The Athletic Hockey Show - Are the New York Rangers underrated?

Episode Date: March 27, 2024

Sean and Sean present what they learned this past week in the NHL with Gentille asking if the New York Rangers, the NHL's point leader are underrated, and DGB declares the playoff race in the west is over and that the Nashville Predators should be taken seriously.Plus the guys wonder when the last time an offside challenge was lost, if the Columbus Blue Jackets are indeed one of the most hapless franchises in sports and if Johnny Gaudreau's contract is a bad one. They stick-tap Josh Doan who scored twice in his NHL debut for his hometown Arizona Coyotes and rejoice with the news that the missing Jaromir Jagr bobbleheads have been located!Subscribe to The Athletic: http://theathletic.com/hockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Hockey Show. Welcome, welcome, welcome. This is the Wednesday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. Sean, I like that Frankie has already transitioned and just calling you DGB and me SG. I think that's very helpful. We didn't tell him to do that. No, but he had that natural hockey player instinct to just go right to nicknames. I was hoping it would be Shawnee and Seaner would be the,

the names he would go with and we wouldn't we'd spend the entire run of this show not knowing who was who I still need some hockey player to really lean to calling me like gents or something that hasn't that hasn't happened yet someday someday though yeah

I don't gotta get there man you gotta earn it gotta earn it through hard work and having a dad with a bunch of money don't start no not doing that I'm Sean Gentile.

We're here to talk hockey today in one way or another. Hope everybody's doing well. What have we learned, Sean? I learned that the Western Conference Plath race is over. We don't have to pretend anymore that we don't, that there's any sort of suspense. We know the eight teams. We do not know who's going to be where. But that also really doesn't matter.

That's kind of what history is showing us. So yeah, apologies to the St. Louis Blues, who I think would be the last team that would still maybe try to make a claim. But no, after last night's Predators Golden Knights three-point game, I think we're done. The Golden Knights are not missing the playoffs. As much as that would have been a fantastic story. funny. It's not going to happen. They are now six points up on the blues, equal number of games played.

I think the blues would have the tiebreaker if they were able to collide back, but they're not going to. And we can just move straight ahead into figuring out what the matchups are going to be. It's done. No playoff race in the West. It's wild that it took us until March 27th, to call this because, I mean, you said it, the last team to walk out the doors, the St. Louis Blues, who, like, by their own admission, you know, by Doug Armstrong's own set of moves,

haven't thought of themselves as a serious contender this year, right? Like, that, like, look at what Jeremy Rutherford's written about them all, like, like, over the course of the year. That's not a team. I think certainly in J.R.'s case, that's not a team to be taken all that seriously as a playoff contender and they somehow hung around long enough to my god to where we're we're only just calling it now which is which is wild than me i to to me though that the more interesting question out of the out of the the the way the the the field's shaking up now and the fact that we're still asking this after the trade deadline after Vegas pulled all that stuff and impressed to everybody and, you know, it seemed like vaulted back into the elite of the Western

conference is like, it's very fair to ask if you're Vancouver or whoever, whoever finishes at the top of the West, would you rather face Vegas or Nashville? And I sincerely don't know how I would answer that question right now, which is crazy. So this was my backup thing that I've learned because I don't. feel like I've learned this, but I am beginning to seriously consider that we have to talk about the Predators as legitimate cup contenders, not as a fun story, not as a playoff team. Like, this team could win. This team could, they've been so good lately.

They just have that, you know, that vibe. And look, I, I wrote about it on Monday. Like, momentum going into the playoffs typically doesn't really matter as much as we think when you're looking at, like, the last 10 or 15 games. But, I mean, if they go win, like, on half a season heater, it's not going to be, it's not going to be 10 or 15 games. Like, also, like on the season. I know everyone likes to joke about the U2 thing, right? That was, when was that now? February, like early February?

Like, early February. Yeah, that was the all-star break, right? Like, everyone loves a joke about that. And that's all well and good because it did, it does seem like some kind of switch went off at that point. And a lot of this is buoyed by, by where, by how good they've been in that,

in that six weeks. But on the season now, this is a team that at five on five is top 10, an expected goals percentage. They're sixth. And they're 11th in actual goals percentage. They had, they're hotter than hell right now.

and they have an elite goaltender, right? So you have a team that by the end of this season is going to be a almost certainly going to be a top 10 team at five on five with a goalie who's playing like the dude who has been a Vezna finalist, you know, in the past, right? That is terrifying. I have a thing that I like to do at the end of the season or as the season is winding down where I try to predict the predictions. Because we all have to do, like, at the end of the, as soon as the season ends,

we're going to get 20 emails from different places saying, fill out your playoff predictions. Every, everyone's going to post a bracket. Everybody's going to, you know, you get, go on the radio. They want to know who's going to win every series. And the thing is, and I don't think I'm telling any great secrets here. When we do that, we're not actually telling you who we think is going to win. because most of us just think all the favorites are going to win. That's why they're favorites.

