The Athletic Hockey Show - 8 things we were wrong about this NHL season

Episode Date: December 12, 2024

Hailey Salvian and Sean Gentille tackle eight NHL storylines that we got wrong, two months into the season, including the New York Rangers being a top team in the league, the Nashville Predators returning to glory, that the Golden Knights and Hurricanes would take a step back and underestimating the Winnipeg Jets. Hosts: Hailey Salvian and Sean GentilleExecutive Producer: Chris FlanneryProducer: Jeff Domet Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Hockey Show. Hello, everybody. Welcome to another Thursday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. It's Haley Salvean and Sean Jintilly here with you. No guest this week. It's not Thursday and friends. Just Haley and Sean. What's up, Sean?

How's it going? I was taken aback by your tone at the start of that introduction. It was very professional. I feel like I'm going on drive time radio or something, and I need to be polite and say, like, hey, hey, thanks. really glad to be here. Thanks for having me. Yeah, thanks so much for doing this. Thanks for being here.

My pleasure. Doing your job. Something like that. Yeah. It's all downhill from here. Okay, so there's only two games in the NHL last night. So we don't have a ton of topical things to get into, but there are a few. They were interesting games, actually. New York Rangers beat the Buffalo Sabres three to two.

That's the Sabres, eight loss in a row. Owen Power, former first overall pick, benched in the first period after a bad play leads to a goal against. J.J. Perturka gets benched later in the game as well. Owen Power ends up scoring in the third period. So that's the kind of accountability or response that I'm sure Lindy Ruff was looking for when he did that. But it's still, like they still lose. It's still pretty tough goings in Buffalo. This is only a few days after or a few games after fans.

are bringing palm trees and chanting fire Kevin against the Utah hockey club. I'm seeing a lot of revisionist history rosters on the Sabres out there as well. Like here's what we could have looked like in 2024, 25 if X, Y, Z didn't happen. And I don't want to totally get into all that because I always take issue with like, oh, well, we could have drafted Jason Robertson if we knew better back then. like I don't love the revisionist draft picks, but I will say it's so hard to see like Sam Reinhart. And it's the Reinhardt,

it's the Eichel of it all. I don't know. I, it's tough goings in Buffalo. I feel for fans, like I, maybe it's because my parents live in Niagara Falls, Ontario. Like,

it could be so easy to just hop over to Sabres games all the time. I just, I want more for their fans. It's, it's hard to watch them. start and restart, stop and start and try to get things on track here. Yeah, I think Peturka getting benched almost catches my eye more than Owen power because he was one of the things that was going right for that team early in the season, right?

His plays declined certainly a bit over the last couple weeks, but, you know, a month ago, when we were feeling a little bit better about the Buffalo Sabres, you could say, hey, top line's doing well. Tage Thompson, looks like he's back. JJ Petirka seems like he's a good fit there. And now it's at the point where he's getting benched in game. Not great. And Owen Power, man, like I had seen, you know, it's always, you know, obligatory caveat that you can't just go by what people say on social and assume that it's representative

of the larger picture. But people had been dragging him a bit for a minute, you know, but even before last night. they need him to work. They need a lot of other things to work. Yeah. Yeah, bigger picture, man. It's just... We talked about this yesterday, really, at length,

because it was Rangers, Rangers, Sabres, which team's a bigger mess and blah, blah. I just look at what happens with the Sabres year over year, month over month. They just can't seem to get any kind of real foothold and play all that well for any meaningful amount of time. You just can't help but think, and I'm not even a guy that believes in this stuff,

but you're like, is there a curse? Is this real? Like, is this the weight of 10, 12 years of failure still kind of resting on these guy's shoulders? And there's something to it, honestly. Like, I, I, because, you know, there's no, there's no real easy explanation. This feels like something that,

that, uh, that, that should have worked at one time or another. And you mentioned, you know, the revisionist history and playing games with the roster. And I totally agree with. I don't like seeing people say, well, if we just took a dude X who went in the third round and is now a superstar, we'd be better. Yeah, sure. Any team could have drafted Nikita Kutrov in the second round or whatever. That's just not the case.

That's not realities. But where we veer off with Buffalo is, you know, Sam Reinhardt gets traded to Florida. And yes, it gets back Devon Levi and it gets back a first round pick. But, man, that felt bad when it happened and it only looks worse now. So these fans, you know, have to look around the league and see Jack Eichel turn into, you know, having the kind of healthy, productive season that we always kind of assume that he would. And Sam Reinhardt's... And sorry, and that she wanted to have, like... We can argue whether or not he wanted to be there or whatever, but, like, he wanted to have that surgery and then play healthy in Buffalo. So that's the biggest thing is, like, some of this current, like, rebuild and the structure that they're in is just so self-inflicted. Like, you're just, you're just, you're just. did this by blowing up your relationship with Jack Eichael. Totally. And then like, like we said, he is like, we're watching Jack Eichael level of with

we don't need to, this isn't a Jack Eichael discussion really. No. And it shouldn't be. But it's a part of the catalyst for where they're at now. You know, I go back to doing player tiers every summer for the past three summers. And I have people in the league for that exercise saying like, just wait. Jack can do it. like he's he's got the 90-100 point season all all he needs to do is stay healthy like he's there

and here we are 24 it's about to be 20 25 and he's there and sam ryanhart shooting 25% again and it looks real you know that's the craziest thing about sam righthart is this is like you see a guy shooting 20 24 25% it's easy to write it off as a heater until it goes on for a year and a half right it makes sense yeah so you look around and you see the top end pieces that are elsewhere and you see how they're just struggling to develop really anything beyond page and to a lesser extent, Rasmus Dahlene. And you're just like, what is, what is happening here? What is the way out? And I think it's clear that they don't have one yet. Yeah. And we'll have a bit more time to talk about Jack Eichel later in the show once we get to our main topic. But we did just

want to hit on some of the games that happened last night. The other game pretty quickly here, the Ottawa Senators beat Anheim five to one. It's a game they should win. It's a game they should win. realistically as much as people want to say that playing the ducks or whatever is a trap game you know at home on a Wednesday night but Lena sawmark with a solid start they want to see that consistently from him Drake batherson and natural hatrick he's been good this year it's kind of crazy he's in his seventh NHL season that makes me feel old and weird because I covered him when he was a rookie and I'm like oh is this how people feel when they're correct it doesn't it doesn't get any better. It doesn't get any easier. You keep getting older and they keep getting younger. It's not fun.

