Puck Soup - Worst NHL Team Ever

Episode Date: March 17, 2021

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VSPN, primary rights holder of the national hockey league. Starting next season. I'm Ryan Lambert from Elite Prospects. Sean McIndoo, new coach of the Buffalo Sabers. Oh, and you're in Puck Soup.

Congratulations. Is that on an interim basis, or are you the permanent hit-guards? Hold on, I just got it. Yeah, I've just been fired. Oh, no. Oh, geez. I couldn't get Jeff Skinner going and it just...

Oh, it was a good run. He'll be hearing him again already. As we began to do the podcast today, breaking news, they killed Ralphie, to quote a Christmas story. Ralph Kruger fired by the Buffalo Sabres. Roughly, what, three and a half weeks too late to have any effect on this season whatsoever? Or perhaps it wouldn't have had any effect at all? Yeah, I would say a year and a half too late to...

Oh, okay. Who is going to fix this? All reports say that it is Don Granado taking over as interim head coach, as Steve Smith was also fired, assistant coach for the Savers. and his assistants will be Matt Ellis and Dan Girardi, who have absolutely no NHL coaching experience. That's good. Don Grinado does, he was an assistant for the Chicago Blackhawks before being hired in Buffalo, and it was a head coach for a long time in the minor leagues.

But this very much seems like let's find a guy we're already paying who maybe was a coach one time and give him the job until the end of the season. Ryan, as you said, an untenable situation for Ralph Krueger. but at the same time, I believe maybe a guy that we were all rooting for as an outside-the-box hire, as a guy who is charismatic and gregarious in his comportment, a man who you could spend hours talking about not only sports but life with, may just have been a really shitty hockey coach. Yeah, I mean, he didn't do a good job.

You know, like, like you say, when he comes aboard, everybody's like, well, he got such a raw deal in Edmonton, nobody could have won with them. that roster. And then, you know, I think people probably overrated the World Cup of Hockey performance as some sort of like, you know, it's like six games or whatever. Who cares? And then, yeah, you know, maybe now we're just finding out, yeah, he doesn't have it. He's not set up to be a good hockey coach.

And I think that happens. And like, somebody had to find it out. I think the Sabres, given their recent coaching history before him, were the team that was like, you know what, maybe we don't just hire like a guy who, like, we tried it with Dan Bilesma, who had a track record of winning in Pittsburgh, and then we tried it with, what's his name? I wanted to say Ally Afraidy, but I know that's not right. The other – Phil Housley. The other offensive defenseman from that era. Phil Housley.

Dude, if they hired Ally Freddie as their coach, that would be amazing. Yeah. I mean, haven't we gotten to that point with this franchise where, like, the three coaches should be, like, Brad May, Matt Barnaby and Rob Ray at this point? Like, isn't that where we are in this franchise? I think that's what the Sabres need is more X Sabres. That's right. That's really the problem. Hear me out.

Matthew Peck. Nope. Mike Pecka, right? Matthew Peck is the guy from the eyes. The Islanders played for Quineviac. Yeah, Jesus Christ. I appreciate you checking. My brain is not working today.

I appreciate you checking your peka on that one to make sure you had the right one. Hey, Sean, what do you say about this situation? First of all, I'll pose the same question I have posed to Ryan. Like, was there a point in which the season could have been salvaged before the wheels completely came off? And they started playing defense like their controllers had been disconnected from the Xbox? Yeah, I don't think there was a point where a mid-season change would have. dramatically fix things.

It's an odd situation because, you know, if you know if you know anyone who follows this team, certainly in the media, but even as a fan,

closely, this felt inevitable at least two or three weeks ago. And it, I mean, it got to the point where it was like after every loss, it was,

it was like, what are they waiting for? And, you know, I guess they were waiting for a game where they were playing another team that was just as awful and on just as bad a streak as they were. And then they go and they lose that too. I mean, I'm kind of like you guys. I like the hire at the time. It was creative. It was.

And initially when he came and remember, they were great for that first month. Wait a minute. The Sabre's good early in the season and that bad after. that? Yeah, it was, it was, it was something, it was unheard of. And no, and, you know, he came in and, you know, his, his whole thing is, he's a smart guy, he's a motivational guy, right? He's the, and, and it seemed early on, it worked, you know, there was a lot of talk about the, how the players love this guy. This, this is, this is their guy. And, uh, it went off the rails so bad. I mean, I, I think even then when the, when they were like nine and two or whatever, If you had said a year from now, the Sabres are going to be bad and he's getting fired, I don't think that would have shocked people because the roster wasn't good. So, yeah, I mean, maybe the team doesn't do well. But if you told people, like, the team's going to be bad and they're going to look like

they have just quit on this guy completely, I think that would be a surprise because that was his whole thing, right? Like, he was the guy. He was going to lead you into battle. And, yeah, I'm starting to think maybe I'm not going to buy his motivational book. I'm starting to think it might not be. a wise long-term purchase. There were a couple things in this stretch that are just incredible. Like, obviously, first of all, the team can't score for shit.

They're the worst offensive team in the league. They're at 2.07 goals. That is perilously close to being under two goals a game offensively in this fucking league in 2020, 21. So that's one thing. And then during that, he obviously, for reasons, benched Jeff Skinner multiple games. Like Bench him once, sure, shock to the system, that whole thing. Keeping a guy who admittedly isn't all that good, you know, this season and is certainly not worth the contract on the pine for as long as he did is kind of nonsensical when your team can't score goals.

The other thing about this stretch, like they've lost as we do this podcast 12 games in a row. In fact, losing to the New Jersey Devils on Tuesday a team that had lost 11 games on a row. So that wasn't it only? Wasn't it only 11 games in a row at home, though? To be clear. Oh, at home. Yeah, I think that was the gimmick. So anyways, so they,

but the stretch goes all the way back to January 31st. Okay, January 31st starts a stretch in which the Sabres win. And I shit you not. This is incredible. They had 19 games and only won twice. Yep. It's insane. It is.

I mean, it's crazy. This is a terrible team. and yet you can't tell the story of the season without mentioning the COVID and the two weeks off that they have because that coincides almost exactly with them going from being not great to historically bad. And yeah, at the end of the day, that doesn't necessarily get anyone off the hook. But I do wonder if maybe even years from now we're going to look back on this season and be like, yeah, we were all like, oh, was it Jeff Skinner? Was it the X's and O's?

Did he not deploy the lines? And weren't you going to look back and go, no, the whole team got shut down for COVID for two weeks. Guys got sick. And the rest of the season went to trash from there. And maybe that shouldn't be all that surprising because you kind of have seen the same thing in New Jersey. And you look at Dallas as another one. Like, it hasn't, it hasn't been universal. There's teams that have been shut down and have come back reasonably well.

but I do think at some point, as much as we hate excuses and we hate all this stuff, you can't tell the story of Krueger's last year in Buffalo without that being a prominent piece of it. For sure, for sure. All right. So next steps here. Let's talk about the kind of moving forwardness of what's going on in Buffalo. Obviously, they're going to trade Eric Stahl at the deadline.

They've got like a dozen pending free agents, both unrestricted and restricted. One of them's stall. One of them's Taylor Hall. The thing we've heard about Hall is that he might want to stick around in Buffalo, maybe one of the few places that'll give him the contract he's looking for after being so bad this season. Ryan, what do you expect from them short-term with the idea that an Ikel trade would not happen until the off-season in theory? Yeah, you've got to get rid of everybody, right? Like you just, whatever the cap minimum is this year, you get to that.

And you trade everybody that you can reasonably trade in season. Obviously, there are a million, excuse me, there are a million reasons why teams won't be like, oh, yeah, we'll take on money. And, you know, especially with the Sabres, you go, like, well, nobody's taking, like, Kyle Ok Poso off their hands, obviously. Nobody's taking the Jeff Skinner contract, even if he did waive his no move clause. But, you know, would somebody buy on Cody Eakin, even though he's having a horrible season? Yeah, probably.

