The Athletic Hockey Show - Ben Chiarot traded to Florida Panthers, Tomas Hertl signs extension with San Jose Sharks, could the Vegas Golden Knights miss the playoffs?

Episode Date: March 17, 2022

On a new Thursday show with Ian Mendes and Sean McIndoe, the duo discuss if the Florida Panthers overpaid in their trade with the Montreal Canadiens for Ben Chiarot. Also, as Tomas Hertl signs an eight-year extension with San Jose Sharks, what is the long-term future for this team? Next, Ian asks if a Zdeno Chara to Toronto scenario would make any sense, and in game one of the playoffs, who would the Maple Leafs have starting in net?Then, Jesse Granger stops by for a little "Granger Things" to discuss the Golden Knights recent woes. Is it possible they miss the postseason this year? And with the trade deadline days away, is there anything the team can do to help? In the mailbag, a listener asks if the NHL should adopt a "fouling out" system like in the NBA, Ian and Sean discuss best team fits for players based solely on their names, and they go back all the way to 1941 to wrap up with "This Week in Hockey History".Have a question for Ian and Sean? Email [e-mail] or leave a VM [phone]!Save on a subscription to The Athletic: theathletic.com/hockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back, everybody. It is your Thursday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. It's Ian Mendez, Sean McIndoo, with you as we head into trade deadline weekend. Some of those deals have started to trickle in. The Panthers pick up their defensemen. We'll talk about them getting Ben Chirot, some of the other deals, including Thomas Hurdle, signing a contract extension with the sharks. Jesse Granger's going to come by, and we're going to find out what the heck is going on with the Golden Knights.

They at Stanley Cup aspirations and now all of a sudden they seem like they're going to be a bubble team. We're going to, we're going to, we're going to, we're going to, we're going to, we're going to, we're going to, we're going to, we're going to, we're going to, we're going to, we're going to be a fun voicemail. It's just based on his name. Anyway, we're going to have a lot of fun. Some this week in hockey history. All of that coming in the next hour or so we're going to jam it all in. on this St. Patrick's Day edition of the athletic hockey show.

So I'm going to ask you, Sean, when I say St. Patrick's Day, is the first thought you have, does your mind immediately go to Pat Quinn, the big Irishman? You know what? My hockey brain is so broken that my, I go immediately to the St. Patrick's Day Massacre of 1991, St. Louis, Chicago Blackhawks. But Pat Quinn is a real good one. That one is the big Irishman. that is a

that's good silver medal on that one. Yeah. So that same Patrick's Day, it's funny because in NHL history, there's been a couple of explosive incidents on St. Patrick's Day. The first being Rocket Richard

gets suspended by the NHL and then League President Clarence Campbell says, you know what would be a good idea? What if I ban Rocket Richard for the season and then show up at the Montreal Forum on St. Patrick's Day just to take in the game, what could go wrong?

Right? The next thing you know there's tear gas. We should point out, Gary Bettman did not show up in Toronto after the Austin Matthews suspension. So he's at least learned from the past a little bit. But yeah, no, it's a rough day in NHL history or a great day depending on. If you're a Hawks and Blues fans, you probably love that game because it was quite the environment. Let's just say, I think a lot of those fans in Chicago had been. celebrating St. Patrick's Day already before that game got going.

So that's a good one. And prominently featured Dave Manson, father of Josh Manson, who just got traded. So, you know, it all ties together. Maybe. Look at this. Or maybe not. Right into trade deadline stuff. So it's funny, right?

Because, you know, we kind of came into this week and we're like, boy, everything seems quiet and we're not going to see a lot of moves. And then all of a sudden, you're right. Josh Manson gets moved. and we see Tyson Jost get moved, and then we see, I think the biggest one so far at the time of our recording is Ben Chirot goes to the Florida Panthers.

And a lot of people are saying this is a home run deal for Kent Hughes and the Montreal Canadiens because they not only get a prospect of the fourth round pick, they get a first round pick in a very deep 20-23 draft, Sean, that's not lottery protected, meaning if Florida somehow misses the playoffs next season and they've got a top five or ten pick,

the habs have it, Were you surprised that the price Florida paid for a pure rental in Ben Chirot? I thought it was an enormous price to pay. I thought it was probably an overpay. Was I surprised? No, not necessarily because the Montreal Canadians somehow have done a masterful job all season long of hammering home this idea that Ben Chirot was the prize of the trade deadline, despite all evidence to the contrary in terms of his numbers this year and his numbers over his career.

And, you know, numbers don't tell the whole story all the time. And there are certain players that maybe bring some things to the table, especially in a playoff scenario that are, that maybe aren't captured in the basic numbers that we look at. But really, you know, the first time that I heard that Ben Chirot was going to be expected to fetch first round pick, I mean, I rolled my eyes, as I imagine a lot of people did. But that was months ago. And they just kept hammering it.

And again, I don't know if this was a conscious game plan from the Montreal Canadiens to keep this name out there, or if it was just the sort of thing where once the ball got rolling, everyone else just kind of ran with it. but, you know, there's this concept in psychology of the anchoring effect that when you're negotiating, the first number they gets thrown out there sticks, even if it's an unreasonable number, and becomes the number that everyone works off of. And the number for Ben Chirot was first round pick plus, and they got it. I mean, and full credit to them.

I mean, the Canadians pulled this off. they got a team to pay up. I remember thinking when I saw the Josh Manson return going, well, so much for Montreal getting what they're looking for Ben Chirot. Because I think Josh Manson's a better and more valuable player than Ben Chirot. And yet they only get a second round pick and a prospect for them. I'm thinking, okay, well, that's going to set the market, maybe reset it for Ben Chirot. And it didn't. And Montreal held firm.

and they got their deal. And full credit to Kent Hughes. I think it's a home run for Montreal. You know, Florida obviously, look, I mean, they'll, like any contender, they'll be judged on what they do in the playoffs. If this guy's, if he's playing 18 minutes a night on a second pair and they go deep in the playoffs, they'll probably be okay with it. But I think it's a great move for Montreal.

