Puck Soup - The Leafs Won

Episode Date: May 2, 2023

Sean and Ryan talk about the Round 2 matchups, how the winners got there, and what the losers do now.   Sponsored by Athletic Greens (athleticgreens.com/puck) and Gametime (download the Gametime app and use code PUCK)

Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slap shots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to whatever you commute. But we also cover movies, TV shows, it's and tunes. It's your weekly bowl of Hockey and Nancet. I'm Ryan Lambert from E.P. Rinkside. I'm Sean McIntyre from The Athletic. And we're just going to wind Sean up, let him go. The Leafs won.

Did they? I hadn't heard. Mm-hmm. I feel like that's lying. Okay. That's false modesty. Yeah. Oh, who me?

Yes. My team winning in the first round. Finally. Finally got to win in the first round. Very exciting. It's, I can tell you now, it's a lot more fun than the alternative. Sure. People were right.

This is, this is better. Yeah. And, uh, yeah, it's, it's, it's very fun and Lee fans are very happy. and the sort of extremely weird people who get very mad about the Leafs all the time are not having a good week. So all of those things are positives. Yeah. Now, I wrote an article. I don't know if you saw this yesterday where I was like, okay, relax.

It's the first round. Who gives a shit? Yep. And I mean, it is the first round. It's, uh, but. They let Columbus win one of these things. You know what I mean? Exactly.

Like, it's, I've, I'm told up to eight teams every year, uh, get to do this. Yeah, it's a quarter of the league. It used to be like 30%. They just let, they just let you go straight through to the next round. It's not that big of a deal. So I do get that. But the thing is with the Leafs, because of how recent years have played out, it is a big deal. And it was going to be, uh, you know, not making the second round also in theory isn't a big deal because three quarters of the league.

do that every year. And yet the Leaves not making it out of the first round was going to be a very, very big deal. So it's kind of one of those things where you got to get both sides of the coin. And we were all going to bury this team if they didn't win. And so I've got no issue with the fan base and everyone else being excited that they finally do, especially when it's, I mean, you wait at 20 years to get to celebrate a playoff win. Go go a little overboard if you're going to.

If you're going to go too far on one side, go too far overboard. Yeah, I... Because here's the thing. I said this in my article. I want the Leafs to win the Cup. Like, that would be... I have a lot of friends who are Leafs fans, right? And, like, I don't want to say they've, like, suffered,

because they're not... They're not the Sabres, right? They're not... It's a different kind of suffering, but, yeah, they're... Leaf fans are certainly up there. but there are other fan bases that I'm sure could make a click. Yeah, you could be,

you could be Canucks fans. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, you could just be like, oh, shit, like, we came so close. We didn't get anything. And now for a decade plus, we've been mired in, if we barely made the playoffs, that would be good, right? Mm-hmm.

You know? Yep. And so, like, I don't know. I, like I said, I just thought the, the reaction to it, like, while understandable, I was just like, boy, oh boy. Like, because what's the reaction going to be if they lose in the second round? You know? Oh, like my stomach hurts.

Or, well, look, hey, we lost in the second round, but made it to the second round. So, you know, like. I mean, they'll be disappointment. But, like, Lee fans understand, you know, the context of this on both sides. Like, you know, there's nobody. I'm not sure that that's been demonstrated. Absolutely do. Well, I mean, okay, so tell me then. What are you seeing that is, that makes you think that? Because I, like, I'm seeing, you know, people honking the car horns and, you know, we having fun in the streets and that sort of thing. But, like, have I missed something? Is there some strong contingentally fans out there that are declaring this, like, an equivalent to a Stanley Cup or something? No, obviously not that much.

But, you know, hey, you wrote the article that was like, everyone should be happy for us. Slow down, brother. You know what I mean? I think I wrote the piece saying, this is why it matters. I wasn't saying you have to be happy for us. I'm saying that if you're saying, you know, who, hey, who cares? Hey, man, like we've, Leaf fans have had to eat crap for seven years about not making it

out of the first round. You can't turn around now and go, oh, well, the results of the first round don't actually matter. Like, that's what I'm pushing back on. You kind of can. I mean, look, hey, what did I say a few weeks ago? Everybody got mad at me when I said, uh, I'm like, get a new fucking angle on this Leafs thing. Yeah.

I said that. I know you said that. I know, but nobody else did. Nobody listened to you. They everybody else kept that angle. Everybody got mad. So now it's, uh, so, so when your angle doesn't work out, um, you know, all the people who are just like, oh, God, let the Leafs lose another round.

so we can just bury these guys. Well, they didn't lose, man. Sorry. That doesn't mean we all got to pretend it didn't happen. Yeah. It's funny both ways to me. Like, if they'd lost again, I'm laughing. You know, that's funny.

And because they won, it's all so funny because, like, all the people with no new angle, they have to get in the lab and they're like, okay, what if I said something about Jamie Ben? Are we ready for this one? Yep. So, yeah, like I'm, like I said, I want the Leafs to win the whole, the whole shooting match here, you know? And, but I'll say this, you know what I really thought was fucking funny on Saturday, or what was it, Saturday night when the Leafs won? All those bozos on TV going, we want the Panthers.

It's like, yeah, I fucking bet you do. Yeah, no kidding. I kind of like that because it's like normal sporting etiquette says that you got to claim you want the best team, right? Like you're so, and especially if it's a rival, right? But it was just kind of like, eh, we want the broods and look at the standings. Maybe we want the Panthers. We'll take the Panthers. I would want the Panthers if it's, if it's me personally.

Yeah, I would. I think I would prefer that. But, but, yeah. Now you got the Panthers Now we got the Panthers Let's just say Be careful what you wish for Because the Bruins would have said

We want the fucking Panthers The Bruins won the Panthers And they got them Did they ever? So hey While we're on the subject Let's just talk about the damn Panthers They beat the Bruins

I'm gonna say this This is the biggest upset In the history of the NHL Yeah It's tough I don't think there's I think mathematically there has not been a bigger gap between a one and an eight seed.

Mathematically, there has never, this is the biggest gap in a seven game series. The Kings beating the Oilers back in the 80s was bigger. That was a five game series. That was the old Miracle on Manchester series in 82. But, yeah. If it happened before I was born, it doesn't bet. Exactly. I hate to break it.

I mean, I kind of argued that when we're talking about upsets, we almost have to go pre-cap and post-cap in the sense that, you know, on the one hand, on the one hand, it was a massive gap. On the other hand, this Panthers team, like this was last year's president's trophy winners. This was a team that,

you know, still had 97, versus when you look at some of the other upsets like the 91 North Stars, like that was a 60 point team. Like, they were legitimately bad. That was like a team that finished like 16th out of 21 teams. They were the fifth or sixth worst team in the entire league.

And they go on this crazy run all the way to the final. And I just don't think it's possible to have that anymore in today's era where we've got a cap, we've got parity, and we've got 32 teams. So you've got to be, in theory, in the top 50% to even make the playoffs. It's just different kind of upsets. But yeah, I mean, in the. cap era or in like recent ish history it's really this one or the blue jackets and i guess it just depends like what what feels like a bigger upset sweeping a team yeah that nobody thinks you're gonna beat or being down three to one and everybody has just like already written you off like there was

yeah they're they're backing a backhoe full of dirt yeah uh over your grave everybody's already doing like they're yeah exactly everyone's doing your your bruin's Leafs slash lightning previews. There is nobody who thinks that there's any chance that this team's coming. Because, I mean, you're down 3-1. And oh, by the way, here comes Patrice Bergeron is back. David Craichie's almost back. And it's just, it's amazing what they pulled off and full credit to them.

You know, they didn't. There's nothing cheap about it. There was nothing. They, they, they. Well, the hand pass thing. Oh, which was that the, oh yeah, yeah, I guess. Well, I mean, okay. I didn't, I mean, people know how I feel about this stuff.

It's very bad and dumb. Yeah. I guess we should say here that the plan is in this episode to talk about the teams that won and then the matchups. And then at the end of the show, we will talk about all the losers. That's right. Got sent packing. That's their punishment. Um, so yeah, I, I think you got to say, uh, number one star of the first round,

kind of unequivocally is Matthew Kachuk. He totally like broke the Bruins mentally. They were all very concerned with what Matthew Kuch was doing and, and all that shit. And, uh, he didn't score in game seven, right? He was just kind of like all over the ice, but didn't actually have a, goal. He was all over the place. Yeah, he was unbelievable. He's going to be in the Toronto spotlight for the next two weeks.

This guy's going to come out as the combination of Wayne Gretzky and Darth Vader by the time this series is over. Oh, good Lord. Yeah, no, I mean, he was, he was right in their heads, got, got Allmark chasing him around, all of that stuff, which is, you know, it's... Swainman, not Allmark. Pointedly Swainment. Well, no, no, but I'm sorry, I was saying in like game four or five or whatever it was. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. He got, he got tossed out with the few minutes left. Right. And yeah, and it's, and that's the kind of thing where if the Bruins just closed the series out, we're all going like, yeah, Matthew Kachuk was running around.

He wasn't, you know, try scoring some goals, buddy. And, you know, the Bruins just weren't having it. And it's, but because it went the other way. Man, the Brad Marchand breakaway at the end of game five. You remember the buzzer beater where I could have been a buzzer beater. Yeah. I mean, I watched that in real time and as he's on the breakaway, I'm like, oh, dude, really, we're going to end it this way? What a crazy ending.

And then he gets stopped. And you're like, oh, okay, well, there's good for, hey, man, the Panthers are not going to. going to go down that easy. All right, good for them. Never and in for a second did it occur to me that like that could be the series turning point. I knew the, I knew game seven was over the second Florida went up to nothing. I was like there's absolutely no way that the Bruins are winning this game. I just knew it. Like in my bone. They came all the way back, but. They sure did. And which makes it, I mean, man, that that was almost like as painful a game seven loss as you can get, right? To fall behind.

Well, I mean, you... And then you claw back and it's like, all right, we're back, baby. And here's the thing, though. I don't know why anybody had any hope for the Bruins here. You go against an elite goaltender like Sergey Robsky and a world-class coach. Like,

like... Yeah. It's just like, what are you going to do, you know? But no, like you say, this is a team that didn't change that much in the summer. obviously they got Matthew Cichuck, but like The big, the big trade, but they didn't

and the coaching switch, but they didn't And the coaching switch, but like The, that's what I'm saying. The roster from last year was more or less intact. I, you know, I said it from day one. They won that could, they won the Cachuck trade, you know. And Calgary kind of got as close as they could get to tying almost.

But, you know, I think there was. are kind of feeling unequivocal at this point, right? Like those two guys, well, I don't want to talk about the fucking flames right now. We'll do with that later. But, yeah, I mean, they just. Has kind of planted his flag as a top 10 player in the league at this point. 100%. He's unfucking believable.

He's so good. He played, it says here, he played 24 minutes. Like, he was, like, third on or fourth on the, on the Panthers and Ice Time in that game. And, like, yeah, he's, he played. he didn't he didn't have a goal but he was everywhere he was so good and i don't want to take away obviously like brandon mentor scored the first and uh tying goal the last goal with like a minute left or whatever um he he was also really really good and that's a guy that you're not like counting on him to be oh yeah well of course brandy montour is going to score two goals in a game

seven and you know otherwise you know sam reinhart Cardiver Hage, those are guys, yeah, okay, they score goals. You know, that's what they do. Montour is stepping up big time like that. That's cool. That's a guy I've always enjoyed. He's a college hockey guy. You know, I'm legally required to, but yeah, I don't know.

It's a man. I just, the two images I can't get out of my mind now are the Marsham breakaway, which I'm sure is just going to haunt him probably forever. I mean, he'll, you know, probably just never be the same. It's a shame. You hate to see. I hate to see it. And then the other one is the game seven with like four minutes left,

the last commercial break of regulation where the crowd was just going nuts. Yeah. And they're all singing the, you know, singing along and just, I mean, the biggest party. And yeah, rightfully, because it really did feel like when they were down to nothing, they come back, get the goal to one in the third period. They get another one. Then pass their neck scores the beauty, which, nice. Ice recovery from him from dying on the ice to draw the penalty for the second goal.

Boy, modern medicine, man, it's a real miracle. And so, I mean, you felt like, I mean, you said you felt like you knew there was no way they were going to, they were going to win when they're down. I mean, when it's three, two, a few minutes left, you're like, hey, man, we know this story. The underdogs, great job, great effort. You really prove something. Now get out of the way. The sleeping dragon is awake and now it's time for the Bruins to roll and it just didn't happen. I guess I should say with like two minutes left and they're up three to one or three to two I mean.

Yeah, I wasn't feeling too good about the Panthers have this one wrapped up. Yeah. Like obviously. But man, the vibe in overtime was just like you talk about nervous energy. You talk about, yeah, man, it was just not that anybody. loves overtime when your team is involved, but that really felt like this can't be happening energy in Boston. Yeah, no, for sure.

It's really tough. Like, what can you say? The Panthers, like, they just, with their forecheck and a lot of really stupid mistakes by the... I guess that is where the series turned, right? The Bruins made a shitload of stupid mistakes. 60% of them wound up in the back of the net. Yeah. You know?

