The Athletic Hockey Show - David Krejci announces retirement, Cale Makar will be on the cover of NHL 24

Episode Date: August 14, 2023

Ian Mendes returns to the Monday show and is joined by Max Bultman to answer listener questions including discussing the retirement of David Krejci, and if it affects the balance of power in the Atlantic division. Next, the announcement that Cale Makar will be the cover athlete for EA's NHL 24, a listener asks for predictions for who will be the first players to score ten goals for the Senators and Red Wings next season, and what does the future hold for Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews? Also, why is Tomas Tatar still available, the latest on the Hockey Canada investigations, fighting banned in the QMJHL and more!Save on a subscription to The Athletic: theathletic.com/hockeyshowGo to grammarly.com/go to download and learn more about GrammarlyGO.LinkedIn Jobs helps you find the qualified candidates you want to talk to, faster. Post your job for free at linkedin.com/nhlshow.To get 15% off go to mudwtr.com/hockeyshow to support the show and use code HOCKEYSHOW for 15% off Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Hockey Show. We are back for a Monday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. And because it's the summertime, we got the revolving chair thing going on here. Ian Mendez's back as I usually do the Monday show. Julian McKenzie is away. And Max Bolman, who does the prospect show for us on the athletic hockey show, covers the Red Wings, of course. Max is sitting in

And I think Julian is actually I think I saw him posting on social That he's down in like Washington, D.C. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I think he was taking in a Nationals game. Julian goes abroad summer 2023. Yeah. I feel like the entire roster

of the athletic hockey show, the podcast crew, everybody's been away because I see Haley's post. Is Haley in Disneyland or sorry, Disney World? Yeah, I don't know, but I saw a palm tree yesterday. So somewhere nice,

somewhere nicer than Then I guess Toronto is pretty nice in the summer. Yeah, it's okay. Down Goes Brown is away this week. Sean McIndoo is away. Julian's away. Have you taken any trips this summer here, Max? No trips.

I'm going to, I actually go into Toronto, the Labor Day weekend with a couple of buddies. And I got my bachelor party this weekend, but that's here in Detroit. So no trips so far. Okay. Well, we're going to need a breakdown of Max's Bachelor party for whatever you're comfortable sharing with the list. Oh, it's very wholesome. I'm hosted in Olympics.

I'm getting all my buddies from all the different phases of my life to come into Detroit. I'm going to one of my life's passions is inventing competitions and then creating far over complicated rules for them. So I'm going to do that to the extreme here. Ordered some prizes last week that'll get here. Splitting up all my friends into teams of four will compete in several different athletic and we'll say non-athletic competitions. And at the end, hand out some prizes to the winners.

No one who doesn't win is walking away with anything. So it's raised the stakes. I like this. So are these called like the Max Olympics or something like that? I was trying to think of something like, you know, I don't know how self-involved I want to get with it, but Boltman Games kind of had my favorite so far, I think. Well, why do we throw this out to the listener?

Maybe it's because they are far more creative than you and I. Yeah, that's right. So Max is doing his Bachelor Party theme game. Give us a name here. Give Max a name for this. Can you give us one event or are you still workshop and something? No, I got all the events. So the first one will be, it'll be like a scavenger hunt that will, you'll have to go around the city and find different things.

And it'll lead you to the next thing. and it'll culminate in our first bar of the night. But the first three will get points toward the standings, the medals, right? Yeah, we'll get points toward their score. There'll be a trivia round. There will be a seven-on-seven touch football game. We'll have to combine some teams up for that. And then there will be a collection of drinking games that will run through.

And I have to figure out if those are all going to count as one event or if I'm going to really wait it so that being the best at those could probably swing you the entire competition. We'll have to see. Is there any drinking before the touch football game? I think it would be unwise. I'm shooting for like a noon start time on that. So I guess I can't say for sure that there will be none. I myself will not be.

I don't like the risk of that one. Oh, man. Okay, this is great. Well, this sounds like a fun weekend. And it's a good thing you're hosting this Monday, because I feel like a week from today, next Monday, you might not be in the shape to host a podcast. I thought about taking next Monday off.

I'm actually still thinking about taking next Monday off. We'll see how that goes. Yeah, go ahead and book it. I would say go ahead and book it. Give yourself a little runway here. Yeah. Give yourself a little runway. So listen, obviously you're sitting in this week.

And as we kind of go through the cycle here of the off season, and there's not a ton obviously to sink our teeth into. And yet, on this Monday, there are a couple of kind of newsworthy items. Let's start with this. That's not a huge surprise. But David Craichy announcing early on Monday that he is wrapping up his career. He's announcing his retirement and moving on from Boston. I think from an on-ice perspective, I think the Bergeron retirement affects the Bruins more.

Creachie was a little bit more of a kind of a support place. player last year, not to David Krati from 10 years ago that was obviously a pretty dominant center, but we've got people asking, you know, what is this due to the Atlantic Division? Does this do anything to Boston? Ryan has tweeted at us asking, hey, how does the recent news that David Crachey's retirement, along with Bergeron early in the summer, affect the balance of power in the Atlantic division? So how are we feeling about David Crachie? Yeah, I mean, I think there was kind of a feeling earlier this off-season, especially once Bergeron retired, that this could happen. And so I don't know that this is like a balance of power altering news in the sense that I think we were already kind of bracing for something like this.

But what I'm very curious about is how do they replace them? Because I think Boston still has so many huge pieces, right? They got the reigning Vezina winner. They got two of the very best wingers in the NHL up top with Posternak and Marchand. And they have two of the best defensemen in the NHL, Charlie McAvoy and Hampus Lindholm. I don't think that's going to take them completely out of contention. But as a playoff team, you're willing to. want to have a stronger center picture than Pavelzaka and Charlie Coyle as your top two.