And you're right. Getting that pick, not lottery protected in the Connor Bedardier, I know we all look at him. We say, well, yeah, there's no way a team like Florida would. be in the lottery next year. We could have set that about Montreal last year when they were going on their deep run and look where they're at. It's always good to get as many lottery tickets as he can. And they got one for next year. It's a great deal for Montreal. Just absolutely fantastic. Ask San Jose about not lottery protecting a pick because when they traded for Carlson,

they gave up a first round pick to Ottawa. They didn't lottery protect it. And I think the feeling was, wow, we're the San Jose Sharks who were a perpetual playoff team. We never miss it. And all of a sudden, they just had a series of unfortunate events and guess what? Finished out with the third overall pick going to Ottawa. So you never, you never know how that's going to play out. And by the way, can I just throw this in?

Yeah. Kudos to both teams for not lottery protecting it because I'm sick of every draft pick being lottery protected. It takes so much of the fun out of this. It's great. It's great when you see a team trade that first round pick and then suddenly it's like, uh-oh, uh,

you know, the next season isn't going as well as he thought. We've seen it. Obviously, I'm a Leafs fan. I've seen it happen three times in franchise history that they've traded a first round pick and it ended up being top five. But that's great. That's fun to watch as fans.

And, you know, this super risk averse, you know, let's lottery protect every single pick. The height of that was the, I want to say it was the Islanders when they got J.G. Pajot a few years ago. There was a first round pick in that trade that was lottery protected. and there was a later pick that was conditional and kicked in if the Islanders won the Stanley Cup. Like, that's out of control. You can't be lottery protecting and Stanley Cup conditional picks in the same trade for a team that year. It was just the absolute gold standard of covering your bases. Oh, yeah.

Forget that. I want a little bit more unpredictability in these. Get rid of the lottery protected trend. And hopefully maybe this trade nudges us in that direction. You know, I mentioned the San Jose Sharks and they made some waves this weekend. I didn't know where I sat on this because you heard all the time leading up to this week. I think Hurtle wants to stay in San Jose and I think the sharks want them to stay. Can they find a number?

And you're like, but where are the sharks going? Like, why would Thomas Hurtle want to stay in San Jose? And sure enough, he gets his basically an eight times eight deal. How do we feel about this one? because I'm not sure what direction the sharks are headed in. I don't know which way they're going, but certainly they were able to convince Thomas Hurtle to lock in for eight more years. Yeah.

And I don't, I mean, I think the easiest piece of this puzzle to figure out is why he would want to stay. It's eight years. It's very good money. And he gets to stay in San Jose, which is a wonderful place to, you know, to live, you know, to certainly, if you're going to commit to somewhere, that's not a bad place to do it. And it's a strong organization, too. I mean, every player raves about how they're treated in that organization from ownership on down.

So I'm not surprised that he was willing to re-up. As far as the rest of it, yeah, I mean, I think it's pretty clear what direction they're headed in, which is they're not rebuilding. They think that they can still compete with this group. They feel like with this core that they've put together, which on paper at least is a very strong core, that it's full speed ahead. And I would love to hook them up to a lie detector

and find out if the members of that front office actually think they can win a Stanley Cup with this group or is it about making the playoffs? It's because we've seen what this core has done over the last couple of years and it's not good. and I don't see any reason to think that as they get even older, they're suddenly going to start playing better. I mean, yes, you can point to injuries to certain guys and say,

you know, if we had everybody healthy, okay, maybe. But there's no reason to think that somebody who has trouble staying healthy in their early 30s is going to get to their mid-30s and suddenly be in great shape. Look, the Thomas Hirtle thing on taken on its own in isolation, it makes sense to want to sign that player. He's a very good player. You want to keep guys like that.

Even if you can trade them for a first round pick, top prospect, most of those first round picks and top prospects, their ceiling is going to be a guy like Thomas Hurdle. So, I mean, it makes sense to want to keep him. But man, you look at that. Like the San Jose Sharks' cap-friendly page is terrifying right now. Because it's all guys with five, six, seven, eight years left, all guys on the downside of their career.

Thomas Hurtle, I wouldn't put it in that category yet, but he's not far from it. I mean, he's, you know, once a guy tips into his 30s, we typically do see the production start to drop. So that deal isn't going to age well. It is certainly in the second half of it, you wouldn't think. They've got Burns. They've got Carlson. They've got Placic.

They've got Logan Couture. And by the way, we haven't even mentioned a Vander Cain, which we're still not completely sure how that situation will pay out. It's possible they'll have Evander Kane in some form on their cap going forward once that whole situation is resolved. It's going to be ugly there. And I really, I don't envy Doug Wilson. You know, we know with him with his health this year has not been as involved. Assuming it is Doug Wilson going forward, I don't envy him. And if it's somebody else, I really don't envy whoever's got that job in three or four. years because, man, they're going to have to dig themselves out of a lot of real bad contracts.

And I'm not sure that they're going to have much in the way of playoff success to show for it. Maybe not even much in the way of playoff appearances. Do the sharks right now kind of remind you of like, remember the early 2000s New York Rangers where you're like, damn, like you've got a lot of name guys, big tickets. It just doesn't work. Like, are the sharks kind of the cap era version of? of the early 2000s Rangers. We got a bunch of big name, big ticket guys,

but it just, I don't know, just doesn't seem to work. Yeah, that's a good comparison. I never thought of that, but it's, that works. And the Rangers were, you know,

in those pre-cap days, they could throw the money around quite a bit. And they typically went after other teams, star players, guys that were, you know, back in those days to hit free agency, you were close to 30 to do it.

And they were older guys. But, you know, back then it was, it was still possible for guys to contribute a little bit later that they tend to now. So they would wind up with the, you know, the Eric Lindrosse's and the Pavel Burreras and on down the list. And it never added up to anything. San Jose is maybe, maybe in that group. The difference would be that the sharks did come close with a lot of these guys.

I mean, they went to a Stanley Cup final. They were for a very long time the model of regular season success in the NHL. year in and year out. So, you know, I can understand why there would be maybe a little bit of loyalty to certain guys. But right now, yeah, it's, I mean, it's great name value. If you were building a NHL 2017 roster, this would be a great way to start with what they've got, but it's not 2017. And it's, you know, as much as individually you can admire a lot of those players that,

father time is still pretty much undefeated. And I just don't see how it's going to get better two, three years down the line. And two, three years down the line, they still got all these guys under contract. You know, you talk about teams that have big name, big ticket players that are underachieving. San Jose obviously comes to mind. Chicago might come to mind for a lot of people. But I think right now front and center, Sean, is the Vegas Golden Knights. And we're going to, Jesse Granger will drop by.

we'll chat with Jesse about Vegas here and get a better idea. But this is what I want to ask you is when's the last time a legitimate Stanley Cup contender missed the playoffs altogether? Because I think Vegas is in jeopardy of that having that happen to them.

