Puck Soup - Stanley Cup Ask Us Anything

Episode Date: June 5, 2019

The boys welcome your questions in a round of Ask Us Anything, cover the brutal Stanley Cup Final series between the Bruins and Blues, rank the post-"The Office" careers of actors, discuss Taylor Hall's future, Erik Karlsson to the Senators, Maple Leafs drama, the burgeoning career of hockey insider Sean Avery, the minor league team that stole a trophy and advice to young journalists. Sponsored by Away, Seat Geek and The Athletic.

Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slap shots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to what if you commute. We also cover movies, TV shows, it's in tunes. It's your weekly bowl of hockey and nonsense. I'm Greg Wichenski of the Worldwide Leader in Sports ESPN. Live from Bean Town. I'm Ryan Lambert from Yahoo. who live from Beantown Adjacent.

I'm Sean McNeugh from The Athletic Live from my guest room in the basement. And you're in a puck soup, and please don't ever refer to your dungeon as a basement. We all know that's where you put your kids when they're bad. And while we're on the subject,

don't refer to Boston as Beantown. That would be... You know, I've heard this before. I don't know if it was from you for other people. Everybody outside of Boston calls it Bean Town. Bean Town. Is it not Bean Town? It's like nobody in Chicago is like, yep, we're the windy city folks. Like, it's just one of those things.

Is there another nickname for it? Like, I know in Chicago they like to fancy themselves as the city of the broad shoulders or what have you. Second City. They got a lot of them over there. Right. Does Boston have an alternate nickname other than Beantown? Not as far as I guess they would say probably Title Town, the psychos that live here. Oh, my God. Jesus Christ.

But I, you know, I can't think of another one. The hub of the universe is a very old name for it. That's Toronto. You occasionally hear the hub. That's Toronto. Sorry. Now. I think we figured out why everyone else just calls it Bintown.

Yeah, that's right. You know, for all the talk about how St. Louis is murdery, and I'm not saying St. Louis isn't murdery, when I got here last night and took a cab from Logan, my cab driver A told me about a cabby getting murdered, blocks away from where I'm staying. here in Boston. B, told me a story in which he was assaulted in his cab last year where a guy held a knife to his throat and tried to take his money

and how he grabbed the guy's hand, made him drop the knife, park the cab, negotiated a fee, like, A, I'm going to give you money to see him and try to attack me again. And then told me that, and this is the actual conversation,

if he had hurt me, I would have spent my life hunting him down to kill him. Cool. This is a real Mark Wahlberg-ass story Where he's like Oh yeah If 9-11 had happened and I was there 9-11 wouldn't have happened

But I have to turn in my geek card though Because after he said I would have dedicated my life To hunting him down and killing him I said you would have been a vigilante He's like yes I'm like like Batman And he said like Batman And then of course as you know Outside of the Snyderverse

Batman doesn't kill So I apologize to the DC universe. I understand Batman doesn't kill. He's more like the Punisher, obviously. Sure. Obviously. I just, I hope you tipped well.

Considered this guy. Seems like a bit of a grudge carrier. Yeah, once we establish, I will dedicate my life to hunting down and killing you. You're probably going to hit that 20% button. Did this man mention whether he had a particular set of skills? No, but he did say somebody killed his dog, which I thought was really an indication that maybe we're dealing with a professional here. Anyway, I'm here because the Game 5 is tomorrow, as we do this, we're doing the podcast early due to various and sundry scheduling reasons.

But Game 5, Blues and Bruins tomorrow as we stand, it's kind of good to do it now because Game 5 is just your table setter in Game 6. is the real meat and potatoes. Ryan, where do you stand right now on this top seat tour of you back and forth series that may probably not have Sidion O'Chara in it? Yeah, I wrote about this. I think it'll go up later today.

But you've got to think the Bruins might be in a little bit of trouble with the defense now down two of its top five guys. Where now they're going to have to maybe play, well, they're going with seven defensemen almost certainly, which means like they'll scratch either David Backus or, Christ, I don't know,

who take your pick of the lower end forward, Stan Hine, and maybe. But I would think Backus. And, yeah, they're going to go with probably two of John Moore, Erho Vakaninen, and who's the other one, Stephen Camper, which maybe not the best thing to do in a Stanley Cup final. What about you, Sean? Yeah, I mean, that's Zadano Chara hasn't been Zadano Chara for a few years now, so I don't think we want to overstate what the loss means. But like Brian says, when you look at the guys that they're now going to have to drop in,

it's not great. And it's a situation where, I don't know, it's going to be interesting. It's the end of the year. There's maybe only two games left. Do you just take your four best guys and sell them, you guys are all playing 26 minutes a night, and we're going to scrape by that way? Maybe.

That might be the way to do it. But I don't know. I think it's, I've been enjoying this series a lot. I think other than the game three blowout, which even kind of in its own way, had some storylines to it, this has been a really good series. And I will be cheering against

whoever has a chance to win the cup on Sunday because I want to see it go seven. Do you think people are kind of sleeping on the fact that's been a good series? Like I think it's been a well-play. I mean, there's been a couple of games that are a bit lopsided, but for the most part it's been pretty well-played, and it's been brutal as fuck. Like, it's been, and brutal in like a checking, hitting, you know, like that three-minute stretch in game four where the Blues are a Wrecking crew, brutal in that way and not in like the Tom Wilson way,

which I think is a nice change for the NHL probably overall. Sure. Yeah. I think it's been a super fun series. I also think it's like a bunch of ancillary storylines. I don't, if I had to put money on it, I would say Charra out five back six. Oh, he's done. You think so?

He has a broken jog, right? You can play with a broken jaw. You just put him in the Mysterio Fishbowl helmet and you get him out there. And he's done. He's obviously, I mean, he's a warrior. You know that, you know that, Ryan. He's a warrior. I think the extra time built into the series is it will play to his benefit,

and I wouldn't be surprised if he played in six. Are they going to play game seven three weeks from now? Or because otherwise? Not far off. And I agree with, I agree with Sean. Like, he's, Charra is not Charra, but I do think he's Charra on the penalty kill. And that's where they're going to really miss him. And that's actually the awful.

I mean, he's also still their, like, fourth best defenseman. Yeah. So, you know, it puts him in a really tough spot. And it's also a brutal series, and he's big, you know, and he can withstand a check. He can't withstand a puck to the face. Who can? Who among us could? But he can withstand a check.

So it's kind, again, and here's the other thing about Chara being out that I wanted to talk about. What? What? This is the playoffs when I realized that fans can't understand that. Both things can be true. I'll tell you what I'm talking about. In the Sharks series, okay, or for the Sharks, you can say that these sharks throughout the playoffs were the beneficiary

of some weird shit that helped them win, like the Phantom Major Penalty, like the handpass. But that doesn't take away from the fact they also played really good hockey. Fast forward to the Stanley Cup final. It is demonstrably true that the two games at the St. Louis Blues won in this final came in games in which the Boston Bruins lost defensemen during the game. They played with five guys. This is absolutely a stone-cold motherfucking fact.

But they also played really well in these games to win them. That's also true. But in the games in which the Bruins finished the game and came off the bench and hugged each other and had six defensemen, the Blues lost those games. In games when the Bruins had a guy in the back getting chended to because they got hurt, they won both of those games. So that's true.

Both of these things are true. And Blues fans are coming at me all this week about like, hater, salty, brer-br-br-br-brah. Shut up. It's a fact. I'm impressed. I don't think you're going to get anybody pushing back against you on this podcast. Well, that's why I love you guys.

It's a safe space for me. I'm just really impressed that you made it apparently all the way to this Stanley Cup playoffs before you realize that hockey fans have trouble with this sort of I just sort of thinking I got incredible I have nothing but love for hockey fans

I believe in them I believe in their sanity most times but this one was a record I don't understand how that's true I do rational creatures okay who's the most delusional fans

hockey fans baseball fans football fans basketball fans it might be hockey fans not you mention it now I really take a like a 200 foot looking. I really don't have enough enough familiarity with, like, thankfully,

this is a good thing in my life that I don't know enough about how fans and other sports act. I think for the most part, like, non-Warriors fans in basketball are pretty easy to deal with. Yeah, I think they're less. I would say baseball might be higher than hockey,

only because those fans believe their sport is still a center piece of importance in American culture. So that's pretty delusional, like overall. Yeah. That's right. Anyways, who's been your favorite player to watch in this series, either Bruins or Blues?

And is it Ryan O'Reilly? It is not Ryan O'Reilly because, yeah, he had the one good game, but did you see all the other games in this series where he was bad? I would say for me it's probably, I don't know, one of the Bruins' bottom line guys are Charlie Coils. Oh, yeah. Your Sean Coralli's been awesome in this series. So, like, one of those guys, I think you're pretty good shape to pick them.