No offense to either of those guys who are both really good players. And I think either of them can be a really capable number two center. But I wonder, does Boston find a way to go chase a Mark Schifley? Do they go find a way to chase an Elias Lindholm, right? These are guys who I think you plug them in and okay, you know, you're still Boston, right? You're still a force to be reckoned with. If not, boy, you're one injury away from trouble. So that's kind of my takeaway out of this.

Yeah. Like, you know, Crachie to me, if you look at, like, I wonder in the salary cap era, was there a better prototypical number two center than David Crachie? Because I'm not going to call Malkin to me is a number one center that just happened to play at the number two because of Sid. But in terms of like an absolute prototypical, this guy's the number two center, how many guys would you say are actually better than David Crachie? Because I think of those great Boston teams, obviously the one that won the Cup in 2011, like, Krati was money for them. Like, he was arguably as important as any forward to the team. I just felt like he played such a smart, 200-foot, well-rounded game.

I think if I had to pick one guy that's just a total, his only role, like, it's only to be a number two center. Boy, I'd have a hard time saying that somebody was better at his role as a number two center than David Krati in the cap era. Yeah, it's tough. Because we've seen so many of these recent teams that have, you know, two star centers, right? Like the obvious one is, is the Crosby Malkin, right? You can play them together, but you can also have, you know, Evgeny Malkin is your number two center is ridiculous, right? Even Tampa, you can kind of fiddle with who was the two C on that team. Was it Stamcoast?

Was it Point? Was it Sirelli? Like, they did all kinds of different stuff working with that. But I get what you're saying completely of like a true role. This is all this guy does. He is the number two center. He's going to get some Selkevote some years. He's going to score close to a point per game some years.

He's just whatever you need him to do, he does it. And he's a huge reason, no doubt. He's a huge reason why Boston has been one of the very best franchises in the NHL for the last decade plus. You know what? We do have a little bit more news coming here. I'm going to ask you to not look at Twitter right now. Okay. EA Sports has just announced its cover athlete for NHL 24.

Ooh. For obviously NHL 24. Any guesses here? Any guesses on who is going to be the cover athlete? We're at HL 24. Interesting. Well, we could go on theme and say David Posternak, but I feel like we're just in the era of the dynamic defenseman right now.

So I'm going to say Kail McCar. You looked. I didn't. Is it Kail McCar? It's Kail McCar. Man, you nailed it. You nailed it. Nice.

And last year was Trevor Zegris. And remember, he was kind of like the flavor of the, like, he was so fun and it was great. But yeah, it's Kail McCar, who is obviously, like you said, the most dynamic defenseman in the game. Like, do you believe, are you a believer in the, what's the greater jinx? Being on the cover of an EA sports game or the Sports Illustrated cover jinks? I believe in the Madden jinks really strongly. But I do think it's specific to Madden. Although, didn't Calvin Johnson have his record breaking year the year he was on Madden?

So there are exceptions. But, like, I also just think of some of the guys who have been on the EA, on the Madden cover specifically. I mean, maybe Peyton Hillis, maybe he should not have been on the Madden cover or whatever. But there's been some whoppers. Yeah, there have. Like, I know that the only one I think of the NHL were, the guy was on the cover and then it turned out okay. Patrick Kane was on the cover the year Chicago won their first cup, which would have been 2010.

So I think Kane was on the cover of EA Sports 2010 and they won the cup. I guess my question is, and I think that's the only time a cover athlete in EA Sports has won the cup. If you're an Aves fan, are you feeling like, ah, damn, I wish McCar wasn't on the cover? I think there's so much like sentimental value and having that as like a collectible. Yeah, like, I remember, so I went to Michigan, and the last NCAA football video game had Dinnard Robinson on the, now it's coming back. So he's going to lose that. But I, I, even though I don't even have a console that can play that game anymore, I still keep that game because I just think it's so cool to have now. Now, you're going to have tons of kale McCar stuff if you're a, if you're

an Aves fan, I'm sure. But I think that's a pretty cool. I don't know. I think it's almost worth the risk to it. But, you know, it's different if you're, I guess, a contending. team and you're right in the middle of this and you're you're stressed about these these jinxes but I feel like it's worth it do you find it odd that like and I'm just double check here Nathan McKinnon has never been on the cover that is weird that feel weird do you yes it does yeah because he's such a video game player he's just like he's the guy you max out all the sliders on right yeah yeah yeah he's the 99 everything right like yeah man anyway so there there you go A little bit of, but good for you for actually predicting or nailing the kale-McCarr one.

Thank you. Thank you. I did not cheat. I really didn't. Yeah. Okay. And I have the list year of all time, like every cover athlete ever for EA sports. Oh, wow.

Is this the weird? Like, is Vlad Teresenko on the cover of EA Sports of NHL 17? Is that the weirdest one? There was a, who was the flyer? Wasn't there a flyer on it? Clodger Root. Okay, okay, yeah, that works. Clodgeroo was on NHL 13.

Eric Stahl was on NHL-08. Owen Nolan in 01, you know, and John Van Biesbrook, the OG EA sports cover guy, NHL 97 was John Ben Beesbrook. They didn't have a game until 97. No, they had them, but I don't think they had cover athletes per se, right? There was like just random, you know, NHL 94. or whatever. Yeah.

I mean, so Teresenko and Jeru are in like the same tier for me of just like guys who were maybe I'm just like underrating with the mass appeal for both of them. Like Kel McCar, I feel like every 11 year old hockey fan loves Keel McCar. Were there like 10 year old Tarasenko and Jeru stands in the mid-2010s? I don't know. That's why I feel like you target with this game, right?

