The Athletic Hockey Show - Boston Bruins rescind Mitchell Miller contract offer, has time run out on the Pittsburgh Penguins?, DJ Smith gets the dreaded vote of confidence, Jack Adams Winner of the Week, and more

Episode Date: November 7, 2022

On this Monday edition of The Athletic Hockey Show, Ian, Julian, and guest cohost Mark Lazerus deep dive into the Mitchell Miller-Boston Bruins saga that’s engrossed the hockey world for the last several days and then discuss if time has finally run out on the winless-in-7-straight Pittsburgh Penguins, which which fanbase, Philadelphia Flyers or Chicago Blackhawks, should be more worried about falling out of the Connor Bedard sweepstakes, Ottawa Senators GM Pierre Dorion giving head coach DJ Smith the dreaded vote of confidence, and the guys give out this week’s Jack Adams Winner of the Week award and try to remember which NHL players don’t wear visors.Get a 6 month subscription to The Athletic for just $1 a month when you visit http://theathletic.com/hockeyshowSubscribe to The Athletic Hockey Show on YouTube: http://youtube.com/@theathletichockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Hockey Show. Welcome back. It is a Monday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. As always, Ian Mendez's Julian McKenzie with you for the next hour. This is going to be a lot of fun, Julian. This is going to be a three-person panel today. The entire show, our pal Mark Lazarus, going to be riding shotgun with us. So, hey, listen, Lazman.

Welcome aboard to the Monday edition of the pot. Thanks. If you've learned anything, it's that everyone loves a third man in the boot. or a third wheel. It always goes well and nobody ever complains. Yeah, I've never heard anyone complain about that. Yeah. Do they still have that penalty, by the way?

Is third man in still a penalty? Like, I don't remember the last time I've seen that called in an NHL game. Is third man in? That is old school. Yeah, I don't think that's a specific penalty anymore. Yeah. They'll just give you an unsportsman like conduct or something, right? They'll just throw some generic penalty at you.

Third man in. Yeah, what we have, do you, do you, do you remember? Are you too young for that, Julian? Do you? I think, yeah. I have no idea. Maybe I'm, maybe I'm, maybe I'm just not thinking straight, but I don't know what that means. You remember when they added the penalty for, for leaving the bench for a fight?

And everyone's like, oh, this is going to ruin hockey forever because there's going to like a 10 game suspension and a five game suspension for the coach. And then it immediately worked and it was so much better as a result. Like, apparently you can change the fundamentals of hockey and make it better. Who knew? Yeah, you know, hockey, a great sport. where no bad things happen. Never, ever. Never.

Is that a segue? Is that a segue into what we're, no, hey, we are going to. You could if you wanted to. You know what? And we are. Look, we're going to talk about a little bit later in the pod, Pittsburgh Penguins, it feels like his, you know, his father time caught up to the penguins.

We're going to talk about that. You know, Las cover Chicago. They're off to a much better start than people thought. Same with the Flyers. We'll talk about if those fan bases should be a little bit worried that they're kind of playing themselves out of the badard sweepstakes. Big game between Vancouver. and Ottawa this week.

But you know what? I think we do have to start with something that absolutely dominated the news cycle. And it's fascinating to watch this story unfold because where we were on Friday and where we are on Monday, two completely different places. I'll tell you what I'm going to do, though.

Before we delve into this, let's hear from Bruins President Cam Neely. This is from earlier on Monday. This after, you know, the Bruins were basically forced to do what Arizona did. And basically walk away from Mitchell Miller. So have a listen.

Here is Bruins president, Cam Neely, on Monday. What's your message to the victim's family after all of this? Well, as I said, and I'll say it again, I want to apologize to Isaiah and his family. It's something that they shouldn't continue to go through. All right, guys, I mean, I don't even know where to start with this other than to say I thought but fluto in Boston and Sean Gentilly, um, both nailed columns on Friday and in through the weekend.

So I got to tip my hat to them. Just phenomenal job. But let's, let's talk this out on the podcast. One of the most head scratching decisions we've seen, um, in a long time, Julian, man,

I, you and I were texting about this on whatever day it was Friday. I'm like, this is, oh, I'm like, I can't wait to get to Monday. Now,

obviously the story has changed quite a bit. but this is one of the most head-scratching 48 hours I've seen from an NHL team. And that's saying something where the news cycle has been around this sport. For me, just trying to follow this, it just felt like every few minutes, there was some other wrinkle to this thing that would make you go like, wow, like I can't believe this is a thing. And then something else would come and you'd be like, wow, they really did this. And it just kept mounting and mounting. It just had all these different twists. Like, the fact that we hear the news of Mitchell Miller being signed to an entry-level contract.

And then within a few hours, an interview or portion of an interview between Patrice Bergeron and Elliot Friedman surfaces, and he already has to defend this. Sorry, not defend it. He didn't defend it. He did the exact opposite of it, which is a whole other thing we should get into. The fact that he has to already address it is crazy. The fact that we heard from Gary Bettman so soon was also crazy. And the fact that, you know, he went out of his way to be like, no, like, I don't think Mitchell Miller is eligible.

It would take a lot for him to get to that point. Like, the reactions to this story are a big point for me. Because, I don't know, I'm so used to, you know, being a fan of professional sports, we see teams and leagues take second chances all the time on people who have had prior transgressions that maybe other people would look at and be like, well, I don't know if we should be giving this person this second opportunity to play this sport, but teams find ways to justify it. And it's entirely possible that in a different era, a different time, Mitchell Miller would be granted that possibility. But to hear fans speak out is one thing. But for Patrice Bergeron,

Nick Falino, and Brad Marchand in particular, to mention the culture they've built in the locker room and how they have concerns about all of this was very surprising. Do you hear Gary Bettman, who, look, we've had his feet to the fire about Chicago and so many other things. Do you hear him basically try to close the door on Mitch Mitchell Miller coming to the NHL? That was very surprising to me. There's another wrinkle to this that is also very surprising to me that I think I'll get into later. But the first thing I want to start off with is just say that the fact that people reacted, not just fans, but the fact that people in the hockey world reacted the way that they did.

