Puck Soup - Relocation Roundup

Episode Date: March 19, 2024

Sean (who's back) and Ryan talk about the Atlanta, Hartford, and the Coyotes, the East Wild Card picture, and more. Sponsored by Gametime (download the Gametime app and use code PUCK for $20 off) and AG1 (drinkAG1.com/puck)

I'm Ryan Lambert from Elite Prospects. I'm Sean McNeer from The Athletic. And he's back, folks. We got him back. We saved him. He was in danger for a while there, but now. How to go last week without me? Everything, fall to pieces completely?

Yeah, it was a fucking terrible show. Yeah. And I think we all know who to blame here, you know? Yeah. I get you. Who'd you get to replace me? Just some random idiot or? I mean,

not an idiot per se, but definitely a fool. All right. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like there's a difference. Fool with an E on the end kind of deal? Yeah. I get you.

That's exactly right. So yeah, let's just get right into it. I saw this news yesterday. This was really making me laugh. The Board of Governors meeting is going on right now. It feels like almost nothing's going to happen down there. Everything's going great, man. There's no need to change anything.

No. Look, I know that. You don't have to explain it to me, you know. But yeah, so one of the few big pieces of news, I guess, to come out of all this is that there's apparently going to be like an Amazon series next year following 10 to 12, I believe Chris Johnson said, of the league's biggest stars like behind the scenes and things like that. Kind of doing, you know, Netflix Drive to Survive and whatever the tennis one is. I think that's the idea. That is the idea. I saw a lot of people being very excited about this. And I don't want to... I'm not trying to dump on that, but I'm firmly in the, like,

I'll believe it when I see it from the NHL. Because we've seen, like, we've had this with the winner classics. We had like the Leafs one with the playoffs. That was pretty good, I thought, though. I never watched it. Yeah, I, you know, I get that. But it was pretty good. It was pretty good.

But none of them have ever caught hold in, like, any sort of way, the way some of those other sports have. No, I mean. Or whatever reason, none of them have ever clicked with the public outside of die hard occupants. Well, I think, I think. I think there was definitely some genuine interest in the Winter Classic one back in whatever, like 2012. You know, I think people enjoyed those. What was the first one of those? Did they, was it the Capitals?

It wasn't the Capitals Penguins or was that the second one? Yeah, I feel like the Capitals was the first one I remember. I don't know if they did one for like Sabres Penguins or anything like that, but they, like Bruce Boudreau with the Wink sauce and Mike on his little scooter. I do remember that. Yeah, I think that was the, I'm pretty sure that was the first one. But, but like even the one about like the Rangers they did when the Rangers had the winter classic and all that, I feel like that, like people were talking about that,

people were enjoying that. But I think Greg pointed this out yesterday. What happened was on the HBO one, it was good. because the NHL could like object to things, but they didn't produce it. Like they could be like, don't put that in there. But then on the subsequent ones, like I think they did a Showtime version or something like that. The NHL was like a producer on it. And so it immediately got like boring because they were trying to protect their business interests or whatever.

Yeah. And then it, I'll say this, the, there was not not contract. about the Amazon Leafs one. You know? Because I don't know if you know about this, but like they showed Jimmy Vizi like getting sent to the miners or something like that. And it was uncomfortable, let's say. Okay.

And so like there was a lot of, oh, they put Jimmy at Visi in a position where he looked bad or whatever. And I didn't agree with that take, but like, you know, there was something approaching controversy about it. Okay. And I got to tell you. controversy is good for these kinds of shows. I don't, you know, I don't feel like I'm speaking out of turn when I say that, you know? Controversy creates cash as a wise man. Yeah, one of the wisest men in the history of the business once said.

It's true, though. Like, it made it interesting because something compelling happened. Yeah. And in the NHL, that leads to controversy. We can't have anything compelling on the screen. We got to have these, like, these fascinating. videos of a player's son reading the starting lineup and everyone's like, this is the coolest thing in the world.

This is so great. So look, man, I would love to see it work. Yeah. That would be fantastic. I mean, I've never, do you watch the racing one? No, I don't. I haven't watched it, but I have heard about it. And I've heard people have become fans.

because of that show. That is the crucial part. That show is apparently so good that people are just like on a Saturday morning or whatever tweeting out like Ferrari's in the mud. And you're like, well, I don't know what the fuck you're talking about. Shut up. You know, but like they all have opinions on like who the best like race team is in this. And I'm just like, I can't relate to that, but like congratulations. Yeah.

You know, I'm glad you enjoy it. That's extremely not. for me, but it's all because of this stupid show. So, like, why shouldn't the NHL do it? But it does depend on, like, you know, I don't know that, like, Ferrari gets to say what goes into the show. You know what I mean? I saw that movie Ferrari. That was pretty good.

Adam Driver's in it. Michael Mann directed this one. Do you remember this? Your name is Adam Driver. You kind of have to be. He doesn't really do that much driving in the movie. Now, he should have been in Baby Driver. is what should have happened.

He was in a different movie about a baby. It was called Annette. It wasn't very good. Okay. Anyway, so again, like, the thing about this show is that it's going to follow stars and not a team, which I think is the right call, you know? But the question is this. 10 to 12 NHL stars will be on this show. who are the 10 to 12 stars?

Because I don't know that there are 10 to 12 people that I would consider like, I mean, obviously there are 10 to 12 star players, but like star players with personality, I don't know where they're getting 10 to 12. You know what I mean? Yeah. Well, yeah. Okay, so let's cast it.

Let's, uh... That's why I bring it up. We've got 10 to 12 and nobody can say no. Okay. I think the one that immediately, like occurs to everybody as Austin Matthews. Yeah. Say what you want about him.

He is one of the best players in the world and he has like famous friends who he can get to appear at the NHL All-Star game. Seemingly against their will. Sure. Yeah. You know, they're there. You can't say they're not there. And I feel like you wouldn't also. go Marner then?

No, I mean, you, you, just on personality, Marner or Nealander could both work as well, but I don't think, if you're only doing 10 to 12. You don't want to double. And it's the same thing with, with, but even beyond that. Like, I'm talking about like, McDavid and Dryside.

You don't want to do both, I don't think. No, I don't think so. Um, so that's, that's, okay. So Matthews, McDavid. Yep. Yep. I wonder if they do either McKinnon or McCar. Yeah.

I think you've got to do one of those two. But they just seem like, I don't know, the perception around that organization and those two players, I'm just like, would they do it? Again, maybe it's a they can't say no thing. I think in our world they can't say no. Okay. For the purpose of this exercise.

Yeah, I think that's true. You are not allowed to say no. and I don't know which one I go up but I mean I think McKinnon is more interesting than people give him credit for and also he's got the reputation as being like

the crazy competitive guy because there was that one story about like the you know white pastor or whatever it was um sorry I know people like it when I say that word but it's uh

that could be a very interesting contrast like you could cut from like Austin Matthews hanging out with Justin Bieber to Nathan McKinnon going to bed at 8 o'clock at night because he's got a game the next day. Yeah. And I think that could be fun. And hey, speaking of white pasta, David Posternak. Nicely done.

Thank you so much. Marchand's the other one that you could do there. Yeah, one of the two for sure, again, like you can't do both of them. But one of the two definitely makes sense. And I think the league would go for the one with the crazy hats, you know? Yep. That works. Matthew Kuchuk is, I think, another easy answer, obvious one.

Absolutely. What does that bring us to? I think four or five, yeah. I think we've got five. I think we're in trouble here, though. Oh, no, we can keep going. I think you want to go Jack Hughes, get a young guy. Yeah.

I think you want to go Connor Bedard. to get the really young face of the face of the league soon to be sort of deal. Yep. I would go, do you go Pedersen or Quinn Hughes out in Vancouver? I think you go Quinn Hughes. Yeah. Probably.

But like, I don't know. I don't know. They both seem like. That kind of gives you an interesting angle. But then is that too many Hughes brothers? And then you got to act like we've got to talk about Luke. Come on. That's a good point.

