Puck Soup - The Zombie Debate

Episode Date: September 10, 2020

Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slap shots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to what if you commute. We also cover movies, TV shows, it's and tunes. It's your weekly bowl of hockey and nonsense. I'm Greg Woshensky of the Worldwide Leader in Sports ESPN, and my entire state is on fire, and it looks like every day that I'm living on the surface of Mars. I'm Ryan Lambert.

Everything's good here. Everything's going really well. We have it all locked down. Sorry. The athletic where, yeah, where Ottawa's fine. It's not fine here. You're in Puck's suit, by the way. I'm also in a smoke-covered.

You know, it's reminiscent of the thing in the Matrix where they scarred the sky to try to take away the solar energy from the robots that became sentient and were trying to kill all the humans. Or maybe it was for climate change. I forget. It's one of the two. Anyways. So it's just like perpetually dark here. I mean, congrats to vampires,

but not so good for the rest of us because not only is it dark, it's orange. It's orange to the point where when I go outside for like a good portion of time, when I come back inside, the fluorescent lights look different just because my eyes have readjusted to how like orange and dark it is outside. It's very creepy.

The photos are terrifying that we've seen, but I guess the real life is probably more so. Yeah, that goes for a lot of things in California. But the thing that's interesting is that there are websites you can go to to check the air quality, because in California this is the thing that you need to worry about in a constant basis. And because of the nature of this event, of they're just being like smoke and ash in the sky at all times, like the air quality monitor people are saying

don't rely on us to tell you how good the air is because we're not set up to measure the size of the particles that are floating in the air right now so that's always reassuring so if you go to the website it says the air is okay except when you look outside it looks like a fucking hellscape and yeah that's California for you right now folks don't don't ever have a gender reveal party again

that uses a incendiary device. I think we can just stop it again. We're good. The lady who invented them, the horrible woman who invented them, even she was like, please just fucking stop with this shit.

I think you can draw the, there's a difference, right? No, it's all corny and stupid. And gender's not real. If you cut into a cake and the frosting inside of the cake is either blue or pink, that is fine.

If you are, you know, setting off, you know, 100 M80s that contain blue smoke in the middle of a fucking wildfire area, maybe don't do that. Like, there's a difference. I got no problem with the cake. The only good gender reveal parties. The only good gender reveals I've ever seen are the ones where they have, like, a ball or an egg or something. And, like, they throw it to the guy and he hits it with a baseball bat, except he misses. or the pitch is like wide and he takes it and just lets it hit the ground and puff like that and then immediately starts yelling at his spouse over it.

That's other than that. Well, the best gender reveal party was when Gordon Hayward of the Boston Celtics found out he was having another daughter and was clearly like, this fucking sucks. You ever see that video? Yes. And like the little girl's like, oh, what's up with that? Daddy and his wife's like, is Daddy happy? And Gordon Hayward goes, Daddy's always happy.

Just like in the home. It's another, oh, man. Another sister. Meanwhile, in his head, those dreams of the NBA draft in 17 or 18 years coming up in flames. He's clearly, like, miserable. Oh, it's a great video if you haven't seen it. Just Google Daddy's always happy. You'll find it.

It's phenomenal. So in summary, the only gender reveal parties that we really like involve cake for me. For Sean, they involve athletic failure or some sort of mishap. And for Ryan, it is the lack of prep. I think the disappointment. But also, I would say also the, you know, reducing the male population. would be others, other, I think you're pretty happy. I think it's more that a, that freak Gordon Hayward who follows like Charlie Kirk on Twitter and all that shit.

You know, like, he's upset, so that's cool. All right. So, gender reveal parties, folks. Go get him. Or don't. We just said don't. Don't. Don't use the Roman candle in the middle of a fucking, you know, tumbleweed farm or whatever the fuck is here in California.

What isn't here in California is any playoff hockey. I could tell you that. It's all heads. Yeah, for a lot of reasons. Yeah, that's right. As we do this show, the Eastern Conference final continued last night. Nikita Kuthorov scored with like eight seconds left, which was just, you know, it's funny. Barry Trots gets praised up and down the fucking planet for being a great coach.

is. But even the great coaches can have their lapses like putting out demonstrably their worst line at the most critical part of the third period. Not quite sure what that was about. Leo Komaroff is tap dancing on the blue line while the lightning are setting up for the game-winning goal. So a good win for the bolts. And what we're starting to see from them, I think, boys, is two things. One, we're starting to see their ability to win games in a variety of ways, depending on what the opponents are given them. And two, two, we're seeing sort of the fruits of their labor in the sense that they played two rounds against really, really stingy defenses and had a scratching claw to get all their goals. And against the Islanders, there's no, like, shock about how hard it is to score against them in, like, game two.

In game one, it was pretty fucking easy. But in game two, no shock about trying to, you know, wait it out and be patient and not get frustrated. And I think that's really benefited Tampa in this series. Sure. I think that it's a situation where, you know, you've got to score more than one goal to win in this league. And the Islanders, you know, they scored that early goal in game one, but then their second goal in that game was like it was already seven to two or something like that. And then, yeah, I mean, they score early again on goaltender interference. and they get a lot of looks, but they can't beat a pretty good goalie who had a very good night.

And, you know, that's the end of it. I think the thing I would say is if a team outscores its opponent 10 to 3 in two games, it probably deserves to have won both of those games, right? Like, that's what it boils down to when, you know, what I think the Islanders are finding out is like, oh, when we actually have to play like a team with more than one line, we're in a lot of trouble. That's the tricky part. What do you think of the Islanders, Sean? You know, I tweeted this last night in, but I'm not saying that the series is over, certainly. I'm not saying the Islanders can't come back because I've, I've spent.

I've been two years being wrong about the Islanders pretty consistently, so I'm not going to plan any flags. But, like, that game last night has got to be demoralizing. Gut punch. Even worse than game one, because game one, like, yeah, you get smoked. You just get crushed. But you come out of game one, and it's one of those things where it's the old, like, yeah, just burn the tapes. That was not our game. Yeah, you can file that one away.

Yeah, we played the lightning game there. We played the game that they wanted, lots of chances, and yeah, the lightning are going to win that. We all know if this comes down to who's got the most firepower, Tampa wins. And if you're the islanders, you're saying in game two, we got to make them play our game. We got to make them play the low-scoring, grind it out, fight for every inch game. And they went out and they did that, and Tampa still wins. and they win with, you know, eight seconds left. And, you know, now it's like Tampa standing.

They're going, all right, what do you want to do for game three? Like, we'll beat you our way, we'll beat you your way. What else have you got? And it's, it's, I, you know, like I say, I'm not writing anyone off. I'm not counting anyone out. But, man, looking at this team that this Tampa team that's won, what, 10 of 12 now, and going, we got to beat them four out of five. Man, that's a tough sell.

I mean, it's really, really tough. Last night felt like, this always felt like one of those series where you knew there were going to be a couple games where Tampa was just going to be better. What the Islanders had to do was win all the games where it was a coin flip. And they're really good at doing that. They know how to win. Like, there's a skill to winning those close games, and they know how to do that. And last night was one of those games, and it got away from them. And that really hurts.

they also blew a chance to beat Tampa when they were basically rolling a beer league lineup of three lines and a spare because point got hurt so now you now points out of the game right and then you still can't beat him and it's just like all right but I mean who's to say he's going to play game three I mean there's a chance that you're going to get another shot at him but yeah it's it's it's that's the one they needed right to kind of make this a bit I mean it's not like you said you can't count them out they play a style that allows them to climb back into games they They need probably one of these goalies to, you know, have another really strong game. But to your point about Tampa's kind of role they're on right now, Islanders have lost four or five. So, you know, trends are going where the trends are going right now with the series. Yeah, I mean, they weren't impressive dealing with Philadelphia, like putting Philadelphia away. They just barely got there. Like by the slimmest of possible margins, they just barely got there. And yeah, I mean, you know, like I said, when you have to play a team that actually can roll like three lines that can put the puck past the goalie, that's a lot harder than it is against a team that didn't score on the power play for an entire fucking series, you know?

And to your point, though, like, this is a Tampa team, no Stamcoast. now it might be a Tampa team for a game or two maybe. No Braden Point. And it's like, oh, I guess we just have the guy who was like the league's MVP last year. I guess that's the one guy we have to fall back on. Right. Oh, okay. Well, I don't know what you do about that if you're Barry Trots.

I guess is my point. And the other thing is with the Islanders, like, you know, we can talk about the Flyers series. And you go, you know what? The Flyers didn't look good in that series. Yeah, but that's the. Islanders game. Yes, absolutely. They make the other team, when they're playing their game, it's not so much that you

watch and go, wow, the Islanders are amazing. You watch and you go, oh, that other team isn't very good. And then they play another team, and you go, oh, that team's not very good. And then eventually you go, wait a second, everyone who plays the Islanders doesn't look very good. And, you know, I saw, I can't remember who it was, but somebody said that it was saying, like, it's not that the Islanders are boring. It's that the islanders play in a way that makes the team they're playing boring.

And I think there's some truth to that. I've watched the first two games of this series, the lightning look good, which means that the islanders aren't succeeding in doing what they normally do. Because even when the lightning were only scoring one goal for most of last night, I wasn't watching that game thinking like, oh, man, the lightning are really struggling. It felt like it felt like that they didn't look dangerous though, right? Not as dangerous. They looked like they were trading punches a little bit, but like they, I guess the thing is like, you know, the tweet I put up yesterday that Flyers fans got mad at me for was the Flyers scored eight high danger goals in that entire series, all situations.

In game one, Tampa scored seven high danger goals, right? What was the deal? Did they miss one shot? Was that the deal? What was the stuff? Yes, like a minute left. fucking crazy. Yeah, they, they, uh, they didn't hit the net once, uh, all night.

Yeah. Or have a lot. That was on like a, they missed with a minute left on a shot. They tipped wide, which, yeah, yeah. But to your point, Sean, like, there wasn't a moment in game two where I was sitting there thinking, like, okay, when I was watching game two, I was sitting there thinking, if the Islanders win this game, it would surprise me. And it's not to say that I thought Tampa was inevitable.

It was just one of those things where I'm like, I was almost hoping the Islanders would surprise me so we could get a series out of this. It just kind of did not feel like it was in the cards for them to win that game. And maybe it's not, you know, making hay on the major or whatever it was, but it just didn't seem like it was their night. And that's a night it needed to be their night with the way that they had played. And you know what I've noticed, by the way, speaking of the not making hay on the major is like one thing the Islanders seem to do really, really well is, draw penalties. And yeah, like, if, like, they, I think they had more than twice as much power play time as Philly did or something.

It was, it was in that ballpark in that whole series. And obviously they've, they've drawn a ton of penalties. And I don't know if that's a thing of, like, they piss you off and you and goad you into dumb penalties, which Tampa certainly took a few last night or what it is. But, like, yeah, I mean, that, that's a critical part. of them being able to grind out games is like, well, there's going to be like eight minutes per night where you're not playing offense at all. I have a theory on that. Okay.

