Puck Soup - The Final Four

Episode Date: May 17, 2023

Sean and Ryan talk about the Conference Finals matchups, eliminated teams, the losing vote in Tempe, and more.   Sponsored by Athletic Greens (athleticgreens.com/puck) and Betterhelp (Betterhelp.com/puck)

Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slap shots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to what if you commute. We also cover movies, TV shows, it's and tunes. It's your weekly bowl of hockey and nonsense. I'm Ryan Lambert from Elite Prospect. I'm Sean McNeugh from The Athletic. And we're through the conference finals, folks. They're here.

Well, they're here tomorrow, I guess. You know, I had this lower down in the lineup here, but do we want to talk about the scheduling thing? People were furious about this. What are we? We're furious about the conference final schedule or furious about the Vegas oil game? I feel like it was, I feel like it was just furious in general. Yeah, I think the Vegas oiler game starting at 10 p.m. Yeah.

Was very dumb. Well, I don't, look. I do I agree that it's bad? Yeah, like especially me, I'm going to watch these games anyway, right? Like, I'm at work right, I'm doing that, you know? So, so I'm not going to, like, complain about it personally, but like, I get why people are, like, well, what the fuck? Like, and it does make a big difference because even like two weeks ago, whatever the, no, it was during the Florida series when the Leafs had no Saturday games. They didn't get the traditional Saturday night slot.

And I saw a bunch of people going like, well, Lee fans will watch anyways. Canadian hockey fans, no, they don't. Not in the same numbers. That's not how TV works. That's why the games are on. Typically, you want to be on in prime time. You want to be on certain nights that do better than others.

So, like, to just go like, ah, hockey fans are a real hockey fan will watch. Well, this league's trying to attract more eyeballs and just the diehards. And putting... All right. Good question. Are they? Well, yeah, that's a fair question.

But yeah, putting Connor McDavid and Leonhardtel on it 10 o'clock Eastern on a Sunday night. You got to get that blowout Sox Cardinals game. Yeah, had to finish up that 9-to-1 game. And, you know, and I get why people are frustrated. It's still early in the east. ESPN deal and part of the appeal of that was supposed to be that ESPN would start to acknowledge the existence of hockey again and that ESPN has like a dozen channels that they could put different things on. And unfortunately, if anything, it was just that situation was just

another reminder that the greatest hockey player of his generation facing playoff elimination and still gets you nowhere near regular season blowout baseball in terms of the importance of sports. So again, you know, big thumbs up to everyone who keeps telling me that Gary Bettman's done an amazing job because the bottom line looks good, but this is where we're at as a league. Now, you didn't have this where you were watching it, but down here in the good old US of A,

They're like, oh, the game's on ESPN 2 right now. You can check it out if you want to. Okay, great. I'll go do that. That's no problem to me. I have ESPN 2, you know. And they go to commercial or something and they just like don't even say, oh, by the way, we're jumping over to ESPN 1, the original ESPN. Okay.

They just go, okay, that's an icing. And then the X Games Japan starts up. No, no announcement or anything. Just like, like someone flipped a switch in Bristol. It's been a fantastic week for ESPN's hockey coverage. Just, you're crushing it. But yeah, so did you have a thought on like two days off between the end of the last second round game and the start of the conference finals? I don't love it.

I've always, you know, in my perfect world, we just hit the ground running with the next series. I get the Tuesday night, there could have been game seven, so you're not going to want to schedule anything. I think it would be great to be starting tonight, but being a day off, I will take that as a trade because the rest of the schedule for the next round is just every second night, bang, bang, bang, no gaps, no weird back to backs, nothing like that. So that's great. And then I hope they don't do the thing that they seem to love to do where they build in like five days before the Stanley Cup final. Yeah. As if it's the Super Bowl and we just need all this media coverage and reality, fans just forget. It's the same eight people, you know.

So we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. But no, I will make the trade of starting a day late to get what I consider an ideal. two-week schedule for the for the round. NHL's just running scared from the CM Punk announcement. We all know it. That's why it's not happening tonight. That's it. That's got to be it.

Yeah. Have you seen anything about like why it was two days off? No. No, and I would assume it's an availability thing or. Oh, yeah. That's usually what it is. Because this is usually what happens this time of year, right? Like people like me get mad about some gap.

And then they're like, yeah, but, you know, Taylor Swift is playing a concert. And you go, oh, okay. Or some band with 50 fans is playing a concert and, you know, that gets you knocked out too. But beyond that, I haven't heard. I like the momentum. But again, my entire view of what the playoffs should be, as is my view of most things in life, is shaped by like when I was 16 or 17, and in this case, the Leafs playoff run

where they played literally every second night for two months. Perfect. That was exactly the way it should go. And as long as the NBA and everyone else just gets out of our way and gives us top priority, we can do that again.

Yeah. When I'm the commissioner, I'm going to make the schedule great again. All right, let's get into it. Tomorrow night's game, the Thursday night game, you get the Eastern Conference Final between the Florida Panthers and the Carolina Hurricanes. First, I guess, let's talk about how they got here. Okay, sure, I understand.

Yeah. I saw someone make the very funny point. I don't remember who said it on Twitter, but somebody made the point that it's like it's real like how weird this sport is in terms of like what we want to believe works and what doesn't where it's like Florida a team that barely made the playoffs everybody kind of thought they were a little bit of a joke two rounds later they're a model franchise everybody's got to figure out what the what the what the panthers formula is and replicate it and it's like yeah that is weird isn't it it is weird

based on a month of games. Yeah. And but at the same time, this is kind of what you get when you constantly hammer home the point explicitly and otherwise that the regular season doesn't matter. Regular season? I mean, you know, ask a Bruins fan

how much the regular season matter. Ask a Bruins fan how many times in the last few weeks they've been told, you know what, your team still a great year versus how many times they were told like, ha, you losers, your season, your seasons sucked. Um,

there's a, there's a local, oh, go ahead. No, no, don't go ahead with the local. There's a,

there's a local Boston like, uh, sports radio crank who's like, the Bruin should be embarrassed. Bruce Cassidy's in the conference final. This is a joke for them. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

If the players got, I think it was if the players really did get him fired, they should, they should feel ashamed. of themselves or something like that. Really good shit. Nice. The Primo's stuff.

I do love a great, like, local media meltdown. Those are all fantastic. But look, I mean, it's certainly, I can tell you, as the fan of a team that, I don't know if you've heard about this, Ryan, but they, the Leafs tend to be good in the regular season and not as good in the playoffs. Everybody constantly tells us, regular season doesn't matter. regular season serves one purpose. It is a six-month

massive round-robin tournament to divide the league into two halves, playoff teams and non-playoff teams. And then you get to the playoffs and we're told that everything changes, nothing that happened before ever matters, home ice, seating, none of that matters.

And now it's a brand new season and this is the real season that actually matters and all of this nonsense. Yeah. Okay. Well, if that's how we're doing it, then

The Florida Panthers have had a great year. And we'll just ignore the fact that if the penguins can beat the Blackhawks, that maybe none of this happens. And all the people like me going, man, that Matthew Kachuk trade was great, that all the changes they made are sitting there going, the Florida Panthers had the worst offseason ever because they went from 122 points to missing the playoffs. Yeah, thin margins, but that's this league, right?

Yeah. Let's start with the, uh, the, uh, the Kuchuk and, uh, you know, your Carter Ver Hagee's and that kind of thing. That, that was under, underrated aspect of the second round, I think is that, uh, you know, or even the first round, like those guys were, like, you didn't see much out of the depth guys, you know, um, I don't know. I, I, I, I'm a little skeptical, I guess. how we're talking about the uh the the the panthers here just because it's like well they got like 940 goal tending yeah i don't you know like obviously they did a lot to to neutralize the leaps and

and i wrote an article about this the other day but like you know they they gave up very few or at least they held toronto to fewer high danger chances expected goals whatever at five on five than the Leaves had in the regular season and then crucially they gave up three high danger goals the entire series at five on five

like that that's both the team played well defensively they knew what it took to beat the Leaf specifically but also they got like 940 golden and

you know, I just, I go, and okay, who was the goalie that did? Oh, it was Sergei Bavrovsky? Well, I don't know how long that's going to last. You know, like, that's what I keep circling back to. It's just like, but it's Sergei Bavrovsky. Yeah. You know? And let's be honest, it's become increasingly clear that the entire existence of the

NHL and the NFL playoffs is just there to mess with Leaf fans. So having Sergey Bobrofsky goalie the Leafs out, of the playoffs and then lose to Freddie Anderson who got booted out of Toronto because he couldn't do anything in the playoffs would be very fitting. I'll say this on the panda. And look, I mean, I just did it. And I know it's frustrating for Panther fans and some of the neutral fans out there. Everything in this series is kind of going through a lens of how does this affect the Maple Leafs? Just because of the discrepancy in the markets, the fan bases, the media presence. sure all of that i you know if if you're a panthers fan you've got like one beat writer covering the team

and this avalanche coverage from everywhere about the leaf so i get that that's frustrating that haven't been said while it is true that the leifs and panthers series was was more even than the result indicates i feel like we've gone too far down this road of well the leaps outplayed them. You know, the Leafs did, did the Leafs deserve a better faith than going out in five? Yeah, for sure. Maybe, yeah, sure. Were there games in that series where you could make the argument that the Leafs were the better team on, you know, this metric or that metric? Sure. But it's, it's almost like it's gone, that narrative has now shifted so far that people make it sound like the Panthers just got speedbagged and, and Brobrovsky was the only one. They're lucky to be here. Not at all. Like, they, they absolutely. you know, and I certainly don't want to become one of those watch the game guys, but as someone who did watch all the games, there were times where I'd watch a game and then go online and see people going like,

oh, you know, the Leafs deserve to win. And I was sort of like, did they? Like the Panthers, they forecheck very aggressively. They have limited to a reasonable, considering the two teams, they played, they've limited big chances. And yeah, they've gotten the goaltending way. Welcome to the playoffs, man. Like, your goalie needs to get hot.

I don't know what to tell you. That's part of hockey and goalie is a position on the ice and it counts. Yeah, I think if you looked at it, again, like through the lens of the, the deserve to win o' meter for the whole series, I'd say maybe it was like 53, 47 leaps, you know? Maybe. But. you know, one team got like average goaltending and one team got world class, like above world class goaltending, quite frankly.

