Puck Soup - We're Sleepy

Episode Date: October 28, 2025

Sean and Ryan talk about the World Series, over and underperforming teams, all 16 games playing, and more.

I'm Ryan Lambert from Elite Prospects. I'm Sean McIndo. I'm very tired. Yeah, that's right. It's, uh, look, it's one of those things where I, you know, I got no skin in this game. I don't care if the Blue Jays or the Dodgers win, you know?

Um, but what am I going to do? Not watch every rotten second of a nine extra inning game between two teams I don't care about. It's the world series. You know? They could, they could say, oh, they're doing overtime. the world High-Lye playoffs, I go, this is what it's all

about for me. I've never been more excited. Honestly, that would be pretty cool. I don't, you know, that's one of those sports where, like, I have a vague understanding of what goes on in High-Ly. But, like, I don't know, you know. I don't, I've never watched it. No. I just know it's big, I remember being big in Florida,

and I think it was, like, like, gambling-related. Yes, that's correct. Many decades ago before. Everything was gambling-related. Yeah. Well, anyway, the Blue Jays lost that game. You kind of knew they were going to, just because, like, you can't keep pitching to all these guys and expect none of them to get hits with guys on base, you know?

Yeah. And then Freddie Freeman Parks won, and it's like, yeah, where are you going to do? I think in hindsight, the strategy of taking out all our good players for pinch runners in, like, the fifth inning was maybe not ideal. ideal there are you know I'm watching that game and half the stadium

anytime there's a ball in the area where he's like oh there it goes it's like well that might get out of the infield but there were a few

where it's like that was an awful noisy warning track fly out you know you can't uh my opinion

you can't keep giving those up that's my brave take on the sport of baseball it's a good it's a good one don't uh

an out's and out but this is the thing. Every hit in that in the extra innings, which is like right at somebody. Yeah, that was also annoying. I don't think the Dodgers should be allowed to put a guy right where the Blue Jays are going to hit the ball every time. Well, you know what they say.

You got to hit it where they ain't. See, if I was the batting coach, that's what I'd be telling them. But I'm not. Here's what I would have done. I wouldn't have put Otani on base eight times. I would have struck them out eight times. I would have walked him eight times.

Damn. He's so good. He is, well, it was after the first four times where they didn't, and he just, hit the ball to the moon four times. And they're like,

hold up. Let's do a quick regroup on this one. We shouldn't be pitching to this guy? That's crazy. Anyway, it rocks that he's pitching tonight. Yeah. We're going to need you to go deep into this one.

He'll say, no problem. I'm going to throw a nine-inning fucking shutout. Probably will. I'm hoping that the strain from pitching will limit him to one home run. A double and three singles tonight. It is crazy how good he is. Like you know it, you know, but you're nevertheless going like, damn, it's crazy.

They made this guy in the damn lab. There's nobody like him in sports. That's the thing, right? Like, you can all the best player in hockey is Connor McDavid. Okay, well, he's not as good at this as Shohay Otani. Yeah. Every five games, he's not like, oh, I'm going to actually go have like a 935 save percentage. I'm going to be the goalie.

But also, whenever we get a power play, I'm just going to go into the offensive zone and snipe. Scorries. Just laser beams, top corner, and then head on back. He's so sick. That's absolutely disgusting. Unfortunately, because he. he is on like one of these big market teams that spends a lot of money, you know, in the case of Shohayatani, you do have to hand it to him. I don't make the rules. Anyway, uh, hockey is going

on. Oh, right. Yeah. Yeah. And, um, well, let me ask you this. Does anybody up in Canada care about hockey right now or is everybody just blue jays filled? It's, I mean, it's definitely secondary, but I'd say it's a, you know, we can, we can care about two things at once. up here, not three. So sorry to the Raptors. I was going to say that's tough for the for the raps, but the way she goes sometimes, I guess. Yeah, I don't know.

Like I just, so far this year, I just really find it difficult to be like, oh, I'm so excited for, for hockey right now. I don't know why. Well, specifically the NHL, college hockey season is kicked ass. I think here's,

I'm going to give you a theory. And I don't, I don't even know. if this is any kind of an outlier, but it really feels like everyone in the league is 500.

Yeah, you know, so I'm looking, I was looking at it last night, and the number of teams that are within one point of 500 either way, let's see, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight,

nine, ten, 10, 11, 12, 13, 13 teams are within a point of 500 either way. Like, I'll give it to, I'll put it to you this way. Everybody's like, the Bruins are the worst team in hockey. These guys are fucking horrible.

They are two points out of a playoff spot. Yeah. And, you know, look, we're not even into November, so that, you know, that makes sense that, like, you couldn't fall that far out of the race. Don't tell the Calgary flames.

But nevertheless, you're like, yeah, if the Bruins string two together, they're right there with the Panthers of the fucking capitals. Yeah. And the other thing is, like, any team that you start to form, like, a strong opinion about, like, oh, it's interesting that this team is. But then three games later, they're like, yeah, we're actually not that. Like, you know, we all kind of buried the sabers. the sabres are back to 500.

We are all asking if the lightning were done, they're almost back to 500. And, you know, just even, and the other way, too, where some teams are sort of making their way. In fact, Detroit doesn't look as unbeatable. It just feels like there's a really strong gravitational pull, too. Me.

Yeah, well, okay, so I'll just read you the list of teams that are currently in a playoff spot, and you tell me how crazy this all feels. Montreal, Detroit, Ottawa, New Jersey, Pittsburgh, Carolina, Washington, Florida. There's a couple of weird ones in there,

but nothing where you're like, well, I mean, with the penguins, I guess you're going, I can't believe this shit, right? Mm-hmm. But otherwise, you're just like, yeah, I guess the Red Wings being there is plausible if Tampa's falling off or whatever.

but in the West is where it gets kind of crazy. Utah is the best team in hockey right now. They're ahead of the avalanche. They're ahead of the Jets. They're ahead of Vegas. Then you got Seattle, the Kings, the Stars,

and the Blackhawks. That's your eight in the West right now. And it's like, yeah, there's like four teams in there that shouldn't be. But, you know, if you're looking at it on paper.

and I don't know man there are a lot of teams where it's like oh yeah what's going on with the blues what's going on with the wild what's going on with the lightning the maple leaves you know where everybody's like oh those teams are pretty much you can basically lock them into a playoff spot and they're like not so fast hold up

yeah so yeah I'm wondering Sean who you think who are you looking at here and you're saying like these guys are like dramatically I guess we can take Chicago off the board but like otherwise who are you like these guys are dramatically overperforming

these guys are like way worse than I thought they'd be like you got any that really stand out to you? Like overperforming my expectations I would say and been saying this for a few weeks now I kind of gave no second thought to Seattle

heading into the year. I sort of looked at them as a bottom five team. The other one and this one sort of bore out early was the Kings, right? I mean, they have their lousy off-season where people like me are already figuring out what day Jim Hiller is going to get fired. They start off not looking very good,

and we all go, yeah, look at all us. We're all so smart. We all called this. And then L.A. is like, okay, how about if we just start winning a bunch of games and get to slightly above 500. And again, they've won four of ten games, but they're over 500 in the NHL because they've managed to get a point in half their losses.