Victor Olives and C. You know, I think that we have to be aware that the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, gullas are maybe what you would say, cost conscious right now. And, well, if I could, if I could just pause you there. Yeah. So they now owe, I was talking to somebody this morning, they now owe money to Botterill, Randy Sexton, Steve Greeley, and Ralph Krueger this season, maybe into next season for a couple of them. In Kruger's case, they owe them $3.7 million next season. So whoever they hire next season is not only going to have. to take a COVID haircut and a Pagula haircut, but they're going to have to take a Kruger haircut

because they still owe him $3.7 million. And he's obviously not getting another coaching job. Yeah. Yeah, that sucks. So, yeah, I don't know. I mean, if I'm the Sabres, I'm just saying, like, who do you want? Literally, we'll talk to you about anybody on the roster. Who cares? I mean, what else is there? What else is there to salvage here? Like, Dylan Cousins, I guess, would be the one guy you're like, you know what? Maybe, you know, he hasn't really had a chance. But like, even Dahlene, it's like, Jesus Christ, have you seen how bad he fucking looks this year? He looks horrible. So, I don't know. I mean, obviously the problem with all of this is that you would be selling extremely low on literally everybody on the roster. Like there's nobody who's having a good season. But I mean, Tobias Reeder, he's outscoring Taylor Hall, Eric Stahl, Jack Eichael and Jeff Skinner rocks. Oh, and that's the other thing. The fact that Eichols out in months and, like, Kruger was like, oh, he got hurt in warm-ups, and Eichl was like, no, I didn't.

Yeah. Oof. Tough one. What do you do with this best, Sean? Well, I mean, they move everyone they can move. And the other piece of this is, I think you make it a priority for the new COVID. coaches coming in or, you know, the new old coach taking over, do whatever you can do to salvage something from Jeff Skinner.

Because that was the thing with, like when Krugbert first benched this guy, you kind of thought, okay, this is maybe, you know, sometimes you got to tear a guy down to build him up a little bit. But there was no buildup. It just, it was nothing but tearing down. And at some point, I'm not saying you just go and drop him on the first line and say, you're the new star, go and do whatever you want. but there's got to be a plan from here to the end of the season of how do we get this guy back to not being a $9 million player.

That ship has sailed, not being a 40-goal score, but to being something useful and not a guy that just gets stashed on the bottom line and healthy scratched and all of that because it didn't seem like there was any path to that. And I would really make that a priority because you're stuck with this guy. You're not you're not going to trade him. He's not going anywhere. So you got to figure out a way to turn this guy back into a $5 million player at least, and then maybe you have to eat the rest as a write-off on a bad deal. But I would be looking to the coaches to make that a priority, to have some sort of roadmap of how to get there.

Yeah. I'm intrigued. I mean, obviously, I think Eichols going to move in the off-season. I can't envision a scenario in which he wants to hang around. Imagine if you told somebody that two years ago. Like, oh, yeah, Eichl's gone. Two years from now, summer 2021, Ikel, out of there. That's incredible.

I can't envision a scenario where he wants to hang around. Yeah, no, exactly. But is there a scenario where he does not force his way out? Because that might be what it takes. It's all well and good for him to say, you know what, I'd rather be somewhere else. But they own his rights and he doesn't have any, you know, unless. he's willing to go home, he can't force his way out, although there are obviously things he can do to...

Yeah, he could just not play. There are things that we've, you know, kind of covered on previous episodes about Ikel, but it does come down to three different scenarios, which is that he forces his way out with a trade demand. He decides he wants to stay and they rebuild around him, in which case he should probably be fitted for a straitjacket. And then the third one is that he wants to stay, but they decide that. the best course of action for the organization is to trade him for everything the kings would

give them, right? Or the Rangers would give them. Right. And I would say the first and third options are probably the most likely at this point given the state of things in Buffalo. Now, the really interesting thing for me isn't necessarily like who the coach is going to be next year, but it's going to be who hires them. They've been looking on and off for the last two years for a president of hockey operations. And there have been times when they've wanted to add one, and there have been times when that search has cooled off. And it didn't really jive to me that that would be a job people would want, because ultimately it's the Terry and Kim show, and more to the point the Kim show. So I'm not quite sure who would want to take that gig. But it's undeniable that in the

little whisper circles in the NHL, everybody's wondering if Jim Rutherford's going to up in Buffalo with Kevin Adams and whether that would be the next move. And if that's the next move, it becomes A, would they pay him, B, would he want that level of, like what kind of autonomy would he want in a place where they just hired a guy from business administration because they knew that they could control him? So, I don't know. Nope, I mean, those are all good questions. I think it would make an enormous amount of sense to bring in a more experience.

experienced front office person to help Kevin Adams. But yeah, it's, and it's the same with the coaching. This is the one thing I found a little bit interesting about the fact that they fire Kruger and they put, they basically hire from within, they don't go outside. Normally, 90% of the time, when a team makes a midseason change and the season's going bad, that's the right play. kick the can down the road until the offseason. Bring in somebody interim basis.

Doesn't matter if they're good or not because you're already heading towards the lottery, so who cares. And then you get to the off season and that opens up all sorts of new doors as far as you can talk to other team's assistants, maybe, their HL coaches, guys like that. And you can sit down and take your time and do it right. This time, though, I mean, there is a point where you're kind of like, who is going to want this job. Yeah, right. And obviously, anytime this comes up, the answer is always there's only 32 of these jobs in the entire NHL.

Lots of people want to be a head coach. So somebody's going to want it. And definitely there's going to be lots of first-time coaches who'd want this job. Do you want to do that, though? If you're the Sabres, are you going to bring in another Phil Housley type to be a rookie head coach? Are you going to have another think outside the box, Ralph Kruger type hire? Or do you need to go back and say, we want somebody. with experience, somebody who was won, somebody with some name value,

somebody who will project the idea that this isn't just totally a drift. And if so, who out there is going to want that in the offseason when there's going to be a half dozen jobs available? Versus right now where it's the only job, and the guy I'm thinking of as Bruce Boudreau, who has basically made it clear that he would take the job. I don't know if Gerard Gallant would. I don't know if some of these other guys would,

but Boudreau's sitting there going, yeah, I would do it. There would have been a part of me that would have been tempted to just make that hire right now and as opposed to going into the offseason where now, you know, there might be other teams talking to this guy. There might be other things that, you know, yeah, some other candidates might open up, but also now you're competing and you're not the only job in town. I don't know. I was not surprised, but I, there,

This is one of the rare cases where I would have really thought about hiring a big name who was available right now and get it done versus take my chances in the summer. Well, now this is where you have to do the little finger thing that means money, right? Like you have to go. Like Greg said, they're paying 15 people to not do their jobs right now. And so, you know, Bruce Boudreau probably doesn't come cheap. Let's put it this way. If Ralph Kruger was making 3.7, what's Bruce? dro making. It's a hell of a lot more than that, right? So I don't know. I mean, at this point,

it seems like, you know, he'd take a job as the Sabres Goldie coach, if he could. Really? He's just putting his name out there for everything. I mean, but still, he's not going to work for free, I guess, is my point. And in season, do they want a guy who is going to cost them even more money on their on their payroll and like you said, the COVID thing and all that, like I don't know. I really, that's a tough sell for me.

Based on what we saw from NHL 24-7 on HBO, would he work for wings? That's the question. No, Greg, we're talking about Buffalo. Detroit has a coach right now. God damn. Here's the thing about Buffalo.

We've talked about the Sabres so much of this show. It's too much on this show. I fucking hate that they suck. Yeah, it's a bummer. They consistently are one of the best TV markets in the league. They look good. I like watching them on television aesthetically.

Their uniforms are always very pretty. And their fans are great. Wouldn't you want the Buffalo Bills level style of mania amongst the fan base for the Sabres? Well, I've said it before, but like, it's not. like the bills before this past NFL season were any fucking good? You know? No, they were good in previous ones, but they, I mean, they were really good this one. But the point being is that...

Well, that's what I'm saying? Yeah, the Sabres haven't made the playoffs since, what, 2012 when the Boogoo was the 2011? But what was the Sabers, uh, or the, the bills playoff around it? It wasn't short. Right. So, so we're all waiting for it. The place is going to explode.

