Can the Rangers survive without Shesterkin?
00:00 This is the Athletic Hockey Show. Hey, everybody, Max Bolman here alongside Mark Lazarus for another episode of The Athletic Hockey Show. We got a lot to get to today. We're going to be talking about some of the surprise starts around the league, both positive and negative, which ones we think will keep up, which ones we think are just early season smoke and mirrors, again, in both directions. But first, the biggest news of the league this weekend, Las, was Igor Shasturkin. Igor Shasturken out for the year with a lower body injury. The New York Rangers not specifying what exactly that. injury is, but the important part is that he is out for the year. I was joined by Peter Baugh
00:55 yesterday on Saturday, so this won't be updated for the results of the Rangers Canucks game on Sunday. But let's go to there first. Here's Peter Baugh on Igor Shisterkin. Peter, Igor Shisterkin goes down with a season-ending injury. He leaves early from the Rangers game against the Capitals, and then Saturday afternoon. It is confirmed that Shastirken will miss the rest of the season. Let's just start kind of broad here. How big a loss is this? this for the New York Rangers. Yeah, I mean, this is about as big a loss as it gets. We saw last season when Igor Shasturkin was in the lineup for the Rangers, they were, had a decent clip. His winning percentage was above 500. And then when he was out, the team plummeted. Now, some of that was
01:37 also a stretch in which the team was without Adam Fox. But it's clear that Igor is the most important player on the team. He's the, as Adam Fox said last night, he's the pillar, he's the backbone. He's kind of the one who keeps them in games when they're not playing well. And this is a season that the Rangers were pretty aggressive going into. They made a lot of moves. Chris Drury did to try and improve their depth with visions on returning to like a competitive level and retooling on the fly. And when your best player goes down in a retool year, that's a really tough break. No doubt.
02:12 And it puts a lot of weight on the Dylan Garron's shoulders here because this Rangers team did get off to a good start as we record this. And we're recording this on Saturday night. So a lot will have changed in terms of the standings. The Rangers will actually have played again on Sunday evening. But as we record this, they have the best goal differential in the Eastern Conference. They have eight points the most in the Eastern Conference. They got out to the kind of start that they needed to. And now Dylan Garan is going to have to, or Garand, I should say, Dylan Garand is going to have to carry them. Yeah. And Garand, to his credit, we'll see, I mean, I could look silly as I'm saying this, because there will be another game before this podcast comes out.
02:49 But Garand has started the season well. He had a shutout in Detroit that Max was covering that game, actually. And I thought, acquitted himself really well in relief of Shasturkin last night. He made 11 of 12 saves, I believe, some really high danger saves. And that's a tough situation to come into when the team's probably a little deflated. These guys are human, especially in the second period, right after. Shasturkin came out, they allowed a few high danger chances and he stood strong. So it's a, it's a tough situation for him to come into, but this is the opportunity he's been waiting for.
03:25 This is a guy who was in the HL for a lot of last year, was hoping to get a chance to come up, eventually did at the very end of the season, and now he's getting thrown into the fire after being on waivers at the end of training camp, which if we want to talk about disaster potential, all. If he had been claimed the Rangers would be in a really tough spot because Jonas Corpusallow is also out for the next four weeks. Shisterkin had had a 927 to begin the season, which is obviously exactly what you expect from Igor Shosturkin. It's elite. What I want to know is like how much of the reason was he for the Rangers start versus how much of this was that retooled kind of Rangers lineup. I guess what I'm asking is there? Any kind of hope here that the Rangers growth can
04:06 cover up and kind of take some of the burden off, Garant? Yeah, I mean, I think it's a situation where this definitely takes away, I guess, the hope of this being a season where there's a higher ceiling than we expected. It's hard to see this team truly contending to make a deep playoff run without Igor Shostirkin in there. But the team in front of the goalie is better than it was last year, especially with a healthy fox. He's looked good to start the year. Dorofa has come in and puts the point. on net a bunch and Lafraniers had a really fast start. So there's hope that this team can be, at least remain relevant and is definitely better equipped to, I would say, than last year's team,
04:51 which really struggled when Igor Shus Durkan was out. I have the record in my story last night, but I believe they only won nine games last year when Igor wasn't playing. So it's tough sledding when he's out, but I think this year's team's a little better equipped to handle it. But it's tough. I mean, this is a, this is a guy who's a perennial Vesna candidate, who I thought looked excellent to start the year. I think the team in front of him was responsible for a lot of the wins to start. But you look at the Islanders game last week. It was a, I think, a three to two win. Well, the Rangers got two empty-knitner. So it was a five to two win, but really a one-goal game. And the difference was probably the goaltending because the Islanders were playing
05:31 Semy and Varlamma for the first time in two years. And the Rangers had Igor, who looked pretty sharp. So it's a, it's a blow for sure. And I don't think there's any way to sugarcoat it, but it's a test of, I guess, leadership and depth for the rest of the roster. If I know the hockey media ecosystem like I think I do, by the time this air, the Hellebuck to New York will already have started. I don't know that I can buy that one, just given where the contract situation is there, like what they still owe Eeyore and what they would be then taking on from Hellebuck. That's a lot of, when you go beyond this season, it's a lot to commit to that position and to have two kind of star number ones. but I will put it out there anyway just in case, and we will kind of amend it to, are there any other kind of shorter term trade considerations that could be in play here?
