The Athletic Hockey Show - Blackhawks Kyle Davidson moving on from Corey Perry, CJ's NHL trade board, the double tap in the shootout & Thatcher Demko & Jonathan Quick's renaissance in net.

Episode Date: November 29, 2023

Ian and Julian try to make sense of Blackhawks GM Kyle Davidson's post Corey Perry presser in Chicago, how dangerous rumors are when they get out of control, and the cess-pool the internet can be.Down Goes Brown joins to discuss his latest quiz on NHL player nicknames and the all-star draft returning, Jesse Granger highlights comeback seasons for Thatcher Demko and Jonathan Quick, the work still to be done for Jack Campbell as he tries to make his way back to the Oilers, and the double tap in the shootout in Toronto which saw video review reverse a win for the Panthers. Plus, Ian and Julian go over Chris Johnston's trade board, with a quartet of Calgary Flames leading the way.   Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Hockey Show. Welcome to your Wednesday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show in the middle of the week. It's Ian Mendez's Julian McKenzie with you. I don't know, next hour or so we're going to get Sean McIndoo, evil quiz master, down goes brown. He's going to pop by. I'm going to tell you how poorly I did on his latest quiz, Julian. Awful.

Oh, boy. I try to avoid any embarrassment. doing some of those quizzes. I know I did the one big, I don't it wasn't really a quiz, but he tried to get everyone to do those predictions at the beginning of the year. I let myself do that.

But to embarrass myself further on these, on those quizzes from DGB, I can't do it for my own ego. I can't. Oh my God. Like I put the, like in the preseason, name the five teams that you,

like for sure will make the playoffs. Like Edmonton might have been the first team I wrote down. And it's like, a lot of people, a lot of people did. that you weren't the only one to make that mistake. I mean, hey, they still make it. They could still make it.

Absolutely. And I remember I said this earlier in the week. I said that that Vegas Edmonton game on Tuesday, that was going to be a real litmus test for me. Now, the Oilers kind of got a little sloppy in the third period, allowed Vegas to tie it. But they win, and that's all that matters right now. So, well, anyway, we'll talk to Jesse Granger about that little later, because Granger's going to drop by later in the podcast.

So it's a Wednesday. We got Down Goes Brown. We got Jesse Granger. And it's another day with Corey Perry News to digest, Julian. And, you know, we talked about this on Monday with Las. Tuesday again, we spoke about it. Kyle Davidson spoke to the media, I don't know, about two hours after we wrapped up our pod. So before we kind of get into the fallout and Davidson's comments and where we go from here,

I want to play a little sampling here. This is about a minute and change of Kyle Davidson on Tuesday explaining the Corey Perry situation. As this is an individual personnel matter, I will not be able to disclose any details related to the initial reporting, investigation, or the findings. However, I do want to be very clear on this one point. This does not involve any players or their families, and anything that suggests otherwise or anyone that suggests otherwise is wildly inaccurate, and frankly, it's disgusting. Is there any criminality involved here? this was a workplace matter. Yeah, you know, it's obviously been very tough.

Yeah, it's been a tough couple days. That's an emotional Kyle Davidson. Speaking to the media, doesn't give all the details, as he said, Julian. It's a workplace matter. But I am glad that he stepped up and addressed some of the rumors that are flying around and said, look, this has nothing to do with a teammate, nothing to do with a family member. And anybody who suggests otherwise is disgusting. And I don't know why we allow rumors to run rampant and why people think it's funny to maybe make memes or, you know, create

jokes out of, you know, these could be serious situations that involve real people in real life. But that was a real reminder of the toxicity that exists in the, you know, in the, the world in the last 48 hours. When we've seen people put stuff out that is unequivocally false about the situation with Corey Perry. It was, I'm glad to use the word because disgusting is the right adjective there. Yeah.

Yeah. I have to, my whole thing with that is we in the media, or at least we had heard about this rumor for days. This was not something that materialized on Monday and then they had to jump the gun and if they had done it that fast, I think I would have commended them for that. But this is something that had been a rumor for days. And this is something that had been on social media for days, memes, jokes, all of that stuff had been festering for days.

And the fact that it only took what, maybe still under a week, but it took them as long as Chicago did to denounce that. That for me initially in that moment, I was a little disappointed by. So yes, it's good that Kyle Davidson took the time to. say those comments, but I would have liked Chicago to have denounced that rumor about Corey Perry a lot sooner. And I feel for, I mean, we're not really going to mention the rumor in detail here, but we will mention that Carter Bredard was mentioned in that rumor. And I feel for him and I feel for his family as a result of that. And I think people ended up making jokes out of that because it's the internet.

People are just going to find ways to make jokes out of anything. It doesn't matter if it is a geopolitical conflict or the possibility of a player doing something inappropriate on a team. People on the internet, especially on Twitter, will find ways to make jokes about something. It just is what it is. But I think in a situation like this where Chicago, the organization, we knew they were not going to get the benefit of the doubt with regards to how they were going to be transparent. read about this organization, they needed to do as much as they could write. And they tripped on a hurdle by letting that rumor live as long as it did. Okay.

But here, and this is a legitimate question. Do organizations have an obligation to address fake news on the internet? Because now you're telling me that now every team has to go to Reddit and X and wherever. And be like, well, that's not true. That's not true. And that's all I'm saying. Like, like, I don't think anybody reputable or anybody with an ounce of journalistic integrity either amplified that rumor, reported that rumor, et cetera, right? Like, I'm torn.

