The Athletic Hockey Show - Craig Berube fired by Blues, Capitals moving to Virginia, life without Kyle Connor for Jets

Episode Date: December 13, 2023

Ian and Julian welcome Jeremy Rutherford to discuss the St. Louis Blues decision to fire Craig Berube, replacing him with Drew Bannister, and how GM Doug Armstrong should wear the team's struggles.Down Goes Brown stops by to present 6 times NHL fans thought their teams were getting a superstar — until they weren’t. Murat Ates joins to talk about the Western Conference darkhorse Jets, the serious injury to Kyle Connor and Patrik Laine's fall from grace since he left WInnipeg.Plus Ian and Julian breakdown Brady Tkachuk's penalty shot vs Carolina, Connor Bedard's goal of the night, changes to the NHL all-star skills competition and Capitals owner Ted Leonis's desire to move his franchise from DC to Northern Virginia.Subscribe to The Athletic Hockey Show on YouTube: http://youtube.com/@theathletichockeyshowGift a 1-year subscription to The Athletic for $19.99 or a 2-year subscription for $39.99 when you visit theathletic.com/hockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Hockey Show. Welcome to your Wednesday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. It's Ian Mendez and Julian McKenzie, here to get you through your midweek blues, pun intended. Ooh, that's... It hasn't even been 24 hours, even. Jeez, yeah, well, that's the story of the night. I mean, I got home from Ottawa, Carolina, late,

Tuesday night and was kind of putting something together and all of a sudden my phone lit up and I saw the news that St. Louis has parted ways with Craig Barube. And so, man, I don't know, I don't know if shocked is the right word, but like, this is a guy that took a team, he coached him to a Stanley Cup. They've essentially been a perennial playoff team for the, you know, better part or at least in the mix. Were you surprised that like, that he was the guy to go? Like if you had to pick the next coach that was going to part ways with the team would part ways with them, would Baroubae have been number one in your list?

I'm not sure if he would have been number one. I had seen some lists that had him high up. I imagine their latest kind of fall is playing a big role in why he's gone. Ultimately, coaches end up being the easiest people to fire in those situations. It is a surprise, though. I was in the middle of watching Flames Golden Knights when this news came around. This is in the middle of the game I was watching when I saw that news. So I was a bit more surprised about the timing about the announcement.

And now we're seeing that, you know, Jeremy Rutherford's got a good piece out. And there's supposed to be media availability today in St. Louis. Maybe it's just getting in advance of that. But yeah, I'm a bit surprised. I wondered if they were going to give them more time. I wonder what it was like between the players in Burube in that room. It's not as if they're that far out of a playoff spot either. So I'm curious if this means, if I'm very curious what this means going forward for the organization.

You know, Jeremy Rutherford, our colleague who, by the way, we are trying, like, we're trying to get him to join the pod today, but we know that when a coach is fired, that that becomes the busiest day for a beat writer. So we're mindful that there's media stuff going on and he's running around. If we can get him great, if we can't, I think the line that I want to share for, from J.R.'s column that I think really lands well is he points the finger directly at the general manager Doug Armstrong. And Rutherford says, quote, this was an executive issue and an execution issue, not a coaching issue. Translation, this is on the general manager and the players that that general manager is signed and in some cases to long term kind of expensive deals and not on the coach.

I guess his point is, look, it was inevitable. At some point, you part ways with your coach. It doesn't matter if you won a cup or not, but he felt like 28 games into the season was a little bit unfair, and the expectations maybe were a little bit unfair on Craig Baroube. Yeah, I read the piece earlier this morning, and I got that exact same feel too. Maybe it is unfair.

Maybe they could have waited until halfway through the year, maybe wait until they get out of their losing skin, or if you're going to do this, does this mean you're going to retool? There's been word that maybe that should be the right course of action for this organization. Are you going to build around Drew Bannister as your head coach who's getting called up from the HL?

And even then, like, really, you're going to do this now? Maybe it's because we're outside of the market. That's why we feel as weird as we do about it. And JR obviously could shed some light on it and people should read his piece on the athletic. But yeah, it's a bit of a strange one. It's a bit of a strange one, the Berubei firing for me. So Barouba is out.

He was one of the longest tenured coaches in the NHL. So Julian, do you know now who, which, let's just pick the top. We'll call it the top five longest tenured coaches because Baroubae was in there. He was the fifth longest tenured coach. If you had to guess. John Cooper has to be number one. John Cooper is the number one. So we're thinking top five coaches, longest tenure.

Yeah, like right now today. Number one. Yeah. Oh, God. So Cooper's been there since, you know, basically 20, 2013. Yeah. Oh, man. Why am I?

Why am I start? I'll help you out. This is. But when I say the names, you'll be like, oh, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, of course. Mike Sullivan in Pittsburgh. Of course. He's been there since, yeah, of course.

So Sheldon Keith's been there for a couple years too. Yeah, but Sheldon and Keith doesn't make it on the list. Was DJ Smith there longer? in Ottawa. DJ Smith is on the list. He was. Tide with Todd McClellan for fifth. So McClellan and DJ Smith took over in the summer of 2019.

So in order, I don't have to, here's how it goes. John Cooper one. Yeah. Michael Sullivan, two. That makes sense in Pittsburgh. Ednar 3. Yep. You can't forget about Bednar.

Bednar's been there since that team made that turnaround when they were bad a couple years ago and he's been there for that entire ride. He should have been named up there. Rod the Bod for He's been there for a while too And then a tie between DJ Smith and Todd McCullin So Craig Berubin was in there I hate that I felt so confident thinking John Cooper at one

I'm like all right I got that right And then for whatever reason my brain just stopped Like my brain just stopped for a good minute And I was like okay why can't I remember every single coach I was trying to go through every single team But yeah for the purposes of a podcast You can't just have no You can't just have dead air

Well I think about it's right No, you can't. We start playing some instrumental jazz music while Julian takes a break to try to figure this out. But yeah, it's a really, it's a really interesting list because the top five coaches in terms of tenure, you have three of them who have won Stanley Cups. Well, you had four because Barube had won a cup. Bednar had won a cup. Cooper won a cup.

Sullivan's won a couple of cups. And Brindamore has really transformed that program. Like they've been a perennial cup contender for the most part in his time. So that's a ton of success at the top of the heap. And then DJ Smith is the outlier. And they haven't even made the playoffs, let alone be a Stanley Cup contenders. Yeah, but at least they were rebuilding. There was a direction that they were going to go on that run.

Yeah. Yeah. No, no, absolutely. But it's interesting. So Craig Marouba is, boy, like, do you think that there's, and obviously Ottawa is an example of a team that maybe they'll make a change in head coach. people talk about the islanders although I feel like they've righted the ship but do you think that there'll be some other teams out there julian that say oh wow wow wow Craig baroube suddenly just shook free like you remember this because you were in montreal all at the time a few years ago Boston

fired clod julian and the canadian swooped in like within days right like that wasn't like that was the thing to push them over do you like is Craig baroube does he have enough pedigree does he have enough sort of cachet that another team would look at their own bench and say that guy's an improvement over what we have. He's a Stanley Cup winner, so automatically he'll get thrown into that pile.

