Puck Soup - Tank You Red Wings

Episode Date: May 7, 2020

The boys discuss the NHL's plans for the draft, from the way it's set up for the Red Wings to the ruling on trades to whether this is a good idea or not. Plus, that horrible Brendan Leipsic apology, what to do with free agency, TSN's all-time Canadian teams, a O/U/F/LF on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and an incredible new game show called "Name Pat Falloon," our version of the classic "Leonard Maltin Game."

Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slap shots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to what if you commute. We also cover movies, TV shows, it's in tunes. It's your weekly bowl of hockey and nonsense. I'm Reg Wichinsky of ESPN, where I managed to weasel my way into Michael Jordan Mania with a hockey story this week. I'm Ryan Lambert from this podcast And I read part of that story

I'm Sean McAnneux from The Athletic I intend to read that story Probably as soon as we're finished here It's long It's a long story I also wrote 7,000 words on lines That we'll talk about later

But first, obviously Let's get right to it Read any good leaked group chats From Instagram lately guys. Not any good ones. Brendan Leipzig.

Leipzig. Boy, I'll tell you. I probably have not thought about this player much in my life. I kind of forgot he was on the Capitals. Leaked Instagram chat with his friends that managed to end up on Reddit and Twitter. in which he said some horribly misogynistic things about women, including the wife of Tanner Pearson, including the girlfriend of Connick David,

and managed to call his two teammates fucking losers, Nick Dowd and Garnett Hathaway, who are also his linemates. Now, in fairness, he was calling them fucking losers because they host a podcast. So, I mean, you know, yeah, all things considered. And also I had to go through the podcast, And it turns out that they've done like 10 episodes.

And yes, Brandon Leipzig, despite beating their linemate has never appeared on their podcast. So he's living the gimmick. We're not going to spend a ton of time on this. I mean, obviously, condemnation comes from the Capitals in the NHL pretty swiftly. The Capitals probably do some sort of punishment-type deal. Matthew Barnaby this morning, you know, while doing the expected boys will be boys thing that I'm sure a lot of NHL players will do. Also said he can't imagine that Leipzig can get back. into that locker room at any point, which is an interesting thought.

And do you agree with that thought? That do you think his time with the Capitals has done for talking shit on players behind their backs? I mean, he wasn't playing anyway, right? Like, they traded for really Colvichuk and they were like, have fun in the press box. Like, that was already happening. So, yeah, I mean, they're going to be like, you know what, don't come back. That's fine. Yeah, his contract's up.

Yeah, he's a pending free agent. He's an RFA, so they could retain him, but it's not like it becomes a difficult situation. And he's making league minimum. So it's not like they have to work a buyout or a trade or something. They can just say, you know what? For our like fifth line left winger, we're not that interested in dealing with the fallout of you being an idiot online. Right, exactly. The thing that that bothered me was the apology that swiftly arrived from it.

From a Twitter account, by the way, that when I wrote about this yesterday for ESPN, my editors of the news desk had me double-check with the capitals that this guy actually had a verified Twitter account because he only had 22 followers. So I didn't think, even though he had the blue check bark that it actually was this guy's account because he had such few followers. But he gave out the apology yesterday and managed to not mention women, nor say he was going to try to apologize to any of the people he kind of targeted with his comments behind the scenes, which I thought was typical PR bullshit. Apology, just get it out there without really thinking about, like, the thing that you probably should say at that point. No, this was, it was a good example of, like if you Googled apology and you just cut and pasted the first thing that came up from a PR site, that's, that's.

that's what you would send out is pretty much exactly what he sent. Yeah. Yeah. He sucks. And, and again, he's been on five different teams in five years. So maybe there's a reason for that one assumes. Yeah, maybe it's not all of his teammates that are the losers. Maybe that's not the issue here. And by the way, he should take a look at the mirror. The best part of that was his statement, quote, love Coke. Just, Yeah, all right, man. You're in the NHL, we know.

But as you pointed out, Lambert, that could mean anything. Yeah. That could mean Coca-Cola products. He saw Zanahara drink it on the bench that time. He was like, that looks great. Yeah. Boy, that is an old reference that I just made. Remember Zanejard drank the Coke on the bench?

It was, what, in like a triple overtime game against the Lightning, maybe? Yeah. A million years ago? Wow. Yep. I'm 100, folks. How did he not parlayed it into an endorsement? Oh, that's right.

He's a NHL player. Didn't he get, like, shamed for it? I feel like Charra got, like, in trouble for drinking a Coke on the bench and was like, I'll never do it again. I mean, that checks out. I mean, what league are we talking about here? Fucking Don Cherry getting on on Saturday day. You get drink soda at the bench. Let's see here.

Let's see. if he got in trouble. Yep. Oh, it was because the NHL is sponsored by Pepsi and not Coke. That was why. You know, that is, that's pretty perfect right there. That's absolutely perfect right there. Anyways, moving on to other things.

By the time you listen to this podcast, you might actually know what the fuck the NHL's doing, as far as the draft, as far as the season, as far as opening up camps, the NBA is up. them. Don't, you know, I mean,

but the draft is only, like, going to be in two weeks. There's no need to actually decide if we're... Well, all of these other sports are figuring their shit out. Like, baseball's going to our players and saying, here's our return to play plan. The NBA's opening up their training camps because all the players threatened to fly to Atlanta to start training if they didn't open up camps.

I mean, it's getting there. And we'll see where it goes. But the first thing that we'll probably know is whether or not there's, a draft on June 5th or roundabouts then, which is what the NHL's been talking about. And Bill Daly sent out a memo that you probably heard about last week to all of the GMs and all the teams. And it was one of those memos that's like, like, it was titled timing of the 2020 NHL draft, but essentially it was, here's what we're doing for the 2020 NHL draft.

That's right. It's a fucking plan. And I'd be shocked if this isn't what actually ends up happening because they seem to have put a lot of thought and time into it. What stood out to you most about the draft plan that was drafted up by the NHL insofar as getting this thing done before the season starts? That they're really trying to run through. They're really trying to just make sure this gets done because, you know, we got to keep the TV people happy is basically what it seemed to me. but yeah so because yeah i mean the thing to say about it is it seems like everybody the the idea at the nchl is you know if we if we do the draft in in june when nobody else is doing the draft

uh that'll that'll make everybody really interested in the draft and the counterpoint is no it won't i mean that's a strong counterpoint um they i mean i thought it was interesting in the memo that he actually, he, meaning Bill Daly, actually bought up the rights holders aspect of it and the fact that it's going to be content. And he did it in two ways. He wrote, the national rights holders are enthusiastically in favor of an early draft. NBC strongly supports a possible move-up of the draft to June as major exposure and ratings opportunity for the league in the U.S. Now, Sean, you probably don't know this, but NBC's coverage of the NHL draft is TSN. coverage of the NHL draft.

Like, I don't fucking understand. It's cool that they want to build content around the draft, and it's cool that they, you know, if it happens, they'll do like a pre-draft show and all kinds of stuff. NBC is, NBC's not built for this. Like, outside of putting on fucking Pierre McGuire for three hours to try to talk about prospects, like, they don't have anybody else in their, in their, like,

on their, their talent side that knows anything about junior hockey or NCAA hockey. It's fucking weird. I mean, I read that. as they're going to present the draft the same way, which means probably leaning on TSN, but like they'll put it on NBC and put some commercials on NBC

and not bury it on one of the secondary networks. Golf. Yeah, the golf channel. I would be shocked if NBC cleared out any space on its schedule for even the first round of the NFL. Hold on. You mean NBCSN. It's obviously not going to like NBCC, like NBCC,

CNBC, come on. Well, that's what I mean. Like, we're, as a league now, we're rushing it despite the fact that most teams don't even want to do it right now. And we're trying to jam it through because we're just going to be on the channel we're already on. Like, who gives a shit? I'll say this. Now that you mentioned it, though, Lambert, if they do the draft on like a Sunday afternoon or like a Saturday afternoon, it might actually. actually get on NBC.

Like, like, there's nothing else fucking going on. Like, if he put the NHL draft... Keep in mind that this is coming on the heels of the NFL draft doing record numbers, which is no doubt was noticed in the U.S.

Like, they're putting Korean baseball on TV. If there was ever a time where somebody would be like, yes, let's actually pay attention to the NHL, it might be now. Except. the NHL is saying we're going to talk about exactly

one person you might have heard of, which is Alexe LeFrenier, and literally nobody else because you can't do player trades, there can't be any transactions at all involving like current NHL players. So it's going to be maybe you get two,

three picks of like people who will be in the NHL next year and then the rest is just like a guy who plays for Chakutami in the QMJHL and you go, oh, I guess we might see him three years from now. Great. Oh, Chacutami is great. Yeah. Well, okay, so a few thoughts here.