But Colton Faro has been awesome, too. So what are you really good? What do you want me to say? I like it. What about you? Yeah, those guys are all good. I hate to say this, but I am kind of fascinated watching Brad Marche. even as he hasn't been great in this series in the sense of having the sort of big games that we're used to,

I just find him a really, I can't stand who he is kind of off the ice in between the whistles and all of that stuff with the way that he deals with people and this whole persona of being. I have no patience for agitators and that's the fact that that's even a thing in hockey really. really bothers me. But just as a player, whistle to whistle, I find him really interesting to watch, especially as a guy who, when he won his first Stanley Cup in 2011, was kind of a fourth-line depth piece. And now he's playing this prominent role. And even when he's not scoring, even when he's not on the score sheet, I just find him very interesting to watch when he's playing well and when he's not playing well. And it's, I have to very grudging. give him credit for evolving into that sort of player because even even a few years ago you

would have had a very hard time convincing me that that I would ever be saying that about him. That's a good point. I tend to give him a pass one because I like agitators, but two, because I've learned in my life growing up in New Jersey that we are always walking among assholes. And my point of demarcation with assholes is, are you an asshole who I find to be amusing? And more, more. often than not when Marchand does his routines, I find it to be next level creative, like putting the captain C on his jersey and pointing to the penalty box. That was so good for Justin Williams.

Like that kind of shit, I'm more willing to give an asshole a pass if you at least amuse me, which maybe not be the best rule in life, but it's how I was raised. Tarasenko would be the guy for me. I, you know. Oh, he's been awesome. Yeah, the blues are the. blues and, you know, they're kind of always there. They never make these deep runs. And, you know, I think we've all watched Teresanko through the years. We've maybe never watched him for a, you know,

15-game stretch, you know, and I harkened back to a few years ago when Ken Hitchcock was coaching this team and there was, like, criticism of him, maybe a little bit softly from the coach as far as, like, his playoff performance. But he's been fantastic and fantastic in a way where you notice him doing things that go beyond, you know, the shot. Putting the puck in the net, yeah. Yeah, yeah, he's, he's been, he's been eye-openingly good. I think Perraenko's been really good. And also, like, what a...

The moment with Frank Saravelli and the press conference the other day where Seraveli is asking whether or not Ryan O'Reilly rubbed off on Terranco, and Teresico's like, what is rub off? is a delightful little Russian colloquial as a moment, but also, like, he's got some personality, too. I think Teresenko, I think he's fun. Yeah, and this is, like, it's cool that he's doing this now because he didn't have a great regular season.

He was pretty good. He had 30-plus goals, if I remember, right? But, like, it wasn't like he, you know, I don't think he even came close to, like, 80 points, let alone 100. Yeah. And, like, but he's playing, like, a hundred-point player right now. he's really picked up his game and he looks phenomenal.

Why are you so hard in Bennington, Lambert? He's fucking bad. Well, he's not bad. I shouldn't say he's bad. He is insanely overrated because he's Canadian. Is that why he's overrated? Because he's Canadian. Yeah, Craig, have you not watched how people talk about Canadian players?

Let me put it this way. Since the start of March, he is a. 9-10 goalie, including the playoffs. If you go by, go series by series, he really only had one good series in these playoffs. And I want to say it was against the stars. I can pull it up real quick. Yeah, he's not been Jonathan Quick. Like, he's not, pitch shutouts.

He was 9.08 against Winnipeg, 922 against the Stars. Let's see San Jose 912 And so far against Boston He is That can't be right This says 80 Oh maybe it is right

882 But was the one bad game But you see But you have to just change your mindset Like I know he's the Calder finalist I know he got a lot of credit For the resurgence in his numbers Oh so I should change my mindset

No no You have to change your mindset because he is Chris Osgood That's what I've come to realize Yeah, and Greg, what am I famous for in Detroit? Being critical of Chris on this group. Right? Like, he's not good. Like, I've said it a million times.

The Blues don't need him to be a 9-20 goalie. Right. Yeah. But I also don't need to hear, oh, he's the king of the comeback game. Well, you know, Tuka Rask has a higher save percentage after losses than he does in this postseason. The difference is Tugarask hasn't lost as many times as Jordan Bendington because he's been better. so I am quite sick of hearing about how this guy is just like and blues fans are very mad at me for saying that he's that he's not been great blues fans are mad at you because you don't respect

the stats after losses yeah because it's fucking made up bullshit dude you know on on Tuesday home games after losses and you know that start at 4 p.m. like okay we get it dude that's that's fine but like the reason he gets to have all these wins after losses is because he loses a lot. So what are we talking about? Sean, as a Canadian, do you? Yeah, just first of all, for the record, I didn't even know Jordan Biddington was Canadian until we brought it up on this podcast like two weeks ago.

I had, I had no idea. He looks American. He's, I mean, he is an amazing story, and he should be, because he was their fourth or fifth string that they didn't even have room anywhere in the organization for a year ago. He's a career H.L. goalie. And he, yeah, and he comes up and he saves the season. And it's, this is a great story. And it's cool and people should be talking about it.

I was on the radio a few times in the last week and referred to Jordan Biddington as the modern day Steve Penny. And people didn't like that very much. So I, uh, we'll see. You know, maybe, maybe not. Maybe this is Ken Dryden, version two. But it may also. Can we split the difference and say Cam Ward? Yeah, okay.

I mean, Blues fans would take Cam Ward, I think. Yeah. So, but yeah, I mean, Ryan's right that you look at his numbers over the course of the playoffs, and they're not great. They're not winning because of goaltending. You know, there have certainly been a couple of games like there always are, but they're not relying on their goaltending as to the extent that the Bruins are. which is both good and bad.

It means the Bruins goaltending has been better, which obviously is what you want. When you're in a series, you want to have the better goaltending. The flip side is the series is tied, and the Blues goaltending has not been as good as Boston's, and maybe that changes. And if it does, then that shifts everything into the St. Louis column.

So we'll see. I get why he's a story, and he should be. Oh, yeah, I'm not saying I don't get why. why he's a story, but people are bending over backwards to make him even more of a story than, like, it's not enough where the story is, can you believe this guy was in the AHL last year and now here he is in the Stanley Cup final? It's, you know, the blue, he's all propping up the blue and it's like, what fucking series are you guys watching? The ice water coursing through his veins like the night king. Coming back from losses to lead them to victory, eh? He doesn't look nervous. But yeah, and the other thing is I am with Ryan, this whole stat of, this whole stat of, you know, of when a team goes deep in the playoffs and their goaltenders' numbers after a loss, it has become like this year's version of your record when you score first.

It's like, can you believe this team usually? Yeah, it's hard to score. If you get the first goal, you're probably going to win. You're like, yeah, if your goaltender loses three games in a row, you're probably not going to be sticking around to make it to the Stanley Cup final. He's the sixth goal in NHL history to record seven wins after defeat. within a single postseason. The other names in that list

include Nikolai Hobby Bullitt in 2004, Mika Keperslava in 2004, Ron Hextall in 87, Lundquist in 14, and Fleury in 09. It's just an auspicious list, but there it is. A couple of other housekeeping.

Oh, first of all, remind everybody what our picks were. I said the Blues in Six, so I still got a chance here. I said Bruins in Six. So you got a chance. I think I said Blues in six. Okay.

Thank you what I matched. I think it's still alive. Very interesting. I do think that after seeing how the blues reacted to the atmosphere in game three, I would be very nervous about them trying to close out a series on home ice, to be honest with you. Like, it's,

they got, they couldn't, they couldn't process the emotion of game three. And I can't even imagine what it would feel like if they had a chance to win the cup on home ice in game six. Okay, sure. I think it's probably an advantage to play at home, but that's just. I thought

I've got said Well, first of all, not necessarily true for the blues this postseason. They've been a much better road team They've been a home team This postseason. Is that true?

Or is that one of those things? It sounds like it's true, but it isn't. Hold on. In road games played after home games, Jordan Bittington. They are one, two, three,

four, five, six, seven, eight, and three on the road. And one, two, three, four, five, five, six, one, two, three, four, five, six. Six and six at home. Damn right. Look at that. Look, look at, look, fuck, fucking, fucking statmaster over here. Trying to give you the knowledge and getting doubted, got six. I wonder if a lot of those home losses have to do with the fact that Jordan Bennington has been below, uh, eight 50 in four and three home games. Do you think that? It may have also been a thing where like, they, they lose at home and go on the road. that's why this, we're really, really taking a scalpel to the fetal pig here and dissecting what this Jordan Bittington run is like. I'm very much enjoying this.

