The Athletic Hockey Show - Dean Evason’s time running out in Minnesota?, William Nylander in the early Hart mix, we need a World Cup of Hockey, and more

Episode Date: November 20, 2023

On a brand new Monday edition of The Athletic Hockey Show, Ian and Julian discuss Ian’s whirlwind trip to Sweden for the NHL Global Series, Dean Evason’s tenuous job security as head coach of the Minnesota Wild, what William Nylander’s next contract could look like amidst a Hart Trophy caliber start to the season, the dire need for a World Cup of Hockey, and more. Subscribe to The Athletic Hockey Show on YouTube: http://youtube.com/@theathletichockeyshowGet a 1-year subscription to The Athletic for just $1 a month when you visit http://theathletic.com/hockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic hockey show. Here we go. We're back for another Monday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show, and it feels good to be back in this seat because, yeah, I haven't co-hosted the pod in basically two weeks. It's Ian Medes, Julian McKenzie, with you as always. On a Monday. It's Monday, right? Because I don't know what day it is anymore after coming back from Sweden. No idea when they had it.

When did you get back? I want, you know what? I know we got to get to a whole bunch of different hockey topics today. We'll break down some stuff that was, that at least you were able to see during the global series because I live in a part of the world where blackouts exist. William Nealander's going to come up. American Thanksgiving's going to come up.

Can you like talk about what that experience was like in Sweden? When you got back, if you're feeling jet lag, like, let's start with that at least. I have questions. I am so, so. So this is me unshaven today. I feel discombobulated. I think I was averaging, and I'm not alone in this, about two and a half hours of sleep a night in Stockholm.

Oh, my God. And you know what's really weird? I talked to some of the players about this too. What was really strange is because of the time of year, we're doing this trip. The sun was setting at about 3 o'clock, like 3 in the afternoon. like it's pitch black by like 3.45.

Like pitch black. So it kind of plays with you that way. And then there's, you know, the jet lag, the time difference, all of that stuff. So I don't think I slept very well the entire time. But you're also just kind of running on adrenaline because it's such a unique experience, such a cool experience. And you know the thing I was blown away by Julian. And I'll have a story on this.

I think it'll come out tomorrow is part of one of the, things I wanted to do is like, what's the chat? Like here I am complaining about, oh man, I'm so tired of jet like, can you imagine how hard it would be to be an NHL fan, say you lived in Stockholm or in, you know, Germany, UK, wherever. The games are starting at two in the morning for you on, on the regular. Like, I don't think we take enough time on this side of the ocean to appreciate how difficult that would be, right?

Like, like, you follow some Premier League soccer, right? Or what, yeah, yeah, yeah. So what's the time difference like for you? But that's then you're getting up early in the morning to watch it, right? Yeah, well, for my mental health, I limit the amount of Manchester United Games I watch because I don't want to start off my pay on a terrible. Right? I don't like the fact that the Leafs and the Manchester and have that comparison,

but I understand why. Dallas Cowboys man you and the Toronto Maple. Leafs are all in the same bucket, right? Fair to say? Yeah. So to the original point here, like, I think like, I mean, even when I was still living out east in Montreal, like, there are times where you'd have to wake up at like 7, 7.30 if they're like the early game of the day, because they're at least like five hours behind or for what's going on in England. And we'll just add two hours, uh, essentially to that for people living in Alberta in mountain time. So like, say like, man, you's playing like the early game of the day.

Like, I might have to wake up at like 5 o'clock of the morning, which I'm not going to do that. There's times where like I wake up at like 9, 30, 10 o'clock they've already played. Like it's, it is what it is. How do you follow along? Like, how do you, do you watch without any spoilers or do you know the score? So like all, like, especially since I follow a banter club, the memes will tell me what is going on. But seriously, but, well, the cool thing about the Premier League at least is we at the athletic. I mean, this is a good opportunity for us to, you know,

pat ourselves in the back here. Yeah. We do a pretty good job of covering the Premier League. And Carlinca is one of the primary writers for the athletic for Manchester United. And like, I'll follow their tweets and I'll read their articles after the fact. And that's basically how I keep up.

Or at some point, like, if something crazy happens, you'll go on social media. Someone will post some clip of a game somewhere, probably the team because they're able to do that. But you'll start to see some sites, some people will pose clips, like they'll watch it on some feed that's not like Sky Sports or who has it, who has rights for Premier League games in the United States now? Is it still, it's not still NBC, is it?

No, that's a great question. I don't know. I don't remember who does. And in Canada, we have to watch on, and on Canada, and in Canada here, it's on Fubo TV. Once upon a time, you could wait. up. Yeah, yeah. There was a time in Canada.

You could wake up on a Saturday morning and you could watch Premier League games on Sportsnet. And like Jerry Dobson was, and Craig Forrest would like host those broadcasts. And then the last few years, those rights ended up going to DeZone. And then DeZone doesn't even have, I don't think they have the Premier League anymore. And now you don't. Bo TV. The zone only has Champions League games now.

And the NFL. Yeah. It's like. Yeah. So I know we're kind of going all over the place here. I guess the closest thing we have, at least in Canada, in terms of experiencing difficulties watching a sport compared to what could be going on in Sweden

with watching NHL games, it's soccer fans who want to watch Premier League games. Like, I guess that might be the closest comparable that we have. So that's a bit of dedication to a certain degree to follow these games. But even for us, like, you just have to wake up super early in the morning. A.m. start for a fan living in Sweden to watch their favorite team, like how? Like you basically

watch like NHL clubs and look we're talking about soccer which is a global popular sport. Hockey is as niche as it can get among the poor here in North America. So that's really I think the measure of difficulty

has to be different compared to soccer fans in this part of the world. Yeah. So one of the fans and again this will come out in the story that I'm going to publish excuse me Julian he told me about a website I had never heard of this before. I'd like to know if the listeners have heard of this, I'd like to know if you've

heard of this site. Don't tell me the score.com. I feel like I've heard that URL before. Okay. I feel like I've heard of it. I had no idea. I couldn't tell you what it is. So if you're like, let's say you're a fan of the Colorado Avalanche, but you live in like Berlin. Okay. I'm just randomly picking. And you're like, you go to bed because, you know, the Avalanche are playing at three o'clock, two in the morning, whatever. You wake up at 7 a.m. You want to kind of either watch the game or get the highlights, but you don't want to see the score. What do you do?

