The Athletic Hockey Show - Buffalo Sabres off to great start, is it too early to panic for the Canadiens and Blackhawks, Jasperi Kotkaniemi prepares his return to Montreal, and more

Episode Date: October 21, 2021

With the Buffalo Sabres off to a strong start, Ian Mendes and Sean McIndoe discuss if they could be the NHL's most lovable team right now, and if it's too early to feel the heat in Montreal and Chicago as both teams struggle out of the gate. Also, previewing Jasperi Kotkaniemi's return to Montreal as a member of the Hurricanes, how will that crown receive him?Then, a listener calls in to note the historical significance of an upcoming game between the Kraken and Habs, a strong candidate makes his case for the prestigious role of DGB Intern, "This Week in Hockey History" and more.Have a question for Ian and Sean? Email [e-mail], or leave a VM at [phone]!Save on an annual subscription to The Athletic: theathletic.com/hockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We're back, everybody. It's another Thursday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. Ian Mendez and Sean McAdo with you ahead on this podcast over the next hour or so. We'll ask the question of whether or not the Buffalo Sabres are the most likable team in the NHL right now. After their torrid start for the season and maybe on the flip side, I will ponder if there are some fan bases that should be getting ready to hit the panic button after they've gotten off to a slow start. We'll touch on some relaxed dress codes from around the first.

National Hockey League too, as players finally get a chance to show off their personalities when they're rolling into the rink. We've got a bunch of really fun mailback questions, too, that we want to get into, including a voicemail from a listener about the upcoming Montreal-Seattle matchup. Plus, another listener goes the extra mile in an attempt to secure the Down Goes Brown internship spot that we talked about last week and we'll wrap up as we always do with a little this week in hockey history. Why don't we look back at a time when the NHL used to hold its all-star game before. the season even started. We'll discuss if that is maybe a good idea that they should, they should bring back. So I got to ask you first, though, to kick things off. I got a few emails from people. We got some comments about the Down Goes Brown internship program. We'll get to that question a little bit later. Did anybody hit you up via email or Twitter and

say, I want to be the Down Goes Brown intern? Yeah, I did hear from a couple of of people. And I got to say, there is already a pool of potential applicants because both last year and this year, when I do this stupid prediction contest that I always go into without any kind of plan, I hear from people saying, look, man, I know how computers work. I can scrape all this data for it. I can make this happen. And so I've got people who are looking at ways to do that. I don't know if that's intern level or or something else.

But there's, you know what? The hockey community is always looking to help, especially when they see someone who looks like they need help. And obviously, I give off that vibe. And I appreciate the offers out there. Yeah. So listen, like I said,

a little later when we open up the mailbag, we got somebody doing some research kind of on your behalf. So I know that you wrote your top five, bottom five power rankings. early in the season and there was a special spot for the Buffalo Sabres in there. Off to a great start and you did about two weeks ago before the season started. You did write in your, hey, here's, let's throw everyone a bone. You were like, hey, the Sabres kind of have a soft schedule.

Maybe just maybe they'll win a few games out of the gate. We'll be all looking at each other's hand. Wait what. But I got to tell you, are you not kind of like kind of who's not pulling for the Buffalo Sabers? Yeah. That's what I want to know. They're lovable.

I can't imagine anybody. I mean, even they have the rivalries, Boston, Montreal, Toronto. I can't imagine there's any of those fan bases that don't want to see some good happen to Buffalo. Because here's my thing. And I think we maybe touched on this theory before. But my theory is that when people say, I don't like this team, they almost never mean I don't like this. team. And they almost never mean I don't like the players on this team. What they mean is I don't like the fans of this team. 90% of the people out there who tell you they hate the Maple Leafs,

no, they don't. They hate either Maple Leaf fans in general or they hate like a Mapley fan. And it just all projects from there. Same thing with, you know, whatever other team in any sport that you don't like. The chances are it's you don't like the fan base. And then everything else trickles down from there. Who hates Buffalo Sabres fans? at this point. How can you possibly 10 years of misery that these guys have gone through? It's a great market still every year towards the top of the TV ratings amazingly for not just their own team, but everyone's. It's a great hockey market. But it's just, they've been through so much with the hockey team and the football team, which is finally good. So at least

the city's got that going for them. I can't imagine anybody's rooting against the Sabres right now. Even if we're not, let's just say, completely convinced that this start is the real deal. It's just great to see. And by the way, I've got to say that piece that I wrote that you referenced where I said, hey, look at their opening schedule. And this thing is set up for them to maybe surprise us. That's my favorite type of thing to write because I've got a whole bunch of people right now telling me, you called it, man.

Like, 3 and 0, this is it. I've seen people, they're tagging me in tweets to other people saying, this guy called it. You got to go back and read this guys. He predicted it. I didn't predict anything. I didn't call anything. I didn't say it was going to happen.

I said it could happen, which is the most risk-free way to do a prediction, right? Because if you're wrong, you just, if it doesn't happen, you just go, well, yeah, I mean, I said it could happen. I didn't say it would. And if it does, you get the reaction I'm getting, even though, if you actually go back and read it, nowhere do I say it's going to happen. I just said it's possible.

And it is. It's interesting. a week. They've got Boston tomorrow. They've got Tampa a couple of games after that. First, real challenges against the higher echelon of teams. But then after that, it goes right back. It's another five or six games against weak teams. I'm telling you, this team could be eight and three, seven and four, something like that. And then from there, it's the whole us against the world. Nobody believed in us. It's a narrative and it's nonsense. But sometimes nonsense narratives work. And how maybe we might see that in Buffalo, it would be an incredible story if it did.

And we could all get behind them and root for them right up until they made the playoffs. And then something would happen in game one. And we'd all turn on them. The cycle continues. Okay. So let me throw this out. You're a big fan of, you know, prop bats. And by the way, I should point out that our good friend Jesse Granger, the segment brought to by BetMGM.

