The Athletic Hockey Show - 5 Stanley Cup Playoff matchups we want to see

Episode Date: December 23, 2024

On today’s Monday edition of The Athletic Hockey Show, Max and Laz make their picks for the five playoff matchups they’d love to see this spring. Before that, they talk about Matt Rempe’s eight-game suspension and whether he really belongs in the NHL at this point. Plus, the guys address the “Macklin Celebrini is better than Connor Bedard” debate to close things out.Hosts: Max Bultman and Mark LazerusExecutive Producer: Chris FlanneryProducer: Chris Flannery Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic hockey show. Hey, everybody. Max Bolman here alongside the athletics, Mark Lazarus, for another episode of the athletic hockey show. And Laz, as you know, it's in both of our contracts to begin each episode talking about the New York Rangers. So I want to start with your personal favorite New York Ranger, Matt Rempe, a man who is always in the news. A shocking amount for a player who I just learned two minutes before we started recording has only appeared in 22 NHL games in his career. But we're not going to see him for a few. He gets an eight-game suspension for a real nasty hit on Miro Haskin, a hit that was, as far as I can tell, the ejection is not foreboring.

It's not for elbowing, it's forebording and elbowing on the same play. What's kind of your reaction to this? As if I can't guess. 22 games, and he's been kicked out of four of them. Here's how I know Matt Rempey has finally jumped the shark. Sarah Palin tweeted about him today, saying how the NHL has gone soft because Matt Rampé was ejected

for trying to kill a guy again. Look, I'm so done with this guy. All the Rangers fans want to say and all Peter Alavid, oh, he changes the game, he changes the game, he changes the game. He brings a different dimension. He plays five minutes a game. This isn't 1996.

You can't play five minutes a game anymore and be in the NHL. He's not good enough to be in the NHL, and he's not safe enough to be in the NHL. He's reckless, he's dirty. I mean, look, I've talked to Matt Rempe. He's an exceedingly nice, delightful human being.

I want Matt Rempe to be a good hockey player because I think he could be a good person for the National Hockey League to market and be around. But he's just not. It's just not happening. Being gigantic is not an excuse for constantly being dirty. Zadano Chara didn't go around getting suspended all the time. The Blackhawks have a 6'8 guy.

Louis Crevier, he hasn't been ejected yet. Alex Vlasik is 6'7. He hasn't been ejected yet. Matt Rempbe gets his. rejected from every fourth or fifth game he's in. At what point do we say enough of this guy? So you're not buying that they win the game that he's in and gets kicked out of, and then they come right back and they lose the next one.

That means nothing to you at all? If Matt Rempe is the only reason you're winning games, then you have some organizational issues to deal with, my friend. Well, I think we know that they do, first of all. But, yeah, I understand the argument. I will give Rempe a little bit more credence than you do. I think it's not a bad thing to make your opponent think about literally anything else than doing their job while they're on the ice. And the threat of Matt Rempe is one of those things.

I do think the statement that the NHL is making here is directly to Matt Rempey admit it is that we're not going to let you just have that be your whole thing. The NHL is aware of all these facts as we are. And I think the eight, it's high and it's high for a reason. It's high because they're telling him, look, man, we're not going to, we're not going to, we're not going to, to treat you the same way we treat a Tom Wilson or a Brad Marchand because those guys are also very clearly doing a lot of other things. The line we always hear is it's a hockey play, right? Well, in order to be given the benefit of the doubt on a hockey play, you need to make a few more other hockey plays that aren't giant hits, right? Well, yeah. I mean, and look, there have been

players, there have been dirty players in the NHL that have had long good careers. Matt Cook was a good hockey player and it was infuriating how just violent and dangerous he was out there because he didn't need to do that. It feels like Matt Rampé thinks he has to do this in order to stay in the league. And that's that's when you reach a problematic area, right? That's when a guy doesn't go on wall. I don't know.

I mean, this is what he's paid to do, right? Laviolet wants him to go out there, make some big hits, make guys look over their shoulder. But the problem is, you can do that. You can be that guy and do it legally. You are allowed to hit people in the NHL. I'm not sitting here saying I want a no contact league.

