Puck Soup - Trading Jack Eichel

Episode Date: February 24, 2021

Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slap shots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to whatever you commute. We also cover movies, TV shows, it's in tunes. It's your weekly bowl of hockey and nonsense. I'm Greg Wischinski of ESPN, the Svian. The worldwide leader in... Well, we'll see. I'm Dusty R. Gooch.

That's it Yeah, that's Welcome aboard Dusty I'm Sean McIndoo And I'm the new coach of the Montreal Canadiens Very excited And you're in Puck Soup where we have Do do do

Typing noises Sirens Breaking news As we start the show today From like six hours Clod Julian Solemely taking off his glasses Yeah

Clod Julian 12 and 2 today. That's right. Yes, it's... Well, I mean, when Montreal fires a coach, it is that level of gravity, right? I mean, it is a Walter Cronkheim moment. Claude Julian fired this morning as we do the show, along with Kirk Muller. I don't know if I've been more wrong about a coach than it was about Kirk Muller.

I really thought this guy was going to be like one of the better coaches in the NHL. during, you know, after his stint in Carolina. But it turns out, A, he's not a good head coach, and B, he's a really bad special teams coach. So, May I Colpo. What's he going to do, though? Like, he can't tell Kerry Price, maybe try having an 892 save percentage instead of 890. I don't know what the numbers are off the top of my head. But, like, the reason the team stinks is they can't get a save and they don't have finishing talent.

Have we heard that story before? Well, I mean, they have finishing talent. They don't finish against any other team except for Vancouver. Okay, I think that's just how it goes, like, for everybody, though. Everybody finishes really well against Vancouver and then not so much anybody. But like all their underlying numbers, obviously mostly at five on five. But, you know, overall they're like a top 10 team across the board in. XG and they can't turn again this is the Montreal Canadiens problem and frankly it's the

Claude Julian problem going back to when he was with the Bruins can't turn all those XGs into G's. They are fourth and expected goals for per 60 and they are second in expected goals against first 60. Yeah. And when you when you have an XGA and you're second in the league, methinks perhaps Lambert has a point with not getting a save when you're playing well enough defensively. Yeah. The other thing is, you know who's been really fucking good this year is Jake Allen? You know how many games fewer he's played than Carrie Price? Four.

Stop playing Carrie Price. He sucks. What the fuck are we talking about? Take a page out of the Florida Panthers playbook you're saying. Don't bend on knee for the guy making the most money. Play the guy that can get you the dubs. Is that what you're saying? Yeah. Sean, what's your taking all this?

Six years left. 10.5 million dollar cap hit. Yeah, I mean, the goaltending is most of it. And then the other piece of it is this weird thing that happened in Montreal where Mark Bergerna spent. years trying to land an elite forward. He wanted a guy who was going to be that top line. They tried for John DeVaris. They signed Sebastian Ajo. They've been linked in all sorts of trades, including to an N-free agency, including to some guys who probably weren't in that top tier, but were close

enough. And they never got them. And then this year, suddenly it was like, yeah, the plan all along was to roll four lines and to just have a lot of depth. And, you know, that's, And that can work too. And it was working early on. And they do have a lot of depth. But when it comes to the power play, it'd be nice to be able to throw a couple of big guys out there. I'm trying to think if there's any guys in the league who have a lot of goals the last few years and who used to play for the Montreal Canadians but got traded. I can't think of any.

Oh, well. That's right. It doesn't come to that. They're out there. And, but yeah, I mean, it's somebody mentioned on Twitter that there's not a single player on this roster who has ever had more than 61 points in a season. Not last year, not on pace this year, ever in their career. So it's, it's, they've got a lot of guys who are good. and when you're rolling,

it's really hard to beat a team that's got four lines of guys that are good. I mean, we've seen that. Eventually, you get the matchups, and it was working. And five-on-five, it was still working reasonably well. They're just not getting saves, and they're not putting the puck in, and then the special teams are a disaster,

and that is something that usually falls on coaching. So it's, yeah, that's, yeah, that's, Carrie Price this season according to our friends at evolving hockey negative 2.1 goals saved above average

or replacement I have to let me say because I write for ESPN and write for a general audience the rule is I don't say Gar or war I say above average

that's how they want me to write it I understand what the fucking name of the stat is guy who came at me last week that puts him in the Collendelia neighborhood the UC Soros

neighborhood the Braden Holpby. Actually, Holpies better than Bryce this season, according to goals scored above replacement, or goes loud above replacement. So he's 55th in that category. Look, if you'd said at the beginning of the season, that that's where he was going to be,

I mean, that's it. We can pick apart the forward depth that all the other things as much as we want, that when you give a goaltender the biggest contract in the entire league. He's got to be one of the best goalies in the league. And it is just, it can be really difficult to recover because as I saw someone else say, just now am I on my feed? If you sign a forward to a bad contract, you can drop him down, drop his minutes, change his role. Your goalie has to be your goalie. Or he's a $10 million

backup. Like those are your two options. And they went and got Jake Allen because they thought Kerry Price was playing too much and fatigue was becoming an issue and everybody loved that trade. And I was kind of confused by it, but they're spending $15 million on goaltending now and they're not getting goaltending. And, you know, is a new guy coming in in his very first head coaching job going to be the guy who sits down Carrie Price in Montreal? Maybe. He might. But good luck. the other thing to say is that I don't necessarily put this all on Carrie Price because, as you pointed out, this is like a problem with special teams, which is a coaching thing.

I'm just going to read you the Canadians' top guys by penalty kill time on ice. Shea Weber. Can you do it in an exaggerated French accent? No, I'm not going to get racist or whatever. All right. It's not racist. ethnically, whatever, I don't know, whatever. Just in general, don't try not to do accents unless it's the Italian accent, which everybody is allowed to do.

Thanks, Nintendo. That's right. So, yeah, Shay Weber. Okay, fair enough, you probably not the guy you want out there for these things, but I get why. Ben Shira, why? Why would he be out there? Joel Edmondson, why would he be out there? Jeff Petrie.

Okay, fair enough. There's your other good defensemen on the team. Phil Dano, Jake Evans, for some reason. Arturi Leckenin, Paul Byron, who they put on waivers. Nick Suzuki, Tyler Tofoli, Yole Armiya, Alex Romanov. Those are all the guys who were played more than 10 minutes on the PK. A lot of those guys aren't good is, I think, a big part of the problem. So this is the third coach now that Bergervan's on, Mark Bergevan, the GM.

I would say probably it's the last head coach that he will promote or hire. Well, I mean, let's be. Okay. Dominique Ducharm is the new head coach. He comes in with a lot of respect on his coaching and other levels coached in Halifax. I believe. He's had a lot of success as a junior coach, has never been a head coach at the pro level,

was an assistant with Claude Chilient. But see, he's 47. He's seen as one of these, like, up-and-common guys, maybe. So he's there as an interim basis. And then, you know, you figure maybe Bergevan either keeps them or gets, you know, one more coach to hire. But then that's it, right? Like this is the last coaching change of the Bergervan administration.

You'd think. Yeah. I never really know with this league in Montreal. And Jeff Moleson seems to like Mark Bergevin a lot. But yeah. All right. You see how strong he is? You want to cross that guy?

Also a very snappy dresser. Yeah. All right. Real quick, a lightning round. Did the North Division get Claude Julian fired? I think losing close to the senators got pledged julian fired. I think that was my next question.

Did the Ottawa senators get clodgily and fired? Did the lack of playing 20 games against the Vancouver Canucks get called Julian fired? And you know what? A pretty close to 50-50 goal review probably got them fired too, as least got him fired too. Oh my God.

Can I stop hearing about this fucking goal review? Who gives you shit? How many games do they have to lose to do? dog shit teams. They've lost like all but two of the last eight games and people are like, oh, well, if the two goal reviews had gone a different way, fuck off, who cares? Ryan, no, but here's the thing.

Brendan Gallagher thinks it was a bad call. Right, no, exactly. And so, I mean, he, when an impartial witness like that steps forward, you got to listen. Oh, my God, yeah, I don't even want to start talking about goal reviews because the Lord, they're bad takes out there. I just got this in the mail.

Yeah, oh, it's a, book contract, the goal that could have saved Claude Julian's career. I actually am going to be writing this book. It's on triumph books for 2020. So this is very exciting. The subtitle can be the fact that there was a close call in a sports game means that that league is fundamentally flawed and needs to fix this right now because it has never happened before that there was a call and people went, some people thought one, some people thought the other. Good Lord. The other thing to say about their special teams, by the way,

you know who shoots the puck the most on their power play is Shea Weber and Jeff Petrie and then everybody else after that. It's 22 for Weber, 20 for Petri, and then 15 for Tyler Tofoli, who, if I'm remembering right, scored a million goals early in the season. They don't let him shoot the fucking puck on the powerplay. It all has to run through Weber. Like, stop shooting from the blue line. it'll fix your power play very quickly. It's, it's, it's, this is really fascinating to me because it's, they are so good five on five and so bad on special teams. And when you bring a new coach in, if he can keep the five on five and fix the special teams, they're going to be great.

