Puck Soup - We're Back(?)

Episode Date: January 3, 2022

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It's and tunes It's your weekly bowl of Hockey and Nancet Part 2 I'm Ryan Lambert From Elite Prospect C.P.Rinkside.com. And I'm Sean McAnew from The Athletic. Sean, hi.

I got a quiz for you right off the hop here. Oh, no. What does the number seven and one-third mean to you? Not much. That is, Sean, the number of goals per game since the NHL came back. Ah. From their, I don't know, school vacation, I guess.

And you know what that means? The dead puck era is over. It's over, baby. We're... Haas, mission-accomplish banner in background. That's right. But yeah, I mean, you're watching these games right now. There's a shitload of goals going on.

A whole lot of them. I was watching the Vegas Winnipeg game yesterday. That ended up, I think, five to four in overtime or something like that. There was just a lot of scoring. There was a 13 goal game yesterday between Pittsburgh and San Jose. Just a lot of like four to three, five to four games. To what do we attribute this show? Yeah, and even the games that aren't as high scoring, there's like 6-0, 4-0, 5-1.

So like one team is scoring a lot. Yeah, it's because there's a ton of minor leaguers in the, in the lineups. There's a ton of guys who are returning from having COVID or being in the protocols and their stamina and physical fitness level is not what they're used to playing with. And even the guys who maybe are playing at close to full power, maybe having practice, so, you know, teams are just sloppy and all over the place. And a lot of them coming off breaks, too.

I remember in previous years when we had the buy week, that was always a thing that teams coming out to buy, did poorly. So, yeah, that all adds up to some very sloppy hockey. And sloppy hockey, unlike pretty much every other sport, sloppy hockey is more fun. The best kind. Than polished, well-played hockey. Yeah. This is why at the beginning of the season every year, like in October, you're like,

oh, damn, there's a lot of goals lately. Yeah, for a week. And we all get very excited. all the coaches start yelling at the guys. Moving the face off circle, half an inch worked. We did it. You know, it's really this crackdown on hooking that we saw in the new year. But yeah, it's interesting that these are being counted as real games.

Like I watched that Habs Panthers game the other day where the Canadians had like 16 guys and half of them were from LaValle. Yeah. And they were just like, yeah, this. This absolutely counts, and then the team immediately goes into a freaking COVID pause in part because they were just like, oh, we can't play any home games right now. And it sounds like even the league was like, are you guys sure you want to play? And they were like, yeah, it's the Panthers, we're going to lose anyways. Let's get it out of the way now. But it's like I tend not to play the whole like I've never heard of this guy game because there's a few guys on every team every night.

but I've seen even people that I consider very knowledgeable about everybody in this league who are like I never even heard these names before of guys in the NHL for the bunch of a bunch of 22 year old guys where it's like oh if he was like any kind of a prospect I would have heard about him in the last three or four years and it's just like yeah no I never heard of this motherfucker in my whole life you guys are going to have to change the name of your website to like passable prospects That's right. Just for the Montreal situation right now.

It's really, really bad. And yeah, like, you know, at some point we have to wonder whether, like, we can take anything away from these. There's good, because this is going to happen for weeks on end, right? Because, you know, none of the Canadian teams can play with people in the building right now. And they might try to play a couple empty arena games just to get a game. Amen. They're going to try to avoid it as best they can. And understandably so, I'm not like mad about that or whatever, but it's just insane.

You know? And you know what? You're right. Like we're going to have to, when we hopefully, fingers crossed, get through this current surge and get back to something closer to, not normal, but closer to the start of the season. there's going to be times as we get close to the playoffs. You're going to have to look back at things and say, well, this team's record or this team's head-to-head or this team, oh, wait, yeah, some of that was in December and January where we maybe can't take anything from this. There's no other way to do it. I'm not saying this as a criticism, but we're going to be determining, like, seating and home ice advantage and all this stuff based on, like, which team had a road trip through Kansas.

Canada and went four and oh in the first week of January versus versus other stuff. It is crazy. And I don't know, whoever can adjust their model to account for the, not to steal your bit, but the fakeness of the last couple of weeks will probably have more accuracy because it's, I don't, you kind of throw your hands up. Like, what are we, like, what do we make of the Florida Panthers beating the lightning nine to three? Right. Any other time, that would be a big deal.

It's, you know. That would be a huge deal, right. But then you look at the lightning goalies and you're like, I don't know who either of these people are. So does that count? Maybe. Like, there's that hockey mindset that says, like, you just, you go out there and play. And that's it. And, you know, it's.

And then there's the real life mindset. that says some of this stuff does feel pretty fake. Yeah, I mean, you know, the thing with the Panthers is they go out and in their last three games now, they have 18 fucking goals.

And before that, you know, like going into the break, they were playing horribly. They got blown up by Ottawa, you know? And you're like, well, you know, obviously the Panthers

aren't get blown out by Ottawa bad most nights and maybe in that game, I don't remember the line. now, but maybe they had like nine guys out. I have no idea, you know. I'm looking at the roster for that game now. Yeah, there's a good number of guys I don't recognize here.

And then mostly they're, you know, like, let's put it this way. They had only you levy in the lineup. So couldn't have been going that well for them. But yeah, it's, it's tough just because it's like, we, I guess what this is saying is the league should expect. band by another four teams, get way more AHL guys in the lineup, and then all of a sudden, oh, look at that. Look at all these goals were scored.

People used to always say when scoring rates were down and the entertainment value was plummeting, they'd say, well, we need to contract. There's too many teams. Talent is too watered down, and it's the opposite. Watered down talent, this is like we're getting a unfortunate look at it. That's what makes hockey fun.

That's why scoring explodes. voted in the 70s because it went from there were six professional teams in 1967 and by 1975 there were like 40 because of the WHA and expansion the NHL and everything and a lot of the people in the league should not have been in the league based on the standards we knew and so the guys who should be in the league like Bobby Orr and Phil Esposito were like oh I'm just going to score 76 goals and shatter every record. Yeah. Yeah, the thing that people always talk about from the 70s or whatever is like, oh yeah, you know who like the third best team in the world was at that time was the Montreal Canadiens farm team.

Yeah. They were better than half the teams in the NHL. And you're like, I believe it, because a lot of the teams in the NHL sucked. They were awful. They were expansion teams back when that meant you were supposed to be bad. Yeah. They were, yeah, it was. Seattle, I mean, you know.

Yeah. And then, you know, the 80s comes along and things stabilize a bit, but there's still 21 teams when entering the decade when there were six. Right. I mean, you triple the league in size. That's what's going to happen. And it was fun as hell. You know, it was. Sure. Gee, see, look at how crazy the last week or so has been. That's what the whole year was like in like 92, right? That was the scoring rate for the year, basically. it was pretty great. But yeah, it's been like that Columbus Carolina game. Insane. Generally, if you score the first four goals of a game and at the end we're talking about you getting blown out, that's bad.

That feels like, I'm not an X as an O's guy, but that feels like you've done something wrong. Yeah. I mean, that, I didn't actually watch that game because I was about talking. watch it. And then I was like, oh, it's already 4-0 Columbus, never mind. And then I watched a whole other game and then was like, why does that say 7 to 4? Yeah.

And then I turned that game on and literally it was, you know, the hurricanes coming off the ice high-fiving each other. And I was like, well, I guess I'm not going to get an explanation on what went wrong there. Just see the care, like, Hurricanes players on the bench when it was 4-0, like, are okay, fine. I guess

we have to start now. And then they just went to tad. There have been so many bizarre. That Pittsburgh San Jose game was completely drunk.

