The Athletic Hockey Show - Babcock's Oilers stumble in debut

Episode Date: September 30, 2026

The NHL season might be new, but the Edmonton Oilers goaltending stays the same, and so has Mike Babcock's intensity. Jakub Dobeš continues his dominance over the Maple Leafs, Jeremy Swayman shuts out the Rangers, the Golden Knights roll over the Blackhawks, and the Panthers spoil the Hurricanes Stanley Cup banner raising. Sean, Frank and Sean recap the first five games of the regular season, they discuss 10 teams that need a strong start to the season, and Jonas Siegel presents his Maple Leaf 'IF' list, ranking the variables facing the overhauled team.Host: Sean Gentille & Sean McIndoeWith: Frank CorradoExecutive Producer: Chris FlanneryProducer: Jeff DometWatch full episodes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@theathletichockeyshowSubscribe to The Athletic: https://theathletic.com/hockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Hockey Show. What up, what up? This is the athletic hockey show. I am Sean Tinteli. I am here with Sean McIndoo and Frankie Carrado. Boys, the NHL kicked off season 109 last night. That is the tease that producer Jeff put in the intro here. That makes you feel really old because it feels like season 100 just happened when people were mad about the Afghani Malkin list placement and all that.

That was 15 minutes ago. but apparently we're in season 109. Five games last night, three more games in night. McIndoo, we're going to take a closer look at your 10 teams that need a strong start a little bit later. Also, we got Jonas Siegel stopping by to talk some of the big Maple Leafs questions for this season. Shocking stuff from us, I know. But before that, guys, we got actual games to talk about. Let's do that right now.

Again, five games last night in opening night. the big one was the last one right that was that the last of the five to finish did that was that was that the last of the five to finish i can't even remember now it was canucks six oilers five um congrats to evan bouchard he had a five point nine and a hat trick but uh guys i don't think that game was about his performance that's not the way it played out for them it's so crazy that that kind of performance in Night 1, that was unbelievable by Evan Bouchard to do that first game of the season. People are always very critical about his game and what sometimes, you know, you desire a little more from him. People are? People are or you are? I think people.

Certain people. Certain people could be one of those people at times. Man, he made me shut up last night, big time. That was an unbelievable game for him. But I will say this. There's no antidote as far as systems and structure and a new coach for a guy flying down the wing and

putting a muffin on net that goes between your goaltender's legs. There's nothing. There's no one two two. There's no man on man. There's no squeeze. Like all these, everything. There's nothing you can do to correct that. And after night one, Evan Boucher,

Schard's incredible performance gets overshadowed by exactly that. Same old story in net for the Edmonton Oilers. Wasn't a great game by them as far as like the chances that they gave up. But holy smokes, that's not, that's not going to help you compete for a cup. I mean, I guess I'll disagree in the sense that there is one thing that you can do to fix that. And that's have a GM who goes out and get a surefire goalie. So you're not starting Tristan Jari on opening night. And in fairness, Stan Bowman did go out and get two guys.

We haven't seen Devin Levi yet, and Freddie Anderson is hurt already. So we don't know what that's going to look like. But, yeah, that was a rough one. And that was, if you were going to say, hey, the Emmington Oilers are going to lose game one, even to Vancouver, you kind of go, all right, you know what, it's one game. It's a long season. We're used to saying it's 82 games. We still need to get another game in before we've got 82 games ahead of us.

But if you were going to go into a lab and design the kind of game that you did not want to lose opening night if you're Edmonton, that's the one right there. To let the worst team in the league come in and pump six by you. That's tough. Yeah. If this were three, two with maybe the power play starts a little slow for Edmonton or whatever, we're having a different conversation. That game, though, man, given what we've seen from them over the last couple years, that is some of all fears stuff. It's nasty defensively. But Jari, 23 saves on 30 shots.

Goal saved above expected of minus four. Minus four. Sometimes it takes a month to get to minus four. And also, that one he allowed early in the third, man. And then the wheels came and they end up coming back from it and forcing overtime, which like, good on them. But that's a, but that's a, that's a really, really bad one. It's almost, and this is going to sound weird because I think the way that that went last night was almost worse for them to have the comeback. Obviously, you get the point.

You get the, you get the loser point and every point's going to matter. So you're happy to get that. But this reminds me of like the Sheldon Keith era leaves in the, that they would play bad, they would play bad, and then suddenly, boom, five minutes, they'd score three goals, and it would be all be fixed. And you, you know, and then they'd come out of the game feeling good. And you'd sit there going, well, they're not going to do anything to fix the 55 minutes that, that surrounded that because they had the one quick outburst. And, you know, Oilers, credit to them, they didn't quit. They didn't roll over. Uh, I mean, anyone who was

going to quit and roll over in Mike Babcock's first game would probably not be seen again for a while. But yeah, it was, if people didn't watch it, it was two, two, after two, two periods. Like, it was a pretty standard game. And then it just, then it just went crazy. And I got to say, tough look for Ryan Shea on the overtime winner. That was, that was a little bit rough. Frankie, how many goals did you, were you on the ice for where you did like the dismissive

hand wave to the guy after he scored the goal? Is that a good sign for a defenseman that you're happy with how the shift went? Is that bad? Yeah, I think I did a lot of those externally and internally. You know what the other thing about that goal is? And the game, like, never really should have got to that point. But where's the forwards? Like, forwards are just, like, up at the red line,

just hoping that Ryan Shea's going to fight off a guy on his backhand and get it up to them. Like, we could pick apart so many different things. They have a lot to learn about the Mike Babcock system and how it's going to work effectively. And I think one thing that's important to point out is those teams in Detroit, and Babbs loves you in this term, and I can't believe I'm going to say it, those were all grizzled men. Those were all mature. No, like, but seriously, they were all like mature, older guys that were just like, they were just grizzled. They were all just grizzled guys. And so they grasped the concepts with ease. There was a maturity about it. When he started implementing, things in Toronto. He brought a lot of structure there, but the breakdowns were still big. Like McIndoo, how many times in the first few seasons there were there massive breakdowns and Freddie Anderson who was playing 60 to 65 games a year at that point, had to make point

blank saves? They ran them into the ground those first two or three years in Toronto. And so, like, that's the, I think that's a little bit of the cautionary tale about the growing pains that Edmonton could go through. And if they're going to give up high danger chances, man, you better have someone back there who can, who can have a bit more of a backbone, way more of a backbone than what we saw last night. The hard part is we have to play way better. That was ridiculous. You can't have a guy with five points and lose the hockey game. It just doesn't make any sense. That's Mike Babcock last night. He had a couple other, a couple other bangers too. If you want Mike Babcock sound bites, get out to the next practice would be my advice.

