Puck Soup - Who's In Trouble?

Episode Date: June 11, 2024

Sean and Ryan talk about how the Cup Final has gone, what's next as the series shifts to Edmonton, CapFriendly, Utah team names, and more. Sponsored by Gametime (download the Gametime app , Factor (factormeals.com/puck50) and Raycon (buyraycon.com/puck)

I'm Ryan Lambert from Elite Prospects. I'm Sean McIndue from The Athletic. And the Panthers have, would you call it a commanding lead? It's commanding. Yeah. Would you call it, you know, the kind of lead that, we know it's not a series yet because the home team hasn't lost. But I don't have these stats in front of me. How often do teams come back from being down 2-0 in a Stanley Cup final?

Can't be that. I'm sure it's not often. It did, it happened in 2011, Boston over Vancouver. I do not recall it happening before that. Or sorry, since then. I'm sure it did happen before that a few times, but it's going to be exceedingly rare. Five out of 54, it says here. And the last time, as you say, was Boston, Vancouver.

All right. So not likely. bunch of the other times probably in the original six days. I know the leaves came back from three nothing against the red wings, but that was slightly before even my time. The 09 penguins. Okay. And everything else,

1971 Canadian, 66 Canadians, 42 Leafs. So it's happened in the cap era twice, two out of the five times. Okay. That's something. But. So not, I mean, not a hopeless situation for the Oilers, but certainly even putting aside the wins and losses, which you can't do in a short series. Right. You felt a lot better about the Oilers after game one than game two.

So I want to talk about that actually, because I watched that game and I was like, doesn't this kind of feel like this is the Oilers best shot? You know what I mean? Game one, you mean, yeah? Yeah, like in terms of just whatever, like, how the game went for them, apart from not scoring at all, you know? I was just watching that going, like,

this is kind of their best shot at it, is it not? Well, it's always that. Those are always the two sides of the coin. When you have a game like that where you play well and you control most of the game and you don't win, there's always the two ways to look at it, right? There's, well, if we play like that every game, then we're going to be okay. Sure. And then the flip side is we just gave them our best punch and they took it and they still won the game. And what are the odds that we're going to dominate a team that dominate, I feel like, is a little too strong for game one, but we're going to control a game against a team as good as Florida again like that.

Right. And we couldn't even get the win out of it. So two things on that. One, watching game two of the NBA finals on Sunday night, there was a lot of talk like the Celtics shot rather poorly in that. game and still won by, I think, seven or eight, something like that. Like, not a huge lead, but comfortable. And they, and that's with them shooting poorly, right? And, you know, coming out of that game, everybody was saying, like, that's a game

Dallas has to win because the Celtics aren't going to shoot that poorly again. Right. Right. And now the Mavericks are down to O in that series. So it's kind of a similar thing, although, obviously, the games are reversed. But the other thing about that is, you know, a lot of talk about how the Oilers dominated that game. And I think taken as a whole, I think that's right to say. But what they really did was dominate the first period to a crazy extent.

And then the second period, a little less dominant. And then the third period was maybe not like a straight up like coin flip toss up kind of a thing. but, you know, it was a lot, it was basically even in my, you know, recollection of it. And I think if you look at the stats, that kind of bears it out as well. And that's what the oilers pushing, you know, down the stretch and stuff. So I think, I can't remember who had the quote. But as the game went along, one of the Panthers said, like, we really found our feet. And, you know, it was, they adjusted to the long layoff better than we did was basically what the quote was.

and I looking at the stats I kind of find that inarguable and just like the vibes of the game obviously they were I think they were leading after the first period in game one but it just felt like yeah like you said the the oilers gave it their best shot in game one and didn't got out scored three nothing you know and so game game game game. too, as you say, like that's what I'm looking for. Like, can the oilers have a similar push, at least early in the game? And the answer was absolutely not. They didn't get anywhere near the net for like the first eight, nine minutes of, yeah. Well, it was scored on their first shot, whatever it was, 12 minutes into the game. Yeah. And even that, that wasn't like, oh, you know, classic oilers like applying pressure, making things look deep. It's kind of a weak goal. Honestly, it was very, very weird that two games in, this Euler's offensive juggernaut has one goal on Sergey Bobrovsky, which I guess, in a sense, is it that shocking?

Because Brobrovsky can be a very, very good goaltender. But the one goal is, as they say, had a bit of an order to it. Yeah. And, you know, from a good distance out, one of the classic, he should have stopped that. that goals. And once, you know, I'd love, I'd love to see, again, I don't have the stat in front of me, but like how long before they had another high danger chance? Well, I saw one stat that said the Oilers did not have a high danger chance in the entire

game. Now, obviously, that is. That, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to double check that. That sounds crazy. Double check it. Maybe it was at five on five, but. And that the Panthers. only had like four.

Like that was a very low event game. That game kind of stunk last night. Like we can... It did. You are correct. Five on five, high danger chances if the game were four nothing

for the Panthers. That is, I mean... I mean, that's the game the Panthers want, right? Dunningly good game by the Panthers defensively. Yeah.

That is something. You know, especially with the oilers trailing for most of the game. Yeah, shots at five on five through the first two periods were 17 to five. I mean, that's like, that's as comprehensive as it gets, folks. The high flying, high danger oilers offense held to five shots on goal in, maybe you wouldn't say must win, but like a really important game too. Really, really important.

and they just couldn't get anything going. Two, not even high danger chances. I don't want to do. I don't want to do. Like, it's a Stanley Cup final. I don't want to do the thing of like, oh, they didn't, they weren't ready to go. The Oilers weren't. Like, just give credit to the Panthers, man.

This is this. They're fucking unbelievable. Team defense that we always talk about. I was so wrong about Paul Marys, man. I can't. Do you remember we spent like that entire last season? talking about, like, what a terrible, terrible coaching change that had been. Yeah, no, I mean, what, I wonder, I wonder if now we can look back and say it's the Winnipeg of it all,

where it's like, yeah, I mean, we don't have to, we don't have to get too deep into the weeds on it. Like, that roster for a decade just hasn't been that good, you know, like, it's been good, but it hasn't been, that good and it always felt like they were underperforming or whatever but like yeah I mean he's done a phenomenal job obviously like what else can you say you know

so has those guys ready as somebody who picked the Oilers somewhat vocally please convince me that I'm I'm still in this thing well not the Oilers

forget the Oilers themselves let's center the conversation on the important thing. Me. Yeah. No, well, okay. So, I think the big thing that you might want to point to here as what could turn the series is the fact that we don't know what's up with Sasha Barkov now. And we'll talk more about like the hit in a minute. But, I mean, is that not the story here?

now? In the, I think, six days off between games two and three? Yeah, they play game three is in August. So, yeah. Uh, yeah. And we don't know anything as of, this is Tuesday morning, I think. I can't imagine we'd find out anything. Like, unless he's done for the series or something like that.

Yeah, or unless he's completely. fine, but yeah, I mean, it didn't look good. So let's talk about the hit. Okay. Leondresidal of all people comes in, gets the hands and or forearm and or elbow up. And hits Sasha Barkov in the head. Barkov immediately looks extremely. Crumples, yeah.

And leaves the game. And by the way, as Paul Maurice pointed out, leaves the game with, like, 10 minutes left in a 2-1 game. So this is not... In the third period, yeah, that's right. You know, nobody's playing any games here. Like, oh, yeah, just hold him out. You know, this...

He's clearly hurt. Now, for whatever reason, this whole thing has developed where we're not supposed to say something looks like a concussion unless it's been called that. But it didn't look like he twisted his ankle. Right. Well, I saw, I can't remember who it was, but a reporter who was covering the game was like the way he came up like holding his face or whatever. Maybe that feels like broken jaw.

Yep. That's, that is also possible. And when you, when you watch the close up replay, it certainly looks like it's straight up forearm to jaw. Yep. Which, I mean, if that's the case, then that's, that's probably good news because you can play through that. Now it's, you know, especially if it affects his ability to, you know, to eat and get his, his usual calories in that, that's a problem as the series goes on. But, you know, you can throw a full face mask on and play through a broken jaw, said the guy who doesn't write articles.

Yeah. Can you do it on two days notice? Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know how. I feel like it's usually you're out at least a little while before you come back. And I mean, how long did, uh, did Bader? miss when he had his broken jaw.