I agree with you. I understand what you're saying that they should have. But, but there's a process in place that they, unfortunately, that there's a legal process at play that they don't have to answer to the internet trolls. You know what I mean? Like, I guess that's my only, and I hate to say. my defense of Chicago, but you're not obligated to answer Rando Johnny eight numbers

who's like, I heard this. Well, come on. Like, anyway, there's a process of play. That's all. You're absolutely right on that. And there are other times where other disgusting and frankly inaccurate rumors go out there on the internet.

And you could literally start one right now off your social media account if you feel so compelled. But there's just something about that one particular rumor that had so much legs. And, I mean, it's one thing to just go on Twitter and see random Twitter people talking about. I'm telling you, like, even people in hockey circles had heard about that rumor. It's not to say it was legit, but it was something that definitely came through the, the, not the newswires, I want to say, but it was something that had gotten enough legs to the point where the team had to come out and say something.

It's not by accident that Kyle Davidson included that. in his statement because you're right. They could have just let that go and that that just be an internet thing. But it had gotten to a point where it had been discussed enough. And I think enough reputable people, even if they didn't report it, they had heard that and wanted enough confirmation. I'm sure enough people asked around the organization. That's a big reason why that ends up getting to that point, right? It's one thing to go on Reddit or to go on Twitter and see that stuff.

I don't think they make that without enough people asking them in the organization. hey, this is out there. Is this true? That's my thinking on that. Yeah. Anyway, like, we got some answers from from Kyle Davidson. Do we get some answers? I wanted to tell you about that because I wondered.

I think so. Like, I think we got some answer. I don't know. You know, and I hate this, Julian, I hate this with the fire of whatever, a thousand sons. but there is a legal process at play that unfortunately envelops things in a cone of silence. And I'm not saying I like it. I'm just saying I'm aware of it. You know, that's part of it, right?

Like we demand transparency and we don't get it all the time. But there is an explanation. Like, okay, let me ask you this. And this is, I'm real curious about this because if you listen to Chicago players, whether it's Seth Jones or Nick Folino, they're adamant. They're like, we don't know what happened. We don't know what he did. Do you believe that? Do you believe they don't know exactly what happened?

I have a hard time thinking none of those players have heard anything or have no idea about what happened. it seems as if this whatever happened, and there have been reports from ESPN since then that have talked about this, where it seemed whatever happened with Cory Perry took place during that road trip where they were in Columbus and were Mark Lazarus mentioned to us yesterday, there were no media members on that trip.

I don't know. That was one question. If I happened to be in the room, I would have loved to have asked, is if do you think your players, deserve to know what has happened. Because it's one thing for people outside the organization to speculate and wonder aloud what happened.

For players to not know why one of their teammates is no longer part of the organization, I have a hard time not, I have a hard time wrapping my head around the idea that they wouldn't have some idea about what happened. That doesn't make any sense to me. But don't you, okay, would you agree with this premise too that once the players know, everybody else is going to know. Like somebody, one player will leak it to his agent or leak it to his family member who will leak it to a reporter.

Who's to say that hasn't happened already? Yeah. Who's to say that hasn't happened already, right? Yeah. Like, that's a good question. Or people in an organization, regardless of the players, are, might be willing to say, hey, this is what happened. This, they don't put my name on it, blah, blah, blah.

I don't know. I don't know. I have a hard, I feel as if now, I mean, I was in the camp that said that we were not going to know the whole, we weren't going to know the whole truth and I'm still firmly in that camp,

but there's a part of me that wonders between our shop and other shops covering this team. How many more details are we going to learn about all of this? And I still wonder what that means for Corey Perry's future. I know we discussed it a bit yesterday, but I do wonder if this really is the end of the road for it. Well, as Michael writes in, Michael's streaming us live here, Michael says in a league like the NHL where players don't have contracts

terminated out of nowhere, the vague wording of the termination would only lead to massive speculation when nothing is said from the team. And I got one more question. I got one more question for you. Like I think of some people who looked at that press conference and they look at the wording of that statement and they, I'm going to paraphrase our friend Dom here who quote tweeted Scott Bowers' tweet with a statement

and he says, how bad do you have to mess off to get kicked off the Blackhawks for moral reasons? Is that not something valid to think of considering how they've handled previous situations to think, oh, well, they've had all these different problematic people for different reasons and they didn't terminate their contracts or tried to terminate their contracts, why is Corey Perry in this situation? And yes, it's a very different regime, a different person at the top in this

particular situation, but there is still precedent, right? Like, it's not that completely different going from one member of the Worts family to another member of the Wirtz family in some respect. So what I'm just curious from your vantage point, when you hear stuff like that and you see people tweet stuff like that, what does that make you think? Yeah, I mean, it's fair. I think Chicago deserves a ton of criticism for the way they handled Cal Beach in 2010, a ton of it. And unfortunately for them, everything that they do in the next five years, 10 years, some would argue for in perpetuity, is going to be measured against that.

That's what you get when you completely abdicate all responsibility for a serious situation. I'm sorry, but you deserve all of the, the DOM tweet. yesterday, you deserve it. And I'm, that's, that's just the nature of it. And it's going to take a long time. And I think like Kyle Davidson spoke from, it felt like an authentic place yesterday. It's hard to get inside someone's mind, but he, he did seem to exude authenticity and sincerity to me. But he was also wrapped up and constrained by legalities. I, and I think that's where we're, we're having this battle, right? And that, you know, anyway, that's, that's where. I'll tell you what we're going to take a, a little break here.

