The Athletic Hockey Show - Are the Anaheim Ducks for real?

Episode Date: November 5, 2025

Sean, Frank and Sean debate if the correct call was made in Nashville when the WIld were awarded an overtime goal after Predators goalie Justus Annunen knocked the net off its mooring. The guys praise the play of the Anaheim Ducks with Cutter Gauthier now leading the NHL in goals scored, they discuss Team Canada's glaring weakness in goal and Sean and Sean take a look at the Hockey Hall of Fame's 2025 inductees and who makes the cut in years to come.Hosts: Sean Gentille and Sean McIndoeWith: Frank CorradoExecutive Producer: Chris FlanneryProducer: Jeff DometWatch full episodes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@theathletichockeyshowJoin our Discord Server: https://discord.gg/VTm9VjkFSubscribe to The Athletic: https://theathletic.com/hockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Hockey Show. Step what up. It's the Athletic Hockey Show Wednesday edition. McAdu, Kratto, Gintilli here. Our hotel room count is at one this week. Frankie is at home. That is a welcome change. You're sitting in front of your very tastefully apportioned TV approved.

You got the frame jersey. You got the helmet. Was that an off-season project? No, that was a few seasons ago. I did it myself, though. and the shelves where the helmets are, like they're a little off. If you really pay attention to it,

you can see that they're not equally aligned, which is unfortunate, but that's my, that's the extent of my handiwork. As a really handy guy, I noticed it myself. Yeah. I gave you,

I gave you the half point deduction for, for cracking shells. Today's a cool day. I want to welcome you guys to what is known as memo day in the NHL. Today's, today's the day. I would imagine, because I've seen this before, all the guys will be coming to the rink for practice or morning skate, and coach will have their meeting at 9.30, and it's going to start with something like this.

Boys, just a little housekeeping today, something we got from the league. I don't know if you guys saw that goal last night. We're on and it knocks the net off. Here's what the NHL is telling us. So we got to keep this in mind. Now let's get to our meeting. It's memo day, a little bit of housekeeping before everything gets going. going. Isn't that like the big, isn't that like the big takeaway from that, from that goal in in Preds, in Preds Wild last night? I feel like there were a few, but for sure that was one of them is like, if this is how they're going to call it, whatever, if there's a chance that that's how they approach goals where the, where the net gets, gets knocked off the mornings moving forward, I think everyone probably needs to make some adjustments. The memo is necessary. Little reminder. Just a little reminder.

Okay, so what do you guys feel about that situation? Because I stand by what they called. I think it's the right call, and I would do that call 10 out of 10. And I'm here to listen to your argument about it. But, man, I firmly believe that they made the right call on that play. Let me give you my argument. Because I've seen, you know, I saw it happen in real time. I saw a lot of people were upset, a lot of people questioning it.

Here's my take. Okay. It's a suggestion for you goalies out there. If you don't like this, maybe stop cheating. How's that work? Okay? Don't cheat and then complain when you get caught cheating. Because people are like, you know, oh, the neck got knocked off.

Oh, it just got knocked. Did it just, is that, did that just happen? Did a bird fly through and bump into it? Did like a gust of wind come up? No, the goalie in a situation where the other team has a scoring chance. was like, I could slide over there and make the safe. Nah, you know what? I just don't feel like playing anymore.

I'm just going to knock the net off. You can't do that. Of course that goal should count. Now, there is the thing about like, you know, was the first shot going in or was it on the second? And that is, you know, maybe that's a different conversation. I think that's kind of compelling for the record. Maybe it is.

But don't, like, don't cheat and then turn around and go like, oh, you can't, you know, my cheating worked. against us. Yeah. Don't. You, you, listen, goalies. Listen to me.

Goaltenders of the world. You weirdos in your sumo gear, talking to your posts, you're all nine feet tall. You're all twitchy goofs and none of your teammates really know how to talk to you. Stop ruining hockey by,

first of all, making too many saves. You're too good. That's a problem number one. That's a problem. Yeah. But second of all, stop cheating. Don't knock the net off every time and then go, oh, how could you still count the gold?

Every time the puck comes near your mask, don't shake it off and then be like, oh, how come the play didn't stop? Stop cheating. And everything will be okay. That one I'm okay with. That's good old fashioned gamesmanship, baby. And also from a safety point of view, if your mask is like just a little loose and someone wires one, I'm okay with. that one. But it's when it's when people are like that that should be an automatic whistle, right? It happened like last week, right? Somebody has to play without a mask, which is dangerous.

But people are like, how are they not blowing the whistle automatically? And the answer to that is every goalie's mask would fall off 20 times a game if it was an automatic whistle, mysteriously. They would just, the straps would get loose. It would just be a weird coincidence. And it would only happen when, you know, they were about to get scored on. And yeah, You like it it blows my mind that there seem to be people out there who sincerely believe that if a defenseman swats at a puck and it accidentally goes over the glass that that absolutely has to be a delay a game penalty. No room. You were going to bring this back. No room for any judgment, intent, nothing matters.