And if he can't fix the special teams and does something to break the five on five, they're going to be horrible. Yeah. Well, that's just the thing too. Like, like if there's a, if there's a close, if there's a Clod Julian calling card, like, like, like, like, Ryan said before, it's, well, obviously his sunny comportment, but also his teams fucking rule five on five. They always have. And I don't know if that's repeatable.

You might be just, you know, the old cutting off your nose despite your face kind of due to there. Yes, except that, again, the new guy is a claudulian assistant. So it's not like he's coming in totally blind having to reinvent it. I mean, he can't come in and basically just be like, we're going to keep doing everything we were already doing at five on five. Yeah. And we're going to work on other things.

Now, he might not, because a lot of times in any line of work, you bring a new guy in, the new guy wants to put his own stamp on things and change things and show that he's smarter than the last guy. But it wouldn't, it's not even like it's somebody coming from outside the organization who has to relearn this stuff. This, this, the Sharms should know how to work this. The other thing to say is that, you know, when Julian left Boston, and everybody was like, especially me, was like, I don't know.

I mean, yeah, like the luck isn't there or whatever you want to say, but those numbers are pretty hard to argue with. And then Bruce Cassidy was like, what if those numbers were actually better? Okay. What if I was able to connect with and get more out of the young supporting cast on this team? Yeah. You know, there are always advantages to flip in the script if things aren't working. I do wonder, though, like, to your point, Sean, this isn't a very well-constructed team. They have not been a well-constructed team for a very long time, you know, to the point where it's become a hockey parody to not parody.

Like, you know, Ottawa can beat Montreal in any given night, but like how fucking funny it is that every time they acquire a winger, the joke is they're going to make them a center. Like, it's just, you know, that's what Burj's Van does. So I'm concerned that this is a problem of construction and not coaching. And I think at the end of the day, this is the kind of firing you see that you see a GM make where he believes the team is really fucking good and believes that the coach is not getting enough out of them. And I see it as the coach is getting exponentially more out of them than maybe. anyone could. That's what I think. Well, or it's a situation where a GM says this team is maybe not very good, but this team is in a very good position this year only because of the division that they're in. Because we're in a seven-team division where there's on paper one team that's better

than us, and that's Toronto, and that's a team that right now you're not terrified to play in a hard-fought seven-game playoff series. And then a bunch of teams that are look like Montreal or a lot worse. And it might be the sort of thing where it's like, hey, if we're going to go anywhere with Kerry Price and Shea Weber and, you know, this veteran corps, this is the year it's got to happen. So I can't wait around and and be patient. And then next year I'm back in the Atlantic playing Boston and Tampa in addition to Toronto. Yeah. Well, it's a tough decision.

And I think if you put the last of truth around Mark Bershvan, he would say he's built a good team. And that he believes that someone else can get more out of him. I'm less pessimistic on the roster than you. Like, I don't think it's a flawed roster so much as I just, I find it so remarkable that for several years there clearly was one strategy. And then it just switched and everybody acted like that was the plan all along. Like, yeah, run lots of depth, four lines. We don't need a star. And it's, there's pros and cons to do it.

You're right. I am negative on this team. I think Mark Bergevan has been tap dancing on a landmine for a very long time as a general manager. But I do think at the end of the day, like we've all said, they got a couple more saves. I'm probably thinking this roster is better than it is. You know, like that's what it comes down to. So much of what we do. It's just finding creative ways to say that goaltending is good or bad.

Yeah. And right now it's bad. Yeah. Well, I'm not going to be. I guess the question is, was that predictable, right? What price? I mean, he's a Canadian icon, Ryan. He's untouchable.

Yeah. I think I saw something recently that was like, uh, should he be the Seattle goalie? what say you No Why would Seattle

Why would they do it All right Well I'm not going to beat myself up over it Speaking of beating up Today's episode Is brought to you by Violent Gentleman Hockey Club

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The stuff's really cool. Head to their website, VinylGentlemen.com. You can scroll through it and see the designs that they have. And undoubtedly, you've probably seen their stuff on people at a game and didn't realize it was their stuff. It's good stuff. A proud sponsor of the Puck Suit podcast. Tahoe, what were your reactions? I was there.

What did it look like from where you were sits? it looked good except for, I guess, you would say, the hockey early on. You know? You mean like on Saturday? Saturday's game? Yeah, that's right. Yeah. I guess my thing with it is the setting was stunning.

It was beautiful. But it's like, do you want me to look at the big mountains and the trees and all that stuff? Or do you want me to look at the hockey? Because it's really hard to do both at the same time. And like unless you're showing the game, like, except from that angle of the Charlie McAvoy goal where everybody was like, this is what it's all about. And it's like, yeah, but for the most part, I just saw like the bottoms of trees and then a hockey rink. So it never really like fully worked during the game in terms of like the beautiful vista and the hockey. But once you could, you know, work in those alternate camera angles, it was like, yeah, this is fucking cool.

Yeah. What did you think, Sean? Yeah, I mean, I thought it looked phenomenal. I really did. We've had some good-looking outdoor games. We've had some that were just in football stadiums. This was the best-looking one for sure. And yeah, you're right. I mean, during the game, you're focused on the rink. But I went in, there had been so much talk about, oh, this is going to look so great. It's going to look so great. And I'd seen some of the early images. I was like, you know, it's a tree. okay. I sort of went in expecting to be underwhelmed because it had been high, and it, to me, the visuals lived up and more to what people were talking about. I just thought it looked amazing. It's Sunday's game especially. Like I was standing on the media riser there and watching the first period of the Bruins Flyers game. And it looked cool. But then a buddy of mine showed me his phone and he was streaming the game.

I couldn't fucking believe how good it looked. My God, sunsetsetting over the mountains, like that sort of like golden hour of hockey that they were playing. It was one of the most, I mean, it was like a postage stamp. It was fucking gorgeous. A couple things from being there. The media access was extraordinarily restricted. I got my first taste of sort of COVID protocol, big event NHL. There was a media room at the Harrahs across the city.

street from where the game was. I think if you follow me on Twitter, you might have seen the roof collapsing in said Harrah's at the end of the day on Sunday because of the melting snow. Not figuratively. Literally. No, it was exciting. A huge crash. And then everybody's like, all right, you just keep typing along.

Then all of a sudden you just hear like the telltale sound of other things cracking that. Yeah. Guess what? Did you like outdoor hockey? Well, now you get to do some outdoor. Reporting. They're waiting.

the NHL media relations people were very nice and us out of there as quickly as possible. One, you had to get on a bus, go to the venue, you had to stay on the one single sidewalk, walk single file, like you're back in elementary school. And then you had to go on this one media riser that they had and stand there and watch a period of hockey and then get back on your bus and go back to. to the media room. And that's kind of how they worked at. No face-to-face interaction with anybody from the league outside of their media relations people, no players or nothing. And it was fine. I mean, I think you got a sense of the game, but I think the problem was that since they had had a press box there, you couldn't watch the whole thing. And that was kind of a bummer. But I was able to write that story on the fans watching the game from boats. And that was fun,

including the guy who did the strip tease in his Bruins onesie during after the first period of the game on Sunday. So it was a really good event. I get the sense from Betman though on Sunday during his press availability that I think he sees this as a very COVID-y event. Like we're going to do this now because we have to, but we're doing outdoor games with 45,000 fans buying $30 hats. Yeah, of course.

From this point on. Yeah. But that's a bummer. because I do think that these games could get attention, depending on where you put them. And you could do a thing where if you put a game in Central Park and charge an absolute fucking premium for 2,500 tickets, you probably make a pretty decent amount of money.

Finally, hockey's only for rich people. We can't believe it. Hey, listen, man, bleed them if you got them, right? But I think it's clear that he prefers the Winter Classic Stadium Series model to the, let's hope that the sponsors can help us not lose too much money on the outdoor game, even though it was very pretty. Anything to glean hockey-wise from these games. Would you have allowed the Flyers to play in this game, by the way, missing six guys to the COVID protocols?

Yeah, that's a tough one. I mean, look, like, it wasn't COVID-related, but the Bruins were also missing. a lot of guys. They, uh, I was reading the other day that they basically had Providence playing with 17 guys, uh, or skaters rather,

because, um, they, the ruins were like, everybody's coming to Tahoe. We have no healthy bodies. Um, and so,

yeah, I mean, I, I, I think that's a, that's a real tough, uh, look,

but also like, it's on the schedule where, you know, they can't automatically just go, uh, instead, it's actually the Rangers or what you know like they can't do that so like I get why it happened but it was it didn't make me feel good watching that game certainly yeah it's it was a tough one

to answer your question between that and the fact that one of the games they played one period and then nine hours later they played the other two periods I'm going to say I'm not taking a lot from the results of these games well let's talk about that for a second because that obviously I mean, people were like just having a fucking go at the NHL about the face plant that they had on that Saturday. That was purely because they wanted the game in NBC. They made their choice. They wanted to get it in that broadcast window. They knew that if it was a sunny day that the ice would melt.

