Puck Soup - Punished Senators

Episode Date: November 1, 2023

Sean and Ryan talk about Shane Pinto, Adam Johnson, retirements, and some troubled teams.   Sponsored by Gametime (download the Gametime app and use code PUCK for $20 off), Athletic Greens (athleticgreens.com/puck), Factor (factormeals.com/puck50), Uncommon Goods (uncommongoods.com/puck) and Raycon (buyraycon.com/puck)

Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slap shots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to whatever you commute. But we also cover movies, TV shows, it's and tunes. It's your weekly bowl of Hockey and Nonsense. I'm Ryan Lambert from Elite Prospects. I am Sean McIndoo from The Athletic. And it's November. It's November 1st.

That's like one of the big cutoff days for are you going to make the playoffs or not in the NHL. Four points out was the old Elliott Friedman thing. Yep. And I've, the way I do it is if you're below 500, like, you know, by points percentage, not by what any normal person would, consider 500, but by points percentage. That you basically like two teams per year,

one or two, I guess, and sometimes zero, but usually one or two, make it despite being under 500 on November 1st. So, let me read you a list of all the teams that are currently

under 500. Buffalo, Minnesota, Columbus, Seattle, Pittsburgh, Nashville, Chicago, Edmonton, Calgary, San Jose. I mean, I'm still, I cannot believe that the Oilers are going to miss the playoffs. I would agree with that, yes. So they're my first team to go on there. Doesn't have to be a second one.

Yeah. I mean... I would say all the other teams on that list have like some sort of obvious fatal flaw with maybe the exception of Minnesota. Minnesota is the other one I was looking at that's tempting. I think tempting is a great word for it because it's like, I don't know.

They don't have like the huge, undeniable talent pool that some of these other teams on the list are absolutely do. Right now in the West, the last playoff spot is Arizona. And they're right at 500. And they're Arizona.

Correct. Which, I mean, I think a lot of us said, the coyotes might be closer than people think. They've, you know, got some pieces. The coaching may be more of a plus than we think. But it's also, I don't think, going too far out on a limb to say that spot might be up for grabs. And when you look at the teams below it, as opposed to in the east where there's kind of some more separation. happening. For sure. And as much as I might look at a team like, certainly Pittsburgh going into the season, Buffalo, too.

Yeah. As being teams that felt like they were good enough to be playoff teams, I mean, the penguins especially, the hole that they've dug right now already feels like it's... Not great. It's not great. I mean, and I know like every time back when Elliott first did is November 1st thing. And I don't think November 1st isn't really a cutoff this time around as much because the season started so late. Like we're, there's only two teams that are four points out right now. That's why that's why I like the.

Yeah. In general, seasons are starting later now. Mm-hmm. So like that's why I just take the under 500 thing because like basically if you're under 500 after. eight or ten games. You know, that's a good chunk of your season already. Yep. So.

Um, I mean, Pittsburgh's five points out already. Yeah, it's brutal, man. And, and they're five points back of the Leafs and the Lightning. So that's, those aren't fun teams to chase. You look at the teams that are in the playoffs right now. You know, I don't think anyone expects Montreal to stick around. But other than that, that, I mean, it's last year's group, basically, with with Detroit in instead.

And, you know, you've still got the Panthers lurking around. Ottawa's been up and down. Islanders, you know, again, sitting there going, hey, what about us? Why is our spot automatically? We keep being the islanders about everything. So, man, I mean, there is a very large part of me that thinks the penguins are too good to miss the playoffs.

but they're at the point where they could play like a playoff team for the next 73 games and put up a playoff team's record and still miss because they've dug themselves a bit of a hole. 100%. Absolutely. I mean, they need 94 points from their last, doing the math here real quick. 73 games? That's a tough ask for most teams, I would say. Yep. They need to play at 106-point pace the rest of the season.

They could do it. But every point they give away, that only increases the pace they need to play at. And it's not like this is a situation. Like you see with some teams at this time of year where, hey, Matt, Sidney Crosby's out for the first month. But when he gets back, then we see the real penguins. Right. You know, like, I mean, they've, it's not that they've been completely healthy,

but this is kind of what they, this is their team. And I think you could talk yourself into, hey, they brought in a big piece in Eric Carlson. They haven't quite figured out how to fit that piece into the puzzle yet. I don't know, Matt. Like, if the penguins runoff six straight wins, is anyone going to be surprised? You'll just be like, no, they figured it out.

There you go. We all knew as soon as the light bulb went on. But I don't know. You know what, man, put me down for Edmonton, Minnesota, and Pittsburgh. I'm going to go. I think that's totally. reasonable. However, I think...

Who are the teams that are you taking out? Yeah, right. I mean, that is the question, but the thing I was going to say, all the teams that are in the playoffs right now, they're actually exactly as good as you think they are and have been. Vancouver, of course, is chief among them. That's an actual really good team. And we shouldn't ever question, whoa, can the Vancouver Canucks keep this up?

No, of course they can't. Eric Canucks, you know. But yeah, I would say I will talk about this a little bit more. But teams I would drop out of the playoffs right now, obviously Detroit and Montreal. You would say obviously Detroit? I mean, Montreal, yeah. Well, look, I think that Tampa and Toronto will at least run down the, the other two teams in that division.

And then if I have to choose two teams in the wild card between Detroit, Montreal, the Islanders, and Florida, I have to go with the Islander. And that's without Ottawa, Buffalo or Pittsburgh. Right. Pushing from the other side. Yep. Mm-hmm.

And then in the West. I mean, look, I don't trust these jets. Anaheim. Anaheim's the obvious. Well, Anaheim's playing pretty well, honestly. Like, if I remember right, their underlines are like pretty good. Now I'm going to double check on that. If Anaheim makes the playoffs this year, do we have to have a conversation about Dallas Aiken's being one of the worst coaches of all time?

I think we, yeah, I think that's, okay, they're playing okay at five on five and their special teams play has been bad. is the duck situation. Okay. I mean, as far as sustainability, you'd rather have it that way than the other way. 100%. Absolutely. They play more of the game at 5 on 5.

I don't know if people know this. Anyway. Just something to keep an eye on. We should get into like the actual news. You hear about this guy, Shane Pinto? He got in trouble. Well, I heard that he got in trouble and I heard that he got suspended.

And that's as much as I know, because apparently that's all the NHL thinks we need to know. Yeah, it... Big secret. That is kind... I was going to say kind of the funny thing about this. I don't know if... I don't know if that's the right word to use.

It is where it's like, oh, the integrity of the, like, you know, with how important betting has become to professional sports, but not just the NHL, but all professional sports leagues. transparency is super important. And, like, part of the reason that they had to come down really hard on Shane Pinto is to send a message that transparency is important. And then you go, oh, why? What did he do?

And they're like, oh, we're not allowed to tell you that. Well, and the thing is, like, apparently this isn't just a case of they haven't, you know, said it publicly or they haven't told the media. They haven't even told the other teams. Right. So there's frustration out there because on the, one hand, the NHL is like, look, we're sending a message here and you got to make sure that message gets through your players. And the teams are like, well, what is the message? What did he do?

Because if people don't know, he was suspended for 41 games, it's something related to sports gambling. The NHL says that he did not bet on NHL games. The CBA certainly seems to say that betting on hockey is what is banned and that betting on other sports is all right. So on some level, that feels like 2 plus 2 is not equaling 4 here. I mean, if he didn't bet on hockey, what did he do that warranted a negotiated 41 game suspension? The working theory is that he gave someone else access to his account, which is illegal. Mm-hmm. You know, like, and maybe you can get away with it if you're, you know, Shane Pinto who works down as the janitor down at the local high school or something like that.

But professional athletes gambling accounts get monitored for understandable reasons, extremely closely. and so apparently you know this is all based on what Elliot Friedman reported I don't know shit about this for my own self you know but from what it appears basically like he may or may not have let someone have access to his account

which you're not supposed to do and that might have pinged some irregularities and whatever the betting company he had the account with brought that to the league. That is what the working theory is right now, I believe. Yeah, which just on its own still smells weird. I wonder if maybe what's happened here is he gave access to his account to somebody else and that person bet on hockey?

Wouldn't surprise me, yeah. Because the thing is, if he simply gave, like, yes, you're right. I mean, I've got a sports gambling account that I barely use, and I'm not allowed to give you the login to that. You know, if you were like, oh, I'd like to throw a couple bucks down, I can't be like, well, just use my account. That's, you know, that's against the terms and conditions that I, of course, read very carefully. And yet, that's not, I mean, you're talking about, I mean, you're talking about.

I mean, you're talking a 41 game suspension. This is, I think someone said, the fourth longest suspension in the history of the league. Yeah. And again, that's negotiated. It's negotiated, yes. I saw a lot of people questioning, well, you know, like, why is it such a weird number like that? Like, this feels like they're dropping the hammer on him. And like you said, it's the fourth longest in league history.

but first of all, again, it's negotiated, but second of all, like, I think if it was a cut and dry thing of he bet on hockey, you know, 41 games, he's not getting 41 games. He's getting kicked out of the fucking sport. Yeah, I mean, I don't know that for sure, but, you know, assuming he's betting on, you know, games that he has no involvement in. like the kind of levels of betting are like that you see whenever athletes get involved is is the the number one no questions asked you're gone forever is you bet against your own team of course um as soon as you do that then you know that that that is yeah you're gone betting on your own team but not against them is almost equally bad this is the the the piece Rose situation, I think.

