The Athletic Hockey Show - Bob Murray investigation, Jack Eichel surgery, giving Carey Price space to recover and what is wrong with the Colorado Avalanche?

Episode Date: November 10, 2021

On the Wednesday roundtable edition of the Athletic Hockey Show, Rob Pizzo from CBC Sports, along with Jesse Granger and Sara Civian from the Athletic discuss Jack Eichel's trade to Vegas, how excited he is to join a western conference team and Jesse provides us an update on Eichel's historic surgery, which is to be performed on Friday.Julian McKenzie from the Chris Johnston podcast joins the roundtable to discuss the latest on the toxic work environment in Anaheim and the independent investigation into how Bob Murray conducts his business as the Ducks General Manager. Plus the panel is baffled at the NHL's response to John Doe #2 who was assaulted by Brad Aldrich, and the league's continued ignorance about doing what is right for victims.Plus, we open up our final segment to you our listeners, via twitter. We discuss the NHL pizza party trend, the struggling Colorado Avalanche, Carey Price's recovery and Connor McDavid's unbelievable goal vs the Rangers.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What's going on? Everybody. Welcome to The Athletic Hockey Show, the Wednesday Roundtable Edition. I'm Rob Pizel from CBC Sports. Joined, as always, by Sarah Sivion and Jesse Granger from The Athletic. What's going on, guys? Not much. It's been an eventful week. Just got back for my first real road trip in a long time. I feel like a hockey writer again.

Ready to talk some hockey. What happened to Vegas? Yeah. Slight news out of Vegas. I cannot go. to the city of Ottawa without the Golden Knights breaking the internet. So I got to make that a mental note. Last time it was Gerard Gallant fired and they hired the mortal enemy Pete DeBore. And then this time it was some news out of Buffalo. Only in Ottawa. Like, yeah, the news we've been waiting for for,

for what, two years now. I mean, think about it, guys. The last time we were all together, he was still a saber and everything was all calm. I remember waking up Friday morning, you know when you kind of have a to-do list for your day. And I remember thinking, no, today's not too bad. I got a couple things I got to get done. And then all of a sudden, my phone, when I woke up, I look at him. I'm like, all right. And it was at 445 year time, I believe, but you were in Ottawa. Luckily, I was on the East Coast for that. Yeah. Otherwise, I would have been asleep. Yeah. Walk us through the week, man. I know we've got a lot to talk, but we're going to talk about Kerry Price. We're going to talk about Bob Murray. We're going to talk about the Blackhawks, as usual. And Julian McKenzie is going to join

us in the second half of the show to talk a little bit about everything. But I was just, I was really looking forward to chat with you, Jesse, about this week because, like I said, it's the trade that took two years to happen. And since then, it's just been a whirlwind in Vegas, hasn't it? Yeah, it's been, yeah, and like it started, the week started with me trying to get into Canada, which was not easy. That was, like, you could make a movie out of me trying to get to Canada. I was awaiting my PCR test result while at my gate. The plane was fully boarded. I'm the only person not on the plane. And they're waiting for my test result to come in. before the plane will take off.

And then like a minute before it took off, my result came in. My email refreshed, they let me on the plane. I got into Canada. And then, yeah, Ottawa, I wake up at like 7.30 in the morning there, 4.30 a.m. Pacific time to see the Golden Knights have traded for Jack Eichael. Yeah. So that was fun. Luckily, I was there to get all the reactions from Kelly McCriman and Pete DeBoer and the

players and all that. And then came back to Vegas. I actually landed back in Vegas the same day Eichael got here. He got his grand opening. I don't know if anyone's seen it on. social media. The Golden Knights do a ridiculous welcoming party for the big players they trade for, which seems to happen about every couple months. Imagine if you get traded to Vegas and they don't do that for you. You're just some guy.

Right. Yeah. That's that's like the line of demarcation, right? Like, did you get the, and like Ikel was joking because the other guy, so like Alec Martinez, Mark Stone, Alex Petrangelo, they've all shown up at the airport for them. And Ikel. joked. He's like, yeah, I'm like looking around at McCarron Airport. And once I got my bags, I was like, okay, I'm safe. Cool. Like I avoided that. And then he pulls up to Red Rock, which is the casino resort right across the street for the practice facility where all the players stay until they get a place. And they had all the, uh, the show girls and the drumline and the cheerleaders and the mascots and everybody there to, uh, welcome him. Yeah. And then, and like,

it's been fast and furious for Ikel. He got to Vegas and the guy still has another. He undergoes neck surgery in two days, but he's already going out to like ball hockey clinics at the boys and girls club here in Vegas. I got to go out and do that with him. He has been a busy, busy guy since he got traded to the Golden Knights. What was your reaction, Sarah? Well, my reaction was first of all, wait, when was Carolina in on this? But then I talked in the front of office and it was kind of like they weren't heavily in on it, but why wouldn't they be once they saw kind of what had gone on in the situation and they are very brash about being in you like

I don't know if anybody listening to this has noticed that like the canes are in on things more often than not because they're always making calls and Don Waddell's like pretty liked around the league and he has a lot of connections so you might as well but it was very unrealistic for them to get Eichel to begin with but my second reaction is just thank God this is over and I know he said nobody's more sick of this story than me. And I feel really bad for him when I just think about two years basically. I mean,

