The Athletic Hockey Show - Answering your NHL "what if" questions

Episode Date: August 26, 2021

Ian and Sean spend the episode discussing many NHL "What if" questions. What if Wayne Gretzky had stayed in Edmonton? How many Cups would they have won? What if the refs hadn't missed Matt Duchene's egregious off side? What if Buffalo won the McDavid lottery? And much more!Have a comment, or a what if question to ask Ian and Sean? Email [e-mail], or leave a VM at [phone]!Save on an annual subscription to The Athletic: theathletic.com/hockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back, everybody. It is another edition of the Athletic Hockey Show here in the month of August with Ian Mendez and Sean McAdoo. And guess what? We're wrapping up the month of August by keeping the same theme going. So listen, if you've listened to the podcast this month, you know we've departed from our usual thing, right? We've put pause on Jesse Granger with Granger things. And this week in hockey history, we'll get to all of that stuff again next month in a couple of weeks, right? Right after Labor Day, we're back at it.

But now we're having some fun here in the month of August. We've done a list of the 10 most likable players in the hockey history. We've done a Hall of Fame debate show. And this week, we wanted to do something to wrap up the month of August with a what if. You know, because Sean, I think a what if show. Because I think hockey history and even the current hockey landscape is littered with what if questions. And when we threw this out on Twitter earlier this month, we had a ton of people writing in with their favorite what if questions in hockey history.

So, Sean, the one that came back to me that you knew that this was going to be the question I asked you, I think, with the what if. I got this on Twitter too. People saying, what if Wayne Gretzky got called for the high stick on Doug Gilmore back in the day? Is that, is that the biggest what if question that sticks with you as a hockey fan? Yeah, I mean, it's, it is. I've mentioned it once or twice in the year. since.

I mean, the what if on that is, is the Leafs win that game. Wendell Clark scores on the power play, his fourth goal of the game, and they go on to play Montreal in the final. And then who knows what happens from there. And certainly, if the Leafs were to win a cup, that kind of changes a lot of the conversation around the team in the ensuing decades. And Kerry Fraser goes about his life without having to hear about that call every every few hours.

So yeah, it's that's one that we'll definitely we'll definitely wonder about. And it's like that one is a true what if because there are some of the things that you can look at and say, well, if this had never happened then what if? Well, we know the what if is that team would have been bad

or that team would have won or, you know, we don't know. I really wish we had seen that Toronto Montreal series because that I think would have been a classic and we didn't get it. And I guess the other piece of the what if is I would have had to find something else to write about 40% of my material about for the last few decades. Yeah. Okay.

So listen. I'll tell you if that's a good thing or a bad thing. Yeah. Why don't we take a bunch of the submissions we got from listeners and fans on social media? And we'll just kind of go through them throughout the course of this podcast. Because I think there's some really cool ones. In fact, this one involves your favorite team, Sean, the Toronto Maple Leafs. And this one came into us from Craig who says, what if,

the Harold Ballard, Peter Pocklington franchise swap, had actually been completed. So just to give people an idea, I think it was Peter Pocklington who wrote this in his book about trading Wayne Gretzky. He said that at some point in the early 1980s, and this is Peter Pocklington, owner of the Edmonton Oilers, was approached by then Toronto Maple Leafs owner Harold Ballard about essentially doing a flip of franchises. Pocklington's Oilers would go to Toronto and he would basically run the team there, Ballard would take over in Edmonton and run the Oilers or whatever the team would be there. I guess so Craig is wondering, what would have happened if Harold Ballard and Peter Pocklington were allowed to trade franchises? Yeah, I mean, what would have happened is that the NHL probably would have been a laughing stock for allowing that.

But yeah, it would have been, for lack of a better term, that the Toronto Oilers and the Edmonton may believe. and I think what would probably happen is given the quality of those two teams. There's lots of Stanley Cups in Toronto, probably a lot more money as a result in the coffers of Toronto and ultimately the league. And I'm not completely convinced that Edmonton exists anymore as an NHL market if they had to spend the 80s watching that the lackluster collection of talent and having Harold Ballard run the team. for them. I think that would have been the most lopsided trade in the history of hockey, in the history of sports to get not only all those

players off of Edmonton. I know Peter Pocklington isn't exactly on anyone's Mount Rushmore of great owners, but he's not Harold Ballard, and that would have been a real clear win for Toronto and a clear loss for Edmonton and probably a loss for the league as well, because everybody else would have been rolling their eyes at

them letting it happen. Let me ask a follow-up question to the one that Craig asked, and it's a what-of question here, okay? What if Wayne Gretzky never left Edmonton, Sean? What if Wayne Gretzky doesn't get traded? How many cups do you think the Edmonton Oilers win? Do they win more than five? Do we get to see a Gretzky versus Lemieux Stanley Cup final in the early 90s,

