Puck Soup - Stay Off My Phone

Episode Date: September 20, 2023

Ryan and guest Sean Gentille are here to talk about how Mike Babcock is out, the Blue Jackets are a mess, and training camp is starting.   Sponsored by Factor (factormeals.com/puck50), Gametime (download the Gametime app and use code PUCK for $20 off), Betterhelp (betterhelp.com/puck) and Bespoke Post (boxofawesome.com/puck)

Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slapshots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to what if you commute. But we also cover movies, TV shows, it's and tunes. It's your weekly bowl of hockey and nonsense. I'm Ryan Lambert from Elite Prospects. I'm Sean Gentile from The Athletic. There he is. And, well, pretty newsworthy week, I think.

this is what I'm going to say right off the bat here is this feels like we're in a different era now because basically the NHLPA got Mike Babcock fired pretty cool pretty cool yeah I this had a long tail we're it I mean right like we're talking about this for a week now. Yeah, we talked about it on the mailbag last week. Like, oh, this doesn't seem good. And I think something happens here. Yeah, and I think that's indicative of how important all this is.

Like, it's cliche to talk about how quickly things come and go, but it's also true where stories like this tend to cycle in and cycle out. Then we move on to the next one. This has been the biggest story in the league for days now. And of course, that's because Bapka, is, you know, a high-profile guy, and he's, you know, he was the dean of NHL coaches for a while. But I also think a big reason that it's stuck for as long as it has

is that it is that important. And it does carry some weight because this does feel, when we made this mistake before, by labeling things as C changes and then watching them, you know, watching things eventually go back to normal. This does feel different. Yes.

Because, you know, NHLPA, under new management, they have a big sign in the window. And when the news came out, basically it was, well, Marty Walsh and Ron Hainsey are going straight to Columbus. They're on like the first flight. They're going to meet with everybody. Then they're going to meet with the league. And people made a lot of pains to be like, well, it was a previously scheduled. meeting. So, okay, well, you know, it doesn't change the agenda of the meeting itself, you know.

Yeah, like, that's just a coincidence and we can move on from that. Right. They walked in and they were like, do you guys want to talk about this? And they're like, it's not on the agenda. So I guess we can't, you know, Bill Daley just shrugging at them. But like, something tells me Ron Haney was more than happy to change the agenda of. his meeting with the blue jackets after all of this. Yeah. Well, no, I'm talking about the meeting between the PA and the league. You're right.

I don't think they were supposed to be just meeting with the blue jackets management. I misspoke. I meant the meeting with Bill Daly. I'm sure Hainesie was happy to call an audible. That dude does not suffer fools in his day-to-day interactions with people, let alone the league in his capacity as, you know, a reptile. for the Players Association, or a VP for the Players Association, rather. Yeah.

And so, yeah, like, that meeting was on Friday. And Saturday, nothing happened. Sunday, he's gone. That's it. It was wild. It was wild. It was a wild. I think the strangest part of it was the decisiveness with which,

you know, I'm not trying to give the, Columbus Blue Jackets, any credit here, right? Because they made their bed and it was a horrible mistake from the jump. But they also, you know, they moved pretty quickly. They did. They moved as quickly as they should have moved. How about that?

And that alone is something that we don't typically see from NHL franchises. They don't just have to be drag kicking and screaming to doing their right thing. They also string it out as long as they're. possibly can. And if there's one bit that the Blue Jackets do, you know, deserve some amount of credit for it, it's that they, you know, righted the mistake is about as quickly as you could expect from an NHL team. And yes, we're grading on a pretty steep curve, but that's exactly, that's what, that is what it is. Yep, it's, um, you know, it's just, it's just one of those things.

You can't because there is millions of dollars involved. You can't expect them to just be like, oh, he's gone by. That's it. You know, but normally you would have thought, oh, Columbus, we're going to open an investigation and we're going to drag this out a few weeks. And I think it was just the players made it clear like there's no not happening. Yeah. Like we're not going to get over this.

Yep. And so. An interesting. question honestly is I think what would happen if this would have come out in late August. Do then we get the typical you know, announce an investigation

and just wait for things to kind of blow over method or or not? Because it does feel like with you know, camps opening in some spots today that the timeline was shrunk a little bit. And my vibe is that that certainly added to the you know, again, grading on a curve,

it added to the urgency here. Yeah, I believe Columbus's camp open today because I saw some quotes from Patrick Linae coming out this morning, so. Was he like, hey, did you guys know that was pretty good last year? Just bringing that up to anybody, to anybody, you know, who talked to open the scrum?

Yeah, he, he, the quote I saw was that they asked, because apparently Adam Fantilli is living with him this year with line eight and uh they were like what do you think of uh what do you think of fantili he's like i don't know he's canadian he means he's pretty nice that's all we don't we don't talk that much we each have our living room time and then just kind of naturally cycle back into our bedrooms and by it by ourselves that's right just give each other a nod on the on the way in and out of the bathroom in the morning perfectly cordial relationship like when out of college my my first

roommate was a was a school teacher and I was working nights. So we literally never saw each other. We'd just kind of like pass each other up by the by the coffee maker and be like, it's up. Now is it? Okay. See you later. That's room that I ever had. That's right. But yeah, anyway, it's crazy that this, that this happened so quickly and too, as you said, like a coach of such a high profile that they were just like, yeah, we're not. Nobody is allowing this to be put up with. I guess. It's just such an indication of how loathed Babcock is by a significant portion of

Oh, yeah. The player population, right? Like this dude came into that job on the shit list. For evidently, you know, correct reasons based on the way things went down in Toronto, based on all the stories that have kind of circulated, you know, with how he treats people in general based on the shit that happened in Detroit, which I feel like people forgot about to some extent, the way he treated Johann Franzin and whoever else.

I mean, this dude was on some level on double secret probation when it came to the players from the jump. I don't even think it was that secret. I think, you know, everybody said like, when, not even when he got hired, because remember they were like, oh yeah, they're going to hire him in, three weeks or whatever because of his contract situation.

And everybody at the time was like, well, it's just a ticking clock here. Like, this guy's, we got to be. Everybody's got to wait for him to fuck up like a little bit. Exactly. We got to be ready for the first sign of him being a toxic weirdo, right? And it happened off the hop. Yeah. Just wild, wild times.

Yep. And, you know, like, again, you can say, well, people, like, had it out for him or, uh... It's fine. You should have it. You should have it out for that. That's exactly right. You can't say he didn't earn it. Has there ever been a guy who should have had it out for him more? I mean, yes. I think at the top of the list in human history, it's my, it's Mike Babcock. I can't think of anybody else who got what he deserved and in a more, in a more, in a more, in a more, in a more, in a more, in a more, fitting fashion. Yep. I don't know.

For me, I just like, like I said, I think my big takeaway here is the important thing that like Yarmou Kek-Linen said yesterday or the day before when he met with the media,

where he was like, yeah, like the guys maybe didn't feel comfortable bringing this to us. And it's like, yeah, because you fucking hired them. Yeah, man.

He's your guy. Use your head. Yeah. And, you know, maybe they didn't feel comfortable going to the NHLPA because in the past, the NHLPA wasn't exactly the most player-friendly organization. Like, you know, it was in certain ways, but in other ways, like, obviously players didn't feel like they could trust that would work, you know? And so they go to spit and chicklets and they say, this is. bad. It's fitting chicklets. There's the laundry as, you know, I think they should have. And I kind of think the force with which Marty Walsh and Ron Hainesi did this was to be like, you don't have to go to the podcast guys anymore. You can actually come to us. We'll have

your back a thousand percent and we're not like we're absolutely zero percent fucking around. It's for Marty Walsh, it's a necessary move. It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, I mean, not just in by comparison to the last regime, but also I think it helps to get a scalp this early. Sure, and especially. If you're him. Because, I mean, look, I think some of the past relationships with Jeremy Jacobs and stuff like that,

I think some of that, some of that, some of that, some of that I think was overblown. Oh, it definitely was. Yeah, of course. But you also can't blame some of the players for being like, what is this exactly? Like, or like let's maybe giving him a little bit of the side eye, you know, because of that. And now they know beyond the shadow of a doubt that, you know,

he's going to kick some ass here because we, when we said it before, we've said it in so many ways over the years. It's a fact. The GMs run this league. I think there's, I think there is as much currency. in going against a general manager like Yarmou Kekalainen or an executive like John Davidson as there is in facing off against ownership and on the bigger picture, more 30,000 foot stuff.

These are the dudes who make the decisions and run the league on a day-to-day basis. Yarmou Kekelan has been on that job for as long as anybody in the league at this point. Almost, yeah. And for Walsh to go, uh-uh, no, nope, here's. here's the way this is going to work. I'm going to actually make this guy look like a huge mor. Yeah, and I don't give a shit because my job is to advocate for the players. It's great to see.

Yeah, it rocks. It's really cool because, you know, how long did we say like the NHLPA is doing like an actively bad job? More than a decade? I don't know. When have they done a good job? Bob good now salary cap in 2005 that was really cool and good for the players

go back to the Alan Eaglesen days that worked out great obviously like when is the wins have been few and far between for this organization in general yeah and it's it's good to see the other thing that I thought was interesting

everything turns into culture bullshit. You know, we know that. But the amount of people who defended Babcock, even though they're out there, like God knows there's people who cosplay as, as NHL players or as hockey people that are defending this guy. And I know this is anecdotal. I feel like there's less than I thought they were going to be.