And hang your microphone over the glass because, boy, I would not want to be an oiler at that next skate. When you've got Mike Babcock as your coach, 6-5 loss hung up on you, and your two stars who have spent the summer doing the teacher you forgot to assign homework act about how they need. accountability and they need to be coached tough and all this. Good luck, man. He's talking about, he's talking about shift length already. Yeah. Yes. He might be making for a bag skate when this was done.

How about, did you look at the time on ice on McDavid last night? Mm-hmm. Based 23 minutes. I thought we were, and I get it's an overtime game and you're chasing the game, but this is the thing. It's like, it doesn't matter. No one can help themselves. You can talk about how you want everyone involved.

and I get like R&H isn't playing so you're a centerman short, but it's just funny that like the main thing you've been talking about is scaling back some of these minutes and getting everyone involved and night one against the worst team in the league, 23 minutes. You just, there's no way you can get around it. You're going to have to do it. That was not Mike Babcock hockey, says, says Mike Babcock. But what if it is?

What if it is now? That's the concern. In 2026, maybe that is Mike Backcock Hockey. Also, Frank, he said, here's another one, another banger. The great thing about the National Hockey League is if you don't do it right, you feel bad when you leave the rink. Is that true? Is that accurate? Is that the great thing about the national hockey league?

I could attest to that. Yeah, I left the rig feeling terrible some nights, a lot of nights. Frank Grados is the best thing about the national hockey is that sometimes you feel bad when, you leave the ring. Yeah. I wouldn't say that's the best thing. I can think of 300 other things before that. He's going to have all the bangers, all the greatest hits.

The fact of the matter is, like, you can see or I can see, because I played for him, like I can see the stuff that I used to see in video and in practice, and I can, you can tell that they're trying to do it all. I just wonder if he's playing 2013 hockey and not. 2026 hockey. Like I'm seeing I'm seeing defensemen that don't want to dive into the offensive zone because he loves when guys stay along the blue line. I'm seeing Connor McDavid button hook at the top of the circle with Evan Bouchard,

you know, driving to the front of the net and Vasili Pod Colson trying to play D and can't play D. And I'm like, McDavid doesn't really button hook onto his forehand at the top of the circle. It's fastest player in the world. He usually drives that in, takes it around the net. net circles the wagons a little bit, but I'm like, he's starting to implement some of his thoughts on,

on these guys. We'll see how long that, that lasts. It's like you're trying to project this game onto guys who maybe shouldn't play it in the first place. And then there's another group where it's guys who maybe can't, right? That, that has to be the concern. Is it you're forcing guys you should not play Mike Babcock hockey to play Mike Babcock hockey? And then the rest of the roster's, you know, deficient or unwilling. And, in one way or another.

Like that has to be looked at as a possibility. And a lot of times you would look at it and you'd say, well, the coach has to adapt to the team. And there's an element of that here. But they brought Mike Babcock in to be Mike Babcock. Like this was very much a case of the, again,

the star players saying this is, this is what we want. Doesn't mean every strategic X and O decision has to be the same as 2013. And besides, Frankie, I'm sure he's evolved since 2013. Famously flexible. Yeah.

all those playoff series that he's won since that's right oh right you're he that was the last one that's right well let's can i just say no go for it before we before we move on to the other games full credit to the canucks i mean we're yeah we're talking about this as an oiler's loss and look the canucks aren't going to be good this year i think we all understand that i i think the plan is for them to not be very good but i've watched a lot of bad teams in my life there are bad teams that aren't fun to watch and there are bad teams that can be fun. And that looked like the fun team. I'm sure Manny Mel Hocher is not happy because they gave up five goals and blew a lead and all that. And he's a coach and he wants to win every game one, nothing. But that was a fun game.

And, you know, the Canucks either missed the memo or decided to ignore it about how they were going to get smoked by the mighty Oilers. Full credit to them. That was, you know, if I'm a Canucks fan, I'm sitting back going, all right, you know, we're not making the playoffs. We're not winning anything this year, but we can ruin a few days for other fan bases, and they ruined one yesterday, and probably today, too. They weathered the storm early, and Lincoln had to make some big saves early on, and then it was just like, it was scrappy hockey, and it was opportunistic, but I thought, like, that's the foundation that you want to work with there in Vancouver, that you're not going to

quit, you're not going to believe what other people say about you, and you're going to hang in hockey games against good teams. That's also the foundation. That's the foundation that wasn't. there with Adam Keefe. Adam Keefe, Adam Footh. Adam Keefe was a, I'm combining coaches here, good God. Florida won Carolina Zero.

Gustav Forzing scored with 3.7 seconds left in that one in overtime. But guys, to me, that game was about two things. It's Jacob Markstrom, 15 saves on 15 shots. A couple of them were big. didn't have to do much until the second period, but he did his job after that. And also Florida limiting Carolina just 15 shots in the first place. That's not something we see all that often. No, and it was like a soft game.

How many times do the Carolina Hurricanes play a game, and you look at, you know, shots and expected goals and shot share and all these things, and it's completely lobsided. It doesn't mean they win every single night, but they dominate in that regard all the time. And it was like a true soft game. So you know what that tells me? It tells me Carolina is, you know, consistent. It's who they are.

But it also tells me that the Florida Panthers look to be back. Like they, as long as they can stay healthy, they are going to be a really difficult out. I know it's night one of the regular season. But that had like the feelings of one of those playoff games in the middle of a series where no one's given up anything. And you're like, it's just going to be a bounce or a break. and that's as good as two teams are going to match up in the Eastern Conference. I saw a lot of people upset criticizing the NHL, saying you've got this, your opening night, your first game of the season is between the two teams that have won

the last three Stanley Cups and you put it on 5 o'clock on a Tuesday against the Major League Baseball playoffs starting. Do they not want anyone to watch this game? I hope nobody watched that game. That was terrible. I mean, the results and everything, you know, that matters and what we learned about the teams. But oh my goodness, that was a terrible game to watch. I can't imagine having paid banner raising money to watch 65 minutes of scoreless hockey.