Who are the two most famous Islanders fans, Ryan? That's right. E from Entourage. Correct. And, ooh, I'm going to say. That's right. Oh, yeah, okay, sure. Kevin Connelly and Ralph Machio, two of our generation's finest actors.

Perhaps they are now schooled in the Thespian arts of drawing penalties because they've worked with these two extraordinary masters of the craft. Have you ever thought about that? You know what? I guess I hadn't. Thank you. Coulorin's getting a hearing for the boarding on Nelson. Not a shock there. A little surprised that Gidreau maybe isn't getting one for the cross-checked Nelson said.

Although I'm sure that's going to be one of those deals where they're going to say that he, tried to cross-check them in the back and his stick rode up kind of deals. I bet that's kind of the player's safety take on it. Yeah, and the puck was there for the initial hit and all that shit. So there's a chance. I mean, we don't know what points deal is for game three, but there's a chance that could be down point and cologne for game three. So the hill gets a little steeper for the lightning,

but, you know, they've climbed them all so far. Staying in the east for a moment, we should say goodbye to the Flyers and Bruins. start with the Flyers. What do you make of this year? Do you leave feeling pretty good about life, or do you leave wondering what the fuck is up with your top-line players not exactly performing up to snuff in the entire postseason?

Well, you know, I think part of it certainly is the thing that we said last year about when the horse shit gate or whatever they said about Ben and Sagan, right? Where it's like, oh, well, like the thing we think about Sean. Sean Couturee, or not Shaw-Gatourri, uh, Jake Voracek, like, oh, they're young, like, high-scoring. Well, uh, not anymore. I mean, like, you know, I'm not, I'm certainly not saying they're cooked. I think they're both still pretty good players, but like,

you're going to just have more stretches, I feel like, where you're just not going to get the kind of production you're, I guess you'd say, paying them for because that's kind of how it goes. And especially, you know, the vigno. way of getting things done is, you know, you counterpunch and stuff like that. And I don't know that older rosters, let's say, are as up to that kind of a style. Interesting. We know they got a goalie.

We know they got a real good defenseman. I mean pro for off. I would just, you know, to find who I'm talking about. I don't know who else a real good defenseman would have applied to for the Flyers, but that's what I'm talking about. Yeah, sometimes all right. They've got some pieces there. I don't know what the future holds for JVR.

That's looking a little specious. Although, you know, maybe you don't want to judge from the bubble, as we've talked about on the show before. But, Sean, if you're Chuckie Fletcher, what are you doing with this Flyers team? Well, I'm not overreacting to a couple of slumps in the playoffs, first of all. You know, like if I'm, if I'm going to be concerned about Claudeau Rue, it's going to be based on the fact that he had, by his standards, a pretty mediocre season and not because he went into the bubble and had, you know, had a rough couple of weeks. But it's, I mean, you take a step back. This is one of those things where I think if you're not a fan of the team, if you've got no attachment to them, you take a step back and you go, that was a really good season.

You know, most of us had the flyers in kind of the middle of the pack. playoff team, you know, we'll see, should, should, you know, should make it, but who knows, you know, they missed the playoffs last year. And this year they come in and they're good for the first half of the season. And then they just keep, you know, keep hanging in there with the, and to the point where by the end of the year, they're right up there with the true contenders, in theory, at least supporting the standings, they get a buy. They win the first seed, which I don't put a lot of stock in, because,

that round robin tournament was silly. But, you know, this is a team that, again, you take a step back. If you told Flyer fans, yeah, this team's going to go to the playoffs, they're going to win a round, they're going to be one of the top seats, have home ice. You consider that a success based on what the expectations were. But you get a little closer to it and you kind of go, oh, man, that might have been a missed opportunity. Because that was a winnable series. This was one of those weird years.

You know, who knows how this could have gone for us. And Ryan's right. This is not, you know, every time I ever say that a team is, is old, people fly at me because they, you know, we're still stuck in this mindset where like anything under 35 is an old and, you know, well, yeah, but they got this one guy who's young. Carter Hart's young. They can't be an old team. The core of this team is not as young as you probably think they are. So that's the one part where you sort of have to make, you know, if I'm Chuck Fletcher, I've got to make the call. okay, are we really contending, in which case maybe I've got a window to work with here that I need to supplement this team,

or is this maybe a situation where I've got to stand down a little bit and think a bit longer term? And that's a tough call. And most GMs will choose the short term. Keturier is 27. Yeah. Yeah, the core of the team is getting a little long in tooth. I would also say that as far as like windows being open, windows being closed, like you want to win. in the early years of your Elaine Vigno tenure.

That's kind of like how it goes. So, like, this was a real good shot to try to do that. He's like, he's like, he's like, oh, first year is going to be unfucking believable. And then, we'll see. We'll see, right. Meanwhile, the Bruins are interesting. So it sounds like Char is coming back. Why not?

Well, I can tell you why not. Right. Now, you, that's, don't judge the bubble. He looked like a fucking Easter Island statue in the bubble. Let's be all honest. Oh, for sure. But, like, he, you know, he was like a lower-end middle-payer defenseman who, because of, like, bonuses and stuff like that, I think ended up costing, like, almost $4 million against the cap, something like that, 3.75. And, you know, if you can get him to come back for $1.5 million, I think that's fine.

but if he wants three, good luck on the open market. I don't, like, I can't, I couldn't be, I couldn't justify that in a flat cap situation where I got to make some pretty tough decisions if I'm Don Sweeney. How do you guys feel about the he's got a job until he decides he doesn't concept in the NHL? Like there are certain situations where GMs are completely heartless and, you know, they have to make tough decisions and the beloved veteran has to say goodbye. And there are other situations where I feel like Charra has had the kind of career in Boston where it's like if you're 48 and you want to keep playing, they're going to find some fucking room for you on that bench.

Absolutely. Is that good or bad? I think it's probably not great. But I also, I think that a lot of guys like, you know, take Char for example, how many times were we like, well, this has to be it. And then he's like, I got one more in me. And then he comes back and he. And he's, you know, he's good. It plays well.

Yeah, right. It really depends on two things. You got to, I'm all for having that kind of you've earned lifetime status. And Char is definitely that guy. Yeah. I mean, he's absolutely done it. But it's kind of like, okay, there's got to be two factors in play. Number one is it has to be somebody who's got, you know, has the pride that they're not going to stick around way past their.

Correct. expiration date. I mean, every elite athlete thinks they have it a little bit longer than they really do, but you got to assume that this, you know, this isn't going to be an embarrassing situation. And the other thing is you got to assume they're going to do it at, if not a discount, then at least a fair price, right? Like, it's, you know, Patrick Marlowe had earned lifetime status in San Jose. But when he wants three years at $6 million, all right, go ahead and hit the market. Patty and let me know if you can find a team dumb enough to do that. And he did. So, and, you know, that's how it works. So, yeah, I mean, if, if, Zanotera's been doing cheap

deals. I don't even remember. And in the new CBA, can they still do the over 35 bonus-laden deals? Yeah, no, that's what he was on. I want to say he had like a one million base salary, but like with bonuses, it could get up to, it could get up to four? Did they change it in the new CBA or I don't think they did, but... I don't think they did, no. I think they kept a lot of that stuff the same. So, yeah, that can be a way to do it, where you protect yourself that if he shows up and he's just completely broken down and, you know, maybe you're, maybe you're okay then, although... Yeah, I mean, that's how it was, that's how it was with this deal, where I think it was like, you know, if you play 20 games or something like that, you get like a $2 million bonus. And then the rest of it

was if he, if they had like either won the cup or gone to a cup final, which didn't come in. And so they saved 250 grand. But I mean, like I said, they ended up paying $3.75 million for like a number four, five defensemen. And, you know, can you reasonably do that again when you're like, well, fuck, we got to pay Torrey Kru? We got to do this. We got to do that. Like, they have a lot of tough decisions this summer. And if, like, we'll get, if it's a, we'll get to, right.

Or is he already headed to the market and. Right. But, like, if it's a choice between Tori Krug, who, like, I think is a really good player, but he's also 29, that kind of thing. But also, or a 48-year-old Sadano Chara, like, I don't think that's as much of, like, if you're going to pay one of them, I think you would much prefer to be the guy who actually, like, makes a fucking difference on. your power play and stuff.

I want to pause on Krug for a second. We'll get to him in a second. I want to say this about Chara. Like, like you said, Ryan, like he can come back as long as he wants. He's Chara.

He's earned that status. And like you said, Sean, he's sort of in that Yager freak of nature category of maybe just some guys can keep playing until their mid-40s. It's the team of Salani.

Although in Yager's case, it was borderline during those Calgary years. But I'm also like, selfishly really interested in seeing what Chara does after he retires. Because he's a very, very fascinating guy. Like, he's clearly a socially conscious guy. He also has a real estate license.

Like, I'm kind of fascinated to see what he ends up doing. I don't think he's going to be an NHL guy who just sits on his ass for the next 20 years. I think he's going to be, like, an active citizen of the world, whether it's like selling houses in Brighton, you know, or whatever the, the full. fuck. Like, he's just going to be doing stuff. And I'm really interested to see what that looks like. And maybe that's selfishly to see a 6'5-9 guy on HGTV at some point, you know, selling shit.

But I don't know. Like, I'm curious to see what the next stage in life for Char is after hockey. But, you know, play as long as you can. Krug, so you have Don Sweeney basically saying, you know, I'm not going to begrudge the guy if he wants to go get his money. and he can say, I think the quote was whatever the hell he wants, as far as what his future goes. And then Krug on Wednesday night posted a obtuse Boston City skyline at night photo on his Instagram that people are reading into as being some sort of like farewell to the city type thing. I don't think, I think he's going to get blown away by some offer, and it would just be a matter of whether or not he wants to take a

take Don Sweeney's contract basically if you want to say in Boston. It's not going to be market value. This is where, well, it's not going to be market value. This is where you get into this tricky situation where, you know, we all look at the Bruins cap and you go, Patrice Bergeron is probably underpaid. David Pasternak is wildly underpaid. Brad Marchand is on. And it's one of those things where, okay, was that because guys were signing contracts

and the timing of when they signed, you know, Marshaun signed his right before he broke out as a really elite player. At the time, it seemed like a fair deal for both sides and it ended up underpaying him. Or is this the Bruins way that these guys are taking less because they want to win? And that's always what we say, right? No team is ever going to be like, yeah, we screwed that guy. We got him at a great bargain.

They always got to play it up as no, he took less because he wants to be a winner. But, yeah, I mean, if you're Tori Krugan, you can get you think 9 million on the open market, are you going to come in and be $2 million above David Pasternak and Patrice Bergeron? Or are you going to listen when they start talking about, well, you know, in here in Boston, we take less because we want to win. And meanwhile, your agent is sitting there making the wanking motion as they talk and telling you some team out there will give you $9 million.