Jesse did the late game on Wednesday, Vegas plan. So unable to record with us this week, working late into the night on Wednesday. So he's a no-go for this Thursday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show, which is totally fine. Let me ask you this question, Sean. Who's going to have a better record after 10 games? The Buffalo Sabres or the Buffalo Bills? I see. I knew you were going there and that's going to be boy. You know what? You got to go bills, but I mean, they've got some ground to make up. Yeah, I, man, the thing with the Sabers is, wouldn't it be nice if this was happening and we hadn't seen a couple of big win streaks from them in recent years.

I mean, it feels like it's happened to or three times that they've either started hot or got hot pretty quick in the season. They had that one year with, wasn't it like a 10 game win streak or something? They won 10 games in a row. They were, we were all tweeting out after American Thanksgiving. They've done it. They're in the playoffs. And then they just, the bottom fell out from them.

I feel like I, and I was not putting them in my top five and getting a lot of pushback. and that held up, let's just say. But, you know, yeah. But hey, how many players on this team were on those teams? Probably, it was only a few years ago, but probably not many. Different coach, different GM, everything. And by the way, this is very cool story for Danganado as well, just as a coach, because this is a guy who comes in and says, you know what,

and we're not going to forecheck. We're not going to clutch and grab and try to win two one. Let's open it up a little bit. Let's play some hockey. I'm happy to see him. I wasn't a huge fan of. the decision to bring him back, not because I don't like him as a coach, but I felt like, you know, do you need something new from outside the organization?

And so far, it's a good start. And it's worth saying this is, how many times do you see a team that we all think is going to be bad? And they win a few games. And then you dig under the end, and you've realized it's just goaltending. They're shooting 20%. Their goaltenders are standing on their heads. It's completely unsustainable. It's, you know, the wins are real, but everything underneath it is fake.

That's not really what's happening with the Sabres. The Sabres are playing really good hockey. They are deserving the wins that they're getting. They're not fluking into this. They're not just going out and riding a hot goalie. They're playing really well. And if it lasts, cool. If it doesn't, hey, Sabres fans will have been happy for three games,

and that's three more than most of us thought they would get during this year. So what I think is interesting is what effect, if any, does this hot start? have on the Jack Eichael situation. Like if you're Kevin Adams now, do you just sit back in your big chair and you'd be like, well, let's just wait and see how this plays itself out. And I mean, maybe if they were 0 and 3, we're having a different conversation, we're like, they got to get rid of them, trade them now, get something. But guess what?

They're 3 and 0. So maybe, and I don't know, maybe it doesn't matter, but maybe it buys you a week or two or three. Who knows? Yeah. It might be an impact here, right? I don't think it matters to Jack Eichael, but it might matter to the GMs that are trying to trade for him. You know, what's what's that phrase?

I think Elliot Freeman loves to use where, you know, when things are going bad, he says the GMs, nobody throws you, life rafts, everybody throws the anchors, something like that. Yeah. And yeah, it's potentially does buy Kevin Adams some time. There's some good vibes in Buffalo now, so he's not under the pressure. Now, let me flip this around on you, though. And you tell me if I'm off the board here, going into the season, nobody thought the sabres were going to be really good.

Nobody thought they were, I mean, forget about the playoffs. They're going to be 20, 30 points out of the playoffs. So in that sense, Kevin Adams really wasn't ever under any pressure to get a deal done ASAP. Because honestly, oh, we're going to lose tomorrow. Who cares? Yeah. That loss is not going to matter. If they hang in and they get to like November, you know, maybe even December and they're still in the race,

does it actually work the other way where suddenly the pressure starts to ratchet up because people start saying, wait a second, wait a second, we can make the playoffs with this team. And we know from last year you make the playoffs, anything can happen. So why don't we trade Jack Eagel now and get the reinforcements that are going to actually come in and help us? I could see it going that way. The flip side of that, though, is that if they actually are winning with this rag tag

bunch of rejects they've got, it sort of becomes that, you know what, this is us. We don't want any outsiders. We don't want the reinforce. We got a special thing going and you just roll with it as long as you can. But it will be interesting to see if they actually are sticking around the race towards into December, does the pressure somehow loop around and actually start to go up again? Because people are saying, we might actually have something here. And if we had two or three pieces that we could get for Jack Eichel who's sitting at home,

we might really be on to something. We'll have to see. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I think Buffalo has been a really cool story to watch. I think the Red Wings have been really fun. They've won a couple games. Columbus is probably done maybe a little bit better than people thought out of the hop. You know, L.A.

Like there's been some... Ottawa's look good. It's San Jose's 2 and O. It's been... It's almost like you had... I know you're a Simpsons guy, right? Oh, yeah. The, in my opinion, the greatest Simpsons episode of all time, the base of the softball one, right?

Yeah. And then you've got... So you've got all the All-Stars, right? That's like all the bad teams. And then throughout the episode, they just get picked off one by one. And it's almost like that. It's like the Red Wings are, you know, running into the house and saving the furniture. And the senators are, you know, falling down the hole with Ozzie Smith and everything.

And then it's like all the bad teams are actually showing something. All of the bad teams are looking pretty good. And then you got like the Arizona coyotes are the Daryl Strawberry where you're like, no, you guys are still there. You guys are still. That's the one team that we're all like. like is going to be bad. And it's like Arizona is like, oh, let us show you what bad looks like. We're the one team where you're looking at the scorecard going.

All the bad teams are good. And they're tapping you on the shoulder going, no, we're still here. Arizona coyotes giving up seven, eight goals a night. We're terrible. Yeah. See, now I got the phrase Ken Griffey's grotesquely swollen jaw. Seared into my mind, I think, like a bunch of other listeners. So, okay, so on the flip side, though, like, okay, there's a bunch of teams that are

punching above their weight that we didn't think that they would. Now, we'll caution it with everybody saying it's a little bit early. So it's a little early to be optimistic, but as we know, as hockey fans, it's never too early to be pessimistic. So what about some of these teams? I'm looking at you, Montreal. I'm looking at you, Chicago. I may be kind of side-eyeing a couple of other teams.

