The Athletic Hockey Show - An Edmonton-Toronto snooze fest, Mike Babcock, the Capitals break COVID-19 protocols and more

Episode Date: January 21, 2021

Ian Mendes and Sean McIndoe discuss last night's less-than-exciting matchup between the Edmonton Oilers and Toronto Maple Leafs, and offer up a solution. Also, Mike Babcock breaking his silence, the Washington Capitals breaking COVID-19 protocols, and the resurgence of Keith Yandle.Then, in "Granger Things", Jesse Granger comes on to dispel the myth of the second games of these series this season being lower scoring, his perspective on the Robin Lehner and Marc-Andre Fleury dynamic, and more.Ian pitches his idea for new NHL divisional organization, they discuss the O'Brien trophy in "This Week in Hockey History" and answer your questions.Have a question? Send it to [e-mail], or leave a VM at [phone]! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back for another episode of the athletic hockey show. I'm Ian Meddice alongside Sean McAdoo. Ahead on today's episode, we'll chat about Mike Babcock, breaking his silence. We'll get our first taste of McDavid Matthews, and I think it was a little bit underwhelming. I'll also float my idea for realigning the divisions using the NFL model. Jesse Granger stops by for some betting and fantasy tips in Granger Things, and we tackle some of your questions in our inbox and a little this week at NHL History features Neil Sheehe.

That's right, Neil Sheehe. But Sean's going to fill us in on that. First of all, Sean, we were so hype. We were so pumped. We were like McDavid, Matthews is like, what, the first of nine meetings? This is going to be awesome. And then what happened? And then we got arguably the worst game of the NHL season so far.

That was awful between Edmonton and Toronto. I mean, we were all looking forward to this. before even the schedule came out. As soon as you started hearing about an all-Canadian division, you're thinking, Matthews versus McDavid, recital versus Marner, all the offense,

all of the skill that would be in those games, that we usually get to see a couple times a year, now it's going to be over and over again, and it was a dud. And it was one that we probably should have seen coming because both the Leafs and the Oilers have been involved in some high, higher scoring games. They've been inconsistent. There's been criticism of the defensive side of

things. So it maybe it wasn't hard to see coming that both those teams would come out and focus on keeping it simple and playing the conservative way. But oh my goodness, if you were a fan or a potential fan, a new fan who sat down and said, all right, I'm going to give this NHL thing a try. I hear these teams are both stacked with offensive talent and you watch that game, goodbye, because you're never coming back to see more of that product. potential that that game yesterday got you thinking about a new column, 10 worst games involving the Maple Leafs and Canadian opponents. Yeah, I mean, I had the best wins and the worst losses, but I didn't do the flat out worst quality. That would not be a hard one to a hard list to go down.

I mean, geez, they pretty much the entire 1980s were pretty awful games. But usually they were awful games, at least in the sense of being bad for one day. The thing that frustrates me about games like last night and tell me if I'm wrong on this, but I feel like hockey is the only sport and the NHL is the only big pro league where two teams with a ton of offensive skill could play a game that was that boring and that low scoring and come out of it feeling good about themselves. Like that's the key. You never know in sports, right?

Like the Kansas City Chiefs could play the New Orleans Saints with a ton of weapons on the field. And that game could end six to three. That's sports, right? You never know how the ball's going to bounce. You never know how the brakes are going to go. It could happen. But I guarantee Andy Reid is not going to get up after that game, stand up at the podium and say, yeah, we're thrilled with the way that win.

He'll be happy to take the win, but he's not going to sit there and go, yeah, we want to win six to three. He's going to say, I got all these weapons. We got to go back and figure out what one. went wrong and why we weren't able to create a lot more offense. And that's how just about any other sport would work. And yet, you've got a situation where two teams that are just, that are stacked with offensive talent, have built their teams around offensive talent, go out and play a game that's two to one until an empty net goal at the end. And the oilers are probably thrilled with it. The Leafs, obviously you'd rather win. But I don't think the Leafs are getting

bag skated for playing a two-one game today. This is just the nature of the NHL right now. low scoring, low event, keep it down, be conservative. And it's just, it's, you understand it when there's certain teams. Some teams have to play that style. That's the way it should work. But when you see two teams that are built away the Leafs and the Oilers are, serve up a game like that, oh my goodness, what a missed opportunity. And what a, my condolences to anyone who sat through two and a half hours of that last night.

Well, I think that was one of those games that was nationally televised in the United States, right? Because they're billing it as McDavid. It's a showcase game. It's a, this is where the NHL always falls short is we don't market the stars enough. And that includes the rules and that includes all of it. It's okay to make the rules so that it is disproportionately in favor of McDavid and Crosby. And it's okay. That's why we pay to go to see the games is to see the $10 million players be $10 million players.

Here's what I would love. One week of the year, you get to play without coaches. Like everyone, like, you. You know how every week, the NFL does what? Players get their cleats, you get one week for your, I would just want one week in the NHL, the players, there's no coaches. Wouldn't you just be so curious? I would love that because I blame the coaches for this.

This whole problem, if you accept it, it is a problem with the defensive approach. I initially blame Gary Bettman and the leadership of the NHL in the mid-90s for not seeing what was happening and taking action then. But since then, it's become a coaching issue. And I'll go you one further. I have made this suggestion. This is a legitimate suggestion. I would actually love to see the NHL do this.

You get one coach on the bench. That's it. You get one guy. You can have assistant coaches. You can have whatever when you're running practice and everything. But there's one guy behind the bench. He's got to do the lines. He's got to do everything.

