Puck Soup - Will It Last?

Episode Date: November 22, 2022

Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slap shots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to what if you commute. We also cover movies, TV shows, it's and tunes. It's your weekly bowl of hockey and nonsense. I'm Ryan Lambert from EP Rinkside. I'm Sean McIndoo from The Athletic. And let's start out talking about the World Cup. sure i i just i just got done watching i think it was like denmark versus tunisia yeah that's right

it was those two come uh countries uh the absolute like this was the game where you know how people talk about all soccer's boring nothing happens it's all just passing the ball back and forth this was the game they were talking about a scoreless draw fun yeah yeah yeah really dull stuff so let me get the straight so you get like all the countries that are good at a sport together and like they send their very best players and they like compete and the whole world pays and that sounds cool that sounds like it'd be a neat thing yeah now what if i told you uh that you couldn't do it every four years okay yeah what if i told you uh that there really aren't enough countries that are good to justify having say even like eight full teams there okay okay what if i told you uh

you couldn't actually even do it like under the auspices of like a non-commercial but commercialized isn't the right word but like a one that doesn't even have like a veneer of I don't know like you know humanitarianism almost you know where it's like oh the the world's coming together for this

what if it felt like just a totally joyless cash grab that you're basically like not allowed to have fun with and the result was a foregone conclusion for one country I mean if I'm Gary Betman I'm sold like that you just you just checked all the boxes on my list right there well I'm happy at joyless cash grab that's yeah that's right I'm happy to do it

but hey at least at the hockey one they'll sell beer and not have slavery Well, yeah, but also they won't have the tournament because... Well, sure. Yeah. You know, win some, you lose some, I guess. Yeah, exactly. So you get the pluses and minus.

So you get the beer, but not the tournament. So you drink low, is what I'm saying. You just sit in an empty room and you drink. So I guess the real question here is like, I understand you're not a soccer man. I am, I, I try to. Like, are you a soccer guy? Like, are you, I mean, you just watched that game. I'm not, uh, I'm not like an absolute like, I got to watch the Premier League all day on Saturday and Sunday.

Okay. Yep. However, I really love what, like, what, like, what, I watched three games yesterday, you know, mm-hmm. Um, there is, there is like a romance to the World Cup for me that, like, kind of just, even the Olympics, it doesn't really exist. The Olympics, there's like too much shit I don't care about. Yeah.

You know, it's like, am I really going to care about like rhythmic gymnastics or what? No, you're not going to ever get me to do that. Sorry, they're twirling a fucking baton with a big ribbon on it. That's the dumbest shit I ever heard in my life, you know? So, but like with the World Cup, it's like, no, we're doing like the one, one sport. You like it. There's at least some sort of a balance of power. You know, where it's like, yeah, is England going to win group B?

Of course they are. England's going to run away with group B. But, you know, then they're eventually going to have to go up against like other, like, world powers in a way that, you know, is Canada going to run away with group A in the next Olympics or World Cup or whatever? Yeah. And is anybody going to really challenge them? I mean, Sweden might give them a game. what I mean, whereas, like, you go, oh, well, Germany and, like, Spain, Spain's not great this year, but you know what I mean. Brazil, like, they're going to be there.

So, like, even if, even if we feel like England is, you know, this, like, superpower of the sport, which they are this tournament, I don't know about, you know, generally, I wouldn't say so. They're in a lot of ways, the maple leaves to contextualize it for you. Uh-oh. Or they talk a lot of a lot of shit, the big game, you know, all this kind of stuff. And then when it comes right down to it, they're like, no, but we definitely are going to blow it for sure. No question about that. I mean, it's coming home and all that. Yeah.

So I don't know. Like I'm not a sicko, but I do love the World Cup. And, like, I love any big sporting event. Yeah, sure. Like big legitimate. Like if I like I don't watch college sports, but right if it's like a big bowl game or Sweet 16 or something like I will watch that just for the the drama and like when it comes to soccer I'm I'm not a fan but I get that everyone in the world is and so it's a me thing not a the sport thing.

Yeah. Well like I guess let me put it to you this way. Does does the fact that Canada is finally involved? Does that, like, give it any juice for you? Oh, yeah. You're going to watch the Canada game. Huge. I mean, I was, I watched.

Watch them get destroyed by Belgium. Yeah, sure. Like, I watched some of the qualifying, and I wouldn't, I mean, I would never watch. I don't even understand how World Cup qualifying works because this seems to be going on perpetually. But, yeah. Yeah. Like, I mean, my whole life since I, I mean, they were, when I was a very little kid, they were in the World Cup last. Right.

And. 36 years. Is that what they said it's been? 86, I think it would have been. So yeah. So yeah. That sounds right. And didn't score a goal in that tournament.

So it's like, no. The expectations for Canada are like, if they score a goal, that will be enormous. And the, you know, the ride to get here has been great. So yeah, I'm, I'm interested. I don't understand it. I'm, you know, I sit there and watch and just kind of react to what's happening without, you know, understanding. Like, not just that the actual tactics on the field, but even just the concept. I will say the only, I try very hard not to be like the stereotypical guy who does North American, not a soccer fan guy.

Yeah. I do got to say, though, when they roll around on the ground, I'm like, come on. Yeah, that should be solely the provenance of Mike Ribero or a guy who gets lightly high stick but goes to the bench, like tapping his mouth. three seconds and being like, oh, I know there's got to be blood cover. Yeah, okay, but imagine if that guy instead just like lay on the ice for like eight minutes, acting as if he had never suffered pain like that in his entire life as an athlete. As you're watching a replay of him not remotely getting hurt at all. Well, I guess what I would say to defend that, and obviously this is like a huge,

this is like a huge thing anybody, whoever doesn't like soccer has said, right? but you ever see the size of these guys' legs? These guys all have legs like Samoa Joe, right? And so when like you, a guy with those legs like steps on your foot and he's running or whatever, that really does fucking hurt. And it's not like these people are wearing pads or whatever. Does it hurt like childbirth for 10 minutes and then the pain instantly goes away because that's the reaction? I need some of this magic spray that they come out and they, they spray. your leg and then you're like, you're fine.

It's awful. I think, look, sure, but all. It's the reason why I'm like, you know, people always get mad in the NHL when they're like, somebody got fine for diving. There's a lit, like, I think the list should be bigger. There should be like, we should relentlessly mock everyone who dives and embellishes in hockey because this is what happens if you let it go completely out of control. and I got to say like I

it's the one thing I hate about soccer and I'd be so glad if they never came to the NHL. But I will say just in advance when Canada does it tomorrow, it's totally fine. It's just this is how it goes, man. It's the sport. What's your problem? When I said earlier, like Canada is going to get killed

by Belgium tomorrow. Like I'm not saying that to do like the fucking sleeping giant thing or whatever. Canada is probably going to lose to Belgium by two or three goals because Belgium is one of the best teams in the world. world. Okay. Right? And what a lot, like Canada is probably the second best team in that group.

Like them in Croatia are kind of on even playing field, I guess, to a certain extent. But like what you're about what a lot of Canadians who are casuals like you are about to find out is what Americans started finding out, I don't know, like 20 years ago and like America really started to. I mean, look, they went to like, I think the quarterfinals in, in 2002, right? But there is a difference between being like one of the good Concaf teams and being actually good, if that makes sense. And so like, frankly, it's a little shocking the candidate that didn't make it earlier just because of like how generally bad like, you know, your Honduras or whoever are. where they're just like not particularly good,

but they're always just kind of like in third in Concca Calf, Costa Rica's another one. Where it's like they're fine, but they're not like good, good. And they always make the World Cup anyway, just because it's like, well, somebody's got to.

Now, tell me, can Canada, can we beat Croatia or Morocco? Like, can we get a room here? I think Morocco, easy might not be the word, but like Canada would be favored,

like maybe even close to a heavy favorite against Morocco, against Croatia, I think it's maybe a coin flip. But like I'm looking at the win probability right now and it's 6415 for Belgium, but the other 21% being a draw. Okay. So like I'm not, I'm not doing the Canada is going to get killed thing

because it's just Belgium is awesome. Yeah. Which is weird because Belgium has like a very small population. You know? but they have really good players like consistently they have really good players so I don't know they're not like the Netherlands or whatever

they're not they're not Germany but like they're they're not unbeatable like Argentina well yeah hey remember remember they were like oh there's going to be match fixing in the Ecuador Qatar game well

maybe maybe close but no cigar is maybe all I'm putting out there. Anyway, I'm excited for the World Cup. Like I said, I watched literally every game yesterday. And I, so I don't know. I didn't watch the Qatar Ecuador game on Sunday. But I've watched everything else. What a great way to get medium to casual fans interested in your sport.

Ecuador guitar. Yeah. To do a best on best world tournament. Oh, I see. Ah, wouldn't that be nice? Well, maybe every 12 years or so. We'll figure it out for 2028. Don't you worry.

We'll get there. Yeah, right. So, okay, let's actually talk about hockey. And, you know, look, I don't disagree. The thing that is most interesting to me this week is that, like, the trade rumors are finally really starting to churn around the league, like in a real way. and it seems like every single trade rumor is about a defenseman. What are your thoughts on where things are generally speaking in the league vis-a-vis the trade market?

Yeah, this is sort of the time of year where I think this is somewhat typical in that it's nobody's panicking over offense because this isn't an offense-based league. And also, goal scoring is really high this year. Goal scoring. Everybody's scoring, like, there's a lot of four-one games or whatever in the league this year. Ooh, four-one games, yes. And goal-tending is just...

I didn't mean that as a dig. You know what I mean. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Goaltending is just weird and kind of... I don't think too many... You know, he might have that goaltending early on, but nobody thinks that there's a lot of goalies on the market. So it ends up being defensemen.

And this year, there's, you know, particularly because of contract situations and a few others, there's some bigger names out there. And Jacob Chikrin is supposed to be back this week. Yeah. Which will be big because up until now, he's been sidelined with injury. I didn't. This is going to surprise you. I didn't watch the Predators Coyotes game. So let me, he did play last night.

Did he? Okay. Look at that. He was a minus one to two penalty minutes. This kid stinks. Hmm. Okay. I did not,

I did not know he had played. Yeah. I mean, why would you watch a Predators' Coyotes game? That is, you want to talk about sick, oh shit. Yeah.

That would be real sick, oh shit. If you were, if you were like a non, like a neutral fan, and you're just like, you know what? I'm going to tune into this Coyotes game.

Mm-hmm. But it's going to be pretty good. The Coyotes got out shot 4527. Is that good? They are just going off the, Game 7, I believe, of a 14-game road trip. Yeah. You talk about fake seasons.

