Puck Soup - The Answer's in the Room

Episode Date: December 17, 2024

Sean and Ryan talk about the latest with the Sabres and Canucks, the playoff bubble, and more. Sponsored by Gametime (download the Gametime app and use code PUCK for $20 off) and Factor (factormeals.com/puck50)

I'm Ryan Lambert from Elite Prospects. I am Sean Magnu from The Athletic. And look, we have to start today on a somber note. It's sad but true. Major League hockey, that famous three-on-three league we all loved for so many years and was definitely real. It's no more. No. Did you hear about this?

I haven't heard this. You're breaking this news to me right now. Yeah. No warning. They put out a statement apparently like a few days ago, honestly. December 12th, they put it out. We're recording this on the 17th, of course. Max Chambers, CEO of Major League Hockey Corporation,

reports that the proposed three-on-three hockey league will cease operations immediately as of December 12th, 2024. And then it's actually, there is actually sad news because the guy in question has cancer, he says. Ah. And so, you know, it's in his best, this is another quote. it's in his best personal interest to concentrate on his battle and recovery. The time commitment to continue with Major League hockey will not be possible.

So, yeah, hey, look, that part's a shame. I really thought that league was definitely going to happen. Yeah. So congrats, I guess, to all the people who, you know, stocked up on the merch when they had the chance, the MLH bottles of wine and whatnot. Yeah. Now, did all the players who signed like million-dollar contracts did they, like hopefully they had signing bonuses and all of that.

Yeah, I mean, look, there were multiple front offices completely filled out and everything. It's got to be so awkward. This is verified independently by... Connor McDavid was all ready to sneak away and now he's got to... Yeah. I can't believe it's not real. Yeah. Well, I mean, I don't know.

I feel bad making fun of it if the guy is ill. But also, this was fake. This was never going to happen. Right. Yeah. So I didn't, in full confession, I didn't, I only saw someone like post, oh, it turns out it's fake. Yeah, no shit, you know. Yeah.

I didn't see. What a twist. What a twist indeed. Too bad. Look, I'll say this. I wish it had been real. Yeah. That would have been fun.

That would have been a little fun thing to watch during the, during the, during the, during the, holiday season? Because it was supposed to start around now, I think. And also, you know, I've never really experienced this as a hockey fan, but as a history nerd, I know that hockey's been through it and football as well in the 80s. Like two competing leagues stealing each other's players away can be very fun. I got to tell you, I don't think there would have been too much competing. Yeah. still, you know, right, because Major League Hockey had all the money, you're right.

That's right. They were the rich league. They're going to hoover up all the talent. It would have been very fun right up until Austin Matthews signed with, you know, whoever. Did we ever even figure out where the teams were going to be? Or was that one of the minor details they didn't get around to? Yeah, if I remember right, it was like one of those things where it's like, we're going to have a Minnesota team. And then someone called every rink in Minnesota.

And they were like, I don't know what you're fucking talking. about. There was just the New England team, I believe, and then they eventually narrowed that down to Massachusetts or New Hampshire. Anywhere from Dixville Notch out here in beautiful Springfield, Massachusetts, you know, could have been anywhere. I was going to, I was going to cheer for Dixville. Dixville Notch is, is that the name of it? I think it is. Dixville Notch, yeah. So that's like, where they do the first official vote in the presidential election. I feel like I have heard of that.

Yeah. Midnight voting tradition, it says here on the Wikipedia page. Okay. But Dixville Notches way up there in New Hampshire. This guys would have crushed the all-star voting. Way up there. It would have been absolutely all over. It says here, total population as of 2020, four.

Hey, you want to hear a, you want to hear an April? Plus segue. Mm-hmm, sure. Hey, speaking of things that were supposed to be major league hockey, but turned out to be a total fraud, uh, the Sabers. Yeah.

Dot, dot, dot. The Buffalo Sabers. Um, they are in the midst of a 10 game losing streak at this point, I believe. Thank you for saying it correctly. Well, I'm not,

look, what am I going to tell you? I can't sit here and pretend like, are we calling it an overtime loss or a shootout loss? Yeah. If they lost, then it's a fucking losing street. What does the L in the O'TL column stand for? No further questions, Your Honor.

Yeah. And again, I have, and, you know, this is, if people think that I'm like sub-tweeting Pierre Lebrun, rest assured, Pierre and I have had this conversation directly many times. Any time, first of all, nobody loves saying this shit more than Pierre LeBron. And look, I don't want to say that this is. someone from the Buffalo organization being like, can you actually point out that it's a win list or not a losing streak? I don't think it's Buffalo because Pierre is like this is, he's got these like two hobby horses.

This and that a zero zero game is not scoreless. I actually agree with him on that. The score of that game is zero zero. It is a goalless. And believe me, I am the last person who should criticize anyone for getting a bug up their ass about some random thing and then constantly bringing it up. at every opportunity, because that's 90% of my personality.

Yeah, of course. But in this case, that's all of us, yeah. He is wrong. And again, if you side with Pierre on this, and you think that the Buffalo Sabres are not in the midst of a 10-game losing streak. It's only a three-game losing streak. Because they're lost in a shootout to the Detroit Red Wings.

Yeah, that they're in a winless streak, but it's not a losing streak. I simply ask you, if they go out in their next game, and they lose in overtime to whoever it is they're playing. It might be Montreal or whoever. It is indeed Montreal tonight. They lose to Montreal tonight in overtime. Go into their dressing room afterwards with a little microphone and go up to as many players as you can and say,

how relieved are you to end the losing streak? There's only three games, but didn't it feel like it was so much longer? Isn't it great to snap a losing streak? And just see what kind of reaction you get from those guys. Yeah, it's a fucking mess. And boy, I feel like it was just yesterday. And in fact, it was roughly one month ago. People were like, well, the Sabres, I don't know.

They only have two regulation losses in their last like eight games or whatever. Man, if you bought stock in the Sabres based on a little bit of winning they did in like November. They were. You have not been paid. attention for the last seven years or whatever. How many times did they do this? Oh, we won six out of eight in November. We, we, we, we, we just, we just won our ninth out of ten.

I believe they were. Everybody's buying stock fucking left and right. I am hitting short on the Buffalo Savers. If, if I'm not mistaken, they were in a playoff spot on Thanksgiving. And if I were a fucking huge sucker, I would have been like, they, they'll keep it up all a year. Nobody, the playoffs never change after. Like, that's it.

This isn't the losing its team in recent hockey memory. These guys haven't missed the playoffs 14 years in row by following this exact same script almost every year. It's, look, I don't know what, I don't know what there is to say that we didn't say last week when we were like, can you believe these fucking losers keep losing all the time? But we have, we have news since then. And that is that. the owner jumped in his private plane, flew all the way to Montreal, I guess, to meet the team yesterday, and hold an emergency meeting in which he told them.