Because if you go to NHL.com and you're like, well, I'll click on the condensed game recap. The score is right there. And it's all over. It's like right. It's at the top, whatever. So what do you do? So this fan, he told me about this. He told me that go to don't tell me the score.com. You click on it.

Then you click on the, and they got this for the NBA. the NFL and NHL, you just click on the game that you want to see and it gives you the clean, you know, the NHL recap, the 10 minute version?

Clean, but there's no score bug anywhere on their site. So you have no idea. If your team, you know what I mean? Like if you go to NHL.com and you go to click on Colorado versus whatever,

Boston highlights, you'll see, you'll have already seen the score. Like literally if you go on the home page, like all the scores are at the top. Exactly. So there's spoiler. everywhere. You go to don't tell me thescore.com.

No spoilers. No spoilers. So it's pretty cool. Right? Apparently we can hide the scores on the athletic app. Producer Chris has sent us a note. Yes, you can. I believe you can change, you can alter your settings, right? Wow. I think you can. You can't. You absolutely can. If you haven't done so already, subscribe to the athletic.

$1 a month for 12 months. Use the athlete.com slash hockey show to do that. Natural, natural read going in this. But anyway, Sweden was great for me. I got a little bit of chance of time, time to spend with Mike Andlauer, senator's owner, which was great. A little bit of time with Daniel Alpherson,

little, like, you know, some fun stuff like that. I had no time. I had one thing on my, I've been fortunate. I've been to Sweden before. So I've been to this, there's a great Vasa museum, there's a great story of this old ship that sank.

I've been able to go to that before. That was great. I had one thing I wanted to do, Julian, and I didn't have the time. I wanted to go to the Abba Museum. Oh. I couldn't lure. You know, I didn't even ask Russo.

And I spent most of my time with Russo and Joe Smith just because our schedules seemed to align more. I never saw Jonas Siegel. I don't even, did Jonas Siegel even go to Sweden? I never saw him. I, I'm of the impression. that he did. He wrote a great story last week. I don't know. I never saw him. Actually, the Leaf Report,

I think today's episode, does not have Jonas Siegel on it, which apparently is like the first time in like, in, I think of the history that they've ever done the show because he's stuck, he's trying to get home from Sweden. You know how wild it was? They didn't have Jonas on, so Myrtle had to do the show with Chris Johnston. That's how wild it is. I, you know what? I was so, I can tell you Chris Johnson was there. I had dinner with him one night, which was great. Oh, that must have been nice.

We chatted how much we love working with you. So that was... You don't have to lie to me. Okay. It was a complete... We just complained. You're like, can you believe when Julian doesn't... No, no, no.

It was great. But I, like, I was like, man, I don't know, Mike Russo doesn't strike me as an ABBA museum type of guy. Does he? Maybe I should have asked them. Maybe I should have... Maybe I should have... I felt into...

I also feel like when you... put that out there, you're either going to get, oh man, that's awesome, count me in or you're going to get annihilated by people. Like, there's no in between. Yeah, Appa's very much an acquired taste type of thing. By the way, if I was there, I would have gone with you.

Yes. I would have gone. Oh, my God. Have you ever watched Mamma Mia? Yeah, I've seen the Broadway show. Okay, I only watched the movie. And like, I went into it with no expectations, and I came out phenomenal. Really impressed. Phenomenal.

So I imagine the Broadway musical must be amazing. Yeah. I just, I wanted to go. I didn't get a chance. So I didn't get a chance to do all the touristy stuff. But real cool side note on the way home, I had, I wonder how many athletic reporters on a, on a work trip have had a stopover in Reykavik, Iceland. Oh, you did that? Yeah, I stopped over in Iceland.

Oh, that was so cool. I wish I, you know what? I wish I had carved out more time. to spend I only had like a couple hours or so I didn't even get out of the airport but do you know this? Here's a fun, here's a life hack for people.

Okay. If you fly Iceland air okay? And Iceland air has direct flights from all over North America. Like I think you could even go from Calgary, Julian, to Iceland. Direct.

I know you can go from Seattle, Vancouver. Anyway, if you fly on Iceland air to Europe with a stopover in in Iceland they will allow you at no extra charge to your ticket to have a layover in Iceland for up to a week so basically let's say

let's say you're going Julian you're going to you're going to watch man you play you're going to watch man you play yeah okay you're booking a ticket and you're going Calgary to Iceland to Manchester well yeah when you stop over in Iceland usually you're like oh my stopovers for two hours

you can make that stopover for two days and they'll allow you to just continue on to Manchester with no penalty. It's not like what you got to. Yeah. So there you go. They really want people to visit. They really because I like it seems like over the last like five,

10 years or so. Yeah. There has been this upswing of people just going to Iceland just to go. Like their tourism must be breaking in dough because like like it just people are just going. There's a friend of ours, well friend of mine. who works at the athletic, Shelby Blackley, who does a lot of SEO stuff. She legit just came back from Iceland.

She's like post and photos all the time. It looks like a great time. So there you go. Man, we are plugging a lot of stuff in these first 15 minutes, by the way. I know. Yeah, you should subscribe to the athletic. You should subscribe for our soccer coverage. You should subscribe to the Leaf Report.

You should go to Iceland. Is there anything else we didn't? Should this become like a, like a tourism podcast? Maybe. Like a food and tourism show. Food and tourism. Okay, let me ask you this question because I threw this out to people on social media. And I'd like to throw this up to listeners and I'd like to throw this out to you.

Because the Leafs and the Wild and the Senators and the Red Wings all went overseas. So I talked to a few people, Julian, about like, how much did this cost to you as fans to go over? So the Ottawa Senators, for example, they had a ticket package where fans could, and it cost about $4,000, a little bit under, I think, $4,000 per person. But that included your return airfare, tickets to both the games, your hotel, some sightseeing stuff, excuse me, and you were also gone for about a week. And so there was a Helsinki portion, whatever. So it got me thinking, if you had the money in your budget, but you could only do one.