It doesn't get to like zero degrees in Lake Tahoe at that elevation. But it does get very intense sun at that elevation. And, you know, Friday was overcast. It looked like, you know, they could pull it off if that were the case. they thought it was going to be overcast on Saturday. It wasn't. The minute they found out it wasn't overcast on Sunday, they moved the game. So, yeah, I, it's a tough one for me because I know why they did it.

They certainly shouldn't have done it. And it was absolutely comical to see, like, talk about your hockey brain. Colorado gets a one-nothing lead in the first period. They go to the locker room. The ice is fucking a puddle. It's just, it's just melting, right? Colorado's like, let's get back out there, let's play. We got the momentum.

And then Vegas is like, actually, we can see concrete. Let's not do it. Yeah, the other thing is that, you know, it's the classic NHL shit of like, well, if this thing that's like 50, 50 or probably even more than that, like they knew what the weather looked like. But they were like, but we really want to look like assholes on national TV. we can't wait for everybody to be like, this is a fucking huge joke and the NHL looks ridiculous. Let's have Mike Torrico vamp for an hour before they kick it over to whatever was going to come on anyway. Yeah. But it is tough, right?

Because the flip side of that is you say, all right, the forecast, it wasn't going to be that sunny. Now we're thinking it might be. So we're going to push the game back. We drop off of NBC because NBC is not bumping Saturday night. live for hockey. We moved to this in a smaller network. A lot of people won't see. And then, you know, what happens if it's 3 o'clock and, you know, we're seeing photos of cloudy skies?

And we're going, yeah, they didn't even need to do that. They get ripped that way, too. So it's like, I, I rip on the NHL for everything. But I have a hard time getting to, like, with every outdoor game, there has been at some point, somebody said, you know, looking at the weather, if it gets, it's a little bit warmer or a little bit colder, we get rain or we get snow, we might have problems.

We always knew that. We always knew there was a risk. And we got to whatever, the 30th one of these things before we had something close to the worst case, which is start the game and then have to step. But there's always been contingencies. It's always been a possibility.

And again, this is, it's kind of similar to what we were saying last week about the lottery. It's the same sort of thing where a thing could happen. Everybody's okay with the possibility, but then the thing does happen and everyone's like, oh, this is a disaster. We have to change this. Well, no, you do outdoor games. You do run the risk that every now and then something like this will happen.

And I'd rather have the NHL run the risk with the potential for big rewards versus do what they do for almost everything else, which is always take the conservative, let's not stick our necks out there road. So keep doing games like this. And yeah, if you have to pause, if you get embarrassed, if Gary Bettman has to go and do it, embarrassing interview. If that's the cost of it, then I think it's worth it to keep reaping the rewards when it does work. Yeah. You just never want to have a quote where you're saying the sun is your enemy. That's all. Talking about that's super villain talk. That's great. That's and also accidentally, metaphorically, a pretty perfect summation of the Garrett Batman era.

Yeah. I also thought it was maybe just a Nintendo reference where he was talking about the angry from the Mario games and how much he didn't like having to jump over it. You know, of course, the big problem was as soon as Colin Campbell heard that a son was being blamed for something, he just sprung into action. He was getting rid of it. Motherfucker. See, I wanted to write that joke, but it doesn't. You have to do it verbally, so I had to wait for the book.

I appreciate that you saved it for the show. And so does Tyler Delo. That's good stuff. Yeah, Tahoe was cool. I would do the outdoor game again. They just have to figure out how to make more money. and maybe play it at a time where the ice isn't going to melt. Artemie Panarin.

Holy shit. What a story this was. So Artemi Panarin took a leave of absence from the Rangers for personal reasons because a Russian newspaper published allegations from Panarin's former KHL coach, Andrei Nazarov, claiming the winger got into a physical altercation with an 18-year-old woman in Latvia in 2011. and this was a thing where Nazarov had previously criticized Panarin for his outspoken feelings towards Vladimir Putin and being in opposition to Putin. What the hell did you make of this story, Ryan? Yeah, I mean, look, it's the classic situation where everybody's like, oh, standing up to Putin.

What a brave guy. and it's like, yeah, but the other guy that he likes is also really bad. And so, like, you know, I guess the idea of, like, the Russian government or whatever, I don't know who you want to say. But, like, putting pressure on people who are in opposition to Putin is not anything new, certainly. But also, like, all this stuff is just like, boy, I really wish you. it was the Cold War again. Ooh, didn't we all feel so good when it was the Cold War? Like, it's all, it's all just trying to recreate those conditions that, like, all these

headlines are like, oh, nasty old Putin. He's, he's just as, you know, I, like, I'm sure. Yeah, I'm sure it's very scary for Artami Panarin and his family and all that kind of stuff. But I also am not going to wait into, like, trying to become the expert in like the geopolitical meaning of what this is going to do to the NHL as a whole. Like in a lot of ways, I'm just kind of like, you know what, this is not in my business.

You know, one of the things that's that's kind of been circled around this story is the, his criticism of Putin, support of the opposition in, Russia and how that stands in contrast with Alex Ovechkin having founded Putin team. And I've always, it's always been an interesting subject for me, this Putin-Ovechkin thing and the fact that he's not received more criticism. I mean, he's received criticism for it, but it's not exactly an anchor around him, you know, as an NHL player or a professional sports star in the United States. And he's not, he doesn't really, he's not, as far as far as.

far as I know, he's done one sit-down interview with media during his time in Washington. And it was right around when he started putting all the Putin stuff on Instagram to discuss this thing. And then has just punted on almost every other invitation to do so. So it's hard to really kind of write about it without knowing what's going on in Ovechkin's head. But it does kind of stand in contrast with what Panarin has done. and Panarian's been incredibly vocal about the situation back in Russia. Do you think, like, Ovechkin deserves more criticism for his Putin stuff? Or am I wrong on that?

I think that's just the political reality of Russia, right? Like, Putin, say what you want about him. He's insanely popular in Russia, right? So, like, the idea that Alex Ovechkin isn't like, and I actually like this guy who's, you know, who has like 4% support, but he's more liberal. Like, the thing is that a lot of the stuff that Navalny is criticizing Putin over is like being too cozy with the West. Right. Like he wants it.

Like, he's a Russia for Russians guy. He's not like the idea that, you know, it's better to support Navalny because he's, you know, quote unquote anti-corruption or whatever. I don't know enough about the situation for sure, but I just know that like this guy has organized like skinhead marches or been involved with them in some way. So I don't like I don't think anybody is is good or bad because I don't know enough about the situation. It's about right. Very interesting though. I think maybe the most interesting thing about the situation was the fact that it was a assault on. a woman, allegedly, and the Rangers and the NHL fucking rushed to release statements in support

of Panarin. And in this climate, in 2021, to see that happen with regard to an allegation like this, I think spoke volumes about what they have to know is the situation or the motivation behind this stuff. Otherwise, they're not putting their necks on the line and supporting somebody in an allegation like this. Yeah. I mean, that seems like it struck you, it struck you the same way, Shana. Yeah, I was surprised at the level of certainty, not just from the Rangers in the NHL, but from some media out there, including a lot of media that would generally be, have a different reaction to these sorts of allegations. It surprised me.

I mean, it's a very serious accusation. There are very serious reasons to be skeptical of where it's coming from and how it's coming out. And I think it's, especially for those of us in the media, it's okay to say that at this point we don't know the full story. And not necessarily leave it at that and just drop it and not talk about it. but to say that there's, you know, we don't know. I would expect the Rangers to back their player. Maybe you expect the NHL to do the same. But, yeah, the number of people who are just ready to declare case closed on the whole thing is strange to me,

unless there is more information out there that's no one that isn't shared publicly, in which case I hope it does get shared publicly, and then we can actually put this into rest. Yeah. Speaking of the media, you should probably mention this. The Mike Babcock Redemption Tour rolls on. He did, what, a local radio station in, uh, where is he coaching now? Saskatchewan. Saskatchewan.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, so he's coaching, uh, college hockey. Nope. And, uh, and, uh, and he, uh, and he, uh, And now he did a radio station interview, and then he, I believe, I haven't seen the full interview yet, but he sat down with Christine Simpson as we do the show for a SportsNet interview. Which hasn't aired yet. That hasn't aired yet. It hasn't aired yet.

So maybe by the time people are hearing this has aired. I saw Jeff O'Neill go off on Babcock on TSN's radio station yesterday, which reminded me that SportsNet got the interview. I mean, he just keeps going. First of all, he keeps on getting these platforms. And he's yet to really, like, I don't, now we're in the part where he's like, all these people keep hiring me. So what could possibly be wrong with Mike Babcock? That's the defense now. Okay. But I mean, first of all, he keeps getting these platforms.

It's, it's been almost a year and a half since he was fired. He's done three interviews. one with the athletic, one with sports net, and one with some radio station that nobody's ever even. And also got on the air on NBC as an analyst. Yeah. But it's not like it's wall-to-wall Mike Babcock coverage. And I'll say the same thing that we said with when the first interview aired, the same thing I said with Tony DeAngelo. Like, I want to hear from these guys.

