Puck Soup - Trust Us, We're The NHL

Episode Date: March 22, 2023

Sean and Ryan talk Reimer, Fanatics, the playoff races, and more before a game of 20 Kesstions.   Sponsored by Bespoke Post (boxofawesome.com promo code puck) and Betterhelp (betterhelp.com/puck)

Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slap shots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to what if you commute. We also cover movies, TV shows, it's and tunes. It's your weekly bowl of Hockey and Nancet. I'm Ryan Lambert from EP Rinkside. I'm Sean McIndoo from The Athletic. Hey, we're back. And look, let's just get it out of the way.

let's just talk about the James Reimer thing very quickly. I just want to kind of issue a blanket statement on all guys who sit out of these games. I don't fucking like them. That's it. I don't know what else to say at this point. It's going to keep happening. The NHL is going to let it keep happening because I feel like they feel like they don't have a choice. But to do that.

And I think Mark Lazarus, in his article about it was like, why do we fucking talk about these guys? Yeah. Okay. Don't give them the attention. Okay. Yeah, that's it. I don't know how you say it better than that.

Yeah. I think that's fair. I mean, I think it's going to keep happening until next season when we're going to not see very many of these or as many of these events, which is unfortunate. They'll still do Pride Nights, but anything that would put players in the spot. spotlight, I think, will be removed for a lot of teams, which is unfortunate. I would say, and Laz made this point, given the circumstances, I like the way the sharks handled it. Yeah. They didn't hide them away. Like, I know you don't want to give a platform to guys, and there is the argument to be made that you should just, you know, tell him he's injured for the night or whatever.

but I prefer this to what the Rangers did, the Wild did, where they just, you know, it's all smoking. Or even what the Flyers did, where they put Proverov out there for, what, not even three minutes after the game. And again, like the Flyers apparently had it sprung on them more than the sharks did or whatever. But I do want to say this too. And then we're not going to talk about this. there's nothing else to really say, I feel like, on our end,

is that I liked Logan Couture kind of being like, yeah, we think that sucks. Yep. You know, like, in so many words. You don't have to read too far between the lines to see that, you know, the sharks, as an organization, we're pretty pissed. And they respected his right to have his own views, which, you know, you and I. And they kind of have to just, like, I don't think there's a better option.

Well, like, I'm saying by, like, the letter of the rules or, like, I don't know that you can, like, the CBA allows for that kind of thing. Sure. That's all I'm saying. And, but they, they put them out there. They said to them, you're, you're not getting any cover from us. You're going to own it. And we're going to not only have you talk about it, but immediately after we're going to have your much more famous and successful. and respected teammates,

uh, come out and say the exact opposite. And yeah. I guess that's the best that you can do. I, I feel, you know, you feel bad that there's a lot of work that goes into putting this stuff together. It doesn't just happen.

And, you know, unfortunately, we end up just talking about one guy. I, I guess the only other thing I'll say is, it's not that I'm ever glad that this happens, but I'm, I'm glad that it,

it wasn't a Russian this time, because it gets us out. of pretending like that's, it's just a political, you know, issue. In fact, two Russian guys on the sharks were the pride jerseys. Yeah. So, there you go. So, yeah, I don't really have anything else to say about any of it. Yeah, let's move on to, hey, a topic that's way, way less controversial in hockey circles fighting.

Right. everybody has a very normal opinion about this. So let's talk about it. Apparently, the QMJHL starting next season is going to ban it. Right. Did you have any big reaction to this? Yeah, well, I mean, I spent the last week in Quebec researching this story. Crying, screaming outside of, yeah.

Just going up to random people and trying to punch them to see if that would be okay. and it turns out it's not. It's a very interesting and weird story in the sense that you've seen the headlines by now, right? Like, Junior League bans fighting. And then you go, okay, well, but what does that mean to ban fighting? And the answer is they don't know yet. It's very funny that they're like, well, we're going to ban it.

How? Well, we'll figure it out. Because there's always been this kind of, I mean, the fighting argument has been happening for decades in hockey, obviously. Yeah, for sure. And there's always been this part of it where, you know, you would say hockey, the NHL, whatever you were talking about, should ban fighting. And somebody would always say, well, fighting isn't, you know, fighting is banned.

It's not allowed. You know, you wouldn't say that we need to ban cross-checking or that we should ban tripping. there's rules in the rulebook and you're not allowed to fight and there's a penalty for fighting. So when people would say the initial is the only league that allows fighting, it doesn't allow fighting, some people would say.

And everyone else would go, yeah, but that's semantics and you know exactly what we're talking about, right? That's 100%. Every other league, you get kicked out and probably suspended. So the queue, just a few years ago, I think, up the penalty for fighting,

from five minutes to they added a misconduct to it automatically. So it's already rare. Now, presumably it'll be a, you know, if it's just a game misconduct, to me, that's not banning fighting. Now, if it's that plus automatic suspensions, what have you, then, you know,

maybe you're getting into that being the appropriate term to use. I'm curious to see what it is. They literally don't know yet. They have, it's very interesting. to me that they kind of announced we're banning it, and now they've got to go back and figure out. In a way, maybe it's smart because now that they've, by saying that first, they can't get all, you would think, get all wishy-washy on it and do any half measures.

But it's an interesting thing. I don't want to give anything away, but I've got some stuff coming up next week on the topic of fighting or in the weeks to come. It's very interesting. Part of this is we talk to some current and past players. And it was, you know, it's interesting that a lot of them do, I will tell you, NHL players don't want to talk about banning fighting in the NHL, but they were surprisingly open to banning and junior.

There were guys who did the whole, like, you know, It's the rats are going to take over the game. We have to please blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But also, 17-year-old shouldn't be fighting. Or, you know, if my kid is in junior, I don't want him fighting. So I don't know. This feels like the sort of thing. 10 years ago, there would have been a huge outcry about this.

I'm not really sensing that. I feel like, you know, even people who like fights in the NHL are like, yeah, it's okay that 16-year-olds don't have to fight 20-year-olds. Yeah, I think. that's a, uh, that's an easy, an easy sell. Um, I think that, I think so there's been a lot of reporting about this, as you said. And I believe it was Jeff Merrick talked to the commissioners of the WHL and the OHL. And the W.HL's response was like, basically like, fuck that. You know, we're going to keep doing the fighting. And the OHL was kind of more like, let's see what these guys have

to say. Let's see how they do this. And if we like the look of it, you know, maybe we'll think about it kind of a kind of a deal. And I'm a little shocked honestly that any junior league would come out and just say like, no, we're going to keep it. You know, like, it seems so impolitic, right? To just be like,

no, we like when the children are bashing each other's faces. We think that's cool. And as you say, like, they can be like, well, we don't allow fighting. The guys get in trouble for them. that, you know. But yeah, it's funny because I think it was on a recent bonus episode we did or something, like a call-in show, something like that that we did on the Patreon.

This guy named Gorp Grimmsky, he asked me, like, if I don't like fighting, because I started my experience as a hockey fan watching college, where it is explicitly banned, like if you fight you get thrown out of the game and you miss the next game and the number of times I've seen a guy actually like get dinged for fighting and it's never it's never like helmet off gloves off circling each other like fucking boxers you know like it's never that kind of fight that you get in the NHL sometimes or whatever it's guys like punching each other one on one in the helmet usually with gloved hands. Yeah.

And like those guys get thrown out for fighting and it, I've seen it happen maybe once in the last 10 years. And I go to a lot of college hockey games, right? So it's interesting, like the, the, I had never thought about it that way of like, is my moral objection, moral maybe isn't even the right word for. Like, I just think it's like, it adds nothing to the game, you know? Mm-hmm. Um, for me.

me personally. And is that because I'd never thought about it? But it probably is just because I watched college hockey first and they don't have fighting there, you know? Yeah. One of the comments we got from a player for this future project was, you know, he said, you have to be careful taking fighting out because you can never go in the other direction. And that's, it's true, right? Like if fighting didn't exist in a sport, you would never in a million years, like you'd never, see the NBA say, you know what, games getting a little chippy, we're seeing a few too many elbows and that, so we're going to loosen

the rules around, like, bare knuckle fights. Yeah, we're just going to let these guys fucking swing on each other. You'd never see that, right? And you'd never see, like, you know, you'd never see college hockey loosen the rules and say, we're going to introduce some fight. Like, it could

never go that way, which probably gives you a good hint as to what direction we should be trending in. but it'll be interesting to see because, you know, that's, do you ever, you know, does it still happen in those, in some cases? Do you see more, you know, dirty plays and that sort of thing? You know, we, we don't see that. I mean, I, you would know better, but I'm certainly not under the impression that, like,

college hockey is overrun with cheap shots and it's from behind. Like I feel like there are probably more like majors in game misconducts for hits in college hockey. But also I would say that's because guys are less good at like hockey related stuff. And so like if a guy turns at the last second, the guy who hits him from behind, like he wasn't good enough to not hit him from behind if that makes sense. You know what I mean? Like I think that's the majority of like penalties where a guy gets thrown out of a game. And from my knowledge of college hockey, it's also because you guys stop and review every penalty for 20 minutes.