I think we're going to see a thing where Craig Baroubae just could get cycled over. He was in Philadelphia for a couple years. He ends up in St. Louis. Again, he has that cup to his name. I could totally see a team take a chance on him. The question is, where's the obvious opening for him? Minnesota just made a coaching change, and they seem fine with John Hines.

Seattle's kind of far behind, but are they going to get rid of Dave Haxstall? That would be a bit of a surprise. David Quinn in San Jose? No, I mean, what's that really going to solve for what they're trying to do? Great Cronin and Anaheim, he's just got there with those guys. Columbus just made a coaching change at the beginning of the year with Pascal Vincennes there. Do you think Pittsburgh's going to move on for Mike Sullivan? I know they're in the basement, but do you see that happening?

I don't see that happening. What about Lindy Rough in New Jersey? I don't know if that's going to happen either. I don't know. I don't see a very obvious opening, but maybe Ottawa at this point. Do you think the senators would take Baroubae and make that switch?

I mean, there's a reason for them to do it. Julia, my gut says no, and not because I don't think, excuse me, that Craig Barube wouldn't be a wonderful fit and a grade higher in exactly what they need. It just feels to me like Ottawa, was waiting on the general manager's situation before they address the coach. And I think Baroube, and you tell me if I'm wrong, sometimes I think I'm too close to

these situations, but you tell me if I'm wrong, like, if you're going to do something in Ottawa before you bring in a general manager, I think you got to bring in like an interim guy. So that would be like a, like a, like a, like somebody to ride out the rest of the season. I don't think Craig Baroube is an interim guy. I think when you've won a cup as recently as he has, I think you, when you bring him in, it's like let's bring him out on a three-year deal. That's just my feeling. No, I understand that.

I understand that. You could probably just let whatever assistant you have left on your bench, ride it out, and then the next off season, you hire Craig Barubei. I'm trying to figure out what Craig Brubes contract was, too, because that could also play a role, right? Through the 20, according to Jeremy's piece, through the 24-25 season, he was paid or it will be paid. So the rest of this season and all of next year,

Baroube's taken care of. if do you do you chill or do you decide to pack it up to go to Ottawa next year? I mean, we're just using Ottawa as an example, but that's something else that Craig Brubay can think about. Yeah, no, I don't think, I don't think he needs to jump on anything like today, but he seems like the type of guy that he should have an option or two on the table at some point in the next six months, 12 months, right?

It's just the cycle of coaching in the national hockey league. teams want to hop on that and want to dive into the maybe it just got to be a much better way than saying dumpster dive because there are I get it there's coaches who who have done well and a guy like Craig Barube wouldn't be this bargain been fine he obviously has a Stanley Cup to his name teams are obviously going to call when the opportunity comes but yeah we've seen it before with coaches who have been in his spot and gotten fired they get cycled over for different teams totally yeah no there's got to be be a better term than dumpster dumpster diving. Yeah. We'll figure that. We'll figure that. Well, that's the listeners. The Athletic Hockey Show at gmail.com.

Help us out. Sometimes we, even though we're both writers and broadcasters, sometimes we struggle to find the right phrasing on things. I thought this was a really fascinating story that broke on Wednesday morning. And that is Ted Leonces, who is the principal owner of not only the Washington Capitals, but the Wizards in the NBA, saying that his team is moving. or planning on moving, Julian, from their downtown arena,

Capital One arena, which is like smack, if you've ever been there for the listeners, it is an amazing spot, heart of China town. It's just right on the train line. It's a great spot, but they're going back to the suburbs,

so to speak. Moving to Northern Virginia. This would be, I think, a pretty drastic move for a team that they're looking at a 70-acre parcel of land there, in Alexandria, in northern Virginia. It's a trendy kind of upscale neighborhood.

Like, I don't love aren't arenas, and I say this is a guy who works in Ottawa. I don't love aren't downtown. I think that's why there's attendance issues in Carolina and Florida and Arizona and Ottawa and, you know, go down the list. There's a connective tissue there if they're not downtown. I don't love this looking at it from the outside.

Yeah, just from seeing Washington fans talk about it, it seems as if that arena being in downtown has helped revitalize it and so many people think it's convenient to kind of hang around that area. The fact that it's on the metro line too, which is great to use, by the way, I think a lot of people are going to miss it. It seems like the new spot, they ideally would want something along that metro line too out in the burbs, but it's not going to feel the same. as being downtown and being in that area. One thing I like, not just the fact that arenas are being downtown, like I think those are convenient locations, but you're starting to see more and more places turn them into entertainment districts. Like in Washington, funny enough, where their ballpark is,

there's an entire district where there's all these different shops and bars, and you can literally walk out and you're walking into the ballpark, and it's this open-air concept where you can see everything. It's a beautiful, beautiful stadium, I think. So I think the idea of them moving, again, me not being there, it's hard for me to feel away. I've only been to DC a few times. I've actually never been to DC a few times,

just the downtown's a beautiful area. And I can understand why some people would feel upset at this. By the way, the Reds-Douzer writes into the show, says the site isn't too far from downtown DC, just on the other side of the Potomac, south of the Pentagon. on and the airport. All right. We said we could try to get Jeremy Rutherford on.

I think we've got them lined up here for a couple of minutes. So we really appreciate our man who covers the St. Louis Blues. I think we have them here. Jeremy Rutherford. Yeah, there we go. You want to talk about a busy man. It's a busy man. Hey, I got to give you some flowers here for that column that you dropped overnight and

into the morning because you laid it on the line. You said that this is an issue that wasn't related necessarily to coaching, but maybe on roster construction, maybe on the players. So take us through how you were feeling when you got the news last night that Craig Baroube was out. Yeah, I think that Darren Drager mentioned on inside trading that there was some frustration in St. Louis. And obviously here in St. Louis, we knew that that was the case just with the way that the team has played. But guys, I thought because the Blues admittedly were in a retool, and Doug Armstrong said at the beginning of the season that they weren't too focused on the standings,

that this would be a situation that, could probably play out a little longer before a decision like this was made. But looking at the decision last night and then listening to Doug Armstrong for about 40 minutes this morning, guys, he said that he just felt like they needed to make a change. They felt like this team was better than it was showing on the ice. And the peaks and valleys, which Doug Armstrong likes to talk about a lot, were too high and too low. You're talking about wins over Vegas losses to San Jose and then recently Chicago and Columbus. You know, the column that I wrote for The Athletic, it's up there now, Ian, Julian, is, I feel like the roster construction is a bigger issue than the coaching.

And that falls on Doug Armstrong. I feel like ever since they decided to let Alex Petrangelo go to Vegas, and I realize there's two sides to that. It's been chasing the roster ever since. But a lot of guys have received long-term contracts with no trade clauses, and I think it's gotten us to this point. and I don't think that Craig Ruby had as competitive of a roster as he had a few years ago. So firing Craig Barube, the intention is what? You mentioned from Doug Armstrong earlier today that the peaks and valleys being as they are, what does he want out of this roster for the end of the year?

