockey operations that he was letting on. And so the thing that they felt was that he had sort of misrepresented himself to them based on this. Yeah, and this is, this is common in not just the NHL, but in pro sports, right? If somebody has an opportunity to go to another organization for a bigger role that you're not willing to offer them, then typically you let them do that, right? If your assistant GM has a chance to go an interview to be a GM somewhere, typically, especially during the off-season, you would allow them to do that. If your assistant coach can go become a coach, whatever have you. But if it's a lateral move, if you've signed your coach to a five-year contract,

he can't just come in and go, I want to coach that other team, I resign, and then go sign a contract. That's not how you've made a commitment. You expect that commitment back. So this isn't, I don't think the coyotes are behaving in any way unusually here, not to not to even mention the whole thing about maybe being misrepresented or tricked into letting your your GM go and quote interview with somebody which is...

I don't still don't quite believe that part. Like I feel like these are pretty... It's like your spouse getting asked on a date and you're like I don't want you to go and they're like no it'll be funny I'll just go. It's not a real date. Don't worry and then like you know, it's an informative meeting. Suddenly they're not answering your calls.

I just want to see how dates work. Yeah. Like Fuck off. Exactly. I'll see it's more and more morning. Yeah, I don't quite believe that the coyotes are that naive, but I mean, who's to say? What that situation is? Well, I mean, they think John Jake is a guy worth fighting for, so. It's like, it's like putting.

If you come in and you're told this is how it works around here, maybe. Yeah. I don't know. So the end result of all of this is that the contract dispute will be adjudic. educated by at some point by Gary Betman. And really, who is Gary Betman going to side with here? The 30-year-old general manager who violated draft rules or the guy who bought the coyotes and is intended to maybe try to build a new arena for them.

I can't tell you off the top of my head who might have an advantage in this negotiation. It's a head scratcher. Yeah, but I think there might, I'll meditate on it and try to figure out where Betman might be leaning on this one. Have the coyotes poisoned the well for John Chaker by being going on this assault? Well, at this point, it's like, you know, what is he going to just go back and be like, I love trying to make the coyotes good? You know what I mean?

Like, there's no good, like, outcome for the team at this point, other than, like, letting him go, right? Like, he's not going to be like, oh, yeah, I'm going to be like a really conscientious and responsible steward of this organization. Because, of course, I love working here so much. He'll just go run his fucking Wendy's franchises. Like, he doesn't. Well, I think the question is whether we see him again in the NHL.

He's clearly, yeah, he's clearly done with the coyotes. Are the devil still interested? Will they even be allowed to do? this. By the way, there's a rich history in the NHL of teams tampering with other people's employees and the league having to become involved and there can be fines and there can be, you know, all sorts of things that can come out of this. Are you seeing that like, for example, if like the Leafs hired Ron Wilson before Brian Burke became their general manager, that kind of thing? Yeah, that would, that would be the sort of weird coincidence that would fall into the category of innocent things

and then there would be other things that would not. And by the way, the devil seemed to find themselves in the middle of this way more often than other teams. So this is, they've got blow off the notebook. Many, many, many owners and general managers. It was, man. It's all different. So they'll figure this out. But, yeah, the question is, does, do, if it's assuming it's New Jersey, do they, are they still interested?

Because you're right. If it's not that, let's say either they walk away or Gary Bennett says, you cannot go to New Jersey. that for whatever reason there was something was done wrong in the initial discussions and i'm not going to let this happen right i mean you look at the the guy's resume over the four or five years it was gm i'm not sure there's a ton of teams lining up to hire him just based on that let alone once you've got the that kind of scarlet letter of disloyalty or being acquitter or being someone who walks away, that might be a bit of a tough self. This is honestly, it's honestly like putting, like, like if Chaka put Brad Richardson on his, like, you know, untouchable.

You cannot try, although he did, I guess, give him no move clause. So maybe that's exactly what's going on. I don't know. But, yeah, I think that, yeah, the thing about it, three things. First of all, I think he'll get another job. somebody had a line that I talked to that I'm just going to steal because it's great. Someone said he's a better politician than he is a mathematician, which is just a fucking dagger. A dagger of a line.

I think Elliot was the one who said like he has a reputation for being really good at managing up. Yeah. Which explains why he went from AGM, from no job to AGM to GM in like a year and a half. Well, that's the other thing too. So he also has a reputation for how he got that job, which is essentially he knifed the guy that hired him. I mean, Maloney was out a year after Jacob came aboard. Whether it's true or not, that's the perception around the league, according to some of the people I've talked to, is that basically fucking... Which makes it tough to get hired as an assistant GM somewhere else.

Right. But then also, like, at the end of the day, all of this shit with the devils, went down like before they promoted Tom Fitzgerald to general manager and made that official so if you're Tom Fitzgerald you're like what the fuck

you want me to work under this guy like why what is he? I also think the thing about Jake is that the bar was set so low in Arizona you know that like if you're a risk if you keep the team respectable

and around the bubble and I think there was probably a lot of respect for the way he used the cap space to acquire assets and stuff that they didn't really do much with. You know, I think there's a lot of things he did there that people will look at and be like, oh, you made the best of a bad situation. So I'm sure that he'll probably get another job at some point.

I just don't know how it could be the devils at this point if that job is still open. It's weird. Well, I hope you're wrong because I want to watch the sitcom that'll be made out of Tom Fitzgerald, John Chaka, Tyler Delo, all working together. That's the kind of thing that you wonder about, right? Like here you have Tyler Delo on staff, right? And you're going to hire John Chaka. And that seems like a real oil and water thing when it comes to their outlooks on analytics and data.

But I don't know. Well, I mean, I feel like we're, we don't know that because the thing with Chaka is he was black box. He didn't release his data. That doesn't mean he's not an analytics guy. That's clearly why he was hired in there. Like they didn't hire him in Arizona because he's. had a rich history of scouting and all of that. They did because they wanted his analytical approach, which he's an analytics guy.

He's just not part of the online analytics community, which is why when you see people like Simmons writing that, no, the analytics guys are all crying right now. And it's like, no, most of them don't like this guy because he wasn't part of that group. But that doesn't mean that when they sit down and, you know, that they couldn't work together. Who knows? but I guess we may not get a chance to find out, unfortunately. Steve Sullivan's, the new GM of the Coyotes on an interim basis. I think the other thing that we have to talk about here is the very bizarre NHL wants to place Peter Shearrelli in a general manager's job thing that seems to be going around.

Boy, what the fuck is that? Anyone who ever said the NHL was an old boys club, we sure owe them an apology. What the hell is going on here? I don't get that. I don't understand why the NHL cares who, I mean, you clearly don't want complete wildcards in the GM spots, but I don't understand why it's Gary Bettman's job to find new roles for fired GMs. There's two schools of thought here, though. One is that it actually is part of his job to do this, and he's done it before.

He's actually the guy, Betman, who made the match between Jeff. Finnic and Steve Iserman. And so he's sort of, he's sort of like a guy who suggests to new owners that may not necessarily have a hockey background, and Alex Morello certainly doesn't. He suggests, hey, here's somebody who you could bring in that's going to bring some stability and some know-how to your organization. Now, the other part of the conversation is, why the fuck is that Peter Chierelli? Yep.

I mean, this guy may not have a hockey background, but I'm assuming he's got a, I know how to use Google background, so this is not necessarily going to be a great... It's very strange. I'll say this, though. I hope it happens because I'm genuinely curious to see... I think a lot of us look at what's all this mess going on down there, and we go, Taylor Hall is not going to want to be part of this long term. He's going to be out of there.

So if Taylor Hall is going to leave as a free agent anyways, and you've got one chance to potentially move his rights, his negotiating rights for something, I want to see if Peter Chirelli can trade Taylor Hall's negotiating. rights and get more than he got for trading actual Taylor Hall about to have an MVP season. Well, it's going to be... I literally think he can do it. It's going to be tough for him coming into that role because there's no, you know, former first overall picks he can trade for almost nothing, you know?

Right. Yeah. So, like, you know, that's real new territory for him. Although I guess Sagan was the second overall pick, wasn't he? But, yeah, I mean, you know, it's definitely... When I saw Peter. to your relli's name so happy oh my god this league between this and and the big uh the big kip rios uh mclean stumping for you know who's getting a real bum rap these days is dale tallon

it's been a fucking great week great week yeah yeah and that's another place where i mean everything i've heard is that i guess eric joyce is going to probably take over for talon after the season was the thing that's been kind of floating out there in the ether but guess we'll see how that plays out in Florida. Because, and then, you know, I don't know. They're going to win the cup. Sure. We'll talk about that later.