It's going to be absolute bedlam. when the Sabres get good. And it's just now they've not been, we're almost going to be a decade into the Pagula Rain, and they've not made the playoffs but once, which was in their first season as owners. Yeah, 10 years without the playoffs,

it'll be an NHL record. Yeah, and like, what a fucking monkey's paw. Like, a guy comes in, he's like, I'm a Sabres fan. I'm a fan going back to, you know, the old days of Jill Bear Proe and all this other shit. And I'm going to bring a cup to buff. and blah, blah, blah, blah.

And they don't even make the playoffs. They didn't even make the playoffs when they let 24 fucking teams into the playoffs. Like, it is insane how bad this franchise has been. And it sucks because the league would be better if Buffalo was good. We always say that about, like, the Rangers or whoever. No, if Buffalo was good and there was that just absolute mania, if, you know, you went on the web and you saw Sabres fans doing, you know, press slams through tables, shit in the parking. Like, it would be incredibly cool.

And they just can't get their shit together to the point where they're going to have to trade their franchise player. And that's the thing. Like, it's not, if you went back to 2015 when they were doing the big McDavid-Igill tank. And you said, it's six, yeah, it is. But you said, you know what, six years from now, it's, you still won't have made the playoffs. that would feel devastating at the time. But if you said six years from now, you will not have made the playoffs

and you won't feel any closer than you are right now. That would have been inconceitial. Like the senators are about to finish 30th for the fourth year in a row. What's the path to success for the senators? You can see it. You can see the pieces on the ride. Like you can sit there and maybe you're not going,

oh, yeah, I see these guys being cup winners in three years. But there's no question what direction the momentum is in. This is just, I mean, it's been 10 years and you're not, not only are you not really any closer, but you might have to take yet another big step back if you do end up having to move Jack Eichel. It's just, this is, it's so demoralizing. And it's, you know, I, as a lease fan,

I kind of went through a version of this. And I know we always look at some of these markets and we go, Buffalo is such a great hockey market. It's such a great market. When they're good, the fans will be back, the fans will be back. You're going on a generation now of fans. and they don't all come back.

Like there is a certain point where you're doing long-term damage. And yet what's the answer? So, okay, you're doing long-term damage. So what do we? We go to win now mode. We just sacrifice the future so that we can get pieces so we can make the playoffs and get our doors kicked in by the lightning next year. No, that's not the answer either.

But it's such a mess and it sucks. And it's, you know, even this year, you know, you look, this year's a good draft. but there's no, there's no Connor McDavid in this year's draft. So even if you pick first, you know, there's no immediate help coming there. You're at the point where it's, you're not even necessarily going to be able to bring in the best people, even if you had the money to do it, because, you know, at some point, they don't want to, they don't want to go work for this organization.

It's, it's a total mess. And I do not know how you get started on fixing it. Yeah, it's tough. It's a tough look for the organization and a tough path forward. Because like you said, it'd be better if they were shittier. Like if they didn't have any good players. It's an easier path forward at that point. I mean, and like honestly, look, like you tanked for Jack Eichel, and Jack Eichael was pretty much everything that would have been expected.

I mean, this is, this guy's been great. but you look at the other pieces around, none of them worked out. And the other thing, and, you know, a lot of people don't bring this up or don't even want to mention it, but I'm hearing a lot more and more from Sabres fans. Rasmus Dallon doesn't look like necessarily he's going to be a franchise level star. He's kind of starting to plateau out as a good player. Let me say this, though. Didn't we say the same thing about Aaron Neckblad, though?

And he's actually taken a step. He's taken a step. And defenseman can. But this was the guy where you're like, finally we won the lottery and we did it in a year where there was a clear number one. This is the guy, the best defensive prospect in years. And it's not that he's been bad.

And you're certainly not going to point in him and go like, gosh, how are you not developing in this environment? But, you know, that's part of it too. Like you had the first overall pick three years ago. And now that is starting to look like you got a good player. But, you know, where's, and, you know, the rest of the guys, the elite talent just isn't there at all. It's tough. I don't know.

I know. You look out and you're wondering, like, what is this landscape going to look like in a few years? Speaking of landscaping, today's episode of Puck Soup is sponsored by Sunday. Sunday's a new sponsor, so let me tell you a little bit about them. It's a lawn care product. Now, you're saying, okay, lawn care. What does that mean? Well, it means that when you go out on the weekend, you want to be able to use natural ingredients quick and easy, and you want to know that they're going to make your lawn look perfect.

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That's $20 off your custom lawn plan at checkout at get-sunday.com slash puck. I do love a good lawn. I used to love mow in the lawn too when I was a kid. Did you guys have to mow the lawn when you were a kid? Was that part of your chores? Yeah, well, my family got a riding mower. changed my life. It was unbelievable. You know, it's funny. Ruby's dad has a riding mower. We just saw

them in Chicago when we drove across the country. And I never really wanted a riding lawnmower. I just liked, you know, the usual, just you push it and have more control and whatever. But then he showed me a picture of him mowing the lawn with one of their dogs under one of his arms and then a cigar in his mouth, and he's driving the mower with one hand. And I'm like, this is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. Like, if I could accomplish this chore while holding sneakers and having a cigar, I mean, why not? So it turned me around on the ride on mower. I did want to say one last thing about Taylor Hall. Remember that old stat that like over the course of Taylor Hall's career in Edmonton, like he was plus three.

and the oilers were like minus 200. I can't remember what the exact number was, but it was like it was that bad, right? I just looked it up for Jack Eichel. When Eichel is on the ice in his Buffalo Sabres career, the Sabres have outscored their opponents by 92 goals. Overall in Jack Eichael's career, they're minus 234. So how bad do they have to be to get outscored by like 320 goals?

Yeah. When Eichel's. off the ice. Like, that's fucking incredible. Indeed it is. That's amazing. So when we started thinking about what we're going to do for the show this week, we're like, ah, it's a slow news week. Maybe we should do mid-season stuff.

And that made a lot of sense. It still does. I mean, we can't do, you know, 90 minutes on Ralph Kruger. So we're going to talk a little mid-season. I mean, we're at that sort of the midpoint of the season for all these teams. We're going to do a little award stuff and also talk about some of the bigger, you know, disappointments and surprises.

Let's start off with awards. Let's get right to it. Heart Trophy guy. Who is it, Lambert? It's Connor McDavid. Of course it is. Yeah. You know, it was a situation last year where all the, all the people who were like big analytics people were like, well, you can't give it to Leon Dreisdell because his defense

isn't good. And everybody else in the hockey media said, well, he scored the most points. So he was the most valuable player and he won the award. The thing with McDavid is he's not only scoring the most points. he's also not bad defensively this year. Like he's a positive defensive impact player this season. And, you know, if that was the big impediment for him in Drysidal last year, and that's not an impediment for him now, how is it not Tom McDavid?

Yeah, and the Oilers are good. They're going to make the playoffs. They are not a deep team. Obviously, Dracital's error. But other than that, it's not like it's, you go well, he's surrounded by talent. No, it's, it's, it's, Connor McDavid is the most valuable player in the league. Pretty much every year, because he's the best player in the league. But this year, even if you want a galaxy brain the definition of value, it's Connor

McDavid. I would happily cast my vote to Connor McDavid if, of course, the Oilers are a playoff team. Got to be in it to win it. And I worry about them. Montreal is still there. And now Calgary is never going to lose a game again, apparently. No, but, Greg, I don't know if you know this, but the North Division is terrible. They took the seven worst teams in the whole league and put them in the same division, so we should discount everything that happens.

That's the only reason. Well, you have to understand that I haven't watched any of the North Division. I only watched the American teams. Right. Yes, that is true. As for ESPN, your employment agreement. That is the other thing to say, though, is that there's no way a Canadian player. It's going to be either McDavid or Matthews.

Right, like depending on how the loops end up. Like, I think Matthews will definitely have a case. And then, you know, they'll go, I guess Andre Vasselowski is like having one of the best goaltending seasons ever, and its team's going to win the president's trophy probably. And it's like, it's a name that we know too. Yeah, sure. You know, that name you know.