And we know the NHL, or at least the people in it, as perhaps people who could be a little bit more progressive than they should be. That is the biggest surprise in all of this for me. That's not to say they fixed hockey culture or anything. That is just maybe it's fine for me to say a pleasant surprise in all this for me. That's where I'm at with this. Like this is simultaneously the most frustrating and aggravating thing I've seen in hockey. in a long time, and also the most encouraging, right?

Because you did have hockey players who don't do that saying, no, no, we're not cool with this. We have a culture of inclusion and diversity and acceptance here, and this guy doesn't meet our standards. And then you have fans, you know, just destroying the inboxes of the Boston Bruins, you know, fan engagement team and basically affecting change by saying, no, we don't want this kid either.

Look, Mitchell Miller's a really good hockey player. He is tearing it up in the USHL. He's got Kail McCarr-style number. right now and everybody wants to find a kale macar and bruins players and bruins fans almost to a person said no not worth it don't want this guy so that's like the most encouraging thing i've seen in hockey in a long long time because you know i write about this stuff all the time and the and you guys do too about just how how relentlessly disappointing it is to be a hockey fan and this is an incident where you can look at it and say this is a really good thing that happened an encouraging sign but it's also how the

hell did the Bruins do this? How the hell did they, in the year of our Lord, 20, 22, think they could get away with this. With everything, with all the awareness campaigns and everything the NHL says and hockey is for everyone, yeah, maybe we'll do it on a Friday, maybe we'll get away with it. I just, that's so aggravating to me that these people

are still running the sport. It's stunning because Cam Neely, and, you know, we played that clip, Cam Neely says we first broach the idea of this in August. So just stop and think about the absurdity of that, that August, they're like, you know, we should think about Mitchell Miller, who, you know, he's 20-year-old defenseman. Like, all it takes is a cursory search on Google, punch his name in. And you will see that this wasn't a one-off thing. This is when you listen to his mother, speak of the victim here, of Isaiah Meyer Carruthers, the mom, says that this started in the second grade.

right through the sixth grade use of racial slurs, making the young man eat a, like kind of a push pop or lollipop that was in a urinal. This is not behavior that is just a, you know, boys being boys is a one-off. This was targeted for years. And, you know, the comment that I thought was the most surprising, too, Julian, you said, you know, we hold Gary Bettman's feet to the fire

and, you know, sometimes we're critical of him. What do you guys make of this? The comment from Batman when he says, quote, I can't tell you that he'll ever be eligible. to come into the NHL. Like, that just goes to show like how messed up this kid is.

I hate to make it, how about how messed up the kid is, but he is messed up. He went out of his way to berate this kid while in school with him to the point where the kid had to take an SDT test

after that push-pop incident. That's disgusting. Look, if the kid wants to put himself in a position where he can rehabilitate himself to be a functioning member of society, look, fine, go to that point. To get to a point where he's trying to still be an NHL player or a hockey player

or catch on with some team, I'm not sure, especially the fact that he had not shown remorse and he tried to apologize to the victim or at least tried some kind of apology through an Instagram DM. Does that sound like someone who is worthy of getting this privilege to play professional hockey? There are going to be people who are going to listen to this podcast who are going to to be like, man, you know, Mitchell Miller, I don't think this guy's can be able to play in North America anywhere. He's going to have to find a way to make it work in Russia. He's going to have to find to make it work somewhere in Europe.

Why the hell should you deserve that opportunity to play anywhere? That makes sense to me. It just doesn't. Just to me. I also want to mention this because Mark mentioned diversity and inclusion. He mentioned those words, diversity and inclusion. And I think of all these people who have tried to make strides in ensuring that diversity inclusion is a thing in the National Hockey League.

So imagine my surprise why I discovered Eustace Kigg is Mitch Miller's agent. Like that's, as a black man following the sport, let's take the whole reporting thing out of it. As a black man following the sport, a fan of the sport, trying to, you know, thinking of the game every day,

be like, man, I can't believe I'm a black guy in hockey. Seeing that is a big mind F for me. Like, I really, like, look, I'm not going to be able to provide any real comprehensive thoughts about that. That really bugged me to see that Mitchell Miller, you know, was trying to get back into this, like, and Eustace Kig was trying to, I mean, as his agent. Like, that doesn't make sense to me. I'm still trying to find the, the, the,

the, the, the reasoning why that was the case. Like, did Mitchell Miller lie to him? Did, did, did Eustace genuinely feel that Miller was, was on the right path? Like, I have so many questions about that. And that's what this whole, that's my earlier point that I'm bringing up, there are so many details about this that if you keep reading on and you keep going, you keep digging deeper, you're just like, holy shit, this is such a weird, weird story. And it is. And the fact that the Bruins didn't do a cursory Google search of this young man tells you everything about just, oh, he has 60 points. Oh, let's sign them. That's basically all I came down to, right? They did no due diligence. They did no homework. Just like, and again, you mentioned that, you know, people are going to be

mad at us because we're not giving this kid a second chance. Everyone deserves a second chance. Yeah. Yeah, you deserve second chances. You have to earn him. What does Mitchell Miller done to earn this second chance? What has he done to give anyone reason to believe that he's a different person now besides getting older? And let's not pretend 14 is so long ago. He's a kid still. He's like, what, 20, 19, 20 years old? He's 20 years old. He's 20 years old. This was just six years ago. Six years ago, I was basically the same person I am now. Let's be honest. So six years is not ancient history And he has not taken the steps

And Eustis King listed all these things that he's done Over the past, they were all, most of them were court ordered This isn't like he's gone out there and taken the initiative And said, look how different a person I am He never reached out to the family He hasn't really apologized in any kind of meaningful way He's the argument is consistently he was just a kid He was just a kid, he was just a kid

It's a mistake This is not a mistake Targeted harassment and racial or racist bullying of another child, of a developmentally disabled child for years on end, is not a mistake. It is a window into your soul of who you are as a person, your character,

and he does not pass go, he does not collect $200. He has done nothing to warrant this. And again, it was Patrice Bergeron who mentioned diversity inclusion, not words you used to hearing out of a hockey player's mouth. And that's, you know, the Bruins wanted no part of this kid. That should tell you everything you need to know,

because this kid could make them better in theory, and they want no part of him. He does not deserve this second chance because he has done nothing to earn it. Well said, and you know what? Yeah, and Laz's, uh, can I call that a rant? I feel like that was a rant. Everything I say is a rant.