You know? You know what? Let's go Pedersen because we'll say that like by getting Jack Hughes in, we sort of are going to get some Quinn Hughes coverage. I agree. So that brings us to eight. You got to get a goalie. Who's a goalie? Yeah, we need goalie.

Who's a? Guidu Shasturkin? I don't know. I don't know. Because, I mean, we need a ranger, right? You need a ranger, that's right, yeah. And I, I mean, there's a few candidates on the rangers, so. Sure, yeah.

Or do you go for, like, the big, huge star power and just go Matt Rampé, just have him? Do you think they get Sidney Crosby to do this? I think, I mean, Crosby and Ovechkin, I think you have to, I think you have to have Ovechkin, assuming you can do it as he's chasing the goals record. I mean, it would be... Hey, he got up to 20 last night. Got up to 20. That was weird, wasn't it?

Like, when he's, like, suddenly on your timeline, it's like, Ovechkin hits 20, and you're like, is it December? What? Yeah. But yeah. And then, yeah, I mean, Crosby, I'm going to force Crosby to do it. Okay. He's got no choice.

I want to see Sidney Crosby. I want every candid moment as his, team dismantles. Yeah. And I believe that took us to 11 guys. Oh, wow. Yeah. So who's the last one?

Who's the mystery? Hmm. The Lightning have a lot of good players. They do. This is going to be my answer. If the league is pretty hands off, it would be fascinating to see someone in Arizona. They would never do it in a million years. But it would be fucking fascinating to see people in Arizona.

It would be really interesting also to see somebody who was, like, expected to be on the trade block. Somebody like a Patrick Kane last year sort of deal where you get to see. Like, I would love to see that. So the thing is, apparently, it's going to debut in the fall. So they must be shooting it now. Hmm. And I don't know, I don't know that there's anyone. You think they're going to do like season playoffs or do you think maybe it starts in, I don't know how long it starts in the fall?

It starts in the fall? Something around like this, but. Well, I mean, they were doing the Winter Classic one, you know, kind of week off. Yeah. So, I mean, I don't. They should. I straight up don't know how drive to survive works. Yeah.

I know that like, the only show I watched that's kind of like this is that the one with Ryan Reynolds is soccer team. And that, that runs a full year behind. Oh, okay. So, um, like the one, the season that just, the season of the show that just ended a few months ago, they were like, damn, I can't wait for us to get promoted. I hope it happens. And meanwhile, you can just like Google it and they go, oh yeah, they got promoted very easily, it turns out. And so it kind of takes, it makes like, it makes it dramatically inert in a lot of ways, you know? But, um, I don't know. It's still a pretty good show. But yeah, I wonder if they're, like, if they're doing it live, that's, you know what I mean, not live.

That would be really difficult. But if they're doing it kind of like as the season goes on next year, that, that would be fucking cool. Yeah, that would be, yeah. I mean, the Leif's one was relatively, like, it was a lot. Yeah, that came out like kind of. it? Yeah, like I want to say kind of end of summer the Leaps one came out. I might be getting, I might be remembering wrong.

That might just be when I watched it, which, you know. Sure. Who is, who do we not want to see on this? Is there anyone that we're like, yeah, they're going to, they're going to try to put, like it feels like if the, like if the league has a say in this, like, are they going to continue to try to push Trevor's egress on us? Which now that I say it, that could. could be, especially since he is a guy that maybe is in trade talks on a struggling team.

You know, that? He dates famous people, allegedly. Is he dating a famous person, allegedly? I feel like I saw that that's happening, yeah. Good for Trevor. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, you know, we'll, I'm not not excited for it. I think this can be good, but also it's the NHL.

So you kind of do have to take it a little bit skeptically. Wouldn't mind a Vegas Golden Knight either. Yeah. Mark Stone, Jack Eichel. Mark Stone, so you could just see him being like, oh, no, I'm hurt. And then winking at the camera while everybody laughs and twirls mustaches. Yeah, the most evil thing that ever happened in the NHL.

Which fan base is going to be most insufferable about not having somebody? picked for the show. And why is it Montreal? Yeah. And I mean, when you got big stars like they got, you know, you got,

it would have to, it would take some kind of a conspiracy to not have a Canadian on the show. It really would. Yeah. I don't know, like somebody from just like kind of a middling team, like,

I don't want to pick on him, but like if they were like, oh, we're doing Bo Horvat, you're just like, I don't, I mean, the Patrick Wav at all might make it interesting. But. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, there's a few teams where I'm like, I kind of want to see the coach or the GM more than. That's, yeah.

I mean, you know, at that point, you're getting into, again, like original, uh, like HBO version.

Remember when Phil Kessel said, good one, Randy? Uh, pretty funny. So funny. Pretty funny. Anyway.

And by the way, like 40% of our listeners are going, I don't know what the fuck they're talking about. Yeah, that's... Because we're old. Yeah, but that's... I feel like that's about 15 years ago or something. About the average for both things that we discuss.

Yeah, for sure. Anyway, yeah, I'm looking forward to it. That'll be a good show. I am, put it this way. I will be waiting on the reviews. I am not going to pencil this one into my viewing lineup, but I would love to... Depends on how that first round goes, huh? I would love to see it be a hit.

But yeah, absolutely. I'm be waiting to see it be a hit would be the I mean imagine because like F1's having enough of a moment that like they started making an F1 video game yeah F1 my understanding is the F1 has been like just like an enormous unqualified gang busters yes now have any of the others been I thought I saw that like the tennis one was sort of eh didn't they do it I think I just read that like a golf one got canceled or something golf okay maybe it's that was the one I was thinking of where it just didn't... I think people like the tennis one. Yeah, okay. So it's not like, you know, just doing it doesn't certainly doesn't guarantee anything. But... I like that they're trying. It's better than them not trying, you know? That is true. But let's find out how much they actually try.

Yeah, again, you know, cautious optimism, let's say with this one. That's the name of the game on this show, you know. We're always very positive. We're always looking at the absolute. Absolute. Why would anything bad happen? In the NHL? Why should it?

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Okay. Let's move on to what I feel like is kind of the only real big news of the week here. It's yet another round of a relocation slash expansion roundup. And this time, they can't believe who's involved. Huh. Yeah. So I was, as people know, away on vacation. I was not off the grid in any sense, but I was not following things as closely, perhaps, as I normally would. Would you please explain to me what Anson Carter is doing in the middle of all this?

Yeah, he is part of a ownership group, the kind of public face of an ownership group, that depending on who you believe, either did or did not really have the go ahead from the league like the Salt Lake City group does. Yeah. To get out there and say, by the way, we're interested in getting ourselves an NHL team. How do you guys feel about that? I saw some people saying this caught the league by surprise. I saw some people saying there was the kind of tacit endorsement you might expect. And so the idea is that they would get a team. And if I can pull from the article, the AP article about this, where is it? The group is proposing a new Frank Geary designed arena.

Nice touch there on Frank Geary. Getting Ferenkegee involved? Wow. Sure. That would be constructed at a redevelopment of the North Point Mall. And then blah, blah, blah. It would be not just the arena. It would be like a whole thing.

The proposed redevelopment would include a stadium that could be used for soccer and lacrosse, a performing arts venue, an e-sports center, practice facilities, along with retail, dining, hotel, and residential elements. Insurance giant New York Life would be a partner. Okay. I mean, I get why the kind of instinct is to roll your eyes at this, because it hasn't worked twice. Yeah. But. I will say one of the times it didn't work was like 1980.

It was a long time ago. It was in the 70s, and back then, I mean, I think you just, you write that off completely. Yeah, 100%. Now, the other time it failed. was like 12 years ago. Right. I don't know. It feels a little quick to be going back to it.

Maybe not. I mean, Minnesota got a team back quicker than this. A lot quicker, yeah. Winnipeg wasn't quite, Winnipeg was around the same timeline, assuming this is something that isn't going to happen immediately. So it's a big market. I mean, if it worked in Atlanta, that would be great for the league.

