The Athletic Hockey Show - Are the Oilers capable of saving the McDavid era?

Episode Date: November 26, 2025

After another embarrassing home ice loss by the Oilers, Sean, Frank and Sean discuss Edmonton's disastrous start to the season, including brutal goaltending, awful defence and mediocre offence and if Connor McDavid will inevitably have to force the team to deal him to a contender after this season. The guys analyze the Canucks declaring that they are open to moving their veterans, which has to include team Captain Quinn Hughes even though they say it doesn't. Plus they try to dissect team USA General Manager Bill Guerin's comments on Cole Caufield and Jason Robertson and Sean and Sean ask if the US Thanksgiving playoff cutout is as cut and dry as we've been led to believe.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/VTm9VjkF Subscribe to The Athletic: https://theathletic.com/hockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Hockey Show. What up, what up? The Athletic Hockey Show. It is November 26. I am Sean Jintilly. I am joined by Frankie Carrado and Sean McIndoo. As always, fellas, it's a full slate tonight. We got 15 games on Thursday night, or on Wednesday night, rather.

That was not the case last night. We had won. It was the Edminton Oilers really showing us all what they're made of. fellas give up eight goals to the Dallas stars. Stu Skinner gets pulled after the first period. He allows four goals on eight shots. Let's start with that. Let's start with the first period there.

I'm as quick as anybody to blame Stu Skinner for everything that else that team. But I think if you watch the tape, if you watch the four goals that he allowed, it alludes to problems that extend beyond him for that team, doesn't it? That was way more than just Stuart Skinner. Way more. And do this, okay? If you go and watch all those goals back that go in for the Dallas stars, do what's called the knee bend test and ask yourself, the Edmonton Oilers that are surrounding the front of

the net as these goals are going in, are their knees bent? And chances are the answer is likely no in a lot of those situations. Why do I care about that? I don't know. It's just one of those like optics things where like if you're playing. playing and you're really working hard, like your knees are bent, you're kind of hunched over, you're into it and you're engaged. Watching some of those goals last night, it's like reach, stick check, standing still,

not really having a chance to hop on a puck or make a play on anything and it's past Stuart Skinner. And you're like, what the hell is going on around here? I'm watching Matthias Eckholm, you know, get a D-to-D pass, look up. And you're like, well, why is he fumbling the puck? puck. There's no one on him. Like, why, why isn't he just making the pass up the boards? And then I remember, oh, wait, I played that position. When you can't see your wingers and your centermen, because they're in Calgary and the games in Edmonton, it's an issue. And so you fumble the puck and you don't have

anywhere to go with it. And that's just a couple instances of that game. It was a complete mess for Edmonton, but it's been a mess more than it hasn't been for them this season. And that is really concerning. And maybe I'll just throw this question out there to you guys. Like, let's get into the game, but I'll throw this one out there. Like, was it was like J.D. brought up a great point in the group chat last night about star players having a bad team around them. Like, can you name another sport? Like, show A Otani has the Dodgers. Dodgers are a great team. Like Patrick Mahomes has had the chiefs for a long time. It's not, you know, it's not the chiefs of old this year. They're, they're in a battle.

But man, to have the best player and then probably the second or third best player in the world and be rolling that team out there right now with that goal tending, that's crazy. I can't, it was a great point by JD. I can't think of any other examples where that's the case. Yeah, I mean, we've seen it in the NHL. You know, you go back to the first five years of Mario Lemieux would be a pretty good example and we've seen some others, but it's not supposed to be like that these days. And so the question becomes, what do you do to fix it?

Because this is what Stan Bowman was brought in for. Stan Bowman was brought in to be the guy who gets a contender over the finish line. It was what he did in Chicago when Dale Tallon built that team. And then Stan Bowman came in and finished off the alley-oop, so to speak. And the pressure is all on him right now. And I know this is the NHL. I know there's a cap. I know it's hard to make trades and all of this stuff that,

we're constantly hearing. But, you know, at what point does this become a panic situation? Because I know the Oilers have gotten off slow starts before. And it always turns out okay. You know, we all sit around. We all go, oh, or the oil is broken. And then eventually they win 12 in a row. And we all kind of laugh at ourselves and that sort of thing.

But we're getting to Thanksgiving. This is the point where, you know, teams are supposed to be mostly locked in. And this team looks broken right now. And in the newsletter this week, I had Daniel Nugent Bowman, our Oilers beatwriter. And I basically did a little back and forth with him on the Oilers. And this went out Tuesday morning. So before last night's game. And I was a little bit surprised that the panic level wasn't higher coming from him.

Because I asked him, like, what's it like in Emmington right now? And the answer was not good, but not quite panic mode yet. should be getting there pretty soon because you know, it's one thing to miss the playoffs when you got good players and all of that,

but we know the clock is ticking on the Connor McDavid's situation. I know Oilers fans don't want to hear about that. They thought they got a two-year reprieve on it, but this team misses the playoffs. They miss the playoffs in year one of Connor McDavid's show me you can do this window. I have no idea what comes next.