So I'm not saying they're good, but they're fine early on. Like, they're certainly disappointing the disaster narrative. Yeah, they're getting bad goaltending, but otherwise I think you would say they look pretty good. Um, there are, you know, maybe, maybe I'm even overstating that expected goal. So a thing I like to look at of like how real or fake a team's performances is, is all situations minus when they are shooting at an empty net. Right. Like that just, yeah. Because an empty net, even shot attempt, if it goes wide, you're like, well, expected goals that adds way, you know, that adds a lot to, to your total.

Mm-hmm. And so the kings are, I don't know, about three goals below expected in all situations minus the empty net situation. Or, you know, like that's not horrible or anything. It's not good. But their goaltending is so bad that they've kind of, their goal difference versus their expected goal difference, they're actually worse than they, quote unquote, should be. By a little bit.

goal in a quarter. But, yeah, I mean, they're out shooting their opponents, so that's really all you can do at a certain point, you know? So, yeah, you know, I didn't think it was impossible that the Kings would be like mediocre, which is what they are. They've got, what is it, 11 points from 10 games. That might get you into the playoffs by the end of 82? if you play at that pace.

It, you know? Yeah, it's. It's like low 90s. The, the old standby is you want six points out of every five games. So they're one off of that, which is, you know, this early. You can just kind of call it a rounding error. Yeah. And so this is the other thing for me in that division is we just really need the, the

Oilers to get good, because we all know they're going to, right? Like, we're not sitting here. They're dramatically underperforming their expected goal difference by almost six. And, you know, it's because they're not scoring right now. The cold tend has actually been pretty good in certain instances. Actually, is that true? Hold on. Let me sort by, let me sort by save percentage and get back to you.

No, I lied about that. They have the fourth worst goaltending in the league. Oops. Ah, well. Can't win them all. Yeah. But yeah, I mean,

you just expect the offense to do a lot more than it has, I think, is really what it boils down to. And, yeah. Every point, like, if you're just telling me, every point the Oilers get is won the king. or don't get is one the kings do get so far. I'm going, that sounds about right. And again, the Oilers are a 500 hockey team.

And the Kings are one point above 500. So, you know, I think we can see where this one's going. Yeah. Although I'll also say, maybe Conrick David is rethinking that extension. Can I actually get traded? He's saying it? Definitely, yeah. I'm sure he is saying that.

Let's run with that. We said it last week, but can you imagine if he had not signed and he was just still in, like, evaluating mode? Yeah. This would be so much more fun for everyone outside of Edmonton. Yeah, it certainly would. Yeah, let me hit you with a, with one that is extremely funny. If you look at it, again, like all situations minus shooting it and empty net. Do you know who's overperforming right now?

They're expected goal difference? Tell me. This is the Boston Bruins. Overperforming. Overperforming. Huh. Yeah. That's right.

Well, good news for Boston fans. You guys are... Yeah, they're just shooting 11% right now. So that's why. Do those numbers include last night's? They do. Wow. I pulled these this morning.

morning. Yeah, there are four four point four goals above expected right now. But again, like the Bruins are that team that they started three at oh and you're like, they did. Hey, we got a surprise, something's happening here. Proving the critics wrong.

I have to be honest, I did not see I'm devastated to report. I did not see like any Bruins fans trying to spike the football or do the like, oh, it's awfully quiet now, you know. this take aged well.

Like I think even the most dire Bruins fan was like, yeah, this is fake. Yeah, and like Marco Sturms out here going like, um, we just have guys that aren't bought in right now and blah, blah, blah. And it's like, okay, but you're the coach. It's your job to make sure they're bought in. One would think.

And if they're not bought in, you either sit them, my opinion, or you say, say to your boss, hey, can we trade some of these fucking guys? We'll take a loss on this, you know.

There's been Pavel Zaka trade rumors. There's been Casey Middlestat trade rumors the last little wild here. And, you know, I don't think you get better by trading a middle six center. But let's be honest,

the ruins shouldn't be trying to get better. Right. So I don't know where all that goes. But I think. I'm just, I am really curious to see how the Bruins would handle where this seems to be headed, which is, okay, you're out of it by the end of November. Now it's harvest mode.

Because, like, is Don Sweeney going to get to be that guy? No, I wouldn't think of me. Or is this one of those things where, as a GM, you go, if I concede that we need to rebuild, the owner's going to say, well, okay, thank you for letting me know. I'll get someone else to handle that. Yeah, exactly, which can be very bad for a, for a team, because when the GM and the overall franchises' goals are not exactly aligned, can get a little dicey.

Yeah, I mean, look, I think everybody's very clear-eyed, at least in the market, about how good the team is or isn't, right? And of course, the answer is isn't, it turns out. I'm just looking up when Don Sweeney, oh my God, he signed an extension in May. I don't remember this. But it says here he signed an extension in May for two more years. That must be nice.

Must be really nice. Hey, it's pretty obvious that things are going extremely badly for us. Can I keep this job for another two years? I'm trying to think of like calling my boss and doing that NHL coach and GM thing where I'm like, look, I understand that I've been doing a terrible job lately. But the thing is, everyone keeps saying it, and it's making it very hard for me to do my job

when everyone's constantly pointing out how bad at it I am. And everyone's like, counting the days till my contract runs out and I get fired because of how bad I am. And that's just really hard for me. Can you give me an extension so that I then don't have to hear about getting fired? Because otherwise I cannot possibly do my... And the boss is like, you know what? I'm one ahead of you.

Just check your mailbox. We left the salary. We left the salary feel blank for you, Big Dog. You just put whatever you think is fair. we wouldn't want you to have to work on an expiring contract like 40% of your roster is in any given year. Man, that rocks. Good for him. But yeah, I mean, you know, I think they should trade. Because, okay, look, let's talk about Vancouver.

They're overperforming their expected goals by like one. It's not that big of a deal. But this is a team where, again, I think everybody in the market is, is kind of going. Yeah, I think there's like one last kick at the can here, and we got to be done with this, you know, because the team just isn't that good. And, uh,

and yet they're, they're hanging around and we say this all the time. When your aspirations, hey, let's try to sneak in the playoffs, see what happens. You know, that, that's not,

uh, that's not conducive to a lot of like, positive feeling when you lose two in a row or win two in a row. Right? Like, everybody's just kind of counting the days till Quinn Hughes leaves. I don't think that's what they're doing at Vancouver. Or at least, I don't think they would want to say that that's what they're doing. Well, okay, let me rephrase.

You might be right on the days, but kind of dreading the countdown. Yeah. Right? And so like for them it's we have to make the playoffs this year. 100% we have to make the playoffs or we are losing Quinn Hughes. And so they're like, Lucas Reichel come on down. You're you are a Vancouver Canucks, you know? And they're saying, oh, if we just trade for a guy that can't cut it on the fucking Boston Bruins, we're going to be in great shape.