Yeah. Well, I mean, some people would say that some of their stupid mistakes wound up literally in their net as their goaltenders. But yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, help me out there. Like, as it Leafs fan. Sure. As I'm scrambling to get caught up on what this whole round.

two thing is, where are you at on Panthers' Leaves? It's not going to be easy for the Leafs. They should, I mean, you know, in theory, they should win, right? Like, they're a better team. They're a better regular season team in just about every category you want to come up with, right? They're just on paper significantly better. That did not help the Bruins at all. Nope.

It's kind of be a real tough series, right? Like, it's... Yeah, it is. I guess I'm going to say Toronto in seven. And like, that's obviously kind of cheating a little bit because it's like, have the fucking coverage of your convictions to say Toronto in six or something. Yep. But like, I, you know, I think this is one of those series where it's like the, the Leafs have a 53% chance, whatever it is.

You know what I mean? Like, it's close. and, you know, obviously the Panthers, they're really good at five on five. At least offensively, defensively, they're kind of mediocre, and you wonder how much of that is, they had a lot of injuries this year, and the goaltending situation was obviously a mess for a good chunk of the season. Like, if Alex Lyon has to be the guy that bails you out, you know? Yep. That's a pretty good indication that you got some problems in goal.

But, you know, we've seen the Leafs offense disappear in the playoffs before. And the Panthers, again, they just did it to a team that scored a lot more goals than the Leaves did this year, I bet. I don't have that number in front of me, but I'm going to guess, you know. I don't know if it was a lot, but, yeah, I mean, the Bruins offensively were, were very, very good until they weren't. And it's, you know, you kind of look at it and go, well, I'm not that scared of Sergei Babrovsky. But then it's like, oh, yeah, and who's the Leafs goal?

Like, are they, are the Panthers scared to him? Yeah, for sure. It's, uh, yeah, I mean, I don't know. I, I'm almost throwing my hands up with figuring out the goaltending because I just watched Andre Vasilevsky crap his pants for six games. Well, the Leafs figured him out. They broke him forever. That's right.

You're just going to shoot from center ice and you're fine. They figured out he was blind and they take those long shots. So who knows? I mean, but yeah, it's going to be, it's going to be something else. It's going to be a fun series. Lots of talent. I was all over the Panthers last year as like, hey man, this is the team you should be bandwagoning. This is the fun team.

Yep, totally. Last year especially, they were winning games six to five, didn't care, wins a win. Hasn't really been that this year, but it'll be a fun series. And again, like if you're a Leafs fan, I mean, you know, Kachuk is going to be the villain, obviously. And there's going to be plenty of that. But if you're one of those people who's like, I hate the Leafs, man, Panthers going to be a hell of a lot easier to cheer for than the Bruins would have been. Like, this is, there's, the hockey gods have served up a really nice, you know,

quasi-underdog, likable team for you to, for you to hop on the bandwagon of. So, it's, it'll be a good series. I think I did predict a Leafs when we had to do the, our athletic picks. I think I put down Leafs and Six, but they don't put our names on that. So it's sort of, uh, I, I think, the leif. Cowardly? Is that the word you were looking for?

Yep, that's the word I'm looking for. The Leaf should win, but it certainly wouldn't shock me if the Panthers. Not at all. And in fact, given what they just did to the Bruins, I think they've earned like no shock

status for the rest of the playoffs. Because, yeah, I mean, this 120 point team maybe just kind of woke up a little bit. Look out. Yeah. I'm a, I'm a, the same boat as you. I think this is, like I said, 53-47 Leafs. And when you're right, 53% of the time,

you're wrong, 47%, you know, the classic Simpsons joke. So yeah, I, cardiac cats and all that. It's the classic thing of like, you don't want to get into the habit of like having to come back and score all these like goals and stuff like that, but. Yep. And, but it also, it's working so far. And it helps, right? Because, you know, in a series, you're going to have those times where especially against the Leafs. The Leafs are a team that classically just, it seems impossible to ring 60 minutes out of the Leafs. But they will hit the gas for five or ten minutes and absolutely blow the doors off. So there's going to be some points in this series where, you know, it's 1-1 or 0 and suddenly the Leafs just bang home two goals.

right away. And sometimes that kind of can put you down, you know, rolling down the wrong hill. And the Panthers are going to look there and go, all right, we've been in this situation against better teams. And even if they, you know, they lose the first two games in Toronto, whatever, there's going to be no panic because they've done it before.

And, you know, Kujil will do something dumb and make a headline somewhere and we'll all talk about that. And then they'll come back and get the win when they need to. It's just, I'm just like, I have to get it out now because I'm 10 hours away from hating this team more than anything. But I'm just so impressed by what they pulled off in Boston. Like that is such a, I mean, that it dropped my jaw because, you know, like I just finished saying like, oh, I'm picking the Leafs, but it wouldn't shock me, blah, blah, blah. there were no odds you could have offered me

when that series was three to one that the Panthers are going to come back and win. Like 10 to 1, 100 to 1. Like there was no... I would have taken it at 100 to 1. I'm not even sure I would have. 10 bucks to win a thousand? I don't know, man.

Why not? Ah, boy. Something else, man. Good for them. Yeah, awesome. And like you said, fun team. So let's move on to Stars Cracking here. I don't have a ton to say about the stars.

They absolutely kick the shit out of the wild. And it seems like part of that was the wild kind of got themselves into a little bit of the Bruins territory of like, we don't know who our goalie is. And then it was too late. It's, yeah, it's fine. I know we're going to talk about the losing teams, but man, the amount of crap that Boston is getting for not making the switch earlier. versus the amount of crap we all gave the wild for making the switch early and having it not work? I mean, man, you're a coach in the NHL, man.

It's just better work. Yeah, there's a slight difference, I would say. Because, like, I think I said it last week. Flurry was, like, bad going into the playoffs. In his last previous three or four starts, he'd been, like, actively not good. Yeah. And you could say, like, well, those games didn't matter in the wild, we're playing hard or whatever.

But the thing with Gustafin was, this guy, you know, if he had played more games, we'd be, at that level anyway, played more games. We'd be talking about him in the Vesna conversation, right? Like, 10 more games of 930 goaltending and it's suddenly like, we actually like have to at least talk about it. We don't have to vote for him necessarily. And again, let's just, he's worked his way into that. Just to remember, this is a guy who wasn't good enough to be the backup for the Ottawa senators. Yep. Goaltending makes no damn sense.

Nope. At all. Sure doesn't. But, you know, like, again, like it felt like at a certain point. It didn't matter. You could put Dominic Haschick in there. And the stars were going to win that series easily because they just didn't give up anything either, right? Like, it's not, it's not like they just poured goals in and won a bunch of games seven to four or whatever.

No. You know? The wild got their asses kick. The whole series. The stars make you work for everything, every inch of the ice, every scoring chance. And then when you finally do breakthrough and get that scoring chance, like, oh, right, there's Jake Ottinger just sitting there, you know. Arguably the, is he the best goal he left in the playoffs? God, he almost has to be, doesn't he?

Like by default? Yeah. God, for everything, all the people like me who are like, ah, every series. is just going to come down to goaltending. Fasilefsky out, Hellebuck out, Allmark and Swamen out. Yeah. Ottinger's the guy left.

Yeah, and like... Just irking out. Yeah, I guess, and Sorokin, too. Those would have been the real competition. Kier Schmidt is the best goalie in the world. This sport makes sense. It's really good. It's good that we invest so much of our mental energy in this

because it really delivers results that makes sense. Really trying to crack. the code on this one, yeah. But yeah, it says here that the stars in all situations in six games I would score Minnesota 21 to 14. Yep. I mean, the wild are a good team. Yeah.

And with a couple of breaks, that that series could have gone different, but the stars are a better team. And I was looking forward to a star Zabs series. I felt like that could could low-key be like a series of the playoffs. And we don't get that because God,

talk about upsets. Seattle Cracken. When, at what point did you feel like this was going to happen? Well, hmm, I guess around like game six because obviously Colorado had,

let's say a lot of injuries to deal with and a guy breaking his neck in game six certainly doesn't fucking help. Fracturing his neck. Is there a different? I guess I don't know the difference. See, this is, I actually gotten this like discussion with my dad the other day where he was like, is it a broken neck or is it

you know, a fracture in the neck or whatever? But I'm certainly not going to belittle it. And, I mean, we should say he didn't break his neck. He got his neck broken for him. Yeah. You're not allowed to give a guy more than two minutes for breaking another player's neck, though. I mean, it almost makes you think that we should

establish a department that could look at this after the fact. Some sort of department to regulate player safety. But yeah, honestly, game 70, I kind of felt like it was the injuries were adding up. The vibes were certainly against the Avalent. inch. And then again, like Seattle scored that first goal and I was like, uh-oh. Yep. You can't, my, here's my opinion. You cannot give up the first goal of the game in every game in a seven-game series. Yeah, that was, uh, that was just my thought. That was it, what was it?

The second time that a team ever scored the first goal in all seven, I think was the stat that got thrown out. So, um, yeah, that's, that's, and, and, I mean, that stack gets overused because every goal in the playoffs is crucial, but, yeah, I mean... Well, because every goal in the playoffs is crucial. Yeah. Giving up the first one every time, bad strategy, my opinion. Yep. So, yeah, I mean, it, in a way, yeah, we didn't get to see the best of the avalanche at all.

No, they had no depth. All the guys that they lost to injuries and other absence. plus Gabriel Lannisog not even, you know, not even being there. This wasn't their real deal. But I still thought going in that they had more than enough to take the crack. Again, I've been sleeping on the Cracken, I guess, all year long. I did pick them for Game 7.

I was the only one on our athletic panel who picked Seattle. So I've got that going for me. But it took me, God, it took me long enough to figure it out. and now, I don't know, man, Cracken versus Stars, is this? On paper, this is kind of a bloodbath, although you would have said that

about the last round as well, right? Yep. And there's never a bad team in the second round of the playoffs because they've won a round to get there. Like, there's... I mean, the Islanders went to a couple of a... Good point. Okay, I retract my story.

Third rounds in the last few years. Sure. But I think the thing that is also worth noting about this, we neglected to mention it when we were talking about the stars briefly, is that Joe Bevelski is back for, apparently back for this series. He's ready to go. That helps. Because part of the reason that they beat the Wild is that unlike the Wild,

they have elite players at basically every position, right? Like they have an elite. left wing and right wing. They have, when Pavelsky's in the lineup, certainly, they have an elite center, which it's crazy that he's still in elite center at this age, but he's doing it, you know? They have an elite defenseman.

Obviously, they have an elite goalie. And, you know, Seattle doesn't have any of that. And again, Seattle beat Colorado on depth. Like, I think the stat was that, you know, there were basically like the guys you would say these are the top five guys on the avalanche if those guys didn't have a point on the goal they weren't scoring a goal i don't think they had a single point without uh mckennan rantan mccar taves oh there's who's the other guy is it nishushushkin even though he obviously missed some games there yeah he was he only played the first game or two yeah um but like i I think it was those five guys. I might be wrong on Nishu Kyiung versus somebody else. But like, if those guys didn't have a point, Colorado didn't score a goal, right?

And the knock on the stars is that they also have depth problems. But like, you know, they do have Sagan and Jamie Ben had a nice season for himself and all this kind of stuff. So there's a little more confidence, I guess, you would say, that the stars. can can at least keep up with Seattle's depth and then you would expect their top line to win most of the battles and I don't know. I guess the question is how big of a difference do you think there is between Jake Ottinger and Georgiev? I'm going to say there is a difference. Significant difference. That's one of them.

Yeah, they're totally different people actually. Yeah. Yeah. So I, yeah. I, but you're right. Like, it just felt like, you know, what have we been saying about the cracking all year, right? It's like a team with four second lines. Yeah.

And that isn't supposed to work in an NHL where we're constantly saying it's more about the top end talent. And yet we just saw it work against a team that by the end of the series was, as you say, nothing but top end talent. like top end talent and then depth with very little in between. So, yeah, man, that Kail McCar suspension really. Didn't help. Subbing in Jack Johnson for Kail McCar. You want to talk about difference in quality between players. Yeah.

Boy, oh boy. That's a pretty big one. That's about as big a drop as I think you could possibly have as a result of a suspension. and I mean, it was, it was a ridiculously easy call to suspend. Yeah, McCar made it very simple. Yeah, well, and yet, with this Department of Player Safety, you never know, right? I mean, you know that somebody in that room was going, we can't take a Norris trophy away from the chair of the Stanley Cup champions and blah, blah, blah.

So you're kind of, I mean, I'm not going to say good for the Department of Player Seating. because, I mean, you don't get a cookie just for writing your name on the test. But, yeah, man, that decision ended up being pretty massive. I do, like. But again, they had what, they had two more chances to get a W, you know. They did. Yeah, they, uh, he was in the lineup for game seven. I don't, I don't know what happened, you know?

Sure was. Um, and then, well, and I guess the, The other thing that we should just comment on, although it doesn't really seem, this doesn't feel like it's going to resonate as a big piece of this, but there was, Colorado did score a time goal in the third period, and then they lost it to offside review.