Like I, right? Like, am I, is this self-selection by me? or was there legitimately less voices, whether prominent or is the weirdo hordes on Twitter defending this guy than you thought? I think there isn't. I've seen very little of it, and maybe that is a little bit self-selecting. But I think it's this simple. Everybody can relate to, you wouldn't want your boss going through your fucking phone, would you?

You know what I mean? Like, because that's like just a universal thing of like, no matter if you think kids today, these freaking millennials or whatever, they're snowflakes. Like, if you say to the biggest, these guys are snowflakes, they can't hand it. Would you want your boss going through your phone? They go, fair enough. No, I wouldn't. Seems bad. Yeah, it actually sounds like it really sucks.

And also, I think there's a benefit to the messengers here. And like, I don't want to get too far into the chicklets discussion because whatever. But the worst people on earth who would have justified all of this because Babcock's, you know, Mike Babcock won gold medals and cups and, you know, this generation of players is soft and all that shit. Those are people typically who also have no connection, no real connection. no real connection with the game in general. They're freaks on Twitter who are pushing,

who in this weird kind of counterintuitive way gas up what they think NHL players want. And I think a lot of people would say like, you know, a lot of the worst people on Earth would assume that players would be against this because they're hard-ass athletes and whatever. Well, as it stands, you have the most player-centric podcast, for better or worse, on the planet who's saying, like, these guys hate this shit, actually. So all the sycophants who pretend that they're friends with all the players, you know, and maybe otherwise would have been on Team Babcock just because they're, just because they fancy themselves as, you know, hockey folks had that, you know, had that element.

play where it's like no nope like the most hockey bros imaginable the the the biggest the top of the list hockey bros are like no this this dude's this dude's not going to work the other thing i want to talk about with this is i'm really fascinated by the dynamics of uh you know boon jenner and johnny goddrae publicly being like oh it wasn't a big deal because a a the very Veterans are going to be a lot, the guys in their position are going to be a lot fewer and farther between than the rookies or the, you know, 24-year-olds or whatever on that team. And also because, like, it seems as though when this all came out, Columbus went to Boone General and was like, you're going to refute this. And Boone Jenner was like, happy to, no problem. Mm-hmm.

Johnny Goddrow, kind of the same thing, but a little different because, like, he was just doing media day and not he had it put in a statement released by the club, you know, and Boone Jenner also is the captain of the team. You know, all the reporting says that once they all got in a room together, the veteran guys who were like, I didn't have a problem with it. And Yarmo said the same thing on, like, Monday, which stupid fucking thing to say. But all those guys were like, oh, I guess I didn't know how bad it was. Yeah. It's like, yeah, man, you're the captain, though. Like when they came to you and said, you got to put out the statement, shouldn't you have been like, let me talk to the guys on my team first. Now, again, you know, these guys are maybe not the best critical thinkers in the world.

This is a, this is new territory for everybody. But I don't know. That, that, I'm very interested to see if that's all like water under the bridge. with the players or the younger players or what, but. It'll be interesting to track. My thought, honestly, and this is speculation for the most part, was that,

look, Boon Jenner's statement that they released through the team was not great. Like, I, like, it, it was. Blown out of proportion was the phrase he used in that quote. Right. And it was proven false, you know, in short order. But I also think in a weird way, I can see how that could have been a little bit of a tactical decision. Because if you know that the Players Association has your back, and if you know that Walsh and Hainesi and whoever else are in on it, if you're Boone Jenner, you can say like, all right, whatever, I'll do what I have to here.

just to stay on it just to stay on off the shit list for for yarmo but because the important stuff is happening behind the scenes yeah fine yeah i'll i'll put my name on a on a silly little statement but i also have the i have the benefit of being able to count on the players association to represent me in a meaningful way so we'll see what happens yeah is that giving boon gender too much credit like maybe But I don't know, man. I think generally it'll be water under the bridge. I can't imagine.

Because, you know, this is, this. Maltheasance by Babcock, as fucked up as it was, still it stops short of, like, abuse. It stops short of, you know, these next level things where, you know, it's minor enough in the grand scheme of things where you give some like Boone Jenner a pass for maybe not for maybe not understanding the extent of it. Yeah, no, like I said, I, I, he's not mealy-mouthing like a Bill Peters situation. Correct, yeah. And also like, I bet that he was asked, like, hey, they're saying this was bad, like, your experience. wasn't bad, right?

And his experience wasn't bad, it sounds like. Because Babcock treated people different depending on, you know, their status in his eyes. That's what bullies do. Yep. Sure. He's not going to, he's not going to immediately burn the bridge with his captain. Like that's how, like, he's a cany operator who knows how power dynamics work. He's got reason to have Boone Jenner on his side.

So maybe Boone Jenner can pick what pictures he shows them. And other guys, you know, get called over for lunch and then show them their phones and leave without getting any food. Didn't even toss him a sandwich out the door, you know? Here's a Nature Valley bar. Like, get the fuck out of here. It's a 90-minute driver or whatever, yeah.

Your girlfriend's weird looking. Yeah, that's the other funny thing about that is like people are going, well, why would, you know, some guys not want it? And it's like, oh, what does a 22-year-old have on his phone that maybe a 30-year-old guy with a couple of kids does, you know, or does it rather? Yeah. Or like, and I know. Interesting. My God, we've seen this.

We've seen plenty of people say it. Brock McGillis said it. Like, what if one of those players was closeted or whatever or just generally had personal things like that that they'd. that they didn't want their boss to see. Again, everyone can relate to, would you just hand your unlocked phone to your boss and be like, go nuts? No, fucking of course not.

That would be insane. Even if it's like, I don't know. Like, even if it's totally innocuous and all you have on there is pictures of your dog, it's the principle of the thing. Absolutely. Like, and still the funniest question to me regarding all of this is like what...

laugh folks. Did Babcock know just, how much did he understand how out of line what he, what he, what he did, what he did he realize he was being as weird as he was being? The answer has to be no, because like we said, everybody's waiting for this guy to say the grink basically, right? Like to just do one thing wrong that they could like, if not get him. fired over. Be like, can you fucking believe he said the gray?

But also the counter point there is that this guy has done legitimately sadistic shit in the past. Sure. And with clearly that only someone who understood what an asshole he was being would do. Yeah. It says a lot about the learning and growing he did, certainly in the last four years. I tend to agree that he thought he was doing something. Like, you know, people, people with whatever Babcock's got going on more often than not,

don't realize how out of pocket they're behaving. But I think if you're, I'll say this. Which is a funny thought, though. It's like the idea of him sitting down to be like, yep, just doing a normal thing with these guys, with these guys who I'm going to coach this year. Like, like, the idea of him coming into that with that mindset is, is really funny to me. Yeah, no, but I think the giveaway here is that he, uh, he didn't give him lunch. Not only didn't give him lunch, which believe me, I'd be, that's the thing I'd be most pissed about.

You'd look through my phone all you want. You invite me to lunch and you don't give me a fucking burger and fries. What are we doing here, brother? I'm driving to the Babcock house and not even, not even having like a pitcher of iced tea waiting for you. Just like, give me your fucking phone. Connect to my Apple TV. If it's the give me the, give me your phone thing, right? At least as long as there's, as there's food on there, I'm like Tony Soprano and the many

Sanchez you work. I'm going hamburgers far out. You know? But, uh, yeah, no, like, I think the giveaway here is that he was like, gnarmo, why don't you pull up three pictures on your phone? And Boone Jenner, why don't you tell me a bit about your grandmother or whatever? And for a rookie, he's like, give me your fucking phone right now. Yeah.

Or whatever, you know. That's how you know that he realized that he had disordered thinking going on. Yeah, for sure. Goodbye, Babcock. Yes, goodbye, Mike Babcock. So long. Maybe the University of Saskatchewan will take you back. for some more learning and for some more growing.

Yeah, that's right. I'm going to guess this, though. Probably not. Probably this is it. Here's the thing. He's got enough money. He's going to get a couple million bucks for the next few years to not do anything, right? Why?

He just made fucking, he worked until he got every cent of the buyout from the Maple Leafs, every goddamn dime. Yep. Hey Yep One other thing that we got to talk about with all this, of course, is like, I wrote this down. You can confirm this for the people. On the outline, it says, how does Yarmos still have a job? It's a good question.

It's a really good question to me. Because you know it's open season on him when like people, like insiders who normally are looking for like, ways to ingratiate themselves or at least, you know, uh, not piss off the people they need info from. And I'm not saying like, oh, you know, Frank Saravalli's an ass kisser or whatever. Like, like, but Frank opened the fucking floodgates on this one. He was like, what are we doing here?

And he's totally right to do it. It's just you never see that level of, I don't want to say vitriol, because that's not the right word, but like that level of candidness. Yeah. You know? Yeah, it's pretty explicit here. Yeah. And that's what's amazing to me is that like, and it's not just frank.

Like other, other insider type guys are just like, I don't get it. My thought on all that is John Davidson. Dude has had a reputation as being a smooth talker for decades and decades and decades. And I think to some extent, if you've been in the game and around the game for a long as he has, you know that this reflects badly on you for John Davidson. Yeah. Because he was involved with, I mean, this wasn't just Yarmow.