He graced them with his brilliant billionaire presence and explain to them that everything was fine. The answer is in the room. The answer is in this room. And then all the players slowly turned to a homemade sign on the wall that said you suck and the season is complete waste. Well, that's what I mean. The answer is indeed in the room. And the answer is it's another year, no fucking playoffs. I mean, what else can you say at this point?

Like honestly. Honestly, like, God bless Kevin Adams, who apparently has. not only convinced his boss to let him keep his job, but to let him keep his job, but not actually have to do his job. Like, don't expect a big trade. Can you imagine? Like, I have never, I have never worked in a hockey front office, obviously,

but I worked in the real world lots. I had CEOs. You know, I had bosses. I had times where I had to talk to see, talk to the CEO of the company. I never once, had it even occur to me, that like, hey man, can you call a meeting where you personally come in and tell everyone that they've got to figure out their own problems because I'm not going to do the thing that is my job description? Can you just like let them know to stop expecting me to do anything?

And like, do it in person too. It's all about managing up. Can't be an email. You know? That's what they say. Dude, I'm in Ottawa. I know that for some teams is the number one skill. Can I tell you, if it is all about managing up, when we get to, you know, the second round of the playoffs, I really, we need to have the Kevin Adams GM of the year discussion because no one's doing a better job of managing up than this fucking guy.

It's unbelievable. Like, look, I think, I think the reason, you know, the answers in the room, quote unquote, with this team is that there's nothing they can do. And certainly they're not going to spend the extra money on a team that sucks this. Well, first of all, there is something they could do. And that's that like, what does Terry Pagula do? He's like a, see a mining guy, a fracking guy, something like that? Yeah, fracking guy, yeah. He digs holes.

Dude, dig a few holes in Buffalo and drop a few palm trees in there. Just even around the arena. Just where, and figure out wherever the visiting teams stay, drop a few palm trees in the front of the guard. Boom, right there, half the problem is solved. I keep, I will be honest, most, my experience

with Sabres fans these days is unsurprisingly that most of them are very unhappy. I have encountered a few who have sort of bought the Kevin Adams, hey, what could we do? Idea. That nobody wants

to play in Buffalo. So what's he supposed to do? And I just, I need to remind you that the vast majority of the league does not have no trade protection, including all of the young or youngish guy. You can't get a no trade until you're eligible for UFA status. So you've got to be like late 20s. So any youngish players, and I don't think anyone is out there being like, yeah, they should go trade for Claudeauroo. They should go get like an old guy. any young guys that you could go out and get by trading your own young guys.

There's these crazy things called hockey trades where you actually, you know, you're just trying to get better by trading players for players. That is not affected by whether the guys want to come to Buffalo or not. You don't want to come to Buffalo? Too bad. Well, look, I mean... Ask Bowen Byron how bad he wanted to come to Buffalo. Didn't have a choice in the matter.

Here's what it boils down to, honestly. two years ago, the Buffalo Sabres score, I have one of the highest goal totals in the league. I don't remember off the top of my head if it was like first, second, third, whatever. But they scored a shitload of goals. You remember this, right? The problem is they also gave up a shitload of goals.

But in scoring all those goals, when all these guys, Tage Thompson, he's only 25 years old at this point. You know, Rasmus Dalin, he's 23. Dylan Cousins, he's like 21. You know, go down the list. All these guys. Alex talks only like 28, 29.

All these guys, oh shit, we just made the big change with the Eichl trade and, you know, all these guys are coming together. All these young guys are making it work. So now forever, all these young guys are, they're just scratching the surface of their abilities. And so we can't, look, what were we going to do? Trade Dillon Cousins? He scored like 30 goals as a 21 year old, whatever the number is. And then, you know, you scroll over a little bit. the in the stack category and it's like, oh, he shot 15%.

Well, I guess I do. You know, that doesn't occur to people. All I saw is the guy score 31 goals. Is it sustainable? Well, you know, yeah, I mean, it probably is if they're so young, right? And then you go, well, they didn't do it like any of the subsequent two years between now and that, you know? Well, something else happened. I don't know what it is, you know?

and so the idea that like you would sell low on Dylan Cousins, maybe this is all Dylan Cousins is. You know, maybe he, maybe he's like apart from that one time he scored 30 goals. Maybe he's just a guy who's going to score 15 or 20 goals in the league every year. But then if you're a Buffalo fan, and this is where I do understand, being a little bit nervous about trading guys,

after all the guys who have left Buffalo and gone on to have great success, you know, Sam Reinhart being the most obvious of the group, as far as a guy who really leveled up after he left. Sure. You know, Jack Geico was a different situation. Jack Geico was already expected to be a franchise player, and he's kind of lived up to that. Yeah, but I mean, again, you go down the list.

It's not just those two guys. It's Ryan O'Reilly immediately wins a cup. Dude, if we trade Dylan Cousins, he will go right back to being the 30-goal score. Right, but like, my point is, it boils down to this. Like, you're, you're presenting a situation where you're like, either this guy's going to suck here or be good elsewhere. Like, you're saying, then we got it, then we got to, like, we can't, how are they going to look worse than they already do? Like, if you're saying you can't do it because you're looking bad.

If you honestly believe that all of these players that aren't performing well for you would go somewhere else and perform significantly better, that doesn't sound to me like a reason to maintain the status quo. That sounds to me like a reason to do a top-to-bottom cleaning house of everyone who's job is to develop, coach, etc. Right, that's what I'm saying. Like if you're running scared from like if we trade Dylan Cousins and he looks and he turns back into a 30 goal scorer and that makes us look bad, that is you understanding implicitly that you are a loser organization that sucks at developing talent. Right.

Right. And so if you're if you're playing that game, if you're like, that would make us look bad, you've already lost and you're not going to make the playoffs this year next year. Like, as long as you have that mindset. And again, like, they can't make any changes, right? Like, oh, they've lost 10 games in a row. Lindy roughs the problem, maybe. Well, we don't want to pay for a different coach. We don't want to pay for a second GM if we fire this one.

We don't want to spend the cap. We don't want, you know, if you think that there aren't levels where, you know, other aspects of the organization aren't being funded especially, well or as well as they could be, such as player development. I don't know what their internal budgets look like, but I have to guess based on, you know, we'd really rather let the coach's contract run out than be paying this guy. And, you know, it was pointed out yesterday the day before.

The devils are paying part of Lindy Ruff's contract because he's still under contract to them, you know? So like how much how much of this is just, again, an owner who he thinks the answer's in the room and the answer is I'm not writing any more checks this year. Yeah. Which is, if that's the case, then if you're a Sabres fan, there really is no hope. No hope. If you have a crappy owner and, yeah, I don't know.

Maybe you wait until the bill season is over, which is to say whenever they play the cheat, in the playoffs. Maybe that's when Bagula flips to the standings page and sees it's not going well. I don't know, man. It's tough. And I, like, I make fun of the Sabres,

and to be very clear, I plan to continue to do that indefinitely. But I feel awful for Sabres fans. It's got to be just, like, unbelievable to see the same, the same problems play out every single year and just everybody's like, it's crazy this keeps happening. I'm not sure there's ever been, I mean, there's never been a stretch like this with the team not making the playoffs.