Yes. It's just that this is, you know, unlike with the TV series, we're like, hey, if it works, great. And if it doesn't work, man, at least you tried. Like, there's no, at least you tried when you're talking about franchise relocation and or expansion. Failure is disaster. For sure. Yes, of course. I guess we see there's so much smoke around this.

I feel like it was was it Kevin Weeks was kind of the first to mention Atlanta and I think a lot of folks were like oh come on no way they're going to do Houston they'll do go on down the list but it just keeps coming up

so sure does sure sounds like there's there's something there which doesn't guarantee anything but there's there's something there well the other thing that I feel like has been reported less in part because like, you know,

Anson Carter, the guy used to play in the NHL, he's on TV, you know? But here's the thing. Atlanta businessman Vernon Krause has proposed an 18,000-seat arena as part of a massive mixed-use development in Southern Forsyth County, less than 10 miles north of the arena proposal by Carter's Group. Last week, Krause told WSBTV that he and his wife recently visited New York and met with Bettman and Daly to discuss a possible expansion team. So it looks like there's a...

There's two interested parties here. Which to me, you know, makes it even more like this isn't just like Anson Carter going, that'd be nice. This is two different would be ownership groups going, team please, and that makes me go, well, this is fucking happening. Yeah. Yeah, it definitely creates emergency if there's a sense of comedy. The league probably loves that.

yeah absolutely now you got two people I don't know I don't know how it works do you like bid against one another for like at the expansion fee you know what I mean like if whatever Seattle maybe was like a one was only ever like a one bid team or Vegas right yeah if I don't know how it works like I'm not I wasn't really paying attention to the NHL when they were doing expansion in the late 90s early 2000 so like Like, did multiple ownership groups try to get like the predators? There were, in some cases, multiple ownership groups in the same market. But I think they sort of got weeded out through the process before it came to. Yeah, because, you know, you've got to check in to everything. You know, what's the arena plan? What's the group look like? It's significantly easier to put your hand up at this stage of the game than it is to.

still be there at the end. But yeah, I mean, if there were two viable groups of viable plans, then presumably the NHL just sits down and says, all right, we're going to start naming really high numbers until somebody backs away.

Both arena proposals are along the Georgia 400 freeway that cuts through Atlanta's sprawling northern suburbs. Studies have shown the area contains a huge number of potential NHL fans and would mark a striking change from the arenas that the city's previous team called home, both downtown.

And this is, I think, the under-considered aspect of this, is that, you know, as much as the NHL would like to reach a different audience than it has right now, and in addition to, of course, keeping that current audience, this is a sport that is primarily enjoyed by white people. and white people, I would say, you know, stereotypically with like some connection to northern cities, you know, like, oh, snowbirds go to all the Florida Panthers games or that kind of thing. You know what I mean? Yep. And the northern suburbs is, to my understanding, where a lot of the white people in Atlanta or in the Atlanta area live. and I think to some extent

it was kind of the same problem that like the coyotes had in Glendale where it was just like, oh, I'm not going all the way over there. Yeah. And especially to watch the fucking thrashers who can blame anybody for not wanting to watch that team, right? So the idea that you would put a team maybe 20, 30 minutes closer to people

to your primary audience, I guess you would say, um, I think that had, that carries a little more weight for the NHL, then let's try it again where the Hawks play. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's it. It certainly could, and I just, well, I'd love to see it work.

And I don't think the fact that it didn't work before precludes it working, because it is a big market. It's an enormous mark. Not to be simplistic, but it's been working amazing in Vegas. If it can work in Vegas, it can work in Atlanta. Now, you could very easily get yourself in trouble following that line of logic and starting to think that, you know, because it worked great in Vegas,

it is so far working fine in Seattle. But even Seattle in year three, you don't feel like it's quite a runaway hit. No. And I mean, a big part of that is, you know, Vegas was instantly good. Well, that's it, right? I mean, is this just all it comes down to? And, of course, famously, Atlanta, the thrashers were never good. Not once, yeah.

Not one time. Did they ever win a playoff game? I don't think so. They got swept in the pool. I think they got swept, yeah. So, I mean, there's an awful lot of people would say, hey, man, put any team, give it 11 years. never win a playoff game and show me the success.

Show me the market where that's going. 100%. Absolutely. And you could argue that there isn't one. So, you know, we said throw the 70s out the door as far as Atlanta Flames. Maybe you throw the thrashers out too just based on, of course, they came in in the era where expansion teams were given nothing. Right. And they were unable to dig their way out of that nothing.

But I don't, at the same time, I don't think anyone's being unreasonable to be a little bit skeptical here. Totally agree. Yeah. Kind of goes without saying to me that you should be skeptical of this. But also, again, just like, the reasons to be skeptical is not, I mean, Atlanta, come on. You know, like, that's not why you should be skeptical. You should be skeptical just because, you know, we don't know about Seattle. There was that article that was like, oh, if they don't start, you know, winning again soon, this could be a problem for the market, you know.

And, like, I don't think the fact that the NHGL was there recently, like, that could hurt the perception locally a little bit, you know, that now. Yeah, maybe. You would hope that there are some fans who loved hockey in Atlanta who were still there going, oh, this is great, it's back. You know, I'm on board. You know, maybe you're not starting from zero the way it may have been in Vegas. But there's also going to be some people there going, like, didn't we have this already? I heard that we had this and it sucked and nobody liked it.

Why is it back? I'm not even going to give it a shot. Whereas, you know, Vegas, in addition to being good, the NHL did. kind of stumble into that first mover advantage of being the first in a wave of sports taste in that city. So, I don't know. It is going to be a challenge, but hey, look, get two groups seriously looking at it, then... Again, it's the fact that there's two. Yeah.

Yeah. And for the record, according to the latest Nielsen data, Atlanta is the seventh largest media market in the United States. Right. New York, L.A., Chicago, Philadelphia. Wouldn't I thought Philly's that high up there, but there you go. Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, Atlanta, Boston, Washington, D.C., and the San Francisco Bay area, which includes San Jose. I thought Arizona was higher, wasn't?

Don't we always hear about it? Phoenix is 11. Okay. There you go. I'm trying to think or look and see if there are any else. there's actually a few in the top 20 that aren't that don't have NHL teams. Orlando is 16. Dayton, or I'm sorry, Canton, Ohio, Cleveland, Akron, that kind of thing.

19 and Sacramento 20. Where's Salt Lake City and all in this? Salt Lake City is 27, Indianapolis, 25, Portland, Oregon, 23, Charlotte, 21. Those seem to be the other really big ones. Okay. It's all possible, though. That's what I'm, you know. But I guess we should talk about this.

Since we're talking about Atlanta and maybe getting a team via expansion, maybe getting a team via relocation, we've got to talk about the team that might be relocating. Elliot Friedman over the weekend said relocation is on the table for the Arizona coyotes. And again, like I get that it's an instant eye roll because we feel like we've heard this a hundred times, but I don't feel like we have heard somebody as plugged in as Elliot's say, okay, it's actually on the table now. That's exactly right, yeah.

The thing that Elliot's been saying for months about this, I feel like, is that everybody with the league is trying to be super cautious about this because they don't want to create something that could come back to bite them in a lawsuit if, like, the coyote's owners are like they fucked us out of the team or whatever. Right. And so with that caution comes, well, I mean, they're trying to figure it out. They're trying to make it, you know, that kind of thing, which you want to talk about eye rolling. Right?

Mm-hmm. But that's why they're being cautious for, for lawsuit reasons. But the fact that Elliot is saying, you know, it's kind of now or never with these guys. That is significant. So the big development with this this week is that a plot of land that the coyotes were interested in is being put up for bid in the North Phoenix area. And that's going to be like a month's long process, apparently. the auction must be advertised for 10 weeks and then there is no date set for the auction at this point

but that obviously puts you in late May early June and if the coyotes lose that bid feels like that's going to be just about it for them in Phoenix. It's kind of a fascinating situation right because it's one thing to say like, hey, there's a referendum or there's a city. council vote where it's kind of out of your hands. Yes.