I know he's still played, but like two years essentially of one of the best hockey players active right now, loss. It's just a shame, but I'm excited for him to get going in a fun place, too. Jesse, but we'll get to that fresh start because I know he wrote about that, but why were there teams that were so much more willing Vegas, obviously being one of them, to let him get the surgery he wanted? It just seems, it seems really weird to me that, you know, there are teams like the Buffalo Sabres who were so steadfast on saying, no, no hockey players ever had disc replacement. You're going to get fusion. And meanwhile, you've got other teams saying, yeah, we'll let him do what he wants. Yeah, I mean, it's, to be honest, I'm glad I'm not in the position of a hockey team that

has to make that decision. Because like everything, I've obviously since the Golden Ice traded for him, I've really dove into this. I spoke with a surgeon who has done neck surgery for 30 years on pro athletes. Not obviously always the artificial disc replacement, but also the fusion, the two options. And everyone I talked to, like talking to Jack, he makes it seem so casual, like such a, like routine procedure almost. And like I talked to the surgeon and he kind of made it seem similarly routine. And I'm like, why on earth is Jack Eichael not still a Buffalo Sabre? Like, why did they not allow him to get this surgery? And then I finally asked the surgeon. I'm like, what why is buffalo afraid of this?

He goes, well, the question is, will the artificial disc get hit into the spinal cord and cause paralysis? And I'm like, oh. And like, that's when you take a step back and you're like, that's the potential risk. And it's like, well, now I can kind of see. Like, that's terrifying. And he's like, of course, but you could die getting your wisdom teeth pulled too. You know what I mean? It's just a risk.

Very true. Very true. Yeah. I swear. He didn't know that. It happened. So good luck, Jack. Just kidding. But yeah, you're right. You're right. There are, like, there are risks in everything. And, like, driving to practice, you can get in a car accident. Like, there are risks. But that's terrifying hearing like that. Like, when the doctor said that to me, like, prior to me hearing that, I was like, this is the most, like, black and white thing ever. Like, why didn't they let him get this?

I guess that's why. And he said, doctors are worried to be the first person. to do it on the hockey player because then if it if something bad happens, that doctor's reputation can be tarnished. Like, no what I mean? Like the doctor, he's, they changed the name of the surgery to the doctor's last name. Right. And he said, like, doctors are inherently very conservative and very safe. That's just how they operate. And this is not safe because it's, it's like, it's never been done. And I think talking to Jagging, like Pete DeBore has said, like, after meeting with him, he goes, we asked him like, what is your impression of Jack Eichol? He goes, well, he talks like a doctor because he's done so much research and talked to so many people over

the last year or whatever that he's basically an expert in it. And like Ikel even said as much, he's like I feel like an expert in this field because it's all I've done is this research. So, and Kelly McCriman, I think, said it best. He goes, we are going to let them do what they want. I can't find a reason why he and his team wouldn't be doing things in the best interest of him. There is no reason for he and his team to do anything other than. what they feel is best for him in his life. So we're going to let him do that. Do you guys think this is going to make everyone take a good long look at the CBA when it's renegotiated to say either?

Because I kind of see both sides. I understand it's his neck. I get it. I should be able to choose my surgery. But by the same token, if it doesn't go well, then the Buffalo Sabres are still on the hook for his cash. But Sarah, do you think this is a situation where they're going to say either black or white? Either yes, you can make that decision. or it stays the way it is because obviously there are teams willing to bend that rule.

I think there's going to be so much coming up in this next CBA. And I feel like it's going to be really hard to avoid a lockout, to be honest. And I'm so glad that players are advocating for themselves and what's in their best interest. But yeah, there's going to be a lot. And including that for sure. What about you, Jesse? Yeah. What I found interesting was like if there's a person in the world who would be on the side of the players should decide, it's Jack Eichael, right?

Like he, like, if anyone out there is saying it should absolutely be in the players' hands, it's Jack Eichael, and even he didn't say that. Like, we asked him about it the other day, and he said, like, he thought about it. And then he said, I think it should be a collaborative process between the players and the team. So, like, even Jack Eichol, who has been battling for like eight months not being able to get the next surgery he wants, still believes the teams should have some say in what the players do. And to me, that speaks volumes about the players trusting the team doctors and trusting the teams. And like even Jack, who has been through this crazy circumstance, still thinks the teams should have some say. So I highly, highly doubt you're going to get a CBA change that puts it in the hands of the players just based on that. But I do think that they should, the players should fight to have some sort of say in it.

Maybe there can be a third party arbiter, like arbitration maybe have both sides present their case. the player can say this, the team can say this, and then someone that their job is to dispute these decides. Maybe that's how it works. I don't know. But I definitely don't expect there to be a strong push for the players to just flat out decide. That's a good point. And also it doesn't happen that often, I guess.

So it doesn't really seem like it's going to be something that's that big of a deal come to CBA. But I do think there's just going to be a lot of things. That's true. But I look at this situation as one that maybe makes players reevaluate. You know what I mean? where a player could say, they almost felt they were bullied into getting some sort of procedure done by their team. And maybe they're going to say, you know what? Jack held out.