06:16 Yeah, well, I'll start with Hellebuck. To me, it makes zero sense. I think you'd have to spend significant capital to acquire him in the first place, probably take away pieces that are currently on your roster plus good prospects. If the Jets were just trying to hand Connor Hellebuck away, he would no longer be a Winnipeg Jet. Teams are clearly waiting for the asking price to drop. So spending big for a goalie doesn't really make a ton of sense to me, especially when this team maybe had a somewhat limited ceiling to begin with. So I think we can rule that one out.
06:50 We'll do more reporting in the coming days. It's still fresh right now as we're recording. And we haven't, I guess, talked to the Rangers about their goaltending strategy. But that one doesn't make a ton of sense to me. I could see maybe some short-term stop gaps, especially with Corpus Allo out four weeks. Corpus Sal is a guy who's been a starter in the NHL before. He was a pretty good backup last year for Boston, had an above-average goals saved above-expected mark. He's someone who I think can, he and Garand could potentially be a tandem that, like, that's not the sexiest tandem in the world, but it's one that can be okay for the New York Rangers.
07:28 It's kind of, to me, the hard part is like, what do you do? for these four weeks where you don't have Shisterkin or Corpus Allo, and you're really relying heavily on Garand, because that's a big test for him and a lot to ask of him. So maybe you, I mean, there are a few free agents still floating out there of James Reimer, Peter Marazek, can one of those guys come in and give you an 880 save percentage and be better than Spencer Martin would be who's their current, who's in line to currently be their backup? Or do you make a trade for a pending UFA, someone like a Gibson or Binnington? those guys are, I think, probably a little bit.
08:06 They would come at a cost, number one, which I think is a risk. And also, I don't know how much of a huge upgrade they are over Corpuselagaran. They definitely are more experienced in all of that. But I don't know if it's necessarily worth the juice is worth the squeeze. Or maybe they'd try and flip a mid-round pick for a team that has a few different goal. You look at like the Islanders just sent Vitech Vanichek to the AHL. He cleared waivers.
08:34 Maybe someone like him. Maybe you keep an eye on the waiver wire as teams are potentially waving guys. You can just kind of stay alert in that regard. But I think there are some roadblocks to a major goaltending addition. But I could definitely see a minor one to just kind of tied them over until Corpus Allen's back. There's a little bit of a catch-22, right? Because if I'm the Rangers, I actually want to see how this goes before I decide to invest more in this year's team. Like if we're talking about one of these kind of like pending UFA types, before I
09:03 throw another draft pick at like bolstering this year's team, I want to see if this year's team is kind of worth bolstering. And that would require them to stay competitive. And if they're staying competitive, they're probably getting good goaltending from Grand or eventually from Corpusallo. So I don't know, like maybe it works out where if this Rangers team is able to kind of keep its head above water for a while, Garand's able to play well. As the year goes on, maybe you say, hey, we're going to go get a Bennington. We're going to go get a John Gibson. I don't think that's the kind of move you make on October the 12th here, just as things are still very much unfolding. You're still trying to see what will this team look like without Igor? Yeah, I'm with you. I think the thing that would make
09:41 sense to me is kind of the low-risk flyer option on a Vanna-check, on a David Ridditch. Maybe you see if James Reimer's feeling good, like bring him in and see if he can. Because essentially the bar is just, can you find someone who can be a little more reliable than Spencer Martin, who's spent most of the year last year in the AHL and was pretty shaky in his NHL action. So last thing I'll ask you is coming into the season, it was an easy answer. Who does the New York Rangers season depend on? It was Igor Shisterkin.
10:10 Well, he's out of the picture now. Who is the new kind of like make or break player here that as they go, the New York Rangers go, is there one? Or it just went out the door with Igor Shostirkin? There are a few candidates of, I mean, Alexei Lafranier is someone who were waiting to see if this kind of lafreniaissance is real to start the year. And guys like Gabe Perrault potentially seeing his ceiling is important. But to me, the guy is J.T. Miller.
10:41 This is a team that on paper, it's center depth is a little weak right now. You have Miller, you have Zabanajad, you have Noah Labba, you have Jovalina, who's now hurt, so they have Cole Baudoin, who's been playing for them. Like it's not the most star-studded center group. And if this team's going to be good, it needs J.T. Miller to be the best version of J.T. Miller, someone who can play a responsible two-way game, who can contribute offense, who can kind of drag the team into the fight. And to Miller's credit, I think he, even though the numbers haven't really reflected that, I actually have liked his starts of the season. I think that his line has been pretty reliable for the Rangers and has given them,
11:22 about as much as they could hope outside of production. They just haven't been able to put the puck in the net, but they've controlled possession a lot. Last night was probably the exception to that. But he's the one who I think they, if they're going to have success this season, it is because of J.T. Miller. Like they, Chris Drury made the intentional decision
11:43 to kind of build his team around Miller by trading for him, by naming him the captain, by putting all his eggs into this basket. And it's on Miller to deliver this. season. Awesome. Peter, I can tell you been working on your
11:55 French accent, so good job on, I'm working through that. Thank you for joining us, Peter. Yeah, no problem. Thanks for having me. All right, so that's Peter's thoughts.
12:03 The news since then, the New York Rangers do beat the Vancouver Canucks 6 to 2 on Sunday. Dylan Garand, pretty good in that one. What do you kind of make of that? I mean, you hear Peter talk there. I know you weren't able to join us
12:14 for the actual interview on Saturday, but I mean, there might not be a single player in the NHL who's more important to his team than a York Shesterkin, right? I mean, he's been on my heart ballot multiple times over the years. I had him as my heart winner, I think in 22.
