The Athletic Hockey Show - Connor McDavid for Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar: who says no?, the Western Conference playoff picture, Torts hates the All-Star Game, why don’t NHL stars play out their contracts?, and much more

Episode Date: January 9, 2023

For the first time in 2023, the Monday edition of TAHS is back, as Ian and Julian are joined by guest cohost Mark Lazerus to discuss if the NHL would ever allow a crazy trade like the recent WHL deal that sent 4 players and 10 draft picks from Kamloops to Everett in exchange for Olen Zellweger and Ryan Hofer, hypothetical Connor McDavid trade packages, if the Seattle Kraken and Los Angeles Kings will make the playoffs, John Tortorella’s comments on the All-Star Game, if stars like David Pastrnak and Auston Matthews decided to play our their contracts they could usher in a new era of player empowerment, and the guys close things out by awarding this week’s Jack Adams Winner of the Week and playing a round of Multiple Choice Madness.Subscribe to The Athletic Hockey Show on YouTube: http://youtube.com/@theathletichockeyshowGet a 1-year subscription to The Athletic for $2 a month when you visit http://theathletic.com/hockeyshowPost your job for free at LinkedIn.com/NHLSHOWSign up today at StitchFix.com/HOCKEY to get $20 off your first purchase!Get 20% Off and Free Shipping with the code NHL23 at Manscaped.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Hockey Show. Welcome back to your first Monday edition of The Athletic Hockey Show here in 23, as always at Cian Mendez. Julian McKenzie with you. And we're going to start off the New Year, Julian, by making this a three-person roundtable. You know, we're stealing from the Wednesday show. You know, the Wednesday show, they got Granger, they got Russo,

you know, Joe Smith slides in there. It's like a roundtable. Rob Pizzo. we're stealing from them we're bringing our pal Mark Lazarus in to take off. Technically, if you really think about it, if you really think about it, I got my start on the

athletic hockey show on the Wednesday show. So technically we've been stealing from the Wednesday show. Just saying. I'm just going to sit here and be like the third wheel that nobody really wants. I'll be like Dennis Miller in the booth and Monday night football, making references to like random TV shows nobody gets

and people will be just it's like, you know, next week when I'm not here, everyone will love the show that much more. And it'll be good for you guys. I'll give you a bum on that way. Oh, that's not true. That's not true. That being said, that being said, I have, I almost have no idea who Dennis Miller is.

I see, this is, this is what happens. But no, but this is perfect, last, because Julian and I have this bit going where basically every podcast, I try and teach him something about, you know, the way sports used to be 25, 30 years ago. Your Dennis Miller reference is perfect because Julian would have no idea. idea that Monday night football very briefly employed basically a comedian to be the third person in the booth and it just went about as well as you think it would have gone. I love the idea of somebody not getting a Dennis Miller reference because Dennis Miller's

whole schick was making references that nobody got. So like time has become a flat circle and the world is about to cave in on itself because someone didn't get a Dennis Miller reference about Dennis Miller. Is it comparable? Was Dennis Miller's time? at all comparable to Ian, I don't know if you remember playing, or Mark, you'd play the NHL video games in the early 2000s, when it would be Jim Houston and then Don Taylor.

But Don Taylor was supposed, I mean, he's not a comedian, but like he was trying to be like the funny kind of color guy. Is it kind of similar to that? Yeah. And that all came about because EA Sports was based in Vancouver. And so right there, their guys thought, oh, Don Taylor, who's a sports catcher in Vancouver, it's exactly it.

I have no idea who you're talking about now. Oh, there we go. I stopped playing the EA games in like the, you know, I went to, I was in college 97-01 and I just stopped playing video games for that time. So I miss like a whole window. Really? Like I'm like, I'm the generation that grew up on like NHL 93 and 94, like the classic era where you can make Gresske's head bleed and all that stuff.

So that's kind of my era video game. And then I tried to get back into it in my early 20s because I was young and single and a disposable income. And so like I bought like a PS3. And holy, crap, video games got too hard for me then, so I stopped playing them. Now I have kids, so we have a Nintendo Switch, and I can go back and play all the Genesis and Nintendo games again and still be awesome and never have to move into the 21st century.

It rules. Dude, I have a Nintendo Switch, and like, I, there's a probably that really wants an NHL game, but I know considering the graphics and the capacity, it's probably never going to work. My NHL capacity for me, I've kind of listed off already with all the NHL covers I remember, but like between 2000, 2009, basically any NHL game you could play on PC. Like that was my golden air. There was a game on the Wii in like the, I would say, early 2010s

where you could convert the Wii remote into like a little hockey stick. Yep. Yes. That game was fun as hell. And you know, now that I mentioned it, I still have the Wii in this room. This is where my kids play their video games. I might try to find those hockey sticks tonight and try to play that. I don't remember what it was called, but I remember it was really fun.

Man, Wii bowling was the best, though. There was nothing like Wii bowling, we boxing. The OG Wii sports, that's like it doesn't be any better than that. That's the thing is my kids, they're spoiled with graphics when it comes to games, but those Wii sports games are still the most fun games you have. You know what's funny? I don't know if you saw this, speaking of video games. Did you see the guy this weekend, the video, he tracked down the, there's a home screen on the NHL 94 video game.

Like when you go to pick your teams, and there's a collision between a Chicago player, and it's the late Brian Marchman. Oh, that's right. And an Islander's player, Scott LaChance, and this guy was tasked. Could he find the game and the moment? And he found it. Did you see this? I didn't, but that's awesome.

I know exactly the hit you're talking about. I mean, I must have loaded up that screen 80,000 times. I'm going to tweet it out and you guys would be just blown away at this. Scotland chance. There's a name from the past. The athletic should hire this guy as a full-time investigative reporter. The amount of work this guy put in to find the moment. He should be Sean McIndow's assistant.

Yes. I was about to say. Just either let Sean do it or let him work with Sean. And Laz, you'll appreciate this. He ended up tracking down this huge Chicago Blackhawks fan who still had VHS tapes of games in the early 90s. That guy must be scary. That's how he tracked. know that guy is a stack of newspapers in his garage that's like 50 feet tall,

going to topple over on Seymour Skinner and trap him there for a week. It's right. Back in my day. There we go. Julian likes a good Seymour Skinner reference. That's where we can all connect. Love Skinner. Yes.

Am I the one that's out of touch? No. No, the children must be wrong. Yes. Pathetic. Look at us, vibing like this. Okay. I got to ask you guys this.

This was amazing to me. On the weekend, this, you want to talk about, You know, sometimes you hear the term blockbuster trade. You're like, I don't know. This is a blockbuster trade. And it happened in junior hockey in the Western Hockey League. And the reason why I don't bring this up is I want to know, do you think the NHL would ever allow a deal like this? So basically in the WHL, Cam Loops sent four players and 10, count them 10 draft picks,

including four first rounders to Everett in exchange for Olin, Zellwe. Lager, terrific defenseman, played for Team Canada, and another forward, Ryan Hoffer. Do you guys ever think the NHL would be okay with one team trading 10 draft picks? Like going full like Ricky Williams when remember the Saints? That was the trade that I was immediately thought of it. I saw that on Twitter with the Ricky William trade. I just looked it up actually. It was in 1999.

The Saints, it was for the number five overall pick. It wasn't even the number one pick. And it was for a running back, the most dime a dozen position in the NFL. And it was a first, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth. six rounders in that draft plus a first third in the next test. That's like the only equivalent, right? Like, the Eric Lindros trade is not an equivalent of this because, you know, Peter Foresberg was involved and there was only a couple of first round picks and there was cash involved. Like, the Ricky Williams trade is the only comparable to this that I've ever seen.

And it's, it's, it's, I'll be honest with you guys, I'm going to play the dumb American here. Junior hockey just baffles the hell out of me. It is this weird, strange world where guys get traded for nothing or they get traded for everything. I don't understand. How do you trade a 15-year-old? How is that legal? I don't understand anything that's happening up there, guys. Mark, Mark, I, on one of the other podcasts that I do, I learned that Connor Bedard, who plays for the Regina Pats in the Western Hockey League,

has a no trade clause. I read that. Kids and junior, they have no trade clauses. I had no idea this was a thing. These are children. Like what? Yes. They're literal children.

