Puck Soup - That's Cap

Episode Date: August 2, 2023

Sean and Ryan talk about a couple of recent moves, the salary cap, and free agents, before playing a new game.   Sponsored by Factor (factormeals.com/puck50), Athletic Greens (athleticgeens.com/puck), and Raycon (buyraycon.com/puck)

Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slap shots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to what if you'll commute. But we also cover movies, TV shows, it's in tunes. It's your weekly bowl of hockey and nonsense. I'm Ryan Lambert from Elite Prospects. I'm Sean McIndoo from The Athletic. And, well, it's August. Yeah.

And that tells you everything you need to know about what the show's going to be. Yep, bye, see ya. Next week. When we'll say, oh, it's still August. Anyway, have a good one. We'll talk to you in September. Yeah, there's not a lot going on. I guess there are two bits of news that have come out since we did the mailbag last week

when Sean was on vacation, and me and SG did a big mailbag. and we'll start with the one near and dear to Sean's heart. Matt Murray is going on long-term injured reserve. Yes. And people are mad. People are not having a very chill reaction to someone being so injured that they can't play anymore. Yeah. That never happens.

It's wild. That's never... I don't know. I'm going to tell you, if the league allows... 10 or 15 more of these LTIR things, in addition to the dozens they've already allowed, I'm going to start to think that this might actually be a thing that's just in the rulebook and is considered part of the CBA. I don't know.

How many games did Matt Murray play last season? 20-something. Yeah. So if people aren't following the story, and it's the Maple Leaf, so I can't imagine that there's anyone who's... You're being forced at gunpoint to follow this story. by the people at sports. Yeah.

I mean, it's the backup goalie of the league's most fascinating team, I can't imagine. But the issue here is Matt Murray was hurt off and on all last year. And in fact, the last couple of years. Yeah, I was going to say, not just last year at all. He's always hurt. And towards the end of last season, he was back in the lineup in the regular season, and he got run over and was out of the lineup again. and that was it.

We didn't see him play again. But at the end of the series against Florida, remember, Ilya Simsonov got hurt in game three, and Joseph Wall came in, the rookie with like seven games. And then when it was game four and the Leafs were down three-nothing, Wohl started the game, but Matt Murray dressed as the backup. Right. So in theory, while he did not play, in theory,

he was healthy enough to have played, at least in an emergency situation. And so people are not, I would say, not completely unreasonably looking at this and saying, how could he have been healthy enough to play in April? But now in July slash August, he is not just injured, but is so injured that he is potentially missing the entire season. And I say potentially because the Leafs have not said he's, on LTIR for the whole season. They've just said he's going to be on LTIR to start the year.

But people like Elliot Friedman have said it's for the season. Yeah. He's basically not playing. Right. And I don't know. I feel like I saw it. Now I can't remember, but I feel like I saw some suggestion that like, this might be it.

Might be calling it because he's a guy that hasn't had a lot of games in his career. You know, he can't. stay healthy. He's, you know, the last time he played more than 40 games was 2018, 19. That's four seasons ago. Yep. You know, like. There you go. That was, and was he still with Pittsburgh then? Yeah. Yeah. So four seasons and Pittsburgh. Two teams ago. Yeah. So it, the thing with him is, okay, so first of all, to answer the question of how could he have been healthy in April and not healthy in July, putting aside the fact that people train, people get re-injured, people have surgeries or whatever else, he wasn't healthy in April. He was their third string goalie, and they basically

went to him and said, we need a backup to sit on the bench and not play unless there's an emergency. Like, they weren't going to pull Joseph Walt because he gave up two bad goals and throw Matt Murray in there. It was injury situation only. Can you play? Can you dress and be that guy for us. And, you know, what would you have to be as a player to be able to to fill that role? Like, 80% health, like 75%, you know, something like that, right? And we're talking 80% by end of season standards, because nobody's anywhere near 100% by the time you get to the end of an NHL season. If it's now, so let's say he was 80% in April. If it's now July and August, if he's still 80%, then, yeah, absolutely.

You're like, man, I'm not doing another month of, you know, whatever so that I can show up in September and not be. I mean, the reality is healthy enough to pass the physical in September is not the same as healthy enough to dress in the playoffs. It just isn't. That's how this league choose these guys up. you know, they, the standard for being healthy changes based on circumstance. And there's a ton of guys out there all the time who at any, who are playing in NHL games that at any point, if they didn't want to play anymore, could go to a doctor and say, look at my knee and the doctor would be like, holy crap, you shouldn't be playing on that.

A hundred percent, yeah. So the thinking with Murray is that from his perspective, it makes some sense to, to be okay with this because the alternative was they were going to buy him out. They apparently, they, apparently the Leafs did explore like could they trade him

similar to like they did with Marazic last year, but that didn't seem like something that was going to happen. So it was either this or a buyout. Generally speaking, when a player gets bought out, they come out ahead financially

because they get two-thirds of their money. But in this case, him getting two-thirds of his money, he's not, he gets $8 million this year. It's a $6 million cap hit split between the leaves and senators, but it's $8 million in cash. A third of that is like two points. I think nobody was signing Matt Murray to $2.something million. Sure. All his injuries and everything. So he was going to lose money and he was going to go into this season with health questions and, you know, who knows, he was probably going to get, you know, maybe a third string goalie job, maybe a situation where he could wind up in the HL. This way he gets to take a full.

year, get healthy, presumably, decide whether he wants to come back even, and then next year potentially go into the offseason completely healthy and ready to go. Yeah. It makes sense from his perspective. But people are mad about it because, again, it's LTIR. I guess the thing that makes this different, and I don't know if it's better or worse or neither, but what makes it different from Matt Stone and Nikita Kuturov and Patrick Kane is this is it's not like the Leafs are going to put them on the LTIR all year and then activate them for game one of the playoffs.

Right. This is just them making a cap problem go away, which is allowed under the LTIR. And, you know, the league, Mertl had a piece where he said he talked to the league and they said, like, we have the right to demand medical records and that sort of thing. But the reality is, I think everyone in hockey knows that it's very hard to prove that somebody, is not healthy, especially if it's a situation where Matt Murray is on board with this plan. Sure. What are you going to do? Go to Matt Murray and say, no.

You go out and play. He's like, I feel like crap. I don't want to play. And they're like, well, you have to. I mean, it's tough. I get away people are mad because the Leafs are fun to hate and seeing them wiggle out of a big-ish contract is annoying. But it's the rules. Yeah.

I think the salient thing is like, said, this isn't, this isn't stashing a guy on LTIR who's, you know, a world-class player. And we're just waiting for him because of the salary cap to, uh, it's not like they're delaying a surgery so that the timeline lines up exactly with game one of the playoffs. Yeah, like in an ideal situation, Matt Murray isn't playing game one of the playoffs for the Leafs, right? Like, if he's 100% healthy. I would say that is correct, yes.

If he's 100% healthy, the Leafs aren't like, and of course we've got to get this fucking guy in the lineup. Like, it's not going to happen, right? Let's get a rusty goaltender. I guess the thing is, like, when the Leafs made that trade, we were all like, yeah, maybe like if Murray can stay healthy, but like this is stupid. Like people say, you know, again, they go, well, he's healthy.

