Puck Soup - The Pop Culture Guys

Episode Date: April 13, 2022

Sean and Ryan run down who they think should win all the major awards. They also talk about coaches with expiring contracts and some news and notes around the league. Plus, Sean makes a truly shocking pop-culture revelation. Sponsored by Athletic Greens (AthleticGreens.com/Puck), Mack Weldon (MackWeldon.com/PS), Betterhelp (Betterhelp.com/Puck), Sunday Lawn Care (Sunday.com/Puck)

This week's episode of Puck Soup is brought to you by athletic greens, and I started taking athletic greens, as you've heard me mentioned before, because they sent me some, and it was the thing that I was never really going to seek out on my own, but I tried it, and I really enjoyed it. It's got 75 high-quality vitamins, minerals, whole-foods, sourced superfoods, probiotics, and adaptogens to help you start your day right. This special blend of ingredient supports your gut health, your nervous system, your immune system, your energy, recovery, focus, and aging. It costs less than a cup of coffee every single day, and it gives you the opportunity to start your day off right every day. And so to make it easy for you, Athletic Greens is going to give you a free one-year supply of immune-supporting vitamin D, as well as five free travel packs with your first purchase.

All you have to do is visit athletic greens.com slash puck. Again, that's athletic greens.com slash puck to take ownership of your health and pick up the ultimate daily nutrition. insurance. Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slap shots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to what if you commute. We also cover movies, TV shows, it's and tools. It's your weekly bowl of hockey and nonsense. I'm Ryan Lambert from Elite Prospects.

I'm Sean McIndoo from The Athletic. And, Sean, let me ask you this, right? off the hop here. You don't have an awards vote this year, right? I don't know if I do or not. I usually do. Last year, they reduce the number of voters because of the weird situation where writers weren't seeing, writers that covered a team weren't seeing the whole league and they squeezed it down. I don't know what the plan is this year. I think they're going back to the old way, which would mean I would probably have a vote. But I'm in the chapter where you don't always vote because they want to balance it out and make sure all the markets are represented.

So we will see is the short answer. Okay. Well, in that case, let me ask you a different question. Looks like this year, there will be three, it's very possible anyway, that there will be three finalists for the Hart Trophy who play forward, defense, and goal. Yes. Right. It's very likely. Do you know how many times that has happened in the history of the National Hockey League? Oh, boy. I do not know. I'm guessing not often because it feels like the voters will occasionally vote for a defenseman or a goalie, but not both at the same time.

I don't know. How often has that happened? Has it ever happened? It's happened 11 times. Okay. The most recent was 86-87. Oh, wow. Can you guess who the finalists were in 86-87? Okay, so that would have been Gretzky. You got it.

Yeah, that was the hard one. Must have been a Ray Borkier. Correct. And the goalie would have been, did Hector get an MVP? Mike Liot. Okay. I don't remember how to. I knew he was a finalist one year.

I didn't realize it was that late. I just... Yep. Okay. Huh. He came in... Did he come in second that year? He came in third, Gretzky Bork, and then him.

Then it happened a bunch of times in the 70s because of Bobby Orr. Mm-hmm. And Phil Esposito. Which is weird because they were on the same team, you know? Yep. A couple of times. Once in the 60s, I should say, plant Harvey Hull. Not bad.

A couple times in the 50s, guy named Gordy Howe, Al Rollins and Red Kelly. And then Rollins, Kelly, and Rocket Richard. Those were in back-to-back years. And then like once in the 30s and twice in the 20s. Wow. That's it. That's pretty amazing. And Al Rollins, of course, the guy.

who showed up on as a heart finalist, basically because his team was terrible and everyone felt sorry for him. He won the MVP some year where he was like, his record was like 10 and 45 or something. 53, 54, it seems like he beat out Red Kelly and Rocket Richard for the, uh, because he was the goalie on an absolute dog mess of a team. I didn't know it. That's funny. Yeah.

Like, they were just like, he's, he's the most. valuable player because he didn't like strangle himself at center ice yeah um that's very funny uh let's just lead right in then to uh our MVP talk here um i don't have a vote i never will um i i could see it i i i one of those like i refuse to be a member of a club oh i would have as a member. With that having been said, I wrote earlier this week about it's kind of, if I had a vote, it would be really difficult for me to not vote for Austin Matthews at this point. Yeah, I feel like the last two weeks had sort of tipped that race from too close to call to,

I don't know, it definitely leads Matthew, if not. he's the outright favorite at this point, but not to the point where it's a lock. I do think the last couple weeks could still have an impact. Let me put it this. I think it's become a clear two-man race, and I don't know that anybody would have said that even a week ago, right? I just looked it up, and Matthews didn't score last night in the game against the Sabres.

unacceptable. The last time he didn't score in back-to-back games was early, late February, early March, and since then in 17 games, he has 21 goals. Yeah. It's pretty good. Yeah. If you would ask me even, maybe not two weeks, three weeks ago, I would have had Shisterkin ahead of Matthews on my ballot.

Yeah. But it was, I mean, the fact that Matthews went new. at the same time that Shasturkin went mortal for a few weeks. And then the other piece of it that's a little bit weird is in the same time, the Rangers just generally are playing better, which takes away a little bit from the narrative of... Yeah, well, do you know the Rangers' slate of opponents the last few weeks? They played the New Jersey

devil 58 times. Okay. That seems like too many. It literally is like really, oh, that's just a bunch of really bad teams. All right. Since March 30th, Detroit, the Islanders, the Flyers, the Devils, the Penguins, the Senators, the Hurricanes. So, you know, the penguins aren't playing that well right now either. So it's a... That's a lot of points they should have gotten. They got stick-handled by a goalie, so that's maybe not...

great sign. So yeah, it's, you know, they're, they're playing well, but against teams they should play well against. And then I guess you've got to bring up Roman Yose, you know, I think a lot of that is, well, look how many points he has, totally get it. And I still, I also feel like that is people who, like me, I'm projecting here, but where you've sort of had Kail McCar penciled in on your Norris ballot, you're not sure you want to change that, but you're like,

man, if only I could vote for both these guys, and then it's like, yeah, I could slip a Yosey onto the heart and keep McCar and the Norris. And look, like, he, Yosey's been very, very good this season. I don't really think he's been better than McCar. We'll get to the Norris in a second. but I'm trying to think who else would even be Johnny Goddrow

Goddrow is going to be on I think an awful lot of balance. He's got to be way up there. He's been really good. He just broke 100 points last night. McDavid and take your pick of McDavid will always be there. Jonathan Huberto would be the other one

because he's going to be way up in points. And the thing with him is a lot of assists. The thing with him is he's going to become the flashpoint guy for the, it's not even really an analytics thing, but just the, you know, points versus can we look a little deeper than points? And I know that Dom has sort of laid out the case of why he thinks that Huberto, while he has had a remarkable season and no one's denying that, is not quite in the MVP tier.

And I could see that both, you know, that will probably, that view, not just from Don, but around the league will cost him a chance at winning and yet also get him on enough ballots as like a cranky 200 hockey men protest vote that I think he'll finish, you know, in the top five or six. Let me hit you with one more here, a guy that I think should get a lot of consideration. Jason Robertson from the Dallas Stars.

That's an interesting one. If they make the playoffs, it's because they're a one-line team. And that one line is fucking incredible. Yeah. I mean, that's, I got to be honest, I wasn't really thinking him. And part of it is the Hart Trophy is typically not a lifetime achievement award, certainly. But it's one that you sort of have to fly your weight. It's a multi-year conversation most times.

For sure. But, yeah, maybe. The one other guy, I guess I want to mention there is, is like, because of, the Hubert O thing. It's probably going to take votes away from a very deserving season from Sasha Barkoff, who's been unreal. Yes. So that'll all be very interesting.

I kind of hope we get another season of a 12th season of forward defense goalie in the top three. I don't, I'm not super convinced it's going to happen, but I wish it would, you know, just because it's fun, not necessarily even because it's, Yosey deserves it. And there's no reason for it not to be. Like, it's this, I know we've been over this, but this idea that the heart just has to kind of default to being a forward award unless somebody goes full Bobby or and or Dominic Hacic and or Posey and Or. And Roman Yossi and Igor Shusorgian are both doing that. They are, yeah. That's so cool. The other thing to mention

with Matthews, obviously, one of the best defensive players in the league on top of he's going to score 60-something goals. And, you know, he's going to get to 100 points. This isn't going to be like a standard year where he had 60 goals and 30, 30 assists or whatever. Yeah. So, and, you know, again, there will be some element of backlash because it'll be like, oh, yeah, it's the Toronto guy, even though No Leaf has won the award in, like, you know, 70 years. So I don't, like, I've already seen it out of Edmonton. There was some

Edmonton guy was like, yeah, of course, you know, Matthews plays in Toronto, so they're going to vote for him over McDavid. And it's like, dude, the Oilers have won the Hart trophy more times since they came into the league than any other team. I don't think there's a bias. 12 times. 12 times. Like four years. Yes. The last two, you know, so you can't turn around now and be like, yeah, there's a awards bias in favor of. Well, it's It's funny because like, Jesus. It's funny because you're going, oh, the freaking oilers never get any respect or whatever. And it's like, but you have two guys who are legitimate MVP candidates.