Now, obviously you can talk about, you can make a $9 million. this is a flat cap world where a lot of teams don't have cash on hand. So maybe that just doesn't materialize. And the solution here is you go to the market, you check the market, you find out the market isn't what you thought it was, you come back to Boston, you sign for less, you play it off as I'm taking less because I want to stay here and win a cup and everybody's happy and everyone claps. And it's a nice ending to a situation where you were perfectly willing to leave, but maybe

that opportunity just wasn't there. How often do you do the wanking motion in life? Weekly? Monthly? Never? I feel like you have to have, like, another person listening to the situation. The same thing you are, right? Yeah.

So, I mean, like, Ryan and I are on, you know, we're on FaceTime and pretty much every time you start talking, but it's other than that. You see, that's funny because on the other podcast, Emily and I FaceTime, And, you know, occasionally you get a guest on that maybe you're not necessarily sing on the same tune. And I think that might be the only example I could give in recent times of me making the wanking motion on a semi-regular basis. Yeah, it's, it's often it's, you know, oh, did you see this tweet by so-and-so? And then you, you know, send the, send like a gif of a guy doing the thing. And it's, you know, it's in the spirit of the idea, but in these trying times, you know, in this economy, you can't be doing the wanking motion.

My favorite gift to use for the, like, can you believe this or the wanking motion thing, it might be that, I go more of an eye roll, like, the Ryan Reynolds dramatic eye roll from, I think it, I forget what film it was. Those types of things is more than the wanking motion bit. But either one, I think, conveys a good amount of information. You're completely right. In the Western Conference, the Dallas Stars and the Vegas Golden Knights, Dallas is trying to play regular season Dallas hockey. Or maybe it just, this is the hockey they play.

But then when they go up against the team that has an actual defense and good goaltending, these are the actual results versus what we saw. on the previous two rounds. Yeah, the Dallas Stars haven't beaten a team's number one goaltender since game one of the last round. So. Yeah, I mean, that's where they're, that's their deal is, you know, they got, let's be honest, they got real lucky that two of Colorado's goalies got hurt.

And by the end of the series, like half the roster was hurt too, like Litus Cog and all those guys, too. Yeah, and not only two of their goalies got hurt. but one of them before he got hurt played bad for four games. Like four real bad games and then they won three of those four. So, you know, you play the team in front of you. Nobody blames you for taking advantage of another team having injury problems. But it does contextualize things.

I am not a huge fan of the deification of Ryan Reeves that goes on, as far as his impact on a game Sounds like someone's been watching NBC But I do think it's undeniable That he has an impact on the game Like they clearly got their asses handed to him In Game 1 physically without him Being anywhere near the ice

And then when he plays in Game 2 They're a bit more aggressive And then he's yapping and doing his Ryan Reeves shit I think he does it. He has an impact on the game But it's not the fucking impact that NBC says he has Yeah we saw the full Ryan Reeves experience Over the last week

Which is Without him they've got a little less swagger, a little less chirping with him. They've got a little bit more. And so on balance, he adds something to the team every night. And then occasionally he will do something stupid and take a five-minute major and you've got to kill off five minutes in a game seven that could have cost you your season. So that's, you know, with players like that, that's why you've got them.

You're asking them to always walk a line, and the reality is occasionally, just by the nature of the job, they're going to step over the line, and you've got to be willing to deal with that. It seems like Vegas is, so, you know, it's... It works right up until it doesn't, you know. Exactly. Right. That's exactly what it is. I also, if you haven't seen the clip, go find it. It's pretty great.

where Mark Specter of Sportsnet asks a 32-second question of Jamie Ben yesterday in the press conference about, you know, how the Dallas stars are handling Ryan Reeves without having an enforcer on their roster because the whole game has changed, the NFL is different, and he goes on for like, fucking 32 seconds. And then Jamie Ben's response is, well, we just try not to think about him is the answer about Ryan Reeves. It's fucking terrific if you haven't seen the clip yet. stuff. Listen, that fourth line's good. He's good.

They clearly have, as Sean said, a bit more bravado, was the term Nate Schmidt used when he's in the lineup. So, but, but again, you take the good, you take the bad. Vegas is real good. And I think much like Tampa can beat you in a variety of ways. The Robin Lanner stuff is really interesting. One, because I think with four shutouts, he's kind of played. himself maybe ahead of Shea Theodore for the Kansmite on that team.

And then, too, Jesse Granger from The Athletic reported this. I was kind of on the trail too on this, is that he's had discussions with Vegas about an extension. I think it's probably gone a little bit more past the discussion mode to the point of there being a bit more certainty about it, henceforth why you start him in all these playoff games because I don't think you do that for a UFA and uh that's an interesting story man I don't I don't know what next steps are for them if they end up signing him to say like a five year extension yeah there you do with flurry yeah Granger said uh five years five million

ish maybe maybe plus a little bit but that's a fucking bargain if if you're uh if you're Vegas just in terms of you know you're getting a goalie who's worth significantly more than five million five million dollars five and a half whatever the number is. And yeah, like, you know, he, it's maybe a little bit of a risk because he's a UFA and that kind of stuff. But he's only, well, you know, he just turned 29 in July. And he, you know, he certainly doesn't have as many miles on him at 29 as, say,

Mark Andre Fleury did. And they had no problem extending him. But then the question becomes, well, what do we do with Mark Andre Fleury? because we can't have a $7 million backup when our starter is, A, you know, notably better and B, notably cheaper. And I think that I was surprised at, and I don't even know if this, this is one of those things where, you know, sometimes you look on cap-friendly and you go, I'm not sure that's right. Like the cap hits and everything are always correct, but some of the other details we have to rely on stuff leaking out. But according to cap friendly, Mark Andre Fleury has no bonuses in his contract. Yeah, it's all, it's all dollars, yep.

Which means it's not easy to buy out because it's a $7 million contract, but you can absolutely buy out that contract if you want. I think they save something like $4 million each of the next few years and then pay back some of that in the subsequent years after. But if they really felt like Robin Lainer's the guy, and especially if Mark Andre Fleury is going to be unhappy with that, and they can walk away from this. This is not one of these unbuy-outable contracts.

And I'm surprised by that. I'm surprised that an agent would let a guy that age sign a deal that didn't have that protection unless there was just kind of an understanding with the team that, hey, if this goes bad, this is how we get out of this. Yeah. And I think there's definitely a market for him. Oh, yeah. There will be a big line of teams that are interoperate.

for sure. And you might have to eat some salary or throw something else or something. No question. I don't even do it. I just think that if you eat salary and then you might even get a little pick back too, it would be enough. Yeah, I think it's a it's a Henrik-Lunquist situation where I don't know, even if they're eating half the salary, I don't know if I want to trade for a guy. I certainly don't want to trade assets for somebody who knowing that you're probably going to have to buy them out if the trade doesn't materialize. Now, Fleury is not Lunkwit, like Lundquist, I don't think, has trade value at this point.

Right. Flurry probably would, so maybe you feel like you got to move, but, you know, I'm sitting there going. Well, first off, Flurry's got only a 10-team no trade, right? So like, so the mobility of him is much different than it is with Lunkwist. And also, I mean, is he really going to be turning down trades to all that many teams knowing that, like, if Vegas says it's over. you're not a golden knight anymore. And then it becomes a situation where, I don't know, that 10 team list me.

Right. But for all those teams trying to convince themselves about, you know, Braden Holpey or Corey Crawford or, you know, Markstrom or guys like that, I mean, if Fleury was available and you didn't have to pay him $7 million against the cap, I'd be in the Mark Andre Fleury business before I'd be in the business with almost any other UFA outside of Robin Lainer. I think he is, if you're like, if you're a team like Edmonton and you're like dicking around with trying to maybe trade for like Matt Murray and you can get Flurry for a year at a reasonable hit, fucking do it. I don't want term, but yeah, that is especially if he's only got two years left. Yeah, he's got, yeah, he's got two years left.

If he's, and I think it's pretty clear from some of the stuff that's gone on during this postseason. If Vegas walks away from him, either through trade or buyout or however it is, he's going to be a motivated guy. I think as much as we all love, you know, he's the happy, friendly, like, this guy has a bit of a chip on a shoulder, which you need to be an elite athlete. And I think we would see that. He would be a pretty hardworking guy. So, yeah, you know, when you said you'd take him over anyone other than Lainer, I was kind of like, I don't know. And now I'm running through the names in my head of guys that are available. He is better than Jimmy Howard.

Yeah, he's a little bit better than Jimmy Howard. I think I probably take him. Maybe. Sean, Sean, when's the, on Lainer for a second, you would know this. When's the last time we saw a goalie this fucking large? Like, when you look at Lainer in the net, it's incredible how much fucking space he takes up. He looks like a behemite. It looks like Rusev.

Yeah, he's a fucking net. And he's a real big guy, which is somewhat surprising because he's actually not that tall. Like I remember, I looked at this a couple of. days ago because I was like like what is he like six seven is he one of these guys and he's not he's like six two something like that something like that yeah like so and and that is interesting because you know Ryan said he's he's 29 so do you go long term and and the question becomes yeah but what a he's so big do you worry about the this guy going forward that like is he going to age and wear down in the same way that

a smaller goalie would. But the flip side of that is, you know, Pecker-Rene was pretty good. Well into his mid-30s. Ben Bishop has had problems lately. But, you know, Ben Bishop, he would still take what you got from him the last few years. Oh, yeah. Pretty happily because he was Vezina caliber when he was healthy. So, you know, it's not like it's a hard and fast rule that these goalies break down,

but it is something I wonder about a little bit. But hey, look, the other thing is, Robin Leonard, three years in a row, one-year contracts, guy, go get the long term. He's almost every other free agent this year I'm kind of secretly beating this drum of, like, I want to see everyone taking one-year deals and just going wherever they think they can win and it's chaos. But Robin Leonard, go get your five, six, seven-year deal, and he's earned it. I think five is a reasonable number for everybody involved because, like, yeah, six or seven would be crazy. Crazy.

Insane. Yeah. Ever for a goalie. But if, yeah, if it's five, like maybe that's a year longer than I would be super comfortable with. But, you know, like I said, he's, he's not like a guy like Henrik Lundquist who was an NHL starter at 23 or whatever. He's, he's a guy who, you know, he played in the minors a bit longer. He didn't make his NHL debut for quite a while. And, you know, he's been like a 1A or a 1B for a good chunk of that.

