The Athletic Hockey Show - Alex Ovechkin scores twice, Capitals-Rangers falls flat, Morgan Geekie's goal celebration, oddly specific team predictions and more

Episode Date: October 14, 2021

NHL Hockey that counts is back, and Ian Mendes and Sean McIndoe discuss a Capitals-Rangers matchup that did not quite live up to expectations, while Ovechkin scored two goals. Also, Seattle fans are officially brought to the league with a call that doesn't go their way, and Vegas players take offense to Morgan Geekie's celly. Next, they discuss Sean's piece on weirdly specific team predictions, and Ian pitches the "Down Goes Brown Internship Program".Then in the mailbag, teams that should risk it all for Jack Eichel, surprise picks to make the Stanley Cup Final, and in "This Week in Hockey History", a look at a neutral site game between Calgary and Minnesota in Saskatchewan, and Wayne Gretzky passing Gordie Howe to become NHL’s all-time leading point scorer.Have a question for Ian and Sean? Email [e-mail], or leave a VM at [phone]!Get 50% off of an annual subscription to The Athletic: theathletic.com/hockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back, everybody. It's our Thursday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. Ian Medes, Sean McIndoo with you for the next hour or so. I had on this latest episode of the podcast. We'll chat about opening week in the NHL. We'll talk about the debut of new television coverage on ESPN and TNT. How about Ryan Reeves and Tom Wilson not living up to the hype, at least in round one? Seattle Cracken instantly joining the ranks of miserable hockey fans after they lose their

first game in controversial fashion earlier this week. And we'll be talking about some of Sean's oddly and weirdly specific predictions for each team in the NHL. Some of them have already gone bad. We'll open up the mailbag, ask what team should be super aggressive when making a pitch maybe for Jack Eichael. We'll wrap it all up like we always do with a little this week in hockey history. I just want to pass along a little programming note here.

We usually get Jesse Granger for Granger things brought to you by BetMGM. However, boy, Jesse was a busy guy on Wednesday for us. Not only did he help kind of launch our new look to the Wednesday podcast, he was live blogging all the games. So, Sean, we're going to give Jesse a much needed day off from the Thursday show. So it's just you and I doing the heavy lifting here. Yeah, sounds fair. But hey, listen, you know all about the live blogging. That's what you were doing on opening night earlier this week.

And I don't know. It kind of felt fun. like I said, like I said off the top here, new television coverage and new packages in the United States. I think there's a genuine interest here, fans back in the stands, kind of felt a little bit more like opening day that we're traditionally accustomed to in the NHL, right? Yeah, this is, and this is probably a phrase we'll all get sick of in the season to come. But this was a night where things felt like they were getting back to normal a little bit. I mean, this was fans in the building and the big pregame shows and, you know, all of that stuff, starting to feel like it used to.

Plus, on top of that, down in the U.S. at least, you had over the last couple of nights the re-debue, I guess, at ESPN and then TNT tonight, or Wednesday night rather coming in, it's new. And everything feels fresh. It's, you know, if you want it to get poetic, it's the big fresh sheet of ice in front of us. And within a week, I'm sure we'll be complaining about this or that or something else. But for now, at least, it's everyone's got a fresh start. And it's great. It's what we need.

You know what I like to. And I had a chance to catch some of the TNT broadcast on Wednesday. It just looked like they were having fun. Charles Barkley puts on Pecorané's old pads. I think you put the ball the wrong way, but having some fun. Wayne Gretzky takes five shots on them, scores four. I would think that that's the one thing that's really been lacking in hockey, right? Like, when you watch ESB, I know you're a football guy and you watch countdown,

it's like Randy Moss is having fun and Steve Young is having fun. Everyone's having fun. Then you get to a hockey broadcast and it just turns into this, it's like the two old guys from the Muppets are in there and they're complaining about everything. It felt fun to watch. this kind of play itself out. And that's what we're looking for. We've talked about this and then various, you know, other people have said this.

This is, look, I like a lot of the coverage we get. I didn't see up here in Canada. Obviously, we didn't see a ton of the NBC stuff. I like, for the most part, a lot of what gets done up here in Canada. But you're right, there's so many times where if you turned on a hockey broadcast, there's a good chance that you were seeing a bunch of dour, old, guys, probably with connections to past eras who seemed to feel like hockey was better back then. And they, you know, it was just here's, here's why the game you're watching is no good

half the time. Felt like that's, that was the whole pitch of an intermission show or, you know, whatever it was. And, and you're sitting there going, man, you guys don't want to watch this game. Why do I want to watch it? How come I'm sitting down and investing three hours of my time into this. And, you know, there's a line to walk there. Nobody wants to watch a broadcast where they're just telling us that, oh, this is the greatest league in the world. And oh, my gosh, everything is perfect in the NHL and what a wonderful thing this is. That's too far the other way. But at the very least, have some fun. At the very least, I want to watch people who seem like they kind of like this sport that they're covering. And I think too often, whether, you know,

It was up here in Canada, it did Don Cherry towards the end that felt like this a lot. You know, the Brian Burke sometimes gave that off. Certainly in the U.S., when it was Mike Milbury, he kind of became their version of that. And I hope we get away from that. In ESPN and TNT, I hope we get some competition. I hope they try new things. I hope they fail sometimes because that'll show that they are trying new things. and I hope that they push each other

and they push each other to a better product and if so then we'll be winners and certainly the NHL will be because when the people putting the games on the air are enjoying what they're doing that comes across and the people watching will pick up those cues. Yeah, listen, hopefully people who listen to us

on this podcast know that we truly love this sport and I know sometimes we sound like... Every time I do this, I know every time I go on this spiel. Like I know there's people listening go on. Wait a second. So people who complain all the time or no. All right. Interesting.

Yeah, duly noted. Yeah. I know. But you know, like for me, I look at what happened on Wednesday night. I think TNT and a lot of hockey fans, Sean, circled Washington, New York opening night. And not only because there's a little bit of a sizzle factor there, you got Alex Ovechkin in the capitals. And you got the Rangers. with kind of this refreshed, re-look kind of team.