That was good. That was good. We're getting a lot of rants off on this section. Yeah, that's, uh, well, it's just so mind boggling, right? Like, all three days, we're just baffled at this, the last three days and even happened. I know, but, but like to me, you're, uh, yeah, rant is the perfect answer to anybody who says, oh, so we're canceling eighth graders now?

We're not. We're not canceling eighth graders. We're canceling people who have no ability to show remorse, no ability to show a desire to be better. That's what we're canceling. It's not even canceling. It's consequences. There are consequences. Yeah, exactly.

I hate cancel culture. And even if you want to get to canceling, Mitchell Miller probably should have been canceled after the Arizona Coyotes tried to draft him. The Bruins still tried to sign him. Isn't that a sign that canceling doesn't actually like do anything? People are like, oh, we're canceling people. People don't really get canceled. Yeah, Dave Chappelle's hosting Saturday Night Live this week.

He's hosting Saturday Night Live. There you go. If that's not an example that... This is the most maddening topic I've ever discussed with regards to the NHL. And we're still like, what, like over a year out from the Kyle Beach thing, as horrible a situation that was. This is 10 times more frustrating. Gary Bettman did not call out Rocky Words for his comments at the town hall where he basically said,

we don't give a crap about this story anymore because he works for the owners. He could ban players, but he's not going to ban owners. And what's going to happen? All right, I'm going off on a tangent here, but what's going to happen when someone wants to sign Joel Quenville to a contract, which it will happen? Joel Quenville is going to be back in the NHL. I'm almost sure of it. He doesn't deserve to be. He shouldn't be.

he was a main person in the room who prioritized winning over Kyle Beach's safety, is, is Gary Betman going to stand up and say no to that? Or can he only do this to 20-year-old USHL players? That's what I want to see. I want to see Gary Betman stand up when someone tries to hire Joel Quinville as a head coach. Then I will be impressed. Okay, that's going to be interesting because, okay, let's cards on the table here. Arizona gave this guy a chance.

Boston gave this guy a chance. There's no other team in the NHL that's going to, give Mitchell Miller a third chance, right? No. Take Gary Betman's comments. Gary almost didn't need to say anything. Did he? It was a layup for him to say that because he knows it can't happen again and

nobody can sign this kid now. No, it's not happening. But Quenville's interesting. Because Quenville, like you said, there hasn't been the team that, you know, he was in Florida and then, then, you know, he was taken out there. But nobody's tried to sign Joel Quenville as a head coach. Two teams tried to sign Mitchell Miller.

There's been rumblings that Quenville is on the radar of a lot of teams, but they're wondering about the process and this and that. It's going to happen. He's not an old guy. He's in his early 60s, I think. He's got a lot of coaching left in them, and he wants to come back. And the question is going to be, is the league going to have the same integrity it has with Joel Quenville that it had with Mitchell Miller?

Is it going to stand in the way of a team doing it then, or is a year of isolation of banishment going to be considered sufficient punishment? I have a question. Gary Betman, when asked about Mitchell Miller, said he would need to see a lot from him to get to a point where he would even think about clearing him and making him eligible. My question is, what would he need to see from Joe Quinville if it gets to that point to make him eligible? Okay. So here's where I think there's a very distinct and an important difference between Quinville and Miller. Joe Quinvo is a grown-ass man when that was happening, right?

How old was he? Laz in his late 40s? Late 40s, early 50s, yeah. Whatever. You know, that's old enough to know that if I think that there's something wrong to that nature, I need to stop that. I need to step in. Somebody needed to be the adult in the room.

Can you tell that to Kevin Shevolde off, a grown man who was in that room who got away because he was just too low on the totem pole? Like he didn't have, he was a 40-something-year-old grown man who was in that room. And Gary Bettman was fine with it. Fine with it. Yo, Mark, is going in today. Yeah, I know. Every single person.

Like, you know, I'm eyeballs deep in this story for the last year and a half. I just, I have no time for any of the seven men that were in that room. because, you know, you know, Stan Bowman's, his statement was like, I was just a first year GM, I was scared. You know, none of this holds any water with me at all. Like, you were a grown-ass man in that room and you never said anything to anybody, then I got no time for any of you. I'm sorry.

So, I guess, I'm not sorry. Well, I guess the question is like, because people will say you should have an opportunity to rehabilit, like, I guess, and go back to Julian's question, is there anything that Joel Quenville can do at the age of 60 whatever to show contrition or remorse or growth that would satisfy people to say, you know what? Yeah, I, I, you know, God, I don't know. Possibly, but the fact that it's been a year and I haven't seen any of it, right? He hasn't done anything publicly.

I don't know anything about that even. Like, I'd like to see it. Yeah. And when I bring that up, like, I'm not saying like, oh, we should give Joel Quenville the second, third chance and, you know, be nice to him and all that. Like, I genuinely want to know what that threshold would be or the criteria would be in the eyes of the NHL to let someone like him back in. I genuinely would want to know what that is.

You know what I would want to know? I think it's a six-game losing streak is the threshold to let him back in. Well, you know what? I'll tell you what I think the threshold should be. I'm not saying it will be, it should be. And it shouldn't be from us in the media and it shouldn't be from Gary and the NHL and the owners. It should be from Kyle Beach.