First of all, I want to offer kudos to the NHL for putting out a top secret memo that immediately got passed to literally everyone in the hockey world. world, like that afternoon head, the memo. Like, more people saw this memo than the last outdoor game. And so good job to them for, uh, for the, look, here's, here's the thing. Like, I'm, I'm, I'm not crazy about the idea doing the draft in June. I haven't seen much in the way of convincing arguments for me as a fan that would, that would make me think we need to do this now as opposed to September or October. I get there's some. logistical stuff. I get that the off season this year might be like two weeks long and they

don't want to cram a draft into it. I get there's some issues around scouts and their contracts expiring and all of that. But, you know, I don't love the idea, but I'll say this. I actually don't mind if, like, my read on this situation is that what is happening is the NHL's TV partners have said, we really want this. And your TV partners are supposed to be, you know, your partners. They're not just supposed to be an ATM that you get money from. They are actually supposed to be groups that you work with as far as how you present the product. Sure. And if they're pushing for this, and NBC, yes, I mean, if they're seeing what's happening with the NFL and they won in, great. I'm thinking of Sportsnet. I'm thinking of what happens if Gary Bettman gets a phone call from

whoever it is at SportsNet now saying, hey man, remember us, we pay you literally. literally billions of dollars for content that hasn't really delivered what we thought in far as ratings. We've laid off a bunch of people. Right now, we're not getting anything from you for reasons beyond your control, of course, but we're getting nothing for all those dollars. We want a draft, and we want it in June so that we can build, you know, up here in Canada, they really will build two weeks of coverage around it. And this is important to us, and you know what, you kind of owe us something because we've been throwing money at you

and not really getting our money's worth on it for years now. And NBC, you know, not as much, but NBC's contract, remember, is up soon. So you want them to be happy. I don't actually have a problem with the NHL saying, you know what, we're going to do what the TV partners want, even if it's not the best thing. And I got to say, I like that for once, finally, we have a situation where it sounds like Gary Betman and whoever else

is actually trying to push through what they think is best for the league instead of just letting the GMs vote for it. I kind of like that when I heard that the GMs don't like this, but it's happening anyways, I was kind of like, you know what, good. Finally, let's let's have some leadership that says this is what is best for the league instead of just throwing it out for a vote for 31 people who always just vote for whatever makes their job easier. We know that. We've got the rulebook. We've got the standings. We've got everything. It's just whatever these guys makes their job easy today.

You know what? If they don't like it, but the league thinks it's in their best interest, then they should do it. And I don't really care that the GMs don't seem to like it. In fact, I kind of see that as a selling point at this point. I'll say this, right? A lot of the complaining I'm seeing about it is, well, it's not fair that they're just basically going to give Detroit the first overall pick or, you know, at worst, the second overall pick. That's not fair because, you know, they're changing the rules.

And it's like, right, but they changed the rules, what, like five years ago? Because they were like, oh, we don't want teams that are trying to be bad to get the first pick. But also, nobody's been this fucking bad in a really long time. So I can't, you know, like we've said it on the podcast before. how are you going to say the Red Wings don't deserve the first overall pick based on how this year went? Because they didn't, it's not like they went and just put out a bunch of guys on league minimum contracts. Steve Eisenman took the, pretty much took the roster that Ken Holland gave him and didn't really try to improve it. And I don't think that's the same thing as being the Buffalo Sabres in 2013.

teen or whatever. But it's different shades of the same color. Like, I wrote about it this week. Like, the idea that Red Wings fans are trying to propagate that their team didn't tank is a fucking joke. Okay, of course. But there's a chance to do it. These are the stupid, like, you can't listen to, well, you know, what I think my favorite team does was good. Like, yeah, no shit.

They're always going to think that. I had people telling me legitimately that David Crachie was a Hall of Famer this week. Like, not just. Like, you're going to be fucking kidding me. Do you want a sidebar on that? That was an article on the athletic, right? Yeah. All time take.

All time take. Who claimed they put out, like, a reader poll for Bruins fans and said, which of these, like, five guys should be a Hall of Famer or whatever. And obviously, like, Char and Bergeron are, like, leading the pack. And there's some Thomas was on there, too. There's votes for Thomas or Chuka or whatever. And fucking David Kreichie, according to the fans, gets. It's like 12% of the vote. And it's like, okay, whatever.

But then these two are like, obviously, Krati's a Hall of Famer. And he's got the criteria to be a Hall of Famer. And I'm like, like, you can actually hear the fucking record scratch in the background. You're like, what the fuck are you talking about? It's an all-time great take to me. I think that's just like classic beat writer brain. It's like, I covered this guy every day for 10 years. So I think he's an all-time great.

Okay. Let's, I mean, let's just take it in increments. In his career, is David Crachie one of the top five centers in the league? No, of course not. Is David Crachie one of the top ten centers in the league at any point during his career? He's not a top 20 center in the league at any point in his... I think it could sneak in top 20. No.

Maybe one year... That's where I was going to start. He broke 70 points one year in his entire career. The 70 points is good. Yeah. And it happened one time. There's a lot of guys who had really big offensive years one time. I think maybe top 25, right?

Like, you take the top center from, like, most teams. Yeah, I understand how this works. Maybe top, maybe, like, top 30. But, like, fucking Hall of Fame? At best, he was the third best player on his own team maybe once. So, no, I mean, of course it's crazy. Of course it's crazy. It was a very odd thing.

It was such a declarative aside. Yeah, like, for sure. Who among us doesn't know that David Critchie is the Hall of Favor? And again, it's so fucking strange. It's from the author of the classic. Sean Thornton deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as Bobby Orkham Neely and Terry O'Reilly, genius. So, like, this is the level we're operating on, but. I mean, that, that part's indisputable.

What the fuck we're talking about? Oh, yeah, the lottery. Listen, I, I, I, two things. The Red Wings tanked. There are two different ways to tank. Sean, I know you've written about this before. Like, you could do the strip mining all-in bullshit Tim Murray Sabres Tank, or you can just kind of let your team die on the vine.

And as you watch, you know, Tatar and Nyquist and Zetterberg and Marazek and Janssen and all these guys leave or get traded or retire or whatever, and then there's no effort to replace any of them because you're just letting this thing fucking faster. I mean, no, that's not why. Red Wings were one of the most expensive teams in the league this year. And that wasn't Steve Eisenman's fault. Right. It's Ken Holland's fault.

And so they go with a youth movement as much as they can. They've got a bunch of contracts they can't move. The weirdest fucking argument that I had from Red Wings fans this week was this idea that they're like, what did you expect Iserman to do? The team is terrible. Nobody wanted to come play here. And we have players that we can't trade. I'm like, that's my fucking point.

That's why it's right off the season. Look, there's a thin line between, like, I don't like these arguments over whether teams tanked or not, only because tanking can mean different things. And usually the argument is just two people who have different definitions yelling at each other on something that they don't actually disagree. Like, there is the idea of tanking as in, let's get actively worse, which is 2015 Sabres. It's 2016 Maple Leafs the second half of the season after they kind of tried for the first half and then suddenly anybody who got a paper cut was put on the IR for the rest of the year and they were they had their AHL team for the last 20 games basically and then there's just we're bad we know we're going to be bad let's just be bad have the growing pains and we'll get a high pick and we're not going to go and we're not going to bring in veterans and okay if you want to say that's not tanking whatever it's be it's intentionally putting a bad team on the ice and accepting that for partly strategic reasons.

I mean, yeah, the Red Wings are terrible, although to Ryan's point about them being the worst, like the 2017 Avalanche, like that wasn't that long ago. That team was almost and maybe even worse than this one and ended up picking fourth in the lottery because after all of that misery, they still fell three spots.

My thing here is I don't get what problem the NHL thinks they're solving. Right. Because it's been described as like one change to the lottery, which is we're going back to the old. But it's actually, there's two things they're changing. They're changing. They want to change to say, if you win the lottery, you can only move up four spots

instead of moving all the way to number one. Because they don't want a team, they don't want to do the lottery, have a team win the lottery, then have a playoff format where that team goes to the playoffs and wins the Stanley Cup. I don't see why that would be a problem. I know most people don't understand. Yeah, who cares? Exactly. Again, who cares is the GMs, right? So again, this is the GMs getting control everything.

The thing is this, right? It's not a problem if that happens. It's a miracle run. It's people have run the numbers. It's like a less than 1% chance it would even happen. But I will concede that if you think that's a problem, limiting how far you can move up in the draft solves that problem. But then why are we only picking one team? Why aren't we still picking three teams?

That's the part that you're, I still, I've asked a bunch of people, what problem is this solving? Nobody has an answer. So it's very hard not to look at it and go, oh, this is just a way to do a little favor to the Red Wings. And look, I mean, I know Wings fans are like, oh, well, you didn't complain when the Leafs got Austin Matthews. Believe me, when it was the Austin Matthews Patrick Laney draft, if like two weeks before that draft the NHL was like, oh, by the way, we're changing the rules. The Leafs now have a 60% chance at Matthews and 100% chance of getting lamey if they don't get back. Like, like people would be fine with that.

No, of course not. People would have lost their minds. People would have lost their minds. That's a great point. Because it's so ridiculous. They changed the rules for that draft. They changed, that's what, that was the first draft that had three different draws. But they changed them the year before.

They didn't wait until they knew which teams it would help or hurt. Right. And then, and then make the change. Like if, you know, I, I, I. Look, I'm fine with, if you're going to make a change that's going to blatantly and transparently help one team, go ahead and help Detroit. It's a great market. They are a legitimately bad team. It's an important market, you know, new arena, the original six, all this stuff. Go ahead.

