The Athletic Hockey Show - Atlantic Division surprises, Pittsburgh Penguins deep freeze and Ryan Reynolds confirms interest in Ottawa Senators

Episode Date: November 8, 2022

With Craig Custance on assignment, Sean Gentille welcomes Max Bultman as guest co-host on the Tuesday boyzzz. The guys take a look at the Atlantic Division surprise teams, with solid starts for the Detroit Red Wings and Buffalo Sabres, and the stuck in the mud Ottawa Senators, plus actor Ryan Reynolds interest in purchasing the Senators.Rob Rossi who covers the Pittsburgh Penguins discusses the plight of the Pens who are in the midst of a seven game slide, with a weak bottom six, the struggles of Brian Dumoulin, and the brutal Kasperi Kapanen contract shouldering the blame. Get a 6 month subscription to The Athletic for just $1 a month when you visit http://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, welcome, welcome. This is the athletic hockey show, Tuesday edition, where we give the people what they want. A, no Craig Custin's, B, lots of Max Boltman. C, for the next hour and a half, you guessed it. more Mitchell Miller discussion let's go there's still more meat on that phone what were the Boston Bruins thinking what comes next this is what we're going to talk about for the next 86 minutes right Maxie no just kidding just kidding no more Mitchell Miller talk but Max is here hey buddy hey I like coming on the show for two reasons Sean first I get to put on my custom Tuesday boys slippers that I'm not allowed to wear except on days that I guess so that's right

That's really nice. And two, because I get to pretend like you guys haven't talked about anything going on in the league and that I'm giving you, did you hear about the New Jersey Devils? I'm giving you all this for the first time. The Pittsburgh Penguins are in trouble, Sean, and I'm going to tell you about it. Hey, what was the start to the penguin season like? Have they gone on kind of a backslide for the last two weeks? Is that what's happened? I'm glad you asked.

It started great. And then they've hit hard times. Spoiler. It's all Kasperi Kappan's fault. We're joined also today by Rob Rossi. He's our guest. Rossi's my boy. He's here to talk penguins.

He's in the second segment. Gave us some pretty good intel because I haven't. I haven't been around much. I haven't been to any practices. I haven't been to many games. So I don't really know what's going on with the penguins. I don't know shit. That's my big secret.

I'm even dumber than you'd guessed. And I need dudes like Rossi to tell me how it works. So he's around to do that. But first, Maxie, since we got you, I think our plan here for the first segment is an unofficial tour around the Atlantic division. Because that's, we knew that was going to be an interesting one, right? I think we knew that it was going to be deep potentially. And if nothing else, there were a lot of, a lot of interesting squads that people were watching closely at the start of, the season. It got boring. It got over, overplayed, I guess, is maybe the right way to put it.

Because it was like, oh, yeah, the Atlantic Division, this, that. You get tired of hearing about the savers and the wings and, you know, the Sends is kind of teams that are on the come-up. And now we're, you know, 12, 13 games in and we kind of have a sense of where these teams are and the team you cover is kind of at the forefront of it. So I don't know. Is there, is there one big takeaway for the wings that you have through this, through the first little chunk of games here? Well, I think mostly just surviving some pretty brutal, like, player personnel injuries and, and other situation. I mean, Jacob Verona is in the player assistance program.

Tyler Bertuzzi broke something or injured something. The second game of the season, four to six weeks, upper body. That's what it says. It seems like a puck to the hand to me, but I don't know. Who can say really? I don't know. That's what it says on the Red Wings injury report is broke something. maybe.

Usually four to six weeks on a shop lock. We know what that is, right? Robbie Fabry still out. Oscar Sunfist out with an injury that's lasted like longer than it expected to. And so all of a sudden it seemed like the depth that Steve Eiserman kind of went out of his way to accumulate was like, well, there it goes. But they found a way to seven, three and two. There are some underlines that tell you beware. But I think they're, you know, the goal to.

things been quite good. I think they've found a way with like, you know, there's like this, blocking like the six most shots in the league. Like they're all bought in. You know, they've had two guys out. Zadina just went out blocking a shot too. And they're still doing it. So I don't know. There's something, there's something to it. Um, maybe it's the Derrick Lone effect. Maybe it's the veterans that they've brought in. They finally have a competent power play. Um, all these little things seem like they're adding up. And, you know, I was really skeptical early because of the schedule, but their last three are over, you know, the islanders who look maybe back.

Yeah. Rangers who are admittedly, like, they're down for sure, but still talented team and and the capitals who, you know, I think that one is a little more, more cause for alarm, but real teams nonetheless is my point. I don't want to do like a progress report on all the various guys that Eisenman brought in because that's, you know, we don't need to belabor the point there. But of that group of Perron and Sherat and Andrew Cop and only Mata and he's in What's his face from from Chicago?

Kubalik, yeah. Kubalik, thank you. Has there been one surprise, good or bad that kind of sticks out for you? Man, yeah, honestly there are a couple. It's probably Kubalik and Mata for me. Kubalik, I mean, I don't think anyone saw this kind of offense coming right away. I think a lot of people thought he's not going to repeat what happened last year in Chicago. But basically since day one of camp, he's been a better rounded player than I expected for sure.

My thoughts on him when they made that move where, okay, this dude is going to bounce back a little bit and he'll help on the power play. I don't think I saw him scoring, you know, at whatever, a 30 goal pace or whatever he's been at. 40 right now. 40? Jesus, geez, man. No, it's early. But yeah, like six goals and 12. and a ton of it.

He's helped the powerplay a ton. I just thought this was like a spot-up shooter, basically. Like, and I feel bad for that because not only has he been active on the forecheck and all this stuff. Like, he's finding Lucas Raymond on these little backdoor plays at the post that it's, I swear they have three goals off of, maybe more than that. But they have at least three goals off them in like the last four games, five games. So he's helped to power play a ton. Also a player that the black, you know why?

Now I know why he was a. because the Blackhawks knew that he was going to bounce back. Yeah, he'll a little more off. They got to get get this dude out the paint. He's, he's going to help too much in a tank fest 2022. What's going on with Andrew Cop? The numbers are ugly. I haven't watched a ton of them.

