The Athletic Hockey Show - Can Sidney Crosby's Penguins march to a playoff spot?

Episode Date: April 3, 2024

Sean and Sean praise the resurgent Pittsburgh Penguins late season march to the playoffs and Sidney Crosby's dominant stretch of games when it was thought the Penguins were done for the year. They guys explain why the NHL must expand the playoffs and DGB fills us in on why he doesn't care about good teams clinching a playoff spot.The guys discuss Jack Adams coach of the year voting, the significance of Connor McDavid on the cusp of 100 assists in a season, the Minnesota Wild failed goalie pull in overtime and the return of the much loved comments and questions from the app segment!Subscribe to The Athletic: http://theathletic.com/hockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Hockey Show. What is up, everybody? This is the Wednesday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. Sean McIndoo, Sean Gentilly. Frankie has the week off. You're going to get double Frank next week and the week after. So congratulations to everybody. I think we said this last week.

We know the only reason everybody tunes in here is Frank Carrotto. It's not us. it's the reason I'm here I demanded I was ready to say no I was like they're they're gonna make me talk to Mac and do every week

uh-uh Frank is involved can you find somebody who knows anything drop a bit you get two weeks in a row that's gonna be exciting right down the

right down the stretch it'll be the last two weeks of the season right like I was that's exactly that that's the math I was doing to my head. We are going to have him around for the last two weeks of the season, which is obviously important and only getting more important because the standings are a snow globe,

I think, at this point. You just like, they just get shook up every single night. I wrote a post on Friday where I was like, here's the likely first round matchups. And they were good. Like, that was the point of the piece. It was like, we're going to have a great first round. And here's like what the numbers say. And like, it's, they're all out of it. But none of them are going to happen three, four days later, whatever it is. I said this with Laz and Mendez on Monday. I had to do the obligatory, like, if the playoffs started today thing for Monday morning, because stuff had changed from when you wrote it on Friday, and stuff has since changed.

So I think, unfortunately, I've been roped into doing that, like, multiple times over the next couple weeks, because it is. It's a thing that changes, uh, changes on, on a nightly basis, which is fun in a lot of ways, but also just renders all this. It's frustrating because it renders analysis,

or at least playoff analysis, like irrelevant. It's just a, it's a waste of time because you can sit there and be like, all right, uh, we're going to have Philly Rangers in the first round or, or what have you.

And then 18 hours later, uh, no, in fact, you aren't. Um, and also the Washington capitals are terrible and whoever else. But that does bring us, I guess I'll go first.

That brings us to one of the things we learned this week. What have we learned, Sean? I'm going to need you to go first because you have to explain this to me. Because I said weeks ago, I was done with the Eastern Congress. I was done pretending I knew anything about the Eastern Conference, except the one thing I knew that everybody knew was that at least we could write off the Penguins. The penguins were terrible. They were like basically shooting the puck into their own net and then giving the finger to Kyle Dubas and the, uh, up in the press box.

So we knew that they were out. Mm-hmm. What's happening? If there was one thing that we could all kind of agree on when it comes to the Eastern Conference in the mess of, you know, mediocrity that's that it's the bottom of the, of that playoff picture, it's that Pittsburgh was out, right? It's the one thing. I was clinging to. That was my northern star that I was navigating on. The thing that we

should have clung to a little bit more is that all these other teams are really, really bad. And I just thought that I thought that Pittsburgh had enough space in between them in the Washington's of the world in Detroit, in Philly, and even

the Islanders, and even like the Sabres at that point. Because I think that is when I really was like, okay, we can put a stamp on this envelope and throw it in the mail because it's done, right? Like there's just too many. It's not just about point. It's about the number

of teams that they also had to leapfrog. And it turns out that all those teams stink just as much as Pittsburgh does. Yeah. Because it's not like the penguins have gone like one nine or their last 10. No. They've been good for five games. And immediately gained four points on every other team.

It's their, they're, they've gotten, they're four and one in their, in their last five with, also with, with a shootout loss to Columbus. And that is enough to vault them over a bunch of people. There are three games, or three points behind the Washington Capitals right now. And, in, in Philly for that matter, and they play the caps on Thursday. Like, whether you like it or not, like, accept it, don't accept it. Like, this team is knocking on the door.

And I want to say that this is an elimination game for them on Thursday, but I don't think I can because the rest of these teams, again, they are that bad. We've made this mistake before. We should know better than to rule out. Like, this goes for the Islanders and the Sabers and whoever else. Like, some team is going to win four or five at the end of the season and they're going to get in because none of the. competition is any good whatsoever.

I think two or three might do it. It's like, it's true. And the Pittsburgh Penguins have a leg up because of Sidney Crosby. Like that might be enough. That could be the differentiation point down the, down the stretch. It sounds insane. But you look at last night, they had score five unanswered goals against New Jersey in the third period. They end up winning that game five three.

So the devils don't even get a, don't even get a loser's point out of that. out of that whole deal. It just feels like one of those stretches, and we've seen it from him so many times, even over the last couple years, where he is still capable of these like eight game bursts or 10 game bursts, where he drags this team to two wins that he shouldn't.

And when you're talking about two extra wins in a division, or in a conference that stinks on a schedule that's almost over, like that could be the deciding factor. It's crazy. They've got Washington tomorrow. They still got a game against Detroit. They've still got a game against the Islanders. And their other games are against, quote, unquote, good teams that are going to make the playoffs.

But you never know down the stretch. Some of those teams are resting guys, starting backups. Who knows? I love, nothing demonstrates the Eastern Conference race more than the fact that the Penguins are back in it because they've won four out of five. But the loss came against the Columbus Blue Jackets. It's perfect. It's perfect. What are we doing here?

