The Athletic Hockey Show - Brad Marchand to be disciplined by player safety, Tuukka Rask to retire & Arizona Coyotes arena fiasco

Episode Date: February 9, 2022

Jesse and Sara welcome Sean Shapiro, the Athletic sports business reporter as guest co-host with Rob Pizzo on Olympic duty for the CBC.The roundtable discusses Brad Marchand's punch and stick swinging towards Tristan Jarry in the Bruins loss to the Penguins on Tuesday night. Plus we look at the knee to the head of Adam Lowry courtesy of Marcus Foligno in the Jets win over the Wild.We stick tap Tuukka Rask who looks like he will have to retire after a short lived return from hip surgery and Jack Eichel who is on the cusp on making his NHL debut after his artificial disk replacement surgery.The roundtable looks back on the Gary Bettman / Bill Daly state of the franchise presser from the all-star game in Vegas, with thoughts on Rocky Wirtz, the World Cup of Hockey, Carolina getting a stadium series game and Florida getting the all-star game in 2023.Plus Sean highlights his recent columns with Sara and Jesse including the NHL player agent poll and the ongoing drama with the Arizona Coyotes and their arena issues and we ask twitter, if you were GM of the Montreal Canadiens, what would you do? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hey everyone. Welcome to another Wednesday roundtable episode of The Athletic Hockey Show. I'm Jesse Granger filling in his host for Rob Pizzo, who is on Olympic duty for the CBC. Hello to Sarah Sivian out in Raleigh. How's it going, Sarah? It's going great. Bad news for everybody that reviews this podcast and says that they hate my voice because I just got back from Miami, so it's going to get worse. How are you? I'm doing pretty well. And we've got, today we've got special guest, Sean Shapiro. He's sports business reporter for the athletic, and he's joining us from Michigan. How's it going? It's good. I just have finished up an immaculate peanut butter and jelly sandwich, so it's a good day.

Nice, nice. Sarah's in Miami? I was. Mentally still, though. Not as exciting as a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for Shaw. No, this is, this is, this is a, I'm on my dog's barking even, did she give everyone, or try growling to give everyone an alert to that. But yes, this is an immaculate peanut butter and jelly sandwich, triple decker, two pieces of white bread, a piece of raisin toast in the middle, peanut butter on both pieces of white bread and then jelly on the raisin toast. So you get kind of the peanut butter outside and the crunch and then get the raisins added in

the middle. I had no idea that there were this, that you could even make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with that much complexion. There are many things to do with the PB&J, Jesse. There's a whole parthen on a peanut butter and jelly sandwich that when you have children, you learn about how to make PV&Js very interesting. Fantastic. All right. So aside from expert PB&J making, today we are going to discuss a couple player safety incidents last night. It was a busy night in the NHL for the player safety. They're going to be busy today with some meetings. We've also got Tuka Rask retiring after a brief return. Jack Eichel is back, almost. Commissioner Gary Bettman spoke here in Vegas. Sean and I were at that press conference. He kind of gave a state of the franchise. We talked about a bunch of topics that we're going to go over. Rod Bremendomor says the Florida Panthers are a juggernaut of a team.

It's really fun to see what they're doing down there. So we're going to start with what happened last night. I don't know if you guys were watching the games, but we had two different incidents. We'll start with the Brad Marchand incident just because I feel like it was the one that more people saw and drew the most attention. So Brad Marchand, it started early before the game when Tristan Jari was just trying to flip a puck to a fan on his stick.

And Marchand being Brad Marchand, skates. by and knocks the puck out of his stick and does not allow him to give it to a fan. I feel like those two were kind of chirping throughout the night. And then it ends with Brad Marchand punching Tristan Jari in his goalie mask and then getting him with his stick up high as the referees were trying to get him away. What did you see from this, Sarah? I feel like Marchand got Marchand. Like he never, well, I don't know, never, but he rarely loses his cool after like the first

event was funny, like no soup for you for the kid. But then obviously it wasn't good what he did at the end. You don't really mess with a goalie. Everybody knows that. But I don't know. You guys are both goalies. So let's get a perspective from Sean Shapiro on that one. Yeah.

To me, I mean, the punch itself is bad. But to me, it's the stick swinging incident that makes, that puts the cherry on the top and makes this both certainly suspension worthy. And it looks like it's going to be five plus games with the option for the in-person hearing. So to me, it's the stick swinging part that goes, that goes above and beyond that makes this worse. I mean, the shoving, the pushing, that's bad, but that happens. And the other thing, too, that I think we can't, that's hilarious to me about all this is, why does the linesmen take him in that path?

Like, when the linesmen are sorting him away, why is the linesman take him in the direct path in front of the crease when there is literally 200 feet in the opposite direction to try to escort him away. And he literally takes him in front of the crease and helps escalate it even further. So, yeah, it was bad. The stick swinging is, to me, is really the thing that I'm sure they'll look at the most and is the suspension-worthy part because that part is a jarrying wasn't hurt or anything like that. But you start dealing with sticks and faces and everything and it's a recipe for disaster.

Right. I completely agree with both of you. I think you're right that this in hockey kind of that's where the line is drawn. Like you can do a lot of stuff after whistles. Just don't use your stick to at in any way against the other players and especially a goalie like Sarah. I thought to me the best part about this is what Sarah said is Brad Marchand getting Brad Marchand. He is so good at getting under people's skin. And he thought he was going to win that battle.

And like obviously he started it with the not letting Jari give the puck to the kid. And Jari, we don't know what was said during the game. oh my gosh, would I love to have a mic on Tristan Jari to hear the things he was telling Brad Marchand in order to get him that angry. I guess we'll find out in a documentary or something in 20 years. Right. Do you think behind the B miced up Tristan Jari for this? Oh my God.

