The Athletic Hockey Show - Are the Ottawa Senators the NHL's most interesting team?, Hall of Fame bubble candidates, and scoring is again on the rise

Episode Date: November 10, 2022

Ian and Sean continue their conversation about Ryan Reynolds' interest in the Ottawa Senators, and the team's announcement that they will retire Chris Neil's number this season. Also, with it being HOF week, they discuss Sean's piece on active players that are bubble candidates to be inducted. Then, in "Granger Things", Jesse discusses scoring being up in the league, and also an interesting stat concerning teams playing in back-to-back games. Then to wrap up, a dive into the mailbag, and a look back with "This Week in Hockey History".Have a question for Ian and Sean? Email [e-mail] or leave a VM: [phone]Save on a subscription to The Athletic: theathletic.com/hockeyshowSubscribe to The Athletic Hockey Show on Youtube: http://youtube.com/@theathletichockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Hockey Show. Welcome back, everybody. It is a Thursday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. It's all as Ian Mendes, Sean McAdoe with you. In these seats on a Thursday, looking forward to bouncing around the NHL. In fact, we're not really going to bounce around the NHL. We're going to probably stay a lot with the Ottawa Senators

because all of a sudden, they're a super interesting team. So we're going to hit on the Ryan Reynolds stuff, Chris Neal getting his jersey retired. I know that's generated a lot of chatter. So we'll have some debate. on that. Sean, you wrote the piece on kind of some current Hall of Fame bubble candidates heading into induction

weekend. We'll hit on that. Granger going to drop by for Jesse Granger for Granger Things, open up the mail bag, all of that stuff. I've got to ask you, though, Sean. Like, are the Ottawa Senators like potentially interesting with Ryan Reynolds in the mix to you? Are they an

interesting team? I like how we've already in the first 30 seconds of the show the senators have been downgraded from super interesting to potentially, interesting. Potentially. Are they potentially interesting? Yeah.

I mean, yeah. And here's the thing. They are potentially interesting in a good way. Because in the last five years, the auto senators have been interesting multiple times. They had arguably the most interesting offseason in modern NHL history a few years ago, but not in a good way. And now it's good vibes off the ice, at least. in Ottawa. And yeah, they are interesting.

I mean, first of all, if you're not, if you have no, uh, emotional investment in this team, you don't, you, these senators are an interesting team because they're, they're a young offensive-minded team that can't keep the puck out of their own net. So if you're sitting down and there's five games on and you're flipping around going, which one should I watch? Senators are probably not a bad pick. So they're, they were already interesting.

But they were, I mean, I think it's fair to say there probably weren't a lot of hockey fans outside of Ottawa that we're thinking about the senators regularly. And now, yeah, they've got this Ryan Reynolds thing happens. That'll be kind of neat. And it'll be, I mean, geez, it's karma for the Senate. I mean, they've dealt with the ownership issues going back a couple of decades. So they've paid their dues on that front. This would be neat to see this happen.

Yeah. And look, it's funny because I ended up writing off of this, you know, Reynolds ends up showing up at the game Tuesday. I wasn't planning on writing off of Ottawa, Vancouver, and I'm bouncing around with my editor, and I'm like, man, I think we have to write off this. I think we have to write off the fact that Ryan Reynolds was kind of at the game. And it's funny, right, because this is gone from eight days ago, nine days ago, he tweets out that single thinking emoji, like, hmm, maybe I'm interested to.

Full out goes on Jimmy Fallon, says he's interested, shows up at the game. So here's the way I look at it. is I feel like, and I wrote this in my piece on Tuesday night or Wednesday morning. You know, Ottawa is the little sibling in this, in this sort of NHL trifect that we have across the stretch of highway that's kind of the 401 here, which is Ottawa's in the middle and they are surrounded by two behemates. The Toronto Maple Leafs in the Montreal Canadiens, arguably the two most storied franchises in the sport.

Like, I almost think, like, Ottawa suffers from a little bit of what the heart for Whalers must have dealt with back of the day where you're like, you're in Connecticut and you look one direction, there's the Boston Bruins. You look down the other way and there's the New York Rangers and you're like, you're the little sibling. It doesn't matter what you do. You can get Gordy Howe and it's like, well, okay, that's great, but you're always going to be a little sibling, right? And that's I've said often that the Ottawa senators have a rivalry with the Maple Leafs and the Canadians and the Maple Leafs and Canadians have a rivalry with each other. And Ottawa is just kind of standing off to the sidelines as the mostly forgotten, yeah, Little Brother, I think is the

perfect way to put it. There's, and that has resulted in a real Little Brother syndrome in a big chunk of the fan base that I don't think reflects well on them. No, but you know what though? It's justified. Like, unless you've been part of this team and felt that way, like, it feels like, listen, it always feels like you're the forgotten. And maybe there's probably some middle children listening to this saying, it's not little brother or sister syndrome. It's middle child, whatever it is. Ottawa fans often feel forgotten, neglected.

And I, as a guy who covers their team, I understand where they're coming from. My question, though, is, does the Ryan Reynolds news kind of, does it, and I wrote this, look, it's not going to put them on equal footing with the habs and leaves. I don't want anyone to think that, you know, Ryan Reynolds owning. 5% of the senators somehow vaults them into elite status. But I think closes the gap a little bit, doesn't it?

And kind of gives them a little bit of street cred for lack of better care. It gives them, it gives them something. And, you know, the flip side of what I just called the little brother syndrome is, you know, everyone loves an underdog. Sometimes, you know, sometimes a little brother or middle brother or however you want to phrase it, like has to figure a way to break out of that mold and rather than just chasing around, you know, the, the, the, the, the, everyone else and, and, and, and trying to be like everyone else and not pulling it off, you need to find your own way. And yeah, I mean, having a big famous Hollywood celebrity as the face of the team, uh, and involved in the ownership would be pretty cool. Like that's, uh, I think that's,

that's, that's undeniably, uh, a neat thing. I mean, we know that, look, the NHL isn't exactly a league that's dripping with celebrity credibility. As a result of that, we tend to greatly overreact whenever we do get any attention from for anyone who seems cool or famous. But this isn't, you know, this isn't somebody showing up and putting on a jersey or whatever. Like, yeah. He's going to buy the team.

That's, you know, or at least be involved in buying the team. It's, it's neat. It's, you know, senators fans should feel pumped about this. Yeah, I think so too. And listen, I'm very much aware that if he, if he buys a portion of the team, I don't think, Look, he's not going to be a majority owner. He said as much on Fallon, the show. But I think it can create a buzz.

Like, it's amazing. I'm telling you that in the last three days, I've been walking around Ottawa. And everybody wants to talk about that. Like people that don't eat. Like I, you know, I work from home a lot of times. My wife works from home. And I happen to go upstairs the other day while she's in the office,

kind of working out of the dining room office. And she's in a meeting with her staff. And they, none of them are sports fans. They're all talking about the senators and Ryan Reynolds. I happen to eavesdrop on them. And I'm like, this is unbelievable, right? The engagement you could potentially get, I started watching, I don't know if you watched this.