I think you got to give Davidson some agency here as the president of the team. But also as the president of the team, he's got direct contact in the ear of the McConnell family. And I think their rep is being like hands-off and whatever else and probably trusting, you know, entrusting the day-to-day operations of that franchise to John Davidson. They've got to figure his word carries a lot of weight. So if you have Davidson advocating for Yarmo as a way of also advocating for himself

and then a hands-off ownership group like we've heard them, like we've heard for so long about the McConnell's, I think it, I think it makes sense because I think those guys, can say with some degree of believability, like, look, man, we didn't know that he was going to be this weird right off the bat. We screwed up, but like, how are we supposed to know that this dude was going to step in a shit pile this big before a couple days before training camp started?

Like, we can fix it. We can fix it now. But you know what else? You know what would be bad, though, if we did a full front office overhaul. Like, that would just be compounding the mistake. so let's fix the glitch and move on and you know everybody else gets to keep their jobs right right then the ownership group goes okay sure but to me it's like yorro's been the GM i think 10 years they've won or they you know they won a playoff round one time famously and i would argue

kind of like set the entire franchise back to do it you know i i said it at the time people got mad at me. It's a fucking loser brain to go well if we just hang on to all these like pending and in fact we buy at the deadline and all this kind of stuff with these pending UFAs folks we might just be able to make it out

of the first round and wouldn't that be great and everybody like you can't say that you know like I'm sitting there going this fucking so stupid so stupid and you know oh you got to give the fan something to root for blah blah blah where did it fucking get him at

end of the day. It made the McConnell's money. This is like to me that Columbus Blue Jackets are proof that there is a class of pro sports owner who truly doesn't give a shit. And as long as as long as the checks are coming in at a decent number and a decent rate. Like are the Blue Jackets? Are the McConnell's getting master of the universe wealth off the Columbus Blue Jackets? like, no.

But if you treat it as an annuity, where you're just like, this is something that pays me money every single year and he don't give much of a shit beyond that, it allows, and you can package that as, you know, hands off ownership or whatever

and just be like, yeah, that's fine. We're making money. Who cares? To me, it's not, I think that sucks,

honestly. Of course it sucks. I think like, but again, like people are defending this shit. You know, like, like people who are who shouldn't give a flying fuck about whether the McConnell's make money are going like, well, like, it's good for the fans that they got out of the first round. Has it been good for the fans that that happened? Fucking five years ago or whatever, four? Really is wild. It was that long ago now, too.

Yeah. 2019. They did it. And then, you know, the next year they made the playoffs and they lost in the first round, but, you know, they got a lot of respect in the handshake line or whatever you want to say. Like, fucking, I say there are a lot of like, who cares franchises in the NHL. Minnesota, a great example of like, you know, up until two years ago, could you have named five guys on the Minnesota Wild? Like, not you, but like the average fan of you said, like, hey, you're, you're, you're, You're an islanders fan.

Name five guys on the wild. They couldn't fucking do it, right? And now maybe there's more of a chance of that. Columbus, this is the most anonymous franchise in the league, by far. And I say this as someone who wrote a Columbus Blue Jackets preview, or at least chunks of it. We have them, by the way, as the 26th team in the league.

They're going to suck. Feels a little high, I think, honestly. 27. They're ahead of the flyers, but behind the blues in Dom's projections. Sharks, Canadians, Blackhawks, Ducks, Flyers, Blue Jackets. Yeah, I guess that does sound. There's just so many fucking bad teams, I guess. Yeah, and that is still pathetic company to be in for a team that bumped up.

It's, I don't even want to say bumped up the window. Like, Goodreau completely was not of a type with anything that had gone on with that franchise. Like, that, it's a disaster. Totally. It reset expectations to some extent, but also they're not going to get any better. So now they're just chasing bullshit. Well, you don't understand. Zach Werenczka was hurt for a bunch of last year.

And if he had been healthy, the 86 point team, no problem. That's great, right? Here's how bad they were last season. I can't wait for this. Okay, go ahead. Lina was their most effective defensive player. Patrick Klanna. No, that can't be right, though.

Shorthand for shitty, shitty, empty calories, no defense. Well, not shitty, but empty calorie, all gas, no brakes, winger, who is unplayable defensively. He, based on Dom's model, was their most effective player defensively.

he led the Columbus Blue Jackets in defensive rating Patrick Klein. That, like, that is disgraceful. That's so funny. And, like, you know, you can explain that way, well, you know, they never put him in a position where he had to defend anybody, blah, blah, blah, you know, go down the line. Okay, well, look, again, I know Zach Wrenski was hurt last year, but, like, they didn't have a single fucking checking center on that team. last year that could be like who's their fourth line center going head to head against a fourth line center every night no that guy couldn't get the couldn't get it done you know it was seventh in scoring on uh this team last year SG seven Eric Robinson I was going to say Eric Robinson because

he's someone who who popped up in the preview who I'm not sure I've ever heard of that's what I was going to say this is a guy he's 27 years old he played more than 200 150 NHL games. How many Blue Jackets fans are like, I can picture Eric Robinson in my head right now. Who do you think? That's a really short list. Let's see here. I'm looking at Dom's net rating right now.

Okay. Who do you think is based on this is their fourth best offensive player? Fourth best offensive player. projection-wise for this season. Okay, I'm going to go one through three in some order or Godreau Line A, Jenner? Uh-huh. Okay. Well, no, Jenner's three.

Jenner's four, excuse me. Jenner's four. Let's say five. Okay. Who's five then? Is it Jack Roslovick? It's a trick question. It's a three-way tie between Roslovak.

Roslovick, Kiro Marchenko, and Kent Johnson, who are all plus zeros offensively. Well, enjoy Pascal. And I like Roslavik. I like, you know, obviously Kent Johnson's got a lot of room to grow. Kiro Marchenko. Carol Marchenko is, you know, Kiro Morgchenko, you know what he put up last year? This is, this, you know, you hear this a lot about winning the Sye Young or whatever, and a bunch of goals.

21, 425. Four assists last season. How's that possible? You play 60 games in the league and you only get four assists? That feels literally impossible. 16 minutes a night. It's truly... That's crazy.

Truly unbelievable. Who was he playing? Who was his linemates were the two backup goalies at any given time. Like, what the fuck? Sean Corrally. Yeah, that's probably. These guys are rough. Ouch,

ouch, but yeah, anyway, Yarmou Keklaina, that's a guy who should keep his job. Hired a great coach, built this team.

Oh, good luck with. You know, it's so funny that adding, that a team that added Proverov and Damon Severson is just like, they're so bad.

The Blue, Jack's defensive group was so bad that those guys are like world beating additions to to it. Yeah. And like, I've said this before. I think if you put both of those guys in certain positions in the lineup, like the reason ProVrob sucked last year certainly is because they were like, you're the number one defenseman on the Philadelphia Flyers. And it's like he shouldn't be anywhere near that designation on any team in the NHL. And now he's, now he's number two and maybe he shouldn't be there either. I know but like if they use him in the

on the middle pair maybe with Severson that's fine I think I don't you know it's not gonna be like good but it's deal withable and they can find ways to excel in that role but like you said there is like Zach Wrenzky then who

you know there is one player on this team who has a positive who has positive projection as far as defensive writing is concerned and it's Severson everybody else is either at zero or negative Yeah. And that doesn't mean they're, they're negatives overall,

but just like in terms of defensive impact, yeah. One player. He's at, he's at a plus one. It's insane. They have the worst defense in the league

in terms of projection by a pretty significant margin. They're, they're worse than the San Jose. They're in the San Jose sharks. Right. They're in the same.

What are we doing? Yeah. But no, you're going to let this guy keep a job. Yeah, you're a good man. He's done a great job there. That's why he's the third most tenure GM in the league.

You know what? All the success they've had, you know? Ten fucking years. Well, they made the playoffs five times. Literally half the league makes the playoffs. So any GM should make the playoffs about half the time. I got to correct myself. I got to crack myself.

San Jose is worse. I was reading that chart wrong. but Columbus is Columbus is too. Yeah, well, they could trade for Mark Edward Vlasic. You know.

Jesus Christ, I'm reading, no, strike it. They are the worst. I sort of it wrong. They're significantly worse, you know,

in terms of defensively than San Jose. Significantly he says. That's surprising. In terms of their defensive play, yes. Yeah. They, they bring a little bit,

like they, because of Werensky and Severson, they have some offensive upside there that Cinozay certainly doesn't. But in their own end, it's the worst group of defensemen in the league. Now, but here's what you don't understand, though. Elvis Burr's league is there's a good goalie, right? Yeah, he's hurt. 876 last year, 907 the year before that.

This guy's great. No problem. Bizarre. Yep. Yeah, it's a strange situation. It's a franchise that doesn't know what real success looks like. Totally. Because again, they were like, we're going to, we're going to empty the fucking tanks.

Like, we're going to go absolutely apeshit at the deadline so that we can maybe in a total fluke win in the first round one time. And now, because of Gidreau, they're desperate. Aside from not really understanding what it's. means to be a relevant NHL franchise for a protracted amount of time. They're trying to operate on the Johnny Gradryl timeline. It's wild.

