The Athletic Hockey Show - Connor McDavid crosses 60-goal mark, discussing the wild card races, and a deep dive on goalie gear

Episode Date: March 23, 2023

Ian and Sean discuss Connor McDavid scoring his 60th goal of the season, and if hitting the 70-goal mark is possible for him as the regular season winds down. Then, a look at the wild card race in the Eastern Conference, and who looks like they could squeeze their way in between the Penguins, Panthers and Islanders. In the West, do either the Kraken or Jets have a chance at upsetting a division leader?Then in "Granger Things", Jesse Granger geeks out on goalie gear and gives the guys a deep dive into that world. To wrap up, a listener shares thoughts on fighting after clean hits in the mailbag, and a look back with "This Week in Hockey History'.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: http://youtube.com/@theathletichockeyshowStart making your financial dreams a reality with Chime. Get started at http://chime.com/nhlshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Hockey Show. It is a Thursday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. It is Ian Mendez, Sean McAdon with you. Ahead of the pod, Jesse Grange, are going to drop by. He's going to, we're going to give him the platform to geek out about goalie gear. We've got a ton of emails, ton of, you know, listener feedback, voicemail, all that stuff to get to. Man, like, there's just so much going on here, Sean, in the hockey world. but I got to ask you this because on Wednesday night,

Connor McDavid gets the 60 goals. And I oddly kind of feel like this was quiet. Like last year, when Austin Matthews was closing in on 60, I felt like every night, the guy was at 56, 57, he's going to get to 60. And I felt like everybody was paying attention. Will he get it?

You know, what's it going to be like? And I feel like McDavid got to 60 and was just kind of like, oh yeah, by the way, Connor McDavid got to 60. Like, was there no buzz here? What happened? Did a Toronto Maple Leaf got more attention? than was warranted. Here's the thing.

With Austin Matthews, I feel like the reason it got attention was because it was coming down to the wire. And there was this question of, was he going to do it? Can he get to 60? Connor McDavid, it feels like he's at 60 in the bank since November.

It's, you know, with him, it might be, it might be 70 that we get to where we're countdown. And that'll be the big deal. But I mean, he's got 10 games left. Who knows what this guy's going to do? It's been fantastic to watch. And look, I mean, we called it at the beginning of the season, right?

Like, this is, we're not right about a ton of things, but we told you at the beginning of the year when we had Granger on and we were talking about who's going to win the goal scoring title. And we said, Connor McDavid has had to listen to everyone to talk about how great Austin Matthews is all summer. And he might just go psycho mode on the league. And it's playing out. And it's amazing to watch. and now it's, you know, 70 goals, next, 150 points.

I mean, this, this guy's putting up Bernie Nichols numbers. That's, that's, that's pretty impressive. He's going, he's going full Bernie Nichols. Full Bernie. You never go full Bernie, but he's doing it. And how great was that overtime goal, right? Because he gets it, people didn't see it. He gets a breakaway.

This beautiful pass from Leon Dorsetal, he goes in on the breakaway, and he doesn't score, which is, you know, shocking on its own. And as the play's going on, smashes his stick into the boards. And then he immediately gets the puck back, goes and does pretty much the same move. Like, you knew the second one was going in.

Like, this is what happens when you, you know, normally when a guy is this great, you say like, don't tick him off. But, I mean,

I don't know what you know, stopping him on a breakaway, ticks him off. You knew the second one was going in, or else that that stick was probably getting launched in outer space. Yeah. No, it's unbelievable to me.

like the seven like just for context for the listeners you know ovechkin's never gotten to 60 and some people will argue he might be in the conversation for the greatest goal he ovechkin got there once he got to 65 the no no i'm saying to seven i'm talking 70 70 yeah 70 yeah no no it didn't get close yeah no like you said i think i think we need to be talking about 70 in mac david and and just to give the listeners context ovechkin's never gotten to 70 uh you know Mike bossy never got to 70 and those are two players who a lot of people would say arguably are the best snipers in the history of the game. You know, Gretzky is obviously in there, Halls in there. A lot of people will say Mike Bossy's the best goal scorer ever, and he didn't get to 70 playing on a dynasty in the 80s.

Yes, this is what I'm saying. I think McDavid, if he can get to 70 this year, I think it should be viewed in the same way as, you know, Mario got to 85, Hall got to 86. Like, I think it's that good. Like, I think it's in that stratosphere of how impressive it is. No? No, I would agree with you.

And look, I mean, Mario got to 85 once. He had one other year where he got 70 on the nose. This is Mario Lemuel. This is the most unstoppable force playing in the highest scoring error of all time and McDavid's in there.

It's going to be fascinating to see. I, you know, there's, I really like, like the adjusted airstats where you can sort of, you know, measure based on how many goals are being scored and you sort of play them out that way. This might end up being one of the great offensive seasons of all time once you, you know, once you sort through it. Because, I mean, yeah, scoring's up a little bit this year. It's up a little bit. It's not so much that we're anywhere close to what we had in the 80s or the early 90s. You know, Brett Hall had that great

run where he was 70, I think three years in a row, you know, phenomenal. He was, Brett Hall is, is, should be right up there with Mike Bossy and those guys among the all-time great goal scores. But, you know, to do it like this and to do it as a center, you know, as well is, you know, just another thing when you're, you know, setting up so many goals. And, you know, I mean, look, it's doing it with Zach Hyman as your, like, play driver on on your line. It's just, it's, it's amazing.

And, you know, we should just, I don't know what you can do other than just sit back and kind of shake your head. And everybody, everybody should be watching this and loving this except whoever plays the Oilers in the first round of the playoffs because good luck with that. Yeah. And, you know, on the night where McDavid gets to 60 and, as you said, does it in kind of, you know, spectacular fashion, there's Sidney Crosby in Denver. another 30 goal campaign for him. Penguins move into the second wild card spot. Crosby, by the way, that goal was classic Crosby. Backhand.

Just sick. Unstoppable. Backhand. It's just, you know, I'm getting, I'm getting so entertained by Josh Yoey and Rob Rossi, who cover the Penguins for us. What kind of whiplash rollercoasters is it for these guys? Yeah. Like, you know, five good games. Gentilly's been shoveling dirt on these guys.