Is there, as someone who watches that team every day, are you concerned about what you're seeing from him? It was really, I think, just like the first, he missed the entire training camp. So the first like six, seven games, I think you just kind of saw, in my opinion, like Rust. and maybe a little bit of frustration that came with that, like as he starts to be like, okay, why am I not on the score sheet? But the last five, six games, I think it's looked more like what you thought. Really starting with the Minnesota game, they beat the Wilde, the close game,

and he played the kind of game you bring Andrew Kopp into play, right? Like tight check, he starts to swing the ice a little bit for you. I don't even think he scored in that one either, but he was super noticeable. And then it kind of started a little cascade of points coming in recently. he's got a few in the last three games. So that's starting to click for him. I chalk it up mostly to Rust. I mean, he's never going to be like the blazing fast, like notice him every single

shift for his offense kind of guy. But I think he's making the little plays that you want Andrew Cop to make. I think that's sort of, you know, if he regress his maybe back from the offensive guy, he was last season, I think that's, that'd still be okay. Because he was a useful guy before he was, you know, putting up points of the pace he was with Edmont, with, um, with, with, uh, with, Winnipeg and, uh, in the Rangers last season. He can, he can do a lot of stuff, but man, some, some of the underlines, especially last week we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're,

we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, to, to the, you know, underlines for most of their team, like, yeah, it's pretty much just the moda horonic pair and, like, yeah, yeah, so that, that, that kind of leads me into to, to the, to, I don't want, I don't I don't want to turn this into, you know, you know, Sean interviews max about the ratted wings, but that does lead me into the one last kind of thing I wanted to hit on there. Sherat and Cider, does that work? What's going on there? Because I think there's, I think we're at the point now where you got it, you got to wonder if the bad does not weigh the good with having those two together. Yeah. What's interesting about it is I don't think the issue has been like,

some kind of like anchoring effect that everyone expected to see there. I think if there, if I could diagnose it from up top and I am not claiming that I have all the answers here but cider to me looks like he's doing too much he's trying to be the Calderwinner be the top 10 Norris guy he's he's doing a lot of work in transition and it seems like that dude that dude might have too much dip on the chip for for for year two yeah a little cutbacks when it's like you know that's the chip out whatever and I don't I'm not saying that charott's been like blameless or anything like that like I think we all know the I'm not here to I'm yeah I'm not here to relitigate Ben Chirot.

Like, like, he is what he is. And that's a, that's a very boring conversation to have in, you know, November of 2022. But I actually wouldn't get away from the pair, I guess, is where I'm going. Okay. That's, that's, that's, that's, that's giving a little more time. So, let's see. We're looking at the schedule.

We know that you've seen every Atlantic team so far outside of Florida and Tampa, because they haven't, they haven't made their respective trips. Is there, I have, look, there's a couple I haven't seen, like, like, I haven't, Detroit hasn't played Ottawa. Detroit doesn't play Toronto, but I've seen those teams. Yeah, right. That's you, you personally haven't watched a ton of Tampa and a ton of Florida, and that's fine.

I don't think either of us needs to watch all that much of those teams at this point, especially Tampa. They're just like, whatever. You assume that the bottom six is going to fix itself. And in the meantime, Kutrov and the top player is going to carry them, which is what has happened, by the way. In Florida is just, you know, we'll see. It's, that's the, that's the Matthew Kachuk show for the time being.

until he tries to scoop out another. I did see that. Until he tries to scoop out another goaltender's eye. I did see that. Yeah. Which is insanity. Everything's clicking for Florida except the power play.

That's like kind of, that's kind of the one note on them. But I did want to see what you thought of, you know, those other up and coming teams, all those, those two or three that we got tired of hearing about, you know, ahead of the preseason. Like, what have you seen from the Sabres? What have you seen from the Sands? Is there a stratific? I mean, obviously Buffalo is playing significantly better than Ottawa, so we'll start with them. Yeah.

What were your takeaways from that group? Well, I watched them beat Detroit 8 to 3 in the Tage Thompson show game. Honestly, like what's been interesting, Derek alone was talking about some of the Red Wings losses. And he says, like, you know, two of our losses, obviously on the road to two of the deeper forward groups in the league. And he's talking about Boston. Isn't that crazy? Obviously. And Buffalo.

And it's crazy how fast we go from the point of the Jack Eichel trade and like, oh, they're going to have to initiate a whole new rebuild cycle to pretty much right away. Like there's a coach talking about them as one of the deeper forward groups in the league. And I went and looked and I was like, is that right? And you know what? Some of these young kids are progressing fast enough? I can buy this. Like, Tage Thompson is, it was not a fluke at all.

Like that is pretty much clear already. And some of these young guys, Krebs, Peturka, like, they're already making impacts. And that's a really, honestly, it's very fun to see because I don't know if there's any market. A lot of markets have suffered. Yeah. No markets have, like, suffered with passion quite as much as the way that Buffalo has over the last decade. Totally. There's any number of reasons for that fan base to have completely tuned out over the last 11 or 12 years and it hasn't happened.

So, yeah, I mean, dude, you know this. this is a very pro Buffalo Sabres space. Yeah. Wearing your prospect guy hat, like, is there out of the young, out of the young guys on Buffalo, Paterka, Quinn, I feel like Cousins is elevated himself kind out. Yeah, we got to exempt power. Cousins in power, like those guys, whatever, those guys don't count.

Krebs, I think, was coming into a pretty important season for him developmentally. you know, is there, is there in your dual capacity as a dude who covers another Atlantic division team and then a guy who follows prospects pretty closely? Like, what do you, what do you think of? What do you think of him? Yeah, I think Quinn got his first goal in the game I watched. So obviously that, you know, that was good for him. But I think Peturca is one of the guys who I just, I don't, I don't think you expect a second round pick to get here and make an impact as quickly as he has. I mean, both of those guys are part of it for sure. But I think that the speed that Peturca has moved through it and become like a legit middle six NHL player already at such a young age is huge.

So those would be the two, but I'd probably lean Paturka just because I don't, you know, Quinn was still a top 10 pick. Like it's this is about the time you want him to be starting to make this kind of impact. And to me, Paturka has been like maybe even maybe even a little better and was a later round pick. We talked to Don Granato last week, Greg and I did. And, you know, one of the guys that he spoke about at length was Quinn because he had to kind of give him a breather at the start of the season. And I thought that was, I mean, a lot of people listening. I've already heard that. And if you want to, you know, go back and listen to it.

But I thought what he said about Quinn was interesting. And one of the better answers from another set of pretty good ones. Yeah, Buffalo, man. How about Casey Middlestat, like being relevant? Like I was ready to give up on Casey Nidlstadt like hand up and he's playing a role. I think this is like finally he's like in that I feel like these guys are from now on are going to be called Troy Terry kind of players where it's like where it's and obviously the skill set doesn't quite line up. But players who year after year after year, it's like watch dude X. he is the breakout candidate.