You got to get a kid to beg his mom for it. Hmm. Yeah, you know what? Another good question for the listener. Were those guys kind of the it guys for that kind of eight to 12, 13 demographic? It's a great. It's a great question. But I also now wonder, I'm sneakily suspicious, is the Red Wings beatwriter just throwing

some shade at Ottawa by questioning the legacies of Vlad Teresenko and Kodzure? I think that's exactly what's happening. I was a big Teresenko fan in high school. that was when I was in high school. I think he was on, although 17, I was already in college. I was graduating college. But when I was in high school, Tarasenko was one of my favorite players. But so I would never throw shade his way.

I just wonder like he doesn't seem like he has that kind of like, I just think of like my friend's little brothers. I remember like they were obsessed with like Mitch Marner when he was a second year. Because I feel like kids love the really young player. Electric players, but also really young players. Yeah, Zegris. Yeah, right. Like you want the guy who they think like, yeah, that's like me. that's like me, right?

And I don't know that Terrace I cover would have that, like, you know, feel to a 12-year-old or whatever. But maybe, maybe they did. Yeah. Speaking of the teams that we cover, we covered Detroit and Ottawa, we got a question here from, and you're going to love this Twitter handle. Hachick's Adductor is the Twitter handle name. And that in Ottawa, Hachick's Adductor is the thing that that's the injury that unraveled to Ottawa's great. Stanley Cup. Chatsa, then, of course, went to Detroit and was part of that.

team that won the cup in 08. But here's the, what's the question here? Okay. Or was it, right? No, Hachick wasn't on that team that won the cup, right? In 08? I think he was the backup on that team. Did he back up Osgood? Now, I'm totally blanking now. I know that they went. He would have, I mean, he was the starter on the O2 team, for sure. And he was back in 07, 07, when they got to the final four. Yes. And he played, no 7.08? He started 40 games for that 07-08 team. And he won the Jennings. He only started four games in the playoffs. So he backed him up in the playoffs.

Man, like they had Hachik as the backup. Yeah, I was, I was, he was 43, but. Yeah, 43 year old Dominic Hachik. Anyway, the question asked to us is, with the teams that you guys cover, Detroit and Ottawa, who's going to be the first player to hit 10 goals this season for the senators in Red Wing? So if I had to ask you right now, Max, who's the first Detroit Red Wing to hit double digits and goals this year? What's your answer? Larkin, I know that's boring I know everyone wants me to say Alex De Brinkett also

But I feel like it's Larkin He seems to always start seasons pretty well He starts he's always like seems like he scores their first goal of the game Every other game So I would have to say Larkin for that one Who do you think it is for the sense? I'm going to say Timmy Stutzlow I think Tim is going to be a 40 goal guy this year

That could Maybe 50's pushing it But a 40 goal dynamic Super Super Super Super Star So I'll say for Ottawa, I'll say, I'll say, Kimi Stutzeluk. You know, I'm talking about Patrick Kane being a EA sports cover athlete. Jonathan Taves was also an EA sports cover athlete.

We have a question here from Babcock in Toronto. This is how you know it's an old Twitter account when it's Babcock and T.O. But he wants to know, hey, guys, what's up with Jonathan Taves and Patrick Kane? Are they playing hockey anymore? No, what's happening there? If you go to Cap Friendly and you punch in, you know, pending UFAs or whatever, I think the first two names that come up are Patrick Kane and Jonathan Taves. And if you think about that, go back three, four years ago, you probably never would have foreseen a scenario in which you would be in the middle of August of an off season. Kane and Taves were unsigned.

What are we thinking here? I think it's got to just be they wait until, first of all, I don't, Taves probably can't handle like a top six rolling center, but how funny would that be to see him go to Boston now that they've had their two transcendent leaders leave and he comes in? I think both of them just kind of wait and pick their spots and see who needs them at come, you know, September 10th or whatever, you know, a week or two before camp starts and they get in there and, you know, see who's got a little money left, see who they want to play on and see who they, as they size up everyone's off seasons, who gives them the best chance to really compete. Because I feel like at this point, neither of those guys really, you know, needs to go for the top dollar so much as they just want to probably win. That would be my guess there.

I also want to throw in here as an aside, Tim Stutzlow would have been an awesome pick for cover athletes. I bet he gets one in the next few years, especially for the international appeal of that, too. Yeah. that's a great yeah that's a great point like Tim Timmy if he has one more these young guys right yeah he's yeah he's got that electric feel

if you're Patrick came and the Buffalo Sabres came calling would you sign a one year deal because look if you came think about it you've already got your cups like it's not like you're you're like Jerome McGillet at the end of your career

and you're like I got to chase that cup right like you've got three I'm sure you want another one but like how much would it matter to you that you'd basically go back home to western New York and end help end the longest playoff drought in league history? Like there are 12 years. Like we've never seen a drought this long.

And Patrick Kane, like would you go back on a one year little money deal just say, hey, like let's put this team over the top? Or if you're Kane, do you say, you know what? No, I want to go to Edmonton or I want to go back. to the Rangers. I want to go somewhere where I could win a cup. Like, what would matter more? Ending the drought for your hometown team, whatever,

or winning a fourth Stanley Cup, if you're Patrick Cade. If it were me? Yeah. If it were me, my agent would hate me because I would always be trying to, like, go do the, like, I can get this team to the, you know, wherever and whatever. But I think what we saw during his trade deadline saga was, you know, didn't it seem like it was just inevitable that he was going to be a ranger? That was the place he wanted to do.

be. So it seems like that's more the lane for him is find that Stanley Cup, whether it's New York or somewhere else. But that seemed to be more the line of thinking, at least from what we trickled through in the reporting to us. Maybe that changes. And we don't know how that's affected by. I don't think Buffalo was really going to aggressively buy at that level at the last trade. It's a different question when you're just handing the guy a contract. Speaking of unsigned guys, we got a tweet here from Giant Pie 12. I'm also, can I be honest here? Sometimes when I read out these Twitter handles,

I'm like, is there some secondary meaning to, like if I just, do I need to run all of these through Urban Dictionary to make sure giant pie 12 doesn't mean something, something else? I don't know. I don't know. Anyway, Giant Pie 12 wants to ask us,

what is up, guys, with Thomas Tatar still being available? Where do you think he ends up? And it's like he had a good, like 20 goals. And this guy has been, and, and you know, obviously played in Detroit a while back. But like, like, Thomas Tatar is a pretty consistent when healthy 20 goals score in this league. Right? Yep. Why is he still available?