And I want to hear like what their defense is. And I actually think in this case, I don't know if the redemption tour is continuing because it felt like the first one, the interview with Pierre at the athletic was this kind of PR-ish sort of, hey, I'm a changed guy and I've got my talking points and I've been coached on what I should say to sound like a good guy. These last couple of interviews, it honestly sounds like a guy who doesn't really feel like he did anything significantly wrong and he's kind of done with this whole apology thing and just wants to move on with it.

O'Neill's point was great, which was that he's starting to come a little bit unhinged because he's not used to having the world not kiss his ass. And that's a fantastic fucking point. And so, you know what, again, this whole, like, well, why is he giving a platform? He's getting a platform partly so that we can see if this is what's going on in his head.

And it's, I think there's value in that. Like, that radio hit that he did, and maybe he was under the impression that because it was a local thing, it wouldn't really get a wide amount of play. But, you know, he isn't sounding like a guy who's still doing the contrition thing. He sounds like a guy who maybe recognizes that he messed up in a few instances, but he's kind of full steam ahead. And like you said, it's this sort of, you know, people keep hiring me, people like me.

So really, what's the problem? And these vague, you know, mentions of, ah, you know, I'm hearing this stuff, but I don't think the whole story is out there and, you know, getting into this, this area of, you know, I don't like what I'm hearing. And so I'm just going to pretend that it's not out there. He inadvertently struck oil when he said that because essentially the problem is, is that it's a entire sport where its results over process at every fucking turn when it comes to what decisions you make from a personnel situation. So he keeps getting jobs because they look at his resume and say, oh, when he had Nick Lidsdrum, he did very well. When he had the best team in the history of hockey in front of him in the Olympics in the World Cup, he did well. Those guys don't care how he gets to point B.

They just don't. Maybe they do now because there's such scrutiny over tactics. But at the time, nobody, the Leafs didn't fucking care that he abused players. maybe they didn't even think to ask. But now they will, and now teams do. And I think the reason he kept on getting jobs is because nobody really cared what he was doing to get the results he got.

And I hope that's changed. Yeah, I would hope so too. And I guess we'll see. I mean, the fact that he's coaching at a school in Saskatchewan suggest that maybe the first leg of the redemption tour didn't go as successfully as he might have hoped. Absolutely. I know it's in your family

and there's reasons family-wise that he would want to do it. But this is not, you know, people down in the States if you're thinking, oh, you know, it's college, it's a college university hockey in Canada is not a thing to any serious degree. So this is a a serious step down just purely in terms of career moves.

I mean, it could be fine, though. Does Nick Lindstrom's son play there? Just out of curiosity? I don't think. Or J.S. Jaguars? J.S. Jaguerre's son? Golden horseshoe up that guy's ass, man. Jesus.

One of the greatest goaltaining performances in the history of the playoffs and gets the cup final and then has the luxury of coaching a team with Steve Eiserman and Nick Lindstrom in, like, perpetuity. Yeah. Worked pretty well for him. Worked that pretty well for him. All right. Speaking of working out well,

how about Sidney Crosby crossing the 1000 game mark boys? Boy, doesn't that make you feel a million fucking years old, huh? Yeah. Boy, doesn't it? It really does. I went to see him play. He would have hit it. He would have hit it sooner, too.

Oh, yeah. No, I went to see him play in the queue. Like, he's the first, like, high, high, eye, end prospect where I was like, yeah, I saw him play when he was, like, 17 years old. It's fucking crazy. see. I only saw bits and pieces of the ceremony. Was that his girlfriend on the ice with him?

I think it was his nurse. I don't know. What kind of question is? Of course it was his girlfriend. Who else is a good friend? I didn't know. I watched it with this. I was fucking like Tahoe.

I didn't see the ceremony. I saw Sid really happy. I saw him like doing very. unsid-like things, like showing human emotion. Smiling, yeah. That was exciting. Smiling, living in the moment. That was great.

It was great to see Crosby living in the moment. There's been a very robust debate in the last week about Crosby's place amongst the greatest players in National Hockey League history. It came up briefly, I believe, during our recent bonus episode, the Hockey Hall of shame of hockey things, which was really fun. You could check it out on the Patreon. And the inference is that Sidney Crosby could be a top five player of all time. And you, I believe, Ryan, wanted to bring this to the main show to discuss.

Yeah, I think it's a little crazy to say that, honestly. Do tell. Well, you have the indisputable three of Gretzky and Lemieux, right? Like, whatever order you want to put those in, Those guys are there. Most people would say Gordy Howe as well, not just because he played in the NHL until he was like over 50 years old. But when he was playing in his 20s and 30s, he was the most dominant player in the league. I'll give you Gordy Howe.

So that's four. And so now you're saying Sidney Crosby is better than every goalie who's ever played the game, Nicholas Lydstrom, all the Russian players who only played, you know, a handful of their, later seasons in the NHL or didn't play at all, all the other, you know, players from the Soviet and their client, the Soviet Union and their client states who also didn't come over until the NHL unless they defected. Sydney Cross was better than all those guys. I find that very difficult to believe.

But if you just keep it to the NHL, okay. All right, the top, the top, so I don't know if you know this. But Sean and I and this other guy that used to co-host a podcast called Biscuits did our own NHL 100 list when the NHL did their centennial list. And our top five consensus was Gretzky, Or, Howe, Mario, and Rocket Richard. Does that sound right? I mean, like I say, is Rocket Richard better than Dominic Haschak? He was 11th. Yeah, that's too low for Dominic Cashick.

That's ridiculous. Harvey was sixth and Lidstrom was seventh. You know, I think if you want to put Lidstrom or Harvey above Crosby, I think that's perfectly reasonable. I think if you're talking best forwards of all time, Crosby is easily top five. But there are two other positions that don't get as much attention. And so I just think the idea that Crosby is better than, yeah, like I said, Lidsstrom, Hashek, Brodor, Wa, Trediak. Oh, I appreciate you putting Brodor in there.

We had Crosby, eighth amongst forwards. Gretzky, how, Mario. This is like three years ago for... This is three years ago, yeah. Gretzky, Gretzky Howe, Mario, Richard, Bobby Hull, Esposito, Bellevove, and then Sid. Yeah, I mean, I can't really judge. those old guys, I never saw him play. You know, like, I guess I can look at them in the context of the era and all that kind of stuff.

Obviously, Crosby and Lidsdrum are the only ones I saw, you know, a good chunk of their careers, certainly. But, yeah, I just have a lot of difficulty, you know, putting Crosby just absolutely right up there. When they were talking about it on Sportsnet on Saturday, they were like, it's no question in my mind. And I think the thing to say about Crosby is I think he is the perfect player for this era, right? Like, just the way hockey is played, he is physically and mentally gifted, like uniquely so, to dominate in this era. And that probably means he would have dominated in just about any era because, you know, the way he sees the game and all that kind of stuff. but with that having been said like what you know if he if he i again i guess i just figure you can't compare him to um to the all-time greats at other positions and just go absolutely

sidney crosbie is better than uh than all those guys it's not it's not really up for debate I think the idea that he's top five of all time, which has been floated, is probably not accurate. Yeah. Could he sneak into the top ten? Oh, yeah. I think he's absolutely top ten. Okay, but if he's top ten, then who is not top ten? Gretzky, or Howe, Mario, Rocket, Harvey, Littstrom, Bobby Hall, Ray Bork, Esposito,

Hachik, Belavow, Patrick Waugh, or all ahead of him on this list that we did. Is Patrick Waugh better than Sidney Crosby? I know it's apples and oranges, but would you say that? I think that's where you start asking that question. Yeah. It's, it is so difficult in two ways. First of all, there's the issue of comparing across eras.

How do you possibly compare Sidney Crosby with Rocket Richard? And then it's the position thing, and especially with goalies. I do feel like, you know, on the defensemen, we can get at least a little bit close to feeling right. But, yeah, whenever you put these lists together, we seem to just not mention the goalies, partly because it's such a different position and partly because there isn't, and some people would discourage this, but as far as a consensus, there isn't like one guy. There isn't a bobby or of goalies.

A lot of people would say maybe that should be Hasick. Other people, you know, not as sure. They go back to one of the older guys. But it just feels like once you bring the goalies into it, you've got to. bring three or four or five guys in so we kind of keep them out i don't it's always been interesting to me because hockey has for the last two decades had that top four carved into their their their mount rushmore and fifth is where the debate starts and i think it's a fun debate it's the sort of thing you argue about as a sports fan and i think crosbie's tracking towards being a serious candidate

for that five spot when he when it's all when it's all said and done he won't have the crazy numbers because of the area he played in. But he'll be in the running and it's, it's, it's, I don't think it's ridiculous. I think anyone who's saying that like, yeah, it's already a done deal, he's there. That's clearly jumping the gun. But I, I think he's headed there with the Richard Belabo, the rest of the guys. But then, like Ryan says, where do you put Hasick?

where do you put whoever you think is the best goalie and that having done the exercise with with Greg and Dave like that's where things just get screwed up. All right. I'd like to put him top 10 if you take goalies out of the equation. He's top 10. If goalies are in the equation, listen, I can't put him ahead of Hashi Gorawa, I think. Like as in right now? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think that's fair, right? Because he's not a finished product yet. No, he's Canadian. It's true. Oh, in that case, he is top five then. Since Connors kind of gotten his act together defensively a little bit this season,

like, can you project 15 years from now and what that comparison between him and Crosby's going to look like? Is it entirely contingent on Cups? Because statistically, he's going to be better than Crosby, I think, at the end of the day. Yeah You could be Yeah It's I mean Can you project 15 years ahead?