He is the player to watch. And at a certain point, you're just like, this isn't going to happen. Like, we're on year, this is year three. Like, you can only do that so many times. You can only be the up and coming dude. You know,

the over and under is two and a half on that, right? And I feel like Middle stat, finally, when he got out of that mode where it's like, all right, everybody watch out for Casey Middlestat. He had a great off season and he's healthy and he's this and he's that because we'd heard that over and over again

for really the past two seasons. it feels like he finally broke out of that cycle where he was getting hyped up coming into the year and now he's actually producing at a level that people kind of expected and that's what we saw from Troy Terry last year right if he turned it he turned into you know a 30 goal capable guy after years of people a couple years of people expecting it and him kind of fallen short so I feel like middle stead's kind of in that group now right totally we don't need to become the the hockey podcast that lectures everybody that this takes time but it's yeah We wouldn't be wrong to throw one reminder of that in.

Totally. Because sometimes it doesn't take time. Like players show up, they show up and they're fully formed. Like look on his own team. J.J. Paturka, you just brought him up. Like the dude, it pops up. He's a name that people knew from a draft list and that's it.

I mean, he's one for all, whatever. But like, you know, still, it's, you know, yeah. There are guys. There are young players who come in are ready to play top half of the lineup. Power. Even if they're not at their peak. But powers, power's fascinating because they, they were, they played the penguins recently and they were on on the local broadcast. And power is like, at this point, his career, he really is like all or nothing. He's, he's, you're either looking at him and you're like, this guy is, he's already all-star caliber, like, you know, very clear. And then you watch him again, you're like, nope, he is 19. That's right. That's right. There it is. It's like, like shift to shift. He's either, he's trying to do a lot. And sometimes it works and sometimes it really, really does. But the end result, you know, is just a totally, a totally fascinating guy.

Yeah, and I'm a power believer. I'm a Jake Sanderson believer, which maybe is the next team we go to when we're done on the, you know. Sanderson's a stud, man. Like, he's, he's really good. And he's, he's interesting to me because he's kind of the, you know how every year there's kind of the, the skepticism, I think, publicly that like some late rising defense. is just being propped up because they're this like physical defensive guy. That was the narrative in Jake Sanderson's era. No one,

no one would believe that Jake Sanderson was a good hockey player. And all he has done since the day he was drafted is just be an absolute dude. From the jump, too. Like, I was, the draft year stuff was what it was. Like, that's tough for me to, I mean, we've talked about this on the show. We've talked about this just me and you bullshit. And like, I just outsource them. draft stuff. I'm like, this, like, Corey can tell me about this and Scott Wheeler can tell me

about this and you can tell me. Like, I'm like, that's it. Like, that's a thing that I don't have the bandwidth to pay all that much attention to. So my shit on the draft comes from people that I trust and or work with in the case of Corey Promen. I don't know. I don't know if I trust them. But so the draft your stuff on Sanderson, that's a very, you know, long window way of getting out. I was like, that was what it was. But man, you just see there's just so much skill there. There's so much

skill across the board, whether it's the skating or the brain or whatever. He's one of those guys, you watch him play now and you're like, A, I'm not sure how there was ever any debate over it. And B, like, I wish I wouldn't have cracked jokes about how people

were casting this dude in bronze before his first game because he looks that good, basically. I was like, up. I probably I probably should have been a little bit more of a believer than I was. It's funny, though, because, like, there are some, there are D who I get it with. Like, I got it when people were, like, wanted to be a little skeptical on, like, Braden Schneider. Like, I was a Braden Schneider believer.

Totally. But I got it. Like, it's, it's, but with Jake Sanderson, like, you just watch him move and, like, you see him skate and you're like, oh, yeah, this guy's a dude. If you have a top 10 pick with all the, all the measurables, all the, all the skills. Like at some point, you're like, okay, that you can internalize the idea that this guy's going to be good. This isn't your only fear is like, am I getting Ristelian in subliminally somehow? You know, I have that. I have that actually, uh, I have that glazed onto a plate hanging

up my hang above my, am I getting Ristolian? Am I getting Ristolian? That's, that's the question everybody needs to ask themselves unless you're, unless you're, uh, Chuck Fletcher. He didn't ask himself with that. But yeah, man, like Sanderson is, he's a, he's a dude. He is. And I feel like there is kind of, especially with defensemen for whatever reason, present company included, there is that desire to like, sort of be like, all right, put the, put the brakes on. Let's see what, let's see what this guy looks like. But I, it wasn't, wasn't warranted for him. Well, and we know how, I don't mean to be like, the big, you know, defensive D is always, like, there's ample examples. I get where the skepticism comes from.

Like, and I'm, I certainly am guilty of it plenty of times, too. You know, but he's, he's not, he's not,

he's, I think, I think we're safe to say he's cleared it, right? And, it's just funny that he had like an all D rep ever. I know. At any point.

Like you, like, I probably did, I probably fueled that. I mean, like, the, the counting stats weren't there that much,

like in his draft year. They were starting to, I guess, come on. But, the highlights when you watched him, it was like, look at this dude gap. And everyone was like,

shut up. It's true. It's true. And sometimes with guys like that, it can be a system thing too. Like, maybe he wasn't, he wasn't with a group where,

you know, he was asked to do all that much. But that doesn't mean that the physical tools aren't there, right? So, right. That dude's as good as advertised. One thing we should say about the Sends. Because this,

we're recording, obviously, on Tuesday, Pierre Dorian on Monday gave DJ Smith a very weird non-vote of confidence slash vote of confidence where he talked about himself in the in the third person and said you know he's happy with DJ and peer Dorian is a patient man and all this weirdo all this weirdo stuff so it seems like DJ is going to stick around at least for a little bit longer that team is you know it's not quite it's not quite big yet a and josh lawrence is out I mean it's quasi good news for them because he's not going to need surgery on on the shoulder it seemed

like he was for a little bit. But it's been uneven for them, right? There was a bad start. There was some good play in the middle, and now we're talking about, you know, DJ Smith maybe or maybe not keeping his job for the duration of the season. Yeah, Max Boltman did hear that comment that he made.

We should start doing that. We need to start talking a third person. Max Boltman is a patient man. Some would disagree. my fiance is about four feet over. I don't know if she would tell you. It's always, it's always funny to realize,

to see people realize that Max is an anxiety guy. It doesn't, it doesn't scan it first, but you hang out with him for a little bit. You'll figure it out and do time, my friend. Wow, he's really fidgeting about making our dinner reservation. Max Bullman is not a patient, man. Yeah.

So you see it, you just, that just had a sense. and ascends wings game. Didn't you? No, not yet. Or am I imagining that? No, not yet. But it'll come.

But obviously they're a story, right? Like I've seen a little bit of them. And I mean, the story is just the defense, right? Like, we just got done praising, you know, basically making the statue of Jake Sanderson. But the senator's team defense, right, that is holding them back. Like they got up, they're at the point in this thing where they have all these fun young guys. And now like, like you said with Norris, like they get hurt.

