Puck Soup - Reading Tweets To You

Episode Date: December 17, 2021

Sean and Ryan run down the COVID news until Paul Maurice resigns in the middle of the show. Then they have to scramble. 

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 Ryan Lambert from Elite Prospects. I'm Sean McAndew from The Athletic. And we're in a lot of trouble with COVID. Seems like.

We are. So I don't know if you guys know the website, NHL Injury Viz, but they do a pretty good job of keeping track of who's injured, who's not, et cetera. And yesterday they introduced like a COVID tracker thing as well. And the timing was perfect because there were like more than 70 guys in the protocols yesterday, including almost everybody the Calgary Flames have under contract. It's getting bad out there. It's really bad.

Like it to the point where like we're recording this Friday morning and it feels like a given that by the time people hear this, there's going to be more names. More developments. I mean, we've just in the last few minutes as we start this, see news of another game postponed. Oh, I didn't see this. Yeah, Montreal Boston is. is off. Well, Jonathan Drouin got his wish, I guess. Yeah.

It's very scared to play. And understandably so. But like, between him and Nick Cousins basically going, like, why are we still playing all these games, like, at least until Christmas? Mm-hmm. It's a good question, Nick. And, I mean, the answer, unfortunately, is, comes down the bottom line. I'm doing the money thing. Yeah.

Yeah, at this point, want to play as many games as they can, in front of as many fans as they can, which everywhere outside of Quebec and Ontario is still full capacity. I think they know it's going to get a lot worse than this, and they're trying to squeeze as much in as they can because the owners want more money in their pockets, and the players don't want to get hit with even more escrow down the line. So it's... How funny was it that I think it was Batman at the Board of Governors was like, yeah, we actually think they're going to pay off the escrow debt like ahead of schedule.

Yeah. And then a week later, it's like, no, that's not going to happen. That's, yeah. You know, it's weird because it feels like there's, there's two ways to go from here. The first way and the obvious way is you shut it down. Or you do, you know, you do something. We're hitting the pause button for a couple of weeks.

We're, you know, we're not going to have fans. There's any number of ways that you really turn the dial down as much as you can and maybe just all the way. And there's downsides to that. Obviously, I mean, it's not like you just hit pause for two. weeks and two weeks from now, this variant's going to be done. And, you know, if anything, things will be worse then. So it's tough. If you shut down now or anytime soon, you might stay shut down for quite a while. The other side, and you're starting to hear people make this

case, is that you just, you play through it and you stop shutting down. You basically say, the entire league is vaccinated, other than one guy. From what we've seen so far, vaccinated people aren't getting really sick, even if they get it. So we just keep going. And we don't shut down games. And you've seen some people even argue that if you're vaccinated and you don't have symptoms, you should be able to play.

Which is, on the one hand, it sounds insane because you're kind of at that point basically saying we're just going to let everyone in the league get this thing and and just cross our fingers that nobody gets seriously sick or has any longer. The NBA is considering the same thing. Yeah. Yeah. This is not just in NHL thing. This is, yeah, all in pro sports.

And the NFL just modified its rules for vaccinated players to get them back quicker. And basically the argument would be you treat it like we've always treated the flu. Every year the flu goes around. Some people get sick. Lots of players catch it, but we just keep going. And if you can't play that night, then you don't play. Teams will occasionally cancel practices or this and that, but we play through it. And I mean, it sounds like when you first hear that, it sounds like you're into the anti-vax conspiracy.

This isn't so bad land. And it certainly shares a border. But I do think there's a, you can make that case. The case that I don't think you can make is that we just keep doing it the way we're doing it, which is we treat everything as normal, but some teams have 10 guys out and we cancel their games and we just, we're going to try to figure it out down the line. Like, this doesn't feel sustainable to me. No, it's, it's really, it really seems crazy that, um, you know, there, let's put it this way. Last night, it was reported the fucking avalanche voted. We only got four guys in protocol.

Let's play. It's like, that shouldn't be up to them. They're just going to say, yeah, let's fucking do it. And, you know, I do understand the whole thing. Like, look, everybody, at this rate, everybody's going to get it regardless of how they proceed, right? Or at least it feels that way. So, you know, you're in a situation. where you're going, well, if you, if you, you know, get it, you're kind of immune to it for 90 days.

And then you're like, okay, let's play the many hockey games as we can in the next 90 days then. Yep. You know, I had a guy do like kind of gotcha tweet the other day where I was like, man, I'm starting to wonder if you can play the full 82. And this guy was like, well, you said last year that they wouldn't play the full 56. and everybody played the full 56 and it's like, yeah, and only two teams had to play during the, like regular season games during the playoffs, so they could avoid, you know, like having to give back money to broadcast partners. So, yeah, that worked out great, and nobody thought that was fucking insane at all.

So, you know, I do wonder what the plan is because there were also reports this week where, like, yeah, even if they don't go to the Olympics, like the way buildings are booked and stuff like that, there probably wouldn't be too many games played in that three-week period, if any. Yeah, some teams could play, other teams wouldn't. And then even if you could get, even if you could say, you know what, all right, we can't play a full schedule, we can play a half-one. So what are you doing during the break? You're just having your whole team, you're just going to practice for a week or waiting for your one game and then. Yeah.

Or do you send everyone home? And in which case, everyone goes home and, you know, how many players go out and live their life and get sick and come back. I mean, it's just the one thing that I think they can do right now somewhat easily and that I'm almost surprised they haven't done yet is do something around the salary cap, bring back taxi squads, give cap relief, give cap exemptions so that we don't have teams playing with, you know, they don't even. have a full lineup now. Like Carolina the other night, couldn't even ice a full lineup. The Bruins didn't have a full lineup the other night. And I get that. I don't have a problem with that when it's a situation like Vegas had earlier in the year where you're right up against the cap. The Leafs did it too, played without a backup goalie. You've made a decision to go right up to the line. That carries some risk. Okay. But I mean, when you've got teams that are,

you know, they're doing the right thing. Everybody's tested. Everybody's, you know, reporting, I don't know, to penalize them, I know I'm sure there's a, there's a bottom line calculation in there somewhere where you's, but let, let teams call up guys who make under a million bucks. Like, we're not talking, let teams go massively over the cap here. Like, let's, well, so part of the problem with that is that, you know, again, with Boston, uh, fucking three quarters of the Providence Bruins lineup had COVID a week or two ago. Right?

Right. Yeah. Yeah, so there is that problem, and that also is probably going to get worse before it gets better, because they're all, not only are they all, like, you know, traveling from city to city. They're doing it by bus, you know, like that you're just, like, in a confined space with a lot of guys who might have COVID for a lot longer if you're driving from whatever. I don't know. Where are two AHL cities? If you're driving from Providence to, like, Laval or whatever, that's not, that's not, that. That's not a short drive. But, yeah, I mean, the other issue with if you have taxi squads, which I don't disagree as a, that's a good idea. That's something that should have been happening probably all season. Well, then you're like bringing in money outside the cap system again. Which is bad for the owners.

And for the players. And for the players. Right. Because remember, like, the players basically made a deal with the owners where we know that it's supposed to be 50-50. We know that when revenue cratered because of the pandemic, 50-50 would have meant escrow, like, massively double digits. Yes. That would have been unacceptable to the players. So they basically made a deal where they said, you know, we will give you this much and no more.