They are extensive with their things. Maybe. That would be beautiful. So as Sean said, he's got an in-person hearing via Zoom today, which suggests a heavier or suspension. Marcus Feligno of the Wild. He has a phone interview today with Department of Player Safety, so maybe not as bad. But he got in a fight with Winnipeg's Adam Lowry midway through the third period last night. It was actually Faligno's second fight of the game. And Falino dropped a knee on Lowry's face. It's kind of hard to see from the angles. I watched like three

different angles. It's kind of hard to see exactly what's happening. But I watch a lot of UFC and mixed martial arts, and it's illegal to knee someone in the face in the UFC when you're on the ground like that. So doing it on a hockey rink with skates, with blades on your feet, seems incredibly dangerous. What do you expect to come out of this one, Sarah? Yeah, at least a few games. I'd say more than one. I don't know five, but maybe three. That's my guess. I feel like everybody lost their cool last night. Like, it's fine to fight and then kind of going beyond it. I don't know, Sean, what's your take? I feel like you have good. predictions for how many suspensions there will be. I think the I think the call is going to be

all about intent. Fulino's perspective is all going to be about this wasn't an intentional thing. This was something where it was a slipping and my body motion took me that way. It's going to be a real interesting kind of precedent thing, right? Because oftentimes we see with suspensions it's something during the play where we can and we hear the voiceover, this is tripping. Like there's like this is during a fight. This is the league actually having to go in and break down what happens in a fight as opposed to someone kneeing during the course of play. And so, um, three is probably, I mean, I would probably set the over under that three. I think that's probably a fair line of where this goes. And I bet Felino's argument will be this wasn't intentional. I was losing my momentum going

forward. Um, and there'll be a big discussion about what intent was. Um, and then at the same time, though, if you're the league, and whether you think it's, intent can add, but it can't get rid of it completely. It's just like if you get into a, if you get into a car accident and rear end someone, you didn't mean to do it, but you still have to pay the traffic fine or to pick the other person's car or whatever. So it's going to be Felino's lawyer skills of debating of what intent means and everything like that. And Zapruder filming and breaking it down on both sides would be a fascinating, once again, documentary if anyone was allowed to get access to that.

Yeah, the only thing I can think of is, so last season during the playoffs, the series between the Golden Knights and the Avalanche, Ryan Reeves put his knee on Ryan Graves head. And it wasn't like a knee, like a forceful, like contact with the knee. It was more of just like a hold you there. And he did get suspended. But what was weird was when the player safety came out with the video, you know how they do, explaining the suspension, they actually didn't really mention the kneeing.

They mentioned the fact that he ripped out a chunk of Ryan. Graves' hair, like ripped it out of his head. So that was actually what he ended up getting suspended for. But he did get suspended in the playoffs for an incident that looked kind of similar to this. So obviously, playoff games are kind of weighted a lot heavier than regular season games. So that was, to me, that would suggest he's definitely getting one for here. It's a little bit different. But it's the only thing I could think of that's kind of relating to that.

To me, the thing that in both of these that's interesting is the, and it goes into the flaw of how we suspend players and how we have a league and player safe and dispense players. You're doing the suspension, I heard. Exactly. It's all my fault. I'm suspending people. We worry about the injury too much. It's something where if, like, these are both incidents that went to the point of there was,

without injury, there's suspendable, discussable events. But how often times do we see something where a player doesn't get hurt? And if that player didn't get hurt, the league would probably never look at it. And so it's an interesting, like the Reeves one, I'm, I'm, the Reeves one you bring up, I look back on that. I'm trying to remember whether they considered pulling hair out as an injury or not. Like, I don't know if that counted as like, well, you removed part of his human. So it's, it's an injury.

So there's no injury involved with either of these. It's going to be, it's going to be interesting to see where it plays out. I bet obviously Marchand is going to get more. The kneeing during a fight, just how they're going to have to break it down is it's going to be. That one's going to be the video, the suspension video. that you're like, I kind of want to see this because do we go to replays of the knee drop and everything? Right. I'm ready to get mad online.

I don't trust them. Sarah's got the fingers ready on Twitter. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, let's go on to our next topic, which is Tukarask. I was pretty excited for him coming back. He didn't last long.

There are reports now coming out that it's looking like he's going to retire. His surgically repaired hip is not healing the way I guess he thought it was. was going to. If he does retire, which it looks like he's going to, he'll retire as the winning as goalie in Bruins franchise history, although he didn't win a cup as a starter. He did lose two in 2013 against Chicago and 2019 against St. Louis. But he was on the bench behind Tim Thomas for that cup before that. I think his legacy, I guess, in Boston will be kind of mixed. What are your thoughts when you heard the news that maybe this comeback isn't going to happen, Sarah? I feel like between Shara getting leaving Boston and this happening, my child

childhood's officially over. I obviously watched Tuka growing up in Boston. He, yeah, mixed legacy, but you cannot deny. He was a great goaltender. And I think in Boston, we like to give you a hard time until you're done. And I think it's going to be a great celebration of Tuka. I mean, you saw when he came back and everybody's channing, we want Tuka. It's really sad that this is happening this way.

Sarah could obviously speak more to the Bostonian reaction, everything like that. But I think Tuka's career is going to be the encapsulation. of what's wrong with how we view goalies, honestly. Like so often we go through and we look at goalies who, we go through and we look at careers and goalies are always get the most praise or the most blamed. And so if you win the cup as a starter, you automatically get put into this echelon of this echelon where you're going to continue to get more chances as a player.

You're going to continue to get praise. And if you never win a cup, you're going to be always, it's easy to point the finger at one guy. of this was the missed connection. This was the reason the Bruins didn't win the Stanley Cups when he was in that because if only he had outplayed the other guy. So it's Tuka Rask's career, like tremendous career, tremendous career or someone who should be honored by the Bruins after his career is over

and everything like that. But it's a perfect image of this is why goal attending. It can be such a cruel position where Tukorask, he won the Stanley Cup as a backup, Much better goalie than what's his face now. Matt Murray. Matt Murray is in Ottawa and is going on a much worse career path, but will always be known as two-time Stanley Cup starting goalie Matt Murray. It's the type of thing where it's just like in football,

think about all the quarterbacks that are kind of mediocre in one Super Bowl, so now have TV gigs. Like you win a Super Bowl, you win a Super Bowl as a starting quarterback. It opens so many doors. Same thing with the starting goalie world in the NHL where it puts you on this pedestal that, oh, you're a winner and when it's a team game, but unfortunately for Tuka Rask's overall legacy, it's always going to be seen as,

ah, he wasn't the ultimate winner because he didn't, he wasn't the starter when they won a cup. I will say, I don't think he cares. Like, the more I had talked to him, he had such a uniquely perfect attitude to kind of deal with all the criticism. And he just would always say, love the Boston fans, love the passion,

and he would mean it in his finish way. I do have a story. I was in an elevator, the media elevator with him going down and some random guy happened to get in it, and he was like, Tuka, F the haters. And Tuka just winked at him. Damn, that's a Boston story. Yeah.