No Should you? No Will you? Yes, of course This is I think you totally can That's why

That's why Chris Gratton won three hearts You can completely project ahead Yeah Uh huh Yeah Um All right So that's it

Let's see Are the kings good They're He headed towards being good I don't know if they're playoff good, right? I mean, as we're recording this, they've won five in a row after starting the season, winning three at 12th.

So I don't think they're bad anymore. You know, I do my power rankings. I've had them in the bottom five for a couple of years now. I don't have them there anymore. And the prospect pipeline is really good in L.A. Like, this is what a rebuild is supposed to look like. and as fans in some places know you can get the prospects but at some point you've got to get some lift off

on going from being in the basement to something more than that and it doesn't always happen and it seems like right now it's maybe happening in L.A. and that's, uh, they don't scare me this year but if I'm in whatever division they're in with them a year or two down the line, they're headed in the right direction because they've got a lot of a lot of help coming in.

Yeah. How, I was going to say, how dumb does Chicago look based on how good the Kings look as far as, like, having a core that's around the same age and then rebuilding on the fly? I don't know that, I guess the thing is Chicago didn't have the flexibility the Kings did to remake the roster, right? Like, they certainly had players they couldn't move, but like, none of them, even Drew Doughty at his worst, wasn't Brent Seabrook, right? Like, this is true. And, and, and, and, and, Jeff Carter at his worst might be Prince Seabrook. Yeah, sure, but like, you see what I'm saying. Like, they, you know, I don't think the, the, the big money guys on that team ever got as bad as the big money guys on Chicago did.

That's fair. The other thing to say is the Kings, by expected goals percentage, are the worst five-on-five team in the league right now. Their power play is going the fuck off, which is the main – because somebody asked me the other day, like, hey, why is Drew Dowdy having such a good season? And the answer is he's a power play specialist now. He's good at that, and the puck's going in the net for them on the power play right now. That's basically it. I'm not like knocking the guy. That's just the reality.

And yeah, I mean, they're getting saves from Cal Peterson, too. And to a lesser extent, Jonathan, like Jonathan Quick hasn't been, Terry's been about average. And Cal Peterson's having a great fucking season so far. And, you know, do I expect that to continue? Well, you know, Cal Peterson was a good goalie in college. That's all I really have to go on. but his track record in the NHL, limited though it is obviously. He's only played, I think, less than 30 games or 40 games, something like that.

But, like, his numbers are really good in the NHL. So, you know, do I think they're good? No, do I think they're maybe the fifth best team in a very bad division? Yeah, sure. Okay. That works for me. But, yeah, I mean, there are long-term chances of, like, making the playoffs and stuff. I don't buy it.

Drew Dowdy, by the way, talking with Jackie Redmond from NHL Network last night, seems laser focused on having the best season he can to get on Team Canada in 2022. Quote, to be honest, when I don't see my name on that stuff, it completely frustrates me. I don't believe the media. I know the GM's creating this team no hockey. Yeah, that's the Duncan Keith thing from a couple of weeks ago. I'm taking more shots so the media thinks I'm good, so I get my course. Okay, man, sure.

I mean, whatever motivates you find that, sure. I don't think it's outrageous to say that NHL GMs might know more than random media people. But, again, they felt the same. They felt like Carrie Price was worth changing the playoff format over. So what do they know? Exactly. Exactly. two things that just broke while we were doing the show.

First of all, NBC, ratings for Tahoe game. The Bruins and Flyers Lake Tahoe game on NBC Sports Network was the most watched regular season game in NBCSN's 15-year history of televishing NHL games. Total audience delivery of 1.068 million viewers. And on Saturday, before the game got. Kaiboshed, they did 1.3-98 million viewers on NBC. So the Tahoe games did really well on television, which has got to be encouraging for what they were trying to do.

The other big breaking news, the big show has joined AEW. Yeah, I just saw that as well. That rocks. How do you like that? We love the giant. I hope he brings back walking to the ring, smoking a cigarette. That was the greatest gimmick of all time. When he would, like, beat disco inferno in eight seconds and never put out his cigarette, nothing's cool than that.

Just come in, choke, slam, pin him, pick up your cigarette, like, and you haven't missed a beat. The coolest. I mean, like, Diamond Dallas Page would be chewing on an unlit cigar, you know, when he came to the ring. That was his previous, like, gimmick. But Paul White really bought it to the next level, smoking an actual cigarette. That's fun. I want to see, this is where I want the industry to be, by the way, is I want to see more of this. Like, we're going to take your big guy.

And granted, he's not like an active participant anymore. He's a really good guy, though. Yeah, but he, oh, yeah, he is. The biggest, the biggest show. I want to see, but I wanted to go the other way. I want to see Vince sign away like one of these AEW guys. Never happened. All the AEW stars are 510.

This is very true. But, like, remember how exciting it was when AJ Stiles showed up for the Royal Rumble? like that was great I will always love one of my favorite wrestling things ever is when one person who's a star on one show shows up on the other show like the Jericho thing on Raw it's the best and they need to be more of it

Rick Flair in the in what 91 when he went briefly went to WWE F at the time I guess but yeah that was but I think it's like I think part of the problem is that it would have to be Vince acknowledging that some of the AEW guys are stars right? And maybe he doesn't want to do that.

Well, especially the other thing is like, how many, like, how many Kenny Omega's are there that could, they would just be like, yeah, fuck Vince. I don't care about that. I'm fine. I'll go back to Japan if I want. You know, like, I feel like that's a real thing that, like, more and more people in the business are just like,

yeah, WWE, no thanks. You can't see Michael Cole screaming, my God, it's Luchosaurus. Can't see that happening? He's the cleaning. The elimination chamber? Yeah. Because you know they would lean into Kenny Omega, the cleaner.

And he has to, like, carry a mop and talk to it. Push your bucket to the ring, yeah. I would love to see what Vince does with Jungle Boy. Luke Perry's kid. Is 205 Live still a thing? That's what would happen with Jungle Boy. Yeah, because he weighs, like, 106 pounds. Yeah.

Jeff Skinner has been scratched twice. How's that going to work out? Boy, impossible to see it coming, huh? Wow. Crazy turn of events. There's a lot of people making a lot of money there. Yeah. But the thing with Skinner, because when I first saw that, I was like, yeah, the guy stinks now.

He's not scoring. He's having such a good season, except he can't put the puck in the net. Yeah. He actually is having a really good season. He's having a really good season. Everything else, he's having a good season. So it's kind of one of those things where it's like, is this a coach trying to reset a guy? Is he being punished?

Or is this just a coach saying, you know, I'm starting to feel the heat? Let's point at this guy. Let's make this guy the story. And everyone will talk about him for a week. I don't know. It's the buffalo is a mess. Just again, a mess. I feel for those fans because this is,

I'm Charlie Brown with the football when it comes to the Sabres at this point. Every year I'm like, this could be the end. Nope. And that's a Leif's fan saying that. You would think I would have learned, right? Like, you would think I would have a built-in radar for this. Yeah.

I at least thought they'd be more competitive this year. Like, I thought they're just based on how the division was built. They weren't going to make the playoffs or anything. But they look fucking horrible most nights. Can I say the question? a part out loud. Is Ralph Kruger just maybe not a good NHL coach? That's a fair question at this point. Or at least not the not the 4D chess genius that

some of us wondered if he was you know, coming in. This guy's good at more than one sport. He's going to be fair. Maybe not. Well it was also it was that plus the World Cup plus he got a raw deal in Edmonton. Like he got a raw deal in Edmonton. He absolutely did. There was lots of reason to think. But the thing is could any coach win with this roster? I don't think so. And what do you do with it? Like, how do you fix this?

What's the... And now the Jack Eichael stuff is actually starting to sound like maybe not just something that people like us throw out there for something. You have... There's no... There's no way to go about this without, again, another fucking tear-down rebuild. I really don't think so. I look at their options. They don't have, like, a great prospect pool for as bad as they've been for as long as they've been.

It's fine, but it's not, it's not like unbelievable. And, you know, like by the time it's just, you get competitive again, even if Jack Eichael's like, you know what, I will be sitting here through the rebuild, that's fine. I made a commitment, all that shit. If he, even if he said all that, what, is it three, four, five years before you're even remotely considered a playoff team? Because by then, you keep Michael, you keep Michael unless he wants to leave. I can't give up a player like that. I know he, I mean, you assume at some point he'll want to leave, but I can't give up a player right now. I mean, he was saying, like, he over the summer was like, we're going to start winning or I'm going to want out.

