The Athletic Hockey Show - Discussing offside video review, goalie questions for the Oilers and Avalanche, and Conn Smythe odds

Episode Date: June 2, 2022

Ian quizzes Sean on Thursday's "very important" NHL birthday before diving into a discussion on offside video review after the controversial Cale Makar play this week. Also, should the Oilers stick with Mike Smith, and do Avalanche fans need to worry about Darcy Kemper? Can the Lightning go all the way without Brayden Point?Then in "Granger Things", Jesse Granger chats about the eye-opening over/under for Thursday's game 2 between the Oilers and Avalanche, and Conn Smythe odds. Ian and Sean dive into Sean's All-Disappointment team, Devil's fans shared their thoughts on Cups they would give up, and to wrap up, "This Week in Hockey History".Have a question for Ian and Sean? Email [e-mail], or leave a VM [phone]!Save on a subscription to The Athletic: theathletic.com/hockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back, everybody. It is your Thursday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. As always, it's Ian Mendes, Sean McHenkaid with you for the next hour or so. We'll look at the early part of those final four series. And we're going to have to touch on the offside stuff because that was kind of nutty with Kail McCarr from the other night. Sean's got a really interesting piece. The All-Disappointment team.

He's got it out for the playoffs. We'll break that down. Jesse Granger drops by, as always. for a little Granger things. We hear from Devils fans, a lot of Devils fans in our mailbag. So we'll get to that a little bit of this week in hockey history as well. And as we kick off the show, though, Sean, I think I need to bring this up with you. Do you know whose birthday it is in the hockey world today?

Oh, oh. June the 2nd. June the 2nd. I do not. Okay? Maybe this will help you. It's a very special 70th birthday. for somebody.

Hmm. No, still doesn't help. Happy birthday. Gary Bettman. Oh. Commission 70. The big 7-0 today.

Why, where is the, I don't see, I'm not feeling the, the enthusiasm. I guess my invitation to his birthday party must have got lost

in the mail or something. I didn't, I didn't get an Evite. I didn't get a, we're not Facebook friends. So that's probably, That's the only way I know anyone's birthday these days. So yeah, happy birthday, commish.

Is Evite still a thing, by the way? Like, are people still using Evite? I probably just went seriously old man and, like, made a reference to something that hasn't existed in 15 years. Yeah. Wow. Okay. Gary Bedman, 70. I mean, he looks good for 70.

He's still, he's got a lot of good years ahead of him. I mean, if I were him, I'd retire and, you know, go play tennis, play golf, enjoy your golden years. I mean, I feel like he's already accomplished everything he could do in hockey. He's made the sport so perfect that really go out on top and enjoy your 70s, Gary. Yeah, there we go. That felt really heartfelt and genuine. Yeah, thank you did it. I've been working on my sincerity.

Yeah. So listen, look, look, one of the things that, as we talk about Gary Bettman and the Batman era, video review has certainly been one of the things. If we look back at the Batman era, I mean, offside video review is going to be something that we talk about, I think, for years. And obviously this week, it reared its ugly head in that Colorado Edmonton game. Now, I'm going to admit, when I watched it, I was like, oh, that's offside. Like I can't even explain to you the level of shock I had when, and I forget who the official was that night.

Was it Kelly Sutherland? Whoever it was. And he had the dramatic pause too. After video review, it has been determined that that goal was on side. Like, it was like, what? Like, why did you have the delay? But I just can't wrap my head around it. And I think I want to go back.

Like, remember when the NFL was like, Is it a catch? Is it not a catch? And then we finally all agreed about if it looks like a catch, it's a catch. Like that, that was kind of our. I feel like we need to get there with offside where it's like, you know what? If it looks like it's offside, it's offside. But I'd like to get rid of video review altogether for offside if you're asking me. Yes. And that's my starting point too. We don't get rid of offside review. It has been a disaster. We brought it in years ago, partly because Matt Duchenne was offside. by 10 feet on a play that people don't understand. But he was, they blew a call on Matt Duchenne and we said we need offside review because this can't happen again.

And all these years later, guess what? It hasn't happened again. We have not caught one Matt Duchin play in all of these years. Instead, we have caught a ton, hundreds of nitpicky little offsides that we would have never seen before, never noticed. And we now have every single team has somebody watching every. play to see if there's an offside, not because it affects the game, not because it's, you know, it changed the way that they defended. It's just to get at a jail free card. In a league that needs more offense, we didn't learn from the 90s skate in the crease rule.

We passed another dumb rule to just take goals off the board. So to get to Tuesday night, I was with you. I thought it was offside. And I was, I don't know what the American broadcast was like, but up here in Canada, they were like, what's even taken so long? Why are they reviewing this? You know, you just need to look at it once and it's clearly going to be offside. And I was along with it. But my initial reaction was anything that lets a goal stand I'm for. Okay. Like, we're taking too many goals off the board. The fact that the NHL looked at something and said, we're going to count it, even if it was a mistake, I'm like, you know what, I'm on board. And I did think it was a mistake initially. I tweeted a few times.

about, like, possession is really a gray area in the NHL, but the way it's typically called that Kilmacard did have possession of the puck, so it should have been offside. In the days since, I have come around to the idea that my initial impression was wrong and that the NHL got this one right. I've seen enough examples, you know, we've all seen the explanation by now that it was basically a tag up and that, you know, because McCart did not touch the puck, that that's, you know, that makes it different. And my initial thought was, well, yeah, but that he's still, he has possession. So it's, I've now seen enough examples that have come.

And these are examples the NHL put out before this play. This isn't them going and covering their butt. I've seen enough floating around to say that, yeah, this actually is the way it's been called. It was confusing. It was one of those, you know, very strange plays where a few different things happened to make it confusing, but I think they got it right. And they got it right by the strict letter of the law, and they got it right in the big picture, which is don't take good goals off the board for nitpicky little reasons, which is what we've been doing. So I'm actually fine with it. I'm happy with it.

I see why the Oilers challenged it. It's a tough break for them to take the penalty on that, especially since they went and got scored on. But it was the right call. It wasn't offside. I don't buy for a second that Kelmachert did that on purpose. I don't even buy that the linesman was thinking through this in real time. I think they kind of missed something they would have normally called. And if they had called it, if they'd blown that dead on the ice, we wouldn't have thought twice about it. But I do think they got it right. I accept the NHL's explanation.