Like, he's not a guy who's ever played. like 70 games in a season or anything like that, like Flurry or Lunkwist. So like I'm a little more amenable to the idea that, okay, like, you know, he's not going to, like his, his knee's not going to explode three years into this deal. You know what I mean? Like that's, that's, I think, the kind of dance you have to play with yourself. That was the other ridiculously fun press conference moment recently to mention Jesse Granger for the second time of this podcast where

after Lainer made that save in the Canucks series with the glove save, that was just insane in game seven. His line of I think big man can move. Yeah. What he said to Granger,

because Granger said that he couldn't make a save like that. It's fucking great. Lainer's pretty good. I like him. Avalanche, there's not much to say there. Just get healthy. They're great. They're going to be fine.

This is a learning experience. Maybe you upgrade yourself a little goaltender action, but I think I'm not worried in the least about Colorado, like going into next season. Yeah, they need a backup, I guess you'd say, but, you know, Fransus was 930 in the regular season. And I'll just say, again, to touch on something I just mentioned, if that scenario comes into play where free agent markets don't materialize and we see guys taking short-term deals, look out for Colorado. Because they've got cap space and they're super team. And they're super good and it's a cool place to live and all of those things like you know yeah i mean if

if if we can intercept people like i would intercept taylor hall and alex peterangelo to just go to denver just go to denver for a year how fucking fun would that be right yeah no i i've been saying it for for weeks like let would not be fun for a lot of teams in the western conference no oh no but like not at all taylor hall on on uh on on the left wing on Christ, even the second line. Even the second line, you're like, oh, well, okay, I guess we're going to lose tonight then. And I'm Vancouver, the only thing I really care about is the goalie thing. I mean, it sounds like they're going to bring Markstrom back and then what the fuck you do with the expansion?

Crazy. I kind of agree that it's crazy. Like, I think you clearly know what you have in Dempco, and you've been waiting for years to see this from him. Like, he's been the goalie of the future. The idea that you're going to... He's been the goalie of the future for seven, five. fucking years. Like, they drafted him a long time ago.

That's how the goal tenders these days, right? Like, it takes so long and he's finally here. And yet at the same time, I mean, what's one of the lessons we seem to be learning from the playoffs is that it's a two-goly league now. So you really let Markstrom walk and the answer is no until he asks for $6 million. And then the answer becomes probably. Right. Like, yeah, he's, because they're like, oh, we got to clear a bunch of cap space to

be able to sign Markstrom. Let me pull up their friggin cap friendly page, but it's like there's not a lot of contracts that you can sign or, you know, like if you want to re-sign Tyler Tofoli, well, you know, you can't because you have Louis Erickson and Antoine Roussel and J. Beagle and

I said this the other day about Jim Benning. I think Jim Benning is your classic two out of three general manager. Like for every two good moves that dude makes, he makes one move that is just stupefied only fucking terrible. Right? And the scary thing with the Canucks a little bit is if you're sitting there and going, do they have the cap space to sign Markstrom?

The answer is yes, they do. But they've got Pedersen and Quinn Hughes to sign next year. And Markstrom's not taking a one-year deal, I don't imagine. So it becomes one of those really dangerous things where you're saying, do we trust our general manager to not eat the marshal? marshmallow and understand that he's got a, you know, that the crunch is coming a year from now. Or does Benning say, you know what, this team's really good. We just want to playoff round.

We just beat the Stanley Cup champs. We're contenders. Damn the torpedoes. Let's sign this guy and we'll figure it out next year. And then next year comes along and you're like, oh, we can't figure it out. We're screwed. Yeah, especially because, like you said, like, it's, I think it's very easy for a lot of teams to talk themselves into, well, we want to play out. Look at the Ottawa senators.

We were a goal away from the Stanley Cup final. Everybody's gassing them up on that shit. And, you know, the Canucks media is certainly doing that to a lesser extent now, right? And it's like, yeah, you won a playoff round. You might not, you probably weren't going to make the playoffs without this whole deal, right? They were right on the bubble. They were right on the bubble. Points percentage wise, they were in.

But even if. we're saying it's a 50-50 question, right? That's a 50-50 question of being the eighth best team in the Western Conference, which everybody was like, oh, the Western Conference isn't that good this year, all season, right? And so, like, you're going to talk yourself into, well, we're going to give this goal, like this journey Mongoli who's always been serviceable and then had one good year, like, or not even good, one great year in his contract year. We got to, we got to get, we got to lock this guy off.

He's critical to our success. And that's the point. And it's a contract year thing. It's what makes it really nervous about it. But it's also, then you're talking yourself into, well, we beat the Stanley Cup champions who played, you know, five bad games in the bubble. You know, and like, oh, okay. And all had COVID. Yeah, exactly.

And so, like, if you're using all that as the basis of we got to give this 30-year-old goalie six years and six million dollars per, that's fucking psycho to me. I kind of agree. And then plus the fact is like if you know what you have in Dempco and they should, there are so many other options in the market that you can throw a year at at a decent salary. To then not have to worry about the expansion draft, which is the real conundrum about all of this shit with them and their goaltenders. Just re-sign Louis Deming. See you later. There you go.

Hey, everybody needs delicious apple pie in the bubble. That man can make an apple pie. All right, that's all I got to say about these teams. The award so far... Wait, hold on, hold on. We do have one other thing to talk about when it comes to the playoffs here. So again, we have the deal with... We bet on who would make the Stanley Cup final for each conference.

And so a quick update on that. Sean, you're out. You had Carolina, Pittsburgh, Calgary, Winnipeg, and the Rangers. Dunzo. That's it. All right. Tell me more. Greg, you have Dallas as your one team left standing. You also had Washington, Toronto, and Philly. Go ahead. I was trying to figure out why this segment was making its return, but let's hear what Ryan has.

Well, I have, I lost on Colorado in the last round, and I had Calgary and CBJ as my kind of long shot. So I have Toronto, Vegas and Tampa, or, yeah, sorry, just Vegas and Tampa, rather. rather still. Oh, so you only have Vegas and San Juan? Oh, I only have the two favorites. Isn't that interesting? Fuck. But if Dallas comes through, Greg, you got them 20 bucks at 7 to 1, so you would more than make

your money back on this one. But yeah, if Tampa and Vegas make it, I think I'm going to make like, probably about the same, about a buck 40, I think. So, hey. Okay. There it is. It's good. That's fantastic.

Thanks for that. I'm going to go check the hockey chopped voting again. Make myself feel better. Well, look, the guy is doing the NHL 21 thing for that. Yeah, do the NHL 21 thing because then maybe they'll respect my defense. They won't. The award so far, Bruce Cassidy wins to Jack Adams. I'm very excited about that because the president's trophy winning coach almost never wins the Jack.

I think it's a ninth time in history it's happened. The fact that like... That Jack Adam should be. There is nothing in that award that says it has to go to a team we thought was bad. It's not the de facto most improved team award. It should be the best job of coaching, and I think there's a really good case that Cassidy's that guy. Yeah, I think this was especially – look, I'm going to say this for the GM of the year thing, too. The correct answer for both coach and GM of the year is the guy from the Colorado Avalanche.

but of the three like I get why like I get why Vino and Tortorella got the nod because nobody thought their team was going to be particularly good and they were both pretty good to even borderline very good but all things being equal and the fact that the Bruins were the only team to get to 100 points in 70 games and blah blah blah like I think that's the year to give the guy where it's like, you know what, maybe the best coach or the coach of the best team just did the best job this year. Because they had some injuries to deal with and blah, blah, blah. So, you know, I think of those three guys, Cassidy is the correct choice, but Bednar is the correct choice out of the whole league.

And I don't understand how he didn't make the top three. Just one thing, the other thing that bugs me about the Jack Adams. The two things that have always bothered me is one, it became the most improved team award, and it seems like we made some progress on that. And by we, I mean, the broadcasters who vote on this. But that's good. But the other thing that's just become an unwritten rule of Jack Adams is apparently you can't win or even really contend for it two years in a row, which is ridiculous.

That's the only award like that. There's nothing that says Connor McDavid can't win MVP two years. years in a row. There's nothing that says... Well, I mean, the Edmonton Oilers, I think... Well, the Oilers, yes, that's right. The standing speech says that. But, you know, there's no reason you couldn't win a Norris. There's no... Like, you know, but Jack Adams, nobody's won it twice in row since the 80s. And again, this year, Barry Trots got like...

He showed up on one ballot. I'm not saying he should have won. I'm not even necessarily saying he should have been a finalist, but clearly everybody was just like, nope, I'm not voting for Barry Trots. When he did... yet another fantastic job. Like, who's the best coach in the league right now? Like, how far down that list do you have to go before you get to Barry Trots? It's not very far. It's weird to me that after he wins last year, people are like,

now he's just apparently did a terrible job this year. Yeah, he was doing the exact same thing. Sean, he was the, there were 13 better coaches than Barry Trots. Yeah, that makes total fucking sense. Yeah, middle of the pact. Yeah, he ended up on the same number of ballots as fucking Joel Quinn. Quenville. Fucking who, like I said on Twitter last night, like, who on earth is giving Joel

Quenville, they're, like, looked at the Florida Panthers this year and said, I think that was the third best coaching job in the league. But somebody said, it probably rhymes with a fat polly. I think, I think, like, the Paul Maurice one, finishing eighth ahead of, like, Travis Green and crazy. Even like ahead of Quinn and bonus is nuts. Like that's a, that's a, that's a, that's a, that's a, that's a goalie. That's all it was.

No, no, but that's a goalie, but that's also, I think, the recognition of that he was, had a really screwed up situation and could have been a train wreck. And I think that's almost as much of a, like, remember when, like, Scott Houghton got GM of the year, or Scott Housen got GM of the year votes because even though he got fired, where it's kind of a, we recognize that you had a train wreck situation to deal with. and it survived. But to paraphrase Don Draper, that's what the Vesna is for. Like, we're going to give recognition for how fucked up Winnipeg situation was in

golly. Well, hopefully it gets used. Yeah, the idea that, you know, we're talking about, oh, they finally got it right. It's still, to some extent, the fucking PDO award, you know? And so, and so, yeah, like, you know, if you look at it this year, I don't think any of the coaches, except for the Bruins, because they're just really fucking good, had like a super high PDO, like any of the coaches even in the top five. But, yeah, I mean, a lot of your success as a coach is always just going to hinge on, like, how good's your goalie. And you're just going like, oh, I must have done a great job because that guy had 922.

know, like, that's it. Right. GM of the year, you're right. Like, the idea that Sackick isn't a finalist for this award is fucking insane. Like, and sort of inexplicable, too, because, like, was there a general manager that was praised as much as Joe Sackick this year for the shit he did last summer? But, Greg, how good a job could he have done? They didn't make the conference final.

Yeah, right. And just for context here, just so that people understand, unlike every other. other award. GM of the year, well, first of all, it shouldn't exist. It's a completely ridiculous idea for an award. But voting on this is done after the second round of the playoffs. After the second round of the playoffs, right. Which is why coincident, like if you're looking at it every year going, wow, the voters

are really good at predicting which teams are going to be good. No, it's, you know, here again, it's three of the four conference finalists. And it's, I mean, it's not even recency bias. It's like what happened yesterday bias. And yeah, if Colorado wins game seven, Joe Sackick is on this list and says that he wins easily. Yeah. And it's weird because, again, nobody seems to fully understand what this award should be.