Cal Beach should be the one to be able to sit in a room. And this is all, if he wants to. If he doesn't want to, it's his decision. But I think at some point, if you're Joel Quenville, you need to look that man in the eyes, and that would be the opportunity for me to see, okay, and don't do it on TV, don't do it on camera, don't. Well, that's what I'm hoping in private, right?

I'm hoping. I'm hoping against hope. That's what's been happening this past year, is that in private, he's reached out, he's made amends, he's taken some kind of courses to help better understand the workplace dynamics and all this stuff. I would, if he came out and all of a sudden he had looked like, this is all the things I've done in the past year, and I didn't do it, publicly, I'd be much more inclined to think, all right, this is someone who learned a lesson here.

But he basically said that some rub, I don't remember this. Or this is, this isn't, whatever, I don't know. Like he's, I've never seen any actual comments of contrition. I don't think he said anything publicly since he resigned from the Panthers, as far as I know. It would be an amazing thing. And I would be much more impressed if he has been. If Kyle Beach says, oh yeah, Joe Quenville reached out to me 11 months ago. We had a good long talk about this.

And I feel better about where he is. and I think he understands now. And he's grown, yeah, all right, then we can start talking about this. Yeah. But I hope against hope that I'm so wrong about this and that he does, has done this work. But if it doesn't happen until a team wants to hire him,

then it's just transactional. If he reaches out to Kyle Beach because, you know, team X who needs a coach said, hey, we want to hire you, and we don't want the PR flag. Why don't you do something? That doesn't carry the same weight to me as doing it because he felt he should. It's because he feels he has to.

It's not the same thing to me. Alternatively, and maybe will one day reach a point where more and more teams just feel that players or coaches like that are just not worth the PR flack, teams who are in need of new coaches could just look to somebody else. There are other coaches in the world, yes.

There are other coaches who exist. We do not need to recycle the same coaches in the same damn coaching carousel to make it work. There might be some other newer thinking mind. You know, maybe there's another player out there who has little to know coaching experience who they can put up as a head coach in the National Hockey League,

or someone else who's actually done the work to put themselves in that position to get themselves a chance behind an actual NHL bench. We don't necessarily need to have a guy like Joel Quenville. I get it. He's won.

And he's a really good coach. There's no denying. He's a good coach. Fine. But like, he doesn't have to get that opportunity. We don't have to just take him just because of the fact that, man, he was good and he won those chips all those years.

I'm sorry, Julian. We don't need that. Julian, have you met the NHL? also can i say something else too can i say something else too i'm damn tired of people who hear stuff like this affecting hockey culture and then it's like but this affects other parts of society too we can't just throw it up on hockey we work in hockey cover the damn sport we're going to make it about hockey because it's a problem that affects the damn sport we get it affects others parts of society stick to not hockey is that is that the new action off what do you

want me to do good lord You can't win. You stick to hockey. You're screwed. You stick to not hockey. Shut up and talk about hockey. It doesn't work. Ian, Mark, I'm sorry that I'm having moments where I'm just like kind of being a little

delirious here. No. You know what? This is the most maddening topic. This was one of the most baffling weekends ever. I think we're all in the same headspace. I'll tell you what. Julian has spent four weeks as an NHL beat reporter, but now he sounds exactly like one who's

covered it for 20 years. There you go. Hey, I'll tell you what. All I'm missing your gray beard. I shaved this morning just so I wouldn't have it. Oh, love it. Hey, listen, again, we'll see what happens with Mitchell Miller, you know, moving forward. I thought Patrice Bergeron said it best on Monday when he said, you know what, now we can all just turn the page. You know what? You know, that bothered me just a little bit if I can get back on my high horse, which I live on.

I would have loved for the Bruins to somehow not just turn the page to figure out a way to spin this into something positive that happened beyond just, okay, Patrice Bergeron's a minch, good for him, we like him. Like it would be nice if the Bruin said, you know what, we want to make sure that this kind of stuff doesn't happen. We want to get involved. We want to reach out to the kid who went to Isaiah. We want to reach out. Like, I'd like to see that. I think that could be really meaningful. If they did something, don't just turn the page.

Don't just pretend the last four days didn't happen. Try to use it to do something meaningful and something positive that reflects that culture that they're talking about. I'll say this. I think there's still time for them to do something. Oh, absolutely. There absolutely is, and they could totally do that. I will also say this. I don't know if they meant to do this or if this really has any significance,

but the fact that they played karma police by Radiohead after all of that. There's something about that, like, thinking of the lyrics, I'm like, okay, all right. For a minute there, they lost themselves, yeah. They did, yes. They sure did. This is what you get when you mess with us, apparently. Now we're going to take Patrice Bergeron's advice, so we are going to turn the page. kind of closed the book on Mitchell Miller

because there are a handful of other things to get to in the National Hockey League over the weekend that kind of played itself out. And one of the things I want to talk about, look, I think, and I know you guys both kind of cover Western Conference teams, but Julian, you've kind of lived in the East and in Mark, you know,

as you've covered this league long enough to know, we've always felt like the clock was ticking on the Pittsburgh Penguins. And every year that we thought the clock was ticking Sid and company and, you know, Jake Gensel and then what are those, Mark Dongk and what are the two people that Buzz Flipit. Buzz Flip it and Mark Dong.