And first of all, there's sort of two things to the whole, he was healthy in the playoffs. Apparently he said he was healthy. Like there were some statements made. I don't know if it was a clean-out day or something where he was like, no, I was healthy enough to play. Put that aside. A player saying they're healthy is pretty meaningless.

Of course he's going to say that going into an off-season. The other thing is the fact that he did dress, that is evidence that he was, you know, at least some degree of, had some degree of ability to play. But keep in mind, they were down. them three nothing in a series. And they were like, we're going to go with the guy who's played seven games in the NHL. So that suggests to me that this wasn't a fully 100% ready to go Matt Murray, pretty strongly.

The guy with the, not the guy with two cup rings, the guy with seven games, they're like, that's our guy. I think we can sort of connect the dots that Matt Murray was still in pretty rough shape back then. Yep. Where are you at on the thing? Because the other thing, and being here in all, you know, being here in all, Ottawa, there's a handful of Senators fans in this time.

I was going to ask you the same question. Wow. Yeah. They're mad because, A, they don't like the Leafs, but because they retained, what was it, 25%, 30%, something like that on the trade when they hoodwinked the Leafs into taking this guy. They retained 30%. None of that comes off their cap.

they don't get any cap relief from the Leafs putting this guy at LTIR, even though the Leafs are getting cap relief or will get cap relief once the season starts and they do that whole dance of getting him on LTIR. I guess my reaction to that is that's the risk you run when you make that kind of trade. I don't think anybody was outside of, say, Arizona was really, crying too much for the coyotes when the Oliver Ekman-Larsen trade or a buyout happened, right? And like they're stuck with whatever the number is for eight years or, you know, I don't

remember all the details off the top of my head now, but you know what I mean. Like it's, uh, they're stuck with that money and no one was like the poor, poor Phoenix Arizona coyotes. But the flip side of that would be that the coyotes, we all know are, are happy to just try to reach the cap floor. Sure. This isn't costing them anything. Whereas Ottawa, who had been a cap floor team for a while.

They were going to spend that $1.5 million on the very best player you can possibly imagine. Yeah. But they are going to be a cap, a close to a cap team this year. And they do have some guys they still need to resign. So they could have used that money. Yeah, sure. No, I understand.

The, you know, I got to be honest. Again, it's the risk you run. Yeah. initial reaction was I kind of thought like, yeah, that doesn't sound fair. Like, why do the Leafs have no cap hit on this guy, but Ottawa still does? Like, they should be together. But as it was, as a few people reached out to explain to me, I mean, first of all, the Lease Cap hit, and I know this feels like splitting Harris, the cap hit on Matt Murray doesn't go to zero. It stays where it is. It's just that the Leafs are allowed to now exceed the cap to replace this injured player.

Yes. So Ottawa doesn't need to replace an injured player. They're not replacing Matt Murray. So why should they get extra cap space? And you also get into this whole thing of if the retaining team got cap space back, what happens when he gets reactivated? Like, how does that even work where you've got to, you're beholden to another team to have your cap number go up and down?

And it doesn't really work out. So again, this is what the rules are. This is how it goes. I get why it's a little bit frustrating for fans. out there, but everything here is being done by the book. If you don't like it, change the book. Yeah, and the reason teams don't want to change the book is they do like it. They like having that flexibility and, you know, they can, they might grumble about these

kinds of things even privately, like people who work for teams or whatever, but when it comes time for them to do the same shit, they're going to go, you know, it's a great idea, actually. Yeah. Is putting this guy on LTIR for. forever. Yeah, no shit. It's like how it works. So I, you know, it's business as usual for me. I don't, I can't imagine getting worked up about it, except again, I'm like, like if you hate the the Leafs or the Canucks or who any team that does this, if you hate them, then like,

fucking sure, go nuts. And I do feel like there's a certain segment of fans that have just gotten to the point where if they hear LTIR, they just immediately get their backup. that something, they don't even understand it necessarily fully, but they just know something shady must be going on. But yeah, anyways, if this had happened in June, we would have spent 30 seconds on the conversation we just had. Yeah, you're probably right. It's August, so you guys got 15 minutes of Matt Murray talk.

And I'm sure there's so, slightly more than, I think, than the Leafs got of Matt Murray on the ice. Let's talk about the, we just mentioned the Ottawa Senators. They signed Vladimir Tarasenko. One year, five million bucks. Okay, great. Yeah, that's fine. It feels like disappointing for Teresanko in terms of the money of the terms.

Not necessarily the destination, but potentially, you know, he was one of the guys that fired his agent, right? Didn't he change agents? A few days in. So not hard to figure out that he went into free agency thinking it was going to go better than it did. And instead, he joins the somewhat long list of guys who are going to take their shot again next year. No guarantees, obviously. I mean, Ottawa should be a fun team. He should have a pretty carved out top six role in theory, go out there and put some big numbers up

and then try again. I mean, we saw that with Alex DeBrinke it last year, and it didn't really work. But, you know, unlike that, this is, senators aren't, aren't given up any assets here. And they know, you know, they know the deal. Not bad as a one-year rental. I don't mind it.

No, I agree. Yeah. And a fair price for one year for a guy with that kind of resume. Did you see, I got to find it real quick, but did you see the quote from Pierre Dorian about making this, making this signing. I'll see if I can find it very quickly. No, I did.

Did he say it was the proudest day of his career? No. People were coming up and hugging him. Okay, let me read this to you here. This acquisition brings immediate and additional firepower to our forward group. He's a dynamic forward who's a scoring threat to the opponent when in the attacking zone.

I did see this, yeah. He maintains great vision, has exceptional skill, and a quality shot which helps him score from virtually any part of the ice. He's a consistent performance. former and an underrated playmaker who Senators fans are certain to enjoy watching play in Ottawa. Oh, I'm sorry, that's

what he said when they got Alex to break it. Oh, okay. Yeah. Wait, here's the Vladimir Tarasenko one. Vladimir's a natural goal scorer. He's a dynamic player who can score from anywhere in the offensive zone as well as an underrated playmaker who's made a career out of driving offense

for he and his linemates. An established performer in the playoffs in the regular season, we're thrilled to add a player of his caliber to our lineup. I think you just read the same quote twice. It's the same quote. Yeah. And I bet, you know, you know, my theory is that works out exactly as good. Yeah.

Doesn't that feel like an AI generate? Like, write me a quote about. Well, I saw a senators, I saw a senator's, like an article on some senators' blog or website or whatever that was like, it's hot here, summer 2.0. And it's like, okay. First of all, no, it isn't. Second of all, if it were, how'd the last one go? Did it go good? You're happy with how everything ended up last season?

Well, can I make a counterpoint? You are allowed to, yes. They're a team. You can't say they're not a team. They are a team. Oh, man. Yeah, I just, like, again, is Tarasenko maybe a little bit cooked? Yeah, I mean, you know, he's getting up there.