Edmonton versus Pittsburgh? Like, if Wayne Gretzky never leaves Edmonton, what happens? Yeah, I mean, if Wayne Gretzky never leaves Edmonton and the finances of a lineup, Because the obvious answer, maybe the smart aleck answer is that if Gretzky doesn't leave Edmonton, then everyone else has to. Messia, there's no room to pay anybody else and it just becomes Gretzky and a bunch of AAA guys. But if they could keep that group together, yeah, absolutely. I mean, they would have been the best team in the league in 89, for sure. That 1990 Oilers team did win the cup even without Gretzky, so put him on there.

I think they're a powerhouse right through at least the 93-94 season. And probably at that point, you know, who knows? Mark Massier wanted out. Does he still want out if it's Wayne Gretzky? Maybe he does. Maybe he says, you know what, I want to go on and be the guy in New York rather than second fiddle in Edmonton. But, boy, if they keep that team together, their cup favorites right through at least the mid-90s, I'd have to think.

And then, yeah, you potentially get that Merrill Lemieux matchup, which would have been just all kinds of amazing. So we've got a whole bunch, like I said, a whole bunch of what-if questions. And we'll just bounce around. Some of them will be kind of current day NHL. Some will be way back in the day. Ben sent us this one.

Okay? And you'll probably have to help me out. This is right up your alley. Ben says, what if Patrick Stephan actually scored into his empty net? If I remember correctly, that extra point that Edmonton got in that game ended up giving Chicago the first overall pick they took Patrick Cain. So that's the infamous highlight where, Sean, it's a Dallas-Edmonton game. And Patrick Stephan, there's eight seconds left on the clock. He's in on alone.

He's going to put the bucket of the internet. Puck kind of rolls off the stick. He wipes out. Oyther's taken back up the ice in five seconds. They score the tying goal. It's shocking. It's unbelievable. So what if Patrick Steffen buries that puck, Sean?

What happens to the hockey universe? I mean, first of all, he's probably a much happier guy and doesn't have to watch that highlight and the rest of us lose an all-timer. I mean, that's one of the few hockey highlights from the cap era that you could show to someone who didn't even watch hockey. And they would get it. And they would laugh and they would think it was phenomenal. What a lot of people, everybody remembers it. everybody can picture the puck bouncing over his stick and Stefan wiping out. And I think it was Ray Ferraro, right, who just went in on him about it.

Like just absolutely tore them apart. What a lot of people don't remember about that game is Dallas ended up winning the game. They won. I don't remember if it was overtime or I think it might have been a shootout. But they won. So in terms of the Dallas stars, it ultimately was kind of a funny thing that didn't cost them any points in the bank. But what it did do is it gave. the Oilers a loser point that they weren't going to get had they lost in regulation.

And what's interesting about that is if you look at the 2007 standings, because it was from the 2006-7 season, and you take one point away from the Edmonton Oilers, and then you shift them in the standings, they shift into the, I want to say, 26th overall spot that's owned by the Chicago Blackhawks. And that spot, of course, ends up being the one that wins the lottery in 2007. And the Blackhawks move up from the fifth pick all the way to first. They bump the flyers out of the top pick. And that's the Patrick Kane draft. That's the year the Chicago drafts Patrick Kane.

Philadelphia has to settle on James Van Riemstike. Edmonton, I want to say, takes like Sam Gagne. Like, they got an okay player. And there were some decent players the rest of the way Vorichick was in that draft. few other guys, but nobody at the level of Patrick Kane, you take that Patrick Stefan Flub away. You put Edmonton in that spot and the ping pong balls bounced the same way that they did with, you know, it's coded numbers and they're assigned based on standings. The Edmonton Oilers win the draft lottery in 2007, which means the Edmonton Oilers almost certainly draft Patrick Kane.

The Blackhawks don't get them, which means the Blackhawks, maybe, probably, don't win. If at least some of those Stanley Cups, maybe any of them. Edmonton maybe becomes better. Maybe the decade of darkness gets snuffed out early, but maybe that means they don't get Connor McDavid, maybe someone else. It's just the ripple effect of that one play, potentially, if you can assume that the lottery would have bounced exactly the same way,

is just league changing in many ways. It's one of my favorite what ifs. You know, speaking of what ifs here, we got another one here on a singular play. Somebody sent us this and said, what if the referees didn't miss the egregious Matt Dushain offside call? What would happen? So what if, hey, what if they just blew it down like, hey, Matthew Shane, you're offside? What happens? Yeah.