All right. As you mentioned the cup, we should probably move our attention away from the plight of the Arizona Coyote's hockey operations department to life inside the bubble. Since we last joined you, the NHL teams have made their way. inside the Hub Cities in Toronto and Edmonton. So far, so good as far as the amenities, the players tweeted out pictures of all the digital picture frames that were left in their hotel rooms with their pictures of their families on them,

which I think is great that teams are reminding them that they have a family back home. So, you know, don't invite anybody to your room. Yeah, it'd be a shame of something happened to them, kind of a... Yeah. So I actually heard from an agent this week who, because the big contrast was when the NBA guys arrived in their bubble, there were like pictures of fire festival food and fucking weird hotel rooms and all kinds of shit. And there wasn't much of that from the NHL, which I'm surprised we didn't see Darren Drager tweet out, oh, that's why hockey players are hockey players and basketball players or basketball players or some shit. But I did hear from an agent this week who said that some of his guys were complaining about, like, how small the bathrooms were in the hotel. How much room do you need to shit, dog?

Like, what? I mean, I don't know. I've been in some pretty small, I mean, anybody who's ever been on a cruise ship knows you can shit in a pretty small fucking room. I'm saying. But, but the agent told me that, like, he kind of said, look, guys, like, this is not the, you don't need to go nuclear about how fucking small you're, bathroom is. You're just going to look like an asshole. So there is a bit of probably like pushback that is being tampered down because they do want to put on a good face for this whole thing. But for the most part, everybody seems pretty cool with the amenities and stuff. But as I've been

telling everybody, man, like, we are less than a week into this. And when you're in a hotel for a week, it's real exciting. Like, wow, look at all the things that are in a hotel. And on top of that, like, you get to use them all for free. Like, people are paying for your fucking meals at restaurants and shit? Like, how exciting. All-inclusive, they call it. Then when you're in, like, week three, maybe your opinion is a little bit different when they're like, oh, by the way, you can't leave anywhere unless you're on this bus that we're going to take you to a golf course for like three hours. So I am a little bit hesitant to say that the bubbles have worked from a, these guys like the reality of their surrounding situation. But, Ryan, what was your first

takes on bubble life for NHL teams? Yeah, I mean, I really don't care that they're like, oh, we get to play freaking top golf. Who gives a shit? I don't. Just, you know, like, it, it only matters insofar as, like, is this enough, like, where, like, a baby. Is this a baby mobile, is this baby mobile enough to keep these kids, these guys distracted so they can finish the season without getting everybody fucking infected? That's all that, that's all it is. It's like, oh, look at all this shit.

Whoa. Don't look over there where there's a big fence and a guy with a gun, like a tranquilizer gun, who's going to shoot you if you try to come over the, or, you know, come in from the cold, basically. Like, okay, yeah, you know, like you say, it's working now. Is it going to work in two months? Who knows? I hope so. But, you know, I would not be surprised if it didn't.

I am a big fan of this visual of Brad Marshad on his back. cooing and grabbing at a mobile as he's distracted by the bubble life. It's pretty good. Sean, your thoughts on bubble life so far. You know what? I don't really care

what they've got to do. I mean, I hope they're happy. I hope they're content and all that stuff. But I don't think anyone really cares beyond that. It's just a question of does this work? Does this keep the virus out? Does it keep everyone inside healthy? So far, so good. I mean, it's,

it seems to be working in the NHL and the NBA. We all see what's happening in Major League Baseball, who's not doing the bubble, and you can contrast those scenarios. I say it seems to be because like anything, we are relying on the leagues to give us the information, but, you know, I think we can maybe somewhat skeptically trust that they're not going to be covering up a bunch of. They're going to be like, oh, actually, we have negative nine tests because Taylor Hall cured coronavirus. We did it, folks. Like, wow, that's amazing. Good job, buddy.

Yeah. So, I mean, that's all the matters, Matt. Like, if they're having the time of their lives, but 10% of them get COVID, then. That's a disaster. If they're all bored and, you know, I already sick of playing cards after three days, but everyone's staying healthy and the rest of it's working and, you know, the ice is okay and the logistics is playing out,

then we're good. And, you know, all we can do is, you know, we're a week into this. So it's not enough time to, nobody should be hanging any mission accomplished banners, but so far so good. And that is good news. thing to say about it to your point about if the ice is good. Like these are guys

where it's like, oh, you know, we can see on the ice in some playoff games like three inch puddles of standing water and then after the game you go, how is the ice out there? Oh, it was good, obviously a little tough, but, you know, it's, uh, it

was good and you know, it was a challenge maybe a little bit, but both teams had to deal with it, so it wasn't a big deal. You know, like all that shit. So, oh yeah, no, uh, I actually hate it in the bubble. And I think playing in an empty arena, nobody's ever going to say that shit. This is the NHL. The more I think about it, the more I think the guy that would cure coronavirus would be

Chara, who would just, like, do it as sort of a side project along with his real estate and social justice. He'll just, like, take 15 minutes out of his day and, like, come up with a vaccine and then just kind of like offhandedly mention it. Yeah, I probably shouldn't have said the guy who took six years to pass a boating test was going to be the guy who did it. Or conversely, I think, and this is just my theory, I think Kail McCar's blood could cure coronavirus because obviously he's just special. So. Okay.

So now enjoy getting 20 responses for Knuck's fans. So actually, it would be Quinn Hughes's blood. Yeah, that's a good point. It's either Camacar's blood or demon semen. One of the two is what cures coronavirus from what I'm able to glean from recent events. Yes. Two things about the bubble that I wanted to get into. If the bubble existed in the late 1980s, early 1990s, based on how much real animosity there was between teams and players, or even in late 1990s.

Like, how are they going to get like eight keys of Coke over the wall every day? Well, I mean, I'm not worried about the Edmonton bubble then. No. So the thing is, is that I'm wondering if you guys believe that teams could peacefully coexist in the same hotel for like two months, if this was like an era where there wasn't just K-Fabe animosity but real animosity? Not in the same. Like, they used to have to, like, if both teams accidentally got booked on the same train to the next town for the back end of the home and home, there'd be fights on the train. Like, there's, yeah, this wouldn't, at least not in the same way. Like, you wouldn't see, like, you know, people just chilling out, playing ping pong and stuff like that.

It would, yeah. Oh, man. I realize this is, like, the ultimate old guy take, but, yeah, there's, there are, there's no way that, there's, there's no way that. like in the 50s and 60s, probably even in the 70s, that would have... Yeah, let's just say it's a good thing. The L.A. Kings aren't in the same hotel as the Calgary Flames. I think that's the only one where otherwise, like, oh, the Battle of Albert is so intense. And then it's like, you know, Marty Janetti and the Iron Sheek are in the same car.

And it's like, oh, well, I guess... Sir, it was Hacksaw Jim Dock. It was ruined by childhood. When they got pinched for drugs in the Jersey Turnpike and my dad had to explain to me what, essentially what K-Fabe was. That's a good point. I think Matthew could chuck if Drew Daddy was in the bubble. It would be

like in Oceans 13, when David Pamer's character has like all the bugs and all the shit poured into his hotel room so he'd give the hotel a bad review. Like it would just be constant pranks. Constant pranks into Drew Daddy's rooms. Stink bombs, all kinds of shit.

I do, like, what I wanted was real animosity between these teams. So, like, at some point in the players' lounge, it becomes, like, a comical cannonball run-esque brawl between all the teams inside the hotel. They'd be the greatest fucking thing ever for hockey. But now they all train together at BioSteel, so it's not going to happen. Other thing is, um, uh, I talked to Emily about this. Extraordinarily large number of guitars being brought into the bubble, um, by, by players. Any chance

that we hear an acoustic album emerge. Almost like how Taylor Swift did an album during quarantine, will we see players in different teams combining together to become like the traveling woolberries of the NHL bubble and create an album? How many,

how many covers, acoustic covers of Zach Brown Band do you think have been played already? I just want to see like a bunch of guys from different teams with guitars come over to Braden Holby and be like, dude, we need you. Bradthiehlopee doing his old Jackson-Mane impression being like,

I don't know if you need me or not, man. That's all I want in a life. The games have started. The exhibition games. By the way, people who bet on exhibition games, I just, I can't. I bet on a lot of shit, but I could never bet on an exhibition game. My father used to bet on New York Jets exhibition games.

But I saw, like, a lot of action, like people being like, wow, they all went under. what the fuck are you doing? Just let your money on fire. But, Brian, what were your initial thoughts on not only quality of play, but the aesthetics of the presentation of these games? Now, keep in mind, it's a soft opening. It's like when you go to a restaurant, not everything's available on the menu quite yet.

They're going to throw a lot more bells and whistles in this weekend and subsequently. But we got a good taste of what it's going to look like and sound like, I think, in these early games. Yeah, I mean, it looks like a bunch of guys who haven't played hockey in four months on the ice. Like, it's not really good quality of play, and guys are getting lost in coverage constantly and that kind of stuff. Yeah, obviously, the more interesting thing of it is the broadcast presentation. And, you know, apparently the way Sportsnet is doing it is very different from how NBC Sportsnet is doing it. but the crowd noise is insane and needs to be toned down a lot on the American broadcast. Oh, my God.

Yes. You know, anytime I said it in the newsletter, but I feel like there's a guy who's just sitting next to a volume knob of like constant crowd noise. And any time the puck is within four feet of the net, he just turns it all the way up. and it's really annoying. And, like, it, for obvious reasons, it feels very artificial. And, like, it's, what's the word? It's, like, uncanny. You know what I mean?

