Puck Soup - Sources Are Telling Us

Episode Date: March 9, 2022

Sean and Ryan talk about trade season heating up, changes in the standings, and awards discourse.

Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slap shots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to what if you commute. We also cover movies, TV shows, it's and tunes. It's your weekly bowl of Hockey and Nancet. Puckoo. I'm Ryan Lambert from Elite Prospects. I'm Sean McIndoo from The Athletic. I almost said Ryan Lambert from Puck Soot, which is true.

also true. But yeah, the number one thing going on in the NHL this week, as we record on Wednesday morning, and notably not Wednesday afternoon, so when every trade that we talk about later today happens, we didn't know about it yet. The number one thing is the Arizona coyotes have become the greatest team in the history of hockey.

Yep. 15 goals in their last two games, am I right? Or 16, 17? Now I forget already. but it's a lot of goals. Like, what's his name? Nick Schmalt. Yeah, 17 goals in their last two games.

We won't talk about the fact that they also allowed seven. That's a different thing. But, yeah, they're just putting up big numbers on everybody. It's crazy. That's, and, I mean, you know, playing against Ottawa and Detroit, so two excellent teams. That's right. Yeah, Nick Schmaltz has 11 points.

his last two games. Yeah. Seems good. I wonder what the, like, cap era record for two straight games is. Hmm. I have no way of looking that up or finding out, but I'm just wondering,

is Nick Schmaltz up there? He has to be, right? He has to be, because there's even, I mean, to have 11 points in two straight games, you need to have a six-point game at a minimum. Right. And the number of six-point games is incredibly small. Yeah.

So now I'm thinking, like, did Sam Gagne have a three-pointer on either side of that? That eight-point night, yeah. Were you watching that game? No, I wasn't. But I think I was on... I remember watching that game. I was on Twitter, and it was... Like, I saw people reacting to it.

Yeah. You know what? I just looked it up. He did. He had three points the next night. Well, there you go. So, but only one point. On either side of that. So if Nick Schmaltz, and the Coyote's next game is against the Maple Leafs. So good chance to put up another five or six, no problem. That should be at least a dozen goals, I think, for that. Yeah, really. And like the thing with the Saturday night, I guess it was more of a Saturday afternoon game.

But the thing with that Saturday game was, I think he had one. secondary assist in all six of his other points were either he scored the goal or directly set it up. Yeah. A franchise that needs a W. Well, yeah, that's, like, I wrote that this week. Like, I mean, they're terrible this year. We all know what's going on. We all know it's a rebuild.

We all know it's the coyotes. If you're a fan of that team, you've got to have something to jump on. This is it. This is your- Nick Schmaltz spike in the fucking football. against like the 26th and 27th best teams in the league this year, which like normally who cares, but when you're like the 29th best team,

you're like, hell yeah, let's go. Yeah. And the other thing we need to mention is Shane Ghostbier in the first game, it's an eight to five game, and he was on the ice for all eight goals four, and none of the five against. You know, so here's a funny thing.

And finally, I get to tie the conversation back to college hockey. There was a game, the national title game in, I guess, 2013 maybe. He single-handedly drags a decent union college team to the Frozen Four. They get to the final. And I think the game finished like 7-5 or 7-6, and it was a very similar thing where he's on the ice for like all seven or six of seven and like one of the goals against. So, like, this is just a thing he'll do every eight years, I guess, nine years.

The reverse Brett Lebeda. That's right. That's pretty impressive. Oh, man. Freaking Brett Lebda. And I guess, speaking of coyote's scoring. Okay. Okay.

Is he allowed to say this? I love this story. Yeah, it's really fun. I mean, Phil, he had to be. He didn't have a lot. a baby. Imagine if you did, though, it was a real junior situation. Yeah.

Well, I mean, it would explain a lot, right? I mean, I thought he was out of shape. The physique, at least. Yeah. But the coyotes fly him on a private jet to wherever this birth is taking place so that he can be present, which is very nice. But if I understand it correctly, first, they dress him for the game and have him play one shift. He takes a single shift, yeah.

So that his Ironman record, which is not the record, but his streak, he's going to run it down pretty soon, yeah. Yeah, well, I mean, he's just, he's, he's like a season away from catching Keith Yandel once Keith Yandel's streak is no longer active, which may be soon. Yeah, this, this, I didn't even realize this

because I would have been very, very upset to know that Phil Kessel's Iron Man Street was almost in jeopardy. But thankfully, the coyotes, I guess, scrounge through every couch cushion in the office and strung together enough to get Phil onto the ice and then back home. Yeah, and that only makes it all the more impressive that they still scored all those goals since they were playing a man short the entire game. Not the Phil Kessel's out there, you know, playing 22 minutes a night or whatever,

but that's cool. Yeah. Respect. That's the right way to do it. Although I was thinking about it in a way, I'm not sure. Like, I feel like this was very cool, but it also would have been very cool

if the much maligned Phil Kessel, like the only thing that stopped his Iron Man streak is that he just had sex. like that's it, man. Sorry. Phil was just too fertile Phil. Just couldn't, that was the only thing that could stop the streak. It would have been, it would have been the most respectable way in Iron Man Street. The guy didn't get, like, blow out his knee, didn't get help you scratched.

He had sex. It would have beaten Steve Larmer holding out on his contract and ending his own streak. That's right. It was probably, this would have talked. Yeah. So respect to old Phil Kessel and the, again, super team, Arizona Coyotes. You can't trade anybody from this team now. You've got to keep Jacob Chikrin around. I mean, they're not officially eliminated from the playoffs. So I think you've got to take a run at it. But speaking of trades and what have you, you know, the deadline is... 10 days away, 11 days away, and things are finally heating up.

Every insider is now reporting that they can exclusively reveal that the teams that are thinking of buying are looking at their options, and the teams that are thinking of selling are weighing the market. Yeah. This is huge. And I've seen a couple of things. I'm working to confirm, but I've heard some of the sellers are not going to just give players away. No. I think a lot of them are going to be looking for hockey trades is what I've heard.

Yeah. And the buyers, what's interesting is the buyers apparently are not going to make a deal just for the sake of making a deal. No, no. Well, why would you? Yeah. So, I mean, that, that has the potential to be significant. Yeah. What I did like about this is that apparently Bill Garin, like, told the Wild, yeah, I can't trade my way out of you guys are playing like shit lately, which rocks. Like, good for him. He's like, I'm not, like, opposed to getting help, but you guys have to do better. But we'll talk about the Wild in a little while.

They have not been good lately, but the thing with Minnesota is, like, they're in Cap Hell next year, so this would be the only year to go for it. Yeah, they got to go for it almost. I think. But yeah, I mean, so, but let's talk about the potential sellers first. We're finally hearing that the Minnesota, or the, see, now I'm talking about the damn Minnesota wild too much.

The Anaheim ducks are like, you know what, all these pending unrestricted free agents we have as a rebuilding team? Yeah, we're going to actually sell them. Probably, maybe. We still want to keep some of them, hopefully. Okay. Well, that's fine. But at the very least, they have, they seem to have made the decision that those are the two options.

Keep and resign or trade and not hold onto for a playoff run that certainly doesn't seem like it's going to happen. Yeah, that's not coming together for. It doesn't, yeah. And it's, and, you know, we've talked about this, but the interesting thing here is that it's a rookie GM stepping in to a new organization. Right. And normally this is where they'd say, oh, no, you know, I need eight months to think about things. Yeah, this guy's got to do his job right away. So it's, they become a big team to watch because they've got some relatively good players,

like relative to what often is clogging up the market this time. Yeah, I think we've talked about it before, but obviously like Hamas Lindholm is, is one of the better defensemen that'll be hitting the market, like, in recent years, I would say. You know, like compared with other deadlines and things like that, I think Hamids-Lin-Holm can really help a team that needs defense in a way that, well, let's just say, if Ben Sharrot, can't, you know. And to a lesser extent, that's true of Josh Manson. And, you know, for obvious reason, I think, you know, the Ducks will prioritize keeping Lindholm if they can. but does that make financial sense for them? I don't know.