And let's call it $4,000. Would you rather take a kick-ass trip to Europe to watch your favorite? If you know your favorite team, it's Detroit, it's Minnesota, it's Ottawa, Toronto. $4,000. Kick-ass once-in-lifetime opportunity to go to Europe to watch your favorite team play, two games. Or do you take that money and say, you know what? Nah, forget it. I'd rather buy season tickets.

Give me the 41 games at home. What, like, what would you rather do? I threw this out on X. I got over a thousand. How about me calling it X? That's weird. I actually can't believe I called it X. I'll let it slide.

Let it slide on Twitter. I put it out on Twitter. I got over a thousand votes on this already in a couple of hours. It's pretty close. It's 5842 in favor of season tickets. But more than 40% of people would say, you know what? Give me the Europe trip. What are you taking, Julian?

What are you taking? So my initial thought was season tickets because the opportunity to go to a game basically whatever, just having season tickets. It also depends on the team too. Like, could you imagine if you have like either Montreal and Toronto season tickets, like the winning list for those teams are astronomically long. Like how yeah, you take that. But the idea of going to see your favorite team play two games out of market and you're

going to take that opportunity to have a once in a lifetime trip somewhere in Europe. we could stick with that continent for this example. Like the memories with that are, it could be a great time. Like, I don't know. Like this seems really tough. Like I think maybe for value the season tickets,

but also like just for priceless memories and enjoyment, especially if it's to a country you've never been to. Like, if you're going with like a partner, you go with like a friend or buddy or whatever, like, would be really fun. Like you go to Sweden, you go to Finland somewhere, like if they're playing a game in

like London or something. And like you get to experience the city. You get to enjoy your time out there. You get to experience the food. You get to experience the culture. Like, I don't know. Like this is, my initial thought was the season tickets. But there's so much that goes into experiencing game day elsewhere.

Like those out of like even. I mean, stop is nowhere near on the same level where the Heritage Classic is like up at like Commonwealth Stadium in Emmett's. But that just felt cool just being out in the stadium. So imagine like going to a completely different part of the world to watch your team play and you get to experience that city and you get to experience that culture. That's a really tough decision for me. And for grand, I think you'd have to like size that up compared to, you know, the actual value of like of these trips and flight costs and. and food and other arrangements, like that could be worth it.

That could also be very steep. I don't know. I'm just saying it's a very tough decision. It is a tough decision, which that's why I threw it out. It's a great question to ask and have fun with. Would you rather season tickets or a trip to Europe to watch your favorite team? Like 10 years from now, if you had season tickets, 10 years from now, how many games are you going to remember out of the 41 home games or moments?

I don't know. One, two. Probably not. Depends on the games. Depends on the team, too. Depends on the type of season that they have. I guarantee you, you might remember, but like what if it's this,

what if it's this like insane season they have? Yeah, but, but. You could also sell those tickets too and make money. Now we've turned. I mean, I'm just, ticket broker blog. No, but it's that too. No, but like that's,

that's something that people would genuinely think about in that situation, right? Like, they could take those tickets and they know they can't go to every game. boom, I just made myself like $400 selling these tickets to this random Emmington Northern game as an example. Man, I don't know. Anyway, so hit us up, the athletic hockey show at gmail.com. Let us know.

If you had the money, let's, and we'll call it an extra $4,000, and you had to spend it either on season tickets for your favorite team, trip to Europe to watch your favorite team play two times. What are you taking? Now, here's what I'd love to know from Minnesota Wild fans, especially the ones that made the track. The team went 0 for two. Now, granted, they picked up two points, but they lost both the games.

Still worth it to go overseas and watch your team lose two times, would you, you know, whatever. So the wilder, an intriguing team. And there's been a lot of chatter, a lot of noise around that team. You know, Mike Russo and Joe Smith do such a great job covering it. But the whispers about Dean Evanson's job security seem to be growing louder to the point where they're not whispers anymore, it's almost like they're loud shouts.

Losing two games, do you think that I feel like that that could be the thing that pushes this thing over the top in Minnesota, or at least it feels like maybe it could be. I'm surprised to see where they're at in the standings.

This is a team that, I mean, it's one thing to see Dallas in Colorado at the top of the Central Division, or Winnipeg as well, is there. I did not expect them to see them below St. Louis and Arizona. Those are two teams they should be clearing in that division. I don't know what's up with Carol Caprizov either.

Every time I see Michael Russo tweet about him, it's just not always, like he's not having it himself a good game for whatever reason. And he's under a point per game. He didn't. And I'm saying this now. I've only seen him with my own eyes one time, which was Saturday. He didn't look like, remember like 18 months ago, two years ago? like he would almost get you off of your chair.

Absolutely. Like he was so explosive, dynamic, fun, whatever. I'm not seeing that out of him. And my gut always tells me that when somebody's like that, there's an injury involved, right? Like, that's what it feels like. The guy doesn't look like the guy I expect to see. But he was just, he just looks like a shell of himself right now,

which is really disappointing because you want to see, like I think if we're just based. this on talent, I think he might be a top 10 player in the league on talent. Not seeing that so far this year, right? Like, I think Carroucaprezov in terms of his skating ability, there was like one game, I think was at the wild in the Canadians where on his own, he was able to just like spin around everybody in the offensive zone for like a solid 30 seconds. Like it's stuff like that that gets you out of your seat to watch a player like Crowell

and to see him with like 15 points in 17 games. And I get it, there are so many other players who would kill for that stuff. that line, that is not what I come to expect for a player of his caliber. So to see him not there and to see that the team is underwhelming, they have like a minus 16 goal differential, which puts them on bar with a team that's last place in that division in Chicago. Like for a team with playoff aspirations like them, they cannot afford to be in that part of the basement.

And they have until, I think what, their next game is Friday against Colorado. So if they're going to do it, now around this time would be the time to make that switch. You have all those days to recuperate from your trip. You'll practice in between, I'm sure. It's a home game for them on that Friday. And they were flying back on Monday from Sweden. You're not going to do anything while you're in the air or whatever. But no.