And then they have kind of. this they're starting to kind of take take control the team drive the bus but like what do we know about young guys like they takes them a little bit to figure out the other end and it's inevitable in some of those guys aren't going to work like when when we're looking at this team in four years and this is true for every good young team every single one that's why these teams are fun to watch is you is you see in real time who has it and who doesn't like who's going to be a piece moving forward and who's not. It's happened across the board. It happened with the abs and it happened with Tampa and it happened with Chicago and Pittsburgh. Any team that has protracted success stemming from a young

core over a significant amount of time has dudes that get moved out and swapped around and whatever. And I think that's what we're seeing happen with Ottawa, right? They're figuring out who is going to be a part of the actual good teams rather than just the fun, interesting teams. And I think that's the sort stratification process that we're seeing. Yeah, it just takes time for them to figure, like, some of these guys, I think, like, you know, I don't know what the exact, like, Shane Pinto, for example, like, defensive numbers are. Like, I have no doubt Shane Pinto is going to be able to be a good two-way player. But, like, I think I just pulled it up right here as we were talking.

Like, yeah, like, this is expected goals against for 60s, like, three. Like, that's not good. It's, it's been okay for him because his offense is pretty close to that. And obviously, he was scoring, like, crazy to start the season. But it just takes time, I think, for guys to kind of learn that style of game. And so, yeah, I think that I think they're going to be okay. And I think they're in terms of overall rebuild health, like I think it's fine. It is never a good sign, though, if you're DJ Smith, that, you know, your young guys defensively aren't, you know, up to the task immediately.

And then you have to get the vote of confidence. That is a little scary. That was a meaty, a meaty segment. I think that's more actual hockey talk than we usually have here with with old Craig Bolsonaro, a.k.a. Big Bossman. Did he get COVID again? A.k.a.k.a.k.a.a. Big Dingus.

Yeah, he's faking COVID again. Yeah. He sent me another picture, actually. It's just him giving me the finger from a, from his bed. He's lying. No, he does not, he does not have COVID. He is doing important, important work, things. Anything else? Do you have any, any other, any other random things that, that didn't pop up over the course of that a quick little, quick little spin around the, around the Atlantic.

Just Blake lively's husband potentially buying. Oh my God. Yeah. Great. Always psyched when I'm forced to watch Jimmy Fallon for work purposes. And that's sort of, that's sort of where I was at this morning. Jimmy Fallon always reacting to any hockey related news with just confusion,

basically, as if the dude didn't grow up outside New York. And isn't always on the MSG Jumbotron. All that insanity. Yeah, right. He's not there all the time. It seems like Ryan Reynolds is serious about this. Put together the ownership group.

That was like an honest answer. Like he goes on the Tonight Show. Jimmy Fallon asks him. Jimmy Fallon, God knows would not have asked him if Ryan Reynolds did not want him to ask him because that's just how those things work in general. Yeah, especially with Fowlinger. 100% with Fallon specifically. That dude isn't going to ask anybody, anything challenging ever, let alone Ryan Reynolds, right?

So we did get, you know, we did get the answer served up. He seems pretty sincere about it. You know, yes, he admitted that he needs a rich partner. He needs a sugar daddy. But, you know, that can work in the NHL. Here's probably a better way to put it. The NHL, this is like, this is one of our regular reminders. that the NHL has run differently than the NFL and in the NBA is that the NHL would be more

than happy to have a consortium of various rich people from Ottawa fronted by Ryan Reynolds who come in and buy the Sends and are like, all right, everything's great, let's go. And NHL that happens. They're like perfect problem solved, sign the papers, like, let's go. That is not the way it works in regular sports in other professional sports. And we're seeing example in the NFL with the Washington Commanders, whoever buys that franchise is going to be a super rich individual person. It's going to be Jeff Bezos.

It's going to be a Steve Cohen deal. Steve Cohen, it's going to be, you know, Josh Harris, who owns the Devils. It's going to be one of those ultra mega hedge fund, you know, super yacht folks. And that's it. Like, that's just that's the nature of buying NFL teams. That's the class of person that the NFL wants to own its franchises.

The NHL still is like, yo, if you just want to be like eight rich people, 10 people with Deadpool as the frontman for it, like that's great. You have the money, the check clears, sign the deal. You know, let's work on the arena. Ottawa Send stand put. And, you know, I think we got a little bit of a reminder from that last night. The dude is serious. Even publicity-wise, if you're the NHL, you've seen what Ryan Reynolds brand

and like marketing empire or whatever has done for some like, third division English soccer club that now has a TV show about it. You're not mad at all about this. And by the way, if you're Ryan Reynolds, how are you going to find your money partners for this? You're going to go talk about it on Jimmy Fallon and you're going to let them find you. You think there's not some investor class person who is like, oh, whoa, Ryan Reynolds is going to buy an NHL team?

It's perfect. Let me call five of my buddies. And we'll accumulate $800 million and make this happen. Ryan Reynolds is like 10% more, is 10% less charming than he thinks he is and 10% less funny than he thinks he is. But he's still pretty charming and he's still pretty funny. And he's still 100% as married to Blake lively as he thinks he is. Congratulations.

The biggest win of all. He's rich. Like this dude has made like, look, the amount of money he made on Deadpool alone. That's the sneaky thing about Ryan Reynolds is that that dude. this isn't Jay-Z you know throwing in 500 grand in the nets God knows

rich as Jay Z was at that point this was like minimal skin in the game he owned next to nothing so you know whatever Ryan Reynolds is extremely wealthy because of the points that he took off the Deadpool thing we don't need to get in like Hollywood accounting here but he's he's very very wealthy wealthier than the average you know extremely handsome talk show host

or talk show guest and he's willing to do it. So I'm on board, man. Let's make it happen. Maybe he can get Mac involved with this one too, like from the soccer team. I got 20 bucks. I'll throw in. Is it, man?

Is it me, you? Mr. Blake lively. Craig is not invited. That's the ownership for the honors. We're going to get to our talk with Rob Rossi here. Great stuff about the penguins. And then we're going to come back for the only good segment on the show. Our guest this week,

Penguins writer, close personal friend, uncle, my uncle, Rob Rossi. How are we doing, buddy? I was wondering where that introduction was going to go. I don't know. How are we doing, dude? We're better than the penguins. That's not hard. That's not hard.

No. That's beautiful weather here in Pittsburgh, Sean. The sun is shining. I mean, we got great days ahead, right? It's a great time to be a Pittsburgh sports reporter. Definitely. Yeah, it's not going to start getting dark at 515. Well, every single team in the city is total trash. That's not why you have them sore for us.