But even like just a stretch of hopelessness, I don't know. Like, I mean, I lived through the Harold Ballard years, but at least then, like, with the way the playoff format was, you could still get in. Like the Leifes won playoff rounds under Harold Ballard. They were 48 point teams when they got into the playoffs. But they won rounds. Good enough. You had no hope of winning the Stanley Cup. Absolutely zero.

But. Yeah. And to do this in the parody era is just, yeah, it's awful. So you saw Lindy Ruff's comments where he was basically like, I have no idea what to do with these guys. Yeah, that one, boy, I was shocked. And as people pointed out, this guy's been. Lindy Ruff didn't have any answers. This guy's been coaching for like 45.

Yeah. he said it's the toughest, the toughest solution for him to find ever, which is remarkable. The one thing that's all part of that that I think he was talking about there is the fact that they get and then blow a lot of leads, you know? And I wanted to ask you a philosophical question regarding that. would you rather, if you're a fan of the Buffalo say, or this happens to, you know, Team X, whatever, pick, take your pick. Would you rather you watch a team where your team gets a bunch of leads and then inevitably blows them or just never leads? I would certainly rather see my team lead than never see it, but both of those are going to be miserable options. I honestly think it's worse to continually blow the leads.

Insofar as it's got to be way more frustrating to be like I can see that they can play good hockey. You know, like I can see them score three goals in a period and look good. And then like watching them collapse and knowing the collapse is coming has to be. Like, you know, if I, if I know my team's never going to lead in the game, I'm just not going to fucking watch it. But like, I feel like the Sabres are just constantly going like, oh, what do you think? You want this? You know, Lucy and the football? Yep.

You think you're going to do it? And then she pulls the football away. I'll tell you, if what I want is for my team to realize and acknowledge and be realistic about where they're at, that I don't want them constantly blowing leads because. That is the, you know, the last thing you want to hear when you're watching another season spiral away is, we're right there. We're just, bounce there or bounce there.

If we had just held on to those seven leads, give us those 14 points in the standings, and we're in good shape. Yeah, it's kind of the senators thing of the last several years of like, look how close we were. We only missed the playoffs by six points or whatever, you know? and and it's the Sabres thing like I said a few years ago. Like we were talking about this yesterday on the on the Discord. Like that Sabers team that everybody got so much hope for, you know, 91 points. 91 points sucks.

Like I don't know how to put it to you different, you know. They missed the playoffs by a point, but they they missed the, you know, the divisional playoffs, let alone, you know, like the not the wild card like in the in the division in the top three there were seven points out you weren't even close man you know and and the the metro the bottom of the metro that year had 107 points you know so like I don't to me I just like how are you going to keep falling for this like I never want to hear again savers they might do it this year. Like last day of the season, they're nine points clear of missing the playoffs.

I'm like, they'll figure out a way to fucking blow this. There's a Sabres. Like, I need to see them in the playoffs before I ever want to hear again. They're starting to put it together here, you know? Mm-hmm. But the answers are in the room, so what do I know? Yeah, it's right there. That's...

Terry Bagula came in, looked around, was like, I've done a great job, and I just want to let you guys know that. I'm awesome. All right. Out I go. And then he proceeded to pull on the doormarked push for 45 minutes. Let me talk to you now about a different team that was recently connected with the Sabres and trade rumors. Bring this right together. This is, that's why I put them next to each other on the outline, my friend.

So on 32. thoughts yesterday. What's the solution in Buffalo? They got to shake things up, blah, blah, blah. Elliot Friedman says, what if they, this was the trade he proposed. Dylan Cousins and Bowen Byron for Elias Pedersen. I'm fascinated by this. I'm fascinated by Elliot throwing this out there.

I mean, that's the thing. Knowing what a bomb it's going to be for both fan bases. And he framed it. know, he didn't say, hey, this is what I'm hearing, is cooking, this is the discussion. He was very, very clear that this was just something in his own head. Well. But also. He then went on Twitter and was like, I know those two teams have talked, and that's why I put it out there as like a potential solution to both of their problems.

That's exactly it, right? Like, he, there, like, a trade that Elliott comes up with. within his own head is not the same as a trade that you or I come up with. That is based on not very much. This guy is super plugged in. I don't think there's any chance that he is just pulling this completely out of the air. I don't mean to say I'm not implying that Patterson to Buffalo is a thing or that, you know, this is. But clearly he knows where all 32 teams are.

in a way that I just never will. And so his version of pulling it out of the air, he's going to be a lot more informed and realistic than mine. And this is not like every week Elliot Friedman throws out another crazy trade rumor. This is something he doesn't do all that often. So there's got to be at least a little bit of smoke here, even if it's not the specific names in terms of these two teams being a match because even though the Canucks are seem fine in the standings,

they just got Thatcher Demko back. So, I mean, it's all, it just got J.T. Miller back. So it's almost like, there is almost an element of, hey, we, we shouldn't even evaluate these guys until they're back healthy. They have something resembling their full team. It really feels like the level of dissatisfaction in Vancouver is, significant. And, you know, we all saw the clip of Rick Tocke talking about four or five guys needing to up the, the effort level. I mean, that's significant. So let's answer

Elliot's question. Who says no to that trade? Uh, the, the Vancouver, well, okay. So at first blush, obviously you say the Vancouver Canucks because, you know, the classic thing about like, if you trade the best player in the trade, and he would be the best player in that trade by far, that's a problem for you. But also it doesn't get into the cap implications. He just got this huge new contract, blah, blah, blah. But to really answer the question,

we have to go back quite a while here because this is something I kind of piece together over the last little while. And there was some stuff that I hadn't taken notice of and then some other stuff that I did but didn't connect the dots. But in the last week, I saw people mentioning, and again, I think Elliot mentioned it on one of his podcasts

where he's like, look, some people with J.T. Miller returning to the lineup, some people have to bend a little bit to accommodate the other people in the room. And it's like, oh, that's not like something good that you want to hear. about the team, you know? Like, that there

there's friction there and it's certainly not the first time we heard about potential clashes between specifically Miller and Patterson. You know? And so I went back and what's his name?

Taj 1944. I don't know if people know about this guy. He's just like, quote, publishes a lot of quotes from like Vancouver Canucks, like radio. hits basically. Like Rick Dollywall said this on this show and all that kind of stuff. And so I was just combing through.

I just typed in like his name and Miller on, uh, on Twitter. And basically this is what I could come up with as like a recent timeline of what's going on in Vancouver. Pedersen and Miller get into like a little tussle back in late October at a practice. And normally, A, that happens in practice. but I think it was Dollywall mentioned that Miller specifically may or may not have called Pedersen a baby. Let me double check on that.