Of course. The flip side. Yeah, exactly. Because again, I don't want to make it seem like, like, facts are facts. The penguins are not a good hockey team. And mediocre hockey teams do stuff like lose and shootouts of the Columbus blue jackets every now and then. But if that doesn't happen, they're, uh, that extra point is. It could be the, if you do the math, that's potentially the difference between them, you know, being up on Washington after this next game versus not, right?

So it's Crosby. What is going to happen in the Eastern playoffs? What do they know that we don't know that nobody wants to go there? You know, the other thing that's interesting about the Eastern standings is that I'm just cluing into this now. I'm guessing fans of the team involved, the teams involved probably figured this out already. New York right now is in first place overall, but Boston is right behind them. If, for the sake of argument, the Bruins finish as the top seed in the east, you could have a situation where the team that wins the Metro,

let's assume it's the Rangers, has to play like a close to a hundred point Tampa Bay Lightning team, while the second place team, let's say it's the Hurricanes, would get to play the Flyers or the Capitals or the Penguins because the team that finishes third in the Metro is going to be far back of the team that finishes in the Atlantic and gets the wild card. So yet another angle that we can argue about playoff format. We also kind of have like a

let's say like a more a toned down version of that taking place in the west where in the central division you've got Dallas three points up on the abs who are right now slated to play Winnipeg was playing horribly horribly so if you're Colorado you're saying like yeah that's fine we're good we're good in second place like we'll take playing the third seated air quotes Winnipeg Jets rather than having to deal with, you know, the predators potentially in the in the wildguards. I mean, it looked like it was going to be the Golden Knights for a while, which was just a mess.

But again, this is the knights win three in a row, the Kings lose three in a row. And there goes my Oilers Kings playoff preview. Yeah, well, you did Oilers Kings. I did, I did Oilers. Yeah, I did Oilers. it was Oilers, it was Oilers Vegas and like maybe that holds now, maybe it doesn't. Like, whatever. This is like, how about this?

Do you like this being the stretch run, the stretch run for the regular season? Like, is this, I mean, is it not? It's fun in the sense that nobody wants to be locked in with two weeks to go. It gives the illusion that there's something to play for. And the reason I say the illusion is because we have learned in recent years, this whole cap era really, but certainly the last few years. Seating really doesn't matter. Home ice doesn't matter much. It matters a little bit, but especially when you factor in that the teams that have whole mice in theory are better than the teams that don't.

It really doesn't, you know, doesn't really matter. So a lot of this is just other, you know, when you look in the web, for example, where we pretty much know the eight teams that are going to be in. Unless something really strange, I know St. Louis fans are saying, well, we're still in it. But really, we know the eight teams, we think. The seating doesn't matter. Like, who plays who probably doesn't matter very much. So it's, it's like a fake story to get interested in.

But it gives us something. And the East, I mean, look, I'd rather see teams flying down towards like 100 point finishes to get in. but we're not there. And now people are mad about having a play in round again. That's the other thing that has flared up because people are pointing at the east and going, like, you want more of these teams? Like you want all of these teams to get in versus the fact that like, like you say, the two teams that win three games in the last week are going to make it.

And people are like, you want to expand that. And people like me are like, yeah, yeah, we might as well, at least give us, you know, at least give us a car crash to what to look at and give us some elimination games out of it if all these teams are going to stink anyways. But like what the over under is on the point total for whoever gets in in that second wildcard spot in the east. It's like 87, 88? It might be, yeah. Oh, man. That's, that's pathetic.

I have swung over I feel like over the last couple years to the you know who cares expand the playoffs have more teams like because the groups teams at the bottom of this are so crappy that it almost doesn't matter

like if like if you're if you're throwing in two mediocre teams you might as well have you might as well have like two more the argument for expanding the playoffs has never been that there are just so many good teams that we just we need more playoffs. It's the playoffs are fun.

It's playoffs are fun. And also what I just said, right, seating doesn't matter. Once you know the eight teams, who cares? So the way it works right now is really the only pressure point that matters in the standings is who's in eighth and who's in night. That's the only cutoff that matters by the end of the year. Whereas if you expand the playoffs, you create other pressure points, not just at like, okay, so now it's let's say you do the NBA, thing where seven through 10 play a little bit tournament. So now there's a cutoff at 10, but there's also a cutoff, a big cutoff between six

and seven. So for example, Nashville and Vegas would be fighting tooth and nail to make sure one of them finished six so that they didn't have to go in the play in. There'd be a cutoff on where you, on between eight and nine, because the way it works in the NBA, you got to win two games for your nine and ten. And there'd be a cut off at one and two as well, because you're like, if we're one and two, we want to play a team that just had to do a play in. they're going to be a little tired.

They're not going to be as rested as the team that the three has. It kind of artificially forces all of these more interesting tiers into the standings versus what we have now, which is just like get in and then. We have one cutoff point. And now it's like, what if we made the entire plane out of cutoff points? Like that's basically what the, that's what the most trenchant argument is, I think, for expanding the field. And the, like, a better argument against it would be like a, remember a couple of years ago when the east there were eight hundred point teams.

And then there was nothing after that to point to that and go, hey, like one of those 85 point teams shouldn't be able to get hot for two games and knock out a hundred point team that's, you know, that that to me was a better argument than. I mean, I don't like the sanctity like what the, you know, we can't possibly take this spot away from the Washington capitals if they earn it. I'm like, yeah, of course we can. Capital stink. They had the whole season to aim higher than that. So, yeah, I mean, it's the, the different battles, I think would be, would be a lot more interesting. And it's like, like Elliot Friedman said, no, no league has ever regretted expanding the playoffs. I was going to bring up that line from Fridge, too.

