The Athletic Hockey Show - Auston Matthews set for season debut tonight, Brady Tkachuk signs longterm with the Ottawa Senators, Filip Zadina postgame comments about Conor Garland, Nikita Kucherov potentially headed to LTIR (again), Multiple Choice Madness, and much more

Episode Date: October 18, 2021

First, Ian and Hailey talk about the the origins of Hailey’s dog’s name, and Ian shares a Gilbert Brulé story involving U2 frontman Bono, and then they discuss the biggest first week surprises of the NHL season, Auston Matthews making his season debut against the New York Rangers tonight, and whether he’ll hit the 50-goal plateau or not, Brady Tkachuk’s 7-year, $57.5 million deal with the Ottawa Senators, Filip Zadina’s questionable postgame comments about Conor Garland, another potential LTIR stint for Nikita Kucherov, if the NHL should start to move away from a hard salary cap, the beauty of unique arena foods, and more.Plus, to close things out, Ian and Hailey run through a series of Multiple Choice Madness questions including which teams or players should be most concerned after the first week of the season, which team win the Pacific division, and the ideal start time for Sunday NHL games.And, right now, you can save 50% on an annual subscription to The Athletic when you visit http://theathletic.com/hockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello and welcome to a Monday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. As always, it's Ian Mendez and Haley Salveon in the leadoff spot for you to kick off your week in the National Hockey League. Up ahead on this show, we'll chat about Austin Matthews and Brady Kachuk, both getting set to make their season debuts. This week, we'll also talk about some more injury concerns maybe around Nikita Kutcheroff, and we'll ask if people are going to be kind of rolling their eyes if the Tampa Star is on long-term. injured reserve. We'll ask you some questions too. Like, is it time to get rid of the hard salary cap after the Toronto Maple Leafs almost stepped

into one on the weekend? And should Red Wings young star Philip Zedina face discipline for his controversial comments following a game against the Vancouver Canucks? And we'll wrap it up as we always do with a little multiple choice badness. And we'll get some maybe some way too early answers for which team should be maybe hitting the panic button. And what do we think about Sunday games in the NHI? So we got a lot to get to here, Ailey, in the next hour or so. I got to ask you this because I loved, listen, you're very active on social media and you kind of let the world in on the fact that you took your dog Bono on a roadie

up highway. It's Highway 2, right, that goes between Calgary and Edmonton. Highway 2 and you roll into Edmonton for the season opener. You got to give our listeners the behind the scenes of your. first road trip of the season and then getting your dog to ride shotgun. Yeah. So I don't know. It wasn't a super unique thing for me.

I bring my dog everywhere. I live alone. Bono's here with me in Calgary. And, you know, I could get a dog sitter. And he, you know, I have one who's great. We did a little meet and greet last week just knowing, you know, I'm going to be on the road a bit more this season. I can't bring him everywhere, so let's get a sitter.

And I just thought my hotel was pet friendly. It's only a three-hour drive. Bono loves the car. You know, so I just decided to bring him with me. And we had a nice little weekend in Edmonton. We went for some long walks on the river. He always rides shotgun. Because if he goes in the backseat, I can't see if he's like going to get sick.

or if he can't, if he needs water, etc. So it's just more easy for me when I'm alone in the car to have him in the front seat so I can just make sure that he's okay. And I can put the air conditioning like right on him and he can be all happy. But he loves the car. He loves to travel. So, you know, it's not a super glamorous behind the scene story. You know, it's just kind of a regular occurrence for me to just go everywhere with my dog.

Maybe that's weird, but. No, no, but so does... It's my child. If you go to cover the flames on a week-long road trip, does the dog come with you? We'll get... No, because he can't fly. So, for those who don't know, my dog Bono is a French bulldog. So they're like the flat nose, like, brachial.

I don't know if I said that right. Breakiel dogs. And that any kind of short-nosed animal, a dog, excuse me, is not allowed under the car. cargo on airplanes because they can't breed down there. It's really hard for them. So they're banned from the cargo in most major airlines. And Bono is a little bit too chunky to meet the weight requirement to be in the cabin. Plus the dog approved, airline approved dog carriers for them to be in the cabin or tiny.

Like it would be cool to shove him in this little thing on an airplane for God knows how. long. So anything that is, you know, not driveable, Bono will have a really lovely dog sitter who will take care of him and Bono will go to her house and not be alone and just kind of hang out for, you know, if it's a week long trip, he'll hang out there for a week. And she'll send me pictures every day. So I can see that he's like having fun and stuff. And are you, like, you named this dog after like, you're that, are you a fan of you too? I don't even know this. Okay. So I was, when I was a kid, I remember I had a, um, all the, I had a karaoke player. It was like the, the greatest thing ever, a little set with the CDs and the two microphones on the side. It was the best. In one of the first

records I remember playing in this little karaoke machine was the, um, U2 album that had, like, it's a beautiful day. And so I used to just play that on repeat. So we did, I did listen to a lot of you two when I was a kid, but no, I got Bono from a breeder. I don't even know if this is, I'm, the breeder named him Bono. And I was like, no, I don't like that. So instead of changing his name completely, I just changed the pronunciation. So it was the same spelling, but she just enunciated funny. I was like, I don't, I don't like that.

So he became Bono. But everyone always asked me about you too. So I really should just say, yeah, I freaking love you two. Do you remember that random story? And it was Sam Gagne, right? Or is it, no, sorry, not Sam Gine. Who was it? Oh my gosh, why am I blanking here?

I'll look it up as we speak. What's the story? Remember when Bono got stranded in Vancouver and ended up? Was it Gilbert Brulet? Sorry, it was Gilbert Brulet. I don't know why I was thinking. Do you remember this story? Okay, so as we speak live on the athletic hockey show here, I'm going to be

Google searching. This is a hilarious story involving Gilbert Brulet and you two frontman Bono. Okay? So this is from. like 10 years ago. And this is when Gilbert Broulet was playing with the Oilers. And he lived in Vancouver. And you know

how police always tell you like don't pick up hitchhikers. Like don't ever do it. Right. But Gilbert Brulet was driving in West Vancouver and he sees a guy on the side of the road and guy needed a ride. It was Bono. Oh my God. This is in the pre-Uruder days, clearly.

And Gilbert Brulet of the of the Oilers who grew up, I guess, has the Vancouver connection picked up Bono and gave him a ride. And then Bono gives him a shout out at the concert, I think that night in Vancouver. Like, thank, Schobert Brulet. Like, do you have you not heard that story? I hope he got tickets for that. No, I've never heard that.

That's so funny. Totally rando story. Like, uh, that's hilarious. The great assist, the Gilbert Brulet's greatest assist was actually off the ice. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Yeah.