I don't know if you, I assume you have Disney Plus because you have kids as well, but the welcome to Wrexham documentary. I just started watching it this week. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I have never,

I have not watched that one. But this is, it's a soccer team, right, that he buys in. Yeah, in Wales. Yeah, exactly. And so. you know what? I think I think where Ryan Reynolds would be really good is I think so you take that under like that kind of underdog mentality, the forgotten sibling thing I've talked about. I think that's what he would glom on to. I think he would look at this and say, I think I can help shape the narrative in that market. And imagine if you're Ottawa and you have access to one of the, you know, the great kind of content creators in in the current sphere. Man, the possibility seem endless. So this is. To me, it's going to be fascinating. It's going to be interesting.

And, you know, I think, let me put it this way. If you're any of the potential ownership groups that are out there, and I know of at least four of them, I'm hesitant to say more than four because I just want to stick to the kind of what I know. So I'm thinking there's four groups that appear to be seriously interested. How would you not, if you're one of these four groups, like all of them have to go to Ryan Reynolds now, right? At this point, all of them.

I've been saying for years that when it came time to, for this team to be sold, under whatever circumstances that was, that the guy you would want at the front of the group was Daniel Alpherson. Again, whether he buys it or not, like this is the guy who sort of, not only is the most popular player in franchise history,

but he symbolizes like the fallout from the old ownership and that he was kind of pushed away. And if you could have him as the face of your group, you were going to win. At least the hearts and minds of fans, and that's not the only thing that matters. But now I'm looking at it going, okay, this is not a bad, this is, this is, uh, not a bad alternative. And, uh, boy, good,

uh, good luck to whoever is the like boring businessman in a suit and tie. Uh, trying to, try to go up against, uh, go up against these guys. Like, no, okay, you know, I know there's the Ryan Reynolds and I know he's been on the tonight show and all of this stuff, but I've got a, I've got a real good sense of the real estate market. And here's my plan. And it's going to be like, the whole family is going to be like, dude, get out of here. Nobody wants to hear this. Um, it's, we want the celebrity. Yeah, I think so. And it's interesting too, right? I think in the past, usually when you, and I listened to Gary Betman's comments,

Gary spoke at a press conference in Winnipeg Tuesday night. Yes, he did. Tuesday night. And we heard him say the words sugar mama. Yeah, I know. Just for that alone, it was worth it. Gary's saying sugar, uh, sugar mommy.

But, but, but what I think was interesting is usually from the NHL playbook, it's, you know, we're going to kind of hold you at arm's length. We're going to vet you. We're not going to publicly endorse you. Because I think a lot of times it's exactly what you just laid out, that the potential owners that circle around NHL franchises are kind of these unknown people, right? These high-tech investors or these real estate moguls that you're like, I'll challenge our listeners right now. Close your eyes, provided you're not driving and listening to us, but close your eyes and try and picture Jeff Vinick.

I don't think you can, right? Like most owners in the NHL are pretty faceless. And so I think, so Gary always looks at it. I think he always wants them to be when they're maybe circling the waters. Just be quiet because I don't want you using this as an opportunity to just to amplify your platform. I mean, it was a different situation. But the gym ball silly thing was, like, I mean, this was a guy. Gary Batman does not like anybody going outside of the process and saying,

I'm interested. I mean, you know, again, Balsilli was, was an outlier because he was so vocal and he wanted to move a team. And he was clearly trying to put outside pressure and it largely worked as far as creating that narrative and creating headaches for Gary Bettman. But Gary Bettman doesn't want, you know, if you had told me last week or two weeks ago or whatever was that somebody is going to step up and declare themselves interested in the senators and they're going to go on TV and talk about it and everything. I'd say, boy, Gary Batman's not going to like that.

That's not the way he likes to do business. But you're exactly right. In this case, yes. I mean, this is fine. I've got to ask you just for the because people will be mad if we don't. What happened with the DM? We talked about it last week. Did you write one?

Is it still sitting in the draft folder? Did anyone reach out with some help? Are you guys best friends? Are you in the ownership group now? He came to, he came the Ottawa. Is that your private suite that he was sitting in on Tuesday? Yeah, with Chris Phillips was in there. No, no, I, listen, I don't know how to say this.

I reached, okay, I'll say this, I reached out. Okay. I reached out. Can I leave it at that? I feel like I can say as a fellow media guy. Does that? If you reached out, I reached out for comment. If you didn't hear back, you would feel embarrassed and you

probably wouldn't want to say it anymore. And if you did hear back, it wouldn't necessarily be something you could share with us. Okay. So I will say I reached out. I will let you off the hook on that. Oh, okay. But how much, how much thought went into the, when in the DM? Oh, man. It was exactly like what you said when you're like in the 11th grade and you're like phoning the girl and like writing the script out. See, here's the difference though, because in our, in our era, that's exactly what it was. You'd either have to write a note or make a phone call. Now in today's day and age, it's just, you know, you would text, Instagram, Snapchat, whatever. Yeah.

I think that's, yeah, that's how you do it. Ooh, he put me in the middle of the tag. The big thing you were worried about was that like mom or dad were going to answer when you called and that was screwed your whole plan. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.

Yeah. Or that you'd be halfway through your little prepared remark and then your mom or dad would pick up the other phone. Oh, yeah. And start talking. And just start dialing. You're like, just start dialing and you'd have to. Yeah.

So, okay. I mean, I guess. it went better than that for you and I will leave you at that but I know if we didn't if we didn't we'll leave it there we'll leave it there I you know what I I'm just I'm assuming the next TikTok

from him oh he's going to be like you know it'll be like the Hugh Jackman thing except it'll be you in the background walking in it'll be he'll be like Deadpool 3 man this is Ian's going to play I don't even know what you're I don't know enough comic books to say who you'd be playing but no Wolverine is taken but I think you I don't know.

But hey, listen, it's an exciting time for a change in Ottawa, I think, as it pertains to ownership stuff. So this is, this is great. I want to, listen, I want to pick your brain on this, too. Because Ryan Reynolds got introduced in Ottawa, Tuesday night, first TV timeout of the game. You know, first period, ladies and gentlemen, Ryan Reynolds, and place goes bananas, whatever.