What we're doing is we're kind of like trying to pick a few underdogs. We want to make sure our bracket doesn't look the same as everyone else's. And then we're thinking if somebody does pull off an upset, what am I going to get the most credit for versus what am I not going to look dumb if it doesn't happen? All of which is to say, I will tell you right now, if Nashville plays Vancouver in round one, I predict that the predictions you're going to see a ton of Nashville picks. And Vancouver fans are going to be furious.

It might not be 50-50, but it's going to be close. I think it might even be more than 50-50 because it's just going to be such an attract. And again, like, you Canucks fans out there going, you know, we've been first place all year. How are you going to, like, don't take it too personal. It's just that you can't, you cannot legally as a sports writer say that you just think all the home teams are going to win. You lose your BWHA card immediately. It's, you're gone.

So you've got to pick a few upsets and you can't just pick like, you know, some, you know, I think Winnipeg's going to be. Right. It can't, exactly.

It can't just be, you know, got to pick at least one wildcard team. And I'm just looking at that matchup. And I think, yeah, you're going to see some people are going to go Tampa. Tampa's going to be another one that's going to be attractive.

Absolutely nobody's going to Philadelphia. they're getting picked by zero. Zero. Zero. Yeah. Nobody is picking Washington to be Carolina. That's not going to happen at all. So, I mean, you're kind of running out of, out of, out of, and I feel like people won't feel like picking Vegas as a wild card upset will necessarily be all that impressive.

Although if they're playing like a Colorado or somebody, then maybe it is. people are going to pick Nashville to be Vancouver and Canucks fans will be chill about it because there's such a cool bunch of people. They're chill in both directions too. They're very realistic about whether their team, like definitely not a group that either thinks their team is much worse than it is or much better than it is

in any given time. We also like maybe need to start talking about Roman Yosey is a guy who's going to swoop in and get Norris votes. I don't think, I don't think it's impossible. Really doubling. down on ticking off Canucks fans here. I don't think he's going to win it. But my man is at a point per game again.

And he's doing the thing that he did a couple years ago where it's like he's not, he's not going to chase 100 points. But, you know, we've seen this level up towards the end of the season where, you know, he ends up just piling up points. And it's getting like he's going to make an argument for himself. Like I think that that award is that that, that, that award. is Luke Hughes or Quinn Hughes, good God, Freudian slip. It's Quinn Hughes, he's going to win it, like, no problem.

But I'm not willing to discount the fact that Yosie swoops in and steal some votes. This is a fun part of the year. This is the part of the year where you start seeing fan bases and media, start doing the thing where it's like, all right, this guy shouldn't win the award. It needs to be in the conversation. And it's always, it's like, so you say what, like I should put him fourth on my ballot. Like, why are you mad about this? You know, they're like, I'm not saying that this guy should beat out whoever the presumptive favorite is, but he needs to be in the conversation.

Like, okay. That is so up. And this is shorthand for like, man, I'd really like to vote for player X, but I can't because I'm going to get you out about it. Right. Yeah. And that, that brings me to what I learned this week. Okay. Which is, okay, so I'll preface it by saying that I went on Vancouver Radio yesterday with our buddy

Tom Dranson and Jamie Dodd. And we were just kind of going over the best shots to win the president's trophy because there's whatever 14 teams that are still to get it or what have you. And I picked the Rangers. And I felt like it was a subversive pick for a second, which is crazy because they're within a point of first place in the league at the time. And then, of course, last night they win, clinch a playoff spot, move into first place overall.

Like, we, we should have been, if people weren't taking that team seriously as a president's trophy, you know, threat, you know, for the, for the duration of the season, they certainly should be now. That's a, that's a really, really good hockey team. And furthermore, as it relates to our last,

to our last point in the discussion, I'm not saying Artemim Panarin should win the Hart Trophy, but he should show up on some ballots. On some ballots, right. So he's going to be, so he's now, I think, getting pencil in his fifth on the ballot because we've all got like the, I think that's reasonable. McKinnon McDavid is one, two. Kutra is probably three. I feel like Matthews has now dropped down to four, although if he gets to 70, maybe he bumps back into the top three.

That would mean he scores 11 goals. in the next, you know, nine games or whatever. Yeah. Could happen. You never know. But, yeah. So, and so now Panera, so again, once, hey, another year, sorry to the goalies and the defensemen, you are once again not valuable in a league where we all say that you're the

most valuable players, but not on the MVP. Yeah. But, me, look, Artemmy Panarin's been really, really good. Mm-hmm. He's going to finish like 25 points out of the scoring race. So I don't really see. him getting a lot of top three placements. But this feels so weird to say,

are we sleeping on the Rangers? Like, are the New York Rangers, the big marquee team that the league cannot stop promoting and, you know, and pumping the tires of? Are they somehow actually underrated?