He was accused of, you know, he had bet on his own team, but always for them. Because then again, like, okay, but then why are you betting on them some nights and not others? And what does that imply to people who might have access to that information? And then you get into betting on the sport itself, which in theory is, you know, you could still certainly be acting on inside information, but in theory is nowhere near as bad from a just the integrity of the game. But most leagues have sort of settled on,

look, we don't even want to go there. And so you're dealing with very heavy suspensions. I don't know that it's necessarily like there have been two guys that were banned from the NHL for life for gambling. It was both of them were a very, very long time ago, and it was betting on their own teams. So that really doesn't help us as far as a precedent. As much as I'm like a history,

guy when I see people go, oh, this is the first gambling suspension in the NHL history. And I'm like, well, it's not. It kind of is. And more or less is, right. So I don't know. And the other thing that I would say is, you know, whenever you get into this, because this is happening in the NFL as well, I understand and appreciate that on some level, the severity of the punishment doesn't make any sense compared to how many other things

we see athletes get punished for both on and off the ice or the field, you know, where you would look at something and say, you know, this guy was, you know, accused of domestic abuse and he didn't get a 41 game suspension. This guy broke a stick over someone's head and he didn't get it for it. This guy was selling drugs and he didn't get that. And you just kind of have to understand that the gambling, while I don't think anyone thinks gambling is a sin at the level of all that other stuff,

it really does go to the heart of the integrity of the product you're putting out there. And that's why the numbers have to be ridiculously high. And look, we're not far off. We think from having the league address the World Junior situation. There's any number of other situations. There's guys in the league right now who have been accused. and in some cases, you know, are known to have done things that we would all consider to be a lot worse than throwing a couple bucks on a football game. But it has to be a special category because as awful as some of those other things can be, they don't go to the heart of the integrity of the product that you're putting out there, which is that here are two teams that are both trying as hard as they can to win.

Right. Yeah. And we're saying integrity, obviously, like not moral integrity. We're talking about, you know. The game itself, which is, you know, is the, that's the whole thing that a pro sports league is built on in theory. So, I mean, is it an overreaction? Yes. But, you know, there is a reason behind it.

And, you know, by the same token, that's why I kind of, I sort of reject this idea that you've seen a lot over the last few days that. But how can the league be punishing this guy when they accept all this gambling money? The senators have a gambling company sticker on their helmet. Yeah. Every broadcast is inundated with these gambling commercials. This is a classic dumb guy take on this. You know, I noticed actually, and isn't it interesting? You know, like, okay.

I mean, my response to that is we also, I mean, we put alcohol ads on everything. There's beer ads everywhere. That's the exact analogy I made the other day. Right. And yet if a guy gets behind the wheel when he's drunk, nobody says, oh, well, you can't punish him because of all the advertising. You just understand that, hey, man, it doesn't matter how many logos are on the ice or on the scoreboard or wherever or even on your helmet, you can't do it. And it's the same with gambling.

And gambling, you're behind the wheel all the time if you're a pro athlete. Like, you just, it should be made clear that you just can't do it. So I would love to know the details here. Um, uh, and I think it would be helpful. Good luck. Finding them out.

Well, cause like, that's the other thing. Well, I mean, I'll be honest. Like, I,

as much as, you know, okay, I've just said the, the athletes need to know, it's, you know, if,

if you ever been in a football locker room, there are things plastered all over the place about like, not betting everywhere, um, to make sure the players know. But I, I will tell you right now,

if a guy, on my team two months from now gets caught doing whatever it is Shane Pinto did and gets a 41 game suspension and says I wouldn't have done that if I'd known that's what Pinto did but nobody told me what Pinto did

so I thought it was okay I'd be a little bit ticked off that the league kept this a secret and again part of the reason it's such a secret is that this was a negotiated thing the player slash NHLPA in the league sat down and figured out what felt

like a fair punishment. And as part of that, I'm assuming, it was the player side saying we don't want information released. Correct. But, I mean, this is one of those cases

where it's like, man, that leak it out there one way or another because I think people have, I think Senators fans have a right to know what this guy did, you know? Like, how do they feel about him when he comes back? Was he actually doing something shady

or was he, as is kind of being portrayed, you know, just a, you know, you know, a good kid who made a mistake. Well, the other thing is along those lines is it does seem like the league is kind of acknowledging, oh, you know, we actually didn't make a lot of these rules clear for guys and that kind of thing. Which, if that's the case, like, yeah, you got to, you know, again, drop the hammer on this guy, right? Like, you can't just go, hey, you know what?

We made it a little vague, so you're free to go. They couldn't do that, right? But, you know, if they're going, hey, look, we got to do a better job of educating the players here. Yeah. Like, that feels like they're going, well, A, it feels like they may be assumed a little too much about how smart the average NHL player is about these kind of things. but the other thing is like

I don't know like I guess if that's what we're hearing and if that's the case then I can't get too mad at chain Pinto for just being like oh you know I didn't know I was supposed to share I wasn't supposed to share an account or whatever it was yeah again like it yeah this was it's 41 games

with the NHLPAs blessing. Right. I mean, he's not getting 41 games for like a terms of service by that's what I mean, yeah. Letting somebody use his account to play a, you know, a couple of hands of blackjack.

So, you know, I mean, we, we saw, we just saw a player get suspended for four games and appeal with the backing of the NHLPA on a obviously dirty hit that everyone was like, yeah, that should be at least four games. And yet here you've got, 10 times of that.

And again, different category, absolutely. But the NHLPA is not just accepting it, but actively approving it. Yeah. This is a,

it's just a weird story. And I mean, I guess at the end of the day, maybe you could make the case that it's nobody's business and, you know, he'll serve the service punishment and that's that.

But it's nobody's business is a really tough sell for me. For a professional sports league, an entertainment league, and one that is just navigating this new issue that we all knew was going to be an issue. Yep. You know, as soon as sports gambling became legal widely, like even before the money starts pouring into the NHL and its partners for it, it's, you knew this was going to come on. the fact that the first major case is being shrouded in secrecy seems seems strange. Yeah, that's my big problem with it, for sure.

Is it just like, oh yeah, what he did was crazy. And like, again, against the integrity of the league, put the league in a terrible position. Oh, really? What did he do? I'm not allowed to tell you. Yeah. Oh, okay. And the CBA says that he's allowed to do this.

and we say he didn't do the thing that he's not allowed to do, but I don't know. Did you have any thoughts on the fact that they are allowing him to serve the suspension while not signed to a contract? Well, you know, I think there was a lot of going into the season and even, you know, two or three games in Ottawa fans are chanting, we want Pinto and all this kind of stuff. But from what I can gather, it seems like the

the team became or was made aware of the investigation into his alleged gambling and blah blah blah although late well that's what I mean like late and very late the offseason slash training camp was when they seem to find out

right but my point is that like so I would say the reason he doesn't have a contract is that the center are like, oh, we don't have to fucking sign this guy. We're in cap trouble anyway. But I feel like him being allowed to serve is kind of an acknowledgment from all sides of like, well, he would have, he would be playing right now if it weren't for this thing. Yeah. Does that make sense?

It does. And like, I guess where I come down on it is, you know, when this, when the news first broke, there were people saying, well, wait a second. The NHL policy is you have to have a contract to be suspended. Right. Your suspension, no, your suspension has to, it does not begin to count until you have a contract. And you count against the cap when you are suspended, meaning the senators were going to be in this situation where they had to sign them to start the clock on the suspension. But as soon as they signed them, they were going to be paying cap. space they didn't have on a player they couldn't use.

I actually don't have an issue with them saying, you know what, it was an off-ice situation. It doesn't, you know, even if the rules are written a certain way, like that wouldn't have felt like a fair outcome. Totally. To the senators to me. So I don't mind them. They want to help protect their new owner. Hey, first thing that happens when you own a team is you have to pay a guy to not play for you for half the season.

How's that sound? Yeah, I... It sounds bad, actually. I think there's a lot of interesting conversations happening with the new owner and the league right now. We should also talk about the news that just came out, frankly, a few minutes after we stopped recording the podcast. And now we're going back and restating all this. Thanks a lot, NHL. And by the way, we're doing this because the news dropped like five minutes after we finished.

And it's big. I don't want to set any precedence here. I don't need like every time some trade happens Wednesday night getting tweets from people like asking if we're going to get back on. The other thing is we knew this was coming and we recorded a little bit on the show that you're not going to hear now saying, oh, we know it's coming. we don't know what it is. It could be big. It could be nothing. And I think we were leaning toward it's probably going to be pretty big.

I did not think it was going to be this big. For those who didn't see it, last year there was a whole hollow blue about Ottawa tried to trade. Evgeny Dodonov to Vegas. And then it turned out he had a no move clause or no trade clause. They did trade him to Vegas. Right. Yes. He did have, he apparently had.

a no move clause with a list of 10 teams that did not in Vegas was not on so that trade was fine but as part of that Vegas said hey do does he have a no trade that we need to know about does he have that that list of 10 teams

and right at this point it gets murky apparently Ottawa indicated that no he hadn't submitted a list and so there was no no trade protection and then of course you had the whole mess where they ended up trading. Vegas ends up trading him

at the deadline, if you remember, to Anaheim, only for him to go, hey man, I got this no trade clause. The trade gets scrapped. That had implications for Vegas as far as their cap the rest of the year. And then at the time, we all made fun of Vegas going like, they didn't even bother

to check on the no trade, but it sounds like Their argument, which now has been supported by the league, was that, no, we did check and the senators misled us into believing there was not a no trade when there was. Yes. So that's all, it's all very complicated. But the practical upshot is that because of Ottawa's, I don't know if you want to say lack of diligence on this matter or what, they will forfeit a first round. pick in either 2024, 2025 or 2026. Right. That's not good.

No, it's not good. It's a big punishment. And so a couple things. First of all, as with anything like this, people are going to look at other cases and especially people are going to point right at the Blackhawks, right? This is a harsher punishment than... what the Blackhawks got for their whole cover-up in 2020. You know, that honestly isn't one I had seen yet. The one I saw immediately was like, oh, yeah,

but when the Devils signed Ilya Kovalchuk to an illegal contract, and it's like, well, I mean, that contract, was it the thing where that contract wasn't illegal at the time? Well, it was illegal, but they, yeah, and it was rejected by the league, and then it was resigned. Now remember, that one, the league, I think, ultimately rescinded that punishment,

which is maybe what the senators will be hoping here. Yeah. The other thing that jumps out, and, you know, again, we're talking about Shane Pinto on the show. Again, the NHL sends out a two-paragraph release here. They say that the senators are forfeiting the first-round pick for their role in the 2020.