Fucking no kidding. Okay. That's, I mean, that's a very different discussion, obviously, but boy, like if you think reviews in,

in the NHL are bad folks. Aye, aye, you know. So, you know, I mean, I don't believe that.

I, it's, you know, it's, it's so interesting to me because I, I've spent the last few days looking through these quotes of players constantly saying, the rats will take over,

the game. game's going to get there. Meanwhile, there was, whatever you think of fighting in the NHL, there was far, far, far more fighting in the 80s and 90s. It's greatly reduced now. Have we seen like a massive uptick in cheap shots in the NHL compared to what happened in the 80s and 90s? Like, yeah, it feels like there were way more cheap shots back. Half of them delivered by the so-called, you know, enforcers who were there to police the game. So, you know, I don't, I don't buy it. Wait a minute. You're going to tell me cops are the ones committing the crimes?

Maybe. Maybe. Okay. Interesting. Metaphorically. So it's, I don't know. It'll be interesting. And, you know, the other thing is if, okay, let's say the other junior leagues do follow suit. And now you'd have a case where all three Canadian junior leagues, plus the NCAA don't have

fighting. Fighting is very rare in European leagues and that sort of thing. And the USHL does have fighting, but I feel like if the other three Canadian junior leagues got rid of it, the USHL would not be far behind.

So what happens when everything that's feeding players in the NHL doesn't have fighting anymore? Does the NHL, like, you know, because when I was a kid, um, or younger, again, like that 80s, 90s,

2000s era, of where there was lots of this stuff. We used to always talk about what rules the NHL would have to pass to reduce fighting and how they'd have to change the rulebook. And it turned out they really didn't, for the most part. It just kind of organically started to fade away. And this could be another case of that.

You could allow fighting in the NHL. But if nobody who gets to the NHL has ever... There's three guys who know how to do it has ever... Without dying. Then it kind of goes away on its own, which maybe is... In some, maybe that's the best case scenario, you know,

nobody gets mad at Gary Bettman. Nobody, you know, no NHL fan has to storm out because they ban fighting, but fighting just continues to drop out of the game. Could, it could happen that way. Yeah, I listen to a wrestling podcast called The Fix. And this is the only wrestling podcast I really listen to because, you know, there are so many guys who don't get the business, you know. but both of the hosts on it

Wade Keller from Pro Wrestling Torch famous like pro wrestling insider guy and Todd Martin who's just like a analyst I guess you would say and they're both big hockey fans one's a wild fan one is a Capitals fan I believe and they actually got a question about like hey

I know you guys both like you know, uh, combat sports. They're, at least Todd is like a big UFC guy as well. Um, and they were like, oh yeah, you know, like, uh, what do you think about fighting in the NHL since you're also fans of hockey and combat sports? And they were both like, yeah, I, I don't see the utility of it, you know, in the game anymore. But like, people like it. And it would be disingenuous for me as a UFC guy to, uh, to sit here and say like,

it's bad like it's bad or something like that but i i think basically they were like people like it and that's probably why it's still allowed but it does seem to be going away and probably that's a good thing i think was their broad take and it was really interesting to talk about two people or to hear about two people saying you know i'm supposed to like this stuff and even i'm sitting here going yeah this you know the clock's ticking on all this stuff. You know what I mean? Yep. So yeah, the other thing that the NHL, I guess, could do,

and seems to have done already, is at GM meetings, which were last week, I believe, there was talk that they were going to be like the number of guys who try to start fights after like a clean hit has to come down.

And in the last week, anytime there's been a big clean hit, the guy who comes in to make the hit er answer for it has gotten an instigator penalty. So like this was just an immediate again not even rule change but just like

emphasis on the rule or whatever they want to put it. I don't know. What do you think about that? Like that to me is like a really easy Yeah. Really easy decision. I have never

I've never understood this debate. And I'd say this as somebody who like whenever you talk about fights after clean hits, there's a lot of what I would consider, like, well, I was going to say feigned confusion. Maybe not. Maybe people are legitimately confused about why you have to fight after a clean hit.

But I've never felt that way. Like, I get where it comes from. I get why it happens. I think it happens too often, clearly, partly because we celebrate it so much when it happens that teams now feel like they have to do it. But, you know, I get why you would say, look, and I don't,

I'm not a referee. It's not my job to decide if that hits clean. But if you just leveled Connor McDavid, I want to try to dissuade you from wanting to do that again in the future or anyone else. I get it. But we have an instigator rule. Like we have this rule. It's in place theoretically for exactly this scenario.

And yet it almost never gets called, right? Because usually what happens is the big hit happens. happens. The guy who throws the hit is already looking to see who's coming his way. Somebody does skate halfway across the ice away from the play very clearly to fight. And then the guy, you know, they both drop the gloves at the same time because they, you know, the guy who threw the hit isn't going to eat three punches just to, you know, for a fight that he knows is coming. A tone for his clean hit. Yeah. So, and then they don't call the instigator because the instigator is always, for whatever reason, been called as like, you know, whoever, if somebody

drops the gloves and jumps somebody. But it's, the way the instigator rule is, it's very, it very clearly applies to the situation. Like, this isn't, you don't need a new rule. You just need to call it properly. So I, this is, to me, an easy one. And it sounds like the NHL is doing it the easy way. And look, I mean, if Carter McDavid gets lit up, go ahead and take the extra two minutes if you need to. Like, that's, you know, this, this isn't the end of the world as far as, you know, if you feel like, oh, you got a police or whatever. Okay. They spend the two minutes to send whatever message you need to send. But, yeah, it should, of course it should be two minutes. It's, uh, I don't, I don't get the argument why it wouldn't be. Yeah, no, same here. Um, again, like, I, I, I have been anti, like, I, I just don't see the fucking need for it. Like, like, I, I, I just don't see the fucking need for it. like, and knowing what we know about head trauma and all this kind of stuff, again, like, it's just a fucking easy decision for the NHL to, again, not introduce a rule, but just go, well, we're just going to fucking get rid of this, okay?

And it's not even like, you know, again, like, I get it. You, your guy, like, you know, as I've made this point before, but you, there is a point where something that you see a guy with his head down, you see an opportunity to hit a guy, there is a difference between take him out and lay him out. And if somebody chooses lay him out and gives them that little extra, then I can see why as a team you'd be like, oh, we got to make sure it's knowing that you don't do that to our team. That said, holy crap, some of the hits now that we get fights for are barely even hits. I mean, it's like, I mean, it's not even, I mean, It's not about clean hits.

It's about, like, dude, the guy that got, nobody's hurt. Nobody's, like, even disrupted, man. Like, this is, it's getting silly now. So, yeah, just call the instigator, man. It's, like, the instigator to me is such a fascinating rule because, like, people really don't understand it. They don't understand the history of there's a, if people want to know the history, there's. Yeah, I would say I'm included in that. Like, I, sometimes.