But if a goalie is like, you know what, I don't feel like being a goalie right now, bong knocks the net off. People are like, well, what can you do? I mean, you just got to blow the whistle. Eight out of ten rules discussions with McIndoo end up coming back to puck over glass. Like it's going to, it's going to happen. I'm going to, I haven't figured out how to tie this back into the loser point, but I'm going to, I'm working on it. We'll get there. No, we'll get there somehow. And then somehow it'll be about the Leaps for sure. But how about this. If you, you don't, you don't get a loser point if you pull your goalie and get scored on, I think if your goalie cheats and you get scored on an overtime, you should lose the loser point.

Stamcoast almost Stamcoast almost convinced me Post game like I like I was full on like Why is this even a discussion? Why are we treating this as any sort of any sort of serious thing? Stamco's post game. This is from Rousseau's right up of of the whole of the whole thing. Rousseau. This shock you was pro wild on the

No, he was there right from the he had it called right at the beginning. He did. I'm I'm joking obviously. He had a on. On Twitter, he had sniffed out. But Stamco said, he basically like, okay, this is the direct Stamco's quotes. How about this? He goes, I get it.

The net came out. But if the puck goes in right away, no problem if the net's off. But he missed the net, and the puck actually bounced to him because the net was sideways, and then he hit it off the back of the net, and it popped back.

So my interpretation of the rule is that if the net wasn't off, that puck wouldn't have come back to him to have an open net. It would have went behind the net, and then the play would have been blown dead. because the net was off. So he's like, I get it, I get it.

But the only reason there was a scoring chance in the first place was because the net was originally off. And he almost got me there. I was quite nearly on team Stamcoast

and team Preds on this one. But I just can't get over the reality of this situation, which like Sean said, the net didn't magically accidentally came off. It was off. is something very clearly, like a very clearly deliberate move by anewitin.

So if so if you cheat whatever happens after that in any kind of normal run of play, like you're responsible for it. If it's a close call, how about benefit of the doubt goes to the team that didn't blatantly cheat two seconds before? Yeah. I have no issues with that. Like the on an end's left like elbow, you can see how egregious it is. Like he's actively trying to knock the net off.

He's already done it once in that game too, by the way. Right. That's like he was, he was playing pretty loose with it already. And may have gotten a warning. I don't know if, you know, sometimes the officials will be like, don't do that again. Oh, I'm sure it doesn't take much. Like it's one time, officials not going to, you know, stand in there and get made to look a fool. So he's going to give you a warning when he sees that happen.

But imminent play. Okay, imminent play. The first shot, I understand. This is where you could argue it is that the first shot doesn't. go in. But on an in, even if he hadn't knocked the net off, is not making the save on the rebound because he's like down and out. He's sprawled down. Like Johansen's still putting that puck in. Now, the net was angled a different way, but it was angled a different way because Annen does what he does. So I have no issue with it. I think it's the right call. And every team

is having memo day and getting a reminder and then they'll get into their video session today. What are some of the memo days that Frankie Crout overseas? Dude, it's things that are like, a lot of it was hits, you know, hitting, hitting to the head. What does it look like? Anytime something big and noteworthy happens like that, it's like, here's a reminder from, from NHL about this is head contact or this is incidental head contact because you went through the body and you got someone's head. Like that was one that was always kind of front and center. Like the offside ones used to, but that's even before me. Like those are ones that get kind of refreshed every once in a while because the rules have changed as far as where your skate has to be in relation to the blue line.

And, you know, so, yeah, those are those are the main ones that I can remember, you know, kind of hearing about the next day. Potential trouble in paradise between Rousseau and LeBron, by the way. Did we see this? They disagree on it. Russo said he pushed that. This is exchanged between Russo and Pierre. He pushed that off the morning's clearly intentionally when he thought Capriza was going to score. The rule doesn't state when imminent scoring opportunity ends.

The ref rules good goal on 90s second shot into where the net would have been had he not illegally knocked it off. And Pierre, to that simply said, I will set you straight in Milan. Oh, wow. Interesting. Interesting. I would like to know exactly what he means by that. That feels like barn fight adjacent. We got some big boy hockey between Russo and LeBron coming in Milano Cortina. The first Ontario in Pierre coming out.

That escalated. Has Russo previously said that a game was scoreless or anything like that to really set Pierre off? That came up in my natural life, the scoreless debate. I immediately went into a peer impression, of course, and nobody cared. I think the other big story come out of last night, and I feel like we've gone to this well a couple times already, and we're all still sort of surprised by it. The Anaheim Ducks, you don't even smoke the Panthers,

7-3, 3 goals for Cutter-Goche. You know, he's tied for the league lead with 10 goals. They have the cool Gordon Bombay jacket that they give the player of the game. I don't know if you guys saw this. It is an exact replica of the jacket that Emilio Estef wore in the Mighty Ducks, which I don't know how it took this long for that to be part of their postgame stuff. What are we seeing from the Ducks? Like, I do want to get our, I want to get us on record here.