And I don't mean one of those, you know, when like a team makes a Cinderella run to the cup, like the Habs last year or Ottawa in 2017, you get D. or, you know, the Oilers back in 06. I'm going to talk about one of those teams. I'm talking about one of those teams that in September, October and during the season, you're like, yeah, that's a Stanley Cup favorite.

And they miss the playoffs all together. Like, for a little bit of context here, where could this Golden Knights team end up if they miss the playoffs? Yeah, you know, it's not as uncommon as you would think for teams that start the year in that conversation, at least, to, to miss the playoffs. That tends to happen every few years, maybe even more often than that, including this year. I think there's, there were a lot of people who had the New York Islanders on their list. I know my buddy Greg at ESPN picked the Islanders to win the Stanley Cup, and obviously that season's been a disaster. Last year, you know, I went back and looked this up, and it surprised me, going into the 2020 playoffs, the bubble playoffs, the Stanley Cup favored,

according to the odds makers with the Philadelphia Flyers. And obviously they didn't, they didn't win it, but they were considered an elite team back then. And then they go in and miss the playoffs the following year. In the bubble, the Philadelphia Flyers were the- The Flyers were real good that year, right? I mean, they were absolutely one of the top teams and were one of the teams that had the buy and all of that.

They were a real good team. A lot of us on the upswing. And then they, you know, they've missed the playoffs two years since then. The difference is that typically in these situations, including the Islanders, including the Flyers, by the end of October, maybe November, it's become clear that it's not their year. And what I have trouble thinking of are too many examples like this Vegas team where not only did we all think they were Cup favorites heading into the season. Absolute lock for the playoffs. I mean, there was nobody in the Pacific that was going to challenge them.

They were going to just walk to the top seat in that division. October, November, December, we still felt the same way. It's only been somewhat recently that a lot of our eyes have kind of open to the fact that, and I know personally, it wasn't until like late February that I started looking at the standings going, wait a second, is it even possible that this team could miss? I can't think of too many examples like that. One that does come to mind is the, 2018, maybe 2017 lighting.

Remember that team? They had been to the final a couple years earlier. Obviously, most of that team got back, and they just had one of those years where it just didn't work, and they ended up missing the playoffs by one point in going into the final weekend. And, you know, maybe if you're a Golden Knights fan, that's not a bad team to look at because they didn't panic. They didn't blow it up.

they didn't fire everybody. They kind of shrugged it off and kept going and obviously were rewarded for it. But that's the closest example I can think of a team where you looked at it and went, this team should be playing for the Stanley Cup. And now they're desperately chasing a wild card if they can even get that. Yeah. And you know what? That lightning team that missed in 2017,

that was the first year that the Austin Matthews era of the Maple Leafs qualified for the playoffs. And I just want to take the- They got the spot and they traded bright. Boyle to the Leafs at the deadline and then miss the playoffs to the Leafs by one point, which, you know, if it had been anyone other than Steve Eiserman making that deal, I think a lot of people would have questioned it. But yeah, you're right. Tampa rebounded.

But I just want to steer the conversation to Toronto for a second because there's a couple of obviously really interesting things on the Maple Leafs front, as there always is. Let me start with this. There's some people saying that, hey, they need some help on the back end. Zadano Charo would be a great fit in Toronto. Cap hit isn't big. Big guy, playoff experience. I got to think on the list of guys

I'm having a hard time picturing in a Leafs jersey, Zadano Charas near the top of the list. But I mean, how would Toronto fans feel about the Big Z coming in? You know what? I think they would like that move, especially if it came reasonably cheap. I don't know that he's the answer. in terms of odd the ice.

At this point, I mean, he has, we talked about father time. I mean, this guy's, what, 44 years old? Full credit to him that he's still in the league and still playing at an NHL level, but it's, he is not the Zadano Char of old in any sense. He's a guy you want on the third pair if you're a contending team. And, you know, does he help the Leafs? maybe not as much as some of the other names that are out there. But in terms of his presence, in terms of some leadership,

you know, it might not be the worst thing in the world because we know that this Leif's team, whether they want to admit it or not, they're going to be a fragile bunch in the playoffs. As soon as in that first round, anything starts to go wrong. They're going to be looking at each other going, oh, God, here we go again, having a guy who's been around the block several times in that room to say, okay, everett, settle it down. you know what, I've been here, this is, this is fine.

Maybe that would help. You know, I think certainly it would be a popular move. He is a big name and a big presence. I don't think as far as on the ice, you know, I don't think you want him out there with two minutes left in a game seven. But, you know, maybe he helps you get to that point. Man, I just want to see, and I know Ottawa fans will run me for this. Can you imagine the people?

Don't do this again, man. No, no, no. Almost got run out of town for the Jason Spets to take. Imagine the Leafs win the Stanley Cup and Zadano Chara and Jason Spetsa hand the cup to each other. Wouldn't that be a great moment? Yeah. Can you imagine? Yeah.

Yeah. That, man, that'd be something else. Okay. The other question I want to ask you about Toronto, I want you to give me a prediction here. Game one of the Stanley Cup playoffs. Who's Toronto's goalie? Oh, boy. Starting?

Starting goalie game one. Okay. The fact that you're like, we got to specify. Who's finishing the game? Yeah, that's the tougher one. It might be you or I. I'm still thinking, I mean, Jack Campbell, I think, has got to be the significant favorite right now.

Obviously, if they make a move for a goalie, which we all assume they will, that could change the equation. I don't, I mean, at this point, I hate to say it, but I feel like Peter Marizek is close to a write-off in this situation, not in terms of. being an NHL goalie, I'm fully prepared to see him go somewhere else and, you know, get back to his old ways. But it's just not working in Toronto for him. I have a hard time imagining that they'd feel confident starting him. I think it's probably Campbell. He comes back from the injury. You know, maybe this injury ends up being a bit of a blessing in disguise, gets him away, gets him a chance to reset, comes back, has some success, you know, maybe behind a better blue line. I could see, you know, he was very, very good at the first half. He doesn't have to get back to that level, but getting back to something in between would be okay.