But I think a lot of people were like, here we go. It's Ryan Reeves against Tom Wilson. And that was like for months, we were like, this is it. It's going to all come down. I'll tell you what, it was a bit of a dud from that perspective. If you think about this, they basically never were on the ice together. And if you look at the penalty summary from Wednesday night, the penalty that occurred the most was tripping. So this didn't turn into the revenge.

game that maybe we thought it would and some TV executives thought it might. Wayne Gretzky. Wayne Gretzky was on P&T and he said this is, it's going to happen early. Yes. And there was a double roughing, whatever, early in the game, but it never happened. Like, you're surprised because the Rangers seemingly built their identity in the offseason was like, we got pushed around by Tom Wilson last year, not again. And then their first crack at Tom Wilson, they don't do anything.

Yeah, and look, I know from firsthand experience that there are a lot of Rangers fans out there that are completely sick of this narrative. Tom Wilson lives rent-free in the heads of the front office in New York. There's a lot of Rangers fans who say, look, we never said that, the team never said that. Yes, the Rangers need more toughness. That wasn't just because of Tom Wilson. There have been games against the Islanders. there have been other games. There just hadn't been enough pushback from this team.

Yeah, they were moving in that direction in the offseason, but they did it to complement their skill. They traded Bichievich. They didn't get rid of Mika Zabaniyan. They didn't get rid of Artemey Panera. It's still a skill team. They complimented it with some depth and some sandpaper. But that's all they did.

This Tom Wilson stuff, they would say, that's you guys in the media saying this. It wasn't the Rangers saying it. And the fact that it didn't happen tonight, I mean, look, the game was in Washington. So if Tom Wilson's not on the ice with Ryan Reeves, that's not something the Rangers can do all that much about. That's the Washington gets the last line change there. The Capitals put Tom Wilson on the ice to start the game. He was out there.

It's not like they hit him away on the bench, but they didn't give the Rangers the matchups they were looking for. I really think that if this game had played out the way that it did in terms of the lack of firework, but you flip the score around, then I think as a Rangers fan, you can walk away from it saying, you know what, we can beat you any way you want. And if it's,

you know, if we threw Tom Wilson off his game by just having those guys in the lineup and he wasn't as big a factor, okay, that's fine too. But the reality is the Rangers went in, they didn't deliver on whatever sort of physical profile we thought was going to be in the game.

They didn't deliver on the scoreboard either. They got smoked by this. this capitals team. And that's got to be the disappointing thing. Because even if you don't buy the narrative that they spent a whole off season building their personality and their culture around, we're going to be the team that can go out and push Tom Wilson around instead of the other way around. Even if you don't buy into that, you don't want to go into a game like this with all of this

hype and lay an egg like they did. And now you kind of look at it and you're like, all right, you know, if you're a ranger's fan and you're going, okay, well, when do we get our next crack at the time? Tom Wilson. The Rangers only play the Capitals three times all season. That was one. Another one is the very last game of the season. And the only other time they play between that is in February. So if you're a Rangers fan and you're sick of hearing about Tom Wilson, good news. You don't have to hear about them again for four more months because you're not going to see him until then. Tonight was your shot to deliver whatever sort of message you was you wanted to deliver with

whatever facet of the game you wanted to deliver it with. And I don't think they delivered anything. and that's got to be frustrating for a team that came into the season with a lot of optimism that they could surprise a few people. You know, Alex Ovechkin does what Alex Ovechkin always does. Scores a couple of goals, passes Marcel Dion. If I gave you the number 40 over under, 40 goals for Alex Ovechkin, and maybe your answer would be different before Wednesday night. Maybe like, I don't know, this Wednesday night's two-goal performance kind of nudge you,

you in the direction that, yeah, you know what, Ovi's going to get to 40. Yeah, I mean, certainly if you're sitting there thinking, yeah, maybe this is the, you know, some guys, sometimes when guys are older, sometimes it's not a gradual decline. Sometimes a guy just shows up, a camp shows up the beginning of the season, you go, oh, boy, it's something's changed here. There's a step gone. No, not with this guy, not this year. I would have taken you over even before tonight, but I'm definitely taking it.

I haven't seen that game because this is, this. This guy's a machine. He's fantastic. He's so much fun to watch. And it's obvious that he's going to continue to be a force out there. And that's great. You know, whether he breaks the record or not, Gretzky's goal scoring record, I hope it's a race.

I hope he gets close. That'll be all sorts of fun if we get to a play where, you know, it's his last year and he's 30 goals away and you're just counting down every time he plays. That'll be fantastic. That'll be great for the game. So I'm rooting for them. Yeah. So listen, Caps Rangers is the game that TNT highlighted.

The night before is what ESPN had the slate to themselves, right? So they had the two-time defending Stanley Cup champion Lightning at home to Pittsburgh. Maybe that game was a little bit of a surprise. No Gensel, no Crosby, no Malkin. And hey, no problem for Pittsburgh. They win. I want to focus, though, on the later game from Tuesday night. Because the Seattle Cracken, get down 3-0, come back.

back, tied up at three, and then Chandler Stevenson with a controversial goal. So before we officially welcome Seattle into the Heartbreak Break Club of being a hockey fan, I want to know, because you're also, as much as we try to talk about, you're not a, you know, you and I, we're not these curmudgins and we're trying to have some fun. You're also kind of known as Rules Guy. Like, you're really good at interpreting the on-ice rules and especially when it comes to goalie interference. and I'm going to ask you to put your officiating hat or your officiating striped shirt on again.

Should that goal account it, the Chandler-Stevenson goal? Was that a kicking motion or not? Or did they get that right? Do they get that wrong? No, they got it right. When I saw the replay on that, I was completely confident that that goal was going to count. I wasn't at all surprised that it did. It's kind of one of those things where there's two things that you need to know when you're trying

figure out how something like this is is going to end up. And the first one is what does the rulebook say? And then sometimes it's also how is that usually interpreted? How does that get called practically speaking? And one thing I will say is that there's some fans out there

might be going, wait a second, I thought if you intentionally deflected a puck in with your foot, that's not the rule anymore. There was a time a few years ago where that was the rule. You could not intentionally knock the puck in with your skate. It was the same any other body part, right?

Accidental deflection, that's okay. Off the skate, the glove, anywhere else. But if you do it on purpose, it's going to be no goal. And they changed that. And the reason was that it was happening so often, and it just got into this mind reading thing, where you'd be sitting there and going, well, you know, where's he looking?

How much did he move his foot? And it just kind of got silly. The reason that we don't allow players to kick the puck is at least partially a safety situation. These guys have got literally razor-sharp blades on their feet. We don't want them swinging those feet around, especially near the goal. Imagine you're a goalie, you're down, it's a scramble.

