Puck Soup - PUP's Stefan Babcock, 2nd Round Picks

Episode Date: April 25, 2019

The boys welcome Stefan Babcock, lead singer of PUP, who discusses the demise of the Toronto Maple Leafs and other topics. Then things get heated over the future of penalty reviews in the NHL, as they related to controversial playoff calls (like the Golden Knights vs. Sharks debacle). Plus, we break down Carolina's win over Washington; the futures for Vegas, Nashville and Toronto; preview the second-round series and pick the winners; and, in honor of "Avengers: Endgame," hand out some MCU awards. Sponsored by Away, The Athletic and Seat Geek!

Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slap shots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to what if you commute. We also cover movies, TV shows, it's in tunes. It's your weekly bowl of hockey and nonsense. I'm Greg Wichenski of ESPN. I'm Ryan Lambert from Yahoo. Hey, I'm Sean McIndoo from The Athletic. And you're in Puck Soup where boys, the Washington County.

capitals are not in the playoffs anymore. The jerks have jerked them out of the first round of the playoffs. And I don't ascribe to the Jeremy Ronic theory that the caps quit. I can't get down with that. But I can't get down with the loss of T.J. O'Shee and Michael Kepney were pretty damn important to this team and maybe underestimated by some. I who's underestimating that when you lose a really good winger and an okay defenseman that's going to hurt your chances to win a series like who who thinks that well Roanick said they quit Ryan so I don't know I don't know man

it was one of those deals where it felt so strange watching a game seven between it is terrible it was terrible like it was so weird watching a game seven where It's a wildcard team against a defending Stanley Cup champion, and yet there was a complete sense of inevitability when they reached the overtime that the Keynes were going to win the game. It was crazy. Hartan's completely outplayed them from the third period on. Yeah. So, I don't know.

It's pretty open and shut case for the Washington Capitals. For Detective Pikachu. That's right. But it was a great game. Like that was a fantastic game to watch if you had no stake in. And obviously if you're a hurricanes or capitals fan, it was agony and you hated it right up until potentially the end. But yeah, that was that was all sorts of fun to watch. And yeah, I mean, full credit to the hurricanes.

You know, it almost feels like in any other year this would be like such a stunning story. And this year we're just like, yeah, okay, another wild card. That was the one we kind of thought might happen. Like, yeah, whatever. But, yeah, no, it's great. And obviously, you know, the hurricanes, if you're a fan who stuck through almost a decade with no playoffs and you kept the faith, then you're loving this. And good for you. That's how it's supposed to work.

I can't fucking believe the Capitals Cup didn't erase all this clenched chfinkter game seven at home nonsense, by the way. I really thought it would, but it didn't. That crowd was super quiet through overtime. I don't think dead. Like, I mean, there's dead crowds and then there's terrified crowds. Like, they were loud in, you know, certainly in the first period when, uh, when the game was going well. But I don't think I've ever heard an overtrap. Like, you know when you're watching, uh, overtime and the visiting team scores and the building just goes dead quiet?

And there's that kind of eerie. Like you can even hear the players yelling. And it's just, it's eerie how quiet the building goes. Like last night, I remember watching overtime going, that's not going to happen if Carolina scores because they can't, get any more quiet. Like they're already dead side. I can hear the line changes being made. They're just all sitting there like, you know, probably because like you guys said, the hurricanes were out playing them so badly that you're just sitting there going, like, please let us, let us steal this one with a bounce because, you know, it really did start to feel like,

like that goal was on the way. Yeah, I think that that was part of it where the second Carolina tied it. I certainly felt like, okay, well, it's just a matter of time until they score again. I didn't think maybe halfway through the second overtime period, but definitely it was just like, yeah, this is going to happen. Like, there's no way the Capitals were going to win that game. And to speak to Sean's point, that shit's been happening in that arena since the first time Ovechkin made the playoffs

and they went to overtime against the Flyers in Game 7. And there was that creepy, that was the first time there was that creeping sense of inevitability in that building from Cabs fans being like, how are we going to fuck this up? And again, they won the cup last year. I didn't think we'd be back in this point where the fan base is watching the game seven and being like, how are they going to fuck this up? But were they doing that or were they just watching the game and realizing that 90% of the game was being played in their end?

And, you know, I don't think. It was wild. There was a couple of times where it was just like, oh, right after the puck over the glass that they didn't call, the next two minutes looked like a hurricane's power play anyways. Yeah. Oh, that was such a fucking nightmare scenario that they were going to get that, that Carolina player for puck over the glass and missed the Connolly call. Oh, God. Yeah.

Like, that would have perfectly fit with the narrative of the rest of the playoffs of just jack shit horrible officiating. But that one would have really stuck. Can we just do one thing just real quick on this? I know we're not going to do the whole puck over glass debate again. But can we finally lay to rest this talking point that puck over glass is great because it's black and white? and it always gets called and it's not subjective like all these other

like how many five minute conferences do we need to see with all the officials standing around like trying to triangulate where a puck went out before we stop saying this rule but you can still like the rule but stop telling me it's black and white

and you know it's great because it's so simple and gets called every time yeah I got to tell you I'm starting to be on the train of like robot refs like we shouldn't let because like also in that series, the Capitals,

or the, yeah, the Capitol's goal of Etchkin didn't score, it turned out. The ref just stood there like a dumbass for like 45 seconds. No signal on what's obvious. The puck's over the line. It's in the back of the net. The rest just standing there. Then like four hurricanes get up in his face. He's like, oh, yeah, no goal.

No goal. And then they review it and don't tell us what they're reviewing. That's what I'm saying. They just get out there. Like, yeah, it's a goal. Like, that's not good enough, guys. The ref's job now should just be, okay, the puck crossed the line. And we're going to send it to Toronto to make sure that it's a goal or not a goal based on, you know,

goaltender interference, whether it was offside, whatever. The refs should have no say in signaling whether a goal is a goal anymore. Because if you're saying, okay, there's all this arbitrary shit that has to go into whether it's goaltender interference and all that. that kind of stuff. Like a ref, a ref shouldn't be making that determination without the benefit of, like, in real time, I guess. Like, because his job can't be, because then the, the, you, you have to go, well, you know, did the puck cross the line by a fraction of an inch?

And did, did this guy bump into the goaltender? And, and all the, all these arbitrary standards are getting applied in real time. and it sucks because there's no, like you said, there's no explanation of what the call is or was or what's being challenged. The funny thing here is, like, I feel like Ryan and I are 95% on the same page, and yet we wind up at exact opposite ends of the spectrum

because my view is just let the ref call it on the ice and enough with reviewing some of these and doing the ZapRuder film breakdown frame by frame, looking for some clear thing. Like, let the ref call it on the ice. Sometimes they get it right. occasionally they get it wrong and let's just move on because I'm you know that the ovechkin one being an example right like like I make a call on the ice and if it's not

completely obvious if you don't watch one replay and go oh they they clearly missed it you know the ref was screened out he didn't see this just let it stand and let's let's just play like I I've had I know we might get into it later I've had it up to here with with replay review well let's get into it now okay yeah let's do it first of all Got people because of what happened in Vegas and also because of what happened last night with the puck over glass saying surely we can just review a few penalties, right? Like that'll go smoothly if we. We can review them, but don't call me surely. So I don't, I know Ryan and I are on the same side of this.

I don't know, Greg, if you're going to turn this into a two-on-one fight or if you are also correct. I am not one who's known to be contrarian. or first of all, Ryan, robot refs horrible idea, too many Russians in the league. Hacking could happen. Oh, boy. Very easily. Very easily. All right.

Let's get into it. First of all, the puck over the glass rule, I don't think there's anything wrong with being subjective. Like, why not just make it subjective? Like, why not? Everything else. Yeah, like everything. Exactly. Why does it have me black and white?

Why can't we look at, I always go back to this one. This is my Roswell crash of a puck over the glass call. when Matt Cook, when he was on the Penguins and not trying to end somebody, he was actually playing hockey, cleared the puck over the glass from behind his own net, over the glass on the other side of the rink. Yeah, that happens all the time. 200 feet away. That is not somebody trying to fucking clear the puck into the stands.

That is not some clandestine move by a sneak to try to, you know, delay the game. That's just a fuck up. And I think there needs to be like some gray area for fuckups where you can clearly see somebody was trying to clear the puck and put it over the glass and keep it out of danger or whatever. And then there's times where guys just whiff. And it sucks because I don't think there's a penalty in this game that creates more of a sense of fucking shame and defeatism than a guy putting his head down and skated to the box for what was essentially a rolling puck on a stick. I fucking hate it. Here's the thing. We already do this right for other rules in the rulebook, including almost all of the other delay of game calls.

And I'll give you an example. Knocking the net off can be a delay of game penalty. If you knock your own net off, if the referee feels like you did it intentionally, that's two minutes for delay of game. Which they never call. Which they never call. But that's two minutes for delay of game. It would be ridiculous. And we know some players do knock the net off on purpose.

we've seen that done. It would be ridiculous if police said every time the net gets knocked off by the defending team, it's an automatic penalty. It doesn't matter if you blew a tire and you wiped out and hit the post with your head and knocked it off. It's two minutes no matter what because it has to be black and white. No, let the referee who's standing right there make a judgment call. Same thing. You know, that's actually how we handle a bunch of other calls, including puck over the glass anywhere else on the ice other than the defensive zone. Puck over glass in the neutral zone. or the offensive zone can also be a penalty if the referee feels it's intentional. That system works fine.

Treat it like icing. Treat any puck shot out. Treat it like icing. It doesn't matter if it goes into the bench or it clicks off the glass or anything like that. You don't have to worry about all these little like, you know, oh, let's get together and figure out where the puck went out. If somebody shoots the puck out and it's accidental, it's an icing, face off in the

offensive zone, no line change. And if it is intentional, that's two minutes for delay a game. this isn't complicated. We already have the model and it's pretty much every other delay a game penalty in the book. And I know some people go, well, I don't want the ref to have to judge intent. I got bad news for you. The referee gets asked to judge intent on so many. I mean, we have intentional off-sides.

We have intent to, like we have rules that have intent and intentional right in the title. So, you know, the fact that we picked this one thing to decide had to be black and white because that was, you know, apparently a problem. I have no recollection. I have a lifetime of complaining about everything of the NHL. I have no recollection of complaining that there was some epidemic of people shooting the puck out. I know some people say that. But this isn't a hard solution.

Just treat it like icing. Make it two minutes if it's intentional. And enough with these five-minute conferences to try to figure out whether this black and white penalty is actually a penalty or not. And that's what's hilarious about it is that like, you know, people are up in arms about an idea like that. And the current incarnation of icing is like the linesman charting a course like he's fucking plotting a sailboat course to figure out who's going to maybe get to the puck first and then blowing the whistle beforehand. Like it's literally invention at this point for icing. So yeah, we can fucking change the rules. We can do better.

