Puck Soup - This Is What It's All About

Episode Date: April 23, 2024

Sean and Ryan talk about the start of the playoffs, the Sabres' new coach, and the Coyotes officially changing hands. Sponsored by Hatch (hatch.co/puck)

I'm Ryan Lambert from Elite Prospects. I'm Sean McAnew from The Athletic. And we're three, four days into four days into the playoffs, I guess, as of this morning. We've had three nights of playoffs. Yep. But this is the fourth day of the playoffs. Day four. Give me, give me the, what we want to call it, like the helicopter view of how things, how things have shaken out so far.

Where you at with the playoffs? I mean, it's been. Mostly good stuff. It has been, I guess the story has been the home teams holding serve for the most part. Yeah. Long way to go. I mean, anything we say this week by a week from now is going to, at least half of it will sound ridiculous. Two days from now.

I don't know why you're giving us so much credit here. Yeah. You know? So, but yeah, no, it's, it's been good. The first weekend games were like low scoring, but mostly close. And then it sort of got a little wilder over the last little bit. So yeah, it's good. So far, so good.

Yeah, I'm enjoying it. It's hard not to enjoy this time of year. Like, I'm watching that. I'll just say it. The playoff opening game between Carolina and the Islanders sucked. It was bad. It was a bad game. And here's me watching this.

It's the greatest fucking hockey I've ever seen in my life. Wow, these guys are out there skating around, shooting the puck. What more do you want? It really is every week or every year, rather, jarring, like, how much just the intensity and the speed

and everything goes up. Like, it really is significant. So actually, let's start it there. Let's talk about the games that we watched last night. And then we'll get to the ones that are being played tonight after the break. We'll just go in the order they started last night. Toronto and Boston.

I bet you don't have too many thoughts about how this has gone. I didn't watch. I was watching. Yeah, smart. So you got it. Yeah. Again, like this is this is the playoffs, right? One of the, the only series that we're already two games into.

And it feels like we're, We've already shifted the narrative significantly between games one and two. Like, game one was a mess for the Leafs. Again, the usual Sheldon Keefe playoff start, where they just come out and look completely unprepared and get right out of the building. And then game two was the response. And, I mean, I don't think they, they look great. in game two, but they did enough.

And I, the, you know, if people didn't see the, the game last night, game two, it's one, one, very late in the first period and the Leafs just have a total meltdown in the final seconds. Unbelievable. Literally. Yeah. Yeah. Like 10 seconds left and they're trying to fly their own zone and leaving David

Pastor and I don't know if you've heard of this guy, but he's pretty good. He's pretty good. Leaving him like alone. scores a goal. And you're watching that, I think if you're a Leafs fan, probably even if you're not going, okay, well, this is,

that's it for them. Bye, bye. Yeah. That's a see you later. Yeah. And yet they, they played two real good periods after that. So credit to them.

And now, you know, back to Toronto and home ice and all of that good stuff. Yeah. It's, it's so it's sort of like, you could, see the knives getting sharpened after game one already.

Oh, yeah. And those nights have not been put away, but they've been put down, let's just say. Yeah, they're not to someone's throat right now. They're just kind of like, I'll do it. That sounds, that sounds about right. Yeah. I wrote about this over the weekend because I saw, I saw your tweets about the game specifically, and then, you know, I follow enough Leaf fans where I was just,

like, yeah, man, nobody gives a shit about what this team does for the next, like, three weeks, really. Like, if they win, if they get out of the, I would say, first round, everybody's like, well, they did it last year. So, and this Bruins team isn't particularly good, which is an, I would say, an under-discussed aspect of this series is that, like, again, I've said this all year. The Bruins got this far with Pavel Zaka and Charlie Coyle as their top two centers, you know? their defense has been really thinned out to the point where, you know, they're so scared of Matthews that they're putting, really they're only two legitimately very good defensemen on the same pair. And they're doing this like, I'm just going to go ahead and say it, dumb-ass goalie rotation. Yeah, let's talk about that. Sure.

I, look, I know, I saw the headlines. after they lost last night. The reason they lost is not the goalie rotation. Sure. Okay. Great. You know, I'm willing to entertain that.

Again, I don't think this is a particularly good Bruins team. I think the Leafs have outplayed them in both games. Or, you know, for large enough stretches of both games that it should probably be a one-nothing or a one-one series or maybe even two-0 Leafs. And, of course, you know,

the Leafs have their own problem, so it's not. I just Jeremy Swim, what do you make 39 saves in game 1, 40? Something like that. And you're just like, yeah, it's fucking Allmark's turn. I get it because they did it all year. Yeah.

But. So let me. They tried to trade Allmark. They tried to trade Allmark and he said, no, I don't want to do that. And they said, oh, okay, you never mind them. So let me come at this from the other side. Yeah. They did it all year.

Mm-hmm. And also, infamously, last year in the first round, they didn't do it. And it, and it bit them. They tried to go all mark the entire series, and it kind of fell apart there. And, I mean, he was the Vesina winner last year. It wasn't. Sure. But they clearly...

It was the Vesna winner because he won a lot of games, though. You know what I mean? Sure. But they do it all year this year. Yep. Now, if they go away from that, in game two of the playoffs, doesn't that seem a little, it doesn't feel a little desperate if they...

I, you know me, Sean. I'm a big both sides guy. Yeah. And I do see both sides of it. But to me, they're only letting you play a maximum of seven games against the Toronto Maple Leafs here. You know what I mean?

and I yeah it like the problem is for them it's so it makes it just so fucking easy to second guess any loss right you know what I mean like but but that would have happened if they like if they had gone to swayman last night and well no I'm saying like the strategy writ large yeah makes it easy to to second guess any loss because you're like well last guy he fucking won you know but what I'm I'm I guess I guess what I'm saying is it's not like Jeremy Swam and stopped 16 of 18 and they won four to two or whatever with an empty net. He stopped, again, 39 or 40 and gave up one goal. And he was he was the best player on the ice in that game, in my opinion. Right. And so to take the guy who was the best player on the ice off the ice, again, Look, I get it. The Bruins only scored twice or only scored one.

I think it was once at five on five. I get that. Sure. Yeah. You need more goals than that against Ilya Samsona. I get that. But it just makes it so easy to second guess. And it's not like, you know, the Austin Matthews game winner who's fucking nobody's stopping that.

That was an insane goal. You know, it was a very strange moment for me. What's that? When that play happened. Domi lobs the pass and suddenly Matthews has the breakaway with eight minutes left in a playoff game,

I'm sitting there as a Maple Leafs fan and I was like he's gonna score. Oh yeah. I'm like, this is going to. Which is a very weird level of confidence to it. It kind of speaks to how good Matthews has been this year especially

because that's not, this will shock you. That's not really my instinct to do. Sure. But, yeah, I still, I'm fine with the goaltending day. Now, obviously, people are going to go, yeah, he's a Leafs fan. Of course, he's happy that they, that they did it. But to me, I mean, if you've got a plan, you don't abandon the plan after one game.

I get it. If things aren't going well, you certainly don't abandon it when you're up in the series. Now, game three, obviously you go swimming. Yeah. Game four becomes interesting. Sure. Because there's two scenarios, really. Either you lose, and now you're trailing the series and all the pressures on you,

or you win, in which case, presumably Swayman played well. Either way, there's now it, like as the series goes on, I think you have to think about sticking with one guy. Totally. And here's the issue. So let me give you two scenarios. What happens if Swamen, let's say tomorrow night, he gets 28 saves on 30 shots, Bruins win 3 to 2. Do you go back to him game 4? Or what happens if he has 39 saves on 41 shots and the Bruins lose 2 to 1?

one. I have one of those scenarios. Keeping in mind that there's an extra game before and after game four, which maybe influences things as well. An extra game or an extra night. An extra night, sorry. Yeah, okay. That's actually, they're playing game three and a half.

Game three and a half. This is going to be a big one for me. So my instinct is if you win, then you, then you, no, I'm sorry, if you lose, then it just makes it so easy. to just go, okay, now it's, now it's all Mark's turn. Right? No matter. Even if he plays well? Even if he plays well. Because you're like, look, he played well, but, you know, we're going to dance with who we came to the dance with, you know, we got to, we got to, we got to

keep up the rotate, the rotations worked all year. Now again, the rotation worked to get them into overtime a lot all year. Yeah. Again, the under-discussed thing about the Bruins, you know. Um, but if, if, if he, if he, if he, wins it's in no matter basically how yeah i guess you're right that like if he's bad if he's bad and they win or just mediocre any wins yeah that's right um yeah i again i i think that the problem for them is it just created a situation where it's like there's not really a good answer here's like what what you just said makes total sense to me and yet how bizarre is it that that could be the thinking which is we have a plan we

stick to the plan. If we lose, we stick to the plan. If we win, we abandon the plan. Right. That feels very strange. And again, like so much of this comes down to last year where we all dumped all over Jim Montgomery for like, oh, what a fool to start the Vezna winner every night in a series. Clearly, he should say with hindsight.