And so like necessarily, they can't both be the most like among the most valuable players in the league. Same thing happens in Florida. And I know people will. Yeah, Florida is an even better example. And then people will turn around and go, well, look at Mitch Martin. Mitch Marner's going to have 100 points. But it's one of those things where, like, all year long, nobody actually ever seems to include Mitch Marner as a truly elite player in the league

in the sense of, like, you know, MVP caliber. Whereas as soon as you need to use it against Matthews, now suddenly it's like, well, but he's got to. Have you seen this guy's contract? Yeah. It's bad. Oh. Anyway.

That's going to, that's really going to screw it. Man, you know who's got to be nervous right now is John DeVarris, because, the Toronto overpaid takes cannot go away. Those takes are too big to fail. And like we've already lost Matthews off the list. We all kind of abandoned Nealander a little while ago. So if Marner starts living up to his deal. Well, Nealander, maybe we circle back around to it.

We might do that. That's like six, eight weeks. Let's move on to the Norris. We mentioned it. McCar and Yossi feels like pretty, pretty much runaway trains. That's the toss-up Hedman third.

Yeah, that's interesting to me because I don't think Hedman's had a, like he's been obviously super above average and all that kind of stuff, but I it seems like I don't want to think about this too hard. We already got it down to a two horse race, just give it to the guy who wins it every fucking year.

Or is in the final this every fucking year. Maybe. You know? Because like, you know, is that an unbelievable season? Charlie McAvoy. Yep. And that's the other name that feels like, it feels like when Aaron Eckblad got hurt.

Yeah. That opened up the deal of a lot. Yeah. That kind of moved in to fill that void. So it's... Yeah. And McCar kind of has the dry sidel McDavid thing where it's like, you know who else has been great

the last couple seasons is Devon tapes. Yep. Like, again, just unbelievable. That doesn't give me any hesitation the way it would with the heart because it's not the most valuable defensemen. It's the best defensemen. The two best defensemen could play on the same team. Sure. I've got no issue with that.

I mean, you know how the voters are, though. That's all I'm saying. Yep. And then I don't know, like, maybe you say, like, Noah Hannafin, he's been Calgary's best defenseman this year. And they're awesome. You know, you know what? Yeah, that's certainly there. You know, Adam Fox will show up on some ballots.

Just, you know, he's now since he won last year. He's not having a great year, honestly. Like, I mean, he, I shouldn't say that. He's not having last year. He is having a great year. Right. And he's not having like a Norris caliber year. He's having a great year.

But is he like a top five defensemen in the league? No, I don't think anybody would say that. I'll be real honest with you. I think my ballot right now would be probably in this order. McCar, Yossi, and I'm sure I'll flip back and forth, probably had been, probably McAvoy, and I honestly still might give a spot to Aaron Eckblatt for the same thing that we've talked about with Giordano and other guys. Like if he had missed the first 20 games and then been amazing for 61 games, you wouldn't

necessarily hesitate to put him on your ballot if you felt like he was worth it. So the fact that it's the last 20 games is going to miss. You know what? Great fucking call. Great call by you. All right. This is why you're the best in the business. There it is.

This is why I have sometimes a vote. Yeah. That is, boy, Aaron Eckblatt, he was unreal for the first three quarters of the season. Just unbelievable. Yeah. And if he had played the last few weeks, everybody on the planet would be like, there's a clear top three and nobody else is in it. Yep. But now you can't do it because he's missed the last, he's going to miss the last 20-something something.

games of the season. Illegal. Can't do it. Vesna, who you got. Vesna, which we don't. The writers don't vote on. Shisterkin. I think, I mean, Freddie Anderson is going to be a finalist.

Yeah. So who's your third guy? Because I think there are two. I go Darcy Kemper at this point. I think that's one of them. I think you can, if Nashville makes the playoffs, I think it'll be UC Soros instead of Kemper. Okay, yep.

And Nashville looks like they're probably going to make the playoffs. He's dropped off a little bit lately, Soros. But boy, was he unreal for the first? Again, three quarters of the season. Yeah. And Jacob Markstrom will be the other one that'll get a lot of consideration. Understandably so. I just, I mean, the thing is, like I wrote this on over the weekend where I said,

you know, Darcy Kemper has quietly been. really good after the first couple months. Basically like October and November, he was like 900 a bit over. And that's when the narratives get written. And everyone was like, oh, Kemper's not really working out. That's, you know, maybe Colorado's got to go get Mark Andre Fleury, whatever else. Ever since then, he's been better. Like, I had it in my piece. Like, he's gone like 920, 925, 930. Like, he's just running away with it. And of course, I made the mistake of saying, that he was quietly doing it. And then I've got Avalanche fans like, hey, idiot, we've, we all know this is happening.

It's because you don't pay enough attention to this conference and, you know, all the other stuff. And you know what, fair enough. So he hasn't been that quiet. But he's been really, really good. Yeah, he made 58 saves the other night against Edmonton. You know, like, I guess that would be the argument of like, that was pretty noisy. And, and, you know, the other thing is, it's, again, this is, we can talk. about our ballots, but it's the GMs who vote.

And we know what the GMs love. They love wins. And that's, it's going to have a lot of them. I mean, it's, it's going to be Anderson, Sturkin, Kemper, and Markstrom, and Saros will be the wins guys. Vasilevsky, too, but I don't think he hasn't. He's not going to, he's, if anything, just voter fatigue, I don't think he'll be a finalist. But he'll be in, he'll show up on a lot of ballots, too. Who's going to be like the stupid one that shows up?

Because there's always somebody where you're like, how is, like, how is somebody still voting for, like, Jordan Billington or something like that? Yeah. Well, I mean, to that point, you'll see Saros, you know who I think will get some consideration, but maybe shouldn't is Thatcher Demko. He's been, again, very good this year. But, and, you know, he's kept, he's the reason Vancouver is still, like, pretending it's alive. Yep. So that's a guy, but like, I can't really think of anybody else where it's like, oh, yeah, you got to, you got to have Tristan Jari on your list. You know, Tristan Jari was the guy was just thinking lots of wins and also GMs, GMs love guys who everybody thought was bad, but now they're good because they're sort of like giving the award kind of to themselves.

Like, it's sort of like also a Ron Hextel award. Like, look, Ron Hextel knew that this guy was, you know, he believed in him. And so, yeah, I could see that. Other than that, I'm not... Yeah, I can't. You know, we've said like five or six guys. That's plenty. You know?

I wonder if Jake Otager will get any votes. I just don't know that he's played enough games for the voters, you know? No, he probably hasn't, but the, you know, the recency bias creeping in. Yeah. Yeah, that's, I think we've got that covered. All right. This is one, I think, is going to be very contentious as the Calder. Yeah.

It seems like everybody just decided, like, in mid-October, it's Mo Cedar, or Cider, sorry, and that's it. We're not allowed to say other guys. Yeah. I think the consensus has formed around that. Yeah, for sure. With Trevor Zedris as a. strong number two that I think could still overtake as number one.

But it does feel like those are the two guys, despite the presence of some pretty decent, decent options elsewhere. Yeah, I mean, like, you know, I'm a big believer in, well, look, I know that you don't like how old Michael Bunting is or how good his linemates are. But look at the season. he's having. He hasn't been lighting it up the last little while, so maybe that works

against him, but he's been fantastic, you know. And I'm on record. I mean, you look at the guys who are rookies and that's who you vote for. You do not put a degree of difficulty on it. You do not, you know, I don't, if you want to say because of his line mates, his points are inflated, then maybe, but you don't sit there and go well, he's, he played in this league or he is this many years old. Like, the league defines a rookie, and your job is to vote for the rookies as defined by the league.

Yeah, I mean, I, obviously, like, I agree with you. And, like, but people just come up with, well, I could, you know, same thing with Russians at any time. Like, last year, there was a big conversation about this sort of thing with Caprizov, obviously. Very strange to me that we're like, right, but what you don't understand is, I don't want to vote for this.

this guy for my own reasons. So think about that. But again, like, okay, let's say Michael Bunting isn't in your top three. It's cider and who else are your three? It's cider's eager as in Jeremy Swayman for me. Swamen is

I think a good one. He hasn't been playing super well lately. They've gone back to Olmark a little bit in the last little while here. Ziegress, I wouldn't have them in my top five, honestly. I would have Lundell in my top five.

That feels a little spicy. I would have Lundel in my top five, and I'd have Seth Jarvis in my top five. And I would also have Bunting Swamen and cider. No, Tanner Geno? No. Even if he hits 30 goals? Even if he hits 30 goals.