21 trade of of Genni Denada from the senators to Vegas and the subsequent invalidated trade. And then they go on to explain the mechanisms by which they're losing that first roundback. That's it. They are not telling, and then they say the league will have

no further comment on the matter. So once again, the league is not telling us what actually happened here. Was it a misunderstanding? Was it intentional? You know, were they misled? Was there conflicting messages from Ottawa? Did Ottawa not know?

I'd love to know this stuff. But according to the NHL... Simply not allowed to. Book is closed. Yep. Here's the pun. And I mean, if I'm a senator's fan, I'm absolutely beside myself because I don't know what my team did wrong. Who should I be mad at?

Who screwed up? Yep. Now I think... Is this Pierre Dorian? Is this a firing offense? Is it somebody who was, like, you know, a Pierre McGuire or, you know, Trent Man, who's already not with the organization anymore? Anyone going to tell us at all?

Or is it just, you know, hey, keep handing over your money for season tickets and jerseys and otherwise shut up because we're not going to tell you. None of your business, yeah. That is interesting, right? Because, like, obviously there was a lot of heat on Pierre Dorian already. There was a lot of, like, oh, he feels like he could be the first GM fired or DJ Smith feels like he could be the first coach fired. and then that would remove the protection that Pierre Dorian has, et cetera, et cetera.

As you say, we just straight up can't know this stuff. Like, not allowed to, that's life, deal with it, you know? And like you say, it just creates the situation where it's like, well, I guess I don't know what to believe then. You know, like, did the senators... I think it's wise to air on the side of, well, somebody at the senator is screwed up. Because that's just kind of, it seems like what they do a little bit, you know? Mm-hmm. But, you know, like, this is a first round pick for a team that isn't off to the hottest start that everybody was kind of wanting them to have.

And, you know, if I'm a fan, the thing about like, oh, who's to blame for this? well, you know, whether he's the guy that, like, picked up the phone and made the statements or, you know, whatever we're saying happened here, there's one guy who, it should be the buck stops with, you know? And to me, I'm just looking at this, like, we're already going, I don't know if this guy's going to be to GM much longer. And then, also, you're going to give up a first round pick in the next few years. I don't know how if you're a senator's fan, you're like, it's impossible to know whose fault this is, you know? I put it this way. We all figured Pierre Dorian was already in trouble,

given the new ownership. This, I think, is very unlikely now. Unless he's got, like, an ironclad, like, no, it was this guy who did that, which, you know, maybe is the case. Maybe he does. I think, yeah, this is, again, like, this is, very surprising. As far as how harsh the punishment is,

sure would be nice to have some details. I imagine we'll get them. Yeah, second hand or whatever for sure. So yeah, I guess we'll see whether they, when they want to give that pickup. They might just do the thing that the devils did and be like, oh, next year, next year. And then by next year, the league's like,

hey, you don't have to do it at all, actually. Well, that's what everyone's going to be looking at, right? And certainly if I'm the senators, typically when you give teams and options, they will kick the can as far down the road as they can, and you figure the senators are going to be a much better team two years from now than now. Do I figure that? It's an interesting question.

Yeah. But that's especially a reason to do that, to see if they end up maybe lessening the punishment. Absolutely. Yep. Yep. So there you go. There's our little insert.

I guess we'll take that break now or something. I don't know what order this is in. Whatever, who cares? See you later. Bye. One last thing we've got to talk about off the hop here is, of course, the death of Adam Johnson over in England. For those who didn't see it. Well, I was going to say for those who didn't see it, don't seek out the video is apparently, I haven't sought it out because I don't want to see a guy die personally, you know.

but, you know, for those who haven't heard, I guess, he died because an opponent's skate came up and knicked him in the neck and they couldn't save him, basically. Really sad, one of those things where it's like, well, that was bound to happen one of these days. Yeah, and obviously it has come very, very close to happening in the NHL. Yes, of course. Richard Zed, Nick Clint Malar, Chuck. I mean, I would say even more than we know because Milarchuk and Zednik were both, you know, very obvious cases where, you know, in real time, you're looking. Blood on the ice.

There's no, like, and Malarchuck famously, the story is that if it had happened at the other end of the ice, he would have died because they would not have got to him in time. The few seconds of him being closer to the bench was what, you know, made the difference. So, um, I don't know if I've ever heard that. Yeah. That's great. And again, it may be that that could be apocryphal. Yeah. Who knows.

That's, that's, I mean, they, they literally, you know, without being too graphic, had to reach in and pinch off the, you know, where the cut was in order to, to save them. But, but, but I mean, there have also been stories that, you know, I've heard where, you know, guys have been sliced in the leg or something. And it's, it's almost like this offhand thing of. you know, oh, by the way, if it had been five millimeters to the left, it would have got him in a place that, you know, he could have died. So I, you know, and I'm not trying to be macaw, but I, you know, I tweeted this. Like, this is going to happen in the NHL at some point. Yep.

It feels like I've said before, and even when we've been talking about other safety things about, you know, like, hits the head or fighting or whatever, I've said that we are eventually going to have deaths in the NHG. either skate blades or guys being hit by pucks. Guy hits his head, you know, coming off a fight. Like, there are so many ways that could happen. Yeah. But it's, and all that I would, you know, all that I would ask is, you know, imagine that this had happened in the NHL,

the kind of conversations we'd be having the next day about player safety. Totally. Have those now. Now, be proactive. Don't wait until the inevitable happens. And I will say that it sounds like that is happening. You're seeing a lot of movement on, you know, because, you know, if people don't know, there are protective, you know, there's protective equipment that you can wear, you know, turtlenecks, you know, sleeves to protect wrists and wear, you know, does it guarantee anything? No.

And, you know, in the Adam Johnson case, the contact was, I mean, it wasn't a Nick. It was, you know, it was about as bad as it could be. You know, maybe it wouldn't have helped. But at the very least, let's, you know, let's try it. Like with any new equipment, you know, for a lot of players, you know, it's uncomfortable and it's not, you know, when you say it's not, it's a comfort thing that sounds so petty, but, you know, as a high-level athlete, you know, anything that makes you feel off

is going to be something you're going to want to push back on. But it sounds like some guys are trying it. There's a talk about mandating it at lower levels so that the players coming up will be comfortable. And we should do that. Like, 20 years from now, players not having throat protection is going to feel like we feel today

when we see guys without helmets. You're just going to be like, what how could that have lasted as long as it did so yep um that's kind of all that i have to say on that because a lot of the rest of the you don't want to get into the culture war part of it it's i i like it takes a lot to like depress me to like bum me out about the state of things yeah the state of the discourse this week this week this was a tough god to me this was like There are just some legitimately broken people in the world that are really proudly, obnoxiously loud with their voices.

And it's, it was not a fun week. No. The thing I want to say, and look, I bring this up a lot. but, you know, my local AHA team, the Lowlok Monsters in the late 90s, first season, like five, six, seven games into the year. This guy, Jeff Libby, who had played at the University of Maine, loses an eye on a, you know, guy's skate blade comes up along the boards and just, that's it. Like, five, ten games into his professional career. and I'd never even like it had never even occurred to me to think about like oh yeah that could happen you know and I just remember it was a road game I wasn't there thank God um it was a road game and I just remember reading in the morning paper the next day like holy shit like this can happen you know and of course it makes sense but it's just one of those things that I think as a hockey player you're not thinking about it because you've

never had to think about it. And, you know, just also, like, the thing of, well, this is, like, one of the premier athletes in the world, like, if you're in the HL, you're going to be one of the, like, 5,000 greatest athletes in the world, something like that, right? Like, just in terms of everything that's gone right for you in your career as an athlete. And so, like, if you're 22, 23 years old, you're just absolutely not thinking about, like, no, I'm skating around out there. A guy, the guy's skate blade could come up, take my fucking eye out. You're just not thinking about it.

Because it's completely impossible to predict, completely impossible to prevent, like, the actual moment from happening. Right. And this isn't like hits to the head or something where it's like, well, we, you know, you? just we ban it. We have to, you know, we change the behavior so it doesn't happen. I just don't know how you do that. Yeah, I don't think you can. And without just being like, you don't get to wear skates anymore.

You got to like run around out there and it's floor hockey. But you know who, you know who was on that Lollock Monsters team was Calgary Flames head coach Ryan Husk? and I haven't seen any quotes from him about this like and I looked this morning I wonder like if he because I just I just straight up don't know like what what his like what his reaction

and his teammates reaction to it was back in the 90s you know I'd be interested to see that but certainly I just feel like everybody was just like damn that was crazy anyway we got a whole season of a hl hockey to play but you know maybe maybe in the room it was there i straight up don't know yeah well even i mean was it was somebody on the bruin's like a week ago like jagel lago like yeah kicked in the in the and you know everybody was look at his you know look at these

crazy pictures of this crazy scar like oh hockey players boy they're tough and you know just move like it feels like it's one of those things that we just kind of kind of as fans even are just in denial about because like what can you do so you just don't think about it and then something happens that forces you to think about it and again like I'm not sitting here saying hey if we all put on neck guards and that's it the you know the problem goes away but it's you know it it could literally be the difference and you know this is another thing where it's like so why doesn't the league do anything about it and basically the answer is the league has to work with the PA on equipment rules.

And, you know, I think there will now be conversations about, well, Jesus Christ, what do we do here? You know, we cannot have this in the NHL. Of course, of course you can. But like you say, let's say they make that rule tomorrow. You got to wear one of these. well it's going to be like visors or helmets or anything else where it gets grandfathered in like you don't it's not going to be tomorrow everybody in the entire league is is just wearing neck protectors for for the rest of time you know it'll be like Craig McTavish skating around out there no no helmet

we're going to be getting close to the number of guys who were grandfathered in for the visor thing coming to an end I know like Jamie bed there are a couple of guys who are still out there not using them, but it's probably in the single digits at this point. And like you said earlier, like now you look at it and you go, yeah, it's crazy that people just like didn't fucking wear visors. It's just so normal that the guys wear visors. And it may be one day it'll be like that with neck guards too. I think it will. Yeah.

