The Athletic Hockey Show - Checking in on the Connor Bedard sweepstakes, could Erik Karlsson make a return to Ottawa, and Vezina trophy odds

Episode Date: November 17, 2022

Ian and Sean check in on the Connor Bedard sweepstakes and discuss Sean's piece about which teams are currently in the best position to land the #1 draft pick. Then, with Sharks GM Mike Grier saying he's open to trades, is it possible for Erik Karlsson to return to the Senators? Then, in "Granger Things", Jesse Granger joins the show to discuss Vezina trophy odds, the guys answer a question regarding writers and fandom in the mailbag, two teams show up wearing the same-same colored jerseys in "This Week in Hockey History" and much more.Have a question for Ian and Sean? Email [e-mail] or leave a VM @ [phone]!Save on a subscription to The Athletic: theathletic.com/hockeyshowSubscribe to The Athletic Hockey Show on Youtube: youtube.com/@theathletichockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Hockey Show. We're back with a Thursday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. It's Ian Mettishon Macken with you. And we got a lot to get to. Jesse Granger going to drop by for Granger things. Got some fun mailbag questions. We'll talk GM meetings and some of the fallout there. Trade rumors, Roll a cup of hockey on the shelf.

We're going to talk about Sean your piece this week on Connor Bedard. I got to start with this. I want to ask you, Matt Murray plays well in Pittsburgh. Welcome to the Matt Murray ride. Yeah. This is what I told you what happened. He's going to look good for you and you're going to be like, I can see it. He looked good.

He looked good and he looked healthy, which is really more the important thing right now. Yeah, I mean, you're right. It's nobody, I can't imagine, is. throwing any parades based on one game. But that's what you want to see. When he came back, when he first got hurt, you know, I know a lot of fans, especially since he wasn't great in that first game in Montreal, we're kind of like, you know, here we go.

It's already, we can already get the verdict in. It's, you know, the deal was a mistake. And I still don't like that trade. I still really think that they, that was a questionable move. But all Matt Murray can do is, changed my mind one game at a time and he looked good in Pittsburgh. First time back in Pittsburgh. First time

playing in Pittsburgh. He had been back if I understand it right with Ottawa but hadn't played. He like waved to the crowd. Yeah. So they did like their little video welcome back that every player gets these days and that you know that was

already done. Good good game by him. And good game by the Leafs, especially in Pittsburgh because that's been like there's this weird history of the Leafs whenever they're struggling. And, you know, they haven't really been struggling in the last couple weeks. But whenever things are teetering, they go into Pittsburgh and they get blown out. And that ends up being the game that said it happened way back in the Fletcher era. And that was what spurred him to make the Doug Gilmore trade. And then

the last couple years, there have been a couple where they've lost seven to one and everybody's just panicking and thinking this is terrible. So good sign maybe. Maybe Matt Murray's the, you know, the guy who's going to reverse the trend. Or maybe he's going to get shelled in his next game and we'll forget this conversation ever happened. Well, you know what? So here's what I want to know from you. Because sometimes goalies can take you on a wild ride. It's feast or famine. They're great. The guy I always think about is Roman Czechmanic in Philly. Like I think Czech manic back in the day, that was the greatest ride ever for like you want to talk about highs and lows. I think every

fan base has the one goalie in their history that they had to like buck, strap yourself in, it's going to be a while. You don't know what you're going to get. It's either going to be a shutout or it's five goals. Like for Ottawa, for me, it was Ray Emery. Ray was so,

um, fascinating to watch from so many perspectives, but it was like he was either dialed in or he, like, so who's the guy in leaf history for you? Like the goalie that you feel like, man, and maybe it's going to end up being Matt Murray.

Yeah. Who is, who is the guy like that you're like, man, this is a wild ride. And I don't know. Yeah. Like, Rimer? Or no?

You know, Rimer got a bad rap for a couple of reasons. Obviously, the Boston collapse and Randy Carlisle didn't seem to like him and would kind of throw him under the bus. He wasn't a bad one. Man, I mean, so many other leaf goleys from the cap era have just been, you've had the lows, but not the highs. They had some good ones, obviously the Felix Poth and Curtis Joseph Ed Belfour sort of era. I, you know, if I don't go back to the 80s, because Ken Regget and Alan Bester were both those guys, absolutely. Every night, you just, you were going to, you were going to give up eight goals or it was going to be a 60 safe shutout.

It was fantastic. I think the guy would have to say is Jack Campbell. And Campbell was a little bit different because he would go in stretches. Like, it wasn't one game to the next, but I mean, you didn't know, you'd look at the calendar and be a new month. And you'd be like, all right, would, are we getting good Jack or bad Jack this month? Because, and you saw it last year. I mean, he was phenomenal for the first, most of the first half of the season. And then not good down the stretch.

And then in the playoffs, you're just sort of holding your breath. A little bit with Freddie Anderson, too, especially in the playoffs. You never knew what you were going to get. But I'd say Jack's probably the guy. You know what? Penguins fans are screaming at their speaker right now, saying, Flurry. Mark Andre Fleury in Pittsburgh. Yep, yeah, that's another good one.

I mean, it feels like every team has a guy. And look, goalies are inconsistent. We say this with scores all the time, right? You're like, well, he's streaky. And I's like, well, yeah, of course he's streaky. That's how sports works. But, yeah, I know I love Chechmanic as the pick because that was a guy that he and Patrick Lillim are the two guys that stand out to me where if you just go based on reputation

or your own memory, you know, you're like, oh, those guys stunk. And then you look at their numbers. and you're like, holy smokes, these guys put up fantastic numbers. I mean, Laleem was the guy that I've used this stat before. I think to this day, is he number one all time in like goals against average in the playoffs or something for, like, it's amazing. He, you know, of goalies that have played 40 playoff games, he was up there for highest, or like, sorry, yeah, highest safe percentage lowest goals against average. He was. Yeah.

I don't know. I think at one point it was like from, from like the post original six era. take out the early days where there was no scoring. I think at one point, and probably still the case, Patrick Gileem had the lowest goals against average in the playoffs, which is amazing because that would, like you say Patrick Gleam, what do you think,

that playoff choker? Because he had one bad game. He had one bad game against the Leafs, and it was a game seven. It was a bad game and everything, but like that stuck to him. And yet shutting out the flyers three times in one playoff series, like just gets forgotten.

So, I don't know. It's a tough job. Don't let your kids grow up to be goalies. No, exactly. In fact, we're going to, you know, speaking of tough stuff with goalies, I want to talk to Granger when he drops by. Do you see the photo he posted? He took a puck in the neck in a Mansley game.

Okay, so go back, just look at his Twitter feed, just look at his media that he's posted. He took a puck right in the neck. Oh, boy. Yeah. So that did. Yeah, so is he, wait, is he going to have like the Dave Manson voice when we talk to him? Like, what's, yeah, I don't know.

We should be prepared for that. He's got such, he's got one of the best podcast voices out there. You know, he's like one of those guys that you're like, this guy, like, does he smoke like six packs of cigarettes a day? It's just the best radio. But maybe it's because we didn't realize that's how you got a good radio podcast voice. Oh, that's okay, good, good to know. Yeah.