Clearly he should have put the backup in. You know, like last year, he did the complete straight ahead, basic. hockey strategy. You almost never see teams rotate goalies in the playoffs for non-performance reasons. So this is, you know, last year, but last year he didn't do anything unusual

and yet we all kind of, in hindsight, roasted him for it and made it sound like it was obvious that of course he can't start a guy seven games in a row. So, oh, maybe this is an overcorrection. But I thought, given what they did for two months. I thought starting all-marking game two was was absolutely the right call.

Yeah. And I don't know who their third string goalie is, but that's who they should start in game three. Is it, uh, is it Brandon Bussie? I don't know. It's probably someone else who's better than whoever the Leafs have. Let's just say, speaking of all this, it's a really good thing that Samsonoff was good last night, because otherwise, uh-oh. Uh-oh. Um, let's move on. I think this is a really interesting series, but I, you know, the, the, the, the Leafs are just clearly the better team, but also the Leafs. And so, and we've only, only, like I said, only two more games before our next Tuesday episode. So we got lots of twists and turns on this to.

Yep. Talk about. Um, let's move on to the other, uh, series that is up to two games. Carolina is up to nothing on the New York. and let me hit you with maybe the funniest fucking stat in the world.

Shot attempts through two games 184 to 85. They are plus 100, well, plus 99 in two games, neither of which went to fucking overtime.

It's almost like these guys were OT merchants and it's not a good team. Isn't that crazy? Yeah. And since we're on the topic of goaltending. Yeah. What do you think of Patrick Gua going with Semin Varlamov both games?

Yeah, I mean. On hand. He was the guy down the stretch, but that's the thing, right? You don't, you have Ilyosurocan and you don't start him in the playoffs. Like, I, even a. month ago, I would not have been able to conceive of a scenario, short of injury, obviously, where that could happen. Yeah, I mean, he wasn't, he honestly wasn't great in the, in the playoffs, or in the regular

season, I mean. But don't you feel like that's your chance if you're going to beat the hurricanes? So what's fucked, here's what's fucked up about this to be, right? Is a lot of Sorokin's problems in the regular season, were like relatively early on. I'm just going to pull up his March stats here because I was looking at these the other day. And in my opinion, he was, yeah, sorry, in April, rather.

932 in four games, right? So, yeah, it's like the quote unquote hot hand. But like the Islanders playing for their lives, down the stretch pretty much. And he got four starts in April, and he went 9.32. Well, what else does he have to do for you to be like, you know, who should start is the guy we're going to start paying like $8.5 million next year? Mm-hmm. You know, now granted, Varlamov is 946 and 5 starts in April.

So I get that. But if anybody's going to know a little bit about goaltending. and the psychology of it and... Sure. Patrick was the guy. Yeah, of course. So I guess you defer to him. And it's not like goaltending was a story in the two-game.

I mean, you have to go back to Sorokin now, right? Do you... Yeah, I would think. Nothing? Well, so the thing is this. I mean, I can keep reading you the stats of how this series is gone for, uh, for the Islanders. You know what I mean?

The Islanders didn't have a shot on goal for the first like 13 minutes of the first period yesterday and then scored three goals in like five minutes or something like that. And everybody's like, oh shit, the Islanders, here they are. You know how many shots or shot attempts?

Shot attempts the Islanders had in all situations in the final two periods of that game. How many? 11. Like, look, okay, you want to go back to, you want to go back to the guy who, you know, is punitively your starting goalie? I get that, of course.

What fucking difference does it make if you're getting 11 attempts in the final 40 minutes of a game where you're up three nothing or three one or whatever? That's such a devastating loss, though. Oh, for sure, but they're bad. So like. But that's, so when you are bad. or at least bad in comparison to who you have drawn as your first round opponent.

Just the nature of hockey is there's still going to be a couple of games within reach. And you just got to, you've got to steal those. Yeah. Well, so it's funny you say that because when, after game one, everybody was like,

Islanders hat, they were right there. They could, they could have stolen it. You know? And like, To me, I think that, look, we just talked about the goaltending. The goaltending is not the problem for me. You know what I mean? Like, it hasn't been good, right?

But, like, I don't look at this team and go, man, if they could just get a save, they're right there. Like, shots in last night's game were 39 to 12. I don't, I cannot look at any game like that and say, you know, who's the problem here? is the guy who's supposed to make the saves. Like, it really is that simple to me. Like, yeah, they, you know, they scored three goals in, I can look it up really quickly, but what was it? It was three goals in like five or six minutes.

Yeah, the last two coming in, what, nine seconds apart? Yeah, something like that. And we should say, like, the winning goal was not a good goal. I mean, that. No, sure. But, yeah. Okay. So this is what it was.

It was a goal at 1622, 1945, and then at the beginning of the second period, 354. So what's that? Eight minutes of hockey, thereabouts. And it's like, yep, you scored three goals in eight minutes. There you go. And then, you know, the flood happened. You know, you were looking at that levy going, this might be a problem. And then the levy broke.

You know, like, I can't, I can't get mad at the Islanders for losing these games because it's just like, they don't have the horses, man. You know? So I'm going to ask you, I'll ask this question probably for a few of these series. I'll ask this one even though I, I feel like I know the answer. Okay. The next time we talk will be the day of a scheduled game five. Are we talking about this series in the past tense? Is there any possibility we're talking about a tied competitive series?

Well, Sean, I'm glad you asked because, as I always say, this is the thing I invented. You're not in trouble until you lose at home. Oh, yeah. That's the Lambert. Everyone knows that. Yeah. You know, the Bruins are in trouble. They lost their home.

Now, they lost the Leafs at home. different thing. Are they really in trouble? You know, they're maybe in timeout. They're not in trouble. But, yeah, I mean, obviously, like, I think the Islanders can steal a game here. Like, they have the goaltending. You know, I, again, maybe they don't have the goaltending to win games where they get outshot by 27. But maybe they do also, you know. The thing boils down to for me is this. It's the same.

simple. You know how many regulation wins the Carolina Hurricanes had this season? How many? 44, most in the Eastern Conference. Okay. Tied for the second most in the entire National Hockey League. Only Winnipeg had more. You know how many regulation wins the Islanders had this year? 29. No further questions you're on. I'm going to run the numbers here. Yeah. But I feel like that's significantly fewer. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, I mean, you know, obviously there's being the team that gets to overtime and banks loser points, there's no loser points in the playoffs. But if you're a significant underdog, getting a game to overtime and hoping that the coin lands your way is not a bad way to go,

it seemed like where they were headed last night for nine seconds. Yeah, I totally agree. I totally agree. but no, that's why I'm saying, like, there's a chance, you know, next week we're talking about a game five. But the fact that we're going, you know, we could get to a game five in this one. Kind of tells you everything, doesn't it? Mm-hmm. Shouldn't the baseline be, well, we'll win one out of four or five, you know?

The extra day between games two and three probably helps the Islanders a little bit. Maybe, yeah. Settle down, but. It's just It's just You can't give up a hundred more shot attempts In two games

Than you get And have anybody go There's a chance here So let me ask this You're not You're clearly not very big on the islanders But no Carolina

I mean they're the only team up two Sure Which doesn't say all that much Considering their one of the only two teams that's had the chance to go up to. But they've looked fantastic. Have they moved up your board at all just based on what they've been doing in the Islander so far? I'd like to see them play a team that's good before I really get a, you know what I mean?

Like I thought they were, you know, one of the three best teams in the Eastern Conference probably this year. I'm not even going to say probably. It's them, the Rangers in Florida, right? in whatever order you prefer. And I mean, everybody kind of knows how I feel about the Rangers. I would say they're the three out of those. Although you want to talk about a team that's playing a bad team. You know.

But yeah, for me, it's hard for me to be impressed. Especially, like, I'll tell you what my thought was when the Islander scored that second goal. last night. Okay. Playoff ready, baby. We're back. We got it going. And, uh, yeah, I, it's just hard for me to take anything away from a series like this, how it's gone so far.

Things could change, but I'm not like optimistic that they will, you know? Vegas up one nothing on Dallas. The only other team that's in trouble, the Dallas stars. That's right. Uh, it was a fun game. Last night, first period especially. Yeah. I don't.