And then, you know, Ricard Raquel, that guy's a player. Everybody thinks he's good. Yep. Yeah. It's, and Lindholm's fascinating to me because he was, like, if you go back a few years, he was kind of the guy that smart people told you was much better than you realized. To the point where, like, if you wanted to be a smart person or, plausibly fake it, you had to be like big on Hampusland home. And then he continued to be a good

player, but it's like the next, he never got to the next tier. So right. Now you're just kind of left sitting there going, oh, right. Like I remember that guy. Is he still secretly really good? Is he, you know, has he to end? I mean, everybody, as, you know, he's not old, but he's potentially past his peak for sure. But yeah, you could see that being a guy that gets added at the deadline, maybe not in a big headline-making deal. And then like two rounds into the playoffs were all like, yeah, why wasn't everybody in on this guy? Yeah. I mean, he's not having a great season, like, to be perfectly, to be perfectly frank. But I also think that team's not very good. And I guess the standings reflect that.

But it's just one of those situations where you go, well, you know, if you get a guy who, you know, as recently as like two or like a year or two ago was still a pretty decent player, you know, I think you can put him in a situation to succeed that Anaheim perhaps could not, you know. So, yeah, I'd be, that's a guy I would definitely be very interested. in it and Raquel is I guess kind of the same way if you're if you're looking for for help on the wings like there's a guy who can who can really do it he's a he's a right shot he's not uh he's not the best defensive uh forward in the league or anything like that but like he's not abjectly terrible i don't think so you know just a really solid like again middle of your

lineup option and then like, you know, the less said about like Nick DeLore, I guess, the better, but, um, yeah. And then I, I feel like you're not a big Josh Manson guy. Um, he, I, I think he's, let's put it this way. I would say I, I think he's,

you know, like his ceiling is what Lindholm gives you now in the middle of a not very good season. Let's put it that way. Okay. You know what I mean? Like, if you get Josh Manson and you use him at his absolute best, like he's kind of a, like his on-ice impact will be at best, like middle pairing. But I'd prefer him more as a shutdown guy, I suppose.

You know. It still feels to me like this is a much better option than Ben Chirot. Oh, my God. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay, yeah. Thank you. All right.

It's good. Yeah, no, I was, I was comparing him to Lindholm. Like, if you're, if you're making a trade for a Ducks defenseman, then, then, you know, go, go with Lindholm, obviously. But if it's between Sherat and Manson or Christ Justin Braun and Ben Chirot, like, I'd rather have the guy who's not Ben Chirot. Yeah, but it is, that's going to be interesting. I wonder what the dynamic will be. I mean, Lindholm and Manson are not, they're certainly not the same player, but they're not completely different either. and I do wonder if it's sort of like teams call for Lindholm and then either if the price is too high,

they, you know, Josh Manson becomes like we have Hampus Lindholm at home, you know, store brand version. Or if it's if it's just you get a bunch of teams bid on Lindholm and then whoever one team wins and then you circle back to those other teams and say, okay, what about Josh Manson at a similar price? having said that, Manson's the more physical guy, so there's going to be some GMs that'll say he's the guy you need for the playoffs, and maybe they'd consider him the better option. I don't know. Yeah, it's funny about, like we just heard for months, like Ben Chirot is the number one defenseman on the market. Everybody wants a piece of Ben Chirot, and, you know, anybody with, like, that looks at stats at any point in the season is like, if you say so, I mean. good Lord, okay, you know. And, yeah, didn't know.

I feel like we've heard about, or at least been thinking about these guys on the ducks for quite some time. And never got that same level of like, oh, well, you know, everybody wants Hamas Little. Like, everybody wants Ben Chirot. No, it doesn't exactly. The Ben Chirot thing has been a master class in putting an idea. out there and, you know, anchor theory and everything that, like, you did. Yeah, anchor is right. Right.

Somebody, yeah, yeah, somebody, I don't even know if it was intentional, but I would love to find out that it was because that would be cool as hell. Like, literally seated the, the media marketplace with the idea that this guy was going to be the big prize at the deadline. And we've just gone with it to the point where it's like, you say it enough. and it becomes potentially true. I'm really interested to see how that goes. Now, I mean, it reminds me a little bit of,

remember when like Chris Russell was a free agent and it was like you saw all these reports and obviously coming from his camp? Yeah. That he was going to get like six million times hard. And then he just didn't sign anywhere for a while. defenseman and everybody was like, oh, that's what you think? Okay, well, why don't you call us back when you're going to be more realistic about it?

But anyway, it does seem like defensemen in general are like the number one thing on the market right now. Like, yes. Um, uh, rumor is the islanders are looking to sell just about every pending UFA, which they should. Um, I don't know that I would particularly want to acquire any of those. Like Zadano Char are good in the room, I guess, but not on the ice anymore. Uh, Andy Green kind of same thing. Zach Perise, no, not really.

Cal Clutterbuck, no, not really. Somebody will talk themselves into Cal Clutterbuck. And probably, I wouldn't be surprised if Andy Green it ends up in a similar situation. I don't know so much about Chara just because I feel like with him in particular, he doesn't have a no trade clause, but he has an implicit no trade clause like we won't trade him if he doesn't want to go. Yeah.

Because he's 50. It's up to him. But this is, in theory, is last year. And he's got a cup. So it's not like, but I mean, if he's on the market, somebody will go out and get him. And it would probably be, well, I was going to say it's probably one of those situations where you're not even too much worried about what you get back. It's like, let's send this guy to a good home.

But then it's Lou, so who knows? I don't think Lou has human emotions. So, I mean, I think I said this a few weeks ago. Like, Charra's not a great player anymore. You're not getting him for what he's doing on the ice right now. But I'll tell you right now, like, if the Toronto Maple Leafs acquired Zan O'Chara, everybody would love that deal. They would absolutely love it. And Chara could be on the ice for three goals against every single night.

And people would still be like, what's wrong with Rasmus Sandine? How come he did do anything? Yeah. You'd be like, he was on the bench. And they'd be like, I don't know, Charas got to talk to him or something. That's right. But, yeah, it's, uh, uh, I, there are. guys that'll want, and Clutterbuck too, and Clutterbuck I could see, because he's, is he

UFA this year? I think so. So, I mean, you think about it, but I'm pretty sure he is. You trade, you trade him and then he goes back to the Islanders probably at, uh, yeah, he is. This is his last year, yeah, 34 years old, God, a classic situation of, I feel like Cal Clutterbuck just came into the league and, uh, he's 34, so you got a love that. But he's long career. On his career, man.

That guy is, uh, no. Again, you drop him on, uh, drop him on someone's fourth line. Put it this way. I don't, I don't know that you desperately want your team to get Cal Clutterbuck, but you really hope your team doesn't run into the team that got Cal Clutterbuck because you will notice him during that series for sure. Yeah. No, he'll be credited with nine hits and you're like, you only took like three shifts.

I don't know how that's possible. Okay. Yep. But, yeah, the other defensemen that have long been rumored to move, John Klingberg, probably not going to move him now. They're going to make the playoffs. So why would they do that? I mentioned Justin Braun.

I think, you know, anybody in the Ben Chirot market should be in the Justin Braun market instead. Mark Giordano, I think he would probably like to be moved. Yeah, I'm surprised he's that that name isn't more prominent than it is, given his recent history. Maybe that's just one of those situations where, you know, the team hasn't really talked to him. But, you know, again, like, he's another guy where it's like, yeah, don't count on him for offense anymore, but he still moves the needle defensively. Like, I think you can count on him on your PK and stuff like that, even at his age. Guy won the Norse trophy a couple of years ago. Yes, he's a good, he's surprised, like good.

