Puck Soup - Sean Swap

Episode Date: August 3, 2022

Hey, gang. Just one quick thing before we get started here. I forgot to say this during the episode, so Katie's putting this at the beginning of it. But we are going to take a few weeks off from doing the main show, as we often do during the summer. I think we mentioned this the last time we did a main episode. But that doesn't mean the podcast is stopping for the summer. No, no, no. We are going to just do extra long mailbags on the Patreon. So if you're interested in what me and Sean have to say, about, I don't know, like the fifth line guy, your team just signed. We might cover that on a mailbag every Wednesday for the next little while. So around the end of August, I think, is when we're going to be back. And with the main show, anyway. And in the meantime, check out patreon.com slash puck soup to keep up with everything else. Okay, enjoy the show with me and Sean Gentilly. Goodbye. Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slap shots and goons.

We've got. the commentary to what if you commute. We also cover movies, TV shows, it's and tunes. It's your weekly bowl of Hagi and Nonsense. I'm Ryan Lambert from Elite Prospects. I'm Greg Wyshinsky from ESPN. Wait a second. Hold on. We're going to get a letter from a legal department about this.

No, it's Sean Gentilly. Hello. The other Sean that I work with on occasion, he's like, oh, I want to, I don't know, spend time with my kids, something along those lines. Do you actually look at us as coworkers? Is that what you're saying? Me and you are colleagues. It never dawned on me that we work together until this very second. I mean, like, it's true that we do, though.

Yeah. Yeah. Now, some of you may be thinking to yourself, is this the only podcast about Goldfinger and those little square, like pretzel things that look like checkerboards? No, it's not. It's puck soup still. Snaps? Yeah, they're fun. We do in 45 minutes on this now?

I think so. The best pretzel shapes. Overrated, underrated favorite least favorite pretzel shapes. This is puck soup. The reason I bring up Goldfinger, did you see about the, uh, English band that they're a cover band, but the songs they cover are just on the Tony Hawk soundtrack. Did you see about that? Oh, I love that.

That's a wonderful gimmick. It's a really good gimmick. And Tony Hawk got up on stage with them at their last show and did, uh, did he sing Superman? Yep. Okay. Yes, he did. Um, coincidentally, I had for no reason whatsoever, I guess, listened to the self-titled Goldfinger album.

Wow. Pretty good. You know, I've talked to us before, but, um, open your eyes. I've already the stupidest thing you've ever said. I bought Open Your Eyes, the record that came out in the early 2000s and was a vegetarian for about four days because of it. It was about the horrors of the meatpacking industry. Yeah. Now, see, I ran up in Sinclair's The Jungle in high school.

Ah, yes. you, a man of taste, and... That's the word I'm looking for. I almost said leisure. It's very early. Not leisure. Whatever. Do we have to talk about hockey? We do. Okay. We do, yeah. Let me lead off with this hockey-related thing.

I saw somebody posted this on the Puck Soup Discord, and it was like a Sportsnet Instagram thing. Nine active players have played the Buffalo Sabres in the playoffs. Oh my God. Can you name them? I will say three guys that I think of as

Bruins. Four guys that I think of as flyers and two guys that were thrashers. Jesus Christ. And they're all like old. Yeah. Okay. So,

Charra is the obvious one. That's the oldest guy I can think of. In the world. Yeah, I'd name an older one. You can't do it. He's old. He's older than my grandma's husband. Richie's like 90.

Craig Anderson? No. I don't think he played for any of the teams I just said. Oh. Did he play for the Thrasher's as possible? He did not. Oh, God. Another old brewing.

I'm just trying to think of like old guys. Andy Green. Bergeron. Bergeron is another one of them, yes. You see the other guys, the other guys are thrashers. Well, there's one more Bruin. And no longer a Bruin. He has changed teams several times.

Old guy stinks now, really bad. I'm trying to think. Old guy stinks now. not really bad. Not really bad. Apart from the Bruins, he's only played on Western Conference teams. God almighty. Traded from the Bruins.

Traded from the Bruins. Oh, Luteach? Correct. Okay. Who else? Other thrashers. The thrashers. Okay.

I think I have this one locked. Ron Hainesie. No? No. Well, he's not in the NHL, he hasn't been for several years. That's not true. By the way, that is absolutely not true. I don't know if he was, he was maybe not on a roster this past season, but he was certainly

on one year before that. Really? Now, see, this is a shock to me. Yeah. All right. One guy is on, again, another guy that changed teams a bunch of times since being on the thrashers, but also was on. those inaugural

Jets teams Chicago Ladd? You know, he was one of the many guys Andrew Ladd Yep And another guy who is still With the Thrashers organization

Still with the Thrashers organization Still with the Thrasch? Is Chris Thorburn Like And playing for Winnipeg's HL team anymore? No, I don't think so. I love

I love, love remembering some Thrashers. Yeah, absolutely. This guy is old, and it seems like he doesn't want to be with the Thrashers organization anymore. He's, again, like 35. Blake Wheeler? Some like that. Yeah, that's right. Also, also a former one.

And now we have four classic flyers. That's right, yeah. Four classic flyers. JVR? No, wait, that's, that's awesome. JBR is one of them. Yeah, that's absolutely. Absolutely correct.

Think of two more, one more guy stuck with the flyers for a long time. Brian, is Brian Elliott, does Brian Elliott still count? Mm-mm. Okay, who, if I would say to you, why doesn't Brian Elliott count? I ask you. I don't think he was on any of those people. Really? I figured, I figured he was, I figured he was the backup on someone.

This sucks. Just tell me who it is. All right. Clodz-Jureau, Jeff Carter, Sergei Bavrovsky. Yeah, okay. I'd have gotten there. I was trying to think of that...

Yeah, you got mad, though. Seemed almost too obvious to me, but okay. Yeah. Or I just didn't think of those guys. That's crazy. That's what happens when you don't make the playoffs for... What is it now? 11 years?

50, I think. I think it's 100. It is 11. Okay. Wow, I pulled that one out to make up for not remembering Clodgeroo. By the way, you were wrong about Ron Haines. He didn't play last season. He didn't.

Last season, 1920. He played for the St. Pat's. Macandoo. Macandu's got a great, great, great. great, great Ron Hainesie St. Pat's story. I don't if you ever heard it. He fought Nuzi Lalonde when he played for them, I think. I think that's the story.

Don't ask what happened with him until Blake. Did not get along. It was crazy. So I guess the breaking news this morning is that teams are scrambling to avoid arbitration by any means necessary. No. Yeah, well, I mean, let's say it this way. Yes, we're brought was the last guy to sign. He signed this morning one year.

I think it was 5.8, something like that. And this is a classic situation where it's like, I don't understand why the team's nickel and diming this guy. Because they're teams, and that's what they do. This, there are a lot of guys where it's like, yeah, take this guy to arbitration. Who cares? Somebody posted a thing of like there have only been 28 or something like that arbitration cases in the last decade or so. Yeah, that sounds right.

Almost all those guys end up not sticking with that team beyond two or three seasons. And then all the other guys still left their team pretty much, I think. I don't remember all the names now. You know, it's crazy too because NHL GMs are typically such a forward-thinking bunch that don't fuck themselves down the line. at the cost of saving $500,000 over one season. I think 5.8 for Brad is, on this deal,

I think that's close to being right. Because I saw the ARB request, and I am on vacation right now, so I'm, you know, it's a miracle that I did. But I saw that he asked for 6.5, and they tried to get in the team wanted 5.1, I believe.

I thought it was even lower than that. Yeah, 4.1. So he ends up signing for 5. I mean, 4.1 is classic, you know, we are going to make the lowest, the lowest offer that won't get us, like, maybe literally physically laughed at by the arbitrator or by the arbitrator. Right. See, at that point, why not just go in and say, this guy, he should be playing for league minimum? Since the arbitrator always just cuts it straight down the middle.

It's like. Pretty much, you just go, and then on the player's side, I should make. $40 million this season. I'm actually very cool. And then Tom Fitzgerald is sitting at the table and saying, no, this guy sucks and he's a bad guy. We don't like him personally.

That's right. Or professionally. Look how small he is. This guy sucks. Why isn't he 6'4? And then they say, okay, 4.4.1 it is. Right. You know what you make a good point about?

He's not that tall. I think that's probably If I had a guess I would say that's probably part of the team's You know Redicence to actually come up with something long term I guess Just give a fucking six years

What do you give a shit? I don't know what the problem is In the devil's salary structure is still It's still great Like they're in great position Yeah you would think they don't care think you would think that they would say like okay this guy is a core piece we're comfortable

paying him you know six by six or something because they have especially after this especially after this coming year right because you have yonson and tatar and all these guys who are coming off the book so they already have the you know they basically have the money to do it now and god knows they're going to have they're going to have a bunch of money to play with next off season. So you would think that they would be comfortable just being like, yeah, you know what, dude, you're good, you are part of

the core here and you can add them to the stack of of Hughes and Heeshire and Hamilton and, you know, the group of guys that signed long term. But it is. I mean, like, this doesn't... It's crazy. Doesn't both particularly well. They're like, oh, we can't give this guy, Andre Palat money. Forget it.

Yeah, Andre Palat, there's a big, strong guy. Famously, famously gigantic winger Andre Palat. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I guess you want, you maybe want to see some kind of repeat year of what happened

of what just happened. Like, I understand that to an extent, but man, that does, that's a damning stat. That's a damning stat that you brought up before too where you're like, this doesn't, this tends to not work out. And it shouldn't because players are human beings and hold grudges as they should.