Great Bathersson talking about how crazy it is. He's in his seventh season and I'm like, oh, no, what do you mean? But it's been a good season for Drake Batherson. That's important for the Sends. I don't think there's too much more we can get into with the Sends there. It was a good, it sounds cliche, but it was like a good team win against what could have been an easy trap game. And it'll be funny. and I'm saying it's funny because Jeff, our producer, is here. It'd be funny if the Leafs come out and lose to the talks

tonight. It seems like that's what's going to happen. Let's pencil that one in. I'm just going to assume that that's the way it goes down. But yeah, I don't know. We just keep doing with the Sends. Cool. They win a game. Arrow pointing back up. They're 5-4 and 1 in their last 10.

Like, they are what they are and I think that's kind of... We got through the November meltdown. Meltdown Marcher Wades. Exactly. Let's check back in in a couple months. There's going to be a ton of good games on tonight. Thursday is usually the pack day on the schedule.

But in the meantime, as we're kind of the deep dive show, I would say. We've become that. We went from really weird Friday vibes to being like the insightful deep dive show. Says who? Says the host? Okay. We're very insightful here on Thursdays. We want to get into a little bit of self-reflection this week.

It's December. It's getting dark at three o'clock. I'm feeling very introspective about my NHL takes, not about life, you see. No, you don't want to dig too far there. We're not going to open that up. So we're going to look at things that we thought we knew about the 20, 24, 25 season that are trending very clearly in the, oh, I actually didn't know what I was talking about direction, basically.

Shocker for me personally. It's weird. I've never been wrong about anything until this season. I was going to say you take it away. Like, you're leading the segment because I got everything correct. Except there's like a really bad one that we'll get into later in the show. We're going to bury it. It's like the Friday news dump.

Nobody needs to know what happened there. We got a shout out McIndoo for this. Like, well, this is just, this is lifted. Okay. All right, fine.

See how the thread of like very professional hosting just went away? It's like, no! Now I start yelling. You could, you could just pretend that that was a, that that was just something I brought up organically. Like,

it's, it's okay. No. No, I had a plan and now it's ruined. I am an only child with OCD. Oh, is that true? Uh-huh.

So basically, we're doing things that we were wrong about in the NHL and Sean McIndoo who's on the Wednesday show with Sean and Frank did this earlier this week. Five NHL storylines. We were all wrong about this season. It's just a good time in the calendar,

especially when there's only two games on before we have to podcast to take a look at like where we were at. And then we also had on the NHL site, you know, a season predictions 3.0 looking at where things were at in the preseason and where things are at now. So it just feels like a good time in the calendar to start self-reflecting a little bit. What did we get wrong? What did we put out there on a podcast that were like,

Jeff, go back and delete that from the record? I wish, I kind of take issue with McIndoe here because number one in his list, Caps playoff spot up for grabs. I was right there. And we need to make time and it does need to be today, but we need to make time at some point on the calendar

so we can just toot our own horns and talk about the things we were correct about. I know that's not today. That's not what we're going to do. I was going to preface some of this with, hey, or at the end, this is what we got wrong,

but also I was all in on the caps. We bought that cap stock in our preseason work on this podcast. Dom made fun of me for it. Online into my face. Don doesn't watch hot. All right. Let's get into it.

Do you want to start? So we have a couple that we were both wrong about that we can get into. And then there was a few that we individually went into a little too hard. Yeah. Do you want to start? Yeah, sure. I think we were both wrong about the Rangers. We did our damnedest not to talk about them whenever we were talking.

about the Sabres for a good reason. They were my pick officially to lose in the Stanley Cup finals. They were my pick to come out of the east. Bought what they were selling, believed in the forward depth to some extent. I thought that we were going to see some degree a bounce back from Mika's Bidin-Jad and Chris Kreider based on the way they played in the postseason. I thought we were going to get prime Vezna caliber Igor Shasturkin. and I was wrong about all of it, basically.

For the first time, there was something about, as far as the Rangers were concerned, the emergence of Alexei Lafranier that made me think that they had that second level of support that they'd kind of lacked before. So you had in him, and to a lesser extent, you know,

you figured someone like Will Cooley was going to continue leveling up, like guys like that. You're like, okay, these are the secondary support players that can drive the bus in the instances that Mika and Crider fall off or can't do it or if they have an off stretch or whatever, that there was a level of insulation for that team that hadn't been present previously. And I was wrong, clearly. Like, that team was a mess, is a mess regardless of the result last night against Buffalo. And they have a lot of work to do before they even look like a viable, a team that can win a playoff round, let alone three. So, yeah, I was, that's a big old swing and a miss from me at this point.

I think, you know, when the Jacob Truba situation happens last week and then you start seeing stories of like, this could be the start of an overhaul in New York. And it's like, whoa. There's another level to it than just this team isn't playing while this season. I don't think we thought we were going to see the Rangers. Now, mind you, trade deadline, moving players out, cap dump, things like that. We could have expected that to happen. So maybe it's not totally unsurprising that they're trying to move money out to make a meaningful move. But that to me was just a bit more of a signal of like, what do you mean overhaul?