Like, are we on board with what they're doing? Do we think it's a truly, it's a truly sustainable thing? because that's a, I know that, I know the Panthers are limited in one way or another right now, but that's, that counts for something last night. The ducks are a good team. Yeah. They're a good team. Like, they have the most goals for right now in the NHL.

Do they not? Like, they're, no one's scoring more goals than the ducks and they're expected is not first, but it's good. It's in the, you know, top third of the NHL. So it's justified how good they've been. You know, right across the board offensively, you know, they're a very shot-heavy team. Like, obviously, some teams want to prioritize possession and not wasting pucks and, you know,

making sure that it's all, you know, high-quality chances. But the ducks have found a way to blend the both right now where, you know, shot attempts and shots, they're a top five team in the NHL. And then as far as if they're getting chances from the slot area, they're getting those as well. Like, they're really good. They're just, they're a fast, exciting, skilled young team. And the fact that, you know, I think Pat Verbeek took a lot of heat with the trades that he made,

especially with the guys that he brought in from New York, right? Like aging guys who maybe have slowed down, it was the right mix for what his group needed. You know, Jacob Truba, Chris Kreider, who now has seven goals, implementing those players with, you know, Alex Killorn, who was already there, has, he's pushed all the right butt. And now they're seeing the results. But they're not a team that's just on a hot streak. They're not a team that's just shooting the lights out. They're generating what they're scoring.

And that is something that can be sustainable for them. And here's the crazy part. Like, it should only get better. All those young guys are, you know, Cutter Gochier, who's off to an unbelievable start and has a hat trick last night. Leo Carlson, who's really coming on. Beckett Seneca, who's playing light years better than he played in the preseason. they're all just going to get better and older and more experienced.

So there is a nice thing cooking right now with the ducks and it doesn't feel like it's an accident. And the other piece of this is the playoff path in the Pacific. I wouldn't say wide open, but it's there. It's there for the taking. I mean, obviously we all expected Vegas and Edmonton, as much as the Oilers have struggled a bit, are going to be there at the end, at the top. But that third spot and then, you know, potentially wild cards, depending on how things go in the central. Seattle looks good right now, but we'll see how that goes.

L.A.'s hanging in there. But it's there for Anaheim. And, you know, I feel like I'm mad at myself because heading into the season, I had in my prediction piece, I had said, the ducks are making the playoffs. I'm calling it. And then at the last second, I kind of lost my nerve. and I sort of dialed it down a little bit. And I turned it into, it would not shock me if the Ducks made the playoffs. And now I'm wishing I could go back and maybe I could. We can just, it's cool to go back and edit your predictions, right? Like, that's fine.

I do it all the time. Okay. So, but it's, it's looking good. And, I mean, Joel Quenville right now, got to be the Jack Adams favorite. Oh, my God. Which will be a whole different discussion for, can't wait for that.

But that'll be, yeah, that'll be interesting. But like right now, top three teams in the NHL, Colorado, been there, they're a wagon. Montreal second, Anaheim third. It feels like there's a little bit of a changing of the guard for the time being, right? Because some teams are lagging behind. Edmonton loses again last night. They can't hold on to a lead. And it's at the hands of the Dallas stars who are very injured.

And they're kind of limping around. So, yeah, there's plenty of opportunities for teams like Anaheim, and Montreal and Utah and if New Jersey can stay healthy, even though they've been there. And we know how skilled and how good New Jersey is. But like this Anaheim team, I just kind of come back to, you know, can it be sustainable? Absolutely it can be.

When your young guys are playing as well as they are and they're only going to get better, this is something that could be they've arrived. And what does that mean for L.A., Vancouver, Seattle, to certain extent Edmonton, right? Like it's just there's a new it's a new team on the scene here that it feels like they're not going anywhere

anytime soon. No, I mean, what is the narrative around the ducks at the start of the season? It's if their young guys can level up and if some of the older guys actually give the kind of the kind of the production and the element that for Beak went out

and got them to supply, right? And that's going on. Leo Carlson has 18 points in 12 games, or 14 games, rather. And he's driving play to, he leads him an expected goals percentage. Gochay's 10 goals. He's second in the league in five-on-five shots. Only Nathan McKinnon, league-wide, has taken more shots and cutter go-chae. So just by that kind of stuff alone, you have Leo Carlson playing like a 1C,

and Go-C being like the next guy from that group of forwards, it seems like, to find another level. This is how people drew it up for Anaheim. This is what we said it would look like if they made that lead. It would be because they were getting the exact kind of play that they've gotten from Leo Carlson and Cutter, Goce, and Chris Crieder and Jacob Truba. And Dostal's a high-end goal. Well, dude, this is the other thing that I'm happy you bring his name up, right? Because we have a track record now of Dostal being very good, right? Having goals saved above expected, keeping his team in games, winning games.

