Puck Soup - Stanley Cup Final, Baby

Episode Date: September 18, 2020

The boys break down the Stanley Cup Final between the Dallas Stars and the Tampa Bay Lightning; say farewell to the New York Islanders and Vegas Golden Knights; talk Peter Laviolette in Washington; wonder what the Wild are actually doing; Arizona gets a new GM; Montgomery gets a second chance; and a deep dive into the best and worst Quentin Tarantino films. 

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, eats and tunes. It's your weekly bowl of hockey and nonsense. I'm Greg Wichenski of ESPN, home of NHL Quest for the Cup, where you hear coaches use naughty language in the long. locker room. I'm Ryan Lambert from listening to coaches.

Use naughty language in the locker room, I guess. I'm Sean McIndoo. I'm Canadian. I've never heard any naughty language. You wouldn't even know it if you heard it. And you're in Puck Soup. Ladies and gentlemen, we have a Stanley Cup final. It is the Dallas Stars against the Tampa Bay Lightning. for the right to lift the Stanley Cup inside of an empty building in Edmonton.

And I guess, well, it is really. I mean, when you think about it, I guess we should start with the fact that the Lightning defeated the Islanders in overtime. It was the third straight series in which the Lightning won the elimination game in overtime, which is really fucking wild, almost makes it seem like it. It's a team of destiny. But they defeated an Islander's team that in the last two games of this series, Ryan, had perfected a bit of anti-hockey.

You know how Darkside had the anti-life equation in DC Comics, where if you had the anti-life equation, you could wipe out all life in the universe? Let me stop you right there. I don't. I don't know that. Well, he did. He did. And I have to think that what the Islanders had perfected in these last two games was, in fact, the anti-hockey equation. It was the death of hockey the way that they were playing in these last two games. Yeah, I mean, I don't think anybody watched those games and was like on the edge of their seat until maybe overtime. But even then, you know, there wasn't a lot going on outside of the various power plays.

the refs were forced to call. And that's also true for the Dallas Vegas series. Like that's my one kind of big takeaway from these last few games is like, Jesus Christ, they are, they have just put the whistles away and they refuse to call anything that wasn't a puck over the glass or like a guy bleeding from a high stick or, you know, where they just totally can't open a guy on a trip. Like, those are, like, unless it was insanely obvious, they were just never going to call anything. So got to let the boys play.

Got to let them play. You got to let the boys play. Sean, are you, Sean, I imagine like me. This is just me projecting for a moment. It would have been a kick to see the Islanders back in the Stanley Cup final for the first time since the first Reagan administration. Like, it would have been, they're a team that hasn't been there. So there's a certain excitement in that. And Barry Trots, you want good things for Barry Trots.

However, being that it's Dallas on the other side of the equation, I have to imagine that the entertainment value of that final would not have been paramount if the Islanders had made the Stanley Cup final. Yeah, I think all of that's fair. I mean, the Islanders have not been this deep in 27 years. They're, as a, as a Leafs fan, I have a certain soft spot in my heart for fan bases that go through long periods like that. And I mean, it's not, it's not like even the Islanders spent 27 years being okay. They were terrible and, you know, the arena problems and the uniforms and Mike Milberry and all of this stuff. So I was happy to see them go deep. I would have been happy to see them go further win a Stanley conference.

That would have been cool. That said, yeah, Islanders, Dallas in the final would have potentially been awful, awful hockey watch. I mean, that's, maybe not. I've seen enough hockey to know that when everyone agrees something is going to happen, then the opposite always happens. So maybe it would have been 6'5 every night and we would have loved it. But I think we said, I can't remember if we said it on the show or if we just kind of said it to each other. but at the start of the conference final, I said I could handle Islanders Golden Knights

and I could handle Tampa, Dallas, as the offense versus defense matchups, just anything but Dallas against the Islanders because I'm very aware that there is such a thing as an entertaining 2-1 game. I'm very aware that Islander fans are going to be perfectly happy with anything that their team does to win, and that's how any fan base

should be. Sometimes defense is fun to watch, those last two games sucked. Like, those were really, really bad. Yes, they were overtime and playoff overtime is great. But if you, if you had a friend or like a new fan or somebody who was just new to this and you sat them down and they were like, show me this, this sport that you love so much and you show them one of those games, they would never watch hockey again, ever. So it's, we, we may have dodged a bit of a bull. that I feel badly for the Islanders and their fans, but, man, that would have been rough going in a final. It would have. Which is, you know, I mean, but that's the style that they had to play, and apparently.

And, you know, I think the interesting thing is that you could say that Dallas did some of the same things in the Vegas series. Oh, you could say that. But I would say this, though, Ryan, that, like, what the, Islanders lack in their version of this are, you know, Jamie Ben and Tyler Sagan and Alex Radjulov and Joe Pavelski and Dennis Garianoff and Mira Hayeskinan and John Klingberg. I think at the end of the day, the Dallas team might actually be a little bit closer spiritually to the 95 Devils in the sense that like they can play life-sucking hockey, but they also have hot. Yeah, they have, yeah, they have high-end guys. that can finish. In this metaphor, the stars are the 95 devils and the Islanders are the 96 Panthers. Yes. Yeah, right. No, that's exactly true. Like, the, the, the, the, uh, the stars are like your

Claude Lemieux, Stefan Riesh, Neil Broughton, uh, kind of team. And then the Islanders are a bunch of Scott Mellonby's and Bill Lindsay's. Yeah. And like, you know, the Islanders do have some very talented players in the lineup, obviously. Like, you know, I, I think if you said, oh, you know, know, they have Matt Barsall, they have Jordan Eberley, they have Anders Lee, they have Brock Nelson, you go, oh yeah, those guys are all good players. And Anthony Bavillier kind of really stepped up in the postseason. And we started to see more of what Pelican Pooleck can do on the blue line and stuff like that. But just like the stars, maybe there, maybe you would say the stars are one or two guys deeper at both offense and defense. But at the same time, like,

they still kind of the bottom of both of their lineups just isn't there, you know. Yeah. And again, which makes it just more credit to both teams for getting this far. I mean, you know, the Islanders give it, you, we just saw their season end. But, I mean, Barry Trotz is a genius. And he got that team to buy into exactly the right style. And all 20 guys bought in. And we could go down a long list of teams in the NHL that,

think they have an identity and think they have a style, but they don't have everyone bought in, or it's not the right style, or it's not the right identity, and they haven't earned it. And the Islanders did all those things, and they, you know, I know that to some extent, maybe some Islanders fans would push back if I said that the team overachieved, because that feels like a backhanded compliment, like you're saying that they, you know, they're good enough, but they did overachieve. Ryan will say it. Yeah.

So, but like, I mean, that's true. Again, that's true of Dallas as well. Nobody thought Dallas was like, nobody. Nobody looked at Dallas coming into this and was like, that is definitely the team. Yeah. That is, you know, one of even the three best teams in the Western Conference. But they didn't overachieve just because a goal that got hot or because of some lucky, but like they overachieve by, like, it felt like almost every single night, even the games that they lost, other than maybe the game won blowout, you, you watch them and you were like, that's as good as the Islanders could play. Like night in a night out.

They just, they were at the top of their game. And there's not a lot of teams you can say that for it. And so full credit to Barry Trots, first and foremost, but the whole team as well. Yeah. Take anything away from them. The thing I was going to say, too, is like when they lost game three, even the Islanders media was like, hey, look, what are you going to do? I mean, Jesus Christ, right? It's the fucking Tempe Bay Lightning.

It's the New York Islanders. We all knew how this was going to go. Right. And then they, and it was like, uh, uh, uh, a freaking a movie where like a guy's hanging on by his

fingernails on the edge of a cliff and that's the Islanders and Tampa Bay is just like stomping on the fingers and the guy loses one finger

but still holds on on the other hand and then you know eventually you just got to fall you just it's going to happen and so yeah I mean

you know the thing is you know how if you want to talk about like how repeatable is this for the islanders I don't know

know, not very probably, but, you know, I guess my point is you don't want to talk yourself into, you know, we were one goal away from forcing a game seven, just like the senators should have never talked themselves into, we were one overtime goal away from going to the Stanley Cup final and that kind of thing. Like, they're, full credit to the Islanders, like I said, but also like, you know, you need to get back in the lab on this. You're not one or two guys away. You're like four or five guys away. Well, yeah, and the thing with the Islander is that you have to remember is, like, the best player that they're going to add in the offseason is a goalie. Like, I mean, it's, you're kind of doubling, doubling down right now on, on, you know, the style and your strengths of the team.

I give Tampa multitudes of credit. Like, they were playing against a stranglehold of a team. They look like they were in quick sense. for the majority of game six. I mean, their power play looked like it was, you know, that's like running a podcast at half speed, like compared to what the lightning usually do on their power play. But they found a way to win this game.

And just like they found a way to win other games in these playoffs where I think past incarnations of this lightning team don't quite figure it out in the same way. I was really impressed with them in the series. Well, they're just a little bit deeper now, you know? The Blake Coleman and Pat Maroon thing, everybody's like, oh, they went out and they added sandpaper and all this. Yeah, that's like kind of what those guys do.

But also, like, you know, it meant that they could not play a guy like Carter Verhage, who seems like he's going to be a pretty good player. Like, they don't have to bring him in and have him play even if he's not necessarily ready. You know what I mean? They went out and they got two guys who were, and Barclay Goodro is another one, where they got like two or three solid bottom half of the lineup. forwards and, you know, obviously having Kevin Chattonkirk as your, as your number three defenseman helps as well.

So, yeah, and they get shit done. Like, they're, they're players that, I think one of the reasons the lightning fell apart against the Blue Jackets last year was that they didn't have any self-starters down the lineup. They didn't have any guys like Blake Coleman that could create something out of nothing. Or Penn was hurt. Well, Victor Hebbin was hurt, too. But like, but like, but like, you know, when they needed a goal, they couldn't get a goal. Like, they didn't have a fucking Pat Maroon just parking his big ass in front of the goalie's face, you know, and scoring those sort of shitty John Tortorella-esque goals that you need to beat a John Totorella team, right?

So, like, I think that they trafficked in a different kind of player to add to the lineup. And once again, fucking Julian Brisewad, you know, takes a knee to Lou Lamarillo for GM of the year for some fucking reason. I don't know. Well, he went on about Andy Green. Well, you got Pajot, too. I'm not saying Lou did a bad job. I just think DeBriesbaud did a exponentially better job. Sean, your thoughts on the lightning's gutsy performance in this series.

Yeah, they're really good. And we just finished talking about their depth. They've done all this without Stephen Stamco's. Like that's fucking crazy. Arguably, their best player, a guy that probably going into the playoffs, we would have said was their second best forward. Maybe now you bump right and point up. but I mean, this is still first-line guy, and they don't have them, I don't think they'll have them for the final, although I guess we never know.

He's skating. He's skating. I mean, this, boy, this is a team that is really good. They, and, you know, we don't want to get ahead of ourselves. They could go into the final and who knows what could happen. They could play terribly and open up some of those old wounds, but this is. Just be exhausted. Or be exhausted, yeah.