Children. Like you are training. They have acity on their face. These draft picks that are like six years in advance, those kids are like still in the embryonic state. You are trading zygotes at this point. Bro, they're like seven, eight year olds you might still see like walking around. Like, what is this? Could you imagine that?

Like, could you imagine? It's what thing if like you're a grown NHL player and you get traded for like a conditional pick in like 2025. At least you can say, hey, I can probably watch their games. maybe they're going to plant the Memorial Cup or something. You'd you imagine being a junior kid and you get traded for like the draft rights to some, like some, you could have like a sibling who's like the same age and you might be like, this kid's a dweep.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, no, you're trying for seventh graders. Explain it. I'll stand in as the dumb American here for our American listeners. Is a Memorial Cup appearance or potential championship worth so much that it's worth just sacrificing years in the future for it? Does that make that much of a difference to a junior team?

It does. I think it does. And you're going to see it now with Shane Wright in the same way. You're going to see London or someone's going to just back up the truck and just it means a lot to them. Yeah, absolutely. And if you watch junior, and I don't pay attention to junior hockey as much as, you know, obviously we've got the promenons and the wheelers. But they have these little competitive cycles, right? And when you're in your cycle, you're like, we're going to go for it.

And I think there's a jealousy factor as NHL fans. I'm like, man, I wish my, like, I wish the NHL sometimes had trades like this, right? Oh, it would be fun. It'd be amazing, but it would be fun. Yes. Imagine some team just trading 10 picks for somebody. Someone made the comparison that like, oh, like this trade is like an NBA trade. And I'm like, I mean, they're not completely wrong because we've seen boatloads of picks being dealt before.

I'm looking at the Oklahoma City Thunder. Like, yeah, like, I mean, we don't even have to look so far to, like, junior hockey to see stuff like this. Like, there are other professional leagues where this craziness occurs. It just, we live in a world where the salary cap is a thing. And, and maybe there's something in the CBA that says that you probably can't offload all those picks, but I don't know for sure. But, like, I don't know. I mean, it's not you're getting, it's not you're training across town. Like, you're in, like, a little league or something.

And there was some deal made because you wanted to go play with his brother or something like that. I mean, you're literally going into another country in some of these cases. You're going to Seattle. Seattle's in the WHL, right? Portland's in the WHL. I mean, you are sending children into another country. I don't know, against their will. Do they have to approve it? Do the parents have to approve it?

All of this is just baffling to me. And I need like a step-by-step primer to explain this to me. Because it's just on the surface, it's insane. Like, what does it mean to be off? Like, like, because all of those kids have billet families that they live with, right? Like, when you get traded, does the, who's on, who's, like, does the team in charge of finding you another billet family? like how does that work?

Like, I'd love to know all these other finer details. You can't just throw the kids up at the residence in because it's got a kitchen. It doesn't work like it does in the NHL. No, like not everyone could be Yer Slvkovsky and just operate a stove. Like some people need like they're like a billet family to help them cook. I don't know. Because they're literal children. Children.

Now I'm just, I'm just picturing Shane Wright at like a Marriott making the, uh, the waffles, like waiting for it. Right at the minute they have. You got to flip it at the right time. Yeah. How many of those kids even have like Marriott's Bonvoy accounts where they could just know to get points from staying at hotels? I think the Billet family gets those.

Yeah, that's right. I would hope that they would. Okay, taking this to the NHL level, one more thing I'm going to ask you guys, okay? Let's say you could trade 10 draft picks four of them are first rounders. If today, I told you you could do that and you could land either Connor McDavid

or Connor Bedard, which one are you doing? Is it a slam dunk? Is it McDade? And would you do it? Would you give up four first round picks, 10 draft picks? It's McDavid and I would make that trade in a heartbeat. Like every team.

Every team would do it. Every single thing. That's basically an offer sheet, right? If you made an offer sheet to Connor McDard, you'd lose four first round draft picks. In a heartbeat. Because if you have McDavid, you might not be great,

as the Oilers have found out, you're going to be pretty good. you're not talking top five picks here. You're talking middle of the first round picks for four years. For Connor freaking McDavid, the amount of money you make off of him, the jerseys you sell, and just the chance he gives you in a heartbeat. So what's the cutoff where you'd be like, you know what? I wouldn't trade that from McDavid.

Is it five first round picks? Is it like what? There has to be some point where you're like, okay, I wouldn't do that. What would that point be for you guys? If Connor McDavid was at like 35 years old, because here's another thing about that trade too, Connor McDavid is 25 years old right now. He is like, it's kind of funny to think like, you know, how great he's been and how he's on pace for like career numbers.

Like, could you say that he's entering his prime? We don't really think of a prime player's years as like 28 into 32. He may not even be in his prime right now. So like you're closer to winning if you have a Connor McDavid on your team compared to a Connor Bredar who would still have to adjust to being in the league. But also it could be a sound investment. Who knows? But like, yeah, I'm with Mark.

like Connor McDavid, you coming up to me, be like, hey, four first round picks, I'm doing that trade. Like, I mean, I've seen you want to roster player to. Yeah, go back to any team's last four first round draft picks. And I bet every single one of them does not add up to Connor McDavid, every single team. Nope. Nope. Okay, so okay, let, let, okay, if you're Ottawa, then, let, like, help me out here. Would you trade, would you trade Brady Kachuk, Tim Stutzler, Jake Sanderson, for Connor McDavid.

Yes. Yes. 100%. Yes. Yeah. You're talking literally. I think Edmonton wins with those players anyway. I'm too close to it.

I'm so confident that making that trade, I don't even think Edmont, if you offload all those guys to Edmonton, I feel confident enough of that trade. Emmetton does even win with the guys I send back. Wayne Grefke got traded for Jimmy Carson. Anybody can be traded. Is a 50 goal guy.

The question is, is what would the Oilers have to get in order to make that trade? What would it take to pry Connor McDavid away from the Oilers? That's the more interesting question, I think. Yeah, WHL style. Like, if they, like, oh, man. Like, what, what would you have to offer Edmonton for them to say, you know what? Yeah, we'll trade you.

We'll trade Connor McDavid at age 25. What would it take? It would take 10 first round picks and maybe not even then, because no GM's going to be there for all 10 round, 10 first round picks, because every GM has a shelf life. You need like a player at every position. Like you need like you need some kind of like... A whole team? Maybe not found...

Yeah, pretty much a whole team. You need foundational players. Like you can't just be like, I need three forwards for Con to McDavid. Like I would want like a really good forward, a really good defenseman, a really good goalie. Like I need to build a franchise because Connamic David is a franchise. See, we're past the point where you used to be able to throw money at this problem.

Like the Lindros case. Right. Right. So, we did $15 million to the Nordiques. Like that's not a thing that happens anymore because every single team has a very wealthy owner now. Money isn't really an issue anymore in the NHL. So you can't just say, you know, can't be like MLSC saying,

oh, we'll throw in $50 million to Edmonton because Emmington doesn't need $50 million. Right. That's just not how it works anymore. So I don't see how, I can't see any trade I wouldn't make to get Conner McDavid, and I can't see any trade I would make to give up Connor McDavid. Yeah. So Conner David is just a roiler for the rest of his life.

That poor bastard. Oh wait, this is the Canadian version of the show. I didn't say that. But that being said, though, that being said, like the supposed tradition in Edmonton Oilers history is that... Like, I love Edmonton. It's just a franchise that's just treading water for so long now. For sure.

I think Edmonton's one of the more underrated cities in the league, and I tweet that all the time and everyone always laughs to me. I like Edmonton. It's a cool place. But that franchise, man, it just, there's just, it feels so little, like, laugh. year they go to the conference final. Oh, there's final. We're going to take that next step. They might miss the playoffs this year. I think that's insane. With Connor McDavid and Leon Dreisdell. I think it's insane. I just feel I'm one of those people

that if you have a window and you have outstanding players who are part of that window, you should be doing everything you can to maximize that window. Like you saw it in Chicago. In the peak years of the of the Hawks with Taze and Kane, like there's that whole span of the 2010s where those guys were going for it, and they could go to the playoffs every year, and they did everything they could to build teams that could do it. If you are Ken Holland and you have Connor McDavid and Leon Drysidal, it doesn't get any better than those two right now.