Imagine the deal wasn't thought. Just go ahead and imagine Connor McDavid hadn't done that deal yet. You think Connor McDavid maybe isn't imagining if the deal weren't done right now? Boy. Think about that. Now, if the deal wasn't done, all we'd be saying is it's a huge distraction. And that's the reason why they're playing. That excuse is eliminated.

He eliminated that excuse. Absolutely. And this kind of brings me back to where we started with Skinner. Like, I think he, in some ways, has been some body armor for those guys. Like, you can all, it's easy to blame the goaltender. And in some cases, it's certainly correct. But, like, this is a bad five-on-five team in a way that we haven't seen from them in the recent past. They're 21st and expected goal percentage.

They're 24th in expected goals against. That's submediocre, right? And, of course, whenever you incorporate goaltending and all that, it sinks down a little bit further. This isn't to absolve, Stuart. Skinner of any of any degree of blame really but man I think the fact that he's been such a lightning rod over the last couple years in some respects especially early in seasons too like I think a combination of blame the goaltender and also okay they've been bad in October and November before has made it way too easy for easy for people not to panic but push the panic button when

it seems like they should right because like this is like what are they what are they good at? That's a that's a fair question about this team. You have Jack Roselvic is fourth on the team in points and they signed him accidentally 15 minutes before camp, 15 minutes before the pluck dropped, right? Like you look at, you look at their five on five numbers and they're abysmal. And I think, I think it's fair to ask like outside of having McDavid and having Leon Drysidal. It's not just what is this team good at. It's like, what are they, are they they've appreciably declined since last year. They're not getting better.

They're getting worse. And I think that should be terrifying for everybody that's involved. And it should be. And to be clear, when you say Stuart Skinner, this is not all on Stuart Skinner, when you say it's not all the goaltending, when you say the goaltending is,

is getting more blame than they deserve, it hasn't been as bad, etc. That shouldn't be reassuring to Oilers fans. That's bad. news because you look at, you know, this time a year ago, uh, Colorado was a good team with bad goaltending. What did they do? They went out and fixed the goaltending. You can do that. You can trade for one guy or two guys, uh, a lot easier than you can remake an entire system. So, you know, for other fans like, yeah, it's usually you like to defend the goalie because he's one of the

most important guys on the team. If you could show that he hasn't been as bad as everyone thinks, that's good news. It's not good news here. It would be much better news if you could say Stan Bowman, just go out and get a new goaltender and then everything else will be fine. It's not fine. And I guess that leads to a question that I have that I haven't really heard very much in terms of Chris Knoblock being on the hot seat potentially. I personally have not heard a ton of his name coming up, but isn't a lot of what we're describing. This is coaching. How do you not watch that first period last night and think like something needs to happen there too? Yeah, but have they not burned through enough coaches already?

So they're going to burn through knoblock, let's say. Jay Woodcroft. There was, who was there? There was Dave Tippett. There was Todd McClellan. There was Ken Hitchcock. Did I just name five coaches? Five.

Am I missing someone? Like that that's a lot of coaches in not that long of a period of time for. And listen, players have come and gone. There's a, you know, I guess no team is above a coaching change and the last coaching change did them well. But my God, like, this guy, he's just getting started, really. I would say that's an easy way out. Like, that's making him the scapegoat just like, you know, there have been times where Skinner has been the scapegoat, not rightfully so. But a couple things that stick out to me.

Like, no team has led in more goals this year in the NHL than the Edmonton Oil. And it's not by like one or two goals. It's by nine goals. Like they have led in nine more goals this year than the Vancouver Canucks who we are going to talk about shortly, who are awful. They're terrible. And Edmonton's led in more goals. And then if you look at goal differential, the only two teams with a worse goal differential than Edmonton is St. Louis and Nashville. And they're awful.

And you're like, Edmonton's supposed to be a Stanley Cup contender. and that's how porous they are. Like, and that, for me, that's not the goal. That's not just the goaltender. And they can't score either. They're 21st in goals at five on five. That's, that's kind of what I was. Well, what's their identity?

What would it say you do here? Their identity is they have two really good players, two of the best players in the world, and that's their identity. Now, think about how much this team has lost over the last couple seasons. Okay, if you go back to like, last summer. Losing a guy like Corey Perry, Connor Brown, I mean, those are the two big ones.

They lose Jeff Skinner, Victor Arvidson. I think you could throw an Arvidsen for one of those guys that is like an identity type player, right? Okay, so you lost, they lost a lot of their like backbone, if you want to call it that, to a certain degree, like guys that are just doing things that are different, that add identity to your team. And then you go back a couple summers before that and you lose your like youth kind of next wave of guys, whether it's McLeod or Fogel or Holloway or Broberg. And you're like, so in two years, you lost a lot of identity. And what did you replace that with? Well, a lot of guys that are just, I don't know, to use the old Bradtree Living vanilla,

like a lot of vanilla there. So it's weird to see the Oilers at where they're at, but they are way worse off than they have been in quite some time. But that was always the thing with the Oilers. Once you realized that you had two generational players, yes, you need more than two guys. And they went out and got Zach Hyman and, you know, Evan Bouchard's been fantastic a lot of the time. And Ryan Nugent Hopkins had a hundred point season just a couple of years ago. So there's other pieces.