He's very talented goalie. You know, goaltending is a hard thing to repeat year after year at the high end. There's just, there's a handful of guys that do it every single year. But here he is right now, and he's near the top and goal saved above expected again. And you're like, well, you were banking on that if you're Anaheim and you're getting it if you're Anaheim. And it begs the question now, like, is this guy among the best goalies in the NHL? and he's going to be that way. You know, even right now, Anaheim's, you know,

what they're kind of giving up defensively, they've given up more goals than they should based on what their defensive metrics look like. And so, you know, Dostal's played well. The team is also not like a huge pushover defensively. So they're in a good spot. It's a step up from where they were. We became so accustomed to this over the last few years,

NMB one of the very, very, two years ago, they might have been pound for pound by a lot of measurements. They might have been the worst defensive team in the history of the league. Right. So the fact that we're even talking about them, yeah, there's too many chances. The quality is high. But it's a step up from where they were a couple years ago. And Dostal, he needs to be treated as a guy who can erase some of that.

Like I think it's fair at this point to view him, you know, in that kind of capacity. So, yeah, I like what we've seen from them. You know, that's just something. It's going to be something to track all season long, too, because there is that flux at the bottom of the Western Conference, right? Like whether we're talking about Seattle or whoever else, there's work to be done and there's hay to be made and a lot of the sunshine in there. It's a fascinating team to watch if you're one of the many other teams in the league

that have been doing the rebuild thing, right? Because we always say it's figuring out and committing and realizing we've got to tear this down and start over is a big decision. But once you've made that decision, the tear down is the easy part. Trading away all the veterans, getting draft picks, hopefully hitting on them, having that prospect pipeline that ranks near the top of Corey's list and all that. That is not easy, but it's the easiest part. And how many times do we see a team do that? and then when it's time to start to win a little bit, you know, the metaphor I always use is, you know, they throw, they take the gear out of neutral and they put it in drive and they

hit the gas and the wheels just spin and nothing happens. We've seen that Buffalo's been doing it for years. To some extent, you know, some people might put Chicago in that group, but like, how do you make that next step and how do you add the guys? Because at some point you got to win something. And Anaheim is right now looking like the model team for how. how they did that. And credit the Paffer B. Because he's the guy made the moves. And they're going to have a very, very favorable cap situation for a long time,

which is going to keep them in the mix on whatever they want to be in the mix on. If they ever want to go big game hunting and spend money. And just to put it into perspective, like how good they've been goal scoring wise this year, like Frank Petrano is playing on the fourth line and he's got one goal. Like if that was the case for Anaheim a couple years ago, they're in big, big trouble. because you rely on that guy to score goals. Meanwhile, everyone's picking up the slack

and you're just like, he'll score when he scores. And we just need him to do other stuff right now because everyone's pitching in. It's the sign of a team that's turned a corner, and Anaheim has certainly done that. All right, we're going to hit a break. We're going to come back with some team-kina Olympic talk. Yes, goaltenders are on the menu.

That's going to be our discussion coming up soon. All right, we're back. Boys, we missed the 100-day deadline or the 100-day countdown for the Olympics. last week. That's something I didn't know was a thing until everybody ran their 100 day out projections. Oh, is that right? Did you know this? No. I saw the broadcast cruise got announced. That was the big one. We're 100 days out. We're announcing everyone that's going. That was cool. I think there's still got to be time for you to sneak on the roster. He'll be, he'll be fine.

I'll take a break. I'll take a break when I can get one. We got to talk about the Canadian goaltending situation. And I hate, and I hate, I hate doing this. I don't, I, I would rather not. Blums me out. But the three guys who are on the Four Nations team, Jordan Bennington, where you got the ones?

Jordan Bittington, Montyville. Aiden Hill. Aiden Hill. Yeah. Not off to the best of starts. I ask, I ask you, Frank Carrado, what's the over under on, on those three, how many actually get left off?

I think the line is probably, the line's probably got to be one and a half at this point, doesn't it? And I'm almost, I think I would take the under. I would take the under on one and a half. And the guy that you're taking is Bennington. And Bennington's a, he's an interesting guy. Like I know him very well. We go way back. We played minor hockey together for those that don't know.

So we're talking like 12 years old, Vaughn Kings. Listen, we've all seen his success in the NHL. We saw his success at the Four Nations. In a short period of time, like when the St. Louis Blues won the Stanley Cup and the Four Nations tournament, something like that, he can be so laser-focused and sharp and he's so emotionally charged that he can be dynamite in those situations, like unbeatable to a certain degree. We've seen it. There's evidence. over the course of 82 games in a season, it's just hard to have the flame burn that high for a long period of time.