And I think my initial impression that it had to do with possession was actually wrong. I think possession is part of the rule on a typical zone entry. but when it's a delayed situation, it actually is just about, do you touch the puck or not? And he didn't touch the puck. Yeah. No, what is it?

The old possession is nine-tenths of the law and whatever. And this was the one-tenth where I guess he didn't have it. And luckily, because the NHL rule book, I've written about this, doesn't tell us what possession is. It refers to possession in a bunch of places. You can't hit a guy who doesn't have possession of the puck.

In an offside, you know, if a guy comes in skates first, you know, he's going in backwards. But if he has possession of the puck, that's okay. it never says what possession is, which is a huge loophole in the rules that they should fix at some point. And that's immediately where my mind went on this. But now having seen the explanations, I now accept that actually possession has nothing to do with it. It's just puck hits stick or it doesn't. Yeah, it's really, it was remarkable that so many people, like you and I, I think were in the majority.

like these are these are intelligent hockey fans who have watched the game for 10, 15, 20, 30 years. We all thought it was offside. And so that was really eye-opening to be, though, like, oh man, like I was wrong. And it's okay. I think it was Dave Jackson had a great, the former referee, great video breakdown. I was like, okay, that makes sense. That totally, totally makes that. Tim Peel even on Twitter.

Like when you hear them explain it, former referees, I see you rolling your eyes at Tim Peel. I'm rolling my eyes because, yeah, because it's Tim Peel. And also, here's my question. Where are the former linesmen on Twitter? How come all these referees are out there? If you're a linesman, you got to be sitting there like, what the hell does Tim Teal know about offside? Mr. Reef?

Go drop your one face off at the start of the game and then get out of there and let the rest of us, like, you know, go stand there and watch the fights. I'll be the one having Ryan Reefsland on top of my head, you know, like, we need a linesman. Where's like Kevin Collins has got to have a Twitter account somewhere. Who is the super tall? Was it Mike Sveck? Yeah.

Was he a linesman or was he a referee? No, he was a linesman. He was a linesman. Yeah. And Kevin Collins was a big idea. I guarantee Kevin Collins is out there on Twitter. If he's on Twitter, he's just looking for Twitter arguments and breaking them up before they can get going. Like people are really ready to go and he just shows up and somehow separates them.

Yeah. We need a linesman Twitter account. Referees. It's a great point. a great point. But look, I think if they're going to keep video review for offside, I would go with a 30 second

maximum and say, if you can't determine it in 30 seconds, then whatever you called on the ice stance. Because look, the Matt Duchyne won back in there, and I think there was another one. Was it Montreal, Tampa in the 2015? That one was the one that really caused this. Everyone thinks it was Matthew Shane. And Matt

Shane was a big part of it, but it was in the playoffs and there was an overtime goal. that at the time seemed fine. Was it Drew Ann? It was Jonathan Drew Ann, right? It might have been, yeah. Afterwards, they looked at it and they saw that it was offside and that's when people went, oh, you know, we need to.

And it was, you know, clearly offside. It wasn't the total nitpicky freeze frame stuff that we get now. It was a missed call. But, I mean, we shouldn't have this to start with because I made this point a bunch of times. We don't do, I know there's people who say, well, you got to get it right. You got to get it right. The rule is black and white. We don't do this for a whole bunch of other black and white stuff.

We don't do it for, you know, if they dump it in, we don't sit there and go, oh, did they hit the red line first or was it, should that have been icing? Go back and watch any goal scored off an offensive zone faceoff and tell me that there isn't at least one skate on the face off circle line. That's by the strict letter of the rules. If we've got to get it right, that's a face off violation. That shouldn't count. Do we go and review those?

The problem is I've said that a few times. And some people go, yeah, maybe we should, but we got to get it right. And it's like, do we just want there to be no goals in this league? I would get rid of offside review entirely. I would accept that every now and then, there's just going to be a mistake. We always knew that. We used to mostly just live with it. We didn't feel like review had to fix everything for us.

I would get rid of it. If we can't get rid of it, I'd go with your suggestion. you get 30 seconds or you get to see it three times. I know some people have said you can see, you can watch replays, but they've got to be real time. If you have to slow it down, you know, micro manage it like that. Here's my suggestion that I've said with all reviews. And this is goalie interference, everything.

When a goal is scored, you've got, there's two referees on the ice. The referee who's down in that end, he's the one signaling goal. The trailing referee, as soon as it's clear that a goal is, been scored. I want him to hold up his hand. He holds up five fingers at the bench that just got scored on and he counts it down. You've got five seconds after the goal to tell us if you want to review it. Did you see something in real time? Coach, are your players telling you they saw something in real time? Because we'll review that. If it's Matthew Shane who's off and you want to or your goalie got run over or something like that, but you make the decision quickly. You don't get some guy

watching the replay 10 times while we all stand around in your ear telling you whether they're watching. You don't get to look on your iPad and nitpick it and slow it right down. The line's been had to call it in real time. The ref has to call it in real time. So do you. Are you so sure? You got five seconds. And then after five seconds, you've missed your chance.

Sorry, that's it. And it's on you. You could have challenged it, but you didn't because you missed it. You know, you want to say we missed it? Well, you missed it too. I would like to see it like that. It would be no different than what we do with line changes, right? We already have that process where you've got the visiting team makes a change.

The whole team gets five seconds. The exact same thing. You know, maybe you want to call it 10 seconds. or something like that, but it's quick. Did you see something in real time? Yes or no? If you did, we'll challenge it. We'll go take another look.

We'll get it right. But if you didn't see it at the same time, you expect us to see it, play on, man. And if it's a mistake, if it was a bad break for you guys, hey, bad breaks. And by the way, that Montreal Tampa game with a controversial overtime, it was Nikita Kutcherov with the overtime goal.

And it was Valtteri Philpula, who was egregiously offside, I think, on that play and then they reviewed but it was too late they had already realized that you know the goal went in there was no there was no there was no there would have there would have been no way even if they had realized it and I don't I don't remember Montreal complaining at the time but even if they had there was nothing they can do and look the thing with this is it's always the extreme cases that lead people to say we have to put in review right like when right when it's when when when Duchenne's offside

We have to review offsides. When I remember, like, Colton O'er running over a Florida Panthers goal, just blatantly trucking him and they shoot the puck in the net. That was the first time I started to hear people go, maybe we need to be reviewing goalie interference. The Joe Pavelsky situation led to people saying, we got to review majors. And look, some of this is fine. I'm not anti-review for everything.