Nobody even flinched, including Tuka in the elevator. And Tuka just winked and nodded. He has the most incredible accent of all time because he's a Finn who learned to speak English in Boston. Like his accent, like it is a Finn with a Boston accent. No one in the world speaks like Tuka-esque. That's phenomenal. That is such a good point. But to your point, though, he's been so good.

And to me, when I see this news, kind of just looking forward, I mean, the Bruins, they've got the 27th best safe percentage in the NHL this year. Like, it has not been good. That team, you look at their lineup and you think, okay, Cup contender, like, or at least a team that can for sure make a deep playoff run. I'm not so sure. I mean, the only teams with worst safe percentage this season are Montreal, Arizona, Columbus, New Jersey, and Seattle.

So basically the bottom of the barrel. And if you're a team trying to compete for a Stanley Cup, it doesn't matter how good your perfection line is. It doesn't matter how good McAvoy is on defense. If your goal attending isn't good in the back, you're not going to get there. For me, if I'm Boston, man, I'm starting to look at that,

the athletics trade deadline big board. We got Mark Andre Fleury, Samian Verlamov, Jonathan Quick. One of those guys has got to end up in Boston by the trade deadline, right? Or the Anton Hudbin reunion, too. I mean, that's the cheaper. That's definitely the like discount version.

But you look at the lightning in a bottle type example. Yeah. Who's going to be more on the cheap, the guy who two years ago when the stars went to the cup final kind of caught that lightning in the bottles, a career backup went that way. He could be the, if you're looking for the clear starter, obviously you're trying to get flurry and everything like that.

But if it comes down to what's the most cost effective and then we go into the playoffs with maybe bringing in Houdobin light something for either swaying in a little mark or maybe it's Houdobin, maybe that's kind of the wild card you bring in to try and find a solution there for the Bruins. And obviously, Houdobin has a history in Boston, and it could be a good fit. And I feel like Don Sweeney's always in on kind of the big names at the trade deadline, though, but do they even have another first rounder to give up at this point? So I don't know if they're going to afford someone like Lurie.

Right. That's the issue is not only do they have the pieces to move, one of those, but also the salary cap. I mean, every, like this trade deadline, I feel like every trade we talk about, every potential thing we talk about, it's all salary cap, just because so many teams are pressed against the salary cap. It's going to be tough to fit. And speaking of teams pressed against the salary cap, Jack Eichol has been practicing with the Golden Knights. Yesterday, he was out of his no-contact jersey for the first time. He's been cleared for contact, which suggests he's getting close to return. But the Golden Knights are $10 million over the salary cap right now with all

their players if they were healthy. Obviously, Alec Martinez still on LTIR, that's that's 5 million. And then Jack Eichel, a $10 million contract with those two. That would put them at about $91.5 million, way, way over the cap. But I mean, the Golden Knights are going to have to make some ridiculous moot. Like, they're going to have to do some serious, serious cap shedding to get Jack Eichael on the ice. But man, watching this team, so they're finally pretty much healthy right now. Now, Zach White Cloud and Alec Martinez are both out. That's two top four defensemen. So not. all the way healthy, but they've got Patcheretti and Stone and Stevenson and Carlson and Smith and Marcia So and Dodonoff all back in the lineup. Petrangelo and Theodore are playing well.

I watched them absolutely eviscerate the Oilers last night, four to nothing. And to take a team that's that good, they're coming off back-to-back conference final appearances. And you add in Jack Eichel, one of the best players in the entire league. How excited, I guess Sean, I'll start with you. How excited are you to see what this can be? We don't see this very often in the NHL, a superstar like this gets added to an already contending team. Yeah, the interesting thing, it's going to be, once it all comes in, the first question is to be, how is it going to fit right away? And then how is it going to fit financially?

It's going to be absolutely fascinating because I, like the thing on the ice, if you go video game world, this is fun. This is a great dynamic team. It's fun. They play a style. It's up and down. You want to watch them. But how are you going to make it work?

Because as you said, $10 million over. with cap, you're going to have to do something pretty dramatic to get it done. And if you're Vegas, like, Vegas has the Golden Knight, I mean, one thing about the Golden Knights that way, I don't even know if we talk about it. Maybe they do in Vegas. You can tell me what, I'm right or wrong, Jesse. But everyone kind of goes, oh, the Vegas got, Vegas got the expansion draft perk. That's not what happened. Vegas, George McPhee and Kelly McCrimman have aggressively used the cap more than any general manager in NHL history. They played what, down a forward seven times last year?

Or they played down a skated seven. Yeah. They played down multiple skaters, I think, seven times. Yeah, they are, they basically said, they basically said, F it. We, we're, if there's no cap in the playoffs, so we're going to do it. But to get this done, is it going to be another situation like Mark Andre Fleury or Ryan Reeves to extent, where someone who was part of the beloved Vegas core has to get let out? And for me, I just wonder, William Carlson's numbers are not the William Carlson from a couple of years ago. And I wonder if all of a sudden William Carlson's getting moved because, well, Jack Eichel's the shinier new toy here who can take his spot.

Vegas is like the fire festival of the NHL if the fire festival actually happened. Like if they pulled it off. I feel like they're always saying, we're going to figure it out. We're going to figure it out. We'll just let us handle it. I mean, let's see what they do, Jesse. What do we think they can do? Yeah.