I'm going to look up Tanner Geno's shooting percentage right now, and I bet it's in the 50 goals. But you know what? I don't factor that in it because if you do it, if you do it, I get that. Yeah, I get that. Because we're not, again, Calder Trophy is not predict the, it's not like who's the best rookie going forward. Yeah, no, who had the best rookie season.

So I can, let me put it that. I can see an argument for him if he hits 30 goals, which he's six away. That's going to be a little bit tricky for him, given his shooting, like just how often he shoots the puck, which is not very frequently. It's interesting. I don't know. Like I would have Zegras ahead of him. Let me say that.

Okay. And then I don't have Zegris in my top five. And Zegris obviously has the highlight reel. He's got the sizzle reel that'll very much keep him top of mind for a lot of voters. Which is like that, that's great. But like, again, like, is. Is Genoa even like as good as Lucas Raymond has been this year? You know?

Yeah, that's fair, fair question. Did you happen to see Dom's latest awards rankings? I did not. It was very funny because as I think people know, Dom, he has this model. He basically the numbers from the NHL go in and then the results come out. And yet everyone just constantly accuses him of bias. And, you know, you love the Leafs, you love this or that. And they don't understand that he's just feeding numbers in and getting numbers out,

which doesn't mean the model is perfect, but it means that it's not his personal opinion being reflected, even if he was biased towards certain teams. Anyways, he's been fighting this battle forever. His latest Calder rankings, he has Michael Bunting number one, and number two, he has Timothy Lilgris, leaves defenseman, who is not even on the radar of anybody, but because of his underlying numbers and his usage is ranked ahead of Mo Cider as the rookie defenseman and ahead of everybody else who's not Michael Bunting.

And it's just, Dom's a write-up is very funny because he's just like, I'm screwed. I know what this looks like. That's his, you know what? Like, I disavow my own model. He's John Titoro at the end of Miller's Crossing. Just like pleading with the comment section. Look into your heart. Don't scream at me.

You have to understand. Yeah. And they do not understand. This isn't up to me. They do not. Of course not. No. No.

John Totoro got shot. So, spoiler alert for a 58-year-old movie. Selky. Who even cares? It's that, yeah, I mean. I mean, in the sense, it's not. The answer is not the voters. That's for damn sure.

Is there any argument? Go contrarian on me. Is there any argument that Bergeron isn't going to win this easily? Is or isn't? Or should not win it easily? Like, no. Okay. That's why I said, who cares?

It's not, I'm not dismissing the award. I'm saying we all know who's going to win, so we can argue with second and third. It's interesting only insofar as, I would say a few of the times Bergeron won the award, he didn't come close to deserving it. Yeah. This selfie is very much a reputable. reputation award. Oh, not.

People just go, who won it two years ago? Probably more than any other award. It's a reputation. 100%. With that having been said, I'm looking at evolving hockey's defense war ratings. I'm sorry, goals above replacement, not wins above replacement. Patrice Berserun, defensively, 9.5 goals above replacement. The next closest guy, his line.

mate, Brad Marchand, 6.2 goals above replacement. That's a big gap. The first non-Bruin is Austin Matthews at 5.7. So like Bergeron is a mile in front of these guys. Especially because Brad Marchand is a very good defensive player and is a key part of that line, but I don't think he's going to get a lot of credit for it. Like I've seen Dom's rankings as well. he has Marchant's second, but it's like, I don't think a lot of people are going to go one, two, for guys on the same team, on the same line most of the time.

They're going to look at that and go, like, yeah, everyone who plays with Patrice Bergeron is a good defensive player because he's that good. Right. I am curious to see, like, I'm curious to see if Matthews shows up on a lot of ballots. I think he has to. I think he will. The argument against it will be, you know, doesn't kill penalties, doesn't, you know, this and that. And it's, again, the whole thing of, are you playing defense when you take the puck in the neutral zone and then spend the whole shift in the offensive zone? Or are you playing defense when you're starting in the defensive zone taking a face-up? Mitch Martin will probably get a few votes because he's the penalty kill guy. He's the very visible short-handed threat. And who are some other, like-

He's not very good when it comes to even-strength defense, I think. He's my big, but anyway, other guys who are in the top, let's say 10 for revolving hockey's, defensive rankings. I mentioned Bergeron, Marchand, Matthews, top three. Rasmus Aspland, who does, like, no offense player is four. So, like, he's not going to, because it's a 200-foot award, not a back-hundred-feet award. You know, Mason Marchman doesn't have a ton of games play. but he is big, you know, he's on the Florida Panthers so they can put him in a position to succeed

offensively, and he has, and he's also been good defensively. Here's a name that's very interesting to me, who's having a very nice season in Calgary, Andrew Mangiapane. Oh, okay. I thought you were going Michael Backland on that one. Nope. I'm not seeing Backland particularly close, as a matter of fact.

Yeah, he's, he is ninth in, and defense, according to Don has him third on his most recent list. Backland? Yeah, but well back of the two Bruins. Yeah. No, I mean, he's having a great

like kind of Renaissance season. He wasn't that great the last few years, but he's bouncing back big time. And then two other guys, Yesper Fost and Anthony Sorrelli. So there you go. All good players. Interesting debate.

And you know what? I'm not maybe so high on. But everybody else in that top ten, I'm like, oh, yeah, pretty good. And you know what? As much as I'm kind of dismissing it because we all know who's going to win, second through fifth on your ballot does matter because this is, like we said, this is a reputation award. So whoever comes in second improves their chances of winning next year or the year after,

whatever. Didn't we do that with like, was a Sean Couturee a few years ago? Yeah. Like it felt like in November we just all decided. Yeah, Coturier deserved it like three or four years ago maybe. And then didn't. And then like the season he won it, he didn't deserve it. But his body of work was just like, I guess that's fine.

I can't give it to Berser on every year. Feel like he's not going to win it this year. That's just my condition. And the voters are like, well, maybe we can give it to Berser on every year. Yeah. Jack Adams. Yeah, that's a, this is a fun. Again, writers do not vote on the Jack Adams.

That's correct, yeah. And as always, there's the debate of what this award maybe should be versus what it typically is, which is the surprising team award. I think under both criteria, probably two of the finalist spots, or at least two of the, five spots on your ballot. If you had a five name ballot, would be Daryl Sutter and Gerard Gallant. I think you have to put both of those guys on there. I know with Galant,

you could make the argument that, you know, what did he do for the first 60 games other than... And I was just about to do that, yeah. Tap the best goalie in the world on the shoulder and say, go out there and save us. And then, I mean, I guess the answer is he made the power play unbelievable. Yep. Because that's all they were for 60 games as a goalie and a power play.

But with that having been said, I am shocked that you did not say Andrew Brunette in Florida. See, I don't, I mean, he certainly walked into the job in a very difficult situation. It would have been very easy. And they didn't miss a beat. Things falling apart. But he took over a team that was 7 and 0. Oh, I understand. That was already expected to be a good team.

And when he took over, the Panthers were all. Already, like, people are like, holy crap, this is the best team in the league. So, I, yeah, I don't know. Like, it's, this is a little bit of the Bruce Cassidy thing of like, remember when he won and everyone was like, yeah, well, sure. Yeah, I mean, the Bruins didn't surprise anybody, you know, it wasn't like an ambush. Like, oh, shit, the Bruins are good. The Bruins were always good under Bruce Cassidy, you know? And he won it.

And it's the same with, uh, with Brindamore, where it's like, oh, yeah, no, we actually are allowed to give this to the to like the just a really good coach with a great yeah and and you should be i mean i've i've you know in in not this year but in previous years i've said you know vote for barry trots every year he's uh you know just because he's not surprising anymore i don't i mean and i know this isn't how the award works but if if we found a glitch in coach contracts and every coach became a free agent and we got to have bidding wars like would how high up the list is Andrew Burnett, like, on your list of... Yeah, I guess.

Did you say Daryl Sutter already? Because that feels like... Sutter, I think, is... Sutter is my number one guy. Yeah, I tend to agree with that. Because it's not that... I think a lot of people expected Calgary to be, like, fine in the Pacific, like a borderline playoff team instead of they're one of the best teams in the West.

This team got beat out by Montreal in the Canadian division last year. I can tell me about it. I think this was the team that people were... Yeah, were kind of like, yeah, maybe they can make the playoffs, but that was about it. I certainly don't think anyone in a million years saw Calgary running away with the Pacific, and obviously that has something to do with the Golden Knights as well. But yeah, I think to me it's Sutter 1.

I could bounce around on two. Jared Bedner will get some love. And he should. Again, yep, he should. Especially because for what feels like the 30th year in a row, the Colorado Avalanche, it's like, oh, every good player has spent at least 20 games on the LTIR. Yeah, exactly. Every year they overcome that. It's incredible.