Yeah. It's true. But I also know people get really bad about it. People, people get worked up. And I've always said, here's my compromise. you have a play-in round, but we make it very, very clear. The play-in is to get into the playoffs.

If you make the play-in- You did not make the playoffs. You're not a play-off team. There are still 16 playoff teams. Because I know there's a lot of fans, especially my age, who grew up in the era where 16 out of 21 teams made the playoffs. And it was kind of silly.

Like you had legitimately terrible teams making the playoffs every year. And then just getting their doors kicked in by a good team in the first round. I think that's something I think that's something I probably haven't thought about enough, honestly, when you talk about the size of the playoff field is, because that's not like, it's not ancient history. Like this is, this is well within both of our 80% of the league. Both of our lives are lifetimes. 50% 16 out of 32, it's, you know, it feels right. It feels like a good.

So I'm, I'm good with that. You didn't make the play. You, you finished ninth. lost your playing round game. You did not make the playoffs. What about 18? What if that, what if the playing around was just straight up?

It was even less involved than the NBA one. If it was just, just do eight versus nine. Yes, four, yep, exactly four teams going for two spots. Yeah,

yeah, I think I'd be down with that. You could do that too. Yeah, any, any number of ways, but, you know,

everybody who says, I only want 16 playoff teams, you like, okay, so we only have 16 playoff teams. And we'll actually do it. We're not going to, do like we did in the bubble where

remember we're all like, wait, does the qualifying round count as the playoffs or not? And we never really decide it. And so it's just this kind of, like when you're talking about the Leafs losing the playoffs, then them losing a Columbus does count. But when you're talking about other stuff, it's like it didn't really like, nobody knows. Good for us. We do. 2020 was at that season didn't happen. It didn't. It didn't. It didn't exist. Sorry. Apologies.

Sorry. Condoluses to Lightning's too. That was going to say, sorry. Sorry to the Montreal Canadians. Like that just Ellen, that one didn't happen. That was 2021. Remember that one.

That one also didn't happen. I'm good with, you know, fake seasons? Hey, speaking of the playoffs, you know what I learned this week? Hmm.

I learned that I don't care about teams clenching playoff spots until the final week. I don't want to hear about it. I don't want, I don't want an NHLPR Twitter account tweeting like a big graphic to like tell me like,

the Colorado Avalanche are in. And I'm like, yeah, they've been in since October. Do you get the emails? I don't get the emails, well, I get the emails, but I follow the Twitter account. Because it's actually, it's, for my purposes, I don't follow the NHL or like actual teams, but that usually has some good information. But like, I don't need to see like, you know, the Boston Bruins have punched their ticket. Yeah, nobody was worried that the Bruins weren't going to make the plans.

There's nothing. When it's like Detroit on the last night of the season, Absolutely. Then we do the big, oh my gosh, we've clinched, you know, and whatever it is. Any team that it's in doubt, but up to the last week, you don't get to have a clinch party if we've known since New Year's that you were 100% making the playoffs. When you're talking about the first crop of President's trophy contenders, like, yeah, the line has to be drawn somewhere.

I don't need my phone buzzing. Dallas is going to the dance. Yeah, no kidding, man. They're 30 points up on the, like, they should, they should be. They're all right. There's 15 games left. I'm pretty sure you're not breaking any news here. Well, well, it was like the tipping point.

Was it, was it the Canucks? It was the Connox. That was the Connox shirt. I mean, we were talking about this a little off, off the air. And I'm all in favor of go ahead and celebrate yourself, but I just, I don't understand the scenario. in which somebody would buy a t-shirt commemorating, clinching the playoffs. Like,

it's like you're recognizing the two-week gap between when you clinched and when the playoffs started. Like, hey, remember those days in early April, 20-24, those are good times, weren't they when we had clinched?

Because there's two, there's two outcomes here. We'll use Vancouver as, is the example. They're either going to go on to bigger and better things and win the division or win a round of the playoffs or win four rounds of the playoffs like whatever like they're either going to do more that renders the clinch t-shirt even less relevant than it already is or the plane's going to crash and in there and that's going to that's going to be all they have so the only you know

bit of commemoration you have from this great season that they've had right that took a bunch of people by surprise they're going to finish with 100 whatever 115 points wherever wherever they land here, the only bit that you have what hanging in your house or in your closet is some jank printup of the of the of the congratulations for clinching shirt. It was a nice looking shirt. They did a good job on it. But like, and I'm not even saying this because this is one of the things that bugs me sometimes about the hockey discourse is when people go, you know, if you don't win the cup,

nothing matters. Just, you know, no, no, I'm not saying that. And look, if you're, I'm not even saying don't celebrate making the playoffs. If the Sabres make the playoffs next year, go ahead and print a shirt, man. Like you've been waiting long enough. And I don't even have a problem. Like make a shirt that says like Vancouver Canucks regular seat, you know, 110 points. Quinn Hughes, Norris, Elias Patterson had, you know, whatever.

Like go ahead and celebrate a great regular season. I just, I want to know this scenario in two years where you're going to be like, you know what I'm going to wear today? That's what I mean. Clinched shirt. Like, just that shirt should come with like paint drops on it. Because that's the only time you're wearing it ever after the next two weeks is when you're painting your apartment and you're like, all right, I'll get the, I'll get the clinched shirt out.