There's a few guys like that. Pew Souter finally came off the market. Yeah. And he's not even as accomplished as Thomas Tatar. But there's a few guys you were just like, some NHL team has to have a role for this guy. Vancouver finally signed Souter over the weekend, I believe. But yeah, like, you would. think somebody wants just a fairly reliable.

You can play him on your third line and get 15 goals almost certainly out of him. I think you're thrilled to have Tomashita. And obviously, you've got to make the money work and whatever. But this late in the summer, he is, I think probably more surprising that he would be unsigned than Taves and Cain at this stage. Yeah. It feels like he should be a super easy sign for somebody, right? Yeah.

But here we are, middle of August and a perennial 20-goal guy just kind of sitting there. So we'll see. And one that you don't have to like, he's not going to take all the air out of the room, right? Like you sign Patrick Kane and suddenly that's like a holy cow, like this kind of changes the, the, I don't know, it's like the media, you know, angle of this. But like, you know, it changes how people are talking about your team. You signed Tomas-Tatar. You're just plugging in a quiet 15 to 20 goals there. Yeah.

And you just have it, right? like it should be a no-brainer. Yeah. Like I said, seven, I just double-time, seven-time 20 goals score. So, including last season with the Devils, where I think he's, he's that perfect middle-six winger.

Yeah. You can slide into your team, you know, produce a little bit at that rate. Yeah, he might, he, boy, some fan base is going to be super happy because I feel like at some point in the next two or three weeks they're going to get Tomas Tatar at like a, at a really good,

One year deal. Like one year, you know, 2.1, some small number, and they'll be like, ah, this is awesome. So anyway, we'll keep our eyes, appeal for Tomashtatar, among other things. So some more questions we got here, Max, coming at us. Gavin Tracy, and we actually had a multiple people ask about this, and that is in regards to the Hockey Canada. And Gavin says, the longer the weight is here with the hockey Canada stuff, the bigger the questions become for the teams who could be impacted. and the more that this reeks of special treatment and or cover-ups. What do you guys think the NHL should be doing right now?

That comes in from Gavin. So we should point out that our Katie Strang did tweet out on, in fact, you know, I should probably, instead of paraphrasing, just given the gravity and sensitivity of the situation, let me pull up Katie's exact tweet so I'm not paraphrasing and doing anything wrong. But Katie reached out to NHL deputy commissioner. That's his title, right, Bill Daly's? Yep. And basically asked about what is going on with there's going to be.

So here's the tweet from Katie String. Asked whether NHL will announce any resolution on 2018 World Junior Championship investigation prior to NHL training camps opening. NHL deputy commissioner bill daily said via email he does not quote have a specific timetable to share at this time. So that is from Katie Strang, that is the latest. You know, they're asking here this email or this tweet that we got from Gavin, like what should the NHL be doing? I mean, here's my read on this, Max, is the London Police Department. So that's the local police department in London, Ontario, where this incident is alleged to have occurred in 2018. They have an ongoing active investigation into this matter.

My read on this, and you tell me if I'm wrong, I always leave room to be wrong. But my guess is if you're the NHL and you've come to a conclusion with your own internal investigation, it's probably wise to wait until the police investigation is done. Because imagine if the NHL announces, we have concluded our own investigation. We have found nothing nefarious has occurred here that rises to the level of supplemental discipline, yada, yada, yada. And then seven days later, London Police Department releases something that says, actually the following people are under criminal investigation or charges have been late. So my guess is that you want to run these parallel to the London Police Department, right? And that's my read on this.

I think so too. Now, I also get what the question asker is saying, because if you're the NHL, it's certainly if you're the teams who potentially have a vested interest in this, you want to know the answers to these by camp, ideally, right? Certainly by the puck drop of the regular season, you want to know where things stand. But that is what you just said, I think is the ultimate takeaway is no league, no team really ever wants to out, try to outrun the police on this. And you hear that in every sport, right?

Like they're going to let it follow the legal process. I get where the question asker is coming from saying like, is this, this feels weird. It has taken longer than I would have expected, but I've never conducted an investigation quite like this. So I would not pretend to know what timetable is supposed to follow. No. And if you use the NFL and Ray Rice as a cautionary, detail where a league doled out supplemental discipline and then shortly thereafter more facts

came to light that made it look like, oh boy, you shouldn't, you know, that's what you don't want. You want to make sure you have all of the information. But do you not think that if the NHL is leaning towards discipline on certain players, do you not think that they would have communicated that to those teams. Now, just as a heads up, it's very likely that this could happen? Or do you think that they're like, they're not even going down that road? I don't know. It's possible.

But, you know, you, there are risks to doing stuff, to doing business that way, too. You know, you say something. The more people who know something or who think something might be coming, the better of a chance at getting to people like you and I. And then you might as well have just made an announcement because it's out there anyway, right? So I don't know. You know, it's, there's a lot of things to consider with, with that of how you, of how you want to handle that. I, you know, I think the teams would probably love to know, but there's, there's risks associated with that too.

Yeah. And one thing I'll say is I've always been super pessimistic that this is going to be a Friday news dump, meaning that the NHL at 455 on a Friday is going to announce. He's hoping it kind of gets lost in the weekend news cycle. You know what I would be super disappointed with, Max, is if this news drops on the Friday before Labor Day. Yeah. I, like, to me, like, like, if you have the information, don't think about what would be the best time from a, this isn't the time for PR spin. This isn't the time for how can we like this is like if and when you have the information and you're ready to share it and whatever, share it. But if you have it and it comes out on whatever the date is or the Friday before Labor Day and it comes up like 4 p.m., it's going to look so bad for you because it looks like you waited until an optimal time that it wouldn't get a lot of traction in the media.