It's, again, it's fun. Even that Vegas game, right? Did you see any of that? Yeah, well, I saw it. It was like 2-0,

then it was 2-2, then it was 4-2 Winnipeg, then it was 4-4, and then Kyle Connor won it in overtime. And I think it was, I don't know, the stat that the guy on the Vegas broadcast

that was, you know, these guys, they haven't lost in overtime yet this year. And I was like, they're done. That's it. You've done it. Yeah. And then halfway through, Kyle Connor. And breaks through when, you know, that was, yeah.

God bless the Islanders and Oilers playing in all of this, playing a three-two overtime game. Like, if any two teams would embrace the 80s mindset, you would think it would be those two. But no, they're the two you can count on to be. Yeah, they're the two. stink really bad. Yes.

You know what? I had this later in the outline here, but let's just talk about the Oilers now while we're here. They're in a lot of trouble. And let's put it this way. You know what teams in trouble when the local, like, boot liquor media is like, well, definitely you can't fire the coach. That would be the worst thing you could do.

So that's how you know what teams in a lot of trouble. is when they're trying to put out those fires. Yeah, it's really bad. Not in the sense of the season is falling apart, because they banked a ton of points in the first month or so. Like, they won nine of their first 10 or whatever it was. Yeah, on, like at the end of November, they were first in the entire NHL.

Yeah, I had them in my top five for the rankings. I was like, this is it. Finally, they are not, the football will remain station. and I'm going to kick it. And right up until the start of December, really. They were, yeah, I'm looking at it. They were 16 and 5 after beating the Pittsburgh Penguins on the first night of December.

Again, the local, again, like, you know, it's the Edmonton media, so you take everything they say with a grain of salt. But there was an article that I saw, that I keep reminding people of that was like, that's it. no more sample size questions. The oilers were for real. That was nine games in, wasn't it? No, that was at the end of November. But it was like, the oilers are for real. You can't question.

And then they're like three, nine and two since then or some shit like that. They have won two of their last 11. Yeah. Of the nine losses, the last two came in overtime, all the rest were regulation. And the thing that's maybe interesting or at least relevant to, the conversations happening in Eminton are the two wins that they had back to back. They beat Columbus and Seattle.

So two teams aren't super... Two teams that stink, right. But those were two games that Dave Tippett didn't coach. So Dave Tippett hasn't won a game since December 1st. Wow. And, you know, I like that. Dave Tippett's a good coach. I think he's done a good job in Edmonton.

So I'm kind of with, you know, I'm not sitting here saying you can't fire the coach, but I don't play this. at his feet at all. But everybody's putting two and two together, right? Everybody's looking at, okay, who's the GM in Evanton? Ken Holland. What do GMs always do when things are bad?

They go looking to hire somebody they've already worked with. Are there any coaches that Ken Holland worked with and had a lot of success with that are on the open market? Yeah, Mike Babcock. And, ugh, I have a hard time thinking that that's going to work, but yeah I mean the issue for the oilers is this

Leon Drysidal has slowed down end of discussion that's the that's the problem they have been outscored with dry sidle on the ice since the end of November at five on five anyway I'm sure with the power play goals and everything it all kind of evens out but again how much of that is

well Conrad David fucking rocks right like that's you got to you got to at some point, you know, Dreisidel is, it says here, two, three, two, three, five in scoring. So two goals, three assists in 12 games, and that's, you know, McDavid, not on the ice, obviously. And three of those points were against the Seattle Cracken and that win. So he has two points in the other 11 games since the end of November. that's bad, that's really bad.

And, you know, on some level you say, well, look, like, it's because Yamamoto and whoever else they're trying to put with him, they're not that good. And he can't, I guess my point is, are we back to saying Drys Edle can't do anything without McDavid? Yeah, and we shouldn't be, because. Right, we have plenty of evidence to the contrary. But like, for the last month. And we just finished saying the last few weeks are mostly fake and we shouldn't overreact to them.

But you're right. I mean, the whole thing with the Oilers, even when things were good, was they have the best player in the world. They have arguably the second best player in the world, certainly offensively speaking. They've got them on two lines. So they are going to have a elite tier superstar on the ice for half the game. all they have to do for the other half is break even. Which they could never do. Getting their teeth kicked in.

Just getting abs. They were getting, the bottom six was getting destroyed to such an extent that the two best players in the world could barely keep up on their own two lines. And if one of those two lines stops being one of the best in the world, then you're really in trouble. Yeah. And it's not like you've got a great blue line to boost you up. You certainly don't have great gold-hending to paper over it. Well, so that's the thing, though, right? Is early in the season, Miko Koskinan was like in the 9-20s.

And now he's Miko Koskinan again. And everybody's like, uh-oh. You know, and Mike Smith was injured. But, like, they called up Stuart Skinner, and Stuart Skinner was great for a little while. And then Mike Smith came back and immediately got hurt again. and he wasn't particularly good in the game that he did play, and he gave up a really bad goal in overtime,

but also he was injured when that goal got scored maybe, so I don't know. But, you know, it doesn't take a genius to in August have said, I don't like the look of the Oilers' bottom six here. Like, I don't know that Duncan Keith and Zach Hyman are going to be the guys who make the big difference. Zach Hyman's been good, but he's been good at the role that they had for him, which was to give somebody you could put on McDavid's line

that would then free you up to play Dracetyl and Nugent Hopkins together on a 1A. And now they're not playing those guys together. Yeah. So does a coaching change do anything here? Yeah, I mean, let's put it this way. Who's the best coach available? Joel Quenville, one of the greatest coaches of all time, ignoring all the other stuff that would, like, obviously come with. Yeah.

Like, can't hire him, though. You can't hire him, but even if you could, even if he got, he was out of Florida for completely different reasons, is Joel Quinnville turning this team around? I can't, I can't see how. Here's, here's the thing, whether it's, and I think pretty clearly, if you're making a change with this team in the middle of the season, I presume you are bringing in an experience coach. This is not, you don't make a mid-season change to promote the AHL guy or something like that. Sure, absolutely. Because the reason you make the change is because you're looking at this and you're saying, Connor McDavid, Leandro Sidel, two best players in the world, possibly.

Are we going to waste another year of this? They're both like, you know, like 25. So this, the window is not closing by any sense. But how many of these, yeah, I mean, they've got until 27, I'm told, before they turn into garbage. So it's, how many of these seasons are you going to have? Are we going to, like, if I'm Ken Holland, as soon as I'm thinking I might need to make a coaching change in the off season, I feel like I should make it now. Because if what are you going to, like I wrote this in my column this week. Like, are you going to wait out the season and then make a change in the summer after another year burned of McDavid Dracidal?

I don't know. That's pretty tough. And here's the other thing that I think is probably messing with some GMs, right? We always hear that, like, yeah, it's always easier to fire the coach than make big changes of the roster. But what does that really do? And there have been all sorts of studies and, you know, the coaching changes tend to, in the aggregate not really make a huge difference. You get maybe a little bit of a bounce early, but that's it. That da, da, da, da. And then you look at Vancouver.

Right. And I'm sure every GM with a coach who's, you know, even shaky is. looking at the Canucks right now going, man, it sure would be nice for me to find my Bruce Brudrow who's going to come in and win eight games in a row and make me look like a genius and all this other stuff. I wonder, does that, like it shouldn't. It's one team. It's an outlier, but it's tough.

And, you know, especially if, and we don't know what the situation is for any of these teams, if the owner is calling you up going, hey, how come we're not doing the thing that Vancouver did to save their season. Yeah. Might be tough. Yeah, it's one of those things where what did we say when Vancouver hired Boudreau, right? We said, oh, they should have done this like two, three weeks ago. Yeah.

