The Athletic Hockey Show - Can McDavid join Gretzky in the 200-point club?

Episode Date: October 19, 2026

Connor McDavid’s torrid start to the NHL season continued over the weekend with a five-point night against the Mammoth on Saturday night, bringing his point total to 23 in eight games. The guys discuss McDavid’s chances of reaching the 200-point plateau, if he has any Hart Trophy competition so far, and if he’s truly the most skilled player to ever play the game. Plus, the Panthers becoming the first team in NHL history to record at least one natural hat trick in 3 straight games, Brady Tkachuk’s return to Ottawa for the first time on Wednesday night, the latest on Connor Hellebuyck’s situation with the Jets, and excellent starts to the season for Jake Oettinger and Linus Ullmark.Hosts: Max Bultman and Mark LazerusWith: Jesse GrangerExecutive Producer: Chris FlanneryProducer: Chris FlanneryWatch full episodes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@theathletichockeyshowSubscribe to The Athletic: https://theathletic.com/hockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Hockey Show. Hey, everybody, Max Bulbin here alongside the athletics, Mark Lazarus and Jesse Granger for another episode of The Athletic Hockey Show in just about a week, guys, before we start today. The Athletics Hockey Desk is going to release the Hockey 100, ranking the 100 greatest modern NHL players. It is written by Sean McIndoo and Dan Robson, features a foreword by Ken Hitchcock, and it is out October 27th. That is next Tuesday. Buy a copy. It's worth a read. if only in part, Lazz, to figure out where this Connor McDavid fellow is going to rank.

And my suspicion, as Scott Wheeler, I think, was alluding in our Slack channel today, is it might not be high enough wherever he is. I actually don't even know off the top of my head where he is. It's probably not high enough. I mean, he's easily one of the, I mean, he's the most talented hockey player that ever lived. I've been saying that for years. I have no qualms about saying he's not the best hockey player that's ever lived. He is the most gifted player that's ever lived, and Mario Lemu fans are going to come from me for saying that.

but nobody's been able to do what he's going to do. Here's my question. He's going to be in the top 10 of the whatever, however you rank him. Is he going to finish his career second all time? Is he going to pass Yarmir Yager? Is he going to get to 2,000 points? Because if you start looking at the math here, now obviously what he's doing to start the season's ridiculous,

he's not going to score 240 points this year. We know that. But he needs what, like five or 600 more games to get the 757 points that he needs? I mean, he'll be 36. I know his game is so much based on speed and that's going to wane with time. But are we looking at the second most productive player in the history of the NHL when all of a sudden done? If I had to bet, I would say yes. Interesting.

Right now he sits at 1243. So the number to get to is 1921. You got to stay healthy, I think, is the biggest thing. He has stayed pretty healthy for most of his career. He's got a shot at it. I mean, certainly I think he's going to finish top five. Ron Francis is five right now at 1798. I feel very good that Connor McDavid is in the 1800 club.

I feel like I just, you know, you're going through these numbers and you're seeing what he's doing and seeing how he single-handedly allowed your fantasy team to beat mine this week by half a point. I'm not over it yet. And I mean, Wayne Gretzky had, he averaged 1.92 points in his career. Nobody's touching that. Nobody's ever going to even sniff Wayne Gretzky. But we are witnessing something that we haven't seen before. And he's doing it time and time again. This century, I was doing the crunch of the numbers on this.

entry, 23 times a player has averaged a point in a half a game. Connor McDavid is seven of them. Like, this is just what he does. And he's 29 years old. He's on a team that lets him run wild. He's going to have Leon Drysidal to play with on the power play for the next seven, six, eight years, assuming he resigns there, which I guess is a big assumption. We know that.

But, like, I see no reason why he can't be doing this averaging 120, 130, 140 points for six, seven more years. And that puts him at 2000, all. already. Yeah. So far this season, 23 points in eight games. He is the fastest player in terms of games played to reach 20 points in a season since Mario Lemieux over 30 years ago at this point, right?

So you mentioned Lemieux fans are going to get mad at you, Las. He's putting himself in a whole lot of company with Mario Lemieux. Now, here's my question, Jesse. So Lemieux had that 95-96 season, he had 161 points. Right now McDavid is on pace for something like 240. I don't think he's getting to 240. I don't think he's averaging three points per game all year. can he get to 160? Can he go higher than 160? Like, where do you set the bar after you see the start

that Connor McDavid has gotten out to? Yeah, I mean, I think he absolutely could. He got to 138, what, last year he got to 153 a few years earlier. I think 160's absolutely in the cards. And it's interesting because it feels like this is his worst supporting cast that he's ever had. Like the Oilers have lost pieces now. They have had some injuries. There have been guys that. have been hurt, that are, Hyman just got back. There are going to be better. The Oilers are going to be better. But this is probably his worst supporting cast,

which maybe is why he's putting things on his back more. But I think what we're seeing is the getting eliminated in the first round, I think is why we're seeing this version of Connor McDavid. He had, we talk about the Panthers and how tired they were and how worn down they were last year. But the Oilers went through the very similar runs. And Connor McDavid is being asked to do absolutely everything for that team in those playoff. runs. I think him being eliminated in the first round last year, he got to sit and watch playoff hockey for the vast majority of the spring and summer. And we're seeing a fresher