I think it, you know, it works for a goal or no goal and some other things. But there is a saying in the legal world that says, like, hard cases make bad laws. And the idea that when you have an outlier really different, that's not what you use to determine the law that's going to work for everything else. And it's the same thing here. Like in hockey and in sports, I would argue, extreme cases make bad rules. When you see an extreme, rather than just saying, oh, that's a once a decade weird thing that we just saw. When you say, we got to make a bunch of rules, it doesn't, you end up not catching those situations. you end up catching dozens or, in the case of offside,

hundreds of situations that you never even thought were a problem. And to make matters worse, you train fans. Again, we went through this with the skate in the crease. We've trained a generation of fans that when they see a goal to just kind of, oh, wait a second, hold on. I want to get excited, but maybe should I, you know, let's wait. Oh, they're doing the face off. Okay, I guess my team actually did score.

I hate it. I would get rid of it. I think it does more harm than good. I would get rid of it entirely, certainly for offsides. We don't need it. We don't do it for any other rule in the book that we could get nitpicky like this for. And I've said it before. I mean, if I had a time machine, I'm not going back to stop wars or anything.

I'm going back to tackle Matt Dushan on that play and keep him from scoring so that we don't have this terrible, stupid rule that I hate very, very much, even though the NHL got it right on the one that everyone's currently. Right. And hey, listen, it's the unintended consequences. It's puck over glass where it's like you and I say, we don't. remember an epidemic in the late 90s, early 2000s of stay-at-home defensemen just flicking it over the glass. Like maybe, I feel like I would have known. There are two types of hockey fans.

There are people who remember this being absolutely everywhere and there's people like us. And again, I said this before on this show. I complain about a lot. I'm a Leafs fan. Every game the Leafs have lost in my mind was not because the other team was better. It was because something happened.

There was a bad break. Somebody cheated. Some referee screwed us over. I am full of excuses. Okay? I am Mr. Excuse maker. If the other teams were doing that,

I would have noticed it and I would have complained about it. And I wouldn't have seen my own team do it, of course, but I would have seen the other team all the time. I have no memory of it. I watch a lot of old hockey. I go back and, you know, watch clips. I never see it.

Other people swear it happened all the time. I think what happened is other people saw it happen once and in their heads that's turned into all the time. But the thing was, the rule with puck over glass was always that you couldn't do it intentionally. If you did it intentionally, the way people describe, you know, a defenseman just flipping it over, that was always a penalty. It was just a penalty that was a judgment call. Like every other penalty in the book, we trusted the referees, including, when I say every other rule in the book,

including all the other delay a game rules. Pushing the net off is not an automatic penalty. Imagine every time somebody stumbled into the net. Sorry, automatic penalty. The net came off. There's nothing we can do. automatic penalty and then people would go, oh, I like this rule. It's black and white. They call it the same every time. No, everybody would hate that. The referee uses his judgment. Says, you did that on purpose. That's two minutes. We could do the same for puck over glass, but we don't. Gary, retire now because I got a long list of things I need to do when I take over, okay? Like I'm waiting for my phone to ring to take your job. You, you're 70. Thank you very much. Go play tennis. I've got a ton of things I need to fix here. By the way, now it's pickleball. It's pickleball. It's pickleball that. The old folks are playing. Not tennis. I heard Gary's a big tennis guy. I think that's his.

That's his sport. Yeah, that's his, that's his sport. And yeah, they have replay review in tennis, right? Yeah, they do. It takes five seconds. Yeah.

Well, okay. I got a summer, you know how I love giving you summer work, projects, things, okay? You got to go back and find. So the last season where we didn't have this puck over. Oh,

304, right, was the last season, okay? You need to go back and randomly watch 20 games or something like that. Okay. And just tell me how many times did we have Puck over Glass? And maybe you go back and watch you're like, holy cow, there was seven times a game. Okay. If it was a problem, it was a problem. I just, I don't know.

And I would put that out to, because I'm, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe this was just something that, you know, that I didn't notice. Go back and find me again. Don't find me like one clip of it happening, but go back and find me a game and go, look, Jamie McCown does it three times in five minutes. And I'll watch it and I'll go, oh, wow, okay, I don't remember that. But I don't remember, I do remember, and I had somebody bring this up to me, do you remember how we used to many times a game, the puck would just go over by the boards and the players

would just go stand on the puck. Yeah. And that would stop the game. The defense would just come over, put his skate up against and stand there. And the ref would go, oh, the puck's gone. We can't play anymore. and they would blow the whistle and that's how they would get stoppage.

That happened all the time and it doesn't happen anymore or almost never because the referees started forcing guys to move it. But I don't remember the fuck getting shot into there. So I don't know. Show me. Show me that old clip. I'd love watching old clips and I'll go and watch it

and if I'm wrong, I'll say I'm wrong. But I don't know, man. I don't think you guys are making it up. No, I don't think so. I brought up Nikita Kutrov's name there earlier because he was the guy that scored the contract controversial goal years ago. Kuturov and the lightning looked super flat in game one Wednesday night against the Rangers. I think it's understandable. They didn't play for, you know, whatever,

nine days. So I get it. Like, it's the old rust, rest, whatever. Like, I'm not worried about them. My question, though, to you is John Cooper, Sean, seems super pessimistic about Braden point. Like, the, the way he answered that question going into game one was kind of like, it'll be a, you know, a blessing. Like, it didn't sound like he's coming back in this series. I know he skated and Joe Smith tweeted out the video, but they went 5 and 0 without Braden Point, winning game 7 against Toronto,

then the four against Florida. Can they win the cup without Braden Point? I think they can, but it is clearly a steeper climb. And you're right. Especially when we saw him out skating, you kind of usually when you see that, You think, oh, this guy, you know, maybe he's, maybe he's coming back. And there's always, there's always a little cloak and dagger in the playoffs.

Who knows? Maybe, you know, maybe John Cooper is hiding something. But no, it was, I mean, it was very concerning because he comes out and he's like, well, the good news is he is going to play again at some point. And you're like, whoa, that didn't even occur to us that he might not play ever. Like, nobody was talking about this as a career threatening injury, but he made it sound like it was. Like, you know, he will play hockey again someday. but not necessarily in the playoffs. We will see.

I would love to know when we find out, whenever, when the lightning season is over, they're eliminated or they win. And we find out specifically what the injury is. I know, look, we all love the warriors and we love the fact that he's out there skating

and, you know, he clearly wants to get back. But I would love to go back to that game where he got hurt in Toronto, that game seven. Remember he gets hurt at the end of the period? Yeah. And then he comes back to him. comes back out and everyone goes, whoa, he's out.