This coyote season is fake. And they're happy to have it. They're thrilled with it. Yeah, it's right on time. So, yeah. So Chikrin coming back, looking healthy and everything, that helps you. The other guy that's really interesting to me is John Klingberg, because I don't even know if he's bad, but like the ducks

are terrible. We'll talk about that. We'll talk about that in a bit. But like how much does this bring his value down? Yeah, look. Let's go get the best defenseman from the worst defensive team in not just. And isn't even the best defenseman on that team. Yeah.

Well, yeah, fair, fair question. But I mean, this is one of the worst defensive teams of the era. And I mean, he was, that seemed like such a. smart signing for those guys when it didn't you know cling to won it the long term deal didn't happen lock him down one year pay him a high cap number who cares right it's

it's one year and then you're basically getting half a year cling burden and then a first round pick you figure yeah deadline and now I don't know yeah he is he's got one goal through 19 games he's

I mean, minus 11 plus minus. Not a great stat, but all the numbers bad. But all the numbers bad for the whole team. I'm looking at his player card. 80th percentile offense, second percentile defense. Is that good? I mean, that's better than like a whole percentile. Yeah, there's a whole one percentile who's worse than him.

So can't beat that. Yeah, no, it's really interesting. because, like, on some level, this is tanking his trade value. But this is what I kind of wanted to talk about here is, like, all the Eric Carlson, Matt Dumbah, Jacob Chickren, John Klingberg, like, these seem to be the big targets on defense that, like, are, you know, likely to get traded or feel like they could get traded or whatever. I'm not super sold on Carlson moving anytime soon for obvious reasons. But I look at all these guys and I go, what is a team? going to give up to get a John Klingberg? Because it's not going to be a first round pick this year.

It's not going to be anything fucking close to it unless it's like lottery protected, I guess. Yeah, well, I think at this point, we can just assume every first round pick that gets traded for the rest of time is going to be lottery protected in some way. Yeah, it wouldn't be the worst idea anybody ever had. That's for sure. But yeah, I don't know. Like I look at this and I go, who, like, what does? the sharks think they're getting, okay, I guess let's just talk about Carlson to Ottawa as like the big rumor that because people are like, I feel like I've seen him playing in Ottawa before. Yeah.

You know, like it's really that fucking simple. And I guess obviously, and again, this is a thing we'll talk about later. But the senator is fucking awful, right? They can't, they can't keep the puck out of their own net, which is what everybody thought was going to be the problem this season. Anybody who was like, oh, some were Pierre, some were Pierre. Did they get any fucking defenseman besides Jake Sanderson? No. Well, not really, no. Nope.

So they very much didn't. And the other thing with Carlson that is interesting before we pour cold water all over the idea of him going back to Ottawa is like he did, he forced his way out of Ottawa. largely because he hated the ownership. The relationship was broken as far as him and the front office, but through. The owner was the issue. And that's with new ownership on the way, Eugene Melnick out of the picture, what have you. Yeah, from what I'm hearing, he would be, it wouldn't be shocking if he, he's got the no trade clause, but it wouldn't be shocking if he was willing to come back.

He still has ties to the city. Sure. But what I'm... Yeah, go ahead. He's got an $11.5 million cap here. How do you make this work? And what are the senators given... Like, even if they found a way to make it work,

they pass them through four other teams to all of whom retain 50% whatever, right? You can't do that, but you know what I mean. What are the senators giving up to the sharks to... Like, because, again, we're talking... We're talking about a situation where the sharks aren't going to want to be on the hook for $1,000 or $5.5 million or whatever it is. Any percent of this contract, you would think, for another four years. Three plus this one, I guess. Yeah.

Like, why would they want to do that? To get out from under a bad. I mean, I mean, I guess. If I'm Mike Greer, I'm, like, Carlson's been fantastic. this year. He's been one of the best stories in the entire league. Yeah, awesome. I love Eric Carlson, one of my favorite players of all the time. Would probably win the Norris if we voted for it right now. But like if I'm my career, in the off season, when I'm looking at my team, you know, remember, they gave away Brent Burns for nothing. Pretty much.

Yeah. I'm looking at Eric Carlson going, I can't even give this guy away for nothing at 11.5 million. Boy, I hope he has an insanely good first month and that could drum up enough of a market that I can move quick and move on from this guy because, I mean, it's one thing to be overpaid at when you're older, when you've had injury problems, all of that stuff, let alone for four more years. But I mean, look at Eric Carlson. Like, let's go back on the timeline here. It's 2018, I want to say, Drew Dowdy signs his extension, gets an $11 million cap hit. the year after Eric Carlson signs his 11.5 million.

Now we think we've now established the market for a top end defenseman. It's 11, 11.5. Look at the contracts that have been signed since. Yeah, the entire rest of the league goes out. Those are rules we don't have to actually play by. The entire rest of the league decides that a top tier defenseman is worth 9.5 million. That's basically whatever. I don't think anyone's got more than 9.5.

Charlie McAvoy, yeah. Yeah, other than Zach Werensky got 9.5 inch change, and that was like the Columbus tax. Right. There's, and I know people say, well, you know, COVID and the cap didn't go up. And the cap didn't go up, but the cap didn't go down either. Like, the entire league just went, looked at Dowdy and Carlson and went, that's a 20% overpay. Even if they are playing at a McAvoy-Marer level, let alone for guys that are signed well under their 30s. Like, I think if I'm the Sharks, like, I'm, there is a number where I would be willing to retain and move Eric Carlson while getting essentially nothing back.

Well, okay, so it's interesting. I don't know what that number is. It's interesting you say this because I'm looking at his cap-friendly page right now. He is only playing for $2 million this year because he got a $10 million signing bonus at the start of the season. over the summer or whatever. So the rest of the money actually owed to him is mostly in salary and not signing bonuses. So, like, I don't, I think it works out that the sharks wouldn't be on the hook for, like, these huge checks that they have to write, like, they have the last few years. Because the first four years of this deal, signing bonuses, 11, 10, 9, 10.

Mm-hmm. Next, next four years, one, one, five, six. Okay. So you'd rather, like, if you're the senators and you have new owners coming in, I guess you'd rather say, look, we got this good defenseman. You know, he's a little on the older side. But we don't actually have to pay him that much, you know, relative to what his cap hit is. Well, but, I mean, you're still paying him. Like, he's, as far as dollars going into his pocket, it's still 11.5 next year.

Now it's right. It's a salary. But then it's going down. the last couple of years. I'm really interested in that because I wonder like, because here's the thing. Look, Melnik was a cheescape and Melnick didn't have, you know, he wasn't willing to spend on the team. And with him gone, you hope that changes. But there's still a small market team. Like, it's, this isn't like, oh, okay, Bill Wirtz has gone and now the Chicago Blackhawks can start really flexing their financial muscle. This is, sure. They're still Ottawa. They still

play in a half empty building. They still with very cheap tickets and all of this stuff. So they also have a lot of good young players, some of whom are already locked in the long term deals, but some of whom will still need them. They haven't resigned Alex to Brinket. Like,

you know, from a cap hit perspective, it's questionable. I'm just fascinated by the ownership because there's, I could see two different things. I could see somebody saying, the most likely scenario is the board or whoever's overseeing things now in the process of being sold, saying, no, we're trying to sell the team.

You can't go out and get an asset that has $40 million left committed to it. Like that's just don't. I wonder if you went to them and said, hey, if we bring back arguably the second most popular player in the history of the franchise, doesn't that raise the value of the team? Doesn't that, you know, and if we can do it in a way that makes financial sense, is that not something we go and look at. I just don't, I mean, I don't see how it makes sense. You're talking about the most, the highest paid defensemen in the history of the

league going to a team that has cap room, but just doesn't have the budget for big ticket guys. I just can't see how it makes sense. I think it makes a lot of sense for San Jose. Like I said, I would, I would get, I would be willing to retain and get nothing back to get out of this contract from a guy who is, what, 32 years old, 33, and has four full years after this one. Yeah, that's, to me, this is the moment where you strike. This is the, he had a hot month. Let's get out of this if we can. For sure.

But this is the interesting thing to me, right? And I wrote about this, this week is like, oh, we, we, everybody was so fucking hyped about what the Ottawa senators could be this year. And it turns out, uh, just because the owner you doesn't. you don't like isn't around anymore. The team still sucks. Yeah. Right.

Now, they don't suck as bad as the record would imply, certainly. But at some point, I mean, the ground they would have to start making up. And I, you know, I don't think they have the roster for it is,

you know, this is impassable terrain, right? Like, and so to give up futures for, for Eric Carlson would seem to me to be like, a GM trying to save his own ass. Honestly.

Which is the other piece of this that could come into play. And so like if you're if you're getting Jacob Chikrin, it's like, okay, he's 24, 25 years old. He's signed very cheap for another four years or, well, you know, relatively cheap, I guess. What is it? Four more years for Chikrin? I think it's, I think it was four years when this all started. So he's, he might be down two or three. Again, I'm on cap friendly.

could just look this up. So two after this one. He's got two after this one, locked in at 4.6 mil. And he's 24 years old. Like that's at least you could sell that as he's roughly the same age as a lot of the quote unquote future core guys, you know,

whereas if you bring in Eric Carlson and then like nothing happens, which why would it? Because, you know, even if he keeps playing as well as he's played, like, Maybe you get playoff relevant-ish, but not really. Mm-hmm. And then what happened?

But relevant-ish does help a lot in Ottawa right now. Like, the frustration level of this fan base, given how this season is going, is about to tip over. Well, they got a, that's because all those people got suckered. They're like, oh, we sign close your room. We're trying for Alex to break it. All our problems are solved. Did you see the piece that was going around on Twitter by a website called the Beaverton, which is sort of like a Canadian onion?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it was like senators, nobody thought the senators were going to be good this year, says senators fan who spent entire summer saying the senators were going to be good this year. Right. No. And again, like, I think there was plenty of reason to believe that they would take a step. And I think there was plenty of reason to believe that they would at least like, Yeah, like I always thought the, oh, they're competitive at the deadline, like playoff competitive at the deadline.

That felt overblown to me. But like, I didn't think they would be this bad either. No, this is like, and again, this is what happens when a team comes into a season with heightened expectations, probably overblown expectations, fails to meet those, isn't as good as they thought, and gets really crappy luck as far as their results. Like, they should not be six wins in 18 games. Right. But should they be 10 wins in 18 games? And they're like 10, 6 and 2 or whatever? Like, no, of course not.