And then they got to pay it back. So it's, you know, it's coming out of pockets later on. And it creates all sorts of situations where, you know, Instead of the cap not going up for three more years, maybe it's even more than that. But I don't, I don't know. I mean, they've announced their, they're changing the protocols, getting stricter, going back to stuff that looks more like last year, although. Which is crazy because, like, they were like,

you know what, you only need to get tested every three days. It's like, why? That seems like it's a good way for everybody to get COVID, right? Yeah. Which, again, like you said, that maybe that's just the end game here. is they just accept. But I mean, how do you even, even if you think that's the right way to go,

how do you say that out loud? Like, how does Gary Bettman sit there and go, we've decided that in order to play all the games and make all the money we need to make, we're just going to let everybody get COVID. We're going to give all these kids chicken pox. Yeah. And we've had, you know,

a hundred cases so far, or whatever it is, 100 positives, 100 people go on the protocol. And none of them got really sick. So we're going to really hope that the number of elite athletes who are going to get significantly sick from this thing is literally zero and not 0.5% or 0.1%. Because the thing you keep hearing with Obacron, and it's completely true, is even if you're vaxed, even if it's, you know, you're much less likely to get sick, the, the small percentage of a big number can still be. be a big number. And, you know.

Yeah, it's all fun in games until like Logan Stanley goes to the hospital, right? Right. Then you're like, oh, shit, fuck. Yeah, like one guy, it's like, and it's, you're just sitting there going, oh, yeah, maybe we shouldn't have done that. And the cold, horrible part of you might say, well, lots of guys get seriously injured every year and we all kind of go, oh, that's, that's sad, but we keep going. That's the cost of doing business, yeah.

But I don't, man, I just. Like, it just feels so it's hard as a fan. It's hard because you're saying we're going, I want the league to keep going. I want to see my team play 82 games, but do I? Do I really with the way this is going? And then as somebody in, you know, in the media,

we're all supposed to have a take on this, but we don't really know any more than anybody else does as far as what's going on. And there's no good answer. There isn't, yeah. Like, there's nothing you can do that. that's going to absent just not playing at all, which they obviously can't do for a million different reasons. But that's the frustrating part is that you sit there and you're like, okay,

let's get all the top minds on this. Let's get all the guys with the degrees and epidemiology in this shit. Let's get them all in a room. What do you think we should do? And they're like, uh, there, there's nothing you're going to like that we could tell you. Yeah. And it's like, oh, well, all right.

And, yeah, because I've, like, I've seen people, you know, on Twitter or wherever else going, like, just shut it down. This is so obvious. That would be an answer. Sure. Yeah. Okay. Great fucking idea.

Then what happens. Okay. We shut it down. Now, when do we start again? When there's no COVID? Bad news. Yeah. There's going to be COVID forever.

So. And I don't know how you do it. And then, I mean, you mix it. we haven't even talked about the Olympics and... Well, right, there is that as well, yeah. The other thing to say, by the way, is apparently there's that pill coming, the antiviral pill. And maybe that just solves everybody's problem. But I don't...

But even then, you know, if the pill is 90% effective, that means... Well, that's 90% on top of the whatever, the boosters. Oh, we're going to talk about that too. Fucking Barry Trots is like everybody has the booster. And then the founders had to come up and be like, well, which was very weird. The statement they put out, right? Like, I'm going to see if I can find it while we talk.

But, like, yeah, Barry Trott said everyone's been boosted, which apparently wasn't true. Apparently the case was that everyone on the team had been offered the booster. And it sounded like not everyone has yet taken it, but they are still hoping that they will. Yeah, we're going to continue educating our players about why it's a good idea. Exactly. We're going to keep taking. taken away their their Facebook. But the Islanders put out this statement, which was, yeah, here it is.

This morning, head coach Barry Trott said the entire team had gotten the COVID-19 booster shot. That statement is not true. That just struck me as odd, right? Like, wouldn't they normally say, like, to clarify Barry, you know, coach's statement, or... This MF. The statement is not true. Talking out of his ass.

Yeah. Yeah. And then they go on to say the organization has offered the booster shot to the entire team and will continue to educate and recommend that everyone consider receiving. So, yeah, I mean, I'm sure that I'm reading something into nothing, but I just found that. Yeah, and like, you know, you can misspeak, you know, but the language, you're right is like, the coach, you know. Don't listen to this dumbass. Oh, okay. I won't, I guess.

Wow. All right. So, ah, yeah. I don't know. Like I say, it feels like we're going down one of those two paths. You've got to either shut it down or you've got to say, we're going to live with it. We're motoring, baby. And everyone's going to get.

And you know what? Maybe they've already decided that that's the path. And they just haven't really come out and said it. Well, yeah. I mean, if they, if they, if they. they come out and say it. Sounds horrible. Yeah, then you're, then you're, um, you're, you're, you're, you're just like, yeah,

we're monsters. Is that okay with you? And if one guy gets sick, like really sick to the, the effect, to the point that it affects it affects it long term, I mean, you look, you look terrible. Everyone's going to point and say that's, you know, was that worth it? I don't know. Yeah. Right.

So like, yeah, let's talk, let's talk, let's talk about. the Olympics real quick. I think it was Eric Carlson said like, if look, if things go the way things look like they're going, I wouldn't fucking go. And then there was some guys who anonymously were like, I would

go no matter what. There's going to be a lot of pressure on guys to go, you know, I think probably you know, just from their national federations, obviously, I think their teams wouldn't want them. Their NHLT

wouldn't want them to go, but like National Federations, Russia, Team Canada, et cetera, there's going to be a pretty strong push. So I got to think there will be players there, but it'll be like not huge number. That's my prediction right now. And the thing is, like, I wonder if this is the sort of thing where there's going to be a tipping point because you have, it's very clear that the play. players as a whole passionately care about the Olympics.

It's a really, understandably so. To play in the Olympics and to win a medal in the Olympics, to win a gold medal, in a way that, for example, they clearly don't care about the world championships.

Every year, there's a tournament for the championship of the whole world and half the players just won't even pick up the phone. They don't care. They don't want to go. Well, why is that?

I think a big part of the answer is that they know that the world championships is not a best of the best tournament. It's some of the guys who weren't in the playoffs, but a lot of guys can't play. And, you know, it's a lot of the guys who could play don't go. Well, at what point do enough players decide not to go to the Olympics if the Olympics doesn't feel like a true best-on-best anymore, right? Yeah. Like, does anybody even remember 2018 at this point? No, not really. We had a question in the mailbag last week, I guess, that was basically like, is there any, or no, I received it in a EP Rinkside mailbag.

But it was basically like any, like what's a player, if there's one player who, like if McDavid doesn't decide to go, is that enough of a tipping point? And it's like not for everybody, but like if McDavid and Crosby and. and Matthews and Patrick Cain or whoever just go down the list of like two or three players from every country on the higher end of the roster say we're not going I think I think then you start really getting into a tight situation

If I'm a let's just say an American player I'm sitting there I'm geared on I've been thinking for four years I want to go to the Olympics and why do I want to go I want to beat Canada. We all know Canada's the reigning, undisputed champion of best-on-best tournaments. They've won whatever, three of the last four or three straight, whatever it is. That's who I want to beat.

That's my moment. I want to beat Team Canada and I want to, you know, and Team USA will take over that title. If Connery David doesn't go, Sidney Crosby doesn't go and then, you know, carry prices out. at some point I'm sitting there going, if I'm on the fence, health-wise, about whether it's worth the risk, I'm sitting there going, man, if I go, if I beat this team Canada, everybody's going to put an asterisk on it, right? What am I going to hear on it while? You didn't beat the real team Canada.

It wasn't a real best on best. It's like when you, you know. My call them, fake Olympics. Exactly. Whoever wins the world. I don't even know who won the world championships. I don't even know if there was one last year, right? I think there was not one, yeah.

It's a big thing, but if, like, if... But the fact that I don't know, and it's like, this is the thing I pay attention to. Finland wins the world championships. Cool, good for them. But nobody's like Finland is now the best hockey country in the world. Unequivocally. Right. We love Finland.