Yeah, I mean, this isn't. 40 plus goal Vladimir Teresenko that you think you're acquiring at this point. But that guy would cost you $9 million. Yeah, and they got him for five, and that's okay. You know, he'll score 28 goals for them or whatever, you know, and then they'll trade them at the deadline. I'd be surprised short of injury that he doesn't produce up to this contract. And then, yeah, did he get any trade protection?

I can check that for you real quick. It looks like he necessarily matters. Full no trade. Full no trade. But if they're out of the playoff picture or if they're in a selling mode, you know, him heading into free agency isn't going to be like, you know what? I think I'll go down with the ship. Oh, yeah, no shit.

Please trade me to Colorado so I can lose to Seattle in the first round. That's right. Yeah. Yeah, look. I don't know how you. can have a whole lot of optimism for the senators playoff chances, you know, like, again, look at the division therein, even if we think Boston takes a significant step back, you know, they, the senators are a classic team.

They've looked like, like, like, in isolation, if you just look at the senators, you go, yeah, that looks like a playoff team, but then you look at what the playoff looks like, and you go, who's, who are they knocking out? But it'll be somebody, like somebody. Like somebody, there would be an opening that we're not expecting. The question is going to be, is it Ottawa or Buffalo or somebody else who jumps in and takes it? Well, and that is the big issue, is that you're like, oh, well, who do they jump ahead of? It's like, I guess we can say they could jump ahead of, like, Detroit or no.

It was, it was. It's the islanders that they need to pass to get into the playoffs. And the penguins. Yeah, penguins miss the playoffs, but the penguins are in that mix, yeah. Well, no, the Penguins finished ahead of Ottawa last year is all I'm saying. Right, correct, yes. So it'll be a tough sell, I think. And look, I saw a post the other day that said literally every player on the senators is underrated.

And I don't know if that's true. That doesn't feel like it's possible, but okay. Yeah. People just have their little thoughts out there. Still waiting on that Norris season from Thomas Chabon. He's, you know, I tell you, once this kid gets a little bit older and he's, he might get to play with Josh Norris or whatever, you know. Yeah, yeah, there you go.

That's something. All right. There's your, there's your Ontario hockey coverage. That's right. Don't say, don't say we're not doing CanCon out here because we definitely are. Yeah, don't ever let it be said we don't talk about the Maple Leafs on this podcast. I will not. I will not allow that criticism.

Yeah. Yeah, but I think a thing that we're kind of talking around, and we talked about it on the last main episode we did, is the salary cap overall, like broadly speaking, it's got a lot of teams in a weird position, I'd say. There are currently 12 teams that are over the salary cap. and six more within a million dollars of it. And that doesn't include teams like Colorado or Washington or Boston where it's like,

yeah, we're right around that or even over it. But we only have like 22 guys on our 23-man roster right now. You know? And that also doesn't include teams like the Leafs who are going to be able to put guys on LTIR and blah, blah, blah. Yeah, the Leafs are currently, and welcome back to the podcast, Toronto Maple Leafs, by the way. Yeah, that's right. That was a tough 45 seconds there. They're 12 plus million over the cap, but...

Unbelievable. Ten million of that is Matt Murray and Jake Muzin, who is also not going to play. So they're still over the cap by a couple million bucks, even with those guys out. But that's doable. You can, you know, some teams are... under the cap, but they still have like, they only have 18 guys signed. And then there are teams that are over the cap, but they've got 22 or 23. And you go, yeah, but these two guys go down on the minors and you're pretty much there. Yep. But it is, I got to say, it is, it is a weird

list at the top because you look at the teams that are over the cap and you're like, all right, Maple Leafs, Lightning, Avalanche. A lot of talent. A lot of big contracts on those teams. Next team, Montreal. Yeah. And then Vancouver after that. two great teams. Yeah. How the hell is Montreal? Well, I mean, they're way over, but they've got the carry price contract sitting there. So there is.

But still, a lot of space. That's right. Yeah, it's interesting because when we were talking about the lack of an Eric Carlson trade a couple of weeks ago, one of the things we said was like, oh, I bet Carolina would love. to trade for a bad contract so they can make that that deal a little easier for San Jose to swallow. And some people around the league were like, oh, yeah, no, there are a number of teams told me this. There are a number of teams that would like to get bad contracts so they can like facilitate trades of not on the Eric Carlson level, of course, but like that idea. And right now teams just are like, oh, yeah, you can have this shitty contract.

You have like nine first round picks you want to give up for it. And they're like, well, no. It's so bizarre to me. I can't, like, I get it. But the idea that now, like, bad contracts have become assets in some convoluted way is very. It's crazy, but it's true. I remember, like, as I've, as I've said, the NBA is like the one major, league that I never got into.

And I, but I always, you know, I still, I love sports. So, you know, I would follow news of like big, big things happening in the NBA, big trades because I just, I find that interesting. But you'd always hear about like, oh, this team, a trade it for an expiring contract. Oh, that's a great. What a great asset to have. And you're like, is the guy any good? And they're like, no, he's not going to play at all.

But it's, they have a $10 million expiring contract now. And I was like, what? That's, man, is that? And then when Hawkins. hockey's cap came in, you wondered what were we going to get there? And it feels like we kind of are, you know, just the idea of getting. And in the NBA, it was different because there were rules about, like, the salaries had to balance. So if you got, you know, but it was still, it's, yeah, we're just, it, it still feels like even 20 years in to the salary cap era.

God, that's crazy to think about. It's wild. Yuck. And two, well, I mean, we just, we just drafted a bunch of kids who were born in the cap era. I understand that. It's wild. But, you know, we're 20, almost 20 years in, and two CBAs that haven't really changed how the system works. And teams are still figuring this stuff out.

Like, there are still, you know, some sections that haven't, I think, been fully explored and exploited. and let's just say some teams are smarter than others and probably doing some of that. There's probably going to be some moves that you look back on and go, oh, five years later we go, oh, I get what was actually happening there. Yeah, that team was being smart and we all didn't understand.

It could happen. Yep. It's just crazy. Like, even the teams where, you know, San Jose, it says here, there are one, two, three, four, five, six, seven lowest payroll in the league, and they're within $5 million of the salary cap. Yeah.

Right? Like, there's not a lot of, and the teams that do have cap space are pretty much all bad teams. You know, it's not like it used to be where you'd see teams trying to compete. Right. That were 10 million. I mean, Nashville, we don't really know what's going on there. And I guess Buffalo would be. They don't either, yeah.

Yeah, Buffalo would be the other team. But even then, like, they're six million short of the cap. And they can't sign anybody big because their RFA's next summer include Rasmus Dahlene and Owen Power and what's his name, Casey Middlestap. Yep. Yeah, and the Sabres are like kind of, you don't want to say they're done, but they don't have, like, they've got a full roster. They are one of those teams that they're all set to go. So, yeah, I mean, this is, this is, in theory, I know people are sick of hearing about it, the last year of the flat cap world. Yeah.

And this is, it's, we're kind of now into the overcorrection phase, which is fine, because we had an under correction in 2020 and 2021, which allowed us to still have an NHL for a few years. Sure, yeah. So now we're into this weird section where it's going to be like this. And then I don't you get the feeling, though, that like everyone's talking about how the cap's going to, like, shoot up next year. And it's like, it's projected to go up by like four or five million bucks. Right. Like it's not like there's going to be, every team's getting 20 million. This isn't like when the NFL or the NBA signs a new TV deal.