People think, people think Gary Betman brought the instigator rule in the early 90s. Not true. It had nothing to do with Gary Bettman, and also the rule had been around since the 30s, and go back in the 80s, go to one of the back, oh, boy, back in the 80s before the instigator. Yeah, go check one of those box scores. Look how many instigator penalties there were in the 80s. The rule was still around then. If people want to know the history, by the way, there's a really good piece on NHL.com from like a decade ago,

but it's got all the stuff by some, like Dave Luwanzo, I think. Sorry if I got it wrong, but it's really good. I guarantee you probably, if you're a hockey fan, you probably don't know the history or how it's called or what it's supposed to do. I've never had a problem with the instigator, which is weird because I have been more pro-fighting, I think, than most, even now probably,

but certainly back in the day, I used to love it. But to me, the idea that, hey, if you don't want to fight me, and so I go over to you and I just grab you and start pummeling you until you fight back, yeah, that probably should be an extra two minutes. You know, your team probably should get to work the power play a little bit after I, like, punch you in the face five times. That feels fair to me.

But I know a lot of people don't like it, but this, after a clean hit, yeah, just, of course. Just call it. Yep. Simple as that. Okay, one last thing that we want to talk about off the hop here is, the NHL made a deal with fanatics to do their official jerseys and on ice equipment and all that kind of stuff starting two seasons from now and people are very upset yes now I don't know if you had the experience that I had where I don't think I've ever bought anything from fanatics I had exactly the same I did not and and I knew very very little about this company and very very little about the experience that as people were having about it. So I said, I just said on Twitter, and I will quote my tweet here, why is Fanatics bad?

I don't think I've ever dealt with them. So what do they do that is so wrong? 53 replies later, all of which are like, there's the fucking worst. I'm like, I get it. Thank you. Yes. Yeah. Fanatics ran over my grandmother with a car, and it was pretty much, man.

And I, so last night, I don't know if you saw this, the Capitals, in, in, an attempt to, or attempt, as a way of honoring Alex Ovechkin, they all wore number eight on their jerseys for warm-ups last night. Okay. And I said, oh, this is like if your boss came to work and said, you all have to wear the same shirt as Ted from accounts payable, right? Like, it seems a little silly to me. And somebody said, well, what happened was they ordered all the right jerseys,

but this is just what fanatics sent them. And I was like, okay, it does seem. seem like, you know, that people have jokes about how bad it is. So, like, that's, but basically, I'll just quote, Nate Gilbert replied here. And he said, extremely poor quality with items often arriving incorrect or damaged, some of the worst customer service in their industry that, quote, ticket master effect, so big slash only game in town so they have no incentive to be better. And then they are buying up everything and ruining brands they,

buy. Yeah, that sounds fucking bad to me. And, you know, we should point out, obviously, the deal here is that they're going to be making the official jerseys, swears, whatever. And nobody's suggesting that, like, the players are going to be running around in, like, cheap, crappy knockoffs, you know, that sort of thing. But it does feel like, you know, again, like, this isn't, I don't know if this is maybe a Canada, U.S. thing or whatever.

And Gentile wrote like a really good piece on The Athletic about this is why people are ticked off and all of this. But it just, it again, it feels like this is the NHL going with like the minor league option. Probably got a few extra bucks out of it. But like every other league is Nike and, you know. Well, so at least Major League Baseball currently Fanatics makes the jersey and like slaps a Nike logo on there, basically. like the official on-field jersey. All right. Well, I mean,

they'll do a good job, I'm sure, but it just... They will do a good job for the NHL players. Doesn't this feel a little bit like... It feels like the outdoor life network again or whatever it was when the NHL signed that TV deal that not only did they take the deal,

but it's a 10-year deal. You're just kind of like, do we have to do 10 years with like the company? that everyone... A friend of mine texted me and said, where can I bet on

the value of the official merchandising deals going up 80% three years from now? Just like it did with TV and, you know, we're all... And again, I'm sure they made lots of money. And if it's just about the bottom line, then good for them. But it's just kind of like,

I don't know. I guess I don't know I can't I get I had zero strong feelings when it was announced I have I've seen and recognized the reaction from others I don't want to like

gin up a fake level of frustration or outrage here but yeah I have no theory but once again the NHL is sort of having to settle for you know the we have Nike at home sort of approach.

I think the thing that tells you everything you need to know about this fucking deal is in that Gorp Grimpsky's article about like everything you need to know about this deal, basically. And in the second section of the article, it says, what is the message to fans who see fanatics as just another e-commerce and replica jersey company. And this is like the NHL's director of marketing or something like that that gives this quote. Quote,

it's fair. I guess the only thing I could say is to let us prove the things we're talking about. The fanatics brand is fairly, this is a different guy talking. The fanatics brand is fairly well known to fans, but we're often thought of as more of an e-commerce company. This isn't the first time we've done performance product, blah, blah, blah. I just love that the NHL's quote is,

you're going to have to trust us on this. Yeah. Brother, you're the fucking N. Why should we trust you for anything? I have news for you about how much your entire fan and customer. Let us prove to you that we can do it right. No, I don't want to fucking do that. Are you out of your mind?

Oh, God. Yeah, and to the point that the guy from Fanatics is making, where he's like, we're often thought of as an e-commerce company. but this isn't the first time we've done a performance product and all this yeah people don't care about the fucking performance product they they care about the fact that they're worried that you know if they buy a fucking Bruins jersey it's gonna look like uh you know it's 40 years old

after the second wash that's that's what the problem is and someone posted somewhere like a side by side comparison of like uh this this is I think it was an Islander's jersey. This is my like custom Islanders jersey that was made by Adidas or whoever and this is my custom Islanders jersey that was made by

Fanatics. And guess which one looks like it's fate? Like it's a fucking counterfeit jersey. Right. In terms of the quality. It looked, the Fanatics one looks way worse, way worse. And yeah, just the NHL being like, no, we'll, we're going to figure

this out and we'll prove it to you. Boy, I would not be holding my breath. If I was an NHL fan. Surely they've earned the benefit of the doubt. That's exactly right. Like both companies are saying, we've earned the benefit of the doubt, right? You guys like us.

And everybody's going, I don't know. I don't know about all that. So, yeah, I guess the other thing to say is that for now, they are not going to change anything to do with the jerseys. They're basically just going to keep making the same jerseys that they've been making this whole time. They're just like taking over an Adidas factory, it seems like.

Right. And then, you know, three or four years from now is when they will start making like their own version of NHL jerseys. Can't wait. Yeah, that's when you're going to be worried, I guess. Like, remember, was it the NBA changed jerseys several years? ago and like they were just ripping in the middle of games and stuff like that. Oh no I don't remember that. Yeah that happened some time ago. I don't remember all the details now. It was something like I think it was Nike jerseys that were just like and Nike went and fixed them like in season like a

week into the season. They were like, okay, we're going to do better than this then. I'm just, I'm just waiting for when they inevitably are like, we're going to redesign the jerseys and then they'll come out with like slightly different stitching around the neck and people will freak out and I'll have to pretend like I've ever noticed what the stitching around the neck of a jersey looks like. Right. Yeah. So this was in 2017 and there's a picture of LeBron playing for the Cleveland Cavaliers and just like there's a big rip down the middle of the back of his jersey like between his numbers. And this is an SB Nation article that was like we talked to three people who are like, why does this keep happening? Um, and, uh, they're, they're talking about, like, um, Nike was using like recycled bottles to create, uh, some of the, like, materials in the jerseys. Okay.

And then like, uh, sure. They were like, uh, you know, this seems like it's a problem and it's maybe a lighter material. Like they were going to, trying to make it a lighter material. And that might have been why it was ripping is like, just it was a lighter material made from unexpected product and all this kind of stuff. So very, very interesting. We'll see in I think 2025 or something like that, 2026. You know, Connor McDavid's on a breakaway and his jersey just falls off.

Might have. Yeah. Yeah. A guy gets hooked and, you know, he pulls back, like you go fishing and you catch a boot. Yeah. You hook a guy and you just pull back his sleeve. Yeah, but it'll be fine because his jersey will fall off leaving him completely naked for a second, but then he'll go behind the net and the ads on the boards will cover him up.

It'll be fine. Oh, you know, that's what it's fun. I didn't have this written down, but you saying that reminded me that like the sports business journal, like who recently gave like Gary Bettman some kind of a lifetime achievement award or something. They had like, what's the biggest sports innovation of the year? and one of the five finalists was like the live board ads. We love them. Yeah, they're the best.

Survey says. So cool. Yeah. And again, why would you doubt Gary Beppin? This guy has always been on the up and up and has always told you wrong before. That's exactly right. No, never. Never.