And if the Olympics starts to feel, like, it gets to a tipping point where suddenly it's like, oh, well, you know what? I'm not, I was willing to risk it. I was willing to risk being away from my family, getting in quarantine, all of that to shove it down the throat of Team Canada, but now it's not even Team Canada. It's Team Some of Canada. Screw it. I'm not going. And then suddenly the Russian guy who was, couldn't wait to beat Team USA is like, well, if he's not going, I'm not going to go. And it just, it quickly crumbles. Yeah. I, I get, same thing with the NHL. There's no good answer here, right? Like, we, we, uh, we could come up with the absolute ideal scenario. Oh, like, it's an impenetrable bubble.

in Beijing. And it's like, yeah, somebody's going to go over there, you know, with, with COVID brewing in their, in their immune systems. And then, like, they test positive two days after they arrive in Beijing. And it's like, yeah, I guess I'm trapped in this country for five weeks. Well, bad news for me and all the guys I flew on this private jet over here with. Um, yeah, I, look, you know, would I, Would I love to see best on best? Of course I would. Who doesn't love best on best hockey? It fucking rocks. But with that having been said, you know, the games are all going to be at like 7.30 in the morning or whatever anyway. So, you know, I think that if this were, you know,

there were Canadian media guys going, why not just play it in Vancouver or whatever? And it's like, you know what? If they were playing it in Vancouver, I think that would be a whole different ball game, but of course the IOC isn't going to fucking do that. So, you know, like you're dreaming at that point. You know, the other thing that you're hearing people say is whip together a World Cup,

which is basically you do the exact same, take the same teams, take everything, but you're going to play here now and you're going to. Right. And it's just outside the IOC's purview or whatever. Which I just can't see that as being a realistic thing. Yeah, I think I saw something yesterday that it takes like 18 months or 12. months or something to plan a World Cup, which it feels like if, you know, if you're really working hard, you can maybe get that down to three months instead of, that's like a thing

we're figuring out in the background. But, you know, we don't have three months. We have one and a half, something like that. So the only, you know, we've said a few times that it doesn't feel like there's any easy answers. And the only, the only exception I might put on that is there could be easy answers in the sense that this might get bad enough that it it no longer is an NHO. There's no question. Right. Like, I mean, it could literally, we could literally get to a point where there just isn't

an Olympics to go to if this thing gets as off the charts bad as some people think it could be. I think that's unlikely given the, again, just purely given the amount of money at stake. This isn't, you know, nobody's thinking about this from health terms, but maybe there's just there just isn't an Olympics. And then the other thing is, you know, in 2020, the NHL didn't shut down because they took some sort of courageous stand or they shut down because everybody else shut down. The NBA said, we're done. You know, they said, no, there's going to be no March madness. And then, I mean, the NHL, if I remember right, was like a day after everybody. They finally came around to having a meeting and saying, we're not going to do this. If,

now, wait a second. Is this a good idea? Hold on. If it gets to that point again, where other leagues are taking the lead, especially the NBA, but I mean, you look at the NFL, there's already some players saying we should hit pause for a week or two

because the outbreaks there are massive as well. You know, I don't see a scenario, I don't think, where the NHL is like the only major sports league still trying to tough this out. As much as some of the old schoolers would love that, wouldn't they?

Oh, we're so tough. Look at us. I just saw, I just saw that there is a rumor going around. I don't know if it's true or not, obviously, that at least one or two college hockey teams are going to go back to empty buildings for the time being. Yeah. Which not the worst idea, but again, you know.

Doesn't help you as far as your players. But, yeah, it's, it does. It seems crazy right now to be, you know, on top of all of this, packing 18,000 people into a building. Yeah. As someone who has tickets to the Celtics. game on Monday night. I'm not feeling great about this. Yeah, there you go. It's and, and, you know, again, we saw last night in Montreal, no, no fans in the building. That was a, that's a temporary

thing. That was at the request of the Quebec government. That was not the Canadians themselves deciding that. Yeah, no shit. Similarly, yeah, exactly. Similarly, in, in Ontario going forward, it's, for at least time being, it's going to be 50% capacity for Toronto and, Ottawa and you can make your own senator's attendance jokes. Me? No, I would never do such a thing. Never. But it feels like that's good. Like, what's it like down in the States?

Like, is there any talk of any of this? Not that I've seen. I know that, like, one of the things I saw yesterday was that, like, the Rangers are saying, well, to go to a Ranger game, you even like a little kid would have to show proof of vaccination and people were mad about that. Right. But that's a New York thing, right? That's a New York City thing, right?

I don't think there's any cases where teams themselves are going, getting ahead of the minimum that they're told they have to do. Yeah, I'm looking. I can't, I can't think of a single thing I saw where, you know, apart from, oh, TD Garden will increase mask enforcement. There's the big article in the Boston Globe. But will that be enough to keep fans in the stands amid Omicron? So increase it from what I'm assuming is virtually zero enforcement, because that's certainly been the case up here. I mean, in fact, that was even cited in the Ontario decision.

The Premier was like, look, like, we've all seen the pictures and the footage. Like, nobody's wearing their masks at these games. so yeah it look this sucks um yeah it sucks to have to talk about it for half an hour at the top of a podcast uh but like it's the biggest story in the world right now not just sports world like this shit's going fucking crazy uh everywhere and uh it's not it's not getting better anytime soon so i don't know what to tell you um but yeah well i guess the thing is We're just going to have to wait and see. Fair enough.

That sucks, but it does. Sorry, sorry if you two did into this podcast. I think, yeah, I think Sean and Ryan are going to solve this. They seem like a couple of bright guys. We're swirling some red liquid in an Erlenmeyer flask, and we're going, you know what? Hold on a second. Hold on as I dip a swab into a test tube. Yeah, I got it.

I got it. It's good. We're all set. It says here you just let Braddard. Marshant cough on everyone. But yeah, so speaking of making decisions before the holidays,

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promo code puck for 20% off. Mac Weldon, get it right this holiday season. So during that ad read, there was a tweet came out. It says, Paul Maurice resigns as head coach of the Winnipeg Jets. The Winnipeg Jets announced today that head coach Paul Maurice has decided to resign from his position as head coach of the hockey club effective immediately. his resignation has been accepted by the team. Dave Lowry will assume head coaching duties on an interim basis.

Paul Maurice will be made available to the media. Then Kevin Chivaldaeoff will speak to the media. And then Dave Lowry will speak to the media. I didn't see a single rumor about this this whole time. Let's put it this way. Frank Saravali just tweeted wowsa, so I think he probably was included in on this. Yeah.

So this is... This is wild. This is literally like as we're... As we're recording breaking news. Breaking news. And he's going to speak to the media. Paul Maurice is in 25 minutes. So we will probably get to see that and react to it as it happens.

And you, listening to this, already know a lot more than we do. right now. But I mean, just without, I think it's, it's fair to say that given the last few years, when you see a resignation from a coach, your first thought is, what is he done? Is there some sort of scandal? The fact that he, he is speaking to the media first suggests, to me, at least, that that wouldn't be the case. You don't, he wouldn't necessarily put him front and center.

So your next thought is I, to your point. You hope he's okay, right? I mean, that it's not a health or anything. So let's do this then. Let's talk about the other two Canadian teams we had on the docket, right? And then maybe by the time we're done talking about the Canucks and the Oilers. In 20 minutes, we will read tweets to you as. That's exactly right.

Or, you know, at least react to tweets. Yes. I don't know that we need to read them all. The reaction. Everybody's just going, holy shit. You know, so. It's just going to be me making, like, surprise Mr. B's face, and it'll be our most popular show. That's right.

Okay, so Vancouver Canucks, speaking of teams that made a coaching change recently. Best coaching league. They won six straight. I looked it up earlier today. They have outscored their opponents by 11 in these six games. Although I think some of that, they had a couple of shootout wins mixed in there, so maybe it's closer to nine. nevertheless, a good number. They're outshooting their opponents, like their underlying numbers are better.