You should be doing everything you can to ensure that those guys get to the playoffs every year, have a competitive team, and have a fighting chance at making the Stanley Cup final every year. That's how I feel. They got to the conference final last year. They did and got swept. As we hit the halfway point of the season here,

as we look at the Western Conference playoff picture, are you guys, are you both believers in Seattle and L.A.? Like, do you look at them and say, yeah, you know what? At the halfway point, I see it. They're making the playoffs. Because if they do, then in all likelihood, one of either Minnesota, Edmonton, Calgary, or I hate to say it,

the defending Stanley Cup champion Colorado Avalanche, one of those teams not going to make it. Are you guys believers in the Cracken and the L.A. making the playoffs? I'm not a believer in any team that has Martin Jones as its number one goalie. I'm sorry. I'm not buying the Martin Jones Renaissance.

The Cracket of, what, like an 88 save percentage as a team. I like the Cracken. They're a good team. They were built well. They have no goaltending. I just don't see how you can make it through the entire season. with an 890 save percentage and still make the playoffs

even in the high scoring 2023 NHL. Haven't the Kings gone through like three or four goaltenders themselves? Like I'm I'm also low-key looking at them to fall too. Like I have a hard time believing we could live in a world where, and I know people in Calgary are talking about it, where instead of a Battle of Alberta playoff series, it's based the Battle of Alberta is Calgary and Emmetton hopping over each other, hoping for a wildcard

playoff spot. Like that's what we're in for the next like three months. It would be really fun. It'd be a three-month-long battle of Alberta would be kind of amazing. That is kind of fun, you know. And hey, what if we lived in a world where a play-in game would happen where both these two teams would be tied at the end and they'd be playing in for that. But no, I don't think people want that. It's 82 games in a regular season anyway. Nobody wants a play-in game to add to the extra regular season.

So you know what? And nobody wants salary cap info and nobody minds the digital boards. Everybody knows that. everyone knows that. So yeah, there's nothing wrong with the National Hockey League. And I'm a dummy for even bringing that help. I'm still very bitter about that and how people responded to that. Oh, yeah.

No, but you know what? Like, I'll tell you, I just watched Seattle with my own eyes Saturday night. Martin Jones gives up four goals and they win. And what's incredible, all eight of Seattle's goals, even strength. Not a power, not a single power play goal. Eight even strength goals. against Ottawa. It's a good strong team. On 24 shots, one out of every three shots they took went in the net. And I got to tell you, on this trip, they rolled Edmonton, they rolled Toronto.

Those are two decent teams, you know, beating Ottawa, whatever. But all of a sudden, I'm looking at Seattle at the halfway point. I think they're legit. Do they need to add a goalie at the deadline then? We don't see a lot of goalies get traded at the deadline. It's a big, we always talk about it every year and then goalies don't get traded because it takes a longer time for a goalie to adapt to a different system in front of them than it does, you know, a skater. It's proven fact that it's difficult to make that move at the deadline. But if the crack can go out and get themselves a goalie, we can start talking. And that's a move they have to consider.

I don't see how you can look at what they have right now and think it's good enough. I know they're not really in a win now mode, but they have a chance and they're building some positive momentum in that market. They should be trying to do something this year and getting a goalie would make a big difference. Do you think the crackin would go at Jake Allen? I'm only thinking about it because of what I'm used to see with the Munchrockinades and the situation they're in right now. I know he's at an 8-9-2.

I think he can play better than an 8-9-2 in front of a better team. Alex Steylock's at like a 9-20 and everyone must go in Chicago. Steylock's a veteran. He's fun as hell to watch. I'd really enjoyed watching him. He's taken over as the number one in Chicago. He could be probably had for a song. Why not, you know, throw a pick at him?

Is Chicago at the point, though, and I know they just beat Calgary, was it Sunday? What did they just be California? They beat them on Sunday, 4-3 in overtime. Maxill be scored the overtime winner. Oh, it sounds like the Flames Beat Reporter is on top of that. But is Chicago at the point last where, look, they were very transparent. We all knew what they were doing. And now that we've gotten to this stage at the halfway point, it's like a three or four team turtle derby here.

Columbus is there. Arizona is there. Are we going to see Chicago do some things to really make sure they maximize their odds for Bedard. Honestly, I have a hard time seeing anyone finished behind Chicago in the standings. Remember, they had a pretty good start to the season. In October, they were like a 500 team.

So since then, until this little two-game win streak they've had, they had won two games in two months. Since like November 12th, they had won two games. Like, this team is epically bad since about mid-November when, like, the bottom fell out again. I don't think it's really a huge concern of them, especially they got 21 games on the schedule

after the trade deadline, when they're probably not going to have Cain, Taves, Dolmy maybe, and Fantasyu, maybe one of their goalies. I mean, I think it's John McIndo called them the charred husk of the Blackhawks. If that's what they are now, they're just going to be dust, just literal dust on the ground in March for those last 21 games, most of which are on the road. Like, I just, you know, Arizona's way ahead of the Blackhawks.

Even with Chicago having beaten them on Friday, Arizona is like a four-something, 10 points percentage. The Hawks are like a 260, 270. The Hawks are epically bad and only getting worse. I don't think it's really a race to the bottom. I think it's a race to see who finished the second and last. Because Anaheim and Columbus, they're frankly not in the Blackhawks league. Man, I just think of some of these teams like a Philadelphia or like a Montreal

who are a little bit like further up on them. And it's like, y'all really should have started the tanking like months ago. Like if you're at a position now where you're starting to free fall, it's kind of like if I was a fan of yeah if I was a fan of either of those teams like I'd be like what the hell are you doing you should have been tanking from day one especially looking at how not to bring it back to junior players but how Carter Bredardt played at the world juniors like y'all should have been tanking from day one and frankly if you're in a position now where it's we're recording this on January 9th and if you you have not started your tanking endeavors like

forget it like just just middle around just there's almost no chance you're going to be in that place spot and I get we're in a draft lottery era where there's a chance you could win it and you could still get Connor Baderd. But like, dog, like you're behind. You have to finish in that bottom, in that last spot to guarantee the top three pick. That's what matters most here because if you don't get Badaard, you can get Fantilly. You don't get Fantilly. You can get Leo Carlson. You can take a flyer on Mitch Cough. You have to finish dead last to assure yourself of that. Because we've seen time and again, you know, it was the, it seems like the Red Wings or the coyotes, you know, be really bad, but not be quite bad enough and wind

picking fourth, fifth, six. That's not the same as picking first or second this year. That being said, and I know it's a year by year thing, and this year is looking like a very deep draft. This is just a reminder to everyone who listens. I was like, oh, no, my team didn't finish first. Drafting fourth overall ain't that bad. The Detroit Red Wings can tell you all about that with getting a guy like, oh, I don't

know, Moritz Cider. Colorado Avalanche can tell you all about that with Kail McCar. Drafting fourth overall, it's a very specific number. Not that bad, but just put yourself in position. You know what? I think I just found the trade for McDavid. Oh, my God. McKinnon and McCar for McDavid, who says no?

Oh. Oh. I think I found it. Who says no? Oh, I'm still not sure Edmonton makes that trade. Maybe they should, but I'm not sure should we do. Exactly. Cail McCar is like a singular player in that, like,

he's doing it from position. you don't usually see this from. But McDavid is still... McDavid is going to go down as Mount Rushmore. He's bumping how or off that list. He's that good. I don't know how you could... Wow, that's a...

See? I don't know. It's just about finding that one... Yeah, exactly. Like McKinnon and McCar are like top five players. So you're trading... It's just trading involving top five players. And having two top five players more than one top...

I mean, if you're Edmonton, you probably make the... move because at the end of the day, you could be like, oh, now we have Nathan McKinnon, Kail McCar, and Leon Drysidal. You'd probably make that trade. I don't know. Connor McDavid is literally the greatest hockey player that's ever lived. Like, there's never been a better hockey player than him.