When we come back, Sean McAdo, Down Goes Brown is going to join us. We'll chat about his evil quiz that dropped in Wednesday's athletic, and I went 50%, so it wasn't great for me. So we'll come back on the other side with Down Goes. All right, let's bring in our guests here. It's a Wednesday, which means Sean McAdo. Down Goes Brown is popping by the pod, and evil genius needs to be your moniker.

Forget Down Goes Brown. Evil trivia genius because, Sean, I went 10 for 20 on your nicknames quiz. And I don't want to do any spoilers, but that was tough. That's a really tough quiz. I just tried to go through it in the break just now, and I did worse than 10 on 20. Just about everybody has done worse than 10 on 20. Ian, you're at the head of the class with that. That is, there have been very few responses that have been you.

Yeah, it's, look, it's, uh, this is one where, you know, when you set up these quizzes in Google, you can go and see, like it shows you the little bell curve of however everyone's doing. It's not great. And, and the thing is with this one, a lot of times when I do a quiz, I'm coming up with the questions. They're coming completely out of my own head. I'm putting the answers in. And if the scores are low, sometimes I end up looking at it going, okay, I made it too hard.

This is, you know, clearly I misjudged where people will go. With this one, there aren't even questions. It's just nicknames. I just cut and paste the nickname that hockey reference, the definitive site out there for hockey knowledge, claims belong to these players. And then I give you four players, one of which is the right answer. And the number that I tweeted out just a little while ago that shocked me, I want to say out of the 20 questions on the quiz,

there are seven where the people who the public out there are running less than 20% on getting the right answer. There's only four options. So if you're just completely guessing, you should have a 25% chance. And there's seven of the 20 questions that people are getting less than 20% I don't know if that says something about hockey reference. I don't know if it says something about what they consider a nickname. I don't know if it says something about us as fans that we've been so beaten down for years and years

by the stupid, lazy, worthless nicknames that typically get circulated that were just shocked to see stuff that actually kind of looks interesting. But people are not doing well on this. If I was, you know, if I was like my kids' high school teacher, I might have to like send everyone home and we'll redo the quiz again tomorrow. And maybe we'll do open book next time. Yeah. Seriously, like, I'm not going to say what my score is.

If I had a teacher look over my score, they would be calling in my parents to have a serious discussion. It's ridiculous. But to your point about the nicknames, like, again, I'm not going to spoil it for everyone else who hasn't done the quiz here. But like, the idea that someone could be nicknamed the crane and the crane be attached to the player that it's named to, what is that?

say about the quality of of nicknames in the national hockey league here right like you look at so many other leagues with that with nicknames and it feels as if the quality is better but and again i'm not going to spoil this but to nickname a player that player the crane we need to do so much better how does that even happen well i i yes for sure but i i got to say out of these the 20 nicknames on the list there's some pretty good nicknames in there and and i tell you if if this was the that we were dealing with for the hockey world, typically, I think I might be okay with that. There's no, you know, right, like there's the old punchline. It's a cliche at this point, but it's because it's true. You take a player's last name, first syllable of it, you add er or E, and that's

it. That's your, you know, that's the nickname. And that's as creative as it gets. And there's none of that in this quiz. And again, I'm not making any of this stuff up. This is hockey reference. At some point, I don't know why they did it. I don't know how they did it. Went out. and scraped the entire internet it seems like for any references to nicknames these players of head. There's some cool stuff in there, man, Big Cactus, that's a good nickname.

Raccoon Jesus, I'm not really sure what the story is there, but that feels like a pretty good nickname. The Racking is good. Racking is really good. It's whatever. Big Cat, I don't like Big Cat. The Dutchland Dangler I like.

Okay, you know. The Dutchland Dangler I like. That was a fantastic one. That one was old school. Like, that's what we used to do. And look, I linked to the piece, I think, in the intro of the quiz, but there's a piece I wrote a few years ago about this crisis that we're living through of hockey nicknames. The fact that hockey nicknames are awful now and everybody recognizes it. And I'll tell you what the problem is.

It's us. It's the media. This is, you know, the media gets blamed for every problem that happens. And 99% of the time, it's just, it has no basis in reality. This one actually is our fault because at some point we started asking the players, what's your nickname or what's that, you know, what's your teammates nickname? And players don't call each other by these cool nicknames.

They just call each other, er and E and, you know, Smithy and Joneser and all this stuff. And we started like going with that. It's not their name, their job to come up with the nicknames. It's our job and the fans jobs. And we're the ones that should be coming up with cool stuff. Like nobody was calling George,

Vezina, the Shukutomi cucumber, you know, back in the day. Nobody was like on the train playing cards with him. Like, hey, Shkutomi, Pucumber, pass me another. That wasn't a thing. They brought Calding Georgia or something, you know, Vesey, but some old-timey sports writer soaked in scotch wearing like, you know, a cheap suit went, you're from Shukumee, you're the Shukum, because you're kind of cool. And everybody else went, that's awesome.

That's your new nickname. And that's how it should be done. And like Deutsche Langer, that's great. Take the name place, alliterate it to something. Fantastic nickname. Nobody thinks that this player's teammates are going to be walking around like, hey, there goes to Deutsche Dengler. That would never happen.