Calgary's looks a little flat. Winnipeg maybe looks a little flat. Is there anybody who your opinion of them through seven, eight days of the regular season. You're like, you know what? Yeah, I kind of have changed my opinion on this team. The first week has, or as it, you know, maybe cemented your view of anybody. Let me start with the positive. Calgary and Winnipeg, two teams you mentioned, I'm not too worried about. Calgary, their underlying numbers have been really, really good in the two games. And I know some people will roll their eyes at that. But, hey, we all understand that hockey is a game of

bounces. And sometimes you don't get the bounces. And you got to dig a little further and say, how well are they playing and some of the numbers indicate they're playing really well. Now, the counter to that could be, yeah, it's Daryl Sutter. This is what Daryl Sutter does. His teams always have great underlying numbers. Sometimes the record just doesn't follow and maybe that happens in Calgary too. But I think they'll be okay. It's only been two games. Winnipeg, boy, that game a couple nights ago in Minnesota was wild and no pun intended. Yeah, that was pun intended. It was not. But and also, a crush, loss in one sense, but also they lost that game because of a nonsense offside review,

where the clear and compelling evidence was from the overhead camera where apparently we can see like a millimeter of escape being off from there. You know, it's probably the right call. We do have this rule. We got to deal with it. No, I'm not taking anything away from Minnesota, but you were literally that close to grabbing a win against a real good team and a tough building. I think Winnipeg's going to be okay.

Montreal and Chicago, boy, I don't know that they're changing my mind, but certainly I had some optimism with Chicago, as I'm sure a lot of people did based on all the moves they made. And Montreal, it's less optimism and more like, I'm going to shut up about this team because they proved me so wrong all through the playoffs last year. I'm not waiting into this again. but both of those teams have been outright bad early on and they've had their stretches Chicago against the Islanders for the first period or so

they were okay but there's those are teams that are deserve the records that they have and you know when you look at Montreal if you put the playoff run aside if you went back to April

of this year when they were fighting it out with Calgary for the final playoff spot. And you said hey, by the way, next year no Shay Weber, no carry price at least to start the season. It's going to be some other guys coming out, but they're going to be missing those two guys. You would have

said, oh wow, they're probably going to be really bad. Because we didn't think they were a very good team last year until the playoffs started. And now they're missing their two key guys. Yeah, maybe that's maybe that's all it is. Maybe it's as simple as that. And the problem is in Montreal there's

a lot of problems, but there's three main ones. Weber's gone, he's not coming back. Price is gone. We don't know his status, but we shouldn't expect him to be back anytime soon. The one piece of optimism, I guess, if you want to look at it this way, is that part of their problem is Cole Coffield and Nick Suzuki

aren't doing anything. And those are key pieces that the team is built around now. That's not going to keep going. Shea Weber isn't walking through that door. Kerry Price isn't anytime soon. the real Colcoffield and Nick Suzuki can show up anytime and when they do this team will be better. And then you look at Chicago and I mean, the optimism there was they brought in Mark Andre Fleury.

They brought in Seth Jones. Jonathan Taves is coming back. Those are three superstar, you know, potential Hall of Fame guys that are getting added to a lineup that weren't there last year. So the team should be better. And none of those three guys have been very good so far. And you can understand with tapes. I mean, he's still getting back up to game speed. But those three guys haven't done much.

And if those three guys aren't going to be impact guys, then we're kind of left with the same team we had last year. And that team wasn't very good. And I don't know what happens next in Montreal. Mark Bergerman told us we're not making any trades. So maybe they got to fight their way through. I feel like we all kind of know what's happening next in Chicago if this continues. And that's that it starts to feel like. like the coaching change is almost inevitable, doesn't it?

Yeah. Oh, yeah, absolutely. And, you know, Mark Lazarus has kind of touched on that saying it doesn't feel like there's anybody in the house that's waiting in the wings to take over from Jeremy Colleton. But, yeah, if this goes on for another few weeks, you kind of feel like that's the case. Now, you say, I don't even know if it's weeks, honestly. It might be days, yeah. When you see a team go out and it's in its home opener and they're getting booed and, you know,

and it's not like, I mean, any team can make a coaching change, but it's, it's not like, Jeremy Colton was on the firmest possible ground coming into this season. I mean, he, he, you know, they kept them. And that's a sign. And the other pieces, and I know this isn't a good comparison for various reasons, but look at the last time Chicago started a season like this with a young coach. And they said, you know what? No, we're making the change.

Four games in. Denny Savard gets fired. Joel Quamville comes in. That's 2009, or rather 2008, 2009. season. One year from there, they were winning the Stanley Cup. Totally different team situation. And also, there's no Joel Coembo in-house waiting like he was back then. But John Tortorell is out there. Claude Julian is out there. There are some established names. And, you know, the old thinking in sports is you fire one coach, you bring in the opposite. So they fire the young guy who kind of came from inside

the organization, who wasn't really a name guy, but it worked his way up. Now you bring in the veteran older big name guy from outside. I'm not rude for it. I never root for anyone to lose their job. But it's starting to feel like there's some writing on the wall there if it doesn't get turned around. And like I said, I don't think it's a weeks, plural situation if it keeps going this way. Well, you said you didn't know what was next for the Montreal Canadians. That's a little bit of a lie because here comes, yes, Barry Kotkin.

John. It might be of all the timing. This is not great timing if you're the Montreal Canadiens, you winless. Here comes the guy that walked the way. Yeah, it's, but what do you think? It's not good timing. It's good timing? Well, here's the only reason it's good timing.

Yeah, obviously when you're Montreal and you're looking at the schedule and he's coming in game five, you want to be four and oh, you run into your X, right? You want to be in great shape or in your nice, you know, you're not, oh, geez, look at me. I'm doing so well. And right now, this is this is the equivalent. They're in sweats, mustard stains on the front. They look awful. But the reason I said it might be a good timing is you're 0 and 4. You know, Montreal has no points.

There were four games, which means, you know, you just look at it. They have to win five in a row to even get back to playoff pace and then stay there for the rest of the year. Like, they're already digging a big hole. And at some point, you kind of go, man, even if we, you want to take it one game at a time, but even if we win this next game, well, great, we're one and four. I mean, it's still a long way to go. But this is one of those games that could be kind of an inflection point where this is going to be a big game. There's going to be a ton of attention.

