The Athletic Hockey Show - Corey Perry leaves Blackhawks for “foreseeable future”, Patrick Kane to the Red Wings?, Jacob Trouba fined for stick-swinging incident, and much more

Episode Date: November 27, 2023

On this Monday edition of The Athletic Hockey Show, Ian, Julian, and guest cohost Mark Lazerus discuss Corey Perry leaving the Blackhawks for the foreseeable future for as-yet-unknown reasons, Detroit as a potential frontrunner to land Patrick Kane, Jacob Trouba fined $5,000 for swinging his stick at Trent Frederic’s head, if the Rangers are the best team in the East right now, the NHL’s sadly predictable reaction to Marc-Andre Fleury’s Native American tribute mask, Nikita Kucherov quietly leading the NHL in scoring, and more.Subscribe to The Athletic Hockey Show on YouTube: http://youtube.com/@theathletichockeyshowGet a 1-year subscription to The Athletic for $1 a month before the Black Friday deal runs out! http://theathletic.com/hockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Hockey Show. Welcome to your Monday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show to kick off your week in hockey. It's Ian Mendez, Julian McKenzie, as always, but we need to fill out the line. We need to have a solid winger here. Two-way guy. It's Mark Lasz. I'm like the third guy in the booth. You know, you got the guys in the booth talk and then there's some guy between the benches

who never knows when to jump in and chime in and is talking over guys all the time. time. That's me, baby. You're Dennis Miller from Monday night football. Oh, baby, doll. Yes, I am. Here's a reference about the battle of something from 1924. Dennis Miller, that era of Monday night footballer was in the booth. Like, that was a little before my Monday night football watching time. It's hard to believe that actually happened. Yeah. Like, yeah. Like, what was that like? It was weird. It was really, this was before Dennis Miller went off the deep end and became like a, you know, like a Q&ON crazy person. but it was so weird because he's a really funny guy

and it really didn't work at all. But it was fascinating every week. Like you had to tune in just as like, this is so weird, I can't not listen. And it was Al Michaels too, wasn't it? Yeah, yeah. Like that's the funniest part of it all. It's Al Michaels and Dennis Miller.

Anyway, but yeah, we've set the bar too low. You're not the Dennis Miller of this trio. But we're excited to have you on Las because, boy Chicago has been back in the news cycle here in the last week and I listen I think the listeners would probably be really curious to know how this whole and we're going to start with the Cory Perry situation but kind of how that story even just got onto your radar

obviously and then it all kind of goes over the Thanksgiving weekend which is tough for everybody you're all kind of trying to get into holiday mode but you've got this huge story brewing so take our listeners through the last week of trying to cover Chicago Blackhawks and Corey Perry Yeah, you know, it's interesting because they were in Columbus for the night before Thanksgiving on Wednesday. And Perry was out there for the morning skate. Now, this was the one game, probably the one game all year that not a single Chicago reporter went to because of the timing, newspaper deadlines before a holiday are so early.

It's just not worth, you know, risking, missing Thanksgiving if there's a delay coming back. So there were no Chicago reporters. I wasn't there. Scott Powers wasn't there. Ben Pope wasn't there. Phil Thompson wasn't there. Charlie Romaliotas wasn't there. nobody was there.

And from all accounts, Perry was on the ice for morning skate. And all of a sudden, he's a scratch right before the game. And he's not out there for one of them, so we don't know why. So, all right. Well, we can't, you know, to his credit, Chris Vosters, the PA, the Black Ox play-by-play guy actually asked Luke Richardson about them into scrump because there was nobody else there to ask him. So at least he just said it was a team decision.

So then the next day is Thanksgiving and there's practice. And Perry's still not out there. So, all right. Luke Richardson not giving any answers saying he doesn't know. The next game Friday afternoon, Matinee against Toronto, no Corey Perry. His stuff is still in his locker. He's still got a nameplate in the locker room and everything. But he's not there.

Players say they don't know what's going on. Nick Falino says he doesn't know what's going on. Connor Bedard says he doesn't know what's going on. Luke Richardson says he doesn't know what's going on. And finally, it took forever. But on Saturday, Kyle Davidson comes out and says that this is a team decision because he does know what's going on. he's the GM, he should be the one answering for this, and he finally did, but he still didn't provide any details other than he's not going to be back with the Blackhawks for the foreseeable

future. And then, of course, a less than an hour after that, Corey Perry's agent sends out a statement saying that he has stepped away from the team to attend to a personal matter. Now, two things can be true. You can be essentially told to go away and then decide to reevaluate things and, you know, address a problem. That seems to be what has happened here. but without any specifics, and we're all working on the specifics, it's a very unusual situation for a guy who was the third leading scorer on the team and was playing a very big role in that locker room is suddenly gone, and it seems very likely that he's not going to return at any point.

What do you think of how Chicago's handled this? You were able to detail a timeline of how they handled it, and this is an organization that has a fascinating history when it comes to transparency with other stories. And I'm not trying to equate past stuff with this organization, but of course we're going to focus on that with Chicago, knowing with how they've handled stuff with Kyle Beach previously. Essentially, their reputation on that front has been tarnished on that front.

So my question is just, what do you think of how they've handled it to this point in terms of whatever information they've been able to try to tell us? Well, that's right. They don't get the benefit of the doubt yet, right? They have to earn that, and they have not earned that. I mean, you know, after even you go, this needs. regime says all the right things. And I really do believe that they have the right ideals in mind and they're striving to make this better organization. And I do believe they

can pull it off. But man, you know, you think back to the Jenner and Block report. When that came out, who was the first person who had to answer questions from reporters, Jeremy Colleton, who was playing in Sweden at the time when the Kyle Beach stuff all went down. He had to answer for it, and then Payne and Taves. It wasn't Danny Warts. It wasn't Jamie Faulkner. It wasn't Rocky words. And you think back to last spring with the whole pride jersey thing, you know, two weeks before their pride night, Connor Murphy told me in Detroit, absolutely we're going to wear them. There's no way that anyone in here is not going to wear those jerseys. We're all going to wear those jerseys. It means a lot to us. And then the Blackhawks say, you're not allowed to wear those jerseys.