Like, I would have figured Pittsburgh goes into Denver. They've lost four in a row. The abs are rolling. You would think this is a recipe for disaster instead. Pittsburgh wins 5-2. They reclaim the final wild card spot in the east. And look, two weeks ago, it felt like legitimately it was a five or six team race in the east. But Ottawa is faded.

Washington is faded. Detroit and Buffalo have faded. So now, Sean, we're down to three. I think it's fair to say we're down to three. It's Pittsburgh, Florida, and the Islanders. Of those three, it feels like a little bit of a flip of the coin, but who do you like to make the playoffs amongst the penguins, the Islanders, and the Panthers?

I've been saying ever since we had that group of five, I've been saying I think the Panthers make it. I think there's just too much talent there. I think certainly, you know, the issues that the blue line is, thin, yes, the goal tending is not great. Still don't love the coaching change that they made, but I just think there's too much there. Up until last night, I would have said Florida and New York. You know, the Islanders are chugging along.

They absolutely ran over the Leafs a couple of nights ago and Pittsburgh had been collapsing. But the thing with the Penguins is, they've been so all over the map all year. Like, I've had this running joke in my weekly column where I can't figure out the Penguins. because just when you say, all right, they've lost four or five in a row, write them off. The window has slammed shut. This is not a good team. Then they roll off a win street. They had the eight wins in a row or whatever it was earlier in the year.

And then it just flips the other way. And, you know, it's been fascinating because if you didn't ever look at the standings, and all you did was read the coverage of a team, especially around the trade deadline. Everybody wants Ron Hextel fired. nobody likes what's going on there as far as the the moves they made at the deadline. It feels like there's disconnect between the GM and the coach and everything. I mean, you'd be convinced that the penguins were a dumpster fire. And yet then you look at the standings and they're sitting right there,

I would say comfortably in a playoff spot, but they've been holding down that wild card spot the whole way. And the one thing I would say is, and you got a little glimpse of it last night, we talked about Connor McDavid going psycho mode, Sidney Crosby at his age doesn't have that level in him anymore but if Sidney Crosby just decided to you know what I've been in the playoffs 16 years in a row

I'm not ending the streak this year I'm not letting the Florida Panthers and New York Islanders knock me out of a playoff spot I will drag this team to whatever they need to get to at the finish line that's what scares me a little bit if I'm an Islanders fan but look I mean from an entertainment standpoint

we all want the high power You know, the star power panthers, last year's president's trophy winner plus Sydney Crosby won him in the playoffs. And, you know, here's the Islanders. And they're kind of old. And, you know, maybe they're a little boring. They don't have Barzell. And, you know, but the Islanders are chugging along. And, you know, they look like a playoff team.

Absolutely right now. And they've, they've certainly got the best goaltending out of that group. But let's wait and see. I still think, I think the Panthers get one of them. So it's, it's which one of the two old, old Patrick. mainstays can grab the other one. You know what's interesting? And you mentioned those three teams. And I think if any of them, you know, whoever makes the playoffs, they're going to be a tough

out in round one. Because, you know, the Panthers are, I know that they had a lot of change in the offseason, but the core of a defending president's trophy winning team is still there. As you mentioned, the Penguins are the Penguins. Sid is there. Gino is there. Le Tang is there. The Islanders might have the best goalie out of that group and certainly one of the better goalies in the entire league in Sorokan. So I think they're going to be a tough out. But when I look at the Western Conference, this is what I want to ask you.

Now let's look at the Western Conference wild card teams because I think in the East, yeah, if Pittsburgh or the Islanders or Florida pulled off a first round upset, yeah, it'd be an upset, but it wouldn't be like the biggest shock of all time. I wonder, though, do you have any faith at a Western Conference wildcard team?

And right now it's Seattle or Winnipeg. You have any faith in either of them doing the same thing or are they going to be like one and done? Because it just, boy, Winnipeg is just falling off a cliff. And the Cracken have kind of evened out a little bit. I think there's still six and three or something in their last nine. But they, I don't know. They just don't seem to be maybe as dominant as like, you know,

Vegas and L.A. lately. And so I wonder, do you think you have any faith in the Cracken or the Jets making some noise in the playoffs? The Cracken are a tough one because you remember, January when they went into Boston and they shut out the Bruins. And it was the first regulation loss that the Bruins had all season on home ice. And it felt like that was the moment where Seattle had been very good in the first half. You know, they surprised us all.

They were right in the mix. But that felt like the moment where they were planting their flag saying, we are for real. We just did what nobody else in this league could do. We went into Boston, beat them, shut them out on their own ice. it's time to start taking the cracking seriously. And I did. I wrote the piece in the wake of that game saying, like, we got to really start taking this team seriously.

And then ever since then, they have just been sputtering along. Basically, basically a 500 team. Not bad. Haven't fallen off a cliff. Haven't been terrible. But they haven't looked at all like a team that is going to scare anyone. And, you know, you hate to say it. And I know this isn't really the way that anybody,

in the NHL thinks. But look, Seattle, it's their second year in the league. Last year they were not good. This year on paper, a lot of us looked at this team and said, this is going to be a team that's in the Connor Bedard mix. And instead, they've surprised us all. They've been holding down a playoff spot. You hate to say it, but they do give off the vibe of a team

that maybe is going to be just happy to be there where they get into the playoffs. That's a victory. You get at least two playoff games in Seattle. It'll be a great atmosphere build and it'll be loud. Their fans get their first taste to playoff hockey. And if that's as far as it goes, it's a win. It's, you know, it'll be a victory for that franchise.

But I just have a hard time seeing it going any further. Now, same thing, same thing with Calgary, if they can get back into it. Same thing with Nashville, who are, you know, despite selling at the deadline, basically thrown in the towel, are right there. they don't really scare me. The one team is Winnipeg. And partly because we saw in the first half, I mean, there were times where they were starting to drift into that legitimate contender conversation.