The building is going to be electric. There's going to be a lot of emotion, certainly from the fans. I don't know how much from the players we'll see. If they go out and play great and win this game, that can maybe be one of those games where they say, you know what? Okay, that's where we draw the line. The before and after, it was the Kokanami game that turned it around for us. And again, we just, with Buffalo, we talked about narratives and, you know, they have power sometimes. And Montreal needs something to hang their hat on right now and say, okay, we've turned it around.

We're not that team anymore going forward. A game like this, if they win it, can be that game. Now, if they lose it, and if Kockenami goes out, you know, he scores the winning goal, then it has the potential to really start to spiral for them. So it's a big one and it's going to be fun. I mean, it's going to be fun for us to watch. It might not be fun to be just Barry Cochinemi or any of the other players out there. But it's going to be worth watching for sure. And I think most of us had it circled as soon as we saw the schedule come out and we're getting it early.

Yeah. Last time I looked this up, last time we had a game like this, October 28, 2007. That was Dustin Penner's return to Anahe. Okay. October 28, 2007. That's the first game, Dustin Penner played with Edmonton in Anaheim after signing the offer sheet. So it's been 14 years since kind of an offer sheet guy has gone home.

Penner, by the way, that night, no points, no goals. Didn't do much. Edmonton won the game. But, I mean, I don't remember. And there was a mysterious barn that was built in the parking lot that we can't. The Honda Center. It's just barn being raised. It's happening.

All of a sudden here. But, you know, I think. that this might have the potential to be the most, you know, charged night of the season, regardless of whether it's in Montreal or not. Like, like, this has the recipe for all sorts of, I'm not saying it's like, it's going to be like the Richard riots or anything from back of the day. But it does feel like, like you said, it could be an inflection point. It could be this galvanizing moment, but it could also be really nasty and ugly. And it could end up be in the night where the fans are angry at Kotkenyemi. They're also mad.

at their own team. They might not be happy at all. And you saw 5,000 empty seats the other night at the Bell Center, which is not typical for, you know, a Canadian market like Montreal. Obviously, I think it's reflective of kind of maybe how people are feeling about going to large gatherings indoors. Yeah. That's probably the biggest reason why.

But the hockey team on the ice is not really doing much to draw them in either at this stage of the game, right? Yeah. And I imagine the building will be pretty full. for this game. But yeah, it's going to be interesting to see because, you know,

a lot of times when you see games like this, you know, for example, the other one that you might circle is, you know, when Tom Wilson's back in New York, that'll be a big one. You know,

when Claude Lemieux came back to Detroit or that sort of thing. But those are things where the bad blood is between the players too. Again, I'm not sure how much of that is here. I'm sure to some extent in Montreal there's going to be this feeling of this guy abandoned us. He,

you know, he wanted to be somewhere. else, but you know what, guys leave as free agents all the time. It's, you know, and, and, you know, I say, hey, if I'm Nick Suzuki, I'm sitting there, I'm giving a guy standing ovation, because I got a huge contract out of this because they wanted to make sure that, that I wasn't going to have that opportunity. So it's, it'll be interesting to see. It might be this weird dichotomy where you've got the crowd going crazy and hitting a guy, but meanwhile, on the ice, it's just kind of a typical game. but sometimes, you know, the crowd can influence the way the game happens. We'll see.

It's going to be a very nasty crowd towards him to start. Carolina gets out to a hot start, gets a couple of goals early. It shifts right. That energy isn't going to go away, but it's going to shift exactly. Yeah, yeah, it's going to be really interesting. And by the way, you know, I know that Sarah Sivian joined Arpin and company on the Habs podcast there. talking about this. So that's a great opportunity for our listeners to check that out to. Speaking of Sarah, kicking off this style ranking, Sean, on the athletic.

We start to see some teams kind of loosen it up with the dress code. Now, remember, this started in the pandemic, in the bubble, when NHL teams said, you know what, no need for you to go into a game in a suit because you're just going, it's in the bubble, have some fun, be relaxed. And now that we're out of the bubble into, back to kind of quote unquote normal, you're seeing some teams, Arizona at the top of the list. And I believe what, Toronto now is starting to relax the dress code. Yeah, relaxed it. They went business casual.

They went business. But, hey, that's a quantum step forward in the NHL. And you know what? And you said it. It was Arizona that did it first. And they loosened it all the way. And, you know, I had my fun with Arizona as far as what's happening on the ice. But full credit to them.

We need teams to step forward. I was surprised to learn that, you know, in the CBA, this is written in. You got to wear the suit and tie unless your team says no. I mean, weren't you kind of surprised at like Vegas or somebody hadn't already done this, you would think? But good, good. I don't care what people wear. I don't, I'm not interested in fashion. Anyone that's ever met me would know that immediately upon meeting.

Yeah. Let's just say you and I, I don't think we're very high on the list of candidates to host this. fashion. Yeah, how come they didn't, I think our Kirkland brand jeans were a dead giveaway. Yeah, exactly. They're like, what these guys? They didn't even see, see us on the email for this. What shade of gray t-shirt should this guy be wearing? Yeah, that's, that's pretty much as far as it would go with us. But I don't look. I don't care. And in fact, I kind of turned away like, oh, Austin Matthews is dressed like a final fantasy character. Okay, good, good for him, man. Just score goal tonight. That's all I care. But what I do care is I care about a world in some wonderful

future where NHL players aren't expected to be robots who, you know, where the culture just crushes any personality out of them. If this is a small crack in that, that we can we can start let these guys shine through a little bit and just get rid of this idea that anyone who's even slightly different is doing something wrong and being a distraction and all this other nonsense. In that case, I'm all for it. And yes, go ahead to do your business casual. Good, good luck. Can't wait to see what William Nealander is

wearing. And I promise even I will pretend that I care if it'll get everyone in the hockey world to loosen up a little bit. Well, I had the chuckle too because Austin Matthews was the cover story for an ESPN magazine article. And his, look, his outfit was atypical of a hockey player, right? It was

neon, it was bright, it was, okay? And I see all these people, that's why you'll never win with this guy. And, you know, you see that stupid narrative. But all I could think of, you tell me if you, and I'm sure you'll remember this. The early 90s, Doug Gilmore did a whole bunch of ads wearing cow legs. Remember, like fake cow legs for a milk commercial? And I'm pretty sure they won with that guy and he had fake cow legs, like painted on or they were pants or whatever was. They won a lot more than they usually did. Yeah. That was,

like, that, those were pretty bad, though. So we didn't like those, us leave fans. That was one of those things where, like 93 era Gilmore was just the coolest guy on the planet.