And they're not doing that. They're not winning at all. So the answer is he. I'm just, I'm just saying that, like, he makes that decision. If I'm, if I'm Kevin Adams, I'm not trading Jack Eichel for the betterment of the team because it's not going to be for the betterment of the team. Like, he's part of the solution. But what I'm saying is, how old is he when you're comparing to the team? you're competitive again based on the division you play in.

Like in a normal season, you have Toronto who look like they're going to be pretty good for a while, even if the Tavares thing doesn't work out long term. How many more years does this Bruins group have left as like an elite elite team? Plus, you're in there with Tampa. Plus Florida at least has a good coach and some good young-ish players. And Ottawa at some point can't be terrible because they just have too many good prospects. In the next three years, yeah, next three years. And so, like, at some point, you're just like, can we, like, move to the Central or something?

Can, like, what are we going to do? But, like, I'm looking at this fucking Sabres roster, and there's so much money coming off the books this summer. Yeah. Like, do you, do you, like, the only thing you can maybe say is, well, look, you know, obviously we have to resign Reinhardt for whatever he wants. But, like, everybody, and Dahlene is going to probably want a decent amount. amount of money, but he hasn't been what people thought he was going to be, you know. And everybody else coming off the books, you're like, well, shit, we have a lot of money to spend. We're going to turn over both goalies.

We're going to, we're going to turn over like half the forward group, half the blue line. You know. Yeah. That's a good point on Dahlene, by the way. Like, he's a lot closer. And I don't mean the, Eckblad's a good player. But I think we thought Dahlene was going to be on that, like, Carlson level. Yes.

Of, of prospects. the hype level. He's a lot more on the Eklad level, I think. Well, the other thing to say, too, though, is all the guys who aren't coming off the books are like Eichel, okay, 10 million bucks, that's a lot of money. But also, and but he's a good player. But then it's Skinner, it's Kyle Okposo. It's, it's, uh, Colin Miller is on the books for next season. And it's like, oh, that's like a lot of money tied up in some guys who maybe don't move the needle for you very much, if at all. They have $47 million for next season. season committed to just 10 players. I don't know. So, yeah, I don't know. And do you trust this, this GM ownership group, whatever you want to say, to be in a position where you're like, yep, guys will want to come here without overpaying them for

too long, like how many, how many guys have ended up in that situation via UFA, right? I don't know. I don't see a way forward. How dare you, how dare you doubt, Kevin from Bish, as this administration. Kevin knows what he's doing. Yeah, and like Victor Olison's 25 already. How good is he going to be when you're ready to, quote, unquote, power out of the rebuild?

I don't know. Well, that's it. This isn't – the Sabres aren't some team that's been rebuilding and now they're ready to throw the switch. They threw the switch three years ago. And they suck. And it's – you know, it is like I've used this metaphor plenty of times before, but it's like – It's like being in a car. I mean, like at some point you got to put it in drive and you got to hit the gas and see what happens.

And sometimes you start moving. And sometimes the wheels just keep spinning and spinning and you're not going anywhere. And that's been the Sabres for the last two or three years at least. And yeah, I don't know how you fix it at this point because they're, they've got some good young players. But this isn't, you know, it's not like, yeah, we're bad now, but the, look at the prospect pipeline, like helps on the way. Like, most of the help is already there. and some of it like Casey Middleston, guys like that, aren't looking like they're going to be what they thought they were. So, yeah, I mean, you probably do, if you're just looking at, you know, purely how do we get to being a contender?

Trading Eichel is probably the thing. But how do you do that to that fan base? How do you do that in that market and signal that, again, we're going to start over and do another five-year plan? Honestly, you've been putting the boats to them for so long, and these are like fucking Bill's fans. Who gives a shit? They'll just like the team anyway. anyway, you know. But like off the top,

do you know any Sabres fans? They don't like the team. Right. But like they're still watching and paying attention and buying. That is true. You know. Yep. Yeah, they put themselves through flaming tables to take the pain away.

Right. Not for funzies. Yeah. But like off the top of my head, their prospects that are like, oh, you know, he might be a pretty good NHL player. Jack Quinn, who they, I'm pretty sure they just took in the first round this past year. Ritzaline and everybody seems to like but I feel like he's on the older side

as far as prospects go Uco Peca Lukinen is their quote unquote goalie of the future and then other than that I don't know that there's anybody where you're like oh yeah that guy he's going to be in the NHL within two three years and he's going to be really good I don't know that that such a player

exists and that oh who am I missing is the the kid who was fuck what's his name the the they took him two years ago in the draft Dylan Cousins? Dylan Cousins is the guy I'm thinking of yeah that's the only

other one and other than that yeah like I don't know like especially because they were so precious about oh we can't trade Rasmus Stalainen we got to ask for the moon for this fucking guy and it's like

at this point point, you know, where's that gotten you? You're not getting the moon. Well, well, it's not only that, but it's like, okay, when we are good, we need Rasmus to line and because he does X, Y, and Z. And if you, whether you believe it or not, like, whether he was ever going to deliver on that or not, well, now you're not, you're, you never got good. That whole contract. I think he has one year left, right? And so are you going to do the same shit with Jack Eichel? Well, look, when we're good four years from now, You know, Jack Eichel, he's already 24 fucking years old. How much older do you want him to be? Where do you think Eichel fits best? What trait, and by that I mean, obviously, he fits great everywhere. But like, what team could make it worth Buffalo's Wild? I think it's got to be the Kings, right?

The Kings, I know people have said the Rangers too, and the Rangers might be more motivated, especially with Zabandad, not looking like. like he's maybe going to be the first line center they thought they had. But the king, I mean, the kings are not to beat the point to death, but they've got so many prospects and so many assets that they could move. They're a perfect partner right now for a team that wants to do the full on rebuild

for the future sort of move. It just, it makes too much sense. And they've got a deep enough prospect pool. What about the devils? Yeah, I was talking about that with Corey. mass attack the other day and it's like wouldn't buffalo ask for Hughes?

Yeah. Yeah, and then you say no and you offer him heeshire. Your captain? Really? The guy you just named captain? Yep. Oh, I'm sorry. Is that disqualify trading him? Let me put it this way.

I wouldn't give up Hughes for fucking Eichol. I don't, not now. Hughes is great. Hughes looks incredible right now. I don't know if he looks that good. But like, would you trade Jack Hughes for Jack Euse? if money wasn't an issue, yeah. Yeah, I mean, Ickel's established as Jack Hughes has had a month.

Hughes is 19. Yep. He's 19 and, you know. Greg getting classic. He's on his entry level, but let's see. My own prospects are the best guy, brain. Not even close to a point of game. He's only got four goals this year.

He's not a Nick Suzuki, but I mean, he's still pretty good. But, but, but like that, Greg, you know, you can't, you can't look at this objectively, you know? I can very much look at it objectively. I can say I would not trade a 19-year-old who's just coming into his, his glory as an NHL star for Jack Eichel. It just won't do it. I mean, I wouldn't, I wouldn't trade, I wouldn't trade Byfield for Eichel if I'm the Kings. It's the same principle. I would absolutely.

Yeah, of course I would. Have put him as one piece. in a multi Yeah, no, like I said, if money, if money's not the issue like as just a player for player swap, then yeah, I would pick I would pick Ikel over

Jack Hughes right now. You, again, you have proof of concept, right? And that's with Eichel coming off a, or in the midst of a good year, or of a bad year. Are you divorcing, are you divorcing age from this equation too?

Because you're the one who's always high, you're always the first person on this podcast to be like, well, he's fucking 28. Oh, shit. Put him in a coffin. Like, Hughes is a baby. Jack Eichael had 36 goals in 68 games last year, Greg. He's fucking unbelievable.

I like Jack Hughes, but we just don't, we don't know how it works long term with him. Yeah, it's put it this way. If the Sabres decide to explore trading Jack Eichael and they go out there and they find that players like Jack Hughes and Quentin Byfield are off the table, then you don't trade Jack Egel. You're not, you do not trade your dollar for a handful of nickels and dimes here. You've got to get, you've got to get a key piece back. And if, you know, if I, I can understand. I think there's an argument to be made that the devils wouldn't want to make a move like that.

But if I'm Buffalo and I call up New Jersey and I say, what about Jack Hughes? And they go total non-starter, not even going to consider it. I'm like, all right, thank you very much. Goodbye. click and I call another team that wants to get serious. Let me put it to you this way. What is Jack Hughes's ceiling in the NHL? What do you think, like, ideal scenario?

What kind of a comparable player do you come up with? Is it Jack Eichael? Well, you know what I mean? Like, in terms of value? It could be. So you're getting the guy who is your ideal scenario player. And look, I'm not saying there are no red flags here with Jack Eichael. He's never played a full season except for his rookie year, if I'm not much mistaken.

Although, you know, obviously last year, I'm sure, you know, he didn't miss too many games. And me saying he had 36 goals and 68 games, that's pretty close to the full freight, I guess. But, yeah, I mean, look, like, he's just dragged around bums his entire career, and he has 351 points in 370 games. he's a great player. I'm not saying he's not. I just think you have to look at the big picture. You have to look at contract. You have to look at age.