And then everyone says, okay, he's sitting on the bench. He's being a leader. He's going to stay on the bench. And then he went out for a shift. Play the shift. And he was just hobbling. He looked awful. And I got to, I mean, I love the leadership.

I love the never say di attitude. But I kind of want to know, like, why did you guys let him go back out there? Because we haven't seen him since. And it's, you know, it's three weeks or whatever it is since then. We haven't seen him. I really want to know what the thought process was when you had a whole intermission to check him out to say, you know what? Go back out there, give it a try.

I know he was begging you. I know he was saying like, you know, let me go give it a try. But to put him in live game action like that, you know, and I'm not saying that that changed the injury or increased it, it could have. Didn't seem to. But I, man, some of these stories about heroic guys playing through stuff as I get older, I start to go, is that heroic or is that maybe a team not looking after a guy by letting him go out there again? You know, it kind of reminded, remember when Stamcoast came back against Dallas for like a shift in the, in the cup final? Yeah. And he got his goal, right?

Like it was, like I always say that that is almost like hockey's Kirk Gibson moment where like the guy is like hobbled and you're like, I don't think he gets any scores any, he exits stage left. But hockey is much different than the baseball I could understand Gibson getting up there with whatever is torn hamstring. the Kirk Gibson moment before that was, was Paul Carrillo, right? Yeah, off the floor, on the board. Like, we all love that. That's so great. You go back and watch that now.

Oh, his eyes are rolling in the back of his head. He's on the ice with his eyes rolled back into his head. And the fact that, you know, they sent him right back out there a few minutes later. Yeah, it was great that he scored a goal. But my God, like, you know, what are we doing? Or like, when was it the 2011 or one of the other runs where Patrice Bergeron? and it was like, yeah, I have a hole in my lung. 2013.

2013. So ridiculous level of injury. And on the one hand, yeah, you're like, this guy is an absolute warrior, man. I get a little blister and I can't, you know, that's it. I'm done. I'm on the couch. These guys are, you know, it's fantastic. But at the same time, you're sitting there going like, what, what are we doing here with

some of these guys fighting their way back from injury? And, you know, how bad are some of these guys hurt them when the team says, no, like, we're not letting you out there. and you go for a skate. Yeah, you just wonder sometimes because you love the narrative of the warrior coming back, but sometimes you've got to save these guys from themselves. All right, as always, on a Thursday episode

of The Athletic Hockey Show, I'm tied to bring in our pal, Jesse Granger for a little Granger things, brought to you by BetMGM, the exclusive betting partner with us at the Athletic. And I want to draw the attention to the line heading into game two, the over-under. in the Western Conference final. I know they scored 14 goals, right?

They combined to score 14 goals in game one. So you figured that the line might be a little high. I don't remember the last time I saw an over under at seven for an NHL playoff game. But that's where we're at guys is we look at Bet MGM. They're at seven. An over under at seven for a playoff game in the National Hockey League. I guess I'm inclined to take the over still, like because of what happened in the goal-tending, but man, that that is an eye-opening line to me.

Yeah, I totally agree. And not only is it over under seven, I'm looking at it. And the over is actually minus 135. So they have shaded to the over. So you're actually getting, you get better odds betting under seven goals than you would betting over seven goals, which I, like you said, I don't remember the last time a hockey game was at seven, especially a playoff game. But when it was, it was probably shaded to the under, not the over.

This is an incredibly high line. Honestly, last game, I'm watching it. I'm like, man, do they have to make the total nine and a half on this series to get anyone in the world to bet the under in this series? Obviously, we'll see if things can change tonight. Maybe, I mean, we heard the Aves players after the game saying, like, okay, we realized that that was a win and we'll take it, but we have to tighten things up. We'll see if that actually happens. But seven seems low for me. I can't wait.

I hope. I'd love to see another shoot. out tonight and just see how high can go. Because my first thought when we talked about when this topic came up was, well, I mean, we saw this from Remington in the last round, right? Game one was 15 goals. And then after that, it all settled down. And we didn't see anything like that again.

And then I went and I looked, the other four games in that Calgary series, three of them would have been the over. There were two, eight goal games and a nine goal game. And then there was one game all the way down at five goals. That was the low scoring game. So I don't know. I don't know what the over-under was after that first Calgary game, but especially here, I mean, it's a perfect storm.

It's all the offensive talent. We already don't trust the goaltending on Edmonton, and now we don't know what Colorado situation is. So goals are plenty. Let's hope. Yeah. And that's what I find fascinating. Look, like Darcy Kemper is obviously not healthy, right?

Like there's, whether it's the eye and what, like he's not healthy. But Mike Smith might get the hook here. for performance reasons, right? And it was like Jay Woodcroft was awfully cryptic, right? On Wednesday with his kind of like, wow, well, we'll see about our starter. We'll see what Mike Smith's status is. And I think he said, well, we'll see what Miko's status is. Like, that could obviously have an impact.

And Sean, let me ask you this one first, because usually the deeper you get into the playoffs, the less likely it is that you're going to play musical goalies based on performance. Right. I think we've seen injuries and Edmonton fans know all about guys, goalies getting injured deep in the playoffs. But how rare is it to see like musical goalies, like just based on performance once we get to the final four or the cup final. It's not common because you have, you know, the old saying that, you know,

if you've got two goalies, then you don't have one goalie. It's kind of that that has changed, I think, over the years. It's not like the old days where each team wanted to have their one guy. More teams are going with the two-headed monster approach now. But usually you ride the hot hand or at least keep guys in when you're winning. And obviously, if you're not winning, you're typically not advancing very far in the playoffs. I was trying to think back. The one that came in mind was actually that the series, the 2017 series with the Senators and the Penguins.

The Penguins, didn't they go from Flurry to Matt Murray in the middle of that series? Yeah, after game three. But that was injury related. Matt was, I mean, Murray was injured in the beginning of the playoffs. So, Corey stepped in. That's right. Murray had finally been healthy enough to play. So they were maybe looking for a reason to go back.

Right. So, okay. So, I mean, even there, there's some health issues. I don't know what you do with Mike Smith. I mean, you, we talked about the last series. He was awful in game one came out and he was good enough, right? You know, went one four straight, the rest of the series. the difference maybe is that Nico Koskinin was also Waffle in game one.