And we were just, we love everything. He's got the leather jacket and the motorcycle and all. And this is the coolest guy. There is nothing this guy could do that would make him uncool. And then that commercial comes on the screen. And you're just like, wow,

all right, I've got a lot to think about because that's, uh, yeah. Yeah, the milk commercial. Oh, well. Did you ever hear the story, by the way, just speaking of Doug Gilmore wearing things? Do you ever hear the story of how Doug Gilmore used to sneak into Maple Leaf Gardens in that era when he was, you know, the Maple Leaf Gardens that people don't know.

It was a smaller building in terms of, you know, it was right on downtown streets. It wasn't like the buildings now or these all these entrances. He had to sneak in the back. And you know how he would do it? he would put on a Doug Gilmore jersey and go through the crowd that way and people would just let him, they'd be like, is that, oh, these guys wearing a Doug Gilmore

that's some fan trying to look like Doug Gilmore and they just let him go walk right by and then he'd walk in the building and they go, wait a second, was that actually Doug Gilmore but by that time it was too late. He disguised himself as himself in order to get through a crowd of people that were looking for him.

This is like a Christopher Nolan needs to make a movie about it. Yeah, you know what? That brings up another story. So I did years ago, I wrote a, I helped Jamie McClennon, who a longtime Golden Angel, helped him write his book. And Noodles, his nickname, Jamie's very good friends, obviously, played in Calgary, good friends with Jerome McGinla. And he tells a great story in that book of they're all in Vegas.

It's Eginla and Jamie and a bunch of the flames guys. And they convince Aginla, they're like, would you be able to do one lap around the pool in Vegas wearing a Jerome McGinla jersey, wearing your own jersey? Would anybody notice you or recognize you? I'm like, I love those things, right? Those are awesome stories that I think one guy ended up recognizing them and knowing it. But like those are the cool. Obviously that guy did work at the weather station. Was it Boston where they interviewed?

Oh, my, Brian Trotche. No, in Pittsburgh. No, no, there was Trotchea, but Ginnla too. Aginle got interviewed in like Boston. It was just like, yeah, it's really cold. You know, got to drive. Careful, everyone. Local resident, yeah.

Yeah. Local Cambridge resident. Yeah. Did you see the other one the other day with Brian Trachier? Yes, I did. Yeah, I saw that. Yeah, that local TV station in Pittsburgh. I don't know if it was a fire or a car.

And they were like, they're just getting people on the street. They're like, Brian. It's like, that's Brian Trotchey. And Luongo too, had it happen in Vancouver, I think. Didn't Luongo have one where he was actually, he was out for one of his runs or something. And he was out there. So, yeah. Good old, good old NHL.

We market our stars. Boy, do we ever. Yeah, yeah. Can you imagine any other sport? Hey, LeBron, just see if you could make it one time around the parking lot. We're in your jersey. Yeah, just one time. That's right.

Yeah, it wouldn't happen. All right, I promised this off the top, had some fun mailbag questions and submissions. A reminder, you need to hit us up. You can do so a couple of ways. One way you can drop us an email to the Athletic Hockey Show. at gmail.com, the athletic hockey show at gmail.com, or like this caller did, you can leave us an old school voicemail. Have a listen. Again, the phone number, it's 845, 445, 845, 8459, and this caller's got, and I like how he specifically only says this is for Down Goes Brown, doesn't want anything to do

with me, but here we go. Have a listen. Kind of an interesting date to circle on the calendar coming up later this month. Message for Downgroves Brown, specifically in the hockey history. I do believe on October 26th, Seattle and Montreal will be meeting for the first time since the 19-19th Family Cup when game five was canceled and the series never finished. And I think this is worth kind of looking into because I think there's reason to believe this might be a big deal at climate plodgerie. that second ninth

after the cracking. Just thought. All right. First time since 1917, Sean. It's Seattle. It's Montreal in Seattle. Yeah. A little bit has changed. I got to be, it's well, you know, a bit.

Yeah, it's a pandemic still in the league. Yeah. Yeah, we're still. Yeah. It's, that was a very cool call. And because I got to be honest, I hadn't thought about that. But, yeah, Yeah, we're getting game six is finally going to be played.

We're going to finally resume the series, the infamous 1919 pandemic shortened Stanley Cup series from back when this is back. People are confused going. I didn't think Seattle had an NHL team. They didn't. This was back when the Montreal, the NHL champion, Montreal Canadians in this case, played a champion from another league for the Stanley Cup. and it gets cut short by the pandemic, hits both teams, but hits Montreal especially hard

with the series tied. And a lot of people don't remember this part. As part of that, because it was Montreal that was hit so hard, they went to Seattle and said, we will forfeit. You win the Stanley Cup. And Seattle said,

no, we're not doing it. We're not going to win it that way. We don't want it. We'll hold off until you guys are well enough to finish. And then that never ended up happening because it just got worse and worse. So yeah, it's kind of neat. It'll be interesting to see if that's mentioned at all.

In a way, it's sort of a weird time in the schedule. You know, we haven't even seen Seattle host a home game yet. So, you know, maybe they don't want to dip right into the history books 100 years prior right out of the gate like this. But it'll be neat. I asked, even when I heard the voicemail, I asked our buddy Ryan Clark, who covers Seattle for us. And I said, do you know if they're doing anything? And he said that he didn't know if they were, but they're being pretty tight-lipped on how they're going to approach those first few home games. So we'll see.