Never once. Why don't we take a break and then we'll come back and talk about like actual on ice hockey stuff. How's that sound? Sure. Okay. Be right. back. This show is sponsored by Better Help. Getting to know yourself can be a lifelong process, and especially because we're always growing and changing. At least I hope you are. That's how you're

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if it's not working, you can switch therapists. Anytime for no additional charge. Discover your potential with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com slash puck today, and you'll get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash puck. All right, we're back, and we were just saying off the air. Sean was on vacation last week, didn't watch a lot of hockey.

He's like, how are those playoff races going? Yeah. Do we still? The less you know the best. better, I think. Yeah, still a whole ton of teams. How are the Sends doing? How are the Sabres?

Is that going to happen? Boy, the Sabers is, look, did I ever think they were going to make the playoffs this year? Not really. But this is a bummer, even for, even by their standards of like getting everyone's hopes up and completely shitting the bed. Boy, oh boy, they have been fucking horrible. We said with the Sabers.

And the senators were like, hey, man, they just got to play meaningful hockey. Their fans just want to see some meaningful hockey. Well, you know, their players, a lot of them, players had never played in a meaningful NHL game. And apparently they didn't like it. They were like, no thanks. That wasn't fun. So, yeah.

Last nine games, the Sabres, won six and two with 45 goals allowed. Wow. that's not good that's not great at all I saw somebody last night it was like a Buffalo reporter say like the Sabres have now

in their last four home games have allowed more goals than they've ever allowed in four consecutive home games because the number of goals they allowed in those games is uh it says here 26 that's not good when no had a franchise in the 70s and 80s

especially when you had an expansion franchise in the 70s. I was going to say, or just like the recent years where they were trying to be as bad as humanly possible. They didn't give up this many goals. And look, I don't want to kick the Sabres while they're down or anything. Again, like I just, you know. Of course you do. You know what? If it was the Senators, maybe we would be having a different conversation.

But the Sabres, I don't really want to kick when they're down. I legitimately feel bad for their fans. Because this is the year that it felt like, oh, we're really getting our hopes up. Because this wasn't like, you know, anytime they got their hopes up in the past, it was like November, December. Like two weeks ago they had their hopes up. Yep. And then they won nine or one out of the last nine games. But no, the real playoff race in the east is coming down to the islanders, the Panthers, and the Pittsburgh Penguin.

And that is a fun race. That is three interesting teams at different places. It feels like the race to see which one wants at least, honestly, the way these teams are playing. Maybe not so much the Islanders. The Islanders looked okay last night. They sure did, yeah. The Panthers have been coming on. I mean, Pittsburgh, see, I wrote this on Monday because I did a thing where I was like,

what of the bubble teams that are left, who's under the most, like, pressure to make it? Who has to make it? And I rank Pittsburgh down low on that list because I was like, if they miss the playoffs, it's a disaster. But it feels like it's already a disaster. Like, doesn't it feel like them sneaking into, like,

the wild card spot isn't going to change anything? Obviously, if they go in a big playoff run or something unexpectedly, very unexpectedly, that would be one thing. But, like, everybody wants Ron Hxtel fired. Everybody hates the trade deadline. Everybody's, like, it feels like this is already a wreck. To the extent that, like, every now and then, I check the standings. And I'm like, oh, crap, the penguins are still in a playoff spot.

That's weird. Because it just feels like they're such a disaster. I've said that so many times this year because their local media has had the knives out since, like, December. Like, these guys don't fucking have it. Yeah. And I keep, and like you, I'm looking at the standings going, they're in fine. They're in okay shape. They have a pretty, you know, they have like a better than 70% chance.

And then like that number just kept sliding down and sliding down. And I guess, hey, yeah, like, I guess that's what you can say for like if you watch all 82 games. You can, you can really suss out whether a team is actually good. Especially if you're trying to find flaws, which it seems like a lot of these local reporters have been. And to your point, like, Hextall's getting shit canned. the second this season is over unless they like make it to the Stanley Cup final, which, you know, doesn't seem likely. But, you know, I think, I think it's fair to say that a lot of the problem with the penguins is in goal. And, you know, the fact that they can't score when certain guys are off the ice, you know.

And I don't need to say who those guys are. I think we all know who I'm talking about is Crosby, Malkin and Lattang. those guys are having great seasons and then everybody else on the team is like, yeah, I have 23 points this year. Yep. You know?

Yeah, this is kind of what happens when the penguins don't get their, was it Mark Dongk and yeah, that's exactly right. Like when those guys don't come through for them. Yeah, they're bad. So four straight losses, all in regulation. Very, very bad when you have.

Yeah. even, you know, even one team chasing you, which with apologies to the various other, you know, I guess the capitals and senators and sabres are all technically in it, but they're not. How about this? The capitals have a better goal difference than the Pittsburgh Penguins. A team that everybody, the capitals, the team that everybody two months ago was like, these guys are fucking cooked. That's it for them.

Bye-bye. A team that's sold at the deadline and, you know, all that stuff. It's going to be very funny, by the way, when, like, Detroit ends up passing Washington, Ottawa and Buffalo, even though they had two bad games and their GM just, like, detonated the roster at the deadline. That's going to be fun. I mean, I think the Panthers make it. And then, I don't know. I mean, the Islanders are just, they don't impress you on paper, especially with Barzell out, but. They keep doing it.

And this has been their M.O. For a few years, well, last year accepted, I guess. Yep. They got the goal tending. And that's what they have. They have the best goalie in the world. That's it. Like, Sorokin for two seasons now.

Like over, Shisurkin last year obviously deserved the Vesna running away. But I'm saying like if you take the last 150 games in the NHL, nobody's better than Sorokin. Nobody. he's been unbelievable behind a bad team. And I'm saying again, on the balance, they're a bad team. This year, I think they're certainly better than they were last year. But again, like, what did we say when, you know, we're talking about MVPs and that kind of thing?

Obviously, McDavid's going to win it. It shouldn't even be a discussion about like, oh, well, I can make an argument for blah, blah, blah, blah. No, no, no. It's just McDavid is going to win the trophy, and he should, and that's the end of it. But especially because they don't give it to goalies, it's got, like, you know, Soroke in all the fucking way. Like, you know, everybody's saying, oh, Mark has the, uh, the Vesna locked up. And I'm sitting there watching this fucking guy, like, just tack on an extra goal and a half

and goals saved above expected every game. Yep. every single night like maybe not last night against the Leafs well did you see the one save that he had last night against

oh yeah ridiculous like just yeah you know but like what I'm usually what I guess I'm saying usually is that like he gets shelled a little bit in most of their games

and then they win three to one or whatever you know um last night I just feel like the Leafs like didn't have it you know, like didn't, didn't get off the buses, they say. But yeah, and look, they're scoring a decent amount of goals lately.

Like, they're on a, they're on a hot run. They're 10, 4 and 1 in the last 15s. So that's all, that's all you're really looking for, I guess. But yeah, I mean, the Islanders feel safe at this point. Like to say they're even in the race is maybe a little unfair to them. Is it? Well, hold on, though. they're 10 points up and win percentage on both Florida and Pittsburgh.

Right. I mean, the penguins have two games in hand. If they win both those games, they're tied now. The penguins aren't going to win both those games in hand the way they're going to be now. But, I mean, I don't know that they're safe. I guess what I'm saying is given that we're talking about, Sorokin's going to play, if not 10 of their last 10, all of their last 10 games. Nine, you know, like they're, they're going to ride him hard into the playoffs.

And I'm not going to bet against I'll get. And I guess the other thing to say is their schedule coming at their last 10 games. They've still got Columbus, Buffalo, Washington twice, in Washington both times. So, you know, and that. The Flyers, the Canadians. Now, they also have a Tampa Carolina, Tampa stretch in there. but I mean, Tampa isn't playing for anything these days, really. Carolina might not be.

They've got the devils. It's not an easy schedule, but it's not an imposing one either. Yeah, if you can get 60% of the points available to you the rest of the way, you're safe. You know, and they should, on paper, get about 60% of those points based on there's six teams below them in the standings that they got to play, and then four, or four games against teams above them. Yeah. And Pittsburgh's schedule is not that different, but the thing with Pittsburgh is they've got Colorado tonight, Dallas tomorrow.