That's going to disappoint me if that happens, right? Because that's going to feel super predictable. Of course. And that's the calculation, though, exactly what you just said right. The thing that they're weighing is how valuable is it to look like we were or how damning is it to look like we are trying to do this when no one's paying attention versus yeah, but if no one's paying attention, how many people are going to be damning us, right? Yeah. And I think that probably is the calculation that a PR professional is going to make in that scenario. Now, I'm not saying that's what they'll conclude to do, but I'm saying like those are the, I don't know.

I've never had to time something like that in terms of a release. I agree with you fully that, you know, it would look bad and I think it would be problematic. Yeah. And I guess it would behoove the media than people like us to say, okay, if you drop it on a Friday at 4, fine. I'm running at Monday. We're not just going to let that go. Yeah, right. Right.

Like Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, all of that we're going to follow up on it. So anyway, that's, to me, that's, you know, hopefully we've, Gavin, we've kind of answered your question. But I know that there's a lot of uncertainty around that situation. we appreciate the question and try to answer it the best that we could. Okay, James has a question for us on this Monday. And James wants to know, guys, how many points is it going to take to secure a playoff spot in the Eastern Conference next season? What do you got? What do you think of the cutoff is going to be?

I think usually it's around 97. Last year was a low watermark. I think it was 92 or 93 maybe. Yeah, I think it was 93, right? Yeah, so I'll say back to 97, 98. I think there's a lot of teams and that makes it tougher to get the, you know, real stratified like 100 point, I think was the cutoff two seasons ago. I think that there'll be a little bit of cannibalization, but I just, at the end of the day,

I think there's just so many good teams that I think it's going to be very hard. I think 97, 98 in that range, 97.5, be my over under. Yeah, you know what? This gives us a good chance to plug you, myself, Matt Fairburn, who covers the Sabres and Arpin, who covers Montreal. We've got a little collab going where we're going to look at the Atlantic Division, the four teams, Ottawa, Buffalo, Detroit, Montreal that have missed the playoffs. You know what's funny?

Is Buffalo, Detroit, and Ottawa have the three longest playoff droughts, active playoff droughts in the entire league? And they're all at a really interesting point in their rebuild. And then Montreal is, they're just kind of in a weird spot. obviously in a rebuild. So we got a little roundtable going. And it's, I'm curious to see what people think out of those, in particular the three teams, right?

I think if you ask most people, they would tell you Buffalo would be their pick to make the playoffs out of those three or four teams. And then maybe Ottawa and Detroit are kind of in a similar spot. But if you ask Ottawa fans, it'd be like, oh, no, man, Ottawa is way better than Detroit. Ottawa is way better than Buffalo. But if you ask Detroit fans, like,

Like, I think it's going to be interesting. The only thing I think I firmly agree on is of those four teams, I put Buffalo One, Montreal four, and then I don't know what else. And I don't think Montreal is as far behind Detroit and Ottawa as either of those fan bases wants to believe, right? You know, yeah, exactly. I thought it was interesting today. Low tide had an article about kind of the teams that were set up for the 2024 free agent

frenzy or what's shaping up to be that. And he grouped teams by kind of their, their tiers, right, from contender to middle tier to kind of bottom tier. And Ottawa and Buffalo were in that middle tier. And Detroit and Montreal were in the bottom tier teams, not just in terms of who can chase. And that's just like how he grouped the league. I thought that was revealing in terms of a purely, you know, he's in Edmonton, right? Purely outside perspective. Yeah. puts Ottawa closer to Buffalo than to Detroit and Montreal. I thought that was probably revealing.

Yeah, no, it's interesting because so often, right, we look at things through our own lens because we're so, you know, tied to the teams that we cover, we watch, you end up, you know, kind of looking through that lens more than anything. And so anyway, we're looking forward to putting that out this week and we'll see what people think. But we basically just kind of went kind of roundtable format. hey, what changes have happened this summer, strengths, weaknesses? And then the question that I asked, which I think is interesting,

I'll ask it to you here, is out of the four teams that have kind of made the playoffs consistently in the Atlantic Division the last few years, because Boston, Toronto, Tampa have been locked into playoff spots for the better part of five or six years. Florida is coming off of consecutive years in which they won a President's trophy and then got to Stanley Cup final. if you had the pick out of those four teams, who's the most vulnerable or susceptible in that group of four? What's your answer here? I think I said Florida because of the injuries and because even last year, I think we saw them kind of stumble and have to make up ground. And I think that

gets even harder with the extra kind of tread on the tires. Right. And so we'll see. It's possible that that run taught them something and it clicked something into place mentally that makes them hungry, all those cliches that you always hear. But I think for a banged up team, it's always possible that you dig a hole that is just too hard to come out of and you miss the playoffs as a result of that. Now, word of caution, I think I said almost that exact same thing about the Boston Bruins last year. And all they did was go set a record and win the president's trophy. So can go both ways. I think most people will say Boston or Florida seem the most because as we talked about earlier, no crachy, no Berger up. But look, if they go get Shifley or Lindholm, like you're saying, that could change perceptions on Boston.