But it's kind of cool. This is, you know, there is a connection between these two cities as far as a history that a lot of people don't know. And it's not often you get expansion teams with 100-year-plus history stories that they can break out. But we got one here. Yeah. And, you know, for people wondering, because that series essentially got suspended on the Stanley Cup trophy itself, it, for 1919, obviously there's no winner, it simply says 1919, Montreal Canadiens, Seattle Metropolitan's Series not completed. So that's what's on the Stanley Cup. I love your, you know what?

Maybe they should go to league and say, let's just pick it up. Yep. It's game five. And the next three meetings or two meetings, whatever, will determine. that. In 1919, Stanley Cup, we got to go back. It's a pandemic. But, but, you know, like, put the names on.

Yeah. And I think it's, like, one of the Montreal Canadian's best players on that team was guy named Joe Hall who ended up dying because the Spanish flu. And like that, like, I guess shows you the severity of it that a young guy in his, in his, in his prime. Yeah. Hospitalized and literally died. within a week of Stanley Cup.

Quite a few players were hospitalized, the manager of the Canadians. I think George Kennedy was the manager. George Kennedy, very, very well-known. He got quite sick and really never recovered. It was a few years. It was a bad situation. So, yeah, and Seattle, of course, also did win a Stanley Cup in a different year. And in fact, they were the first ever American city to win the Stanley Cup,

not as an NHL team, but they did beat Montreal for a Stanley Cup. So they've got that history there. Again, you know, I'm sure the Cracken are coming in. They want to be new and cool and hip and maybe they don't want to go too deep in the history books. But it's a neat story.

And it's one that a lot of fans do. I mean, geez, if you're a hockey fan and you just listen to the NHL, you think that the NHL started with six teams and didn't have any history before that, but it did. This was part of it. Okay.

So when Montreal, all in Seattle face each other later this month, it'll be the first time that they meet pretty much in about 100 years. I think it's been a century. If you could press pause right now on any hockey series, any matchup, you're like, you know what, I've had my fill. I'll see you in 100 years. Yeah, Boston Bruins playoffs.

We're done. We're out. I figured it. We're not doing that again. Yeah, I figured that's exactly what it was going to be. Give me 200 just to be safe. We'll see you in the year 21, 25. We'll see 100 years from now and hopefully Marner's got a goal by then.

Yeah. You know, I think it's, it is a cool story. I really appreciate that, that voicemail that we got. And we do want to remind people, yeah, hit us up with a voicemail because that's a cool way to get a hold of us, 845, 445, 845-85-85-85-85-584-59. This one comes in from Chris. This is an email now. Chris from Dayton, Ohio has written in and being in Ohio.

Chris just recently attended the aforementioned Seattle Cracken. playing against Columbus. And Chris says, hey, is that the Jackets' Cracken Game on Saturday? Only one penalty was called the entire game. That was a Cole Cillinger cross-check. That was questionable at best. I want to know, guys, has there ever been a game without a single penalty in the NHL? That's from Chris and Dayton.

Yeah. There has been. Yeah. They're rare, obviously. It's the old, I'm sure it doesn't exist anymore. But when we were kids, the S-O-penity-free sweepstakes, and you could break that out. whenever you saw an NHL game go without. You don't see it very often.

Although, weirdly, one of those crazy coincidences, if you do want to see one, go see a game seven because there's a real good chance that that'll be the one where suddenly there's no penalties called. I feel like we even had one recently. Wasn't there a playoff maybe a game seven? With no penalties? Last year, yeah, with just no penalties at all.

I mean, the officials put the whistles away. I remember the famous Leifes Red Wings game seven in 93 had only one penalty and it was called very, very late because they just let everything go. So yeah, and answer to the question, yes, it has happened. It's not all that rare. You know, happens a few times a year, especially these days, probably a lot less in the 70s and 80s. But it does happen, but certainly not very common. Yeah, so I did look it up. So last season, we did get a couple of these.

Do we call them perfect games or whatever we call them? Well, that kind of, that's, let's call penalty-free games because Perfect is maybe in the eye of the behold. It's funny, though, because Chris from Dayton, the last time that there was a perfect game, involved those very same Columbus Blue Jackets. March 13th, last season, Columbus and Dallas played a four-three overtime game in which, from what I looked up, neither team took a penalty. So that was a perfect game.

Good stuff. There you go. Next question. As we keep rolling on here, opening up, the mailbag. Joel Wrightson. I really enjoyed when you guys

in a podcast episode this summer on the 10 most likable players in NHL history I was super happy to see my heroes. Paul Korea

and Timu Salani were included on your list. I'd like for you guys though to circle back and evaluate how you think Paul Korea's career would have turned out

if he did not suffer the injuries that forced him into early retirement. Personally, I think that 97-98 season in particular, he could have been

a heart trophy winner had he not been cross-checked by Gary Suter. And, you know, Sean, you and I, that was our last year of university. We were huge, you know, hockey fans at the time and Canadian hockey fans. And when it happened, we knew right away, boy, our team Canada wasn't going to look very good for Nagano. Yeah, knocked him out of the, out of the Olympics.

He had come in. So he comes in as a rookie in the lockout year 95, comes out of college, has a pretty good year. Year two has 108 points. And it right out, you know, really his first full. season. And then year three, he's got, he's 22 years old, has 99 points in just 69 games. So the injuries are already starting to be a factor there. But he finishes second in the Hart Trophy voting that year.