12:27 He is, think about how often we talked about the New York Rangers in the preseason, how often we talked about the New York Rangers over the summer, even back last spring, we're like, well, if Igor Schestirkin has a Schisturkin-like season and they retool around him, this is a team in a division that is there for the taking, that there's only a couple of playoffs spots locked down with the hurricanes and the capitals. This is a team that could get back into the playoffs quickly because of Igor Shestirken. But now that they don't have him, I mean, it just kind of undoes everything, right? The confidence that he plays with, it kind of infiltrates the whole team.
12:59 You play so confident as a player when you have a guy like him behind you. We did that episode a couple of weeks ago where we talked about Jesse Granger's goalie tiers. And there's maybe three or four guys in the entire NHL like that. Sheesterkin might be number one on that list. So there's no coming back from this. Like you're not going to have the same season without him that you did with him. And Dylan Grant, who knows, you know, our poor producer. or Chris, who's a big Rangers fans like, well, what if Dylan Garand is good?
13:24 And you know what? It's hockey. He could happen. He could become Jim Carrey or Andrew Hammond or Brandon Bussy and just come out of nowhere and be great. Who knows? It's a dumb sport. It's entirely possible.
13:36 But it's a whole lot less likely than it was that Igor Shisterkin was going to bring them back to the playoffs. It is less likely, but it is the kind of thing that we see teams rally around, right? And I'm not saying that that's what the Rangers have done already by virtue of beating the Vancouver Canucks. I think we expect most teams to beat the Vancouver Canucks. or without their starting goaltender. But Alexi Lafranier off to a great start this season,
13:55 eight points in his first seven games. Gabe Perrault off to the exact kind of start that the Rangers needed from him, six points in seven games. Tai Cartier scores 27 seconds into the game tonight. So if you're looking for a little bit of that, hey, like, you know, we're pushing. We're going to pick each other up here
14:09 in the wake of this Igor injury. There are spots that you can point and say, hey, like there's still room for this Rangers team to come together and to have some young guys step up. See, maybe this says something about me, but I look at that almost as a negative, right? Where it's like, oh, man, you actually did it right. This summer, all the, all the,
14:26 Pavel Dorofia, looks like a good fit. Like, everything you did seems to have worked, and then this happened. It's almost more frustrating as a fan than if you just went in, expecting it to be a disaster and it looked like a disaster. And then Chess Sturkin's heard, and it's like, all right, well, that's a disaster. It's like, New Yorkers are dealing with this
14:40 with the New York Giants, right? They look pretty good. Those first couple of weeks, Jackson Dart gets hurt. It's like, oh, man, it might have been something, right? And so that's almost the worst feeling as a fan when you started to believe in it than if you just never had hope to begin with. So yes, this is going to be a more competitive team than I think a lot of us expected.
14:57 I was down on them this summer. I look wrong so far. It's early, but they look perfectly competitive. But Schesterkin with a perfectly competitive team, that's a playoff team. Anyone else with this team, it might just be one of those lost seasons where you're in the mushy middle and you finish in 10th place and get the 12th pick in the draft. My gut is to agree with you. And yet this is a division that produced both the.
15:19 Pittsburgh Penguins and Philadelphia Flyers as playoff teams a year ago. And even without Chesterkin, I'm not sure that this year's Rangers are measurably worse than, you know, last year's flyers on paper. Yeah, Penguins have Sydney Crosby, which is a major X factor. But, and, you know, there were some real breakthrough stories on that team. There could be some real breakthrough stories on this team. I don't know that I'm ready to really wave the white flag on this. The Rangers actually would have been a great fit for what's going to be kind of our main show topic today, which is kind of the pleasant surprises in both directions. Now, things aren't feeling very pleasant around them. But at five and two, it's been a better start than you'd have anticipated. And I guess we'll
15:53 see where it goes from here. Let's take a quick break. We'll come back and we will get into those early season surprises. All right, we are back. Do you need a gift for the hockey fan in your life? Maybe the hockey fan is yourself? Well, the Hockey 100, the new book from the athletic ranks the 100 greatest modern NHL players. And it is out October 27th. That's an e-book and an audio too, if you prefer. It is the easiest gift call you'll make this year. So make sure you check out the Hockey 100. it. All right, Las, let's get into some of the positive surprise starts this year. And I'm going to start in Ottawa where the Brady Kachuklas senators are four and one. Not only are they Brady Kachlis. They have spent most of this season without Jake Sanderson as well. Tim Stutzl is kind of taken the mantle and run with it, but maybe most important of all, Linus Olmark looks back here. Are you buying this year's sense at four and one? You know, I kind of am because they were a good team last year. I remember, you know, last month I was talking to Jake Sanderson before the season started. And I said, does it somehow hurt more that Brady wanted out,
16:53 even though this was going to be a good team. Like, this was a team on the rise. This isn't Larkin trying to get out of a going nowhere situation in Detroit. This isn't Hellebuck trying to get out of a going nowhere situation in Winnipeg. This was a good team, and he still wanted that. Did that hurt more? He looked at me, he goes, we'll still be good. And he was right.
17:09 You know, this is a really good young team. Tim Stutzl has been flirting with superstardom for like five years now. It feels like he's really on the cusp. Drake Batherson. They're doing it without Sanderson, like you said, their best defensemen. Now, they haven't played anybody, like anybody. They beat the least open the season. That's nice.
17:24 But then what? It was Boston, Detroit, Philly, Nashville. It's not exactly murderers row, but they're doing what you're supposed to do against bad teams. They're beating them. They got a soft schedule the entire rest of this month before a much tougher November. So they could really build up a cushion in that very difficult Atlantic because you do not want to fall behind early in that Atlantic. It's going to be so difficult to climb the ranks with all the loser points that are going to be given out in those tight games. So they're off to a really promising.