No, everyone always asked me that. So I should just say, yeah, like you two rocks. I have one friend. It's very funny, actually. Do you remember when Apple did this weird thing where you just like, everyone got you to his new album downloaded on their phone? Yeah, no choice. Everyone just got their new album.

And so one of my good friends we used to work together in Ashawa, his name's Joe, he thinks he's really hilarious because, you know, he's like, you know, Bono, I love you, but I'm never going to forgive you for forcing that stupid album on my cell phone. Never going to forgive you for that. So Joe doesn't like my dog because there's something that human Bono did. Human Bono. With Apple Music.

With that random, that album that everyone just got. Did anybody, did anyone listen to it? I didn't. Nobody asked for it. Yeah. And you couldn't delete it. It was like, no, it was just there. Oh, my God.

It's like, this is how you piss people off by forcing this album. Don't do that. No. Ever again. Exactly. All right. Hey, listen, I toss this question out on Twitter. And I want to get your take because we kind of finished the first week of the regular season.

And look, some teams like the one you cover, the Calgary Flames have only played one game. Other teams, Seattle and, you know, Pittsburgh. There's Chicago, I think. There's been teams that have played three games. So there's a little bit of a moving target here. But the question I asked on Twitter was, it's an old fill in the blank. Okay? So after the first week of the regular season, the Brees, the Bucing.

biggest surprise in the NHL is blank. What is Haley Salvian's answer to that question? Biggest surprise. First week of the NHL season is what? Oh, I was looking at some of the fill in the blanks, and a lot of them are great. I think a lot of people are surprised about the Sabres. I just think we as hockey people in general just spent so much time ripping on how terrible this team's going to be.

Um, they're never going to win a game, et cetera. And, and, and, you know, they're, they're two and oh. I think, I think that we have to, you know, look at who they've played against. Um, one was against Arizona, who everyone assumed was going to be really bad as well. And a Montreal team who's in this, you know, suddenly only like, yeah, peer, like, you know, I don't even want to call it a period of transition because, you know, they, they went to the final. They lost some pieces. Um, Carrie Price.

is, you know, taking care of himself right now, which is the utmost importance. But so I don't really know how to classify the Montreal Canadians, you know, maybe a period of transition or is the right term. But I don't know. I just don't think we, anyone expected the Sabres to start their season two and O. I found Montreal starting 0 and 3 a little bit surprising. one of the ones that really got me was the kings aren't the kings are one and one but copatar and drew dowdy yeah what the heck's happening there copatar is four goals seven points in two games

drew dowdy has five assists one goal six points in two games like these guys are just throwing it back and the king's you know i didn't know how long the king would take to take a step after they added some of the pieces that they did this off season. But they've looked pretty good. So the kings have been a bit of a surprise, but, you know, more specifically, Kopitar and Drew Doughty, just kind of having a throwback, you know, opening two games of the season. I'll tell you, you know, the one for me, and Chicago defensively has been a train wreck. And you figure, you know, you add the reigning Vezna trophy winner, you sign Seth Jones to a.

massive contract, you would think that that end of the ice would conceivably be a little bit more stabilized. And I know that Seth Jones has as detractors, but, you know, Flurry is struggle. Yeah, but Chicago is really struggled. Like that, that one for me is big. But then on the opposite end, here's Pittsburgh, no Crosby, no Malkin. And Haley, they're scoring goals that will without these two guys. So, and they've won two of their first three games. I think they got points, right, in all three games. So that's a, that's a team that's been a little bit surprising for, for me off the, off the hop is that, that Pittsburgh has been pretty good. Yeah. And I think what I've, I watched, I've watched two of the Penguins games. And I think what I liked about them is they're, you know, they're scoring by committee.

They're getting goals from up and down the lineup, which is what you need when you're down, you know, to have, you know, two of the two best players on your team when they're both out of. the same time. So, um, that's great for the penguins because if, if they can get that kind of depth in secondary scoring when Crosby and Malkin are back, um, I know it's early. It's only been a few games and, and you know how sustainable is that kind of secondary scoring up and down the lineup. I don't know. Um, but if that is something that they can sustain and they can sustain that kind of offense and pressure and, um, you know, it's then all of a sudden it's like, okay, well, maybe their window hasn't slammed shut. If they're doing this, well right now. Again, it's early. Um, that's always the disclaimer with this kind of stuff. But,

um, I think a lot of people were, we're assuming that this was going to be a really difficult start to the season for the penguins. And, um, it's a testament to the players. But, you know, it also seems like it's a, it's a real testament to Mike Sullivan and, and his ability to coach without those two guys and, you know, adjust and make things work when you have two gaping holes, uh, on your roster. And can we give a little shout of? two to the Columbus Blue Jackets. I mean, I think Buffalo is getting a ton of attention. Because I think everybody kind of had their tweet saved already.

Like, oh my gosh, the Sabres have already lost more games than the Bills or whatever. Like, everyone was ready to mock the Sabres. Buffalo's won two in a row to start the season, which is awesome. And they've been great defensively. But how about Columbus Haley? There are another team that a lot of people figured would be hanging in the – Yeah, hanging in the basement. They beat the Cracket in overtime.

I love these stories where – And Ottawa would be another one. They've won two games. Buffalo has won two games. Columbus has won two games. Like the teams that you think are going to be bad, it's always cool for those fan bases. So just like even if even if they're not going to make the playoffs,

like just string them along a little. Like don't take their hope away in October, right? Like that's what I like. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's what's maybe a little bit worrisome for a team like Montreal having a slow start the way that they have. And, you know, again, this isn't the priority.

but I think there were some, you know, what happens when, when you get certain players back or if Carrie Price comes back? I mean, what kind of hole are you going to be trying to dig yourselves out of later in the season? It's October. It's three games. We know that. But three games can quickly turn into way more, very fast and the hole that Aaron can get even bigger. I mean, the New York Islanders are 0 and 2 as well. I wouldn't really panic about that yet, because when you look at the teams they're playing against. Like they lost to Carolina and the Panthers. So it's not like they're losing to Arizona and Buffalo.

They lost two games to two good teams. They'll be putting Buffalo in that category anymore. I know. They're a powerhouse. But I think the goal differential is maybe a bit troubling for the Islanders. You got 11 goals against and only four goals for. That's not great. That's not the Barry Trots Islander's style,

letting in that many goals against. So I thought the Detroit game, the 7-6 overtime game, their opener was a great game to watch too. Four goals for Tyler Petuzi and, you know, they blew that lead and Tampa came back and won. But, you know, that's got to be great for, I know they lost, but that's got to be great for Red Wings fans who have just been going through the throws of this rebuild for so long to open your season and push the back-to-back Stanley Cup champions to the brink. that's a game where you're like, oh, I, you know, I'm happy for Red Wings fans who got to watch that. But there's been a lot of surprises. I saw one of the fill in the blanks.