I want clean hits. And Matt Rempay seems physically incapable of delivering clean hits. And you can talk all you want about, oh, he drew three penalties before this, and he changes the energy and he changes the momentum. He gets kicked out of every fourth game he's in. He doesn't belong in the NHL if he's playing like this. There's one thing to play on the edge. He is so far over the edge at this point that if he can't rein himself in,

he's not going to have a career. Yeah, I think that's fair. And my guess is it the reason that it's gone the way it has so far, is that he probably does feel that his place in the N. depends on him proving that he can consistently make these kind of physical plays that do have some impact on the game, whether it's a mental one, whether it's obviously like, you know, you make a big hit on a star player who knows how that impacts a game. I don't think the NHL loves that latter idea as much as maybe the first. And I'm someone who likes the enforcer. I don't like maybe the pure enforcer where that's all you do. But I think there's a place in the game for a guy who is, you know, I'll use like an Austin Watson, for example, is a guy who was on a PTO with the Red Rings this year. I thought Austin Watson. did enough to have a spot on the Red Vings this year because they lack a guy who can stand up for his teammates, a guy who can put a little bit of physical fear into a defenseman when he's coming out on the forecheck. These are hockey things, right? And I have no problem with guys standing up

for their teammates. I actually think that's a way that hockey is safer, is that you know you can't be throwing these ridiculous hits to the head because you'll have to answer for it. I buy that reasoning as much as I know people don't like it. I do believe that that's a bigger deterrent than penalties and potentially even bigger deterrent than suspensions. but I do think you have to have a little more than that. I think you have to have, whether it's offense, whether it's defense. I'm not saying it. I don't like an idea of hockey as a sport where every player is the same kind of guy where they all have the same skill set.

I don't like that, but it has to be more than just this dimension. Right. Peter Lavillette loves Matt Rampe. He loves him, the way he talks about him, the way he changes a game and all that stuff. But he still only plays him five, six minutes a night, even when he's not injuring guys. That tells you all you need to know. This isn't an error. Fourth liners play 13, 14.

minutes a night now. They're great skaters. They're hockey players. And Matt Rampey needs to be more than just a menace out there in order to get the benefit of it out and to have a career. Look, there's dirty hits all over the league all the time. Sam Bennett just put one on Jake Neighbors. It was yesterday or the day before that. And it was a dirty hit. And Sam Bennett skirts that line a lot. Like, you know, we talked to last week about how Florida has this kind of nasty side to them that makes them different than all the other contenders in the league. It makes them really menacing to play against. you can skirt that line, but you have to be able to do other things.

Sam Bennett does a lot of other things well. So he kind of gets away with it. And I wish, look, it was a bad hit. And I would have liked to see Bennett get suspended. Every time someone gets hit in the head like that, I want to see a suspension. I want to see a player safety department with a little more teeth to it. And I'm glad to see that they're kind of laying the law down with Rempe

because he's a repeat, repeat, repeat offender. But you got to be able to do more. You can't just be this guy. And right now, all Rempe is, is a guy who goes around hitting people and he's not very good at it. If you were good at it, he wouldn't keep getting thrown out for it.

Yeah, and we've seen players like Jacob Truba, another former New York Ranger, who does get away with a lot of really big hits because he's a really good hitter. Like, you can get mad about point of contact. The NHL has repeatedly looked at Jacob Truba hits

and go, nope, that's within the rules. If Matt Rempey could do that, I think that we'd be having a different conversation. Being able to go from elbowing a guy in the head to hitting in the chest, chin area, that's like, that's the line where the player safety has made it clear. You can hit a guy in the head. You just can't go straight at the head.

You can get a part of the head. And Jacob Trubut drives me nuts. He's another guy who just so many hits that infuriate me. But he knows exactly where the line is. And he places his elbow or his shoulder right on that line every time. And that's why he very rarely gets any supplementary discipline for it. Well, you let me try to sell you on the five minutes a night thing because I got a theory. Do it.

Let's see what you got. So five minutes tonight. Obviously, to us, that looks like, okay, this coach doesn't trust and this coach doesn't want to play him. What thing that I've noticed, especially, I've only been covering this league for seven years. But coaches, I feel like more than when I was a kid at least, like the 11 and 7 thing. They like the ability, especially on the road, to move guys around and it helps them avoid the issues that come with having the last change when you're on the road. Usually in order to play 11 and 7, obviously it's seven defensemen. But the defenseman takes them out of a rhythm.

It's always weird. that seventh defenseman plays like five to ten minutes a night. Would you rather have, if you're Peter Lavillette, if you're in that kind of mindset, we're at, like some matchup flexibility, I'd like to be able to move my guys around, double shift the guy if I'm trying to keep him off of a scary matchup. And when I do need to do that, I can just throw out this guy who has a very defined thing that he does. Granted, we can, we can agree he's not doing it within the rules right now. That's clear. But if he could rein that in and find that game, is that not a valuable and viable alternative to 11 and 7.

I think there are certain games where you're going to, like, if you're chasing a goal or too late, where you're going to double shift your best player, if you're the Rangers, you want Artemi Panarin out there a couple extra shifts. Patrick Kane did this all the time where he would wind up playing 25, 26 minutes because he was playing every other shift in the third period. That's fine once in a while. But Rempe, it's every game.

Like, I don't have been any games where Rempe's played 12, 13 minutes? Is he a trustable asset out there for, if you're protecting a lead, if you're tied in the game and you're fighting, you don't trust him. If he's a guy you can't put out there in the, it's one thing to sit a guy for the third period because if there's a better player, it's another thing if you can't play a guy in the third period. I'm not talking about third period late, close game.