Oh, it was Farhan Laljee said that Miller might have called Patterson a baby. And then, whatever, two, three weeks later, Miller takes the leave of absence. And in the interim, there was a little bit of like, look, we're not best friends. but we've always been working on our relationship, you know, you don't, we're pulling in the right direction. There's stuff about him I obviously like,

you know, that kind of thing. The leave of absence is like, how was it framed in your recollection? Like burnout or something, right? Like he was just like, I can't. My recollection is it was framed almost not at all,

other than that it wasn't, you know, like a severe issue. He didn't go into the, a player assistant program or anything like that. So I don't really remember a framing. And in fact,

you know, I know that the Vancouver organization is notoriously not forthcoming with very much of anything. And unfortunately, that leaves room for lots of weird speculation and rumors and all that sort of thing. Yeah.

And like, you know, look, if there's like mental health stuff. You don't want to speculate, blah, blah, blah, blah. But, you know, he comes back and he's like, I don't want to talk about it. Okay, he's back. But while he's gone, the Canucks win a bunch of games. Patterson looks incredible. They went five, three, and two, he puts up 15 points in 10 games. And again, people start, like, noticing this. People start, and especially after Pedersen had a famously slow start to. the year on spitting chicklets. Paul Bissonettin, again, this is from, from Taj, talking about Mill, EP stepping up when Miller isn't there and the trade rumors about Miller. And that's right. That's the other thing is there was the mention that the Rangers might be interested in

bringing Miller back while he was out. Biz said the Canucks have to do something if Miller comes back and the dynamic in the locker room doesn't work because it makes EP uncomfortable and not the same player. Then December 3rd, Seravali is asked on a different show about stories. He's keeping an eye on it around the NHL and he says, Miller and the Canucks. I wonder how that situation plates itself out. That's really intriguing. I wonder if that all gets pieced together as quickly as it kind of came undone.

So again, there's like an implication there of like what's going on there. So then they make it clear, we're not trading J.T. Miller in season. Whatever happens, we're not making that trade in the season. Maybe, and it's something we revisit in the summer if things need to be revisited. And it's like, oh, that's bad. If you're talking about it like in those terms, that's not good for, for the, for the team, you know? And that was, uh, and that was. and that was SAT talking about the situation.

Can EP and JT work long term? We don't know, but they're trying to make it work. It's natural to reassess in the off season. It's possible people have had to massage the relationship this year. It can be tiresome managing that. Miller asked for the leave. He isn't being traded right now. He hasn't asked for a trade.

Let's see how the season unfolds and we'll see what happens in the off season. That's all from Canucks Central, a recent episode of that. So like, are the Canucks now not the most interesting team in the league? Sure seems that way. So do you trade Elias Pedersen to the Buffalo Sabres? Well, my thing with it is, the thing that is interesting about it to me is why are, why is the guy you just gave like a huge contract to the guy you're thinking about trading. And the answer is, he has a no move that kicks in next season. Yep. That's the only reason.

And again, this was... There's no protection in year one. No protection at all in year one because he was not eligible for UFA yet, so he couldn't have the protection. Mm-hmm. But when a team gives you eight years and you're eligible for no move protection for seven of them and they give you that protection for all seven years, there's sort of an implication that they are.

It's implicit, yes. Yeah. Giving you full protection. And now they are conceivably considering moving him. And I say conceivably because, again, this hasn't come directly out of Vancouver as far as we know. And it doesn't seem to have come, be coming to a head yet either, right? Like he's back. You know, they won last night.

but they had gotten killed in the previous game after beating the Panthers pretty soundly. And, you know, now I believe they're like right on the playoff bubble. Like, yeah, okay, so they have 37 points and a better points percentage than the Oilers, but the Oilers have one more game played and one more point than them. But like Calgary is right there. Utah's is getting hot, and we'll talk about all that in a bit because the playoff bubbles are actually really interesting all of a sudden. But like the Canucks are just kind of like they're hanging around.

Yeah. And they kind of, in my opinion, if they should be a going for it team based on like what the roster looks like and all that kind of stuff and Bessers appending UFA and all this kind of thing. They should be a going for it team. And that's why they don't they won't trade Miller and shouldn't try. trade Miller in the season, unless, like, things go really sideways. But, like, the idea that they would trade Patterson, if it's even being brought up by, again, someone has plugged in as Elliot Friedman, what's going on there, you know? That's what it really boils down to for me.

It's like, oh. And it's... There's a lot more smoke here, which is, then I would have thought even a week ago. And remember the timeline here. of sort of how this plays out with Pedersen, if I'm remembering it correctly, is that last year, he's in the last year of his contract.

So it's an ongoing storyline all year long. Will they extend him? What are they going to do? He's not a UFA at the end of the year. So they still have control, but they've got to figure out what they're going to do with them. And to avoid the situation

where he potentially goes into the season, gets a one-year arbitration deal or whatever and then can become a UFA. He's your franchise player. He's your best forward. He's the guy that you have built the team around along with Quinn Hughes. They sign him late in the season to this mega extension. His number starts with an 11. So he is making superstar money.

Cap goes up, et cetera, et cetera, yes. but he's in that, you know, he's not in the McKinnon, Drysidal Matthews tier, but he's the one below it. Then they go into the playoffs and he stinks. Yep. And a whole bunch of Vancouver fans go, uh-oh, did we just, did we just make a huge mistake committing to this guy that much for that long? for them to move him this season,

you're right, they're in a going for it mode. It would not make any sense to trade him. Like Buffalo doesn't have, unless it's Tage Thompson. And even then, there's nobody in Buffalo you're getting who right now is as good as Elias Pedersen

is supposed to be for this team. I don't think, I'm like, let's broaden the scope here. How many teams, or how many teams, yeah, with like guys they would want to trade right now, rebuilding teams, whatever, have someone to offer as good as Pedersen. Right. Zero is the answer.

I would agree. One of the best centers in the league. Nobody, I think, that would be available from. I mean, this year, he's under a point of game this year. So we're now into partial year to, wait a second, maybe Elias Pedersen isn't the. lead player we thought it was. So my point is the only reason you do this if you're Vancouver

is if you are looking at this going we screwed up. And we have a very limited window to fix this. Sure. Or else we're stuck with it. Or else we just were locked in on this guy. And do you have the guts

to actually go and to first of all admit the mistake and try to turn it into something positive. Well, I mean, Jim Rutherford's not the GM there, but he's the guy running the show. He might be one of the few guys in the league who would have the guts to do this. I agree with that, but at the same time,

again, it's $11.6 million. This isn't a trade that you can just make work in the regular season unless it's a team, like, say, the savers. A team that is desperate and has a bunch of cap room and is under enormous pressure to make a big deal and maybe has a GM who feels like his next train is his last chance.