But it's not their job to do that. It's us. And we need to take control of this. And maybe hockey references doing the Lord's work by highlighting some of this stuff. Because you're right, the crane, not a great nickname, but better than Smither. Yeah, I appreciate that you think only old-timey writers from like 100 years ago were soaked in scotch, as if that's not a lot of things. Yeah. And we're cheap suits.

As if that's not. As opposed to soaked in old fashioned like some sports writers like I probably mentioned today. Oh, boy. I order one fancy cocktail with you and I've been labeled, labeled for life. I want to ask you about the All Star game and the format that, because Julian and I, actually, Julian went on an elite rant yesterday, John. In fact, I said I wanted this rant to be labeled, young man yells at cloud. Because Julian says he's so disgusted with the All-Star draft format that he wishes that.

There's one part of it. Well, you don't like the fact that when it gets some of the final four guys, they get randomly assigned. You're like, you know what? Enough of it. Enough of being overly sensitive. Let's get our Kessel moment back. I want to know what you think of this, Sean.

The draft is coming back. The All-Star draft is coming back with that caveat that the last four players remaining in the pool, they're not going to have to suffer through the humiliation of being the last guy picked. They'll be randomly assigned to the four teams. Yeah. And I don't like it either because that was part of the entertainment package in the previous go-around, whether it was who's going to get embarrassed by being the last one or in some cases who wants to be last. We all remember Alexander Ovechkin lobbying to get the car and all of that.

So I'm a little bit bummed out that they took this away. But at the same time, that scenario, that, you know, Phil Kessel awkwardly sitting in the chair by himself, that to my understanding was a big part of the reason why we lost this draft in the first place. Because these, again, yet another example of these big tough hockey players who are the toughest athletes in all of the world. and oh boy, we love to talk about how tough hockey players are. But if you hurt their feelings, oh, I mean, they're just, they're just, they're done. They're gone, right? But since that is the reality, if this is the tradeoff that we have to make in order to get the draft back,

I guess I can live with it. I'm with Julian. I would like to see it without and, you know, forget your feelings are hurt, you know. So what? It's the same. I mean, how many problems in the. NHL come down to some player didn't want their feelings hurt. And so, you know, we do or some GM or some coach or whoever it is or Gary

Betman. Everybody's very, very sensitive. So, I mean, there's my, you know, I'll contribute some old man yelling at a cloud there. But also, as an old man in my wisdom, I understand sometimes you've got a compromise. And if this is the compromise that we need it, I'll take it because it'll get me the rest of the draft and the rest of the stuff that's fun. Now, here's the different cloud I'm going to yell at.

Because somebody sent this to me. I've forgotten about it. But I wrote a piece in two, when was it in Ottawa? In 2012. 2012, yeah. That I believe was the second year that they had the draft. And if you remember that we'd had it one year, everybody was real, oh, who's going to go first? This is going to be really good.

And Daniel Alpherson was one of the captains that year. And he just came out two days before. And he was like, yeah, with the first pick, I'm going to take Eric Carlson. And Eric Carlson was not like a superstar at that point. He was a, you know, a bona fide all-star, but he hadn't won the Norris yet. Like he wasn't. And everybody was just like, oh, so you're just going to take your teammate and you're going to spoil the suspense for us in advance.

Memo to the players. Stop drafting your teammates. Actually try. Just fake it. Just k-fave it for me that you actually care about this enough to get me to watch and care about it where you guys, you know, who's going to go number one? We want to speculate on that. And if you just put, you know, if Austin Matthews is one of the captains and it's in Toronto and he's, well, I got to take Mitch Marner.

He's my buddy. That stinks. Forget about that. Let's split some of these guys up. I don't know if you need a rule that says no drafting teammates. But don't draft your teammates. Don't draft your friends. And don't tell us two days in advance, certainly, and ruin the suspense.

Let's at least act like you're going to take this as seriously as I take my fantasy football draft. And, you know, then it will actually be. fun for us, the fans. If you remember us, like the people that are the whole reason this, this whole thing gets to happen in the first place, I don't know, just a thought, throwing it out there. Can I, can I mention an idea that I've mentioned online before, and I think the league can still, I mean, can still adopt. I, like, the idea of having four teams, I mean, okay, I get it, fine.

We had the whole division stuff and all that. I would really think the NHO would benefit from just having two teams and you have two faces of the game as your captains. In a much different world, remember last year, the way we were looking at Alexander Ovechkin and the political ties that he has in Russia, if it weren't

for that, I think we would be so much on board with a Crosby versus Ovechkin NHL All-Star game format where you have two of the best players from their era and the rivalry that was there with those two players. You should check out that Robert Rossi article

from last week, by the way, where they talk about how they pretty much saved the game. Ovechkin straight up said that. But if you had a format where you had those two players picking guys on their team and you make it a competition to figure out, okay, is team Crosby going to win the week? Is team Ovechkin going to win the week? Like that would have been a really good idea.

Now maybe you have it set where it's like team McDavid versus team dry sidel or team Jack Hughes versus team Quinn Hughes. I would love it if the NHL adopted a format where you had the two good players. They don't have to be absolutely the best players just two, even you could even have it, Team Brady Kachuk versus Team Matthew Kachuk, two natural rivals and you let those guys pick players for their teams and you add some cash incentive at the end of it all to really make it interesting.

I think the NHL would benefit if they had something like that. Yeah, I love that idea. Did we lose Sean here for a second? We might have. We may have lost them. That's what you get for creating an, evil quiz. You get booted.