So, yeah, to say that, you know, the next year he starts off, he's played well over a point of game, 31 points, 22 games on pace for 110 plus points. Absolutely. MVP certainly was, was in the conversation. And, you know, he did get back to the 100 point mark in 99. and you know with him it's not it's kind of like Lindros right like it's it's not like there was one key injury where you're like he was good he was good he's good and then he got hurt and that was it was it was a number of things that added up obviously we all remember the cross check

we all remember Scott Stevens in the 2003 Stanley Cup final and Korea coming back and scoring the goal which at the time was this amazing moment maybe one of the all-time great moments that just doesn't hold up today the way it or at least you can't view it today the way that we did back then. But, yeah, I mean, Paul Correa, and then he's out of the league entirely by the age of 35, which I'm always a bit surprised when I see that because I always remember him as a guy who was done earlier than that. But a lot of injury shortened years didn't get to a thousand games in his career. Really, after that 2003, after that run to the finals with Anaheim,

that was really his last year as a truly elite player. I had some pretty good years in Nashville. but didn't, you know, it was not good when he went to one year in Colorado. By the time, he went to St. Louis, not the same player at all. Yeah, I mean, it's not that hard to look at him and go, could he have had a similar trajectory to a guy like T. Musilene, where he played very well into his 40s. And, you know, Paul Crea did eventually make the Hall of Fame,

but was he going to be an all-time elite guy instead of just a question-mark guy? It's a tough one. and it's, uh, he, he, he was really phenomenal to watch, especially on an Anaheim team that wasn't all that good back then.

Um, boy, he was, he was really something to see and, uh, just the injuries and the nature of the game, you know, when,

when you talk about, you know, these days, even today, there's a bias against smaller players. Oh, let's see how they hold up. But when you were coming up in the 90s,

uh, it really was tough to be a smaller guy like he was and, and the league treated him the way that, that, that guys like that were treated, which meant pretty much anything, anything goes. And unfortunately,

it really did cut his career short. Yeah, there's a handful of guys I think of in that era, who I wonder, like what would their careers have been if they didn't get hurt? You mentioned Lindrosse, you mentioned Korea.

I think of Peter Forsberg, too. Peter had some real injuries that really hampered his career. I always wonder what would have been there. A lot of different ones too. Yeah, and weird stuff with Peter, like foot stuff. and groin.

Yeah, the spleen in the O2 playoffs. I think of Cam Neely. I think Cam was arguably the best power forward at the time that he got taken out in the early 90s there and came back and it felt like he was duct taped together. And yet he was getting basically 50 goals and 50 games. Like what would a fully healthy Cam Neely have been like for the apex of his career? I don't know. And then the other guy, guy that you saw a lot of Pavill Bury, if his news hadn't gone on him. boy I mean he he was

racking up huge numbers even on two bad knees by the time he got to Florida if he had been able to keep him I mean there's there's just any number of guys and and it's it's it's unfortunate and some of this this wasn't all headshots and you know big hits and that sort of thing you know some of it was just guys getting getting beaten up and you know it does happen and it still happens today

and you just wish that if if the style of game had been different or even if we just had the more modern treatment on some of these things, you know, that what would have happened? You know, obviously there's no, you know, there's no greater what-ifs than, you know, if Bobby Orr stays healthy and then a Marylamyew stays healthy. Yeah. You know, the record book probably doesn't look anything like what it looks like now. Just so much of that in hockey.

And it's good that we're finally slowly but surely starting to drag ourselves towards putting some sort of priority on safety. If only just selfishly as fans, because how many hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of games of elite players have we missed over the years? Because guys just couldn't keep playing through all the injuries. Yeah. All right. One more, and I teed this up off the top of the show. This is an email we got from Jay who says he's making a strong case to be your personal Down Goes Brown intern.

We talked about this. You have so many quirky stories that you research with weird numbers. I've always thought you need your own crack research team. Why not enlist the help of our listeners here on the athletic hockey show? They can basically be your intern. Jay says, look, I'm making a run to be the GGB intern. So I decided to look up what you guys were talking about in the podcast to see, is there a game that every year in the regular season,

this is why I brought up, I said, imagine if every year we found out every team that wins the Stanley Cup, Like if you win game number 27 of the season, that's your tick. Like that should be the teams that we circle because somebody who won that night is going to win the Stanley Cup. I win the Stanley Cup. Jay says, look, unfortunately in the 13 full seasons in the lockout era, we have not seen a single game where the eventual Stanley Cup champion won it. However, 11 times in the 13 full seasons we've seen, the eventual Stanley Cup champion won games 33, 54, 77. Sounds like I'm reading lotto numbers here.

Bingo numbers. So 33, 54, 77. And I'm assuming that's not the same 11 teams. I'm guessing that means that those are the games that have been the most important. But yeah, so there you go. It's analytics, folks. This is, if you want to get hired by the Sabres, this is, you've got to go in there and tell them it's 33, 554, 77. Those are the ones you got to watch.

And, you know, if your team is playing another team and it's both of those teams, 33rd games, you're basically watching Game 7 in the Stanley Cup final. So get in there and watch. And you know, Jay is not looking for a ton. He's not looking for a huge financial reward here to be your intern. He says, I'm a 36-year-old American. I just want to be paid in bags of all-dressed chips and coffee crisps. Yeah. You know what? I'll even send you a bag of milk just as a down payment. I'll throw that in the mail tomorrow and you should get it in a couple of weeks. Multiple milk references on this edition of the athletic hockey show. There you go. Gilmore and this and not ketchup chips. I thought that was interesting. Yeah, you know, that's,

that that did catch my attention, but I'm, you know what, in this world, we'll let everyone have their, but yeah, I'm going to throw a couple ketchup chips chips in there too for you, buddy. Okay. So here we go. Wrapping up the show as we always do with a little this week in hockey history. I wanted to actually ask you about this one first because October the 20th, 1965, it was the last time we ever saw what the NHL used to do, which was they would actually play the All-Star game before the season. So the team that won the Stanley Cup the year before would actually play a team of All-Stars that were put together by the league.

So, for example, if we did it this year, it would be Tampa Bay would play against a bunch of players from around the league. I'm not focused on that so much as would you actually think that there's, and merit to playing the All-Star game before the season. That maybe it's a good way to launch the season from a marketing perspective. From a marketing perspective. And the players don't really, they don't take it that seriously. So I'm not worried they're going to get hurt.

It's a nice way to kind of ease into it. I think I don't hate the idea of a, if you're going to do the All-Star game, maybe we do it in the beginning of the season. I don't hate it either. And, you know, it's, uh, uh, uh, look, the NHL All-Star game is terrible. It's awful. It's absolutely, I know they've tried all these different ways to do it.