He didn't give you really anything to think about. I say you go with Mike Smith, but the leash has got to be getting short, you think. Yeah, it's interesting. Like you said, how many times it happened? Well, like, normally if you get to the conference finals, your goalie's playing awesome. You don't get to the conference finals giving up as many goals as Mike Smith has given up in these playoffs. So it's an interesting situation. I thought Koskenin looked more solid in there.

But also, you have to take into account, like, the game had already had a bunch of goals scored. Maybe the defense played a little bit better for Edmonton with Koskin in there. I don't know. I thought Koskenen looked a little more solid in there despite giving up however many goals it was. I think it's tough to judge goalies. Even Mike Smith, I think it's tough. If I was Woodcroft, I don't know if I'd be using that game to evaluate which goalie I'm going forward with. I think it would be more just, hey, I've watched these guys all year in practice.

This is the guy I believe in. because in a game that wide open, it's just like the goal they pulled Mike Smith on. I thought it was funny that he did give up some soft ones, but then the goal they pulled him on, there's no human being on earth that's stopping that goal. It was a deflection six inches in front of his face. So yeah, I think there's a lot more issues in this series that's allowing goals than just the goalies. And we almost got one of my favorite things on that, which is the, you're right, there was the deflection. you could tell they had already made up their minds, you know, next goal, we're switching

goalies. So, you know, you see Koskin and starts getting ready. And then they start showing the replays. And you see the coaches looking down at the pad, like, wait, was that a high stick? Is there me? I love goalies getting pulled on goals that then get waved off. And then you're awkwardly like, do I guess go back in? Do we not?

I mean, the puck still went in. It's always a confusing situation, but didn't quite get it there. A little aside on that. Pete DeBore pulled Lennar after one goal in the Golden Knights, late in their season when they were playing. Planet Capital is. It was one, one after a period. And we kind of, we kind of gave Pete a little bit of crap for doing that. And after the season was over, he said, and just to be clear, I pulled him after two goals, not one. And he goes, because one of the goals got called back for an offside. But he still let that goal in. So, you know, I'm going to go. So they let you hear it. Even, we talked about it. Even coaches admit that offside goals are still goals. And they should count. You heard it right from Pete to board. And can you guys imagine if Koskenen ends up coming into this series at some point. And imagine Miko Koskinin is the goalie that takes Edmonton to the final. You know, many people will be going back deleting old tweets about Pete Shirelli and Koskinin and

like that old takes exposed Twitter. They're going to get a workout if Miko Koskinin. Big times for the this aged poorly crowd. Yeah. People who can only, they just spend all day on Twitter to reply a disaged poorly. Like, yeah, you got me. I said, I said the goal. with the 3.6 goals against average, maybe wasn't good. You nailed me. That crowd was a big fan of me yesterday after I tweeted that the Eastern Conference

has the best two goalies in the world and the West doesn't know what goalies are and then the following day, Vasilevsky gives up six goals. So I'm very familiar at the moment with this aged poorly crowd. What a dumb take, Jesse, that Audrey Vaselovsky is a good goal tip.

Right. Boy, do you have egg on your face? Yeah. Hey, like, it's going to be really, once you get down to the final four, I think the conversation for playoff MVP and the cons might trophy really heats up, right? And I think if we're looking at it right now, all things being equal. I think we all feel like McDavid is the guy who elevated his game and probably pulled his team along the most. Dry Seidel deserves a ton of credit too, especially playing on

that bad ankle. He just, I don't know how he's doing it. He's been great. But if we're looking at this right now, where might it be smart to start to maybe put some money down on a Kahn Smythe winner? Because now we're down to the field. It's probably down to four, five, six guys. Yeah, it's interesting to me. And I agree with you. I think this is the time. Like, I'm not a big future is better just because you have your money tied up in like for an entire year. I think like right about now, maybe even like in the last round would be when I start to look at it because you kind of get a picture of, okay, these are the teams that actually have a chance to win this thing. What's interesting to me, and what I'd like to start this off with, is so Connor McDavid's

currently fifth in the odds to win the consmite at 9 to 1. We've had five players win the consmithe in history that didn't win the Stanley Cup. But all five played in the Stanley Cup finals. Has Connor McDavid been so ridiculously good that he could win the consmite without playing in the Stanley Cup finals? If they lose to the Colorado Avalanche in seven games, and he continues to play like this. Do you think it's possible that Carter McDavid can win the Consmithe without playing in the cup finals? I'll tell you what, guys.

You're right. 2017, Eric Carlson got a consmithe vote in a season in which Ottawa got dispatched in the very manner in which you just described, losing in game seven of a conference final. Eric took his game to a completely different level, but it's still like, boy, I think what McDavid has done this year is even more impressive.

I think he would have to get, how many points does McDavid have right now? Like, I think he was a 29 going into the series. So let me say this. If he gets to 40 points, I think there's a legitimate argument because the only two players in the history of the game to get 40 points in a singular postseason are Gretzky and Lemieux. That's it. That's the list. So I think that there would be some, there would be a conversation to be had. if he can get to 40 points.

I agree that 40 is the entry point to get there. I still don't think it gets him the award. I think maybe it gets him on ballots. And the reason I say that is that that means Colorado is going to be in the final and they're going to be playing a team that's going to have some pretty significant either. Shisterkin is going to be the odds-on favorite for the Rangers or Tampa's got a bunch of guys who could be a lot of people will, you know, if McKinnon's playing well,

a lot of people will buy into this narrative that, you know, not only his Nathan McKinnin playing well, but he beat Connor McDavid. Right. And if, you know, regardless of whether that actually fits. So I,

I can't see it. But, man, I'm just, I'm trying. I mean, he had 29 points through two series, one of which was short. So I'm doing the math in my head, you know, he could get into the mid-40s.

If he goes really crazy, like, the record for points in a season is 47. If he gets to 47. Without playing in the cup finals. Without even playing in the final. And then, you know, the other thing would be if he makes the final, you mentioned that five guys have won the trophy without winning the cup. But only one of those was a forward. It's been all goalies ever since Reggie Leach in the 70s. And that was like, Kahn Smyth was only a few years old at that point.

we've almost decided it can't, if you're a skater, you have to win the cup. So, but yeah, I mean, there's a good chance. He could certainly if he gets to the final, he could break the record for points. And if you're breaking any Wayne Gretzky record from the mid-80s, that's good. I ran the numbers. It's a good thing. McDavid's at 9 to 1. Maybe just give our listeners and us a sense of like those top five or six candidates right now.