You know? And maybe the results aren't exactly the same or anything like that, but it was just like, oh, they, if they wanted to stay in the playoff picture, losing another like four or five or six games or however many they lost while everybody was. was like, when are they going to make a coaching change? That is why they're not in like any kind of a playoff discussion right now. And with the Oilers, they're, like you said, they banked a bunch of points. They don't have to worry about, oh, we're not going to make the playoffs.

Probably, right? Like, they're... It would take, we would have to be still having this conversation like three weeks from now before that. Yes. Well, I'm looking at it now Let's put it this way They're Well, they're well clear of the next closest team

In terms of points percentage In terms of points clear of that Well, I'm looking at it now Edmonton is 30 points clear of both Winnipeg and L.A. Yeah, neither of whom we would say Like have it, well, I shouldn't say They don't have it in them to go on a run Literally any team in the league can do that

like the Sabres have showed us have shown us that many times over by now. But, you know, I think we would generally say that the Oilers seem relatively safe. We said it, whatever, two weeks ago, that like it seems like the playoff teams are pretty locked in at this point. Let me look, I'm looking at the standings now, right?

Edmonton is one point ahead of L.A., Edmonton has a game in hand, which means if the Oilers lose their names, next game in regulation, the Kings are one point back with an even number of games played. The Jets are three points back at Edmonton with one game in hand, which means if Winnipeg wins their next game, they are one point back of Edmonton with the equal games played. I take back my three weeks thing. Let's say 10 days. Yeah.

It might be more urgent than I thought it was. The Oilers play the Rangers at Madison Square Garden tonight. so that's uh that's not necessarily a winnable game and look it's it's the well it's the n hl every single time i've ever been on any podcast and talked about a game being a sure thing it always goes the opposite oh no i obviously and then like panarin's out like obviously like this is a this is a thing but you know the way the oilers have been playing lately where they just can't get anything going offensively and you're like oh well the rangers are pretty good goalie and I don't know it it's you know you don't want to put too much stock into

the result of one game you know win lose whatever yeah especially now especially now but how many more games can the oilers afford to lose before something has to change and what is that change you know because yeah we've heard all along like Ken Holland is is totally ready to give up a first round pick for help. And it's like, okay. Yeah, of course. But it's like, okay, and what is that help? Because he thought like Duncan Keith was that help.

Dude, two words for you. Phil Kessel. Oh. I think it will work. I think finally, the Oilers have an all-offense guy up front. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know what you do. I don't know what you do.

Let's ask this question, though. other coaches on the hot seat, do you think, right now? Yeah, as far as like mid-season changes. Yeah. Because I think there are certainly some that you would think after the season are going to be reevaluated. First and foremost, being Dominic D. Sharman in Montreal. Jeff Gordon's basically said, not going to make a change during the year.

He doesn't need to. He's a new, he's not the GM, but he's the new guy in charge. He is the GM, let's just say it. So take your time, give yourself some breathing room. And who cares? Like, you're trying to be as bad as possible. Exactly. A coach who's not good at his job, that will help you with that.

But, I mean, can you imagine a scenario where he's the coach going into next year? Oh, absolutely not. Yeah. So that's, but, you know, and I mean, look, it's Montreal. There will be a certain point where you just can't go forward in that market losing. I mean, Montreal is. we just finished saying their current situation

notwithstanding because I don't read anything into what's going on there now. No. But even before this, they were awful. They're challenging Arizona for dead last and Arizona is actively trying to lose. Arizona has had Jay Beagle on its top line on more than one occasion this season.

Arizona is doing everything short of telling Phil Kessel like just shooting your own net. Just go. You're allowed. and yet Montreal is right there with them. And they thought they were going to be good this year. They did? Incredible.

And not complete. I mean, they went to the Stanley Cup final last year. I mean, we all said at the time this is a one in a million run, but nobody, I feel like. Nobody thought they would be this bad. Yeah, absolutely. I feel like Montreal, the situation last year where they went on the playoff run and you had some people saying Mark Bergevin has figured. figured out how to build a winner and Carrie Price has magic powers.

And other people were saying, no, this is the NHL. Sometimes teams just go and runs. And there was so much of this battle in the off season that when Montreal was bad, half of us just wanted to like fold our arms and say like, there you go, we were right. Spike the football, yeah. And it's left us ignoring the fact that like this team is terrible. And I don't know any, like I heard some people say, lots of people say they're going to miss the playoffs. I heard some people say they might be under 500.

I didn't hear anyone saying they're going to be a 250 team. Right. So, yeah. I said playoff level at best, and that was me kind of assuming Kerry Price would play this year. Yes. Yeah, and which is obviously part of it. And, you know, I mean, you go down the ridiculous list of guys that they're missing. Yeah, of course.

Yeah, it's been a mess. I missed a bunch of time. Yep. As far as guys mid-season changes, there's one name that sticks out to me a little bit that I haven't really heard and maybe I'm missing it.

But I'm wondering if Lindy Ruff would be in trouble. Yep, that was a guy I was thinking of for sure. They've been horrendous for the last however long. Yeah, like they've won the last three in a row. So he might be. be saved by this this fake few weeks because they're winning now. But bad team last year in the last few years, but typically... Let's go it this way.

In a recent mailbag, someone wrote in, like, why doesn't anybody talk about how bad the fucking devils are? Yeah. And I was like, I guess I didn't catch that they were quite as bad as this has worked out. It caught me off guard a little bit, too. do, every Monday I do my top five bottom five. And it was, I think, two weeks ago that I did, you know, my, I think my bottom five was like Arizona, Ottawa, Montreal, Seattle, Buffalo. And Devil's fans showed up in the comments and they're like, where are we in the bottom five?

And you know it's bad. Yeah. Absolutely. Team's own fan base is like, we need to be there. And I looked at it and I was like, you know what? They might, they might be right. And again, they've had the three wins since then. But you don't go out and sign a $9 million free agent in the offseason

because you're continuing the slow patient draft and develop rebuild. You don't do that because you expect to win the cup, but you're expecting to take a step forward and when it's a step backward instead. And, you know, Lindy Ruff has had a lot of success in this league in various spots, but I don't think at this point. Quick question, though. Has he? In Buffalo, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, he had Dominic Hasick, but... Yeah, so there you go, right? Like, and look, this gets back a little bit to, I don't think McKenzie Blackwood's any good. You know, people wanted to make a big thing out of that for a little while. Oh, why is Carter Hart getting all this attention? This was, what, two, three years ago now? But, like, I don't, at no point, for me, anyway, have I looked at a McKenzie Blackwood season gone,

this is a goalie of the future for any franchise, you know? And, you know, I don't know if there's been stuff going on with him health-wise this season because of he was unvaccinated for a little while or whatever, but, like, he's been actively bad. And at some point, yeah. The other coach, though, that I'm kind of thinking there might be a change. Like, you know, I don't think even, you know, I don't think even, you know, even with how things are going for the islanders, I don't think.

They would ever think firing trots is a bad idea. Yeah, you would hope not. Okay, let's put the caveat that it's Lou Lamerel. And he has done some incredibly bizarre things with coaches, including firing coaches of 100-point teams with three games left in the season or whatever it was. So. Yeah. But you or I would not fire, Barry, would not even, that thought would not even enter my mind.

No, absolutely not. That's a roster problem and injuries and all that kind of stuff. The only other guy in the East I'd maybe think about is Jeff Blaschell, but again, like you said, why do it mid-season? You're trying to be bad anyway. You're rebuilding Detroit, I think, is actually fine for this year. I mean, this has been a team that's been real bad. They made progress.