Right, the uncanny valley, yeah. Yeah, it's uncanny because you're like, I know there's nobody there. And, like, yeah, I'm used to hearing people cheering over the, uh, the goal horn or whatever. And that's fine. the weird buzz in the building when I can see that there's nobody fucking there is too weird and I don't like it. All right. Sean. Yeah.

When it comes to the crowd noise, I pretty much on the same page as Ryan. It's even the sports net version that we got. It's not working for me. I feel like I'm, I've reached the point where, and maybe this is from watching some of the other sports, been doing this. I feel like I'm okay with fake crowd noise. A few weeks ago, I might have said, no, I don't want it. I feel like I'm actually okay with it if it's done well enough. I think I can suspend my disbelieve enough and have it be part of the experience, but they haven't found it yet. It's the run-of-the-mill regular play noise is it's too flat and obviously

fake sounding. And then when they change it to something else, it's always just like half a second too late and it's just I'm constantly my brain is constantly going that's fake that's fake that's fake so hopefully they can figure it out get a little better at it get the timing better maybe get some some better options uh and that could work there's a other than that oh sorry go ahead yeah i was just going to say other than that i thought it was pretty good i got to say i was pleasantly surprised it looks like hockey it's it's uh i thought the quality of play was fine uh especially given four months off like yeah there there were some rough patches there was some um missed assignments and and all of that stuff but i thought it was it was pretty good and when i sat down to watch it i

other than you know the crowd noise and obviously you can see the fans aren't there and everything but i felt like i was watching big league hockey and it was uh and i and i found myself getting pumped for the playing around and starting to feel like you know this this might actually be pretty good so um i got to say i was pleasantly surprised I should say, in watching that game, or the first game, the Penguins Flyers game, I just said out loud to nobody in particular, damn, hockey's cool like four times. So, like, I, apparently, I really, you know, I really did miss it as much as I thought I did or whatever. But, yeah, and I liked that they're able to mess around with the camera angles and stuff like that.

I think that's been fun. I know a lot of people are kind of like, I don't. like the overhead can. I thought it was interesting to see the game that way, I guess. I don't know how I'd feel about it more in, say, a Stanley Cup final or something like that, but yeah, I

think it's been good. The presentation overall. I just, maybe I just need to turn the sound down. I don't know. I think the smartest thing they did was clearly make this a hockey game being played inside of a TV studio. Like,

just do everything you possibly can to take out the empty arena feel. Because that just would have been depressing, right, to, like, tune in and see these games being played in an empty arena. So I think that, the way, the aesthetics of what they were able to design and full marks to Steve Mayer for that, the C-O or whatever the hell he is of the, of the NHL. Because he's the guy that does all the accoutremen for the outdoor games. Like, hey, let's put a big fucking cowboy boot in Dallas, that kind of shit.

And I think he did a really good job designing this set to make it seem more intimate than it probably would have otherwise. The crowd noise thing is interesting because it reminded me of the audio levels you get when you're watching like a double IHF game where the crowd noise is never really that loud. It's just sort of always a murmur. And I guess it didn't bother me. There was something comfort food about just having that sort of low. buzz of the crowd. But the thing that, to Lambert's point, the thing that we're going to miss is the spontaneity. Like, they had fans record their voices doing the slow buildup to a goal. Like, if you'd see somebody on a breakaway, let's say, and it's like, oh, yay, kind of thing.

And there's no way you could possibly anticipate the play to actually be able to do that correctly, right? Because then if he misses, then you just can. have this like gigantic explosion of fans for what was not a goal, which happens sometimes, but still it's going to come off as really artificial. So I just don't think that they could orchestrate this stuff in real time, but I was, I watched the Penguins Flyers game. I saw a couple of the goals, and I was pretty impressed with how quickly they were able to hit the crowd cheers button after goals, which I think I thought was going to be a real issue.

I don't know. It was fine. The audio was interesting to me. But it was a lot better than baseball's attempts, I think, overall. Kevin watched a baseball game. Not familiar. Yeah, it's all very delayed, you know. It's all very sort of like they can't really sync it up to what's happening in the game. But the audit was good. I hope that we get to see more crazy-ass camera angles, though. Like the swooping crane shots are cool. They're very sort of EA sports-esque. but like you guys remember the rail cam right like i fucking love the rail cam i don't understand why if we have the technology like drone technology and shit like that now while we can't bring that back the camera that's on top of the glass that that falls guys as they skate down the ice like it's so fucking good and i and i don't quite know which which they got rid of primarily because the fans and

stands didn't like it it was blocking views and distracted right yeah obviously not an issue here so yeah try something i mean and and and you know And this is where I'll say, try some things, and as fans, let them try some things. And it's not always, not all of it's going to work, and not all of it's going to work right away. Like, I remember when they first brought the, like, I don't remember what it's called, but in the NFL, you know, the camera that comes in behind the offense that they basically have on cables over the field. Yeah. When they first did that, I was like, oh, I don't, what's this? I don't like that.

Right. And then within a week, you're like, I need this every play. It's the best thing ever. And it's, you know, we could, we could do that again here. And, yeah, I mean, we're, we're, as we're recording this, we're like two, two days into the exhibition schedule. So, you know, they're going to try other things. It's not all going to work. But, yeah, so far, so good.

Yeah, I think it's a pretty, hockey doesn't translate the television in a lot of ways, but in this case, seems like it's a sport that can be played in these conditions and you're not missing a whole lot, especially. you know, if this was the regular season, you probably would. But I think as we get into the playoffs and it's five-round series and guys are playing for their lives and all that shit, um, well, playoff lives. Let's, you know,

we're in a fucking pandemic. Uh, I think the intensity, the intensity will get ratcheted up and it should be pretty fun. Um, we, we should probably talk about the, uh,

NHL's goodhearted, but fumble-handed attempts at social justice. Uh, the, I mean, nobody's taking a needer in the anthem. We don't need that kind of distraction, but we are going to stand next to each other, and in some cases, link arms or whatever.

And then yesterday was maybe the apex of how ham-fisted this whole thing is, which was, what was it, the Canucks and the Jets stood in a circle at Center Ice to both stand against racial injustice and support first-line responders, was the thing? the classic twin issue Like You could have thrown a lot I mean you know Cancer survivors

Like there's a bill A lot of other constituencies You could have thrown in there That you could have also represented If you're just gonna like Just keep on piling on Yeah I mean Give them time

And they were never Look there was never gonna be a situation Where there was like a black lives matter thing On the on the board Like this is the All Lives Matter league So why you know Why would they why would they do that?

Yeah, like it's disappointing, but not surprising, I guess, is what you would say. Like, they were always going to get it wrong because they're, it's a league made up of people who think, you know, who either are like, oh, I don't see why it's a big deal to say I support the cops and Black Lives Matter or, you know, that kind of thing. or guys who were just like probably secretly QAnon freaks. Ah. You know, like those seem like they're going to be two pretty big demographics in the NHL. So, yeah, I mean, how could you be surprised? There was also, oh, go ahead, sorry. I mean, I was just going to say this is one of those things where,

and we kind of made this point earlier when, you know, a few weeks ago when the NHL slowly but surely started recognizing some of this, these social issues, it feels like the sort of thing that a year ago, you would not have believed that the NHO would even go this far. So, you know, I give them, I'm tempted to give them some credit for doing more than we would have thought, even though they're clearly, not only not going far enough, but not, just to compare it to every other sports league out there. Like it's very evident that there's one outlier here as far as what's being done.

Yeah. And yet it's more than nothing. So at what point is, you know, is their kind of weird, half-ass, not good enough approach better than nothing? Or would it be? Yeah, I'm not super excited to grave it up great on a curve, though, with all this. You know what I mean? Yeah, which is it. I mean, that's the thing.

There is a certain point where you might go, you know what, if you were going to do it this way and be so kind of, wishy-washy about it, then you shouldn't have bothered. So I get that too. I take that argument. It's not good enough. I'm not sure it's anything different or less than anyone could have reasonably expected from these guys. And I don't mean that as a defense of them. That's not a compliment, but it's just the reality.

I am much more concerned with whether they'll be. do this in their own building and whether they do it on law enforcement appreciation night, which is what I pointed out with the Bruins. The Bruins do a first responders night every year. And cops are part of that celebration.

And other teams do law enforcement appreciation nights and stuff. If you do it then, you do it that night and the cops are in your building, I will be impressed. Zero percent chance that happens. You have taken a stay.

But that's what I'm talking about. Like, it's real fucking easy to do this in an empty building in Edmonton. Like, it just is. It's really, really easy. You don't even have to answer to your own fans. Yep. So, you know, I'm waiting to see follow through when it's more impactful. And ultimately, like, all of this stuff, all this stuff, you know, is important.

I mean, I think it's important that you show, you know, minority communities and show everybody else that you do you are thinking about this and your heart might be in the right place but you know there's a lot of performative stuff too it just like when we saw with those you know hundred some odd statements that came out in may and June give me action man like the fact is that the NHL announced these sort of like committees that we're going to analyze race and and what have you in all facets of hockey they've not been announced, like, at all. Maybe they will be soon.