The thing with, as far as who they're going to go out and get, other than Mark Andre Fleury, who do you go out and get that you say, yeah, you know what? They walk in the door. That's our new starter. Jack Campbell will back them up or Azik will send out of the miners. But this guy is our new starter undisputed. Even Flurry, you might look at some of the numbers and say you're not sure on him, but he certainly has the presence and the reputation to take the job.

Other than that, it's easy to say, go get a goalie. I'm not sure there's goalies out there that come in and are definitely an upgrade over Jack Campbell, given what we know he can do. Some of that's just the reality of the position, obviously. It's very hard to predict what a goalie is going to do. having somebody come in to a new situation and, you know, sometimes that can, that can work great. And sometimes it goes the other way. I do think they need to do something.

I think the message they send by staying with the status quo, given how the last month is gone, is not going to be a good one. I'm just not expecting it to be somebody that makes you go, okay, they fixed it. The goaltending is great. If anything, it's going to be just another question mark coming in. New delicious scenario for you. here comes Craig Anderson to save the day. Look at you. Craig Anderson, Zadaylchara.

Yeah, let's put the band back together. You know, and, but no, okay, you're a great with hockey history and trivia. When the Leafs won the Stanley Cup in 1967, how old was the starting goal? Very old. That was the Bauer Broda late 30. Right. I'm thinking maybe this is the thing. Maybe you always need a goalie like in and around 40 to win a Stanley Cup in Toronto.

Maybe that was the whole thing. Zedane O'Chara, Jason Spetsa. We are reassembling one piece at a time, the Ottawa Senators, and a team notorious for having playoff success in the first round in Toronto. This is, this can't miss. Yeah. What could go wrong? Yeah.

All right. As always, we teach this. up a little earlier said that we would have Jesse Granger back in the saddle for Granger Things, sponsored by BetMGM, your exclusive betting partner with the athletic. And as we bring in Jesse, you know,

what's this like for you? Every year you've covered this Golden Knights team that just they came right in, they came in as a Stanley Cup finalist. It has been playoff, playoff, playoff, it feels like every year, all of a sudden, it's a bubble team. What's going on there? What is happening in Vegas?

Yeah, I mean, it's, they're They look like a mash unit. The injuries are obviously the biggest factor here. And I think there are other reasons, but you look at a team that is well over the cap when they have everyone healthy, if they were to have everyone healthy. But at the moment, they have $37.1 million in players on IR or LTIR. And it's Captain Mark Stone, obviously, best player on the team. I mean, you could argue Jack Eichel, but he's not quite back to himself yet. So I'd still say Mark Stone is the leader and the best player on this team.

And then you've got Max Patch Ready. Riley Smith just went out, starting goalie Robin Leonard. And earlier in the year when they were injured, I mean, they've been injured all year. But earlier in the year, it was like Robin Leonard was back there hanging in these games, holding this team within a couple goals. And then they'd score. And that's kind of how they were able to stay afloat that long. Now that Robin Leonard's out, they're starting to have issues with the goaltending. And the team hasn't been able to score goals all year.

and once you have issues with the goaltending, it really gets hairy. So, yeah, it's been, it's been weird covering this losing streak. I just got back from a long road trip where they didn't win a game. It was the longest road trip of the season and they went 0 and 5. The first time the team has lost five games in regulation in franchise history, which is kind of crazy in five years. But yeah, it's definitely not what we're used to in Vegas. Well, I'll tell you.

And I just have to say, I've got to jump in here and just say, Jesse, on behalf of all the other fan bases, our heart just absolutely breaks for you guys. This is just terrible. We're all just right there with you that you guys after five years have finally had a losing streak and had to sweat a little bit

about making the playoffs. It's just crushing for all of you and we send our best. It's great. It's funny watching the reaction on Twitter. I don't blame any fan in the league for enjoying Vegas's current downslide, but they definitely are enjoying it.

Yeah. Well, hey, listen, you mentioned, Jesse, that goal scoring has been a bit of a problem. I want to open up our mailback here because we actually had a question for you from a listener named Sean, who says, this is probably a question for Granger Things. Has there ever been a team worse at trying to score goals in the Vegas Golden Knights? I've noticed even last season how many shots they had to pile up just to score three or four goals in a game whenever Max Patcheretti is out of the lineup. And this is even when Stone was in. the whole offense feels like quantity over quality. So for context, I want you to know I'm a New Jersey fan,

but I live in Vegas, so I see them a lot. People act like they're just getting goalies that are hot when they're putting up 45 shots and only get one or two goals. But I wonder if this is really a talent-based issue. That's from Sean. Yeah, Sean makes a lot of good points. And so the Golden Knights are struggling to score lately. I think they're last in the league in scoring since the turn of the calendar,

which is crazy. it's not an issue that's that's just happening this year with all these injuries. Like, this team has struggled to put the puck in the net for three years. If you go all the way back to the bubble playoffs in Edmonton, they lost to Dallas because they just hit a scoring drought at the worst possible time and lost in five games in the Western Conference finals to a team they probably should have beat. And then the same thing happened last year against Montreal. So the last two years that they've been eliminated, that's been the reason.

And now this year, it's kind of getting worse with the injuries, obviously. but I think it's a combination of the talent. I do think this team has a shooting problem. I think they have a lot of guys who are good playmakers, and they pass the puck around really well, and they possess the puck better than pretty much every team in the league. Like even the elite teams in the league, Florida, Tampa Bay, Colorado, they possess the puck about as much as Vegas,

but Vegas just doesn't create the dangerous chances. Everything's along the outside. And I think it's, I think it's talent. I think it's shooting talent. Max Patcher Ready has a phenomenal shot. Jack Eichol, who they just added, has a phenomenal shot. But for the most part, they're best players, Mark Stone, Riley Smith, William Carlson, Shay Theodore.

These guys are great playmakers, not great shooters. And I think that leads to you getting chances and then firing it right into the chest of the goalie. They wear out the logo on the opposing goalie's chest on a nightly basis. They have more 40-something save shutouts against them than any team in the league since joining. and I think another part of it is Pete DeBore's system. And I think that deserves less of the blame, but I do think that Pete DeBore's system, he runs everything through the point.