And I got to say, I laughed at Rod Brindamore after the game because he had a comment or a quote where he said something like, we didn't really sell the game tonight or we didn't make any new fans. And he's right. But it's like, oh, now we're worried about an entertaining product. Rod Brindamore, the Selke winner, the Mr. Defensive Mastermind, Mr. You know, let's let's grind every game into paste. Now he's worried.

Now he works for the marketing department in the NHL when it's his team on the end result of the same game that they serve on. Yeah. What if he would have his team would have won one. No, and you would have been thrilled. That was a game where if you're going over the tape internally, you're like, we probably had eight great dump-ins last night. Like, that's where you're like, you're putting a lot of value in where you placed the puck into the opposition zone or how you punted it out into the neutral zone.

Let me ask you this. What was uglier? The Hurricanes Panthers game were a certain someone's Leaf's debut. Uh-oh. We have entered the Darren Radish. portion. Well, yeah, we've got to be specific because it was the Leafs debut for about 18 different guys. And it looked that way. That looked like a, that looked like 20 guys who'd never met each other playing. But yeah, Darren Radish had a, a tough one. Uh, Oaka-Swer, Frankie,

you're, you're the defenseman. What did we see? What did we not see? And, and give me some optimism as a Leaf fan that, uh, we didn't just sign up for eight years of that. The good news is I don't think, you know, and I say this respectfully, I don't think he can play worse. Like, I don't think you could play a worse game than what we saw. Giveaways, the inability to move the puck, kind of getting caught flat-footed, looking, like, rigid, and basically the opposite of mobile, all of it went wrong. Like, it was a really tough game for Darren Radish. Now, hopefully, he's got it out of the way, and he doesn't have it in his mind. And he doesn't have it in his mind. that he has to live up to that entire contract in one night or one week or one month or even one year.

Because that's what it kind of felt like, just trying to do a little too much. And it came back to bite him like multiple times. But that, yeah, that was not good, not good as far as debuts go. I don't know how else to describe it other than that. The underlines don't back it up either for whatever that's worth. Like you could watch that and see that he looked uncomfortable, but also 35% expected bullshare. like that's not that's not the way he wanted things to get started obviously we're talking about the leifes in a three two loss to the montreal canadians um that that was another

yakub dubish like or like frankie let's start with you there um are you sold are you sold on him for a full for a full season like i see people i see people talking about fouler i understand that he's he's you know i understand why people like him but I feel like there has been some degree, at least outside of Montreal, of people, you know, this isn't an instance of Dolbis keeping the seat warm for this kid. And I think last night was an indicator of that much. No, listen, man, I think it would be fair to be a little skeptical going into this season that he would be able to keep up the pace he was playing at in the second half of the season and into the playoffs.

Like, he was unbelievable. And maybe he would have been, like, thought to have been a prime candidate for some kind of regression. And that's why keeping Montembow around and having Fowler playing in the minors, it all made sense. And then he has a game like last night where, like, I think the chances that Toronto generated, especially that top line off the rush, even the second line with Neelander, thought Neelander was really good.

those were like a lot of cross seam, like heavy shots, the one on Matthews, like point blank. You're like, this guy looks like a guy who's going to pick up right where he left off. He was excellent. So it's good news for Montreal. And it kind of gives you like a little reassurance that, hey, maybe that wasn't just a flash in the pan last year. This could just be the new normal for this guy. And that's a really big deal. He also managed to annoy John Tavares at the end of that game.

Do you see that? he's always confrontational like that, eh? He's around that a lot. And like, DGB, I thought the, I thought Toronto has a little bit of like a quick strike thing going again, where it's like you talked about that key, you know, the way it was where they could be down a couple goals. And then all of a sudden three minutes change the game. I think with that top six, they're back to that. Like, they're going to have those moments this year.

So what's, what's interesting about the top six is you're right. They look good. I thought Matthews was fine. I've seen some more positive reviews than I'd necessarily go, but I thought he was fine. Karel Marchenko looked like the most dangerous forward on the ice, for the Leafs at least, and maybe for both teams. He had all sorts of chances. So for a guy who just dropped in, literally did just meet some of these guys yesterday, he looked good.

And Willie Nealander, of course, with the two goals, including. opening the season one minute in by walking the raining selfie winner. That was a good one all downhill from there kind of for the Leafs. The one guy who maybe didn't fit in that top six was Gavin McKenna. And look, you're talking about a teenager, making his debut. I'm not willing to say he's a bust until the first in the mission of tonight's game. That's terrible. Everybody.

He's such a clown. Yeah. But what's interesting is, I really wonder how they're going to work McKenna in because every team has its layout of it's, you know, you got the top line and the middle six and the bottom six and whatever. But the least, it's so pronounced. There are two lines that have superstars on them that can score. And then there's two lines of lunchpails and sandpaper.

And yeah, they'd like to get some offense from those lines, but they're not built that way. And I wonder where they moved McKenna around a lot last night. And, you know, maybe that's maybe that's a good thing. They talked on the broadcast about how, hey, maybe it's better to move them around a lot early rather than give them five games. And then suddenly it feels like a demotion and its front page news and all that. But I do wonder where he settles in, finds his first home early in his first season. because there were times where it maybe looked like he wasn't fitting with Matthews and Neil Enders, but you don't draft a guy first overall to play next to Cold Sisons either.