It's part of what makes Bennington such a great goalie, is that in those big moments, he can get himself to a place mentally that not a lot of guys can go to, but it's hard to sustain. So I don't worry about Bennington because I know that when the time comes, he has shown us time and time again that he's going to be, be okay. I don't worry about his play right now. The two guys, like Aden Hill and Samuel Montembo, of course Aden Hill's been hurt. Montembow is an interesting one because last night in Montreal,

he made, you know, two consecutive starts in a row. And Doug Armstrong and Don Sweney are in attendance last night. And he's trying to find his game. He's trying to find his game. He has not played well. Marty San Luis wants to have him be the number one guy. He doesn't believe in a tandem. He believes in one guy carrying the mail and the other guy being the quote-unquote backup goaltender. Now, Jakob Dobish has played unbelievable,

undefeated this year, but Monty should be the guy. And so last night, first period of that game, there's a high tip in the slot off the stick of Bobby Brink that goes in, one nothing. then Matheson, Puckover Boards penalty,

Dobson cross-checking penalty, now you're down five on three, and you give up two goals on the ensuing power plays, one-five on three, one-five on four. So the goalie that's trying to find his game got put in a terrible situation in the first period and is down a three-spot. What happened after that, though,

was that he showed signs of the goalie he can be and has showed signs of life, and he had a really good rest of the game. A big reason why they were able to come back and get a point. This is not a Montreal Canadiens conversation. This is a maybe Samuel Montembo is going to find his game before it's too late conversation. Because as of right now, if you had to pick the team today, it's probably Bennington, Logan Thompson, and Darcy Kemper. But Montembow showing signs of life last night maybe signifies that he can get back to the goalie he was last.

year. Do we need to worry about Doebish taking more, like, again, I don't want to turn this into a Canadian's discussion necessarily, but like, if that's how Marty San Luis is situated, if his desire is to have a dude, he can just count on night in, night out. And if Dobish is getting, is giving them consistently better play, like, that to me just sounds like we could be talking about Sam Montembo as like a one B in a, in a couple months, which is a tough, that's a tough spot. That's a tough spot when you're trying to make an Olympic team.

If you're playing badly for the most part, when you do start and then losing time down in the stretch. Because like, look, these guys, it's, Bennington's at 8, 6, 8, 6, 8, is it nearly seven goals saved below expected? Montembow 855, almost seven goals, like Aiden Hill's hurt and ineffective, right? So I don't know, man. There's a, there's a lot of stuff in flux there. And I look at Montsenbo. When we were doing player tiers and trying to suss out, you know, where to stratify goal tenders and all that stuff,

we had Montsenbo initially ranked pretty high. And we heard back from like a weird amount of league people who are like, uh, maybe slow your role on this a little bit. I don't know if there's something in the, the public numbers for the last couple. couple years of favor Montembo. He's, he's graded out well there. But I wonder if a lot of teams that, like, with their own proprietary stuff, have seen something in the last couple years that they're not crazy about. Look, let's remember Sam Mondabo making the team last year,

even at the time, a lot of fans were like, what? Why is Sam Monubo on this team? And that's not to say not a good goal. It's not say he wasn't one of the three best picks last year, but it wasn't like he was some sort of slam dunk. And, you know, I'm with Frankie. Jordan Bittington is on this team, if he's healthy, period. You know, does he have to be the starter game one? You know, that's up to a coach. But the guy won gold for you last time, you know, outduiled Connor Hallibuck in overtime of the gold medal game. He's, he's on the team. assuming he's healthy. The other two spots are open because it's, you know,

Sam Montembow was a mild surprise last year. You know, obviously wasn't called on to do much of anything in the actual tournament. There's no reason that he needs to start with a spot and someone has to take it from him. You know, I mean, that spot's up for grabs. the guy who should have been on last year's team, Logan Thompson, is sort of the one guy who's playing pretty well. So I think I've penciled him in Bittington Thompson. And then the third spot, let's see, maybe if Aden Hill gets healthy and gets going again,

great. Darcy Kemper was another guy. You know, it's funny last year, right? Like Canada had two of the top four Vezna guys at the end of the year. neither of them played on the Olympic team in Thompson and Kemper. But, you know, so in theory, you look at, you go, maybe it's not that bad, but Kemper hasn't been great so far. If he picks it back up, that spot's available.

And if not, then, you know, maybe you do the thing where you say, you know what, it's going to be, it's going to be Binnington and Thompson, and we're going to figure it out, and then we'll take a younger guy, which is, you know, kind of what it felt like they did with Bonneboe last year, but it doesn't have to be him. And it shouldn't be at this point unless you really. bring the future focus younger dude as the number three. Like if it's not there, it's not there.

If you've got, you know, and Team USA isn't going to do this, but if you have Connor Hallibuck and Jake Ottinger and then you want to say, you know what, we're going to bring a young guy instead of Jeremy Swim and go ahead because that guy's never getting near the ice in any meaningful situation. But if it's Canada, you don't have that luxury. So, yeah, yeah, find your three best guys. the three guys that are playing the best at the time, for the most part, plus the international experience, which is where, you know, a guy like Bennington,

like I could actually see Bennington being a guy that, where the blue season is headed. They might be out of this very soon, which means, you know, for him, now, does that maybe wear him down to the point where he's a mess by the Olympics? Maybe. Or maybe he's sitting there going, you know what? This is my whole season. My seasons are right off. I got two weeks of actual meaningful hockey. I'm going to be, you know, like a rabbit dog by the time I get there, let me off the leash and let me out there and play a little bit.