Like, is this starting to get messier than anyone would have expected? And Shana Goldman actually did a great statistical and video breakdown about what's been going wrong with Ryan Lindgren, specifically, who was riding on that top pair with Adam Fox. That's an issue for this team when, you know, you have one of the best defenders in the game, one of the top three defenders in the NHL. And that that partner has been a bit of a disaster at times against the Blackhawks. they had a 22% expected goal rate earlier in the week. And this is a team that hasn't been dangerous offensively in Lindgren's minutes. And again, that's an issue when he's playing with Adam Fox as much as he has been, at least as of late.

They struggle to sustain pressure in the ozone. They manage the puck poorly. There's a lot of rush chances the other direction, and they're not a very good team defending against the rush. So not to get too into it, but there's just like a lot to not like about the Rangers right now. And Shana did a really good job

breaking down Ryan Lindgren's and the Rangers' defensive woes as a whole and what's wrong and how can this be fixed. I don't think trading Jacob Truba is some magic fix for the Rangers blue line. But things aren't great.

And Kandre Miller might be out as well. So, yeah. Not feeling good. No. And again, this is, we've, we've talked about the Rangers a lot. So I don't, you know, this is one more point before we move off of them. On top of all of this, on top of the poor performance and the on-ice disappointment,

and this is something we've seen from them at plenty points in the past is like the next level of dysfunction that's taking place. When you look at, you know, the lack of connection between the front office and the roster and there's things that are leaking out publicly that, you know, Maybe they want it out, maybe not. That's the stuff that we were accustomed to seeing from the New York Knicks, 10 years ago, 15 years ago, five years ago, you know, the other team that James Dolan owns. So that's like another wrinkle for them that just has made this all the more disappointing is that, you know, it's not just poor play. It's executive dysfunction. So, you know, we're not alone on this. They were, I think staff-wide, they were our favorite.

it to be the cup runner up. So people were high on them to a very real extent. But, man, the fact that there's company in being wrong here doesn't make us any less wrong. Like, this is a team with a lot of problems and they need to get their stuff together in a hurry or else it's going to start getting dark early. The only saving grace for them is that the Metropolitan Division sucks. That's it. Like beyond that, beyond that, that's, and that seems like something that'll, you know, it's throwing them a life preserver here. But beyond that, man, There's a lot to dislike about the way things have gone there over the last few months. Yeah.

And I should say in regards to Miller, he did leave that Sabres game with the upper body injury. So that's what I mean when I say he might be hurt. And I guess to be fair to Lindgren, he was injured to start the season. So maybe this is just him working his way back. But he also didn't look great last season either. So not a lot to love in New York. and we were all, I think everyone was all in. When we did the preseason predictions,

I'm just trying to pull up the exact number. I think 42% of our staff in October had the Rangers being the Stanley Cup runner up. So they were in the lead for who was going to make the Stanley Cup final and ultimately lose. And the choice for the win was the Oilers. So the majority of our staff had an Oilers Rangers, Stanley Cup final.

So that's one thing we were both wrong about. I think that's one thing we were all wrong about. I think we were both incorrect about the Nashville Predators. I just did like a very weird body movement. I just feel really uncomfortable. I think everyone was really, I was like a weird exorcism. I can't admit when I'm wrong. My body was like rejecting the words.

Everyone was gung-ho for the Preds. I don't think everyone thought they were going to be world beaters or Stanley Cup champions, but I think everyone was very excited about the Nashville Predators. GM Barry. It was, you know, Brat Barry summer. He made a ton of fun moves. They kind of denied doing. the rebuild that people maybe wanted them to when he first got the GM gig.

You signed Steven Stamco's. You signed Brady Shea. And their last place in the NHL on December 12th. I don't, it's just, I thought they were going to return to the postseason because they made it there last year. There wasn't really teams that I thought were going to challenge them super well in the West, whether it was the Cracken or the Blues. taking, or the flames, which we'll get into, I'm sure.

I thought the Preds would be an easy Stanley Cup, or not Stanley Cup, an easy playoff pick. Fine playoff pick for me. I was less high on them than I think some people were because the center depth chart is just gnarly, right? You have the start of the season. Like you're putting... I was all in. I was like, this is going to be the most fun thing ever.

Yeah. You're putting a lot of, if you believe that, you were putting a lot of weight on Ryan O'Reilly. And I think that's not unreasonable. he was great last year. But he can't do it himself. And you're talking about a center death chart that had Tommy Novak and, you know, Colton Sizons and whoever and whoever else behind him.

And you look at the players that they had, and you look at the players that they had, the Gustav Nyquist of the world and Steven Stamcois and Jonathan Marcheson, whatever. Those are good players, but they need someone. Yeah, I didn't even bring up Marchesau. They need someone to it in the puck.

Those guys to varying degrees are, you know, they might be elite passengers, but to some extent they are passengers. And, you know, you'll only go as far with those kind of guys as the players that are getting them the puck. And I think they were just deficient in that area. And, you know, I get it. I can see the vision. I knew what Trots was going for, but it felt at the time that they were at least one player short. Sure. Now, did I think that that was going to be destructive to the point that we're talking about,

them being, you know, down with the Blackcocks when it comes like, no way, no way, no way. But. And I think we have to consider too, like there was already pieces that should have been those like contender building blocks, right? Like you're adding Stephen Stamcoast and Jonathan Marcheseau to a team that has Philip Forsberg and Roman Yossi and UC Soros. Like this, they're confounding to me in a lot of ways, but it also makes a lot of sense why they aren't good because we're looking at a fourth line that's Cole Smith,

um, Michael Macaron and, um, Colton Sisons. Great. You know, Tommy Novak's the third line center. Um,

like their top line on paper looks like, Philip Warsburg, Steven Stamcoast, Jonathan March, so like that's a really, that's a, attention grabbing top line, right? Roman Yosey or number one D.

This is a, um, a guy that, you know, is a challenge. for a Norris trophy in the last three years. Brady Shea was supposed to be this big ad. Luke Shen, my favorite player.