Yeah. Winnipeg's 0. They haven't won yet. Yeah. And that's a team that a lot of people think are, you know, one of the better teams in Canada is the Winnipeg Jets when you look at their center depth and you look at their goaltending. They haven't won yet. one of the fill in the blanks that I saw,

someone said just Brandon Tanev. And he's got three goals in the first three games with the Cracken, but I'm not surprised. Like, I'm a huge fan. Like, I love this guy's game. And he's really, he's an interesting player to me, not just because he seems like a maniac, like some of the clips that we saw from him last season,

like the one where he was chirping the guy from the bench, and I think it was Zucker who was sitting next to him just like dying, laughing, like listening to the spiel coming out of his mouth. And he enunciates so you can very clearly read his lips. And I think he like had a freak out and he was pumped up and he was like hitting Sidney Crosby on the bench because he was so excited. Like this guy just seems great in the room on the ice. I'm a huge Brandon Tanna fan.

But he's really interesting to me because he's one of those. players that the anti-analytics community kind of likes to talk about because, like, you can't measure what Brandon Tanna brings to the table and analytics don't capture this. It's like, actually, his underlying numbers are very strong. Like, he is a good puck possession. Like, he drives play. He's a solid player. Like, the analytics and the eye test both suggest that Brandon Tanna is a, is a useful player. I know he was in more of a depth role in Pittsburgh, but, you know, it's awesome. to see him taking these steps and playing really well for the Cracken at first. Okay, hold on.

Let me just Google Brandon Tannave eye test and see what comes up. Because you know that if you just type in Brandon Tannave eyes, you know what's going to come up, right? The ghost. I'm just, did you know that that's actually the head? Like, I thought when they tweeted the, the Cracken tweeted the like headshot of him doing it again, I thought it was a joke. That's his headshot on the NHL website. Yeah, I know. I know.

They used it again. It's not the same. I love it. It's not the same. The other one was organic. It was like what the hell happened? I like it. Like that's his thing. Like nobody else in the league can do that now. Like that's his thing. That's his shtick. This is his thing. It's so funny. Now let's kind of tee up the week coming up, Haley, because we're like I said, off the top.

We're in the lead off spot. Two big returns coming up in the National Hockey League this week, both in the same province of Ontario. Let's start with this one. Austin Matthews. set to come back after missing the start of the season. Now, Austin Matthews underwent surgery in the offseason on his wrist. They've been patient with him. He is set to come back Monday against New York Rangers. Here's the question I'll ask you, Haley,

because circumstances have prevented Austin Matthews from getting to the 50-goal plateau in the past. Like there was the 2019-2020 season was the pandemic. He had 47 goals, season shut down. He certainly felt like he would have got to 50. And then last year, in a 56 game season, he scored 41 times and certainly would have gotten to 50 goals. So as he misses the first couple of games of the season, and we're not sure about his health, if I'm asking you right now, what's your confidence level that Austin Matthews gets to 50 goals this season?

What's your answer? I'm comfortable saying that he does. You know, I think the injury and how his wrist is is the ultimate wild card. you know, is this actually going to be behind him? Because we saw the dip in his play when the wrist injury was bothering him, especially in the playoffs. Like he was playing on this injury, forgive me. I don't know exactly how long, but like we saw some of the effects of that.

He sat out for some practices, et cetera. Like it was something that was kind of lingering for Austin Matthews. And you could always tell when it was bothering him because the release just wasn't the same. And you could just tell that something was off. So that's the ultimate wildcard. the wrist is how is he going to bounce back from this. You know, I think the fact that he had surgery to repair it, he's had this recovery time. I think if he comes back healthy, I don't see why he won't score 50 goals.

Like you said, his last two seasons, I mean, so technically he was on pace for 65 goals in an 82 game season in 2019, 20. He would have hit 50, like 47 goals in 52 games. Is that right? No. No, no, he had 47, excuse me, 47 goals in 70 games. He would have hit 50. Like, you got 12 more games, score three goals.

He was going to hit 50 goals. In the year before that, he was last season, that's, you know, I guess 40, 41 goals and 52 is like a 55 goal pace. No, 65. Last year he was on pace for 65 goals. Right. Last year was 65, 2019, 20, 20 was 55 goals. Yeah. And that's what I'm saying.

So, like, this is a player who. who's, yeah, like this is a player who's shown the last two years that he can get there. And he had a high shooting percentage of the last two years. I think it's important we say that. But it wasn't crazy high. Like his, it wasn't crazy high to the point where it's like, this is completely unsustainable for Austin Matthews because his career average is around 18%, or 16% excuse me.

Last year, shooting percentage was like 18%. So that's only 2% points higher than his career average. And over his, you know, career span, his shooting percentage has ranged between 14 and 18%. So it's to say, you know, oh, it's an unsustainable shooting percentage, I don't think that's accurate. It's not like he jumped from 11% to 22%. You know, he's in that range. And it's always tough because scoring goals is the hardest thing to do in the National Hockey League. But I think he's shown through his career that he can do that in the last couple years.

he's certainly shown that he is the ability to score 50. Yeah. Scoring goals, you say, is the hardest thing to do in the National Hockey League, Haley. Some people would argue signing a long-term contract with the Ottawaese senators might be the hardest thing to do in the National Hockey League. So to quote Michael Scott, though, I'm going to say, ah, how the turntables have, well, because you know what, we're going to let you. Turned. That's right. How the turntables have turned.

Yes. That's right. You're going to get to fire some Brady. could chuck questions my way here. Yes, I'm in the left seat now. Chair to the left. I don't know how. Chair to the left.

Yeah. Chair to the left. It's me. It's my show now. That's right. It's my show now. And I'm not going to ask about Brady. What?

No. It's going to go rogue. I'm going to go rogue and just start talking about my dog for the next 35 minutes. He's sleeping right now. It's really cute. No. Okay. So this is great.

I mean, for me, when we're talking about the film, and the blank stuff, I was going to say, one of the biggest surprises so far to me was Brady Kachuk's contract, signs for seven years. At an 8.2 in change million per year. We see the way that the contract's loaded. He's going to start making like 10.5 in the middle once escrow goes down. How surprised were you, Ian, especially considering we all assume that this was going to be a bridge deal. Yeah, no, I was capital S shocked because I just didn't think it was going to happen. I thought in my mind this is going to be a bridge deal. We saw it with Matthew in Calgary. We've seen it with some other clients of Newport sports that they like to kind of get that bridge and get the leverage.