Like, is it just based on who had the best year? Because Jim Nill didn't do anything trade-wise. He, I mean, he signed Joe Pavelsky, I guess, in the audience, Corey Perry, but that's not something that's going to win your GM of the year. He didn't make any trades during the season of any significance. So, why should he be on this? The obvious argument for Jim Nill, and I'm not sure I agree with it, but it's what the argument is, is his coach had to go to rehab in the middle of the season. And like they didn't miss a beat with the replacement Jim Nill put in.

Like, I get that to some extent. But it seems like that's a reason to vote for Rick Bonas as coach of the year, which nobody did. For sure. No, sure. But I'm, you know, I, what I'm saying is I see where. the argument comes from, I don't really agree with it. Like I said, I... Like, like, Breezebaw belongs. He had a great year. Like, he's... He pulled the right strings, for sure. He really did. He did great. But what did

Lamarillo do outside of trading for Pajot? Do you do much of anything? Do you resign Pajos? I mean, the Varlumont signing would have been this year. Yep. In terms of the last year. But yeah, no, it wasn't... The guy I was surprised, even if we're going to go based on what teams are having success in the playoffs. I think there's a better case for Kelly McCriman because he did he did two things that that took a lot of guts. He made the coaching change, which a lot of us thought was going to be a mistake, but so far as paid off. And he made the big trade. He got Liner. Lennar. Which a lot of GMs wouldn't have done. They said,

they would have said, we got our guy. If it doesn't work, they're going to get the blame, not me. So he did those things. I think there's probably maybe one. of the reasons he didn't, he doesn't get the votes is there's still some people who think that's George McPhee's team and that McCriman is the GM entitled, but it's a team effort. But I was surprised. If we're going by what happened in the last year, now if it's a lifetime achievement award, then yeah, that's where you get guys like Jim Nill or you go, you know, we haven't nominated him in a while. Let's put him in there.

But I don't understand this award. I don't think we, I get why we feel like we need it. You're honoring everyone else. Why not the guys who are among the most important people in the league? I just, it's so unclear to me what it's supposed to be recognizing. Well, it's supposed to recognize the greatness of Jim Gregory as one of the great general managers that we've had in the, the NHL. He's the namesake for the award.

You know, it's funny, I didn't, George McPhee did win it for their inaugural season. Because in the back of my mind, I was like, is there sort of an institutional bias against the Golden Knights because the way they were set up as a team. But he won it in 2018. Yeah, that was undeniable though, right? Like, you couldn't not give him that award that year. Right. Anyhow.

Can you guys name the first winner of this award back in 2010? Uh, no. All right, let me give you a hint. Think of a Western Conference team, budget challenged, market challenged. Yeah, it was the coyotes guy. Bologna? That's right. Yeah.

Which, again, it's... You go down the list and it's like... You can tell even the voters aren't sure who they're supposed to be voting for or what the criteria was. But... Who even votes on it? I have no fucking idea. I think the GMs do, don't they? No, it's a consortium.

It's like an NHL panel of people. Cool. It's a... Wait, sorry. It's a 41-member panel that included... all 31 general managers, five NHL executives, and five media members. So there you go. Okay.

All right. A consortium, if you will. Yeah. And the GMs do such a great job voting on the Vesna every year, so why not trust them with this one, too? One guy who we own assume will be up for GM of the year next year is Pierre McGuire. He did not get the job in Arizona despite interviewing twice. so no Pierre in Arizona. I'll say the same thing I said last week

when I kind of knew it was up and I made that joke. I just think he'd be good as a mouthpiece for a team that needs one, and I think the coyotes could use one. I'm not saying he'd be good at being a GM. I would say that my life would be made better to not have him on the air anymore. But I think for like a franchise that is lacking in personality or direction,

it's a pretty good flavor, Flav. Pretty good hype, man. Yeah, he'd be the Jim Cornette of the NHL. Talks a lot. Doesn't really seem to do very much. It doesn't really have a lot of successful clients, you would say. But has a loaded tennis racket that it can use during Midnight Express matches. That's exactly right, yeah.

There it is. You know the thing I've noticed with Pierre lately, by the way, watching more of these games with the sound up, which is I've learned a mistake. When he's talking about something, he'll be like, oh, you know, he's going really hard to the net, Eddie, and then he gets there and he just puts the puck in the net, and it's really great Eddie, and we love it,

and it's just how hard of a player he is. Like, he keeps going back and forth between this weird, gravelly voice. So he's got, like, pirate voice a little bit? Just, just... It's actually, next time you watch a game he calls, watch how when he gets really excited he starts talking like this

Oh you know who he's doing And this is an old puck soup trope Back in the Lozo days It sounds like he might be doing The Martin short character Jiminy Glick Yeah he does it is a little Jiminy Glickish

But it's just I like to talk to celebrities And I also like to talk to non-celebrities But I also like to talk to celebrities But I also like to talk to Yeah That sounds like what you're getting at No that

That's exactly who it is and it's insane. Once you notice it, you notice that he does it every time there's a replay, and it drives you crazy. I mean, we could fill several podcasts

with what drives me crazy about Pierre, but I'll just offer one example, which is during those moments when there's a giant, like, celebration and the music's going, and we're talking about how exciting the goal is, there are still times when he uses that opportunity to pass forward trivia.

You know, it's like the Foresland's going, and crazy and then, you know, Eddie Oldchek's like, you know, stop it right there. Look at this pass. Incredible pass. And then like the next thing you hear is, also went to Shattac St. Mary. Subscribe. No.

Pick your spot. Yeah. Sean, I feel like you might be a Pierre McGuire defender in some ways. Uh, I wouldn't say that. I mean, I don't see Pierre McGuire a lot on NBC. see. It doesn't trigger you. Yeah, he doesn't bother me as much as he does others.

I still, as I've said before, find it remarkable that he is still able to get his name out there for every GM job when he hasn't been in a front office for 20 years, which in this NHL, you might as well have not been in a front office for 200 years. So I offer my condolences to him for not getting this job and my congratulations for being a frontrunner for whatever the next job. is because he will be... Well, he's going to have to beat out Kevin Weeks and Eddie Olchek. Kevin Weeks and the old check, yeah.

The classic guys. I want to just speak to the Puck Soup family for a second. I've been trying to not fill my Twitter feed with, like, anti-Pierre McGuire shit at all times. Occasionally, if you're watching the game, occasionally if you're watching the game and you see me tweet something that seems like it might be a non-sequitur. or like a weird reference to the game without like any specificity as to what I'm talking about. It's most likely a response to something Pierre Maguire has said during the broadcast. So, I mean, you may need to take the tweet and then find a timestamp and then go back and find out what I'm talking about. This is like the thing where like Trump will tweet some random thing and then there's like that one dude who will tell you what was on which people channel.

That's exactly what it is. We need that account. All right. I fucking Pierre McGuire is my Fox and friends We need somebody to watch the NBC game on a five minute delay Oh wait And then whenever you tweet They're like okay

To actually For the sake of your reference Pierre McGuire is my morning Joe Is what you're trying to say That's right He's my Joe Scarborough Failing Pierre McGuire looks terrible I'm gonna start tweeting out vague references to him

Murdering somebody at some point in Florida I think that was the thing he did with Joe Scarborough He certainly did One of the great Trump things of all times. Every once in a while, Trump will do something where it's so fucking fun, where he's like, the troops love me, the generals hate me. They just want to pay for the wars. I don't want to pay for the wars, folks.

Look, the... I love it. I often say this, you know, in the comfort of my own home, it really would be the funniest thing in the world if it wasn't the single worst thing in the world. That's right, yeah. Right. I mean, there's an undeniable scintilla of entertainment sometimes in the things that are happening. He's an entertainer. That's his deal. Yeah. It's, you know, if it was the onion, it'd be great, but it's not.

That's exactly right. Yep. So, switching over to coaches for a second. The Capitals, as of right now, still have an opening. it's been widely reported that Mike Babcock, Peter Lobuillette, and Gerard Gallant have all interviewed there. There seems to be some traction on the Babcock thing, which is interesting for a number of different reasons. But I think it's pretty obvious that they're going to, you know, they're going to go in the disciplinarian realm versus the friend of the player's realm, which probably means Galant's not. going to be the coach and it's either going to be Babcock or Lobelet. Wouldn't you agree? It sure looks like Babcock. Everything you see and hear these days is like, like even on, I think it was even on NHL.com, they were like, oh, how does Babcock fit in as a coach of the capitals? And I was

like, if it's on NHL.com, it's, uh, it's probably going to come through at some point. So, I mean, I think he's, I think he's got his, uh, his positives for sure. Um, Does that outweigh the negatives in, in 2021? I'm not totally sure that that's the case, but, you know, like, if you're trying to make a splash and say, like, we're committed to winning, I think that's the guy, right? It's, that's, that's, yeah, that's one of the guys. Like, everything, all the reasons you would pick Babcock make me think that, yeah, he's a reasonable candidate. It's just there's other candidates you check. those boxes too. Like Peter Laviolet is right there.

Yep, no, I agree. As well as Gallant, where I, you know, I get the argument against the players coach. But, yeah, I mean, it's, it feels like there's guys that I would be more interested in. But then, who knows, maybe he'd knock the interview out of the park. Maybe there's, there's some connection there. It makes sense. I mean, I've never been somebody who thought Babcock should be blacklisted or, you know, anything like that.

It was always a case where when this next right situation came along, and if this is it, it is. But Laveolat and Galant would both be ahead of on my list as a starting point, at least. Yeah, no, like I say, if that's the kind of a guy you're going for, the kind of disciplinarian, you know, is going to make Alex Ovechkin make a list of all the places he should be shooting the puck from that's not just the Ovi spot, like that kind of thing. Yeah, like, I think what the reason I say that is I think you have a little more proof of concept that he can work to a team's or roster's strengths with what he did in Toronto versus what Peter Lavillette did in Nashville is the only thing I would I would say to really differentiate them. But yeah, I think either one, like I think they're both good coaches and Galant is.

too, but if, like Greg said, they're just going to go with a guy who's not buddy-buddy with everybody, then it's going to be Babcock or Lavy and, you know, take your pick. I don't think it matters that much one way of the other. I think, I think a lot of you that's a better coach than Babcock, and I don't think it's close. But I also think that it's just going to be fascinating to see what happens with Babcock, not only the money situation. Yes. But also, do you have to do any work do the capitals have to do the work to amend his reputation or does the bad or does babcock or does nobody i think babcock is like i think you would have to do i think you would have to do like the elliott friedman sit down interview where he's like

i've learned my lesson and uh you know i'm not gonna uh mentally abuse my players on the bench anymore look at you doing fucking that's a second impression of the podcast like this is what's happening it's apparently was did you go to vacation or like Impressions. I went to improv camp. Yeah. I feel like we might be in some sort of a body switch movie. All of a sudden you're doing all the questions.