And I just hope that it is because enough guys, you know, it's because enough guys made the decision and not because something terrible happened. And then suddenly half the league was wearing him the next day. Yeah. The other thing I wanted to say about this, this was honestly my first thought when I saw this news is, like Adam Johnson, this guy was in the NHL like two, three years ago. And now he's over in England playing in a league that, you know, it's not like as far from the NHL as you can get. But it's pretty close.

And my first thought I had was like, fuck man, this guy just loved playing hockey. Yeah. You know? That's the brutal part of it. Well, you know what I mean. but that was just a part where I was just like, man, like, if you're, if you're Adam Johnson, you know, you're not, you're not over there because you're like, oh, you know, this is,

this is just my career. This is, because he could be playing the ECHL or whatever, you know what I mean. This is like, I want to, I want to play hockey. I want to experience the world of hockey and that kind of thing. And like that, that to me is like the big. like loss almost, you know? Like that's, we just, and, you know, maybe this is true of just any time a player passes away

due to like a tragic accident or something. But like every comment you heard about Adam Johnson, who I would imagine most NHL fans are vaguely familiar with at best, Like, everybody was like, God, what a sweetheart this guy was, you know? And he's just over there, like I said, plugging away, just playing hockey. And, man, it's really, really tough. And what was he, like, 29 or something like that, man. Yep.

Yeah. And it's just an awful situation, start to finish. And you just hope some good can come out of it. You hope some good and you just... If one guy adopts a neck protector and has a scary incident and then they get to go, if he didn't have that neck protector, it would have been bad. You know, like that's something at least, I guess. I don't know.

It could be, ma'am. Yeah. Anyway, on that note, won't we take a break and we'll be back to talk about some other stuff? This week's episode of Puck Soup is brought. to you by Factor, and folks, the holiday season is nearly upon us. Halloween was just yesterday. It was snowing this morning in Western Massachusetts. If that's not telling you what holiday season it is, I don't know what to say.

But with the holidays comes a very busy schedule, a very packed schedule. And that's where Factor can be a big part of your holiday season this year. They're America's number one, ready-to-eat-meal delivery service. And they can help you fuel up fast for breakfast lunch and dinner with chef-repaired, dietitian approved, ready-to-eat meals delivered straight to your door. You got a lot of stuff going on at this time of year. Everybody does. You don't want to have to worry about meal prep and planning and all this kind of stuff.

So let factor help you with that. They have 35-plus weekly, flavor-packed, fresh and ever-frozen meals that support a healthy lifestyle and meet all your meal preferences, all delivered right to your door and ready to eat in two minutes. And if you want to elevate things, even a little bit more, they have gourmet plus options, It's prepared to perfection by chefs and ready to eat in record time. Even beyond that, they have an assortment of 45 plus add-ons to suit various preferences and tastes.

Everything from apple cinnamon pancakes, bacon and cheddar egg bites, potato, bacon, and egg breakfast skillets. The list goes on and on and includes cold press juices, smoothies, shakes. You can't go wrong, no matter what you're looking for. So here's what you're going to want to do. Head to factormeals.com slash puck 50 and use code puck 50 to get 50% off. That's code puck 50 at factormeals.com slash puck 50 to get 50% off. Our next partner for this week's episode is Uncommon Goods. We're into November.

And if you're like me, this is the time of year where you tell yourself that you're going to get a head start on that holiday shop and get a big chunk of it done. Sometimes it happens. Sometimes it doesn't. But I will tell you, last year I actually did get a bunch of my holiday shopping done in November, and part of that was through uncommon goods. I found a bunch of cool stuff on there for people that are typically pretty tough to buy for. I got my son this big wall calendar, where instead of using a marker or pen or whatever to mark off the dates, it's bubble wrap. Everybody loves bubble wrap.

So does he. You pop the little bubble for each date. He's got it hanging in his wall. on his wall, he likes it a lot, still uses it. If you want to hear where'd you get that this holiday season, Uncommon Goods is your secret weapon. They're here to make holiday shopping stress-free by scouring the globe for the most remarkable and truly unique gifts for everyone on your list.

Whether you're shopping for Secret Santa or your entire family, a couple of those hard-to-buy-buy friends. Uncommon Goods knows exactly what you want. When you shop at Uncomin's goods, you're supporting artists and small independent businesses. These fine products are often made in small batches, so shop now before they sell out for the holiday season. Uncommon Goods looks for products that are high-quality, unique, often handmade or made in the U.S., they have the most meaningful out-of-the-ordinary gifts anywhere, and with every purchase you make,

they give $1 to a non-profit partner of your choice. They've donated more than $2.5 million to date. Go to UncommonGoods.com slash puck. That's Uncommonogoods.com slash puck for art and jewelry to date. kitchen, home, and bar. Uncommon Goods has something for everyone. Go get something special. Get that where'd you get that reaction at UncommonGoods.com. This week's episode of Puck Soup is brought to you by game time. And we've all wanted to get tickets to the hottest events that we're really interested in. And sometimes those tickets just aren't available or they're available, but they're way too expensive

and you're not really sure if you want to make the investment, if it's going to be a good investment for you. And that's where you're going to be a good investment for you. and that's where game time comes in. They have tickets to everything you want to go to, sports, music, comedy, theater events, etc., etc., great last-minute deals, all-in prices, views from your seats, and a best-price guarantee. They make it really easy for you to rest assured that the ticket you're buying is going to work out great for you. I'm on the GameTime app right now, and there's all kinds of stuff going on near me in the near future here. You got a Lil Wayne concert, who doesn't want to see Weezy, you know?

you got Yukon basketball, you got Paul Anka, he was on an episode of The Simpsons that time. So just something for you to think about. Tool, pentatonic, the list goes on and on. I have a lot of options available to me, all on the GameTime app. And also on the GameTime app, they have last minute tickets, flash deals, zone deals.

Again, like, you're going to find something that works for you. In fact, GameTime is the only ticketing app that gives you complete peace of mind with your purchase. You see the view from your seat before you buy so you know exactly what to expect. They show you the total up front, so they're not hiding any fees from you, and you can buy a ticket within seconds. All it takes often is just two taps. So here's what you're going to want to do.

Take the guesswork out of buying tickets with GameTime. Download the GameTime app, create an account, and use the code Puck for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Again, create an account and redeem the code, PUCK for $20 off. Download game time today. Last minute tickets, lowest price, guaranteed. We're back and folks, this is the benefit of doing a podcast at like 10 in the morning. It's usually news tends to break during it.

And this statement from Nicholas Baxter came out while we were wrapping up the last segment here. Given my ongoing injury situation, I decided. to take some time and step away from the game. This is a difficult decision, but one that I feel is right for my health at this time. I want to thank my teammates, the organization, and fans for their unwavering support through this process. I ask for privacy at this time as I determine my next steps and viable options moving forward.

That sounds like a guy who is not going to play very much in the NHL anymore. Yeah. Unfortunately, it's hard, dude. Hard to read it any other way. So he, you know, he, he has the hip surgery last year. Yep. A lot of people at the, you know, at the time, it was like, okay, the recovery time is X number of months. He'll be ready for training camp.

But even at the time, a lot of people were saying, like, this is when you don't come back. This is one you don't necessarily come back from. Put it that way. Right. Like, you, there is no guarantee that when you get out there and he's played eight games this season, which in itself is a great story, that he made it back, but has played eight games and has one assist on the season. He's not playing well. So, this, you know, is this definitely it?

Hey, who knows, but a guy who's 35 years old, about to turn 36. They can LTIR. It doesn't really, yeah, the money regardless. was on the LTIR. And I mean, I guess the one thing that would be, you'd be curious of is that, yeah, I mean, yeah, I get, you know, I was, well, I was thinking like, you know, would he want to go home and play in Sweden or whatever? But, I mean, he's under contract for a significant amount to the, to the capital. So I can't say. This year and next.

This year and next. Yeah. So that's unfortunate because, you know, he was a, he was a fun player, man. He was an underrated player for a lot of years who, you know, maybe at certain points kind of shed that label, but, you know, always kind of second banana to Alexander Ovechkin. But, you know, when you're second banana to quite possibly the greatest goal score of all time, that's all right. Yeah, the worst jobs to have for sure. It's, uh, it made, at worst, you know, it's the, uh, the Ryan Getslaff quote where he's like, just go to the front of the net. I'll make you a lot of money.

Like, uh, you know, you could, you could say Alex Ovechkin, and I'm not, I'm not trying to denigrate. Yeah. But like, you know, you get to play with Alex Ovechkin. You're, you're going to be in a, you're going to be in a good spot for, for the bulk of your career. Let's put it that way. Mm-hmm. So. It's going to be an interesting

Hall of Fame debate for him when the time comes. Sure. If you say so. I think there will be. Thousand points, you know, when you look at,

it's going to be the assist leader, you know, very high up, the assist leader board for the time that he played, whole career with one team. Yeah, I guess that's true. You know, he'll,

oh, they love that, don't they? They do. Yep. They sure do. So, yeah. And you'll have, you'll have like two camps, right?

you'll have the camp that says, well, I mean, anybody could have had a thousand points playing with Ovechkin. And then you'll also have people saying, Ovechkin's the greatest goal scorer ever. And this was his personal setup man for his entire career. Totally. But, yeah, so that's sad news. Although, I mean, you know, again, if he's not able to play at the level and or if he's, you know, suffering to play at that level, then, you know, I'm never. I'm sad to see guys go, but I've never said. to see someone make the best decision for themselves personally and family.

Yeah, because what's he, 36, 37? He's about to turn 36 in like a week or two. Yeah. So, you know, he's got, you hear it all the time. He's got literally his whole life ahead of him. When you don't have to work anymore when you're like 36, that all worked out pretty good for you, you know. But, yeah, you want to, you know, the classic thing. You want to be able to like pick up your kids or whatever, you know,

and not feel like you're in a ton of pain. So who could blame a guy for going that route? I don't know. But yeah, it's not, it both is and isn't surprising, right? Where it's like, you know, again, like you said, has he been good this year? Definitely not. But you rarely.

expect to see a guy just go, you know what, I'm just going to take the rest of the season off maybe and we'll revisit later. Like that just doesn't happen very frequently. So. Yep. So yeah, there's some breaking news for you. Here's some other news is Charlie McAvoy just got four-game suspension for hitting Oliver Recman-Larson in the head. Can't say he didn't earn it. He got his money's worth on. Yeah, it was a bad one. Really bad one. And, you know, I don't need, I don't think we need to litigate it too much.