It's not easy to coach great teams always, like especially great teams who have huge expectations on them. And multiple lines worth of good players. Because if you are the coach of a team with one great line, it is kind of easy. You just go, Connor, Leon, you're up, brother. And they go over the boards and they put the puck in the net and they'll do the bad. Do you think Jay Woodcroft will get some will show up on a few ballots? From certain people in Edmonton. Again, it's this is, well, no, it's the broadcasters for this.

Oh, that's right. Yeah. Well, still, I wouldn't necessarily be surprised by that, with that having been said, you know, does he actually deserve it based on his coach 35 games or whatever? No, I would say not. And then the other. And they've been great. They've been great under Jay Woodcroft. I'm not saying they haven't, but like it's been 35 games or whatever.

At that point, why not Martin San Luis? Look how good they are now. Martin San Luis might get a few votes. And the other one would be Bruce Boudreau, especially if the Canucks stay in the race. They're not going to make the playoffs, barring a miracle. But if they're playing meaningful hockey right down the stretch,

then I think Boudreau will get some. Do you think there's anyone on, other than the guys we just mentioned, on the non-playoff teams that'll get like the, you did a good job under bad circumstances sort of vote? No, I don't think so. The East has been decided for forever. And the West, I guess the only team I would make a vague argument for is like Anaheim

because they pretended to be good for a good chunk of the season. Yeah, I think Dallas, Dallas-Aagans just got his contract renewed. I think that's his Jack Adams. Yeah, 100%. Absolutely. One last guy I wanted to mention. Yeah. Dean Everson.

Yeah, that's my guy too. There you go. I think. And Dean Everson, again, that is a case of a, he's a good. coach with a good team, but maybe not a team that was expected to be great, and he's still kind of newish at the job. So he sort of gets you the overlap of good coach on a good team, but also a little bit unexpected, a little bit new car smelled to him still. So I can see him getting some solid support. There are vague threat to break 105 points? Not even vague,

honestly. Now that I say that, 96 points in 72 games. I got 20 left available to them. They should break 105 points. That's crazy. The Minnesota Wild, 105 point team? Wow. That rocks. Craig Gruby get any?

I mean, they're especially if they're so red hot down the stretch. They're a really good team. They're a really good team. You know, they've overcome their number one goalie being shit for half the season. Like just awful. Yeah. And, yeah, they won six in a row, eight one and one in the last ten. If they keep it up down the stretch, they just kick the shit out of the ruins.

Had to navigate one of their best players wanting a trade that he didn't get. Yeah, yeah, all that. I get it. No, there's, I guess the point is there's a lot of good Jack Adams candidates this year. There are, yes. And nobody really stands out as like, whoa, well, you got to give it to this guy. I think Darrell Sutter's the closest to it. But, yeah.

Just again, like you could say half of the playoff team, more than half of the playoff teams in the east, their coach kind of deserves it. And then probably about the same in the West. That's wild. Anyway, last one, Jim Gregory GM of the year award. Then we'll take a break. Yeah. Who even knows with this one?

It's such a weird award. It is. It's supposed to be a one-year award. and yet it kind of isn't. It never is. And it couldn't be. Like how are you? Yeah, no, for sure.

And also, we should say this is the only award where it's not voted on immediately after the season ends. They wait two playoff rounds. So it's always the three finalists are always three guys who are in the final four. That having been said, if we had to handicap it right now, it's got to be Bill Zito, right? Bill Zito or Retro Living? Yeah. True Living is The thing with

True Living is like what moves did he really make Like he did get Markstrom signed A year ago Which could You could still factor in But so much of what they've done is

Yeah Is Godro Getting his game back Kachuk continuing to develop You know the guy Like the guys that were already in place Back when getting his game back Like you said earlier

Yeah Guys who were already in place Over the last year or two Now the one thing you might say It's for Living is he did, he let Giordano walk, which I don't think made them better, but Well, the other thing is, he brought in a little coach named Darrell Sutter, who kind of, which again was last year, but it was, it certainly was, but that's, I mean, that's never how

it's voted on. So, yeah, anyway. And then, and, you know, Joe Sackick will, assuming Colorado, again, whoever gets to the final four, pick three. of those four. Yeah, pick the three most deserving guys from that group. The other team, I would say, is Carolina. You can make a pretty good argument for.

Everybody thought they'd be kind of worse than they were last year. Definitely made some nice moves, especially around the goaltending. And if there's a front office of the year award, they're in the running. But, yeah, I don't know. The GM award, is that voted by the GMs? You know, it's a great question. I think it is. I do not know the answer to that.

In which case, who even cares? They're getting awards to them. Yep. To themselves. A 41 member panel that includes all 31 general managers, five other executives, and five media members. So it's basically the GIs getting themselves. I would love to know who the media members are for that one.

That's wild. Anyway, we'll be right back. This podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp Online Therapy. People don't always read. realize that physical symptoms like headaches, teeth grinding, even digestive issues can be indicators of stress. And let's not forget about the doom scrolling, sleeping too little, sleeping too much, under-eating and overeating. Stress hits all of us, and it hits us in different ways. But we all have stress in our lives, and we have to try our best to manage it.

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Which it's a very good album, I think. Now, Sean, what did you say you thought? I liked it. Wow. I listened to it on the, well, the recommendation of Ryan and I'd seen other people mention that they, that they enjoyed it. So I gave it a try. Not really my genre of music, but I thought it was, I thought it was quite good. I would say pup is borderline, like, one of the official bands of hockey Twitter.

Yep. From everything that comes across my timeline. Now, again, that's like pretty carefully curated to be your only cool hockey people. Your timeline might be a little bit more pup. friendly than. Yeah, I think that's true. But, you know, hey. The band that recorded Cotton Eye Joe is actually more showing up on mine.

But yeah. The freaking chain smokers. Yeah, the chain smockers. I, I, and they've been, you were saying, the Leedsinger Pub has been on this show, which I would know if I listen to this show, but I don't. Why would you? Stupid. Bad show. Yeah.

Waste of time. So, yeah, boy, between this and like power of the dog, I'm slowly turning Sean into the nice Canadian version of me. Green Knight, too. Oh, that's right. Wow. Really, I'm going down this road. Sean, if you liked those two movies, let me make a new recommendation to you. And a movie I have seen twice in the last couple of weeks here, a film called Everything Everywhere All At Once.

I've heard it's fantastic. Very much want to see it. I just got to wait for it to be available in my living room. Sure. You've got to check it out. It's phenomenal. Yeah. Like I said, I've seen it twice.

I don't usually see movies twice, even if I really, really like it. And this one, I was like, I got to see that one again. And I will say, really rewarded a second viewing. A lot of movies don't. This one did. So check it out if you guys are. into that kind of thing. We mentioned earlier.

Dallas Akins got extended. Team picked up the option. Yeah, not really extended. They picked up it one more year option. Right, sure. But he half extended. Did not get fired. Get fired.

Or allowed to walk. Yeah. That, however, according to Cap Friendly, which like coaches' contracts are always a little if he, because a lot of times they'll just say, oh, he signed a multi-year extension or whatever, you know. But according to Cap Friendly, that leaves 12 coaches who are not locked in for next year right now, which is a huge number. It's obviously more than a third of the league.

So those coaches, let's start from the top and let's play a game of keeping them or can them. Okay. Or I guess with a lot of these, it would just. just be, again, like you say, allowing the contract to expire. Let's start. We'll just go in alphabetical order by team. Derek King, Chicago. Yeah, I don't think he's sticking around as the head coach.

I don't, maybe he will. He came into a tough situation, and, you know, obviously it's not a good team and a very tumultuous year for the franchise. I think it's fair to say. Now, I've been talking to Jonathan Taves, and he's not. He said he thinks they can be ready to compete next year. That's right. Yeah.

All they got to do is bring back Duncan Keith. Yeah, they just bring back all the old guys. And yeah, I think Derek, and I'm bummed out because he has quickly emerged as one of the most entertaining coaches. Good quote and all that. Good quote. Funny guy. But no, I think when you get that interim label, especially in a situation like this where it's still kind of a marquee team, I think you have to do a lot to hold on in that job. and I think it's fair to say he has not done a lot.

Yeah. You know, I wonder the direction they'll go in, just because it's like, well, you know, does a team like that, even if they're committing to like a rebuilder, are they going to go with a, let's say, Jeremy Colleton type again, where it's like, oh, yeah,

his record at the lower levels of the game is pretty good and, you know, he knows all the young guys and blah, blah, blah. That did not work out. No. Famously, didn't work out. So I wonder the direction they'll go in, but they do seem pretty committed to like, no, no, we're nukeing this roster. Yeah.

So a lot of changes coming this summer, I suspect. Next up, Rick Bonas in Dallas. I mean, it depends on them making the playoffs. it mostly, I think, depends on him. He's, there's, it's quite possible that he might just be like, yeah, you know what, I'm done. I'm good. Yeah, I was going to say, I don't think it depends on them making the playoffs. I don't think he's coming back either way.