And I mean, if they lose both those games now at this point, it's spiraling away from you. Yeah, that's a shovel of dirt on top of the coffin for them for sure. But then in the West, like, you want to talk about a race that feels over. Calgary just completely wilting in the face of you know Yeah needed

Trying to Trying to catch up Desperately needed that win Last night Because And instead they got Killed They beat

Oh no no No I'm sorry Right I forgot Yeah They beat Anaheim last night They've certainly had some games Where they I mean you're sitting there going

You've got to get the two points here And they don't But the flip site is, like, they're holding the door open for Winnipeg going, like, go ahead. And Winnipeg's kind of like, you know what, no. After you, sir. After you, yeah, exactly. So now, the other thing we should say, and, you know, without getting in this whole debate,

there's both Winnipeg and Calgary have 10 games left. Four points difference between them. So it's a gap, but not an insurmountable one. Winnipeg Jets have 40 wins on the season. Yeah. And 32 losses. Calgary Flames have 32 wins and 40 losses. And they're four points back.

Because Calgary has 15 loser points. Winnipeg has... 15. I believe it's league high versus league low. Now, I often point out that, you know, this idea that the loser point makes a playoff race closer is usually nonsense. But in this case, it is keeping a, you know, in terms of wins and losses, a very, very bad Calgary team afloat.

And then you've got Nashville hanging around. I was just going to say. Nashville quit on the race. You know, they sold at the deadline. Yeah. And they're still chugging a lot. Like they're not on fire, but they're. They've got three more wins than the Calgary Flames.

They have three games in hand and one fewer point. But again. In points percentage, they're the team that's, that's chasing Winnipeg and they would need five, five points in three games to tie them. So again, like, yeah, it's, it's, we're at that stage of the season where, you know, even if you're talking like, oh, it's only three points, it's tough to make up three points in 10 games in the NHL. But it can happen.

Like when you're, you're chasing one team, you know, if Winnipeg finishes strong, it's over. But if they don't, and the door stays open. And they haven't looked right for a month plus. Yeah. There is one other thing I want to say about Nashville very quickly here. And that is, you know, again, they're like the islanders, but worse in terms of what their roster looks like. But they too have one of the best goalies in the world. U.S. Sarros is like dragging this team to being vaguely playoff competitive.

with they have 13 games to go all these other teams have like 10 um and they have all the draft picks because they traded time yeah because they somehow survived they rightly recognized correctly yeah um but one other team i do want to talk about here is Seattle because you want to talk about a team that like they were riding high for a while and now not so much they've lost uh they've lost four of their last six and both of their wins were in overtime um if you so if you go back to basically right before the all-star break they are 11 10 and 2 with uh four of those wins being in overtime, like giving away the loser point, basically. So they have seven regulation wins going back to the two games before the All-Star break.

This is the wheels coming off a little bit, right? Like, this is the goal tend to catching up with them. This is them no longer being able to shoot like 14% and outscore all their problems. Yeah. And I only bring this up. Again, like I think they're extremely likely to make the playoffs and they've had a very nice season for themselves relative to everybody's expectation and all that kind of stuff. Oh, and by the way, their next two games are at Nashville. Both of them are at Nashville, which is very interesting.

So either they let the predators kind of back into the race even more or they kill the predators. that's that's for basically like what these next two games mean um like even going 500 is probably bad for the predators honestly at this point um but anyway like i'm very curious like where they end up because like i don't know they're they're not so far behind the oilers who are playing very well now um that like it's impossible for them to drop out of the Pacific Division race entirely. Yeah. But the most likely outcome is they play whoever has the worst record of Vegas or Dallas in the first round. And I just feel like that series, either of those series would have the potential to get ugly. Yeah.

I don't know. Yeah. I did a thing on Seattle on my rankings column. And I was looking back at, you remember in, I think it was early January, when they went into Boston and they beat the Bruins. And they were the first team to do that. Like, I think that was Boston's first home loss.

And I remember at the time being like, this feels like the moment where like for the whole first half, Seattle's been good. And everyone's like, oh, that's a cute story. But nobody's really taking them seriously. And then they go in and they beat Boston. and everyone was like, wait a second, we got to, we got to start paying attention here.

And man, ever since then, they have just been very ordinary. Not terrible, but they've been, I, when I sat down to write the piece, they were, they were fake 500. They were like, you know, 12, 11, and 3 or something like that since then. They're 14, 12, and 3 since they beat the Bruy. I think it was the Bruins for his home regulation loss. That's what it was, I'm pretty sure. And they shut them out and all that.

And at the time, you were like, man, like, how are they doing this? Because the goaltending stinks, the special team stink, but they're still, you know, they're, like you said, they were shooting like 14% at the time. And now the goaltending still stinks and the penalty killing still stinks. And maybe Dave Haxill isn't the second coming of Scotty Bowman after all. They're still going to make the playoffs probably. If they don't, it's a huge disappointment. But, you know, that's fine. Second year franchise, make the playoffs, get a couple of playoff games in your building.

We'll all pretend it's the loudest building in the NHL like we do for every new market. You're not going to believe this. And you probably get swept by, you know, whoever. I don't think they'll get swept. Again, like, the thing is that by, you know, underlying numbers and all this stuff, this is a solid team. They're not great or anything, but this is a solid team. solid team. And I think it's fair to say that they made some bad bets and goal, obviously.

But they also are dealing with the problem that I would expect an expansion team to have, which is they don't have a lot of finishing talent. Right. Right? And that's why your power play suffers. And that's why, you know, like, you need to shoot. like 14% to even be kind of a playoff team, right? Like they don't have a lot of depth on this roster.

Like, look at, look at the number of guys they've used this year whose names you recognize. Like, if you're the casual NHL fan. You're, like, you're sitting there going like, okay, Morgan Geeky. Who's that again? You know what I mean? Which one is the geeky? Is he the good geeky or the, I don't know. He's having like a decent year.

But like, he's Morgan Kiki, you know? Like, yeah. And what did we say, right? When, when they picked this team and everything like that on this podcast, we said, basically, I don't, you know, I don't remember exactly, but I know what my feeling was at the time, was that thinking this team was going to do anything even close to what Vegas was able to do, it was like, you know, real pie in the sky shit.

It was, it was, it was just not going to happen in all likelihood. And last year was like worse than it probably should have been. This year's been probably a little better than it should have been. And like, again, I'm not trying to kick these guys when they're down. They've been struggling lately. They have some players I really, really like. But I'll put it to you this way. And, you know, I don't know that you need to say much more about this team than this.

You know who their leading scorer is by points, not by. goals. By goals, it's Jared McKinney. He's a good player. But by points, you know, who has the most points on the Seattle Cracken this year? Absolutely do not. Even if I read to you a roster, you would not come up with the correct answer of Vince Dunn. Wow. Okay. Vince Dunn has 57 points this year to lead the team in scoring. Yeah. Okay. Well, and that's a defenseman I like, but it's like, Jesus Christ, Vince Dunn leads your team in scoring. You know, have a lot of offensive pop. Nobody's going into the playoffs, like trying to game plan how to shut down Vince Dunn.

Vince Dunn is shooting 10.4% this season. Well, good for him. Yeah. Again, this is a player I like when they got him. I was like, smart, good work. They got a good player. But like, Vince Dunn shouldn't have three fewer goals than Jordan Everly. No.

That's a problem. Well, it's not a problem for Vince Dunn, but that's a problem for Jordan. never really for sure. Anyway, yeah. I hope we get Seattle, Vegas. That would be fun. That would be really fun. Yeah.

But like even Seattle, Dallas, like, it would be less fun, like storyline-wise, but I think it would be just as fun game-wise. I wrote about Dallas this week. Like, you know, they went through a bit of a tough stretch recently.

They seem to have pulled out of it a little bit. But that's just like a good, solid team. You know? The problem, of course, is that, you know, when the top, like, two lines are off the ice, they fucking can't do anything. But at least with, it's different from Pittsburgh where they have Jake Ottinger back there, you know? Jake Ottinger is really good. So.