They just random guys show up, scored 20, Penguins make the playoffs, whatever. As we record this on Monday, Pittsburgh has lost seven games in a row, right? Now, I know that while they got, whatever, they're winless in seven, however you want to spin it. They got one point in seven games. Yeah, they have lost seven consecutive.

of hockey games. And I'm wondering now, is this it? Is this it for Gino and Sid and LaTang? Is this, is this, is this, are they not, are we, have we reached that point now? I feel like, you know, I, I worked in Pittsburgh for three years back when they were bad enough to draft, Fleury Malkin and Crosby, and then I left for the Chicago area. I feel like the Pittsburgh, I have read the story of the demise of these Pittsburgh penguins 150 times over the last several years and they always come back and they always shut us up and they're always ageless wonders with Crosby and Malkin and Luteng, all these guys. I'm not ready to call it yet because I feel like we've been down this right. If you have a seven game losing streak in January, it doesn't

feel quite as dire as having it early in the season. Everything's magnified now because, oh my God, we're in second and last place or whatever it is. I'm not prepared that, but it's going to happen. It has to happen eventually, right? Age catches up with everyone, right? It certainly happened here in Chicago. It feels like it has to happen eventually, but I just feel like I've been down this road with the penguins too many times, and they always shut me up. Yeah, you guys are going to have to holler at me at American Thanksgiving

because it seems as if teams who are in a playoff position around then, like there's a pretty good chance that they'll likely kind of, you know, end up there. There are some teams that do fall out. It's not impossible. But here's another thing. if this was last year and they were doing this, you'd think, man, like, I guess you got to think about offloading Latang and Malk it at the deadline because this Pittsburgh team, this is an easy

way for them to start rebuilding. They re-up both of those guys this offseason for the next few years. So it better not be the last kick at the can for those guys because those guys have MZs. So they got to find a way to make this work for them, as far as I'm concerned. You know, the American Thanksgiving thing, it always makes me laugh because it's just all the, I guess something like 80% of teams that are in the playoffs around then, which, which is such a mark against the league about how this, how the loser point makes it so difficult to really shake up the standings. You need to go on to run like the Blues did a few years ago to really kind of like turn your season. It's like being in a rotissory fantasy baseball league. If you're out of it at the end of April, you're just out of it.

Like, you can't make up the ground. Like that's how it feels like in the NHL standings. And, you know, I look in the West and I see like the Wilder struggling and the Blues are struggling. And I'm like, all right, they're going to probably climb out of it. But then you go to the East, the East is so much deeper. And there's so many teams in that like fourth best team to 10th best team range, it's going to be really hard to make up ground. So they're going to have to get out of this quickly. There's, they're good, it gets early, it gets late real early around here, you know.

And it's, it's going to become a problem if they don't pull out of this tailspin real quick. Because that Eastern Conference has like 11 teams. I think they're playoff teams right now, at least. I'll say this too. Like, New Jersey is off to a really great start, and maybe some people might feel they're overachieving a little bit, but they also are a legit good team with some new pieces. They're a sleeper team for a lot of people.

But Carolina, we all thought they were going to be good. The Rangers, we thought they were going to be good. John Tortorella finds a way to get the most out of less, probably more than any other coach I've seen. So while Philadelphia should be a lot worse than I thought they would be, it's also not completely surprising that John Torrella has them playing competitively.

I thought the Islanders were going to make the playoffs last year, and obviously them starting all those games on the road hurt them. I still think the Islanders are still a decent team. Those are some of the teams that the Pittsburgh Penguins are going to have to leap over. I didn't even mention the Washington Capitals who might also be dealing with Father Time too, right? There's a lot of teams the Pittsburgh Penguins

are going to have to climb over to put themselves among the best teams in that division. Now, the Penguins' underlying numbers are terrific, though. That's the weird thing. Like, Tristan Jari is kind of turning into a pumpkin a little bit here. So I'm starting to look like the Tristan Jari of the playoffs a few years ago, and that's the last thing you want to see. Goaltending can torpedo anything.

But, like, the Penguins' best players are playing really well. I think as a team, they're like fifth highest and expected goals four percentage. Crosby's playing great. They've got like six guys at 60% or higher. Like, they're playing well. there should be a positive regression to the mean here, but it's not going to matter if the goaltending's not there. If you have an 888 save percentage,

you're not going to make the playoffs. It's simple as that. And that's what's hurt them the last two playoffs, too. But New Jersey's testing our theory on that, right? Because they've been so dominant possession-wise, and their goal-tending has just kind of been meh. And they're, you know, in the drive. I wonder, will this be the year we see a team make the playoffs with 890,

892, something like that, say, percent? And it might be New Jersey, because they've been so... You've got to score a bunch of goals to do that, but yeah, you got to do it. And Blackwood is injured now. We should be cheering for that as fans. We should be cheering for teams to make the playoffs with an 8-90-7%. It's hard to tell because we're still kind of in, you know,

it's not October anymore, but we're still in that October hockey phase where everything's a little kind of loosey-goosey and systems are still being put in place. And you get a lot of those 8-6-7-5 games that you just don't see in February and March when teams are a little more settled right now. I'm not quite ready to really cast a judgment on almost any team yet. because we're not really into the heart of the season where everyone's really settled in. So it's hard to make those kind of judgments just yet.

Yeah, no, that's a fair point. And, you know, Julian talked about Philadelphia has been overachieving. I covered their game in Ottawa Saturday night. They did a great job of kind of collapsing in front of Carter Hart, doing what Torrera teams do, right? They block shots and they won the game two to one, and John's got them playing really well. And here's my question.

Laz, I'll ask you, because you cover Chicago, So Chicago off to a much better than anticipated start, basically playing kind of 500 hockey, Philadelphia off to a better start. I think a lot of the fans for both the Flyers in Chicago thought, you know, we're going to be in the Connor Bedard sweepstakes. This is the year to tank. Like, which of those fan bases should be a little bit more worried than,

uh-oh, are we playing too well to kind of bottom out and be in the Bedard sweepstakes? Well, well, Philly fans just won the NL pennant and or have an 8-0 football. all teams, so I don't really feel that bad for them, to be honest. You got Justin Fields there. Yeah, that's right. It's a exciting day yesterday, yeah. I think it's worse for Chicago because Chicago's tank is so much more overt than anyone else's. They traded a 24-year-old Alex DeBrinkeit, two-time 40 goal score for, you know, for draft picks. They traded Kirby Doc, who is 20 years, a 20-year-old 6-foot-4 center,

who has, you know, had some flaws, but was pretty productive for another draft pick. They let Dylan Strom at 26 walk their number one center. Like, they're leaning really hard into the tank. And, like, the fan base had accepted it, right? They're like, all right, this season's going to suck, but it's for a purpose. And now this team is, like, kind of scrappy and kind of enjoyable and kind of fun to watch. And, you know, now you're like, but yeah, but they're going to finish like an 11th place. And that's the worst case scenario.