I'm going to throw out a different name here. And I know this is not going to be popular. I'm going to throw Tampa into the mix because Tampa last year, Max, they didn't get to 100 points in the regular season. They got to 98. And I wonder, at some point, it's good, all of those, the three playoff runs to the final, two championships, it's going to catch up to them. And if you look at them down the stretch last year, they won four of their last 12 regular season games and then they got bumped by Toronto in the first round. Now, is that a function of they're starting to run on fumes? Is that like what, like, are we at a point where we start to wonder about Tampa getting into?

to that Pittsburgh, Washington window of you're now a bubble team. It feels a little early to say it, but I guess my point is, if Tampa's in a fight for a playoff spot this year, it wouldn't shock me. Yep. And the thing with them is the siphoning, the cap has finally caught up there, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

years of people being frustrated, how do they keep getting away with this? You look at that lineup now, and it is extremely top-heavy, right? You still have the big three at the top, Stamcoast Point Kutrov. You still have Sirelli and Hagle as really, really good, you know, second-line players who I think you love in the playoffs. And of course, you still have Hedman, Surgich, Chernack, and Vasselowski. That is a really good place to start from a team. But you surround that, all of a sudden, the depth is just nowhere near what it had been on those deep. runs when they were trotting out, you know, fourth lines that that could have plausibly played, you know, high third line or, you know, third line for other good teams or maybe even second

line for some of the bottom feeders at various points. Now you got, you know, Mike Yassamon, Tanner, you know, who's a good player, uh, Colin Kepke, Josh Archibald, like, these are kind of the support players. It's, it's not what it was when Brandon Hagle was kind of in that role for them, right? And of course, everyone remembers that the Blake Colmans and the Barclay control lines that, you know, those guys went on to get big contracts elsewhere. So, It is the depth, and that is if you sustain a big injury to a point or a stankoast or a headman or, God forbid, a Vasilevsky, they're very vulnerable. Yes. Oscar Olison has tweeted at us.

Oscar's got a question for us, Max, and says, Oscar wants to know, what would be your preferred way to make the regular season feel more meaningful in the NHL? Would you like to see an increased prestige of the president's trophy? Maybe you introduce a play-in, something else. how would you like to make the regular season more meaningful? That's from Oscar. I think the only way is the way that it'll never happen, and it's shortening it to like 70 games. It was funny because we got this experience in the shortened season,

the 56 game season. Yeah. And as that wound down to the end, I could not help but think, man, this is about right. Like this felt like an NFL season in terms of how much every, there were those two game series that they would play a back-to-back every time

or, you know, it might be every other day. whatever. And it felt really meaningful every time you win two or three of those in a row and all a sudden your position and the standings would really move. I don't think 50 needs to be as low as 56, but if it was 70 games or even like 66 games, I think it would be way more meaningful. It's funny because you can make the argument, Oscar's asking if we'd like to see a play-in. Yeah. And you can make the argument that if you bring a play-in in, it lessens. It diminishes it, right? But in saying that, I really want to see the play in because look, I grew up a huge,

baseball was one of my favorite sports growing up. I loved it, loved it, loved it. And for years, I would have been probably fallen into that. And you're too young for this. But like, I remember, like, I grew up in the late 80s, early 90s when there was no wild card, right? So I grew up with that. And then when they introduced the wild card, I was a little bit like, I don't like this. This is gimmicky.

And then I just loved it. And then they added the play in. And I'm like, I love this. even more. And I feel like the only time we've had a play-in type of thing in the NHL in the cap era was, I think it was 2010. And it just happened to be, and it came organically, but game 82 of the regular season between the Rangers and the Flyers was for the final playoff spot in the east. And it came down to a shootout, which I, you know, I don't think I wanted it to see it that way. But it was amazing drama, amazing theater. And I know it happened organ.

but it was only one time. That's it. We've had one time, right? Or am I missing another one where it came down to game 82 between those two teams? We had the bubble and the bubble brought in more teams and there was a pseudo-play into that, right? And it was a little different because it wasn't a one-game thing. But, you know, I don't mind the NBA's format. Right, exactly. I don't mind the NBA's format for it where if the seven wins, their first game, there's automatically in whatever we go from there. but I do think there is a risk of that of that diminishment. As good as those hockey games will be. I agree with that fully.

Like those games are going to be very, very intriguing. It's like in baseball, you get the wildcard game. You got your ace on the mound and it's, oh my gosh. Like if we don't win this, it was all for nothing.

We won 90 games and we're going to go home. That's an awesome drama. But when you have as many teams in as you do in hockey, you know, now as expansion continues, because it doesn't seem like expansion is stopping Ian. You're going to have to expand the playoffs. And maybe the play-in is the most pallid way to do that.

But I would have that fear that it would diminish the regular season. As good as it would make those games. Those playing-in games would be awesome. But why does it motivate me to go to a Wednesday night game in January? Yeah, no, exactly. It's exactly the point, which is it probably diminishes or dilutes the season. But then at the very end, it makes it exciting. And I don't think we'll see the play-in ever come in with Betman as commissioner.

But I guess my point would be if I'm TNT and ESPN and Sportsnet, your whole objective is to create meaningful moments. Wouldn't you as a television executive be pushing, pushing, pushing for play-in games as a TV exec? Maybe, but it depends if they're making the same risk calculation that we are, right? Like, are you killing the audience for games? I think about like in college basketball, right? Like, when he talks about like the prestige of the president's trophy, right, like I think you want to believe that winning your conference in the regular season really matters.

Even your conference tournament really matters in the sense of these auto bids. But because everyone knows that the NCAA tournament is what everyone's going to be tuned into and everyone's going to be fired up about March Madness, I think that it can work against why should I watch Michigan against, you know, maybe not like Illinois, Purdue, those are just great teams, great games all the time, but Michigan Rutgers in the middle of January. It's just hard to sell it when I know that what's coming at the end

is going to decide how I feel about the season anyway. So why do I, it's like the Premier League doesn't have playoffs. That's why their regular season has so much drama. If you have playoffs, I don't think you can achieve it without making every game like that much, you know, in the NFL, it's 17 games. That's why those games mean so much. But do you're, okay, because the NBA and the NHL have the exact same 82 game schedule. The NBA is now adopting this in-season tournament in an effort to create some drama and hype in November, right?