That's fair. He was, he was out for an extended time. And obviously, you know, the Blackhawks in a meaningless season are going to be far more careful. For sure. Air on the side of caution than a team in the Stanley Cup final. But yeah, it's it's

either way, it's, it's potentially a big one. What did you think of the two minute minor penalty? Yeah, I mean, that's that's fucking game manager. It's ridiculous. You know, as we're recording this, I don't think anybody's said anything about supplemental discipline one way or the other that I've seen.

Completely stunned. That's exactly right. Now. Of Leandro Seidel with his team down to. Because, I mean, game management applies the Department of Player Safety too. And series management, I guess. Yeah, no, and like, to me, I, like, if this is December, you know, he's at least getting a fine, you know. Yeah.

But I wouldn't be shocked if they gave him a fine, but who cares? Fines don't count. No, they certainly do not. I think that's going to be a suspension all day. You're targeting the head. And this isn't one of those like, well, if you. really break it down. He actually makes the slightest bit of content, like his sleeve. Is it not? I'm sure there's some Euler fan out there. Well, okay. I mean, Oilers fans are still complaining about

the fucking puck over the glass in the first period. So put a pin in that way. You didn't talk about that too, because that was also. All right. Well, but you know what I mean. Like they're, like they're saying, oh, the, the, uh, the Bennett knee on Evan Bouchard is exactly the same as, like, Like, okay, relax. Are we not watching the same? I guess we're probably not watching the same game. I was going to say, aren't we watching? We're probably not.

The, you know. But yeah, I just, like, he targets the head. And he can say he didn't mean it. It wasn't intent or whatever. To me, that's, like I said, a forearm straight in the job. He hits him in the head. Like, I mean, when you talk about targeting the head, it sort of throws some people off.

because you get into intent and then it's like, he also left his feet, but you know. Yeah. It should have been five. Should have been five. Absolutely. But because it was two to one with ten minutes left. And it's their second best player.

Yep. They weren't going to do that. Now, what was strange about it was they called it, did they call it a major and review it? I think they did. I don't think they did. No, I think they, I think they just straight up started reviewing it. Yes. So what happened is they all, it's one of those where the officials got together.

Yes. And then came out of the pile and said it's two minutes for roughing. Probably because they knew if they did call it a major, they'd probably have to, there was a good chance they'd have to stick with it, which we already did see on the kneeing penalty earlier in the night. Which to me, like I guess it's an automatic you get kicked out of the game for the knee. A knee major is an automatic game as conduct. Okay. That's what I thought.

There is no option for five and no game for neem. Other rules completely different. There is no, as I've written, there is no uniformity in how various penalties are called minor, major match, what have you. And in fact, neying is a very, it's, even for the NHL rule book, it's an infuriating rule because it doesn't say anything about what the actual difference between minor and major is other than like basically the rulebook said i don't remember the exact wording but it's like it's up to the referee based on how bad the infraction is right so there's no even injury is i know that the or even chris noblok pointed out that like you know the player lays on the ice and you know that plays it that maybe that that does play in but it's

according this is not one of those if it's an injury it has to be five sort of penalty Right. So as for the dry sidle hit, I mean, I think that's one of those where if you're a Panthers fan, obviously you're looking at that going, that should have been five. Yeah. If you're an Oilers fan, even though you know you probably got away with one as far as it not being five, you're also sitting there going, wait a second, nobody had their hand up when the play happened. Neither referee had their hand up. And this is not, because it's a minor, it's not. something that the linesman can call. Right. So what the hell were you huddling up for?

The only two people who can call it looked at it and didn't call it. And then you huddled up, waited for the replay to show on the scoreboard, listened to how angry the fans got, and decided to invent a two-minute penalty. I don't think you can get too upset on that because, you know, you got two instead of five. But there's an element of it where you're sort of like, man, they really split the difference on this one to make both sides feel like they got robbed. Right, sure, yeah. You know, you can't make anybody happy, and what's the...

No, you see, Ryan, you can make people happy. They just want consistency. Oh, yeah, no, that's true. That's all I'm asking for, man. I'm not some homer who wants every call to go my team's way. I just want consistently every call to go my team's way, and then I'll be happy. Was it Henry Clay who said a good compromise? leaves both people upset or whatever.

Was he the director of NHL officiating? Because that does sound like... The great negotiator, Henry Cliff. Let's actually talk about the puck over glass. Sure. Because I will admit, as Johnny Roaldok over here, I did not actually know how that work. If people didn't see it, it's...

The Oilers already have a power. play that has just started. And the Panthers flip the puck over the class. So if it's a penalty, the Oilers are going to be five on three for like a minute 40. Yeah. As close to just giving a team a goal as you can come. Now, the Oilers PowerPlay has lost its magic over the last little while. But five on three extended, it's going to be a tough one.

And it's, they don't call it on the ice, they huddle up, they decide not to call it. Chris Knoblox jumping up and down on the bench after doing his little stare at the iPad deal that every coach has to do these days. And the replay shows that, I don't remember who the player was, but he basically has the puck on his stick. Yeah. As he's approaching the blue line, begins to flip the puck while it is still on his side of the blue line, which is to say in the defensive zone, but the puck doesn't seem to finish leaving the stick until he has crossed the blue line. And it goes in from there into the crowd. So the question becomes, you know, we all know that the rule is automatic penalty. If it's in your zone, not a penalty two inches later,

if it's out of your zone, which makes total sense to somebody. But what, when are you in or out of the zone? I can't remember this coming up before. I'm sure it has, but. But, you know, not, and what was interesting, by the way, it was Kevin Stenland. Sure. I had to look that up, but that's who it was. I would have, I'm going to take your word for it. So what was interesting about this, though, just to finish the thought, obviously, it's, you know, it's a huge moment in the game. Yeah, of course.

It could, you know, be the, so first of all, the, everybody huddles up and everything and, you know, on Twitter, I have to post my smart-ass remark about what a great rule this is because it's so black and white. You know, isn't this the reason people tell us this is such a great rule? It's black and white. Right. There's no subjectivity. It's just all, get out of here. You know, and you kind of knew that if because this is not reviewable yet, it will be next year, but it's not now.

So it's, you know, the refs just have to make their mind up. And you kind of knew they weren't going to call it because, again, you're basically giving the Oilers a goal. for what was very clearly like a non-saint, like an accidental, like he wasn't, like most of these calls, it was pure accident. Like, it would be stupid to give the Oilers an extended five on three for this, except that that's what the rulebook says or does it. ESPN had Dave Jackson on and he says, yeah, that's not a penalty because it's where the puck, it's where the puck leaves the stick. Right. on Hockey Nighter in Canada, Ron McLean, who everyone knows, referees hockey, and he basically makes this weird throwaway reference in the intermission saying,

oh yeah, by the way, it's based on where the shooting motion starts, so that should have been a penalty. But, oh, well, tough break for the Oilers. And just like, they just move on. And so everybody up here is like, wait a second, that's like an enormous missed call if they got it wrong. and then Dave Jackson kind of doubled down this morning saying, no, it's not a penalty. It is based on where the puck leaves the stick,

which to me makes far more sense. Like, it has to be that. Because how could it be where the puck, like, you could have the puck on your stick from behind the net all the way to the blue line. It's got to be where the puck leaves the stick. So I think they got it right, but I'm still not completely sure on this incredible black and white, never any controversy rule that everyone loves. Yeah.

No, I think that's all. I mean, straight up, you know, I don't know the whole thing about like, what's funny is the blue line is kind of like this permeable membrane between the defensive zone or offensive zone as the case maybe, where it's like kind of both the neutral zone and the, uh, yeah, kind of depending which direction it goes. I mean, I would assume that it's much like, you know, keeping the puck in the zone on an offside. Like the puck has to come all the way out.

No, that's, yeah, that's what I mean. But maybe not. The other thing that was interesting here and maybe still is if this, you know, it doesn't sound like this is going to be an issue with much legs to it. But like I alluded to, the NHL decided a couple months ago that they were going to make the puck over glass reviewable. Right.

But starting next year. Which kind of leads to the question of if you've decided it should be revealable, why not just make it revealable? And I'll just say like, that's not a rule change that gives anyone a competitive advantage. It's not, you know,

nobody's out there like crap, we have to change our whole strategy because puck over glass is revealable. And it's not like it requires any new technology or, you know, something that has to be tested and put in place and like a new, it feels like the sort of thing. They could have just said, yeah, all right,

it's revealable starting tomorrow and avoided the potential for some massive call or missed call to influence a playoff series. Yeah. But what do I know? I'm not the NHL. The thing is,

it doesn't feel like the NHL knows either. Right? Like, as you say, Dave Jackson's on there saying one thing wrong McLean's on a different broadcast, saying the other thing. And you're just like, well, I, you know, it doesn't feel like anybody really fucking knows what's going on.