Who had to answer first for that? Connor Murphy, that's bad. That's not fair. That puts him in a bad position. And now here it was Luke Richardson, who genuinely seems to not know what is happening with Corey Perry, at least he certainly doesn't seem to have the full details. And he's had to answer it for day after day after day, for what, three, four straight days until Kyle Davidson finally comes out and doesn't say anything, but at least he can answer the questions about it, right? That's how this is supposed to go. So they haven't handled it great.

That said, they might very well have very good reasons for keeping this quiet. Just because they're not telling us anything doesn't mean they're doing something wrong. You know, this is supposed to be the age of transparency. That's been a very big buzzword for this franchise since the... the changeover from John McDonough to Danny Wirtz. They have not been transparent at all throughout this, at all. But there might be a very good reason for that. That's what makes this tough is, you know,

the instinct is to jump all over the team because they have screwed this up in the past. But they might be doing the right thing here. We just don't know yet. Like, we don't know what this is. And until we know what this is, it just fuels all this speculation and this, I'm not sure there's anything you can do about that. So we obviously don't know the details on Perry.

And I think speculating is. is reckless and it's not helpful. But what we do know is that the Chicago Blackhawks started this season, Las with the intention of having Corey Perry and Taylor Hall come in and sort of be the, and with Nick Fulino to be the sort of the veterans to guide some of the young core, obviously with Connor Bardard. Perry is now, at least for now, out of the equation, and then kind of lost in all this, Taylor Hall is done for the year,

which, I mean, this has to hurt because you would figure Chicago would use them as a trade chip or use them, you know, bring them back, whatever. But how big of a loss is Taylor Hall here? Well, he's really, on the ice, he's a huge loss. He was coming into the season was probably their best player, right? Like their best offensive weapon because you didn't know what Connor Bredard was going to be as an 18-year-old.

Taylor Hall is a very, still, he's 31, he's a very good player still. He's a former MVP and he's a number one overall pick. That's why they got him to sit there and slot him alongside Connor Badard, teach him the ways, help him out, and score a bunch of points while doing it, right, to help Bedard score a bunch of points. But Hall's been injured. He got hurt in the second game of the season. He hurt his shoulder when he got a blindside hit from behind in the second game of

the season in Boston. He came back from that, didn't work out. And then he gets his knee twisted up in Tampa. He, you know, he's off for nine days. He comes back for two games. He played two games after the incident that messed up his knee. And now he's having knee surgery that's going to end his season. So he never had a chance to really get going.

So that's why Lucas Reichel is. on the top line left wing instead of Taylor Hall. It was supposed to be Hall all season. I don't know what you do about that when he is suddenly unavailable. You just, you know, you have to find other people that can play that role alongside Bedard. And right now, without Perry, the third leading score, without Hall, arguably your most talented non-Badard player, there's so much burden on Connor Bedard to produce for this team that it's kind of unreasonable.

And I asked Kyle Davidson if he was going to go out and try to get him some help. And he basically said no. He said if we were in a team in a different situation, we would do that. But they're certainly not going to give up prospects and assets and ethics to go and get a veteran. Because they're not going to the playoffs this year. But it puts Carter Bedard in a pretty difficult spot. And I mean, not to get back to Cory Perry here. I mean, it's not like you could, depending on whatever that situation is,

it's not like you could offload him and get some help in return, right? This might be a situation where you might just have to cut your losses in that situation. Right. And Perry was making $4 million, too. There's not a lot of teams that would be able to take him on as a rental anyway this early in the season. So, I mean, they brought up Joey Anderson and Cole Gutman. Cole Gutman walks in all of a sudden. He's the second line center.

How many of you have heard of Cole Gutman out there? He's a nice prospect of the Blackhawks like. He's 24 years old. They like him. But all of a sudden, he has to be centering your second line because who the hell else is going to do it? You know, Jason Dickinson gets a hat trick in that game against Toronto. You need games like that from everybody now. You need guys to just pop off

in order to take some of the burden off Badaard because other teams know to focus on Badaard because there's nobody else that can score. You know, I did want to ask you about somebody who obviously was the face of Chicago for the better part of a decade, and that's Patrick Cain. And Lass Cain is back in the news cycle.

The feeling is he's trying to narrow this down. It's almost like a sweepstakes type of thing. It's almost like he's interviewing teams, him and his camp, rather than the other way around, and he's going to find a spot that fits. The one that I find intriguing that maybe the start of the year, I didn't think would be of real players,

that's Detroit. Like last, they're off to a good start. They're winning games. His old buddy, the brinket is there. It's not a far trip, right? Like Detroit,

like if you're talking geography, not bad, they have a cap space. They don't have to detonate their roster to fit him in. As you're looking at this, are you starting to think that Patrick came to Detroit, to Detroit might have some legs here? It's certainly a realistic possibility.

And, you know, one thing that people haven't been talking about with this whole Patrick Kane thing is his dad. His dad goes to just about every practice and every game he can, but he doesn't like to fly. He wants to be able to drive places. So while Florida and Dallas, in my mind, are by far the best two options if you're Patrick Kane. Those are two teams that would fit him, that are contenders,

that would be just a great setup for him. the geography of it makes it challenging. Detroit, easy drive from Buffalo. You can do that as closer than Chicago was. So you look at, you know, Toronto was always a good option, though. It's just not realistic. Buffalo, there's a lot of reasons not to do Buffalo. And one of them is they're not contending this year, right?

They don't look like a real, like if you're Patrick Kane and you're 35 years old, you're not looking to sign with a scruffy team. You're looking to contend now. I think Kane would love to go back to the Rangers, but the Rangers are playing so well right now. Why would they even add him at this point? So Detroit's a very, very realistic option. It might be the best option on the table for him, but he loved playing with DeBringt, one of his favorite linemates,

and they can make it work. And they could probably sign him for a couple of years because I don't think he wants to sign a one-year contract. He wants a little more stability. And coming off this hip resurfacing, we've seen guys not be able to come back from this. So I don't think he wants to risk a one-year deal here. There's a lot of reasons why Detroit makes sense.

I still think Dallas and Florida would just be perfect landing spots. I think Detroit's looking more realistic by the day. But you mentioned the hip resurfacing, right? And his age, I mean, does that not give GMs pause about the idea of giving this guy longer than a one-year deal? I get it's Patrick Kane, probably the best American born forward we've ever seen in the game. But we're talking about a guy with a lot of mileage and his hips not necessarily being at 100%, right? Like, the idea of it's a massive risk, giving a term to that guy longer than a year.