Maybe Tuesday. It's a tough one because that fan base is so good. Like, I was really shy. In fact, I talked to a lot of Ottawa people. They were blown away by the number of Minnesota fans who traveled to Stockholm. Like, Ottawa was really well represented. But Minnesota was like, wow, it was like when they scored that goal on Saturday, like, it really popped in that arena.

And so, yeah. That's a fan base that has never seen its team get to the Stanley Cup final, only been to the conference final once, and that was 20 years ago. And it's as good a hockey market as you're going to find in terms of just State of hockey. Yeah. They call it the state of hockey. Like Mike,

there's a reason why Michael Russo is like heralded as a god up there. Like he's like they care. They care about the sport. Like they're into it. And to see their team just continue to be in this weird, mediocre space is strange, especially on a team like this where, you know,

you think Philip Gustafson should be that guy afterward. good year last year or Creole Capriza, I'm not playing at that high level that we were talking about earlier. Like, yeah, if I'm a wild fan, I'm frustrated. So the wild, they lose both their games. They lose the game on Sunday, thanks to a Willie Nylander overtime goal. Now, Nielander, you want to talk about a homecoming. Yeah. Neelander, the three-point game against Detroit, including the tying goal and then setting up the winner and then the overtime goal, like what a great weekend. He did an autograph signing. in downtown in Stockholm there.

People told me that the lineup went, I think, three or four city blocks. That's how big the lineup was to just to try to get a chance to meet Willie Nealander. Pierre LeBron with a great column today about what does this do to his value? It's a great question. You talk about intriguing UFAs in the summer.

Nobody's more intriguing than Willie Neelander, partially because of the market he plays in. Let's be honest. it's top of mind all the time. But that dollar figure seems to be going up and up and up and that trip to Sweden certainly pushed the value up. So, you know, Pian LeBrun floats out an interesting number two. And I, you know, is he Posernock worthy, which is kind of an eight year, 11 million

per year deal? Like, what do you do now with William Nielander? I mean, if you sign him to that contract, it's funny. Like, in the off season, we were the repeat. people debating whether or not he should be a $10 million player. I know. And people were wondering like, oh, is this the line in the sand? Is there a way to sign him under 10 million?

If the Leafs sign him to 10 million now, it's a steal at this point, considering his playmaking ability, the things he's able to do all over the ice at both ends, and the tear that he's on right now, like the longer this point street goes, the more expensive the price is going to be. Like I think a David Pastor not deal for him right now, if you're the Leafs, if you're a Leafs fan, you love that because the longer this goes on, the more you start thinking in your head, you have to pay this guy 12 million, 13 million. Like if it starts getting to that point, you're like, oh boy, what are you going to do?

And we all know with this team in terms of the core four that they have and the money being tied up to those big pieces, like you're a little nervous about shelling out that much for that type of player. but he's also been this dynamite player this year. And if you look back at some of those playoff runs where Mitch Marner isn't F isn't playing at his best or Austin Matthews isn't playing at his best, there's a very good chance that William Nealander is still, after all that, playing at a high enough level. Like, this is the guy that the Leafs need to keep.

It's the guy that they need to sign. And I think 11 is more than fair for this player. But it also wouldn't surprise me if they were asking, for 12. I think at this point considering what he's shown, like, why not give him 12, right? He scored 40 last year. And like you said, been a pretty

consistent playoff player, but when would you sign this if you're knee-lander? Do you just keep it going a little bit longer? I mean, the point streak is going off to a good start. Leading the team in scoring. I don't think you're at any rush, really.

Unless they should sign it. on November 30th again at 1159. Oh my God. This feels really familiar for some reason. Yeah, contract disputes, you know. Yeah. Yeah, let's give everyone in Toronto a heart attack at that time. Yeah.

What, anyway, what, like, what a remarkable year. And like, he's put himself absolutely, and this isn't hyperbole, in the conversation for the heart trophy at the kind of, whatever you want to call this, the 20 game mark or the American Thanksgiving mark that we often look at. The quarter pole. No, you know what? That quarter pole comment,

and I'm guilty of the same thing. I don't know, have you ever had a horse racing fan yell at you for quarter pole? No. Because I have. Because I've said, yeah, because apparently in horse racing,

I believe, and I could be wrong, again, somebody could correct me. I remember saying quarter pole at one point or writing quarter pole, And horse racing fans are like, just so you know, the quarter pole is actually when there's one quarter left. And there's three quarters that have been done. Apparently, maybe somebody. So we should be saying three quarter pole.

Yeah, but then that's just overly confusing because that's not how normal people like us talk. We would say quarter pole. And I'm pretty sure somebody smarter than me or who's a horse racing fan. Just tell me if that's right. that when you say quarter pole, it's actually the final quarter of the race. Because I feel like I got yelled at one time for saying quarter ball.

Don't you know that quarter pole isn't 20% done? It's 20% to go or whatever it is. I got tweeted at the other week about how, you know, when people say like for panicking or just worry about stuff like you, that the level of like DefCon 5. Like I learned. Yeah.

Yeah, like DefCon 5 is apparently like the lowest level. Oh, God, it's chill. It's DefCon 1 is the problem. It's DefCon 1 that's bad. Also, yesterday, I came across one of those clips from the show, The Office, and there's an episode, I forget which episode, but Michael Scott says DefCon 5. And I looked at that clip and I was like, oh, I feel like an idiot, man. Oh, man.

I really got that wrong. When you end up, uh, when you end up inadvertently pulling a Michael Scott and thinking that you're in the right, that's, aha, how the turntables have... Literally how the turntables. Oh my God. It is so good. Anyway, I did mean to trigger you with,

no, no, no, but I'm throwing that out there because maybe one of our listeners, who is a horse racing fan, can confirm to us that quarter pole doesn't mean what it does. Anyway, but I think Nylander, to get back to the original point, is absolutely in the race. Now, I don't know where you fall on, like,

Like, if you had to pick one for Vancouver, who ends up being, is it, is it PD? Is it Hughes? Is it, you know, whatever. But, but, Nealander's in that conversation right now. Jack Hughes is in that conversation. I know he's been a little banged up, but, but he's in there. And boy, if you, if he ends up somehow being a heart trophy finalist and he doesn't have his deal signed, wowser, wowser, wowser, wowser, wowser.