Yeah. So, you know, it's, but still, like, this is a case where, and again, it always feels obvious in the moment. And right now it feels obvious that, like, when I sit there and go, oh, the lightning are really good. It's like, great insight, genius. Of course, they're really good. And they're in the final. Yeah, well, we all thought they would be in the final or pretty close. It was, I mean, one year ago, right now, like last fall, there were a.

ton of people who thought that the lightning were broken and that they needed something to fix them, some big change. This is, there was just something wasn't there with this teaming because they lost the blue jackets. And it's a good lesson in, you know what, going out in the playoffs is painful always and some are more painful than others, but you can't overreact to that. And full credit to Julian Breezeball, he's the new guy. He could have been like, I'm going to put my stamp on the team and I'm going to fix the team because the old guy that I took over from didn't do it right.

He more or less stayed the course and then when the time was right, doubled down on what he had. And it was the exact right play. Yeah, it's, you know, they were arguably the best regular season team in the history of hockey last year. And they went out and added guys who made them better. And that's really hard to do. You know, like if you're, oh, you know, how many points did you have in the regular season

last year? Oh, it was a million. We had a million points in the regular season. Okay, you're not going to have as many in this year's regular season, but you will be a better team one through 20. And you go, well, how's that possible? But he did it. Like, that's incredible. And they added sandpaper and, you know, yeah, Pat Maroon and guys like that, but they didn't go and, you know, they weren't out there trading Tyler Johnson for a fourth liner because they needed. Remember that? Yeah, or any, you know, the, and again, I'm coming at this. A lot of this is what you hear as a leaf fan, what people want to do. You know, get rid of Nealander and bring in these fourth-line gritty heart and soul guys.

Yeah, that's one way to do it. Or you can just find those guys in better ways without giving up the assets that you need to have the depth to go where you want to go. It's just such an impressive organization and they've done, they've earned it. I mean, they are full, full credit for everything. It's also a thing where they made the right calls from a people standpoint. Like, when you're feeling the tension of a playoff run, as the Lightning often do, like, it's good to have a couple of fucking goofballs in there. Like, Pat Maroon is a goofball.

And Kevin Chatton Kirk is a goofball. But they're also really good hockey players. And in Maroon's case, it's a guy coming in from a situation where he just won. Like, there's a certain amount of calculation on that part of it, too, that I think is really, genius level from Breezebaugh and the Lightning. This matchup's an interesting one in the sense that I feel like the Dallas stars are the final boss of the side-scrolling journey that the Tampa Bay Lightning have been on.

You know, you get past Columbus, your tormentor from the previous season, but also a team that doesn't, does everything to try to let you not score. And you get past Boston, which, you know, didn't have Tuka Rass, but still had incredible defensive bona fides. You get past them a team that doesn't want you to score at all. And then you play the Islanders, who, as previously mentioned, are playing anti-hockey. And then you figure out ways to score against that team. And now you go against the best defensive team in the West and the final.

And I feel like the previous three rounds are going to very much inform what we see from Tampa in this series, which is not to freak the fuck out if you can't do the things that you've been able to do offensively, which I think is what happened to Vegas. like Vegas freak the fuck out not only at the end of the Vancouver series but then in the entirety of the Dallas series and their high-end guys didn't know what the fuck to do. But I think Tampa

now intrinsically understands what you need to do against the team like Dallas. Yeah, I mean, you know, it's not really a mystery. You know, like nobody was looking at that Vegas series and going, I can't figure out why Vegas is it. Well, I mean,

everybody knew why Vegas wasn't scoring. They weren't going in the front of the net, right? And to your point earlier, Tampa has those guys, but they don't just have, like, you know, like Brayton Point goes to the front of the net. It doesn't have to be the Pat Maroons of the world. It's everybody. And, you know, if you're just doing a little bit more to create rebounds and that kind of thing,

it really can be that fucking simple. Yeah. And, I mean, I guess what I'd say is, Greg, you just described why the lightning are going to be ready for the stars, and it does sort of make me think of that old quote that everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. Sure. I'm sure that they feel like they're ready for the stars,

but the stars are really good, too, and the stars are a lot of what the islanders do well, but with a little bit of extra danger behind them. Yeah. So I could, you know, I'm sure the lightning feel very confident going into this, but when you're, when you lose game one, two to nothing, and then you're halfway through game two and you haven't scored yet, and all of a sudden you're looking around going, uh-oh, this,

we didn't come through all of this just to get here and running into another guy. I don't think they go uh-oh anymore. I think they went uh-oh last year, and I think the last three rounds have prevented the uh-oh. But I also think that Dallas is a team that also doesn't say uh-oh. I think they've got like the utmost confidence that their kung fu is the strongest right now. And I think that makes it a really interesting final. I don't disagree.

And like I think I made clear I've got all the respect in the world for for the lightning and what they've done this year. I will just point out they've had three rounds, the first two rounds they won in five games. The next round, the round we just saw they were up two nothing and three one and finished it in six. they haven't really been pushed. I know John Cooper's talked about how adversity has kicked them so many times, and they haven't really had it the way that most teams go through. They haven't trailed a series. They haven't been had their backs against the wall.

So let's see. Let's see if it comes to that with Dallas, and I'm not convinced that it will, but let's see what happens. I disagree. I think the only series that was not a push for them was Boston. Like they know what is at stake if they lose that game last night and they win in overtime. And they fucking won a five overtime game in game one against the team that swept them in the previous season, knowing what a loss in that game and that situation would do for that series. I feel like they've been tested.

Am I wrong on that right? It's a test, but there's a difference between being, you know, there's a difference between a test and adversity. Five overtime game is a test. losing a five overtime game is adversity. And I'm not convinced that they've faced as high a level of adversity as they might in this final. Yeah, no, I agree with that. I think that they're, you know, they've been tested, but like, you know, yeah, there was a five overtime game. I feel like that was maybe eight or nine months ago at this point.

And it was against a team they are significantly better than, and they won. right and so you know like there there's a difference between like a test and a test and and I think that you know uh the ease with which they you know again they what was it five games in the Columbus series five against the Bruins and uh and six against the islanders and even those six games you were like oh that wasn't like it was six games it wasn't like a close six games even though two of them went to overtime. Basically, you know, they came out and they were like, oh, yeah, we're the kind of team that can score nine goals against you in a conference final, and it's not a big fucking deal for us. And so, yeah, like, I think that, I think Dallas, in some ways, had the harder path to, to the final. Sure. Play the game seven. Right. And with obviously that having been said, they also played like a third string goalie for three years.

Yeah. That's no way to talk about Cam Talbot, sir. No, first of all, it's a carbon date that five-over-time game. There was a Tom Steyer commercial on right before the fourth overtime, Brian. Wow. No, so I think what, my counter argument to both you is that part of the education of the lightning is to not put themselves in that situation. And I know what you're saying. Like, if you're not in a game seven or if you're not in, you're facing elimination, you don't face the same adversity as a team like, say, like the stars did, playing in a game seven against Colorado. But I think what makes this lightning team so impressive is that ability not to lose the five-over-time game, is that ability to not lose game six to the Islanders, like they lost game six to the Penguins, like they lost game six to the capitals into previous conference finals.

Like, that's the maturation of this group. And so while I agree. that they've not necessarily faced the same level of adversity as other teams in this playoff, I think it's to their credit that they haven't. I think it's by design that they haven't. Oh, yeah, no, like, you know, if they had just gone, oh, yeah, we swept every team we played so over. We haven't, what are they, like, nine and three in these playoffs, or 12 and three or whatever. I don't, you know, they're unbelievably good. And I think part of the, you know, the maturation of this team or whatever, you can just kind of go, well, if you give a really good team enough kicks at the can,

they're going to come through eventually. And I think that's definitely part of it as well. All right. They go to the conference final every other year. Yeah. That's what somebody was like, I can't remember where I saw it, but someone was like, look, building a, you used to in the NHL be like, we want to build a Stanley Cup team. Now you build a team that's going to be one of the best five in the league for five years in a row.

and you hope that the odds shake out in your favor. And that's what Tampa's been. And, man, it's funny. I remember in 2015 after they lost in the final to Chicago, and there was that young team. And, you know, Kuturav was just starting to establish himself. Stampkos is in his prime, you know, headman, all of those, you go down the list.

And I remember I wrote a piece where I was like, what teams are going to win Stanley Cups in the next five years and what are their odds? And I gave Tampa less than a 50-50 chance. And people flipped out. People were like, how can you say it's less than 50? It's like 80% or 90%. This team's, of course, going to win. And I was like, there's just so many things that go wrong.

The best team in the league has like a 25% chance to win. I'm like, there's no way. Like the first time, when I sat down and did that exercise the first time, I put like my ballpark for all 30 teams and it added up to like 900%. Like I was way, I was given everybody way too big a chance. And here we are five years later. They haven't been back to the final. They even missed the playoffs one of those years, which would have felt.

Yeah, Yeah, they did. But there's a good chance they're going to ultimately prove me wrong, but they're going to take the maximum amount of time to do it. But that just goes to show, right? Like, you looked at this team and everybody on the planet said, this team is going to win a cup in the next five years. And then because it's the NHL, one of those years that consensus best team in the league

or, you know, close to it missed the fucking playoffs. Like that's what hockey. is. It's so much, you know, what is it, like 40% bounces? You know, like it's, it's fucking crazy. And so, yeah, to like, go, oh, I am a million, a million different things can go right or wrong at any time. And, you know, like, that, again, to my earlier point, that's maybe why the Islanders or the senators or the stars, teams that kind of come off the radar, a little bit and make it to a conference final or even a cup final, you go, oh, that's, that's weird, but it's, I guess it can't be unexpected, right?

This is, this is the closest I think you've ever come in Puck Soup 2.0 history to embracing the beauty and romanticism of playoff hockey. Like, like, I'm not, I think it's stupid. I think, I think the better team should win far more, but, you know, it's the, it's the stat that I think is Mike Mike Lopez has of like if the better team in the NBA

quote unquote the better team on paper wins 80% of the time in the NBA and in like the NFL it would have to be you know a best of 21 series to produce the same outcomes in hockey it's a best of 53 or something like that right right

that's how random hockey is and I you know I think it's it kind of of, it doesn't lead necessarily to the right kind of decision making because you, you can be, again, like the San Jose Sharks a few years ago. And you're like, oh, well, you know, we, we lost four games in a row to the Kings who were one of the best teams, who ended up being one of the best teams of the era. And they were like, oh, we have to fucking trade for nine fighters because we're too soft. You know what I mean? And, like, how many good series were re-robbed of because of that kind of decision-making?

Yeah, I mean, I think he'd be getting smarter. The Anaheim ducks brainworms from their cup in 2007, I think, was one of the bigger problems where, like, teams like Minnesota all of a sudden started investing in, like, fighters because Brian Burke built a tough team. Right. And everybody ignored, oh, they had Scott Niedermeyer. The way the ducks win isn't because they're tough to play against, quote-unquote, like, you know, they play heavy hockey. They won because they had the two best defensemen on the planet each playing 32 minutes a night. Yeah, it's not a fucking complicated equation here. It helps.