But it'd be nice if there was some plausible explanation beyond, hey, everybody, look over there. We're going to do a June draft. Hold on. Now, you are being awfully conspiratorial here. I mean, show me another time when the NHL bend over backwards to help the Detroit Red Wings so their fans don't have to stay up from 930 to watch games at night. Oh, show me another time. Ooh, I look, I'm not going down that row because I know every red, this is something I learned this week,

is that every Red Wings fan thinks the NHL has it out for them. It's insane. It's 100%. You're absolutely right. I have a theory. I have a theory on that. I think it tracks. back to the All-Star game because they were the first team to get punished for guys skipping

the All-Star game when Dadsook and I think it was Datzook and Lidstrom, right, that got punished for it. So I think they've had it in the back of their minds the entire time that the NHL has it in for them since that fucking point. I got to say, man, as a Leafs fan, I hate it when a whole fan base is judged by like the loudest and dumbest among them. But I got to say, man, this week was not a good week for Red Wink's fans. Welcome to my entire life from, I would say, 2010.

to 14. Like the Red Wings, if I don't have a second favorite team, but if I had one, it would probably be the Red Wings. Like I, there isn't any team that I have more, like this was Norris Division running mates through the 80s. My team has played them in the playoffs one time and they won a game seven overtime and it was awesome. Then the Red Wings go on.

They put together like this stacked roster. They're a great team. They have the greatest rivalry in modern history with. the avalanche, like just entertaining as hell for saying. Like, the Red Wings are crazy. But I, like, I had somebody this week. It made me laugh so much because he's like, ah, yeah, good to see the Red Wings living rent-free in your head. It was like, dude, I have not thought about the Detroit Red Wings since November.

Like, a lot of people are just remembering the Red Wings exist for the first time this week. Like, dial it down just a bit, buddy. That was the weirdest thing about all the arguments that I had with these knuckleheads this week was like, my great. ripe was exactly what you were talking about, which is the NHL changing its rules on the fly because of a pandemic, basically saying, hey, the last four years of us, you know, claiming that tanking was a, was a, was a, was a, was a, disgrace to the league and we have to change our rules to prevent it. Now we'll just hand either the first or second overall pick to the worst team of the last 20 years. My problem is the NHL being fucking hypocritical about shit But Red Wings fans somehow interpreted that as Oh y'all hatein because we got the first pick

No, no, it's great that you got the first pick You guys are fucking terrible You need all the help you can get Or the other was like they're like oh the conspiracy theory Like no this isn't a conspiracy is like Shadowsy things that happen in the background Yeah the NHL just said it's happening Yeah this is the league putting out a press release going like

We're helping the Red Wings just so everybody knows The CIA going by the way we shot Kennedy in Deley Fawtham. Like, we had shooters there. Like, okay. Yeah. Which, by the way, if you haven't seen that thread from this week, oh, boy, that's a great thread. Oh, that was good.

Yeah. The thing that you had, that you RT'd was really good. Yeah. The, all of the, like, was it like, like communist ties and CIA ties to, to Oswald? It was fucking cool. Yeah. Anyways, yeah. No, you're exactly right.

And so it was blatant and it's, it's, here's the help. And that's, again, that's great. They're fucking terrible. They were, they were, they were, they were, I looked at it up. The worst team since the 99, 2000 Atlanta Thrashers. They have a lower points percentage than that Colorado team. They're awful. They deserve to have the number one pick.

And guess what? So does every other worst team in the league every single year. The draft lottery is stupid. They should get well, I mean, they should get rid of the draft altogether. But, you know, that's not going to happen. The draft lottery, I have a complicated relationship with draft lottery. It's entertaining, but it's stupid, is what I would say. I like there being a failsafe in the sense that if you tear down your team and you try to get the first overall pick, I like the sort of chaos aspect of it not being guaranteed.

Now, I don't have any problem with, you know, the old format of the draft where if you're one of the five worst teams in the league, then you have a chance of the first overall pick, but you're not guaranteed to get it. that's fine by me. I don't like the whole three different lotteries for the top three picks, even though it's benefited the devils twice. Yeah. You have to have that, though, because otherwise you get the years where there's two franchise players and then the race to the bottom is on, which is what happened here is the Sabres and Coyotes took it too far in 2015 and kind of ruined it for everybody

when there was McDavid and Eichael. Everyone talks about the tank for McDavid, but if it had just been McDavid that year, it wouldn't have been a problem because you'd be tanking for, go ahead, tank for a 20% chance at a franchise player if you need to. It was the fact that there was this fallback that whoever finished last, if you didn't get McDavid, you were going to get Jack Eichol, suddenly now it's just, now you got, let's trade all our goalies and let's have our own fans cheer against us when we're playing other teams. And it, it went too far, it was embarrassing. But it's fine. Like if you, if you, yeah, if you want it. The players are pretty pissed. The players

were furious about it. So, well, right. But like, if you're going, look, we're a sports franchise worth $500 million, and we're going to be intentionally bad and piss off everybody who is associated with this team because we think Connor McDavid is that fucking valuable, then like, fine. Like, right off the year, I don't care about that. That's just like, you know, making a business decision at the end of the day. Yeah, but the problem is when three teams make the same business. this decision and now you've got, and now it becomes a joke. You've got a total race to the

bottom. And at some point, like, you got teams, teams have got to be at least somewhat trying to win out there because you've got other teams playing them that actually are trying to win something and the whole thing becomes a joke. Like, it's, it's, I like, I like the lottery as it is now. You know, if you're bad, it's certainly weighted in your favor. The worst case scenario, and when I say the way it is now, the way it was last year, because they haven't changed it yet, but who knows? Before the troubles. But it sounds like they're going to.

Before these challenging times. The worst that could happen is you get the fourth overall pick. You know what? The fourth overall pick's pretty high, man. Like, if you can't do anything with the fourth overall pick, maybe your team just isn't very good top to bottom. And if that is some sort of disaster, like, oh, no, we only got the fourth overall pick. Like Colorado had the fourth overall pick a couple of times when they finished last.

And, I mean, they got some pretty good players out of it. So it's, you know, this idea that, oh, my team is bad. And now instead of picking first, they have to pick fourth. How terrible. Like, come on, man. Like, maybe don't be the worst team in the league by 30 points. Who's the fourth pick the year Connor McDavid got drafted, right? Like, that's the difference.

Yeah. Mitch Marner. So. Oh, yeah. No, Strome was number three. There was an Arizona was a team that got screwed that year. Mitch Marner and Connor

McDavid or Jack Eichael. Not financially. That's true. The two things I'll say. One, I have a different take on that Buffalo Coyote's thing. Because I remember there being that huge outrage about the fans, like, quote unquote,

rooting against their team. They're not rooting against their team. They're ultimately rooting for the outcome that would benefit their team in the long run. That's what I'm saying. In the long run. Yeah.

So I always thought that mischaracterization of those fans was unfair. Like, they are clearly rooting for the ultimate success of their team, just knowing that it had to be at the expense of a regular season win against the fucking coyotes. While cheering for another team scoring an overtime goal, like, in their own building. Like, I don't think it's that bad of a characterization. The other thing, though, is that, you know, we've talked about this in the last couple of minutes, but, like, I got no problem with a team. team tanking. Like if you want to, if you want to break it down, cost your team money, you know, alienate fans, you know, invest in a season that's just completely lost and all this other shit. Like, fuck man, you know, more power to you. And did not have it be a guarantee that you

get the top overall pick, even more power to you. Then that's the key. If you want to, if you want to gamble for lottery odds, go ahead. I mean, there's no realistic way to stop. But But it shouldn't be guaranteed, and it certainly shouldn't be something that gets guaranteed to you 70 games into the season with a rule change when everybody knows you're the only team. It's not even like we can come back and the 12 games might change the result. Like they're that far behind. We all know what one and only one team this is helping. It's a little weird. And it's to do it, like you said, for a reason that is so fucking bad shit and crackpot. that it doesn't make any sense. There's, even Bill Daley said this. I'll find the line in it. He actually says this in the memo about the,

the same team winning the draft lottery. And, okay, he says, this is certainly a possibility, and he puts air quotes around possibility, but we think it is a very remote possibility, and it is extremely unlikely to happen. And then he explains what we're going to do to try to prevent it.

Like, it's such a fucking, it is putting a, band-aid where there is no wound. Like, it's such a bizarre decision. And again, the limiting it to just one team doesn't even address that in any way. It's the only explanation I've heard, one person said the, the reason maybe they go to one team instead of three is that with three, it gets a little bit weird because what happens if the first team you draw is like the team with the 10th best odds. And so, okay, they move up to sixth. but then the next team is the team with the eighth best odds.

So they move up to four, even though the first team won the lottery, but they get a better pick and does the other team go back. And so it does get confusing, but it's the type of confusing that you think about it for 30 seconds and you're like, no, we could still do it. Like you just pick three teams. Everybody moves up and you lock in and then you announce the results. Like maybe you lose the whole like this team won and this team came in second and this team came in third.

But like if that's the reason they're doing it, that's not a very good reason. Like sit down, think about this for 30 more seconds, and don't give off the appearance that you're blatantly trying to help one team over all the others. As we've talked about in this show many times, find out what it is you do. Right?