Well, the tricky part here is they want to be competitive now, and they also want to build for the future. So we remember that they traded Vladimir Tarcinko, traded Ryan O'Reilly, Ivan Barbechev. They got some good picks out of that, some first round picks. They come away with the number 10 overall, take Dallupor Dvorsky. He looks like a really good player right now in Sudbury. Also, you have Jimmy Snuggarood, who's lightened it up at the University of Minnesota. So that's the horizon. That's what they're aiming towards in a couple of years that those guys could be here and be players for him. But in the meantime, Doug Armstrong went bargain shopping and picked up a Yakub Verana, a Kaspari Kappanin, a Kevin Hayes, and is trying to make the team competitive. So, you know, with making the coaching change, Doug Armstrong said, Julian, that they want to get the most out of this roster. Doug Armstrong specifically said he feels like you could look at three or four of the rosters that they've lost to recently, and he feels that this one is still better. So they weren't getting the most out of the team,

thus the coaching change. J.R., tell us a little bit about Drew Bannister. I don't know anything about his coaching background, his personality, anything like that. Yeah, and he's been with the organization for quite a while, you know, in terms of HL coaches, right? You know, it seems like they change those out every couple of years, but he's actually been with a few other teams going back to the San Antonio Rampage, and then now he's with the Springfield Thunderbirds. I think a good hockey mind, you know, he played some games in the NHL, a defenseman,

you know, a good mind. You know, I've talked to him on a number of occasions, real good guy. I think that, you know, coming in here, Doug Armstrong told him, look, this is going to be a wide open coaching decision. I want to give you the chance if you want it to come in here and see what you can do with this group. Meanwhile, the search is going to obviously continue. But what he told Drew Bannister, this is what he said, I want two things. I want passion and I want accountability. I don't think there's been enough of that with the St. Louis Blues, particularly the passion you kind of see, as we touched on earlier, just the ups and downs and peaks and valleys.

So accountability could probably be another issue, as Doug Armstrong said, because we have had the captain, Braden Chen come out recently and say he feels like guys are picking and choosing when they want to play. So does that all come down on Craig Ruby? Absolutely not. But it was a big and enough issue that they want to put a new person in there to try to bring that to the locker room and on the ice. What's the thinking of having Brad Richards as a consultant for the power play? Bring in Gretzky, Richards, whoever you can bring in, because this is, you know, this has been, tough to watch. You know, Steve Ott, who I feel is a quality coach, has been in charge of the

power play. He took over a couple years ago and really had a good year with the power play, but the past couple have not been great. You know, you've got Tori Krug at the point. We all know what Tori Krug looked like in Boston, but that was also four or five other guys, just phenomenal power play players in Boston that brought a lot of success to that unit. He hasn't been as good. I don't think moving the puck, quick decisions, you know, getting shot off, things like that. But also you look at the fact that you lost Ryan O'Reilly on the power play. You lost a David Perron letting him walk. And he's got a great one-time shot, one-time shot, as you guys know, and all that has been missing from this unit. So it's stagnant.

It's not creative. So what Doug Armstrong said is, hey, guys, I've talking to the media today, I've reached out to Brad Richards recently. He's going to watch from afar, watch tape of the power play, call us, let us know what he thinks we can add. But right now it's just kind of like an advisory role more than anything. Well, listen, we really appreciate you taking a couple of minutes. I know you were jammed. I know what it's like when there's a big change with the organization. So just even shoehorn us in for a few minutes.

Really appreciate it. Listen, I can't applaud you enough for that column. It was raw. It was honest. It was accurate. All of that stuff. So terrific stuff. We look forward to your coverage in the days to come with that change in St.

Louis. Thanks for doing the Wednesday podcast. No, you guys are my family. Thanks a lot. intense. There he goes. Jeremy Rutherford, an all-timer. And yeah, part of the family. Another member of the family. Sean McIndoo, Down Goes Brown. They're standing by. We'll get to him on the other side as we continue on with the Wednesday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. All right. Like I said, Julian, let's bring in another member of the athletic hockey show family.

It's our guy, Sean McIndoo. Down Goes Brown, who I want to give you an opportunity because now not going to be putting you on the spot. And I'm pretty sure I have this story right. And if I don't, just tell me, Ian, you're a moron. But I can't help but think about Craig Baroube and a young Sean McIndoe. There's a story, right, with a jersey? There is a story. And the story is that Craig Baroube in the summer of 1991 gets traded to the Toronto Maple Leafs. This is Cliff Fletcher's first big blockbuster.

It's the Grant Fier trade sends Grant Fier to Toronto. But as part of that, they get Craig Barraubay. And for about three months, Craig Baroubeye fills the top. tough guy role in what is, let's remember the Norris Division era, early 90s, Maple Leafs. So he's going up against the Bobby Proberts, the Joey Coasters, Stu Grimson, on down the list. And at that time, my parents are asking me, what do you want for Christmas? I said, I want a Toronto Maple Leafs jersey. They say, okay, do you want a name on the back?

What do you want? Do you want, you want, Doug Gilmore hadn't arrived yet and all of that stuff. So there wasn't a lot to choose from. I said, no, no, I want Craig Baroube. Now, they did, back then, they weren't selling Craig Burr. My parents had to go and get it custom made, special nameplate, get the number 16. But I got that for Christmas. I was really happy with it.

I figured I got to be the only guy in Toronto who's got a Craig Barube jersey. This is, this is cool. This is, and I'm happy with it. And I didn't, I was on Christmas break, so I didn't get to wear it out, you know, for a week. In fact, it was the day after New Year's. A couple of my buddies called me up and say, let's go downtown. They'll take the subway down. We'll do some, you know, hit up the stores, you know, get some stuff.

I'm in and I know what I'm wearing. I'm wearing my Craig Baroube jersey. And I'm walking around downtown Toronto and, you know, a couple of people, you know, maybe kind of see it and whatever. But I notice as the day goes on, I'm starting to catch people's eyes. And in fact, I'm noticing that there's actually people who are like seeing my jersey and like kind of elbow in their friends and like pointing at me. and like, you know, man, this is people love this jersey.

This is great. Spent all day, all of that day, all of January the 2nd, 1992, downtown wearing my jersey with everybody looking at me. And I get home and I walk in the door and my dad says, nice jersey. Did you hear about the Leafs trade today? And I said, no, I didn't. And he said, well, they made a 10-player trade with the Calgary Flames. They got Doug Gilmore. No.

But one of the guys who got traded away in that trade was Craig Barubi. So Craig Barabay spent two months with the Toronto Maple Leafs. I got his jersey for Christmas. I wore it one time with pride and couldn't figure out why everybody was staring at me. And it was because the news had begun to trickle out that this guy had already been traded and was already gone. And I was to this day, I think I was the only Toronto Maple Leafs fan that day who was ticked off of a the Doug Gilmore trade. I'm like, I can't stupid Cliff Ledger. Why would he do something like this? I wasn't happy about it. Worked out okay. Still have the jersey. Okay. That was my next question.

Where's the jersey? I still have it. It was my go-to road hockey jersey for years and years and years. And I do still have it around up there. I probably am not going to break it out anytime soon until Craig Brubay gets named coach of the Maple Leafs in a few months and then I'll probably maybe I'll wear it to the press conference. I didn't even think of the Toronto Maple Leaf as a possible destination if they somehow get fed up of Sheldon Keith after this season. I didn't even think about that. Cup winning former Maple Leaf tough guy.

What's the problem with the Maple Leafs, right? They don't have that toughness. They don't, what's the word, the snot? Don't have the, just saying. I'm not saying, but I'm just. say. Man. Anyway, I knew in my back of my mind, I'm like, yeah, I think this is perfect.