I mean, so when you hear $10 million, it seems, they don't actually have to trade $10 million worth of players because they signed a bunch of guys early in the year off waivers, Michael Amadio, Ben Hutton, um, blank on Adam Brooks. And they're going to probably waive all those guys or, or at least waive the equivalence to get down to the 23 man roster. And then that'll, they're probably going to have to trade about $6 million. And then you mentioned William,

Carlson, and I think a lot of people out here are thinking that just because the center depth is so good in Vegas right now. But I don't know. Like, I don't know how much sway Pete DeBore has on it. I do know that I do know that Pete DeBore loves William Carlson and Riley Smith. And those are the two guys that I think Riley Smith obviously is an up pending UFA so they could lose him this summer. So he would make sense to move. But I think if Pete DeBore has any say in it, those two guys aren't going. They may not be scoring in the, in the, at the pace that people want. But They are two players that, like, they play the most minutes. They're number one PK, number one power play.

He sends them over the boards, whether they're up a goal, down a goal in the final minute. Like, those are his guys. So, but you have to trade someone. So it's like, Evgeny Doddanov, maybe. He's a guy that they brought in. He makes the same amount of salary as Marsha So and Smith and Carlson. So basically they're all around $5 million. Alec Martinez, who just signed a brand new deal.

I mean, this is what the Golden Knights have done, though. Like, you sign a new deal with the Golden Knights. You think like, all right, settling down. No, not so much. you're going to get traded in like six months. That's just how things have been here. Enjoy your stay. Hit the casino.

Go home. Let me ask you this, Jesse. As someone who covers Vegas and sees them up front, would you rather lose Jonathan Marsha or Riley Smith or both Chandler-Stevinson and Matthias Yanmark? Wait, sorry. One of... So you either lose one of Riley Smith or Jonathan,

or not Jonathan, Riley Smith or Jonathan Marciusel, or both Chandler-Stevenson and Tino's handmark. Because I'm doing math. I'm doing paper math here and trying to figure out. So you're losing one player at $5 million or you're losing two guys that make around 4.75 who are also both part of that.

Vegas plays fast. Vegas gets up tempo, part of the penalty kill. You see Vegas all the time. What would be your... Because I don't think Datanoff has much of a market. Personally, like I look at Datanoff. I think if someone comes saying, Daddanov, I'm going to have...

I'm going to ask you to retain salary and Vegas doesn't need you to retain salary. Vegas can't retain cell. Right. They would probably have to pay. Yeah, they would probably have to pay a pick to unload Daddanov's contract at this point. Man, that's you, I mean, you, you picked a good this or that because it's really tough. Like, that's a tough call. Because I think losing Marsha or Smith is like those are such key pieces. But man, Stevenson, Stevenson has played way above his his salary. And like when you're a team like the Golden Knights who's cap strapped and you're just looking for like every. $3 matters.

When you've got a guy like Chandler Stevens, he literally leads the team in points. And the guy's making like $3 million, like less than $3 million. He's, he is like such a good value overproducing way over what you're paying him. That's almost like an untouchable piece for a team in the Golden Knights situation. So like, like I said, if it was me, I'm trying to, I'm going all in. Like they're already all in. I'm going even further in. Like my chips are in the middle of the table.

I'm like taking my wallet out and like my, I'm mortgaging my. house. I'm trading all the ancillary pieces. I'm trading Matias Yanmark. I'm trading a backup goalie, Laurent Reisois, who makes more than the average backup goalie. I'll just take the AHL guy. I'll take Logan Thompson at the NHL minimum. I'm trading as many ancillary pieces as I can. And that's probably going to hurt you down the road because you may lose Riley Smith also next summer. But to me, if I'm the Golden Knights, it's like, let's just do this. Let's try. We're already all in. I would try to keep those main, like those golden misfits pieces, Marcia So Carlson-Smith, I would try to keep them all.

I'm sure they will. They'll figure out a way. Yeah. And if Vegas does keep all those players, they're looking like a juggernaut. But we may have a team that is already a juggernaut, according to Hurricanes coach Rodbrenemore, who obviously Sarah knows well down in Carolina. He called the Florida Panthers a juggernaut team the other day. What did you think when you heard that, Sarah?

they've been beating the canes. The canes have been really good against high-level opponents, except they are struggling to solve the Panthers. And they just keep coming at you line by line. I was looking at their top scores. They score so much. And then they've got their depth scoring a lot. And then when the goaltending is good, the goaltending is good.

It's like they have everything. And you really need everything this year. Yeah. I mean, they lead the league in even strength goal share. I was looking at it the other day. And it's like, they've outscored, just at even strength, they've outscored the opposition, 134 to 88. That's more than 60% of the goals at 5 on 5, which is like, Sarah covers the team that is the masters of this, like for the last few years. And like 60% is an insane number to have.

They have been so good. Sean, what do you see when you watch Florida? I see a roster that is built like we talk about like the modern day, like, and this is going to sound ridiculous, but I'm going to just my end point. It's a team that's built to be in the modern day dynasty echelon. Just seriously, just when you look at the makeup of the team, there is only forward above 30 is Joe Thornton. Every forward on the roster is under 30 years old other than the 42 year old. So Joe Thornton will be replaced,

but this is a team that, and you look at their salaries going forward. You don't really have, Lundell's going to, I mean, even you got young guys contributing in their ELCs already. you look at how this Bobrovsky's the only one. Oh yeah, the Bobrovsky contract it's starting to turn around. But the

you look at how this team is built. You look at the forward core. You look at the age. Even the defense corps, like the oldest defense. I mean, Radko Gutus is 31, but Aaron Eckblatt is still only 26, even though he looks like he's 45.

And the, and you go and you have this entire core that's still that's so young and building. And they're not. just a cup contender this year. They're a team where we're going to be talking about the Florida Panthers for the next four to five years. And so juggernaut is completely fine when you're talking about this team as the makings of Florida and Tampa are going to be, there's going to be a lot of conference finals held in the state of Florida over the next four to five years. That first line

might be the best first line in hockey right now. It's just insane. And I agree, like, they're going to go as far as the goaltending takes them. And like, that's like, that's, like, that, can be taken as a negative, but also like, Sergei Bavrovsky, when he's on, there's not many people in the world that are better to stop in pucks than that guy. Like when he's on, if that guy plays his best in the playoffs,

good luck to the rest of the NHL and beating that team. And I think it's good that they don't revolve around the defense of this team. So it kind of gives him a cushion if things go awry. And to Sean's point about a juggernaut, like, or a dynasty, like Bobrovsky is great. And he, when he's at his best, he's one of the best in the league. And then they've got Spencer Knight right behind him who's like, nipping at his heels just like, yeah, Bob, and that contract's not great. But also they've got