But in this case, an auction, I mean, will there be other bidders? How motivated are there? I mean, my understanding is this is the coyotes basically hand-selecting what they want and going to the city saying, please put this up for auction. So you would imagine that there's somebody else isn't going to swoop in and be like, that happens to be exactly what I wanted. well. But what's their number?

How high can they go? Clearly, they're doing this in an attempt to get good value on what they're going to spend. I don't know. Yeah, so part of it is definitely like

they aren't necessarily the only bidder. And the way this works is like apparently they'll also say like the I think it's the state is putting up the auction. And so, like, people with the state government would be like, okay, but like what, like, you don't just get to like buy this land and put like a nuclear waste dump on it.

You know what I mean? Like, you have to present us with a plan for what you're going to do with this land. Well, I better not look at the standings then. Sing. I could cook their asses. So, yeah, the, the. obviously I don't think they'd be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, you can't put an arena there.

You know, I don't think that would be the case. But, again, like, other people who might bid for it might have, you know, something to say about the process, I guess, is what I'm trying to say. It's not just like the road is being cleared for the Arizona coyotes to buy this land. But the thing that Elliott said over the weekend, too, and I think this is important, is like the perception around Morello, like the owner of the team is, as you can imagine, insanely bad.

And he's a billionaire who doesn't want people to think he's a fucking joke. So he is like highly motivated to make this work for more than more than just the financial reasons, right? Like he's highly motivated to make this work to show that he, that he can do it. Wow. A billionaire with a massive ego and thin skin. Isn't that crazy? Who would have guessed?

Yeah. But that is the other thing that they might go a little crazy on the bid, not just. But what is crazy? Is crazy for them like, you know, 50% of fair value? Yeah, I don't know. Is their whole financial plan that they, get this thing at a 20% of fair value and if somebody else comes in them bids 25, it blows them right out of the water or not. But it is fascinating. And I don't know what the mechanism of the

auction is. Yeah. But I mean, it could just literally be a case of, all right, man, if we don't put her hand up for this next round, we lose the team. Yeah, the uncut gems auction scene. That's it. That's what I'm assuming. I'm assuming there's going to be an auctionary. He's going to do the fast talking thing. Everyone's going to have paddles. That's what I'm looking for. Like an uncut.

Jams. Yeah, I'm going to be very disappointed. John Hersch is going to be there? Yep. Kevin Garnett. But yeah, that's, who knows? Who knows? I think the other thing that's probably tough about this is that, again,

And based on the dates and everything. Oh, when's all this taking place? Oh, during the Stanley Cup playoffs. Like during the conference finals and maybe the cup final. Cool. I bet the league's psyched about that one. So, yeah. One other thing that we got to talk about with this.

This is from Connecticut Insider, and this was published yesterday. Governor Ned Lamont says, we are ready. And he's talking about the coyotes. We're ready. We're ready to do Excel, referring to the Excel. center venue in Hartford, where, that's right, the Hartford Whalers played in like 1996 or whatever. We're doing it. Do it.

I don't know if you know this, but they had a little song they used to play after goals. It was quite catchy. That's right. This is in the article. Last May, the news broke that Lamont was meeting with the NHL Commissioner about the potential relocation of the coyotes, stirring a wave of nostalgia, and that's the important part here, I guess. And hockey fervor among whalers fans, the meeting came amid a $100 million renovation project at the Excel Center. Then there's another really good quote here.

Michael Frimuth, maybe, the executive director of the Capital Region Development Authority said last June, quote, We can make this work. Is it going to be the top of the line, top shelf, sexiest building in the NHL? No, it's an old lady, but you can make it work. Oh, God. that is oh my god is that not such a great quote that is one of that might be a early top 10 NHL quote that is I think we've all had that friend at the bar around closing time right we can make it work we can make it work he says yeah absolutely brother oh that's it

screw it and that's what I'm 100% on board you're out of luck Atlanta We're going back. Critically, I feel like that's what the NHL wants to hear, too. Is this arena good? No, it kind of sucks, actually. Yeah. But you know what? It's a old lady, but we can make it work.

Really sick. Yeah, look, as a guy who lives, you know, half an hour, 40 minutes from the Excel Center, I'd be happy with this. Is, so how old is the Excel Center? And what did it, like, did this used to be? It was the Whalers Arena in the 90s. The Civic Center or something? I can't remember what it was. Yeah.

Wow. Right on. Let's look up when the Excel. Good job by Excel really jumping on those naming rights when. Strait while the iron's hot. That's right. Capacity for hockey 14-750, by the way, opened in 1975. You know what else did made it to debut in 1975?

Me. And I, I'm trying to. too old for the NHL, man. This is... Can I ask you this? I cannot make it work. Did you also suffer a roof collapse in the late 70s, early 80s? Man, I tell you, man, my roof is not what it used to be. That's right. Oh, boy.

Yep. 14,750. And that's with it, like, renovated and stuff. Look, I've been there a couple times this season. Kind of a shit hole. Okay. Kind of a shit hole. All right.

I would guess. I mean, look, say what you want about Mullet Arena. It's very little, you know? It's like new, though. And so the question becomes, do they want, like, new and nice or old and slightly bigger, but not like that big, really, if you think about it? For some reason, I'm not so. super optimistic about Governor let Ned Lamont's efforts to bring back the Hartford Whalers.

Yeah. I feel like Ned is maybe, uh, getting out over the easier at this point. I think that's right. He's like, look, I expressed a vague interest. I will head down to the arena in a few weeks and see if there's an NHL team there. And if not, I've done all I can. Look, they are putting $100 million into the rink. And that's probably about what, uh, Mollett cost.

if I had to ballpark it. Let's look that up too. But yeah, it's not going to happen. I just thought, I just, 134 for Mollett. I just thought it was a funny quote. That's mostly why I bring it up. So yeah, there you go. Very good.

We love you, Ned. Shout out to Ned. Shout out to the guy who said the old lady thing. Yep. Got a great group down there. you know. Why don't we take a break and we'll be right back to talk about some more like actual hockey stuff. How's that sound?

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Check it out. All right. We're back. And as promised, let's talk about some actual on-the-ice hockey stuff. The Washington Capitals are now, according to multiple sources, above 50% to make the playoffs. Yep. Look at them go. Look at them go.

And I, I. I don't want to go. I feel like we've done this the last few weeks. Like it feels like every couple weeks with a different Eastern team where we're like, oh, the Red Wings. The Islanders. Yeah, absolutely. So this could be that again.

But it's a hell of a story for a team that nobody was really talking about and a team that went full on seller at the deadline. Absolutely. You can't, if you're a Capps fan, you can't sit there and be like, oh, believed in us. If you actually watch the game, you know blah, blah, blah. Your own GM was like now. Based on the Caps fans, I know, I don't think anybody is acting like

that. I think everybody's just kind of like, wow, okay, really? Us? Huh. Well, if you say so, that really does seem to be the prevailing opinion among Caps fans these days, which like, obviously makes

perfect sense why that would be their feeling on all that, right? Like, They can't be watching a team that's got like a negative 30 goal difference or something like that going into last night's game and going. And of course, this is a playoff team. Everyone should believe in us. They've watched the capitals this year. You know what I mean? And someone, I think it was on the Puck Suk Discord, put it perfectly, which was like, when they lose, they lose by six.