We're bringing in McIndoo and there's a Broubae story. It's a good opportunity for him to share the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the story. I had never heard that story. That is incredible. Incredible. I love it. You know what I also loved is this week you wrote the story about, and this is obviously coming

off the heels of the Blue Jays almost getting or feeling like they were. We're almost getting show Hey, Otani last week. And you write, well, here are the six equivalents in the hockey world where a team was like, yeah, we got it. The star is, superstars coming, and it didn't come to fruition. At what point during the Otani mania in Toronto, did the idea for this column sort of get planted in your brain? As the story started to fall apart, you know, I was like everyone else.

I was excited. And look, I've said this in a few places. is stop acting like Blue J fans were unreasonable here. Stop blaming. It wasn't Blue J fans who went out and made up a bunch of stuff and, you know, pump their own tires about Show Hey, Otani. They got told by multiple serious, legitimate baseball media

that this was happening. So, you know, don't blame Blue Jay fans for buying what they were told was going to happen. But yeah, and then, of course, we find out it all falls apart. And so my thinking was, all right, has this happened in hockey before? Yeah, it has. Where a team and specifically where a fan base was led to believe that it was very likely, if not done deal, that a superstar was coming in. Was it a show head tiny level guy?

Maybe not. We probably never going to see something like that for a long time again in the pro sports world. But yeah, this was, there are some cases in the NHL, let's just say, that have been right up there. Yeah, I wrote about one of the, the situations you wrote in your column, the Jerome McGinla, almost to Boston, but ends up going to Pittsburgh. That is a fascinating story. I remember, like, that was in the OG Twitter era, and you're seeing like Aaron Ward tweet out, but he's going to Boston.

You're thinking, all right, he's going to Boston. And then all of a sudden, it's just mayhem for him. You could probably find in the archive somewhere that story I wrote on the almost Jerome McGill of Boston trade, but just that particular one stands out for me because I know for sure I remember that one vividly. Like that story, just seeing him as a broon, and I know he eventually becomes a brun, it wasn't going to sit right with me as a young Jerome McGillow-Megland-slash Canadians fan. It was not going to sit well with me.

It was a tough one because we had been, we had been waiting for years for a Jerome McGillet trade. The flames were that classic stuck in the middle team, not bad enough to get the high draft picked but not good enough to make the playoffs or scare anyone when they got there. Some would say that's the case now. Some would say. And everybody back then was looking at Jerome McGillis saying, okay, first of all, this is your guy that if you're going to trade somebody, this is the guy who's going to kickstart your rebuild. You're going to get first round picks and prospects and all of this stuff.

And second, he hadn't won the Stanley Cup yet. This became the new Ray Bork situation. And the decade plus removed from Ray Bork finally getting his Stanley Cup after a trade. And that great story and how everybody loved how that turned out. Okay, here it is again. Jerome McGinlet, we got to trade this guy. There were a few years where you thought the flames might do it and they didn't do it. And finally, Jay Feaster makes a decision that, okay, this is it.

This is the year. It's the last year of his contract. He's going to be a classic rental. And you're just sitting there going, man, I mean, think about even today, but especially 10 years ago, what do NHL GMs want at playoff time? They want toughness. They want leadership. They want guys who will play that physical game, guys who have played big games before

and, you know, clutch, go down the list. Jerome McGillac checked every single box. This is a guy with 500 goals and now he's available. He's been on Teen Canada's won gold medals and all of this stuff. You're sitting there going, man, this is going to be huge. And if I remember right, that night, he was supposed to be in the lineup in Calgary. and got pulled out. And we all know what that means at deadline time.

It means something is close. And sure enough, Aaron Ward, not just on Twitter, but I think goes on TSN and says, the deal is done. He's going to Boston. Bob McKenzie tweets out,

if it's done, and he was careful. He said, you know, it's not done yet, but he says, this is what the deal is. This is who's coming the other way.

So, I mean, it was obviously really close. Boston fans are celebrating. They're thinking, this guy's going to be perfect. Big bad Bruins are back. You know,

This is the ideal guy. And then a couple hours later, you hear, whoops, it's actually Pittsburgh. Or in a lot of cases, you wake up the next morning and you're going, wait a second, why am I seeing Jerome McGillow photoshopped into a penguin's uniform? What the heck happened? What happened was somebody either changed their mind or had bad information or whatever it was. And there were a lot of bad feelings back then on the Boston side of things. I don't think just with the fans feeling like the flames had maybe, you know, pulled the rug out from

under them on something that was supposed to be a done deal, had a happy ending if you're a Bruins fan because they beat Eginla and the Penguins in the playoffs. And they do get a Ginnla in the something. But even that said, there's a lot of Bruins fans who look back. Remember, they lost to the Blackhawks that year in the Stanley Cup final. There's a lot of them saying,

if we had Jerome Ginnla, we get that one extra goal that, you know, keeps the Dave Boland goal from happening or, you know, maybe gets us into a game seven. We win the Stanley Cup. if we pull off that deal, but it didn't happen, not to be. My favorite part of that story, Ray Schiro calls Jay Feister to be like, hey, I saw the trade, congratulations on the deal happening.

And Jay Feaster's like, what are you talking about? We don't have anything. And then they get working on a deal of their own, and then it ends up happening. Make those follow up. Always make the follow-up call. Always make the follow-up call. Always make the congratulatory phone call. See, Aaron Ward should have just said,

Gindler's going to a team that plays in black and gold. That's all I can tell you. It's all I can tell you. And he would have covered his bases. Hey, the other one that I thought was interesting, Sean, and you remember this from, I guess this would have been what, the summer of 2016,

remember all of the lead up and all of the clues and all of the hype around Stephen Stamcoe's going to Toronto? And he was liking tweets. And there was rumors that he was going to meet with Canadian tired executives and there was going to be all this sort of side money And like, do you like, do you remember how much hype there was with Stephen going back to Toronto? There was a lot. I mean, it was, first of all, the rare case of a legitimate superstar hitting free agency.

You can count almost on one hand the number of times it's happened in the, in the last few years. And then, yeah, the fact that he is Toronto kid, you know, this, and this was back, you know, Brandon Shanahan had just come in, that Lou Lamarillo and everything. The Leafs were were finally reinventing. themselves and a lot of people were looking at this going, hey, this is a natural fit, right? Stephen Stamco's, he's done his thing. He's, he's, you know, he's been part of Tampa for a while. Now it's time for him to come home and be the guy that we do this rebuild around.

Would have made a lot of sense. And in fairness, again, you know, not completely fans making stuff up. I mean, yeah, they went a little crazy on, you know, liking the tweet and all that sort of stuff. but they had the meeting. Remember, this was back in the day where you could, you could meet beforehand. There was that negotiation window. You know, he sat down.

He heard what the Leaf said to say. And the craziest thing about the whole, all of it is there was this buildup. Like, you're right. It was this massive story, not just among Leaf fans, but everywhere. Stephen Stamco, is it going to be home?