Organization is a wreck. I would say. Yeah, totally. A complete mess. And yeah, maybe it would be a distraction to can the GM and the president of hockey ops now. Like, maybe it

would be. But also, like, What are they doing right this second? It's an excuse. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Like, they're just sitting there going, oh, I guess we'll cut one of these guys that was always going to be in the H.L. We'll cut him, you know, day to a camp. Mm-hmm. You need a genius to do that.

You can't just have anybody off the street doing that. Hire me. Could SG do a worse job than Yarmokke? I don't know. It was 10 years. I don't think I would try to make sure that one of my main hires didn't turn into a scandal that ate the sport for 10 days. That would be my first goal is Blackhawks General Manager, not to hire a fucking abusive weirdo as my head coach. I would also demand a commute from Pittsburgh to Columbus.

It's a fairly short drive. You have them build you a train. Come and find me, J.D. I guess we should We should also talk about Pascal Vincent who is the new coach One of these guys who

I'm sure if you went back and looked at like a list of This is a guy who's going to be the next coach in the NHL Circle like 2010 This guy was on the list And he finally gets his chance In Let's say less than ideal circumstances Yes

I think this is a guy who's very easy to root for. You know, like he is facing impossible odds that like, because, you know, they're like, oh, we're going to monitor the owners. We're like, oh, we're going to monitor the situation or whatever. We expect results to be X, Y, and Z. And it's like, well, you know, you resurrect basically any all-time great coach from, you know, the start of the NHL to today, they're not getting a winning record out of this club.

No way. Right? Like, you know, because it's the NHL, maybe Columbus goes like 15 and 2 in overtime this year. It could happen, you know? But they're not... I don't think it can. Look.

Elvis. Stranger things have happened. Stranger things have happened in terms of like, oh, this goalie who we all thought sucked, he's good now, you know? Have Stranger Things happened in the Blue Jack is going 15-2-02 this year? A team with that goalie in that group of defensemen? I don't think so.

I think it would be the weirdest thing that happened in the history of the sports. The history of the league, yeah. You might be right, but you see what I'm saying. Oh, of course, of course. I'm just saying, by the way, the NHL figures out 500, No coach in the history of hockey could get them over it. I think the same- I think the same-

500 maybe. Yeah, I think the single biggest thing that Vincent has going for me is that he is aware of what these guys suck at because he was an assistant for the last couple years. Maybe. He knows what the guys on that roster are really bad at. It might be able to account for it better.

It says here, NHL hockey. Uh-oh. he also he also knows that they hate it when coaches ask to see their phone so he can he can avoid that he can avoid that bear trap yeah that's right by the way one one last thing i want to say about this you know he's done a great job with with all this stuff is port sign like i think he's 40 absolutely but one of the things that really made me laugh was he was like in the long list of embarrassments for the Columbus flu jackets. This might be the worst one.

Yes. And included in the list that he put together was like, remember when they had that, uh, that mascot that looked like a dick? Which I, that was in the list of embarrassments and I was like, aye, aye, aye. Which A, I had forgotten about until until he got up. He looked like he was a cannon with a mustache. And B, I don't think that's embarrassing at all. I think it's, no, I agree.

I think it's really funny and cool. They should have kept them around. This is like when the Flames-A-H-L mascot murdered a first responder on his first day on the job. To me, that's funny. I want mascots that are absolutely psychotic. It's like, oh, this one's another bear. Who gives a shit? Give me one that's fucking insane.

And don't say the weird troll one in Seattle. That's just a stupid one. That doesn't count. I actually kind of like that one. I don't like that one. You know what? I like is the one Montreal introduced a few years ago that was like he was a

roadie for motorhead. Do you remember this? Oh, yeah. That was a cool mascot. Like the one that... He knows Lemmy? That must be a good mascot. Mascot content.

I'm glad we don't have to go back into that well. If this were I guess there'd be all sorts of pieces in the works. Let's power rank them all time. Carl's number one with a bulletin. it. Another fucking bear. Get lost.

Look out penguins fans. I've got Iceberg at number 28. And people are like, now, do you remember he was in a little movie called sudden death? Do you remember what iceberg was there? Anytime hockey's like portrayed in any kind of pop culture stuff, you have to pretend like it's the most important thing that ever happened for three decades. Absolutely. I say this is someone who wrote a probably

5,000 word oral history about sudden death during the pandemic. It's perfect. Anything that happened during the pandemic was is forgiven, I think. The funniest thing was treating that movie like it was some deadly serious thing. I was talking to people

who was clearly like the most important thing they'd ever done in their life. Yeah. And it's the like 14th most famous John Claude Van Damme movie. It was the end of Jean-Claude Van Dam's run. That's what is, that's something that... It sounds like someone didn't see JVCD, remember when that came out.

Oh, my God. Doing like curb your enthusiasm bits as John Claude Van Dam. That's one of those things that people pretended to be interested in on the internet for 15 minutes. And no one actually saw it. It was like, oh, this is funny. It's a trailer. And people realize that it's not something they wanted. But yeah, sudden death was the end of the run for Van der.

Van Dam. Yeah, associating with this sport. Hollywood was like, get out. NHL association and cocaine addiction or a divorce or would ultimately kill Van Dam's career in equal measures. A lot of people blame the drugs and the personal issues, but frankly, I think it's because he had the express written consent of a national hockey to use their, to use their trademarks in a movie. You know what movie I watched the other night? It just, like, popped up on HBO Max or something, a little film called Rookie of the Year. Mm-hmm.

And it really is crazy that back in the 90s, like, you could just, you know, Ace Ventura Pet Detective, Little Big League, Sudden Death. Mm-hmm. They were all just like, yeah, you can use our name logos like this. It's really funny. It's like, whatever you want. Barry Bond's. Barry Bond's final appearance as a Pittsburgh pirate was in fucking

rookie of the year. That's right. It's him in real life. I know wearing a pirate's jersey. I'll say this though. The guy, I think he's the guy from the Mets who just fucking crushes every pitch he sees

from him by Row and Gartner. That's one of the greatest acting performances of all time, just like really grimacing right into the camera and grunting a lot and being like, I'm going to hit this ball, 800 feet. Oh God.

One of the ultimate great performance. Alejandro, what the hell was that character's name? Alejandro Butch Hedo. So cool. Was that fella's name? And he hit the ball fucking, he hit it onto the roof across the street

from Wrigley Field. And he was just like, that was easy as he trots around the bases. That movie's insane, though. Only because his friends get mad at him and like, because he won't build the boat with them. And it's like, yeah, he pitches for the Cubs. He's more important than you.

Buy a lot. Get a fucking grip, these nasty little kids. Kids were, they were staples, too. Those two, I feel like, of those movies. Certainly, certainly the bigger one. The chubby one was in Little Giants, wasn't he? That's what I mean. He's in like five of those movies, for sure.

Oh, boy. Oh, brother. Oh, did you, speaking of which I was looking at the, uh, the Wikipedia page for, for little, or, uh, rookie of the year after I, after I watched it. And did you know the mom from, from that movie now has a son who is in the major leagues? That's amazing. Did he break his arm as a kid? He can't. It's so funny because that's the other thing in that movie.

They're like, this kid can throw gas and he's hitting like 101. Like, if it was a movie now, he'd be hitting a hundred and three. 30 on the gun. You know what I mean? Like, if they did the remake, it's like, I've never seen a child throw 148 miles an hour before, but this one's doing it. If he was doing 101, he would just be, you know, a random dude on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the race or whatever. Yeah, he'd be the third guy out of the bullpen for the meritors.

He's capable of pitching in low leverage situations for that's right. Yeah, you can get a lefty out, but that's it. Never made clear whether he was like, you know, he took the cup from worse to first. never made clear whether he was you know like MVP, like he won the Cy Young or anything like that. They show at the end obviously that he's got the World Series

ring. He's got the World Series ring. But Are we sure that this lady had a son who's I thought I look oh you know what? Maybe it's the Little Big League one instead. Oh yeah. The mom from Little Big League. I think that movie, I think

Little Big League was almost good. We've talked about this before. I'll straight up vote for it. Ashley Crow is her name and there are certainly baseball players named Crow. The Cubs are calling up. She's Pete Crow Armstrong's mom. That's so funny, man.

Yep. There you go. I just don't want to hear about Pete Crow Armstrong ordering a naughty night nurses from Jersey while he's on the road. Noddy night nurses from Jersey. I think that was the name. This is a movie I haven't seen in like 30 years probably. And yet.

Of course it was. Yeah. Of course that's what it was called. Seared into my memory. Torrent naughty night nurses from Jersey later. All right. Why don't we take a break? We'll come back and we'll talk about some other stuff that is going on in the league right now.

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This happened one day after the St. Louis Blues said their new captain is Braden Shand. And let me ask you this, Sean. Do you care who's the captain of any given team? Nope. Nope, me neither. Okay, that's what I figured. It's such a huge deal is made out of it and I understand why it's important to like,

I guess the guys in the room or whatever. But like, why should people care about this? Like, I don't care. I don't personally care about it. I think it serves like maybe a, there's a functional element there at play.

Oh, for sure. Yeah. But. Like I said, for the guys, that's one thing. But like,

if you're a Bruins fan, like, if it's him or McAvoy or what it like, okay. I, yeah, what do you give a shit? Yeah, I guess those have been the choices, right?