Okay. Let's talk about the Vegas thing. Because the original question was, am I on the other side of this? The wrong side, I think is what we said. I am on the other side of the video review thing. And I'm on this side because I've always been on this side. I've always said that when it comes to sticks to the head and penalty calls that could result at a major penalty for that infraction, it is completely okay for these knuckleheads to come over

and look at their dumb iPad and make sure that they got the call right. A lot of stuff's happening. Marcia's So was great, and thank you, Jonathan Marciussoe, for giving me incredible traffic for your comments after Game 7. But the crux of his comments were not,

we got fucked, they stole the series, the crux of his comments were, these guys shouldn't have to make that call in real time. Like, there should be a mechanism where they can go back and make sure they got it right. and I agree with them when it comes to high sticking because it could be a teammate stick, it could be what we saw on the Bavalski play

where it was a cross-check to his sternum. There are any number of things, and I don't think it as a slippery slope to reviewing interference. I think for a five-minute major penalty, you can take the time to make sure you got it right. If there is any question in your minds that you might not have gotten it,

and when nobody saw it, and there was no penalty on the fucking ice, then you probably should review it because otherwise you are doing exactly what they did in the Pavelsky play, which is guess. So here's the counter argument to that. I watch a lot of college hockey. Last couple of years, college hockey has had the rule of they can take a two-minute penalty and review it to see if it should be five. These reviews take fucking forever because there's no hard and fast rule about like,

Any contact of the head is bad. Like they're trying to judge intent with, like Sean said, the Zepruder film, like, breakdowns. Back into the left. Yeah, just trying to figure out, okay, when this guy drove his shoulder through this other guy's chin, was he trying to do that? And, you know, it just becomes a thing of in the national semi-final between UMass and Denver, three guys got thrown out on secondary reviews like five-minute majors in a national semi-final game

on secondary reviews because they wanted to see if a guy getting hit in the head should have been a major. And it's like... And also there was a fourth one that went uncalled because there was like less than five minutes left in a tied third period. But it's just one of those things of introducing even more delay

Like, I understand the instinct to get the ruling correct, right? Like, you want to get everything as right as you possibly can. But when you're taking a combined, I don't know, 12 minutes or whatever to review three different penalties throughout the game, it's, it sucks to watch as a fan. Wait, wait. I know Sean's going to go off in a sec, but wouldn't the solution then to just be not to rebut. review the minor penalties and just if if the refs come to the conclusion that they want to call a major review it to make sure it's a major and don't do the the escalation reviews for lack of a better term i'd just rather everybody get thrown it like if you hit somebody in the

head see you later i don't care if it was you know he was he was falling and you were falling and you know your stick caught like just if you if you hit somebody in the head that should be yet. But with that all having been said, obviously, that's not what happened and the Golden Knights got fucked. They did. It was, okay, let me start here. So that was a bad call. And I think Greg's right. They guessed. And I'll even go further. I think not only did they guess based on the result of the play, I think they guessed based on the situation in the game. I don't think that gets called five minutes if it's zero, zero or one nothing. I think the fact that it was three nothing gave them some cushion to to to go with the major so i i didn't like that call uh but here's here's why we

can't start reviewing this stuff and i'm going to apologize in advance because i wrote a thing for tomorrow on this and i wrote it this morning so it's fresh in my mind and i'm probably going to end up basically reading my column for tomorrow to you so try to if you read it tomorrow try to act surprised that's okay that's a welcome change usually i write my columns during the show but you've already written it so this is great All right. So here's the thing. I will start by acknowledging that there might be a way that you could do these reviews in a very, very narrow way that would be a net positive. But I also think that it's possible that I might get a pony for my birthday. I don't think it's likely. So here's the problem. Okay, let's say you do what a lot of people seem to be advocating for. And it sounds like Greg, you're kind of on this. this bandwagon where you say we only review the majors, okay?

The plays that we saw in San Jose in Game 7, that's the only play. The referee has called the major. Let's just make sure we get it right. But if you do that, then, like you said, you also have to review the plays that could have been a major that didn't get called, right? If somebody takes a stick in the face

and gets all their teeth knocked out and the referees don't see it, how do you justify not having that be open to review if you're going to do it the other way. I mean, we're a player safety league now. You can't say we're going to take penalties off the board, but we're not going to enforce the rulebook on dangerous plays. So now you've got to do those too. But if you're going to do that, you know, what happens if Tom Wilson hits somebody clearly in the head, clearly intentionally, clearly late, and the referee chickens out and calls it two minutes? You're not going to review that. I mean,

now we're at the NCAA that situation that that Ryan just described where you say, okay, maybe anything that could be a major needs to be reviewed, however it gets called on the ice. But that's like half the rulebook. Half the penalties in the rule book can be majors. And then from there, okay, let's say we just do that, but we say it's only going to be majors. That is it. There has to be a major. And you see a play like last night where the puck gets flipped over the glass clearly from within the zone.

They're two feet inside the blue line. It wasn't all that close. And the rest get together. The officials get together and they get it wrong. How do you, that could have decided the series. That call right there, I mean, thankfully Carolina won anyways, but that absolutely could have decided that playoff series. How do you justify not going and taking a look at that too? So now we're doing minors.

And we basically, it's, we're reviewing pretty much every penalty in the book. And I know somebody's going to go, well, slippery slope, you're, you're doing the slippery slope. sometimes the slope really is slippery. Like it's not always wrong to say, if we do this, here are the inevitable consequences that are bad that we want to avoid. That doesn't just make it a fallacy just because, you know, you read the Wikipedia page on slippery slope arguments. So we're into a stage now where if we, like right now, it is very clear. We don't review penalties. That's it.

That's how this league works. As soon as you crack that door open, We review goal of interference. But not as a penalty. But not, but not to, not to penalize. Right. Just to, right. But we still, but we still make the exception.

But that's not, that's not judging whether the puck crossed the line. That's judging whether or not there was an infraction. Yeah. So there, that is, it is. It is. Okay. And how's that going? Do you feel like that's going really well?

And here's, here's, here's why it sucks. And here, and it leads directly to why we can't open this door for penalties. Because it, there, that goalie review never had. a chance of working. Okay? I know people go, oh, I don't understand the rule. The rule is complicated. It's not that complicated. If you actually read it and think about it, you know, a lot of these, you know, you can, you can understand it. I can do it. And I'm not very smart. So other people can do it too. But it's a subjective call. And as soon as you start reviewing subjective calls, you're always going to run into stuff that isn't clear. And I know we always say we're only going to do the obvious ones.

We're only going to do the ones where it's 100% clear. That's never how it works. We said that for offside. Offside review was supposed to be for Matt Duchesain. But look where we are now. We're reviewing everything. Goaltender interference was supposed to be when Coltonor runs over the Panthers goalie and the referee clearly misses it. And now we're reviewing everything. That's what's going to happen with penalties too. I promise you. There's no way that we're going to introduce replay review of penalties and only see it every once in a while. And what you're going to see, as soon as you start reviewing things, as soon as you start saying, we're going to pause the game,

and we're going to look at a review and we're going to break it down frame by frame, you are changing the expectations of your audience to say that this has to be perfect. We're going to get it right. That's what people say, right? Let's get it right. Okay, go ahead and get it right. Good luck getting it right in a way that everyone's going to agree on. It's never going to happen.

So now instead of what happens today, which is sometimes the refs blow a call, and we understand that and we live with it, we complain about it, but we live with it, now the refs are going to blow a call, we're going to look at the replay for five minutes, they're going to come back with the decision that half the fans still aren't going to like, and we're all just going to be angrier and more frustrated, and I promise you, I absolutely promise you, you start reviewing cross-checking penalties. It's not going to be long before you're going to hear people going, oh, I guess I don't know what a cross-check is anymore,

or I don't understand the cross-checking rule. I don't understand high-sticking because as soon as you start doing this subjective stuff, frame by frame, you find out that there isn't a black and white easy answer. It has to be judgment, and we have people who are paid to make the judgment. It's the referees. Let them do it, except that sometimes there's going to be calls you don't like. There's sometimes going to be calls that are objectively bad. There's sometimes going to be calls they just totally miss, and we wish we had a replay.

but it's not worth that small handful of times that that happens turning this into a replay fest where every penalty were breaking down and watching frame by frame and just getting mad about. And oh, by the way, if we actually had this system in place for Game 7 in San Jose, there's at least a chance that that call stands on review. Because it was a cross-check. It was a cross-check. No, there is no chance.

It was a cross-check and it resulted in an injury. If you're going to say, But their contention was that he hit him with a stick. If we only say that we're only ever going to overturn calls that are 100% absolutely clearly wrong, according to a lot of people, that play wasn't necessarily 100% absolutely wrong. So it doesn't even meet the standard that a lot of people are throwing out there. It was a bad call. I agree with you 100%.

I hope the reps would have looked at it and gone, we got it wrong. But not necessarily. Who knows? So even if that is your case of the. the one and only call you ever want to see reviewed, which it wouldn't be, you're still in a situation where there's a chance that everyone just comes away

angry and not happy anyway. So why are we going to open that door when we know how this works? You've seen this league do upside. I have the solution. I have the solution. Oh, go. Oh, here it comes.

Two minute majors. That's it. Oh, God. Wouldn't that be beautiful? Yeah. That's a world I want to live in, Ryan. You're speaking my language, baby. Two minute majors and no reviews for penalties.

The 1950s haves are no longer around. Open the door. All right, a couple things. First of all, I, there's a lot of what's next they're going to start marrying dogs

kind of arguments that you're making here about penalties. No, it's not. Because if you take that fork and stick it in the outlet, you're going to get electrocuted. It's not, that's not a slippery slope. That is what will happen.

No, it's not. There's no logical leap from reviewing a major penalty for high sticking to all of a sudden reviewing interference calls. It's just, it doesn't have to happen. Until you could put restrictions on it. There's a clearly wrong. And then somebody goes, well, why not just take a look? If you don't think that's going to happen. But that's no reason. But that's not a reason not to do the reviews currently. That's not a reason to not review high sticking now. The consequences of what of a decision you make is absolutely a reason not to make that decision. Yeah, if it's going to screw up the league five years from now, don't do it now. Yes, of course. But you don't know that. It doesn't have to be that way. You can put restrictions on what you review. We have the restrictions right now on what we review. But then a play happened and now people want to change the restrictions. The same thing will happen for all the other calls. I promise you. You promise me. Okay. We know what the legislation and the board of governors meeting is going to be five years from now. Okay.

Probably less than five years. The biggest problem I have with your, the biggest problem I have with your argument is that, Goalie interference has always been the fucking strike zone. It has always been subjective. There's no standard through which a referee can look at, two referees look at the same play and come up with the same conclusion. That's just how the rule is. That's just how the call is. That's always been like that.

It's been like that since I've been a fucking kid. But a guy hitting a guy in the head with either his stick or whether a teammate stick hit another guy in the head, I mean, that is pretty clear. That's not goalie interference. That is just simply logistics. Like I said, if you could look at the Pavlsky play and say that that is not what happened, that he didn't get hit in the head. head with a stick. That's all you need to do.

I've got a ton of fans. Yeah. I got a ton of fans in my timeline telling me that the call in game seven was right. Now I'm not, I disagree with them. They're idiots. They don't know. I disagree with them. But those fuck, those fuck idiots are the ones tweeting yet you're the junior hockey rule for fucking cross-checking. Well, there's that. Those are those idiots. But it is, again, like I see, AP writer for Buffalo. Like I said, if you want to say, we're only going to narrow it down to an incredibly narrow list of black.

black and white, no arguments, no disputes, calls, and we will never crack the door open any further than that, then yeah, there might be a way to do it. I'm not even convinced that the game seven call falls into that category, and I have absolutely zero confidence that this league would actually stick to that standard. And the very next time that there's another one of these calls, someone's going to go, well, we already reviewed this. Why not review that? Hold on, could we drill out on that for a second? Why don't you think that would apply to this? The call on the ice was a cross check to the head. No, the call on the ice was a five-minute major for cross-checking.

