Puck Soup - Thoughts on the First Week

Episode Date: October 15, 2024

Sean and Ryan talk about the first week of the NHL season, including pleasant surprises and unpleasant disappointments.  Sponsored by Gametime (download the Gametime app and use code PUCK for $20 off)

I'm Ryan Lambert from Elite Prospects. I'm Sean McIndoo from The Athletic. And we just had a nice long weekend. Afternoon games is what I mostly associate Columbus Day slash Indigenous People's Day slash Canadian Thanksgiving. But what's interesting to me is that the afternoon games, I was thinking about this yesterday, the afternoon games are only in America. The, was there not,

Was the King Senators game? That was in Ottawa, right? Oh, that was in Ottawa? I believe it was. I watched part of that and I guess I didn't note that. Okay, well then I retract my statement. Yeah. And I am thankful that I was not one of the goaltenders in that game.

No shit, huh? Eight, seven, the final. Nobody interested in making a stop in that one. A combined 15 goals on it says here, 67 shots. Yeah. And I was, so I was, I was traveling as that game was going on. So I didn't get to see any of it. And it wasn't until like I got home and I was doing the like scroll through Twitter. What did I miss? And I didn't realize how bad it was until I saw that it, it was either 5-4 or maybe Ottawa just made it 5-5. And I was like, wow, what a crazy game. And then somebody was like, and there's a minute left in the second period. And I thought, oh, no. And I mean, we've all seen, you know, six, five games where very little happens in the third period. Maybe there's one goal or something like that.

But this one ended eight seven. They just kept going. So like, yeah, they were just whatever the intermission speeches by the coaches were did not work. And we'll talk about this later, but I'm looking here, Darcy Kemper, uh, 33 saves on 41 shots for an 800 save percentage. There are teams in the NHL that would kill for that level of goaltending right now. That's not, I'm not even joking. That's like an actual fucking look at the numbers. There are two teams with team save percentages right now that start with a seven.

We'll talk about them later. But isn't that crazy? That is. People watched an eight, seven game and we're like, I wish we could get fucking stops like that, man. That would be great for us. It's awesome. Yeah. It was fun.

I wish every game was like that. Yeah. We used to, when I was a kid, we would very occasionally go to the Bruins afternoon game on Columbus Day. They don't call it that anymore, as I kind of alluded to. And that was always the best. That and the marathon Monday afternoon game in Boston for the Red Sox. Now is so cool as a kid. Is the October long weekend?

Is this one of those afternoon games where everybody is. very well lubricated, let's just say. No, not really. This is kind of like that vibe. This is one of those fake holidays for sure. Now, the Marathon Monday Red Sox game. Yeah. Forget it, brother.

Hmm. That is, people have been drinking since Friday, I'd say mid-afternoon. And they just straight up don't stop. That's for the real freaks out there. But yeah, this is, this is, this is a, really a fun long weekend. Like it is insofar as you don't have to go to work or school. Everybody likes that, obviously.

Sure. But it's like a, you know, it's a fake holiday that people are, it really only exists so we can be like, day off school, pretty early in the school year. It sounds good to me, you know. So, again, my big platform in life is like we should have one bank holiday or whatever you want to say every month. one long weekend a month every month. But I'm in.

Yeah. Think of all the afternoon games we could watch. Exactly. Think of all the eight, make a West Coast team play in the afternoon on the east, and they give up eight goals. Yeah, it's funny because, it's funny because, like, the Kings had a bunch of, like,

really close games recently. Well, I guess eight, seven is close, but close low scoring games. I watched the Buffalo the Buffalo Home opener against the Kings because I was just like, you know, we got to see what's going on with these savers.

This is tough stuff. So that game ended three to one. But the third goal was an empty netter. So that's a one goal game. The next game they lose to Boston in overtime on the road. These are all on the road, obviously. And then an 8-7 overtime loss again yesterday.

So, like, the Kings are getting points, and they're playing all kinds of styles. This is the one circumstance where I'm okay with the loser point. I think if you lose 8 to 7, you should get a point. Yeah, you know what? That's right. If you can both get to five goals, whatever happens in overtime, you get points for it. It doesn't even need to be overtime. If both teams score five goals, you get a loser point for scoring five goals.

Not for going to overtime in a two-one game. I love this. This is a good idea. We want to encourage offense? This is the way to do it. This is it. I'm telling you. It'll never happen, though.

You know, it's one of those things. I was thinking about this the other day, too, maybe like a week ago. Of, you know, people always say, like, well, we got to get back to the scoring. of the 80s, that kind of thing. People don't actually want that. Like, you think a Senators fan was watching that game going, it's good that this is happening, that they won by giving up seven goals?

I think a Senators fan is watching that going, this is the most fun I've had watching a Senators game in a long time. But I said earlier, I wish every game was like this. It would last about four days before you'd be like, please stop. And the other thing people forget is, in the 80s when there was an average of eight goals a game. Like, yeah, a lot of those games were 5-4, and they rocked. Also, a lot of those games were 9 to nothing.

Yeah, 6-2. Yeah, that's right. You know, the game was over in the second intermission, and you only watched the third period to see the brawls, which was kind of its own kind of fun, but, yeah. And you're not going to get that in 2025, you know? Not likely. Especially if we keep benching Matt Rampi.

Like, what are we doing? Did you see Nikita Zedorov on what chaos the other day? I did not know. He, you know, he's always a good interview, right? Yeah. And they asked, I can't remember how it came up, but they asked him about Matt Rampi. And he was just like, I felt fucking bad for that kid. He just had to go out there and fight heavyweights, like, to get into the league.

And stay there. And then, like, the way it got hyped in the local media and stuff. And then because it was New York, the national media. And so now there's all this pressure on this kid who, you know, he's just coming into the league. And he's like, I bet his teammates were telling him, you don't have to fight, man. Probably. But, but, you know, it's just, it's the same mindset of, like, when you see some, like, A HL guy absolutely destroy somewhat.

What was the line A thing? Who was that guy from the Leafs? Oh, you know what? I don't even remember. Yeah. Well, it's like one of those guys where he's like, you know, he's right on, maybe he's on the cusp of making the NHL roster or whatever. And he's thinking, again, I don't think that hit was malicious.

But like, the mindset is I got to do something to stand out. and I'm not necessarily good enough to do that, you know, by playing hockey, you know, with the puck on my stick or whatever. And, like, the pressure on these guys is immense to do that, you know? Like, the difference between making the NHL and not, even for a week before they send you back down, it's like 10 grand or something, right? Yep. So, you know, I get why, I get what Nikita Zedorov was saying about Matt Rampi, that's all. Yep. Cedric Parre, by the way, was the

That's right. And again, I don't think that was a malicious head. I'm not trying to say. But, like, Cedric Paray is maybe, you know, micro seconds going, like, if he gets by me, I'm getting sent to the AHL. So I can't let him get by me. You know? It's tough.

Anyway, I wanted to ask you about this, because we don't have this down in the good old U.S. of A. Uh-oh. There's a new Amazon broadcast in Canada. Yes. What's the story with this? So this is the new, the NHL's new streaming broadcast through Amazon up here in Canada. And last night was the first one. And I got to say, I did not tune in for the beginning of it.

But I flipped over and watched a bit. It was fine. It was perfectly adequate NHL broadcast. It was nice and easy, but I went into Prime Video, which I already had. It was right there, front page, easy to find. I was going to say one click. I think I had to answer a couple of questions about how I wanted to watch a live broadcast, but, I mean, five seconds.

And I was in. And from there, you wouldn't know that it was any different from a regular broadcast. In both senses, there was nothing weird. or unpleasant or, you know, strange about it. There also wasn't anything especially creative and, you know, anything that made me feel like, oh, this is the future. It was just the broadcast.