What's that? Yeah, can you like, are you going to have to, like, give us the, give us the ground rules on this on how we're supposed to handle this? I'll give you a brief. I'm just glad neither of us have to worry about the Steelers anymore. That's the most important part. Yes. you know what the baseball team is so there you go

they haven't existed to me for several several years uh rossi why is this happening with opinions what's what's like what's like what's like the smoking gun explanation here um well i you know it's it's a strange thing it's like any losing streak right um i think they're coming out of it because if you look at the way they're playing the last few games they're actually playing better than their their result show but I just think this is a weaker roster than maybe a lot of people anticipated. I don't think management did a great job of supplementing the pieces that they brought back.

And I mean, when you think about that they were able to get Malkin and Latang signed, admittedly long term, but for reduced, you know, cap numbers. And then they went out and spent the money, whether either being a trade for a guy like Jeff Petrie or Casbury Caponin's contract, which might be as befuddling as any in the league this year. And their bottom six isn't very good. Two of their top four defensemen aren't playing very well, to the point that, I mean, they, in practice, in their most recent practice, they had Brian Dumolin finally demoted

to do a third pairing. But I mean, Dumlin and Petrie haven't been very good. Their special teams have been, as I like to describe them, a tire fire engulfed in a sinkhole. It's just it's a recipe for not having a lot of success and that's not what they're having right now. And I think the

real discouraging thing is when you look at it, there's not really a lot of options that you can see for them having a way out of it. Let's start with, let's start with Dumlin because he's been a good player for them. He was a good player for them for a long time. I think we started seeing signs of decline last season, but the numbers on him are just atrocious.

Like, in terms of he's been on the ice for more than half of the goals that they've let up at five on five. Like, I don't think that's a, I don't think that's a coincidence. What's gone wrong with him? And is there, is there an end game for him? Like, what is the most likely outcome for him in that lineup, you know, over the next couple months? Well, I think they're going to, you know, slowly try to sort of limit his minutes.

while he's struggling and hope that if he plays with, say, Jan Ruda, who was sort of a real stabilizing player last year, or the last few years in Tampa Bay, I think they're hoping Ruta can maybe help Dumlin sort of find his game. But I think one of the problems for Brian is he, I saw him working out at the facility this summer. He's in as good as shame as I've ever seen him, but he's had three surgeries to either his ankle or his foot on that one leg.

I mean, I just don't know any defensemen that can go through that and not have it affect him. And skating was such a big part of his game. He had a really good first step and he had a really good stick. And that was something that you always thought of with him. And now it looks like he's, you know, really trying to reach a lot and is out of position a lot, I think probably because he can't get to some places. So I think ideally they hope if you move him down in the lineup with, you know, another defense partner, He'll sort of regain his confidence, regain his footing, so to speak,

and be able to move back up there with Chris Latang, but I'm not real optimistic that he has that in him right now because I just think that those surgeries have taken their toll. Yeah, I mean, is that the prevailing logic? Look, we've seen, Dumlin at his best was, like you said, he was maybe not the best skater, but he was certainly more than competent. And I think that combined with his size is, what made him so solid for so long.

But like the wild part about watching him over the last, you know, couple weeks, even relative to the last year is like, he's got pucks jumping over his stick. He's making like bad clears, like bad decisions off the boards. Like is that, is that a function of,

you know, maybe losing that first step and not being in the position that he's, that he expects himself to be in? Because it really is. Like, you, like watching this guy looks at times like he's forgotten how to play hockey. Yeah.

In my opinion, it is and talking to some people on the team, you know, on background. They think that's kind of it. He's trying to adjust right now to not being able to play the way he used to be, not being able to be positionally where he used to be. So, I mean, I think that's a really tough thing for any athlete. We saw of Guinea-Malkin have to sort of adjust with that last year of not being able to be where he was used to be able to be in to really clutter up some words there. When he was coming off the knee, when he was coming off the second knee surgery. So, I think one of the things you have to think about is with Dumlin is he was such a stabilizing force for Latang because they mesh so well.

And I think the other thing that's heard is Latang is not off to a great start. And I think it's because he's used to Dumlin being this sort of defensive presence, being able to sort of allow Latang to cheat a little bit. And we haven't seen that to success. And I think when you look at their penalty kill, Brian Dumlin was a big part of that. When you look at Chris Latang's offensive production, Brian Dumolin being able to sort of handle a lot of the defensive responsibilities on that line. Not that Latang's liability defensively, he's not. But Latang certainly was able to be more of an offensive producer and an offensive catalyst because of Dumlin. I think Dumlin's play has impacted that.

And you look at their five-on-five numbers, I think Dumlin's play has impacted that because they play with the Crosby line. And I think, you know, Dumlin struggles in a way forced Mike Sullivan in his mind to go back to his warm bralanket. which is Crosby, Gensel, and Rust, when a lot of us here have wondered why they broke up Ross, Moken, and Zucker, because that was a line that was at least, if you look at 5 on 5, 5, producing really, really well. I think at one point they were second in the league in terms of expected goals. And yes, I just referenced an analytics.

So, you know how things have gone here. This is like, we're like truly unveiling Rossi 2.0 here. This is years of conversations in the making. Let's stay on it because that's one thing when I was prepping for this show. You're kind of looking at the vital signs. And I was shocked at how comparatively high and expected goals percentage the penguins still were, despite all the stuff that we're talking about, especially because the expected goals against are really, it jumps off the page.

It's really bad. So the offense is clearly doing something right. And you mentioned kind of the bottom six and the lack of. contributions there. Ultimately, that looks like one of the big problems. These are the guys you need to check, and they've been the biggest liability defensively on the ice. Yeah, I mean, I couldn't agree more, Max. I mean, you know, and as I said, I think the Penguins might have the worst third line in the league, and that's just because Casperi Capitin's on it, and it's just sucking the life out of everything else. I love it. Hold on. Not to interrupt,

I love that this is like the part of the podcast where Rossi uses lines that he used on me like a day or two ago. Like, we're just, like, rehashing conversations. He was workshopping. Yeah, it works. It worked. I responded positively and now everybody can see, hear it. Yeah, Capitin's been bad.

Carter's been hurt. Danton Heinen is what he is. When he scores, and in the 20 games, they'll give you goals, you're going to really like him. There's going to be 20 games where you don't really like him. And in the other 40, you just kind of notice him. But I don't see him as a guy that's sort of a shutdown guy.