The next TV timeout, they announced that Chris Neal's number 21, number 25 jersey is going to be raised to the rafters later this season in Ottawa. And, you know, I didn't get around it. I think it was because I was so wrapped up in the, in the Reynolds stuff on Tuesday and into Wednesday, I then realized yesterday night, I was looking through it. I was like, oh, damn. Like, I didn't tweet out about Chris Neal's jersey being retired. And then I thought to myself, you know, if I don't say something, I believe that people

are going to look at that as some sort of, by not making a statement, I'm making a statement, if that makes sense. Like that, oh man, Ian didn't weigh in on a jersey retirement, which would be atypical of me. So I did, I tweeted out last night that, look, I understand that there's a pretty fierce debate among some hockey fans saying, oh, boy, Chris Neal doesn't meet the criteria for me to have his number retired. From my lens, and I'm very aware of the fact that the lens that I have is that of a guy

that covered him from day one, you know, covered his entire career. Like his rookie season with the senators, I was actually in the PR department with the team and then I transitioned over to media. So like the first year he came in the league was really the first year I came in the league. And so watched him his entire, you know, a thousand game career.

My feeling is this. Like that guy really truly bled for this team, defended his teammates, loves the community, community pillar. Like to me, the thousand games matters. Like that's a lot of games. Like if Kristinau played, 750. I'm going to say no. A thousand games, all with one franchise. So I look, I'm looking

this up here, okay? I believe the number is 36. 36 players in NHL history have played a thousand games and only played for one franchise. Okay. So yeah, okay, like there's the Gordy house that played more than a thousand for Detroit, but, you know, he played for Hartford, you know, the Francis's and the Gretzkees, we all know. Okay. But now if you're going to whittle it down and say, like, there's only a handful of guys. And I think 35, whatever the number, 35, 36, it's a handful of players in the history of the NHL. So if you look at that and say, well, Ottawa has two of them in Alpherson, oh, sorry, in Phillips and Neil. And you retired Phillips's number. It's awfully hard to retire Phillips and not Neil.

So I say, yeah, I'm okay with it. I understand it. But I also understand the, the debate going on elsewhere. And I'd just curious what you think of all of this. Yeah. Look, I've said before that my feeling when it comes to retired numbers is it's up to the fan base. If that fan base is good with it, I'm good with it. I don't really have a view on it beyond that. And we'll get into it later.

It's Hall of Fame week. I love debating the Hall of Fame. And I know that fans are going to, you know, stick up for their own guy. and I will have that debate. You know, if you, if you want to come at me and say, well, Chris Osgood needs to be in the Hall of Fame, I'll tell you why no, he doesn't. And I understand that that's going to tick you off if you're a Red Wings fan,

but, you know, the Hall of Fame is for all of us. And, you know, I think you've got to draw some lines. Retired numbers are for that local fan base. And so, you know, I've said before, I don't like these teams that only honor guys that are in the Hall of Fame with the retired number, because we already have an honor for. Hall of Famers and it's called a Hall of Fame. Retired number can be a different criteria. It can be a little looser. It doesn't bother me that Wendell Clark, his number is hanging in

Toronto. He didn't come close to the Hall of Fame. It would be crazy not to have Wendell a number hanging in Toronto. He's the most popular player of a generation. Trevor Linden in Vancouver. Ken Danico in New Jersey, maybe the closest comparison to Chris Neal. I've got no issue with that. I will admit that when I saw that Chris Neal was getting that honor from the senators, I paused for a second. And I sort of thought, wow, that's okay. But I do get it. You know, I'm not a senator's fan, but living here. You know, this guy was a heart and soul guy. He is part of the community. And I can tell you, as a Leafs fan, you know, how many years of that rivalry and those playoffs where it was, I mean, it felt like most nights, it was 19 senators

running and hiding from the Big Bad Maple Leafs. And then Chris Neal, the only guy left to stand there and fight all the battles. And, you know, Chris Neal was a guy that I never viewed as like a heavyweight in this league. He was a middleweight, but he had the heart of a heavy weight. And he did the job that he had to do, and it was a really tough job. If Senator fans are good with this, I'm good with it. And you know what? You could make the argument that putting aside guys where, you know, there were tragedies or stand-winning circumstances, maybe Chris Neal might be the worst player to have his number retired by any NHL team. But so what?

You know, if sense fans love the guy and sense fans, you know, want to see it and want to have the big ovation, then I'm good with that. I don't know. I don't have my finger on the pulse of sense fans. I can't remember ever feeling like there was a push going on for this to happen. And if some people in the fan base are going, oh, man, I don't know about this, then that's, that's to them to decide. But I will tell you as an outsider, as, you know, not. just a fan of another team, but a fan of a rival.

I'm not going to sit here and say, no, you're not allowed to do that. Every franchise should retire the numbers of the players that were important and special to that band base in whatever way that works out to me. You know, okay, you said that you had a pause when you saw the news that Ottawa was retiring Chris Neal's number. Where did you have a longer pause? That announcement or that Dustin Brown was getting a statue? Oh, don't start this.

No, you're trying to get me in trouble again. Because the Kings fans have just stopped bombarding me. over the dust and round thing. You really, you took a, you took a beating there with the Dustin Brown statue. I wanted to bring it back out. And part of it was my fault. And part of it was my fault because I was under the impression. I'd seen somewhere that Dustin Brown was the first king who was getting a statue.

And that was not true. There are several others in the area that, you know, like Gretzky and Robitin, they already have their statue. So some of it was was my fault. And then I also underestimated just how insanely loyal Kings fans are to Dustin Brown. But he's another guy. He's getting his number retired this year. He's not going in the Hall of Fame.

I hate to break it to Kings fans. But the fan base, very clearly, from my experience, loves the guy. Great. Same deal with Chris Neal. I don't know about a statue, but let's do it. Let's have, you know what, get him out to Center Ice and let's have Ty Domi come out just one more time for all time's sake. And, you know, we'll, I'm sure. Oh, one more thing I do want to say on that.

the way that they did it, the video that they put together, where they had to, like, Chris Neal, like, reading just promo stuff, not realizing he was about to read his own announcement. I thought that was very cool. I liked that. Yeah, it was great. So, who knows to whoever came up with that idea and put that together with the, with the senators.

Yeah, phenomenal. I loved it. I loved it. By the way, speaking of Ottawa guys, Hall of Fame weekend coming up, and I'm going to have something on Friday. I sat down, I went for lunch with Daniel Offertson a couple weeks ago. I then reached out coming up, Sean, on Friday, I'm going to have 11 stories because he wore number 11.

I think our headline, we're going to try, we're going to try to go with 11 untold stories about Daniel Alfredson. Okay. So I got some stories from him. And then I'm hoping, you know, that, you know, I got Jason Spatz at Danny Heatley. So I got the pizza line. Eric Carlson gave me some time. His dad gave me some time.

His brother gave me some time. So I'm hoping that Ottawa fans. And even just hockey fans will read this and be like, oh, wow, I did not, I did not know that that Daniel Alfredson once had his forklift license. I didn't know that either. See, there you go. Definitely did not know that one. 11 stories that are coming out.

Forklift license. There you go. So that's coming up. But speaking of the Hall of Fame, I want real quick, I loved, you know, and I, the guy I really want to talk about it with you is Phil Kessel. Yeah. You have a piece in this week, because we're going to the Hall of Fame weekend, it's a great time to open up a debate on some guys who are currently bubble candidates.