You had all summer. Something like that, yeah. They will have all summer. They won't have all summer. They have three weeks. They have all spring. Yeah. The other batch of the draft proposal

is the conditional picks thing. Now, granted, this is something that's only going to affect like 15. trades that have already happened. But if you, we just got done talking about like the optics of the NHL trying to maybe grease the skids for the Detroit Red Wings. How will it go over when the NHL is the final arbitrator of what the conditions on a draft pick are for a trade that already happened?

Because that's the, that's the plan back for this conditional picks thing. It's like if you've got a situation where a conditional pick, the conditions haven't been satisfied because we're holding the draft before the season's completed. We're going to give you seven days for the you two teams to figure your shit out and make like a side dealer or whatever. If you can't, the NHL will decide for you what the conditions on the pick should be. That is fucking that shit. The parent and me kind of likes this.

This is that old. This is your saying to the two kids. You're like, you guys figure it out. And if you don't, I'm going to figure it out for you and you're not going to like it. And I got a feeling that we're going to see teams figure this out on their own. They're going to come back with. I think so too. And I hope so because, like, you want to talk about perceptions of bias.

Like, the minute the NHL rules in favor of one team over another and it's one of the league's darlings, like, you know, it's going to be fucking, it's going to be chaos. If, you know, the guy the team picks with like the fifth pick or the fifth round pick, that's the condition on this trade, if that guy somehow turns into like, an all-star or something. The amount of bitching we're going to hear about it for the next 10 years is going to be very funny. Yeah, it's tremendous. So it's, it's an interesting plan. I mean, do we all think it's going to happen for June 5th, or do you think there's still a chance that the uprising of GMs will kick it? I mean, this is, the NHL clearly wants to do this. And they're basically putting this in motion in a way that says, like, if you don't want it, you got to really make a strong case and you better really be able to marshal some support for that

because they're moving towards it with a lot of momentum. Let's put it that way. Speaking of momentum, let me put this out there in the world because Emily and I talked about this on the other podcast this week. We all assume that arenas will be opened up for the 2020-21 season if they started in December. Baseball is going to have fans back at some point. The NFL is seems like they're not even worried about fans coming back, like you're just going to be there when they start playing. We don't know about the NBA. They're probably the same boat as the NHL.

Question is, would it make sense for the NHL to just wait until September to try to do this season and then have a month of off season and then come back and play in the next season? Like, wouldn't that be smarter than trying to figure out where to play in July? And then you could maybe even get some fans in the building for the games? if you thought you could get fans in the building in September, maybe. The problem is they still sound like they want to finish the season, which means you now need three months, really, to do it.

You need a month of season and then two months of the playoffs. So I don't know, September, October might not give you enough time. But, yeah. They only need about a month for the off season, according to Bill Daly. Especially if they already got the draft out of the way. you know, for free agency and shit like that. So I don't know. It's something that I just, it's hard to, it's hard to conceive a situation where if they believe they can come back in December and play games in front of fans, why they wouldn't just wait as long as they could to try to play these games in front of fans?

Like, they're going to spend an exorbitant amount of money to stage games in empty arenas. if they do this for arena plan, like if they could possibly wait it out and play in local arenas or even, you know, play in centralized locations where fans can get in the building, um, it just kind of makes more sense,

that, I think the reason is that they don't think there's a realistic chance that they're going to have fans in all buildings in September, in some places, maybe, uh, yeah, but then it gets into,

like that's, this whole thing about like neutral sites and, oh, well, where is it going to be? As long as the facilities work, if the buildings are empty, it doesn't really matter where you are. There's no home ice advantage for the Leafs being in Toronto. I mean, maybe they're a little more familiar with the facilities or whatever, but that's not going to matter.

You bring fans in, suddenly it's, you know, because this is, like, Jay Glazer and his mailbag for the NFL had a, like, an interesting point. Somebody was like, what if we get to September when the NFL is going to start, and half the teams are allowed to have fans and half of them aren't? Yeah. What do you do then? Like, do you, like, oh, okay, so my home games are in an empty stadium, but then I got to go to Seattle and get my ears blown out by those. Is that fair? And, like, his answer, he was like, no, that's a non-starter. You can't do that.

I don't know if that's the case for the NFL. I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be in the NHL because they, they're just so hungry for whatever gate receipts they can get. But I think the odds that you've got 31 full buildings in September is pretty close to zero. Yeah. No, I agree. It's going to be interesting. Can we just throw one more thing out there just because we kind of, in talking about those conditional trades, because Ryan and I both have the right idea on this, which is you can fix a lot of these issues.

Just reopen trading. Yep, trading back. If we're changing everything else, including how many teams make the playoffs, including how the, you know, including when the draft is, the lottery, everything else. I mean, Ryan's take was a little more nuanced and detailed, whereas mine is, we just cancel the trade deadline. Trading's back on from now until whenever the games start. Go. And if you're a team, especially if you're a team that's sold at the deadline because you were like, well, we're six points out of the playoffs, but now suddenly the playoffs is going to have 24 teams and

you're going to be in them, we should be able to trade again. Let's just throw that. You want something, do you want some content for those TV networks? Let's, let's go. Here we go. Let's fire this up. That's the fundamental problem of the draft that I brought up earlier, is that they're just like, oh, you know, you've heard of none of these players. Watch this for four hours. No thanks. But if they're like, oh, and by the way, we can almost guarantee that like name brand players are going to get traded from teams that are very clearly not going to make the playoffs even in an expanded format or something like that. well, okay, like that, that is interesting.

And that's a reason to tune in. And, you know, like Rob Blake, I think, said it the other day of like, it's hard for me to look at this and go, oh, it'll matter that I have to go get my team back together and have them train for a month and a half and then get their asses kicked for six games and then they all go home again. They should just say, well, if you're out of the playoff picture by X number of points and you don't realistically have a shot to make it, then stay home. And, you know, all your guys who are pending UFAs or even guys you want to trade who are under contract, like trade them. And I also said, you know, and I also said they should stay. And by the way, when everybody comes back, there's no salary cap because that'll make trades go crazy. Well, it would. But I think to Sean's point, though, what's interesting about like a second trade deadline type situation is the knowledge that the salary cap is going to be flat. Like the two conditions that have changed since the last trade, since the trade deadline are one, the cap's going to be flat because there's no more revenue.

and two, the economic situations for all these teams have probably changed too. Either the teams themselves or the people that own the teams. And we've added eight playoffs teams potentially, which is also a pretty big change that I think teams should have a chance to account for if they want. Right. So, like, now the math has changed for next season. So if you thought that you could keep a guy around because the cap was going to go up a certain amount of money and you're going to be all right, well, now it's flat. Now you get to start having to make those decisions on who gets cut from the roster. Well, this would afford you the opportunity that you would otherwise have at the draft to, because that's the two things that I love about the draft that we're not going to get are those trades that are specifically made for salary cap considerations.

Suvan and Marlowe were both last year. And the other thing that we can't really replace, unfortunately, is the draft serves as you're jumping off point to free agency. in the offseason. And, and you, I mean, there's no way to do that if you do a June 5th draft. Because you're going to have, you're going to just have to be like, yeah, whenever we get around to it, Taylor Hall is going to be available. Like, it just doesn't work. But the trade thing, if you opened up a second trade window, like, that would suffice for the teams that want to reconfigure their rosters with an eye towards next season. It's not a bad idea.

the rest of this season, which has just radically changed in a way that nobody could have. And the other piece of this is the trade, like, the NHL trade deadline from this year feels like it was six years ago for obvious reasons. It was six games ago as far as the NHL season is actually concerned. Right. It's not that big a gap. Like if you're like, it's too late in the season, we used to have the trade deadline later than this.

The trade deadline used to be with like 75 games into the year. So we've done this before. Like just open it back up. Give everybody something to talk about. Get Taylor Hall on a playoff team. Yeah, exactly. Get Joe Thornton on a playoff team. Remember that whole deal where he didn't get traded and he was bummed out?

I mean, get him now before he shaves his playoff. Oh, crap. All right. Well, it's too late for that. Oh, fuck. Can you believe that? He looked like 10 years younger, man. It was incredible.

But, yeah. I was shocked. Bring back trading. I put that out there and people are like, ha, ha, it's a good, you're doing one of those satire. No, I'm not. This is an actual real thing the NHL should do that would make way more sense than screwing with the lottery. But I don't know. And it's also, it's also just for an entertainment standpoint and getting fans engaged.

Like, oh, shit, did you see the, you know, the Jets gave up their first round. I think the Jets already gave up their first round pick. But did you see the Jets gave up their first round pick for Taylor Hall? Incredible. Wow. Remember those fans that aren't going to be able to actually get into a building to watch hockey first? Like, how about we do something for them now? No.

You know, I mean to mention this to you, Sean, about your writing, because you mentioned your satires just now. I detect there's been a subtle shift away from the Dango's Brown satirical writing. And I feel like a lot of your stuff now is very much like, there's a thought in my head that I can't get out of my head. And I'm going to dive down this fucking rabbit hole. Like I'm doing a YouTube video about QAnon to figure out. What everything is that I'm trying to figure out here.

That's a different account for him. And also, the nice thing about being known as like the humor and satire guys, you can throw your real ideas out there. And then when everyone's like, you idiot, you're like, I was joking. Come on. Like, can't you, don't you guys? There's a swiftian satire and you fell for it. And then you go back to your dark room and cry.