Marshand or McAvoy? Yeah, I had initially thought that McAvoy was like the slam dunk, no doubt about it, choice. And then everybody just like one day was just like, it seems like it's going to be Martian. And I was like, well, that means it's going to be Martian, you know, like five ruins people, reporters or whatever, going like, yeah, Marshan would be a pretty good captain, huh? Okay, yep, we're getting that one up. there. Okay, no problem. Someone

put up the signal. It's one of those things where if Marchand wants it, then he can have it. I feel like that would be my approach if I were the Bruins. And then whenever he's gone in a few years give it to McIvoy and you can have it for forever. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just For the back half of his career, I should say, since

we're old as shit and Charlie McAvoy is you know, 26 or however old he is now. God, is he that. That can't be right. He was drafted eight years ago. He's 25. Jesus Christ. He turns 26 in December.

P.U. That stinks. Not a fan. Yeah. This is like the other thing that happened while we were recording the first segment. Is Paul Byron retired? And it's like, isn't he like 27? What happened?

But no. Paul Byron. 45, I think it says. Someone who was born in 19. 89 or whenever it was is. 89, dead on, 34 years old. Is not only retiring, but probably should be retiring. He's old enough, he's old enough and at a point enough of his career naturally where it's like, okay, this is, this is when it ends.

Yikes. Yeah, it's a big yikes for me. It's big time yikes. How do you remember Paul Byron, the Paul Byron era in the NHL? A classic guy who when he was on the Canadians was better than people gave him credit for. And that's it. I don't know that like any further needs to be said about the career of a guy who had, I'm going to guess he got to maybe a little over 200 points.

And it says here 208. That sounds exactly right. Didn't even get to 100 goals. But like there was a while there where he was a pretty reliable. like middle six. Like he could get up on your second line if you needed him to. And you,

but if you needed him to, you were in trouble. And then here we are. Back to back, 20 goal seasons in 16 and 17, 18. A 15 goal injury shortened season the next year. And then like he barely played in the NHL after that. I give everybody credit for being realistic about Paul Byron.

dude did what he was supposed to for years. There was never any, like, you know, he's a, he's like a, he deserves, he deserves more, he's like a hidden, a hidden gem under the writer. No, like I was just,

like I did what he needed to for a while. It was, it was solid. Yeah, he made like 15 million bucks or something doing it. Like, salute. Yep. And also, any, anytime an NHL player is billing their height at 5'9, my hat's off to him, brother.

in real life he's Ryan size now hold on I'm 5-9 in real life I don't know about that I do if you're 5-9 I'm 5-11 brother oh congrats

thanks isn't that didn't you pull that shit on your license you put yourself down as like 6-2 or some shit like that and they didn't no I said I was 5-10 well I because I am because I am 5-10 but I don't carry myself as a 5-10 guy Yeah, that's the same as me.

If I stood up straight, like, you know, I don't even need to do the Bart Simpson fallout boy thing, you know, wearing platform shoes and walking a chihuahua. Comey. Come up your hair straight up. No, I definitely had to shift some organs, I feel like, in an unhinged part of my spine to get there. But I got there. No one's taken from you. That's right.

But yeah, Braden Chen, any thoughts on this? Oh, man, the blues are in trouble. You want to talk about a captain going down with the ship? This is it, brother. This is like Colton Pereko, they were like, no thanks. Yeah. Up until about 18 months ago, he seemed like the guy. No question about it.

And then they were like, absolutely not Colton Pereko. Definitely not. also like not a great sign for Robert Thomas nope probably not probably not let me ask you this how old do you think Colton Pereco is Colton Pereco is 31 I'm going to say

he he turned 30 in May okay and you know gun to my head I would have been like oh 33 I guess he feels like he's been around for 33. He's, he's been around long enough to, he was good for a couple years and now he's on the tail end.

Yeah. But tail end coming into his age 30 season. Well, is it ever? Team is a mess. Yep. Thomas and Kyrie need to figure their shit out. Yeah, I think, I think they have the, the, the talent to do it. Certainly.

That's clear. But, you know, okay. I'll say this. I got in a lot of trouble last week when on the mailbag we were talking about the senators and a bunch of senators fans got very upset. As they're prone to doing. It is kind of their whole deal. But I said,

Tim Stutzler, like don't count on that guy being like a 90 point guy forever. I think that I think last season was a bit of a fluke. And, oh yeah, a lot of guys, they get worse between their age 21 and 20. two seasons or whatever and it's just like well no i didn't say that i just said you know like how many guys can score that many points like consistently it's probably like 15 guys in the whole league and you think tim stutzl is one of them okay there's a difference between being a 90 point between scoring 90 points and being a 90 point score that's exactly right and i feel like robert Thomas is like the example of that where like you know he's north of a point of game two seasons

ago everybody's like let's fucking go this guy's ready to take off he's gonna he's on a rocket ship and it's like you know he took he wasn't bad or anything last year but he took a step back he was the same pretty much the same player he was the year before he just got a little but worse at everything. He's, his high danger past numbers were crazy year before last. I think people fell in love with that.

Sure. And projected it out a little bit too much. How much repeatability necessarily there is when some guy is at the level that he was with that year before last. Unless you're Connor McDavid, you know, maybe not even McDavid,

but like just a top, top end talent. And he's not that. And you, look, you don't have to be a top, top, talent to be a really good player for a really long time in this league.

Do you know how many times I've, how many times and how many different ways I've had to write that for the first third of the NHL individual team previews here? I'm sure 100% of them. Zillions and nobody understands it. Like, I shouldn't say nobody. There is always a significant amount of people pushing back on being like, yeah, this guy's a good player. He's just not, he's not a first liner on a good team.

by any measure. It's the Nick Suzuki principle. The Puxu podcast does not endorse the opinions of Nick Suzuki, espoused by guest, Sean Gentilly at this time. No, we make fun of Canadians fans all the time for the, he's a future number one center. It's like, he is. I'm just trying to fit in. I'm just trying to fit in with the vibe of the mainline show here. That's right.

No, but like a guy like Sebastian Ahho is another good example of like two years ago. He's very interesting as far as this discussion is concerned. Yeah, sometimes he has 80 points. He's done it twice in his career. And then other times he's had 50, you know, 60, 57. And okay, 57 was in the short and season, whatever. But you know what I mean? Like last year he had 67 points.

I think people have internalized the idea that it's almost important. possible to score 89 points a season with the hurricanes. And he has benefited greatly from them. Sure. I think people are like, oh, yeah, well, I mean, Ahos, the production is not quite where you, where you like to see it year over year, but he plays, he plays for the hurricanes. What are you going to do? I got to look this up really fast.

This guy scores way more goals than I, like, have in my brain. Yeah. He's a great player. He's a really good player, unbelievable. And yet, we'll never be. be in an MVP conversation. And that's fine. And that, and maybe that is because of the style of hockey that the Hurricanes play.

He's a, he's a great player for them. Yeah. I'm going to look this up. Since 16, 17, when he came into the league, what number is he in goals? I don't think it's possible for. He's 10th. He's 10th in goals since he came into the league. And yet.

That's fucking crazy. I know all this shit from my punishing work on the, NHL player tiers as seen on the athletic earlier this week subscribe today for just a dollar a month for forever or whatever it is Aho is

great but yeah there's it's it the dialogue around him is also interesting like people like oh yeah it's it's impossible to you know do it year over year but and yet the overall numbers are there that's what I'm saying that's what I'm saying

like if Tim Stutzla is Sebastian Ah, that's fucking awesome. They should consider themselves. They should feel really lucky. That rocks. And guess what? Sebastian Aho can't even keep up an 80 point pace year to year.

It's tough. It's really fucking tough. And I shouldn't even say pace because he does actually keep up the pace, but he just doesn't play the full 82 every year. And, you know, that's part of it too. I'm not saying Tim Stutz is like going to get injured or anything like that. but just like, it's really fucking hard to consistently hit 80 games, 90 points. Really fucking hard to do it.

The number of guys who can do it is so small. And like Robert Thomas, Tim Stutzler, if they have Sebastian Aho's career, they're in great fucking shape. They're unbelievable. And yet, if I came to you and said, you know, five years from now, this guy's never going to sniff an MVP or whatever, they'd be like, well, this is bullshit. You know what I mean? It's wild that, and you know, that's the way it goes. Like, fans are going to take that approach to these kind of conversations because they like what they like and, you know, so it goes.

But it is funny to me that so many people that you can say, we think Quinn Hughes is the 11th best defenseman in the NHL. And they email you a picture of your house. That's basically what happened to us last to us yesterday. The tone of it got a little more unpleasant than it typically does. And it was totally undeserved. Like, think of all the nasty shit we've said about people over the years. Yeah.

The out-of-pocket stuff. Nobody cares about that. It's when you're like, yeah, we think Quinn Hughes is, you know, we think he's a little bit worse than Roman Yose. People are like. The guy who won the Norris to you? years ago? Yeah, that was it.