He's a distant third, especially because they hate giving goalie the MVP award. Right. That's true. All right. I agree on, I agree on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on I think there's probably going to be a lot of people pushing for Patrick Kane if the Black Hawk makes the playoffs. Oh, God. 42 points and 30 games, my friend.

Yeah, how many fewer is that than Carr-McDavid? It's like 13, something like that. But that'll be if you really want to lead into value in the sense of who plays for a team that we didn't think was going to be good and they are good. And so therefore we got to... To that end, Sean, I think the guy who is market correcting Patrick Kane might be Sasha Barkoff, as far as the guy who's really, really good on a team we didn't expect to be good. Barkoff's got 34 points in 28 games, and I think the only impediment for him is that he plays in Florida.

Otherwise, like, there'd be a real campaign for him right now. At the end of the year. Yep. So I agree. They're not going anywhere. All right. Calder. Capris off.

What are we doing? Yeah. 100%. I wrote a big feature on him this week. Thanks for everybody who read it. It seemed to be due pretty well. Learned a lot about him. I love the anecdote that I shared about,

they asked him if he wanted a Russian teammate, like, hey, you know, to make your life easier coming over from Russia and such. And he's just like, I don't really need one, but if you get one, just make sure it's a good player so he can win. Like, that's fucking baller. That's the one thing I learned about Caprice often talking. talking to people behind the scenes is that he's not a stats padding, floaty, you know, typical young offensive whiz kind of guy.

Like he came in and he's just like, let's win, let's go. And I think that's awesome. He's a good kid. I like him. Lankinen, though, I think, has some possibility, right? Have you seen his stats lately? All right. Well, moving on.

No. I haven't actually. He's really, as one might imagine, for a goalie that had never played. played in the NHL before and his stats even overseas were particularly good. Yeah, it turns out he's not like a 930 goalie. It's crazy. He's down to 916, which is still obviously well above the league average. But, you know, it's still not good.

And yeah, over his last 11 games, he's 902. I mean, at this point, Capococan, it's the best rookie goals. but he's not going to get a ton of votes because he's on a team with the actual best slash way more entertaining and fun rookie. The only way Caprizov loses this award is if Tim Stutzley gets the Canadian Division vote. I think even that Caprizov would have to get hurt to open the door for somebody else. Fair enough. Yeah. Norris Trophy.

Well, this is a spicy one. I saw Frank Saravelli's list recently. He had John Carlson's second for the Norris. Okay. That's a choice. But who would be the guy right now? I mean, I think the interesting dynamic here, we just got done kind of like goofing around with the Canadian Division,

I think Jeff Petrie's stock is super high because of how he's played in a division. He's been unbelievable this year. but headman's not only leading the league for points amongst defensemen but he's also you know Victor had yeah I I had those two guys as my kind of coin flip like headman if you want the safe pick where the norris is still a little bit of a lifetime achievement award and Petrie if you want to go for somebody who's a little more out of nowhere but I did read Ryan's list and Ryan's got a lot of other names that I think are kind of more interesting at least I was I was really surprised it. Yeah, you had doughty number one.

Eric Carlson number two was a surprise. And then Shea Weber, I think you made it good. Oh, he came in at number three? Somebody made the very funny point of how funny would it be if Petrie wins it this year. And Weber has never won it for all the reputation and stuff. Number four on Ryan's list was Ryan Souter. And it just said for his politics, which I thought was interesting. That was a just...

So, yeah, my five. I wrote a top five for every award for the newsletter this past weekend. But my five, and I'll go from the bottom up, was Kail McCar, Victor Hedman, who hasn't been great at five-on-five. Like, he's, you know, he's Victor Hedman, but he hasn't been like a world-beater at five-on-five. Jonas Brodine, who's the number one defenseman on a really, really good five-on-five team, and, you know, the thing that holds him back. and holds Charlie McAvoy back, who I would have had sixth, is not producing on the power play. I don't think that's Brodeeds problem. I think that's a Minnesota wild problem.

And my number one is Sam Gerard, who, um, wow. He's having, let's put it this way. Have you, the, the Avs five-on-five stats are ridiculous, like across the board. But, uh, Gerard has kind of been thrust into a role that nobody expected him to have to be thrust into because of the McCrars. because of the McCarr injury, and he's playing as well as Cale McCar, reasonably would. He's got a ton of points. He's probably going to rack up more. And obviously, this all comes with the caveat that McCar is going to theoretically come back at some point

and take those prime minutes away from Gerard. But to this point, I think Gerard has been the best defense minutes in the league. It's a really good point, actually, because, I mean, he and Taves have as a duo been better than McCar and Taves were. Yeah. Especially offensively. That's a good call, man. That's something that I could get behind.

If only because it cools off the Kiel McCar love a little bit. Yeah, like I said, like McCar, you know, if he doesn't get hurt, he's the number one guy. And everybody agrees. But he's hurt, and that opens the door for all these other guys. And I just think Gerard's been unbelievable in what you would. say is, well, nobody wanted, or not wanted, but nobody expected him to have to be the number one guy. And he's like, I'm actually fine with that. That's regular to me. I don't care at all. I'm actually insanely good. So who's the best Gerard? So we have Gerard Gallant. We've got,

we've got Sam Gerard. Gerard Butler. Gerard Gerard. Depardue, I think. Jeff Ardu. Gil Gerard played Buck Rogers. I remember that when I was a kid. I don't know what that means. Was Tommy Lee Jones's character in the fugitive detective Girard? I want to say. Or he was a U.S. Marshal, right? Marshall. Oh, right, he was a detective. Right, because the sequel was not U.S. detectives.

We're fucking idiot. So, all right. So if we were going to power rank the Girards, I mean, Depp Ardu has been canceled. So we're not going to have him in there. In fact, his name is Sam Gerrard. Sam Gerard. Wow. All right.

So that's it. So this is what we're going to do. Number one, all-time Gerard is Sam Gerard. And then that just encompasses all of the people named Sam Gerard, both the U.S. Marshall and the Colorado Avalanche Defense. The fact that that hasn't been worked into a nickname is just like further proof that nicknames are dead. Well, it's also further proof that it's a movie that came out probably before Sam Girard was born.

Would be the other thing, I would say. And it's a great movie, but it's not like a movie that people are like, oh, this is one of the all-time classics of cinema. That came out in 93. By the way, I think it is one of the all-time classics. I think it's one of the all-time classics. I think it's a top-to-bottom almost perfect. I'll say this. When it shifts to detective mode, when it gets back to Chicago and there's a lot of sort of sneaking in and out of houses.

The parade scene? Ooh, baby. Oh, it's great. Speaking of freaking St. Patrick's Day, huh? Remember, that was when that happened. When you create, yeah, he puts on the little green hat to hide. That's right. And it works.

The thing that, the thing that, I mean, once you get into sort of like the medical conspiracy theory should of it, it kind of gets bogged down. And I guess the big denouncement is like him walking into a room with like 200 people at a dinner and like pointing and yelling at, doing the Harrison Ford pointing and yelling thing at the guy when he's at the dais. He's like up there as being like, you know, fix. Fixoxicline is the best rug for all of the stuff. And he's like, you killed my wife, you know.

And he's just like pointing and shit. It loses a little steam then. But the rest of the movie is impeccable. Oh, by the way, speaking of impeccable movies, I revisited Midnight Run. Like the day before Yafat Koto died, by the way, which was weird. Yeah, I watch it. It's on like HBO Max or something, right? Yeah.

I watched it maybe two months ago. Unbelievable. It's so good. It's so fun. Sean, have you seen Midnight Run? I have not, no. Oh, my God. You'll love it.

Oh, it's stacked. It's so good. All-timer. comedic performance from Charles Groton. De Niro's maybe first playing against type role, you know, a little bit as sort of the comedic action hero. And the supporting cast in this movie is maybe one of the best of all time. It's ridiculous.