I'm not going to lie to you. Look, all the guys that you mentioned, like the Jaroos and Brent Burns, they're all bubble candidates. But let's be honest. None of them evoked the emotion that Phil Kessel does. So I want to know using this new kind of formula tool that you're able to kind of have access to and look at, how are we feeling about Phil Kessel's Hall of Fame credentials now, moving forward. So this is a piece that I wrote where, Every year around this time when it's Hall of Fame induction, I like to take a look at a half dozen active players that are making for a tough call.

I'm not worried about the guys that are, you know, the Ovechkins and Crosby's that are locks. I'm talking about the guys that are sort of on the borderline and figure out where are they trending, what more do they have to do? Are they going to wind up there? And this year, to be a little bit different, what I did was I went back in past years and I took six guys that I had already written about and sort of said, let's revisit and see where they're going. are they getting closer, are they getting further away? And Kessel was an interesting one because there are really, I had written about him three seasons ago, and I basically said, you know, two things. Number one, he was trending behind where he probably needed to be as an offensive,

primarily offensive, maybe offense only player. He wasn't going to get to the point totals he probably needed to get to unless he could have a few more pretty big years. And the other thing I mentioned was at the time. time, he was three years away from the Ironman record. And so three years later, he has broken that record. He now owns that record. He's about to hit the thousand, thousand game mark, which is a pretty amazing accomplishment that does boost his case. Unfortunately, for the lesser years, his offense has actually tailed off.

Well, he was in Arizona. I mean, he was, he was okay. He had like, you know, 50-point seasons, that sort of thing. But, like, the days of him being a 70 or 80-point player certainly seemed to be gone and, you know, he didn't have much to work with in Arizona, but he's in Vegas this year. And, you know, he's not lightening it up or anything. So I still don't feel like he's going to get there. I mean, he's going to get to a thousand points, presumably this year. I just don't feel like that's enough. I think in today's era, the low-scoring, you know, Gary Bettman era that we've all been enduring for a couple of decades now, I think a thousand points gets you in if you can do other things. You know, if you're a two-way player, that sort of thing. I don't feel like Kessel has

that reputation. So I think at the end of the day, when they look at a guy who's a offense-only player, they're going to need to see more offense. And the other piece of this is, you know, and I hate that it comes to this. But I don't like the way that the Hockey Hall of Fame works as far as the lack of transparency and the fact that it's just 18 men and women, but 18 hockey lifers get into a room and argue. And then vote in secret. I just don't know who's going to get up and pound the table for Phil Kessel. He feels like a guy who's never, who sort of moved around the league doesn't really seem,

like, seems very beloved these days among, you know, hockey fans in general. But there's not like, you know, he played most of his career in Toronto. I don't feel like Lee fans really hold Phil Kessel in a special place in their hearts above and beyond other guys that they've had. Like, who's going to stand up and say, guys, I'm not leaving this room until we've, I've, got the votes for Phil Kessel. I just don't see it happening. And it's, you know, it's unfortunate because I'd love to see it. And I used the numbers that you talk about. There's a, they're not mine, but it's a new site and figure account called adjusted hockey. It's a guy named Paul who runs it and he was

very, he's been tweeting out sort of everyday different players. He's created this model where he's looked at what gets you into the Hall of Fame and found a way to sort of dispassionately crunch the numbers. And what he found is Phil Castle at this point is not quite there, but he's just a little bit below. So, you know, something if the Golden Knights get to the playoffs this year and Phil Castle goes

nuts and wins a cons might, I think that probably tips him into maybe the more likely than not territory. He should have won consmite already from one of those Pittsburgh runs, but they didn't give it to him. But it looks like right now at this point he's trending to just miss,

which is a bummer, because that would be one hell of his speech. Why don't we bring in the guy who covers Phil Kessel for a living? It's Jesse Granger. A little segment we like to call Granger Things, brought to you by BetMGM, the exclusive betting partner with the athletic. Jesse, we just wrapped up a convo on Phil Kessel. Sean wrote about his Hall of Fame credentials, kind of moving forward.

Tough start for Phil, one goal in 14 games. We talked about this, I think, in the summer. We're like, oh, I can see a scenario where maybe Phil can push 20 goals again in the right spot. Now that we've played kind of five or six weeks of the season, do we feel like 15 goals is even attainable for Kessel or you're not even seeing that? Yeah. I mean, I was not as optimistic as I think most. I think his goal total for the season was 14 and a half or 13 and a half. And I projected him to go under that before the year. And I feel even more strongly about that now. He hasn't had it. Like I wasn't expecting Phil to come in here and be like an overall like,

game changer, but I figured when the puck is on his stick, he's going to do good things with it. And so far, he hasn't been bad. Like, he hasn't been a liability out there. He just hasn't created offense the way I think the Golden Knights hoped he would. Now, early in the year, he was playing big minutes up there with Jack Eichel and Riley Smith, and that didn't go well. They moved him down to the third line. Now he's playing with Michael Amadio and Brett Howden. So two role players that aren't really known for their offensive prowess. He's kind of having to carry the load down there. It is worth noting that since they moved Kessel down there, Eichel and Riley Smith are both on fire, and they're the two best scores on the team.

So I think it's taking him a little bit of time to adjust. He definitely hasn't had the impact that they hoped. And on the power play, too. He's on the second unit, and he just hasn't really shown a lot there. So I don't know if it's something he needs to just adjust to and he's going to grow into it, or if this is the Phil Kessel they're getting. But he, I mean, they only paid him a million and a half, so it's not a huge miss. but he hasn't been the player they had hoped.

Yeah. Yeah, and again, as Sean talked about, you know, the days of being a kind of consistent 20-goal, 70-point guys seem to be in the rearview mirror, kind of a slow start again this year. All right, Jesse, we get you on every week. We kind of look at some trends around the National Hockey League statistically. And, you know, the further we get into this season,

sometimes the easier it is to see some of those trends. But stop me if you've heard this before. Scoring is up in the NHL. Yeah, it's, I feel like we do this every. October. Yeah. But I think it's a little, like to me, this isn't the usual, okay, there's a bunch of wide open scoring and it's going to go down as the season starts.

I think we're, like the NHL is clearly changing into a more speed league, a more skill league. We're seeing far less teams that muck it up in the neutral zone and play the one three one trap and try to beat teams two to one every night. We are seeing lots of high scoring games. And to me, obviously the scoring is up early in the year. to me, it's fascinating if you look at this seven-year trend in the NHL. Rather than looking at goals per game, I like looking at save percentage and goals against average because it takes away

empty net goals. It's just legitimate goals that are scored on goalies. And if you go back seven years ago to 2015-16, the save percentage across the league was 915. That was the highest it had been since 1963. So we're talking goalies were stopping everything seven years ago. In the next seven years, a save percentage has gone down every single year. There has not been one year that the save percentage didn't go down. And now it's at 906, which is the lowest it's been in 17 years. I don't think the goalies have gotten worse. If anything, I think they've gotten better. I think the scorers have gotten better. I think teams are playing more talented players up and down the lineup. They're not playing checking lines as much.