Well, I mean, first of all, I have to, as the rulebook guy, as the officials guy, I have to do the obligatory piece here. where I point out that they didn't miss that play the way people think they missed it. Everybody's seen the highlight of Matt Duchenne being five feet, ten feet offside, and there's no whistle. And people go, what was the linesman? Blind, did he not say? It's not that they didn't think he was offside. They thought that the puck had been batted back into the zone by the defensive team. And if that happens, a defensive team knocks the puck back into the zone, there's no offside anymore.

You can be over the line by 10 feet or 20 feet, it doesn't matter. and if you go and watch the beginning of the play, there is sort of a weird thing where the puck's bouncing around and two guys are swinging at it. So they still blew the call. It wasn't offside, but it wasn't the obvious, oh my gosh, what are they thinking, offside that people think it is.

So now that I'm done defending the linesman, kind of, I've said before, man, if I have a time machine, this is the play, I'm going to go back and fix. Because what happens is we don't have this stupid offside review that keeps taking goals off the board because of a fraction of an inch, this awful dumb rule that no reasonable person likes, probably doesn't exist. Now, there were other plays,

other missed off sides. There was one in a Tampa-Montrale playoff game that did lead to the offside review. But this was the one. This was the thing that crystallized it in everyone's mind. This was the play that people went, we have to be able to get this one right. And surely the next time this play happens, we need a system in place.

Well, it hasn't happened again. We haven't had like a single obvious offside that's been caught by replay in all the years since. Instead, we just have all these stupid little, oh, this guy's pinky toe nail was over the line, so we're going to take a goal back that happened 30 seconds later. The answer to the question is we would all be much, much happier as fans because one of the dumbest things that the NHL does hopefully wouldn't exist in a world where Matt Duchayne had ruined everything for us. Okay, so that's the play you're getting into a time machine. You're getting in your DeLorean 88 miles an hour.

Other people would stop wars or anything like that. I'm out there. Yeah, I'm going back to the linesman being like, would you please keep an eye on Matthew Shane, please? Yeah, well, I think Buffalo fans, we know where they're going. Sean, they're going to 1999 Stanley Cup final. Mike has sent us this note and says, he's a what-of question for you guys.

What if Brett Hall's skate being in the crease was actually called? what happens then. So again, just to set the scene or to remind people, that was game six triple overtime. Brett Hall scores the goal, Dallas wins the cup. But if they disallow that goal, it's still a Thai hockey game. It's game six.

So Buffalo's playing for their hockey lives. They would have to win that game and then theoretically go down to Dallas and win a game seven. Do they pull it off or do you think, now, you know what, maybe if they called it off, it's still just delaying the, inevitable. It is.

It is. Yeah, it's a tough one. It's one where, you know, there is a twisted part of me that kind of feels like, look, if that goal gets waved off, Dallas is still the clear favorite because they've still got a chance to win in overtime. And even if they don't, they still go back game seven, which would be in Dallas. So there's a chance that the answer to this is Dallas still wins, but now, at least because of this, Buffalo has something to hold on to.

They've got something to complain about, something to point to and say we were robbed instead of just saying, we got beat. But maybe not. Maybe Buffalo does come and win it. And clearly, you know, you take a franchise like Buffalo, no Stanley Cups in 50-plus years, you give them that one, and it changes everything. It changes the whole outlook, the whole attitude of the franchise, and certainly a fan base that is one of the longest suffering in the last.

league gets something to hang on to. I know every Sabres fan would gladly take their shot. Let's go back and just see how it plays out. The other piece of it that's interesting is if they call that correctly, and the league to this day insists that they did call it correctly, but if they do a review and

everything plays out, I wonder if we get rid of that skate the crease roll the way they did, because that was the other impact of that, the fact that that played out the way it did and people were so upset, they immediately got rid of the terrible, awful, indefensible skate in the crease rule that we all hate it. I wonder if the NHL would have been stubborn and hung on to that for at least a while longer if that hadn't played out.

Maybe that was the sacrifice that the Sabres made for all of us to get rid of, again, one of the other very worst rules in modern hockey history. Hey, let's stick with Buffalo for a second here. Skinny Pete has written into the show. And Skinny Pete says, what if Buffalo won the Connor McDavid lottery? Like, who's better off now? Edmonton or Buffalo? Like, I guess another way to ask this is, what, okay, so what if Buffalo had McDavid? Is it still a hot mess in that city?