With Yafikoto and Dennis Farina and Joey Pants. John Ashton from, or Ashton is it, from Beverly Hills Cop as the other bounty hunter. It's so, Sean, you'll love it. You have to been that run. personally love it. Yeah. All right. So Norris were thinking Sam Gerard,

Headman or Petrie. I'd give it to Headman probably. You sorted by points and off you went. No, Lambert, no, to your point, I remember this being the case with Headman in previous seasons where his underlines aren't good to start, but then you look at him by the end of the season and they're fucking great. So I'm going to make my hedge my bet that at the end,

he's not going to, there's not going to be, points to defense disparity on the John Carlson level. No, it would never be at the John Carlson level, but, you know. Okay. Vezina. Veselowski. Okay. Slam dunk.

Yep. Yeah. All right. Especially because Florey is not going to be getting the kind of minutes he's gotten because of the laner injury. He's been great, though. Oh, he's been unbelievable. I could see the GMs giving him.

him a, you know, a pile on the head and saying, here's your, here's your trophy. Yeah, but if he ends the season with like 16 fewer games played than Vasilevsky or something, because now he's going to go back to the 1A, 1B scenario. Yeah. I don't know how you give it to him, even though this is an unbelievable, somehow his third career renaissance. What do you think, Sean? Vasilevsky? Yep.

Okay. One other guy to maybe keep an eye on, I'm not really convinced that it. it's going to work out for him in the end. Thatcher Demko has been fucking unbelievable for the last month. Unbelievable. They has. Yep. He needs at least another month like that to really get into the race.

But then, yeah, maybe. Yeah. I think, like, you know, Vancouver's over the last month, I think Vancouver's like a little above 500 maybe. And there's one reason why, and it's not the rest of the team. So. It's Jim Benning's press conference. Like I said, they're going to...

They're going to use the sweep of the Maple Leafs to become buyers at the deadline. That like two or three games where they looked really good against the Maple Leafs, they're going to be like, you know what, we've got to stock up. This is our chance. Can't wait. Jack Adams, obviously Travis Green, based on what we just said. Clearly? No?

Okay. This is an interesting one. It's going to be Quenville, right? I think it should be. How good they've been? Yeah. Yeah. That I think is probably the, because it checks all the boxes, right?

He is a good coach. He's name value, has the track record, although that seems less important in Jack Adams voting. And it's a team that wasn't expected to be this good. Yeah. Which is the main criteria. This is the, out of all the awards, this is the, we didn't see it coming. So therefore, somebody must have had an award-winning performance, because the only other option is the rest of us are dumb, and that can't possibly be it.

Yeah, the thing I guess you're going to say is that people are going to really be stumping for Jeremy Colleton, even though Chicago, like all their successes based on, they played a bunch of bad teams, and they got insane goaltending. Well, the Panthers have also played a lot of bad teams. Well, they're in the same division. You only get to play who's on the schedule, but the difference is, Joel Quinville's team is one of the best. best at 5 on 5 and even on the power play in the entire league, and Chicago is only good at the power play. So to your point, to Sean's point, though, like,

I think there are other really interesting candidates. I agree. I think this is, I don't, I think it's kind of a slam dunk that we have to mention, but. Well, I don't know if it's quite a slam dunk, because the other name that we got to mention is Dean Eveson. Dean Eveson is correct. In Minnesota is, that was, that, that's one where if you. want to go, I see him getting maybe even more than Colton getting the like younger

relatively like surprise out of nowhere vote. And like we talked with the Norris and some of the other words how they feel like Lifetime Achievement Awards. Jack Adams has never been that. Jack Adams voters will give it to somebody in their first year, somebody who's come out of nowhere, they have no problem with that, that you go down the list of winners. That's why a lot of them don't hold up very well. But yeah, I think that's, that's, that's. That's probably the top three if the people who normally do the voting do the voting right now. Right. I think the other interesting thing, too, is that, like, the other candidates are all guys from teams that you'd expect to have been good.

Like, Brindamore, Lobulette took over a pretty good Capitals team and has maybe made them a little bit better. Trots. And then the one interesting one, though, is Keith. in the sense that everybody expected the Leafs are going to win that division but I don't think anybody expected them to have figured their shit out defensively despite not good goaltending

but here's the thing they haven't to the extent that they can't get a save they can't get a save but also you know like like Myrtle wrote about this this week like the whole idea that they fix the defense is not is it doesn't really hold up scrutiny like the defense has been better

there's progress being made. They're not a good, let alone great defensive team yet. And that's, I think, what we would need to, you know, by the end of the year, if they look like that, then maybe he gets consideration. But I don't think, I don't think finishing first with a team that's expected to finish first doesn't really get. I'll tell you who my vote would be for, and it's somebody that you just kind of mentioned quickly in passing, but Barry Trots, I know he won a few years ago, and that apparently

takes your eligibility away. Barry Trots is the best coach in the league right now. If there was a loophole and every coach got led out of his contract, people aren't calling Dean Eveson or Jeremy Coulton. They're calling Barry Trots and saying, come coach my team. He's the best coach in the league. He's doing a great job this year. He's got his team in first place.

Lou Paul. He's the coach of the year. Lou poll. Hold on. This is an interesting question. Every coach in the league is a free agent. Okay. Do you hire Trots or do you hire Cooper or do you hire Quenville? Yeah, I think those would be the three.

I think it's Cooper against Trots. And I don't hire Trots because I don't want a team that's going to play, you know, sorry, Islander fan, boring two-one hockey. If I'm an owner, I want somebody. But if I want to win, if you're just sitting me down and going, if your team doesn't win the Stanley Cup, this, I, Barry Trots is my guy. The other thing to say about trots, unlike the last two seasons, is the Islanders are actually fucking really good, like at five on five. They're not, like, you know, grinding out two-one games because their goalies are standing on their head like they did the last two seasons.

It's more, like, because, you know, people forget the Islanders down the stretch before the season shut down, had lost a shitload of games. You know, I don't remember what it was, but it was like, you know. They were several games below 500 over the last 20 or whatever it was. And it was because, you know, it was the thing that everybody said would happen. If they kept playing like 48%, 45% expected goals, hockey, was that the results caught up to them. This year, they're one of the best five-on-five teams in the league, and they're also getting the goaltending.

And, you know, they have a couple guys who can go and score a highlight real goal if they need to and that kind of thing. So I think Trots is a really good job. candidate, the one guy that didn't get mentioned that I actually had third on my list. For the second year in a row, I think it's Jared Bednar. Like, everybody thinks the abs are supposed to be insanely good, one of the top two or three teams in the league. But they've had important injuries to, like, all world-level players again this year. And they're like, oh, yeah, we're like a 60% XG team.

Who cares? It doesn't matter to us. I think it's really, really impressive to just, you know what, next man up. And yeah, okay, we lost Cal McCar, who probably is a Norris type of a defenseman. Yeah, Sam Gerard is just as good as him. He was like our third defenseman this year. I think that's incredible. Also, obviously, Rick Tocket and Craig Brew, because I like coaches that can beat the shit out of people.

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He's good, obviously, but like he's, you know, I personally, I think the, like, the nerd, like, reach pick that everybody is, kind of propping up as Joel Erick's neck, having a much better 200-foot season. But for me, I think I'll stay on the Minnesota Wild. I'll pick Marcus Felino. You made a really good case for Felino, I thought. Yeah, he's good. He's having a really good season. And like, you know, he's purely their shutdown guy and he's just doing it against

everybody who's like a, you know, one of the top players in that division. He's just like, oh, whatever, you know, it doesn't matter to me. I'll play anybody. And he's dominating them the full 200 feet. So I'd have to check out to see where Kopitar's numbers are because early in the season, he was having just incredible two-way year. I wonder if that's stuck. I haven't checked in recently.

Our last awards watch was at the beginning of the month. But, you know, this is the kind of award that does come down to sometimes the best two-way, forward two-way, you know, let's be honest, two-way center. It is. It's, well, yeah. It's the 200 foot forward award at this point. Like that's, yeah. Yeah. There's no way you're allowed to win it unless you have like 60 points, which is not what the award is supposed to be, but okay.