I mean, I'm a professional. I'm going to do what I got to do. But, oh, okay. Yeah. Anyway, so Granger, we'll talk to him about that. I want to talk a little bit about your column this week. and you wrote about the Connor Bedard sweepstakes, which at the start of the year,

we were like, okay, it's going to be Arizona, Chicago, maybe the HABs in Philly. And here we are. It's, you know, we're reaching U.S. Thanksgiving, which is kind of a natural time to look at, you know, where teams are and who might be, as your headline read here, I'm just double-checking. The headline is,

which bad team is best positioned to fail hard for Connor Bidard? And so- The headline writers maybe put the, first name in there, by the way. I said fail hard for Badaard. It doesn't work as well if you if you put the corner in there. But I guess the style guide, style guide got me on that one. But look, you used

a very scientific, let's walk the listeners through. This scientific method. This is a foolproof you know, method. A formula, really. Yeah. Not just my opinion. You just add up all the numbers and it's just there's, you know, Dom would be proud of

this type of analytical research here. You've got to have a model. And this is, and to be clear, like, I talk about, this is something I plan to do a couple times during the year, just because the next year's draft is so loaded at the top that I think we got to

monitor this as we go. And yeah, it's, which team is the best position to tank? And I'll do the usual caveat. We all understand players don't tank. Coaches, for the most part, don't tank unless they've got an enormous amount of job security. I'm talking about the organizing

I'm talking about management saying it's time to pull the shoot, it's time to move some guys, it's time to accept, if you don't like the word tank, it's time to accept, you know, that we're going to lose, it's time to focus on the future, whatever term you want to put on it, it's tanking. And it's a valid strategy in the NHL, the way that things are set up. And so I look at four things. Number one, most obvious is what kind of season are they having so far? Obviously, if you're already losing, that's great. If you're winning more than expected, it's just like chasing a playoff spot.

Those five or six points difference in October can make the difference at the end of April. So I want to know how the team's doing right now. I look at what I call seller potential, which is the best thing to do when you're tanking is you trade players who are good right now for future assets. Because then you get two things. You get those picks and prospects, which is great for your rebuild. you get worse right away. And if you can do that, so I'm looking for guys that are maybe on potential rentals, short-term contracts, tradable guys where you could say, hey, I could imagine this team trading this guy, and then they get worse. I have a whole category just for goaltending.

You know, at the end of the day, if your goaltending stinks, your team's going to stink. And if your goaltending is potentially good, no matter how much you strip down the rest of the roster, that one good goaltender can drag you out of, last place, which is not what you want when you're tanking. And then the last one, which is probably the most important one, I just call it motivation. Is this team willing to do what needs to be done? Is this a team where does the fan base, the media, like are they on board with this or do they want to see it out and see what the team can do? And the ownership is crucial here. With the owners accept a tank, are they willing to get on board? And I think

the GM is very important here too. How safe is his job? You don't want as a GM to be sitting there going, yeah, I could tank, I could drive this into the ditch. And we could finish last and get the first overall pick. And it's going to be some other GM drafting Connor Bedard because I'm going to get fired if this team finishes last. So you've got to really have the belief and security that I'm going to be okay. I've got the permission from everyone around me to do what needs to be done. So I take those four things. I add them up. Like you said, it's completely. completely scientific. So if you want to argue with how I ranked everyone, you're arguing with the math. So we end up with Anaheim. And I got to be honest with you. As a hockey fan, closing my eyes

and imagining Connor Baderd and Trevor Zegris on the same team and the potential for talent and, you know, highlight. Mason McTavage, lurking around. And Troy Terry just out, oh, yep. And Jamie Drysdale and, you know, I got to tell you, that seems tantalizing to me. But that's who, when you added up the numbers, it was, it was Anaheim. I was a little surprised at that, I guess, right? I was a little bit surprised at that because, you know, you, that Anaheim wasn't a team that we talked a ton about heading into the season. Because, you know, look, again, let's be honest, Chicago and Arizona were both pretty

transparent about what they were doing. It was pretty obvious that both of those teams were trying to get as bad as they could. And again, I'm saying this without judgment. I know a lot of people can't stand the idea that tanking is a thing. Other people just accept it, even embrace it. It is what it is. Chicago and Arizona both went into this season with every intention of being as bad as possible and getting those high picks.

And I wasn't really in that boat. Certainly a rebuilding team. But, you know, remember this was a team that was good. They were in first place in their division halfway through life. year. So you kind of thought, you know, maybe, you know, maybe they're going to, they're going to be the team that like L.A. last year takes that leap into the playoffs. Hasn't happened at all. So, you know, again, looking at the four categories, season so far, 10 out of 10. They've been terrible. They're dead last in the, in the entire league. As far as being sellers, they've got John Klingberg,

but that's about it. That Papua Beak, remember, moved a bunch of guys at the deadline last year. So there's, they're already mostly stripped down. But Klingberg is, you know, could, could certainly be a good piece. The goaltending has not been good. John Gibson is, has, the numbers are awful. And, you know, at this point, I know every year we do this whole, like, can John Gibson find it again? Is he going to get back to being that Ves and a guy? I feel like we can put that to bed at this point. John Gibson is who he is. He's got the contract that he has, but, but they, they are not strong in goal. I don't think there's any concerns. If you're a Ducks fan and you're already dreaming of Connor Bredard, you're not too worried about John Gibson, yanking it away from

you. And then you look at the motivation and I think it's a great situation. Pat Verbeek is a new GM. He came in last year in the middle of the season. This is his first full year. He's got time on his side. So for him to say, you know what? Yeah, we're going to finish dead last if we can and we're going to get a superstar prospect to build around. I think it makes perfect sense. I think you'd have the support of the fan base, the management and everything. I think it's all lining up well. Again, you'd like it if they could strip down the roster a little bit more and get a little bit worse because they're facing a lot of competition. Columbus is right there with them in the standings and other teams will join them. But right now, I think Anaheim's in a pretty good spot. And like you said,

it would be a fascinating destination for one of those stars at the top of the draft. You know, you mentioned Pat Verbeek, pretty new on the job in the state of California, but he's not the newest GM in that state. That title belongs to Mike Greer. And Greer, Sean, was kind of the headline maker coming out of the GM meetings. Pierre Dorian certainly was loud saying, look, I'm trying to make a trade. I'm active. And then Mike Greer says, hey, I'm listening on everybody, including Eric Carlson. And now people are putting the two things together.

Full credit to Elliot Friedman, 32 Thoughts podcast this week with Merrick. Elliot Friedman says he believes that there have been some discussions between those two teams. I talked about this last week, you and I said, look, I believe. Eric Carlson would be open to coming back to Ottawa. I do believe that. But here's my question. It got me thinking during the week. I thought, okay, Carlson won a pair of Norris trophies in Ottawa in his absolute prime.

2012 and 2015 was so good in that playoff run in 2017 on one foot. Here's my question, Sean. Has a major trophy winner? So I'm talking somebody who's won like a Vezna, Norris, Hart, ever gone away and come back and still kind of like been in the prime of their career, not like a, hey, I'm joining you at the end for a farewell tour or a one-day contract. And I don't want to hear about Wendell Clark coming back to Toronto when he was only 30 because I think that's how old he was, because he never really won a major award. Well, then I guess we're not doing this segment because

that was, that was all I had was all the various Wendell Clark returns to Toronto was, we're all the ones at my list. Yeah. So what do we got here? Has this ever happened that a guy came back to his original team. Like, Carlson's 30. So he's kind of, and he's having a unbelievable season. So I think we can kind of say he's still kind of in the window of his prime. Is this, like, has this ever happened? I don't, I don't know that anything exactly like this has happened.