Luke's true. I was the president of Luke's troops when he was in Toronto. You have to understand. And yeah, it hasn't worked because the depth's not there. But even so, even without the depth, I didn't think that they would be 32nd in the NHL. And it's kind of rare to see a team that far down when they're getting half-deas and cold-tending, which is what they're getting from Saros. He's got 907-s save percentage, top 10, and goals saved above expected.

Like, has he been Vesna-Calibur U.C. Saros, as we see in the past? No. But he's also not going out there in hand-in games of the other team either. So that's just indicative of, like, a broken process, I think, at five-on-five. It's not just about them not being hot. It's not just about a cold streak. There's deficiencies on that roster that I think a lot of people, including us to some degree missed. Okay, Sean, you're next. I'm next by myself or I'm next in terms of...

Both. The next segment, I can just own up to my stuff and then the final you can own up. Or maybe I'll own a blast because people want to the whole show. Well, this is, I feel like I was driving the bus for us on this to some extent. I thought that Utah was going to be more of the mix than they are. It shouldn't be that much of a surprise. I don't think anybody was, you know, picking them to be, you know, to be, you know, to be third in the third in the central

or anything like that. But 518 points percentage, they're, you know, they're with the blues, they're with the crackin. Like, I thought they were a degree above that group. I thought, you know,

I was... So did I. I like the offensive group. I like the idea of Surgichab and John Marino, kind of fortifying stuff on the blue. line, Marino gets hurt straight away. That's a, that's, that's a problem.

I like the goal tending. I thought that Connor Ingram was, you know, maybe not, maybe not a high end start or anything, but I think a reliable, reliable 1A and a timeshare that, that hasn't been the case. There's been a lot of stuff. I just say, my only in-person experience with Connor Ingram was when I,

I used to, my first sports job was game operations for the Toronto Marley's because I lived in Liberty Village. it's walkable to the RICO, now Coca-Cola Coliseum. And like our job when Ingram was in town, we just stood behind the goal and screamed like Ingram at him to put a hoax on him. So whenever people talk about Connor Ingram, all I can think of is me just standing behind when I'm in university still being like, Ingram. Anyways, please continue.

I just had to share that. You got it. Because I'm just saying like I never thought that he would be a reliable number one. because I put a hex on him. Yeah, right. That's, yeah. Yeah, you made that, you made that decision back then

to not take Connor Ingraham seriously regardless of what happens in his hockey career. Yeah, never going to change my mind. But he'd been good for a couple years and he's taken a step back. You know, a guy like Logan Coley hasn't leveled up to the degree that I think anybody would like to see

if you're in Utah. So, they're a year away. There are probably a year behind where I thought they were. I thought, you know, two months into the season, three months into the season, we were going to be talking about them potentially as a sleeper playoff candidate, and they've just fallen short. Yeah, I think the big thing has been that the crack and blues and flames have all been pretty consistently better than Utah. And I don't think, well, at least in the standings, they're all ahead of them in the wild card right now.

And I just don't think that's what anyone except. expected things to shake out as heading into the season, I think. I think people thought they'd be in all that same tier, but with Utah getting the edge at the end of the day. And maybe that was just kind of the new team excitement. But yeah, there's things, Clayton Keller had a good season again last year. And then you add Cirgachev, Marino, as you mentioned. There was things to like, it's okay.

They'll be fine in the long run. I think we were a little bit. We were more bullish on Utah than, like, when we did our preseason buying and selling, I'm pretty sure of those four teams that I just named, we sold on the Cracken, we sold on the Blues, we sold on the flames, we bought on Utah. And right now, Utah is below all of those teams in the wild card race. So that's kind of where it is in terms of we were wrong about. This will come up later, but I just don't, like outside of the top eight in the West,

I just don't take any of those teams seriously. Okay, well, let's go. Whatever. We can, we can, we can go to that now. We can go to that now. I think we were both, I think we were both wrong. And I will admit more wrong doing than you will, I'm sure, because we're not sold on it. However, it's December 12th.

And as of right now, we were wrong about the Calgary Flames. On the first show we did after the season started, the Flames beat the Vancouver Canucks, and we just completely ignored it. I think exactly what I said was like, whatever, I don't have any takes on this because the Canucks are going to be a contender and the flames are going to be in the basement. And we just completely skirted over maybe what's been happening in Calgary. And I think to be fair to us, like this was a team that just refused to say the word rebuild in a way that was like, how can you not admit this? Because you've traded Elias Linholm, Krista Tenev, Nikita Zedorov, Andrew Mangiubani, Jacob Markstrom,

And those were all deals that primarily brought in assets for the future. And then you're just kind of looking at a roster that's led by Jonathan Huberto, who had been largely disappointing since coming to Calgary, Nazim, Codry, who had been very good. He was one of those players. We said, if you're going to rebuild, you should probably trade Codry because he has been very good. Michael Backland, Blake Coleman,

Mackenzie Weger, I just, I don't think anyone thought that this was going to be a team that was in and around it. And in our flame season preview that UDOM and Shana worked on, their point projection

had them being the fifth worst team in the league. This is a team that is beaten other good teams. They're not just cooking against bottom feeders. They've beat the Oilers this season. they beat the Minnesota Wild, who I don't know if we're going to get into that in a huge way. But like, we weren't wrong about the Wild because we didn't have any takes on the Wild. I just think we kind of ignored them as a contender. And they actually looked very good.

So maybe that's what we weren't incorrect, but we maybe should have talked about the Wild a little bit more. And then, yeah, like they're not feasting on weak teams. The flames have been good, Weiger and Rasmus Anderson have been solid. they're getting scoring from from guys up and down that lineup. Will it continue? Through to the end of the season? I don't know. But as of right now,

they've got the same amount of points, the same amount of regulation or the same amount of wins, excuse me, as the Vancouver Canucks. Yeah, I mean, whatever. I thought they were going to be, I thought they were, yeah, true, whatever.