Did he win the numerous two years ago? I got to look this up. We had, we had Hughes behind Yossi and Carlson, and people act like we'd, you know, mailed the anthrax or something. Four years ago, he was second two years ago. Yeah, he lost a fox. That's right. But I knew he won a Vesna and then had another good season, or Vesna.

nothing bothers nothing bothers the most annoying fans on Twitter more than saying that their favorite player is 11th instead of 8th is simply very good instead of great a world beater yeah or simply

great instead of a world beater which is what we're talking about with like Stutzla and use I think you're overselling Stutz on great and that's what I got in trouble for But yeah, anyway. There's an argument to be made in the other direction.

And people are not, are not particularly willing to hear it, which is fine. Yep. Yep. Okay. The other thing is yesterday. Minnesota re-signed Kail and Addison one year, really short money. I was surprised by how little. And Ottawa re-signed Egg or Sokolov one year.

also, even shorter money. And that leaves three notable unsigned RFAs. At the time we're recording this, apparently things are moving with Shane Pinto right now. But Trevor Zegris, Jamie Driesdale, Shane Pinto. Those are your three unsigned RFAs. I'll say this. Shane Pinto, it seems like it's going to get done

and then push Ottawa over at the cap, and then they're going to have to make a trade or two. Whatever. I guess we'll see. The interesting thing is that it's not done with the ducks and their two really good young players, and they have $16.635 million in cap space. I think anybody should be surprised

to see Ruby Beek being a hard ass about this particular aspect of his job. Yeah. I mean, here's the thing. You gave Troy Terry $7 million a year for seven years or whatever it was. I think that's the number. And like, I like Troy Terry. I don't have $7 million like Troy Terry, right?

So to me, I'm sitting there going, he was a hard ass with Troy Terry. Like, Troy Terry apparently was dead on convinced they were going to arbitration. And then he got $49 million. So like why Why if you're just going to give a guy Like what I maybe even like you would say fair market value Why be a hard ass about it Just if these guys are still gonna sign bridge deals

Give them their fucking bridge deals And let's what are we waiting for You know That's the question like what's what's taking so long I mean Zegris is at a very interesting point in his career He is Was not particularly good last year He was not

and yet he had more point like he scored more last year than he did the year before when everyone's like we got to put this guy on the cover of the fucking video game don't you think that that is that there's dissonance there that would rear itself they would rear its head in

contract negotiations when you have a guy who's you know EA sports cover boy scoring was up last his goal you know points were up last year in spite of regression really across

the board. That's, there's, that is a classic kind of wedge issue for player and team. Yeah, sure. There's arguments, there's arguments for both, but I, I'm not even talking about like, I think everybody just kind of understands this is going to be a bridge deal, because even if you're like, well, scoring was up a little bit, like Trevor Zegro's can't with a straight face go. and of course I was good you know what I mean sure he can I guess he can

but still like it just everybody all summer has been saying this is going to be a bridge deal so just fucking do the deal well like what I don't I guess I don't know who's dug in on this

and maybe Zegreth and do they have the same agent or something like that that's a great question I don't know that offhand okay well again this is something you can look up very easily.

So I will do that while you vamp for a second. I mean, you keep saying that everyone says that it's going to be a bridge deal and there's, sure, but. That's been, I'm just saying what the insider guys have been reporting basically all summer. They do not have the same agent. I mean, maybe one side doesn't want a bridge a deal anymore, you know? Yeah, maybe. That team is, those, that,

the Zegris-Mectavish Drysdale crew will take Troy Terry out of it because he's got his long-term deal signed and he's older

and he's older he's not in that cohort they're at a fascinating point in their development they are and they got a new coach obviously who

again I've brought this up a few times over the summer Like the first interview he gives basically was like, yeah, look, some of our younger guys are going to be a little more responsible blinking neon sign at Trevor Zegris. Like, okay. You know, I. The thing too with the way with the way Cores like that develop or whenever you have like, okay, this is it. We have three or four young guys here.

You don't. One of them's going to bust. Like one of them isn't going to turn into. Like the odds are a. one of them doesn't turn into what they need them to turn into. It's just how it works. That's how it works. And this season is about figuring out which one of those guys kind of meets that end.

The odds of those three each turning into high-end players for a good team, not great. Not great. So it's time for Cronin and for Beek to figure out who's going to be who. So I can understand them, you know, grinding out some RFs. negotiations or maybe not being super receptive to signing them to long-term deals if that's perhaps something that the players want. And then if that is something the players want, the players are probably looking at it from the point of view of, I might never be better, like have better leverage than this in

terms of what my quality. I don't know if I want to necessarily give Trevor Ziegers his big boy deal here in September of 2023. Yeah. And with Drysdale, it's interesting because he got hurt. so early last season and was out all year. Yeah. You know, like, yeah, that, that just.

What do we know about Jamie Drysdale as an HL player right now? Very little. Almost nothing. Yeah, he played, he played a pretty full slate as a rookie, I think, I'm pretty sure. Uh, yeah, 81 games. Um, yeah, oh, I guess, yeah, he played 24 the year before that. So, yeah, he's got 113 games under his belt, but like, almost none in the last season.

So who knows? It's an interesting situation. It really is. I don't envy the ducks coming into this year. It's tough to grasp how bad they were last year. It really is. And on paper, I think everybody would have said they should be a little better than that. Even if you think Gibson's cooked, which certainly looks like that's the case.

Gibson is cooked, but he also. relatively like he at night after the amount of shit that dude faced night after night is just is just insane based in in terms of volume quality like he could have been worse do I want to pay John Gibson you know six and a half million dollars or whatever his deal is to be my goaltender for the next few years like absolutely not but he didn't sync that team that by any measure that's what truly one of the worst defensive teams that we've seen in the last however many years. Amazing. John Quimberg didn't fix it.

Anyway, here's Radco Gudis, I'll Yulubushkin, right? The most, like, boring, like, competent, high floor. Radco Gudis is a bet, he has had a better career than I, than I, I think I was giving him credit for. So a big part of the reason why is when he came into the league, he was like, I'm just going to take people's fucking heads off. And he was doing that in kind of low leverage situations, but he was playing well in those low leverage situations.

And so he developed this reputation as guy who kind of is okay, but is dirty also. And, you know, he still plays with that edge, obviously. But he's gotten better. Like he, like, you know, there are a lot of, a lot of low-end defensemen who they can play really well in low-end minutes. And then if you give them bigger minutes, they're in a lot of trouble. They gave good as bigger minutes and he was. He was really good. I wouldn't go quite that far.

Not really good. He was. He was above average in middle-payer minutes. Dude, he handles his business as a decent middle-pair defender, which like, I don't think I. And so he's making 12 million bucks. for the next three years at age 33. My hat's off to him. He had a really nice, like he forged for himself a really nice career after starting out as a guy who tried to kill people.

You know, pretty good skater. Yeah, good player. Lost in, lost in what in all the other bullshit in his earlier days. And it happens so often. Like, obviously Brad Marchand played like a lot of, like a shit. had for a good chunk of his career, right? But people going like, I can't believe he's the new captain of the Bruins. It's like, you can't?

Have you watched the last like four years of him playing hockey? Yeah, watched how he interacts with people on the bench, like listen to how other people talk about him at this point in his career. Yep. People grow up. People grow up. That's simple. Well, a couple other things.

We should, I guess, in passing. mentioned Tanner Pearson traded to Montreal, with a third round pick for Casey to Smith and basically $1.45 million in cap space. Jim Rutherford loves Katie to Smith, man. He does. Vancouver needed a backup. I don't think Spencer Martin was...

I think Casey to Smith is a marginal upgrade on what they had and, you know, give them some space. looking at the other backup goalies they had, I wouldn't even say marginal. Like, they're, most of those guys are just not NHL players. I was trying to, I don't know why I was trying to be,

I was trying to soft pedal. I was trying to be nice, I guess, to the Kinex backup goaltenders for whatever reason. Yeah, to get some space out of it. I mean, congrats to Tanner Pearson for being on an NHL roster this year because with what happened to his hand last year, the amount of

bullshit that he had to deal with, some degree of mismanagement of a, of a, of a broken hand. Like, I'm, I'm glad that dude is still in the league because it seemed like it was a bad situation for him at bit points. Yeah, no, like one of the more public, uh, this team isn't handling this injured guy, right, things I can remember to the point where like his teammates were making, comments about it and stuff and people were like oh he might never play again so for him to come off lTIR and get traded and you know i don't know what kind of a role he's going to have even with a team like montreal that has like absolutely no chance of doing anything of note this

this season yeah they just have a bunch of interchangeable tanner piercings basically at the bottom of that lineup i mean but yeah good for him for sticking it out honestly i'm glad he's glad he's healthy enough to be in the conversation because like again as you're said, at times last year, it seemed like, you know, that was going to be the end of the road for him. You're just going in for weekly operations on his hand for a little while, like, really, like, the classic thing of like, you just hope he can live a normal life after. Totally.

Yeah. And now he's going to play in the NHL, presumed, like, at least a little bit. Okay, I hope this dude can grip a steering wheel or whatever. And now it's like, okay, he's on a, he's on an NHL team. By the way, you mentioned Jim Rutherford loves Casey to Smith. I had totally forgotten he is the president of hockey operations because there was that thing last... Not me. Well, because there was that thing last February, I just looked this up so I know it was in February

where people were like, he wants out and then people were like, no, he doesn't. He still seems to have that job. Remember that? Sure do. Yeah, that was crazy. Never know what side of the bed. Jim's going to wake up on. But yeah, I

had totally forgotten about that. So yeah, that's the big trade this week. Let me ask you one last thing here and then we'll take another break. Do you have any thoughts at all on all these PTOs? I feel like we're seeing more PTOs than ever.