But this is maybe the crucial thing. Their power plays running at like 30% under Bruce Boudreau. Their P.K., you know, nobody can score on them. So what do we think of the Vancouver Canucks now? Yeah. Well, I mean, they're not, I said as a joke last week, might call them, that the Canucks are fixed and they're not. No.

But, yeah, the thing to say is they're getting 950 goal tending, right? Yeah, they're getting 95. But it's also, I think, clear from this that the whole, the bad start to the season, I think, was real, but then that weighing on them and then the kind of dithering by ownership of, well, we might make a change, we might not, we're going to see if the fans boo really loud and all of this stuff may have been weighing on. on everyone a little bit more. And look, sometimes fresh voice helps.

Fresh set of eyes come in and change a few things. Demonstrably genius coach helps. Yep. And look, Bruce Boudreau, right? Like, we, what do we all, you know, whether you like them or not, as a coach you'd want on your team to hire. He's the jolly, like, happy guy, right, with the wingsaws. Maybe that's what they, exactly what the Canucks needed.

Like, Brock Bessor's playing great all of a sudden. Elias Patterson looks like a competent hockey player again. You know, that's some of the key stuff. And, yeah, I mean, you're looking at, they're not going to obviously win every game from here on out. But suddenly you're looking at this going, you know, playoffs, maybe back in the mix, at least we're going to play meaningful games into January and February if we're playing it. Right. So that's the issue is, you know, everybody was like, boy, it seems like they're waiting a long time.

they're like really waiting until they're like up to their neck in quicksand. Like that was what everybody was saying for two weeks. And then they fire the coach. Everybody's like, well, yeah, obviously. And then they bring in Bruce Moudreau and everybody's like, hell yeah, this is going to go well for them. But let's put it this way. They've won six games in a row and there's still a game below NHL 500. Right.

Right? Like they're 14, 15, and 2. And that's after a six game winning streak. They dug themselves an enormous... A huge hole. And they're still like sixth or seventh in their own division. So even if we're saying, you know, like it looks like the central is stacked, there's going to be at least one central team in a wild card spot, pretty much guaranteed.

And then we'll talk about them in a minute. But the Oilers and the jets and maybe the kings are kind of fighting for that, last wild card spot and you go, well, I don't, you know, I don't, I don't see a way in for the Canucks here. But then again, you know, you wouldn't have even given them this much credit a week and a half ago. So, yeah, the thing with the Canucks is they've also, and this, you see this all throughout the standings, they've played more games than everybody ahead of them. So, you know, you can look at them and say, there are only four points back at the Oilers. Yeah, but the Oilers are.

games in hand. There's only two other teams in the entire league that have played as much as the Canucks. And one of them is the Anaheim Ducks who sit comfortably atop the Pacific Division right now. Which is still so weird to me. But yeah. So, I mean, Vancouver has moved past Dallas, Chicago, Seattle. They were ahead of Arizona already because everybody is. They've got a ways to go to keep climbing. But, I mean, like you said, we wouldn't have even have said that a little while ago. the way that they need to do it is to tear off another big chunk of wins in a row. You know, he would have said when Boudreau took over, can he get them back in the race? You would have rolled your eyes and go, yeah, like if they win their next 10 games.

Well, they're on the way to doing that. And, you know, maybe if they keep this level of a heater that we both agree isn't long-term real, but if they keep it up for another two weeks, they're into the mix. Yeah, and they have games coming up against Arizona, San Jose, Seattle. Like, there are winnable games on the schedule here that, yeah, they're not going to win 10, 12 in a row or whatever in all likelihood. But could they win 10 of 15? Yeah, I think looking at the schedule here, pretty easily they could do it. And if they do that, well, you know, then we're at least.

having the conversation and ultimately, you know, I think it would still behoove them to miss the playoffs. Yeah. You know, like when Boudreau took over the ducks, right? Like they hired him and they were a mile out of the playoffs and they played at like a hundred point pace the entire rest of that season, but it wasn't enough to get them in is what I'm pretty sure was the, was how history played out there. and, you know, then you say, okay, we have something to build on.

We're going to get a, not a great pick, but we're going to get a decently high pick out of this. And maybe if we sell a veteran or two, that further helps that cause and that sort of thing. But, you know, now there's more of a framework going forward. They haven't hired a GM yet, right? No. I know they gave Stan Smil a title. They got a guy from the Penguins. But I don't know.

Those are more like front officey, like support jobs as a GM. Yeah. I mean, Jim Rutherford, in the meantime, we'll do the job. Yes. But yeah, you're right. I mean, for all the, we're kind of singing their praises, but I'm sure there's some Canucks fans sitting around going, man, we, this would have been a great year for a high pick.

That's the worst case, right, is you get to the end of the year and you finish three points out of the playoffs and you pick 14th overall and you sit there going if we had just made the change a week earlier, maybe that would have been the difference. But I do think that the Canucks were headed in the direction of a season that was so miserable that I think it's, it potentially leaves a mark going forward. Yeah. And now they at least seem to be reversing out of that, which is great. Yeah, I mean, you know, when they were as bad as they were, everybody was like, well, we didn't think they'd be. Like, we thought they wouldn't maybe make the playoffs. Like, that certainly wasn't a guarantee, but they weren't this bad. And I think by the end of the season, you get back to a point where you're like, you know what?

They just barely missed the playoffs. This is what I thought would happen the whole time. and if the, you know, the path to that meant they got a coach as good as Bruce Boudreau and got rid of GM as bad as Jim Benning, I think it's a net positive, right? Like, you go, we're actually in better shape now than we were if they had been, you know, vaguely competitive for the playoffs the whole season. So. Yeah.

And also, you know, even if they turn the, I, I would. much rather have Rutherford, Mystery, GM, Boudreau, and the 12th overall pick than Benning Travis Green, who I like as a coach, but it was clearly done there and the fifth overall pick.

Like, I'll, I'll trade down to be done with that. Yeah. We should say, Darren Dregor just tweet it when it comes to Paul Maurice. His family is fine. There's nothing sinister.

It's a personal decision. Okay. Well, we're, one step closer. So let's talk about the other Canadian team. Slowly but surely unraveling the mystery, which everyone listening to this already knows the answer to. That's right. But hey, this is like one of those like watchalong. Like teens react to the Paul Maurice resignation. You ever see those fucking videos where it's like, this is a VHS tape? And they're like, there's a movie on this thing? Yeah. I love it. Have you ever seen the one with like two teenagers and they're

and a rotary phone. And their parents are like, we will give you $100 if you can dial this phone number in the next 10 minutes on this phone. They're just like completely blumming. I've been watching that new show on HBO Max Station 11. I watched the first couple episodes. And, you know, that's like set in the distant future after like a virus wiped out the population, basically. Yeah, distant future. That's right.

Yeah, well, not distant, distant, like 15, 20 years from now, basically. And one character is explained to another, like, oh, yeah, you used to have this thing where you could call up any song, any movie, and it was just fit in your pocket. And the lady's like, or the little girl's like, damn, that's crazy. And she's like, no, not really. It was pretty normal. Nice. So, yeah, maybe we're, maybe one of the practical upshots of everybody getting COVID is. we're going to be off our damn phones.

Yeah. Speaking of horrible things that wipe out, I don't know, I don't really have a segue here, but the Oilers are bad now. Well, they did beat Columbus last night, the mighty Columbus Blue Jackets, it's like barely hanging on in the playoff discussion in the East. So they're fixed too. Yeah, no problem. But, you know, there was the most shocking thing that

ever happen in a Canadian market. Someone threw a jersey on the ice. Yep, that's it. You have to fire people now. That's the way it goes there. Yeah, like a guy in a wig on Parliament Hill is like, hey. Well, wait, did somebody throw a jersey on the ice in Winnipeg? I don't feel like that's happened yet, but maybe.