Yeah, but like, as stupid as I think that shit is. Yeah. Like, it's fucking idiotic to me to, the guy was offside. I don't, I don't agree that you should be able to review every single offside, or every goal for offside or running of that shit.

But, like, that's the rule. And, uh, the guy was offside. And this wasn't like, you know, skate blade in the air by a millimeter sort of guy. No, he was off by a good photo. Like this one, this was like, I hate offside review. I would get rid of offside review. If we didn't have it and that goal counted and, you know, ended up determining a series, I wouldn't have a problem with that because, hey, like, things get missed and that's, that's just

how hockey works. But if we're going to have offside review, that one can't count. Cut and dry. Right. It's cut and dried. Cut and dry. Anyways, a hell of a ride for Seattle, man. This is fun, man.

Welcome to the playoffs, cracking fans. Jeez. Yeah. And again, this is why it's not a big deal for the Leafs. They let the fucking crack it into the second round. That's right. Yep. You know?

So who you got? What are your overall thoughts? I'm going Dallas. I picked Dallas versus Edmonton as my conference final way back at the start of this. Yeah, I had stars. Yeah, I had stars in the cup final. Okay. Don't ask me who I had them playing in that.

All right. Yeah, no, no problem. So, yeah, I mean, yeah, so I'm guessing, I'm guessing having them then run into the Cracken in round two didn't change your, uh, no, your prediction. I will say this, though, in addition to the Cracken being a great story, and we all love an underdog and it's, I don't know why. Well, actually, you tell me if I'm wrong. I feel like with Vegas, almost right away, there was this kind of bad vibe from other fan bases, too much too soon, like, who are these guys?

And I don't feel that with Seattle. It feels like, I don't know if they were bad in the first season or if they didn't have all the trades and stuff, but it feels like Seattle's just a fun underdog, you know, team they get behind. Nobody's got a problem with the fan base or anything yet. Give it a minute. But like are you picking up any anti-cracking? No, I'm not. Because I think, you know, if they had played the wild, for example, in the first round,

I think people would be like, well, who gives this shit? They're the wild. They lose in the first round. That's kind of their whole deal, you know? And, oh, and it's fun that, like, a new team knocked them off, but like because they beat the avalanche, it confers a certain amount more respect than if they had just beaten some team that always loses in the first round or whatever, or, you know, doesn't have that kind of cachet that comes with being a

reigning Stanley Cup champion. I will say the thing about like, I agree that it did feel like there was a lot of like, yeah, but fuck Vegas. You know what I mean? And, yeah. I think what I would say is in part that could be you could look at that and go, this is a fluke team. You know,

they got 930 goal attending there. I want to say they were right around 50% in their underlying numbers and stuff like that. Like nothing super impressive. And then for them to just keep winning all these series and that kind of stuff. Like, there was, there was a certain amount of people going, like, in what way are these guys that much different from the Leafs from whatever, 2013, you know? So I think there was a little bit of that, but, you know, Seattle was horrible last year. Yep. Yep.

So nobody's going to be mad about it. The other thing I got to say is, you know, if you're looking for one more reason to cheer for Seattle. We've talked about it for years. It's been on the table before. We've never got there. But the Seattle Cracken could become the first team to win a division that they are not in. They could become the central division champions when they are not a central division team. God bless the crossover.

God bless the wild card. Let's make this happen. Yeah. Um, but I'm still, I'm still picking stars in six in this one. This is, I think I went stars in five again. Yeah. Seattle fans, I picked you in game seven. Remember, we will always have that game seven, that little graphic where I'm the only face next to a cracking logo.

Like that's, we'll always have that. And now I'm going to go back to being completely wrong about you all the time. Did you see, by the way, there was a tweet going around where a guy picked every series wrong except the devils? No, I did not. Yeah. Like just every single one, Colorado, Florida, Colorado, Boston, Minnesota, like. That wouldn't have been that hard to do, right? I mean, picking the kings over the Oilers would have been a little dicey.

But, I mean, to get the whole East wrong, especially considering how many people were taking the Islanders as like their trendy upset pick. I pick the Islanders, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I could absolutely imagine. I mean, put it this way. I didn't take the Islanders. That was the only series I got right in the East.

So I can absolutely imagine going 0 for four in the East. I think I went six for eight, but now I don't remember. Okay. That's, hey, that's impressive, man. Maybe five for eight? I don't know. It doesn't matter. Yeah.

We're all, we're all just fucking making it up. I don't, you know, like I hate to tell you folks. Yeah. Oh, it's, it's been a really hard to playoffs to predict, which, again, like, some people love that. some people, it's, but it's been all, like, we do daily picks at the athletic where we just, like, pick, just the games, just, you know, who's going to win, win or lose each night? We're all getting crushed. I mean, Granger's always the best at it, and he's like three games over 500 or something.

And I don't even know if any of us are at 500. And that's just no odds, no, that's just saying, like, I think this team is going to win tonight. It's brutal out there. Yeah, I was right. I was six for eight. And I was right. I said I had the stars going to the cup final. I have the stars winning the cup.

Boy, that's really going on a limb. But yeah. But yeah. So look, does this make me some kind of a hockey genius? I think it might. Who's to say? But yeah, no, I think that this is, let's say it's 6535 Dallas. It wouldn't shock me at all if Seattle keeps this up.

Well, shock is maybe. I would be pretty shocked if they won, but like, it's certainly within the realm of possibility. Let's put it that way. So, yeah. Why don't we, uh, won't we take a break and we'll come back and we'll do, uh, tomorrow night's games? This week's episode of Puck Soup is brought to you by game time and folks, it's the playoffs, right? You want to go to your team's games. You want to see them win.

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Download game time today. Last minute tickets, lowest price, guaranteed. All right. The Wednesday night games. Let's start with hurricanes, devils. What were your thoughts on the hurricanes advancing out of the first round? That feels like the most forgettable series, doesn't it? Totally, yeah.

Like we said We'll get to the more forgettable series I think But yeah Well I Because put it this way It was You know it didn't go seven It didn't have any crazy controversy

And no head coach got up And knifed his own team In the immediate aftermath of it So It's a great fucking point by you Uh Yeah I mean After

I think it went the way That most of us thought Even though A lot of us picked the island because, you know, you kind of need to do that. You can't not, you can't pick chalk in every series, you know? It sort of came down to, yeah, you can't do that. And obviously, I mean, you're not going to pick the Cracken or the Panthers.

So what have you got left? So, right, it came down to, I think at the beginning of the series, we all would have said, Carolina, you know, they've got the injuries. They're, they're not really full power. The Islanders are maybe closer than you would think. Carolina is still the better team, though. They're going to need Sorokin to steal enough of this series to flip it into a win. And he certainly wasn't bad, but he wasn't able to be that guy that slam the door shut.

In what ended up being a close series, you know, didn't go seven, but, you know, ended up being a series that could have gone either way. obviously the, you know, if you're the Islanders, you, two games going to overtime and you lose both of them, you're, you're probably losing the series. And that's, uh, that's kind of what it comes down to. It was a good series, but. Mm-hmm. Sure. Ever, I think almost every game was close. Yeah, there was a five one in there.

There was a five one and five two. Yeah. That's, that's what it was. Um, but then two other ones go to overtime. Like you say, one went to double. over time and one was one was another like two one game I want to say so

yeah you know at the end of it that Carolina wins four games to two but final goals were 1615 and expected goals were 56.7 to 49.3 so

you know like what can you say Like you say, it was a close series But I do always say this I never want to hear that a six game series was close You know what I mean? How'd the team that lost to? Oh, they won one third of the games Well, that sucks

You know Yeah Hey man The Tampa Bay Lightning went to 1 and 3 in their series Like they were over 500 That's That's pretty good man that's as good as you can really do

without winning the damn thing, yeah. Oh, man. For sure. Yeah, I mean, yeah, good series. The hurricanes are a scary team. Still are. So I was going to say that. Then maybe, this certainly isn't the full-powered hurricanes.

And that's kind of why I feel like that hurricane series was close. Like if they even have one of their two, injured guys back, maybe you feel like, okay, well, I mean, what are we talking about here? You know, um, the Islanders, you know, they don't, they don't have a lot of offensive firepower. And when Carolina's down, what, three forwards for the bulk of that series, they don't either. Yeah. And there's, you know, the Islanders, I mean, not a lot of firepower to start with. and when the guy you go out and get midway through the season to be your big star does next to nothing.

Next to nothing is correct, yep. That's not good. Barzell wasn't great either, but he had the one big goal at least. Yep. Yeah. But yeah, it's just when Paul Stasney is one of your leading scorers, and that's fun because he's, you know, he gets the OT goal. Yep. It's fun for everyone, like, what percentage of fans in that moment do you think were like, oh, Paul Stasney plays for the Hurricanes?

A not insignificant one. Yeah. I'll say that, like, I remember when I was looking at stuff at the beginning of the season, being like, oh, yeah, Paul Stassney plays for these guys. And then when this series started being like, oh, yeah, Paul Stassie. plays for these guys. Yeah, you're just like the, Hurricane are a great, oh, yeah, team.

Because, like, Derek Steppen's the same deal, right? You're just like, oh, right, okay. Yeah, cool. Yeah, no, I, like, you have to, you have to be the guy from Memento in this series. Like, no, Derek Steppen does play for the Hurricanes and you're looking at whatever happened to Jesse Pooley-R-V. Oh, my God.

Are you kidding me? Now, that's a guy. I'm never going to forget yes is on that team because he, uh, he, uh, he was one of those guys. I was like, how sick would it be if he had like an insane playoff and the oilers lost in the first round? Oh, yeah. Boy, that would have been something. That would have been very funny.

But obviously, neither of those things happened. No. But yeah, I think, I think it's fair to say the hurricanes are a really well-coached team. Like the system works, obviously. But the injuries are mounted. The other thing you're going to say is, boy, the blue. line just had it all over the islanders, huh?

Like the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, I'm a strength. Yeah. Um, but, uh, let, let, what do you think? You think, you think, you can hold up against the devils? Boy, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, again, I mean, uh, another team that I've been slow to come around on, I, I, I, it takes me, it takes me a while, I, sort of surprise team. I think that's the lesson here. But, yeah, the devils have looked really impressive. A fantastic game seven win. I mean, boy, that was. Rangers shouldn't have even shown up for it.

Well, they barely did. I mean. Well, that's what I'm saying. Did I see that the stat was high danger chances was 22 to 5 for New Jersey? Yeah, I mean, at some point, I didn't see the final total, but like at some point it was, you know, early in the second. I saw a stat and it was ridiculously one-sided. But zero-zero and, you know, for so far... 17 to 5, not 22.

Like, there was, for a while there, it felt like this, hey, are the Rangers going to steal one? Is this going to be the game where like Teresenko or somebody, you know, makes the play and now it's won nothing. And suddenly the building's all quiet, nervous, and Shistercant standing on his head. And it was, instead it was Andre Plott, who made like, Oh, the play of the playoffs, I would say, given the...

So far, yeah, and even the finish by McLeod, like the patience to not just stuff it into into Chisurkin's paths trying to beat him five hole or whatever to go around him like that, kind of not even quickly. Like that was that was kind of a slow, like, I wrap around isn't the right word, but like a slow drag around Chisirkin and still it worked out great. I tweeted last night I'm going like if the devils don't score soon I'm like really worried about this because they are dominating this fucking game and they have nothing to show for it and with all the with all the power plays

the Rangers were just getting or were getting it felt like the fucking fix was in that's for sure you know and then they didn't put the whistles away on this one did they they really didn't and then to for them to like score that first goal shorthand, it felt like that was opening the floodgates. Like they turned the big crank and that was the end of it.

Yeah. It was like they scored the goal and you just kind of, at that point you sort of shift over to the Rangers and you're like, all right, and your response and they were like, we don't have. We're already packed. We're halfway out the door here. And, you know, I said like, you know, we may.

mentioned Akira Schmidt earlier, like, this is a crazy thing that said, like, because I tweeted during the game, like, how many goalies go from junior to, like, being really good in the playoffs in two years? And someone was like, well, Carrie Price and Carter Hart, and it's like, yeah, okay, good. But those guys were, like, widely regarded as high-end fucking prospects, right? Like, those were, I blow. Was Carter Hart a first round pick? I feel like he was. I think he was like a second round pick, but he had like started the Canadian junior team since then. Yeah, and like his, he was an elite prospect coming in. Yeah, you were right.

Second round. He was, he was widely considered like one of the best goal attending prospects in the world at that time for sure. And Akira Schmidt is like, I was playing junior A two fucking years ago. Like he was in the USHL. The number of guys who go from the USHL to the, the NACL to the NACN, NHL in two years and aren't like national development team kids has to be insanely fucking. I can't even think of any off the top of my head, let alone a goalie, right? Like it's unbelievable.

And someone was like, well, I mean, you know, the devils aren't giving up anything in front of him. So is it that impressive? Which is, it starts to be a fair point. And then you're like, well, the other, the other goalie, they were like, we cannot let this fucking guy play for us. We have to go to this. And that's really what it boils down to for me, right? Like, yeah, you want to say he's a system goalie?