And it's like, all right, every team now has. enough extra money to get two franchise players. It's, I think it's going to be very, especially, like, I mean, there's some teams that are already, and we'll see more of it this summer, like signing guys to contracts that kick in next year, saying, like, well, the cap's going up.

Like, they're already going to be capped out. The cap's going to go up and you're going to be, like, clap your hands and go, good, my favorite team has some money. No, they don't. No, they don't. They're already out. Yeah, it's, um, it's really

it's really tricky because I think a lot of the expectation for like a huge jump forward is because you keep hearing like 90, 92, 92 and a half, you know, whatever the number is. And a lot of that is not for next season, but the one after that where they're like, oh, in 2025, 26, the cap's going to be up like 10 million bucks or whatever. And I, you know, you can buy a lot with 10 million dollars. in this league, but not a lot, a lot, you know? You can buy either one superstar or two pretty good players. That's about it.

Okay. Or what if, what if I gave like an extra $3 million to everybody on my third line? Is that Peter Chiarelli? Have I been? What if I gave an extra $4 million to my, a gritty third pair defenseman? Well, okay. It's what it costs. It's the cost of doing business, Ryan.

Look, you're going to be loyal in this business, you know? That's what I'm always saying. You can't be like Vegas and have a lot of success by just cutting and running the second you got. You can't just collect superstars like Vegas. That's not how this works. That's not, you can't have a bunch of high paid superstars like they've got out in Colorado and still expect to. Well, they just lost Seattle. Everybody knows that.

That's a good point. Why don't we take a break? we'll come back and we'll talk about some more free agency related stuff, I guess. This week's episode of Puck Soup is brought to you by Factor and folks. Summer's winding down, falls almost here. Your days are about to start getting real busy, especially if you have kids.

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and five travel packs with your first purchase. You just need to go to athletic greens.com slash puck. That's athletic greens.com slash puck. Check it out. All right, we're back. I guess the thing to talk about now, we were talking about some teams have some unfinished business with regard to their salary cap and what have you. There are currently 16 restricted free agents who don't have new contracts. I would say the average Puck Soup listener has heard of, I don't know, 10 of them, maybe 12.

There's a few. With all due respect to Declan Chisholm of the Winnipeg Jets, who appears never played an NHL game. He's listening to this podcast right now. He's fuming. He's just crissed. You know what? I take that back.

He played two games for the Jets two seasons ago. There you go. And he seems like he's a good HL player, a lot of points from the blue line. But yeah, anyway, so let's start, I guess, at the very beginning, the very tippy top of the list. it's a bunch of guys from the Anaheim ducks basically. This is why the ducks have like 30 million in cap space. They have to sign Troy Terry, Trevor Zegras, and Jamie Driesdale. Now Driesdale's an easy one just because he barely played last season.

So you don't expect him to be making a ton of money, but Troy Terry and Zegris, like, Terry's coming off a 60-point campaign. Zegra's hit 65. Like, these are important players for this organization. And it'll be interesting. I don't know if you saw when Greg Cronin got hired as their coach, but he was like, basically like, we're going to have Trevor Zegra's cutting out that hot dog and shit, basically.

Oh, did he say that? Yeah, more or less. I'll see if I can find the quote again. But I just remember being like, this is like the first thing you say when you come into the organization is like the most, like the most. popular player in the league, we're going to be, we're going to be mad at him? What the hell? I hate this stuff, but yes, I absolutely, that is, that is what you do. So now, okay, you're

going to have to walk me through this because I don't, I will admit, I still, one of the areas that I still get a little fuzzy on is like, who's eligible for arbitration and who is, and who's going and who is in. Troy Terry. Older players, tend to be, tend to be, okay, here's the quote. If you're going to be talented,

you've got to be responsible in all three zones. I think our challenge is a way to get him to play a three zone game and be responsible away from the puck. And you know what that means?

No more of this. Hot dog is shit. Stop having fun. Knock it off. Yep. So Troy Terry, he asked for $8 million. Was that the...

Yeah, something like that. Yep. Let's see if I can find it. And the Ducks replied by I asked by, you know, they offered him like 1.2 million or something. That's right, yeah. And some very smart arbitrator will add those two numbers up and divide by two.

Now, you say that. Did you see what happened with Jeremy Swayman yesterday? It was not quite divide by two. The arbitrator gave Swainman an extra 75K. Yeah. Which you're not allowed to do that. Huge win, man. That's crazy.

So player 8 million on Troy Terry, team 4.5. So congratulations on your $6.25 million contract. Yep. And that, honestly, for Troy Terry, feels a little rich, if I'm being honest, but... The big thing here is, again, like the ducks, first of all, they have a ton of cap space. Even with these guys unsigned, they have... They're not tight against the cap. And relatedly, they stink and are going to stink this year.

So this isn't really a case of like, man, we got to squeeze this guy for, you know, a little bit of money here or there. It's really the question of what do we want to do? Does it make sense to do a short-term arbitration deal? Does it make sense to do something longer? If so, what's that number? And Zegras especially, who is not going to arbitration where it's, is this where we do the eight-year deal? Is this where we do something shorter? and we've talked to death over the summer about, and beyond,

about young players betting on themselves versus just taking the eight-year deal and how that tends to work out really well for the teams. I'm sure Pat Verbeek is probably, with Ziegers especially, trying to, you know, hey man, eight times eight million. Isn't that the going rate for these guys? I mean, you don't want to make more than Jack Hughes, but let's get that out.

Well, he's interesting because Zegris is like a good player. As his new coach has alluded to, he's not a complete player by any means. But like, for all to talk about Trevor Zegris, like, he's a 20-goal 60-point guy on a team that we say it all the time. Somebody's going to fucking put the puck in the net for these guys, right? As a 21-year-old. Yeah, right. But I think my point. is that like, based on how much he gets talked about and how much he's in highlight reels and

stuff like that, you're like, well, that's like a nine and a half million dollar player. And it's like, is he closer to seven? For a guy who was on the cover of the last NHL game. Totally. But the counterpoint to that would be he's three years into his career. Yeah. He's coming up as ELC, which is so weird to think about. And Jack Hughes, three years into his career, had maxed out it.

26 goals and 50-something points. Totally. And then he blew up. And now that looks like an absolute steal of a contract. So again, it's this kind of which direction do you bet on. But you're right. Like it's, you know, if I'm Trevor Zegaris, and again, it's always so easy to say this from the outside. But I'm saying, yeah, if you want eight years, then I want 10 million a year.

because of all the factors that are likely to me. And if you want something smaller, then we do two or three years and we try again. And, you know, I'll keep betting on myself. But that tends not to be the way it goes. Troy Terry is a little bit different, I feel like, just because he's an older guy. He's not old, but he's 25, about to turn 26.