That's a great question. I'm not, I don't have like the updated list. here because I've been in the writing in the writing hole with these previews. But yeah, because what, we're looking at it right now, Zach Asson Reese, Josh Bailey, Kiefer Bellows,

Jordy Ben, J.F. Ruby, Jason. Corey Connaker? Is Corey Conacher? No, wait a second. Yeah, holy shit. Sam Gagne, Dan Hinen. The one we talked about on the show recently was

Colorado is bringing in Peter Holland. Mm-hmm. who hasn't played pro hockey. Is that real? Yeah, didn't play pro hockey last season at all. He was doing radio. He played 15 games in Sweden in 21, 22, hasn't been in the NHL since 2018.

My favorite from that group is someone texted me. I'm actually not even sure when this happened. a few weeks ago something about Mark Pizek and the Penguins. And it was like, oh yeah, like no surprise to see like whatever, Pizik or like Pizek to the Penguins or something. And my first thought when I saw that was like, oh, did like Dubis sign him to like a player development job?

Right. Like it didn't occur to me that he was coming to camp on a PTO. Like is he a Kyle Dumas player? like 100 million gazillion percent, but I figured he was higher, I figured he was a front office hire. Mark Bissert. Yeah.

Edmonton bringing in Brandon Sutter, he doesn't seem like he's played pro hockey since 2021. Yeah, he had some COVID issues, if I remember correctly. Yeah, Brandon did. Yeah. Shout out to Aaron Dell getting an invite with Columbus.

That's really nice for him. but yeah like Adam Ernie Adam Ernie in Edmonton oh I saw this last night Sam Gagne being brought in on a PTO but he's coming off like hip surgery or something like that so he's only going to practice he's not going to play

I think Ashton Reese to the Hurricanes is maybe the front like that of crap how did it take him this long to surface for the Carolina Hurricanes just like totally play driving can forecheck has no offensive ability whatsoever. Like, he'll be their 13th forward this year.

Zach has the reason. That would not surprise me at all. Let me read you Arizona's list of PTOs. This is really good. Austin Pognansky, remember him? Pagansky, I should say, not Pogmananski. I was going to say I said that's not his name, but I do remember him. No, Austin Paganski.

Oli Ulevi. Good for Oli Ulevi. Ryan De Zingle, who I could have sworn was retired. Yeah. And Peter Delibitori, who is like he played like college hockey and now last year he played 22 games in the AHL. Those are your PTOs. What league was Oli Ulevi playing in last year? That is a good question.

The HL, he played 38 games for San Diego. No shit. Okay, I figured he Maybe had a European vacation Last year. Yeah, you know, as good a guess as any. But, yeah. I think Cashin is my favorite.

Caching on the Ducks. Oh, mine's absolutely Peter Holland. The guy hasn't been in the NHL in five years. Yeah, I mean, you took him off the board, though. What am I supposed to deal? I'm going to go somewhere else. That's true. This is not a joke.

Peter Holland was a radio host, in Toronto. He really was? I thought you were like... No, I'm not kidding. He'd been doing like fill in radio work with, you know, like, this would be like somebody signing Frank Carrado to a PTO where you're like, oh shit, okay, that guy was doing like TSN.

Yeah. Like fill in on TSN drive time. Yeah. It's a hundred. This is not a joke. I did a, it might have been sports center actually now that I think of it. Apologies to whichever Canadian. you know, telecommunications company employed Peter Holland last year.

I was 100% did a guest hit on a spot where he was on a show where he was co-hosting. Maybe we can get you on a PTO then. What do you think? Let's see. What's a funny thing that PTO could stand for? I'm going to have to get in the lab on this one, get back to you. Tea, I think, is treats. Just we got to, you know, we got to live the gimmick on that.

one. Pathetic? Pathetic treat. Optometrist. We'll come up with a better O. We'll get back to you, folks. How about this? We'll take another break.

Pantry, treat organizer. Perfect. Pantry, treat organizer. You can get all their bars in order. I got to tell you, I don't trust this motherfucker to organize a single pantry for me. All right, we'll take another break. We'll be right back. This week's episode of Puck Soup is brought to you by Game Time.

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Visit BetterHelp.com slash puck today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P.com slash puck. All right, one last segment here. I want to get my friend SG's thoughts on this one. Elliot Friedman in his column last night that I read because I was hoping for more Babcock info or whatever, floated the idea that Vegas wants to host both the draft or the awards and the draft like Nashville did this past year. but there's some sort of an exclusivity thing with the arena for the day the draft would normally be so it doesn't look like it's going to happen and what Elliot said was how about either Disneyland or Disney World

Holy fuck yes do Disneyland here's me though if it's if it's Disneyland Oh, Cole Eisenman went number two overall. Well, I'm about to go down freaking Splash Mountain, so I don't care. Like, it would be a big mistake because me, a guy who likes going on roller coasters and stuff like that. You can't, you can't be like, do you want to go sit in the basement of the fucking Ducks Arena or, or, you know, some hotel at Disneyland or whatever? or do you want to go on Space Mountain fucking six times in a row?

I know my answer. We have big, big meetings scheduled always for the NHL draft. Yeah, of course. The athletic. I found a way in the past to free up some time. And I would do it again. You got it. I would be so much more fun for me at this point of my life.

And I've said we went over this in plenty of ways. Nashville was a physically punishing affair for me. Yes. I'm mixing some Disney, some Disneyland time. Brother, if you don't think I'm going on the Incredica coaster 15 times on the company dime out there, you got another thing coming.

I didn't read Elliot's column from last night. Like, is there, did he, was there anything supporting that or is he just? No, he was just like, that's the context of it. Right? And I was like, yeah. Yeah, man. It would rock as a matter of fact. Now you bring it up.

Yes. Having the draft at Disneyland. That's what, I'll see if I can find it, find the exact wording. Not the Honda Center. No, Disneyland. He said Disneyland. He didn't say Anaheim. Because if he had said Anaheim, I would have been like, yeah,

sure, Anaheim, whatever. That's where the ducks are. You know? Physically, literally having the drafts, go, they have that, like, area in, like... Okay, here it is. I'll read this verbatim. That area in front where there's a bunch of shops and shit,

and you don't need a ticket to... It's like the Anaheim version of... Downtown Disney. Spring or downtown Disney. Yep. Las Vegas was supposed to host both the 2024 NHL Awards and... the draft, as Nashville did last June, but the latter is in jeopardy.

There is an event scheduled for Team Mobile Arena the following weekend that owns some contractual flexibility on its dates and doesn't want its original spot of July 4. So it may move up a week, which would push the draft elsewhere. My solution? The NHL has brainstormed a Disney World draft in the past, and that would be an awesome site. Disneyland is closer. Macklin Celebrini pops out from Space Mount. and Cole Eisenman emerges from Star Wars, Rise of the Resistance.

Imagine the possibilities the league would look fun. Elliot, don't threaten me with a good time, my man. Like, I hope this is deeply informed speculation by him. That was my thinking was, Elliot wouldn't be saying this. And especially, again, it says the NHL has brainstormed a Disney World draft. Oh, man. That would rule. That would rule.

Yes, it would. You know what? Just having an Anaheim. Fuck it, man. Just put it there. Yeah, I'll go to Disneyland either way. Right. Get me to Southern California on a company dime for five days or however long we're fucking stuck there typically.

That's right. Oh, do you want to go to Tutsis? No, I want to go to Goofies. No, thanks, man. Okay. the freaking the idea of just like instead of trying to find

something to do in Nashville on a on a you know the Wednesday before the draft or whatever and the answer is hey why don't you go to this annoying bar imagine if the answer was do you want to go on Tower of Terror

well I guess there is no Tower of Terror in Anaheim anymore but do you want to go on that Guardians of the Galaxy Tower of Terror Instead of me and you and Mac and do having lunch at that fucking very average place after we recorded

we could have gone to You know We could have got churros and dolewip Man Hammer some dolewip Hell yeah And you don't think that's Eat boy

You want to talk about easy bonus episode For the week Holy shit man I So I didn't read like I said, I didn't read Elliot's thing last night. I'm pretty busy, so there's a decent chance that I would have missed it entirely over the next couple days, and it would have just been lost at time.

So the fact that you've made me aware of this, when I otherwise would not have been, is bullshit, because my hopes are out now. That's exactly right. I just think it's funny. Cole Eisenman emerges from Star Wars Rise of the Resistance. There's three and a half hours on the clock to get three. that line. Okay.

Not if your rope drop, brother. I just think it would be really fun instead of like the, you know, like the random

11-year-old boy who's on the stage. It's just, it's just Chippendale up there. Bob Iger. Everyone's... He's about the same size as one of those

little year old boys. Cold Cochofield size man, Bob Iger. That's exactly right. That would be fun. Our friend, Chuby is up there. Still doesn't get a medal.

I wonder if the strike would be over at that point. Probably not. You would hope so, right? Jesus Christ. One last thing here. Do you have any thoughts on the PWHL draft? I was vaguely paying attention to it, but I didn't go crazy with it. I thought it went well.