He'll be like that anyways. Regardless of how the season is going. What was he like at 12? Was it the exact same person? No. He's kind of got the 12-year-old personality now. Like, what was he like back then? He was such a, like, sweetheart of a kid.

He's still such a, like, he's a great guy. This is just a classic case of putting on a persona to get yourself to a level as an athlete, as a competitor. Like, he is, he's not an asshole. I don't know if we're allowed to say that word. Maybe JD will bleep it out for us. But like, he's, he's an unbelievable guy. He's, he's awesome. He's great to be around.

You would love to go grab a beer with this guy and hang out with him and anyone would. He wasn't throwing water bottles or I guess juice boxes maybe back then. No, no, he wasn't snapping on us. He was always the best goal in the age group, too, which we were very spoiled to have him behind us. But he'll be like that anyways, man. Like, that's just, that's him. Just quickly on Montembow, like the, his high end is very good. And for me, that's a big reason why he makes that team last year is because his best games are outstanding.

Where he lags behind with a guy like Logan Thompson is the consistency, right? Like, Monty got shelled at times last year. I saw him put up, you know, eight spots. get pulled like early in the season, but his great games were, were really, really good. He hasn't had that this year. So he doesn't have that in his back pocket. And last year, you know, we were at TSN, we were constantly talking about this goalie

situation. And I finally went to one of our producers. And I was like, dude, why are we making such a big deal about the third goalie for team Canada? Who cares? Like if they, if we're at the point where we're using a third goalie, like, haven't we lost the plot? Like, isn't it over?

what are we doing? And the point that he made to me, which he wasn't really wrong, he goes, think about it. You know, USA, very, very solid in goal, Sweden, very solid in goal, even to extent Finland, pretty solid in net. Canada has a bunch of guys, and this is before the four nations, before Bennington did what he did, where you're like, I could make a compelling case for five or six guys to be the starter. There's no, like, true guy that's, that's so far and above and beyond. And so when you get into the tournament, if one guy plays bad in the first game, are you going to goalie number two? And do you have a conversation between, you know, other members of the coaching staff? Who's the two? Who's the three? It just, and this year,

it doesn't feel like that's the case because Bennington's going to start. Like, you don't think John Cooper is going to start Bennington game one of the Olympics and say, you're my guy. You're the rabbit dog, go out and do it just like you did last year. So maybe we're like maybe it feels different this year than last year when it comes to the how, you know, one, two, three goaltenders and how important they all are. I think part of it is, is Thompson. Like for a second straight year, it's funny. You mentioned consistency with Montembone. That's certainly true. It's funny to have Thompson as the contra example of that because consistency is, especially, with Vegas, that was an issue for him in the past, too. Last year, what we saw was he started out

strong, sustained it really until he started dealing with some injury stuff, like after the All-Star break. Like, yeah, his play declined down the stretch in the regular season for Washington, but he was dealing with a concussion thing, and he had maybe some other, some other minor injury stuff that was going on too, and he shook it off well enough to be, you know, pretty good for them in the playoffs. And he's follow that up again, you know, with another, another really, really strong start. He's a 935 say a percentage, almost seven goals about saved above expected. So he's like far in a way based on merit over the last two years. I think he's been the best of the bunch on the ice in the NHL season.

It would just be a real pivot, honestly, in terms of the way that he's thought about by that national team, by whoever else, go from being, you know, not much of a consideration. I, I don't think last year to, you know, what are we talking about? He's like one, he's, he's a bad Bennington period away in, in Milan from being the guy. It's really, really interesting, but it's also a testament to how, to how good he's been. Like, he's, he's falling up last season. I think that was, that was kind of the big question. You know, we'll, we'll see how long it lasts because he's got some inconsistency in the, in the, in the rear view. But man, he's, he's playing really, really well. And that was, that was certainly true last season, too. Yeah. He makes, he makes this year with Hill being injured and Montembow struggling,

he makes it more compelling, but at the same time, it softens the blow for team Canada, where you're like, listen, we had, if at the end of the day, for two spots, they had five goalies in the mix, and those were the two guys they went with last year, because for some reason, there was a tiebreaker that went to those guys, maybe the tiebreakers go on the other way. And that lands Logan Thompson on a flight

with Pierre Lebrun to Milan so he can teach him a lesson. When Pierce's arm wrestling Russo or whatever whatever's on the board there. That's my advice to these golies, man. I know it's big games. It's a lot of pressure. Just cheat. Just not that when

when Matthews and Eichol are coming in two on one, just long. Oops. Chicken chicken wing elbow to the to the nut. Pierre will have your back on that.

Yeah. Frankie, where are you this week? You got your, I'm home, boys. Yeah, I got a, six shifts though,

I feel like during games. We got a Habs panel tomorrow. Devil's Habs. That'll be a good one. And then a couple of Jets games Friday night and on the weekend, just doing some intermission work there. So jets are coming off a 3-0 loss last night in L.A.