We know all the talent they have uprun. And the difference, those four teams, is the goaltending. They have Connor Hallibuck. They have one of the best goaltenders in the world, period. I don't want to be going into a playoff. series, knowing that Connor Hallibuck is sitting across there, especially as a wild card. I mean, you know, does Winnipeg match up well with Vegas or even L.A.? Yeah, you know, maybe not. How about Conner Hallibuck against Jonathan Quiff or whoever the Knights have? That doesn't,

that suddenly makes me feel like Winnipeg's got a shot at this. Same with L.A. You know, same with really almost all the teams in the conference other than probably Dallas with Jake Ottinger. And even there. I mean, you got a young kid. We haven't seen. a ton of him in the playoffs. He's been phenomenal what we have seen, but who knows. That's the one kind of trump card that Winnipeg maybe has in their back pocket. That's the one team that I would point to and say,

don't count them out just because they make the playoffs. And let's also remember, you're talking the wild card spots. I mean, you get in the wild card in the east. You've got to go through Boston, maybe Carolina, two of the best teams in the league all year long, built for the long haul. You know, in the West, who knows who you're going to play? to pull off an upset in the West, it's not going to be as big an upset as it would be in the East

because the conference itself is not as top-heavy as the Eastern conferences. And speaking of which, you know, one other team I want to hit on here, and they were kind of in the wild card conversation until they're not. And that is the LA Kings. And that they've put themselves into the,

hey, we can win the division conversation. Forget about sneaking in as a wild card. I mean, they haven't lost in regulation time this month. I think there's something like 8-0-2. They're just, they're on quite a heater. And look, they made some significant changes. You mentioned Jonathan Quick. Like, they rolled the dice.

They had to trade out an iconic player in franchise history because they thought this is the right thing to do. Yonis Corpuselos come in, Sean. 920 save percentage, buck 96 goals against average, 3-0-1. Like, he's been clicking. Like, I don't know. Like, as much as we talk about Vegas and Edmonton,

I kind of feel like we need to put L.A. on the same level as those two teams because I kind of feel like that Pacific Division is a, it's a toss-up, and L.A. deserves a seat at that table. The standings say that you're absolutely right. And yet it doesn't feel, it feels like this team has flown under the radar. Yeah. And I know, I guarantee there are Kings fans right now going, guys, shut up. We're happy to fly under the radar. At this point, that's our identity. Eastern media types, you don't get to jump on the bandwagon now you've been ignoring us all year long. And yeah, I mean, it's, I think the best explanation, because I've wrestled with this, like why the Kings are a great story. And it's a big market. It's, you know, why do we do we just go right to Vegas and, you know, these other teams? And, you know, why don't the Kings seem to resonate with us for what they're doing?

And the best I can come up with is I feel like as hockey fans, hockey media, we, there's two scenarios. that we like in a rebuild. We like the slow and steady, slow progress type of rebuild where, you know, you're bad for a few years and then you break through, you make the playoffs. And then the year after that, maybe you win a round as an underdog.

And then you win maybe two rounds and you just slowly take the steps. Or we like the fast forward. We can get our heads around that too, where a team just seems to hyper speed jump ahead. Like what the devil's, you know, you could argue I've done this year, where their record last year was terrible. and suddenly, boom, they're right there at the elite.

We like that too. What we don't necessarily appreciate is a team that's a little bit in the middle, where the Kings have, they did the traditional rebuild. They did the, not the full scale tear down because they kept, you know, a lot of the key veterans, but, you know, they moved guys out. They focused on the draft. They focused on bringing in some young guys. Then they got good, surprised a lot of us by making the playoffs last year.

And now, after having done that, you know, they're not doing slow and stay. but they're also not dominating the league. And they're sort of right in the middle there. And maybe we just, you know, our hockey fan brains just, you know, that's not an easy story for us to jump on. So we kind of don't give it enough credit. But this is a really good team. And they've had the results all year long.

This isn't one. I mean, you mentioned 8-0 and 2 in their last 10. Yeah. But this isn't a team that was just sputtering along. And then they have that 10-game hot streak. And then the hot streak goes away and they go back to what they were. These guys have been good all year long. And certainly a very, very winnable division.

Let's just say that in the Pacific. And then, hey, if you win a division, you can say, oh, it's the Pacific's the weak division. Okay, you get to the final four. You've absolutely got a shot at this. And we know, hey, the Kings, they didn't trade that, some of those veterans. So they've got, you know, Copa, Doughty guys who have won cups as an eight seats.

in 2012, remember, as another team that a lot of us weren't taken seriously enough. Who knows? Who knows where these guys can go? It's a Thursday edition of The Athletic Hockey Show, which means our pal, Jesse Granger, drops by four Granger things, brought to you by BetMGM, the exclusive betting partner with the Athletic. And we're going to get into some fun stuff here, Jesse, with your favorite topic, your favorite position in hockey. It's the crease.

It's goal-tending. And you had a chance to sit down and pick the brain of a handful of elevating. lead goalies in the NHL and just sit down and chat with them about their gear and in particular about pads. Because I think the hockey nerds and the goalie nerds are really going to enjoy this, this piece that you have up today, right? Yes, it is a very niche piece, but the goalies do love their gear. And I found out they actually love it more than I thought they did going in.

I was kind of cute. I know that just me and goalies that I know we love our gear. So I wanted to kind of get into the NHL guys' heads and talk. And I know most of them like the gear, just because the guys I cover in Vegas. I always end up talking about it with them in the locker room. But I got to talk to Andre Vasilevsky, Lena Solmark, Connor Hellebuck, U.C. Soros, and Ilya Sorokin and a few other guys. And they absolutely love talking about their gear.

The press conference for the All-Star game was like on the beach and they're on these podiums and there's like 40 people yelling questions at them. And every time I would get in a question about gear, it was like the goalie would just stop everything and just sit there and talk to it. Like even Vasilevsky even like realized his answer was going on too long. Another guy kind of jumped in and asked a question. He came up to me in the locker room after and was like, hey, you want to keep talking about that? Because we didn't really have time to do it at the press conference. So yeah, these these guys love their gear.

It's fascinating to me how many goalies actually started playing the position because they, liked the pads so much. Like UC Soros told me, I played all kinds of sports growing up, but not hockey. And then once I first got into hockey, the first thing I saw was, wow, that goalie, he's got all the cool gear on. I want to do that. And most of the time, their parents regret it because it is incredibly expensive. But yeah, Sorokin also started playing goalie because of the pads. And just lots of fascinating little tidbits I was able to get about how they choose the pads they wear. why they choose the pads they wear. One of the interesting things is,

so the companies, Bauer, CCM, True, Vaughn, they have representatives that go around the league and obviously try to convince goalies. They're kind of lobbyists. They convince colleagues to wear their gear. But once a goalie chooses to wear a certain company's gear, he gets a rep. So you're a rookie.