Okay. Let's get a little bit of K. These guys are, hey, these are the high paid big shot coaches. Let's make them actually earn it. You don't have four guys down there looking at iPads telling you whether to review something that was offside by a fraction of an inch. You don't have all this. You got one guy back there running the show.

Would it make his job a lot harder? Yeah, we need to make these guys jobs harder because they're so good at their jobs that they can take all the hockey talent in the world and turn it into something like that. There were only two people on the entire planet that were really, really thrilled with that game last night. It was probably the two coaches behind the bench. Yeah, you know what? It's a great point that you bring up.

I forget, I always forget, you just love chaos. You love embracing chaos. Team chaos. Team chaos. To controversy and that type of thing is great. Hey, while we're on the topic of the Maple Leafs and coaches, let's get right into Mike Babcock, Sean,

breaking his silence with our Pierre LeBron earlier this week in an article. Because, look, I think Babcock knows he's going to be on NBC on Sunday, and he's going to have to speak. So he chooses Pierre LeBron, decides to speak out about what happened with the Marner situation, a little bit about Johann Franzon. I saw a real mixed bag of reviews. And then that's, you really what social media is, isn't it?

Like some people are like, hey, good for him for speaking out. Other people are like, hey, if you didn't reach out to Marner and Fronzen directly, you're doing this all wrong. What, like, did you have an initial takeaway? Did your thoughts change about the Babcock article, you know, 24 hours after it came out? Yeah, I mean, he had to do it. This is, if he's going to make any sort of comeback in the hockey world, as a coach or even as a broadcaster, he had to address it. And, okay, he gave his explanation for

why it had taken so long. That's fine. But once you come back into the public eye, you've got to address it. And let's be real honest, there would be a lot of people on both sides who had their mind made up before they read one word that he had to say. There are lots of people in the hockey world who are absolutely ready to forgive and forget. Let's just forget any of this even happened. and they're willing to welcome Mike Babcock back with open arms. And there's a lot of people who won't be willing to do that under any circumstances, no matter what he said. And that's fine.

As far as anyone who is in the middle and potentially waiting to have their opinion shifted, I don't think he did a great job of bringing them on board. I thought his, what he had to say about the Marner situation, I thought was pretty good. that, you know, his, he essentially said, look, it didn't happen exactly the way that has been put out there, but I take responsibility. I screwed up. I knew it right away. Here's what I did at the time to try to fix it. And here's, here's what I've learned from it. Um, but then he gets into the Franzon situation. And it, it just, it felt as if he was centering himself in the situation more than, uh, more than he was. Johan, and the players who had seen that. And, and the players who had seen that. And that was the far more serious situation. I know Mitch Martner, because it's Toronto, and because it was the first thing that came out, gets the attention. But the friends and accusations, allegations were far more serious as far as how he was treating players.

And I felt like that fell a little bit flat. So I don't imagine that there's too many people that have changed their minds based on this. He did have to do it. As far as coming back, he does check one of the boxes that he needed to do. and there may be some people in the NHL, GMs who have coaching vacancies, who will say, that's all I needed to see from this guy. I'm ready to bring them back. But for others who maybe were waiting to see a little bit more introspection,

a little bit more careful thought about what had happened. I don't think they got it from that interview. I think it's going to be interesting to see the first team, and I don't feel like there's any coaches on the hot seat per se. And even in the 56 game season, you wonder, are we going to see any coaching changes during the season? I wonder, though, if he comes back next year. I feel like next season, look, by the time we get between now and June, July,

whatever the season wraps up, he's going to have how many appearances on NBC. He's going to be back. It'll kind of be a little bit of the Mike Babcock rehabilitation tour. And look, I agree with you. I'm all for giving people second chances. I think if you just dismiss people when they made a mistake, I think you're doing it wrong. but you have to show some like legit contrition, some legit, I want to be better. And look, we're not going to get that from an art.

Like, it's all about the actions, right? So look, Mike Babcock, to me, Sean, has six months to kind of put himself out there, try and rehabilitate his image and we'll see. But I kind of feel like this guy's going to be behind the bench in October of 2021, coaching a team. Yeah. You know what? That's probably the most likely scenario, assuming.

that he wants to do it, assuming that NBC goes well, that he doesn't either on NBC or elsewhere say or do something that would put him back. I mean, he kind of said it himself in the interview. The odds of him coaching this year are pretty slim. There's a good chance a lot of people think that we'll go through this whole season with no coaching changes, just because of the circumstances. I mean, who wants to bring in, with all the chaos that's going on this year, who wants to bring in somebody to make a big change in the middle of it? But that might mean that someone guys who are on very thin ice make it through the season and then we get a bunch of openings in the offseason and yeah, I mean, he interviewed reportedly for the Washington job. So he's

already back in the game in that sense, didn't get that job. I think he'll certainly be a candidate for other ones. And yeah, I think that behind the bench on opening night next year, probably probably a pretty good chance. But I do think he's got still some more work to do to to earn back that trust of the people doing the hiring and then also of the fans, the media and everyone who's going to be watching it happen. I think it's interesting too when you think about it from just a COVID logistical perspective, if you're going to bring in a new coach from outside your organization, theoretically they would have like a two-week quarantine and like.

They could. Imagine your coach. You're like, you know, and you're like, hey, we want to replace, or your general manager, we want to replace our head coach. And let's say you want to bring in Mike Babcock. like what are the protocols of like bringing this guy into your bubble? It's probably a two-week quarantine and maybe the other head coach who's on the hot seat's like, oh, what's Mike Babcock doing that room by himself in the arena?