And if you're only going to, if you're going to operate on like narrow margins of like, oh yeah, you know, maybe we had like a 6% higher chance to win this series based on just like the run of play or whatever, well, 940 goaltending is going to flatten that out for you really fast. Sure is. Now, you know,

Where are you at on this idea? And I don't want to say thankfully, but the fact that the Cracken didn't beat Dallas and 7 has saved us, I think, from a big conversation about this. But is the lesson from the Panthers just get into the playoffs and hope you get hot? No. You know, or is it?

I mean, the Canadians went to a cup final a few years ago. Like winning a couple of rounds is like, it's good. Obviously you want to do it. It's better than the alternative, right? But like, you know, the Islanders went to two straight Eastern Conference Finals. How'd that work out for them? Like both in those Eastern Conference Finals and since then, you know? Again, we're just effectively going to, we're going every night for seven games.

We're going to flip a coin here. And we're going to see what happens. and and like you said, it's, it's, it's the opposite of the Bruins thing. They're, where, you know,

they, they, they, I don't feel like they had a great game seven in that series or whatever. I feel like it went to overtime, but, you know, they, they didn't like,

blow your doors off or anything. And, like, if, if the Bruins win that game seven, which again, like, you know,

went to overtime, I think, right? Am I right about this? It went to overtime? Yep. Yeah. Okay. So,

so if the Bruins win that game, Bruins were winning that game with like two minutes left, right? The Panthers scored with the goalie out. Yep. And if that happens, we're never hearing about this fucking Panthers team again. That's it. You know? And so, like, that's how thin the margins are on these things sometimes.

Obviously, not so much in that Leaf Series. They handled that pretty effectively, I would say. But I guess, like, so it becomes, like, are the margins so thin that we're now just floundering around looking for explanations where there aren't any. Yeah. I think you nailed it. Thanks for listening to Puck Soup, everyone. We'll be back next week.

Have a good one, folks. Yes. No, but like for real, we say it all the time. The margin between the Bruins, the best regular season team of all time, and the Panthers, the worst playoff team in this year's playoffs. It's not like that big, honestly. It's not like a 1-8 seed in the NBA or like, you know, the whatever. I don't know how the NFL playoffs work, but like I feel like the best team wins that single elimination game 95% of the time, right?

It's no, but it is, it's certainly more than in the NHL, partly because home field advantage and all of that plays more heavily in the NFL. Sure. I don't watch the NFL So I don't really know how it works But the point being That You know This is the stat I say all the time

Whoever ran the numbers on this However many years ago Was like oh to get the best team in the NHL To win only 80% of the time It would have to be like a best of 50% 57 series Or whatever the number is 61 Like you would have to basically play like

60% of an NHL regular season for to be like reasonably confident that the actual best team won this year. Like it's, you know, what I get, I don't want to take anything away from the Panthers. They got really hot at the exact right time. And they have explored, they have, this is the other thing I wrote the article about. The way they beat the Bruins is different than the way they beat the Leafs, right? Like they, they didn't get, they didn't goalie the Bruins. They made the Bruins pay for every single mistake.

I think the stat is they had. 10 goals within five seconds of a turnover. That, you know, that's going to change, that's going to swing an entire seven game series, obviously. And with the Leafs, like I said, they just gave up very little, you know, relative to what you would expect the Leafs to generate. Yep.

And then they got the goaltending. And so the idea that they couldn't do that based on who they just beat, the idea that they couldn't do that to the Carolina Hurricanes, you know, that's crazy to me. They could totally do it to the hurricanes. Yep. The, you know, Bobrovsky is a huge piece of this, obviously,

and it will be worth watching this, you know, this idea that in the past few years, he has had some good stretches, but seems to wear down if he plays over and over and over again, uh, will be worth watching that, you know, having a few extra days,

uh, gap in the schedule probably helps, but, the fixes in Sean, says it. There it is. Yep, that's it. It's all about God, the league is, we know this league just bends over backwards for that Florida market. If they were Arizona, maybe you're right. Well, yeah, that's true. But that haven't been said, man, Carolina is. They're rolling, baby. They're looking good. And it's, I mean, I'll also.

say it once it will move on and we don't have to, but it's, it's impossible not to look this team and go, oh, if they were healthy, if they had all the guys they're missing up front. Two sweeps. Good Lord. Yeah. Good Lord. But, hey, again, it's the plan. The Panthers are just winning in the playoffs as the playoffs are presented to them and the hurricanes are just going out there with the guys that they have. Next man up.

And they're not sitting around feeling sore for themselves. And good for them. It's like this could be a real fun, like both of these conference finals, I think, have a lot of potential to be fun series. And I like this Carolina team, though. I was tepid on them a little bit for the first couple rounds just with the injuries. They weren't that good down the stretch in the regular season because of the injuries, you know? And that's why I had them losing in the first round because I was like, well, if any team's going to get goalied, it's the one without, it's like two. best goal scorers playing against arguably the guy who's been the best goalie in the league

over the last two full seasons. You know, I was like, well, like that, that is totally plausible that they would, even though they're, I think we all agree they were a better team than the Islanders. I think everybody also was like, yeah, but I mean, Sorokan versus a team missing its two best offensive like dynamos or whatever you want to say. And then, uh, they were like, oh, We don't care about that. Whatever.

Who gives a shit? We don't need those guys. And New Jersey, a team where you're like, oh, you know, the devils can really give these guys a game at five on five or whatever. It's like, not really. No. It did involve obviously Jordan Martinuk turning into Connor McDavid for five games, but... That happens, so.

It happens, sure. You can't argue with the results is all I'm saying. So, yeah, I mean... you mentioned Freddie Anderson and how well he's playing. It's like, yeah, but they're making it, they're making it look easy for him, you know, they're not, they're not letting any,

much like the Panthers. They're not really letting the opponents get to the net. Yeah, like, and Freddie Anderson has been, like, it was interesting. I was on some show yesterday, and they were like,

you know, is, is goaltending going to be a big advantage for Florida? Because Bobrowski's got great numbers and Freddie Anderson's been so-so. And it was like, well, the numbers are maybe a little, but he was great in four or five games against him. And then he stunk in one game. But that's not a bad way to do it.

I'd rather have that than pretty good game in and game out. Maybe not if I'm an NHL coach. But this fable playoff, Freddie hasn't really, you know, he's got the reputation. So every time he lets in a goal, ever. Everyone's like, oh, there he is. Here we are. But it's, he's, he's been fine. And the other thing with Carolina is they've got,

they've got the goaltending depth. I mean, they got three guys. So, yeah. If, if Freddie Anderson cools off, I feel a lot better about their plan B and C than I do with Florida having to go back to Alex Lyon. Yeah. The other thing is like,

uh, Florida, Florida loves stretching the ice and that kind of thing. who's the one team basically at any point well I guess maybe I would have said the Bruins but like there are not a lot of teams in the East period

that I'm like oh you know who is going to be really good at a neutralizing stretch passes and that kind of thing Carolina Hurricanes with their depth on defense and all that like man I don't know I they're just really

really saw They're solid in a way that, like, you wouldn't have said the Leafs are. And you would have said it about the Bruins, but, like, I don't know, like I said, the Bruins went to a game seven overtime and should have won that series, like, on paper, but they didn't have the goaltending. And, I don't know. Like, I just, the way Florida plays, again, they changed the approach from one series to the next, and you can't say it didn't work fantastic.

you know but I don't know what there is to change that Carolina wouldn't be like yeah we're happy to play that way actually yep they're just yeah Carolina's just such a was it was a well coached team yeah what was it Jack Han who um had the article that was like Florida is a bad matchup for the Bruins oh yeah I think it was yeah I think I think so um and so like it wasn't I guess impossible to see it coming. But I don't know. I feel like you say, name a team where you're like, oh, the results they get are because their coach is so good. And also they have obviously talented players and all that kind of stuff. But like what's a team where the coach is more front and center and the this is why they have success than Carolina? Is there one in the whole league?

I kind of don't think so. No, I don't think there is. Yeah. I mean, Cooper gets a lot of credit in Tampa, but he it doesn't, but it never feels like it's John Cooper's team. Like it almost feels like Rod Brindamore is the marquee player for... In a lot of ways, yeah. Which, you know what?

Like, man, we roll our eyes at all these teams constantly hiring like the popular ex-player, but when it works, I guess it works. Who are you picking? What's the... I got to go with Carolina.

for all the reasons we just said they're just they're just so solid and they've shown that they can they can beat teams with elite goaltending pretty easily and they can beat elite five on five teams pretty easily

and you know I don't think you would say either is true of Florida and it's only it's only you know a best of seven so anything can happen, but I, you know, I feel like the pumpkin has to, or the carriage has to turn back into a pumpkin at some point, doesn't it? Yes, although weirdly enough.

In the NHL over the years, it's, it always does turn back, but it turns back in the final very often. Yeah, you're right. Like, that is this very weird thing, because I remember writing a thing about this like five years ago and it's happened a couple times since then of, the Cinderella team that gets all the way to the final, but then doesn't win. Right.

So, yeah, I don't know. You wouldn't think it's going to last one more month, eight more wins, but could it last four more wins for Florida? It could. I'm still picking Carolina, but they got their, they're going to have their hands full. Yeah, I'd say Carolina specifically in six. I think they'll have their hands full a little bit more than they did in the last round. But it wouldn't, I guess I'll say this in Florida's favor. The head-to-head, like, line-by-line matchups, how do you not give the edge to the Panthers' top two lines?

Yeah. Maybe not top two units because, like, the defense kind of drops off a cliff a little bit, like, defensive depth for Florida. but like when you have a line with Matt Kachuk on it and then you can roll out a line with Sasha Barkov That's tricky that's tricky to handle Again I you know if anybody can I think it's Carolina But it'll be really interesting to see how Brindamore does his line matching and all that kind of stuff

That's all Sager Barkoff hasn't even been that front and center No for sure playoffs. So it's, which, again, it's always that two-edged sword, right? It's not good when your best players aren't playing amazing, but if you're winning without it, you kind of go, we'll take it and, yeah. We'll take it and find out, although I would say that Chuck is far and away their best

player. MVP nominee, I was a little surprised by that, that he was a finalist. I was a little surprised, but it's, I mean. What can you say? Congratulations to him on getting like however many third place folks. votes you need to finish 7,000 points behind Connor McDavid. Yeah. But still, of all the guys, I wouldn't have necessarily picked him as the third one behind him in Pasternak.