How do I want to put this? It's not necessarily surprising how good he is. It's surprising that he has succeeded in the role Seattle has used him in. Let's put it that way. So, you know, hopefully he can find a good home and compete for a cup, because that's a defenseman I've liked for a really long time. Is there anybody else who's a Well I mean we kind of touched on chikrin

But yeah And the rumor is that as you might expect 600 teams are in on him And who knows what their level of interest At the price point the coyotes would want is But yeah Oh the other defenseman of course That people are all of a sudden talking about

Is P.K. Suban Yeah. Which, you know, buyer beware. That's, it's a tough one. I mean, I, I, you talk about a guy with playoff pedigree, Sue Ben's got it. I mean, he's been a big moment guy for a long time, but it just, it's even on the expiring contract, even if at half the salary. Yeah, you would need, you would need double retention. Yeah, which at that point becomes, you know, how much are you going to give up for, for the guy?

I could see it happening, but I think it's unlikely. Yeah. Here's the other guy that is Ristelan. What do the flyers do? The most recent rumor was an extension. Oh, boy. I wouldn't want to get involved in all that if I was them. But, you know, GMs talk themselves into dumber things all the time.

They do. We did, on the athletic board, We also had Jeff Petrie pretty high. I don't, I guess he's, because he's, he's another one of the guys who Martin Saint-Lu came in and was like, hey, how about try being good instead of terrible. Okay. He was like, all right, I'll give it a shot. And then he was like, yeah, you know what?

That worked more better. I'd like a Jeff Petrie on my team if I'm, you know, again, looking for like a kind of middle-parent guy that I can put in advantageous situations, you know? I'd like last year's Jeff Petrie on my team. I certainly wouldn't want first half Jeff Petrie. The thing with him is he's still signed for three more years. Oh, is he really? Yeah, he's not a rental.

So that's more of a case of, I mean, if you're Montreal and you're smart and you get the chance to slip out of that contract. Yeah, even if you retain half, right? I don't know if I want to retain for that long, but I certainly want. You're not trying to be good anyway. So what do you care? Yeah. I certainly want to see, I want him to get a lot of power play time, be really good for a few. weeks, get the narrative out there that he is shaking off whatever was wrong in the first half.

And then, you know, I'm going to act like I want assets back. But then, you know, some team's like, we'll give you a, we'll give you a fourth and no more. I'm like, ah, you drove a hard bargain. Yeah. Yeah. Like you say, the problem is he makes $6.25 million. If you, again, if you want to wield that down to $3.125, we can have a convo about that. But I, yeah, I, you know, It's just a lot. And the other thing with Petrie is, I believe he has a 15-team, no-trade list. Yeah, that's right. I just scrolled over his name on cat-friendly, and 15-team.

Half the league can't be traded to without his say-so. The interesting thing here that... Ben Chirot also has a no-trade list. Now, that's funny. Yeah. Yeah, it's all the smart teams. They're like, yeah, we self-suffer. select for your list. The thing that Eric said on the athletic that was maybe interesting is that if

the rumor mill is that if Dallas did decide to move Klingberg, they could then turn around and get Petrie for, you know, still come out ahead on assets. Yeah. And have a guy. That actually makes a little bit of sense. Makes that, that, you could see something like that. But, uh, yeah, I hadn't thought of that. That's good. I like that. Let's, let's do it. Let's, let's make that happen. Keep an eye on this to hatch a kid. He might have a future. Yeah, oh, the other thing, speaking of defensemen, whose name is coming up.

You see all this Shea Weber talk? I saw it, yeah, and then it kind of got, Elliot kind of shot it down this morning. Well, so he didn't, he didn't because he said that, like, because people were saying, oh, a team that's up against the cap would trade for him, much like a team. much like a Tampa would to to like be able to exceed the cap

and I don't know that that really works for like a Minnesota or any T like I don't think it works at the deadline period because as Elliot pointed out you have to activate the player off the LTIR and then deactivate him again

I think you can do that in the summer I don't like that would make sense to do in the summer to do in the summer, but that doesn't help Minnesota. This is the part of the cap that I don't know that anyone understands that isn't a capologist in the NHL because this is like, remember a few years ago when the Leafs traded for David Clarkson and you're like, what? And it was like, yeah, it's it's cap shenanigans. And I guess the idea was that it could make sense.

But as, well, again, they traded. That wasn't in season, right? No, it wasn't. It was so and yeah, so it was something that I think was floated on, on Elliot and Jeff's 32 Thoughts podcast, and then in the written 32 thoughts today, I guess Elliot got feedback from around the league on why it wouldn't work. Wouldn't work now, but he does still think that in the off season, if only to reach the cap floor. Yes, that's what I was going to say. It makes, it makes a lot more sense for an Arizona and Ottawa. or whoever who are trying to like, you know, boost their money and give themselves, you know, like,

because the thing with Weber's contract and, you know, it's just the capra capture thing of like, oh, no, he makes like $38 next season because he made $52 million in the first year of his contract. Yeah, it was one of the last of the backloaded contracts that's, sorry, front loaded, backdiving contacts that's still out there. So you can, you pay him six million, which I don't even know if you pay him

or if insurance picks it up, but you get a six or whatever, seven something cap hit to help you reach the floor, which is completely, completely ridiculous that the league lets that happen, but what are we going to do? Yeah.

Yeah. So for the final four years of his contract, he makes a total of $6 million. which is equal to the amount of money he made this year alone. Okay. Or he could retire and then Nashville has to pay a $47 million. Oh my God. I've been, like, I don't want it for Nashville, right?

But I do want it to happen because it would be so, because the league would have to be like, actually cap recapture is fake. Yeah. Right. And then they would have to cancel it, in which case people in Vancouver, would absolutely flip out. Rightly so, but it would be very entertaining. Like, they would be completely justified,

but it's already not the most chill fan base. And even when it's something completely unjustified, give them something that would be absolutely justified. And, yeah, I think, get ready to go make out in the middle of the street because I think some things are getting set on fire. You know, we'll be right back. This podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp Online Therapy. You know, relationships take work.

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slash puck. That's buy raycon dot com slash puck to save 15% on RACons, buyracon.com slash puck. I think the thing we need to talk about now is you know, we've been saying for months the Eastern

Conference playoffs are all set. There's nothing to really talk about with regard to pretty much where anybody's going to finish. I think maybe you would say the caps are dropping off pretty precipitously

these days, although they didn't beat a very good Calgary team last night. But the Western Conference has gotten crazy lately. Yeah. Speaking of the Calgary Flames, they were on an insane hot streak right now.

They've just really, you know, they're not, they're not going to catch Colorado or anything like that, but they're looking like the clear number two in the West at this point. And so, yeah, let's just do the, let's just do the Pacific first. Los Angeles Kings, eight and two in their last 10? Keep waiting for them to fade. I keep sleeping on them, and they're not, like, it's not that they're not fading.

They're getting better. Yeah. They're boosting. And if, I haven't seen a lot linking them as serious buyers, but if they wanted to, they've got a war chest to work with. I think the team you hear them connect, or the, the, the, the player you hear them connected to a fair amount is Jacob Chikrin, where it's like, oh, he makes perfect sense for them.

You know, they have the assets to give up. And not a rental, not like a, you know, let's make one crazy run. No, and also he's like, what, 23? Like, he pretty much fits in with their overall group. He's signed long term for very reasonable money. Like, I think it makes all the sense in the world. And the other thing to say about the Kings is that they have had a relatively soft schedule lately.