If there is, if there's some team out there or whatever, some, a fan of any team that can look me in the face and say that they'd be happy wearing a clinch shirt. that they bought on April 2nd or whatever after a first round defeat if you if you sincerely tell me that that's gonna hold some kind of meeting and be a nice memory and be like yeah okay like that but hey that's the year we made the playoffs and lost in you know five games

of the Vegas cold nights or whatever like more power to you like go for it I just I don't that Saturday night that the remember that Saturday night that the blues lost to Minnesota and mathematically. It was Easter weekend and we backed into the clincher spot.

Those are, those are heady times. If one person out there can tell me that that's something that would bring up actual positive memories for them and not just be something you're like that's at the bottom of your drawer that you look at and just kind of wince and then throw back in there, like come and find me because I don't think that person exists. He will autograph your shirt. He will sign your clinched shirt.

The first autograph of my life. Starting the second with some breaking news. Honor McDavid, David, pretty good. Good at hockey. Must credit the athletic hockey show Wednesday edition. Sean McIndoe specifically. Maybe we can use that as the pool quote for this. Yeah.

Like the social image. The social image. Yeah. Yeah. Um, really, uh, he's one point. He's one point out of, out of this scoring title lead. Yeah. And is also three points, three assists away.

That's a big one. From hitting a hundred assists. That's a big one. And that's the topic for your post. Did that, did that go? That went up this morning. I tell you. That went up this morning.

I tell you, it's there now because I, I don't know if, uh, I don't know if you've picked up on this, Sean. I'm a bit of a history book. I don't know if you've noticed that based on literally every article I write being based in 1993. But people know that I'm a history guy. I've literally written a book about the history of the NHL. And so sometimes people will bounce things off me. They'll be like, is this big deal?

Is this not? Is this happened before? And I did. I had a couple people go like, hey, is this? Conner McDavid is going to get to 100 assists. Like, is this a big deal? Are we like, you know, should we be making a big deal out of this? And my answer is we are not anywhere close to making a big enough deal about this.

I don't understand why this isn't like a front page around the clock. Like we're not all on Connor McDavid watch now. Here is, I'm going to give you the list of guys who have had 100 assists in a season. Oh, great. I bet. I haven't looked at this either. You have not? Okay, so you don't know the list.

All right, I'm going to throw some names at you. You tell me how many of these guys you've heard of, okay? Here's the list. Wayne Gretzky? Merrill Lemieux. Bobby or? Some light experience with the second one, not familiar with number three, but that's okay. Gretzky, Lemieux, or?

That's it. That's it. That's the whole list in the history of hockey. So it's not just he's joining. He's only going to be the fourth person to ever do something. He's going to be the fourth person to ever do something. And the other three are legitimate like Mount Rushmore. Faces in the NHL.

Three guys that I think an awful lot of people would list as the three greatest hockey players ever. And Conrad David is about to join them. So you go down the list of other guys who, who, didn't do you know Joe Thornton probably the greatest player maker of his generation got close never did it Adam Oates

guy who came before got close never did it Gilmore and Lafontein got close Ron Francis didn't get all that close Steve Eisenman got to 90 once I'm looking at this now guys like Yager Crosby like they didn't even get to 90

and he's going to get to 100 and you could have told me that somebody like my guess would have been that like Oates did it in the early 90s or something or there was a 93 season where Oats LaFontaine and Gilmore

all had monster seasons and I remember that's part I remember at the time because I think at one point obviously I'm a Leafs fan Gilmore was like on pace to get to 100 and at the time it was like you know Gretzky and Lemieux

had done it recently but it was like only three guys have ever done it and he didn't get there and nobody has and even more amazing to me at least Gretzky did it 11 times in a row Wayne Gretzky was like sick I mean he was he was playing a different sport

but Orr and Mario Lemieux both only did it once once in their careers now Bobby Orr obviously had the bad knees and didn't play as long but I mean I had to triple check that Mario only did did it once so we're talking

Connor McDavid is not just going to join this exclusive club that's only got three guys right he's going to move into a tie or second place by doing this thing once and it's it's like we all love the big round numbers right like in the big picture there's no difference between 99 assists and 100 100 but we love you know 100 rbis 100 yards rushing 100 you know whatever it is this guy's about to hit the hundred mark in not some obscure stat no this isn't some like we're not debating like, oh, is this fake or real?

Like, this is like the second most common hockey stat that there is out there. And yet, doesn't it feel like, and, man, I hesitate to do this. I, I hesitate to bring up Austin Matthews because I know that as soon as you

start talking about the Leafs, people's brains break, leaf fans and otherwise. 100% of the listening population, yes. Yes. But I have to, because he's,

he's, the guy that it pertains to you. Doesn't it feel like two years ago when Austin Matthews was chasing 60 goals, that that got way more attention than Conn-McDavid chasing 100 assists, which was, look, man, scoring 60 goals is an enormous achievement. It's phenomenal. But it was something that, like, at the time, two guys had already done it in the cap era. Yeah. Like, the list of 60 goals scores in the history of the NHL is a pretty long list. And yet it feels like we were, like, jumping in on like, you know, live breaking coverage,

Austin Matthews is chased for 60 goals. Two years later, look, man, I get the goals are more important than assists, but a hundred assists to join the three-mount Rushmore guys. What are we doing? Why is this not everywhere?

I think part of it is that it just has seemed kind of unattainable. Like, I think it's just something that people put out of their heads in one way or another that, that it was like all that possible to happen. Because like 60 goals, I think part of the reason that, that aside from the obvious, I think part of the reason that Matthews got so much, you know, run for that was that it was front

of mind because we'd at least seen somebody do it recently. And it's in 100, 100 assists, that's like, you know. And look, that's like Gretzky shooting on Roberto Romano in 1985 kind of stuff, right? Like, You put it out of your head as a viable number to reach. I'm not in any way trying to knock Awesome Matthews or Asternak obviously gets it the next year. McDavid got to 60 the next year. I mean, when you break the single season goals record for a hundred plus year old franchise, that's a pretty big deal. But I'm just shocked that, you know, it's sports fans.