17:49 start. For me, Allmark is the key of it because last year they were like one of the top three underlying metric teams in the league. Maybe maybe that's a little lofty, maybe top five. I don't have it in front of me right now. But they were like up there with the elite of the elite by like expected goals share last year. And the reason that they didn't look that way in the standings is because Almark was not Linus Almark. He was not the guy that they traded for. He was not the guy that he has been so far this year. And again, to your point, competition not the greatest, but 942 save percentage. 5.3 goals saved above expected so far for Linus Almark. That is sixth. in the league. It's also more than he had all of last year. Now, it can still go down. You have a
18:23 couple bad games that starts chipping away into it, but that's a very encouraging start for them. And I think for a team that, you know, it has kind of made stifling defense a little bit of their identity, that looks still repeatable with or without Brady Kachuk. And by the way, Brady Kachuk has the same number of points for the Panthers that he does for the senators this year. Yeah. I mean, Ottawa, they're not generating a ton of offense, not a ton of high danger chances. Yep. But they are scoring on the ones they get. And that's a team like that, that's, that's what they have to do, right? They have to bear down on their chances and score because, like you said, they're going to try to play that some of some more low event hockey. And if Olmark's playing
18:56 at that Vesina caliber level that we know he's capable of, then yeah, there's no reason to think that they won't be one of the better teams in that Atlantic Division. Yeah, I'm buying it too, especially once they get Jake Sanderson back. All right, let's go to the Edmonton Oilers. This is the team that I think we're just going to end up talking about every episode of the show. They're so interesting. They are four oh and one, Laz. They have not yet finished a game without getting at least one point. Again, have not played the stiffest competition yet. They're out in the Pacific Division. They're probably not going to play. Yeah, Seattle, Anaheim, San Jose. All right. They got a home and home against Utah coming up.
19:29 And then I think Minnesota and Carolina back to back will know a lot more about them at that point. They did have a five to win against the Anaheim ducks, though. And the ducks are the team that knocked them out of last year's playoffs. Is that a game that particularly means anything to the Edmonton Oilers in October? You would like to think probably not. But at the same time, they're a team that's trying to instill some things early in the season. So I don't know. I think it's as encouraging a start, I guess, after those first two games, where I thought it was actually a negative thing for them,
19:56 despite, you know, scoring a lot of goals and coming out one O and one or whatever it was. Since then, it is a little bit affirming for them. Yeah, no, I like the way they really stifled San Jose on Saturday night. That's the most encouraging win of the season for me that. You know, the 9-7 track meets with Vancouver. They're fun as hell. I want more of that. But you're not going to get it.
20:15 Mike Babcock does not want more of that. That is not a strategy that's going to last in the long term. But if you can lock it down Babcock style like they did against San Jose, like they did against Anaheim, it can make your lousy goalies at least look mediocre, right? And a mediocre goalie behind this team has gone all the way to the Stanley Cup final twice. So that's what they need to do. We think of Edmonton as this track meet team, this high-chance team.
20:37 But they brought in Mike Babcock to be something completely different, to be a lockdown, shutdown team. and that San Jose game was the most promising one so far. When we did our opening night episode, I was telling Sean, I think Owen Michaels is going to really be a breakthrough guy under Mike Babcock. He seems like the kind of, you know, college, you know, player that Mike Babcock, you know, in the bottom six eventually kind of mines into a real contributor. So far, I think that has come true.
21:02 But I think the biggest breakout story, Vasily Putt Col is in here, goal per game so far for the Oilers. That was such a good ad that the Oilers made pulling him out of Vancouver there. It was a player who certainly had not lived up to his potential. after being a high pick there, he is living up to it now for the Oilers. Yeah, and look, is this team going to shoot almost 20% all year? No, but if anyone could come close to it, it's these guys.
21:23 They've got that kind of finishing talent, and they've done this year after year where they outperform their underlying numbers. So, no, this is, I don't buy their underlying numbers are good. Seventh in the league so far and expected goals year entering Sunday. Yeah, again, it's a handful of games against crappy teams. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just, am I buying them as like legit contenders?
21:42 No, I'm not. Like, I don't see them in the same category. I see a Colorado and Minnesota, Dallas, even a Utah at this point, or Vegas out in the West. But are they a handful? And are they going to be competitive? And are they going to be able to win games through sheer talent? Absolutely they are. And again, if they can play better team defense, if they can do what Babcock is brought here to do,
22:04 they can mask some of the goaltending issues. Yeah, I don't like most of the middle six, especially on the wings. I think depth is kind of going to be the thing that I keep coming back to as well as goaltending, obviously, for the Oilers, as what could kind of hold them back. And we'll see, you know, they'll get a little bit healthier. They have some guys out right now, you know, Nugent Hopkins, Hyman, all that. That will obviously make a big difference when they're back. We'll see if that kind of fixes the depth. But so far, I don't think you can complain if you're an Oilers fan. And that's, hey, I think that's a little, they've had some
22:29 octobers where you could certainly complain. That has not happened here. They'll find a way to complain about something. I don't know. One of the teams you mentioned there as part of that soft start. I wanted to kind of quibble with then, but I decided to bite my tongue here. I don't know that the Seattle Cracken are the easy out that we thought they would be coming into the year. They beat the Washington Capitals, five to three on Sunday. They are four and two. Yes, Joey DeCord had a big hand in beating the Capitals there. But I don't know. The Cracken, I'm not ready to call them a playoff team or anything like that, but I don't think this looks like Smoking Mirrors necessarily. No, I think it's Smoking Mirrors. This is your PDO King right here.