It can sometimes be a Hart Trophy Consolation Prize. Like I think we saw that with O'Reilly a couple years ago, too. So it could be Barkoff here. You know, obviously the big black and gold, elephant in the room is Patrice Bergeron looking to set the record for most Selkees. So it's hard to not think that at some point he's going to get that from the voters. I just don't know, given the competition, if that's going to be this year or not, but I don't think it should be discounted.

Copatar has almost replacement-level defensive value. 0.02 goals over replacement, according to evolving hockey. Almost all of his value derives from his offense. 5.3 goals. Oh, so he'll definitely win the Selke. That's right. All right. Moving on to some non-voting categories.

Biggest good surprise player in your estimation, Ryan Lamberton. Nick Eilers is having an unfucking believable season in Winnipeg. Oh, good choice. He's a guy I've liked for quite a while now. And, you know, like just the classic guy of like one of these days, he's going to have like an insane offensive season. And this is it. I mean, he's above a point of game. last time I looked and, you know, like, yeah, here it is.

He went from 58 points last year, including 25 goals in 71 games, which is a good number, you know, 58 and 71, solid. He's 29 and 28, and he already has 14 goals. So he's nine away from what he got in 71 last season. And, you know, he's just been, I think Dubois said the other day, like, he's the most talented player I've ever played with is what he said. And yeah, it's nice to see him finally actually like breaking out and putting up monster numbers. Absolute Nick Felino Erasure from Dubois.

Can we talk about Mark Schifley for a second? Why does Schifley take so much shit from people? Does he? The analytics community, like, there's some, I don't know if it was, if it's Dom or other people, but like, I'll be checking the old Twitter feed sometimes. And like there's a lot of sort of Mark Shafley is the most counterfeit star in the league. Yeah. He, well, he, everybody on the Jets, like a lot of their, under their offensive numbers last year, they scored, I think, the most empty neck goals in the league last season or the most, and the most extra attacker. And so like, you know, when, when Wheeler was having a crap start to the year, you know, in every way but scoring, every, uh, what's his name? Paul Maurice was like, well, look. I mean, he had eight billion points last season, and somebody's like, and four billion of those were into empty net, so who cares? And I think Schifley gets that a little bit. Like, he's not particularly good defensively, but who on the Jets is, I guess.

I mean, not to use this as the metric, but it is kind of stunning that, like, there's only two players in the top 20 point scores right now that are, that play to a minus. Yeah. One of them is David Perron and the other one's Mark Schifley. Yeah, and I think that's the knock on him is that he's just not that good defensively. And like, you know, not everybody has to be. But like in terms of if we're talking about overall value and stuff like that, you have to take, much like Dreis Edle last year, you have to take into account the fact that he's not good defensively. And that's, you know, the coaches should use him accordingly. But I think that's what like, because people go, oh, Mark Schifley, he's one of the best players in Canada.

And it's like, well, he's one of the best players. wars in Canada. Interesting. What about you, Sean? My best surprise player, as far as just stories I like, is Mark Andre Fleury. Yeah. I thought he was done at least as a starter and maybe done as a starter in Vegas and maybe done as a starter period anywhere.

And he's been fantastic. And the league is just more fun when Mark Andre Fleury is part of it. I will go with Nick Baxter, who's been really, really good for the Capitals, has always been one of those, quote-unquote, most underrated players in the league type guys for a long time. But he's just been bang on good. And to have a season like he's having at his advanced age, I think is really cool. I always like Nick. I think he's going to maybe have a low-key Hall of Fame case, I think, by the end of his career. Let's slow down.

I mean, complete lack of. any. He's going to be right on the border line. He's going to be one of those guys that you'll get to the end. And if he's over 1,000 points by a bit of a margin, it's going to get a little tricky. The Sergei Zuboff of centers, I call him, Sean. Okay. Not bad.

Speaking of what we call him, and just because we mentioned nicknames, did we ever call this guy Nickelback? Did that ever, was that ever a thing? Because I feel like it should have been. Yeah, what's the middle name? Is it Nick Elbath? It's not, yeah. But I mean, Nicholas? Yeah, sure.

I don't know. I just feel like that's, it was right there. Lucas Baxl. Nick L-A-C-K-K, right? He's the, yeah, he's the center, so he has a C-N-E-N-E-N-E-N-E-E-N-E-E-E-E-C-N-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-C-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E. How did they come up with this shit? It's crazy. It's crazy, right? Biggest good surprise team.

Minnesota Wild. Right? They're up there. I went to Chicago. And, you know, because it's very good surprise that they're still in the play. I did a thing at the beginning of the year where I did like a prediction contest. And I was like, just tell me the obvious things that will definitely happen and definitely not happen. And with the idea being that one.

When you look back at the end of the season, there's always stuff that surprised you. And I will tell you, if the Blackhawks make the playoffs, it's going to wipe out 90% of the entries in that contest from people who were like, yeah, definitely, because one of the questions was name a few teams that are definitely not going to make the playoffs. And everybody said Detroit, everyone said Ottawa, everyone said Chicago. And they're right in the middle of it. And that was, some of that was before they lost Jonathan Tates, which would have been just the final reason to completely write them off. I don't necessarily think they're a good team, at least as good as being in the playoff mix would indicate, but they're a surprise for sure. They are. I'll go, I mean, I'll go Florida.

I mean, those are the three, right? Like Minnesota, Florida, Chicago, I think. I think the Islanders, you would say, is a good surprise, too, because nobody, Jesus, I just look. You're 12-0-2 at home. They haven't lost in regulation at home. Yeah, they're, I think. you're right that they're surprised because I think a lot of people thought that in the Washington, Pittsburgh, Boston, Philly, like, foursome that the Islanders might be on the

outside looking in. That's why for me, like Minnesota was always going to be a playoff team, I think, this year. Well, it was going to be them in Arizona, neck and neck for the last spot, and it's not that. Yeah, now they, now they look like they're, I mean, again, Colorado's obviously had a lot of injuries, but like they look as good as Colorado? Nobody saw that coming. I think in Florida's case, like a lot of us didn't think they'd make the playoffs. And even if you thought they could make the playoffs, they certainly weren't going to be a $750. No, yeah, that's right. I thought they would make the playoffs just kind of by default.

Like, you know. Yeah, they're much. And then the other team, I guess I wish you mentioned is would be Winnipeg. I don't think too many people had them as a top 10 team. But they're doing exactly what they did last season. So. Yeah. Uh, worst surprise player.

Seth Jones. Huh? Who? Seth Jones. Wow, you managed to pick a non-saber. That's really impressive. Yeah. Well, I mean, like, I just kind of, that whole thing gets siloed off into its own separate problem.

But, like, yeah, I think, like, people were like, oh, this is the year South Jones is going to be a Norris contender. And he's been fucking terrible. Yeah. And, like, you know, a lot of that is he was super overrated because he played 180 minutes in that one game or whatever it was. but, you know, he's just a guy who was never maybe as good as what the reputation suggested. And then this year he's just been like so far beyond bad that even people who would have would still say, well, you know, I mean, anybody can have a down season, blah, blah, blah. Like he was, he seemed very much on track to get that Drew Doughty.

I'm 26 years old. Where's my lifetime achievement award award? and now nobody can even make half a case for him. And the, and the, we played the Leafs and the playoffs bump. Yep, absolutely. That I think is real. I went, I mean, my pick was Taylor Hall. And I, that was even before he took a puck in the face last night.

Came back, though. Came back. I was surprised that when, I don't know if you guys saw it. It was bad. I watched all of that fucking game for something. Yeah, like it looked like, obviously him getting hit in the mouth looked bad, but the When he was going off, he kind of had these wide eyes, and I was like, that's somebody who is feeling things loose in their jaw that are not supposed to be loose. And I was thinking, like, we're not going to see this guy again maybe for a while.