Like twice a week it would be like, here's what actually happened on the phone call at the GMs. And now it's like twice a week, it's like Yarmier, Yager, Brian Scroodland, and Tom Barrasso. What do they all mean? Fucking love it. It's great. Yeah. I think it's a indicative of our times. It's going to get a lot worse over the next little while.

Yeah, no shit, right? Please bring trading back so I can write some normal articles. It's great. Honestly, what you're doing is thought-provoking and interesting and original. And that's not to say that picking all-time teams for the seven Canadian franchises isn't original or, you know. Gotta do something. But we were talking about this briefly before the show. TSN's doing all-time teams for all Canadian teams.

And you didn't have a problem with the Ottawa senators, including Ottawa senators from like the 1920s that were a completely different franchise. Well, I mean, the whole, first of all, the whole thing is kind of weird. If you're down in the States, you probably haven't seen it because they're only doing the seven Canadian teams, but they're doing all-time rosters, but with like a couple of weird ground rules thrown in. Like, you have to have a current player. Yeah, one current player. Which is why, like, Kerry Price showed up on the Canadians ahead of, like, like, shot plonter or Patrick Waugh or whatever. And then there's also, like, they get a, there's some other rules of all, which, by the way, for me, if you, if you're, you're, if you're going to be like, let's build rosters, but throw in some weird ground rules,

like, I'm, I'm in. Like, that's, that's pretty much, uh, that's the Uber. Yeah, exactly. So, uh, but it's, you know, it's one of these things. It's just to create debate or whatever else. But yeah, for Ottawa, they included the original, uh, franchise, which is, is a completely different franchise. It's 70 years ago, whatever.

But they're trying to get some history in it. This is an expansion team. It goes back to 93. you want some of that old-timey history. And the thing I like most about it is they haven't done the Winnipeg Jets yet, but clearly when they do the Jets, they're going to do them properly by only counting teams called Winnipeg Jets and not doing what you guys would do and put Ilya Kovalchuk as like on the all-time

Winnipeg Jets team, which would make no sense at all in any manner of which fans in Winnipeg actually talk about their hockey team. Well, right, but they talk about their hockey team wrong. because they ignore the history. They're like, oh, this is an expansion team we got. And it just didn't exist before 2012 or whatever the fuck year. Yeah, Colchuk was never a Winnipeg jet.

If your list of Winnipeg Jets has like Kerry Layton in on it, you are way too caught up in, I don't even know why you'd be in technicalities. And not how, like, no Winnipeg Jet fan is like, yeah, Colichick was better than, I wish we had. had that salani guy, but we never did, but Kovilchuk was a great Winnipeg jet. Like, that's not a thing, anyone. Your cutoff has to be like 2012 then, because the way I always see it is this. I think it's contingent on what the actual franchise does with its history. And by that I mean, if the Arizona coyotes never acknowledge their Winnipeg Jets roots, right, then it would make sense for the Jets to be able to claim that history. But the coyotes do recognize their Winnipeg Jets.

as they should, you know. And, you know, they recognized Shane Dohn played for both teams and Kuchuk played for both teams and things like that. So I feel like it's kind of hard for two teams to both claim the same legacy. Okay. And as long as the coyotes are. So let them claim it then because it's, no, it's not. Look, if you're talking about like who holds the franchise record or whatever, fine. You want to go down that rabbit hole.

I'm just saying if I'm a hockey fan, I'm an NHL fan living in Winnipeg, to me, The Winnipeg Jets are a team I cheered for as a kid in the 80s and 90s. They went away and then a version of them came back and that is the new Jets. And if you want to call Jets 2.Ot, whatever, that's fine. But you can't sit there and go like, Ah, Tim Usilani, he never played for your team, but Ilya Kovych did, screw off. That's not how any actual fan remembers their hockey fan experience.

But the point is it's two different fucking teams. Like, yeah, you go, well, I, cheered for two different teams. Now, they were both called the Winnipeg Jets, and that's weird, but that's... Okay. Well, if you're making an all-time Winnipeg Jets, then there you go. They were all Winnipeg Jets. That's how you do it. So TSN is doing it right. They're doing, like, they're invoking the Cleveland Brown's rule, which is the right way to approach this. And I'm, I'm glad for that. I did my, that line, that best lines thing, uh, this week where I look back at the last 30 years. for teams and did their best line during that span,

best current line, then Colt Classic line. And when I did the Jets, I only did it back to when they moved. So, like, their best line is Ladd Wheeler and Little. Their cult classic is the GST line. Their best current line is, you know, Connor Schifley and Wheeler.

Like, I'm fine if you don't want to include the Thrashers in their history, but their history then starts at, like, 2012. Correct. It's your piece. You can do it. however you want. I'm just saying if you're saying Timuselani was not a Winnipeg jet, you have gone way too far down the rabbit

hole of technical. Well, he was a Winnipeg jet. But this Winnipeg Jets is a different thing from the previous Winnipeg Jets. Let's put it this way. It's like if Gallagher 2 didn't have the two. Right? Holy shit. Like that's what it is. It's just

a different guy and he's got the mustache and he's the suspenders and he's hitting stuff with a big hammer. That's fine. But like he's not Gallagher. you know why because this is America that's all I remember from his actual like stand up before he smashed the fruit there was a there was a big couch I seem to remember that from my comedy central watching days but I remember there being like before he would smash the fruit

he would do a lot of this is America kind of stuff and then he would also kind of do like childish Gambino wow he would also do like junior league George Carlin wordplay would be the other thing that Gallagher would do oh I remember like, yeah, why can't you push a belly button, you know, kind of shit like that. Let's just cut right to it. Sean, what did you think of the Leafs team that they did? Austin Matthews made it. It was fine, again, with the weird rules that they had, and the other rule that that isn't a weird rule, but they, they said it's, you got to have, you got to stick to positions.

No putting centers on the wing or anything like that. And the thing with the Leafs is their history is, they've had like, the center is, you know, by far their strongest position. And the wing's right wing is pretty strong, left wing, not so much. So you end up putting, like, it looks weird to have like Bob Polford on the team, but not Daryl Sittler. But if you have to have someone from the current team, that's probably Austin Matthews. Maybe it should be Morgan Riley, because the defense isn't great in, in Leif's history.

You could slide him in there. Would you have had Cabrillet on there before Riley? Yeah. I wait. Like, Cabberley was really good. He probably isn't appreciated enough. So I, but, you know, it's, it's one of those things where once you accept the, you know, like there's, there's six centers, if you count Matthews, at least six centers that should be on the team,

but you only have four spots. So there's going to be some people left off. And that's, you know, I wouldn't have left Sittler off. I would have found a way to, to get him on, uh, even, even ahead of Gilmore. I probably wouldn't have done, like the other guy would be Marner, but right wing's pretty strong. And there isn't like a left wing that's. fits in. It's for fun. It's, I

didn't think they did a terrible job. It's stirred up debate, but you know, when people are like, you have to you have to put Daryl Sittler on this team. Okay, where? What's, well, but you have to. Okay, we get it. Who are you taking off? Ah, you got it. You have to put Daryl Sitt's like, dude, this is, numbers only fit in a certain number.

Like, we got to get them in there. So it was fine. It was, it was, not what I would have come up with necessarily, but it's, it's, It's all for fun, and I thought they did reasonably well. I think so, too, and I actually got an education, and I actually applied this education to my lion's story. I've often talked about how the Edmonton Oilers' 1980s teams are a little bit foreign to me. Even though I was of the age where I was watching hockey at the time the dynasty was going on,

my access to games from the Western Conference or the Campbell Conference, as it were, was very limited. So I didn't really have a very big understanding of the Oilers at the time. So I was kind of surprised to see Craig Simpson make the Oilers team. But that line with Simpson, Messier, and Anderson was fucking phenomenal. And it kind of makes sense within that context, even though, like, I mean, you look at the left wings in the team. like Ryan Smith, Leon Drozsidal, Esotikinen. Like, that all makes sense to me. I don't necessarily put Craig Simpson in the pantheon of those guys, but he's there.

And it makes sense when you look at how good that line as a whole was. He was a first overall pick. He did have, did he have 50 goals with Edmonton? No, he was the first guy to get traded halfway through a 50 goal season. Because that was the thing. He didn't stay in Edmonton very long. So it was, or no, he, yeah, how long was he in Edmonton for? He was there.

No, he was there for the 90 cup. That's right. He went to Edenton. Yeah. Hang on here. I'll find it. He was. Because he went in the coffee trade.

I had him going the other way. Yeah. He traded to Edmonton for coffee and, yeah, all of them guys, yeah. Yeah. So he's, yeah. I mean, that's the sort of thing. And the other thing is they also want to have like a checking line, which is weird, but that's how you get like Chris Neal on the all-time senators roster.

Crazy. Just crazy. I mean, it's their thing. If you want to put that in as a limitation, just to mix it up a little bit, go ahead. Why not? I have to say that, you know, because we've done this podcast for so long, I'm so happy that remembering some guys has become the battle cry for all of hockey. I've been trading for this my whole life. Yeah, it's exactly right.