Yeah. I'll see if I can find it real quick. The other ones were Mangiopani three years, four point something, five point one maybe. And Schillington, two years, two and a half. I like that for Shillington. Again, the flames just love kicking the can down the road. They're like, that's two years from now. problem. True living

loves. He loves bridge deals. I think two and a half for Shillington that makes sense because like if he if he improves on what he did last season you know, great. You got to steal. Yeah, sure. I would say his floor now is that of a $2.5 million

player. Like I think the odds that Oliver Shillington comes out in his worse than a two and a half million dollar AAV player for the next two years are pretty, are pretty, are pretty minuscule. What do you think of the Manje upon a deal? Because I've talked about this quite a bit over the last 24 hours. Yeah, I guess the way I think about it is like, again,

this is just making it so it's like, oh, here's another winger who doesn't want to stay in Calgary. Yep. I get, again, like you say, I get their reticence they want to get kind of a prove it year, but they didn't only want to sign him for one year because then maybe they're going to pay him a billion dollars because he's going to slot into a higher role this year with both of their top line winners leaving. The flip side is like in terms of doing the stuff that gets you gigantic deals, I don't think Mangiapani. I think, I think as in going on heaters that last.

for six weeks or whatever. I think I can't imagine Manjipani doing more than what he did last year. I think he's a fine player, but like he was unconscious for the first six weeks of the season.

But now he's going to get power play time or more of it. We'll see. In theory. I know those those negotiations were difficult. I bet.

I'll say that much. And they were, and it's not like they were going on for a while. Yeah. Well, anyway. This has been Calgary Flames Talk on Puck Soup. Yeah, finally. We get to talk about these guys.

They haven't come up a lot. Oh, did you see this? Jake Gardner's going to play next season? Yeah, that's been on the books for a minute. That was part of the reason that everything the Hurricanes did and worth thinking about doing and maybe coming closer than people thought to doing.

That was why it always came with an asterisk because you would see their cap space and you're like, huh, they got, they got money to do something interesting here. But you always had to account for the fact that Gardner wants to play and he's going to come off LTIR and he's going to make $4.1 million against the cap next season, which is crazy.

That's crazy. I, like, good luck to him. I hope it works out for, all involved or whatever, but when's the last time this guy fucking played hockey, you know? Yeah, and it's, and it's, you know, if you're the canes, it's kind of doubly unfortunate because, what do you, you know, again, they had more that they wanted to do, but you have to account for, yeah, you have to account for that dude coming back next season, which, again, I had the same, I had the same reaction as you just had probably like a month ago when I was

going through and trying to I did a big it was fucking it took me so so long and it was so labor intensive but I went through every single team's you know cap situation and some projections for the RFA's

and guys they had to worry about maybe being on coming off LTIR going on LTIR just to get like a you know decently comprehensive look at how much money they had to spend headed into the UFA day and that was when I realized

that with Gardner. I was like, oh, shit, he's gonna play, and they have to prepare for that. I, like, this is the thing. I didn't, I thought they, he was a guy who they're just like, oh, yeah, he's on LTIR forever. He's, he physically can't play anymore. Like, when did you see this report that he was going to play? I thought he was on, like, this weekend. I completely thought he was on Robidal Island or whatever. Yeah, I was not, I was not expecting him to, I think, Prince Seabrook's house. There's, who else is? Pronger lives at the end of the cul-de-sac in that neighborhood.

Yeah, he's the head of the HOA. Uh-huh. And he takes his job very, very seriously. And you don't want, you don't want to get into a situation where your lawn is a quarter-reve longer than it's supposed to be. I was just about to say Chris Pronger is, you know, bitching at Brian Little for how long as front lawn is or, whatever. Yeah, it's like that X-Files episode. I never watched the X-Files, really, but every once in a while I would catch one and it would

like really grab my attention. And there's one where there's like an HOA that's using an ancient evil to keep people in line. It's a very funny. One of the weird, like, overlaps that you and I have is like I'm not nearly as big of a X-Files guy as, I think most people would have guessed. But I saw that with Gardner. I think Sarah Savian wrote about it or I don't know. I maybe asked around.

And yeah, the fact that that was in the entire going through 32 teams and going through everybody's injury situation and all that stuff. Because there are guys that you've forgotten about. I mean, across the league that are sort of in the Jake Gardner situation. I do think that he was the one that surprised me the most just because of the fact that you knew that Carolina was trying to was trying to spend spend some cap and add some talent that they're interested in guys like Patcher Ready

and Burns and doing that sort of thing and then you're like oh shit well again they have to account for Jake Gardner who hasn't played hockey since 2017 2020 2017. Yeah, I know, I know it hasn't. It was early.

It was early in that season, right? When he ran into his problems. Yeah. And he was bad. And that, I guess, is the real problem. Is that they're going to pay this guy all this money. And he's probably going to be really bad for them. They, you know, like, I don't want to root against the guy because, like, he's a player I liked a lot when he was capable of playing a hockey, basically.

but they really have to prepare themselves for this is like an ugly situation. Yeah. Here's a good question about Jake Gardner, I think. From that era of Leaf's teams, was there any player? And I think Jake Garner, look, good hockey player. I'm not trying to even re-litigate any of that. But was there who among that group from that few years of the, roster had more exhausting discourse surrounding him than Jake Gardner.

Oh, you can name 50 guys? Yeah, can you? Okay, maybe not 50. Kessel, that's obvious. That's an easy one. Tyler Bozac is another guy. Bozak was a big one. Cody Franson, a classic.

Frankson. Mark Archabello. I was just going to say, any guy who got power play time for the Toronto Marley, that's a guy, you know, he could be in the top six of any other NHLT, but not the Maple Leafs, this team that sticks out loud. Because they're just so good that they simply don't have the space for Mark Archivello. James Reimer, I think had some really fraught conversations about him. Oh shit The guys that ended up going to the islanders What were their names Russian guys?

Ponokorovsky This might be a little too early I guess I think that's too early Coolman Coolman was had some rough Coolman is the guy I was thinking of Yeah

Ponikovsky Grabovsky was rough Grabovsky I think people eventually cool us Did all those guys in the plane for the islanders? Grabovsky certainly did Cool and cool him and certainly.

Yes. I don't know about Ponokrovsky, because I know that he ended up on the penguins for like 15 minutes, 12 years ago or whatever it was. But Gardner is, though, the point being, like he's one of those guys that I don't want to say that I resent him. I don't personally resent Jake Gardner. But the amount of Jake Gardner discourse, I just, that was just in the,

oh my God, it was just like a constant kind of, you know, The resting level of Jake Gardner discourse that's going to take place over the course of four years was just like, I can't. You know what? I can't talk about this guy anymore. So I'm glad that, I'm glad. And here we are and it's 2022. And we're trying to figure out like what, if anything, he can bring. He can bring to the canons.

Like, let's go. He's back. Yeah. He's back, baby. Let's argue about Cody Franson. He never played for the Islanders. by the way, I didn't think so. Devils, I was thinking of the devils he played for.

My buddy's dad called him Ponachronkowski for the entire, for the duration of his time with the penguins. I've never been able to think of him as anything other than that. Ponachronkowski. Yeah, there's always those little things. A friend of mine's mom was calling Pete Buttigieg. Budavitch for a while. It's not that far off, but it's still very, it's still very, but just wrong enough to be very annoying. And it was in the context of, I'm thinking of voting for Budavich in the primary.

Yeah, you know what? It's like, you know, you know, this is whatever I agree. What you should do is write in Budavich. Right in, right in Budavich. That's B-U-T-E-V-I-C-H. If he had somehow won, that would be what the Brandon people call him. Anyway. I know you're talking.

The other defenseman I desperately want to talk about this week is John Klingberg. Yeah. One year seven million goes to Anaheim. I think it was on 32 thoughts. Jeff Merrick said he turned down eight years 56. from Dallas, thinking he could get eight years 64. And that is why you fire your agent. Ouchy, outy.

That one, now look. I'm going to say any, this gets like 30 maybe, right? Klingberg. Klingberg is 29. He's not like a young UFA. Yeah. So the idea that anybody would, was going to give him $64 million to play hockey for the next.

Folly, I would say. I can't imagine how you're an agent for a guy. And it's John Klingberg, by the way. It's not even like somebody who's like unbelievable, you know? And you're like, I bet you could get eight by eight. Just hold on a minute. Eight seven. That's bullshit.

Who needs $56 million in Texas? we need sixty four right in fact once you make that much money they don't even not tax you they actually give you money back yeah yeah they there is a tax that is enacted on a neighborhood of people who make less than who make less than 32 grand year and they give they give you that money they actually bring them to your house turn them upside down and shake all the change down right I remember when they first said, you know, he's looking for $60 million or whatever. And I was like, no one's going to give him that. Are you fucking kidding me?

He hasn't been good. And this was in like November or whatever. He hasn't been good for two years or three years. And it's not that he's bad. Like, we should say he's not bad. He's just not good. Like, or that level of good anymore. He wasn't the level of John Klingberg that we saw for a few years there at the start of his career.

Right. And it's not, and also, and also, by the way, like he's not this agent misstep with turning down $56 million a year, like Jeff said. That is the final, that's the capper on months and months and months it would seem of mismanagement of that situation. Sure. By John Klingberg and his agent. Like this was, they tried to get him out of there during the season. and the stars were like, no, we'll be keeping you. You are not forcing your way out, you know, mid-season.