You're seeing skilled fourth lines. And the goals against average kind of has the same trend. It hasn't been quite as linear as the save percentage, but it's currently at 2.98 is the average goals against around the league. And that's the highest it's been in 27 years. So scoring is up, saves are down. I don't think this is just an October trend. I think this is, we are seeing the NHL going more towards,

we're getting away from checking lines. We're playing more skilled players, younger players down the lineup. And I think that's good for the game. It is good for the game. And imagine if we had done anything at all in the last 25 years to encourage offense. Like every other league did. Imagine what these incredibly talented players, these better fourth liners, these, you know, the guys who can score up and down the lineup.

Imagine what, how exciting and entertaining they would be if Gary Betman. and friends had any kind of plan other than waiting 25 years for this slightest little nudge up in offense to happen organically. That's it. That's my rant. You can go back to being happy. Well, you know what, though? But part of it leads into this next thing that you want to bring up, which is power plays

are producing. I guess power plays are producing everywhere except Ottawa, Jesse, because Ottawa had this. We thought. Columbus, man. Columbus has got a. That's true. This is going to be a tough one for Blue Jackets fans. I think they're scoring at a higher rate at even strength than they are.

On the power play. It's wild. The other day, they were under like 7%, weren't they? Or something like that? Yeah, I think they still are. Single digits, for sure. And so I'm curious, though. Jesse, how much do we say, okay, scoring is up?

How much of it is attributed to power plays being better? I think it is definitely, despite Ottawa and Columbus effort to drag it down. The league average, right? And like, this is one where I think this one we can take a little bit more with a grain of salt because it's early in the season. and I think PKs aren't quite as good as they will be as the season goes on. But right now, the league average for power play percentage is 21.8%, which is insanely high. That's the highest it's been since 1985.

But to me, what's really causing all these goals is the opportunities are way up. Teams are averaging 3.4 power play opportunities per game around the league. The last two years, same exact average. It was 2.89. So we're talking a massive jump up in a number of power plays teams are getting. And then you've got teams like Colorado and Edmonton that are both at over 30%. I mean, the Aves powerplay is at 38% right now. That's obviously not going to continue.

But it's the teams are getting more powerplays. They're scoring more often. I did a quick search on HL.com where I looked at the top powerplay percentages since 1990. and four of the top five are teams this season. Obviously, Colorado and Edmonds here are the only two over 30%. It's only a month into the year. But it just shows you that the power plays are converting at a much higher rate and they're getting more power plays. I think that is part of the reason the goals per game has gone up early in the season.

But like I said, this is a seven-year trend of the safe percentage has gone down seven years in a row. I always think, Sean, when I think of that 05-06 season, when we, which came out to lockout, the offense exploded, but so much of it was predicated on power plays, right? Yeah, the five on five didn't really change. It was the fact that teams were getting eight and nine power plays a game. And sure enough, as soon as the referees, stop calling penalties, which was either because the league lost its nerve

or because players adapted and adjusted, that's sort of up for debate. I think it was a bit of both. But, yeah, look, I've said before, whenever I do my constant moaning and crying about lack of offense, which I just did, one of the things, people always come to me with ideas. And they say, well, what if we did, what if we made power plays last for the full two minutes? Or what if we did this or that to make power plays more effective? And my argument is always, we want five on five to be exciting.

That's what it's got to be. There has to be scoring a five on five. If you make the power play, yeah, I mean, the numbers will go up. But all you're doing is training your audience to sit around and wait for a power play. And, you know, not to mention that if you make power plays more dangerous, referees, human nature kicks in, and referees are less likely to call them, especially late in the game. So we've got to have offense and scoring chances. When I say offense, scoring chances, it doesn't necessarily mean the puck has to go win,

but it's got to, you know, that feeling of excitement of, hey, this could be a goal right here. It's got to happen at 5'052. And if that's where the increase is coming, that's far better than, like you say, in heaven at all just be because there's a crazy number of power plays, or because power plays have gone through the roof in an unsustainable way. Right. I think if you make power plays more dangerous, if you change the rules to make power plays more successful, I think the end of games, every conversation is going to be, well, they got the calls tonight. So they got the power plays, and that's why they won. Whereas if it's the five on five is more exciting, it kind of eliminates that. 100%. Absolutely. Yeah. But hey, before we let you go, one other thing,

we're starting to see some back-to-back games that are happening in the National Hockey League where we don't really get a ton of them in October but they really start to pick up, right? In the November, December, you start to see more, you know, teams are playing three games and four nights and certainly that requires back-to-back games. So what's the early data telling us,

Jesse, as it pertains to back-to-back games? Yeah, this is a crazy trend and I want to give credit to Andrew Dowdy, who that sounds like a pseudonym for Drew Dowdy, But this is not Drew Dowdy. This is the Drew Dowdy. It's Andrew Dowdy. Of BedmGM, which obviously is the sponsor of this segment.

He works at BetMGM. He does good work. And he found this trend dating back to November of last season, November of 2021. So if you look at all the years before, from 2005 to 2021, if you looked at a back-to-back where both teams are on the second night of a back-to-back, there was no edge betting the home or away side. If you just blindly said, okay, both these teams are on a back-to-back, I'm going to bet the home side every time. It was a negative return on investment. You would lose more money.

It was the same thing if you bet the road team because the margins were so close and obviously the sports book gets a little bit of juice. So there was no edge for 16 years. Since November of last year, in those situations where both teams are on a back-to-back, the road team is 41 and 14, which is absolutely insane. to me. That's nuts. If you were to blindly bet $100 on every road team when the two teams are both on back-to-backs, you would be up $2,400 since last November. It's a return on investment of 42%. The only thing I can think of is when you're on a back-to-back, maybe when you're at home, you relax a little. You go home to your house. You're with your family. I honestly don't know. Maybe when you're on the road, you're with the team. You're a little more focused. There's less

distractions, you're going to be tired regardless, but maybe it's just easier when you're flying from hotel to hotel. I can't think maybe you guys have a theory on why this is, but 41 and 14 in a sport like hockey where anything over like 51% is great is crazy to me. 41 and 14 is the record. Like that, that's mind boggling. That's not just a little advantage, right, Sean? That's, no, yeah. That's wild. I mean, if we, if we were talking, you know, five extra wins over the course of 50 games, you kind of shrug and say small sample size or whatever, but that's pretty wild. I wonder, it would be fascinating to look at and say, how often is that, you know, is,

is that team having to travel? How long and how often is, I wonder, does that come into play at all? I don't know, versus the team that's playing a back-to-back, but they're at home for both. I don't know. It would be interesting to see, but that is a, that's a big, that's a big trend. I also wonder how much the backup goalies fit into it. I've always found it weird. And Jesse, you're our goaltender consultant here too.