So how do you put that together? And maybe that's where the Leaf's not having a third line that can play a little bit in their own end and a little bit of offense. Instead, they basically have two full checking lines. I wonder if that makes it a little bit harder for Jim Heller to figure. out where to put Gavin McKenna. Yeah, it also, I think a little bit of that has to do with Easton Cowan. Like I thought Easton Cowan's game was good. And you watch him play on the third line and you're like,

I got to get this guy a little more ice time. I got to get him a little more opportunity. And he's a year ahead of Gavin McKenna in his development. I think one thing about McKenna, if he were to watch back his shifts last night, he's going to get a really good indicator of what's going to work against NHL players and what isn't. like the exposing the puck and trying to put it around a guy and like we saw in the preseason, it's a different kind of intensity when it comes to how guys are going to check you and stop on pucks

and just not allow you to do those things. It can happen here and there. We see it. We see it from the top guys in the NHL. But I think you have to kind of learn when to pick your spots a little bit more. So that's something he's going to learn pretty quickly when he watches his shifts back. he's eligible for a hl to motion this year by the way we we got to remember those are those are the new rules if you guys got to send if you got to send them down to down to the marlies to for some seasoning you know it's crazy stuff can make that can make that save save that for next week we'll we'll talk about it that and after after he's been traded for i don't know two two more games last night let's let's go quick on these because i don't know how much we need to say about them uh bruin's three ranger zero swimming was good not one really nice goal from J.J. Paturka to kind of call it. Really nice. Make it 2-0 with less than three minutes left.

Any quick takeaways there? I think the Swamen thing is significant. Swamen's significant because he was really good last year. Boston makes the playoffs last year because Swainman was outstanding and Posternak really kind of facilitated everything for everyone up front. I think, I don't know about the Rangers, though. I think the Rangers just look staked. again, but they're younger.

Like they've gotten significantly younger. I just don't know if younger means better or faster or more dynamic for them. And here we go again with the New York Rangers of can't score early in the season. We saw it last year, all the shutouts, especially on home ice. It's, uh, you got to think if you're a Rangers fan, you're going, give us a goal tonight, at least so that we know it's not all going to happen again. And here we go. Oliver Bjorkshire on a second.

line, Noah Labba, Joe Villano, Tic Cartier. Like, there's a lot of weird spots in that lineup, and it's tough to ignore at this point, so we shall see. Vegas 5, Chicago, too. For me, that's Trevor Connolly, scoring a goal in his first game. He's an important player for them. He's like the infusion into that lineup. He's not going to directly replace Pavl Dorofaev because Dorofaev was huge on the power play.

I don't know that that's part of Connolly's bag just yet, but I think he's one to watch early for me. If they can get like Victor Olifson scores last night too, like he flies down the wing, he rips a shot home, and you're like, okay, so you don't have Dorofeyev, but if you can get like Connolly onboarded and have a good rookie season, and then you can get more out of Olifson than, you know, he's a good goal score. That's his MO. But if you can get him to have like pushing up on a career year. and there's some different players in the bottom six. We know who the guys are, but there's some moving parts there. Like, Vegas is going to be a good team. They're just, they're always around it.

And they always have that like veteran hard to play against field. Three games tonight, boys. Penn's Flyers, King's Avs, it's Islanders Leaves. You can only watch one, Sean McIndoe, which one are you picking? Oh, I got to, I mean, Islanders Leaves, of course. You got an 0-and-2 start? Are you kidding? And then they've got something like 14 days off before.

the next game. It's going to get late early in Toronto, or they'll win tonight and everything. I'm actually, I'm not going to watch any NHL tonight. I'm going to watch some SHL because I want to see Simon Edmondson playing for Rolanda. What, see how he does over there. What a joke. What, we're going to save that. I can't believe that. We're going to save that for segment two, because we're talking about teams that need a quick start to the season here. This is a Mac and do special. the Red Wings are on the list. I think we're going to talk about Simon Edvinson, among many, many other things coming up.

All right, we are back and we are doing something that we do frequently on this show, which is we just take a pose from Sean McIndoo and talk about it amongst ourselves. Isn't that fun? Don't you like doing that? Frankie, that makes her job so easy. I love it.

10 NHL teams that need a strong start to this season. I'm not a math guy, but that's nearly a third of the league, Sean. I'll run it by Dom and I'll get back to you on that one. But yeah, this is my look. And I should be clear here, I'm doing the thing where I love a good narrative. All right.

That's the business we're in. So I'm looking at the 10 teams that need that good start because of what the narrative's going to be if they start strong and more specifically what it might be if they don't start strong. You know, the difference between starting 6-3 and 1 and three six and one is only a few points. It doesn't add up to that much over the course of a very, very long season. But, you know, we all need something to talk about.

And as much as all three of us and everyone in this business is going to get lectured about, well, it's too early. It's too early. We got to talk about something. So there are some teams that stand out to me where if they get off to a good start, there's going to be lots of flowers. And if not, it could get ugly. Is there a, like if we looked at this list, if I have,

had to take a first overall pick out of this list. Can I, can I take a swing at that and see if you guys agree? Let's do it. Let's do it. I like that. I like that as a way to frame this. Here's, here's my first overall pick for this, the Winnipeg Jets. Because if all the sudden Helibuck's sitting at home and they don't start the season well, it's not just Helibuck who comes into question. It's like Helibuck plus why do I see Mark Shifley's name on Twitter every once in a while? then why do you, you're going to start hearing other names and it's like, you don't want the narrative that the team has to start getting picked apart and going into a retool or a rebuild. You want it to be a situation where it's no helipuck, no problem.

Stuart Skinner's played well. The team is cohesive as a group. They're healthy. They're hard to play against. And they're back to being a competitive team. But if it doesn't happen that way, it's like you're pulling on the string and all of a sudden, all the other threads come off as well. And I just don't like that narrative that could build around them.

And, and you know whose job gets a lot tougher if they start slow is Kevin Shevel-Da-off just in terms of a Connor Hellebuk trade. If they're two and eight, those offers look a lot different than if they're seven and three and Stuart Skinner looks pretty good and, you know, it looks like they don't need that, you know, what's the Elliott-Freedman when you're drowning and they throw anchors instead of life rafts? uh there won't be the best way to avoid that situation is not to be drowning so i think the jets are a pretty good pick because uh you know the the the story there with hellabuck is they don't want to do the rebuild they don't want to do the tear it down give me a bunch of picks and prospects you start

off terribly if the season's already a write off by the time you trade this guy you might have to swallow hard and just take the picks and prospects and now you're doing a rebuild so maybe shyfully He does want out, maybe other guys want out. And here you go. And who even knows what that market looks like after a three or four year rebuild where the team stinks. It can get pretty bleak pretty quick. So a couple wins early, let's get that good vibes. And look, I'm a big believer.