What pressure? Pressure from the fans. Pressure from the fan base. Well, right. So. Not from the boss. Right. But I mean, I think, like,

I can certainly see the puzzle pieces that Elliot's moving around in his mind to get here, which is not to say it's going to happen. Do you, if you're the same, Sabers, is this something you're interested in doing? Oh, if I'm the Sabers, sure. Yeah, this is a really good player. For this deal, for the deal that was suggested, Cousins and Byrham,

that would be fine by me. Would you make that deal? You would. Yeah. Because, because cousins, again, I just, I personally just think he kind of doesn't have it, you know? And, um, maybe he's not as bad as the play has been. this year, but he's also not as good as the 30-goal season,

you know, whatever you want to say. Even if you end up somewhere in the middle, you're upgrading at center. And then, you know, with Byrum, it's like, well, I have my two defensemen. Yeah. I'm locked in on those guys. And then, like, Byram is a nice addition to have or whatever.

But, like. But it's strange because they traded a center to get him a year ago. Well, that was, I mean, I mean, I, was reminded yesterday, by the way, of the story of, uh, he gets to Colorado and was like, oh, damn, you guys practice hard. And they're like, yeah, we're trying to win a Stanley Cup big dog. What are you talking about? Yeah.

So, yeah, to me, that that's kind of, uh, that's kind of a no brain or trade if they want to come along. But again, is the owner like, yeah, we'll, we'll take on all that extra money. I don't, I, I have to think the answer to that question is no, but, you know, because, let's see, the difference in salary has to be enormous. Cousin, well, maybe not. Cousins makes 7.1. I forgot about that. Oh, that sucks, man. Yeah, actually, the difference in money, it wouldn't be a huge amount more for Vancouver to take on.

I forgot about that Cousin's extension. Yikes. Yeah, that's even more reason to do it then. I was thinking they were taking on like $5 million in salary and going they should do it. But if they're taking on like $1,000 in salary and going they should do it. But if they're taking on like one and change, yeah, no question for me, no problem. I think I'm with you. I think you got to take the swing if you're the sabers.

Yeah. And look, I almost hate to say this, but this is kind of where the whole no palm trees thing maybe works for you a bit. In that, first of all, again, like, Alias Pedersen has no trade protection. He can't do anything about unless he's willing to pack up and say, I'm not playing for the saber. I'm going to go home, take my money. Wouldn't be the worst idea. Which I don't think it's a zero, but it's, it would be rare. If he does that, like if a lot of teams, you're sitting there going, man,

what if we trade for Lice Pedersen and then, you know, this year, who knows how he'll fit in, you really can't start evaluating until next year. And by then the no trade clause kicks in. Like, what if we're stuck with this 11 point something? If I'm Buffalo, I'm like, hey, man, if it's not working, he's going to want out so bad that we don't have to worry about the no trade. Yep. We're not going to be limited by no trades on guys that we have because he'll be like, all right, man, how about not Ottawa or Winnipeg and any of the other 29 teams is going to be just fine with me. Yeah, they're going, I'm listening.

Yeah, of course. And also, you know, maybe Winnipeg would be fine. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, the one other thing to say about the Canucks and then we'll take a break here is part of the, part of the reason they're so mystifying to their coach apparently. They are 10, 2 and 1 on the road and 6, 7, and 4 at home. Strange. I mean. Very strange.

Strange enough that I wonder if you just chalk that up as a fluke. Yeah. It's one of those things where, like, talk. said, like, they're, you know, they don't seem to have the same urgency at home as they do on the road or they're less engaged or whatever you want to say. And that might be, you know, will they score fewer goals and they give up more so it looks like that? I haven't really dug into the underlying numbers of it.

But, you know, it's just one of those funny things. Like the Capitals, until last night when they lost in Dallas, like, had won some huge. huge number of road games in a row and were only okay at home. So, yeah, I'm willing to go with you on that, but it is, again, like, part of the reason the fans are upset is they stink at home and, like, tickets are insanely expensive in that market and they're only, you know, I think a lot of Canucks fans would say we expected them to be better than this this year than, you know, two points above the, or what, yeah, two points above the playoff cut line and the Calgary Flames are breathing down their necks.

I think a lot of Canucks fans would have said that's not acceptable and they're right based on where they are as an organization. But, you know, the fact that they might also arrive at the solution is in this room and then it turns out maybe it's not. That's crazy to me. Yeah. They're, man, they're an interesting team. Every games must watch now.

Every single one. Because you're just like, you know, I don't know. Did Miller and Pedersen high five? That's exactly right. Are they, you know, are they doing the, are they calling each other babies? Yeah. Yeah.

By the way, calling someone a baby is really funny. That is fantastic. Like, that's, of all the insults, that almost feels more insulting than almost anything that you could get called on a hockey rink. That's, that's exactly right. Shut the fuck up, you fucking baby or whatever. It's just like, damn. He got me. Got me so bad. Gonna go watch Bluey after this?

I'm gonna go call that. I gotta call him a nerd now to get back. Calling someone a nerd is kind of funny, a geek. Yep. Yeah. Anyway, why don't we take a break? We'll come back. We'll talk about the playoff bubble. This week's episode of Puck Soup is brought to you by Factor and folks. I said it before. I'll say it again. On the days, get shorter, you feel like there's more going on that you've got to run from point A to point B to point C, just too hectic this time of year, you know? Holidays are right around the corner.

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That's P-U-C-K for $20 off. Download game time today. What time is it? Game time. All right, we're back. And yeah, we mentioned the playoff bubbles, especially in the Eastern Conference, it is crazy what's going on right now. The Boston Bruins are third in the Atlantic with 35 points.

and, you know, obviously they've played more games than a bunch of the teams behind them, blah, blah, blah. But they're one point clear of the Tampa Bay Lightning with four more games played. And then listen to this. The senators and flyers are tied with 32 points. The Rangers, Penguins, and Islanders are tied with 31 points. And you know what? If you even want to throw in the blue jackets at 29 points because they're only two points behind the Rangers and blah, blah, blah. Yeah.

I'm listening. Keep going. Keep going. One more. You know what? I'm loath to say it, but yeah, the Detroit Red Wings are technically kind of in it. They're two games out, 28 points. Let's go two more points, buddy.

Who's next after that? The Buffalo Sabres in one point behind them? Three wins. That's a three-game win streak, as long as everyone else in the league loses every game in regulation. Yeah, that's the thing. That's the thing they don't tell you about games in hand is you got to win them, you know? Or the other team has to. win them.

Yeah, so it's... Points percentage-wise, the Ottawa senators are holding down playoff spot. Even by regular points, they are because they have... More regulation wins than the Flyers, by a lot, as a matter of fact. Flyers only have seven regulation wins this year. And this has been the thing where I feel like for the last three weeks... Tortsball, baby.

The last three weeks, I've been like, well, I mean, you look at the playoffs, you're like, Okay, well, this team's in this day, and I've always counted the Rangers as in. Yeah, sure. And we've done Rangers talk for the last two weeks, and I don't, we won't dive deep into that again. They should trade for J.T. Miller. That they should trade for Lise Patterson and Tage Thompson. Working out a three-way trade where the other two teams don't realize that you're not giving anything up. That's just good business.