But I do find it very weird that so many NHL teams continue when it's a back-to-back to give their nominal starting goalie the choice of which game he has. You don't see that in other sports. You don't go and say, hey, you have a choice of what game you want to play. The coach should sit there and go, this is the game that we're focused on. We want to put the starter here. But instead, they kind of give him the pick, which always feels weird. me. One interesting thing about the goalies on back-to-backs is I'd have to look it up again, but I saw a stat, I think it was last year, that on the rare occasion that you do play the same goalie on both nights, the win percentage is much, much higher. I think it would be interesting for a coach to try, like, you don't want to play your goalie to death, but maybe give your starting goalie like the game before the back-to-back off and the game after and play your same goalie both nights. Maybe it's because they're in a rhythm, they're feeling it. And,

A lot of goalies you hear, they just feel they feel like they're tracking the puck better when they're playing a lot. I don't know. Something about playing them both nights. It's not like these guys can't do it. If you do it all year long and you play your goalie 70 games, he's going to get injured. That's just how it works. But I think there is, I'm interested in seeing what would happen if a coach decided I'm going to play my same goalie on both nights of a back-to-back all year long. Yeah. And I mean, because we don't, luckily, we haven't seen it much in recent playoffs, but most post-seasons, we do see a few. cases where series have back-to-back games. You don't see the backup goalies come in for those. Like, you know, it was the team, wow, we're just going to start our guy, and if he's

tired, he's tired. So it's not like it's impossible. I feel like that is one of the great things that we figured out in the analytics era was the drop in, you know, how well goal he's played in back-to-backs. And if you're going to only start a guy 50 times a year anyways, you might as well pick the days off. But you're right. I mean, if you've got two big games against division rivals,

maybe that's the time to just say we're going with our guy. Yeah, no, it's a great point on the playoff. You would never in a million years in the playoffs be like, well, you know what, Vaselowski played last night. It's time to go to, you know, the backup. Right. It just doesn't happen. All right. Jesse, this was great as always.

Thanks for popping by the Thursday of the podcast, and we'll get you again next week. Sweet. Thanks for having me, guys. Thanks, Jesse. Great stuff, as always, with our pal Jesse Granger. Let's wrap up the episode like we always do. We open up the mailbag. You can leave us an email,

The Athletic Hockey Show at gmail.com, or a voicemail at 845-4-4-5-8459. That's exactly what this person did from Michigan. We've got a, we'll say, unknown caller with a question about Eric Carlson and the Ottawa senators. Here's a fun little stat guys. Eric Carlson has 10 goals on the year right now. What in the world is necessary to get him out of San Jose and back home to Ottawa to finish out the last four years of that contract? Because this is the time to get him there. Ottawa desperately needs the defenseman.

San Jose desperately needs to get rid of some cap room. And it'd be a great return for Eric Carlson who can get second pairing minnics behind Thomas Shabb. Doesn't have to go up against the hard defensive bearings and still play that offensive game. He's about to play himself out of San Jose. Love the show guys. Take it easy. Wondering what you think on that. All right. I tell you what, like I said, Sean, earlier this week,

I connected with Eric Carlson. Had a great phone chat with him this week. He was, you know, he opened up the call by saying, you know, anytime you want to talk about Daniel Alfordson, he's like, I'm game. Like, he just loved it. That relationship is just fascinating to see. But look, this guy's wondering, can Eric Carlson get back to the senators? Look, the way Carlson's playing this year, it's like he's turned by

the clock. You know, whatever, 11, 10 goals, just having a great season. Okay, stripping aside the senator's angle for a second. If you're San Jose, what do you do with Eric Carlson right now? Oh, I'm looking to move him absolutely 100%. If I have a chance to get out of that contract with any kind of, you know, without it crippling me, I'm taking this as the opportunity and I'm jumping all over it. And look, he's been great. It's been a great story. He hasn't really been healthy the last few years.

No. This is finally what they want. But no, I mean, it's one of those things where if you'd take in any sharks fan, and I'm sure Mike Greer, if you'd hooked him up to a lie detector and said at the beginning of the year, hey, if Eric Carlson just goes crazy for the first month, would you sell high on him? Everybody would say, yes, of course. Oh, that would be fantastic. But of course, now that it's happening, it's not so easy.

you kind of go, oh, geez, I don't know. It's this kind of fun watching this guy. Maybe we don't move them. I would absolutely be looking at this as an opportunity to get out from four years left still on that contract. 11 and a half. As I'm trying to rebuild. No, and I do not want that. I'm looking to move on.

And if this is my opportunity to do it, I'm jumping all over it. Okay, two things. First of all. In fact, that did that sound a little bit like Mike Greer or unknown caller? Didn't that sound? Yeah, exactly. The voice seems a little familiar. I don't know.

This is Mike. This is Mike. No, wait, that's no good. Don't do that. No. No. Yeah. Two things.

First of all, you gave me a great idea. So you know how every year the NHL does this PR tour at the start of the year? And they have all their players. I think this year they got together in Vegas. What do you say next year? We try and say with the athletic hockey show, we want to go. But our whole schick is we show up with a polygraph machine. Like we hook up.

We just hook people up to a lie detector in September and start asking them questions. And we're like, we will. only reveal the results if like the things that we ask you about right come to fruition yeah that's you know what that yeah that would be a good one hey we just we just go back to the from uh from september 15th we asked them would you trade eric also if he gets off yeah to a great start yeah anyway so that's the polygraph i i feel like we're going to get very low engagement on that from the players yeah i don't think like the participation will be well you have to keep it a secret, right? Like they just, you know, you just, they come in, hey, what's this?

And then one of us pops out and grabs them and just, yeah. Just put your index finger in here. Yeah, exactly. But the other, okay. So then, then then they just kind of put a bow on this and kind of answer the question. Look, the one thing I feel like I feel confident in saying on Eric, and I've known Eric a long time, he loves Ottawa. Like, and I mean loves the city. Like, understand Eric Carlson comes back and lives in Ottawa in the summer. He doesn't. stay in Zendana. He lives in Ottawa in the summertime. Loves the city. Loves the community. Always, why did he leave?

This place was a bleep show. Okay? Supposed was a bleep show. He had to get out. They had to part ways with him. But I'll say this. We talked about this earlier about, you know, Ottawa and new ownership stuff. And you met, you know, Daniel Alpherson should be. I think Alfie is going to be whenever, however this is all the dust settles. I think Daniel Alpherson will be part of things. That's where I think the door will realistically be open.

to some sort of, you know, reunion with Eric Carlson. I definitely wouldn't put it out of the equation. Like once, if Daniel Offertson has any say, and Eric Carlson's contract is, you know, able to be moved in a way in which it makes sense for Ottawa, that is absolutely unequivocally something I could see happening, without a doubt in my mind. If Alfie has his way, wouldn't shock me if that's something he pushes for.