You're trying to reach your arm out, and people are swinging their skates because their sticks are tied up and they're swinging their skates at the same puck that you're trying to grab with your outstretched arm. That's a real dangerous situation. Nobody wants that.

And so that's part of why we have this rule, no kicking motion. So that's what the rule is now. There has to be a distinctive kicking motion. And you say, okay, please show me in the rulebook where distinctive kicking motion, is defined and then it really isn't and that's what frustrates people is they say you know

tell me exactly what that means um and it's not really in there but we do have a couple years under this rule now where we know how it's called and the way it is called is basically they need to see a big sway at the point they need to see the skate come off the ice they need to see the puck really being propelled forward uh basically they it needs to be very obvious that this was an attempt to kick. And if it looks like it was an intentional deflection, that's fine. You can angle your skate. What's the difference between angling a skate and kicking a skate? The reality is they will almost always count the goal unless it's really, really obvious. And last night, I mean, the call on the ice was it was a goal. And yeah, where there's some views where it looked like a

bit of a swing. Yeah, a bit. But it wasn't obvious. And that's going to count. And it should count. This is a league that's star for offense We shouldn't be taking goals off the board That were called good goals on the ice based on well You know we thought maybe this guy moved his foot an extra inch It was it was the right call It was the call that was expected if you've seen it before And if you're a Seattle fan you still get to complain about it

Because welcome to the NHL This is this is half of what we do So go ahead and And say that the refs are out to get you and all the rest of it, but they're not. That was, that was the call that you would see, uh, pretty much 10 times at a 10 in that situation. Yeah. And that's, that's kind of like you said, it's almost like the right of passage for sports fans and particular hockey fan. I'm sure every sport you're like, my team, I'm sure if you're a fan of the Memphis Grizzlies or, you know,

Carolina Panthers or pick some rando team and they're like, the refs are against us. So that's kind of like how we all operate. Is there like, is there one team in all of pro sports you think where the base is like, man, we always get the brakes. Those refs, they must like us. New England Patriots from 2000 to 2019. Even Patriots fans, I promise you are probably. No, no, no, you're forgetting the one time

that we got called, yeah, the holding on the David Turrey, that's you know, they think that weights everything off. They're the only ones. Yeah, no, we all, look, we all and this is part of half the fun of being a hockey fan. I'm the rules guy. Half the time, I'm the one

defending the rest, but no way. I mean, you go to the game and you wave your glasses around, you tell the ref he's missing a great game, that's part of it. And now Seattle, game one gets, gets in on that. And,

you know, it was too bad only in the sense that, that's a hell of a comeback by the crack. I think, you know, I was watching that game on it. It was probably like a lot of us, when it was three,

nothing Vegas, I'm thinking, uh-oh, this may be, uh, you know, this could be a long year in Seattle. And they fought right back and,

uh, and, and, and, uh, didn't end up, Well, didn't end up mattering because apparently the other thing we need to talk about is that Seattle celebrated and was happy when they made it 3-3, and that's the reason that they had to lose. Okay.

So I think we need to talk about this because obviously Vegas is no longer the new team on the blocks. And it feels like they've lost that new team smell long time ago. Like they, like, I guess my question is this. Has the Vegas Golden Knights, I think, year one, they absolutely, I think we're a like. likable team. Then they got a little too good and we're like, I don't know if I like you. And then it's slowly been them moving towards the, like, are they straight up now on the list of one of the five or six teams that are like kind of like the black hat villain in the league? Are they there?

Before game one, I wouldn't have said that. Because I still think they're, look, they're a fun team. They're a breath of fresh air as far in this very stodgy traditional sport. I love the pregame. I don't know if you say a lot of us again. The crackin comes out and the ice cracks and a crackety burges and the knight fights him and throws a fight. That was fantastic.

I mean, it was Vegas. It was it was Vegas. So, you know, I still like the gold knights of the team. But if people miss the story, what happened was when it was Morton Geeky, right, he scores to make it 3.3. And he apparently twirled his. stick. It wasn't crazy. He didn't do like the Nali Akapov up and down, Theo Fleury, up and down the ice sort of

thing. But I guess he was a little too excited. He had just scored the biggest goal in the history of a franchise, but he was a little too excited. And after the game, some of the Golden Knights, the coach, the players were saying, like, yeah, that's what fired us up. We saw him do that and we knew we needed to go out and win the game. And that's why we went and scored on the next shift, which, I mean, two things on that. First of all, if you need that to motivate you in your home opener, you know, playing a division rival, you're in trouble. And second, you know, it, they've, the Vegas goldenites have literally not been

the young cool kid in the league for one night in their entire lives. And they're already the crotchety old guys complaining about you're celebrating wrong. You're being too happy. Get lost with this stuff. I really hope we did. This is a one-time thing and we don't hear any more of this. because I want to like Mark Stone, I want to like that team, I want to like that franchise. But don't start with this nonsense.

Don't start with this. Oh, the younger, cooler expansion team came into our building and they celebrated a little too much and hurt our feelings. Knock it off Vegas. Nobody wants to hear this. Do you think, though, they're a little touchy about swords in Vegas? Because I think you can make an argument, Morgan, geeky, kind of had the sword sheath kind of thin. Are they touching his own back thing? Yes.

That's okay. Yeah, maybe. But I feel like the sword guy isn't there anymore. I feel like that was a story during the off season. So, yeah, not good off, Vegas. But, yeah, it's, it's, I hope they don't go down that road. No. Now, I got to ask you, too, about your weirdly specific predictions for every team

because let's start right there. At least one of them is dead. you said with the Seattle Cracken. If I'm not going to say, I apologize. I don't have your column in front of me. But I remember that you had Brandon Tanniv scoring the first goal. I did. I predicted first goal.

And it'll look, a peek behind the scenes. First of all, I use like four different guys in different drafts of this. And every time I put a guy in, they won on the COVID list. So, you know, I wasn't super. You have a Lexiak on there at one point? I had, boy, I don't know, I had, I think I went down the whole roster. But I ended up going Brandon Tanniv to score. the first goal. He didn't. It was, it was Ryan Donato.