Like, he's not a guy that you look ahead and say, well, he's been, he said basically two good years in the NHL, which is fine. That's two, he had the big goal scoring year, the year before last. 60 point guy doesn't project, unlike Zegrores,

like you don't look ahead and go, yeah, but he could jump and be a 90 point guy. Like 25-year-olds usually don't do that. Now, he's not surrounded by a ton of talent, but as you say, also somebody's got a, somebody's got to score for a team.

So that one's tougher. I could see them just saying, You know, you never want to go to arbitration, but I could see them saying, like, let's do something shorter and keep figuring it out as we go. But Zegra's is, that's the tough one. Yeah, I think, you know, it's the thing everybody's doing. He can either go eight and get $8 million, $7.5, something like that. Or he could go like $2 and get like $4 or $5 million. I think I yeah even even that I might yeah I mean that that's he only scores 23 goals a year you know like it's

I'm very very happy if I'm Pat for Beacon Anaheim to do if I can do eight years at a number that's close to eight I oh totally I am very happy to make that though yeah very happy to make that because again like every every contract you got to look at the long-term ones like what's the upside what's the downside and the downside is he absolutely might not live up to that you know he he could be he could settle in and just be a 25 goal 60 to 70 point guy who's not super great defensively and maybe not feel like he's worth that money but given his skill level i don't see like the floor to me is not that far below that $8 million number versus the ceiling is you wind up with another Jack Hughes or Tim Stutzel or these guys who have contracts that already have barely started and already look like ridiculous bargains. Right.

Montreal fans are mad that I'm not mentioning Nick Suzuki right now. That's right. One of the best there ever was. Yeah, let's move on from Anaheim because, uh, I think maybe the biggest one in terms of like the actual impact they're expected to have on the team is in Edmonton with Evan Bouchard. Yep. You could tell me that kid makes four and a half million bucks next year. You could tell me that kid makes, you know, nine.

And I guess I couldn't be surprised either way. They gave him Darnell Nurse $9 million. Well, and this is it though, because the the Darnell Nurse thing hangs over this. because remember how that happened, right? Yeah. They had Darnel Nurse coming off his entry-level deal, looking very good, looking, you know, I'm not going to say it was the same situation as Evin Bouchard,

but the young defenseman was looking like an up-and-coming guy. They had the opportunity to do something long-term. They chose not to because they wanted to have money for the Zach Cassians of the world. And so they gave Darnall Nurse a sure. shorter-term deal, he continued to improve, then they gave him the big giant contract that now looks like a mistake. But they could have avoided, by betting on him earlier, they could have something much more reasonable, but they chose to kick the can down the road a little bit, and it costs them

a lot. You wonder how much that plays into the Evan Bouchard thinking, because, again, now it's not so much that you've got to give the money to the Zach Cassians. It's just that the money isn't really there. So how do we find the money to bet on this guy now versus do we make the same mistake of just going to him and saying, not even the same mistake, but do we make the same play and say, we just don't have very much? So let's do something that's two or three years, knowing that in a few years, maybe that ends up costing you a lot. Yeah, it's tough because that darnel nurse contract goes on for a long, as, as we're, as,

we say on this show or is I guess Sean is really the one who says it a lot but when you get the little red arrow next to your name on Cap Friendly that's bad. That's usually pretty bad more often than not I don't know like Bouchard

looked really really good especially in the playoffs but what I am thinking with that is that he kind of gets the Darnell nurse thing where it's like well guess who he's playing behind you know all you're going to do is get the puck up the ice you're going to you're going to rack up a bunch of assists

yep and I guess what I would say is I like Evan Bouchard better at this age than I liked Darnel nurse and so maybe you have a little more especially he's a right D and they're the other right D on that team are not great let's say um so so you can just just play him up higher in the lineup more comfortably, but at the same time, it's just, you know, you don't, you don't want to just be like, well, you play with Connor McDavid and Leon Drysidal a lot, so here's your $8 million bucks. Because then, you know, you got a bunch of guys who play with those guys, you know. So it's a real, it's a really tricky situation.

I think for him especially, and at this point, in his career and where the cap is and stuff like that. It makes sense to go shorter term for like, I don't know, whatever, four million bucks. What are the oilers having cap space right now? I don't even know. They have three and a half million dollars before they send anybody down or anything like that. So, yeah, I think you give this guy four million bucks for two years and then Cody CCC's

off the books and that sort of stuff. you know, I think it's doable. And I don't know how you would make it work long term. So that's the big move. And, you know, unlike a lot of other questions that we talk about when it comes to cap, this falls into the nice problem to have a situation. So he's a good player. Yeah, he's a good player, for sure.

The only other one that's like really like a huge interesting thing for me, I guess, is Lafrenier in New York needs a new deal. Which this has to be a short-term deal. It has to be, yes. There's no way. I talk about upside-downside on a deal, like all over the map. There's no way you can get anywhere close on a long-term, like seven or eight-year deal with this guy that.

Why, if you're the Rangers, would you want to get this guy locked up long-term, given that you don't know if he's any fucking good at all. Unless it's a very cheap deal, like, you know, which I can't. Like, there is a scenario where it makes sense, right? This is, you have to bet on yourself because you haven't done anything. It is going to be a bet because if you just sit there and, I mean, you know, the alternative to betting on yourself is to look at your numbers and say, I will continue to do this.

Please pay me this for eight years. And that's going to get Lefranier, like, low third line money. So, right. He's not taking that. It is interesting because I think it was a Larry Brooks column earlier this summer was like, one of the things Peter Levely has to do now that he's the coach of the Rangers, for people who don't remember that.

Yeah, he's the coach of the Rangers. Oh, right, yeah. Is find a way to get your cacos and your, and your Lefrennier's like power play time, basically. because I remember we talked about this during the season of like, oh, they had another disappointing year and it's like, they don't touch the ice during the power play. All they're scoring, and they do, you know, for guys who get like middle six minutes, like 39 points is what Lefringer had last year. Like to do that at five on five is actually not bad, you know, and to do it in relatively limited minutes. Like, honestly, you take that.

from a 21-year-old most of the time, right? Like happily. And the problem is, obviously, he went first overall. Kako was second overall. And, you know, they get hyped up a little too much, and then everybody's like, well, they only have, like, 15 goals or whatever. And we're just as guilty of it as anybody else, right? But it's only interesting because you don't know why these guys could produce

if they got power play time because they don't get power play time and the way the Rangers roster is constructed, why should they? Right? Like they haven't done enough to like command playoff time or power play time.

And so you're going to be like, well, I guess we'll take this guy who should have been the MVP a couple years ago. We'll take him off the power play. We'll let Lafrenna hop on there instead. Like you're just not going to do it. No.