Dallas, yeah. Yeah. I'm a big, I'm a big believer in these Dallas, this Dallas team. I'm interested to see, like, what the future holds just. because they have so many old guys, you know. But, you know, they've been good all year. They've been, they have, they absolutely have. It feels like, well, maybe I, I'm just projecting my own feelings,

but it feels a little bit like everyone's just waiting, you know, all the top of the central or just keeping it warm for Colorado. And like Dallas has had it pretty much all year. Minnesota's making a hell of a push now. They are. They are. They are. They are.

off, which is wild. Yeah, but hence the name. Oh, yeah, I guess so. But yeah, I think the West is really interesting just because, and again, I just kind of said this like in my article, so I'll just repeat myself, but it's kind of a rock paper scissor thing where everybody has like an obvious weakness and like their most likely playoff opponents have the tools to exploit that weakness. You know what I mean?

I guess Colorado is the one team that on paper doesn't have a weakness. But like the weakness is they can't stay healthy. You know? And I don't know that that's something you can exploit on ice. And they do have, you know, somewhat unproven goaltending, although that was also the case last year. Yeah, no, I think it's a situation. I guess we should say, by the way, Jared Bednar three-year extension. Nobody's surprised.

This is very simple stuff. In part because, as you say, like, they've just taken the last, not even last year, but like the year before that too, like, Philip Gruberauer, he, the, they tricked Seattle into thinking he was a good goalie. Yeah. Right? Like, tricked a lot of us. Yeah.

Paul Franços the year before that. Like, you can go down the list. They just for several years now, Jared Bednar has been like, oh, this like, perfectly okay goalie. Yeah, I'm going to make him look like an all-star, and we're going to be fine, you know? And them doing it this year with Giorgiov, who was like kind of bad for the last few years in New York, just goes to show. Like, they are much like Vegas and that they will just set their goaltender up for success. Anyway, why don't we take another break? We'll come back and we'll talk about this extremely exciting NHLPA player poll.

Can't wait. And then we'll play a quick game show as well, just for fun. This week's episode of Puck Soup is brought to you by Bespoke Post and folks. This is, I think, a relatively new sponsor here. And what you might not know about them is that they promise that they will send you a box of awesome every month. All you got to do is sign up for their service and make your little selections from bespoke post. and they just send it once a month, and it's really cool. I recently received the box that they call a sizz,

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You can get 20% off your first monthly box When you sign up at boxofossom.com And enter the code puck at checkout That's boxofawson.com Code puck for 20% off your first box. Box ofawson.com code puck. Okay, we're back. And one thing I forgot to mention in the last segment,

just because the Oilers kind of didn't come up all that. Naturally, McDavid is at a point where he needs 12 goals in his last 11 games to hit 70. And he only needs 14 points to hit 150. He's getting into Bernie Nichols territory. This is so cool. Yeah. This guy rocks. You know, I neglected to look up who the Oilers, like, last 11 opponents are.

But I'm, I guess what I'm saying is I'm hoping they're playing a lot of games against, like, Chicago and Arizona. One game against Buffalo could do it the way things are going. Let's see here. Arizona's up next. Vegas, Arizona, Vegas, L.A. Anaheim. L.A. Anaheim.

San Jose, Colorado, San Jose. That's not a lot of good goaltending. He could do it. He could. The question is going to be, I guess, partly does he play every game? Yeah, that's a good point. I mean, he just, I, man, I have so many bad takes, but I was this offseason when on the other show we were going through like the goals leaders and I was like, McDavid is going to

score 61 at least this year because he had to listen all. summer to people act like Austin Matthews was in, you know, even in the discussion. And it was just like, you just knew. He was going to be like, all right, fine. What did, what is this Matthews got? What did he have 60 goals and 30 assists or whatever? Okay. I'm getting 61 goals to go with my usual 90 assists.

And I'm going to make everyone shut up about him. He's so good. Yeah. I'm, I guess what I think is that to your point about whether he plays, if he's within, if he gets to like 65 goals and there's like four games left or something like that, there's no way he's sitting out unless he hits 70 or until he hits 70. And I do want to see McDavid in like full empty the tank mode against Arizona and San Jose. You know what I mean?

Like I want to see him playing. God, imagine if it comes down to like him against San Jose where San Jose needs to lose to get like the top lottery odds and he needs. five goals to get to 70. Like, what a bloodbath. Like, that just becomes, like, did you see that the, I can't remember who the player was, but it was like some NBA team that's, like, fallen out of the race. And somebody was like, instead of tanking by, like, shutting their good players down, they should let their good player take, like, a hundred three-pointers in a game.

Just like, you know, just to see what happens. It would be like that. Like, the whole team, just like, just give it to McDavid. and let's see what single game records he can break. Oh, it says here McDavid got 16 minutes with Warren Fogel. What? Yeah. In addition to like he played every second on every power play they drew.

Just don't even take them off the end. Like here, here's my question. How far into a game if Connor McDavid was never allowed to go to the bench? How far into a game do you think he would get tired enough that he was no longer the fastest guy? Yeah. There's a famous story in... Over under is 28 minutes, I think. There's a famous story in, like, the bean pot, which is like a stupid college hockey tournament in Boston, where a guy missed the team bus.

And his coach, as a punishment, was like, no, you have to play the entire game. Okay. And this is back in, like, the 70s or something when hockey, like, barely counted. And he played 58 minutes because he took, like, a tripping minor. Yeah, get himself for rest. But like he had 58 minutes in ice time or whatever. And that's what I want for McDavid. Well, you've heard the Alexei Kovalev story, right?

Yeah. With Mike Kienin, where he, I guess, Kovalov was staying out too long on his shifts. So as punishment, Keenan refused to let him come off the ice for like, depending on who you talk to, six minutes, seven minutes, 10 minutes, 15, whatever. The number gets higher. But the punchline is that Kovalev didn't realize he was being punished. He thought this was like, this is cool.

And then, like, he gets to the end of this massive shift and he scores a goal. And finally, Keenan's like, screw it. Like, this is. Get off the ice. Yep. You can come off. Making me look like an idiot out here trying to punish you. Yeah, no, I, I want McDavid to hit, Christ, I want him to hit 75.

But, like, 12 in the last 11 games, normally for any other player, maybe Ovechkin would be the one other guy where you're like, yeah, he can't. He can't get there. Let me just, yeah. I mean, look, one more streak of like he has two goals a game for five games. He's, it's done, right? I'll tell you right now, like, let's, Austin Matthews has 32 goals. He's been hurt.

He's been, he's missed games. He's got 32 goals. I assume, you know, he'll get to 40. He'll get to whatever. But if he either misses time or he still doesn't, don't sleep on McDavid, getting like doubling Austin Matthews twice as like if he goes in if Austin Matthews has 34 goals and he's done and McDavid's like I have to get to 68 to have twice what Johnny superstar over here who's better than me has then he'll do like I love guys who are so good that like just out of spite

they can just do ridiculous stuff that's so cool to me yeah for sure um so yeah we mentioned it on the other side of the break. The NHLPA player poll came out today. And they've really leaned into being as anodyne as possible with it. It used to be a situation where they were like, who's the coach you would most like to play for? What about the coach you wouldn't want to play for, that kind of stuff? And where was it? Which rink has the worst ice was like a question a few years ago, that kind of stuff.

Like they were more than happy to like put the boots to somebody or whatever. And this year it's like, if you need to win one game, which goalie do you want? Would it shock you to learn to the answer was Andre Vasselowski? It did shock me that he gets over 50% and nobody else even touches five. Yeah. Shasturkin's 4.8. And Mark Andre Fleury number three. which is always, I'm amazed, like, I'm still surprised Carrie Price isn't in the top five.

Right. But I'm just, like, I read the first two and then I stopped because I was like, oh, I can react to it in real time. Is there anything here even worth looking at? No, I mean, I'll just go down the list. Must win game, which forward do you want? McDavid, then Crosby, then McKinnon. Okay, great. Top defenseman, McCar, huge gap, headman.

Okay, sure. Best stick handler, Patrick Kane, great, fine. Best passer. I thought it was a little interesting that it's Drysidal, but I think that is the right answer. That is an interesting one, though, that a guy who scores 50 goals is the set of goal. And he is, though. Like, you watch this guy pass. It's fucking ridiculous. I've told you. But okay, now, see, now we've done it. Now Dracil's the best passer. McDavid only got 8%. Now McDavid's going to have 120 assists next year. Right. He's going to be mad. He's going to score zero goals and have 180 assists just to show us all that he can pass. Yep. Most complete player, that's Crosby, Bergeron, a decent distance back. Barkov's interesting being third as the, because he hasn't had a great year.