So they'll be looking to bounce back in San Jose. and we'll be all over it, boys, just like you guys. Nice chatting today. Hope you guys, I hope you guys enjoyed memo day. Good to see you as always. Yeah. Hopefully there's no memos come in your way.

Memo Monday, baby. I don't read memos. All right, we're back. It is Hockey Hall weekend, my boy. I know you're aware of this. Jennifer Botryl, Zeno Chara, Brianna Decker, Duncan Keith, Aldeanor McGillney,

Jack Parker, Daniel Silva, Joe Thornton, are your inductees in alphabetical order. What have I learned this week, Sean McIndoo? What have we learned, Sean? I have learned that you hate Jimmy Ben. Now, don't you see, this is the problem when you talk about Hall of Fame and you say that somebody is either not a Hall of Famer

or maybe you say somebody is a, is borderline, you know, it could be an interesting case, is that people think that you hate the guy. And just because I said Jamie Ben's not a Hall of Famer doesn't mean I hate him. Now, I say Cory Perry's not a Hall of Famer. Do I hate him? Yes. Yeah, of course.

But I don't hate Jamie Ben. I just don't think Jamie Ben's going to the Hall of Fame, even though he's got an Art Ross, even though he's a three-time All-Star, the real All-Star, as it matter, the postseason ones. But, yeah, I've got a piece out today where I take another look at six guys who I have previously talked about being. borderline cases and sort of give an update on on where they're at and yeah what what i've learned is that uh people feel very strongly about the hall of fame it's even more so than most sports debates i find hall of fame it's it's not that people disagree with you it's that people think whatever they think is so stunningly obvious how could you possibly i've got somebody in the comments

Corey Perry is a Hall of Famer. He had so many years of being one of the best. And it's like, no, he had one year. Now, that was a great year. He won the heart trophy. He won the heart trophy. It has 50 goals, Rocket Richard, everything. He had an absolutely phenomenal year.

He's one year enough for a guy who's still playing, might play forever, isn't going to get even to a thousand points. That's the debate. That's the fun of it. And by fun, I mean, everyone gets really angry. and yells at each other and walks away furious and unhappy. That's fun for me. He won a heart trophy.

He got votes one other time. Finished in 13th place. Yeah. Tots 76 points twice. And look, I mean, is that better than being a Patrick Marlowe who hangs around forever? is never really in that conversation, never has a year, but has more years of being very good. I mean, that's the debate. That's, you know, that's where people are. I've got people, you know, telling me right now that John Tavares is not going to make the Hall of Fame. He's just got his

500th goal. He's up to 1100 points. He's in. I am. He's in. And the other thing, and again, this is, I'm making the mistake of going through the comments in my own piece. And you know, you've got people saying. And I'm sure it's like, well, how long are you going to do this?

Like how long, like, like, like, yeah, you've been, you've been writing on the internet for 30 years now. Yeah.

I know. I feel like it's, I mean, we probably both. Jesus Christ. We're old. Yeah. We've established that.

Don't go digging up the old Usenet posts from the mid-90s. I don't, I feel like some of those takes would hold up, uh, especially, well. But here's the thing on Tavares that a lot of people say is some

variation of you know what? If he, you know, to use the point that this guy in the comments is making, if instead of signing with the Leafs he had signed in Columbus and was putting up the same numbers, nobody would be talking about him as a Hall of Fame. And it's just this idea. Like if

my grandmother had wheels, she'd be a bike. Like that's it's what happened. That's how that's how his career played out. Like that's And here's the other thing. This idea that, okay, do players in Toronto get more attention than Columbus? Yes, absolutely, no question. Nobody would ever argue that.

But specifically for the Hall of Fame, do players who had prominent stops in Toronto get, you know, are they more likely to get in? I don't think they are. I think if anything, it goes the other way. The one that stands out is Matt Sundeen getting in on the first attempt. I guess so. Some people could point to and go, you know, all right. I mean, Matt Sundeen had a Hall of Fame career. But the fact that he got in quickly, I think he got in over Brennan Shanahan that year and, you know, some other guys.

Okay, you want to point that one out. But Pat Burns took forever. It was a disgrace how long it took Pat Burns. Alexander McGilney just got in this year. That was ridiculous. And, you know, he had his stop and. Toronto. Doug Gilmore took like, I want to say seven years to get in, even though he had 1400 career points. Dave Vanderchuk took a long time to get in. You know, you go on

down to Eric Lindrosse, another one took him a while. Curtis Joseph still not in. Leaves Legend Eric. Leaves Leaves Legend Eric Lindress. Yeah. I mean, Curtis Joseph should be in. I mean, Curtis Joseph should be in if there's some sort of Toronto Maple Leafs boots. The only other guy should be in. He should. The only other guy that I, that played for the Leafs in any kind of prominent role who you could argue got in a little earlier, or maybe he was borderline to me is is Joe Newendite. And he played one year for the Leafs. So I just don't think there is a pro Leafs boost for the Hall of Fame. And if anything, you know, maybe it goes the other way because, you know, who, who knows at this committee, right?