Jack got what he wanted to do. Maybe this is something I need to do. Before we move on from this, Jesse, have you ever seen a happier hockey player in your life than Jack Eichol over the last week? Just watching him on Twitter, watching every time I see him, he's got an ear-to-ear grin. He's going, Vegas, baby, Vegas. He's loving life right now, isn't he? Yeah. And he, and like, someone asked him, you could have had this, if you would have had this surgery,

back when you wanted it, you'd be playing hockey right now. Is that frustrating? And I loved Jack's answer. He goes, yeah, I mean, it could be frustrating, but at the same time, I wouldn't be standing here in front of you, and I wouldn't be in Vegas. And I think everything happens for a reason. And I couldn't be happier to be where I'm at right now. So he's obviously pumped. And like, this is, and I stress this in the story. He loved Buffalo, and he wished he could have won more in Buffalo. But at the same time, he's done nothing but lose there. And a player as good as him not having played a playoff game in his life to this point, that's a travesty. And he's on a team that right now is struggling because of all the injuries, but a team that has a real chance to compete for a Stanley Cup

when everybody comes back healthy. And I think that's awesome for him. It's awesome for the league. It's going to be fun to see him in games that mean something late in the season. And yeah, he's really embracing this fresh start. I asked him, I'm like, he was at that ball hockey clinic and it's outdoors and it's in early November and it was 82 degrees out. And I asked him, I'm like, has it sunk in that you live in Vegas yet? And he looked at me and he like looked up at the sky and he's like, well, we're outside right now and that's pretty awesome. So yeah, it hasn't quite sunk in. He's living in a casino right now. He's up at the top of the Penn House suite at Red Rock. Um, not. a bad setup while he tries to find a house here in Vegas. It's a culture shock for a guy. He said,

I've never lived in the Pacific time zone. I've never lived west of Ann Arbor, Michigan. So this is quite the culture shock for a guy who's been playing in Buffalo for the last four years. But yeah, he's pretty pumped for everything, for off ice, for on ice. He is, it's a big relief for him just to have a date for the surgery. He's getting the surgery on Friday, two days from now. Just having that date and like beginning the recovery process, because it's such a long It's three months. That's a long time. And it's like anyone who's been through surgery and gone through that knows how difficult it can be. Just to be on the, like, you're moving on to the process of finally playing hockey again and having a date for that and having a time frame in mind, I think takes a lot off of his mind and allows him to just his quality of life to go up. All right. I lied. I got one more Jack Eichael question. Then it's a yes or no question. Sarah? Is he ambition?

For the Olympics? No, yeah, no. I just don't think. No, yeah, no, come on. I got to be met by Beijing eventually. But no, I just think it's going to, even if it doesn't take that long to recover, I know he wants to do it. I don't know.

I just feel like let's not rush things, but I'm not the one to decide. Sarah doesn't know what a yes or no question is. Jesse, yes or no. Will he compete at the Olympics? No. Very confidently, no. Okay. Jack wants to do it, but the same.

The surgeon I asked laughed at me when I gave him that time for him. It doesn't seem likely or possible. I don't know. I'm not a surgeon. You talk to him, though. Okay, according to Jesse and Sarah, team USA is pretty much screwed in Beijing. But that's enough about Jack. We're going to take a quick break.

Julian McKenzie, our good friend is going to join us after the break. And we're going to talk about a lot. We're going to talk about Bob Murray. We're going to talk about the Blackhawks. We'll talk about Colorado. What's going on with the avalanche right now? We're going to hit all of that and more. with Julian McKenzie.

Okay, so during the break, we were getting Julian on, and we weren't recording this, so we're not going to play it, but we are going to get Julian to clear this up. He's joining us now, of course, the editor of the athletic, one of the editors. How about I start that whole thing over again? The, the editor. No, no, no, no, no.

What are we doing? Jeff, Jeff, great, just how it was. There we go. Jeff, Jeff, Jeff, leave it it. Jeff, save that audio, give me a copy of that. And when it comes time for negotiations, I'm saving that audio. I'm bringing it right there to Craig Custins.

We're having a conversation. I was trying to get around to you schooling us on the proper pronunciation of what I like to call Putin. And you heard, we said Putin and you gave us this face of disgust. Give us the proper pronunciation. Putin. It's not Putin. It's Putin. The way I like to always put it is imagine if you have Vladimir Putin's last name in front of you and add.

an S in between the T and the I and then just kind of run through the S when you say his name. Putzin. Putsin. Putsin. Putsin. Putsin. Puttin.

That's just like a better way of saying it as opposed to Poutine. And when you said that, my favorite part was Jesse looks and says, there's an S. I'm not. He's so confused. There's an S. There's no.

There's a whole like 30 seconds. But yeah. How are you? How are you, buddy? You know, man. Things are pretty good. Things are pretty busy. The Canadians are bad.

But so is the rest of the hockey world for very different reasons. But yeah, just, you know, hanging in there. And yeah, that's pretty much it. All right. Well, let's start talking about Bob Murray. Placed on administrative leave by the Anaheim Ducks. And if you haven't heard the story, basically they hired a law firm to conduct an internal investigation into Bob Murray's behavior.