Hats off to him. He fucking deserves it. He's awesome. He had a great season. All right. Let's move on to the Friday game. It's Dallas versus Vegas. Man, talk about a potentially really fun series.

This is going to rock. I'm very excited about this series. The only thing, so, okay, let's start with talking about Dallas first. How they get here is they beat the Seattle Crack in seven games. And, you know, obviously we're getting a lot of talk about the Crack and prove they're real or whatever. I don't know, man. Like, did they like really put the screws to Jake? Gottinger or is there something wrong with Jake

Ottinger? That's the ultimate question. I don't know the answer to it, obviously. Yet, maybe we'll find out. We very near, we were one goal away from seeing a series where Philip Grubauer outdull Jay Gottinger. Two weeks after we all said Jay Gottinger is the only bankable goal he left in the playoffs.

Not even two weeks. Yeah, like a week and a week maybe. So, I mean, at some point, you just kind of, like, this is what makes it so frustrating to try to analyze and predict the playoffs. Who's going to win? The team that gets the best goal to ending will almost certainly win. Who is that going to be? I have no idea. I have no idea.

What's the matchup? Oh, it's 1999 Dominic Hasick versus 1992, Andre Racico, 52% chance for Hasick to be the goalie who's better. other than that. I'm not joking. Going into game six, both goalies had the same save percentage. And you know what that save percentage was? This is a real stat.

Mm-hmm. In the series, both goalies over six games, 865. Wow. That sucks. That's so bad. And in the end, uh,

Ottinger had the slightly better game seven. And, 877 and Grubaher went 874. That was the difference in the series. You fucking believe that. It's crazy. And so, but again, like the question becomes, do we think Jake Ottinger is injured? Or did Seattle...

Has there been talking about that? I haven't heard that. How else do you... No, I agree with you, but like, how else do you explain a goalie this fucking good apart from it's all random out there. A goalie this good, 873 or 77 rather. Yeah.

Well, I mean, I guess part of it is you point out that he's 24 and has barely played much in the NHL. So, you know, it's, he's not Andre Vasselisky as, you know, as far as an established track record. But yeah, no, I mean, goalies get hot and cold. And even beyond that. can play the exact same way. And when you get into these small sample sizes, one or two pucks is, you know,

10 points off your save percent. No, for sure. But, and credit to the Cracken as well. Like, they're a hard team to handle with that sort of four second lines approach. But,

yeah, that's going to be the question because he's going, you know, again, like you just throw your hands up. He's going up against a Knight's team that's on to what?

like Aiden Hill, number four on the deaf chart. I believe that would be about the number. I guess he's ahead of quick, and I'm not even counting Robin Lainer in that. Oh, yeah, right. They're just going down the list. So again, like,

if you had said at the beginning of the second round, it's going to be Dallas and Vegas in the conference final. I think a lot of people go, okay, that sounds good. Oh, and another Vegas goal that gets heard. so we're down to Jake Ottinger versus Aden Hill. Ooh, okay. And we have no idea which one of them is going to be better. Like we're just, we can't figure it out, man.

God bless the NHL. It's really wild. But yeah, it's funny because, like, I would say that, well, game one was the one where Seattle was, really, really impressive, I thought. And Dallas, I think, lost that one in overtime, if I'm remembering right?

And other than that, I think you would say that, like, Dallas kind of kind of had control of the series for the most part. They had a couple bad games from Ottinger where, you know, was it game

three, was the, like, seven to one or seven to two game, something like that, where like they just couldn't stop giving up. Well, okay, I'll put it this way. On the ESPN graphics, like introducing the goalies for game seven, each one had a stat for like a, you know, like, oh, goals again, save percentage, whatever. And they had a stat line for games pulled in the series.

Yes, I saw your tweet on that. No, it was somebody else's tweet, probably Pete's, but it was like, yeah, pulled as a stat. Yeah. God bless it. That's, we need more of this. Who got pulled? Yeah. So, who, so point being, I think Dallas certainly, I mean, I picked them to win the cup going into the playoffs.

So like, I think they certainly have the talent if everybody's, you know, pulling in the right direction. and all that kind of stuff. And they can kind of sort out whatever's wrong with Essel and Dell. He was really bad against Seattle. But if they can sort that out, there's no reason they don't win a series against, look, a very good Vegas team that is rolling right now

in a lot of ways, but has the huge question mark in goal. But with that having been said, that's me putting a lot of conditions on the team that I thought was the cup favorite, right? Beating a team that, as you say, is on it's like third or fourth goalie. But I mean, also, this is kind of, you mentioned Bruce Cassidy earlier, right? This has always been his thing. He's the guy who gets the most out of every goalie. And full credit to him.

He's doing that for a Vegas team that, you know, from the beginning of the season, when we found it Robin Liner wasn't going to play, everybody went, ooh, good team, cupworthy team, but what's going to happen in net? And the answer to what's happened in net is not that it's been great, but it's been always good enough. And it always feels like they're one step ahead of disaster, and they haven't had to go to quick yet. And we'll see, you know, Bois and Logan Thompson are both, in theory,

still potentially available, itself. point in the playoff run. So I guess there's something to be said for having that depth as an organization and having a coach who can work with it. And they've got a good team that I feel like matches up reasonably well against Dallas. I mentioned Barkov not having much of a season, postseason yet. Jason Robertson has not been anywhere near as big a part of this story as we would have assumed. which again, not great, but boy, if he finds his game again,

and starts looking like regular season, Jason Robertson, look out. Because they're already humming, and you throw him in the mix. Yikes. Totally. Yeah, no, he, man, how many shots on goal did he have in that series, and they just couldn't get it going for him? Man, he, again, like, you would have said, oh, Dallas is through to the conference final here. Surely Jason Robertson is like leading the charge.

And it's like, not really, no, no. Yeah, well, he only had 15 shots on goal. That's fewer than I would have expected, I guess. And it's, you know, that'll be interesting because it's kind of, and I feel like this is less of a conversation point. But anytime you're talking about Vegas in a playoffs. series, it's kind of like, all right, who's Mark Stone going to get? Right. Who's going to be the one?

And like you don't, like you didn't really see it in Edmonton. I didn't hear a ton about matching him up versus Dressidel and McDavid. And obviously, Dressidal especially was great in that series. McDavid was good too. It's not like they shut them down. But, yeah, who do you put him on if anyone or do you say, hey, we're going to, we're going to, we'll let you match up against our good players, not the other way around. Yeah, it's

It's just one of those things Like it's a great luxury to have When you can just be like, oh, I guess we'll put Mark Stone out there against X You know, it's like, oh shit Sounds like Sounds like they're going to be in great shape then, you know? I'm just looking to see very quickly He played the McDavid line most often it looks like

But even that wasn't like the majority of his time on ice, it looks like. So, yeah, 31 minutes against the McDavid line, and they actually didn't do that well. 38% of the shot attempts, for example. But you got to play them against somebody, and you also kind of do have to accept that, you know, McDavid's going to dictate terms a little bit.

But when they were on the ice head-to-head, two goals for, two goals against. That's all you're looking for. If you can hold McDavid to two goals in six games at five on five, you're doing something right. Yep. So what's the pick here? Well, I guess I got to stick with my beloved Dallas stars, right?

Yep. I picked them to win the cup, like I said. So we're going to stick with that. But I am very, very dubious about, about whether Jake Ottinger is healthy. Yeah, I haven't, I, so have, have there been any reports at all about that or is it just, I mean, I know,

I know that everybody shuts all the information down, but like with Allmark, there was talk of, hey, something's not right with him. I hadn't really heard that with. Yeah, no, I,

I'm looking and, um, I, I can't find anything. Like I just, I just Googled Jake Ottinger injury in the, the latest, the latest thing is a report from November 7th.

So it seems like there's probably not much out there. I believe, man, I don't remember. I submitted my like picks yesterday and I don't even remember. I think I had Dallas. Yeah. But I don't know, man. It's, it's interesting that. These are both awesome teams.

They're, you know. Yeah. Like we are again potentially headed. Like I said before, a lot of times we, see these Cinderella teams get to the final. There's a few of them every year. But it just, it kind of feels like we could be headed to another one of those years where there's a bunch of upsets and there's all sorts of craziness and we're all throwing

our hands up going, nobody can predict anything in the playoffs. It doesn't make sense. And then we get to a final of like Carolina versus Vegas where you're like, yeah, we all could have seen that coming at the start of the year, the number one seed in the west versus number two in the east. Like, yeah, that's not that crazy. We'll see. But, yeah, two worthy team.

I'm looking forward to this series, like I think. And it does feel, and we haven't even talked about, like, the Pete DeBore factor. That's spicy. I like that. It's fun, yeah. So, you know, having him back in the mix will be a fun one, too. So let's see where it goes, but I don't know. This feels like a series, like the next time we're talking will be, what, three games into the series?

And it feels like the series will barely have started by then. Like, we'll still be overreacting to everything that happened, but it'll be two to one and on its way to six or seven, it feels like. Yeah, I think. Just guarantee a sweep. Yeah, I'm going to go, I'm going to go to stars and seven. That simple. Yeah. I think that's what I picked.

Yeah. All right. Why don't we take a quick break? We'll come back and we'll talk about all the losers from the second round. Yay. This week's episode of Puck Soup is brought to you by AG1 by Athletic Greens. And folks, I take AG1 by Athletic Greens literally every day. And I gave it a try because, as I always say, they sent it to me.

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Check it out. Athletic Greens.com slash puck. All right. Loser Corner. Here we go. Let's just get it out of the way. Sean, the Leafs, losers. They did it.

They sure are. Yeah. They lose five games. I don't, where was the series that last time we talked? Was it? Four games, I think. Okay. Or no, it was three to one and you had said like, watch them win.