You vanish to the shadow realm. You know what? I like that idea. I like that idea where you do the, there's usually a natural, like you said, a Crosby Ovechkin, Kachuk brother, you know, whatever, Hughes brothers might be a fun one, right? Yeah. Coming up. Just something, something to have a little bit of fun with.

And I like Sean's idea, too, of, you know, you shouldn't be allowed to draft your teammate. You really shouldn't. Like, you shouldn't be allowed. Matthew shouldn't be able to take. you know, whatever, Neelander or Marner or whatever, right? Like, switch it up and, uh, and go that. I, I, I didn't think about that as, as much, but I'm willing to understand,

I'm willing to listen to that argument. Just, I guess, as a way to make things more interesting. Like the guys know each other around the league. So there's no reason for them to just stick with their own guys. And then in some cases, too, like you're some teams who only just get like, one player anyway. But yeah, even then, like, I'm sure like there would still be some guys who would like pick their former teammates or players they grew up playing with.

Like if there's still going to be some kind of of camaraderie there, but it would be interesting in some way if they didn't pick a teammate. You're right. Okay. Well, we have lost Down Goes Brown due to the internet. You know, he's around the corner from me. He's my neighbor. And I was having some internet.

I think internet issues. Maybe it's like just in our neighborhood. There's a something going on and all. Ottawa, man, with that internet, man. You know what happened? It's not, it's not the auto internet. My laptop, my New York Times issued laptop lied to me. You know, when your laptop does that thing where it pops up and it goes, hey man, batteries run a little low. You got about 30 minutes, maybe 25 minutes. And then three minutes later, it's like, no, we're, we're out. And I, normally I would leave it, but I had to

hop back on because I got to say, Julian, you were making good points and I didn't want this to look like I had, you know, just stormed off or if I had ditched out because what I was doing is I was nodding along at the fact that I agreed with where you're going with that. Boy, how good would this be? Let me throw this one out there, okay? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And again, you would probably have to be two on two. And I get, they do it four on four, partly for the divisions,

but partly because they want three on three because nobody tries in these games anyways and all this other stuff. But imagine it was two on two. And let's say you make, you know, I think we'd be like, let's say we make Matthew Kuchner one captain. And we make Sidney Crosby, the other captain, okay? but then you got to go to Matthew Kchuk and you got to say all right man again like we're going to k-fave this a little bit but start talking some trash about the old guys in the league start talking some trash about how it's the it's a young man's game and you're going to pick young guys and you're going to pick like you know you only want the the guys who are younger than you you're going to pick the Jason Robertsons and these guys and you're going to leave all the old guys for sit and just imagine that like you know first of all be interesting as a fan But also, he would get some of these guys a little bit ticked off.

Like, imagine me and Joe Pavelsky at the All-Star game? Like, wait a second, I'm getting trash talk because I'm old. Like, I'm going to, you know, take maybe Sydney gets five rounds in and he swipes Brady Kachuk for Matthew. He could just as a little like, you know, hey, there's going to show you. I think that would be fun. You're right. Two-on-two, or sorry, like a two-team one-v-one game is always more entertaining. But you got to, the players have to try.

They have to at least pretend to care. if they don't, the rest of this is all just window dressing and wishful thinking on our part. That's why you need some kind of incentive at the end of it. You can't just have it where I know a lot of people like to give a lot of guff to baseball at the idea that an all-star game can dictate which league would have home field advantage in the World Series. But they at least tried something. They at least tried to make it worthwhile to watch and players tried to play for it, right? Like, I like that creativity.

I want something like that. Julian, the majorly baseball all-star game was always the one that was the most competitive to begin with. Like, because it's essentially a one-v-one battle, right? Pitcher versus hitter. It's, you can pretty much go at full tilt, right? Like, you can replicate. Unlike the pro bowl in the NFL, which obviously just evaporated because it was just,

it was, you can't do that. The only thing you think of the pro ball is who's that Bill's punter that, the there was the big hit right like yeah the one guy got blown up in the yeah that's it like but like the hockey all-star game has gone the same way where it's it's become the pro bowl and it doesn't replicate the actual game and and and just you know I'm not saying I want guys throwing body checks getting in fights I'm not even saying blocking shots but it is impossible like when you see a two-on-one and the one guy's just coming kind of back just kind of vaguely waving a stick not even trying to break it up.

Well, then, you know, when they go pass, pass, pass, and they score, I'm not impressed. I'm not coming out of my seat on that because there's nobody trying to stop them. Like the play that I always cite, and this, again, this is old, this is before your time, Julian. But when the All-Star game was in Pittsburgh and everyone's watching Merrill Lemieux on his home ice, and he came in and he makes this great move where he's coming into the net and Ally Afraid. I remember this is a leaf fan. Ally Afraid he slides across to try to stop him.

and Lemieux like toe drags right around him and then picks top corner and everybody jumps out of their seats because it was amazing. That was a great play by Mario, but it was only a great play because Ally Afraidy actually tried to stop him. And all these guys just standing around and half the guys don't even want to shoot anymore because apparently I guess you're not supposed to do that either. It's just terrible. There's nothing the NHL can do. I blame the NHL for everything, but there's nothing they can do to fix the All-Star game until these players actually try a little bit.