Most of the time, you're not even in the NHL yet. you pick CCM or you pick Bauer and now Bauer assigns you a rep. And that rep stays with that goalie for the rest of his entire NHL career. So like CCM and Vaughn and all these companies, they work with teams for the skaters. If you're a skater, you ask for a stick. The representative is assigned to your team. But with goalies, they actually have their own rep that stays with them. Even if you get traded to another team, your rep stays with you.

and it's like a personal one-on-one connection with this guy, and that way you can give them feedback in terms of, obviously, the aesthetics, what color you want them, what designs you want them. But also more than that, tiny little tweaks. I want this strap down here. I want this one tighter. I'd like the leg channel to sit at this different angle. I'd like the knee block that I land on to be a little higher up.

Just tiny little tweaks that you'd obviously never see from the outside. But to give them little advantages, it's just fascinating. how much influence the actual goalies in the NHL have on what the pads are, how the pads are made, how they're designed, how they function. And those companies are obviously more than willing to do whatever they can to get those goleys to wear them because it's a giant billboard. I don't know how many people are using CCM gloves because Connor McDavid wears them, but I do know that there are thousands of goleys that wear the pads they wear because their favorite goalie wears that brand of pads. So it's just a giant billboard on the ice. Jesse, you're talking to all these

goalies. You yourself, people who listen to this show know, you're a goaltender. Our producer on the show is a goaltender. For those of us who are normal people, yes, explain to us how, like, other than the equipment being ridiculously and comically and unnecessarily large, like, what are some specific things that, you know, I look at a goaltender, I see, I see, big leg pads. I see the blocker. I see the trapper. But, you know, what are some things that I would not even think to look for that to one of you weirdos is important enough that it's got to be just absolutely perfect? I mean, there's a lot. I'm trying to think of something specific. So, so, like, there are breaks in pads. And this is something that you've probably never even noticed.

But in the goalie pad, if you look to the outside of it, there, some of them have no breaks. and that's a really stiff pad that gives really big rebounds, and some goalies want their rebounds really popping off their pads. And basically, there's no bend in that pad. If you look at it from where it, well, obviously there's a bend where the foot is, but then from that ankle all the way up to the very top of the thigh rise, it's just stiff with no bends. Then you've got some pads with one break.

You've got some bads with two breaks. And the more breaks you have, usually the softer the pad is, if you look at a guy like Jonathan Quick, he's kind of old school, and his pads have a lot of break in them, and they're really curved around his knee. So when he kind of gets in that crouching position, his pads are really curved. And those pads don't have, compare him to Andre Vasilewski. If you were to look at Jonathan Quick and Andre Vasilevsky's leg pads right next to each other, they are drastically different.

Quicks are a lot more curved. They're a lot softer. They've got a lot more like cushion to them, sort of. And then Vasilevskis are basically a piece of. plastic, like everything's popping off those pads massively quick. So something like that is very, very different. A lot of the other things are the stuff you really can't see. Like, you'd never know without talking to a goalie. Like, I mentioned the, the leg channels and the knee boards, or sorry, the knee blocks. Those are the pieces inside the leg pad that hold the leg in and the way they're

constructed. And not even just like how tight you put it, but the actual angle, Connor Hellebuck was fascinating because he told me when he was 17, senior in high school, he started wearing some Reebok revoke pads. And he literally credited these pads and the way the leg channel sits and the way the gloves sit on his hand with helping him form his techniques that became his techniques as an NHL goalie. And the company that was designing Reeboks pads at the time, it's this family named Lafave, and they're probably like the royal family of goalie pads. moved on to CCM, when they went from Reebok to CCM, Hellebuck went along with them to CCM. Then, a couple years ago, they went from CCM to True. Hellebuck went from CCM to True.

And he told me, he's like, I will wear whatever pads LaFave designs for the rest of my life because he literally credits his techniques as a goalie with the way these pads sit on his legs and hands. It's pretty fascinating. Like LaFave is such a big name in goalie pads. If you look around the league. True has the most goalies of any company right now. I think it's over 50. So there are 37 goalies wearing True. The next closest is Bauer with 19. And five years ago, True didn't exist. I mean, there was not one goalie wearing True. And it's all because that LaFave family that's been making them forever, they made Patrick Waws pads back when they were Coho. They are, there are a lot of goalies that really like the way they make pads. So whatever company they, they move to,

all the goalies kind of follow. You know, one thing I've always wondered with goalie pads, too, like, you know, goalies take so much time designing their masks and having their personal stamp on the mask. The pads are a little bit different. The story I always remember was, so Mark Andre Fleury, in the early kind of part of his time in Pittsburgh, Mark Andre used to wear bright yellow pads. And people may remember this, bright yellow pads. And there was, the reason why he switched is there was a story and it was done by an Ottawa reporter. It was a newspaper in the Ottawa citizen at the time when Ottawa was playing Pittsburgh in a playoff series. They actually interviewed a, like it was like an eye doctor. Okay? This is going to

sound weird. But the eye doctor said, you know, for a shooter, it's easier to score on a goalie who's wearing bright pads because your eye can detect the open parts of the net. easier when he sees the yellow pads. And so I've always thought, like, it's interesting when people think, like, oh, how come they don't have more, like, a different look in their pads or a little bit more color or pop? But this eye doctor said years ago, if you have super colorful pads and they're bright or whatever, it actually helps the shooter because they can see the net easier. And I was blown away by that.

I had never thought about that at any point. Yeah, I remember when Flurry here in Vegas, when he went to his gold pads, I remember. asking him about that. Yeah. I asked him, like, didn't you switch away from the yellow ones? Because they were, like, you heard that they could. And he was like, yeah, I used to believe that, but I don't anymore. Oh, he doesn't. So, I mean, he won in his gold metallic pads that you can see from space. So, uh, they, they, they obviously, the shooters weren't finding the holes too easily. But it's fascinating. You know, Patrick Waugh used to have his pads where just on the thigh rises near the top, Right where the butterfly, like when you go into the butterfly, right where the pads connect in the middle, he had little white spots kind of on the bottom of them. And I'm, this may be like an old like wives tale, but I'm pretty sure it was to make shooters think that there was a spot between there to shoot five hole.