Right, yes. Yeah, I think it was three nothing. And you said watch them win game four and then get their ass kicked game five. Which didn't really happen. I had the wins and losses right. But, you know, it's not like they, they didn't come out flying and dominate game four and they didn't no show game five. It was more just two more coin flippy games. I mean, we talked about.

the Panthers in the open and full credit to them from a least perspective. Like, it's, uh, the way the series went down feels like it, it erased a lot of the goodwill from winning around finally. But, you know, not necessarily all of it, but, but obviously now a ton of questions around the team. We had the exit interviews and that on Monday, I guess it was. and we don't know who the GM's going to be, we don't know who the coach is going to be,

we do not know if Brennan-Shannahan will stick around, there is a ton of different ways this can go. Nothing interesting said by any of the players at all. I think a couple of guys saying, like, I want to stick around is being a little emphatic about it, I guess, you would say. I didn't think anyone, first of all that emphatic. And obviously this is one of those situations where you're like, what else are they going to say? Like nobody's going to be like, you know what?

No, actually, I hate it here and I want out. Get me the fuck out of here. But, you know, yeah, they said they wanted to stay. But, you know, all I would do is point people back to the Calgary Flames last year on their clear-out day. Exact same stuff said by Matthew Chuk and Johnny Goddrow, by the way. both of them saying, yeah, we like it here, would like to stay. You know, hopefully things work out. So I don't put any stock in that.

The news came from, well, I guess two things. First of all, Sheldon Keith saying that they weren't prepared for how the series played out, which was interesting because they should hire somebody whose job. Hot dog guy. He did it. He did hot dog guy. Yeah. We should hire somebody whose job it is.

to game plan and like figure out how a series is going to go. That would be a good idea. You know, I said it last year. Like, I felt like the number of, well, I also said they should trade Tavares and then he had a pretty good season, but an $11 million season, you know, I don't know. But I said last year, this guy doesn't fucking have it. I don't, I mean, I like Keith well enough as a coach. I think that when his time in Toronto is done,

he will coach elsewhere in the league and may go on to a long and successful career. I think his time in Toronto should be done. There is, there are, even in this playoff run, there were too many games where they just either didn't show up, didn't play the full, the turning point of the series was that game two, I guess, against the Panthers,

where they come out, they have a great first period, they're up two to one, and then one minute into the second period, they're losing three to two. Yep. Just total confusion, total, you know, not ready to go. How many times can it happen? And how many times can the coach get up and be like, oh, it's baffling?

Well, dude, it's your whole job. I think I crack this one. Yeah. I don't, I can't, I can't imagine a good argument for bringing Keith back at this point, other than that he's Dubas buddy and which is not a good argument. The big news was the Kyle Dubas press conference where he, among other things, said, first of all, he said he's not going anywhere else. He's not necessarily, he did not commit to coming back to Toronto, unlike, you talk

about the players saying what they said. He basically said, I'm going to sit and talk to my family. This has been very tough on them. We got to figure out what's going to make sense. But he said, I'm not going to pop up somewhere else next week, which would seem to take things like the penguin's job. Ottawa's potentially even mentioned, it would seem to take that off the table. And he was, like, he was very human about it.

And it's a good reminder on this stuff that these guys are people. And it just, it puts him in a real tough position, though, because it sounds like he's, you know, the options that he can discuss with his family at this point. And if people don't know, he's married, he's got two young kids. He can either say, we're going to stay in Toronto and I'm going back to the meat grinder starting now. Or I step back. Daddy gets to take a year off or whatever it is. And then we go back into the meat grinder somewhere else, which means everybody picks up and moves and we go, you know,

we go be somewhere else. Like there isn't, I'm sure ideally for him, he would love to just like take a year off and come back to Toronto, but that's not an option. So, I don't know. And then the other big piece of information was him for the first time at one of these things, actually having some self-reflection about the commitment to the core and making it sound like he would, in fact, saying specifically, you know, this wasn't a read-between the lines thing, that he would. consider making major changes to the roster, including trading guys on the core, that he would look at things, didn't make any promises, but saying that, yeah, it's, you know, maybe I've been too committed to these guys and basically not doing what he had done the last three years running, which is get up and give a vote of confidence and basically slam the door before the

offseason even starts on doing anything major. So Toronto being Toronto, everybody will go crazy with that, but it's the only thing he could have said. I had said beforehand, I had a few people ask me, where are you on Dubes? And I said, I want to see the postseason press conference. Because if he gets up there and does the same song and dance, I'm done. And if he seems like he's actually open to doing the hard parts of the job, then I'm more on board. So I'm more on board.

What did you think from a neutral perspective, What did you think seeing any of that? I was surprised that he, um, that he, he basically said, it's Toronto or nowhere. I'll take a year.

Like, you know, it's easy to take a year off when you get a couple mill in the bank, right? Like that's, I'd be doing the same thing. I just, every time I,

I decided I didn't want to work anymore, I just feel like, man, take it a year off. Bye-bye. You know? Um, but,

like other than the fact that like he's not going to go to Pittsburgh and fulfill that stupid rumor or whatever, you know, it is, it is interesting to me that he is willing to, you know, because we've seen so many hockey guys just be like, no, my guys are my guys or whatever. And, and he is kind of pointedly not doing that. Like I like, like you, I think that. Yeah, finally, right. I think the coach is gone and, you know, with good reason. I think, you know, I don't know which one of the core four guy would, I hate calling them the core four. But I don't know which one of you, which one of those guys you say is gone, but it can't be Nealander and it can't be Matthews, right? So there's two of the guys. No, it can't be Tavarra's or Matthews. Well, it can't be Tfarous because he has a no move clause.

So unless he... I'm leaning on him real hard to be like, you don't want to be here, right? You want to go, you know, run out the string in fucking Anaheim or something, huh? And that's kind of become a question in Toronto is do you want, would you want to see the team do that, have those conversations with him, even if it potentially needs that can lead to bad feelings? It can sour the relationship, and, you know, any of that. And the answer is pretty overwhelmingly been, yes. I think people want to see that. Matthews has no trade that kicks in on July 1st, so you can move him before then,

but I think everyone agrees that's the hardest scenario to envision as far as there being anything that makes sense for the Leafs. Because any of these trades, you're not talking about, These aren't rebuild trades. This isn't trade these guys for first picks and prospects and try again in a few years. It's how do we get different now, but still competitive? Nealander and Marner, I think, are the two that make the most sense. Nealander is...

I just like Nealander a lot and at the price point. Well, but the price point's about to change, right? Because he's only got one year left on his cheap deal. Same with Matthews, yeah. Matthews, same. and he has a limited no trade that kicks in July 1st, so not as limiting as all the other guys. Marner has the extra year,

so no extension for him this year, two years of team control, no trade protection yet. His, I believe, also kicks in in July 1st. So in theory, he's the most attractive asset that you have, especially to teams like just to throw a team out there, a team like a Winnipeg isn't necessarily going to give you an arm and a leg for Austin Matthews knowing that after a year you can be like, I don't like it here, I'm gone.

Yeah. Whereas Marner, you have that extra. I think Mertl or someone said it, Marner would be the cleanest move to make. Although, obviously, he makes 11 million bucks and all of this other stuff that makes it tricky. But that's kind of where it stands for the four of them. And then the name that you haven't heard is Morgan Riley, just because, A, he had a great playoff, and be he's the defenseman, so you're not going to trade a defenseman at another forward, so it just doesn't feel like he would move.

Yeah. I don't know. Like, I said it last week. Like, you probably can't have a lot of playoff success of Morgan Riley is your best defenseman. I'm a skeptic on the whole Morgan Riley thing. But with that having been said, he's not like bad or anything, you know, and it was given away. He was real good in the playoffs. He was their most consistent player.

And if you trade him, you're not getting a better player back, right? So the only thing you can do is you trade, again, for example, Mitch Marner and either free up the cap space to go sign a defense or not that there's a really great one available this summer. or you try to target a team that is giving up a defenseman. Right. You know, like I said, I hear what you're saying when you, you know, and I don't think anyone should be unrealistic about the job ahead as far as what do you do with this team. But I just, it bugs me when I hear this like preemptive, you're not getting a better player. You're not going to win this deal.

You're not going to get better by trading this guy or this guy or this guy or this guy. And that's where not that the Panthers are a model franchise, but the Panthers are at very least proof as a counter example that it's not impossible to trade core players and get better from the trade. And I know everyone goes, well, yeah, but the Matthew Kuchuk thing, that doesn't happen every year. And it doesn't. No, of course.

It happened last year. And the Leafs apparently sat on their hands. But it's only going to happen once. For your team specifically, it only has to happen once. But it was, man, I had an interesting day on Monday because I wrote a piece that appeared Monday morning where I said, basically what I just said, that the Panthers are the, are the reminder that it is possible. Not that it's the only way to do it. Not that you structure the whole franchise to try to model the Panthers, but just that this idea that there is no other way to build a team other than draft high, Hopefully turn those picks into stars, pay them, and then sit back and cross your fingers and just hope because there's nothing else you can do at that point, which is what we've been sold in Toronto from Kyle Dubas and others for a while now.

And then a lot of fans have bought into. A lot of fans, if you even suggest trading anyone, they'll come running at you. Well, who are you going to get? Like, as if I'm supposed to lay out what the trade would be, you know, or, you're going to get worse. You're going to get this and that and saying, no, look at the Panthers. Not surprisingly, I spent a big chunk of Monday getting yelled at by Leaf fans for how unrealistic I was, how that's, you know, these trades never happen, et cetera, et cetera. And then Kyle Dubas gets up and specifically cites the Matthew Kachuk trade in his press conference, says that's what we have to look at. He almost word for word reads the article saying, you know, we just got beat by a team that shows that there is a way to do this and all this.

And I'm not saying he, I'm not saying he read the article. I'm just saying what I was arguing wasn't so far out of bounds. It was something that a smart GM could on his own figure out and put out there. So they've got a ridiculously complicated summer ahead of them. It's not impossible that they come back with pretty much the same group next year. Like, other than Keith's the one that. Keith's the one that would really surprise me, but other than that, you know, but at the very least, be open to it. Stop hanging up the phone before it's even rung, which is the approach that they've done for the last three years.

And there's, you know, there's been some interesting stuff that Justin Boren had a really good piece where he talked about, among other things, and this was on his sportsnet column, among other things, how the players in this organization are treated. and how much of a priority it's been to treat everyone well and make everything as easy as possible and all this stuff and whether that was actually the right way to do it. And if people don't know, Justin is the furthest thing from like a 200 hockey man, like, oh, you're giving participation trophies, nonsense. Like, it wasn't from that angle.