But if you were watching the game, Brandon Tannab had a breakaway in the first period when when they were still, they were still looking for their first goal. And I got instantly a bunch of messages from people saying, like, I jumped out of my chair when he had the breakaway. And I didn't, he didn't score, fumbled the puck, let me down. Maybe he saw a ghost. I don't know, but he didn't come through. I also, by another prediction I had made was that Vegas was going to lose to the crack in overtime because Vegas was the only team that didn't lose in overtime all last year during the regular season. And again, that one could have happened. Maybe I should be mad about the kicked in goal just based on that because that may have cost

us overtime. But yeah, 0 for two, I think based on Wednesday night, I've already scratched a couple more off. But I'm not, you know, I do this column every year. I'm not dumb. I don't put them all on week one. I always sprinkle a few over the course of the season so that I know at the very least, I'm not going to be, you know, I'm not, if I get shut out, I'm going to at least build a little suspense along the way. Well, speaking of shutouts, you put the pressure on Carter Hart right off the hop. Like you said, your prediction for this season is Carter Hart will post the shutout in his first start. Yeah.

So, like, this is all the pressure on the world on him now. Well, I mean, I, he's, he's a goaltender for the Philadelphia Flyer. So let's not act like he wasn't under a lot of pressure already. This is, you know, look, people have never seen the column before. I go through for each team, I make a prediction that is way too specific. And usually goes against the grain a little bit on something or other. The reason I do it is I just got sick years ago of being wrong on all my regular boring predictions where I'd say this team's going to win the division.

This team will win the Stanley Cup. This guy will be the MVP, and I'd never be right on any of those. So I said, if I'm going to be wrong, let's be really wrong and really specific. And we'll see if I can even occasionally get one of these right. And so, yeah, Carter Hart, I said a shoutout in his first start. And you can actually see, if you read between the lines here, you can see my loss of confidence as I go, because I don't say Carter Hart's getting a shut out in the Flyers first game. I say he's getting a shut out in his first start.

So like I'm already wavering on him even getting the opening night start. Yeah. I've already, there's a part of me that's like, oh, Martin Jones, I don't know. But yeah, Carter Hart has got to come through. If people have been following me over the years, my track record when it comes to conjuring shutouts is not as bad as it is on pretty much all the rest of it. It's usually involving Jacob Markstrom. I've done that a couple times with him. But, you know, if Carter Hart, I'm just saying if he doesn't do it, you know, it's all in good fun. If he does do it, I take 100% of the credit.

And I need to hear that from Flyers fans when they send me their thank yous. Yeah. And it looks like, I mean, Friday night, Vancouver, Philly. That'll be the Flyers first game. And we'll see if Carter. I didn't, I didn't even look to sit at the schedule. Okay, Vancouver, you know, all right. Look at that.

You don't even look at the schedule. It could have been. I was kind of hoping for Buffalo or something like that. Yeah. Jeez. That's a risky. Now, I got to ask you, too. Look, you do this under the guise of

of how you do most of your columns, which is a lot of humor, some insight, but hey, let's have some fun here. But there's always some group that's like, this guy, I'm going to, was there one fan base that was like sour with you after your oddly specific predictions? Because the one that I thought might be a little, little testy were the Florida Panthers. And I say that only because the Panthers, I think, have some pretty high aspirations. And you said they're going to finish fourth. in their division. I said, I said,

they're going to finish tied for third in the division. So I'm putting them. No, it's tied for third. Well, I mean, I guess it could be fourth as well. Okay.

So were they, were they angry? Who was it? No. What fan base was angry with you? You know what? I wouldn't say there was a fan base that's angry. There are always people,

every year I post this column who, and I don't understand how this happens with my work. I understand that every time I write something, there's somebody's going to be reading it for the first time. Somebody's going to be, you know, I don't expect that everyone's familiar with my, my style or, you know, my history or anything like that. But they must just dive in and skip instantly to their own team. You know, don't read the intro, don't read any other team entry, read only their own team and then right into the comment section. Because they're just like, what are you talking?

Why would you think this was going to happen when there's a? And it's like, dude, the whole point here is I'm taking big swings. I'm trying to, you know, I'm not laying up and trying to. in for Bernie here. I'm going all or nothing. I'm going right for the pin. And there's always a few people that I'll get that. I will say the one fan base that I inadvertently maybe offended a little bit is I do a lot of these based on, it's kind of an excuse I'll sort of dig up some interesting stats about last year. I'll find something and say, this was the only team last year that this never happened to. So it's going to happen this year. And this is how it'll go. And that's obviously

all based on regular season. And I pointed out that the only team in the league last year during the regular season that never gave up a shorthanded goal was the New York Islanders. Well, as many Islander fans reminded me, that was true for the regular season. Not the playoffs. There was a shorthanded goal in the playoff. Game seven, the only goal in a one-nothing loss that they caused him a chance to go to the Stanley Cup final. And that was inadvertent. I was not trying to twist the knife. I will tell you, there is some pretty high-level trolling buried in this article in a couple of places. And the fan base that I really tried to tick off has not, I don't think, clued into what I did yet.

So that is still hanging there for me. Is that your own fan base in Toronto? No, that you can't, you can't make me fans anymore miserable. They already are. I got to ask you on Wednesday night, you know, like everyone knows, that that's your favorite team, the Toronto Maple Leafs. They end up beating Montreal, but early in that game, Jonathan Druand scores a goal. And it's a great feel-good story. So walk me through what it's like when there's this awesome human interest story and it happens to come at the expense of your favorite team to open the season.

Yeah, I mean, it's, you always, you don't want to see anyone score in your. team but I think especially when it's game one of an 82 game season I mean really who cares and especially like I've mentioned this I've never been less invested in a Maple Leaf's regular season because it doesn't matter they could go 82 and no who cares until we get to the playoffs nothing that this team does is going to matter so um it's uh it's it was it was cool to see i've jonathan drewins great story and uh you know his comeback and, you know, what he's been through, what he did as far as, you know, what he's, he's, the way he's put himself out there and been honest and open about it, it's, it's been fantastic to see it. See a guy like that score is great to see Brian Boyle get a goal on,

on night one for Pittsburgh. That's, that's fantastic. You love to see that stuff. And, you know, it comes against your team, okay. You know, if it was game seven of a playoff series, maybe I'd feel differently, but no, that was, that was great. It was one of those where you see, you see the puck go across and he talks it in and you go, oh, wait a second. Is that Jonathan Duret? Yeah, it is. Okay.