And 10, 6 and 2 would probably, you know, I'm not looking at the standings right now. But like that feels like it has you whatever around like the Islanders or the Rangers, right? And I guess we don't need to talk about the Rangers too much. Like, isn't it interesting how, uh, how like they didn't take that big step that everyone decided they would when they beat four third string goalies in the playoffs, you know? Um, but I don't know. I, I just look at the senators and I feel like there's kind of no way out for this team that that makes sense at this point, unless you're getting Chikrin and somehow not giving up the

moon for him. Yeah. And you're not. Because Chikrin is the guy that you're going to pay legitimate assets for. Yeah. Now, we should say with senators, they do have, like, the farm system is good. It's not great anymore simply because guys have graduated to the NHL. But they have been really good over the years at stockpiling picks and turning those picks into decent prospects.

And not turning those prospects into great, like good NHL players, I guess is ultimately the problem for them. Well, I mean, here's the thing. You look at the senators and you're like, okay, the team is disappointing. who are the guys that have disappointed? And other than De Brinket not scoring, and that's been largely a percentage thing, like Brady Chuck looks fantastic, Giroux's been good, Tim Sto's been good,

you know, Jake Sanderson's been really good. You go down the list, it's like you look at the top six or seven players on this team, and you're like, all the guys that were supposed to be good have been pretty good. And then it's like you get down to like seven through 20 and you're like, oh, these are not good players. Right.

I think, I guess my point about the- And Josh Norris being heard, obviously. Obviously, yeah. But, like, again, like, does Josh Norris have this team winning four extra games or whatever? I don't think so. But I guess my point, when I say, like, these guys aren't, they're in kind of that, like, early stages, Nico Heeshire zone where it's like, the hype is there. And, like, they look good, but they aren't making a difference either.

Right. You know what I mean? And look, when Nico Heeshire signed that extension, I was like, oh, this kid's going to be awesome. And now he's awesome, right? Like, you know, you can look up the fucking article I wrote that I was like, I love Nico Heeshire. I'm so excited for what he can be. But like the Ottawa senators are two or three years behind that curve right now for me. I mean, being two years behind the curve of the devils doesn't seem too bad at this point.

but I think you really hit on the, the two confounding factors here are the ownership and Pierre Dorian's job security. Because I don't think that, I think absolutely, like if I said it before, like you're almost to the point now where if you're a senator's fan, you're starting to think ahead of like Connor Bedard

and guys like that. And, and, but if you're Peerodorian, you're sitting there going, if it's Connor Bardard, I'm not going to be the GM making that draft pick. Some other dude is going to, in my job is going to be up there going, we take Carter and being all happy and posing for photos. And you know what?

Maybe I trade some prospects and picks to make sure that does. To me, that would be like I get why he would do that. But to me, that would be psychotic. Like absolutely crazy. Yep. So I guess, I guess one last thing on the senators here. And then I want to talk a little bit more about Chickren and Matt Dumba. I guess my thing is like the horse is out of the barn here.

And if the GM's going, I'm not going to fire the coach. I'm not going to fire the coach. But we did just lose five one to the sharks. And what's their record? Two, seven and one in the last 10. Like these guys are awful or the results are awful. The results are awful. Yeah.

And here's the thing, though, is that goal difference is getting worse. Like it was one of those things where, oh, they, were on the wrong side of a lot of one-nothing games. Yeah. They're losing by... Yeah, they're losing by multiple goals more and more often. And all on... And the thing was, like, a week or two ago, we also said, you know,

Cam Talbot's just coming back from injury. So if he's really good, that fixes... He's been fine, but he doesn't look like he's going to be the answer. Right. But I guess my point is to sit there and do... And spend a year or, you know, four months or... whatever going summer of pierre they got it all figured out everything's coming up senators all of a sudden and then for that g for us to legitimately be sitting on this podcast a month and a half into the

season going surely they got to can this guy if they if they keep fucking losing like it just goes to show how much i guess like people don't pay attention and they just go well the guy the guy uh uh you know he he he improved one area of the team you know what I mean like I honestly again we said it on this podcast like they'll be better and we were wrong about that but like people were like this is a playoff team yeah look how many goals they're going to score with uh with uh stutzla and and uh and jeru and all these guys it's like the ottawa senators you again i think i think there was a lot of magical thinking around uh the owner we don't like he's not the owner anymore

And the checkbooks are open. And you know what? At the end of the day, man, like if you're a fan, it's supposed to be fun. You've got to squeeze some optimism where you can. I don't blame any fans for getting on board on having some good news in the offseason for a change. But it's not there yet.

And I really think the, I think DJ Smith is a good coach, but I think that you look at this road trip they're on. But I don't know. I don't know how much longer this. less. Especially if they've got, I'm assuming if they're in California,

do they have the ducks? Yeah, I would assume so. Let me. They've got Vegas next than Anaheim, L.A., so it's a tough road trip. I mean, you lose to Anaheim, a team that has literally not beaten anyone in regulation.

So no real wins on the year for the ducks. Yeah. Which is insane. Yep. Man. That's, you know what? Senators will probably beat the Golden Knights tomorrow. Right. But I think this is legitimately a situation where like even if, let's say they go two and one or whatever the rest of the way on this road trip. And let's say they even beat Vegas, which like Vancouver almost last night before Vegas was like, I forget that. No, no, no. Yeah. That's not going to happen.

Yeah. Vegas is like we changed our mind. Yeah. It was fun playing with our food for a little while here, but now we're going to eat. But yeah, like even if you. go two and one. Like, is that going to be enough to save DJ Smith's job? Should it be? I don't, you know, who I guess ultimately it always boils down to who's going to do a better job with this roster than he has. But on some, on some levels, and like the senators are not hiring Barry Trots for five million years. Sure. But on some level, too, it's like, does it matter who does the job here? I don't know. Anyway. Sorry, Ottawa fans. I mean, what do you want us to say? It's got dark real quick.

This team sucks. That's not my fault. Might be. Well, I mean, again, if everybody had just listened to us at the start of the... I was more optimistic than you were on Ottawa. I got to say, I wasn't... Drinking the Kool-Aid, huh? I wasn't, well, no, but I was...

I still... I thought playing... I thought meaningful hockey in March was realistic. And right now... I thought... That was realistic but not the most likely outcome, if that makes sense. I was like, oh, whatever, I didn't think about it this way. But like, did I feel like there was maybe a 20% chance that they're hanging around?

But I, look, I guess my point is I always just looked at the top four in that division and was like, well, I don't, I don't see a path forward here. You know? And so, and here we are mostly, obviously, obviously Florida is struggling, which again, who could have seen that coming with the coach they hired this summer in the resident? But yeah, the other two guys I want to talk about, I guess, real quick here and we'll move on to something else, is Matt Dumba, who, like, the Wilder maybe starting to put it together a little bit, but not too much. And Dumba's a guy that's been in trade rumors for a couple of years now, and nothing's ever really come of it. But last year of his deal now. But now he's a pending free agent, and they're a 500 hockey team. It's shooter get out the point time for the wild and dumbbo.

And I guess what's interesting to me about it is this is a team that has showed it's not afraid to make like ballsy moves of late under this GM, you know? So if they continue to be 500, you know, I don't know. They don't have the easiest stretch. I mean, they have Arizona and Anaheim mixed in. but like Winnipeg, Toronto, Dallas, Calgary, Edmonton, those are some tough games. It wouldn't be, it wouldn't surprise me to see them continue to kind of bob along, like right on the surface level and not really get anywhere in the standings.

It's, it's, it is tough. You look at the, the central, I mean, they're in the mix there. Central kind of stinks this year. Well, the central, it kind of stinks. and also, but it's weird, right? I mean, Dallas is in first place. Do we think Dallas is that good? Maybe.

I mean, we're 20 games in. It's them or Colorado, right? Colorado's been good. Well, Winnipeg has, you know, the record's very good, but you're starting to wonder and, you know. Well, we'll talk about Winnipeg later, too. The blues just insane. And the blues are maybe what you're sitting there if you're Bill Garran with the while going, even if my team falls behind.

Like, I don't know, the blues in the wild feel like they've been sort of neck and neck for the last few years. like they're similar teams and so you're sitting there going I mean if the blues can lose eight in a row and then roll off seven straight why can't we have that hot streak for two weeks and we're right back in it I still feel like Dumba's closer to the deadline guy

unless somebody really blows him away but I do think it's looking more and more like he is the deadline guy and somebody will give up a lot for him like that's a playoff contender will convince themselves that they could use a player like that. Yep.

And yeah, with Chikrin, it's kind of the opposite where it feels like Arizona is going to want to get out from under that whole. No, obviously not the contract or the player or whatever is the problem, but like the situation is the problem. And who, you know, who could ever blame anybody for wanting out of that? And that was one where Bill Armstrong did like have some comments where he was like, look, once he's back in the lineup, I, we don't necessarily have to wait around. Yeah. It does sound like they're ready to be. Like, you figure some, a lot of teams probably would want to see proof of concept. Like, let's see him out there and healthy and looking like he's fully recovered.

And then, all right, let's get this done. Especially if you're Arizona, you don't want Jacob Chikrin in the lineup for another three months helping you win games that could knock you out of from 32nd down to 28th. Sure. It's just like playoff teams, playoff bubble teams want to move quick. lottery bubble teams might want to move quick, too. Yep. And so, like, again, it feels like they're going to be asking for the moon for this kid. And understandably so, I guess, you know, and excuse me, in terms of how he's perceived and maybe not how he played last year and now he's been injured for the last little while.

This is a kid, I don't know. For me, I look at Chickren and I'm like, has this kid ever, like, been healthy for a full season? No, I'm looking at it now. Apart from the 56 game season where he went psycho mode and scored 18 goals, he's never played a full season. He's never played more than 68 games in a season. And so I don't know, like if I'm looking at it. What's that?

Including this one. Including this one. Right, exactly. Yeah. I'm looking at this as kind of maybe a little bit buyer beware just because, yeah, he had that one insane insane season and then you know last year he wasn't very good um and and and you know in his career you were always like oh like he's got he's got a little bit of upside to him and blah blah blah but like if he's 24 and he can't stay healthy and how much are you i guess that's

my point is how much do you give up for a player like that even when when he's healthy he's good but maybe not as good as the hype. I really don't know what the answer to that is, and I don't know what Arizona is looking for, if that's the case. You know what I mean? I think given that the guy is under contract cheap, and young enough that, like,

I think they should be asking for a lot. And I said last year when his name started to float out there, I was like, this is a decoy. This is a way to get the phone ringing, but I don't see why they're going to move them. Now, I'm this, and maybe that was true last year, but then in the off season where he's like, yeah, I want out of here. Now you kind of have to. Yeah, you have to.

They've been talking to teams about them for a long time. They should have a really good idea who's motivated and who wants to make it happen. Who's in, who's out what the market is. Now it's time to get it done. Yeah, I'm really interested to see where that ends up. But, you know, you could tell me checkering ends up on any one of like nine teams. And I go, oh, it makes perfect sense. Everybody wants it done.