this super young goalie who makes nothing who's just kind of almost ready to take over. Like they're, they really are building for the long term. Awesome. Well, good stuff, guys. We're going to send it to break. And when we come back, after the break, we'll discuss Sean's reporting here in Vegas on the craziness that is the Arizona Coyote's arena deal and his NHL player agent poll that he conducted. I found it fascinating. All right, Sean, so you got to spend the week in Vegas with me. I hope you had fun. There was a lot going on here. You were doing AHL arena tours. You were obviously the All-Star game, but also Gary Bettman's big time press conference here. Of all the stuff you got to work on this week, the thing that I found the coolest at least was the NHL player agent poll. We do a lot of player polls. And these guys can can really open up sometimes. But then there's also times where they don't want to. And I feel like someone can kind of

to be the conduit for them and the agents really opened up to you in this piece. I guess what stood out to you about when you were conducting this poll? Yeah, it's kind of the concept of the whole thing came together where like we've done player polls in the past and anytime you would ask a player anything business, CBA, PA related, we always got the generic, well, I have an agent for that. And so I figured that we just go and ask the agents to that. I don't know why that was my voice for an NHL player. That was very weird.

The transatl player. That was very weird. Anywho, to me, I wanted to, also from the perspective of the agents, we talked to players about, hey, this, what do you think about this city, that city, and everything like that. But no player has ever played for all 32 at HL franchises. Agents are the only people who really see the, who have ever really dealt with the personal side of all 32 franchises. So I thought it was a really good way to kind of look at and jump into how all the different franchises. are run, how their ownership works, how players are treated, things along those lines. And then also just to kind of ask some of the questions that players have deferred on in the past.

Like, what do you think of how players are treated health-wise? What do you think of things as far as revenue go? And it was some of the answers came back as expected. Some of them surprised me. I guess I'll flip it to you guys real quick, just as people who saw it first without having worked on the background. what stood out to you as something of this was something that was a highlight or a low light or whatever. Low lights are fine too.

The thing I found, like the part that I was most interested in was the first two polls in the story, which were if money is equal, your clients making the same amount of money no matter what, which franchises would you steer them to and which franchises would you steer them away from? We'll start with the positives. The franchises they would steer them to. I think Tampa Bay is an obvious one. they've got the no income tax. They win all the time.

They've got such a great, like, outside perspective of their culture. But then you get Toronto and Philly. We're the next two. And I feel like when I hear players complain about, like, the media scrutiny and the fan scrutiny, like Toronto and Philly are like the two worst ones. You're like, were you surprised that those were on the list? I was not surprised when it, I was, I didn't expect, I expected Toronto to be on there because the Maple Leafs do spend,

they have the financial muscle and they spend. The Toronto Marley's probably have better facilities than five or six NHL teams. And so when you're talking about the financial muscle, the Maple Leafs flex, yes, you want to play, you go play there. And so Toronto being on there didn't surprise me.

Philly didn't surprise me, but I didn't expect it to be on there. I'll say that about Philadelphia. Philadelphia was a franchise that if they, I went in expecting Tampa. I went expecting Toronto. And then when Philly was mentioned a couple times, it was interesting to hear the perspective

of how it was brought up of Philly for decades, even before the current ownership group, has a reputation for treating players the right way. While the fan base is very... Filly. Very driven, passionate. If you win there, you're a god, A. And B, if you're...

But from within the team itself, players get treated. I think there's so many little things we forget that go into the human side. One thing a lot of agents brought up was you look at what is the space like for the players' wives? What is the space like for their families? Things like that where these are the other, these people are also so important to the players daily livelihood, how are you treating them? The one story that's even in the piece is just someone brought up to me how when a guy gets called up to the NHL and you play an NHL game, and I don't think a lot of people know this, you're not entitled to an HL jersey. Like if you, like you play an NHL game, you don't get an NHL jersey. That's not automatic. Like you don't get your game worn jersey. You don't get that. That's something,

there's nothing in the CBA that says you get that. But the flyers have always been good about if you're that four a guy that gets swallowed up for the first time, you're getting your game jersey. And they'll help your kids find a flyers jersey with your name on. Like little things like that that go an extremely long way. And a fan base, as much as people like, oh, media scrutiny, me, whatever, if you win there, you're a god. And isn't it nice to playing a place where people care? Like, just seriously, it's like as much as people may be yelling about what you did on the penalty kill last night, at least they cared about what you did on the penalty kill last night. And it's not like Canada. Like, there's a football team and a basketball team. It's a little

bit different. And Philly's interesting, too, just from a perspective of it's, you have, Philly is so homegrown. It's not really much of a transplant city. People really, live in Phil, born in Philly and live in Philly and stay there pretty much their entire lives. And so you have a lifelong fandom there that just really wants to win. And it's not nearly as much of a, you don't have, you don't have other, you're not going to have another team take over the building. You don't have like, there's a lot of places where you have people who are. I'm a fan of this team, but when my original team comes to town, I'll go there. There's nothing really like that in Philly.

It's a Flyers town. It's through and through. You know, there's only one person that used to play. for the flyers that they've never, the fans never booed when he comes in. Can you guess who it is? No idea. Rod Rendemort. Just a little trivia for everybody. Yeah. It's just watching him talk at All-Star Week, it's like, it's hard not to like Rod Brindamore. He's just, he's a very likable personality.

So, so those surprises weren't that big. When I'm looking at the negatives, you see the team, the teams the agent might steer his client away from. You see Arizona. and Ottawa, and there are obvious reasons for both of those. Sarah, how surprised were you when you saw the third team on that list? I mean, I... It has nothing to do with the fans. I do think it's funny from an agent perspective. The agents hate dealing with Tom Dundit, and they hate him.

From agents I've talked to, it's very much a personal thing. to some degree, but it's also, that means he's somewhat good at his job, right? And that means that the Kane's ownership and GMs are good at their job because they kind of can finesse a lot of money out of people. So I don't think if you're going to the Keynes, you're going to make money. You're like not as well if you went somewhere else. Is that what kind of you heard, Sean, when talking to the agents about this? Yeah, Tom Dunden has a reputation. That's, it's pretty, it's pretty well known out there.