And yeah, full credit to him that he came back. And by the way, I mentioned this on Twitter, but I hate the fact, it was a fluke play, but I hate the fact he doesn't get hit in the face if he doesn't get cross-checked in the back for the offense of standing near a lieutenant. I'm so sick and tired of this being an accepted. play in the NHL that if a forward is anywhere near your net, you're allowed to just go hammer them in the small of the back. And I'm like, I'm not playing P.K. Sue, man, because that's, that's a hockey play, but it shouldn't be. We, like, slashing guys in the glove as they skated by you used to be a hockey play too, and we got rid of it and nobody misses it. We can do that for this too. And it's not taken physical play. You can still get position. You can still

physically move a guy out of the way if you need to. You just don't get to. cross-check them right in the back. Yeah. It's tough not to pick somebody on the savers, if we're being honest. But I'll give you one. I'll give you a good one. Carter Hart. Yeah, he's been real bad.

Yep. Yep. Second to last in goals saved above replacement, only ahead of Thomas Grice. And an 884 save percentage, 362 goals against. He's 7, 6, and 3.6 and 3. There were people that thought this could be a Vezna season for him. I think at least one person on the ESPN predictions thought he could win the heart this year. Well, that's just because they got confused.

They wrote his name down. Yeah. I just have to remember to name my kid Vezina. Carter Hart is been no way up there. There's only been one goalie in NHL history named Vesna. and he was really good. So figure it out, man. He never did, surprising.

Oh, wow. It was a real Lou Gehrig's disease type situation there, almost. Yeah, it's Carter Hart for me, I think, and maybe the Flyers in general in some ways, but Carter Hart for certain. All right. Worst surprise team. I mean, we all kind of knew the Sabres were going to be bad. So I don't know if they're really a surprise that they're bad, maybe being this.

I think it is. a surprise that they're this bad. I agree. Yeah. But for me, the only answer is Vancouver. Yep. That's who I had. Oh, no.

I have a different answer than that. Yeah. I have Dallas. Dallas is, yep. Now, again, but the thing about Dallas is, again, like, they had the COVID thing to start, the COVID in the season. And then they're, you know, the steep freeze and then the state broke. Yeah. And everybody's hurt.

Like, I get all of that. But, like, sorry, you can't be below Chicago in the stand. I don't care what the fucking situation is. That's your Mendoza line. It's where are the Blackhawks in the standings. Yeah, you can't be working. They went to the Stanley Cup final last year. Yeah.

You can't be below Chicago in the standings. That having been said, you know, there are reasons to think that Dallas is still a decent enough team and blah, blah, blah. I still think they make the playoffs and I don't necessarily think I'd want to play them. If guys are healthy. Like, if again's back, if Bishop's back like this, eh. If I'm Tampa, I'm sitting there going, not these guys in the first round. Yeah, low-key bad season from Kudobin, by the way. Yep.

They need Ottinger to play real well the entire rest of the season because they don't have any other options. Yeah, interesting stuff. Let's see here. Finally, bold prediction for the latter half of the season. We already had one, I think, with this sentiment that the Dallas Stars are going to make the playoffs. Is that that bold? Really?

I don't know. The way it's going. There are 500 team by the NHL standards, not even by real understanding of what 500 means. And the other thing is, like, they have so many games to make up. Right. Like, what does that schedule look like? And what does that do to a team? Like, at some point, it's, yeah, that could have an image.

And that's actually my bold prediction is I think at least three teams don't play the full 56. Let's put it this way. There are multiple teams with 32 games played and multiple teams with 26 or fewer games played. And like if you're the devils, for example, you have only 26 games. What does it fucking matter? You know, like you can just write off your extra games against Buffalo or whatever it is and just call it a season. Who cares? nobody's going, like, you're not going to be fighting for anything.

And, but like, let's see here. Dallas, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Vegas, and San Jose are all at 20, like six games below the league leaders in games played. That's a lot. Yep. The only thing there is as fans start to be allowed back in. The owners who are like, hey, I did the first half of the season with an empty building. Yeah, we might be 20 points out of the playoffs, but we're playing because we need... That's a great point to get these guys in, but...

My bold prediction, this one actually isn't super bold, and it would have been completely not bold at all at the beginning of the season, but I get a little bit of cover based on how the first half went. I say Colorado wins the President's trophy as the best regular season record. Despite that, I think they're 8th or 10th, or depending on whether you're looking at percentage or points right now. but they've had so many injuries, and I think it clicks in the second half, and they pass everyone. That's interesting. I'm just thinking the Central's so bad. You know, like Tampa has a lot of games left against some really bad fucking teams, don't they?

Yeah, they're almost, they only have three left with Carolina and five left with Florida, it looks like, but they haven't played Dallas very much. They haven't played Detroit very much. They haven't played. They've played Columbus only twice. There's a lot of points to snag there. Along similar lines, I think the Bruins are going to kind of, they've been bad lately, but I think the Bruins are set up to go on a nice little run here. They haven't played Buffalo once yet.

They've got four games left against the devils. I don't know. Like, that's a lot of free points. Yep. And like, they have a lot of problems on the. their roster obviously, but like they're better than they've been the last month. Yep. Okay.

Mine is that Vancouver makes the playoffs. Sean, I understand you have a game show for us today. I do, yeah. If you guys want to work in a, I wouldn't even call it a game show. I would call it a quiz. It's a very simple one. It's just in honor of the Buffalo Sabres going through one of the worst seasons in memory. I have come up with a game I call

They couldn't have been that bad, could they? And the way this is going to work is we're just going to go back and forth. I'm going to give you guys a terrible team from NHL history, and I'm going to tell you a fact about that team, and that fact is either true or false, and you're just going to answer the question. They couldn't have been that bad, could they? Make sense?

So we answer... Oh, God. I'm sorry. Oh, shit. I just... I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

Do we answer true or false? Fuck off. Yeah. Do we answer true or false or do we say they were definitely that bad or they could have been that bad? You can answer however you would like. Yeah, it's... Okay, I'm just going to honk a clown's nose. Sure.

For my answer. For any of it. Yeah, that works. Who wants to go first? I've got five questions for each of you. Yeah. Go ahead, Ryan. Okay.

Works for me. All right. Ryan's going first. Ryan, the 1980-81 Winnipeg Jets were a very, very bad team, relatively new after the WHA merger or murder.

Ryan, did you know that the 80-81 Winnipeg Jets made it through an entire season without having a single winning streak? They never won two games in a row. Or did they? Did you say what their record was? It couldn't have been that bad.

I didn't because I don't have that written. down, but I could probably, if you pretend to be thinking about it, I would stall. Lambert, always asking questions on these games. They finished 9, 57, and 14 for 32 points in an 80 games. I'm going to say true then. It is true. Yeah, the single-digit win total was the giveaway there, I think. Very good. Greg. Yes. A little, slightly more recent, the 92-93 senators, a famously awful expansion team, Did you know that the Ottawa Senators lost 10 straight games three times during that season? Were they really that bad?

That's a tough one because they did have Troy Millett and Brad Marsh. Yeah. And Peter's D'Orichowitz. They couldn't have been that bad, could they? They were that bad. They did, in fact, lose. They had three different 10 games and separate. 10-game losing streaks.

Wow. Yeah, they were super bad. Also, the team that we can thank for the existence of the draft lottery because they were so bad down the stretch that it seemed like they were tanking, even though they said they weren't. Ryan. Yeah. The last year's Red Wings were very, very bad.

I didn't hear about this. The Red Wings, I don't know if you know this, but they, being an NHL, team in the modern era, they used 18 skaters a night. Is it true that by the end of the season, they had more than 18 skaters who were double-digit minus on the year? I think that's true. Wow. That is true.

They had 20 guys who were minus 10 or worse, even though they only got to use 18 guys every night. Greg, another recent one, the 2016-2017-Colado avalanche. This was the last bad avalanche. lunch team right before they just magically became good. But they were very bad that year. Did you know that they gave up double-digit goals? So 10 or more rules in a game three times during that season?

Or did they? It couldn't have been that bad, could they? Oh, I think they were probably that bad. They were not. That one is actually false. They did lose 10 to 1 to the Montreal Canadiens, but that was their only double-digit goal game. Lambert, I got to let's talk for a second. So, yeah, what's up?

I really thought this is one of them dumb fucking games where Sean just, like, wants to have all the facts be true, you know, and be like, there's a bunch of trivia that I know. I didn't think we were actually playing a game where any of them would be false. Did you think the same thing? That's why the first three. I'm talking to Lambert. Just to mess with you. This is not about you.