Okay. Based on everything like Stars fans I see talking about this have to say, it's like, oh, no, they're winning in spite of him, kind of. You know, he's healthy scratching Dennis Garianov and that kind of thing lately. and like not that Gurianov's been incredible and and this isn't totally like it's totally undeserved or anything but like that that's who you're going to healthy scratch all right yeah you know what I mean yeah I think it's I mean he he we talk about interim coaches needing to do something he did that a couple years ago when he got the stars um not just in the playoffs but to the final and uh I think enough time has elapsed that uh

Jim Nill or whoever it is can say, you know what, Rick, maybe it's time to make a change. I don't think they'll do the big firing. I think they'll let him go on his own terms or at least make it seem that way. But, yeah, it's... Yeah, I think this is a situation where it's just his contracts up. Thanks for your service.

Really appreciate you getting us to the cup final by accident. We're going to go in a different direction. Yep. It's that simple. You know who's up next is Jeff Blashell. I wrote about him on the weekend. I don't get it. I don't ever root for people to be fired,

but he's the second longest serving coach in the NHL right now. Behind only a guy named John Cooper, who I feel like has had some playoff success. Limited success, for sure. Jeff Blige. Limited to only to Stanley Cup. Yeah, has one playoff game in Detroit. And that was in his first season.

So I think this is going to be. Totally by accident. Six years without making the playoffs. And the thing with Detroit is this year, like, they're better than last year a little bit. But, man, they just get stomped some nights. Like, you don't get fired because you lose one or two games by big scores. But when you're losing, like, you're in year six of a rebuild and you're losing 11 to 2, like at some point, I don't, like, when Detroit is good again,

Is he the coach? Like is he the guy who's going to? No, absolutely not. So at some point, like, what are you waiting for if you're Steve Eiserman? And the thing is, like, a lot of GMs, I just say, well, yeah, this is what GMs do. You string the coach out as long as you can because he's your meat shield for criticism. And when you do play that card, you make your first coaching change. Now the spotlight's on you.

But this is like Steve Eisenman in Detroit. It's not like he's got to manage for job security all that much. Right. I don't get it. Other than that Steve Eisenman just sees something and he really likes in this guy and he thinks he's a good coach. I'm sitting on my couch, but I don't see the evidence of it. Let me hit you with this. Detroit has not won a single game this year, I don't think, where they gave up four goals or more.

Haven't won a single one. Okay. And they have nine games where they've given up at least seven. Yeah. That's too many. That seems like a lot, yeah. Nine games where they've given up seven goals this year. And you could argue that, I mean, their goaltending has been total garbage.

And we always say with coaches, whenever you're evaluating a coach, you just look at the save percentage of the goalies, and that tells you the story. Their goaltenders stink. And you could sit there and say that's. That's Steve Eiserman. Steve Eisenman went out and got the wrong goalie. We all thought he was getting this great bargain from Carolina. Hasn't worked out that way. So, sure, let's see what the guy does with a good goaltender, I guess.

But I don't know, man. It's been seven years. I'm not seeing it. Yeah, no, absolutely. You can't go back to them. Jay Woodcroft, this is probably the easiest one. Nope, that's not true. Easy keep of, obviously.

Obviously, you keep them. I think barring some sort of absolute meltdown in the playoffs or in the next couple weeks. But yeah, he's done enough, especially for a guy in Ken Holland who doesn't really seem to be hyper aggressive. But like even if they melt down in the playoffs, right? Like they lose every game five nothing. You go, well, look at the goaltending. That's not really his fault. You know, like that's an easy decision for me.

Another very easy one, Andrew Brunette. Yep. Keep him. Yep. What's the problem here, you know? He's despite, you know, I don't see him as a Jack Adams worthy guy, but I absolutely see him as a stick around, get a nice new contract and be the long-term solution. Yep. No debate.

Easy call. Martin Salui, if he wants to do it, you keep him. It's his job if he wants it now. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, he's kind of playing coy a little bit, but I think everybody's on the same page with this one. He's staying and he should stay. Unless he wants to go somewhere else. I mean, I guess you never know. He got kind of pulled out of semi-retirement. Maybe he's sitting there going, you know what, I want to go back home.

You know, I like that. I really like sitting on the couch. Yeah. I, you know, the only thing I could see there is if he's going to sit there and say, Yeah, I mean, I don't have any particular loyalty to the Canadians. If some job, you know, a job opens up in Chicago and they want to pay me insane money to go there, then I'll go do that. But, yeah, he's, you know, again, I don't know. Let me ask you this. Montreal gives him a four-year contract in the offseason, which I think would be probably the market for a guy like that.

Does he last that whole contract? odds that he lasts that whole contract in Montreal? I think pretty good. Like, very good. So you're sold on him as a coach. Like you're, you're, well,

at least as a good enough coach, not a dominant charm type guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. And also those, the guys who run the team are just his best friends. Yeah.

So like, what are they going to fire? Like, this is a team that is trying to be not particularly good, you know? And, I don't know how that's, going to fly in Montreal for an extended period. We'll see. Well, let me say this then. Let's say it's

only two years. Well, it gets you halfway through that contract that you were just talking about. And then can he power up the team at the same time as they are powering up the roster? I would say, yeah. But yeah, I think this is an easy call. And we don't have to think too hard about it. Here's one we do kind of have to think hard about. John Hines. I mean, if they make the playoffs, it's tough to see a change, especially given that they're going to, there's some of these coaches where you say,

well, let's see what happens in the playoffs. But I think even if they do the expected and go out early. Yeah. I just don't know how you make the change. And I haven't been sold on him. Yeah, I was very surprised when they brought him in initially. but I mean, he's done, I feel like pretty much the most you could do with that group. Right. Yep, that's true. Absolutely.

But yeah, I don't know. Am I impressed with the job he's done? Not particularly. I think he's done what you would kind of expect a little bit, you know? But like you say, like, who do you bring in that's better? Well, how about this guy? Mike Yo, he's great. He's done a great job in Philly. Yeah, they'll...

He's kidding. He stinks. Lock him up for sure. Coaches in the league. Yeah. He's, uh, I feel like this is a case where, um, I, I would be surprised if he coaches again as a head coach. Yeah. But can't, hard to argue.

Hard to argue. I mean, look, if you're, if you're Philadelphia and you're looking for optimism, um, the, last team that replaced Mike O went okay, so maybe they do too. I mean, I'm not saying it was the wrong call on an interim basis. Yeah, whatever. The season was lost anyway. But, no, I, again, interim coach, you have to do something special. I'm going to say this one's a no for me.

Yeah. Here's one that I'm a little surprised. Again, this is according to cat friendly. I don't know one way or the other. find any reporting on it. Dave Hacks stole? Yeah, no, I have a hard time believing that he's Yeah, I do as well. With that having been said, if his contract is up, I might go shopping. I mean, yeah, if you're, if you're Ron Francis and you're willing to admit a mistake, then, and I think it was, I didn't, I didn't understand this higher.

from the moment it happened. Absolutely. Unlike many things I don't understand, it wasn't a, it wasn't a, it's not something where I've immediately been proven wrong. So, um, yeah,

I, but I can't imagine that he's not, uh, locked in for at least, you know, the first two or three years. So I, I think we can say that one's probably just cap-friendly,

not having the information. Yeah. Like I said, I couldn't find any real reporting on how long is. Yeah, it's weird. I'm sort of Googling and I'm not seeing. Like a year before? Yeah. I'm not really seen anything about like length of contract or anything.

But I think, yeah, I mean, it's got to be, it would be very, very surprising if they didn't make a commitment to the guy one way or another. Now, I mean, you could argue whether he should be back anyways, but. I shouldn't, but whatever. You know, at this point, it feels like those horses are out of the barn. Here's the counter argument about why he should be back. Connor Bedard. That's it, right?

Sure. You stink this year. Might as well stink next year when there's next. Yeah. Like I say, the horses out of the barn in terms of, well, it looks like the roster is just not going to be very good. Yeah. You know. And a lot of that is unexpectedly bad goal tending.

obviously. But I also don't, looking at the roster for next year, I don't see like a huge path forward of all these, like both these goalies are going to 100% figure it out. And, you know, they went out and they traded for a lot of picks, but they're not high picks. Like, they're not picks that are going to help them anytime soon. So they're going to be bad next year too. Probably.

Who knows? Philip Grubauer could win the Vezina next year because it's gold ending. And then we all think they're geniuses. But no, I'm not optimistic for them in the short term, and maybe that's fine, because maybe this is what an expansion team is supposed to be. And Vegas was the outlier, even though people assured me that the NHL had rigged it so that expansion teams would always be good. But I guess Ron Francis missed that memo.