You know what? I'm all right with them. Okay. I want to talk about our athletic hockey show, office pools, fantasy league here in a second. Okay. But first, I do want to ask you about this because you did have it in your oddly specific predictions. And I feel like we need to talk about this. that is Detroit goalie Alex Nadelcovic.

Yeah. Like, how is this guy still eligible for rookie of the year when he was a finalist for the award last year, played 23 games in a 56 game season? I guess my question is, how did they not pro rate that in a 56 game season and say, you know what, the number for a goalie is 17 games or 18 games. Like, come on.

He shouldn't be up for the rookie of the year again, should he? It's, look, I mean, the rules around Calder eligibility, it's, it's, there's a few things. It has to do with age. And it also has to do with how many games you played. And it's 25 is the cutoff. 25 games in the previous season, you lose your eligibility to be considered a rookie. And if you haven't hit 25, then there's other cutoffs as far as how many you've played in the last two years and beyond. And, uh, Deltkovich is played.

I think this is his fifth season that he's going to play NHL games. but last year was his breakthrough and he played 23 games and you could make the argument that maybe the cutoff should be different for goalies and you could make the argument that they should have prorated it

for the partial season but they didn't and so he is still Calder eligible even though he was a finalist and this has never happened before as far as I don't believe anyone's ever been a Calder finalist more than once

but it has happened on the all-rookie team. And it's happened with goaltenders a couple of times. There are a couple of goalies who have been on the all-ricky team twice in their career. And it's just one of those weird things and it's sort of a fluke of the rules. And yeah, we'll see. Maybe this guy can do it again this year and pull off back-to-back Calder finalists, which would be, you got to admit, pretty impressive and probably one of those records, it's very unlikely to ever be matched or certainly broken. Yeah.

You know what? Like, okay, but here's my question to you. Let's say he won the award last year playing 23 games. Technically, he'd still be eligible this year, right? Yeah. There's nothing in the eligibility that says anything about whether you've won or anything like that. No, it is completely based on...

This league is run by the lawyers who shut every loophole. How they didn't see this, this guy could have won back-to-back. Calder. To me, that's like what you can't, there's certain awards you can't win back to back. Rookie of the year feels like what. I feel like the Masterton is another one where it's like, okay, you know what? You came back. That's great. It's probably a one off, right? Well, you would think so. Yeah. I mean, it should be. The only, the Jack Adams is the one trophy that you can't win back to back. I mean, Barry Trots wins it and then does the exact same thing the next year. People are like, no, you're not, you're not the best coaching. No, you know what? But

Flip it around, okay? I'm glad they didn't do it. This is a fluky byproduct. Really of the partial season because in a normal season, a goalie who plays 23 games is not going to have the body of work to get those votes.

It was only because it was, you know, almost half a season in the shortened year. You know what? Let's roll with it. Let's, you know, let's see where it goes. I don't mind that they didn't close this incredibly rare loophole that'll

probably never even be needed again. Let's see where it goes. Let's see if the kid can do it. Or you know what? I want to see him get shutouts in his first 24 starts and then get shut down. And let's do this every year. Let's just have a guy.

At the end of the we're doing the Hall of Fame debate. We're going, you know what? He never won a Vezinau, but he does have those seven calder. So I don't know. All right. I got to ask you, Sean. We've had some fun with our listeners with the OfficePools.com fantasy hockey league here on the athletic hockey show.

It pits us, the host, the various hosts of the athletic hockey show, up against the listeners. Our terrific producers are part of this. And, you know, Haley Salvin, who does the show with me on Monday, she picked her team on Monday and went with the clever name of Haley's team, which was like, wow. No, she didn't. Really?

Yeah. You let that happen? She texted me. And I even, I gave her, I gave her, you. you know, Doc McStuffins for Kirby Doc. I gave her Kirby, your enthusiasm. I gave her all these things and she's like, now I'm going to go with Haley's team.

Not even Haley's Comets. Like she's just. Yeah, not even Haley's Comets. Nothing. No. I got to say, I'm disappointed because I'm actually in a football pool with her. And she has a decent pun name on on that team.

So that's, yeah, that's something. We got to sit down. We got to sit down and address this. Now, what is your team name in our athletic? hockey pool. So I did, I did stick with the one I had last week. I'm the pasta makers.

Okay. You did stick with. David Pasternak and Kelmachar and I didn't. I sat down on Tuesday, the day the season started, which is the last day to get everything in. And I went over it, but I didn't end up making a lot of changes. I got kind of stuck with it. There were a lot of close calls. There's a lot of those where I was kind of going back and forth. I think I maybe changed one or two boxes. But that was it. I feel, I felt okay. And then I watched Nikita Kutra, I'm Bradent Point, not get me anything on Tuesday night, but a couple of bums. Like, that's, you know, what are we doing, guys? Like, I stake my reputation on you.

And so I was, yeah, after that game, I was tied for 2,834th. So, not bad. You know, I think what's the old saying? If you're, as long as you're in the top 2,000 by Thanksgiving, you're okay. You're still all right. So I got some work to do, but I'll get there. Yeah. And you're in the top 2000 at Canadian Thanksgiving, too.

So that's, yeah. That's a good thing. I should have checked on that. There's a whole bunch of team names. I looked this up. I was looking it up. And I don't know, maybe some people changed it. There's like four or five teams that were named Do Who Where's Macar?

Mm-hmm. Timely reference. Sure. Yeah. Like, I wonder if we could, I wonder if there's a way to look and see like, what's the most commonly used team name in the, this fantasy pool because I think it was dude wears my car when I looked at it the first time. But again, maybe people changed it.

I stuck with Brock Besser, even though he's injured. Yeah. I'm sticking with my team is better than yours. And I'm just sticking with the pun. And this guy might not play this year. I'm like, I'm willing to, I'm willing to go down with the ship here. Yeah. That's, I mean, you, we said it last week.

You build from the pun out. Yeah. And that's what you got to do. You have your franchise guy and you have your pun. And that's the rest of it. That's the best you can do. Yeah. So listen, from time to time throughout the course of the season,

we'll kind of check back in and see how our office pool. Yeah, unless I stay in 2000th place, in which case we're never mentioning this again. Because this is rough. Yeah. No, it's, I think we've got about 5,000. Like we're middle of the pack, I think is what I want to say. Even though it might feel deflating the open up.

your team and see you're in 2,800th place. I think we're like middle of the pack. There's 5,587. I'm looking at it right now. So there you go. We're like pretty much right. And that's tied for that. So I don't even know.