And Frankie, you've been in these rooms. So you can maybe talk a little bit more about it. But I think the nobody believes in us, circle the wagons stuff, is real if the players think it's real. That's it. You know, it doesn't even matter. We've seen teams try to manufacture it where, you know, like the defending champs will come out and be like, nobody believes in us. And you're like, no, come on. But it's, it works if it works.

And I think it's fair to say, not a lot of people believe in the Jets this year. And if they can get off to a good start, sometimes that momentum, you know, the rock starts rolling down the hill. I think the Jets are capable of it, even though they're playing in a really competitive division. I think they're capable of it. You know which team is not capable of it. And maybe they'll prove us wrong, but I just, I highly doubt it. Who am I going to say? The Red Wings. The Red Wings. The Red Wings. I just, too much going on all at once. Edmondson is not there. Now he's back in Sweden. He's waiting for a contract. Larkin, I don't know if he's going to play to start the season. But even, even,

even if he does, like, I don't know if that galvanizes your group. Like, you could start the year with cop and comfort as your top two NHL centers. And you're going to have, like, you have basically three third lines if you're lucky in that top, you know, in that top 12 forward group. And not having Edmondson, who's so important on the back end, I don't know. I just, we could talk about how important a good start is for them. I just don't know if they're capable. of it. They're not. We can just say that.

You look at their lineup, Frankie, you took the words out of my mouth, man. You got cop, comfort, you know, I look, Raymond and DeBringket are talented, productive pieces, but they can't get you the whole way, right? And in terms of the forward group. And also the Ed Vincent thing, like the vibes there were obviously incredibly bad already, but him going back to Sweden, man, that just that dials it. That dials it up. I think they're, I think they're DOA.

Who's our number three pick here? I like that. I like this order so far. I like, I like jets and then I like red and then I like Red Wings. Frankie, give us a third team off this list. I'll give you a third. I think it's the Ottawa Senators. Yeah.

I think the Ottawa Senators have to get off to a good start. It's a really competitive Atlantic Division. they don't have the guy who's been their captain for a while who plays a unique brand of hockey who's, you know, loud and boastful. And, you know, they've got some injuries or, you know, some guys that are banged up that they've been dealing with. They have goal-tending issues that go back to last year. Maybe not issues, but question marks because Linus Almark really turned it around in the playoffs. But if you fall behind in this division and you have question marks as to how things are going to go, it's going to be so hard to erase it.

And I think Ottawa, like a lot of players coming back, they need to have a, you know, they have to replicate what they did on the ice, plus good goal tending and good penalty killing. And if they do that, they're fine. They can't have other stuff pop up. I got to say when I was putting this piece together, the senators were the easiest one to write

as far as what the narratives look like on both sides. Because it's not that it's all about Brady Kachuk, but we can make it all about Brayette. ready, right? They start off slow, which has been a problem for that team over the years. They get out of the gate slow. Let's say it happens. Let's say they start off three and seven. Hey, what did you expect? They lost their captain. They lost their heart and soul, their identity. He quit on them or he wanted out or however you want to phrase it. He's in Florida now. Of course they're not going to be good. Of course you can't recover from that. Even putting aside the sort of player he was on the ice and yeah, you went out and got William Mack.

but you can't replace what he meant to that team. That's if they start slow. If they start fast, guys, they didn't need Brady. In fact, they were getting a little sick of his act. This whole thing with him being the main character and the podcast and all this, they were tired of him. He was overrated and they're better off without him. And you can tell that because look, they're off to a hot start.

They're seven and three. They look great. They're first place in the Atlantic, whatever it is. it just writes itself one way or another. And I did this, you know, somewhat accidentally, I kind of really focused on the first 10 games. Guess who that 10th game is against for the Ottawa Senators? No!

That's the Florida Panthers game. Brady comes home. So, I mean, there's your punctuation mark. There's your exclamation mark on whichever narrative it is one way or another, potentially landing. Hey, number four is the ducks. I think it, I think it has to be just because of the, because the contract stuff we saw them deal with, obviously,

the Leo Carlson deal, the Cutter Goethe deal. There's some, some attrition in that forward group. They have to wave Chris Kreider to make the money work for Cutter Goet. I think there are two, they're at a fork in the road here already with, with their, with their arc, right? where it's like they surprised people last year. They caught people sleeping. Solid showing in the playoffs.

Everybody's psyched about them. But now in McEnough, this is something you get into and near a point, they've left the door open for people to wonder whether the money got in the way. And I think it's a lot easier to tamp that down if they can start, you know, 7, 3, and 2 or something. But if they start slow, questions about the pay structure and questions about the salary cap

and questions about whether these guys are worth the money that they signed for in the offseason are going to come very, very quickly. It's going to be so interesting to see how like this new look roster with a lot of young guys, man. You've put a lot of faith in Tristan Luno and Minchikov's got to be a big time guy now. and like Travis Mitchell, Tyson, Heinz, Nick Jensen was playing on one hip last year. There's a reason why, you know,

he doesn't resign in Ottawa or just was heard a lot. So there's a lot of uncertainty. The thing that they will have working for them is that the Pacific Division outside of, you know, Vegas and what we think Edmonton could and should be, like after that, it's wide open. LA's old and aging. And there's just, you know,

Calgary in Vancouver. So they could probably be afforded a little bit of time as far as like their play goes. But if it's narrative driven, like those conversations surely will be having. They need to have another wave of young guys pop. Like maybe that's Nikita Klepov. Maybe that's more from, you know, Seneca or whatever. If they can continue the momentum with some of the up and coming names in the lineup, I think stuff will be fine.

there's a world where stuff goes sideways on on them on them pretty quickly and if it does it's you look at all those new contracts it's not just the cap hits which are crazy but it's the term too you've locked in on this on these guys there if it doesn't work it you're in trouble because between the term and the the the dollar values it's not like you can make a trade in the summer or something like that if you feel like it's going wrong seen ryan ryan paling list is their second line center right now. Yeah, see, that's like, he's a good third line center. Yes, he is.