And it is like, I know a lot of Rangers fans would point the finger at Gerard Gallant and say this was not a good coach for young guys. I would agree with them. And I would agree. It does kind of feel like a little bit wishful thinking to be like, oh yeah, changing coaches is going to suddenly turn our players. Totally agree with that. And yet, ask a Sabres fan whether it ever works. because the crap the switch from

Ralph Krueger to Grado is just revitalized a lot of players Yeah but I think I guess I guess my counterpoint to that would be Ask a Washington fan how they felt The one and a half young guys on that roster

Got handled last year You know Not good would be I think their answer I would agree with that So interesting to see and you know obviously with Lefranier

it's you know we with any of these guys these are young kids and we all we just look at the numbers and the on the ice stuff and there there can also be other things that that play into it and I think if you're the Rangers you want to

still have belief in the kid but make him prove it to you at this point I don't think you're buying unchecked optimism the way that you normally would with the first overall pick anymore. For sure. Yeah, other than that, like Kael and Addison, that's a player I like a lot, but I don't

think most people are getting up for a defenseman who plays like 16 minutes a night. They're not going to have a lot of hard and fast opinions. Rasmus Kupari and Logan Stanley and Winnipeg only interesting because they still need to make a goalie change in Winnipeg. Allegedly. That's kind of gone away, hasn't it? That talk. Well, so I was thinking about this last week when they were saying about, oh, what's

going to happen with Jeremy Swayman's arbitration and all that kind of stuff. Obviously, we know the answer now. But the thing that I kind of put out there as like, this is what I'd maybe be thinking about being around. And I said this on the mailbag last week. So anybody who listened to that, I, you know, I apologize for repeating myself. But we do it a lot on the show. So what do you care?

But it was, the Bruins should trade either Swamen or Almark, probably Swainman, given the financials and whatever, to Winnipeg for Mark Schifley. And then they, Winnipeg has the goalie that allowed. them to trade Connor Hellebuck for a skater or futures or whatever, you know? That was the idea that I had. Done deal. Yeah. It won't, though. So don't worry about that. It's not going to happen at all.

But it could. But it won't. And then, yeah, is there anybody else on this list? Shane Pinto? Do we have any big Shane Pinto takes? No, I don't. Yeah. Morgan Frost is a guy where it just seems like, uh,

everybody in Philly's just like, yeah, whatever happens with that happens. Yeah. I don't know that he has a ton of super passionate supporters at this point in his career, but he's like a decent enough player, I guess. Mm-hmm. It'll be interesting to see what he gets,

but I don't really have a big take on it. Yeah, where was he picked? He was... He was relatively high. He was a first round pick, but... First rounder, right. And six years, years ago. So it's kind of getting to that

stage. Yeah, he's like 24, 23, something like that. He's older than you think given that he's really only had like the one full year in the production. Yeah. And then, yeah, there is still some unsigned UFAs out there, I believe, that are you know, we touched on it a little last time when we were talking about Matt Dumbah in particular. But, like, these are, you know, decent enough NHL players who were just, like, not getting a look at all.

Dumbah's the one that really stands out. I mean, Kane and Taves are the big names, but those are different situations. We're not expecting those guys signed. Right. But with Dumba, it does seem, I think we said this last time, I don't remember. It does seem like the Carlson thing, like teams that would be in on Carlson are like, oh, we'd like to get Matt Dumba as a backup plan. He does feel like the guy where it's like the music has stopped and he's the guy without a chair among the bigger names.

Tarasanko is the other one. And like if you're Matt Dumba now is you're almost certainly looking at a one-year deal unless you're willing to really take a discount, which we've seen guys do. We've seen guys, you know, take that four-year, four-million dollar deal. and it's just it's up to up to the player on what they prioritize at this point. But clearly this hasn't gone the way you would have hoped it would if you're him or his accountant. Yeah, that's right. The other guy that I guess this kind of happens every time he's out of contract is Thomas Tatar. Sure.

Closing it on 50 points last season. Played for a good team. Mm-hmm. And, yeah, nobody's interested right now, I guess. I don't, yeah, I think that's somebody will get a good player on a cheap one-year deal and probably trade him at the deadline to a contender. Yeah, or, you know, this might be a thing where it's like, yeah, we'll give, yes, a pull you, RV a tryout offer for training camp.

And then we'll sign him for $1.2 million. Yeah. Yeah. We're not quite into like PTO time, but getting there. We are getting there. That's always fun. Yeah. It really is, yeah.

That's PTO time is when NHL general managers play remember some guys. A hundred percent. Yeah, that's right. You know who else doesn't have a contract right now is a little surprising? Ethan Baer didn't get a qualifying off. But isn't he hurt? Isn't he out until like December or something, I thought? Oh, is that?

I guess I might have missed that. Yeah. Or I might just be making stuff up, but. Let's double check on that. I thought he was out for a little. It's possible, yeah. Well, he just got married recently. Good.

Hey, so did Mitch Marner. That's right. Did you see Mitch Warner hit the gritty at his own wedding? Boy, wow. And then, oh, dude, you got. Oh, yeah, you're right. Ethan Bayer out six months after shoulder surgery. Oh, you can get married, but he can't play in the NHL?

Yeah, okay. So Mitch Warner, Mitch Marner hits the gritty and then pulls up lame and fakes an injury before resuming the gritty. Ha, ha, ha. Oh, NHL players. And then, I don't know if I then. These guys were incorrigible. There was this one guy on, on, on, in the comments. section or Twitter who

made a hilarious joke about how Mitch Marner, this is the only time he's going to get a ring. You get it because like you get a ring when you win the Stanley Cup. Oh, you do? Is that true? Yeah. So like this is, but you also get a ring when you get married. So it's like the two

similar things. Is it the same ring? I don't know because I've only done one of those things. So I'll look it up. I'll look it up during the break. That's right. All right. Why don't we take another break, we'll come back, and Sean has a little quiz for me. Allegedly. This week's episode of Puck Soup is brought to you by Raycon, and folks, summer's winding down, but August is still summer, and you can keep that summer state of mind going.

You know, well into the autumn, especially with all the season creep we're having these days. You know what I'm talking about? Lately, I've been listening to some bands I saw live earlier this summer, the hold steady, the mountain goes. Dillinger 4, all that kind of thing. Really excited to see all those bands of summer and then keep revisiting them, thanks to various playlists I've put together. And that's where Raycon has come in, so clutch for me. I've said it before.

I pop them in when I'm taking my dog for a nice long walk around lunchtime, and really, especially with the weather getting a little cooler around here lately, it's been a real joy to just have them, have my, have my, songs going and just enjoying the better weather, some time with the dog, getting some exercise, all that sort of thing. It's all going great. So you can believe me when I tell you this, Raycons are the best way to listen. They have earbud tap functions to toggle between three customizable sound profile, noise isolation and awareness mode. Raycons have a 32-hour battery life, including eight hours of playtime, so you can listen to what you want, when you want,

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because he has come up with a little quiz to kill some time on this podcast. That's exactly what I've done. And it is a little quiz. This is, this will be a quick one. Okay. This is a brand new game. Whoa. And it's inspired by the bonus episode that we did earlier this week,

where we did the reverse puckdoku on the paper. Patreon. If you're not a subscriber to the Patreon, this is a sort of fun bonus stuff that you're missing out on, where you and I and Greg got together and it was basically a fun game where we were supposed to do a certain kind of reverse Pugdoku. Greg, it will shock people to learn,

misunderstood the rules, and did it wrong. But by doing it wrong, he ended up with something that was still kind of cool and worked out well. It was a task-filled successfully moment. And anyways, that bonus episode just got me into thinking about like the overlapping of players and figuring out what players have in common. So I've come up with a game that I have uncreatively named, joined the club. And the way it's going to work is this. I am going to give you a list of three players who all have something in common.