But that also means that earlier in the season, it probably wasn't as soft. right? So, like, they beat the Bruins in overtime most recently, but before that they played like Buffalo, Columbus, the Islanders, the ducks, the coyotes, like, okay, yeah, they should be winning all those games, but, you know, we saw it last night. Still got to win the games. You got to win the games. Colorado couldn't beat New Jersey last night. So, and not that it really matters for Colorado, but the point is, you're still going to beat the bad teams and they've been doing it, so good for them. you know, I think at this point,

I'd be pretty surprised if they dropped off. They're not like... And even if they did drop off, they've got some padding now. Yeah, correct. You know, they could survive a rough patch. Yeah, and like this is coming at a time when Vegas is kind of on the down swing. I think they miss Mark Stone more than we all thought they would.

Um, Vegas is the most interesting team to me. Like I, because I, and like, I did a thing last week where I was, I did an update on the contest that I run at the beginning of the season where you got to pick like,

who's going to make the playoffs, who's not, and that sort of thing. Yeah, yeah, um, and anyways, I just did an update and I realized I wrote the whole thing talking about like,

here's the picks that are, you know, everyone thought Cole Codfield was going to be rookie the year. That's not going to happen. This isn't going to happen. The Islanders are going to screw a lot of people. I never mentioned. in the Golden Knights

as a team that could miss the playoffs because it just didn't and then I look at the standings they're in legitimate trouble as far as like right now they are the eighth best

team in the West by points percentage yeah this isn't a game's play thing that like they are and they're fortunate in a sense to be in the Pacific so they're going to

you know you just got to finish in the top three but if if it's basically Vegas and Edmonton right now for the last spot. And that's fascinating to me because both of those teams, I mean, we talk about how Edmonton, if they miss the playoffs again, it's a disaster and it is.

But imagine Vegas missing the playoffs? Yeah, they're all the loading up they've done. They'd be pretty unhappy with that tournament of events, I think. They're just, boy, like, you want to talk about a team that feels a little bit cursed this year. Like, every time somebody gets healthy, somebody else goes on. uh, goes on the LTIR. So,

yeah, I, you know, again, like they're, they're in a situation where, uh, you know,

who else is playing pretty badly lately is the Edmonton Oilers and that's the only team they need to really worry about in the standings. Um, because like Anaheim's probably not going to catch them. Uh, they're five points back with an extra game play. And I'm still in it, but I,

I don't, especially if they, if they move guys at the deadline. I mean, that'll be, Yeah, I think they're pretty much done. They seem to have packed up camp and started heading home for these last 20 whatever games. But the Oilers, oh, boy, they, you know, Mike Smith's.

Yeah, it doesn't really help. Which, you know, every team deals with injuries and, you know, you can't give, but I think a lot of teams, if you said, our best goalies hurt, he'd say, okay, maybe we give you a bit of a bit of a pass. But when your best goal is 39. And he's Mike Smith.

Like, he's not even a good 39-year-old. Yeah, but it's like, what did you expect? I mean, if you didn't have our 39-year-old goalie missing stretches of time here and there in the plan, then you didn't have a good plan. Right. They, yeah, so they, five in a row when they made the COVID, coaching change, and since then they've won two of eight.

Yeah, they're in a lot of trouble, and I don't know what the fix is. You know, like, you can't count on Vegas to keep playing this badly, but you also can't count on your own goalie or goalies, I guess, to allow you to make up ground. So I don't know, I don't know what the solution is for them. Well, that's the scary thing, right? If you're the Oilers, you're looking at the team you're chasing, which right now is Vegas and you're going, you know, what are the odds that they spin their wheels at 500 to give us a chance to catch up?

And it's, they're not great. I mean, they're not far behind. They're, they're one game in hand. If the Oilers win that game, it's, it's a two point gap. So, you know, it's a lot, lots of, a win a half, as they say in baseball. Yeah. Yeah. But, I mean, you've got to figure Vegas is, is, is going to figure it out again at some point, at which case now you're chasing.

Dallas and Nashville and... The stars are white hot all of a sudden. Yeah. And Nashville is kind of in a similar boat to Vegas and Edmonton where you're like, oh, yeah, they're not playing that well. And, you know, I think part of that is you look at, you know, going into the season, you would have said, one of the predators feel like at best a playoff bubble team.

And they're not getting the goal tending lately. You know, they got extremely good goaltending for a huge chunk of the season and last season. But like, can you count on UC Soros the rest of the way? You know, I don't know. They've a lot, a lot of goals. Yeah, they're just not playing well in general. I never thought they were all that good. But, you know, a classic situation where the goalies make the difference or whatever.

Nashville is a classic team that, and there's a couple of these teams every year, that I didn't buy in for half a season, they made me look bad, I finally bought in, and then they immediately were like, ha, just kidding. That's right, yeah. It's really, I don't know, like, they're at least in a situation where they banked a bunch of points, you know? usually you get to 45 points or 45 wins in a season and you're in pretty good shape to make the playoffs and probably especially in the West this year. They're only 13 away and they have 26 games left. They only need to go 500 the rest of the way and I'd be like, yeah, they feel like a playoff team, you know?

So I guess we'll see. Yeah, and then I guess the other thing is Vancouver. Cooper not totally out of it? They're out of it. Come on. Let's let's be serious. Yeah. Most of the models have them around like 10%. Yeah, they're out of it.

Pretty out of it. And then Winnipeg seems just about completely out of it, which is shocking to me because I was pretty close to all in on the jets. I thought they'd be better than this for sure. I thought they'd really improve their decor. But yeah. Better blue line,

one of the best goalies in the world and a ton of offensive firepower somehow has not added up to anything good. And part of that's that Connor Hallibuck hasn't been good lately, but he's... Yeah, I mean, like, what do you want them to do, though? You know, like, they're, they're doing, they have the same Jets problems that the Jets have always had where it's like, oh, yeah, we, we cannot play defense. We just, we just can't physically do it. And, you know, like, Mark Schifley has not had a good season. I'm sure he still has a bunch of points or whatever, but like Blake Wheeler has been bad, like horrible.

And Schifley's starting to show up in some trade rumors, which has been shocking at the beginning of the year, but I think he's, there's some patience running out. They got to look at some things, man. Like they can't, they can't just go, you know what, we'll bring pretty much the same group back next year. You know, like, and they, and they have some good youngish players like Kyle Conner, Nick Eilers, Pierre-Luc Dubois, where it's like, yeah, you know what, that's like a decent enough core that if you want to do a quote-unquote rebuild on the fly or whatever, not that Mark

Schifley's old or anything, but, you know, again, like, this is just a team where it's like, oh, a bunch of these guys just have never gone in their own zone for one second all season. and you know like I do think the way people talk about defense is like in general in hockey is pretty overblown but like with the Jets it's like oh this has been a problem for 10 years

so at some point maybe maybe they just need to hire a better coach you know and they and they they will get that chance yeah so I don't know. I'm not high on the Jets, obviously, but like, anybody who's like, you know,

who's going to pick it up is Connor Halebuck. It's like, I don't know what he's supposed to be. No, no. I mean, that would be classic, classic kind of hockey fan brain of always blame the goalie. But, you know, lately hasn't been great. Here's what I love about the West right now. I'm looking at Dom's projections.

he's got Colorado Calgary is sure things to make the playoffs Minnesota St. Louis both hovering in the high 90s so not quite locks but pretty close. Central free locked up though yeah yeah Dallas at about 85% Nashville's about 80% Vegas just north of 80% the Kings at 80% and then Edmonton at 60% and then Edmonton at 60%. and those are the contenders. Now, if you were paying attention, I just named nine teams

that are at least 60% for eight spots, which is great. I mean, it works. Basically, all the teams ahead of Edmonton that are not quite sure things, Edmonton is collecting all of that not quite sure thing into their own percentage. But what it means is you've got nine teams

that are looking at this saying, we should make the playoffs. And one of them is not going to get a chair when it's over. and then the repercussions of that have the potential to be significant. But, yeah, that's, if you don't, if you're an athletic subscriber and you don't look at Dom's projections, it's really interesting because you can just see it all in like graph form and how in the last week, LA and Edmonton have pretty much switched places, which does imply that they could switch again in another couple weeks.