We're going to, Drans had an article the other day that I agree with, to be clear, that's like, The Vancouver Canucks kind of have to start overpaying for rentals right now, or, you know, outside talent. Because it's either we get into the playoffs or a top five player in franchise history kind of easily is leaving for New Jersey. Those are your two. It's a binary option. And like, let's put it this way. Speaking of settled GMs and all this kind of thing. What do you think they're like letting Jim Rutherford and Patrick Alvin

keep their jobs after Quinn Hughes leaves? Honestly, in Vancouver, I'm going to say it is completely, it is completely based on how well they've been able to trick the owner. That's it. And I mean, I'm saying we, I mean, it's Rutherford, right? I don't. Patrick Alvin probably hasn't even met the owner. yet, but it's just completely up to like...

Yeah. You're the GM of an NHLT. From what I understand, there's only 32 of these jobs. Okay. And everybody's just like, this guy just sits in a fucking empty office looking at the wall all day. He doesn't do shit.

Yeah. It's Jim or other. That must be... Your boss does all the work for you. Like, I don't know how true it is, right? But like, you hear all the time, these are prideful guys. These are competitive guys.

And everybody in the NHL. Everyone in an NHL front office is an absolute psychopath. Yeah. And that's like how you have to be. I don't begrudge him that. What I am saying is for him, for him as one of these hyper competitive guys, everyone's just like, yeah, man, they have you playing with that toy in a pediatrician's waiting room where it's like beads on wide. Yes.

They just have you doing that you, you clock in, they're just like, here's your fucking beads on wires toy and you just sit there for eight hours and then you go home. But it's also, it's like in a way

he's living the dream because it's like we have all in our lives if you're old enough, head a boss who eventually in your head, you're like, dude, why don't you just do it? If you're so,

if you know exactly how it should be done and it all has to be done the way you want it to be, and you don't want me to think at all. You just want me to read your mind. You do it. Right. He's got the boss who's like, actually, I am going to do it. Go play with your beads.

Poor Patrick Alveed. Oh. He's just looking and he's going, man, these goof is a gallant. These guys get up to some crazy antics. Gallant helps his mother rake the leaves. Yeah. This is crazy.

It's a good guy. Seems like it. And then in his head, he's like, I didn't know Gerard was even doing that these days. That's well. Let me ask you this. I'm going to go full sports radio mode here. You've talked about the Canucks looking pretty iffy. You've talked about the Quinn Hughes situation.

The New Jersey Devils are rolling the entire league right now. They are indeed. If I underline the word. if we get two or three more months into this thing and the devils are still dominating and the Canucks are not looking like a playoff team. At some point do you pick up the phone either side and say

everybody knows what trade we're making this summer, why don't we make it during the season? I mean, it would be a total... And I realize that you can't sign Queen Hughes until next summer, but you can talk to him. It's a myth that you somehow are not, like, you can't tamper with your own players. You could talk to anyone you want. The Devils could talk to Luke Hughes and be like, hey, in nine years, what kind of number are you thinking? They just can't put anything to paper.

So they would have an idea at that point. And, you know, Queen Hughes isn't going to be like, no, get me out of here. But when he's like, oh, you know, I'm going to evaluate. I want to see where it's going and giving all the wishy-washy non-answers. If you feel like this is, we know what's coming in the summer. We know what we're going to have to do. Do you do it this year? I mean, if you're Vancouver, you can probably get extra stuff out of New Jersey.

You should, yeah, absolutely, yeah. Because you're getting the guy for the extra three months or whatever it is. Getting a stud in his prime, an extra postseason. That feels like it would carry a significant value. But I wonder if you're New Jersey, do you just go, fuck it, we'll just wait. We'll just wait three months. Why would we pay extra? There's a real push and pull there.

I don't know what the answer is. And I think the answer is, you're looking around the landscape going, we got, we've got a cupworthy team right now. Sure. Now, obviously, that means you don't want to decimate that team by trying to. trading like, you know, three guys off the roster, which is probably what Vancouver would want because they're not going to want picks and prospects because they need to keep churning for the playoffs. But I don't know.

I wonder if this story we've all assumed was coming in the summer could come earlier than that if it all broke just right. Well, to your point about breaking just right for the devils, their goal. difference above expected, again, not counting empty netter situation, is third highest in the league. Behind Chicago, a team that everybody is like, yeah, of course they're overperforming. They're not a very good team, obviously. And behind Winnipeg, a team that, again, you kind of go, well, they're overperforming, but they do have a lot of talent and also they have the best goalie in the world.

Right? So, like, you're not, I don't, obviously. Winnipeg's not this good, in my opinion, but they are, you know, reliably you're going to get 920 goaltending or whatever the number is. Yeah. Yeah. You can't PDO Winnipeg. You can, I mean, you can offensively, and they did it last year, but they're also doing it again

this year. So whatever. They're barely overperforming their offensive XG. They're dramatically overperforming their defensive XG and, you're dramatically overperforming their defensive XG. and guess what? That's because they got the goalie. But the devils are third behind them.

And a lot of that is they are shooting 12% right now, not including empty netters. So, you know, they're like five goals above expected offensively, six and a quarter defensively. And they're not this good, but I think the thing with the. Devils is. All of this is about just banking points or not doing that, depending on how good your team is.

And again, I think we all think the Devils are a playoff team. So banking points, if they, if we're saying they're overperforming, they're going to come back to Earth. True. But if they end up first or second in this division, no one's going to be like, this is outrageous. I can't believe they did that. That's totally within the realm of possibility. And it's, if you're overperforming now, there's going to be a stretch where you underperform. That's just how it goes.

So bank the points now. Put them away for a rainy day. The other thing we should say with the devils is they're doing this without their number one goalie for the last little while at least. Yep. So, yeah, no, they're in good shape. What have you got on Utah? Because that's, that's one that I'm, like, I'll just admit, I'd sort of staked out a position. of I'm less optimistic on these guys than everyone else seems to be.

It feels like this year, as with last year, everyone just wanted to put them in the playoffs. And it felt like a little, to me, it felt like kind of wishcasting a bit of, you know, they're new. Yeah, of course it was. You know, there's people in the organization who, you know, had to suffer through all the Arizona years. And now, like, let's see what these guys can do. and I'm looking at the roster going, it's not that different. And, you know, it's a,

they're making me look wrong and making all the optimists look right. Is it fake? So they have a barely positive expected goal difference. You know, plus three-ish, a little more than that, maybe. And they're out-shooting their opponents by a pretty wide margin. I don't think anybody's going to expect them to get, like, to the end of the year with 11.5 shooting percentage, right? That's just they're, they don't have that talent level up and down the lineup.