But, I mean, there was a part where you could say, yeah, we could have some vanilla. You know, just the rest of the roster just needs to be even. You know, let's tread water until Connor gets back on the ice and will be okay. And that's also part of the story here is, you know, you talk about Connor McDavid being on the ice. He's on the ice a lot. Leon Dreis-Sidal is on the ice a lot. They're playing the heck out of these guys. And this is a team that has been to the finals twice in the last two years.

We haven't seen the fatigue kick in with the Florida Panthers. is the way we thought it would. But I mean, this is, this is not how you gear up for another long run is by playing the wheels off of your best guys. But they have no choice because those are the only guys who are doing anything at all. It's because Florida has more than two and a half high-end forwards or whatever. It's easier for them to coast. So if you're like last year's great, great example, Florida was in neutral for a decent

part of the season, but they knew exactly what they were doing. doing and they could, you know, go into energy conservation mode in a more effective way. Now this is what? This is Edmonton saying, we got to get the wheels back on the bus and they only have two guys that are capable of doing it. And it's the end of November. And it's the same guys who, you know, have played a gazillion games of hockey over the last three years and you're asking even more of them.

Like, it's, it really is, it really is crazy. It reminds me of, it reminds me of, it reminds me. me of the meme. There's a lady. I think she works at like a fast food restaurant and she's just sitting out back, like having a break with her hand on her head and you can tell she's going through it. Like my buddy who listens to the pod sends me it all the time when he's got to watch the kids alone. He'll just send me the picture and I know exactly what he's talking about. He's like he's got he's got the kids for the afternoon. It's like is that not how Connor McDavid must feel? It's 100%. He's, he's the he's the woman who works at Popeyes during that's what it is during during the

Popeye's chicken sandwich craze when their lives were just in the toilet. Absolutely. That's him every night. That's who he is. He's like, and like how much more can he do for them? Like he's what, top three in points in the NHL. He took the two-year deal, left a ton of money on the table for these guys. Like everything Connor McDavid has done has been pointed to Edmonton Oilers.

I am giving you everything you possibly need in order to be successful. can we make this happen? And time and time again, the answer has been, no, we can't make this happen. We've subtracted identity players from this group. We didn't add identity players to the group. We haven't addressed the goaltending. So, I don't know, man. It's a really bizarre situation they're in.

So if this is just what they are this year, if they miss the playoffs, are we completely convinced that they've got Connor McDavid for two more swings at this? No. Or is there any possibility that Connor McDavid goes to Stan Bowman in the offseason? It says, Guy, I gave you three chances. The first chance was such a disaster. We have such a hole to dig out of.

I no longer believe in this organization. I gave you guys a chance. You completely failed me. Trade me somewhere. And here's a list of where I'll go. You'll get a fortune. I'm under contract on the cheapest deal in the league for two more years. You will get an absolute fortune for me.

But I'm done. I've given you guys everything I can possibly give you and you've failed me over and over and over again. I know I'm being like if I was an Oilers fan, I'd be rolling my eyes at that going like here. Another East Coast guy is trying to make Connor McDavid a leave for a Ranger or whatever else. But are we completely convinced? And if there's a 10% chance of that happening, there's your panic mode. I mean, why is,

why is Stan Bowman, how did we get two months into the season? And nothing has happened yet. He looked like he was going to explode after that game last night. And I know he's loyal. He was the angriest man on earth. That was Daniel's answer is that Connor McDavid is all loyalty. Like he is just not the sort of guy who would ever do that.

In which case, okay, lucky for the Oilers, I guess. But, I mean, this is just such a complete disaster getting set to unfold. You've got four months left. And yeah, they could still flip the switch. And they end up with 100 something points. And people send me the link to this podcast and go, well, that aged well. And it's like, yeah, that could absolutely happen.

But, man, to risk it by, you know, doing the. whole status quo and not going to make a change for the sake of making a change and, you know, well, we don't think one trade's going to fix everything. At some point, you got to start taking some steps forward, don't you? Like, what, what are you here for? Like, for, you use the term flip the switch. For that to happen, it would really have to flip, like big time, especially defensively. Like, they would have to essentially turn their team from a bottom feeder defensive team to, to a juggernaut defensive team in short order. And it's just not easy to do that type of stuff, especially in season.

Like, they don't have practice time. The practice time they do have is mostly just kind of getting out there and getting your touches. You know, and the other thing that comes to mind is people would say, well, just do video. You got to do video. Okay, but when the games are happening as quickly as they are, you're not spending time. Like, who's Edmonton's next game against? I don't even know who their next game is against. But let's just say, here, I'll pull it up just to have it. So their next game is against Seattle, okay? And that's on Saturday.