There are 500 team. Three Calder candidates. And plus, at some point, this guy feels, bulletproof to me because we've been he's been on the hot seat and by a hot seat I mean our lists of the hot seat for five years now and it's yeah you know at some point like the off season I could see yeah at some point in the off season especially since he seems to always be getting like one year extensions at some point Steve Eiserman's going to say it's time for this team to be a contender and who's my contender we need to hire Mike

Babcock yeah probably The only other team I can really see making a change mid-season, and it kind of feels like the horse is out of the barn at this point is Dallas. Yeah, Dallas, we were all talking about that. About a month ago, it's been, they've been a weird team. They're just like they win five, they lose six, they win seven, and yeah, they're kind of all over the place. I could see a change there only because they're in that.

sweet spot of being potentially disappointing, at least disappointing to their management. Yeah. But still in a playoff race. So maybe they make a change. And again, Rick Bonas is not your, I like Rick Bonas a lot. It's been a great story. But he's not your long-term coach. Right.

So I could see that. Other than that, like I'm looking at the whole NHL standings. every team is either good, rebuilding, or has already made a coaching change. Yeah, the only other team... Oh, go ahead. With the exception of the teams we talked about,

or a couple of teams that have guys in, like, the first year. Like Dave Haxdell, which, that was an inspired hire back in the summer. But you're not, you would imagine, going to fire, put it this way. Ron Francis' whole strategy in Seattle seems to be to do as little as possible, so I don't see why you'd make a big aggressive coaching change halfway through your first season.

So, you know, Arizona's not changing anything. Everything's going according to plan there. Other than a good team going off the cliff and losing seven in a row, which happens, I think we're pretty much done for a lot of this. The only other team

I can think of here is San Jose, but, you know, they're in a weird spot, obviously. But, like, yeah, I was just, I saw a quote from Bob Boogner, and I was like, oh, yeah, he's still the coach of the sharks. And the other thing with them is, is Doug Wilson back yet? I don't know. I think he is. So, I mean, you would assume they would potentially wait there.

And then also, you know, Ottawa's been a mess. They've been a real disappointment, but I don't see any reason to make a mid-term. season change unless Piercourian is really feeling heat there and Ottawa for obvious reasons does not like to be paying multiple guys to do the same job. So I think DJ Smith is probably.

And also, you know, they're like if they went on a nine game winning streak, they'd be 500 or something like that, right? Like, they're so far gone as a like playoff contender or even like pretending to be a playoff contender. Like nobody would buy it. The only thing,

that worries me for for DJ Smith is this is Ottawa's first year of their five-year run of unparalleled success. I think that was actually last year. I think last year. Well, it was 2021 is what he said. So we were all charitably kind of giving him credit for it being this season. Got it. But yeah, it's, if owners get embarrassed, especially owners who are his hands-on as in Ottawa,

then you never really know. but and also it's not like you know for some of these other jobs we're like well you know maybe Babcock maybe John Tortorella it's it's not like Ottawa is going to go out and hire you know Claude Julian or something at the going rate for big league coaches by the way we didn't talk about John Tortorella as a possibility in Edmonton wouldn't that be fun I will honestly I'm done if if the guy who thinks Trevor's eager was bad for hockey gets to coach Connor McDavid and Leon Dressidal, I'm out.

Yeah. That would be really funny, though, is if he's like, what we're going to do is we're going to get more defensive buy-in. If they finish the season with over 80 points, I'm going to be pissed. Like, that, that would, that would rock. It would be a fun conversation with McDavid, though, and like, when I said shut up, what I meant was shut up the critics? Does that, is that a thing?

No. Okay. Let's see if we can get that to work. You're on the third line, Connor. That's right. You've got to send a message, right? You've got to make sure that the systems you're trying to get across. That shit's loud and clear.

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And I gotta say, this was like the first time in quite a while that I was like, oh, winter classic, that's fun, you know? That was it. It was fun. It was, and we kind of needed that over, after the last couple weeks. I think maybe our standards for fun have been lowered sufficiently. But I know that like Tuesday or Wednesday of the week, I saw some reference to outdoor rinks.

And I was like, oh, yeah, there's a winter classic coming up. Like, I didn't really feel like it had a ton of buzz at least up here. but it was a good game. It went off without a hitch. It was a good matchup. I know when they announced it, maybe some people were like, oh, Minnesota, St. Louis,

but it's two teams on top of the central. Like, it was a meaningful game. Lots of goals. It was good. They did a good job. And, you know, I wouldn't have wanted to have been there in those temperatures, but, you know, that was a neat storyline. That, like, yeah, it's freezing.

Like, you know, like, icicles growing off of beards is a pretty cool vision. That was the best. That was so cool. Yeah. So, yeah, I liked it, man. I'm good. Big thumbs up on the whole deal.

Yeah. And the other reason, obviously, that this game felt special was, had there been an outdoor game since the one in Dallas where Corey Perry got kicked out of the game and had to walk four miles to the dressing room? Yeah, that was the great classic ball. I mean, we had the Lake Tahoe debacle. Oh, that's right, yes, of course. Like I wrote today, it's, you know, if Sunshine is your enemy,

then playing your game at night in Minnesota is not a bad thing. And that was interesting. The decision to play the game at night, like to schedule the game at night, because we've seen them played at night a lot of times they get out there during the day and they go, no, we got to hold off. But this one, I believe, you know, was from the beginning, scheduled for night. And, you know, a lot of times the visuals, they look better in the daytime.

But I thought it worked. Like, there was, it, uh, it's, uh, yeah, the big light up twin sign in the, in center field, like that works well when it's lit up at night. You know, it's, yeah. Target field is nice, but I don't think it's so nice that like, we're really missing out on stunning. Yeah, there's no Ivy on the walls. There's no green monster that you're like, oh, hell yeah, let's go.

Um, But yeah, to your point, like, the only, I've been to the two in Boston, and, you know, those were both, like, during the day. And the Fenway one was nice, and it was a nice day for the Fenway one, if I'm not much mistaken. But I, the one at Foxborough was whatever, who cares. And so, yeah, you're just trying to make it, like, a fun environment. And I thought they did a good job, like, dressing up the field with all the little, like, ice fishing hod. and that kind of stuff. I should say I had the intermission thing on mute.

Like, who was that band? Oh, I didn't see that part. Oh, perfect. But what, you're asking me, like, I was like, dude, if you didn't recognize them from sight, there's no chance that. Yeah, that's true. Well, I mean, the kind of acts, they remember, oh, who was it? One year they got, oh, it was the San Jose one, or, well, whatever, it wasn't in San Jose,

but it was the Sharks one where they got John Fogarty, remember that? Yeah, that was the best one. The only good one that they've ever done as far as the old ones is in L.A., a game that I was at Dodgers Stadium where they had Kiss. Yeah, and then we got the infamous phone. Like, that was so good. That was so great. Weezer played one of them.

Christ, it was the one I went to. So you would think that would have stuck out for me more, but I guess it didn't. But yeah, anyway, point is, like, it was nice to have a Winter Classic feel, like, special again. Yeah. But then, on the other hand, you had the Alan Walsh tweet that correctly pointed out, why would you counter-program, like, your biggest thing of the year? I'm looking forward to this, because I feel like the one thing that's been missing, from the new version of this show is you and I don't actually argue that much.

And we can argue here because Alan Walsh was completely wrong. And if you think he was right, then you're also... He was not right. Because here's... Okay, so we should set the stage for the 3% of the audience that doesn't follow Alan Walsh on Twitter and memorize his tweets. He tweets out at like 7.30 on Saturday night, only the NHL would intentionally schedule other regular season games on the same day and at the same time as the Winter Classic.

Your signature event on New Year's Day and you counter-program against yourselves. And then he hashtags it marketing geniuses. Just for those of you who follow the marketing geniuses, hashtag, wouldn't miss it. Just stumble upon it. Yeah. Here's the deal. There was one other game at 7 o'clock. on Saturday night.