At the top of the lineup, if you want to say your coolies and your Dylan Gunther's and all these guys can sustain a high shooting percentage, I'd probably agree with that, you know? But I don't know. Like, the thing I think about with them is the gold ending hasn't actually been like insanely good for them and they're winning a lot. lot of games, you know. And I thought, I'm a long time Vemelka guy, and I thought he kind of disappointed last year, and he's been, okay, he's 11th in the league by goals saved above expected right now. That feels very sustainable to me.

And maybe, maybe what my argument is, is VTEC VATVANCHECC isn't going to be saving one goal above expected every game he plays, which is what he's doing right now. To me, I think that on the balance, they're probably about where they should be defense-wise. Again, I think the offense is going to cool down. But all you can do is make points, like I said. And I guess I still think of them as this isn't a playoff team to me. but playoff bubble was always kind of on the table. So you overperform it a little bit and all of a sudden here you are, you know?

Right now they are six goals over expected by goal difference and, well, six and change. And that's worth one win, basically. And so if you want to say they are one win, better than expected, you know, that that changes them to seven and three instead of eight and two. Yeah, which is still. You take it every time. Still very, very good. Yeah.

Please, please, please tell me that the penguins are fake. Because they are ruining. They are not as fake as you would think. So I wrote this on Monday in the rankings. They are ruining our best story of the year, which is the penguins are going to stink. And now they have to trade Sidney Crosby. Right. And I think this is extremely rude of them.

Oh, I agree, obviously. Yeah. We want it to be fun out there. So, okay, this is the way it is fake. Jari and C-loves have combined to stop almost 10 goals above expected in 10 games. Again, that's not a number. I don't think it's telling tales out of school to say that number's not holding up. But, and this is the end.

interesting part, their offense is actually worse than expected right now. They have 28 goals. They're supposed to have 29 and a third. Again, no empty netter situation. So, yeah, obviously this is fake. And it's totally driven by extremely good, unsustainably good goaltending. And yet, I don't, I am not in a position to say, and Sidney Crosby can't will. this team into the end. It's semi respectable. I wanted to talk about this as well. This is not to do with teams. But have you gone to

NHL.com slash stats and looked at the leaders and points this year? It's an insanely funny list. Yeah, it's all. I know like the goals list is also quite weird. The goals list is a little more, I can make sense of this, but I'll just give you the top 10 in points right now.

now. Ikel Schmaltz, Malkin Celebrini, Nielander Caprizov, McKinnon, Crosby, Stone, Larkin. What? That doesn't make any sense. And yet here we are. Goals, Schifely Hughes, Pinto, Schmaltz, McKinnon, Crosby, Jarvis, Coley, Drysidal Cawfield. That, again, you can kind of puzzle that out if you're not, if you're saying, oh, Matthews, slow start. McDavid weirdly slow start. But. I don't know.

He got his 25 million. He's done. Yeah. It's like, suckers. He's not even taking his sunglasses off when he's on the ice. He's just fully. I watch the Oilers game.

He's not even wearing skates. He's out there in. He's out there in fuzzy slippers and a bathrobe. And he's just, he's still faster than 70% of the guys. But it's, sure. Um, the other, the other funny thing about this is if you look at the expected, our goal saved above expected leaders, what, what a crew this is. Spencer Knight, Jacob Dobish, Connor Hellebuck, Thatcher Demko, Alex Lyon is your top five.

Fake ass sport. It's, it's insane, man. Not a real sport at all. Um, yeah, obviously that, that does get you into, into Sabers talk. Um, they are, much like the penguins just overperforming and nobody thinks that should think this is real. They have a plus 3.7 goals above their expected. So that's 11th in the league. That's not like horrible.

But I mean they're, you look at their talent level and you're like, okay, well, that's not lasting, obviously. I mean, all that said, like they're 500. I think the sabres are a lot closer to a 500 team than the penguins are to 700 or whatever. Yeah, yeah. Sure, of course. I mean, if you had asked me before the season, and maybe if you asked me right now,

I'd say sabres are more, I would pick the sabres to make the playoffs over the penguins. Maybe not now just because they banked a few extra points. But I think the, you know, sabers have been, the thing with the sabers is you're always, like talk to me after the inevitable 11-game losing streak. Well, that's exactly right. I'm just, I just can't, like, sit here and ever buy into, you know, the Sabres are off

to a pretty hot start. Who gives a shit? They do this every three years. Oh, they won nine games in a row. Okay, what happened after that? They immediately lost 20 straight. Okay. Right.

That sounds right. But here's the thing. I don't know if you know this. If you take out their biggest losing streaks, the right? is actually pretty good. One of the funniest columns I ever read. I think about that shit all the time. Look, that was with Columbus.

If there was an article in the dispatch, whatever, two or three years ago, that was like, is the record bad? Sure it is. But if you take out the time they lost like eight in a row and then the other time they lost like seven out of nine, they're actually plus 500 against non-playoff teams or whatever the fucking article was. And it's like, okay. I got to tell you, man, a lot of people.

people who know me have said that if you take away all the times that I open my mouth or interact with people in any way, I'm actually a pretty cool guy. Yeah. It's kind of the consensus on me. You want to hear another funny one? Yes. The capitals are under the capitals and the avalanche are underperforming their expected goal difference.

Uh-oh. Okay. They should be better than they are. Spencer Carberry, you're a bum. A bunch of underachievers. That's right. Now, I'll give you some that aren't surprising. The Rangers are underperforming dramatically, as you might expect.

And it's all offense-based, as you might expect. Dallas is underperforming. They're one of the better teams in the league right now by their record. And then Minnesota, Calgary and St. Louis are your bottom three. And who could be surprised based on have you watched these guys play? The flames are bad, but they're not as bad as. All this. Sure.

They just, they can't score goals right now. And. Yeah. How's the offensive side of that? Because, I mean, they, they can't score at all. No.

So I'm assuming they are. There are. There are goals below expected. Okay. Yeah. All right. 9.3. That's a lot.

That's a lot in 10 games. In 10 games, that's crazy. But also their goaltending is underperforming expectation, and that I think is where the problem kind of lies. You know, like... Well, especially since that was supposed to be the strength. Well, that's what I mean. Like, you, you, again, if you need Dustin Wolfe to be like a borderline Vesna guy, you're

fucked. Like, he's awesome. But behind a team like that, you just, you just can't go into a season going, I just need this goalie to be like up around 918, 920. And we'll be a borderline playoff team. That sucks. You can't do that. So here we are, you know.

But to me, I just look at the blues and I go, man, both of their goalies suck. They are, okay, how about this, Sean? By goal saved above expected. Hofer and Bennington, first and third worst in the league right now. Ooh. In that order? Yeah. Yeah.