Yeah. So right now, Nathan McKinnon is the favorite. And this is because the abs are up one-nothing. And like if the Oilers were to win the next two games and take a two-one lead, McDavid would probably be the leader in the clubhouse. So that has a massive influence on it. But McKinnon's at plus 290, so almost 3 to 1. Cale McCar is right behind him at plus 320, so a little over 3 to 1.

Igor Shisterkin is third at 5 to 1. And Andre Vasselowski is right above Connor McDavid at 6.5 to 1. What's interesting to me is McDavid's right there, to one. And then the guy who's got one less point than him, and you mentioned Leon Drysidal, and maybe he hasn't quite been as dominant as Connor McDavid, but he's got one less point and he's been phenomenal. He is way down this list. I almost had to scroll off the page at 45 to 1 to win the Con Smythe, which seems insane to me. If you think the Oilers have any chance of beating the avs and getting to the final, I feel like 45 to 1 on Drysidal is a solid bet. Wow. Even if you're

just betting as a hedge against Connor McDavid getting heard or something like that. That's insanity right there. I mean, I don't think, I think Dracidal could outplay Connor McDavid and McDavid will still win because we love the narrative, right? And there's a thing going around right now where a lot of people are going, wait a second, we all think that there's a very good chance of Austin Matthews is going to win the MVP. And if it's not Austin Matthews, it's probably going to be Shisterkin.

And McDavid is, you know, is kind of like a secondary candidate for a lot of people. Well, you're looking at it now. I mean, if Matthews wins over McDavid, nobody's going to remember 2022 is the year of Austin Matthews. It's the McDavid year. And so a lot, I think maybe there might be some voters going. Here's my make good on Conner. You know, maybe I got a little caught up in the Matthews hype. So I think McDavid is definitely the favorite.

But, I mean, we just, everything we just said about breaking records and everything that applies to Leon Dorsaitle too. Right. Forty-five to one, my goodness. That's, yeah, I mean, you throw 20 bucks down and you're, you got a new giant screen TV. That seems okay to me. Definitely. And then the last thing I'll throw at you guys, and I find this kind of interesting.

We mentioned how far ahead McDavid is from Drysidal. It's similar to the team that's actually leading the Eastern Conference finals. The Rangers are three wins away from playing in the cup final. And I'm wondering, do you guys think any play? player on that team other than Igor Shisterkin can possibly win this award. I mean, right now Shasturkin, like I said, he's third on the list behind McCarred McKinnon at 5 to 1. And you've got to go, let's see. The 13th player on the list is Mika Zabanajad at 20 to 1. Adam Fox is 35 to 1. Artemie Panarin is also 35 to 1, along with Chris Kreider being 35 to 1. So those are your, those are your odds.

do you think is it possible for someone on this team other than Igor Shusirkin to win this award? Boy, I mean, Panarin has the overtime game seven overtime goal on his docket. He would probably need, in my opinion, another goal of that magnitude just to even get him into the conversation. But I don't see it. Like I, I, you know, and as a bandage that has been dynamite, especially in the last four or five games. It just feels like that set up on the first goal the other night on the Crider goal was just, like, it was magic, right? He's been great. But to me, Panarin would be the guy, but he would need another kind of, he would almost need a Stefan Mato's style goal in this round to put them into the cup.

And then we could be like, wow, they're not there without Panarin. And then he'd have to have a great Stanley Cup final. The crazy thing is we're talking about McDavid getting to 50 points or 40 points. and Panarin has 13 right now. And he's playing good. Like that's good. That's good. Yeah, I, I, I, we forget, right?

Because we get, you know, we're down to the final four and it feels like, you know, the finish line's inside. We're halfway through the playoffs. For whatever team wins the Stanley Cup, we're only halfway through. I could absolutely see someone on the Rangers other than Schisturkin emerging to win the consmite, especially since we've seen goalies go cold. It only takes one or two bad games. and the numbers bump up. I just don't know who I would pick at it.

Like, I'm not sure there's, you just named three or four guys that could all emerge. So I'm not sure that there's any one of those where I, you know, like with your side or where I'd say, that's my hedge bed right there. It seems like there's too many options for me. To me, Zabanajad and Fox are way ahead in terms of the stats for this team. They, like Zabanajad leads the team with 21 points and eight goals. Fox is right behind him with 20 points, only five goals, but a bunch of assists. and then the next closest is 13, and that's Andrew Copp and Panarin both have 13 points.

I don't like for me, Adam Fox, when I watch Rangers games, other than Shisterkin, Adam Fox is the guy who's who's the best player on the ice for them when I watch games. Now, is that how it would be voted? I don't know. But to me, Fox, if I was looking to take a long shot on one of those guys, I like the way Fox plays. And I don't think he's as like streaky, I guess. Like, like if you're betting on Panarin, it's like, okay, he's got to. score four goals in the final for you to get that. Whereas I think Fox just kind of controls play.

He's going to get points if they score goals because he's the one bringing the puck up the ice. He's on the power play. Like he's, he's the facilitator. Yeah. Hey, listen, we'll leave it there, Jesse. And it should be interesting when we reconnect and reconvene as this series unfolds. Those those cons my thoughts, I think. I think that was a great tip there on dry cycle because, boy, he could end up with 35 or 40 points in the postseason. So that's a, that's a, that's a, that's a, that's a great one to watch. Listen, I appreciate the visit. Have a great week and we'll talk to you next Thursday. Awesome. Thanks for having me, guys.

Thanks, Jesse. All right. Always great to visit with Jesse Granger. That dry siddle consplife line was certainly eye-opening to us. Hey, before we open up the mailbag and hear from some Devils fans about our conversation last week, I want to ask you about the piece that you dropped

this week on the all-disappointment team in the playoffs. And you do this, right? Every year, who's the guy, who are the three? goalies and 60 and the forwards that just didn't quite meet their regular season expectations and are out of the playoffs. And I'm going to throw one name at you and you tell me how much you debated putting Austin Matthews on your list.

Did it cross your mind or no? No, it didn't really. And it's when I saw you, you know, when you sent me that, my first thought was, oh, you know, why would you, you know, he had decent numbers. He had four goals in the series, nine points. over a point in a point of game player. Now, at the same time, you know, I think all four of the goals came in the first half of the series and clearly in those last two games, you're one goal away from knocking the lightning out

and your big goal score didn't get it. So maybe I should have given it more consideration, but I really didn't. I found it tough, surprisingly tough to find a Maple Leaf this year, which is usually not the case. With this team, it's usually narrowing it down. and I did have Matthews and Mitch Marner last year, Martiner the year before. That's been the story in Toronto as the big names not coming through. I felt like this year, the big names mostly were fine.