But here's what I do think is interesting. As you mentioned in the first part of the show, that came 10 days after Rasmus Anderson also got a four-day suspension, or four-game suspension, rather. And Connor Clifton got two a few days. go. So we are now up to five guys who have been suspended for regular season games this year. There were 25 all of last season. And this is the interesting thing. They didn't give out one suspension north of three games last year. And I should say five guys, not including Shane Pinto, like five guys who did something on the ice to get suspended. So I, my question is this, do you think

the fact that we went from like, I think it was like July or like July. I think it was from like mid-December to like late February or something last year where there were no suspensions at all. Do you think somebody got a phone call down at Department of Player Safety? Like, hey, you guys actually have to like show up to work and maybe start a start throwing your weight around a little bit. Yeah, it does feel like I saw somebody make the comparison to like the early years of or maybe early months of the brand. Shanahan era hit the Department of Player of Safety where it felt like they were cracking down a little bit. And then that didn't last because the teams, you know, it's the classic. All our good players.

Yeah, it's the classic right. Like, oh, well, not our guy. Like, we didn't, you know, when we said we wanted law and order, that didn't mean that, like, you know, that didn't apply to my team. So we'll see how long this lasts. But, no, I mean, look, both the Anderson hit and this one. deserved four games. They were... 100%.

Bad hits and, you know, circumstances and all of that. So, um, let's see if it lasts. But I mean, one, one can be a fluke.

Two feels like a pattern. And pattern is precedent when you're dealing with something like this. So if somebody throws a similar hit a couple weeks from now, you're going to have people pointing at these two saying, well, that's got to be four two. And maybe we start feeling like there's some actual criteria.

be nice, but also none of us are holding our breath that this is going to, this is really going to continue. But yeah, so far so good. Yep. Yeah, I don't have a lot more to say about that. I hope, you know, they can do. I think it's nice when they take player safety seriously. That's just me. Maybe I'm crazy.

Yeah. A couple of things. We had the Heritage Classic the other night. Edmonton Oilers won pretty easily. So speaking of Ryan Huska, it looks like the Calgary Flames are back in the toilet. And I don't know if you've seen a lot of the quotes that have come out of the Calgary Flames camp

the last little while here. They're not good. No, they're not. Nikita Zedorov basically like, I don't have the exact quote in front of me, but he basically said something along the lines of like, hey remember it last year everybody was blaming the coach well we changed the coach so darrell's not here anymore that's right yeah he basically said well i yeah i don't have the quote in front of me either

people are a little bit reading into it but it it sort of felt like he was alluding to what i think a lot of us are thinking with this team which is you all bitched and complained about darrell sutter being too mean to you so they brought in a player for friendly coach and GM. And now you're, you're not playing any better. Maybe you're playing even worse. So, you know, what's, which is it? And, you know, the problem with the flames is, you know,

this is the part of the show where when anytime you and I are talking about a team that's not doing very well, we go, hey, blow it up, rebuild, start over. can't really do that with this flames of roster because all of these huge bad contracts signed by your dumb GM who I mean who even knows what that guy's doing these days

but you know like again like Nazim Cadry hasn't done anything this year Jonathan Juverdow is again not like he's third in team scoring but he's you know he's got five points in nine games he's a minus 10 i know plus minus is not a good stat but you never want to be

you never want the minus to be higher than the games played good rule of thumb i would say yeah like i mean the team just looks like a bit of a mess um you know jacob markstrom's not been good but he hasn't been bad so it's not even like you're looking at this going well marks you know the goalie stinks. Like, this just doesn't look like a good team, top to bottom. I mean, on paper, you look at the names they have and it looks like a good team. But just right now, just... Not a lot of answers.

And not a lot of, yeah, not a lot of good news. And there was a report that they had basically pressed pause on all of their free agents, like the upcoming free agents. Yeah. Noah Hannafin, they were like, oh, this actually, it turns out after we said all summer that this isn't going to get done. This is this is going to get done sooner than later. And then they were like, oh, wait a minute.

We suck? I forget it. Yeah. To the point, like, I literally, when I saw that, I was like, oh, good for Hanofane. He got in right under the wire. And then I was like, oh, they never. Like, remember, like, at one point they're like, he's going to meet with the media. And you're like, oh, here, here comes.

This is the announcement's imminent. And nope. Yeah, no, it certainly wasn't. What's interesting about that. to me. And we're going to talk about this with another team in a second. Is if you're making like, I don't want to say franchise altering, but like decisions that will affect your roster for the better part of a decade, let's say, based on

four or five games here and there, that's bad. You want to be making decisions based on like. I don't know. 82 games, 160 games, you know? And like you said, like Noah Hannafin, like, hey, if someone's going to give you like, whatever, I heard people saying numbers like $9 million a year. And it's like for Noah Hannafin, really?

Hey, look, the cap's going up. So what can I say, you know? But that would strike me as an insane amount of money to give Noah Hannafin. And that's a player I like, but like $9 million, good Lord. But just the fact that the flames were like, now wait a minute, if we sign this guy, that would be bad actually? Is that what you're telling me? Like, again, based on eight games, nine games, whatever they've played, or whatever they'd played at the time of that shift in the wind, to me it's just like, oh, okay, like nobody knows what the fuck's going on over there. is how I immediately interpret that.

You know what I mean? They just don't have answers for themselves, for anybody else. Yep. Not how I would want to be running a team. Go to the CAF friendly page, three red arrows. And they wanted to add a fourth one to it, at least a fourth one. They still might, who knows. And again, like, you know, the other thing on this was remember Craig Conroy's whole deal

when he took over his GM. I'm not going to, we're not going to be in the situation, the Johnny Gros situation. Where we've got guy, we're losing guys for nothing. So, you know, in theory,

that means Hanifin would be traded. It would mean Elias Lindelm would be traded. But what kind of message does that send to the fan base? I mean, well, I mean, what kind of message does it send to not do it? Like,

I mean, those are your three options, right? You sign them long term. You trade them. Obama voice, let me, be clear, I was being facetious. The message of sense of the fan base

is we suck and we know it. Yeah. And I mean, Conroy as a new GM has more leeway you would think than if True Living was still around to, you know, you get into the hole like, well, if we're, if we stink and you built the team, why are we letting you rebuild it? So. Yeah, no, they fired the GM that built the team. You know, but. But.

Well, I think he stepped away, Ryan is well. Oh, that's right. Yeah. But, you know, like, if you're going to trade those guys, okay, but it's not like, you know, it's not, I don't think the market for those guys is, ramping up right now. For sure, no. You're selling at the lowest possible point, but all, I mean, when are they going to, when are, when at this point in the season, when are you looking at the flame and being like, you know what? Well, let's, let's, let's really put Noah Han.

in the position to boost his trade value for the next like three weeks. And, you know, maybe that turns like a pick and a prospect into a pick and two prospects. Mm-hmm. And is that second prospect, like, particularly good? Well, I mean, no, but he's a second prospect, so.

Yep. You know, I... Like you say, on paper, this should be a way better team than it is. But something keeps happening where this on paper this should be a way better team than it is isn't way better. And I don't know what that thing is. But if I'm the Calgary Flames, one thing I'm definitely not fucking doing is going. And of course, we need to lock in all the guys who have been on the disappointing team for the last few years. They already started doing it. That's the

crazy part. They were like, well, look, we can't live without fucking Michael Backlitt. Again, a player I like a lot. But, like, at his age, you're just like, well, look, we got, we got to keep this fucking guy around. Really? You do? Oh, okay. Maybe I'm crazy. Mm-hmm. Uh, yeah, along, along similar lines, let's talk about the Vancouver Canucks off to one of the hottest starts in the league.

And, uh, there was a report yesterday. They're working the phones. They're trying to find a reward for the boys. Oh, like, like, take a right for ice cream or? Yeah. Something like that? No, I mean, I mean, they want to go and get help in the form of like a guy that like Columbus is giving away from Jack shit right now. I will say, I find that interesting only because it goes against what you so often hear in this league, which is, oh, things are going well, well, we can't make a change now.

We can't break somebody and disrupt our precious chemistry or, you know, not even. I would assume they're not necessarily talking about subtracting to make a deal. But, you know, even if you're dealing futures. Yeah, finally, the Canucks are trading futures. Yeah. But, you know, someone's going to come in and bump someone out of a lineup or, you know, oh, we can't do that. And then, of course, then it swings the other way. And the team's not doing well.

And you go, well, I mean, then you can't make a deal now because things aren't going well. Yeah, you're selling low on all these guys. And, I mean, if anyone's earned or trusted is the Vancouver front office. so it'll be, it'll be fine. Yeah, I think that is, I mean, look, they're going, oh, we want to reward the guys. There's not been a lot to cheer for in Vancouver the last few years. And then I click on a little, a little tab that says sort by PDO. Mm-hmm.

105.4 in all situations for your Vancouver Canucks. They're shooting 14%. They're getting 920-something gold. and you know what? Thatcher Demko has been great. And I think that's a goalie that a lot of people in this league have plenty of time for. Elias Patterson, this guy's fucking awesome. Everybody agrees.

But it's just so funny to me that any team would look at, well, look, we just went through October. We outscored opponents by a lot. Yeah, 36 to 21. That's really good. and, oh, what happened here? We only got a slightly outshot in those, in those 9-10 games. We're only minus 22 in shots on goal. Well, we're going to reward the boys.