Right. And according to Gerard Gallant, unless he's a liar. And he's out there calling people clowns. Who's to say? They told him that it was, they claimed that it was a cross-check to Bavalski's head. So if you can review that and say it's not, then it's just a minor penalty. A five-minute major for cross-checking is a cross-check delivered with sufficient force to, it doesn't, the rule book doesn't say to cause injury, but it's based on the force.

Cross check isn't an injury-based penalty. It's basically a really hard cross-check. And that wasn't one with force. You watch that real play. Again, if you're still, I don't, I would, I don't think that should have been a penalty. That is not how this gets called 99% of the other cases. I'm 100% on board. I'm not defending the call. But if your standard is it has to be clearly 100% wrong, no doubt about it, you look at that play. That is a cross-check. That's one-hand. on one end of the stick, one hand on the other, using the stick to hit the guy. Sure. Are we completely sure that that's a minor level of crosscheck versus a major?

That's a judgment call. That's subjective. Some fans are going to think one thing, some or think the other. I clearly have my opinion. I think it should have been a minor and no more than that. And I think that's the right call. But if you think that is 100% clear, there's no question. You know, like a, you know, I get it.

Yeah, sometimes a guy gets a penalty for high sticking and you look at the replay. and it's the puck that hit him. And everybody agrees. I get that. But this wasn't necessarily in there. It was a cross check. But how hard of a cross check is a major. Sean, the alternative to not reviewing a play like that where it's involving the stick and a major penalty is for the –

And you bought up the consumers before, right? Yep. The alternative is for all of us to sit around and being like, oh, they just fucking made it up. They just invented it. They just called it because there was blood on the ice. So wouldn't you rather have the opportunity for them to review a play versus the refs just fucking made it up? What is happening now is everybody is mad because they don't agree with the call? You start reviewing these.

Guess what? Everybody is still mad because they don't agree with the call, except now they're even mad. Maybe. Because no, not even maybe, because there's way more reviews. That's arguing a zero sum effectiveness for goaltender interference reviews, which is not the case. They blow calls all the time, but it's not as difficult. if they don't get calls right. Come on.

Do you, that's a strong. I would love to. I don't know there's a way to measure this, but, you know, it's like five years ago, we all, if you would ask somebody, how often do they get offside wrong? Nobody thought that was a problem. You know, people would complain about golden. Yeah, now it's a huge. Because when you start watching everything frame by frame, guess what?

You know, all it does is create, you know, look at other sports. You know, people in soccer aren't happy with how that review system works. Look in football. How many times do you hear? I don't know what it catches anymore. Guess what? Get used to hearing that about pass interference this year because I just added that. That's not going to go well.

This is like we've seen this in hockey. We've seen it in other sports. As soon as you say, we're going to do replay to get it right, you better know that you're going to get it 100% right every time because that's the expectation you've set. And if you don't think you can do that and you can't, this league can't, then all you're doing is making people even angrier, undermining your own officials, undermining your own product

because of the occasional once in a very long time play that goes really bad and has a really big effect. It's an overreaction and it's going to be disaster. So the problem is, again, the fact that it's all based on what the ref called on the ice, right? If there's a situation where the ref isn't the one making the decisions and there's like a team of people in a booth in Toronto and, you know, whatever, however you want to, set that up. It's the fact that the reviews are either confirming or not confirming an official's call as opposed to the fact of they're making the decision with the benefit of all that replay. That's the issue for me, is that you can't, when it becomes a subjective thing and then you're trying to disprove or, yeah, effectively you're just trying to disprove.

prove a subjective decision. That's what fucks it up. And see, I go the other way on that only because I've seen enough replay reviews to know that you can have all the angles you want and you can slow it down as much as you want. There are still going to be some that are just inconclusive. And how do you handle that? Yeah, and that's fine. And how do you handle those, though?

Like, you know, to me, you have to go back and say, it's the call on the ice. And then it's how inconclusive is too inconclusive. And that's why for all of these, what I would like to see is the standard. be unless it is glaringly obvious, the call on the ice is just going to stand and we're going to live with it. And that way you, you, you. Well, that's what I'm saying. Yeah.

If it's, if the standard is on a goal, for example, if the standard is the puck crossed the line, that's all we're trying to figure out here. And then, and then somebody back in the booth is like, did the goaltender get interfered with? Was there a high stick? Whatever. If that comes back in conclusive, you go, well, then it's a fucking goal and that's the end of it.

Right. But, but then can the referee call, no, like, I mean, I mean, we had the high-sticking goal in game seven, right? No, the referee is only there to go the puck crossed the line. That's it. Yeah. See, I know we're all mad at the refs. I, you know, it's like, you know, letting the refs make these calls is kind of the

system possible except for all the alternatives in my mind. Like, let the guy, I know these guys make a ton of mistakes. I know we're all mad at them. I know we all think they call the playoffs differently in the regular season. But I'm just saying, this is, this is. almost all subjective. If somebody's got to make that call, let it be the guy with a lifetime of training

who's standing 10 feet away right on the ice looking at it. Let him make the call. And if he, you know, mistakes happen. The Matt Duchyne play happens. Sometimes you're screened out and you miss something obvious. If it's really obvious and you want to review that, fine. But all this other stuff, we've screwed up by letting this stuff be reviewed

and letting fans think we're going to get it right when we can't. and it's a mess. And the solution of this mess is not to go to this same league that's given us offside review, an interference review, and was the stick too high, and distinctive kicking motion, and say, we trust you to do even more review. Like at some point, how many times does somebody have to hit you in the head with a hammer before you stop handing them the hammer?

Like, this NHL cannot do this properly. Please don't crack open this whole huge can of worms by asking them to start reviewing penalties too. Or conversely, we let them, and then the sharks don't get a five-minute major penalty in a game seven with ten minutes left before their season's over. I mean, that's the alternative, too, isn't it? Yeah, that could be the alternative. Or, I mean, or the Golden Knights don't give up four power play goals and we're not even talking about this. You know, like it, you know.

Those poor fuckers. Anyways, to put a cherry on this and good talk, guys, the NHL has decided to probably, make Bill Foley happy for a moment by not allowing Dan O'Halloran or Eric Furlett to officiate any more in the playoffs. O'Halloran hasn't missed a conference final in over a decade. Also, not reviewing or refereeing in round two. Brad Meyer and, what's the other cat's name? The Hanson Cat.

They were the ones who officiated the game. game two of the Leafs Bruins series. So they're not allowed to go any deeper. Trevor Hansen, sorry. So they're not going to... I think both of those are fair. Yeah, I do too. You guys fucked up next time. That's it. And it's good because everybody says there's no accountability for, like, I know after both those games, people are like, there's no accountability for refs. Here's your accountability. They, they, not only do they not go on, but, you know, they pretty much get publicly embarrassed by not coming on. And that's, you know, that's a flip side of it. Sometimes refs are going to screw up, but there can be accountability. So good for the

We've on that one. The real public embarrassment is the fact that they're not allowed to referee into the second round, but Tim Peel is. So they have to have that. I thought you two were friends. What the hell, man? Damn. Hey, just because you do tequila shots of the guy and get him suspended doesn't mean your friends, Ryan. So anyways, to all the referees who screwed up in round one, in the words of Mike Commodore, pack your shit.

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So it's away slash puk, away.com travel.com Promocut puck Before we get to our interview, real brief Vegas is still pretty set up, right? I think this is the moment in which they try to go out And get their defensemen that they're lacking Yeah But they're still pretty set up, I think

Well, they're going to lose one of their wingers, I feel like One of the two from the from the Carlson line. And Christ, they might lose Carlson, too. Yeah. But I hope not. He's really good. Yeah, he's really good.

The defensively, the two guys that maybe I didn't watch enough of this year to really appreciate how good they are defensively are him and Aho. Like Aho is a really good fucking defensive player. Yeah, real good. But so the thing, the problem with Carlson specifically is that he scored 41 goals last year and set an unrealistic standard for what he would continue to produce. and so everybody was like, oh, he had a disappointing year. He was fucking great this year. He just didn't score 41 goals because he didn't shoot 25% or whatever the number was. And, you know, if you have to lose somebody from that way,

if you have to lose Marcia So or Smith or even him, to get a high-end defenseman, and there will be good defensemen out there on the market this year for once, maybe that's a sacrifice you have to, make, but that's life, I guess. I don't know. I think they're going to be really good next year. They have Mark Stone, so they're going to be fine. But, you know, that's kind of where I'm at with them is like, they're going to be perfectly good. You know, I think this year was a weirdly down year for them, and they still finished third in one of the better divisions in hockey. So,

ton of injuries this year for them. And they had a bunch of injuries and made Schmidt miss 20 games. You know, so. For whatever reason. I still don't know what that was about. I'm pissed hot, Greg. You hear about this? Yeah, the thing with the Knights, I'm just looking at their cap page, and it's, it's kind of amazing because they are already over the cap for next year. Now, that's this year's cap, so it's going to go up.

But that's pretty hard to do to already have enough. So, yeah, you're right. They probably didn't have to. Well, the Red Wings have done it, so it can't be that hard. All right. Let me ask you about another team. And this is a really fascinating team because, as you know, their general manager is the winningest general manager in NHL history. And yet they went out in the first round.

I don't know how to square that. What do you think happens with the National Predators who, again, are a team right now under the current cap that has $2.6 million available for next season? I really wonder if we see a P.K. Subin trade. That seems to be... I don't know. Who's taking that money, though? I think we just talked about, though. You can always find somebody to take the money, so...

Wouldn't that rule? I mean, they would have to really make some changes to... Remember, we just said they're over the cap and they're going to add a $9 million defenseman? I don't know, dude. I know everybody in Vancouver is all about trying to unite the Hughes brothers. unite the Sioux vans in Vegas, baby. That's my new dream.

You can do that. You know what you need to do? If you're the predators and you want to trade P.K. Sue, Ben, you got to hope that in the five days before July 1st, Eric Carlson is meeting with like eight teams. And there's eight teams that all think they're going to get them. So that whoever misses out,

that's when David Poyle picks up the phone and goes, you know, I got a guy who's not that far from Eric Carlson. And then hopefully work out of it. deal because you're right it's a tough it's tough contract to take but i i don't think i mean you can retain salad or you can take deals back i don't i don't think contracts are as big an impediment to making a deal as as we sometimes make it's just one of the bigger contracts for any defensemen in the league um but i'll say this though i'll say not after carlson signs and you know with doughty

and that like it's it's it has kind of shifted the window a bit on that deal it's still nine million it's going to be it's a lot 11 12 percent of the cap so Nate Schmidt makes 5.95 million a season through 2025. Hmm. And he has limited no trade clause. And it's George McPhee. I'm saying you could make it happen. Hey, Nate.

This is it. This is my new soapbox, boys. Whoops. Suband to Vegas, baby. I'm going to say this. I think Nashville has a pretty credible case for, well, Christ, we were just, everybody was hurt all year. You think so? Yeah, because everybody was hurt all year.