I mean, Dallas was my cup pick. Yeah. Even knowing the matchup they had. So I'm not right now. Am I concerned? You know, you never want to lose game one. But I feel like this is a series. It's got a lot of twists and turns to go.

Yeah, I agree with you. You need Otenger to be better. Yeah. Yeah. You definitely do. but other than that I'm not I'm not like super mad at how they played last night

Obviously you don't want to You don't want to give up all those goals And you don't want to give up a Basically you don't want to be down to Vegas early I think is what it is what it really boils down to Because that's a team that can just be like Okay well Let's just let's just ride this one out

you know, and obviously, it ended up being a one-goal game or whatever, but, you know, giving, I mean, what is the all-time record of teams scoring first in a playoff game, right? Like, it's probably pretty good. So, oh, by the way, I don't know if you know this. They said last night, I don't know if this is true, but they said last night that, like, in the playoffs, the Islanders were, like, 82. and O all time when leading by three goals at any point in a game. That's crazy. You witnessed history last night, folks.

Sure. But anyway, yeah, like, I just think, I think Dallas, in part because they played from behind for pretty much the entire game, outplayed them. You know, they had, score effects or whatever you want to say, you know?

But I don't know that score effects accounts for just how hard Dallas pushed. Again, you know what the shots in this game were? I didn't even see this as the final stat. 30 to 15. You're not going to get too many games where you out shoot someone 2 to 1 and lose 4 to 3. Yeah. Boy, that's a rough one from...

That's what I mean. That's what I mean. Gottinger to be better. Yeah, you just kind of... Same with Hella Buck, which we'll get to in a bit, but you just kind of... Go, our goalie's better than that. Yep. I can't really...

Look, okay. I guess we have to talk about and people will scream at us if we don't. I could not give less of a shit about Mark Stone coming back from injury. I just can't care about it, man. Mm-hmm. You know, like,

they followed the rules. The league could have said, like, this is bullshit at any point. And they didn't. And this is a key distinction that I think we talked about before, is there's a difference between healthy and healthy enough to play hockey. Yep. And, yep, game 82.

He was probably healthy enough to play hockey. But there's that gray area between healthy and healthy enough to play hockey that Arkstone was just in. And plenty of other teams were just in, you know, plenty of other players for other teams were just in, you know, your coochroves and your Patrick Keynes, like, you know, look at the historical examples. But to me, like, I'm, I'm kind of in the, if you ain't cheating, you ain't trying, can't. If your owner's willing to eat the money, my hat's off to you, you know? Yeah.

I get why people are frustrated, but at a certain point, like, you're just, so, if, it's a, You know, it's like, and I see this as a least fan every year, right? It's like being mad that, oh, this team, the playoffs start and this team commits penalties, and they don't get called. Yeah, that's how the playoffs work. You know, I get why it's frustrating, but yeah, they're going to cross-check guys and get away with it. That's welcome to the NHL. Same deal here.

Like, we've seen this year after year with different teams. It's the league could do something. don't. There doesn't seem to be any huge appetite. So, like, I mean, move on. And yet, I guess the one thing I'll say is it is fun to have a villain and the fact that the Golden Knights seem to have emerged as the team that everyone loves to hate. Sure.

And you know why that is? Because they do shit like this and then they win the Stanley Cup. Like, that's why everybody's like, fuck these guys. I get it. That's fine. Yeah. You know, it all, it all, uh, it's the. it's the Rick Flair thing.

Or the Eddie Guerrero thing. Cheat to win. You know? Like I, like I say, I just can't be mad about it. I really can't. And here's the thing. This is, I was listening to 32 thoughts yesterday. And I think, I think the way Elliot put it was the correct take on this.

He said that like, this is something that is not changing until there's a new CBA. Like it cannot change. And at that point. you will see who really has an appetite, who in the league, GMs, the players, whoever, really has an appetite to do anything about this. Yep.

And you know what my expectation is for that? Nobody. Or not nobody, but certainly not enough to even have it be a real discussion. I think when they do the new CBA in 2026, this will come up and everybody will be like, I just can't think of a better solution. It'll be like everything else.

It will depend on whether one of the GMs who's allowed to talk has a bug up his ass about it. So if Mark Stone scores 10 goals in this series and including the Game 7 overtime winner, and Jim Nill is one of those guys who is allowed to actually speak at these meetings and he carries that grudge with him, then that's how. how it'll get brought up. But it's not going to get brought up just because this meeting of GMs and whoever else goes, you know what, I've been thinking about what's in the best interest

of this sport. And here's where I think this winds up. I mean, it's just, and as by now, you've probably read half dozen different articles saying that there is a process here. There is, you know, the league does look into this stuff. It's not like you can just send a guy home and be like, hey, wink, wink, you're hurt. Like, the league does need to look at it. But the guy had a ruptured spleen. Like, what? They're going to rush them back?

Like, I'm not sure what people want to have happened here. Force them to use Mark Stone in game 82 and, what, like, wave nine guys to fit them under the cap? No, I think what people want is, okay, you didn't play game 82. You can't play game one. I think that's what people want. Again, that if you think this is such a huge problem that it needs like that kind of a solution, I think that's the simplest one.

And like it makes sense to me that you would do it that way. But, okay, then he has a big game too. Oh, this is bullshit. You know what I mean? Like there's no, like how far do you want to move the needle on that? I, you know. And the other thing I'll just say real quick, only because I've seen it bunch of times.

Making the salary cap only apply to your roster, like the 20 guys in your lineup, not the roster. That doesn't work because that just means more money in the system, which means more escrow to get back down to 50-50 and nobody's happy. It's the same thing about people go. And go on the surface, it sounds like that would be the easy fix,

but it doesn't. Yeah, and people also are saying, you know, uh, We need to just have the salary cap apply in the playoffs. I'm telling you right now, folks, you don't fucking want that. You do not want that. Yep. Imagine the Stanley Cup final and some team can't use a rush.

I mentioned they can't dress a full roster. Oh, sorry, we're over the cap. Yep, that's exactly right. In a point of the season where we can't make any roster moves. Can make no changes. That's, yeah. And especially because, like, Like, you know, you're carrying, you know, black aces are a thing in the playoffs, right?

Specifically because the salary cap doesn't apply. Teams are carrying like 40 guys by the end of the season a lot of the time, you know? And like, yeah, you just can't, you cannot have that be the way it works. There'd be a way to do it. And maybe they wind up there, but it's not as simple as people think. And it's just question of if there's the appetite. And until they change it, Vegas isn't doing anything wrong. Yep.

That's right. All right. One last game from last night. Let me just, can I read the summary that you sent me of this series? Sure. It won't take long. It's only three words. Kings are dead.

Kings are dead. Yeah. They have no answer for this. Again, like, could they win two, three games? Sure, they could. But if they play like that, that it is fucking over man. If they play like that, they being the king, sure, but just they being the oilers.

I mean, that was just... No, I didn't mean the Oilers. Yeah. Sorry, I met the Oilers. No, they were just like, okay. Would did McDavid have five assists? Five assists, yeah, that's right. Zach Hyman hat trick, like so, so casual.

Yeah. The hat trick, you know? Three goals traveled. the distance of four feet. Yep. Actually, that's not true. Was it his second one? He just fucking ripped it?

Yeah. I think it was the second one. Look, you don't want to give up four goals, obviously. But, you know, they scored seven. And folks, can we talk about, can we talk about my friend, Sean the Sear? Can we talk about my friend Mystic McIndoo? Let's do it. What did you write in your predictions for this game?

I wrote in my pre-playoffs rankings. I did five oddly specific predictions, and I said that the Oilers would score seven goals. Bam, what was the other one you got right? And the other one was I said Mark Stone would score the first goal. Oh, folks. In the Vegas series. Two for two.

How does he do it? Two for two. I also one of the other ones on that list was Austin Matthews Hattrick in game. four. So just throwing it out there. What were the other two again? Remind me? Well, the other two was, I had, I said that either the islanders or predators would

win a game seven. So that's not looking great for the islanders to start with. And then I think the other one I said was, I said some goal is going to have a shutout in game one and not be the starter by the end of the series or the end of the playoffs, which I guess is off because there hasn't been a shutout. No shut out. No shout out to no overtime games. Yeah, no overtime.

That's not. But I did say seven holes. I didn't say at least seven. I didn't say around seven. And shout out to Warren. Shout out to Warren Fogel for dropping that last second empty netter in to make me look good. Oh yeah. We didn't talk about this.