All right. Cup final real quick. Prediction-type Dealey. as I've long said that the team that wins the cup is usually the team that has the best like storyline for their commemorative well in the past Blu-ray or DVD I don't know what you would even if they make them now but it's always like the team with freaking Netflix you got your yeah you'd be streaming it on there's only a year in review a year-in-review TikTok yeah you'd be watching this entire entire run from the champion in little three-minute bite you guys you're a little three-minute bite. on Quibi, for goodness sakes. So, anyway, so it's usually the team of the best storyline. You know, the Capitals and in Vegas both had a stake of the claim of it. I think the Capitals, you know, breaking their curse was a better story.

Obviously, St. Louis and Gloria and all that shit winning their first cup. Obviously, in the Lightning's case, you have this team that got punched in the mouth last season, this team that's been chasing a cup in this current incarnation, the John Cooper Lightning. And then you also have, you know, the possibility of, you know, the Stamcoast may be coming back at some point. Who's to say? He had strong older brother just got back from rehab vibes during the Prince of Wales trophy presentation last night. So who's to say? But they've certainly got some interesting storylines.

But what they don't have is they don't have a catchphrase. And the Dallas stars, we're not going home that we've heard Joel Kivirontas say it and Anton Kudobin say it and Jamie Ben say it. It's a beautiful thing. It's the thing you put on T-shirts. It's the thing that somebody bellows into a microphone 15 years from now at the Stanley Cup Championship reunion in Dallas. You know, it's the kind of thing, the kind of rallying cry that you remember. And also the fact that they had the Jim Montgomery thing happen and Rick Bono. being old and going to the bubble with the COVID and the whole thing.

There's a lot of things about the Dallas stars that also tell you that they could be the team of destiny. I have a theory about the we're not going home thing. None of them like their families. It's a very good point. It can be read of several ways. You know like some of these guys have got wives at home. We've got like five kids crawling all over the place and they see like husband.

I'm not going home. And they're like, oh, yeah, good. That's great. Exactly. That all said, lightning and six. I just, I truly believe that the last three rounds have informed this round. I'm a little bit concerned about fatigue. They looked really bad at times last night.

They looked absolutely fucking gassed. And Dallas is going to be on, you know, five days of rest and, you know, are playing with the utmost of confidence. I do believe that the lightning are going to find a way. I don't necessarily think Stampco's is coming back, by the way, but I do think the lightning are going to find a way. I'm a little bit concerned about point, but I just, I don't know. I just feel like if they're ever going to do it, it's going to be now.

And I feel like it's finally going to happen. And then everybody will leave. They are beat up, though. Like we don't, you know, Braden points back, but that doesn't mean he's okay. Anthony Sorrelli came back and got the overtime winner. That was a miracle. Are you sure he's okay?

Because that, I mean, we saw it in previous rounds where guys would, you know, come back, you know, Landiscag. Remember, he came back that game. And then after the game, they were like, yeah, he's not playing anymore. That's so, man, I, this is one of those things where. But at least you turn the double play on it, you know, on that takeout slide. Yeah, you did, yeah. So it's one of those things where it's like we all want the schedule to keep. moving.

We are, but I bet you, this is the one year where Tampa's like, man, we kind of miss that random six-day gap. The NHL would usually drop in right around here for no good reason. Well, I guess this is my point to bring up. The fact that there's a fucking back-to-back in the Stanley Cup time is insane. I mean, it is, but like if these players had their druthers, they'd probably play every day, like, just to get the fuck out of it. They wanted Saturday night.

They want it both the Saturdays, and the only way to do that is either back-to-back or you put a three-day gap. And I don't know that there's a big appetite for that gap right now. But what was fascinating to me was like, you know, we didn't know what the schedule was going to be, obviously, because we didn't know if there was going to be a game seven on the weekend. But there was all this like back and forth, you know, some of the insiders who have access to this stuff were like, you know, there's going to be a back-to-back. Wait, there's not going to be a back-to-back. And what was, it didn't end up mattering because I feel like it, for Dallas and Tampa, it's probably, they've both got one starter in goal, assuming Ben Bishop isn't healthy.

So it's, it's equally tough for them to have a back to back. But what an advantage that would have been for the Islanders to have a back to back in a series where they've got two goalies they trust versus, you know, we saw the, like what a disaster it was for Dallas the last time they had to face that. I really wonder if the onyters had made it, if they would have had to rethink doing a back-to-back just because of how much of a competitive advantage that would seem on the surface to be for one of the teams. Yeah, true. Ryan, what's your take on the series?

Do you like? I like Tampa six or seven games, I guess. You know, it's, I just err on the side of, there's a team I think is notably better on paper. is usually how I make these picks and I don't see any reason to to get away from that now. I think Tampa is, like I said, like 1 through 20,

you go, oh, they're dangerous. And with the stars, it's more like 1 through 14, maybe. And then the rest is like, who? And now granted, like, I would have said who about Yoel Kivirontah a couple of weeks ago. But, yeah, I mean, you know, you know everybody on the team and even if they have to go into their

depth a little bit, like I said, like a Cardover Hayey, you go, oh, he could play for, you know, middle six minutes for three quarters of the teams in the league right now. And he's the 13th forward on the lightning. I want to mention something about Kivirondi

real quick. This is the only forum on which I can talk about this. There's been at these two occasions. Mark Spector from sports that asks questions in these Zoom calls with the players where the setup is about a minute and a half. And then there's a question. At least two occasions when asking a question of Kivirata, the setup has basically been,

you all, you know, back home, I figured no one at all knows who you are. You are like an anonymous figure back home. Like you are somebody who did not even exist in the minds of the people back home before these playoffs. They don't even know who you were or that you were born there. And I'm just like, okay, we get it. We get it. We get it. We get it. it. And every time he asks it, like, Jamie Ben just starts rolling the eyes back into the back of his fucking skull during these setups from Spectre on these fucking questions. Kivir Ranta. It's just twice it's happened now. I'm just like, all right, buddy, we get it. You don't need a fucking preamble. Just ask the question. Now, Sean, you would agree that you were a loser before this, right? Nobody's worried. It is essentially that. It is essentially that. It is essentially that. It's essentially like, you know, it's like, you know, you know, oh, Joe, I mean, we all know that your ratings on NHL 20. You were a minus 40 in skill.

They just thought you were just a piece of shit. What's that like to now not be one? Sean, I smell something in the air when it comes to your prediction for this series, and it smells like Pecan Lodge and Shinerbach. Are you picking Dallas? I'm not. No, I picked. I filed my pick. on our like group

group predictions. I picked the lightning, and I picked the lightning in five. I just think they're better. I certainly wouldn't be shocked if the stars won. I mean, this isn't, it would be an upset,

but it would not be a surprise by any stretch. But I think Tampa is just better. I could see them winning a five game series where all four wins are one goal games,

but I think they're the better team. I don't think we're going along. I know Tampa certainly hopes we're not going long. But yeah, my pick was Tampa N5. There you go. So it should be an entertaining final. I think it could be physical. I think there's some big personalities in it.

And there's some cool storylines, too. I mean, like the fact that Rick Bonas was sort of the assistant coach that helped John Cooper become an NHL coach in some ways, according to Coop, is an interesting story. And did you see that the NHL tweeted out, this is the first time in history? that the Stanley Cup final is two coaches where one of them was the other guy's assistant somewhere. That's wild. Which is, putting my mind, like, considering like it's the same 50 coaches

cycling through all these jobs, it's amazing to me that that has never happened before. Yeah, especially, like, based on, you know, there used to be six fucking teams in the league. You really think. But here we are. Based on the percentages. I mean, did they even have assistant?

Yeah. They didn't really have assistants back then. You didn't need like seven guys running every piece of your bench. But yeah, I mean, now that every team has three coaches whose job is to just watch replays for off sides, that stat probably won't last very long. But for now, you know how I learned about when assistant coaches became a thing? Real quick, this is, I don't even know if I've ever told the story on the show. But one day, director Kevin Smith reached out to me.

This is back in the Puck Daddy days. And it was when he was going to write this hockey movie, hit somebody. And he reached out to me and he's like, man, I got a bunch of questions to ask you. You're around? Like, sure. And so Kevin Smith calls me up. And he's obviously baked, you know, being that he's Kevin Smith. And we talked for like 45 minutes just about random shit.

And this is like a thrill for me because, I mean, I'm a kid from Jersey. and like I went to the premiere of clerks and shit and it was great. But like one of the things was he's like, I'm writing this movie in the 1970s. I gotta know something. Were there assistant coaches back then? I'm just like it was the most like random fucking question.

But it made me go and research the history of assistant coaches and it was fascinating to find a time in which there wasn't assistant coaches in the NHL. I mean being that it's so like now there's like a coach for every facet of the game on the bench and in the press box. There you go. A stoned Kevin Smith

made me realize the history of assistant coaches in the NHL. That's a great story. Can I also just send one quick show just because I mentioned offside reviews. God bless the Islanders and Lightning for giving us an actual, for the first time in five years, an offside review of an obvious offside. The Matt Duchain play finally happened again. We put this rule in because we couldn't have the Matt Duchyne thing. We took hundreds of legitimate goals off the board,

but we finally caught one. We got them, boys. Wrap it up. Speaking of which, probably they're not going to let the puck over the glass thing. Yeah, we should mention that. So that happened a bunch of times in the Outer series. Obviously, the Dallas series ended on the Zach White Cloud play,

which honestly, even if you gave the referee's discretion, I still think that's a penalty on White Cloud, given the situation and given what he did on the play. Like, I know it wasn't intentional, but there's also times when you trip somebody and it's not intentional, but, like, you just try to defend them as best you can. And if it happens in overtime, it doesn't get called. It doesn't get called.

Yeah, right, right. Right. But, like, but, like, what do you, I mean, what do you think happens with Puck Over the Glass? I tend to believe they won't do anything with it, that they'll just keep the rule. But I'm sure there's going to be a little bit of a push to get it changed after this playoff. Yeah, I think it's, it'll be more at the referee's discretion. Like, just the fact that it's automatic is very, very. very weird.

And, you know, obviously it's been this way for a million years at this point. But, you know, I think that, like, just the college hockey rule of, you know, if you put the puck over the glass, like clean over the glass, you don't get a change. And the phase off is in your end, like it's an icing. Yeah. And I think that's fine. I've said a million times how I would do it. I would treat it like icing. In fact, I wouldn't even say if it's over the glass clean.

I'd just say, you shoot the puck out. We don't have to argue over whether it ticked off the glass or whether it. it went over a certain part of the bench. If you shoot the puck out or you shoot the puck down the ice, it's we treat it exactly the same, we do a face off, you don't get to change. If you're worried that players are going to intentionally shoot it out, which people swear used to happen, I have no recollection of it, I've spent most of my life complaining about things that happen in NHL games.

I don't remember ever being mad about somebody intentionally shooting a puck over the glass, but if you think that's going to happen, let the referee have the discretion or the discretion rather to call obvious, intentional ones. That's how we handle every other delay a game. In one of the, I don't remember which one it was, but one of the puck over glass, like two minutes later in the same game, somebody pushed a net off. Yeah. And that's delay a game, or it could be, but it doesn't have to be. You know, we don't say if the net comes off and a defense, the defensive team touched the net, that it's an automatic penalty no matter what. We let the referee say, you look, if they did it on purpose, call it. And if they did it.