Let's talk about the fucking enterprise flag. The St. Louis Blues took a mountain of criticism most prominently from former Puck Soup guest Paul Lucas from UniWatch for having a flag for Enterprise Rental Car amongst the color guard before. game three of the Stanley Cup final. The flag has appeared in other pregame ceremonies, but it's also been absent from previous pregame ceremonies. But obviously, Enterprise is the title sponsor of their arena. They want the sponsor flag there in back of Charles Glenn as he sings the anthem. And then to nobody's surprise, after it got written up in Deadspin and Kansas City Star and

other places, the Enterprise flag disappeared for game four. I don't care. Like, it's, it's all an advertisement. Like, it's all advertising. Who cares? Yeah. Here's the solution is stop playing the national anthem before sporting events. Yeah.

Who cares? Like, here's the thing. They have, they have St. Louis Blues flags out there during the anthem. Like, there's people carrying them during the anthem next to the stars that stripes, next to the state flag. Nobody says anything about that. that because it's this fucking warped mentality of like, well, that's, that's, that's, that's the team. That's America.

The team is America. And, you know, the minute, like, you know, a rental car company goes out there, now all of a sudden it's beyond the pale to have some sort of corporate logo next to the American flag. I just wish personally that this was a trend throughout the league. Like, when you went to a Rangers game, you'd have a giant flag with James Dolan's face next to the American flag. JD in the straight shot flag.

I don't know, man. As a Canadian, Sean, is this a thing that even resonated up there? I mean, it did only in the sense that we saw it and we thought, oh, wow, if we've learned anything about Americans in the last few years, it's that they believe very strongly in the sanctity of the anthem and that anything that disrespects the anthem is disrespectful of the troops and freedom and eagles and all of that. And surely the entire country will be up in our arms. about this and it didn't really seem to happen

and now I'm starting to wonder if maybe some of that anthem stuff was a little bit disingenuous. It couldn't. There's got to be some other explanation. There is 100% been a blues game or any game quite frankly in the last couple of years

where they put the like thin blue line flag out there with all that shit too. So like yeah it's all I mean it's all made up. If you looked at that And you were like, what an outrage that this happened in the United States of America? It's like, I mean, I guess grow up would be my answer to you. And listen, for the amount of money they probably pay for naming rights in that arena, they should have Charles Glenn come out dressed like a guy working at the desk at Enterprise rental car to do the anthem.

Like, who cares? Yeah, I couldn't give less of a shit, honestly. They should have the Zamboni driver, like, have to wait in line and then he gets to the front. And they're like, we don't actually have the Zamboni we said we were going to give you, but how about a two-door sedan? And he's like, no, I need this. I put on the form, it has to be a Zamboni. And they're like, sorry.

And then they tell you, they're all out of GPS's and it's all a very sad day. Remember that when you had to rent the GPS at a rental car company? It was before you could use your phone for such things. I'm going to say I don't think I've ever rented a car in my entire life. Wow, ever? No, I don't think so. It's kind of fun. Certainly not in my name.

My favorite thing with renting a car was years ago when I had younger kids and you'd call up and you'd be like, hey, I'm going to need a car with a car seat. And they're like, okay, well, we can't guarantee that it will have a car seat. And I'm like, well, I guarantee that I'm going to have a kid with me. And that kid probably doesn't want to go through a windshield. So can we maybe do a little bit better than we're going to try to have the one safety device that you legally must have? one might say that would be the entire crux of our of our financial interaction here

is whether or not you can provide me with a car seat exactly oh Jesus the other thing I wanted to mention about the St. Louis experience was the impressive multitude of celebrities at blues games John Hamm, Jenna Fisher John Ham was there? I haven't heard about this

Is he a blues fan? No way come on the guy from the TV show or as Mike Milbury called it movie he said he called bad man a movie well so he was very starstruck and he's like first of all he called it madman and then he said it was one of the greatest movies of all time well i was obviously talking about the day the rest would still reboot that i mean that's clearly what he was talking about right um yeah and and then he he didn't even ask him a hockey question he asked him about like what was it like playing don draper he's not even a good guy um did you did you guys hear about the question at the end of john

him, for those that don't know, actually had a press conference before game three, because the NHL apparently didn't want an entire room of reporters trying to track him down to smell him during the game, which I think is a smart idea. Did you guys hear about the last question he was asked from this guy who asked the, like, maybe one of the worst questions of the entire playoffs? Or he goes, no. He goes, I guess he goes, a guy in the audience is like, John, you know, I remember watching you and, you know, I think we were soldiers or what?

What was the Tom Hanks World War II thing on... Saving Private Ryan. No, the HBO miniseries that everybody was in. Band of Brothers. Yeah, so whatever he was in. He's like... Or the Pacific. No, he wasn't...

Watching you there. You were, you know, a young soldier in that show. And, you know, we were watching you coming up the ranks as a young actor and, you know, finally making it big on Mad Men. And, you know, I... You can't help but look at some of the younger players here on the blues and, you know, how they... have worked hard

in the lower lines. Oh, boy. John, do you ever look and see maybe yourself and some of the players that have, you know, worked hard to make their place in the lineup? And Ham goes, that's a bit of a stretch,

but I'll allow it. And it's just, that's the John Hamm thing. That's all you wanted to see. You wanted to see John Hamm be John in. By the way, a Rist Flinten collection of, of a blues scarves owned by John Hamm, which is,

and they're not even like the scarves that you'd buy in like the pro shop. They're just, they're like silk. They look silky. They have to be a custom-made blue scarf. It's very accurately move. Yeah, he's going to dial it back with the scarves.

It's too much. He's got, he's, you live in Hollywood. I need to protect my pipes as an actor. Jenna Fisher was there from the office. Big Blues fan. Scott Bacula, former captain of the Enterprise,

was there. Very exciting to see him. The Bruins haven't scored a goal since Nelly appeared in the Jumbotron at the Blues game four. Just want to point that out, the Nelly effect. None of the St. Louis lunatics were there, though.

Murphy Lee was not there. The rest of them couldn't get tickets, but Nellie was there. A parade of St. Louis athletic dignitaries, Isaac Bruce, from the St. Louis Rams. Mark Bulger,

former quarterback of the Rams, introduced the song Country Roads in the arena. Star-studded affair in St. Louis. I had no idea. Can I just ask this? You mentioned Nelly and all of his friends.

Was Freddie Brathwaite there? No. No. But a true blues legend was there. Disrespectful to not have your video co-star Freddie Brathwaite

show up in... Freddy Brathaway was in which Nelly video, do you remember? He was in... Not one of the two Nelly songs that I know off the top of my head. But let me find this out for you. That's an impressive pull. I had no idea that was the case. Yeah, he was.

It's one of those kind of fun. Welcome to Atlanta. He was in... Yeah, so it was... Well, you'd figure if it was Welcome to Atlanta, they would have had Marty Reasoner in the video or, you know, any of the other thrashers. But no, P. Diddy, Snoop Dog, Murphy Lee, Nellie, and Freddie Brathwaite.

There you go. Don't say the NHL never gets any pop culture love. I have to admit that I'm an easy lay for a lot of playoff shit. I'm a pretty easy lay for City coming together to celebrate teams' first long playoff run shit. Like, the idea that, like, Jenna Fisher is like, I got to take time away from whatever. My canceled show. Yeah, whatever failed pilot she's working on to come and see the blues. What's the office post office power rankings?

Corel won. Oh, I think Jim from the office number one now. Jim from the office. Yeah, Corel's cooled off. So Jim from the office won Correll. Then Ed Helms? Or, Middy Kaling. Ooh. Um, if we're, and I mean, if we're including,

later seasons, you might even say Kimmy Schmidt. What's her name? Oh, yeah. Kimmy Schmidt. Her name's Kimmy Schmidt. Let's be honest. I mean, the Mindy Project was good. Kimmy Schmidt, good. Coming in all the way at number 15,

the Dwight guy. The Dwight guy is definitely like number 15. And then Craig Robinson, I'd say is cooled off too because he was on that ghost show with Adam Scott that didn't get picked up, I don't think. It canceled after one season. They tried to redo the whole premise of the show at one point. I'll tell you who I thought would be bigger.

Stanley. No, B.J. Novak. Ryan the intern, I thought would be a bigger deal. He's written a book of poems or something, but I thought he would go on to be kind of a junior league. He's just a writer guy, though. That's all he's ever, but that's all he never was, though. He would have created.

I thought he would be like, from. from the office is B.J. Doveck, a coming of age story of a skinny brunette who lives in Pittsburgh. You know, I thought that'd be his thing, but he didn't really hit it. So I would agree. I would say Jim from the office is number one right now because of the quiet place and hopefully because he and Emily Blunt will play Reed Richards and Sue Storm at some point in a fantastic four movie. That's my dream. And then Corral number two, because he's not as hot. He's like, I don't want to cast disperions, but Steve Carell right now is NHL Awards popular.