And when the initial findings came out from this investigation, they were not good. They found that Murray created what they called a hostile workplace atmosphere. He was scolding club employees. He was sending scathing messages to players, berating team coaches. And once again, guys, the term hockey culture gets brought up. Julian, your thoughts when you first saw this? Pretty shocked, surprised. I mean, not that I'm in a position to have any interest.

on too many things, I guess, but I did not see that coming. I had never heard anything of the sort, not even in just talking with the few hockey people that I do surround myself with about Bob Murray being anything like this. So yeah, it was very much a surprise to see that coming around. But when you consider what the hockey world has had to endure over the last few weeks with the Chicago Blackhawks, it's weird to say this could be the start of some kind of reckoning But in order for change to happen in professional hockey, and I don't even just mean at the National Hockey League level, I think this is something that has to kind of have a domino effect

in so many other leagues where people put in positions of power who are obviously abusing it need to move on in favor of people who understand the new world that we're in now, where we need to be a lot more considerate of the employees that we have, while still trying to focus on winning, but also kind of going about it a much different way. And that's not to say, and I get this, an investigation with Bob Murray and stuff still needs to be figured out. But if this is, if this comes out to be true, I mean, yeah, you can't have that anymore.

It's been made, even if you want to go back to what happened with Bill Peters in the Ekeem Alley's situation, it's pretty clear that organizations can no longer tolerate this type of behavior. And seeing those situations be played out and brought to the light, it could. help other people who have endured other similar situations to speak up and say, hey, we cannot stand for this. This cannot happen. The one thing I'm also just going to be curious about if it comes out that what Bob Murray did was true and he ends up having to leave his position, I'm also going to be looking at the players as well from that organization to see if they say anything. I think now is the time, I guess for the investigation and then maybe with media and other people. for those guys to just kind of step up and say, hey, this stuff happened and maybe it happened to me or, or this is something I saw and I wish I'd done something or just to kind of bring that out there and kind of help hockey culture kind of usher itself into a new era where people are a little bit more accommodating and not as brutal as what has been alleged out there with Bob Murray.

Do you guys think you can teach old dogs, new tricks for using, if I can use a ridiculous cliche, because, you know, you talked about ushering out that generation. but is it a matter of just trying to retrain some people to understand that it's going to be 2022 and this sort of thing is unacceptable or are we looking at trying to bring in maybe a whole new generation of people who understand that that sort of thing is no longer acceptable. We'll start with you, maybe Sarah, and then go over to Jesse. I'd ask why we even want to teach old dogs new tricks when there's a bunch of new dogs that want to learn these tricks and are passionate about be getting, change. And I would also say, somebody like Bob Murray, is it worth it? He has not been a great GM.

Like, that's the thing. He has not, he has not been great. So I'm just kind of like, why are we bending over backwards to accommodate these people that have been under investigation for things that aren't great at their jobs to begin with? I guess that's kind of cynical to look at it that way anyway, but that's how I'm seeing it. To me, I look at this and it's like from a human perspective, treating people that way is obviously awful. Even if you put that aside and just think about just winning and as the organization, we want to win hockey games, it seems counterproductive for the GM to harass players via text when they're playing poorly.

The ducks have been awful for the last three years. And that's not to say that this is all because he's doing this. They haven't had a great roster. The guys who took them to conference finals aged out and they're kind of in a rebuilding stage. But I definitely don't think it's helping. If players have a bad game and they get back to the locker room and they've got angry texts from the GM harassing them, just from a let's win hockey games perspective, I don't think you would want this going on in your organization. Even when you set aside the obvious reasons for just

treating humans better, and like I was reading Frank Saravali's breakdown of this and he and he mentioned like, we don't know why this is coming out now. It's been happening. Why is the investigation starting now? And to me, I think, back to the NHL sent out that memo following the Blackhawks investigation. And we all kind of said, like, okay, doing the bare minimum there. Like, that's not actually doing anything. But maybe that memo got its message across and these organizations around the league thought, man, if this comes out in three years and we read that memo and knew about this and didn't do anything, we're going to look bad. Let's start the investigation now. So perhaps like Julian mentioned, maybe this is a

reckoning of sorts. And maybe teams are going to start taking this serious from that moment. I was the first one to make fun of that on Twitter and it went kind of viral. And now I'm like, okay, I take it back. I think Emily Kaplan reported that it did have something to do with a memo. So good for the NHL for doing that. And maybe, and I've seen, it's like every day, another bad things happen, zero days since our last nonsense. But we have to remember that it's good that these things are coming out because these things have happened and happened. And we just haven't heard about them. So it's good we're hearing about them. And Julian, I brought it up.

Yeah, I brought it up because, you know, I was listening to to yourself and Chris on the Chris Johnson show yesterday. And, you know, you were talking about Mike Babcock. And this kind of is contrary to what Sarah said. Mike Babcock was a successful coach when you look at wins and losses. He was a Stanley Cup winner. And then the story comes out this week, talk about him coaching in Saskatchewan. And it just doesn't. I agree with what you said, Julian on the pot in that it doesn't feel like he feels like he's done anything wrong.

and I always like to give people a little bit of the benefit of the doubt because coaching and being a general manager in this league has changed over the decades. I shudder to think what coaches did in the 50s, 60s and 70s to motivate their players. Probably a lot worse than the text messages Bob Murray is sending out. But if coaches and GMs don't get it, if they're at a point where they're thinking, what's wrong with what I did, then they should never be around this league again. that's just the way I look at it. You have it right. And I think of back to Sarah's point earlier, but the fact that there are younger dogs out there who want that opportunity or whichever

way you want to put it, there are people of the younger generation coming up who want those opportunities and positions of power. As it stands right now, we still have some of those older guys there. And at this point, if they want to continue to be in the positions that they're in, they essentially have to adapt or they will be essentially just unceremonial.