Speaking of empty netters. You're just not allowed to score them anymore, I guess. Was it Brock Nelson? I don't know. It was explained to me that. only the stupid leaves care about that. So, uh, yeah, I don't know. Just, yeah, we had another, we had another assassination attempt.

Massive suspension incoming. Yeah. I don't really have a ton to say about this game just because like, I don't know, it was getting late. My eyes kind of glazed over when it was, the one thing I would say is, like, getting ugly. So the oilers come out flying. They're up to nothing for cinema. mission. They're up 4-0 by the halfway point. L.A. to their credit, chips away, gets a couple of

goals, and then the end of the second period. Trevor Moore's like, you know what I'm going to do is I'm going to take a penalty here? And let the oilers start the next period with a power play, fresh sheet of ice. And yeah, guess what? If it's me, I... Bouchard to McDavid to Dracidal. Thanks very much for coming out, L.A. Kings. Yeah, what did the oilers end up as? on the, on the power play. Three for four. Three for four.

The number of power plays you can give the Oilers in the playoffs, max, I would say, is two. You can give them two. Yeah. You give them four. Lights out.

Just when you hit the fourth one, they should just end the game. Everybody go home. You cannot, you cannot have a situation where, you're giving them eight minutes of power play time. Mm-hmm.

I, you know, they led the entire game they ended up with 45 shots on goal. This is, it's really tough, right? Like, the one draw

the Kings really didn't want out of all this is the fucking oilers again. They get them. And it's the same problem. We don't know how to contain these guys. And it's tough because if you, like on the one hand, you know, this is why we have this playoff format that nobody seems to like is so that you would get the same matchups over

and over again, build rivalries that way. And these seems seem to not like each other, which is cool, which makes it fun. But, I mean, again, it's one game. I don't want to get too far ahead. But if you're the Kings, if you lose to the same team three years. years in a row. I can't even think how many times that has happened in the cap era. I know it happened to the senators with the leaves. It happened to the Oilers and the stars. But even those, I'm not sure if it was first round every time. Like, I mean, that's just like, this team is in your division. You play them three times in a row. You lose each time in the first round. Like at some point, you're like, what's our path here? How do we, you know, yeah, we've got some good young players. We've been doing the rebuilding. It's all, you know, it's good. A lot of things going right in L.A. Great.

Who cares? We've got this monster blocking the door out of this division and we can't get past the monster. Right. It's tough. Yep. You know, again, like they're the oilers. I do expect there to be slightly more twists and turns in this series just because, like, again, you know, Kings aren't going to get whistled for that many penalties all series, right?

Right? Gets to a team that's faster than you. Yeah. Yeah, maybe. It's tough, man. But at least Pierre-Luc Dubois scored. Yeah. That contract's going to be working out great.

They got, they went and got him to be the two-way guy that can shut down. Yep. Anyway. It scored a real big goal to make it six-three with three minutes left. Yeah. Yeah, that is the thing, right? Yeah, you can say, oh, the Kings scored four goals. Two garbage time.

Who carries goals? And yeah, I mean, you're going to, that's what you're going to try to build on everything. Yep, no, for sure. But, yeah, and Cam Talbot, not great. Got shelled with shots, but, I mean, that wasn't. You know, it's Cam Talbot. That's it. Who's surprised?

And that's NHLLLB. And he had a good year, too. He had a good year. But, you know what he didn't do is play the Oilers every other night all season, which is what he's going to do now. Play angry. You know what, like, Carter McDavid. seems like a guy who's like mad

that he got 100 assists and then Nikita Kutrov did it too so now he's like, all right, we're going to do 100 assists in the playoffs too. Here we go. What does that need to be? Well, five a night? Okay.

He's on pace. Yeah. All right, why don't we take a break? We'll come back and we'll talk about the other series. This week's episode is brought to you by our friends at Hatch. Do you have any problems? with your sleep schedule, anything that prevents you from getting into a nice bedtime routine.

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Rangers and the Capitals. Yeah. I went out on a limb, man. I picked the Capitals everywhere. Not because I thought they were going to win, but, you know, I liked, I'd like the value. I felt like, there's always something crazy. I feel like the Capitals kind of fit that profile of the team that nobody would give a chance to that could maybe do something. And I'd look smart if it played out.

I'm not looking smart so far, Ryan. No, no, no, no. They look like they're. are not as good as the New York Rangers. Only there had been some hint to this. Yeah, I thought they were maybe a little better than I expected them to be, honestly. At least in terms of like, you know, the flow of play and all that, but this is just a team that doesn't have any finishing talent and, you know, their goalie's Charlie Lindgren. I know, look, I know Charlie Lindgren so hot going into the playoffs, but who was it last?

year that had to ride their goalie like insanely hard down the stretch and then when the playoffs started he had nothing in the tank. Oh, I'm not sure. I'm not, but maybe it was two years ago. There was just a recent example of like a team that was like, yeah, we got to play this guy, you know, 16 of the last 18 games just to get into the playoffs. Okay. And kind of feels like that's what happened with the Capitals, doesn't it?

Quite possible, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Three goals in two minutes. in that one. All even strength. Matt Rempe or Temi Panarin and Jimmy Visi, really covering the spectrum of different types of players that can...

We're never going to stop hearing about Matt Rempe now. It's never going to... It's the Adam Graves thing. We're just... Yeah, you know, he had that one season, you know? Mm-hmm. And we'll just never hear about the... They're going to...

The NHL network 20 years from now is just going to be like, let me tell you about the time Matt Rempe played for the new... I know. I get it. He's a young kid. I hope he has a long and great career, but even if he doesn't, like he's going to... Like, buddy, you're drinking for free in New York City for the rest of the day. You will be doing the bad.

I don't know where Jeremy Lynn's at these days, but give him a call and you two run this town. Yep. Is he going to fight Tom Wilson at some point? Really feels like we're headed in that direction, huh? I was actually surprised her with, like, I thought the Rangers still held a big grudge against Tom Wilson. And maybe they do, and it's just when you're the number one seed, you don't have to worry about it. Yeah, they really spent a lot of that game going, come on, man, you're, you were minus 37 this year. We don't have to pretend.

Mm-hmm. That's what it boils down to for me, I guess. Yeah, they I'm not giving up yet I'm not giving up on my cap's pick But What I was going to say is apart from that time They gave up three goals in two minutes or whatever

I thought it was a pretty even game Yeah You take away the absolute worst stretch that they had Yeah Look You spot any team three minutes Or three goals in two minutes That's not going to make you look good

You know what I mean? But I think what really kind of illustrates where this game is at for me is the Rangers like tried to let the caps back into it. They, they, you know, took some stupid penalties or whatever. And they were like, after you, sir. And the capital's, no, no, after you. You know, like, when Martin Farivari is your only goal score. and like Alex Ovechkin held without a shot on goal for his, for the first time in his career in the playoffs,

I think is the stat. You just look at this Capitals team and you go, so who's going to score on Shusirkin? Yeah. Who is it? Who's going to get past Adam Fox? Look, again, I've said this before. I think the Rangers are kind of a little,

bit of a smoke and mirrors team in terms of how they win all their games in the regular season. And the last couple of years, why don't you go ahead and tell me the number of number one goalies they've beaten in the playoffs? I'll give you a hint. The answer is zero, you know? I feel like I've heard that. Yeah. And like, this is just such a, this is why you try to win as many games as possible in the

regular season, I guess is the point, right? Like they got a very favorable draw, but they got that favorable draw by winning the president's trophy. I say it all the time. President's trophy, winning that is like such an underrated thing to do. It's so impressive to be the best team after 82 games. The problem is, much like winning the Stanley Cup. Only one team gets to do that every year. And because of the way hockey works, it's very hard for a team that has the best 82 games to then also have the best.

25 games or whatever they play in the playoffs, right? So people look down their noses at winning the president's trophy. It's, again, super impressive thing. And it confers upon you, at least in the first round, the easiest possible path to, to, you know, win a series. And I don't know that I think you'd have to go pretty far back in history to find a president's trophy winner who's playing a worse opponent than. than these capitals, right? Like, you'd have to go back to when, you know, a team was making the Norris Division.

It was, was it the Norris that was always so bad? Mm-hmm. Yeah. You know, like a 56-point team is, is playing the Norris Division champion. Who had 78 points and then. Right.

The winner, but like that's, their teeth kicked in by the Oilers. Yeah. And so, I don't know. To me, it's just like, even if I don't think the Rangers are the actual best team in hockey this season, I think it's playing out pretty much how I expected. Yep.