Connor McDavid that is just putting the team on his back and it's the best version we've ever seen of him. I think 160 points is reasonable. The Oilers have an 18 to 2 scoring advantage with him on the ice at 5 on 5. 18 to 2 for a forward. That is insane. Like he's just, the thing And the thing of, and the reason why he gets so many points is the puck always goes through him, right? He touches the puck so often that he's going to get some, you know, nonsense secondary assists that are just going to be because the puck hit him. Because the puck always goes through him because he's the focal point of everything they do. So, I mean, while he gets a ton of primary assists, I'm not trying to cheap in anything he does here. This is the way the game works.

But, you know, I think back when Patrick Kane on a power play would always get a secondary assist because the puck would go back to him and then he'd give it to somebody who would give it to somebody who would score. McDavid gets a ton of the. his points. And that power play is always going to be a 25 to 30%. He's always going to get his. So it's absolutely feasible that he's over 160 this year. I don't think we're going to get into the 200 territory here. Mario Lemieux got 199 in 88, 89, and he really didn't get there. Gratsky's the only one who's done it. That's in the 80s. He did that in the 80s. Yeah, that was a live era, right? So I don't think we're going there. But I do think 160 is reasonable. I think depending on the way the season plays out, like how healthy is he? How much are they leaning on?

him. Obviously, like, he has a chance to do some really special things. My question is, what is it going to take for it to say it's a no doubt MVP here? Because, and maybe there's no such thing as a no doubt MVP, but you start getting into that territory and it feels like that's really, like, you know, it's October 19th. I don't want to crown anybody here. But it's, you get into that territory, it starts to become undeniable. It was similar to conversation we have when Austin Matthews scored 60 goals. Well, it felt like when we entered this season, it was Macklin-Cellibrini's to lose, right? It was his turn. It was his time to take that step. And if the sharks made it into the playoffs,

Macklin Celebrini was going to win the heart just for dragging them in. But you're right. Like if McDavid goes out there and he has 150, 160 points, he's going to win it. Like you can't deny that. I don't care what, unless Maclin Celebrini does it also, it's not going to overcome a historic season, something that we haven't seen in decades in this league. What's funny, though, is I almost think it could. Like, that's why I'm asking the questions. I think Celebrini can win this award still, even with McDavid doing ridiculous things numerically because of the definition of the award and the player most valuable to his team. And when San Jose was in Detroit last weekend, I watched him live, three point game. He was the

focal point of every good thing San Jose did. It's just like what you're talking about with McDavid. He's at the center of the offense. Every time the sharks were threatening, I looked out there and it's like, yep, they're Celebrating as the driver of it, right? And so I don't know what the number is to have it equal out to whatever McDavid's going to do, whether it be 150, 160. But I think there can be a serious gap in point total. And everyone will look at it and say, yeah, but, I mean, and it's true of both guys. It's not a, it's not like one of these guys plays on Team Canada and the other is playing

on, you know, team Belarus or whatever. But it is, Celebrini will have a case if he gets the sharks to the playoffs, especially with where they've been and just there's no, there's no dry saddle there. Meanwhile, the entire city of Denver is like, oh, hello, we got Nathan McKinnon here, who has been the best player in the world the last few years. And he's got... Nathan McKinand he is on Team Canada though. And McDavid and Celebrini are both on Team Belarus.

That's the difference. I just... Look, there's like a certain number where if you get to it, like if McDavid finishes with 125 points, and Celebrini's got 104 points and the sharks make the playoffs, Celebrania's going to win it. Yes. But if McDavid is at 140, 150, 160,

it kind of becomes undeniable at some point, that he is the best player on the planet and he deserves to... We always have the debate. Is it the best players or the most valuable player? Well, you know what? Connor McDavid is still the most valuable. I mean, look at, again, look at like Jesse said, look at the guys around him. This is not a championship caliber roster that he's playing with.

So if they get in the playoffs and they're considered, you know, Stanley Cup contenders, which they are mainly because of him in Drysidal, then, you know, it's going to be tough to deny him if he's at 150 points again. The way he's able to skate around guys is like, it's just unbelievable. So, like, I watch these goalies and I try to cast. categorize what type of goal is being scored. And it's like, was it a turnover? Was it a backdoor one-timer? And I have a hard time describing Connor McDavid's goals because I, it's a breakaway, right? It's him and the goalie. But he's the only player in hockey that it's not a breakaway when he crosses the blue line,