Well, I mean, it's impossible to say no. You can't, it's certainly would have put them in a much, much better situation. And as much as I like Jack Eichael as a player, he's no Connor McDavid, because nobody in this league is. But who's to say that Buffalo wouldn't have made a mess of it? You could argue that Edmonton's kind of made a mess of it. So I think they're in a better situation, but it's still not a great one.

Let me throw one at you, because this is from that same draft, and this is one I've covered before. Let me give you a what if from 2015. And it's not actually a what if from 2015. It's a what if from 1997. What if Austin Matthews was born two days earlier? Austin Matthews was born September 17th, 1997.

The cutoff for the draft is September 15th. So because of that, because of those two days, Austin Matthews goes in the 2016 draft. If he'd been born two days earlier, he would have been eligible for the 2015 draft. So now, 2015, which is already this big tank fest because it's the McDavid-Ikel-Dakle draft, it now becomes the McDavid-Ikel-Matthews

draft. What happens now? How is that draft viewed? But also, how does that season play out? I mean, we saw Arizona and Buffalo tanking like crazy. Arizona was tanking to get Jack Eichol or Connor McDavid. What does Arizona do if Austin Matthews is in that draft? How does that all play out?

Are other teams tanking? Who takes who? McDavid still goes first, obviously. Does Austin Matthews wind up in Arizona? and if so, what does that do for that franchise? And then, oh, by the way, you know, let's say Edmonton still wins the lottery. Let's say the draft goes, McDavid to Edmonton, Eichael to Buffalo, Matthews goes to Arizona. Guess who's got the fourth pick if everything plays out the same?

Oh, the Toronto Maple Leafs. But instead of taking Mitch Marner, the best player on the board now is Dylan Strom. So they take Dylan Strom. and oh by the way next year when the Leafs finish dead last Austin Matthews isn't in that draft it's Patrick Liny it's crazy to think about all the different ways that but I mean the Tank Fest if it was those three guys that would be the best draft in history

as far as the top of that there's never been three can't miss guys at the top of a draft that I can remember how crazy would it have been the tanking for that year I mean would we have seen teams just shooting the puck in their own net just blatantly. It's unbelievable. Like literally, Austin Matthews is born 48 hours earlier.

This is, this is exactly the conversation. That, especially when you add that Leafs element that imagine they, not only do they not get Matthews, but they may not even have martyr. Like they end up with...

No Matthews, no marner. Probably Dylan Ström. Or who knows, right? Who knows? Wow. Another guy, by the way, by the way, is Alex Ovechkin's another September 17th.

He's another guy that was two days off from changing his draft year. And that's another one you can look at and go, everything changes based on 48 hours. Wait, are you telling me that Ovechkin could have been in the 2003 draft? Yeah. That was that, that is often considered the best already?

He would have been in that. And not only that, they, and who was it? Was it the Florida, somebody tried to draft Ovechkin in that year. Yeah, in Florida, right? Somebody tried to do the Pavo, because remember Pavelle Burray, the reason that he got on the Vancouver Canucks as a late pick was because other teams didn't know he was eligible. And was it, oh, okay, you got to help me. Tell me I'm imagining this.

Did the Panthers try to claim that if you used leap years, that Alexander Ovechkin was technically old enough to be drafted? Like, I feel like they went in like the sixth round and tried to make that case. That they, it was based on leap years. 100%. They were like, I think. Whatever it is, you're right. There was a leapier element where, and it was Rick. Basically, if you took away the leap years, he was already 18.

It was, it was. It was. Dudley? It might have been, yeah. Yeah, I think it was Rick Dudley. It's an all-time great shoot-your-shot moment. Like, can you blame them for trying? Knowing what we know now, yeah, you've got to take your swing, but it's one of the most

ridiculous things anyone's ever tried. You know what I think it was? I think, and I think it was Rick Dudley, okay? I think that their argument was if you don't consider leap years, okay? So Ovechkin would have lived through, I think it was four leap years. Yeah. They're like, well, then he would have been 18, four days earlier. And that's eligible.

Like, Alexander Ovechkin had already had 18 365 days cycles. Like that was it. And so as long, if you took the leap years. Yeah. I mean. I just want to see. Like, did Rick Dudley have, like, some sort of, like, lunar chart or something? You'd be like, as you could see here, Alex Ovechkin, is actually 18 years old.

Like, I can't blame him. I can't blame him for trying, man. Yeah, shoot your shot. You got a one in a thousand shot. It's worth it because, oh, boy, that would have been, yeah, put him on the Panthers. And that changes everything. Yeah. Listen, speaking of the 2015 draft, Steph has written into the podcast.