I thought they were going to be awful and they're not. Like, they're mediocre. I'll give them, I'll give them that. It's, I, I,

I, I, I'm just not, I'm not willing to do the, I'm not willing to admit that I was wrong about this one just yet. But yeah, they're five, six,

nine point percentage, you know, they're within spitting distance, I guess, of a wild card spot if, if, if, if you want to treat it that way,

they're not as bad as they thought they would be. I thought that team was going to stink and they don't. So in that, in that regard, I was wrong. But I think there's still a lot of meat, meat on the bone when it comes on them. It's a pretty big stretch for them.

for them right now, too. Last week, they lose an O-T to the Blues, then they get kind of cooked by the stars. They beat the Preds, which again, 32nd in the league, National Predators. But now, tomorrow on Thursday, they play Tampa, and then Saturday they play Florida. So I think those will be two good Eastern Conference tests for them. And then later in the month, this will kind of be the big one is, what do they do against Vegas and what do they do against Vancouver, I think? you know, by the time the calendar turns to 2025,

maybe there'll be some different thoughts. Maybe the flames will fall off, or maybe the flames will prove people that they're actually a good team. They're more interesting in December than I think anyone thought they would be. Is that good for the flames? Yeah, that's, that's been, huh? Should they be good right now? That's maybe a different conversation.

But they've been a lot better than anyone expected. I think we should take a break now, though. Carolina Hurricanes, Winnipeg Juts, off to an excellent start. That's my bad, I guess. I'll own up to that next on the athletic hockey show. All right, we are back. It's time for me to own up to what I was incorrect about specifically. These were takes that I had that you didn't.

You were maybe in on one of them, but not in the same way. No recollection. I, you know what? I think we both said this, but I will own this one more. I was a bit of a downer on the Carolina Hurricanes. And I guess I'm not sure in hindsight why I was. Like maybe I was just trying to have a take. Well, you know, I know why I was.

I think it was a bit of recency bias of, well, they just lost Jake Gensel and they didn't really replace them. So what are they going to do? I can tell you. I can tell you why you were. as if they didn't play most of their games without Jake Gensel over the last five years. Like it's not as devastating for the Keynes to lose Jake Gensel as it was for the Pittsburgh Penguins, who were not talking about them on purpose because we've talked about them enough. I've been wrong about the penguins the last three years.

I keep saying they're going to be relevant again and they're not and it's fine. I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to talk about it. Yeah, I think I can tell you why you were wrong about the Caroline Hurricanes. I mean, I was going to do that, but you go ahead. No, go ahead.

Here's my guess. You did not know that Martin Natchez was going to end up looking like Eric Lindrosse or something. I drafted Martin Natchez in fantasy, so I did know. You knew. I was smarter than everybody.

You knew that he had this level of productivity. Everyone was wrong about Martin Natchez, except for me. I knew that he. he was going to be better than Sebastian Ojo and Andres Vetschnikov this season. However, I was still down on the canes. NAC is third in the league in points with 42 as we sit here on December 12th. Yeah. He is, God almighty, how many those are goals? Like, he's, he's a machine, he's a machine, 14 goals. Um, they needed some like that to step up to make up for, to not just make up for

Gensel, but to give them the kind of scoring depth that they've lacked. They needed some other prime offensive weapon to step up. It can just be Sebastian Ojo is really good and Andre Sveshikov is really talented and we love Seth Jarvis for everything that he brings the lineup and whatever they needed another dude and that has been Natchez. And I think that's, I think that's it. That's the difference that guy is the difference between them taking a step back. and them looking to some degree like the regular season wagon that we've come to expect over the last few years. Sure, but there's also the fact that I think some of the initial conversation about the Cains in the summer was, do you lose Jake Gensel, Brett Pesci's gone, Brady Shea's gone. And I will say in my defense, I did kind of softball my Cain's take because I do recall saying, look, I think there's a way in which this works because of Shane Gostis Bear and Sean Walker, who they report. placed Pesci and Shea with.

I said like there's, I understood why Eric Tolski did that because you get Gossus Barron Walker for less money than the Preds get Brady Shea. And obviously hindsight 2020, but like Brady Shea has been one of the things

that hasn't really clicked with the prets as we just talked about. Right. And now you have a cheaper third pair who's playing better than the guys who walked out the door, at least the way those guys are playing in their new destination. So I did kind of like, I was having a take, but I was like lukewarm on it. Like, wouldn't be surprised if the canes take a step back this season. But I also wouldn't have

been surprised if it worked because we know that the canes play in a system that you can just plop guys in with Rod Brenda Moore. And here we go. Everyone's, you know, trending in the same direction. Everyone's pulling in the same direction for lack of a non-clay phrase. So I, I, I, I, shouldn't have, I don't know why. I do know why, but it was incorrect. Like, I think I just went a little too hard on like, well, Gensel, even though Gensel played what, like 15 games for the Cains? I trust. Yeah, Carolina legend, Jake Gensel moves on. Yeah, like who, it's, I think that was more just like a, you, you traded for him and he's gone. That's devastating for you. Sure. And it's something that they're not used, something that Cain's fans aren't used to and couldn't handle. Like,

where I trust. fan Haley Salvean was devastated, 17 games last season. But they were really good. 25 points and 17 games. You should just stay. I trust Carolina to figure out their defense, right? Like, you just assume that whatever combination it is, they're going to sprinkle the, you know,

the, the, the, the Canes front off as pixie dust. Yeah. On those pairs and have them work, and that's what they've done. It's not, and it's not just about Walker and Gosses bear. Great as those guys have been. Or love. Like, that's a, that's a, cheap third pair that you'll take 10 times out of 10.

Orlov and Chatfield are the guys that moved up onto the second pair. Caroline is outscoring their opponents 25 to 13 with them on the ice. Like that defense is as good as it's been. We knew that that was part of the mix for them. To me, still, the variable, as it has been, the question mark with them for going back for years now is like, do they have enough? use at the top of the lineup to make it work. And Nathis has given them that.