If not, don't call it. So that's what the NHL should do. I'm not convinced that they change it. Because even though we've seen it end a series, we'd seen that before, too. I mean, the very first year we had it with Carolina and Buffalo, it decided a series in a game seven. We didn't learn anything new about this rule. All the objections that people have had over the last few days, we already knew. The GM's already new.

Right. But this is the league always needs that little extra push, it seems like. You know what I mean? Yeah. But it needs to be a big push. Like skating the crease, we knew that rule sucked for five years, and it took, it had to happen in the Stanley Cup final in overtime. So I don't know if this is enough who pushed this.

You don't even have to go that far back. I mean, the shit that happened in the St. Louis run last year and the shit that happened in the St. The Sharks Vegas game last year necessitated rule changes after that, you know, in that playoffs. So maybe it happens. It's the sort of thing where, like, if it's, somebody, if we didn't have this rule and somebody suggested it, nobody would be like, yeah, we need, we need to do that.

That's a good idea. We wouldn't, especially after seeing what we just saw. But there's that bias towards sticking with what you have. And right now we have the rule. I would be pleasantly surprised if they actually fix this, even given everything that's gone on. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good point.

I do, I do remember early on when they talked about this rule, there was going to be more discretion from the referees. And honestly, like, if you want to throw that bad boy into. to the, you know, let's look it over on the iPad protocol just to make sure that they know what happened on the play? Who gives a shit? Go ahead. I mean, like, I don't know. But the rule is written for there to be no discretion. And the people that like it always tell me that that's what they like about it. It's black and white. You have to call it every time. And yeah, maybe more rules in the rulebook should have, like, you know, we made a joke about it. They don't call anything in overtime.

I get that a lot of people don't like that. But that's how 95% percent of the penalties in the rulebook work. And then you've got this weird subsection that is really only this rule. Because even too many men, which is supposed to be black and white and there's like, we've seen them let that go. You know, we've seen them. Depending on how close they are to the bench or whatever. Depending on how close or, you know, it can be missed and that sort of thing. This is the one rule. And it's like, call that in blood. If they call the high stick, which, which even half the time, and you guys probably didn't see. But it was very strange because on a hockey night in Canada, they had people, like Brian Burke was like, that shouldn't have been a high staking penalty.

I would have let that go. And you're like, oh, dude, the guy like pretty much ate a hockey stick. I feel like that's probably what the rule is intended. And the rule now actually says blood. For the first time. That's one of those things. People thought for it was always blood equals, it was originally five minutes and then it became four minutes. And everybody was like, yeah, that's what the rule book says.

And it didn't accept that they changed it last year when they slipped in the replay review. for those penalties, they for the first time, slipped in a mention of blood as being automatic. So it was an automatic penalty last night. But it wouldn't have been a year ago. And that's why guys should just fucking blade. That's right. Tuck your little Rick Flair special into your glove.

And just when you're down on the ice, slip, slip, slips in the ass, baby. I'm just, I'm picturing like, you know, like, you won your fourth Stanley Cup. What's it all that? Howdy, what's your secret? And it's like some guy whose forehead just looks like one of those 80s wrestlers. Looks like Abdul and the butcher.

Yeah. He's like, I guess good luck, I guess. I don't know. And then you get the behind the scenes on Quest for the Cup where it's an argument between two players, he's like, you bladed. I bled hard way. Yeah. No, you bladed.

Yep. Just like back there pop and aspirin so that when they get a little cut, it'll gush. Oh, fuck. McFoldy comes to. a training camp to tell them the ins and outs of ablating. It's good times. Well, if Dallas is in the cup final, that means that the Vegas Golden Knights are not. And that was not

what was expected when the Western Conference final started. Vegas was your odds-on sports book betting favorite in both conferences to play for the Cup. And they are not. So what the fuck do we make of these poor Golden Knights, Ryan? You know, I This is one of those things where I feel like I'm going to get the nice Just the fucking numbers guy, blah, blah, blah. But I just think if you're Vegas, you chalk it up to, oh, we were like historically unlucky offensively.

You know? Yeah, all the criticisms about, you know, they weren't around the net enough. Yeah, that's certainly true. But I don't feel like that's like they didn't have the personnel to be around the net. They just weren't around the net. And maybe you say, like, you're going to give Dallas credit for kind of keeping them away from the net a little bit, certainly. But, you know, if they don't have follow-up chances and rebounds and all that kind of stuff, you know, that's a problem. And that's a systems thing, I think, more than a personnel thing.

So I don't know how much they necessarily need to change. Maybe they want to upgrade one or two positions, kind of in their depth more than, you know, the, top stuff, but sometimes you just run into a hot goalie and you can't make crazy, you know, like hair-trigger decisions about that. Yeah, I mean, I largely agree with that. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's not just the numbers, but. No, it's not just the numbers, but you, yeah, you can, you can chalk it up to mostly the numbers,

like 75% the numbers. It is, I mean, look, sometimes you run into. to a hot goalie. And I do find every year in the playoffs, whenever we're doing the predictions or anything like that, we always go, yeah, but whatever team's goalie gets hot is the one that's going to win.

Or whenever you're talking about a series, you go, yeah, this team's better, but if the other team's goalie stands on his head, that's it. Then they're going to win. And yet, when it happens, and I'm not saying that was the only reason that Dallas won, but when we see it happen, suddenly it's like we

we forget what we said beforehand and we start looking for other answers. And the one thing that would worry me a little bit if I'm the Golden Knights is they dominated the Canucks through the first few games of that series. And then Thatcher Demko showed up and they almost lost that series. So, you know, we ran into a hot goalie for a few games or even a whole series is one thing. When it's stretching back into half of the series before, I don't know. run into a hot goalie for for three straight weeks? Well, yeah, actually you can. That's,

that's kind of how this works. If I'm, if I'm the Golden Knights, I don't, I don't just hand wave it away and say, yeah, hot goalie, we're great, no change is necessary. But like Ryan said, I don't overreact to this. I don't sit there and say that, hey, because, you know, suddenly we couldn't, we couldn't buy a goal for a couple of crucial games. Yeah, it's the playoffs. Yeah, you're supposed to find a way. But sometimes the other team's goalies just really dialed in, and that's going to make it awfully hard to win a series. And it doesn't change the fact that this is still a real good team.

Yeah, the other thing to say is, like, you know, for Dallas, obviously, like their best players rose to the occasion. And, you know, for all the criticisms about, you know, they didn't have a ton of offensive depth. Like, they just, you know, it's the thing. if your stars score and you get one other goal per game, you're probably going to be in pretty good shape to win. And if you're a defense first team like Dallas, you know,

clearly is, um, sure, you know, again, but like you also don't want to be in a situation where you're like, oh yeah, we're giving up like 30 shots a game and we're getting 22. So, I think the, the numbers thing that I found, because I, I agree with Sean, like, I, you know, Dempco was extraordinary in the Vancouver series. Like, he was your prototypical. It doesn't matter what you do against this guy, hot goalie. And that just happens.

Kudobin was real good, but I don't think that they did, as Ryan referenced, nearly enough to score against him. I mean, it took them five games to just plant Alex Tuck's big ass in front of his eyes. Yeah, but that's a coaching thing. In game two. Right, I completely agree. So, but I do, I do, so you could say it's a coaching thing, and that's a valid criticism. I also think, though, that when it comes to their offense, I mean, remember, they were pumping 40 plus shots against Dempgo in these games. Like, they were fucking rolling Vancouver.

And I know that Dallas is a bigger cut above defensively than Vancouver is. That's for fucking sure. But I just, I think you can, you can look at that top six and say, what was. a deficiency here where not only did we not convert five on five, but like when we would get a five on three in the third period of a playoff game, we wouldn't even like pressure them. Like there's something off about their top, their top six, and I think I know what it is. Okay. I think they have a second line center at most as their top line center in William Carlson.

And, uh, yeah, I'm not a big Carlson guy. Like, I think he's good, but I don't think he's, you know. But he's a complimentary good, right? So they have either playing for the second line. Yeah. And then they can. Sorry. Go ahead.

There's growing Chandler Stevenson between Patchy Reddy and Stone. And he does a fine job, but I mean, at the end of the day, it's Chandler-Steevinson. Right, exactly. Right. And then Paul Sassiz's expiration dates past. So, yeah, what I'm getting at is I know there's a lot of talk about Vegas trying to maybe go and dabble on the blue line and bring in like an Alex Peterangelo or somebody like that. There's been some, like, talks about that. I think the hole on this team right now is in the middle.

And they don't have that guy to create in moments where they need something to be created in a way that, say, like, Dallas did. Right. I think part of it is definitely the thing about the Canadian's first line. Oh, their first line is so dominant, blah, blah, blah. And it's like, right. But like if you don't have like a ton of shooting talent, you know, like that doesn't, being dominant doesn't get you necessarily where you need to go deep into the. the playoff. But, you know, I think the thing with Carlson specifically is, well, he scored 41 goals in that first Vegas season or 45 or whatever the number was. I think it's 41.

And that just talked everybody into, well, look at how fucking good William Carlson is. You know what I mean? And he got a, he didn't get a contract based on that, but he had a solid follow-up season, and he got a contract based on that. And I think, yeah, to your point, he's a solid center, but he... Yeah, he could play for me. Like, he's a real... Yeah, absolutely. He's a well above average defensive player.

But, like, should he be rolling him out in key situations in the third period? I mean, yeah, if you don't have anything else. Yeah. Honestly, like, I was going to fantasy cast a guy on this team and figure a way to get him there, and it would probably also help out the team that he was currently on. And I hate to be Bruce Garriac here. but walking to the Golden Knights. Ooh.

Right? Like, I mean... The sort of guy that you're talking about is not someone you're going to get in free agency. Oh, absolutely. So you are talking about a big trade. I mean, it would obviously cost you a ton of the Golden Knights. No, but I mean, like, seriously,

if you're the penguins and you need to fucking change the math on your team, and they are going to be offering you, I mean, the starting point in the discussions, Cody Glass, like, I mean, it's obviously just fantasy casting, and it's obviously not something that's going to happen because I think Gino-I's trade protection of memory service.

Maybe I'm wrong on that. But, like, that's what they need. They need that sort of, you know, guy who just brings his own gravity in the middle of that lineup, because their center spot to me is just so lacking. Yeah. No, I agree. The other thing to say, though, is I could have sworn at the beginning of this bubble,

we were like, we can't take too many fucking lessons out of this, right? And so, like, in much the same way, people are like, oh, you know, actually Dallas is pretty much set up to keep this going. Like, I've seen that take a few times in the last couple of days, and it's like, I mean, maybe, you know, they have good players, but we had to, see Jamie Ben and Tyler Sagan go like uncharacteristically good based on what we've seen the last two years in this series, you know, and in September, in a bubble after they played a team that was on its third string goalie.