because there is a defenseman between him and the goalie. But then he ends up with a breakaway a second later. And it's him and the goalie one-on-one. And it's like, but is it a breakaway? Because there was a defenseman between him and the goalie when he entered the zone. zone. But then it's, it's not like he just gets by him. He goes by him and then he has time to make a move with the goalie. So it's like, it is a breakaway. He's the only player in hockey that does it, and he does it once a night. Well, he's the only guy in the league that can make those moves at that speed. There are other guys, he's probably not the fastest guy in the league anymore. There are faster players in the league than Connor McDavid, which is hard to stomach, hard to believe. But they can't do

anything at that speed. They're just going straight line and hoping a puck bounces in off of them. McDavid, like the game just slows down for him. When he's going 25 miles an hour, he's making moves that like you're making a shootout when you're slowing down and there's no defenseman. He can do those things that nobody else can do. And that speedburst then leads to the move. Like, what the hell are you supposed to do if you're a goal? You just sit there and you take your punishment.

It reminds me how like a great pitcher in baseball can really like tunnel their pitches and make it look like, oh, I don't know what this is going to be because halfway down it still looks the same, right? And McDavid's first goal in the Saturday night game, he goes around and it's a great backhand finish on the ice. And the second goal he gets loose and he just rips one like high glove on the forehand, right? And it's just like, what is a goal he's supposed to do? You can't brace for what he just showed you last time because he is elite at every type of scoring effectively. Yeah, one of the greatest goals I've ever seen was McDavid in the conference final, I want to say

two years ago against Dallas where he came across and he went right, he made Miro Hayskin and looked like a freaking beer leaguer. The way he just like, he made himself like paper thin for a split second and just went right between two guys, then hit this ridiculous roof. Who can do these things? It's not even fair. The goal that Max is talking about where he deeks of Amalka out of his pads. And so we were watching it. I was at the Golden Knights game and we're watching it in the press box.

And the guy next to me in the press box is like, how does he do? Like, why does that goalie bite on that deke? And it's like, because he has no choice. He, like, no other player in the league, the goalie doesn't have to bite on that deke because you're not fast enough to where it's like, I can be patient. I can wait and see if that's actually. your move. But with McDavid, he's moving so fast that it's like, whatever his first move is, you just have to bite on it because if you don't, you're going to look like an idiot. And then when

you do bite on it, you still look like an idiot. And he's making the same amount of money as Bo Byron this year, by the way. Jesse, there's one other guy who, as we talk about the MVP, it's way too early, obviously. But I do want to just get this guy's name into the conversation. He has had a fantastic start. He was number one on my Selkeye ballot actually last year. And I think if he keeps producing at this rate and playing the kind of two-way hockey that he's capable of that he has showed in the past, I think he's going to belong very much in the heart conversation. And it's in your backyard. It's Jack Eichael. Yeah, he's been phenomenal. And he, I don't think he gets enough credit like nationally for his 200-foot game.

I think he's right up there with Barkoff in terms of like he doesn't have that reputation yet, but he should. He does everything for the Golden Knights. He is their best penalty killer. He is the focal point of their power play. he obviously has he's their number one center at five on five and plays all the toughest matchups. And so far this year, the numbers have been through the roof. It's because the Golden Knights are shooting like 20% on the season.

I mean, I think they're the highest scoring team in the league right now. They are just lighting up every team that they've played. And kind of like what we were talking about with Celebrini and McDavid, Ikel's touching the puck all the time. So he's getting a lot of secondary assist. He hasn't been making those highlight real plays that like Connor McDavid has made, but he just does everything for this. team. He's such a good skater. And unlike, like, McDavid, he plays defensively, but he is not the

lockdown guy that Jack Eichel is. And he's not the physical, like the way Eichel closes gaps on guys when he doesn't have the puck. Like you always talk about players like first step when it comes to like offense with the puck. But with Eichael, it's, it seems like you have space. And then all of a sudden, he's just in your lap and he's so strong. He just walls you off the puck and takes it the other way. And it almost doesn't even look like an impressive defensive play because he just does it so easily that he just separates the guy from the puck, but it's unreal how, how easily he is able to turn. And because he comes away with it so clean, they're going back the other way so quickly. Like, there is no transition of defense to offense.

It's like, you think you have the puck and your defensemen are kind of trailing on the play, trying to jump in on it. And then all of a sudden, Ikel's got it. And he's passing it to Mark Stone the other way. And the Golden Knights are scoring those types of goals. I've been asking the players about in the last couple of games because that specific type of goal where you think you have the puck and then it's in the back of your net before you even realize that a turnover was committed. They are scoring those types of goals regularly this year and a big part of it is because of how good Jack Eichel is off the puck.

They're different kind of players, right? Like they both have outstanding defensive numbers this year, but Jack Eichel's playing defense. Like he's like Pavel Dotsuk out there. He's Marion Osa, whereas McDavid just has the puck all the time. So the reason like, you know, his high danger chances against is some of the best in the league. But it's just because they're never in the defensive zone. Like Connor McDavid doesn't have to play defense. Michael is playing a 200-foot game.