I have questions about that. Well, I think you can get away if you're a GM with a two-year deal. You could probably get it. He's not going to be making $10.5 million on this contract, right? I mean, this is going to be like, you know, a one or two million deal with a lot of incentive bonuses, you know, games played and points hit. I think that's the realistic way of doing that. It's tough.

It's really hard to, you can't overestimate just how much NHLGMs respect Patrick Kane. It's the rings in the room thing. he's a three-time champion. He's a former MVP. He's been a winner everywhere he's gone, all that stuff. He is worshipped in the hockey world. I know that a lot of the fans out there, and some of them for very good reason,

are not big Patrick Kane fans. But he is revered in the hockey world. You talk to any player who's in their mid-to-late 20s right now, mid-20s to mid-30s right now, who is their favorite player growing up? It's Patrick Kane. All of people would say that. All of them.

Austin Matthews, Mitch Marner, all of them. Nathan McKinnon, they all worship Patrick Kane. He's the one who made hockey fun again. He made it. You could play a fun style. You didn't have to be Peter Forsberg. You could be, you know, exciting and daring and creative. He is worshipped in the hockey world. And I think that goes a long way in thinking, well, we got a pretty good team. We throw Patrick Kane on our team. Wow. We could go over the top. So I do want to talk about the Rangers. Rangers Bruins was a Clash of the Titans on the weekend. But guys, we got to talk about Jacob Truba getting a fine for this thick swinging incident on Travis Frederick because I don't know.

Like, I don't know where you guys come down on this. Like I saw people saying, well, wait until you see the second angle, it'll exonerate them. I'm like, not really. Like, the guy still delivered a blow to the head of an opponent with a stick. This is going to sound crazy, but this is my theory. Either this guy deserved just a fine or this should have been a 20 game suspension. Like, that's how I looked at it. I was almost like, I don't think there's any gray area here either.

And obviously they lean towards the no suspension and they gave them a fine. But I'm like, I don't know. Me personally, I'd like to have seen something because I think that's a reckless use of your stick. That's my whole thing about it, right? Seeing people look at both angles and be like, it's not that bad. You know, it just, they were tussed around. A guy got hit in the head with a stick. You know what I'm saying?

Like, the only reason why this is not, this is the only reason why we're having a debate on this is because Trent Frederick was not immediately injured after that happened. I mean, fine, both of those players were tussling and Trouba was kind of in a little bit of an awkward position, and then it led to that. That is still a reckless thing to have had happened. And the fact that Jacob Trouper only got a fine,

you should be counting his blessings with that. because I think in any other situation where, and I'm not advocating for this to happen, you don't want this to happen. What if Trent Frederick gets injured in that situation? What if he suffers a serious head injury as a result of that? What is the suspension then? I thought it was a very dangerous play. And no matter, and I mean, there are really the two angles that have presented themselves

on social media. They both look bad. And the fact that it went unpenalized, I was a little bit surprised to hear about that, too. You were. You were surprised at a penalty got a, got, that he got away with it. Have you watched hockey? Okay, that's fair. That's very fair. I'm willing to take that roast. All that to say, like, something should have been done on that. And there's a reason why we have those doubts about the Department of Player Safety. It's funny. At the beginning of the year, they were starting at the benefit of the doubt with how they handled suspensions for Rasmus Anderson and Andrew Montrapani and Charlie McAvoy as well. And even Charlie McAvoy could have gone a few more games.

But it's stuff like that that throws them back into doubt, I think. I have a, your whole point is 100% correct that if he got injured, this is different. And I hate that. I hate that we don't legislate the play. We legislate the result. You're right. Any way you look at it, he swung his stick and hit a dude in the head. That should be minimum five games.

I think Ian is right. I mean, this is, this has Marty McSorley, Donald Bashir, all over it. This is very similar play. You know, yes, one angle looks a little less awful than the, other angle and maybe his arm got grabbed. But if you're going for someone's, you know, the back of someone's leg, which also is a suspendable move, by the way, asked Ryan Hartman, who's about to get one, if you're going for someone's back, you're like, and you hit them in the head?

The head? How do you miss by that much? Like, any way you look at it, you are responsible for your stick at all times. And Jacob Truba was incredibly irresponsible with his stick there. And he should have been suspended a significant, we see this. with Jacob Truba all the time. It's always Truba. It's always Truba. And Rangers fans will sit there and they'll tell you, you know, oh, no, he just skirts the line. He's a clean player. He's got a bad reputation. He doesn't deserve it. If you're always in the middle of these discussions, if you're always hitting guys in the head by accident with your chest, with your shoulder, with your stick. At some point, I don't care anymore. You're reckless. He stretcheded Jacob, uh, Jude, Arcaro last year. He, uh, the next day, he laid out Nathan McKinnon with a head hit back to back. games he delivered head hits. I know he's six foot six. He's a big dude. He hits hard. I'm all for hard hitting. But just because you're tall doesn't mean you get to hit people in the head all

the time. You have to adjust accordingly, whether it's with your stick or your shoulder. And I'm tired of having this conversation. It's always about Jacob Truba, who by all accounts is an awesome guy. But on the ice, he's becoming dangerous. This happens too often. At some point, it's not a coincidence anymore. Yeah. Don't you remember in the playoffs too? Jacob Truba also got that high hit on Timo Meyer as well. Right, right. To your point, Jacob Truba might be a nice guy, but on the ice, he is what we should be calling him a habitual line stepper. Does he keep doing that over and over?

It's the Tom Wilson effect. At some point, you've had enough of these where it's like, okay, this is who you are as a player, right? You are dangerous and at times reckless. By the way, I clearly had the Dallas Cowboys on my mind. I think I called Trent Frederick Travis Frederick. Yeah, because I'm a Dallas Cowboys fan. Yeah, he's the old center from Dallas. Why is every Canadian a Cowboys fan? Can we get into this at some point?

I'm not a Cowboys fan. It's me, Pierre LeBron. Chris Johnston. It's just, it's gross. Like everyone calls them America's team like sarcastically, but they really are Canada's team. Basically in Canada, you're either a Cowboys fan. Buffalo.