I think it's worse for Chicago fans just because they let so many guys leave that could have helped them right now. You imagine this team with Alex Debrinket and Dylan Strome at the top, and Dominic Kubalik, who's like lighting up the world on fire. He's, I think he's at 15 points and 12 games, if you put those guys back on this team and, oh, my God, all of a sudden you've got yourself a team, right? So I think it's worse because what the Hawks let leave hurts more than what Philadelphia had to do. Yeah, Chicago's my answer.

I also just feel that the way Philadelphia kind of set themselves up with the John Tortoella hiring, the interest in Johnny Goddra in the offseason. That's a team I think, as opposed to Chicago, where they were clearly trying to tank. Philly, I think, was trying to be competitive with what they had. Yeah, Philly never tanks, right? It's always win now in Philly. Exactly. And in terms of feeling bad for them, I mean, they did lose two championships in one day.

So I guess you could feel some kind of sympathy for them. I'm from New York. I don't feel sympathy for Philadelphians. Understandable. Understandable. I'm also ragingly jealous. You got the Cubs all those years ago? I'm not a Chicago guy

I'm a Mets fan My life is Oh right there shoot you're a Bets fan I was six years old in 1986 Man it's been a long time I was not alive I hate least you have a baseball team That's true

Hey it's our sport right It's not like Canadians have to watch American teams win the Stanley Cup all the time Oh sorry Oh Oh I'm so hurt At American teams Constantly winning the Stanley Cup

With the Canadian players lifting the cup first. Deeply wounded, I know. Oh, man. Remember at the beginning of the pod when Laz said it's awkward when someone's the third person in, the third wheel? It's awkward wherever I am. Yeah, this is awkward. Hey, I want to ask you guys

about this. I'm covering a game on Tuesday night. The Vancouver Canucks are in Ottawa. And I think if you looked at the two teams in terms of where the coach's seat is hot, one would be Vancouver with Bruce Boudreau. The other would be Ottawa with DJ Smith. Now, Sends General Manager, Pierre Dorian, told reporters that I was at the press conference in Ottawa,

Dorian said, you know, I had to laugh because I, and I, you know, Pierre has some, some, some funny ways of phrasing things, but he went full George Costanza today with a, he used his own name in the third person, he said, Pierre Dorian is a loyal person. And DJ Smith is our head coach. And I had to laugh because it's, you know, it's like, George likes his chicken spicy, and Jimmy likes Elaine. And anyway, but Pierre said, look, Pierre, said, look, Pierre, loyal guy, DJ Smith isn't going anyway.

So it feels like there's no way that Ottawa loses that game on Tuesday and that's it. But do you guys not feel like this is a game where the loser of Ottawa, Vancouver, either the fan base is going to be angry, the players, someone's going to be real angry Tuesday night in Ottawa. Yeah, I'm angry now. I thought the Ottawa senators are going to be a good team and make the playoffs. I'm angry right now. Like, yeah, in terms of hot seats, it seems like it's making very.

this tour across the country because it was in Vancouver for quite some time. It was in Toronto for a little bit, then they started waiting. So if the senators lose, right now they're our last place in the Atlantic Division. People thought the Canadians were going to be there. No, the senators are down at the bottom of that division. If the senators are not going to be able to get that together and they lose to Vancouver, who has been in the crap for pretty much since day one of this season to now, yeah, there's definitely going to be people very angry.

Maybe a lot of people yelling, no soup for you or something to keep the Seinfeld references going. Like, no, this is a team that made all those moves in the offseason. I understand Cam Talbot with the injury that he had. That doesn't help. But like, with the acquisitions that they made, I figured they'd at least be a little bit more competitive. So it's very surprising to see them at the bottom of the division. Well, it's especially tough if you're in Ottawa right now.

First of all, DJ Smith was like on all those emails we all get about with all, here's the latest odds on the first coach to be fired, it was always DJ Smith was number one. Like, because this is the year, right? This is the year Ottawa was supposed to turn the corner. And when you look and you see Buffalo turning that corner, and you look and you see Detroit turning that corner, and you're in Ottawa, and you're not turning that corner. And this is the year when you went out and you got to Brinket and you,

you know, add Drew and all this, you know, it's a problem. It's a big problem that you're not turning the corner when other teams are. It just magnifies what's happening there. That said, Vancouver's in perpetual shit show motion, right? I mean, it's just, it's always, no matter, you can be, you know, winning this, you know, on the verge of winning the Stanley Cup and be on the hot seat in Vancouver. That's just the way that market works. So Bruce Boudreau could be fired in the middle of this sentence, and I wouldn't be surprised.

But D.J. Smith, in reality, in just the regular world outside of Vancouver, which is kind of its own little world, DJ Smith, yeah, they got to do it because other teams that have been rebuilding for 150 years like they are are finally doing it. And Ottawa's not. And I'm with you, Julian. I thought they were going to be good this year. They got such a great prospect pool. They got all these, you know, they added these big guns. And it's not happening. And DeBring, it's not scoring.

and it's a problem. And the easiest thing to do is to fire a head coach, especially in the NHL, where they're mostly, you know, 28 out of 32 NHL head coaches are largely disposable. We all know that. This isn't like the NFL where the coach has his fingerprints on every single aspect of the, of every single play.