So Shea Theodore and Alex Petrangelo get tons of shots from out there, but they don't have the guy. Like he did the same thing in San Jose when he was coaching there, but they had better guys in front. Joe Pavelski can get in front and get a tip. Couture was good at getting tips. And I think in Vegas, he doesn't really have the personnel to get screens on the goalies and to get deflections in front. The Golden Knights almost never

score deflection goals. Like, we're talking once or twice a season. It never happens. And when you're going to shoot a bunch of shots from the point, they've got to be screened or they've got to be deflections because goalies just aren't going to give up goals from that area of the ice unless they don't see it or it's deflected right before they get to them. So I think it's a combination of the system is leading to low, low danger shots. And you combine that with a team that is better at passing than it is at shooting. So walk Sean and I through how the, the odds of maybe change for Vegas here, because we've talked about this amongst the three of us before,

because of where they're situated in Vegas, there's a lot of action on the Golden Knights and they become one of the most popular teams to wager on. And I'm curious now, as we shift from, hey, are they going to win the Stanley Cup to, hey, are they even going to make the playoffs? What are we looking at here in terms of Vegas's odds for making the Stanley Cup playoffs from a, from a betting perspective. Yeah, it's been pretty wild to watch. I mean, this team has been amongst the top three in terms of odds to win the Stanley

Cup basically from the moment the season started. And when they added Jack Eichol, that just went even further in that direction. So they've been a cup contender. Now, all of a sudden, I remember writing a story a few weeks ago, like saying like, how worried should the Golden Knights be? And I looked at Dom Lu Shishin's playoff predictor. And it was still at 86% for the Golden Knights to make the playoffs. well, the worst road trip in their team history later, they are now less than 50% to make the playoffs.

I think they're at 43% right now to make the playoffs in his odds. And by the way, we were actually talking to Dom on yesterday's show. And he said that that actually might overrate the Golden Knights because that accounts for he has stone out for the year in that model. But he's got patcher ready, Riley Smith, Robin Leonard, all coming back. And none of that is guaranteed. So they may be even in worse shape than that. Right now, if you look at the odds, they went from, they were nine to one to win the Stanley Cup. Now they are 50 to one to win the Pacific Division, basically giving them no shot to win this division.

They're still a little closer than that to winning the Stanley Cup just because people, I mean, they're saving themselves just in case everyone gets healthy and this team barely sneaks into the playoffs. They could, they could make a run. But the odds have changed drastically. I think they're down to eighth best to win the Stanley Cup now. and they are behind the kings, oilers, and flames in the Pacific Division. And you can actually bet on bet MGM. You can go and bet on any team you want. You can bet will they make the playoffs or won't they make the playoffs?

And Vegas was usually a ridiculous favorite to make. You couldn't even bet it, basically. The line was so big. But now it's even money both ways. Minus 110 make the playoffs. Minus 110 missed the playoffs. So they are saying it's a coin toss for the Vegas Golden Knights to make the playoffs, a team that has never missed.

And to be honest, has never even had. a playoff chase. Like this team has coached the playoffs for four years. Yeah. Heart heartbreaking. Jesse, just we're less than a week out from the

deadline. What, if anything, can they do? I mean, it feels like any other team that was going through something like this, we'd all be screaming for them to make a big move. And I look at the cap and I say there's no way. And yet I would have probably said that about

Jack Eichel as well. So is, is there any, anything that they can do, any shenanigans they can pull to actually bring in some help at this point? Yeah. So I think there is a lot of information that I don't have that Kelly McCrimman and George McPhee, President of Hockeyops, that they have on these injuries that would allow them to maybe make some moves. So we already heard about, okay, if Mark Stone's out for the rest of the season, then they can play everyone. Jack Eichael can go in and they can be $9 million over the cap.

Well, that also counts for Robin Lennar, who has a serious shoulder injury that he was playing through, and then he suffered another serious lower body injury and had to be sent home from the trip to Vegas for he, Max Pateretti and Riley Smith were all sent back to Vegas in the middle of that trip with serious lower body injuries. So there's a chance all three or two of the three or one of the three could be out for the rest of the regular season. There's also Braden McNabb, who's expected to miss a few weeks. Alec Martinez, there's no return in sight for him. they've got, like I said, 37 million an injured player. So depending on what they know about the timelines for those, they could add more.

But I actually just wrote the other day, maybe it might not be smart to at this point. Yeah. This team may not even make the playoffs. And while you could fit these deadline moves in with LTIR space, you still have to figure it out next season. Next season, you've got to be under the cap when the season starts. You can't do this for an entire 82 game season. So they've already have difficult decisions to make. Riley Smith and Mityis Yanmark are both UFAs.

They have no money to sign them. And then they also have a bunch of young players. Nick Hague, Nick Waugh, King Colossar, and Brett Howden are all RFAs, and they're due for raises. So they've got a bunch of free agents that they have no money to sign. They're going to have to probably trade guys just to be able to bring some of those guys back. So anyone you add at the deadline is just adding another contract into that equation. It's just making it even worse. So like, for example, if this team thinks they're going to get relatively healthy, but they think Robin Lennar is out for the season.

adding a goalie makes sense. Loren Brissuas had below a 900 safe percentage. He's obviously not good enough to win games in the playoffs. He's a solid backup, but he's not going to win you playoff games. So I could see them adding a goalie, but I just feel like that's, I feel like that's,

you've been betting, you've been raising the hand every time, and you're like waiting for that card and you still haven't gotten it, but it's like, let's raise it one more time, even though you haven't, like none of the cards have worked out.

Like, just stop. Just fold and wait for the next hand. I think if I were, Kelly McCrimmon, I might even sell at the deadline. I floated this idea in the story and some people thought it was crazy. If I'm Kelly McCriman and I'm looking and I'm like, you know what, maybe this season just isn't the one for us. There's so many injuries. Everything has to go right for this team. They've all got to get healthy. They've got to gel. Everything has to go right when nothing has gone right. So maybe you say, look, we could make a move right now that will alleviate some

cap space that will allow our offseason to go a little smoother, whether it's trading Riley Smith and getting something for him before you lose them for nothing, or or maybe trading another contract that will allow you, that'll give room to add to bring Riley Smith back. I could see them massaging the cap with a, a sell move at the deadline, which would be crazy to imagine, but I think it's possible.