Nobody was dominant. Nobody pulled a Connor McDavid, but the big names were pretty good. And it was tougher to find a Maple Leaf. Maybe I should have given Matthews more thought than I did. And with goaltending, it's funny because after the first round, I mean, that Calgary-Dalais series was so defensive. and Jake Ottinger was the first round MVP, right?

If we were handing out MVP, that guy wins it. But Jacob Markstrom played well enough to win. But you had him on kind of as your top goalie of playoff disappointments. And that is just really a function of that Edmonton series, though, right? He had a 943 save percentage against Dallas. He didn't play well enough to win. He played fantastic. He played great.

And yet he's, he's. my number one goalie. And it's again, it's because he just went ice cold against the Oilers. And I, you know, that's simplifying. Obviously, you got to give Ambiton credit. And, you know, like Darrell Sutter said, their best players were the best players. I'm not trying to take credit away from Evanton, but he was an 852 in, in that series. Um, nowhere near good enough, uh, in the mid 80s, let alone, uh, let alone these days. And it just, and, you know, it's nothing made me reevaluate Jacob Markstrom as a goalie. Nothing made me rethink, you know, it's just goalies get hot,

goalies get cold. And usually this time of year we talk about the goalies that get hot and go on the, go on a run. But sometimes your goalie gets cold. And unfortunately for the flames, it just happened almost overnight at the worst possible time. And it changes your whole outlook. And, you know, it's, it's,

goaltending's, whatever they say, 50% of the sport, unless you don't have it. And suddenly the flames didn't have it. All right. Let's open up the mailbag. and a reminder that you can always drop us an email to the athletic hockey show at gmail.com, the athletic hockey show at gmail.com. You can also leave us a voicemail at 845445-4-5-8459.

Look, we got some emails in from Devils fans, but let me just read this one because Jason actually attached a picture because last week's show I talked about, I went to a Seattle Mariners game. I ate the toasted grasshoppers. and Jason says, love that Mariners food option, Ian. I would at least try it if I was at a game. Back in the day, the 2009, the Milwaukee Brewers had something called eating for the cycle. I ate a Polish sausage, an Italian sausage, a bratwurst, a jumbo hot dog, and then topped it off with a helmet full of nacho cheese waffle fries.

I'll say that was a good decision in my 20s. that's from Jason. He makes it sound like the waffle fries were like his option. Like he, like the eating for the cycle was the four, uh, four sausages. And then he was like,

not enough. Yeah. Like, I mean, that's, that meal would put me in the hospital today. In my 20s, maybe.

But like right now, let me ask you this. Well, look, I was going to ask you, right now, what do you take? Do you eat that?

Or do you eat the, crickets, but you'd take the crickets because you already ate them once. Crickets. For sure. Which I would go with. You're going for the, you're hitting the cycle. I don't want to eat the crickets. But I feel like I know today, like I would, that would be it.

Like if I'm, I'm in, I'm in Milwaukee. I guess I'm on vacation in Milwaukee for some reason. Like, I don't want to be laid up in the hotel room for the next three days. And that, that would do a number on me, let alone the, like the waffle fries for getting. Cricket me up because that is. And by the way, he did send a picture. And if you're wondering, like, well, maybe the picture makes it look appetizing. No.

No, the picture makes it worse. The picture is not, I was, I'm not hungry after looking at that picture. Let's just see. We don't even have to share the picture. All you have to do as a listener is think about the sausage race in Milwaukee with those four cards. Imagine having to eat all of those. That's what you're doing. Just picture.

We need to like Photoshop that. race in. Yeah. And then Jason just running behind them with a bib on. Oh, man. And who was it Randall Simon of the pirates who like took his bat and beat one of the sausages? Remember that?

It 100% was. And I remember that. I'm just picturing people who aren't of a certain age trying to figure out, trying to parse that sentence and try to figure out like is that, is that like a metaphor? Is that a baseball term I'm not familiar with? No. No, no, it's not. Yeah, Randall Simon.

I think did a test. It sounds like it should be, but it's not. Yeah. There was a real weird phase there where there was like some mascot. Like obviously Craig McTavish pulling the tongue out of Harvey the Hound, Randall Simon with the bat on the cartoon sausage. Did Tommy Lassorda do something? Did Tommy Lassorda, who was the longtime manager of the Dodgers,

he got into it with Yupy. Yeah, he got Yupy kicked out of a game. Yeah. Yonnie got ejected. Yeah, I think Yupi was doing something on the dugout. He was doing his, and Tommy Lazorta got him kicked out. And I think maybe the only mascot to ever be ejected in a major league game. Certainly, I don't think there's not a lot of them.

So I don't know. Gritty, I know you're a big listener. You got your work cut out for you, man. Like there's, you know, until you've been attacked by a coach and or maybe. baseball bat wielding player. The bar is high. Bar is said high. All right.

So Jason also added, and we had a bunch of emails that came in on this. Last week we talked about it was the anniversary of the Messier guarantee and the Devils lose in 94. And we said, look, New Jersey's got three Stanley Cups. Would Devil's fans be willing to trade one of them in exchange for you don't have to live through the nightmare that was 1994? So let me just read a couple of emails that came in. including the one from Jason and a couple of other ones.

And it was to be clear, the Devils win in 94, they beat the Rangers. There's no Stefan Mottoe, but they don't win the cup that year. They lose to Vancouver. So they're not getting a cup, but they're taken one away from the Rangers. Yeah. And removing that painful Mottoe moment. So let me just rip through this real quick. Jason added, follow up on that devil's question.

I originally thought I would easily give up one of my Devil's Stanley Cups for New Jersey to win game six in 94 and then lose to Vancouver. But then I had to choose which one. 2003 seems obvious, but then I actually went to a couple of games in that series, so I would be missing out on those wins. Giving up the 2000 win seems not so great because it gets rid of the devil's biggest goal in franchise history. So my question is, if I have to give up 1995, am I also worried about the team moving to Nashville after that? If that is a concern, then I'll gladly give up the O3 Stanley Cup if they stay in New Jersey, regardless of the 95 outcome.