And then it would just hit the white of the padding. If there's any goalie out there that's crazy enough to do that, it's 100% Patrick Waugh. So that's probably why I believe the story. Was there not, see, help me. remember this because years ago I remember seeing goalies leg pads that they designed in basically white with red basically red netting they designed the pads to look like the back of the net and I feel like that was you know you and I was just looking you can find pictures of these pads and we haven't seen them and I feel like there was maybe a rule past or something because that would be you know fantastic

You want the shooter to turn around. A lot of times they don't have a lot of time to get a look. They just have to kind of instinctively figure out where's the spot I could shoot at. If you can trick them into thinking the whole bottom of the nets there, that takes away some of that. But I don't remember. Do you guys, either of you remember, like, did we pass a rule? Was there some reason why we can't do that? I'm not sure.

I'll have to look into it. I will say the only time I've ever seen those pads is like Beer League guys, is just amateur goalies. Like, I don't know if I've, if there's a, I'll have to look that up. That's fascinating. I have seen them. that I remember. And, you know, this gets into what, what Ian was saying. And this is going back to the 90s.

Do you guys remember Rob Stobber? Does that name say anything to you as L.A. Kings. L.A. Kings. And he, I mean, he wasn't, he certainly wasn't a star or anything. I mean, he was barely, you know, barely stuck around the NHO very long. But he was with the L.A. Kings. And he broke out a pair of pads that had a design on them. It was a hand-a-cartes, right?

you know, in LA Kings, it was probably four kings, something like that. And I remember seeing that and going like, this is going to be the new thing. We've seen what these goalies, they love their masks. This was, you know, in the air, we'd seen Brian Hayward and all these guys. And you're like, this is going to be the next thing. And it just never caught on. And I'm surprised. I mean, you see some of the individuality with the colors and all that.

But, I mean, when you see these goalies going crazy over what's going to be on the side of the mask, and you've got these gigantic canvases. I'm surprised that we don't see more of that individuality show through there. And it feels like the sort of thing that somebody's going to do it at some point, and then everyone will follow along. There have been a couple, like Hank Lundquist had the Statue of Liberty on his pads. You had that, like not crazy, like design, but some images, some graphics on there. Robin Lennar had one here in Vegas where it was like two knights with swords going towards each other in the middle. almost like they're having like a sword fight, I remember.

It's interesting because, like, Bauer came out with the technology to basically, like, did you print, I think is what they call it? It's basically they can print whatever you want on the pads. And on the amateur side of things, a lot more players do that. Like the kids growing up will have their logo of their team on their pads rather than just trying to match the colors. It's interesting how not only has the pads become more customized in the NHL, But at the amateur level, over the last 10 years, it's amazing how many more.

Almost every goal you see has custom pads that matches their kids that match their team, that they're playing with that season. They've got the colors. They've got the logos. They've got all of it. It is a massive industry of just. And the thing is, you're not worried about with the kid. You're not worried about, well, what teams are going to play on next year?

He's going to be too tall for those pads next year anyways. You're getting new pads next year regardless. So you might as well get the ones with the team on. That is my favorite thing is when a goalie gets traded mid-season. And they can't, you know, oh, they, Lord forbid, they try to break in some new pads or anything, anything different. So you get like these, the one that always sticks with me is Tim Thomas. Just sitting there in his Florida Panthers with his little Dallas Stars pads just couldn't care less. It looked awful, but, you know what?

That's what he wanted. Jonathan Quick. He's lucky that the king's, like, color scheme isn't that different from the Golden Knights. It's black and silver instead of black and gold. But he did even have gold paint. I mean, sorry, gold tape put on his pads while he was waiting for his, because he's got his new set now. But while he was waiting, he had them, the equipment trainers put like gold strips on his

Kings pads so that they would look a little more vagusy. If you're going to single-handedly ruin the entertainment value of hockey, at least look good while you're doing it. Yeah, they do. That's all we can ask of you. There we go. Hey, we'll leave it there. This was a lot of fun, just chatting pads.

and goalie style with you, Jesse. Thanks for doing this, and we'll get you back next Thursday on the pod. Thanks for letting me geek out on gear, guys. I'll talk to you next week. Thanks, Jesse. All right, that was great with Jesse Granger. Let's open up the mailbag, as we always do, on the Thursday edition of The Athletic Hockey Show, you can reach us via email.

The Athletic Hockey Show at gmail.com or a voicemail. 845445-8449. That is exactly, exactly, what Chris in New Jersey does. So Chris in New Jersey has a thought here as it pertains to players dropping the gloves after a clean hit. I just wanted to talk you keep hearing all this stuff about after a clean hit, and I keep hearing people say, just because this guy hit you really hard and it was clean, doesn't mean you have to fight, which is true. You don't have to fight. But the whole concept of protecting your guy and fighting it itself kind of, you kind of do have to fight.

I feel like that somebody on the team feels obligated to stand up for the, for the, player when they get laid out. And whether their head is clean or not, you see your guy go flying, I'm going to bet that they might not have caught the whole play, but I feel like players are kind of like morally obligated to do it or maybe steal some kind of way from their teammates or from their coach. As a Devils fan here, after Nico Hishar took out Barkov's knee accidentally in that trace-off circle, there was two games where Florida relentlessly went after Nico Hichard, and nobody on the devil's did anything about it.