Yeah, well, but nobody got fired. Somebody resigned. Maybe. You know, so. But yeah, so the Oilers, you know, they started out. playing insanely well, mainly through two guys scoring at like two and a half points a game or whatever the number is, right? Yep. And having an insanely good power play.

And the goaltending being shockingly good. Like nobody thought Miko Koskinin could be as good as he was the last or the first few months of the season or a month and a half or six weeks or whatever you want to say. and now they're not getting, they're getting more what you would call Miko Koskenin goaltending. Yeah. The power play is... I think that's the technical term.

Yeah. The power play isn't white fucking hot. It's merely as good as you would expect a power play with Connor McDavid and Leon Dreisdahl to be. And, um, yeah, like the, the depth is getting badly outscored,

just like everybody. but he fucking said it would. The Cody C.C. Fixed to the defense didn't work out, shockingly enough. Duncan Keith can't stay in the lineup. Well, that's what I was going to say, is Duncan Keith has been hurt.

I mean, you're bearing the lead here. His leadership aura and essence has not been available. Yeah, I mean, like, it's funny. I looked at the numbers, and you know, you don't want to get too into the weeds with WOWEs and stuff like that, but like when he played with McDavid and Drysidal, he was really good.

And when he didn't play with those guys, he sucked. He was terrible. And it's like, that sounds like the Duncan Keith. I have come to know over the last four or five years. Yeah, okay. So let's talk this out. What is the fix here? There's obviously the Jacob Chitrin, like, rumors or whatever.

I don't know if that's like just wish. casting from the Edmonton media being turned into like, you know, there are rumblings out there, and it would cost a lot. But I don't know how real any of that is. But let's say it is real, right? What does Jacob Chitrin get you that the rest of the oilers are currently lacking? I mean, he's great. He's a good player on a real cheap deal soon. Super cheap.

But yeah, I mean, there's, there's, you know, an argument that you're just, he's a good young defenseman that was supposed to take a step up this year and kind of hasn't done that. And also he's supposed to be a goal scorer and he's not scoring because he's shooting 2% or whatever. I will say he's playing, I think, pretty well this year. Like not, not to the level he did last year because he's not shooting 15% or whatever. That's it, right? But I'm pretty sure.

he's having a nice little year for himself on a dead-end team. Yeah, that's it, right? Terrible team around him. But the flip side would be you say, the Oilers already have that guy, Darnel Nurse. So you have two guys like that now. But this is what you do, right? I mean, you don't, if you like Jacob Chickren, you don't trade for him last year when he's shooting 20% and pay full price, you get him now. Like, this would be your time to buy low-ish.

I don't think, you know, Arizona is certainly not giving the guy away. But there's that. There is, you know, we're all looking at the goaltending as being a trade situation. The Mark Andre Fleury would make a ton of sense for this. Yeah, a lot of alarm bells ringing there. What's that? A lot of alarm bells ringing there, both directions. Stuart Skinner was great last night against Columbus.

I watched a little bit of that game. He was really, really good. He's 922 on the season. I think maybe you say that's a little high for what you would expect out of a player like him. But he has a strong track record. If he's your bridge to a trade and you can find a way to deal with me go Koskin, like getting him the fuck off your roster, like I think there are worse options than Stuart Skinner. But is that like, are you going into?

a playoffs with Connor McDavid Lee Undercidal in their prime, supercharged, unstoppable, and you're going to put Stewart Skinner as your goalie you're going to ride? Like I said, that's more of a bridge to a stronger solution, let's say.

And I think the argument would be that you can't be looking for bridges right now. You need the stronger solution right now. And, you know, Mark Runderfleur is the raining Vezina winner. You're not, going to get a better goalie than that on the market during the season in those cases. Right. But, okay, so let's put it this way, right?

What's the thing that everybody said going into the season would be the problem for the oilers if they put Zach Hyman on either dry-sidal or McDavid's line? Yeah, no depth. Nothing for the plus. And so now they're like, okay, so we need probably two bottom six forwards, one of whom has to be a center and they those guys then have to immediately be the

change we want to see in the world basically and completely turn around the bottom six. I think that if you get a center and get because you could put look they put fucking Zach Cassian with Connor McDavid and Conn McDavid won the MVP

right? So like you don't need you don't need Zach Hyman on the McDavid line give them power play time whatever you want to do that's fine. But I just look at it and I go, the solution's so fucking obvious. I can't imagine why it hasn't occurred to Dave Tippett to mix things up. And we should say, I guess Dave Tippett is in COVID protocols right now. So that's a whole different thing.

But the other rumor out there. And again, who knows if it's real? Who knows if it's just idle speculation? Mike Babcock? Yeah, we should say this was like one of those Twitter rumors. It was not from a particularly, well, it wasn't from a well-known source at all. I never heard of where it came from. And it's almost certainly not worth passing on.

But we're passing it on anyways because it's hilarious. The idea that, you know, don't forget who the GM of the Oilers is, right? Kenny Holland, does he pick up the phone to his old buddy? Yeah, it's just a situation where it's like, well, I remember these two guys worked together 10 years ago or whatever. And so I am just drawing that dot. Like, you know, they're like, don't forget, the assistant coach from the Brandon Wheat Kings is now the assistant coach from the Florida Panthers. And this guy was on the Brandon Wheat Kings. So we're roommates.

It's a natural combination. Okay. Which would be funny if that wasn't like the way that it feels like 80% of NHL decisions get made. But yeah, the Mike Babcock rumor would be fun, but we're not getting our hopes up. But the thing to get to what you were saying about the depth, like it's one of those rare cases where it was like everybody at the start of the season was like this is going to be a problem. And now we're into December. and it feels like even though everybody said it was going to be a problem, like we underestimate it how bad it would be.

Because the thing is, like, you could look at the Oilers and you could make a very good case that says, look, forget about how many goals and assists the guys in the bottom six get. We don't need you guys to score. We have the two arguably best offensive players at the whole world. We've got Zach Hyman, who's very good. We got Ryan Nugent Hopkins, who's been very good. Yeah, so the RV is fucking awesome.

Yep, we've got more than enough. Just go out there and just hold it down. Just play even. No, you don't score. And they're like, And they are getting caved in the bottom six. It's really bad. And again, totally predictable.

And the real problem for the team, of course, is that like all those guys are signed for a little too much money and a little too long. Yeah, because they, keep giving all Connor McDavid's money that he left on the table to him to the bums he drags along and like the bomb gets to play like a week on Connor McDavid's line and gets 10 points and then they give some of Connor's money to that guy and then put him on the fourth line and they're like oh he sucks now no that's weird crazy is the same guy he always was he just doesn't have see it coming yeah I mean you know uh like honestly I will say like Derek Ryan looks

awful. He was really good for the Calgary Flames the last few years. It's like a depth center, right? And he's been awful this season. And, you know, I think some of that has to be the guys he's playing with now are just a little bit worse, but also he's 34 years old and he's turning 35 at the end of the month and, you know, you go, well, shit, he's signed for another year. And it's not like a backbreak. It's $1.25 million. It's not a backbreaking contract, but like Kyle Turris, he was supposed to be a fix and a low-cost bet. Hasn't worked out. And that's, you take low-cost bets and sometimes you lose, and that's better than losing on a high cost.

But, yeah, he's... But like trading Ethan Bear, I mean, he hasn't been great, but like Warren Fogle has arguably been even worse. And, yeah, I mean, God, just let me put it this way. If I had said, here's the oil, like, again, in, in, in, in, you know, in, in, you know, July or August or whatever. If I go, okay, here's the Oilers. Ideal. Everybody's healthy defense. Darnell Nurse, Duncan Keith, Tyson, Barry, Cody, C, C, C, Evan Bouchard, and like maybe

William Lagosan or Chris Russell or somebody like that. You go, oh, that sounds fucking awful. Right? Like, Darnell Nurse is a player who is good-ish, but, you know, also, it's hard to divorce his success from playing with Karah McDavid on the power play. I do think he's a real good player. Yeah, I agree. But, you know, let's put it this way.