You're right. There have been a bunch of guys who've come back at the end of their careers. Like Peter Forsberg goes back to Colorado. We're not counting that. He didn't, you know, he wasn't able to do much. And other guys like that. Mark Messier, another one where he, You know, he was not in, even though he played for years to come, when he went back to the Rangers, he wasn't the same player.

I'm going to give you a few guys. I'll give you one at each position group. In goal, goal is a tough one. You could make a case that when Dominic Hasick went back to Detroit for his second stint, that he was still in his version of his prime, because he was still very good at that time. In fact, the first year back in Detroit, he got heart votes that year. I mean, he got Vesna votes, but he was in his 40. So, I mean, this isn't the same sort of thing. But, you know, he had that stopover in Ottawa, goes back to Detroit, maybe you count that. Bernie Peron was in Philadelphia, left, and then came back in his prime.

But that was, he hadn't won the Vezna as yet. So he really leveled up into the Hall of Fame version of Bernie Paran in that second tour of duty in Philadelphia. So I don't think that works. I'll give you a couple guys who do work, I think, a little bit. And up front, one of them is a guy who never won a heart, but was certainly in that conversation, is certainly like an elite tier star in this league. And that's Timu Salani. when he has his first stint with Anaheim, he's a heart trophy finalist one year, goes off to San Jose, has a stopover in Colorado, and then he comes back to Anaheim.

Now, he's in his mid-30s by this point, but he has some fantastic seasons. He racks up another, he has a 40-goal season, a 48-goal season. Like, he's still very much prime Tim Mussolani at that point. That maybe would be the best when I could come up with for a forward. And then on defense, the closest I can find is Rob Blake. He wins a Norris in L.A., goes to Colorado, and then he comes back to L.A. And again, he's in his late 30s by this point. So this is not really comparable. But he has two very good seasons with the Kings. Like he is still playing, again, not at that Norris level, but he's playing very, you know, very good, very dependable star level hockey still at that point even as late 30. So that's the closest I can come.

I can't find anyone who at the age of 30, you know, certainly in the middle of having another award caliber season gets moved to an old team. I think that would be pretty close to unprecedented other than Wendell Clark. Yeah, other than Wendell Clark. And by the way, can I just say one thing on the, on the Mike Greer? Yeah. kudos to him because that's the answer that he gave and I know raised a few eyebrows and you know some people are you know is this is this going to disrupt or whatever that's exactly the right answer

for a GM of especially of a team like this I can't stand and people know this when GMs start making everyone untouchable and they start you know we're not calling but we will listen you know all of this stuff no that's the exact right answer for for my career as a new GM on a team that's struggling to say, yeah, I'm listening on everyone. You know, is he working the phones trying to trade Eric Carlson? No, he's probably not. But for him to put the message out there that you want to make an offer, give me a call. I'll listen to the offer.

That's his job. And GMs are so quick to write it off. And I think part of it is they just, they seem to think that the players, these tough, toughest athletes in the world are so fragile that they just fall apart if their name is out there in trade rumors. Kudos to my career. He gave exactly the right answer. that's exactly what I want to hear if I'm a Sharksman.

I don't want to hear him closing any doors. I want to hear hear him say, hey, my phone's here. You guys got my number. Let's talk and let's see if something makes sense. Yeah, and I've always been a believer. As long as you're communicating with the player and his camp and being transparent, obviously, you saw it play out with Daddanov last year, the exact opposite, right? When you keep a player and the agent in the dark, there's mistrust.

And if Greer has been transparent with Eric Carl, and his agent Craig Oster, then we got no problems. He can pretty much say whatever he wants. And, you know, at the end of the day, like, yes, it's great to keep in touch, but it's, you know, and in this case, obviously Eric Carlson, he's got the big contract, and he's got a no, no trade clause as well. We should mention that. So, I mean, you're not doing anything without his okay.

So you do have to navigate that situation. But I do find it interesting. Like, I'm assuming you read Julian's piece about the, uh, The Matthew Kachuk. Oh, where Julian McKenzie, if people haven't read it, check it out. He's got like an oral history. Basically, he talked to all the key stakeholders in the Matthew Kuchuk, Jonathan Hubert O, et cetera, blockbuster that went down.

And one of the fascinating things is the deal basically getting done and only then do Hubert O and McKenzie Weger and these guys find out about it. And, you know, they're getting called late on a Friday night because this news is breaking. and it was, you know, they're sort of blindsided by it, which on a human level, you sit there and go, yeah, I mean, imagine that. Most of us cannot imagine getting a call at 11 o'clock on a Friday saying, pack up your stuff. You live in a new country now. And you've got, you've got no choice but to go. It's tough on them.

But, you know, that's a case where that's a GM doing his job, Brad Trill Living. Like, he was in a bad situation. He had to do what he had to do. And he went and made a move and then had to make a couple of awkward phone calls afterwards. Yeah, no, it's a great piece by Julian. And, you know, usually you see those types of stories come out, you know, five, ten years after a big trade. You know, to have this happen, you know, basically a couple of months after the block. Yeah. Great work by Julian. Yeah. Check it out if you haven't, the kind of oral history of that Florida, Calgary blockbuster. One other thing I want to touch on, Sean, from the GM meetings. Now, the GM meetings that they hold in November are kind of the, it's like the appetizer for the main core. The main course is the one that comes in March in, I think they do it in Palm Beach or Pebble Beach. They go somewhere warm, okay? They don't do, they don't make their big decisions in Toronto in November.

They're like, we need to go somewhere warm and make those decisions. So that happens in March after the trade deadline. And but sometimes, you know, what happens in November, they kind of like, let's spitball, let's talk about some things. Let's see if there's, we have some common issues. Now, the one thing I want to talk about is according to the reporters that were there, one general manager who is in Toronto suggested, what if we add video review for puck over glass?

Yeah. I just want to just talk this out real quick. Video review puck over glass, good, bad, indifferent. I'm going to give you an answer that might surprise people because I have been banging the drum for years against video review in the NHL, not because I'm some old-timer, not because I like the human element of mistakes. I just don't think it works. And, you know, it takes too long.

It sucks the excitement out of the game. We're taking goals off the board on little nitpicky things. Offside review is a disaster. Goaltender interference is not much better. So it might surprise you a little bit to say, I don't, I could see myself being okay with this. I could see this working. And here's the reason. I can't stand the puck over glass penalty.

I've been railing against it for years. But every time I do, somebody comes up and says, no, no, no, here's why it's so great. It's black and white. There's no subjectivity. It's just black. It's an easy call. We're always arguing over, you know, tripping and holding. Every other penalty in the entire rulebook is subjective.

But this one is objective. And yet, every time I see it called, the puck, not every time, but so often you see the puck over the glass and then what happens? The officials all huddled together and they start triangulating exit angles. Well, was that, oh, was it over the glass there or was it over the bench? Did it take off the glass? And they had this like five-minute conference and everyone's just standing around. And at this point, this might be the only thing in the entire NHL where video review would make things faster.