You fell right into my trap. I figured it was going to be a straight ahead game. I thought there was going to be some true, some false. Now, did I think both of mine would be true and both of yours would be false? No, I didn't think that. But, hey, maybe that informs your next answer. What do you think about that? It might.

It might. All right, John. Let's keep playing. Ryan's next, right? Okay. This round, we're going to go way, way back. Ryan, you've got arguably the worst team in the history of the NHL, the 43-44 Rangers. This is World War II.

They're missing, like, they weren't good to start with, but they're missing all of their good players. Did you know that the New York Rangers that year, both started and ended the season with a 15-game winless streak. Holy shit. Is that true? Are they really not bad? That seems like it's too many. Too many losses.

I'm going to say false. It's actually true. They started 014 and 1. They finished 017 and 4. That's incredible. It was only a 29 game season. That's even more incredible. They were really,

bad. Greg, the 5354 Blackhawks. My favorite team. Were a very, very bad team. This was back when the season was 70 games long. Their goalie was a guy named Al Rollins. He played 66 games. He won 12. Were they so bad that their goaltender who won 12 of 66 games was named League MVP, basically just out of pity because he played for the Blackhawks? Good old Red Light Rollins playing for the Black Hawk. Good old Red Light Rollins playing for the Black Space Hawks, as it was written back in the day. God, that sounds like it should be true, but I don't have my heart trophies memorized. I'll say no, false.

It is true. He won the MVP winning 12 games for a dead last team. Jesus. Yeah, it was. It's kind of amazing that hasn't happened. Like, I remember there was a time, who is it? Maybe like Mark De Niede or maybe one of those Gie A. Bear years in Anaheim where there was some talk about like maybe this guy should be the MVP. because the team is such dog shit.

Surprise it doesn't happen more often. Yeah, well, guys get votes sometimes, and this was back when the voting was probably like six dudes who just got together over beers, but it was like, yeah, this guy's just completely on his own, so they gave him the MVP. We're to Ryan. This is round for Ryan, I believe you are leading two to one.

That sounds right. So factor that in strategically, if you want. The 91-92 sharks, this is their first season, another legendaryly bad expansion team back when expansion teams were expected to be bad. Ryan, the sharks made it through the season using many goaltenders. Not one of their goaltenders had a goals against average under 5.0. Is that true? 91. Were they that bad?

No, they weren't that bad. It is false, so you are correct. They had one goal. Archer's Irbe was four point something. Everybody else was over five. Yeah, now that makes sense. That's fine. Greg, I think you now need this to stay alive. I still don't believe we're actually playing a game, but go ahead.

Yes. It's the, since we, the inspiration for this team was the Sabres. Let's go back to that 2014-14. 15 Buffalo Sabres tank team. Greg, did you know that that is the only team in the analytics era to ever finish with a team-wide coursey under 40? Is that true? Were they really that bad? Wow.

Now I'm trying to think if there were other teams that did it or if they didn't do it. Yeah, I'll say that's true. It is true. They finished like 37 points something. the next worst team ever that we know of in that era was the Atlanta Thrashers who finished at like 43. So that Sabres team was really not just really bad, but way worse than anyone else. Ryan, this is your chance to clinch it. It's because they were tanking for McDavid or Eichel.

Yeah, both of them. Didn't matter to them. Yeah, both of them. Yeah, didn't want McDavid. Hold on. Let's pause for a second. Would they be in this pickle if McDavid was on the team? Yes.

They still would be? Yeah. They'd be in better shape, but yeah, I don't. I mean, it's not like we can sit there and go, well, we know where McDavid wound up, instant success followed. I mean, I think that's the old. No, that's right. Yeah. I do think maybe a more interesting question even about the Sabres is, is any of this a holdover from the fact that they so blatantly tanked?

Did that do something, not in terms of karma or whatever, but just like to the. The mindset of the organization did that. The fact that they just openly went, and I don't necessarily think so, but I've seen some media takes that have sort of hinted at that. I do like the karma aspect of that, too, though, you know. Did the hockey gods frowned upon thee for blatantly trying to lose? No, I don't know. Did the hockey gods force them to sign that high-lock poso deal? Or was that somebody else?

Maybe. Maybe that was part of it. All right. Last round, Ryan, you're up by one here. So you can close it out here. The 89.90 Quebec Nordiques, one of the years in which they finished dead last three years in a row. Was that team so bad that they used seven different goaltenders during the same season? That sounds reasonable.

Sure, yeah. Let's say it is. They were. Congratulations. You have won it. Greg, I'll give you your last question just for funzies. Sure. Because we can't do a bad team thing without touching on the 74-75 capitals.

Got to do it. Probably the worst team in modern history. Did you know that they went the entire season and they lost every road game that they played that year? That's true. It's false, but it was almost true. They went 1-39-0. They won their 76 game of the season was their first road game. And they famously celebrated by taking a garbage.

Can't pass it around like the Stanley Cup. Shit, that's right. I remembered that, and I still said it was true. Good game. A nice, you know, and I think therapeutic at the end of the day to remind our friends in Buffalo that could be worse. Yeah, like only like six of the things we just said are going to turn out to be true about this year's Sabres. So it's okay. There's no way they get seven goalies through them.

No. And their goalies probably not bringing the heart. 10 years from they are going to be like, is it true that Colin Miller had more goals than Taylor Hall? And we're like, that's impossible. And then it ends up being fucking true. You know? All right.

That's a show for this week. You can read my stuff at ESPN.com. Got some cool stuff this week. Been a good week. The CapriSofe feature I liked. I have a feature today on the Ottawa Senator's Sicko movement. I talked to the inventor of that meme for the story. and then Friday, Emily and I are collabing on our mid-season report cards for all 31 teams.

So that'll be a fun time, too. And also for those curious, wheels turn in behind the scenes on many things for life as a rights holder. So we'll see where it all takes us. Yeah, sign up for elite prospects rinkside. I do what we learned there every week. I'm later today. I'm going to, well, wait for the games tonight to finish, but I will have the power feelings tomorrow on elite prospects. And yeah, we're doing a lot of good stuff over there.

So check it out. And then I'll also obviously sign up for the Puck Suit Patreon. Thank you. Goodbye. I have just been rehired as the coach of the Sabres. So that's good news. Oh, fantastic. Congratulations.

And, yeah, find me on the athletic. I've got a piece that just went up where I take the biggest trade between every combination of Canadian teams and rank those, since it seems like those teams might just have to trade with each other at the deadline because of the quarantine. So that's a chance to remember some guys. And I think for at least a lot of people, there is a $1 a month offer right now, which is actually the first time since I think November that the athletic has done an offer like this. So if you've been holding out waiting for the next offer to get on, board.

Now's a good time to do it. And listen to my podcast with Ian Mendez. Shoot. Yeah. Well, there goes that joke. I was going to say, as the new coach of the Sabre, Sean, is now about to Google the minimum wage in the state of New York. He's going to see what's up. Yep.

It's like 14 bucks, Sean. I think we're all set. They're doing pretty well, yeah. Unless, of course, they're paying you in Dogecoin, like Montreal will be doing for all of its players. Now it became the official, the first team in the N8. to accept advertising from a blockchain company, I believe. Cool. Was what I saw from Darren Rofel yesterday.

So congrats to Carrie Price on the cryptocurrency for the rest of his contract. All right. That's the show. Go to the Patreon. Go listen to the mailbag. Thanks to all the new Patreon subscribers, by the way. We had a lot of people coming in to check out, I think, the live show that we did. And from the looks of things, the people have spoken and they want us to do a live show maybe once every few months.

not to replace the bonus episode, but more frequently than once a year. So that's good news. I'm glad people enjoyed it. Yeah, that was fun. All right. Thanks, everybody. Talk to you soon. Bye.

See you. Bye-bye. Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slapshots and goons. We've got spoiled their commentary to whatever you commute. But we also cover movies, TV shows, eats and tunes. It's your weekly bowl of Hagi and Nonsense. Umbochoo Don't know.