I asked Mike Sullivan about this the other day and what he wanted his identity for his third line to be in his fourth line. And he said, you know, he didn't mention scoring. He mentioned, you know, generating momentum, hemming teams in their own zone, you know, being able to play against the other team's best players. And I just don't feel like they can get that from anybody out there. I mean, it's not a stretch to say of their bottom six, which has been hurt by Teddy Blugher's absence. I will say, I mean, Teddy Bluger has. in his absence showed to be as valuable as he has ever been to the penguins. But, you know, really, Joss Archerbald, who scored three goals,

has been sort of one of the lone bright spots for that. That's crazy. He seemed like a totally interchangeable, you know, bottom six guy who could have swapped him out for anybody. And he's been the best guy in that group, I feel like for the last week. But to get to your point, Max, it's not, they don't really have a change up. pitch. Their third line and fourth line, really, you know, they're more built like scoring lines and they're not really built to sort of be momentum changers in that. And they can't really change out pieces because when they get Luger back, they're only going to be able to have 22 guys on the

roster because of their cap situation. And they can't really bring up some younger guys. I mean, it's, um, you hear a lot from management about how they're up against the cap. And I know, you know, Ron Hextall showed that he wasn't really panicking when he talked to Pierre LeBron, our colleague, for an article that's on the athletic site now. But I think they're handcuffed in a lot of ways what they can do with this bottom six. And it's almost like everybody in Pittsburgh's talking about, oh, it was a mistake to bring the band back together. It's not the band. Right. You know, it's the supporting musicians. It's the backup musicians. It's the backup singers. Yeah, the band is not perfect, but they're still giving you a good performance.

I mean, they're still producing. And it puzzles me, and Sean knows this from us talking during the off season, it puzzles me to look at some of the moves they made when you look at the decision to bring back Latang and Malkin because it's almost like they went in there saying, if everything goes right, will be good. But literally nothing can go wrong. and then everything's kind of gone wrong except that, you know, so far the top guys have been healthy. Well, and that's what makes the cap and in contract specifically so mystifying is like $3.2 million. The pieces that we're talking about them missing, these third line checkers, these guys are not breaking the bank. You could have two of them for $3.2 million. Yeah.

And you spent all of it on a guy who's doing the opposite. I, dude, this is, this is seriously, this is like, this is like Max jumping in on a conversation that we had a couple days ago, right? Like, this is like almost word for word what I said about Capitan. This is what made the captain deal so bizarre to me. Is it like if he hits his absolute top end, if he is as good as Kisperi Caponin can be for the next two years, he's going to be a $3.2, $3.5 million player. Right. That's just, it's, it's, it's who he is. So to sign players like that to contracts that represent their maximum value added to your lineup, that is dangerous shit. And it's certainly dangerous when you don't have money to play with.

And that, in that, Rob, to me, I know, man, I know we've, we've beaten some of those offseason moves at death. But the cap one was the one where I was like, what, what are they, what's actually going on here? Like, what's the thought process? Well, when you're against the cap the way the penguins are and you have so much invested into your top end players because they're veteran guys. and a lot of cases they're on their fourth contracts with the team, right? Speaking of the Crosby's, the Malkins, and the Lankans. But any deal you get, any sort of cost analysis was like maybe they're underpaying Jake Gensel and Brian Rust, you know, commiserate with what their production will be.

But when you swing and miss on a cap an in for two years, a 3.5 million, it just destroys any benefit you were getting out of that. And in fact, what we're seeing is there's a net negative now. And I'm not even sure of the language I'm using at this point, if that's right. But he's literally stucking the life out of them on the ice and also in their cap situation. And you're totally reliant on him just performing better. And there's nothing we've seen during his time in Pittsburgh. He has three goals in his last 51 games. he missed an open net the other night that, you know, I'm not being hyperbolic here.

The three of us could have missed it at that rate, you know. So it's a real problem for them. And then when you have, you know, I think the Petrie decision, Petrie is the highest paid defenseman on this team. You know, so if you look at just Petrie at, you know, 6.4 and Dumlin at 4, And the captain at 3.5, I mean, do the quick math. Yeah, there goes your, there goes your, your web on him. The captain thing, the thing about captain, not to not the harp on him all that much,

but he is, that situation is just, it's fascinating. Hextall isn't even the one who traded the first for him. No. Like, you can't even argue like the, like the GM got fooled by some cost fallacy thing. No. No, they gave up too much to get him back. Like Jim Rutherford gave up too much to get him back. and then they actually compounded the mistake by resigning him.

That just reeks. It just reeks of them being like, well, we got to have somebody on the third line. Like, we might as well take the devil we know versus the devil we don't because they don't have, still don't have viable options. And certainly at the point that they sign captain, they don't have cheap viable options to come in and play in that role. So you can see the logic. They're like, well, we have this guy in the fold.

You know, we might as well keep them around. because God knows we don't have guys coming up the kind of, you know, entry level, $800,000 players that cup teams are made up of at this point. Like, they don't have those guys on the way. So they have to overpay for something approaching, you know, competency on that bottom six. And they're getting burned for it. How's McGinn-Ben? He's a guy in Carolina who kind of played that role effectively.

he's penguin himself as I like to say he's he's come there and he you know he hasn't been noticeable that much and I think that's the biggest problem with him I'm not expecting him to be more than a 10 goal guy I mean frankly I think that's about what you would expect from him to be an eight to 10 guy that but checking wise right like checking wise yeah but he's not he was real noticeable in the Boston game and maybe that's where you're going to see him against teams that can play that heavier style but it's almost like again, you know, and their lineup against Seattle, they had McGinn playing with Malkin and Ricard Raquel because they were so short because that's the other thing. Like,

they can't really have any injuries to guys like Carter because unless they can put a guy on LTI, they're just, I mean, like I said, they can only carry 22 players as it is. And look, I know everybody was faced with a flat cap and certainly the Penguins, you know, weren't the only team with sort of difficult decisions. But this is now the second regime in a row. And, you know, Sean can attest to this where I've probably said to him, like, they operate as though the cap doesn't matter. Now, this regime talks about the cap mattering, but they don't seem to take any ownership of it. So that said, because they, because some of the underlying numbers are good and because I expect their goal tending to revert back to at least a mid, mid-level

performance. I do think they're coming out of this, but I will say this. They've relied on, you know, big winning streaks once or twice each of the last five, six, seven seasons. And I'm talking once or twice in those seasons to make up for sort of bad stretches. They've lost seven in a row, or they're winless in seven in a row, I should say. And they have one point in seven games. They got Washington, which is struggling, but they don't normally play well in the regular season in that building. They usually save it for the postseason to rock the red, so to speak. And then they got back-to-backs with the maple leaf. So, you know, when you look at this, this thing could get ugly quick, even if they are showing signs of coming out of it. And they also

only have two more home games between now and Thanksgiving. The schedule's bizarre. Yeah. Schedule breakdowns bizarre. And there's so few obvious avid. Like the things that you think about with a team that's that slumping, that's struggling, what's going to wake them up, it's a trade. They're certainly not firing one of the five best coaches in the NHL. You have no cap space for a trade. Like it seems like it's just to figure it out.