But he was saying, like, these guys have been, these guys have been really handled with kidcloth. Caudled would be a strong. way to put it, but maybe not wrong. Yeah. And it's going to be interesting to see now that the contracts are up. All right. You loved it here for five years. You've never been criticized by the organization. You've got all the money you want it, everything. None of it has paid off for the team. Is there a little bit of payback here, or is it just shrug your shoulders and go on to the next thing?

It's going to be interesting. Yeah. Yeah, no, totally. I'm trying to think. Like, is there anything else to say about this team? Like, they're just, it feels like they have to make at least one big change, preferably two. And as you kind of allude to, like, two's hard. One's easy. One is, one is you just change the coach.

The big trade, I think they kind of have to make it, but I don't, I don't know what that actually looks. like. Yeah. And you shouldn't. Like it's the GM's job to work the phones and create markets and have conversations and figure the stuff out. It's,

you know, there are, look, the Leafs, despite how it may appear, the Leafs are not the only team that lost in the playoffs. They're not the only team that had disappointing season. Sure.

You know, there are other teams out there who might also be looking to make movement. This is not impossible to do. And it's especially interesting in Toronto because in my lifetime, as a Toronto sports fan, the teams have won three championships. Two World Series for the Blue Jays, one championship for the Raptors. And all of those were made possible by the team making a big, bold, ballsy move. trade in Toronto. And yes, it's 30 years ago,

but the Joe Carter trade was the turning point. And obviously the Raptors more recently with Kauai, different sports, I know. But the way that hockey fans have internalized to this point, that it's just

impossible. Yeah. That, oh, this complicated salary cap that isn't remotely complicated compared to all the other ones out there, There's just no way that it can be done. Yes, it can. And it's hard.

But if your view of things is that if something is hard, it's not worth trying, then that would kind of explain how the Maple Leafs have got to where they're at. They've got a ton of free agents. They've got to figure out a way to deal with the Matt Murray situation, which that trade ended up being exactly the disaster that everyone said it was going to be last summer. I read some articles in, like, November that indicated. and otherwise. Yeah, that's right. He did have like two good weeks. But yeah, I mean, they go out and get a guy. And again, like, I love, I do love, like, the passion of fans and the loyalty and everything. Like, that's why we get to do this that people think this way. But, like, I made a comment online about Matt Murray, this trade was a disaster. And, you know, people are coming back, oh, well, what else were they supposed to do?

It didn't actually hurt them. And it was like, yeah, man, you're right. It worked out great because certainly the Maple Leafs famously did not run out of cap room at all. And their starting goalie didn't get hurt in the playoffs. So it was fine to have a $5 million backup who they didn't even trust to play in the playoffs, even though that was the whole reason they got them. They got a lot of things to figure out. And if you're, you know, I know there's a lot of people going, you're talking about the Leafs too much.

I'm not a Leafs fan. right, not being a Leafs fan is the absolute perfect way to watch this Leafs off season, because you just get your popcorn and you sit back and see what the hell are they going to do. Yep. All right, let's move on to the Devils. I don't feel like there's a ton to say here. They're going to bring everybody back, including apparently Lindy Ruff. Last I saw he's close to an extension.

Okay. Which is surprising only because that frees up a, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, Andrew Brunette to look elsewhere. And the reason that, here's why that is surprising to me. Obviously, Lindy had a great season, you know. He's a Jack Adams finalist, all the chanting and what have you about whether he should or should not keep his job. But it's like, now, if I'm trying to find causality here, you know, if I'm trying to find

a reason that the devil's really, like, you know, jump-fixirms. 50 points in the standings or whatever it was. Am I not going, oh, the guy that just won a president's trophy last year, he shows up, we immediately jump like 50 points in the standings or whatever. Is it because Lindy Ruff got good at coaching and everybody matured at the exact same time? Or is it something else? I don't know. It's impossible to say.

Yep. It's, I mean, given the season they just had, I think it was clearly going to be a case of, If Lindy wants to come back, he comes back. I mean, to push him out, you know, even if he was in the last year of his contract, whatever, to do anything other than extend him, I don't know that any team would be able to do. I mean, any GM, right? Because God help you if you do that and then it goes south next year. Worked with Barry Trots, right?

Oh, wait, no, it didn't work out at all from the capitals. Not really. It's interesting. But yeah, it's, it does, in theory, put Andrew Burnett on the, out there at the very least. Which is not to say that he can't stay in New Jersey, and maybe you do it as a sort of succession plan thing where it's like Lindy's going to do one or two more years and then you're the next guy up. But you would imagine that you have to let him talk to teams now. and there's been a lot of with some of the coaching openings.

I think a lot of people... There's a lot of coaching openings. There's a lot of them. But people have looked at it and been like, wait, who are the candidates? Like, it doesn't feel like there's any... I mean, assuming it's not Quenville and you got Babcock lurking around,

it's like Peter Laviolet, and then a bunch of guys that you maybe haven't heard of, here's a guy that you have heard of. Now, he's a guy with one year, in fact, technically not even one year of experience. Right. And he is a guy that, you know, some people might look at and go, the story on him in Florida was supposedly that he led them to their best regular season ever,

but in the playoffs. He was getting out coached and, you know, the players weren't impressed. And now that Florida team goes out and gets, you know, recycled Paul Maurice and they're rolling in the playoffs. Hey, who knows? But that's going to be an interesting name to watch for sure. And you're right. Like we're talking about the coaching. because it just doesn't feel like there's anything else with the devils.

Other than if you're New Jersey, do you try to take a big swing of a goalie? Like, are you in on a Conrad Libund? I think you kind of have to. They have a ton of, like, they don't have a ton of guys signed for next year. They have, they have to think about Brat and Timo Meyer, or their two big RFAs. And then their UFAs are like, Tomas Tatar, who's getting up there. Miles Wood, who like, okay, see you later. It doesn't really matter.

Eric Howla. And so the real question they have to ask, I guess, besides in goal, is which one of their defensemen they're keeping? Do they want to go with pending UFA Ryan Graves or pending UFA Damon Severson? Because you don't have to bring back both of them. And in fact, you probably can't afford to bring back both of them. But if we're saying, like, Luke Hughes, full-time NHL defensemen, you know, he's a guy that replaces one of them in theory.

I believe he's a left shot. So that makes him correspond to, like he could take the Graves role, I guess. Because Graves is also a left D, but like I'd rather have Graves than Severson, all things being equal. so it's a little, it's a little tricky. I don't know how they navigate that.

But yeah, they cannot have this goaltending situation again next season. The only thing is maybe they think Akira Schmidt is the goalie of the future. I'm not convinced about that. Yeah. But maybe that's what they think. That's a tough one, right? It's always tough when these guys sort of come in, have a short playoff run, you some signs. Do you bank got that? Or do you or do you not? Now in their case, I'm not convinced

that they have, like, I feel like you can go after a big name and make Schmidt your backup and you're fine. Like, I don't think you're pushing it. I mean, McKenzie Blackwood is done. You would imagine, right? I mean, that's. Oh, yeah. Pending RFA, too. Moved on from that. Vanichick, I don't know. He was fine at times this year, and he signed for two more seasons. What's his number? Three, four. So you put him in a Hellebuck trade.

Sure, absolutely. Like, that's the, I mean, that's one of the teams that I feel like are going to be. And, you know, we won't talk a bunch about the Jets. But Connor Hellebuck is the guy I would trade if I was Winnipeg. So, in addition to some other guys. but I would make that move rather than lock them up. So, yeah, New Jersey is definitely one of the teams that I would be targeting there. Yeah, no, but otherwise, like they're, like I said,

they've got to get new contracts figured out for Bratt and Timo Meyer. Meyer famously has the $10 million qualifying offer, so that's a tough sell. But again, that's only if you extend him, that goes away as a, like that doesn't, that's the starting point only for the qualifying offer. You know, some people don't get. Some people seem to think that that becomes like the floor for an extension. And it's, no, but I'm just saying that makes a kind of imperative to either figure out something long term or figure out where you're trading him. Because the idea that you would pay him $10 million and then, like, if he's like, I don't want to stick around that long. then what are you keeping them around for?

You know? Yep. But that's all. Other than that, like, they don't really have anybody of note that needs a new contract. So, yeah, this is a team that they should run it back. If everything goes the way we all think it will for these guys,

they're going to be really good again. So nothing really bad to say about. Do you think there's a step back coming at all, or is it? Um, only because I think it's hard to, what did they have like 110, 110, 115 points, something like that. I think it's hard for any team to do that two years in a row, you know? So, like, yes, but only because of that and not because of, uh, you know, they're, they're not talented or whatever, you know, a hundred and twelve points they had. Yeah, that's hard for any team to hit.

But like, they should be a hundred point team again next year, no problem in my, my opinion. safely playoffs, all that stuff. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I would agree with that. Great. The Oilers, here's the Connor MacDavid quote. It's cup or bust. That's what he said for this group.

That's what everybody says. Well, if I can continue the quote, just where everyone is at with their career, that's the expectation. And he's right. He's not wrong. There's nothing. There's absolutely.

nothing wrong about that statement. I'm surprised at Connor McDavid, just called Connor McDavid a bust, but that's... Well, so here's the interesting thing that McDavid is kind of right about. Only two years left of Drysidal on the extremely affordable deal.

Yep. And that's when you get into big concerns just because, like, man, obviously the cap's going to go up a lot in the next two, three years, so they'll have more wiggle room, but, you know, they're, by the time, how about this? When this contract is over, Drysitle will be, he will be closing in on his 30th birthday, his birthday is in October. So, McDavid isn't wrong about,

clocks, clocks kind of ticking. I mean, Dracidal is eligible for an extension next summer. Mac David the summer after that. So, yeah, I mean, Dracytle's deal ends. And as with any superstar in the NHL, you assume they're going to get an extension until you see otherwise. But, yeah, you'll have that extension kicking in at the same time that McDavid,

I mean, Dracytle probably becomes the highest paid player in the league or at least passes McDavid for one year and then McDavid leapfrogs back over them. But then, yeah, where else do you? it gets tougher to surround them. Yeah. Especially with that, you look around,

they've got of the guys that are, other guys that are signed long term, Zach Hyman's still got years to go, but he's, you don't hate the cap hit. He, you know, you don't love it,

but Nugent Hopkins is, you're going to hate it in like two, three years, so I'll tell you that. Nugent Hopkins is, is a similarly long deal, although given the season he just had, at 5.1 million, you've got no issue with that.