Step wants to know. guys, here's a what-if question for you. What if the Boston Bruins, instead of drafting Jacob Zaborl, Jake DeBrusk, and Zaksenician in the 2015 draft back-to-back-to-back, they drafted Matt Barzell, Kyle Connor, and Brock Besser. So, again, Boston had three picks back-to-back-to-back in 2015, Sean, and opted for Jacob Zaborl, Jacob de Brusk, Zach Seney. Now, Jake DeBerzske has turned into a nice player and, you know, is, you know,

probably is not an issue there. The other two guys, Zubourl and Seney, they swung and they missed, and they passed on Matt Barzell, they passed on Kyle Connor, they passed on Brock Besser, they passed on Thomas Shabbat, they passed on some really good players.

What if, Sean, what if the Bruins got Barzell and Connor and Besser or Shabbat? And it's, I mean, that's, the other piece of this is it's not like those were just the next three guys on everyone's boards, and they just took the consensus picks. That does happen sometimes

where you look back and you go, you know, what if the senators had taken Digg instead of Prague, or Pronger instead of Dake? Well, everybody had Degah ahead of Pronger, so you can't really blame them. They went off the board. Like the sentient pick,

people were scrambling and through papers going, who is this guy? And there's that infamous tweet, right, where somebody, as Boston's getting ready, they've got three picks in a row, 13, 14, and 15, and somebody tweeted out like, oh my goodness, the Bruins might be about to get. I think it's Barzell-Connor, and I don't think it's Shabbat.

I think it's somebody else like Killington or somebody like that. But it's this, you know, in the moment, they're like, they're going to get some great prospects. And they just really didn't. I mean, the Bruins have got at least one more cup now with those guys, right? I mean, at least 2019. I know anytime in the cap era that you add a great player to a team, you always have to say, well, but then the salary cap would have done this or that. But I mean, they would have been just phenomenal.

You put Kyle Connor, Matthew Barzell, and whoever, whoever you want to throw in is the third guy. But yeah, the next three guys after 16, 17, and 18, Barzell, Connor, Shabbat, put those guys on Boston. There's got to be at least one more Stanley Cup in Boston. You have to think. Yeah, at least one. And like, imagine, and you would have had Barzell like on an entry level deal.

Yeah. Like, yeah, like you're right. The cap implications would have been minimal. Changes the result of the playoffs this year for sure with with Arzellick, you know, scoring big goals against Boston. I mean, geez, it's just that one. It is a credit to Don Sweeney, how good a job he has done at almost everything else. Yep.

That he is still a GM in good standing considered one of the better ones when he, that has got to be one of the, that's got to be the worst 20 minutes any team has ever had on the draft floor. Yeah, I, that's, that's, I, I'm having a hard time thinking of, of anything worse. Hey, we'll stick with the Bruins on this one. We'll go back a little bit further in history. Jeff has written into the show and says, here's a what-of question. What if the Boston Bruins hadn't traded Ken Dryden to Montreal back in the day?

Which is something that a lot of fans realized, right? Sean, that Ken Dryden was technically, a member of the Boston Bruins, but then opted for the college road and ended up with the Montreal Canadiens. Yeah, that's a real tough one because they drafted him in 64. And he didn't play in the NHL until 1970. And that was the year that he won the Khan-Smith as a rookie. He hadn't even, he barely even played in the regular season. His full official rookie season in the NHL was until 71, 72.

So that's a long time. seven years plus after his draft, that could have gone in any number of directions. And Ken Drodin's an interesting guy. Like he, you know, maybe he develops the same way. Maybe he becomes the same goalie in Boston. Maybe he bumps Jerry Cheever's out, but maybe not. Maybe he ends up sitting.

And with Ken Drieden, if they had said, no, you got to wait in the minors or you got to sit and be the backup, who knows what he would have done? He might have said, I'm going back to law school. He did that in his holdout against the Canadians. He had other interests. So that could have been fascinating how he would have got along with Harry Sindin. You know, it's obviously very tempting to say,

what if it's Phil Esposito, Bobby Orr and Ken Dryden? How many Cups do the Bruins win for the next few years? And if it's Ken Dryden, as good as he was in Montreal, it's probably a few. But there's just no way to know how that could have worked out. Because this isn't a case where a team could have drafted a guy and you put him in the lineup right away. It was a long wait for Ken Dryden to get there. And who knows, who knows how that would have gone? You know, the biggest what-if question, though,

when you're talking about the Montreal goalie, he's got to be this one. Josh Perrault has sent us a note and asks us, hey, guys, what if Mario Trombly decided to pull Patrick Waugh earlier in that infamous Detroit-Montreal game? Does that mean Colorado doesn't win any Stanley Cups? And does it mean maybe Montreal can win a Stanley Cup or two down the road? So that's a great one from Josh.