Yeah. And it was fine. And I think the, you know, if anything, the news out of it was, I don't know if you saw Gary Bettman's comments, but he basically said this is where we're going. Yes. Especially in Canada, we've got two years left. on the TV deal.

He essentially said this is, cable is shrinking, streaming is the future. He made it pretty clear without directly saying so, that the next Canadian deal will have a large streaming component, which for somebody like me is no big deal. If you are somebody who has streaming but you don't have Amazon or Netflix or whoever the NHO winds up with, it, then you have to make a decision. Where it becomes interesting is the people who either because they're older or maybe

where they're located, streaming isn't an easy option for them. Right. And especially up here in Canada where there's still the stereotype of, you know, crowding around the TV with the rabbit ears to watch hockey night in Canada isn't completely true, but in some parts of this country is not too far from the truth. How would the NHL handle that? Has been a question. And pretty clearly, the answer is they will handle it by just taking the most money they can get from some streaming company and grandpa's out of luck.

Yeah, I just looked this up. This is a fact I knew, but like I didn't have the exact number in front of me. As of 2022, there were like 14 million homes in the U.S. without the internet. let alone high-speed internet, you know? And like, I don't know how many of those people are big hockey fans or whatever, but it's just one of those things. That feels like, I've seen stats like that before, and it always feels huge. Yeah, it's crazy. But I wanted to mention the crew on this prime broadcast, because I think it's actually, for the most part, a pretty good group, like interesting names and people who do a good job, generally speaking.

John Foresland's the play-by-play guy, says here. Mark Messier, Thomas Hickey, Jody Shelley, Shane Knighty, Adnan, Verk, Andy Petrillo, Blake Bolden. I think that's a good group. I would happily watch a broadcast with those people, you know? Yep. I used to say this all the time when the NHL was on NBC down here. There were certainly some people who were great to watch.

Liam McHugh is a guy. I've stated a real fandom of for many years. But a lot of the ex pros they would have on your Keith Jones and Eddie Olchicks and stuff like that, I would just be like, I've heard I think everything I need to hear out of this guy, you know? Okay. So I like, I like, I've always liked seeing Shane Knighty on like Winnipeg broadcast or whatever. Jody Shelley and Thomas Hickey, I don't have as much familiarity with their, their, You know, Jody Shelley obviously does, I think, Blue Jackets games, right?

But I don't know. I don't know that I'm super familiar with what Thomas Hickey brings to the table on TV. I'd be interested to see that. Used to play for the Kings. Do you know that? I did not. Oh, yeah. I'm pretty sure that's the team that drafted him.

Yeah, first round, fourth overall pick 2007. That's right. Anyhow. Yeah. So I guess we're, we're. a little more than a week into the season at this point, is that right? A week into the real season, yeah.

Right, yeah, we don't count the Europe games as being real for whatever reason. Right. Even though, you know, they count in the standings and everything. They count the standings, I'm fine with counting them the standings, but that was not the opening games of the

Yeah, they were on at like 1130 in the morning. Anyone who's like, actually the season's been going on for over two weeks now. no one has. They're live. And the savers said the same thing. You sure about that?

Oh, the poor. I played a game. Poor sabers. Although, I got to say, so this is a little peek behind the scenes. I write my weekend rankings column that comes out Monday morning, which means the vast majority of it is written Sunday night. That's right. But I will occasionally try to get ahead of things by writing a chunk of it.

on the Saturday when I have some time. And inevitably, if I write about a team struggling or a team winning or whatever it is, and there is a game on the Saturday night, the result will be the opposite of what my narrative requires. So I'm taking credit for the fact that the Buffalo Sabres beat the Florida Panthers because I wrote my struggling Sabres thing on Saturday morning.

I'm like, they're 0 and 3. they're playing the Stanley Cup champions. Yeah. I should have bet the mortgage on the Sabres to win that game. Well, along similar lines on Saturday night, and we'll talk about this more later, but I was watching, and there were multiple games between, like, intra-Atlantic Division games going on, Buffalo and Boston, Montreal, I think, was happening, and blah, blah, or had happened recently, whatever it was.

And I was like, damn, the Atlantic Division playoff picture has not changed very much in several years now. And so I ended up writing a story about like, do we really think like one of Detroit, Buffalo, Ottawa, and leaving aside whether they can make the playoffs by being like the fifth or the second wild card team? can they actually, can any of these teams get into the top four? Are we confident about that at all? Because that would be the actual, like, surprising thing. Not that, you know, a metro that put the islanders and capitals into the playoffs last year wouldn't produce a wild card team. But can one of these teams get into the top four?

And just like, you watch these games and it's like, no, man, I don't think they can. It's tough. We'll talk about that later because we're going to. We're going to talk about disappointing teams where you were kind of interested to see where they were going to go. And they've let you down so far. But let's start first with teams that have been impressive. Anybody stand out to you? Yeah, I mean, the early theme has been that all the teams we thought were going to be good.

Many of them have not been so good. So let's start with the shout out to the Dallas Stars for being. kind of the one consensus cup pick that is off to a nice tidy 3-0 start. Yep. And then I guess from there, you have to mention the Rangers and the Devils also off to good starts,

although the Devil's lost to the Leafs. Yeah, that's a tight. You can't be in that situation. Yeah, they're four and one, but the only game that the Canadian media watched was the one they lost. So we all think they're bad. So there are.

one, two, three, four, five still undefeated teams in the league. As you mentioned, Dallas. Does that count? Tampa? That does include Tampa. I was going to get to that. Vegas is the other one that, like, I don't know if people were picking them to win the cup, but at the beginning of the season, no, if you had said, oh, you know, Vegas is going

to be three and oh, everybody would have been like, oh, that checks out. At least a playoff team, yeah. Yeah, of course. The Winnipeg Jets. a little bit overperforming. Surprising, I think, especially the fact that not just 3 and 0, but combined score of 10 to 2. Yeah, they've got like a 970 team safe percentage right now. Which again, you know, 970, obviously not sustainable, but when you have arguably the best goaltender in the world.

Right. It's funny. My parents were over and I just kind of had the Winnipeg game on in the background. and, you know, the announcer mentioned Hellebuck or whatever, and my dad was like, he used to play for UMass All, right? And I was like, yeah, that's right. And he's the best goalie in the world. Isn't that crazy that a guy who just like used to live in the same city as you? Isn't that crazy that guy is just the best goalie in the world? And he's like, that is kind of weird.

And I was like, yeah. And then he immediately gave up a stinky goal from the blue line. And my mom said, I thought you said he was good. Mom, get off my fucking back, man. You gotta look at the big picture, Mom. You're worried about sample sizes. I love when you meet someone's dad and they're like exactly the same as the person

and I love that just your dad randomly. Hey, that guy's a college guy, right? I know what college that guy went to. Well, he knows. He only knows it because, again, he would like occasionally go to one of his games whatever, you know.

I don't think, I don't think my dad could go too deep on any, on any college team's roster. Your, your dad's, your dad's into college hockey and your mom is into crafting narratives from small samples. This is all making so much sense. Oh, when she said, I thought you said he was good. That one hurt. But yeah, how about this other team that's, that's three and oh right now, the Calgary

Flames? Yeah. So about the rebuild. Well, so here's the thing. You want to talk about percentages and what have you. You know what the flames are shooting right now? I'm sure whatever it is, it's a very sustainable. It's just 18. Okay.

Yeah, you can make that work. As the fucking Red Wings. This is the thing, though. People are thinking about all the pre-shot movement the flames are doing. Yeah. You know? What is it? Yeah.