We love the big round numbers. This is the biggest roundest number of all. If we can't get excited about. Big ground numbers, like, what's the point in any of this? Because all this stuff is arbitrary. Like, caring about anything other than championships as a sports fan or as a sports journalist is arbitrary. The only meaning this stuff has is what we assign to it.

And I think, like, the best way to do that is to, yes, get excited about big ground numbers. I'm not trying to beat this horse. Does it not feel like we... Do you as a hockey fan not feel like you heard more about that weird Nathan McKinnon home from start of season home point streak? Like that. RIP to that one too. Yeah.

Yeah. The start of season. Oh, man. Anytime you can work six adjectives from qualifiers in on your stat. Yeah. Here's Connor McDavid. Like, hey, what's the second biggest? Okay, I'm going to do something that nobody since Gretzky and Lemieux has ever done.

And we're like, that's great, Connor. We're trying to, we're trying to pay attention to more important stuff here. It's, it's wild to me. Like, this is, I'm surprised. And I know somebody's going to be like, oh, yeah, well, if it was the Maple Leafs, then, you know, blah, blah. It's not like Connor McDavid as some obscure player who doesn't get a lot of attention. But we're all napping on this amazing thing he's about to do.

I personally wasn't sold on him as a player until this season. Like, it was like, you know, show me, show me something, man. I do love that Connor McDavid had like the, you know, the, the Art Ross season. And then everyone was like, yeah, but awesome Matthews got 60 goals. And then it was just, he was like, all right, we got it. We're doing 60 goals now. Okay, but here's 65. What do you think of that?

And now he's just back to, okay, well, what am I going to, I'm going to do 100 assists and I'm going to turn Zach Hyman into a 50 goal score. And I don't know what, like, what's it going to be next year? Like, I think we should start now talking about what Connor McDavid can't do. Like, I don't think this guy can play a defense. I don't think he could play an entire season on the blue line and win the Norris trophy. Can he play goal? Boom.

Yeah, well, we might find out in the playoffs. Hey, what do you think of, speaking of quasi-fake, quasi-real stats, Crosby 19th straight point for game season. That was a big deal on these parts a couple days ago. He tied Gretzky. Him and Gretzky are the only guys who have had 19 consecutive. point for game seasons, which Crosby clenched a couple days ago. Does that do anything?

Right. So he clinched it by hitting the 82 point. All right. Correct. Did he put out a T-shirt? I would get that shirt. It's not, it's, it's not, it's, it's not, it, it's, it's, it's not, it. What did we say last week where like it's an achievement, not a record or something like that?

I, I, this is a pretty impressive, pretty impressive one, absolutely. something about 19 just doesn't do anything for me. I think that's what it is. If you get to 20, it would help. Okay. Yeah. Yeah,

that would definitely help. And also, I mean, well, it's a good step because it factors in, right, the longevity,

but also the level of excellence, right? Because, I mean, you sit there and you hear that record and you go, oh, well, what about Mario?

What about, well, I mean, those guys didn't play 19 seasons. A lot of the great players didn't play, that long and a lot of the players who did play that long by the time they get to the 19th season they're just not they're not a point of game player anymore so i mean what crosbie's doing is phenomenal

um boy he's gonna he's gonna he's gonna he's gonna get some hard trophy votes if they make the playoffs i i don't know if i don't know if i said it i don't know if this is me and you or if it was me and haley and max it feels like it was six months ago because of you know how many different peaks and lulls that teams had in their season since, but I said it in January or whatever, if they make the playoffs, he's going to get, he won't win, but he'll end up on ballots for sure. It's going to be on a lot of ballots.

And he's going to bump off our Tammy Panarin and the underrated Rangers. Nobody talks about the New York Rangers. Also, Crosby's like, we're probably, Well, next season is going to be, he's going to, he's going to be top 10. Because he's going to pass Phil Esposito for points this season. He's going to pass Sackick next year. And then you start getting into the real true, like, you know, he's, he's got 1586, Lemieux's got 1723,

Eisenman's got 1755, Marcel Dionne's got 1771. Like, we are two full seasons away from him, you know, potentially looking at looking at the top five, which is what, which is wild. I don't know if that gets, I don't know if that gets, if that gets attention or not, but I think the fact that he's playing at the level that he's at and he's still, you know, still only 35, you know, the idea that we're watching a dude is putting up a top five points season is pretty, is, is pretty wild too. As it be, by the time he's done, he'll be consensus top five player of all time.

Like it doesn't it feel like we're going to settle there? Because it's always been. I'm biased, I think. But yeah. I mean, it's always been kind of the top four, including Gordial, uh,

and as well as the, the three guys we already talked about. No one's ever going to pass those guys. Like, that's fine. But like, but the battle for five, the battle for fifth place,

I think is something this, that's, you know, for as long as, as long as people are talking about this stuff, I think that's going to be, that's going to be the spot that gets, it gets a lot of debate.

And I think if by the time it's all said and done, done if we're talking about Crosby in fifth place in points despite, you know, losing whatever a season and a half of his prime. I think I think he's going to end up as number five in a lot of spots. Can I throw you one more Sidney Crosby consistency stat that I like? And this is, I mean, this is a fake stat, you know, but it's still interesting, which is why I put it out there. guys who have had award votes every season of their career.