There's no way the Leafs have to. there's if the Leafs let it get to that point something's wrong but you got to remember there's two sides though right like the Leafs might be desperately trying to sign him and the Neelander camp might be just sitting back being like well let's just see how this plays out right like Toronto can only have so much control over it right I mean I understand that but they're literally like the yesterday's price is not today's price and the more that he plays at this high level like this point streak, what's it, like 16, 17 games now? Whatever, however many games they played, I think it's 17.

I know that's not going to last forever, but if he still plays at this heart trophy level and you point back to all of those other seasons and his consistent playoff performance that I've mentioned before, why, like, you're, I'm telling you, like, you get it back at 10.11, that's a steal by comparison. He has proven to you on so many different levels that he's this, central player that you need as a part of your core four at the same time if you're the Leafs you're like well we need to fill out other parts of our roster 17 games thank you producer Chris it's at 17 games yeah 17 games like what do you do like if you lose William

Nealander like it feels like this team it's kind of funny to say a team that has Austin Matthews a top five player in the NHL that has Mitch Carter he's like 14 goals doesn't he he's not a good year in 17 games. It's just that his teamate is like the heart trophy leader right now. But if you take off William Nealander off this team right now, unless they're getting pieces that are going to fill out their defense in their bottom six, where do you put the leaves?

Like, William Neelander is a lot to this team right now. You know, I'll tell you one other guy who I think we should maybe consider for like just in this early 20 game mark. part trophy and it's Sid and it's crazy. But Sidney Crosby has what? I'm just double checking this. You got 22 points in 17 games, 12 goals. And the Penguins have that atrocious start, Julian,

and they've sort of kind of righted the ship. This is like, this is, you sometimes run out of adjectives and superlatives for Crosby. and this is just remarkable. Like at 36 to be on pace for another, I don't know what's early, but like he might get 100 points again. And it feels like he just wills his team every single night.

And man, I'm telling you, like he would be on the short list of, you know, big time surprise, or not surprises, but big time candidates for the heart trophy. And I see producer Chris chiming in. Don't forget about my small market rangers. No, but here's the thing.

but here's the thing. Producer Chris has a point because Artemy Panarin. Yeah. He's got a point in every game. Yeah, he's on 15 game point streak. Oh, 15 game point streak. Yeah. Like he's, he's been good too. 26 and 16 games. Like he has been a good player. The Rangers are playing, it seems like, to the level that people are expecting from them. Like, we can't forget him in all this too. Here's another name I'm going to throw at you that we discussed earlier in the year when we were looking at those player tiers and we had

Shana on and this is not me throwing shade as Shana. This is just me talking about the guy that I was propping up. Kyle Connor is tied for the league lead in goals at 14. He's 22 and 17. I know he's a goal score and he doesn't mind not the same

skill set as a William Nealander. But Kyle Connor has been slept on for a while and if he keeps this going, maybe this is the year everyone wakes up and notices him. Like this is a really good start for him. And the whole debate was how many goals that was carter ver hagi right that that carter heagie who's who's having a season's fine

it's like 13 and 13 points at 17 games but okay is this fair to say Kyle connor right now if I'm not mistaken Kyle connor right now has more goals than kind of than Carter ver hagi has points am I right on that yes you are absolutely right so that is throwing shade at shana goldman so be it did so be it so be it did I'm sorry out for a Connor, what a great. And look, 82 games to be played.

82 games to be played. Carter for Hayek, he could get on a heater and it could get to a point we can look at those two as comparable. But Kyle Connor has been consistently underrated as a goal scorer. That is a player, I believe,

who has also scored 40 in his NHL career. Yeah. 47, in fact, he's almost scored 50. He had 38 in 2019, 2020 as well. He's almost done it twice. He's a consistent kind of 15, his shooting percentage

he's always around 15% right? When you look at, when you look at Kyle Conner's career number, so this, it's not like, like you said, he's not riding some unsustainable heater that he'll, if he regresses,

it's to 15%. It's not like he's going to regress to 7% or 6%. Like, he's a legit 15% guy, right? You know what was actually, uh, off to a pretty good start himself and I did not expect to see this name up here. It's Carter for Hakey's teammate,

Sam Reinhardt. Hey, Sam Reinhardt is having the best season, Julian, that nobody's talking about right now in the NHL. And with all the focus on Willie Nielander, Sam Reinhardt's a UFA at the end of the season. And he's top ten in score. And I don't think enough people are talking about Sam Reinhardt. No, I agree with that.

I mean, yeah, he's on a team that has all these personalities, like Mafica Chuck and Sasha Barkoff being underrated all the time. like he's literally lost in the shuffle there with the season that he's happening. I mean, there are a lot of guys in terms of whether you're just looking at the Rock of Richard or the Art Ross or just the overall heart trophy that like we're, you know, underrating a lot. I mean, Nikita Kutrov just coming along there, 13 goals. Just he's just there.

Just doing his thing. 27 points. Yeah, Kucharov is like just so quiet with his top five in scoring, right? Yeah. Just just quiet essentially. And then you have the Kudux guys obviously who. Are there some tied one, two, three, those guys? Yeah.

Tried at 28. Like, I think that is so cool that all three of those players are that as good as they've been and they're tied at the same point total. Like that is what, like we always see all the time like a trio of guys doing well and their point totals are all over the place. I don't know if I've ever seen it where at the start of the year, like they're all at the same point tallies. That is so cool.

I think Ottawa in the, like the first year out of the lockout in 0506, they had this line with Danny Heatley, Daniel Alvinson, Jason Spetsa. Yeah, that was insane. They came out of the gate, Julian, and they were like, all of them had, I think it was very much like this. All of them had 30 points right away. They were 1, 2, 3 in scoring, I think, at one point. Man.