Sam Montembow nestled beautifully. between them. I watched the start of that game last night, the Blues and Penguins, before I settled in for nine hours of baseball. And it was like they were talking, it was the Pittsburgh broadcast, but they were talking about like,

a St. Louis, a scolding, and then like they scored twice in the first 40 seconds. And it was like, all right, that's not good. Especially since Hawford was supposed to be like, you know, well, I'm,

I shouldn't talk in the past tense, but was viewed as a pretty good young up-and-coming goaltender, if I'm not mistaken. And I know it's tough for Jordan, I mean, you being Jordan Biddington's number one fan, that it's like, he should throw a water bottle at himself. We had a question in the mailbag like a week or two ago that was like,

when is Ryan just going to admit that Jordan Bidded kids good? Mm, okay. Clock's ticking. Yeah, awfully quiet. One of these days, I'm going to be convinced. He's going to go into the Hall of Fame and he's going to He's going to say like To all the people who doubted me

And the camera's going to cut to you An old you in the crowd With your arms folded just shaking your head Not on board Old me This guy's already like 31 Yeah but he's going to be like Retired two years

He's going to be like Rojy Vashon They're going to take 25 years I see yeah And then just randomly induct him one year Well he won he won the Four Nations It's not just any goalie that could win behind. Oh, it says here, Team Canada. Oh, interesting.

Anyway, any other teams you're wondering about whether they're over- underperforming? The Leafs, just so that I... The Leafs are underperforming by about three. So they should have one more point than they do. Awesome. Ottawa's dramatically underperforming. It's all goaltending.

Their goalies stink. I said the first and third. Worst goalies in the league by G-Sex. The sixth, I'm sorry, the fifth and sixth are both on the Ottawa senators. Okay. And that's even after last night giving up. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. The Sends were another team, right? Like it felt like a week ago, you're like, well, we got a storyline brewing in the nation's capital. The senators are, oh, what's that? Three wins in a row and they're right back to being fine. Okay. Yeah. They can't get a stop.

They do need the. They look good otherwise. they just can't get a stop. Fucking way she goes, you know? And again, this is another team where it's like, yeah, we do kind of need our guy who won the Vesna a few years ago to be roughly that good. Or as good as he was like, what was he like 9-12 last year?

Yeah, he was not Vesna last year, but he was, he comfortably like a top 10-ish. He stabilized a position that had been weak. And now he can't stop traffic. Apropos of almost nothing. Yep. I was looking at the Boston stats and I like, because I was like, you know, how's Swamen doing?

He's been okay. But then I was like, oh, right, they have Junis Corpusala. They traded for him. They took that contract. They did. They did. He's not doing great. Nope.

I'll save everyone the statute. I'll say this though. Not ideal. He's doing better than the guy they traded for. You know? Guy they traded him for. Linus Oldmark, this guy stinks. He can't stop traffic.

Give Don Sweeney another year, baby. Tag it on. Yeah, I guess that's it. Oh, did I say Detroit's underperforming by like more than seven? They are. And then did we do? Both offensively and D. Did we do Seattle?

I know we talked about them. We did. I don't think we did their 1.7 above expected. Okay. So nothing. So not crazy. Nothing transparently fake about what they've been a good five. on five is,

if I understand. Their five on five numbers are actually horrible. Are they really? Oh, okay. Yeah, let me. I'm completely backwards in. Let me see here. I think all situations they look really good.

And yeah, five on five, they're the second worst team in the league by expected goals. Like I said. Or expected goals percentage. 42.2. Ahead of only the Winnipeg Jets, 41.3. I don't know what to tell you. Seattle.

I'm. The sharks, the islanders. Well, Seattle's getting it done with special teams. is what that tells you. Because if you look at their all situations, it is, they're like a little above 50. But with the five-on-five numbers being so bad,

think about how good that means the special teams are. You know? Yep. That's how that works. I actually haven't looked at what their special teams numbers are. That's really strange. Their special teams stink. 19% on the powerplay, under 70 on the PK.

And yet, I mean, the process must be incredible. I haven't really looked totally under the hood here. They're getting out shot by 35, looks like. Okay, I can't explain this then. Yeah, this is fake. I'm happy to say it. There we go. All right, why don't we take a break?

We'll come back and we'll talk about a couple other things. All right, we're back. And, you know, I guess we could have mentioned this when we were talking about the Canucks during the last segment there. But, well, I guess I did mention they traded for Lucas Freckle. They gave up a fourth round pick for him. But people seem, at least in Vancouver, seem to be inferring that this might be because Philippaedal is done for the year after that Tom Wilson hit. Okay. Maybe close to it.

That is terrible news, obviously, given his history. Because, I mean, it was a big hit. It was. But it wasn't, like, it wasn't an unusual hit. No. In the sense that, you know, that's, yeah. Yeah, it's more like when I saw who it was on, I was like, oh, fuck, you know, as opposed to, you know, they should throw this guy in jail or whatever, which is my usual. Yeah.

Like, I wouldn't want to get hit by. Tom Wilson doesn't get suspended for it. I wouldn't want to get hit by Tom Wilson. But no, that. That was a completely clean hit. And it, yeah, it's just, you really wonder if, if that's the case. But, yeah, the trade itself, I mean, this is, to me, it's a fascinating deal for the Hawks and a mildly interesting one for Vancouver, right? Well, look, like, Chicago gave this kid opportunities, and he just never ran with.

with the ball. Yep. You know? First pick, uh, in 2020 and never, well, last year,

career year, eight goals, 22 points. Right. He's a winger. Not a defensive defense. Yeah. And like,

if you're Vancouver, why not fucking buy a lottery ticket for a fourth round pick? What do you care? Well, we were talking about it earlier. Where do you care? Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, this is the sort of deal that, I mean, honestly, the most likely outcome is even by the end of this year, they're going, why did we burn a perfectly good pick on a guy who isn't worth that? But there's a ceiling here. It's not like it's a second. Yeah, but I mean, yeah, sure, sure. And it's, it's, there's a ceiling here.

It is, you know, you said lottery ticket. It's, it's, it's a little bit of that. I mean, the guy, you know, you don't get drafted in the first round for nothing. Clearly, he's, and the other thing is he is showing flashes in Chicago. And I say that hesitantly because every young player will show flashes. Like, you know, I typically hate it when someone's like, you know, actually, if you'd watch the game, Capo, caco, blah, blah, blah, blah. But I know there have been a lot of, like, our Chicago writers at the athletic had, you know, over the course of years, been like, you know, know, why aren't they putting him in more of an offensive position?

Why aren't they giving him power play time? Why aren't they, you know, he's, he's a, I guess the scouting report on him was that he was a wizard at getting the puck into the zone and then just had no idea what to do with it when he got there. Or no ability to do it at the speed you need to when NHL defenders are closing gaps on you. Yep. So, I mean, it's played 135 games over the last two years. It's not like he was sitting in the press box not getting chances. That's what I'm saying. Like, Chicago was in way more of a position to experiment than even Vancouver is now with a young guy.

And they were like, it doesn't seem like we should really try that hard to experiment. He was getting 11 minutes a game on a bad team that was rebuilding. And, you know, at some point... it's it's just one of those things where you look at it from a distance and you go, why aren't they given them more opportunity? And at some point the answer has to be because they see something you don't see. He didn't earn it. Yeah. They may be as, you know, being around them all the time and watching them practice and watching tapes and all that, they might have a little bit better sense of things than Sean does sitting on his couch.