Maybe there's there may be more than that. It's there. You know what I want to find out. And maybe you know this. But if not, we can get the office pool's folk to look it up. I want to know how many people took Nathan McKinnon in that first spot. That's a good question.

Because it was either war, right? Just him. And it was him or McDavid. And I mean, I took McDavid, I'm sure the vast majority did, but there is also the part, there's that little bit of game theory kicks in where you go, you know, McDavid got hurt. And I had McKinnon. I mean, I'm getting a hundred point head start on everything.

I'm probably going to win this thing. So I wonder how many people actually did that. I wouldn't mind finding that out. You know what? And it's not a bad, it's not a bad theory either because if you use that line of thinking, and okay, look, McDavid might get to 130, 10040 points. But I think the gap between McDavid and McKinnon, maybe it'll be 35 or 40 points, right? Maybe.

But if somehow something happened to McDavid and 95% of the pool took them, you'd be in a really good spot because maybe you'd get 100 points and everyone else says 20, right? Like that, that's where it could absolutely be a swing. I was too much of a chicken, though. I went with McDavid. Yeah, me too. And it's tough. It's just like, you know, I had, speaking of contests,

I had my prediction contest this one. Jeez, yes. Which is, if people have seen that, it's basically, I ask you simple questions. Like, who's going to make the playoffs? Who's not getting fired? You know, who's which goal is? You're just going to play a lot of games. And you give me as many answers as you want.

You get points for the answers. But if you get even one wrong answer on a question, you lose all your points for that question. So it's kind of a, you know, you're way in how aggressive to be. And this year, new Rinkalike, I put in a bonus question. Yes. And I said for 15. bonus points, give me the name of one player who will finish this year with 100 points, not Connor McDavid.

Can't be Connor McDavid, but give me one person, and you get 15 bonus points, but if you're wrong, you wipe out your whole entry. It's absolute zero. And I was fascinated to watch how many people actually took the bait on and answered that question. How many people didn't? Some people gave me their explanation, and then who they were picking. A lot of Drusitle picks.

But then when you see all these Leon recitals coming in, you start thinking, well, geez, if he gets hurt, that's going to wipe out. Your whole thing is gone. Everything's gone. Man, that's three quarters of the pool's gone. I'm going to go with somebody else and jump in there. This stuff is so interesting, whether it's office pools or the other stuff, just that you get into your own head. And, you know, the game theory kicks in of, okay, I should do this. But the people I'm playing against know I should do that.

But I know that they know that. So where do I wind up? And usually if you're me, that's how you wind up with a really rotten team because you've thought yourself into knots and somebody who just picked it based on whose name sounded cool and had the best puns, ends up walking away with it. Okay. With your preseason prediction pool, like at the end of the year, do you sit down and manually go through Google Docs and it's not even, it's last year it wasn't even Google Doc.

Last year it was a big word document. And last year I had, this thing was designed. I was hoping I'd get 100 entries. And last year I got 800. And this year we doubled it. This year we got 1600. So I got to be honest, the bonus question that I just described, I think is a really interesting wrinkle.

It's also a way for me to, fingers crossed, wipe out a whole bunch of entries that I won't even have to score. But you're manually going through these? Yeah. The way it works is, because remember, I'm not generating, hey, here's the whole standings. here, oh, you know, Ian, you finish 700. I'm looking for one winner. So what I will do is as the season goes on, the first coach who gets fired, I'll go look,

is, okay, who had him? You know what, take them out. They're not going to win. And just as I go narrow the list down. And, you know, I need some of those big moments that, you know, thanks. I was, you know, my, I like Jeff Corton. I think he's a great GM. But when he got let go with like days left in the season, I was like, all right, because

there goes 100 entries that I don't have to worry about anymore. Yeah, I may go outside to get some help on this one. I told you we need a Down Goes Brown internship program. Listen, I am willing to help facilitate this for you. There's lots of great young journalism, broadcasting, aspiring, you know, media members. Who would love to do this type of research for you? Would they tell? Would they love to do this?

Who wouldn't want to say that they were Down Goes Brown, the intern for Down Goes Brown? I'm telling you, you're going to see. I'm going to, can you just let me do this for you? Can I find you an intern? Okay. And I'll nail down the field. And then you can, you know, you can do the interviews,

the final three candidates. And I think you, I think this is going to help your, your research, it's going to make life even better. Is this all going to lead to like this mysterious intern that you find me and then I'm going to get the results of the contest back and you're going to win? Is this? Yeah, exactly. You're hacking it from the inside.

A little social engineering. I see. I see how this is going. Yeah. All right. So listen, I ain't going to start that. All right. I want to move on over, though, to the mailbag.

And actually this week we're speaking of Down Goes Brown. We're actually going right into the Down Goes Brown mail. So on the print side of things, you do get a ton of submissions for mailback questions. You can't get to all of them. Sometimes you kind of just, you know, you shuffle some of them onto here. And it's a chance for us to kind of have some fun and answer them here. We do want to remind our listeners here to the athletic hockey show that if you do want to drop us an email, you can do so, the athletic hockey show at gmail.com,

the athletic hockey show, gmail.com. Or kick it old school. We really love that when you drop us a voicemail 845-4-4-5-844-59. So let me start here. We've got to take a couple of these. And I want to ask you about this one. This is from Josh. This is a good one too because obviously Jack Eichol is his storyline that is dragged into the regular season now.

And Josh asked you in your print mailbag for the athletic, what team should maybe roll the dice here? Sean, risk it all and trade a legit bonafide first line center in a package that lands them Jack Eichael. Now, Josh says, hey, what, maybe Winnipeg, maybe Vancouver, maybe Pittsburgh. So listen, I know we've got a little bit of Eichael fatigue. Can we freshen it up with this question? Yeah, well, and that's what I like about this, because we've all been thinking about a Jack Eichael trade as far as what prospects, what first round picks, you know, what kind of collection of future

assets, but this is sort of an alternative take on it where it's like, what if Kevin Adams woke up tomorrow and said, you know what, okay, I'll trade Jack Eichael, but I want a number one center back. And it doesn't necessarily have to be a Jack Eichael level number one center, but I want a legitimate guy I'm going to put in my lineup today who's going to be, you know, the best player on my team or up there. And what would that look like? And it's a hypothetical. I don't think that's going to happen, but it's fun to think about. You know, Josh says, Winnipeg. Yeah, if you're winning, would you trade Mark Scheifley for Jack Eichael?