I think they can bring this group back for one more go at it, and hope Pecker-Rene doesn't kind of shit the bed down the stretch. Yeah, I think they're more in go even more all in territory than leave the casino in defeat and start over. You can't blow it up, yeah. No, you can't blow it up, but there was something fun. I mean, the injuries are the injuries, but there was something sort of fundamentally off about this team this year. Yeah, like they were missing one of their best players at every, single point in this entire season, except for the last 10 games.

Well, they had him in the playoffs, though. What happened? Well, I mean, it happens that you lose in the playoffs. Like, are the lightning going to trade everybody this year? Like, you know, they're not going to try to ship out Stamcoast because they got swept. So, yeah, I don't think this is the year you necessarily look at playoff results and go, if we didn't make it out of the first ground, there's something fundamentally wrong. You also don't want to, like, use that as your excuse of like, well, look, Christ, if it happened to Tampa, it could happen to anybody. So we're going to stay the course or whatever. I don't know.

I don't think they don't need to make changes, but I don't think they need to totally blow it up and go, you know what? Like, we're going to give up on this potential Norris defenseman because he had one bad season. Well, and let's be clear, I'm not saying you trade P.K. Subam for like a first round pick and some prospects and we're. about down the road. I'm saying that's the move that you make to either bring something in or to free up the space to bring something. Like I don't think David, whether they should rebuild or not, I don't think David Poil's sitting there

thinking about five-year rebuilds at this point. Like this guy doesn't have his cup yet. He's got a team that plausibly could get him there. I don't think he's looking long term. I completely agree. You don't trade P.K. Sudban for a first round pick. You trade him for

Nate Schmidt and Riley Smith. 10, 10.95 million dollars in salary cap space. That gets you one P.C. You bet. If you're Vegas. That's what you do. Who says no? All right.

Last thing before our guest. Sean, the Leafs. Yeah. I t-vote the game. Don't tell me how it ends. So let's just, let's, let's, talk about the real issue here, apparently according to my friends in Toronto, you know, got grit, got jam, grit jam, Patrick Barlow, going to play him a lot.

Patrick Barlow's pretty good. Got great, got jam. What do you think about Babcock these guys? You know what? I think he's getting, you know, he's not getting fired unless there's some really bizarre behind the scenes thing going on that we don't know about. But the heat that he's getting is really. reasonable. Like this isn't, you know, like, I feel like with Mike Babcock, the fact that he

signed an eight-year deal has kind of warped our expectations and perceptions a bit, maybe, maybe it should. But like, he's four years in with a good team that hasn't gotten out of the first round yet. You know, that gets you some heat when you're a coach. You know, it doesn't necessarily get you fired. But yeah, most coaches, when they get hired, if you were to, you know, say, hey, four years from now, you're not going to have been out of the first round, even though you've been to the playoffs three times. They would expect that they're getting some criticism. And some of the stuff that he did in that series was strange.

You know, some of the ice time was weird. The way he handled the power play, you could question. His continued reliance on certain security blankets in terms of veterans and, you know, playing Patrick Marlow all the time. Like, yeah, that's valid criticism. And I say it's valid criticism. And there may be valid answers, but it's not wrong to ask the questions. And, and, you know, we're doing this, we're recording this as the Leafs are doing their breakup

day. So maybe, you know, maybe we find out Matthews was hurt or some, you know, or maybe we find out Tavares was hurt or something like that. But, you know, when you're in a do or die game seven and you kind of, you know, you keep rolling the fourth line out there and you're not putting your big time game breaking stars out when you need a goal, I don't have a problem with people. and like we got to ask what was going on with that. And yeah, like the halo's off, the honeymoon's over. Like I say, he's not getting fired. I don't think, you know, too many people are outright calling for that.

But it's time to start asking some questions. That's not unfair. The expectations have got to be higher and they're not meeting them. So he, you know, the highest paid coach in the history of hockey is fair game for some criticism. What do you think, Ryan? Yeah, that's all correct. It's one of those things where, you know, this was a thing you could have called him out for in November, right? Like, it's not like he started, he got to the playoffs and started making bad personnel decision.

Christ, he was doing it in Detroit, right? Apparently, he was lobbying hard to bring in Luke Glendening for the stretch run, and it's like, you know Luke Glendening sucks, right? Like, he's bad, you know this? but it really does speak to I said it on the bonus episode yesterday I think but he might be the Bob Nicholson of coaching where it's like he got a lot of credit for being hanging around with Hall of Famers

and I you do you know like he maybe in Detroit I'd have to go back and look but maybe he overplayed your Darren Helms or whatever you know what I mean and it's just one of those things of you definitely now have to start asking the question of is this guy's rep oversized for what he actually brings to the table and I think it's

probably he buys a lot of his own bullshit he does and I think I think the two issues for me are one that the X factor in all this is Sheldon Keefe who is clearly Dubus's guy and who is clearly having unprecedented success in the American Hockey League right now with the Marley's. That's a real X factor in this because you know, fucking Kyle would rather have him coach the Leafs than Babcock. The other thing I want to say is that there is at this moment at least a plausible chance that Jeff Blashill will outlast Mike Babcock in their respective jobs. Let that sink in.

Could. I don't think there's too many. fans who want to trade Mike Babcock results for Jeff Blassoe results, but he might get to stick around longer. I guess that's at least possible. Yeah, it is. Well, you know what, boys? Speaking of playing Patrick Marlowe too much, I still don't get how ad transitions work, but I would like to talk to you guys about the athletic.

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actually says in yours truly, but I feel like that's not something that I would say. But yeah, I'm on there as well. Wow. And plus you also get all the local coverage. For every team in the league, beat writers. I mean, there's just an army of folks out there covering this sport from every angle. So what you can do, if you don't already subscribe, you can go to theathletic.com slash soup.

And you get 40% off your annual subscription. description to the athletic, which works out. I mean, we're talking a couple of bucks a month, like I say, to get access to just an all-star roster of writers covering it. That's theathletic.com slash SOUP, all lowercase, and you get 40% off. So that ends up being in the U.S. just $2.99 a month. And that gets you more than a thousand stories published each week across the site, NHL, plus all the other sports that you follow, and as well as audio content they just launched. So subscribe right now using promo code soup, download the athletic app from the app store, and come experience the athletic story is told in a whole new way by yours truly.

I want to give the transition a C, but what I'm going to give an A, what I'm going to give an A, is the almost evangelical entry point to the ad read of friends. Let me tell you about the athletic. I feel like it's somebody with a Bible sitting next to me at the student. Student Union back in Maryland trying to proselytize me. This is easier than what they normally make us do, which is go door to door and try to sign people up. Friends, have you heard the good word of Eric Duhatchuk? I'd like to talk to you about James Myrtle.

Our guest this week is the front man for one of my favorite bands out there right now, Pup. His name's Stefan Babcock. He's a very nice fellow. He's a Leafs fan. A cousin of mine. Good guy. Good gen. I'm not going to be doing spoilers, but I do not bring that up to him.

And yeah, we had a nice chat about the sport of hockey and their new record and being a musician that tours a shitload. And here we go. Hey, it's Ryan. I'm here with Stephen Babcock from Pup. They're just starting their North American leg of their tour. You guys were in Europe last week. Is that right? Yeah, I think we were in Europe. Two weeks ago? Oh, really? Damn. It's been a weird whirlwind. So when you're on tour, you're obviously a big hockey fan. Like, are you, especially in Europe, I guess. How are you able to keep up with? It's tough. I bet. I also have, like, um, uh, not actually. but what I would consider pretty mild narcolepsy.

Okay. So, you know, the games, like, start usually around 1 a.m. in Europe. Yeah. So I always try, and I always get through the first period, and then I end up passing out. But, you know, I watch, like, you know,

I'm the least fan, so I watch a least game in six the next day, and I listen to all my podcasts. Yeah, yeah. It's good. It kind of, like, helps keep me connected to, like, my home life just by, like, listening to hockey podcast.

And watching highlights and stuff. So how much of this? Like, it sucks that you guys have to start the tour in Boston because there are going to be 100 Bruins jerseys and hats and all that shit in the crowd. Yeah, as I was just saying to you, most of our fans are dicks. So I'm sure they're going to rip into us tonight. You know, the toughest part about all of this,

and I have some friends who are Bruins fans. And there's literally nothing I can say. Yeah. Like, I don't want to be that guy complaining about the refs or complaining about Marciaun being a rat, even though he wasn't as ratty this series. No. There's nothing that I can say except, like, yeah, we fucked it again. Yeah, I mean, are you, like, are you starting to be on the fire babcock? No.

I'm not down with that. Yeah. I mean, it's such an extreme reaction. Like, look at where we were before Babcock came on board. And I'm not saying it's all him, you know, it's like Lou and Kyle Dubas and first round. You can't get him getting Austin Matthews kind of help. Yeah, but, no, I'm definitely, I mean, I think he's got to answer some questions about the ice time and stuff. My man.

I mean, also isn't like, you know, obviously special teams were shit in this series, but like, that's not. really, I mean, he's the head coach, so he has something to do with it. Right. He's not in charge of the PK, right. Yeah. Yeah, and, like, also, you kind of have to go. Like, the Predators went over on the power play in their series, and it's like, or are you going to, because sometimes you're just going to go over, exactly.

Yeah. So, like, are you, what about the playoff format? Are you? I mean, I think it sucks. Yeah. I think it really sucks, but, and I hope it changes. I think there's one, what, there's one more year and then... The CBA changes, and they're probably going to change the format, yeah.

Which they should. But also, you know, things that I like about Babcock, he said it at the beginning of the series. He's like, you make it into the playoffs and you play good teams. That's the point of it. Yep. And, you know, if anything, how fucked up everyone's bracket is this year is proof that, yeah, once you're in the playoffs, it's kind of like almost a coin toss, right? Yeah.

so I mean I don't know what do you think is the big change they got to make or do you think

they even need to make one I mean I think first of all I think that you know Matthews and

Marner they're just going to get better yeah same with Kappan and Yonsen if they're there um

are you mad at Nielander for the whole no no I'm like I'm on the fence about Nealander. You know, every, you know, I know every smart

hockey person, actually smart hockey person, would say, like, Nealander's doing great. Fuck off, leave him alone. Yeah. And I'm kind of on the fence about it. I just, I definitely am not hating on him.

Right. I think he's going to be an incredible player and is an incredible player. But I also, I would like to see him kind of rise up to the occasion. Yeah, he didn't have. a great series, right? And he would say that, and I'm sure anybody else associated with

the team would say, like, he needs to be better. But, like, you know, I just, you were in Canada or in Europe, so maybe you didn't see it, but like a bunch of people were like, he's horrible. Like, it's like, come on, get a great dude. He's awesome. He's a, he fucking kicks ass. He's an awesome player

and you know, like, next year's going to go roll around it. Maybe it'll be in October, November, or maybe it'll be February, March, but he's going to go on like a seven-game point streak. And everyone's going to be like, he's the fucking best. And it's like, yeah, well, yeah. Yeah.

And put them with guys who can play, too, more than maybe Marlow. Yeah, totally. Which, you know, not his fault or Babcock's fault. We all know whose fault that is. Yeah, exactly. I don't know. I think Cadry's gone.