23:05 I mean, I mean, only the Sharks and the Flyers are giving up more chances per game than these guys. This is not a sustainable thing for the Seattle crack. And none of it is. Mackey Sima Savage is not going to score 60 goals. And Freddie Goddrow is not going to score 40 goals. I remember, you know, we were talking about this off show and you mentioned their goal differential. Yeah.
23:22 Two six to one wins over Calgary. Those barely should count. That's fair. It's basically an HL team at this. Look, good for Seattle. They got a major chip on their shoulder. They feel like they're like the redheaded stepchild of the NHL right now. Nobody wants to come play with them.
23:36 Jason Robertson said no. Artemie Panarin said no. They've got a little bit of a bunker mentality. good for them. I hope that they're competitive. It's a cool place. It's a cool arena, but I would not put any money behind these guys whatsoever. So I share your feeling that, you know, and the guys you're mentioning there, Panarin, Jason Robertson, that does reflect what the Cracken lack. They do not have a star. It's why their underlying numbers are pretty middling. They do have kind of just a lot of middle six kind of guys throughout their lineup. But I have to say, like, that was true. The
24:06 one year the Cracken had some success, too, and got to the playoffs. And that was, kind of built through depth. And if they can get the right young players taking steps forward here, Berkeley Caton, Shane Wright, you mentioned Samiskevich, to go with a fourth line that I think has been really impressive early in the year. And they were in Detroit last week. So I saw him live in that line of Freddie Godreau, Ben Myers, Ryan Winterton. I know you make the joke about, you know,
24:28 Goddrow's not going to score, you know, whatever it was, 60 goal pace or whatever for the season. That line is playing very good. He can shoot the puck. I'm not saying he's going to score more than like 15 goals or whatever this year. Maybe he doesn't even get to 15. But that's the problem. That's their entire roster is guys that can score 15 goals. But if your whole roster does that.
24:46 To go anywhere, yes. But I do think that there's at least a path here to kind of recreating the depth approach that they have found success with in the past. It's still going to fall short ultimately because you don't have the top end guys. But I'm more optimistic about, I thought Seattle was like a bottom three team entering the season. And I don't feel that way after what they've done to start the year. I think that this looks at least like, hey, this team in the Pacific Division. And that's a caveat. We're going to probably throw in all day.
25:11 Huge caveat. In the Pacific Division, they can stay in the mix, I think much longer than I would have said they could have two weeks ago. Yeah, I mean, when we had our staff predictions at the start of the season, it was Seattle, Calgary, and Vancouver were the bottom three. And no other teams got any votes for finishing dead last. So nobody believes in the crack. If you're going to pull, then nobody believes in us and nobody wants to play with us. Like, you can make that work right now in Seattle and do that kind of bunker mentality. I don't know how sustainable that is, but it would make for a fun story for sure.
25:39 So you're in Chicago. Who would you rather be rest of season? The Cracken or the Blackhawks? I mean, in the big picture, certainly the Blackhawks. No, no, the rest of one season. Just this season? Yes. Oh, so yeah, the way the Blackhawks have started the year?
25:57 I mean, woof, but I mean, the Blackhawks have had a hard schedule, but. They haven't had Connor Bedard. You're getting Connor Barden potentially this week. You know, he skated without a, without a, with an irregular jersey and got some in contact at practice. to stay. They haven't ruled out Tuesday even as a return for him. That's like a month ahead of schedule. I would still rather have the team with Connor Bedard and Bo Byram and Patrick Kane as bad as they've looked and they trust me, they have looked bad. Spencer Knight.
26:24 There's still a lot more to like in the long term. The difference is Seattle's in the Pacific division and they're going to have way more easy games than the Blackhawks are. Yeah. So which one? So you're taking Chicago to finish higher this season? Still taking Chicago, yes. But I'm not like feeling great about it. No, I mean, look, I'm with you. I took Chicago as my surprise team. team out of those bottom dwellers in that poll. And tough first two weeks for that pick. It's been, I asked Patrick Kane about after the lost on Saturday night, I go, what's the frustration level with the team right now? He looks at me in the eyes and goes, very high. That was his whole answer. So did that answer the question for you, though?
27:00 It very much answered the question. It was very on the nose, yes. Save me some word count, too. All right. Those are the positive surprises. Those are not the only kinds of surprises that they're have been so far in this season. Although not all of these can be called total shockers, but there's a couple of playoff teams that are off to among the worst starts in the National Hockey League. One of those, of course, is in Philadelphia. God.
27:25 You know, like, my stat, everyone's got like their pet stat. My stat is always high danger chances per 60, right? How much are you generating and how much are you giving up? Because that's where like 90% of the goals come from are right around the net, these high danger chances off the rush, odd man breaks, things like that. Flyers are second to last in creating. them and they're fourth worse than suppressing them. They are really, and then this one's really fun.
27:48 On high danger chances, they have a 4% shooting percentage. Nearly a third of the league is over 20. The Oilers and Canucks are over 30. They are at four. This team is not only bad, but they're also slumping, which makes for just a horrible combination. They got one five-on-five goal with Matt Bay-Mitchcove on the ice. One with Trevor Zegris.
28:08 One with Travis Kine. One with Port-a-Marton. And those guys are all on like different lines. Like this is like total disaster top to bottom here. Like I've never seen perhaps a more disappointing start than this one. What's strange to me is that like when the Flyers were making their push late last season, there was kind of this. It's not like that team was like super, the roster wasn't that different.