Like just get the thing. I mean, we've seen literally, we have seen cases where they're huddled up and they're just, you know, talking to talking to talk and then finally like they play the replay on the scoreboard and you can see like one of the officials kind of looking up and you know go oh okay and then they go and make the call that way there is a part of me that just says you know what have have somebody who can just take a look at it and go yeah it you know what it did go off a stick it didn't whatever it is do that quick review that way and speed it up because it's so ridiculous that all four of these guys are standing around half the time they still get it wrong and half the time even the replay doesn't tell you because this rule it's a bad

rule. But if we have to have this bad stupid rule in place, you know, this might be one of the few things where I'm like, yeah, actually, I do want us to get it right and get it right quicker rather than having like four dudes just stand around and argue with each other over whether a puck was a fraction of an inch, one direction or the other. All right. Time for us to bring in our pal Jesse Granger brought to you by BetMGM, the exclusive betting partner with the athletic. We'd like to all this segment Granger Things. I know, Jesse, you spoke about this on the Wednesday edition of the pod, so we won't double down on it too much,

but you took a puck in the neck in a men's league game a few days ago, showed the battle scar on Twitter. It looks a lot better now. You've got the video going, so that's the good news. Sean and I were really worried about your golden wind pipes that are just tailor-made for podcasting that they would be affected. But clearly, as listeners about to find out, that's not the case. what I want to know, though. When you have an injury like this, do you go up to like a Logan Thompson

or, you know, a fellow goalie? Are you kind of like, hey, man, and you just kind of roll up to a scrum and just kind of show your neck off and be like, hey, we're, uh, we're part of the same team here. You showing that off in the dressing room? I did not. Uh, if, I mean, it was pretty like right now, as you can see, it's not as visible, but it was pretty visible the day after when I went to practice. If someone would have asked me about it, I would have told him, but no, I would have was not, I was, I wasn't walking around looking for street credit in the locker room. But Mark Stone did have to leave a shift after getting hit like in the hip with a puck. And I'm like, come on, Mark.

Like, come on. Like, there you go. Took one in the neck and I finished the game. Jesse Granger calling out Mark Stone. This is the good stuff. I like it. I love it. But hey, listen, it's good to see that you're okay.

Is that the worst injury you've ever had in a, as a goalie? Definitely not the worst injury. That's the worst puck that's ever. gotten through. So like anyone that plays goalie knows that you've got $3,000 worth of gear on, it looks like you are wearing a suit of armor, but that puck will find holes in that padding. Like I have bruises on my arms, on my legs, on my like ribs, but that's the worst time, that's the worst puck that's ever gotten through. I've never, I wear a plastic dangler and a throat guard. Like I honestly didn't think it was possible to get hit in the neck. That was the worst

puck that's ever hit me. Worst injury I ever had was I went into the butterfly. My knee missed the landing pad on the on the inside of the pad and just hit the ice and my kneecap spun around to the back of my knee. Oh yeah. You dislocated my kneecap. It was pretty brutal. I couldn't play for like months. Whereas like this neck thing I'll be playing in a couple days. So definitely not the worst injury, but the worst time I've been hit with a puck for sure. But, but okay, you're you're a lot younger than how old are you? 32. 32. too. So do you have an age in your mind where you're like, I'm too old for this shit? Like, I'm done. Like, I, I've reached that point. I talk about this all the time. Like,

if I'm playing a game of pickup softball or something, I'm not diving. I've reached the point of my life. I'm just going to let the, I'm just going to let the pop fly drop. Like, I've reached that point in my life. Like, what's the cutoff for a goal? Do you think to yourself, I'll do this until I'm 40 and then I'll let it go? Yeah, you know what? I honestly don't know. there are goalies that I like see around the rink that are like in their 50s, early 60s that are out there. And they're not moving great. When the puck comes in the offensive zone, they're down in the butterfly. They're going to stay down on their knees until the puck leaves the zone.

Just trying not to let any sneakers in. But I don't know. Most of those guys are guys that started playing hockey when they were like in their 30s. The guys that are playing like that old. I've been playing goalie since I was like five. It's hard on the hips. It's hard on the knees. I think there will probably reach a point where I can.

can't play goalie anymore just because it's like you mentioned like you don't want to dive for the pop fly like goalie you can't really just like go around and like take it easy like you're jumping down you're flying all over the place you're getting puck shot at you i think at some point i will have to play out and just chill but uh for the moment that's the bully retirement home right where you move out to but which i'm sure the forwards love that you guys view that is like we saw it at the the hall of fame game right where we're right ago is playing out and i remember going to a when I was, one of my first hockey memories is a little kid going to some exhibition game and like Mike Palmitier was going to be there. And I was like, this is great. I'm looking at both

the goal. He's going, that's not Mike by. And then I see this guy skating around as as a forward scoring goal. So yeah, that's, that's always good. I just want to say for the record, I'm trying very hard, you know, we're in the holiday season to be, you know, to be good. When you were talking about 50 and 60 year olds who could, you know, stand down on one day, I didn't make any Mark Andre Fleury jokes. I didn't, I just want to note that for you, Minnesota Wild fans. I stayed, I stayed out of it. I didn't say it word. Look at that.

He makes the joke without making the joke. That's what you call. Pro level stuff. Seasoned podcast. Hey, we're going to actually stick on the theme of goalies this week, Jesse, for the Granger Things segment as we look at the events and the trophy odds. And we're hitting the kind of the 20 game mark or close to the 20 game mark for a lot of teams.

And so this is, I said to Sean earlier, a natural time to kind of look at the standings and awards. And Sean does want to know where Matt Murray is. I do not. He does. After the conversation earlier, he's like, give me some, it's like when Sean said at the start of the year,

put the money on McDavid to win the rocket Richard. He said it. Now that's looking smart. Now he's telling people, you know, buy low on Matt Murray. Yeah, I mean,

Matt Murray. There's no clip you can play where I'm saying that. He's 80 to one. He's 80 to one right now. Funny enough, funny enough, same odds as Jack Campbell

to win the Vezna Trophy, which, I think would surprise some people. Campbell hasn't been great, but I think the expectations for him are a little higher to bounce back than Murray. I don't know. Maybe I'm just down on Murray, but yeah, 80 to one for Matt Murray right now. The guy that, like the reason I wanted to talk about this topic, I guess, is I was just kind of looking through the odds on all these awards and the cup odds. And something that really stood out to me is to me, like I like, obviously I'm a goalie. I like watching the goalies. Every night when I'm watching the games, I'm most of the time. looking at what games are on, watching the goalie I want to watch the most. And to me, the best goal in the league this year has been Connor Hellebuck on a nightly basis. Like, he has been phenomenal.

The stats back it up. He's top two in goals saved above average and goals saved above expected. He's got a 935 save percentage, which is ridiculous considering Winnipeg is not good defensively. Like they're, I think they're 25th ranked defensively, but they've allowed the third fewest goals

at even strength. Like all the numbers back it up. When you watch the games, Connor Hellebuck's the best player on the ice pretty much every game in Winnipeg. And he is carrying that team. They're like in playoff position right now. Basically, in my opinion, solely because of Carter Pellibuck, I expected him to be the runaway favorite in the Vezon odds. And he's not. He's fifth in the odds right now. He's behind Shisterkin, Ottinger, Sorokin, and Vasselowski at 14 to 1. So you're not getting crazy odds. You're

not getting 30 to 1 or something. But to me, 14 to 1, and he's the fifth best odds in the league for a guy who, to this point now, can he hold up behind a bad defense? Usually Vezina winners don't play behind bad defenses. They're a guy who's a good goalie who plays behind a really good team and racks up a bunch of wins. Got to have the wins. It's, it's the GMs who vote on it, remember? And these guys just, they want the wins. There has been a shift lately though. Like, when you look at the last few Ves and a winner, like I used to be, I used to trust me, I was that I complained about that every single year. Can we give it to the best goalie, not the goalie on the best team? Lately, they have kind of been shifting and they've been given a little more credit to the

goleys who are carrying teams. And to me, no goalie in the league is carrying his team more than Connor Hellebuck right now. Yeah, he might be a guy that's similar to Schisturkin last year. We at some point start saying, does there just be some hard trophy consideration for a guy like that? And I will say this. I don't know if that team's going to necessarily win a ton, but the other thing that GMs have traditionally liked for a Vezna winner, and this has also shifted a little bit in the last year, but they like the workhorse guy. And that ties into the wins, right? Because, I mean, even if you're, if you're

starting 65 games, you're going to get a lot of wins. And I don't think Dave Ridditch with all due respect is going to be stealing a ton of time from Connor Hallibuck. So that 14 to 1, that would that would peak my interest.