I mean, you talk about, where's Peter Lavillette in the, in the Jack Adams conversation, right? I mean, a first year coach comes in, team is going to potentially

finish first overall? The Jack Adams races, the Jack Adams races is going to be fun. I wish that was something more people voted on and not just the broadcasters because I think there's some,

I think there's some interesting interesting choices going on there. I feel like Torterillic kind of. Still talk it. I think he still talk. Took a step back with the Caturier thing. I don't, whether it worked or not,

although if they get in the playoffs. But yeah, I mean, I think Andrew, I think Andrew Burnett's going to get some votes. He'll be on some balance. You should? Chris Knoblock?

Talk it. Talk it to me. And I was shocked about this. When we did our preseason predictions at the athletic, we and everybody on staff picks every award and all that. I'm pretty sure I was the only person to pick Rick Tocket, which shocked me at the time. Because all the variables seem.

like they were there, right? You have a team with a really good goaltender, which is huge. More often than not, the Jack Adams turns into like, I'm the guy who's coaching a team with a guy, with, with, with a goal who went on a heater for better or worse, get high in talent. Tuckett has a record, has a track record of working well with high in talent. He had that kind of, he had that introductory introduction introductory period last year. We could get familiar with those dudes and figure out maybe what makes them tick. and Rick Tuckett is an ex-broadcaster who is well-liked across the league by, you know, by media folks and whatever else. So it seemed like everything was lining up at the top of the beginning of the season for that to work out for him.

And I don't think, I don't think anything else, you know, has changed my view there. But yeah, back to back to the Rangers, man. So much of, I think, our thoughts on them hinge on what we've seen from them over the, last couple years, which is understandable, right? Like they're, they've got a lethal power play. You know, at times they've had super high-end goaltending from Shasturk. And I think we kind of internalize the idea that this is a team that come playoffs when five-on-five play is even more important than it is in the regular season,

just doesn't quite have the juice necessary to get them to a cup final or get them to a, get them to a cup, right? And I think that's something that we've kind of carried with us over the course of this season. Mike, is that true? Is it not? You know, whatever. They added some forwards to help there. I think Winberg helps them. I think that Jack Rosovic has given them good minutes too. But so much of what they do and so much of what has made them good this season hinges on Artemuponaran being, we'll say, like a top five, top seven MVP candidate. And a big part of the narrative surrounding him, rightfully so, coming into this season was like, is this guy just a playmate?

or no? Is he just a set up man on the wing who you know who stacks up primary assists and power play points and whatever else? Like, if that's all you do, great. But you got to show a little bit more to really elevate yourself into that

next year. And I think he's shown that he's back where he was a couple years ago and a lot of it starts with just shooting the puck more. Like he's already he's already outshot himself from last season by almost 50. right like that dude has made a concerted effort to put the puck on the net more and it's and it's worked out is it is it a hundred points already so yeah i love i love where the rangers are it's it's a cowards pick to sit here and say that the team that is in first place in the league on march 27th is the is the president's trophy favorite but it hasn't felt that way right

it hasn't felt that way over the last couple weeks and that's that's strange because they they belong in the conversation and if the season ended today which obviously it does not but they would be playing a Washington or a Philadelphia. That's the other thing, man. In the first round. I mean, nice work if you can get. The path is there.

The path is there. The goalie is there. I mean, is this? And we saw last year, last year was yet another demonstration that the playoffs are about who gets hot and goal. And you really can't predict it.

Sergei Bavrovsky went into the playoffs as arguably the worst and or like the goalie you had the least confidence in of anyone. He goes, of course, goes absolutely nuts for two months. And Aiden Hill wasn't even a guy that was on that was starting for the Golden Knights. It was a guy that a lot of hockey fans probably never even heard of until they got a little deeper into the playoffs and we know how that turns out. So to sit here and say, well, Nashville's got UC Saros, New York, Scott Shasturkin, you know,

those are the teams that are. But you would rather have those guys. And yeah, it could be Joseph Wohl who goes nuts for two months and steals the playoffs. But I'd rather have a Shasturkin than having to roll the dice and hope that somebody who's never really done it before or hasn't done it in years and years. I'll take a guy who's got the track record. And it's not that hard to envision. We get six weeks out and the Rangers are in the conference final and we're all going, how did we not see this coming?

Why are we acting surprise now? They got all the pieces. You know why? They're stupid. That's why. That's right. Yeah. Simple question, simple answer.

That's fair. We're going to take them. I don't have a, I don't have a, speaking of stupid, did you see, just to double back on the, on the Western conference, did you see the offside? challenge last night in the Vegas, Nashville. I missed it because Western Conference games, as we all know, they start way too late for Eastern for Eastern Conference Media folks. So I was, I'd been a sleep for hours.