Evander Cain's got three more years left, and he really did not have a good postseason. I would say Nuge didn't either. No, Nugent Hopkins didn't have, given his regular season, he didn't really have a great season either, postseason. At home has got two more years, which you're probably fine with. Three more years.

Yeah, you're right. Sorry, three more years. you're probably okay with you don't necessarily love you know the end of that deal necessarily but I think you live with it the one that stands out is darned elders what a killer man

nine plus million for a guy that does not look like and Evan Bouchard just came in and ate his fucking lunch in this postseason like I'm the guy no I'm the guy I'm the guy smokes I mean that's boy was he but yeah darned Nell Nurse doesn't, I mean, he doesn't even look like a guy that you bank on as a top pair guy at this point.

Yep. Oh, boy. So, and of course, the goaltending questions, although, you know, Stuart Skinner wasn't good in the playoffs, but. Seems like he's going to be fine. He's like 24, 25 years old. So, like, it's the Jack Campbell deal that you, you cringe at there. So that's another thing. Oh, yeah, no shit.

Get out of, but. Yeah, well, here's a problem. That darn L Nurse deal. full no move. Vander Cain Deal, full no move. Ryan Nugent Hopkins, full no move.

Zach Hyman, full no move. Jack Campbell, 10 team, no trade list. Yep. And a lot of those, it's the old joke,

right? The cap hit is the no trade clause for some of these guys. Totally. But you're right, I mean, could you get a guy like that

into Arizona or somewhere like that? Well, no. The answer is no. So it looks like, if the oilers are trying to find a little bit of cap flexibility this summer, I saw this like a growing amount like throughout the like tail end of the regular season.

Kyler Yamamoto just kind of feels like kind of reaching the end of the road there. And we should say I guess that the oilers are one of those teams where you talk about finding cap room. they don't necessarily need the cap. They've got a lot of guys signed. Like we just listed a whole bunch of guys. I mean, if anything, their problem is they've got too many guys signed for two, three, four years. Like, they can ice a team next year. They've, you know, would they like to bring back Derek Ryan?

I'm sure they would. You know, they've got to figure out Evan Bouchard. That's going to be a tough one. But they've got the cap space to bring back essentially the same team and run it back. if they want to is the question. But then what about down the road? You're right. Smart teams aren't just looking at patching together

or a roster for one more year. It's thinking ahead. So is there any scenario where you could get Darnell Nurse off this team? This summer? You'd have to eat some money, I feel like. And again, like he has a full no move. So, like, where are you trading them?

Who is, like, not sending you crap back to make the money work? Even then, I mean, this is year one we just finished. Oh, I know. An eight-year deal. It goes to 2030. So even if you look around and say, we'll take back a bad contract, there might not be a worse contract out there. I'm exaggerating a little bit.

but it's not even like For the money and the term If you call up San Jose and you're like Darnel Nurse for Vlasic, what do you think? San Jose might look at that and go No, we're not doing that

because we'll just Flasics off the book in what two years? Something like that. Maybe more than that. Oh no, three more years. I yeah, aye. Even then. And I say this as, you know,

thinking that, you know, we always evaluate players in terms of the contract. Darned old nurse is still a good player. Darned all nurse can. Sure. Absolutely help you win hockey games. But I'm not sure I even make that deal if I'm San Jose.

Because seven years versus three potentially tough. Yeah. And, you know, you can retain salary and all of that stuff. I don't know, man. I think it's one of those things where the best solution of the darn-old nurse problem is to work really hard to get Darnell Nurse back up to that level you thought he was at. Yeah, and that just means give them more power play time. But anyway, one last team here, Seattle Cracken.

I have one simple question for you regarding these fine fellows. What do they need to do to make this performance this season, both in the regular season and the playoffs? Not a fluke. Because right now I kind of feel like it is one. it does feel like if we all had to make our playoff predictions next year that the Cracken would be that team that we would all drop

out of the West. Not because we not because we think they're not a playoff team, but because you have to drop some. It's just how the prediction world works. Yes. Oh, man. What did they have to do? I mean, the special teams was an issue all year.

That'll have to be a point of emphasis. The goal tend is an issue all year until the playoffs. So now what do you do there? That gets weird, right? Yeah, I mean, you want to talk about not good goalie contracts. Like, yeah, Jack Campbell is obviously like clubhouse leader. But four more years of Philip Gruberauer at 5.9 million.

Oofy-doofy, as they say, as I say. I don't think anyone says that. I say it. I say it constantly. Okay, so here's maybe, unlike a Jack Campbell or somebody, is there any scenario where you just hope that extreme recency bias kicks in and somebody out there is looking at playoff Grubauer going, this guy, it clicked back in for him? The light bulb went off. This is our chance to go grab a guy who, or am I being wishful thinking on even the idea of a G. being dumb enough to fall.

Well, I got bad news for you. It says here, full no trade. Oh, does it? I thought it said, I thought he was, uh, full no trade through the end of next season and then it becomes a 10 team no trade list. Okay, it's, oh, right. All right. I, I misread it then.

I thought maybe he was, uh, okay. Well, yeah. So here's what I, here's, here's what I want to say about, uh, about how these guys can improve. They are really good at identifying market inefficiencies or guys, more specifically, I guess, like individual guys who are undervalued and getting them for pretty close to nothing, right? Obviously, everybody's like, oh, this Daniel Sprong guy, you finally put it together, you know? they got Vince Dunn, they got Ely Tolvin and

well I guess Vince Dunn was just an expansion draft thing but then they had to re-sign him and I write about the ins and outs of that but you know they have identified a few players and been like that guy's good, they're not using him right if we put him in a different role he's going to be really good for us

and it's worked you know maybe not so much in net but that's just one of those things, right? Goleys are such a crap shoot, you never know. Although I feel like you could have seen it coming with Grubauer. But anyway, yeah, like them finding one or two guys this summer who were like weirdly cheap and turning them.

Because like, okay, you know, you're not going to get Jared McCann to 40 goals next year again, in all likelihood, right? 25, 30? Yeah, that's very reasonable. That's the kind of player he is. I think. But 40 is going to be a tough sell. But yeah, I like where they can go here.

They have a, you know, they have a growing number of prospects, obviously that they, I don't think they have too many guys that can step in right now and make a difference. But like a year or two from now, it's a different story. I just think, I think they got to do more to just get not even like high. level talent. Like, again, you want to talk about the four fourth or four second lines thing. Like, they just need like two more guys who can be second line guys, I think. And once you have that, you're, you're going to be in good shape. But you can't, you can't count on, again, like Jerry McCannan, like Jaden Schwartz to be driving offense for you.

It's just not how things work, have worked historically for, in their career. years. But, yeah, I don't know. I could see them being pretty good next season, but as you say, playoffs, that's a bit of a tougher sell for me. Yeah, I mean, we'll see. And I mean, full credit to them. It was a hell of a, hell of a ride.

I'm just looking at their cat. Yeah, I mean, they don't have as much cap space as you might, not as you might think, but it's just whenever an expansion team comes in where oh, cap space is a weapon and all of this. And they've certainly got room for next year, but they do have a few more guys to sign. They could still do some things.

The thing with them is you look at them and they don't have Gruberauer's the highest paid guy at 5.9. They don't have anyone on crazy big deals. They've got some guys that are maybe a year longer than you'd like to think, but everything starts off a million dollars more. Yeah.

Like Jamie Alexiak, Three more years of 4.6, you're like, well, that doesn't make sense. That can't be right. Right. And like you say, they have 20 plus million in cap space. You know, who needs a new contract as Vince done. And it's like, well, he was like their leading scorer for a huge chunk of the season. Probably their number one defenseman overall, I think you would say he's going to want a big race.

Yeah. And they're going to get it. Strong as well needs a deal. But both RFA's, we should say. So not guys that you're going to see just walk on you. And the other nice thing is not so much on the blue line, but at least up front, because of the death and everything. Like, there's nobody there that stands out having had a bad season. So if we need space, like, could we trade a Brandon Tannive or something?

Yeah, you could. Like, there's nobody on there where you're like. That guy acts like you see as a freaking ghost. Isn't that funny? Isn't that the funniest thing? Oh, boy. You know what I think. I think he saw some spicy chicken is what he saw.

Oh, boy. Pork, but sure. Can't say that. We'll delete that. That's too. Can't say that. That's right. Katie, strike the spicy beans from the record.

No, but yeah, like they're, they'll be fine. But I don't know if fine is enough to. What do you do? If you're Ron Francis, are you looking at this going, all right, keep going, nice and patient. we don't need big changes

or are you looking at this going and maybe this is a streak while they are in this hot sort of thing maybe we're ahead of schedule and you know we try to actually get to the destination early instead of just slowing it down and sticking to when we thought

we were going to arrive. Like what's your approach? I have a feeling I know what NHLGM's going to do but what we do? It's tough because like I think I said this going into the season. I don't remember.

exactly when I saw this article, but basically the articles, I feel like around like October in Seattle were like, if these guys aren't good this year, people are going to lose interest. Yep. And they were good this year. They were very good. Um,

but with that having been said, does this buy them goodwill with the locals and the locals are a little more willing to go along for the ride? Or I don't, like I said, I don't think there's a possibility that they're like bad bad but they could miss the playoffs by like four or

five points and it wouldn't surprise me at all right and so do you say to yourself like we need to go get a guy who will maybe buy us that extra guys that buy you a guaranteed four or five points are expensive obviously but like do we need to go out and get one or two guys who can actually help get us over the line. I don't know the answer to that. But like if they're interested in getting like a, I don't know, like a Tyler Bertuzi or somebody like that, that wouldn't surprise me at all.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, that feels like about the right kind of move, like the entry point in the free agency to go get a guy like that. Yeah, I like that. Okay. Well, why don't we take another break? We'll come back. We'll do all the non-playoff team news.