There's no, like, how often are we looking at guys going, well, this guy's available because it's a rental, because he's overpaid, because of this or that. Like, with Chikrin, even given that you're- Because he said he doesn't want to play for his employer anymore. That's why he's available, yeah. Like, this is a guy, like even given that, yeah, you're right, he's probably over, a little bit over-hyped because of the big year, a couple years ago. Like, good value. I mean, he's making, like, fourth defenseman money. You can absolutely, they should get a lot for them.

Yeah, but I guess, again, like, what is a lot when everybody's like, oh, no, I couldn't give up my first round pick this year? I mean, I think you're doing a lot. You're starting with a lottery, well, yeah, a lottery protected first or, you know, top five or top 10. Next year, you're actually good too, but it's not because. Prospects and that sort of thing. Like, yeah, I think you're absolutely doing that. If I'm talking to Ottawa, I might be sitting there going, you know what? I want your 2024 unprotected first.

Or I want, you know, or you do it. You say like I want a top top 15 protected pick this year that slides to next year. You know, because I know Pierodorian is like, man, if I'm still bad, 2004, it's not my problem. I'll probably be, I'm more likely to be working for the coyotes and the senators by that point. So I might as well. Yeah. And then everybody can do the Ron Francis thing or whatever, like sleeper agent. Was that Ron Francis?

Yeah, the Ron Francis trade. Yep. Yeah, okay. Great. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There you go. All right.

Let's talk about one other thing here, and then we'll take a quick break. Shane, right, they finally sent him to the H.L. They found a way to do it. Which is confusing because he's not allowed to go to the HL, but he is because it's like a conditioning. Yeah, they scribes. them five games in a row and they were trying to do that before it felt like, but then they put them back in the lineup because I think somebody got hurt or something like that. But now it kind of lines up almost perfectly where at the end of this two weeks, they don't

have to make a decision because the Hockey Canada World Junior Camp opens. And he'll undoubtedly make the team and he'll go to World Juniors for a month. And then when he comes back, they'll go, well, can you? Kingston, you should have worked out that trade to fucking Kitchener or whatever. I don't know who's good in the OHL this year. But, yeah, it's interesting. Now, he could still go back to juniors, though, right? It's just, yeah, yeah.

It's the whole, like, burn a year. Right. And the issue has always been that they apparently, or at least the thinking is they don't want him playing for Kingston because Kingston sucks this year. And so the idea that this kid's just going to, like, toil thanklessly. Like, it's a little bit like the Connor. I don't know if you're keeping up with Connor Redard's whole situation, but his team is awful and he's still doing this. Like, they don't have a lot of talent around him.

And he's still doing what he's doing. And so, you know, if he was on a team that was like actually good, he'd be putting up four points a game or whatever, but like nobody on his team can convert. all the chances he creates for them. And so it would be a little bit like that with Shane Wright. And so the thinking is that Seattle wants him traded to like a competitive OHL team so that he can be in productive situations, play in games that like actually matter.

And that sort of thing. And I'm assuming his OHL team is going, well, we can't trade him until we know he's coming back to junior. Like, who's going to give up a lot for Shane Wright? And then there's two goals for the Cracken and they keep it. I think there's a push and pull there where on the one hand, the Cracken are going, we're not sending him to you because you guys stink, work out a trade for him. And then, you know, probably they would, like the thinking is they would send him back to juniors.

As soon as they go, oh, he's on Team X now, you know? Right. But, you know, would King? to actually do it because then, you know, unless they're getting like an insane haul, which happens all the time in the OHL, like good players get traded to good teams. And they're like the good team is like, yeah, we're happy to give up our next four first round picks or whatever for this game. But yeah, so like, I guess, I guess when it comes to the player himself, what would you be

hoping to see, like for his benefit. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's, he should be in, he shouldn't be in Seattle. Let's put it that way, right? Absolutely right. Yeah. This, this has been a mess. I think the loophole of letting him go to the HL for a couple weeks is probably a good one. That's where he should be, except that there is the, you know, there is a rule.

And I understand why they, they had the rule in place with. with the CHL where they, as a developmental league, they want guys who aren't good enough for the NHL to be in junior, whatever. So, I mean, this is, they're probably, they've screwed it up until now, but I feel like now they've done the right thing. Get them down to the HL for two weeks, then let him go to the world juniors, hope that he lights it up, finds his game, you know, gets that spark back. And then I probably have him go down to junior at that point.

Certainly don't have them hanging around Seattle playing six minutes a night being a healthy scratch. Yeah, that sucks. Now, the one thing that is interesting that Jeff Merritt pointed out is that it's the two weeks in the H.L. is the maximum. Yeah. Because it's conditioning. And then between that and the World Junior camp opening, there's only one NHL game. But what's interesting is who that opponent is. Did you see who they're playing?

I did not. No. it's Montreal funny and as Merrick said like do you think Shane Wright would like to play against Montreal

like do you think if there's one game on the schedule that he wants to play do you think it would be Montreal so do you let him play that game as he's probably

last NHL game of the year this is the interesting thing to me is um do you think that any of this is

fucking happening if the if the Crackin aren't like vaguely okay and hanging around in the standings. You know, if they, if, I don't think there was a chance they were going to be like as bad as they were last year just because like the goal tending was like absolutely unsustainably bad. But like they're sitting, they're sitting, it looks like second in that division by points percentage right now. Right. And so if they weren't playing, you know, quote unquote meaningful hockey games, they have twice as many wins as regulation law. right. So if they are playing meaningful hockey, they got a plus nine goal differential,

whatever, do you think Shane right is even in this situation where he's playing six and a half minutes a night or whatever the number is? And, you know, he's only played seven games or whatever. I think my feeling was always that he was just kind of there to, you know, play lower line minutes and kind of sell the team to people. Right? Like, like as a purely as a marketing gimmick almost. Mm-hmm. And then they were like, oh, it turns out winning a bunch also helps. So we don't have to put this kid who's not good enough to be in the NHL on the roster.

But also, like, again, they don't want him in Kingston and he's too good to be playing junior hockey. Yep. That's the dilemma. So, I don't know. Like, it's really interesting. I think that if... But you're right. No, if they stink.

then they're probably happy to play him. 12 minutes and led him. Unless he's really just getting crouched out there, which case he sent him back to junior. And I don't, is why I'm surprised they haven't done that yet. Right.

But yeah, it's just, it's just because the front knacks are bad. Anyway, yeah, I'm happy for the kid to just be like, finally, there's like an actual path forward.

You know? Mm-hmm. Like, that is, that is, uh, This has been a mess and it's time to fix it. Yeah.

Yeah. Boy, seven games. He's played like 57 minutes in the NHL in this much of the seasons past. It's crazy. Yikes. Yeah. Feels really irresponsible. Anyway, why don't we take a break?

We'll be right back. This week's episode of Puck Soup is brought to you by Athletic Greens and folks. What do I always say when we talk about Athletic Greens? I only started taking it because they sent it to me. I never thought I was like a supplements guy or whatever, you know, and then they sent it to me. It was free. And I said, why not give it a shot? It tasted good, made me feel better, all that kind of stuff.

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And we're just going to look at some things that have been maybe a little surprising in the league to start the year. And we'll see if we can come to a consensus on whether it continues to happen or doesn't. it's that simple. Sounds good. So they won last night, of course, but the problems the Calgary Flames have had this season do they last? They're in a playoff spot right now,

but they have a negative goal difference. Jacob Markstrom hasn't been very good. All the guys that were supposed to make up for the offense they lost, kind of aren't doing that. Yeah. So what do you think? A slow start and was also, injured.

I don't think it last. I think the flames are a good team. I think it's normal to expect when you have that much off-season change that it maybe takes a little while for everything to gel. And the key that you mentioned, Markstrom not being good, I think he's a good goalie. I think he gets back on track. I don't think we're going to see an end result like last year where Calgary was pushing for the top of the conference. But I think they'll be fine. Yeah. I think they'll be fine is about the best way to put it.

Like, they're currently in eighth in the West by total points and maybe a scosh higher than that by points percentage. But I don't know. I look at this team and I said it kind of all summer. Jacob Marshroom is a goalie where I kind of feel like you don't know what you're going to get. any given year. And if he gets a lot of run out the previous year, he kind of tends to maybe not follow that up with the best play. And I think we're seeing that a little bit.

And I don't know. Like, can he bounce back? Yeah, I don't, I just, I guess my point is I don't see him as like, you know, going 920 the rest of the way or whatever. I think he can maybe get back to, a little below league average and maybe that's all they need because again they're in a playoff spot

and they're a little disappointing and people are like I guess it's fine. I mean get back into the playoffs and then be a dangerous team in the playoffs like a team you do not want to play

I think is a realistic cool right I guess what I'm saying with that is like I guess that is with it like with in the realm of possibility, but I guess my worry if I'm the flames is that I do need to start riding Markstrom, a guy who, if you ride him, collapses at some point.

Yeah. That's like kind of the given take there. I think, you know, Hubertow, again, slow start, but like I don't expect it to last. I don't know, you know, again, he had like 112 points or whatever it was last year, right? Yeah. So he's not going to get back to that, but could he be like a 70 point guy for them by the end of the year? Maybe, you know? I don't know.

I'm with you, though. I think that they will make the playoffs, and I don't know that it'll be a particularly tight squeeze for them. But this is a bit of a tough sell for me where, like, they get back to what we thought of the Calgary Flames as being last year. I don't, I don't know if I'd like. I think, I mean, and look, last year, remember, the year before last, they missed the playoffs. Yeah. So, you know, last year could absolutely, it could be true that this is a good team and also that last year was an outlier. That's kind of, I guess, that's a much more succinct way of saying what I was saying, yes.

Yeah, they'll be fine, but not great. All right. Speaking of teams that or conditions that maybe changed a little bit last night, did you see that Brad Marchand didn't have a penalty at all called on him until last night? I had not seen that until you flagged that. It's really funny. Yeah.

That's really fucking funny to me. And so the question is, does Brad Marchand end with fewer penalty minutes than Patrice Bergeron? Bergeron currently still has more than him. Yeah. No, of course not. He's Brad Marchand. He's going to figure it out at some point to use.

Yeah. And by figure it out, I mean, like, hit a referee over the head with a stick. Yeah, of course. I guess the more interesting one would have been Posternak, who has six minor penalties already. Whereas, you know, Marchand has. Gooting it up. Has just the one. That'll be a tougher gap to close.