28:29 You know, there wasn't super high flying and flashy. They were just really committed to not giving you anything. And I think this year's Flyers team is still going to try and do that. And that's what they will have to do if they're going to find any success. but it just doesn't seem like that's there yet. Obviously, a big problem is the centers. We can talk about that until the cows come home. I'm almost kind of bored of talking about that with the Flyers right now.
28:50 It's a 30% expected goals share so far less. It's early. We keep mentioning these numbers, like these things really won't stabilize for another five to 10 to 15 games, maybe potentially. That's a really awful number. That's a number that you should almost never see. If you have that for one period, like, wow, you got caved in that period.
29:06 To be that way through six games. Look, Kevin Kerr's our excellent Flyers writer, He had an exclusive with Danny Breyer. And this quote, man, it rang true to me, and I'm sure it rang true to you with the teams that we cover. Oh, yeah. The quote was, we're still a young team. We've warned our fans about that. Warned.
29:23 Warned is the word he used. Like, SOS, it's going to be bad. And that's, I've lived that, man. Like, I feel that in my bones. It's true, but it's not a good sign. And here's the really scary part. The Flyers aren't that young. They're 10th youngest in terms of NHL experience.
29:39 They're 12th youngest in terms of age. This is not the Blackhawks. This is not the Red Wings of seven years ago. No. This is not the sharks. This is a team that is not on that same trajectory. And this is alarming. You have been warned.
29:52 But you get like the Oliver Bonk call up, right? Like I think that they're taking it more and more increasingly in that direction as it becomes clear to everyone that that's what's happening. And as we record this, they are still playing right now. But they're down to goals to the Carolina hurricanes in the third period. Never say never. I don't think that one's turning around for them. No, the hurricanes with a lead in the third period. good luck with that. What do you think about Porta Martone? I mean, he was so good
30:16 last, and in the playoffs. And, you know, Harmon Dial had this great piece where he looked at some of the rookie of the year candidates, and you get a really good breakdown of what part of Martone is doing, what he's not doing. And do you think that that was a fluke what we saw last year? Do you think that this is a fluke? And he's just being dragged down by a bad team? What are you seeing out of him? I don't think it's a fluke. I don't think, you know, Sean Gentilly talked about this all the time last year, the second half, is that Porter Martone was shooting when he came up at like an elite elite rate. That has not been the case to start this season. I don't even know if he's at a shot on goal per game. I haven't seen where it'll
30:49 end up in his current game if it'll get him there. But he was below a shot on goal per game coming into today. That is something that has to be a major, major part of the flyers attack and also of Martone's identity is just being this very direct player that yes, he's skilled, but you're looking to him to play heavy, to be around the net and to get a lot of shots of the neck because he can really shoot it. If he's not doing that, the numbers aren't going to be what they were the second half of last year. And then some of it's just environment, right? Like, I think it's a, you come in and you're on all that adrenaline, you're coming off the NCAA tournament. You're jumping right into a playoff race. Like, it's a great kind of freeing thing. The sophomore slump, I don't know
31:25 if we can say it applies to a guy who's still called her eligible. But in a way, it kind of is because it's the same mechanism at play. That's a great point. Those guys that come out of college, they're so excited to be there. They're in peak form because it's like March and they've been playing all year and they just get turned loose and the adrenaline is so high. And then you had that summer and as he's staring at on an 84 game schedule for the first time. Expectations for the first time, right? Like when he came in last year, it was just go play. Whatever happens, right? Now it's like, oh, you're going to be a factor or a featured piece of kind of this attack. Everyone's picking you to win the calder. That has real pressure. It really does. The really scary thing of if you're a
32:01 Flyers fan, Joseph Wall is playing pretty well and this is happening. Imagine if you get normal Flyers goaltending, how bad things could get. because this is, you know, usually when you're a Flyers fan and things are going bad, oh, it's the goaltending. It ain't the goaltending right now. It's the whole team. Yeah. All right.
32:16 Let's go out west for the next one of these, and it's the LA Kings. And the LA Kings still have yet to win a game through four on the relatively early side of this for them. There's plenty of teams that have played five, six Flyers will have played their seventh game by the time you hear this. King's still sitting at four, but they don't have a win. And for a team that was a playoff team last year, it's a concern no matter how you slice it up. Yeah, I mean, look, I'm not very high on the Kings to be. in with, so it's silly for me to downplay the start because I think this is what they are. They're a mediocre team. But they've had kind of the opposite of some of the teams we talked about
32:47 that were having these great starts. They had a brutal schedule early. They got waxed by Colorado. And then they had like a pair of two-one losses, so I think it was Florida in Vegas. Three of their losses are by one goal. Two of them are in overtime. This is Kings hockey, baby. This is what they do. They grind the game to overtime and steal a loser's point. And then by the end of the year, somehow they have enough to get into the playoffs. So, you know, the puck's not going in for them. They're shooting at like 5% as a team right now. They can't get a save. They are, they are, some of these teams are on the PDO train like Seattle. They are getting, the Kings are getting run over by the PDO train. They're at a 951 PDO. So positive regression is
33:20 coming, but I just, I just don't think this team is particularly great to begin with. So certainly not dynamic. So the regression is not going to be that dynamic either. I have not been able to watch the Kings yet. So I'm going to try and mostly not put my foot in my mouth here while I talk about something I haven't watched. But what I have seen is who they've played. And I think you give any team the abs, the Panthers, the Golden Knights, and yes, there was one against the sharks. Maybe that's the winnable one that they kind of, you know, wish they would have taken advantage of there. That's a really brutal start. It does not reflect what their road the rest of the way is, as we've talked about, the Pacific Division, right?