I'm going to start a freaking Harold Ballard team. Do you guys get that? Harold Teams is a good. That's a good joke. I don't care. I like the joke. And by the way, it would be Darren Drager. Come on.

Let's be honest here. Oh, yeah. That's a great fucking point. Absolutely. Or Duthy, one of the two. No, it'd be Draggs. It'd be Draggs. It'd be Drager, for sure.

All right. I think it's going to be that badcock, too. And I don't know if that's necessarily the smartest decision on their part. But what are you going to do? You're the Capitals. You've got to do something. So, Ryan, I understand that you broke your longstanding don't watch the trailer tradition to watch the Dune trailer.

Is that accurate? That is accurate. I mean, the reason I don't watch trailers is that, like, I don't want to have anything because like the problem with them is, you know, they give too much away, right? And so like I don't want to see, you know, like Ray flip over the tie interceptor or whatever the deal was with the last Star Wars movie. Like I don't want to see any of that. I want to be wowed in the theater, big screen experience, all that shit. With Dune, you know, I've read the book two or three times.

I've seen the movie several times including a recent rewatch. And yeah, I mean, you know, like there's just not anything that Dennisville and Wave could put on the screen that I'm like, I've never seen that before. I've never envisioned that before. No, it's all, it's all fine. I've never read the book. Is it joyless? Because the Lynch movie was joyless. Yeah, it's not fun.

Like I said, when the, when the, when the, um, when the, um, when the stills came out and everybody was like, oh, it just looks like everybody's sad in outer space. It's like, yeah, that's what the fucking book is. Like nobody, even, even at the end, like, when, when spoiler alert, uh, Paula Treaties wins, wins the war. Yeah, I know. Yeah. Like, um, like, he's not like, hell yeah, we did it. He's like, oh, now there's all this other stuff I got to do. And so, yeah, I mean, you know, it's it's kind of a dower book, but like it's, it's just kind of like what, what high concept science, like hard science fiction is at its best. And I feel like, you know, the, the sci-fi world broadly has been kind of reaching for for that as like the, the, maybe even unattatement. attainable goal of becoming what Dune was with any given series.

Right. And I feel like Game of Thrones probably open the door for this a little bit, right? Like to try to create this super serious epic kind of thing that they can do multiple movies of and captivate people. And then there's also like a companion TV series too, I think, on HBO Max, no less. Yes. to this tune. Do you think at any point the studio came to Dennis Villeneu and said, maybe can you add a wisecrackan alien voice by Seth McAfarland? No shit. Don't talk to me until I've had my freaking spice in the morning.

Everybody cheers. Hey, whatcha doone? Get it? Dune. Ha. Sean, your relationship to Dune, is there one? My relationship to Dune is so strong that I walked away from the mic while you guys were having that conversation and had run back just now. Good job. I'm going to be out of breath for the rest of the show. He's gassed. Ultimate Warrior blew himself up. Blew up.

No, I've never read the book. I haven't seen the movies. I didn't watch the trailer. I contribute nothing to this conversation. The book's great. The book is unbelievable, and I think the movie is as good of a movie as you could make in 1984. Right. To the point where even Frank Herbert at the time was like, yeah, it looked better than like even some of my vision.

Like some of it looked better than even my visions for it. So that's awesome. But obviously, you know, there are or there were technical constraints that prevented it from being as beautiful as it could be. and, you know, the studio, it should have been like a three, three and a half hour movie, and the studio cut it down to, I think, two and a half. So, you know, there's, it's one of those situations where I don't think they exactly got it in 1984. And so it is worth doing a potentially like five-hour super movie of it. Although I guess the second half hasn't even started production and hasn't technically been greenlit.

So who knows? Right. Listen, I think even if the movie is a ponderous, boring mess, it's going to be really beautiful to look at. That guy knows how to shoot a fucking movie. So I'm excited about that. I would also encourage, if you've watched this Dune trailer and you're interested in Dune now, I would highly recommend seeking out the 2013 documentary Jodorowski's Dune. Dune, which is about the aborted attempt in the 1970s to film Dune by Alejandro Jeteroski.

And it's amazing. It's all about like the incredible amount of money they spent on the production design and the conception phase. And the stuff in the movie will blow your mind what this movie was going to look like. But it also has amazing shit like the fact that he wanted Salvador Dali to play the emperor in Dune. Yeah. And Salvador Dali asked for

$100,000 per hour to act in the movie. And this is in the 1970s. So I don't know what to commissurate salary would be in 2020. But it's a lot. Yeah, it's all a little bunch of details like that.

Like he got, you know, part of his production design team was a Giger. Is that the initials I forget? HR Giger, yeah. H.R. Geiger, yeah.

did, of course, like, all the stuff for Alien eventually. It's great. It's really, really good documentary if you want to check it out. It is very good. I'm glad they didn't make that movie, though. I think as a representation of what Dune is, and like I'm not like a hardcore fan, and I know all the, all the lore. I haven't read God Emperor of Dune.

I haven't read, in fact, any of the sequels. So I just think the first. first one is so good, and then they said, you know, the rest of them are totally fucking insane. And there is, you know, they, they say that, and I take their word for it. And like one of these days, maybe I'll get around to it, but I don't know. Sean, did you ever watch The Walking Dead? I did not. No.

Oh, for two. They're ending it. They're ending it now. Well, they're not. Like there's like spin-offs and sequels and movies and shit But the actual main show is going to end I was really into it for like maybe the first I would say like four seasons of it

How long has the show been on? Forever Yeah It sucks It's really bad I that's not to say I didn't watch a I think I probably punched out around Sometime in season four as well

But it was After even after that first season It was like What the fuck is this show going to do next. Like, this is baffling. There, I mean, there was a certain amount of, like, HBO Oz to it where it was very unforgiving in the amount of characters it would kill.

Oh, I don't care about that. I mean, I read fucking Game of Thrones and all that shit and liked it, but, you know, it was just like, I can't even think of what to compare it to, but it's like, okay, well, they've overcome this obstacle, and now there's this other obstacle. And it's just like, this fucking shell game of like, oh, you know, we think we've got it cracked. We think we've found somewhere we can live. And then it's like, oh, no, there's this completely fucking contrived stupid reason why that's actually not the case. And it's like, yeah.

Yeah, I can't, I can't like keep riding these ups and downs with these fucking people. And, you know, that's also a show where they use, like, language that no, human beings every you like they're everybody in that show is always like okay what's the play here and it's like nobody fucking talks like that fuck you actually language is an interesting thing on that show because i do appreciate the fact that like not everybody calls them zombies i fucking hate that about they all have to come up with like these fake like but that's how it would work though like every every little community they go to is going to be like you know we call the crunchers here shut the fuck up

I love that, though. No. That's the way it would actually be. Because, no, it wouldn't be because there is a shared language that we have. It's called English. And we've all long since decided it's zombies. And like, I guess it's presupposing like, oh, this is a world where George Romero never popularizes the zombie thing. It's idiotic.

Look no further than the coronavirus, you know. It'd be the same thing with the zombies. Like, everybody would have their own. description or their little little buzzword. Without there being a centralized media, and I don't believe in Walking Dead that there is a centralized media, no one's there to tell us what to call these walkers. I hate that shit, man.

Whatever. It's all every, every zombie, and that's the other problem with it is, like, the Walking Dead really kicked, like, drove, like, just took it to absolutely ludicrous levels, like the amount of zombie stuff in, popular culture. And so I think maybe I'd have a little more tolerance for it if it wasn't, well, you know, in this series of zombie games, they're called this thing. And then in this other series of zombie games, they're called this thing.

And then in this third one, they're just called zombies and that's normal. And then in this fifth one, like, it's like, yeah, there's just too much of this shit going on. I can't do it anymore. Sean, uh, fast moving or slow moving zombies? Where do you fall on that debate? So you got to go to the, uh, slow moving shambling zombie and then occasionally you have one sprint

and that's the big moment that that makes you jump out of you shit and I'm saying this as someone my zombie I've never been a zombie movie guy so I'm basically going from Resident Evil and that one Will Smith movie where he kills the dog but yeah that's it

you got to get a good shamble and then the one guy who sprints at you is the one that makes you drop the controller and then if it's Resident Evil everyone starts sprinting and it's you're like oh this is a different game now and it's you stop playing what about you Ryan rage zombies or shambolic zombies I I think I stick with Sean's idea of there should be like not all zombies should be the same you know all zombies that's right um you know I think people people ask about it I almost on a weekly basis in the mailbag but like the the Last of Us games.

Do it pretty much correct, where it's like, you know what? Not all the zombies would have different, like, deals, where some of them are very slow, but some of them are also blind and some of them aren't fully zomified yet and that kind of thing. I think that makes it more interesting

than just like, we have to move exactly one mile per hour faster than all these other zombies, and we'll be fine. You know, and I, yeah, like the idea that sometimes they're just kind of shuffling around and sometimes they're like, oh, there's a person I got to eat. I'm going to go at, I'm going to sprint at him at 80 miles an hour. Like, I think that makes it more interesting. But again, I'm not like a big zombie, like game or movie guy, generally speaking.

I like, I like shambolic only because, you know, the first zombies I grew up with were the George Romero zombies. And I also think that like The zombies as You know as a metaphor I think work better when it's more like this Wave of reanimated cadavers that you have to like Overcome as you're like trapped in a place Versus that you know running away from you know something spitting blood at you to try to make you a zombie too Well the thing I think I like about the Walking Dead is you know they apparently were

I don't know if it's still the But apparently in the early goings, they were very conscious of like every season with the passage of time, like the zombies got more decayed and fucked up looking. Gross. Yeah. Which is like, oh, that makes perfect sense. But the problem was that, you know, when they would be like, oh, this guy just got, like, this guy we were just talking to got infected. And like already his eyes are all sunken and fucked up. And, you know, he's like making the zombie noises and stuff like that. That doesn't make sense if you're going to follow that.

That, that, like, you know, the natural way decay works or whatever. The natural disorder of things. I also give walking day credit for taking the good-looking British dude who tried to tempt Kierre Knightley away from her new husband and Love Actually with those signs that he wrote became an American. accented, gravely-voiced sheriff in the American South and was the lead character in The Walking Dead. So there's something to be said for that, too. Yeah, they did okay. There were a couple actors on there where you were like, oh, that guy's like actively a good, and then the rest of them were quite bad.