So this was a great day for Ottawa fans. And I think, you know, for all of the handwringing that has gone on in this market about the exodus of star players, now it's really hard to complain. what do you have to complain about now? If you're an Ottawa fan from a roster retention perspective, you've locked down Drake Batherson for six years, you've locked down Thomas Shabbat for another seven years, and now you've got Brady Kachuk for seven years. So all of the guys that they said they were going to sign, they've signed.

But here's the interesting thing, Haley, and this is, I want to paint this picture for our listeners on the athletic hockey show. Now, there was only one game on the NHL schedule on Sunday, and that was Ottawa at home to Dallas. the announced attendance last night in Ottawa was 8,067 people. I want to hammer home the fact that we have the ability to have full capacity here. So, you know, go ahead and insert your 50% capacity jokes if you want to,

but they had the ability to have everybody in the stands and there was 8,000 people, which as I went back and looked at my notes, I believe that might be the lowest attendance ever for an Ottawa game. I could be wrong, but I looked at the last five or six years, couldn't find anything lower. So here's the big test, Haley, coming up for this week. And this is why I love about our shows, we get to kind of set up what's coming up for the week ahead.

I want our listeners to circle the game on Thursday night because it's the return of Eric Carlson to Ottawa. And, you know, that always has a little bit of juice to it. But it'll be the first game that Brady Kachuk plays with his seven-year contract kind of tucked underneath his arm. This is your chance, if you're an Ottawa fan, to come out and celebrate. It's almost fitting that the old captain is in town

when the guy who's likely going to be the new captain is getting set to start. My question is, what do we need to set the over under on the attendance? And what's the number that would be alarming for hockey fans in general? Like if I told you, Haley, 11,500 people showed up to see Brady Kachuk's first game, would that be concerning? Would that be alarming? Like, I want to know from our listeners,

what's the number that you'd be like? like, uh-oh, that's a bit of a problem. This is a problem. Yeah. Yeah. Well, when I was in Ottawa, I remember Chris Stevenson and I, when we did our 10 bold predictions, we did something about like, attendance is going to go up. And at that point, they were last in the league in attendance, and it was hovering around

12,000 average per game. Um, so if, if, if that's the, that's the over under point is like the average fans over the last few years, which would be like, you know, 1,200, yeah, I guess I would say 12,000 fans. Let's just put it at 12,000. If you're not getting more than the average game for Brady Kachuck's first game back, it indicates a bigger problem than just signing players. And I think we know that. The relationship with fans and the team is, I got, I called it complicated once and I just got ripped into. But it is, it's very black and white, but it's also complicated.

We don't have all the time in the world to get into that relationship. So that's why I just use the blanket statement of complicated. But if you can't sell more than your average amount of tickets for a game like that, for a player like that, for Carlson coming back, like, you've really got to start looking at some stuff there if you already haven't. A lot of it's probably the location of that arena. Would you agree? Yeah, it is.

And I like it. It's a little bit. You know, senators fans, like the majority of them would, would set their relationship status to it's complicated. For sure, with the team.

Like it's, but if your number one complaint with the team was their inability to retain star players, I think that narrative, unfortunately, for those detractors, it's out the window. Like,

you can't say, Yeah, it's gone. Like, it's gone. It's dead. Like, they've done it.

They've kept. Batherson, Kachuck. and Shabbat are three young stars who are all here for the long term. So you got to take- I know he's not on the same level. For sure. They locked him in too.

They locked him in. So you don't get to say that. Like I feel like that's an old narrative that has been somewhat, you know, blown up. So what's going on? But again, like you said, it's complicated. I'm going to give it the rest of this homestand. They got a game against San Jose, the Rangers, Washington. You know, after those three or four games, if we're talking about numbers that people

would think are in some other market, I think there might be a story at play. So certainly that's one of the stories that the fans should look for this week, I think, in the National Hockey League. Another one, Haley. And this one is interesting, okay? Because Philip Zedin, look,

the Vancouver Detroit game turned out to be a little spicier than we thought. You know, Vancouver, Detroit don't really, actually the only thing I think of, and tell me if you remember this, this is super old school, okay? Like, I don't even want to guess how old you were because it's going to be embarrassing for me. Yeah, do you forget my age?

So 2002, Vancouver and Detroit played in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. Detroit was like a super heavyweight Stanley Cup favorite. They had Hachick and like, you know, Shanahan and Eiserman and Hull. There were this locked and loaded team. And Vancouver was this upstart team with the young Sedeen twins. And Vancouver wins the first two games of that series. but I'll always remember Brian Burke was the GM of Vancouver at the time and he went on an absolute unreal tirade on the podium

about the way that his young players were being treated. I think he said something along the lines of Sedeen is Swedish for, you can punch me in the head and hold, like it was crazy. Vancouver ends up blowing that series. They lose it. They lose four games in a row. The Canucks fans will remember Dan Clucier's goal that he let in from Center Ice. Anyway, I thought the Vancouver Detroit rivalry was dead until this weekend.

I want our listeners to listen to this. Detroit forward, Philip Zedina, listen to his comments after the game about an altercation he had with Canucks forward, Connard Garland. I'm okay. I just went and chased the puck and I was reaching for the puck and he just, I don't know, reverse with me, I guess. and, I mean, you know, like the midget like he is, it's pretty, it's pretty, like, I mean, normal, you know, that he's, uh, reverse it because I don't think he's that strong enough to just, uh, battle him in a corner like one-on-one and you just do like, uh, that stupid hit, but, uh, it is what it is, probably how the person, uh, he is on the eye, so. Okay, Haley, so obviously the comment that, uh, that is, uh, drawing a lot of ire there is, is Philip Sedina, you know, referring to Connor Garland in a very derogatory way using a word that I think quite frankly has been removed from our lexicon

here in North America. Is there a, I guess, I don't know what the word here, do a free pass, a pass, an excuse for somebody whose first language is not English, who grew up in another culture that maybe you don't know, you know, that that word isn't to be used. Yeah. It's, It's tough because I don't know what the culture would be. And I'm not sure what other way a different culture would use that term. You know, the context of the statement that he made. I don't know how else to read into it that he was making a comment about Garland's size and, you know, in a negative way. I'm not going to give a free pass.