Yeah, that's kind of the impression. Like, people are, like, basically the way I've had it explained to me is, it's not because of the suspension, right? but it's because of you don't need like a $5 million or whatever he makes four and a half maybe third line center like he's good he's really good

but he's also kind of a shithead and maybe he's not super popular in the dressing room and yeah yeah I mean that was my feeling like he's come on you leave this series don't tell me Matthews and Tavares

aren't fucking furious with him oh yeah and he's like how do you you can't I think he's probably dereparably damaged a lot of those relationships. Well, yeah, and like you definitely, at some point you have to go,

you know, maybe having Nazam Khadri for the last five games of the series is the difference in the seven-game series that's ultimately decided by like a goal or two. Yeah, totally.

Heartbreaking, really. Yeah. It sucks, too, because I've always liked it. Yeah, I'm a fan. Like, I think he's a good player. Yeah. But what are you going to do?

Yeah. at a certain point, you know, the vibe in the... I don't know, I never played hockey. But, like, I imagine the vibe in the dressing room and everybody trusting each other and being on board with each other is as important as anything else. And if that's not going to be there...

Yeah. Yeah. So, now that the Leafs are out, are you, like, fuck the playoffs. I'm done with it, or are you going to keep watching? Because, like, like you said, like, it's crazy hockey these days. Yeah. All four division winners are out. Yeah.

So I feel like even if you're normally a guy who, not you personally, but like a person who would normally pull the shoot when their team's out, there's a lot of reason to stick around. Yeah. Yeah, I'm interested to see how it all kind of works out. I mean, literally, this says a lot about me, but I lost every single team that I chose in my bracket is gone. Every single one.

It's fucked. I think I went two for me. Yeah, holy. No, I'm on a, I guess, I guess I, like, I want to see the blues win it at this point, just for the story. Yeah, I mean, they were horrible. They were, like, dead last in the league at some point in the season, and they changed their coach, and they've been lights out ever since. Yeah. It is going to be harder for me to pay attention and care now, but, I mean, I'm going to. Okay. I get sucked in. Yeah. Are you going to, like, a ton of cities on this tour that are still, like, are you going to have to deal with the whole Leafs suck thing? Like, in, well, I guess, like, you're probably going to, like, Philly and New York, but.

I don't, I don't think so. I mean, I think, like, it's just Boston is the worst. It's just, like, and, like, I'm saying this as a fan of the Leafs and many, my, Most least fans are shitheads. But, like, Boston Bruins fans are shitheads. Yeah. It's like, you know, this will be the worst one. Last time we played New York, we don't really play Long Island.

We maybe played it once or twice. So I wanted to do this in Long Island, but we weren't playing. And we played in Manhattan. And it was like, I want to say it was like a month after the Tavares trade. And I walked out in an Islander's shirt and everyone cheered and I turned around. I said to Varas. Oh, man. And it was, that was one of the best hockey moments.

Like, it's the same as me as a least fan. Like, what can I say to Briggs fans? We're like, we suck. It's like, well, I guess. But, like, what could they say to me at that point? Well, now they can say plenty, right? Now they could, but at that point. Oh, yeah, for sure.

I don't even know if Snow had even been fired at that point or not. Wow. So it was great. Yeah. But I guess the reason I ask is, like, this is a crazy big tour for you guys. Like, you guys are just not going to stop touring for, what, a year maybe? Our first more than two week, more than one week break is December 1st. Jesus Christ, it's currently, like, April 25th.

And we started on March 26th. So we're going to go hard to December 1st, probably take that month off, and then we'll be back at it, I bet you, January 4th or 5th or so. Wow. Pretty intense. Yeah, and like, this is a real plus-ed-up tour for you guys just because, I mean, the last time you were here was like a Boston calling, like, after party they call them. So you were at a small, like, you play smaller clubs than you normally would.

But, like, last time you were here, what, the Sinclair is, like, 450, 500 people. So, like. Someone with that. I mean, the good news is the response to your new record, which is great. You're welcome. has been insanely good. Like, I don't know. Did you know when you put it down?

Like, you were like, oh, this is the one? I don't think I ever feel like that about anything I do. Sure, yeah, I get that too. Yeah, I'm never like, yeah, people are going to dig this. It's like I, you know. But I do think that, you know, the four of us and pop are really hard on ourselves and each other. and I do think that like leaving the studio on this record, we all like agreed that it was the, you know, the best one that we felt like it was our best one.

And whether people feel like that or not is not really up to us, you know. Right. But we felt good about it ourselves and that's kind of the most we can hope for. Yeah, no, for sure. Because I kind of see your three records as like kind of a per year. progression where it's like the self-titled record is okay we're pop and and this is what we do and this is what we sound like the second one is like oh fuck we're pop dude like you know what i mean where it's like it's about like how much of being in a band that just doesn't stop touring yeah

like wears on you and this is like accepting that you're pop almost does that make sense yeah i i think that's a really nice way to put it so thank you yeah um and feel It feels like our goal has always been, like, we've always known the kind of band that we wanted to be. And we just want, have tried with each record to get better at being that band. Yeah. There isn't a whole lot of, like, we need to reinvent ourselves, which I think a lot of bands struggle with on their third record. But we've always known the kind of band that we wanted to be. It's just a matter of getting there.

Yeah. Yeah. Because I, for me, and again, like, this is a... coming from a person who spent a lot of time with the first two. Like, this one feel... The music feels a lot almost poppier, and the lyrics are like the darkest shit you guys have done yet. Like, is that a conscious choice for you guys,

or do you kind of, like, silo off the lyric writing and the music writing? Um, no, um, it's... It all kind of happens together. Um... I definitely think... I don't know that is a conscious thing, but it's definitely a thing that we, about our sound that we've really embraced.

I think a lot of it is just like, I start writing from a pretty dark place. I just, like, that's what makes me want to write. Yeah. It's darkness. And then I get to, like, put together these songs with my best friends into the world, and it's so fun that, like,

when you introduce three other people to that equation who not only understand where I'm coming from, but, you know, they can completely relate and are down to have a good time with it. It just, the music ends up sounding fun. Yeah. And I don't know how else to put that, aside from, like, taking all this dark shit,

and then it's four of us having a good time, and it's like, how can you make this sound miserable when it's so fun for us? Right. And you do, like, you know, putting out records, like, you guys just played fucking Seth Mott. Like, is that shit wild to you that, like, you think about, like I said, the last time you were here, you played like a 200-person bar? It is and it isn't.

Like, it's wild for me because, like, who the fuck led us on network television? Right. Like, I said to the guy who booked us right before we played, like, sorry, man, you're probably getting fired after this. That's why it's wild to me. But, you know, really, it hasn't really happened quickly for us. No, for sure. Yeah, you guys have been a band since, what, like 2010, 2012, something like that? Yeah, yeah, 2012, 2013.

But since then, we've been doing, like, 200 shows a year. Right. So, like, we keep going back and, like, every time we go back to town, there's 50 or 100 more kids there. So it doesn't feel like it's not like we went from zero to hero. Yeah. So it just feels like a pretty natural. progression. And not to mention that even before this band, we all played in different bands. Like, I'm 31. I've been playing and touring in bands for 16 years.

Yeah. So it's like, it's great. I'm so happy that things seem to be finally working, but it's been a long grind to get there. Yeah. And the thing you said about like, like, an extra 50, 100 people every time you come back, like, that shit seems to me like it's like, oh, people tell their friends. Like, you got to listen to pop. and they're so fun live. Like, even despite, you know, like you said, the lyrical content, like it's a fun show live. And I don't know, like, I was saying to you before we started recording,

like you guys have weirdly become the official band of hockey Twitter. And the previous one, another band, Diary of Planet, like they also played Seth Myers, like right around, I think, their third record. And I don't know, it just feels like when, when you strive to make it fun like that, like people will naturally go, hell yeah, this kicks ass. Yeah, I mean, I hope so.

That's such an, for me, such an important part of music. I'm like, there are some bands and artists that I love that are just like melancholic and sad, and there's a place for that, but for what I want out of music is to have catharsis and have a good time And then, like, I don't get to play hockey, like, beyond shinny.

Right. I get to strap them on and feel the adrenaline and go out and drill guys into the board. So that's my, this is my version of that, you know? Yeah. And again, speaking for myself, like, there's often a thing of, like, oh, that band's pretty good on the record. And then you see him live. And there's, like, Titus Andronicus, the Hold Steady. Like, even you guys where it's like, oh, there's, like, an extra level to it.

You know what I mean? Well, thank you. Yeah. That's always been, we've always been a live band before a recorded band. So, also, like, for a band like us, that's not really, like, we're not on the radio. We're not going to be an Apple commercial

on any other than you. Like, it's a miracle that we got to play Seth Myers. The way that we make it work is by touring, right? Yeah. Such an important part of it for us. It's the only way to make money and it's also, you've got to love it if you're going to do this 200 days of the year,

you know? Yeah, for sure. and like sometimes I kind of feel the same way about hockey honestly like this is what I've chosen to do and it's working out pretty well for me but like the last two nights where I had to watch overtime like I stayed up till 1.45 watching that Vegas game right and sometimes you're just like what am I doing yeah I mean it's probably also the same thing like it's crazy when hockey or sports or whatever probably crazy when it becomes a job instead of it yeah a passion also But when you add that kind of financial responsibility or whatever you want to call it, I feel like in a way it's got to change something.

Yeah, for sure. Well, so, I mean, you know, this concert that I'm going to go to tonight, it's a thing of, you know, this is my first time, like, not sitting on my couch from 7 p.m. till 1 in the morning in weeks. Yeah. And, like, I, so thanks for that. But also, like, you know, I would be, I would sound like a huge asshole if I was like, and this sucks because, like, people do this for fun. And, like, it's fun for me to sit there and watch hockey.

But also, like, yeah, not having necessarily the option to go out. Yeah. It can get a little, like, do you, given, like you said, like, you play 200 nights a year, do you feel like you're kind of missing out on the, like, civilian? Like, I can go out at 9 o'clock or, you know, whatever. Yeah, there's for sure an element of that, but I think it's more like being on tour can be a grind. Oh, yeah. Like the night's like stepping on stage and doing that is like the best most fun thing in the world for me. So that's all great.

It's more just like, you know, sharing a bed with my bandmates for months on end and not see. seeing my partner and there are little things that kind of add up and make it tough but at the end of the day i mean it's this is probably same for you same for anybody who turns their passion into a job is like at the end of the day you just think like is this worth it or is it not worth it right it's worth it hopefully you stop complaining and just get on with it which i'm trying to do but i'm a big complainer hell yeah me too dude like i i like you know i think that's obviously reflected in my writing and like my takes on the sport of like I you know I tend to not be the guy who like I look at you know well Patrick Marlowe could improve next year right like I don't know if you saw

the thing today where he's like oh I I'm going to change to a one piece stick and it's like you haven't been using a one piece stick like that to me it's not like I don't look at Patrick Marlo go yeah it could be better next year I look at it and go that dude's like you're 39. Yeah. Except, you know what, for 39, obviously, he's not, he's not, he's old for an NHL player. He's looking for all that, but for 39 year old, pretty sick. Yeah, no, exactly. Like, like, I wouldn't, you know, it's one of those things where, you know, you can be washed in the NHL at 31, 32 years old. Like, I'm 36, so like, if I was ever an NHL or my, career is almost definitively over.