I don't have much else to add other than if the capitals do win. Remember, I picked them. Otherwise, we never had this conversation. That's exactly right. Florida and Tampa. Good series, good opener. Fun game, fun game. Good statement by the Panthers.

Six more of those. This is another one where we talked about with Emmett in L.A., but, like, Florida's got to win this series. Yeah. You can't lose to the lightning again. Like, the little brother has to be big brother now. Yep. And good start.

Good game. I mean, they didn't blow their doors off by any stretch, but good start for the Panthers. Yeah, look, to, me, I, they held the lightning to 19 shots. That's a recipe for success. Even if you're sitting there saying, you know, oh, the lightning have so many weapons, they definitely do. And I, I wouldn't even say like Florida played an unbelievably good game or anything like that,

like to get them to only get 19 shots on goal. But they just got to do enough to win. And I think the, the crew. thing is 19 shots, but like, I didn't see the lightning racking up a lot of high danger chances. You know what I mean? Like that was really what it boiled down to for me is. And this is what Florida did last season, right? Like they were just like, oh, you're not getting to the middle of the ice.

Have fun out on the perimeter. We're not letting you in here. And I wonder if Tampa has the horses to break that this year. I'm not sure that they do. Yeah. I mean, it's Tampa. No one's, no one's ever counting them out.

But. No, for sure. On paper, floor is the better team. I don't think there's a much question. It's, I mean, some of it's going to be,

how much can Nikita Kuturov do? He's been in Beast mode all season long. Can have one of those series. I mean, I don't know that. But, you know, Florida's got that great defensive first line. It's true. Two-way, you know, match-up first line that they can use on home ice at least. Yeah.

Obviously, you get to Tampa and you can try to avoid that. And I mean, I would say Kutrov was good in the game. But I don't know that he was great. And the thing you've got to say is they needed him. to be beyond great to get to this point, where they're the underdog, or the lower seed, I should say, against Florida, you know? It's not quite, I mean, for obvious reasons, it's not like when Taylor Hall won that, won the, won the heart, you know?

But he was far in a way, the best player on a team that has, usually gotten like unbelievable contributions from multiple players at the same time, whether it's, you know, Vasilevsky went psycho, headman had a Norris caliber season, Kuturov, Stamcoast, point, like go down the list, right? And he more this year was just like hop on boys, I'm driving, you know? Yep. Not that you necessarily expect Nikita Kucharov to be like the guy who generates the offense single-handedly. Zero shots on goal at five-on-five.

Yeah. Four attempts on. Now, I didn't see. Was he up against the Barkov line? Yeah. Yeah. That's, that ain't good for Tampa. You know what?

I'll go ahead and agree with that. Yeah. Go out with the big takes in this show, folks. Mm-hmm. No, it's, these are two good teams. Again, I think Florida's probably the best team in the Eastern Conference on paper. But, you know, it's totally plausible that Tampa wins tonight. Like, I'm not, I'm not by any stretch of the imagination counting Tampa out.

I just think they need more from Kuturov and point. And then whatever else happens, happens, you know. But if you're counting on Vasilevsky to stand on his head, I think I think those might be over, folks. Yeah, I mean, you never know. Of course. We would have said that about Bobrovsky last year. But he, for sure.

Vaselowski was, again, underlying not good last year in the playoffs. And this year. And not good in the regular season this year. Yeah. The other thing to say is, again, the Bovrovsky, the Bovrovsky of it all, like, I don't know how much of him being having really good stats in the playoffs last year was a result of him playing extremely well. Certainly he did.

But like, again, the Panthers were just like, oh, you don't get within 15 feet of that guy. Yep. Guy in Big Pats? No, no, no. You don't get to stand near him. And I think, I think at least, against Tampa, they are showing, you know, again, it's one game. But at least against Tampa, they're showing, yeah, we're not, we're not letting you do that, man.

Six shots from high danger areas in game one for Tampa. That's not enough. Nope. That simple. Vancouver and Nashville. Everybody's upset pick. Kind of look that way for a big chunk of game one and then. Yep.

Do you want to read what I've done? wrote down for this game? Yes, I do. Okay. Oh, I thought you were going to read it. Okay, I'll read it. After game one, how do people who watch these games think either of them are especially good? Yeah. I didn't watch that, I watched that game and was, again, two teams going, no, no, no, we insist. You win this one.

Yeah. You know? It's tough. I, you know, I think. The better team won, certainly for me. Vancouver, I would say, grand scheme of things, had the very slightly better game. But I also think that happened with Soros, not playing his best.

I think that happened with basically a no-show from anybody offensively for Nashville. And I think that happened with Yossi looking only kind of okay. And my question, if I'm a Vancouver Canucks fan, is how likely is it that those three things happen again and that we can, you know, because that we can like capitalize on that because again, like, they needed that late explosion to, to win the game. Yep. I mean, the flip side of your Vancouver fan is they didn't have much offensively either. No, that's what I mean. So what are the odds that that continues? Like you're going to feel pretty good that you're not going to have 22 shots or whatever was most nights.

Yeah, shots were 22, 21. Yeah, I mean, it was a pretty, it was a low event game, which in theory, I would argue, plays more into Nashville's hands, and yet Vancouver won the game. So I think you feel kind of good about the fact that, you, you know, you. you got lulled into playing their game and still won. And now it's got to be okay. Now we play our game. Yeah, sure.

I wonder how much Vancouver can really dictate the terms, as they say. You know, if they couldn't do it in game one against, you know, the biggest game in Canucks' recent history by a lot, I would argue. and they just they were just like they should have been ready to run through brick wall and they were just like man well we'll get a run to win in this one I guess the the the predators let him back in yeah and it it should not have been that way you cannot basically you can't get held to to 21 shots on goal on home ice and expect to win that's the game you're supposed to win You got the matchups and stuff, you know?

Yep. Yep. I mean, I don't disagree with you, but this is also still the, you know, much, it's like a lower decibel version of the Islanders game where it's like, all right, that's the game you got to steal if you're going to pull off this upset. Totally. If you're Nashville. It didn't happen. Yeah. It's a long way to go, but.

And you're not, if you're Nashville, you're not like, you know who's going to be. who's going to be the guy who like beats us really is Dakota Joshua. Yeah. He went psycho in that game. He was awesome. He did. The Dakota Joshua game. You know, call it anything else.

Could you? I don't think so. Nope. But yeah, again, like just two teams that have some pretty obvious flaws, I think, is how I would put it. And I don't know what the, what the shelf life is for either. of them. But, yeah, I guess you just want more entertaining hockey is what it boils down to. Yeah, well, as a neutral fan for sure, yes.

Oh, I'd say they can get there. Vancouver. I guess if you're a Nashville fan. That's right. If you're a Nashville fan, you're happy with how game one went apart from the score. Right. Yeah, that's fair. If you're a Vancouver fan, you really want more exciting hockey than this.

You cannot be sitting there happy with 21 shots on goal. That's all. That's it. One last one here, Colorado and Winnipeg. What I wrote down for this one was LMAO. Yeah. I think you nailed it. Tell me what I'm telling lies, folks, you know?

An insane game. Just bat shit crazy from start to finish, basically. Yeah. Very cool. Oh, yeah, extremely cool. I had a blast with it. Yeah. I tweeted out it was the first 7 to 6 playoff game since 2006 and the first regulation won in since 85.

Now, I don't know if you're a big hockey historian, but if you're talking about first of anything since 1985, you know something pretty crazy happened. Yep. You know it either involves a lot of games or somebody doing cocaine on the bench or both. That's right. What do you do? that they're... What do you even... I think you...

They have to go back you know, the same goalie and all that. Like, they have to. Yeah. Because... As much as he sucked, he's not going to suck that bad. You know? And basically you're like, if we score six goals and put 46 shots on net,

we're going to win like 95% of those games. Game one happened. to be the one we don't. You know? Yeah, the flip side is, how many times are you going to score six goals on Connor Hallibuck in the playoffs? That is indeed the flip side. Are you going to score six goals on him the rest of this series? Yeah, no, for sure.

The way this game played out just opened so many questions. The story in Colorado, if people aren't aware, and you're going to have to help me on pronunciation here, but... Okay. Eustace Aniton, Annen, sorry? I think it is just justice. Yeah, really? I think so.

Justice Annen. There you go. Yeah. It's the Supreme Court. He is the Colorado backup. He is 24. He was good this year in backup duty, which is to say he played against bad teams and all that stuff. He apparently is sick.

Yes. So even if they want it to go to the backup, they can't do that. They would have to go to the backup's backup. Who, we could see them, but they haven't, as we're doing this, as we're recording this, they have not said who they're starting, but. Right. I would assume it's your give. And by the way, I was informed.