So, yeah, DJ Smith's in trouble. And he better win that game, and he better win some more after that because Pierre Dorian might be loyal, but the vote of confidence from a GM in any sport is almost always a kiss of death. Also, Josh Norse being injured too doesn't help. But it's true.

though, right? Like the, they call it the dreaded vote of confidence. But look, Pierre Dorian tells us on Monday, DJ Smith is my coach,

he's the coach here. There's no way. Did he say he will be my coach? Yeah, I, yeah, he said, DJ Smith is our coach. Is our coach.

Is our coach. Oh, he will be. Oh, all right, there you go. All right. All right. So my question is,

now you can't, you can't do anything for the next month. Am I right on that? You can't have a next month. No, you definitely can. You definitely can.

Can you? Because if they lose two or three more games in a row, every fan's going to want DJ Smith out. So it's a no-heart, you know, he's not going to get, Dorian's not going to get any crap for that if everybody wants him out. That's just how it works. Here's the quote from Pierre Dorian, quote, Pierre Dorian is very loyal.

I think, I think, I think, sorry, okay, George likes his chicken spicy. Bob Dolbin, need this. Yeah, Pierre Dorian is very loyal. I think DJ has done a good job. He's shown he can win. DJ is our coach. He's going to be our coach. Okay, let me give up a counter here.

You're absolutely right. If DJ Smith loses and continues to lose and puts himself in a position where it's like, man, you really have to fire me. He fires him. There are going to be fans who are going to be like, man, you know, he did the right thing. DJ Smith has to go. See how I laughed at that quote just now? Can you imagine if he. fires DJ Smith.

Pierre Dorian, the guy who legit was like a whole meme after the whole, we're a team thing. Can you imagine how people are going to roast him all over the league? And he's all like, Pierre Dorian is a loyal guy. And then within three weeks of that just fires DJ Smith. That's why I think he's safe. He can't fire him. He can't fire him. I don't know.

He's safe. If Ottawa loses his next four or five games, he's gone. I don't care because situations change. And Dorian, I'll say, well, at the time I meant it, but the situation is changed. We really feel like we're going in the wrong direction and we need to do something different. I really hate to do this. It goes against what I really wanted to do. But sometimes, look, there's a million ways you can explain it and it'll get away with it. And it's never the GM's fault. It's always the coach's fault. That's fair. That's fair. It's, it's going to be

interesting to see how this, this shakes out. Again, Tuesday night, Vancouver and Vancouver and Vancouver and Ottawa should be the panic. That's right. I like that. The panic bowl. Let's wrap up. Listen, we were just talking about to coaches on the hot seat. We, uh, last on Mondays, we have a new award we hand out. Every week we, we,

we go back and we look at which coach did the best job over the last seven days and deserves the Jack Adams of the week award. Okay, so I'm going to give you, I'm going to give you guys some candidates here. I'll give you a couple of candidates for since we last recorded this program last Monday.

The following coaches have been pretty good. I'm going to start with Sheldon Keith. I know it's going to be controversial. Leafs are 3 and O. Last seven days, Leaves are 3 and O. Descheldon Keefe deserve a little love. Also 3&O,

Lindy Ruff. Talked about New Jersey. They've turned things around. Peter DeBore, 3 and 0 in New Jersey. Bruce Cassidy, 3 and O week with Vegas. They've really just,

it feels like they've gone back. Like last year was the aberration. They're back to being a kind of a powerhouse team. And then the last guy that went 3 and 0 this week, I had no idea. Seattle Cracken. A little love for Dave Haxhill maybe But the Seattle goes three and oh

So I'm curious look And I'm gonna throw my vote in for Sheldon Keefe Because this thing was going off the rails He's also lost his His you know Samsonov now as well Going to Eric Shalgrin You could feel it felt like that world was caving in On the Maple Leafs

They've responded with three straight wins Right they outscored the opponents Like yeah 10 to 4 I kind of feel like Sheldon Keefe boy, you want to talk about a coach who, you know, battled adversity and all this stuff in the last seven days, going three and oh. Me, I'm thinking Sheldon Keith. That's interesting.

You know, I'm going to go different here. I'm going to pick Dave Haxstall. The Seattle Cracken are in a playoff position, right? Or at least they're pretty decent up in the Pacific Division. They're playing decent. Dave Haxthal's a guy who is very easy to try to dunk on him for his coaching philosophies and all that. I know in Philadelphia, people felt away about him. In Seattle, like, he's getting a lot of flack for how he's handling Shane Wright. But all the while, he seems to have a team that's

a little bit more competitive than they were last year. By the way, big fan of Maddie Baneers. I am really thankful for the fact that I get to watch him in the Pacific Division a little bit more often than I would have if I had remained in the Atlantic Division. I'm going to go off the board and give Dave Haxstall some praise. You know, I'm going to go off the board, too. I'm going to go off the board too. I don't know if you guys have noticed yet in the last 40-something minutes, but I don't always think too highly of the job coaches have to do in the end of the show. I find them largely disposable. What do you say? 28 of 32. Might have been a little hyperbolic. Might have been a little hyperbolic. Who are the four that

could keep their jobs? But you look at other sports and not not baseball so much, but like in the NFL, like I can come in and completely revamp a team with the same personnel. You don't see that necessarily happen in the initial. Although Luke Richardson is maybe shutting me up a little bit here in Chicago, you know, and maybe not making, making Jeremy Colleton look so good in the, in the hindsight here. But one of the things a coach can do is foster a good environment, right? He can help build a winning culture. He can allow players to lead. I'm going off board and going with Jim Montgomery, because I liked everything I heard out of the Boston Bruins locker room. And that's probably more Patrice Bergeron's doing. That's probably existed there. But a coach

can ruin that kind of culture real quickly. And Jim Montgomery, who's a coach that, you know, a guy getting a second chance, by the way, has done a very good job of allowing that room to flourish. The team's playing great, obviously. They're absolute bulldozer. But with what I heard coming out of that room, you don't hear that coming out of NHL rooms. And I think the coach deserves some credit for fostering that kind of environment and making guys feel comfortable speaking about that culture that they believe in. So I'm going with Jim Montgomery. Are you cool with giving him back to back Jack Adams. Oh, did he get last week?