But I think our old buddy Brad can make that happen pretty easy. I feel like Brad's going to be all right. We believe in you, buddy. Yeah, you can do it. All right. Next one here. People saying Rasmus Dahlin should be a Norris finalist. You think that lasts?

Well, it won't last if Buffalo continues to absolutely plummet. Sure. I mean, the Norris is not one of those trophies where you have to be a playoff team, but they sure do prefer it. But, no, I mean, if he keeps scoring at a high rate, As a young player, yes, I think he can absolutely be in the picture for it. I'm not convinced that that happens, especially if things are really going off the rails in Buffalo. But he's been real good.

He's been a good story this year. Yeah, I guess the thing is, you know, at some point you get into the speaking of a guy named Rasmus who plays for the Sabres. You get into a Rasmus Ristel line in situation where it's like he's getting a lot of points and he's playing a lot of minutes. But is that a net positive for the team? I like he again, he started out great. You're absolutely right. More recently he hasn't been playing great hockey. I, you know, in the, again, am I watching a ton of Sabres games every, every night?

No, I'm sure not doing that. but I, you know, I look at it and I go, is, is this guy really all he was hyped up to be? Or is he, you know, kind of what he had been? I, I tend to air more on the side of maybe he is what they've always. I mean, he was a first overall pick. I mean, it's, I understand, but like, are you going to, like, I guess my point is you can't sit here and tell me that, like, he's lived up to that hype, obviously. No. Not until this year.

Right. And then... Not a bust, but not... Yeah. Yeah. He was kind of like on track to be the Ryan Nugent Hopkins of defensemen. I think that's... I think that is a good comparison.

But like, yeah, I'm just going to read you the expected goals, uh, four percentages that he's put up at five on five over the last four games. Uh, it is starting four games ago here. 25.8, 45.4, 27.5, 32.6. Uh-oh. He's taking all water. Mm-hmm. Yep. You know? So that, I guess my question is, do you think this is more of a blip? Or do you think the first, the start of this season was more of a blip? Because I tend to lean the latter. I mean, the start of the season was a blip in the sense that he wasn't going to have like 90 points. on the season.

Sure. But I do. I'm still, I'm not selling my stock in the Rasmus Dallon breakout season, even if, you know, clearly he's, he's not going to run away with the Norris and put up Brian Leach type numbers. Which is what everybody was saying as of 10 days ago, people were like, this kid's going to win the Norris this year if he keeps this up. Yeah, if he keeps this up. If he keeps this up being very much the operative phrase.

but so I'm not sold but I think I'm much more sold than you are it sounds like yeah I like this is a guy look anytime there's like a highly like a guy that gets picked high and maybe doesn't have the best start of his career I'm always pulling for that guy but I felt like I guess I just felt like the Norris Convo really pulled into the station ahead of schedule somewhere somewhere Neil Yakopov is smiling at his I was a nail you I was really a nail a yakopopapal Apologist for too long just going like

But look there's a fucking oilers What do you want from the kid And then like you know More and more the I don't remember who it was it was it was some It was some like former teammate who was like Oh that kid was a shithead I on like some podcast

I can't remember who it was now Devin Doobnick or somebody like that maybe But yeah it was just like Oh no he played with this kid and he was like, no, everybody hated his guts, whatever. Oh, okay. Well, fair enough. I guess it happens to the best of them.

All right. How about this one? Connor McDavid leads the league in goals. Obviously, he opened up that big lead. More recently, Bo Horvett and Jason Robertson have closed the gap. And, like, you know, Austin Matthews is probably going to be there at the end of the year. David Pasternak's probably going to be there. Pasternak, I guess, is hanging around as much as anybody to a certain extent.

but what do you think? Do you think that's... I've been banging this drum. If people listen to the other podcast where we were doing Rocket Richard Odds, I said, give me Connor McDavid, because I think, and I'll say it again, I think he's... Guys like him by nature are like hyper-competitive to an unhealthy degree. And I think when he had to listen all year to people talk about maybe Austin Matthews

is the best player in the league because he can score. score goals. I feel like Connor McDavid was like, you know what? All right, you guys want goals? I'll throw, I'll just throw a 70 goal season at you. How do you feel about that? You know, you won't get there, but yeah, I still think I'm in on this. I'm in on the Connor McDavid.

Oh, so you like goals season where he just wrecks the whole league. Yeah, I hope it happens. I would love to see someone put up even seven. 70 obviously does feel like it's a bit much. But like if anybody could do it, it's I guess the guy who gets like three breakaways a game and has an insane skill level.

Yep. So yeah, I think he won't keep up this face. I think maybe like a 60 goal. Oh boy, only a 60 goal season. I think that's totally on the table. But I do think maybe at the end of the year there's only one guy in the mix with Pasternak, Matthews, and McDavid.

But I think McDavid has the inside track for sure. I'm telling you right now, 61 goals. One more than Matthews. Yeah. And then people will be like, yeah, but maybe this other guy who plays a 200-foot game and then next year, McDavid will be like, all right, I'm just going to win the silky. I'm just going to, you know, he'll just do whatever he wants to do. I think we talked about it before vis-a-vis Sid Crosby a few years ago.

Everybody's like, oh, you know, sure, he can do this, but he can't do that. And then Crosby's like, how about this? I'll spend all summer doing that one thing and getting insanely fucking good at it. Yep. People forget. Sid and Crosby has a Rocket Richard trophy because everybody was like, well, he's not a goal score. I'm a goal score. And he was like, fuck you, I'm doing it.

And then he did it. He had like a 50 goal season. Yeah. when nobody had 50 goal seasons. Yeah. So I think you're right. It's a similar driving principle here. Okay, the next one up here.

The devil's goaltending holds up. Oof. Holds up as in holds up well enough that. As in they're about the league average right now. I mean, I think at this point, maybe. I mean, like, I'm not, McKenzie Blackwood, I'm not a believer, but Vanitychek has been really good.

Yep. League average? You know, I'm still going to say no just because I don't quite, you know, and Vanichick, has he, has he ever played a ton of games in a season? No, he's never, he's never started. I can imagine. He's never started 40 games in a season.

So we don't know. That doesn't mean he can't do it, but we don't know. And I think he's going to have to. So I'm going to say no, but it's, if I don't sound very convincing, it's because I'm not. I'm going to say no as well, but through the lens of, it doesn't really matter. The way this team is fucking playing right now, even leaving aside the fact that they're scoring all these goals, like just they're on ice play, you know, by by expected goals or Corsese or whatever you want to say is unbelievable. And it's not really showing many signs of slowing down.

And I think the East kind of stinks this year a little bit. Where, like, you know, you look at the standings in the Eastern Congress. And first of all, I guess the number one thing you would have said is that, you know, the devils are at the top of the Eastern Conference. Well, nobody saw that one coming. Absolutely. Definitely not. Oh, you know what was funny?

I realized this last night. Eric Howla gets traded to the New Jersey Devils, right? They win 13 games in a row, and at the end of those 13 games, the team that traded him is still above them in the standings. Isn't that fucking hilarious? Yeah, that is. I feel like such an asshole. Damn.

All they need, all the devils needed was getting me in the fold. Yeah. And the Bruins were like, All we needed was to get Eric Hall of the hell out of town, bringing in Apple Zach or we're fine. Did you see apparently it's the first time in Antial history that three teams have 15 wins through 20 games? Devils, Bruins, and Golden Knights. Vegas. I just thought that that was kind of interesting.

Yeah, that's what happened to parody, Gary? Let's go. Gary's pissed. He's finding a way to rig the system against all these teams. Probably. We got to get these teams into more shootout losses. That's the number one thing on like his one. Whiteboard and NHL headquarter.

So yeah, I think the devil's goal attending does not hold up. It probably ends the year a little below league average 905, 903, whatever. And it doesn't fucking matter at all. They're like the, they're going to be like the hurricanes where it's like, oh yeah, we can have average goaltending. It doesn't. Who cares? where the devil's fourth in the league by uh by uh oh no i'm sorry third in the league by points percentage

or did i say the devils i meant the hurricanes boy really tripped over that one but uh yeah no the the devils will be fine um how about this one then florida below detroit in the standings uh they're two games back with an extra game played no way no they will in fact you know detroit's fine. Florida will figure it out. They're not going to be a 120 point team, of course, but yeah, they will blow by Detroit the standings. I feel confident on that one. So here's what is interesting about that to me.

They have the most, like, they called the coach and they said, who's the, or they fired the coach and they said, who's the most mid-coach we can possibly get our hands on? Who's a guy who has almost no success in his career, when taken as a whole. Well, it's this one guy that we hired, right? And, you know, you look at,

you look at how they're dividing up the goaltending situation. And Spencer Knight's having a great season for himself. Sergei Vovrovsky is extremely not. And Sergei Bavrovsky has more starts, more games played, whatever you want to say. But Vibrovsky's getting the run out because he's the $10.5 million goal. And I wonder at what point Paul Maurice says,

I can't, I can't, I'm going to have a $10.5 million backup or whatever it is. I can't fuck around like this. I'm trying to make the playoffs here. I'm very curious. Yep. And we all, we've been saying this, right? Since ever since Spencer Knight emerged as a top goaltending prospect. It's going to happen, yeah.

You know, when will this? And, you know, we kind of said, a nice problem to have if you've got too much goaltending, but what if it's not, what if it's the right amount of goaltending, just allocated. Dollar values are flipped. You know, with the new contract kicking in,

it's sort of, it's going to be an interesting situation to see play out. But, yeah, I mean, I think you're right. If one guy's better, that guy's got to play. So, yeah, I agree that maybe Detroit's punching above its weight here. And Florida maybe a little below its weight. Boy, they're nine, eight, and two.

Never thought I'd see that. As much as I, you know, I thought the coaching hire was a big mistake that they were going to regret instantly. I didn't, I didn't think there would ever be a point where they were a game above 500 except maybe like three games into the season or whatever, you know. It'll be interesting. Especially since they started with a pretty weak schedule. too. They did. They did.

Yeah, you know, I, again, like you look at the the standings in the division and Boston, Toronto, Tampa. Wow. Who could have seen that coming? You know? But then, right after that is Detroit, then

Florida. And it's like, oh, I guess I didn't see that coming. Yeah. And Detroit actually has a higher points percentage than Tampa does. Crazy. Mm-hmm. Anyway. We'll stay in that. that division. We talked about it a little bit earlier. Will it last? The senators let DJ Smith keep his job.

I think absent some wins coming pretty quickly, it's starting to feel inevitable. They can't go into December playing 300 hockey. That's interesting. I think they can. They can't go into December playing 300 hockey. hockey with the same coach. Because it also, it gets to a point where you start to look at it and say, if the season is truly lost, then DJ Smith is not going to be the coach next year anyways. So then it becomes, do we not make a change?