that is one of the great what-if questions. What if Mario Trambley had taken Patrick Waugh out of that game? Does Patrick Waugh finish his career in Montreal? Or was that maybe what we saw that night was there was of nine or ten things and that just happened. It was going to boil over anyway, right? I feel like with Patrick, it was going to boil over at some point. I think the question of does he finish his career in Montreal? No, it was even if they had been able to settle that, something else was going to

come up down the line. But yeah, it probably doesn't get traded to Colorado, which means Colorado probably doesn't win the cup certainly that year. And maybe they don't win the second one either. I think that's one that you could look at. And yeah, what if he gets pulled earlier? I'll go you one better. What if Patrick Gua doesn't go out to breakfast that morning? Because you know this story, right? Who he ran into at breakfast the morning of that game. He walks into his, his favorite diner, whatever, he's going to go get his pregame breakfast. And who's sitting there? But Mike Vernon, the goalie for the Detroit Red Wings. And he goes over and sits and they have a chat.

And apparently, according to the story, and this is a story from Mike Vernon. He's told the story. Patrick starts venting to him. Oh, I'm under so much pressure. I'm not appreciated here. I don't, you know, I don't know. And Vernon tells him, he says, you know what? I felt the same way in Calgary.

Ever since I came to Detroit, I'm like a new guy. He says, if you ever get a chance, if you're offered the opportunity, don't be afraid to move. Don't be afraid to go somewhere else because I'm so happy that I had the opportunity to go play for a new team. And Patrick says, okay, good chat. Thanks a lot. And Mike Vernon has said that night, he sees Patrick Waugh putting his arms up and he sees him go over and talk to the owner and he's thinking, oh no, because he knew everybody was like, what did Patrick say? Who could? And Vernon said he was the only, he said he got dressed quick that night and got out out to the bus because he didn't want anyone to talk to him because he was the only guy who knew

what Patrick Waugh was probably saying and he was thinking like oh my god Patrick i didn't mean tonight i meant at some point and and it's just it's and it's so funny that you know that that it's vernon who ends up being the guy who indirectly sends wa to colorado of course you know they cross paths in the red wings avalanche rivalry a year later but uh yeah if you're if you're Navs fan and you hate Mike Vernon because of the goalie fight, you don't because he might be the only reason that Patrick Gaw was in Colorado in the first place. Yeah. And you wonder if you're Detroit, and that was the year the Red Wings ended up with a, you know, record setting regular season. But if they had known that the series of events that night would directly lead to Patrick Gaw

going to Colorado, which would then ultimately knock them out of the playoffs, would they have maybe just held up a little bit. Absolutely. Take our foot off the gas. That's your time machine moment if you're a Red Wings fan, right? You go back there. You go first in your mission. Like, hey, boys, what it for nothing?

Shut it down. You're good. Trust me. I can't tell you why, but you do not want to go. And just let's just let the third and fourth line guys have some time. And yeah, that is absolutely you take your foot off the gas big time. Hey, well, we'll stick with the avalanche theme here. Well, kind of the avalanche, well, their predecessor.

is the Quebec Nordiques on this next one. Comes in from Andre Bergeron, who asks us this following what if question. Hey, guys, what if the Quebec Nordiques took the New York Rangers deal for Eric Lindross? Do you think the Rangers end up winning the Cup in 1994? Do you think the avalanche go on to win Stanley Cups? And again, so I believe the deal was something along the lines,

Sean, of Alexei Kovalev, Tony Amante, one of Richter Van Biesbrook, First round picks, 20 million in cash. If the Quebec Nordiques end up taking the Rangers deal or that arbitrator rules in favor of the Rangers, how does hockey history get altered in the early 90s with both Quebec and the New York Rangers? Yeah, that's a great question. And, you know, look, I think in hindsight that Linder Osteo worked out about as well as it could have for Quebec, at least as a franchise, getting Foresburg.

They turned around fairly quickly. You do that different, and it's the Rangers instead. The offer was basically, it's been reported in a few different ways, but it's basically everyone other than Leach and Messier. So, you know, everyone from that 94 team, yeah, Lindrosse goes and starts his career as a second-line center behind Mark Messier. do the Rangers win the cup?