Well, and, and the other, the NHL could completely end this, right? They could just come out and say, this is the specific rule we got it right. Or this is the specific rule we got it wrong. But, you know, hey, that it's not reviewable and that's just how it goes. And we would all know. And there would maybe even be some credibility if they admitted a mistake or, you know, if they were very clear on what the rules and the presidents are, and then that would shut it down. But they don't do that because then they would have to do that for other calls where they

just want us all to not notice. Yeah. I will say that I think in the grand scheme of things, we are talking too much about a puck over glass rule. Yes and no, man. That was a – they were – was it either tied or they're down by a goal? it would have been a very long five on three like that was an enormous and i know there's this contingent of people who trust me if if you if you bring up any play that isn't an overtime goal

they will tell you it doesn't matter because it wasn't that didn't decide the game they still had 40 minutes they still have there but i mean as far as big calls like that's as far as like high leverage calls, that's got to be about as high as you can have at that point in the game. Sure. Well, the other thing to say, though, is that, like, this has been like a, I don't think you would have said going into, even, like, late in the third period, this was, like, a particularly nasty series. Like, I don't, I don't think anybody's looking at the, the Fogel knee on knee and going, like, oh, wow, you know, he was hunting for that. Or even the Bennett knee on Bouchard, although, you know, Sam Bennett, that guy's just, he crushed. Was it also Bouchard in the corner?

Yeah. And he also got Connor McDavid in game on with his little oops, accidentally punched you in the face move that we had seen. Which, as we understand, is totally legal. You can. I mean, as long as- You want to talk about setting a precedent. The NHL set a precedent. He's allowed to do that.

Yeah. And, I mean, I say that, but it's the N. y'all, they probably aren't going to release the definitive camera angle until a few days from now. Yeah. It's like waiting for the director's cut on DVD. You got to get the extended version. I just saw there's an extended version of the fall guy that you can get these days. Oh, good.

That movie came out like a month ago. Yeah, and eight people saw it. And apparently they were all begging for more. Are you one of the eight? Yeah. Okay. Am I one of the eight? please, man.

Don't give me, half the time I'm like, hey man, what about this movie? And you're just like, I didn't see that. I don't want to see it. I don't know about that. Half the time? Half the time. I've asked you about two movies, Fall Guy and Saltwater. Salt burn.

Salt water, I don't know that that's a movie. Close enough. Yeah, that's true. So you haven't seen that one either. There you go. I haven't seen salt burn. So you're right. It's a 50-50.

One time I went to like a test screening thing. they used they I think probably still do these in Boston and I was selected to stay after and give my thoughts on the film really and yep and it was a Charlize Theron movie the movie bombshell which wasn't very good but you know the guy was like so what made you want to see the movie and I was like oh well Charlize Theron's in it so I'm going to see it she's great and he was like well you didn't see the one with her and Seth Rogen probably nobody saw that that one. I was like, I saw that opening day at 1 p.m. What are you talking about? And he was like, okay, you know what? I have to hand it to you. There you go. You do in fact have to hand it to it. By the way, Saltwater 2000 comedy drama, an Irish Italian cafe owner in a seaside town faces a life crisis. I'm laughing already. Did you see it? You know what I didn't? Did not see it. There you go. I'll say this. 2000 predates my like going to the movies. Big ass movie fan right here, folks. That's what I'm saying. It predates my going to

to the movies like two, three times a week by quite a bit due to I was in high school. Welcome back to everyone who hits skip to try to get back to hockey talk. Where were we? Get a life. You're hitting skip on this? Are we talking about the Leafs? Yeah, let's talk about the Leafs. That's your punishment.

If you find yourself hitting, hit and skip. Mitch Martyr for Evan Rodriguez, who says no? Florida Panthers. We don't want to take on that cap hitters. know if you saw, but Gentile and I did like a Stanley Cup debate and as part of my reason for picking the Oilers,

I made the argument that Florida's depth is overrated. And my example that I use on that as more than a few people have sent back to me was, you know, do we really think this is going to be like the Evan Rodriguez series? Whoops.

Well, so it's funny. You say that. It's funny you say that. I don't remember stuff I say on this podcast like 90% of the time. I just go, oh, yeah, whatever. I'm not even paying attention. Yeah, absolutely. So for me to get a tweet in the middle of the game last night,

we have to thank at two-line pass. That's my Twitter name, unfortunately, who last week specifically went with Evan Rodriguez as his throwaway example of Panthers' depth scoring being the difference in the series. Damn. Well, well, well. Guys, one of us is smart and one of us is not.

At any given time, that's the problem. We're never right at the same time usually. You know? Yeah. It's tough. For example, I just said never usually. These are contradictory. Never, ever, ever, most of the time.

Yeah. That's the, you know, 58% of the time it works all the time. Yeah. That's basically what I just said. But in the movie, by the way, that's from a movie, which I've seen. Two for four. Mm-hmm. That's true.

We're working on with. In the movie, they're using that as an example of how stupid that guy is. Yes. So shows what I know, you know. What else is there to talk about from this game? Oh, I guess it seems like we have a couple of injuries on both sides here, even beyond Barkov. Evander Kane seems like he can't go too frequently here, but he's staying in the lineup for, I guess, for lack of better options. Yeah.

Darnel Nurse left the game towards the end of the first. period, came back in the second, played one shift, came back in the third, played two shift. Very weird situation with him. And I know, I mean, he's had a not great postseason, to put it mildly. And so, you know, we can all make our jokes about whether it's good or bad for the Oilers if he's out. But the guy's third on the team in Ice Time. So among defensemen. So is there number three defensemen at this point?

Yeah. So that does hurt if he's out. And very, because he stayed on the bench for two periods. Mm-hmm. Kind of doing the Zadano Chera, like I'm not leaving thing. But also played three shifts, including one, like, fairly late in the third period. So it's kind of like, what are we doing here? Like, you can go where you can't.

But, yeah, that could also be potentially, you know, potentially that's big. Cody Cici didn't play last night, so presumably he swaps in for his old buddy, but what, look, I know we're all, we're all bagging on darnel nurse, and I think that, like, makes sense, obviously. He has not been good, and he costs a lot of money, so, like, I get all the criticism or whatever, but, like, do yourself a favor and look up the, uh, the wowies of, uh, of, uh, of nurse and Cody Cici. It really is like, there's a problem here,

and I could tell you it's not Darnell Nurse, kind of a situation. Yeah, when they're on the ice together, they've been outscored 12 to 4 at 5 on 5. It's a lot of the underlines are significantly better for nurse, but when nurse is out there with CC, they've still been outscored 5 to 11. So the real problem is when you look up what happens when neither of those guys are on the ice, you know?

But yeah, it's tough because they don't seem to, you know, speaking of depth, they don't seem to have the options that floor, not that their floor is going to replace like Barkov if he gets hurt, obviously. But I don't know. like to me, if you're going, okay, we got to get Cici out of there. Makes perfect sense. But if you're saying, okay, now we can't have nurse or Cici in the lineup. And it's like, well, that's just not an option for you. That seems like a problem for them. You know what I mean?

Like, ideally you would be able to weather the storm without going back to Cody Cici. Yeah. And weirdly, like, they had been okay apart and then kind of put them back together for a bit. I don't know. I don't fully get it. The other thing is the reason that Nurse and Cece being as bad as they've been hasn't been disastrous is that Evan Bouchard has emerged as, like, one of the big stories of the playoffs. For sure. He had a nice assist last night on the Evan Rodriguez goal.

Yeah, that's right. But the problem with that is they play on different teams. So not, you know, again, kind of the reminder that, I mean, as far as like I feel comfortable with this guy in my own zone, it's kind of just Matthias Echcombe at this point for Edmonton. Now, all that said, they go out win game three convincingly. It's a different convo. We're all in this. Let me, what would you say are the odds?

Game three is Thursday, game four is Saturday. Game five is next Tuesday. So the next time you and I are talking on the main show, four games into the series, what are the odds that we're doing are post-Standling Cup wrap-up, four games into these things? 25%. Okay. I mean, it depends.