All right, we got two more here. Young man based out of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. name's Bruce Boudreau. This is a situation where he has an... It's been a little tough to figure out, honestly, who has the option on this one? But it seems like it might have to be mutual, maybe? Yeah, it definitely sounded when he was hired,

that it was a short-term, like there was no commitment passed this year and that he was okay with that. I mean, Bruce Boudreau wanted to coach again. And he had seemed kind of seemed to fade a little bit as far as a name that was out there when new jobs opened up. And I think he took what was available and was maybe one of the few veteran guys who was willing to take a deal with without any security behind it. And I think he's probably back. They would be insane not to want to keep him.

My question is, does he like look. Looking at all the teams we just mentioned, and then one more, does he want to stay in Vancouver when maybe, you know, he can, he can at least pit these teams against each other to start a little bidding more for the Brucey magic. I can't get in his head, but I mean, the perception I've always had of him is he loves coaching. He wants, I mean, remember, there was one time he got fired and took a new job like a week later. I feel like he was frustrated that the openings weren't there and the offers weren't there over the last few years. There were a few things that sounded like they were close that didn't happen. I don't see him voluntarily going back into the world of uncertainty. Certainly if it gets to a point and he'll answer the phone,

but I don't see him saying, you know what, I'm going to strategically put myself out there again because then if the dominoes start to fall and you're left without an opening, now you're sitting there going, damn, I'm right back to where I was. The other thing I do want to say about that, though, is it seems like there are pretty big changes coming in Vancouver this offseason because they're almost certainly not going to make the playoffs, right? Like, I think it's a foregone conclusion that they won't, but they still... In the running, but...

Single digits chance to make it. But, like, would you be surprised to see them do the... Brock Bessor J.T. Miller trades this summer, you know, and if that happens, and obviously Bruce Boudreau would probably have a better idea of what that, of what next season looks like than we would. If that happens, and he's like, well, I could go to Detroit as they power out of a rebuild or something like that, and they're going to give me a bunch of money, I can see that being the thing. I'm not totally convinced it's going to happen, obviously.

Like, if I'm him, I'm like, yeah, I feel like I'm getting a lot out of this Quinn Hughes and Elias Pedersen guys. Yeah, it's not outrageous. I could really see it going either way. Again, if I'm Vancouver, I absolutely want to keep them. But yeah, last one here, Dave Lowry in Winnipeg. Yeah. again, another interim coach who it's always a tough situation,

especially there with the way things ended with Paul Maurice, but no, I think they're on the market for a coach. Yeah, and they should be. And if you tuned into last night's call and show on the Patreon, you know way too much about Dave Lowry already. So, yeah, I don't know that I have much to add other than tough situation. probably very cool that he got to coach his son.

I would be very surprised if he was continuing to do that going forward. Yeah, they have been bad under Dave Lowry. And I don't think that's necessarily his fault. I think it's not a particularly great roster. But I think everybody kind of thought they'd be better than they have been this year. This is another season where their results are really being kind of propped up by a young man out of Michigan. named Connor Hellebock. Yeah, and we saw, you know,

there was a stretch where he wasn't good. And it was... That team was terrible. Brutal to watch. So, yeah, that's as far as we know, all the coaches whose contracts are up. I wonder if there will be even more coaching changes with other teams.

Well, of course, right, you could always fire a coach. Do you... What scenario, if you had to pick a guy we didn't, just talk about who's the guy that you think gets fired in the offseason? Pete DeBoer. Yep. That's a good one. That checks out.

That checks out. If he even makes it that far, yeah. I still don't understand. I mean, it feels like they fired Gerard Gallant when he had like two bad practices in a row. Yeah. And I don't, I get that you can't always. be making these late season changes. Although, Lou LaMarillo might disagree.

But, yeah, that one surprised me. Let me throw another name at you. Lindy Ruff. Yeah, sure, absolutely. I could definitely see that one being a change. One more for you, Bob Boogner in San Jose. Yeah. Has not worked.

Shocking. Again, the thing there is it's going to be a new GM. We don't know who. The GM's going to get hired in the off-season. New GMs typically come in and go, I'm going to keep the old lame duck coach for at least a year, and he'll be my cover. Now, if they go and hire a big name GM,

he might come in and say, I want my own guy. But I think if they go with somebody who's newish, which most hirings are, I think Boogner lives for a year. Yeah, that's fair enough. All right, we're going to take another break, and we'll be right back. Hey gang, spring's here, and when it's spring, you've got to start dressing differently than you did all winter, right?

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you're going to want to go to macwelldon.com slash PS. and you'll be able to save 20% off your first order with the promo code PS. Again, that's macweldon.com slash PS with the promo code PS for 20% off. Find your perfect look for this spring. Some other news this week, not like a super news heavy week, but a few momentous things happened. Mark Stone's back. There's one of them. Look pretty good for Vegas last night.

They lost an overtime at Vancouver, but would they have gotten the point without Mark Stone? I tend to not think so. They really control. I don't know if you watch this game. They really controlled the third period down two goals and we're like, no, we're certainly not losing in regulation. That's simply not going to have. They did get the point, but it was a bad night because the Kings and the Stars both once. So they lost ground and they lost time.

So that was a rough night for Vegas, but it would have been even worse if they had not got it to overtime on the late goal. That would have been disastrous. Instead, it was just bad. Now, our extremely smart listeners might have thought to themselves, wait a minute, Mark Stone came off the LTIR.

How'd they make that work with the cap? The answer is, there are now seven guys on Vegas' LTIR. And that is an all-time Cap-era record. Yeah. According to Cap-friendly. Okay. Congratulations.

Chicago and Toronto in the last couple of years, both had six, but nobody has more than Vegas now. And do I think all of those are legitimate? Oh, that guy really can't play and has to go on the LTIR? Yes. This is me being very credulous about all this. I do believe it. But yeah, things very interesting. It's the whole thing, right?

Like everybody's hurt this time of year. And this is, you know, now are all of these guys hurt badly enough that there is absolutely 0.0% chance they could play under any circumstances between now and the end of the season? No. But, you know, people say like, well, does the NHL just take their work? for it? No, they don't. You know, they look at the records in that, but I'm sure the records for each of these guys

says, like, yeah, he's pretty beat up and probably shouldn't be playing. There's probably 10 guys who are in the lineup that shouldn't be playing either. On almost every team. On every team, yeah. That's what this sport does to you, especially in a weird season like this. But, yeah,

it's starting to get to the point where we just need to internalize that no matter how bad you think a team, cap situation is, it's not as inescapable as you think it is. There are always, like with this, it was, you know, the whole thing was, well, they can't, they'd have to put patcher ready on the LTR. Nope, he's back. Well, they're going to have to trade that on of. No, he's still there. They, there are ways to make it work. And, uh, I don't know. I know people get mad about that,

but I also, it would really suck if the Golden Knights couldn't use Marks. stone just because of this salary cap that we have and we saw them miss the playoffs just because a good player couldn't come back in the lineup. I know people would say that's what you get for loading up. I like it when teams load up, so I don't mind this. Yeah, I mean, like I get why people are like, well, my team's not taking full advantage of all the little tips and tricks, you know. GMs hate him.

Here are 13 steps. Vegas is using to circumvent the salary cap, but not really, because to say circumvent is unfair. But that's kind of where it's at now, and that's what Tampa did. It's what Chicago did in the past. It's nothing new. And if it was your team, you would also be like, I don't care. That's fine.

Exactly. And it will be your team at some point, if unless your owner is cheap. Or, yeah, if they're smart and they have money, then, yeah, it'll be. it'll be them at some point, so be careful about how mad you get. Now, you mentioned the Kings won last night, and they certainly did. They're now three points clear of Vegas, but they have an extra game played. But this comes at a time when they have announced that Drew Dowdy is done for the year. Yes.

And so it's going to be really interesting to see what happens down the stretch with, because they're, I mean, they have more games played, but like they're neck and neck with Nashville and Dallas for a wild card spot in addition to. Like it's not totally out of the realm of possibility that Nashville gets pushed onto the playoff picture. Yeah, the Kings and the Knights kind of both have two swings at it because. But yeah, no, it's, it's, again, like, I've been sort of feeling the Vegas momentum for the last week or so going. Like, yeah, these guys are still going to do it. And then last night was a bit of a bit of a record scratch.

We should say with the Kings, with Drew Doughty, again, he's a good player, was having another good season, but he hasn't played in a month. So this isn't something new. They were hoping he would be back. But this, you know, it's bad news and also certainly for any sort of playoff plans that they had. This hurts there as well. Yeah, that's right.

you know, again, like we don't want to just get into like, okay, here's where everything stands because, you know, two days from now, everything's going to be completely different. But with that having been said, it's just like, I can't believe it's going to come down this close with all, with what? If we're going to pretend Vancouver is still in it, um, five teams. That's crazy. Yeah, but this is what's supposed to happen. Like we're supposed to get these, this age of parody, these great playoff races. This is why we have the stupid standings and all of this stuff.