Is he a $9.25 million defenseman, which is what he's going to get paid starting next season? No. Fucking of course not. So, yeah, you just look at this and you go, yeah, this was all predictable. And then, of course, you know, because they only lose like four games in regulation in the first 25 or whatever the fucking numbers were. Everybody's like, oh, you're for real, that's it. We're done here.

Okay, if you fucking say so. So, yeah. The one last point I would make on what you were just saying with the, especially the really bad depth, the one piece of good news, I guess, if you're an Edmonton fan, we just said with the goaltending that, hey, you know, Mark Andre Fleur, that's the best you're going to do in the middle of a season. Getting depth forwards at the deadline is not going to be difficult.

Sixth round pick. Yeah. Cheap, easy. You could probably, you know, you said they probably need two guys. They could go out and get four or five guys. Trade a few late picks. Make it happen. You know, obviously you have to fit under the cap and all of that.

But that is a very, you know, it's not easy in the sense that you can pick the wrong guys. But that's a very, if that's your shopping list, you can, you can check those items. There are worse situations to be in. If I had something as a big, I need this at the deadline, I would depth forwards. Yeah, let's go forward. Yeah, that's even cheaper than depth defensemen, right? But, again, like the problem becomes, well, they need two depth forwards. They need a depth defenseman.

They need a goalie. Ideally, they'd even get a top six winger. And it's like, that's like five, six pieces. Mm-hmm. that seems like even if you are like yeah I'm willing to give up a first round pick a second round pick like I got to make this happen this year blah blah blah you quickly run out of assets to trade unless you know you're you're dipping into your 2023 picks and that kind of thing but the other problem for the oilers I must say as someone who works for elite prospects is they don't have a great farm system. They got a couple of guys who are good. And do you want to give those guys up? Well,

if you don't, again, you just quickly run out of options for what people will accept in trade from you. I think you do give those guys up. Well, again, like one of them is Evan Bouchard. Yeah. But like, but that's the, that's the thing.

Like you might, you might even have to start thinking like, okay, maybe we let go of Kyler Yamamoto because he's a pending RFA and he's going to want a bunch of money. But then you're giving up a marginal top six forward to potentially just like marginally upgrade. And you and I were usually on the same page here, right? Like you you think future, you don't, you know, you go all quote unquote all in to increase your Stanley Cup chances by 2%. Doesn't seem to make sense. But I mean,

McDaniel in their prime, like you're never going to get. two guys having better seasons than this. Right. And, you know, if not now, when? Yeah, and because the other, the other situation is that if they lose two,

three more games in a row or whatever, um, the, the freaking national media is going to start going to these guys, are these going to want out at the end of this season or at the end of next season or and then everybody in Edmonton gets mad, you're not allowed to say that kind of thing and blah, blah, blah. That's right.

Because so. All right, let's, while we wait for this Paul Maurice presser to start here, let's do one other team that's kind of in a rough spot. Dallas Stars, losing four games in a row, all in regulation. Ben Bishop retires, not really a surprise. Sox, we'll talk more about Ben Bishop in a minute, I guess, but they also put Anton Hudobin on waivers. Looks like they're going to go with Ottinger and Holby,

who are both having nice seasons for themselves. Speaking of coaches who are maybe in a dicey situation, Rick Bonas, you know. We said it earlier in the year, and then they won whatever, like seven out of eight or eight out of ten or whatever the number was. And everybody said, maybe they're fine. And then they're like, no, you know what? Actually, we're not fine.

We weren't fine this whole time. They won seven in a row. Nine out of ten. But everybody thought they were good again. They win nine out of ten, but even in doing that, they're now 10, nine and two in their last 21 games. Yeah. They're a very confusing team. They, or maybe they're not, but they're, you know, because I wrote about them when they were kind of at their low of four, six, and two.

And they were just been the whole thing, bonus had benched one of the kids after he had bought all the tickets to play in front of his. Oh, you know, and there's gave that weird press conference explanation for it. And the whole thing was like, oh, this is, this is going off the rails and bonuses on the hot seat. And then they just became unbeatable for three weeks. And I had Dallas fans going, oh, what do you think now? And I said, I don't know what to think. And now they go, you know, they have the tough road trip, mini road trip, I guess, through Vegas and California. and continue to not look very good.

And yeah, Bishop out, Houdobin waived but not claimed. Yeah. I don't know. I'm sitting here going, ah, they're bad now, but they win the next four. They're a team where I go, I don't know that there's a good answer here. Like, you know, you look at the coaching and you go, well, the coaching's not good enough, and that's true. But you also look at the roster and go, the roster's not good enough. And that's also true.

But like, there are enough good players on the roster that you're like, well, yeah, they're just going to be, they're the kind of team that's going to be able to win four out of five every once in a while and stay in the conversation. And then you just get to the point where it's like, well, then what are we doing here? We just like because half the team has no move clauses and where we're, big contracts that we're, we're just going to hang around the, the playoff bubble and hope or we're going to kind of see who we can trade. Like, again, you have to say John Klingberg is a pending free agent. He's going to want a big raise.

They're not going to be able to give it to him. That's the big case. Do you, you know, what about Joe Bavalski? He's in the last year of his contract. He has a no trade. You can move him at the deadline for sure. He's movable if you can find a good situation for him. You'd think.

Guy, you know, never won a cup. Yeah. You never know these days what people's priorities are, but you would think he's movable. You're not moving Tyler Sagan. You're not moving J.B. Ben. And with those, I mean, that's 20 million of your cap tied up long term on two guys who aren't elite players anymore. I mean, Sagan's obviously still coming off of a real tough injury situation. But, you know, the flip side is that you just said, like, what do we do, hang around the

playoff bubble, try to make it and, uh, worked once, you know, like, they kind of, I mean, they weren't a bad team the year that they, they went to the final, but they weren't a great one. No, yeah, they got, they got super lucky. We can, like, we can, we can just acknowledge that. But they were one of the top four teams in the West, right? Like, they had, they, they were in the round robin or whatever. So, yeah, they weren't quite Montreal level. But they got super duper lucky, goaltending-wise, in those playoffs.

Absolutely. That's fine. You're allowed to do that. But again, much like we've said with Montreal, like just don't, it's great to make a cup final. Just don't assume that you're the kind of team that can consistently make it to a cup final. Okay, we have a quote from Maurice here. This is a good team. I'm a good coach, but sometimes you can only push so far.

Sometimes a team needs a new voice. They haven't quit on me, but they need a different voice. It's the right time for it, and I know that. So basically, it seems like he's, I can't fucking figure out how to make this team any good. Let somebody else give it a crack. Yeah. Not the wrong logic behind that, I guess, right? But with, and, you know, but they should be.

better than they are, and that's been true for several years now. I don't know. It's the right decision. It's like somebody had to get, and we knew that he was never going to get fired, basically, because ownership loved him. So this is the next best thing, I guess, for the team. I don't know. It probably is.

I mean, it makes some sense. I mean, the thing with Paul Burris is anytime somebody. he resigns? Like, is he actually walking away from his contract or was it maybe a mutual thing with ownership where they go to him and say, you know, where are you at? Is this working? Hey, we don't want to fire you, but, you know, would you consider stepping down? The other thing is, you know, there was a quote that Shaftes Cheryl just tweeted out a little while ago from an interview he did with Paul Burrice. Not that recently. but relatively recently.