The one concern that was interesting, and this was kind of, there's just so much in it, but didn't end up in the story. The one thing, because agents pay attention to the news events and around the world and everything like that. And so the one thing that kind of did pop just as a point of warning. And there's, it's, they're really, players are protected from this happening in the NHL, but a lot of agents looked at what happened with Tom Dunden in that football league, the AAF or whatever it is, how he bought it, and it folded.

it and the players were from all reports out there. And I don't know the full facts of that matter. So you'll have to go to the athletic football show or whatever, if we have one of those to go to go to go to go to get people talk about that football league. But the players got left out in the cold. And agents noticed that. They also look at there's things where they know Dundon is willing to spend on salary. But he has he has a reputation for being more cost cutting and being a little bit around on the, cheap on the other things around the team. And those are the type of things where agents kind of pointed to that where spending, one of the most interesting things about this poll to me, and it's something where I always kind of, I kind of laugh because I saw some people like, of course people took pictures of the poll and said, oh, my team's not on here. Why? And then people respond, like, oh, our owner's great. He spends to the cap. Every owner spends to the cap.

Yeah. News break. Every owner spends to the cap. There's no big deal about spending to the cap. So if a team spends to the cap, if they don't spend to the cap, that's, that's a terrible owner. But every owner spends to the cap. So it's all about the other things and where you spend that other money. And Tom's got a reputation of he's going to trim the fat around on those sides. And that's something that can be a little bit worrisome for an agent. I think it's one of those matters, though, where it'll be interested in see this exercise. We did it four or five years from now because if Carolina wins a cup in the next four or five years,

if they continue to grow. Obviously, they got the outdoor game next year. Things continue to grow. Maybe reputations change. It's just Tom is different than most NHL owners. And when someone's different, they're scary. And so right now, until people are used to dealing with Tom, he's going to be kind of scared and people are going to be scared of him.

So it's going to, it's, I'm interested to see how this evolves over time with Tom Dundon. Yeah, me too. For sure. And the team that was on the top of that list that, agents will dissuade their players from playing. It was pretty overwhelming along the top. And that was Arizona. And that may have something to do with agents not wanting their players to play in a college arena front of 5,000 people. I don't know what the timing of this poll. It may have, that may have been pulled before that came out. But that was one of the topics that Gary Bettman

was asked quite a bit about here in Vegas, was the Arizona Coyote's arena situation. What was your biggest takeaway from the things mentioned by Gary Bettman and just what's going on in Arizona? Well, things mentioned by Gary. Okay. Well, from things going on in Arizona, it's absolutely ridiculous. Like, we're at this situation where in an HL franchise has determined that the best case scenario is to be a tenant in a Division 1 arena, to be at the second hockey team, and to play in a spot. where it's okay to build a $20 million building that you're just going to give up in four years

to, if your plan for the Tempe Arena goes. It's a very sad state of the franchise, if that is what your, what your basic case scenario is just truthfully. The coyotes, it's, the coyotes have obviously been the center of relocation rumors and everything for like that for years. And it just feels like we're now reaching that, that final flashpoint of, This Tempe Arena, not Tempe Arena, sorry, the Arizona State Arena, it's going to happen. Like next year the Coyotes are going to play in a 5,000 seed arena. It's the, they're done with Glendale. Glendale's done with them.

They have nowhere else to go in Arizona. So they're going to play next year. And moving a team is not as simple as like, oh, let's move this team over here. That's not going to happen. So the Coyotes will be in Arizona next year playing as the second team to the Sun Devils. Whenever you watch a coyote's game on TV, you'll see an Arizona state logo on the center of the It's a great deal for Arizona State. They're coming out gangbusters on here.

They're getting million dollars of marketing, free millions dollars of marketing. Anytime a national TV game goes to Arizona, TNT, ESPN, Arizona State, Center Ice. And on top of that, they're getting a $20 million addition to their building that they don't have to pay for. Great for Arizona State. Not really great for the NHL. So it's an absolute joke, if you ask me. Like, can you imagine the Keynes playing at Duke or a basketball that's on our competition? Like a basketball team playing in a college arena, that just would never happen.

Yeah, it's, it's, it's an, it's embarrassing for the NHL for this to happen to come to this point. And Gary Betman in his public comments has stayed steadfast and committed to Arizona. And he has been committed 10 years, he's been committed to Arizona for more than a decade now. So it doesn't surprise me at all that he's continuing to take this stance. And unless you get to a spot where, unless, unless, you get a spot where Gary's bosses and everyone thinks about Gary is the big bad guy, but really Gary works for the owners. And so until other owners come and say, Gary, this doesn't work, we need to move on. This can't work. Until other owners do it, this is going to be the situation.

And who knows if they get the urine intampy, maybe, but it's a mess. I want Arizona to make the Stanley Cup final so badly, so badly. There's nothing I want more in life than Arizona to host the Stanley Cup final at ASU. That would just be so perfect. But like the question I had for you, Sean, is Gary is so optimistic. And like, that's outwardly to us. We don't know what's going on. Like, he has to be outwardly optimistic to us. But like he genuinely, he seems to genuinely believe that like if they get the arena in the right side of town over in Tempe, this market does work. Like, how convinced are you, everything you've looked at, everyone you've talked to? How convinced are you that Gary's right that this market can work if things work out well for it.

It could work. I'm not disagreeing that it can't work. I mean, if you got it into, if you got it in a right spot, if you got into Tempe, I'm not disagreeing that it would work there. Just the biggest issue is, is that even a reality? Like, that to me is the biggest issue. Like, hockey can work. Hockey can work in most places.

It's really comes down to are you winning? and can you're both in like you're both in markets and I used to work in Dallas where those markets are not quote unquote traditional hockey markets but their markets where teams can continue to make money the teams continue to have a fan base the teams continue to grow and everything like that so we can work in Arizona if they get into the right spot and and start winning but just the biggest issue is are you even going to get that building there's no certainty you're going to get that building and and one of the things that I was I laughed at of like I had, I really feel for coyotes fans.