When I say, did you see it? I mean, did you go on YouTube this morning? No, I don't. The West doesn't really exist. I don't pay attention to anything that goes on. Totally. I don't catch up or anything. To set the stage for people who maybe miss that game.

So it goes, it's Nashville and Vegas. big game, obviously Nashville's coming in with a point streak. A Vegas goes up 3-0 right away. I think they're up 4-1 heading into the third period. Nashville gets a goal. It's 4-2. Then Nashville scores again to make it 4-3, something like 7 minutes left, and the Golden Knights challenge run offside.

And they don't win the challenge, which means it's a, power play for Nashville and Nashville then scores the goal that ties it up, goes on to win it in overtime. Now, Vegas still gets a point. So, you know, it's probably not a, especially since I've declared the playoff race over, not the end of the world. But I found it very interesting for a couple of reasons. You almost never see any more teams lose an offside challenge.

It's, they're so specialized and they've got like such, every team now has this system of, you Frankie talked about it a little bit, I think last week where they're watching these plays and they're seeing everything as it happens and they let the coach know, this is offside. And it's almost become like a sure thing now that when you see an offside challenge, it's coming back. Goalie interference, different deal, much more subjective plays. So you never quite know. So to see a team lose and then obviously the fact that they then can't kill off the penalty. it looks bad on the whole coaching staff. And my actual view on it initially was, boy, someone's getting fired in Vegas.

This is a disaster to tell a coach, go challenge this. And then it ends up costing you, you know, really two goals. Then I went back and I looked at the play. And I got to be honest, kind of did look offside to me. You know, people can go to. And it's offside in that stupid way. way that we shouldn't be looking at it all where it's like a fraction of an inch and it's down to like was the back of the skate really touching the line it's it's completely ridiculous we

review this stuff to start with yeah we do and the fact that we we do these reviews i'm kind of looking at that one going oh i actually thought maybe that was going to come back so interesting call to me into all all around that they that they went for the challenge that it was ruled that way. I people know I hate offside reviews. I would be very happy if we, if we, if we scrapped them entirely,

I'd be happy if we only ever overturned the Matt Duchayne plays. But the fact that we do it, the way we do it, I kind of thought that one was coming back last night. I mean, I actually, I did watch it.

I didn't see it live. Ha-ha, got you. East Coast people do it to watch West Coast games. Seems like. seemed like that was a joke. I kind of love that it got overturned. That was, or that,

that, that, that, that, uh, challenge was denied. Because I, we've,

we've, we've talked about this. Like, as I get older, as I get older, and I can't believe that this is where I landed on instant replay, just generally in sports,

because 10 years ago, I was like, I was a get it right at all cost guy, right? Like, if it takes forever, who cares, I'm not anymore.

Not even close. Yes. Right. So to see it kind of backfire and to see it be like a borderline call that, you know, maybe common sense wins out a little bit. I was psyched. Yeah. And this is the thing, right?

Because I know I'll get people saying like, wait a second, you hate replay, but now you're complaining about that. It's just, it's just the way they call it. And it's so weird because when you look in the rule book, the rule book is pretty clear. on all reviews, Offside and the other ones,

it says if it's not, and I'm not quoting directly here, but it basically says if it's not, if you're not absolutely sure the call on the ice stands, it has to be conclusive, it has to be no question, but that's not the way that they do.

That's the part of the rule that is like, that's the way the rule is written and it is abused in these, in these reviews where people just, you know, you're splitting hairs and you're still, guessing because sometimes, yeah, there isn't that level of certainty. I'd be okay with having review if the league said, look, guys, we are trying to catch the

obvious misses. If it's not a, if we got to sit there and freeze frame and all that, it's, we're sticking with the call on the ice. If it's Matthew Shane being offside by 10 feet, which is the play everybody used, this is why we have to have replay. And then guess what? It has never happened again. We haven't had a single other play like that in 10 years.

whatever. Instead, we get all of these little nonsense freeze-framy things. It's a terrible system now. But if I'm a Vegas fan, I'm going, yeah, it's been a terrible system for years and years and years and years. It should have been terrible in our favor last night the way that it's terrible and every other team gets it. Time limit. That's the, that's the solution. That's where I've landed on it. Like start a clock 30 seconds or whatever. It doesn't need to be five. You know what my solution? Because there are, there's the 32nd clock, I know a lot of people say real time reviews. You watch it again in real time.

If you can't tell in real time, then, you know, we don't need to see it. You know what mine has been? I want to see a goal gets scored. You've got the referee who's in the offensive zone who's signaling the goal, watching all of that. I want the trailing referee. As soon as you see that red light comes on, he holds up five fingers. to the bench that just got scored on. And it's five, four, three, two, one challenge or no challenge.