And, you know, Paul Maurice was saying, like, I've been doing this for 30 years. Like, he started his coaching career in his 20s. He was a head coach at 29 in this league. You know, he looks, you look at the guy. He's only mid-50s probably. Yeah. He looks younger than that, right? You still kind of see him as like this boy wonder coach,

but he's one of the longest serving head coaches at this point in NHL history. Let's put it this way. Can you guess the five coaches who are ahead of him in all-time wins? Is it only five? It's only five. So, I mean, it's Bowman, Alarbor, Quinville, geez, trots? Yep, one more. Another coach who was around for a million years.

Liddy Rough? Nope, he's 10 behind Paul Maurice. Oh, wow, well, he might. Good news. No longer, that's right, no longer a coach in the NHL, hasn't coached in a few years. Oh, oh, is it Ken Hitchcock? Big Ken Hitchcock. I saw it on Twitter today.

It's his birthday, so happy birthday to Ken Hitchcock. Happy birthday, Ken. King. So, yeah, that's, he's been doing it forever almost, I mean, I don't think he's had a lot of gaps. Like he kind of gets fired and moves right on to the next. thing. He coached the leaves for a few years, which counts as five years. Each leaf season ages you at least five. So, yeah, that's right.

He might just be done. Like, I mean, there is, he might just feel like, and not done necessarily permanently, but, you know, he's looking around. The team's not playing well. He feels like he's not able to get through to them. Travis Yost points out, by the way, he is walking away from a four and a half million dollar salary. If he's walking away.

But yeah, he says 100% my decision. And is, you know, I haven't seen anything referencing mental health. But, you know, mental health in the sense of just like, man, I'm burned out. Like, it's, NHL coach is such a difficult job. And he's been doing it since 95, 96. And just be like, I'm just going to go fishing. I want to go. Yeah.

Yeah, like, it's not, it's hard to argue with him. And if, you know, if he's walking away from that money, if he feels like that's what he needs to do, then that all credit to him. Because, wow. Yeah. I don't know if you saw this. Somebody just tweeted out. Do you know who is now the longest serving head coach in Canada? In Canada.

Let me think here. Seems like it might be Dave Tippett I thought it was Dave Tippett They said Sheldon Keith Is now the longest serving Sheldon Keith got hired before Dave Tippett Apparently It looks like it was right around the same time

2019 for both of them Wow Yeah okay If you say so Now I'm actually looking at that Yeah I'm doing the same frantically on Wikipedia here Dave Tippett hired

May 28th, 2019, Sheldon Keith hired November 20th, 2019. We were right. Don't listen to Twitter. What does Twitter know about anything? Get off that freaking website as I frantically.

I'm starting to think Twitter might be bad now. That's... And this is the only reason why. So, yeah. So I said we're going to read tweets to you. We've done it. I was not implying they would all be factually correct or well researched at all.

So yeah, no more Paul Maurice. And now we move on to trying to figure out what other coaches in the league might be on the hot seat. And, you know, the thing about hot seats is when your seat is too hot, things get sweaty down there. That is my transition to this week's pre-recorded ad read. Hey, fellas, this episode of Puck Soup is brought to you by our favorite producers of ball trimers, Manscaped. The global leader in below the waist grooming are leaving 2021. with a new product. Clean yourself in the new year with the ultra-premium body wash. Also, special offer alert, use the code Poc20 for 20% off and free shipping at Manscape.com. Four million men

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puck 20. Happy New Year's to your balls. All right. So the last thing I guess we're going to talk about is vis-a-vis all this talk about the standings and where teams are and everything. The NHL roster freeze or trade freeze or whatever you want to call it is tomorrow night, like midnight, like midnight, sat. Saturday into Sunday. So I was thinking, we mentioned it earlier, the Anaheim Ducks are like second in the Western Conference right now

in total points, if not, I don't think they're seconded in by points percentage. But, yeah, the Western Conference is currently being led by Minnesota, Anaheim, Nashville, and St. Louis, and Calgary.

I don't think anybody would have said that. You know what? I thought that was going to happen, but I forgot to tweet it. It's a classic mistake. It's in my drafts. It's in my drafts. All the good takes that I didn't say. Yeah.

So there's some, and then to do the east, I guess, Carolina, or sorry, Carolina is first by points percentage, but not by total points. It's by points percentage, it's Carolina, Tampa, the Rangers and the capitals are your top. for Florida and Toronto, just behind there. And Pittsburgh is seventh in the league by points percentage, or in the East by points percentage. Five straight wins. Which, by the way, people have been talking about them lately, shocks me because people

are like, they're fucking fetish. They're done. Same with the Bruins. They're also kind of up there in terms of points percentage and nobody's, everybody's, everybody's acting like the sky is falling. I think that if you had said this is what the eight playoff teams in the east are in some order, I would have said no islanders, really? But other than that, you know, swap the Rangers through the islanders.

We're right there. Yeah, that's probably about right. But the West is a completely different story. Again, Minnesota, Colorado, Calgary, Nashville, St. Louis, Anaheim, Vegas, Edmonton are your playoff teams right now. Yeah. And of that group, I mean,

Colorado for sure, Vegas, for sure. I think a lot of people would have had Edmonton. Minnesota, I think, feels good. Comfortably a playoff team, I would have said. St. Louis, Dicey, Nashville, no. Calgary, it's, you know, it's up to you, but they missed the playoffs last year in that Canadian division.

And Anna, no chance. And they got, I thought they got worse. over the summer Calgary. Yeah. And I do... But it's a full season of Daryl Sutter hockey. They had the full training camp, all that shit.

Darryl Sutter say what you want about him. He makes teams better. I had my preseason prediction contest where it's the idea is you just give easy answers. And one of them was name up to five teams that are definitely not making the playoffs. And I think I had 1600 entries and high 1500s listed Anaheim, as a team that definitely would not make the playoffs. Understandably so. So it was nearly unanimous that this team,

and I think even if you had hooked Bob Murray or whoever up to a lie detector and said, are you making the playoffs? They said, no, of course not. This is a rebuild. Maybe we hang around the playoffs. Maybe we sneak in as an eighth, but nobody would have said, yeah, we're going to be one of the best teams in the conference

well into December. here we are. Yeah. Yeah, it's, um... So let's do this. Who of the remaining teams, uh, or of the teams that are in the playoffs, who do you expect, or not expect, but who seems most likely to drop out and who seems most likely to pull into it?

Uh, let's, let's do the east first. So again, it's, it's Carolina, Tampa, uh, well, let's go by division. Carolina, the Rangers, Washington, and Pittsburgh are the top four in the Metro. The top four in the Atlantic are Toronto, Florida, and Boston. Boston is technically a point behind Detroit, but they have four fewer games played. And their goal difference is 21 goals better, it says here on the NHL website. Columbus is also ahead of Detroit points per cent. By points percentage, yeah.

But by a thousandth of a point. Talk me out of this, but are we already done with the East as far as knowing the eight playoff teams? Because Boston is 60 points ahead of, they've got the last spot. There are 60 points up on the next few teams are Columbus, who I don't think are good. Detroit, Philadelphia, going to make a run? New Jersey, the islanders are too far back, Buffalo, Ottawa, Montreal. Like, who's jumping up after that group?

The only thing that I can think of is that there's obviously going to be like some movement within divisions. Like I think Boston, if things progress how they have or how they were before COVID hit the Bruins, I can see them pulling ahead of the Panthers just because. the goaltending has come back to Earth. Yeah. Three straight losses for the Panthers right now. Yeah, and like Bobrovsky's like, I think, below 900 in December so far. And we're more than halfway through the month, so not great.

And Spencer Knight kind of got sent down and it's understandable, I think you would say, which I didn't fully see coming, honestly. So I can see that. But yeah, it feels like these are the. playoff teams in the East. I guess you would say that, you know, Columbus has shown an ability to be fine, and they have a decent goalie in Merzleekins. Yeah.