And as a big Devils fan, I'm kind of disappointed to see everyone let all these shots go. For fighting, but anybody had to do anything over the top. But I think that standing up for your guy is part of hockey, part of team culture, and why fighting it's there. And it's not the stuff. So there we go. This has become a great topic. And I know it's been brought up. I think Sean Gentile has talked about this and written about it that, you know,

general managers have talked about what do you do, fighting after a clean hit? I mean, first of all, do you think this is a huge problem in the game right now? We're fighting after a clean hit happens or? I mean, I don't think it's a huge problem. I wouldn't put it that high on the list of issues. But it's a problem we're talking about because it's one that has an easy solution. And the easy solution is the instigator. And look, people who've listened to the show, listen to me, read my stuff, they know I'm,

I'm more old school than I think a lot of guys in terms of fighting. I don't have an issue with fights after. clean hits if they're big clean hits. I don't, you know, if you see a guy take a big run, especially at a star on your team, I don't care if it's clean or not. That's for the rough to decide. I get that there are teams out there saying, we want to send a message that you do not go for big highlight real hits on our guys and that there's going to be consequences if you do that. I don't have a problem with that. Chris and I are maybe a bit on the same page on that. But I also don't have an issue with giving a guy an extra two minutes. If he skates all the way

across the ice to start a fight after a hit, I don't care that they both drop the gloves at the same time. One guy comes away from the play and goes all the way over. We all know that that guy's going over to fight. Give him the extra two minutes. And frankly, if it's, you know, if it's my team, if it's Connor McDavid or Osse Matthews or wherever that just gets laid out, I'll pay the two minutes to send that message. That's a fair price to me. So I don't understand why. I don't understand why we got away from just calling the instigator. I don't have any issue with the league going back to it and saying we're going to call it a little bit more. The area where I do have a problem is, look, my star player gets caught with his head down and he gets lit up, clean or not, I'm going to respond.

Sure. No issue with that. I want to see that as a fan. I want to see that as a teammate. Some of these hits we're getting fights after now. I mean, these aren't even big hits. You know, not, you know, I don't want to, I don't want to dismiss, you know, act like, you know, it's a contact sport. Obviously, they're big hits in that sense.

But I mean, these are hits that wouldn't even make the highlight reals. And yet we got these fights. It just feels like it's an obligation now. Like it feels like, and part of it is, you know, guys like us, we made such a big deal out of the guys who did do it. And we make such a big deal when it doesn't happen, right? you know, oh, can you believe Connor McDavid got run over? Nobody in the Oilers did anything. And we talked about it for three days.

So it's now almost like you see these hits that are barely even anything. And it's almost like you can see the players looking around going, oh, is this, do we have to do this? This is one of these things where we have to do it. And the guy who threw the hit is looking around going, is anybody going to come over? And then you get this, this fight breaks out that has like no intensity to it. Nothing. It's just two guys are wrestling so that they can say, okay, look, somebody did something. Those are the ones I would like to get rid of.

But if it's a big hit, yeah, I don't have an issue with holding a guy accountable for making the decision to give that little extra, you know, extra something to your mail ticket on your team. To the emails we go, like I said, the athletic hockey show at gmail.com. And I apologize if I don't pronounce your name correctly, but this email comes in from Lila, Lila Adamen, who identifies as a queer hockey fan in the UK. Lila writes the athletic hockey show saying, In the middle of all the drama and hobophobia in recent hockey news, I would love it if the athletic hockey show could give a little bit of a shout out to teams who are doing an outstanding job of being allies in the LGBTQIA plus community. For instance, the L.A. King's Pride Night, jerseys are fire.

The artist herself is a queer hockey fan. The Kings players wore them without any issue. This is the model. Every other team should be striving for. I might be biased as an LA Kings fan, but it was a celebration so wonderful to see in those jerseys were cool as hell. That comes in from Lila. Now, a couple of things we want to talk about.

First of all, obviously we're recording this on Thursday. Wednesday evening, Mark Lazarus reporting that the Chicago Blackhawks for their Sunday game would not wear the pride-themed jerseys as originally planned. I want to say two things. First of all, Laz wrote about this on this site, but then the Losson, the last, the latest edition of the Lazen Powers podcast is now up. And it's 45 minutes of that exact conversation. So if you'd like to hear a little bit more about that in the Chicago situation,

I really encourage you to check out Lazen Powers, the episode that just dropped here on Thursday. But I do think it's important to talk about this stuff. I really do. And I spent a good chunk of the Monday show with Laz and Julian McKenzie, Sean, talking about what happened in San Jose with James Reimer. I like Lila's note here. I appreciate it. I think certain teams have done it the right way, so to speak.

I don't know if you saw what Dallas did, but they had the pride jerseys. And J.B. Ben, who's their captain, did a rinkside interview. And I'm blanking now on who it was with, but I did a rinkside interview and was asked about the importance of the players kind of showing their support on Pride Night. And to paraphrase Jamie Ben, Sean, he said, you know, I read what Brian Burke said. And we just want everyone to know everybody's welcome in our locker room. And I thought, you know, when you hear Brian Burke or you listen to Brian Burke, like, that's the voice we should probably be listening to. And so to hear an NHL player say, yeah, you know what, I saw what Brian Burke had to say.

And it resonated with me. That was great. I really loved hearing that from a player like Jamie Ben. Yep. And it's, it was an important thing to hear. You know, I thought Logan Kruhe was great in, in the aftermath of the James Rimer thing. And I love this email from this listener, because this is important. This is, you know, we in the media and, and again, the fans, you know, especially social media, it's, it's all about the conflict, right? We all are like, what's, where's the conflict that we can talk about? And so when you see something, like San Jose's Pride Night and that one player who says I'm not going to participate, that's where all the attention goes. That's who we talk about. Meanwhile, there's 19 other guys that are sending the right message and there are all of these, you know, all these other things happening on these Pride Nights that so many people put effort into and really work to make it

happen. And it's got to be frustrating that, you know, you're sitting there if you're, you know, somebody involved in in in San Jose's night and everybody's just talking about James or I'mer or you know you're the LA Kings as this as this listener says and you do it right and everything goes smoothly and you send that right message and it's a great night and everybody just kind of shrugs because there's no conflict there you know we can but and yet when it's Chicago suddenly you know we're all talking about it for for three days uh Florida Panthers tonight you know they just sent out a tweet as a you know, as we're recording this, Thursday morning that, you know, with their designs,

you know, let's, you know, we have to cover the, you know, where the conflict comes in. We have to cover that. But we're probably overdoing it at this point. We're probably giving way more oxygen to the Rhymers and Proverovs and, you know, whoever else. And, you know, ignoring the fact that the 95% of players who are on board who are happy to participate, who are sending that welcoming message and all those people behind the scenes

that are working hard to put these nights on to make them happen, to make them go off as a success. And yet, you know, one one dummy doesn't want to be part of it and he gets all the attention. It's a good reminder that, you know, for all the talk of controversy

and, you know, who's doing this and who's going to dunk on who, the message has really been much more unified than than you would think based on how frankly people like us have been covering it. And just to wrap up a thought on this, Eric Carlson was asked, I think it was our Daniel

New Jim Bowman who asked Eric Carlson in Edmonton about James Reimer and the fallout on Pride Night. Here's what Eric Carlson told Daniel. It said, quote, about Pride Night. Quote, it was great. It's a good thing.