I know some of the people that are involved with them, but like, where's that? Still haven't gotten resolution on the fucking Bill Peters thing. That's never happened because he left for the KHL. And, you know, when a team like the Buffalo Sabres has over 20 job openings, assuming some don't go to robots, and Kim Bagula is sitting on the diversity committee for the NHL, I will, like to see some of the people that are hired for those positions. Like, give me action now. I don't care if you're standing, if a fucking penguin and a flyer can stand next to each other before a game as a show of racial unity.

Like, if your entire Pocky operations department is all white, then, then you are not fucking doing it. Then you've missed the point. I mean, the point is police brutality, but I mean, the other point is that racial justice in the NHL. And we got a pretty good hint about how this is going to go, right? Because last night we, you know, you saw Nazim Kadri had comments after the game where he talked about the, you know, why they stood together and what it meant to him. And then he said, but we need to see more from the league. And the Colorado Avalanche put out a clip on their official Twitter account of him

saying, this is why we stood together. but they cut off before he got to the point about we need to see more from the league. So, you know, this is, if you just watch that, you would think, what a nice PR gesture. Everyone's happy, and that's probably the point of all this. State run media. So, yeah, that's an issue. And, you know, the NHL did allow players to put stickers in their helmets and stickers on their sweatshirts. and shit that could acknowledge Black Lives Matter and acknowledge other, you know, social movements and things like that.

But like you said, it's not as if they put fucking anything on the ice, right, or on the boards. So we stumble forward. All right. Enough about bubble life. Let's talk about these actual games. It's your puck soup, 2020, NHL. Stanley Cup playoff preview Start in the Eastern Conference

The Round Robin The Bruins, the Lightning, the Capitals, the Flyers Ryan, who will be the number one seed When the Round Robin is over? Whoever gets the most spot I've already said, I'm not doing any predictions for this Because it's very, very stupid and random Like even more so than hockey playoffs,

usually are. Every single game feels like it's going to be a straight up coin flip. So I'm not like, I have no idea. You know, like Boston, Tampa, Washington, Philly, they're all good teams, and they could all have three really good games in a row. So, you know, if the capitals get, whatever, two extra power plays, well, that's probably going to score at least one extra goal. and one extra goal can be the difference between finishing third and finishing first. So it's insane that they're doing it this way, but for the top four seating. But that's kind of how I feel. You know, like I would absolutely not be surprised to see the Flyers who finished like a full hundred points lower than the Bruins in a win percentage finishing first.

I absolutely wouldn't be surprised. Double digits. Yeah. Double digits points. Yeah. Yeah. Congratulations to the Boston Bruins on becoming potentially the first president's trophy winners in NHL history to be the four seed in their own conferences.

I like, I mean, I think the Bruins will probably win it just because they seem to take this shit real seriously. Plus Tampa seems like they're kind of approaching this is we want challenging games, but we also want our like guys to be able to rest up. and heal a little bit. I don't know. Like you, I,

the receding aspect of this makes this maybe a little bit more intriguing than it would have been otherwise. But I'm just kind of like, I look at the round robin and I'm just like, I just want it to be over. And then we can kind of figure out what comes next. Get a good. I'm not really that. Anyone getting hurt or,

but they felt like at the same time, having them play a bunch of meaningless games. And then immediately step into a playoff series against teams that have been playing life or death hockey would be unfair. What they should have done is they should have done the round robin, but the points should have been added to your regular season points. Yes. So that some of the seating would be up for grabs. Some of it could shift around. The games would matter, but.

But the Bruins would still be first in the league. Yeah. Boston wouldn't have their entire season invalidated. Right. It's important to note that part, and I think your solution would have been a good one, because, you know, Tampa, Philly, and Washington are separated by three points, and Boston is eight points clear of the best team in that group. So, yeah, I mean, this is the poor Boston Bruins, right? Yeah, they've had it tough. But they've got screwed, but they got screwed, yeah.

Yep, absolutely. Yeah, but the NHL doesn't give a shit about its top seeds anyway. I mean, that's pretty obvious when they changed the playoff format. For sure. It's kind of on brand. I do think that it should be said, though, that it's the teams that sort of push the idea of having meaningful games. I do wonder if the NHL had its way, if these teams would just be on a buy, you know, until the round of 16 starts. I don't think you could have, I don't think you could have reasonably done that.

Like, that wouldn't have been remotely fair. We would have seen four first round upsets in each conference because of that. Like, if the lower seats had all played three, four, five games, and all the higher seats had played maybe two extra exhibition games or something, they would have gotten destroyed. Like, you know, the momentum of having those, like, those, like, actual meaningful games under your belt really would have mattered. So, all right, let's get to the series in the qualification round.

A reminder, best of five in the qualification round for these series. Let's make our picks with the obvious caveat that this is going to be 90% random. Like, there is no, if I say the penguins are going to beat the haves and the habs beat the penguins, like, I don't need anyone coming back to me. Like, surprise, no. This is why I said we just shouldn't do it. We shouldn't do picks. We shouldn't do picks.

That's why. I'll make picks for fun, but I'm not at all. Well, you don't want to do picks because you're a coward, but, like, doing picks is fine. It's just who gives a shit. Like, I don't know, like, you don't want to do picks because you don't want people coming back to you and being mean to you on Twitter. No, it's because I think it's even more meaningless than it usually is. Right, which is why it's fine to make picks. Like, who gives a shit?

This, to me, is like, when I watch, like, marble races. on YouTube with my kids. And I'm like, we all have to pick a team. And they're like, why, Dad? I'm like, you have to just be, you are rooting for the orange marbles. And they're like, all right. Psycho, sure. Listen, ESPN may or may not have aired a marble races during the pandemic.

So, sir, I will not take this slander. No, I, yeah, I think if anything, it's like even better to make picks now because you will have that cover. Like, who's to say? We had no idea they were off for four months. Like, we have, we have cover as pundits. to not have to worry about backlash. Anyway, I'm taking the Penguins in three.

I feel like if there's any team in the qualification round that will want to make an emphatic statement and just beat the living shit out of the team they're playing, it's the Penguins. I also think that of the teams that are in the postseason, all 24 teams, Montreal probably is the least, the one that wants to be their least.

Like, they don't belong there at all. Like, who get, come on. No, Greg, I don't know that that's true. I've heard that they have one of the best first lines in the entire league. So many first line players on that team. Yeah. And then, like, the care, obviously everybody's obsessed at the Carrie Price thing. And, oh, can Carrie Price steal the series?

And I'm like, absolutely, if he has the greatest assemblage of Canadian national team talent in the history of the world in front of him, which is what he's had in winning the gold medal in the World Cup. Unfortunately, they're not in Montreal. Penguins in three is my prediction, Ryan. I'm going to go halves in one. Their first line is so good. And Kerry Price is going to steal the whole series in one game.

He's going to make 832 saves, and they're just going to say, we're not even going to play the rest of this. Right. And the penguins are like, I really thought we had a chance in the series, but Carrie is so locked in that we're just going to take our sticks and go home. Well, I wasn't going for the...

I wasn't fishing for an impression, certainly. So, Sean, put me down for Penguins and four similar reasons to what you said. I mean, they are the better team. Of course they are. I mean, I watch Montreal. all. Yes, a real NBC intermission report level of analysis by Sean on that one. Well, no, if it was NBC, they'd be like, on the other hand, Canadians, they're also, they also might be the better team.

Oh, okay. Can I just, can we just pause for a second? The single most annoying thing that NBC does and has done, and this is, I don't know if it's just who's writing for Liam McHugh. I don't know if Liam McHugh is like Michael Cole, whether somebody in his ear at all times telling him what to say, or this is actually what Liam writes. But it's the let's turn to Mike Milbury and say, coach, if you were in that locker room right now,

what would you say to the team that's behind? Like, what the fuck? Like, what are you going to say? Do better. Like, who gives this shit? It's the worst fucking question they ever ask, and they ask it every game when there's like an ex-coach on the panel. Anyway, Sean, sorry.

I had to get that off my chest. Whatever I say, four, yeah, four games. Look, Carrie Price could steal it. Carrey Price might not have to steal it. They have to win three games in weird circumstances. I promise I won't repeat this for every single one of these series, but I will say I watch the Leafs play Montreal in the exhibition, and I didn't say anything from Montreal that made me go,

ooh, this might be a different team from what we thought they were. They looked okay and not much more than that. So the Penguins absolutely should win this one. Rangers and Carolina, I will say that in the ESPN picks, we had 15 people make picks. Nine of them pick the Rangers in the series to beat the Carolina Hurricanes. And I think a lot of it has to do with the Rangers kind of being on the upswing at the end of the season. They're a tremendously good offensive team. Okay, and when did that season end?