So if you saw it in real time, go ahead and challenge. Or if your players are telling you, yeah, you should go ahead and challenge. But we're not going to stand around for five minutes while you listen in your earpiece for the guy in the dressing room who's watching it 18 times in slow motion. And, you know, you and your coaches are all sitting there staring at the iPad. had, you know, it's, we're not doing that. You got five seconds, coach, you're so smart. Did you see it in real time?

Because you're challenging us for Nazi. Five seconds. That's what you get. Where's Mendez? We need to bring him in for a special audio edition of Rules Court here because that's what we can get him in here on that. Yeah. He's got some, he's got some weird rules of his own these days.

So I don't know. Five seconds. That's it, man. Yes or no, coach. What's it going to be? The five second rule. It's applicable to. so many different areas of life.

Exactly. Yeah. Time for a break. Dude, if your team gets scored on and you're so upset that you drop some food on the floor, it's going to be nice and easy for you, man. By the time, that replay review is starting, you can get that food, get back up in your mouth. It's fine. You're good.

Buddy, if I had a dollar, let me tell you. Drop in food while freaking out over offset calls during hockey game. If I had a dollar, I'd have $11. But we've spent a lot of time on this show in its early days here talking about teams that are good. And now it's time to talk about teams that are that are garbage. It brings us to the Columbus Blue Jackets. Yeah, they stink. I mean, how can you not read that Aaron Portsline story yesterday and not think that this is just a hapless organization that historically, you know, really, really can't get out of its own way?

That's the word. They're hapless. They're not even, you know, there's harsher words you could use, but it doesn't feel like even that applies. Like it's, it's, I feel bad for Columbus fans more than anything. 100%. They are a hapless or they have got, you know, picture the amount of hap that you would need to have.

If much less, much less than that. Far less. Because like, what's, you would typically want to see. The worst part about the Blue Jackets and the thing that makes me feel bad for that fan base more than anything is that the organization doesn't feel relevant. Like it's not just that they're bad. It's that they're not even. And it's not that they're an afterthought. It's that they're rarely any kind of thought at all.

And it seemed like with the Godreau stuff that maybe they were making a play to, you know, certainly making a point about whether elite players want to play in Columbus, which was been a sticking point. there for generations, it feels like it's all well and good. But man, now we're, they don't have a full-time GM and, you know, there's, it's just, it's, it's the latest kind of chapter in a, in the history of an organization that just hasn't been able to keep the train on the tracks for any kind of meaningful amount of time. So, so our buddy, Aaron Portsline had the, the big piece this week where he, he just kind of dives into the entire history of this franchise.

20 plus years now where, because I mean, it's one thing to be bad now. The sharks are bad now. The sharks are worse than the blue jackets. The Blackhawks are kind of intentionally bad. But the blue jackets have really never had

any sort of moment other than the 2019 upset over the lightning. Mm-hmm. Which was a very cool moment and was a very fascinating organizational decision as far as what they did at the deadline that year with Panarin and Boerovsky and those guys. But they won a round and it is easily, easily the most successful season in the history of the franchise in 20 plus years, which is almost, that would feel almost impossible to do on purpose in the NHL, where even the, badly run teams, even teams that just never catch a break. I mean, at some point, you get a couple of, a couple of good seasons back to back. You win a couple of rounds.

This franchise is just never there. And Aaron's got a ton of stories about behind the scene stuff, about the different coaches. They've actually been remarkably stable at the top. I think three GMs in the history of the franchise, which is amazing. for a team to won one round. Yeah. When you have brain power like that at the top of the organization, you really got to find a way to get it to stick around. Yeah.

11 years of Yarmal. That was, that kind of stopped me in my tracks when he wrote that. So, I mean, I highly recommend the piece to people. He's got some great lines in there. the major league franchise that parody forgot in in this nchel how are you this bad ever and and they've made their efforts i mean sometimes in sports you say how are they this bad and it's almost always uh ownership uh they're cheap they're not trying to win they're you know all sorts of things the blue jackets have put the effort out there up to and including this year hiring mike babcock

which, putting aside all the many reasons you could say that was not a good idea, that is a move you make when you're trying to win. You know, that is, and yet we saw how that went. And didn't that just feel like such a Blue Jackets type of story? That, yeah, of course they wouldn't even get to training camp with their big fancy coaching hire. What a mess. It's embarrassing stuff like that, you know, that maybe is, or the headline. items, but then it just, to me, it all goes back around, failed, just failed draft picks

in one way or another, just up, up and down the line. Like, you can, every team's got embarrassing stuff on the, on their resume, maybe not to the degree of hiring Babcock, and then immediately having a cannon because he acts like a psycho, you know, within a few weeks of taking the job. Joebert Broulet comes up in the 40 piece That's a miss You can start there Andze Copatar Apparently

And the GM The GM went with his gut And drafted Gilber Broulet And I haven't checked the stats lately But I feel like Copatars ahead He you know what it was recent That he pulled ahead In the career points list

But he's created at least a little bit of separation There was a boy, a decade there where that was a fun debate to have the Gilbert Rouletes versus Copatara. But and yeah, and a bunch of other other ones like that. Nikita Filotov, 6th in 2008. That is a guy who has talked about so much in the, in that iteration of the hockey internet, Nikita Filatov, all to get 53 total games and six goals out of him. And arguably the greatest quote of a generation, which is in this piece, which is Philly don't do rebounds. The best. I mean, put that guy on my team.