They killed the dude that ended up being the Punisher pretty quick on that show. John, what was his name, Berenthall? Berenthall, yeah. He's fucking unbelievable. He's such a good. actor. He's great and a lot of stuff. Yeah. Oh, when he showed up in the accountant as the brother, who

baby, I was very excited. Spoiler for a four-year-old movie. And Wolf of Wall Street, he was great too. Yeah, he's a really good actor. I'm a big John Bernthal fan. Ladies and gentlemen, it's now time for a puck soup quiz. We've taken a few weeks off from quizzes, maybe just one week. I forget. It's

hard to tell. Every day is the same when your state's on fire. Ryan, I believe that you have the reins this week. Yeah, and we're bringing back 20 Kestions this week, which, okay, if you guys, you may or may not remember this. 20 Kestions was a quiz I came up with to honor the fact that Phil Kessel across the thousand games played threshold. I guess it was probably like eight months ago now, something like that. But so, yeah, it's just in honor of Phil Kessel, this is a, you are going to be, I have,

come up with five guys who have played a thousand games in the NHL. I think there's like 380 total guys who have played a thousand or more. And you ask me yes or no questions for stuff that's on their hockey reference page. And the first one to get it right gets a point. And the first one to three points, it's a best of five. The first one to three points is the winner. today. So I have come up with five names. We will start with one player, and you may ask me any question about it. We'll start with Sean this week. Well, I think you should start with Sean. Sean,

after all, did win the last game we played, which I believe. Oh, there you go. Great. Technically, the bonus episode where people voted him as the winner of the thing. Okay. Yeah, Sean. All right. Yes or no question. Greg, you're solid on this. Yes or no questions? You're good. Okay. And when you say yes or no. What is the player's name? No, no, Greg. All right. Is this player active?

No. Is this player a North American? Uh, yep. Oh. It would be helpful if I was writing down how many questions we've asked. Hold on one second. Sorry, fellas. And how many questions do we get total?

I'm going to fucking give Sean the point on this one. Okay, we're on question three. It's to Sean. All right. Is this player a forward? Yes. Okay. Has this player won a Stanley Cup? Ooh, that's a good question. Let's see. Yes. Oh, oh, yes. All right.

Okay. Sean, this is number five. Did this player have over a thousand points? Yes. Oh, that's exciting. Did this player, oh, let's say on that, did this player have over 400 goals? Yes. Oh, well, that's exciting too.

This is a successful player, Sean. Yes, it's a good player. Was this player a center? Yes. He was a center. So it says on Hockey TV. I should say like primarily a center, I guess, because, yeah, hockey reference has a bad habit of thinking players played like every position. So all I can tell you, all I can tell you is that's what it says on hockey reference, yes.

Yep. Okay. All right, I'm going to ask a question. I'm going to see if I can get an answer out of you with this. If the answer is yes or no, then you're going to be able to. Is this player best known? for playing with an original 16. I'm going to say that I can't answer that question.

Okay, that's fine. Can I ask another question then? Yes. See, this is, oh, man. Just fucking play the game. God damn it. Was this player's most productive seasons in the 1990s? Um

Yeah, sure looks that way Okay, there you go So a 90s guy Center 400 goals One a cup One a cup All right

So I got to break out my This I always have to ask this question Because this tells me How deep I'm going to have to dig Did this player ever play for the Toronto me he believes. Yes. Uh-oh.

Oh, man. Did this player... Oh, man. So he said he won a cup. Did this player win a Stanley Cup in the 1990s? Yep. Okay, won a cup in the 90s. That's 10, by the way. We're up to... We're through 10.

That's fun. Halfway there. Okay, multiple cups. or sorry, no, cup in the 90. Did this player win multiple cups? No. 400 goals, one cup. Is this player in the Hall of Fame? No. Okay.

I know, right? Wow, okay, there's not a lot of guys who, 1,000 point guys who did not make the Hall of Fame. The center. Ooh, I might, I might, I don't remember if this guy was on that team or not. All right. I think, I think I might have something. here. Sean, you're up.

Yeah. Hmm. Was this player ever a, like a postseason all-star? Basically, do they have the All-Star tag at the top of their hockey reference page? Post-season All-Star? Well, were they at All-Star? As opposed to, like, did they get named to the mid-season game, which doesn't tell us very much? No.

To answer your question. No, never a post-season all-star. Okay. I think I might have an idea here. Was this person ever a Montreal Canadian? Yes. Is it Vinnie Dampus? Yep.

That's a good one. Nice job. Nicely done. So that's Greg for one. All right. Greg, you also get to go first for this next one. I've got to pull up his hockey reference page real quick, but that is... Who would you say he was...

better known for playing with maybe just because he was like on the sharks too. That's a hard one. Yeah. Yeah. That's why it because like he bounced around. Leaves, habs and sharks would all potentially claim him. See, and my other issue is that I became a fan in the early 2000s when he was at the end of his career with the San Jose sharks. So like it's I was going to say that the answer to that was yes. But I also like if Sean had been like, oh, I think people thought of him as a make. people leaf, I'd have been like, you'd know better than me, so that's fine. But yeah, so I think of him as a shark slash Canadian. I don't know what other people think. No, I think that's fair. I don't think that you could say without, like, question that he was best known for playing for an original 16. That's fine. All right. Let's go here. Is this player from North America? No. All right. That is a very, You see, Sean, I am trying to read into his reaction, and I would say that that would indicate that this player is Russian,

because it was such an emphatic no to North America. And what's the opposite of North America, Sean? It's Russia. It's definitely Russia, yeah. You know, as every hockey fan knows, Russia, a European country that produces European players. That's right. Is this guy forward? Sure is.

All right, I'll fucking waste the question. Is he from Russia? No. God damn it. A thousand points? I can't imagine. No. No.

Not even close. Wow. Not even close. See? I got some extra information there. Yeah, I shouldn't have said that. Sorry. Jury will disregard that last statement.

You say he's a forward, though, yeah? I do. I do say that. Okay. I'm going to try. I got to narrow down this non-North American shit. Let's start here.

Is this player from Sweden? No. Okay. No, sweet. And that's five. Okay. Was this player drafted

before 1995? No. Was this player drafted? Oh, is this player active? No. Oh, not active. All right.

Is this player a winger? Yes. Okay. Is this player from Finland? No. Okay. Now, I think I know where he's from. Do you, though?

Yeah. I do. It's one of two places. All right, man. Good stuff. Can I have a guy at mind? All right. Did this player ever win any kind of award?

No. Was this player a Buffalo same? And that's 10, by the way. No. Sorry, what was that question? Was he a saber? Was he ever a saber? Never a saber, okay.

Because I really thought this was Mirro Chatan. All right, so he, he has. 10 and I just now have 10 so we both have 10. But we're working together. That was number 11 between the two weeks. That was number 11. Is this player from the Czech Republic? Uh, yeah.

Ah! Give these people, eh! Wait, didn't you just go twice in a row? Yeah, he did. He did. That's fine. Yeah, Sean, okay, well now, Sean, you get to go twice in a row. Yeah, Sean was twice a row. Obviously, that's the way it works. Clearly, yeah.

Okay, give me... What fucking doesn't follow? the rules at all. I mean, doesn't follow or doesn't pay attention to. It's really I can't make them any simpler than this. All right, I'll do my Leafs question.

Did he ever play for the Leafs? Did he ever play for the Toronto Maple Leafs? Did he ever? Nope. Okay, well then that's unacceptable. Oh, and I get a second one. Okay. You're like, I'm fucked now. I have no idea. Yep.

Not drafted before 1995 is a real Pickle. See, and he's not active. So, I mean, we're, in theory, he played long enough to do a thousand games, so we're talking about a somewhat narrow window. Check.

But not a thousand points. Not in all of a thousand points. Never an award of any kind. Hmm. Did you already do the Stanley Cup winner won? Uh, no, I don't think we have. Did he ever win a cup? Um, no.

And Greg, it's to you. And this will be the 15th question. So if I do four questions in a row, does Sean doesn't have enough, he doesn't get enough questions? Yeah, I think, I think at that point we would give Sean the point. Hold on. So did we specify, do we know, no, no, I'm, excuse me, I'm not talking to you. I'm talking to my partner.

Yeah. Do we know what forward position this guy played? We know it's wing. And there's no point asking right or left because hockey reference doesn't know. Right. It's not a... Yeah. Okay. Was this player... I was going to ask if he ever won a major award, but no foreign players that have won major awards. Especially because Sean already asked that fucking question.

I did. Oh, did it? Yep. Okay. You should check his winger. Fuck, this is tough. All right. Was this player ever in New Jersey Devil?

No. No. Four questions left. Five actually. Sorry. It took him a while to answer that, which suggests that this player played for a lot of teams. Is journeyman?

Yeah. Yeah. My knowledge of Czech journeymen is... Wait a second. Wait a second. not as strong as it could. Uh-oh. I might have something here.

Might be something here. Nudling it through. Did this player... Did this player ever have a 30-goal season? Yes. Okay. Wait, did we establish have he ever won a cup?

Yes, and he has not. He is not. All right, fuck, who the fuck is this motherfucker? because I think I'm pretty sure that you definitely, this guy I'm thinking of definitely won a cup. All right. Was this player

ever on the New York Hockey Rangers? Yes. Oh. How many questions have we got left? I think there are three more. I think that was just 17. I don't have to guess quite yet.

Did this player ever play in the Olympics? Let's find out together. I mean, one assumes if he was... It says here he did. It says here he did. Played in the Olympics, played for the Rangers, check winger. Now, Greg, this will be your last chance to answer after this question.

I got to come up. This is question 19 out of 20. You know what, no, I think you can just both buzz in whenever you think you have it. But if we got, if we have a beat on it as it was. Yeah. Okay. All right. And this is a guy who played for the Rangers. That's right.

But we think probably played for a lot of teams. So. Did this player ever play for the Tampa Bay Lightning? Nope. Ah, fuck. All right, go ahead, Sean. See, I got a guy that I'm thinking. thinking of.

Ooh. But the guy I'm thinking of was a center. But then I'm thinking, well, technically I asked if he was a winger, so I mean, if he plays one or two seasons on wing, hockey reference a list him there as well. This is really a tough one.

Did this guy ever play for the Ottawa Senators? No, he didn't, and you have to, your last guesses, please. All right. Okay. My guess is Adam Graves.

A famous check. You know what? Adam Graves. I think, okay, I do have a guess. The guy that I had mine, the sense question probably gave away that the guy I had mine was a Ratic Bunk. Clearly, it's not him. But that put me on the Ratic path. Is it Radic Dvorak?

It is Ratic Dvorak. Motherfucker. Nicely done. Wow. That is incredible. Yeah. Would you have ever. guessed in your whole fucking life that Radic Dvorak played 1,260 NHL games?

No, never. Is that insane? How many points did he have? 590. Wow. Yeah, he wasn't good. That's, uh... No, he had 1.30 goal.

Well, so early in his career, he was, like, a consistent, like, 15 goal guy, and then one year he had 31, and then he hung around the 15 range for a little while long, and he, And then his last three seasons, four with Dallas, four with Anaheim, but only in nine games, and four with Carolina. Honestly, the teams helped me not at all with him. Like, you could use a random generator to just list any five teams in the NHL and be like, Radic Dvorak played for these teams. And I would have been like, yep, sure he did. Yeah.