I think contract, age, obviously Hughes. Contract to me is Eichol, because we don't know what Hughes is going to ask for in a year. And Jack Eichols, at $10 million. Well, we do. We know it's not going to, we know it's going to be something that's going to be restricted by the economics of the league in a way that Eichols wasn't when he signed it. We know that. Well, but it's also. years later. I mean, the cap is higher now than it was when Jack Eichael signed.

Yeah, and, and, you know, he'll, why wouldn't Hughes go, okay, you know what, I'll take the short money this year. I understand. It's the finances, you know, and then he's like, but on the back end of this, I will be making $15 million a year. Look, I love, I love Eichael. I would love Eichael to be a devil. I would just like to find a way to do it without trading the best prospect they have. then I don't know that you can do it. That's the point. Yeah. Because like I don't want, I don't want a Nico Heischer for a Jack Eichol. Even though I love, nobody outside of New Jersey is a bigger Nico Heesher fan than me. I think he fucking rocks. But he's not Jack Eichael.

Right. Exactly. So you trade him. You hang on to Hughes. Yeah. I'm just, Greg, like you said it yourself, right? I would like to get Jack Eichael without giving up our best prospect. That's where you hear a dial tone if you're talking to the Sabre. Yeah, Greg's doing, again, Greg's doing the classic. You know, what do you think of a he-shir, Will Butcher, and a third-round pick for Jack Eichael? Like, he's doing that shit.

Oh, I would definitely give up Ty Smith for that. Which I get, I mean, I get why any fan of any team would do it. But here's who we're not discussing, which I think is a logical fit that you would have to obviously make the money work somehow. So just so I understand the logic here. Yeah. Okay. If I'm like, I'll trade you Nico Heischer for, for Eichol, and they're like, no, we want Jack Hughes. Doesn't that validate what I'm saying about Jack Hughes that you don't want to give him up? Yeah, I'm with you 100%. You're not going to get Jack Eichael without giving up something you don't want to give up. Because the Sabers don't want to give up Dico either. So it's. Right. Well, that's the part of the equation I was going to mention that we haven't really talked about, which is that I think.

I think Eichel's going to have some level of control on where he goes. Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, even though he doesn't have trade protection or what have you right now, like, he's clearly going to be like, I only want to play in four places. I think he's going to limit their market. Well, yeah, and his contract limits the market, but I was just about to say, speaking of that, the Boston Bruins are a team that could really use the fucking Jack Eichol. Right.

Jesus, Christ. I mean, that's the obvious one. That's like, so, it's so obvious. And again, like, you would definitely have to make the money work, but David Cray you coming off the books this summer? And then, you know, you, the ruins don't have like a great prospect pool either. But like if, if they could put, could. And it also is probably, even though it shouldn't be, I think it's one of those things

where a team goes, we really don't want to trade this guy in our division. Would you give up McAvoy? I mean, that's who you would have to give up, right? given the rest of the Bruins defense, I would have to probably say no, right? Like, we went into this season saying their defense isn't that fucking good, you know? And it's worked out great for them because I think McAvoy is having a really good season. But just, you know, like... Watch Eichael be like, I only want to play for one team and then they end up getting like DeBrusk, Grizzlick, and a third.

Yeah. No, I know. Like it, I, conditional third, man. You got to come on. I think that's one of the- That's HF boards that offer. I think that's one of the things where it's like, okay, at that point, it's multiple first-round picks. Like, if you're the ruins and you're like, you know what, to get Jack Eichael, you can have three first-round picks.

I think that's fine. They're all going to be in the 20s. So hold on. So hold on. To use the Hughes logic. Yeah. Let's say the Rangers are in the Jack Eichael business. And they ask for Lafranier.

Yeah. see you later. Alexa, I don't give a shit. See you later. You've played eight games for us. You haven't even been that good, whatever. Wow. Yeah, he has two goals in 16 games.

Oh, that we know exactly who he's going to be. I'm not saying, again, I'm obviously not. No, you don't. And same with Hughes. Like, it's the, the range between the floor and the ceiling is much wider on those guys, which is why you know what I go is. You don't get to peg their value to the highest possible. outcome and ignore the possibility that it could be something lower than that.

This is tremendous. You would have traded a young Joe Thornton back in the day. For who? For Mike Bodano. No. That's what we're talking about. I'm trying to think who was the 24-year-old still in their prime, you know, Peter Forrestberg?

Yeah, I probably would have traded Joe Thornton for that guy. Yeah, that works for me. Okay. In 1997, you know, that's, that's the cost of doing business if you're getting a player like that. Come on. Let's calm down a little bit. It's the cost of doing business. That's, Sean, perfect. Yep, that's the cost of doing business.

You want to have that fucking conversation? Jack Hughes is going to be the guy you have that conversation about. And you can, it's totally within Buffalo or New Jersey's rights to say, no thanks. And then you don't trade for Jack Eichael at that. point. You don't get to like pivot to somebody else just because you really want the player. You could try. I just don't. It's not going to work for Buffalo though. Yeah, exactly. I don't see it. I'm looking through. Forzburg would, yeah, Forsberg would have been 24 in Thornton's

rookie season. Second in the league in scoring. That's not, that's a round. It's Eichl-ish. I think he was probably a bit better than Eichel. He also had a little bit more support than Jack Eichael has. Let's be, let's be honest about that era. Oh, wait, no. Holy shit. No, this is the guy. This is the guy who Eichel is.

Ready? Yeah. It's Yashin. 24 years old, 72 points and 82 games. Ottawa comes calling to Boston. We're going to give you Yashin. Give us Thornton. You got, you have to correct for his Russianness, though.

you have to you have to factor in that there is an enigma factor there especially this is the 90s so like well you also have to you also have to you also have to you know factor in that that Eichol's American and thus you know has the ceiling because he just doesn't know enough about hockey that's true that's true Ikel was 10th in scoring last year

yesha was 28th in the 97 or at least the year I'm looking at I don't know it was the year after that And got traded, by the way, for Zadanochara and a second overall pick years later when his value was down. So, yeah, guys like that do get traded for a lot. Pre-cap. All right. Let's end the show with a game show. I have a little story to tell you.

I received an email recently, an electronic mail, if you will. It was from Sweden, a listener. in Sweden. Got it. It is... It was from Stefan Harvig. Who's Stefan Harvig, you say? Well, he is...

Staffan is a producer on TV4. And Staffen writes, when hockey and soccer got canceled, I started working on a game show format called sport masterana champions of sports we have a not-so-serious segment

called Is This Sports Charlotte Wilder and Katie Nolan ears perk up where the contestants get to see eight names and their job is to tell which four names are actual athletes and which are something completely different

the topics could be Danish handball player or Disney figure classic Russian composer or shot putter, or Bond villain or Hungarian Olympic gold medalist in fencing. So, Staffan writes, would it be okay for you if I include Star Wars character or a Finnish hockey player in the mix? I thought it was hilarious when I heard it, but I wouldn't want to steal it without your permission. So obviously I said you can steal it. But Staffen stepped up and said, can we make a trade?

I created a short game show format that I thought you could use on Puck Soup if you want. Wow. It's called literal Swedes, i.e. What does a Swedish NHL player's last name really mean if you translate them from Swedish to English? Incredible. Let's go. This is the first ever international game show trade between Puck Soup and Sweden, in which we have given the Swedes the hilarious and patently offensive

Star Wars character or Finnish hockey player and Sweden has traded us literal Swedes i.e. What does Swedish NFL players last names really mean if you translate them for Swedish to English? Listen to the NHLGMs cry

about how hard it is to make a trade and here's Greg pulling off international blockbusters in his In fairness, I've made this deal without double-checking the double-IHF transfer rules, so I don't even know if this is legal, but I'm going to assume it is. Which one of you knuckleheads wants to go first? We've got one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. We have seven questions.

That's, that's an odd number. I guess we'll go six, three and three, and then the seventh will be a tiebreaker. Who goes first? Sounds good. Who won the last game? I don't remember. I'll go first. Yeah.

Okay. Ryan goes first. Okay. Literal Swedes. What does the NHL players, the Swedish NHL player's last name really mean if you translate them from Swedish to English? Corner twig.

Oh, I don't, like, is this a multiple choice? No. How the fuck am I going to kiss this? You got a name of Swedish player. Yeah, this is a really multiple choice. Come on. I don't have time to make a multiple choice. This is the game.

First of all, this is the game that Stefan designed. Corner twin. This trade came together very quickly. Cronwall. Nick Cronwall. I don't fucking know. Patrick Cornquist. Okay.

By the way, are these active players only, or are we... They are not all active players. Okay. Blade Mountain. Blade Mountain. Oh, here's what I'll do. Here's what I'll do. Defenseman.

There you go. Okay. I'll help. Blade. Is it Nicholas Cronwall? That sounds pretty. I'll go with that. It's John Klingberg.