Saturday morning, they wouldn't be doing like a 20, 30 minute game review on the Dallas game because they got to get ready for the Seattle game. There's only so much you can do in video. There's only so much your brain can take in. So you almost at times have to, like, pick one or two things from the previous game. you digest that, figure out what needs to be done, and now you're on to Seattle. And so if this is happening, it's hard without the practice time to turn things around this quickly. This is not an excuse for them.

What I'm saying is it's hard for it to just flip a switch when you're not able to do the actions that are necessary in order for your process to become better. and that's an issue for Edmonton. That's an issue for other teams, not just Edmonton. But I also found it interesting in this game that, and maybe if Edmonton does find a way to turn it around and get to the playoffs and they play Dallas again, Glenn Gulletson was the coach,

the assistant coach there for seven years in Edmonton. If there was ever a coach that knew how to like untangle this thing and figure out how to beat the Oilers in the playoffs, it would be gully. Like he's been on the inside for the longest time. time now. So it's just unfortunate that Colorado is such a juggernaut. Good luck getting through them at this point. But I couldn't help think that watching that game last night. I'm like, Gully, Gully knows how to how to beat this group. He's seen it and he knows it inside out.

And people look at this too. And they can look in this and say like, okay, 23, 24 is always the example, right? They went 5, 12 and 1 in their first 18 games. And that was the start of the early season Oilers thing. Like you could say, okay, they're in, way worse shape that year, right? Even in that stretch, that was a good five-on-five team. They were controlling 55% of the expected goals like that. That is when they were getting goalied by reverse goalied by Stuart Skinner. That's not the case anymore.

And this goes back to what we said before. You can't blame Stuart Skinner for all of this. That was maybe true before. Certainly has been true in the postseason. Certainly has been true early in the last couple regular seasons. ain't the case anymore, and that's what makes this complicated and really problematic for them. They have won 10 games, half of those have been in overtime, where you would expect three on three when you have two of the best players in the world that you're going to have an advantage

in overtime. They have five regulation wins. That's fewer than Calgary, who we all think are going to finish last. That's fewer than the Maple Leaps, who are their own kind of tire fire right now. That's fewer than the sabres. I mean, anytime you're using the word wins and fewer than the sabers, that's probably a sign that something has gone very, very wrong. Yeah.

Yeah. I still think at the start of the season, the solution to all this was for McDavid to say, all right, top secret, here's a number I'll sign at at some point in a couple months. I'll do it in March, do it in May. like you want you want you want the cap number you want you want you want some degree of like understanding of how much money you have to work work with long time or long term you want to know where I'm at fine here's what the number is going to be I am not signing that until we're pretty sure that the train's back on the track here like that's what that's what he should

have done and I know he didn't want to answer questions I know it would have been a three ring circus every other week with with this but just to say himself the future Adjita or whatever, make himself the $10 million that he left on the table, he should have said like, okay, here's what the number is going to be next year. But to get my name on the contract, you got to go to something else. I'll tell you what, man, he's been the ultimate team player. Like loyalty, team player, he's eliminated all excuses with his actions and they haven't really paid him back, not even close. And they've essentially put, they've put more on his shoulders than there ever has been. Think about that. It's all we've talked about. And now there's

more for him to do, which is bonkers. It's bonkers what's gone on there. What a mess. That's enough. That's enough talking about mess number one. We're going to come back after the break in, talk about mess number two. We've had Vancouver talk on the way. Stay tuned. All right, we're back. fellas tough times in Western Canada. We have the Canucks stuff is hitting the fan. It seems like anytime you have a story by Thomas Drans, like the one that ran on the site on Tuesday, it starts out with something has to change around the Vancouver Canucks.

You know that you really stepped in it. We had the report earlier from Elliot Friedman that all veterans are in play outside of Quinn Hughes and maybe Philopronic for, you can, who can say why. They're ready to make changes, it seems like, and it's overdue to some extent, but also unwanted and somewhat unexpected.

I don't think this is what this team was supposed to be doing on November the 26th. Can I start on this one? This is crazy what's gone on in Vancouver. So Canucks alum, Frankie Carrado. They have been... Speaking as an alum. If you're not familiar with the fan base,

and what the market has kind of pushed for and wanted for a long time. It is to take the time to build this franchise up. And that means, you know, maybe moving on from some pieces and creating this youth movement that everyone's going to come up together and we're going to have a sustainably successful team for a long time. It's not going to be, hey, let's figure it out this summer, throw some stuff and see what sticks. It's not going to be, let's grab some other team's player that they don't want anymore, maybe a former first rounder who hasn't found his way and see if he can work for us. The fans don't want that there, and they haven't wanted that for a long time.

But there has been, you know, resistance to that, call it. And whoever's been in there, managers, coaches have had to make do with what the direction has been kind of dictated here. Now we're at the point where the greatest defenseman who's ever played for the franchise, one of the best players who's ever played for the franchise. Frank Carrado? Not quite. Yeah, not quite. Damn, I thought I had it.