Is he maybe Montreal is interested too? Is Dallas, I think, was involved. There could some other team come in? And you're sitting there. looking at this going, this is the biggest story of the week of the month of the summer in hockey. And then we found out that he was resigning in Tampa Bay. And do you remember when we found out? It was the same hour that we had the, the hall for Larson trade, followed by the Subin for Weber trade. And then 15 minutes later, it was like, by the way, Stamco sustained in Tampa. And everybody was like,

we don't care. We don't have enough. We, we're dealing with the two biggest one for one trades that have ever happened, just happening within a few minutes of each other. We don't have time to think about Stephen Stamcoaster right now. I stopped being a Canadian fan that day, by the way. I was packing, I was packing my clothes to move to Syracuse for grad school. I was leaving the very next day. And I see the haul trade go down. I'm like, whoa, what is going on?

And then the Suban trade happens. And I'm like, okay, we'll, we'll screw this. I'm not doing this. Please tell me your parents gave you a Suban jersey the week before. Oh, that would have been so... That would have been so funny. But yeah, I remember that day. I remember that day.

I remember that day. I remember where I was. I was in my parents' basement. I had my suitcase out. I was packing stuff in the suitcase. I was checking my phone, checking my laptop, seeing all the news.

And then the stamp code stuff comes in. You're just like, well, that just caps off one of the wildest, what was like 30 minutes? Yeah. It was less than hour. 30 minutes.

Last is an hour. Like the wildest 30 minutes in hockey transactional history. Yeah. The number 38 sticks out to me. Like I feel like it was all within 38 minutes. Anyway, Sean, we only had a couple of minutes with you. And I want to actually pass along a couple of questions for you from the audience, from the listeners. We got an email in for you.

And a reminder, you can always hit us up, the athletic hockey show at gmail.com. So last week, I think I asked you, or we asked you, Sean, would you rather face the wrath of Lulam? Lamarillo, or I think it was Rick Tockett, right? Tocke or Lamarillo after loss. So this is an email that comes in from a, well, somebody else also named Sean, who says, Hey, Sean, one of my former co-workers did PR for the Devils back in the early to mid-2000s. He tells a story of the Devils winning a thrilling game 6 to 5 when there was a national media outlet there running about the team.

The game was sold out. I think it might have been against the Rangers. So after the game, my friend is with Lou. he's gushing about what a great night it was for the franchise, selling tickets, national attention, winning a wild game. Lou said, what's good about it? We gave up five goals. I thought about this when you were discussing who you would rather have mad at you on last week's show.

That sounds like a very little thing to say. Very low. Five. Five goals. We have five goals. Okay. And then I do have another one here. This is from a listener here.

You can maybe see the question for yourself, but from Cranman 85. So the Baroube story that you told the anecdote, John, did that ruin getting jerseys for you? Were you nervous to ever get another customized jersey post-Buruba? I never did. I don't think. Now, this was like I was at the age where this was kind of like my last shot to like ask the parents for it. So it kind of became my job from then on in. So maybe that has something to do with it.

I can't remember. Did I ever get another custom jersey? I don't think I did. I think this was, this was it. And yeah, this is the risk. And by the way, this is not like, you know, sometimes these days you see a player gets traded and the stores are like, we'll change your jersey for you if you want. Not back then.

Not back in the 90s. We weren't, we weren't nice like that to hockey fans. I was stuck with it. So, yeah, that was a big concern. Well, and Gordon actually has one more question for you, Sean. Before we get to Marat, who's standing by, two players involved in that January 2nd, 1992 trade that you talked about between Calgary and Toronto with Doug Gilmore, two of those players would go on to win the Stanley Cup after said trade.

Do you know who they are? Wasn't anybody with the Leafs? Gary Lehman won with the Habs in 93. Yeah, he did. I believe he was on that team. And I want, I know Jamie McCowan went to the Red Wings. Was he the other one?

Yeah, I think so. One of those late 90s, okay. Yeah. So that was that was, you know what? I was looking up that trade,

by the way. And I'm just going to throw this out there. for you, Ian, because I feel like this is the sort of thing that if anyone's going to get how amazing this was to me. So the Leafs get, they get Gilmore, they get a couple of the guys, including James McCount, and they get Rick Natress. Yeah. I want you to picture Rick Natress, okay?

Like when he shows up and the, like, the ultimate grizzled stay at home defender. Oh my God. You're not going to tell me he was 30 years old, were you? Guess how old Rick Natress was? I was going to guess 33. He was 20. nine years old. What?

When that trade happened. What was, what were we doing back then? This guy looked, if you had told me 39, I would have been like, yep, yeah,

he was a veteran guy, you know, creaky old dude. All I ever remember him doing with the least was scoring from center ice against Patrick Waugh and Hockey on Canada one time.

But he was 29. Jamie McCowan was 28. I thought these guys had so many miles on them. I would have figured Rick Natchez was 33 and 34. This would be like the Leafs getting the, you know, like Zedorov and Chris Tand.

of right now. It's the same age groups. It's crazy. Those guys now, I mean, it was back then. They'd probably been in the league for 17 years somehow. But yeah, they were both in their 20s. That blew me away. I just saw a photo of Rick Natress with the hairline kind of back. Like, I would have never guessed 28, 29. This is, this is right. I mean, on, Ian and I used to have the, we had the, remember the Wendell line? The Wendell, the idea that when Wendell was, you know, bald with the beard and everything and he was only 26, we might need the Rick Nattress line. because I don't, is there a player today that looks as old as Rick Natris? Did like Joe Kovalevsky does not look as old as Rick Natris did at 29. I don't know if there's anybody.

There's, there's a handful of coaches that look younger than he did back then. So I don't know, man. It was a different time to be a professional athlete, I think. Oh, man. Unreal. All right. Hey, listen, this was a fun visit as always on a Wednesday. Thanks for doing this.

And we'll hit you up again on Wednesday next week. Right on. Thanks, guys. there he goes Sean McIndoo. Always great to have Sean on. Always a great trip down memory lane and some fun stuff. Let us bring in our pal Marat, Marat, Tash, who covers the Winnipeg Jets for us. Yeah, we got them.

There we go. All good to go as we bring Marat in. Let me ask you this question, Marat. We just asked, Sean just told a great story about getting a custom Craig Barubei jersey as a kid, only to have Barubei traded a week later. Did mini Murat ever have like a jersey, customized jersey for any team growing up? I mean, my jersey stories are like my immigrant parents showing up at the

Learn What Hockey is seminar at the local rink And asking our neighbors the Abraham's like, Hey, do you have a shirt Marat could wear? So just like I don't have a story in a similar vein. But like just full credit to everybody who's been at a rink and who's seen that family who didn't know what was going on. It was like, yes, we got a jersey for you. We got socks for you, all that stuff.

Oh, we got a shirt for you. Trust me, Julian and I are the same way. Like we both, right? We come from like parents who immigrated to Canada. So I totally get it with the, yeah, the, do you have a shirt that my son could wear? Yeah. I mean, years go by and like I wasn't a particularly good hockey player, but I did end up on like a regional all-star team where they gave us our name bands with these really

like peacock feathery stars all over the name band it's like a little bit show offy for my personality but i i took that home and i asked my mom can you stitch that on my on my white shell wild jersey so i always had like this like way too showy stars everywhere over the name band sort of thing i remember that too what player did you just say just now on a wild jersey oh the white Shell Wild. All of this is deep cuts. I'm on the athletic NHL show, and I've named a story from Pinawa, Manitoba.