Reward the boys, man. It's just one of those things where it's like you can set your watch to it. I'm telling you, man, if I'm a team that has anything to sell, I'm on the phone. right now with Vancouver 100% going yeah of course like I said

like Columbus they've been oh we're trying to get rid of a defenseman if I'm if I'm Yarmierkekeke-alining I'm calling every day going look we got

we got Adam Beauchrist is he any good well I mean that's for you to decide he's a reward to me I got a laugh that's all and while we're in Western Canada

I don't know if people have seen this. This is, man, this is the thing that I absolutely love in hockey is when people who like only vaguely understand the salary cap are all going. This is a huge fucking problem. And they're right. You know what I mean? Like when even the people who are like, I don't really understand how the CBA works, but I know this is bad. Mm-hmm. For those who aren't familiar,

Connor Brown signed what was basically, his salary was league minimum. But he had a bunch of performance bonuses that, or not, he had a single performance bonus that kicked in when he reached his 10th game played, taking him from a $775,000 player to a $4 million player.

He's played eight games so far this year, doesn't have a single point, has not played well at all. and it seems like everybody's just kind of looking at it going well look he's on the conveyor belt already what am I going to do and and the thing is though like to be clear this is a guy who he had he's got a couple of 20 gold seasons under his belt feels like on paper exactly the sort of guy that the oilers should be going

out and getting right like a supporting he's not a star he's a middle six piece, but critically, also worth noting, played with Connor McDavid in the OHAHM. And so the idea was they can rekindle some of that magic. Well, you're not in fucking eerie anymore.

And he comes in, but he comes in as an unrestricted free agency, so you're giving up no assets to get him. Yep, sure. And because he was injured last year, he is one of the few players who is eligible to sign a deal where, as you described, there are

incentive bonuses that would either, you know, the way an incentive bonus, and they're only available to players that were injured guys on rookie deals or 35 plus players. Yep. Where you can say, I will give you this much as your base salary, and based on this threshold or, you know, multiple thresholds, you can earn additional money. That additional money, if you have cap room, counts towards your cap, that, you year. If you do not have cap room, it kicks forward to next year. So this is the only way you can

kick salary cap to a different year. And the Oilers, at the time, somewhat smartly, look at this guy and say, okay, we're a team that's pretty capped out. This guy deserves to be like a $3 or $4 million player based on, you know, the UFA market rate. So we will give him this dead simple, easy, impossible to miss threshold of playing in 10 games but this will allow us to shift salary cap hit to next year, kick the can down the road.

Brilliant. Everybody wins. And now here we are, eight games into the season. He doesn't have a point. And a lot of, you know, I've, from fans from what I've seen, are going, wait a second. Do you not let this guy play a 10th game. The second that he steps on the ice for that 10th game, your salary caper room next year goes down by 3 million.

Right. Even if he's not on the team, by the way. This isn't something there later you can, you know, your way out of or whatever. Think of it like the Patrice Berseran and David Craychie bonuses hurting the Bruins this year. Yeah, exactly. It's exactly the same.

This isn't like, you know, you can't say, well, you know, they can wave them later or whatever. So I don't know. I mean, you could put them on waivers, but I don't think anyone's going to claim them. You could, you know, try to trade them, but that's going to be the – Or you could just say, go sit in the press box, man. Like, we're not – or go home. Go to Bakersfield.

Yeah. Find your game. And, yeah, find your game. But, I mean, you better be, like, scoring a hat-trick every night before we're going to bring you back up and play you. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. or you just shrug and say,

look, we always knew this was what the cap hit situation was going to be and we let this guy get sorted out and we don't overreact to eight bad games. But it's one of the, like it would be a very, I mean, it would be a very nasty move to take him out of the lineup now. But? Yeah, especially given like, you know, if you're going to start benching,

guys on the oilers who are having bad seasons. You're only putting like eight guys out there for the next game. But you don't gain anything by benching those guys. Oh, for sure. No, I- You gain $3 million in cap room that you're going to desperately need. I tell you what, man. Has anyone ever played a game in November with more on the line

than Connor Brown's ninth game? Yeah, that's got to be tonight, right? You're telling me you're not there like, hey, hey, other Connor. You want to like send a couple of passes, You want to dish a few my way? Let's just see. Yeah, they're hosting Dallas on Thursday.

Okay. And that'll be the ninth game, assuming he plays. And then Saturday at 3 p.m. The Connor Brown Bowl, Nashville, at Edmonton. There it is. Easy to watch it for everybody out there. It's on the NHL network. Oh, good.

We all get that. And that means it's an NHL network exclusive. So. one of the most consequential games of the Hedron Toilers, uh, 2024 season, uh, 2024-25 seasons is,

uh, on Saturday. And a bunch of people aren't going to be able to watch it. Classic, I tell you it, if he, you know, I think Connor Brown's a good player.

And again, he was hurt all last year. So this could just be a simple case of it, you know, taking some time to, to gear up. But if he doesn't work out to Emmett, let's, you know,

assuming they keep him around, if he plays this year and he's, you know, he's, you know, he's not good. And they ditch him. in the summer. Like, boy, that's going to be,

it's like the opposite of finding a 20 in an old coat pocket. Like, you just, when you, when it's like, hey, everyone, the cap went up for everyone except the Oilers because you've already spent your rising cap on Conner Brown last year.

I loved the move at the time, man. It felt like a smart, smart thing to do. I just looked, I gave it a C-minus in my grades. Yeah, he's not. even, he's signed for just this year, so it's not even... Yeah, I don't think he could have signed a bonus laden contract without it being a one-year deal. If I'm remembering my CBA rules correctly.

So he would go, he could like play out the season, leave as a free agent on July 1st, and have his cap hit, roughly quadruple, quintuple on the day that he leaves. Yeah. Oof. Yeah, man. It's one of those things. The oilers like took a bit of a risk, but, you know, they're looking at it like, well, look, if I buy a lottery ticket, that means I could win the lottery. That's right.

And, you can't win if you don't buy a ticket. That's what they always say. Why don't we take another break and we'll come back and talk about a little more stuff. This week's episode of Puck Soup is brought to you. by Raycon and folks, it's November 1st. If you're putting up your holiday decorations, you're overdoing it. You're getting way out in front of yourself. But if you're doing your holiday shopping, you probably should have started like a month ago.

Never too early to start your holiday shopping. And that's where Raycon comes in. You don't have to wait until Black Friday to get a really good deal on a Raycon product. In fact, you can shop Raycon products right now and save up to 50% off because they're Early Black Friday sale is already happening. You've already heard me talk about my everyday earbuds from Raycon. And as the name implies, I do use them every day. They have fitness earbuds too for working out.

They have gaming earbuds. They have impact earbuds. The list goes on and on. Basically, whatever your needs are in the earbuds department and over-ear headphones, for that matter, Raycon has you covered. I mentioned those everyday earbuds. You know what I like about them? 32-hour battery life, perfect in-ear fitness.

It can't go wrong. But here's the thing, folks. Raycon's not just about headphones anymore. They also recently introduced the Magic 180 cable that allows you to charge iOS, USB, and Type C devices eight times faster with 100 watt power delivery. They also have a new faucet filter that ultra filters water in your tap against chlorine and heavy metals. So check out the Raycon Home and Racon PowerTech offerings and, you know, get even more

of your shopping done, quite frankly. So here's what you're going to want to do. To get everyone in the holiday shopping spirit just a little bit earlier, RACON is currently offering 20% off everything on their site with select products up to 50% off. Beat the crowd, save now. You're going to feel great about yourself. Hurry now to buy raycon.com slash puck to get 20 to 50% off site wide.

That's buy raycon.com slash puck to score up to 50% off RACON products by RACON.com slash puck. This week's episode is brought to you by AG1. Folks, I don't know where you live, but up here in Ottawa, I've hit that part of the year where it is getting dark earlier and earlier. And I'm pretty sure we're switching the clocks this weekend, which means basically up here it's going to be dark all the time, which means I'm going to be tired all the time. So I'll be reaching for my AG1 daily because that's one of the benefits, one of the benefits, one of the benefits is support for your better energy levels along with things like gut optimization, stress management, and immune support. Since 2010, AG1 has led the future of foundational

nutrition continuously refining their formula to create a smarter, better way to elevate your baseline health. And there's a whole mix of ingredients in that one scoop, including B vitamins for energy support. And as you guys know, from hearing me do these ad reads, the single thing I love most about it, nice and simple, one scoop in water once a day, not something you've got to keep track of a whole bunch of different things, not something that's going to feel so complicated

that you know you're not going to stick with it. AG1 is the supplement I trust to provide the support my body needs daily, and that's why they've been a partner to this podcast for so long. If you want to take ownership of your health, it starts with AG1. Try AG1 and get it. a free one-year supply of vitamin D3K2 and five free AG1 travel packs with your first purchase. Go to drinkag1.com slash puck.

That's drinkag1.com slash puck. Check it out. All right. Some other things. A bunch of old centers retired this week. Yeah. I think the order went Tomas Placanich, Joe Thornton, and then Paul Stasney yesterday. day. Now, Joe Thornton's going to suck up a lot of the oxygen in this conversation. I'm just

going to tell you right now. It's one of my favorite players of all time. So fun to watch. Again, like the Ryan Gets laugh thing, made a lot of guys a lot of money. Sure did. Yeah. Seemed like one of the genuinely nice guys in the game. Seems like one of the genuinely nice guys in the game. Seems like... One of the most personality-filled guys in the game. I don't know if you remember this, but there was some article that got written, I think it was on The Athletic a few years ago, where they were just like,

give me a funny Joe Thornton story and a bunch of his old teammates and coaches and stuff like that. We're just like, here's a crazy one. And the one that I saw that got retweeted into my feed the other day was he got pulled over in Massachusetts when he first started playing for the Bruins and he either didn't have his license with him or didn't have a license period

and the cop's like license in registration and he's you know 18, 19 year old Joe Thornton and he's just like I have one of my hockey cards does that count? The cop was like, yeah, no problem brother. That'll do it. I think there's there's like a Pat Burns quote about like what would Joe Thornton be doing if he wasn't a hockey player

and Pat Burns was like moving pianos, I don't know. Yep, also sounds about right with his shirt off. Yep, tarps off for sure. Yeah, and I don't know. I just I just love to watch Joe Thornton play and, you know, obviously he became something of a meme in recent years because of the anytime someone scores four goals thing. But, yeah, one of the fucking absolute best to ever do it. Yep.