And when they win, they win, they win by one. You know? and that is how you get a negative 30 goal difference and a 50% chance to make the playoffs. 53 and a half according to Money Puck as of this morning. So, yeah, it's crazy that this is happening. I don't have another word for it. 44% according to Dom's model. So, I mean, really, the same when you're talking about the,

and have been bouncing up because I believe. they were, because I wrote about them over the weekend, and I think going into the weekend, they had him at about 15%, and then up to 30 by Sunday. Beating the Canucks was a big jump, because obviously all of these models look at your schedule upcoming and sort of assign your probabilities, and that would have been a game where they would have been considered underdogs, you know, probably a loss. And then you go and bank two points out of that in a regulation win. On top of that, we're at the point of the season where you've got to start looking at the tiebreakers.

They're in good shape there. That was a big needle mover for them. Yep. Which is not to say that, you know, we all throw confetti at them and then they lose three straight in regulation. This time next week we're like, can you believe the sabres are going to make it? Right. Yeah, well, I mean, the sabers had that. Middle of last week.

Whoa, look up for the sabers. Are we back to the penguins? Are we going to have to do that again? No, we're not. No. Definitely not. Penguins at 9.3% lower than, well, higher than Buffalo and New Jersey, who are tied at 7.2%. But well below like Detroit and the Islanders and certainly the caps and flyers.

Yeah. You know, I'm not like super optimistic. that this is going to work out for them because they're the Washington capitals, you know, like they're just getting 930 goal tending from Charlie Lindgren right now. From Charlie Lingren, yeah. And their leading score is Dylan Strom. Okay, that's crazy. Right?

Yeah, no, I think I think you're right about that, yeah. I don't have their, uh, their like stats page open, but I think you're right here. It was, unless that changed, uh. In the last like two days. Yeah. Um, so. So, yeah, I mean... He is one point ahead of Alex Ovechkin.

What a world. And two goals ahead of him, too. Jeez. Well, I mean, that's less of a feat these days, you know? There was a time when if you said someone was two goals ahead of Alex Ovechkin, and you'd be like, well, so he has 70 then? Is that right? Strom Ovechkin-Karlson, do you know who their fourth leading scorer is?

I'll give you a hint. He doesn't play for the Washington Capitals anymore. Anthony Manta is still... Yeah. Yeah, they sold Manta. They sold Kuznetsov. How about this? Someone pointed out,

if the capitals do make the playoffs, probably their most likely opponent is the hurricanes. That could be spicy. Yeah. The question, this was on the Puck Soup mailbag, and someone was like, I can just pull it up and tell you what the, this is from Justin, was like, when's the last time, like,

a team was such an obvious seller, still made the playoffs and then in the first round played one of the guys they sold. I don't think it's ever happened. Or not, I shouldn't say never. I can't remember it happening. I'll say that. It has, it's been a while. I certainly, there were a couple of those blues seasons where,

they sold APs? Famously, OSHA was one of those guys, right? That was an off-season, I think. Oh, you're right, yeah. They traded Statsney and

Shattonkirk. Shattonkirk. That's what. In consecutive years, when they were on the playoff bubble, but did not, I don't believe, run into Yeah, I think they traded both

those guys to Eastern Conference teams, so they couldn't have. Mm-hmm. Yeah, no, I'm guessing it must have happened before, but. For sure. Could I tell you who did it? No. Yeah.

No, I mean, to see a team make the playoffs after selling this aggressively, both quality and quantity, right? Like, this wasn't like, hey, you know, there's, we got one guy going to be a UFA. We know we're not going to resign them. We got to move them for assets. But then, you know, we keep pushing on. They strip down pretty significantly. So I put this in my column this week. Like, are we, if they make the playoffs,

like Spencer Carberry has to get a little bit of Jack Adams. Oh, I think you should get a ton if they make the playoffs, especially the way that like a lot of, a lot, like, you know, you just said Rick Talk it, but look how the Canucks have been doing lately. Yeah. You know? And I think that's true of a lot of like, whoa. that team's kind of surprisingly good.

Have kind of, you know, same thing with the Flyers. By the way, I mean, obviously this is kind of related to the Capitals, right? Because, you know, the Flyers would probably lose their spot to the Capitals if they, if the Caps make the playoffs. Quite possibly. It feels like a pretty likely outcome. I looked this up the other day. You know what? The Flyers team save percentage since, uh, since, um, since, you know, um, since, you know,

January, I think it's January 20th. You know what their team save percentage? I do not. 854. Oh. 854. With a 5. You know what they should do about that?

Make their captain a healthy scratch, which is apparently what's, it sounds like, may happen tonight with Sean Katturier. He apparently has been struggling. I don't watch enough Flyers games to know for sure that that's true. Like from the intel I've seen, that hasn't, it hasn't been going great for him. But, you know, he's coming back from a pretty significant injury. He missed a lot of time. Him hitting a wall here, like, I can't be surprised by that, you know? But yeah, so 854.

I think it was the second worst team in the NHL over that time was like the senators. and they're at like 885. It's just unbelievable. That is not good. And, and I mean, while it's, it's, it's unpleasant to talk about, they lost their number one goalie for the year. Right. No. So that is the thing is.

And this stretch of them being like horrible in goal starts in his, in Carter Hart's final game for them. Mm-hmm. And like, he, he got lit up in that last game. and then, you know, the two guys they've used in his stead have been, like, bad is not the right word for how bad they've been. Yeah, like, 850 is. This would be like historically bad if they did it. But, and again, by a mile, not just like, oh, yeah, that would be like one of the worst safe. No, this would be the worst safe percentage in the NHL ever by a lot if they did this, like, for a full.

season. So, yeah, like, I saw that stat, and I flat out could not believe it. But I, so I double-checked with a different fucking stat site and was like, no, 8-54, okay, here we are, you know. 8-54. That'll open the door for a, for a team like the Capitals. I think it's the best way to put it. But, yeah, it'd be, it'd be fucking cool if the Capitals made the playoffs.

Would it? Or would they just get their doors blown off? Well, so here's the thing, right? Name a team in that wild card race in the East that's any fucking good at all. Name one. Can you do it? Nope. So, yeah.

I guess, you know, given that, I guess I'd rather have like the cool fun story of the capitals make it even though everyone rightly thinks they suck, you know? Versus like, oh, and the Red Wings did it. by shooting 800% and everyone was like, it's actually sustainable because of the way they do it. Yeah. See, they pass the puck around until they had to get an open net right in front. No one else has thought of this. Well, it's not that no one's thought of it.

It's just no one has been good enough at it until this year's Detroit Red Wings to make it sustainable. That's how you got to think about this. It's, boy, I don't know what would be more frustrating if I'm a Red Wings fan. narrowly missing the playoffs after my GM does nothing at the deadline or narrowly missing the playoffs after my GM does nothing at the deadline to a team that actively made itself

worse at the deadline. I think because the second option is conditioned on the first one, I think the second one is worse. That's fair. But yeah, to me, I just I look at the entire the entire like East playoffs

and I just go we don't have to have a first round that's fine everyone gets a buy that's in the top four right now because like even even if you're saying like oh yeah obviously the Leafs are a good team yeah sure that's true but like are they

you know what I mean? Yeah who's their goalie you know and then they yeah right I forgot about that okay but I mean who's their ninth defenseman So they really solidified that position and it only caused them seven fourth-round draft picks to do it.

It's actually all going great for them now. Yeah, the other team I want to talk about in this whole mess is the Tampa Baylight. These guys are getting a little bit hot. Trugging along. Starting to look a little bit scared. Now, they beat the Florida Panthers in a, game in which the Panthers absolutely kicked their doors in for. Yes.

Really the whole game, but definitely the last two periods. Like, tilted ice. Panthers had like 50-something shots on goal. Yeah. And the Lightning had like three. So that's hockey sometimes. That would be a fun first-round matchup. Oh, yeah, of course.

Panther's Lightning. I could go for that. Yeah, that would be sick. But the thing with the Panthers, or the Lightning rather, is this. That thing you said, they're getting outshot not just by the Panthers, by everybody, and winning now, right? And so maybe this is my question to you. I don't think we're going to sit here and go, this is an elite team, right? Obviously not.