It really depends on Barkov. I saw Dom had his model, and he, which currently has the Panthers as 79% favorites, I believe it was, 79. Sounds about right. And he said, somebody asked him about Barkoff and he said, if Barkov's out for the series, it drops down to 73, which is both a huge drop for one player and also not as big as you would think. Right. because this is, I don't know about you, I find this always, anything that puts one number on a guy

like wins above replacement in baseball or anything else, it's always lower than I think. Sure. I'm always like, oh yeah, without Barkov, like the Panthers are way worse. And they are,

but way worse still only adds up to 6% when you're already up to nothing. But it feels like it'd be more than that, doesn't it? It does. It's funny because that's one of those stats. too where it's like it's I don't think a lot of the time I don't look at it like oh that's just like if you take if if he's not there you just take those wins off the board and they have like six for your wins that what that also means is they also have six more losses you know what I mean does that make sense mm-hmm so it's more like again let's let's just use six as an example it's more that that's a 12 point swing as opposed to uh or I'm sorry like basically a 24 point swing as opposed to a 12-point swing. Right.

Right? Am I doing this math right? I don't know that you are, but you're rolling. So I'm going to let you go with it. But I'm just saying, if you're saying this guy is worth six more wins than a replacement. In this case, it wasn't six weeks. It was 6%. But you're right.

No, no, no. I'm just saying broadly speaking. Yeah, yeah. So like basically that feels like it's more of a 24 point swing, which is a huge number. And I might be getting that wrong. I'm not, I'm not like one of these like super smart, smart about stats guys. I can like look at them and tell you, like, the idea is undergirding them. I don't fully understand, I guess I would say.

I'm going to start saying undergirding instead of underlying numbers. I like that better. Okay. Cody Cici's undergirding numbers are not great. Not a lot of support for his team, you know, that's what it boils down to. But, yeah, the thing is, so I actually didn't mean for it to even come around like this, but I thought that I wrote about this over the weekend that I thought what really was, like, the difference in game one was that Barkov and McDavid were out there.

Like, Barkov was out there for like two thirds of McDavid's minutes at five on five, which is probably about, if you're not like tying him, to the guy like every time he's over the boards you are out there you are out there too you know that's as like hard matched as you can kind of be i feel like is is about 65 67 percent and i think that's a big reason that Connor macdavid has a point and it was a point like a point in the series and it was one where he made a play a hundred and eighty feet from his own net and then Ekholm just went 180 feet and scored, you know, is that Barkov matchup. And so if you, you know, move everybody up in the lineup, I think it maybe hurts the Panthers more than that 6% swing.

I'll tell you the if and we're a million miles ahead of ourselves here, because again, we do not even know that Barkov will miss any games, let alone the series. But if he is out for the series and if the Oilers were to come back and win the series, this becomes one of the all-time big swing moments. Absolutely. In a series. And it becomes a defining moment for Leon Drysidal as well as the guy who delivered the dirty hit. Oiler fans can dispute that if they choose, but that took the other team's star player out.

Absolutely. It'll be a big one. And look, I completely get that there are people out there who are going to say, you know what? It was a dirty yet. It was a headshot. He injured somebody. You know what?

Florida Panthers, boohoo. Live by the sword, die by the sword. Totally. Absolutely. You've been this team for a few years, Now, you know, you think Boston Bruin fans are like, oh, no, your star player got taken out by a headshot? That's terrible. That's crazy. Wow.

Yeah. No, you're absolutely right that this is a potential live by the sword, die by the sword. It's an absolute live by the sword, die by the sword, but also like, that's, that's huge. We also got another weird Paul Murray's quote out of it. It's not the Oprah Winfrey show. This guy. Okay. He's going to have a freaking Netflix as a joke special coming soon.

I didn't even really get that. He said like it's not Oprah Winfrey. It doesn't matter about your feelings. Yeah. Okay. Is that like the go-to reference for being all up in your feelings? Yeah, I mean, you know, this guy's like 60. Good point.

So you've got to keep that in mind is what I think I would say. It's not the hippest reference you can come up with, certainly. By the way, I don't think you put it on the list, but I did – Somebody had the question in the mailbag of why I seem to have a problem with Paul Maurice being funny. And whether it was that I'm jealous that he's funnier than me, yes, that's the main one. But for the record, I've got no problem with a guy having a sense of humor and being – I read that as tongue-in-cheek, I'll say. But I will, yeah, and it's great.

Like, I wish there were more Paul Maris's that had more personality. I just don't like it when we do this hockey thing of something being somewhat funny, getting turned into the funniest thing in the world. It's the spicy pork all over again, except every night from the same guy. I don't blame Paul Maris for it. I just, you know, maybe the people go to the press conference could be a little tougher audience. But that's it. No, man, it's, it's, I'm sure the warm-up act is really good, gets them nice and revved up for the, for the sitcom taping, you know? Yeah, sure.

Who hears from out of town, you know? Comes in. Ah, me, me, I am. Yeah. I can't hear you. I said, are you ready to laugh? I was going to say Paul Marie should, should do some crowd work, but he did. He did that with the, what's his name?

The guy from ESPN? Yeah, yeah, he did. He did that, that whole thing. Man, this guy does it all. Crowe? You know what he hasn't done yet as proper? What do you do for a living, bud? You know? Who hears from Brooklyn?

I want to see him come out with a little chest and pop it open and be a lot of right. Hey, guys. I invented this. I invented this to help me at the airport. What do you think? The way things are going, they're going to be distributing ponchos for the front row. Big mallet. Yeah.

I'm laughing all right. Sam Bennett will fly in and crush the watermelon with an elbow and then deny that he did it. Yep. All right. Why don't we take a break and we'll come back and we'll talk about some stuff that isn't the cup final? This week's show is brought to you by our friends at game time. Those friends at game time would like me to continue to talk about the NBA finals. Shout out to the Boston Celtics, who are up two to nothing, I believe, based on my understanding.

still have not figured out who they're playing. But process of elimination, I'm pretty sure it's not the Lakers, because I would have heard about that. I don't think it's Golden State. And I feel like it's not San Antonio. So I don't know many other Western NBA teams, but one of them is in the final against the Celtics, and you'd better bear down because you're down a couple of games.

And we don't want Boston to win because we hate all Boston sports teams. Game time makes getting NBA final tickets, even faster and easier. Prices on the GameTime app actually go down, the closer it gets to tip off. Last minute deals, all in prices of views from your seat, the lowest price guarantee. GameTime takes the guesswork out of buying NBA tickets.

This is the part where I'm supposed to open the GameTime app and look through it. Shout out to everyone who made fun of me last week for getting excited about Snoop Dogg coming to Ottawa. Snoop Dog and I, true story, have both recorded in the same booth, my audio book for my history of the NHL was recorded in a booth that they were very proud to tell me Snoop Dog had once recorded in. I do not know what he recorded. As you can tell, I don't do a lot of research for these spots, but I'm going to take it. That is true. As far as what I'm excited about now, I've noticed that Paula Abdul is coming to Ottawa. I have no idea what that show would look like. I don't want anyone to tell me how old she is now or how long it's been since her last hit, but I still might go. And if I do go, and if I do go, guess what? I'm going to use game time. I'm going to get those last minute deals save up to 60% off.

I'm going to get flash deals, zone deals, all in pricing. No surprises for me. And I'm going to get that seat view that I love. So I'll know, I'll be able to visualize what my experience is going to be like. I don't like surprises when I get tickets on prices, views, anything else. And I also like that they have a low price guarantee, so I'm not going to get there and find out the guy standing next to me paid less for his ticket. There's even ticket coverage. Your purchase is covered with the most flexible customer service policy in the ticketing industry. Folks, take the guesswork out of buying your NBA final tickets, Paula Abdul tickets, anything else you want with GameTime.

Download the GameTime app, create an account, and use code Puck for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Again, create an account and redeem code PUCK Puck for $20 off your first purchase. Download Game Time today. Last minute tickets, lowest price guaranteed. This week's episode, Puck Soup is brought to you by Factor and Folk. Folks, summer's here.

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and you get 50% off your first box plus 20% off the next month. So that's code puck 50 at factormeals.com slash puck 50 to get 50% off your first box plus 20% off your next month while your subscription is active. Factormeals.com slash puck 50. All right, we're back. And let's talk about two salary cap related things. First, then probably more importantly in the grand scheme of things is that the NHL said, you know what? We're going to revise the salary cap estimate up a little higher than we had it before.