And, you know, like, again, just like the number of asterisks you can affix to literally everything that happens here, like I, that's the other reason I wouldn't want to be, like, making any kind of panic decisions. Like, yeah, you're right that Vegas probably does want to add a bigger offensive weapon. I think that is probably their biggest need. But also, you know, historically speaking, like, you know, they're going to be fine. Even if they don't make a single change based on what we've seen in the last couple of years with this group, you know, I don't think they have too much to worry about. You know what I mean?

Outside of the Pacific is at right now. Exactly. Outside of the diminishing returns of Pete DeBoer, they've got nothing to worry about. No, that definitely is the problem. And the other thing to say, by the way, speaking of Cody Glass is, isn't Cody Glass the center? Like, don't they think he can be that guy maybe a year or two down the line? I actually asked McCormon about that. And I acknowledge the fact that usually the type of center I'm talking about is somebody that you have to draft and not obviously always available.

and he mentioned glass and he mentioned another prospect. Did he like it better than split or? He did. He definitely did not like it better than split. Okay. Split, he said, was a departure from the norm, but that's only because you didn't realize until the very end that it was part of a trilogy.

That's right. And that's the magic that M. Night Shyamalan brings to the cinema. Right. He always keeps you guessing. he always does um like why did they put him on the last air airbender movie that was a that was a mystery so the thing is that they think that cody glass could obviously maybe develop into that guy but there's no guarantees look the the thing about the knights it's fascinating is um for a team that's three years old i'm constantly shocked by how like super aggressive they are yeah try to like win and i know

that comes from bill foley and like it's it's both a blessing in a curse because they're not going to, I mean, you talk about like, don't overreact to the bubble. Is there any fucking doubt they're going to overreact to the bubble because their owners like, this is shitty? Like, it's clearly going to happen. Well, I think, I mean, you know, the one thing we haven't mentioned is Robin Lainer, right? Like, right? Like, what is that, how does that change the math? Because they, you know, if that rumored 5x5 deal comes through, well, they can't have two number one goalies on the roster who make a combined like $12.5 million. So what I heard about that is that I reported it out. A lot of people haven't. I don't

know quite sure why. But like there is an agreement in place that they're going to extend this relationship. Like that is clear. I did not necessarily feel comfortable quoting the numbers that other places did. And I know that you've taken your, your axe out to waylay the fourth period on this one. And perhaps rightfully so. But, you know, I, I got it from a decent source and I got enough information ancillary to that that I felt comfortable saying that there's a relationship in place, that they're going to extend him. And that that was known kind of coming into the bubble. What was interesting from McCrimmon yesterday was he repeated what Lanner said, which is that, you know, we will only announce something when it's finalized. And to me, finalized means there's a process in place, right, to then get to the point of finality.

The other thing that he said that was interesting was, and this was sort of pushing back on a lot of the conspiracy theories being put out there sometimes from Fleury's own agent, was that Pete DeBoer didn't want a goalie at the deadline. The management of the team said we need to get somebody behind Flurry and support that position, and DeBore necessarily wasn't one of them. So the idea that there was this like months long, you know, campaign behind the scenes for someone to come in and supplant Flurry. I mean, McCriman kind of pushed back on that. So I thought that was interesting. Look, I agree. Like, you don't want to spend a billion dollars in your goldening position in theory. But if it's a season that starts in late January and it's a compressed schedule sprint, I mean.

Yeah, that's a good point. Would it be the worst thing to have both those guys? It wouldn't be the worst. unless one of those two goalies has had his agent tweet out an image of him with a sword in his back because of how the playing time is being divided up. Right. And yeah, I mean, there is a point where you just go, hey, if we don't, if there isn't a trade market and we don't want to buy the guy out, maybe he just has to stay and he's just got to be a pro and figure out a way for it to work.

But it does get tricky, especially if you're looking for, a number one center if you're eating up that big of a chunk of. I mean, it's not like the Canadians can spend 15 million on their goalies, because I don't know if you've heard, they've got too many centers. They're all,

they're so deep with number one centers. But Vegas, yeah, it might be tricky. Yeah, the other thing to say, of course, is that Vegas has barely enough cap space to add Lainer as it is.

So, like, they are going to have to make changes because that doesn't even, even count the couple of RFAs. They have to resign and that kind of stuff. Like, they do need to make changes that move out money. And obviously, like, the logical place to do that is with Flurry. You know what I mean?

So, like, unless you can find a buyer for Paul Stassney, which I'd be shocked by, or, you know, you can go, Paul, you're kind of past it, right? You want to, like, not have that last, you want to come up with a knee injury or something? that keeps you out I got to tell you though Stazni's in that like Latter-day Chris Drury kind of place where the production is just never

going to be there but he does a lot No yeah it's a situation A classic situation where You know he What's his number six six and a half? Something like that six five Where he's maybe like a Three million dollar player

And the problem is that like Yeah, he's definitely a useful NHL player, but he's not worth what he's getting paid. Right. Exactly. Yeah, so interesting times for Vegas. And I tend to agree with you that, like, they're right there. I mean, they just need to kind of figure out a couple things on this team. And I think they should be fine provided that the law of diminishing Pete DeBore returns doesn't strike them.

We have a trade to announce. Eric Stahl to the Buffalo Sabres for Marcus Johansson. You know, one-for-one deals. Not always come with the discussion analysis and drama of this one. This was a real interesting trade this week. What was your thoughts on it, Sean? Well, I mean, I'll start from what I think is the easier side to figure out. I said this on the athletic last night.

I think that given where the sabres are at, even putting aside that they need a second line center, the fact that you've got a guy in Eric Stahl, a veteran, a guy who's won not just a cup when he was younger, but has played Team Canada internationally, a guy with his pedigree, the respect that he has around the league, if you had an opportunity to go get a guy like an Eric Stahl for a year in Buffalo, I think it could actually make sense to overprivile,

pay to make that happen. Given the talent exchange, like maybe you give up a little bit of talent to get to bring that presence into the room. Instead, they found a way to bring him in while also upgrading the talent of the team. Yeah, it's crazy. I mean, I mean, weird. I know it's like, I know Kevin Adams has never been a GM and he's sitting there. He's got like, there's like three people working in the entire front office right now.

Good job by him. Like he, yeah, I was going to say, speaking of one for one. That's what he is as a GM right now. Yeah. So I've made the argument before that I think part of the problem with trading these days is there's like too many chefs and too many people you got to consult and talk to. Maybe Kevin Adams is going to prove me right. He's old school. Like this is like back in the day where Cliff Ledger was like, no, I don't have to talk to anybody.

I am the front office. I want to make this trade. I'm going to make it. Maybe Kevin Adams through no fault of his own is going to end up being that guy because they're just not going to hire anyone to help him. But hey, one trade in. That was a really good trade for Buffalo. I like it a lot. Yeah.

And they saved money. They saved money. Yeah. They saved money. They get a guy who's a natural center instead of a converted center. They get slower, but they get more productive. And I don't think of Marcus Johansson as a speed demon anyway. Like, yeah, they're slower, but it's not like it's going from 60 to zero.

It's going from 60 to 45. Like on paper, 50 to 45, rather. On paper, this trade does so many things. Like you said, it bolsters their offense, gives them a legit second line center, saves the money, which will make Kim and Terry happy. And then you have, like, the known quantity of having Adams, having actually played with Stahl, so they kind of know each other. And then, although they weren't linemates, like, maybe having Stahl there kind of will help Jeff Skinner get his fucking head right a little bit, too.

I mean, like, there's every, like, box that you could imagine getting checked here outside of the fact that he's, you know, 35 going on 36. But then you only have to worry about that for a year. So it's a great fucking trade. And then, of course, the other side of the trade is yet another dumb GM trying to make a winger into a center. Like, come on. Yeah, they tried in Buffalo. It didn't work with this guy. It's not even like this is the first attempt where you can say, you know, no one's ever tried this, but we can make it work.

But the crazy part about it is that, like, Garon is basing this on what Dean Everson said, who coached Johansen with the Capitals, who tried to make them a center. And it didn't work. It didn't work. I just don't understand. I don't understand. I'm baffled by it. Yeah.

Well, especially, I mean, look, the quote that made the rounds right after this trade was Garron was like, look, if I don't make a trade, the roster's going to stay the same. And it's like, yeah, you're right. But you can't just make a downgrade trade. That is, that is a good. Like when I first saw that quote, I couldn't believe it, first of all, because this was basically the first known example of a GM saying that he made a trade just for the sake of making a trade, right?

Like every time any GM gets asked, are you going to do anything? They always go, well, I'm not going to make a trade just for the sake of making a trade. And you're like, yeah, nobody's, asking you to do that. Nobody thinks that's a thing. We want you to make a trade to get better and not just to do it. Here's a guy basically saying I made a trade just to shake it up. But the more I think about it, like, I certainly don't love the trade from from Minnesota's perspective, but I do kind of get where he's coming from. Like, I've had a running joke in my columns for years now,

that the Minnesota Wilder are always right in the middle. They are always any list you make, any ranking, they will always finish 16th. They're always right around the playoffs. bubble. They've never drafted high in pretty much in franchise history. They've never had a deep playoff run where they were actually felt like real contenders. You know, they're always the team that's stuck in the middle. So if I take over as a GM, there is part of me going like, yeah, I do have to shake this up. I do have to change it and get out of them because the middle is the worst place to be in the, in the NHL. So, you know, I get that. And then he also had a comment further because because there was this whole media availability and Michael Russo had all the quotes in his piece

where he said that he wants the younger guys to step up leadership wise and that that was he felt like that was going to be hard to do with Eric Stahl in the room and maybe that makes sense too. I just feel like this is a case of a GM feeling like I actually need to wake some guys up. Like I need to maybe make a trade that some of these players aren't going to like just to to wake them up and have them understand that just being right around the playoffs sort of wild card race every year isn't good enough. I don't think this makes them better, but I at least kind of get where the thinking is,

and I'm assuming he looked at other options that weren't available to him, and this is the one he chose. Yeah. Well, the thing I don't understand about it is, like, look, obviously I'm going to always be in favor of trading a guy who's fucking 35 years old if you can do it, right? But I don't look at like, in my, Marcus Johansson is a classic guy of like, oh, he's got to be like 25, 26, right? No, he's like 30. So it's not like they, yeah, they got younger, but like, it's, it's not like fixing the average age of their, of their forward group or anything like that. He, and Johansson, yeah, like he's, he's, remember, he,

he's missed so much time to injury. He's. He's, he's, he's missed so much time to injury. He's. basically 23. Oh, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. It's completely different thing. But the other thing with him is, because I've seen a lot of takes on this deal that say, well, you know what, he wasn't very good in Buffalo, but it's Buffalo. Buffalo was a train wreck. You got to right. He wasn't that good the year before either that he split between Jersey and Boston, I think. Like, it's been a few years since he's been even a 40 to 50 point guy, let alone. He, he's an absolutely complimentary player. He's, yeah, perfectly good. Like, he was perfectly, like, he, like, when he would be the winger on Baxter Moveschkin, like, he's fine. He's great. He does his job great. But you need to have him as a compliment to, like, two other really good players.