I'm talking about you go into the game and you go, I know I don't have last change. I know the other team has a matchup line. Like, for example, the Montreal Canadiens fourth line is a really good fourth line. New York goes into Montreal and they're going, ah, I don't want Evans anywhere near Panera. I don't particularly really want him anywhere near Lafranier. I just need a way to move these guys around so that when they have last change, because I don't have that authority if I'm Peter Lavie-Lat.

It's in Margie St. Louis's hands. I need to be able to move my guys in an unpredictable way. And that means I have to have 11 forwards, basically. But you have this other guy who prevents it from actually having to tire your guys out that level. That's the best devil's advocate case I can come up with. I don't even know that I fully buy it, but it's the most logical thing that I can come up with. And it would explain why he's only played in five games, by the way. There are instances where I think that's normal

where a guy is just going to get the short end of the stick. But when it's consistently, constantly the same guy, our producer Chris Flannery just said 1108 last March was Rampi's highest ice time ever. And if it was 11.08, by the way, if it's 11.08, we're not having this conversation. No, I don't know exactly how that game went. But almost every other time he plays, it's four minutes, five minutes, six minutes. That tells me something about the trust. a coach might like the player, but how much does he trust him?

And Lavely can say all he wants about Rampi, he clearly doesn't trust Matt Ramping. And they're two, two and one in his five games this year, by the way, which is basically par for the course for them. We can speculate about what they're going for. It's not moving the needle in an empirical way. So just, but I just wanted to throw that out there. It's the most logical thing that I can think of. Yeah, there's nothing wrong with flexibility.

And a coach has to be willing to bench a guy to sit a guy and replace him with a better player. You have to be allowed to do that. But when it happens to you every single night, I think they're sending a pretty clear message. All right. Well, so the Rangers right now are on the outside looking in of the playoff race. When we come back after this break, we're going to talk about something on that note. All right, we are back. And, Laz, our main topic today is going to be a little bit of wishcasting by the two of us.

I want to ask you what five playoff matchups that you want to see come the spring. There's going to be eight of them. I don't think we can get so gritty as to call for all eight here. But if I could give you five guarantees, what's your number one? What would be your number one playoff series of you're dying to see? First round. Right now, we're sitting on two of them right now in the Eastern Conference.

Leifes Bruins, who doesn't want to see Leaves Bruins for the 700 time, just for the sheer drama? And there's nothing, like, I generally want to see matchups I haven't seen before. But when it comes to Toronto, like, if they're going to start slaying dragons, you want to see them do it the right way, right?

And if it leaves Bruins carries so much drama, so much history, so much agony, that it makes it, no matter what happens, it's a great story. It's a great series. Right now, I think, I'm pretty sure that's the way it's set up. That is. And the other one is Florida, Tampa. Who doesn't want to watch Florida Tampa, man? The Battle of Florida, it's just incredible to me how, you know, you think 10 years ago anybody would be pining for anything hockey-wise in Florida. And here we are, and it's like, we were all just salivating over the idea of a Panthers, like.

straightening playoff series again. Yeah, that would have been my number one, I think. But I am equally interested to see. And right now, the Dallas Stars, I don't think this would be the case by points percentage, but by pure points, the Dallas Stars are just on the outside of the playoffs. I believe if you're to go by points percentage, they get in and become the eight seed, which puts them at least within range here of a central division, Winnipeg, Dallas first round matchup.

I'm interested in this one for two reasons. One, I think it's two phenomenal goaltenders. There's two goalies that are absolutely good enough to carry their team the entire way through this the only cup. But two, because it's two teams with kind of completely opposite narratives. The Jets are this team that none of us really particularly seem to want to believe in. I know I certainly do not. I keep waiting for the bottom of fallout. And Dallas is a team that I'm almost stubbornly believing in.

Like they have not had the kind of season that I feel that they should have or deserve to have. And yet they're on the outside looking in by true points right now. I'd love to see two teams like that go head to head in the first round. It's funny that you mention that. You know, those stories that we do every week where we hit on all 32 teams, I do the Dallas Stars ones because I've been, I'm very familiar with them, being a central division writer, I've covered them in the playoffs a bunch of times. And I'm so Dallas-pilled at this point.

Like, I've picked them to win the cup, like three straight years. Jim Nill to me is by far the best GM in the league. What they've been able to do, the team they've been able to build, the way they integrate rookies into them and they immediately set them up for success. I just, like, every time they ask a question, oh, it's fine. We're all good. all good here, everything's great here. And then you look at the standings like, oh, shoot, right?