Even if it's just an interim situation with one of the man brothers or somebody like that coming in, like, let's see. Let's see what we got internally. Let's see if that flips a switch for us. Again, I think DJ Smith's a good coach. I think the senators have had some bad luck. I think it's certainly plausible that they turn it around. But if they keep up like this, then no,

Pierre Darnan can make all the guarantees that he wants. They're not going to have a choice. Yeah. I think that's fair. And I think that's probably the right call. but I think if the coach goes, GM's got to go to. There's got to be someone

making the bigger decision to just clean house. And I don't know who that is. Well, that's it. There isn't somebody to do that in Ottawa right now, which is maybe what's keeping the dynamic going. Now, what if, okay, stick with me here. What if Deadpool shows up?

And he says... He's pretty famous. And he says, yeah, I'm thinking you're both fired, okay? And he says Chimmy Changa and the whole fucking place goes ballistic. He fucking did it. You know what? You know what the senators need?

They don't need a good coach. They need a great coach. I think that was the catchphrase from one of the movies. I don't know. I don't know that that's true. There's your pop culture reference for the year. I don't know that that's even a reference to anything. Come on.

Somebody helped me out. That was a free guy. What, you know what? Half-watch free guy. Didn't really pay a lot of attention to it. For obvious reasons, it was bad. All right, here we go. Will it last?

Connor Hellebuck remains the Vesna favorite. He's currently tied for the league lead in save percentage. It looks like he's going to be the Jets guy come hell or high water. And if, hey, if there's anything you want to say about a Rick bonus team, It's that they keep things not exciting on purpose. Yeah. I mean, it's always tricky to look at anything a goal he's done through a month and say it's going to continue. But I think Connor Helbeck is one of the best goalies in the league.

I don't have an issue saying that this will continue. Yeah, I guess favorite is where I would maybe start to wonder a little bit, just because I don't trust that Jets defense at all, really. even with the coach I think there's reason to believe he's kind of mediocre but the only guy that I'm seeing right now where I'm like

oh he's absolutely gonna well I guess there's two guys is Linussel Markin and Jake Ottinger those are the two guys that I see kind of hanging around to a lesser extent maybe Ilya Sorokin but it does feel

what I guess is interesting is it feels like, again, like the horse is out of the barn on an egorch's circuit, like unless he goes absolutely freak mode the rest of the way, which he could, I guess. Him like kind of being there at the end of the year feels maybe a little bit of a stretch. Okay. You're with me on that one? I'm nodding along. It sounds plausible.

Um, yeah. I still like, I still like a guy than me, right? Yeah, well, that's it. Yeah, I thought you'd be with me on this one. No, like, I, I guess my point is, uh, uh, I don't know that I,

just because I don't trust the Jets, I don't know that I have him super on the inside track. Um, but yeah. All right. Uh, next one here. Uh, the ducks remain the worst team in the league. Uh, I, I mean, I'm going to say no only because I think the tank battle is going to really start heating up.

But the duck stink. They sure do. They're bad. Boy, oh boy. Dallas Akins has just not worked as an NHL coach now in two places. I mean, he was probably better in Edmonton than he was given credit for. But this, they stink. Their goaltender stinks.

Their blue line stinks out loud. and I don't know that they have as much room to get worse as maybe some other teams do, but yeah, bottom three, yeah, put me in. Yeah, okay, fair enough. I think that's, I guess the thing that I really believe in, vis-a-vis the ducks ending up bottom of the barrel here is, boy, John Gibson sucks. It's unbelievable how bad this guy is. For a guy who was as good as he was for as long as he was,

it's best goal in the world for probably three or four years. Maybe he didn't get the recognition he deserved. He only gave up two last night. And I think that was just the third time all season. He gave up two goals or fewer. We call that the old Analyme shutouts. That's right. Yeah.

giving up two goals in a loss, but having like a safe percentage above 900. That's all you can hope for. That's all you can possibly ask for. Yeah. This guy is giving up five goals or more five times in 15 starts. You fucking believe that? Yeah, actually, I can.

Well, like, let me amend that then. I come from the future back to 2014. And I say, within a decade, John Gibson, maybe 2014's a little early, just because I don't remember. Yeah, that's when he started his career. So let's say I come back in 2018 and I go within five years, John Gibson will be consistently giving up five goals a game, one and every three starts. I would ask you what sort of catastrophic injury he must have had to explain that because that would be the only way I could see it. It's truly shocking the fall from grace over the last, I guess we're into the fourth season now, right?

So yeah, there you go. All right. Yeah, I think I'm going to keep that just in terms of, you know, when you're trying to get to the bottom, like games in hand are even like kind of more difficult to overcome. So I'll stick with that lasting. will it last? The Capitals just like kind of don't have enough good NHL players, but also don't really make a huge effort to bolster their roster. Will that last?

I mean, I think they got to do something. I know the argument would be they've like every team that's struggling goes, oh, we've had injuries, but the Capitals actually have had legitimate, like. And to say, well, you know, when we start getting some guys back when Tom Wilson's back, stuff like that. They got to do something at some point. I just wonder if it's the coach instead. Yeah.

No, that's kind of what I was thinking with that. Like, I think that it feels like it's maybe one or the other. I don't know that you fire the coach and then go, and we're going to give up futures to get in it because you're going to kind of give your new coach time to figure it out a little bit. Like you don't, how often do you see a team fire the coach and then make like a kind of impactful trade. Yeah.

I don't, I don't know that I've ever like can think of it happening with a team that has like playoff aspirations, you know? Mm-hmm. So that's kind of where I'm at with it. I'm with you. I think,

I think they, they go the coaching change first. And if that doesn't work, well, then it's too late and why give up anything to, uh, to improve the roster other than just wait for guys to get back hells. It's kind of where I'm at with it as well.

All right, one last one here. Will it last? Bo Horvatt kind of stays in this limbo of like he's playing really well, but he doesn't seem to want to sign and they don't seem to want to trade him. Yeah. I mean, he can't stay in this limbo through the deadline. Let's put it that way. They've got to figure it out.

Okay, yeah. Let me amend that. Through the new year, Bo Horvatt stays in limbaugh. I could see that. Yeah, I could see through the. New Year because the thing is the Canucks, first of all, they're still trying to figure out what they are as far as like just how bad is this. I guess they are, man.

Well, because I mean, if you're sitting there going, we are legitimately one of the worst teams in the league, then you've got to trade the 27-year-old rather than give them an eight-year contract. But we saw it with T.J. Miller, right? Like, do they know that? And I wouldn't have thought that in the summer, but, you know, now. seeing it. And I think they're also sort of stung by the, like the Miller thing, there's been a lot of

criticism in hindsight about that and they don't want to do it again. They don't want to be the sharks, right? Just given everyone eight years. But I could see, even if they make the decision to move on, I could see them waiting till the second half of the season. So I'll say yes. I'll say it continues past January. Okay.

Yeah. I think that is the most likely outcome that they kind of, I guess, the only reason I put it on the list here is like he's having an unbelievable start to the season. He's scoring a what like again, I think he's second goal scoring in the league right now. That's awesome. That's so good. And if you're the Canucks at what point do you go like, we got to get this guy out of town while he's still putting up monster numbers in a lost cause season. Yep.

That's that's fair to sell high. Yeah. And I don't know that you're ever going to be able to be able to sell high. higher on Bo Horvath than you are this week, basically. Yep, no, that's fair. That's why I put it in there. We were talking about the defenseman trade market. This is, as we've been talking, the news has come across Morgan Riley on the LTIR.

Bang Nees last night took one shift, left right away. The fact that, I mean, LTIR means 10 games. And, you know, that's not the end of the world. world, but the fact that they put them on the LTIR right away makes you wonder if this could maybe be something even more serious. And if so, boy, that moves the, I mean, the Leafs, somebody here has just tweeted that the, the Leafs defense for the next couple weeks barring a trade is, has a combined cap hit of $7 million because they're missing Riley, Muzin, Brody.

If Riley's, I don't even want to, you know, people will know more probably by the time they hear this. But I mean, if Riley is like out long term or even out for the year, that moves the Leafs to the very top of any defenseman trade list and probably. Because the way the LTIR works, like it's you don't, the cap room doesn't help them make a deal for the rest of the year if he's going to be out for a month because they have to find that room back when he comes back. but if he's gone, if he was, if he was out for the year or, you know, they thought he was, they've got a lot of room to work with. So, yeah. Yeah. And I guess I guess the other thing to say on the people will know more by the time,

by the time this podcast comes out, I'm really thinking this is it for Bruce Boudreau here. Speaking of the Vancouver Canucks. Oh, yeah. Even if they had one, like, last night, that game was a disaster. You know, and really that like they, like the fact that they got that relief from like, oh, well, the camera lens ended up on the ice.

We're going to call the game winning goal back. What a weird play that was, eh? And then they concede it again? Yep. Oh, that sucks, man. Mm-hmm. So, yeah, I'm, uh, I can't believe it's going this side.

in Vancouver, like an absolutely cursed fucking franchise. That was such a, such a rough way to lose. I mean, lost to Vegas, they've got Colorado and Vegas next. So I can see saying, you don't want to throw a new coach into that, but. And then they've got San Jose the very next night. But by the time they come home to face Washington one week from today, I mean, 50-50 that they have a new coach? or higher.

Oh, way higher. Well, got to be. Yeah, I'm not, I'm not disagreeing. It feels harsh to say it, but I'm not disagreeing with you. I guess, I guess it's what's been funny is that it's been, it's felt like he's been, funny isn't the right word, I guess, but, you know, it felt like after that loss to the ruins where they just got destroyed, that felt like it to me, you know? And then, uh, they beat Buffalo.

and they beat L.A. And it's like, well, we can't fire the coach now. And then they get smoked by V- well, smoked, I guess is the right word. Badly outplayed by Vegas, but like hang around in the game and then blow it in spectacular fucking fashion. Yeah.

So, yeah. And what really sucks if you're a Canucks fan or Bruce Brewd is, like, when they were leading that game, when they were up by a couple, like that's one of those games where you're sitting there going, maybe this is the game that turns it around. Maybe this is the game

we look back on and say that was the turning point. Sean, I got to tell you, I guess I'm just built different from you. Because I was watching that, I was watching that going,

I can't wait to see how they blow this. Yeah. They're the Vancouver enough. No lead to say. I mean, they actually pulled out

like the, the WrestleMania 9, like the interfering photographer. gimmick. That's right. And then beat them anyways. That's tough booking right there. That's rough. Look, the knights are getting booked strong these days.