A guy by the name of Quinn Hughes who averages 27 minutes of ice time per game. Think about that, average is 27. That means there's nights where he's going above 30 and like routinely. He is, his contract's coming up essentially in two years. and they have to figure out what the hell they're going to do. And they've come out and said, every veteran player is available except for Quinn Hughes. Well, the first problem I see is

Pettersen, no move, Brock Bessor, no move, Jake DeBrusk, no move, Evander Cain, 16 team, no trade. There's a guy, Drew O'Connor has a 12 team, Teddy Blugher has a 12 team, Horonick, no move, Peders, no move, Tyler Myers, no move, Kevin Lankinen, no move, Thatcher Demko's no move kicks in next year. Who are we talking about? You're talking about your pending?

Drew O'Connor 12 team. Jim! Come on, Jim! The backup goalie has a no move clause. We're talking about Kiefer Sherwood, who's shooting the lights out this year, and what? Like, this is crazy. And to say that, to try and make it seem like

we are not in a position of weakness, we will not move Quinn Hughes out of a position, of weakness. I'm sorry, man. No one's buying that. You're in a position of weakness. Team is terrible. Star players walking out the door either for free or for something at some point. And now, if you're going to make the move to, you know, move on from Quinn Hughes, you can entice a team to try and take this guy for two playoff runs. But holy smokes, man, like this whole, it's a weird cycle of let's just try and retool it. And then two years from now, we'll be right back where we started. They can fix everything by

trading Evander Kane and Teddy Bluger, right? Like that's going to get them the pieces back that they need. It's going to get you the superstar second line center that you need. It's going to stop you from having David Camp as your two see, which is where they're listed right now. Good God.

The one thing about this and Elliot pointed this out. People know where I'm at on most of the front offices in this league as far as making big, bold, aggressive moves. You give me virtually any team, and they start saying, well, we're willing to listen on some of these guys,

and we're going to kick tires, and it's like, oh, great, let me know in four months when you've managed to crack the code on trading a third round pick for some second line winger. And, you know, this is Jim Rutherford. Jim's old school, for good and for bad. He doesn't, he's not here to mess. He's not here to spend three months crunching the analytics and going through his 14 associate GMs and making sure everyone's on board for this incredibly minor move. When he says I'm ready to do something, he's got a track record of doing stuff during the year, not at the deadline, but in December, January, he will make those moves.

So it does feel like something could be imminent. But you're right, Sean, to get back to the question, okay, who's going out? who are you moving out and how is that going to translate into somebody who's going to move the needle coming back the other way? Because, you know, it's all well, and good to say, well, we want a great young player. Yeah, great. So does every team. You're not, nobody's sitting there going, oh, man, you know, we drafted this guy, we developed him. He's just ready to burst onto the scene.

But, oh, we could have a Vander Cain and his, you know, his contract for another. Yeah, let's make that deal. It's not happening. It's not happening. Yeah. So, or at least it's, it's not happening or it's going to be pretty tough to make it happen. It's going to take some work. And, you know, maybe they can find it.

But if you're not moving Quinn Hughes, and I absolutely understand why, at the very least, they would swear up and down that they're not moving Quinn Hughes. Whether you're thinking about it in the back of your head is a different question. They got it. They got to say that. But you've got to protect it. But, I mean, if it's not him, and, I mean, it's not going to be Elias Pedersen with that contract. Put aside to no move or no trade or whatever.

That his cap hit is a no trade clause on its own. Who else is it going to be? If you want to get better by trading, by trading assets to acquire better assets, you have to have stuff that people want. Like, who like outside of, you know, the untouchable. commodities there, like, what do the Canucks have that's going to bring back any value? You're saying we're not trading Quinn. Pedersen's deal is immovable at this point. So what?

You're talking about Conor Garland. You're talking, I guess, in some capacity about, about Philoperonic. But even then, you're so severely limited by a leverage and, B, the no-move clauses that Jim started handing out like candy in Vancouver. You know, like, what's the path back to any kind of? of relevant improvement here. It's like, it's impossible to see. Well, and the Connor Garland thing is interesting because they, they just signed them. Like, this is the last year of his current deal. And then the next one's going to kick in.

And that's when the no move kicks in and he goes to $6 million a year. But then when that game, that name gets thrown out there, it's like, well, they like, they like them for the culture that he brings, right? Like young guys, good example, all that stuff. So what are we doing here? There's no retool. You can't retool this thing. It's just like, like, why would you, like, what are you going to do if you trade connor garland from your win now team then you have to replace connor garland he's a good player like it's it's why they don't have tradable commodities this is something this is a spot that the penguins were in you know a few years ago when they're when they were trying under hextall and then initially under under dubus they're trying to rebuild and retool and

and and and add you know via trade it's but but well we're not going to trade crosbie and we're not going to trade Malkin and we're probably not going to trade Brian Russ. It's like, then who are you going to trade? Because you don't have anything else than anybody else wants. And the craziest thing, it's a very smart fan base, right? Like, they are savvy. They understand analytics. If you watch a Canucks broadcast, they will throw up a board with like expected

stuff and percentages because they realize that the fans understand those types of things. And so now they have wanted this rebuild to happen. and it's almost going to happen accidentally. Like, it feels like it's going to happen accidentally because San Jose is only getting better. Okay, we'll see what happens with Edmonton. Chicago's getting better. Calgary is going to, you know, Calgary's going to bottom out.