I feel like I could do it. I feel like I could do that in my fantasy football league if I got a few points into a couple. of my fellow winners. Yeah, absolutely. Doesn't that guy kind of suck? You know, he only had 18 points last year. You're drawn circles and arrows on a napkin, and then next thing you know, they're like, wait a second.

They're nodding. We just give you our best player. Yeah. Yeah, you did. It's crazy how that works. So, yeah, it's like, and Tampa is, Tampa's played a lot fewer. Tampa's really playing well.

I think. Yeah, good team. Good team. like underlying numbers are good. We'll talk about Vasilevsky, but there's good pieces there. Boston is, they've been better.

I don't feel like the coaching change fixed them, but... They're certainly winning more games. You know, as long as you exclude like when they lose 9 to 1 or whatever, they're looking really good. Yeah. They're getting that goals differential.

They're really gaming the system on. Yeah, the door opened. up for them because the rest of that division sucks, you know, apart from the other top three teams. Like, I understand the senators are very hot right now, but like, let's be honest, on paper, the Bruins should be better than the senators. Yes. Right?

Like, it's that simple. You would think. So, I mean, I guess the question is, do the Rangers figure this out? Yeah. And get back in the playoffs, in which case, we're kind of back to the same eight teams. Not that we started with, because I don't think any of us had Washington, certainly anywhere near where they are, but even in the playoffs necessarily. But you've got Washington, and then you've got, you know, they're going to make it now

unless a real collapse happens. So it's sort of that Toronto, Florida, Boston, Washington, New Jersey, Carolina, Tampa looks great. That leaves one spot. There's like eight teams going for it. That's, yeah. Does it belong to the Rangers? or is it, I don't know, it's, it's, senators are hot, penguins are hot.

Senators have won three games in a row. I mean, like, this, that, that goal will be on. Well, there's seven, two, and one, there's seven, two and one in their last time. And the thing about that is, Lina S Allmark looks good. He looks awesome. He is now like an $8 million goalie, which fixes a lot of, fixes a lot of stuff. You know, it's, it's interesting because you do just hear from, like, you know, going from, you know, going from one team to another, like, it's not easy for goalies.

And that's what, you don't frankly see many, like, top, not even top tier necessarily, but just like good to, like reliably good goalies, change teams too often, you know? You're making everyone in Colorado very sad right now. I mean, you don't. Look. They're, and, you know, I think if it took Olmark a couple of months to figure out how to play in Ottawa, that doesn't surprise me at all. But he has a track record of he's a really fucking good goalie.

And, you know, I don't think he's as good in, you know, in the long term as he's been the last few games. But he also wasn't as bad as he was the first few games. And so, you know, let's put it this way. Allmark over his last seven games, 6.0 and 1 with a 950 save percentage. That'll win you. That'll get you back in the fucking race. That's for sure. And he, to be clear, he doesn't.

have to be $9.50 for the senators to win another seven out of their next 10 games. Yep. So, you know, I'm still very cautious to say I see these senators as a playoff team. Yeah. Because they're the Ottawa senators. We just finished making fun of everyone who gets the rug pulled on them by the Sabres every year. That's right. And here we are.

We're like, but this Ottawa team. They look good. Has it ever worked before? No, but it couldn't work for us. In the absence of the Rangers looking good, they suddenly look good. And how about those penguins? They're making a little run for themselves. And, you know, I think we all had them dead in the water.

They're still sub 500 to be clear. But the fact that that keeps you in the playoff conversation is, I would say, indictment of the Eastern Conference more than anything else. and like they're again, they're tied with the Islanders in the standings. And the Islanders are a team where like their coaches said multiple times like out loud this year, look, the roster sucks. I don't know what you want me to do. And they're in the playoff conversation.

So I don't know. I'm just, I can't wait to see how this plays out over the last like 50 or whatever games of the season. this is going to be awesome. Nobody wants this playoff spot, basically, you know? And I love a race like that. You take it, no, you take it. And that's the thing. Like, look, realistically, some of these teams are going to drop out.

Yeah, of course. But if we think there's five teams fighting for one spot, guess what? 600 ain't going to do it. Some teams got to get crazy hot. And, yeah, we're not. Who knows? I do.

I think it should still be the Rangers, but, ah, man. Piggy Iggy. Torpego in their season. Biggie has absolutely ruined that team. Tell me, tell me his record, or the team's record and his save percentage before and after the big contract extension. Ooh, I like this. I love the small sample size. I think his career save percentage, I'm going to say it was like 920 before the deal.

Yeah, probably was. 70 after. He immediately just went suckers. Yep. And right in the toilet. Oh, you gave me $88 million. I'm never playing well again. That's right. Took the lifts out of his skates. I'm actually 5.7. That's right. 893, 1 and 2 since the extension.

If I'm remembering the day he signed correctly. Um, Elias Pedersen for Igor Shisterkin, who says no. Oh, everybody. It says, absolutely everybody. We're just not making that happen. Yeah, and then they point and laugh at me. Sorry. By the way, how come no one's yelling at Elliot for soft tampering?

He didn't say Brady Chuck, and that's why. That's the only guy that you can tamper with. Gotcha. Well, I mean, I guess there's only one way to find out. What do you think? Linus Olmark to the. the, is that soft tampering? Does that rise to the...

Hold on, there's police sirens outside. Oh, no. Oh, there's a red dot on my chest. That's crazy. Interesting. Hmm. And then in the West, you know, we mentioned Vancouver. They're just kind of hanging around.

They're two points clear of the playoff cutline. But the stars only have 38 points. The Oilers only have 38 points. The kings only have 39 points, and they're second in the Pacific. And then the avalanche and the flames have 36 and 35. Utah and St. Louis have 33 apiece. Seattle has 32. Nobody is looking at that going like Calgary's right there with Colorado.

Like, no, Colorado. It feels like a big close playoff race because. accepting that Vancouver has got some issues right now and could be on the verge of a bit of a crumble. And even as someone who is not a big believer in the Kings, but I have to give them credit. They're winning. They're eight and two in their last 10.

The teams that are there for the taking, quote-unquote, are Colorado, Edmonton Dallas. You're not passing those guys of your Calgary or Utah or St. Louis. or Seattle. You're just not. The only thing I think that I might push back on is I think St. Louis, after the coaching change, can make it interesting. They've been really good since the coaching change.

Jim Montgomery is a really good coach. Yep. I think, and look, we've seen the Blues do it before. It was obviously a very different roster, but. Very different. What do you think? We've got it on the list, but since we're talking the Blues, Cam Fowler, you like the move for them or not so much?

I mean That's where I'm in They got a guy who's an NHL player For A pick like three years from now And an ECHL player You know I'm more interested

In Anaheim Kind of Being willing to be like You know what? Fuck it. Let's just make a bunch of trades You know, they make the Truba trade Truba made foul

You know, expendable, I guess you would say. It feels like the John Gibson trade is coming soon. I don't know where he would be going. But now there's a rumor that St. Louis wants to trade Brandon Sott, who I believe has some sort of trade protection that I'm not remembering what it is right now. I'll look that up really quickly. Classic. Oh, yeah, I remember that guy. Oh, he's still in the league, huh?