I'm going to jump on your poker analogy here. Sometimes you are pot committed. You've thrown so many chips in already that you've got to go all in, even though you don't like your hand very much. But yeah, it's crazy. Because I have heard people say, well,

you know, they'll just, they can put patch ready on LTIR for the rest of the year. and that frees up Capra. But then you don't have Max Patcheretti down the stretch. Like the whole Khrusharov plan only works when you know you're going to make the playoffs. And we don't know that they are. I got to ask just real quick, given Kelly McCriman's history, are we thinking of coaching change is imminent?

I mean, it certainly feels like it. I have been saying kind of in my writing and in my post that I don't think it's the right move. Like I think Pete DeBore has done a very good job with this team. I think when you look at other teams that have had similar injury issues, they've all just completely fallen apart. And it kind of is falling apart now, but prior to now, I mean, they led the Pacific division for 75% of this season just before they went on this stretch and then Calgary obviously caught fire. But having said that, yeah, I think it could absolutely happen. I mean, they fired Gerard Galant for a lot less. They've already set a precedent. That's the thing. When Gerard Gallant got

fired, it was nowhere near this bad. They were out of the playoffs. but it was before the All-Star game. I mean, there were still months and months and months of playoffs. It feels like Gerard-Gilland had two bad practices, and they were like, no, you're done. Right. And Bill Foley is super aggressive. I mean, this is, Bill Foley is ultra, ultra, ultra-aggressive. And I could see him going to Kelly McCriman and George McPhee and saying like,

like basically like something has to change. Like, are you guys going to go? And then, of course, they're going to say, no, it's Pete first, right? Like that would be, that's any general manager. So, yeah, I could see it happening. I think if it was me, I would be patient. I'd say, you know what? This team, this is not their season.

Let's run it back next year. Let's see if Pete with a full training camp with Jack Eichel and a healthy roster, can they do it? And then if they can't, something's got to change. But I think there's just enough injuries and enough excuses this year to, I think, say, maybe you just punt on this year and see if you can do it again. Well, I'll tell you what, Jesse. It seems like Vegas might be a really interesting team,

even in and around trade deadline day. So I'm going to throw out an open invite to you because I'm going to be doing the Monday show as kind of a live podcast. I think we're going to start around 5 Eastern time. Listen, I'm booking you in. If Vegas does something nutty or crazy, I need five or 10 minutes of your time on Monday, all right?

I'm in. There we go. Good stuff. Hey, listen, enjoy the weekend. It should be a very interesting weekend for the Vegas Golden Nights. As always, Jesse, thanks for this. And we'll hit you up again maybe on Monday,

but certainly next Thursday. Awesome. Thanks for having me, guys. Thanks, Jesse. All right. So yeah, like I said, shameless promotion for our Monday show. We're going to do it live,

trade deadline day, I think just after 5 o'clock, Eastern time is where we're going to be recording Athletic Hockey Show after the trade deadline. So hopefully Jesse and some of other of our beatwriters will be part of that. Sean, let's open up the emails and the voicemails

and get to some of this. I want to remind our listeners anytime. You can reach us at the Athletic Hockey Show at gmail.com. That's the email. address, or you can be like Kevin from Richmond, Virginia. Kevin has sent as a voicemail at 845-4-4-5-8-4-59. Have a listen.

Here's Kevin's idea for how the NHL can adopt something from the NBA. So one thing that maybe isn't as on topic as it was last year when Tom Wilson was destroying our league and making every hockey show podcast somewhat tedious is can the NHL steal from basketball and implement a three foul and out type of rule implementation? So you get two or you get three, two minute minors, and then you're just, you foul out of the game. What do you guys think? All right. So there you go, Sean.

Kevin said, hey, what if we did kind of like the NBA where you file out of a game? his idea is three penalties and you're out. What do you think? Well, I mean, it's something the NHL could do. And in fact, it's something the NHL does do with fighting majors. You almost never see that, obviously, these days. But there is a rule in the NHL, three fighting majors. You're out of the game.

So this would just be making that a little stricter. I think the problem with this is the same. same problem that we have with lots of proposed rule changes that involve, you know, calling more penalties, calling, making penalties potentially more severe. Are the refs actually going to call it? You know, what's the ref going to do when Connor McDavid has, you know, picked up a puck over glass in the first and a, you know, a roughing minor in the second and it's the third period and he hooks a guy? Are you going to give him two minutes yet? You might give him two minutes for that. Are you going to throw him out of the game?

no, probably not. So suddenly the whistle goes away. And I think that the NBA rule is a big contributor to the perception that is out there and that in the NBA, the stars get special treatment. That guys, you know, you can, you, you get called for a foul if you do it to LeBron, but LeBron does it to you and it's okay. And then a big part of the reason for that is no referee wants to be throwing LeBron out of a crucial game on some tickey tack foul. that happens to be his sixth. And I think you'd run into the same sort of thing in the NHL. So I don't think I would be on board with it, but they absolutely could do it. It certainly would be, I mean, it would be interesting for, you know, as he says, a guy like Tom Wilson takes two penalties running around in the first five minutes. And now you've got to think, okay, how do we use this guy for the rest of the game? I just don't see it working, given how we know the officials love to manage things in this league.

Yeah. I always laugh too when I think about the NBA and, you know, as casual basketball fans or as as a casual basketball fan, I'll watch and I'll be like, well, that's a, that's a blatant travel, right? Like, you just kind of let LeBron get away, right, with an extra step. Like, imagine the NHL, you're just like, you let Connor McGill. He's allowed to be offside by a little bit, right? Like, it didn't, it wouldn't happen. But I did, so I did look this up after Kevin's voicemail. So this season, there have been 41 instances, Sean, 41.

instances where a player took three minor penalties in a game. So that's quite a lot. Like to think a 41 game ejection seems a little high, right? Like, but maybe the number needs to be four minor penalties because there's only been three instances of that this season. Wayne Simmons did it. Casey Zizakis did it. Brady Kachuk did it.