Be very cool. I love a reunion story. It's especially one like this where the way it went bad was not, you know, it didn't. It wasn't the fans who were responsible for the way that broke down. So that would be very cool to see. Okay. A couple of emails here. This one from Kyle who says, look, reason I love listening to you guys, you give a measured and thoughtful insight in the hockey world while still having some fun. In a world of shock jocks, hot takes, and cynicism. It's nice to just listen to two guys. guys having fun while remembering that gray areas do exist. So with that, I turn to you because

I think I need some help and I can only get it in the gray area. I've been a Boston Bruins fan since I was sitting on my dad's lap watching games on our TV. That's been 40 years ago now. The decision to sign Mitchell Miller really upset me to the point where quitting as a fan seemed like it was on the table for me. What he did to poor Isaiah Meyer Carruthers for all those years is awful. To take Miller, who has never shown remorse for his actions and sign him to a contract, sends a clear message to me. Racism is okay. Bullying is fine. And if you're good at hockey, you don't even have to feel bad about it. How can I support this as a fan? On top of that, I'm a pee-wee hockey coach for a team in my town. We've got kids of color on my team,

girls on my team. This week, I had to take time out to talk to parents and the kids about bullying, racism, make it clear that that does not fly in my locker room. Had to spend time talking to my kids about bullying instead of breakouts. But the kids, can believe me, how can the kids believe me, when the biggest organization in town says it's fine as long as you're talented enough. This whole thing makes me sick. This team is one of the few connections I have to my father who passed away about a year ago. Giving up my Bruins fandom is like carving out a piece of my relationship with him that I don't think can ever come back. So guys, help me out. What can I do to remain a fan and not feel completely gross? That's from Kyle. Look,

we really appreciate the passion and, you know, the eloquence in which you wrote that letter. And I think a lot of hockey fans grapple with this. Chicago fans have dealt with it. Like, fans deal with this often. What's our advice to Kyle here, Sean? Yeah. And I'm glad he wrote in. And I hope that somebody, somewhere in the Bruins organization hears stuff like that.

And in other organizations, because, you know, if it wasn't the Bruins, it was going to be somebody else. And it will be somebody else down the road. and some team will be faced with the same sort of decision. I guess what I can say to Kyle or anyone else who's feeling this way is, you know, specifically when it comes to the Bruins, look, when you're a fan, you know, there's the old joke that we're cheering for laundry or you're cheering for a logo, but if you're cheering for anyone, it's not ownership, it's not management, it's the players.

And at the very least, Bruins fans, I think, can be proud of the players for the way that they push back on this, Patrice Bergeron especially. You know, for him to do what he did. And, you know, it wasn't, it wasn't an unequivocal condemnation, but he was very clear that he had some concerns. Yeah, exactly. Unheard of.

In the hockey world for a captain of a team, you know, and then from there, that opened the door for people like Nick Folino and others to follow up. Look, I mean, we've seen it. We know what the standard answer is in the hockey world. we saw it with Conrad David last year. And some people had some questions about the earlier signing of Andrew King. And he just kind of shrugged and said, it is what it is. Patrice Bergeron could have done that this time around and nobody really would have batted

a night because it's just what we expect. And he didn't. And the players, you know, kind of pushed back. And I would at least feel some pride as a fan in the players that I'm out there. You know, I feel like I could still cheer these players on, even if I'm very disheartened by what management did. And then I guess the other thing I would say is let's see how it plays out. This is still a story with a lot of moving pieces,

and I don't think we've necessarily heard the end of it. So let's see. But for now, you know, focus your pride on the players and don't let some stupid decisions by management and some stupid justifications and everything that went after that take something important away from you when, you know, we don't, we don't know yet how exactly it's going to play out.

Yeah. And, you know, especially Kyle, when you said that you've got these great memories of your dad, sitting on his lap being a Bruins fan, you shouldn't feel, at any point, you should never feel conflicted about that. You know what I mean?

Like, those are powerful childhood memories that you'll take forever. And, like, I know what it's like, like, and you know this, Sean. Like, I was so, I'm a huge Dallas Cowboys fan. And, like, I remember when Dallas son,

Greg Hardy. Boy, when was that? Maybe six years ago. And this guy had a laundry list of like just awful things that he did. And I thought, like, I just felt terrible. Like, I felt so conflicted as a fan. Like, I remember he had a couple of sacks in the game. And I thought, I don't feel like really celebrating these moments, right?

Like, so I feel like conflict can often come up in sports. And we've all been there, right? Yeah, I think so. I mean, I'm a Leif's fan. And, I mean, you go down. I mean, the awesome Matthews situation a few years ago, uh, Google the name Martin Cruz.

If you're not familiar with that story. And, and, you know, then ask yourself, you know, somebody like me to sit here, I'm certainly not going to sit on some moral high horse about, uh, you know, about my team. Um,

because it's, uh, there, there are, it, it does feel like in a lot of times in, in the sports world, but, you know, this is a hockey podcast.

So we'll keep it focused on hockey that we're just, forced to try to love this game in spite of so many of the people involved. Which again, I mean, there's no, I'm not going to go fishing for any good news in this whole story because it's, it's not a good news story at all. But I do think, as I said, you can at least take some pride in the reaction of some of those Bruins players and how rare that feels in the hockey world. And you know what? And I'll wrap it up on Kyle by saying, And, you know, my biggest takeaway from your email to us, Kyle, is that you're taking time out of your pee-wee hockey program to talk to your players about bullying and racism and that type. That was my biggest takeaway.

Like, like, I hope you realize that you're, you know, whatever negativity might be surrounding the Bruins right now, you're doing whatever you can to put some good things into the game. And that's what matters. You know, that, that to me, that really, that resonated with me. So I hope, we understand the conflict, but we hope that you can see the, you know, the positivity and the difference that you're making, I'm sure on your team and the fact that, like Sean said, Nick Folino and Patrice Bershron, those guys stepped up.

Okay, one more email here from Mike, who says, dumb question as it relates to video review. But can there be video review for icing? If the puck carriers dumped it in prior to the center ice line, but the puck hadn't fully crossed center ice and the resulting dump-in led to a goal. I love Down Goes Brown's piece on bad off-side reviews, and I hope to God this isn't reviewable,

but it seems like in the name of getting things right, this would be something that's reviewable because this is just black and white, like off-side. So far fewer goals are the result of one of these types of dump-ins, but I'm curious, guys, is an icing play reviewable? Keep it up from Mike. I mean, Mike is absolutely right. There is no argument if you're one of the just get it right crowd that defends offside review

because we have the technology and it's a black and white call and all of this stuff. There is no reasonable argument against doing reviews on icing dumpins as well. And in fact, we all know from watching hockey that those dumpins very often do come from the wrong side of center. And yet the play is allowed to keep going. and absolutely based on offside reviews, we should be able to review those as well if they lead to a goal. We're not, thankfully,

because Mike is also right to say it would be stupid to do that. Just like it would be stupid, as I pointed out before, to review offensive zone face-offs to see if anyone's skate was on the line. Watch on offensive zone face-off. There's three or four players

who are out of place on those, but we live with it. There is no, you know, this, again, we should not have offside review in this league, period, full stop. It hasn't worked. It's an awful thing. We saw it last night, right? Trevor Zegar's a highlight.