And like the fact that Patrick Marlowe, Joe Thornton, God, Zadano Chara, who's 42, 43. Yuck. Retire. Yeah, get out of you. No. Dude, so I'm from Lowell, Massachusetts originally. They used to, the Islanders used to have an AHL team there, and I saw Zadano Chara, like,

play AHL. He was on the same team as Roberto Luongo. That's how long ago this was. and I moved recently and like going through just stuff I had brought from like my parents' house or whatever I found like a Zadain O'Chara

autographed Lowell lock monster's like 20-something year old puck and it's like that's that's crazy yeah that is wild it's like a I mean we're old I think of like

I make you know I make funny jokes with my friends like you know my friends like you know my friends you don't like hockey and I'm like yeah I'm going to watch a Colorado avalan game and they're like yeah so it was up to Forsberg for me right and it's like if they said that with Charra they'd probably say it thinking it's a joke yeah right it's like no yeah like he

was around when I was a child yeah no like I I'm based on the like I think he played in lull for a year or whatever so like based on that I was probably like 13 or 14 when it's on that puck and that is very strange for me to think about like that he, I mean, how much I've turned into just like a normal ass adult or whatever. And he's like, no, no, I'm still a professional hockey player. And I'm not bad at all. Yeah, that is the most painful thing for me because I want him to be so bad. Yeah, he's always played for teams that you hate.

Well, I guess maybe the Islanders, but like, are you a senator's dislikeer? Or do you just not give a shit because they're so bad? Well, I definitely as like a younger person when they were more competitive. hated, like Alfredson years, I fucking hated them. Sure. Like, I'm a police fan hated them. Um, now, no.

It's sad. How can I, how can I hate on it? Yeah, it's really sad, too. I feel bad for Sends fans. Um, and they got some cool young guys that are fun to watch. They do. Yeah. I wonder, because obviously, like,

they don't have their first pick this year. Um, incredible. That's what I really wanted. them to be awarded the first round. Oh yeah, no. Like, that definitely would have been the funniest outcome by a mile. And like, especially because they said, like, it was last year's first pick, which they picked fourth or this ones. And then they ended up also picking fourth with that.

It's like, oh, that's not fun. Yeah. Like, you wanted to at least hurt them a little bit, you know, but. I just want to watch the world burn. Hell, exactly, dude. Like, the thing I always say is you root for the funniest possible, I was. come, right? Like, yeah, like... Columbus going all the way. And that

would be hilarious, but also maybe not because they dumped an entire draft into getting to the point where they could beat the lightning. And so it's like, I guess they kind of earn that, too. That sucks. But like, oh, I love the balls. Oh, no, like, yeah, you like to

see a team rewarded for that, for sure. Yeah. But, yeah, so do you have a cup favorite now that... I'm going with the blues. Yeah? I'm... I'm... I'm... Like, if I had to choose my second favorite team after the Leafs, it would have been the Jets. So I was a little bit crushed. Yeah, they just didn't show up.

Yeah, it was awful. But I just think the Blues are a great story. Really good. They're fun to watch too, so I could care, you know, I could care less if frigging Dallas goes all the way. Yeah, exactly. Like, the Blues are kind of a team that I don't think about very much. like generally speaking, like they're kind of in the Minnesota wild territory of like, oh yeah, I guess they are technically in the NHL, that's right.

But for me, the team, I think, I hate to say it, I just think the Bruins are so good. Like, it's hard for me to pick against them, but the team I want to win is definitely San Jose. Joe Thornton. We love Joe Thornton. We love Eric Carlson. Yeah, they're awesome to watch too, but just like can that goaltending hold up for three more rounds? Yeah, I don't know, man. I think, you know, Martin Jones was really good before this year. Like, he was always an above-average goalie this year, total dog shit. Yeah.

And, you know, he stopped 60-something shots in game, what was that, game six? That is wild. Yeah, and so, like, I think they're good enough that they can maybe, and even in game one, I think I wrote a thing, like, if they can play, like, keeping Vegas to the outside and that kind of thing. I think they can overcome the fact that they got the worst goal tending in the league this year. Yeah. Yeah. Holy. But yeah, so I don't know.

It's crazy that, like, you know, probably the two teams that were like goal tendings going to sink them first round were San Jose and Calgary. Yeah. And Vernon Jones saved San Jose's ass. Yep. And Calgary

lost despite good goaltending. Yeah. Which crazy. Yeah. Does nothing make sense in hockey anymore? No, it's been a really, like, the whole year's been weird. I feel like with, you know, teams just go, like, like the blues just going, oh, we're phenomenal now, bang, like, that's it. Yeah. And, you know, obviously, Robin Leonard just going from, like, a pretty good goalie to, oh,

no, I'm, like, the best goalie in the league. That's insane. The Tampa, like, not just being great, like, everybody knew they'd be great, but being, but finishing with a plus 103 goal. or whatever. Like, even the stuff we expected to happen happened to a crazy extent. So why wouldn't the playoffs be like this, right?

But it's still, it's still like, man, it's tough to watch all these teams for me now. Because they're all teams that I, more or less ignored. Right. You know? Yeah, I mean, the Islanders were an afterthought forever. Yeah, well, not in Toronto. Oh, well, right, because, yeah, that's true.

But like broadly speaking in hockey, like how long did they go without even a win in a playoff? And this is a stat I saw like last weekend, I think. But Barry Trots is now tied for second all time in Islanders round wins in the playoffs. Like he's been the coach for one season. So, yeah, man. That's amazing. Like you said, we just want to watch the world burn. And like that's, I hope that it.

it's like a Columbus Dallas Cup final just because it's two eight but it's two eight seats Yeah and like that's the thing

It's not implausible now Yeah You know and that's That's the craziest shit ever dude Like yeah well that That's another thing that Stings so much about that Toronto loss for me is

You know I'm a bit of a realist All I was like You know what The Leaves can maybe beat the brunes And then they're going to get destroyed by 10 Yeah And then it's like The door's a lot

There's a path to, like, there, they could win the cup. Yep. And, you know, like, if, you know, if the Bruins... I guess it's the same with, like, Washington winning the cup last year came down to, like, an overtime goal in the first round. Yeah. And it's like, if that one goal, like, maybe Columbus would have won the cup last year. Yeah.

Crazy. Sports is crazy, man. Oh, man. It must be so... mentally exhausting to be an athlete. Oh my God. Yeah. It's weird because you go, oh, well, they're paid millions of dollars.

And it's like, yeah, but like, also when you're in the supermarket, people are just coming up to you going, we've got to get that power play going, dude. It's like, fuck that. Yeah, yeah. My partner works at an outdoor store in Toronto, and Mike Babcock came in. she texts me she's like oh my babcock's here and i was like i've got notes

the send her a bunch of notes and she's like yeah i'm not going to yeah why would you but i can only imagine that in all seriousness he gets that all the time oh a hundred percent you can't go anywhere yeah i i can't remember who it was but there was some old gm who was like like he got fired and he's like i just went to the movies for the first time like 10 years like they told me i got fired at like 9 a.m and i was at a.m. and i was at a a noon movie and I was like amazing. This feels so good. Yeah. But

you know like you were telling me before we started recording you might be you might have a future in hockey management. Oh it's the it's the pipe dream. Yeah. I don't want it to sound like I'm on my way there. Yeah for sure.

I've got some ideas. You know how Drake is like the guy for the raptors? Yeah. So I have a little place in Sudbury. My partner's family is from there. I've spent the past six summers there.

Been to a bunch of Wolves games. I feel like, you know, Pup is not a very big band. We're a modestly sized rock band, but it's a Subbury Wool's. I feel like you need a Separate Wolves drink. Do you think everybody would be like the Stefan Babcock curse? Stay away from the arena. Yeah, well, I don't care. I want it.

Hell yeah. I feel like they've got to let me drop a puck at some point. Yes, dude. That really is, like, in terms of modest, like, stuff you can get from, like, whatever your level of celebrity is, like, for me, sometimes I do get guest listed to bands I like, right? And I'm like, this is all I've ever wanted is to like go to concerts for free or whatever. And yeah, like to turn that into just being able to get a free Sudbury Wolves jersey with your name on the back and like drop a pocket at some random game in February against the Oshawa generals or something. That's the dream. I tweeted at them the other day because I have a, I've got a couple of Wolves T-shirts and I wear them on stage a lot.

And I tweet at them often being like, hey, I can really use a new wolf. shirt, but the problem is that that's the only thing I tweet about. So I've got, like, verified on Twitter. Like, I don't have very many followers. I don't tweet except for at the wool. So I think they just ignore me, but if anyone from the Wolles organization is listening to this podcast, fucking hook me out. Yeah, definitely do that.

Like, like I said, get him a hat, get them a jersey. Like, you'll wear them on stage. Like, you're not above this shit, right? Although I don't know what that does for the wolf Me wearing like a wolf jersey when we played Chattanooga, Tennessee, whatever, like I don't know, you know. It's all branding, dude. You just have to think of it that way.

Like, just getting the name out there and like if you, if it ends up on like, I don't know, like consequence of sound or whatever with you wearing a Sudbury Wolf's shirt, like how many dollars of free advertising is that worth? Let me put it this way. It's worth more than the shirt. I hope so. Who knows? Maybe they're worried about the content of the pup songs.

Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, look, like, if Drake can get all this, like, if he can get the, like, you don't have to get the custom pup jersey like, like Drake has. But, like, his songs are not, let's say, family appropriate. Sure, yeah. So, hey, man, like. Yeah. Let's blast, like, everybody tweet at the Sudbury Wolves.

Yeah. Get Stefan a shirt. Yeah. Oh, man, that would be great. I think a couple of wolves people follow me, but, uh... Yeah, but like in the way that they follow, like, all the cranks who just tweeted the Sundberry Wolves constantly. Yeah. All 10 of them.

That's right. Hey, man, like, you're an exclusive club. Like, you're the diehard Sudbury Wolves guy. But, yeah, anyway, that's it. That's, uh, we're good. So, thanks for coming. on the show. I don't know.

Pup. Is it Pup.com? Like, what's the website to get tour dates? Pup the band. Pup the band. Pup the band. Whatever. Buy the new record.

It kicks ass. Thank you. Yeah, that's it. Thanks for being here, bud. Appreciate it. Thanks for having me. All right. Our thanks to Mr. Babcock from Pup for joining us on Puck Soup.

Ryan, where does a band like Pup usually play? This week they're playing at, I would say, probably venues ranging from a thousand-ish to 1400. Up from the last time I saw them in Boston, which was in a bar that was like 200 people maybe. Wow. Yeah. So pretty popular band, huh? Yeah, they've really taken off with their last two records. Even, like, they played a bunch of festivals and that kind of thing in the last couple of years ahead of

the new record morbid stuff coming out. And yeah, they're playing, I think, an 1,100 cap venue tonight in Boston. It sounds like, wow, that sounds like it could get kind of packed. I wonder if there's a way you could get, like, a ticket to the show if maybe you didn't get it when they initially went on sale. That's another B. It's a good week for ads this week. You might want to use our friends at SeaGeek, a long time sponsor of the PuckSoup podcast. You know, the ticket industry, it hasn't changed.

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The Hurricanes and the Islanders, the Canes, very impressive in the first round. the Islanders have been sitting around since fucking March waiting for this to happen. Your thoughts on the canes and the aisles. I have no idea. Yeah. I'm not allowed to say what I actually think

without a bunch of chuds getting mad at us. Long Island chuds. Yeah. Is what you're trying to say? Yeah, okay. No, but this is going to be a great series for fans who want to take very, very tiny slights and turn them into really big.