We gave it to him last week. It's the best team in hockey right now, other than the entire, other than the entire front office. But Las wants to give him the award after he lost to a Sheldon Keefe coach team. But anyway, did he lose?

Did he lose? Did Sheldon Keefe defeat Jim Montgomery or did the Toronto Maple Leafs defeat the Boston Bruins? Exactly. Well, you know what? Julian, I'm thinking, you know what, Laz is our guest. And if we're being really polite, We should allow the guests to win out.

So it's not like you and I agreed on Dave Haxstall or, you know, Sheldon Keefe, so you know what I guess. I'm used to having opinions no one agrees with. It's totally okay if you don't. Oh, man. There we go. No, we'll give it to you. Back-to-back weeks for Jim Montgomery.

You make a compelling case for him, you know what? Really good case, yeah. I think, yeah, absolutely. All right. Listen, we'll wrap it up there. We do want to tee up that the Tuesday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show with Gentili and Custins. Fludo Shenzawa is going to join their show.

So we talked about Mitchell Miller. Fluto just did such a great job. Yeah, well, I want to second what you said about both Fluto and Gentilead. Just terrific work over the weekend. I mean, you think about it, you know, Cam Neely said we should have contacted the family. You know who did was Fluto Shenzawa,

so all props to them. Bingo. Yeah, exactly. Think about that, like when reporters are able to turn stories around like that. And last, actually, it takes me back to, you know, one of the best columns you ever wrote was one right after everything went down with, I think it was, Rick West had aired the interview with Kyle Beach. And it was kind of the first time that Kyle,

it was all was John Doe, John Doe, and then Kyle spoke. And you wrote a column, if I'm not mistaken, like within hours of that, if not an hour or two. And I thought it was, you know, sometimes, you know, sometimes columns are great when you've got days to write them and you can do the research. And boy, sometimes there's nothing better than opening up the keyboard and like kind of, you know, typing from the heart.

And you did that last year. I felt like Gentilly and Fluto did it on the weekend. And to me, that's the real skill of a great writer is when the passion and the opinion that you have in your brain can come out through your fingertips and you can do it in a tight span. Yeah, writing angry or indignant, like, it feels different. Like sometimes you're just like, you're hitting the keys a little harder and you're feeling what you're saying a little bit more. Yeah. Yeah, no, absolutely. So we look forward to that Tuesday edition of the pod.

Last, thanks for, again, like I said, I think we should rename it third man in, although apparently the younger people won't get the reference. Apparently, you and I are just the old guys that remember, you know, guys playing without helmets. Oh, man. Craig McTavish. That's the last guy, I think. Last of a dying breed. There's some guy in the league who's still not wearing a visor, right?

There's one guy left who's grandf. I can't remember who did. I think when I was at Mullet Arena, he was playing in the coyotes game, I think. I can't remember who it was. What? Can you imagine not wearing a visor? It was a coyote's jet's then, right? Yeah, I can't remember who it was.

Someone pointed out to me. Would it possibly be? Can you imagine playing hockey in the NHL these days without a visor? Wait, well, like Zedano Chara never wore a visor, right?

Well, who could reach his eyes? Well, yeah. Like, I mean, Z was one of the last, like, who's left that played before the lockout? Yeah.

Because Z, I thought, I thought Z was the last guy, wasn't he? Would have been Joe Thornton if he was still playing. Yeah, and, and, yeah.

Oh, God. This is a really bad. Have we just turned into of Boston Bruins, we won't go to Google. This is a really bad way to end the podcast with us trying to remember a guy. No, no, no. No, we call this a cliffhanger episode. Tune in next week when we tell you who the, the visor-lis player was.

Well, okay, you were at the game last week. Yeah, I have no excuse for this. This is just a total dropping. So this was who, coyotes in? I'm almost certain it was that game. My brain starts blurring games together, you know, a thousand games into this job. Chris Flannery? our producer is asking if it was Jamie Ben, but I...

No, he wasn't at that one. Who is it? Who is it? Okay, so I have the box score of that game that you're at, Les. Oh, God. I'm going to look through... It's really funny when it was the Black Horse game I covered last week. Oh, man, if it was, maybe. But I'm trying to look at who would even be old enough to be...

Zach Cassiot. That's right, because he's in Arizona. That might be it. I think that might be it. Yeah. It might be him. But he's not even that old. Is he, is he like 30?

It's like 31. It doesn't matter. Anyone who was playing before the rule was grandfathered in. Most guys just accept, like, Brent Seabrook didn't wear one because he hated it. Andrew Shaw didn't wear one because he got into a fight in the miners once and his visors cut open his own cheek and he hated it, so he didn't wear one. I don't think Milan Luchich wears one in Calgary.

So maybe Laza's point of there only being one visorless guy. There's a bunch. It's inaccurate. Well, this is what I get for, You know what? I'm never talking to NHL Scouts ever again. But Zach Casson does not wear a visor. So that might be a little.

I think Zach Cassian was the guy you were thinking. That might be the one. Okay. Well, so much for the cliffhanger. This was a riveting segment of podcast. You know what? We were vibing all the show until this lass threw us a curveball at the end. I ruined everything.

Oh, man. All right. Listen, we are going to leave it there. I want to thank everybody for listening. Again, the Tuesday show, they got Fluto coming on Tuesday, so that's going to be great. Follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Leave us a rating and review. We certainly appreciate that.

You can follow us on our Athletic Hockey Show YouTube page as well at YouTube.com at the Athletic Hockey Show. Right now, you can subscribe to the Athletic for a dollar a month for six months when you visit athletic.com slash hockey show.