March 12th. Yeah, exactly. Obviously, Eager Shirkin, very awesome Russian young, Russian goalie, if he gets to the start, I think they're in good shape. If Lundquist gets to start, I think they're in good shape. He's been traditionally a very good pro-season goaltender. The Hurricanes come into this series without Dougie Hamilton and without Brent Pesci, who's obviously out for another like month or so. But if you're going to take a hit, if you're the hurricanes, you take a hit to the blue line because they remain

really deep there. I have the hurricanes in four. I just think that the Rangers have two very dangerous lines and then their quality of their forward group falls off a cliff and I think the hurricanes are a deep team and showed last postseason that they can modulate their style and play a little bit more shutdown if necessary

against a Rangers team that is all go, go, go, push, push, go, go, goal. So I still like the hurricanes in this series, despite the fact that they're short-handed and the Rangers kind of put their shit together towards the end of the year. Ryan? I'll take the Rangers in 12.

12? Yeah. So they'll extend the series? I really feel like this is like just a total, like even more than any other series. This one could literally, no result would surprise me. Rangers sweep, hurricanes in five, whatever. Like it's, I think there are two very close teams in terms of overall quality, especially because, as you say, the Rangers have significantly better.

goaltending options than I think most teams, not just like the hurricanes. Yeah. And so, yeah, I mean, the only real concern, I guess, you would have if you're the Rangers is if the Marley Zamboni driver shows up because that guy pretty fucking good in Toronto. What's say you, Sean? Yeah, I mean, I'm going to say the hurricane. I think they're the better team

1 through 20, but I do I don't know what it is. It feels like with Carolina, like they're, they always feel a little too trendy to me. Going back years. Like for every year, they were always the team. Everyone picked to make the playoffs and they never did. And last year, we all picked them as the upset special

and it largely came through. And now it's, I just feel like we've kind of forgotten that they don't necessarily have goal tending and that they didn't address. They went crazy at the deadline, brought in all these guys that you don't remember them bringing in, and then you're like, oh, Vincent Trochuk plays for the hurricanes.

That's interesting. Yeah, that's cool. But they didn't address the goalpending. So, I mean, everyone's healthy. Everyone's, they've got it all there, and certainly any goalie in a short series or even in a playoff can get hot. Carolina demonstrated that,

however many years ago with Cam Ward. It doesn't have to be a big name highly paid superstar, but they don't really have goaltending, and the Rangers do. And the Rangers might have two or even the three best goalies in the entire series. So that makes me nervous, but I will, I'll say Carolina in five. The one thing I wanted to say about that, and this is also the reason that the whole, like, Canadians don't have a first line joke, like, kind of works. is because for years, with respect to Carolina's trendiness as a team, like they just didn't, like they had all the expected goals and courses you could want, but they didn't have...

All the courses. They didn't have finishing talent, right? So, like, they're always like, oh, first or second in the league in Corsi. Wow, why aren't they better? And it's like, well, they don't have a lot of talent up front. And if, you know, like, at the end of the day, like, you can have a lot of XGs and stuff like that. But if you're not putting the puck in the net, which the Canadians don't, either at five on five or on the power play, well, you know, like that's a fucking problem.

And I, you know, obviously Carolina has sorted that out to a certain extent the last couple of years, you know, Svetchenkov and Aho and all those, like they've added, they've added guys who can score. And so that's why you kind of have to, I think, consider their, overall quality, like you said, 1 through 20, as being better, but they don't have anybody who's Artem E. Panarin, and they don't have anybody who's even close to Artemi Panarin, you know? And so, you know, that's why I think maybe that plus the goal tending is, it doesn't matter as much. Right. All right. Next up, it's the, what is it? The New York Islanders and the Florida Panthers.

Well, that's exciting. I have the Islanders in four because, well, because of this. As we saw already with Sergey Brabrovsky, maybe a problem there a little bit. Oh, interesting. And I think if you break down the numbers, the more you look at his numbers from last season with the Columbus Blue Jackets when we had the Brobrovsky Renaissance and the postseason, the more of that's the Blue Jackets, just playing really. fucking good defense in front of them.

The Panthers are not a very good defensive team at all. They have a couple of impressive lines, but they're kind of a mess and porous in front of Babarovsky. Meanwhile, the Islanders are a team that, like, if you were going to try to glean what sort of teams might excel in this tournament early on, it's probably the ones that have this kind of structure, and that just can, like, play Barry Trots hockey in front of good goaltending and then eke out enough goals to win a series.

So I got the Islanders in four. There's a part of me that would really love for the Panthers to advance here, but I just, I just, they're not good. It's the problem. I'm going to go neither team in negative three games. I think both of these teams are pretty bad. And the fact that, like, they each get to play each other is very helpful to both of them. You know what I mean? Like, if it was Panthers hurricanes, you go, oh, hurricanes are going to roll them.

and if it was Rangers, and if it was Rangers Islanders, you'd go, oh, I don't, I don't know how I feel about this one. Like Panarin's going to really sit down to dinner on this team. And now, you know, I don't know. I think both of them are, they're obviously not like Canadians or Chicago level bad, but they're not good. And so, you know, yeah, I think it comes down to goal-tending. and Brabowski. So, okay. You make a good point about this matchup.

There's strong, let's air this on CNBC energy. Oh, yeah. To this matchup. Golf Channel, I ask. Fucking series. Sean, what do you think? First of all, I just want to point out that these two teams played like a few years ago, and it was actually a great series.

Yeah. They did. Because it was the year that neither team had won a playoff round in like 25 years. and it was like one of these guys and then they like game one was like six to five or some crazy stuff like that so sometimes the series that looks awful on paper turns out to be fun this one looks awful on paper there's a reason all the games are playing played at like six in the morning uh and so uh i don't even think they get the main rink they're like at the marley's practice half half rank you know and they'll figure out but carrie this says our game is at 3 30 in the morning morning. Yeah, that's right. You got it. So it's... Oh, fuck. All right, here's the deal. I have been pushing a theory for a few weeks now that...

That's unlike you. That I want... That I think there's three things that would really help a team in this weird postseason. Veteran coach, veteran goalie, young legs in the roster, and that the Panthers have all of those things. And so I've been picking the Panthers as my sneaky dark horse. And then I watched them play the lightning and absolutely get their doors blown off. And it made me regret everything I've said about this team.

But I'm in too deep. So I'll give me Panthers in five. What the hell? There you go. Sean's balls deep in Panthers. Finally, our beloved... I thought it was parenthetical. Our beloved Toronto Maple Leafs against John Tortorillo's Columbus Blue Jackets.

Torts already popped off a couple times in the Zoom calls. Hold on. John Tortorella got testy with someone. Come on. I don't believe that at all. I think one time he hopped on and said, what could you possibly want to ask me? And then yesterday, he got asked by Aaron Portsline,

the message to the players is entering a five-game series. And Torts's response was, I'm not going to tell you what I told the play is. And then we all have to be like, Oh, torts is hilarious. What a character. Oh, it's great. Good old tortsy torts.

Maple Leafs, I'm taking the make-believes in four. You know, the Blue Jackets, Ed Torrello, deserve a modicum of credit for hanging around the bubble and being an almost playoff team, despite the massive losses and talent last off season. I think they've done a very admirable job, and there's some things to really like about this roster. and it could still very much be a team structurally that could give the Leafs a lot of problems.

My wager here is that the qualification round is going to be a little loosey-goosey. It's going to be a little firewagony. And if you want a team that can play like waves of offense kind of hockey when there's no reason to be defensively responsible, give me the Leafs and give me them in four. Ryan? Elvis Mersleekins and six. he's going to come in because look

John Torrella he got the Jack Adams Award nomination and it's because Elvis Mursleekins had a great save percentage so why would he deviate from his plan of saying hey Elvis go out and be a 940 goal

even though nobody's ever heard of you you got to keep up that's why he's right to yell at Porcelain that was a stupid question what he said to the team was we're going to have these guys stop 94% of the shots.

We give up. And it's not going to be a problem. That sounds about right. Leaves are the better team. I'll pick the Leaves in five. It would not remotely surprise me one Iona to see them lose to the Blue Jackets. They haven't lost to...

They haven't lost to anybody besides Boston in the playoffs in so long that, like, you know, they look like a steamroller. Gonna mix it, going to mix it up a little bit. But, yeah, I mean, It's, blue jackets are good. You know, they were pretty good during the season when half the roster was hurt all the time. Now they got pretty much everyone back. I think this is going to be potentially the fact that they're playing the Leafs and there's going to be a big spotlight on it.

This may be like the Seth Jones breakout party, which should have happened five years ago. But, you know, this may be where, like if Seth Jones wins the Norris next year, getting to play the Leafs, Leafs in the playoffs probably helped with that because it'll suddenly like, oh yeah, man, this guy is one of the five-th-th-th-th-I-can see the headlines now. Has Seth Jones passed Sidney Crosby as the world's best player? Yeah, exactly. So it's, yeah, it put me down for the Leaps because I do think they're the better team, but it's, there's zero surprise if Columbus pulls this off.