How is that not on the dressing room wall in Columbus? Like, you know, forget the we pass the torch nonsense. Philly doesn't do rebounds, but you know who does? Zach Hyman, my friend. And that brings us to the rest of our segment. Zach Eamondack. No. We're doing it.

I don't know. This is also kind of like an impressively timed piece for you, right, where you do your, is this a bad contract or not? Yeah. And this will shock you, but it's listeners, but it seems like there's a blue jacket potentially on the list. There is. So this is salary cap court. This is where I take five contracts and I just ask, is this a bad contract. I'm not saying it is, but it's contracts that are in that discussion.

And this week's edition, I've got one that I didn't necessarily think was going to be here when it was signed. But Johnny Goodrow, in year two of the deal, obviously he signs, I would say probably the most shocking UFA deal that we've ever seen just in the fact that Columbus had not really been mentioned as a destination. Kind of comes out of nowhere. We all figured it was going to be New Jersey or Philly. he goes to Columbus a couple of years ago, two years in, certainly hasn't worked from a team success perspective. I know I've had some Blue Jacket fans already telling me like, hey, look, Johnny's playing fine. He's not the issue. But I'll ask you, five years left, $9.75 million cap hit.

Is this a bad contract? That was always going to be the issue for Johnny Godreau's contract in Columbus, is that they didn't have the juice around him to make it stand. up, right? Like, that is a win now player on a win now big money contract on a roster that especially at the time, they did do, and I know I, we, we ripped Yarmo a little bit, or at least indirectly earlier. I think I was, I was more talking about, about, what's his face, Scott, I said Scott Housen. Scott Housen, yeah. The Scott Housen who came before Yon-O, he was the one who really, you know, fudge the situation

up. But Yarmos mistake was failing to execute on the U-turn that he had to do once we found out that Johnny Godreau was interested or about the sign in Columbus, right? Because they were wisely in full-on tear-down rebuild mode. And then they had to kind of do the about phase and start to try to build a playoff caliber team around Johnny Godro, which is a problem for a handful of reasons. not the least of which being that they didn't have any have any win now pieces. So then you saw, you know, whatever. The stuff like the Ivan Proverov deal is a good example of like the kind of moves you see when someone has to change on the fly from we're building through draft picks and we're doing

all this stuff to like, actually, wait a second. We have an in his prime star that just signed for a gazillion dollars. We should probably try to make the best of it. Right. So that to me is like the latest. biggest problem for the franchise. And that's the argument, right? It's the wrong deal at the wrong time with the wrong team.

Because as I point out in the piece, Johnny Grigreau went into that offseason as the undisputed number one UFA, one of the biggest stars to hit UFA. Remember, he was coming off a hundred and fifteen point season. And as I point out, he was, he was unbelievable that year for Calgary with with Kachuk and Lendon. As I point out in the piece, two years earlier, Artemi Panarin, who at the time had never had more than like 85 points, gets 11.8 million, something like that. John Tavares, who had never had more than like 85 points,

got 11 points something to go sign with his hometown team. So Johnny Goodrow, you could argue with that, at the time, I think a lot of us looked at it and when I'm surprised this number starts with a 9 and not with a 10 or an 11 or maybe even more, even given that it was a flat cap and all that stuff. So it's not that the contract itself was this terrible thing. A lot of people would say wrong team to sign it. Here's my thing, though.

If you're the Columbus Blue Jackets, we just finished saying 20 years of nothing. Can you possibly hang up the phone when you get a call? No. Because it sounds like Johnny Goodro called them and said, I'm interested. Here's what the number would look like. could this work.

How do you possibly walk away from that? Knowing, you know, your fan base is so star for star power. And knowing that everyone's always making their jokes, say nobody wants to play in Columbus. You got to pay the Blue Jacket Task tax. You know, Seth Jones wanted out. Zach Wrenski got so much money to stay. And now here is the biggest UFA says,

I want to sign up for what you're doing in Columbus. At like market, at market rate. too. Like there is no blue jackets tax. There's no like we're going to give you an extra million a year to make you stay like like maybe they like they tried to do with with other guys and couldn't and couldn't pull. The issue like my issue with a contract even at the time, it was never like in in theory that's a like you got you got to do it. As a on principle you make that deal a hundred times out of a hundred. The issue came afterwards where it's like, okay, we are now in a different phase of our organization. We have to think about things differently.