Like, does that, like, do you think if the, if that takes off in the, like, it's a great little, put it in a test tube, let's see if it works, right? And if it does, hey, I don't care. If the NHL steals it, steal it if it works. But do you have any faith that the NBA's in-game, or sorry, in-season tournament is going to create traction that it's going to bleed into the NHL and we're going to be like, we want that? I have no idea. It doesn't appeal to me when I reserve the right to fully change my mind if I tune into it this year or next year or whatever. and I'm like, this rocks and then fully change my mind.

But it doesn't, when I hear the idea, it doesn't do anything for me. But I reserve the right to change my mind on that, right? Yeah. No, I guess we'll have to wait and see. You know what? Actually, I have a question that is not from a listener or somebody on social media. It's actually from me to you because I just realized this. Because, you know, prospects kind of your jam and you pay attention to junior hockey and everything.

and on Friday, we got some pretty significant news out of the Quebec major junior hockey, the QMJHL announcing that fighting is going to have some significant restrictions starting next season. So just for the benefit of our listeners, here's what the QMJHL has ruled for next season, that anybody who engages in a fight automatically is ejected from the game. Okay? So you get in a fight, you're out of the game. Not just a penalty, you're out of the game. any player who is deemed to have instigated a fight

gets slapped with an automatic one-game suspension the player declared to be the aggressor during the fight receives a minimum two-game suspension and if you are involved in multiple fights in a season you start it's just basically starts adding up now I see people saying they're banning fighting We can get into semantics. Yeah.

Whatever. But at the end of the day, this is the takeaway for listeners. It's going to be a lot more difficult to engage in Fistakoff's in the QM, JHL starting next season. And I'm wondering what you think of this as, you know, again, like I said, you really, you pay attention to prospects, you pay attention to junior hockey. Yeah. Your thoughts here. I have two minds on it. There's a part of me that just has grown up with the hockey.

that we've known, you know, for the last however long and just thinks like it feels like it's doing too much. There's another part of me that thinks, is anyone really going to watch teenagers and prospects play because they're really excited for a guy to stick up for himself for his teammate? Like that, to me, the appeal of that is always, you know, it's in the NHL. You see a guy stick up for it for his teammate that got a what he felt was a dirty hit. And you can really respect that, right? You can see that like, hey, this guy's, this is a matter of like loyalty and dedication.

and, you know, whatever, and he's sticking up for his guy. I will always respect that. But it's not why I go see a junior game. Like, I want to go see some sweet deeks and guys flying around the zone. Now, the fear, I guess, is, are you preparing your players to have no idea what to do if that situation presents itself when they are pros? But I don't think you can expect it, you know, certainly not even most of the players in the in the Q are going to make the NHL or play long-term pro hockey.

So I'm of two minds on it. I can completely understand the rationale of it, and I don't think it's actually going to harm the game that much. I think people act like fighting isn't even a penalty right now sometimes. It's not like the NHL encourages people like, hey, yeah, go fight whatever you want. It's a penalty already. It's already against the rules. It's just a harshening of those rules that I think could go either way. And I don't think it's going to diminish the QMJL viewing experience one bit.

It's just to me a matter of like, is this going to, what is this going to mean for the NHL product and the player's preparedness for life in pro hockey? But that's not a universal thing. Okay. So is there an argument to be made? Because you said, you know what? What if the top players in the queue, they get through? Now they make it to the NHL and now there's a fight and they don't know how to handle it.

But is there an argument to be made, Max, that maybe if you start to eradicated completely from that level, that maybe when they do get to the NHL with. you know, probably five, ten years from now, if it's been eradicated completely there, could it just also just gradually eradicated itself from the NHL level too, or is that being too? Because right now, like the AHL has fighting, right?

Yeah. Like, if you watch an AHL game, there's fighting. A lot. Yeah. So, but where are those players coming from? They're coming from the queue and they're coming from the, whatever. But if you watch an NCAA game, there's no fighting, right?

Like, so I wonder, like, you know, you know what would be an interesting exercise would be to go through the AHL and the NHL and the NHL and see, like, look at fighting majors and see, like, how many guys that have the fighting majors of the pros, like, where are they coming from? Right? Like, I'm curious about that. Like, and so because there's also out. Like, Brady Kuchuk would be a great example of an outlier. Here's a guy that played NCAA and has probably gotten in as many fights as anybody in the last three or four. years, right? So I don't know. Like I, I don't know how this plays out. And he only played one year there, right? Like it's, you know, like QMJ, you're probably playing four. But it is a, it's a great

question. And, you know, I did the story with Dan Robson last year that was about kind of like the old NHL enforcers and then reflecting on their lives of fighting and what it did for them and what it cost them, what the toll it took on them. And it was very eye-opening in both directions. Number one, like just how much stress the threat of fighting is in the minds of these guys when they go to the rink every night. And if you can alleviate that from people in a way that the game, I think, already has started to. That is truly something that you should aspire to do. On the other hand, I do think a lot of these guys also, not universally, but made the point that, like, you know, they did feel in some ways of pride or like they were, you know, there was something.

to be said for it, right? There was a respect to it and there was. And I just try to keep that in the back of my mind, too, that it's, it was, it was both. And I'm not saying it's an equal measure, but it's, those are the two things that I always just try to keep in mind on the, on the topic, is that I, there's, there's arguments in favor and against and I think they're both legitimate. Yeah. Let's wrap up the bad radio. I know. Yeah. No, it's, but anyway, I just thought, you know, let's get to that because I know that that kind of happened on Friday afternoon. And, I wanted to make sure we jumped in on that. I'm going to end

with one more. We got one more listener, social media question. This one comes in from Michael. Michael McGinnis, who wants to know, you guys have any thoughts or hope or whatever for the St. Louis Blues and their blue line, their decor. And you know, like Max, I was looking at this up.