They're actually battling right now for a playoff spot. So it's interesting that you mention that. For me, for Winnipeg, I want to see Winnipeg, Minnesota. Because that's the two teams that nobody believes in, right? In Minnesota, you know, coming back down to Earth a little bit, but like those are two of the best fan bases in the league, like ardent supporters of their team, no matter how endlessly mediocre they've been, right? It'd be huge for Winnipeg to win the Stanley Cup.

be world-shattering for Minnesota to get a cup up there. I kind of want to see those two in the first round because the panic level of the team that loses is so high. The stakes, it would feel like a much bigger series than a first-round series. Because if Winnipeg has this amazing season and then falls apart in the first round again, nobody's ever going to believe in them. And you start warning about that quarter, they've got locked up. And Helibuck is he a regular season goalie?

And Minnesota, this is the year, right? This is the year they're exciting to watch. They've got the megastard in Caprizo. They've got all the pieces. Gustafs has been great in goal. You're finally, the Minnesota Wild are the most mediocre team in the history of the NHL. Every year they're fine.

They're fine. And this year they were exciting and they were dominant and they're killing everybody. And if they go into the playoffs and they lose in the first round again, it's going to be just devastating. So the emotional stakes of a Jets Wild matchup would be fabulous. It also may well be the two top candidates for the hard trophy. this year going head to head in Carillo Caprizoff and Connor Hellebuck in that scenario. It might be. You know, it won't be because too many of my P.HWA colleagues do not believe in

goaltenders getting an MVP, but Hellebuck's been on my ballot a couple of times. I'm a big, I'm a big goalies deserve heart love. I think I once had Devin Dubnick, number one on my heart ballot. I still stand by that one. The year he got traded to Minnesota, speaking of the wild. I had Shasturkin one in one of the years. Matthews won it, and I thought that was a deserved, deserved one, too. So I'm with you on the goalie one. here's another one that I think would be interesting. And I don't know if I really want this or if I'm really sick of this one. So that's why I want to ask you about it.

Kings Oilers have played three years in a row in the first round. And it's gone in a decreasing number of games, seven games in 2021, 22, six games two years ago, and then obviously five games last year. If it ends in a sweep, I have no interest in. I don't want to see that pattern continue. But I can't decide if I really like just them going at it every year. And that's the annual tradition.

And by the way, I think the Kings are having a good enough year. they could put a little more of a scare to the oilers than they did last season, by the way. Or if I'm just, if I'm juiced about this. Don't you feel there should be a little more heat under that rivalry, given all this? Probably. It doesn't feel like Blackhawks Canucks did when they met three straight times in the early 2010s. It doesn't feel like it has that juice to it. It's weird because, you know, we all of us, I think, to a man, we all complain about the NHL's playoff format

because it just gives us the same matchups over and over again. But then you start thinking, like, what do you really want to see? Oh, I want to see Leaves Bruins again. I want to see Panthers Lightning again. I want to see Kings Oilers again. So maybe we're all hypocrites. I don't know. The other one I would want to see would be either Vegas, Edmonton, which is possible.

Yep. Just because, again, these are two legit contenders. I like it when we get these matchups in the first round. I know it's a, it's technically it's a mark against the playoff format that you get these. But I like that that every round seems to have an, oh my God, matchup. Like, a great regular season doesn't mean you should automatically get a trip to the conference final. I'm fine with that. But Vegas, Edmonton or Vegas, Colorado,

because Colorado to me, I don't know, that's still one of the scariest teams in league to me. It's something about Colorado and just the sheer skill and speed they have, even with all they're dealing with. That's a team I would never, ever want to face in a playoffs. No chance. I'm completely with you. And the playoffs of the time of year when coaches are willing to let a guy like Nathan McKinnon

play 27 minutes and Kayle McCart with 30 minutes. And they're just going to, yeah, we're going to see exactly how far. these guys can take us. Yeah, and I love that, that there's a team like that that seemingly, it's got no goaltending, and they've traded both their goalies, and everyone's hurt,

and it's like, still, still and yet, Colorado's Colorado. Could I sell you on the Battle of Ontario? Are you into that in the first round? I know you said Leafs Bruins already. The Leafs against anybody is going to have some inherent drama to it,

just because of the Leafs of it all. I would go for that. Sure. Yeah, that have the the the is is that a natural rivalry is that a blood feud does it is there anything to that probably not to the degree of some of the other ones we're talking about but what i what appeals to me about it is a couple of things one i think brady kachuk is the kind of player that that would haunt the narratives in a series against the leaves and and i think he's a super impactful player

i love him as a player he's he's an instant rivalry just you just insert brady kachuk and you have a rivalry and i think for the things that toronto was taken heat for he's like an ideal foil for them. I also think it's just every year in the first round for the Leafs, with the exception of the Montreal year, the narrative is kind of like, can the Leafs get over the hump against this more proven team and all this? I kind of want to see the Leafs in the opposite role there, where it's like, oh, can they avoid getting burned by this other team that's done a whole rebuild basically throughout

the time that Toronto is trying to break through? They've already won their first round series. So it loses a little bit of that, I suppose, but they haven't gone on a deep run. And I think if you had an Ottawa team in there that's like the new young hungry team that wants to prove that they're not a mirage, I think there's a lot of narrative juice to that kind of series. Yeah, that's a good one. How about this? I mean, we are the way the playoffs are right now, we are very, very, very close to an old school throwback series, Washington, Pittsburgh. Ovechkin, Crosby can still happen.