It now looks like it's going to be $88 million instead of, I think, 87 and a half or something like that. And it also seems like, depending on how things go, I saw a report that they actually might give the players even more money on their escrow. Yes. Mm-hmm. That's crazy. Yeah, that has happened, I believe, once before, but like far back. Long time ago. Yeah.

And if people aren't aware or have forgotten, what happens is the NHL and the players split hockey related revenue 50-50. That's the deal. It's a firm 50-50. But the tricky part of that. is they don't know what the revenue is going to be as the season goes on. They kind of have to guess. They have to estimate it.

And they can do that reasonably accurately, but what they don't want to have is a situation where you guess a little too high, revenue comes in a little lower, and then in theory, the players now owe you some money back. Well, what are you going to do? You're going to go to every player and say you've got to write us a check for 3% of your annual salary. would be a nightmare. So instead, they withhold a certain amount.

That's the escrow payment you hear about. And then at the end of the year, if they have hit the 50-50 on the nose, the players get their escrow payment back. More commonly, if they've fallen short of that estimate, some of that escrow remains withheld. And that's what the players get grumpy about. And that isn't just because revenue has fallen short.

it's more often because the salaries have gone past 50-50. The salary cap has not held them because of things like LTIR payments and all the different ways that teams can get around the salary cap that can add up to the players getting more than their 50-50, which means everybody gets less when it's escrow time. What you don't hear often and what we haven't heard forever until now is it can work the other way. which is when all the accounting is done,

oops, the players actually didn't get their 50%. They got a little less, in which case, everybody gets more money. The salaries you hear about for the NHL players are not firm. They're like estimates based on if this comes in at an exact 50-50 revenue split. Right. So long story short, it's good news for the players.

It's good news for the league too. The league isn't losing money on this. This means that, you know, the old rising tide kicks in. And the league is doing well. It's healthy financially, you know, whatever we might say about TV ratings or this or that. As far as the bottom line. Maybe having a team in a huge city like Miami do well is good. Yeah, maybe.

I mean, that's not what's driving the revenue here. But, you know, just because they haven't done. the accounting for that. Sure. I think having a team in Seattle somewhat successfully helps, and Vegas, obviously, and presumably next year, going from Arizona to Utah, we'll bump it up even more. But yeah, the great news is the cap is finally,

it's going up more this year than it has in the last four years combined because of COVID, which means all of your team's worst contracts and worst decisions are now fine. They're totally okay. It's good that you gave that guy. Yeah. Other teams also have the cap space to take on all your bad contracts. Yeah.

They're in great shape. They'll probably give up first round picks to do it. I mean, why wouldn't they? Yeah. Yeah, you might have to throw in a fourth or a fifth or something, but, you know, hey. Yeah. It's the cost of doing it. I'm willing to do that.

If HF boards has taught me anything, I'm willing to give up a fourth round pick to balance this out. Mm-hmm. The other thing with the salary cap that's in the news this week is that the Washington Capitals apparently are purchasing a little website called Cap Friendly. Yeah, this sucks, man. It does. It certainly does. Because, of course, once they are purchased, Cap Friendly will shut down and become or will no longer be publicly available. I believe they said July 5th. Yeah.

Yeah, this certainly sucks. We talked about this on the bonus episode we recorded yesterday. But here's why I think it benefits the capitals. Like all these teams, like I've seen a lot of people say, what benefit did it? Surely they have their own internal cap-friendly equivalent. I wouldn't be so sure about that. I know one of the things they said in, I think it was Elliot's reporting on this,

was that like a bunch of teams that were paying to use Cap Friendly's API, which is for people who don't know is like they have access to the data in a way that is usable for their purposes, as opposed to just like going on the website Cap Friendly and seeing what's there. And so they had a bunch of teams, presumably, like, I don't know the numbers for sure, but, like, presumably I would think most of the teams in the league, if not, like, the vast majority were paying cap-friendly to use their API so that they could, like, build their own tools or whatever. and I don't know like that that like to take that away from from the other teams maybe does give the capitals a competitive advantage now obviously it has a bad effect on you know people like me and Sean or just like you know fans of any given team or whatever yeah um but anyone who needs to know anything about the NHL needs to know

cap related stuff. Yeah, absolutely. And like there are, Puckpedia has their own, like, frankly, less good version of, of cat.

Like, there's a reason cap-friendly is, like, the name in salary cap info. Right? Um. So good for them getting,

getting paid. Yeah, awesome for them. But, of course. Not great for the rest of us. And, I mean,

look, an alternative will, whether it's Puckpedia or, you know, I've already seen references to other things starting up. I mean, in a perfect world, the NHL would do it. I made it funny. I made a funny about the NHL.

Now who's making movie references? Caring about the fans and yeah, it's well, no, the thing is you're forgetting. Gary Betman put the hammer down on this one, and he said,

fans don't care about this stuff. So, you know, why are we talking about it? Doesn't make a lot of sense. Yeah, I don't know why I keep bringing it up. And, like, personally for cat, like, cap-friendly, I used it for cap numbers, contract info. Yeah, of course. They had a bunch of other tools that I know people used

or didn't use or, you know, whatever that will be missed. but to me it was just it was a great source for a lot of stuff that I needed to know. Yeah, and we got to... I think the thing, the reason cat friendly was so good is that, like, they were getting this info basically as soon as these deals were coming in, right? Like, it was very rare that you'd see like, oh, you know, this guy signed an extension. Yeah. It's seven years, six million dollars.

but there's other stuff we don't know like trade like they just had everything right away and so like whoever was leaking that info to them or however you want to say that providing that info they might be inclined to do that to for somebody else of course but we're going to be coming up on a decade of cap friendly right so like yep it was there in 2015 that cap geek the original yeah um kind of pass the torch to to cap friendly so It takes, I mean, it's, it takes time. Like the initial version of cat friendly wasn't, you know, as good and, you know, full of features and that kind of thing as it is now, obviously, right? So it's a loss for the, for the hockey community, let's say, big time.

Yeah, it is. Absolutely. So, I don't know. I mean, again, good for them, but bad for me. And I'm more important than them. I think we're... 100%.

The other thing to say, though, and I made this point on the bonus episode yesterday, I think that there is a... There's a secret second motive here, which is that I meant to look this up and then I didn't do it. But the guy who owns the capitals, Ted Leonis, he also owns the Washington Wizards. And earlier this year, I'm trying to find the exact date here, but earlier this year, cap-friendly launched an NBA version of Cap-friendly called Salary Swish. And it's not, what do you want to say? It's not like 100% as good as cap-friendly just because it's newer and there's a lot more ins and outs, let's say, for the NBA salary cap as there is the NHLs. The NHL's a lot more.

If you think the NHL salary cap is complicated, oh, my God. Look up what a bird year is and then fucking get back to me, okay? Mm-hmm. It's insanely complicated. It drives me nuts when people say that it's complicated. Like, this is baby's first salary gap. 100%. A hundred percent.

What other leagues have. But with that being, it seems like salary switch launched in September. So like right before the NBA season, basically. And so like, this is also a tool, a tool that they can, that they can use internally. You know, I'm assuming they're not going to keep. salary swish public but you know uh cap friendly private you know so i'm assuming that there's just that little extra uh financial umph and and like organizational uh benefit to making this purchase that i hadn't heard other people talk about so it's a good point yeah that's all um so yeah

Like you said, I don't begrudge anybody. Like, I think it's smart for the Capitals to do this. I think it's smart for Cap-friendly to take some money for this. And I think it sucks for us. Yeah. Think about that. Sounds about right. Yeah.

Speaking of another guy who owns both an NBA team and an NHL team, Ryan Smith's beloved Utah Hockey Club is down to six options. for their team name. Now, Sean, I want you, we'll go one at a time. I want you to give me like a letter grade for how you would feel about this being the team name. Okay. The Blizzard. C minus.

Don't love it. You know, I think we already have enough storm related names in sports. I think, you know. think this one hit because there's the two Zs like the jazz. I hadn't thought of that, but I don't know that if you're trying to build excitement around your sports teams, I'm not sure that multiple Zs is the way that you want to, do you want to make that your logo? Watching the coyotes now, you want to talk about multiple Zs.

Nah. Come on now. Come on now. Okay. The mammoth. I'll give that one a B. should be mammoths plural. I would have gone to B plus if they pluralized it.

One billion percent correct. I do like the idea that we'd have two different animals from like the early Holocene, you know, that'd be pretty cool. Okay. Between them and the predators, and the predators are of course named after a saber tooth tiger, you know. But, yeah, the fact that it's not pluralized is extremely fucking annoying. Yeah.