That's it because they don't, they're not just taking easy shots from the blue line like every other team. They're working the puck around and only taking higher percentage. I really think the things the flames do well leads to an 18 point something percent. You said it, brother. But here's the thing, 49% of the shots in their game, 49.7% of the shots in their games. 50% of the Fenwick's, 50% of the Corses, 57.6% of the expected goal. These guys are getting to the middle of the damn ice. They've been watching the Utah, or sorry, not the Seattle clips from two years ago.

That's exactly it. Utah later, but I don't know. It's very interesting to me because we all looked at the flames and said, this is a team that's rebuilding. Yeah. I mean, they traded away a lot of big names, but there were a lot of guys. There's a lot of veterans still left on this team. There is, yeah, for sure.

And, I mean, I think one of the things you would look at, if you were a rational flames fan is, yeah, maybe you look at this year and say this year should be a right off. Finish bottom five, get a nice high draft pick, get a franchise player to build around. But there's also, when you look at the veterans on the lineup, you say, you know what, I hope they get off to a good start. Because then maybe we can move some of these guys. That's exactly right, yeah. And I can't wait until they start 10 and O. And teams are like, you know who we need is McKenzie Wigger?

Maybe Jonathan Hubertow is back. And then at that moment, all the Flames fans go, well, hold on a second. Right. We might have something here. We can't trade Nazim Kadry. Jonathan Huberto is on pace for 120-point season right now. He's back. They fixed him.

He's back, yeah. He's shooting 50% leads of the league. but, you know, that's fine. Right. So, yeah, he, he's only averaging two shots a game, which isn't a particularly good number. He's being selective. He's going, what's his name? Who's the guy I always think of?

Fuck, he used to play for the Flames and the Avalanche. He was the left wing. Alex Tonguey. Remember that? Alex Tongue did shoot like 20% every year. And every year we're like, why, you can't keep that up. I think his career number. number, if I'm remembering right, is like the fourth highest shooting percentage in league history.

Let me look this up really quickly. But Alex Tonga is a guy who just like every single year, he took two shots a game. If I can't see at least four square feet of net, I'm not taking this shot. That's exactly right. That note, that's shots, not shooting percentage. There it is. Okay, here we go. The career-high shooting percentage, or the career shooting percentage for Alex Tongue.

Oh, it's only 21st. His career shooting percentage was 18.56%. But that has to be for the era he played in. Oh, for the era, it's insane. I'm sure it's all 70s and 80s guys that are ahead of him. Yeah, everybody ahead of him played, you know, in the, yeah, 85, 88, 80, 70s. Yeah. No, shout out to Camille Henry. He had he shot more than, he has shot almost 21% from 1953 to 70. He's the only guy outside the played at the same time as Gretzky and Lemieux, besides Tongue.

Although I guess Lemieux was still in the league when Tongue broke in. But yeah, Alex Tongue, a guy who refused to shoot the fucking fuck. I only shoot at the, at an empty net was Alex Tongue. guy. It's like me and be a player mode. Just sim through until the goal he gets pulled and then jump on the ice and demand the puck. That's right. Beaver tailing. You don't even have the puck yet.

You're like, get it over here. Yeah. You got it. But yeah, like, so I guess my point is the flames are actually, it's not just like every shot's going in. Every shot is going in, but like also they're playing pretty well. and I think in theory, to your point earlier, that is what you want if you're a rebuilding team. Like you want the team to play well and then lose two to one,

or three to two or whatever the number is. I mean, I think it's more valuable for the flames to win if it creates a market for the veterans, which would be very good. Because, I mean, those three guys, Hubert O Weger, Cadre, have all got years and years and years left on their contracts. but if... Well, their team leader in scoring right now is Rasmus Anderson,

and I believe he is a pending free agent. Nope, he's signed for next year as well, but... So that's, I mean, that's certainly a guy that they're... Yeah, why wouldn't you... Why wouldn't you trade him if... Why were the flame so bad last year with as many guys as they had to start the year? They just keep... I don't know.

They actually don't have... have as many guys who are coming up like this summer as I would have thought. Cusmanco they just signed. Manta, they just signed. Justin Kirkland, who scored his first NHL goal the other night.

Tyson Barry is another pending UFA and Dan Vladesh and that's about, I mean, with all due respect to Joel Hanley, I don't know that he's going to be on the NHL roster all season. Do we do not talk bad about Joel Hanley? Settle down.

He went to UMass. Okay, all right. Did you know that? I did not, but you know who did? Your dad. Me? This is what I'm saying. My dad would not have known that.

It just wouldn't have crossed his desk, let's say. Okay, fair. All I know is the flames have got a bunch of old guys signed forever. They did. If they get out from under one of those deals. So, what a dummy. What a maroon. Surely he's not working anymore.

I mean, I know he's not in Calgary, so. But yeah, again, they're playing well. That's the amazing part. We've all seen bad teams win a few games in a row. That's not the amazing part. The amazing part is, again, they have 57% of the expected goals. They throttled teams a couple of times so far, which is, you know, it's fun if nothing else, you know. including

I mean their three wins include road wins in Vancouver and Edmonton so it's not like they're they beat Columbus and Chicago and Anaheim here like not bad they beat the flyers too

but and they've got the they've got the Blackhawks tonight and then the Crackin and then the penguin so I winnable winnable fucking games. I feel like 82 and O is in play.

It's certainly on the table, yeah. But yeah, we mentioned earlier Tampa is the one remaining undefeated team. They've played one game in a week because of the hurricane they got one of their games delayed. So, postponed, I guess I mean.

So tough to draw conclusions about the Tampa Bay Lightning, but they'd be. beat the shit out of it. They played Carolina in Carolina. Am I right about this? I believe so. I believe that's right.

Because it wouldn't. Then they went back to Tampa for the... Yes, that's right. But yeah, they... I didn't watch that game, but, you know, statistically, they outscored them four to one. You can't do better than that, really. Or realistically, I guess I mean. So, yeah, there you go.

You mentioned Utah in passing. They finally lost yesterday. They were 3-0. Now they're a measly 3-1. Another team, they look pretty good. Not great or anything. The underlines aren't unbelievable, but. They look good, and they looked fun.

Sure, yeah, they're high-scoring. Yeah. All of that stuff, which, you know, and then, of course, they get shut out by the devils. but as I wrote on Monday, there was a small part of my brain, the dumb part, the part that has no long-term memory whatsoever,

was thinking, is it possible that this brand new team has said, what if we played like a really fun, wide open, high event style hockey? Wouldn't that be the way to win over a new fan base? No. Of course not. They're going to try to win every game two to one.

Their coach will, I'm sure, yell at them for scoring 16 goals in their first three games. And then... Got to spread those out. Yeah. Three nothing much better. So I guess the big story for Utah, apart from like, oh, the vibes are good, et cetera, et cetera. Is that Dylan Gunther leads the league in goals with five through four games? As you said, he really scored all five in the first three games

because they couldn't keep the puck out of the net. You know what his career high in goals set just last year? He's only 21, so, you know, but he played 45 games last year. How many goals do you think he scored? I mean, I know that he scored, I want to say it's 18, but it was... That's the exact. Okay. Exact right number.

And they gave him the big, huge contract, which what maybe wasn't, huge enough given how we started. But very much a, we've seen half a season of this guy and we're going to bet on the talent here. And it looks like it's paid off. Obviously, he was the top 10 draft pick, I believe. So it's not, you know, it's not like he's come out of. So, you know, like, let's not.

And we also have to say five goals, but zero assists. So selfish. Very selfish. Well, he's going for that sign. Oh. Logan Cooley's got. no goals of five assists, like Dylan, hook your boy up. Like, it's past the puck over.