It kind of has to be. I was informed by cut. Well, unless I'm, it's so bad. I understand. How short is the least the least. on him, do you think? It depends on if Annenin can go. If Annen can't go, they don't have another option.

That's why he stayed in game one. You don't think they wanted to pull him at some point? Like, what's his name? Arvid Holm was their backup? I'm scrolling here. He played 12 games in the AHL this season. I think probably was an 887 goalie. the third string who did play in the NHL this year,

but didn't play well. Right. I don't, like, I mean, if he gets beat on the first two shots of the night. Tough shit. Like, I, you just, yeah. Their backup goalie for game one, played 16 games between the AHL and the ECHL and had a sub-900 save percentage. And yet. is that guy better than an ice cold

than a guy where you're like, you know, I'd really like him to get to 700 a guy that everybody all year was saying like this is the one flaw on this incredible championship caliber roster who goes out in game one and just absolutely

gets lit up. Yeah, no, look, I get the argument. I just don't think you can put in a guy who has never played in the NHL against in a road playoff game for his first NHL appearance. I don't think you can do it. Again, all they, literally what they needed last night, or two nights ago, I suppose, is their goalie to be 700 save percentage. He was 696.

He makes one extra save. He's over 700, obviously. and they at least get to overtime, if not win the game. Right. And as bad as I'm concerned that Giorgiyev is, will be, whatever you want to say, I'm pretty confident that I can get him to like 800. Yeah. And then, you know, taking all the other stuff, like, yeah, you're right,

they're probably not going to get six goals past Hellebuck, who is bad also. in game one. But shots were 4623. I think if you, generally speaking, I think if you put 46 shots on Connor Hallibuck, you're going to score enough goals to win. Even with the understanding of the Connor Hallibuck, it's the best goalie in the world.

If, just to go back to the Yor, you have one more time. Sure. If Annen is healthy, now he did not practice yesterday. Right. Which suggests that, And we're recording this in the morning on Tuesday, but it suggests that he's not available.

If he is, if he comes in Tuesday morning and says, I can go, I can dress tonight. Do you put him in to start? Maybe not to start, but the leash is like one bad goal, or one early goal, perhaps. Has anyone ever been pulled after one goal for performance? Oh, I'm sure. Yeah.

No, I don't think they have to have. One goal. I mean, to say it's never happened, I don't know, but one goal? I feel like it's happened. It didn't, geez, was it Nashville? Did they pull Peca Renee a few years ago, obviously? In like a, I remember this was like the Dave Lozo, like treat it like your manager managing a bullpen in the World Series. Like you just one time through the order and then we go with it.

But I don't know. That would be interesting. Yeah, I learned from Colorado fans that they've been calling him for Giev all year. Yeah, he has not been good. Yeah. Is it good when you have a mean nickname and you are almost twice as bad as the mean nickname? That feels bad. That feels like not a great sign.

Yeah. This doesn't seem like it's something that's easy to Google. So I'm not going to have an answer for you on when's the last. time it happened. Fair enough. But yeah, again, like, I think if you're the avalanche, it's a real trust-the-process thing, where it's like we're not going to give up seven. And yeah, we might not give up or we might not score six most nights either. But if you outchute your opponent two to one and you get up over 40 shots on goal, you're going to win most of your games.

Hellibuck could go psycho. Like, again, that is the under-discussed thing about that game. was, Hellebuck was awful. It's not like, oh, Colorado scored six tap-ins where it was a two-on-one and Hallibuck had no chance. He was awful. And I don't think that's very repeatable, let's say. But I think you just got to trust the process if you're the Eves. That's fair enough. Although, didn't Winnipeg, like, kill them in their most recent games, is that?

Am I remembering that right? I did regular season. I don't. Yeah. I don't know. That's what I mean. Anyway. But yeah, I think it's, I think it's just, you know.

And worse comes to worse. Yorgiev has another terrible game. You bring in Anthony DiAngelo for a little, a little pep talk. Mm-hmm. Do we start the DeAngelo was right? I've already seen it. Yep. Maybe he had a point.

I'll say. About. punching Yorgiev. Let's make that clear. Please don't take that out of cost. This guy had a lot of good points. Or was it the other way around? Did Yorgiav punch him? I think, oh yeah, he told Yorgiav to make an F and save. And Yorgiav punched him.

That's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which? But yeah, look, you know, the good news is that if you do feel like you need to pull your goalie, you're basically saying, man, fuck it. Who cares? game two. We'll say, though, you're not in trouble yet. That's right.

All right, let's move on. There were some other NHL news this week. We'll wrap it up with this. Number one, the Buffalo Sabres hire as their head coach. Why are you laughing? The Sabers hired a respected veteran coach, and you're laughing. Okay. Well, I'll say that.

this. So when the Sabres made the coaching change, you know, hats off to you, fair enough. I can't, I can't argue with that, right? Yeah. They made the coaching changes. Don Granado just wasn't getting as much out of, uh, out of the boys as you would have liked. And as soon as they, like, I, what is it? Like a week and a half ago or whatever, the name Lindy Rough came up and I'm like, there's no fucking way they're not hiring Lindy.

If his name's out there, that's who the hire is. Lock it in. guaranteed, and here we are. Here we are. There is a surprisingly long history of NHL teams bringing back coaches. But the timelines here are longer than you normally see. Yeah. Both in terms of how long he coached the first time,

which was an unusually long tenure for anyone. And then what's it been, 10 years? A little more than that. Yeah, I think it was the 12th. They fired him in the middle of the 12-13 season, so it's 10 and a half, 11 years, yeah. I'll say this. This is a guy who,

was he coach of the year last year? I don't think so. He would have been one of the finalists. He was a finalist. I don't think he won last year. Okay. So he, he. It is somebody who has had recent to say this is they're not bringing back a guy who hasn't even coached in four years or eight years or whatever and you know Jim Montgomery won last year sure okay that makes sense um he didn't you know they're not just bringing in somebody off a golf course as I sometimes say and going look it's the guy that you like remember him um he said significant success very recently

And even this year, I don't think he did a bad job. I don't think anyone looked at Jersey and said that's purely a coaching issue, although he couldn't overcome the health and goaltending. Do you want me to read you the quotes from the GM who fired him? Sure. Okay. Poor starts chasing the game all the time. Breakdowns in front of the net.

All these things add up to losses. Those have to change. I could not ignore that at this point. Now, look, is he kind of alighting? Oh, and also my goalies couldn't make a fucking stop if their lives depended on it. Yeah, he definitely is. And we had arguably the worst injury luck of any team. Yep, there is also that, and I think that might have been acknowledged.

And the devil's players, like the younger guys, you're just for brats and your Jack Hughes's, were like, this sucks, man. Like, yeah, I get. I think basically they were like, yeah, I get it. Like something had to change. But like, that guy made me the player I am today. Now, some of that, I would argue, is just like, well, he happened to be around when you went from like age 20 to 24 or whatever. He happened to just be the coach at that time.

Sure. But like, okay, this is why I think this is an argument, like a borderline indefensible hire, not just a weird one, but like one that I flat out, you could not explain it to me in a way that it's going to make sense. Okay. Is, okay. What did all the, what did all the savers players apparently say when they let Granado go? We're terrible. They said, we want more accountability. Right?

And we need to, we need to take that step as players. Again, when Kevin Adams fired Granado, again, these are quotes. We didn't play well enough. There needs to be a. accountability across the board. We need someone that can push this group to the next level, someone to provide accountability and structure. Apart from the goaltending, which obviously I would say is probably the main reason

Lindy Ruff got fired, I would argue that the younger guys did not take the steps that they probably needed to take to make up for the goaltending situation. and the coach just didn't have an answer for how to ring more out of that roster, right? Okay. How do you, is the Buffalo Sabres, with a younger roster, look at Lindy Ruff, whose team finished below you in the fucking standings and go, this is the guy that's going to fix our problems? So let me ask the obvious question that I think we know the answer to, but if Lindy Ruff is Lindy Ruff? but he hasn't previously coached the Buffalo Sabres, including coaching them to their only Stanley Cup final.

What was that, please? It started with a one. Okay, sure, thanks. Sorry, what was the last part of that question? Like, is Lindy Ruff, the new coach of the Sabres, is he even a candidate to be their coach? Is this purely a case of, hey, you guys like this guy from the past? Right.