I hate that shit. It's so easy to pluralize it. Just do it already. Wait, is this something we looked up already, like the plural of mammoth? Yeah, we had that whole discussion, and I don't care. No, it is. Yeah, the plural of mammoth is mammoths. So, yeah, they're doing this to piss me off specifically.

It seems like. The only plural name in the bunch here up next, the Outlaws. Yeah. I'm going to go B.

I don't love the name, but just the fact that they pluralize it, I'm going to say B, maybe even B plus. I think while the name is like very XFL to me,

like it's very like third trial. starting an arena football league to me. I think that you can really get some good logos and stuff going in a way that like Blizzard or the one that we're going to talk about next. Maybe you can't. But yeah, like, I don't know. It's the best of the bunch for me, but not by.

much. Or that's not true. It's the best of the bunch by a decent margin, but I feel like that's damning it with faint phrase. Does that make sense? Mm-hmm. Yeah, okay. What about the venom?

See, don't like it. I, look, I think this is the second worst of the bunch. There's a worse one. All right. But I think this one sucks. This is bad. Because, like, the logo is going to be like a rattlesnake or some shit like that. And it's like, so just be the fucking rattlesnakes.

You know? Like, they're not going to, they're not going to have like a a drop of liquid be, you know what I mean? Be like the logo. I hope not. Although, hey, it worked for the oilers that one time, didn't it? It kind of did. Yeah. So, so like this, this to me is, is the worst of the, like, actual team name stretch. Uh, but, by a wide margin. Okay.

I think you're being generous with your... What did you... I think I said C, yeah. Yeah. I think you're grading on a real curve here is my... What about the Yeti? I don't mind the Yeti. A-minus.

I think it's my favorite out of the group. Again, if it was plural, I'd be with you. It should be plural. The fact that it's not makes me... sick to my stomach. I can't fully explain why I would prefer this to be plural, but it doesn't bother me as much as Mammoth, not being plural. And I would crumble under 30 seconds of cross-examination on that, but it's how I feel. And as a wise man once said, feelings can't be wrong.

Feelings can't be wrong. The thing with Yeti, I think the reason that you think it sounds better than Mammoth is because, you know, cacti, octopies. pie, you know, like there are words that are plural that end with an eye. So I feel like that, Yeties feels less right than Yeti. Like in terms of, the plural of Yeti must be Yeti, you know? Yeah.

But the fact that it's Yeties, that means it shouldn't be Yeti. And here's the other thing. Goes without saying. Colorado Avalanche kind of make Bigfoot their whole fucking deal. don't they? Or part of their deal? Yeah, but they don't really commit to it. They kind of do, like,

they put, like, the foot on the patch, but... And they had a Yeti mascot for a while. Now they have the St. Bernard. And now this other team's coming in, like, look, man, you didn't... Look, if Colorado, if you like Bigfoot, you should put a ring on it. You didn't.

Now, here comes Utah. Mr. Stelio Beast. Also, Utah Yeti, I sounds... It kind of works. It's semi-aliterer. I'm, I'm, sure there's a there's a name for like it sounds alliterative but it's not yeah and look i'm i guess i guess it would be assonance because it's a it's a vowel sound but anyway um the other thing about

this i've said this before i'll say it again yet he is not endemic to north america this is stealing uh valor and not and not putting proper respect on the uh the saskwatch Okay. Tell me I'm wrong. I can't tell you right. What is Yeti? Yeti is the Himalayan version. Huh.

All right. And again, like, I don't think there are, like, man ape myths. I could be wrong. Sounds like you do. Sounds like you're... I don't think there are man ape myths about that part of the country. There might be, but I'll tell you this. If there is, they're not calling the fucking Yeti.

They're calling them something else entirely. I think it's wrong to do this. Folks, you listen to this show, you're going to laugh. You're going to pray, but you're also going to learn. And really, those are the big three. You can't get me started on cryptids, man. I'm going to get mad about it. It's that simple.

I love a cryptid. All right. And finally. It's a lot to your favorite pick on the list. Yeah, the Utah Hockey Club. Fuck you. Shut off. Get off.

That sucks, man. Revoke the franchise if they go with it. A hundred percent. Never have you said anything more true than they don't deserve a franchise if that's what they're going to call it. Hurts to C. Yeah. There's nothing else to say on that one. D minus minus minus.

How's that not an F, man? F, yeah. If we have F minus minus, see me after class. We think maybe young Ryan needs to stay back a year. whatever the most failing of the failing grades can be. You know, I said it before. Something makes me sick. Them being the Utah Hockey Club would make me sick to my stomach.

Yeah. I don't feel so good is what I'd be saying every time. Look, people might remember, I hated the name Cracken. I continue to hate the name Cracken. I think it sucks. With that having been said, Cracken would blow Utah Hockey Club out of the water. water, buy a lot. Yeah.

And again, the plural of Cracken is apparently Cracken, so I can't even ding them for that, you know? I think it's crack eye, but. That's where you're wrong. Okay. Yeah, Utah Hockey Club, like, what are we doing? You've got to come up with a name for a team. This isn't fucking, here's the thing. When we say, like, oh, fucking Liverpool, everything.

or Manchester United or Real Madrid. Like, the reason they have those names is because they were founded before the concept of a team name really existed. Right? Like, these are all like 100 plus years old sporting organizations. We're past it. As a society, we're past the need to call things stuff like that. Unless we're doing the MLS thing. Here's the deal.

Which is just pretending we're like an old league with history. You can call them the Utah hockey. club, but you have to use 100-year-old equipment. Your goalies have to have giant brown pads. No face mask? Nope. Wooden sticks. One solid with sharp rectangular edges.

All of that. You want to be from the 1920s? Do it. Yeah. That's exactly right. It's a pathetic. A pathetic. like non, we don't want to offend anybody.

We don't, you know, that kind of bullshit. Like, it's so focus grouped to me that it's just like, yeah, like you said, they don't deserve a franchise, but that's what they land on. And I'm like pretty sure that's what they're going to land on at this point. Oh, you see? Because, well, my thinking is this. Basically, they're going to play next year as Utah Hockey Club. And we've seen some maybe possible logos.

Is that fair to say? I have not, but... Oh, they're just kind of like powder blue and... I like the color scheme, if that's the way they're leaning. But the reason I think this might be like the clubhouse front runner and they might be doing... They might be juke in the numbers, maybe. is because when they come into the league, they will be known as the Utah Hockey Club.

And then, like, they're going to go. And next year, of course, will be that what they'll do is they'll say, look, our fans already know us this is the Utah Hockey Club. What would be the point in changing it now? It's the branding so strong already. The thing that scares me is the 80% of their fans that are cool split the vote between the five

actual team names and the 20% that are hipster idiots unite behind Utah HC and this is why democracy doesn't work. This is why your first pass the post system has to be done away with.

Yeah. We need ranked ballots. Ranked choice voting. Look, you walk up to anybody around like let's say 2016 to 2018 you walk up to anybody with a

clipboard there's like a 65% chance that person is trying to sell you on rank choice voting that's right and you're just like yep no I agree in principle should have listened to them

I agree in principle you're right do I need to make that my whole thing like you seemingly are no I'm good I have other things to worry about anyway one other one other bit of news that isn't directly related to general managers.

We'll cover those in a minute. Is there was a report this week that they might cut the NHL draft to just four rounds? Your thoughts? Had not really thought much about it? Sure. I mean, there are certainly players who get drafted after the fourth round who go on to become something, but let's be honest, a lot of that, it kind of becomes luck for the teams doing the drafting. Totally.

You know, and we're not, to be clear to state the obvious, like, this doesn't mean you only get four prospects a year. Like, this doesn't do anything to reduce the flow of players into the system. It would just make more of them free agents and less of them, you know, you're no longer beholden to the Ottawa senators for the first. eight years of your career because they took you in the seventh round. Right. I guess I'm fine with it, especially since the draft as like an event is no longer going to be a thing after this year. True. Let me ask you this.

How many players in the league do you think were skaters, or skaters, I should say? Goalies obviously, they're a little more frequent in terms of their. Yeah, that would be interesting. It would kind of make goalie drafting. even more I wonder how it would affect that skaters let me skaters

who played at least 30 games this season so there's about guys who are at least semi regular or so were drafted rounds five through seven

I'm going to say 50 guys no it's actually a little higher than that it's 77 which I wouldn't I'm a little surprised by and that obviously

doesn't count undrafted players okay um but the a huge percentage of those are fifth round picks. Once you get into six or seven, give me one second.