We get, we get, we get to get Logan Cooley in one of these, uh, these Alex Tongay situations. Exactly. Uh, but yeah, Clayton Keller leads the team in scoring. He's got six points. Cooley, Gunther, and Barrett Hayton all have five. Um, goaltending's been okay, I guess you'd say. Not, not good. But. deal with a bull. And, you know, again, I don't really expect it to last. The funny thing about this is they are three in one,

and they are third in their division in the standings right now. That's a tough one. Dallas and Winnipeg, just like, okay, yeah, that's nice for you. That's cute. We're actually a... You almost kind of forgot about that guy, eh? And it'd be nice to see him put it all together for a full season. He only played 33 games last year, I think, is the reason why.

Well, I mean, even then, though, like, this guy was, he was the fifth overall pick in 2018. Yeah, he's not old, but that's a long time ago. He was picked in between Kachuk and Quinn Hughes. Right. That is Brady Kachuk, I should say. Yes, Brady, that's right. And you never quite put it together over the course of a full season. He's only had one full season.

Yeah. That's why. If he does, well, yeah, I mean, that's why. But it's not like they decided to only give him one full season. Like he didn't, he took him a few years to earn his way in. But yeah, I guess my point is that's a guy that you almost, when you were looking at this roster, not that you forgot about or you didn't think of as being part of what they were putting together. But if he could put together a big season, that's sort of.

of a little a little bonus. Yeah, you certainly would have said that you certainly would have said that Lawson Krause was a bigger piece of the puzzle for Utah than, than Barrett Hayton was, you know, based on previous seasons. So to get, yeah, to get any kind of a contribution out of Barrett Hayton is, let alone five points in four games is, um, it's a, I don't want to say it's a bonus, but like it's, it's a little more than you were expecting for sure.

So, yeah, I mean, I don't, again, I don't think anybody's sitting here going, this is going to last all season, you know, they're not going to win 75% of their available points, that kind of thing. But, you know, the wins they're getting now count just as much as the wins they'll be getting in, like, February and March. So, you know, November 1st is fast approaching here. and if you can get yourself in that good position on November 1st, the odds will be in your favor. And so far, so good,

I don't have a ton to say about, you know, they haven't played a ton of home games. I think they just had the one, right? So I'm not super familiar with the atmosphere, but I did see, I don't know if you saw this, Sean, that they obliterated the building record for beer sales. I did see that, yeah, that the NBA had never said. Now, was this, I wasn't quite sure how I was supposed to take this.

Is this supposed to be like hockey fans are cooler than basketball fans? Was that the idea? Yeah, I think so. Okay. I'll take it. Yeah. Basketball fans. You sitting there just paying attention to the game without getting completely wrecked?

I think the number I saw was that they did 120 grand in beer sales. I don't think that's pure profit or whatever, but it's like, oh, that's actually, you know, if they can do that 41 more times, they're going to cover a pretty decent portion of that salary cap increase. Like the team spending increase. 120 grand, or as Leaf fans call it, three beers. I was going to say that that's probably the Leafs do that in like, Just the pregame, right? Katie, if you could edit in like a rim shot or like a little hornblast or something just to indicate it. Yeah, that's right.

It was very, very funny just now. The studio audience laughing like a... Yes, exactly. Like a big Kramer joke just happened. Yep. You know? And then we mentioned them earlier, too. The New Jersey Devils are likewise off to a pretty good start.

They obviously, look, the one team they played that beat them had the play book already, you know? They were like, oh, I've seen this coach before. Usually he's sitting around after one of our games going, I don't know what happened. That was crazy. Get out there and get them in the first period when they're not ready to start. And then, yeah, try to create a playoff atmosphere. Blanc, blah, blah.

But yeah, devil's four and one. I believe that is the most wins in the league right now. Most teams have only played three games, of course. So that's a good reason why. And as we all expected, they have a goalie with a 9-74 save percentage. And that is Jake Allen. Right. Of course.

Yeah, I mean, look, I think if you're... Yeah, look, I agree. This is why Calgary got rid of them. You notice they get rid of Markstrom and Calgary to fucking take off like a shot. Yep. Not a coincidence. But I think we all had, you know, much like Jake Allen, I think we all had the top two scorers on the team through five games being Stefan Nason and Paul Cotter. Yep.

You know? Two guys that definitely most NHL fans have heard of, know who they are, what they're all about. Paul Cotter leading the league in even strength goals. Yeah, he's got four of them, I think. Jack Hughes only three points through five games. We've got to pick it up, brother. And you know who's tied for the league league and power play goals? Who's that?

James Casey. The goat. Yeah. He was Luke Hughes's teammate at Michigan. Of course he was. He was. What was he? Like a third round pick or something?

Second round pick. There you go. Meanwhile, Jack Hughes, no goals. That's what I'm saying. Nick, this is a, and Dougie Hamilton, to no points. Yeah. While leading the league in shots on goal.

Well, I mean, this is this. This guy needs to pick up the phone and call Alex Tangay. That's right. By the way, you know, you know who has more goals than Jack Hughes on this team is Jonathan Kovicevich. There's another guy. You've definitely heard of, right? Oh, yeah, absolutely. Just kidding.

He played a Merrimack. All right. That's enough. I can do this all day, man. I know you can. Anyway, why don't we take our break here? And then we'll be back and we'll talk about the disappointing teams that we're so pissed off at. All right, we'll be right back.

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Download game time today. What time is it? It's game time. All right. We're back. And as promised, here are some disappointing teams and how bad they are. I think, can you start this discussion with any team other than the Edmonton Oilers? You can't.

No. Although, there may be one other contender, but we'll get to that. Oh, believe me, we're going to talk about those losers too. Yeah. This is amazing. You tell, yeah, because Edmonton, we all remember what happened last year. and I think we all looked at it and said there's no start that the Oilers could get off to that would actually concern me.

And I still feel that way. Yeah, I agree. But we're talking about all these. Are they ever? 15 to 3. Yeah, that's the combined score of their three games. Yeah. That doesn't feel great. This is one of those teams that's begging for 8.00.

goal tending. They have a team save percentage through three games of 794. Yes. They're begging for the fucking horrible start they had in net last year. What were they probably like 8, 10 through 7 games or whatever? They're desperately calling Jay Woodcroft and going, hey, please, what was your secret? It really is that bad. So I just looked it up here. through their first 12 games, they allowed 50 goals on 356 shots.

That's actually probably about the same, just eyeballing. 306 over 356. 8.59. So, yeah, that's way better. And that was bad enough to get a coach that everybody agreed. This guy's a really good coach. fucking booted his ass out the door. See you later. And yeah, this year, they're like, man, if we could get within 30 points of that,

we'd be feeling much better about ourselves. It's unbelievable. I don't think anybody's surprised, I guess, that like Calvin Pickard isn't delivering the goods as the backup goal, you know? He's 778 in his one appearance. But Stuart Skinner, and that is team. Canada presumptive starter, Stuart Skinner, do you? People think they're going to win the Four Nations face off?

Is that right? Yeah, absolutely. Because we have Connor McGill – oh, wait, no, he's not good anymore either. The other thing with the Oilers is it's almost as if – and I'm not suggesting this is actually what happened. But it is almost as if the league looked at last year's terrible start and went. Well, the Oilers are a marquee team now. We have to devise a schedule that will make it impossible. for them to start poorly.

So let's have them start with four games at home against the Jets, Hawks, Flames, and Flyers. Teams that range from bad to not great. Yeah. And they end up losing, I mean, 6-0 to the Jets. What was it last year? 8-1 to the Canucks, I think, in game one. I believe that's right, yeah.