And to a lesser extent, Jarvis has too. So, you know, I think it was fair to question that that's where most of my, that's where most of my uncertainty lied with them. But as far as like, is Shane Goss's bear and whoever else. I was like, no, you just assume that that's going to work out because it always does. Yeah. Yeah. I think that was the, that was the weird take of like, I kind of understand why they did this.

Like it was definitely more the Genselvedol. And I know plus minus is like the poo-poo stat. But like Orlov is a plus 18, Chatfield plus 14. That's where what you're saying of the way that the canes are outscoring with those guys on the ice really comes in. Like Shane Gosses bear has more points than Orlov and Chatfield have. But those guys like their output on both sides. the puck has been unbelievable for the Carolina hurricane. So that was one where I just,

I didn't think they were going to be bad. I just didn't think that they were going to be at the top of the league in the regular season again. Yeah, correct. And they are. And that's whatever I, I'm sorry, Tulski, I guess is what I should say. I should have never doubted you, King. And then that second big one for me was ditching the Winnipeg Jets.

I cast them aside. That was very dumb. They've been very good. They are second in the NHL, tied for first in points. Second, if we go, actually, third, if we go points percentage. You know who's second in the league in points percentage right now? Who? The Washington Capitals.

That's wild. Sot coming the whole time, baby, okay. I was a hard buy on the caps in preseason. I loved that they were like, actually trying. I didn't think they'd be second though. But I think I was definitely harsh on the Jets just because the way that season ended, they didn't really do much. I was like, I'm done, I'm over it. And maybe that'll end up being true come the end of the season. I think the biggest thing I was wrong about, and I'm almost embarrassed to bring this up. But I think everyone was wrong

about this. We were all idiots. So we did, we're all dumb, especially McIndoo. especially that Sean McIndoo. When we did our team draft, four goalies get drafted, you, me, Max, and McIndoo. The goalies, Igor Shusirkin, Jake Ottinger, UC Soros, Haley Salvi and drafts, Jeff Skinner. Jeff Skinner, wow, he doesn't play Joey. Jeff Skinner.

Stewart Skinner. You're in big trouble if you have Jeff Skinner as your goaltender. That wasn't allowed per the rules. Stuart Skinner over Connor Hellebuck. Oops. What? What? Why?

I know why. I was like, oh, he's going to be, you know, he's going to end up having a bunch of wins at the end of the season. I get it. For all of us to go through that and nobody take Hellebuck is just so stupid.

I don't know why we did that. I know I, Galaxy Brain, my goalie at the end. I was definitely goo-goo for, the Oilers, because I drafted Bouchard and Skinner over probably better options that were available, particularly at the goaltending position. That was really dumb. I don't know why nobody took Connor Hellebuck. I think it's just because I assumed that they were going to be kind of bad again

at the end of the day and that would impact him, but that was stupid. It was dumb. It's fine. It's not fine. He is leading the league and wins. He has 18 wins this season. It was dumb. It was dumb to maybe think that Hellebuck was going to fall off, but I'm not willing to admit defeat here just yet. Incredible start by the Jets. Give them credit for it. Since then, in their last 14 games, they're 6 and 8 with a minus 4 goal differential. It's a team that did a lot of its early work with some nice shooting on the power play. Overall, their 20th and expected goals for on the power play.

So maybe the looks aren't, what? The Jets Hater is logged in. I'm just saying, I don't think I was all that wrong. I think I looked at them and said, like, yeah, we'll see. It's going to be Connor Hellebuck and cross your fingers. And I feel like they delved back into that realm over the last little bit.

Not a great five-on-five team. They're under 50% in the metrics there. Power play doesn't do, it does a mediocre job of generating looks. Goaltending counts, all credit for it. As long as his team has Connor Hella Buck,

they're going to be relevant, but they're also six and eight since that start. So I'm not quite willing to go all in on, everybody was wrong. This is a high-end cup contender, because I didn't think it then, and I frankly don't think it now. Yeah,

but I think the point was, like I maybe thought that the Jets were going to take, such a step back that it would impact the amount of wins that Connor Hellebuck would get. I think that's the point. I also think we all went so in on the Preds being like, oh, well, the Preds are going to be better and UC Saros is good. So like UC Soros gets drafted. And Connor Hallibuck doesn't. Like that's just a mistake by all of us. The only two goalies who should have been drafted over Connor Hallibuck in the draft that did was Igor Shostirkin

and Jake Ottinger. And Connor Hallibubley. has more wins and better stats than all of them, but like even Shisterkin, Shasturkin and Skinner both have 10 wins, eight fewer than Connor Hullabuck, and U.C. Saros has six. So like we, Galaxy Brain the goalie thing, I think. Maybe somebody should have taken... I didn't. Yeah, whatever. You took Shisterkin who has the same amount of wins, is too Skinner. That's okay.

So congratulations. But it doesn't matter who is anecdotally better. It's a competition with wins. who is qualitatively better. They have the same amount of wins. That is the figure that matters for our little challenge. And you and I are tied right now.

So you screwed up too. Somebody should have taken Phil Gustafsson. Listen. No way. You're a bum. You're a bum for drafting Igor's sister. I drafted Gustafsson in my fantasy early last year and it did not work out.

Yeah, you hate him. This is less about me hating on Connor Hallibuck, which I'd never do. and more about going all in on the Rangers, which as we've established, was the wrong move by me. Yeah. Nobody drafted Phil Gustafson in that.

He has 14 wins. Nobody drafted Jake Markstrom. 13 wins. No. Jake Markstrom and Phil Gustafs. I don't know. Jake Markstrom and Phil Gustafson. You are friends with Swedish goaltenders.

Congratulations. Shut up. I don't know. I don't know why I said Phil and I said Jake Markstrom because I was looking at Jake Ottinger. What other? I don't know why I said Phil. That's just so embarrassing.