That's right. Sean's got a little Mac training montage from Tyson's Punch Out, getting ready for this. Exactly. Lifting old hockey cards. All right. So in the spirit of remembering some guys, it is now time for the Puck Soup Quiz,

courtesy of Quizmaster Ryan Lambert this week. That's right. So, Greg, you have been on Doug Love's movies, right? Boy, have I. Yeah, okay. Not only have I been on Doug Love's movies, Lambert, I have won Douglass movies. I didn't ask for the whole fucking backstory.

So, do you remember from Doug Love's movies the Leonard Malton game? Boy, do I. Okay. A Leonard Malton game, for those that don't know, is the game where you... Cue it up, but okay. Go ahead. No, go ahead. Go ahead. Please do cue it up, because I have no idea what you're talking about right now. Let me re-contextualize this for Sean.

Sean, are you familiar with Name That Tune? I am. Okay. So the concept is this. I will give you a category and you will bid against one another to see how many clues from the player's hockey reference page

you need to name the player. Motherfucker. This is great. There are three common clues that you will get for every player I give you. Their current age, the number of games they played in the NHL, and the last team they played. played for. These can be current players. These can be former players. These can be guys who were in the

league for a cup of coffee. These can be guys who played 1,500 games. It's literally just about anybody that fits into the categories I came up with. From the list, I have 10 common clues that every player will have in addition to the three normal ones. We'll start with their amateur team, then their height and weight, their, the spot where they were drafted, the team that drafted them, the years they played, their career points, their nation of birth, their current cap hit, if there is one, the number of points they have this season, and finally, every NHL team they've played for. Wow.

And is it in that order? Like if we... Well, that's in reverse order. So if you say, I can do that in one clue, you would have obviously the category, their age, their games played, the last team they played for, as well as just their amateur team.

If you say two, amateur team height and weight. Three, amateur team height and weight draft spot, and so on. All right. All right. So... So in the spirit of Doug Love's movies

and naming games things, This is called the hockey reference game or to pay homage to the original program that used it, name Pat Falloon. Yes. So, holy shit. You were not going to be able to convince me that this entire thing was not a setup just for that name. Honestly, Sean, I came up with that five minutes ago, named Pat Falloon while I was thinking about it. I would have 100% thought this was a snake's on a plane situation where you came up with the name and then decided to build a movie around it. So, all right.

One of you pick who's going to go first, and I will give you three categories to choose from. Undoubtedly, Sean won the last game, so you can kick or receive. Okay. Sean, what do you think, Sean? I'm still a little fuzzy on the concept, so I'm going to have Greg go first. All right. Okay. Greg, you get to choose from the following three categories,

and there are three players in each of these categories. One, he's not heavy. He's Henrik Sidene, and those are guys who are not as good as the NHLers that are related to them. The next category is, they let you in here, and that's guys, I can't believe her in the Triple Gold Club. And then finally, there's one-hit wonders, and those are guys who won exactly one major award.

I'll go one-hit wonders. Okay. Do you want... And let me ask a caveat. Is the Lady Bing a major award? No. Okay. You have, you can pick A, B, or C?

B. Okay. B. This is a player who is currently 39 years old. He played one-thousand. 1982 NHL games and the last team he played for

was the Detroit Red Wings How many clues do you need to name that player? Zero. Okay. Who is it? Wow. Hendrik Zetterberg.

That's correct. Yes. Holy smokes. The one award he ever won was a Kahn Smyth. That's right. All right. Well, thanks for coming out, folks.

Geez. All right. Well, Sean, now you, you get to pick from the following three categories. The trade is Lee for me, and that's guys who were traded for Lee Stempniak. The next category is, yes, more Mr. Nice Guy, and that's guys who won multiple Lady Bing's. And finally, there's worked his way up from the boxcars, did he? And that's NHLers who once played in the... ECHL. Oh, wow. Oh, my lord. All right. So, Lee Stemniak,

ECHL, multiple lady bings. Yep. One and two definitely have a certain limited scope to them, it would appear. I mean, I can't imagine number three is that huge category either. You know, it's bigger than you would have thought, but it's still not that big. All right. Let's go lady bing. Okay, Lady Bang. A, B, or C? Give me a C. C.

All right. This player is currently 45 years old. He played 989 NHL games, and the last team he played for was the St. Louis Blues. Oh, man, you know what? I, as sad as this is, given all the roster things I've done, I feel like I might know who it is based on the games played, but we're doing Lady Bing, right?

Yeah. Wow. More than one Lady Bing. More than one, okay. See, I pay no attention to the Lady Bing. That's why it's tricky. Last team you said was the Blues? That's correct.

All right. I'm going to, I'm going to, I mean, Greg did it. So I got to respond here. Oh. I'll do a zero clue. Okay. I think I know, he feels like a ladybing type of player, so, uh, should I say my, yeah, go for it.

Yeah. I think it's Paul Korea. You're correct. Wow. Holy shit. Look at you. You were like, oh, I'm so intimidated, whatever the fuck. That was great, man.

I was. I was thrown off by the, uh, by, okay. All right. That's all right. You know, it's funny was when he, when he started to go into the clue, my first thought was was Gretzky. And then I'm like, oh, fuck, wait. played for the Rangers too.

Yeah, I feel like there was a thing with the Rangers that he probably played more than, because Korea had 989 points as well, I think. I think that was the thing. Is that right? He exactly matched. It was a point for game, yeah. And he's one of the feet. I'm an expert on left wingers right now because building all these all-time rosters,

there's no damn good left-wingers in the NHL. All right. All right. So we're going to have to recycle two of the categories. here. The new one, the new one, though, is Antoine, and that's guys who are not successful playing with the Siddines.

So you have Antweens, you have he's not heavy, he's Henrik Sedeen, and they let you in here. Those are your three options. I'll go, Antoine. A, B, or C?

Give me B, let's keep it rolling. B, okay. This is I think this one is either going to be very tough or very easy. The player is currently 38 years old. He played 59 career NHL games, and he last played for the Anaheim Ducks. Oh, no. Oh, no. 59 NHL games.

Well, I'm going to have to go, there's 10 different categories? Yes. I could do it in an eight. Okay. Sean, do you think you could name it in fewer than that? I'll go, I'll bid seven. Okay.

Greg? So he said six? No, he said seven. It's six to you. I'm not doing multiple. You could. Why not? I could.

I'll do, I'll do, I'll do, five. Five, Sean. He's doing five. Now, is this, refresh my memory. Is this? Does this include the three that we already have? Yes. And so if you got five clues, you would get his amateur team, his height and weight, his draft spot, the team that drafted him, and the years he played in the NHL.

Okay. So you get all five of those in addition to the three that we already have. Okay. Correct. In that case, I will go four. name that player bastard okay

bastard his amateur team was the Halifax Mooseheads all right oh helps me not at all he was a 6 foot 1 195 pound player

he was drafted also a hockey player well that's why it's not a very helpful clue he was drafted uh 20012 overall in the seventh round of the

2001 entry draft by the Vancouver Canucks. Not much help if you are trying to name it. Oh, that's it. That's right, because that was two clues. All right. You said his last team was the Anaheim Ducks? I did say that. Yeah. Okay. Interesting.

And he played, he only played, like, how many games did you say? 59. In the NHL. In the NHL, correct. Oh. Yes. So it's Ryan Kessler. Oh, no.

He had a couple more than that, I think. You might have been up around 70 or 80. And he was old, right? Like, he's like late 30s, I think, was the... He's 38 now, yes. 38. So it could still be in the league, but not likely. Not a lot of guys still kicking around the league with 59 career games.

Yeah, at 38. I have no idea. I got a whiff on this one. Greg, do you want to steal? I mean, stealing would connote that I haven't already won the round because I challenged him. But I don't know the answer at all. A guy who's only notable for being a Sadeen linemate, Jason King, part of the mattress line, two twins and a king. Holy shit.

I feel like you could have given me, like, clues up to and including here is his name. And I still would have. No, that's too obvious. Let's say Jason K. I would have gone Krog. Yeah, obviously. You know what? I don't think he ever played with the Sadiens, though. No, probably not.

All right, all right. Who went first last time? Greg did. Greg picked that one. Yeah, so I get to pick the category here. The categories, we will go with the Lee Stempeniak trade category. We will go with the ECHL category, and we will go with unexpected memory. of the Triple Gold Club.

Let's do Lee Stemniak. Okay. It's a phrase I did not expect to hear myself. A, B, or C? I did C last time, and it worked out for me, so I'll go see. All right. Oh, all right, there we go. This NHLer is currently 37 years old.

He played 470 games. in the NHL, and the last team he played for was the Buffalo Sabres. Hmm. He was once traded for Lee Stentniak. That's correct. I can name him in five clues. Okay, Greg? 37.

Yep. 470 games. The Buffalo Sabers. Yeah, I'm going to have Sean name him. Five. Clues, okay, that's a lot, I feel like. His amateur team was the Erie artists. Halifax Mooseheads. Oh, fuck.

His height and weight, to your point earlier, Greg, 6'1, 202 pounds. Not very helpful. He's a hockey player. Very much a hockey player. His draft position, he was a 17th overall pick, first rounder. Yep. Mm-mm. By the Toronto Maple Leafs. I got it.