All right back. This show is sponsored by Better Help. These days, it's really easy to get very caught up in what other people need from you. And maybe even to the extent that you don't take enough time to think about what you might need for yourself. On some level, that feels noble, but it can be a mistake. Because when we spend all our time focused on others, It can leave us being too stretched thin, maybe even burned out. And therapy is one of the ways that you can give yourself some of those tools to find more balance in your life, which means you get to keep supporting others, but you're not leaving yourself behind.

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for no additional charge. Find more balance with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com slash puck today and get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelphelp.com slash puck. All right. I guess the kind of breaking news from late last night, the last thing I saw before I went to bed,

is that the Coyote's Arena deal, arena district deal, I guess I should say. that vote went real bad for the coyotes. Yep, three votes, actually. I don't really understand why it was. Yeah, I don't know. But if you're looking for like some sort of, well, you know, they at least won that, no, they got smoked in all three. Yep, not even close.

So, you know, it's funny because we had heard all along, oh, the coyotes are pretty confident they got this, right? And you've seen some conflicting reports about like spending on the poll issue. Like I've seen that the coyotes spent very little money, like, you know, a few, you know, $30,000 or whatever. And then I've also seen that they spent like $750 grand. Tough to know who to believe in these scenarios. Well, I mean, when it comes to the coyotes spending money, I know which way I'm leaning on. Well, so here's the thing. So, okay.

for those who don't know, they had an idea for a $1.7 billion like arena development with like, you know, apartments and concert venue and movie theater, all this, all that bullshit. And they were like,

oh, it'll be private money too, by the way, which is like, whoa, that's crazy. That's awesome. Wow.

And then they were like, well, of course, you would have to give us $500 million in tax breaks. And it's like, okay, so it sounds like it's less than that.

So they pay for it. then they don't pay their taxes on anything for a very, very long time. Correct. Well, not anything, but like the stuff that they would normally owe to, I think it was the city of Tempe and maybe the county. Again, like reading through all this stuff as like a refresher yesterday, it was like kind of hard to get a straight answer on who would have owed what and when and all this kind of stuff.

But so it doesn't matter now. It's not going to fucking happen According to the voters They didn't want to pay for it And it's hard to know Whether that is a referendum on the deal itself Or We just don't give a shit about the coyotes

Stay go, we don't care Like it's hard to know which of those two things It was probably a combination of the two, quite frankly Um But Pointedly And everybody said this so I'm not breaking any fucking news here.

But like pointedly, the statements from both the team and the league last night were like, oh, very disappointed. And we're not going to say anything about being committed to staying in Arizona. Which if you've followed the forever saga of this team and the many, many other times that there has been bad news, that's always been the kicker to everything was. the NHL renews its commitment to keeping the team in Arizona and not this time.

So is this it? Has to be. Now, I guess we should say that the one kind of like deal that could be in their pocket is going to the Sons. The Sons have new ownership now as of a few months ago and saying like we'd like, to work out a deal with you for we become a tenant in your arena. I don't know if the Sun's arena can like even accommodate hockey right now.

Okay. I'm going to look that up really quickly here. But, oh no, I guess it's the same one the coyotes used to play in still. Can that be right? Yeah, it opened in 19-2. run out of arenas in the state of Arizona? Yeah, I guess so, man. Yeah, there are some, I'm reading the Wikipedia page for the Footprint Center now,

and it says, listed capacity is 16-217 in the footprint center, because they have, like, obstructive views and all that kind of stuff. So in theory, they could get like 16, 17,000 people into the building, which would be a perfectly good number if they could draw that many. Like that, you know, the Bruins, for example, are not much more than that. That's like, they're like 175 or something like that. So in theory, this could, this could happen, actually. whether it will is obviously a whole different can of worms. I think they'd have to make a pretty compelling pitch to the sons to make it work.

But I guess we'll see. It is worth noting that in the run-up to this vote, I'm not aware of it ever having been explicitly framed as, if we lose this vote, you lose your team. Yeah. Oh, apparently the city of Phoenix owns this arena. So maybe they don't even have to go to the Suns specifically, although obviously they would be looped in on that one.

But yeah, it's interesting. I don't know. So, I mean, it's, because it feels like the two reactions here are a lot of hockey fans out there kind of dunking on this, you know, where it has felt like for so many years this has been an ongoing thing and maybe we're finally at the end of it. And so, okay, it's, you know, it's time to move on.

And then people rushing to, I don't know, whatever the opposite of that is and just to point out that, hey, this, there is a fan base here. It stinks when teams move, et cetera, et cetera. And both can be true. You don't have to take any joy at, you know, you know, you know, You know, some coyotes fan, you know, they're lifelong coyotes fans out there. And that this is going to be awful. If you've lived through, if you've ever lived through having a team that you cared about move, it stinks. But at the same time, it's, I think it's time.

Like, it's, there's just, where else can we go with this? It's become, you can never say the league didn't, didn't try. They went above and beyond in... Oh boy, did they. Jesus. Man, to a point that it feels almost unbelievable. At some point, you just have to say it hasn't worked. There isn't a path forward.

And let's make the tough decisions. Totally. Yeah. It's a bummer for those fans, for sure. But what can you do? There's nothing else to really be done about it at this point. Any arena deal would, like, you know, let's say they have something in their back pocket. Well, that's maybe like four or five, six years out now instead of like two or three or four.

I don't know. And so I don't even like really want a handicap where they would move to, obviously. everybody's like, oh, you know, they'd sell them to Tillman Fertita, the guy that owns the Houston Rockets, he's expressed interest before. Maybe they would, maybe they wouldn't. Who knows? Yeah, I mean, as we've seen with Ottawa, once a team becomes available, you really never know what can happen.

There's a million different ways this could go. But most of them seem to point to either Houston or, well, Atlanta. and Salt Lake City is showing up now. Yeah. Atlanta doesn't have a rink yet. But is there not one in process? I don't even think that is it like an Alpharetta or something like that? But like I don't even think that is like fully signed off on, let alone they broke ground on it or anything like that.

Okay. And then obviously, like Houston, I think that's another arena that is hockey capable. I think the Houston Aeros used to play in the Rockets Arena, if I'm not mistaken. Houston apparently has an arena that they could use either right now or very quickly. Okay. What was the other one you said? You said a different one. Well, Salt Lake City is suddenly...

Salt Lake City. Right. So they don't have a rink. They, well, I guess they have the old Olympic one, but that's like an old arena. And maybe as a stopgap, you don't mind that. But the, the, again, apparently the jazz owner has expressed interest on Twitter. Like someone was like, added him one time. Yes. And was like, you should get an NHL team.

And he was like working on it. Yeah. Like basically, I think on 32 thoughts the other day, they were saying like, getting a new arena might be tied to Salt Lake City getting the Olympics in either 2030 or 2034. So in theory, like you're only in the old building like five or six years. In theory, in actual practice, it could be less time than that if you get an NHL team before that. And I guess just, you know, Kansas City probably wouldn't happen. haven't heard them mentioned very much.

Yeah, and obviously, the one thing that everybody will say here is Quebec City. Yeah, or anything in Canada, really, which... Yeah, it's not going to happen. I don't know what to tell you, folks. And people go, well, they have such a, they sell out all the, like, you know, they sell 18,000 tickets to see their QMJL team there. That's true, but you know what they don't have there is that the NACL. NHL is always very concerned with as like a corporate base. Yep.

Like people that will buy the luxury boxes and stuff like that, that's the problem, is that there just aren't enough of those, it seems, to really entice the NHL. No, that's it. Which is tough. I was just in Quebec City not long ago. I love that city. It's gorgeous. I recommend if anyone's looking for someplace to go, it's fantastic.

I had never at any point. was like, you know what, this place needs a major league sports franchise. So I think it's unlikely. I'm not saying never, but I think it's unlikely that Canada is certainly. The only way it works that way is if keep in mind the NHL, especially with Seattle's success and Vegas continuing, the next round of expansion will always be in the back of people's minds. And if you don't necessarily want to cannibalize all your expansion markets by moving teams.

That's what I was going to say. I think any new team in Canada comes with a like $1 billion expansion price tag. Yep. Simple as that. Like whatever the senators end up being sold for, We'll talk about that in a second. Whatever they end up being sold for, add like 10% to that number. That will be, you want to give us that amount of money, you can get that Canadian expansion franchise.

But before that, I don't know that I buy that happening. So, yeah, I guess, I guess that's all I have on the coyotes. Is there anything? Like you say, I feel bad for the fans there. I was there in January. There are a lot of people who care about the coyotes. Maybe not enough. Well, it isn't enough.

It has never been enough. Well, but it's not zero. They would say it's like a geographical thing, right? Like the idea of I'm going to drive an hour to see this bad team get its ass. Oh, here's the one last thing I wanted to say about this, right? Is like, I'm not surprised that the vote went this way, especially because of how fucking bad the coyotes have been intentionally. over the last year or two, you know? And I don't think it's a generally bad idea to tank, obviously.

I've made that pretty clear by now. But what I do think is a bad idea is tanking right when you want someone to give you $500 million to build an arena. You know what I mean? Yep. Like, that's the thing where it's like, oh, that seems like a miscalculation. But can you imagine if they'd won the lottery now in hindsight of like. Oh, my God. Because I think at the time, a lot of us thought, oh, if they win the lottery, that's going to maybe.

But in looking at the demographics of who voted against this, I don't get the feeling that. Maybe that wouldn't have moved the needle, yeah. Oh, you're going to get the best player in the world? I guess I don't give a shit. Maybe it wouldn't. It wouldn't be surprising if that was the collective response. They're just, the NHL product has been showcased in Arizona for 25 years. and not enough people

want it to, not enough people were interested to make it so that you could get over all the other hurdles as far as establishing a real home base there. And yes, part of that is the teams weren't good. That is unfortunately going to be part of the legacy there is that that market never got a chance, assuming it's over now,

that never got a chance to really fall in love with a great team. I absolutely agreed. And we'll never know what would have happened if that had been the case. But yeah, and we don't know what happens now, right? Like there's no in when the Thrashers moved to Winnipeg, that announcement got made and it was done for the next season. There was no goodbye for Atlanta, whereas we've seen other scenarios where a team has stayed in a market for a little bit of time,

even though we all knew they were moving. Who knows? I guess we see and it's, again, it's unfortunate for the fans that are there, many of whom did everything they could and have had to eat a bunch of crap over the years from other fan bases about it. And it just does not seem like barring a miracle of some sort here. It just doesn't seem like it has worked. Yep, simple as that. All right, let's talk Sen's ownership. I think bids are due today.