I can understand if this is something where they're saying, like, this is not his, like, native tongue. Like, he doesn't get it. You know, it was a lost in translation moment. But it's also tough. Like, it's hard to, to hear those kind of things. And I think it's probably just, a lot of it's probably just how it's hard to justify this kind of stuff when we're consistently having conversations on this show, on different shows about

language, hand gestures, behaviors that are not inclusive in this sport. So it's hard in the body of work of what's been happening in the game for years to hear that and not just be like, I'll come like again, like we have to talk about this stuff again because people like, and we're always going to use our platform. I don't mean that in a way of like, God, I'm talking about this. We're always going to use our platform. But it's hard to justify comments like that when, you know, I don't know what other way he would mean it. Yeah, but you know what's interesting is remember like for years, hockey Canada used the term midget to describe an age group of players, right?

Like for years we had, what, Peewee, Adam, Bantam, and Midget in this country. And about a year ago, hockey Canada said, you know, we shouldn't be using the term midget to, you know, now we're going to go with like kind of you, you, 10, 12, 14, we're going to go by age group. But for the longest time, Haley, that was a term that was freely used by hockey Canada up until about a year ago. So it's going to take some time, I think, to remove it from everybody's language. And I think I do have a little bit more room for understanding for somebody who didn't grow up

here in Zadena. I do. But I'd like to think that somebody would go and talk to them and say, you know, you shouldn't use that term and here's why. And let's use it as a teachable moment for other younger players. But it's, for sure. It's like you said,

it's, it's, it's one of those things here. Like, you'd like to think people know better, but maybe people don't always know better. That's all. Yeah.

My, my counter argument to the, the midget and the major midget hockey reference, if this is an age thing that Zadina was, you know, saying. Yeah, for sure.

Like, he's younger. Zadina is younger than Connor Garland. Like, so, you know, you're saying it as an age group thing. Like, he's 25 years old, you're 21. That, you know, again, you hope for the best from people. Maybe I'm just, you know, getting old and cranky. Um, obviously you hope that it was just a, a loss in translation moment. Um, but that's just not something that it should be said. I just don't know how to justify that other than saying, like I hope it was just a mistake that he didn't understand that he made.

Exactly, exactly. Otherwise, it's just like, why would you say that? Yeah, you just hope it's a teachable moment for the young man. Okay. So, yeah, exactly. Let's move on to this because I thought this was quite the scene. And you know what? Social media had a blast with this when the Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday, Haley,

had a little bit of a crisis on their hands with the salary cap. they were forced to dress goaltender Alex Bishop as their backup goalie on Saturday. If you don't know the name Alex Bishop, it's because he's a college goalie. Goes to the University of Toronto. Why did the Leafs have to do this? Because they were up against the cap. Peter Morassick heard his groin. They literally had no choice but to sign a Randall goalie off the street because they just couldn't fit this into the cap.

The Maple Leafs, of course, are probably the most financially sound team in all of the National Hockey League, but they are constrained by the salary cap. And it brought up a really interesting point. You know, Alan Walsh, a prominent agent who is never shy about his opinion, said, it's time for us to get rid of the hard salary cap, Carlo Koliakovo, who I really respect. I love Carlo. I think he does a great job as a radio host in Toronto and on television. He was in the same boat.

And I know that there's a lot of people saying, oh, suck it up, leaves, it's sour grapes. Yeah. Where do you stand on this, though? on a big picture, would you like to see the NHL get rid? I'm not saying of the salary cap in total, but the hard cap. And maybe move towards more of a softer cap where if you go over the threshold, you're going to have to pay into a system or you're going to have to pay a penalty. Yeah, well, I think just to maybe start with the leaf stuff,

James Myrtle had a piece this morning that kind of helped make sense of everything. So what the Leafs actually did. And this is one of the things where you talk about the Leafs being one of the more financially sound, the most financially sound team. Not only that, but they, they just have so much committed to like capologists. And Brandon Prydom is, you know, so, so smart at this kind of thing. And what they did in calling up that backup goaltender, I don't have the exact rules in front of me from the CBA, but what they did essentially is he was on an amateur contract that

did not pay him a salary, which it was a, it was a. game of chicken with their backup goalie essentially because they were so tight to the cap. You know, if something happened, there was an injury, you're throwing this kid in. But what they did with that and it worked because Jack Campbell didn't get hurt, they won the game and it was fine. But what they did with that is they opened up the opportunity to use a roster emergency exemption. So after that game, they were able to call up Michael Hutchinson for free. So, I mean, Hutch is still going to get paid.

but he is now not going to count against the cap because of this roster emergency exemption that the Leafs cap guys know about use to their advantage, et cetera. So it's this really complicated thing that it's only happening because we're in this hard salary cap and it's been flat and, you know, teams are right up against it. And one of the things Myrtle went into in his story is like, if you look at the league, I think it's about 15 teams right now are projected to be dipping in. into LTIR and technically above the salary cap this year. And like teams are up against it more than ever.

You know, cap space has become more valuable than players in some instances. We've seen that with certain trades and, you know, player values going down and all crazy. So bringing it back to the conversation of the hard cap versus like a soft cap or a luxury tax, I'm non-committal on it. But I think it's a really interesting conversation. I think that would be a great story to get into one day. Like it's a good conversation to have on the podcast. I think you could make a really good pros and cons list for this.

Like I get it. I get it on both sides. Like you want to have the parody in the league. So you bring in the hard cap. That's why they, one of the reasons they said they did it in 2005 and to, you know, I think the league has grown in revenue and scope under the hard cap since

2005. There's, you know, there's no question to say that the league has grown since 2005. But it's hard to know, would the league be better off now if in 2005 they went for a soft cap in luxury tax? Like, it's hard to know. Um, because the ML, we've talked about this before. MLB doesn't have a hard cap. And, you know, that opens up the thing of like, yeah, it's because they're the Yankees. They can buy whatever they want. Um, the way that the luxury tax would go that the money would filter back to the smaller market teams as well. So that's kind of an unfair argument to make. But I don't know.

I think, and I'm rambling, I apologize. But I think the cap from an agent and player standpoint, I've seen Alan Walsh tweet about this before, from a player and a player representative standpoint, a hard cap is essentially designed to sign players for below market value. So if you're a pro player person, a hard cap sucks. Because think of how much money Connor McDavid could be making if it was a soft cap or a luxury tax situation. He could be making way more money. And he's, you know, the best player in the world

making the most money, but he's still technically below market value for what he provides. I think it's unfortunate with the hard cap that teams can do everything right from top to bottom. We look at the Tampa Bay Lightning. They draft well. They develop well. They have good pro and amateur scouts. They make good trades. They have good coaches. Their players are great. They do everything right to become the best team in the league and they lose their

entire third line because they can't afford them because of the hard cap. And that's the, that's the shitty thing about the hard cap is, like I said, teams can do everything right from start to finish to build the team that they want. They can build the dynasty. and then they still have to turn players out because they're up against this hard cap that's been set since 2005. So I get it from both sides.