But Drysiddle, McCannock and McKinnettin. Like, you have three really good players. And then like Colorado would just say, all right, congrats you. You have Connor McDavid. And a pretty good roster beyond that. But like, I think about that trade a lot. It's tough. That's tough.

Would the aves do that deal? I don't know if they would. I'm not sure they would. I don't think they do. Like, like, the kale McCar's a friend, like, we talk about, like, Conrad David being the greatest player who ever lived possibly. Kale McCar is the closest thing the NHL has to, like, having like an NBA point guard with insane handles dominate the league. With his transition play, the head. fakes he'll give at the line when he's coming up on an oncoming defender like the handles on when he's

in the offensive zone like kill are is he he is a game changing player and you get him with nathan mckenon who is the equivalent of a bull in in in i don't know if a china shop like i relout it yeah like that that's it's okay yeah it's okay but like but like that's that's what it is like like like i tweeted over the weekend like what's scarier than nathan mckitton coming you at full speed and I get that Connor McDavid is just as scary but like Nathan McKinnett is like a bigger rugged dude like I'd be a little bit

like Connor McDavid I'd be afraid just off the sheer skill Nathan McKinnett would literally run me over if I was a defenseman if he could like I'm not I'm not running up on that like and then he jumps some vegetables down your throat yeah seriously I don't want to have to like go back to the locker room but it's all like

you haven't been eating your chickpeas soup I see it and your practice happens you get One time he eats Whenever that was chickpea pasta And he's just been branded The rest of his My favorite part of that segment though

Is Julian being unsure If he could say bull in a china shop Well I don't know I don't hear people say that no more I don't know I can see the comment section now You're so woke They can't even say China shop

Yeah Yeah Lagerus on one time And this is what happens We were talking about team that were potentially in the mix with Chicago and Philadelphia is certainly one of them. They're in a little bit of a free fall

here and I want to play a little audio from John Totorella here because I think there's a couple of interesting things with the Flyers this week and you know have a listen here's John Totorella being asked about Travis Connectney's having a great season better than a point per game

but he wasn't the player selected the All-Star game for Philly. It was Kevin Hayes. Have a listen here's John Totorella talking about the All-Star game. John, TK has been arguably your most consistent player all year long. Are you disappointed that he didn't make the All-Star team tonight? Oh, I didn't worry about that shit. The whole game, the whole weekend, I don't even watch it.

I think it's turned into a, well, I'll just leave it at that. I really don't care. Do you think that he's deserving of a little bit? I really don't care. Talk about All-Star stuff, okay? Look, Tortorella is probably saying something that, you know, he's saying the quiet part out loud. We all kind of feel this way about the all-star game.

But here's the thing. Kevin Hayes, who was Philadelphia's selection of the all-star game, talked about how much this really meant a ton to him because of the family tragedy he's been through. This is great for him. How do we feel about John Totorella, by the way, he also made Kevin Hayes a healthy scratch a few weeks ago? Now here's Kevin Hayes a great moment for him,

and John Torado is like, I don't care about the All-Sar game. It's stupid anyway. It's kind of insensitive, isn't it? I don't know. Like, be happy for your player? Like, I don't know. Like, that's how I would think that's, I would rub me the wrong way, especially if I'm Kevin A's and I've gone through what I've gone through.

And I guess, you know what, fine, maybe John, you could be a situation where, you know what, John just tells him something privately and he says, like, hey, don't even worry about what I'm saying in the media. But I still think that's a bit weird too. I get it. Like, look, the All-Star game is going to come up. We are all going to find things to complete. playing about with the All-Star game. I also understand that Travis Kineckney probably

maybe a better selection, but also Kevin Hayes at one point, or at least last I checked you was the team's leading score a little bit, but like Travis Kinecti also just as deserving. But like, I don't know. I think if you got a little bit more support from from your head coach on this, like in Calgary, like even Daryl Sutter was all like, hey, I'm happy for an awesome cadre making it. Daryl Sutter could be a bit of a crumption sometimes. So like, I don't know why John Tortorella has to play this tough guy act. Like, I think it's just, it's a bit ridiculous, but also not surprised because we expected Philadelphia to be a tire fire this year.

Look, the Tortorella schick wore off years. I'm so done with this guy. I've been done with this guy for years. I can't believe he still keeps getting jobs. He's not even that good of a coach. He's a guy who coaches you to try to get a loser's point every night. It's just, he's everything I don't like about the league. He's just, I've written about it enough.

Don Torterill, whatever. What I have a problem with is he went pretty close. far to saying that the All-Star game is just a crock and nobody cares about it and it's awful. And I don't think that's true. Look, the Winter Classic was last week. It was in Boston. I couldn't have cared less. I don't really care. It didn't involve teams. I've seen Boston, Pittsburgh, 85,000 times. You've even seen Fenway Park before. I didn't care. But everyone who was there freaking loved it. And that event, the winter class at these outdoor games, they're for the people at the event. All-Star weekend is the same way. I've covered,

over a bunch of All-Star games. And I realized fully, nobody cares about the All-Star game. John Torterell is not wrong there. But when you're there, it's fun as hell. All-Star weekend's a blast. And it's for the fans in South Florida, who, let's face it, are routinely shat upon by everybody in the NHL. There are hockey fans down there.

It's going to be a fun weekend for them. The player's going to do some goofy stuff. We're going to get some fun stories out of it. You know, you get the players to loosen up a little bit, and we'll all have great stories to write down the road. The games are fun enough. of the three-on-three tournaments of fun time. All-Star weekend is not for the national audience either,

just like the Winter Classic isn't. It's for the people at the event. And for Tortero, it would be like, I don't care about any of this. Shut the hell off. I'm just tired of this guy. And he's just this miserable curmudgeon who hates everyone and hates everything.

He doesn't like young player. He doesn't like exciting hockey. I'm just done with this guy. How does he keep getting work in the NHL? Because teams love what they know, right? That's why there's that cycle of course. You won a Stanley Cup 117 years ago. Let's move on.

There are other coaching candidates out there. There are better coaching candidates out there. You know, but towards... 2004's not that far back. It's pretty far. It is. Julian, how old were you in 2004? I was like 10 years old.

You were getting traded by a W.HL team back then, I think. That's right. Yes. Yes, I was. Torts also in a Sunday lost to Toronto, basically stapled Tony DeAngelo to the bench for the entire back half of the game. DeAngelo only played about seven minutes, never saw the ice in the third period. Basically, he coughed the puck over early in the game, led directly to a goal.

DeAngelo, after the game, telling reporters, called his performance unacceptable and said basically no player agrees with getting sat, but I'm not here to question the coach. Tortarella said, I'm not going to discuss it here. You know I'm not going to discuss it with you guys talking about benching Tony DeAngelo. But it feels like the situation, we always thought the situation in Philly had the potential to be explosive, right? You add Tortorella to a group that we didn't really know what the Flyers are. But if you're cheering for Bedard as a Flyers fan, this is what you want, isn't it? You want some turmoil and dissension.

You want this thing to implode, don't you? you? I mean, yeah, but also, do we want Connor Bedard? Just not even as Flyers fans. Let's just speak generally as people who follow the National Hockey League. Do we really want Connor Bedard in Philadelphia with John Torrella as his head coach? I'm not good. I'm not here. I get Mark said what he said about John Torrella. John Tororella, I'm willing to respect the fact that he has a Stanley Cup

and he's able to squeeze a little bit more out of certain teams. I do not want Connor Bedard under a John Tonorella lead team. I don't want it. I really don't want it. I don't want

Connor Bedard to try to be Connor Bardard and then for John Tonorella to stifle the creativity that he could have. Like, let San Jose have him. Even Vancouver. Vancouver's a dumpster fire right now.

Even he'd be better off with the caducks. Whatever the hell they're going to be. Please, please, for the love of God, if Philadelphia gets the first overall pick. my God. John Torrella's still there. No! No! That's really a great point. I hadn't even thought about that possibly. Just imagine just sucking the life out of a player like that. That's an awful idea. I will say this. I just, you know, I just, I just, I just, I just ranted about Torterarella.