Am I right about this? No, they were due, I think, on Monday. And I think there were four groups that bid, which in the list I saw, which was less than we thought. The big news being that Ryan Reynolds is not part of that. His group withdrew a few days before. Apparently, they had asked for an exclusive window, and that was denied. so they packed it up and left. I do not buy for a second

that this means Ryan Reynolds is out of the process. Sure. I think we're, you know, the group that he was working with, maybe, but the idea that, well, that's it for him and he's not going to just come heroically back into some other bid in a little bit is, I think, a little naive.

He'll be back. But Snoop Dogg is still in. that's what they say now did you see all the speculation about like the guy the guy leading snoop dogs group is like a crypto billionaire or something like that and uh

so people were saying like money is what you're saying well right so people are saying like this is a boots del bioggio kind of a potentially um you know I I don't profess to know anything about that but it is

interesting that like you know they might sell to a crypto billionaire weird I hadn't seen that so yeah it's interesting because the thing with with that bid is they've got Snoop they've got the star power they've got they're saying

a lot of good things but at the same time this is an LA bid no connection locally whatsoever not not suggesting at all that they're buying the team to move it. I'm not going down. I'm not going down that path. But unlike the Ryan Reynolds thing where he did have the local connection, he spent a lot of time in Ottawa. I don't know. It will be interesting to see. It will be in some sense very funny of after all of this, the winning bid is like some real estate guy who just gets the team. Like, all right. But we'll see.

Still a lot of moving pieces, still a lot of different ways this could go. But yeah, do not buy the idea that Ryan Reynolds is out on this. He is for now. But that doesn't mean it's permanent by any stretch. Yep. Flyers for an office. Yeah. Keith Jones.

Did that happen since the last? It had not. I think it happened last Friday. So we hadn't. I mean, another case of hiring the old former players. Keith Jones has no experience in an NHL front office, but from all accounts is a very smart guy, tons of connections, tons of respect around the league.

So who knows, if he's going to be kind of the face of the team as far as the media guy, then he's probably not a bad choice. So we will see. But it is a little bit tough. I get that it's tough if you're a Flyers fan to be sold this. idea of a fresh start when they are once again bringing in, starting with the ex-players. Because that's, it takes a lot to be the team in the NHL that is known for always hiring ex-players.

Like that's a pretty high bar. And yet that's, that's the flyers. So the fact that they're doing it again makes it a little tough to sell the idea that this is new. Can't be any worse than the last group, though. Oh, you're telling me. one of those guys, he wasn't even a former flyer. That's why I went so bad. That's why it's new.

Yep. Yeah. But no, you know, your concern with all this is always like that the alum, first of all the idea of the flyers alumni were really the guys running the show. That's so fucking funny to me. Like just,

first of all, to call them alumni is really funny. Yep. Like they, like, They went to fucking Flyers University. Get lost. Get a fucking grip.

But the other thing is like, I don't know, I just got the angriest phone call from fucking Mike Richards. We got a trade for an extend Rasman-Risdolida right now. Yep. That's so funny to me. That rocks. If that doesn't tell you everything wrong about this fucking sport, or at least this league, nothing will, right? but Breyer, despite being a former flyer, seems like he's a smart guy. Like, he said a lot of the right stuff.

When they said, like, Keith Jones is good. I was like, I watch Flyers games. Keith Jones is always going on about how Rasmus Ristelainen is good. That's not a good sign for me, you know, if I'm worried about this. But, yeah, anyway, if, if Danny Breyer has, like, kind of a decent amount of autonomy in the role, I think they can make some good decisions. And they did say rebuild like 60 times at that press conference. Yes.

So the statement that they put out, like the bright orange statement, uh, was very, very funny. But the press conference was, you know, they did say a lot of things that you would want to hear at that. The statement was funny as hellful. The statement was, it's, it had the word ass in there. so you knew they were serious. Yeah, that's what you knew that, oh, these guys aren't messing around.

They're not joking around out there anymore. But yeah, I, you never know how these things, like any rebuild is going to go. I guess I have some amount of faith given everything they said. Like, usually NHL teams don't even say the right things at press conferences.

Yeah. And so you know you're in for a tough one, but they said enough of the right things that I'm happy to wait and see and reserve judgment. And I guess that's more than I would have said one minute before they announced these changes. Because if they had said, oh, Danny Breyer is the GM, okay, fine, everybody knew that. And Keith Jones is the team president. I'm like, uh-oh, but they, you know, they seem like they get it.

So one last thing I want to talk about here, because even though this isn't NHL news right now, it seems like it could be in the near future. The NBA in-season tournament seems like it's going to be pretty nailed down by now, like the format and stuff like that. And I wanted to get your take on this, Sean, if we could. Basically, the format is this. They randomly put together three groups of five teams each in each conference. So whatever, five Eastern Conference teams in groups.

B, five Eastern Conference teams in Group B, five Eastern Conference teams in Group C. You're all playing each other in regular season games that count in the regular season standings, but also count in what they call cup games, or count as cup games. And the team at the end of like,

I think it's November that has the best record advances out of that group and is put into a group with the three other teams, as well, or the two other teams that won their groups in your conference. Am I explaining this well enough so far?

So far. Are you with me? Yep. Okay. Plus the second place team with the best record. So it's a group of four. And then you play each other. And again, I believe these are also regular season games.

Like they count as regular season games. But also they count. as single elimination knockout games, quote unquote. And then the semifinals and the finals are played at a neutral site in like mid-December, like right before Christmas. Okay, so this is all done relatively early in the season. Correct. Interesting. And the semifinals and finals do not count in the regular season.

Okay. Because at that point it's like harder to schedule. Yeah, I was going to ask about the schedule. Like, are they just banking on the fact that the schedule will serve up these games? Or is there some flexibility built into the schedule to make sure? If I had to guess, I would say that they would schedule like, okay, you're just going to play. Like, they would draw the pools first. And then they would say, okay, you're playing the four teams in your pool in October and November.

That part makes sense to me. but then when you get into... So then, like, the knockout stage is you just go, okay, we'll leave room in the schedule to, you know, if it's, say, the Celtics versus the magic, not that the magic are going to get out of the group stage, bear with me. If it's the Celtics versus the magic in the semifinal,

you just block off on every team's schedule the possibility that they would play in the semifinal. And if not, you schedule them against another team that didn't make the semifinal or whatever. Does that make sense? I think so, yeah. Yeah. So you would just kind of block off like this will be when those games happen. We'll figure out who plays who later, basically.

Mm-hmm. Also part of this, not fully confirmed, this is all like rumors like that have been, you know, leaked by people who would know kind of a thing. is that the regular season in the NBA might drop to 78 games instead of the 82 they play now. And also, apparently Adam Silver has said, like, we will make it clear

that these are games that count as cup games by having teams wear unique uniforms or maybe even play on unique courts. Okay. So. All right. So, I mean, it's going to be fascinating to see

what the response is to this from fans, obviously, but the players as well, especially those final games that don't count in the regular season. Yeah. Because couldn't you just see, like, the NHL doing something like this, and you get to that,

and it looks like All-Star weekend because everyone's going through the moment? Like, what do the teams get out of this? Big trophy, I think. Okay. I don't know that there's much beyond that, honestly. I, you know what, I very often kind of criticize the NHL for always being second or third or fourth or fifth to the party and following other leagues. I don't mind them letting the NBA take the lead on this because I don't think this would work in the NHL if they were the first to do it.

If it works in the NBA, then maybe I could see it having a chance in the NHL, but I could just, I mean, right, this is this is the league where we don't, oh, well, you're going to. you don't touch any trophies that aren't the Stanley Cup. We don't even touch them, Ryan, because we don't care. This is nothing to me. This is garbage. It's not the Stanley Cup, so I'm not even going to look at it. So I could see it going that way. But if it has worked in the NBA, then, you know, that kind of changes the perception, maybe.

Maybe to the point that it's at least worth trying in the NHL. And, you know, you can always say this is a little extra hot. hockey-related revenue. Yeah. And, I mean, and... You guys don't like escrow, right? Yeah. To be, to be clear, it would be great if this did happen in the NHL and work,

because we just finished saying how the, how useless the regular season appears, right? Like, it, regular, like, I'm already bummed out about the fact that we got a six-month regular season coming up. That's not going to matter at all. Oh, God. Just 16 playoff teams and 16 not. That's all that matter. Like to have something like this would be cool.

I hope it works. I really do. Yeah, we'll see. All right, that's it. Why don't you hit them with some plugshund. Find me at the athletic. You can read my stuff, including my various views of the Toronto Maple Leafs

from the last few weeks and where they need to go now. I also have a piece today where I have ranked every Toronto Maple Leafs play off loss of this era from the least to the most painful. So that's a lot of fun. I thought that was psychically good for you. Honestly, it's a group therapy session. It's for Lee fans only.

No one else is if you click on the link, you are legally affirming yourself as a tournament of Maple Leafs fan. So don't, no lying. But yeah, it's our chance to sort of work through some issues. Sure. And then, and then for me, e.p.ringside. I wrote about what all the teams that just got eliminated from the playoffs in the last week will do or possibly should do this summer. I have what we learned.

I'm going to write something today. Boy, we got a lot of good stuff over there, a lot of smart people. And of course, because it's coming up on draft time, you guys are going to, now that the draft lottery is in and all that, You guys are going to want to know everything about the prospects and our draft guide, I have been assured, is coming very soon. So you're going to get like, you know, hundreds, maybe over a thousand pages of in-depth breakdowns of everything. And so when you sign up, use the code I Love EP on an annual subscription and you will get three months tacked on at the end of your 12 months for free. And then Patreon.com slash Puck Soup bonus episodes all the time, including me and Sean, are just going to go over. there and record a mailbag right now.

So check all that out. Thanks for listening to the beautiful Puck Soup podcast. And we'll talk to you next week. See you later. Bye bye. Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slapshots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to what if you commute. But we also cover movies, TV shows, it's and tools.

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