honestly brought out. And the biggest thing for those people to adjust, if that's what they want to do, they have to realize that some of the stuff that they might have thought was a good idea was wrong. And obviously, obviously, for some of those people, if they had done anything wrong, and it should be brought to light and they should be dealt with in discipline. But any kind of old way of thinking that if we all heard about it, we'd kind of, you know, do a double take. they definitely have to kind of rejig those values and go about it in a much different way. That Mike Babcock thing, like I said on the Chris Johnston podcast, just to add a little bit of context for everyone else who might not have heard it. But he essentially addressed some of the stories that kind of went out about him with regards to how we handled Mitch Marner in Toronto and Johann Franzon, the longtime Detroit Red Wing, who essentially does not have anything nice to say when it comes to Mike Babcock.

And Mike Babcock essentially just he didn't come up. across as somebody who knew he had done wrong, whether or not he has aspirations to ever return to the National Hockey League. And you could find you could make the argument he doesn't have to apologize to us as the media. But I think for his message to kind of get out there for people to kind of see if he's actually genuine, like the best way to do it is through us. And I didn't get the sense at all that he felt that anything that he that was out there about him that, you know, he could have done things differently or he was wrong about how he went

about them. He was just sound like a guy who was just going to bet on Mike Babcock because, and also reference himself in third person, because that's all that's worked for him to this point. So less of people like that. And if it comes out with what's out there with Bob Murray is actually true or whatever, like that's, that has to be the case too. You can't have more of those people in this game. Moving on, more Black, Blackhawks fall out from their scandal. The lawyer for jobs, John Doe number two. John Doe 2 was the teenager who was assaulted in Michigan, contacted the NHL to ask if the league was going to pay for therapy for her client and her client's family.

And the NHL refused saying the league will leave that matter to the Blackhawks to manage. This according to Rick Westhead. I don't know about you guys. I shook my head because it's one of those things where I just wish the NHL would, what's the word I'm looking for here? Even if they collaborated with the Blackhawks and just you have to try to make things better. And this to me, I understand it in real life when there's damage done and somebody owes some money, you go to the person who caused that damage.

This is not that sort of situation. This is a situation where everyone needs to be moving in the same direction. When you saw that quote, and I want to go around the horn, I want everybody's reaction on this, what did you think when you saw the NHL said, no, not our problem. Call Chicago. Hold on a second. I was like, I'm confused about something here. Didn't Gary Bettman deliver a whole press conference where he essentially kind of said that

he would try to find a way for not just people in the National Hockey League, but people for at hockey at all levels if they wanted help of something like this, that there would be some kind of resource available to them. Am I wrong? Am I overstepping here? Like, please, like, tell me. Because hearing that quote from you, Rob, I'm kind of gobsmacked at that. Like, it's one thing already to hear the mother of the mother of the.

John Doe, go to TSN and pour her heart out about what her son went through, through the abuse through that man. And to hear her be frustrated and she should be downright enraged at the fact that Gary Bettman, when asked about just delivering any sort of sympathy for that, for that player and their family, he said, well, let's just leave it up to the court. Like, we're not talking about a situation where we don't know if this happened or not, if this was alleged. Bradley Aldrich was convicted for what he did, was in jail for nine months, and is a registered sex offender. I understand, I don't even understand about the whole lawyering idea of taking a quote like that and not trying to seem culpable. Show some damn sympathy for what happened. So to hear what you're

just saying right now, Rob, about the fact that they're denying any possibility of therapy for this family is absolutely sickening and disappointing. And it low-key sounds like he's backtracking on the idea that he wants to have his league or anything to do with hockey, just be put in a position where they're able to help people to prevent this sort of stuff going forward. How can you go up to people and say that, you know what, we don't want this thing to happen? And an easy opportunity for you is there to help a family that is very much a need, very much

affected by somebody who was allowed to work in the National Hockey League and also abused, or alleged or whatever, but also ruined essentially an actual player's life. The only 11th overall player in the history of the National Hockey League, beyond the last two NHL drafts, if you go back the last 50 years, Kyle Beach is the only guy drafted at his position. If you go between the 1968 to about like 2019, the only 11th overall player to never play a game in the National Hockey League. You have to be kidding me at the fact that the National Hockey League would take.

that stance when it comes to what the way they're fighting the Kyle Beach thing and the way that they are treating this poor John Doe 2 and his family. It's absolutely sickening. I'm sorry I'm getting worked up about it, but it's just very disappointing to hear. Absolutely. No need to apologize getting worked up. That's what we have you on here for. Jesse, I see you're nodding. I'll let you go next. Yeah, I think Julian pretty much covered it. I agree with everything you just said. And I think the part that I think about you, you mentioned like the culpability and the lawyer side. of things. And it reminds me of a conversation I had with Robin Lennar about a month ago. And he mentioned that like a big problem, not just in hockey, but in society in general is a lot of decisions

are made based on legality and culpability and not wanting, like the example he used, which is obviously totally different from this, but is like police officers can't seek mental help if they have some issue. Because if a police officer sought out mental help, every lawyer for every criminal that police officer put away over the last 10 years is now going to use that to try to get their their client out of jail based on some ridiculous thing. So because of that, we don't do it. We don't talk about it's society. We don't like there are so many decisions that are made based off of I don't want to get myself in legal trouble. And to me, that's what this screams from the NHL because it's not a money issue. They can pay for that therapy without even noticing it.