I'll say this about him. He's one of the few coaches left who still wields playing time like a weapon, which more coaches should do. I got no problem with him benching a guy who's underperforming. That's what coaches have done since time immemorial, When the guy's not giving you what you need, all you have over him, you can't dock him pay, you can't, all you can do is make him not play, is take playing time from him. I mean, you know, Joel Quendville used to sit Patrick Kane if he didn't, you know, if he half-assed his shift every now when he was a young player. That's a thing that more coaches, frankly, should do is staple a guy to the bench every now and then to send a message. Like, that's all you really have.

That's the only, you know, cudgel you really have as a coach. You know, more coaches should do that. I got no problem with them benching Tony DeAngelo. It's got nothing to do with the fact that it's Tony DeAngelo. I'm surprised we don't see that more often in the NHL, frankly, because that's a way to send the message, isn't it? I mean, you kind of embarrass a guy. Like, it's a way of, it's a way of publicly embarrassing a guy

without calling him out in a press conference, right? Is you just say, I'm just not going to play you for a few shifts here. And I'm surprised we don't see that more often. I wonder if it has to do with just how players are changing and how they respond to certain things, right? And also, like, you can't necessarily do that, to every single player. They're like, I've seen Daryl Sutter bench an entire, like, line for about half a game,

but, like, it had, it was aligned with, like, Milan Luchich and, like, Michael Backlin, for example. And I'm trying to remember who the other player was. But, like, you could probably get away with doing something like that, because those guys are more role players. And even a guy like Tony DiAngelo, who, look, he has the offensive abilities that he has and maybe some more offensive stuff we don't need to get into. But, like, that's not, he's not a big, like, high-impact player.

Could you imagine if, like, Jay Woodcroft, like, benched Connor McDavid for whatever reason, or Leon Drysada for whatever reason? I think there are only so many players you could do that to. I don't even think it's something that's applicable to every coach. And also, depending on who that player is, you're going to have to deal with that headache, especially depending on the market that you're in, you're going to have to deal with that headache. We're fine, you have that thing to weaponize. you're going to have to do with everyone else being like, well, why did you bench it?

Either players, teammates, the media, fans. Like, it is something you could weaponize, maybe, but it really depends on the player that you do. So that's probably why you don't do that much. You got to pick your spots. It can't be an everyday thing. That's going to, that act will wear thin real quick. But I have no problem with the coach doing that from time to time. And I don't think, you know, I mean, if the media freaks out about it, that's what the media does.

I don't know what to say about that. But, you know, you got to manage your own house. and if Emigden's going to lose their minds because Connor McDavid sat for half a period, then let them lose their minds. It would be fun for the rest of us. You know, as we talk about message sending, yeah, John Totorella sent a message,

I'm sure, to Tony DiAngelo on the weekend. David Posternak continues to send a message to the entire hockey world and maybe to the Bruins ownership and front office about his next contract. I'm going to stop you right here. Your segue, every single time I'm on this show, Ian, your segue, I don't know how you do it.

You're a goddamn master. Oh, well, listen, years of radio, years of radio. You can steer at me, any topic to any topic, you can find that pathway. It's amazing. Exactly. Well, I was hoping to go right after talking about Nate McKinnon. I had it in my mind.

We were talking about the chickpea pasta, and I was going to move to Posternock. This was perfect. But we moved on. But look, David Posernak on this road trip to California, gets seven goals against L.A. San Jose and then wraps it up with a hat trick against Anaheim. guys, he's on pace for a 60 goal season in essentially his walk here. And I'm looking at this and I'm thinking, I looked it up. I was like, what did Artemi Panarin do in his last season in Columbus?

And Panarin had 87 points, which was really good. But he was, he was like 18th in league scoring. It wasn't like he was blowing the doors off. But he's, you know, obviously got that massive deal with the Rangers. When you see Posternak on pace for 60 goals, the Bruins on pace to potentially win a president's trophy, make some noise, are you guys looking at David Posternak and say that next contract?

Like, is it $12 million a year? Is that what we're talking about with Posternak here moving forward? It has to be, right? I mean, I love Artemi Panarin. He's great. But if he's making 11.6, how can Posternak not be worth more than that? This isn't like a fluke season.

Remember the year the pandemic hit, I think he had 48 goals through 70 games. I mean, he was on pace for mid-50s in goals. This is a proven score. And there's no more valuable commodity in the NHL than being able to score goals. So I don't see how you don't. He's having an Aaron Judge here, right? Aaron Judge, in his walk year, his 62 home runs.

That's what David Pasternak's doing here, basically, and he's going to get paid accordingly. He should. I don't know how Boston lets this guy test the market to get his 12 or 13 million elsewhere. If you're the Boston Bruins and you see how everything is going for you this year. Like you're on pace for, I mean, not just a president's trophy win, but like among one of the best regular season teams of all time, consider how things are going. And David Pasternak is a big reason for that. He could find a way to extend whatever window that we thought might have been closing ahead of this year for another few years. If you're Boston, whatever, I mean, I don't, I say this, not knowing completely what the salary cap structure is.

that is a guy considering how well he's playing, you give him the checkbook and you're like, write whatever you want. I don't think you, like, you can't let him go. There's this thing in Boston where you're like, everyone takes less money, right? I mean, we saw it from all these guys where they always take less money to be in Boston,

which is hilarious because Massachusetts taxes are like as high as anywhere in the United States. We always talk about the advantages Florida has yet in Texas, but yet Boston keeps doing this. If I'm David Pasternak, screw that. Go get your money, good. I mean, you know, a rising tide lists all boats.

The NHLPA wants you to get as much money as you can. Every player in the NHL wants you to get as much money as you can because it raises the bar for everybody else. This whole like, oh, Boston doesn't do that? No, bullshit. I don't care what happened before. You go get your money. You deserve it.

You earned it. Get paid. I wonder, do you think this will nudge? Like, it's pretty rare. Usually when you're a player of Posternach's stature, you're already locked up, right? Like going into that last year, the team and said, here's the money, whatever.

And a lot of players opt for that security, right? They, okay, like, I wonder if maybe, like, does Posernock make the guys think about, just play out that last year. Like, play it out. You're going to, you could, if, if you're that good, you could potentially, I'm not saying for everybody, but if you're in that, up, that kind of the one percenter, why wouldn't you play it out? Well, that's what we do in the NBA, right?

Everybody takes a two-year deal with a one-year opt-out, and they make more and more money every year as the cap goes up. I mean, it's just not the way it's done. Like, you look at baseball and everyone's locking everyone up for 12, 13 years now. It's like, it's like the late 2000s in hockey. But it just, it's never been the way in hockey. You know, you always, you want these guys to bet on themselves to give themselves the flexibility where they don't get locked into Edmonton for eight years necessarily. They don't get locked into a team, but these guys just think, long contract, lots of money, security, I don't have to move, this is all good. It's going to take someone to Pastor Nax Satcham. Austin Matthews could have been the guy.

to change things and he didn't. He took a what, a five or six year deal? Five, five year deal. That's, that was like, oh, a short-term deal. That's five years is his entire prime. Five years is a long time. Until one of these superstars takes a one or a two-year deal where you're never going to see that culture change in the NHL where the players start controlling their own fate a little bit more. They're worried about injuries, which is a completely understandable concern. But it's just not the way things are done. And until a player does that, we're not going to see anyone, you know, a sea change in that. You know, Marion Hosa kind of did that, though, right? Like, he goes from Atlanta to Pittsburgh at the deadline.

Then he signs the one-year deal, right, with Detroit. He's like, you know what, I'm going to, and that was in his prime. He could have gone out that year and maximizing he went to Detroit. Then he went to Chicago, got the long-term deal. But that's the only, I know Korea and Solani did it way back in the day, kind of in their prime to go to kind of play together. Right? Or, I'm sorry, was it?