That's fine. But the other guy they have sure fucking isn't one. So, like, it's working for this kid in a way that it's not for a guy with a lot more NHL time under his belt. Let's put it that way. We see this in the playoffs, right? Like, it's, you ride him and it works until it doesn't. Yep. But.

If he turns back into a podcast. Pumpkin tomorrow, I guess I wouldn't be surprised. Yeah, but until then, he's, he's, he's, uh, this year's Steve Penny, uh, or whoever fill in more recent reference that I was going to say, 90% of the people will get, will understand. And, uh, yeah, who is Steve Penny? I literally don't know. Steve Penny was the, uh, Montreal Canadiens goalie in 85 when they went to the conference

final and then he got hurt and then they, uh, brought in some guy Patrick something or other. and Steve Penny lost the job. Real Wally Pip situation. Kind of was. Yeah. But yeah, I... So given everything we just said, it's hard for me to line up against the devils. Obviously, I haven't seen an update on Tim O' Meyer.

Yeah. What were your thoughts on the hit? If people didn't see it, I can't imagine. how you haven't. Yeah. Got absolutely smoked by Jacob. He got on the fucking train tracks. I have been saying for years and years and years that like the,

the change in the way that hitting happens in the NHL, that there are hits now that we all freak out about and analyze and everything that would not even have made the highlight real in, you know, 10 or 20 years ago. This hit would have been on the cover of Rockham Sockham 20 years ago. Like, Oh, yeah. This was an absolute insane hit.

Like Scott Stevens was like, dude, chill out. That's, you didn't need to go that hard. It might legitimately be the hardest hit I've ever seen. Yeah. That wasn't like, you know, he picked the head and put his helmet in the ninth row or any of that kind of stuff. And a clean hit. By the definition of the rules, lots of people obviously looking at it saying that it shouldn't be a clean hit, which is a absolutely fair discussion. But based on the rules, that's a clean hit.

Yeah. And that was my thing that I tweeted. I said, you know, I, if you think that should be a legal hit, I don't know what, to say to you. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, he almost fucking killed that guy.

And this isn't like, you know, when they were like, Will Smith could have killed Chris Rock. I don't know if you've seen that take that went, that went around last year. This isn't that. This is like that,

maybe not killed, but that could have ended his career. For sure. And, I mean, it could still, as we're recording this, it could have ended his playoffs.

Who knows? I mean, he came back. He came back last night. didn't play, but was out in the handshake line and everything. So you would presume he's not in awful shape, but a lot of times with these hits, it's the next day or the day after when you figure it out. Yeah.

So that's all we know is that he was in the handshake line. And apparently he was like trying to get, trying to get the fellas fired up for the end of the game and all that kind of stuff. So hopefully he's doing. okay. But, you know, we just saw a guy play a little bit of hockey the other night with a broken neck. Yep. Yeah, you never know.

But yeah, simply never know. Clean hit based on the rule, it's, whenever these things happen, it becomes clear that a lot of people like don't understand the rule. But we could, if you don't understand it because you assume it's one thing and you find out it isn't, then that could be your argument for changing it. And I, I, to this, like, I'm still one of those guys where I think that, I have a hard time seeing how you ban all hits to the head without wiping out an awful lot of contact that isn't hits to the head just because guys can't, you know, the risk of taking the penalty and all that. And people always say this, like, when you see a hit like this, somebody will say, well, the league wants hits like this in the game. And I don't think the league wants hits like that in the game, but the league wants big hits in the game.

And if you say, if you touch the head, you're out, it's five and you're out of the game, you do take a lot of those hits out. So I get, I get not wanting that, but at the same time you see a hit like that last night and you're just like, oh, geez, man, like knowing everything we know now, we can't. Yeah. Yeah. If that didn't make you sick to your stomach. I, I, I, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, and you're, and, and, and, and, and how, you want to talk about an old fucking reference up faces of death video. Wow. Jesus Christ.

I'm going to go climb into the fucking sea right now. This is horrible. And I don't, and I guess the last thing I'll say is, I don't blame Jacob Drew before it because, uh, you know, you, there, there are times where you see a big hit like that and you're like, why, you know, why even throw that hit? What do you. you know, why put the other guy in that position? But it's game seven. It was two nothing at the time. Your whole season's on the line.

If you've got a chance to make a big hit cleanly, and he did by the letter of the rule book, I mean, that's, if you're not going to do it then, then you're never going to do it. But, ugh, you just, you hope, hope Tim and Myers okay. And, boy, it's, it's going to be a great series that, that, that, all of the, The second round matchups are a lot of fun, but this one is two smart teams that are very well coached. I also don't know we've ever had the odds of a coach fight as high as they are right here in the second round, but we will see how that goes. If it was Torterella, maybe, I'd agree with you. I don't feel like Torterella is much of it.

I feel like Torterella is a big talk guy. All bark and no bite, yeah. I guess I guess I My thing is I can't see Lindy Ruff looking across at Rod Brindamore and going there's a guy I want a piece of Yeah you know what I mean that's true like Rod the Bod that guy's a that guy's a peacemaker in so far as you see him and you're like I've never had a problem with this guy never in my life What are you talking about? Yep Yeah

But yeah But yeah one last thing I want to say about about about the devils in particular. Now, you know, Akira Schmidt, that's kind of a weird name for a Swiss guy, right? You know, Akira? Do you know why he's named that? No, I do not. This was pointed out to me on Twitter last night. Maybe people know this and I'm like just saying some real old hat shit. But Akira Schmidt has a brother named Krillin. I believe I'm pronouncing that correctly. Krillin is the name of a Dragon Ball Z character. Akira is the first name of the guy that created Dragon Ball Z.

So it seems like these kids, the Schmid family, this is a Dragon Ball Z household. Wow. Isn't that wild? A couple of anime nerds actually produced the star of the NHL playoffs. Yeah, two nerds,

or at least one nerd. I can't speak to which member of the family here. But clearly the alpha nerd of the family because they got to name the kids. But now it's, their kids are two jocks. Yeah. Boy, talk about, man, that's how you rebel against your parents.

That's, boy, some of us think that, oh, I'm going to sneak out and drink or I'm going to, you know, skip class. Oh, Dad, stop making me watch anime. I want to watch sports. Yeah, that's it. Oh, Dad, you're so stupid. I'm going downstairs and work out. His dad's a sports ball guy? Yes.

Oh, how many touchdown baskets did you give up tonight, son? Yeah. Fuck you, dad. That rocks to me. I'm not a Dragon Ball Z guy. I never seen, I never, I've probably watched like, you know, a combined half hour of it or something in my life. Because, you know, it's, it's been ubiquitous, basically, uh, my entire adult life. But that's, it, it is really funny to me to find that out.

It's like, it's like finding out, uh, oh, this, this is our son, uh, J.R. and our other son, Legolas, and you're like, well, hold on a second. You know? Anyway, let's move on. Hey, speaking of the return of the king, right? Nice. The oilers made sure that didn't happen. I guess they're Sauron and all this.

I have no idea, but sure. He's the main bad guy. Okay. Lord of the Rings. Sauron. I'll take your word for it. He tricked the Elven Smith-Kalibrimbor. Is he the big eye, like the big scary looking?

Yeah, that's him, yeah. Okay, there you go. Look at me, knowing things. That's right. Yeah, let's talk about the oil. Yeah. I am. They're good.

They're really, really good. Very excited about this series, man. Oh, this is, and yeah, the oilers. Yeah, and, you know, credit to the Kings, but it's, uh, I feel, was it on last week's show where, I don't know, the time's all, time's all screwed up for me, but. Yeah. I remember talking about that game four for the Kings where it felt, you know, where they blew the lead and they went to overtime, they had the two one series lead.

Like it felt like that was that was your shot that had to land if you were going to beat the Oilers. And once, once you didn't land it, it was like, all right, that was, that was the old like you go to hit your finishing move and the opponent rolls out of the way. And now we all know how the rest of the. Oh, I was going to say opponent kicks out at one. Yeah. You hit your finisher. You barely got the cover and then you get to sit in the ring with the shocked reaction. Yeah.

Turn around, stole cold stunner. Bye bye. Yeah. And it was that. And, uh, AD, the oilers are good, man. This was my, this was my cup pick. Yeah. And they got a good team to go through with vague.

Well, so here's the thing. I said this is going to be an interesting series, a good series. here there is one reason I'm not so sure of that. How much do I trust Laurent Voisois? Like, oh, you can beat the Jets, sure. You beat the fucking Oilers? Do you trust Stuart Skinner? Like, are we on?

Well, I guess I... All-Star Stuart Skinner. Yeah, first of all, right. But no, I do insofar as I certainly trust the Oilers a lot more if it's going to be like a lot of four, three, five, four kind of games, I certainly trust the Oilers to be the team that comes out with more goals out of that. That's all.

Yep. I'm very interested because it feels like to me, tell me if you get this impression, that for a few years there, we were all over Mark Stone being not just a great player, but being like the best defensive player out there. this guy was the model of you know 200 foot hockey obviously because he's a great offensive player but this is this is the guy man you you've got a one goal lead you know him and bergeron neck and neck for who you want out there

and if you got to shut somebody down he's he's your guy and it feels like the last couple years and it's a lot of its injuries and stuff like that or that's sort of we've moved on to other people here but man mark stone if if they decide to go with like a stone versus macdavid matchup, boy, that could be interesting and fun because, I mean, nobody shutting the guy down, but. Of course, yeah. Yeah, it's, um, the oilers are exactly what you expect them to be, you know? Oh, what happens if I, uh, if I take a single penalty?

Well, nothing fucking good. Yeah. That's for sure. Exactly. Especially early in the series when they're calling penalties. and then like, you know, that that's game one and game two or the, you know, it's a bit of a ref show. I mean, how many times do you think they're talking about that Vegas right now? Like, guys, for the love of God, no penalties.

Yeah. Because did the power play finish over 50% in the series? That is a good question. While I look that up, let me say this really quickly. The thing about them having the really good power play. Yeah, 56 and a half, which is ridiculous, obviously. But that kind of ignores the fact that for a lot of this series, McDavid was very firmly shut down by Phil Donneau.

At five on five, you know what the goal difference was with McDavid on the ice? I do not. Dead even, six, six. Wow. And he had one even strength goal in the whole series, which I get, like, that's terrifying. Because if Connor McDavid is, I mean, not shut down, but if Connor McDavid is neutralized to some extent and didn't really slow the Oilers down that much. Yeah. Well, in part because Leon Drysidal, 10 goals to 5, that scored the opponent.

So that helps. Holy smokes, he's so good Yeah, he's really, really good And that is the issue, right? It's like, does Vegas have that second layer That L.A. did not of defensive power? I don't know. I don't know the answer to that.

In theory, they have shown that this year, but I would have said the king showed it this year, And it didn't fucking matter. You know? Yep. So, You know, like, I guess the other thing that needs to be said is like, if we're going to say that they're deploying Stone as like the shutdown guy, do they have a guy who can also drive the offense when he's off the ice? And again, maybe, I don't know, you know?

Yeah. I will say I'm surprised at just, you know, kind of the last couple days as I'm scanning through the picks that people are making. and this was the first series to get nailed down, so had a few extra days of it. I'm, like I say, I picked the Oilers, I picked the Oilers to win the Cup. I'm surprised at how lopsided it seems to be with people picking Edmonton here.

And I get that it's, look, like, people need to understand, if you see a list, if some website puts out, here's what our 10 writers think, and 90% of them pick one team, that doesn't mean they got together and decided there's a 90% chance that team's going to win.

That could be nine people thinking it's a 51% coin flip. But it is pretty interesting how, I would say almost overwhelmingly, people are picking Edmonton. I agree with it. I'm one of them, but this is, it's a good team, man. They are, but. Got the home ice. They've got, not that home ice has mattered at all in the playoffs so far.

No shit, man, oh man. but yeah, I guess what it comes down to is this is the second team in a row the Oilers are playing where it's like, oh, that's their starting goalie, huh? Mm-hmm. Oh, okay. I mean, sure.

That's what the West is, right? But, yeah, not to get ahead of ourselves, but they're either, if they go to the conference final and they're playing Philip Gruberauer, be like, Jesus, or run into Jake Ottinger. Like, talk about moving the difficulty sliders up. Yeah.

Cross that bridge when we get to it, I guess. Yeah, it's also really hard to tell what's going to end. This is where we'll talk about Vegas here. It's really hard to tell what's going to happen because Vegas, like, barely played the first route. Yeah. They were just like, Vegas out of all the teams didn't get pushed. Not just in sense that they were the only team to finish.

and, you know, finish the series off quickly, but not a. And they also haven't played for like a week now, I want to say? Which is, that's the double-edged sword, right? Like, and it's not, this isn't an extreme case. Like, usually in the first round, you've got, like, the team that swept versus the team that just finished a seven-game series. And it's not a huge difference. But there is that kind of, like, you want to get through the first round quick.