Connor McDavid doesn't really have to do that very often because once he's got the puck on a stick, you're just not getting it from him until he scores. A lot of really good stuff from some of the brightest stars in the game to open the season for sure. We're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back. All right, we are back.

And if you're the kind of sports fan that wants to dig into the story behind the stats, The Athletic Live is here for you. So is the NBA season. So when you turn on the games, turn on The Athletic Live. You can become a part of the show in the interactive chat, along with host Zach Harper, Kofi, Yaboa, and the Athletic's Best in the Business Writers.

The Athletic Live is presented by Google Gemini. Subscribe now on YouTube. All right, guys, we talked earlier about some stars that are off to scorching starts. There was a very notable NHL star off to a very quiet start in Florida to begin this year. It was Brady Kachuk. He was one of the big trade prizes, one of the big trade storylines in the summer, and he was putting up goose eggs to begin. No longer.

Back-to-back natural hat tricks, 10 points last week. I haven't seen if the NHL has put out its three stars of the week yet today as we record this, but I have really no doubt who's going to be number one on that list, although I guess maybe McDavid could give them a good run for it. But when you have back-to-back natural hat tricks, I think it's got to earn you the star of the week and quite the week for Brady Kachuk. Yeah, I mean, this is why we always got to be so careful. And we're just talking about, we spent 15 minutes talking about the MVP on October 19.

So we're hypocrites here. But this is why you can't put too much stock into the, the first couple of weeks, especially when a guy's on a new team with a short training camp, very little preseason. Give them a week or two. You know, it's 84 game season. Why don't we give it before we start jumping to conclusions? Let's give a guy a little time to adjust because it seems like he and Matthew are going to be just fine together. Absolutely. The Panthers had 12 goals in their first six games. They were like really struggling to put the puck in the net and they have 18 in their last three. It is, no, it's Columbus, Vancouver and Seattle. So,

Seattle can defend, though. I mean, yes, the competition certainly matters, but yeah, it's been. They also, they lost to San Jose, Anaheim, and I want to say Minnesota and Buffalo, like, you know, they did not look good as a team to start. Jacob Markstrom looked very ordinary. This is a very underwhelming team for everybody's picked to win the Stanley Cup this year. Well, part of that's the Barcove entry, though, right? I mean, he goes down in game two of the year. And that's a team where, you know, speaking of guys who things go through them, it's a little, doesn't look the way that it does with Celebrity and McDavid.

but a lot revolves around Alexander Barkoff and the way that the Panthers play, just their identity, the way they rely on him for tough matchups and to produce offense. I think it does make sense for a three, four game kind of figuring out period of, okay, what is this going to look like without our guy? 100%. And you're right. We do need to see it against better teams. But it, to me, like I watched these last couple games and it's just, they're just swarming.

They, like they are, they, most high end teams, when you think about the Colorado Avalanche, the Dallas stars, the Carolina Hurricanes, they carry the puck into the zone. They want to attack in transition and carry the puck into the zone. The Florida Panthers are one of the few teams that we can, at least I consider amongst the elite in the league, that their primary way of entering the zone is just dumping it deep and then swarming you with physicality and forecheck. And it works better against lower level teams than it does against higher level teams, especially when you get defensemen that can move the puck better than the ones that

they've been playing against. but the swarming nature of that team, it's just like, it, man, it's a nightmare trying to get out of your zone without just handing them. They're scoring all these goals because they're creating like no doubt goals based on just forcing turnovers. And all of a sudden the puck's right in the front of your net and you have no defensive structure because you weren't ready for it. And bang, it's in your net. Verhege, every goal he scored the other night was like that. It's like Carolina with a little more physicality and a little less speed. That same kind of, you know, just work hard style.

I'm curious to see if they could do this all year because when they were on top, when they were winning cups, they kind of went on cruise control through most of the regular season and saved all that up for the playoffs when you really need to play that way. It's really hard to play that way for seven or eight months straight. We've seen teams struggle to do that. But this year in that division, that Atlantic division, they're going to have to. They're going to have to work that hard constantly because that's the way they generate their offense. So I'm curious to see if they could hold up between now and, you know, mid-June playing this style or if they're going to wind up, you know, struggling to do it. that in the regular season, getting a lower seat, having a tough matchup, and then you get into

the playoffs and you're already tired and it's hard to maintain. Like, it's not easy to do what they're doing for any amount of games, let alone a hundred of them. Yeah, it's a tricky line to walk because it's a physically demanding style, right? If you're banging bodies through 84 games, it's, you're pretty beat up by the time you get to the, you know, 20 whatever games that matter in the playoffs. And so they are scoring right now. They are scoring at a ridiculous rate now after the slow start. In addition to Brady Kachuk having the back-to-back natural hat tricks in the next game, both Carter Verhege and Sam Bennett have hat tricks. Like, Cardover Hagee, I think, would be the guy that you would look to and say,

this is the guy on the team who scores easy. A lot of these guys kind of have to score, I don't know, grimy or kind of goals. Brady Kichuk was scoring from range the other night. That was not all just grit and grind around the net. But it is something to watch that they're not going to be the best rush team, I don't think, in the NHL here. They are going to kind of manufacture a lot on the cycle a lot down low. When they scored that, when Brady scored his first natural hat trick, and it was all three assists were by Matthew Kachuk. I was, I was like the on-call writer at the moment. So I'm writing that story. And I'm like, oh, this has to be the first time in NHL history that anyone has ever scored a hat trick with their brother assisting on all three goals. That's impossible. Like, this has to be the first time. No, it's the 14th time in NHL history.