You're John Klingberg. And even before that, this is the guy who locked in his client after however many years to that absurd below market deal. And that's why all this happened in the first place. They're trying to make up money that he left on the table by signing for 4.25 a year for seven years in 2015. That is wildly short-sighted by that group. So then it comes down to, you know, this is the year where you try to make all of it back.

And then before you know it, you're arguing over, you know, 63 versus 56 and in a non-tax state and ending up making $50 million less than that. Crazy. Yeah, malpractice, I think, would be the word. Yeah, he got fired. Wisely fired for it. Yeah, for sure. It's like, I, good on, good on whoever's, whoever, whether is Klingberg's mom negotiating the deal from or whatever happened, the new guy.

Yeah. I mean, one year, $7 million with the ducks, and I think in a weird way is a, a, decent contingency plan. Like I can see why they did it. And God knows he's going to be sick for the rest of his life because he won't, like, the $56 million over seven-year offer is not going to reappear next season for John Klingberg from Team X. No, no, no. But I think that one makes sense. So here's, I agree that the, especially because like he has a no move or a no trade clause where he can't be traded without his say so.

before January 1st and then all bets are off. You know, I think he... Then he submits a 10-team no trade clause. And by the way, you said he's 29. That's true. In 11 days, that will no longer be true. So he is doing his age 30 season on a one-year deal and hoping to get what, four?

Maybe somebody might give him four next summer? I don't know. Yeah. He's clearly signed with the idea that at the deadline or maybe a little before it, I'm going to get traded to Carolina or whoever. Yeah, the cap's going to go up again a little bit next year. And he's saying, like, all right, I'm going to be getting power play time with the Anaheim Ducks. I'm going to bank $7 million with Yanaheim Ducks.

You know, hey, Nick Ledy signed for whatever, $4 million a year. How, like how much, is it $44? Jesus Christ. I think that's what they gave. him, yeah. How much, how much, I'll get more than that, right? Like, you can see the logic. I hope it works out for him because that is just, by the time it's all said and done, because of the, because of not even the bridge deal, just the, just the, the long-term extension he signed in 2015. And then because of that, there's no way to quantify this, but I think we could be looking at a

scenario where like outside of true superstar players like the McDavid's and whoever else who could just break the bank if they wanted to like who on earth in this era of the NHL will have left more money on the table than John Klingberg by the time it's all said and done like he's got he's got to be way up there yeah yeah I don't quite recall two separate sets of contract negotiations where the player where the player gets rinsed this badly. Yeah. Good luck.

I mean... Yeah, I'm racking my brain. I'm trying to... The only guy that I can think of off the top of my head here, and I don't think it'll happen. Like, this is a, if the following thing happens, is Nathan McKinnon.

Because as Sean always says, other Sean, always says, is how mad do you think he is that any time anybody's talking about a contract? Yeah. Everyone's like, I can't believe how much money he left on the table for six years or whatever it's been. And, you know, now he might have to take a discount to keep the band together. I wonder how much that bothers him. Like, that would be that.

I bet I'd be fucking pissed if everybody constantly brought up how underpaid I am. he's a weirdo though now if everybody wants to start bringing that up to my boss that's another thing let me tell you um i you know i and i also that's a good bit of business for for pat for beak too i think i think we can it's safe it's safe to say that he seems that i think he knows what he's doing with his job like between so far i would say every everything he's done kind of indicates that yeah are they the toughest decisions? No. I don't think it took. No. I don't think it took, and especially

once he had the go-ahead from ownership in Anaheim to just strip it down to the studs. It's a deadline. Like, I mean, he has no... I mean, me and Custins always talk about it. He has, just with GMs in general. Like, he has no

affection for those guys. He's not, like, they're not Pat for Beak guys. So we say, see you later, right? Send all those guys out. And you get a raft of draft picks and he made all of them and you know whatever and now you're signing a guy in clingberg who probably helps them stay at the cap floor because that was at least a consideration for them on day one I know and is going to absolutely be a tradable asset like if they do I mean and I know the ducks aren't going to be any good but like just you just flip him in six months for

something useful and you will have paid you know you'll have paid John Klingberg three and a half million dollars to flip him for whatever a first round pick or something that somebody's going to get stars in their eyes at the at the deadline because he's

going to be a pending UFA right shot defenseman and Patford Bix can make him make off with it again yeah and and he gets to like basically you're paying him to be an assistant coach specifically for Jamie Drysdale right like he's

Like, here's what you're going to want to do. We both play the same side of the ice, all that shit. And so, yeah, like, there's no downside for this for the docs. Absolutely not. And, like, because even if Klingberg kind of isn't very good, what do they give a shit? Yeah. And you can still probably trade him for something and get yourself a fourth-round pick. Is that, like, the absolute best way to maximize the vet?

Like, if you're buying a fourth-round pick for three and a half million, million dollars or whatever no of course not but it's not nothing and as you say they had to get to the cap yeah like what else what else are you what else are paid player by a lot not a lot 600 300 or about 500 grand but what else are you going to spend your cap money on if not if not if not uh if not trying to trying to buy a second round not some cadre oh just kidding yeah yeah right um he stinks what is i mean because without no i mean no i mean no i mean no I mean, truly, though, without $7 million going to John Klingberg, they would be below the floor. So you might as well, you might as well use that as a mechanism.

I hope somebody does. Just because he seems nice. Yeah, he seems okay. He seems all right. Seems like he has a good sense of humor about himself. Hey, respect. Was Phil ever particularly nice to me? No.

He seems like he's nice to his friends. That's right. I'll say this. Where does he... Is he done? What? Is Phil done? No, he's one of 15 guys secretly signed by the New York Islander.

You think so? Do you think he's in that? No, I don't actually think he's a Lou guy at all. I can't see that talking him to shaving. Phil just, I mean, someone could come over and shave Phil's face for him, and I think I think he'd be fine with it. It's no like, it's no like I would look weird. without a beard situation for him

and said he just doesn't he just doesn't feel like doing it and hey respect but no like what what are the odds that cadre has done that shaved

or signed with the secret signing thing done the secret signing thing at this thing at this point I think pretty good because there's no like as much as you want to say oh well teams are just trying

to get their ducks in a row cap wise before they announce the signing he's agreed to a handshake deal I wrote about this on Monday. Like half the league is a league minimum salary away from being over the cap.

Yeah. Or are already over it. And another, I don't know, quarter of the league are within like $2 million of the ceiling beyond that. And so you're down to like, okay, there's like, and the Bruins aren't that close,

but they're gonna, they have secretly signed Dave, Grachian and Patrice Bergeron. So they're going to, going to be right up against it. And then at that point, you're like, okay, the other teams left are like the senators, the jets, the Red Wings, the stars, Chicago, the Islanders, the Ducks, the Sabres, and the Coyotes. Those are the only teams that could reasonably say, we've signed Nazim Kadri, but we do need to move some money around.

And it's like, is he going to go to fucking Winnipeg? Really? Yeah, I mean, the dream died for the Flint. for the flames yesterday with that. Like, that's, they're off the table. Well, it was always going to. I mean, right. I was going to because they had to give those guys money.

They had to give those guys money, and there was some other stuff that they probably could have done if they wanted to, if they really wanted to make a run out of them, which I'd be surprised if they. The point is, like, Arizona is a team that is below the cap floor right now. So they, but like, so why would they be waiting? Why would they be waiting to announce anything? No, 100%. And the other thing is, like, so, okay, Arizona, somebody's going to take a bad contract from a team that, like, there are one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten teams right now that are over the salary cap, like, day one, over the limit.

And, like, some of those are just, you know, we can, we can shuffle a guy to the minors and that's it, that we're done worrying about his cap hit, right? but like Tampa is 7.2 million dollars over the cap just for an example and like okay they can write off Brent Seabrook well Brent Seabrook doesn't make that much money right so they're going to have to like carry 20 guys for like a huge chunk of the season just to figure it out unless other guys get hurt or whatever

so the point is like how many teams are like you know what give us a second round pick we'll take your your fucking Sean Monaghan contract we'll take your JVR deal. Like I don't know how many teams are going to be like in a like willing to do that basically. That's been true since it's always it's been true for weeks and months where all we're and this is not to knock any because every every every writer, every fan wants to figure out like, all right, how do we clear cap space?

And they say like, well, okay, we'll take our shitty contract and we'll send it to Arizona. and they'll take it for a second round pick. There's only one team that can do that. And that was basically always going to be true. So to see road people, whether they're writers or fans, roadmapping these off-seasons for these guys, and you're like, well, guess what? You have 10 different teams or 12 different teams

think they're going to dump their shit contracts on the Arizona Coyotes. I have some bad news for you. Like, they're not going to, they can only do that. Arizona has 23 guys signed for next. Yeah. Like, 23 guys signed next season. And they're also not still actively trying to not spend money. So, you know, if you're, which is, which is another consideration, right? Like, it's one thing to send a guy with a high hit in a low cash value. Like, those are the guys who maybe you can move. But writers and fans being like, oh, yeah, we'll take our shit guy and send them to, send him to Arizona for a second. Like, they're not. whatever anything. Yeah, there's like there, there aren't that many teams

that can accommodate that guy. Right. And you know, I said the Dallas Stars are one of the teams they're like 10 million below the cap ceiling right now. Yeah, they have some, they have some things they need to worry. So there's all that money gone instantly.