He's never going to drive his own line necessarily. And he's just a nice compliment to what you already have there. And for a team that doesn't have a lot there. Like, that's the problem. Like, if this team had a center, right, to speak of, of, then it would be a different equation. I feel like they did until very recently. Huh.

What happened there? And that's the other thing to say, though. Let me put it this way. Like, all the people you would think of as being like, oh, don't trade for a 35-year-old guy, the reaction was, what the fuck is Minnesota doing? Right. You know, so that tells you plenty about this trade. anytime the Buffalo Sabres are universally praised for winning a trade.

Yeah, exactly. Right. That's exactly right. Come on. Yeah. Meanwhile, the other thing I think you wanted to talk about at Lambert was the Jonas Brodine extension. And I guess by proxy, Matt Dunba being on the trade block to try to get themselves a center. Yeah.

I mean, I, this is another one where I just like, I don't get it. Because I look, I think Jonas Brodine is a really. good defenseman. I think he is, again, to Bill Garron's point, he's an elite defenseman in his own zone. Defensively, however you want to put that, he is an elite shut down kind of a guy. He is literally replacement level offensively, and part of that can be, you know, how he's used and stuff like that, like, you know, they're not going to put him on the power play, fair enough. but I don't look at that kind of a player and say, you know what, this is the kind of a guy that we need to value as like a $6 million

player till he's 35 years old. You know, if it was a shorter term, maybe I'd be more understanding of why that number is so high, like the AAV. But I don't understand how he's both a $6 million dollar player and a seven-year player for a contract that doesn't start for another year. I don't know. Like I said, I like the player, but it, why the hurry? You know what I mean?

And especially, especially because the whole thing of like, oh, we're always like pretty good to mediocre at best, right? Like, that's the range they tend to operate in. And the reason, I think the important thing to say about, like, oh, oh, you know, valuing elite defensemen as we do elite forwards is, or elite defensive defensemen is, you know, like, guys can contribute a lot more to their offense, or a lot more to a team's offense than they can contribute to a team's defense, I think. I think that, like, having a Nick Chalmersen type is obviously important, but. Right.

Well, I do think that we. need to mention because we haven't that they are going I mean like they're going to be a different team because caprisoff's coming in and like if you want to believe all the people that say he's got like a artemie peneran level of talent then that that that kind of moves the needle for the wild in some ways offensively but there's just some fundamental and structural issues with that roster that obviously bill garran is there to fix um I guess the other thing I want to mention about Bulgarian. Paul Fenton gets another gig, man. He's working for my man Bill Zito down in Florida. How about that? Who knows? You get the Fenton package, him and his fail son.

And yeah, like, it just goes to show you can never, ever fail out of the hockey old boys, club. You just can't fucking do it. But I will say this. And I don't know if this applies to Paul Fenton or not, but there are some guys who come up in front offices and they're sought after in front offices because they're really good at one of the important things that front offices need to do. Maybe it's scouting, maybe it's trade negotiations, maybe it's contracts. They're really good at something. And eventually they're so good that they get hired somewhere to be the GM and then you find out that they're not going to get other things.

And a guy like that, it's perfectly reasonable to bring him in and say, like, can you just come back and just do the thing that you're good at? I don't think someone who fails as a GM has to cast out. But, you know, maybe that's what's going on with Paul Fenn. Or maybe it's just another person hiring his buddy the way that most NHL teams seem to do. I think his bona fides as an assistant GM are pretty solid. But to your point, I was talking to an executive the other day in the NHL. And we were talking about that very thing of like the classic sort of NFL offensive coordinator becomes the head coach.

And then you realize he doesn't have the people skills that are commiserate for being a head coach kind of deal that always happens in the NFL. In the NHL, that's the general manager spot where you always see it. Yeah. You saw it with Paul Fenton. You saw it with Tim Murray. I think that's a good example of a guy who I think is a real smart hockey guy, but has absolutely none of the social skills necessary to be a guy that runs an entire organization. Jason Botterill, another classic example of a guy. Oh, he's the next great GM.

Oh, he was actually fucking dog shit at being a good GM. And there's so many facets to that job. Yeah, of course. That you get overwhelmed by it. And in Fenton's case, he clearly, by every report, didn't know what to do insofar as, like, running the company, if you will. And I think that he'll be fine in sort of that assistant role. That's why it's really interesting that Zito got the big job after Fenton. flamed out. They obviously think that he's got, and I do think that he's a more gregarious person than

his Fenton or like a Tim Murray. And then you have this Arizona thing where they're going to hire Bill Armstrong from the Blues. And I imagine it's the track record thing is what gets him this job because like he basically took over for Kekalainen and then, you know, did really well in that position after Yarmo left. But who the hell even knows if he's got the, the charismatic chop? It's all a guessing game. With GMs, especially. It's all just like this big guessing game of like, oh, maybe it translates and, you know, more often than not, it seems like it doesn't. So. And, and the other thing is, who knows with Arizona how many serious candidates there really were. I mean, that is a, there's only

32 of these jobs, but that's a real tough one right now. Like, I think that's probably the least desirable job out there, just given that they don't have the picks and the situation with, who knows how much money they can spend. And Taylor Hall probably about to go is, It's, that's a tough one. I wouldn't be surprised if, I'm not saying they didn't get their first choice, but I wouldn't be surprised if maybe there were some options that they would have liked to have considered that weren't available to them. Speaking of money, the capital spent some on a coach.

Three years, close to $15 million for a Peter Lavillette. And we've talked about this guy before on the show with regard to the capitals. of the three guys that they talked to, I mean, I think he's a better coach than Galant and Babcock. I've always been a big Lobulet fan. Can he turn this team around? Yeah, I don't know. That's a tough call.

I mean, I think the biggest problem is that he wasn't the coach after Trots left. When everybody was two years younger. Yep, absolutely. The team was a little bit better. I am somebody who believes the window is still there for them to win. I think, like, in the next three years... I think it depends on the goaltending. It all depends on the goaltending.

So what do you do there? I mean, obviously, Samsonov's the guy going forward. Yeah. Like, you bring Holpty back? No, you hope Samsonov's the guy. You can't bring Holpey back. He's fucking going to want so much money. You can't bring Holby back.

The good news is, from what I understand, it's going to be a lot of fucking goalies available this summer. You can go get anybody you want. A lot of goalies, yeah. To me, Lovillette, I said it before. Like, I think they, I think there is an absolute revolt in that locker room of Babcock's the coach. I think Lovulet hits that spot where he can be sort of a player's dude, like Galant, but in the end he's a hard ass.

And I think that if you're somebody who believes, and by somebody I mean you're Brian McClellan, believes that it was simply attention to detail and motivation where the issues with this team in the last two seasons, than Lovolet's your guy. Like, it's a real solid guy to bring in. And I pointed this out when I wrote about it, but, like, I thought it was real interesting that in Brian McClellan's press conference, he said that Lovillette, it was great that Lovulette was available in our time of need as an organization. And it's not like, to take us to the next level, to chase the cup. It was like, we fucking need somebody to come and do the things that this guy does. And I've never really heard it framed like that.

But it's absolutely true in what they're looking for and what he brings. Yeah, I mean, my thing with Laviolet is I think, like, you know, if you're, if you're separating coaches in the league into tiers like S tier, A tier, tier, I think he's like kind of right in the middle of that next level down from the top. Like, he's a good coach, but he's not a great coach. Like, he's not, he's not going to just, you know, day one turn your team around necessarily. He's going to get a lot out of his out of the guys. but yeah, to your point, like, do the guys have enough to give him anymore? I'm not sure, especially because the last few years, like, the offensive numbers in Nashville were, like, middling. And, like, the thing with Washington is, I don't know if they have guys who can play a more responsible defensive style.

Like, they, I feel like they have to succeed through offense, and I don't know that that all the way lines up. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. I agree with a lot of what you're saying, but can we just point out that, like, Washington was, had, like, the third or fourth best record in the league last year? Like, they were two points behind Tampa and played one fewer game. Like, this is a pretty good team. It's not, now, we saw last year with San Jose.

You get to a certain age with the roster and the fall isn't necessarily gradual. So I'm not saying that this couldn't go bad, but Washington's still really good. And let alone being obviously just still two years removed from a championship. I like this higher a lot. I think this is assuming that they didn't want to go down the Gerard Gallant road because you didn't want someone who was perceived as a players coach, I think this is the best option that was available to them. And I think it's certainly not guaranteed to work.

There's no guarantees, but I like the rods a lot better than if it had been Babcock or if it had been some of the other names that maybe would be out there for other teams. Yeah. And Darren Drager reports that maybe just Babcock's waiting for his opportunity. Yeah, I don't know where he got that from. He could have been... He did not say it was from Babcock. He said that Babcock is hunting fish or something.

Hunting or fishing or both. Or both. Shooting fish in a barrel. Which literally. Yeah, and as somebody pointed out when I made the hunting or fishing or both joke, shooting fish in a barrel is winning a gold medal with Team Canada. Got him. We should mention the Mike Kitchen thing in Florida.

TSN reported that he... Mike Kicking. Is that something? Oh, there it is. He was let go for kicking a player on the bench. in January. Question about the timeline here. Mike Kitchen was still the coach of the Florida Panthers at the pause.

He opted out of joining them in the bubble. January 20th, when this was supposed to occur, was just over a month after the NHL quite publicly stated that they would not tolerate abusive coaches and talked about setting up a whistleblower hotline for players to call. in order to rat out their abusive coaches and all this other jive. And apparently this man kicked somebody, Dale Tallon and Joel Quineville knew about it, and he remained the coach for a few months after that. So I'm really interested to see how that kind of plays out.

Maybe they'll put that into the investigation queue right after this Bill Peters thing. They've never really been able to figure out the Carolina Hurricanes. And the Dale Tallon one. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Boy, really great well-run organization under Dale Tallinn. You can't say enough good things. Like, who's the detective they hired to look into this?

Is it a fucking dog? Like, is it some sort of dog detective? It's the internal affairs detectives who were on Vic Mackie for so many years. Just couldn't fucking nail him down. It's like, oh, he's committed hundreds of murders. Wow. It's actually like the departed. They hired Bill Peters to investigate Bill Peters.

That's right. It's crazy. Who knew? Fucking, what is happening here? I think with Kitchen, here's the big question. Obviously, it's weird that the Panthers didn't do anything, and then he doesn't go in the bubble. Well, he didn't go in the bubble because, like, he has had, like, recorded health issues in the past, I think is. Yes.

Yeah, exactly. That's the reason. But also, you know, just the timing of it, it's very strange. I haven't actually seen if his contract was up, and this is like he will not be rejoining. Yeah. I think that's what they said, yeah. Oh, no, no, they announced that when the Fenton thing was announced that he's not going to be back. No, I know I know they said he's not going to be back, but like, has he been fired with cause here?

Are they getting out of a contract? Right, right, right. They would not elaborate on that. Okay. The big question is, did they tell the NHL about the allegation? Did they, was the NHL involved? Because the NHL has made it very clear, at least they made it very clear when the Bill Peterson happened that there is, zero tolerance for not reporting any allegations to the league.