So please, can we get something going here? Find some, maybe it's everybody against Tom Wilson and Brad Marchand. I don't know. Like figure out a way to get this somehow that these players will just have a pulse out there. Break a little bit of a sweat is all I'm asking. All right. Hit us up, The Athletic Hockey Show at gmail.com. If you have any suggestions on how to improve the All-Star game or if you like,

the suggestions tossed out by Julian and Sean. As always, Sean, love having you on the Wednesday edition of The Athletic Hockey Show. thanks for this and keep us posted on who ends up with the highest score in that quiz. Yeah, we'll do. Okay, there he goes. Down goes Brown on a Wednesday. And when we do Wednesdays, not only do we do, down goes Brown, we do our goalie guru. Is that what we settled on the nickname with Jesse Granger, goalie guru?

Golly guru. Golly connoisseur. There was another term anyway. Chris Connoisseur. Chris Correspondent. Chris Correspondent. Yes. Netstradamus, I think.

Yeah. There is Daniel, our producer even put that in. Netstraamus. I've got to ask you about a Tuesday night from a goalie's perspective. There's a shootout. It's Toronto and Florida. And Joseph Wall is up against Evan Rodriguez. And I'll be real honest.

On first glance, I thought it was a good goal. Like, I didn't see what the issue was. If I took me about three times watching it and then on video review, full credit to, I saw the TSN feed to Mike Johnson and Mike Johnson and Gordon, Gordon Miller had the call. And they nailed it right away. They're like, ooh, is that a double tap? But where did you, as a goalie, Jesse, like, did you just right away when you see that that high again, that's, that's no goal?

No, no, I didn't see it until the overhead shot. The overhead shot was, and I'm sure that's probably where you saw it too. Yeah. And it was pretty clear that it was a double tap at that point. I'm impressed with, I don't know if the on ice official caught it or if or if they like phoned in from Toronto and said, hey, we got to look at this. but whoever caught that in the moment, obviously it took some time because the players were back in the dressing rooms.

But yeah, no, full credit to whoever caught that because that was not an obvious one at all. But once you saw the overhead angle, it was pretty clear that it was a double tap. Yeah, I got to say, like in fast time, it looks like it's a normal shot. But then you see that like slowed down replay and you see the double tap for Evan Rodriguez. I know Evan Rodriguez, you look at him on the bench, like he just looked beside of the And I know Paul Maurice wasn't happy about that, but I think they got that call right. I was I was surprised at how fast that that looked on on on the replay there. I credit to the officials.

I don't normally do this, but I will give them credit. They got it right. They for sure did. For sure. We got to roll through some of these other goaltending topics here. We've looked a lot at the Vancouver Canucks and how good they've been this year. And we've talked a lot about how how good Quinn Hughes has been, how good J.T. Miller has been. Elias Patterson has been. Where's the love for Thatcher Demko? Where's the love for for that guy?

He seems like he's having himself a really good year. Where do you rank him in terms of goalies in the NHL right now? I think so far we're what a quarter of the way through the season. I think he's been the best goalie in the NHL by a pretty wide margin. Like I don't think any goalie in the league is close to the level Thatcher Demko's on right now. And it's it's awesome to see. It's fun to watch. he's such a big guy and he moves so well for his size and he just processes what's happening in front of him incredibly quickly. He's he leads the league in goal saved above expected, but to me, what's most impressive so far about Thatcher Demko's start is how good he's been on the grade A chances. So Vancouver, they like to play a run and gun style. And when you play like that, you're going to

give up chances and you need your goalie to step up for you. One of the new things that we get to look at with the NHL's puck tracking technology that they're actually giving us stats to the public now is you get to see where the shots are coming from and that's your Demco's save percentage on high danger shots. So shots that are 29 feet or closer in the slot, basically right on the doorstep. First of all, he's faced a bunch of them. He's faced the seventh most of any goal in the league at 125 high danger shots against. Just to put it in perspective. So the, the, league average save percentage just overall, not for high danger, just we're talking all shots is 903. The league save percentage average for high danger chances is only 787. That's your Demko's

safe percentage on high danger chances within 29 feet of the net is 912. So he's got a better save percentage on the most difficult shots he's faced all year than the average goal he does overall for the entire NHL. He's been unbelievable in those situations. And he's a huge reason the Canucks have turned it around. Obviously, everybody else is playing better, but without that guy standing on his head back there, they aren't where they are right now. You know, I love that. That high dangerous

stat really paints the picture of how good he's been. I think if you had a vote right now, a lot of people would say, Thatcher Demko is your Vesna trophy winner. I'm going to throw out another potential award-winning goalie for you, Jesse, and it's not for the Vesna, it's for the Masterton. How about a little

love for Jonathan Quick? Here's a guy that I think a lot of his figured he was done, kind of ended weirdly. Remember he was in Columbus for that little touch last year. And we figured that was it for him. To start this season, Jonathan Quick, 6-0 and 1 with the Rangers, a 930 save percentage of buck 99 goals against.