I don't, I think that's being unkind. You take that back, man. That is not, there you. Like, he's in multiple Academy Award-winning movie, or Academy Award-nominated movies per year at this point. Like, he, that dude is in a lot of stuff, and

it's mostly good, although we can't say that maybe for what was that movie, welcome to Marwin or whatever. That's what I'm talking about this. and stuff. Yeah, that movie was. Look at me in a movie.

And he was the most distracting part of vice, I felt, as Don Rumsfeld. I thought it was good, but Beautiful Boy was really, was really good. Oh, the kid from, the, wait, him and Schell-Nay, right? Yeah.

Yeah, okay. He was great in that. He was great in Battle of the Sexes and Body Wrigs. He's trying to Oscar bait it up, and it's all missing the mark. I don't know. He was a, like, fox catcher.

I think he's been nominated for at least two Oscars at this point. I'm just saying he's no Jim from the office. Jim from the office was Jack Ryan on an Amazon streaming show. He did a quiet place. He's doing a quiet place too, more quieter. It's a big deal. That's all I'm saying. Two Golden Globe nominations, not two Oscar nominations.

Right, exactly. Well, I think he's... He's like a legitimate movie star. He's going to be giving out the Selky Trophy. He should, right now, he should pack his bags up. And, you know, honestly, if you need to pack your bag, there's only one bag you should be using, which is the bag from Away, one of our favorite sponsors here on FuckSuit. You know, Away offers a high...

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if you haven't read Darren Reveller, Dan Steinberg in the last few days, lost, fell short of Ken Jennings' record. And this was, of course, a giant controversy because the spoilers were out there well before the show was airing in many markets. Did we have any problem with that happening? Is it not newsworthy? It's one of those things where it's like I get why, I mean, and you know, they taped them months ago, so that

like that makes sense that it got out or whatever. But yeah, I mean, I would have preferred to watch it and been like going into Final Jeopardy like, holy shit, he might lose. And then he did you know, the bad bet in Final Jeopardy. He bet low for once. I guess he probably just didn't. I don't remember what the specific category was.

The answer was Marlowe. That was a math thing, though, wasn't it? That because he was behind, he knew that she was going to bet. Yeah, he was making the optimal bet because he knew if she gets it right, he loses no matter what, because she's going to bet enough to beat him. So I'm sure there was some reason that was the best possible bet. Right. Yeah. No, like I understand why, like he kind of went low or whatever, but yeah, I mean, I would have preferred to be like, damn, I can't believe this guy blew it instead of going in knowing he was going to blow it. But, you know, she just beat him to the daily doubles. That's how it worked. The counter argument to that is that the ratings for this episode of Jeopardy were batch it crazy great. I'm sure they were. And almost outdrew.

game two of the NBA final between the Golden State Warriors and the Toronto Raptors. And so the argument could be made that by having this information come out before the episode, even though we all know he lost, that more people came to the show to watch it than would have normally. Let me ask this. Did any of this, these spoilers come from Jeopardy itself? Like, were they promoting this episode differently? No.

So to me, that's, you know, the argument that, well, the ratings are better. I don't know. To me, if it's a show that hasn't aired yet, and it's not, I get if it's newsworthy to some high degree that, yes, that probably trumps the viewer's experience. But I don't love the fact that you put a result out before a show that, you know, it's, it's going to air. Like, it's, nobody's hiding anything. You don't have a scoop here that people are trying to keep hidden. It's kind of like a few. It reminds me in a way of, this is going back, I think, more than a few years.

Remember the one year that the NHL award results leaked like an hour before? And everyone's like, yeah, here, there. And it's like, okay, great, you got your big scoop. But, I mean, all you did is just, or even when people are like scooping the draft picks during a draft 30 seconds before. It's like, why don't you just let people watch and enjoy it for what it is? So there was a ESPN employee. I cannot allow this criticism to stand.

Wage didn't do it last year. Yeah, I know. Chapasson did it this year for the baseball draft, which was hilarious. Oh, and also, your NHL Awards thing reminded me, I remember this ringing at Puck Daddy. Remember when the NHL shop was selling a Alex Havichkin Hart Trophy winner T-shirt before before New Awards. I don't remember that, but that's pretty good. Oh, it was great.

They started selling an Alex H. Wachin Hart T.shirt, like, two days before the NHL Awards, and they quickly removed it when we wrote about it. Oh, it was so good. Oh, it was so sloppy back in the day. Yeah, it was awesome. Frankly, I'll

just say real quickly. Anybody who tells you what the NHL awards are in advance is doing you a favor, because then you don't have to watch the show. I don't know. They might have that magician back at some point. I tend to believe this about I feel like the spoiler issue with the Jeopardy win

was part of an ongoing problem we've had in this society because of social media and Twitter and everything, which is Nazis, no, which is the spoilers in places you shouldn't expect to see them. And I know that on Twitter you should expect to see them, but you don't expect to see them from, you know, prominent sports business reporters or call them this for the Washington Post.

I feel like it's akin to, you know, getting ready to watch a show and then finding out that a major character died because somebody decided to report it. You better watch tonight because so-and-so's dead. And that's kind of a bummer. And I feel like it's getting harder and harder to avoid that thing. I know we talk about spoilers thing vis-a-vis the Game of Thrones earlier on the podcast. But on this one, it's kind of a bummer. Like if you're following, you know, Dan Steinberg for news about the Washington Redskins, he's like, oh, by the way, James, James Holeshour loses tonight on Jeopardy.

I'd be kind of pissed off about it, to be honest with you. Which, I mean, I guess the one thing that complicates this is, am I right? Jeopardy is a show that airs at different times during the date. So there's probably some people watching it first thing in the morning. And then, because I'm a firm believer that if it's a show that's airing at a certain time, you don't want to have it spoiled, stay off Twitter. But if it's an hour before. Perpetual weirdo Baron Rovell said that they waited until it aired in the Montgomery, Alabama,

a market that morning to begin tweeting about it. So that was the thing, is that, like, in some areas it airs really early, which for me is really warning? Yeah. I... What? There's a daytime version of Jeopardy, but in some cases, I guess, the nighttime version of Jeopardy

that everybody in the country, you know, crowds around the TV at 7 or 730 to have dinner and watch Jeopardy. Airs in, like, Montgomery. Maybe in Montgomery, Alabama. It's like, we just want to get all the smart shit out of the way early. And then play reruns of two broke girls during seven o'clock hour.

We get it. I only recently found out that in some markets, Jeopardy airs before Wheel of Fortune. And that is deeply upsetting to me. Why is that to, no, that's how it was in, in, um, it's how it is, I think, in New York. I think it's Wheel of Fortune to Jeopardy. That should be. No, no, no, no, it's Shepardy. It should be.

It should be. I don't know, I've come across places where it's like that, but I agree with you. Like, in the grand scheme, you want the Egghead show at seven, and then as you ease into your... No, it's the other way around. What? Did I say it wrong earlier? I might have said it wrong earlier. You're saying that Wheel of Food.

Oh, no. Jeopardy should be before. The smart people are going to have a team. You're coming off of work. You just think your big commute, maybe you just got done cooking a meal. your brain is still firing in all cylinders. You get there, you get through Final Jeopardy, and then you get to the fucking Dum-Dum half hour

where people are picking letters and spinning wheels and not getting things. It's like, meet me in St. Louis, and only the T is missing. It should be illegal to have wheel before jeopardy. I disagree. It should be against the law, and if you do it, you should be arrested and killed.

Oh, well, I know, okay. I know a cab driver that can help you out on that time that end. The Kevin Hayes trade happened in the first period of game four. And, Sean, I understand that you have some thoughts. Well, my only thoughts is not on the trade itself, just this idea that as soon as the trade was reported, I see all these people going, oh, the NHL isn't going to like this because the NHL does not like it when any news breaks

and any time during the final they like teams to not announce. What are we talking about? It's the Stanley Cup final. If you don't think that your Stanley Cup final can be the dominant news story that you have to hide everything else away, like have some confidence in your product. And if teams want to make trades or make announcements or hire people, the idea that they've got to squeeze them in and off days and all of this

because hockey fans are going to be all a buzz about Kevin Hayes and apparently turning off the Stanley Cup final. Yeah, every Flyers fan who wasn't watching the Stanley Cup final. Stanley Cup final anyway because hockey teams only watched their, or hockey fans only watch for their favorite teams. Excellent point.

They all shut the game off and ran to cap friendly and tried to really suss out what was going. Like, come on, man. I'm sure that the ratings just plunged. Front page of the hockey news was analyzing who the Jets would get with a fifth round pick instead of like, geez man.