You know, it's like, I hope somebody out there says that they don't like the storm surge and also that they're not sure the Islanders are really the best defensive team of the league and we'll just have two furious fan bases just pummeling them. I'm picking the Islanders. That's, I don't have, I mean, I don't have strong feelings on any of these because I've been humbled by the first round, but yeah, yeah, I'm going Islanders. just the goal tending.

I'm very curious to see what the atmosphere is like for the home games. Yeah. That's the key for me. That is going to be interesting to me because that, you know, the first round, obviously, was crazy. And now they're back in the new barn, which is not the fun one. An arena not built for hockey. Yeah. I know.

I agree, man. Like, I feel I could, the only thing that had me thinking Carolina in this series, I was thinking about some meathead in two weeks being like, yo, if we had played those home games at the Coliseo, we told him would have beat the hurricanes. And that's the only thing that's kind of held me back a little bit. But Islanders and Six, I think that they're locked in. Can you not imagine, like, the Islanders losing the first two games

and they're being, like, a furious petition and movement to get Game 5 switch. They already, what, the, Mario Cuomo, Andrew Cuomo. Andrew Cuomo already wrote a letter to the NHL being like, hey, well, we freaking play these games in Long Island instead. Yeah, it's amazing. Oh, Long Island, sorry. Marking the first time a politician has ever used the Islanders Arena issues for their own personal game.

It's the first time it's ever happened. It's incredible. And it's not like Cuomo has other important stuff going on in the state that he should really be paying attention to. No, no. Now, if it was the Southern District of New York sending that letter to the NHL, well, my goodness, I would start paying attention, but it is just the governor. Now, I like the honors in six.

I like their balance. Lainer has been insanely good, and I think that they take, they're a team built, in my opinion, to win games in Carolina in a way that maybe the capitals weren't. And so I think that the honors will win the series, I'll have been six. I'll take them in seven. I think home ice matters in a way that, it did in the Hurricanes

Cap series where the only game that wasn't a win for the home team was game seven and that took double over time so you know I it took double over time

and a game seven in Washington right no shit so yeah I'll go aisles in seven just because I think I do like Lane or better than I think Peter fucking Brassick so

We just all took the Islanders. Yeah. Congratulations, Carolina. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, now I can't lose, right? San Jose and Colorado, I'm going to be covering this series, not only because I live in the Bay Area, but because my employer believes there is a lot of, quote, star power in the series.

This is a tough one for me because I think Colorado has distinct advantages in speed and goal tending. But good luck betting against the team that just did what that fucking Sharks team did in game six and seven. I'm going to take the Sharks in seven. I can't not take them now after what I've already witnessed with my own eyes in the last few games. I do not trust Martin Jones, man. I can't do it. I can't do it.

I have to go with Colorado. I'll take them in seven here. As much as I like everything about the Sharks. except Martin Jones, and I, you know, I think they're deeper. I think they have way more talent on defense. But if it's between Gru Bauer and Martin Jones, like how about... One thing I think people forgot about is apart from last year, Mark Andre Fleury was Mark Andre Fleury, right?

Right, right. And so, yeah, I think I trust Gruberauer more than I trust Martin Jones, and I I trust the shark's depth more than I trust the Aves depth, but it's a goal-tending league, man, I don't know. Yeah, it is a goal-tending league, but I have no idea of what goal. I mean, we spent a big chunk of last week's episode just shoveling dirt on Martin Jones's grave as far as his playoff performance, and then he turned into off-brand Yaroslav Halak for the last three games. The dirt right through his five-hole. Yes, exactly.

Exactly. But, yeah, I mean, I'm taking San Jose. At the end of the day, you know, I feel like the sharks are a great team, one through 18, for sure, aside from the goaltending, like the, you know, the defense the forwards. This is a team built to win now. I feel like they've had their scare sometimes, you know, sometimes when a team as a scare, it's because the team deserve to be scared and they're not as good as we think.

But sometimes, you know, once they've gotten past that hurdle, they, you know, that's when they can find another gear. I just can't get over the fact that, you know, the Colorado Avalanche went 38 and 44 during the regular season. They had 38 wins. You know, have they been better in the playoffs where they're injured? Yes, there's always reasons why you can look at say a team was better than their regular season record. But this team was 38 and 44. And, and, you know, the idea that suddenly they're serious Stanley Cup contenders, I, yeah, I mean, anybody can be in this league now, but I'm just not there with them. They didn't have goaltending for a huge chunk of the year and then Grubaughar figured it out

from like February on. And that's honestly the difference. That's like, their goaltending was, their goaltending was almost sharks level bad for a pretty good chunk of the year. Right. But that's it. If, if the argument is that your goal. attending can go from being sharks level bad to pretty good for a couple of months, then that could happen to the sharks too. Maybe it already has. Yeah, and I do have a lot of time for the idea that that Martin Jones, even last year, was really good. Like, not really good, but like he was an above average.

He was fine. You could win with a guy like that, yeah. Yeah, you could definitely win with him. And if he snap back after whatever, game five where he was terrible, and he's like, oh, right, I'm a historically above average goalie. Like, yeah, look out for the fucking sharks for sure. But I'm, I'm going to see a little more than two games at the end of that series to, and believe me, he tried to give that game away.

He really tried. He was bad in game seven. We don't know what's up with Povellsky as we do the podcast. That's a big factor in the series. Yeah, they haven't said anything. Like, they have a little bit nervous about that. Yeah. The thing about Jones, though,

and tell me if I'm wrong, you're getting to Bokhov syndrome. Great playoff numbers at the end of the day, will not get you that win and will not get you that save that you need. He got it in the first round in six and seven, but he didn't get it in three through five. Yeah, but I think he's got that. I mean, if you can't deliver the big save, then you're not going to deliver that save when your team's down three,

one in the series, and he did. So I think that's evidence against that. Never the guy who lost game seven. Nabokov was always the guy who fucked up in game five, and then all of a sudden you find yourself in a game seven when you shouldn't even be there. And I feel like that's Jones. Yeah, maybe, but if you win the game seven, you're, you're all right.

You're a legend. You're a legend. I wouldn't know. I've been watching Freddie Anderson for the last few years, so I don't know what happens when we win game seven. Do you blame him for that first goal, or do you think it was an anomaly? You know what? I think the goal that people, the bad goal was the third one.

The first goal was, obviously a bad goal in the sense that you got to stop that. But you see those goals sometimes. Like the goal that tender gets set. There's like one inch where the puck could go in and the shooter happens to find that. I feel like you could put Frederick Anderson in that exact position. Let the Bruins take that shot 100 times. And I think 99 times out of 100, they don't score. Now, it should be 100 times out of 100. And you got to stop the puck and all this stuff. But it was the third goal where it's 2-1 and they're. It's 2-1. been much better in the second period and you're thinking, all right, one more goal and here

we go. And they come in and it's a bit of a long distance one where he should have a shot to track it and make that save and it goes in. Like the third goal to me is the bad one, not even though the first one looked worse when you slow it down and look at it that way. Blues in Dallas, speaking of goal tending, holy shit. This should be a clinic. I'm going to take the Blues in six with due respect to the juice that Dallas has right now. I was really, really impressed with the Blues in that Winnipeg series.

I know Winnipeg was hurt and shit like that, but to take on that team, to win to that building, and to do it with... Yeah, and to do it with Bennington not doing what Bishop did, by the way. Bennington wasn't like a concrete wall in that series, but he was fine.

I just think that... I thought if they were going to do this in the playoffs, that Bennington would have to put up Bishop numbers, but he didn't, and they still won. Again, like since that coaching change, they've been one of the best teams in hockey, like, by any measure you want to look at. And so they never need, they needed Binnington to be what he was for three months to get back into the playoff discussion. But they didn't need him to stay that good forever because of how good the rest of the team has played, you know, regardless of his quality. So as long as he's fine, I think you have to take the blues just because it's the classic thing of like when the kings were the eight seed and everybody was like, hey, the kings, you know, they're an eight seed, but they're not a real eight seed.

Right. Like they're not a real, I don't even remember. They were the third and the, but I don't remember. They were the third. But I don't remember where they were in the conference, but they're not a real sixth seed or whatever you want to say. like they're they were since thanksgiving they've been one of the best teams in the NHL and I have a hard time picking against them so I'll go I've got six I've got the blues too uh and you know which is not they're all so fucked I can't believe we fucked

everything up yeah sorry again apologies uh yeah I'm I'm solidly on the blues bandwagon I had picked the Jets as my uh uh gut level Stanley Cup pick so I think now I'm required to ride or die with the blues. Plus, you know, it's the 1967 thing. And I cheered for the Kings. And let's do it again here with the Blues. All right. Speaking of teams that aren't necessarily what they're seeding would indicate,

the 13th best team of the NHL this season, the Columbus Blue Jackets against the Boston Bruins. This is a real tough one because I seriously have problems with how long the Lumbus has been on the sidelines. It scares the true. shit out of me that they came rolling into the playoffs and now they've been dicking around for like a week and a half. So why do you not feel that way about the Islanders?

I think the Islanders are a different team. I think the Islanders are a more experienced team. No, I mean, I think they're a more experienced team. I don't think it was the same dynamic where they were playing playoff games for, you know, there are last eight games of the regular season and then rolled into the playoffs based on that momentum. That said, I'm going to take them in seven. Why the fuck not?

Jackets over Bruins in seven, Boebrovsky doesn't turn into a pumpkin. Much like the Leaps, I think Columbus has a better forward group than Boston. Their defense isn't as good. That is for sure. But I'm hoping that we get a little special team as Magic and three wins in Columbus,

and the jackets win in seven. I would love to see that, first of all. I think the blue jackets are probably the, you know, as fun a story as we've seen in the playoffs for a long time. I'm picking Boston. I am, and as you may have noticed, I have a strategy here.

After the first round went completely haywire, I sat down and tried to figure out what the weirdest thing that could happen in the second round is. And what I landed on is I'm picking all the favorites. And I'm picking them all to win in relatively short series. I think I'm just sitting here going, what is it that is going to leave us in a few weeks, going, oh, that second round was even more unpredictable. I think it's this.

I think all the favorites are going to win in four or five games, and that's how the hockey gods are going to screw with us, and then God help us in the third round. I'm going to go Bruins and six. I'm not sure I buy that they have enough magic in them. I think Columbus is a really good team. I've been saying it all season that they didn't really live up to their potential. up until the, you know, last couple of weeks of the year.

But, you know, I get accused of being a Boston homer for some reason, even though I don't care about the Bruins. And as recently as November, people were saying I hate the Bruins, like Bruins fans were saying that to me. But, yeah, I think they're just a better team. That's that simple. You know, what's odd for me is that Mike Milbury, who I think is the biggest Boston Homer in the first,

fucking universe. Boston fans are like, nah, kid, he never criticizes the Bruins. I'm like, what? Or he always criticizes the Bruins. Yeah.

And I'm like, every time I listen to that guy during that Leaf series, I'm like, this motherfucker is, is like painted his face, yellow and black. If we get a Bruins Islanders

conference final, that's going to be the Mike Milbury series. Oh my God. Right and center. Here's your guy. You know, we often talk about what it was like

when we were kids watching hockey. I'd like to travel back in time and tell you and Greg Wischinski that there's a chance that a team coached by Craig Barubi and a team coached by Rod Brindamore might end up beating for the Stanley Cup. I don't know if I would necessarily have handled that as a young lad. Neither of those men ever struck me as being a coach. Yeah?