Yeah. All isolated. Anyway, I'm sure that's up, yeah. I'm sure that's unrelated to what's going on. I thought it was interesting, too, in that LeBron article, he broached the idea of would Mike Babcock be open to coaching team Canada at the Olympics next year, again, provided those Olympics go off without a hitch. you know, Babs led them to a title in 2010 and a gold medal story in 2010 and 2014. And he was kind of of the mindset of, you know what, I've had my time. I'm ready to hand it off, whether it's a Trots or a Quenville or Cassidy, whoever it is, I don't know.

If all things were being equal and Mike Babcock said, you know, I could do it and maybe I'd focus all my energy on that between now and 2022. Would you think that that would be a good idea for a hockey Canada? I know it's a like a fictitious scenario here, but would that have been a good idea? Yeah, it would be interesting to see because you're right. We typically in the Olympics, you see a coach. They get the job, but their focus is on the NHL season. And there's not a lot of time once they get over there.

I mean, look, the interview, I think that was a case of a guy who already knows that the answer is no. And so he's getting out ahead of it a little bit rather than let his name. stay out there, knowing that he's not going to get the job. I think he sort of understands how the cards have come down on this one and is preemptively taking his name out of the running for a job that he probably wasn't in the running for anyways. I don't, I would not want to see Team Canada go back to Mike Babcock. I think it's, there are other guys who are frankly better coaches right now.

there are guys who it's their turn. Would there be an advantage to having somebody have the chance to prepare? Maybe, although I'm not sure how much preparation you can really do. I mean, you can't share it with the players. So, I mean, even if you show up in China with a full game plan all ready to go and realized you still got a couple of days to teach that to a team. So I don't know, that maybe gives you a little bit of an advantage. It's not much of one.

It's not enough to make me want to go back to a Mike Babcock over any number of other guys that you mentioned that I think are more deserving at this point. Yeah, Quenville would be my guy. I think that, you know, what, he won those cups in Chicago and he's got a great resume. My biggest fear is a Canadian hockey fan is that, like, Latvia or somebody will get Barry Trots. And they're like, you know, Billet Trots is going to coach Latvia. And I'm like, I would want nothing to do with facing a Barry Trots team in a one-off elimination,

right? Especially if he brings Mitch Korn with him and they do the little goalie magic one thing that turns everybody into Hasick. Yeah, that would be scary. We can get trots on there. Cuenville probably depends on how this season goes. I think the reputation took a bit of a hit last year. The first year in Florida, let's see how this year goes.

John Cooper's, you know, guys like that. It's one of those things where it's tough because, you know, the knock on Mike Babcock has always been, yeah, good for him. He won a Stanley Cup with an all-star team in Detroit. and he won gold medals with Team Canada, which may have been the greatest hockey team ever assembled. Like, you know, wow, what a great job by a coach to just tell Sidney Crosby and friends to go out there and beat the other teams.

And, you know, that's fair to an extent, but there is something to be said for being a coach who can get the most out of a championship caliber team. You know, not everyone can do it. And there are good coaches in sports that can do that that maybe don't do it with the other teams. But when you've got the All-Star team, it's the Cedogastin syndrome, right? Like, if you've got, there's certain guys that they can put you over the edge when you're already ready to win. It's going to be interesting to see them try to figure out who that is in the NHL.

But yeah, Quenville would be absolutely a guy who would fit that mold really well. and he's been waiting for his opportunity. Yeah. And listen, we know when we get to the Olympics next year, Alex Ovechkin's going to be front and center at the Olympic Games. He's front and center again this week, Sean. I mean, listen, we saw it play out with Dallas and we've seen it with the Carolina Hurricanes

and now the Washington Capitals, the latest team, in the forefront of this. And it looks like, I guess, irresponsibility or recklessness would be the word to describe what happened with Alex Ovechkin and his teammates, right? Yeah, that's exactly it. At this point, as we're recording this on Thursday morning, I haven't seen anything to indicate that there is an actual outbreak situation with the Washington Capitals. I haven't seen anything about any positive tests. I haven't seen anything like that.

It sounds like what happened was there were the four players who got together in the hotel without masks, just socializing, stuff that would be completely ordinary for players to do in a regular situation, but they have been told with the COVID protocols that this is, this is not allowed. You basically go back to your room and you are on your own and there's no socializing that happens outside of the ring, even just in the hotel. And I know that strikes a lot of people is on. I've seen a lot of reactions from Capps fans and otherwise saying, wait a second, these guys can go into dressing room together. They can get dressed. They can go out. They can practice. They can sit on a bench together. They can play a hockey game together. But then they can't sit

and watch TV in someone's hotel room or they can't play, play cards in someone's hotel room. And, yeah, I mean, maybe that doesn't make a lot of sense, but the reality is there are protocols in place, there are rules in place. They're there for a reason, even if they're not necessarily exactly the right ones. And you would expect your players, especially your leaders, to be respecting those and to be following those and not putting each other at risk of a situation where now, you know, we don't necessarily know if these players are going to be available for the next game. And, you know, as it turned out, there was a few days between games, but if there have been a game the next night,

you know, it's just not worth it. And the caps take a big fine. I'm sure there are bigger ones in the future. And it's going to be interesting to watch because we saw in the NFL that some teams were very strict on this and some teams were not. Even stuff as simple as coaches wearing their masks properly on the sidelines. There were some teams that really didn't seem to put much priority on and others that did. And some teams got burned by it. The situation with the Broncos having no quarterback, the situation with some other teams missing key guys.