Like nothing. It's nothing to them. Yeah. So to me, the. only reason for Gary Bettman to not just immediately say, yes, we'll pay for whatever, is he doesn't, he doesn't want it to look like they're admitting guilt, which is ridiculous, like you said. And it's an awful reason to make that decision. But I think that's what it comes down to. And this, like I said, this isn't just a hockey problem. This is a human beings problem. We need to stop making decisions based off of litigation and culpability and trying to get ourselves out of legal trouble and do what's right for this family. Right. We need honesty and we need compassion to move forward. And that means admitting everybody

is a little culpable and everybody involved in this is a little guilty. And I have to be honest and we're all just kind of like, okay, not we're all, but the way he explained that they're going to let the Blackhawks handle this. Why should we let the Blackhawks handle this? Why do we trust the Blackhawks handle this? We don't even know what their ownership or coaching or anything situation is going to look like in a month. Like, you know what I mean? I feel like it's such a cop-out, and I know they have to go through this investigation and wait until the end to see what they're going to be accountable for.

But I feel like, again, this isn't saying you have to handle anything legally. It's paying somebody's therapy. It's really not that much money. And I saw a tweet from an agent that said a lot of owners were kind of disappointed in the way Gary Bettman handled it. So I called the Hurricanes owner Tom. Dundon and asked him. And he said he doesn't have enough information and that he thinks people are getting into the middle of it when they don't know everything. I was like, well, shouldn't you

try to find out the information like you're an owner of an NHL team? I just got kind of upset. Like, what are you doing? It's just ridiculous. I'll say this. Like I said alleged when it comes to what's going on at Cowpeach. He cooperated his story. He went out on TSN. He poured his heart out there. Believe survivors. I don't want it to make it seem as if like, oh, we need to review all the facts. The facts are out there in the report. He said what he had to say, and it's absolutely devastating what he had jured. And we also need to remember that there was another victim at the hands of Brad Aldrich as well. And we and the media need to remember that. And the National Hockey League needs to remember that as well. And they need to do what they can to help out this family, because

it's absolutely ridiculous for them to take the stance that they've taken. It is. And to me, it's a how can we help situation? Not well. Well, who's supposed to help? How can we help? So to me, and it was the same thing during the press conference when Rick West had finally got a question in and said, are you willing to pay for the therapy for John Doe, too? And we got the lawyerish, wishwashy answer. And this was a second opportunity where you know the reaction you got from that answer. And again, well, it's the Blackhawks. Basically, they said it's the Blackhawks that messed up. They should be on the hook for this. You know what? Take some of that $2 million fine and pay for this therapy. It's just, it's getting into a situation

where a lot of what you guys said and a lot what Jesse said, like, we have to stop putting the lawyerese discussion aside, like speaking like a lawyer all the time and speaking. This is a matter of people were hurt. People were hurt because of inaction by the Chicago Blackhawks who are part of what? The NHL. Everyone get together. Help these people. It wouldn't have happened if you did it right the first time. And now you got me worked up too, Julian. So yeah, it's a tough situation. Yeah, I'm just, yeah, sorry. I realize that I did kind of get a little emotional there. This is just a really tough story. And I understand that we're all in hockey media spaces here. It has been tough for us to handle this story. It's been tough for us to, you know, look at games and

realize, hey, they don't really matter all that much considering the fact there are way bigger fish to fry between the Chicago Blackhawks. Now what's coming out with the Anaheim, Ducks and Bob Murray, we ultimately are going from people who just go to games and try to find interesting stories off of that to just trying to gain as much knowledge as we can about which person in power is taking advantage of somebody and putting our attention towards that. It's not easy to go through, but also think of what the victims at the hands of each of those situations may have endured.

We need to keep this energy. We need to be fired up and we need to keep holding people accountable. Couldn't agree more. Julian, thanks so much as always, man. We'll talk to you soon. Of course. Talk to you guys soon. Julian McKenzie, the head editor of...

Let me get your title right just so I'm not blamed like they're going to take some of my money and say, well, you wanted to give them a promotion. editor. Again, I want a copy of the screen call. I'm setting this to Craig when it comes time for negotiations. NHL editor at The Athletic, co-host of the Chris Johnson Show podcast on The Athletic. Thanks a lot, Julian. Thanks, guys. After the break, we're going to get to some of your Twitter questions. We ask you each and every week what you want to hear us talk about. And we've got a few that we've taken out. We'll hit some of those. And of course, Kerry Price, coming back to the Montreal Canaanes. We'll talk about that and more coming up after the break.