And that was Leaf Senators. I got news for you guys. This is your signature event in the United States. It is a big deal in Canada, but it is your signature monster event in the U.S. They didn't program any other U.S. teams. Meanwhile, up here in Canada, it's Saturday night. We've got this little show called Hockey Night in Canada. You may have heard of it.

we have a network up here that's paying $5 billion in rights fees to the NHL, far more than they were getting in the U.S. on the previous TV deal. Are you honestly suggesting that hockey night in Canada shouldn't have any Canadian teams on a Saturday night so that we can watch the wild and the blues? like is that the marketing genius thing to let Canada have one game of Canadian teams to put on Hockey Nighting Canada while also broadcasting on other channels the Winter Classic? Like do we think that the senators dipped into the U.S. ratings a lot because people were turning off the outdoor game to go check out whether Thomas Shabbat could play 45 minutes in a game? Yeah. It's an asinine take.

And I like I like a lot how Walsh takes. But he's dead wrong on this one. I get what you're saying. What you're saying makes sense. But if the NHL is like going to at least pretend, let's put it this way. The way the NHL treats the Winter Classic and the way the media treats the Winter Classic are two extremely different things. And to illustrate that, when I looked at the ESPN story on the Winter Classic, it was a wire story. They didn't even send anybody.

And they're a rights whole. older. Right? So, like, that, you know. That's two cool hockey things that ESPN has ruined recently. But, like, that's a, that's a situation where, like, okay, maybe, you know, if COVID wasn't a thing, they might have sent, sent like Greg or Emily or somebody like that, right? But they didn't. And that tells you, I think, everything you need to know about how the media perceives the Winter Classic.

But it's not like they sent Emily to Toronto to cover Leafs and Senators instead. Like it's, and the other thing, like if you were like me and sort of got caught off guard a bit by the Worder Classic, you might have at some point even on Saturday been like, why are there like six NHL games in the afternoon? It's because the NHL cleared almost the entire schedule for Saturday, which is typically their big. day so that in the United States, Winter Classic would be the only game in town at that time, and then they had one Canadian game at the same time for Hockey Night in Canada, and then one late game, which I think was what Seattle, Vancouver. Yes, it was.

Which, fine, you need that too. Yeah. That was exactly the right way to do. I hate that this is, I'm being tricked into saying the NHL did something right, But that was exactly the right way to do it. The idea that you don't have hockey night in Canada so that we can watch the signature U.S. event, I'm pretty sure that Rogers would have had a word or two about that. And I will say, I don't know what else was scheduled that maybe I don't, you know, that was postponed or maybe originally the schedule will look different. but absolutely, totally fine with what the NHL did,

and Alan Walsh is wrong on this one. I have to agree with Alan Walsh and the Edmonton media. It's too much focus on Toronto. We're sick of the Leafs. Did you hear? Austin Matthews got a haircut, and they put it on the front page of TSN. Did they really?

No, that's never happened. That is every fan outside of Toronto's complaint, and it is. Well, here's the thing. Could I see that happen? Because didn't he shave his mustache? That was like a big deal for a minute. That was a big deal. It was for charity.

But I don't know. Nonetheless. I'm working with the analytics guys. I'm trying to figure out why the team with the largest fan base gets more media attention. I feel like we're close to cracking the code. I feel like at some point I'm going to figure out why the leaves get more attention than the senators and the jets. But we're just, we're not quite there yet. Check back next month.

On some level it does feel like, yeah, obviously that's the reason why is they have the most fans. but also it does feel like, here it is, folks. It's the freaking Chicago Blackhawks on the NBC game again this week. And you're like, oh, cool, that rocks. I love this, actually. It is a little bit of that, too, yeah. Yeah. The other thing that we have to say about the Winter Classic, it was on TNT.

And so TNT had everybody down in Atlanta to, you know, cover the game like it's a big deal. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Now, they were, we should say, they were going to say, and when we say everyone, it was basically the studio guys didn't go. And they were going to. But then COVID. Yeah.

And, and like, it's understandable. It's just, it's, look, they're going to do just as good of a job on the desk as they were if they were sitting on a stage in front of. This is not like having your, like, broadcasters call the game from a TV somewhere. This was. Right. Yeah. Yeah. But so, you know, none of those guys live in Atlanta.

I don't think Liam lives in Atlanta. I know for sure Wayne Gretzky and like Rick Tocket don't, right? Yep. And so they put everybody up in a hotel. After the game, everybody from the TNT crews hanging out in the bar. And in walks, newly crowned, I believe nine-time WWE world champion, Brock Lesner. The Beast himself. Yeah.

And there is some very funny pictures that came out of it. Yeah. That photo is amusing. It rocks. It's so good. It's Paul Bissonette, who I think has a podcast himself. We should check into that. I don't think so.

I feel like I would have heard about this. Yeah. Well, he should get into it. He'd be good at it. Yeah. who is a American broadcaster who's, I admit, I'm not super familiar with. He rocks. He was one of the best things about NBC's coverage.

I always liked Liam. Yeah. Wayne Gretzky and Rick Tocke and Brock Lesnar holding the newly one. And 6'8, 300-pound Brock Lesnar. And it's quite the photo. It's, yeah, it's. And I would love to know. the backstory behind it. Like, who approached who? Does Brock Lesnar know Wayne Gretzky by sight?

Absolutely. He's a Minnesota guy. There's no way he doesn't. And he lives in Saskatchewan now. So he's practically honorary Canadian. Yeah. So like that, that to me is a classic thing of he walked into the bar because it, let's put it this right? Look like the NB, the TNT guys might have been there for a little while first. Some of them did look like they, yeah, maybe. Maybe. That's all. I'm going to say, but maybe. Brock Lesnar walks into the, Brock Lesnar walks into a bar, the bartender, no, he walks in and somebody at the TNT table probably goes,

holy shit, that's Brock Lesnar. And by the way, yeah, he has the belt with him. Which is the funny part, right? Because if you don't watch wrestling, you're like, why is he carrying around a prop? But that is actually a thing. Like, when you're the champion, you bring the belt everywhere. But apparently you take it into bars and. Yeah, hotel bars.

11 3rd, yeah. But, you know, and then I'm sure Brock Lesnar was like, holy shit, that's Wayne Gretzky. Yeah. And then like that's one of the few people I feel like both sides would be really impressed by, you know? Yeah. Like that Wayne Gretzky's met everybody. He's talked to everybody.

He's going to be over it with most people. Brock Lesnar is a guy who, even if you're not a wrestling fan, one of the best MMA fighters of all time, at least, you know, my understanding. I'm not a big guy. Not a big MNMA guy. Certainly one of the most successful at the very least. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah.

And, you know, Brock has been, at one time was like the IWGP heavyweight champion. Like, this guy has had championships all over the world, literally all over the world. And as well as amateur wrestling, you know, like just an insane athlete. So. Yeah. Was an NFL player, if I'm not mistaken? Or at least an NFL practice spot guy? Yeah.

So, like, this guy can do anything better than just about anybody. Yeah. And so to Wayne Gretzky, he's going to be like, this fucking rocks. It's so cool to meet a guy like this. And, you know, to literally anybody in the world, like even if you're not a hockey guy, you're going to be like, holy shit, it's Wayne Gretzky. So what a combo. Two kings of their sports, I think is. Also, three other guys in the photo that are...

That's right. Yeah. And then... I saw somebody... I saw a lot of funny comments on the photo. I'll highlight three. One was somebody like, because it was Rick Tocket tweeted it out. Yes.