This is the sort of thing where I think you've got to just get the leadership of your team together and go, guys, it is not worth it. Let's just follow the rules, whether we like them or not. And let's just get through this without being the next team that gets caught up in something like this. You know, we actually have a question from a listener here, which I think actually ties into all of this. it kind of works into the Washington Capitol situation and COVID. And this one comes into, from Mitch to Ashon. It says, I'm curious if you guys think individual player records are going to be impacted by all of the COVID issues.

As hockey fans, how do we feel about this? Let's say Phil Kessel or Keith Yandel, for example, are unable to break Doug Jarvis's consecutive game street because they got sick. Well, maybe that's one thing. But what about if they're prevented from playing for out of an abundance? abundance of caution, and then they don't get the, they don't reach the mark. And for example, too, guys, what if Alex Ovechkin ends his career with about 880 goals, would you guys be willing to say that COVID cost him the goals record?

It's a great question because there are some records. I know you've talked about Patrick Barlow and what he's trying to chase down and consecutive game streak and OV, those would probably be the top three. But shortened seasons and canceled games are probably going to have an impact on some individual records, right? They will. And they already have, right? I mean, we've, we've already seen three lockouts, and we've seen a season last year that was shortened by COVID. So we're already at a point where, you know, when you look back at Alexander Ovechkin, you're going to say he lost his rookie season, he lost half a season in 2012, 13. He lost however many games

from last year and this year. And yeah, it is going to be a situation where those games, games could have made the difference. Now, obviously you're going across eras. There's a million different ways you could slice and dice it and say, well, yeah, but Wayne Gretzky didn't have this or, you know, there's, it's always tough to compare. But yeah, it could have an impact, certainly with those games played records and streaks. I mean, in a weird way, COVID kind of saved the Keith Yandel Iron Man streak because he wasn't going to play. And then it sort of flipped at the last minute and he played and it was only because of Dallas missing games that Florida had the first game delayed until Sunday that kept Keith Yandel from missing games.

You know, I don't know. It's just, it's kind of one more thing. And yeah, you're right. There's going to be times where we look back and you're going to hear somebody say that, you know, well, you know, Austin Matthews never scored 50 goals. And you're going to go, yeah, but he had 48 when the season got stopped at 70 games in because of COVID. He had however many this year, presumably there's not going to be any.

50 goals scores this year. You know, anything like that. Ultimately, it doesn't matter in the sense that it will hopefully be the same for all the teams. But if you're the sort of fan who likes this stuff and likes the record books and streaks and all of this, yeah, it does. It's messing with it big time. Yeah, I think with Ovechkin in particular, like you said, he would have come in in 0405.

That's 82 games. Another 48 in or another, whatever, 30-some-odd, games he missed, 34, I guess. Like, it's almost two seasons of his career, arguably in his prime. Like, even if you conservatively gave him 75 goals, like, boy, that's getting him right into Gretsky territory now that he's north of 700, right? Like, it's a legitimate question. And I, and by the way, just as we're wrapping up this thought, what did you make of

the whole Keith Yandel situation of not only, this guy goes from healthy scratch to all of a sudden, he's like, he's scoring, he's scoring left, right, and center. The Panthers doesn't feel like he's going to be coming out of a lineup anytime soon, right? No, I don't think he will. And I don't think, you know, I don't think any of us know the full situation that was going on behind the scenes there. You know, Keith Yandel is one of the Panthers' six best defensemen.

I don't think maybe he's not what he was a few years ago. This is still a good player and this is a guy who contribute, at least on the offensive side still. It feels like there was more going on. And maybe it was just as simple as you've got new leadership, comes into an organization and they say, you know, we've got to pick a few fights to wake some people up and maybe that was just one they decided to pick. And it sounded like even heading into camp, they were sending the message to him that he probably wasn't going to play. And then for it all

kind of play out the way that it did. Best case scenario, maybe it's a situation where the message that was trying to be sent was received. And the player actually didn't have to miss games for that to happen. And now everyone moves on. And worst case, is it becomes something that sort of turns into a soap opera that we follow with the Panthers for the next few weeks at least. Panthers and soap opera doesn't seem like a couple of words that go together. No, not really. All right, Sean, it is time for us as you can hear the theme music going. It's Granger Things.

I can hear the groans coming from both of you, but that's just fine. Granger Things is where we bring in our Jesse Granger, who covers the Golden Knights in Vegas to talk all things, kind of betting fantasy and maybe even the Golden Knights as well. Jesse Granger, how are you doing on this Thursday? Excellent. How are you guys? Doing good. Doing good. All right. Hey, listen, I know, look, we're only a week into this season, but this is the point in time where people are starting to look for some trends and this is the first season of this kind of baseball-style schedule.

So let's start there, Jesse. Let's talk a little bit about maybe when we're seeing teams play each other two or three times in a row. Sometimes people think, okay, well, if you played each other in the first game, the second game is going to be lower scoring. Are we seeing that play itself out in the early part of the season? Right. And not just betters. I've heard it like Pete DeBoer has referenced it a couple times. Just me covering the Golden Knights here. He mentioned that as these little miniature playoff series, as he likes to call them, as they go on, the games will get tighter checking. They'll get lower scoring. And then you would think as a better, okay, maybe look for those

unders in that second game when those teams play each other twice. But so far, I mean, we're still early. That hasn't really been the case. In 32 games, where teams are playing each other for the first time in this season. It's been an average of 6.09 goals per game, which is right about on that line. Most over-unders are going to be around that 6 or 6 and a half. So you're not getting much of an edge there. The over-under total on those games is 17 have gone over, 14 have gone under, and one push. So 54% of the time they're going over, about half.