Can we just pretend? for a second, like the NHL thinks people might like its product and want to watch it without being distracted by... Fans have given them no indication that's the case. That is true. That is true. My favorite instance of this was, I remember the Tampa Chicago Cup final, when Gary Bettman was literally walking into the room to give his state of the NHL address, and

news broke that Mary Louie was going to sell the penguins or something like that. There's some huge story about Penguins' ownership that broke, like the minute that Batman walked into the room and completely usurped anything he was going to say. The ratings are strong. Reveniles are good. Mr. Batman, it looks like Mary Louvillo is going to sell the penguins. Ah! You know, so it was, I do understand the dynamic of they want it to be the focus on that. But like you said, it's the fucking Kevin Hayes trade.

You know, it's not something that's going to knock the cup fine loft off its rails. And it's not even like Kevin Hayes's. going to play for the Flyers next year. He almost certainly isn't because why would he want to play for Elaine Vigno again? I don't know. Maybe he's the only coach he's ever had. He's the only coach he's ever had. He's like, you're big. You're a checking guy, right? Is that right? Do you think that Leibigno acquired him just to dick around with him for a few weeks? I mean, he would definitely help the Flyers. Oh yeah, for sure. But I think, I think the bigger thing is that he's going to get, he should get a lot of money this summer. I'd give him like, about six million.

I guess. Yeah. Like, Colorado apparently has a real hard on for him, and I bet they would ante you have pretty big. And they need a depth forward. So let's go. Like, if he's your second line forward or second line center, you're in good shape. I just like the dynamic of Chuck Fletcher continuing to be aggressive and good while his successor in Minnesota continues to be Paul Fenton. Not as much.

Well, you can't say Paul Fenton hasn't been aggressive. That's true. That's true. That's true. I just want to point out, before we move on, that Greg, even though this is an audio podcast and nobody can see you, I can see you, and that when you did your flustered Gary Betman impression, even though no one would see it, you still did the finger gun move, which I thought was fantastic attention to detail.

That is the work of a true master, man, that you just, it. Nobody was going to see it, but you knew it was there, and it helped get the mindset. It's how he gets into the character. Exactly. This is method acting and its plan. Yeah, it's his entry for sure. Sean Ryan, it's not simply just doing a voice. It's embodying a character.

Can I speak to Gary Betman? Oh. Hello, James. It's good to see you. And Gary, Gary, would you go, would you die and go to the Burleigh Gates of Heaven? What would you like St. Peter to tell you? good job that's the answer always

on inside the actor's studio when somebody does the what happens when you die um the Kelly Cup got stolen by the champions last year this is probably one of my favorite stories maybe

strong come on if you you know you have to give something if you borrow a rake from dead Flanders and you don't give it back you technically have stolen it from Ned Flanders that's how I feel about that um for those who haven't heard

story. The ECHL champion last year was the Colorado Eagles. They skated the Kelly Cup, the ECHL trophy, named after Commissioner Emeritus Patrick Kelly. And then they kept it. They did not give them to Kelly

kept it back, which is interesting because they left the league to become the AHL affiliate of the Colorado Avalanche. So this was their last hurrah, their last go-round. So they kept the championship of the league they left, did not give it back. Patrick Kelly spilled the beans on this, on a Toledo radio station morning show.

And then it became a huge thing where the Colorado Eagles put out a statement saying, hey, we tried to give it back. And the ECHL put out a statement that was like, but she didn't. No. It's like what of my favorite stories of the year so far. This is such a great story. And I love the statement from the team because they're like, we tried to give it back, but we didn't hear back from the.

Like, dude, that's not how the mail works. Like, you can just put it in a box, put the address on. Like, they don't have to, like, what are you waiting for as far as, like, what are they supposed to get back to you with? Does anybody have a forever stamp? Are there any forever stamps in that? No. All right. Well, I guess we can't send back to Kelly Cup then, can we?

Oh, I love everything about this story. I love the fact that, like, the story broke and the team put out, like, a two-line. We tried to give it back. We didn't hear back from them. This is an odd story type thing. And you're like, all right, I guess that's it. And then the league just fires back with like six paragraphs of Twitter anger over how they don't have their trophy back. I love it.

And I think that we should incorporate this into the NHL award somehow. Like one award every year, they should just not return. And the previous, the new winner has to go and, like, fight the old winner. to get the ocean's 11 style yeah exactly i want to see i want to see the i want to see two lady bing winners have to fight over a trophy uh yanking it out of each other's arms to to get it back or or just to have patrice brujerone keep the cell key because i mean honestly you could do that you're just going to get it again do we still have that that trophy yeah that would be uh that would be good too so they ended up making a new kelly cup and

then putting the same like stuff on it, which apparently they've done before. So this isn't quite like the original Stanley Cup, which isn't even really the original Stanley Cup anymore, going missing. And I guess apparently I don't, I don't follow a lot of other sports leagues closely, but this is somewhat common in other leagues where you, like, there, there isn't a trophy. There's a copy of the trophy every year and you can just get to keep it. And so, I don't know. So the two options are that they threw it away, like the Patrick Cainpuck in the Blackhawks win over the flyers. Or the owner of the Colorado Eagles has the Kelly Cup in a vault that has a bioscan to get inside of it. And then when you open it up, like plumes of smoke rise, like it's a like a super villain vault.

I can't imagine it's just something he has in his office, right? That'd be pretty brazen. I mean, can we all just acknowledge that they lost it, that that's what happened here? Yeah. And they're just like, this is exactly, it's like you see, you know, your neighbor borrows something. And you're like, can I get that back? And they're like, yeah, yeah, any day, they lost it. They're right now, they're on Amazon, like, desperately searching for a trophy that looks similar enough that they can pass it off and, and hope nobody says anything.

They 100% had a house cleaning before they joined the AHL and somebody put it in, the donation bin. It's at a Salvation Army somewhere in Denver. 100%. They brought it. They put it on the counter and then the cleaners came over and moved it, and now nobody's really sure where it is. And somebody bought it at the Salvation Army. Now there's a phycus inside of it. It's just like that I love it. That's it. That's what happened. That's definitely what happened with that question. You know, guys, speaking of things that are impossible to duplicate, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if we've ever had someone bail on a transit before.

I mean, legally, I have to give that a zero. Pull up, pull up! This is what you write your name at the top of the test and just pass it in because you know you're finished, so. It is a direct-to-consumer subscription service. For sports fans in North America. The model is simple. There's no ads, no pop-ups, no auto-play videos.

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in a whole new way. Yeah, there it is. Well done. There it is. I'm glad you completed your run. I'm no quitter, Greg. That's a lot. Taylor Hall might be a quitter.

According to the fourth period, which never found an old story. It couldn't repackage and make news. Taylor Hall isn't interested in signing a contract extension with the doubles at this moment. It's great that everybody didn't read through. the full sentence to read at this moment. He can't sign an extension until July 1st. The Devils, and Hall have both said for months that it was going to be kind of a process in which Taylor was going to figure out if he wanted to stick around or not.

But the fourth period dropped this news, and by God, you'd think that Taylor Hall packed this shit and was not going to report to camp the reaction to it. I don't know if he'll be back. I think that the Jack Hughes thing dramatically increased. the chances he will be back. But I got to be honest that as a devil's fan, there's a part of me that's like, I don't know, maybe not spend the years and money that he's looking for.

There's always going to be like 30% of me that's like that, even though he's incredible. But I think either way, like Jack Hughes, Nico Heesh, are up the gut for the next 10 years are going to be all right. Yeah, pretty good to have the first two choices and drafts that are really close together. in my opinion.

Yeah, you'd think that. But do you think, what do you think on Taylor Hall? Like, I've said this before the podcast. I possibly go wrong with a Taylor Hall team to have a bunch of number one picks. That's a great point. Yeah, I mean, it's the worst part

is that he's going to dramatically decrease the chances of us getting that French kid next year in the draft. That's the issue. What French kid? Oh, Alexis Lerreineer? Uh-huh. He's French Canadian.

I got confused. Oh, yeah. No, he's not from Grenoble. He is from, I was going to say like Pierre Edward Belmar? Okay, have fun. Drake, if he decide not to sign Taylor Hall, when do you trade him?

This summer. You'd hope he doesn't. When is summer? Did you do it at this year's draft? Or do you wait until after July 1 when in theory he's eligible to sign an extension and all of that sort of stuff? Is this a draft situation that, like, in other words, are we looking at this being coming to a head potentially in a couple of weeks? I don't think that it will because I think that, look, he's been treated so well by this team, and he loves Heinz who's going to inexplicably be there for a while,

and he likes Shiro, and he likes the organization. I think he's enjoyed being in New Jersey, from what I gather about him. I truly think that he wants to take time to see what they do with the rest of that roster. got a ton of fucking money to spend on top of getting Hughes in the draft. So I don't think it's going to be an NHL draft decision because I think that he'll let them know what he thinks about their moves by, you know, end of July. I mean, I think it's like a late summer thing versus anything else. But do we, I mean, I'm trying to think of trades we've seen late summer that have Carlson. Carlson, yeah, but I mean, is that the model? Is that what you want to get back

if you're the devils to do what the senators did in a trade for arguably the best defenseman in the world where they didn't get all that much? There's going to be more of a market, though, for Taylor Hall than there was for Eric Carlson. Why would there be? Why do you think that? Because I think there was concerns about Carlson's health. I think that there are people that, like, we're going to trade for Eric Carlson, but he's not going to sign here.