Yeah, I think here's what I think. I think he's maybe a candidate, but I think the other candidates that are, that were out there. Let's say you're, you're Craig Barubby, Dean Eveson, Jay Woodcroft types, right? I think those guys needed a lot more convincing to go to the Buffalo Savers than Lindy Ruff would have. Okay. You know what I mean? Yeah, apparently it scrolled by as we're having this discussion. It's a two-year deal. So not a huge commitment, not a case of going out and getting the most expensive coach on the market, certainly.

Yeah. Let's see. the eighth, okay, so since the playoffs drought started, I believe he is technically the seventh coach, but only because he would have also been the eighth. You know what I mean? Like, he's the seventh different guy to be the head coach of the Buffalo Sabres on a non-interim basis

since the playoff drought started. And to me, just me, you know, kind of spit, on. If you are going through a coach more than once every two seasons, you got bigger problems than who's the coach in my opinion. Sure. And yeah, this really does feel like, who's, who's a guy that will distract our fans? Remember this guy?

Oh, didn't we lose to win all the time with these guys? Wow. I mean, I'll say this. So often when teams pull this move, it's a former player. Sure. Yeah. As either coach or GM, often a guy who doesn't have significant experience. I guess if you're going to do it, I'd rather you hire a coach to be coach.

I mean, they already kind of did the film house. You know what? You got me there. You got me back against the wall. I got nothing bad to say. Rather than them just being like, look, everyone, it's Pat LaFontaine. Yeah. Here comes Patrick Coletta, folks.

Remember him? You guys remember Dominic Hasick, right? He has had no coaching experience and he will be doing the entire. entire job from Zoom from wherever he's at. I think he's checks. And nobody can understand a word that he's saying. Yeah. Let me give you this stat.

Per 82 in the salary cap era, how many points do you think a Lindy Rough coach team has gotten to? And I will set the over under at 92 and a half per 82. See, I was going to say 95 points because he's had some good teams. So I will take over even though I feel like I'm making a sucker's bed here. The over is correct because it's 92.7. All right. There you go.

But like you say, he had some really good teams, especially those early, early Cap Era Sabres teams, really good. But I think he's gotten to the playoffs six times in the Cap era. and he's been a coach for all but like two or three seasons. Yeah. Dallas, he had one good year with Dallas. Yep. He has one good year with a lot of teams I'm starting to notice. Yeah.

You know? Now, I mean, I guess the other thing you would say is the situation that he's coming into in Buffalo. If you're Kevin Adams, Terry Pagula, whoever else, you would like to think, you would like to tell yourself that it's pretty similar. to the situation he came into in New Jersey. You would like to think that. Haven't quite put it together. And he went from not very good in the short season, not very good. And then, holy smokes.

I forgot how huge jump they made. Yep. Well, I mean, I guess if you're looking at the Sabres and going, how do we get back to the playoffs? How do we get 30 or 40 or 50 points better in the course of one year? Maybe Lindy Ruff's your your guy. He's actually done it. So.

Damn, I did not, they got improved by 49 points. Full seasons, by the way. Now, to me, 22 and 23. Is the question there not, is that in any way

fucking sustainable? Well, we all said so. We all picked them to win the cup this year. We did. Like, yeah. We're so stupid. We don't know anything.

No, we're, but like, here's the thing. I didn't think I guess people go back and fact check me and tell me I'm fucking lying or whatever

but I don't think I was like and of course the New Jersey Devils will win the president's trophy walking away because like what I'm saying is 112 points that's a great number to get to

obviously right? But you know it's kind of it's kind of the Bruins thing from last year. Okay let's say they take bit of a step back. How big of a step back is that step back?

Do you know what I mean? And I don't know. I definitely had them as a hundred point team for sure. And as you say, injury luck, the goaltending, all that. But what I think happened was we all got tricked into believing it doesn't matter who the goalie is, how bad they are. Because they didn't change who their goalies were, really. If anything, they were like, okay, Akira Schmidt, off we go, you know.

And that was based on a playoff, you know, whatever, six games in the playoffs. You're right. That's stupid by us. That's stupid by everybody to be like six games in the playoffs. We got to consider this guy a future All-Star or whatever. You know, who used to do that shit is the Buffalo Sabres. Remember when they were just like, oh, we'll give you like eight years, whatever. You had five good games in fucking April.

Wouldn't you love to have to be there for the conversation with Kevin Adams and Lindy Roth where Kevin Adams is like, you know, we got a couple of young goleys. I think we just might roll the dice on this season. Yeah. One of them probably will be fine. And Lindy just being like, okay, um, it's in my last job. Right. It's crazy how similar the profile is. Right?

Like down to They had weird injury luck this year Like the reason Tage Thompson didn't go psycho this year A lot of people in Buffalo would say Is that he was hurt for a good chunk of the season And like he missed some time But he was also playing hurt And you know what

If you want to say The only thing that kept us an 84 point team Out of the playoffs is Tage Thompson's wrist being healthy or whatever I think it was a wrist might be wrong about that. Then I don't know what to say to you. Like, yeah, a 91 point team that had a minus 37 goal difference made the playoffs this year. It's true.

But do you want to guess how many points that incredibly hot, whoa, look at how strong the future is, Buffalo Sabres team had last year? 91 points. Right? And now, so now they're hiring a coach. This is what drives me fucking crazy about this. They are hiring a coach who, yep, they had 112 points last year. The less said about this season, the better.

They are hoping that Lindy Rough can have a very similarly sized impact because they want to go from 84 points to at least around the playoff discussion. And it's the Detroit problem. It's the Ottawa problem. To a lesser extent, it's the Montreal problem. Although I will say, of course, the Sabers finished ahead of Ottawa in the standings. this year. But it's like, okay, you're going to take a big step this year.

Who are you knocking out of the top four in that division? Who are you beaten to the punch there? Yeah. That's going to be the question. And, I mean, Washington's the obvious answer. Okay, yeah, sure. But are you finishing ahead of Detroit to do it? The eyes are plan?

I think you think you are. You're Kevin Adams. I think if I'm Kevin Adams and Terry Bougoul asked me, are we finishing ahead of Detroit next year? I'm saying yes to him. Oh, sure. I mean, you're saying that. Are you believing it?

So I have to act that way, right? I can't. Yeah. If I don't think my team can beat the Red Wings who improve by three points every year until the sun explodes, that's their whole plan for making the playoffs, then what am I doing?

Like if my answer is no, I'm not going to be out of Detroit, then okay, get to work. You're the GM. It's not like the bar is unclearable here. Yeah, I just for me. I love the deflated. Like what can I say, man? Like, Jay Woodcroft's out there. Yeah.

You know, guys who, you want to talk about a guy that took a team that was like, oh, shouldn't we be better than this? And he was like, yeah. And in fact, we are. And the only reason he got fired is Connor McDavid got hurt and Jack Campbell couldn't make a fucking save. Tell me I'm wrong. I wrong. Right.

I mean, Woodcroft certainly would have been my choice over rough, but who knows what the, was he interested? What was the price? That's what I mean. Like, if I'm, if I'm Jay Woodcroft, I'm like, you want me to coach the Buffalo Savers? Yeah, no thanks. Like that would be my answer for sure. So yeah, to me, there were better candidates out there plain and simple. Just a coach that inspires absolutely no confidence for me that anything's going to change in Buffalo.

And maybe it will. But again, you know, it does kind of become the Jay Woodcroft thing of like, was he a good coach or did he coach Connor McDavid and Leon Dreisdell? It's impossible for me to say. And it's the same thing with Lindy Ruff. Was he a good coach in New Jersey or was Jack Hughes and Dougie Hamilton on that team? I don't know. Yep. Gonna find out.

We will indeed. One last thing here. We got a little bit more coyotes roundup that we'll get to. All that was official as of the end of last week, certainly since we did the last episode. And Ryan Smith is being, I would say, proactive about taking care of all this and, like, addressing players' concerns. Did you see, for example, that he was like, so what do you guys, like, want for me as an owner when he met with the team? Yeah. And number one, they were like, yeah, can our, like, wives and girlfriends have a place to hang out that's not like a broom closet or whatever?

Yeah. And he was like, oh, yeah. No, that makes perfect sense. Why do I have to put a dollar in the Coke machine? Yeah. And then the other one was, can we not stay at Motel 6th is everywhere we play, please? And he was like, yeah, what? What?

Yeah. No problem. To me, it's just, again, this is just like the difference between having a real owner and having the coyote situation the last few years. Yeah. Yeah. It's the bar was low. The bar was incredibly low.

Seems like he's doing okay. I don't know. Well, we'll get to more of that in a second. I just, I do want to briefly touch on the Alex Morello, uh, like post selling the team presser with Gary Betman. I think the word I would use for it is bizarre.