Second time they play each other, that's happened 22 times. And there's been an average of 5.81 goals, which sounds like it's less. I mean, it's 0.2 goals less. That's a noticeable difference. But you have to remember that the betting market is also making up for that. Vegas is lowering those lines a little bit. So the over under on those games, once again, 54% the exact same percentage as the first one. So yes, the second game of these series might be a little tighter checking so far.

But to this point, the odds makers have kind of made up for that small, small difference. So you're not really getting any value at all betting the under in those second games. So my suggestion would be at least for now, while we, wait for some more games to come in and some more data to track. I would just maybe caution people who are betting blindly on that. If you're saying, okay, man, it was 11 goals last night between Montreal and Vancouver. They're definitely going to have a much tighter checking game. We're going to see a three to one game.

I'm betting the under. That hasn't really been the case to this point, at least to that extreme. I know Sean's lock of the week is Edmonton, Toronto, the second game, take the over, right? Take the lock is whenever I start complaining about low-scoring hockey, take the over on the next night's game so that everybody can come back to me and go, hey, man, I thought we're in the middle of a dead puck era after the Leafs have beaten the Oilers 9 to 8. Yeah. Let's stay on that theme, Jesse, and talk a little bit about favorites and underdogs.

And again, it's a different type of setup this year in the NHL, two, three, and sometimes you're going to see four-game series with teams. what are we seeing early on in terms of are the favorites winning the first game and then the underdogs the second, vice versa. Any trends that we're seeing so far? Right. Yeah. And like you mentioned, four games.

It's pretty crazy when these teams are going to play each other four times. The team I cover, the Golden Knights is in the midst of that. They will, they and the coyotes will be the first teams in NHL history to play four straight games against each other in the regular season. They played the first two at Team Mobile and then finishing that last one up last night and they played two more down in Arizona. and so far the favorites, the first and second legs of these back to backs, I guess they're not back to back, but mini series,

it really hasn't made that much of a difference. The favorites are performing a little better in the second game. So maybe it takes these teams a little time to adjust to each other. The coaches make adjustments and the better team seems to have a slight advantage in the second game. In the first game of these legs, the favorites are winning 60.7% of the time to their 17 and 11. And then in the second leg, they're 15 and 7, which is a 68%. So 8% difference in betting terms, that's a pretty noticeable difference this early in the season.

So it's something to keep an eye on. But for me, what really stood out was and where I found a really strong trend in this kind of looking at the two games compared was when a favorite loses the first game of the series. A team comes in and upsets them. That favorite is 6 and 0 in the second game of that series. So you look at Vancouver upset Edmonton early on. Oilers come back and win the next game. Everyone remembers St. Louis's big win over the Colorado Avalanche on opening night.

Everyone made a big deal out of that. What happened the second game? Colorado won eight to nothing. Same thing happened with San Jose in Arizona. Ottawa shocked Toronto in their first game. The Leafs came back, took care of business. Last night, the latest case of that, we saw it, the Anaheim Ducks upset the wild

in their first game, one to nothing. Last night, Minnesota, you wouldn't think of Minnesota as like a commanding favorite. Oh, they're definitely going to win the second game, but still they were a slight favorite. they win to go to 6 and 0. Like I said, favorites after being upset in that first game have been perfect so far this season. Okay.

Well, listen, as we wrap up with you, Jesse, quick thought on the Golden Knights. You mentioned they're kicking off a four game set against Arizona. Robin Leonard, Mark Andre Fleury, we all thought this could be one of the most compelling storylines in the National Hockey League. Leonard started two games so far. Mark Andre Fleury won, if I'm not mistaken. Am I right on that? He just started his second.

So, but like, what's the feeling in that market? Like, is it feel like it's a goalie controversy waiting to boil over or is that whole situation, has that ship sailed on that? I think it's, it just depends on who you ask. I think there is a- Alan Walsh. Yeah. That's it. Definitely controversy if we go there.

It's, I mean, Flurry has a massive fan base here, just like you did in Pittsburgh. He's one of the most popular players in the league around the NHL in any city. And in this city, he's extremely popular. So there are, there is a factor of the fan base that, wants Mark Andre Fleur starting every night. There is a faction of the fan base that thinks Leonard is better and he's younger and his stats have been better these last couple years. So there are, there is some, some goalie controversy.

But for the most part, the way Peter DeBore has handled it is he said before the season started, we're going to play these guys 50-50 for a certain amount of time. And then at some point, and we haven't decided where that point will be yet, but at some point, we're going to choose one. And that'll no longer be the case. And according to him, all bets are off. So it is a goalie competition, even in the words of Pete DeBore. So they've both been excellent.

The Golden Knights have allowed 1.75 goals per game. Mark Andre Fleury allowed one goal and two goals in his two starts. And Robin Leonard allowed two goals in each of his starts. So they've both been at the top of their game and are a big reason the Golden Knights are four to start the year. Before I go, so I gave you guys that great trend about the favorites are six and oh after losing that first game of the series. And if you want to take advantage of that, we'll just see how this plays out. But these next two nights, tonight, you have Montreal and Vancouver playing again. They just had that thrilling 11 goal overtime game where Vancouver upset Montreal.