I just, I'm so non-committal. It's just hard to know if it would work. Okay, so tell me if you like this. I've always been a proponent of this idea, which is kind of a middle ground and like, look at some of the bottom feeding, bottom spending teams, sorry, like the Ottawa's and the Buffaloes.

So those teams are sitting on like $15 million of cap room. that they're not using. I've always been a proponent, Haley, that those teams should be allowed to trade their available cap space. So let's say you're Ottawa and you're sitting there and you've got 17 million. What if you went to Toronto and you're like, I'll give you $7 million a cap space.

You give me two second round picks or whatever it is. I'm just throwing that out there as some arbitrary thing. But now you're allowing that money that is dead and not being used in the ecosystem. It's just sitting there. Now it can be used. And now you can't, like, I've always felt like you can use cap space as a weapon. But what if you were allowed to literally trade it? Instead of trading these weird ass, like, I'm going to trade you Brent Seabrook,

who's basically duct taped together. Like, no. Like, let's make an actual hockey trade with the space that we have available. I think that would be a really cool compromise. I don't know that it's creative. But I would like to see that. And I get it. And I know you don't want to get to a point where like, you know,

although I always think before we had the salary cap, the New York Rangers every year would be like, we're going out, we're bringing in Eric Lindross and Pavel Burray and Peter Ned Bed or whoever. Like, it didn't work. The Maple Leafs used to do that too. Joe Newendike and Gary Roberts and Alex McGilney and Ed Belfort. they never won the cup.

Like, it's not that the teams that were spending a ton, yeah, it did give you a good chance. But a lot of those teams, the Detroit's and Colorado's, they did draft and develop a lot of their players and then they sort of supplement. It wasn't like just some team, the teams that just had blank checks and were trying to build teams like the Rangers and Leaves,

they didn't get anything. They never won anything. So that would be my only point, too, is that let's open it up a little bit. Like I, you know, I'd love to. see it. But you know, along those lines, though, it's funny that you mentioned Tampa because they're kind of back in the news again, and I'm wondering how people are going to react to this. Now, as we're recording this late on Monday morning Eastern time, Eastern Center time, we don't know what the deal is

with Nikita Kuturov. But he got hurt on Saturday night, and I wonder if hockey fans are going to be like, here we go again. Like with the eye rolls. Like will people like if the Tampa Bay Lightning put in the key to Kutraoff on long term injured reserve. And this is a guy who basically missed the whole season last year to recover from a hip injury. Then he just, you know, to some people's opinion, he magically reappeared when the cap didn't matter.

Tampa wins the cup. Will people be accusing Tampa of going down the same path again, Haley? Or will people be suspicious here? I mean, probably. People were so mad about that. I don't think they're going to forget about it. So, yeah, I think people probably will. I've already seen a couple of tweets saying, you know,

Nikita Kutrov goes on LTIR and the Tampa Bay Lightning trade for Jack Eichel and it all fits under the cap by the playoffs. So I've already seen a couple of those. I think people who were, you know, truly upset about that. are not over it yet. And they're just like, oh, great. Yeah, I think there are people already who are like, oh, here we go again. They're clear in cap space to get Jack Eichel for the playoffs.

I think it would be, I guess he missed the whole regular season last year due surgery, but that was 56 game season. You know, do you really want to not have Nikita Kutra for 82 games after you lost your entire third line? That was like a really important piece of your roster. I just, you know, and I don't even think that the Tampa Bay Lightning were cheating last year. That's the one thing I should say is they did what was in the rules that the league set out. And if people don't like that, then you can't yell at the Tampa Bay Lightning.

You yell at the league. They were doing what's allowed in my opinion. You know, who cares? But I think people are probably going to be a little bit, you know, if the lightning go out and make some big move, it's going to be like, oh, come on. Again, really. But, yeah, I just, I don't think it's this big cheating scandal. Yeah, and boy, you know what where you were really accurate there? In a 56 game season, you could probably try to get through.

Boy, 82 games is going to be tough. Especially, I look again, I love how our, I'm going to say our, Florida Panthers have come out of the gates. They're looking good. They've won two games. Like, that's going to be a tough division. I think that's going to be a really tough division to finish in first place because I think there's a couple teams there in Florida and Toronto that will really give Tampa a run for their money. And if you're the lightning, boy, you don't, I don't think you want to see the Panthers in the first round of the playoffs again this year, do you?

Like, I think that was, that was a tough, that was a tough goal. Anyway, it's going to be really interesting to see what happens with Kutrov, but you'll forgive, I guess you'll forgive NHL fans for being super cynical because we're all cynical to begin. As hockey fans were cynical by nature, right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. No, I, I don't, I'm just, I don't know, I think I'm just always cranky now.

I don't know. Just now you're only cranky? Or you always? Because earlier in the show you said, you know, maybe I'm just getting older. Old and cranky. I'm like, well, what does that make me? If you're old and cranky, I'm like, I don't even want to know. I'm probably like 18 years older than you, I think, or something like that.

You're older but less cranky. Really? Okay. I'll take that. I'm definitely the rude one of the curmudgeon. The curmudgeon of the two. You're right. Yeah.

Can we call you the young? From now I'm going to call you. And joining me now for the podcast as always a noted young curmudgeon. Or how about if I made you a curmudgeon in training T-shirt, maybe that's, you know, we need to start developing merch for this show. Who would buy that? What's some of the other weird stuff we've talked about on here? We could make Ice Cube T-shirts.

Oh, yeah. Under the fridge, kicking it. under the fridge. Drop the cube. Drop the cube. Oh, God. Team Cube. Oh, God.

Yeah. Team Cube. Team Kick. Team kick. Team kick versus, it's like, you know, twilight all over again. We'll get on our staff at the athletic to come up with merch. We need some merch. We need some merch.

With Canadian flags on the mall. Oh, yeah. Because, you know, the Tuesday show is going to have, you know, Bald Eagle. and Mount Rushmore and like Jack Eichel with fireworks and what else would they have there? I'm trying to think of American things, but I can't because I live in Canada. Which, by the way, we are now permitted. Like, are you taking any trips to the United States? I am.

Road trips. So you're going with the flames. Where are you going? Detroit. and I'm not going to tell Craig Custin's that I'm going to be there. Okay. Because he's been really rude. Going to go to Washington,

Pittsburgh, and then the L.A. trip in December. Those are the U.S. ones that I've kind of booked for myself. Oh, very nice. I've never, that's one of the only arenas I haven't been to is Detroit's, the Little Caesar's arena is one of the only ones I haven't been to. Yeah, yeah.