Salani went to Colorado, right, on a one-year deal. Yeah, you did for like a bit. Yeah. And like, so we've seen it a little bit where guys will maybe go and do it, but it's, it's going to take like one of these like 12 or $13 million guys to do it at age 25, 26 years old before everyone else even considers it. Like someone's going to have to take the big step. We all thought Matthews could have been that guy. And he wasn't the guy.

Well, Matthew, I mean, here's the thing. Well, first off with Marian Hosa, how old was he when he made all? all the jumps from Atlanta to Pittsburgh to Detroit. Like he was still in his 30s, right? Like, he was still prime, but like... I think he was stuck in his late 20s still. Oh, really? Okay.

So that still applies for that situation because like, yeah, okay, fine. So like, yeah, I really feel like the NHL, their players are really due for this player empowerment era that like the NBA is sort of in, well, be not sort of. They're very much in that right now. Maybe we're closer to the end of that with how certain things have transpired. But like, I look at the LeBron decision as like the beginning of like a true. power thing where like players realize, hey, you know what? I don't need to get locked into this massive deal.

I'm going to put my own fate into my own hands. And David Posternock is like maybe not the perfect player, but like he could go on that route. And I still think with Austin Matthews and yeah, maybe five years is a long time. But once we get to July, people are going to start wondering what that next contract is like. And he's still playing some pretty high level hockey. Austin Matthews, not to scare Toronto fans at all. if you really wanted to do that. Like, he could easily be that guy to usher in that era where he's like, you know what,

nah, I don't have to lock myself to eight, nine years more of being a Toronto Maple Leaf. Like, I could put myself out there and be like, all right, give me my 15 million New York Rangers, Los Angeles Kings, Arizona, Cite. Jeez, dude, what? No, but you get what I mean. Like, I think, I still think Austin Matthews could be that guy if he really wants to. I don't know if that's what he really wants. And I still would be very surprised if he left the Toronto Maple Leafs.

But like summer 2024, like, let's, if he doesn't sign anything by then, like, I would love to see how that plays out. By the way, Julian was right on this. The two guys who covered Marian Hosa in Mark Lazarus and Ian Mendez did not know the age of Marion Hosa. Haas was 30 when he signed in Detroit. Really? 31 in Chicago. You're right. You're right.

You're right. The Black Congress is a 31 year old to a 12-year-old to a 12-year contract. What a time it was to be alive. But as I was saying, like playing at 30 is very different to playing at 26, which is what David Pasternak is right now. And like he's closer to entering his prime

than exiting it like Marinoza was. Like it's a very, very different thing. Cage Thompson destroyed the curve here. He destroyed the curve. Oh, yeah. That's 7.1 right before he blew up, man. Everyone's going to be like, oh, well, Tage Thompson's only making $7.1 million. Some GM's going to pull that one out and try to point to that.

Like the McKinnon, the Kinning contract. But you know what, though? On Tage, like, you can understand from his vantage point, he had kind of been, you know, struggling to break through. Has his whatever, 38 goal year. He's like, all right, I'm going to cash in. Now, in hindsight, yeah, absolutely. If he has the season that he's having now, he might get into that nine and have 10 million dollar range right like you're you're starting to look at him and say that's two

seasons now where he's done it but i i don't blame him there i a someone's i don't blame that security yeah i'm just saying like every every gm's going to go why am i going to pay you this when that guy's making that it was you know the nathan mckin and the keitha kuturoff syndrome where these guys had team friendly deals because of when they were signed right before they blew up that you know someone's going to try to use that as a reason not to give david pastrudec every penny he deserves. You know, and at the last, the NHL lockout in 2012, 13, the owners were really pushing hard for a five-year limit on contract limits. They were like, hey, we want a five-year term. And the PA fought against it. And I always thought, man, if I'm the PA, I still think you can, like,

your very best, best, best, best players are going to be better off on shorter deals. They absolutely will be. Like, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the. The McKinnons and the McCars and the McDavid's are going to push that ceiling higher with shorter-term deals. I always thought it was crazy to me that the owners were the ones like, no, no, no, we need to bring the years down. And the PA was like, no, no, we want to have max. Like, guys, you don't understand. You're only, the only guy signing the seven, eight year deals are your mega, mega stars. I mean, there's the odd Nick Paul, whatever, but those aren't the guys.

that you're doing this for. Why wouldn't you want your best players to just repeatedly maximize their value, right? That's just the hockey player mindset, right? They think of the big picture instead of like, you know, maximizing. And again, the injury risk in hockey is so much higher than it is in basketball.

And I understand that. And the security allows you to play a sport like this without worrying about that. I fully understand it. But you're never going to maximize your earnings potential in a league that's growing at the rate the NHL is growing. by taking these long-term deals.

Only way you can really get that, if these guys were taking two or three-year deals, we'd already be at $15 million of some of these guys. Yeah, I mean, go back and think of the Ovechkin and the Crosby deals, right? Like, if you think about, you talk about Mount Rushmore, you can make an argument that Sid is on a Mount Rushmore right now

of what he's accomplished where, that guy never made $10 million a year. Crazy. He's like our most like 8.7. Yeah. that's insane. You could say, you could make the argument

that Cindy Crosby's has been criminally underpaid for the entirety of his career. Yeah, 100%. Yeah. Absolutely. In what other sport

would you look at the best player for a decade long and say that guy's criminally underpaid? Is there, like, you wouldn't, would you? I don't know. From the big four? I can't.

You're looking now. I mean, Patrick Mahomes is making half a billion dollars. Yeah. 500 million dollar deal. left-handed one-out relievers in baseball are making like $12 million a year. Like seriously, if you're like, you could be an eighth man on an NBA team and make just as much as Connemick David does. Exactly, exactly.

You could be a, you could be a situational reliever and make more than Sidney Crosby does. Like, you know, it blows my mind that we look at these Antichael players and we know how amazing they are and we know how incredible that they can play, at least on the ice. and like you just when you compare their salaries to I don't know the one name that always comes to mind is Omer Oshik was this like a random like journey mid to NBA center like thinking like Omer O'Reichick could make just as much money if not more than you. Patty Mills. Patty Mills last I checked his son like this guy who was like a bench player for the spurs for so long like an easy six man for that. Patty Mills was out here making Connor McDavid money. Like what? What? And I always. not that blue money. Like we mentioned earlier, these owners aren't, you know, scrounging around a couple of dollars trying to, trying to make ends meet here. This is not a poverty league anymore. It's a $5 billion industry. They're getting $650 million expansion fees. The billion dollar TV deals. There's money out there. They just don't want to spend it. Alan Walsh is going to love this podcast episode. That's right. Oh, man. Yeah, there's nothing like a great Alan Walsh Twitter rant.

I love, I live for those. I'll tell you what kills me. What kills me is when fans are like, well, don't they make enough money? Isn't this enough money? Why should they have to pay? When you're on the side of the billionaires, that's what I don't really understand.

Thank you. Thank you. Who sides to the, like, anytime there's a lockout or a player strike, like, who's siding with the billionaires? What kind of person is like, no, the billionaires who won't spend the money are right? You know what it is?

It's because, especially when the lockout happened at 0405, and even in the 2012, 2013, era, we as a society were never considered the phrase, eat the rich. And this is not me saying, eat the rich. I don't think anybody was a, hey, look, you want to eat the rich. If you want to eat the rich, have yourselves from Dijon muster when you do it. It might help with the flavor.

But all I'm just saying is, I don't think as a society, we had considered phrases like that with billionaires. That being said, there are still people who believe that. And it always blew my mind, in all seriousness here. It always blew my mind that people in lockouts and work stoppages, for whatever reason, would just point at the poor, at the players, to be like, nah, like you guys make so much money. What about us as people trying to go to games?

When the $2 billion owner out here making money off of both of y'all, and you have nothing for that guy. It always blew my mind. And you know what? I give props to owners, man. I give props for them. They found a way to be good guys in these work stoppages. I give them full marks because-

They paint themselves as the poor ones. Yeah. That's it, man. These guys are just, they're just playing a game. kids game and he's making this much money and you really have the all the poor baby that's crazy man the only the like when we look at like comic book movies or just comic books period if you find some super rich person that's not batman there's a good chance they're going to be the villain pro sports has found a way to make owners look like the good guys and i think it is

one of the most incredible things you can you can see incredible and julian by the way for people who are listening to this but can't see the video is wearing an nchel cap as he says this. You're wearing an NHL ball cap. He's like Rob Lo with the NFL Shield hat. With the Roblo, exactly. It's the Roblo. Go league, go.