And somebody was like, how is it possible that you're in a photograph with Brock Lesnar and you still have the biggest head of anyone in the photo? That's funny. Brock Lesnar has a big head foes. I saw somebody on Reddit was like, because it got posted. posted in like the wrestling Reddit and somebody was like what's the backstory like

who are those people and somebody was like oh that's Rick Tockin he used to play in the NHL that da da da and they're like and the guy in the middle his brother played in the NHL and scored one goal and they were like oh okay and somebody else had come in and be like two guys who used to coach the coyotes

yeah and then the other one with somebody pointing out that Wayne Gretzky is in the photo he is the one holding the the WWWE title and he's holding it like a hockey stick. He's got like the head overhand grip, which, you know, they're like, just apparently Wade Gretzky just holds everything hockey stick style. Yeah.

Liam tweeted out his solo picture of him in Brock. And I said, wow, Brock Lesnar got to meet Liam McHugh. What a big day for him. And Liam replied and said, and he even got to hold my belt. Very funny. Good joke. Yeah. So, yeah, that was cool.

The match that led to Brock getting the championship, not so much. We don't have to get into my day one takes, but not a great card. By the way, the other thing, just as I'm looking at the photo, five guys, we've basically nailed down all five possible, like, hair, mustache beard combos. So that's pretty impressive, too. Good work by everyone, giving you all the options. They should just post this in barbershops, like which one do you want? Yeah, and Brock's hair these days, by the way, is absolutely bad shit crazy. Yeah.

And now would I mention that to him personally? I would not. But, yeah. The other thing, I guess, speaking of guys who have a lot of goals is Alex Ovechkin is now officially first in power play goals all time, which is amazing because, he passed what's his name? Dave Andrew Chuck, right? Dave Andrew Chuck was the guy,

which kind of makes that sound a little less impressive because it's like if he was passing. But it's also 275 power play goals. Like, holy,

Dave Anderchuk, you know what? He's in the hall now, right? They just kind of were like... Scored over 600 goals. Right. You kind of can't do that by accident,

even if like the way he scored 600 goals is maybe not your favorite way to score goals. You know, he did it a lot. So at some point, you're just going to let him in, and they did. But anyway, point is, Oveston, 275 powerplay goals, and this is a stat I looked up last night. If he didn't score a single power play goal, his entire career, he's like four or five goals away from being top 50 all time in goals.

That's nuts. That's so cool. He rocks. man, like I don't have much more to say about it than that, but just to just to see him do it. And I believe the 275th was from the Ovechkin spot as well. It wasn't one of the goals this year where he's like, I'm actually going to score from all over the ice. Yeah. And here's kind of the, another amazing thing about that is I just was curious.

So I looked it up. The NHL record for power play goals in a season is 34 by the vastly underrated Tim Kerr. Dave Andeshack's number two with 32. Mero Lemieux twice and Joe Nundike, the only other guys with 30. And then there's a bunch of guys with high 20s, including some, you know, Ilya Kovalchukes on there, Mike Bossy, Michelle Goulet, Kevin Stevens. Alexander Ovechkens never had more than 25 in a year. So it's just...

that he scores 16 to 25 power play goals every single year. And like, we've all, every hockey fan, we've all made the joke, right? Like, why don't you just cover him? Because he just, but at some point, like, this dude just stands in that spot and hammers the puck. And somehow between his stick and the goaltender, the puck turns into a dime and goes bar down every time. Yeah, the amazing thing about that is, You know, like you said, why don't you just cover him there? Well, okay, but he's going to shake loose of that coverage.

I'd say roughly 10 times per season. And that's 10 pretty much guaranteed power play goals. Yeah. And also, you know, sure, go put a guy on him. He will shoot the puck through them. Yeah. He is stronger than the guy you're going to put on him. So, like, yeah, it's, I mean, it's, yeah, it's, at some point,

something, what you've got to do is just put a forward, just laying down in the passing lane. Yeah, that's your penalty. Yeah, the old alligator move. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, no, I mean, Ovechkin is a. Breaking news, Ovechkin rocks. Yeah, we think he might be good. He's good at goals.

Somebody asks this on the Puck Soup mailbag. We'll ask it here. Let's say Ovechkin gets the goals record, right? Mm-hmm. How does that, does that change your view of? Sidney Crosby at all? Yeah, I had in, it doesn't change my view of Sidney Crosby, but I got into this a bit in my mailbag last week where, uh, maybe this guy just stole that question.

No, I don't, well, I know, I don't think so. Because what somebody, the original question is somebody asked me like, if Ovechkin breaks the goal's record. And also, if he has the sort of season he's having this year, like he could win the scoring title this year. Like if Alex Ovechkin wins the scoring title, Rocket Richard, everything, this year at 30, six or 37 or whatever he is. Why aren't we talking about him as a top five all-time player?

Because there's always like in hockey, it feels like there's general agreement that in some order, Gretzky or Howell-Lamue are the big four. And then fifth is... You can say Hashig. Hachik, Lidsrom, Brockett-Rashard, Bobby Hall, down the list. And, you know, where I kind of took it, you almost never hear Ovechkin mentioned there. And where I took it is that you do some. sometimes hear Sidney Crosby mentioned.

And it feels like we all kind of decided a while ago that Ovechkin and Crosby are both great, both legendary players, but that Crosby is the better of the two. He's got more cups. He's a center, which is, you know, which is key. But is, I mean, Ovechkin's got more MVP's, far more all-star picks. You know, you look at that he's going to potentially break. not only arguably the greatest individual record in the sport, but one that we thought was completely untouching. Unassailable, absolutely. Do we at some point?

Like, I don't think, it doesn't make me think less of Sidney Crosby, but it does potentially make me rethink this apparent consensus that it's Crosby 1, Ovechkin 2 for the era. And yeah, I mean, at some point, and it was interesting because I had, you know, there are some people saying, yeah, if the whole point of hockey is to score more goals. in the other team, the guy who scored the most goals ever, has to be in your top five. And I had other people saying not even top 20, still to them. Yeah, that's insane to me. Like, the thing I always say, of course, is that, like, if Sidney Crosby was from Kohlharborsk, Siberia, or whatever, there's a different conversation about him. And a lot of it is kind of what you get now to a certain extent of, like, oh, if it wasn't

for those concussions if it wasn't for, you know, those years where he was, him and Malkin and Latang were the only good players on the team and blah, blah, blah. Like, that comes up for sure, but, like, you know, I think, I think the only thing that really is keeping Crosby above Ovechkin, like, in the popular opinion at this point, is he won three cups, and Ovechkin only has the one. Yeah. That really might be it. And the gold medals, which.

And like, yeah, sure, you know, whatever. But, like, height of their powers, I think you probably do take Crosby because he was just, like, the perfect player for this era. And, and a center, you know, that is. And a center. And, you know, I think Ovechkin is seen as way more of a one-dimensional player. And as we always say, right. And as we always say, if your one-dimension is putting the puck in the net more than anybody has. ever done that, that is a pretty important dimension to have to your game.

But I don't know. Like, I really, I really kind of go back and forth on it because I think Crosby is fairly seen as one of the 10 best ever. I feel like he's locked into 10 best. Yeah. And a lot of people do want. But I think Ovejkin needs to be in that conversation. I can't imagine, I can't imagine how you don't.

Don't say that. Even if you're a guy like me who's like, well, look, I mean, defensively is one of the worst players of the era. It's like, yeah, but at some point, man, the guy's going to have fucking 850 goals. The thing is, I mean, it's one of those things where both of those guys on their own, do they feel like top 10 players all time? Absolutely. But then you start making your top 10 and you go, okay, if we got the big four, you put those two in. And you got to, of course, include Jonathan Taves. He's going to go in there.