We're in a position where we have a lot of focus on us, a lot of people are watching us. To be able to use our platform for certain things is a great opportunity to try and bring in knowledge and help other people. We live in a free world. Everybody has their own decisions to make. I made mine. I'm happy about that. Everybody else in the sharks did the same. I can't speak for anybody else. And, you know, I tend to agree with Eric. I like the fact that he said to be able to use our platform for certain things is great. And to bring in knowledge and help people. I love what the San Jose Sharks did, Sean, on Game Night,

which is in lieu of tweeting out the score and the game and, you know, sharks go into a power play. They use their Twitter feed to share important context and information about this topic, about Pride Night, about all of these issues that people in the LGBTQIA plus community are facing. And I like the way San Jose handled it. I like the way Dallas handled it

and just to go back to Lila's original point I like that there are some teams there are some bright lights it's not all it's not all dark there are some bright lights and no it's not at all and I mean that that's a great quote

that you just had from Eric Carlson there you go there's one of the biggest stars in all of the NHL you know one of one of the most recognizable players one of I mean guys gonna win the Norse trophy let's give at least

as much attention to his message as we give to a backup goalie who have their own views. Nathan in Boston writes into the show. We were talking a little bit earlier about the Panthers and the Islanders maybe sneaking in as a wild card team. Nathan says Panthers Islanders are on the playoff bubble. These are two teams that made noticeable coaching changes in the offseason. My question to you guys is this.

If neither of them made a coaching change in the off season, do you think that they're comfortably in a playoff spot and not in the bubble? Do you think either one of them would actually be a top-tier Stanley Cup contender? What do you think these teams would look like if they had their previous coaches? Thanks so much for the answers. Love the podcast. Great distraction when I have to go for a run.

It makes the pain slightly less noticeable. That's from Nathan and Boston. I think we just got a new tagline for the podcast. Making your life slightly less painful. Making the pain slightly. Yeah. Boy, it's a fascinating. What if?

And look, we don't know what's going on behind the scenes. We don't know, you know, what the dynamic is in a dressing room, you know, how the practices are all of this stuff. I think Barry Trott's one of the best coaches in the NHL. And I think just about any team would be better with him. But let's also remember, you know, Lane Lambert was the assistant there. You know, it wasn't like they did a radical change. It did sound at the time like maybe there were some voices in that Islander's room that were ready to move on from Barry Trots.

So, yeah, maybe that was the right way to do it, to keep the, you know, some of the continuity, but to get a new voice in there. And look, the islanders, you know, at the very least, you look at the islanders, they're better than they were last year. So it's hard to say, hey, coaching change was a disaster because, you know, they have improved from what last year was, not at the same level that they were the first few years under Barry Trots, but they've been better. Florida, I mean, it feels like we've talked it to death now.

At the very least, I think it's fair to say that the first half was a rocky transition to Paul Maurice. And, you know, there were other things. They made the huge trade in the offseason. It wasn't just Paul Maurice coming in. But you look at where they're at record-wise compared to last year, it's tough to say that that coaching change worked especially well. maybe it gets there. You know, we're seeing the second half surge from them and who knows what happens in the playoffs. But yeah, I don't think I would have an issue saying if the, if the Panthers stick with Andrew Burnett, that they're probably comfortably in the playoffs right now and maybe not chasing it the way they are under Paul Maurice.

Yeah. No, that's a good way of putting it. And boy, the Panthers team is so fascinating to me that they're still in the mix after having some. some speed wobbles, but yeah, you're right. The Andrew Brunette thing was crazy that they walked away from them. But yeah, we'll see how this plays out. Okay, real quick, I got to read this email from Jed because Jed leads off the email by saying, I just wanted to say that Sean McAdoo is by far the smartest writer in hockey.

Hell yeah. So let's just to start with that as the premise. Ed Mendez. Come on. Who is Jed? I want some info on Jed. Jeds, that's my cousin. That's cousin, Jed.

Yeah, no, it's, hey, I don't know. It just, Jed is maybe speaking up. I feel like there's a silent majority out there. And I don't even know what's in the rest of his email, but we're going to read it. So again, if you want to get your email read, you know what to do. Just wanted to say Sean McAdoo, by far the smartest writer in hockey. Okay. This is what Jed went on to say.

I was listening to your discussion about the draft lottery and tanking. I believe the only real way to do away with tanking is get rid of the draft altogether. I think it could work, combined with the salary cap, big market teams simply wouldn't be able to outspend the other teams. All the teams would be incentivized to be as good as possible because then it would make the destination for the young players a little bit better. I don't think the draft is fair in general. It handcuffs good teams by penalizing them for just being good. It forces the incoming potential star players to play for the worst teams in the league. I would create a system where teams, guys are basically free agents when they come out of junior hockey.

They can go to the place where they believe they have the best chance of excelling. It would create a whole new level of free agency. That's from Jed, whose name could also be Eric Lindross. Because that's exactly what Eric Lindross tried to do back the day, right? It could be Connor Bedard. Who knows? I mean, geez, imagine you're Connor Bedard and you're sitting there going, you know, lottery night. Chicago or Arizona.

Huge media market with a huge fan base where I'm going to instantly be a star and have endorsements and all that stuff. Or Arizona and I'm playing them all out of arena. Yeah, I mean, look, a lot of people feel this way. I've seen this pitch a lot. I've never really gotten on board just because it feels so unrealistic.