But yeah, it's, the trends are all wrong for the Oilers right now, but they're still, better than 50-50 to make it, according to how the math works out. Yeah, I, you know, let me put it this way. At this point, you could tell me any combination of those nine teams that you just mentioned, like make the playoff, oh, Nashville misses, Dallas misses, Edmonton misses, Vegas. Like, I'd be, I guess the only one I'd be surprised by is Vegas misses. Like, Vegas ends up the odd team out of that list. That would be the only one that I'm like, whoa, really?

But, like, Minnesota's not safe. They're, they're, they're in a situation where, let's put it this way. If you would say, oh, you know, they're, there are two points up on the Dallas stars. At any point in the season, I'd have been like, no, that can't be. Like, is it October 7th? Like, what, how could that be? Yeah. You know?

Um, and yet, here they are. So. Yeah. And another team where missing the playoffs for them would be a disaster, a disaster. Absolutely. this year, which is why, you know, partly to go back to what he said with with Garen signaling some hesitancy. I mean, if anything, there should be urgency here. Well, I think.

Got to make a move. Yeah, I think the thinking with that, I guess, is that you don't want them sitting around going. He's going to trade for Ben Chirot any minute now and it's going to solve all our problem. You know, like, he has to kind of say, like, this is your fucking mess. You fix it. You were good. three weeks ago. What's the problem?

You know? And I don't know what the problem is. I guess I haven't watched enough Minnesota Wild Games the last few weeks. And when I have, I've been like, oh, they're playing fine. I think I've just mainly watched their wins, I guess, which are few and far between. But, yeah, I watched the third period of their game against the Rangers last night. They won five to two. and the Rangers are very interesting

because we mentioned 32 thoughts earlier. They were talking about, oh, maybe the Rangers are ahead of schedule this season. And I'm looking at everything going on with that team. And I'm like, the New York Rangers are ahead of schedule? Are we sure about this? Yeah. Well, I mean, record-wise, standing as wise, yes.

Yeah, right. They were, you know, this was the, year that, okay, this is our year to make the playoffs. You know, we'll be the wildcard team. We'll get into the race, whereas they're pretty much already home and cooled out. Yeah. As long as you don't dig much deeper than that. Right.

If you're looking at it in terms of purely looking at their record, then yeah, of course, you're like, oh, look at the Rangers. Unbelievable. Wow. But, you know, they're one of the worst, yeah, 24th in five-on-five expect. expected goals, percentage, I should say, expected goals percentage.

But their power play is incredible, which it should be with all that talent, right? And they have the best goalie in the league this year. Yeah.

And so, you know, as I was watching it, I'm like, I feel like every time I watch the Rangers, they're getting their asses kicked. So, like,

why are they this good? And so I looked it up. Did you see this stat from last night? No. Okay. They are 12, 14, and 2 against current playoff teams. Hmm. Okay.

Which is bad. That's not great. And four of those wins were either in overtime or the shootout. Okay. So in regulation, they are 8, 14, and 6 against current playoff teams. They've been outscored 84 to 66 in those games. all bad. That's like 45%. So that would explain why they always seem to be doing poorly when you're watching them.

Yeah, because I only watch them play... Yeah, I don't watch them play Buffalo. Yeah, I'm not like, oh, I can't wait to settle in for this Flyers Rangers game tonight, you know? But somebody then pointed out against teams currently in a playoff position, the Rangers are 12 and 6 with Igor Shusirkin and Nett and 08 and 1 with anybody else. So we've located the problem. It's the backup goaltending and also the team stands. We saw it again last night.

Yeah, no, that's exactly right. Georgiev was in that. He was awful. And like I really, I have a problem in hockey. The way sometimes people talk about teams as though their goalie is like independent of the rest of the team. You know what I mean? like, so I don't want to say the Rangers clearly are the worst playoff team in the East because they're not, because they have the goalie who's having the best season in the world.

Right? And like, and, you know, like somebody, when I pointed these stats out last night, like someone was like, yeah, and if you take Chris Kreider shooting 20% off, then it's like, well, I mean Chris Kreider's on the team. I don't know what you want me to tell you. You know, like he's, he's having an uncharacteristically great season. and he's closing in on 40 goals already. He's awesome.

He's been awesome, I should say. And he's a player I've always liked quite a bit. But is he this good? No, I wouldn't say so, you know? And, yeah, now, see, this is interesting because I didn't think to look up what his, like, goals against playoff teams versus non-playoff teams is. I would bet it's similarly not ideal, you know. But anyway, doesn't really matter so much. The broader point is, yeah, the Rangers are safe in a playoff spot,

and I don't want to take anything away from the great, you know, Shesirkin should win the Vesna comfortably. I don't know that anybody else can make a claim at this point except to say that he hasn't played a ton of games. Kreider is likely going to stay in the Rocket Richard Convo, for the remainder of the season. He won't win it, but in all likelihood, he won't win it. But he'll be up there, top five finish, probably.

And then the rest of the team, you're like, oh, yeah, they have some pretty good players who can only play on the power play. That feels about right to me. And I don't know. I guess what's your, like, I'm sure you kind of feel similarly about them. But what's your, like, what would you compare them to? Like, if you had to say, like, Rangers fans, pump your break. like here's where you should be thinking about this team in the in the recent history of

yeah I mean if if if anything I think it's there's sort of two separate tracks on the one hand yes this team is legitimately good this year I it's not fake to have you know a goalie having a monster season as you say that's part of hockey that's a guy that they have it's not some fluky guy that's come completely out of nowhere. They've got a really, really good goal tender, and they've got a ton of other talent. And I think you can feel good about them in that metro. You know, most of us have Carolina as the number one team there, but New York's right up there. I don't take anything away from them.

If the thinking is, hey, mission accomplished on the rebuild, this team is now set for, you know, be excellent for years to come, that's where I may be worried just a bit because goaltending is unpredictable. Even as sold as I am on Shasturkin, he's not going to be 940 year after year after year. And when he's not 940, some of the other holes that are still there will start to appear. So a great team this year, I don't know that they're as solid going forward as people might think. Now, the flip side to that is Lefrenia and Kakko are still not doing all that much.

And you've got, you know, certainly with Lefrenia, I think lots of reason to think he could still be a top tier player. So the optimist view is when that, you know, if that happens, now they're really humming up front. So we'll see. But yeah, no,

I'm not, I'm done dismissing the Rangers as the real deal because, you know, like you say, you can't Any team, you take away their best player, is not going to be as good a team. But luckily for them, you don't have to do that. And if anything, when you're talking about a goalie who plays two-thirds of the season, of the regular season, and then plays every playoff game, which you assume is what will happen in New York, you have reason to think we'll be even better in the playoffs than we've shown so far.

Right. So there are two teams that I kind of think of when I think. think of the, uh, the Rangers this year. And, and, and you tell me what you think. The obvious comparison to draw is the, uh, the 1415 Montreal Canadiates. Okay. Right? Because they had the, they were, they were a little below average. Um, I don't even think they had the, like, they were below average at five on five and, and kind of like, you know, more aspects of the game. They didn't have the star power up front that the Rangers do to have a consistently good power play. But they did have the best goalie in the world having his best season ever, you know, 933 that year.