Do you call like Swedish guys name Anders? You call them Andy. How do you, how do you shorten Linus Olmerk? Stu Skinner. Stewie. No, they have to be Swedish. Come on. You only shorten Swedish cult undernors.

Ali. I hate myself. That was so gross. Why did I do that? I hate when people use nicknames. I also hate when people use nicknames. people call coach coaches like coach. So that was just like a huge media no-no thing for me.

You fell right in the trap. The only nickname thing I have fallen more consistently into the trap of is calling Mary Philippe Poulin Poo. And even that, I'm like, I should stop doing that. Yeah, whatever. I'll give you a pass for that. She's my friend. Yeah.

Okay. Don't say that. I'm obviously joking. This is like the goat of women's hockey. It would be great if she was my friend. I'd feel really cool. Don't say that either. I'm joking.

I'm trying to like awkwardly recover from saying Jake Markstrom and stuff. It's freaking ridiculous. I'm so embarrassed. Let's take a break. And then we can talk about what Sean messed up in the preseason. That's coming up next on the athletic hockey show. All right. We are back.

on the athletic hockey show. It's time for Sean to admit what he got wrong. What was that, in fact? I forget already what it was. I kind of thought Vegas was going to fall off. I looked at that depth chart. I looked at what they lost along the wings

over the last couple years, starting with Jonathan March or so, but also going down to, you know, Will Carrier, players like that. And I didn't think that they were going to be, let's say, fourth in points percentage on December 12th. I thought they were going to pay for it, honestly.

And they haven't. And a lot of that goes back to a guy we mentioned, a segment or two ago, Mr. Jack Eichel. He's been fantastic. And I think that was always the variable to consider with them. Is yes, they lost some stuff along the wings, but there's potential down the middle in particular for them to make up,

for them to make up some difference with Eichel and with Tamash Hurtle and whatever else. Big time bounce back season from Mark Stone. I thought maybe the decline was on for him because we saw, you know, whatever, I guess he couldn't get hurt tomorrow and we could have the exact same Mark Stone dialogue

that we've had the last couple years. But he's been fantastic. And they've proved me wrong, right? So you're getting elite production from elite players. I think that starts with Eichol and in stone. But it's still a really strong defensive core.

No Hanofin doing exactly what they signed them to do on and on and on. They haven't lost a step. I thought they would. And they were, look, I didn't pick them to miss the playoffs. I would not do that, but I thought there was going to be

some amount of drop off for them where we're talking about them as like a Western Conference wild card team maybe and kind of in that group. didn't, and we really haven't seen, really haven't seen any sign of it. So credit where it's due. Yeah, Jack Eichael, um, tied for fifth in the NHL and scoring at this point in the season. He's on pace for a 114 point season. Yeah. If my math is correct, 39 points and 28 games. If your math, did you do the math or did you just go to elite prospects and look at the,

look at the pacing stats. Oh, I did the maths. I calculated it myself. Mark Stone, 22 points. Wait, was I right? Is that what a lead project? That sounds about right. Mark Stone, like I said, 22 points and 14 games. You know, Barboshev is just a great running made for Eichel. Yeah, we knew that last year.

Yeah, sure. But they've gotten production from Dorofiev and, like, been players like that. I mean, it's been good. And I was done into that. Who I didn't mention in the Cane section two, by the way, sorry, I was just thinking this. No, no, no, no, because we were talking about Vegas. William Carrier has been a good pickup for Carolina. I forgot to mention him.

The caniest, the caniest cane to ever cane is Will Carrey. It's a miracle it took them that long to surface on that team. Yeah, I was just looking at how Vegas's roster looks different this season and realize that. Alex Holtz on that third line with Tomash Hurtle, Olifson. Yeah, the top line's been great. Yeah. I think everyone just assumed that they were going to, this is maybe the year they were going to pay the price for all the trades they've made. and no they haven't.

It doesn't happen, man. When your best forward is scoring at a 120 point pace or whatever Eichl has been at this year, that can wallpaper over a whole lot of other stuff. And it wasn't totally sold on that happening just because we haven't seen it from him. He's gotten hurt in one way or another over the last several years. And, you know, dude stayed healthy. Credit to him for it. He's looking like a high-end franchise center now.

Yeah. It's interesting that Vegas has been. able to, if they end up being one of the top teams and make a playoff run, it'll show they can do it in different ways, which I think makes this season intriguing as they've done it before with. They've been able to do it before with just untouchable center depth or untouchable depth up and down the roster, shut down D, good goaltending. And this year will kind of be different in the sense. They still have good defense. They still have good guys on the roster. But I think this year would largely be carried by an elite of the league player.

Vegas continues to be good. The greatest active Canadian goaltender. That's Jordan Biddington, actually. I don't agree. Next. Okay, what else did you mess up? This is the last one, I think. What else have I messed up?

I closed the note. Here is I picked David Passenach to win the Rocket Richard at the start of the season. Why would you close your notes while we're still recording the podcast? I didn't close it. I have way too many tabs open and lost and lost the show run down, but here it is. Decided to go rogue, huh? Posternak was my guy at the start of the season to win the Rocket or shard. I am extremely on record for this one. I wrote about it in our all staff predictions, projections, whatever you want to call it. And I was like, okay, this guy's, this guy was good without, you know, a true top six center

and he's going to be playing with Elias Lindelm now. Yeah. That should work. Elias Lindholm, we know that he's good at working with other elite players, even though he may not be elite himself. That was my logic at the start of the season. Me too, to be fair. But I was more looking at it from the Lindholm side of things.