But then he gets sprung into your second line, and you're like, it's not ideal. Now, in their defense, they're not the only team that's like that. But yeah, that's definitely an area where maybe concern. You know which team actually I'm not concerned down the middle of the ice, but I think a start and maybe we can put them at five if you want. Columbus. I think Columbus. I almost picked them at four, by the way.

I think Columbus down the middle of the ice, they're in really good shape. Ventilly, Monaghan, Coil. I have no issues with how any of those guys are placed right now. But, like, Columbus, they, if you were really passionate about playing for that team and you've seen guy after guy not want to be there, there's a part of you, and there's a part of that room that can, like, kind of rally around that and say, let's show everyone. Like, no one's talking about us in the metro.

Everyone talks about Carolina. People are, everyone loves Washington. Like, why can't we do it? We got a good goal tender. We got one of the best defensemen in the world. We have a really strong forward group down the middle. Like, the pieces are there for Columbus to not be sixth in that division. They could, like, if they put it together, they can be a top three team in that division.

Yeah, you talk about the nobody believes in us. Columbus is another team like that. And the other piece of it is looking for. They can say Carol Marchenko didn't believe in us. And they can say Matthew Nyes, the Toronto Maple Leafs didn't believe in you. And yeah, and maybe that lights a fire. But I mean, the key thing here, the elephant in the room all season is Zach Wrenski. And look, if you're a Blue Jackets fan, you know the drill by now.

The vultures from around the league starts circling. The media, the Canadian media, the other markets, all just assume that you're only there to be a feeder team for the rest of the league. And, you know, you saw it this summer. Zach Wrenski says, I won out. And everybody, you know, we all made our list. Here's the top 25 teams that should trade for Zach Werenski. And, you know, here's what scraps they can throw the blue jackets that they can maybe turn

into the next player that they'll have to trade a few years. And then Werenski says, no, you know what? I changed my mind. As long as we can win. Well, you start off 2 and 8. Guess what everyone's going to be talking about. Again, here come the vultures. again. Here come the, you know, as I put in the article, where should Zach Werensky get traded?

Here's my call. You're going to see it over and over and over again unless they're winning, in which case everybody like me has got to shut up about it, at least temporarily, and you get to just watch some hockey instead of always worrying about who's on the way out. Some of those vultures are in the group in the group chat, by the way. Well, and if they do lose and they get off to a poor start, you know who's not going to, of help matters, their coach who's going to call out their culture and their inability to be professional and try and win hockey games. He will not hold back. Rick Bonas in the hot dog suit. The other five teams on the list, it's Chicago, it's Vegas, it's Florida, it's Toronto, it's Edmonton.

We talked about them in the first segment, but the whole thing's worth the read. So if you're one of those teams or you're a fan of those teams, check it out. There's plenty more to say. Frankie, do you, you don't have a game this week? Is that true? No, I don't call a game until next Tuesday, Habs, Hurricanes at the Bell Center. It's not bad. It's not a bad first night for you. Yeah, we'll take it.

You do not need a fast start to the season. You can coast. You can coast until Christmas. I called a game on Saturday. Did a Saturday preseason games. It was nice to knock the rust off. I will say it was great. traveling on a weekend and not having to deal with like all the corporate people that travel

during the week, you know? That doesn't get worse than that. I say as I've like freak out about my travel of the next couple of weeks. Yuck. All right, bud. Have a good week. We'll talk to you soon. All right.

See you boys. All right. We're back. We're joined by Jonas Siegel who is in the house for Leafs Canadians last night. Let's get to business real quickly, Jonas. What is the one-game review on Kirill Marchenko? Did he check all the boxes? Can we just not worry about that for the rest of the season?

Like, do we have to keep talking about Carol Marchenko? We do, but, like, he did check the boxes of everything that John Chaco was talking about in the morning before the game when he was talking about the trade. Like, you could see it all really quickly, like the power, the speed, the skill. And it just, like, it looked different. from like I was just thinking back to last year when it was like it was Machelli and Domey and like Bobby McMahon playing with Matthews and then suddenly like there's this dude and it's like, oh, this is different. This is this is this is a like a potential star that they've landed.

So it definitely looked different. We're going to see like how it works over the year. And then obviously six year extension like they're committed to this guy. The thing about him last year is he was good with whoever they threw him up there with. Like he was good with. you know, Cole Sillinger, and he was good with, uh, he was good with Sean Monaghan.

He didn't need to play with someone like Fantilly to, to be an impact player. And I think, you know, that fact has to have them foaming at the mouth for what it's going to mean when you, when, when you put him with,

with Matthews. Like I, the, the, the, the, the, the,

the, the, I talked about it on the show yesterday, probably for too long about how much I like that trade for, for the Maple Leafs, but it just, the, quality of the player that they're getting in return. It sounds basic, but it's, it's really, really tough to know that and not, and not love the trade for them. Well, and if like, you look at their

top six suddenly, it's like, oh, makes sense. It looks a lot. Right. It makes sense and it looks a lot deeper than it was because you came to the season and it was like, they really only added, like, they added McKenna and then like Roslovick is like kind of like a question. Now you throw Marchenko into it. And if you're Jim Hiller, like, you can look at the pieces and you're like, you know, even if I don't play them with Matthews, like I can play them with Tavares or I can play them with McKen, like they could have a top line of eventually of McKenna Matthews, Marchenko, they could play Nealander with Matthews.

Like there's just a lot that they can do with Marchenko in a way that they couldn't with NICE. Like NICE just isn't on that level skill. Jonas, you wrote the piece about the, uh, some of the ifs that the leaves are facing hitting into the year. Uh,

you wrote that a couple days ago, but now we've seen a game. We can start answering all the, these questions definitively. Definitively and permanently, yes. The one we talked about in the first segment was Darren Radish. You have here, if Darren Radish is the real deal, a bit of a bumpy start. But did you get a sense or did you see anything that maybe made it look better than some of the critics are passing it off as or at least give some optimism that he'll settle in? Yeah, like I mean, you can see like

just his ability to, like, again, it wasn't pretty in the first game, but you can see the ability he has to transport the puck, whether it's just carrying it himself or moving it. You can see, like, it didn't happen a lot, but you could see what his shot could bring to their power play and could bring to them in the offensive zone. Like, there was a sequence, I think it was on the first power play where he gets the puck at the point,

and he just puts it on net and it gets through. And it's just like a little thing that they didn't have on their power play in the past, where, like, Morgan Riley, like, was reluctant to shoot the puck, and he wasn't always the best at getting it through. And so you can just see elements like that. Like, he can play a lot of minutes. I think he ended up leading the team in minutes. So you can kind of see what they were thinking.