Buffalo, there's a lot of Patriots fans too. And tons of Seattle fans in the West Coast. In the Pacific, North West. Seattle and Buffalo makes sense. If you're in the GTO or you're out West, and yeah, Buffalo makes sense. I don't understand the Cowboys thing. Yeah, Cowboys Patriots, I saw a lot of that coming.

Yeah, like a lot of people are just fans of those two teams. That's why I love Arpon. Arpin is just a random Dolphins fan. Yeah, and he lives in guys with the Dolphins. And I have such respect for him to be sitting there in Montreal, living and dying with, of all teams, the Miami Dolphins. God bless my man. You could be a Jets fan like me.

I'm a Giants fan, so I've gotten my, I've gotten my Super Bowls. It's all coasting from here. Yeah. Yay. It must be nice. Just so we don't get accused of being a football, football podcast. I do want to talk about that. I mean, the Rangers beat the Bruins in a, let's call it what it was,

Clash of the Titans, right, in the East on the weekend. Rangers doing this with Adam Fox, which is super impressive. Right now, if I had to hand out the mantle of the best team in the East, you guys go on Rangers now over Boston? It's hard to argue with it, right? I still look at Boston. I don't understand how they're this good still with what they lost. So I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop,

which is probably pretty stupid on my part because we're a quarter of the way through the season already. And this is coming off one of the greatest seasons of all time. Maybe I should give them some credit. But yeah, it's the Rangers right now because they got the goalie. They got the goalie and they're scoring. And they got Panarin playing at an MVP level. You know, LaFrenier is playing better.

Chris Kreider is scoring at will again. Like they are, they're firing on all cylinders. and they have one of the two or three best goalies in the world. That's a scary combination. Yeah, it's really tough for me because I want to give all that credit to the New York Rangers, and I felt this was a team even from last year before they added Patrickane. They had all the pieces to go on a run, and they could still do it this year. I wanted to give it to them.

But maybe it's just something with that Boston Bruins team, man. How do you have-Britreys Bergeron and give the crazy leave, and you are tied for the best record in the Eastern Conference? How does that make any sense? Sounds to me like Julian is ready to write a, was Patrice Bergeron overrated? No, I cannot do that to the greatest defensive center we have seen this century. I can't disrespect Patrice Bergeron.

And I can't disrespect the Boston Bruins. Maybe in the playoffs when it comes time, as we both correctly predicted. The greatest prediction we ever did on this show, Ian, as you and I say, the Boston Bruins would not make it to a Stanley Cup final. We didn't think they'd get eliminated in the first round. we're going to fly that flag as long as we can. That being said, until they get to that point, it is really hard to disrespect the Boston Bruins

and the fact that they've been so good with their goaltending and the fact that the players that have stood up. I mean, guys like Matthew Potterar are coming out of nowhere and producing on this team. You have to give them credit for that. Last year was Linus Olmark, who had the really good goaltending statutes, Jeremy Swamen this year. Like, they found a way to make it work.

This is what great franchises do, right? They build a machine where you just replace the cogs And guys can step in and just automatically become really good because they're just part of a system that works, a team that works the right way that has talent, but also just does everything right and is really well coached. He cannot say anything negative about Boston. That said, the three best teams in the NHL are all in the West. It's Colorado, Dallas and Vegas in my mind. And I think whoever comes out of the rest of the West is a big steaming pile of trash right now. But the three best teams, the NHL are in the Western Conference.

and they're going to have an easier road to the final than the East is so much deeper, full of really good teams, not great teams, that that Eastern playoff is going to be an absolute meat grinder, whereas the Western Conference final is going to be the only challenge for these teams that get that far. Did we say that last year about the Eastern Conference, that the Eastern Conference was supposed to be this meat grinder and all these top teams. And they all lost. Yeah, and they all lost in the first two rounds.

The Florida Panthers of all teams just emerged as that team to sneak in, only to get dumbied by the golden nights. But if you're in the West right now, and I know there's been some discourse on this over the weekend that look at where the playoff cutoff is looking like, it's looking like, right, it's not going to be 82 points. It's terrible. It's going to be 90.

Like if I had to guess, I don't think we're going to get a sub 90 point team. But the point is this, that if you're Edmonton, that's what you can hang your hat on. And look, McDavid, after people were like, Last week, I think we were like, what's wrong with McDavid? He's like, well, here's 12 points for you. I think I'm okay. You know, Boston Rangers was the game of the week for me last week.

For me, Tuesday night, Vegas, Edmonton. And I know Vegas has to play Monday night against Calgary. But this is, I want to see, I want to learn something about Edmonton. And like this has been up and down and it seems like they're awfully close to maybe turn the car. This Vegas game is going to tell me a lot of. about them? I don't know, man. I still think, here's what I'll say. If Connor McDavid basically wills this team into a playoff spot, that might be one of the most impressive MVP seasons we have ever seen from an NHL player. Like, basically what Connor McDavid needs right now is international

success and a Stanley Cup. But wouldn't it be something if he found a way to pull the team from the depths of hell, the bottom of the standings, and put them in a position, where if they make it into the playoffs as like a wild card, everyone is looking at them scared. Because I'll tell you this, an Emmington Oilers team entering the playoffs, getting themselves down from the depths where they were to being a playoff team, beyond the other competitive teams in the Western Conference that Mark just mentioned,

I do not want to go up against an Emmington orler's team even as a favor. I do not want that. Not a team that has found itself super motivated to get themselves into the postseason. That's a scary thought for. me, but can they actually do it? That's the next question. It's not scary unless their goaltenders change. Like the Oilers will not scare me in a playoff series with the goaltending they have right now. And if they get in at 85 points just because the bottom, the middle of the West is so bad. I mean, we saw it Daniel New Jim Bowman,

our great Oilers writer. He, he mentioned that today. Mike Russo, our esteemed Wildrider, also, I mean, the Wilder 30th place in the league. And they barely have to go 500 the rest of the way to get to that what right now would be the cutoff for playoffs. The West. is wide open. So if the Oilers get in, you know, Connor McDavid and Leon Dryside will scare the bejesus out of me. Don't get me wrong. But I should. You can outscore them because they can't stop the puck. And until they prove they can stop the fuck or they change something in goal, that is not the team that I worry about in the West. I worry about Jake Ottinger and I worry

about, you know, Nathan McKinnon and Cal McCarr. And I worry about the entirety of the Vegas roster. That's what would scare me. Did you describe Mike Russo as our esteemed Wildrider or steamed? He's told. He is always esteemed. He is frequently steamed. Yeah. And like, I'm just glad to double checking the standings here.