Here's a shovel. Dig. Yeah. Yeah. You hope that you hope that Sydney, that whatever, the Crosby line, you know, scores eight goals in a game or whatever. Or the Jari goes unconscious. he was in the first couple weeks. It's like they're saying, hey, Sid and Gino, we know you've been great.

But we're going to ask you to be better than point for game players in your mid-30s to dig us out of this. Good luck. And surround you with arguably the most questionable roster we've given you since you were younger and could do that. I mean, this isn't the 09 penguins where they went up and faced down that great Detroit team. And you had those two sort of entering their peak.

and you're going, oh, wow, like, they can be band-aids for a lot of problems. Like, if anything, you needed to give them more help. And, you know, again, I think one of the reasons Malkin and Latang were willing to take less than maybe perceived market value to stay was to trust management would build the type of team around them to contend again. This is a team that really thought it had a chance to contend this year. And I know everybody in the organization believed that. But, I mean, when you look at this roster, it's going to struggle against younger, faster teams.

It's going to struggle against veteran teams that have depth. And if they don't get, you know, all-star caliber goaltending every night from Justin Jari, because of what we've discussed with their bottom six and their defensive core struggles, I mean. they need they need an old top six in a goaltender to bail out the rest of the roster every night that's basically what it looks like at this point yes other than that other than that everything's going fine for them yes other than that for most people in the last five years that have tried it yeah perfectly well and that's the thing anybody that's the thing I think crosbie and Malkin are still such great players and that top six is so good that I do think they'll run off a run here at

some point. But, you know, the other thing is, you know, and I think Sean and I talked about this, maybe we didn't, but the East is so deep this year. There's not a lot of, you know, easy wins in the East, if you're looking at it from the Penguin standpoint. It's, it's not like with all due respect, Max, of the Red Wings. It's not like they're going to go up against the Red Wings this year and be like, oh, those are two points they should come away with. Totally. You know, and I mean, just look at their division. I mean, you look at, you look at, sort of the way that division is playing out and some of those young teams that we were like, you know, there's promise there.

Yeah. The devils, the devil's arriving is really, really bad news for the penguins. Yeah. That's it. Yeah. If I'm the capital or the penguin right now, knowing what to expect from the devil is, is a bad problem because they're not built to match up with the devil and they're not, they certainly weren't expecting New Jersey to be in this position.

can never can never assume to beat the devil yes when does okay so when does we'll leave you on this when does this kid or excuse me the uh the non winless streak which i think we're legally forced to call it by combination of the league and pierre uh pens caps on wednesday pens maple leaves on friday

pens canadians on saturday does it end in one of those games Well, ideally it would end in the Mecca, right? That would just set things on fire for two struggling teams. The good thing about that game is that one of those teams has to lose. Yes. So I will say that I think they're going to get off the Schneide in Washington. I think they're going to put a, you know, they'll have had two days of practice in an off day between the Cracken game. I actually thought they played well against the Cracken, and I think the Crackens are good teams.

So I'll say they ended in Washington, but I think it'll be one of those three games. But if you're asking me to pick from the narrative standpoint, going against the Maple Leaf in the Toronto would be it. Let's make it happen. Rob Rossi, thank you, brother. Thank you, gentlemen. Thanks, Rob. I feel like I'm catching up with the beards. Oh, my God.

Oh, yeah. I haven't seen it. surpassing. Jeez. Always. Take it easy, man. Take care. Good stuff from Rob, as always.

Again, it's always difficult for me to parse, like, things that we have talked about just on the phone or whatever. And then things I've actually heard him say professionally. So I feel like we struck the balance there. We didn't spill any, didn't spill any news that people aren't supposed to know about. I think next time you just hit record on that phone call, the pre, your pre-screener with Rob. And then we just edit it out around the stuff that no one's supposed to know. And we know now that we don't really bleep anything out here. Like we can get away with the average out with, you know, an F-bomb here, here or there.

Definitely a necessary thing for normal conversations with Rob and I because we're both of potty mouse. I thought you were going to try to duck that for a minute and just pin that all on your dear old. Yes. Yeah, that's me. Me and Uncle Rob, you know, we talk. He says all sorts of things. and nasty things, but not me. Not me, though. So yeah, thanks again to Rob. You can get all his, all his penguin stuff on the Penguins page

here at the Athletic. And we'll be right back. This is the only good segment on the show. We're going to start this week, a little bit of a departure from our typical route here. We did want to give you a quick update on the Coyote's Arena proposal. This is something we've talked about in the past. It's something we're certainly going to keep talking about in the future. Tempe, the Tempe City Council, the Arena Proposal and Entertainment District proposal is in Tempe rather than Glendale or Phoenix or any other various municipalities around there. We'll meet on November 10th to consider a resolution. They're meeting to consider a resolution that would reserve a spot on a special election ballot if you want some

real convoluted shit. But the end game here is still And you can read about this in detail at go p hnx.com. Our old buddy Craig Morgan has all that stuff covered. But the upshot here, the takeaway is that they're trying to figure out whether to use city funds, existing city funds on existing city taxes to pay for a portion of the development of the land where the proposed arena and entertainment district is going. Maxi, what will that money theoretically go towards to towards accomplishing? Well, Sean, the first step is the 46 acre lot is the site of a city dump.

So according to Craig, they have to first remove 1.5 million tons of trash from the site. You know, that just sounds like a lot, but when you see it spread out over a site, like really what is, really what is one 1.5 million pounds, you know. Unbelievable. 1.5 million tons. 1.5 million tons.

Okay, so that's great. That's a little more. Even more. Yeah, how about a gazillion trillion million, zillion tons? That's tough. That's impossible to even conceptualize. And if you're wondering why this site is available,

basically in Tempe, it is a... It's a city dump. It's a city dump and it's directly below the flight path, to Sky Harbor, which is introducing a whole other set of problems. So either way, we're going to have some resolution there before. It seems like it's moving in the right direction if you're someone who wants to see the coyotes stay in Arizona.