But it very rarely actually works out that way. At most, you get like two or three teams that are like, oh, we're right there. I will say this, the interesting thing with Vancouver, and you're right, they're well out of it, but four wins in a row. They've got Arizona tomorrow. Then they've got Dallas. Yep. And then it's Ottawa after that. So their next three games, it's two games against bad teams.

And one... Very winnable. And they've also got... Then they've got Minnesota and Calgary, which is tough, although, you know, who knows what Calgary is going to be playing for at that point. Then Seattle, another, in theory, easy one. Then they've got the Kings. And then the Oilers, who, depending on how the next few weeks go, could pull back to the pack.

Like, they've got... Almost every one of their games is either a team they absolutely should beat or a team that they need to beat to gain ground, like a chance to gain ground. So I think that's where the 9% comes from in that at least it's not a situation where, hey, we could run the table and it's still not even going to matter. But, yeah, their odds aren't great. But it's fascinating. I mean, Vegas not making the playoffs would be such an epic disaster that. Oh, my God.

Yeah. Absolutely. Now, they could talk themselves into every one of our good players missed. 10 plus games. Every single one of them. They could. They could very easily make that argument. And then you look at the Kings and you go, wait, do the Kings even have good players?

Because they just, we just lost the playoff spot to these guys. Right. And that's another team where they've had a decent number of injuries and weird underperformances, which is the other thing. And everybody has. Like every fan base is always telling me how many injuries they've had. Like what team has been healthy this year? until very recently the Calgary Flames. Yeah.

Like, they'd had almost no man games. I wrote about this a couple of weeks ago, so it's like kind of top of mind here for me. But like up until very recently, I think like Hanifan had missed like three games. And that was about it. It was crazy. That's pretty ridiculous for this season especially. Yeah, there's, I don't know if you're aware of this,

but there's a site called NHL Injury Viz that does a very good job of tracking these kind of things. And, yeah, Calgary had, had, like... Oh, yeah, okay, so for example, I just pulled it up here. Calgary had, like, missed Brett Ritchie for a good chunk of the season, like, who cares? And Tyler Pitlick as well, who they... He's not even on the team anymore. They traded them.

But more recently, like, Chillington got hurt. a couple of times and Monahan got hurt and that kind of stuff. Monahan's done for the year. But yeah, I was just like, oh, damn, they, like, everybody's been healthy for the Calvary Flames. I guess that's part of why they've been unreal this year.

But anyway, yeah, it'll be really interesting. Like, I don't know how if you're a hockey fan, you're not just, like, finding at least one of these teams and watching their game every single night for the rest of the year. that's it especially if you're out east and you've been noticing and or complaining about the fact that those teams have been locked in like here you go this is the playoffs start now for for these teams have already been started yeah pretty good awesome um another another piece of news here Arizona state announced their schedule for for next season um what would that possibly have to do with the NHL it's it's NHL news because there's

maybe like not even 10 or 12 weekends where the coyotes can get a home game on the weekend. Oof. All year. Or at least through the end of like March. Which that's crazy. And again, if people don't, that was part of the deal is that the school has priority over the professional NHL. As well they should. It's their building.

No, it is. Yeah. What? But yeah, no, they, they're starting the year on the road tentatively scheduled their first home game is October 14th. And the reason they're starting the season on the road is doesn't look like the building's going to be ready. So I'm looking here. Arizona's first chance at a home game on a weekend night, Friday or Saturday. is the weekend of Halloween. Okay.

That's not great. No, that's... That's not great, man. Then... Go ahead. Sorry. I just can say, like, I know Coyote's fans are sick of this already, but it's...

We got to talk about it because this is... It's fucking grim! Yeah, that's right. There's another weekend in mid-November, the 18th and 19th, when Arizona state is on the road. The first weekend of December and the second weekend of December, so the first two weeks of December. And in fact, all of December probably because holiday breaks are a thing in college hockey. So like they don't have between the Thanksgiving

weekend and the last two days of December, Arizona State is not at home. So the coyotes will be loading up on December home games, I guess. And then they don't have another road game until February on the weekend Arizona State this is bad this is really fucking embarrassing for the league yeah it it is and it's

yeah grim is the right word and I I really don't know what else to say it's gonna be I mean if you think you're sick of it now wait until next year visuals come out and we have to look at what these games look like it's right and that's the other thing

I was going to say is like, you know, like, I'm sure coyotes fans are sick of hearing it. I'm sure a lot of people were like, I don't care about the Arizona State Hockey schedule. Understandably so. I think that I think that's a totally reasonable reaction to what I just read off. But again, that's what, like four or five weekends from the end of October to like early February, that the Arizona coyotes are going to get a home game on a weekend, teams lose their fucking minds about how important Saturday home games are. Yep.

And those are the big draws. That's when you get the families, that kind of thing. You get the families, kids, you're going to buy like a fucking teddy bear for the kids and all that shit. Stuff Coyote. And the coyotes just aren't going to get those games. like basically for the vast majority of the season. It's crazy that this is how they're doing it. It's insane.

And every time there's like a new thing that reminds me, oh yeah, they're playing second fiddle to not even very good college hockey team. Yep. Like if they're playing in Grand Forks, it's like, well, no shit, North Dakota gets the, you know what I mean? But this is like a team that is probably less than 50% to even come close to making the NCAA tournament this year.

They don't have a, they don't play in a conference. God. The NHL, folks. Yeah, this is a real league. Big leagues. Big leagues. Yeah. When they say one of the four major sports, this is one of them. They're not talking about like MLS or NASCAR.

I don't really know who they are that are saying that anymore, but, you know. It's a great point. But yeah. When that schedule came out on, I think, Monday afternoon, I was just looking at it and laughing my ass off. Like, I couldn't believe it. That is so funny. Absolutely wild, but, again, if you're a coyote's fan, this isn't your fault, but sorry, it's sweet. It isn't so far as you haven't rounded up a bunch of your friends.

Yeah, you know. To drive to work. the arena is that year. Yeah, it's, it sucks. It sucks for you especially, but the answer is not that the rest of us pretend that it doesn't suck or stop talking about it. Right.

Speaking of college hockey, by the way, the Frozen Four was last weekend. Congratulations to Denver. With, again, former Puck Soup guest, David Carl, their coach. Now, let's put it this way. There's been one real, NCAA tournament since David Carl was on the podcast.

And he won it? Winning percentage that works out to Oh, it's 100%. Wow. Crazy. Wow. Anyway, with the Frozen Four and all these teams being eliminated comes guys signing

NHL deals. Yes. And leaving school early and all of that. Sean mentioned it earlier. We recorded the Puck Soup call-in show on our Discord that we do through the Patreon every few months. And I was half paying attention to it early on because I was watching the Sabres Leafs game to see Owen Powers first game, the number one overall pick in last year's draft.

It looked pretty good. It looked fine. Pretty good. He left, as everybody expected, he left Michigan, you know, after his sophomore year. and he should have. He didn't have anything else to prove at the college level and looked solid, not like unspectacular, but very solid in his NHL slash pro debut.

Kent Johnson, also from Michigan, is kind of waiting for his paperwork to go through, I guess, because he's a Canadian kid, so technically he needs a work visa. and that is being worked on before he makes his debut with Columbus. Maddie Baneer's one more Michigan guy. I don't know, he didn't play last night, right? Or did he?

I think he was supposed to. Oh, okay. Well, there you go. Then he played. This is going to shock you. I did not watch a Seattle cracking game. Hmm. Yeah, played last night and had an assist.

Look at that. Look at that. Good player. Really, really fun guy. Bobby Brink. Points per game players in NHL history. That's right. Bobby Brink, from the national champions, Denver, he played also had an assist last night.

And from what I understand, actually did look pretty good. Limited role, but had an assist. And, you know, from, I, again, not going to watch a Flyers game. Again, still feels weird to me. I feel like that guy was drafted in 2012. He was drafted in 2019. That is one of those things where that's only quote-unquote three years ago, but boy, a lot's happened in those three years.

Or more specifically, I guess a lot of things haven't happened in those last three years, depending on how you want to look at it. Nathan Smith comes out early from Minnesota State. They lost the national championship game. Oh, Sean, did you watch this by any chance the national championship? No, I did not. I didn't. a wild-ass game.

Truly insane. Minnesota State, they are a team that is known for just like throwing a blanket over the defensive zone. You don't get anywhere near their goalie. Which we can get into the Hobie Baker thing. Did you hear about this controversy?

Yes, it went to a goalie, but not the goalie who won the goalie of the year. Correct. And the reason is, the Hobie Baker voters love to give that award to guys who have played three or four years of college hockey. Right. Which is not what the award is. No.