We have to move in different ways and go about our business, you know, almost truly in a 180 degree, you know, split. And that's what killed Yarmot. Because ultimately, look, I did the center tiers a week or a week or two ago, or I talked to some people around the league about like where, you know, number one centers stack up, like relative to relative to their peers. everybody loves Boone Jenner. I love Boone Jenner. Scouts love the hell out of Boone Jenner. And even like, you know, that dude has a place in the league. He's got a place on a good team. And it's on the third line.

So you had Johnny Cottro to a team where he's going from having Matthew Kichuk and Alliance Lindelm to line as line mates to Boone, Jenner and, you know, like, whatever, whatever the mix is there, it wasn't going to work. They had to do more. And the end result is like, especially last year, that's a team that was, you know, stuck to that was trying to win games and couldn't. And that is, that is the most remarkable thing about the Columbus Blue Jacket, honestly. And we, because we so rarely see this from any NHL team is that they were actually trying to be good and failed at it.

And to me, that is like, miserably failed in it. And now they're, whatever, there is, they're maybe not, they're not San Jose. and they're probably not Chicago, but they're close enough. It's wild. And Portsy also pointed out, have had arguably the worst draft lottery luck in the entire league. That's it, man. I know Detroit fans might argue,

but they just don't have any of it. So I will say this if you're a Blue Jackets fan and you're mad that I'm talking about Johnny Goodrow, check out the piece today because we also make fun of Pierloot Dubai in there. So that'll make you feel better. That's where Blue Jackets fans. You know what, that's fine. If the only way they can derive true joy is by laughing at Pierre Luc Dubois,

putting up crappy third line numbers on the LA Kings. So be a. Spite is a valuable, don't let anyone ever tell you that spite shouldn't drive most of your fan existence in sports. I don't think I would be where I am without spite. Thank you to spite. Also, what a huge day for 40, too. Like, most folks published that story yesterday. That's the highlight of their day.

Not the case for Aaron Portsline, who announced yesterday that he's going to receive a kidney from a living donor. He'd been on the list for a while. He went public with, you know, with the issue earlier this year, I guess it was last year now. Constantly talking about the need for people to get on a living donor list, which is, which is completely true. And he got some, you got some really good news yesterday. So the phone call. Cheers. Cheers to a good dude.

Yeah. Hell you have, porty. Last night, DGB, we saw a big goal scored by a player whose father has given him plenty of advantages. Come on. Stop it. Shane Donne. Josh Dohn. Excuse me.

New goals in his first game for the Arizona Coyotes. That's pretty cool to see. It also spurred a pretty sweet text message from Redeem Verbara to our. to our money, Craig Morgan, busting Shane Don't, referencing Shane Don's like complete inability to put together a hat trick in his 5,000 game, NHL career. I like that. 5,000 game career.

Shane's boy came pretty close last night. That was, that was, I'm a total soccer for stuff like that, right? Dude, I normally am like the, you know, I think anyone who's, who's followed me over the years knows that my, my heart is gray and cold. and brittle, but I would watch a channel that was just parents reacting to seeing their kids score NHL goals. I can't get enough. I can't get enough.

Even to this day, keep showing me Austin Matthews' parents reacting. I love it. And certainly if it's somebody making a debut and they either score a goal or get in a fight, either one. As good as it gets. Love it. Really good one. Really good on from the genre that's kind of fresh on my mind because it made the,

it made the rounds around the trade deadline. Jake Gensel. If you like watching families freak out after after first, after first career goals when Jake Gensel scored his first goal for Pittsburgh, whenever that was in 20 and 2016, they show his parents and his brother in the stands. And the brother is the star of the show. He looks like he's going to,

he looks like he's going to spontaneously combust. It's better than Brady Kachuk cheering on Matthew in the playoffs. That's another thing. Like I know that. I know that's one of those stories that reached, Like, maybe not critical mass, but it was on some levels it was done to death. Like I think people are getting sick of it, but you know what? Not me.

Yeah. Give me all of it, man. I love that stuff. Yeah. I'm all. So yeah, that was very cool for the Don't family and, and coyotes fans. And on down the line. Nothing but thumbs up on that story.

We got a new fake stat this week. faked with me? Yes. No. You faked it. I faked. What about the breathing, the panting, the moaning, the screaming? Fake, fake, fake, fake. This actually might be pushing the boundaries of fake stat because this one's, this one's intriguing.

Austin Matthews has hit 16 post this season as one off the record held by Steve Stamco's in 2010, 2011. So let's get a ruling, DGB. Is this real or is a fake? So our producer Jeff sent this to us. And I replied like, is it real? Is it real? And it sounds, I realized now it sounded aggressive.