Like, if you're a dedicated coyotes fan listening to this, please know, I don't, I don't hate you. I have nothing against coyotes fans. I would love to be able to wave a magic wand for you to be able to have your team in a good situation. But if you're in a spot where one of the kind of people, calms people made is like, oh, the Calgary Flames played in a 6,000 person arena before the Saddle Dome was built.

That was in the early 1980s, when NHL revenues were really low. And there was a building with shovels in the ground already. And when you're talking about a league where players owed a billion dollars in debt coming into this season. And the players have to pay back that debt by hockey-related revenue going up. And if you're the NHLPA, you've got to start looking at that as like, how are we going to, player salaries over the next three to four years are going to be lowered by the coyotes playing in Arizona on all teams. Not just the coyotes.

It's going to be, if your team, so Vegas fans, with Jesse here, when the coyotes, when the Golden Knights have to axe the next player who makes too much money, it's partially because Arizona's playing at Arizona State. Like, that is at the end of the day, when you have that type of anchor attached to your financial system, it needs to be cut off. And I wish that there was a solution for, because I hate to talk about moving a team, but I wish there was a solution, but I just don't see a solution where you get that done when there's such a dire time for the league right now anyway, when there are options that you could work and kind of fixed revenues going forward right now.

That's awesome. That's good stuff, Sean. Yeah, really appreciate the insight. And when we come back, we're going to take to Twitter where we asked you about the Montreal Canadians. Montreal Canadians and Twitter are always a good combo. We'll talk about that. I know it.

Don't I know it? All right. So Sarah took to Twitter. She asked solicited advice, I guess is what you can call it. If you were the GM of the HABS, what would you do? And Sarah, the responses were as good as we expected. Yeah, there are a few. We'll get into some of them in more detail, but probably cry, to be honest, is one.

One said, I would say, wow, I'm the GM of a hockey team. Who in their right mind will let this happen? As I said, Nick Suzuki to Detroit for Danny the Kaiser, Chase Pearson, and his seventh-round pick. A lot of quits, but one from Cowgirl Beebop said, do just enough to get fired, but not for cause so I could cash out on the beach somewhere. So that's the best version of the quit response. And the best thing for that, one of the best things you can do for a media career is to be a

failed GM. You fail the GM and any panel will call you and you will get a job. It is a tremendous, that person. You can lie too. Pierre McGuire and the Whalers revisionist history. I'm telling you. All right. Oh, here's a good one from Rivard, NHL.

send Caulfield down to the AHL to develop slash keep his confidence up, start fielding calls on everyone, avoid the contract of the 2021 first round pig, try to poach a few bad contracts from Vegas for pigs, refocus efforts on player development, especially with first round picks. I think that's like a fair, honest answer there. What do you guys think? It's a person with good vision who just needs kind of like the people around them to help with the exacts of how that can do because I immediately had, immediately was doing the assistant GM thing in my head of being like, that's not against the rules and that's not against the rules and that's not against the rules. But the person has a good vision. The person has a really good vision

of how to at least start attacking things. Yeah, I think it, and I think the poaching contracts from Vegas, like the way, not just Vegas either, the way the NHL is set up, like we mentioned earlier with all these teams pressed against the salary cap, if I'm a team that's rebuilding, I am open for business in terms of I will take on your contracts for picks. This is probably the best climate for doing that than we've ever seen in the NHL. So yeah, I mean, I think that person is on the right track. You've got to kind of go down that road. I totally agree.

All right. A lot of people are saying analytics, higher analytics people. Are there not a lot of analytics people in the HAB's front office? I haven't looked at the, hey, Shay, on Twitter's always got her little child. chart with all the analytics people. And I noted like Seattle's is like they've got the logo next to them and Seattle's is like gigantic. They've got half the analytics people in the NHL work for the crack. And I don't remember off the top of my head whether or not Montreal has analytics people. I think they're promising to build an analytics department. So maybe get that's what one person said.

So get the show on the road there for sure. This is the time to kind of build up things around the team, not the team itself. Yeah. I mean, the analytics question always, feels like a landmine too, because if you go and either way, you kind of run into debates, but either, I mean, you're not going to like, sorry, they're not going to change everything in one day. That's the thing people don't realize. We're going to say, sorry. No, and in Arizona and Montreal, sorry, Arizona's on the mind. Montreal, yeah, that's an obvious one that you should, you should go and build up your analytic department. Every, all 32 NHL team should be building up their analytics department. You want, this is,

is hockey, running a hockey team is an information business. And if why wouldn't, that's why if you, that's why the teams that are richer are able to go and hire 50,000 scouts and they're able to hire 15, 50 person analytics staffs because the more data you have, the more informed decisions you can make. So it's, yeah, I don't think any NHL, and that's the thing too, I don't think any NHL team doesn't have an analytics department right now. It's all about whether the person at the top believes what the analytics department says. So this goes back to the person who's saying, I'm hired. in this analytics department, okay, are you going to listen to them? That's on you. Twitter user, whoever you are. Right. That's 100%. You nailed it. Every team, every hockey team has super smart people putting together all these numbers and then some of them have a guy that's

above that person ignoring it. That's super frustrating. All right, we might end it on this one because it brings up an interesting thing at the end from pun master, Ripkin. Blow it up, everyone not named Cofield and Suzuki are on the table. Even explore the idea of trading price in the off season. What do we think about that? I think it's, I mean, if you're rebuilding, that's the right thing to do. Like, if this team was close and they thought they were going to get some guys back, it's like hold on to Kerry Price because that you're not making the Stanley Cup final like they did last year without that guy. But if you are blowing everything up like that person said and you're just keeping Suzuki and Caulfield, I think Carrie Price is not going to help you win anything

with that core because by the time they're ready, he's going to be too old. So I think that would be an easy one if you can find someone to take on that contract. Who's the, there's the old, whether it was a, I can't remember what other sport. I can remember the old cliche of it. It's, it's better to trade someone a year or too early than five years too late. Like I truly believe. I think that's Bill Belichick, maybe. I don't remember who it is, but I truly believe that's from Montreal. You made that up. Then give me credit, everyone. If I made it up, give me credit for me. Exactly. I'll take all the this is a Sean Shapiro special. I'll take all credit for it, even though I definitely did not make

that out. But I think that's where Montreal is headed with Carrie Price. Like, just truthfully. Like, he's 34. We've seen what happened. Goleys do not age as well as they used to. Because of how goal, how aggressively goalies play against the post, their bodies are going through so much more wear and tear now. Ben Bishop, two and a half years ago was a Vesna trophy finalist, and his career is over because his body couldn't hold up. And so I look at the Kerry Price deal and are the Canadians a Stanley Cup contender next year? No. So it's, you have no, to me, you're going to be stuck with a $10, $10, $10 million contract against the cap with the cap staying flat during a rebuild. You're almost at a point where I don't know what the cap hit capture is, but like you're almost at a point where I almost buy carry price out.