But you know what? Julian's got an old school NHL. This is from the 90s. It's the NHL logo from the 90s because A, it's orange and B, the letters are going downward. Remember when they came out of the lockout in 2005, they swiss. the logo to silver and then had the letters go up because their whole point was the league is on the upswing. And they changed the way that the-

How many meetings? How many focus groups and how many billionaires in a room do they have to decide to come up with that? I'd brilliant idea. Oh, my God. How much you think the consulting firm got paid to come up with that? Oh, so brutal. I think that whole world. It's probably the sad thing is it probably wouldn't surprise me if that was like about as much as like a league mid-term.

for a player. Or $50,000 or more. $700,000 to come up with that. Oh, man. Can you imagine that? Like, yeah, I'm really happy about this hat. I saw someone at a Flames game. I look a photographer, wear it. Actually, there's a funny story with it.

One of my good friends, Aaron Vickers, who also covers the Calgary Flames for a couple different outlets. We had noticed that this photographer had this hat and we were looking around online to see if we could find it. We were trying to order it from the It's got the 47 label here. I think we're trying to get from the actual store, but it did not ship to Canada.

So we looked around. We tried to find some stores online. There were some kind of like local stores, but we weren't sure about how legit it was. So around Christmas, like I just decided to look again. I found one spot that had it in like Edmonton. So I bought it from there. And then I thought, well, you know what? My friend Aaron would probably like this hat.

So I tried to go back to that store. They sold out of that hat. So I had to find a completely different store to try. to find a second hat. And I remember when both of them came in, I go into the press area with this hat and I, and like, Aaron sees me with it. And he's like, what the hell? Like, we were both looking at this hat. Like, why would you do this and all that? I'm like, you know what? I knew exactly, I knew you would respond exactly this way. And I served with that other hat. Bam, with the other hat. But I also learned that his wife was also looking for one of these hats too. So now he has two of

these hats. You can't go around wearing the same hat as your wife. That doesn't work. Yeah, I want to delve into that a little bit more. I'm not sure that... His wife was looking for it. But they can't wear that together at any point. Why not? You can't. Isn't that what...

It's too specific. It's too specific. It's a one thing if you're both wearing like a Calgary Flames hat at a Calgary Flames game. But wearing an old school 90s era NHL hat that's exactly the same as your spouse, I'm not sure that you can pull that off. You can't. Do you think that's... Is that suss?

Mark, is that suss? My daughter would definitely say it's not busing. Why would you say busing in that contact? All she says everything is either bussing or not bussing. Bro. Everyone is bruh. And she kind of moved on from Suss. Mid.

Mid is her new ones. You would call your head to mid. Mid's already played out though. I'm trying to tell her that Mids already played out. But she's fully out to everyone using brough and bro is like a unisex term. Like we don't have to worry about it being assigned any gender. We could just call anybody bro. Oh, yeah.

But also like, yeah, Suss has been a thing. Mid's been a thing. Bussin, I only associate Bustin with food. Like if I eat something like a really good chicken cutlass sandwich and like I really feel it in the pits of my stomach and it's really good. Like that's Bussin. I don't know if I would say like, yeah, man, that alpha you wearing? That's busting.

Like that's not something I would say. To be fair, she's 10. So she doesn't know what the hell she's talking about. Yeah, that's true. She's not on the internet really. So she's just picking up memes like third hand. Okay, that's fair. So she's still learning.

She's still learning how to apply that. So I'll give her some grace. See, this is what I love about the pod. Julian kind of gets us up to speed, Mark, on some things like this. We teach him about the Dennis Miller era of broadcasting and sports. And we're all good. Hey, I want to ask you guys one more thing before we wrap up,

and that this is the first year ever that the NHL is going to be incorporating Twitter voting into the All-Star game. So this week, of course, fans are able to go online. and vote for, you know, if you feel like talking about Travis Kineckney, being snubb, you know, whoever you think your favorite player is that didn't get there, you could do it. But you can also do it on Twitter this year. And you're going to be combining that with the online selection. So basically, the league, I guess they have a way of monitoring how many tweets that are using the hashtag,

the official hashtag, and you tag a player in that, they're going to be able to add up the retweets, replies and quote tweets using that and then add that in. Do you feel like this is going to go well or something's going to... I think... It should be accusations of bots or what's going to happen. It's going to be all-Russian players getting into the All-Star game. It should be all-Russian bots voting. It'll be the All-Russian All-Star.

Is the NHL is all going to say Vox Populi, Vox Day, and misquote that after posing the poll here? This is a disaster waiting to happen. I'm all for empowering the... fans and stuff, but Twitter, no, Twitter polls, what are we doing here? Are we Darren what are we doing here? Guys, I don't understand the pessimism. Nothing has ever gone wrong on Elon Musk's Twitter. Nothing has ever gone wrong on the internet. Nothing has ever gone wrong on Twitter. I mean, I know that any online voting system can be rigged by smart people. I get that. But it sure feels like Twitter is like made to mess with a voting system.

Yeah, this is like, I feel like the NHL is like a year. too late on this. I mean, I don't know if the K-pop genre is still, like, in vogue, but, like, if I'm an NHL player, all I need to do is just be like, hey, I'm a fan of, like, BTS or Black Pig, vote me to the All-Star game. Boom. That's it. That's how I'm going. That's it. Like, get the Swifties to mobilize. Yeah, that's it. Like, all I have to do is just say, like, I'm a big fan of insert artists here with massive following, and then, boom, I have their entire fan base voting me to the All-Star game. Like, that's what I would do.

That's a great, yeah, that's a great call. But the fact that you don't know if K-pop is still a thing is a little worrisome. We rely on you to tell us if these things are still a train. They still exist. They're still out there. There we go. Look, they're never going away, man. Or Black Pink, right? I don't know all the groups.

I just don't know. I only know about BTS. I see what my friends post sometimes. I'm like, all right, cool. I guess this is cool. But like, I don't know if it's still, I don't know if it still has that same. Like, I remember watching an HL game last year on Hockey Night in Canada, and to begin their broadcast, they used a song from the group BTS. Would Hockey Night in Canada use a K-pop song now to start a broadcast? I thought they were legally required for every song to be the tragically hip.

Is that an incorrect stereotype I've had in Canadians? I'm bad. I think that's a very, that's a very, well, it's well played. That's very well played. I can't even, I can't even be mad about that. That's well played. All right, guys, wrapping up the Monday show like we always do. We got a couple of segments here to put a bow on this.

The first is we look back at the last week or so, and we try and hand out a Jack Adams award of the week. And, you know, since we're basically, I'm going to stretch it back to January 1st. So it's basically nine days. I'm going to give you guys some options here. You tell me who you think is the best coach so far in 20. 23. I talked a little bit earlier about the job Dave Haxell and the Cracken have done. Guys, they're 4 and 0 to start the year.

They've outscored opponents 22 to 8. So the Cracket are really rolling. But here comes Jim Montgomery and the Bruins. Once again, they're 4 and O. Rick Bonas has Winnipeg off to a 3 and 0 start. Same with John Hines in Nashville, 3 and 0. Guys, as the calendar slipped to 2023, just using this last eight or nine days, who do you think? I said, wow, man, that's really impressive.

because I'm leaning Dave Haxdell. I think the Cracken seem legit. Like I said, they rolled into Ottawa score to eight even strength goals. That's where I would put my vote. Man, I'm going with that too. I think Jim Montgomery's already going to put himself as a frontrunner for the Jack Adams Award, like overall. So like, there are going to be so many other instances

where we're going to be able to give him another Jackabs of the week. Didn't we give him one already? I feel as if we've definitely put him in the running. I think every time I've been on this show, we've given it to him. Yeah, come on. Like Jim Montgomery's got enough. I think Dave Haxstall, Look, before this year, there are a lot of people who question Dave Haxstall as an NHL coach.