14 times that has happened. It obviously happened a few times with the Sadeen. twins. Yeah. The Stasney, the three Stasney brothers have all three done it, where they've all three scored hat tricks with all three assists from their brother. It was the first time it's ever happened on a natural hat trick, though. So we had that history. My kids could barely walk down the stairs without stumbling.

How do these families create these like multiple generational talents? I don't understand what the Hughes are doing, what the Sutter's did, what the Stasneys did, what the, it really seems unfair to hog all the elite, talented athletic genies. genes like that. Spread the wealth around, man. Give me a gene that is useful and doesn't have a bad back and bad eyes. Come on, man. See, I just think the Keith Kachukh should have more kids. Like, when he sees how this works out, it's just like, look, man, I'm sorry. Do it for the country. That perfect athletic specimen, Keith Kachuk, yes. It's worked out pretty well, Les.

I don't understand it, man. Genetics is stupid. I hate it. Oh, man. All right. Well, as we talk about the Panthers here, there is going to be an emotional game this week in Ottawa on Wednesday, the senators hosting the Florida Panthers. I think we know broadly what the reaction to Brady Kachuk is going to be there. My question, Jesse, is how, how, what's the magnitude of the reaction going to be? I will say this. I think because the senators are so good, that might, they're not as bitter as they would be as if they were struggling.

Like, I remember when Jack Eichel went back to Buffalo, and this is before the Sabres had turned it around, there was a lot of anger there. Part of it is you see the success that your player is going on to having without you and your team isn't any good. The senators are awesome. So I think that, yes, they're going to be booze, but I think that not quite as bitter as if they were struggling right now because the senators have been great. I think what? The peak vitriol was the Islanders with John Tavares. That was the nasty aesthetic.

It was mean. And look, I'm a native Long Islander. We can be a petty, petty people. Like, I feel that. I understand that. and you've always feel jilted. And, you know, Tavares left the Islanders in the lurch, right? He didn't commit, so they didn't trade him because they thought they were going to keep him,

and then he left the Islanders got nothing for it. Ottawa didn't get a ton in the Brady-Kichuk deal, but like you said, he didn't leave them high and dry. Like Jesse said, they're good. And that eases the blow. He's going to get booed because two months before he wanted out, he said he was committed and all that stuff, but he was a good citizen for a long time, played hard, was a captain. there's going to be bitterness, but it will be anything like the vitriol John Tavares face

on Long Island. Because frankly, Canadians aren't Long Islanders. They're very different species. That's actually a really good point to the conversation. I don't forget if it was last week or two weeks ago about the no trade clauses because it is kind of the sentiment of like, well, if you have a no trade clause, you should lose it if you request a trade. And yet, the flip side of that is if you don't tell your team that you're not planning to be there, people are even mad at you because you've walked and they weren't able to get anything for you. So that's actually a very interesting kind of addendum to that. I wish I would have thought of that while we were having that conversation to bring up. Yeah, I mean, nobody wants to be like told they don't,

they don't want to live in your city anymore. Like that hurts. But it hurts worse when two weeks early, two months earlier, he's saying he is committed and he doesn't. And all this is nonsense. You feel lied to. Yeah. So Ottawa fans have a right to feel lied to and to feel burned by him and to want to express that. And they will. But I just think that for a lot of reasons, uh, things are fine in Ottawa right now. and that makes this a whole lot easier to swallow. Yeah, I'm thinking of it. Like, you're right. It's not going to be Tavares,

but where does it fall on the spectrum of like, you know, Larkin was obviously still in Detroit, but his first game back after the request, he was getting booed. And by the end of the night, it wasn't that bad anymore. I'm thinking about Marner's return to Toronto. I'm trying to think of some of the other kind of examples.

I don't think Matthew, did Matthew really take it on the chin when they went to Calgary? I don't believe so. No, because they thought that was a fair trade. Yeah. At the time, it seemed like, oh, they got Jonathan Huberdow. That's a good trade. Yeah.

So I don't remember much there. So I don't know. Like, I think the Ottawa fans will let him hear it a little bit. But I think it'll be worse when Connor Hellebuck eventually goes back to Winnipeg. I think it'll be worse when Dylan Larkin eventually goes back to Detroit even. I don't think it's going to be that bad. You know, Brady Kitchuk also was not their best player. It's Tim Stutzel.