Sixth or seventh round, there were only 45. Still a little bit higher than that, would have thought. But again, nothing to say, you know, that, oh, so, you know, we don't have Joe Pavelski. Yeah, you do. He just is a free agent signing with San Jose instead of a seventh round pick. Yeah. And it should also be said that I, just looking at it and eyeballing, it really quickly. It looks like a pretty healthy

percentage of these guys are Europeans. And you know, like those guys will have more of a chance to prove themselves at the professional hockey level than a lot of North American sixth and seventh rounders.

Like a higher level, I guess I should say, you know, just because you know, they can play pro at younger ages over there and that kind of thing. So I don't know. To me, I'm just, I think it makes sense to, like you said,

give players the flexibility to open the, open up their services to more teams. I think that's the reason, obviously, I don't know if we said this. Apparently agents are pushing for this. And that makes sense. That they would want that, that they would see it as being better for players.

Now, again, like, if we really want to make it good for players, there's no draft at all. And, you know, you open it to the highest bidder, basically for Macklin Celebrini or whoever. But, oh, speaking of Celebrini, did you see the video of him finding out he's not six feet tall at the, uh, at the, uh, no, I saw a reference to this. It's funny.

Yeah, because they were talking about like, like, what, did he come in at like 5.11 and 5.11. Like, like, eight, two or what? Yeah, like it's, it's razor thin margins, but, you know, it's the classic thing of like, if you're not six feet Tall, you might as well be 5-4 for all the NHL cares. Yep. So it's pretty funny. And also he's 17, so. I'm sure his Tinder profile still says 6-4.

Well, you know, like it's just one of those things where it's like, give him two weeks and I bet he makes up that last 0.12 or whatever inches that he needs to get to six feet even. But yeah, that's just a funny video. Yeah, all the draft, the combine stuff happened this past weekend. Everybody, you know, got their, oh, I guess we had this question in the mailbag, but we can do it here. Did you see that Utah was asking guys what their, what their like Uber score or Uber rating is? That's always a fun story every year, right?

Like the weird questions. Here's the thing. I saw a number, I'm not the first, like this is an original thought, but like, it is. It is just kind of like a good way to be like, are you an asshole? Yep. That's like the question in our mailbag was like, what would your question be? And this goes back to a thing that I have ranted about. I would ask the person, tell me the last time that you had to give somebody a rating and you gave him less than five stars.

So Uber driver, anything. Tell me the story of that. and that's either they're either going to tell me a funny story about like a waiter dumping a bowl of soup on their head or they're going to reveal that they're an asshole or they're going to say I'd never give less than five stars because I'm not a monster of a human being right but if they go like oh I gave like my uh you know my customer service guy like three out of five last week because you know he was kind of a little bit slow I just immediately take them off the draft board yeah so I don't need that energy that that's exactly right my friend

franchise. I was in a coffee shop the other day, and the woman in front of me had like a $20 order. And, you know, the little thing's like, oh, you know, what do you want to tip? Like 15, 20, 25. And she typed in like, I'll make my own tip. And she put in $1. I was pissed. Why?

Like, just don't tip at that point. Yeah, right. What a nasty lady. Anyway. Well, yeah. You jumped in and tipped. double to make up for it. I put 25

that after that, yeah. You have to. Got it. You got it. Yeah, absolutely. But yeah, I thought that was actually like a sneaky good question after the initial like people saying that it happened were like, why would you ask that? I was like, it makes perfect sense why you would ask that. Because like, is anyone going to be like, honestly, I'm like a 3.8?

Totally. I like, I do a lot of vomiting. Uber's and, you know, like, I feel like even the dumbest guy out there is going to, like, sniff out this, this trap. Well, I can't remember who it was. I think it was, I think it was Lefshunov, maybe, who he was like, I don't have an Uber score. I take my bike everywhere.

Big time respect, brother. You just shot up my draft board once again. Yep. I thought that was cool. Yeah. Oh, the one other thing I wanted to just mention very, very, briefly is the the ASL thing.

Oh yeah, I didn't see this. I saw people talking about it. Yeah, well, I didn't see much of it either. But so the NHL has on, I believe it's on ESPN Plus and Sportsnet Plus. You can get a version of the league that, or a version of the final that's done in American Sign Language.

And I just wanted to mention it because obviously I don't use sign language, I don't, uh, any of the subtleties and all of that would be lost on me. But I've seen in a few different places, people saying that this was actually really,

really well done. That it was even, even beyond simply just showing somebody doing sign language, that there was like a meter on the screen to show like how loud the crowd is because that's cool that we use. And like even like they had like some icons, like emojis and that to show like if the crowd was reacting in a particular way. Anyways, I just want to say it because certainly, like, we dump on a lot of the NHL, including a lot of their inclusivity and hockey is for everyone type efforts.

Rightly so, I would argue. It sounds like they kind of hit this one out of the park. So I didn't want to mention that. Like, good job to all involved and something that, you know, a little bit of, I'm sure it's been done to some extent in other sports, but, you know, this isn't the NHL following. along 10 years late like they usually do. This is them kind of taking a lead on something. Good for them. Yeah, no, that's cool.

Can't crap on them when they screw up and not mention when they apparently do something really well. Sure, we can. Good point. All right, Katie, delete that part where I said nice things about it. All right, we'll be right back to talk a little more about GMs. This week's episode of Puck Soup is brought to you by Raycon. And folks, you've heard me talk about at length about Raycon.

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You go to buy raycon.com slash puck today and get 15% off your Racon order plus free shipping. That's right. You'll get 15% off and free shipping at buyraqon.com slash puck. Buy racon.com slash puck. All right. We're back. A bit of awards news came over the wire last night.

And that's the Jim Nill is the back-to-back GM of the year. Back-to-back, baby. I got to say, you know, whether, I think he's personally, like personally, is he my GM of the year? I might go Bill Zito, I think, you know, kind of for the exact same reason. They have a pretty similar track record. But, well, first of all, I guess not because Bill Zito's team has been to two straight cup finals and Jim Nills hasn't.

But the thing is, I think that if you're saying like this guy's the best GM, it should be a thing that you're judging over multiple years. Of course. And so for a guy to win back to back, makes perfect fucking sense. Why doesn't this happen more? Yep. Well, but the weird thing is, it is, this is the second time in recent years that it's happened. This is a new award, remember?

Lou La Merello won it twice. I want to say 19 and 18 and 19, I think. Yeah, something like that. So it's happened, which makes sense. But meanwhile, the coach of the year has not been won in back-to-back years since the 80s. Jacques de Meres was the last coach to be good at his job two years in a row. Yeah. A shorter time frame for a coach to have an effect and all that, but kind of weird.

Kind of weird that, you know, one award has clearly evolved into the Who Surprised Us and the other one is. Now, the other part about GM of the year, we have to say, is that unlike all the other awards, they vote on it after two rounds of the playoffs. so it's always just three of the four guys from the final four. Right. But, yeah, sure, Jim Neal, why not? Yeah, no. If you had a brand new franchise and you could hire any GM. Is Jim Neal your guy?

Like, how high up the list? I feel like he's high on the list. He'd be pretty high up there. That's an interesting question. I don't know that I know the answer. Like, I'd have to really sit down and think about that. Like, nobody super jumps to mind. as like lock it in let's go you know like

this guy this guy's the genius of the league like I don't I don't know that there really is like a definitive one and the way that there is like even with a coach I think there are two or three guys where you're like okay well obviously like John Cooper give me John Cooper all day long you know yeah I mean I feel like the last time there was

kind of a consensus like this guy's a great Yeah, Jim Penning. Jim Benning, obviously. Steve Eisenman a few years ago. Yeah, for sure. And then... How's that Eiser plan going, though, I wonder.

Have some patience, Ryan. Okay. It's only year eight. So, you know... It's only year eight. Remember when Jim Nill legitimately tried that? He's like, look, I've only had nine years to build this team up. You know, what do you want for me? Awesome.

So sick. One of the best to ever do it. Anyway, let me ask you this. We were talking about this on the Puck Soup Discord this morning. At what point does, like, a guy become kind of like an automatic Hall of Fame? We were talking about this vis-a-vis Connor Hellebuck because he seems like he's about to win his second Vezna. And this is a guy who, in like a seven-year span, has either not gotten much in the way of Vesna. consideration or been in the top four.