What can you say? They can overcome any kind of... Almost like they're getting built up for a future title run, I feel like. Interesting, yeah. So yeah, that's it for Willett last. We'll take another break. We'll be right back for a couple more news items and that'll be it. All right, thanks. If you want to avoid boring, basic, and bland, gifts this year. Uncommon goods is your secret weapon. Uncommon goods is here to make your holiday

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slash puck for 15% off. Don't miss out in this limited time offer, uncommon goods. We're all out of the ordinary. All right, a couple new news items here. First, I wanted to lead off with, again, some insanely bad news from the world of hockey. Jagger Joshua, who plays for Michigan State.

He's the brother of Dakota, Joshua, who plays for the Canucks. He posted on Twitter last night that he was on the receiving end of racial abuse during a game against Ohio State, and neither Ohio State nor the Big Ten hockey conference seems to have done anything about it. Yes. And what's...

If I understand what's interesting here is it's... The player that he accused of saying this was apparently overheard by an official and given a game misconduct. So it's not purely a, you know, well, this is, I say he said it, but he says he didn't and no one else heard it. So what do you do? It's, there was apparently an official who heard something worthy of a gay misconduct. And then yet there wasn't any supplemental action.

Yeah. Um, it's kind of, and so basically the first statement the, the Big Ten put out was like total word salad. Um, I'll, uh, I'll, I'll see if I can find it real quick. It's an absolutely insane nothing quote. Um, the, this is the original, oh no, this is from Ohio State, not the Big Ten. The Ohio State Department of Athletics and Men's Hockey Program. worked collaboratively with the Big Ten to come to a resolution in response to the allegation of misconduct

toward the Big Ten sportsmanship policy. Ohio State is focused on providing an inclusive and supportive environment for all. The department is committed to providing a safe and inclusive environment for all. Our Buckeye Inclusion Committee has done an outstanding job with providing education, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's interesting that it's an allegation of misconduct towards, the Big Ten sportsmanship policy is how they phrased it.

And somebody, I can't remember who, but somebody clipped the video from the play. And basically like there's, the two players in question, and we should say, I guess, the player that we're talking about is Camille Sadloca, sadlocha maybe, plays for Ohio State. The, the player who,

got ejected from the game. And so they kind of end up in the corner together. And there's maybe like a slight shove or something like that. And it looks like a nothing play. You see it a hundred times. You know, if you watch hockey enough, you've seen this, you know, pretty regularly. And then the official, like, I can't, you can't really tell, or at least I couldn't watching it on my phone if it was the linesman or the ref comes over.

but like immediately gets in between the two players in a way that you kind of maybe wouldn't see if it was just a little pushing and shoving after the whistle and like sends the Ohio State player away and the officials huddle up and then they say he's got a game misconduct and so here's the crazy part is that happened not the other night on on last Friday, like three days or four days ago when we're recording this. This happened a week ago, like a week from last Friday, like a week prior to, I guess I should say, on November 11th.

So it's now the 22nd as we record this and the 21st when the kid, when Jagger Joshua puts out the state. So this is clearly him. This is not, you know, not to suggest in any way that any player victimized by this sort of thing, like there's good times or bad times to do it. But this isn't him rushing to social media. This is him going like, hey, nobody seems to you guys aren't doing anything. You guys are just sweeping this under the rug. Like, because it's not like, you know, it correct me if I'm wrong, but it's not like the league has come out and said after further investigation,

we don't think that what was, what we thought was said was actually. said or anything like that. They've just kind of gone like, yeah, we looked into it, and that's it. Yeah, so here's the quote from the Big Ten. The conference supports the decision by the official to levy a game misconduct penalty on OSU. Due to the absence of indisputable evidence presented to the conference, the conference has not imposed further disciplinary action. So it sounds like their burden of proof basically is like,

we didn't catch this kid on a hot mic saying it. So even though he got kicked out of the game and we think he should have gotten kicked out of the game. And implying that at least one official and the player who was racially abused, it is too much he said he said. Okay. Even though it's two he's to one. They said he said. And he said, no, I didn't or whatever. Which is, that's very bizarre.

because typically in hockey and in sports, like we've heard the, you know, he said he said thing before, but typically if an official says I heard it, then that's like they back their officials. They don't necessarily back alleged victims, but they will back an official. And it doesn't sound like they're doing that here.

Yeah, it's really bizarre. are. You know, like, this happened a few years ago in Hockey East where a kid on Boston College was alleged to have used, not a, like a slur, but like, um, an ethnic remark, let's I don't know how best to put it without just like saying what he said and I don't want to repeat it. So, or allegedly said. Um, and it was a situation where, uh,

this one kid said this guy said this to me and then kind of like nothing happened except like they held a hearing and they were like yeah we can't prove it so nothing's going to happen and that kid like started the next game the the kid alleged to have said the thing like started the next game which kind of felt like a fuck you to everybody really nasty stuff but um yeah i i don't it keeps happening nobody's doing anything about it and i guess my point is this. I feel like if this exact situation happened in the

NHL where a guy said something, a racial slur on the ICE the official hears it, that's it. That guy's like not in the NHL anymore. You know? I mean,

like I think there would certainly be pretty significant consequences assuming I mean, the only scenario I can picture here that makes any sense is everybody basically crowding around on the official saying, are you sure you heard this? Are you sure you heard? Are you really good? We're going to have to suspend this kid for the year. Are you really sure? And eventually break him down to the point that he says, maybe he did say something else. Right. At which point. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, we don't really have a precedent in the NHL. We've seen guys suspended for homophobic slurs. but it's not lately, and I say lately, because, you know, obviously views are changing on stuff like this and stuff that would have been a slap on the wrist a generation ago or thankfully no longer the case. I wonder.

But, yeah, the, like, I don't want to be cynical, but the whole, like, I'm a player, I heard them say this, but no one else heard it, so no one believes me or no one believes me enough to take action. I'm kind of used to that, but the presence of an official in this really... That's what I'm saying. Yeah, like, I think the presence of the official who immediately acted to make sure the kids were away, the players were away from each other and, and, you know, immediately huddled up the other officials to be like, yeah, I think we're going to get this kid the hell out of here, you know? And I, again, I said, I did this with the Mitchell Miller thing, too. I shouldn't keep saying, kid, it's just how I refer to every hockey player who's not like 35. So I apologize, but like that's, you know, just how I talk, I guess. But so like, yeah, the officials immediately huddled up and said, we got to get this guy out of here.

And so, like, if that happened in the NHL, I think that that would be enough for the NHL to be like, no further questions. This is a big suspension, you know. I would imagine, Scott. But not in college hockey, I guess. because fuck it, I guess, that's why. Anyway, let's talk about some more positive stuff here. If Gennie Malkin played his thousandth game,

Patrice Berserung got his thousandth point. This feels like it's a big milestone. Phil Kessel, I think, played his thousandth straight game since we played last. A lot of milestones going on. It's interesting to me. Yep. The Malkin one was very cool.

Yep. you know, always neat to see a guy get to that mark with one team, especially a guy like Malcolm where it looked like that wasn't going to be the case for a little while. Yeah, he was going to get traded to the Kings in like 2009 or what. That's right, yeah. I think I read that somewhere. But yeah, I mean, he's, I mean, you know, at some point, hey, it would have been nice if he had developed into one of the top 100 players of all time.

but you take what you can get, right? Yeah. So I guess that is what I had written down kind of, sort of kind as the question here. Where do you think Malkin ranks in the cap era among centers? Centers. Yeah. Among centers.

He's behind Crosby. He'll be behind McDavid if he isn't already. Okay. Let's say to date. I think I would put him behind. McDavid. Yeah. I would have to put him behind Joe Thornton.

But then I have to really think about it. Even Thornton, I think, is worth disgusting. Just because Thornton is, I mean, he's a setup guy. And, you know, what's the argument that Thornton is clearly ahead of Malcolm? Clearly ahead of Malcolm? Yeah, well, like to the point where... The point where what? Sorry, the point where it's not, you know, to even think of...

about it is, is, I mean, because I'm looking, they both won a hard trophy. They did. Malcon's won the Art Ross twice. Yeah. First team all-star three times. Thornton only had it the one year, right? Yeah. I guess the, the thing that I think about with Malkin is, you know what Malkin had,

his entire career was the best player in the world playing Power play minutes with him. Yeah. And also playing a line ahead of him and taking the attention of teams and that. And yes, that is. But Joe Thornton had Jonathan Chichu on his wing. So really. Yeah, I guess that is maybe a better way of looking at it, right?

Is how many guys did each of them make millionaires who shouldn't have been? Yes. Yeah. That would be a good stat if we could. Yeah. You know what? You've swayed me. I think it is now debatable.

I will still put Thornton ahead of him just because I think that if you look at Thornton because he existed before the cap for five or six seasons, right? So I think that changes the calculus a little bit where Malkin comes in fresh slate.

He got to play his entire career in the cap era in a way that Thornton did not. like Thornton had a hundred point season before the Capi era, was a point of game player like three times before the cap era more or less. So I think I will give the nod to Thornton, but I will definitely say that he's like better than Stamco's. Yeah, I was going to say to me, the S tier is McDavid Crosby,

and then I think the next tier down is Thornton, Malkin, Stamco's in some order. The other argument- I think I would even put Stamco's one step below that, just because it's not really his fault, but like all the years he got injured and stuff like that. And then, you know, like he's had a lot of success recently,

but again, as a support player, more than a, like the focal point of the team or whatever. Okay. So then is, is Bergeron in the... Bergeron,

I would put ahead of Stamcoast as well. Yeah, yeah, I could see, like the, when you're talking Capera, then you get into the Bergeron Kopitar Taves,

uh, trio. I, now I get here, that's the really interesting question to me is like taves and copatar better than stamcoes. Yeah, that's is for like the team success. Yeah. Because it's, I mean, you look at.

Because those all become team success guys on a certain level. They have been. But I mean, you know, Stamco's got a couple. And, you know, two Rocket Richard's, man. I was going to say, he scored 60 goals. He was going to say he scored 60 goals season. Like it's, he is. So that's why I think I would put Stamco's ahead of both of those guys.

but I wouldn't put him ahead of Bergeron and I wouldn't put him ahead of like Malkin and Thornton. I think those are those are more the B tier, like elite. We're talking about elite players, right? Like I think if you were saying about all centers, all those guys would be S tier centers. But if we're talking about like the best of the best, those are like B tier best of the best centers to me.

No, I think that's fair. The other thing that's interesting with Malkin is he comes into the league, not the first year of the captain, but the second year. Right. And he immediately wins the Calder. Yeah.