Like, Minnesota has won five. They have fewer wins in the Blackhawks. Yeah. They've won fewer games in Chicago. They've won one more game. Yeah. I'm just double checking this. One more game than San Jose.

Yeah. Are you guys both surprised that, and again, now we're having this conversation at 3 p.m. on Monday the 27th, and this is a fluid. situation, maybe this changes. You guys surprised the Wild haven't made any changes there, at least like coaching staff, even an assistant. I know Mike Russo and Joe Smith, they floated that out in a mailbag that maybe that's what,

but they've done nothing. I mean, that's usually what happens, right? I mean, Jay Woodcroft had a better track record than Dean Evanson does, right? And he got fired. But that's because the Oilers are thinking they have to win the cup right the second. And I don't think Minnesota is necessarily thinking that way. I think they're thinking they're just, off to a bad start and Billy Garon loves him some Dean Eveson and wants them to see it out.

But it only lasts for so long. This is hockey, man. Coaches get fired and they get fired frequently and they get fired quickly. He better start winning some games because one or two more losses and this isn't going to be a discussion anymore. I'm more surprised with just like the players. Like I'm just hearing from Rousseau and other people. I mean, you've mentioned this too, Ian. Crowe Caprizov just does not seem like himself.

Yeah. And that is a really big problem for a player. We think of all these other guys who are top 10 players in this league. When Croix-Kor-Kap is on his game, he can make an argument to be the most exciting player to watch not named Connor McDavid when he is on his game. And the fact that he is not impacting this team positively at this moment, that is a big concern for me.

And you need to do some kind of change to get him going. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. Like, of all the teams in league, and I think all year we've talked about, you know, San Jose was a mess. Columbus was a mess Edmonton was a mess

I think Minnesota belongs in that conversation of like just because they're caught right and they got salary cap held from those two buyouts and I just don't know what they are right well the while for so long right for it feels like decades now

they've been fine they've been a team that gets in as like a six seed they lose in the first round maybe they make it to the second round and get swept they've never really been a contender in in so long now that this felt like they were getting there though. They felt like they were progressing towards that.

In the Western Conference where that fourth or fifth best team was up for grabs, wild seemed like a safe bet to make it with Caprizz off, with all the goaltending they have now. Like there was a lot to like. And for the bottom to fall out this dramatically, it's disheartening for a fan base that is as devoted as they come and has put up with so much boring hockey and mediocre hockey and finally seem poised to have not just good hockey but fun good hockey.

And to be handed this platter, I just, it's just, I, I, I, I, I, I feel pain for Minnesotans right now because of all fan bases, they deserve, them in Buffalo are the two fan bases that I always want to see good things happen to because they're so devoted despite just being handed the same crap sandwich year after year after year. And it just feels like it's never going to happen for either of them at this way. Like you think like Minnesota like it's just are they the embodiment of mid like it feels like they're very mid but also like Minnesota. Mid a soda. Oh boy. We just found an episode title. It's one thing to be like mid enough where it's like, okay, you're where St. Louis is at 23 points.

I did not expect St. Louis to be this good. Nashville. They're at five, they have a 500 record right now. As does Arizona. Those are teams, at least Arizona, they're trying to get up. Like Nashville, they're kind of in that weird middle ground there. For Minnesota to only have two points up, to only be two points up on Chicago

and be worse than them in their last 10 games, like I would, something has to happen here. Whether it's DeNephiston, whether it's a trade, something has to happen here. You can't accept this. Real quick, Julian, as the young person of the group, we count on you for the proper slang.

My daughter, my 11-year-old daughter told me a few days ago that nobody says mid anymore. I mean, I think Mid has had its time. I think, I can't think of another immediate word that would replace mid. I feel like me. Me is eternal. But like

yeah, me's eternal. Me's a word that like has been around. I guess ever since like, yeah, like that's even that's like, is that a word or is that an automotopia? Like it is what it is. Mid is, it is what it is. But look at the, if you're viewing this on YouTube, we've got

a breaking news scroll. Mid is over. On the screen. Mid is over. It is Jover for mid. The CNN election desk has called it. Mid is over. We've done it. Hey, you know, we are talking about the Minnesota Wilde,

and as tough as this season has been, can we just carve out a little space here to tip our cat to Mark Andre Fleury, a goaltender for the Minnesota Wilde, who on Friday, you know, the Wild had a Native American Heritage Night, and Mark Andre wanted to wear a customized mask in honor of his wife.

and had some powerful quotes on the back from his dad. He was originally told, you can't wear it. It goes against the NHL policy. And there was pushback. There's a lot of stuff. And finally, and Mike Ruso was all over this story. And finally, Fleury decided to wear it on Friday. So you know what?

I'll pay whatever fine. It's coming. I'll handle it. And as we sit here now three days later, there has been no fine. I don't think the league could find him. It's just the exact same as Travis Dermott. You couldn't do it.

You shouldn't do it. You shouldn't find him. My question is now, do you think now with Flurry and Dermott doing this, are we seeing more players feel a little bit more emboldened or empowered to do this? Or how do we feel? But I just want to tip my hat to Mark Andre Fleury, who did the right thing on Friday night in this. in in, in, in, he, he absolutely did.

And everybody loves Mark Andre, three, he deserves all the credit. But I think you missed a step in that storyline where it was, he was, he was willing to pay the fine. But then the league came back and threatened his significant fine to the team. Yeah. So he backed off. And then basically the entire hockey world shamed to the NHL into say backing off. And then he was told, look, you can wear it. Nobody's going to get mad to you if you wear it.

Like, it's exhausting being a hockey fan and repeatedly having to shame this. league into doing the simplest right thing. It's just this this freaking league, man. There's no other way to look at it. We've seen all these other people try. Think about it. Mark Andre Fleury tries to do this. Logan Thompson tried to put like a purple cancer ribbon on his helmet. You can't have those things.

You can't have those. It's always your mask. Unless you always wear it. But, you know. Because if you just wear it for one warm up, you can't. But if you're wearing every day, it's totally fine. It just, I, I'm as exhausted as, as, as, Mark Lazarus is on this topic here.