They still have, you know, Stutzland, Santers. He was their captain. And I think some of the political, yeah. I think there's some political. kind of fuel to that fire too. That's a different part of this. That's what that's something that Tavares and, uh, and hell, even Hela Buk with, you know, some of the talk about how he was received back in Canada. That's nothing compared to Brady Kachuk and team USA and, and the kind of, you know, fire that he brought to that. That's the X factor here. It's like if, you know,

we've seen the national anthem get booed in Canada, uh, for various reasons. Now, I don't think that Canadians hate Brady Kichuk as much as they hate Donald Trump, but it is, you know, there's there, there, there, there, there, there, there, there, there, there, there, there, there, there, there's, there, there's going to be received. So here's my question. Go ahead, Jesse. I was going to say part of it in terms of the reception is how does the game go, I think? Because like you mentioned, we're comparing it to Larkin. Well, Larkin's still playing on the team. So he's able to score a goal and it's like, eh, maybe he's not so bad. He helped us win tonight. If Kachuk has a quiet night and, and, and Ottawa's good. And they're winning the game, then I think it will fade over the game. But if, if,

If Kachuk scores in the first period, I expect him to get booed so loud that you can hear it on TV for the rest of the night. I mean, he might do the whole Hogan, like, you know, cup his ear thing after he scores. Like, you'll like it on. He almost certainly will. Yeah. I think it also depends on the flow of the game. Like, if he has a big game, it will, I do think we will hear very loud boost throughout the game

every time he touches the puck. But if he's, if it's just a quiet game from him and the senators are dominating, I do think it fades a little. What's the betting line on Brady Kachuk first period fight in that game? That would be fun. I mean, it has to do, right? It's going to come from the Ottawa side. Who's going to pick that fight?

That's the question. That's fair. But that just feels like how this goes to me. Brady Kachuk goes out there. Maybe it's not like right off the puck drop like, you know, the Four Nations. But I think sometime in the first period, there's a, there's a Brady Kichuk fight. I've talked to a lot of players over the years, Duncan Keith and Patrick, Duncan Keith in Vancouver, Patrick Kane in a lot of places. They like getting booed, right?

Like, they feed off of it. They know that if I, if they're booing me, it means because I'm mad. and I'm a difference maker and, you know, I've screwed them over. You know, I have some kind of mental edge on them. Brady Kachuk very much strikes me as the kind of guy who will take that booing and use it to fuel himself and it will make him better. So you got to be careful sometimes, you know, who you're booing and how much you're booing and what kind of person that is because you might just be making them better.

Let's go to Connor Hellebock now. I do want to circle back on something in Ottawa here, but we already brought Hellebuk up. Jesse, like, can you explain to people what the status of things are right now? like the suspension is going to be lifted. And yet I still feel like there are so many questions here around what's happening with Connor Hellebuck, what's happening with the Jets? I'm just as confused as everyone else. No, it's, it's an interesting, it's a weird situation because it, when you, when you,

I think the initial reaction when you see the, the suspension is expected to be lifted is you're like, wait a minute. So is he going back to Winnipeg? Is he going to show up to practice? I don't think that's the case. I don't think we're going to see Connor Hellebuck in Winnipeg ever again, practicing, playing anything. It's maybe this is an NHLPA issue where you can only keep a guy suspended for so long for not showing up to training camp.

I honestly don't know. But I, I've seen some people say, is this a self-imposed deadline? Are they trying to create some sort of urgency on a trade? Because as we've seen over the years, it's like something there. Nobody wants to make the move until they absolutely have to. And then all of a sudden the trade deadline gets here or July 1st gets here and all these moves are made. The draft gets here and all these moves are made. Maybe they're trying to create some sort of self-imposed deadline to try to get this deal done.

I'm not sure. But the one thing I guess the one thing I am kind of certain about is that I don't think Connor Hellebuck is going to show up in Winnipeg in practice or play. I'd be surprised by that. Yeah, they don't want them. Like at this point, you don't want, this is different than the Dylan Larkin thing. It's more vitriolic. It's more, it's more tens.

Like Dylan Larkin, you know, requested his trade, but he still showed up to camp. He still wanted to play. He said he's still committed as long as he's there. Connor Hellebuck didn't do any of that. that. He didn't want any piece of this. The team, you know, he didn't show up for camp. The team suspends him. There's a lot of bad blood there now. He can't just walk into that room and practice with them. They certainly can't play him at this point. All this means, from what I understand, and again, I'm just as confused as everybody else. Now, once this suspension is lifted,

hellabux.com goes under because he's just making money now, as opposed to being suspended without pay. He's just essentially going to be suspended with pay. There's no way you can put him in there. I just wonder what it means for the roster. I mean, that's a roster spot and that's a salary cap hit. Like, that's some of the math gymnastics we're going to have to do here to figure out how the Jets can keep operating without Conor Helibuck playing for them. I think that goes to Jesse's point, right? Like, that to me feels like what the idea is here. It's like, all right, like, this is a way to make it real for the Jets that, like, you are losing something. It's money now that you're losing. It's a roster spot that you're losing.