You know, a guy I'm really, speaking of peeking the interest would be Linus Almark in Boston. And you know, Jesse, when you look at his, and I'm just, I'm just double-checking. here. He's 11 in 1, a sub two goals against average, a 936 save percentage. And so you look at that, and you're like, wow, statistically speaking, Linus Allmark has been Dynamite. If somebody wanted to get in on that, because I would imagine at the start of the year, he's not in the top 20. He's not in the top 25,

but he might have wormed his way into that conversation. So where, what are the numbers saying are the odds on on Linus Allmark? Yeah, they've, the odds have definitely adjusted pretty big. in that he's right behind Hellebucks with the sixth best odds at 15 to 1. So essentially right there with Hellebuck. He's he's almost the opposite of Hellebuck, right? Like he hasn't carried his team every night. He's the team in front of him has been excellent. But that's not it's not, it's not. What he's doing is not easy. And to go 11 and one no matter who's in front of you. And then he's putting up some impressive numbers. I've liked Olmark a lot. To me, if I like Sean was saying with Hellebuck, he is a horse. Like they're going to play him. 65, 70 games this year. Like that's just what he does. Allmark, I would be worried that because Boston is so good and because it was kind of that tandem going into the year between he and Swayman, like we weren't even sure if Allmark would get the majority of the games.

I think he was the favorite to get the majority of the games, but it was kind of a toss-up. I could see a situation where Allmark has a bad five, six game stretch and they go back to a like 50-50 platoon in Boston or Swayman starts playing well and they ride that hot hand. And that would be, to me, like if I was betting that, I would be more concerned that that happens than I would Boston falling off the earth and all marks numbers going way down. But yeah, I mean, he's a guy who probably wasn't even on the board to start the year. I mean, you're talking, like you said, probably not in the top 20, but is up there now. Another guy who is kind of, he's not quite crept up that high, but it was probably nowhere near anyone's consideration is Carter Hart has been playing his butt off in Philadelphia. I mean, he leads the NHL in goals saved above expected behind a defense that hasn't been that great,

kind of like I was saying with Hellebuck. Not only that, but he's got 14.2 goals saved above expected right now. The next closest is Hellebuck with 10.5. So we're talking he's almost got 50% more goals saved above expected than the second best goal in the league. I don't know how sustainable that is. I think Carter Hart is on a heater right now. But if you think he can sustain it, he's 20. 20 to 1. I mean, he's way down there.

Can I ask you about a few more guys? Yeah. And one of them, this will continue the theme of guys that were not on the radar. I don't think at all. But your guy there in Vegas, Logan Thompson, he's playing fantastic. He has. It's cooled off a little bit lately. I mean, early in the year, he was like top three in basically every stat. The defense has been phenomenal. Bruce Cassidy, when he came in here, he said, I run a goalie friendly system. And I have seen it firsthand. All the shots are coming from the outside. He makes the goalie's job very easy. Logan Thompson's played really well. He is, he's 33 to one right now. And that, to me, that's kind of the same. I would have the same concern with him as I do with

O'Mark. Vegas has three goalies. Larend Bursua just got waived, but he's still coming back. I think at some point, Lorenzwe will get NHL games. I would be concerned, will he be the, because right now he's been, he's playing enough to be in that conversation. I think Logan Thompson, if you're looking, if you don't quite think he can win a Vezna, to me, Like we just did our voting for the athletic awards, our predictions. I have him as the Calder winner right now. I know he's not getting the attention that some of the goal scores are, but he's going to rack up a bunch of wins. This Vegas team is not going anywhere.

Like, I don't know if they're going to win the president's trophy, but they're going to be in the playoffs, assuming that they can stay healthy. They've looked so good. And he's going to rack up a bunch of wins. So any goalie that leads rookies and wins is usually a finalist. I think Logan Thompson, if you don't like him for Vezna, Calder Trophy, would be a really good. That's a good bet for him. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Just two other guys I want to ask you quickly,

just because I'm fascinated by how the odds change based on the first month. So two guys from up here in Canada that I'm assuming probably would have been high up the list, and I want to know how much they've fallen. And that's Thatcher Demko and Jacob Markstrom. Yeah, they've fallen pretty low. Thatcher Demko is 22 to 1 right now. He's way down at like the 10th or 11th best odds. I think there's a little less optimism about him just because I think for some reason,

whatever, Calgary was better last year. People still believe Calgary is going to turn it around and be a contender. In Vancouver, it feels like the sky is falling. So I think that's probably why Demko's odds dropped that dramatically. Markstrom, not quite as far. He's at 18 to 1. He's right there above Carter Hart. He's between UC Soros and Carter Hart at like the 7th or 8th best odds. two guys that when I watch them, they aren't playing well right now. Like sometimes you watch a goalie and it's like he's playing well. The team in front of him is just not not doing it.

Those two, for whatever reason, are not playing well early in the season. It's been kind of strange to me. I like both their games. Last year they were both excellent. But just for whatever reason, they're not seeing the pucks well right now. They're letting in some goals that they shouldn't. One more to wrap it up. And that would be Jake Ottinger for me because, you know,

he's a guy that kind of had a little bit of a coming out party last year in that first round against Calgary was just terrific. And we thought, okay, well, I wonder if this guy will be able to carry it over, had the contractual stuff. He's come in and he's been pretty good. You know, he's kind of played, obviously not, I don't think what he was doing in the plus was sustainable. But, hey, he's established himself as a legit number one goalie in this league. And I'm, I'm wondering what his odds are looking at here. Yeah, I totally agree with you on Andre. I love watching him play.

That series against Calgary was insane. I can't think of a series where a goalie put on a better performance in a loss, in a series loss. Like he was the only reason it went seven games. He was phenomenal. And he, like you said, he's followed it up right now. He's actually second in the league. Schisturkin has the best odds at plus 450, four and a half to one.

Ottinger's right behind him at 500 to 1. Or sorry, five to one plus 500. He has been playing really, really well. And I'm so impressed. I think he's like, especially when you look at his age, He's just kind of coming into his own. I think he's going to be one of the best goalies in the league for the next few years. Some stats on Ottinger that really pop out to me.

And these are some stats that most people probably don't even, like may not even know exist. Definitely aren't looking at regularly. But like a lot of goalie stats, to me are team stats. They just happen to go on the goalie because he's the guy back there. But two stats that I think you can really boil down to the goalie are rebounds per save. This is the every save you make. How often is there a rebound shot after it? Jake Ottinger leads the NHL with the fewest rebounds per save in the entire NHL.