I got it. Oh, motherfucker. And he played from 2002 to 2015. All right. I was really thrown off by the sabers because I didn't, I have no recollection of this guy playing with the sabers. I'll give you, the peek behind the curtain here is I gambled on this because Lee Stempenyak did play for the Leafs.

He did. And I was really hoping it was going to be Alex Steen because I feel like that, you know, I was I was going to, I was rolling the dice on Alex Steen and then I was going to like hit you with like zero clues. and knock it out of the park. But based on the fact that he was a first round pick of the Leafs, it's got to be the other guy from that trade, Carlo Colovacchio.

Well, it's Coliakivo, but yeah, that's correct. What did I say? It is Carlo Coliakavo. Sorry, he played 36 games. Noted Toronto Radio personality. That's right. He played 36 games for Buffalo. That's why you do not remember that.

I walked into a fucking trap on that one. I really did. What were you supposed to do? do. All right. All right. Two, two, two. Two, two. Do you guys want to do first to, first to, or do you want to do best of seven or best of five here? Leave it to Sean. So, just so I'm clear. Let's do one from every category. And then that way we'll probably come up with a winner. So the one that I missed that Greg didn't get like that. He still gets a point for that, right? He doesn't get a point. No, you're right. He does. He does. He does. Yeah, okay. That's two, too.

All right. So, yeah, let's do every category. This is good. All right. Okay. So you have a choice between the brothers who are less good than their other brothers from the NHL. You have the unexpected triple gold club winners. And you have ECHL players.

Let me go. The brothers, brothers, brothers. Sure. Do you want to go A, B, or C? I'll go B again. B again, got it. Okay, this NHL player is 32 years old. He played 517 games in the NHL,

and his last team was the Vancouver Canucks. Okay. I'll go eight. Eight clues. 32 Canucks, 500-ish, okay. Seven? Seven it is. I'll go six.

Six it is. See, I feel like I should, this should be my category, because I did a thing on brother combos and father-son combos, but I was doing like the best of them. I was trying to put together the best guys, and I probably would have skipped right? And the other thing is I've got a running thing in my columns of the like less successful younger brother. But those are usually the guys that bear like the 500 games is what's throwing me off here.

That's that's what I didn't want to hear. What are we? You're at how many, Greg? Currently there's six I think it is. Five right now. Five, okay. So this would be he could say he could say five. He can say five.

That's correct. Yeah. Okay. I will save five. Okay. Five would get you years played draft team, draft spot, size, and amateur team. Fuck. I kind of believe I know who it is.

Okay. But in true New Jersey native tradition, I will depend on the failure of others to boost my own. profile. So I will, I will say, Sean, name that player. All right. Wow. His amateur team is the Victoria Grizzlies of the BCHL. Why wouldn't it be? Sure. His size is listed as 6 foot to 195 pounds, an NHL player, if you will. He was drafted by nobody, undrafted player. and his years played 2011 to present To present

To present Motherfucker Oh no Oh man I got it See I got a guy I'm glad I didn't say the guy that I thought it was And he fits all of the criteria

Except I have no idea if he plays for the Vancouver Canucks right now And I'm gonna I'm gonna get yelled at by Canucks fans and especially if I say him and they're going to be like, that guy didn't. I feel like he did. I feel like I can picture him in a uniform, but also if you told me it was three years ago,

because he's been around a little bit. Oh, man, here comes. 32. He's played like 500 games. Yep. Live your truth. So he's around. He's an NHLer.

Mm-hmm. All right. If I say this guy's name and he's never played for the Canucks, we'll just edit this out, Okay. We'll skip right to it. We'll skip right to me, Knuck. Did you, is Jordy Ben of Vancouver Canuck? Jordy Ben is correct.

Yes. Oh my God. Unbelievable. Was that who you had, Greg, as your, when you said you thought you thought you know, and I don't even know if this guy played for the Canucks, I thought it might have been Sean Pronger for a while. Yeah, I don't know if he played for the Canucks. When you said Canucks, I thought Quinn Hughes, but then I remembered you said it was the

worst of the brothers and not the better one. If I was actually funny and smart, I would have said Jack Hughes. How dare you? And it would have sounded like, oh, you know, he's played 65 games. He had like 14 points, whatever. And you would have been like, okay, how long did Brent Gretzky play? And no, no, no, it would have been Jack Hughes. Damn, fuck.

I did think about doing that with one of the Stahl brothers, but that's okay. All right. So apparently, Jordie Ben has been on the Canucks all season long. So yeah, that's correct. Sorry, Canucks fans, you're ace-coast, man. I don't watch your team's games. You tell me that all the time, so now you know. Okay.

Who's up? I don't think I would have gotten Jordy Ben either. If you told me current, I wouldn't have, I don't think I would have gotten it. Like, I just, I don't picture him on the Canucks. Yeah. No, I was like, he, like, I knew he was on the Canucks, but I think of him most recently, obviously, as a Canadian. Canadian, yeah. Sean's up, I think.

Okay, Sean, you get to pick from either triple gold club or ECHL. The one that's not the ECHL. Well, I was going to say, I didn't pick like obscure, like a guy who had a couple. Like, these are guys you know about for sure. Okay. And I maybe should have said that early. All that said, I'm going to say, I'm going to go with the triple gold. All right.

Triple gold club. A, B or C? You know what? I'm two for two on C. So I got to stick in true NHL fashion. I'm going to stick with what works. That's fair. For no good reason.

Going for the triple gold of C choices in a way. That's right. Yeah. This player is 36 years old. He played 1,240 NHL games. Hoo! And he played last for the St. Louis Blues. 36.

Okay. 1240. Triple gold. And I get to start the bidding? You do. Yep, that's right. Eight clues. Eight clues it is.

Greg, it's to you. Do I hear seven? His last team was the blues? That's right. Seven. Six, Sean? I think I know who this is. So, yeah, six.

I think so. Greg, five? I'll go five. I'll go five. Okay. I kind of believe I know who it is, too. Sean? Four?

Do I hear four? No, you know what? I'm going to say zero, because I think I know who it is, and I can't, I don't want to let Greg jump in and nip it from me. All right. Who's that player? 36, blues. Yep. Because if he's 36, he's played in the Olympics.

Yeah, I know who it is. And it's a, 36, he's either active or he's probably still active because he was good enough to play on the Olympics. for a team that won gold, which is probably Canada. Unless it's Sweden, but that was, yeah, no, this, this, and blues, uh, Jay Beaumister. That's correct. Yeah, Jay Bowman. Yes. Can't believe he was.

He was on an Olympic team, but he was. Yeah, no, he was. Yeah. I was until the, until I realized the triple gold encompassed the Olympics, I thought maybe it was David Perron. Yeah. Well, there you go. I mean, Sean takes it.

I can't, I can't catch him. That's true. Do we do the last one? Yeah, let's do the last one anyways. Let's close it out. And I guess, I guess Jay Bowdoin-easter technically not active anymore, but that's true. Close. All right.

So, ECHL players, Greg, I think you get to pick here, A, B or C. A, and I'll do negative five clues. Mike McKenna. You're going A? No, I'll do A, yeah. That wasn't my question. choice. This player is currently 50 years old.

Holy shit. He played... The ECHL was around then? Hold on. He played 719 NHL games, and the last team he played for was the Tampa Bay Lightning. Okay. He played the ECHL. And he did, you know.

Oh, man. I'll go eight clues. Eight clues. Okay. Sean? I'm doing math in my head. seven, seven clues. Six.

Five. Okay. Great. Lightning, 50 years old. So 50 you put him right there. And then you're thinking about maybe he ended his career at the lightning.

Or maybe he's currently with the lightning. But he wouldn't be currently with lightning because he's 50. Probably not. Yeah, go ahead and name it, Sean. John. Go ahead and name it, Sean. So for five? Is that what we said? Yeah. For five, yeah. Yep. Okay. So he, his amateur team was both the new Westminster Bruins and the Tri-City Americans of the WHL.

He was a six-foot-three, 224-pound player. He was drafted 19th overall in the 1989 entry draft. by the Washington Capitals, and he played from 1989 to 2009. From 89 to 2009? Oh, wow. But he played only 700-something games? Yep.

Is that correct? Okay. Yeah. So sort of either injuries or was sort of like a part-time up-and-down sort of of guy? Oh, boy. I'm trying to think about that Capitol's draft here. That's a tough one.

I'm thinking, like, I'm thinking defensemen based on the size, although not necessarily. How tall was he? Six foot three, 224 pounds. I have a thought, but I don't know if it's right. Drafted by Washington. Last play for, okay, well, I've already, is it Olaf Colzig? It is Olaf Colzig. Oh, wow.

Oh, okay. That's what I thought. Right, because he had that cup of coffee with him. That's why he only played 700 games. Yes. Okay. I didn't realize he was drafted in 89, though. That's earlier than I thought.

Yeah, he's 50. Yeah, he weirdly, he played two years, two games in 89, 90, and then didn't come back to the NHL, even on a part-time basis, like more than one game until 94. Yeah. So it took a while. Yeah, I was just to say it's so, yeah, it's like a goalie gestation thing. Yeah, that's interesting. But he was, yeah, I knew he was drafted around then because he's the guy that Washington didn't want to lose in the expansion draft when they went out and signed a 50-year-old guy who had played in the 70s to an NHL contract so that they would have an NHL goalie to expose in 92. And, yeah, that was, that was all of Colzig.