So really fucking good season. But the team that I also think of, now who was the coach of the New York Rangers and what team did he coach recently? you know the Gerard Gallant, Vegas Golden Knights, their first year. The 2018, yeah. Yeah.

They had a very similar situation where they got like 930 goal tending all year. They had an above average part it's not as good as the Rangers is this year. But otherwise you would look at this team and you would go, I mean, they're not that good. You know? And they went all the way.

to the cup final and they, I think they won the Western Conference, like, in regular season, uh, they were best Western. Well up there. Yeah. So like, this is kind of what I, I think of them as being. And like, I don't want you to, you all, like all the Rangers fans out there to be like, oh, that means we're going to the cut. I, I, they had a pretty easy path to the cup final that, yeah. Let's put it that way. And, but it's, but that, that's such an interesting two teams to pick because Vegas goes all the way to the cup final and has been an excellent team ever since,

even coaching change. The caveat is, they made a ton of changes in that first summer to be like, we have to undergird the success with, like, actual good players in a way that the Rangers do not have the finance, or like the cap flexibility to do so. Yeah.

And then Montreal, who, have a great regular season. They go out the second round, and then that was 2015, did not win, it missed the playoffs the next year, they don't win another playoff round until last year's run.

So there's the other side of what it can look like. Yeah. So I'm really curious to see what the Rangers do. I think if they go out and get some rentals, you want to bolster this season, then like by all means. You know?

Like, why not? They have a pretty good farm system. They have some assets that they, that it wouldn't kill them to give away, just because they do have a lot of guys signed for the next few years. So like, you know, there's not a lot of opportunities for, uh,

prospects to, to make a case for the main roster. So, but I, what I wouldn't want to do if I was the Rangers is, go out and get a guy that I think can help like two, three years from now because I think the Rangers will have to accept that they're in the long term a lot farther away than the record makes it appear.

That's possible. Yeah, it's... Like you said, it depends on Kako and LaFrenier. Yeah, LaFrenier and, you know, they've... Adam Fox is potentially... Oh, my God, he's incredible. You know, more, I mean, aging-wise, he, in theory, should get better. I paused because I was going to say he has another level to get to, but I'm not sure there's another level of Norris winner.

And, you know, Schisturkin's young for a goalie. So there's, this certainly isn't a team that's duct taped together with a bunch of veterans where you say in two years it's all going to crumble. No, no, no, absolutely not. It will be interesting to see what approach they take in the offseason. Do they pat themselves on the back and say, we've done it? Or do they say, let's take a real honest look at some of the areas that may be weak and we can actually go out and try to address those from a position of strength and not wait until the cracks really appear and then nobody's willing to make a move of this?

Yeah, I mean, their real problem is that, like, they got to make a decision on Ryan Strom, who's having a nice season for himself, I should say. Like, he's a, he's not like, an all-star or anything like that, but he's having a really nice season, and he's going to want a big raise. But next year is the year the new Fox contract kicks in,

his ELC's over. And they got to figure out a backup goal-tending situation, and it's like, I guess my point is they kind of have to keep most of the band together, but if they lose Ryan Strom,

I don't know what the solution is, you know? So, yeah, they're a really interesting team. I don't, like I say, I don't think they're, like, it's fair to say they're a bad team, but they're not, they're not this good, certainly. And I'm, I'm curious to see what lessons they, uh, they take from all this. Fair enough. Okay. Uh, yeah, we'll take a break. Uh, we'll be right back. Hey, gang, it's another ad from our friends at Manscaped and they will be making me say the word balls in this copy. So that's, that's, that's good news for

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All right, for our last segment on the show here, I want to pose to you, Sean, a simple question. are people getting increasingly deranged about awards and awards voting and that kind of thing? Because I feel like the answer is yes, on my end. Yeah. I think people are getting increasingly deranged in general. And awards is certainly that rising tide is sweeping that boat up because like we're not even three quarters of the way into the season. And people are already adamant about how they feel about certain awards. and we haven't even gotten to the point where, like, Michael Bunting wins the Calder and...

Right. ...three one other fan bases. Well... Try to burn the league headquarters down. Yeah. So, let's start with the Calder, because I think that is the one where it's, like, much like when Caprizov won last year, where people were like... But you don't understand. I don't want to listen to what the rules are for this award qualification.

Like, like... it or not, Michael Bunting qualifies as a rookie. Yes. And if you think, and if you think, well, it's not fair because look at, look how old he is and look who he plays with. Well, they don't say in the rules of the award, like, we'll allow 26, but you should definitely take points off and also take points off if he happens to be playing with a guy who should potentially win the Hart trophy.

Yeah, and it's also very clearly not the best prospect award, which is. is how some people try. I mean, look, I'm a Leafs fan. I've enjoyed the Michael Bunting experience very much. It's keep a lid on it. But, uh, but, you know, if Anaheim calls up and says, hey, do you want Trevor Zegris for Michael? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. That's done. The facts is already coming through the, you know, the system. And there's at least 10 other guys on the Calder ballot that that would be true for because he's 26 and, you know, we understand what's going on here. But that's not what the award is. And when it comes to the Hart Trophy, as many of us have pointed out, it's kind of ambiguous what the league wants us to exactly be voting on, which leads to a lot of interesting debates, but also a lot of just garbage yelling at each other.

Yeah. The Calder is not ambiguous. It's very clear on what you're voting on. And based on that, Michael Bunning should be in the conversation. Even all that stuff aside, I'm not arguing that he is the best rookie this year, but he is a rookie. He's certainly having a top two or maybe three season for a rookie. I think, so what's interesting is I mentioned in the last segment I mentioned like Scherkin, like people might choose to talk themselves out of his candidacy. I think it would be insane to do it. But like, I can see people doing it because he doesn't have a huge. number of games played like a lot of that makes no sense at all to me

but this well well first of all the fact that he's he doesn't I mean he's not going to start 70 games but nobody does that anymore no no no but the argument that goalies shouldn't win the MVP because they don't play as many games as you know as as as forwards right play 80 games is insane to me because goalies are on the ice the entire game right they play awesome Matthews is playing 21 minutes a night Like, if we're doing this based on who's on the ice, the goalie should win every year. Well, so we'll circle back to the heart in a second.

But I, the reason I said I brought up the games played thing is I think you can make a very coherent case for Jeremy Swayman's Calder candidacy. He's been, I think he didn't do so well in his most recent game against Columbus. But like, he's a 927 goalie this year. and that's with a slowish start. So, you know, if he keeps up what he's done in recent weeks, and it looks like he's going to just in terms of the Bruins have not been given a reason to not play him anytime soon, you know. So I think it's like he, I think he's a guy where I, you can make a very, very sound case for his candidacy. but everybody seems to have decided it's more insider in Detroit is the winner.

Which, yeah, which. And like he's been great. Obviously, he's been great. Yeah. And again, you know, head and shoulders above most of these guys as far as somebody you would want your organization to have going forward. Right. That's not what's being measured here. I did see somebody.

It was one of the Lee fans. I can't remember which one. But they tweeted that the best case scenario would be for, Michael Bunting to win. And then because he's a leaf, everybody would freak out. And then they would change the rule to a younger age. And he said that would be great for three reasons. First of all, Michael Bunting's cool.

Number two, people flipping out over anything Leafs-related is always funny. And number three, the rule should change. And this is probably the only way to nudge it down a few more years. But, yeah, I mean, and just for the record, I voted for Artemi-Penarren over Connor McDavid that one year when, you know, Panarin was, was 24 and McDavid had been hurt. And everybody knew Connor McDavid was the better prospect, although Panarin has obviously turned it to be excellent. But that's, you know, I'm not making this up because it's a leaf.