And I guess I'd have to go through every team. But is there another team in the league that has every one of their top four Ds over the age of Like, think about this. The St. Louis Blues have Justin Falk. He's 31. Tori Krugue, he's 32.

Colton Perico's 30. Nick Lettie's 32. Marco Scandela is 33. And if you even go into the guy that's probably going to be the six guy in Robert Bortuso, he's 34. Like, is there another team in the league in which they're projected top four are all over the age of 30? Not that comes to mind. Right? Very early in the show, we let it all.

by talking about Kail Makar in the era of the dynamic young defensemen. Unless Scott Perunovic takes off on a rocket ship, I don't know that we can call St. Louis a part of that right now. I don't think they're completely cooked because there are some players there who I think are good enough to believe they can rebound. But it is concerning. And in a game that's only getting faster, I don't know that I would want to be this committed to old legs.

And they're committed like for a long. time. Like, like, Falk's got four more years. Crook's got, I think, four more years. Perrako has, what, six years, seven years? Like, yeah. Like, they're committed to this. And what's funny is, like, I love, like, I love, like Jordan Kairu and Robbie Thomas. I feel like our great young dynamic, like, wow, you could absolutely build a top line, win games, whatever, with them. But then I kind of look at the rest of the roster. I'm like, man, like, it's a, it's an older team, right? Like, like, do you have any hope for them? Like, where do they, like, I don't, like, the Western conference is interesting to me because I think Vancouver is a team, like, I don't know what

they're going to be. Calgary, I don't know what they're going to be. Winnipeg. I don't know. And St. Louis, I have no idea what they're going to be, right? I think if you have hope for them, and I do, you're basing it on three different things. You're basing it on the Western conference and that it is open enough that you can get in. You're basing it on a new defense coach and hoping that the talent you have, which is still real, can bounce back even in their young 30s with a new defense coach and just a new voice and can give them some new messages that will help them. And the third thing is that they do have a bunch of offensive talent.

They went out late last season. They picked up Jacob Verona for a seventh round pick from the Red Wings. He's had his issue staying in the lineup. But that is a potential 40 goal score that they just dropped into their lap. They have Robert Thomas and Jordan Carter. They have scores on this team. They have Pavel Buccanevich, who's another awesome young player. So the hope is that you get just enough from that new voice on the defense coach to revitalize the blue line.

You get enough from these pretty good forwards, frankly. And you're in a conference where that can be enough. I mean, there have been, I think, teams with worse rosters to get into the playoffs in the Western Conference in the last five years. But we'll see it. It is on the rise. And I think teams in the West have realized that opportunity. You've seen L.A., each of the last three off seasons go out and make a huge move knowing that in the West, like those three added up can make them a Stanley Cup contender. They are a Stanley Cup contender now.

Yeah. Anyway, the West is so interesting to me because I have the East, there's like 12 or 13 teams. that think that they should be a playoff team this year in the East? Like 12 or 13 teams are going into the season Santa. The West, it's more like there's like five or six teams that are probably thinking that they're playoff teams, but they shouldn't be thinking that they're playoff teams. Right? Like, and I don't know.

St. Louis is so interesting to be because they've got, they're so pot committed to Binnington and Krug, Perrako, and like all these guys north at 30 that. Essentially, if you look at cap-friendly, the St. Louis Blues are in win-now mode, right? They're not in, let's turn this over mode. They're in win-now mode based on the salaries that they're doling out to people. They are. And I think if you had to look at it today, you're probably not picking them to make the playoffs. It's just a matter of like there's enough things that if they go right, they got a chance to. But you're right. There's not many teams that just made three first-round picks in the draft in June. that are calling themselves win now.

And the interesting thing is not all of those moves were made prior to their cup, right? So you can't say for all of them, well, they got a cup out of it, right? They didn't need to do this deal with Nick Letty, this extension with Nick Letty, that I don't think is going to end up serving them very well. Yeah, no. It's, anyway, we loved all the questions that we got from our social media followers, our listeners, a reminder that if you do want to hit us up, The Athletic Hockey Show at gmail.com.

Great way to drop us an email. We'll look forward to those. You can tweet at us. Tweet at Max, tweet it at me, and give us a remember. You got some homework listeners this week. Max has his bachelor party and he's got the, because what do you say, Boltman Games? Is that where you're going on?

Yeah, it's like an Olympics vibe, something Olympics-y, yeah. Do you ever get the nickname Usain Bolt? No, I don't. If you see me run, you'd know why. Yeah, all right. Anyway, but we got to get a great suggestion from a listener on the kind of Olympic-themed events here for Max coming up with the Bachelor Party. So Bachelor Party weekend coming up, can I ask when the wedding is? Yeah, November, yeah. November.

Yeah. Is it a Red Wings home game weekend? Yeah, I'm going to miss two of them, yeah. Oh, two games. Yeah, I know. It's the night before because I got the rehearsal dinner and then it's at 1 p.m. the day after. and I feel like there's a 0% chance that I'm ready for that one. Will you be allowed to look at your phone at any point on your wedding day just to even see what happened in the game? Or you just...

Oh, yeah. Yeah, well, there won't be a game on my wedding day. Oh, on the wedding day, there's no... Rehearsal dinner, there's a game during the rehearsal dinner and then the day after. But my fiancé works in sports. She knows the deal. She's not going to be... On the wedding day, it would have been a different...

different story, but she'll be cool. Yeah. All right. Hey, well, listen, good luck with everything. Go ahead and book the Monday off. Give yourself some runway. Enjoy it. But hey, good luck with everything on the weekend. Sounds like a ton of fun with all your buddies. So we look for it. Maybe you'll post some pictures on social media for us to see the touch football game. We'll see about that. We'll see. Yeah. All right. Hey, listen, thanks everybody for listening to this Monday edition of The Athletic Hockey Show. We ask that you follow us on your favorite podcast platform. leave us a rating review. We certainly appreciate that.

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