Okay, rank these in terms of leafiness. the Leafs lose in the first round to the Blue Jackets. That's one. The Leafs win the first round, but still end up drawing Boston even though they're receding, too. The Leafs lose in the first round and watch Montreal get the first overall pick three. What would be the biggest, the leafiest outcome? I feel like the leafiest outcome would be losing to Boston. Yeah.

Yeah. You know, I'm still standing by my prediction that the Leafs are going to go on a run, make it all the way to the final, be up 3-0 in the Stanley Cup final, and then coronavirus is going to strike, and the season will be canceled. I think that's where we're potentially headed. But, yeah, there's a lot of very leafy outcomes on the table, let's just say. Leading to the vision of Brendan Shanahan running around the arena with a firehouse, host blasting people with hydroxychloroquine in the hopes that you can save the series.

All right, Weston Conference, round robin, we talked about this. I mean, blues, Colorado, Vegas, Dallas, who knows, who cares. I am intrigued to see what comes out of the goaltending situations in Colorado and Vegas. I do imagine it's going to be Flurry and Grubauer, but who's to say? Oh, it shouldn't be flowing, right? Come on, it should be leaner. I mean, they have a certain amount. I mean, listen, the organization has a certain amount of loyalty to Flore.

I don't know if Pete the bore does. Yeah, what reason would he have to? He hasn't fucking had that guy as his goalie ever. Pete DeBore also doesn't exactly make the greatest of goal-tending decisions. Oh, it's not his fault. Look at the freaking choices he had the last couple of years. The one thing I want to mention with the Round Robin here is three of the 15 people on the ESPN picks selected the Blues to make the Stanley Cup final.

I feel like... I looked at them a lot. Okay. Well, no, I looked at them a lot, and I was like, you know what? This is a lot of interesting stuff here. I mean, this is a veteran team. It's basically the same team as last year. You can make the argument that with Justin Falk coming on, they're a better team than they were last year.

Can you? With adding Justin Falk? Okay. Over Beaumester? Yeah, I guess that's true. Okay, thank you very much. And Scandale was on the team, too. They get Teresanko back.

You know, this podcast is differing opinions about Jordan Bittington's abilities. I am a Jordan Bittington fan. I think that he did really well in the postseason last year. Like, there's a lot of stuff here that indicates the Blues could, at very least, repeat as a Stanley Cup finalist. Their underlying numbers, though, compared to some of the other teams that are in this round Robin, scared me and put me off the Blues. But what say you guys about the Blues almost being a dark horse, despite being the defending champion? returning almost the entire team.

I think that, generally speaking, in all of this, I would kind of air more on the side of, like, skill matters more than like playing your systems and all that shit, right? And I think of that group, they, wouldn't you say objectively, they have the least, like, game-breaking talent on that roster? Yeah. Especially up front. Yeah, of that group. So for sure.

I don't know. You know, that's kind of, I think that's going to be a bit of a stopper for them is just, you know, Colorado and Edmonton obviously have like top, top, top end talent. They have two MVP candidates. And Vegas, obviously, like, maybe you say they don't have anybody who's Vladimir Tarasenko level, dangerous with the puck on its stick, but also like the drop-off between a Tarasenko and the second most dangerous player on the... Like, Jaden Schwartz or like Ryan O'Reilly.

Peron. Yeah, like, if David Peron's like your fourth most dangerous player, like, that's not a particularly dangerous roster, you know? And like, he's a good player, but he's just not a guy where you're like, oh, shit, when David Peron has the puck, look the fuck out, you know? So I think that's what. why it's reasonable to be a little bit down on the blues. You kind of need guys making plays for you,

and I don't know how many guys they have that are going to do that reliably up front. Okay. Do you like the blues at all, Sean? I mean, I like them well enough, but I think I have Vegas in Colorado a little bit ahead of them, and Dallas, I don't know really what to make of, because you could look at the overall records and numbers and everything, but you almost have to throw out the first two months with Dallas. Because, I mean, they were just, they were a different,

they had such a rough start that we were all writing them off a month in. And then plus everything that happened with the coaching and Jim Montgomery and Rick Bonas and there, like, it's almost like you just got to go based on the last few months, which is it doesn't give you enough to know, but makes them look better. So I don't know. I mean, it's, again, it's going to be a. a crapshoot. The thing that worries me only slightly with Vegas is I'm with Ryan. I think Lainer's the better goalie at this point, but they're going to start with Flurry, and I could see

that costing them a couple games in the round robin, which ultimately, who cares? But you end up a little bit lower seed and maybe have a bit tougher path. Oh, I said Edmonton earlier. I obviously meant Dallas. I, yeah. Right. Yeah. I totally got, because here's what was happening. I was looking at the standings, and I was like, oh, it was the top two seeds from each, from each division. You rightfully identified a team that should be in the round Robin and not in a qualification round. Yeah. The Oilers are playing the Blackhawks in the first round. As I've said, there's a certain amount of, the old thief is trying to pull one last jobness to the Blackhawks that I find appealing.

They look pretty good against the fucking blues last night. It did. Yeah. So, uh, I say Oilers in four. You know, give me Connor and Leon in a five-game series, and I think they'll have enough goaltending to get past a Chicago team that can't really defend. But there's a certain sort of, if this turns into a run-and-gun kind of deal, that the Blackhawks, I mean, of the 512 series, clearly this one has more of the upset potential,

but I think the Oilers are just a, well, not, they're not, I mean, might not even be a better team, but I think they're going to have enough to get past Chicago. Give me the narrative in five. I think, you know, if the oilers win, see, this is why Leon should be the MVP, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's ridiculous that we're even having this discussion, all that shit. And if Chicago wins, obviously, all those, you know what, have they figured it out? Have they come out of the rebuild articles that got published every three weeks this year?

They're all going to come to pass. We're going to go, you know what? They finally nailed it. And all those guys who are 32, they're 26 again. We're going to be fine. Off we go. Yeah, again, I think it comes down to high-end skill in a lot of these. And I don't really trust either team's goaltending necessarily.

So, yeah, Edmonton has slightly more high-end skill, I think you would say, than Chicago, and, you know, neither team's defense is all that good. So, sure. Yeah, give me Edmonton in three. I think this is one. Oh, wow. I think the young team should get on a role. But also, you know, again, would it shock me if Chicago won?

No, of course not. And they're the freaking Oilers, man. They're going to go crazy. I'll just point out, if we learned anything from the original Oilers dynasty, they only unlock their superpowers. when they beat a defending dynasty team and then walk by or lose to them and walk by the dressing room and learn all their so this is it this is their chance to get the Chicago Blackhawk superpowers hopefully by beating them and not losing to them but but one way unfortunately Chicago's superpower the last few years is missing the playoffs so yeah yeah Superman pushed Chicago into that big abyss in the fortress of solitude they don't have the superpowers anymore but kudos to Sean for being on message and covering an oiler series by referencing the 1980s. Yep.

She's very on brand for covering the Oilers. Nashville Predators versus Arizona Coyotes. Who the fuck even knows how this Jake a shit's going to play in the room? I take the Coyotes in five, though. I am not the biggest Nashville fan for some reason of this team. I'm not the biggest John Hines fan. I think on paper Nashville is much superior, but you've got to pull an upset at some point this fucking tournament.

And I'm going to say it's the Arizona Coyotes beating the Predators in five. Is that an upset? Yeah. That's an 11-6 series. Sure, yeah. I mean, I think the only upset will be people who have to watch these two teams play hockey. Ah, there it is. They are both boring and not very good.

And the real issue, of course, is that, you know, you want to talk about high-end talent. How about a team that nobody has any? How's that sound? Oh, okay, great. How dare you? Taylor Hall and Phil Kessel. Oh, yeah. They had great years this year.

They're unbelievable. Taylor Hall had, uh, what? Is this the first instance of, of Phil Kessel's slander in the history of this podcast? Craig, he had 14 fucking goals this year. What are you talking about? We'll not stand for this. He, it's very dry in the desert. And he, you know, he had to adjust.

Come on. Everybody knows this. Sean? Give me the Predators. I just think they're a better team. Arizona is a very good defensive team has the goal tending. And it'll be interesting to see what happens with the Predators because, you know, Saros is the better goalie.

I think most of us think at this point. But I'll tell you what you don't lose in four months off being 6'7 and 230 pounds. So if they had to go back to Pecoranay, like I'm pretty. sure he didn't forget how to be gigantic and fill up the whole net. So maybe that ends up being what makes a difference on this stuff. But I like Nashville. Nashville was, I mean, it feels like forever ago, but this team went to a final. This team won a president's trophy.

And then they've sort of wobbled a bit. But the talents there, the pieces are there. The blue line is there. I think the goaltaining will be there from at least one of those guys. You know, the forwards, again, there's never that, like, elite game breaker. And maybe this will end up being a tournament that gets won by the game breakers. I've seen that theory floated. But Arizona doesn't really have them either.

So I'll take Nashville in, let's say, four. All right. Again, anything could happen in this series. I think Nashville on paper is a very intriguing team. Like, Nashville on paper, if everybody plays with their abilities, could play for the cup. But we'll see. Which one? Which cup?