It's cap space that you're losing by not doing this. Now, I'm not going to speak to his intentions, but that is the practical effect of this, right? So it's an interesting one. I mean, you mentioned the website, Hellebucks. I have quite enjoyed it. I mean, it's made me feel really bad about myself in some ways of how much Conor Helibook has been paid for the last month to not be playing hockey and how much he makes per what was it?

$38,000 a day, I think it is. Yeah. Just like me. Not bad. For anyone listening that doesn't know what it is, you just go to HellaBucks.com and it's just a constant counter of how much money Connor Hellebuck is losing by being suspended. And it's great because you got to take the Y out. Otherwise you go to like a lawn service company. Right, right, right. But it's great. My favorite part of the website is, is the fact that it tells you how much he's lost since you've been on the website. So as soon as you get on there, it starts the counter. In case you're wondering, while I've been wasting time on this website, Connor Hellowick has lost $30,000.

For the record, I was fully planning to have that going the entire length of this episode and read it out. But it was. take it up way too much bandwidth on my computer and my camera was freezing up. So we had to close that tab to begin here. Let's stay with the goalies, Jesse. And we'll go back to Ottawa here now, because you talked about what a great start the senators are off to. A huge part of that is Linus Olmark. He's looked so good. And I'll be honest, last year, there were points during the season where he struggled. And I wondered, he's getting up there in age. He's 32, 33 years old. That's kind of the cliff for most goalies. Elite goalies can play beyond that, obviously, but 32, 33 is when you should start having alarm bells go off if a goalie stats dip. And last year, it didn't look good for

Olmark. And it just looked slow. And it's not necessarily like physically slow because he's never been the most athletic goalie. He's kind of a play reader. But it looked like he was slow to process plays in front of him and slow to read bounces off traffic in front of him. And I was concerned that maybe we're seeing the beginning of the end for Lena Solmark, and then he was great in the playoffs, and he's come back after a full off season, and he looks like a completely different goalie. He looks like he's off to the best start since 2022, 23 in Boston when he won the Vezina, and he looks very much like that goalie. He is ahead of the play.

Like I said, his superpower is he's a genius. He reads the play incredibly well. He is not going to make the most acrobatic saves. Now, he does have great gloves, so he will make a windmill save and put a little spice on it to make it look even fancier than it needs to. So he will make some highlight real saves, but they aren't athletic. But the way he's reading the play right now, and then you put him behind, to me, I think Ottawa has been the best defensive team in hockey.

So that obviously helps a goalie, especially his style of goaltending. It's a great recipe right now. It's hard to beat Lainis-Lormark right now. Here's my concern is he's always been a timeshare guy. He's always been a, you know, play 40, 45 games. It's his best year when he won the Vesney. He was splitting time with Jeremy Sweman. they are riding him hard right now.

He's been seven out of their 10 games, I think it is right now. Can he play 55, 60 games? Can he hold up like a true number one at this stage of his career when he's never done it before? That's a huge question. And I do the goalie tier story every year. And I talk to a third of the goalie coaches in the NHL about that. And that is always the biggest question with him, always. Every time that nobody questions the talent, nobody questions that he can do it for 40 games.

But it's always how can I possibly? rank this guy as a world-class goalie when he has literally never done it in his entire life. Like even the Veson the season, like you said, he was not a 60-game guy. And he's not built to be a 60-game guy. Like for all the reasons I just said, it's like, this is a guy who is compared to normal people. He is an athletic freak. Compared to NHL goalies, he's not. He is, he is not an athletic freak. He relies on the way he reads the game. And it's sometimes that can slow down after six games. I think it's a great question. And Ottawa goes out and trades for Samuel Erson from Philadelphia, who two seasons ago, he was the starter for the Flyers. And I thought he was doing pretty good.

Like his stats weren't great, but I thought he was doing well with considering what he had in front of him. And then last year, he just completely fell off a cliff. And he wasn't any good for the flyers. He really struggled. And I wonder how much confidence they have in him because that's going to be, it's going to be super important. They have got to have confidence in him to let him rotate with Allmark. And then, you know, you need, you need Ollmark to play 55, 60 games, and then you need him to play up to 20-something games in the playoffs without a break. It just seems like a lot to ask. Like I like this Ottawa team a lot, like you said, I think they are one of the most well-rounded best 200-foot teams in the league. I just questioned the durability there for Allmark to be able

to be a true championship goaltender the way they need him to be. I do think that's where what you talked about with Ottawa being such a good defensive team comes into play, though, right? It will be a lot of games. I think the hope is that Ottawa's defensive kind of structure and the talent they have, both on the blue line and, you know, their centers are amazing. Shade Pinto is a 3C is about as good as it gets in the NHL. I think that does help to keep the workload itself less, I don't know, unbearable for Linus Allmark. Yeah, he's well protected back there. He's not being, he's not overextending himself more than a couple times a game because the structure is so good. And he's the way he reads the play, he's predicting it. He's not