You could look at him in Philadelphia. You could look at how we started in Seattle. Let Dave Haxstall have this moment, this cracking team. Like, they could make the playoffs. You brought it up earlier. They could unseat some power that we thought would be a power in the Pacific Division out of the playoffs because of how they've disturbed things. They're a good, quick team.

They have a rookie of the year candidate. And Mani Baneers, who's also a front runner for that as well, I get the skepticism with Martin Jones. The Cracken look pretty good, and Dave Haxdell, I think, deserve some credit for that. I won't get to it. I want to throw some support behind John Hines, because I think we all forgot the Nashville Predators even existed

as a few weeks ago. And now here they are. They're six one and two since that six game losing streak. And look, I don't know how much coaching goes into saying, hey, UC Saros, go make 64 saves. Yay, we won. But they beat in Carolina. They'd be Washington back to back on the road.

They've won three in a row, I think. And they're all of a sudden kind of nudging their way into that. that playoff picture in the crowded Western conference, they're going to start being in that discussion with, you know, Seattle and L.A. and Edmonton and Calgary and Colorado, where they're muscling their way in. I don't think any of us saw that comment. So let's give John Hines a little love here.

Yeah. No, listen, there's a couple of great candidates here. And you're right, Nashville, I'm with you. That UC Soros performance last week was unbelievable. Like, you know, I mean, I know it's Carolina, and they shoot literally the puck from wherever they stand on the ice. So 64 Carolina shots is like 45 regular shots. But that's a really good team too.

And that's a lot of saves. 45 regular shots are still a lot of shots. That's a lot of shots. The Calgary Flames know a lot about the Carolina way, by the way. So where are we going? Are we going to Haxdale here? I'm going to Dave Haxstall. It's two out of three.

We can go. Okay. There we go. Then the other question I have to wrap up, as we hit the halfway point of the season, I'm going to give you guys three things. you tell me what's the most likely thing that will happen this year in the NHL, okay? Is it A, Connor McDavid is going to get to 150 points? Is it B, Eric Carlson is going to get to 100 points, or is it C, somebody in the NHL

is going to score 60 goals this season. Laz, you got to pick one. One is most likely to happen. What's it going to be? I mean, it's in all of the above situation. I don't think any of these are all that far-fetched. but of the three, I would say, God, 60 goals. I think you're going to see, you know,

you might have two or three guys threatening that by the end of this year the way they're going. McDavid, dry-sidal, Pasternak, Thompson, Jason Robertson can get hot again. I think, I would bet on all three of those things happening, quite frankly, but 60 goals feels like the most possible to me. Wow. I mean, yeah, I guess all of the above, yeah. Connerick-David scored 60 goals. I think he might even get 70.

Yeah. That's my pick. He might go full Bernie Nichols, is what you're saying? Yeah. Bernie Nichols. Bernie Nichols. Oh, the 90s were a hell of a time. Yeah.

Damn. The early 90s I should specify. Yeah. Actually, I think Bernie Nichols was like late 80s, didn't he? Did he score 70? I think he scored 79. I think he scored seven. I think.

But anyway, but yeah. I just assumed every big year happened in 1992. Yeah. Just missed. 1992. Just missed it. Yeah. All right. So you're going, you're going, McDavid's going to get to 60?

Yes. I think he might have multiple guys getting 60. I think he might even go further than 60. I think he might actually get to 70. That's my thinking. Yeah, man. You know what? And it's funny. And Carlson's on pace for over 100 points.

And I wonder to, like with San Jose out of it, doesn't it kind of feel like he, like he kind of would have the green light to kind of just just go not do what you're going to go go do what you're I'm with last I think maybe we do see all three of these things happening but you know what give me McDavid in the 150 points because he's right on pace for it right now and to me that would okay I guess let me flip this around too would that not be the most impressive of the three things would that not be the most impressive thing is if McDavid would get to 150 oh yeah because we just had a score I mean it's done it's been done

recently it's been a hundred point and Roman Yose is he had like 90-something points last year. So like nobody sniffed 150 points. No, I think that would blow everyone out of the order, yeah. I think the fact that like for this current generation for them to lose their minds over 150 points, it'd be really great for that, considering that when Bernie Nichols did it, he was fourth in league scoring. Like back at that. I think Eisenman had 150 points that year too, right?

And Gretzky and Lemieux? So Steve Arsman had 155, Wayne Gretzky had 168, and Mario, one. 190. He had 85 goals. He had 85 goals a season? Yeah, Mario Lemieux was pretty good. He was pretty good. Yeah, he was okay.

It was all right. Super Mario Lemieux. Yeah. I once saw Mario Lemieux. My first job out of school was covering the penguins for a suburban Pittsburgh favor. And it was the year that Mario came back, that 2000, 2001 year.

And they were sitting in practice. You know how guys play like the post game or whoever did all three posts, you know, two posts and crossbar first win? I saw Mario Lemieux against some young guy. I can't remember who it was. He sat at Center Ice. From Center Ice.

From the face off out of center ice went left post, crossbar, right post on three shots. It was the most amazing thing I'd ever seen. And this is coming out of retirement. This is at age like 112, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that that Lemieux season in which he had the 1099 points, I think you can make the argument that's the best season any players ever put together in the NFL.

Because if I'm not mistaken, he missed. I want to say it was five or six games. Like he could have had the 92 goals. And he would have had the 200 points. And like it's. Yeah. He was always about staying healthy with them, obviously. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. 85 goals. The greatest one player ever. Yeah. Yeah, because I'm still convinced that if he plays with a full clean bill of health, and I mean, you can say that about every player, but a much cleaner bill of health than what he ended up getting. He breaks a lot of his records.

People forget how big and strong he was. a horse. He wasn't like Wayne Gretzky out there dancing around being talented. He could do everything. Is he more of a, is he more of your what if guy than like Bobby Orr? Or Mike Bossy. Or Mike Bossy or even, even, even Eric Lindross to me. Yeah. Eric Lindross was a guy that

would be a what if for me. I think Lemieux might be this most singularly talented hockey player that ever lived. So it's hard to wonder what, hard not to wonder what he could have done. That's it. And he was so close to so many of Gretzky's records and his scoring ability that, like, we have no choice, but to be like, well, yeah, like, what if? Like, no respect to Bobby Orr and Mike Bossy. I mean, they're not, they're obviously goats. They're obviously legends. But, like, Mario and Wayne are so close. Like, you don't have that debate with anybody else. Man, I think it's Bobby Orr for me because I think, like, he got taken down in his, like, mid to late 20s, right?

Like, yeah, he was like Sandy Kofax basically Yeah Yeah, the five year Like yeah, you would argue, right? Sandy Kofax's five best years Or the best five years any pitchers ever had, right? Right, right. It's tough, it's tough call.

But Mario, man, man. He was, he was something to watch, man. Yeah, yeah. All these other guys are before my time, so it's whole hard for me to say, but like, I saw a Mario play. I knew what he could do. And it's like, I wish we could have gotten more of that.

That's all. Like my thing with Mary is just watching whatever highlights and playing NHL 2002 with him on the cover. Was he a cover guy in O2? Yeah, after he came back. NHL 2002. Yep, man, I don't remember that. Yeah, that's amazing.

I don't know if I have to go through that whole list of the 2000s cover athletes again, but he was definitely. That's right. You did it already. I did that already. I did that already. And then things got really weird when you started reading off all the regional covers. No.

All right. Guys, listen, we're going to leave it there. We want to thank everybody for listening to this first Monday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show in 2023. Las, thank you for dropping by. This was fantastic. You were not the Dennis Miller, the third, the awkward third wheel. I was the John Gruden, which is even worse.

Oh. Cut, cut it. Cut it. We're done. It's done. Let's go. We'll leave it there. All right.

We want to remind you. that you can follow us in your favorite podcast platform. Leave us a rating and review. We'd appreciate that. We've got a great deal on a subscription with the Athletic for a $2 a month deal when you visit the athletic.com slash hockey show.