We'll see. And then Seattle's on the way up, Anaheim's on the way up, L.A. is still a good team. So what does that mean for the Vancouver Canucks? It means you're headed towards the bottom of the standings, whether you like it or not. So you can either do it right. and have something that you build and get to cultivate for a long time or take another shortcut

and be right back where you were. But it's the fans are almost apathetic, which is really sad. It's been, it's a really good fan base, but it feels like they're just, they're done with this. They're done with the same old song and dance now. if you would have told me at any point in the last 20 years that the Canucks fan base was going to be apathetic about the team, I did call you a liar. That's crazy.

And that's a bad sign. Where do we think this ends for them, by the way? Can we look into like the, let's look in the crystal ball? It's May. How are we talking about the Vancouver Canucks? What is the roster look like? And what's the next move that's been charted for them? Accidentally, accidentally a bottom five team in the NHL

with a lot of veteran players that you would say are, now type guys. Sean? And the question looming over all of it is, will their owner even let them do what they need to do? And does any of the rest of this matter? If that's the guy putting a stop to him. Well, here's a question for you.

If you were a team and you were like, I can have Quinn Hughes for two playoff runs. We'll see if he bolts to New Jersey after, but let's just say I'm going to get him for two playoff runs. who is that team? Who is the team right now that you look at and say, how do they not do that? I have one off the top of my head.

You guys can tell me if I'm right or wrong on it. But if I'm Carolina and I've taken big swings in the past and I'm like, I can add someone who's just a total difference maker, top five, top six player in the game, I think Carolina is the one that would be like, how do you not do it? 100%. It makes a ton of, I mean, especially the way the East is shaking out this year.

Detroit? Detroit has more than $10 million in gap space right now. The thing about Detroit, though, is do you have to give up ASP, or do you have to give up Danielson? Or do you have to... For two playoff runs in Detroit, I just... I'm a little skeptical still. Like, I'm more bullish on, like, well, Carolina's going to be there.

Here's what I'll say. like Quinn Hughes. Quinn Hughes doesn't make the Red Wings, you know, a top five cup contender or anything. But I, but if if you're, if you're that front office, you're like, fine, maybe, maybe we can convince him to stay. Like, ASP is good, but what's, what's his ceiling? It's 65% of what Quinn Hughes is. Oh, I get that. Take him for two playoff runs. Yeah, you just got to. I hate, I hate prospects. That's, that's what it comes down to. You, you, you hate Scott Wheeler, and that's fine. And I'll, I won't tell him. But yeah, like, it's the other. It's the other.

that's the problem. You know what I'm talking about from. Yeah, like, I don't know, man. You look around and you're like, okay, if I'm just going in the Eastern Conference, like everyone should have room for Quinn Hughes, but does Tampa have room for Quinn Hughes? Tampa, if Tampa can make room for Quinn Hughes, they would. That's for sure.

Yeah, I think, yeah, I guess you're right. A lot of teams would. but the one that just kind of jumps off the page. Carolina jumps off the page. Definitely. I wanted to, before we let Frankie go, I wanted to touch on some comments made by Bill Garin to our boy Pierre Lebrun in the story that ran today.

Pierre is doing, of course, the periodic roster check-ins on the Olympic teams. This is apropos of Jason Robertson scoring for the seventh straight game. He leads Americans in points. Obviously, it wasn't on the Four Nations, roster. Bill Garan is in charge of assembling, that one in charge of assembling the Olympic roster. This is what Garron said to peer. He's doing all he can, and again, these are situations where I know guys want to make this team and guys want to be in a situation. There's a number of players that we

could take and it won't end up taking because we won't have the room. And when you look at it, there's so many guys that are close in the way that they're performing and their statistics and their body of work that it could come down to the fit. What do we need? I'm a big believer in body of work. appreciate the first two months of the season, but I've said this before. This is not pee-wee tryouts. This is not, oh, just take who's playing well. If you did that, you wouldn't need a GM or coaches. We're actually trying to build a team. So I hear that. And I think probably bad news for Jason Robertson, probably bad news for Cole Coughfield. These American players who we've seen, you know, dial it up so far in the regular season, it sounds like they're going to have to do a lot

to play their way onto the team. When you say like, yeah, it's, it's important, like, how they're playing right now is important, but it's actually not that important. That's sort of what Bill Garan just said. So I see that. You read between the lines, I'm thinking there's not going to be a ton of roster change over, even though some seems inevitable. Yeah, it's bad news for everyone who thought that the first few months of the season actually mattered as far as Fools, you fools! We've heard some of this from the Canadian side too, you know, it's just where these things already set in stone pretty much over the summer or even earlier.

And, you know, it kind of sounds that way. I mean, there will be some spots that probably open up just due to injury, but it sure sounds like these guys have already got it figured out. And I think the heart of the quote of why this happens where he says, hey, you know, if we just took the best players, we wouldn't need GMs and coaches. And yeah, you've got like, you know, both Canada and U.S., they've got like six coaches. They got this whole staff, this, you know, eight-headed monster of front offices and everybody's working on it.