But I feel like with this kind of thing, like he's going to have to find a way to just get some points and score a goal just to kind of get some good vibes. Because these things can kind of snowball quick. But, like, you can understand it. Like, he was a leaf fan growing up. Like, it was probably, I know he talked about it after the game. Like, it was emotional for him, you know, like just with some of the family elements.

So, like, I kind of feel like he'll be better in the second game and, like, he'll slowly get comfortable. Like him and Morgan Riley had played one preseason together. You could see that that fit wasn't, like, perfect. A bunch of new teammates, like 10 new players in all for the Leafs in the first game. So it's just a lot that it kind of makes sense that it didn't go well for him. But we'll see. He's had one really good year in the NHL and not much else. So we need to see it for obviously another season and many more beyond that.

I think the fact that you have a 14 item list when it comes to ifs for the Maple Leafs. I could have gone longer. I know. I know you could have, but I think that speaks to the range of outcomes for them for sure. And it's fair to say that a huge chunk of the Atlantic Division hinges on them. a huge chunk of the Eastern Conference hinges on them. And that is more true now for me than it was three days ago because I think Marchanko elevates them a little bit.

Like we have to take them a little bit more seriously as a, as a contender now than we did say a week ago. But I'm wondering, again, 14 item list, is there one particular bit that sticks out as having, like, what's the most likely bet to hit out of those four? 14, out of those 14, when you look at the list, which one are you like, okay, this realistically has a chance of working, this most realistically has a chance of, you know, working out the way that it needs to for them. Oh, man, that's a good question. Because I was thinking, like, what is the one, what are, what are some elements of the team that, like, they can say with pretty good certainty

they're going to get? They can count on. They can count on it. And I couldn't, the list wasn't really long. Like, one thing, like, almost 100 percent is like, Nealander is going to score 40 goals and probably have 90 points. Like that's probably the most bankable thing they have. And then I was like, well, the power play, I'm pretty confident the power play will end up being maybe if it's not top five, it's going to be top 10. Like those are two things that I look at and I think, yeah, like, that's going to be pretty good. I guess the one like I'm reasonably, but even like not reason, like reasonably might be too strong. It's like, I think Matthew's going to be a really good player no matter what. I don't know if he's ever going to get back to score.

scoring 50 goals. And that's like that's the one thing I don't know because even if you look at the last two seasons, which weren't like amazing statistically, like if you look at the Prairie 2, like I mentioned the story, like it's still very good. He's still obviously very good defensively. But is he ever going to get back to shooting the puck the way he did during those back to back or I guess it wasn't back to back but the two 60 goal seasons where it was just like nothing we had ever seen how easily he scored? That's the one that I'm like. I'm still confident he's going to be a very good player, especially like you're talking about with Marchenko,

like what he's going to add to the line. And I think eventually McKenna's going to get there and like what he'll bring to it, what the power play is going to look like for Matthews. I don't know. That's the problem with like, it's not the problem, but that's what makes this so interesting

is there's just so much variability with a lot of what they did. Like I'm tempted to say like their bottom six, I think is going to like help their top six because they're going to be able to take some important defensive zone. draws. And we saw some of that last night, by the way. We saw some of that. We did. Yeah. Like, we saw, like, Nick Paul going out for some important defensive zone draws, and suddenly they didn't have to use Matthews. So, like, I'm pretty confident in that. But, like, that fourth line, like, again, one game, but, like, the fourth

line was like, oh, like, are these guys going to be comfortable here? Um, I don't know about Broboski. Like, there's just a lot, like, I don't know what I would say. Like, what would you guys say like what's the most certain thing besides like neelander scoring 40 i'll tell you the leaser on my list and it's it was number one on your list i don't know if you did them in order of of uh of anything but it was and we didn't we didn't talk a lot about brobrovsky in the first segment uh i because i feel like that's one of the ones where if it goes bad yeah it goes really bad because of the contract. And it's not going to be easy

to fix. He seemed fine last night. It was sort of an unsatisfying game if you were looking to pin your take on one game. He wasn't terrible. But he also didn't look like

the second comment of Terry Sautchuk and or Eddie Belfour. So any thoughts on him and you know, how he's settling into this this role. You know, it's been interesting in just talking to, like, players and coaches and even management is, like, they love him. Like, they, I think they are, like, really impressed by him. Like, you can see that they are impressed by everything he's done and, like, the way he

goes about his craft. And, like, you know, he's won two cups and he's one of Vesna. He's been, like, one of the better goleys of his generation. He's a weight room guy. He's a way. He can foot up weights, man. Like, like, that's, that's impressive. Well, and, like, even after the game last night. I think like he's one of the last to leave. Like he's just, you can see he's like very regimented and what he does. And like, I get all that. And I, and I kind of think there's a danger in that in some ways because they're looking at him like what he was at his very best. And I think this is like a mistake we sometimes make. Actually, we often make in pro sports is like we look at like, we forget about the age and like last season. And we're just like, whoa, it's Sergey Braboski.

And it's like, well, this is like a different Sergey Brabowski. This is not 2014 Sergey Robrovsky winning a Vezna Trophy. Like the more likely scenario is like he's probably, maybe he's not as bad as last year, but he's like he's 38. Like he, I think he's the second oldest goaltender in the league. Like he had the worst season of his career last year when he was 37. Like, yeah, there was a lot going on in Florida. But like, there's a reason decline tends to happen later in your career.

like you're just not the same athlete you were. So that's the one, like the third goal last night. Like he doesn't see it into the last minute. Like you kind of want to stop there. Otherwise, like he was pretty good. But like, I don't know. Like to me, he's a bigger wild card than I think they realized just because I think they are very impressed by him in his career.