I don't know. Maybe you'd consider that. Vancouver. I mean, Patterson with the new deal, you're not going to do. He says the penguins. I'm assuming that's, he's trolling us a little bit there. I don't, yeah. But maybe it would be Malkin, right?

Because he's up the last year of his deal. Yeah. Maybe. Well, I think if you're Pittsburgh, you'd probably love to do that. I don't think Buffalo is going to be very interested without a deal. I think the answer here is, and it is tough. because a lot of the teams that you're thinking of, like for, you know, L.A.,

well, they're not moving Copatar. Obviously, the Rangers aren't giving up Sabanajad. They just signed them. Anaheim doesn't even really have a guy that fits that. I think I've got the team that it would be if you're going by this criteria. I think it's Calgary, isn't it? Yeah.

Well, listen, you've heard their name in the mix for a while, and I think they have some of the pieces, right? And either Matthew Kuchuk or Johnny Gudrow, Or Sean, I mean, Monaghan is the center there. And, you know, that alone, I don't think gets it done. But again, if you're, you know, Kevin Adams just called up and said, you know what, I can't, my fan base has been suffering for 10 years without the playoffs. I can't do another burn it down rebuild. I need to have good players I can drop in my lineup right now.

I want Sean Monaghan as a building block. I think if you're Calgary, you're, you're amenable to doing that. And then you're going to have to add other pieces onto it. But, you know, if we're owned by Josh's rules and it's got to be a number one center, I think that's really one of the only ones that makes sense to me. Yeah, I tend to agree with you. Like I think Calgary, I've always thought Calgary was a fit. And we thought all season or all summer that Brad Trill Living was going to do something, right?

To freshen it up. And then we got to August and nothing happened. Then we got to September and nothing happened. Now we got to the middle of October and nothing has happened. And I know Pierre LeBron had a little piece with an update. on the Johnny Goodrow contract talks, but there is a feeling like maybe they need to change up the furniture a little bit

in California. Yep. Yeah. And I think if they start slow, Brad for Living is, you know, there's not a lot of GMs that go into a season on the hot seat where you feel like there could even be a change during the year and that he's probably one of them. So if they start slow, he's not likely to want to wait around.

All right. Let's get one other mailbag question that was sent your way. This one came in from Mike. Mike said, hey, I checked out your article before the season. That was your, hey, finding some hope for hopeless team. So basically the premise of that column that you did a couple weeks ago was, hey, here's the 10 worst teams in the league, the Arizona's and the Buffaloes and the Ottawa's. And here's a reason why there might be a silver lining. And, you know, it's, hey, this is why they could kind of punch above their weight. So Mike wants to know, based on that, do you have a Stanley Cup pick that's like a total shocker?

Like maybe one of these middle of the pack teams that can rise up. And as Mike says, hey, remember 2018, 2019, nobody was thinking St. Louis was any good around Christmas time. And then six months later, they won the Stanley Cup. Yeah, around Christmas. That is the part you got to remember with St. Louis. We did think they were good heading into that season. They were a top 10 odds maker favorites, and then they fell apart. We all wrote them off, and then they turned it around.

But, you know, I don't, I kind of view this question as like, what is, what's the least likely Stanley Cup final that you still feel is pretty plausible where you could go, yeah, you know what, I'll put my, I'll put my neck out and I'll say that could happen. Because, I mean, yeah, we could sit here and go, oh, yeah, you know, Buffalo, Arizona, wouldn't that be crazy? It's not going to happen. But I don't know. How far are you willing to go on getting weird on this? Like, so, okay, I'm going to throw something out there. And I'm not, you know me well enough. I'm not a conspiracy theory type of guy.

No. But I do think that when you got Wayne Gretzky on a panel, Mark Messia on a panel, here come the Rangers. Mm-hmm. Like, so. I don't even think it's a conspiracy. I, the Rangers are my Eastern. Yeah.

Here's, here's what I'm looking for. Are they off the grid? Or are they? You know what? I'll be honest. I was surprised. I was looking at some odds

after I saw this question because I wanted to go and kind of double check. And I saw some odds that had the Rangers as the number two team to win the metro, only behind the islanders. And I was surprised at that. I, you know, ahead of Pittsburgh, head of Washington. I had even Carolina.

That did surprise me. So maybe they're not that much. of an underdog pick, but this is, as a team missed the playoffs last year. But I just, I always kind of look at teams at this part of the year and I say, who is the team, there's teams out there we expect to be good. They're usually by the end of the year have been one or two teams that were good that nobody saw coming. But who are the teams that we might get to the midway mark or the end of the season?

And they're near the top of the standings and we go, you know what? I didn't have them in my predictions, but I should have. I should have seen this coming because the pieces were there. And I feel like the Rangers are, what's that? The Devils? I know. I wouldn't. I mean, the Devils I feel like are maybe a year away.

Yeah. The Rangers in the East are my team there where they're, I mean, they've got an MVP guy in Panera. And they've got the Norris winner. They've got some real good young goaltending, we think. Certainly last night against Washington did put a damper on that. But that's one game. I could just see them being a team where it all kind of comes together. And similarly in the West, there's one team that I'm sort of writing above all others.

And in fact, I've said, I picked this team to finish fifth overall in the NHL. So, you know, Colorado, Vegas, Islanders, and probably Tampa. I think this team is number five behind those. That's a Winnipeg Jets. Yeah. I know you have them as a top five. Yeah. So many, I mean, arguably the best goaltender on the planet.

Definitely a guy in the top three or five. all sorts of offensive firepower. They're great up front. And the blue line, which is what sunk them last year, improved, better, we think. And, you know, we'll see. And, yeah, I mean, look, goalies are goalies. Connor Hallibuck might have an off year and then they're in trouble.

But I just feel like, again, if you're looking at teams that are kind of in that second or third tier down, that maybe later this year, they're in the top tier where all going. I should have seen that coming. Winnipeg just checks almost every box for me as far as being a team that could pull that off. Okay, I just had an idea for the Down Goes Brown intern. Okay? So do you think that there's some weird pattern

that over the last 20, 30 years, what if there's one regular season game and maybe it's game 18? But what if we look back and we saw every Stanley Cup winner in the last 20 years, always won the 18th game of the regular season. Like, what if we could find the one game? And then, and then this year we're like, okay, now we know after game 18, that's the team.