Tonight, Montreal is a minus 1.30 favorite. So we'll see if they can keep the favorites rolling on that. And then tomorrow, Edmonton and Toronto play again after that thrilling game that's so excited about. And the Leafs are a sizable favorite in that one, minus 155. So if that trend holds, the Leafs should win this one tomorrow night going away. All right. Hey, listen, Jesse, we love these Thursday visits. And I'm sure as the season goes on, we're going to get even more information as it pertains to, you know, fantasy, betting, lines, you know, spreads, all that stuff. Appreciate this. Thanks for dropping by. And we'll get you again next week. Yeah, thanks for having me. Thanks, Jesse. All right, Sean, I wanted to talk to you about the column I wrote this week for The Athletic because I know you shot down my Willie Wonka golden ticket idea. We didn't shoot it down. You were very tepid.

I told your people to call my people. Yeah. Yeah, basically, yeah, you didn't like the idea. But I'm floating something else because I feel like we're at this point in the NHL. We have these bizarre divisions for this year. We know it's going to be temporary. And next year it feels like there's going to be a great opportunity. Seattle's coming in.

And it's a great opportunity for a restart. And my thinking is, and I've thought about this for a long time, why do we have divisions where like Toronto and Ottawa are in the same division as Tampa and Florida? Like, makes little sense to me. I would be on board. And I look at the NFL and I understand it's a, it's a shortened season and you only are shorter season. You only play once a week. I know you can be more flexible there.

But I love the four-team division format. I laid it out for the athletic this week. And I basically put, you know, Buffalo in the same division as New Jersey, the Islanders and the Rangers, Boston with Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal. Look, it goes on like that. I just want to ask you big picture, does this idea potentially have some traction or is it as stupid as the Willy Wonka, a golden ticket idea, but you were too polite to say it to me last week? It's, you know what? I think you might be on to something here. I think, first of all, if you're the NHL, there are, there are a lot worse things you can do than look at the NFL and say, what are they doing that maybe we could borrow.

because there's there's not there's a fair amount of daylight, let's just say, between those two leagues as far as, as as far as audience, as far as the success that they're having. Let's see what we can borrow from them. I think big picture, yeah, that would be an interesting way to do it. There's nothing that says that there have to be four divisions. We've seen the NHL go with six for several years, not all that long ago. Could you slice and dice it even further? Yeah, you'd, you'd, you'd, you could. It's worked for the NFL and the great thing about it with the NFL is you get these really focused rivalries where, I mean, it's just, you say NFC East and you know that these are these are the teams. They can't stand each other. The fan bases can't stand each other. It just builds those those rivalries really well. Where I think it, you run into some questions is when you actually sit down to do it. Because the interesting thing and you took a run at it, And I think it came out pretty good, but there really isn't a way to do it without having a couple of teams that end up separated, a couple of teams that maybe end up in the same division where you're not sure. It's interesting to me because there are certain teams that feel like they have so many rivals that they're losing out in something like this.

And then there's other teams where you're like, do they even have any rivals? Like, who do we put Arizona with? Like, is there a rivalry there? Yeah. Versus a team like Toronto where it's like, well, you got to have Ottawa, you got to have Montreal, you got to have Boston. Wait a second. What about Buffalo?

Buffalo's got to be. And now you're already got too many teams for a division. So that's the challenge. I think big picture, I kind of like the idea. But then you get down to it and you start trying to figure out how you divide up to teams. And it starts getting triggered. Yeah. But I think that's the, like I would rather have divisions of four than divisions of seven or eight.

It's going to have to be eight now, no? Because of the 32 teams, the only number that's going to work are four divisions of eight. And I just, I feel like we're doing the same thing over again. Like you think of those games. Look, Toronto Tampa is a bad example because they're both elite teams. But like Florida Buffalo or Ottawa, Tampa, or there's nothing there. Historically, geographically. And it's funny, like people got mad at me in that, and you knew it would happen in the column.

and they're like, I can't believe Colorado's not in the Rocky Mountain Division. Like, first of all, I just randomly named those divisions. But secondly, we're currently in a situation where like landlocked Ottawa is in the Atlantic Division. Like, let's just pump the brakes on being super picky about the division names. But I think it can work. Like, I guess I put it out there because I feel like it's as reasonable of a solution as anything I've seen. and it does feel like with Seattle coming on board in in the fall, like we have to settle this now.

It can't be like, well, let's try a couple of years of this. Like we need to get to a point where we're like, this is it. This is the league. Like the NFL doesn't doesn't really change all that much, right? Yeah. And that's the thing. That's why the NFL works because there have been so few. I mean, there was Seattle.

It was years ago now that shifted from one conference. but for the most part, it's the same year in and year out. And in the NHL, they've already said what they're doing, what the plan is for next year, where Arizona is going to move over to the central and Seattle obviously comes in. And Seattle is interesting because when I saw your idea, and I saw that you had Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa together,

I was like, yeah, of course. And then you put the other four Canadian teams together. Perfect. But then, oh, yeah, what about Seattle? Seattle's got to be in there with Vancouver. But does Seattle want to be in an otherwise all-Canadian division? or, you know, there's all sorts of practical things. Anytime you throw an idea out there like this, and I know because I do it a lot,

somebody will come in and go, the TV networks will never go for it. And somebody else will come in and go, the GMs will never go for it. And yeah, there's a lot of people in the hockey world that don't want to see anything change ever. But I thought it was an interesting idea and kind of a creative way. And I got to say, the thing that I really liked about it was once you had your eight division format, you got into how the playoffs would work and you had it receding, which is something I've been banging the drum on for a while. Now, you did it a little differently than I do,

but there's no reason to have two conferences and just one team from each conference. Let's reseed it. And, you know, in your format, Toronto Montreal could play in the Stanley Cup final or whatever two division rivals you want to pick. And I've been saying that for a couple of years now as well. Like let's get rid of this. It's got to be East versus West. at some point in the playoffs,

if it's not right at the very beginning, at least on the conference final, let's recede and see what we wind up with. Maybe we get Ovechkin versus Crosby in a Stanley Cup final. Let's have a format where that's possible. So I really like that your idea would allow for that sort of scenario.