Why is it at this point? And the fact that the league is not going to police whatever rule they put in, which is only happening because they wanted to appease everybody after how all of last year went down, it's toothless at the end of the day. What I'm waiting for, and I don't expect it to happen, but I'm going to prepare myself anyway. I am waiting for the day where the NHL for whatever reason decides to enforce this rule. for whatever they feel is right,

because they've basically set this precedent up through Travis Dermott and Mark Andre Fleury, where they've shown that they don't have to enforce this rule. So if they do have to enforce this rule, they're in trouble. You know where I think they would enforce it? And I'm not saying it's right or wrong. I think in the case of Dermit and in the case of Flurry, these would be seen as sort of social causes, right?

Social justice causes. I think if it spills into some sort of geopolitical thing, that's when I think I think that you could see that happening. And nobody's talking about that. Literally when that rule, when someone put a pro-Hamas or pro-Israel sticker on the helmet. What if someone put a Trump sticker on their helmet? Like Robin Leonard once did.

Letter had it in 2016. Robin Letter had Trump on his mask. I think that is what the league is afraid of. They're deathly afraid of that. And this was their overreaction to it was to say you can't do anything. because I think they see an election year coming up. They see the United States, we're teetering on the brink of civil war here. Like, it's real bad.

And they don't want to have a player, you know, with a Joe Biden sticker or a Donald Trump sticker or something about Ukraine, something about Israel and Hamas, Palestine. Like, that's, they live in perpetual fear of someone making an actual statement like that on there. And that's why they're so desperately trying to cling to this, don't do anything. Yeah. I think so. You know, I thought it was interesting in Ottawa. So on Monday night, Ottawa was hosting the Florida Panthers. It is Ottawa's hockey fights cancer night inside the ring.

They turned all the advertising inside the arena on the ring boards into purple. Yep. DJ Smith, the head coach of the Ottawa Senators, came out to speak to reporters today, wearing a hockey fights cancer white and purple hoodie, white and purple hat. And I thought, this is interesting. And you guys know me, I'm all bored for this. This is what I want. I want to see people lean into the causes, military appreciation.

All that stuff, right? Right. Go for it. Lean into it. But I thought it was interesting that now they're allowed to do that, whereas, you know, the original kind of spirit of what they came up with in the summers, this wasn't supposed to be allowed, right? Like, they didn't want coaches and players going into kind of media zones wearing this type of stuff, right?

So there's been a relaxing. And this was not by design. This was by accident. But there's been a relaxation here. Because they've been shamed into it. They see, look, they're on Twitter. They're on, you know, they're, they are listening to what people are talking about. And when 99% of the people are like, this is the stupidest, most embarrassing thing I've ever heard.

They're like, all right, maybe we shouldn't find a guy for honoring his wife with a Native American symbol on his helmet. I mean, it's, it's, it's just so disheartening. that it takes that to do it. But they are, I think this, I really do think this comes down to politics. I think you nailed it again. They are so afraid of politics creeping into their little insulated hockey world that they are just desperately trying to keep it away. What does it say about this league that all three of us expect a measure of inconsistency

when it comes to how they handle their own policy? When it comes to officiating, when it comes to handing out suspensions, when it comes to enforcing, you know, the gear policies we're talking about. Nothing is consistent. They're never consistent. It's always these discussions. We're talking about goaltender interference. Whatever it is we're talking about, it's always how inconsistent they are at applying the rules and how unclear the rules are and how toothless the enforcement is. We're always talking about the same thing year after year long before this became a problem.

this was still a problem. Yeah, no, it's, it is. It's, it's, it's frustrating when it feels like it's such a simple, like for us on the outside, all of this stuff seems so simple, doesn't it? Imagine going after Mark Andre Fleury. Yeah, who is the PR person that's like, yeah, let's go after that guy, everybody hates him? What are you thinking? Is there, is there a more like, like, is there a more universally liked,

player in the NHL, because obviously in the NHL, guys just by their nature, whatever, they can become polarizing. Is there a more universally, liked and respected guy amongst fans across the league than Mark Andre Fleury? No, not necessarily not of his, his statue. Who's even in that, who's even in the,

if Fleury's the most likable guy, who's number two in the league? I might be like, it could seriously be like Nick Bellino or something like that, who's not anywhere near the star level that Fleury has. That's the thing. Stamcoast, maybe? I feel like nobody hates Stephen, right? No. But is he loved? I don't know if he's loved. I don't know. Not universally by everybody. I can't think of any other player that's like,

that's on that same level where everyone just like likes it. Like Sidney Crosby is by all accounts, an awesome guy and he's great with fans and half the league freaking hates him just because he's so good. They call him a cry. A diver and all, whatever. That's it. Nobody has anything bad to say about Mark Andre Fleury. Nobody. So let's target that guy. That cat. I don't learn them. Hey, before we dart out,

I do want to bring up one other storyline from last week. And that's the return of Andre Vasilisky. As, you know, the Tampa Lightning, I think a lot of us thought that the cracks were there. Now they're not going to have the number one goal. Guys, they hung around. And they hung around. And now they're number one goalies back.

They scored eight goals on Friday night on, what, 15 shots against Carolina. The highest shooting percentage ever recorded in a single NHL game was Tampa Bay on Friday, eight goals. But the focus was 200 feet the other direction where Vaselowski came back, stopped, I think 23 or 25. He looks good. They're in Denver on Monday night. We talk about good test games, whatever. Avson and lightning should be a good one for Tampa. Do we feel like, if Boston and New York are at the very top of the east,

And I'm not suggesting I'm putting Tampa there. But in the next grouping of teams, is Tampa the next team for you guys? Absolutely. There are only six points out of the division lead. There's a three-way tie as we speak in that Eastern, in that Atlantic division with them, Detroit, and Florida right now. With all due respect to Florida,

and I understand they're in the Stanley Cup final last year, with all due respect to Detroit, who had that really good start to the year, we're looking at that next cluster of teams. they're there with Tampa, and I have Tampa above all those, above those two teams. I think with the goaltending, with the playoff experience, with the guys that they have, they still have, in my eyes, earn the benefit of the doubt as a team. And if they make it to the playoffs, that they should make it to the playoffs with the roster that they have,

it is very difficult to go against them. Yes, you're right. We have seen the cracks. They've gotten those cracks because they've played in so many playoff games and gotten so many runs and won so many Stanley Cups. if they're in it and they have a good enough roster and Vasolowski's healthy, not a lot of teams are stopping this team.