I mean, Lindrosse was a hell of a player. Eric Lindrosse, and people don't remember how good this guy was, even as a 19-year-old before the injuries. Could they have won with him? Yeah, maybe, but all those death pieces, you know, if they don't have Mike Richter especially, it's hard to imagine them winning that cup. And then who knows where the Eric Lindrosz career goes?

You know, does he still get hurt? Does he have the feuds with management that he had with Bobby Clark? Where do the flyers go? Who do the flyers go and get? As their guy? There's a lot of different ways that that could change history. And it's a tough one. It's a tough one to try to figure out.

You mentioned Eric Lindross has the injury issues. That's one of the big what-if questions. People will say, what if Eric Lindrosse stayed healthy? I'm going to throw out a handful of names. to you of players whose careers got cut short due to injury or just, you know, and I'm going to ask you which of these guys would you say, like, what if they didn't get injured? Who's the guy you wish, you know what,

I wish that guy got to play his whole career injury-free so I could have seen what the peak is. Okay, so, you know, Eric Lindross, Cam Neely, Mariel Lehmie, Mike Bossie, Bobby Orr. They're all Hall of Famers. But they all had their career, the peak of it maybe kind of watered down or impacted by an injury. Who's the guy out of that list if I said, or Bossie, Lindross, Lemieux, and Neely? That you would be like, yeah, I wish we just saw that guy the whole time, never impacted by injury.

I wonder what he could have done. Yeah, it's, I feel like with Neely and maybe Bossy, you could, you could say that we did see at least their best. We didn't get to see it as long as we would have liked, but we got to see their best. Maybe even Mario and Bobby Orr, you could say that. Lindros is the one guy out of that group where I feel like we never saw his very best season. We never saw his alpha season where it all came together because it just the injuries were starting to pile up by the time. And he still won an MVP and, you know, he was a dominant player.

But I feel like we never got to see him hit the height even for a season that, he could have. But out of that group, and I'm a little too young for Bobby, or Mario's the guy that if I can wave a magic wand, it just take injuries away. And, you know, we're not talking about obviously anyone life-altering injuries or anything like that. But if I could just make a player healthy his whole career, it's Mario. Because he could do unbelievable things, even when he had the bad back and the chemo

treatments and everything like that, you give me Mario Lemieux full health. I don't think we're talking about Wayne Gretzky's scoring. I think we're talking about Mario's scoring records. He was that good. Man, I see, for me, I think it's Bobby Orr, only because his last full season in the NHL was as a 26-year-old, and he scored 46 goals, had 130 points, won the Hart trophy, won the Art Ross trophy, and then he played like 20 games after them. And you know what?

The thing that kills he about Bobby Orr is you don't even, with him, it's not even oh, if he had been healthy. it's just if he had had today's technology, if he had decent doctors, you know, who could have, they could have fixed his knees up. Like he didn't have some, you know, he just had bad knees.

And today, you can do things with those. And back then they, they couldn't and they didn't catch it in time. And, oh, boy, it's, it would be, you know, it always catches me off guard. Anytime I'm looking at all-time lists, how far down Bobby Orr is on, like,

the defenseman scoring list. You're just like, oh, he's not, it's because he barely, he barely played. We got a few peak years from him and then, and then that was it. So you're right, that give him a full career. I know somebody else said, you know, what if he had played with Ray Bork in the late 70s? Like that. Yeah. Yeah. Imagine that pairing. It would have been, it, I tell you, it would have given that that late 70s Habs dynasty starts looking a lot different if they've got to go through Bobby or at the height of his powers every year. Yeah. No, it's, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a great point.

And I get that. Think of that Don Cherry, too many men on the ice. If Bobby O'R is still healthy, he's like 29 years old or 30 years old. Like he's still probably enough of a difference maker to swing that series, right? And the Habs beat the Bruins in the cup a couple of times. Like,

absolutely. I think it's a, you know, it's one of those great, great what if questions. But boy, there's so many players whose careers were impacted by injury. So a couple of other ones here to wrap up the show.

Now, on draft day in 1999, Brian Burke did some finagling to get the number two and number three pick so that they could take Daniel and Hendrik Sedin in Vancouver. I'm wondering, Sean, what if? What if the Siddings were drafted by different teams? Are they as successful? Do they ultimately end up together? Like, what happens there?

Like, what if the Siddins were drafted by two different teams? Yeah, it's, it's an. Interesting question. It certainly, I mean, the Cedine experience would not have been the same. Let's put it that way. And I think that they could have, I mean, they did struggle somewhat in the NHL to start with. People sometimes forget that the Cedines were not the Cedines for the first two or three or four years of their career in Vancouver.