You want to just bang that series out in four or five games. But also, yeah, could there be a little bit. bit of a rust factor. I don't, I don't think there should be. Um, but, uh, no, they're really well coached. They have a lot of talent. Both teams, reasonably healthy. Yeah. All of that stuff. Yep. That is, that is the only, the only real question I have coming out is like, if Vegas can hit the ground running, then, you know, I'm all for it. That's great for me, you know, but I'm with you. I think this is like a 55-45-oilers series. Yeah, I think it's more than that, but it's...

Yeah, even if you want to say 60-40. Yeah, 60-40 is probably around where I'd go. Yeah, that makes sense. I haven't read any of the like the DOM predictions or anything like that, but... I think he had something like 60 or 65%. I think it was around, yeah, for Edmonton. Yeah, that makes sense. Let's see.

Money Puck has it 65, 35. Yeah, you know, I could see that. That's getting a little further out of my comfort zone, but it's... Yeah, interestingly, though, they have Dallas at only 56 to Seattle's 44. Isn't that interesting? Mm-hmm. That you would have thought that Vegas, Edmonton would be closer than Dallas, Seattle, but it isn't.

Yep. Anyway, yeah, so what are you? I'm going to go Edmonton and 6. What are you landing on? Yeah, you know what?

Give me Oilers in 7. Yeah, great. Okay. It should be a hell of a thing, man. Seven games in Vegas. I find whenever I'm making picks, I always assume that teams are going to win

the series at home. even though again, home ice means nothing. And what was the other stat that in the first round six of the eight winners lost game one and seven of eight

trailed in the series at some point. That checks out, yeah. It's pretty crazy. I mean, or maybe it just feels crazy to me because any time a team is behind in the series, I'm always like, well, that's it.

I mean, there's no by bye. There's no way they're winning four out of six the rest of the way. That's crazy talk. And so, you know. It is really hard to do that, though. You would think. Right.

I guess all evidence stands to the contrary, but you would, you would, like, historically, it has been very difficult to do that. Maybe it isn't anymore. You always see those numbers, right? You know, the team that wins. Roughly as good as one another and. Yep. The team that wins this game is the, you know, the one that goes and wins this.

a series and it hasn't it's historically worked that way. Yep. Not this time around. Yeah. What a really weird first round I guess is my big takeaway from all this. It was a fun

one. It was a lot of fun. And I mean, even if you're the sort of person who loves upsets and chaos and you know, you want to sit down to watch a playoffs and have just no idea what's going to happen, it was, this was one of the best first rounds ever. But even if you're someone like me who feels like that gets a little much after a while and

you'd kind of prefer to see, feel like the regular season meant more and all that, like, even then, there's, there was still a hell of lot of great stuff going on. Like it was, uh, this, this was a great, uh, it was a great first round. Yeah. Carolina was the only team that never trailed and won their series. So, yeah, that, that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah, okay.

Won't we take another break here and we'll come back and we'll talk about all the teams that lost? Be right back. This week's episode is brought to you by AG1 by Athletic Greens. Hey, are you like me? Do you wish? It can be a little bit healthier, have a little bit more energy, all of that good stuff. I'm guessing the answer is yes. Most of us want that.

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All right. Let's talk about the teams that lost, and I'll try to get them in the order in which they were eliminated, but it, you know, let's start with the Jets. Yikes. Ooh. Uh-oh. Yeah, that's, uh,

it's awfully tough to lose a playoff series, like have that final buzzer go through the handshake round and be like, ah, the worst is still to come. But. Yes. Oh boy, Rick bonus What? Big Rick Now what was he exactly?

He was disgusted Disappointed and disgusted I think was the Yeah And didn't even like this If people didn't see it You know you obviously heard the sound bite But it's not like he got up there

And like the reporters were just digging and digging And you know pushed him into Saying something like he got up there And I don't even think he asked for a question really He just sort of launched into it almost did a one-minute press conference and then got out of there

but he dropped the bombs that that he was not happy and then we got the follow-up a couple days later with the players Blake Wheeler especially basically saying like hey that should have been said behind closed doors and got sort of a quasi-apology

at a bonus where he said he He was disappointed that he used the word disgusted, but otherwise stood by it. Yeah. I don't know, man. Well, and then we also found out that Kevin Shevoldaoff is staying and Rick Bonas is staying. So already. Yeah. But there was a little bit of controversy yesterday on this as well.

I don't know if you saw this, because Rick Bonas' whole thing was the lack of pushback. Okay. We don't, we didn't have any pushback out there. And then like the jets themselves. I believe put out a statement that was like, look, we're disappointed, but we had a great season and we showed a lot of pushback in the first round. And it's like, you're using the same word he did?

I did not. And you're bringing this guy back? Yeah. Yeah, okay. I'm going to see if I can find this again. I didn't see that at all. That's, uh, wow. Okay.

Pushback. Pushback. Pushback. Um, I don't know. if I'm going to find it real quickly. Yeah. I saw this yesterday. Um, and it's just like, man, if, if that was actually from the Jets account and now

I'm like doubting myself, you know, but, uh, if that's actually what happened, like, that's that's, yeah, I mean, that's, I mean, I guess you're, you're, in some sense, you're sort of trying to cover. This is, this was it. Yep. This was an, an email to the Jets, like, uh, ticket list or something. like that. Whenever a team doesn't reach the lofty goals at set in training

camp, disappointment will always be present as year-end exit meetings are conducted and locker stalls cleaned out. The Jets had plenty of pushback against Vegas in round one. They won game one and rallied from a 4-1-deb, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. The only disappointing part was game 5 is how it ends.

Okay. I don't know who's in charge of that. So the part where you lost three of the first four was not disappointing? No. Yeah. And that's from Scott Billick, who is the beat writer for the Jets for the Winnipeg song. Okay. So, like, he's not, this isn't like one of those guys who makes up a fake thing.

Mm-hmm. Uh, wow. Okay. That's, I mean, I, I, you know, the, I don't think Rick Bonas was wrong, but you do, I, I've, I can't offhand recall hearing the coach say something like that in the aftermath of a, of a play and especially in a way where I mean he was clearly emotional but like I said it didn't it didn't like seemed to just come out of nowhere

of his emotions getting away from him like it felt like he went in planning to say that um and then something to that effect at the very least yeah when you hear like Blake Wheeler well it should have been said behind closed doors I mean I think we can assume this was said behind closed doors all year long

and didn't right you know at some point the message didn't get through or not, uh, you know, whatever it was, but man, that was,

uh, it, and it's, it's interesting because even last year with the Winnipeg, right? Like, that was one of the teams that a lot of people looked at and said,

okay, they got to blow this up. They got to do something. Um, yeah, and they brought bonus in, but other than that, it was pretty much stay the course.

And now, we're all saying it again. I don't think anybody was necessarily assuming Kevin Shevelda off would be on the way out. And if you're not going to make the change, then you want to make that clear right away. Yeah. You know, I don't think Rick Bonas was going to get fired for losing in the first round when he took over a team that missed the playoffs. But you got to think there's some big changes happening, but maybe not.

Maybe they'll write it out again. So the thing is, I didn't expect them to make a change either as the GM or the coach. because both of them are signed through not next season, the one after that, 24, 25, I guess. And obviously they just hired the coach last summer and around the same time, Shevel Day off signed an extension. So in one year to go from, well, we're bringing in both of these guys, we're going to plan to have these guys for another three seasons or whatever

to be like, yeah, forget it. that would be a little surprising for me. That's just not usually how the NHL works. But it does feel like something big has to change. I don't want to say it's going to be like explicitly like him or me kind of a thing with a lot of guys. But I think it is going to be like Connor Hellebuck said. Like I'm not like I don't, this isn't the exact quote. But he is not interested in being part of a rebuilding team.

He wants to compete for. a Stanley Cup. And he has got one year left on his deal. One year left. So, I, he is going to want an absolutely huge amount of money, which is his right, obviously, as one of the best goalies in the world. And the Jets have to really look at it as do we think that we can take the slightest step back without pissing him off and then give him a ton of money and still be able to. to be even marginally cup competitive. And if the answer to that question is no, then you have to start calling every team that needs a goalie and say,

now listen, we got this guy Connor Hallibuck. And he's really good. What would you give us for him? I think they will absolutely do that. And there's always teams, like, there's always teams in the market for goal tending. And then, but we always say like, yeah, but who are the, you know, who are the stars that are available?

Like, you end up scrambling for like Matt Murray and guys like that because you're like, hey, you know, the, the Vezna guys are never available. And it might make sense for to change that and to see what you can get. And once you, once you open that door, then everything else is in play too. I mean, obviously Pierre-Lubert, we all, we all, we're all. counting down until he goes off to Montreal. So do you make a move now and turn that into something where you get something for something? Mark Sheifley, who knows, go on down the list.

The Jets have an opportunity and maybe very good reason to be like the big players of the offseason. Or they could just do the more typical NHL thing and run it back and try again. Right. And you got to wonder, because the other thing that is worth noting is that, like, you know, attendance has not been as good as you would think it would be in Winnipeg, where like they're kind of the only show in town and that kind of stuff. And does that piss off the owner when you already have a small building? Like, you can't even sell that out, you know? I don't know. but like you say if everybody's coming back that's uh I mean I can't imagine that that that's going to happen

I can't imagine that they're going to but well I mean I wouldn't have imagined it last year but even more so this year it feels like you've yeah well my point my point in bringing up the ownership thing is one of the big reasons

many of the teams that should like go into like an actual rebuild or even a retool don't do it is because of the Canucks or Flyers thing, the Flyers up until more recently, I guess, of like, we don't rebuild. That's just not how it fucking works here. And if there's, and part of that too is people like, is the idea, the incorrect idea, I would argue,

that fans wouldn't accept a rebuild. I think fans have shown time and again in the last few years. more than happy to eat shit for a year or three. Right. But will they buy tickets while that happens? And so that's the question, right? And, you know, I think, you know, like Toronto kind of did a little bit of a rebuild there, but they're always going to sell tickets, right?

Right. Pittsburgh, I guess we're maybe about to find out in the next couple of years. Pittsburgh, the last time they did it, the franchise went bankrupt and almost moved. Yeah, and I mean, that was a long time ago now, you know? I mean, even Chicago didn't, their building was half empty the last time they truly did a rebuild, although they seem to understand what's going to understand what's going. I really don't, yeah. I think it's certainly not disastrous. You know, I think it was within the realm of what you would expect. So, yeah, it's, it's tough. see here.

It wasn't good in Chicago this year. 17-167, and I believe their building holds like 20-something. Yeah. So that's not getting it done. Yeah, they were selling 21,000 plus tickets for basically the entire dynasty run or whatever you want to call it. And then last year it was 18 and a half, and then this year it was 17. So like they're not doing great, but obviously 17 is is more people than they can fit in the Jets building when they sell out.

So who knows, you know? Mm-hmm. I'm just real interested to see where they go here because they could stay the course and it wouldn't surprise me, but they have a real opportunity to sell for some real nice shit. You know what I mean? And if you're going to do it with, hell of a buck, you do it in the off season.

And you do it in the off season. Like the goalies, I mean, it's not that obviously anytime there's anybody that we're, that's coming up on the last year of a deal and you hear talk about trading them in the off season. It's always a case of, well, yeah, but if you don't find the right offer, go into the season, hopefully they have a great season and you trade a midway through the season. And the problem with goalies is in the off season, there are lots of teams that think they're going to be good

except for a goaltender. Once you get into the season, it becomes teams that have good goaltending and are having good seasons and teams that don't have good goaltending and are having bad seasons. And neither one of those groups wants to trade for half a year of Connor Hellibuck at that point. Now, yes, there might be some. some teams that are contending minus just the goalie.

I mean, you, LA would be the prime example. Yeah, Patrick Waugh got traded halfway through a season. That worked out pretty well. But those situations are rare. And you know, suddenly you're dealing with I've got maybe two or three teams that are a landing spot versus, you know, half the league would be in on Connor Hellibuck in the offseason.

But again, every NHL GM and Kevin Shelday of has never been a big trader. But it feels like every GM likes to play it cautious, play. just kick the can down the road. It's going to be fascinating to watch the Jets, man. I really can't wait to see what they do. Yep, totally agree. What about the wild? Yeah, another one where we wait and see on Mark Andre Fleury,

but it sounded like he said he's coming back. Yep, he does want that. Matt Dumba. Presumably won't be back. They can't make it happen. Yeah. Him and Klingberg, basically. yeah um yeah clingberg was you know that was the the rental situation other than that

i i don't know it's it's weird again they're in cap hell because of the buyouts and yet but also not really but not as much as you think because they sort of already incorporated you know and to their credit strategically you know they they they put the train on the train tracks it was coming towards them and then actually reacted to it in a way that they're not in terrible shape, but it is like the wilder one of those teams you kind of look at and go, okay, what's the next step here? Like they're a good team. They're a hundred point team. They're going to make the playoffs, but where-

But it's a low ceiling for them. They are to me in a lot of ways like the islanders of the last few years, where it's like the floor is pretty high, the ceiling is quite low. you know they they don't what it boils down to is they do not currently have a number one center i guess the idea would be they think they hope marco rossi could get there some time but i i from what i understand like they're kind of thinking maybe it's time to cut bait on rossi um is kind of what uh what i've read and and i wouldn't want to be the guy making that decision personally um the kids 21 years old. He obviously went through a lot with COVID and that kind of stuff. And if I remember right,

I feel like he had a good year in, uh, in Iowa, right? Now that obviously, you know, he could be one of those guys who he can have a good year in Iowa. Yep. But not in the NHL. One point in 19 games with the wild this year, you know? So like, I can see why they would say, maybe, but you, I, I, I feel like you'd be selling low on him and like he's on he's on his ELC what's the harm in in running him out when you're in as you say cap hell what's the harm in what's the harm in getting them out there and and seeing what you can what you can get out of them but absent him taking a huge step forward they still don't have a number one center and that is the problem with this team they have a good blue line I like a lot of the guys they have on the back end um

they have their goalie of the future. Like Gustafsons probably, it's tough to say that he would come back just because of the cap constraints, but he is an arbitration eligible, restricted free agent. So in theory, they could make it happen.