I think it's two wins, one second, one third, one fourth in a seven year span. And it's like, is that, um, is that basically like lock it in Hall of Fame stuff? And we're getting this conversation in part two because like if Sergei Barovsky wins a cup, he's got two Vezna as he went to another cup final, feels like he should be in the Hall of Fame at that point, right? Where does, where does that kind of? consideration come in with a GM? Like, are we going to be, you know,

10 years from now, Jim Nill's retired and he's been out of the league for a minute? Are we going to go like, well, look, Jim Nill won two GM of the Year awards. So he should be in the Hall of Fame. In the way that we are with goalies or guys who win multiple Norrises or MVP. Hard to say, of course,

there is no GM category for the Hall of Fame. It's builders. Yeah, you're just a builder, right? I mean, the closest comparable would be coaches where winning the Jack Adams really doesn't seem to have much effect at all. But how much does winning the Jack Adams more than once have an effect? Well, famous, I mean, very few guys have. The only guy to win it back-to-back ears is Jacques Demers, who is not in.

That's true. The only guy to ever win it three times was Pat Burns, who famously took way too long to get in. You're right. Mike Keenan maybe only has one. but he's another guy who's not in. So it's weird. And I mean,

part of it is the fact that they call it a builder category. So you're like, wait, are we supposed to be looking only for people who have built up the game or like, how does that work? Tough to say.

So yeah, we don't know. A lot of the GM stuff, certainly you see the old boys club kick in to an extent. And the other thing is, it doesn't even have to be when he's retired because there are what

three active GMs in the Hall of Fame right now? Yeah. Ler L'Amarillo, Jim Rutherford, who I guess isn't a GM right now. I feel like there's one more. Ken Holland? Yeah. Ken Holland. That sounds right. So, you know,

there's no, you can be active and get in. So I don't know, man. It's a weird figuring out which players are locks and who's going to do this or that can be tough with Alexander McGilney being exhibit A. Boy, for the builders, it's just, who knows.

And women, obviously, they're just aren't enough good ones. That's clearly the... I mean, so here's the thing. We say it's a new award. It's been around for like 15 years at this, 14 years. Started in 2010. Oh, wow. Started in 2010.

That is both longer ago than I would have thought, and also 2010 being 14 years ago is... That sucks, man. Anytime, like, when I think of like 2016 or whatever, and I go, oh, yeah, obviously that was like, what, two, three years ago? And it's like, no, we're coming up on a decade, big dog. You got to really wrap your head around the passage of time here. It sucks. Yeah, I'll just read you the list of guys who won the GM of the Year award.

It's a fun list if you go down. 2010 Don Maloney. Remember the coyotes went to that? Right. Well, 2020, they didn't go to the final until 2012. Is that right? Yeah. Wow.

So I think that might have been more of the, like, you are the GM for the bankrupt team that nobody else here would want to do your job. The inaugural winner, though. Yes. 2011, Mike Gillis. Hard to argue. The Vancouver Canucks had a lot of success around that time. then Doug Armstrong. Okay.

Then Ray Shiro. Okay. Then Bob Murray. Then Steve Iserman. Then Jim Rutherford. David Poyle. George McPhee. Don Sweeney.

Lamarillo twice, as you said. Sackick Mill twice. Right. So, I mean, you can kind of feel them flailing around trying to figure out what the award is. Because some of those are lifetime achievement kind of deals. some of them are just your team did well this year. I mean, like George McPhee winning in the first year of the Goldenites was, yes, sure. Nobody's going to dispute.

Hard to argue. Yeah, it's a very silly award just in general. Yes. Because like what did Jim Neal do in the last calendar year? Considering he was already recognized in theory for everything that came before. He brought in like your Logan Stankovans and Stankovans. Yeah, but they were already in the system, right? They were in the system, but now they're in the NHL.

I'm like having a good. Yeah, right. Oh, yeah, sure. The other thing that's funny about this award, to your point, about flailing around, the two teams that won multiple cups in the like mid-2010s, early to mid-2010s, no L.A., no Chicago for GM at the year. That's extremely funny. Did a bad job. They only won five cups, like basically back-to-back to.

Back to back to back to back, right? Yep. I mean, is Stan Bowman not winning, you can kind of understand because the perception, especially among the old boys club, was at Dale Tallinn built that team and then got. So why didn't Dale Tallinn win one at some point, you know? Maybe. Because the computer boys. The fucking computer boys. I forgot about those guys.

Hey, speaking of computer boys, there is now one running an NHL franchise. Reportedly, yeah. Has it been made official? It has not been made official, but the way it's being talked about. on various podcasts and like on, you know, sports net or whatever, like they're just lock it in. This is done. I don't think it's been made officially official. But Eric Tulski, I guess not really a surprise is the GM now of the Carolina Hurricanes.

Hell yeah. Good for him, man. Yeah. The first, the first official nerd to, to. Kyle Dubas wore glasses, man. You know what? And I don't think, I don't think. Tulski does.

It doesn't. I don't think. I never seen it. I never seen him do it. So now look, maybe he's got some cheaters for, you know, reading in the big chair. Now that he's got the job, he can pull them out. He can pull out the coat bottles and be like, I've needed these so bad for the last. And he puts them on and adjust them and then goes, oh, our goal tending isn't as good as I thought.

Uh-oh. Oh. Wait, that same percentage, I thought that was a nine. That starts with an eight. Oh, no. Oh, geez. Yeah, good. That's a great, great story.

Guy working his way up and just, you know, kicking him out and respond along the way. Literally started as a Flyers blogger. There's hope for me yet, you know? I feel like I met him 10 years ago at a draft party. Yeah. Might even have been I had a puck daddy boy, speaking of things from forever ago.

That boy, like you say that? Yeah. That was a fucking long time ago now. That was six or seven years ago that they stopped doing puck daddy. Yep. So that was, it was a while ago.

And, uh, yeah, he was like, I'm the guy from the Flyers blog. But I'll probably be an NHLGM someday. And you, and you said, okay, buddy,

have another one, you know. Exactly. No, it, it's truly crazy. I've known, I've known Eric for a long time.

And we were, once we were peers, you know. Yeah. Not so much now. And he left you in his dust. Yeah, it made me look like a fucking idiot. More so than usual, which is saying.

Famous tweet, you know, to paraphrase is Eric Tulski dust it off his rearview mirror. Get ready. You and I. Well, here's the thing. Waving. Eventually that rearview mirror tweet came true, didn't it? Kind of did. You have not, there's no kind about it.

One team's in the cup final. The other team is the Calgary Flames. So get ready, Oilers fans. I guess that's it for the show this week. Okay. I guess I'll let you hit us with some plugs. I'll let you. I don't know why I said it like that.

You know what, Sean, I'll be very beneficent here, and I will save you. I will allow. I will grant you. You have 30 seconds go. Find me at The Athletic. All my stuff is there. I will be on with Sean Gentilly tomorrow. We're also live blogging the Stanley Cup final.

So I did games one and two. Other Sean is doing games three and four, and then that might be it. But if not, I will be on for game five, come join us, hang out. So you got the Florida home games, it sounds like? Pretty much, yeah. That's fun. Over to you. Oh, okay, sure.

Yeah. Patreon.com slash puck soup is we mentioned, it's top of mind because I mentioned the bonus. episode. What we did in honor of the wonderful services cat friendly has provided over the years is we put every single what we call Red Arrow contracts. That's a contract of six years or more. We put them in a tier ranking. Every single one. I think there was like 64 of them, something like that. So nice long bonus episode for the people. And I think we had a lot of fun doing it. It's gotten a lot of good feedback. So, yeah, check it out. Like I said, patreon.com slash puck soup. And of course, we mentioned the combine earlier.

We got the draft coming up in a couple of weeks here. And no better time to head over to elite prospects, get the draft guide. It is, I think I said last week, like 1,300, 1,300 pages, something like that. extremely comprehensive, you can be the king of your friend group in terms of prospect knowing, which is very important, as we all know. So head over there, use the code, I love EP when you sign up for an annual subscription and they will give you 15 months for the price of 12. By my count, that's 25% extra. Just something for you guys to think about.

And that's it. We're done. We're going to go over. We're going to do a mailbag over on that aforementioned Patreon right now. Thank you so much for listening. And like Sean said, we might be looking down the barrel of a Stanley Cup final that is over by the time you hear us again. Could happen. Thanks for listening.

And we'll catch you next week. Bye bye. Bye bye.