Okay. I knew Berg was mountain. I feel like I'm learning a language here. I knew Berg was Mountain, so that narrowed it down. Did you really? slightly. Oh, wow. And I guess Kling is blade.

Seems like. So Slingblade in Sweden was Sling Kling. That's right. There you go. Most people call it a Sling blade. I call it a sling cling cling. Iron hook

Forward. Here, I'll even help more. Hang on. Because I do realize now that the game is difficult. Let me see if this person is still active. Uh, yes. Okay, what? Iron hook.

Iron hook. Iron hook. Uh, Iron hook, active forward. Active forward. Iron hook. Okay, if he, if you had to look up whether he's active, he's either old or not good, right? Um, I, I just, I just forgot what, where he was, whether he was, it's not that he's not good. It said I wasn't sure if he had signed somewhere else.

He's very much in his prime. Okay. Iron Hook Forward Sweden Now I'm just like having trouble thinking of Swedish guys who aren't named like

Anderson and Pedersen That's Because those ones mean like Peter's son And Anders's son Yeah That's true So I'm actually doing

Really well at this game Self-descriptive, yeah Swedish guy Aaron Eckblad He's not Swedish, but might be a Swedish last name. Swedish. Yeah. Kelly, Yarn crock.

Oh, why. Okay. Iron hook. Yikes. All right, here we go. Oh, yarn. I get that. Okay.

Yeah. Active forward. Brisk. Risk. Brisk, like the ice tea. It's chilly outside. It's in the iced tea, yeah. Yes.

Brisk. Um. Active forward. Active forward translates as brisk. Like, all right. I was going to be very dumb and say Jesper fast, but that feels like that's not going to, I hope.

Is that your answer? No, it's not my answer. My answer is brisk. Card Raquel. You're going to kick yourself. Okay. It's not just for fast. It's Victor Rask.

Rask. Rask. Yeah. Okay. We're certain. Is it legal for me to pull up a list of Swedish NHL players? Of course it is. There's no saying you can't do that.

Yeah. But Ryan, yeah. I think you got a puncher's chance on this one. Uh-oh. Swedish NHL players. I'm Googling now. Okay, go for it. Yeah.

I'm also Googling Swedish to English dictionary. So that's... Maybe help a little bit. Rapids Mountain. Former NHL forward. Former NHL forward. Rapids Mountain. So we've already decided the entomology of mountain is Berg.

Yeah. Yeah. Rapids Mountain. Former Anxburg. Raskberg. Yeah. Oh, rapids, I should say like water. Like rapids's mountain.

Oh, that changes everything. Is it Peter Forteburg? We just talked about him. It is Peter Forsberg! Nice. Fwerf, fwf, fwfwer! All right, Sean, here we go. You got to get this one right to stay in the game for literal Swedes,

i.e. what does Swedish NHL player's last names really mean if you translate them from Swedish to English? Hope it's a mountain one. The word is fixed. Come on, Iron Corner. Come on, Iron Corn. The word is fixed. So this is a current national hockey league forward. Then the translation of this player's last name is fixed.

As in, I fixed the game, said the crooked referee. Oh, okay. Fixed. And did you say forward? Yes, a current national hockey league forward. As in, I am in a fixed position, said Brent C. Brooke defending another team? Fixed.

Fixed. Fixed. As in... I will... My owner... Please continue. My owner has removed my testicles, said the dog. Fixed.

I'm fixed. Oh, God. I have no idea. I'm scanning by... Pierre Engval. Final answer. It's Jesper fast. Oh, wow, okay.

As in hard and fast. Okay. Okay. Ryan wins, literal Swedes. What was the last one? The last one, I'll throw this up for both of you. Former National Hockey League defenseman, Island Grove. Former defenseman, Island.

Island Grove. Grove. is it Lidstrom? It is not. Do you want to take a guess for Lambert? Is that Cronwall? I want to know what Cronwall means now. It's Matthias Oland.

Okay. He's Island Grove. Matias Island Grove. By the way, a much better last name. Whose last names were most improved? John Blade Mountain is a much better fucking name than Clingberg. Let's just be honest. Yeah, that's a really cool name.

All right. I'm going to look out. I'm going to Google. Okay, Google. How do you get to do? translate. While you do that, that's Puck Soup for this week. Our thanks to the Violent Gentleman Hockey Club for sponsoring the show,

check out their gear at Violent Gentleman.com and use the promo code. Puck Soup for a whopping 15% discount. Violent Gentleman.com. Puck soup at checkout for 15% off. Really good stuff. They sent a box of their gear over, and I'm really digging it. I think you'll dig it too. I'm Greg Wyshinsky.

Boy, I got a lot of shit on the website this week. You can check out my story on the boat people of the Lake Tahoe game. That's unlocked. Today I have a massive story, magazine length, really good, on goalie goals. Only seven goaltenders, Sean, and NHL history have scored a goal on a shot on goal. And I interviewed Ronnie Hextall, Brodor, Tejador, Nebacov about scoring goals in that manner. It's a hockey nerd heaven kind of story. It's like how they do it, the challenges behind it and why it doesn't happen more often.

It's fucking great. I'm really proud of the story. So you can check that out. It's an ESPN Plus story. And lots of good stuff on the site this week. Also, Emily and I did a clubhouse chat. Had a bunch of people there this week. I think we'll probably do that.

If not on a weekly basis, at least on a semi-weekly basis, we had a really good time doing it. And, oh, life news. I am moving. Did you guys know that? I forget if I told you that. You told us. Did mention it, yeah. Oh, right, yeah.

Yeah, Cali, you've been great. I've really enjoyed our time here in Campbell, California, but it is back east to the NYC. We're going to be living in Brooklyn for the time being as we looked to put some roots down, and very excited to be with my people again back on the East Coast. But California was great. We're going to miss a lot of it.

We're going to miss the beaches and the weather and burritos. But heading back east after a couple years here in Cali. Oh, and also I'm going to miss 4 o'clock start times. My God, what a fucking thing happens. Oh, man. When I was in L.A. a few years ago during the playoffs, the idea that, like, the late game was over at, like, 10.15. Ooh, baby. That rocked.

But of course, like, I didn't take full advantage of the life experience in doing that, which is that I would still stay up to, like, 1.30 in the morning. and then get up at like six because I had to wake up for like 9 o'clock radio hits. But Callie is great. I really enjoyed it here. Good times. But we'll be very, very happy to be an east coast.

To paraphrase Dale Arden from Flash Gordon, I'm a New York City boy, and this place is a little too quiet for me. Yeah. Nobody in California, Greg, ever lets you know where they are walking. here, there doesn't come up. I don't even know if they have taxis, let alone taxi drivers, Ryan. Can't get an authentic New York slice, you know. Oh, by the way, feedback on the bonus episode this week,

very much tilted towards my opinion on bagels and Sean your opinion on hot dogs in Montreal. And I was happy to see on the... We are the big story in Montreal right now. Extraordinarily big story. I was happy to see on the Puck Snoop Discord that people did agree that the Montreal bagels are woefully overrun. because I believe that to be, that's the hill I'll die on. The rumor going around is that Claude Julian listened to our podcast and went, yeah, maybe, and that was it. Had to go.

Right. They had no, no choice but to get rid of him. And he said, oh, maybe. I'll see this as well. Sorry, I had to do it once. I had to do it once, just once. Just once. Hey, maybe.

Everybody's fine with it. You know? Close. we're going to have to fire you. Hey, that's a spicy meatball. They fired him and he said, oh, Maron, this is the worst day of my life. Yeah, elite prospects. Go to that website, E.P.Rinkside.com.

You get all the good stuff over there. It's not just for prospects anymore, folks. There's a lot of NHL coverage. I wrote what we learned this week about how the national predators are right to make it so that basically nobody on their roster. is untouchable. Dimitri did a deep dive on the Florida Panthers yesterday. So there's just a lot of stuff over there. Sign up for that.

Sign up for the Puck Soup Patreon. You know the gimmick with that. So I turn it over to Sean. I'm not moving in a way soon, but not yet. I haven't moved out of my house in like six months. I'm on the athletic. Find me there. Return of the mailbag on Thursday or Friday

and a bunch of other. good stuff. And the athletic hockey show, a three times a week podcast, which includes me and Ian Mendez hosting on Thursdays. So check that out if you have not had a chance to yet. One detail on the literal Swedes game, I forgot to mention, Stefan Harvig titled the email to me, runhako traded to Swedish game show, question mark. So Lambert, that's just, that's an instant open right there. Yeah. Yeah. I, I, the, the first line of my response is

this is one of the greatest emails I've ever received and that's underplaying it. I mean, it's just the greatest. Maybe one of the proudest moments in the history of Puck's Soup. Anyways, thanks everybody for listening. Check out the Patreon for our mailbag and the bonus episode, the Hockey Hall of Shame of Hockey Things, which was a really fun one. And thanks for supporting the show. We will talk to you next week. Bye. See you. Bye-bye.

Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slapshots and goons We've got sportly commentary to what if you commute But we also cover movies, TV shows, it's in tunes It's your weekly bowl of hockey and nine cents Bork 2