Yep. Maybe. Okay, so they're 10.33 in projected space the stars are. like yeah they're gonna need you gotta cry if you're them you cross your fingers and hope that ottinger and robertson come out below that total yeah and especially because both like combined those guys are probably

in reality worth like double the number you just a 10.3 100% like they're probably worth double that to maybe not double but like 150% of that number whatever it is you know Like, what do you even do with Robertson? Do you put a seven million AVA deal in some long term? Do you even try to bridge him? It would be ridiculous to do. It would be insane.

Three years from now, it's like, okay, this guy costs $14 million. Yeah. I just say to him, do you want fucking eight by eight? Do you want the cling? Yeah. Do you give him the deal that they offered Klingberg? And you're just like, here's $8 million a year. and if you're Jason

Robinson and if you're Jason Robertson do you take that yeah you probably probably that mathematically but also because you'd be like oh you are still making like a million and a half dollars less than Jamie fucking Ben who stinks

he's cooked brutal I wish the stars because the stars have that mandate from ownership and that you know the model there for nil is it just you fucking go for it every year. We can't afford to not make the playoffs. So be as good as you possibly can. And I love that. And I wish that there are more teams who did that. And I wish that there

are more teams who were generally as decent as executing it as Dallas is because that is, because that's easier said than done. Because at some point you're going to get tripped up. You're going to fuck up or you're going to have bad luck with Jamie Ben or Tyler Sagan getting old or injured or some combination of the two. And then, then you're going to be holding the bag for years. And it's a shame that that happened with Dallas because I love conceptually the way that they operate, but they're just completely hamstrung by those two guys.

They pay them, was it like $19 million between the two of them? A little, a shade over, yeah. Jamie Ben's barely an NHL player at this point? That is brutal. He's bad. He's bad. Brutal. I love talking about.

I love talking about the Dallas stars on podcasts. I feel like that's... They're the coolest. Let's wrap this up. How many goals you think Ben scored last year? Six. Come on. Let's be real.

He scored three times that amount. Yeah, I knew he was in double digits. And that was shooting 10%. Boy. Oh, brother. Oh, boy. What else? What else? Oh, I guess I can't remember if I talked about this on the show the last, because we didn't do the main show last week. I don't think we talked about David Quinn to San Jose. So hit me with your thoughts on that. Quinn strikes me as a guy. I mean, he's a retread, and I know everyone likes shitting on retread at this point. He strikes me as a guy who would be better second time around.

I think that's true of a lot of guys who get their second coaching job after not doing so well the first time. I think that's probably right, yeah. I mean, he's, I mean, how true. There's certainly some guys who are just shit coaches and they stay that way, like, regardless of how many chances they get. I think, I like to, I like. It's probably hard to be worse, right? Yeah, that's sort of, that's sort of where I was, that's kind of where I was, that's kind of where I was, getting like it's easy it's easy to get better when you when you drop it as badly as badly as he

did but he's you know he's a smart dude he's and i he's inextricable from mike sullivan for me because those guys know they're really tight and have known each other for a long time and i think if you're the look and they look almost uh they look like their brothers and they sound almost identical except uh except mike sullivan sounds mean and david quin sounds mean and david quinn sounds nice. That is, if you close, if you close your eyes and, or not, not even close your eyes, if you just talk to David Quinn, you would think this is Mike Sullivan in a good mood, which is exceedingly, exceedingly, exceedingly rare. Yeah. I think that's like the optimist's view of Quinn, right? Is that like he's, is that

he, is that Sullivan more than anybody is, is the guy who figured it out, turned it and went from a guy who got fired to a guy who's, who, who, who's, um, who's, um, is, um, um, he's, um, um, it's kind of criminal that he hasn't that he hasn't want to want to jack adams right he's cups and all that all that shit so i think if you want to if you want to take the glass out full approach to quentin you're like he's going to do the sullivan thing because because he talked to sullivan but i don't know he knows that guy they went to the same college they're friends which by the way uh i i love that uh mike greer was like oh the fact that me and him went to the same college it actually

It actually doesn't have anything to do with it. I don't know. You know what? It's funny. You mentioned that. I hadn't even thought about it. I guess we did go to the same company. Wow.

Were we there at the same time? It's like me and... They were not. Yeah, I know. It's like me and Stephen Wino. Are we in Maryland at the same time? I don't know. But here's...

Who the fuck wants a coach to St. Jose Sharks right now? That is the other thing, right? And if you have a coach that you like, if you have a candidate who you think got passed over in favor of David Quinn, I understand that. But do you really want them coaching the San Jose Sharks in 2022, 22. Right. Yeah. That's the other thing to say. Like I said, you couldn't do worse than he did with the Rangers.

I look at the Sharks roster and I go, well, maybe not. About to find out. Yeah, exactly. it's interesting because as you say like there are only so many coaches that you can hire to do like even if you want to say oh another fucking retread it's it's clode julian or whatever like you say do you want clod julian being the fucking coach of the san jose sharks yeah really ringing that extra eight points out of this roster to make them an 86 point team or whatever right and if in the other the flip side is if you're some, you know, hot shot, like up and coming coach who we all want to see get a chance, right? Like everybody's pick, pick a name. You're like, you could do a lot better, you know, show some, show some gumption and take a risk on a guy who hasn't been fired in the last three years.

Like, we would all love to see that. Like, I'm not, I'm not arguing against that as a concept. But that person, this, like, if you are not a Sharks fan and you're just, you're just, just like I want my favorite coaching candidate to get an NHL coaching job. You should not want them to get the Sharks job because they are terrible. That roster is a catastrophe. They're going to be awful. Whoever is taking that job, whether it's David Quinn or Claude Julian or, you know, or Sean Gentilly gets named the head coach of the San Jose Sharks.

Like you were set up to. This I like to hear. Wait a second. Yeah. You know why? Because you fucking hate me. and you want me to fail. You really...

I'm hearing a lot more fallout boy between periods at the Sharks thing. That's crazy. It's like, they're going to suck. And David Quinn's going to get... Of course they are. He's going to get fired in three years. Anybody taking that job

is going to get fired in three years. Pick whoever. John Cooper... Yeah, and I said the same thing about... That roster is a catastrophe. So I'm not worried about David Quinn taking... He's not taking a...

plum job away from somebody he's taking a job that needed to be filled so i can save you know i can save the you know the not i don't want to say outrage but i i can save like i can save that take for some other job or someone is actually passed over for something that's good i don't care that a retread got to san lesea shark's job because they're because they suck and they're going to suck yeah and he's going to get fired again now did you see the uh chatter out of Boston that, I remember because they were like, oh, David Quentin has the inside track for this job. Did you see the theory put out there by people who might know, maybe, that like this was

more of a trial balloon to see how the fans would react? And the fans... The answer was poorly, reacted badly. Yeah, everybody was like, oh, he's like a Boston guy? Yeah, I don't give a shit. Don't let this guy coach the Boston Bruins. Yeah. Yeah, that's tough.

You're hiring, you know, the whole thing is like, we want to bring in a guy who's going to help develop young players or whatever. Did not work out well for the Rangers. Yeah, well, that and the Bruins have no young players. All the young players on their roster are like 25 years old. Isn't that the entire, that is the absolutely the funniest part of all this. Is it Sweeney's like, you know, even, and even like the reported stuff,

the guys who, whether it's fluto, like folks who are around the team, our boy, our boy, Maddie Porter. Like, that was the logic, right?

It was like, okay, Cassidy was shit with the young players and didn't, you know, like, that makes sense. That's always something you hear. That's one of the top five reasons

for coaching changes, is that we need a guy who's better at developing young talent and someone who can connect with younger players. Yeah. Get it. Makes sense. That's a,

a good reason to fire somebody. Who the fuck are these younger players on the Bruins roster? Who? Jack Ackin or whatever you pronounced that guy's last night. I never remember. That's it. He's like... Stenica.

Yeah, there you go. Jack Stannica. And that guy's 29. Yeah. Jack Stannica hates Bruce Cassie or whatever. That's fine. He graduated from high school with my sister. He was born in 1989.

He's 33. He's 33. None of these guys are young. But like, yeah. Young would be a stretch by NHL terms. Yeah, you're 23. Guys who are any good are doing things by the time they're 23. 100%.

Yeah. Guys who were firing coaches for are doing shit by the time they're 23. How about that? There you go. Absolutely. Yeah. And I'm looking at this. Like, they got a couple of 19-year-old guys, Fabian Lysel.

and Brett Harrison, whoever Brett Harrison is, like those are the 19-year-old guys in their system that have contracts right now. And everybody else is like 23, 24 years old. It's crazy. How few young guys, like truly young guys they have at. They really need, the Bruins really needed a coach who could get the most out of Charlie Coyle.

I love, so they, so they, so they, so they, so they, floated the trial balloon hiring David Quinn and reacted so badly that they went out and got Jim the famously unproblematic Jim Montgomery. They're like, actually, no, the fans hate David Quinn. We need to go get someone who will go over well. Well, hey, you want to talk about a coach who has a track record with young players at the University of Denver instead of BU. Actually, I don't know. I mean, he actually, that was Jim Montgomery's thing. Like he was good at that in Dallas before that all went sideways. So it does make sense for the stated goal of the Boston Bruins.

I just don't know where there's a wealth of young players that Jim Montgomery is going to connect with are coming from. They're going to be all like the 23-year-olds who get signed out of college, like all the NCAA free agents the Bruins are going to load up on for fun now. Yeah, which is a thing that always happens. nothing that always pays off as we know. Yeah. Nobody's ever signed a guy coming out of college with a lot of hype.