You want to talk about surprise stories, comeback stories, whatever. Boy, quick, quick would be at the top of this, wouldn't he? Yes, I cannot believe it's happening, to be completely honest. Well, hopefully at last, long. We'll see how long it lasts. So last year, I got to see him quite a bit in Vegas. And he was coming

off of a really, really tough season in L.A., a two, tough two seasons in L.A., where his stats were the worst of any goalie in the league. Like, we're talking out of 130 goalies that had played, his stats were the worst of all of them. And he came into Vegas, and he played relatively well, behind a team that plays really good defense. But I could see the, the technique, I mean, he's always been technically, maybe not the most sound. goalie. He likes to go paddle down. He's real crouched. He's he's he's kind of along the ice bouncing back and forth. He's definitely not doing what every goalie coach is telling every young goalie to do. But he's so athletic. He makes up for it. You, you kind of thought, well,

he's reached the point in father time has finally caught up. And now he can't make up for those technical deficiencies with just elite athleticism and hand eye coordination. But apparently he hasn't reached that age because he's doing it this year. He's yeah, this is not. a case of like Jonathan Quick changed the way he's playing and has has fixed technically what he's doing. No, he's just making saves whether he's in the right position or not because he's Jonathan Quick. So it's it's kind of cool to see. You wonder how much like this guy loves the New York Rangers. Putting on that jersey meant so much for him the first time. I wonder if if you put Jonathan Quick on another like equivalent team that's a good team like the Rangers, but isn't the Rangers, isn't his childhood team that he wanted to play for. I wonder if he's this same Jonathan Quick.

Like how much of playing in Madison Square Garden with that blue jersey on has kind of rejuvenated this old man and made him the Jonathan Quick of old? It's awesome to watch. That's a really cool story. That's a really good point with Jonathan Quick. He probably heard all the comments about everyone saying that he's been washed the last how many years. He takes receipts clearly.

Let's go from one goalie who in Jonathan Quick, who's having a really good year to another goalie who's not having a great year. And that's Jack Campbell in, in Edmonton. It's at a point now where he's asking for for many legacies, goalie coach to help him work while he's in the HL and with how Edmonton's going. I know they're they got the win last night. They're trying to get themselves back into a playoff position, but it doesn't seem as if any trade or any movement

could be imminent. It seems like they're still hopeful that Jack Campbell could be the guy for them in net, obviously working alongside Stuart Skinner. What do you make of the goaltending situation in Edmonton? I mean, yeah, it's not good. So Jack Campbell, I think working with Legacy could potentially be great for him. He worked with him in the off season. And to me, when I watch Jack Campbell, I see a guy who is overthinking everything.

And I just think he's not working on instincts. He's not letting the play come to him. He's overthinking everything like the perfect example. And I'm sure most people listening probably saw the highlight of when they first sent him down to the HL to Bakersfield. And he had that awful goal that he gave up that was like a bouncing puck from the side. And he was down in reverse VH. And it just, it popped through him.

I was talking to a goalie coach the other day and he said, do you think if, if you gave Jack Campbell no instruction and just told him, we're going to put you in net and go stop this puck that's going to bounce towards you? How many times would he let that in? Zero. He would never let it in. His hand-eye coordination. This guy was an NHL goalie.

Like he's good enough to where he's going to make that save 100% of time. I think what happens is he's he's thinking his technique because he's second guessing himself because things that haven't gone well. So suddenly he's he's just in his own head thinking technique. Okay, I've got to put my leg down here. Okay, I've got to seal the post. I've got to do this. And then suddenly the puck's by you.

I think an old school goalie like Manny Legacy could maybe get him thinking less and playing more on instinct and just get back to your roots. Like, Jack, you are a good goalie. Do what you did growing up. do what has gotten you to this point. Stop trying to fix everything technically and just go out there and play. To me, that from the outside, that looks like maybe the best advice Jack Campbell could get right now is just let your talent and your instincts go. And stop trying to fix yourself by overthinking with technique.

So it's not Jack Campbell. It's Stuart Skinner, who is in net on Tuesday as the Oilers knock off the Vegas Golden Knights. Kind of a sloppy third period for Edmonton, but they still get the job done in the shootout. That's all that matters to them right now. They get the two points. And I'm curious, though, Vegas, who you obviously cover, Jesse, first kind of speedwobble for them here in this season. The defending Stanley Cup champions came out of the gate with just a dynamite start.

But now what is it, three, five, and three in their last 11 games, what's going on with the Vegas Golden Knights? And is there a panic's too strong of a word? But is there a little bit of maybe some concern here that this team has won three out of their last 11 hockey games? Yeah, it's, it's, so the reason they've lost all these games is because they couldn't score. The puck just stopped going in the net. And then if you watch the games and you look at the stats, they're still creating offense at about the same rate that they were when they were winning all the games.

They're just not finishing those chances. And this is hockey. So you automatically look, it's like, okay, well, their shooting percentage was super high to start the year. And you say, well, that's going to regress. And this is the regression. It's a very hard regression. They, they've really struggled. They've been shut out three times.

in the last seven games. They weren't even shut out three times the entire last season, including the playoffs, 100 and something games. They didn't get shut out three times. So the crash has been hard on this PDO and this shooting percentage. But I will say that some teams, you get into a slump and you can't score, other parts of your games start to fall apart. You start to force things.

You get impatient. You start your structure breaks down because you're just trying to get a goal. And the Golden Knights have not done that. So that's a credit to Bruce Cassidy and his coaching. that's a credit to the veterans in this team. They're still playing really well defensively, and it's held them in games, and it's allowed them to get some overtime points

that I think otherwise they wouldn't have had. And that's, I mean, they're still in first place in the Pacific Division, even with this awful run that they're on. So I think that I wouldn't say there's concern. I mean, maybe a little bit, but I think they believe that we're creating chances like we were. Eventually they're going to start going in again. Our defensive structure is still great.

Aidan Hill and Logan Thompson have both been really good in net. Logan Thompson had a couple softies last night. But other than that, he played really well. He made some big saves. So I think overall, when you look at this team big picture, they're doing a lot of things right now. They're just not scoring. And that's going to lead to some losses.