Oh my God. And I'll say right up front, like there's more votes these days than there were in, you know, the 60s, let's say, where there's only 10 years. How do you even keep track? Like, is this just like, because this is the stuff that happens in my brain rather than knowing, like, my wife's birthday. Like, this is, this is what takes up the space. where are your kids health cards i have no idea but health cards health cards that must be great those sound awesome do you want to take a guess

who holds that record right now as far as i can tell for longest career of having an awards vote every single year of their career iserman uh nope not steve eiserman i don't believe and i will check and it's not I'll say it is not Wayne Gretzky. Yeah, Eisenman had quite a few years where he did not.

There was the lull before, you know, when he stopped being, you know, a super duper high-end points getter. And then before he'd segue into the self-year. So that makes sense. I thought he might have just, I thought the overlap might have been enough to get on there. I don't know. Wayne Gretzky had one year of his entire career, where he didn't get any. I think it was 94. He just didn't have a great season.

his back was still an issue back then, that sort of thing. So he only had one year out of his season. What's that? Was it the blues season? No, I think it was the one before that. The next season, yeah. The guy that as far as I can find, Ray Bork, 22 years, award votes in every year.

And with Bork, I mean, it was like not even close. I mean, he was getting like Norris top 10 seasons. I think he was top 10. in the Norris every single season of his career. In fact, yeah, I'm looking at it. He never finished lower than seventh in Norris voting. Just insane. You talk about a guy who's probably somehow still underrated.

I wrote his when we did the NHL 99 project. I wrote his thing and I was like, this is the second best defenseman of all time other than Bobby Ork. I truly just had that thought when I was looking at the all time point list. The last guy that Sidney Crosby passed, guess who? Ray Bork. And I've said, and I'm not knocking Nicholas Lidstrom. And I have a ton of time if somebody wants to say Lidstrom's, the greatest non-Bobby or defenseman of all time.

But at some point, it feels like we all agreed that it was just Lidstrom was the obvious answer. And I'm like, you look at Ray Bork's numbers. It's crazy. So he's 22 years award votes every single year. Crosby is in year 19. Ovechkin has also had award votes every single year. And it'll be interesting to me to see if Ovechkin finishes, if gets anything this year. Because, I mean, he certainly to start the year was not looking like somebody who was going to get much.

But maybe he does wind up. I think. Crossby certainly will. I think Ovechkin deserves a lot of credit for figuring out how to, even if, aside from whatever's going on with them on the team level, because like we've said, over and over again, they're in the tank at this point. but just individually getting his own play back on track and getting his own production back on track is what he how many how many he's 30 goals again like whatever he's he's he's where he might it's it's within it's within uh it's within range for him and it he just hit the 20 goal like it was mark recently because that was another one remember we got the like 19 straight years of 20 goal or whatever it was like the tied some record and you're sort of like oh 20 are we in march and Is that it? Ovechkin took that 20, but yep.

So anyway, I mean, we're going to look back and be in 20 years and be like, maybe we didn't even hype up Ovechkin and Crosby enough because they're going to be right there. But yeah, let's see. Let's see if you can get to year 19, a point of game, especially for a guy who played so much of his career in the dead puck era. Like, that's pretty impressive. Yeah. but get the 20 and then come talk to us.

That's right. Yeah, we're not. We don't give a participation trophies on this show. This is our weekly rant about the softness of millennials and gen C. Let's go. We have a big return for segment three. It's coming up. Folks, it's back.

The only good segment on the show. It's a holdover from an old show. host with the guy whose name escapes me. It ran on, it ran on Tuesdays for a while. It's when we turn over the segment to you, the listener, the comment levers on the athletic app. If you didn't know, you can comment on these, on these episodes. You just have to go into the athletic app and tap on listen and then scroll down to

blah, blah, blah, blah. I don't know. Figure it out. I love this is this is simple this is mac and do realize this is me realizing that macadu never listened to me in constant sense never right I don't I don't listen

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to listen in comments because it makes it easy you guys can say funny stuff or nice stuff or mean stuff about us or ask questions or what have you. And we can just pick those off for the third segment of the show. It makes stuff very, very easy on us. We got some. I begged you last week in some regard. And here they are. And yes, holy S word.

He typed it out too, dude. He swore in the comments. Can you imagine that? Oh, I don't think we're allowed to do that. Great news for Portie. We totally agree. man. Aaron Portsline online for a kidney transplant.

So join the donor list if that's if that's something you you haven't done yet. Julie K, we talked a lot about offside review last week and it's always a topic of conversation. Julie says to counter in as somebody thinks offside

review has gone too far. The millimeter doesn't provide an advantage. Also doesn't think the scored on team should be able to challenge if they had possession of the puck in between the offsides and the goal. That's a big one. That is a big one for Sean McIndo. I know that.

Yep. I mean, I am get rid of offside review, period. End of story. But if that's not an option, then yes, I think that's a good, treat it like, you know, we know how to do this, right? Like if a team has a delayed penalty and they get possession, we blow the whistle, it's the same sort of thing.

If you have the puck on your stick at some point, I'm not saying it brushes up against your knee or whatever on the way on. but if you have possession, then that negates anything that happened before. Like you have the puck on your stick. You have a chance to do something and anything that comes after. It's what I hate about offside review.

It's just become a get out of jail free card. It's we got scored on, we got beat. Can we just come up with a technicality to make it not count? And this is never like, it's review creep too. Like once it happens, it never goes away.

I've said it a million times. man, but we are going to, you wait until in playoff overtime, some team is going to score a goal off a faceoff with a guy who's like three feet out of position. And we're going to get face off reviews out of that. And that, man, you think offside review is crazy. Wait until we're taking six goals a game off the board because I'll give you a little hint for all you. Just get it right. Just look in the rule book. You know, we got to follow the rules crowd.

every face-off has at least three guys breaking the rules. And nobody cares because we just roll with it. But, oh, I, yeah. So I think that's it. To the comment, yes, that is one of many, many, many ways we could make the rule better than it is now, including just getting rid of it and just living with it. I think face-off review would be what would be. That's what I'll do it for me.