When I said they're not good, I mean, they're certainly better than people like me thought they would be, but playoff team? Yeah, and how much of that is bullshit? Yeah. I mean, right now they're a 518 team, and you have to be better than that. So it's not, you know, they have to be better. better than they have been so far when they've been better than we thought. I don't know.

Yeah. So, yeah, I think you're right that it's, we're pretty much locked in with, with, I'm just going to look up as, as we talk, I'm going to look up Dom's, uh, playoff projection. Oh, yeah. He's already got them locked in. Um, but, uh, while I do. I would imagine that he does, yeah. Uh, but yeah, so in the West, um, top four in the central right now are Minnesota and

Nashville, St. Louis and Colorado, with Winnipeg, let's put it this way. All those teams are at least 638 points percentage, and Winnipeg is 554. So they would have to make a very good coaching hire, I think, to maybe Bruce Boudreux is available. But to make a run, it looks like the door might be closed for the Jets unless they go. Yeah, I'm not closing it yet. I still like that team a lot. And they have the best goalie in the world, which helps. And, you know, if they win their next game, they'd be four back of St. Louis,

four back of Nashville. Yeah, like, and that's the thing. Do we trust the predators? I do not. That's no. And I'll be honest with you. I don't trust the ducks either. I could see them dropping.

Yes, sure. But so, okay, but yeah. So let's let's let's. But from a Winnipeg perspective, it's the predators that they're worried about. Yeah, yeah. And so let's do the Pacific. It's Anaheim, it's Calgary, it's Vegas, and then a little bit of a distance back all of a sudden it's the Oilers. And the Oilers, again, they're over 600 points percentage, and the Kings seem like they're fading a little bit after a strong-ish start.

so Sharks still kind of hanging around Vancouver's making the run Dallas who knows Yeah it's Let's put it this way The Kings have won Four of the last six

And one of those losses was in overtime So they're on a nice little run here But they're still only five And four in their last 14 games So I don't know Are they like a shade better than 500 as a club? I would

I would say that's probably true for the Kings, but I don't know. Yeah, I would, I mean, I would say so. I'm, I still feel a lot less certain about what's going on in the West than the East. Now, is that because I'm an Eastern writer and I don't watch any of the games in the West? Yeah, that's probably it. This MF in bed by 930 Eastern every single night. Yep, as soon as the Leaf Games over, that's it. Anybody, nothing else to see here.

Puts on his stocking cap. carries a candle upstairs. Pretty much. Yeah. I looked up, yeah, Dom has basically those eight teams we talked about all at 90%

or significantly more. The Rangers are hovering at 90. The islanders are hovering at 10%. Everyone else is basically done and locked in. And he's got the Jets at 30% Dallas ahead of them at 40%. Anaheim only at a little under 70%.

So, you know, definitely his numbers match what we just said. West up for grabs, east. We're worried about seating and that's about it. And seating will matter in the east because... Yeah, you don't want to play Tampa. You don't want to play Carolina. Probably don't want to play Washington. You don't want to play a lot of teams.

but I'm, you know, if I'm a Leafs fan, which rumor has it, I am, I like the standings right now where they're playing Florida a lot more than I liked them a few days ago where it was Tampa. Or, you know, like, again, I think that a lot of people, there are obvious problems with the Bruins roster and, you know, all of them are predictable. But are you like, you know who I want to play in the first round is the team with Patrice Burjorn and Brad Marsh and David Pasternak and Charlie McAvoy on there? I feel like the Leafs would probably be fine against those guys. What could go wrong? That's exactly right. Ryan Nugent Hopkins placed in COVID protocol as we continue to retweets to you. This is like we said, we started the show.

There's going to be more names, I'm sure. Yeah. There was a guy from Calgary got dropped in as well while we were doing this. So yeah, it's all going bad. and the Christmas break and the roster freeze and all that stuff can't come soon enough I Well we'll figure it out on the air right now Sean

What day are we recording next week? Do we know? No, we don't Because Christmas is on like Sunday or something For Saturday maybe Christmas Eve is Friday Christmas days You want to just do it Christmas Eve? Yeah While we're unwrapping presents and stuff

My kids won't mind Dad can we open up? No no no shush I'm on My daddy's got his podcast. We'll do it. You want to Monday or Tuesday? Yeah, great.

We'll shut it down. All right. There you go. Okay. So we've done it and then, yeah, we've got it all figured out. Yeah, so that's it. You'll hear from us again, like we said, before Christmas. So we don't have to say a very Merry Christmas to all of you and happy holidays and all that quite yet.

Oh, plugs. Yeah. Okay. We'll plug, of course, EP Rink side. if you use the code I love EP when you sign up for an annual subscription you get three months tacked on to the end of your subscription absolutely free of charge

that's my gift to you this holiday season we got some good shit up there especially with World Juniors coming up if you want to be a little sicko and read all that stuff I don't think anybody has better coverage of it than us baby I'll be honest I just typed I love EP spontaneously. I didn't even know it was a promo code.

It was what was in my heart after reading the coverage. Yeah, wow. So there you go, folks. He doesn't even need the promo code and he's typing it out. And then the other thing to plug, of course, is the Puck Suit Patreon where Sean and I did a two-man game show. They said

it couldn't be done, but we did it and people I think were mad that we forgot. Sasha Barkov is named Alexander. was the big feedback. I got multiple DMs, but the game was basically, I'm going to give you a name such as Rasmus or Tyler or whatever,

and you tell me every guy currently in the league who has that first name. And that was the game, and we did it for more than an hour. And I'm just, and I'm just looking at it now. I'm looking at now on Patreon. Like when it originally went up, we incorrectly, because Gift of the Rasmai is a great name. Yes, it went up as Gift of the Magi. So that was my fault. The first comment, gift of the, and so now it just looks like I'm just yelling the name of the episode.

You were just really excited about the game or maybe just the pun of the name. That's it. But yeah. And so we also this week saw a. slew of new shows. Me, Greg, and Greg's wife, Ruby did an overrated, underrated

like full episode on Christmas things. Me and Sean Gentilly did a stick to sports. We're about to do the mailbag over there. I got a bunch of questions on this little notepad in front of me here. So there's a lot going on over on the Puck Soup Patreon these days.

And frankly, speaking of recording next week, even more. So. Yeah. on the way. So yeah, we got a lot going on over there these days. Check it out. That's the only place you're going to be able to hear Greg podcasting and not allowed to talk about hockey. That's right. So if you're listening and there's suddenly like a long stretch that's just censored out, that's because Greg accidentally mentioned the sport that shall not be named. You can find me on the athletic. There is lots of good content there as well. And why not get some

want a gift subscription. Like you probably already subscribed to the athletic and rightly so, but maybe like you've got like a sibling or a friend or a spouse or somebody like that and you feel guilty about letting them steal content

by using your login. Why don't you get them a gift account? And then, you know, imagine the look on their face when they open that on Christmas morning. Wouldn't that be fun? When they open Isn't that email?

Is that what you... Well, what you do is you print it out and then you put it in a little envelope and you write their name nice on the envelope. That's smart. Yeah. They open it up. But as with all of our offers, a reminder that it doesn't work if you click it from someone else's article.

It has to be on mine. I think they charge you extra if you were like... Like, if you click on a Gentile article, except for the one this week that he and I wrote together. That one's okay. Do you get credit if you click on? Like, do you get, like, one-third of the credit for that article? Yeah, exactly.

Oh, hell, yeah. That rocks. Great. Spread the wealth, then, I guess. But, yeah, that's it. We'll talk to you early next week. Goodbye, everyone. Thank you.

Bye-bye. Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slapshots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to what if you commute. We also cover movies, TV shows, it's and tunes. It's your weekly bowl of Hage and Nancet. about to