flopping all over the place, like expending as much energy as he would elsewhere. Yeah, I agree. As good as he has been, there is. one starting workload goalie who has been better this year, at least statistically, and that's Jake Ottinger in Dallas. Sean Gentile and I talked about this on our live show last Thursday. Dallas, they're not the deep wagon that they've been in some past seasons. They're not constructed quite in the same four lines that terrify you way. They've gotten a little bit more top heavy if they've brought in some of these stars and just, you know, age cap comes into effect. One of the ways that they can get around that is by a couple of their big guys taking another leap. And the guy who I think

is most important to do that, Jesse, is Ottinger. He's been on that doorstep for years now. We've all been waiting for him to come alive and elevate into that, you know, top tier of goaltenders. I don't know that we're ready to put him there yet, but he's off to that kind of start to the season. He's been unbelievable. I mean, no goalie in the league other than him has more than one shutout. You look at the shutout standings. Everyone's tied at one. Ottinger has three in six games. he has allowed six total goals in his six starts. It's pretty unbelievable. And like you said, the stars are not protecting him maybe as well as they had in years past.

It has been him standing on his head. And he's looked great. A lot of the concerns with Ottinger over the years have been, especially the last couple seasons where he's kind of taken a step back for his lofty standards. He's still been good, but not as good as we want him to be. He's made changes to his game. And it's got sort of a Tiger Woods changing his swing in 2000 type of vibe to it. like you've been one of the best goalies in the world your entire life at every age level you've

ever been like why are you like he changed the way he held his hands in his posture um he has tried different things in the way he reads the game and the way he sets plays up and i think a lot of the concern was like can he just get back to like doing what he was doing and when i watch him now i really do think he has found his rhythm he he looks sharper in his skating if i if i found one thing that looks different to me it's that his his stops and starts and everything it just looks sharper. And when you get a goalie that's as big as he is, he's one of the biggest goalies in the league. And sometimes you forget it watching him because he looks so fluid. Like when you watch other gigantic goalies, a Jacob Dobish, a Dan Vladar in Philadelphia,

they look a little clunky. It's like the seven-footer in basketball. Like it's hard to look fluid when you're that big of a human being. Jake Ottinger, even though he's six, six, whatever he is, he doesn't look that big because he's so fluid in his movement. He moves like a smaller goalie. And when you get a guy that's that big and reads the play like he does, and now all of a sudden his skating is sharp. The pucks are just hitting him in the chest. I'm writing a story on Ottinger right now, and like you try to look for like an impressive looking save.

It's hard to find one. Every shot is just hitting him in the chest and you're like, well, it's bad shooting. No, it's not. It's when you get a goalie that big that's in the right spot, you don't have a choice, but to just shoot it into his chest every time. And we're seeing a lot of that from Ottinger right now.

He had a few pretty good ones against Chicago on Saturday night. Like, you know, it's easy to say, oh, they shut out Chicago. Well, they had three or four like grade A plus plus, plus chances and Ottinger was there every time. It's interesting because, like, Ottinger, I know you do your tears, and Ottinger's been just outside, like the holy trio of goalies of the Helibuck Sorokin and Chesterkin for a while now,

in Vaselowski, I guess, so it's a quartet. It feels like he's been coasting on reputation a little bit the last couple of years. Like, he has not been that guy for a couple of years. You think back, you know, Pete DeBore got fired in Dallas for blaming a playoff series loss on Jake Ottenham. Yes. That's where we were not that long ago, less than a year and a half ago. And his numbers have been pretty pedestrian. And, you know, I remember that during that same playoff run, I was saying Jake Ottinger should be Team USA's goalie in the Olympics, not Connor Hellibuck, and it's an easy decision.

Well, it turned out to be an easy decision the other way because Ottinger really came down to earth. So I feel like he's got something to prove. I haven't had a chance to talk to him yet this year. You know, I dabbled in Dallas a lot, so I'm used to these guys. I feel like he, you know, he would never say as much because he's just so even keel and level-headed. But, like, I think he knows that his reputation has taken a hit these last couple of years. and this is his like, you know, FU revenge tour where he's just going to go off and be the best player on a team that needs him now because, you know, like Max said, this isn't the same Dallas team. All the money that went to Robertson and Rantan and Johnston, it's made them thinner.

Matt Duches hurt, Maverick Borks gone. This is not the same team. But with Ottinger playing like this, all of a sudden they can have the same kind of results and be back in that deep playoff room. Yeah. All right. A lot of good stuff today, guys. That is going to do it for us. Thanks for listening to this episode of The Athletic Hockey Show,

Sean Jantilly, Frankie Corrado, and Thomas Drance, filling in for Sean McIndoo, have you covered on Wednesday. I'm back with you on Thursday for another live show and Friday with the Prospect Series. We'll talk to you soon.