That's right. I'm not, I'm not paying as close attention to the guy on the last place team who plays 11 minutes a night as you might think, you know? Yeah. So. So, yeah. You know, Vancouver, they just, they kind of just need bodies, you know, but they're, they're in the, the group of like, hey, we're one of 12 teams. It's like, we could really use a number two center.

It's like, I guess, yeah, I mean, so could everybody, it seems like, you know. So I don't know what the answer is for the, for the Canucks or anybody else looking for, like. apart from Boston, we're not hearing any names out there for trade opportunities, really. You know? So I don't know. You know, the, the,

the Canucks are what they are. And I'm just never going to be like, oh, they're one guy away. They're Pavel Zaka away from being a perfectly credible 98 point team or whatever. But, you know, but any player they'd be one guy away from isn't out there. so you got to build them in the aggregate.

Sure, yeah. And like, like I say, try out right. Probably not going to work, but. His only problem is he couldn't find ice time on one of the worst teams ever. Yeah. So, but this is what I'm saying is he is better and more immediate than a fourth round pick this year will be to, to find out if there's anything there. There probably isn't. But that's true of most fourth round pick.

So you might as well find out in 2025 versus 2029 when you're in the middle of a rebuild because Quinn Hughes left two years ago, three years ago, whatever it is. So that's kind of my feeling on that for the Canucks. But let me ask you this. We're starting to see a fair amount of who's going to make the Olympic team discourse. And is there anybody who kind of, I don't know, jumps off the page for you for the U.S. or Canada, obviously, as like, maybe they will bring that guy.

The two for Canada. One, I still think it's pie in the sky, but you've started to hear a little Matthew Schaefer buzz. Presumably he'd be like the seventh or eight. I mean, I can't imagine any coach in the Olympics is going to be like, I'll put a teenager out there on the blue line. But you just, the mere fact that, it's even being floated and not immediately left out of the room is just a testament to how

cool this kid has been so far. Yeah. The bigger one up here is Macklin Sellebrini. That's right. Kind of like moving from not just from fringe to being a candidate, but not even a candidate in the whole like, well, you know, we should bring a young guy and, you know, have somebody get the experience. You know, is that Connor Bedard? a brand. Now it's like, no, Maclin Celebrini might be one of the 12 best forwards we have.

Like, he might be a guy that you want to put out there and be like, yeah, he's, he's centering the third line. He's, you know, gonna, we'll put him on Nathan McKinnon's wing or something and let him just go out there and do damage. So it's, like, the, the hype train is in full swing on this kid, but it's, I don't feel like it's, it doesn't feel fake to me. Like this guy, this guy rocks. Yeah, and like he showed it a little bit last year, like at times where you're like, man, this kid is better 200 feet than you would expect a 18 year old to be. I think his birthday's over the summer. So like he's in the middle, again, of his, I think age 19 season right now.

In the middle of him. He's starting his age 19 season. And like just the fact that like you say, like that we're having this conversation and people on. aren't just going, come on, man. A teenager? Yeah. On team kid? I don't think he'd be getting a lot of ice time just given...

He's still going to get six minutes of ice time because every... Every coach would ultimately rather have Brock Nelson than he's American. But I reached for like middle age, not very good guy who's been around forever. Canadian Brock Nelson. Who's Canadian Brock Nelson? Now this is bugging me. Canadian rock. I mean, there's like 50 guys that fit that description.

That's true. Whereas like, he's from the greater Toronto area. So anytime the Leafs play them, we talk about this guy incessantly. And he puts up like 58 points a year. There's like seven guys like that, you know? True. Yep. I think, I think Logan Cooley has certainly played his way into the, into the mix here.

Yep. Would you have said that in October? or, you know, in September, I don't think so. He would have been a very outlier. Was he in the original, quote-unquote, camp, the original list? That's a good question. I don't remember now. You know, look that up while you talk.

Okay. Yeah. Well, I mean, so obviously, this kid's really good. And I think if you were doing it, like, who from Utah is going to make the U.S. Olympic team, you would have said Clayton Keller. And I think, you know, he's probably still a fringe guy on that. roster, but now you kind of just feel like, well, Logan Cooley has to be on there the way he started out the season.

So, I don't know, like, would I feel good about a team USA with two guys from the Utah Mammathon, and I probably wouldn't? But you kind of can't deny that Cooley just can't be fucking stopped right now. Maybe we're not having this conversation in December when they're really solidifying the team. that's where it's at right now. You got, you got to hand it to them, I guess is my point. I do not see, I do not see Cooley on the list for...

Yeah. Yeah, I'm trying to think if there's anybody else. Well, I get, you know, I think people have been starting to say Bedard should make it as well in much the same, like, yeah, like, is he fully on the same level as, as, you know, the other. guys on the Canadian roster, probably not, definitely not, maybe. But this guy's going to be captaining the Olympic team in eight years or whatever the number is, you know? Well, you'd hope. You would hope.

So you get him the experience. He gets a free track suit and a trip to Italy out of the deal, you know? I think there would be worse decisions, but, like, there's only so many. teenagers you can bring at a certain point. Yeah, and that's it, right? And because if you're bringing two, then you're getting into the scenario where it's like somebody's going to have to play, like,

real minutes. You're not going to be able to shelter. And yeah. So, yeah, Badard and Celebrating were invited. Cooley was not on the list. And it makes sense that they would, those two guys would have been invited. Sure. Yeah. Twyton Byfield was actually on the list as well.

That's interesting. The less said the better. Okay, the other one, the other thing I wanted to talk about here with that is we've been saying all along, the goalies feel kind of locked for the U.S., but with Swaminkin off to a decent start, not a great one or anything, we're saying Demko, we're saying Ottinger are locks, right? Hellabuck, not Demko. You know what? The reason I said that is,

Hellebuck and Demko are right above each other on the G-Sax list that I still have open. And Demko has played great so far this year. Does he, has he argued his way into at least the discussion ahead of Swamon? I think my answer would be you got to talk about it. Yep. Yep, I, if he's healthy and play well, I, Like, the third goalie, I wouldn't say it doesn't matter. For some teams it does.

I don't think it matters in the U.S. when you've got Audenjur and Hallibook. I'm trying to think what would. It should be said has been 899 minus 0.7G sacks. I think I think it's fair to say he's going to be on the team regardless because everybody thinks he's really good goalie and they're probably right. But I'll say this. Maybe the discussion's a little more open than you and I or most other people would have given it credit for a month ago.

Hello Buck's still there. He looks like he's one of the two or three best goalies in the world again. I'm starting to think this guy might be for real. That's interesting. Huh. Well, I'm trying to think, like, is there any? Are there any goleys that are really grabbing your attention for Canada, though? Because that is obviously the big question.

Well, I mean, in a negative way, Sam Montembow was a guy that a lot of us were sort of, and was one of the three, right? Remember, they invited basically the three guys from last year. Bennington hasn't been good. Bennington's been even worse than Montembow, which is. Hill has, and Bennington's going to be on the team. Yeah. Barring injury or something.