Like seriously, like I would buy carry price out because there's no, there's, you're not going to win the cup next year. You're not going to be able to trade $10 million. So maybe you're at a point where you buy them out and you move on. Like it's, you don't, are, if say the Canadians are building for a. contender. What are they logistically, logistically, a playoff or Stanley Cup contender? Four years now? Okay. Carey Price is 38, 39 years old at that point. And hopefully you found another goalie by that point. So I would, moving on from Carrie Price, it's, it's something that people would not like it. I understand that it would, it would hurt. But if you're trying to actually win with this team in the

next six years, I don't see how you do it carrying that cap hit on an aging goalie. I just don't see it. I have a, I have one small rebuttal, I guess, would be, I would not buy him out. I'd have to see the buyout calculator to see what it is exactly. So I may be going over, over the top on the buyout calculator. My point is carry price is available if I'm the G. I think, yeah, I think just to me, like my one small like devil's advocate to keeping carry price, like if you can't get anything for him, if you call around the league and it's like, you can't, nobody wants, nobody can take that contract. Like, there are a bunch of GMs that would love him to play goalie for their team. But we just simply simply,

can't do it. I think there is a benefit to keeping him around for a rebuild if assuming he's all right with it. And like one, you said people aren't going to be happy when you trade carry price. I think it would do it would go a long way towards like soothing the fan base of like we're still keeping this guy. He's going to retire a Montreal Canadian. And I also think when you're rebuilding and you're going through some struggles, having a goalie as good as carry price and a leader and a person as good as carry price kind of holding the ship down. I think he could, I think he could, he could help keep the culture good. And I think there are things that he could do,

even on a losing team that's trying to rebuild, that's playing young players. I think having a guy like Kerry Price that's that sturdy back there in net could have possible. He's not going to help him win games and win the cup when they're actually like when these players have developed. But I do think there are some small benefits to keeping around a Hall of Fame goalie like that.

Yes, I like that. I will say just before we immediately get, sorry, just before we get the responses of Sean, you didn't look at the cap at Calculary? I did. So the buyout option, I'm taking the buyout option because it only saves them a million dollars a year if to do the buyout thing. But going back to the trade thing, I'm all aboard on the trade thing though. So sorry, Sarah. Yes, I like the trade thing and you're totally fine. But I would say it's not like a flurry situation either where you're kind of betraying him on a team

that was going to win the cup. It's kind of you can have a conversation with Carrie Price where you're like, okay, we're going to send you to a good team for an opportunity to win the cup or we're going to keep you here because we love you, but it's not a slap in the face to him, really. Right. Awesome. Thank you, Twitter. That was good stuff. It's always getting Canadians and Twitter combined. It's always interesting and fun. Sarah, what are you working on this week? Good question. God, the canes keep having four games in six days, and I'm like, should I right now? Should I right now? I think I'm going to, if they lose against Boston tomorrow, I'm going to ask do a little are they

shall we panic or shall we not type story we got some trade deadline things coming up might have a conversation with Donnie Waddell and I have something coming up with Sean Sean what are we working on? Yes another jersey draft we have we've cornered the market on jersey

drafts the I don't know what day that will publish but it will happen today Oh it's the jersey draft is going down today The draft is today. The draft is today. Exciting stuff.

Behind closed doors. Behind closed doors. So we just like how NHLGMs wished the expansion draft had been before. I was going to say, is Sarajevoly going to leak this all of it today? Yeah. Jesse, what are you working on? I've got some good stuff. Like you said, trade deadline coming up.

The Golden Knights are obviously, I held a live Q&A yesterday, and it was just 50 questions about the trade deadline. So obviously this team is going to be busy. I've got some stuff going on with that. Also working on a cool story on Alex Petrangelo and kind of him being the team dad of sorts. He's become a leader on this team despite not being the captain. Obviously, he was a captain in St. Louis. I have some good stories from some of the young defensemen about kind of how Alex Petrangelo is around the scenes, helping those guys develop. So excited about that.

Awesome stuff today, guys. Thanks for joining us, Sean. Yeah. Does Alex Petrangelo give the team rides in his Honda? Yeah, he for sure drives a Honda. back and forth to practice. It's definitely not a car that's more expensive than that. Alex Petrangelo of the NHL.

Clearly should have, and you know what? If he had just driven a Honda onto the ice during the Honda All-Star Classic instead of whatever junk he did do during that breakaway thing, he should have actually won. But. Yeah. That voting was an absolute disaster. Yeah.

And he missed the net. Yes, he did. Well, thanks for listening, everybody. We've got all kinds of good stuff across the athletes. Athletic Hockey Show, all the different days. Hockey Hall of Famer Cammy Granado joined Craig Custence and Sean Gentilly on their Athletic Hockey Show USA. And you can also check out Arthur Staples' New Rangers podcast, The Garden Faithful. This week, his guest is Dominic Moore.

Thanks for listening to The Athletic Hockey Show. Please follow us on your favorite podcast platform. And don't forget to leave a rating and a review. You can subscribe to the Athletic Audio Plus on Apple Podcast to get all the bonus content from the entire network. This week, it's Ian Mendez and Julian McKenzie who provide bonus content for subscribers. To hear it, you can start a 30-day free trial, then just 99 cents a month after that. And right now, you can get an annual subscription to The Athletic for just $3.99 a month when you visit Theathletic.com slash hockey show.

The Athletic Hockey Show continues Thursday with Ian Mendez and Down Goes Brown. For Sarah and Sean, I'm Jesse. See you next week.