But how good do you think they are based on like their talent level and things like that? Like how, again, to do the Red Wings thing, how repeatable and like how solid is this in your opinion? You know what I mean? Like, they're just, how much do you believe in the Tampa Bay Lightning to, you know, make the playoffs and have this at least a little bit turned around from where it was? I mean, they're, they're scary on paper. Yes. And not just based on like, oh, you know, you plug all these players in and, you know, we've seen them do it. Now, we've seen them do it a couple years ago and they're a couple years older.

But, no, they would scare me. Anytime you see a team that has, you know, they went to the final three years in a row, lost last year in a first round where they probably were the better team. Yep, absolutely. and when you've got a team that's that good and has tasted championships and then they have like a bad half season and they start revving up the playoffs, I get worried.

Other teams in this situation, I would probably go, yeah, it's a hot stretch. Every team's going to have a good month and a bad month and this might just be their good month. But I do believe there is something to the idea that you get

a team that not that you know how to win, but a team that knows what a winning season feels like does understand how to let off the gas a little bit in November. And the fact that they got like right into, okay, now we got to get serious about the playoffs and then absolutely started crushing everyone again.

Right. That scares me a bit. It really does. Yeah, I guess the thing is, right, that like we've talked about it a decent amount this season. Vasilevsky's been bad this year. Like not just not just like kind of bad. Like bad bad.

Mm-hmm. Not bad for him. Bad for any NHL goalie. And so he's been very good lately. Part of that again is that he's being asked to make 40 saves a night or whatever. But he's doing it. And he has, this is the bigger thing to me. He has the track record of.

of this can be one of the best goalies in the world, you know? And so that would be if I'm, if I'm, you know, playing the lightning in the first round, my big concern is we can't let the big cat get going. If the big cat's going, we're screwed. Yep. You know, again, how much do you believe it? I don't know. Last year in that Leaf series, he was, well, I don't know if Vasilevsky was bad, but his numbers were awful.

Like everything was going in against him. And they were still one goal away from probably taking out the Leafs again. Yeah. I mean, if Vasilevsky stands on his head, you're screwed. But that's true of any goalie. But they might only need him to be 900, 905 in a playoff series. And if I had to bet on anyone to do it, boy, can you imagine like going through the whole season, winning your division, being like the Panthers or the Rangers or whoever,

and oh, look who we get to play. Great. I know, right? The brutal turn, like twist of favor or whatever. A Tampa Bay Lightning team that's doing like the big exaggerated yon and taking off the stocking cap and being like, okay, we're ready to play for real now. Yeah.

The thing is, again, like the underlying numbers for this team are not good. and again, like maybe you say they have the talent outperformant, but they're not good underlying numbers. Some of the worst goaltending in the league over the course of the full season. And yet, because the East is so bad, we're like, well, I mean, they look like a playoff team pretty comfortably. And that is, I don't know, I don't know what,

make of it, I guess, you know? Because it's like, are they good? I can't tell. I guess I would say I don't think they are. But it doesn't really seem to matter. Nope. So yeah, it'll be, it'll be more interesting to see this than I think just about any other, like, East playoff possibility, you know, just because.

It does feel like a lot of the other wildcard races we're getting excited for. And I know this can come back and bite me, but they all kind of feel like teams trying to make the playoffs so they can say they made the playoffs, but not really be much of a threat. Right. And the lightning are. The lightning might be in that exact same spot, though. You know what I mean? Like, oh, yeah, we made the playoffs. And then we, I mean, if they play the Leafs though, right?

Like, that's. Oh. No, they can't play the Leafs. Never mind. They can't play the Leafs. It would be. I don't know why I thought that. Well, not in the first round.

Yeah. Which means they can't play the Leafs. Right. Imagine the confluence of events that allowed the Tampa Bay Lightning to advance out of the first round and the Toronto Maple Leafs. Yeah. Hard to see it coming. What else happened this week? Anything?

Not really. We talked about this on the show last week. The West Wild Card seems pretty much sewn up. I don't know if you have any talk or thoughts on that. Well, I mean, I guess my thoughts are, man, I think Vegas has got to make the playoffs, but boy, they could run off a couple of wins. 89% according to Moneypuck. Four points up, five points up on the Blues and Wild respectively. Game in hand, all of that stuff, looking good for tiebreakers.

That would be an all-time or disaster. Imagine if Vegas misses the playoffs and Washington makes it after what happened at the deadline. Yep. It's true. You're going to have every GM in the league being like, actually, I should sell. This is the new strategy. Absolutely. Yeah, as much as they're sliding and everything, like, you don't just look at like what the gap is, like you said,

four points with a game in hand on St. Louis and five with a game in hand on Minnesota. those are the only two teams that are really in it because they're eight points up on Calgary also with a game in hand, you know? You're just like, yeah, but they're the blues in the wild. You know? Like, you just can't look at that and be like, this is, of course, a very serious team

that we have to take their chances at the play. Again, anybody can rip off like, you know, four wins in a row or whatever and make it at least interesting. But, you know, we can also be serious about this. we don't have to pretend, you know? Yep, fair enough. It is the time of year for pretending, though. Like, hey, you know what?

They're only six points out. Did I see someone say something about like the penguins getting back in the playoff race the other day? Could that have been something I saw? They are only six points out. Yeah. Six points back to the capitals. They're right there.

And, of course, we're also at that point of the season where like a team like Montreal or Ottawa gets hot. and gets to within six points by the end of the season. And we then go, dude, there were three wins away from making the playoffs. They're right there. We call that Ottawa fan disease. That is kind of the Ottawa. I was trying to pick another team other than Ottawa to point two.

They are. That is them. I've used the example for a very. This year's version. I've used the example for a very long time, but that was always, The Blue Jackets. Whoa. Did you see their record after the All-Star break?

They played at like a 98-point pace. They're about to turn the corner, blah, blah, blah. And then everyone was like, oh, wait, no, they're the fucking blue jackets. If you take out all of the stretches where they played bad. Yeah, right. I mean, we got that article this year, right? Remember, they beat the avalanche that they were playing their seventh string goaltender? I got to tell you, no, I don't.

No. But the point is I could have. I could have remembered it. And then there you go. That's what it's all about. But yeah, so I don't know. Like, we just don't have to pretend. There was like a thing, again, in the Seattle newspaper the other day, they did the,

they're like weekly or monthly power ranking. I don't know how often they do them. But they did their power rankings and they were like, could this be the last chance for the Krakens playoff hopes or whatever? And then you like click on it and they, They have the crack in 23rd in the league in their power rankings. And it's like, so even you're not really pretending. You're just putting it in the headline.

So I click on it and me. I get mad. Click bait. It was clickbait. Clicks. We don't say clickbait anymore. Everyone just says clicks. Got to get those clicks.

You got to get it. Look, you're going to tell me you don't need to get the clicks? I need those clicks. I need them, folks. Every time somebody clicks on one of my articles, there's like a intricate series of two. and a little penny falls into a jar in my kitchen table. Direct from James Myrtle. That's how it works.

That's our business model at the athletic. People crack the code. Clicks. It's clicks. Do you ever get this when you post an article and it's like, it gets retweeted by like a local beatwriter or something like that? Which happens to me occasionally. Oh, R.L wrote about the flyers or whatever, you know?

Pretty interesting what he had to say. I get this, I get this sometimes of like, people go like, paywall. It's like, yeah, bug, fucker, that's right. Like you're going to be like, oh, thanks for letting me know. Oh, shit, let me take care of that for you. Here's actually a code that you get all the articles for free. That's right. Paywall.

Paywall, can you summarize this for me? Yeah, you're, you're cheap. And or my content is not worth paying for. It's definitely one of those two things. Oh, do we want to talk about the Islanders really quickly? I forgot about this. They were hot for a minute there, and then they lost a bunch of games in a row. And it turns out, like we were saying, even bad teams can win some games in a row.