I'm just going to quit if that happens. I'm going to go 10 bar. I'm going to go 10 bar or something. I can't live in a world where faceoffs are reviewable. It's coming. It's coming at some point. And it's going to happen the same way every rule in the NHL happens, which is some GM is going to get a bug up his behind over something that happened to his team.

And he's going to cry about it so much at the GM meetings that everyone else is going to be like, dude, we just want to go golf. Like, what do you need us to vote on? What weird? We're, okay, fine. And then we're in, we're in Palm Beach. It's 79 degrees. is funny and beautiful and it's March.

Like, no thanks. Oh, brother. Jesse W., because we talked about the Jack Adams process a little bit last week, he says our conversation on the Jack Adams had him thinking, is that award voting process broken? If you look back on the last decade, who are the greatest coaches? Cooper, Sullivan, Bednar, Babcock,

I don't know if I agree with that. Quenville. None of these guys won a Jack Adams with the teams that they won Cups with. Quenville had one pre-Blackhawks, but whatever. We don't need to count that one. If the award isn't going to the coaches, we all agree are the best.

Would that not mean something is wrong with voting? It means something is wrong with how we interpret the award. It's a goal. It's a goalie award, dude. It's a goalie award, and it is the, most unexpected team success award. Because what happens is at the beginning of the season, all of us pick what teams we think are going to be good

and which ones we think are going to be bad. And inevitably, some teams are significantly better than we all thought. And so we just go, well, I mean, either we're all wrong. Can't be that. So something crazy must have happened. Oh, it must be the coach. And especially if it's a, if it's a,

a new coach. If it's either a rookie head coach or at least somebody who's new to that team, that seems to give a big boost. And I like to say, you know, is it wrong with the voting process? I think it's just the way we have come to view that award. And it's been like that, by the way, for as long as I can remember. But yeah, you're right. The fact that there is, all of these greats have never won it. The fact that nobody has ever won it back to back other than Jacques Demars in the 80s. So we're talking, we're going on almost 40 years now.

There's net, really, like the best coach in the league has never been the same guy two years in a row. Imagine if there had never been a back-to-back MVP winner. There had never, there have been, I think Pat Burns is still the only guy to win it three times. Like, we spread it out so much.

It's also very much an award where once you've won it once, you go to the back of the line. So, yeah, the whole, it's a very weird award the way that we look at it. I should say not that different from how it's handled in other sports, by the way. I mean, like, Bill Belichick didn't win coach of the year, 10 years in a row in the NFL. Like, it's very often in the NFL as well. It's who is a new coach who had unexpected success right out of the gate.

So I don't think it's necessarily a hockey problem. But yeah, it's, it is weird. Nobody wins it back to back. Pat Burns is the only guy to win it three times. Only five coaches have won it twice. Imagine if we could say that about the Norris or the Vezina or whatever. It wouldn't make sense. Also, I think a big factor in the way the voting kind of shakes out the way that it does.

And I'm not specifically calling out the broadcasters, right? Because they deserve to have their own specific award. But only 50 people vote on. on the Jack Adams, whereas there's significantly more for the rest of the awards. So when you're talking about a smaller sample size like that, you, there's, the votes always going to be a little bit less representative maybe than, then it would be otherwise, right? Because you look at, and, you know, it's a, and it's a kind of a, I don't know, there's a, there's some similarities, I think, with, with that voting block as well.

Like, there's, there are issues there, but I don't know what, I don't know if that's, I don't know what the fix is other than just yeah i i honestly don't think like if you took it away from the broadcasters and gave it to the writers i don't think we would vote it on in exactly the same way i think that's probably true just just let me throw this at you five coaches have won this award multiple times mm-hmm five two players have been on the all-rooky team multiple times in their careers just to give you a sense of like what we're dealing with like the same ballpark so geez Louise Alex Ovechkin made the all-NHL team on two different positions a while. Yeah, there you go.

And guess who's fault now is the writer. Yeah, maybe we shouldn't be talking about anyone else's voting process. Yeah. I just, I just think if you take any, any voting block and you only have 50 people versus 150, it's like there's always going to be the possibility that's something, that's something kind of funky happens. But also, I'm not, I'm not advocating taking the award away from the broadcasters either because. Who cares? All right. Finally, and this is just an excuse for us to talk about something we were going to talk about earlier in the show.

I mean, you pulled the goalie? What? You can't pull the goalie without checking with your teammate. This is insane. I cannot pull the goalie. That's not what this conversation is about. What are you talking about? What am I missing here?

Tyler M. Says the Russo Army is excitedly waiting to hear about the failed goalie pulling overtime because we did see John Heinz's favorite new tactic backfire on the wild. held earlier. Tyler wants to know if it's because Mark Andre Fleury wasn't in net. Because his magic apparently made it happen the first time. I don't know. I don't know if that's it. I don't know if I'm willing to put the blame on Gustafson, but maybe.

Maybe that's it. Yeah, this is, okay, so if people aren't familiar, earlier in the year, Minnesota pulled their goalie in overtime. Again, who are they playing in that one? Oh man, that was last, that was last month. I remember, I remember it happening. And it worked. They scored it on the four on three.