How do you feel about putting this up to referendum, by the way? Because on one hand, I guess we're doing this on an election day, power of the people, you know, that's all well and good. It is interesting to me to like, why have a city council if they're not going to make this decision? The important part of being on a city council is if there's any decision that, you don't want to make, you can just dump it off on other people. And that's what it is. This is politicians who don't want to be tied to, uh, tied to the results of this vote for good, for good or ill. So at least, at least it's in the hands of, of voters and you just hope they

understand, you know, either way, the specifics of, of what they theoretically would be, would be paying for. But it's, you know, not new taxes. It's, it's, it's diverted old taxes. If that's something that you're okay with, you know, and in, in your attempt, you resident, go with God. And if not, you know, both know, see what, see what happens next. It'll be, it'll be interesting. But yeah, either way, city council gets no credit. See you later. That's fine. That's the way it should be. Time to dive into the comments. You guys came through again. You always do. We can always count on you to fill out the back end of the show, pad the stuff, you know, the point where we typically run out of stuff to talk about if you're me and Craig.

not me and Max because Max is competent, unlike the two of us. Talked a lot about Logan Thompson last night, or last week. We talked about Vegas, brought up Logan Thompson specifically. Slurms McKenzie, our old buddy, says, Logan Thompson, three years, $2.3 million. He's not even on a one-way contract. Should fire his agent yesterday and then fire him into the sun. He's leaving money on the table. Is that, that, that, that, well,

we'll see. We'll see what happens with it with Logan Thompson. The dude's been unbelievable, but I think I need a little, just a little bit more, more of a track record before I signed completely off on him. But Maxie, is there anybody who you can think of that's on,

who is like, who is taking over for Nathan McKinnon on the worst? The Nathan McKinnon Memorial worst deal in hockey because it seemed like he had that for years. Is there anybody that that sticks out for you? Like first, first answer, best answer on that one.

I, gosh, I have no idea. McKinnon for so long, I never needed to have another answer. It's Camel McCart. That's the answer. McKinnon. It might be Gilmachar. McKin officially passed the tors.

How about this? Are we ready to say it's Tage Thompson? Ooh, baby. Go sovres. I crushed that contract when he signed it. I was like, what are you doing? It's one year. Ooh, might be pretty good.

Then you're like, wait a second. That guy's seven and a half feet tall and can skate. Uh-oh. Emily L is one of the many people who were just like over the moon. for Donnie meatballs. I'm on board there, too. That was really interesting stuff from him last week. If you have any inkling, you know, any, any, if any party it cares about the sabres or cares

about, you know, the way the sausage gets made from a coach or from a coach player standpoint, I would go back, go back and check that out. Might be Jack Hughes soon, by the way, $8 million a year. People, people, people kind of nailed that one at the start, too, because there was not well i i think people realized that that was that even though the track record in no way was there you know that that that was that was something that was going to make sense down the line for sure jenn f says haven't heard much about our favorite american team the dallas stars from you guys of late how about robertson from sagan kiviranta how about

captain america himself joe pavelsky jenn jen jen jen i love the dallas stars i have them in the top five in the power rankings i did last week i'm going to keep them there Don't. My answer is yes. Don't accuse me of not loving the Dallas stars, Jen. That's like a knife to my heart. Tim B, just with a quick thanks for Max, thanks for covering for Craig Bolsonaro.

Tim says. I appreciate that. My pleasure. Tyler M. Tuesday Boys, ashtag Tuesday Boys 3Zs, to pay homage to the athletic, always doing rankings. Here is, I don't know what you're talking about there, Tyler.

Here is the athletic hockey show rankings. Number one Tuesday, boys. We're not going to go into the other order. I will say Thursdays are number four. That's me and Haley. Unacceptable. Prospect series didn't even make this list. You guys are, you guys are at the Canstable.

Ifa comes in to defend Haley and I. Respectfully, the Friday show is definitely the best day. and I agree with that. The best days are Friday and then any day that Max Max subs in for Craig. That's what I say. Where does Friday come from?

Is it like, does it come out at midnight? It's because we record it on like Thursday afternoon and it comes out on Friday. Like on 3 a.m. Eastern on Friday. So it is kind of a combo. Corey and I record on like the most jumbled days. Like we'll sometimes support a Friday prospect series on like a Tuesday and it will sound ridiculous three days later. I mean, that's fine. Like what's no, like what's going to what's

going to happen really? You know, I don't know. You guys, you guys have the benefit of, you know, you can really tailor your show to stuff that's happened in the past. We're doing the day of this week or whatever because people don't. Yeah. Oh yeah. Nice. There we go. But people don't, people don't pay attention to this stuff. Like you guys, you guys do. So you are whatever you say to 95% of people that listen to your show, it's going to be new information because, especially with Corey, like people just, especially the stuff Corey says, like people just don't, don't slash can't follow it on, on those levels. They're like me. They're lazy bums. They rely on you guys to tell you not just, they don't rely on you guys just for analysis. They rely on you guys to just

for actual information to tell, to tell them what happened, not just why it's important. What just happened there is Sean realized he was starting to, like he was insulting you guys as the listeners. And so he had to throw himself on the pyre to make sure that. I said it in the first segment. I don't know shit about prospects. I just said it so many times here. Like I am open.

I'm open about it because the most dangerous thing with all this and we're, we're about to wind up here because Max has to go to actual work. The most dangerous thing, I think. Not literally. The most dangerous thing on the planet is a hockey rider who pretends no. prospects and doesn't. And I just, I just refuse to be one of those guys. Maxy knows about prospects. Fair enough. Ish. Big show on Friday. Day of record. You can go. Five nations. You 18, five nations. If you live in Detroit, it's in Plymouth. Love it. Maybe I'll Bambo Drive up

tonight. Yeah, it's not by. I don't know anything else going on. Thanks for doing this, buddy. You have any, anything else coming up this week that you want to, that's, that you want to prep people for. No, nothing, nothing off the top of my head, but it's been fun. I always love coming on here. This was great.

Shout out to Rob. Uncle Rob, what up? Yeah, you'll be back soon because Craig's going to deadbeat his way out of another recording in due time here. He returns next week. Our guest is Hockey Hall of Famer,

Marion Hosa, who is great. We recorded that last week. Hosa has a big day with Chicago coming up soon. He's got a book coming out. He was awesome. Max, he's a guy you've talked to recently. I know for your NHL 99 story. Just a treat. He'll be great. I have no doubt that interview is going to be awesome. He's a delightful fellow. So that's what's coming next week. Tomorrow, Pete's Pizzo, it's Russo, it's Jesse Granger. They're talking to Mike Ruff from the NHL Network.

I guess it says here, producer Jeff included us, tune in to hear Rupp or Rip Austin Matthews again. Oh, baby. And don't forget to subscribe to the athletic hockey show on YouTube. It's YouTube.com slash at the athletic hockey show. The ad is in there. If you really want to look at me and Max for some reason, go with God. That's where it happens. Follow us on your favorite podcast platform.

Leave a rating interview. And buddy, you won't believe it. This offer still stands. Annual subscriptions to the athletic for just $1 a month. Can you believe it? $1 a month for six months. Theathletic.com slash hoggy show. This has been the Tuesday boys.

Hashtag Tuesday boys. Three Zs. Max, thanks again, buddy. Talk to you soon. Craig, I guess. We'll see.