It's absolutely terrible because the players don't care. The players don't try. And you can, you know, you can watch a decent baseball game where guys are playing 80%. You know, basketball, not as good. Football stinks and hockey stinks. So it's terrible. So first of all, I love this idea because it gets the All-Star break off of the schedule.

Get it out of the way. Put it in the preseason where I've already used to not paying attention. But also, maybe we get a little bit more effort. If it was like, let's gear up, let's get going, you know, there wouldn't be anywhere near as much injuries and wear and tear and you wouldn't have to drag the players. You know, they'd probably be happy. Hey, like, what? So I get out of getting bag skated at training camp for three days, I'm there.

You know, send me over. It'll probably never happen. I'm sure the NHLs crunch the numbers and they make, you know, they know that none of us like the All-Star game. It's all for the corporate partners and all of the rest of it. And I say none of us like it. If you're a little kid, yes, little kids love the All-Star game and that's still fun. But they probably make more money doing it in February. But if they could shift it to September, yeah, let's do it then and get it out of the way. It's like eating your vegetables first before you get out of the good stuff. Get the All-Star game

out of here. Cancel a couple of preseason games. Hey, two birds with one stone and then let's go. Yeah. October 21st, 19. 1988 is we roll on with a little this week in hockey history. October 21st, 1988, New York Rangers play a game in which both Gila Fleur and Marcel Dion score as teammates. Now, the reason why this is interesting and noteworthy, obviously they're both Hall of Famers, but way back when they were both drafted one, two, overall. And I was wondering, and maybe you know the answer to this.

how many other players that were drafted number one and number two overall ended up becoming teammates later on in the NHL in the way that Gila Fleur and Marcel Dion did? Yeah, I don't know the answer as far as an exact number. It's, I don't think all that uncommon. Now, how many players of the stature of Gila Fleur and Marcel Dion that went one and two played together, that's probably a tougher one. But, you know, the reality is most years,

the one and two, you know, a lot of times at least one of them ends up becoming a journeyman and they bounce around a lot. So, you know, you get these weird combos. Like, for example, Pat Falloon played for the Flyers for a bunch of years when Eric Lindross was there. Not exactly a Gila Fleur to his Marcel Dion, but, you know, those are one, two guys who played together. Roman Hammerlick and Yashin played together for the Islanders for quite a few years, I think. the big one though the one that people are probably yelling out right now certainly of the modern era would be thornton and marlowe

they go one and two Boston San Jose and then of course Thornton winds up there and you know they've scored in the same game plenty of times beyond that I'm willing to bet there's a few more certainly there's some you look down the list I don't know what teams Gord Kluzak played when

went and played for probably a whole lot so you know the guys like that bounced around a lot I'd be willing to bet there's there's a few more combos like that but as far as guys like lafleur and dion i mean that's that's up there with uh probably i don't know maybe ovechkin malcon as far as best one-two punches in the draft or you know then maybe uh maybe a few others but uh there's it's it's a short list and it was pretty cool that all those years later and and of course lafleur had even been retired he was a hall of famer uh in that game not not a future one he was in the hall of

because he had been retired that long. That was very cool to see them play together. Yeah, it is. It's weird to think of Gila Fleur as a Ranger. Like, you think of them as a habit. I think a lot of people think of them, oh, yeah, he ended in Quebec, but he had this weird little sandwich stop with the Ranger.

No, the big, the big company. I mean, it's the Phil Esposito era, man. Like, it was just absolutely crazy in New York. Anything could happen. Trading their coach, bringing back literal Hall of Famers. It's just, it was a fun era for sure. Okay, let's sneak one more in here because I think this is pretty cool. October 23, 1983.

So now we're going back almost 40 years. 1983, this week in 1983, Rich Sutter, scored his first goal in the NHL, making him the sixth member of the Sutter family to score a goal. They become the first family with six siblings to score an NHL goal. on the list of all-time unbreakable records in sports, I'm thinking this might be almost untouchable. This might be in the Glenn Hall starting 500 straight games, whatever.

Like, how are you ever going to get a family where seven brothers play in the NHG? Yeah. It's not going to happen. In all the sports, yeah, that's it. You need seven to break it. And it's not seven family members. Because that feels doable because, I mean,

there's like only 10 families. making NHL players anymore. But yeah, siblings, unless like Philip Rivers kids all make the NFL, then maybe we got a shot. But I don't think, I don't think we're going much further than that. That was pretty amazing.

And, yeah, I don't think we're going to, I don't think we're going to have too many, too many combos take a run at that. Although, well, who knows at the rate we're going. Is there another wave of Kachukes on the way? Like, do we have anything, get any of that to worry about? It's a good question. I don't know.

How many of those Molina brothers are catchers? There's three of them? That's right. Yeah. Yeah. That to me is not going to, was it going to be a family that produces four? The stalls took a run at it. Yeah.

They had three. There was a fourth. You're a Cowboys fan. Are there any more digs out there ready to catch footballs? Yeah. That'd be. Yeah. There's, you know, yeah, two.

Is two? Yeah, we see two all the time. Three is pretty cool. Four, you could get to four. Six. I don't think it's six. Six. Six at the same time. And we're talking about breaking that record. So that would require seven. Yeah. It's over. Seven. Stop it. I don't. Yeah. I think it's, I don't think it's very likely. Let's put it that way. Yeah. All right. Listen, we'll leave it there. This was a lot of fun as always. Listen, thanks for for the hour here. This was fun. This was fun. flew by multiple milk references, which I didn't see coming. So this was a lot of fun. And we'll do it again next week. Right on. All righty.

Hey, thanks everybody for joining us. And like I said, we'll hit you up again next week. Drop us a voicemail. Like I said, appreciated that call from the fan about the Cracken, the Seattle-Montreal matchup 8454-4-459. That's the way you can get us. And if you're not a subscriber with The Athletic, you can join us at theathletic. dot com slash hockey show you'll get an annual subscription for just $399 a month.