So even then, that's just still really cool to see. And I got to watch a little bit of the Canucks guys last week. I know I was sick, so I had to watch from my couch. But like, they had a power play. We were just whizzing it back and forth. They just, oh, like, they don't get all over the place. No. In that power play.

It's, it's insane. The only reason they lost that game against the flames last week, there was a second night of a back-to-back. They were tired. I know the flames needed that win. But like, just the pace, the ability that those guys have, like, wow. Like, I'm very much in awe of what the Canucks have.

And I know they have a tough schedule or be their schedule coming up. I mean, there are some people who look at the schedule. They're like, hey, maybe it's a little easy, but like, I don't know. I think they might be a playoff team. It would be a pretty bad fall for these guys. Yeah, I think that's fair. No, you know what? I think, you know what's a fair assessment of the Canucks?

We're not going to, it's a great start. And statistically, they're hanging with the elite teams. But I don't think anybody is saying they're a Stanley Cup contender, but I do think it's fair to say they're a playoff contender now. And I don't think we thought that about them six weeks ago. I agree. Or we certainly thought they were a bubble team at best. We didn't know which way they're going to go.

They've earned the right for us to say they're a playoff team. Now, Monday night, Vancouver San Jose. And that one feels a little bit like, you know, if you're Vancouver, you're going to make sure you win that one. It's a trap game. What's the DefCon? level there. If you, based on Julian and Michael Scott's

DefCon level. If they lose the San Jose, DefCon 3, because it might be DefCon, it might be DefCon, I'll tell you this. If the San Jose Sharks win over Vancouver tonight, yeah, Dom Lushizun will be up watching

that game and I guarantee he will have some kind of eyeball emoji. And then all of Vancouver will want his head. Maybe he won't do that. Maybe he's got other stuff to do. But like, I'll tell you what. bases don't want Dom's head. Just Toronto.

That might be it. I mean, that might be it. And even then, I'm sure there are people in Toronto who might not like the guy. You know what? This is not a wise move by us in the podcast to take fun little runs at Dom and Shana who are infinitely... They're both good people. No, they're way smarter than us. They're way smarter than us. Exactly. It's fine. It's fine.

shade is great. Like, I'm just, I was, I just, my one question was about Carter Hagee against Kyle Connor and Kyle's off to a good start. I'm not, I'm not saying like I won the war and all this. Like, Harvard and Hagege could have a good year. I'm just saying, like, Cal Carter's off to a really good start and people should point that out.

World Cup of hockey was on the, on the docket. Gary Bettman had a press conference in Stockholm. NHLPA boss, Marty Walsh, was in Stockholm. So there's a good opportunity. to have that conversation, our colleague Josh Cloak, who covers the Maple Leafs, by the way, I did see Josh Cloak in Stockholm. Whereas Jonas Siegel was this international man of mystery

who I never saw. I saw a cloak. And by the way, he gave me some pizza tips because that guy, all he does is make great pizza. And I'm jealous of him. So gave me that. And I encourage our listeners to check out Josh's piece from the weekend about the World Cup.

what do players want to see in the World Cup? And in Josh's article, Julian, the thing that I agree with, I agree with what Nate McKinnon said, which was, I want this to be best on best, and I want more countries, it's the better. So think of the World Championships, you get eight countries involved. Yeah, some of them are going to lose out early, but that's how you grow the game.

What I don't love is there's increasing chatter that, you know, just based on some things going on and politics, both international politics and real politics that matter and the politics of hockey and the NHLPA and all that stuff, that we might be looking at a real scale-down version, maybe just four countries.

People are saying, maybe it's just going to be Canada and the U.S. and Sweden and maybe Finland in some sort of tournament. And I hate the idea of a team Europe. I do. I think that's not right. But I also see

the flip side of, boy, but then, you know, you get the Germans with dry sidel, cider, Stutzla, how do you include them? I don't know. I don't know where I fall on this, but I like Nate McKinnon saying, give me best on best, end his story. That's where I come down on this. I want best on best as soon as we can get it. I like the idea of whatever happens with the World Cup, where you make it every two years and it alternates with the Olympics. If you're in a situation where you can make the World Cup a more consistent thing, and not something that we just wake up and immediately remember after eight years, you are off to the right side with that.

So I like the idea of every two years, you're going back to forth with the World Cup and the Olympics. But you need more teams in the World Cup. That being said, I do not, I am not opposed to a team Europe. I am not opposed to a team North America in the World Cup. I think those are just unique ways of making the tournament different and accommodating younger players, like what they had with. team North America in that one 2016 tournament and having team Europe where you're accounting

for all those other guys who would play for a country that might not be represented. I don't know how I feel about Russia not being involved. Obviously, there's the political side to that. It's way bigger than me to discuss. But essentially, if you want best on best, you need them there, especially now where you're just thinking about what a Russian roster would look. look like they have an embarrassment of riches and goal. Like, you could have a vest of a winner.

Can we borrow a goalie in Canada? We don't have a goal. I was with my ball hockey teammates last night and we were all sitting around trying to figure out who would start in net for team Canada at a best on best tournament. And would you guys come up? So Carter Hart came up. Yeah. I threw up the name Aiden Hill.

Is Logan Thompson on that list? Like, it's unbelievable. because is Jordan Binnington someone you still throw out there as a goalie on this team? You might have to. Think about it for like in the early 2000s, when the Olympic cycles first started, that was Canada's area of strength, right? You had Marty Bordur and Patrick Waugh, Eddie Belfour, Curtis Joseph, whatever, Roberto Luongo, into that. Now you look at it.

Canada has the weakest goaltending of any of the major countries. It feels like by far, think of the American goaltending. Is John Hibos, Jake O'Donger? That's a good question because Jake O'Donger probably starts. Connor Hullabooks a backup. That's your Demko? Isn't Jeremy Swamen, American? Swamen, Demko.

Like, can we just borrow one guy? I mean, geez, I don't know. You just have to wait on these guys, right? Like, people would throw, like, I heard someone throw up it, Devin Levi. Like, he's not ready yet. He's not ready for that. The level of competition.