This is crazy. Florida, the Rangers, the Oilers, the Blues, back to Florida, at least. Atlanta, Dallas, Anaheim, Carolina. Jesus. Florida was always going to be the one for me. For Dvorak. All right. Let's do it.

All right. Greg, you are... No, Sean's up, right? Because he won, right? Yeah. Okay. So, Sean, fire away. Okay.

Is this player a forward? Yes. Okay. Is this player active? No. Not active. Are they North American? No.

Do they have, I'll give a classic Sean question. Do they have a thousand points? Yep. Oh, thank God. Were they ever an All-Star? Yep. And we are through five questions already. Did this player play for the New York Rangers?

The New York Rangers, no All right, if you had to look, then it's not the guy that I thought it was. Are they listed as a winger? Yes. No guess? What's it? I said no guess? No, no.

Okay. Go ahead. So listed as a winger, you said? I did. Did this player play for? for the Chicago Blackhawks. No. Did they play for the Leaves?

Nope. Oh, boy. Okay. So not active, not North American, thousand points, winger, no Rangers, no Blackhawks. Is this player in the Hall of Fame?

Yes. Okay. That's 10, by the way. We're done through 10. Go ahead. I'm going to guess Team of Solani. You're right. Ah, there it is.

Very good. There it is. Just nudged past a thousand games. Yeah, just barely, only by 451. My favorite piece of Salani trivia is he played until he was what, like 44 years old, something like that? Yeah, something like that. In his draft year, he is forced in games played out of that draft class. It's bananas.

That's truly crazy. Wow. I loved being at the Olympics when he was in his last role there. Like, man, what a fucking time. That's great. Oh, yeah, look at that. Recky Madano, Brindamore, Salani. Trevor Lyndon cleared 1,300. Jeremy Rona cleared 13.

There are a fucking 1-2-12, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. 13 players from that draft played more than a thousand games, and Alexander McGilney played 990. Wow. All right. That's unbelievable. Very good. Is that it, or do we have another round? No, you're up two to one.

This is best of five. Oh, let's go then. All right, let's do it. All right, Greg, you're up. Is this player from North America? Yes. Oh. Are they active?

No. I should say, by the way, that these, I used like the Wikipedia list of guys with a thousand games played. And there are just like, you know, like they're ranked from most games played to fewest of those guys. And I literally just use a random number generator to come up with who the guys are. So like, I'm not picking anybody. These are just like, that's funny, because I really thought that you, I chose Salani because I figured you would have picked Slani. Oh, yeah, no, nope. Well, I wouldn't have fucking picked Radic Devorak.

Right. I will just toss this psychological profile that I've been consulted. Yeah, I know, right? Yeah. I spent a full week going through Ryan's trash to find out what he was going to pick for this game and, you know, to no avail. All right. So not active and North American. Correct.

Okay, does this player have a thousand points? Yep. Oh, geez, we are rolling through this now. Were they an All-Star? Yep. Are they a Hall of Famer? Yep. Okay, All-Star, Hall of Famer.

So basically we narrowed it down to a good player. Not active. Oh, wait. Is this... Oh, wait, you go now. I'm sorry. Are they a winger? Yes.

Okay, on the wing. Thousand points. Hall of Famer. On the wing. North American. Just ask the question. Please, for the love of God. Did this player ever play for the Dallas Stars?

No. Ah, that's not Brett Hull. Did this player play? play their last season in 2000 or earlier? Yes. Wait, did they play their last season in 2000? So before 2001, they retired? Yes.

And the answer to that is yes. You need a decoder ring to figure out the fuck you're talking about. I knew exactly what he was talking about. That was really, I promise not one listener was confused by what I just asked. All right, Greg, fire away. Let's go. Was this player... Oh, I...

Was this player a member of the Detroit Red Wings? No. Ah, okay. Sean, this will be the tenth question. That actually eliminates like 90% of the star players from the 90s, so that's a good question. Did this player have 500 goals? Yep. And that's 10.

I think I got it. Okay. Oh, no guess? Okay. Was this player remember the Calgary Flames? No. Ah, shit. You don't got it. I don't got it.

Um, was this player... I haven't asked my leaf question. Was this player a leaf? Nope. Okay. There goes that idea. North American...

Okay, North American... Okay. Okay, was this player a member of the New York Rangers? Yes. Is it Steve Larmer? No. Ah, shit. Was this player a Montreal Canadian?

Yes. Is it Gila Fleur? It is. Nice. Gila Fleur. Jesus. Wow. All right.

This one is... This one is for the win. Wow. And Sean, you get to go first. Yes. North American. No. Okay.

So not North American. Does he have a thousand points? No. Oh, boy. Here we go. Easy a forward. No. There we go.

We're cooking. Now we're cooking with some gas. Does this player have... Oh, let's... Okay. Um Did this player have 800 points?

Nope. Or higher. You know what I'm trying to say that. Yeah. No, he did not have exactly 800 points. I mean, I'm just thinking of what I would have done

as a quiz master in these situations. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, you're fine. You're fine. Sean, go ahead. Did this player ever win a Norris? Let's see here. Did he win a Norris?

No. Hmm. Okay. But see, the fact that he didn't answer that instantly tells us it's not a goalie. Wow. Or does it? Or does it? I mean, a goalie is with a thousand, a thousand games.

There's very few, but I feel like the last time we did this, there was a goalie involved in it. It was Roberto Luongo last time. You think that he, you think that he was so cutting as to pause before the answer just to throw us off? Absolutely. I think that, yeah. Huh. I think you'll overestimate their chances. Was this player ever a member of the Montreal Canadiens?

Nope. Oh, that really throws me for a loop. Were they a leaf? Nope. Did they really even exist? Were this player's best years in the 1990s? Yes. No leaf 1990s.

Are they in the Hall of Fame? I think we've found that one yet. Yes. Ooh. Hmm. And this will be the 10th question right here, Greg. Was this player a member of the Dallas Stars? Yep.

Yes. It's Sergei Subov. Yeah, that's exactly right. Good one. Ah, yeah. That's so funny that you paused on the Norris, though, because that famously was the thing that he didn't ever won one. Yes, no, I...

Right. I just... These are things that, like, I know, but I want to make sure of, you know? Right. No, that makes sense. And because of how hockey reference works, you have to like scroll to the side of his career page to get the list of awards he's won unless you switch to widescreen view, which I probably should do. But yeah, no, he, he, I as finished was third for Enores. I think I technically won this round of 20 questions with, I won, I won, it was like three to two and a half, because you clearly knew who it was.

at the same time I did. It just happened to be my turn. That's okay, though. You know, you head... That's the game, baby. The possession arrow was was headed your way, so you're good. Intense. We've gotten significantly long today. I feel real good about the show. I know that we had an overrated, underrated on the docket.

I mean, do you want to do it, or do you just want to say that we went as long as we're going to go? Well, now we have to say yes, because we're going to get in trouble. I don't think we do have to say yes. I guess now we know, Sean. What's going to be the quickest one? Fighting games or wing flavors? I think fighting games, right?

Let's go. Sure. Let's do. Okay. Overrated fighting game. Overrated fighting game. Mortal combat. Oh, fuck. What the fuck?

Everybody moves too slow. What is your overrated fighting game, Sean? All of them, because fighting games are just, you know, they're fine, but I really resent that they took over the arcades in the 90s and kind of ruined that whole experience. I don't think that's a bad, that's not a bad answer. Underrated fighting game. Marvel versus Capcom.

Yeah, that would probably be my answer too. I was thinking about that game, actually, Marvel versus Capcom. It's a cool game. I mean, a little bit of an imbalance in the sense that I would always just want to play Marvel characters because I don't really care about the Capcom characters. Yeah, but freaking Mega Man was real good in that game, man. Sure. Underrated, you'd probably say none of them, right, Sean?

Well, I mean, I'll go, I'll give you like a really old man answer and say that I remember in the 80s there was a game called Karate Champ that was one of the very first, like, you versus an opponent, and it was, it had no buttons. You used, like, there were two joysticks and whatever combination you were. nation, you moved them in. I enjoyed that a lot when I was, however old. Yeah, I was when it came out, which was

not very old, but it was a cool game. Favorite, I mean, my reaction to Ryan's ridiculous comment at the beginning of this would probably tell you that my favorite fighting game was Mortal Kombat. Who did I use? Come on, you know

who I used. They used Scorpion, because I couldn't really do any of the other moves. So, that was my favorite fighting game. Put many quarters into that machine and really enjoyed playing it. So Mortal Kombat is my favorite. Tekken 3 is my favorite.

I like the Tekken games where you could not just play the fighting mode, but there's also like the run around and beat guys like a beat-em-up kind of a mode in the game using the guy that you're already really good with. And I believe 3 is also the edition that introduced Huang, the South Korean kickboxing guy. And that guy is, I'm fucking unbeatable.

Horeen really good. So, yeah, I love Tekken 3. That was always one of my favorites. And I've been chasing the beat-em-up mode from that game ever since, basically. Yeah, I didn't really have a favorite, but this, I know someone's going to probably tell me this is the wrong genre, but one of my very favorite arcade games when I was a kid was a boxing game called Rink King. Rinking. Yeah, and you would just, if you hit the guy just right, you can make him spin around.

That was, I pumped a lot of quarters into that game. So technically, it's boxing. You are fighting somebody. I'm calling it a fighting game, even though I know it's not exactly. exactly in the spirit of it. A least favorite would be the injustice games for the simple fact that

we've never actually gotten a good Superman game and yet like there's a game that's been a successful series of fighting games in which Superman is evil and I've always resented that. I've always resented the fact that like it's just so easy

to make comics and to make video games where Superman is bad or in the to quote Richard prior from Superman 3. Superman's bad. But they've never actually made a good Superman game. And it makes me angry. So I take my anger out on injustice for that.

I think the answer for me is probably Shaq Fu. Do you remember this? They re-skinned some shitty Japanese fighting game. Put Shaquille O'Neal in it. It's not good. My least favorite is all of them. again, for ruining arcades, but my main least favorite one is when I was a teenager. I worked in a video store.

It was a small store where I was the only employee who was there. And at one point, the guy who owned it put a Mortal Kombat, like arcade game in there. And I then had to deal with the sort of teenagers who play Mortal Kombat all evening being in the store. And it sucked. And it made me hate Mortal Kombat very much. and also the fact that I tried to play it and I was terrible at it. I think I'm over my entire life in Mortal Kombat.

That might have something to do with it. There it is. All right, well, we did it. Took some heavy lifting, but we did it. And that's the show. Thanks everybody for listening. Thanks everybody for participating in the reindeer games that we do. And head over to the Patreon for Melchristian.

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