Oh, no, wait. It's Hope or has been worse than Monta Bow. Bennington's been slightly better, very slightly better, but better nonetheless. So, I mean, Logan Thompson is, is a lot of, a lot of us thought should have been there last year. So, um, good for him. Could certainly, uh, 935 so far this year. Pretty good. So there you go.

He might be, see the guy? Like, is he, like, is he? Jeez, man, right now you would have to say he has to be the guy. Biddington, if you're saying he's making the team, you also have to acknowledge he is unplayable right now. Or would be on any other team besides the Blues where the other guy's worse. But other than that, like, it's Thompson. I don't know who else is even in the mix. Are we going to, are we going to end up with Jake Allen?

Team Canada Olympic gold tender. Oh boy. He's been good. He's Jake Allen. I'm not saying he hasn't been. What I am saying is, oh boy, if Jake Allen is starting for the, like, maybe you say that's the thing of like, well, look, I got to get in there and fight Muhammad Ali. But like, he did say he'd tie one hand behind his back. So I'm in good shape here, you know.

I mean, other than Logan Thompson, none of the Canadian. and goalies that you would have hoped. No, that's exactly right. Like Stuart Skinner's been okay, but he hasn't been great. Totally fine. And like, I mean, geez, I said Jake Allen and sort of swallowed my own tongue for a bit. It's Tristan Jari working his way into the conversation the way he's playing? Like, God.

I think it might be me. I think I might be the guy. There's got to be a Canadian playing college hockey who's lighting it up right now. now, you know. There has to be. Has to be. But yeah, I, I don't know what the answer is if you're Canada.

Because everybody, there are some good options. There are no great options. The other one that, the other one, like the wild thing was last year for all the talk of, you know, Canada doesn't have the gold ending and this and that. And it was,

you know, it was valid. They had two of the top four Vesnit guys and didn't put them on the team. Logan Thompson was one. Darcy Kemper was the other. Darcy Kemper was really good last year. Yep. So you're looking at that.

Like, you'd go into this year and go, all right, the goal tenings is not going to be a strength for Canada, but it was good enough last year. We got those three guys, plus Logan Thompson and Darcy Kemper can earn their way on. And I think, like, out of that five, Logan Thompson's the only one who doesn't terrify you right now. Yeah, I'd say he'd have to be the starter. If, you know, if you're, if you're doing it right now, you're not, obviously, you're not doing it.

Thank goodness. But it's also, but it's also not like you're sitting there going on four months, it'll be fine. You know what I just realized? I don't know. We talked about all the U.S. Who's playing their way onto the U.S.? US team. Spencer Knight leads the league of G-Sax. We're all just like, yeah, but that's

bullshit. Fuck on. Yeah. You don't want to hear about that. Look, if Spencer Knight was Canadian, he'd be playing his way onto the absolute. Well, you can have him. We'll trade you. Okay, yeah, we got to work out a deal. Do you guys what do you guys need? Centers?

Give me Maclin Celebrini. He played college hockey. That's basically like being American. I'll give you, I'll give you Connor Bidard. He's a prospect. You know, you can build towards It's 2030. Yeah. Yeah, I don't want to talk about go. I hate this.

Let's talk about anything else. Okay, yeah, we could do that. Yeah, it's interesting you mentioned Matthew Schaefer because it does feel like a lot of the defense for both teams is kind of locked right now. I don't know who's playing their way onto either team. So this is just one of those things where you're going to give me two more. months to really puzzle over this one. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Tonight is the frozen frenzy or whatever they call it over on ESPN.

Every team is playing, every single one. The game started 6 p.m. And this is one of those things. I saw a tweet this morning that was like, hey, did anybody know this was tonight? And if I hadn't seen a question in the mailbag about it last night, I would have said, oh, no, I had no idea. I feel like ESPN is just not promoting this. I did not realize, and obviously up here, we're not, any ESPN promo wouldn't hit us.

Right, sure. I did not realize until yesterday when I sat down to do the Tuesday newsletter, and we always have a section on like, hey, what games are on tonight? And I was like, oh, wow, look at that. You would think they would make a bigger deal out of this. If they're having a branded show on ESPN, you would think I would have, me, a guy that watches a pretty decent amount of hockey would have heard about this. It doesn't come up. And it's a weird.

It doesn't come up often enough that it's stuck in my brain, certainly. It's a weird time to do it. It is. Like, head to head with the World Series. And like, two weeks after you just did. The NHL man. Two weeks after you just did a full slate, which wasn't the staggered start. thing, but like the first Saturday was they did this.

So I don't know, man. But there's some interesting games. There's some real. I was going down the slate today because I was like, oh, we should, we should do a ranking or whatever. And I'm not going to do all 16. That's too many. But like, for example, 630, nights hurricanes, that sounds like it's going to be a sick

game. I'll tell you what, let's, let's do it this way. Okay. Because in the newsletter, uh, that's, the red light newsletter. Everybody should be signing up at the athletic, get content from me and Myrtle and et cetera, et cetera. I actually got our buddy SG,

as well as Rob Rossi and Julian McKenzie, to do a four-person draft of the 16 games. Basically, what do you want to watch most? Okay. So why don't you try, you tell me how you think the first round went? The first round, I would say

first overall is probably Devil's Avalanche. Correct. Julian took them first. That's going to be a good one. Two teams with a combined two regulation losses. That's pretty good.

Now I got to think Vegas, Carolina goes second. That was number two. Yeah. Our buddy SG stepped in. Took them. Um, Mammoth Oilers? Is that three?

Folks, he's nailing it. If I didn't know better, I'd say he's subscribed to the newsletter and it just arrived in his inbox and brought a smile to his face. Can you go four for four? I'm going to say the 1030 game, Habs Cracken. That was the fifth pick in our job. Fuck. And I should, and, and I'm the one who had the fourth pick. So I'm the one who screwed it up for you.

I took caps at stars. Totally credible. Two very good teams and Ovechkin going for 900. That's right. Yeah, no, that makes perfect. I guess I didn't really consider the context of Alex Ovechkin and all that. You nailed the, basically nailed the top five. And then the jets at wild, Kings of Sharks.

And then I took Rangers at Canucks, because this is J.T. Miller is back in Vancouver, We're just in time. And also, whoever loses this game, somebody's getting in a lot of trouble. Yeah. Because the Canucks are like, oh, we won three out of four on the road trip or whatever that was. Remember that? That wasn't that long ago. And now we're back to dead even 500.

And did you see where, like, J.T. Miller is already doing the captain thing and, like, crapping all over the effort level in New York. And I've even seen some stuff where, you know, you know, generally speaking hockey fans eat that stuff up. But even in this, like, a few people were like, come on, man. Like, don't, then you deal with it. You're the captain. Don't just, anyways.