If you've even heard of that out there, good luck to you. Man. And the White Shell Wild was the regional team I played for it. Okay. You must have been good, though. You can't say I wasn't very good, but I made my way onto a regional all-star team.

Like, you must have been pretty good. I tried really hard. I had a lot of energy. I had an awful lot of energy. And so the hands weren't necessary. there. The wheels weren't necessarily there, but if the puck happened to be near, you wouldn't know what to look

at me, but I had one of those freakish competitive levels, so people would bounce pucks in off of me sometimes. Oh, man. What a story, man. You've been doing obviously great with your Winnipeg Jets coverage and obviously looking at the

Jets right now. We saw what they were like last year. We're seeing what they're like this year, but it looks as if they're going to be without Kyle Connor for the foreseeable future. after that knee-on-kne against Anaheim. What can he tell us about seeing that play and what the Jets are going to have to do in absence of one of the most underrated goal scores in the game?

Yeah, so, I mean, I was in that building in Anaheim. Kyle Conner makes just a tremendous move into the middle of the ice. And one of the ironic things about all of this is you love moments when Kyle Connor cuts into the middle of the ice. It's been a dynamic look for him this year. He's stepping around people. He's going to dangerous areas. and he's scoring, not like an Ovechkin range from the top of the circles,

but he's scoring from right in close to the net because he's driving to dangerous areas. On this case, you know, Ryan Strom, leans in with his shoulder, he misses the shoulder, his knee is there, he's also square to Connor with his knee, and isn't able to dodge or doesn't dodge or what have you. The knee-on-neek collision is a direct hit. It looks immediately like it's going to be painful. Cal Conner goes to the ice. He stays down for a moment, and he's not the type to do that, despite his small stature.

He's tough in that sort of particular way. It took Nicola Euler's and Josh Morrissey to help him get off the ice. He wasn't able to put any weight on his right leg. So Strome missed his check, got him with his knee, and you could tell right away that that was going to be a long-term thing. You didn't need the PR update to say he wasn't coming back that night. Now, it looks like we're looking at something in the... the two-month range for Kyle

Connor, but he was flown home and was evaluated in Winnipeg last night. I'm not sure what the updates were upon further evaluation by Jets team doctors. It's going to be, we're talking months and we're talking about a really good player who the Jets will sorely miss.

Yeah, we're talking about like Julian said, one of the best goals scores in the game that doesn't maybe get the national attention that he deserves. So I mean, look, the Jets have had quite the year. We weren't sure. I almost kind of put them in the same bucket as St. Louis, where I wasn't, I wasn't

sure had their sort of best before date, had they reached their best before date, had that expired. But they've gone through a little bit. Rick Bonas had to leave because of a family situation. He's back. Like, what's the feeling there? And what has been the feeling around Rick Bonas coming back and being back behind the bench?

Yeah. I mean, I think the confidence in Winnipeg is high. You talk to these guys, and obviously they're going to want to portray strength, but I believe that they believe that they're a good team, that they've made some real improvements to their team, top to bottom. And one of the things that last year's team gets criticism for, or maybe when people look at last year's season and say, okay, well, the Jets signed Hallibuck and Shifley, well, those are the same guys. You know, no major transformations other than purely Dubois and Blake Wheeler, which is a pretty big deal. and the pieces coming back in Gabriel Valardi, Alex Ayapollo, and Rasmus Kupari. That's transformative. But I think that people forget, Nino Niederrider and Vladislav Nemesnikov were trade deadline editions last year.

And they were exactly of the hardworking, forecheck hard, back check hard, bulldog your way to the middle of the ice if you got a type of player that Winnipeg was sorely missing last season. I think that they were really great chemistry ads for the team. and they weren't able to transform Winnipeg's, you know, fortunes against Vegas in the, in the playoffs, but they were only there for a quarter of the season. We're seeing what the team looks like with them as added depth, plus Aiafalo, plus Valardi, all of that sort of stuff. You're seeing a deeper Winnipeg Jets team. You're also seeing a team that is sort of taking last year's defensive improvements and really doubling down on them. You got five guys that are willing to backcheck to the middle of the ice, protect the middle of the ice, protect the middle of the ice dangerous areas. You have wingers like Kyle Conner, not really known for their defense,

some really horrid defensive metrics over the years who are committing in new ways. And I think that that's helped. You're also seeing the Jets embrace the stretch pass, which has been relatively new to the team. So when those five guys are in Winnipeg zone, they collapse, they protect the middle of the ice, they're playing a zone defense, they're committed to it this year. When Winnipeg gets the puck and it's on Josh Morrissey's stick and there's an outlet pass to be had. The Jets are stretching two forwards really, really aggressively, and it's paid dividends for them. They're making genuine systemic improvements. So I think this is an above-average NHL team. I don't know if they're going to hang around that division lead. I don't know if they're going

to be towards the absolute top of the Western Conference, but I see a playoff spot in their future and some quality play. Okay. That was actually going to touch off on what I was going to ask about where you see this team without Kyle Conner in the lineup, but that's a really good way of answering it. So I'll ask about another Jets player. Well, he's not. He's not. He's not with the Jets anymore, but he's long associated with the franchise. And he seems like he's fallen on some hard times in Columbus in Patrick Lainey. Only five goals, eight points in 17 games this year with Columbus. Just curious about your thoughts on how Patrick Lione's career has been since he's left

Winnipeg and now in his current situation in Columbus, it just doesn't seem like the ideal situation for him. I mean, the one game he played for Winnipeg, the season that he got traded to Columbus, was a three-point night. It was dominant. It was a jet's win. I think everybody was saying, hey, this guy has arrived in a brand-new way.

And certainly he wasn't happy at the time, and the trade was eventually made to Columbus. And Kierlu-Dubois came back. Jack Roslovick also went to Columbus. But I think that many people assumed that he would continue that trajectory from there. I guess my opinion on what's happened for Patrick Lainé is two-fold. The first is that a lot of tough things that have happened.

That is not a deep Columbus Blue Jackets organization offensively. Patrick Lainey isn't really a play driver. He's not a guy that dominates where the puck is going to be on the ice. He's got that tremendous shot. He has offensive instincts. He can play on the wall in the offensive zone in certain times. But he needs, I think, a deeper supporting lineup. I don't think he's your number one guy on any team.

And I think he's been asked to do a fair bit. he's also lost his father in the time that he's been in Columbus. The day that he was benched not too long ago was the two-year anniversary of his father's passing. I saw that in a line A Instagram story and then doubled back and confirmed. They've asked him to play center, which I would never have imagined coming out of watching him play in Winnipeg as well. And I really think he's still relatively young. maturity-wise, he hasn't rounded into that 200-foot player or anything like that, I think he needs to be surrounded by some real quality, by some players who that he admires,

he respects, he looks up to a coaching staff that's really working with him collaboratively that he admires. And I'll just end that thought by saying, why do I say that? It's because when I went to Finland and I talked to his minor league hockey coaches from Tamperi in Finland and they're talking about, okay, what makes this guy tick? The stories I got were, well, he would really selectively choose who he paid attention to as a boy. If that coach had pro experience, if he had done something, if he had made it, he was the best student, grade A student model, you know, team player, all of that sort of stuff. But he would tune people out. And I think that that respect, you know, I think that there's a combination of he needs to have that and the quality around him.