I'm wary of the lightning because I've seen this movie before. I've seen the team that was dominant fall off a cliff. I got to see it up close and personal with the Blackhawks. They won the cup in 10, 13, 15, in 14, they went to game seven of the conference final. And then in 16, they won 50 games and lost in seven games. Then in 17, they won 50 games again and got swept by the predators and just died.

They just completely collapsed and everything, everyone fell off a cliff. The aging curve caught up to everybody at the same time. I don't think it's hard to overstate just how much mileage the Tampa Bay Lightning have on them and how much that affects veteran players in their 30s. I'm not ready to declare Tampa there yet, but it's going to happen. And it's going to happen in the next couple of years at the latest. So like I've all the respect in the world for John Cooper and that team. And Vasilevsky is still arguably the best goalie in the world.

so until I see otherwise, I'm still going to bet on them, but it's coming. It doesn't, this league is cyclical and it doesn't last forever. And that's a team that went for it year after year after year and has not a lot of picks to show for it. When the fall comes, it's going to come hard. They got those cups at the very least, though, right? Banners, yeah, flags fly forever. Who cares? That's it, right?

It's a lot better than some other teams who have tried to rebuild and I've had to rebuild or teams who have invested all that time. They don't have a lot picks to show for it, but those banners, you're Right. They fly for... I've been having this discussion with fans for a few years now. Would you rather have been a Bruins fan since 2010 or a Blackhawks fan since 2010? Because obviously the Blackhawks have their three cups, but then they went through... And I'm not talking about the off-eye stuff, just in terms of the on-ice product.

The Blackhawks haven't been relevant since 2016, maybe. Yeah, but they have the Bruins... They have a generational player at the end of it. Right. Well, yeah. Well, okay, well, this is before the Bedard stuff that would have this conversation. Fair. But, like, the Bruins, they never win.

They won an 11 and that's it. They lost in the final a couple of times since then. But year after year, you go into the season believing you can win. And the whole thing about being a sports fan is the journey, right? The journey is more fun than actually winning. When your team wins, it's awesome. But it's the journey of getting there that you'll never forget. So if you're a Bruins fan, you've had that journey year after year after year and

they're still great. They're still great. I don't know how, but they're still great. Would you rather have one cup and all those years of hope? Or would you rather have the concentrated highs of the black? I did. I actually did a column on this once. And the vote came back and everybody says,

you're an idiot if you don't take the banners. And maybe that's true. But, man, there's something about the sustained success of Boston that's more impressive than anything, any other team, including Pittsburgh, Chicago, and Tampa have done in the cap era. Yeah, it's a great argument, right? Like, boy, I don't know. I think I would lean towards the three titles.

I would because three titles. Six or seven years of contention is a hell of a run. Yeah, exactly. You've run a lot out of it. Yeah, like, I mean, look at Carolina, for example. Like, they've won one cup in the salary cap era, but like out of that, you know, whatever this has been, 18 years of the salary cap era,

how many years have they been like a legit cup contender? Four or five, maybe out of the whole thing? Yeah. Like, but, okay, would you rather be a Carolina fan in the cap era or San Jose? because San Jose was like for 12, 13, 14, 15 years where we were like, elite never got the cup. I'm obsessed with this argument because there's no right answer here. There's no right answer.

Everyone will tell you it's the Cubs and they're probably right. But I'll tell you, like, I live in Chicago here and I'm not a Cubs fan. But when the Cubs won the World Series finally in 2016, being a Cubs fan changed because chasing a World Series was more fun than defending it. And now if they ever win again, it'll never be what it was in 2016. So is it almost like, look at being a Red Sox fan. Like being a Red Sox fan used to be kind of unique and quirky and special. Now you're just another big market team chasing yet another World Series.

There's something weird about actually, you know, the idea of the journey being more fun than the destination. I don't know. It's one of those weird sports topics that I'm endlessly fascinated by. Would you rather be a team? And maybe it's just a variation of what we've been going on before. But would you rather be a team with the expectations every year to work. win and you have sustained success in some way, you don't win, or would you rather have that team that just kind of fluctuated and you get like one cup?

It's one thing to be like Chicago. Would you rather be Toronto or Montreal? Yeah. Or would you rather be the Oilers or the Blues? Yeah. I say Montreal because they went to the final, but still, like, the Oilers or the Blues. Like, would you rather have a team that's like really good and you're expected to be among the best, but you don't do well enough to get that cup or you have that one off year where

you just win and those memories stay with. I think if the argument is a championship versus no championship, you take the championship. When the argument is three championships versus one, at least you get one, then I think it's a harder call to make. I think in the end, you skew Chicago over Boston over that time, but it's fascinating to see because it's been a long time since the Hawks have done. And it had played a meaningful hockey game. Played a meaningful hockey game since 2017. And they got sweat. And I know you're not accounting for off I stuff here.

let's put all the controversy aside here. You have the runs you have, you bottom out, you still get a Connor Bader at the end of the tunnel. Everyone's taken. This is why everybody hates Chicago, yes. Yes. And by the way, before we wrap up, I should point out in that entire conversation about Tampa,

none of us mentioned Nikita Kuturov who's leading the league in scoring. The best player. Why are just having a borderline, not even board a MVP season? Just there. Is anybody? Why is nobody talking about him?

Is it a Tampa thing? Is it just like, because he's in Florida? Is it a Russian thing? Why don't we give Nikita Kutrov, or we, the royal we here, the hockey world? Yes. I mean, he is, he should be up there with that. We always talk about McDavid, MacKar, right? We should have Kuturov in that every single time.

And in Drysidal, too. He's a Hall of Fame player, guys. Oh, by far, easily. Yeah, easily. But like, you're right. Like, we don't hold them in that same standard. We do take him for granted on that team. I don't know why it is.

You sit down and you watch a Tampa game, you're like, oh, yeah. He's amazing. He's awesome. He just gets these goals. Like, we were looking at the Hughes brothers. We were looking at what's going on in Toronto. This dude could easily end up as like the Art Ross and Hart Trophy winner this year. He could.