Pass. I'm out. I don't want to see the Pittsburgh Penguins anywhere near the playoffs this year. They're not a problem. Oh, I'm with you there. And honestly, if you're a Penguins fan, you probably shouldn't want to see that either because it would just delude management

into thinking they should keep going for it instead of fixing what's at the root of their problems. But man, wouldn't it be cool to see Ovechkin and Cross? They're still both great. Just one more time in a playoffs series? Do you think it would even be competitive? I mean, I guess it's funny to talk the way about a Washington team that I don't know

that we had a quorum on even making the playoffs with the start of the year. But do you think that we didn't have a chance to be competitive in that kind of series? I don't see it. Is Washington that? scary to you? They're not that scary, but they're just, they're a real playoff team as opposed to, I just, I would rather see Washington play Carolina because, I mean, not that those

games are going to be sexy, but I kind of liked watching the Islanders playoff runs. And I think that series could have a lot of that kind of flavor to it. And frustrates some people for sure, but I think it would be really well coached hockey. Those are two of the top five coaches in the NHL, I think. That's, I'm still like, Washington just came through Chicago and me and another a couple of writers were talking about, like, you know, I'm, I'm interested in seeing Washington Nicholas, what is it that makes them good? And none of it did. Like, like, they're, there's such an unimp- like, they're so underwhelming, but they keep winning. Like, I don't know what Carberry's doing there. Give them all the trophies in the world because that is, especially without

Ovechkin, there's such an underwhelming group, but they just keep winning. And like, I don't know, man. I, I, if, of all the contenders right now, of all the teams that are battling for top seeds, that is the least imposing team of all of them. It's an extremely funny sentence about the team with the second best goal differential in the NHL. I don't understand it. What makes them good? I sit next to Ben Pope of the Sun Times in the press box and we looked over each other in the second period and said, I still don't get it. I don't get it. I don't get it. I don't get it. Oh, we should we should probably do a segment, not for today because we're going to be pretty crunched here. But we should do a segment on the capitals. We should put a pit in that and we will both do some research. and we will come here and we will present why we think the Washington conference writer.

I got my nose in the Westman. I'll take this burden on. This is my homework and we're going to do a segment. And Max attempts to understand the Capitals is going to be the project. I'll tell you, I'm super happy for Dylan Strom. He's one of my favorite guys I've ever covered. He got a real raw deal in Chicago where Jeremy Colleton just couldn't stand him and didn't believe in him for whatever reason. All he did was produce.

All he did was make Patrick Kane and Alice to Brinkett, you know, score more. and he just never got healthy scratched all the time and then the hawks just let him walk for nothing. I am so happy to see him just destroying it out there, but I still don't understand how that as a team is working so well. It's awesome. It's great. Good for them. I love it when we have surprises.

You know, the NHL could get very rote sometimes where what you think is going to happen in October is pretty much what's going to happen in April. So I'm glad to see it. I just don't understand it. All right. So they're in Detroit one week from today. I don't know if you and I are going a week from today,

but I will do my research on the Capals. And whenever the next time you and I co-host is, we're going to do a segment where I'm going to try to explain the Washington Capitals to you after everything that I've learned between now and then. Max explains the Capitals. I am here for that segment. I am a professional at this. Thank you.

All right. Let's take a break right there. We're going to talk about a couple of exciting young players in the league as Lazan. I continue to try to start rivalries. All right, we're back. And Laz, a couple weeks ago, we talked on the show about the kind of burgeoning Badaard Michkov, or not really burgeoning. It's been there for years.

Rivalry slash debate, it never really actually has materialized because I think there's another guy that people would rather compare Connor Bader to. And that's the 2024 first overall pick, Macklin Celebrini. Yeah, and every single one of those people is in my mentions at all times. and all I ever get is Celebrini's better. Celebrini's better. If you do a search right now

on Twitter or Blue Sky 4, quote, better than Bedard, you will have a lot of reading material. This is the new thing. And I don't know, man. Macklin Celebrity is fantastic. He is great.