Like, I definitely thought Linholm would have a bounce back year if he got the chance to play with Pastor Neck. I believe he was on the fourth line, right now? Something like that. And David Posternak is tied 455th in the league in goals with 10. He's got as many as

Brett Howden and Brock Nelson and Dylan Holloway and you know, Kevin Fial. Like all these guys who are good players but not anybody who you'd mistake for a Rocket Richard winner. So I think we can

write that one off. I'm willing to concede, which hasn't been the case on several of these, I am willing to concede on December 12th that I was incorrect about David Posternock scoring 66 goals or whatever I thought was going to happen. Yeah. You didn't think he'd be playing with Pavel Zaka

and Morgan Geeky on the top line? I can imagine him playing with Pavel Zaka, yeah, because he got some of that last year, but Morgan Geeky on the top line, given what they added. This season, yeah. Also, Lynn Holmes, the second line center with Marshall.

Shannon Brazo right now. I don't know. He's the fourth line and the Sweden projection. Maybe that's what I was thinking of. He's also over the course, the last six weeks, he's played around. And I think it would have been fair to say that he was getting fourth line minutes at one time or another. So you're not totally wrong. And I look at the Pasernach prediction and I just feel like that's indicative of some of the problems we've seen from Boston over the course of the season, right? Yes, they've ridded stuff a bit with Joe Sacco, but really slow start. And you have the people that produced for them in the past, you know, just have seen some degree of falloff. Yeah.

So yeah, I'm willing to, I'm willing to admit I was wrong on that one straight away. Would you like to make a new prediction for the Rock at Richard on December 12th? What, who did I vote for in the, in the most recent poll? I think I went with Sam Reinhart for all the reasons we said before when we were talking about the Sabres. Like, did I think that that guy was going to have another season where he shot 24, 25, percent. I did not, but it's happening, right? We have to acknowledge, acknowledge the facts, recognize what's what we're seeing right in front of our face and say that this dude is,

you know, an elite, elite, elite, reliable goal score in the NHL. So I'll go with him, but whatever, man. We know this. All it takes is, all it takes is a hot streak by, uh, by a high end player. Yeah. I think he's going to come back and break Gretzky's record and win the rocket at 50 years old or whatever. He's not 50. 47. Be careful. Be careful with calling Alex Ovecgen-old.

That's all I'll say. Oh, he's 39. As I think about my birthday coming up. But yeah. Posternak. Why did I say 47? Because you're hateful. But yeah.

Posternock, great player, but not his year. So I'm willing to move off that one. I just think that was like a great piece of satire for me. on the way we speak about athletes age. Sure. Tell yourself whatever you need to. The way people have been talking about Ovechkin, I thought he was turning 50.

He should start dying his hair. He is so ancient. It's crazy. He's still playing. What if he came back? Not even 40. What if Alex Oveskkin came back from his injury and, you know,

in two weeks or three, whenever he's back and just had like a jet black head of hair and just didn't, like, didn't acknowledge it. Or like even better, what if he died? Would someone in the media core in Washington be like, would you dye your hair?

Like, someone would ask that question? Would you ask that question? I would travel, I would drive the four hours from Pittsburgh, PA to Washington, D.C. to ask him that question. If he came back with a beautiful head of chestnut brown,

David Poyle hair, whenever he was, whenever he's back from his injury. Chestnut brown, not like Jet Black. What would be funnier? How about that? Just not round would be funnier because it's like, was his hair, well, I guess what color was Novech's hair? It was dark. It was just like, it wasn't black.

You should go the Joe Burrow platinum blonde. I don't think that'll, no, because then, because it would grow in gray. So you have gray, you don't like, platinum tips. Then he would definitely be in on the joke. Like, if you go platinum blonde, like everyone, everyone knows. Like you're saying, okay, you're making it very. evident that I'm dyeing my hair. If you come back in your hair in your hair's like, whatever, a cup of black coffee,

like, yeah, I think, I think it's a little bit funnier. What is his natural hair color? I haven't seen his hair in years. It's just dark. It's like, it's, it's dark. It's not, I wouldn't, it's not chestnut brown. It's just like generic dark hair. Yeah.

Speaking from someone who knows the type. I think it's cool. I like that he's kept his hair gray. I agree, but I just think I'm all for funny shit. I think I'm coming back with, you know, with a beautiful head. Yeah, like some just for men that you bought it as CVS, I think it would be great. A little boxed eye at the mall, Walgreens or whatever at the practice facility. Yeah, at the Boston, the Ballston Wall Greens or whatever they call the practice facility now in the mall.

I guess the only thing on the Rock is. that we didn't say. I just want to direct everyone's attention to the fact that Cole Cawfield is 17 goals at this point in the season. And I recall yelling at you and Dom and Shana for having him as like a tier five player and the player tiers.

I just think everyone needs to be nicer to Cole Cawfield. You can blame coaches and scouts and execs. It's not just us. It's okay to be a little guy who scores goals. Hey, I agree. My Twitter algorithm is this weirdly specific mix of people just like tweeting videos of Cole Cawfield being like, he's so little.

People being weird about Cole Cofield online. Yeah. Falling down a rabbit hole. Congratulations. Yeah. Two years ago, it was like, why are all these weird fan camp videos of Jack Hughes on my TikTok? And now it's like, why are all these videos of Cole Cofield on my Twitter? It's best not to explore that.

The algorithm's broken. Right. Link throttling and also serving Haley's strange videos about Cole Cawfield. Yeah. What's what happens? I've screamed online about how I think he's great, so I get that one. All right, that's it. Those were the things we were wrong about in the NHL this season at this point. I'm sure there will be more.

Maybe we were wrong right now. Maybe the Nashville Predators will run the table after. They're not being allowed to go to the Ares Tour in Vancouver. I don't know if that was... I don't believe that to be true. I made that up. Anyways, thanks everyone for listening to The Athletic Hockey Show. Max Bolton, Corey Prom, and Scott Wheeler,

and Chris Peters will have the Prospect Series on the next edition of the show. That's on Friday. We will be back next Thursday. Maybe we'll bring a guest. Maybe we'll talk about all the things we are right about next week. and maybe I'll come back with a beautiful head of jet black hair. Perfect.

Love that. Thanks, everyone. We'll be back next week.