Not to me. And we'll get to why in a second. You'll never guess who they said is the most underrated player at the league. The guy who's been to like four all-star games For the seventh year in a row. Yep. Which player do you least enjoy playing against but would like to have on your team?

Boy, this is a tricky one. Turns out it's a Brad Marchand. Yeah. Crazy. I love that McDavid is second. Yeah, right. Because they were like, oh no, it like actually sucks playing against this guy. Yeah.

I have to like defend him? Fuck that, man. That stinks. Here's one that actually was interesting. affects the game around the net the most, a forward or a defenseman. And the winner was Joe Pavelski. Now, it says here forward or defensemen, but the top five are all forwards? So are we just saying that like defensemen don't, if defensemen don't affect the game around the net, what exactly are they doing? Well, it turns out you're just not allowed to like cross-check guys in the back

58 times anymore. You know why? So, because the game's gotten soft. That's right. Um, But yeah, Pavelsky was interesting to me. I would have bet a billion dollars it was going to be one of the Kachucks. And Matt ended up third, like a decent distance behind. Pavelsky and then Crider. Crider's a good answer that I guess I wouldn't have thought of, but he's a classic guy who scores a bunch of goals, and most of them are within eight feet of the net, you know.

I guess I was interested to see McDavid ended up in the top five. But like, I think they mean around the net while I'm, still 30 feet behind him. Yeah. He's around the net, but me, not so much. Yeah, most underrated player, like I said, is Barkoff second on the list with 4% of the vote was Tage Thompson. Again, like, who's not fucking talking about Tage Thompson this year?

Yeah. I would have been impressed if they had said that last year, but. Right. Mika Zavannajad third? Great. Sure. Okay. That's fine.

Ah-ho. Just for rat. Braden Point. Okay. Awesome. Cool. Thanks. female hockey player you would most want to play along past or present.

It turns out the best women's hockey player of all time, Marie-Fili Poulin. She's the one. Well, that's just the one you want to play with because you're guaranteed to win. Yeah, they got, she got that going for her. Just pitch out Hillary. She got 28% of the vote. Apparently the other 72% would like to themselves score an overtime goal sometimes. So they don't want that.

Which NHL Arena has the best ice? Saint-Chrebelle, 35%. Great. Yep, cool. And now we get to the really... Vegas being fifth is interesting there, only because the other, you know, it's three Canadian markets and then Minnesota and then...

Right. Now we get to the off-ice stuff. Oh, this is going to be wild. It's going to be crazy. I can feel it. The best road city to have an off day? Would you believe it's Las Vegas, Nevada? Gosh.

Wow, crazy. Thought it was going to be Edmonton, but all right. So this is one I saw, which NHL player is the best guy in the locker room, right? And the winner is Mark Andre Fleury with 3.8% of the vote. I'm sorry, 448 players voted. Okay. That means 17 guys said Mark Andre Fleury. Yeah.

That's it. Like, everybody else was like, oh, I guess it's a guy. I play with. Because like next up is Phil Kessel, 2.7%. He's tied with Kevin Hayes and Jake Vorichick. And then Ryan Johansson and Nick Folino are tied at two and a half percent. So like all these guys got like 17, 16, 15 players to vote for them. And it's like, oh, everybody just said like their friend on the team.

Yeah. Like, like, okay, great. But yeah, I just, I do love that like Vorichick. is listed with the Arizona Coyotes. Like I'm sure, yeah, he's a great guy of that Coyote's locker room. Absolutely. He's, I mean, they've been winning ever since they acquired him, so.

Can't argue with the results, man. But yeah, I just thought it was so funny. Oh, people going like, oh, of course it's Mark Andre Fleury. What a sweetheart that guy is. And it's like, yeah, 17 guys said him. Ninety-six percent of the league does not think. Right.

Like, just the number of guys he's played with in the last like three seasons. It has to be in like the 70s, you know? Really funny. And then, of course, the number one question on every hockey fan's mind, who in the NHL has the best shoe game? Who's got the best kicks? They said it was Austin Matthews, 9.1%.

And the photo is of him wearing Air Jordans or whatever. Cool. Awesome. it is very fun to look at like the number of votes cast because it gives you an idea of like how many players were like I don't know don't know there were 600 votes for like what's the coolest city to be in right and under 400 for this one so the the uh it appears that the actual winner is 33% of players being like dude I don't know who gives the shit yeah um yeah because again much like flurry thing matthews gets 9.1% of the 384 votes. That works out to 35 guys said, oh, he wears Air Jordans.

That's pretty cool. Yep. Awesome. That's it. Like, I got to that. I'm like, all right. Now we're ramping up, and that was the entire...

Yeah, usually the poll is like, okay, let's talk about coaches. Let's talk about refs. This year they were like, let's talk about sneakers and get the fuck out of here. Okay, sure. They didn't even do a most fashionable.

They just did shoes. They've done that in the past. Like, they used to be a... but yeah Pierraluc de Bois got seven votes if my math is right maybe eight no it would be eight so not even that's like 40% of his own team

was like sure right and the photo is of him wearing regular dress shoes yeah get the fuck out of here what a waste of everybody's time that's too like and that's why most guys were like I guess I don't care

but anyway let's move on here we're going to play a couple rounds of a game everybody likes called 20 Kestions, and that's where I give Sean an NHL player who has played at least a thousand games. The game was named in order of Phil Kessel, or in honor of Phil Kessel, playing his thousandth game a year or two ago now. And we have not been like increasing the total,

along with Phil Kessel. Right, no, no, no. It's just once you get to 1,000, you are eligible to be a guy in the game. There have been 370 players who have gotten to that number in NHL history. And I will give you a, I just will give Sean a random player from this list

and using a random number generator, so I'm just not even, and so the number is 107 and the gimmick here is it's like 20 questions he's just, it's like 20 questions, and see if he can figure out who the guy is. Okay.

Now I'm opening my little notepad document so that I can remember. All right. Is this person a forward? Yes. Are they Canadian? Yep. Did they play in the 1980s?

Yes. Did they play for more than two teams in their career? They did. Did they play for more than three teams in their career? Yes. Did they play in the 90s? Did they play in the 90s? Yeah, they did.

All right. So we got an 80s and 90s, Canadian forward played for more than three teams. So at least four teams. Don't feel like I've narrowed it down a ton. Is the player primarily a center? No. So we got a winger. Were they ever a postseason all-star?

Post-season. Give me one second. I've got to scroll down to find the real all-star. If you're on hockey reference, it's at the top. It'll say. No. No. Okay.

Did they ever have a 30-goal season? Let's find out. Yes. Yes. Okay. So yes, they scored at least 30 goals, but he had to find out. Well, I wouldn't put a lot of... And again, it's 80s and 90s.

You don't... Right. I just don't know anything about that. Yeah. Okay. So they didn't... They'd have 30 goals season. This next question will be 10, by the way.

Yes. All right. I'm going to have one more general question, and then I'll try to start to drill down. Did they ever win a Stanley Cup? I don't believe so, looking at the teams he played for. No. Okay. All right.

Did this player ever play for the Toronto Maple Leafs? No. Did they ever play for the New York Rangers? No. Did they ever play for the Red Wings? Yes. Hmm. Next one will be 15.

Is the next one 15 or 14? Because I did... 15. Wait, when Stanley Cup was 10? Yeah. Okay. So then I did 3 teams. My bad.

Okay. Uh, boy. Were they a first round draft pick? This seems to indicate this was an undrafted player. Is that right? I gave you too much info. Getting some extra information out of them. I love it.

Not that that particularly helps me all that bunch. They're never postseason all-star. They did have 30 goals. Undrafted, though. Did they ever play for the Flyers? Let's see here. Let's see. No.

Crap. There was my Adam Oates. theory that I was working on. Well, he was a center, so that wouldn't have made sense. All right, so that's my 50. What a stupid idiot. Yeah. Forgot Adam Oates was the center, man.

Dummy. Oh, boy. Okay. Did they play more than 1,200 games? Yes. Okay. Boy, I'm flailing a little bit here. Yeah, you're usually done by this.