No. But they are both good at it, as it turns out. That's right. Really good at it. Also, I would travel back in time to 2000 and say, hey, 2000, Greg. There's going to be a playoff series. Bruce Cassidy is going to be one of the best coaches in the NHL, and he's with the Bruins,

and he's coaching against a guy who led the Capitals to a Stanley Cup, but then didn't come back to coach the team the following season. And I would just, like, jump in the ocean. I couldn't handle it. I couldn't handle any of that. All right. By the way, this is unrelated, but I just saw it on my timeline. Did you know Patrick Marlowe plays with a two-piece stick in 2019?

I just I just learned that Wow Not really the not really the vote of confidence When everyone's saying that you're too old And you're like all right in that case Well let me put on my wooden skates Because now he's doing the James Neal shit of like Sure I'm too old and totally broken down and washed

But I'm gonna change how I train this summer I'm gonna get new equipment And we're gonna try it again in 2020 baby Come on Oh man I don't even know where you would get a two piece stick these days, but apparently apparently Patrick Marlow's

garage sale might be he's like couch, couch, old record player, ah, two-piece stick, perfect. There it is, perfect. It's the wrong hand, but that's okay, I'll use that one for the playoffs. All right. Let's get into a little bit of the MCU. End game comes out

this weekend. Ryan's seeing it tonight. That's right. I'll see it this weekend at some point. Sean, cable? I'll see it in four years and And I'll come back and want to talk about it then. We're going to hand out some MCU awards as we say goodbye to phase three of them. That could be right. All the movies are on the table.

None of the TV shows. Favorite character in the MCU, Ryan Lambert. Batman. That's the DCU, sir. The DCU. Okay, Superman. Oh, okay. No, again, DCU, and you're going to have to be more specific.

Do you mean the Man of Steel, Snyderverse Superman? The one when it was a zombie. Oh. Remember that one from Justice? I do. I don't know. I guess the rock man from Thor Ragnarok. He was fun.

Oh, corg or whatever it was. If you say so. voiced by Tika Waitiki. Yeah. Yeah. He's funny. Sean. I have seen a few of these movies.

I don't know if I have a fair. You know, I like, what's the guy that Batista plays in. Drax. Oh, Drak's the Destroyer. He's funny. I like, I like that. A couple of, I don't, like, I was never into comic books as a kid, so I don't know backstories and all this stuff to really appreciate them on that level.

He's just really funny. I enjoyed that. I only saw the first one, but that was a funny movie. I'm going to say Mark Ruffalo's Hulk is maybe my favorite MCU character. I feel like after seeing two other attempts

at being the Hulk, he kind of nailed what I think should be the right sort of Bruce Banner thing. A super, super genius guy who has anger issues. And I find him to be really sort of a nice sort of straight man in the MCU.

he was my favorite incarnation. Least favorite character, Ryan. Wonder Woman. No, I'm just kidding. There it is again. This is DCU again. And also, misogynistic, sir. I don't know.

That movie was bad. But, no, I'm the least favorite character. There's so many to choose from. I don't know. Any of the fucking faceless gray aliens who just would get wasted the second... So like the Chitari

or the multi-armed alien is from Infinity War. Yeah, like whatever it is, dude. Like, it's just so you don't have to care when they get fucking cut in half by a giant sword or whatever. But that shit sucks.

Like, it's just... Those creatures have families. Is that what you're getting at? No, it's just like, this way there can be, there doesn't have to be stakes to an action sequence. They can just all explode and we can go, oh, it's cool when Thor did the flying thing or whatever.

I don't know. No, no, that's a good point. Sean? Who's the dude with the bow and arrow? Hawkeye. Oh, that'd be Hawkeye. Yeah. Okay.

Again, I'm sure he's a fine character if I knew the backstory. But my problems are twofold. Number one, I can't see him without thinking of the Patton Oswald bit about like go talk to the Avengers because they've got a guy with a bow and arrow. and they'll take anyone. And two, like, he, like, I'm watching the trailers for this new movie, and, like, there's this big dramatic reveal where he shows up and everyone's like, oh, gasp. And I'm like, dude, like, you weren't in the first movie.

There were 40 characters in the first movie and you didn't make the cut. I'm supposed to be excited that you're showing up for this one. It was because he had broken both of his arms filming another movie. Yeah. Right. Okay, so there you go. That would make sense. But, you know, it's like, yeah, but now this guy's going to show up with his bow and

arrow and that's what's going to take down. And that movie, by the way, was tag. The movie, I was going to say. That was the tag movie, right? Like, yeah. Now you got to careful on that tag. Like half that fucking movie, man. By the way, kudos to referencing both people I get to say I look like. When I'm skinnier, people say I look like Jeremy Renner. And when I'm fatter, they say look like Pat Nosswalt. So there you go. You get those two together. Yeah, that's good. There you are. My least favorite character was actually Ultron. I didn't, I didn't, I didn't. I didn't. I didn't. I didn't. like Age of Ultron all that much as a movie. And I really liked... Because it was bad? Is that why? Yeah, it was a bad movie. And also, like, I loved Ultron in the books, and I don't think they really did the character

much justice. I mean, Spader was fine. It's a cool voice, but the character itself was kind of all over the place and not very compelling. So, Ultron would be my least surreal character. Favorite moment in the MCU from the films that you've seen, Ryan? I liked the

first time. Or, you know what? I'll say this. In Thor Ragnarok, when Thor has to fight the Hulk, and he says, that guy's my friend from work. He's going to work. I know him. That was good. Ragnarok's got like 17 things that could qualify for favorite moments. The unquestionable number one movie of the MCU for me, and that's why I guess I'm picking so many Thor Ragnarok moments.

But, yeah, no, that, like, that was just the most fun. expression of like an otherwise incredibly dower, dumb series of films. Sean. You know what I liked was? I remember what movie it is, but the one where the entire city is destroyed, and then there's like the post-credit scene where they're all just sitting around eating shwamas. Ah, that'd be the first Avengers movie. Was that the first?

Okay, so there you go. I like, yeah, I like that. As you can tell, I am just picking whatever made me laugh, and I'm sure probably not doing justice to the, big dramatic moments that were important to people, but I'm just in the loop. I got a couple in my brain. From the aforementioned Avengers, the swirly circle shot of all the heroes

in the middle of the New York getting ready to fight might be like one of the most iconic images in movie history. Tony Stark saying, I am Iron Man at the end of Iron Man, was fucking baller and unexpected and awesome. But, you know, they always, they never get the villains right in these movies necessarily. So I'm going to go Spider-Man Homecoming, Ryan.

I'm going to go Michael Keaton's The Vulture, having the uncomfortable conversation with Tom Holland's Spider-Man as Spider-Man is trying to take a chick to a dance. And it's his daughter. And it's like the single most menacing fucking scene in any movie involving a villain, even with Thanos walking around. I love that scene. It's so good. It has nothing to do with powers. or anything. It's just two dudes talking, and it's fucking phenomenal. Yeah, that is a really good scene. Michael Keaton was a really good bad guy. Best bad guy, though,

uh, Michael B. Jordan is killmonger. Because he had an actual motivation other than like randomly wanting to blow up the world or whatever, very stupid. Yeah. He was, yeah, I would agree. He's probably the best, he also had the best, uh, motivation just in terms of like, oh, he has good politics. Well, I mean, the race war aspect of it Maybe not the best politics But yeah, but you got it though It was a thought that counts

Yeah, it was a thought that counts Finally, the thing you thought would suck in the MCU But totally didn't My thing with all of these movies Is that I think they're fine To occasionally enjoyable with a few duds in there I thought Thor would be a bummer again, I'm going back to Thor,

but I thought he would be the fucking huge bummer. He was in the first several movies forever. And then he wasn't anymore because they actually led a guy who was like funny and good at making movies right and direct the best movie of the whole series. So I think a third Thor movie not being totally unwatchable was a really nice change of pace.

Yeah. Can I say that I think the most surprising thing in the MCU is that the MCU worked at all? Yeah, you could totally say that. Like I mean, I, like I wasn't into comics as a kid, but I know that the kids who were into comics, if you showed up with like a Thor comic, it meant that, you know, you had been late to the comic shop and had gotten store. Or that like your mom had gone for you and it just like grabbed whatever was there. So, you know, the fact that this worked at all on any level, let alone becoming this monster billion, billion dollar success is amazing to me. I'll go the micro version of that.

I was going to say that the thing I thought was going to suck but didn't was Captain America. But you can never underestimate Jingoism. I'll say Guardians of the Galaxy. The fact that the Guardians of the Galaxy, which was a book I liked, became a movie that wasn't just a hit, but like, a fucking franchise starter is a miracle to me, a miracle to me, that that actually worked. I think that was the flex. That must have enraged to the DC people so much that they can't do Superman. And they just come out.

We have a raccoon and a tree. Like my son saw who is like a little young for this. Like he saw like the raccoon on like an ad and he was like, what is that? And I'm like, there's a raccoon in this movie. And he was like, no. And a sentient tree. But, yeah, a raccoon in a tree and the sixth most famous wrestler of the last decade. And the fact that that worked.

And meanwhile, they're like, let's have Superman fight Batman. And everyone's like, that sucked. That has to drive you. Yeah, no, like, I think, and this is kind of the Thor Ragnarok thing, too, where they were like, we're just going to try something here. And it might work, and it might not work. And it's a bunch of characters nobody cares about. So if it doesn't work, it's no sense.

skin off our ass at the end of the day. Right. And it worked because they leaned into how weird it could be. And it was the same thing with the Thor movies where the first two are unwatchable. They're so bad. They're boring. They're dower. And they were like, what if we made this third one like really bright and colorful and

funny? And it was like, ah, okay, yeah. That actually worked because people are so serious. of it the other way. And to Sean's point, like, the one thing they did really well is they kind of allowed the actors portraying the characters to kind of craft the path for these guys. Like, like, you know, I don't think they realized how funny Hemsworth was when they cast him as Thor.

I thought they just think that he was a big tall Australian dude. Yeah. But then as the movies went on, he became comic relief and, you know, the role changed. And almost his performance allowed them to make Ragnarok at some point. So that's, that's, yeah, I agree with that. Okay, cool. Listen, we ran long. No question of the week.

If you want to read the question of the week, go search Puck's Soup podcast on the Twitter, and you'll find all the answers. But we'll do some mailbag stuff now on the Patreon. And thanks for listening. Thanks for our, was it, Ethan, was it from Pup? Stefan. I don't know. I do. Thanks to, thanks to Stefan from Pup for joining us on the podcast.

I'll probably get your name right on the name of the name. episode. And you can find my stuff at ESPN. You can find all our picks and our previews and all that shit for the second round. And you can listen to my other podcast, ESPN and ICE with Emily Kaplan. Ryan Lambert, uh, sorry, sports. Yahoo.com slash author slash Ryan dash Lambert. And most importantly, sign up for the Puck Soup newsletter. I've been putting it out either Friday or Saturday for the last couple of months. People seem to enjoy it. And I, you know, music recommendations, TV, movies, and obviously

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