Okay. They are part of a club. Something reasonably exclusive. It's not, you know, oh, they're NHL players or they, you know, it's something. Sure. Something that's a relatively exclusive. You will try from those three guys, you, Ryan, as well as you, the listener, who can play along, will try to figure out or guess what club.

Those three guys belong to. If you can't get it, I will then offer you the name of the most recent person to have joined the club. And if you further can't get it from there, the last clue I will give you is the most famous person who is a member of that club. Okay. Makes sense? It does, yeah. Let's give it a show. We'll start with the one.

I've got five questions for you. So like I said, this shouldn't take too too long. But for example, let's do, I'll do this one first. I'm going to give you the three players, and they are T.J. Oshy, Pierre Turjean, and Adam Oates. You've got to try to figure out what club these guys belong to. These guys have, I'm not sure about Pierre Turgeon here, but these guys have at one point or another. led the Washington Capitals in assists for a season. That's, you know what?

They absolutely may have, but no, I don't think Peerturgent ever played for the... That's, yeah, I was like, I don't think that's true. So I'm going to give you the most recent member of this club. And actually, for this question, there's probably a few guys who could qualify for most recent. But I'll give you probably the best known of those, which is Kirby Doc. joined this club in this past season. Hmm. By the way, shout out to everyone listening

who's making the three guys who've never been in my kitchen joke. Yeah. That's a good one. We hear you. So we've got T.J. Oshy, Pearturejan, Adam Oates, and now Kirby Doc has just recently joined the club.

This is tough for it. I don't know. It's a little tough. I'll give you the, Let's go on to most famous. And for this one only, I'm giving you the option. Do you want the most famous player ever? Or would you like the most famous current player in this club?

Ever. Most famous ever is Ray Bork. Oh, do they all wear 77? You got it. Yeah, I'm really, I'm not great with remembering who wears what number. Okay. I remember Oshy. If you would, with a gun to my head,

what number does Kirby Doc wear? Yeah, he switched over on the way on the way. I had no idea. I just, that is information that flows straight through me. Yeah. So, that, anyways, that gives you a sense of how it works. Let's go to another one. All right, I'm going to give you three players.

Shane Donne, Jeff Skinner, and Nazim Cadry. Jeff Skinner Nazim Codry Um Three people that Sabres fans have wanted to Strangle at some point probably But that would not be the Well I was going to say

Guys who were secretly dirty players But like Nazim Codry obviously that's not so secret Wasn't much of a secret no Yeah And Shane don't of course never did anything wrong So that couldn't be An option either

Hall of Famer Late 37 seasons had 600 points. Lord willing, yeah. Give me another. I'll give you the most recent. This one should help, let's just say. Matt Faye Mitchcove just joined this club. Oh, what number was he drafted?

Was he drafted seventh overall? You got it. Seventh overall picks, yeah. I would say the most famous I was going to give you Ryan Suter, but I had a feeling you would not need to. No, no. That was, that would, honestly, that wouldn't have helped me. I couldn't have told you what number right.

It's only because it was the, Ryan Stewart was the 2003 draft. Sure, yeah. Famous draft. All right. Next one up. Okay, I'm going to give you three players here. Anton Strollman, Gary Roberts, and Dan Boyle. I don't, I don't, give me another hint.

So the most recent, I don't know if this will help or not, but the, a guy who fulfilled all the requirements, of joining this club in the last year. His name is Rudolph Spousers. Give me the original three players again. Sorry. The original three players were Anton Strawman, Gary Roberts, and Dan Boyle. Okay.

I know Dan Boyle was undrafted. I can't imagine. Was Gary Roberts undrafted? No, he wasn't. I didn't think so. Um, Hmm. All right, give me one more.

I got to ask you, do you know who Rudolph's balcers is? Uh, he played, he played for, uh, he was in a, he was in the Carlson trade, right? I think he played for the sharks and the senators. Am I right about this? You know what? Yes, he was. Yeah. That's fantastic.

Look at you. I am good at remembering who was in trades, which is a crucial skill. for a puckd open. I never, I did not make that connection at all. He was in that trade. Yeah. Wow. Very good.

That's like why I know who he is, I would say. That's like his claim to fame in my book. Yeah. And he, and this is what was confusing me. He was in that trade to Ottawa from San Jose, but then the sharks got him back from the senators on waivers. none of which has anything to do with what we're looking for here. I assumed that would be the case.

It would be quite the misstep to... Yes, to give that all the way. Would you like the most famous player in this club? There's actually a couple, and one of which I think might give it away. I'm going to say the most famous member of this club. Yeah, is Jonathan Marciussoe. Huh. And I will give you the...

The bonus six name as well. Sure. I'm struggling. Carter Verhage. So we've got Anton Strauming, Gary Roberts, Dan Boyle, Rudolph Ballasters, Jonathan Marcia, so Carter Verhagy. I straight up can't, I can't think of it.

All right. Last chance for the listeners to yell at the answer out. Yes, I'm a buffoon, I suppose. The answer, these are guys who played for both of the Florida teams. See, I couldn't have told you that Rudolph Ballsters played for either of the Florida teams. See, the reason is he played for those two teams last year. He split his 2020-22-23 season between those two teams.

Didn't play a ton. Good for him. But was picked up off waivers by the lightning from the Panthers. Huh. So that was, and if you knew that, it would help. And if not, it would not help at all. By the way, as I was looking this up, do you know, at least according to the new hockey reference tool that you can look this stuff up.

Do you know how many players have played for all three California teams? It's got to be a decent number, I guess, right? According to hockey reference, it's zero. Really? Doesn't that feel wrong? Like, I almost want to go back and check that. But I looked, because that was before I did this one, I looked up like, oh, that would be a good one, guys who played for all three duck, sharks, and kings.

And it came back and said, nobody. that's yeah like I said I would have thought it would be not like a huge number but like six or seven guys maybe just with the way you know again this is this is just uh puckdoku teaching us valuable lessons in our lives but like you would you would just think that like based on how backup goalies bounce around yeah because i mean this is like i understand there's a rivalry there but it's not like it's i mean you've got 30 years of history to work with now. That's what I'm saying. I'll dig into that a little bit more.

Okay. We've got two more to go. This one, I'm going to give you the three names to start with are Mark Andre Fleury, Thomas Grice, and Corey Crawford. And I'm going to say that in looking at this, even as putting it together, this is, this one is the hardest question and it's probably too hard, so I'm going to give you an additional hint. if you would like it.

Well, I'm doing so well with the easy ones. Well, you got a couple of them. This is obviously we're dealing with goaltenders, and this is dealing with something these goaltenders did on the ice, as opposed to a fact about them or, you know, jersey numbers or drafts or anything like that. All three of these goalies did something, and in fact, I'll go one more. they all three of them did something in the playoffs that is a relatively exclusive club. They all gave up, I don't know, seven goals without getting pulled.