Yeah, and it just feels like we're almost, and it's not like how the league came out of the 0405 lockout, but it really does feel like we're on the precipice of like a new era of the NHL. And a lot of it is COVID-related, but we're headed to a new era. So to me, why not switch it up and the time is right? Hey, let's take some of our listener questions in here.

And a reminder, you can hit us up via email at the athletic hockey show at gmail.com. That's the athletic hockey show at gmail.com. You can also leave us a voicemail 845-4-4-5-8-4-9. We still haven't come up with something catchy for that. Don't worry. Still working on it. It's on the list of things.

to do. Let's start with this one from Gordon in Calgary. Sean wants to know, should the winner of the All-Canadian North Division this year be presented with the O'Brien Trophy? I love this question. This is such a great question. For those who don't know, and I'm assuming that's roughly 99% of hockey fans who have never heard of the O'Brien trophy. This is not the NBA's O'Brien trophy, by the way. This is the NHL head, and presumably

still has, something called the O'Brien trophy. It actually predates the NHL. It used to be the championship trophy of the old NHA, which was the league that came before the NHL. Once the NHL started, they went through a few decades, actually, where they kind of used the O'Brien trophy for all sorts of different things and just changed it every few years. For a while, it was the NHL championship back when the Stanley Cup was separate from the NHL. It was for a lot of years, it was awarded to the runner-up for the Stanley Cup, which is something I think most people don't know that the NHL used to do. Your grandparents tell you your generation is the participation trophy generation. No, you tell them that there used to be a trophy for coming in second in a league

of 16. So that was the O'Brien. And for a while, what I assume Gordon is getting that here is there was a Canadian division in the NHL and they started giving the O'Brien trophy to the winner of that Canadian Division. Yeah, I'm all for it. Let's find this thing, first of all. If it's hockey Hall of Fame's probably got it up in an attic somewhere in a cardboard box with cobwebs on it, let's break it out. Let's give it to the winner of the Canadian Division and then we can throw it back

in storage for a few more decades. Yeah, so I looked it up. I mean, again, this is all according to Wikipedia. It says the Hockey Hall of Fame has it in its collection somewhere. Yeah. Listen, it's a neat idea. Like I saw people saying they should. with the CFL on pause, the team that wins the division should win the gray cop or whatever.

But I think this O'Brien trophy is, it's perfect. I will be honest with you. I have no idea what it looks like. Yeah, there's a picture of it on. Okay. On Wikipedia. Is it something you could skate around? Is it the, you know, I guess you can't really pass it around and drink out of it these days.

I just want a picture like, and it wouldn't even be Gary Batman. And it wouldn't even be Bill Daly. Who's like the fourth or fifth person in charge? They'd be like, Mark Schifley, come and get the O'Bron. Giant trophy. Yeah. And like some Canadian celebrity comes, the castle letter, Kenny is out there doing the honors or something.

Yeah, it'd be great. Let's do it. 100%. We can drink Tim Hortons out of it. It'll be a very, and the Americans will be completely confused and have no idea what's going on. Probably not even be aware of it. Got another question in here.

This one comes in from Tyler, who wants to know, guys, what do you think? And this will be a tough one to answer a little bit because the Dallas Stars have yet to play as of this recording. What do you think about the day? Dallas stars. Do you guys think they're headed for a drop-off this year? Yeah. Dallas is one of the teams I've really struggled with trying to figure out where to put them in terms of the tiers. Because on the one hand, this was a team that I think last year, they were certainly, my first thought is this was a good team that went on a run in the playoffs. They had a backup goalie, a career backup who got hot at exactly the right time, played some of the best

of his entire career, and that got them to within a couple of wins of the Stanley Cup. And that's great. But we see teams do that almost every year, and they almost always take a step back. So you start off and you say, okay, let's assume that they're a middle of the pack team that can do some damage in the playoffs if everything goes perfect. But then you look at last year, remember Dallas got off to this terrible start, and then they were really good. After the first month of the season, they were, if you can't do it, but if you cut off,

October off of last season. The Dallas Stars were right there with Tampa and Boston, all the other best teams, and then continued at the playoffs. So I feel like I ultimately did kind of put them in my contender group because I figured they've earned that. But it wouldn't shock me at all to see. I mean, Tyler says a big drop off. I don't know what a big drop off would be.

I still think they're a playoff team. I still think they're going to be dangerous Tampa or Carolina, whoever they run up against in the playoffs. But I could certainly see. them being one of those teams that we look back on and go, yeah, they were a Stanley Cup finalist because they got hot at the right time. Yeah, and I wonder, you would know the answer to this. I feel like maybe it's Montreal, Boston from back of the day, but with the divisions being receded, like, when's the last time the two teams that met in the Stanley Cup were in the same

division? Yeah, it's, it's been a while. I mean, back in the 70s and early 80s, there were all sorts of different formats where teams in the same division could play, and that that wasn't all that unusual. But certainly since then, I mean, we've seen teams move around, but it didn't happen with Detroit, I don't think, and I'm not even sure what the other options would be. So, yeah, it's very unusual that we'll see this many Stanley Cup final rematches over the course of a season, assuming Dallas can get back out there and play.

Yeah, exactly. All right. Hey, listen, as we always do with the athletic hockey show on Thursdays, we wrap up with a little this week in hockey history, because that is right up, Sean's alley. So I got a couple things for you here. This is actually the 30th anniversary this week, Sean, of one of the most memorable All-Star games from when we were kids.