For him to be at his age to be the two-way player that he is, producing the way he is. I don't understand, though, why this has to be a zero-sum game. And this is what I feel like sports has come to. now where it can't just be, look at these two amazing young players who are going to be so good

in the NHL for the next 20 years. It's got to be, this one's great and this one sucks. You know, all Connor Bedard has done is put up 90 points in 102 games on a terrible team and vastly improved his defensive play in his second year. And he sucks. It can't just be, look at these two excellent young players and it's kind of really getting old, really fast. I'm sure. So you're not objecting to the premise that Celebrini could be better than Badard though, or are you? You're just objecting to the- Of course, he could be. I mean, he's played what, 22 games, something like that? He looks fantastic. He might be. I don't know, these were both the number one overall pick. I think what this comes down to is, is, this is kind of what I want to

talk about here, is the nature of hype, right? Like, Connor Bedard got so much hype that people want to see him fail. Because that's just the way we've seen to be wired as sports fans. Oh, this guy was shoved down our throat since he was 16 years old. I hope he stinks. Ha ha, look, he stinks. I'm right. Pat me on the back on the best.

These were all the same people, by the way, praying to have him on their teams. Of course, of course. And I think, you know, Baderd was so hyped because of the nature of his game. He is a, he is a highlight film waiting to happen. The way he scores goal, when he was 17 years, old, his shot was better than 98% of NHLers. So his goals were spectacular. He is prone to be on the highlight reel, and he lived as like a looping giff in our heads

for years before he was drafted. Celebrini didn't. He played college hockey. Nobody pays attention to college hockey. My apologies to people who love college hockey, but people don't pay attention to it. Canada does not pay attention to college hockey. What Celebrini did at BU was BU, right? Not BC?

Correct. Boston University was, you know, Connor Bedard had like 140-something points. Like by far the most we've seen in the 21st century, but like the 53rd highest ever. The WHL, the points are crazy. Sellebrini had 32 goals and 32 assists as a freshman at major NCAA hockey.

We don't see that. James Higgins, who might be the number one pick this year, has five goals in 16 games at Boston College right now as a freshman. What Sellebrini did was extraordinary. But he didn't get the hype that been, Adard did because A, he played college hockey, and B, his game doesn't lend itself to looping gifts, right? He is a really good two-way player who is a really good score, but he doesn't have that spectacular shot. He doesn't do the dangles.

So, Badard gets the hype and therefore gets the hate, whereas Celebrini was a little lower key coming in, so everyone's happy to see it for him. I just don't understand why we can't be like, sweet, we get to watch these two guys and Mitch Gough for the next 15 years. Why does it have to be zero sum? I think there's a couple of reasons. One, because I think people are constantly trying to find a silver bullet, a unifying theory of scouting that a certain type of player will always be better, right? And these two lend themselves really naturally to that. Bidar is the flash. He's the sizzle.

Not to say he's all flash or all sizzle, but there's so much of it. You know, you watch some of the goals from his draft year, and even since his, obviously, he's been in the NHL, and you just go, wow. And there's a lot of people that prefer that type of player. Even, you know, there have been times covering the Red Wings during their rebuild, where the Red Wings actually are playing decent defense and they're playing a bunch of two-one games. And at least my perception from fans is that they would almost rather be losing games six to five than suffer the indignity of winning and only scoring too because of how boring it is. On the other hand, Sellebrini is the type of player who I think teams would tell you they win with, right?

Like he maybe is not going to be a hundred point guy in the NHL, but everything about his game just screams winning hockey. And I think there is another group of people that want to say this is the right way to be. This is what you want, right? And to you two Blackhawks, it's kind of like who was the bigger reason that the Blackhawks won all those cups, Kane or Taves, right? I was just thinking that as you were saying that.

It's, you know, that was the most common comparison for Bedard. It wasn't McDavid. It was Patrick Kane. Yeah. And I can see that. They're similar players, there's similar sizes. And, you know, Celebrini does have that Taves aura to him where it's like, all right, this guy plays the game the right way.

And there's room for both those guys at the top of the league. Like, if you're Patrick Kane, you've done pretty well for yourself in hockey, you're going to be a, you know, a Hall of Famer on the first ballot. You won three Stanley Cups. You've won an MVP. You've won a Kahn Smyth. If that's all Connor Bedard does, I wrote this. This is exactly what I wrote.

The day of the draft lottery, I was a, signed write a column on Badaard. And I was expecting the Blackhawks to not get Badaard to remember. They were third best odds. I wrote this whole column basically saying in advance, saying maybe we got to pump the brakes on this kid because if he becomes Patrick Kane, if he has Patrick Kane's career, incredible career, he's a failure. He's a bust.

He does not live up to the hype. And those are absurd expectations to place on somebody. And here we are. He's got Patrick Kane numbers through his first couple of years. And everyone's like, he's not that good. He's overhyped. He's not generational.

He's still the second youngest player in the league. Second youngest player in the league, and people have made up their minds on him already. Yeah, and it's because you know who the youngest player in the league is? It's celebrating. Exactly. So he's younger. He's having a really good season.