This is not something teams are allowed to just handle on their own anymore. Correct. And I just, I got to say, after what we just saw happen with the coyotes, with the whole draft combine thing, I would not want to be a team that finds itself on the wrong end of a, you know, if Arizona gets that punishment for violating a relatively obscure rule in a somewhat innocuous way, I wouldn't want to be the Florida Panthers if they didn't tell the league about this

and try to just do it on their own. Yeah. Maybe not the best place for Bill Zito to be looking on that. But again, like the NHL is also famous for like, if you're not there anymore, then what's really the punishment? Well, except with Chaco, right? They didn't. That was the route there and they didn't.

They didn't. No, that's true. And yeah, that's a good point. But I mean, like, in the Peter situation, which again, is just so fucking pathetic. Yeah. December. December. And we're not even like publicly disclosing anything.

It's insane. He's in the KHL, so like they probably don't give a shit. And now Talon's no longer a GM, so maybe they don't give a shit. I don't know. I just find it to be, like, I want to give the NHL the benefit of the doubt on a lot of this shit. But like when it's very simple. Well, they've earned it, right? Well, I mean, like,

I'm willing to give him the benefit of the data when they're going to say they're going to put in the work to make it better. But like, fucking, you know, when you've talked it up in December, and we still don't know what Ron Francis's role in the Bill Peters thing was, we still haven't had. Bill Peters hasn't been suspended for the shit that he did. Like, what the fuck are you doing? It's insane.

All right. So that covers, oh, Jimmy Montgomery is now an assistant coach in St. Louis. That's a great, great, great, great story. Yeah. Good for him. Very happy for him. You know, it's obviously, I mean, everything he went through, notwithstanding, it's got to be some mixed feelings watching his Dallas team go to the final.

But he had a hand in that. He had a part of it. And this is, you know, we all hope for a good ending and a continued recovery. But this was, that was like just a really nice story to see because from everything I've heard the guy. Is that he's a good dude. Yeah. So like, he had a hand in the sense that. Like this isn't, he didn't just go away.

and wait for things to blow over and then come back. Like he's put the work in to fix the things he can fix. And, you know, this isn't a finish line, but this is an important step. I'm going to say he had a hand at it in the sense that like when Bonus took over, basically he was just still coaching Montgomery's system. And then when they got to the bubble, they had kind of tweaked it a bit. And he put a stamp on it a little bit in the sense that like the defensemen got more involved in the offense. And some of the changes that Bonus made,

have really resulted in the run that they've been on. But like the fundamental DNA of that team in their system is still what Jim Montgomery does. So that's a really good hire. And that team started off like one in seven and then rolled off like a 17 and four stretch under Jim Montgomery. So it's not, you know, the narrative is going to sort of move the, you know, them heating up over under Rick Bonas. Because Rick Bonas is such a great story. And I mean, that's just phenomenal that that he gets to do that. but Jim Montgomery got this team turned around and headed in the right direction.

So, yeah, good for him. What's really funny about the Stars, by the way, is they had two separate seven-game losing streaks this year, and they're in the Stanley Cup fucking final. You know what? I wrote a thing about this, but they were – they started the season one, seven, and one, right? So six games under 500. You have to go back to before the original six to find a Stanley Cup winner who, was ever that bad.

Not even last year's blues, who were last place overall, famously, we all know that. Last year's blues never got further under 500 than four games. And Dallas was six games under at the end of October. And here they are. So it's, yeah,

it's crazy. Anyone care about Joel Edmondson? No? Well, I mean, the joke I made last night is, because I tweeted out, what is Minnesota, doing and then, you know, when that, when that deal got signed, I tweeted out, well, I was going to say what is Montreal doing, but I know what Montreal's doing.

It's Mark Bergevin. And, you know, again, like, this is a classic thing that gets brought up all the time, but it's, you know, oh, well, they have cab space. And it's like, well, I don't think that means you just have to spend it. Like, you don't, you don't have to spend it on the, certainly on the first fucking guy that comes down the street. Like, you can, you can wait a minute and maybe not overpay for a guy who's like a perfectly fine middle payer defenseman. And this is, this is basically what I said with the Jake Allen trade that a lot of people liked. I get that you have cap space and I get that you have spots on your, like, the fact that you have cap space and also budget space and virtually every other team in the league is either up against the cap or up against an internal budget, that is a reason to wait. Yeah, exactly. Weaponize the cap space, not to just grab the very first guys that you see. And, you know, I'm not saying that's what they did. Let's put it this way.

He wasn't, like, Edmondson, again, he's fine, but like he was one of their four best defensemen on St. Louis when they won the Cup? I would say no. Was he one of the four best defensemen on Carolina this year, where they were in a real position to make him look really good. No, he wasn't. So why are you going out and getting admittedly, like, good teams, you know, bottom half of their roster guys for that much money? Like, you can get good teams bottom half of their roster guys for less money than that, and you don't have to give up whatever the pick was and all that shit. I feel like there will be players, better players than Joel Evanson to play the same role at a

about the same amount of money that as we get close to free agency that are already under contract that you'll be able to get without giving up a pick and maybe you'll be able to get a pick back just because teams will be so desperate to clear space. Yep. No, it's crazy. In free agency, this is a chance. This is the kind of thing where it feels like you sort of have to have the nerve to wait and play a little bit of chicken because it's possible that you can wait on your goalie

and then everybody, the music stops, everybody finds a chair but you. and then, you know, it's Montreal and everyone's screaming for the GM to be gone. But, man, I think it's worth it, especially this year being such a weird year with how tight everything's going to be. This was the year to really take advantage of that space and ring all the value you could out of it.

And it just feels like they, so far, have grabbed the first two guys. They still have some space. They're not in terrible shape. But, man, I don't know that they got difference makers and they've already spent 8 million of their cap space and given up a couple of picks to do it. Indeed.

One last thing before we get to a little overrated, underrated action. The Morning Consult, which is, of course, a polling company here in the U.S., put out a massive sports poll that looked at the race and ethnicity of fans and also their political affiliation. The surprise from me with hockey was not that at 6th century. 61% white. We all obviously know that. I'm surprised it's that low. I'm legitimately surprised by that.

I look back at a report from the Atlantic, which really has kind of must be pissed off at the athletic for just sort of like, you know. Yeah. You know what I mean? Sure. And back in 2012, they reported that like it was over 90%, maybe like upwards of 93% of those who watched hockey on television were white. So you could say that the needles moved a little bit in the right direction in the last several years.

Or you could say that defining who a fan is is a very gray area and that these surveys just may have used very different definitions of what makes something. You took a run at this survey because the thing about it was like, it was what, like they had a favorable opinion of the team. Yeah, I was joking because it said, like, it defined a fan as anyone who said that they have a very favorable view of a team, which first of all, I mean, they could have read you a list of hockey teams. And if you said very favorable to all of them, then you were a quote, unquote, fan. My joke was that no real hockey fan has a very favorable view of their own team. I never met a hockey fan. And then my joke was that that that's only true until that team's,

PDO is under 102. And then they're the biggest fans in the world. And if you don't think they're the best team in the league, you're a fucking asshole. Correct. So the NHL, according to this survey, 61% white fans. The surprise for me was that is only 1% margin of error time higher than Major League Baseball. I don't know why I thought Major League Baseball was a more diverse than that, but I guess... Mondo Chud Sport.

huge among nobody should be kneeling for the anthem people. So. And then the other really interesting thing about on the political side of the survey, the NHL, again, very much sort of like in the same realm

of other sports, 33% Republican, 36% Democrat, baseball is 32% Republican. The NFL is 31% Republican. So it's all kind of in the same realm. But the NHF. Well, far outkicks the coverage of the other three major sports in independent, politically independent fans, which I'm trying to still wrap my brain around.

Like I thought that was a libertarian streak thing, but people were like, yes, it absolutely is. You think so? Yeah, I mean, like, you know, Bill O'Reilly would always say, oh, I'm not a Republican. I'm independent. And it's like, oh, I, okay, sure. Yeah, well, I mean, the spin stopped there, Ryan. Right, that's right. Yeah.

Yeah. But yeah, I mean, look, like, it's, if you were going to basically put out a thing that said, oh, by the way, did you, did you know hockey fans were largely white and largely conservative in their views? I'd have gone, yeah, that sounds about right. So, you know, the other thing to say, though, is the numbers of Republican, independent, and Democrat added up to. well over 100. It was like 104 or something in that. So I don't know what that number is based on. The other thing that made no sense was that they, and they admitted this in their write-up of the poll, they were just surveying U.S. adults, which means that they were surveying U.S. adults that are also fans of Canadian teams primarily. Or who checked the box or didn't unchecked the box. next to because yeah I mean how like

I don't think they're finding a huge I don't know what the sample size is that you need to get a useful result out of this but I'm thinking that the senator fans in the United States well the one that's really amazing

senators are much more Canada and the Ukraine it's there's not well the amazing one here based on like you trying to figure out how many people they actually like got that are fans of Canadian teams. According to this survey, the Winnipeg Jets have the same amount of Hispanic fans as a team based in Texas and a team based in Southern California.

No, that makes a lot of sense. It's perfect. Definitely good polling. They nailed it, 100%. Absolutely nailed it. I mean, I couldn't. That was the one that really stuck out to me as being like, all right, maybe we, Maybe we should have just left the Canadian teams out of this one, perhaps.

Perhaps, perhaps. All right. But insightful, as always, whenever you get a poll. All right, let's close out with a little overrated, underrated. There were two topics on the table that I thought were interesting, but we could always go off the grid if we wanted to. French fries, which I think has been done at some point, but not recently. Yeah.

In Tarantino films. Have you seen enough Tarantino films, Sean, to be able to do this? I have, yeah. I think I haven't seen them all. I feel like I've seen a good chunk of them. All right. Let's do Tarantino films then. I like it.

And by the way, before we get into this, can I just point out that as part of this, seeing that that was one of the options, I googled like Quentin Tarantino films just to kind of refresh my memory. And I learned that he was an uncredited writer on the movie, It's Pat, the Saturday Night Hell yeah. And it's just like ruined my, I just stared out the window for half an hour. and like it just, it's... We all got to start somewhere.

He was a script doctor for a while, right? So he also famously contributed a bunch of stuff to Crimson Tide. Yes. I'd heard Crimson Tide. I'd heard The Rock. I heard like some other ones. For some reason, I guess that he doesn't really lead with that on his LinkedIn page. No, not necessarily.

We'll just think, I mean, I think, are we just doing movies he directed? Yeah. Okay. All right, I'll go first. Overrated for me is Django Unchained. There are things in that movie I absolutely adore, but most of them are in the last half hour to 40 minutes. Here's when that movie kicks in is the Rick Ross song. When you hear, I need 100 Black Coffins.