This is something I've, I felt like that was a no-brainer that year that this guy, you know, even though he's 24, even though he had played overseas, based on what the rule said, this guy was eligible and therefore he was he was the best rookie yeah um like i say i think i think cider's going to win it just because everybody seems to have decided we can't we can't vote for the 26 year olds who plays with austin matthews which like i guess i get that argument but at the same time it's like i mean the way that line is going right now i mean two weeks from now he might have 70 points 10 or 15 more points like it's absolutely yeah no he's having an unbelievable season. And the other thing with bunting is that if you look at his like individualized impacts, uh, like with everybody, like when you take him away from Matthews, like he's obviously not as good. But when he plays with everybody else, he makes them better. Like literally everybody else he's played any significant number of minutes with on the Leafs this year. They're all like, oh yeah, no, we're, uh, we're insane.

good. And the other thing that is both should work in his favor, but we'll probably work against him, is maybe his top skill is drawing penalties, which is... Nobody cares about or pays attention to that much. I think people are starting to realize is an underrated skill, you know, especially when you got a team like the Leafs or the power play is very good. You know, each penalty you draw is the equivalent of getting like a quarter of a goal based on how effective the power play is.

But also the way he draws those penalties is freaking annoying. And I think a lot of people won't want to necessarily rule. I mean, there was a moment last night in last night's game where he punched a guy and then the guy punched him back and Michael Bunting died on the ice. That's right. They brought out. They put him in a coffin. The coffin broke and he fell out and he was naked for some reason.

It was very upsetting. But I could see people being like, no, I'm not going to reward that. As the, as the ref is talking to him after that, he's going, I didn't rig shit. Yeah. But yeah, so let's, again, like, yeah, let's just get into the heart trophy thing because people turned absolutely fucking feral about it this week for some reason. and it's basically, you know, let's say, how do I want to say this? Older people who are like, but you don't understand. Look, how many secondary assists Jonathan Huberto has.

Yeah. Like, he, his problem. Well, that was the thing, right? Like, let's just say it was Alan Walsh, his agent. Yeah, well, that started it, but then, like, that created a snowball effect where a bunch of people said the same shit. So, yeah. But, I mean, he went after Dom because Dom wrote a piece and he didn't have, he didn't have him in his top 10, which, you know, debatable. Obviously, a guy who's that high in points is going to be, is going to show up on ballots.

And then some other people, I think Ray Ferraro and other people jumped in to say that they had them on their list. But, yeah, Alan Walsh kind of had a bit of a Twitter meltdown over. it. Yeah, and like, you know, this is the guy who did the sword in the back. So, like, I'm not. Yes. Yeah, this is kind of what he does. And you can't be like, hey, this guy's, he's fun and entertaining until it gets directed

at somebody I like and then it's out of bounds. We can reveal exclusively here that you were one of the athletic staffers who texted Alan Walsh to say you would be the Dom's an idiot, right? Yes, I did. I just out of nowhere that. I sent him one of those definitely very real and not made up texts saying that Dom was a disgrace. And I just want to say, in general, if I hold any opinions that anyone out there doesn't agree with, many people are secretly texting me as well to agree. That's right.

I can't reveal. So many people who say I'm actually really smart. Yeah. They just, it's secret anonymous text that I can't reveal the existence of, even though I just did. which, by the way, it's pretty cool to know if you're someone who texts Alan Walsh that he may,

if you assume that's anonymous, he may just pull it out to win an argument at some point. So keep that in mind. But yeah, I get lots of all the smartest people text me to tell me that I am also smart all the time. That's right. So the thing about Jonathan Huberto

is that he has a lot of secondary assists that buoy his point total. And there's nothing wrong with having secondary assists. He has only one more than Connor McDavid in an extra game played, right? So it's like not crazy, but you know who usually gets second assist is defensemen, you know? And so for a forward to have his case bolstered with secondary assists is maybe a little. That's when you get into iffy territory. And again, like, he doesn't have good defensive impacts this year, you know?

No. And so, like, this is a lot. And also is playing on the Panthers' second line with Sam Bennett, and which, I mean, their first line is, is one of the Barcoff line. Yeah. And, you know, but there is, I think, a fair argument to be made. Can the most valuable player in the entire league be second line player on his own team? Right. which maybe not you know maybe not

um so so yeah like that is that is a little bit tricky for sure um and yeah it just it gets to a situation where you know you're you're just doing the points thing again this is the dry sidel thing from a few years ago where it's like well he plays with car mcdavid so that and you know they they get all the power play time you could ever want, and he doesn't play defense. And people, like, people that year manufactured, like, no, he actually does play defense. And it's like, oh, which he didn't.

Oh, I guess I didn't know that. But the thing that year was McDavid did miss a chunk of time. And Drusaitle kind of kept the team afloat. Yeah, but then there was another part of the season where he was like invisible for the entire month of November. not that this is the this is applying to Huberdo but people were like well when McDavid was out he kept the team going and it's like that's true what about this entire month they were like well you can't count that that was November are you talking about yep oh okay no but it did it did give kind of the hook to his story like yeah well how can the

second player on the team well it was because the first best guy was gone and he picked up the he the ball and ran with it and that hasn't happened in in Florida no absolutely not um But with that having been said, I'm not asking you to like go down your list or anything like that. But like ballparking it, I think you would say Austin Matthews absolutely is going to be in the top three, right? Yeah. Right now Matthews is like he's so hot right now that it's unbelievable. Every time you turn the game on, he's doing something incredible. And we're starting to get, you know, again, predictably, now, you know, this is the new, well, maybe.

this, maybe Connor McDavid's title as best player in the world is up for, and I'm not there yet, but Matthews is that the level he's at, like I, this, I thought was a great point. I just saw it come across my Twitter feed. It was Jeff Vellette, Jeffler, on, on Twitter, who people probably know of. But he said, like, it almost feels like right now maybe a lot of people, especially in the media, are, you know, obviously there's a ton of hype around Awesome Matthews because he's a leaf and there always is, but there also feels like there's this reluctance to go too far on what this guy's doing because you know you're going to get sworn by people going, oh, it's only

because he's a leaf. Here comes to the Leaf stuff again. I mean, the other thing, yeah, it's, he's getting more attention because he's on, you know, national TV in almost every single game. But also, like, he's the league leader in goals by a decent margin. Like, he is the best player in the world right now. Yeah, absolutely. If you had to play a game tonight against the aliens, you know, from Space Jam, he's your first pick right now over McDavid, whether that'll be the case two weeks from now.

Or a year from now or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Like, the way he's playing right now is if Prime Alex Ovechkin, 60 plus goals, Alex Ovechkin, also played elite defense. Yeah. That's literally how good he's been. been this year. I don't like, I don't know what else the, what other argument you want to come up

with of like, because I've seen people, you know, if you go by the real, the, like, the true like definition of value, Jason Robertson, player judge most invalid. Okay. All right. Like, yeah, no, he's having a great season. Don't get me wrong, but like grow up also, you know, like, you're, you're, you're doing the thing. He's got, yeah, he's, he's probably arguably the best player on the Dallas stars and the Dallas stars all of a sudden are very hot. But where was this guy six months ago? Or six months ago, six weeks ago. But this is right.

This is what people, some people think of as the definition of value, right? If you Thanos snap the guy out of existence, Dallas is missing the playoffs. The Leafs are probably a wild card, but maybe also missing the playoffs. Right. Well, yeah, I guess the East isn't maybe that competitive. But you know what I mean. Like, you remove Connor McDavid. from the Edmonton Oilers, which, hey, they probably have to do it the summer, right, folks?