And that guy didn't end up being any good. That's never happened in the history of the end up. It never. It never. Those guys certainly never top out as 21 goal H.L players. No. No, no, no. It's never happened a single time.

But yeah. Hey, you know what? I just realized we should probably have taken a break like 10, 15 minutes ago. Oh, yeah. You know why? Because we're going to stick this point out. Whoops. That's 100%.

So let's do that. And then we'll talk about another piece of San Jose Sharks news that's coming up. And there we go. All right. This week's episode of Pug Soup is brought to you by Brooklyn and folks. You know what time of year it is. It's middle of freaking summer. It's August.

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to get $15 off your Raycon order. That's buyraycon.com slash puck to get 15% off. Buyraycon.com slash puck. Thank you. So during the break, I was looking at Twitter, And I got a Twitter ad for, what's it called, Prey? Do you know about this? The new movie Prey that's coming out on Hulu, I think, this week?

No, that's not. Is that the... Predator prequel. Oh, that's right. That's right. I saw someone say that they'd made it a while without realizing that there was any kind of predator connection there, too. Yeah, it gets pretty deep into the trailer from what I've seen before, Predator shows up and he does like the laser, like the triple laser dot thing on somebody.

But yeah, it's like this is the first time Predator came to Earth and like indigenous peoples, I'm assuming beat that shit out of them. They just fucked them up really good. You'd hope so. This is fascinating to me because it's not coming out in the theater. It's only on Hulu. This isn't sponsored content or anything. Fascinated. Bundle.

Bundle Hulu and Spotify. One of those things. Code. Puck soup. I can't believe they're not putting this like in a theater. Why not? It doesn't make any sense. You said prey and for whatever reason my first thought was the, I can't remember what it's called,

the Edrus Elba, Lion's, movie. Ooh, is that hunted or something like that? It's something like that. That one is coming out in theaters. I'm being told by my assistant here to my love that the movie is called Beast. Beast. Good movie, I bet.

I'm excited to see it. Starring Kelsey Grammer as Beast, reprising his universally beloved role from the first three X-Men movies as Beast. Idriselba in that Jeep, and he's like, uh, where is it? I can't see it. And then you hear in the distance, do,

do, do, maybe you're here. Oh, no. That's, that's the signal. I'm being hunted. Scramble eggs all over my face. That's when he gets the kill,

though. The, when the lion gets the kill, he's like, are you a Fraser guy? You know, I feel like, I should be and I am not.

I feel like, because I love cheers. Yeah. And I love David Hyperts. Like, any time I watched Frazier as a kid, I was like, this is good. And then I would not follow up on that. My big question is why, so the dad, the dad's a cop or a former cop. And I believe that, I believe that the actresses name, is Jane leaves, and I can't remember her character's name.

Is it Roz, or is it... No. Roz is Frazier's partner at the radio station. Daphne. Daphne. Oh, like the maid? Daphne is her name? Yes, Daphne.

Is she a maid or is she like live in help for the old man? In my head, she's a maid. But this is a classic thing you can just Google. This is Puck Sue. Live in housekeeper. Live in housekeeper. So it's a living... So live in, we got that right.

And also made, we got that right. You don't see that too often. Yeah, you know why? Because it's a one floor apart. It's a very nice condo. I don't know if you need someone living with you. I thought maybe she was, this is how little Frasier had seen.

I thought maybe she was like a nurse for the dad or something. I was, because I was just having a nurse for Eddie. Well, I mean, in his later year, sure. But yeah, like the dad is, I mean, he seems pretty spry. He shouldn't need someone to live. He shouldn't need live in care. He shouldn't need to live with his son in his fancy apartment at all. Overlooking the space.

He does have the cane, though, I suppose. He, yeah, from a wound he sustained in a line of duty. The Korean War. I think he was a cop. No, I know he was a cop. He put a, uh. He shot himself in his foot He's an idiot

So what's the gimmick on Frazier? Like the mom was a psychiatrist or whatever? I don't know I don't know Why are those guys Why are they English? They're not Do you know how long it took me to realize

that Kelsey grammar is not English at all? I think it's really It's really funny that he's not He's just and he's from Um, I, let's see where Kelsey Gramer is actually from. It's going to be Union Town PA. Oh, okay. He's a, he's a, he's a, he's a rich boy. He was born in the, in the Virgin Islands. Oh, wow, well, well. So they be, he probably, and he went to Juilliard.

Grammer's personal life has been surrounded by family tragedies. Okay, that's a shame. Uh, he grew up in Jersey and then moved to Pompano Beach. and he went to prep school in Fort Lauderdale. He's from Florida. He's a Florida guy. He checks a lot of boxes. Hey, I looked it up. Their mother was indeed a psychiatrist. She was portrayed on Fraser by Rita Wilson.

In a flashback, I would presume. I would imagine. However, she was first seen on Cheers. Yeah, it was actually Rita Wilson in horrible 1993 old age, mainly aging prosthetics. She was first seen on Cheers in 1984, played by Nancy Marshand. Yes. I've seen that episode.

I didn't know this. I've seen that episode fairly recently as well. Yeah. The great Nancy Marshand played Livia Soprano. Yes, I know that. I'm saying this for the audience. Be a fucking professional for once in your life. Never.

No. It sucks. Why are we talking about for a year? Oh, yeah. prey on Hulu. Prey, of course, the classic. Promotional code, Puck Soup. That's right.

I'm excited to see it. I don't know. Let me put it this way. You tell me there's a movie with a predator in it. Sold. When you're getting chased by a predator. Yeah, great. Awesome.

Okay, so what have you thought the last couple installments in the Predator franchise? Predators is great. Mm-hmm. That's the one where they sent, like, Alien versus Predator, not so good, obviously. Predators is whoever wins we lose. It's sad, this is true. The best part of AVP, whoever wins we lose, is the tagline.

Mm-hmm. That is true. You don't like to hear that. Predators, Predators is the one with Adrian Brody and Taufer Grace and what are you? They send the world's best killers, like a serial killer, an army guy, all this kind of stuff, to Predator Home Planet, and they get picked off one by one. It's good. And then The Predator, the... That's the one that I haven't seen.

It's fine. It's pretty good. What's his name? Shane Black, I believe, wrote and directed it. And you can tell. It has that sheen of it But I don't know Is it a worthy entry to the franchise

Well when you consider most of the Predator movies are bad Yeah, I guess it is But it's not like great or anything It was fine I'm you know Meanwhile they're not putting it in theaters I don't that's what I don't fucking get It seems like there's a floor

That all Predator movies will reach I'm going to look up how much the Predator made Yeah, where people are just going to go see him, like, just because. You would think. Made $160 million. What's the fucking problem here? The Predator, the Shane Black one did? Yeah.

Is this like, this is of a type with what we saw from that hilarious news about the Batgirl movie last night? Or whatever that is. Yeah. For those who didn't see it. the backroll movie supposed to come out I think in theaters and then on HBO Max

as Warner often does with films now cost $90 million. They did like extensive reshoots. It's pretty much done. And Warner Brothers was like, forget it. We're not putting that out on HBO Max. We're not putting that out in theaters. This must be the biggest piece of shit movie

in the world. This must be horrible. I can't wait to see it. Either that or Warner is just so like gungho about keeping about or the discovery people

because that's that that's who's steering the ship is that the discovery people are so gung ho about keeping the DC stuff as theater properties that they're just not even willing to entertain the pot like that I'm like I'm like I'm like I get what you're saying because you're like how fucking if they want nobody to see this like how bad could it be

like my answer to that is like I don't think there is any level of badness that it could be unless unless the decision is being guided by some weird you know overarching thing which is that DC property is should not should not be on

should not be on should not be on should not be streaming only or whatever I saw a quote this morning that was basically like a bad girl does not live up to the standard that we are setting for these movies like

That's basically what they said. Like, it apparently is because it's bad. Like, on some level, it has to be good enough to just burn on HBO Max. Like, that's kind of what I'm saying. But they just don't want to do it because of some larger, some larger set of principles, I guess, is what I'm saying. But why Warner Brothers killed Batgirl? This is in variety. The most likely reason is taxes, apparently.

Several sources note that Batgirl was made on. under a different regime at Warner Brothers that was singularly focused on building its streaming service. That effort included the infamous decision to release the entire 2021 theatrical slate simultaneously on the streamer, which helped build the subscriber base, but jeopardize the studio's reputation with top to your talent, blah, blah, blah. Just say, they could just say Christopher Nolan there, by the way?

Yes, correct. Tissed off Christopher Nolan so bad that he's, that he's, The Op and Iron movie is, I'm not sure he was releasing it, but it, but it ain't Warner, and that is where he worked for a very, very, very, that was the home studio for him for a very long time. For pretty much everything he did that was like any kind of a budgeted movie. Yeah. Yep. Spending the money to expand the scope of backroll to theaters, plus the 30 to 50 million needed to market it domestically and tens of millions more for a global rollout could have nearly doubled spending on the film. Yeah.

And they're saying we're just not going to, and we are just not going to burn on HBO Max. That's not going to happen. And they're not to sell it to another studio. Yeah, it's either we're releasing, this is not good enough to release in a studio, or we're releasing theaters, and if we release it in theaters, it would cost us a gazillion dollars. So, oh, and we refuse to give away, give away DC property on streaming. So goodbye forever. And they can write them off, basically.