And like they keep expected goals, they keep expected rebounds per shot based on, like, if you're getting shots right up close to you, you're not expected to control those rebounds as easily, whereas if they're from far out, they expect you to control the rebounds a little better. So that stat is a little wonky, I think, because there's only one goalie in the entire NHL with negative rebounds above expected. and it's Jake Ottinger. Like that to me is impressive. Every single other goal in the league has allowed more rebounds than expected,

except for Jake Ottinger. To me, that's a huge reason why he's been so good is he just absorbs pucks. He eats them. He kicks him out into the corners. He's making his defenseman's life really easy. Doesn't that suggest that that stat might be broken if everybody in the league other than one guy is... Right.

I think early on maybe some of those expected stats need a big sample. size in order to work. Like one game can really throw them off. So I think most of these guys have 15 games right now. It maybe not is not quite good. But I think that the fact that he's got the fewest rebounds per save and the fact that he's the only one negative, we may not be able to read a ton into it, but we can certainly read into it that this guy is doing this better than most guys.

Yeah. Unrealistic expectations in goldenders. Name a more iconic bear. Yeah, exactly. It's the peanut butter and jelly of sports. All right. Hey, listen, Jesse, this is awesome. And hopefully, so when's your next game?

You're shooting up again this weekend? Yeah, I think Sunday. I was actually, I had a game last night, but I skipped that one just because my neck was really sore. I wasn't sure how it was going to feel to, like, have the neck protector on. So I took a couple days off, and I think I want to play Sunday. Okay. Well, listen, we wish you the best of luck in that game.

You stay safe. And we'll be listened to you Wednesday on the pot, and we'll be back with you on Thursday. Sweet. Thanks for having you guys. Thanks, Jesse. All right. Great stuff, as always, with Jesse Granger. By the way, our producer, Danielle, reminding us, Sean, after I say, hey, Jesse, we'll get you again next Thursday, reminding us.

We don't have a show. We don't have a pod next Thursday because the athletic, they respect American Thanksgiving, Canadian Thanksgiving, not so much. Yeah, I just assumed that we were like six weeks late on the whole Thanksgiving thing. Yeah. The way Americans view Canadian Thanksgiving. things. They mock it. I mean, we kind of mock it too, but that's okay. We're allowed to mock our own Thanksgiving. Yeah. But there'll be no pause next week. So a day off for us and just random football on a Thursday afternoon. One of the best, best days of the year. I love it. Who doesn't

love the Detroit Lions at 1 o'clock on a Thursday? They got the bills this week, though. It's there this year. So that's good. If that game happens, right? Yeah, that's true. Is that, is that, is that, is that, Well, they've got the Buffalo Cleveland this weekend has got the blizzard coming, but that's the thing because Buffalo is supposed to play on Thursday. They can't just bump it a day like they normally would. So it's a bit of a mess. I love Blizzard football. Not so much when I got Josh Allen in the fantasy league.

And they're talking about, and I saw this term used, I've never heard this before, like thunder snow. There's a potential for thunderstorm snow. That doesn't sound great. Five feet? Like, I thought I had misread that. Like five feet of 60 inches of snow. I want to see.

I want to say, don't play the game. I want to see like just helmets moving like through, through snow. I just want to see, I want to see Nick Chubb just rush for 800 yards because he's the only guy with the lake strength to power through that blizzard. Okay. Not to turn this into a football pod, but do you remember. No, it's a football pod now.

It's it. Sorry, guys. Yep. Do you remember back in the day, the New England Patriots were playing, playing the game. And this was like before Belichick. This is like in the 80s, I think. And did they bring like a snow clear, like a snow thrower out to clear the path for the kicker? Yeah. And that was like they had to pass a rule about it because there was nothing

in the rule book. It was like one of those like, you know, airbus situations. There's nothing in the rule book says you can't bring a snow blower out for your kicker. And yeah, that happened. Is the last time the Patriots will ever skirt with the edge of the rules? Yeah. They learned a valuable lesson. Yeah, exactly. Oh, man. All right, okay, now back to a hockey pod. And we will open up the mailbag here to close out this edition of The Athletic Hockey Show.

You can reach us at The Athletic Hockey Show at gmail.com, a voicemail to at 845-4-4-5-8459. Let's rip through some fun emails from the listeners. Jason writes in, says Ian was talking about the fact that he loved the Montreal Canadiens growing up. It seems like a lot of hockey writers put that hockey fandom to the side once they get into the field. My question is, Sean, how did you not lose your love for the Toronto Maple Leafs? And Ian, why did you not keep your love for the haps? So this is from, this from Jason. Yeah, I mean, it's a fair question.

And, you know, this is typically in the sports journalism world. That's one of the rules that you leave your fandom at the door. I didn't have to because, you know, frankly, because I'm not doing journalism is the short answer here. I'm not, I'm not covering a team. I'm not on a beat. I'm not breaking stories. I'm not in a position where I'm having to make news judgments and that sort of thing. If I was doing any of that, then no, absolutely.

It would not make sense for me to still be wearing my fandom on my sleeve. I've always been very clear, though. First of all, I think there is value in writing from a fans perspective, which is something that I do a lot. This is a form of sports writing that really Bill Simmons 20 years ago was the first who really did this on a big scale and open some doors for the rest of us. I think there's value there to be able to say, you know, hey, from a fan's perspective, this rule stinks or this, you know, the way the NHL does this doesn't work for fans. So I like being able to say that. And then, you know, the other piece of it I've always said to people, like, I'm very upfront about

where my, you know, my fandom. And you can decide if it's, if it's affecting my writing, if it's affecting my credibility, if you think I'm being a homer, I've never been the sort of fan even long before I was writing who just saw everything as Rosie. Like, you know, there's always that guy. You see it like the beginning of the year. There's some, you know, first, first, going back to football, first football game of the year, there's some guy in a Brown's jersey. He was like, Super Bowl, baby.

And you're like, where is this coming from? And I've never been that guy. I certainly, you know, I think I've told this story before. I once was having a conversation with somebody in the main. Maple Leafs organization who's named people would recognize

and they said to me like hey aren't you like a Leafs fan isn't that part of the shtick? And I was like yeah I've been a Leafs

my whole life and they said so why are you harder on us than just about anybody else out there and I said you just answered

your own question I'm a Leafs fan so when you guys think I'm gonna I'm gonna rip you probably more than you might feel you deserve

and people are free to decide do they think that I'm am I be in a Homer? Am I being too harsh? Am I over correcting? You know, whatever. That's, that's fair. But at least I would hope people respect and understand that, you know, I'm not, I'm not trying to disguise where I'm coming from on this stuff. Yeah. And, you know, and to answer the question

from my perspective, and look, I was a huge Habs event. You knew that. Like, when we got the university together, I was the guy who loved the Montreal Canaanists, but I started covering, well, I started working for the Ottawa Senators in their PR department. And that sort of really sort of stamped out the love for the haps, but that came more from the players that, you know, you get to know, I think when you get into this industry, this is what I want a listener's to understand. I think you end up cheering for people more than teams,

if that makes sense. So I'll give you a great example. I'll tell you one guy that I always pulled for was James Reimer. You know, James, if you had told me at some point of my life, I would be pulling for a Toronto Maple Leafs goalie to do well, I wouldn't have believed it. But James Reimer is just straight up.

good human being. And just, just, I don't know. There's something about him. I always like that. So that's how I come across it now. I can't imagine if I, imagine if I kept my HAB's fandom, okay?