Yep. Still right there, though. It's hard not to be in the Eastern Conference. I guess it's the broader point of everything we're saying. Because not only do you look at that wild card race, and maybe it's just the race for the one now with Tampa. But as the metaphor I used in my column this week is that the Flyers are doing the Simpsons, he's just spinning the ball on his finger, just take it.

That's right. With like with their spot. And I mean, you talk about teams selling at the deadline. The Flyers didn't. I mean, they brought in some guys as well to kind of balance it. But boy, they don't. They're kind of like. And they shouldn't have.

So wait, you're saying if we make the playoffs, we get to play the hurricanes. Cool. We're good. No, right. Like, they should not have been big buyers or anything. That would have been crazy. That's right.

They're the islanders, you know? But, I don't know. If they make the playoffs this year with the new coach and everything, that's just, like, a way for them to sell more tickets next year. That's kind of what it boils down to. Like, nobody, again, nobody's going to be like, oh, the islanders, they're right there. Mm-hmm. But next year, you can maybe sell that a little bit.

I don't know. Anyway, we mentioned them earlier. His name's T.J. O'Shea, you played his thousandth game in the NHL the other night. Looked like he might not for a second there. I don't know if you saw that. Yep, there was. Will he, won't he drama around that? But apparently his teammates were like, you're fucking playing, dog.

That's not We got to have something to cheer for these days, you know So he did And so he became Let's let me scroll down here He became the 382nd player To play in a thousand games in the NHL

Okay And oh you know what 383rd they have not added him to the list Wait, I'm confused Oh no no Okay, they did add him to the list. He's just one of the guys who, one of the like 14 guys who did it this year.

Okay. 14. Wow. All right. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, nine, ten, eleven, 12th guy this year. And then there's a couple guys who I think could still get there this season maybe.

Mm-hmm. They're within, you know, enough games at the end of the season. So in honor, of T.J. Oshy, we're going to do, once again, a couple of quick games of 20 questions. One at one each. We're going to feed one back and forth here. Okay. What did I say the number was? 282. Yeah. 282. Let me pull up a guy here for my friend Sean. The guy is, Okay. You may ask any questions you like about this player.

Actually, let me make sure we didn't do him before. I'm pretty sure we didn't. But let's see here. Nope, we did not do him yet. Great. That's what it's all about. All right, let's go, is he Canadian? He is. Has he played in the 2000s? No. Wait. Yes. Yes. Oh, folks see how I tricked him into giving some extra information away.

That's right. So that would put, I'm going to say, like we're talking like mid-80s through the 90s and then just the tail end of the 2000s. Awesome. Is he a forward? Is he a forward? He is, yeah. Is he a center? Yes, he is.

Did he ever win a major award? Yep. Did he win the heart? Nope. Did he win, was he ever a top five heart? No. Do you have a thousand points? No.

Did he win the Selkie? Yes. All right, we're humming now. What was that? Nine questions by my count. Yep. Canadian Center won the sulky, but was not a top five. That's interesting because

did he Can I throw a guess out? I don't know if I've ever gotten in 10 before. Is it Mike Packer? No. Oh, did Mike Packer play a thousand games? Dude, you could have at least sounded intrigued when I threw the guesso.

That was... I thought you had it. Based on the information I gave you, I gave you more than enough information to get this guy, for sure. Because I'm just thinking like that is the, sort of time where a lot of the guys who were who were winning the Selke were

were winning that were heart candidates like they went through a phase where they gave it to like Francis Eisenman Gilmore Fedorov um oh is this guy in the Hall of Fame is he in the Hall of Fame he is he is okay should he be in the Hall of Fame that's a different question that would have been a very different question okay all right okay that's uh That was all right. That was quicker for me than it often is. Yeah. I'm happy with that.

Yeah, no, you did a good job on that one, for sure. Thanks. All right, I'm going to pick one for you now, and I'm going to sort of scroll through the list and make sure I've got somebody, my buddy, R.L. That is the tricky part for me. All right. I got a guy. I got a guy for you. All right.

All right. Is he Canadian? Yes. Not helpful. Is he a forward? Yes. Did he have at least a thousand career points? No.

Okay, I'm in trouble already. Forward a thousand career points. Did he ever win any major awards? No. Okay. Did he ever win a... Stanley Cup? No.

Oh, boy. No major awards. No Stanley Cup. Is he most associated with an Eastern conference team? Uh, no. Okay.

Was he ever in the top five of a major award voting? Um, Only the Calder, I will say to give you. Only the Calder. All right.

And to add to that, I will say that he did win all rookie honors. Yeah, that doesn't count. That is not a major award. No, absolutely not. Did he play in the 2010s? Yes. Okay. Never won a major award.

Never won a cup. 2010's mostly a Western Conference guy probably Canadian Center Hmm Is he active? Is he an active player? Yes he is Okay

That's interesting Um The center though Western Conference, Western Conference Um Let me think here. Does he currently play for a Western conference team? Yes, he does.

Okay. I believe that was question number 10 for you. All right. I'm just trying to think of guys who are active players who are... Let me... Okay. I'll ask the question I asked last time. Would I say he sucks now?

No. I don't think he would. Okay. That's cheating a little bit just because of... Would you say he sucks now? No. No, you wouldn't. Okay.

It's a little cheating because that's obviously not on the hockey reference. No, it actually is. I have a browser plug-in that just... It just, as I scroll, there's a little picture of you either shaking your head disapprovingly or giving a... Big thumbs up. Yeah, giving like the big little kid on a computer thumbs up. up to this.

The number of NHL players, I actually would, you know what, like if hockey reference wants to put that as a feature on the website, you know,

I'd be happy to pose for the photos. Actually, I shouldn't say that. They're a competitor. Yeah, I was going to say, you've got your own site

that you could. That's right. Okay, let me think here. Active player. Did I ask if he's currently in the Western Conference?

I did ask that, right? Yep. Okay. The only guy I can think of, oh, this will be a helpful way to do it. Did he cross a thousand this season? Yes. Okay. I was just looking at this list, so this really helps me.

Western Conference guy just passed it this year, a center, a forward, a Canadian, no major awards, no Stanley Cup. The only guy I can think of who I think hit it this year Is it Sam Gagne? It is not Sam Gagne. Oh, okay. Pretty sure he hit it this year. I'm going to look up Sam Gagne now. Sam Gagne did appear to who have hit it this year.

Another center, never won a cup, never won a major award. You know, Sam Gagne's played for seven teams? That sounds about right. I believe that Including four for a year Or less He was one of those guys for a really long time Yeah

Well traveled Yeah Decent player And I wouldn't say he sucks Oh you wouldn't say Okay well then you definitely wouldn't say this guy sucks Okay Because this guy's better than Sam Gagne

There's a little freebie for you Wow Who the fuck else is there Played a thousand games this season. Western Conference guy. The only other guy I can think of is like Ryan O'Reilly. Nope. Not Ryan O'Reilly either.

Holy shit, man. Also, you're definitely getting warmer now. Okay. Okay, let me narrow it down this way. Is he in the Pacific Division? No. Okay, he's in the Central. Okay.

You have five questions to go. Fuck, man. This is tough. Did it this year. Mostly a Western Conference guy. Let me think of guys in the Central. Let's see. Nobody from St. Louis did it this year, I don't think.

Dallas had... Who the fuck was it? Who Dallas have this year? Is it Matt Duchesne? It is Matthew Shane. Yeah. Nicely done. Has actually played...

Exactly one game more than Sam Gagne, according to... That's fun. Wow. Hockey reference, so we're close on that one. I was trying to subtly nudge you when I pointed out how many teams Sam Gagne had played with, because if you'd gone down that list, Matt Dushain on team number five. Yeah, I guess I don't think of him being on that many teams, but that checks out for sure. Can I name all the Matt Dushain teams?

Oh, that's a fun one. obviously Colorado, Ottawa, Dallas, his current team, played in national for, oh, Columbus. Columbus. That would be the one to,

yeah. To forget. Yep. Famously, they traded for them and it went great, I think. I'm remembering right. It went great.