So there's been three games this year where a guy took four minor penalties in a game. But three, I don't know, that. I feel like we were all waiting to figure out which Kachuk was going to come into that equation. That had to be, yeah, maybe. I mean, or the other way to do it is you just give officials the power that they already have to say, you know what, I'm tired of this guy and I'm going to either give him the ten minutes of misconduct to get him out of there or they can kick guys out of games. So, you know, maybe we just need to be a little harsher on guys who are out there committing the same files over and over again.

But it's an interesting idea at the very least. And like I say, precedent in the NBA and a precedent in the NHL that a lot of fans don't know about. Yeah. Listen, we're going to go from Kevin in Richmond, Virginia. Let's go up to Martin in Quebec City. And Martin says, greetings from Quebec City. In your last show, March the 10th, when discussing Gordy Howe and his family, you compared Marty Howe to Marion Stasney.

And I have to respectfully disagree with this comparison. Although Marion's NHL career was shorter than his two, brothers, whose contribution was significant. Statistically speaking, Peter and Anton had their best seasons when they were reunited with their older brother in 81, 82, and 82.83, having witnessed the three brothers playing together in the early 80s at Le Colise. They were magical. I may be mistaken, but I believe they were the first all European trio to play in the

NHL. Love your show and your quirky sense of humor. That's from Martan. There you go. I guess we are. We're not even trying to be funny and we're funny. But what do you think? Is this some, did we, and I think I also have compared Marian Stassney to Cooper Manning at some point maybe.

Yeah. Did we? And let's be clear. This was you. He's saying we did it. This was you. This was me. Okay.

So, yeah, I mean, I, I'm, I'm, I'm good with any defense of the Stassany brothers. That was a very cool, um, moment in NHL history, having three brothers, playing on the same. line. I don't know, I'll be honest. I don't know if it was the first all-European line, but it checks out because certainly back then there weren't a lot of European players in the league yet. So quite possible. Did the Winnipeg Jets or were they in WHA when they had that Anders-Hedberg, whatever? There was like that line, right, where they were all European, but did that come to the NHL? That may have been the WHA. I'm not sure. I'd have to go back and look.

How do you not have the Avco Cup right up on your screen right now? Yeah, I know. I'm sorry, I'm slipping. Yeah. Okay. One other email that we got here, this is a fun one from Paul. Paul writes to the show, this is something my wife who puts up with my hockey viewing pointed out to me. I think this is rather impressive.

My wife thinks that William Nielander should be on the New York Islanders, not the Toronto Maple Leafs. And she doesn't care about his contractor's ability. It's just that when you look at his name, you almost see. uh, Nylander, you almost see the phrase New York Islander in his name. And it got me thinking,

maybe Spencer Knight should be playing for Vegas with the Knights. And, um, he goes on, he says, Hey, listen, what other names exist here?

Maybe some teams may be better than others. But is there anything better that you guys have than Neelander on the islanders? That comes in from Paul. We should point out that our producer, our fantastic producer, Danielle, who happens to be in Anaheim fan says that Cam Fowler playing for the ducks deserve some attention.

And she also told me, Sean, before we came on the air, just before you got onto this recording, Danielle pointed out that Pat Verbeek is a pretty good name for a time. Verbeak. So what else do we got? What else we got in the hopper here? You know what? This is a good one because I immediately had a few pop into mind.

Paul Ranger, never playing for the New York Rangers is one. one. Martin Saint-Louis never playing for St. Louis, never playing for St. Louis, is on there. And then the big one that I think a lot of people think of is Miroslav Chatan. With the Devils. Never did play for the New Jersey Devils. We never got to see S-A-N on the back of a Devils jersey, which was a big loss. But then I went digging to see if there were some other ones out there, and I ended up finding a Reddit thread, and they've just got a ton of them. There's a Reddit thread for everything.

There is. Let me throw one in there for you before, because this one's probably going to be taken. But what about Mark Habshyde playing for Montreal? That's a good one. I don't think that was on this list. Okay. Mark Habs. It probably should have been.

Yeah. I'll throw some other ones out there. Ethan Bear to the Bruins would be good. Yeah. Obviously Jet Wu on the Winnipeg Jets. They do mention Cam Fowler. Somebody also points out that Dallas Drake never played for Dallas or for the Ducks. which really feels like he should have been there.

Dan High Note playing for the St. Louis Blues. That works pretty well. That's a great one. There has been one player in NHL history named King who has played for the L.A. Kings, and that was Dwight King. That's pretty good one. Somebody here points out Adam Foote on the Colorado Avalanche back when they had the Bigfoot patch. The patch, yeah.

So that one, that was pretty good. Garth Snow to the Colorado Avalanche would have been a good one. And let me just say, there was a couple of other ones that I really liked in there. Yeah, Bill Quackenbush, I don't think was around to play for the Ducks. That might be the all-timer. Quack and Bush. I mean, yeah, you almost got to bring them back. Somebody mentions Mike Eagles was on the Capitals when they had the Screaming Eagle logo.

So that was pretty cool. and then, yes, of course, the ultimate one, the two ultimate ones, and this is from junior hockey, but somebody points out that Pete Peters never played for the Peterborough Pete's, which would have been fantastic. Pete Peters. But the one that beats that is there was a player in junior hockey, never made the NHL. His name was Wheaton King. And he did play for the Wheat Kings, the Brandon Wheat King.

in the WHL. So, I mean, that one I don't think can ever be beaten. Wheaton King plays for the Wheat Kings. Oh, yeah, that's your all-timer. The name Leif, like L-E-I-F, is a fairly common name, right, in Scandinavia? Yeah. Like, has there ever been an NHL? I'm having a hard time in my mind thinking of an NHL player whose first name was Leif.

I just looked it up and there's only been three and none of them stuck around very long. Who was Leap Erickson? Was there some... Was there like a celebrity or something? Like somebody named Leaf Erickson? Why is that name? Probably. That, yeah, let's see.

It's Leif Erickson. He was an explorer. There you go, which I guess is a type of celebrity. Yeah. But yeah. Yeah, it's like Magellan. Leif Svensson and Leif Rowland, neither one of which ever played for the Leafs.

Okay. But yeah, we've never got Brent Burns going to the flames would be another good one. Somebody says Brandon, Brandon saw it on the blues. You kind of have to, that one's maybe a bit of a stretch. Yeah. Hey, you know what, though? They're all a bit of a stretch. But I like that.