They got to prove how smart they are. They've got to show that, you know, no, I mean, anybody can just sit there and say, let's take the guys who have the best stats, but it takes real intelligence to understand why Brock Nelson needs to be there instead of Jason Robinson. And, you know, okay. That's, I'll speak on, you know, I watch Cole Coughfield a lot doing Habs games. And I've seen him play games that are by his standard average. I've seen him play games that by his standard are not great, which are few and far between.

And I've seen him play games where he's absolutely humming. And when, like, Cole Coughfield is not a one-trick pony. Like maybe at the start of his career, you know, he used to lean on the one. one-timer a lot and he had his little office and it was more just, you know, he had his way of scoring. Calfield is not that anymore. He doesn't even use the one-timer anymore. Like, he is, he is a well-rounded player who, like, is so efficient with what he does with the puck on his stick. Like, I was looking into this earlier this year about the, the percentage of, like, times where he crosses the blue line in the offensive zone and a chance occurs.

like quickly. And it's huge. Like he's, he's very efficient with what he does. He's responsible with it. He hardly ever turns it over. You know, the only thing working against Cole Coughfield is he's not six foot four. And he's a smaller player. And sometimes when that's the case, you're not going to get anyone to change their minds no matter what you do. But it would be a shame if USA lost a game, an important one, by one goal that they couldn't find. And you left Coughfield, and you left Robertson and we'll see about Tage Thompson, but you left, you know, a lot of firepower at home because you needed to have big guys who take up space.

Yeah, but has that ever happened before to Team USA where they lost the one goal game, they had a bunch of goal scores sitting at home or like a Kyle Connor in the press box? They wouldn't. I think Phil Kessel had a tweet. Phil Kessel had a tweet once. It's going to check in on Phil and see.

We've got to get him to tweet through this. What's he doing? Yeah. Billy G should call him. I'm sure you stand ready. Frank, you were about to have the most American Thanksgiving of all my men. You were going to be working in Las Vegas over the next couple days. How's that going to work?

Listen, man, I can't wait to see it. American Thanksgiving, going to be on the strip. I'm going to check into the sports book. I'm going to see the levels of degeneracy that I never thought imaginable. and I personally can't wait for dinner Thursday night to see, you know, I think of Thanksgiving, getting together with the family and, you know, there's nieces and nephews and kids and all this stuff. I will be. The people closest to you, for sure. I will be at a restaurant on the strip just, I don't know.

I don't know how to describe it, but I will be looking at like some interesting stuff. I think you do. I think you do know how to describe it. And that's all the time we have with Frank Carrado. Take it easy, buddy. Okay, boys. Eat something fun tomorrow in honor of me. Pictures to follow.

I'll let you know who's out there out in a boat. Highly, highly censored. Take it easy. Me and DGV, I'll be back in a second. All right, we're back. There goes Frankie. I can't wait for the text that I get from him tomorrow at the Thanksgiving table. I'm going to be 10 out of 10.

Sean, I learned something this week. What have we learned? Sean. I learned, this is largely courtesy of Shana Goldman, but also from some other stats I saw flying around. I learned that the American Thanksgiving cutoff that everyone likes to bring up about teams and playoff positions is a little bit less cut and dry than we've come to believe. Since the lockout, yes, 77% of teams and playoff position at Thanksgiving go on to qualify in the spring. That's true. Last season, 12 of 16, held onto their spots and at least three have moved up in each season since 23,

since 2013-14, which is when the wild card started. Cup finalists have been in each of the last three seasons have been under the cutoff. So this is like, this is still legit. It's a good measuring stick, but I feel like we need to amend how we think about this. When you're talking about three teams, four teams, five teams every season, cup finalists in each of the last three, like there's more wibble. room, I think, then we give people credit for here. Yeah, people make it sound like it's 99% that you're locked in.

Seasons over. Fold up the tent and go home if you're in, if you're in a 10th place or whatever. And that's not it. So four teams, let's pick four teams that are outside the playoffs right now that are going to make it. I feel like there's a couple of pretty easy ones, or at least ones that we're going to agree on. But what do you get? mentioned you folks should go go pick your own if you want bet mGM you can get some futures bets on

something like that if you feel strongly about a team that's under the cutoff making making a move upwards here i think these are these are ours and and and if we say a team might get knocked out of a spot and you're mad don't yell at us we don't know what we're talking about well that too but you know go go go go get the free money if you're so convinced that the uh the islanders are going to make the playoffs yeah go go go go ahead and then tweet it. SMR-A-T-Smart. Who's yours? You start.

I'm going to say the Oilers. I'll give me a first pick. The Oilers aren't going to miss the playoffs. As much as we talked about all the problems in segment one, there's no chance that the Oilers, there's zero point, there's like a 10% chance, 30% at the highest that the Oilers miss the playoffs. Other than that, they're a lot. They're chasing the Cracken in the Pacific Division.