Yeah. And like I said, three out of 11, but they built up a nice cushion. Thanks to that terrific start. So no real reason to panic in Vegas. And hey, they got a banner hanging there. So it's all good. Hey, Jesse, as always,

we love having you on the Wednesday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. Thanks for this. and we'll hit you up again next Wednesday. Yep, thanks for having you guys. Jesse Granger, joining us as he does every week. I want to stay in the province of Alberta. We'll go from Edmonton where the Oilers beat the Vegas Golden Knights to Calgary, where the flames are dominating the newest item from Chris Johnston

up at the athletic. And it's the latest trade targets in the league. And the top 10 essentially reads like the Calgary Flames roster, Julian. It's Lindholm and it's Zedorov and it's what? I don't have it right in front of me here. Tana, whatever. But, I mean, it was really

jarring to me. It's not surprising. I expected all of those guys to be on the list but it's super jarring when you open a list of a trade bait board and you see four guys from the same team or one, two, three, four. Yeah, I

did not expect CJ to order them the way that he did, but the truth of the matter is, is that the flames right now, excuse me, they have the most enticing assets of anyone available in the trade market. And maybe that'll change closer to deadline. But the fact that they're in the position that they're in, and they have a number one center who could be available on a contending team, maybe he's a number two, a top four defensemen that's also available, and two other defensemen who could very much plug and play into a lot of different lineups, including one of them who asked to be traded.

The Calgary Flames, from a trade perspective, are the most interesting team in the National Hockey League right now. And it's a very, I'm very fascinated to see how this will end up. I still think it'll be a situation where we'll be seeing a lot of waiting and seeing with most of those assets. I know a lot of people are trying to connect the dots between Calgary and Toronto. And I mean, look in Toronto now, March, Giordano doesn't look like he's healthy. He might miss some time.

Brad Trulliving has gone out there saying he needs some D help. So there's a natural link to be made between both teams. Hey, maybe something is maybe something does happen. That being said, I think for the most part, I'd be surprised if Craig Conroy in one fell swoop decided to sell off all his assets. I still think there may be some waiting to be done here. That being said, I saw that Jordan Ashley got called up in Calgary. That's really interesting to me that that's happening. So, hey, maybe changes our foot.

Maybe they're not. Who knows, I'm not going to try to put too much in the fire. But Calgary definitely will be a team to watch from a trade standpoint between now and March. Okay. And as we wrap up, okay, so the Calgary Flames are dominating the top of that trade board that CJA put out today. Very quickly, I want to talk about the last name that shows up on the list at number 25. Patrick Lining of the club's Blue Jaggagons. You know what I love?

Okay. So every, in every player that C.J does, he gives a description of the player, you know, like, you know, solid stay at home defenseman, smart centerman, whatever. For Patrick Line, the description, embattled occasional superstar. Embattled, occasional superstar. That seems like a fitting descriptor for Line, but like, where's Patrick Liney now in your mind? because I think three or four years ago, we thought, you know,

this guy's got 40 goal potential. He had one 40 goal season. Got 40 goal potential. I don't know what to think of him right now. I don't think he's making 8.7 million and it's going to be hard for him to justify that contract if he's not scoring 40 goals. Does this guy just need another change of scenery again?

I think he does. I just, man, I'm bummed with Patrick Line. I feel like we should be in an era where as great of a player out Austin Matthews is, Patrick Linae should be like right behind him. Like remember earlier we were talking about player versus player in the All Star game format? We should exist in a world. There's an alternate universe where we suggest Austin Matthews versus Patrick Liney. Once upon a time.

One two as it was. There was a time when you could put those two up against each other. And now Austin has completely lapped him. And I see a player in Patrick Lainey who is lacking confidence. It's at a point where he's getting benched in key situations in Columbus. It's not a good team right now. I think you could benefit from a change of scenery somewhere else. The question is, is just where?

I mean, this is a player you mentioned, his salary. Not a lot of teams are going to be able to accommodate that for Patrick Line. So if you watch that change of scenery, the blue jackets are essentially going to have to be creative with him. And speaking of creativity, as we wrap up, we do want to invite our listeners. I'll tell you what, we'll save this from early next week when we're back because we've got a bunch of great submissions via email. Give us your four celebrity captains that you were going to predict will be kind of the All Star Game celebrity captains. We've got some great submissions already via email, the athletic hockey show at gmail.com, but we're going to give you a couple more days. So hit us up, the athletic hockey show at gmail.com.

Or you can also drop as a voicemail. You know, I would love a voicemail on this one. 845, 445-8449. Give us your four All-Star Game Celebrity Captains. We're going to have some fun with this coming up next week, Julian. We've got some great submissions. We'll read those early next week. I want to remind people that the Thursday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show

will come your way with the three-headed trio known as Haley Salvean, Max Bultman, and Sean Gentile. So those three will get you all cut up on the, the Wednesday action gets you all set up for the weekend. And I want to remind you, too, we've got a great deal going on. You can give a gift of a one-year subscription to the Athletic for 1999 and two-year's subscription for 3999. You visit theathletic.com slash hockey show.

Julian, my man, these three days went by in a snap of a finger. This was a ton of fun. Smooth as eggs. Smooth as eggs, my man. Always a pleasure doing these shows with you. Can't wait until next one. Yeah, absolutely. So enjoy the next few days.

Enjoy the Thursday pod with Haley, Max, and Sean. Julie and I are back with you on Monday.