I'm mad at myself now for not figuring out that it was a goalie based on the games played. But, oh, well, okay. But yeah, it's, like I said, there are guys, I was going down the list of ECHL alums yesterday, and I was like, damn, there are a lot of fucking players here. Like, you know, plenty of guys who are, you know, barely NHLers, played five games or whatever, but a bunch of guys. I'll just, I'll give you the other two right now. The other two, well, I'm not going to say who they were, but their games played were 863 and a current player who's played 254 so far.

So, Oh, nice. ECHL will occasionally turn out, and I should also say, a lot of them are goalies. A lot of them are goalies. Right, right, right. I guess that makes sense because you get pushed out. Because you're like, yeah, your third, do their fourth stringer down to the East Chilots.

But yeah, so. Well, well, done. Thank you. We welcome sending categories. I'll put something together. I got to say, that was a, I love the format. I got to tell you, man, the amateur teams helped me not at all. I feel like that was.

Right. I mean, that was just... Like I said, these are all just like the things in the top, like, right next to their picture on the hockey reference page. It would have helped me more if you just describe their picture to me. Spind line. Stubble. We welcome... Okay, he's a white guy.

I'm going to say three, maybe four nose breaks, but... We welcome... Name that Pat Falloon to the... the family of Puck Soup game shows, along with Shlemcode and all the other ones. Yes, sending categories. I'll see if they're any good and maybe add them to the rotation for next time. Last order of business on the show today, we usually are doing as a quarantine special, a overrated, underrated, favorite, least favorite for different categories suggested by readers on Twitter.

Adam Jones, which, by the way, was the. original title of the movie Burt, as you know, Lambert, was Adam Jones. I didn't know that, and I've never seen it. I'm a burnthead. A real Larry Crown type of a... Larry Crown, exactly. This is named after a person who you don't know who that is. Oh, correct.

So it means nothing to you, right? He wants to know, overrated, underrated, favorite, least favorite, teenage ninja turtles, I will expand it to any character that appears. appeared on the Turtle's cartoon show, um, or just cartoon? Like, is cartoon show like ATM machine?

Yeah, I think so. We get it. Okay. Uh, overrated, underrated, favorite,

least favorite in the Ninja Turtles universe. Uh, who'd like to go first? I think overrated, you gotta say Leonardo. He's the leader. I don't know. Didn't,

like his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his,

his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, as mentioned in the song. . is that he leads. He leads. But he also had a, I mean, he had a, he had the sword, right?

Was his weapon? He did, yeah. It's pretty good. It's a pretty good weapon. All right. Leo, Leo, it's on the nose, isn't it? Overrated shredder, honestly. Come on.

I mean, in an inept, sub-skeletor-level villain, cool looking, ultimately ineffective, and not as interesting as any of the other villains surrounding him. Overrated. Yeah, he was just a guy in a costume. Yeah.

I didn't really watch this show much. Can I say overrated vanilla ice? Because didn't he do the theme song for... Teenage Ninja Turtles 2. Oh, okay. Yeah. Secret of the Ouse. That's right.

What did the secret of? turn out to be? Was it? It was bad? It was wet. Okay. Yeah, it wasn't great. Underrated,

good Donatello. Like, Donatello is the brains of the outfit. I feel like, you know, there's a lot more, right, he does machines. There's a lot more heat around Raff and, uh, and Michelangelo at all times. And Donatello was just like, look, man, you guys go party and find some pizza. I'm going to stay back here and, you know, fix this time machine or whatever. Uh, and also he, he had a fucking bow staff. like that blind dude in Rogue One.

And that's pretty awesome. So Donatello. Underrated. See, the problem is I remember all these characters, but I do not remember their names. So I got to look up Ninja Turtles alligator guy. Letherhead was the man's name. Was he Cajun? He was Cajun.

I remember that correctly? Yeah. No. And he was always very bad at the name. Ninja Turtles. He was cool. Why, you'll go take my gumbo kind of thing. Yeah, they wanted the gumbo for the pizza.

My understanding. Wow. I honestly was missing out. See, I don't remember much about the show. I have like one actual memory that I'll get to in a minute. But the other thing, whenever someone says Ninja Turtles, I think of that. What's the web comic, XKCD? where they had the one where it was like the pie charts for each

and it was like notoriety as Renaissance artist or Ninja Turtle and like Donatello was the one that was like 90% turtle so I'll go with him I always remember that as being something that really cracked me up. Appreciate you. Appreciate you. Favorite easy one for me, Krang. Yeah, he was cool. The little alien that lived inside the tummy of the big robot man had an amazing voice.

One of my favorite cartoon voices this side of like Star Scream and Cobra Commander was that Cran voice. And I'd go Crang as my favorite Ninja Turtles character. Hmm.

I think I would have to say uh, freaking what's his name? Rocksteady. The, the rhinoceros one. How many characters are in the show? Holy smokes. So, well, I mean, B-Bob and Rocksteady were probably like the Simpsons of classic henchmen.

They're the classic henchmen for sure. All right. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Okay, I never really watched the show, but I do remember, I said I had like one other memory. I remember going to see the movie with my friends. And this is like when we were like teenagers, the first one. And I just remember there was a scene where, and I don't even know his name, but like the mouse or the rat that like, trains them.

Master Splinter? Jesus Christ, man. Thank you. Come on, dude. He's like in a cage, but he's like doing kung fu. And we just laughed our ball. We thought that was the funniest thing we had ever seen for some reason. So I'm going to, I'm going to go.

That's my favorite Ninja Turtle character right there, the little mouse who does karate or kung fu exercises for three seconds in the movie. The master splinter. Yeah. That's what's. fucking name is. What's that? He's the fucking Yoda, Mr. Miyagi of fucking the ninja turtle.

Back in the movie, he was like, this was like when he was a kid or something. Like, it was like a, it was like a, I think what you're talking about is you're, I think you're talking pre-mutation. Potentially. Or like an early mutation. Back when he was just a regular mouse doing karate. So I, I'm currently looking at it on, on, there's two competing, uh, wikikers. for the teenage mutant ninja turtles. And the one I'm on explains that he is the adoptive father and

sensei of all four of the turtles. He is wise, mature, and highly trained in the art of ninjitsu, also known as the honorable rat sensei of the ninja turtles. And you know what? I have to agree. That's a perfect descriptor of what Master Splinter brings to the table. Right. All right.

Last one. Least favorite, Casey Jones. I understand that it's blasphemy to say that Casey Jones is your least favorite. He, of course, was the hockey connection to the Ninja Turtle's universe of it. I mean, as we've talked about before with Splinter, I mean, it is just a costume. There is nothing going on with Casey Jones beyond the costume. And never a fan hated the fact that he had such a big part of the movies, played by the great Elias Cateus, of course. Casey Jones, my least favorite Ninja Turtle universe character.

My least favorite is Michael Angelo. He did not take being a Ninja Turtle seriously. Correct. He was a party, dude. My pick is literally everyone on the show that I haven't mentioned already. All the rest of them are tied for... So you're including Baxter Stockman in that, the mutated fly guy? Did he play in the ECHL?

I think he did. I think you're right about that. That guy who controlled all the rats in the sewers. That guy. Willard? Yeah, so many others. That's a different thing. The terror drone.

That should have been my favorite, actually. I'll fucking love that thing. That thing was really cool. That thing was fucking awesome. Yeah. All right. Well, there you go. That was a really great pop culture thing where Ryan and I are naming things off the top of our head.

And Sean begins every answer with. I didn't really watch this, but... But I remember the one movie I saw way back when. I remember six seconds of it. It is the best. You know, fucking Mando Gecko. Do you remember this, man? He was a Gecko that's skateboarded?

Surprised nobody mentioned Corey Feldman doing the voices of one of the Ninja Turtles in the movie. Oh, is that a thing? Yeah, that was one of the things. He was one of the voices. He might have been even Michelangelo, but... All right, that's a show for this week. My God.

A supersized edition with lots of fun. Um, thanks to nobody. Nobody sponsored us this week. We're going to get a new sponsor next week. That's exciting. And, uh, you can read my stuff in ESPN. I wrote a lot of shit this week. 7,000 words on lines.

3,000 words on Michael Jordan. And then also a thing that ran on Tuesday about, uh, the president of the sharks explaining how the hell we're going to open arenas this, this, uh, winter and, and fall. It's good stuff. Uh, yeah, sign up for the puck. newsletter and the Patreon page has all the good bonus episodes that you could want, including the Top Chef podcast that me, Greg and Ruby do, and also one monthly episode of Stick to Sports with me and Sean Gentilly.

So check it out. Find my stuff on The Athletic. This week, I don't remember what I wrote this week. I did like a quiz thing. It was like a puzzle where I listed a bunch of things. your rosters and then you, based on who was on the roster, you had to figure out what rule I was using to put them together. So if you didn't see that, go check it out because I'm posting the answers on Friday. Awesome stuff. All right, everybody. Thanks for listening and we'll talk to you

next week. Go to the Patreon for the mailbag and talk to you soon. Bye. See it. Bye-bye. commute, but we also cover movies, TV shows, it's in tunes, it's your weekly bowl of Hagi and Nancet. Park two.