But they still have Leon Drysidal. And so, like, the one or the other, like, but people just make it up every fucking year. They just go, well, this year, I think it should go to the guy who scored a million points. And it's like, okay, sure. What about next year? Well, I can't go to the guy with the most points. Because if you... It's okay to just say that you want the guy on your favorite team to win, and you don't

want the guy least favorite team and that that's... I'm going to be honest with you. You know what's driving me crazy this week is, or the last couple of weeks, is people in Colorado.

You know, Kail McCar has a legitimate claim to be a Hart trophy guy and people in Dallas, like, and when I say people, I mean media people. Like literal articles,

like, Kale McCar for heart, some people are saying, and it's like parentheses, me, I'm saying that. And you're getting the same shit for,

for Robert, and in Dallas and that kind of thing. And it's like, you don't have to do this. You know, like, you can just go, damn, look how good this guy's season is without also saying, and don't you think I should be like leading the campaign for this guy

to win an award. Yep. Like, Calvacar is almost certainly going to win the Norris. I think you're galaxy braining yourself if you... Oh, you don't think Headman's legitimately got to... Headman is having an unbelievable

year after he was bad last year. He was flat out not good in the regular season. And then in the playoffs, he was fucking unbelievable again. But like, you know, this is a thing where it gets into a little bit of the Mike Green territory of like, are we just being like, holy shit, look at all those goals. He's a defenseman. He has 20 goals. That's crazy. You know?

And I don't want to, I don't want to just say like points is that, but like when the, you know, when the. When Kail Makara is on the ice, the avalanche are even better than we already think of the avalanche's being, you know? Which is crazy because, like, he's the fucking, he's on the avalanche. Yep. And, like, in some ways, that makes it easy. But, like, the avalanche at five on five have 65 goals and 35 against with Kalakara on the ice this year. At five on five. That's madness.

That's insane. And so, like, you know, even Headman, who's, again, having a what would be a Norrisworthy year in any other season. But Kail McCar is finally, like, in full destroyer of world's mode, you know? So I can't get too mad at people for being like Kail McCar should, but like MVP? Come on. Yeah. The one last point I'll make is the dumbest take, and get ready to hear it a lot, you've probably already heard it. But anytime anyone says, you know, Austin Matthews is a favorite to win the MVP.

Inevitably someone's like, oh, yeah, because he plays in Toronto. Right. You know, we all got to vote for Toronto. Like, yeah, the Toronto Maple Leafs notorious for being voted to awards. Like, they've had, like, literally, here is the last 50 years of awards for the Maple Leafs. You had Austin Matthews winning the Calder. Which, a runaway. Should have been a runaway.

Yes, absolutely. Of course, you know, was not a hard call. And then of the awards that anybody cares about, on the 93 team, Gilmore won the Selkie and Pat Burns won the Jack Adams. And that's it going back to 50 plus years. And I think Mitch Martyr was the first guy to be a first team all-star for the last. Leafs in something similar time frame last year. There is, you know, even factoring in, obviously the Leafs were bad for a lot of that stretch. There is clearly no bias towards the Leafs for award voting as much as your, as much as you hate that your brother-in-law once said that Doug Gilmore was better than Wayne Gretzky.

You don't get to just make that up. But we'll see. And Alexander McGill only won the Lady Bing. Hey. And then I think refused to go to the award ceremony. That's right. How dare you? How dare you say it nice?

That should have him in the Hall of Fame just alone. So let's do quickly the Shusurkin heart conversation thing. Yeah. I totally get why people are saying he should win. If he was not on the Rangers, the Rangers would be absolute dog shit. Absolutely. 100% agree with that. Obviously.

With that having been said, I am really a guy who kind of subscribes to the, well, the guy who wins the Vesna is the most valuable player every single year. Like, that makes perfect sense to me. And so, like, this gets into what the definition of the award is, and it doesn't say the skater, Judge, most valuable to his team. No. So. And it certainly doesn't say forward. No. We never vote for a defenseman for this thing either.

And yet, you know, like I just said it about Cal McCar. Like, let me put it this way. If you want to make it so that every year, whoever your top five is like the best goalie, three of the best forwards and the, like you have to have a goalie and a defenseman on your ballot every year. That makes it interesting to me. But again, that's not how the award is written up. And I've seen several people say that goalies already have an award. They have the Vesina.

Defensemen have the Norris. So that's why four were, no, there's nothing. You are making up rules. There is nothing to suggest that that is how it should work. There is nothing to suggest the Hart Trophy is in any way limited to any position. and the fact that it almost always goes to afford is a failure on on the voters part

it is indicative of something being wrong in the way we're thinking about things if you want it to say you know let's let's make the Wayne Gretzky Award for Best Forward and then you know each position group will have its own major award and then the MVP of sure I'm all for that yeah but

that until that day comes I don't have to only vote for forwards on my heart ballot there's uh and and if I And look, I've had a heart ballot several times, and I have fallen into this trap where I look at it. And I'm like, I've got five forwards listed here. Yeah. It's tough.

But it shouldn't, in other than occasional outlier seasons, it shouldn't be that way. I'll say this. And then we can we can leave it there if you want. This year, I think, is the year where I'm like, the top three, the finalists should absolutely. absolutely be forward defenseman goalie, and you can pick the order. And that forward, unless something horrible happens really ought to be Austin Matthews. The defenseman probably should be Kale McCar. You know, again, like something horrible can happen, and Victor Hedman's right there.

And then Shusirkin, obviously, like, there's not even an argument for another goalie. So, yeah, I kind of, that's kind of where I'm at with. it. I don't think I could put Cal McCar first, but like, I can't really choose between Matthews and Chisirkin right now. So. Yep. Yeah, it's, it's a, like I, I had somebody asked me yesterday, like if you had to vote today, and I said I'd have Chalcun first, Matthew's second, and then Matthews went out and got a hat trick. It's like, oh, okay, thanks, keeping it interesting. And, you know, there's 20 plus games left in the season. There will be twists and turns and probably somebody that we didn't even just mention now will emerge based on.

And that's the fun of it. That's good. But if that person who emerges is a goalie or a defenseman, then we need to vote for them, regardless of what your bias might tell you. Yeah. So, yeah, that's it. We're done. Sean, what are you got for a plug, brother?

I got stuff on the athletic. I got the return of the Who Didn't He Play for Quiz today. This is the goalie edition. So far, people are doing worse on this one than others. So I guess they're all hard voters. They don't know anything about goalies. And I'll be on with Ian Mendez tomorrow to talk about all the trades that will happen three minutes after we finish this show. Yep, that sounds good.

Yeah, for me, go to E.Prinkside.com, sign up for an annual subscription. Use the code I love EP, all one word, all capital letters, and you will get an extra three months tacked on to the end of your annual subscription. So it's really 15 months for the price of 12. Wow, what a deal. And then also check up the Puck Suit Patreon. Confluence of events has made it such that I think we published three bonus episodes in the last 24 hours. So me and Sean ran down the 11 most important trades of the last decade that happened before. Deadline Day, but within two weeks of Deadline Day, but not on Deadline Day itself.

Me and Greg and Greg's best friend from outside of hockey talked at length about both the movie The Batman, which Sean, I'm assuming you haven't seen. Of course, don't. Yeah, okay. Okay, that's what I figured. And just Batman in general, because me and Greg's friend, Andy, love Batman. And then Greg and his wife Ruby just did the season opening episode of MeasonPod, the Top Chef Recap podcast that we've been doing for I think two or three years now.

And people seem to like that. So on top of everything else, we will also be doing a mailbag right after this. So head on over the PuckSoup Patreon. It's patreon.com slash PuckSoup. and check it all out. And thanks for the support. Thanks for listening. Have a good one.

Don't yell at us about what we said about the awards today. Thank you. Goodbye. Bye. It's in goals and saves and slapshots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to what if you commute. We also cover movies, TV shows, it's and tools. It's your weekly bowl of Hagi and Nonsense.

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