Like, you know what I mean? This is a perfect case for the Down Goes Brown. So there you go. All you kids are there that were thinking of applying for this. This is the sort of thing you'll be doing. If you're sitting there going, that feels like a nightmare. Yeah. Yeah, it does.

So this is, this is it. We just, you can just hear the delete keys being hit on the resumes all around. Yeah. all around the hockey world. All right. Wrapping up this edition of the athletic hockey show on a Thursday like we always do with a little this week in hockey history. The nice thing is now that we're into October,

we actually have some games. Like there was a stretch there in September. You know, you'd look at, you'd fired up and it would be like, you know, Toll Blake's birthday. And you're like,

oh, man, this is, this is slim pickings. But we got, we got a lot to get to here this week. hockey history. Hey, let me ask you about this, October 13th, 1992. Say? Okay, October 13, 1992, Calgary and Minnesota play a regular season game in Saskatoon,

kicking off officially a stretch where every team in the NHL for two years would play two neutral side games. My question to you is, will we ever go back to this? And was this a good idea or not back in the day? I thought it was a cool idea at the time. It was always kind of neat when you'd see the NHL go to markets that you weren't used to seeing, and it was probably smart for the NHL to kind of scout out a few potential locations. Remember, this is 92. They're, the NHL is, what, 24 teams at that point, two more about to come, and then four more by the end of the 90s.

Yeah, makes sense to get out there and put your product out there. The reason I don't think we see it anymore is that I don't think it was very successful. There were a lot of those games that were not well attended that didn't really deliver a lot of hype in the local markets. And I think at the end of the day, the owners kind of said, you know, why are we sending our guys out to go play in a half empty building in a market that we're not even all that interested in? But it was, you know, back then it was 84 games was the season. So it wasn't like teams were losing home games. It was, and players were playing an extra two games.

And I don't know, maybe they were the ones who didn't want to do it. But it did, I feel like for every full building where you made a bunch of new fans and got a market interested, there were, there were probably five or 10 games

where nobody really cared all that much. Yeah, there was games like Milwaukee had games and Hamilton had games. And yeah, anyway, I always thought it was a cool idea. If anything,

I'm surprised they don't bring it back just because we need to replenish, now that we've done expansion, we need to replenish our list of potential markets that we can use as threats, exactly. So that, you know, when the flames or the senators or whoever aren't getting their new arena, they could turn around and go, remember that sellout in Baltimore? And you go, okay, all right.

They're pining for hockey in Portland. I'm telling you. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Okay, one other one. And, you know, earlier in this show, we were talking about Alex Ovechkin, maybe chasing down Wayne Gretzky's all-time gold's record. And like you said, hey, you just want to see this become a really interesting chase in a couple of years and it'd be fun.

October 15th, 1989, Sean Wayne Gretzky went back to Edmonton as a member of the L.A. Kings. Pass Gordy Howe to become the all-time leader in points. And a couple of things here. First of all, Wayne Gretzky was 28 years old when he broke this. record. I feel like people need to understand that. Like here we are like we're looking at O'Vansky. We're like, if he can get to 39 and 40,

like he, Wayne Gretzky was 28 years old when he broke Gordyhow's record for points. That's, that's insane. Like, Connor McDavid is going to turn 25 this year. Yeah. You know, and I know, I haven't looked at his career. I don't feel like he's three years away

from shattering any cherished records held by 50-year-old superstars. I mean, Gretzky is in his prime. It's impossible to comprehend if people didn't see it. And the fact that he did it for the Kings in Edmonton was just so per- Like as soon as you saw the schedule, you're like, oh, yeah, he's however many points. He could have needed 14 points that night.

You'd be like, yeah, he's probably going to get it in Edmonton. So here's my other question. Now, it's an iconic moment, iconic goal. Wayne Gretzky gets the backhand, puts it in. And everything is it's it is a fairy tale like Wayne Gretzky couldn't have scripted it any better. He breaks you all time point record. Here's my question though. What would the scene have been if Gretzky picks up some rando second assist?

Like let's say he dumps it in on a change and like Mike Crucial Nisky goes in on the four check and he gets the puck and they kind of rimming around back to the, you know, Bernie Nichols and he just, you know. It would have been totally different, wouldn't it? Yeah, that's the danger you get into with poor. You know, we have a scoring change that the goal. And that's happened. There have definitely been, and people always remind me of them because they always slip my mind. But there had been some cases where guys have had like the 1,000th point and then it got waved off and, you know, they had to get it again and stuff like that. Yeah, imagine if it had happened to Gretzky.

That would have been, that would have been. You didn't have to worry about it because he had such a great flare for the dramatic. You knew it was going to be something exactly like how it played out. But yeah, imagine that if it had been, you know, we're sitting there going, did that go off this skate on the way by? I don't know. I think that might be McSorley's assist. I'm not sure.

And then you just imagine being the guy having to announce that to the Edmonton crowd. Yeah. Gordy Howe comes out and takes the golden stick back or whatever it is. Yeah. Would you, could you be the guy, though? like let's say it turned out like you tip the show like it's a let's let's say it's ovechkin's goal record or something and it looks like he scored but they're like looking on video review and they're like yeah I think you know I think Nick Baxtert tipped it there's a lot of Sabres fans and Flames fans right now

saying that yeah when it's a big moment the replay guy gets uh gets cold feet so yeah I don't think I have a feeling they wouldn't have gone back and found that one you imagine if it was these days and suddenly, yeah, we're challenging that on off sides. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. After, that's getting doused. Yeah, after you've handed the Jade sculpture to Ovechkin or whatever you've given them, you're like, yeah, upon further review, Tom Wilson was offside.

Yeah, 45 seconds earlier in the play. And we got to get it right. So, sorry. Oh, man. All right. Hey, listen, we'll leave it there. I hope you have a great week and enjoy the first kind of weekend of NHL hockey. and we'll do this again next Thursday.

Right on. Sounds good. All right. Thanks, everybody, for joining us for this Thursday edition of The Athletic Hockey Show. Like I said, drop us a question via email, The Athletic Hockey Show at gmail.com. If you're not a subscriber with us, you can join us at theathletic.com slash hockey show for 50% off an annual subscription.