That's a fun way. If anyone has some other suggestions, by all means, hit us up in the comment section of this podcast. You can tweet at us. We always have a lot of fun with that. Hey, speaking of having a lot of fun, let's wrap up the show, as we always do, with a little this week in hockey history.

And in fact, I just want to focus on one thing that happened, okay? Because this is fascinating to me. utterly fascinating. We're going to take our listeners back to March the 15th of 1941. So March 15th, 1941. The Montreal Canadians are playing their final game of the regular season. Okay. I believe they're playing the...

Actually, I don't even know who they're playing. But I think they were playing New York. Final game of the regular season. Then Montreal head coach Dick Irvin, Sean, doesn't know who his goalie is going to be to start the playoffs. Okay? So his last game of the regular season, he's like, here's what we're going to do. Roughly every seven, roughly every seven minutes of the game, we're going to just alternate

goalies. So on this date, in the final game of the regular season, he had two goalies named Bert Gardner and Paul B. Bow. And every seven minutes, he would rotate them in and out. And miraculously, the Habs actually got a shutout with this bizarre format. They win six nothing. I just need to get your thoughts on this radical approach. And I mean, to me, all I could think about was vague.

Like I'm thinking about recent goalie controversies. Can you imagine if a couple of years ago or last year, like Vegas did this with Lennar and Flurry and Pete DeBore's like, listen, every seven minutes you're going to rotate. Like this just would never happen ever in this day and age. That would have been fantastic. Yeah, it never would happen. And apparently from what I've been able to see never happened again. So even though it worked in the sense that they got a shutout, Dick Gervant never went back to it. I just love the idea that you go into the last game, not sure who your goalie is.

So you're like, you know what I need? An extra 28 minutes to let me know which guy to go with. Page and Sheldon Keith. I mean, the Leafs could change goalies every seven minutes just based on performance, I think, would be a chance to. to catch this record. Because, yeah, you talk about unbreakable records. That would have been what? The five or six or seven goalie switches in a game,

that probably would be a tough one. But, yeah, I mean, I'd love to see it. In theory, you never see teams intentionally, you know, planned goalie switches, other than in preseason, obviously, where the guy will, they'll split a game. but you know you don't see it the way that you do in you know in baseball like we've seen evolutions in how baseball pitching is done where you know guys teams will even use somebody they don't uh for the first time through the order and then bring in the starter later i don't know

if there's any room for that kind of thinking in hockey but um the the two things that you never see in hockey that i wish would come back this is one of them and then uh scotty bowman changing goalies on the fly in the 90s with Pittsburgh. Yeah. Which is something that anytime I start on about weird rules, somebody will eventually ask me, are you allowed to change goalies on the fly? And the answer is yes, you can. It doesn't make sense to do it.

But, you know, when you're Scotty Bowman, you're just screwing around, you can do it. There's a great clip on YouTube. You can find it where it's, they're playing the Rangers. And the Rangers come down and they shoot on one goalie. and the puck goes back the other way and the Rangers come down and shoot again and it's a different goalie. And it takes the announcers a second

to realize what's going on, but it's a different goaltender than it was 30 seconds ago. It's one of my all-time favorite weird hockey clips. I think we need to combine the two. Let's just every seven minutes, no matter where the puck is, it's just a new guy coming in.

Okay, you need to break down that clip on one of your future mailbags or something just to, I don't know that that's a kind of a well-known, known enough fact that boomed. I feel like I have, but it's... Okay, I'll look for that, but to me that's really fun. I'm not sure why it was done.

I think it was literally like he wanted to split the game, like get him both some action. It's last, late, late in the season. And I'm guessing that at some point somebody went, you know what would be cool? Let's change on the fly. And Scotty Bowman was like, you know what, scourer, we're the, we're the,

we're the Mario Lemieux era penguins. We do whatever we want. And it's just, if I remember right, the clip itself is like really bad quality. It's like one of these that somebody's posted off at their old VHS. But it's you get the gist of it. And it's very, very funny. Oh, man. I think, you know what?

And I think in the NFL, I think the Dallas Cowboys did this once before our time. Like in the early 70s, I think they had a game. Roger Stoblock was their quarterback. I think the other guy was like, must have been like Craig Morton. And they like all, the Tom Landry like alternated them in, I think in every season. series. Like one series, Stalbock, one series Morton. That's the only other thing I could think of like this Dick Irvin thing where you rotate your goal. You see it in football, right? Where they'll bring in other quarterbacks because a play calls for a guy who's, you know, more of a runner or more has a deep arm or something like that. I don't, I can't think of a scenario in hockey. I guess the other, the closest would be the few times that we've seen coaches switch in different goalies for the shootout because they felt like one guy was. in a shootout situation. Did that happen once with the Oilers and Mike?

Was it Mike Morrison? Did he come in for a shootout? The Leafs did it once too. Ron Wilson did it with Curtis Joseph. And I think it was done a couple times and it didn't work. And so, of course, this being the NHL, being the copycat league, it is. The teams didn't win. So it was done.

Yeah. That's the end of that. We tried it three times and it didn't work. So that's, that's got to be it. All right, listen, that's going to be it for us. This was a lot of fun. as always, the hour, the hour flew by. I want to remind everybody, like I try to teed up there with Jesse.

Coming up on Monday, we've got a fun kind of live edition of the athletic hockey show. It gets you caught up on everything that happens on Trade Deadline Day. I'm sure. Now, Sean, before I let you go, do you have a live, like, what's your, sometimes on Trade Deadline Day, you have a live blog or some different things? What are we got going on? I'm doing the live blog again this year. I'm not, honestly, I'm not sure who's in there with me, although I'm sure there'll be a few of us. So yeah, you can start bright and early, and while you're listening to Ian,

you can be hit and refresh on the live blog and seeing my stuff as I react for the day as it unfolds. There we go. Good stuff. All right. We'll leave it there. I want to remind you again, you can email us your questions at the Athletic Hockey Show at gmail.com. Leave us a voicemail at 845-445-8459. And if you're not a subscriber, we've got a great deal going on right now. It's a dollar a month for your first six months when you go to the athletic.com.

slash hockey show. You can also subscribe to the Athletic Audio Plus on Apple Podcast. Get all of our bonus content from our entire network and start with a 30-day free trial and then it's just 99 cents a month after that.