I think the world's your oyster if you're looking to acquire Taylor Hall. I don't know. I just think it's a different deal. But the point being is that. I don't think that they'll know from him whether or not he's going to stick around until well into the summer. My concern is by the end of the summer, or even by a couple of weeks after July 1st, teams tend to have a pretty good sense what their roster is. And in the summer, before anyone's hurt or anyone's showing up for camp or anyone's struggled, those rosters always look pretty good. And you've got teams sitting there going, you know, I think our first line is.

okay. I think we've got enough scoring on the wings and even if they clearly don't, are they going to pony up and pay big for an elite player the way that they might at a draft where everyone's there and you haven't, you've still got

holes in the roster and guys that you haven't signed and that's the thing. I don't know. But what you're essentially arguing is that they should trade them regardless. Well, not necessarily. But I do think that I mean, let's, despite what the Ottawa media loves to tell us when it comes to Senators free agents, they are allowed to talk

to him before July 1st. They should know well, I mean, they should know, if not by now, certainly well before the July 1st, whether they're close, like not necessarily have a deal in place, but they should have a pretty good sense of where this is going. So by the draft, they should have a pretty good sense of whether this is going to happen or not. I mean, financially, yeah, but again, I think the real issue here is that he's clearly planted his flag on the idea that he's going to stick around with the team if he thinks the team can win a cup. And the only way he's going to know if they can win a cup is after seeing what they do this summer. It's a tough call. I mean, from a timeline perspective, it's a tough call.

But you bought up, you bought up Ottawa. We should probably talk about the Don Brennan Baum Show. The Don Brennan Baum Show that Eric Carlson should probably want to take that deal that Ottawa gave him. last year now all things considered. And there was also a report, I guess, that both Ottawa and Montreal would be in the running for his services. Was that the other thing, too? This is, because apparently his wife, who is from the Ottawa area, is, uh, interested

in, in coming back home or, or close to home and didn't necessarily enjoy being, uh, out on the West Coast far away from family and, and friends and that sort of thing. So that's where this is coming from. I'm not going to say it's impossible, but I will say that I think it's worth noting that there is some benefit to Eric Carlson for having a story like this out there, whether he's trying to juice interest from the sharks or just try to set a market for a few weeks from now. There is some benefit to him, and there is a lot of benefit to the Ottawa senators for having this story out there. because the two criticisms of the Eugene Melnik era have been that, A, he won't spend money, and B, he drives star players away and creates an environment that's so toxic that people flee from the franchise. And having the idea out there that Eric Carlson is seriously considering returning,

kind of addresses both of those at the same time. So I'm not going to say that this is something the senators are putting out there for PR purposes, but if they did, it would very much probably be a wise move by them because it makes a lot of sense in terms of just to spin it to the fans that this is a guy that the idea that he might even consider coming back could alleviate some of the concerns that people have about the ownership situation. What do you think, Ryan? Yeah, I mean, why would Eric Carlson go back to the senators?

Like, they're not going to be cup competitive, even with him for, what, three, four more years? By which point he's... No, it's two years, and then it's unparalleled success. Ryan, did you not read the press release? I forgot the... Unparalleled. Five years. You signed for seven years. You get all five years of the unparalleled success.

That's right. Yeah, no, I... You know, sure. Yeah. Let's just... You know, you know, it's one of those things of, like, hey, you know, Eric Carlson, he could go to the Leafs. I saw somebody say that this morning, and it's like,

oh, yeah. We can't just say every team is in the market for Eric Carl. Every team would probably like to be. But you can't just say, you know what? I think he should sign with the Edmonton Oilers. Him and Connor McDavid, wouldn't that be a great fit? I guess so, man. I don't know.

Like, he's going to go where he goes and, I have a lot of money on it not being the Ottawa Senators is basically what I would say. Is there, I mean, like, if Tampa actually made it work, he goes there 500 times before he goes back to Ottawa. Of course. Yeah. And it sounds like they're trying to make it work. So, you know.

Again, the only, there is no even vaguely plausible hockey reason for him to want to come back to the Ottawa senators at this point in time. It's purely the only reason that you give it any credence at all is there are things beyond just hockey and family is important and all of that sort of thing. So, you know, maybe. Did he, did his statement when he left, when he got traded, did it include the words, Ottawa will always be home to us? Because if it did, probably. Probably did. I'm sure he, you know, I love when people are like, oh, he still has a home. Yeah, like he has 17 homes. That's right.

He's doing quite well. But, yeah, it's, yeah, it's, yeah, it's, uh, I, you can't blame them for trying. Let's, let's get some good news out there. But the thing that's interesting to me is I've seen like a couple of different takes from people, seriously weighing like, would this make sense for Ottawa? Would it, we, it definitely wouldn't to get one of the best. And it's like, yeah. Yeah, it wouldn't make any sense.

And yet, of course, you do it anyways because this is the one player that could actually come back and sell some tickets and make you relevant again. Of course, you do it, even though you probably can't afford to and all of those other things. Now, we don't try to be too leaf-centric on this podcast because there's a few podcasts. When did this policy get introduced? I quit. I quit. I've enacted it this morning. Okay.

I'm out. It's a leaf. I was going to say, but there is a reason to talk about them this week because of all the nuttyness surrounding several issues. Let's begin with this Mitch Marner thing, which I didn't even realize. He fired his agent? Yeah, that happened to... Did that happen? I didn't see anything about this.

So explain... I want to say it was Ren LaVois reported it, but now I don't remember. You're on the Twitter machine here. I saw it on Twitter, for sure. Well, if it's on Twitter, it's on Twitter. It has to be true. And I feel like it was in French. And why?

I'm not following enough French people that that would be the case that I would see it otherwise. I feel like if this had happened, I would have seen it mentioned once or twice. Regardless of who his agent is, his agent is dad. I mean, let's be honest with each other. It doesn't really matter who's negotiating the deal. But that's one aspect of it. Then you've got... The entire Mitch Marner thing in general is insane.

It has brought out a level of craziness in a small segment of Leaf fandom that is really remarkable to see. Like there are... And again, it's I think a vocal minority, but there is a section of Leaf fans that are just totally ride or die with Mitch Marner. And they want him to get all the money. They want the Leafs to trade. anyone they have to trade in order to give Mitch Marner all the money, and they have convinced themselves that this guy is the second coming of... I don't even know.

There has never been a winger like Mitch Marner, apparently, because they want him to be not just the highest paid winger in NHL history by a wide margin, but the entire face of the franchise, because he walked a shot in... No, I don't think it's because he's Canadian. He has very good branding. I don't know any other way to put it. I want his PR people to come work for me because they have a teen. He's like a teen idol.

Like people love him. Yeah, I guess. Yeah, he's something else. So it's, yeah, it's, if you want to see the crazy, you know, I know, the Leafs are like any other team. They've got their smart fans and their dumb fans and their crazy fans. and a whole bunch of things in between. But if you want to see the crazy element come out, suggest that maybe Mitch Marner should settle for the same money

that Nikita Kucharov makes to play the same position and win the MVP and watch people flip out at the idea that he would take anything less than $12 million to come play in Toronto. So I got to the bottom of it. Ren LeVois retweeted TVA sports saying, Mitch Marner, it now represented by a Montreal agency I emojis. And then you click on it and it's his agent's company merged with another agent's company based in Montreal. That's what it was.

There it is. All right. So it got like telephoned to me. So, Marner to the Habs, E4. That's exactly right. Yes. Nikita Zyxev lost a smile, wants to leave Toronto. and this was celebrated this week.

Yes. As well, it should be. Understandably so. This is the ideal situation for the Leaps because Zyzeb's a good player. He's an NHL defenseman, but his contract is ridiculous. And anytime you have a player with a bad contract and you try to trade them, even if there's somebody who could bring some value to the team they're going to, it's a very hard sell because teams rightfully understand that if you're trying to move somebody,

there must be a reason for it. Whereas when somebody stands up and says, actually, I want out, and it's for personal reasons, although not the bad kind of personal reasons. It's just that he doesn't like it in Toronto anymore. Like that's almost the dream scenario

if you're Kyle Dubas having to trade this guy to be able to call up other teams and go, boy, you know, I don't want to move him, but he just really wants out. So let's see what you can get. So it's, I know it sounds weird maybe in a sense to people because the Leafs were always told that the defense is the weak point and the fact that they would be trading a defenseman, but it's the cap situation and it's the fact that this contract goes forever.