I don't know if they actually can. But if they can't, they have Jesper Walshatt who, Jesper Walshatt, I think it is, who is like, you know, an a goaltending prospect.

He is widely regarded as one of the better young goaltenders in the, like not currently in the NHL. So it'll be interesting. Yep. It's, it just feels like, you know, in the wild now or the team that always makes the playoffs and doesn't do anything once they're there. And unlike, you know, the, unlike with the Leafs, it's more of a feeling of this is just what they are. They're a team that's good enough to make the first round and lose. So how do you get to the next step? Because it doesn't feel like they should tear it down, but dangerously close to being stuck in the middle, which is where you never want to be.

Yep. Like I said, high floor, low ceiling with these guys. And part of that is, again, I would say the right move to do the buyouts on Suter and Parize. Right? But it's like, I mean. Yeah, I think, I think it. Ryan Suter just played big minutes against them in the playoffs. Like, I understand.

Now, well, I guess the thing is, would I have just bought out Porezze and maybe kept Souter? Yeah, maybe. I think that's more the, you know, where I would have gone with it. I was surprised that that's, you know, because he keep mind, it's a buyout. They're paying two thirds of, you know, they're paying him an enormous amount of money for the next three years anyways. So, you know. So those contracts would have been up two seasons from now, 24, 25. Right.

And they're on the hook for $7.3 million to each of them. Yeah, they're basically paying almost what they would have for both of them. It's like $7.3 million, like you say, for each of them against the cap. And what they actually would have earned against the cap is $7.5. So they're actually saving a little bit of money, but... Very little. You know, a very little bit. And again, like, if you feel like Zach Porese, he's been good with the Islanders, but he looked like he was done in Minnesota.

Yes. Whereas Souter, I mean, again, we don't know what was going on behind the scenes. We don't know if it's like an addition by subtraction sort of thing for whatever reason. But I feel like there was some of that afterwards, right? like there was some talk of like well Ryan Suter was kind of or you know who maybe it was forise maybe it was both of them I don't remember now but I do now that that is ringing a faint bell about addition by subtraction right so I mean there could have been some of that but put it this way if they had Ryan Suter on the team right now yep and they said we we want to trade him

and we'll retain 50% for the last two years I feel like somebody would take that they would get some sort of low level asset and have less of a cap hit than they're holding on to right now. So anyways, it's impossible to say, but. Yeah, tough to relate. It is what it is now. Two years out or whatever it's been. Um, yeah, let's, uh, let's move on to the Islanders speaking of, uh, yeah. Boy, this, this feels like all the same things we just said about the wild plus, plus,

plus, right? Like, just where's the next level? No. Yeah, why no Because they have the goalie Basically Yeah, but isn't that goalie Just keeping them

In the middle That maybe they don't deserve to be in Like Um But But you know, they're I guess my point is with the goalie They can make a deep run

We've seen them do it twice with the goalie, just getting good goaltending and like otherwise having an uninspired. The other thing I want to say, though, is having two centers who are good at putting the puck in the net helps. They only had the one before. Now they have Bo Horvett. And that's a good, look, it didn't help in this series,

but that's a guy that I think, you know, he can be a player for them. Now, how about this for a stat? These two guys next year, Horvette and Barrett, and Barzal, they're going to be making more against the salary cap than David Posterdog and Brad Marshand. Oh. Is that not a crazy number?

That's wild. Yeah. Yeah. Both got the new contracts. Both of them, yeah. I guess, yeah, I see what you're saying with the Islanders is, because I just finished saying with the Wild, they feel like a team that's good enough to make the playoffs and then go out in the first round.

And maybe with the Islanders, you say, hey, if we're good enough to make the playoffs, with the goalie we have, that's enough. And then we can. Right. So maybe you say, but I just, man, you look at the Islanders, lots of big contracts. A ridiculous number of big contracts. Like guys that you don't even, you're like, oh man, like, J.G. Pajot is still signed for 2026, 5 million bucks in here. So, and they're an old team.

And I know every time I say this, Islanders fans are like, ah, you know, these guys are barely 30. And it's like 30 is old in the NHL. Especially if they weren't high skill players to begin with. Yeah. I mean, it's you go down the list and, you know, the blue line is, is youngish. And, and, you know, defensemen, the aging curve is a little bit different. But, you know, you look at just like their top, top paid guys. Barzell's only in his mid-20s.

Okay, Barzell's young, although not so young that you think he's got, another couple of levels ahead of it. Yeah, he'll be 26 at the end of the month. But after that, it's guys, 32, 31, 33, 30, 32. Those are their next five forwards by cap hit this year. And then you got Bo Horvatt, who's, what, 28 or 29. And then everyone else just turned 28, yeah. Like Pierre Engval is a young guy and he's leaving.

And when I said, I'm kind of making the air quotes there because he's 26. and the prospect pool isn't great. I know this is the other thing. Anytime you say a team's old, they go, whoa, we got these prospects on the way. Every team has prospects. They have Otu, Ratu and what's his name? Simon Holmstrom.

I think those are their only two like real legit. They could maybe play in the NHL next year prospects. I'm trying to think if there's anybody I'm forgetting. I don't believe so. Booty Wild, I guess. There was a time that was a, I don't know. But yeah, it's, it's tough, man. Like, the one thing I will say is right now they don't have a ton of cap space.

They have like $6 million and they need to kind of save some of that to give Sorokin, who's at a UFA after next season. They need to save some money to give him. But the only thing that I can. really see here is if they can figure out something with Josh Bailey. Did he even play in the playoffs? I don't think he did. I couldn't tell you. I don't think he's injured. Yeah. Yeah, it says here he's not injured. As far as I can tell, he's not injured. So if he didn't play in the playoffs, it's because, you know, coach thinks he sucks and looking at how he did this year,

it's hard to disagree with him. you know, but that's a guy he's due $5 million next season. That's it, man. Like all of these contracts are, like they don't have necessarily a contract that you point at and say that's terrible.

But it's just everyone's $5, $7 million. A million dollar overpay on half the guys on the roster. And that adds up fast. That's, that's it. I don't know what I would do with this team. Do not know. Well, the other thing is, I guess we should say,

people have been speculating about the future of a young man out of somewhere in New England. Lou Lamarillo. Mm-hmm. And people are like, well, I mean, if Lou's out, you know,

that could change everything. And it's like, Lou will be handpicking his replacement. His replacement will be his son, who presumably sees the game in the exact same way and talks the exact same way. and and then nothing's really different except the, you know, the first name on the,

on the little thing that you put on the front of your desk. What's that thing called? You know what I'm talking about? Never heard of it. You know, like that old commercial, like the name is Dumas and the thing said Mr. Dumas. Yeah, a little nameplate. Yeah, they don't even have to.

Nameplate, there you go. Don't even have to change it. No, you just change the first name. I don't know. And I guess I'm asking paper over there. I mean, you always look at this and you go,

okay, what if they didn't do that? What if the job was actually open? And look, people would be flooding into, there's not a lot of GM jobs. Everybody would want the job. But man,

it's going to be a tough one. They do shake free some cap hit on Varlamov. He's the one guy that they're, that'll be going out the door. But then they've got one year of Sorokin left. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. He's at four.

million. He's super cheap. So he's going to, boy, you talk about Hellebuk wanting the moon. Here's a guy who's even younger. Well, that's what I'm saying. Like, let's say they figure, like, they just let Varlamov go and whoever their backup is, is like a league minimum

guy. And then they figure out a way with Josh Bailey, like, you know, eat half his contract for this year, whatever. How much of that those combined dollars are going straight to Sorokin? Pretty much all of them you would have to think.

You'd think so. And if that's the case, then, you know, you're right back in the same cap hell that you were in before, where it's not like the wild where it's like, we knew this was going to be the thing for three years or whatever. It's like, no, we just keep finding ourselves in a slightly different cap hell. It's tough, man. I don't know. I don't know what the answer is. It's rough.

And it's, you know, it's, you know, it's. We always say, like, most good teams have got somebody on a cheaper deal than they should be. What do you do with that extra space? And, you know, we talk about guys like Dracil and it was McKinnon for so long and Pastor Nack for so long. I feel like I didn't hear about this McKinnon thing. Did he have a good contract for a while? It got mentioned once or twice. Okay.

All right. But, and I'm sure he loved that. I'm sure he just really enjoyed. And Sorokin's been that guy for the Islanders, and he will be for one more year. MVP level player. MVP level goaltending for less money than Matt Murray is getting from the Leafs. Yep. And this is what it leads to.

I don't know, man. It's tough. It's tough. All right. Let's move on to the Kings. I think I alluded to it earlier. There you only have one real problem, and it's the goaltending. Who knows what they do?

because they still have Cal Peterson locked in for another year, I want to say, at $5 million. This guy barely fucking played for them last year. Yeah, I mean, not a guy that's in any way part of the future you would think. Although, you send him down to the miners hoping you're going to reclaim. Yeah, that was such a, it was a strange contract when it was signed. Not that it was a terrible contract, but like any time a contract gets signed, you go, okay, what's the upside? what's the downside? And this is like the absolute

floor of the downside. Yeah, I would say it was a weird contract when it was signed only because they still had Jonathan Quick and so they were paying two goleys who, you know, like you say, kind of a wide range of outcomes. Yeah. Making like a combined 10 million plus dollars.

That's tough. So, I mean, do you do you resign corpusallo he was he was fine I think you yeah that conversation I think he punched above his weight in the regular well I think he in arguably punched above his weight

in the regular season like he went with Columbus he was 913 after two straight years of being sub eight or sub 900 um and then he was 921 in the regular season with LA and then you know obviously got lit up in the

playoffs pretty good um It's, here's what I would say. I think Corpusallo is going to want a decent amount of money. This is going to be maybe his last chance to make, like, again, a decent amount of money. He's not going to cost $5 million, I don't think. But, you know, hey, we mentioned it earlier. You want to talk about a team that could use a goalie in the Western Conference?

It's probably the Kings, because that is probably what held them back more than anything in these. in this playoff. Yep. And maybe Connor Hellebuck's available. If you can get Connor fucking Hellebuck. And obviously the Jets would need to retain some money, but maybe you couldn't make it work. I mean, honestly, that's the sort of thing where even if Winnipeg says we're not retaining money, I'll find a way to trim the rest.

You know, I'll find a way to get that money somewhere. And you want to talk about a team with the picks and prospects to, to make it happen? Yep. Who's going to have a better selection of them than the Kings? The Kings have been a great rebuild. Very few teams that will actually want a goalie. Yep.

The Kings have done a great job on a rebuild. Didn't do the whole completely tear down. Like they didn't trade Kopadar and Dowdy and that sort of thing. But really well done. But we always say like the rebuild is kind of the easy part and then getting to the next stage. And they've been a hundred point team. they're, you could argue they're already there, but it's now it's like, okay, you've got, like you said, they've got the assets, they've got the opportunity.

Now it's like, what's the move you make to get over that hump and become not just the team that has a puncher's chance against the oilers, but is favored against the oilers or the golden knights or whoever else. And I do think, I think they'll look at Corpusallo partly because, let's face it, they gave a first round pick to get them. Yep. And Gavnikov. So, you know, as a GM, you always kind of feel better about keeping those guys.

But still a lot of, you know, a lot of good pieces. Youngish, you know, youngish as far as the current roster. But unlike the Islanders, like, there's more on the way. Like the guys that are coming in to supplement it are, are there. So, and interesting, next year is the last year of Coppertar's deal. So that's, I was just going to say that, yeah, like, you know, he's, He's 35. He's going to be 36 in August, it says here.

So obviously he's still a really, really good player, but he's got to be thinking like we're getting close to the end here, you know? And if that's the case, guys, especially guys that have played with one team their whole careers like Bergeron or Stamco's or whatever and they're starting to think, Because I saw his quote from Stamcoast that was like, yeah, I've only ever wanted to be on the lightning at this point. Like I cannot see myself wearing another jersey. It feels like it would be the same way with Kopitar.