It's been pretty amazing. And, I mean, you just go down the list, obviously. You're getting outscored 15 to 3. Nobody's good. but Connor McDavid, two points, one secondary assist at even strength. Leon Dreis had a one point. Hey, that one's a goal, though. He's one of three Oilers with a goal this season.

The other two are Jeff Skinnery Perry. Ben Bushard's a bum again. Yeah. Zach Hyman, nothing. And by the way, all of these guys just about that I'm talking about, including McDavid, minus four, minus five. Well, yeah. I mean,

when you're getting out of score 15 to 3. There's just no way to avoid it. Jeff Skinner looks okay. We got a bunch of. Victor Arvison. Remember how he was going to light it up? Yeah. Well, it's the same thing with Jeff Skinner.

Oh, wow. This guy's going to really like take off on the second line or whatever. Well, he's on pace to lead the team with 55 points. So that's can't. We got a lot of. questions in the mailbag this week that were somewhere along the lines of when do we start panicking about the oilers? And to your point, three games, it's not anything, really.

You know, if a stretch like this happened in January, we'd be like, oh, that's weird. And that would be it. But because it's opening the season, you know, we got to really take a good, hard look in the mirror and wonder if, if the guy just, hiring the guy who used to coach Connor McDavid was the right move. There's got to be another guy out there used to coach Connor McDavid somewhere.

Coachman Bannum. Oh, okay. You mean going back that far, sure. So, yeah, you know, again, you want the answer to that question of when I panic? What's that? I'm going to give you the answer.

My answer is I will panic if they are still looking really, really bad after 14 games. Because last year, it was 13 games. They fired Jay Woodcroft. and they had two wins and we're all like, yeah,

they're going to play at like a 110 point pace just to make the playoffs. And they said, okay. Which they immediately did. No problem. That's right.

I mean, they're still in the Pacific. They just need to make the playoffs. It's a bit of a Stanley Cup final hangover. 14 games. So this is my cutoff. 13 games in, I'm saying anything bad about the Oilers,

you can call me a hypocrite and a liar. Okay. I won't be able to hear you. Hold on. Let me get my pan. But, well, yeah, you can. But I was more talking to the listener. If you do it, it'll hurt my feelings.

So this is, this is the thing. We're always talking about that November 1st cutoff date. That's generally when I would say, okay, you should be worried now. But again, with a team this good and how it went for them last year, if you want to extend that to Christmas, I, you know, I wouldn't blame you, I guess. Like, I'm not going to really believe a team with this much talent is out of it until they have really defended, you know, 40 games in and they're still, you know, look, the St. Louis Blues did it with a lesser roster. They went from the worst team in the league to winning the Stanley Cup.

And they were worst team in the league on what, like January 3rd or something like that? It wasn't exactly. January 3rd, they were in last place, although by like points percentage, they never actually got all that close to last. Right. Well, regardless. But still. Yeah. January 3rd, you typically wouldn't think.

I'm just saying on paper, you wouldn't say that that St. Louis Blues team was better than this on paper Edmonton Oilers team. And so they really could get to like, maybe. in January and they're not out of the fight yet or whatever. But this is their next several games here that leads you up to, they have a game on Halloween night against at Nashville that leads you right into November 1st. This is the stretch. Philadelphia tonight, Nashville, Dallas, both on the road, hosting Carolina and Pittsburgh and Pittsburgh at Detroit, Columbus, Nashville.

there are plenty of winnable games there, but there are also, you know, I don't think you can say right now that they should be the favorite against Dallas, Carolina, Nashville, right? Nashville's not off to the greatest start in the world either, but it's interesting. I could really see it going either way for these guys.

I mean, they could go out and beat the Flyers ate nothing tonight and who would be surprised, you know? But it's really interesting. They could be They could be pretty far underwater after 11 games on November 1 And it still will not matter to me No, I agree But if you're trying to

Like turn down the temperature or whatever Famously, those St. Louis Blues fired their fucking coach And that had a little something to do with the turnaround, you know? Can the Oilers fire two coaches in two years after bad starts or do we just at some point say you know what the Oilers are going to do this year is probably get off to a pretty bad start usually it's around Christmas where they're kind of bad but you know um yeah through uh even two years ago through their first

13 games there were only seven and six they they never got too far above 500 so and you know it this year you would think they would come into it going, guys, we can't start like that again. You would think. But. But also, they just had a really long, a really long playoff run. That doesn't, like, help you, generally speaking to bounce back the next year.

So, I don't know. But, I mean, you would look at it and you'd say, as much as we kind of joke about last year and how they got off to a terrible start at it, quote unquote didn't matter. They lost game seven of the Stanley Cup final on the road. Now they finished six points back at the Panthers. It wasn't one or two, but a halfway decent start, and then everything else plays out the same, which you wouldn't have. And you've got home ice in that game.

And you've got home ice to start the series, so maybe you don't fall behind two nothing. It can matter. Sure. But now you're getting into like quantum mechanics or whatever where it's like, you know, Butterfly flaps its wings in China and the Oilers get out scored 15 to 3 to start the season, you know. But yeah, again, how are you going to be like super war, like convince the Oilers are going to be missing the playoffs or anything after three games? You'd have to be a psycho.

I don't think, to be fair, I don't think anybody thinks that. I don't think there's a single hockey fan out there that's like, they're doomed, you know? This is getting into the, you know, I was told Steph Curry couldn't shoot threes. That's exactly right. Yeah. Man, I saw one of those last night. I can't remember what it was, but somebody did that. And I was just like, not a single person said the thing that you're saying.

But okay, sure. The other loser team that sucks, the Colorado Avalanche. Mitch. What's going on with these guys? The goaltending has not been great. 785 has a team. Neither of their goalies is above 800. And this is notable because they've played three games and their backup has gotten into two

games because Alexander Georgiev pulled two times in his first two games. And frankly, I think the only reason he didn't get pulled last night and a six two loss to the islanders was because they were like, we can't pull this fucking guy three games in a row. That's, that is exactly what I think was happening.

Yeah, 32 saves on 37 shots last night against, look, offensive juggernaut the New York Islanders. You look at a team like that and you're like, yeah, those guys should be scoring six every night. Sure. Casey Sizekis is on that team. We can't just. that guy down, you know?

And again, normally we'd sit there and say, well, you know, a couple of bad games, you don't panic. And, and, yeah, okay, you don't panic. They'd go out and claim capital cockingin off of waivers. I mean, why not, right? You got to do something. I guess. I mean, claiming cockingin off waivers doesn't cost them anything. You know, like this is a free, if they made like a panic trade or, or, you know, I mean, this is a free, if they made, like, a panic trade.

or whatever. That would be one thing. But to just claim a guy off waivers, I can't get too worked up about it. You know. But it indicates that they are concerned. I mean, this is the time of year, right?

We often hear about goaltenders being put on waivers because everyone's healthy. Everyone is still okay with their guys. No one's claiming a goalie. We saw it in Detroit, right, Billy? Huso goes out waivers. That was more about the salary cap and being. Yeah, I mean, Huso makes a guy.

three and a half. Yeah. Not a big... Not a big... Not a big... But, I mean, the idea is you can get away with stuff like this. That you couldn't in January when guys are banged up and maybe somebody needs the depth. And the fact that at the time, I guess it was, what, two games into the season, Colorado was like, yeah, we'll take a free goalie.

Yeah. I mean, Eustace Annen's the backup. It's not like this... This is like, you know, Yaroslav Halak back there where it's like, oh, no, he's the backup. but he rocks actually. He could be a starter for some teams. Yeah. He was really good last year.