Yeah. Matt Bairburn, by the way, has an interesting piece. today on did the Sabres rush Devon Levi? Yeah. Like I, I, I, I, I, just the expectations with him as a goalie showed, you showed, he showed some stuff last year that makes you think, hey, you know what? Like, maybe you can give them some time, but the thing with goalies is like, they need all the time they can get before they can become at, at the, at the,

they could get to the level that they're supposed to be at. Not a, probably not an ideal comparison to make, but like, no. Carrie Price, like, entered the league at, like, his early 20s. And like, he was very, you could tell. all the talent was there, but he needed so much time in order for himself to get to that point. And at least in this case, like, there was the Price Halak years. Krista Badu Re was another goalie that he had with him. But like there were other goleys he could work with where fine, you're putting him in,

but like he needed that time to develop. And so a guy like Devon Levi at 21 years old, like, yeah, absolutely he needs seasoning. And it's not a problem for him to get that. Like if you have another goalie who could work as a stopgap for him to develop and yet better, you're on the right track with that one. I don't, there's, you don't need to rush Devin Levi.

You certainly don't need to give up on him at this point. So I, like, all I can think of is if you're an American hockey fan, this is your chat, like you want to talk about icing your best team maybe ever or certainly one that could, certainly push Canada. Like,

in goal, the Americans clearly have the edge, right? Like, clearly. And then now up, front, think of Austin Matthews, think of Jack Hughes, think of, like, think of Hughes on

defense, like, the Kachuk brothers. Like, like, start going down the list. This would be so competitive, so great, and then now fold in all the other places and the Swedens and the, like, we got to get this done here. It's an absolute

travesty that we've gone now close to eight years without a best-on-best tournament in hockey. And best-on-best is what people crave in sports. It's what people get into.

Like you see it in soccer, baseball. Remember the World Baseball Classic earlier this year? You remember how it ended? You remember seeing like Shoi Otani versus like Mike Trout? Like that's something that like baseball

should like put up in their in Cooper Sound in the open Postalized it everywhere. There's something about best-on-best international tournament. that even if you're just the most casual fan of a sport, you get roped in. And this game has never been more skilled,

never been more talented, the goal scoring is up, and we have no best on best to show for it. It's embarrassing. It is. It's really tough. Joel has written in and says, go with three Euro teams,

Eastern Euro teams with Russia, team Western Euro with the Swiss Germans, and then you have a team of the Nordic countries. But boy, you got to remember when you say, okay, let's group the, Nordic countries together. As much as the Americans and the Canadians have a great history and a rivalry and they love

battling, that's the Swedes and the Finns. Like, they don't want to play together. Right? I don't know how that would work. I love that. Like, these are the ideas that I like, like listeners and fans. I love outside the box ideas like that one, Joel. Like, I love it.

I love the ideas. But I think the simplest idea is the one that's existed for decades. Yeah, just put the T's. Right. Absolutely. Was it on this show where we discussed an idea or if you had Canada and the USA play against each other, you roped in the women's teams? Yes, I floated that idea multiple times.

Yeah, that was a really good idea. Canada USA men's, game two is Canada USA women and back and forth. And like both basically like that both nations are competing for like, like first one to four wins or something. Like that would be something fascinating. to watch. I don't know. The one reason why I'm not so up in arms about this format that's being

pushed out there, this doesn't seem like something that is just going to like stick as like a permanent World Cup idea. This just seems like something that we're trying to just have on the up and running so that way we have some kind of best on best. And then when it

comes time for us to get to the Olympics and when it comes time for us to get to the World's Cup again, maybe things will be a lot more normalized in terms of bringing in more countries. I'm sure they want that. But you're right. We have, we've gone eight years without proper best on best international competition. And this is just like an idea for us to get going. Like I, I, I, I, I can understand that thinking. I, you know, it's mind boggling to me that Sydney Crosby and Connor

McDavid have never teamed up for team Canada. And we're, we're losing daylight on that. We're losing daylight. And you know what else is crazy to you? Just Like, when Gretzky and Mario Lemieux teamed up for arguably the most iconic goal in Canadian hockey history. Now, it depends on your age, right? Like, I was, I wasn't alive. You and I weren't alive for Henderson. You weren't alive for Lemieux. Your goal would be Crosby.

Mine would be Lemieux's. Other peoples would be Henderson, whatever. But you realize that's the only time Gretzky and Lemieux played together in a best-on-best in Canada? And think about this. That makes sense. but at the time, Wayne Gretzky was 26, Mario Lemieux was 21. You would have figured this is a stepping stone to these guys are going to play together for four or five, you know, best on best in that cycle and just injuries and circumstances and retirement.

Their paths never crossed again. So all I'm saying is you have to really appreciate those moments when you get best on best. And who knows what would have happened if we had McDavid and Crosby? And I don't want American fans to think, I wish we had Hughes and Matthews. You know, like, you shouldn't have to wonder. You should be able to see it and feel it. And it's mind-boggling to me that we haven't gotten there. And I think for, especially for American fans and those who might be casual to get the opportunity to see a tournament where you can see Hughes and Matthews.

Matthew and Brady Kachuk doing their thing. I know he's not off to a good start this year, but like Johnny Goddrow is probably a fixture on those teams as well. Oh, yeah, absolutely. I'm trying to think of the defense core on that team. Well, Quinn Hughes. Quinn Hughes, obviously. I mean, that's another name you're thinking of.

Like for a market that the national hockey league is trying to tap in and try to get as much eyeballs on their sport as possible, I think the idea that Team USA possibly being at the best it's ever been as a hockey playing nation like that's a golden opportunity for more and more people to look at those guys have them be more household names

Jason Robertson's another name that's definitely going to be on that team like I don't know there's such an opportunity there and whether it's through this four nation's idea yes Adam Fox would be good news Adam Fox And my God, this is the jet lag.

Don't worry. McAvoy is American. Like, by the way, when I was saying about the darn good top four. I'll say about the defense corps, I wasn't like, oh, I'm throw a jade on it. Like, I was just, I'm trying to remember names offhand. But like, that's like Charlie McAvoy on that team

with Quinn Hughes and Foxx, like, that's a solid top three. That's an incredible top three. Yeah. I'm probably missing names too. Who knows? If I'm an American fan, I'm all over. Like, get this in because I think, If I'm an American, I'm thinking my team has as good a chance to win that tournament as anybody.