I don't know. No, they did. They may have, but the, uh, uh, did, what did he give up in that game to debacle? Yeah, that's what I was thinking of. That, that, the most recent, the most recent, the most. recent one to do it, which was this year, is Ilya Sampsonov did something in the

playoffs that not a ton of goaltenders have done. But he, Mark Andre Fleury, Thomas Grice, and Corey Crawford have all done it. And I will tell you that... Give me another one. Yeah, and the most famous, this is not the most famous goaltender in the club, but I think this is the most famous example of somebody

doing this in the playoffs. Mike Richter. Huh. And I can tell you, Mike Richter did this in the Stanley Cup final. Thomas Grice, I believe, did it in overtime, which is why I have him there. And Corey Crawford did it in a game seven. So that's why they may be memorable.

Gave up a goal from Center Ice? No. And in fact, it's the opposite of giving up a goal. They made a save in a certain situation. Think about Mike Richter's arguably most famous save, although this was a little bit before my time. But I guarantee you've seen this moment. even though it was before your time. Like made a last second save, like a buzzer beating save, basically?

No, although that's pretty good one. Flurry, yeah. Do you want me to give it to you? Yes, please. These are guys who, goaltenders, who stopped a penalty shot in the playoffs. Okay. Mike Richter famously stopping Pavel Burray in the Stanley Cup final in 1990. It's a pretty good guy to stop if you're going to do it.

Honestly, at the time, we were all like, oh, that's a guaranteed goal. like it was lock it in it felt wrong like he stopped him and it was like there's that's you can't do that simssonov did it in the playoffs this year uh and yeah no recollection of that whatsoever honestly i barely have any recollection of it and it's my team but core crawford was the game seven against uh uh the canucks he stopped alex burroughs in the third period of of a game seven and grice i think stopped barkov maybe in overtime anyways Last one. I'm going to give you three names.

Chris Pronger, Ray Ferraro, and J.S. Giger. Did they win the Conn Smythe despite being on the losing team? No. Also, they, Giger did. Pronger maybe should have. Yeah, that's what I was thinking of. It's a good case. One of those years, Pronger drag some dog shit team kicking out screaming to a cup final.

That's just kind of what he did. Yeah. It really is. It is. So it's Pronger Ferraro. Who is the other one? J.S.G. Gear.

J.S. Gare. Okay. This feels like it has something to do with the ducks. I don't know if Ray Ferraro ever played for the ducks now that I say that. I'm not sure Ray Ferraro knows. He played for a lot of teams. That's kind of why. But it is not.

Yeah. It's not. Okay. I don't know, is it like Olympics related? No, it's not. I'm going to give you the most recent, which will not help you at all. Put it this way. I'll be super impressed if this helps you.

I will even allow you if you want to go to this guy's like elite prospects page. Because it's a guy by the name of Askat Rachmatulin, who I promise you nobody has heard of other than Ascot. Rock. Yeah, that's a guy I've straight up never heard of. I don't know. That's not helping me at all. No, it would. All right. I'll give you the most famous. And hopefully this will put this together. The most famous member of this club is Ron Francis. Played for the Whalers, it feels like maybe.

I will give that to you. These guys were all Hartford Whaler draft picks. Okay. Pronger, famously the number two, Ron Francis, the Hall of Famer, Ferraro and Gigerr. Didn't know that about J.S. Chaguerre. Yeah. And then our friend Ashkat was the last of them. It was like a seven-per-round pick in 1996 and did not make the NHL. But he showed out to Ascot.

You know, he got drafted. Last guy to ever do it. That's pretty cool. Fun trivia fact there about our old buddy. And I think the last guy, was it Craig? Not Craig Smith. I'd have to go back and look at it. The guy who also had an 82 game season with no goals as a forward,

one of those miscellaneous Craigs. Like not Craig Adams, I don't think, not Craig Smith. He was the last Whalers draft pick to play in the NHL. But I figured that wouldn't help you anymore either. Nope, probably not. Especially because you don't know the guy's name. That would have been a real. You can look up more about Ascat Rachmatoolin at the website.

Completely not elite prospects? That's right. Mediocre prospects. All right. So that was the game called... Prospects question mark? Yeah. That was the game called Join the Club.

You will never hear it again. I think that's a good game if you're better at like older hockey trivia than I am. I guess. Yeah, I, yes, that's potentially the case. Because I don't know, like, I, I destroyed Pukdoku today. I fucking killed it today. Okay, I've barely looked at it other than it had the Leafs and Habs, and I got to use, I'd been waiting to use Bill Root as my Leafhab guy, and I think I got a 0.0 on it.

But other than that, what is destroying it for you? Like, what was your, what was your, Well, I just got it done in like five minutes. I didn't have to really think about anything at all as I was going through it. But let me see. Yesterday I got a 0.0 and now I don't remember who it was, but I felt very proud of myself. I think it was my first 0.0. Very good.

Well, I'll see if I can find it really quickly. I got a couple. Oh, I had Patrick Eves as an American who played for the ducks. and that was a 0.0. You know what? I just saw pop up. Our buddy Taylor Dixon is profiled in the athletic today.

Wow, look at that. The guy who made Puckdoku. Look at that. I'll be damned. Good for him. And good for Ian Mendez for scooping us. Yeah, that's right.

Yeah. If only there was an athletic writer with access to Taylor Dixon who would have thought of, oh, look at that. Yeah. You got anything to plug, Sean? Not really.

I mean, I'm writing about once a week in the summer. Same here. I got a mailbag this week. In fact, it's a long mailbag. And I get into a bunch of very weird questions, including one question about Puck Dooku. So my strategies and the different ways to play are in there. But other than that, it's pretty quiet. Yeah, same here.

I just wrote about how I kind of realized over the weekend, like, oh, we're probably like not going to get a goalie winning the MVP award, like maybe ever again. Because, like, if Sorokin couldn't win it at any point in the last few years, because of McDavid, like, understandably so with, you know, McDavid, this guy's pretty good, you know, I get it. But I was just like. like,

uh, McDavid and then Badaard, like these guys that are completely going to break the game offensively. You know, like, I think Sorokin last year or the year before had like one of the two or three best goaltending seasons,

uh, like in the cap era and didn't even fucking get a sniff at it, right? Mm-hmm. And it's like, yeah, if,

you know what? If he can't do it then, who can. And when, you know? So I wrote about that, and it's pretty interesting how goalies just get undervalued in the league, or at least, you know, by voters, maybe not so much by teams and stuff like that, obviously. But anyway, yeah, that's over at EP Rinkside.

Use the code, I love EP at checkout for a annual subscription. They will tack three free months on at the end of year 12. So that's a nice bonus for you. And then patreon.com slash puck soup, and you will get all the bonus stuff, including the episode we did just the other day with Greg about a reverse puckdoku and that sort of thing. So yeah, always stuff going on over there, even if it's, you know, the off season and that kind of thing. You're getting a lot of content. Thanks for listening, everybody. And we'll see you again in a few.

weeks. I don't know what the schedule is. Stay tuned, I guess. Bye, bye. Sounds good. Bye, everyone. Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slapshots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to what if you commute. We also cover movies, TV shows, it's and tunes.

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