Mm-hmm. Yeah. And like I don't think he's... Any relation to the guy who was good for the Blackhawks 20 years ago? Yeah, I saw someone say, like, they should trade him to Chicago, so Chicago can lose a third Brandon Saad trade. I like that. But, yeah, you know, they're just in the rest of...

Doug Armstrong is not messing around. No. And they're kind of in the... It's not to the same level, obviously, with their roster, but, like, they kind of have to be in going for it mode, just based on where they are. in their like competitive cycle. Like, Cairo and Thomas are like 26 years old, man.

What happens if they get to a point where they're not going to make the playoffs? Like, the dynamic between Doug Armstrong and Alex Dean has got to be fascinating. Yeah, I think that's right. Where you've got, I mean, we've certainly seen situations where a team's next GM was already in the front office. And we've even seen situations where we sort of understood that. but to have it specifically laid out like this. Yeah. Like if there are four points back at the deadline and Doug Armstrong's like,

I want to trade our first round pick for a guy to make it now. And Alex Steen is like, oh, our first round pick this year and Armstrong's like actually our first round pick in 2006. Hey, isn't that when I take over the job? Wow, crazy coincidence. Anyway, see you later. Is that? Yeah.

Oh, well. By the way, Sott has a full no trade clause this year in a partial. next year. Okay. So that'll be really interesting. Like I said, I don't see, I don't see Cam Fowler moving the needle for them anytime soon or in any kind of a major way. He's all right, and that's about it. It's sort of the opportunity cost for me as much as the actual cost in that you've only got so many options to add guys at cap space, roster spots, assets to move.

by doing this, you check a box of, okay, that that's our defensive depth ad veteran. And I don't know if it's the right, the right one. But I'm also very stupid. Yeah. I mean, the problem is like, how much worse is he than their putative number one center, or number one defenseman Colton Pereko? Who I just, I believe that's Team Canada mainstay, Colton Peraco that you're talking about. Well, look, not to speak ill of Team Canada, but isn't that kind of the issue for them?

Don't you dare. Isn't that why we're saying, oh, it looks like USA is the favorite this year, is because they were like, we got to bring Colton Perrako and Jordan Bennington. Sadly enough, that is absolutely not why we're saying that because Colton Perrako is not a goalie. Although, well, right. Again, he's got time to learn. I just said Jordan Bennington. You got three months. He's sub-900 this year.

Jordan? Yeah. Jordan loan the pads to Colton. Take him out after practice. Teach him a few butterflies. I think he's better than Sam Montepal. This might all be a plan. We could make this happen.

Let me say this for Colton Pareko. Six foot six. Can't teach that, brother. Can't teach that. Somebody should have had a little saying about that. I agree. So, yeah, I think it'll be pretty interesting to see if the blues can make this

a real fight. They're in it. They're three points back Colorado with games in hand. Like you say, Colorado seems like they're about to take off if the goaltending is like even okay under Blackwood, you know?

But Vancouver's hanging around the bubble, you know? Let me put it this way. I don't think St. Louis is catching Dallas. They're five points back. But they could make the wild card an interesting race, maybe. I'm going to just go and say this.

I am willing to bet you that counting Colorado is a playoff team today by point, so not point percentage. I think the eight playoff teams at the end of the year in the West are the eight teams we've got now. I would have to agree with that. Yeah. All right. But in the east, well, that's a whole different story, brother. I have far less confidence. Yeah.

Detroit Red Wings. on a big run. You heard it here first. One last thing I wanted to talk about. I thought this was such an interesting article. This is on NHL.com. Kevin Woodley wrote this. And when Tampa rolled through Vancouver the other day, Woodley just sat down with Andre Vasselowski.

And he said, like, hey, why do you think the league-wide save percentage is down this year? Or the last few years, quite frankly. And this is what Vasilevsky said. I thought this was fucking fascinating. He goes, quote, I feel like guys don't waste shots anymore. You know, back when I came into the league, it used to be 30 or 35 plus shots each game. It was almost every night. You felt good about your game.

You were into it all the time. Nowadays, guys don't waste shots. It's all about the quality. They're all looking for that perfect play, perfect pass, perfect shot. Goes on to say, in my opinion, it's all those young players. They're super skilled now. They know if you shoot at the net with no traffic, the goalie will catch it. And then what?

Whistled, the play's dead. No one will pat you on the back for that. And then Jordan Bennington said, that's definitely an interesting outlook, and I have to agree with it. There's no wasted shots. That's just the new age mindset. A lot of our team meetings are just about how to score, finding ways to score, rather than just getting pucks through the net, to the net. So some of that is interesting because it's,

like not demonstrably true. You know, the shooting is down a little bit, but it's not to the extent that it's kind of being implied where like every shot is a high danger shot or whatever. But when Vasselowski came into the league, the league average save percentage was 915 and now it's 901. Right? Like something is going on there. And I think, you know, uh, there are a lot of things that we could attribute to that. Don't you agree?

Yeah. And is this, when you say league-wide save percentage, is this with goalies in the net, or is that factoring in empty nets? I'm reading from the NHL.com article. I'll start with that. But let me pull up the numbers here. League-wide save percentage is, yeah, with goalies in the, the net it's 901 and with them out it's 900.

Okay. So not that big a difference, actually. That's, well, there goes my theory. Oh, you know what? It's not, it's currently 900 with them out of the net. It's 894. I read that wrong. Currently 900.

I mean, with them out of the net, I would assume it's zero. So just. Right. It's 894, all shots included. All inclusive. Okay. Well, there. there you go, because that is, that, that's been sort of a, a pet theory you hear every now and then about, you know,

oh, why scoring up? It's because the players are so much better. The goalies are worse, this and that. And then some people are like, actually, we're just pulling goalies with five minutes left. There's way more empty net goals. Yeah. So when Vasilevsky, it doesn't sound like that is what is driving it. Yeah.

So when Vasilevsky came into the league, it was 915 with the goalie in and 9-11 at all. situations. So, I mean, a 15 point drop basically across the board in save percentage. And if it is below 900 this year, it would be the first time since the mid-90s that save percentages were that low. Yeah. Um, one of my big things that I, that I think is really, uh, driving this is, I think you're seeing fewer point shots than, than ever before. And, you know, there's the, there's the, uh, the commercial now about tipping. I don't know if you've seen that. No, I haven't. Okay. Where it's like, uh, Jeremy Swamens at the counter at getting takeout. And he's like, tipping out of, is out of control these days. And it shows, Jeremy Swimming getting scored on on a guy tipping the puck into the net.

Okay. And then, you know, it's just like four or five different goalies like sometimes you feel like they didn't even do anything and you got a tip. And, you know, it's going in off like Brady Kachuk's shin pad or whatever. You know what I mean? That is funny. I had not. And at the end, and at the end, Brad Marchand, like, tip 63%. And Swayvans like, what are you doing?