And that was the All-Star Game at the old Chicago Stadium, 1991. Remember the amazing anthem from Wayne Mesmer? And then the game itself, here's my theory, okay? To me, this is when the All-Star game actually went to hell. Because Viby Domfus scored four goals in that game, Sean, and that was it. Before that, if I'm not, you would know this. Correct me if I'm wrong. Gretzky and Lemieux were the only guys to get four.

four goals in an All-Star game, like in modern history. Dom Fuss got it, and then all of a sudden it was like, everybody had four goals in an all-star game after that, right? That is. I mean, I get what's happening here. You're blaming the Maple Leafs for ruining the All-Star game. I get it. I hear it.

Was he with Toronto? He wasn't with Edmontia. Yeah, no, he was a Maple Leaf. He would have been that off-season that he was traded to Edmont. I remember as a Leafs fan being thrilled that, geez, that our guy was getting any ice. So we were used to send in like the Gary Lehman. and those sorts of guys to the All-Star game. So, but yeah, that may have been, that was right around the time where the All-Star game went from like this fun, high-scoring thing to maybe being a little bit out of control.

I think it was the year before that Mario had the big year in Pittsburgh. Yeah. And that was Mario. You're like, yeah, this is great. This guy's amazing. Let's, you know, who else could ever do something like that? And then Vinnie Downfus was like, actually, I could do it too. And we were pretty excited in Toronto.

but I think there were probably some side eyes in the rest of the hockey world. And I think that if I'm not mistaken, too, was that not the weekend where Ally Afraidy dominated the skills competition? Yeah, I can't. I remember that was either 91 or 90. It was right around there where he broke out the skullet. And, you know, there was also. And then when he went to, I think a few years later in Washington, he had another big one.

But yeah, that was kind of Ally Afraidy's coming out party. that and getting deeped out of his out of his shorts by Mario in the Pittsburgh game are his most memorable all-star moments. Also on this week in hockey history, Sean, little known defenseman, Neil Sheehe makes his way into this week in hockey history. January 24th, 1988,

Whaler's defenseman, Neil Sheehe, became the first, and I believe the only player in NHL history to wear the jersey number zero in a hockey game. Like, you're a, you're as good of a hockey historian as anybody. What's the deal with Neil Sheehee wearing zero? Yeah, I, you know, I don't know exactly where that comes from. He is, I believe, the only player to ever wear zero.

There's, there's some dispute on that because back in the old days, the record keeping wasn't as good. And there's some photos and references to other players maybe wearing it. But there were a couple guys who were double zero, Martaam Baran and John Davidson, goaltenders. but Neil Shehee wore zero and is the only one and will apparently remain the only one because it's no longer allowed that players can wear zero, which I don't understand because I think it's cool.

Like you very rarely see players in pro sports where in the zero or the double zero. But I love it when it happens. I remember the old, the 85 Blue Jays where they had their two DHS, one wore zero and one wore double zero. I thought that was awesome. You know, I think that would be a cool number to allow. But apparently it's some sort of data entry, like the database won't accept it or something because it's zeros, which seems to me like a new database. To that point, though, where I will give them, maybe there's a little bit of credence to that, their official system can't handle the UMLot U for Timmy Sitzla.

Yeah. I said the best line I saw in that where they're trying to put his name in and there's all these question marks. And I don't know if you saw it. But somebody said, isn't it perfect that somebody who was drafted by Alex Trebek now, has their name in the form of a question. And I just thought that was a great line. But, yeah, Neil Sheehe is one of those great guys because he's the only guy with zero. He is, if the name sounds familiar to you, it may be because he's now an agent.

He's a player agent. He's got some high profile clients. But the other thing, and this is a deep cut. You have to have been reading my stuff for a long time to know this. But Neil Sheehe is also the guy that we can blame for a wonderful. late 80s, early 90s trend in the NHL, which was NHL teams making lip sync

rock videos where Neil Shehee was the guy, he was on the Calgary Flames when they did Can't Touch a Flame when it's red hot, which if you haven't seen it, stop what you're doing, pull the car over and get on YouTube and find that and it's fantastic. And then

he gets traded over to the Washington Capitals and they go on a run where for every year, for like three years, they get together in Rod Langway's Sports Bar and tape the cheesy, like if you ever want to see Scott Stevens or Dino Cicerelli pretend to play the saxophone, this is this is your dream. And Neil Shehee actually got like a record producer credit on some of those. So I don't know, man. That is to me, that is a life lived and a career lived in the NHL. If you can be the answer to multiple trivia questions about

jersey numbers and producer credits on absolutely terrible lip sync rock songs. I kind of feel like we now need to reach out to Neil Sheehe and bring him on this podcast. He is. I have referred to him when it comes to terrible NHL music. He is literally patient zero for the NHL in terms of that. And it's fitting, given the jersey he won. Okay. Well, you know what?

Maybe we will. Maybe we'll reach out to him see if they'll join. See, you can explain the number zero. And some of the other things, we'll try to chase him down for a future show. Hey, listen, Sean, that's all the time we have for this one. A lot of fun. enjoy the games this weekend should be a lot of fun. I'm going to try to. Thanks.

Spoken like a true least fan. Hey, thanks for joining us. So we'll talk to you again next week. A reminder, hit us up with any questions at the athletic hockey show at gmail.com. Or again, you can leave us a voicemail at 845-4-45-8459. And if you're not an athletic subscriber, join us at theathletic.com slash hockey show.