The Stanley. I'm not sure about that one, Greg. My beloved Vancouver Canucks against the Minnesota Wild, I've got the Canucks in Five. I think this is one of those deals where a veteran wild team will play well,

well enough to make it a series. But I like the idea of Vancouver taking their training wheels off in this series and finding a way to win this thing in five games. Exciting team, hoping for some wide open hockey buoyed by really good goaltending

with Vancouver and anticipating the continuing bad goaltending for the Minnesota Wild in this series. So I'll take Vancouver in five. What's your year on? Jim Benning in four is your big winner because

he either gets to you know, advance and the rebuild's working, or he gets that 12% pick or whatever, 12 and a half at the first overall, and he's going to get someone to replace Brock Besser when he trades him for nothing this summer. So he can't lose, baby. I'll take Canucks and 4, again,

kind of going with the better younger team, although Minnesota's, Yeah, you could see it. They've got so many veteran guys, including so many guys who haven't won cups, that you could see if they got a few bounces early, got rolling. You could see them talking themselves into maybe that they were on to something. But I like Vancouver. Yeah.

Yeah, this is another one where it wouldn't shock me if Minnesota ended up winning a short series. There's absolutely nothing that could. No, no, Montreal over Pittsburgh could be a fucking. No, it wouldn't. No, it wouldn't. You don't think so? Greg, they've been preparing us mentally for the, for Pittsburgh losing to Montreal in the first round since what? But that's Canadian, May?

That's Canadian propaganda. I mean, I would say that it was, Greg. It's all, come on. I disagree. Montreal over Pittsburgh would be a fucking shock. No. Absolute shock. No way.

All right, moving on. Calgary and Winnipeg, I mean, one of your ultimate coin flip series, I took the Flames in four. Winnipeg is another one of these teams where an incredible first line, depending on the health of Nick Eler, is a really good second line, and then not a whole hell of a lot beyond it. And then, I mean, Cody Eakin at this point is their second line center. And then on top of that, although their defense is better than it was when the season began, That's a pretty low bar to clear. Still not very impressed. I just think Calgary is going to be able to have enough to get through the series.

And I also think that Cam Talbot's going to be pretty good in this series, too. Maybe not as good as the other goal in the series, but good enough to win. So I'll take it the flames in the series. What say you, Ryan, about what people believe is your beloved flames? Yeah, I think this series is going to be very weird, I think, is the thing I would say. Um, there neither team is especially impressive. Um, I don't think, again, like Calgary and has, has game breaking talent up front, but so does Edmonton to maybe a slightly lesser extent. And, you know, say what you want about, uh, you know, he's the 18th best defender in the

league this year. But I think, uh, the nicest thing you can say about, uh, Winnipeg's blue line is, uh, one of their guys is probably the, you know, the, uh, he's the, you know, 18th best defender in the AHL. So, you know, I think Calgary probably does come out on top. But do I trust Cam Talbot even a little bit to be anything? No, of course I don't. He's fucking Cam Talbot. It's like, what was he?

Like an 890 something last year. And then he had a couple of months where he was like absolutely brutal this year. And then. Yeah, well, I'm not going to stand for the slander of Alabama Huntsville hockey. Yeah, they've gone through an office program. It's true. Sean? Give me the Jets.

I think it's potentially the biggest goal-tending mismatch of any of the matchups, which, again, won't necessarily mean anything, but it's not a bad place to start. And I, you know, Winnipeg, again, it's one of these teams where we all knew the blue line was going to be a mess. It kind of was, maybe a little bit better than the worst. case scenarios, but that was what dragged them down all season.

Enough that maybe you kind of forget how much game-breaking talent they do have up front. And Calgary's got their guys too, but I like Winnipeg better up front. I like them a lot more in net. Blue line, no, but two out of three ain't bad, so give me the Jets. Yeah, and obviously Hamannick's not there for the flames. He opted out, so it changed the blue line a little bit. Oh, no, I'll take the flames in this one. Who do you

Fuck My Stanley Cup final is the lightning and the Golden Knights I hope Pat Chiuretti is healthy Vegas's underlying numbers are incredible I'm going to assume that with the acquisition of Robin Lainer I'm not going to have to worry if Flurry is not Flurry In the postseason And the lightning are

I mean for fuck's sake like my theory of the lightning is this That they are a team that gets the nervous Nellies in the postseason and that, you know, losing in the first round, losing in game sevens on home ice, that kind of thing. I feel like playing in a vacuum is going to benefit this team. And as long as Stamco's can play, which is a question mark, I think the lightning are just so fucking talented and might finally get past their postseason, you know, mental block playing in these conditions and we'll finally win that elusive Stanley Cup. all I know is that this is going to be the hardest Stanley Cup to win. Maybe ever.

Maybe, maybe ever. Oh, yeah, just the toughest. Just absolutely, like, honestly, that's true from a, I have a really hard time believing that the best team is going to come close to winning this, just because, again, like, you're just going to go, I need this coin that I flip to come up positive, like 18 times. You know, like, I, I have a hard time. I'm believing that that's going to... What's... Is heads or tails positive? Just whatever you call.

You get to call it every single time. And then as long as you don't put it in your pocket, you're going to be in good shape. Then it becomes just another coin. I don't know. Then you're 25 cents richer. That's your lucky coin. Sean, who's going to win the cup? You know what?

I think when we did our picks at the athletic, I think I picked the lightning to win, and I can't remember if I had them over Colorado or Vegas. but really going against the grain on both of those. For a lot of the same reasons that you just mentioned, I do think the lightning are probably the one team that might actually benefit from no fans, no media, no home crowd to be loud at the beginning of the game, but then you give up one bad goal and suddenly you get that kind of quiet murmur thing happening

where you realize your own fans are starting to doubt you. and just, you know, a really good talented team, which, again, is that going to, is that going to make the difference if they have to play Boston or Washington or Montreal? Yeah, not necessarily. But I think when you're making your picks, pick the best teams. And to me, that's Tampa. And you said Vegas, right? So I'll say Colorado. Yeah, I did.

I think. Matching exactly. I think that's right. I think it's probably Vegas and or Tampa and Colorado. But I will say this. I don't know if you remember. I don't remember when it happened probably in like January. We bet on which teams would make the, would win their conferences and play in the cup final. Yes, we did, yeah. And some of them are pretty interesting in hindsight. I will say that nobody, none of us picked somebody who is, not playing still. Oh, good.

I didn't pick the devil. No, you didn't. Oh, you didn't. All right. Very good. So, Sean, not to get into all the odds and everything. Because, like, you know. Yeah, this was, we were, we were betting against the odds, right?

So we were kind of. Yeah. And we were dividing up, um, uh, a hundred dollars. Right. So Sean put, this wasn't like our picks of just who we thought was the best. We were trying to find. We were trying to, this is invest. Wiggle it.

Yeah. So it's. Sean had Carolina, Pittsburgh, Calgary, Winnipeg, and the Rangers. So, Sean really needs the winner of that Calgary, Winnipeg series to go all the way. Greg's only Western Conference team is Dallas and his Eastern Conference teams for Washington, Toronto, and Philly. I think Philly at 25 to 1 is a pretty good value. I like it. And I went with Colorado, Tampa.

Oh, look at that. Calgary, Toronto, Vegas, and Columbus. Obviously, we did all that before we knew they were going to make everybody stop playing hockey for four months. So, yeah. But, you know, I took Vegas $5 at, or Vegas. I took Columbus $5 at 40 to 1 because I was just like, fuck it, I have $5 left over. So, yeah, I think that's interesting. And Greg's locked himself into the stars making the cup fine.

All right. Let's go Dallas. And, yeah, I mean, to Sean's point earlier, like, you know, the way they played after making that coaching change, it's not a horrible bet. And you got them at 7 to 1. They didn't play all that bad before the coaching change. No. They lost a bunch of games, but that was maybe independent of the being good or bad. I cannot wait to collect on this bet and watch rupe hints.

There he is, the man himself. But yeah, I'm feeling pretty good about having Colorado and Tampa has my top two picks. Yeah, so that's interesting, I feel like. And I just, I noticed that paper. I was cleaning up my desk the other day, and I noticed that paper. What are my odds on the Rangers? You got the Nye Rangers at 100 to 1. There you go.

So I think those are the longest odds by far Um It's good foresight though Yeah no Well I mean honestly That's a pretty bad pick knowing that they ended up finishing like 22nd They got it maybe

Somehow you knew that they had a chance to do it I'm not gonna say you know I was tip off about what was Are you part of the Yeah you part of the Plandemic Yeah He was on the phone with Bill Gates It's trying to figure out who's going to get the 5G virus. He's like, here's the deal.

You create a pandemic and microchip everybody, and I'll pick the Rangers at 120 to 1. Wait, did you just do an impression of me? Oh, you know, I might have that. If you listen to The Simpsons episode, you would have heard it. I don't. It's very distinct. I don't listen to podcasts. Yeah, that's smart.