And they did it because they just, they need every point they can get. And I guess they felt like that they had a better chance in overtime than to wait and go to the shootout. Saturday, they are playing Vegas. Yeah, a better, a better chance at getting two points was worth was worth third. risk of finishing was here. Yeah. And the key here is that if there is a rule in the NHL that a lot of people didn't know until a few weeks ago that if you pull your goalie in overtime and you get scored on, you do not get the loser point. So all those people, by the way, when we're

having loser point debates who go, oh, it's not a loser point. It's a point for a regulation tie. No, it's not because you don't get it until the game is over. You can't still, you can't still lose it. Look, here's the thing with the wild. I hate the shootout. I hate the loser point. So anybody who wants to flip a bird to both of those concepts at the same time, I want to support you. Yes. But I don't understand what the Wilder doing here. I don't think the math works on pulling your goalie in overtime, period, because you're risking your, you know, you're risking two points versus going to the shootout. Like, I think you have to feel like you're such an underdog in the shootout.

You'd have to run the numbers on both situations and see what it comes out to, but I'm not convinced that that works. But the key is that on Saturday, they're playing the Golden Knights, which is a team they were chasing. So why wouldn't you pull your goalie? If you're going to pull your goalie in overtime anyways, why don't you pull your goalie in regulation? Because at least then, if you score, you're taking a point off the board of the Vegas

golden nights. I didn't even think of that. You're gaining two points. And when it happened on Saturday, I kind of tweeted out like a sort of, hey, I'm not really sure on how the math works here. Like, does this seem a little weird? And I got actually a few people to the NHL reply to me going, no, I think you're right. Like, I don't think this math works at all. And I had other people say like, well, you know, you have a much better chance of scoring it four on three than on six on five, which is true.

So waiting for overtime in that sense works. but again, you're chasing this team. And so you want to deprive them of points so that you can gain ground. And also regulation wins is the tiebreaker. So you would think that winning in regulation would be a big thing. I'm at the point now a few days later. I've heard from enough people. I feel like I can say with some confidence, I think the wild screwed this up.

Like I don't think the math works on pulling your goalie. in overtime against a team you're chasing, if you're not going to pull the goalie. I'm not sure it works, period, but not pulling the goalie in regulation. Apparently, they did have a few opportunities waiting to overtime to do it. I don't think it works. I think they screwed it up. And I say that not because they got scored on, you know, obviously this is the sort of thing you could just look at it and say, well, if it works, it works, and if it doesn't,

then it was the wrong move. I'm not saying that. I'm saying even if it had worked, they should have done it in regulation. I think they messed it up. Six points behind the Kings for the wild card right now with the blues, with the blues in between them in Los Angeles. And the Kings are playing badly. They have lost three straight.

So to me, I'm on your side here, dude. Like, I think that's a situation where you look at it and you're like, I would definitely rather, I will take the guarantee of being five points behind or whatever it was at that point versus six. It's something that, like, just if you go to a shootout, okay, let's assume that if you don't pull the goalie that with a minute left in overtime, I mean, that there's either you're going to go to the shootout or if you don't go to the shootout, it's 50-50 on which, you know, neither team has a big advantage in three-on-three overtime.

You go to the shootout, if you think the shoot-out's 50-50, then what does it have to be to pull your goalie in overtime? Because it's not like 55-45-45 makes it the right move, because remember you lose that point. Right. You know, I don't want to get into like expected value and all that, but I mean,

you've got a point and a half of expected value by getting to the shootout. So you better be really, really, you've got to figure you've got a 75% chance or better of scoring four on three without getting scored on. And I don't think any team can think that. So again, like a few years ago when, remember before it was regulation wins, it was the ROW, regulation overtime wins. In that case, it might have made sense to do it because you're like, we need this, we can't win in the shootout.

That doesn't help us. We've got to win in overtime. We got to win before it gets to the shootout. Great. Or if you felt like you were a really bad shoot of team or, you know, whatever, this just feels a little too fancy to me. There are three and three in the shootout, by the way. This isn't some team that's like, right. We're not talking about a team that's one and six or whatever.

Like they're not a. It's a coin flip. So, I mean, how good do you have to think your four on three power play is to risk that point? And by the way, I know a few people have asked me this. The reason that they have that in there is it's a holdover from the days before the shootout where you go to overtime. And if you lost in overtime, you still got the loser point. in the early days. But if nobody scored an overtime,

just both teams got a single point. And what somebody realized was, wait, if we do it this way, what's to stop a team from pulling their goalie at the end of overtime? What's to stop both teams from doing it?

And the whole thing just becomes a farce because there's no penalty for giving up a goal. So that's where that rule comes from. It doesn't really, it's not necessarily something we even need in the shootout era, but it's still left over on the books.

I wish we would have seen that at some point. Two teams have pulled goalies. The fact that it seems like it didn't happen, that's a failure of imagination, my boy. I did like, did you notice how the NHL standings page broke when they wild, because they couldn't, you know. They couldn't account for it. Having a losing an overtime without getting a loser point.

This is like, this entire show has been a great segue way into a rules court, which I think we're doing again this week. This week or early next. This week or early next. Okay. Yep. That's going to be exciting. A lot of you have sent in some, well, I mean, there's the usual mix of basic stuff

and very weird stuff. Yeah. And then people who, you know, ate an edible and try to think of the strangest, the strangest scenario possible. And honestly, we've passed a few of those over the years. So we're going to, we're going to break that out again. You and me and the amendment. Keep an eye on for that at some point in the next few days.

Yeah, and by the way, I will write this after we hang up. That's the important thing because I owe you that rules court. Very good. Thanks, buddy. And thank you, folks, for listening to the athletic hockey show. Leave us a five-star rating and a review if that's your thing. Rankie's back next week and also the week after. And tomorrow we got Haley, possibly.

Max, definitely, and me, unfortunately, for the Thursday show. So stay tuned for that and have a good week.