If I'm ESPN, if I'm ESPN or TNT, I'm, like, salivating at the idea of, like, showing these guys on TV and making them the focus throughout this tournament. Yeah. And hyping up those stories and getting people to know these guys in the name of, like, glory and international pride. Like, even me just saying that, there's, like, a part of me in my head that's like, you will say, you. USA. Like, there's money there. There's opportunity there. Growth.

Fix it. All of it. It's all there. Okay, listen, we have a full slate of shows. There's some other stuff I want to tackle. We could push this to Tuesday. Yeah, we could. Because I want to talk about on Tuesday's show.

Why are there no games scheduled in the NHL on Tuesday night? I understand why there's no games scheduled on Thursday because it's American Thanksgiving. But I wonder if there's an opportunity to showcase Canadian teams. on Thanksgiving. So we'll push that to Tuesday's pod. Yeah. Where Mike Russo, I think, I don't know if they did this in Stockholm

because we were staying at the same hotel. But Mike Russo, Chris Johnston are going to have a conversation. Yeah, they did. They did it at our hotel without me. Mike Johnson. Mike Johnson was at the game. Mike Russo, Chris Johnston,

will be by on the Athletic Hockey show on Tuesday. And then I believe Russo will hopefully, pop by for a little bit, maybe, I don't know. We'll see, because he's going to have jet lag to deal with, too. But that'll be a fun conversation with CJ and Russo. Just kind of bouncing around the NHL, some hot spots, things of that nature.

So, um, can you please ask Mike Russo, can you please ask Mike tomorrow if he would have joined you at the Abbe Museum? Dr. Hughes, did you ask him? Or did you just, no, I got, I got, I was afraid. I was afraid of being shit. But he was like me. I don't think he had a ton of time.

Like none of us had a ton of time then. Except for Jonas Siegel, who didn't even come. So, okay. So, like, I get, I get that you've shown concern about, you know,

the fact that we've mentioned Dom and Shana the way that we have. And I think that's more in a joking tone. And again, no shade, no real shade to those two. I'm starting to get concerned about how you keep calling out,

uh, Jonas, aka Beanie Seagel. Like, I don't, I don't get a little concerned. I don't know. I saw him when I was in Toronto last week.

I only saw him in Instagram. pictures with other reporters. I'm like, where are you? I saw Sean McKenzie a bunch of times. Hey, how's Sean doing? No relation. Great. Sean McKay. I sat next to him for one of the games. Ottawa, Detroit, I think.

Oh, okay. Cool. Cool. I got to show him the ropes. I helped break him into the TV industry. God, when was this? 10 years ago. Yeah. You can ask him about it. I helped shepherd a young Sean McKenzie into. I think. I I saw him during my road trip really quickly,

but I didn't get a chance to say hi to him, man. That's a, no, no, I did. I did. I did get to, because we were watching him and Beanie Siegel. We were watching overtime of flames, flames leafs from the media room downstairs. So I did get to say hi to my cousin slash not cousin. Yeah, that's right.

You guys share the last name. So anyway, well, we have a time to get to the rest of the weekend. This will be fun tomorrow with Mike Russo. Chris Johnson will be back at it. And as you mentioned, Julian, you did a great job in teasing the Black Friday sale that we have going on right now, right? Dollar a month for 12 months. Pretty good deal. This is the time.

Really great deal. Get in. All you got to do is visit theathletic.com slash hockey show. And you can take advantage of that. A dollar a month for 12 months as we want you to take advantage of that. All right. Before I wrap this up, I do want to ask one question to you. Julian McKenzie.

And for the people that are listening to this audio version, I'm going to paint a picture for you. Julian McKenzie is doing this podcast with me. And if you're watching the video version, you don't need an explanation. But he's wearing an NHL-themed hat. Like an NHL hat with the NHL logo on it. There, I finally got to what I wanted to say.

And it very much reminds me, you're giving me Rob Lowe vibes. Remember when Rob Lowe showed up to that? He started up to San Francisco. I think it was a playoff game of the 49ers. And he's wearing an NFL hat We're like, this, the memes were flying. So before we cut this episode off, give us the backstory of Julian McKenzie's NHL league hat.

Last fall, I saw this. Actually, there was a photographer who would work at Flames games. I had forgotten their name, unfortunately. They would wear this hat. And I just thought it was a really cool hat. and myself and another good colleague of mine, who actually writes for the league, Aaron Vickers,

we were both very enamored with this hat. You just put the photo up of Rob Lowe with the hat. Who wore it better? I mean, I'll go to the side here. We can do a proper side by side. But yeah, we were both into this hat. And actually, there's an added level to this. So I found that I was looking for this hat.

I think it's like one of those like 47 hats. And for whatever reason, like I just couldn't find it on online. It took me a long time to find it. I found this random store in Edmonton that had it. And I ordered it. I ordered two. And I remember going to the game, this one game near around Christmas. And like I'm wearing this hat.

And I sit next to my friend Aaron. And he's like, wow. like you bought yourself this hat and you know you didn't even think to get me one like he's trying to throw me shade about how like you know oh you i got this hat and we both said we wanted the hat and all that and he's like oh well you know i see how it is and literally i go in my backpack and i'm like i knew you would do this here you go and i bought him the hat he had he was he was so floored after that had happened so yeah there's a very fun story with this hat. I love this hat. It's a great hat.

You can tell, for those who do not see it, it's like the old NHL style logo when it was black and orange before they ended up just going black and silver. I like it. It very much screams. I hope these two teams have fun. Energy. I loved it. The Roblo, that's the beam that I was going for. All right. Bees just not being offensive to anyone with my NHL this. Go everybody.

Okay. So that puts us a big game. to wrap on it for the Monday edition of the pot, like we said, the two of us will be back at it Tuesday with CJ and Russo. Enjoy the games on Monday. We'll hit you up again on Tuesday. Peace.