Most successful playoff run, franchise history. And what else can you really ask for, you know? That's it. That's all you can do. So yeah, oh, you know what?

I had this written down and then I forgot about it. Do we want to talk very quickly about Connor Bedard? We sure can. He. Calder trophy winner. Well, there was a question for a little while there. There was. But was there a serious question or was that just wild fans going about for their dad?

Well, I wish you wouldn't talk about Mike Russo that way. But, um. It's, I think that if he had come back and not been, well, let me put it this way. In his last four games, Connor Bardard has 10 points. And if he doesn't go on that kind of a run to really push himself up to around a point a game, I think we're 100% having the Brock Faber conversation. Okay. Because he missed, what did, what did, uh, what did, uh, Badard missed?

like 15 games, something like that. Yeah. That's a lot of games to miss. And I think that gets you at least into the area. And again, there's no guarantee he's going to play the, you know, every one of their games the rest of the way either. You don't hope, you know, you know what I mean. You don't wish for that kind of thing, obviously. But like, he could get hurt again.

It's, that's hockey, you know, so could Brock favor. But if you get to the end of the year and Connor Bidad is, you know, like at 0.8. points per game or something like that. And Brock Favors played all these monster minutes and has played every game and Bedard's missed 15. And so you're like, oh, I guess Bedard's like a little below 60 points. I don't think you can give him the award. But if he gets up around 70 and especially considering like the just awful rosters he's

played with at various points this season due to injury and trades and all this kind of I don't know. I don't know. I don't know how you deny him the award. I'll put it that way. If, again, he keeps up, well, if he keeps up this level of production, 10 points every four games, he's going to get to like 85 and it's not even a conversation, you know? Big huge win for the Hawks beating the sharks.

On the weekend, not quite clinching dead last for the sharks. but pretty close. They play one more time this week. It'll be interesting. Don't we love cheering against our own teams? Although I have noticed there's been a strong kind of vibe out of Chicago that no, no, it's okay this time. We want to win down the stretch. We don't want to watch this team lose just for lottery odds.

Yeah, we already got like a generational talent maybe. Yeah, and did it without finishing last year. Right. So we're actually, we actually think tanking's bad. Yeah. Yeah. We did it that one time. No.

Let me get freaking Kyle from Chicago on the phone, okay, folks? He'll tell you what's up. But yeah, oh, this question, this question was posed the other day. Greater evidence of NHL conspiracy. Okay. Chicago wins again or Pittsburgh wins. Oh, dude. Pittsburgh winning would be so funny.

It really would be. I mean, Pittsburgh clearly would have to be. I mean, Chicago, if they do win, it's going to be what, like a 15% chance or something. Yeah. Something like that. Right. But, oh, boy, if Pittsburgh won. It would be really funny.

I would be giddy with the excitement of just watching people lose their. absolute minds. Look, I love a conspiracy theory. Yeah. Right? I'm a fan of the form, let's say. I don't even think it could be theory at that point. You know, like, if they were like, oh, the craziest thing happened, the penguins had a 1.2% chance to get the Macklin Celebrini.

And isn't it crazy? Uh-huh. They did it. Yay. Just in time. Yeah. not doing the Sydney Crosby Wayne Gretzky Press

conference anymore. No. Doing Mario a solid, yeah. Yeah. Anyway, I guess that's it for this week's show. Again, like, this is the part of the season we're doing a podcast and just being like, or not going like,

see that a Capitals game last night? You know, that's tough. It gets really difficult. Yep. No trades talk about. Nope. probably not any more firings, although

we'll see. Yeah. Getting a lot of them in college hockey. I was talking about this with someone a couple of weeks ago. I was like, oh, it doesn't feel like there's going to be that many, if any, at all in college hockey.

And then there's been like four this week, I think, which is a, you know, a decent chunk of what you usually get. And the season isn't even over for a lot of teams. So we'll see. but lots of, I mean, this is the time of year in the NCAA, you know, conference championships are this weekend, what it's all about. So, yeah, why don't I start the plugs off this way? Pay attention to all my college hockey stuff.

I have a lot coming out in the next three weeks, four weeks, because the Frozen Four is about a month away, a little less. And, you know, I'm going to have a lot of, like, wall-to-wall NCAA tournament, coverage. Very cool. So, head on a lot. No, that's right. Head on over to E.P.

Rinkside, use the code I love EP. You'll get 15 months for the price of 12. From what I understand, it's the only coupon code we're going to have up until around draft time, probably. So get dialed in now. Get all the NCAA free agent. Oh, maybe people want me to talk about that, all the guys that are signing. with NHL teams out of college right now. We are getting to that time, right?

Yep. Some guy who didn't get drafted four years in a row will suddenly be the best prospect. Yeah, my advice on all these things is like look at the guy's age, first of all. If he's like 24, 25, you do not have a prospect on your hands. Just, you know, like that guy might play in the NHL, but he's not going to be like a huge difference maker or whatever, you know. Those guys are very few and far between. If you get a guy who's like 21, 22, that's maybe a different story. But then you got to also look at, and this is critical, the conference that those guys are coming out of.

If you're getting like guys who were good players in the NCHC, you know, that's one thing. If you're getting guys who were like good players in the CCHA, I'd be less excited if I were you. Again, it doesn't mean like you're getting a bad player. There are plenty of good players that have come out of the CCHA over the years. But, you know, the odds aren't in your favor. That's all I'll say. Again, we have a really good, like, free agent guide for college over at EP Rinkside. Like, I think we did the top 20 college free agent, something like that.

And if your team signs one of those guys, maybe that's something to be excited about. But otherwise, you know, rain in a little, you know?

Sure. What about you? I find me at the athletic. I have not really much idea of what I'm writing for a lot of the rest of the week, but I'm going to have some fun stuff.

Plus tomorrow, me and Sean Gentile with brand new dad Frank Carrotto Wow There you go On a podcast I guess I should say

Yeah I mean I knew But I didn't write an article Where I was like Hey Frank How's the diaper changing You ever read those articles Where it's like

It's supposed to be a conversation Between two people Yeah I hate the articles Yeah But also There's nothing easier than just

opening up a Slack channel and 50 minutes later you got yourself an article. Well, I mean, that's why they write them, right? But the one Here's every one of those articles ever. Are you ready for how they go? They go

Like, Sean, make any point at all. The Tampa Bay Lightning are going to make the playoffs. It's interesting you say that, Sean. Dot, dot, dot. The worst to me are the ones where it's like a group. And there's always the one, like the one guy who's trying to be silly about it. He's trying to be ironically detached. That's a classic.

That was the old 538 special that he always have. It's good times. Yep. Don't write those kind of articles. Don't do it. Sports writer or anything. Those ones take. Me and Gentile are going to write at least four more.

those. The other really bad one for me is like the imagined conversation. Like, oh, here's what would be, what would be said if freaking Gary Betman was in the room. What about the ones where I debate myself and just do both sides of a conversation? Is that still okay? Yeah, those are good because I've definitely written, like, I remember when, oh, who was it? There was a guy on the blues that signed like a huge contract. and I was like, I get why they did it. I wouldn't have done it. And here's the like the plus and minus of all that. And like I like writing those articles where you're just kind of like talking out like, what do I think about this?

Sure. I don't know. Those are good to me. But as a guy who has written them, I get to say they're good. But I've also written the like, that's a really good point, Sean. Dot, dot, dot. I've written those too. And I hate them.

that you say that. All right. Thanks so much. Oh, the PuckSoup Patreon. Patreon.com slash Puck Soup. All kinds of bonus episodes. Check it all out. I don't know.

Whatever. Or don't. Or don't. The choice is yours. It really is up to you. We can't force you. Legally, we've checked with our lawyers and it's apparently not something

we're allowed to do. That's right. So, yeah, so thanks for listening, folks. And we'll be back next week. Have a good one. See you.