I'm usually much closer. Yeah, but it's, All right, let's let me recap here. It's a Canadian winger played in the 80s and 90s, played for a lot of teams. Never a postseason all-star. So never, never a superstar player, but did have 30 goals, played for the wings, but not too many other teams that I asked about. Did they ever play for the Florida Panthers? They did.

Did they ever play for the Washington Capitals? They did. Okay, I think I'm, is, well, let's see, hold on. Three. I've got two questions left. Does my guess count as a question, or do I do my 20 questions and then throw my guess out there? I think it's the latter, yeah.

Okay. I'm going to ask what is going to seem like a weird question given that we've established this guy didn't was an ever-a-all-star is he a Hall of Famer? He is. Is it Dino Cicerelli? It is, yeah. Okay. All right, all right.

All right. We'll do one more here. Let's see. Random number generator. Okay. Scroll down a little bit. Okay. Okay.

This is a guy I've never heard of, so good luck. I was going to say, already, he had to scroll down, so it's not Patrick Marlowe. And it's a guy that he's never heard of. All right. Is it a forward? It says he played both defense and right wing. So already, I don't know how to answer that. All right.

Did this guy play in the 60s? Let's find out. Did he play in... Wait, no, no. Let me revise my question. Did this guy play any seasons before 1970? Yes. Because the guys who play both forward and defense

was fairly common back then, not so much these days. I am assuming you've heard of Brent Burns, so that kind of rules out. Did he play... any games in the 1950s? No. Did he play

any games in the 1940s or earlier? No. So this guy played in the 60s and potentially beyond, which really does narrow it down because back then there were not a ton of games.

Okay. Is he a Hall of Famer? No Wow Okay Because just about everyone was from back then No shit If you got to a thousand games

And weren't a Hall of Fame Or how bad were you? Yeah you stunk Um Not Again I have legitimately never heard of this fucking Yeah Which does not narrow it down

A lot for me I mean that pretty much tells me It's not Gordy how Sure Okay That's about it Okay Was he ever a postseason all-star

No It does not appear that he was. Okay. Did he ever have a 30-goal season? No. Okay. So I'm feeling like this guy was more of a defenseman than a forward.

But back in the day... That's probably right. Yeah. Did he play more than 1,200 games? No. Yeah, that's, I mean, probably wouldn't because, again, just... Not as many games back then. All right.

Did he play for the Leafs? No. Did he play for the Habs? Yes. Wow. He played for the Habs and he's not a Hall of Famer. This guy stinks. This guy was terrible.

Who's a Habs? I won't bother asking if he won the Stanley Cup because pretty clearly would have. And I think I'm up to 11 questions. So I know it's a... That's right. Yeah. play for more than two teams?

No. Did he play for any teams other than Montreal? Yes. So he played for Montreal. Did he play the majority of his career games for Montreal? Yes. All right, so he played most of his career with the Habs.

He played in the 60s and presumably into the 70s. Well, he must have played in the 70s because he didn't play in the 50s and he has to get to a thousand games. a Hall of Famer, an All-Star, or a big goal scorer. Was the other team that he played for a non-original 16? Yes.

And that's 15, by the way. So I'm feeling like this was a guy maybe played for the HABs up to 67 and then gets scooped up in the expansion draft or one of the subsequent expansion drafts. But that still doesn't help me a ton. Did he play past 1975? Yes. Again,

this is a guy, I, you know, like, like you said, if you were on the Canadians in the 60s or whatever, like you were good,

like you, you must have been pretty good, but, and, and like famous and stuff like that. I've never, I've literally never heard of this fucking guy. Not in my whole life.

I feel like, like we could play a game of has Ryan heard of this? At least heard the name. I would feel like a lot of NHL players I have at least heard the name before, yeah. But I didn't ask if he,

no, I didn't ask if he was Canadian, but if he played back then, he was Canadian. Was the other team, how many questions do I have left? Four. This will be the 17th. Was the other team that he played for either the Flyers or the

blues. Yes. Was it the Flyers? No. Okay, so we play from Montreal and St. Louis. Oh, boy.

Oh, boy. Play both positions, but we think he's probably a defenseman. Oh, boy. Dude, I'm... There's some 80-year-old guy in Montreal screaming. Yep.

Right now. Did he ever, are you on his hockey reference page? Yes. Did he ever receive a vote for a major award? Or any award? Not once. No. Christ. Okay. And you have one more.

Man, are you kidding me? This might be the first time you ever get stumped. Have I never been stumped before? I don't think you ever have. This is, this is, this is going to be. Folks, we're making history here. Yeah. Because I'm, I'm not even like, I'm not even sure of what possible question I could ask that would

lead me at this point down the right path here. Did he play into the 1980s? No. I have no idea who this player is. This is a guy. He's from Toronto, Ontario, Canada. His name is Jimmy Roberts. I have heard of Jimmy Roberts.

I would never have gotten... This is a guy who won five. Stanley Cups. Sure. Yeah. Broke into the league with the Canadians. As you say, goes to the Blues in the expansion draft. Spends a few years there, goes back

to Montreal. Okay. Yep. And then at the end of his career, one season with the St. Louis. Oh, so we went back and forth. Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, says here he was also an NHL

coach for three years with Buffalo, Hartford, and St. Louis. St. Louis, he was a coach for nine games in 1996, 97. That I don't recall at all. 96.97, that would have been like when they fired, did they fire Keenan? Yeah, I would have to think. He was just the interim guy until they hired. Oh, you know what?

I just looked it up. Yeah, he went, he was the, this is fascinating. He was the interim guy between Mike Keenan and Joel Quenville. Joel Quenville. That's got to be like an all-time. time record for like interim guy between two like hugely successful coaches. The number of wins between two interim guys like on either side of you as an interim coach. Oh man, I'm looking up like Jimmy Roberts right now.

Jimmy Roberts was the coach of that Whalers team that lost in overtime game seven, which pretty much killed the franchise against the Habs, the Russ Corrid goal. But I was, yeah, that could have been my friend. I could have been 50 questions, and I don't think we were getting it to Jimmy Roberts. Nope. So, yeah, that's it. I apologize to everyone I have let down. Everybody from the 1996-97 Blues is so fucking mad at you right now.

Oh, man. Pierre Turgeon's going, hey, what the fuck? Yeah. Anyway, yeah, Sean, why don't you hit him with the plugs? Find me at the athletic where I don't have a bunch of stuff up there right now because I was off last week. This week I'm working on stuff for down the line, but you can get in there and subscribe now and I'll have a what will feel like a whole ton of stuff coming next week and beyond because that's how the schedule is working out. But I will have my podcast with Ian Mendez tomorrow, the athletic hockey show. And then, like I say, keep an eye out for next week.

We're going to have some interesting stuff for you. And then for me, eP.rinkside.com, if you use the code, I love EP, all one word at checkout. You will get three months added on to the end of your annual subscription. That's 15 months of the price of 12. What a steal that is. And I guess the big thing for me to plug this week, really, is I wrote an extremely long, very in-depth. NCWA hockey tournament preview because that tournament starts in about 24 hours. By the time you hear this, it'll be less than that, I suspect.

But yeah, it starts tomorrow. It's very exciting. That preview, again, should be up by the time you hear this, but I don't think it's up yet. But yeah, I went really in depth on every team I talked about, you know, Which teams have, like, you know, what prospects are on which teams and all that kind of stuff, stats for every team and all that. Should be a good tournament this year. I'm really looking forward to it. Two different regionals are within driving distance, so I will be in Manchester, New Hampshire.

I will be in Bridgeport, Connecticut. So I'm psyched for it. And then I'm going to Tampa in whatever, three weeks, two weeks. So, yeah, check that out. Your team almost certainly has at least one or two prospects playing in the tournament this year. If you watch it, I believe it's on TSN up in Canada and ESPN here in the U.S. If you watch this tournament, you will have a good time. It's good hockey.

Very cool. Check it out. And then the PuckSoup Patreon. Patreon.com slash Puck Soup. All kinds of bonus episodes over there, including me and, John are about to go do a mailbag where we answer listener questions as we do every week. So, yeah, check all that out. And thanks for the support and all that kind of thing.

And talk to you next week. Bye bye. 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 and tools. It's your weekly bowl of Hagi and Nansen. about to

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