If he's as bad as he was last season, they're DOA. Yes, right. He was 26 out of 28th. Yeah, and goals saved above expected. Among goalies who played at least 40 games. 87% percentage. That was 19 points below the league average. And if you're trying to look up goalies,

a 38 or older who have handled like starter level workloads basically since, you know, the lockout, the list isn't long and the results aren't good. So there's a whole lot going against them in that regard. Yeah, I remember looking up that list. And it's like, I'm trying to remember there was, I think it was Mark Andre Fleury. It was like one of the rare ones who, yeah,

who started like 45, 50 games. games and was good. I think maybe like Dwayne Rollsson way back in the day. Hobby Bowling was on the list. Like it's it's not great. Well, in here like they talk, I mean, I thought about it right when they signed him or were going to sign him like at Bell for it. It's like, but yeah, like that's a great example. Like similar kind of scenario. Golly comes to them later in his career coming off like not a great year. But the NHL back then is just nothing like it is today. Like it's just so much faster and skill level, so much higher. it's like it's conceivable and and I also don't know like that it's conceivable that he bounces back in some way.

I also don't know how much he's going to play and Chris Johnson and I sat down with their management team before the training camp and I asked them about that and they said like they were still trying to really figure it out and they've been studying it and they're trying to figure out like what the right amount of games is for him at this stage in his career. They looked at comparables and it's like you kind of need him to play 50 games because like Anthony St. dollars obviously is a health risk and like if he plays 50 games that means he's playing well but like if you play in 50 games is he more likely to be less effective is he more likely to break down like it's just a really difficult thing with a goalie that age and to your point like that's why this doesn't usually work out with goalies this old and they're relying on his on that condition that we talked about on him being a weight room guy to kind of blake because it really is I don't want to overstate this but it would be trailblazing stuff like yeah mark Andre

Flurry post-pandemic, we're talking about guys who are that age playing 40 games or more. He's the only one. Like the age, even of Roberto Luongo playing, you know, a big minutes as he ate, as he's in his late 30s, that doesn't happen anymore. So, you know, Bobrovsky is a Hall of Famer and we know all, like, his resume speaks for itself and blah, blah, blah. But, you know, the fact of the matter is, if this is going to work out, he's going to end up doing something that we haven't seen before. And I think that is, that is a major stretch. And also,

a pretty good team with a pretty smart front office had this guy for seven years, won two cups and looked at him this summer and said, no, we're good. Thanks. And sent him on his way. So that might tell you something too. What are your first, what's your first impression of Jim Hiller, overall and also relative to what you saw the last couple years with Craig Brubi. So he's a way different personality than Craig Barubei, and he's a way different personality than Mike Babcock, like obviously he coached on his staff. It's good. He's not like a big personality like those guys. And you can even just kind of see it in the day to day, like when he's talking to the team, like just what we see on the ice. Like he's not as loud. He's

not as bombastic. Like, Brubay used to do this thing like at the end of the morning skate. like he would kind of give like this rallying cry for the next game kind of thing and like it doesn't seem like that's going to be hiller style at all but you can already see how differently they're going to play like it was just kind of mesmerizing in that first game just watching how different it looked like you're used to like remember how ugly it was the last two years like it was kind of hard to watch do you remember how it was the last two years I have a vague recollection yeah but even like even the first year like I'm sure you like the first year more but like and because they won but it wasn't, it wasn't, like, pleasing to the eye.

I was like, why are they having Matthews and Nealander chip the puck? I'm like, this isn't, this is weird. And so, like, the first game, it was like, it was more pleasing. They had the puck more. They were faster. They played with pace. You can see how it's going to be different. But I think it's a really big challenge for him in so many different ways.

A, like he hasn't coached as a head coached that much in the NHL. Like, I think he has one full season with the LA Kings and then parts of two others. So there's that. how is he going to adapt to being the head coach? How is it going to be adapt to being the head coach in Toronto where it's just like, you guys know, like it's, every day it's something.

It's like it's, there's going to be storms all the time. And then it's like they have so many new players. Like I don't, I don't know how we check this, but I'm guessing this might be the record for most new players and then line up from one season to the next like 10 new players. So like how does he get it?

You can't have too many more than that. Right. Can you have more than that? It turns into a pretty simple math problem. Yeah. And I mean, like if Blankenberg plays, like instead of statute, that's 11 new players. Like, it's just, it's a lot. So I'm fascinated to see how he handles it.

But it's clearly different in many ways than Craig Perube, which in a lot of ways is probably good. Like, you could even see it just in the way that he used Austin Matthews last night. It's like, we're not going to have you take a million defensive zone draws. We're not doing that stuff anymore. So I think in a lot of ways, be better, but I think there are still huge questions about him as well. No, starting fast for them, starting fast for you. You got a back-to-back to kick off the season.

So congratulations, buddy. We're going to let you get to the rink. You got Isles leaves tonight. Thanks as always, man, and we'll talk to you again real soon. Sounds good, boys. Thanks. Here he goes, Jonas Siegel. Mackindoo.

What do you got for the rest of the week, my man? I'm going to do the all-intrigue roster to the end of the These are my, I put together a full 20-man roster of my most, the players I'm most interested in, players, coaches, GMs, with some honorable mentions, I try to work in one name per team, which is easier for some teams than others. And for a handful of teams, it is very tough to narrow it down to just one guy. But that'll, that'll be coming on Friday. Can you save that for next Wednesday morning so we can just talk about that for the entire show, please? What do you mind? Yeah, okay.

I'll run that by the editors, but I'll let me. let him know that the boss said to hold off. Thank you. And thank you, Frankie Kriado, and thank you, Jonas Siegel. Thank you, fun, folks. This has been The Athletic Hockey Show. It is Wednesday, September 30th. We are at the start of a long road, my friends.

83 plus games to go for 32 teams. Wolf, we're going to be here through it. So thank you for listening, and we'll talk to you again real soon. Max and Corey and Scott and the Prospect Boys are up next on Friday. Listen to them. I know you always do. And again, we'll be back next week.