Yeah. Where one of the questions was like, hey, so all the people who made season ticket deposits for next season that, uh, you know, they're not going to commute to Salt Lake. city.

Do they get their money back? And Garry Betteman's like immediately. Yeah. And Morello was like, well, I mean, let's walk that back a little bit. Let me, what did he say? Like, let me catch my breath. Let me catch my breath, I believe is what he said, which is, huh? Man, this guy just cut you a check for a billion dollars.

How much money in season ticket deposits do you think the coyotes are holding on to right this second. A couple hundred grand, maybe. I feel like it's probably less than a billion. It's very slightly, yeah. But hey, look, you know, he's got to catch his breath. It was apparently one of the things was like on the board of governor's calls or whatever. Morella was like weirdly emotional was how I think it was being put.

Like they were surprised at how emotional he was. And look, I get the whole thing with him of like, it sucks kind of being told like you don't get to have an NHL team anymore, which is basically what happened, I think, in a lot of ways. Um, but like, how do you not know this is coming? Yep. No, agreed. And the other weird moment was when he started to go on that tangent about hating the media. and Gary Betman had to do the classic Betman, like, put my hand on your arm and shut you up move, that he usually tries, ironically, on the media.

Yes. In this case, was like, I think what he's trying to say, that's not good. When Gary Betman is, like, jumping in to defend the media, you're probably not crushing it from a PR standpoint. Yeah, I'd say that's about right. The other thing is we got a little more clarity on what it will take to get a team back in Phoenix under Morello's ownership. And I think if you were even a little bit optimistic about it, you have to really downgrade your view of this. optimistic in terms of can he get it done as opposed to optimistic in terms of and he'll do a good job when he gets the team back?

There is a lot of like kind of feeling that the door is open for him, but I don't think anyone's going to be heartbroken if he doesn't meet the criteria. Yeah, and he said basically like I'm going to need help from the local government in Phoenix. What incentive would the Phoenix government have to deal correctly with that guy? Not correctly, but like deal directly with that guy. Yeah. They really want to get into business with this dude. Yeah.

It's tough. You know, again, someone will want to put a team there eventually. I think there is some question now Not only like Will it be five years But like will he Because I think he only has three and a half years To kind of make it

Like we're going to have this team ready to go Yes And he has to have the arena 50% done by then Yeah that's right That's what that's what it is yeah Good luck buddy Yeah Hey

If he can get an arena 50% built in the next three and a half years, my hat's off to him. That shows a level of organizational prowess that you might say. Okay. That has not been marshaled under this, under his administration so far. It's a good way of putting it in.

Yeah. You know, I think, The thing you always think about, I recently rewatched the Napoleon movie. Okay. You know? And one of the things they said that made Napoleon so effective was that just like logistically, he got a lot of shit done that other people couldn't do at that at that time in the European theater or whatever you want to call it. Like, yeah, he was a good, like, tactical general, but the logistics were really good what got him over. the line right up until, you know, Waterloo or whatever.

And I don't know that this guy's Napoleon. You know what I mean? I think the logistics are the problem here and have been the problem. So we'll see. Not giving off Napoleon vibes. No, not really. So yeah. I think now we move on to the Ryan Smith administration in Utah.

And again, it sounds like he's making a good first impression. I think the players are going to, like, go up there soon and, like, have a look around. And surely the red carpet will be rolled out for them in a way that it never would have been, you know, in Phoenix. It would have been like, I could do, like, a Move carpet. Yeah. Red, you know, is that really in the budget? Dice. But I think the big news about this team in the past few days has been about the name.

Now, a lot of the names I'm seeing out there, they are simply freaking epic, okay? Some of them are alluding to some of the practices of Mormonism in a way that I think is so funny. Controversial But yeah, it sounds like for now They might not have a team name That's stupid You can't do that It is in

It's fucking insane I saw people going like Well look The PWHL didn't have team names Yeah we all ripped on that Yeah everybody thought that sucked shit Everybody thought that was so stupid No here's the thing

Is not having team names Better than the like six trial balloon team names that were unbel like comically bad yeah yeah of course that yeah of course that though like

PWHL Toronto is better than whatever I don't even remember did you see the trademark floated for for Utah like how they were all what was it like the blizzard and the freeze and like yeah they were also bad also bad to have a name man pick a name

so with all that in mind apparently I don't know if This was yesterday or the day before. It must have been yesterday because yesterday was Monday. Ryan Smith went on the Pat McAfee show and said that there will. We're in the ball cap to show that he's. He's a regular guy. He's very down to earth.

Yeah. This is the quote. We're going to, we're doing a bracket. We're going to take this down from like eight all the way down and the fans are going to vote for this. To me, I look, I can't be put in. like the freeze and the blizzard in there, unless this is the thing. You're, you're pretending, you know, you're giving like a false choice. You're like, oh, yeah, we could, we could be the, the, the, the Utah turds.

Yeah. And for seven of them. And then the eighth is like, the stags or whatever. And then it's like, oh, yeah, I guess, I guess you got me here, you know, I, I have to pick. I don't know, man. I say this is another thing. They should just put me in charge of it. I'd do a great job.

I'd bring like six really good ideas to the table, and we'd get down to a good one. What if it was teamy McTeamface? Okay, can you even say that? Wait a minute. Just have a name. But for the record, just because you and I are both agreeing,

with almost everyone else and saying, like, you have to have a name. You can't be just Utah NHL team for a year. That doesn't mean that when they do come out with a name and we go, that name, stupid. Like, you can't come back to us and be like, oh, okay, so, well, you didn't like it when they weren't going to have a name, but you also didn't like it when they called themselves the bacon whatever's, like, yeah, it's. Oh, you said you were hungry, but you didn't want to eat this shit sandwich? Yeah, yeah, exactly.

You're like, I wanted like a turkey sandwich. Yeah. That sounds more wise. Fuck you. You don't get that. Here are your options. Shit or no food. I guess I'll go with no food.

Thank you though. So yeah, it'll be interesting to see how this happens. Like, I'd love to see the timeline on this. Yep. Are they going to have whatever, like eight? Let's say it's eight, because that's the number. Ryan Smith said. And again, it's not the guy

from the Oilers, it turns out. I thought it was, but it's not. So let's say it's eight. Are they going to go, yeah, it's the stag, it's the Eagles, you know, whatever. And here's the logos or are they just going to be like,

like you said, it's Timmy McTeamface. We don't have fucking anything besides the name. Yeah. Because I imagine they do that. that, right? Because coming up with an official logo, that's an extensive process. And to do that...

I don't know. It doesn't seem like it has to be. We all know what sports logos look like. Yeah. You know? And especially because they're going to want an AHL team, have a couple extra logos lying around. We can pick one of these. You know, simple. I don't know. To me, it doesn't have to be this hard. No. Because especially if they go with the Utah NHL for season one. First of all, good luck selling no fucking jerseys. That's what I would say. But two, it's just like what that means is the one they have next year is going to be so fucking focus grouped that it'll make your head spin. It'll just come out being like the Utah one.

winners and you're like, shut the fuck, man. The Utah good players. Yeah, like, and then it'll be like, ah, they, and they wear blue because blue is evocative of winning. And you're like, okay, great. You know, the real loser on this, if they have to rush it, is going to be whatever design company was going to get to do the branding Bible. Have you ever seen a branding Bible?

They're so, they're all, they're all just like I said, like, uh, like, oh, they're They're red, and the red represents the red sands of Utah. And the blue represents the blue skies of Utah. Shut the fuck up. That your dumbest EVP comes in and is like, this is everything. Study it. Memorize it. And you're like, oh, Christ.

I mean, isn't that what they did with? The logo is kind of round, because it evokes the globe. And you're just like, guys, oh, we all hate it. Isn't that what they did with Seattle, where they're like the dark blue. is the blue of the sea, and the light blue is the blue of the sea. And you're like, uh-huh. Yeah. Great, man.

I feel like when the Bruins were, like, chose black and gold in fucking 1912 or whatever, they weren't just like the black. They were just like, oh, the black is the color of the store chain I own. And the yellow is the other color of the store chain I own. Yeah. These colors evoke the local football team, which is more popular, and so we will be stealing this. Get off the Pittsburgh Penguins back, man.

Yeah. Yeah, so I guess that's the whole show. I don't have anything else to say about all this. Thank you so much, everybody, for listening, and enjoy the playoffs. What's better, you know? Not too much. Hey, Oghawak tomorrow.

Okay, man. The annual, the big one. A lot of people have been asking for it. Let's go. Let's go. All right. much, everybody. We'll talk to you later. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.