He was good last year as a 23-year-old, and you kind of went, oh, maybe they got something in this guy. And again, two games into this season does not even have a start yet. But, yeah. Yeah, he's coming in cold two nights in a row. And not great in Colorado, partly because, you know,

not only have the 0-and-3, but we were talking about Utah being three-in-one and stuck in third place. I mean, there's already getting some distance between... That's right. The door's closing weirdly. I mean, last year it was Colorado Dallas Winnipeg all year long. I think a lot of us sort of wrote Winnipeg off of that group of three.

But, I mean, you're already six points back. Yep. A first in the division. That's a lot of points. My number for Colorado is lower than 14 games. I might go nine games on them. Yeah, totally with you on that. That feels okay.

But yeah, there... You know, they're a team that has some cap difficulties. They're already using LTIR, obviously, with Landisog and what, and is it, Lekinen is also hurt and out for a while? Maybe. But, like, you know, I've seen people go, oh, you know, they're, they're thinner than they usually are up front. And it's like, yeah, that's true that they are.

That's what happens when you have to give Nathan. McKinon $12.6 million or whatever. And you also don't really want to sign anybody that's going to take away Miko Ranton's money for next year, right? But like, I don't know. I feel like if you're looking at most teams' lineups and, like, who would be on their second line, like Casey Middlestat and Jonathan Drew-in, like, you'd So, okay, like, those are guys.

Those are, and really where they're losing the matchup battles in theory, you know, on paper is, you know, down on the third and especially fourth lines where, you know, they're using kind of replacement level guys. But also in theory, Nathan McKinnon is more, like, is more than covering for that, right? This is the reigning MVP. And I'm not saying he's, like, played basketball. badly or whatever. He's been fine. But what it really boils down to is they can't get a fucking save. You can say there's all these other problems going on. Oh, you know, their underlying numbers aren't like unbelievable or anything like that.

That's all true. But they have a team. What was the number I said earlier? 785 save percentage. You're going to win zero hockey games getting that kind of goaltending. period. So yeah, the roster is thinned out. But I don't think it's like Logan O'Connor's fault that Georgie have got pulled twice in three games.

Well, agree to disagree. You're right. I love how their team goals against average is 6.01. That 01 just really. It hurts. Just really twist the knife a little bit there. Did you see Kail McCar's comments about how bad he plays? He didn't.

He had comments along the lines of like the, I don't think he, he didn't say we would have won, but I think he said that the score would have been a lot closer if I hadn't played last night, which is depressing in a few ways. First of all, that he's talking about how badly he played that, and also the fact that he's saying, we would have come closer to beating the Islanders. Right. At home. Yeah, I mean, this is a team that gave up six to the Columbus Blue Jackets,

the previous game, right? Like, this is, it's not, um, it's not going great for these guys back there. How do you think Patrick Waft felt watching his team light up a Colorado team with no goaltending? Do you think he was itching to just like, guys, we just strap the pads on one time? I saw a headline yesterday about, about this whole thing, like the, you know, his return to Colorado. Um, that was like, he's returning as the greatest.

in franchise history and not the coach who quit on them in August or whatever. And it's like, well, it's both. Yeah. I'll tell you what the more recent thing was. Mm-hmm. You know? I'll tell you know, he's not going to be putting pads on out there. He's going to be in a suit, just like he was wearing when he quit the team in August.

I didn't see that they do like a little video tribute to him or anything? Um, I didn't see it. I didn't notice it. I was, you know, half watching that game, let's say. I'm sure they did because if you play three games for a team now, they have to stop and do a two-minute tribute to you, and then we can all say how classy they are. Yeah.

You want to talk about another team that sucks right now? Absolutely. This is so much more fun than talking about good teams. Oh, it's cool that the devils are shut up. Yeah. Nobody cares. Let's kick the Vancouver Canucks while they're down, man. That's what it's all about.

They're 0-2, or 0-0-0-2, I guess I should say. But another team, the goaltending not really there. A little more understandable in this case. Totally. They've given up nine goals in two games. That's too many, in my opinion. Or I guess eight goals because one of them was in a shootout. But eight is still too many.

But like you were saying with the Oilers, the league was like, okay, we're going to make it real easy on you to start the year. You're hosting Calgary and Philadelphia. Okay, two schedule wins, no problem. Oops, they got a loser point in both of them instead. Nice to get the point. Tell you that. Our 500 team.

That's exactly right. One of my favorite 500 teams ever, one that hasn't won a game yet. That's right. We're still living the dream of a team going O, oh, and 82, making the playoffs, maybe even. Yeah, barely miss. 500 team that doesn't win a game. Yeah, you know, I think we talked about this earlier in the year where it's just like,

yeah, it's maybe not going to be super easy for them to get reliably good goal tending. And look, like, Lankin and actually, it says he stopped 29 to 31, and then Seelov's stopped 20 of 26. So, like, they got good goaltending in one of the games. But just, you know, the Canucks are, what did we say? Or I don't know if you agreed with me, but I think I had them as, like, a solid

playoff team, but, like, kind of in my, like, maybe my best mediocre team based on not having Demko. And who, is it Dakota? Joshua's also hurt, not that he's like a huge needle mover. And then Tyler Myers got hurt on in the Philly game maybe. But yeah, anyway, it's just one of those things where it's like, I don't think you can be super surprised that they didn't come screaming out of the gate here. You'll take the two loser points. That's for sure. It's two games.

It's literally two games and that's it. Yeah, exactly. Can't draw any conclusions other than Elias Pedersen as a bum. Well, yeah, he stinks. He's the playoff Elias is the real guy. He got his money and then he just said, you know what? Put a fucking gone fishing sign in his locker. He's out of here.

That's right. No, they'll be fine. They're a pretty good team. Or, you know, at the, you know, when everybody's healthy, I'd say they're a plain old good team. But the unsatisfying. uncertainty is the uncertainty, and they haven't shown anything that dissuades me from that. Yeah. That's all.

Tampa and Florida next. They're heading to Florida for the little Florida trip. Well, Florida is another team where it's like not the start they wanted. They're 500. They killed the Bruins for opening night and then beat them yesterday. I think they'll take that as a two-and-two start. and lost to the savers But you can't be losing to the Senators and Savers.

Yeah, but I mean with Barkov hurt and it was Spencer Knight's... Spencer Knight started the Buffalo game. The Buffalo game. First start for him in over a year. So good for him. Nice to see him back. And Matthew Kachuk is hurt now too. I didn't see a report on the extent of that injury.

Just that he hasn't played the last two games. I don't think. So not ideal, but, you know, I think we're going to sit here and say the Panthers will be fine. But I wanted to talk about just in general, I mentioned this earlier, the Atlantic Division as a whole is kind of weird. The savers are having the start that they, you know, it's well publicized at this point. The Red Wings have one win from three games. Boston's 500. Montreal is 500.

Florida's 500. And then your division leaders right now with a shocking two and one record, it's Toronto and Ottawa. It's a weird division. It is a weird division. And at this point, what odds would you, if I said Toronto, Florida, Boston, Tampa in some order in the top four? or anything else. Like, I know you were talking about which of those teams can jump up, but what would you put the odds at?

That it's the same top four that it's the same top four or it's anything else. I mean, are we 50-50? Is it? I'd say it's like 60, 40, 65, 35, something like that. I just, look, man, I know the vibes are pretty good in Ottawa right now, but I just don't. It's funny, right? Because they're good in theory because of the crazy win, but they were very close to a crazy loss.

Yep. You know, now, minus Allmark missed the game, believed to be a short-term thing. So you could have written that off either way. Well, and that's the thing, right? Like his availability is the entire thing that their season hangs on, it feels like. So, but like, I don't know, Montreal's 500. Do I think they're going to keep that up? I really don't.

You know, they're getting goals. You know, Cole Cawfield looks great so far this year. Four goals and four games. That's a pretty good clip, in my opinion. Sam Montable looks really good. That's all nice. I just, I don't see it lasting. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, did all Mark's extension.