Oops. Love the Hollywood accounting. Always love when that pops up. So yeah, that's why. That's fucking crazy. Wow. But it also does seem like it stinks. I'm sure.

I'm sure it does. Because like, who cares? It's as funny that they spent for as long as it is as difficult as it was and for as fraud as it was and whatever to get Michael Keaton back in the fray. They got Michael Keaton to be Batman again. They got Michael Keaton to be Batman again. And he's going to show up in the two properties that he's appearing in our Batgirl, which no one's ever going to see in the Flash, which is...

The most cursed film of all time. Because Ezra Miller is on a rampage across the Hawaiian Islands. That's right. And they're going to single-handedly sink certainly any sequels for that movie. But also, like, Ezra Miller is... even the way I read it was like Ezra Miller is an even more integral part of the flash

than most than most superheroes are in superhero movies. So they're like, Ezra Miller is in every shot. Yes, that's basically what they said. They were like, it's like they're in a much higher percentage of,

of shots than the average, than the average superhero, which is hilarious. So we can seeably could end of not seeing Michael Keaton is Batman again. That's fine. He did the two movies. No, I...

Not for me. No, I would like... That is a nostalgia button that works on me. I'm like, yep. Well, I would... I mean, look, you're a Pittsburgh guy. That's right. So that isn't hurting.

But, and like, I guess my thing is, I'd like to see Michael Keaton play, like, the napkin dispenser at a restaurant. Like, that guy can't do anything wrong for me. That's fine. Yeah, I just would rather he did... like Michael Keaton famously says no to a whole bunch of stuff. He's like in the, he's in the Kevin, the Kevin Klein, like Matthew Modine class of 80s,

you know, movie stars who just kind of said like, eh, to a million, two a million separate thing. I'll only be on a Netflix show that's set in 1986. Yeah. Well, yeah. Matthew Modine's cash and checks now after turning down Top Gun and all these, all this, like, this insane track record that he has of saying no to. everything for 10 years after full metal jacket, which is what happened to him. I just don't want, I, like, if Michael Keaton wants to be Batman, fine.

I just want him to spend his time. I want to get Michael Keaton projects. I think it's bogus that a guy who, like, still doesn't work all that much, even though he's back. Like, could have, we could have used a couple Michael Keaton bullets on shit that nobody's ever going to see. I think that sucks. Yeah. Anyway, the thing I was going to say about the sharks earlier.

Oh, God. Remember that from before? Yeah. Hockey, that's right. They're retiring Patrick Marlowe's number. Can you know about this? No. They should.

Oh, it makes perfect sense. Yeah, of course they should. But this is just fodder for me to say, because I, again, don't think we discussed it on the show two weeks ago or whatever. The Kings are building a statue. for Dustin Brown? Building a statue for it. I'm just hiring its number.

I saw someone making fun of, I saw someone making a joke about that and I don't know exactly what the joke was, but I'd say, well, certainly they're not building a statue for Dustin Brown. That can't be a joke based in reality. And here we are.

Yeah. Is it going to be just him? Or are they going to like add Dowdy and like Copatar? I would imagine, I would imagine that they'll do like a surbaris kind of a thing where they have to have all three heads on one body because you can't you cannot justify to me that Dustin Brown deserves look we want to retire his number abs so fucking lootly captain of a team that won two cups

you know probably up there in terms of like all time leading scorers for the organization I would guess like me gotta be top 10 probably yeah definitely um But like... The variable there is that there are a lot of statues outside the Staples. Excuse me, crypto. fart arena or whatever it's called. No, that's what it's called. Dustin Brown, number seven all time in King's scoring, number one all time in King's games played.

So there you have it. But they're actually... You know what they called Daryl Sutter? and Daryl Sutter said he took away the Dustin Brown statue and gave it to Anzacopatra. But I'll, I guess here's my point with this. Like you say, there's a lot of, um, there's a lot of statues outside. There's a, too, many, crypto.fart. Get it right.

Sorry. Who dares wins or whatever. Dare greatly or fucking. Yeah. Yeah. What a piece of shit. Double Dare, family double dare. But I'm going to read to you the list of guys that have statues, guys and gals who have statues outside the arena there.

Wayne Gretzky and Luke Robitai are the only two hockey guys. Well, they're way better than Dustin Brown. Both of those guys significantly better than. Then let's move into boxing. Oscar de La Jolla. That's right. We only had one fight there, but is from East L.A. And Oscar de La Jolla, one of the better boxers in his weight class ever.

Fair or not. Yeah, Mexican-American icon, Oscar De La Jolla is. Yeah, from East L.A. No further questions. That works for me. And then here's the rundown of people in basketball. Lisa Leslie, one of the greatest women's basketball players of all time. Mm-hmm.

No question. about it. Then you have Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson, Shaq, Elgin Baylor, and Kobe Bryant coming at an unspecified date in the future. I believe there is also a Chick-Hern statue outside, who is a

longtime Lakers broadcaster. The announcer. Well, I was saying just in terms of athletes. You know what? Who's the worst athlete in that group? None. Dustin Brown. Dustin Brown is correct, right?

I've often called, I've often called Dustin Brown the Lisa Leslie of the Los Angeles Kings. Yeah, he is, I would say, the cream of 2012 hockey. Only the calendar year 2012. The worst athlete out of the group of athletes who have statues in front of crypto. Dot Fart Arena is Luke Robatai. That's right It's true Yeah currently

Currently yes About until Until the unveiling of Of once They really had better Just add on to God at that point You know we got

We gotta put a Rob Scuderi statue Out What we could have Who was like The eighth best player Trevor Lewis Why does he have a statue In front of

Crypto. Right now. It's fucking ridiculous. They should just wait. Just wait until all those guys are retired and unveil it at once. Because if you end up tacking on to this, yeah, all four. Yeah, of course you got to get a quick on there. Yeah, just wait until they're all done.

Yeah. All. It'll be like two years. You don't have to rush this. That's what I'm saying. Like, these guys are all, these guys are all third, I doubt he's the youngest out of all of them. So apparently, this is the other thing.

Apparently there is a lot of a hullabaloo among Laker fans in particular, for obvious reasons, about when are we getting that Kobe Bryant statue, by the way? This guy retired like five years ago. He's been dead for two, I want to say. One? Yeah, that's a weird. I would think you got to talk to Lakers about that one. That's got to be a strange.

Because God knows Jeannie Bus, I mean, is like, she's, is the co, the, biggest Kobe, there's no bigger Kobe ally or Kobe fan or Kobe, you know, compatriot than her. So I don't know. I'm not, I'm not sure. The same is true of people trying to sell PS2s on Twitter. Or PS5s, I mean.

PS5s. So, yeah, I don't, that's, that's, uh, I'm sure they're just like, I don't know, trying to, the process is, is probably much. much more complicated. I'm sure there's arguing over. How about this? Do you think maybe they're trying to wait until LeBron is gone to put up the Kobe statue? I don't know.

I mean, there's an article from... I think we just figured it out. Yeah. There's an article from Fox, L.A. on the second anniversary of his death. Like, hey, they were also supposed to rename a street after him. And they haven't done that yet either. Yeah, it was part of the Pulva, I think, right?

Yeah. No, they're, they're going to wait until LeBron leaves and signs with whoever drafts Brani in three years, and then we'll get our Kobe statue. That's definitely like they heard that seems like LeBron weirdness to me, frankly. That's got to be, that's got to be it. They're just afraid of pissing them off. Now, when did he get inducted into the hospital? of Fame.

Kobe? Yeah. Well, I believe it was after his death, right? Because he didn't give. Yes, he was not alive for it, correct? But the waiting period for the hoop hall of fame is shorter than, shorter than most. So I feel like it was probably.

So last year. It had to be last year, right? 15th last year. Because I remember, I remember his wife, Vanessa gave a, I believe she gave the speech. So it said at the bottom of the article, Jeannie Bus said, apparently, however long ago. We won't build the statue until he's in the Hall of Fame.

Well, he's there. I don't know if that quote was from before his death, but he's now in the Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts. He's actually going to be in on the Dustin Brown's statue. It's going to be Brown, Copatar, Dowdy, Quick, and Kobe. It's going to be

Holding hands. Dr. Brown's shaking hands with Kobe Bryant. Two great L.A. legends of the odds. Two the all-time grades. Yeah. Yeah. I guess it would be illegal for me to do a hockey podcast this week and not mention what's going on with Michigan hockey hockey. Have you, the University of Michigan, have you seen about this?

Oh, I certainly have, yes. Yeah, it's not, I would say good. To me, personally, I would say, mass. nasty stuff going on, apparently. Yeah, horrible, really hitting for the cycle of abusive behavior, really, for Mel Pearson. I was kind of waiting for that one to drop. Bill Pearson, the coach, by the way. For those who don't know.

The Michigan men's head coach. Yeah, I was waiting for that to happen. There had been some signs that something like that was coming, and, you know, obviously that we had heard about the university investigation that was led by the law firm. I was waiting to see what ended up being, and it was horrible. Yeah. So basically the report addressed three separate issues that were reported to, like, higher-ups at Michigan. Number one, that Mel Pearson told the team to lie on their COVID contact list.

at the height of the pandemic. That alone seems like it's a fireable offense. Yeah, it was two players had a roommate who had COVID, and he was like, yeah, just maybe keep that one yourself. Yep. In 2021, I believe, is one that happens. Yeah, and which is funny because then it's crazy that this is true. Michigan, everybody on that team had COVID,

and they had to pull out of the maybe problem. not everybody, but like they left the tournament because of COVID cases with the team. Yep. Shocker. Number two, gender discrimination within the program. And that's former director of hockey operations, Rick Bankroft, who retired, harassed multiple women associated with the team. And it said the report questions, Pearson's, quote, inability or unwillingness to hold Bankcroft account. accountable.