I didn't want it to, but it did, it did sound a little, like I was getting maybe a little cranky. But no, it was, I've never heard this stat before. I've never heard of that we're keeping track of individual posts hit. Is there a difference between a stat in like a bit of trivia? Because I feel like that might be what this is. This feels like trivia more than more than that. It's framed as a stat. Yeah, I don't know.

It's, uh, uh, yeah, I'm going to, I'm going to go ahead and say fake step. You got to ask the question. Because there's no way that we have this numbered like historically. Like this is definitely one of those things. It only goes back a few years. No. Bernie Jeffrion hit. Yeah.

21 posts. And is it? You got to ask the question, though, are posts anti-Mapoleef? Like, is there an anti-Trono biased among my goal post? That's absolutely a fair question. And I think clearly the answer is yes. Um, where does, uh, So does George,

does George Perros have a role in you might in placing that? You never know, but yep. Just asking questions. That's all we're doing here. Also, the other,

the first fake stat, though I mentioned a few weeks ago, is, is ongoing. Nathan McKinnon's home point streak is 35 games. So he does have a chance. We are rapidly approaching

real stat territory here, I think. If he finishes a full season, scoring in every, every game in Denver, I'm willing to see that this is, that this one's legit. That's exactly where I'm at.

Fake stat, real accomplishment. But it's got to be the whole season. I like that. I like that. Fakes, fake stat real accomplishment. And if he makes it 39 games or 40, guess what? We're never talking about it again. We'll talk about how the stat gets, how it gets snapped.

That would be, but yeah, this is going to be, I will be posting like Undertaker Russellmania memes on Twitter as soon as this stat gets. Get sent it. We also have a rare bit of good news here in the back end of the podcast. These stolen bottleheads have been recovered. Pittsburgh gets its yogurt bottleheads. This is a very funny bit of news. I don't even know if this is public,

but Rossi emailed this to me last night. The Penguins never had any direct communication with the extortionists who stole 15,000 Yarmie yogurt bobbleheads, which is great. The implication there is that there were extortionists. Yeah. Is that like somebody, right? They didn't just find this in a warehouse somewhere.

Like somebody like had to contact and be like, we have the bobbleheads. Was this a targeted attack? Like, because either way, it's funny. It's either somebody thought that they were getting whatever, an actual item of value and open it up and saw a bunch of bobbleheads. It's very funny. Or they were actively seeking the bobbleheads and got what they were looking for. which might, that might be funnier.

Yeah, I don't know, man. That's, and the main thing here that's important is the fact that it played out this way tells us this was not all some dumb marketing campaign. Because I think all of us were worried about that when it happened. And everybody's making the jokes, but you're just like, oh, is this going to turn out to be like some whole thing? No, it was a real thing, which means we can now start making sudden death too about the, about the missing bobbleheads. I'm so excited that this played out this way. And they got them back.

And if they don't sell out that game, to get your hands on the stolen extorted, Garmoryager bobbleheads? Man. They're these the most valuable bobbleheads that have ever, like, in the, since this whole trend started. I mean, this has got to be right up there. In high school, I worked a summer at PNC Park,

where the Pirates play. I word for customer service and a big part of my job was showing up early during bobblehead giveaways when they would have them stacked up on pallets at the gates this is like 2002 or whatever and I would sit on a folding chair and just make sure that nobody stole them

that was it I would have to get there I would have to get yeah where were you for this one then I there's some experience bubblehead security guy if I know the way this works there's some disgruntled 16 year old who's wearing like khakis in

a in a in a in a in a terrible polo shirt that he's being that he's being forced to wear by his bosses that that was a sleep at the wheel because yeah they're there they're but for the grace of God God go I and he's being played by Jean-Claude Van Damme in the movie we should have we should collab

on that that sounds like a double byline the sudden death two oral history you and I you and I can write it and it can center around you know Kevin Acklin the president of the penguins not having direct conversations with the extortion definitely not.

I'm talking the FBI. Yeah. It's make it happen. Definitely did not go undercover down at the Doc Erd's and make that happen. Love it. All right. Good up. I think we're done here. Thank you guys for listening.

I check the comments this week. There are people who are having a good time. Come back. This show I do feel like is the spiritual successor to Tuesday boy show with me and Cussons. And we do want, we do want good comments.

We do want questions. We'll tap into that. We need you guys to do our job for us, as we've always said. A lot of Frankie love. You guys took the words out of my mouth. He is unfortunately, as you may have figured out,

he is not on this episode, but he'll be back next week. So the show will get better by, we'll say 66%. And on Thursday, that's tomorrow. Haley, Max, and Haley, it's actually just Haley and I, Max, on assignment.

And Frankie's back next week. So thank you folks for listening. Leave us a five-star rating and review if you're enjoying it. And we will catch you soon.