That came since our last broadcast, I think. Is that right? Last show. Yeah. Yeah. The Wednesday. What were your thoughts on that one? Well, good for him to get that kind of money at his age.

That's always a good start. He got four years 8.25. Yeah, I don't think that's crazy at all for anybody involved. You can see a world where You know If he's It's only three years by the way It's just he has this one year

Left at five And then it goes to 8.25 for no No, no you were right It is four years So it's a five year commitment altogether I was looking at Puckpedia Which only shows the next four This season and then the following three

That's what happened there Yeah So But anyway the money's not crazy, the term's not crazy, if Linus Allmark is what we think of Linus Allmark as having been. But as we talked about this last week or the week before, Boston has a history of our goalies are good. Can you say the same thing about the Ottawa Senators? You know?

Not so much. Not so much. So it is very plausible to me that two. years from now, Olmark has been 909, 908, 910, whatever you want to say,

like, good but not great. And 8.25 feels like a shitload of money. It's only for four years. That's good. He's 31 years old. If it was five,

six years, I'd have a lot more alarm bells going off. But I don't think it's a crazy contract or anything. I think there is the potential for it to look crazy

because we're talking about the Ottawa senators. But on paper right now, apart from what I think I know you're going to say about a shiny new toy. You got it. You took the words right out of my mouth. It's one of your famous things that you're a million percent right about, by the way. Yeah, I don't hate it for the senators, but that is the concern. And I think the term is maybe a year longer than you'd like. It's totally not crazy.

Yeah. higher than you'd like, but you have to, you're going to have to go out of your comfort zone in a case like this where the player has the leverage. And part of the reason he has the leverage is because of the shiny new toy. So given that, I don't hate it. No, I don't think you can hate it. I think you can look at it kind of a scant. Like, yeah, that could go sideways on them for sure.

But nothing horrible there. think. But yeah, it's funny. I look at the Atlantic and I'm just like, doesn't it just feel like the same four teams? And more to the point, when does it feel like it's going to not

be the same four teams? Like, I was saying this, in the article I wrote about this, like, usually you would say, well, the way it works is one of the teams goes crazy shooting percentage or save percentage wise for three months and

and finds their way into the playoffs that way. But Detroit and Buffalo did that the last two seasons. Detroit last year, Buffalo, the year before that, they both still missed the fucking playoffs because that's how good Toronto, Boston, Florida, and Tampa have been. I don't have the same ceilings for Boston and Tampa in particular that I used to,

but I still see. a pretty good size gap between like what they're capable of and what like Ottawa's capable of. You know what I mean? Like if we're looking at reasonable windows for what these teams like points totals could be at the end of the year, at worst, what do you say Boston's like a 95 point team unless something goes seriously wrong? Does that sound right?

You would think, yeah. So do, and Tampa the same thing, 92, 95, something along those lines? Tampa, I think we could see The drop-off being more severe as an older team. Yeah, I mean, so here's the thing. 98 each of the last two years and you're like, oh, these guys haven't been that good. 98 points is still a shitload, especially when you consider.

They're playing a ton of games against Boston, Toronto, and Florida. You know, that's a really good number. But that is the thing that makes this so hard is like drop Detroit in the Metro. They probably, they certainly make the playoffs last year. Because they missed, didn't they end up tied with Washington and lost on a tiebreaker? Was that how it worked? It was, yeah, I believe it was the tiebreaker, yeah. And so like, you know, I can't sit here and say, yeah, they both had 91 points last year.

But, but Washington had more regulation wins by five, as a matter of fact. But like if they're in the Metro last year, they win a playoff spot, no problem. Buffalo probably two years ago, you could have said the same thing. But they're just kind of boxed out by the playoff format, you know? Mm-hmm. And the fact that you play an unbalanced schedule where you're playing division opponents more. They just have the bad fortune to be in what has been the best regular season division in hockey for several years now.

It is a tough. Well, I mean, it's that fifth wild card is I think what you're aiming for if you're... That's exactly right. No, let me back up. Not what you're aiming for. I don't think any team goes in and says, we want to be a wild card.

Well, the Calgary Flames for the last 20 years might disagree with you. But I think that, that, to rephrase it, that wild card is, it changes the perception. It makes you feel a little bit like this is more, doable than it otherwise might be like. Especially given, you know, we all kind of look at the metro and say it's going to be Devils, Rangers, hurricanes.

Hurricanes have only played one game. But so far, nothing that really makes you say, you know, the Islanders, the penguins, both 500, Columbus and Philly too, but nothing yet in that division that makes you say, wait a second, maybe there's a team that we missed. So, speaking to the penguins, you wanted to mention Evgeny Malcolm. Yeah, Evgeny Malkin. He has a goal in two assists, pushes him up to 1,303 points in his career. He is one goal away from 500.

He is one game away from 1,150, a kind of round number. But this is the thing that I think rocks. Currently, Evgeny Malkin is the league leader. in scoring. He's got seven points in four games. That's cool. Not bad for a 38-year-old. That's awesome.

You want to hear a controversial take? What's that? I think this guy's getting close to being one of the top 100 players of all time. He's up there. That's for sure. Might get there. Yeah. You might have to bump out a goalie who retired in 1952.

I feel like he might be about to pass Jonathan Taves on the top 100 ever. Yeah, he is actually, he's not the league leader in points per game because he's played four, and both Panarin and Eichel have seven, and they've only played three. And a few guys are, well, Nikita Kutrov had that four-point night in the one game he played, so that helps. He wouldn't have been one of the top 100 guys in the league history back then, right? There's no way Kutrov, he probably hadn't won his MVP. or anything, right? No. Do you think he would be in now, Kutra?

Kuturov? I would assume that if they did it now, somebody would stand up and say, guys, we have to put some more current players in. That was such an embarrassment that they only put six active players, half of which were Blackhawks. It was so dumb. So, yes, I think Kuturov would probably be in there.

That's interesting. Who else is like a, current player who you would have thought, you know, like... Malcolm was the big one. Did they... Well, obviously, Malta. Was Joe Thornton in there? I know of the other three guys, it was Crosby-Ovechkin, and I want to say, was the

Iger still active then, or was Thornton in the... Let me look up. I know that I think hockey reference has the full list, like, it does, yeah. Pretty handy. One hundredth... Is there a way for me to fucking click on it? I don't know. Yeah, I don't know.

I can't pull the list up. Joe Thornton was not on the list. Insane. The, yeah. Who are the current guys? So it was Crosby, Kane, Ovechkin, Taves, Keith, and Yager was the other. Yager was active guy. Okay.

And then the most recent ones before that were Datsu Broder, Salani, Lister. So, yeah, Thornton and Malkin were. Again, there should maybe be on there. Chara, I can definitely see. but like I'm saying guys who are active now. Like is there anybody who, if you were doing the list again, like David would be on the list. Very clear.

Yeah, absolutely. But is there anybody else though? Like I think Kucharov would have an argument. He won an MVP. I think Kucharov would have an argument. I think McKinnon and Matthews, this is kind of tough. Like we've done this at the athletic. We did our own top 100 and it was of the modern era.

So it's a little bit different. But even then it was, it was. it was tricky to figure out how you place guys who have been dominant, but only, you know, like Austin Matthew says an MVP, he's got multiple Rocket Richards, he's also got like the same number of career goals

as like Tim Kerr. So, right, what are we doing now? Of guys, let's see, of who are active, Lungwist was another one, by the way, who wasn't on the top 100. Crazy. I'm not sure there's any goalies active right now that I would say have done enough. Basilevsky is probably the one.