I feel like I tend not to hitch my wagon to things I feel like will never happen. But yeah, I mean, you can make certainly a really strong ethical argument that taking teenagers and just assigning them to teams with them having no choice, no option, and saying this team owns you for at least the next seven or eight years is not the right way to do it. I know the counter argument is always, well, you know, hey, if you do it this way, great. All the top prospects go to Toronto, they go to Chicago, they go to New York, a handful of other teams. Ottawa never gets anyone. Winnipeg never gets anyone. Arizona, Columbus, they never get anyone. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not convinced that that's true. I mean, certainly, you know, we see a very, very limited version of this when it comes to signing undrafted college free agents, and Ottawa at the very least has often been an attractive destination for those types of free agents because they offer opportunity and development and all that. We just saw the biggest free agent in the NHL sign with Columbus,

so, I mean, who knows. But I think what it really gets down to, and we had a bunch of emails from readers this week with different things that you could do with the draft up to and including getting rid of it entirely. A lot of fans really seem bothered by tanking. I think what it comes down to is philosophically, there's two camps. There are fans out there who, while they may hate tanking, they say, look, the draft has to give the top picks to the worst teams. Not necessarily one to one, not necessarily that the first overall pick has to go to

the 32nd place team every year. but it's got to be a close relationship because that's how those teams get better. That's how you make sure that bad teams don't stay bad forever. That's how you give their fans them to hope for. And then you have the other camp that says that doesn't necessarily have to be the case. And if you're in that camp, then that opens up a whole new world to different ways of doing things.

We had people saying different ways to do the lottery. Does it have to not even be a weighted lottery? Do you give all the non-playoff teams the same chance? Do you give all the teams the same chance? He had the NBA wheel up. idea, you've got get rid of the draft, do the draft as an auction instead of with, with picks. There's a million different ways you can do it as long as you, if you're willing to drop

that idea that it's just got to be the worst teams, get rewarded with the best picks. So it's sort of a case of where do you stand on that? If you insist that the worst of the worst teams need to get the best picks, I'm not sure that the system we have isn't close to as good as you can get, with the exception being that as everyone knows, I love the gold plan idea because I think that's the one that gets rid of the tanking and yet still gives the advantage to those bad teams. But short of that, this might be the best we can do. Let's put a bow on this Thursday pod with this week in hockey history. I'm going to take our listeners back to this week in 1964.

where Sean Eddie Johnston of the Boston Bruins becomes the last goalie in NHL history to play every single minute in every single game for his team in the course of a full regular season. It was a 70 game season back then. Eddie Johnston, Sean played all 4,200 minutes for the Boston Bruins in 1963, 64.

Interesting, though, okay? So I was looking up his season. he the Bruins only won 18 games that year. So imagine they win 18 out of 70 games and they're like, that's our guy every night. Yeah. Yeah, it's not like he was just crushing it out there. Yeah. Yeah, no, for sure.

But what's interesting is I looked up his season. He finished 10th in the Hart Trophy balloting that year. I'm thinking that has to be the lowest win percentage ever or the worst statistical line ever for somebody who finished top 10 in MVP voting. Guy, 18 wins, 40 losses. But look, he had a respectable 914 save percentage, which in fact was the best of his entire career. But that's wild, hey?

Like, he plays every, like, wouldn't you love to, like, how did they not have another option? Like, who, they just didn't have a backup goalie? Like, isn't that crazy? I mean, back then, the backup goalies were rarely used. And, you know, I'd be willing to bet if you went and looked, you'd probably see there were at least a few other teams that maybe went into the season intending not to have a backup, intending not to use a backup, but guys get hurt. Occasionally, a guy who get pulled, occasionally, guys would get injured during the game, that sort of thing. But a lot of teams didn't use backups for a very long time.

Now, I do got to catch you on this, though. Two things. First of all, Eddie Johnson, I know some people are probably out there going like, that name sounds familiar. Is that the same guy who was the GM in Pittsburgh, the Ron Francis trade, all this stuff? Yeah, same guy. So that's fun. But you said the worst numbers to finish in the top 10 in the NHL.

I'm going to hit you with some different numbers, okay? Okay. Tell me what you think of this. It's another goaltender. 66 games played. 12 wins. A lead leading 47 losses and seven ties. led the league in goals allowed and posted a 321 goals against,

but back then that was no good. Worse numbers, you would agree, than Eddie Johnson, I think. All right, that is a guy by the name of Al Rollins played for the Chicago Blackhawks in 1954 season. Al Rollins won the Hart Trophy that year. Al Rollins was the NHL MVP with 12 wins and leading the league in losses

and leading the league in goals against in the year before when he had played the whole season played every minute and again led the league in goals against he finished second yeah the 1950s

were a little bit different but this was clearly a case where this was the sympathy boat this was guys saying yeah you want to talk about value This team stinks. They are hanging this guy out to dry every night. It's amazing that he hasn't packed up his gear and quit.

We're going to give him some hard trophy votes. And Al Rollins to this date, one of the very, very few guys to ever win an MVP and not be in the Hall of Fame. Not surprisingly, when you look at his numbers, he won an MVP while leading the league in losses and goals against. So I'm looking at the voting for the year that Al Rollins won the hard trophy. A hockey reference has the breakdown of the voting. He received 50 first place votes. Red Kelly finished second with 40. This thing is like, this is wild to me.

How on earth did a- I mean, the three guys who finished behind Al Rollins, Red Kelly, Rocket Richard, he may have heard of, and is kid in Detroit, Gordy Howe. Three pretty good players. And, yeah, Gordy Howe had 81 points that year in a 70-game season. It, again, it was just the, you know, clearly the thinking here was, hey, what's more valuable than the goaltender who is, I mean, geez, the Blackhawks that were so bad that year, the puck was probably in their end for 90% of every game. So, I mean, I guess he was the busiest guy in the NHL for sure.

but it's it's fascinating they he finished second in 53 wins it in 54 never gets another heart trophy vote again the rest of his career he almost wonder if it's it's almost like the voters were like oh wait to say like we're we're trying to send the guy some love we didn't want him to win the award uh and he did and they they backed off and that was it but uh definitely the strangest MVP season in the history of the NHL for sure oh man all right well that's a great place to leave it um that that's a head scratcher to me We'll leave it there. That is the end of this Thursday edition of The Athletic Hockey Show.

As always, email. So your questions, The Athletic Hockey Show at gmail.com, a voicemail at 845-4-5-8449. And right now you get a one-year subscription to The Athletic for $1 a month for 12 months when you visit theathletic.com slash hockey show.