Okay, guys, before we get to the Twitter questions, got to ask you about Carrie Price. We haven't really heard much from him since he entered the NHL-NHLPA Players Assistance Program. He has since rejoined his team and he put a post out on Instagram where he said that he did go into treatment for substance use and that he got himself into a very dark place. I know we weren't sure. And I remember when the news came out that he was joining the player. assistance program. The one thing I was trying so hard not to wonder about is, you know, is it mental health? Is it drugs? Is it alcohol? But, you know, your mind starts to wander. Were you surprised at his post at all? Jesse? No. I think just it's, it shouldn't be that

surprising. I mean, I'm sure there are a lot of guys going through similar things and hopefully carry a guy as as high profile and as good of a player and as a respected of a player as Kerry Price is around the league. Hopefully him. willing to do something like this and looks like it's worked for him. Hopefully this works for him. Hopefully he comes back, plays better than he was before. I think that can be a great example for other players in this league because I guarantee Kerry Price is not the only player in the NHL that is struggling with a substance abuse issue

or anything of the sort. So I think this is good. And I also think that what he said in that statement is as much as we need to know. I think he didn't even need to say that. And I agree with you. We all kind of were wondering like, what is this? But at the same time, if he dealt with it and he got his issues straightened out and he feels better and wants to play hockey now, I think that's pretty much all we need to know. And I'm glad to see one of my favorite goleys in the NHL to watch back on the ice eventually.

Yeah, 100%. I feel like it just goes to show another example of you truly don't know what people are going through. He is one of the most, I don't know, it's a perfect reputation. and he's just kind of like the guy anybody would want to play for. And I'm sure that's still that still is valid, obviously. But I just think you never know what people are dealing with. And no matter who you are, you're not, you're not immune to having issues. And I feel like the more we talk about it, especially somebody as high profile as him,

the better we can be as a society and just have empathy for each other. Rejoined his teammates on Tuesday, not going to go on the road trip. And we should mention, I mean, I know we, we talk. about why he entered the assistance program, but he does have a knee injury as well as surgery. And so, you know, according to head coach Dominique Ducharm, he still has to go through that four-step process of coming back, which is gym work, training on the ice by yourself, on ice training with the goal of coach, and then full practices. So don't expect, at least in my opinion, to see Kerry Price in game action anytime soon. It's still a long road back.

Every week we ask you guys a very simple question. What do you want to hear us talk about? And we got some great answers here. First off, before we even get into the serious answers, we've had a lot of people ask us about pizza, Sarah. And I saw you on Twitter saying, what's the deal with all the pizza? I mean, Alexander Ovechkin was on Twitter delivering pizza to the media room for some of the reporters.

We've seen a lot of other pizza. Explain why pizza's all over the place right now. Yeah, last night also, Vincent Trocheck was off sides during overtime, during Brady Shay's goal. And then in the post game, he apologized to him, hands delivering him a piece of, a whole thing of pizza, pizza pie. So there's that. And then Morgan Geeky, you can out pizza the hut is coming back.

So it's a big week for pizza and you'd hope they get some brand endorsements out of this. The geeky interview was so great with them talking about his gold card. I've got it. Homie, I am a spokesperson. Our awesome, Ryan Clark asking that. Yeah, that was great. Geeky seems like a lot of fun. He is great.

and he's going to be really good in the NHL, I think. And I think we just need so much more of that in the league, as Lack was saying last week. And that all started because somebody, I think it was Nadelcovic, his old Hurricanes teammate, dared him to say, you can't out Pete to the Hut in a random press conference and he did it. And we were all like, wait, it was one of those things

where he said it so casually where you thought nothing of it. And then you were like, wait, did he really just say that? Why did he just say that? Was that a hockey cliche that I wasn't aware of? Yeah. And it just became a thing. And good for him. Like, why not have some personality with pizza hut?

Like some weird euphemism for like going to interference or something? Like, I don't know. Al Hood on Twitter posted that one. So I want to give him credit there. Kishore Hari, hope we're pronouncing your name right, said, I'd love to hear a dive into why Colorado is struggling. And I'm going to throw my two cents in here as far as do we have a coach on the hot seat, Jared Bender.

Who wants to go first on this one? I think we do. Yeah, I mean, I think I'll be honest. I don't remember if it was this podcast or the Thursday version, but we talked about like hot seats going into the year. And Jared Bednar is one of the possibilities because the expectations are so high and because this team that's so talented has lost in the second round of the playoffs three years in a row.

And they obviously have the talent to go further than that. And I think, yes, Jared Bednar should be in the hot seat, but also at the same time, a lot of the top teams in the league are not off to great starts. And I think it's tough to, team that like Colorado, so they go into this season, these 82 games can only be disappointing, right? Like, no matter how good they are, their season will be judged on the playoffs. And like Carolina is a good example, Vegas, both the teams we cover. No matter what you do in the regular season, it can't be considered a success. It can only be a failure. Your season will be

dependent on what you do in six months from now. Because of that mindset, I think it's tough for these teams to get up for these games and be the best version of themselves. Obviously, that's the coach's job to get them there. But I think not diving into like exactly what the avalanche are, like the issues they're having on the ice, I think from a broad perspective, it's tough for that team to get up for these games when they know we're going to have to win in May. That's when, that's what our season will be judged on. That's a very NBA style answer from you, Jesse. I mean, I've always said the difference with the NHL and the NBA is the NHL, the NHL, most people care about the regular season. But I think we're starting to get, especially with the elite teams, a little bit

of that attitude when your team as skilled as Colorado and three consecutive second round exits, game 15 of the regular season, that's a tough game to get up for. Now we're going to see Nathan McKinnon sitting for load management. But I think it's good to have a little adversity early on in the season so that you kind of work through it and it makes you stronger as a team. I'll say that. And there's no reason to panic yet. I don't think, I think there's been a few important injuries that have kind of flown under the radar on this team, but everybody is dealing with injuries. And I also think Cooper maybe isn't living up yet to what was promised.