I think Hedman probably gets on the list. I agree on both. But now we're doing the Chicago thing. Oh, you were on Tampa? You're in, brother. Here we go. I think it might just be those two. I'm not sure Stamcoast gets there.

No, I agree not Stamcoast. Yeah. No MVPs or anything like that. I think Doughty at least gets consideration. Probably Carlson as well. Yeah, I can see that. And I'm sure there's a few other guys that I've... What about you don't think Bobrovsky?

Like if we were doing it today, he's got the two... I think he gets to the Hall of Fame, but I don't think he's... I think that's fair. By the way, Patrice Bergeron was also not one of the 100 best players. He probably only won four Selkees at that point, right? Yeah, that's true. Anyway. Just wasn't as good as Joe Newendike.

Joe Newendike was in the top 100 players. of all time. He was, him. He was. He's there. I'm looking at it right now. This is, this is like the time on the podcast where I was like, okay, well, if we're letting

these guys into the Hall of Fame, why don't we let Mark Recky in? And you and Greg were like, yeah, they did that already. And I was like, this is what I'm saying. It's a huge problem. But folks, I don't complain about who's in the Hall of Fame anymore. Oh, no? Nope. You just complain about who's out.

Patrick Eliash. Completely loved. Well, I just, I just, you know, like, I guess what? what I should say is when they announce who's in the Hall of Fame every year, I'm not, I, I don't allow myself to complain about it anymore. They've made their bed. They got a lie in it. You want to let in Patrick Eliosh? That's your fucking prerogative. I'm not getting involved in. As long as you've, you've said to me off air many times, as long as they don't put any women in, you're happy. Yeah, well, I mean, what are we doing here? This is a man sport. You're wearing your

great order, loyal order of water buffalo's hat. He man, woman, haters club. How old am I. Some injury news, some bad injury news, an injury news that sucks. Macklin Celebrini week to week with what is allegedly a hip injury. He scored his first goal. Were you watching that game? I did see it. Yeah, kind of accidentally got his first goal, but looked good in that first game.

Yeah, he rocks, man. He's so sick. I think he had a goal and an assistant. was on the ice for all three San Jose goals in that game, if I'm remembering right? The one goal he didn't have an assist on was a power play goal, and he was just on the opposite wing, if I'm remembering correctly. So an auspicious debut, but then also he's out week to week. And like, look, it makes sense because, like, what does San Jose care?

You don't rush this kid back. Have him play, you know, all these guys like, oh, yeah, you know, I need hip surgery, but I can wait till the offseason. Fucking have him have the hip surgery if he needs it, like right now. You know, whatever the best course of action is that assures he plays as many games as humanly possible, that's what you want to do, like for his whole career, not this season. What do you give a shit about this season if you're San Jose, you know? By the way, I just hopped over to his stats page here.

He took 14 face-offs in his, his NHL. debut, Macklin Celebrini. Okay. How many do you think he won? Seven. Ooh, the answer is one out of 14, 7.1% at the dot. Ouch.

Well, look, he scored the goal. He had the assist. He was on the ice for that other goal. What do you want from the kid, you know? Yep. Yeah, really, really sucks to have the number one pick get hurt after the first game. That's crazy, man.

But also, my opinion, that's hockey. One last thing we should mention here. Is it today is the final gourdle puzzle? Yesterday. Yesterday. We've already, yeah, poured one out for... Wow. That's crazy.

Yeah, I'm kind of bummed. It was a regular part of my day. I did finish with a career 100% record on it, as did many others. I got a lot of tweets and that from people showing me their records. Also, got a lot of tweets from people thanking me for it as if I had anything to do with it other than an extremely tenuous credit for the idea of what if we took a popular thing and just stole it.

I would say what you did was came up with a great name for it. That's, you know what, that's true. I'll stick with that. They can't take that away from you, man. You nailed it on that, you know. So. But a, yeah, a bummer. So, yeah, thank you to everyone who play.

Thank you to Jay for building it and maintaining it. No thanks to him for shutting it down. Mm-hmm. A nice. Wasn't it, wasn't yesterday the 1,000th puzzle? It was. It was 1,000. A good round number to end on.

And probably there aren't that many more hockey players. that anybody's ever heard of that would fit into the game, you know? Well, I mean, they, they, he expanded it past five letters. Even still. And even then it got up, I think 10 was the highest. And I got to say, man, those ones were, I was not getting those ones in six. They, they expanded it so that when you did 10, you could have, you could go past six

guesses because that was, some of those were, were rough. But yeah, then yesterday and, uh, If you haven't played yet, skip ahead because I'm about to say who the answer to yesterday's was, if it, for whatever reason, is still sitting on your phone. But it was a fitting end. It was Basil McCray. It was the last of them. That's a good one.

A five and five namer, you know, five letters, first and last name, Norris guy who played for a bunch of teams. Very cool. So. Well, you can still hop over to the good. folks at Puckpedia and do PuckDoku every day and my preferred game of this, Puck Pyramid, where every successive category has to build on the previous category. So if it's like the first category is Pittsburgh Penguins and the next categories, whatever, scored 200 NHL goals, you have to pick a penguin who scored 200 NHL goals.

I love that because the answer is always boiled down to one guy. It's very difficult, especially when it's like a guy who played in NCAA, because who knows that stuff. There's only two people on the planet who know that stuff. Me and my dad, that's exactly right, brother. You got it. I'm on there. I just hopped over to Puck Pyrman right now. Canucks, then 500 plus career games played.

I can do that. Sure. Oh, HL. Uh-oh. I'm a deep shit. And then 40 plus point season. And then Arizona and Florida. I have an idea of who my answer might be.

I got to look something up, though. Let me see. Yeah, he didn't play in the OHL. I was going to say Oliver Recman-Larsen would fit the bill on that. But did not play OHL hockey. So that's a tough one for me. That's life. Anyway, Sean, why you hit him with the plugs and we'll get the hell out of here?

Find me at the athletic. the weekend rankings have returned, as I mentioned earlier in the show, so you can find that every Monday. Later this week, we're going to bring back salary cap court. That's what's up. We're going to figure out who's got bad contracts. And then hoping later in the week or early next week to have an update on the contest, it's always interesting. When we run the contest, you know, we get a thousand plus. us entries and it's sort of like a informal survey of where people are, where hockey fans are

thinking and sometimes there's some interesting insights about what teams you guys feel confident about and more so what teams you don't feel very confident about that you, as far as figuring out where they're going to finish. So do an update on that. And of course you can find me on Wednesdays with Sean Gentilly and Frankie Carrado, the Athletic Hockey Show podcast. For me, head on over to E.P.Rinkside.com. You can read all my, I've done a bunch of college stuff in the last few weeks because obviously college has started. I'm writing about Colorado College this week. They're looking to end, I think, a 14-year drought of NCAA tournament appearances.

I like their odds to beat that. They have one of the best goalies in the country this year, so that's going to be really cool. If they do it. Fun program, like a smaller school, you know, but, There was a while there in the 90s and the 2000s where they were just a fucking juggernaut. They were so good. And they're hoping to return to those days.

Anyhow. And then, yeah, I do all my normal NHL stuff. I'll have Take Town tomorrow. I'll have the three stars on Friday, et cetera, et cetera. And then you're going to want to head over to, oh, so when you sign up for EP, Rinkside, use the code, I Love EP, you get three months tacked on to the end of a, annual subscription absolutely free of charge. So I love EP, all one word, all capital letters, and that'll work.

And then Patreon.com slash Puck Soup, all kinds of bonus episodes going on over there. Throughout the month, throughout every month, and it's me, it's Sean, it's Greg, it's Adam. So all kinds of content over there. Check it out. And thanks for listening to this episode. And we'll talk to you next week. Have a good one. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.