The lacrosse goal, taking away. Yeah, he does the, you know, he does a Michigan. And it's pulled off the board because of an offside rule because of, you know, somebody being a couple of inches offside. It's absolutely ridiculous that we do this. This is the skate and a crease rule from the 90s all over again. We haven't learned any of our lessons. And if you are one of those.

people and I know you're out there and you say, no, no, this is good. It's a rule is a rule and we have to just get it right. You should be in favor of reviewing icing dumpins and face off violations and all this other stuff. But most of us aren't because we realize instinctively how ridiculous that would be. And it's all I ask is that people apply that same logic to offsides and realize how ridiculous it is that we keep doing this stupid thing. Yeah, that's wild. Yeah, no, I'm with it. The Zegroes goal, I hope people can still see the beauty in that, even though it was called the back for nothing that had to do with Zeggris himself. But holy smokes.

Completely rid of it. We had one in New Jersey a couple nights ago, 29 seconds, 29. I mean, do you realize how long 29 seconds is in sports? It's an insanely long amount of time, but they pulled the goal up. We talked about, you know, we were just talking with Jesse about Bill Kessel, not scoring goals. Well, he scored one against the leaves. It was his 400th. and the place went nuts.

And then the Leafs called for a review, called time out, stared at an iPad for a couple of minutes, eventually called a review. And it was 19 seconds. 19 seconds. The Leafs had possession in between there. It's completely asinine that we do this. And yeah, I mean, I know Jesse can tell us that scoring's up very slightly. But this is a league that still, we need more offense. And yet we have come up with this nitpicky stupid reason to take offense off the board.

kill excitement, you know, create these long pauses, suck all the life out of buildings, create this situation where, you know, I know a lot of fans are like me, you see your team score and you're excited, but you're also kind of like, hold on, let's wait and see, you know, whether is anybody looking at anything? Was there some offside I missed 30 seconds ago? It's completely asinine. It's the skate in the crease all over again. We said we wouldn't do that, but here we are again.

If there was real leadership in this league, somebody would stand up and go, this guys, this is completely ridiculous and we'd get rid of it. And nobody would miss it. And if one Matt Duchenne call happens a decade and that's the price to get rid of this thing, then I'm happy to pay that price. Yeah, I think Myrtle's Twitter poll was 70% in favor of get rid of it. So it's 7030, whatever in favor. So yeah, I'm with you.

Okay, wrapping it up with a little this week in hockey history, I'm going to pick a random hockey game for the 1970s, okay? Washington loses a game to Montreal, Sean. November 11, 1974 by a score of 11 to 1. Okay? 11 to 1. The caps were terrible at the time. The Canadians were on the verge of becoming one of the great powerhouses in NHL history.

It was the year before they won the cup. Anyway, they were dominant team. They beat Washington 11 to 1. I want to bring up two things from this game because I have two questions for you. First of all, in this game, Washington goalies Ron Lowe and Michael Bellhumor each gave up five goals in the game. Bell Humor gave up six, Ron Lowe gave up five. Cool boy. I'd love to know.

How many games in NHL history do you think are existed, or have existed, where two goalies on the same team give up five goals? That's a good question. I mean, I don't know the answer. Do you happen to know it? I don't, no, no. I have no clue.

I didn't even know how I would. I would love to know. I would love to look it up. But that seems odd to me that, and they basically split the time in goal too. Like, you know, Ron Lowe played. They both played about half the game, roughly. But they each gave up five goals in the game.

I'm shocked by that. Like, I don't know how often that would ever happen. It can't be very often. I would imagine this isn't the only time. I mean, certainly we have seen some games where teams have gone double digits or more. So if, you know, if you do get the goalie out at the right time. But, yeah, that's pretty, geez, it probably happened to the Capitol at least a few times that year. This is quite possibly the worst team in the history of the NHL.

So when you are one in 11 coming into a game and you lose 11 to 1, that feels bad. Yeah. Okay. Then the other thing I want to bring up is in this game, Montreal scores 11 goals. Henri Richard has a five-point game. Two goals, three assists. First of I thought it was a type of, I'm like, wait, Henri Richard was playing in 1974. Like, that seemed a little late for me, right?

So I go back, I look it up. he only played one more regular season game the rest of his life. Oh, wow. This five-point game was his final, I guess, what's that term, penultimate next to last game? He played one more game and then never played another regular season game. Now, he came back for the playoffs, but I don't know what happened here. That's very strange.

Yeah, no, I didn't know that. And I mean, I would assume maybe must have been an injury situation or something if he, if he was back in time for the playoffs. But yeah, that's a pretty weird one. And I'm looking down this. But from my count, I would say of the 11 goals, I think nine of the Monterell goals were scored by Hall of Famers. Wow. Gila Fleur, Army Richard, Bob Ganey, Sir Savard, and then Glenn Sather, who I didn't even remember playing for Montreal. But he got in there and got it.

Glenn Sather from Jacques Lamerer. That's how many coaching wins is that on one goal? That's pretty good in its own right. Now I need you to look it up. How many, man, you know what? That's a great question. Is that, can you think of another goal combination from coaches with that many? I don't know.

I mean, Al Arbor played a lot. So they're probably being L.Rourber. But no, but like who would he have teamed up with? Like Scottie Berman. Yeah, that's it. Yeah. Well, I mean, there was that, yeah, I wonder the Leafs. The Leafs infamously had a draft in the 70s where they took Bruce Boudreau, Ron Wilson, and Ken Holland.

Was it Quinnville? And Quinville was on the Leafs for a while. He was, he broke in with the Maple Leafs. So they may have all played at some point. That would be worth looking into as well. And then there have been, you know, there were certainly superstar players that did go on to coach a little bit and have, you know, some degree of success. but I got wonder, yeah, what's the most coaching wins you could get on one goal? That could be a point to look up.

I was going to say interns. Let's get on it. Yeah, let's go interns. I'm going to sneak into your next mailbag. I'm going to pretend I'm Mike from San Jose. Yeah, you have Ryan Reynolds shoot me a note. Yeah. Well, I need him to get back to me.

I need him to get back to me first. Right. Yeah. Okay. Listen, we're going to leave it there. Hope everybody had fun with this Thursday edition of the podcast. I want to remind you. You can be like,

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