But I think he's great. I think he'll figure it out. Their top line hasn't played together a lot because of injuries, because of COVID, because of a few things. They're going to be mediocre goaltending too as well. I'm with you guys. I think this team is just too talented to not give Benner. Now, if we have a lot of.

a second round exit, I think his seat is on fire. I think it's all about the playoffs. So, but it does things not looking good. And maybe along the same lines, Agent Proactive on Twitter says talk about the talented teams that are playing lazy hockey right now. He says Colorado comes to mind. But it's interesting just seeing some top teams kind of struggle right now. I mean, is Colorado top of the heap in that one? Yeah. And like I brought it up before Barry Trots had a good comment about that saying these teams have played a lot of hockey. And I think when you look at the teams that have played gone deep into the postseason and because of COVID and because that season got pushed back, like the schedule has been a little wonky for the last couple years.

And you look at the number of, there's just the sheer number of hockey games that these teams have played. I think that plays a factor. And then you also factor in these teams that didn't get to play. And we're sitting at home for an unusual amount of time over the last couple years. And they were, they came into this season refreshed and excited. And a lot of them have kind of show. out of the season like a canon. Guys, before we go, I got one more question for you. I got to ask you, I know it's been almost a week, but we're still talking about Connor McDavid's goal.

I love when a player decides to kind of take on the world on his own, and you could almost see it happen. You know what I mean? You could see sometimes when a player says, give me the puck. I don't care who's open. I'm doing this on my own. There's so many elements to that goal that make it one of the best goals I've ever seen. Where does it rank for you guys?

I mean, to me, the fact that he stayed on side somehow, the fact that he had the patience to wait for his teammates to clear the zone, then looked up from pretty much a dead standstill and says, I'm going to take off and four Rangers in front of me, sure, and then still pulls off the deke to end it. It might be top five for me all time. Sarah, top five? Yeah, I'd have to think about that more. I think it's top two, McDavid, and I think it's one. I don't like to have hot takes about things right after they happen, but I have to say, the more I want. watch that, the more it has to be won. I love just watching the Rangers players just looking on and in awe. They were happy to even witness the moment, you know?

Front row seats for that goal. Happy to be there. Yeah. To me, like you mentioned Rob, all the impressive aspects of that and like the staying on side and like the patience. To me, it's, it almost defies physics the way he creates speed out of the turn. So he, he circles back into the neutral zone. And then he's he's heading towards the blue line. And like when you do that curlback, that reload, that gets those crossovers give you your speed. Right. Like that's, that's how normal human beings have to get up to speed on the ice. He does that then has to cut back into the center of the ice because his guys aren't on side. So like that should theoretically take all of his speed away from him. And now he's kind of skating perpendicular to the to the goal line.

And then he just leans. He just leans to his right. Leans forward. towards the blue line. And it's almost like he like, like I said, it defies physics. He leans. Suddenly he's going 20 miles an hour. And I don't know how he does it, but the, the Rangers didn't expect it. It obviously caught them off guard. I think that's why they were so flat-footed is because when he cut into the ice, it slowed down and you thought like, okay, you saw him curling and you thought, oh boy, here we go. Then he cuts in and you think, okay, we're safe. And then he just smokes past all four of them. I don't know how he does it. His skating is the second best skater in the league is half as good of a skater as Connor McDavid. It's unbelievable how good he is. He's the greatest

skater in the history of the National Hockey League. It's not even close in my opinion. He's so fast and it almost looks like he's going slow. Like, and you need other players there for as reference, if that makes sense. It's funny. And I could tell you guys agree with me. I was so frustrated the next morning at how many people were showing the highlight on Twitter, highlight shows, whatever. And they were starting it far too late for me. They were showing him going through the Four Rangers, which is, don't get me wrong. Great. but so many other aspects, like we said, of that goal. And I, you know, I was thinking back to other like one versus the world.

Like one of the most famous one from the 80s was when Dennis Savard went around all the, you know, the Edmonton Oilers. You had Mary Lemieux in the finals. You had Bobby Orr did a bunch of them. But this one, even he, I love the freeze frame of Connor McDavid behind the net with that shocked look. Even he was like, oh my God, did I just do that? Like, I can't believe I just did that. But maybe send us a tweet. Let us know.

is that one of the greatest goals, top five goals of all time. Guys, it's been fun, up and down podcast as far as emotion goes once again. But thanks for this. We'll talk to you next week. We'll see you guys later. Want to let you guys know, Quinn Hughes of Vancouver Canucks was on with Craig Custin's and Sean Gentilly on the Athletic Hockey Show USA. Be sure to check that out.

And we want to just say, thanks for listening to this hockey show. And give us a follow on your favorite podcast platform. Don't forget, leave a rating, leave a review. It helps us out a lot. And you can subscribe to the Athletic Audio Plus on Apple Podcasts to get all the bonus content from our entire network. You start with a 30-day free trial and it's just 99 cents a month after that. And right now you get an annual subscription to The Athletic for just $3.99 a month when you visit the athletic.com slash hockey show. The athletic hockey show continues Thursday with Ian Mendez and down goes Brown.

I am Rob for Jesse and Sarah. Thanks for listening. Talk to you next week.