I'm looking at some point. Apparently they have good snacks. That's the best part about being back in the rank semi-normal is the treats in the press box. Have you guys gotten your press box popcorn back in Ottawa? No, the pandemic has put it in, the hot dogs, popcorn. But you know what I saw that was, yeah, there's nothing. We got candy. I was in Edmonton on the weekend and there was runts.

There was runts in M&Ms in little individual cups and popcorn. Is that politically correct? I don't know. should we be calling them Runts anymore? I don't know, Haley. Look at your face. I'm joking. Going after Sue and Willie Wonka now.

Haley, I'm trying to cancel Willie Wonka. You better get on board here. You know, you know, so I don't know if you follow. I know he's a super polarizing guy on, on Twitter, but Darren Roval is kind of a sports business guy, right? Okay. He tweeted out about the Ottawa senators this morning, and I had no idea that they've added this to their menu inside the arena this season.

Okay. It's called nacho pierogies. So basically it's pierogies that are topped with like nacho cheese, like that liquid nacho cheese, bacon, green onions, sour cream, salsa, and cheese. Parogi nachos, in or out. Wait, are there tortilla chips in there too? No, the parogis are. Are you supposed to pick all that up? You use a fork.

So you have to use a fork and then you just try to get a bite with, I don't like that. Parogi nachos. I don't like it. No, nachos are handheld. Don't put something in the nacho. I'm getting upset. Yeah. You don't put something in the, you can't call it nachos if you need a knife and fork.

You can't. Okay, but they're called. Got to use your hands. Nacho pierogies at Ottawa Senators. I went to the game. I missed the main story. here I was focused on the action on the ice. Meanwhile, the biggest story was in,

playing itself out in the concessions. I don't like it. They're not nachos. They're parogies with nacho toppings on it. They're not nachos. Nachos are named after the nacho chip. Haley has spoken. We should.

Haley has spoken. We should talk about food more often. Oh my gosh. Yeah. That would make me a lot happier. There we go. There we go. The first time I smiled in years.

I love those crazy food items, though. when you see they're like, here's like, and usually it's like in Texas. Here's some deep fried butter. Yeah, deep fried Snickers. I actually tried a deep fried Snickers bar once at a, really? One of those country county fairs was very good. But you ever see like, you like, knew this season at like the Dallas Stars game.

It's like a donut burger. And it's like a hamburger with the cronut. Do you remember the cronut? Cronut was big like five or six years ago. I like that though. I like sick from it. I like going to sporting events. and trying something really unique.

Like, I don't want to just go and have a hot dog. That makes you feel like crap after? You know what I had once in a Seattle Mariners game? Toasted chili lime grasshoppers. I'll text you the picture afterwards. I was into it at first until you said grasshopper. I like chili lime flavor. I had you had toasted chili lime.

It could have been anything else. It could have been anything else. Grasshoppers was an ongoing. It was disgusting. It was crunch. It was almost like just eating peanuts or something. For sure. Did you just have a bag of grasshoppers?

It was a cup, a little cup at a Mariners game. I'll text you a picture. Don't show me. No. Yeah, I'm going to 100% I'm texting you the picture. I need to see it. Yeah. But I love that.

Like I love little signature items at sporting events. Yeah, that's fun. I'm celiac. So it saves me from all that stuff. Oh, you're good. Grasshoppers are gluten-free. You're good. Not if they're deep fried.

No. I'm sure that. there's gluten in their little wings. You know what? We were talking about catch phrases that we want to put on t-shirts. I'm going to say grasshoppers are gluten-free and we're going to make it trend. And people are like, that's awesome. These guys are hilarious.

Let's make a t-shirt. Grasshoppers are gluten-free. Athletic hockey show. Oh, no. I will not be wearing that. No. No. Okay.

You know what, though? As always, Haley. and this has been a super fun show. We got to wrap it up with a little multiple choice madness here. Okay? So three questions. And look, it's early.

We want to make sure we tell people it's super early. But first week of the regular season, there's some fan bases and teams that might be having their finger hovering over the panic button, shall we say? Here's my first question in multiple choice madness here on this Monday. Haley, which team or players should be most concerned

after things played out the way they did in the first week of the regular season? Is it A, the Montreal Canadiens? B, Carter Hart, goalie of the Philadelphia Flyers, who kind of had a tough go in his first game. C, the Chicago Blackhawks, D, the New York Islanders, Haley, who should be most concerned after week one of the regular season?

Mm-hmm. I already kind of touched on the islanders. Like I think it's easy to kind of look at who they're playing against and say, okay, you know what, it's fine. They're playing against some good teams. So to go 0 and 2 against the canes and Panthers is fine. I mean, I think maybe the Blackhawks are probably a team that's concerned. Our friend of the show, Mark Lazarus, had a really great piece on the unacceptable start for the Black Hawk season. I think they went out and made all these changes.

They, you know, they didn't have to give up a ton to bring in some of the pieces that they did. They got Mark Andre Fleury. They made this big swing on Seth Jones and paid him a ton of money. Kirby Docs back. Jonathan Taves is back. I think there was a lot of people who were expecting that team to, you know, this is going to be a, they're going to contend again. Like all of a sudden, great offseason in the black, and in Chicago is back.

in it. Hasn't look like that's going to happen. Again, it's early. Things can change, but I'm probably going to say Chicago because of just how much they committed and how much they did. And I think the expectation that things were going to be different and better, but they are not. Boy, you know what?

And I'm willing to definitely give Carter Hart some room here. Like, hey, it was a tough go with the opener against Vancouver. A couple of weird goals on them. But, like, it was one game. I'm really debating between the habs and the islanders, though. And you know what? The HABs to be, I think it is, the fan base is full-fledged panic. And obviously they're not going to have Kerry Price to start the season and that hurts.

It just, it feels like it's not headed in the right direction going winless and three. But let me just make a case for the Islanders here. And I know that they're probably the best coach team in the league and we shouldn't worry. But Haley, they're starting the season with a 13 game road trip. And I feel like we don't talk about this enough. Right. 13 games in a row on the road. That's right.

Before they play a home game, which they're going to open up their new arena. Actually, they open it against Calgary, don't they? That new arena, I think? I think so. I think so. But anyway, that's not on your list of trips. You're not going to the new UBS arena in New York? Okay, well, anyway, would you not be concerned, like to me, starting the season with 13 straight road games?

I don't know. Like, I'm worried about that. Like, if I'm the Islanders, I just want to come out of it five. and now losing the first two games. So for me, it's more about the obstacles that the islanders have to face that I'm a little bit worried about. But I hear you. Chicago's in trouble. The habs might be in trouble.