And at that point, guys tend to take contracts that are team friendly and bonus laden, right? Yes. And so Kopitar could drop from 10 million to 3 million. Yeah. It's the Bergeron deal, right? The Bergeron deal, but like it could go up to 6 million if, you know, the Kings do X, Y, and Z, which then frees up the money to not only have Connor Hellebuck, but to resign Connor Hellebuck if they so choose. Although, you know, he'd be on at least approaching the, I don't know his age out the top of my head, but I want to say he's probably already 28, 29 years old. So do you. There we go, man. We've already, we have already fixed the, uh, worked out a blockbuster trade.

Yeah. Sending two teams in the right direction. All Winnipeg has to do is take back the Cal Peterson contract. No problem. We got this. That's all you got to do. Hey, we just need you guys to take back our minor league goal. You guys will do that, right?

He's in the HL. Can't be that much. Oops. Yeah, big time. All right. Hey, speaking of Stephen Stamco's, double-ts. Aw.

Such a shame that they lost. Well, look, you know, when I, when I, when the playoffs started, my preview was like a ranking of, it would be cool if this team won the Stanley Cup. And I had Colorado, I think I had Colorado last and Tampa second last, you know, because it's just like, we've seen it. We don't need to, uh, we don't need to really relive that one. Yeah. And, and like, dynasties are cool, uh, but, yeah, you know, it's, it's, and I guess we should. should say, like, isn't the, the eight teams left, the most recent cup is 2006 hurricanes.

So somebody's ending a drought. That sounds right, yeah. Or in obviously a few cases, teams have never won. Seattle and Vegas are in there. I don't know if you call those droughts, but yeah, there's going to be. I would not, no. There's going to be some new blood. But, yeah, the lightning, amen, it's a hell of a team.

The lightning were, we didn't really get into the. this and talking about the Leafs, the Lightning were the better team in that series for, for big long stretches, not just the game one blowout, but even, even the games they kept losing in overtime. I mean, as a Leafs fan, it was like, it was weird to watch because it was like, these are all the bounces that usually go against us all seem to go for us in this series. And that's what I was going to say, right? Like the Lightning can go, oh, we lost in the first round.

And, like, they do need to make changes just because, you know, they have all these guys who cost a lot of money and fair enough. Like, what, were you going to say? They don't deserve it. Like, Anthony Sorrelli shouldn't be a $6 million player or whatever, you know, like that. But they're going to lose Alex Colorn. They're going to lose Ian Cole, which I don't think is, like, a huge loss, but they have to replace him, obviously. Ross Colton's an RFA. Tanner Geno's an RFA.

Like, they need to find. some wiggle room on the roster here. Especially, I mean, you know, we know they're going to resign and, man, you talk about having bargaining power after everything they just gave up for him. Imagine. Yes and no.

I mean, because he, apparently he wasn't that healthy in the playoffs. No. So like, but he also wasn't that good for them down the stretch either. A goal and four and three assists in the last 20 games of the year.

But they gave up like, all of their next three drafts to get them. There's no way that you know, they're going to be like, we're not really sold on you. Oh, are you not now? Well, I think this could be a meat in the middle kind of a thing. It's like, it probably could.

We really liked you, but you sucked. You made us look like assholes out there, you know? The thing with the lightning is, man, you go to their cap-friendly page, and it's not always a bad thing to see that red arrow on the side of the page. It usually is, yeah. it usually is and you know, they got a lot of them, man. Five, six, six.

Six. And, you know, including like on some weird guys, like the Nick Paul contract for forever and Sorrelli you mentioned in that. But, yeah, I mean, they'll. Eric Chernack. Would you have said Eric Chernak as a guy that signed fucking 10 years into the future or whatever? I wouldn't have a thought. His contract is up in 2031. They did miss him, man.

What? But, yeah, that's, and really, no, not anyone big coming off the books. But I, well, Stamco's next summer. Yeah, and Clorne this year. But I mean, Stamco's is, he's going to be a lightning for life. There's, I don't know. Yeah, I was just saying, yeah, of course. So it's, it's going to be interesting.

But, I mean, I don't think this is, you know, anytime you see a team that's championship caliber and they're getting older and they're getting older and they're getting expensive and it starts feeling like it's kind of creaking a bit. And then they lose in the first round. Like that's often the big giant warning sign that, okay, danger is approaching. I don't necessarily feel that way for the lightning. Like if they're going to run it back and they should. That's, that's my big take. That's where I meant.

Yeah. They don't have, they don't have the flexibility to not run it back quite frankly. Um, but also like, like you said, all the bounces that usually go against the Leafs went for them this time. Yeah. And Tampa can just go, well, look, that's a team that should have won in the first round two years ago, three years ago, whatever. And it just didn't happen for them. And now, like, the fucking tables have turned.

We went to three straight Stanley Cup finals. You don't think, like, that takes us getting some bounces? The other team did. Who gives a shit? It happens. We have the two cups, 1.4. You know, there's nothing for them to be upset about here. And I think, like, everybody's clear.

right about that. Like, what, they're not going to fire John Cooper. No. So, so you just fucking just go again. Yep. And, and I mean, you and I are often the first ones to say like, hey, Pittsburgh, Washington, Islanders, you know, Minnesota, it's time to take a step back. It's time to, not here. Keep going, man. You got to, this is an absolutely a cup caliber team and, uh, keep, uh, keep pushing with them, I think. Yeah, they had, uh, they had a, they had a 50. goal guy and Braden Point. They had Kutrov hit 113 points this year. Stamco still had 30 plus goals. Hegel scored 30. Kallorn had 27. Like you hate to lose Kallorn, but like that's the cost of doing business like you were saying when you're one of these teams that wins a bunch of cups or

whatever. So yeah, I mean, I think I think it's fair to say they're going to be totally fine next season barring like absolute catastrophe. And like Vasilewski was great this year, you know? Yep, until the playoffs Until he gets out there next year And we've You know, it's funny man You joke about the Leafs figuring him out But you did have

I always remember Good old Jim Carrey The guy who, you know, won the Vezna Yeah, he's in the mask He was in Ace Ventura That's the guy Yeah He wins the Vezina

But the The Penguins I think Were the team that figured out That like it was the cross-ice stuff was his Achilles heel and then everyone started doing it and he was out of the league in three years. So that's what I'm saying

is going to happen to Andre Pasolevsky. Yeah, sure. It's going to be like, you know, it's going to be like the 1920s NHL guys just taking slap shots from the center ice and the goalie losing them. This was his worst season

in a few years. Just something to think about. Yeah, anyway. The Boston Bruins. this is tough this is tough for them this summer yeah so let's get into the goaltending thing okay because I've never seen anything like that where you've got a guy who's going to win the vezina start the first six games and then you you make a goalie swap in game seven and I know people are saying well he was injured when did he when was he injured and yeah there must have

been a time to make that change that wasn't going into game seven. And it kind of, in a way, it kind of suck because when you make a move like that, we're all looking at Swainman going, all right, man, we either need the shutout or we need you to be terrible. And instead, he was sort of in between. Like, not the reason they lost, but also not phenomenal, which kind of hurts those of us in the narrative business. But the fact that Allmark, you know, seemed hurt in game five and six at least, and all, or

or maybe fatigued or whatever it was. You know, the Bruins had used both guys during the year. Typically in the playoffs, you pick one guy and you ride them. And they seemed to break down on them, and they wait until game seven to make the change. Yeah. I might have made the change earlier. But, like, you know, again, like you say,

this is a guy who's going to win the Vezna. he'd been really, really good all year. And he really only had one bad game in the first, like the Bruins won the three of the first four games, right? So he has a shit game in game two. Is that when you go to Swamen? Because there's not really another opportunity. No.

Because game three bounces back. Game four is phenomenal. He stopped 41 of 43. Game five, he gets shelled. Well, game five was they lose an overtime. That was the overtime loss. And like he got shelled in that he gave up four goals on 25 shots. But he also like, you know, that was like the turnover game.

That was, oh, we just, we were managing the puck well. And do we blame the goalie on that? No. And then game six, like he's even worse than he was. in game five. And it's like, well, you know, the only time they could have reasonably made the change for me is going into game three.

See, yeah. And that would have felt too early. That would have felt like a panic. It's one bad game from the guy that just won the Vesna? Yeah. Or is about to win the Vesna? Yeah. No, for sure.

I think the other two spots that you could have done it, one with full benefit of hindsight, And this is, I've seen this from a bunch of people, and I think it's too easy, but is to say after game four, you're up three, one in the series. You say, hey, we're going to go to sway and we want to use both guys. You're kind of basically saying, hey, the series is one, right? Easy to say in hindsight, the other thing, though, is if they do that and they lose that game and the series gets away from them, we're all freaking out. What are you fucking doing? Yeah.

How could you have done that? The other thing that I think you could have done is after the game five, at this point, I think, you know, certainly you're starting to see the fatigue. If there's an injury and the Bruins know about it, I think what you could have done is you could have said, Jeremy Swayman's going to start game six. And we're going to go back to Allmark for the next game. Whether that's a game seven or the next series, Allmark's our guy. We will go back to him. This isn't, you know, but we're going to go. swaying in game six and we're either going to have arrested allmark for game seven or for

next series whatever it is. I feel like maybe you could have done that. And then the other piece that, you know, some people are pointing to is make the change at some point during game six. Like, forget about, you know, as he's getting shelled out there and clearly not playing well and clearly not looking right. Right. Um, make the change. But again, even that's tough because they never trailed in that game until there was five minutes left. Boston was a goal or two ahead. Well, they trailed, sorry, they trailed in the first period. But like, you're not going to make a change.

You wouldn't think two goals immediately. Right. So, you know, when do you make that change? I don't know. It's tough. It's not like they were ever down five to two where you say, okay. And again, like if it works, then we're all going, yeah, this is the steady hand at the wheel. Jim Montgomery never panicked.

He stayed with his guy. He didn't do any, you know, he didn't overreact, and the team fed off of that confidence, and they got it done. But it didn't work out that way. We have a bit of breaking news here. Marcus Johansson signs with the Wild two years, two million, new extension. Okay. There you go.

And another maybe interesting thing, Chris Johnson just tweeted out that Alex Lyon was first goalie off the ice for the Panthers time. Wow. Oh shit. Oh shit. Damn. And of course, no formal announcement from them or anything. This is this stupid thing where teams don't announce their goalie, but like.

You never know. They always have their like their starters net and everything. It would be very funny if they were just like, all right, just for today, just leave first. You know, just. But, uh. This is a fun trick-em. But, yeah, that could be, boy. Well, you just finished talking about gutsy goals.

decisions. There's one now, yeah. Maybe this is, maybe, maybe this is the new thing for Florida, right? Like Alex Lyon is like your starter. He goes the first few winnings. And then you bring Bob Brofsky into throw heat in the

in the second half. But yeah, boy, that would be something. You got any thoughts on the future of the Bruins real quick? We should really kind of try to pick up his last two teams here. Yeah, let's, uh, um, it, I mean, obviously fantastic team.

lots of guys locked in. You don't need to rebuild when you got Pastor Nick McAvoy and other guys. Very interested to see the Patrice Bergeron situation. He definitely looked like a guy who had just played his last game. Yep. But no final decision. Their real problem is those bonuses. It's going to be pretty close to the full freight on the $5 million in bonus overages.

And that's going to make things real tough for the Bruins. They're going to have to trade somebody, maybe more than one to someone. somebody I might think about starting with Linus O'Mark, but... Wow. There's a take. Five million bucks, and you got Jeremy Swayman? You know where he could go? Winnipeg's going to need a goalie after they trade Hellebuck to the Kings.

That's right. That's a good point. Yeah, and then let's do the abs real quick. Great team. I mean, I don't even think there's a post-mortem here. Great team. A bunch of guys hurt, missus. for various reasons, all you can do is just shrug and say, not our year, but you absolutely

run it back. I mean, there's not even a question there. The Chuskin situation will be interesting to see if he's, you know, how that plays out, if he's part of it going forward. Yeah, tough one to speculate on one way or the other. Yeah, we won't get into that stuff. But, yeah, yeah, they have, they have some tough decisions to make this summer. they have to replace basically like the entire middle of their forward group

and figure out how they feel about Bo Byrum and then the other thing is, and they don't have a lot of cab space to do it either, and then the other thing is, and this is the real tricky part, apparently Landisog had a quote at the beginning of the playoffs where he's like, yeah, whatever's wrong with me might,

which is like some kind of a ligament, injury or something like that, I want to say. Might stretch into next season. He said it's not career ending, but it might stretch into next season, which complicates things for sure. Yes, it does. But, yeah, and the cap gets tight because that McKinnon contract finally is done. Yep.

And they got to give contracts to Byram and New Hook. Yeah. And I wonder what the number on those will be. I mean, they're going to go into next season as a top three favorite in the West. So, yeah. Sometimes it's just not your year. And it's much easier to say that when you just won a cop, but this. And when you had all these injuries.

Like the lightning didn't have all the injuries to. Broke against them. Yep. It happens. And now one last team, this is kind of an interesting one for me, the Nye Rangers. Yeah, boy, lots of, uh, Lots of Gerard Gallant talk. That's interesting.