In theory. In actual practice, it is extremely like that. Basically, you have to be Jack Eichael level good to convince, or Cole Cawfield even, to convince them that a guy who has only played one or two years of college hockey. should win the award. And they don't generally give it to goleys. Dryden McKay, who won it. He's the first goalie since Ryan Miller to win the Hobie Baker. Now think back to how old Ryan Miller is.

Right? And that's the last time a college hockey guy who was already come and gone on a very long NHL career. That's right. He's in his mid-40s, I believe. And he's the last guy to win. So long, long time. Dryden McKay, he set the recent NCAA wins record, like, blowing away the competition,

like basically since the turn of the century. Nobody else is even close. Career wins. Career shutouts, all-time record, period. And single-season wins, all-time record, period. Unbelievable player. Arguably the best. I wouldn't even say arguably.

at this point. You would have to really convince me that a different goalie had a better college hockey career than Dryden McKay. That's how good he was for four years. Didn't deserve to win goalie of the year in any single season. So it real Drew Dowdy winning the Norris. Well, you've been like the second or third best guy at your position like four years in a row. Yeah, roughly the same age as Drew Dowdy when he got his life. That's exactly right. Yeah. So yeah, his teammate, Nathan's, Smith, who I think probably was the best player on Minnesota State this year, honestly. He comes out, he signed with Arizona.

I don't think he's made his debut. But again, did I watch an Arizona Coyotes game to make sure? Not really. Yeah, he did play last night. Look at that. Didn't have a point minus one in 14 minutes. So it sounds like he played for the Coyotes. And then the one other one that's like truly notable is Georgie Merculov from Ohio State signed with the Boston Bruins.

He's straight to Providence, I'm pretty sure. Surprisingly signed. I don't think a lot, he was an undrafted player. I don't think a lot of teams knew he was necessarily amenable to leave in college after his first season, but he did it. That'll be interesting. but yeah that's that's your roundup of college hockey guys um surely more will be coming in the next three or four days yeah so there you go any uh any guys who are currently like free agents that we should be excited about or is that pretty much come and gone yeah i i don't really think so um

Wyatt Amott, who again, he played for Minnesota State, very good defenseman. He just signed with Colorado. But I, you know, are the Colorado Avalanche going to find a way to squeeze that guy into their lineup? Maybe one game down the stretch, burn a year, the ELC or something. But, yeah, he's not going to be a difference maker for them anytime soon. Yeah, I can't think of anybody else off the top of my head that I'm like, yeah, wow, you should be really. Myers is the guy to watch out for. He hasn't signed yet. But he's going to have dozens of NHL offers. Everybody's going to want a piece of that.

Oh, and I guess the other thing is Maddie Nyes is not signing, very pointedly not signing with Toronto, which I think is the right call. I think he should stay in school another year, get even better. Yeah. They don't need them anyway. They're probably not a, well, I mean, I was going to say not a spot on. on the roster forum, there could be because they're always going to need entry-level guys to fill out pieces, but that doesn't mean. That also will be true next year.

Yep. And the next year. Absolutely. So that's when he's going to come. Like I say, I think guys with his profile, I can't remember somebody had a quote this week that was like, I never heard of a player who stayed in college too long, you know? And I think that's right. I think if you're if you're 50-50 about should I stay or should I go stay.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's not like other sports where I mean, you've seen it in football, for example, where guys stay and it's like, oh, that was a mistake. But it's very rarely a mistake in. And of course, hockey, it's different that you could be, have been drafted and then go back to school. Yeah. You know what I would say is I think that has maybe been true of a few.

undrafted guys, but drafted guys, stay in school the extra year. That's my advice to you. Have fun with your friends in college. And then go get a real job. But yeah, and then the one other thing, well, two other things, I guess. Evgeny Malkin suspended four games, not really a surprise. It was a little on the high side, certainly for a stark player, but it was a bad crush. though.

Yeah. And, you know, it didn't, not a long-term injury situation, but he sends the guy off, with a face full of, like, bleeding all over the ice, away from the play, all of that. Yeah. Looked like Wheeler Yuda out there. Sure. That's a wrestler, I think. Yeah, it sure is.

Go back and watch last week's AEW Rampage. He and John Moxley had a. phenomenal match that me and Greg were in the building for because it was the day before the Frozen Forest started. So there you go. A really good match. Check it out. And then the other thing is Ryan Hartman,

find just as we were recording this, $4,250 for flipping off Patrick, of Vander Cain, not Patrick Cain. That's a different guy. Okay. That's about right. Not 5,000, not the... 4250 says it's the maximum allowable.

Really? Yeah, okay. Yeah, I mean, the fun thing about that was the whole kind of war words afterwards where Cain accused Hartman of being a little guy who is only tough when the linesmen get there. And Hartman, I don't know if he fired back. I don't know who said what first, but basically said that when that scrum happened, that there were five guys on the wild all going after Van der Cain and pointed out that nobody on the Oilers seemed. to be coming to his aid. They really did kind of take their time getting there if you watch the video. Now, with that having been said, I also think that was the thing where he was the forechecker, Kane was.

And then everybody else was like 50 feet behind him. Yeah. So there is that to consider as well. But it really did, it really did feel like, oh, I guess I better go out in there and break that up at some point. But I mean, it's also kind of like, I mean, who on the ice there is like, you know, Van der Kaine needs my help in this. situation. It's a good point. And I will say this, because I'm obviously no fan of Evander Cain,

but it was interesting to me that after last week with the whole Ducks Coyotes thing, where a lot of people were like, hey, Jay Beagle, you know, just because it's Troy Terry, if somebody comes and, you know, you get in a coffee, he's going to drop the gloves, he's going to wail away. Last night, it started, it was Evander Cain and Caprizov and Evander Cain very noticeably knew who he was up against. It was like, I'm not going to destroy this guy because that's not what I'm supposed to do. Like, this guy's not my weight class. He, Caprizov hit, who, I don't remember who it was, that he knocked down Yamamoto.

Yamamoto, right? And then, so Kane went and gave him a shot, but definitely did not escalate it to the point where he probably would have if it was somebody who wasn't a skill guy. So that stuff still does happen or not happen in the NHL. But yeah, it was just a little bit of war words. And, I mean, pointing out that your teammates aren't coming to your aid is actually a pretty good dig. Pretty good burn. Got his ass.

All right. Let's two plugs. First, I want to say, one of our listeners reached out and said he's the head coach of the Baltimore Banners, which is a hockey and mentorship program for at-risk kids in East Baltimore. And this is notable because their founder, Noel Acton, is a finalist for the NHL's Willio Re-Community Hero Award. I went to look up like where you can... So the point is listeners can vote for... Or anybody, I guess, not just listeners of this show, can vote for who they want to win the award,

which is a little weird because it's like three finalists who are all doing really great. things. But you can do it, and if you are so inclined, I find that the easiest way to find out where you can vote is to just Google Willio Re Community Hero Award because the NHL kind of buries it under a weird URL. So Google that, check it out, read up all about it. It's pretty interesting stuff. And, you know, like I said, all three people, I was like, oh, that rocks.

That's a cool thing they're doing, you know? So yeah, check that out if you want to And then also check out EPRinkside Where we are making a bunch of changes I've been told to make the website even better And more features and all that kind of stuff So be on the lookout for that And if you want to sign up for a year's subscription

Use the code I Love EP All one word and they'll tack three months on at the end for free Very good You can find my stuff at The Athletic, including my podcast with Ian Mendez on Thursdays, as well as my written work. I have a piece this week that has, I think it was interesting and generated a lot of feedback. Basically talking about the loser point, which I hate, that's not new. You should hate it too. But the question is, whenever I talk about how much I hate the loser point, I have people come to me and say,

well, it's not a loser point. It's a bonus point. And so I got into that distinction and why it actually. actually does matter and why which side of the coin you find yourself on will determine how you view certain teams. And it's been interesting and the comment section is off the charts. Because of course, whenever you mention this, everyone has their own suggestion of what the system should look like. So check that out. If it's never occurred to you that it might not even be a loser point, have a read. And if you're pretty sure you know the answer, read it to

find out why your answer matters more than you probably think. Yeah, and then also check out the Puck Soup Patreon. We just, as we both mentioned, we both did the call-in show last night where we talked to listeners for a couple hours, played some classic Puck Soup games, all that kind of stuff, had a good time with it. And I realized kind of after the fact, it really sunk in that one of the callers asked me for marriage tips. and I ended by telling him that his marriage wasn't going to work out.

He kind of, to be fair, he kind of implied that it might not. I think he did too. I don't think I was breaking any news to him, but I still feel like that my career as an advice columnist is maybe off to a rocky start. Hey, you know what? You got to give the tough advice just the same as the good advice. That is true. Yeah, that's it. Thanks for listening. Thanks for the support.

As always, and we'll catch you next week. See you later. Bye bye. Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slapshots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to whatever you commute. We also cover movies, TV shows, eats and tunes. It's your weekly bowl of Hagi and Nonsense. Bork Sue.