He's like, I love tipping. I do it all the time. I like that. Yeah, good commercial. But I think, I just think that they're, you know, it used to just be like, hey, on the powerplay, let's get it to the point and fucking bomb it and see what happens. That was also in that NHLcom article where, or dot com article where they talked about unscreened shots from a distance are basically disappearing from the game. And yeah, that used to be like not just get it to the point and get guys in front of the net, but like throw it back to the point and the guy winds up and he's going to beat the goalie clean. And it's like they've just given up on that.

Yeah. And okay, so here it is. The league average on long range shots is 970, not league average save percentage, obviously. And the number of long range shots has dropped from 14.9 a few years ago to 12.8 this year. and like you say, there's more traffic in front of the net now. And, you know, I just think, I think that you can explain a huge amount of that to just like, they're shooting from in closer now.

Mm-hmm. And, you know, you want to talk about fucking, like, how analytics is effectively deployed at the, at the NHL level. This is teams just going, oh wait a second shooting from the point isn't effective that's crazy maybe we should shoot closer then had to wait till shea Weber was up that's exactly right man that's exactly right and and like yeah you you just used to see a huge amount of team offense funnel through funnall through defenders especially on the power play and you know again like I would be

really interested and it made sense in a time when the goalies weren't gigantic yes that guy winding up at the point could look up and see this weird meshy thing behind the goaltender called the net. Yeah. But at some point, that stopped happening and they kept bombing it from there. Yep. And yeah, if you could shoot the puck like Shea Weber, that was still an effective weapon. Right. But, you know, the list of guys in the history of the NHL who could shoot the puck like Shea Weber. And I'm even including Zadano Chara in that because he's not, he wasn't like a huge, like, offensive weapon for a huge portion of his career on the power play. He could shoot the puck really hard, but, like, his, you know, he never put up the kind of numbers that, like, Shea Weber or Mike Green did, you know, with maybe one or two exceptions over the course of a career that probably lasted.

How long was Zadano Chara in the league? Like 22, 23 years? Something like that, yeah. 24 even, I think. Yeah, maybe. I'll look that up really quickly. Yeah, 24 seasons. That's fucking insane, man.

What a player. But yeah, Zanachara's career high-end points is 51, or 52, sorry. And one of three seasons he cleared 50 points. I bet Shea Weber had more than that. But yeah, that's the point. It's like, guys were like, well, you know, you didn't shoot a puck like Shea Weber. Yeah, sure, go nuts. But most guys don't.

And like, I saw someone opining the other day about the sabers. Like, part of their problem is they're not, they're not getting pucks to the net on point shots. And it's like, well, they shouldn't be doing point shots. So that's why. Yeah. But when you keep drafting defensemen first overall, your. A million percent, man. A little more likely to.

And I'm not saying you shouldn't do that, but you start thinking, all right, we've, that's our guy. Yeah. And it's the, it's kind of the cousins thing. or like when you give a guy a big contract and then by the end of it it sucks, but he's still like on your number one power play unit because you're like, well, we're paying him $7.5 million.

I got to have him out on the first power play unit. Because if he's not, you know, picking up a bunch of secondary assists, then I, then we both look bad. So I think there is that element to it. But like, it's one of those things where it would just be really interesting. to have access to like this clear site analytics like data and and really dig into

what goalies are seeing versus what we're seeing from you know just the numbers or whatever because because I'll tell you for sure that like if you want to attribute it almost entirely to fewer point shots and like maybe 5% to players are more skilled now I'm down with that. I just thought it was a really interesting article. Lots of good numbers in there. So that's it. That was, I second it and it was Kevin Woodley who wrote it. Yep. Kevin, I think it was. It was really good. Yeah. And you know me, I'm always on this show saying like, all this goalie talk is mumbo-jumbo.

His head movement, he's tracking the pot. That's all, that's all like post facto stuff to me, you know? I can tell he's playing well because he's stopping all these pucks. Yeah. Great. Awesome. Thanks. Great insight. But using the numbers, talking to the goalies, you know, that's where it's really interesting to me.

So anyway, I guess that's it for the show this week. Did you want to do any survivor talk on the main or is that a going to be mailbag? Whatever you want. If you want to do it here, that's. That's fine with me. You've got to pay for it for the good stuff. That's right. Yeah.

The real heads will be hearing all our thoughts on this season. So yeah, I don't know. I'm enjoying the season. I'll tell you that. But finale's tomorrow night. That's what it's all about. Sure is. Why don't you hit him with the plugs?

We'll get out of here. I find me at The Athletic, including the podcast with Sean Gentilly. and Frankie Corrado, we'll be back tomorrow with that. And speaking of the Pulitzer Prize winning, Mr. Gentilly, Rules Court is returning this week. Wow. We have a replacement for Mendez. We'll leave it as a surprise on who it is,

but we've got eight new submissions, including one that might be my all-time favorite. Up until now, my favorite Rules Court submission we've ever had, is somebody wrote in and said that if a referee is calling a delayed penalty and then there's a second penalty that they want to call, the referee should have to put his other arm in the air and skate around like that. That was my favorite ever. But this one this week might be right up there with it. And then for me, Elite Prospects, we are moving EP Rinkside, which is where we used to write all the articles and stuff like that to Elite Prospects. So I will no longer be saying EP Rinkside.

But to, I don't know if you want to say to celebrate, there is currently a 30% off sale when you sign up for a year. It says here it's the year end sale. You'll save like almost 36 bucks. So head on over to Elite Prospect, sign up for that. And you can check out all my stuff. I have a bunch of college hockey articles coming up in the next week or so because they are officially at the holiday break. everybody's done for the first, you know, 45% of the season. Now's a good time to check in on where everything stands with the tournament qualifications

and the standings and who's going to win the hobby and all that kind of stuff. Lots going on. Head over to elite prospects.com. Sign up for an annual thing. And with World Juniors right around the corner, frankly, no better time to do it. This and the draft are like the two big times a year. for really prospects. So now is your opportunity to learn all about the prospects that you're going to be seeing at World

Juniors. So check all that out and then head to patreon.com slash puck soup where you can hear all kinds of bonus episodes and that kind of thing. We recently watched an old hockey movie that we had a lot of fun with and did like a kind of DVD commentary track style reaction to the film. So check that out and we'll have more stuff coming throughout the month and then into the new year. So that's it. Patreon.com slash Puck Soup.

And just some housekeeping here, folks. We're going to not be doing the main show the next two weeks because of the holidays and our schedules and things like that. We will have mailbags, like deluxe mailbags on the Patreon, but we're going to kind of be a moving target on when those actually get recorded. Those will be happening the next two weeks over at a Patreon. dot com slash puck soup. So if you want to hear us talk about whatever happens between now and then, that's where to do it. But yeah, no main shows the next two weeks.

Thanks for listening to the main show. We're going to head over to the Patreon and do the mailbag now. So have a good one, folks. See you later. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.