And I think the sharks and Blackhawks are both still really bad. But I think the Blackhawks, maybe there was a perception. I don't know that you and I really believe this, but there was a perception that the Blackhawks should be out of that. and that hasn't happened. So the fact that that's the case, I think, gets used against Bedard in a way, even though I don't really blame Bedard for it at all. Let's see.

I want to revisit this argument in like a month because, you know, we don't talk too much about the Blackhawks for obvious reasons. They're not a relevant team on this. So we don't talk about them too much. But under Anders Sorensen, since Luke Richardson was fired, they're a much more offensively minded team. They're much more aggressive on the forecheck. The defensemen are pinching in.

And all of a sudden, they're winning games and they're scoring three, four or five goals a game and Bedard is flourishing. He's been like 1.25 points a game, something like that under Sorensen. So I'm curious to see how this progresses. But I think we need to point out just how good Connor Bedard has been this year. I don't think people, you know, the goals haven't been there for whatever reason. He said some bad puck luck. But, you know, this guy was, you know, all anybody wanted to talk about last year was

his plus minus. He was an absolute defensive black hole. This year, he's minus one at five on five. The Hawks are being outscored 21-20 at 5-on-5 with Connor Bedard on the ice. You know who else is minus 1 at 5-on-5 this year? The wonderful, amazing two-way player, Macklin, Celebrine. So I feel like the goalposts are constantly getting moved on Badard, where it's like, yeah, you can score goals, but can you play defensive hockey?

All right, here, I'm going to play some more defensive-minded hockey and still produce points. Yeah, but now you're not scoring as much as you were last time. It's like nothing's ever going to be good enough. Unless he's Connor McDavid, which he is probably not going to be Connor McDavid, because Connor McDavid is the single best hockey player that has ever lived. So that's unfair. But unless he's Connor McDavid, people are going to say that he was overhyped, that he's not generational.

And I'm just saying, let's see what happens in a month. Let's see what happens when he's 22. Let's give the kid a chance before we're just writing him off when what he's doing is still pretty spectacular. It'll come back around, though. The thing is it will come back around in a year or two and everyone would be like, I can't believe everyone, everyone except me was ready to call him a bus, right? And that's how everyone will frame it. So it will come back around. And I think that it'll find its level on Badard. But that's just the product. Everyone wants to be the first to a declaration.

We all get sick of hearing, even thoughts that we at one time shared, right? Like, I'm sure you and I both said things about Connor Bedard in his draft year that were maybe a little bit of us letting our imagination run wild, right? Maybe not in an art. I'm as guilty as anybody, sure. Absolutely. Right. So it's just the, it's human nature. And then we get, we hear that kind of repeated back to us or whatever from fans or too many fans and we go uh no come on what are you talking about right we i've written things about prospects uh and then i go why is why are people so obsessed with this guy and i go oh it's probably because i wrote this like really positive story about him three weeks ago and well yeah whenever you're writing about a prospect you're only focusing on the good

exactly this guy could do and it's funny because when i wrote that column about baddard for the draft lottery the second the hawks won the draft lottery i looked at scott powers i went oh god i'm to get killed tomorrow. I'm going to get eaten alive from people that don't realize how the sausage is made. I wrote this from a national perspective, not a Blackhawks perspective. And I wrote it not thinking the Blackhawks were going to get them. And oh, my God, I was Debbie Downer. What a jerk I was ruining all the prey. This guy's going to be the next, these cane and taves combined. He's the greatest player that's ever lived. And I just, I still hear about that column from time to time. And I was right. For once in time, I was right

there because the hype was unreasonable. It was unfair. But that's the social media age and not just that we're prone to hyperbole, but because of the style that Connor Bedard was scoring goals in the WHL at the World Juniors, it lent itself to just living in these perpetual loops on social media. It's all we saw for a year and a half, two years. If you're an American hockey fan, you weren't really seeing him play. You were just seeing those gifts. If you just saw those gifts, oh my God, this guy is the greatest.

athlete I've ever seen. And that's why we're at this point where people either hate him or they're disappointed by him when it shouldn't be either. He's been terrific at what he's doing and he's only getting better. And Celebrity's great. Why can't we be happy that we got all these great young stars coming into the league? Like it's not just Sharks fan. If you're a Sharks fan, sure, get it. You're out your guy, whatever. But it's just like people want to hate on Bedard. And I just don't understand it. Well, so you were Debbie Downer on Draft Night. When this air is tomorrow, you're going to be the Homer beat writer who can't admit that Macklin Celebrini is clearly better. That'll be the public narrative on you. And then we'll see