And like last year when Brendan Gallagher goes off on Tim Stutzel and I'm like, yeah, you tell him, Brendan. And then I have to go into the Ottawa room and try to. Ian Mendez reporting from Ottawa says it's actually good that P.K. Sue Ben broke Mark Stone's wrist

in the playoff. Like this is, he's fine. It was fine. Come on. What do you even talk about? Yeah. That probably, probably wouldn't have worked. Let me tell you who's a bug-eyed fat walrus. Like, no, it doesn't work, but, but it's true.

You bring up a good point. That would have been like wearing a Detroit Tigers jacket to school in Ontario. Like, you can't do that. In 1988, man. Get myself a Bill Madlock, jersey. Roll in. Hey, guys, what's going on? Who wants to play some foot hockey?

Yeah. Okay, let's keep rolling here. Kieran writes in and says, a simple Google search uncovers that 12 goalies have scored a total of 15 goals in the history of the NHL. I think that stat is missing a name. I have followed the Ottawa Senators

for as long as I can remember. I have a distinct memory of Craig Anderson scoring a goal. I'd love it if you guys could dive into this. Maybe I miss remembering, but I feel like Craig Anderson was the last player to touch a puck, and then there was a puck scored into

their own net. I don't know why. Am I crazy? This is from Kieran. So two things. First of all, you, you, you did some research on them. I did dig around and I couldn't,

I couldn't find any reference to, you know, own goals with the senators. There was one with Dallas, but that was only a couple of years ago and it wasn't a goaly situation. Damien Rhodes, obviously is on the list of guys

who have scored goals in that situation. He was a senator at the time, so I don't know, maybe you're thinking that. The reader says, you know, around 2008, Craig Anderson didn't even arrive in Ottawa until years after that. So I'm stumped on this one unless somebody else, I mean, you. No, and listen, obviously I've covered, I've covered all of Craig Anderson's time in Ottawa. I have a pretty good memory for these types of things. I have no recollection of this, like at all. So I think, you know, Kearney's one of those, either those fever dreams or you're mistaking it

for the Damien Rhodes one or something. I just, I don't think it happened, but hey, if anybody's listening to this and can fill him the gap. Yeah, he was the goalie who won. The San Jose Colorado game, the 1-0 playoff shutout where Dan Boyle scores into his own net. I feel like Craig Anderson may have been in goal for the Ava, but I mean, that wasn't a goalie-goal situation. So I'm, unfortunately, I'm stumped on this one. Okay, one more here from very avid listeners, Steve. And Steve says in Saturday's Hall of Fame ceremony before the Vancouver Toronto game,

Boria Salming was giving a very moving tribute. But amongst the commentary was something submitted from Dave Schultz. Yeah, Dave Schultz, who said, we checked him closely because he was so great, et cetera, et cetera. We checked him? Anybody who saw the Flyers play know that that was a euphemism for, physical intimidation, which would inevitably lead to full-out brawls. Does the Hall of Fame, or the Toronto Maple Leafs, who probably arranged that tribute, really believe that quoting Dave the Hammer Schultz,

Boer Salming, was praise. Schultz was an embarrassing hockey goon, nothing more. His words are of that of a hockey goon. Again, wouldn't it have been more appropriate, maybe more meaningful and praiseworthy, if it was a Hall of Fame contemporary, Denny Potvin, Brian Trachier, Bobby Orr, Phil Esposito, Jean-Ratel, Kendra, etc. maybe I'm still just traumatized by the early 70s flyers what they did the hockey. What do you guys think?

Love listening to you guys. Shoot the breeze about hockey since I'm kind of removed from it all. I live in Switzerland. Ian, you're the consummate host. Sean, the consummate pundit. Many thanks. That comes in from very avid listener, Steve. Is consummate pundit a compliment?

I think so. I think it might be. You are the consummate pundit. Yeah, I think so. I think so. I'm putting that on a business card. I'm going to respectfully disagree with our very avid listener here, or at least defend where I think this was coming from.

First of all, I'll defend Dave Schultz. And in the same way, I defend any enforcer, you know, call them goons if you want. Look, it was a job that existed. It was a really tough job, and these guys did it. And, you know, Dave Schultz was, you know, he wasn't, he was obviously an enforcer. he was obviously, you know, one of the prototypes of that role, but he wasn't a guy who couldn't play. You know, he had some skill. So I'll defend Dave Schultz.

But more importantly, his inclusion in the Salming stuff, I think was very appropriate because that is an entirely crucial part of the Boris Salming story is that he comes over in the 1970s. If fans are younger, if they don't know this story. Salman comes over. He's one of the first Swedish players. to come to the National Hockey League. He's basically the first European trained star to come over. And, you know, keep in mind when this is happening, it's the early 70s, and we've just had the Summit Series.

And here comes this Swedish player. And we all know the Europeans, we know how they play hockey. They're soft. They don't like the contact. They, you know, they're these big, tough North Americans. This is a few years before the Flyers are going to send the Red Army home because they're playing too rough for them. So people see these Europeans coming over and especially solving because he's he's got the skill to be a star and they go, we're going to run these guys out of the building.

We're going to send this guy home. He's going to quit. He's going to quit. He might quit the league, but he's going to quit this game. He's not going to want to come near us. And that was a big part of the borisalamic story was he had to constantly fight through this stuff. A lot of a lot of hard-nosed hockey and a lot of stuff went way beyond that. Cheap stuff.

Stick work, you know, getting gooned. And he stuck with it. He didn't quit. He didn't go home. He fought back when he needed to. And he emerged as a superstar despite all of it. And I think it's entirely appropriate to have somebody who was on that side of it, say, yeah, we targeted this guy. We went after him.

We thought we could drive him out of the league. And we couldn't because, you know, Boris Salming was one of those guys, one of the toughest players of all time, not in the traditional way we think of. where, you know, fights and penalty minutes and all of that, but just everything he had to put up with. And that's part of, you know, what made him so heroic, what made his story so important. If he does quit and go home, you know, who knows what that does as far as the face of what the league looks like in the next decade or so. But he doesn't. He fights through it. And I think that's an entirely appropriate way to tell a super important part of the Board of Salming NHL story. Yeah, hey, listen, that's well said, and it kind of gives that other perspective of it. I got to say, you know, I think it was really moving that, you know, Boria was there and obviously with his condition now unable to kind of communicate himself and speak.

But to have Daniel and Hendrick Sedeen and Daniel Alpherson go into the Hall of Fame. And, you know, Daniel Alpherson told me he had a chance to spend a moment, kind of a private moment in the suite with Boria Salming. And just thank him. You know, hey, thank you for laying the groundwork for people like me. to come and play. And, you know, Alfie said at the beginning of his career, he played one Swedish elite league game against Boria Solming. And Alpherson said he was on,

he could not take his eyes off of Salming in the warm. He couldn't believe he was on the same ice surface as the great Boria Salming. So just so people understand what Salming was to Swedish kids, to Forsberg, to Sunden, to Lidsdstrom, to Alfredson, And like, he's God. He is the hockey god in Sweden. And it was so moving.

It was, it's very hard to find moments in sports that are simultaneously heartwarming and heartbreaking. But I think that's what Salming was on the weekend. It was. And it was so well done. It was such a great moment. If you missed it or, you know, you didn't think, well, maybe you saw it go by your timeline. You thought, I'm not a Leaves fan. I'm not interested.