I'll throw a vote in there for the islanders. Let me ask you this next question here. Because Max Patcheretti is out for Vegas. And, you know, Dom, when he does his kind of projections for probabilities and stuff, things shift. And already now in the first week of the season, all of a sudden here come the Edmonton Oilers. Maybe Edmonton's the favorite. Let me ask you this, Haley.

Who do you think is going to win the Pacific Division now? Is it A, the Vegas Golden Knights, be the Edmonton Oilers or C, somebody else in that division? I'm probably going to, for now, from what I've seen, I'm probably going to go with the Oilers. I think, again, it sounds like a broken record. It is early. I thought from what I saw, I was in Edmonton

over the weekend for the flame season opener. I thought Mike Smith actually looked really solid. He didn't give up a ton of second chances. He made 45 saves in the win. McDavid, you can tell he's been working on his one-timer. So you've got the best player in the world who just added to his repertoire. You know, they're healthy right now. You've got Zach Hyman in the mix who's right now playing on the second line.

So, you know, the Oilers have, you know, two dangerous lines right now. Their power play is still one of the same. the best in the league. They can kill penalties. And again, they're healthy and Vegas is not. So I just think there's probably too many injuries and question marks with Vegas right now to confidently say that they're going to win the division. And Edmonton kind of has a check a ton of boxes right now. Yeah. Like what great start for the orders. Like you said, McDavid, working on that one-timer in the face off dot, as if this guy needed another weapon in his arsenal to, to, uh, to, uh, to worried defenders. I'm going to stick with Vegas only because,

They've been very consistent last couple of years. And I know, look, Patcheretti, Stone, some of these guys have been banged up. But, boy, like for me, until I see it for 82 games for Edmonton, and I do believe in them. I do think that they have the talent. I still think I don't want to be swayed by the first week of the season too much. I said Vegas was going to win this division, you know, a few weeks ago. I think I'll stick with that. But, you know, I think it's interesting.

Like, we talked about this all the top of the show. L.A. looks like they might be an interesting, fun team to watch. the Crackett are out of the gates with, you know, three points and three games. You know, anyway, this is going to be a fun division. I think we thought it was going to be the weakest division, and that could still be the case. But I think it might be a fun division to watch at the very least in the next few months to see how this plays out.

So that's what I'll go with that. Let me do this to wrap up the show, Haley. We had one Sunday game on the docket yesterday. And it was a 5 o'clock start in Ottawa local time. So here's my question to you. Because obviously the NHL doesn't want to schedule a ton of Sunday games for obvious reasons. I think they don't want to go head to head with the NFL. Here's my question to wrap up this edition of Multiple Choice Madness,

this Monday edition of the athletic hockey show. What time, Haley, should NHL games start on Sundays? Is it A, they should be early afternoon game? So like 12 noon or 1 o'clock local time, should it be B? You know what, let's go with late afternoon. A 4 o'clock game, a 5 o'clock game, that's perfect. Should it be C, the late game, like an evening game, 7 o'clock, local time, maybe even 7.30? Or D, you know what?

The NHL should completely avoid any Sunday games like in the fall and early winter, meaning don't play on Sundays during NFL season. Then when you get to January, February, have at it. What do you think? Mm-hmm. I just don't know if it's, like, realistic to say D. I mean, that's probably the ideal one. So you're just not competing at all.

But I don't think that's realistic. I think it's interesting, like the way that the schedule makers have to do things is, like, I know that the schedule makers have to take that into account of like certain teams who say, like, no, we don't want our home games during Sundays during the NFL season because people aren't going to buy tickets because they're going to be at home watching football. So that's like a thing that teams will say, like, do not schedule us at home on a Sunday afternoon because we're not going to make any money off of it. So I always feel for the schedule makers in the league.

D is probably the ideal one, but again, I don't think that's realistic. So, God, I don't know. Usually the Sunday night football game's been great. Maybe late afternoons the play because you kind of have that pocket between the early games at 11 and the late game. Sometimes the kind of middle of the day games are kind of blah. I don't know about you, but when I'm watching football, I'm watching the 11 a.m. games. Then I take a little break.

And then I- Nobody is watching 11 a.m. Oh, right. You and your mountain time talk. They're 1 o'clock games. One o'clock game, 4 o'clock game, 8 o'clock game. Okay. I would probably say the fork.

I like the first game and the last game and I take a break in between. So I think if you did the hockey in between, that would be like, okay, it's like a little football. It's like a little football sandwich. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's really tough. Like, it is. And, you know, what I was really curious about, I would love to know what are the Dallas stars local TV numbers from Sunday?

Because the Dallas Cowboys played New England at 425 Eastern Time Sunday. The Dallas Stars had a puck drop 30 minutes later. Like that's not ideal, right? Like, if you're the Dallas Stars, you don't ever want to be going up. So I like I'm with you though. I think a late afternoon game seems to be the best. Like say five o'clock local times that way like in theory. And let's use a team like Buffalo for example.

And let's say you're the Sabres and you know the bills are playing at one o'clock. Well, if you want to have a home game, maybe five o'clock is the way to do it because that way fans have either attended or watch the bills game at, you know, at one o'clock. they're able to get to your game. Like it's, boy, it's tough though. I'm with you. I think most teams just want to avoid it completely, right? I would think so. But it's not logistically.

You can't take out one day of the schedule and expect them to cram 82 games in. No. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, hey, listen, we'll have to leave it there. Enjoy the week coming up. So you got your first home game for Calgary coming up here on Monday. So that should be fun.

And you're going to get a full attention. attendance, right? Or like potential for a full capacity now for a flames game should be fun. Yeah, yeah. It'll be cool. I've never, um, I mean, I, I've had a, I went to Calgary when I was on the Sends beat on the road, but, you know, it's been, I guess, 18 months since I've seen a full, I mean, even more than that, it's been a couple years since I've been in the Saddle Dome with a full building. So it'll be a cool atmosphere for sure. And, um, I know a lot of fans are excited and the players and Darrell Sutter's excited too. So I think everyone's been missing the fans for sure.

Yeah, listen, it's, it's, she's going to be a pretty fun week of hockey. Like we said, Austin Matthews comes back, Brady, Chuck comes back, a whole bunch of great storylines from around the league. And I'm sure, listen, the guys on the Tuesday edition of the athletic hockey show will get you covered there. That does it for us. So, Haley, I want you to just think about some potential slogans that you want us to put on t-shirts. And don't sleep on grasshoppers are gluten-free. Okay, don't sleep on that.

That's terrible. We can do something for it. But listen, we'd love to hear from our listeners, too, on some fun hashtags that we've created out of this show. And thanks for listening to this addition to The Athletic Hockey Show. Give us a follow on your favorite podcast platform. Leave us a rating. Leave us a review.

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