And then... So he's got the enabling enabling an even larger asshole box ticked. Yep. And then finally, just in case it wasn't bad enough, retaliation by Pearson against his players. So that was where

that was kind of where I a few months ago whenever, there was a lot of, there was certainly some confusion-ish over, I believe, why Strauss-Man left that program. And I think that's sort of what, that was another one of the kind of threads that people were pulling on as far as that was concerned. And it turns out that, you know, Strauss-Man is figuring prominently into the end of this report,

right? Yeah. I think it was Katie Strings. Yes, it was. Now I can't remember which, where I saw which details from. but it was basically like, Straussman was like, a bunch of stuff going on here is fucked up.

And then Mel Pearson was like, you can leave then. Yeah. Right. And then, what was the thing? There was like a survey, right? Mm-hmm.

That it was. Yeah. Okay. Of the players survey, there was like an internal survey of the players. And it said like 68.8% said they personally experienced harassing conduct or witnessed it toward someone else. It seems like that's bad.

It's the old who here has been personally victimized by Regina George and everybody raises up their hands, except it was who here has been personally victimized by Mel Pearson. It was a locker room full of guys. Yep. And apparently the other thing is that he was asked to resign earlier, like in the middle of the season, basically. And he was like, no, I'm not going to do that.

Thank you, though. you for bringing this up to me. Yeah, this all checks out with, I think, the way stuff is cruising there for a few months. I'm not, not so classic, you know, saddened and grossed out and angry over this, but not necessarily surprised. Yeah, so bad. Bad. I don't know. So this is the thing, though, is apparently Michigan has had this report for several months, or three months.

it says here, almost. It was delivered May 5th, 2022. So coming up on three months, I guess. But basically this kind of explains why Mel Pearson's contract was allowed to expire. Yeah, that's when everybody was like, okay, what's going on with that? And then there was a coaching, a coaching convention that basically Michigan didn't attend around that same time. And that was another, like what the fuck is happening there? Because he doesn't have a contract. He didn't go to that thing. He is still technically the code,

like he's doing his job still. Yeah, which is bizarre, because it's like you just keep, it's like if you live in an apartment long enough, like sometimes the lease just carries over and you just keep paying your rent and keep living there and just sort of go, you know, just the way it is.

Is that what's happening here? Like why the fuck is he, is he's still on the job? Like, why, that's, and I'm sure, and I'm sure it's legal and whatever else, but that was an element of Katie's reporting yesterday was, you know, she talked to the AD Ward Manual and talked to some administrators,

and they were like, we are speaking for the University of Michigan, we are certainly not speaking for Mel Pearson. So he's about to get well and truly sent down shit, creek without a paddle. Like, he no longer has the protection of the University of Michigan. The question is, it seems like we're going to find out at some point here is like why he did for any amount of time after this. Yeah, right.

And it feels like the answer is Michigan was like the number one team in the country for the vast majority of the season. Yeah, they're like, well, he's a really good coach. Yeah, hey, you can't argue with the on-ice results, I guess, right? And the ability to, you know, they had three of the, or four of the five top picks in the 2021 draft played for him last season and all that shit. Like, that's crazy. What a, what a track record. But he's such a good coach.

And now it's like, well, but, yeah, he's, everybody in hockey is a fucking monster. Like, how bad is this really? Grading on a curve, how bad is it to recruit over Straussman? Yeah. According to the Wilmer Hale report, Shields received, this is Steve Shields. Steve Shields, yeah. The former goalie for Michigan. Received a call from Strauss Man on March 28th that Pearson was, quote, acting erratically

and making statements on the phone to man that made him feel unsafe. Man told Shields that he was being slandered by Pearson and that Pearson was, quote, telling people outside Michigan hockey that man was attempting to have him fired. and Strauss Man like Like you said It seems like That's the only And he signed in Sweden

He didn't sign in North America Yeah Right People were a little surprised by that as well Maybe that's why Maybe Mel Pearson was saying to people like Oh don't sign this kid He's a troublemaker or whatever

I don't know Yeah Well Strauss man Was not trying Either way It sounded like Mel Pearson Did a pretty good job

But getting Mel Pearson Fired because he really hit for the fucking cycle on, like I said, in terms of abusive asshole coach behavior. Yeah. Adam of the list. So there you have it. I've talked about it. One last thing I want to talk about.

Well, both of them are related to the major league baseball trade deadline. And the first one is the Juan Soto trade. Mm-hmm. Where, like, I believe, my buddy Scott tweeted, like, the Padres are basically like what happens when a 13-year-old gets his new copy of MLB the show. Love it. Yeah. Scott Lewis. At the Scott Lewis.

He's a nice man. Love Scott. Didn't see him tweet that. Yeah. So he goes, the Padres are the closest thing we have to a 13-year-old play. franchise mode on the show. And I said, sorry to everyone who hates the Golden Knights, but it's cool when teams do this. 100%. And a bunch of people were like, yeah, but fuck the Golden Knights. And it's like,

no, you can't say both of those things. Oh, my stance on it is this just a win-win, because it's like I love seeing teams go all in, especially baseball teams where between six and eight teams in any given time are actively trying to win World Series. championships. Give me more of it because it's like this is either going to work and we're going to see some, we're going to see a great like a great team get rewarded

for their gumption or it's going to backfire and we can laugh. Yeah. What's better? Right, that's the thing Dom said is Dom replied to my tweet and said yeah but it's funny when it doesn't work out. 100% absolutely. It's a win-win. It's fun when it works out and it's funny when it doesn't.

Like, what's not the like? Other than Vegas's Twitter account or whatever. That shit's annoying. But in terms of team construction, it's a win for anybody who pays attention. Yeah. Like, that's the thing is I don't understand why people are like, it sucks that they're trying to get all these good players. And then the other flip side of thing is like, the flip side of that deal is that like, congrats to the nationals who, like actually seem like they got value for Juan Soto.

Maybe never... Pretty close to it. Maybe never happens. They got five... They got the Padre's top five prospects in the best farm system in baseball. Like that is... Yeah. That's...

It's like the exception proves the rule that teams think they're always going to get some kind of great haul whenever they send out the superstar, and it never happens. But, like, I think Washington just came as close as close as they could because Soto was gone. That's the other thing. Like, he was like... Yeah, he had already said, like, trade me right fucking now. He said, he said, I've always dreamt about hitting free agency. And they're like, okay, well, then I guess...

That's the end of that. I guess that's it because you're not going to sign back here because we're not going to be any good by that point. So, San Diego, you are run by a rich guy in a crazy... Like, you know, like Scott said 13-year-old running MLB the show GM, like, will you give us your top five guys? And they're like, yeah, sure. Fucking amazing. Yeah, it rocks. The other trade I wanted to talk about.

Oh, and I also, of course, want to say NHL teams should also do this. But the other guy I wanted to talk about was the Blue Jays traded for a guy who cannot legally play in Canada because he's unvaccinated. Witt, Witt Merrifield from the Royals, right? Yeah. Great. That's funny. Is there been any movement on that? Does he said, like, I'm going to get it?

That's really great. No, I have not, as of this recording. I thought the trade you would want to talk about would be, of course, the Pittsburgh Pirates sending Jose Cantana to the San Luis Cardinals for two guys. I don't know who Jose Canter. No, you shouldn't. Because the Pittsburgh pirates are a disgrace. Yeah, sure.

Yeah, they're bad. Nobody seems to like them. It's an immoral operation. Sure. I know you have your whole big Pittsburgh guy rant that you're about to fire off. No, I'm not. I'm not doing it. Okay. Good.

It's not my fucking job anymore. I don't have to care about those guys. It's the worst part of my working life for five years was having to give a shit about the pirate. It's not my problem anymore. Seems like you're mad now, though. I'm mad about it as a Pittsburgh guy, not as a media professional. Yeah. Don't they have that one guy who's like 6'8?

Yeah, he's cool. He's a thousand miles an hour. O'Neill Cruz. He's a shortstop. He's 6.7. O'Neill Cruz, yeah. Throw on the ball to first base 100 miles an hour. That rocks.

He's cool. I've seen highlights of him every once in a while. So he'll be like, oh, look at this throw. And I'll be like, yeah, I've never seen the guy throw it from, you know, deep in the hole at shortstop to first base in point zero zero zero one seconds like that. It's very interesting to watch a guy who's built like a three and D winger, a three and D wing in the NBA throwing it, throwing it that. Right, yeah, he's like, hey, I'm the size of LeBron James. Yeah, I'm as tall as OG and Inobie or somebody.

Like, I'm going to play baseball now. I can move to my left, though. That's the other thing. Hey. All right, let's wrap this up with an overrated, underrated. And this was suggested by Johnson on the PuckSoup Patreon. Patreon.com slash PuckSoup. That is a plug.

Overrated, underrated, favorite and least favorite class field trip destinations. Oh, wow. Yeah. Okay. Overrated for me. Um, anytime they would take you growing up around Boston, we have a lot of these, uh, to a revolutionary war site. Here's a field. Go fucking stay for a while.