There's 18 people go into a dungeon somewhere. It's small sample size. And that's so, it's that, and that's such an unsatisfying thing for people to hear. And we have no idea what the vote looks like, right? Like we mentioned Curtis Joseph. I think Curtis Joseph's a Hall of Fame. To me, this was a guy who, for years and years in the NHL, you looked at starting in St. Louis, certainly in Edmonton, where you were like, this guy's one of the best goalies in the league. He's got the numbers.

He's got the wins. Is he, he's never got the 14 votes. from the committee. That's all we know. Is he stuck at 13? Did he go from 5 to 7 to 9 and he's getting closer and closer? Is he even being discussed? Right? We don't know. Maybe they're not nominating him and he just never even comes up. We have no way of knowing. It kind of stinks.

You know what doesn't stink though? You know it is fantastic. We talked about how long it took Alexander McGilny to get in. Yeah. I lied. Yeah. and whenever, year after year when he didn't get in and you went, how is this happening? One of the things you always heard was their word he's not going to show up. We found out, he finally got in.

He's not showing up. Hell yeah. Good job Alexander McGilney. He's apparently going to send in a video or something. I hope it's just, I hope it's like deuces. Like, hey, thank you. Yeah, whatever. Just like, you know, I hope he does like the.

TikTok thing where he's eating, he's eating a salad and, you know, it just, just sitting there, like, what's up? You know, it does is, you know, gets that in there and it's, it's 15 seconds long. I, I hope that happens. It's a pretty good class we're talking about overall, too. I mean, those are, there's a, it's a deep one. It's a diverse one. There's some, there's some builders. There's, they're finally starting to get the, the women's log jam taken care of, because that was on the verge of being a major, major, major problem moving forward. So you got you got Decker and so because you're going in there as a builder. That's important. They needed to get that resolved and I think this was

one step in the right direction there. So yeah. It's always nice to have a class where I don't think certainly on the player side. Builders are always a little, always a little weird, but there's nobody this year that anyone's doing the whole like should they be in, should they not? Like these

there may be some people who had some other player where they're like, oh, no, my, my guy should have got in instead of McGilney or, you know, maybe Keith or that. But these, these are all Hall of Famers and there's, there's no dispute around it. That's, that's cool. You can watch the speeches. We can enjoy Alexander McGilney's five second videos sent from, filmed vertically and sent from his phone. That's right. Yep. Have a nice little weekend. But what's up with you this week? I know you got the Hall of Fame post. Fame and... It went up today on Wednesday. There's some other stuff.

Later on this week that I may or may not have been involved with. The return of rules court. It's back. And it's tough. You were being kind of a... Kind of a stickler. I said no. I said no to a lot of stuff.

You were dropping nose everywhere. You were like in angry parent mode. You were Frankie driving past the McDonald's drive-thru with the twins in the back. Just absolutely not. So, I don't know why. It wasn't absolutely not, though. We're not going to ruin it. I was close.

I was close on some stuff. I thought all the suggestions were, or honestly, really, it was a good badge. It was pretty, pretty creative. I'm amazed. This is the 10th one that we've done.

That's incredible. I thought maybe at the beginning we'd get to like three. That felt like there were 20 rules that need changing. No, you guys are still still cooking. We're up to, you know, 70 plus of these, I think. So keep them coming. There's one in particular that I could have sworn we did already.

And I think you know which one it was. I was like, there's no way we haven't tackled this one. There are some. And the other thing that I find so, so interesting, as the guy who goes through the batch, right? Like you guys only see the ones I pick out. But I get to see which ones come up again and again and again. And it's very strange to me, which ones are like, I'm just like, what happened that's, Suddenly everybody feels really strongly that a penalty shot should also give you a power play.

Like what happened? What game did I miss? That's the one I thought we talked about that one already. We've had some variations on it, but it's pretty good. And as far as I can tell, nobody had anything about goalies being allowed to cheat. So we'll see. Maybe that'll be next time. We'll see. Five games a night. Nothing great.

I think Mammoth Leaves is probably the most entertaining of that. a bunch. Blues caps. Keep an iron the caps. They're not playing particularly well right now. Blue Jackets, Calgary. That's a dud. Chicago, Vancouver. Is it a dud? San Jose, Seattle. Kind of a dud. I don't know. Go do something else to man, I guess. I know what I'll be doing. Thank you, folks. Thank you, Sean. Thank you, Frankie. Thanks everybody for listening. Three of us are back next Wednesday. I am back tomorrow with Max and Dom. A little bit of a look for us. Haley's doing rivalry series in Cleveland between the U.S. and Canadian women's national team. So be on the lookout for that. Enjoy the rest of your day. Don't watch

these games tonight, like I said. Talk to you real soon.