Yeah. Just a fan. And, you know, the last couple years certainly won't necessarily be remembered as his best. But it was also kind of like the Joe, little Joe Thornton World Tour. Other fan base has got to experience the Joe Thornton experience. Yeah, and he was a blast. in Toronto. I don't know how good he was,

but he was really fun in Toronto. Became like the adoptive dad of, well, I mean, Patrick Marlowe's old kids, pretty much. So, yeah,

it's, yeah, and, you know, first ballot, easy, Hall of Famer, and I have,

you know, but he didn't win a cup. Shut up. Shut up. The guy was phenomenal. How many, how many guys have ever won cups? How many guys have ever turned Jonathan

and cheat you into a 56 goal score. You'd tell me which is tough. Effortless. Yeah. Effortless. Yeah. No, for sure. And that's the other thing, too, is like, maybe, what would you say?

Like, the number two old guy without a cup ever? I mean, like Marcel Dion. Marcel Dion. Bride Park, but you could make the case number one. I mean, you could add. Yeah, I think that's true. When we do our beer league draft of the cupless guys, that'll be

he'll be in the talk for number one overall. Yeah. Now, see, I'd lean Jerome again in that regard. But, you know, hey, look. Yeah, good call. Henrik Lunkwist, there's another guy. He had a pretty good career for himself. But, yeah, like I said, Jumbo Joe Thornton,

one of my absolute favorite players of all time, obviously, you know, I'm a 40-year-old man, and he was a few years older than me, so it's hard to be surprised or upset or anything like that. that he, uh, that, that he's retiring,

but, you know, can't, you can't have a career better than Joe Thornton's, uh, broadly, pretty tough. Pretty tough to do.

Yep. Um, Tomas Placanich, you got any, I'll say this. I, I said Joe Thornton's one of my favorite players of all time. I like watching all three of these guys play.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. And, you know, Placanich is, is interesting, I think, because he hadn't been in the NHL in four years.

So I think a lot of people are like, where would you talk? Right. This is the, this is the Peter Holland thing. Remember, he got the tryout with the abs this year, and you're like, he's still playing hockey, huh? Good for him. But yeah, I always liked watching Placanish play. Fun player. He wore a little turtleneck.

Yeah, he did. He did and played his entire career with the HABs other than a very brief, very weird stint with the Leafs. Oh, I forgot. about that. You're right, yeah. Where he got, I just looked it up. He got traded to the Leafs at the deadline, played 17 games of the Leafs, did nothing, had two assists in 17 regular season games, and then had two goals and two assists in the playoffs, in one round, goes as I was saying.

Yeah, hey, what round was that, though? You know what I mean, brother? You know what I'm talking about? But, yeah, so, you know, neat, good, good guy, a guy that's, you know, really, again, we say for a lot of guys, but it was one of those guys where, you know, the numbers are fine. They weren't great, but Habs fans love this guy because he was just, you know, he dropped him in as your two or three center and you're all set. Yeah, he's, you know, I think the word you would use to describe him and Paul Stasney is solid pro. Yeah.

Never going to be, never going to be your superstar or anything like that. But, and in fact, if you want to call Placanish the Czech Paul Stasney, or, you know, vice versa, the American Tomas Placanich, I'll take that. I think that would be a good guy to be compared to in my life. Not bad at all. Professionally speaking. And Stassany, too, like another, I mean, just that great hockey family, too, that, you know, with his dad and two uncles both being in the NHL, dad's a hall of favor. Another solid career. Yep.

Bounced around a little bit. You know, never had that, like, crazy great season, but, you know, 20 goals and, you know, 50, 60 points. Kind of year in and year out. Even as, yeah, like his last full season, 21, 22. Well, sorry, second last. 21 goals, 45 points. And what was he at that point? Like 33, 34 years old?

36 years old with Winnipeg. 36? That's even crazy. Like both ends of the ice, you know. Like it was really only last year with Carolina that the production completely fell off. But good solid player, you know. Again, this isn't, we're not going to be having any Hall of Fame debates on him, but that's fine. You can still have a long, productive, very good career.

And didn't he have an overtime goal for the hurricanes last year? That sounds right. Yeah. That does sound right. Didn't do much for him during the season, but I feel like he had a game winner. Was it a series winner? It was, yeah, against the Islanders. He scored the series winning OT goal.

Can't beat that. Take it. Look, if that's how you're going to end your career, basically. Pretty much, yeah. All but his last, I don't think it was his last goal, but his last moment, last big moment. Take it. You know, look, seven shy of 300 goals, 800 plus points, 1145 games in the league. Much like you can't have a much better career than Joe Thornton.

You can't ask for a much better career than Paul Stassney in a lot of ways. Yep. You know? So, yeah. And again, like, he's going to be 38 in December. Get out while the getting's good, brother. Go enjoy it, you know? Yep.

It's fine by me. One last thing I want to talk about. As you all know, I'm a guy, I love college hockey. And this weekend, I finally got to see, yeah, it's true. I finally got to see Boston University play, which is notable because BU has the kid who's probably going to go first in the NHL draft this season or this summer. Macklin Celebrini is the kid's name.

I got to tell you, I watched this kid play hockey the other day. I was like, oh, I bet that guy's like going to be like first overall. Yeah. Leads the country in goals. Now, put this in context because I've seen stuff where like his, like the start that he is having is not a good start, but like a historically good start. Yeah, I mean, I think maybe you'd like to see a little more in the assist column. Like, you know, when the last time there was a draft eligible freshman at BU, well, certainly a highly touted one, was Jack Eichael. Jake Ottinger, I guess, counts as well.

He was draft eligible his first year at BU, I'm pretty sure. But, you know, Jack Eichel finished the season with 71 points in 39 or 40-ish games. something like that. I don't think Celebrini's on pace to do that right now, but he is, like I said, leading the nation and goals. But here's the thing. Jack Eichel turned 18, I want to say, in late October of his freshman year. You know when Macklin Celebrini turns 18?

I do not. June. He will spend the entire season as a 17-year-old. He's the youngest player in college hockey. And just so people. know, because like, you know, obviously if you're in the CHL, all the high-end guys are 17 years old for a good chunk of the season. Connor McDavid, I think, is like a late January birthday, I want to say. But there are guys in college hockey 24, 25 years old.

In fact, there's a guy in college hockey this season. This is 100% true, who will turn 27 years old before Macklin Celebrini turns 18. 27. Uh-huh. That's older than Connor McDavid. That's old. And so, like, the difference in, in strength, speed, thinking the games, you know, size between McElabrini and whatever, 35% of the players he plays on any given night is enormous. The difference between a 17-year-old and a 24-year-old, like, it's crazy how big of a gap that is.

Sure. In terms of physical maturity. And Celebrini's like, oh, well, why don't I just put the puck in the net eight times in six games? How does that sound? That sounds pretty good, actually. My understanding is, like, heading into the season, at least, like, he was viewed as the probable first overall pick. Not a sure thing, but I would, like, I'm trying to. trying to think of like tier wise like certainly not a McDavid or Bedard not I don't think like a

Matthews or a Jack Hughes even kind of maybe the next level down like there seems to be some excitement but not off the charts and maybe that is building let's say I think it's you know the way things are going you know he's I don't think he'll keep up this pace but he's on pace to threaten 50 goals in college hockey. I can't imagine that's happened anytime recently. I haven't looked it up, I guess. But, like, you know, I go, Ikel scored, I don't know, like, let's say it was 26 goals and the rest of his 71 points were assists. Celebrini's going to be the opposite.

He's going to try to put up, like, Cy Young style numbers, you know what I mean? Like, where he's just going to end the year with, like, 30-something goals and that kind of thing. But, like, you know, just last year, Adam Fantilli won the Hobie Baker as a draft eligible freshman. He had like 60-something points. And like you said, he's not Connor Bedard, but like if Macklin Celebrini is Adam Fantilli, you know, I think that's a prospect anybody would be reasonably excited about. Like it would be very fair for them to be excited. This isn't a, you know, Ryan Nugent Hopkins, Nile Yakopov style draft. And I'm not trying to put down nudge, but like, you know, he, like you said, he's not Connor

McDavid, right? And so, you know, I think it'll be really interesting to see where this guy, because like, you know, there's a difference. He's doing this as a 17-year-old. And this kid, Cole Eiserman, who is widely considered to be probably the number two prospect in this draft. and by the way, he is going to be you next season. He's only a few months younger than Celebrini is.

He's turning 18 in August. So whatever he does, he's doing that in the USHL. And I mean, he's going to go nuts in the U.S. Yeah, he's got nine goals in six games. No, wait, hold on. He's got 27 goals and 18 games for the national development team right now. Feels good. It's pretty good. But it's not college hockey, you know.

That's just one step up above what Cole Eisenman's doing. So I think Fantili or sorry, Celebrini would have a lot of trouble getting passed at this point. But yeah, to me, like this is, okay. So Celebrini scored two goals in the game I saw the other night. The first one was he shot the puck at a billion miles an hour into the net very easily, right? Mm-hmm. Like, I think BU was on the power player. Maybe it was a four-on-four or something like that.

But he just found a little bit of open space. And he missed on, like, the first attempt, which, again, like, hit the boards with the force of an atomic bomb, basically. gets the puck back, you know, 10 seconds later. He doesn't miss this time, that kind of a thing. And the second one was like, he just kind of worked his way around a guy or two and shot it through traffic. And like, you take that shot 99.99.999 times out of 100. And it hit somebody or the goal he stops it or it goes wide or something like that. And no, he just like casually snuck it in.

like he scores two goals to force overtime, like very, again, just effortlessly. It's so awesome to watch high-level players at this, or, you know, high-sealing players at this level. I'll say that. So I'm seeing them again on Friday night. They're hosting North Dakota. This is going to be a fun one.