It was a bizarre contract the moment it was signed and it doesn't look any better these days. And if they can get out from under it and maybe even get some form of an asset back, awesome. Yeah, I've seen a lot of people doing some real heavy. lifting for Kyle Dubus in the last week about like, look, he played top four minutes in Toronto. And it's like, I mean, he did.

That's not untrue. But he was very bad in those minutes. And, you know, if you just take some guy from the AHL, like a bottom pair of defenseman in the HAL and give him top four minutes, well, look, he played top four minutes in the

NHL. And it's I, you know, like, like you say, it would be great for the Leafs to get out from under that contract. If somebody's dumb enough to take it off their hands, like, good, good for the Leafs. But it really, the thing that pisses me off about it is, and we'll talk about, I'm sure, the Patrick Marlow thing, where he's also demanded a trade, or maybe requested a trade is a better way to put it. Where it's like, just like Chicago three, four, five years ago, every team in the league is like, please, you're, one of the best teams in the league. Let us help you get out from under your horrible caps. What can we do to make your life easier? And it's like, you don't have to fucking do this. Like, I don't know if it's the idea that like, well, look, if he was on

this good team and he played such and such a role, obviously he's better than, you know, whatever guy we have playing that role. And it's like, probably not. Have you seen these guys play? Have you looked at any of their numbers? Like, it's not a good situation. Zytsev is okay. Like there are teams that could get better, putting aside the contract, which you can't really do in a cap lead, but let's just pretend we can't. Like, just on ability, there are absolutely lots of teams in this league that could drop him onto the third pair and get better that way.

There's maybe a few that could put him on the second pair. So there is some value to be had there. But again, how much? What are you willing to give up for? and how much of a cap hit that still has five years left on it. Are you going to take? Because I don't think, because it's five years, I don't see the Leafs wanting to retain salary.

They don't tie it up that long. So the question is going to be, is this a situation where it's Nikita Zytsv and the Leafs throwing in a sweetener? Or is it Nikita Zytsv for actual assets coming back the other way? Or is it maybe in the middle where it's Nikita Zytezv for a different contract that has fewer years or a different structure situation? Ryan mentioned a team helping other teams

get bailed out of their problems, which brings us to the Arizona Coyotes. Patrick Marlowe's The Coyotes was a thing this week, I guess, because Marlkesville the Coyotes Every other guy who wants to get trained in. Marlowe's family is moving back to San Jose. It's kind of been known locally for weeks

now that I'm a San Jose insider that his family is moving back. But I guess, like, Glendale close enough in the eyes of Benny as far as closer than Toronto so

yeah it's closer to Toronto you know I don't think that's actually the worst move for the coyotes in having Patrick Marlow around

as a guy to have around as long as you're not looking for him to do anything effective and as long as maybe the Leafs pick up a little bit of the salary yep which they should

not the worst thing in the world to have Patrick Marlo around your young forwards is what I'm trying to say like he was in Toronto Here's what you do. You bring in Patrick Marlowe for one year as a player, last year of his contract. He is a great leader.

He's a guy who does things right. You let everybody watch him the work habits and all of that stuff. Then you give him a front office job for, let's say, four years. And then that takes you to five years from now. And five years from now, hmm, are there going to be any players potentially available that really, really love Patrick Marlow? And maybe have some sort of connection to the Arizona area. Hmm. Play that long game.

Austin, it's your father. Yes, exactly. Wait, you don't sound like, no, your other father. Yeah, you're, come, come home. Dad wants you to come home. Now, this is, you know what, like this, this is, again, I'm kind of repeating myself a bit here, but this is really good news for the Maple Leafs because the assumption has been that there was really no way out of that Patrick Marlow deal because he has a full no trade.

You can't buy him out. You can't even robida island him and try to force him to retire because it's a 35 plus deal. You take the full cap hit. And the feeling was there was there was no way out because he had full no trade protection. And why would a guy about to go into his 20th season who's never won a cup, he's not going to want to go to any team that isn't a contender and he's probably not going to want to go anywhere. And now suddenly we find out that because of the situation with his family going back

out west, that he potentially does want to go and might even be open to going to a team like Arizona or L.A. or somebody like that, the Leafs are still going to have to eat probably half the salary to make it happen. And they're going to have to, it's, there's a signing bonus on July 1st. So it's a situation where the lease can end up paying most of the actual dollars, but still get out of, let's say, half the cap hit. And it's for one. year they'd be willing to do that. And that's big because that this is the year that they come up tight against the cap. If they can get out of, let's say, three million of Patrick Marlowe's cap hit, uh, that could be the difference between being able to take a swing and bring in back

Jake Gardner or, or somebody else via free agency or trade. It's, it's potentially a big deal. And it was something that up until a week ago seemed like it was a pipe dream and now potentially, uh, is, is something they can actually make happen. Interesting. This brings us to the last bit of leaf snuddiness. The Sean Avery Hockey Insider. Sean Avery on Instagram did a video that surprisingly didn't involve harassing homeless men

in which he stated that his sources in Toronto told him that Nazim Khadri had been traded to Winnipeg for Jacob Trubda. And to my surprise, only Ken Weeb or Weeby, of the Winnipeg's son was, I think the only reporter that tried to track down this rumor. A source confirms no trade has been made tonight, but I think that Nazim Codry makes a lot of sense for the NATL Jets. I, for one, am here for Sean Avery as a hockey insider, as long as every

rumor is reported via Instagram story at different New York night spots or riding his bike or perhaps auditioning for one of his many New York theater gigs that he's not gotten. Trude for Nazim Kodry.

Please, Sean Avery, don't let Sean Avery be the reason that I have to figure out Instagram and learn how to get my old man over to that platform. You just let me know what he says. But yeah, Sean Avery, he doesn't seem like the sort of guy who would just say something to make trouble

and to cause aggravation and get a reaction. So I don't know. This must be one of those blockbuster trades that always happened during the Stanley Cup final and then never get released for two weeks because you're not allowed to talk about anything other than the Stanley Cup final. Speaking of media stuff, there is a media feud brewing in Boston right now.

Between W.E.I. as like an entity, apparently, and Jeremy Rutherford of the Athletic. Oh, no. Jeremy Rutherford is like the nicest guy in the history of guys. He tweeted, a source familiar with the situation confirms to the athletic that Boston defenseman to Dan O'Chara has a broken jaw. hashtag STL Blues at Fluto Shenzawa at Joey Mac Hockey Um WEEI is mad because Christian

Foria who is a host on their show and a former Patriots player Um Quote unquote broke this news yesterday or the you know the night off or something like that um and you know

confirmed it with his sources and all that stuff and so uh Rob Bradford who I want to say like runs WEEI's digital side says the lengths of this guy and others crediting him went to not to give proper acknowledgement to Christian Foria

was mind-boggling even for this petty world of journalism we currently live in. God. Oh man. It's like as the person who sent it to me said a two-year-old could have confirmed that Zadano Char had a broken jaw because Keith Jones

pointed out during that game that even though Zadano Chara came back on the ice or on the bench with the fish bowl, he also didn't open his mouth the entire time. And it's like, yeah, no shit, dude, a puck hit him in the face. And Frank Saravelli, after the game, said that he heard from somebody around the ruins that he had a broken jaw. So it wasn't like it wasn't already out there either. No, no, of course.

So, yeah, like, just I, the Boston media has been getting increasingly. increasingly annoyed with, like, the St. Louis media, because, like, the St. Louis media did that thing where they were like, oh, you think St. Louis pizza's bad? Well, Boston food's also bad. And it's like, I mean, not really, but okay. And so, yeah, like, it's been as much of a war on the ice as often. It's just good to talk about Boston media and not have to bring up who's sponsoring the towels at the game. Yeah. That's a good thing. It's healthy. Dave Portnoy got hitting ahead with a towel at the St. Louis game. Did you see that video?

I did. He was steamed. It was a bit of a black mirror twist to the towel saga. The towel then becomes the weapon against the man who promoted the towels. It's a shame. You need to see it. On Tucker Carlson's White Power Hour. Yeah, I don't know.

Sean Avery, yada, yada, yada. but I just, I don't like that he's back in life. But he does look very nice. It looks very porcelain. And Vaseline. But there you go. Anyways, if you want to catch the Bruins and Blues in Game 5, there's only one way to do it,

and that's with the lazy transition. And with our friends, it's better than the last one. It is better than the last one, but boy, that is a low bar to clear. With millions of live event tickets from sports and live music to comedy and more. Seekkeek has the tickets that you're looking for all in one place. It even rates each ticket, each deal on a scale of 1 to 10, and displays them on an interactive seat map.