That's when you go, okay, this movie's about to get insanely fucking good. And it does get to see the movie. All the DiCaprio stuff is great. Like everything when they get to the plantation is great. But everything before it, I couldn't even tell you what happens. Like I just know that movie from that point on, which to me is sort of the – this goes back to our discussion about Rogue One back in the day. Like if you've made a movie where the last third of it is fantastic, but I just couldn't tell you what happened. in the previous two-thirds of it,

then I can't really tell you that it's a great movie. So I think it's a movie that's really, that obviously has its fans and stuff. It's a great, great flick, as all Tarantino movies basically are. But I do think it's a bit overrated for not being as complete as some of those other films. I really like that movie, but it could not live up to the perfection of the trailer. Like, do you remember when you first saw the trailer?

The trailer is so good. You realized what it was and what he was. And you're just like, oh, my God, this is going to be insanely good. and I thought it was very good. Yeah, again, there are not, how do I want to put this? There are Tarantino movies that definitely hit better than others.

Like, all of them are pretty much at least good. But, like, some of them, I think, are a lot of, oh, we've never seen this in this way before, and so that's cool, and we love that. like my overrated one is reservoir dogs because it's like oh we've never seen like all this kind of dialogue and this kind of like quick cuts and all and all these different things and it's like I think with reservoir dogs in particular it doesn't really all come together in a way that again it's his first film I get that but it doesn't come together in a way that all the

later ones kind of do for me do you think it became overrated just because of how many knockoffs there were and it's sort of like you know changed in your eyes because of that? I think the thing I would say is that I probably saw the knockoffs

first in a lot of the cases. So like going back to the source material it's like oh yeah I guess this is like the best version of this you know but that can really throw you off too because a lot of times the knockoffs do improve it but yeah I just like I rewatch

it maybe sometime during quarantine and I was just like yeah this is like good but it's not I think it's not my least favorite Tarantino movie but it is not um I don't know it's just it's a little it's a little shaggy for me I guess it's it's shaggy it's his first attempt and and in a lot of ways it's it's almost like a stage play right like so it's not even a movie in some cases compared to his his his you know actual cinematic work later on so I think that's fair assessment. What about you, Sean? You know, I think I'm like, you guys. I don't have any movies of his that I haven't liked. Of the ones that I've seen, and this is just purely for me, but the two Kill Bill movies,

they were, I enjoyed them, but they didn't hit on the same level as some of his other stuff is. So if I have to pick and overrated, I'll throw those in there. But, you know, they were good. I was going to say they're fine. They were better and fine. They were good. But especially as a like essentially a two-part movie, at some point, it's like, I think I get it. Maybe this doesn't need to be like seven hours of people. That's funny because I-cad off by swords. I would say for me, my underrated was Kill Bill, Volume 2. I think volume 1 because of the bloodshed and because of the insane action finale. in the club gets put over and rightfully so.

The Kill Bill volume 2 is probably a better movie. I agree. So kind of the speaker box to volume 1's The Love Below, if you will, to put it in outcast. Well, I also should say

I've never seen, I didn't see Kill Bill in either of them in theaters and I've only ever seen them both at once. So it's hard for me to kind of separate them out, but, yeah. Well, the volume two is the one where she gets buried alive. No, I, no, I, like, I mean, I had to change the DVDs, so I know which one is, but, like,

I'm just saying as a, like, as a pure cinematic experience, I've never, like, just watched volume one and gone, oh, I wonder what happens next, you know what I mean? Right, right, gotcha. I think volume two has got, like, a really good David Carrey in performance, a really good Michael adds to performance. Oh, yeah. I mean, like, the whole thing's real solid and just a good, a good movie, a different movie. I mean, volume one is a real popcorn, you know, kung fu flick and supremely entertaining.

And then volume two is more of a movie. So I would say it's a little bit underrated because I do think that volume one is the more beloved of the two halves of Kill Bill. Did I say, am I underrated yet or no? No. Okay. I guess I have to say Jackie Brown. Sure. But I feel like in recent years it has become more appreciated.

I feel like it's definitely the least high profile of his films. Like it's the one where if you said to the average movie go, or you ever see Jackie Brown? And they'd go, I don't know what that. is. And you go, it's a Tarantino movie. And they'd be like, oh, really? Oh, I guess not. It's just like, I think it's the lowest in the Pantheon. And it's really fucking good. Like, it's fucking really good. So, yeah, what this is really making me want to do is just watch all the Tarantino movies again in order. But, yeah. Hey, end of the season's coming up real fast. So I'm

about to have a lot of time on my hands. Wait about you, Sean. You know what? I say this as a Tarantino fan. I'm honestly not sure that I've seen an underrated Tarantino movie. I mean, his stuff is so critically acclaimed, and there's probably a few, like, I've never seen Jackie Brown. It's fucking, well, in furtherance of my point, it's fucking really good check it out. It would be my recommendation to you. Like, I'm looking at down the list of, like, the seven or eight of his movies that I have seen, and I'm like, are any of these actually underrated? and I just, I got a pass because I'm just going to sound ridiculous if I'm sitting here

on trying to pass off any of these as actually underrated. Mm-hmm. Favorite. That would be Inglorious Bastards. Bingo. Or, hey, that's a bingo, right? Remember from the end of the movie? Is that how you say?

And that's a real. that's a real big hill to climb because I was a huge pulp fiction fan for most of my life and never thought that anything that he did would trump that accomplishment. But the glorious bastard certainly did, man. That is a perfectly acted, perfectly constructed. And it gives you a lot of everything. It gives you some chuckles. It gives you some, you know, just an all-time villain.

in Hans Landa, and it's got a little bit of history to it. It's got that incredible tavern scene that just is... Oh, my God. Just a Hitchcockian level of tension. Oh, my God. That scene. And I mean, Ken Hitchcock, of course, not any other Hitchcock. And I love it.

It's my favorite Tarantina movie emphatically, and I would say that is probably the same for you then, Ryan, huh? Yeah, I saw it three times in theaters. on opening weekend. Like, it was a movie where I saw it, you know, Friday night and was just like so blown away by it. And then, you know, I was telling people like, oh, the new Tarantino movie, you're not going to fucking believe how good it is. And on two separate occasions that weekend, my friends were like, fuck, you have me so excited. Can we go see it right now?

And I'd be like, I am 100% down to see this movie again. I will say, however, once upon a time in Hollywood might be pretty close to how much I love Inglorious Bastards. It's fucking great. Yep. And, you know, like, obviously Inglorious Bastards is the first one that does the thing of, because of the whole movie you're watching and you're like, well, there's no way they're going to get away with this plot. So, like, how does it? And then it's like, no, they're just fucking. Iced Hitler unloaded, like, a full, unloaded a full clip into his fucking face and then suicide bombed that theater.

And that was part of the draw. Like, I obviously didn't tell people like, oh, there's a big twist. You're never going to see it coming. Like, I was just like, you got to see this movie. It's fucking great. And in the theater opening night, the reaction to they just kick open the door to that fucking little. opera box and just completely unload their fucking machine guns into Hitler.

It's incredible. The whole audience, you know, packed house, like, one of the greatest cinema experiences I've ever had in my life. It's just everybody going absolutely apeship because they were like, well, I figured they wouldn't fucking possibly do it, and then they did it. And then, yeah, they obviously do that with Django Unchained, and they do that in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood as well

And I think, yeah, like You know, I think once upon a time in Hollywood Is the ultimate like dudes rock movie And it's You know, like it's everything that you want in a Tarantino movie And it's I think a lot more fun than most of the more The later like kind of grim Tarantino

know. So, yeah, that one's right up there. It's a, it's a way closer to than I thought would ever be possible based on how much I love Inglorious Bastards, but it's fucking, it rocks. That movie's so good. Love it. All right. What do you say, Sean? Inglorious bastards is amazing. I seriously thought of putting that as my favorite. Like I said, I'd like Django as well. I'm just going to go Pulp Fiction. I know it's the cliche, but the fact that I was also, the fact that I was young when I saw it and like just, uh, that movie, just still so much fun. And still like, I'm not a big movie rewatcher, partly because I don't watch many movies.

So I'm like, if I have two hours to watch something, why would I watch something I've already seen? Like Pulp Fiction is an instant rewatch any time the opportunity presents itself. It's just so much fun. For sure. Least favorite, that's an easy one for me too. The Hateful Eight. Didn't like it. Didn't really do much for me.

Found it to be sort of repellent to times. And it was a fucking sit. Did you see the full-length cinematic director? Yeah, okay. I did too. But that's the only time I've ever seen it. And will you revisit it? Because I don't think I will.

I'm going to, I've already decided in my head that when the season ends, I'm going to do a full Tarantino rewatch. There you go. Well, of his films, that would be my least favorite. Probably not close, because the other ones are all like ones I would rewatch. I think it's the distinction between the two. I'm not going to, like, search, search out to rewatch The Hateful Eighth anytime soon. Yeah, I think my opinion, like, I liked it in theaters and then my, like,

opinion of it dimmed kind of over time. And that, you know, that's fine. That happens. If it's, if it's, my least favorite is deathproof, um, because I think it's just the most disposable. And I think that, I think that's fine. Like, I don't, um, I don't think anybody would be like, oh, no, death proof is my favorite Tarantino.

Like, you know, they say that everybody... I guarantee there's somebody out there. Well, that's what they say is like every movie is somebody's favorite movie. I can't imagine, though, that there's more than one guy. And it's probably Kurt Russell who says, my favorite Tarantino movie is deathproof. I, you know, I just... I can't see that. And like, yeah, it's good.

It's, again, the baseline is good. I think, you know, that's the one I. I've never seen. I saw that once and I'm never until, you know, next week I'm not going to see it again. Right. All right. Finally, Sean, what do you say? Yeah, I never did see that one.

I just discovered, this kind of shows you how big of Tarantino, how knowledgeable I am. I just discovered that from Dust Till Dawn is not actually a Quentin Tarantino. Yeah, he just wrote it. Movie. And so I Yeah Would you say that would be your least favorite? That would be my least favorite

Because the only other one is Even hateful eight I liked a lot And so much that I played the 100 hour long Video game adaptation called Red Dead Redemption That was I liked Hayful Eight but I saw it once and walked away going That was a good movie and didn't really think too much about it after There you go

All right Tarantino movies I forget who suggested it a good suggestion. And that's the show for this week. Thanks for everybody for listening. Check out the Patreon for a bonus episode that I would say is unique in its place in puck soup history. And also obviously head to the Patreon for our mailbag in which we answer your questions as well.

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Incredible. I know. I know, right? Yes, sign up for the Puck Soup Patreon. Greg did a pretty good sell job of it just now. But also, I have a newsletter on there that recently crossed 800 subscribers, which is a nice number. But, boy, couldn't it be higher?

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My favorite piece that I wrote this week Was I built an entire roster out of guys who had won the heart trophy and then an entire roster out of guys who hadn't and tried to figure out which team would win. And it's closer than you think. So if you like your history or just arguing over which guy was better, and another guy, check that out. For a dollar a month, it's subtle. It's hidden away. You probably haven't heard about it, but there is a $1 a month offer right now. So again, you have to click on my articles to get it. If you click on someone else's, they charge you double. You know,

You can't draw you double, right? Yeah. But you definitely go find that. All right, everybody. Thanks for listening. Todd, we'll see you on the Patreon. Take care. Bye.

See it. 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 tunes. It's your weekly bowl of Hockey and Nancet.

Part two.