It's, yeah, it's not going over great. What do you, what do you, give me your picks for the bottom three. Oh, like the three worst games. Bruins Islanders is one of them, I bet. That actually went a little bit higher than I would have thought. Oh, and that was, Rob took them, like, in, like, 10th or so, the Schaefer factor. The Schaefer factor, exactly. Yeah, he loves watching the young guys.

Same thing, he took the Sharks game as well because he, Kings of Sharks, because he, for celebrating. That would have been, that would have been my, another one of my picks for bottom three. I was actually surprised by which one dropped all the way to the bottom in our draft, which is just here there, because I would have had the one that stood out to me was, blue jackets at Sabres is the one where you're just like, come on. But that actually did. That went second to last.

Lightning at Preders. Lightning Preds would have been my next guess, yeah. Which is a bit sort of just how far the lightning have fallen already. But, you know, trying to get back on track against the former captain. Was the other bottom one sends Blackhawks?

The bottom round was Sends Blackhawks, Red Wings at Blues, which is... That would have been my next pick. Blue Jacket, Sabres, and Lightning's and Predators, so... That all checks out for me. Mm-hmm. But, you know, my little butt's going to be stapled to the couch tonight. I got the, I got the World Series on. Finally, you can watch some sports.

Yeah. Come in and, uh, and you got the frozen frenzy. This might, I'm going to go so far as to say this might be a two-screen experience. You never know? Double. Double screens, baby. Hell, there could be even maybe three going. Well, let's not get it.

I mean, one of those screens is getting awful small. Yeah. One of those screens is going to be like a small indie movie. And Ryan's only allowed to eat when his eyes are on the sports. Sean, how many movies would you guess that I have seen in theaters since Sunday night? Since Sunday night. Okay. So you have, that gives you about 36 hours of which 11 were spent watching baseball.

I'm going to say two. Three is the correct answer. Oh, God. They good? The mastermind, the new Kelly Reichert film, was a delight. The Bruce Springsteen movie is horrendous. Okay. And I don't want to be out here saying that kind of thing about the boss, you know?

Don't. You're going to get yourself kicked out of the sports writing fraternity? Well, again, okay. This is well-trod territory at this point, but they're, all, this is going to, this is going to, you're going to not believe this, Sean. All the flashbacks when he's reliving past traumas are in black and white. And they pull up, it's a little child, Bruce and his sister and their father. And they pull up in front of a big house up on a hill. and the dad says, you live in a house like that,

all your problems disappear. And then cut to the opening chords of Mansion on a Hill by Bruce Springsteen from the album Nebraska. And it's like, you've got to be fucking kidding me, man. Subtle. Subtle, baby. I couldn't believe it.

There were multiple moments that... Now, granted, I saw this at 10 p.m. on Sunday. I was the only one in the movie theater. Okay. I was laughing out loud multiple times at things of that movie that were not supposed to be funny. It's just an unbelievable failure, quite frankly. Like, they were like, who? Can we make a Bruce Springsteen movie for the stupidest people on Earth?

Right, sports writers. Yeah, that's. And then the one I saw yesterday was Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein. Oh, yeah. So what's the verdict on? I'm not a GDT guy at all. I don't like most of his movies. I thought this was great.

Okay. It's like a very solid B. The CGI looks like PlayStation 4 cutscene bad in some parts. Really? Okay. Yeah. That's the Netflix budget for you, you know, I think. But the practical effects in this movie and like when you can tell the set is practical versus where it starts being a green screen.

everything that is real in this movie looks phenomenal. But there's a lot of stuff where it's like, oh yeah, this was a loading screen and fucking, you know, the Frankenstein video game from 2017. You know what I'm saying? So I liked it a lot, though. My hat's off to them. GDT made one that I actually enjoyed.

Anyway, I guess the last thing here we should mention because we mentioned it on the show a few weeks ago, Mitch Love, the Washington Capitals assistant coach, suspended for the year by the league, stemming from allegations that came out over the summer of domestic violence. And the Capitals,

at around the same time, relieved him of his duties. And it seems like this is a pretty, pretty final thing, because the league also said you don't get to appeal this. Right. So. Yeah.

So suspended for the year, we don't know what if any legal proceedings could play out, but certainly done in Washington. And other than that, we don't know very much. Not a lot to, not a lot to, yeah, talk about there or whatever. But, you know, like I said, we mentioned it a few weeks ago, so figured we'd do the follow-up as well. Yeah, I, you know, whatever. It's a sad situation. I don't know how else you want to put it, but like there are things that are more important than hockey and that. That certainly is one of them.

Anything else you wanted to say about the world of hockey, the world series? Anything on your mind, Sean? I don't think so. Okay, great. Well, in that case, why don't you start doing the plugs and let's get the hell out of here? Yeah, so subscribe to the newsletter,

look for me at the athletic, and listen to me and Sean and Frankie on the Wednesday athletic hockey show. We're on YouTube now. I don't know if people have figured that out. So, yeah, you want to watch. Let me ask you this. Do you want people to figure that out?

Uh, given the amount of effort, it took my simple old man brain to connect all the stuff that they sent me so that I could have a decent camera setup. I kind of do. But also, I've been told multiple times that I look miserable on camera, which is fun. It's nice when strangers tell you that. Like, reach out. They're like, hey, man, I know you didn't ask, but I just wanted to say. So, yeah, there's that too. And, yeah, I'll have more content coming, including, I think I'm doing my annual All Scary Start team.

I'm the only sports writer who does a story peg to Halloween at this time of year. So, yeah, it's just players who are playing bad. That's fun. You know, you saying that reminds me, by the way. We're only a few days away from the classic, if you're not in the playoffs on November 1st, dot, dot, dot, dot. Cut off. You got until Saturday. Saturday.

Get on it, everybody. I was looking at it. And I think technically there's maybe only one or two teams in the entire Eastern Conference that can be below that cutoff. But there's also one or two in the West that I don't think can even reach that cutoff if everything goes exactly right for them. So that should be fun. But yeah, anyway, for me, go to willie prospects.com. We got all kinds of stuff going on over there, all kinds of prospect breakdowns from various tournaments and things of this nature. and of course I'm on the NCAA beat all year.

So that's where that's going. We got a power ranking coming out tomorrow. I got a notebook later this week. I just did my like weekend wrap-up thing yesterday. So that's all going on over there. And the other plug, of course, is the Patreon. Patreon.com slash puck soup. All kinds of bonus episodes.

You got stick to sports. You got OUFL. You got the Supotle bonus episode where we remembered heard some coattail riders just last week. And some people said a couple of my takes on there were psychotic. Psychotically good? Now, see, that was... That's probably what they meant.

That was what I thought they were. Wow, this guy is really seeing through it. But I think they weren't happy with two takes in particular that I had. But we'll let you guys figure that. I go pay for it and you can listen and get mad. at me as well. But that's it. Patreon.com slash Puck Soup.

Elite prospects. Those are all my plugs. Thank you so much for listening to the show. And enjoy the frozen frenzy or whatever the fucking call it. And enjoy Shoheyotani, 27 strikeout game upcoming. And that's it. Have a good one.

Bye bye. Bye bye.