Like, it'll be fine. That seems, that seems not very good. Mm-hmm. I think, do I think the Ducks are good? I do. I think the Cracken are doing it with smoke and mirrors in a way that Anaheim and some of the other... They're a good story. They're a fun story, but yeah, they're, uh, they're getting chased down.

I actually don't think they're very fun, but whatever. I try. Sort of Seattle. Is it unfair to pick Florida? here. Florida's got 25 points. They're out there. They're a point behind Boston for the last wild card. Um, and a point behind Ottawa in the Atlantic division. This seems like a hack that we have Edmonton and Florida both below the cutoff, uh, two teams that have found some degree of playoff success over the last couple years. I, I, there's, there's no way Florida is not in it by,

by the time it's all said and done. Getting Matthew could chuck back. They're going to get Matthew could chuck back momentarily. Let's let's say or, or something close to it. And we said before, man, those guys, they understand energy conservation mode. They've done it before. Yep. So no bark-off, no problem. I feel like they're going to find a way to get it done. And if they get in as a wild card, it doesn't matter.

They could be the eighth seed. Nobody's going to want any part of that. All right. I'll throw another, to me, I wouldn't say obvious pick, but it's an easy one because they just dropped out, and that's the Winnipeg Jets. Mm-hmm. sitting, you know, three points back, but in terms of percentage. Now, I am concerned about the Jets as cup contenders, mainly because of what's happening in that division. Colorado looks unbeatable.

Dallas took a little while to find it, but they've got it now. Minnesota's kind of come out of nowhere and look really, really strong. That was, I thought they were, I thought they were D-O-A. They seen Cook. I watched him a couple of times earlier. They look, they look, they look like a bad team. They flipped it, flipped it around. So I'm worried about the Jets as far as being, you know,

going from last year's president's trophy to maybe the fourth best team in their own division. But that still gets you in the playoffs. And they're going to be missing Connor Hellebuck for a few more weeks. But then theoretically, he's back. He's ready to go all of those things. There doesn't seem to be a ton of concern. beyond the initial absence. So I think they're still good enough.

A strange lack of concern, I would say. It's been, like, people seem, people seem completely okay with it. Garron said that in his interview with Pierre, too. He says, like, he has every, every bit of confidence. I think he should take the Olympics off and just rest up and focus on his NHL team. I say that as a Canadian. You know, you just got to wonder if the season he's having so far. far doesn't he doesn't find a way to play his way off the roster maybe maybe garen yeah you know that's

it's that two-month sample size that'll be the one that garrant decides and never yeah never mind you know what hell of books out he's hurt sorry can't can't rely on him we need a fourth team though i feel like now we kind of this is where it gets kind of yeah i would say um god do i like i like the bruin's the fall out of the wild card spot um and i'll sit that we get another one from the Atlantic. I bought stock on the Montreal Canadiens at some point in the last year. They've got 25 points. Again, they're also one point under the cutoff. I'll say that they figure it out. I'll say that Sam Montemboe, which is one of those has been certainly one of their biggest problems. I'll say that he gets it together to a serious

enough of a degree to put them back in the conversation. Yeah, I like that. And again, we just picked a team that is even, I think they may even be in right now based on percentage, which is, that's the other. That's true. Yeah, they have a 595 point percentage, which is better than Washington and the Bruins who are in the wildcard spot right now. You look at them over the last couple of weeks and they have not looked like a playoff team. I think they get it back on track. And I think the Eastern Conference ends up being an easier.

place to make the playoffs than maybe we thought. Interesting. Neither one of us picked the Leafs. Did you even think about the Leafs or are they, you're already done? They're dead. Shout out to the Rangers though. I think the Rangers have it. I don't think that, I don't think the Metro.

Happy one year anniversary to the memo. Chris Durrory taking a 12 and 16 and telling everybody that all their players are available. These guys suck. These guys suck actually and we'll trade everybody. That was today. I don't know. I thought that was closer to Christmas. I remember talking to you guys about it, and I was in holiday mode, but it makes sense.

Wow. Sean, how are you celebrating American Thanksgiving? I am staying home, working, and then watching football on a Thursday afternoon, which I got to say is a lot of fun. I do enjoy that. Might have to even go find a place to sit down, maybe, maybe, have a pop and watch the games. Got to find some place to gamble with Frank.

Chiefs Cowboys on Thursday. It's a good one. It'll be pretty good. I will not be having as much fun as Frank, but I'll be. Something tells me. Oh, brother, I'll enjoy it. Celebrate in spirit. I'm going to be full of turkey and full of wine and whatever else.

Very early in the day on Thursday. So good luck to everybody. Good luck. Good luck to my family, too. Most of them. Thank you, Sean. Thank you, Frankie. We did want to remind you, folks. We were on YouTube. We've said it before, but you can subscribe there. The audience is just jumping through the roof on that one. People are having fun in the comments and what happened. I know I'm personally having a great time with it. Join the Discord, too. There's always good discussions that we had there. To my fellow Americans, enjoy your Thanksgiving, and to everybody else.

See you next week.