That sucks. Yeah, it does. I, I would like to go to Gettysburg. Like, as an adult, I've never, I've never been as a watchtop old guy now. That's, that's true. Yeah. That's, I wonder, I wonder if you're nine. I would hit different.

I would say, I would say so. Pittsburgh overrated Overrated field trip destination We always would go on the incline That like little cart that goes up the side of the mountain There's like a great view And it's always the view you see on You know during Steelers games and shit

It looks like it's fun Because you start up You start up high and come down But that thing is an aluminum box That's like 120 degrees At all times basically So they would take us up Mount Washington Send us down on that thing

And it was always, there was always somebody who got the shit scared out of them because it was high. And then it was also, or it was just, you know, like I said, I'm like sitting in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, like a, in a, like a train track. Because it was just so fucking hot. Yeah, I don't, I don't even know about this. Is it like a gondola situation? It's, it's, it's, it's a, it's like a cart on a, on a, on a, like a train track, but instead of train tracks. Got it was, you know, kind of at a 45. degree angle up a up a mountain to like a scenic view of the of the downtown skyline and it's used as like

public transportation like it's used for it's used it's run by Pittsburgh Port Authority and used by people who live at the top of this mountain to come down so they can cross the bridge and you know go to work or whatever but it's also a tourist attraction and they brought us up there on field trips a couple times and always sucked ass underrated yeah fair enough Underrated for me is

You know, it's funny I mentioned how Revolutionary War sites Like the Battle of Lexington and Concord or whatever That's boring What isn't boring It's the living museum At Plymouth Plantation

I don't know if it's called that anymore If there's, you know, kind of a An implication with that But it's, you know Like they have like People reenacting Pilgrims and the natives That's cool

All that kind of stuff And it is pretty cool Because it's just like a you know Like a 26 year old lady who's like Here's how you churned butter And you're like, oh, great That is sweet That sounds like where Billy Madison went for his field trip

Yeah, it's 100% like that I of course did pee my pants But the thing I remember is we went in third grade And there was like a kid in my class It was like a shit head And he's chasing around a chicken in this little pandan area. And the pilgrim lady goes,

you're not going to, you don't want to do that, basically. Like, don't try to pick the chicken up. That's a bad idea, buddy. Yeah. It's not going to like it. And he continues doing it.

And then he finally corners the chicken, picks it up, and it shits all over his shirt. That's great. And I just remember being so delighted by that. How wonderful is this? Underrated. We're just laughing so hard, you know.

Underrated. underrated as like any kind of environmental center. I remember we went to the Frick Environmental Center and it's like, you know, there's, you know, there's, it's like kind of, kind of, it's in a, it was in a, any place like this where it's like in a big public park or anywhere you can go and learn about trees and all, all that sort of shit. I remember, actually remember being like, this sucks. I don't want to go to the Frick Environmental Center and learn about maple syrup or,

or whatever it was, but had a great, I had a great time. let's learn about some plants let's learn about nature any activity that's like quasi educational you know but puts you in a different in a different kind of space i think that's i think that's fun and i think that's kind of what you're talking about with the with the plymouth settlement thing uh yeah and in fact this is my favorite um i can't believe this is like a thing that i was like allowed to do basically. When I was in fifth grade, I don't remember how many,

we definitely slept over at like an environmental camp in Maine. Yeah, that's cool. We took like a two plus hour bus ride. And like I'm talking multiple nights. I think we were there maybe three or four days total. Right. That's awesome.

And it was like right in this part of Maine where like salt marshes, and the beach meet old growth forest or whatever. And, you know, you stayed in like a big log cabin kind of a thing. And, you know, again, probably like a 26-year-old guy just out of college or whatever is like, okay, we're going to go through the marsh. We're going to look at some seashells. We're going to, we're going to, I'm going to teach you like which plants are like winter green and then like hand you some and you can chew on winter green or whatever. Yeah, that's exactly what I was talking about before.

Totally. That's the same, that's the same thing I was talking about. That's your favorite? Yeah, that shit rocked to me. Yeah, absolutely. I think the most fun I ever had on a field trip was the zoo. I did, I, it was like. We never took a field trip to the zoo.

I don't remember. Does Boston have a zoo? Boston, I know Boston has an aquarium. Sort of. The Franklin Park Zoo is like barely a zoo. They have a very tired looking lion, you know? Yeah. Like you walk up to his enclosure and he like stubs out a cigarette.

Like, oh, okay, I guess I got to do lion stuff. Yeah. Now, the Pittsburgh Zoo is pretty solid. And I remember just haven't had a couple great times there. In hindsight, zoos are pretty, I mean, pretty inhumane and very sad. It's fun to see kids enjoy themselves at zoos. But it's tough to go there and not think about, not think about it. A lot of two minds on zoos?

Because, you know, also, like, if that makes a kid, like you say, if that makes a kid excited about animals and then you go, you know, we're killing all these guys. Like, maybe that makes them go, oh, that sucks. I'm going to, like, dedicate my life. Yeah, it's just a matter. You just got to hope that it's, you know, a good, that it's as, that it's a decent zoo and not one where there's, you know, a depressed line in a cage or, or some shit. And I think the Pittsburgh Zoo is on, at least on the right side. side of that. Like, it's a, it's well-funded and I think generally, generally well-run, except for a couple very tragic incidents over the last few years.

Oh, this is, you're talking about the movie Beast with the Il Jerselba? The yeah, that's, that's, based. That's actually set in the Highland Park neighborhood in Pittsburgh. One of the lines gets loose and tries to kill Idraselba. That's right. Leaves favorite. And he's doing a Pittsburgh accent. accent the whole man I would I'd pay a hundred dollars out of pocket right now just to hear

eat yourself with talking to Pittsburgh accent for 10 seconds say yins that's all you need really start dropping infinitives let's go buddy um my least favorite there are there are I guess many options because uh most field trips you go on as a kid it's like the sims's episode where you go to the box factory and they're like here's how a box gets yeah um Again, growing up around Lowell, Loll was basically like the home of the American Industrial Revolution in like the 1870s and 80s. And there were a bunch of mill buildings, one of which got renovated into like a museum.

And a big, first of all, you're like, okay, our field trip is we're driving 15 minutes or whatever. Like, you're already, like this is barely a field trip. And then they're like, okay, what we're going to have you do is we're going to have you walk through a room with a bunch of like mechanized looms that are insanely loud. They're all running at the same time. And you're like, now imagine this was your working environment. It's like, oh, that seems like it would suck.

Oh, that seems horrible. Like, okay. Okay. Can I go back to school now? Yeah. I feel like I'm missing lunch. So I will say, though. to credit the museum, they did have like a cool thing because a Lowell was a city

built, like where they built a lot of canals to help power all the mill buildings. And there was like a cool, like, here's how you build a canal kind of a, um, interactive aspect of it. So I liked that, but, um, just being slightly deafened, maybe not so much. Yeah, it's terrible. At least favorite, same thing. least favorite, they took us to a supermarket one time. No way.

100%. Wow. It's like, oh, we go back through the doors into where they, you know, into the deli prep area. And they're like, okay, is that it? This is the Greenfield Giant Eagle. Like, we don't, we, my mom shops here once a week. Mickey Rourke and the wrestlers back there. That's honestly, it's basically what it was.

Yeah. Really, really, really close. And that's 100% Like they just forgot to book As a field trip or something Just like take them Take them to the supermarket Cut everybody gets a piece of

Slice slice cheese And we can show you where we You know Where we store the Store the overstock stuff Like okay cool You know what I'm back on board They're giving me cheese

There's one piece Oh Okay I'm out again All that does is just wet your appetite And make you want more cheese No one's ever No one's ever ever eating just one piece of cheese.

That's true. That's very true. All right. That's it. We're done. Yeah. What else? What else?

What? I was trying to get out before the battery died. I'm on my laptop because I'm having problems here. So that's good. Uh-oh. Pleasure doing business with you. That's right. Hit me with some plugs real quick.

Plugs. Theathletic.com slash NHL. I'm where most of my stuff lives. S-E-A-N-G-E-N-T-I-L-E on Twitter, Gentile with 2-Ls. Everybody, there isn't a single person who's going to listen to this and be like, oh, I actually like this guy now. Or, yeah, like, you know, I was unfamiliar with his work earlier. Yeah, you know.

But now that I've heard him talk about a single slice of cheese, I'm all in. Hate it his work. Not a fan of stick to sports. Generally, not down with him, but now I've heard him talk about David Quinn for six minutes. So I actually like him now. Yeah, I mean, hey, if you like the crackling dynamic between me and SG, you can check out Stick to Sports. It's our month, or we do two a month. And we're usually talking about snacks for two hours straight.

Yeah, snacks. Snacks in movies. I wish I were joking, but that's, yeah. It's truly how stupid that podcast is. But the point is, hence the name. We're not allowed to talk about sports on it. Just bump up a Patreon tier or two, and you can enjoy as much of this as you can stomach.

Almost none. Which is none. That's patreon.com slash pox soup. And of course, all my writing, I'm doing a mailbag later today, all my writing is at E.P.Rinkside.com and if you use the code, I love E.P. When you sign up for an annual subscription, they'll take three free months onto the end of that subscription. And check it out.

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You're blowing mine out of the water here, making me look like a fool on my own show, but not undeservedly. So there you have it. All right. Thanks a lot, folks. We'll see you later. Bye-bye. Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slapshots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to what if you commute.

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