And that's a lot to ask for in Columbus right now. Yeah, it's remarkable. His first two seasons in the NHL, Patrick Lina, 80 goals, first two seasons. His parts of four seasons in Columbus, 63. So it's, yeah, and he's had injury issues. And like you said, you always want to cheer for the athlete. You want to see them do well, but it just, boy, it feels like a square peg, round hole situation maybe in Columbus.

It just doesn't quite, just doesn't quite seem to fit. I'll tell you why don't we why don't we get you we'll wrap up we'll ask you this question because we got a live question coming in from a viewer here Marat and this one comes in from wrencheduser which again I've always leery

Julian you have to you have to step in and tell me if one of these handles I have no idea what that means man don't look at me okay well you guys are younger than me so wrenched user has some double entendre and I'm making a fool of myself just please here's a young and cool one Julian But okay, I'm seeing this.

This is what happens with the Jeth roster? Should Conner's injury be longer than the speculated six to eight weeks? They recalled Tonyato. Yep, that happened today. But would a worse than expected timeline mean Lambert or Shiprecrop to be recalled? And for me, the roadmap to how Winnipeg handles Duzer is from Fregelrod. That's amazing. I wish I remembered.

I had no idea. I was too young for Fregoon. I look at the Gabriel Volardi injury and recovery. as sort of a timeline for how Winnipeg's going to approach things with Kyle Conner. I'm not saying it's the same injury. I don't know that. I mean, obviously, knees. What I mean is that the Jets backfilled from within, from veterans.

They didn't go to that top prospect well too early. Nikita Chibricov leads the Manitoba Moose and points. Brad Lambert is second. These are top prospects with a lot of skills. I understand the thinking that, hey, you know, Kyle Connor top six forward. Okay, that's an opportunity for these guys to show what they've got. But Winnipeg weathered the storm without Gabriel Vallardi, by going to Dominic Tony Nato, by going to Yonsen Fopiolbi, by going to their depth veteran players, I think that's

the roadmap here, even in a long-term scenario, unless one of those kids goes absolutely supernova in the 8th. Amazing. Hey, by the way, Reds Duzer also has a little hot tip for you, Marat. Red Tuduja says the ice cream stand in Pinawa near the marina is great. Facts. Pure facts. This is an amazing fact.

Yeah. I love it. That's not an insider tip. You already knew that. Honestly, I may have worked at it as a teenager. So. Oh, really? Look at that.

Beauty. 10, 500 people. I love it. Scoops as a teenager and now Scoops as a reporter. It's all this. Love it. Great stuff. Hey, thanks for dropping by.

We love having you on and chatting all things, Winnipeg and Leaguewide with you. Thanks for dropping by the Wednesday pot. Hey, thanks for having me, guys. There goes our guy. Murat, boy, he's great. And one day we'll do a compilation of fun stories where people from the athletic where they work

before getting into media. Oh, my God. Do we want, I mean, I would love to know where everybody worked before. You know what, that would be a good idea. That'd be a, that's a fun, like summer episode when like nothing's going on. You know what?

You know, it's actually a fun story to dig sometimes with NHL players. Yeah. Like, you know, the most random one of all. So you remember Johnny O'Duia? He played defense for the devils and bouncing around. Atlanta, Thrasher. He was in Atlanta, Atlanta. And they had him, Dustin Bufflin, Evander Kane.

Yeah. And there's another, oh, God, Nigel Dawes, Nigel Dawes. There was that time where there were like four black players on the thrashers at the same guy. Yeah. And so I remember Johnny O'Dooia, I'd have to go back in double. check. But like one year,

Julia, he worked at a at like a cemetery and he was actually one of his summer jobs. He had to like dig, like dig, with a shovel helped dig graves. Oh wow. Yeah. Like, anyway, so sometimes guys have really

interesting, weird, kind of quirky stories of jobs that they used to have. So him and Jeff Merrick would get along, right? Because Jeff, wasn't the story with Jeff Merrick, who works for the very prominent 32 Thothoth podcast. Didn't he, he was a gravedigger too. And he buried, um, Harold Ballard. Yes. Harold Ballard.

That's what it is. Yes. He buried. Was it not? Yeah, it was him. It was him. Yeah. That's a, like, yeah, that was a wild.

That's a wild. That's, that was, that was, I remember hearing that story. The one player I could think of in terms of jobs, uh, I know Martin St. Louis, when he was still living in LaValle, worked in a, lumber yard like every summer. It was just, you know, like, yeah, he just worked at a lumber yard, essentially. And yeah, that was like a really interesting summer job. And remember, he went on drafted

too. So like he, when like the draft was going on, like he just be, he was like working that day, I think. So yeah, a lot of people have a strange jobs. Okay. Let's, let's, let's tackle that. You and I will do a story for the off season. We just talked to guys. Give us a random job. And we put together like the best

15 summer jobs. Offseason summer jobs for Mnichel players. Yeah. What do you think Carter Bred did? How do you think Connor Bred passed the time in the summer one day? Do you think any of those super elite, I'm first overall, and everyone knows I'm special since I was 11, like Crosby, McDavid, Badaard, like they weren't working at a dairy queen. They weren't. One of them did.

Maybe one of them did. I don't know. No way. I don't, maybe, I mean, that'd be pretty funny, right? like maybe not Connor Bedard. Maybe Connor Bardard has just been engineered every single it seems like he, yes, there's the, Julia writes in on YouTube, Arbor Jack I

worked at Costco. That is a very, that is out there. That I know for sure. There's no way Arbor Jackai, given his personality, was the greeter. No. Arbor Jacki is the guy who checks your receipts on the way out. That's Arbor Jackal. Dude's the guy in the back loading up all

the different like meat into one area of the store or some other some other product appliance or whatever he is not checking receipts or if he's going to do that i mean you're he's going to get a note that he needs better use of his time oh i he's not the sample guy either harper jacket it's not handing out samples no no chance let's wrap up uh Wednesday i got to your take on this. Again, sometimes I fear Julian that I'm too close to situations and I cover games. So I love your outsider perspective.

Tuesday night, Brady Kachuk of the Ottawa senators came in on a penalty shot late in the game against Kochetkov from Carolina. Piotr, Kochetkov, the goalie for the Hurricanes. And Kov, this was really weird. I have never seen a penalty shot play out like this. But

Brady Kach, first of all, came in at full speed. Like I've never seen Kachuk's skate on a penalty shot, shoot on a temporary thing with this type of pace or speed. And he came in full throttle to the net. And Kachkov came diving out like he was Johnny Bauer from whatever year Johnny Bauer playing in 1963. And he trips Kachuk. He makes the same. He trips Kachuk. Kach goes actually, he was going with such speed.

He went flying into the end boards. Kach gets up and starts beaking the Kochekov, the goal. goalie. Kachukhov yells back at him. Kachuk gets thrown out of the game. I got a question for you. Okay. And there's a legitimate question. I don't know the answer to it. Okay.

Now, Kachuk was who awarded a penalty shot because they ruled that the goalie Kachikov had thrown his stick on a previous scoring attempt. So Kachuk gets a penalty shot. Is it possible that on a penalty shot, the referees could rule, actually, Kachikov, what you did was wrong, it's another penalty shot. Pellity shot.