So if you have the ability, try to watch a B-U. game this year. They're really fun to watch. That's cool. That's all I have to say about it. I like it. Good news if you're a Sharks fan. Something to look forward to. Oh yeah. You want to talk about the Sharks real quick to wrap this up? They are on pace for nine points right now. Okay. So that's probably not going to get them in the playoffs. No, no. Look, at this point it's like if you dropped them down to the year. Yeah. Oh, they are even worse than I thought.

They have played nine games. How many times have they scored multiple goals? One. I know this because I wrote the article the other day. Like, I can't believe how fucking bad these guys are. I watched their game on Sunday against the Capitals just because I was writing about them. And I was like, oh, you know, I'd watch maybe one or two, like bits and pieces of other Sharks games. That capital's, like, third period comeback.

they were down one, the capitals were down one nothing going into the third and the sharks were actually playing okay. But like when the, when this Washington Capitals team where they just had a player go, I don't want to play hockey anymore, I think. Yeah. Um, they just put the pedal down and the sharks were just like, let's all get out of the way, if that's the case. If they're going to try hard, forget it.

They, they just don't, this team is bad. bad. Good Lord. They have nine goals. Nine goals in nine games, and three of those came in one game. Yeah. They have one or fewer goals in eight of nine games. And I, yeah, that's right.

Yeah. And then it was a shootout loss. So that, okay. Yeah. Boy, I, if you're the Carolina Hurricanes, you've got to be asking yourself what the hell happened in that game. Which, by the way, the hurricane still won easily, six to three. There is, uh,

two players on the team that have more than two points. Oh my God, dude. Thomas Hurdle is what Thomas Hurdle leads the team with five points. And then Fabian Zetterland, which is clearly a creative player name. Like that is. I don't think that's a creative player. That's one of those guys where they auto-generate a player after like a guy retires in NHL-24. Exactly.

Where they just take the names of two different players and mash them together. So sometimes you get like a guy. named like Rasmus, whatever, McDavid. Yeah. And you're like, oh, okay, that's a real guy. Sure. They have their, and then, Philippe Zadina is next,

although he's tied to the bunch of guys. So they have two guys with the initials FZ in their top three scoring. That's just on its own field. Shouldn't be. This shouldn't be. Looking at the, they have a defense,

I don't think it's a pairing. Although, I mean, maybe they played together at some point. But Matt Benning and Jan Rudah are having two of the worst seasons imaginable. Like in terms of underlying numbers, they are getting just caved in to a level that is amazing. You look at this. I mean, there's like everybody on this team is either a fake guy, a handful of young guys. Yes.

Or guys where you're just like, right. I'm like Anthony. Oh, he's still in the league, huh? Mike Hoffman still plays for this team. And Mike Hoffman has one assist in nine games. And like I'm assuming, I mean, he's playing 15 minutes a night. Yeah. Anthony Declay, man, I really thought Anthony Declare was going to be good fit on that team.

Partly because, like, how often do you and I say, like, when a decent player goes to a bad team, it's like, well, somebody's got to score for that team. No, apparently not. And the sharks, the sharks. The sharks argument is, no, they don't, right? Yeah. Sharks are like, what if? You touched on underlying numbers. And this is, because look, the sharks are not alone in starting the season 0 for 9 in terms of wins.

Even in like recent history, like the coyotes have done it twice. Like in the last like six or seven years, the coyotes have started the season winless in their first nine games. But, you know, if they if they lose their next. game against. I think they're playing Pittsburgh next. And of course, Pittsburgh fans are all going, I know we're going to lose to these fucking bums. Oh, yeah. I know we are, you know.

But I looked this up. Currently, the sharks have an expected goals percentage in all situations of 34.7. Which is, you go, okay, that sounds bad. The next worst team in the league is the Canadians, a shade under 43%. So you're like, oh, wow, 34.7%. That's probably pretty bad. Think of the worst teams in like the advanced stats era. Hmm. The sabres and coyotes in the McDavid year and then probably like Colorado and Detroit more recently.

Well, so the 14-15 sabers and the last year's ducks are actually the two. The two other worst teams in terms of expected goals over the last, you know, 18, 19 seasons, whatever it is. They come in at a shade over 39%. So to be like almost five full points below them is astonishing, I guess, is the only word for it. Um, because like, yeah, if you had said, oh, there's going to be a team worse than that savers team, oh, sure, you know, I, I guess that's theoretically possible. Um, they're going to be like, whatever, like 15% worse. That, that doesn't compute for me. That's it. Like, and, and that was a Sabers team that was actively, actively trying to lose. Yeah. And I got news for you about the sharks. You know?

Yeah, well, boy, this is two quick things. You mentioned them playing the penguins. Yeah, the sharks are winning that game, and Michael Gradlin's going to score the winning goal. Yeah, and it'll be like six-one. The penguins won't even be in it. The sharks open up with fours. This might be the most amazing shark stat, okay?

Okay. McKenzie Blackwood this year. Yeah. Who has started six of their, he's their starter, two-thirds of the game. he saved percentage of 907, which is not good, but it's not bad. It's probably better than the league average. Yeah.

His goals against average is 3.83. Mm-hmm. That doesn't make sense to have those two numbers together. So I looked at it. He is facing, on average, 37.5 shots per start. Yeah, that sounds about right. Like, that is, like, if those aren't even 1980s, numbers because, you know, you're, you're not supposed to be able to have a 907 save percentage

and a 383 goals against average. Like, that just doesn't, that's like having a 4% shooting percentage, but being on pace for 50 goals. Like, it's just those. And by the way, the sharks do have a 4% shooting percentage as a team right now. Yeah. Um, Lord. They are so fucking bad.

they've scored 20% of the goals in their games. And, you know, obviously, you go, oh, well, that won't last. Obviously, that's going to come up a little bit. How much is it coming up if the expected goals percentage is below 35? And this is not a team that you would say is loaded with skilled players and great goalies. If anything, I would expect the same percentage to come down. They have a 0.5%. Yeah, the same percentage is.

Score effects and blah, blah, blah. But sure. You know, all these teams are getting up. like two, three goals on the sharks in the first period for the most part, I would think. And so they're like, I don't know, let's just dump it in from the fucking blue line. Who gives a shit? Let's just get out of here without getting hurt. I don't want to go to the front of the net, you know?

That's going to help McKenzie Blackwood for the year. But like, yeah, I kind of think, I tend to think he's going to end up the season below 900. And if that happens, high danger chances against. League average is 66. So again, 150%. No, 50% worse than the, yeah. Wow, man. Wow, man.

They're giving up 4.37 expected goals per game. Listen to this. 4.37. So I just gave you the high danger chances against. Yeah. Their opponents are shooting 4.9% on high danger chances. The league average is 9%. I was going to say that's very low.

So in other words, their goalies are kind of standing on their heads as far as the really high. Like 907, because both the goaltenders are 907, is phenomenal given the quality of chances they're facing. They're getting great goaltending this team. They are. I'll leave you with this stat based on they're getting great goaltending. Currently, this Sharks team has the eighth-worst goals against per 60 in the advanced statier since 2007-08, eighth-worst. And that's with unbelievable goal-tending. They are third last in goals against with heroic goaltending from, by the way, two guys who are not good.

Correct. So I got news for you about where that's headed. Oh, my Lord. this team could be phenomenal. Like I wouldn't normally write about oh this team everybody thought was going to be like insanely bad. Here's an article about how they're really bad.

Like I'm not trying to be in that business, but they were like, they talked me in the door, let's say, with this early season performance. Literally I've never seen anything like it and you haven't either. Like, I don't... They're scoring less than a goal per hour.

On the one hand, I don't want to... You're right, yeah, because they had the one overtime. I don't want to... I certainly don't want to, like, kick a team when they're down, or, you know, or a fan base or whatever, but I kind of want to see, like, how bad this can get. Like, don't you want to see a team go a whole season and score 82 goals?

Yeah. Have their second leading score have, like, 20 points? Not to bring it back. to college hockey too much, but I do remember there was a team in the early 2000s. I want to say it was a Merrimack team that averaged like 1.06 goals per game or something like that. They played like, let's say, 34 games, they scored 36 goals, something like that. And I just remember being like, it'll, uh, it'll only get worse from here, you know?

Only because I know people want to know this. this year sharks have 100% of the players with the initials F-Sed that have ever played in the NHL. And our hats are off to them. Congratulations to the FZ boys. I think we figured out what the problem is right there. And look, you know, last year, the sharks weren't good.

I think Fabian Zetterlin played for them last year. And the Red Wings weren't good. That's where Philb Zedina played. So can we extrapolate If you have FZ in your name, are you just, are you just cursing your team? And now to have both of them, it results in this. You know what I mean? Mm-hmm.

With their powers combined. It's just something to think about. I mean. You got any plugs? If I may at the athletic, take my quiz from last week. I did bad on it. I got like six. I think, I think I got six out of six.

That's disappointing. Look, I agree with you. Usually I get perfect school. If I don't want to name any names, but if certain Pulitzer Prize winning writers can get their act together, we are going to have a new session of Rules Court this week, including an absolutely psycho idea for replacing the shootout that I think is going to do pretty well. Let's go. Check that out. And then I think next week I'm probably going to start shifting into Hall of Fame mode, which I love.

Let's argue about Hall of Famers for a week or two. Oh, yeah. By the way, because Joe Thornton didn't play last year, he's eligible to be in the Hall of Fame next season, I think. Yeah, it's based on your last game, not your official... Retirement date, right? Your official retirement, so...

That's cool. Shout out. And then for me, E.P.Rinkside.com. Use the code I love EP. 15 months for the cost of 12. Can't beat that deal. And then patreon.com slash puck soup. We just did a bonus episode with Grankk Grankowski yesterday, and it was a take on Sean's

famous column, the contrarian, which everybody likes, and a well-received episode. So Patreon.com slash puck soup, that, and a whole lot more other podcast stuff from the extended puck soup family. So check all that out. Thanks for listening. And we'll talk to you next week. See you later. Bye bye. Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slapshots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to whatever you commute.

We also cover movies, TV shows, it's and tunes. It's your weekly bowl of Hagi and Nonsense. Park Sue.