where it all shakes out two years from now. You can't win, man. You can't win. No, never. I did think this was interesting. Celebrini is not the Calder favorite right now. That is actually looking at the lines from our friends at BetMGM, Motvei Michkoff at minus 130. Celebrini is not far behind, minus 105. He's got a chance. I think especially if he can stay healthy, that's probably one impeding factor for him right now is he missed about 10 games earlier this season. There's really only two other candidates like worth mentioning here. Lane Hudson at plus 2,000, Dustin Wolf at plus 6,000. But I, this feels to me at least like a two horse race, right? Can I interest you in Lane Hudson at 20 to 1? I think you, I think you called it a sucker's

bet not that long ago. On the pre-show, I did. I do think that's a sucker bet. It's it's tantalizing, right? Because he's racking up points for Montreal. He is, he is a one-way player right now because he's young too and he's going to learn to play two ways also. But what he's doing offensively is pretty impressive. And we always give, at least I always do as a Calder voter, gives, you know, special leeway to a defenseman because it's harder to be a young defenseman in this league than it is to be a young forward in this league. I think that's that goes without saying. But no, it's going to be either Mitchcoff or Celebrini. It's probably going to be Celebrini because, you know, he was hurt.

He missed a bunch of games. Mitchcoff was racking up the goals and the game winners at that point. that's going to even out. And I think Stelabrini at the end of the season is going to be on top in both points and in, you know, Calder votes. I do too. And to extrapolate on the Hudson thing, right? He has a minus 14, by the way.

I know you love that stat for rookie players on bad teams and how much it means. But I did see him play against Detroit this weekend. And at least in the game in Detroit, he had fingerprints all over a couple of Red Wings goals that made you go, yeah, this is still a rookie, right? And the point totals are great. but I just, and Lane Hudson is great. Like, he's another player that I think, similar to the conversation we were just having about Boudard,

the Montreal, um, PR push is, it's not coming from their PR department, but it's like maybe like the fan base push for everyone to recognize how amazing Lane Hudson is, is actively working against anyone wanting to buy into, to Lane Hudson because it just feels like you're being hit over the head with it. And you watch him and he's not a perfect player,

but he still does a lot of great things. I think he's going to be a really good, offensive defensemen in the NHL, but I think trying to sell him like he's the next in the McCar, Hughes mold does a huge disservice to him because it sets him up to only fall short of that whenever anyone else actually watches

a play. Honestly, I love that they're letting him be a one-dimensional player right now. That's what you should be doing with extremely a talented, young, offensive-minded players is give him a year to just go nuts and feel what it's like to score in this league, and then you start building on. That does the Blackhawks do with Bedard last year? That's what,

you know, I look at another Black Hawk top 10 pick Kevin Korninski is a defenseman. He came in as a 19-year-old last year. He couldn't go to Rockford because he was too old or too young. And he couldn't go back to the juniors because he was too good. So he played the whole year in Chicago. And he was so worried about his defense because he's in the NHL. It's like he forgot how to play offense.

Everything that he was drafted for, his skating, his aggressiveness, his shot. He wasn't using any of it. And it's taking it's kind of, he's regressed because of it. It's still there. But it's harder to draw out. I like letting these guys, that's what the Blackhawks did. with Kane and Taves. They just let them run wild with Patrick Sharp on their top line.

That's what Denny Savard did as a coach. And then they taught them to play a little bit more of a two-way game where it was already ingrained to then that, yes, we can score at this level. See, I'm torn on that because there's a part of me that wants to say, yeah, I get that. You know, you give them a year or two to build their confidence and all this stuff and show, yeah, you know. But the other hand is like, I don't want to show a guy that, look, look how good you can do when you do a bunch of dumb stuff and take risks that hurt your team and then

try to take that away from them, right? I really think if a guy is as talented and as good as you think he is, and I certainly think Lane Hudson is those things, that he can be good and play responsibly and let those skills shine in the right moments as long as he's coached to do it. There's probably some gray in there. I think if these guys are as skilled as we think they are, and I really think he is, that we don't need to let them do stuff that we know

we're going to just try to take out of their game later. I think you can start with a good baseline on that. I think you could probably, there's probably a hybrid way of doing it, But I don't like seeing young, talented, offensive guys, guys that were drafted for their skill, be kind of stifled as rookies. We see it a lot, and it really delays them becoming what they can be. So I'm okay, especially with the defensemen, if you make them so worried about their defense, they're not going to ever take the chances that make them special. Like, Kail McCarr can take those chances, but he can also play defense. Yeah.

You know, that's the ultimate goal. it's easier in my mind to teach them to play more responsibly than it is to teach them that you can dominate at this level offensively. So I want to let them run wild with their rookies. Fair enough. All right. That's going to do it for us. Thanks for listening to this episode of The Athletic Hockey Show. Please, if you're enjoying the show, leave us a rating and a review.

Ailey Shot and maybe even some guests are going to be here on Thursday to recap the top stories of 2024. Happy holidays to all of you.