The year after the next two years, he's a heart trophy runner-up both years and a first-team all-star, both years. And then has a couple of good but not great years where he's injured for at least part of it. And then comes back and has another year where he wins the heart trophy this year, wins another scoring title. And it is a first-team all-star. That's 2011-12. That's the year that Crosby is missing a big chunk. because of concussions and everything. In the 10 seasons since,

he has not, not only has he not been an all-star, he hasn't had an all-star vote in 10 years. And I know, you know, media voting, we certainly don't always get it right. But I think you get it right enough that like even the Pittsburgh psychos would be like, you got to give Gino a vote.

He's had one year of more than 75 points since. I guess my question is, is on the balance we're going to look Malkin and say he's one of the all-time greats. But was Faggeny Malkin, like, one of the all-time absolute elite grades for five years or six years, and then pretty good for a decade?

It was very good for a while. Yeah, I think that is the ultimate question. I think at his peak, like, powers. I guess you would say that's the 11-12 season where he wins the Art Ross, the the hard first team all-star. I think I would put that Malkin up against maybe not McDavid, but definitely Crosby. Like any given Crosby year versus that one Malkin year, I would probably take Malkin

like over. He was. Absolutely. And I mean, I kind of glossed over the whole well, then he got hurt for a little bit. But, I mean, injuries are part of his story, right? Like, he didn't, I talked about he didn't have any 75 points season. He also doesn't have any 70 game seasons other than that one full year where he had 98 points again. So 17, 18, yeah.

Injuries are part of a story. But yeah, end of the day, absolute elite, elite legendary guy. Yeah. Yeah. So, right, like first ballot hall of fame. Here's what I wouldn't have guessed, though. I'm looking at his Zaki reference page right now. Only at 452 career goals.

Wouldn't you have said, oh, he must have passed 500 a couple years ago or something? Yeah. But again, that's the he can't stay healthy thing. Yeah. And hasn't scored much lately even when he's, you know, hasn't scored much compared to when he was a 50 goal guy. Here's my other question on him. Where do you rank him all-time Russian players? It's behind Ovechkin.

Yeah, there's a lot of Russian players. Okay, he's behind Burray. He's behind Fedorov. Okay. But then I got to think about it. And even though, I mean, what about Larry Harlamov, right? Like, if we're knocking, yeah, I'm thinking more from an NHL perspective, you're right? But like, I'm, even, I mean, if we're looking at Malcolm and saying, well, injuries isn't that.

I mean, Burray, Burray height of his powers was unlike anything we've ever seen, but didn't have the longevity that Malcolm. head. Sure. I think an interesting one. Yeah. But I, okay, I guess, I guess, hmm, let me, let me amend that. I guess I would say Ovechkin and Fedorov for sure. And I might even put Fedorov ahead of Ovechkin.

I know people are going to fucking flip out about that take. Oh, that's a take. Wow. Okay. You want to talk about a 200-foot player? Yeah. Yeah. Fedorov was a 200-foot player in a way that Ovechkin never even thought about being.

Not that he had to. Oh, yeah. I mean, for sure. like I you know it's like Fedorov at the height of his powers defensively is like what if Patrice Bergeron also was like a hundred point guy yeah like what is what if that's your rock could skate like McDavid and that sort of thing like yeah Fedorov and and to some extent

Doug Gilmore kind of reinvented in the early 90s there the the idea of the 200 foot center then like your best center could be your best guy at both ends of the ice. And you didn't have to throw some shadow one-dimensional guy over the boards. Yeah. In the defensive zone. Fedorov was insanely good. Yep.

Two Selkees in three years for Fedorov in the mid-90s. Yeah. Just something to think about. And occasionally just played defense if you needed to. Yeah, sure did. Yeah. Sure did. Yeah.

He's fun. It's really, I think the fact that I spent. a lot of time like my experience with watching Fedorov is he's like in his mid-30s and bouncing around from like Anaheim to Columbus to Washington you know

and so like my context for him is like oh yeah he like he was pretty good as an old guy but like in the 90s he was like one of the four or five best players in the world every single year yeah anyway

all right one last thing here They retired Marion Hostes number. They got all the guys from that team back together, or those teams, I guess you would say, back together. And then, you know, like Patrick Sharp is there and Corey Crawford's there. Or who, excuse me, whoever, you know. Yeah, it was pretty much everyone. Yeah.

And so the question for you, sir, is, now that they've retired hostess number, who can they possibly leave out from that group of guys? See, I've, with the caveat, I've always said, when it comes to retired numbers, whatever the fan base wants. Do whatever you want, sure. Fill your rafters with numbers. But I don't, as an outsider, I don't see this argument that, like, you have to retire, like, Nick Chalmerson's number. So, right, like, I would say Patrick Sharper and Nick Chalmersen are the cutoffs.

Mm-hmm. I think as an organization, you're going to do Tames. And Keith. and Keith. Those are the three like absolute slam dunks. I can't imagine a world where you say to yourself

we put in Marion Hose, we couldn't possibly put in Cory Crawford or retire his number. We couldn't possibly do that. I think if you do Hosa, who's a guy I obviously think is unbelievable and had a great career,

I think Cory Crawford's success like what he meant to those teams, like, cannot be overstated. Yeah. I mean, he was the goalie on two of those teams. Sure. But like, they sort of deify the core seven that were on all three.

All three of them. And Crawford wasn't there. But. Yeah. But also like. But he was also the starting goal. Yeah. He was the starting goalie.

And from 2010 to 2015, his safe percentage. was 917 and he played 260 games. Like, what else is the guy supposed to fucking do for you? You know, and even once they started dropping off, he stayed good until the injuries caught up with him. In 19, or 19, in 2017, 18,

he had a 929 save percentage. You only played 28 games because he couldn't stay healthy. But he had a 929 save percentage. Okay, so sure. Before the injuries really catch up to him, in 1819 when he's 34 years old. Over an eight season period, he averages a little more than 50 starts a game

and he has a season and has a 919 save percentage. You've got to retire that guy's number for me. Yeah, I mean, so the counter argument is, again, first of all, he was only on two of the cup winners. He's not going to the Hall of Fame. I also went to, I mean, to me, if a guy makes the Hall of Fame largely based on what he did with your team, I think you probably retire the number.

Crawford won't even be in that conversation. Brent Seabrook's the other one that's going to be tough. Seabrook is the other question. I think he's the cutoff for me. I couldn't talk myself into it with the understanding that, you know, I'm not them. And so even when they were winning all these cups, I'm like, yeah, but this guy kind of like sucks, right?

Yeah, well, I mean, Hawksdands will tell you that he was the key, that he was the glue guy. He was the Phil Hartman of that team. And then the contract was turned him into this guy that people looked at and went, oh, you know, because it was a bad contract. But the other thing with the Blackhawks is they, they didn't, they retired one guy from like the 70s through this team. And that was Denny Savard. Didn't do Roanick, didn't do Larver.

Have not done Doug Wilson, even though Doug Wilson. was a Hall of Famer. So there's kind of this question of like, hey, wait, how does Doug Wilson wins an Norris and goes to the Hall of Fame and you don't retire his number, but you're going to retire Brent Seabrook. And then the counter argument is, yeah, three cups to none. And I don't know. I've said before, if the Leafs ever win three cups in six years, I will probably want

them to retire like everyone on the team, everyone who was on the minors, every hot dog vendor. Yeah, you're going to like literally just do it all. I don't care. And if that's what Hawks fans want, then by all means. I do think it's weird that the Chicago Blackhawks seem to have gone from being a very, it's tough to get your number up there to suddenly wanting to put seven different guys or eight, if you put Crawford in, all up there. I know Lazarus has mentioned in the past that, you know, do you hang a, like,

the core banner or something to sort of recognize the guy. who were without retiring Nick Chomerson's number. I mean, that stuff is a little cheesy to me, but also it might be, maybe that's the way you thread the needle. Yeah, maybe. Yeah, I think the way it ended with Seabrook where everybody just seemed to kind of hate his guts, like in the fan base.

Did they hate his contractor? Did they, I feel like they still love him. I feel like that starts to become kind of one in the same a little bit. Sure. It's hard to separate. Yeah. So, like, look, I don't blame a guy for piling up injuries when he's played a very hard style for many years. I don't blame a guy for taking any insane contract the team puts in front of him. And so, like, it is hard for me to hold that, like, to hold how it ended for Brent Seabrook against him, given everything.

But, like, I just don't think he was particularly good. I get what you're saying about he's the glue guy. but I think he just didn't have a good enough career, even though they had a lot of team success. I don't think he had a good enough career to justify it. But so I guess my point is I would do Hosa Taves, Kane, Crawford, Keith, in no particular order, obviously.

But Seabrook would be my, that's a rich bar guy. I think out of all those Crawfords are really interesting one. That, yeah, I mean, Probably not a lot of goalies who've won multiple Stanley Cups with a team that don't have their number. Yeah. So you'd have to, I guess you'd have to look that up, but how many are there, right? Can't be that many. So, okay.

Interesting, yeah. Yeah. All right. That's it. We're done. Obviously, I guess I should have said this at the top of the episode, but I, uh, we're obviously recording this on a Tuesday because of Thanksgiving. You know, I'm traveling tomorrow. So get off my back.

So happy Thanksgiving to all our U.S. listeners. Happy Thursday to all our Canadian listeners. That's right. And yeah, why don't you hit them with the plugs, John? Yeah, find me at the athletic and listen to my podcast with Ian Mendez, although not this week. We're off because we normally record on Thursdays. And again, happy Thanksgiving to all the,

The Americans out there. Oh, man, you get two Thanksgiving? We have, I do. Well, I didn't really get the first one off. Oh, okay. And definitely, if you do not subscribe to the athletic, the Black Friday sale is on this week. It's an extraordinarily aggressively good offer.

You get the full 12 months for $1 a month. If you, it only works if you get it from clicking on one of my articles. If you click on, like, Gentileys article or something, it, like, charges your credit card extra. It steals your identity. It's, don't do that. But if you do it on mine, I don't know what more we can do to convince you at a dollar a month. I will tell you if you subscribe for a dollar a month and you don't feel like you got your money's worth at the end of the year, let me know I will send you an envelope full of Loonies for however many months you feel like you didn't get your money's worth.

And folks, that's worth 38 cents. Exactly. Take them up on this. And also, I mean, remember, you don't just get the dollar a month for my stuff or hockey stuff or whatever. You get everything, including World Cup, which if you're following that at all, like we've got an insane amount of people over there covering that. So get in now. There you go. For me, E.P.Rinkside.com.

I was going to say use the code I love EP. That's like muscle memory or whatever. Stay tuned. I think tomorrow we're announcing the Black Friday deal. I don't know what it is, but I have been told it is quite good. That's all the information I have. So, you know, hover, keep your finger hovering over the order button on that one and then click it when you get the chance. Should be a good one.

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