I do encourage you to check it out. And I would also encourage you to check out Ellie Friedman in his 32 thoughts column this week, where he mentioned the people involved in Toronto in putting this together and getting this to happen. I mean, Boris Salming is very ill. I mean, people don't know. He has already lost the ability to speak. It's an extraordinarily difficult time for him and his family. You don't just snap your fingers and he's there.

and it was, there was, there were a lot of moving parts in, in making this happen for him and for, you know, for everyone else and the fans and the, the alumni and Elliot, you know,

names some of the names that were involved in that and they, they deserve some credit. A lot of times, as a leaf fan, a lot of times we, we sort of say that the Leafs aren't really great at the pageantry and the ceremonies in the same way that the Canadians are.

They nailed this one. Absolutely out of the part 10 out of 10. Perfect job by everyone involved. All right. Let's wrap it up a little this week in the hockey history. I've got a couple real quick ones here. So this week in 1973, Sean, Bobby

Orr becomes the first defenseman in the NHL history to collect seven points in an NHL game. And I thought to myself, well, how many defensemen have gotten seven points in a game? And the answer is three, total. So Bobby Orr is one. Do you know the other two? Oh, man.

It's a guy on the flyers has the record with eight points, and it's not a big name, and it's like a Tom something. Yeah, Tom, Bladen, Bladen? Okay. Oh, yes. And he's got Eight. Yeah, he had the eight point game, which I don't think

it's never been broken. It's been tied. It's been tied. Paul coffee, I would assume. There you go. Okay. Okay. So, but yeah, no, it's one of those great, like, I have this running gag where anytime you see a list of, you know, record holders or whatever in the NHL, there's always one

name that stands out. I call it the stat spoiler where it's always like Gretzky, Lemieux, and then like some, you know, Tom Blabloofsky, Marcel Dion, and you're like, wait, who's that guy? And this is a classic example because it was, uh, uh, and I think he also, if I'm not mistaken, May from that same game, hold a record for plus minus, uh, by a defenseman. Uh, yeah, he was a, uh, in that game, Tom, Tom, Tom, I want to say it was a plus 10. They were playing the Cleveland Barrens. Yeah, okay, so that, that might be the record of one and he had eight points. Okay? So here's the thing that I thought's

interesting. It's like, wow, only three defensemen have ever had seven points in a game. I was like, what if I took the number down to six? Like, what would that number look like? So now it's an explosion. So that's now happened 24 different times in NHL history. A guy has

six points in a game. You want to talk about stat spoilers? I mean, Tom Bladen was, Bladen was one. The following guys, I never would have guessed would have six points in an NHL game. Okay? This is not all of them, but this is the surprising ones.

Kevin Lowe. Six points in a game. I mean, you know, the secondary assist probably. Sheldon Surrey. Okay. Sheldon Surrey. Six points in a game.

Glenn Wesley. All right. Six points in a game. And then there was one, Doug Crossman. Six points. Good old Doug Crossman. He's a classic because he was, you know, his claim to fame, other than maybe the six points,

was he was on the 87 World Cup team. Yeah, in fact, he's the guy that is out there after Mario's famous goal, 6-5, so there's a minute and a half left, and Mike Keenan puts Doug Crossman out there as one of the blue liners to go kill off the end of that game. Yeah. Anyway, so I thought it was interesting that those are the guys that got six points in game.

Okay, last thing to wrap it up, we take it back to this week in 1932, November 19th, 32, number 17 to be exact, the Detroit Red Wings travel to the old Montreal forum to take on the Canadians. They show up to start the game, Sean, and they realize both teams are wearing red jerseys that are pretty much the identical shade or hue of red. So Detroit is then forced by the officials to put on white pullovers. I don't even know what these would have looked like. I tried to find a picture. the game goes to overtime Montreal wins won nothing.

How did this happen? And I guess my question is, would the HABs as the home team not have had white jerseys they could have worn? This is what I'd want to know. You would have thought, I don't know. I mean, 1932, I mean, the NHL for the first 25 years is barely even a league.

Like, it's a professional league in the sense that people are getting paid, but it's not professionally run league. You could argue the NHL wasn't a professionally run league for a long time after that. I'm wondering, like, is it possible that just both teams, like that was just their uniform color? That they, like, when did the Red Wings become the Red Wings

and switch to the red jerseys? It was that year. Apparently it was that year. And then after this, they decided to issue white jerseys as well. Yeah, I could see because it's their first year. it's November and back then the schedule was condensed. So it's probably their first game. I could literally see it being that like both teams show up and it's only at that moment, they realize that their uniforms are the same color and they've got to figure something out.

Because, you know, back then it wasn't like home and away uniforms necessarily for every team. And you probably had most of the other combinations. You know, obviously the leaves are wearing blue. So the blue and the red, that works fine. And you don't have to worry about TV or anything like that. it was probably enough of a difference. And then they show up and I could just picture them, right? Like looking at each other across the ice and the warmup going, we might have a problem here.

See, I want to know, again, and we're both pretty good with our hockey history, but there's some little kind of nuances that maybe we don't know. Like, was there always warm up? Like, did both teams come out for a warm up at the same time in 1932? Is that when they noticed it? Yeah, that's another good question. Was it when they both came out to start the game? lining up for the face off.

And where did they get these white, like, did the referee be like, hey, somebody's got to run to the Bay, Hudson's Bay Company? I feel like, you know, get us a white, some, get us some white. If 1930s have taught me anything, it said everyone had like the white undershirt. So, you know, maybe that's, that's what they were. Maybe they were just, like, remember in gym class, they break out the pennies? Oh, my God. Don't, please don't stick me with one of those things.

I was more of a penny. I liked pennies. I never liked when they were like, all right, we're going to do shirts versus skins. Oh, yeah, that was not good. Please be shirts. guys like us. I need to be shirts for the love of God. Yeah.

Pinneys. Those are the words that you don't hear once you leave the school system. You wouldn't think. That word is eliminated from your vocabulary. Pinnies. All right. We're going to leave it there. So I guess, look, we got next week off.

Like, we just found out. We don't have a show next one. Yeah, pretty cool. I know what I'm thankful for. Thank you for your weird holidays. It might be. Look out, Maze. We're coming for you.

Yeah, exactly. All right. We'll leave it there. I want to thank everybody. For joining us, a reminder, yeah, we're not off, or we're off next week. So we'll, man, I guess our next episode's in December. That seems weird. December?

Oh, yeah. Yeah, I guess it would be. Wow. All right. December 1st. December 1st. Okay. That's it.

That's it for November. Okay. That's it. See you later. Everybody enjoy the, you know, 15 huge trades that will happen in the next couple of weeks. Yeah. Coach firings, trades, and then we're going to come back.

It's going to be just chaos. Two franchises are going to fold. There's going to be a snap. expansion draft, it's going to be great. Yeah, all right. And if anything happens between now and then, we love to hear from you. Shoot us an email, the athletic hockey show at gmail.com.

As I mentioned earlier, the voicemail, you can do that to 845-4-4-5, 8455, oh, sorry, 84-59. I don't want to give the wrong phone number. All it takes is one digit, some random person in Fresno or something is going to get like, Hey, guys, I'm just weighing in on your Detroit, 1930s. Just some random guy gets a voicemail going.

Craig Anderson, that was an exhibition game in 19. What the hell? Anyway, all right. If you're not a subscriber with us, join us at theathletic.com slash hockey show. You'll get an annual subscription for a dollar a month. Six months. We've also got a YouTube channel going right now.

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