It could happen, right? I'd have to double check the rulebook, but I would laugh. I would laugh so hard if that happened. I guess all I was thinking is, I'd love to see that happen. Just one time where a player is taking a penalty shot and the goalie throws a stick or something. They're like, well, you know what? Another penalty shot. You could just go on in perpetuity.

Yeah, just like if you're a goalie, just continue to throw. Yeah, as long, I mean, as long as, the rule isn't that, you know, if a goalie does that, then they rule it automatically a goal. Why not just do that if you feel you can get away with it? It would be pretty hilarious, but maybe tiresome after like the third or fourth time. Like, if you see it a second time, I could see an entire crowd just going crazy. Oh, another bounty shot. But if you do it like a third or fourth time, you're going to get food. Julia says that anybody who's ever watched Kochekhov play in the HL could have expected him to do that. So look, it was an aggressive move.

Brady didn't like it. But I don't think Kochekhov did anything nefarious or against the rule. I love them beaking at each other at the end. Like that's not something I've ever seen before. I've never seen that before. And to see Brady get so upset and Piotr Kachkov try to hold his own and be like, yeah, like, what are you going to do? I thought that was awesome. That was a really fun moment.

You've seen a lot of fun moments this week. Yeah, absolutely. Another fun one happened. we tried to see this up on Tuesday. Connor v. Connor. McDavid and the Oilers get the last laugh. They've won eight straight games, eight in a row.

But Bardard with the goal of the night. And I'll tell you, you know, I think I remember saying this in the off season that based on everything that I had seen and based on talking to people, it was my feeling that when Connor Bedard came into the league, he would have one of the best five shots in the league already.

Like, I think Matt Matthews has the most unique, dynamic, deceptive release of a shooter in the game today. I think Badarj in the top five. And I think it was proven last night. I don't understand how he had the room, the time, the space, whatever. To get that shot off in the manner in which he did to score on Skinner, I think he's got one of the best five shots in the game already. I don't disagree with that.

And it's the way that he beats Stewart Skinner clean, just getting the shot off. and it just goes top shelf and Stuart Skinner has no chance. That's what's incredible about that move. It's funny. The Oilers win that game. They leapfrog the flames and the standings, but we're going to talk about that Connor Bredard goal for a while. It just feels as if there's been a handful of moments already this year

where Connor Bred has surprised us and amazed us with the talent. Like he's been everything we've expected so far. And that shot, it's filthy. Yeah, I don't think you're wrong for saying it's a top five shot in the league. Yeah, I think so. Let's wrap with... It might not even be five. It might be top three. Yeah, and I don't know who else.

I'd love to hear from the listeners. I mean, like, I guess the way to phrase this question for the listeners, who do you think in the game right now has a better shot definitively or, you know, something comparable to Baderd. Matthews is for me. I mean, boy, Posternak, maybe for me. But anyway, I'm open to hearing what people think. I do want to wrap on this because when we're talking about McDavid and Bedard,

you do start to think about the All-Star game. You do start to think about some fun skills stuff. And you ended up writing about this, Julian. The NHL, when they all-star game in Toronto at the beginning of February, are going to do a revamped skills competition. Instead of having a whole bunch of guys compete in a whole bunch of events, it's going to be the same 12 guys competing in a handful of events. And you're going to earn points.

And the person who ends up with the most points, gets what i i feel like i got to do the doctor evil one yeah you're doing dollars one million dollars one million dollars one million dollars i i wasn't sure if i wasn't sure if i should try it like i got the finger up here but like i yeah yeah that's full doctor evil here yeah i don't want it i don't want people to be in the comments be like this guy sucks anyway yeah that con yeah i i like it i'll be quite honest with you when i saw that it was announced i think i like it i feel as if in recent years the skills competition. One complaint we've seen a lot is that the players don't try hard. And we've seen that, especially for the breakaway challenge, where you're seeing guys try and miss.

And it doesn't necessarily work out as well. This seems like at least an attempt at trying to get whoever is participating to try because there is a prize at the end of it. I'm curious what the players will do with it if they win that one million, if they keep it for themselves or if they donate to charity. But you give them an incentive at the end of it. And you're still going to be able to keep events like fastest skater, hardest shot. There's supposed to be a one-timer challenge as well, a passing competition. From what I understand,

I believe the 12 players get to participate in four of the first six events. And then that number gets down to eight in terms of players. And then they end up in a fifth event. And then the sixth event, which is supposed to be an obstacle course, you get the final six people and the best six people. people, the winner among them, whoever has the most points, they end up winning. There's a point system attached to this to.

The article I wrote on The Athletic will explain it better than I'm doing right now. But I just generally like the fact that they're trying to get guys to try. I'm also curious about how they're going to get people to partake in this. I'm very intrigued at that as well whenever we get more details. Well, what about the fans? How are you going to get them? How are you going to get that? Here's what I think.

You're going to give out a million dollars to the winning player. I think you should split that. The winning player gets 500 grand. And one random fan who's watching gets the other 500 grand. And you've got to prove that you've been watching the whole time. And I think that's how you get eyeballs on the, you tell me you wouldn't watch, you put your name in a lottery,

and you prove that you're watching the entire skills competition. Like a 50-50 draw? That's actually true. Me and McDavid. That's pretty funny. Like anyone who watch, give me a half a mill. Like each fan base that's represented, like, I guess the team could hold some kind of lottery,

and then they pick a name. It's like, okay, you're the name that could split it. That's pretty funny, actually. That's actually pretty cool. Good job. That's a great idea. There you go. You high voiced it too, which makes me think you're not sold.

Yeah, that's a good idea. That's a really good idea. No, I actually think it's a pretty funny idea. I actually think it's a good idea. I shouldn't have high-voiced it. I'm sorry. No, I just think generally speaking, you need the skills competition. I mean, you obviously need to be good, of course,

but you do not want it to be a situation where you have guys not trying and you get guys out of it and fans out of it. I also hope that the TV product for this will be good. I don't know if you remember watching the event last year. Just the, they had the breakover. challenge and they kept interrupting after each participant with some random event going on. The way they did it last year

was just not ideal. So I hope that this year's event in Toronto with the skills competition, with the game itself, just the TV product has to look better. So it may be the new format will help make that be the reality. Yeah. Okay. We should probably leave it there because I know we've gone just over an hour because the hour is flown by. Huge thanks to Jeremy Rutherford, Maratha Tesh, Sean McIndoo, for helping spend the hour with us.

It was awesome. Thank you, the listener and the viewer, for hanging out with us too for the last 60 minutes or so on the Wednesday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. I want to let you know that on Thursday. Hey, I wish I had one of the, you know the NFL films guy who is a John Fessenda who has that deep voice? I wish I could promo something like him. I wish we had, and you know what, let me stop myself.

And Max Boltman, Sean Gentile. I'd be stopped myself because we're already over the hour. I would love an NHL equivalent to NFL films. Would that not be the coolest thing? Anyway, that's for a whole other episode. It's another episode, another show. Salveon Boltman Gentility will come your way on Thursday. I want to thank you again for listening to the Wednesday edition of the pod with Julian and I.

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