So, I mean, you're down to, like, I don't know, Rock of Richard, John Belvo, Phil Esposito, you know, Lidstrom, Hasick. You've got to think you'd have a goalie in there. You've got to think maybe you'd put more than Doug Harvey, you know, all the old-timers. It starts getting crowded, Bobby Hall. But then also, it would be very hockey fan of us to decide that all the guys from the 40s and 50s and 60s are in the top 10. but not the guys that we just saw with our own eyes. Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting.

You know, like I said, I think you're just allowed to say they're both comfortably top ten all time. And then that's the end of the discussion, right? Like, we don't have to really dig into it anymore than that. I know there's, yeah, I know there's a lot of people who would argue still on Ovechkin, but. I think, I think those are people who are just, thinking too hard about it, honestly. Mm-hmm.

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Pretty much. What's her name? Nadia Popovichi? I don't, it's an Eastern European name, I don't know. She was sitting like rinkside at the, I think the first, the regular season opener, right? And noticed a weird mole on the assistant equipment manager's neck and put a little note on her phone and said, you might want to get that checked out.

And he did. And it was cancerous. And so basically what the quote was was like if I hadn't, or if she hadn't done that, I would be dead within five years. Which is fucking crazy. Yeah, it is. And it's just one of those stories where, you know, apparently she got its attention, held up a message on her phone.

He kind of turned around, read the message, and just kind of shrugged at her. Yeah. And she sort of figured, okay, either he already knows about this or, you know, I don't know, she'd done what she can, but apparently went and had it checked out. And they told him, yeah, you were extremely lucky that you caught it. And so, you know, it's just one of those nice stories in a league where we needed it. And so they, the Canucks put out a, you know, a tweet and probably some other things on the weekend saying, hey, if anybody knows who this person is, because they're back in Seattle.

and they found her and there was a reunion. They got to meet. They and the Cracken surprised her with, I think it was a $10,000. Ten grand. Towards her medical schooling. And the highlight of the entire story was the hat that she was wearing at that game. It's a fun hat. It's a like a Cracken toque.

I don't know if it was homemade or if they sell those or what, but it was fantastic. That definitely, if they're not selling those by the end of the week, they miss something. Yeah, it's funny. Like, she is also just, like, starting med school right now. And she should at least get to skip like a year or something, right? That's right. Yeah, every life that you save, you get one year off. Yeah.

And also, like, it's fun. Money. Ten grand is a lot of money, of course, but not when you're going to bed school. Somebody said, like, oh, she might be able to buy, like, half her books with that. That sounds great. Yeah. Yeah. So, we don't have a ton more to add to that story. The story is awesome. It's going to be one of those things where, like, at the end of the year, that's going to, she's going to show up at the NHL Awards and all that kind of as long as they hold them in person, I guess. Probably. And, yeah, she's going to go out there. Everybody's going to give her a big standing ovation, and she's going to deserve it for saving that guy's life.

So a really cool story. And while we end with this, Sean, we were mentioning about the Winter Classic earlier, why don't we do a classic, overrated, underrated, favorite, least favorite of the Winter Classic. Let's do it. So fire away. Overrated for you. Overrated. Overrated element of winter.

Classics and outdoor games in general, asking players if this brings back memories of them playing on outdoor rinks as kids. Basically anyone at this point who's even in their 20s has been like playing hockey at some elite program since they were seven years old. That's right. They never played outside. Stop making them fake it. I mean, us in the media, the old people, yeah, we all did it. And especially those of us who were never good at hockey, so that was the only place we had. Especially me, that's right.

Yeah, like, you know, because all the kids who were good at hockey were like off playing in a tournament somewhere. So, like, the rest of us could just go hack around. The Connor McDavid wasn't, like, didn't cut his teeth playing on the outdoor ring that never happened. Yeah, he would never do it. He's like, no, if I, like, fall through the ice. Yeah, exactly. That's it for me. This is a $100 million industry in my, like, two hands when I have a stick in them.

So we're not getting involved in any outdoor hockey. Thank you, though. For me, along very similar lines, you ask the player, how is the ice out there? Yeah. Because you know what they always say? It's good. And I just, I always think back to, I skated on the ice. at the Fenway Winter Classic.

They let the media do that sometimes. And I was lucky enough to do it. And the ice was terrible to a guy who was bad at skating and all that kind of stuff. It was so cold that week that the ice was brittle. And like a guy did a hard stop and like a big chunk of the ice just came up. Yeah. Because the ice was so cold and brittle. And so like asking, you know,

NHL, asking Zadain O'Chara, how is the ice out there? And this is a guy who, like, if his hockey stick has, you know, a 6% um, whatever, like a 6% flex instead of a 7% flex, he's going to be like the 6 fucking bullshit fuck this. Like, he's going to be so mad. So the idea that these guys aren't like just kind of gritting their teeth and, um, and playing on ice that probably isn't the best of conditions. That's insane to me.

Yeah. No, and it's, and we found out this week that apparently you can warm ice, so that's neat. Yeah, right. Overrated or underrated for me is, you know what? I've been outside, I've been, let's put it this way. Uh, I have played, uh, outdoor hockey, like on a lake, like, when it was like negative 20 out. Um, when I was in college, excuse me, when I was in college, uh, there was a February where it was like, minus 10 or lower every day for like two weeks.

And I, um, I played hockey during that stretch just like to kind of do it. And once you got going. It was fine. Like, yeah, your beard froze or whatever, like the guys did the other day, but you weren't really feeling it. Like, I feel bad for the coaches and, even, and of course, the fans who have to just kind of stand there. But, like, the players themselves were never going to notice that it's particularly cold after a certain point. So. Yep.

Yep. That's why their beards are freezing because they are sweating, even though it is. Yep. Minus 20, sweating and breathing and all of that. But yeah, I'll go the exact opposite direction. And this isn't winter classic, but outdoor games underrated. When they had them in California, I thought that was going to suck. That rock, yeah.

I literally, I'd been to both the California ones. I've said this before. I'm probably the only person in Canada that's been to multiple outdoor NHL games all in California. And it was because the Grant Land office was in L.A., and they would fly me down to meet with people. and then go to the games. And I, one time, I remember the first one in L.A. in Dodger Stadium, they're like, you need to write a big feature on this.

And I was like, I know my angle. I'm going to be the Canadian who comes down and just rips this thing because it's going to be a total, total joke. And it wasn't. It was fantastic. Like, it was so, the San Jose one was fine. The L.A. one was amazing. It was so good.

And, yeah, I like that they are now, you know, we've got one. coming up in Nashville, you know, they're spreading it around a little bit. Get it to, get it to other markets. It doesn't always have to be Buffalo or Canada or wherever. So that's cool. I like that a lot. Yeah, I agree. Those are fun.

I'm maybe not looking forward to a Florida one, you know. That might be a bridge too far in terms of quality and that kind of thing. It's the technology of the ice. If you can get the ice, everything else works. And yeah, it might be a bunch of dudes with their shirts off in the stands. And, you know, some traditional Canadian fan might sit there and go, that's not what it's supposed to be. Oh, no, I don't get a shit about that.

Have fun with it, man. Yeah, but like. And I like when the market showed their personality, too, like that. Yes, that's what I was going to say is the thing I like about the Winter Classic is that they kind of style it to the area it's being played. Like, for example, we mentioned earlier, like, they had little ice huts and that kind of stuff, or ice fishing huts, rather, and that kind of stuff. And that's like, oh, yeah, when I think of Minnesota, I do think of ice fishing. And the film grumpy or old men, I think grumpy or old men takes place in, like, Florida or something. But, yeah, and so, like, that's a, that's like a fun little element, you know.