I thought it was televised product. It was solid. true mark of a professional league is when your draft goes on too long. And I think that's where they were tracking for the first like, for the first like 10 picks or so. I know a lot of people are upset maybe with some of the PHF players who weren't selected, which is understandable. But, you know, just keep coming back to the fact that this really isn't,

I really aren't that many slots available in this league. There's six teams and they each pick 15 players. So it really is a kind of a tough, tough needle to thread, and we'll see what happened in the training camp. But I enjoyed it. I enjoyed watching it, and I'm interested in what happens next. I think Boston's really good specifically, much as it breaks my heart to say that. That's a really cool, interesting group of players. It's not fair that they got Alina Mueller.

But the alternative, I suppose, would have been Toronto selecting Mueller second overall, which would have been terrible too because they're rooting against Toronto as well. Well, like, with Mueller in particular, it's like them up the middle now, fucking forget about it. Bye, bye. That's it.

Ball games over. They're set in net. They have maybe one of the best defensemen in the league. Wow. They did. They hit so many marks with their three free agency. That's what I mean. They put themselves in such a great position there with Knight and Keller and Frankel.

And then just kind of kept building off that during the draft. I'm really, really impressed by what they've done. Yeah, totally. Maybe going to wear green. Did you see that floating around? People have inferred that. That's annoying. Yeah.

Very weird. Stolen valor from guys like you and me, you know. It's true. You know why? Because they're leaving gold as a primary color for Rippetsburg team. Makes sense. Sure. Can it manifest this?

The one other thing I wanted to talk about, someone brought this up in the mailbag. And I didn't even clock it, but this is really smart by Toronto. Did you see what they did? Was they realized there were 11 goalies on rosters for 12 spots. And so they were just like, oh, we're not going to draft a backup. We'll draft an extra scale. or instead. And then they could, you know, there's only so many goalies out there.

That's truly like, that's truly like fantasy draft mindset. That's what I was going to say. Whoever was running their draft was like, had been in a situation where it's like, oh, I don't have to pick a kicker right now. Hell yeah. Let's go. It's Gina Kingsbury, who's been in charge of the women's national team in Canada for quite a while.

maybe she didn't have any team Canada goal left in the hopper so she just passed but that's that's just good drafting that's the kind of stuff that you obviously it's different but like you know you never see something that big brained in the NHL draft

for any reason I still can't play they did a snake I've you got to do it because none of these teams like there are no not even any standings to go off of like obviously you gotta find someone to make it fair but it was just so funny to see a snake draft go down for a professional

week on TV again like as an old fantasy draft head it's like salute you guys you guys made it fun out there you know and and that is the big thing with most drafts

is like after apart from maybe like if there's a big trade or after the first like two or three picks you're just like, okay, now what? You know? I got to do 27 more of these? Christ. This is where I was very grateful to just be a

casual observer here and once they hit the sixth or seventh round, I was like, okay, I'm going to go back to writing my silly little preview about the Columbus Blue Jackets or whatever it was. And not even remotely have to pretend to know what's going on

in round 14 here. I don't have to fake it. Yeah. And like, look, I know enough about women's hockey to get by, obviously. But like when they're into the 12th, 13th, 14th round, I'm just like, yeah, I don't know who any of these people are. That was where my knowledge really started to wear out. Other than the known names who popped up, you know, randomly, kind of in the back, in the back three or four rounds,

I had a good handle probably up until the, we'll say, the eighth or ninth. And then it started to wane. And by the end, I was like, okay, I need to need to read You could be saying anything at this point for sure. Yeah, like I'm, I would, if I had to have a meaningful conversation about this, I would be, I'd be in trouble. Yep.

So yeah, really looking forward to that. It looks like Boston's going to be the, you know, maybe, maybe people say I'm biased, but it does look like Boston's the team to beat in all this. I hope I can get to a game or two this year, but I don't, you know, I live 90 minutes away. now and be kind of a hike. Frankly, it's more likely that I get to a New York, New Jersey game because of, like, you know, maybe the timing works out when I'm down there or something. But, yeah, I'm looking forward to it. Definitely. Yeah.

Have they said where that New York team? Because they've just said New York area, right? I had seen a rumor that it's going to be in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Yeah, Bridgeport was what I had. Which that's closer to me than Boston, certainly. You know, congratulations. Someone's benefiting from it. I also heard that there's a possibility that they split between a couple different venues.

That, yeah. I guess I said New York, New Jersey, because I was thinking of my beloved Metro stars from the major league. Yes, seriously. That is, I brought up the former Metro stars now the Red Bull, a handful of times in this. in this discussion. But yeah, I think it seems like what's, or last I'd heard, I feel like it's Bridgeport and then maybe some games at UBS potentially. That'd be fun.

Yeah, split. But yeah, it's more of a, definitely more of a, if you're talking about the tri-state, I think it's more Connecticut and New York than New Jersey at this point. Yeah. One last thing I wanted to bring this up. I was on NHL.com yesterday, as I occasionally am.

And there was just, I don't remember what the headline even was, but I clicked on it and it was like one of the storylines to watch this year or something like that. And it was like, there are four outdoor games this season. Did you know that?

It's crazy to me. I knew that it was more than two and less than 10, let's say. Yeah. Yep. Heritage Classic, end of October, in Edmonton. I think it's Calgary,

Edmonton up there. might be Winnipeg, Edmonton. I know it's in Edmonton for sure. That's all I can tell you. Then the Winter Classic is Seattle and Vegas at the Mariners Field, which is strange. And then the other state, the stadium series is two games at MetLife and it's Rangers, Islanders, and Devils Flyers. I like that.

Yeah. I think that's the right they also have all because they've done that before but then they've done doublehead wasn't I didn't a New York doubleheader yeah but when one team the Rangers played twice or whatever

I believe that's correct which is very funny yeah I mean I'm glad my default to all this is just saying like I'm psyched for the people who are fans of those teams who can go experience that and enjoy themselves

in an outdoor kind of environment. Like I said, I went to the winter class in Boston last year and I had a fucking blast. Yeah, it's cool. Those are still super cool events to be in the building for.

I was just shocked that there were four of them next year, that's all. It's because they still make money locally. That's always going to be true. No, it's turning the local fans upside down and shaking an extra like 80 bucks out of their pocket that you would normally get. But also, it's like twice as many fans or whatever.

Another excuse to sell jerseys, you're putting people in a big, a big ass arena or a big ass stadium. Yep. And they love it. They sure do. As they should. As they should, because it's a lot of fun. Yep. So that's it. So you got any plugs for me? Nope. Just check out our, well, I shouldn't say nope, because I was about to start plugging something. I was going to say it sounds like a fucking plug. Nothing surprising. Just check out our, check out the player tiers at theathletic.com slash NHL. Your fan tiers where you're going to.

Oh, yes, right. I'm going to put the Canucks at number 32 right now. You guys are on my shit list. But yeah, that's a ton of work when it went into the tiers. It's a pretty decent format. If you guys haven't seen it, you can check it out. And also our team-by-team preview started running on Wednesday the 20th, which is the day that we're recording this.

We're going to do two a day for 16 days. So I'm in hell until that's over with. Ryan, I'll talk to you in two weeks because I'm booked, brother. What does that mean? It means I'm not doing soup tomorrow with you and Greg. You have to. No. I'm busy and I hate you both so much.

I believe the second part. I don't know about the first. Just kidding. Just kidding. E.P.Rinkside.com. Use the code, I love EP, all one word, all capital. When you sign up for an annual subscription, they'll add three months on to the end of that subscription for zero extra dollars. I am starting to ramp up my stuff over there a little bit again.

I'll have NHL preview kind of stuff in a couple of weeks, but in the meantime, I have been working. As Sean has been working on the NHL previews over there, I'm more working on my college hockey previews stuff. I'm not even close to Dunn and I'm at like, I think, like 4,000 words or something like that. That's great because you can just tell me what to think about college hockey, which is my default approach for the last 15 years or however long it's been. I think that's the right way to go. But yeah, I got previews of every conference that I'm going to do. I'm going to have a Hobie Baker and Mike Richter and maybe rookie of the year, top 10.

stuff and then me and a couple of the other guys are going to work on grading the incoming freshman classes and the transfer classes and all that kind of stuff. So there will be a lot coming your way closer to the college hockey season, which I want to say starts on October 6th. So like a couple of weeks away. Wild. But yeah, I'm knee deep in that and I'm excited for another should be a fun year. I mentioned him earlier. Macklin Celebrini. He's going to probably be the number one pick in this draft. He's playing at BU this year. It's going to be fun to watch.

So, yeah, check all that out and then check out patreon.com slash Puck Soup bonus episodes like crazy. Yeah, like Sean mentioned, stick to soup tomorrow. Other bonus episodes coming up for me and Sean McIndoo and Greg and the whole gang over there. I'll do a wrestling one before the end of the month as well. So look, there's, as always a lot going on over at patreon.com

slash puck soup. Check it out. And thanks for listening to this. And we'll be back next week. I think I said that last week or the week before, main show in your podcast feed every week till next summer, basically.

Farring disasters. So yeah, check it all out. Thanks for listening. Have a good one. 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 in tunes. It's your weekly bowl of Hagi and Nonsense. Part two.