Maybe that continues. Maybe it's even more pronounced if they're. apart, maybe teams run out of patience quicker than they did in Vancouver. I think almost inevitably they would have wound up playing together somewhere at some point because every brother act in the NHL has to wind up on the same team at some point. But, you know, where would it have been and what would that deal of look like? It's an interesting one. Let me give you my, this might be my all-time favorite, what if, though.

And I've written this before, but I want your opinion on this. because you mentioned the Brian Burke. I think what was your word? Finagling. Finagling, yeah. That's a good word. That's a good word. Burke makes all these moves.

He comes into the draft. He's got the third overall pick. He wants both Sadiens. So he starts wheeling and dealing. He trades. He gets the fourth pick. Now he's got three and four, but that's not necessarily enough.

So he flips the four for the one. Now he's got one and three. Now he feels pretty good that he's going to get the Siddines, but it's not enough because it's Brian Burke, right? He's a marketer. He doesn't want to pick a Sidene. Yeah. And then wait a pick. He wants to take them both at the same time. Remember, we all remember him getting up going basically, we take the Siddines and he tries to do it both with the same pick. So he wants two and three. So he calls up Don Waddell of the Atlanta Thrashers and he says, who has the second pick? And he says, do you want to flip up to number one? Who do you guys want? Don Wadell says, we want Patrick Stefan. Here comes Patrick Stefan again in one of these. Burke says, okay, I'll give you the number one so that you can take them first overall.

Atlanta's a new team, expansion team. Let's give them a big moment with the first overall pick. Burke's going to get number two. He gets to take both the Cedians at the same time and he gets like a late round pick. It wasn't a big price to trade up. But he makes this deal. Brian Burke says to Don Waddell. The one thing is you've got to give me your word that you're taking Patrick Steph on.

You're not going to take anyone else. you're not going to trade the pick to anyone else because I'm doing all this so that I get to Sidene's second and third. Give me your word on that. Don Wadell says, yeah, you have my word. And of course, that's exactly how it plays out. Here's my what if. What if Don Waddell screws Brian Burke? What if Don Wadale gets up there

and says with the first overall pick, the Atlanta Thrashers take, Daniel Sadeen. What happens from that moment on? Barn fight. I'm telling you, he fights him, right? Yeah, Brian Burke absolutely fights Don Waddell on the draft floor. Like, I'm, I'm serious.

Brian Burke hears that. He gets up, he takes off his suit jacket, undoes his tie, which is probably already undone, rolls up his sleeves and he goes to fight Don Wadale. Like, right, not behind the scenes, on the draft floor. And then my question is, what does Don Waddell do? Like, does he, does he pull an Earl Hebner? Does he have the getaway car waiting? And he just makes a break for the exit?

or like Don Waddell played minor league hockey. Maybe he's ready to go. Maybe he knows exactly what's, you know, maybe it's go time for him. I think there's absolutely like, Brian Burke was going to fight a guy in a barn over an offer sheet to a player who wasn't even very good. Yeah. There's no question in my mind.

Brian Burke fights Don Wadale on the draft floor on live television. Okay, what would you rather watch though? Brian Burke fighting Don Waddell live on the draft floor or Brian Burke and Kevin Lowe renting the barn and it's like a pay-per-view event and they throw it out in the barn. I think, honestly, I think it's the draft floor one because you wouldn't have been, like, because I need a camera on Gary Bettman when he realizes what's happening and he realizes two of his GMs are going to, he was mad about the barn fight quote getting out years later. Yeah.

Imagine when he sees like, you know, he sees Burke get up and start taking the city. And Don White L's like giving him the, yeah, you want to go, let's go. I think absolutely That's my one what if I want to see Don what I'll get up there I want him to make eye contact with Brian Burke The whole way you know While he says the words from Modo

And then Burke I want cameras on Burke from three different angles To get his facial the expression as he reacts And I want to see the whole thing play out Oh man well listen that Maybe next summer too when we're doing these shows We'll do the yeah the fantasy fights So the battles we'd like to see one-on-one.

Brian Burke would be like in 40% of them, wouldn't he? Yeah, absolutely. That seems low. Yeah. All right. Hey, listen, we'll leave it there. And again, I hope listeners had fun with us here in the month of August, you know, just doing some different things.

And listen, if you got any thoughts on the what-if questions we tossed out today or you have some other what-if questions, we'd love to hear from you. Drop us an email, the athletic hockey show at gmail.com. You can leave us a voicemail to 845-4-4-5-8-459. And if you're not a subscriber with us at The Athletic, you can join us at theathletic.com slash Hockey Show to save on an annual subscription.