Sometimes they do it better than others. I don't think there was much theming of that type when they did it at Gillette Stadium, whatever, five, six years ago. But anytime you can kind of be like, oh yeah, remember, like, this is, like, this is Dallas, so there's, like,

cowboy shit going on. That rocks. Mm-hmm. Yep, absolutely. What's your favorite, Sean? My favorite is, uh, just overall the visuals. I'm still a sucker for,

the games that look really good. And, you know, some of the football stadium ones don't really fall in this category. But if it's either in a very distinctive ballpark or, you know, obviously Lake Tahoe or even, you know, if they've got something and, you know, if the weather cooperates, you get some snow, it looks fantastic. It really does. And I'm still a sucker for that. That hasn't worn off on me.

Yeah. The thing I keep thinking about is, you know what the best wearer classic thing is? is the fucking first one. The snow, the absolute packed, like 75,000-seat stadium. Along very similar lines, the Leaf's wings won, and the big house is incredible. Or even the first winter classic, remember, was it Jose Teodor with the Tuk? The first time you saw that, and you're like, oh, that's. Oh, the first Heritage Classic, you mean.

Heritage, yeah, the first. Because the first Winter Classic was the Buffalo. Sidney Crosby, which, yeah, it was phenomenal. You know, if you were, if you were booking that. Yeah. Like, you couldn't ask for a better. That's right. So, yeah, that's mine for sure.

It's just how striking, like, that first one was, was like, damn, they really fucking did it. Mm-hmm. And it wasn't, like you said, like that first Heritage Classic was like a night game. and it was just kind of like in the middle of a football field, there wasn't anything like fun about the visuals. Yeah, the visuals was that it was outdoors, period. Like you were seeing like the breadth of the players in that. You didn't have the, and even the first winter classic was it,

like it was the Ralph Wilson, I believe. Yes. But then after that it was like, what if we put it in Fenway? What if we put it in, you know, again, the Dodger Stadium. That was awesome. That was really, really cool. Yeah, the second one was Wrigley. Then it was Fenway.

I do think the baseball stadium ones look a lot better. As a general rule. The one in Philly with the Rangers that was the, you know, the really good behind-the-scenes series. But yeah, what am I going to say? Like the Michigan Stadium one was probably, in terms of visuals, Michigan Stadium was probably the best one, right? Yeah. And that was also extremely cool because you had the situation that you get sometimes with these games where you get a pretty equal portion of the two fan bases coming out.

Which you're going to get to one of the next ones is outdoor games is they're doing, or at least they're planning to do, Leafs Sabres in Hamilton, which is kind of halfway in between. That's going to be cool. It's not a great stadium, but it'll be a very cool place to have a game. Regular season hockey back in Hamilton. The freaking Blackberry guy's just losing his mind right now. He's like, I didn't do it.

My least favorite thing about the Winter Classic is the quality of games tends to be shitty. Yeah, there is that. That to me is the biggest problem. I went to two of them, and the first one was like an OT winner for the Bruins, but it was low scoring, and they're just like, you know, this is Bruins. and flyers at like the height of their powers in 2010, right? Or about to be. The two teams that went to the Stanley Cup final two years in a row. And what was the hallmark of those two teams?

They were really good defensively, right? So you were like, oh, well, okay. And then I went to the one where the habs absolutely blew the ruins out of the fucking water in 2016. But like otherwise it's just kind of like there's a lot of shootouts. There's a lot of overtimes. Or it's a blowout as often as not, right? Like, it's a, it's a kind of an ugly game. Yeah.

And, of course, the worst ever by far, the 2011 Pittsburgh, Washington, where it was raining and then Crosby gets concussed. Yeah, I thought about saying the Winter Classic almost ended Cindy Crosby's career. Like, that would have been a bad, that would have been a good least game as well. You know, the good news was we all thought he was badly hurt, but he turned out. to be fine because he played in the next game. That's right. And so actually what we're worried about. Yeah.

My least favorite thing is having to pretend I give a crap about these different jerseys and uniforms that they break out. Yeah. I don't care. I originally, you had said, like, should we do outdoor jerseys? And I was like, no, because I don't care. You don't care about that kind of thing. I don't care. And also, if I do, to the extent that I do.

care. Like, this is supposed to be to go back to Alan Walsh, the hashtag marketing geniuses, that this is your, like, marquee event. And so you wear a completely different uniform than you normally do with like a different one. Well, I mean, look, like the NBA wears special jerseys on Christmas and stuff. Like, this is not an uncommon thing. But, like, the one time that a non-hockey fan might actually watch your team's game and you show up with, like, some brand new thing that you're never going to wear again. or whatever. And we know why they do it, right? People have to go out and buy the...

Yeah. You go up and buy it and you make money and I get it, but I don't like, the times that I have liked it, and this is when I'll hike my pants up and sound like a very old guy, but like, when Toronto played Detroit and they both wore like kind of the classic uniforms, both wearing the dark colors, that looked phenomenal. And there's been a few others like that. You know, I don't mind wearing, like, doing a variation. but this thing where we totally,

like what if our logo was completely different and it looked like this and you will never see this again, but like I don't, who are the people that are spending 250 bucks on that? I don't. I mean, I kind of feel that way about hockey jerseys, period. But I, you know,

I will say this. The two times the blues have been in a winter classic, they've worn throwbacks to like the early 70s jerseys, like their first jerseys. And I just go. this should be their fucking jersey. Like the powder blue and yellow looks so fucking good. And every time I see a blues throwback jersey, I'm like, well, this is infinitely better than their current jersey, which is fine.

Yeah. So, yeah, that's my big take is, if nothing else, the blues should just use their winter classic, their two winter classic jerseys as their jerseys. Mm-hmm. Yep. And, you know, the blue stuff has been okay. It's more other teams that are Because the Blues are still like mostly Staying with their trip

Like if you if you watch just that game Yeah I've never seen hockey before but wow These guys are great and then you tune in the next game The Blues jersey is not unrecognizable Yeah you'd be like oh it's those guys that I like You wouldn't be like none of the Chicago Were the black and white jerseys

And you were like I feel like red's kind of a big part of their whole deal You know But like yeah I'd say probably like two-thirds of winter classic jerseys I like. But the ones that I don't like, I'm just, oh my God, who thought this was a good idea? How many levels of the marketing team had to fucking approve this shit, you know? Which is kind of how I feel about this year's Minnesota Wild jerseys, to be perfectly honest with you. But everybody said they look better on TV.

I guess we'll agree to disagree. That's it. We're done. No more hockey stuff to say this week. More than enough. Yeah, hey, once everybody gets back to actually playing like 20-man rosters and stuff like that, maybe we'll have more to say. Why you check out my stuff at Elite Prospects, E.P.Rinkside.com. And if you want to sign up for an annual subscription, use the code, I Love E.P.

All one word, all capital letters. And they'll tack some extra months on the end of your subscription for free. So that's a good thing you could do. Very good. I'm at The Athletic. You can find me there. All my usual stuff, as well as my podcast with Ian Mendes,

that's usually on Thursdays. Oh, and sign up for the Puck Soup Patreon. That's the only place you can hear, Greg Wysinski, who was a person you might have heard of. That's the only place he does podcasts anymore. and doesn't do any hockey podcast, of course, that would be illegal, but he does other podcasts. So check that out, check out.

We do mailbags. We do bonus episodes. All that kind of stuff. It's a good time over there and more content than we've ever had on there by a lot. So, yeah, that's it. Goodbye. Thank you for listening. Goodbye.

I'm just like literally as we're closing the show, I'm looking at my Twitter. feed and Connor McDavid's not on the ice. Austin Matthews being held out of practice. Just hit stop now. Okay. Bye. Bye. Bye.

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