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them. A good husband uses C-Kkeek. Let me just put it that way. Seek will even give you $10 off your first C-Kkeek purchase. All you have to do is use the promo code. And that promo code is Soup, S-O-U-P. Download the C-KKK app today. Use the promo code soup for $10 off your first C-KKKK purchase. That's promo code soup for $10 off your first. Seekeekeek purchased via the app, Seekek, they've got your tickets. In the time remaining, we decided to do something we've not done for quite a long time on the podcast because we do the mailbags over on the Patreon. So this will be sort of an abbreviated version of that.

We wanted to open it up to questions from the good people on Twitter, a little A-U-A, ask us anything to pat out the show as we do it before. Obviously, the cup final is settled to make this a little bit. bit more evergreen for your ears. We'll start with B underscore Marsh 92. What should Seattle choose as their name and what should the color scheme for that name be? If you are an old Merrick versus Wachinsky listener, you know that we were a big fan of the name of the Seattle Easter eggs and having them be colored like Easter eggs. Failing that, obviously the Seattle Sasquatch and the colors should be exactly like the Sonic.

I'm old school. I want to go Seattle Metropolitan's for two reasons, first of all. First American team to win the cup, and also by doing that, I think it would force the NHL to come up with a real name for the Metro Division and not have that stupid name. And color, I don't care. I don't know. Do whatever's Seattle. Do something. Is there any color you don't want them to have? I don't know I care a lot less about color schemes and logos

and that sort of thing than I think most people do Like would you be okay if they were black Another black and red team Because that's kind of what I'm hoping Is that they're not a black and red team Yeah I feel like that's sort of been Done a little bit

And you hopefully don't want it I mean Vegas did the dark Kind of metallicy Uniforms Maybe you go the other way And do something a little bit little more, uh, a little on the other side of things, or,

or not this is, there's a reason I'm not a marketing person. I, it ultimately, it's the NHL. It doesn't matter because they'll redesign their uniform every few years. And constantly do new third jerseys that, that people will buy.

So, uh, whatever they do, don't get attached to it. I, I want them to also be the Metropolitan's, and that comes with the acknowledgement that it definitely won't happen because the NHL won't let them. But I want them, their color scheme to be basically what the Seahawks colors are, just like,

because that's also the Sounders colors. And it's like, okay, just get the whole city going on that one. A little Pittsburgh vibe. Yeah, like that's cool when that happens. I think that kicks ass. Okay, so here's my thing then. Since I said I don't want Seattle go black, but let's let Seattle go kind of Seahawksy, maybe a little bluer, that would basically be them taking the current Vancouver Canucks

color scheme, which forces Vancouver to go back to the flying skate black uniforms from 94. I just think it would be so cool to have like neon green as like an NHL secondary color. Like that would look so cool. Well, you know what? I'm old enough to remember when the San Jose Sharks came in in a league where everybody was wearing black or traditional navy blue. and they came in with teal and people were like that's insane you can't do that and then it looked and they sold and they sold trillion and the ducks per uh what what is it eggplant and

jade was the official color like that like i say this all the time the nchel needs to do more like what college hockey does where i guess in part because there's 60 teams but there's like brown teams there are purple teams you know like bring all that shit back bring the king purple uniforms back. There was definitely a time when I was a kid when having the teal shark starter jacket was like a fucking cachet. S-H-H-H-H-H

I guess it might be Shlome, I don't care. Was Goldberg actually good at professional wrestling? No. But, I mean, like, you're answering that question that he's not Dean Malenko, but professional wrestling is more than a move set. He, absolutely.

was he was amazing at professional wrestling, which is not the same as being athletically skilled at all. This guy got over as a new character in late 90s WCW, which is virtually impossible. That's like coming into the dead puck era and scoring 200 points as a rookie. He was phenomenal at connecting with an audience and pretty much nothing else because he was completely useless as a athletes. Yeah, and even when, and even the easiest of them, he would still screw up half the time. Like, you would think, like, run fast and collide with somebody would be impossible to mess up, and he would still mess that one up.

And, you know, occasionally they'd have to send, like, Stephen Regal or someone out there to legitimately beat him up in the ring live on the air to try to smarten him up. But no, I mean, the professional wrestling is, as a performance and not an athletic endeavor, he was amazing. I'll split the difference here. I'll say that he was a pretty good professional wrestler who was packaged incredibly well by WCW to the point where you're almost shocked that WCW is able to do it. Because they were so inept. Like they didn't.

They clearly weren't trying to do this. The music was perfect, him going through the sparks, the winning streak, like his win over Hogan. It was all really, really well done to build his character. and then in the ring he could really he would get blown up a lot pretty easily but he also, you know, his power moves would definitely connect with the audience. So I'll go somewhere in the middle.

The soccer geek or go, oh, the soccer goal goalkeeper wants to know. I just want to know how I can get more of two-line pass ranting about Jerry York. The death of hockey goes to college was sad only because I no longer get a weekly reminder of all the ways I hate Jerry York. Why was Jerry York subject to target of iron?

on your podcast. So, like, I think the general feeling on Jerry York is one of, like, you love it. Like, he's the best coach in the history of college hockey. He won over a thousand games in a sport where you play, like, 42 games in a season max, you know, all the national championships, all that kind of stuff. but he's kind of lost his fastball in the last several years because he's, I think, 74, 75 years old, something like that. BC isn't as successful as it used to be, and in fact is often quite bad now.

And also, this year, a BC player in the playoffs allegedly used a racist comment against a, player of color on another team, and Jerry York did not in any way discipline him and, in fact, put him in the starting lineup for every game after that. So, yeah, not a huge Jerry York fan these days anymore. Interesting. All right. A couple more here. Bailey Budio wants to know, is the MCU better than the Star Wars saga?

Please. Roll up. Okay. Well, that's that. Halo Boy 143 wants to know, what's the best Bond song? Like a James Bond theme song. No, I guess I don't know Bond well enough to know what the answer is. Probably, I mean, for like, for sheer, like, greatness of song,

live and let die or the Skyfall, the Adele song, or Goldfinger. for cheekiness, though, of you to a kill. This is a great song from Duran Duran. Finally, Matthew Coyte, Coyte, 16, or Coyt, any advice for young sports journalists trying to crack the business? I always like these questions. I'll give them the same answer I give everybody.

Don't do it. It's not a winning combination for you, sir. Or madam. I disagree. I think that it's a good time to get into the business only because there's a lot of different gigs and different places. And the key to it right now is being able to do more than two things. Like it's not even good enough to just do two things. You've got to be able to write and video and podcast and probably code would probably help too.

And Photoshop and edit all those things, not just record them. but yeah and that's and that's how you break into the business is that you go to the business that's currently paying someone a lot of money to do one thing and say I can do this and then two other things for you for a third of the cost and then you get hired and that's how you get your foot in the door yeah and and my other piece of advice would be accept uh and embrace the fact that you will need a lot of luck uh put aside the idea that this is the sort of business where talent and hard work always wins out and if you just keep at it that you're guaranteed that eventually down the line,

something will happen for you. It might. And hopefully it does. And it's always better when the people who work hard and deserve it, get the breaks over the people who don't. But that's not always the way

that life works. And I hate the idea that there are people out there who haven't got that lucky break and are sitting there questioning their own skill and their own work ethic and wondering if it's their fault, because that's what they've always been told, because that's just,

That's not how it works in a world where there are more people trying to get the jobs than jobs that are available. And I would also say that, and this has been a big change during my time as a journalist, is that if you are a passionate fan or a passionate writer about what is a niche sport, I think there's so much more opportunity now to make money doing and covering and broadcasting those sports than it was when we first started. Not just niche sports, but niches within a sport. Like there is, you know, there was a time a few years ago, it's not the case anymore, but where being the analytics guy in hockey was very much a niche. And we've seen lots of people who carved out space in that niche not only go onto jobs in the NHL, but to getting paid to do that at places now. So it's, it's, it is far better to be one of the very best in the world doing a niche than it is to be. the 200th best Greg Wachinsky

clone out there because we already have a Greg Wischinski and go be something that... If he's down, yeah, go to Brown clone. And look how well that worked out, so... Yeah, so follow your dreams,

says two of the three hosts of Buck Soup. It's just tough out there, man. That's all I'm saying. It's hard out there for a Pimp. You're completely right. All right. That's Buck Soup for this. week. Thanks everybody for listening. We, of course, will be back after the Cup is won next week. Could be Sunday. Could be after Sunday.

Who's to say, really? And then we will fully transition to draft and awards and free agency and all that. Fucking nonsense. Thanks to all the sponsors. Thanks to Katie. Thanks to you. Patreon mailbag coming up. And also, bonus episode coming up soon.

Thanks to Sean for coming up inadvertently with the idea for that one, because it's going to be good. All right, we'll talk you soon. Thanks, everybody. See you. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.

Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slapshots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to what if you commute. We also cover movies, TV shows, it's and tools. It's your weekly bowl of Hage and Nonsense. Book 2.