33:53 If there's a team here that can start slow and find a way back, it's a team that plays in the Pacific Division. It's a team with Artemmy Panarin and Adrian Kempe. That's the L.A. Kings. And it's just not a team that's going to get blown out very often. It's their entire MO. It's like old school John Tortorella hockey. Just get the game to overtime and take the coin toss and see what happens. Yeah. All right. Let's go to my neck of the woods then for the last one of these here, Las. The Red Wings are one three and one. Not only are they getting booze and sell the team chance on their home ice, they go on the road on Saturday, and they are hearing from the Montreal fans, we want Larkin. Now, I don't think anyone can be too surprised by that. Like, it was out there
34:33 enough on Twitter that that kind of thing could happen. But it is a distraction. And it is something that like, you know, I wasn't in Montreal, but I saw the video of Tom McClellan being asked about this. And he politely answered it one time, yes, I'd be lying if it wasn't a distraction. There was a follow up, but he basically was like, I'm done talking about this. And as someone who has had to ask him those questions, I relate to that. I am about done of having this conversation too.
35:01 and yet I cannot be done because it's all still out there. And it's all still going to be weighing on the Red Wings, on McClellan, on Larkin, on everyone in that room. Yeah, they might be done talking with it, but the rest of the hockey world is not. And, you know, fans are allowed to tamper, right? They're allowed to go out there and do that and send their management and message.
35:18 I don't remember ever hearing a team chant for the acquisition of a player on the opposing team. Like, that's Montreal for you. God bless him. What a great. What a great. And Dylan Larkin afterwards sounded like a guy who wouldn't have mind to play in Montreal. This is the best environment in the league. I love it.
35:33 He scored one of the biggest goals of his life in that building for Team USA against Team Canada in the four nations face off. He's had plenty of big games there. They played a game there that was to get into the playoffs a few years back. I mean, actually won it, but they won it in a way. They won it in overtime in Philly. There was something that happened in the Philly game. Torterell like pulled his goalie and Philly lost. And so they lost out on the tiebreaker.
35:56 And it was like heartbreak there. So he's had some big moments in both directions in that. that building before. Well, let me ask you this, because I was surprised when you mentioned Detroit as one of your disappointing starts, because I don't know what the hell you expected. This is exactly what I expected from Detroit. It's a total disaster right there right now. And, you know, I feel like, honestly, sometimes I feel like we as writers get too close to it.
36:16 Like the Blackhawks are one in five and are getting run out of buildings. And they've looked pretty awful for a lot of these games. And I look at them as underperforming. I'm like, wow, because you start buying into it a little bit. You start when you're around it all the time and you're studying it all the time, You're like, oh, I could see if Lev Shanov takes this step and Byram is what he thinks he can be. And Patrick Keynes his old self and they hold water until Bedard gets there. I could see this team making a push for the playoffs.
36:39 But the rest of the hockey league is like, well, of course the Blackhawks are one and five. Look at the Blackhawks. So I don't feel. Don't get me wrong. I picked them to finish bottom five this year. Like it's one of my preseason predictions. But I do think that, A, I wanted to talk about them. And so they're on the show sheet.
36:54 They're more talented and more HAL ready than a lot of these things. Exactly. Right. What I find interesting is we keep talking about these underlying numbers. The rubbing defensively have been the kind of team that I think they kind of need to be. They are not giving a whole lot up five on five. Their penalty kill is suering them. And the expected part, this I can't claim any surprise at, is they're really struggling to score.
37:13 And what I think is the most devastating about it is Dylan Larkin comes back. He has a couple points in the game. He hasn't produced in the last two games, but he still, I thought, created their two best chances against Montreal. Both of them were kind of weak side cross-slot plays. right? Yeah, to set up Arvinson and De Brinket, and neither the goals go in. But if you subtract him, this Red Wings team really, really, really struggles to score. They struggle to score with him. As we've seen in past years, they cannot really score reliably consistently without him. And that's, you know, Larkin takes a lot of heat for not producing it at five on five,
37:47 especially kind of late in the season last year. But he comes back into the lineup and they suddenly look a lot more dangerous. That, I think, is the scariest thing for Detroit, is that if he is indeed traded, which is not, you know, it's not a guarantee. But, you know, that's my guess is how this still probably ends up. It just looks irreplaceable to me. Well, he's the best player on a mediocre team. And when you're on it, when you're a bad team, your best player can look bad a lot of the times. You know, I see that with Connor Bardard, his first couple of years when he played great, but people thought he was bad because he was just on an awful team. And when you're on a great team, your great players have support and they have help and there's other great players on the
38:25 teams. But when you're a mediocre team, when you're a team kind of on that periphery of the playoff picture, your most important player is so much more important than they. It's like the Rangers was just Sturkin. Like, we're going to see. Like this is a team that was kind of on, trying to fight their way in. Their best player's gone now. What's going to happen? Detroit is a mediocre team. They've been flirting with mediocrity for so long now. They've never made it back to the playoffs in this era. And their best player wants out. So when he does get out, it's going to be a glaring hole at the top of the lineup. And I think that that should be instructive about kind of how they should play his exit, right? Because
39:00 there's kind of this idea. And a lot of this is like his list is teams that are really good teams and obviously kind of geared to joining a competitor. Those teams don't tend to have a lot of prospects. I don't tend to have a lot of high picks. But if you can get a futures, like I don't understand this idea that like the Red Wings can't do futures for Larkin because they almost can't not do futures for Larkin. Like if you were to take back a 28-year-old. old center and, you know, the wild is like a team that's always, you know, first and foremost in people's minds of this for good reason. But like Ryan Hartman, if you took Ryan Hartman back, what does Ryan Hartman do for you? Like, yeah, he makes you a little less bleak down the
39:38 middle, but he's not going to be here like at the output. If you're trading Larkin, you are inevitably taking a step back. That doesn't mean you have to do a full 10 year rebuild again, but you have to look at it honestly with clear eyes and say that you're going to need a little bit of a reset at that point. I mean, you're obviously right, but I think that there's a difference between futures as in like the 2029 first round point. Yeah, I'm not saying that. And like the, the idealized version of this was Seth Jones in Chicago. He wotted out. The Blackhawks got a 23-year-old Spencer Knightback. Yep. Like that's the idealized version of this situation. Yes. You get someone good and young who still fits your window. That's actually fits the window better than a 30-year-old
40:18 Dylan Larkin does. Spencer Knight will be way more important to the Blackhawks than Seth Jones ever could be in this incarnation. That's what everybody wants in a trade, but those trades very rarely seem to happen. Bill Zito is in a situation where he is, a 23-year-old is useless to him. Don't care. Winning the cup now. You need to find the right team in the right situation with the right guy on the outskirts of their roster, and that's really hard to do. But that's what Detroit needs to be looking for. They're going to take this much time. They've got to make sure they get it right. They should be getting like, you know, a 20, like, I don't know, like Alexei Lefrenier has been coming up in trade talks for 10 years.