And I'm saying, like, we're all guilty of it because we just talked about the lightning and none of us mentioned him. I don't know what it is. I don't know why it is. He's been on the most dominant team of the last several. years. He had 130-something point season a few years back. He's doing it again. And get a hundred 13 points last year. Yeah. Well, everybody had 100 points last year. Come on. And then he really came out of his shell. Remember in those Stanley Cup parades, it's all like this, it's like this reclusive personality. I think there is some, you know, without getting too deep into xenophobia, I think

there is a Russian aspect of that. Like, unless you're Alex Ovechkin, arguably the greatest goal score of all time. You just don't get the recognition that a good old Canadian or American boy does or even like a Swedish guy does. I think that's just always been present in hockey for whatever reason. But he deserves all the love and respect in the world because he is as fun to watch as McDavid, as McKinnon, as McCar, as dry sidel, as Jack Hughes. Guys, absolutely amazing and we never talk about him. Is that something we just leave for position players? Because we literally just talked about how important Andre Vasseliske is to a team. You know, Igor Shisjerk, it is one of the best goaltenders. Goleys aren't fun to watch. Other than Alex Steylock, who plays goalie like his hairs on fire all the time, there are no fun goalies to watch.

They're all so big and positionally sound that, you know, even when they make a great save, they make it look so damn easy now, that goalies aren't fun to watch. We respect goalies. We don't love goleys. You're right. They all play a very similar, similar style. Yeah, like Hachek was fun to watch because he's flopped down like a fish.

Nobody plays that way other than Alex Steylock anymore. and he's not even, he's in the AHL right now. All right, before we dip out of here, we want to remind our listeners that, uh, the Black Friday sale will end at 1159 on Monday. I, this is Cyber Monday, right, Las? Cyber Monday. I still can't believe it's like cyber Monday.

Like that's such a midnight. I'm going to log on to Prodigy and, uh, dial up with my 2.4 modem and get on the cyber web. Man. I feel like building HTML code. all of a sudden. Yeah, exactly. It's Cyber Monday and a dollar.

You can subscribe to the Athletic for a dollar a month for 12 months when you visit the athletic.com slash hockey show. But as we wrap up here on this Cyber Monday, I guess we'd be remiss, Julian, if we didn't ask our American pal, how is Thanksgiving when? I know you were bogged down with some work with what was going on with Chicago, but did you get some family time in there? You get some football? What was, what was Thanksgiving like for you?

I did. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. It's just football, family, fun, food. My mother-in-law, my brother-in-law were in town. We had some friends over. One of my daughter's best friends and her family came over. So we actually had like a big Thanksgiving for the first time. And God, I don't know how long it feels like 100 years.

But it was also great because the Hawks practiced on Thanksgiving and had a Black Friday game and then practice again on Saturday. So I didn't have to spend all the time with my in-laws. It was a really good combination. What's the food spread like? Oh, my God. everything. We had, you know, we had turkey and you get all, all the usual stuff. My daughter made in my mashed potatoes. That's her specialty. We had freshly baked from scratch rolls. We had, you know, green beans and we had, you know, got everything we normally had. We're not that,

we're not that adventurous. You kind of like, we make the classics, and we had some freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. And you can't go wrong, man. I'm a, I'm a meat and potatoes guy, and this is a meat and potatoes holiday. So you don't have like a dish that you're just kind of like, I don't need it in my life. You don't have a controversial Thanksgiving food opinion? I don't. You know, I've never was a big stuffing guy because my mom would always make this weird chestnut stuffing that my dad loved and nobody else liked.

But my wife, she makes this cornbread sausage stuffing. And it's just amazing. Like, I never think about stuffing for 364 days a year. Then I can't eat enough of it for one day of the year. Oh, love it. Last week, Julian tried to worm me. his way into Eric Stevens Thanksgiving meal.

It almost worked too. Let me ask you guys this. Because Connor Bedard basically didn't know that there even was a Canadian Thanksgiving. Are you guys just making that one up? Like, is that not really a holiday? How does Connor Bedard not know? We were talking about and he basically said. He's like, yeah, we didn't really do. I don't know. No, that's that big of a deal. When? That's

in October or something, right? Well, I think you guys are making this up just so you can get like a day off. Well, the Canadian Thanksgiving doesn't have the same. amount of pageantry as American Thanksgiving has. In all fairness, there is that. And like, you're not watching, like, the NFL

is not going to have a weekend saying, all right, guys, we're devoting everything to Canadian Thanksgiving. No, but there's CFL games. There is CFL games, absolutely. But of course, unfortunately, in this country, we do not put CFL on high enough of a podium compared to what the rest

of the world and us do with the national football. Isn't the Grey Cup usually, I feel like back when the Blackhawks had the circus trip every Thanksgiving, I missed like seven straight Thanksgiving. It was always in Canada on Thanksgiving. And like the Grey Cup was always. We always go to a bar and watch the Grey Cup on Thanksgiving. The Great Cup, not only did the Great Cup happen about like a week or so ago,

the Montreal Alouettes are Great Cup champions this year. My beloved Al's. Your beloved. Let's go. Al-on-Z. At all Z, yeah. He's that Bart Tresman used to coach. Oh, God.

Don't mention that name in Chicago. They will punch you square in the face for even mentioning your name. I remember seeing Bart Trest would go off to Chicago. Oh, those guys are going to get a good coach. That's going to be great. Did not go well. It did not go well. No.

No, that was not a good tenure in Chicago. All right. Well, we'll leave it there. Tuesday, the Athletic Hockey Show, Julie and I will be back by. Our esteemed and esteemed colleague is going to drop by on the Tuesday edition of the podcast. so as all as you look forward to that.

Las, thanks a ton for hanging out with us for the last hour. It was great to get your insights on Corey Perry, Taylor Hall, Patrick Kane, all this stuff. We're going to need, maybe listeners can reach out the Laz and get the stuffing recipe directly from Las. Always a good time, boys. Yeah. Thanks a time for doing it. Julian, you and I are back at it on Tuesday, like I said, with Mike Russo. You can follow us on YouTube at YouTube.com slash at the athletic hockey show.

enjoy the games on Monday. Julie and I will hit you up again with Mike Russo on Tuesday.