Yeah. Yeah, lots of, you know, obviously they very aggressive at the deadline didn't really pay off. I mean, they were playing a very, very good team. But again, like you don't tear it down, certainly when you've got Igor Sturkin as your goalie and, you know, Fox. And on down the list of real good players they have. but they got to figure out. The coach will be the big one, and there was, as we were recording this,

there was some speculation this morning that Joel Quenville could be a name that has been linked to this team if it didn't go well in the first round. And obviously to not just lose in the first round, but the way that they did, how they just felt like they had no answers. Once the devil's made the adjustments,

it was just nothing, no response from the Rangers. Yeah, that would, boy. You know what's funny is the Rangers, I think last year 110 points this year, 10 7. I wrote the article last night, so this is all kind of top of my head here. But this feels like a team that is built for a lot of regular season success. And I've said it a few times in the last little while here. last season was kind of a fluke

that they got to the conference final. They played third string goleys in both of the first two rounds and then the lightning were like, oh, we actually have our first string goalie and they were like, shit, I'm out of ideas, you know? And so they're a team that, again,

not a particularly good five-on-five team in terms of like actually driving play and stuff like that, and that's a feature of the Galant system, right? he is like we're we're going to kind of let them come to us a little bit more. They don't draw a lot of penalties, which is weird given how reliant on the power play they are to get a good chunk of their offense. And obviously they have the elite goal tending, which kind of waxed and waned a little

bit over the course of the year. But, you know, that's what, but that doesn't really work in the playoffs. Like if you're you can't get pushed around at five on five by good teams in the playoffs. You can't count on the rest to give you a shitload of power plays, although I guess it did work last night and, and have that work out for you in the power play in the in the playoffs. And the thing that you run into a lot of times in the playoffs is another team with an elite goalie. Now again, that didn't happen this year. The kid they, the, they, the, they played this year was in the USHL two years ago. But these are all things that set you up for non-success in the postseason.

And so if they want to change the coach and maybe try to ring a little bit more out of this kind of top-heavy roster, that makes sense to me. Now, I'm not even going to get into like whatever moral objections I might have to Joel Quenville being the coach of any team, really. Yep. but like if you were the kind of person that didn't care about that wouldn't Joel Quenville be the first fucking person you call yeah you're you're clearly going to a veteran guy like this this is not often in coaching changes you go from like one end to the other as far as the you know the young guy the old guy and they they went to the experience guy and glant

but uh no in this case this is a this is a team that's closer to pushing all in for for a championship than they have to probably any other that went out in the first round yeah by the way speaking of which can we we just say

you know not to not to belabor the point but Alexis Lefrenier zero goal zero assists in seven years Capocco had two points like at what point do if if you're looking to go all in at what point do you consider moving well so

I'm sure they had a great shift where they had kept the puck behind the net for like 20 seconds. Here's the thing. When I was when I was looking at stuff last night for the Rangers, I found out a couple of pretty interesting things. First of all but of the three guys on the quote unquote kid line, the fucking, I hate that fucking name so much. Well, they're going to have to change it soon. These guys are getting middle-aged line. those guys all had at least 39 points despite getting very little power playtime. Their path to power playtime is understandably blocked, right?

And when they were on the ice together, those three guys together as a three-man unit, they scored 60% of the goals. I, you know, like that to me, if that's your third line, that's really good. Now, maybe it doesn't work in the playoffs. for all the reasons we were just talking about, right? But, and the other thing, of course, is that you don't want your number one and number two picks, like from back to back years,

to be third liners their entire fucking careers. But it seems like they are good at being third liners. And maybe if they got the power play time, which they never will given who's in front of them, this is a different conversation, right? But this is a team that relies on. on the power play. Yeah.

These guys are so young, it's, it's too early to expect it. I mean, that's why Jack Hughes hasn't broken through yet. It's the same sort of deal. I'm, I'm just saying that are you going to say, you know what? You know who should get, who Lafrania should get a power play time over is like Chris Kreider or Artemie Panarin? No. Mm-hmm.

Right? Like, I totally stand by our, these guys haven't. haven't come close to living up to the fucking hype yet. Totally stand by that. And the way they get talked about in New York is ridiculous. Every fucking article you read, the kid line, the kid line,

the kid line. On the other hand, are they not doing as well as you could expect someone to do given their roles? Not in the playoffs, in the regular season. Maybe. It's all I'm saying.

It's fun. So, of course it is. Yeah. And Rangers fans aren't listening anymore. They, they, they're long on. This is the NHL. The second your team loses, you're like, I've never heard of hockey. Exactly.

Oh, funny story. I was at the movies the other day. And I was wearing, I have like one of those 90s NHL hats. It's like, it's like the old NHL logo and it says cup crazy. And a guy says to me, are you a hockey fan? And I go, yeah. And he goes, you know, I have. have a friend who's a really good hockey fan. First of all, he's not, he's not saying, I'm a

hockey fan. Yeah, of course. And he's like, and if he saw you wearing that hat, he'd give you a big thumbs up, and I was like, thank you. Very nice. Let him know, I appreciate that. I just thought that was so funny. Where he, like, he was like, well, I mean, he would, like, really care, but, yeah, thumbs up. That'd be something, right. Get that thumbs up. That's, that's all right. You wanted you to know. Anyway, uh, Rangers, otherwise, not, not much changing with the roster. They just kind of can't. The top nine guys on their, on their team, make it combined $63.5 million against the cap.

Yeah. We'll be interesting to see, you know, do they talk to Patrick Kane and to a lesser extent Teresanko? And if not, where do those guys go? That's two. Yeah, that to me. Because remember, Chicago said Kane's not coming back. Yep.

to me, like, those guys would both, just looking at their cap situation, like, kind of in-depth last night, they'd either need to get someone to waive a no move or no trade clause, or get those guys to come back insanely cheap, and I don't think that's going to happen. So, we'll see, but, yeah, it's interesting. All right, some other news real quick. Darry Daryl Sutter out in Calgary Yeah

somewhat of a surprise Just given that There It was the When Brad Trilliving left It was sort of framed As a Maybe it was him or

The coach And now it's both Well So I think I think it was him or the coach Okay And then I think they did exit interviews And the players were like

It's us or the coach Yeah Yeah That could be it as well And you can't fire You can't fire your entire roster Yep And look

I mean, Darrell Sutter, he had an extension, so he's got, I think it was $4 million for the next two years. Next two, yeah. Go back to the ranch. He'll be fine. Yeah, I mean, not, I don't think anybody was shocked by that news, although it was, you know, it was somewhat of a surprise. But probably the right move. Yeah, I. Somewhat of a surprise that they made the move before hiring a GM, I guess.

but sometimes you you want to clear the decks. You got to clear the deck. Let the interim guy do the dirty work. Yeah. Yeah, it's, um, it, it kind of had to happen,

I think. Like, just this team didn't have the, um, didn't have the right makeup for Darrell Sutter hockey. It works when you have Matthew Kachuk. It maybe doesn't work. And,

well, that's the other thing too, is like, why did Kichuk leave? Was like, they didn't want to make him the captain or something. I bet he didn't have the best relationship with Terrell Sutter, given how we know he feels about certain types of players and young guys and all that kind of stuff.

Yep. I don't know. This was an easy call for me. I think the flames made the right choice. Two other pieces of news here, and then we're done. Snoop Dog is apparently now in an ownership group that is bidding for the, or prospective ownership. group that is bidding for the senators.

Becoming the greatest reality show ever. I would love to be the team that's owned by like a living meme. That would be so fun. Whether it's him or Deadpool, you just can't get away from it. I mean, who's next, right?

I mean, you got to figure Michael Jordan gets in on this at some point. And then from there, who knows? Will Ferrell. You see he's painting his face front row at the Kings games? Yeah, that could be. a blast. I am interested to see

like I know if you're like since fans are loving this because they've been like the bastard stepchild of the league for so long that nobody cares about now it's like the cool kids are paying attention. It's very exciting. But it is interesting that you've got Ryan Reynolds who, whatever else

he's a local Ottawa guy. Lots of connections to the city. And then here comes Snoop Dog and these LA guys who just purely view the team as an investment and everything, but I do wonder, like, there's, I mean, it'd be cool as hell to have, like, a famous person, but. This is a quote from Snoop Dog from real take, from a real quote from Stoop Dog on first take this morning,

was that he would, he would start the Snoop Youth Hockey League, that like specifically is designed. So the kids need to know that there is an option to play hockey if you look like me. That's nice. That's cool. I like that a lot. I don't see Ryan Reynolds make. and that kind of a promise. He's like, I'll show up. I'll sign your Deadpool picture. How's that sound? And also... And the people of Rexim are like, it sounds great. I mean, we could also just point out that, like, Snoop Dog can do that regardless of whether he owns a team or not. But, yeah. Yeah. Well, I think, I think the idea it would be, I can get all these other, like, more richer that, like, richer than me guys to... Yeah.

Cove up some cash for it. It is going to be interesting when this is all done. especially if the senators hit that one billion number, like how many other teams that are modestly successful will be like, you know what? Maybe we're for sale too. And I'm sure that if there are any thinking about it, Gary Bettman is telling them, no, you're not, not right now.

We're going to have one team at a time for sale. And that's it. So, you know. And then one last thing. I realized this last night. we're going to have the draft lottery before our next episode Wow

That's kind of snuck up on us Yesterday Yeah Monday night I'm psyched I can't wait This is gonna rock Someone like so many T

Like this is one of those drafts Like the like the Austin Matthews Or Carmen McDavid drafts Where you're like Someone's gonna be so fucking disappointed This is gonna be really funny Mm-hmm Yep

This is it's like it's like the tank battle coming down to sudden death overtime. Yeah. Except with like six teams. Yeah. You're just like, this is it. It's going to be somebody's going to be the hero. And somebody's going to just go home, brokenhearted.

Congratulations to Chicago for winning the draft lottery. Yeah, probably. That is my prediction of what will happen. That is not what I want to happen. But that is my prediction. Them are Arizona, I guess. Yeah. What about you?

What do you think? I'm, you know, Anaheim's got the best odds. Yeah. I hate to say this. I really hate to say this. I just hope not Columbus. I love that. I would love it for the fan base.

I would love it for the organization, but just to have, like, a potentially generational superstar come in and go to another small market. Mm-hmm. Uh, totally agree with you. I think Anaheim would be cool. I think that would be cool. Anaheim would rock, yeah. Yep.

But we'll see, I guess. And I guess the one other thing we should say that I've seen a few people tweet about this is, you know, the draft lottery, we know the draft lottery is Monday. You know what else we know is next week? Nothing because we don't have a schedule for the playoffs yet other than the first two games. Nobody knows what's going on past like Friday. This is a really well-run league. You have to do it. What is going on?

How could they not know? We don't know when game three of, and I, when I say when, I, I, I don't mean like seven or seven 30 start. I mean like what day are these games on? We have no idea. What the hell is going on? Oh, well. Yeah, it looks like beyond games one and two, we just have no idea.

Yeah, they still like, Chris Johnson was saying it's the first time he's ever been at a playoff series where it's game one that night. And he doesn't know where game, we know where game three is, but when. And you're saying that the rumor is Sunday, but they're not sure. And obviously. I love that you have to have a rumor. My sources are telling me that maybe the league is aiming to have a game. Yeah, that's psychotic. What crappy country singer concert is holding this whole thing up in some building somewhere?

Yeah. Who knows? All right. Why don't you hit them with your plugs? Find me at the athletic. I've written a ton of things. I got a Leafs win mailbag today. I had the old guys without a cup thing was last week.

I don't even remember what else. I've been writing at such a weird schedule, but there's lots of stuff out there. My reaction to the Leafs winning the series, my reaction to the Leafs winning that wild comeback game. Just go. Click on my weird little face and then find all sorts of stuff to read. And then listen to me with Ian Mendez on the Athletic Hockey Show on Thursday.

Yep. For me, E.P.Rinkside.com Use the code I love EP when you sign up for a full subscription for a year, and you will get three months tacked on to the end of that for free.

I have written, boy, a lot in the last little while here. Because every time a team gets bounced out, I look at their cap situation and all the players they have coming back and everything, and I say, this is what I think they might do this summer. So I did eight of those the last little while, including more than a few nights where I did two in the same night, which not the most fun thing in the world.

Yeah, that was very rude of NHL teams to do that to you. Yeah, they should go out one per night in order and make it really easy. But yeah, so check all that out. And then patreon.com slash puck soup. We've got all kinds of bonus episodes over there. It's a new month. We'll have new bonus episodes coming your way, you know, soon enough. No schedule's nailed down yet.

It's kind of a busy time of year. But Patreon.com slash Puck Soup. You can find all. Look at us. Just criticizing the NHL, and yet here we are doing the same thing. Yeah, I'm a hypocrite. What do you want from me? Yep.

You know? That's it. That's it. Okay. Thanks so much for listening. everybody, long one, enjoy the second round.

Talk to you later. Bye bye. Bye. Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slap shots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to what if you commute. But we also cover movies,

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