40:53 years it feels like, that kind of a player, where that kind of a trade, where you're not a reclamation project, but a proven good young player who you think has a higher ceiling than he's shown. That's better than a 2029 first rounder. And I think it can even be a prospect. I don't think it has to be someone who's already in the NHL. Spencer Knight, to your point, had been in the NHL, but it wasn't like he was like a knightly member of the Florida Panthers lineup at the time of that trade, right? So I think it can be someone who's still classified as a prospect, be multiple those kind of things. But I just look at the Red Wings and I, as much as I think, I really respect the effort that they've given. Like, they have done as good of a job blocking all this out as
41:25 anyone could expect of them, right? Like, there is a ton going on, a ton of noise. They have played committed hockey. It doesn't mean that they've produced enough. That doesn't mean that they've won enough. But they've played about as well, I think, in the things that they can really control as they could of. And I think that is what makes the one three and one start. Again, maybe not surprising, maybe not even disappointing, but kind of sobering, I guess, maybe is the best word to put on it. All right, let me put this back on you. The Red Wings are not, are not one player away, obviously. We both know that.
41:55 But would you rather be the Seattle Cracken or the Detroit Red Wings this year? This year, I think I'd rather be almost anyone than what the Red Wings are going through. Maybe not Winnipeg. Yeah, right. Not Winnipeg, probably not Calgary, maybe not Vancouver. But there's just so much going on here that it's tough. Now, whose roster would I rather have? I think I'd still rather have the Red Wings roster.
42:15 Yep, I agree. But the Cracken aren't playing through the circumstances that the Red Wings are. I think that's the difference. Yeah, no, I would not want to be the Detroit Red Wings at all this year because it sounds like it's going to be an unmitigated nightmare for the foreseeable future because they want to stop talking about it, but we're not going to stop talking about it. Sorry, Max. Well, I understand. But it's also like you see it happen. Like you go on the road, right? And I think that's people hear the like the sound bite from McClellan that's like, I'm done talking about
42:41 this. And I had the thought of like, oh, this is going to get directed at me at some point by someone on Twitter, be like, stop asking you, you know, it's not always. us. They have to go to 31 different buildings throughout the year and they're going to get the same questions from someone in almost all of them. I don't think all of them are going to be chanting Dylan Larkin's name and saying like, we want Larkin and all of them. Like that might be kind of unique to Montreal and maybe two or three other cities that could pull something like that off. And we see this with like, you know, it's a complete, I'm not, I'm not equating these at all. It's apples and oranges. But you see this with like when a player has off ice troubles, right? Yeah. You know, when there's
43:13 something bad and like they're done talking about it in their room, but then they have to go to Vancouver and then they got to go to Toronto and they got to go to Edmonton. What do you think those guys are going to ask them out in the locker room after morning skate? So you might, you can never control that narrative when you're a traveling hockey team. You can sort of, you know, the home, the home writers sort of get sick of the story themselves after a while. Oh, yeah.
43:32 And there's nothing left to ask. You can't ask about it anymore. But you can certainly listen in when they're getting grilled by new media in other cities and then you have to write it all again when they say the wrong thing. and it just, it's self-perpetuating, and there's no escaping it. Until he's traded, there's no escaping it. Yeah, people keep telling me, like, what a great,
43:51 oh, like, must be great for you, content. Like, this sucks. This is really not fun at all to cover. There's nothing an actual beat writer hates more than content. Like, we want to write the stories that we want to write, and when you start calling it content, that means things have taken a turn. That's a great way to put it.
44:06 Great way to put it. All right, that's going to do it for us. Thanks for listening to this episode of The Athletic Hockey Show. Remember to subscribe to us on YouTube at YouTube.com slash at the athletic hockey show. The next episode will be on Wednesday. That's the Sean's with Frankie. And I'll be back live on Thursday at 3 p.m.
44:20 And on Friday with the Prospect Series. We'll talk to you soon.
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