I know. The Simpsons episode, by the show. the way is on the Patreon right now. And the greatest thing that ever happened was that the initial, as Ryan pointed out, for months and months and months, the thing was the Simpsons, like, top episodes, March Madness. Right, best episodes. And then, and then this month, or maybe in a couple of the previous ones, we just started to put Simpsons March Madness without specifying it was episodes. Like people would say, just say Simpsons and not. Right. Yeah. Right. So then we put it on the poll, it wins and then Ryan and I are just like

who wants to do best episodes let's just do characters we're not married to that we like once we were once we were separated from that constraint now we can just do Simpsons every month is like I hope it keeps winning every single month I want to talk about my favorite show

that's right so get ready for that thank you to everyone who voted to give me a day off which apparently was the turning point and yeah well I got bad news for you Sean you took both bonus episodes off this month, so have a good August, guys. I'm...

Screw you guys. I'm going home. We're going to close a little... Oh, there it is. Setsrawan sauce. We're going to close a little overrated, underrated. The one I like is bakery products.

Overrated, underrated, favorite, least favorite products that you'd get in a bakery. Overrated for me. fancy donuts. Define fancy, though. Shit with bacon on it. Well, sure. Okay, fair enough. Yeah.

Overrated for me. Like the voodoo donut trend where everybody's got to have like their crazy ass donut. Look at this. This is a fucking donut with saffron on it and shit. Like, come on. Just Boston cream. Whatever the fuck. Just give me something that tastes good. even like the

Krispy cream like regular roll glazed is like a superior donut to most of the fancy donuts that you'll find. So I'll go fancy donuts. Um, I,

I think you gotta say a scone. I don't get it. I don't fucking get it. All right. Larry David. Well, right. I mean like, so it became,

it became the focal point of an entire season of Curve Your enthusiasm. So maybe, so maybe it's not overrated anymore, but I feel like people love them, and I've just, I've had them obviously in the past and just been like, this is supposed to be better than like a muffin or something? Is that, I, okay, sure. Yeah, a similar pick, the biscuit.

Like a buttermilk biscuit? Dense, dense block of stuff. Yeah, not, not a favorite. Underrated for me is a brownie. I feel like brownies have certainly done. been surpassed by their blood rival cupcakes in the eyes of many people. There are obviously fancy cupcake shops. There was a brownie shop in Chelsea Market when I lived in New York, but it wasn't nearly as popular as all the cupcake shops that you found in the city. I used to eat a brownie every Sunday morning.

My dad would get me a buttered roll from Entemans Bakery in Matawan with a brownie as my special after-breakfast treat. brownies are great and especially if they're fresh a brownie is very underrated in my eyes. Famously nobody likes brownies. I think the

underrated. The actual answer, a nice croissant is a really good way to have a bread product, I think. Just generally speaking, it's good whether you're getting it

for a croissantwich, if you will. But it's also just good on its own. Nice to enjoy it with some nice butter on it. So, yeah, I love a croissant. And I buttered butter croissant. Yeah, sure. You're right, yeah. Give me a fruit-based Danish.

Really, really like those. Either like a cherry or like even like apple and cinnamon type thing. Uh, it's, uh, it's good stuff. I'm dismayed to learn that Sean is a hot fruit guy. That's, yeah, it's a really upsetting. Uh, you don't, you don't eat pie? Like, what's, uh... No, disgusting. Oh, see.

Fruit is not meant to be hot. You finally have a bad take. That's, uh... Streak has been broken. Favorite for me, I don't know if this is going to undermine Ryan's previous pick, but a croissant for me is my favorite. I find it to be the perfect thing to get from a coffee shop. If I'm sitting down at a cafe or something, getting a croissant's great. I love the fact that you get the really soft, warm innards, but also the crispy, crunchy outside of it. And I'm somebody who used to fly a lot, and I would never really want to eat.

like something like heavy before I go on a plane because God forbid you get the rumbly tummy or something. So I would always, a croissant would always be like my go-to to grab it from a coffee shop before you go on a plane and sort of just like sustenance. So butter croissant or a butter croissant, my favorite bakery food. Good call. Good call. The one for me, it's the big freaking bakery cookie. A nice like a warm chocolate chip or it has like M&Ms in it or something like that. Man, that's, you can't beat it. That is the correct answer. A warm chocolate chip cookie, perfect.

And, you know, again, don't need to overthink it. Yeah, and from a bakery, they come in a size way bigger than you're going to get in, you know, your, uh... It's one cookie, right? We can all have one cookie. Yeah, and it's the size of my head, so that's great.

Yeah, dinner plate-sized cookie and yeah. Right. I guess for me, my least favorite, my least, you know, honestly, I'll tell, it's, I was going back and forth. I was going to say my least favorite was like a fruit tart, but I feel like we've already covered the warm fruit aspect and how gross it is. So I'll go with, I'll go with a stuffed croissant, you know, like your chocolate croissants.

Oh, I like a chocolate croissant. That's fun. See, to me, a big thing for me in food is, like, is there a superior version of this food product? And, I mean, I think a butter croissant is a vastly superior version of a croissant. So I would go there. I'd go, I would go, like, a filled croissant would be my least favorite thing. There's no point in that for me. I respect it, but I must disagree.

The answer for me is, sorry, Sean. a Danish. I don't... Dude. No, it's weird. And yeah, I just, I'm not a fan. My, just, from a personal standpoint, I will choose the large category of anything that is trying to be actual food, like, anything that has, like, egg in it or, like, chopped

up ham or, like, Greg even mentioned, like, bake. I know it's, oh, it's savory. No, I'm in a... bakery. I want dessert, man. I want like something sweet. I don't need scrambled eggs stuffed into a little pie or whatever it is. I think that's a good call. That's a really good one. Like, so wait, so does Keish fall under that then? I have never been a Keish guy. So I'm going to say yes, Keish falls into that category. Okay. All right, well, that is that is puck soup for that ass for this week. Um, thanks to nobody.

everybody. Thanks to all of you for listening. Well, how can it be both? Well, I mean, nobody as far as like sponsors or guests, but everybody who's listening, we thank them. And especially thanks to all of our Patreon subscribers for continuing to support all of the content you find there, whether it's the bonus episodes, whether it is the mailbags, which we'll do one in a second, whether it is all of Lambert's content, the newsletter, stick to sports stuff, all of it. we appreciate your patronage.

It's all very good and more to come. Eventually, I'll get around to write in that Taco Bell thing that I keep talking about. My other podcast is ESPN on Ice. We talked to the Mullet himself, Barry Melrose. Guys, Barry Melrose doing television from his house and says he'll wear his full suit in his Floridian home to appear on television. So excited to see that happen. Ryan? You just said all the stuff I was going to plug, so.

All right. I'm on the athletic and we have a ton of stuff. I feel like I've spent the last few months telling you about weird or very strange ideas that we've been using to fill the gap between sports. Not this week. There's a ton of previews and analysis and all of that from pretty much everyone is back from vacation and going. And I believe that for the next couple of days, there's a 40% back to hockey. offer. So if you have not jumped on board yet, and especially if maybe you were thinking about doing it, but over the break, you thought, now there might not be a lot of stuff. There's a ton of stuff right now.

Now's a really good time to get in and have lots of good stuff to read over the next couple of months, knock on wood, as we watch this super strange playoffs play out. This is really huge. You should definitely jump on that because there won't be another athletic subscription discount until tomorrow. So make sure that you get it on. They don't go to 40% very often, though. We see them coming. This is pretty

much as good as you get. I still say, I will give away this idea for free because I will never write it. If you're an onion writer or something, please listen. The story of the guy who paid full price for an athletic subscription, that's the onion story that needs to be written. I think that might be me.

At some point. Really early adopter, very stupid. Oh, we should mention, support our friends formerly of Deadspin, who are back with Defector. Defector. Yeah. Yeah, their own new website, writer owned and operated.

Apparently, they had over 10,000 people pay a lot of money to subscribe to the site on Off the Hop. That's very exciting. And, you know, Barry Pacheski, friend of the show, a lot of those folks are friends of the show. and great to see them back on their feet and hopefully in a situation where Peter Thiel can't destroy what they've created through a frivolous loss. Oh, the other thing I meant to plug is I was reminded that the documentary we had Gabe Polsky, who directed the Red Army documentary,

has a follow-up called Red Penguins, and I was reminded that is out on streaming now. So you should check that out. It was really good. I, you know, I liked Red Army a lot as well, and I think his other one's called like Pursuit of Greatness or something like that, and that's also very good. So turns out Gabe just, like, makes good documentaries.

But, yeah, this one I think is just like this week or last week on streaming, and it's great, so check it out. What's going to complete the trilogy? Will he do a remake of Red Sonia? Red Sparrow. Red movie. Oh, he'll do a remake of Red Sonia. a red red sparrow.

Gotcha. Very good. All right, everybody, thanks for your listening, and we will talk to you next week when we'll do a podcast that will quickly be outdated because there's games every day.

Thanks, everybody. See you. Bye. Bye-bye. Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slapshots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to what if you commute.

We also cover movies, TV shows, it's and tunes. It's your weekly bowl of Hockey and nine cents. Oh, too.