Then I would give up 95. So Jason's like, hey, what people don't remember is that maybe there was talk about New Jersey leaving. Let me just read a couple of other words real quick here. Morgan writes in, how many cups would I give up to get rid of that damn guarantee? Definitely the 2003 Stanley Cup. If the Devils don't win, maybe Scott Niedermeyer doesn't leave the team. I think the devils could build around him and have another shot of the cup down the road with Niedermeyer as the captain. So it is so hard to give up being a multiple Stanley Cup winning team,

even if I never would have to hear about that damn guarantee ever again. Then one more here from Christopher, who takes a kind of contrarian view to this. Look, after listening to your pod last week in the conversation of how many Stanley Cups would Devils fans give up to have beaten the Rangers in 94, my reverse question to you guys is this. How serious of a little brother complex much New Jersey fans have

in order to give up multiple Stanley Cups just to erase one from a less successful team. The Devils have three Stanley Cups since 1994. The Devils are a woefully underachieving franchise. You can't even get in the doors at Madison Square Garden for less than 130 U.S. How is it possible for that team to live so incredibly rent-free in everybody else's heads? To me, it's really pathetic. That's from Christopher.

So a bunch of opinions coming in here. All right, Chris. First of all, Christopher, settled down. And it was my idea, so don't be mad at, uh, at, devil's fans. And I'll just point out, little brother's got three cup rings and big brothers got one in everyone's lifetime. So, you know, little brother's doing okay. Real quick, just answer to Jason. No, the devils don't move to Nashville in 95. In this version, Gary Bettman is so scarred by the absolute curb stopping that he got from Devils fans in that infamous intermission interview in the 95

final that he refuses to move, let the Devils move. He's terrified of you. It's one of the great, if you've never seen it, go on YouTube, look up Gary Bettman interview, 95 finals. He makes the mistake of doing a live interview with Fox with the fans in New Jersey right behind him. And it is, it is worse than any pro wrestling crowd I've ever heard. They absolutely tear him to shreds. And it's fascinating television. And by the way, we should point out that would have been 45-year-old Gary Batman, right? Yes, that's right. Roughly.

Yeah. A young man. Yeah. A young guy. He's our age. The age we are now is the age Gary Bettman was during that interview. So keep that right. And I should not be in charge of anything at all.

So the fact that Gary Batman was in charge of the whole lead back then is, we made a mistake. All right. One other real quick email here that came in from a listener. This one's from J. Mark or Mark. Jay Mark. Just finish listening to your Thursday podcast at the beginning of last week's pod. Ian went into great detail about the complexities to participate in the podcast while he was in a powerless home for several days.

Sean, on the other hand, seemed to laugh about the fact that he had power, even though he just lives five minutes away. My question for you guys is where's the investigative report with the backstory of why Ian wasn't allowed to hang out at Sean's house? You guys live so close together. Wouldn't it just make sense to record the podcast together? Sean's fully functional and operational house. Ian, you could have preserved that generator for more important things like the

kids homework, cooking dinner, etc. I don't want to, I don't want some lame generic comment from you guys. Let's get to the bottom of this story. That's from J. Mark. Great point. Jay Mark with the price of gasoline these days to run the generator last week. Boy, that was an expensive podcast for me to put together. You know, gases.

I object to the idea that your kid's homework is more important than this podcast. Yeah, good point. Good point. Like, what are we even doing here? No, I, uh, uh, we should make up a. story? I think it would be, you know, like Ian knows what he did sort of thing. And I emailed the J. Mark back because he emailed me about this too. He was pretty worked up. The reality is if you don't have a studio set up, it's hard to record with two people live with two microphones or with one

microphone because yeah, yeah, they either have two mics and they're hearing each other and it causes problems or you have one mic and then if you're not the same distance, you can one person's loud and one person's quiet. So that's it. But if if that isn't sufficient explanation, Ian steals, he's got, he's got sticky fingers and things are missing in my house whenever he's over.

And I just didn't have, I didn't have time to hide all the, hide all the, you know, all my collectibles, all my early 90s, Wendell Clark memorabilia. He's always got his eye on.

Sticky fingers. Yeah. First thing I do is I head to the fridge to see what coupons I can take. You know, That's true. Yeah, for sure. First thing I do.

All right. Hey, let's wrap up the show with a little this week in hockey history real quick. May 31st, 2002, it was the infamous Red Wings Avalanche beat down. We were so excited for this game seven. Red Wings beat the Aves 7-0. Dominic, by the way, posted his fifth shutout of the playoffs that year. That's a single season record. My question on this is, and I think we've all watched the trailer in the last week,

the E-60 documentary on the Red Wings Aves. rivalry, that's coming out. I love that the end of the trailer with Vlad Konstantinoff. That kind of said chills. Right? Like chills down the spine. How hyped are you to watch ESPN's Aves, Wings, Two-Hour extravaganza? That'll be great.

I'm sure it'll be excellent. And yeah, I'm really looking forward to that. And congratulations to ESPN for noticing this rivalry existed 20 years later. I can't imagine what changed, but better late than never. That's going to be a great one, especially if they really get the players opening up, which hopefully fingers crossed, they do. Yeah. And I mean, like everybody that you would have wanted interviewed seems to have been interviewed, right?

Like all of them, Claude Lemieux and Draper and Iserman and Sackick and Shanahan and go through the list. This is going to be a lot of fun. Hey, by the way, just to throw this out there. And I don't know if you know this, but I stumbled on something that I didn't know last week. And I put it in a column. And I found out that a lot of people don't know, including a lot of Red Wing fans. Do you know who Morris Sider's agent is? The franchise player for the Red Wings.

Is it Claude Lemieux guy, right? Claude Lemieux is his agent. I remember that from, I think when he signed his, whatever he signed his entry, like, whatever it was, I remember, I vaguely remember someone saying, And how crazy is it that Claude Libbyu is the agent for Detroit's best player? When Steve Iserman tries to lock up the player, he's building this rebuild around, he's got to call up Claude Libby. I don't feel like we're talking about this enough. I agree. I got credit to Claude playing the long game on this rivalry.

Yeah. Wow. I mean, I hope he comes in with some ridiculous demand. And Isamans like, what? And he's like, oh, did you not see that coming? Did that blindside you a little bit? I think it's too soon to be making those jokes still. Might be.

Like it's too soon. Like, oh my gosh. Like that is, I know. I remember seeing that. I feel like that's one of the most under, you're right. It's one of the more under. I guarantee there are Red Wing fans listening to this right now. They have chills that are like, wait a second.

This is a joke, right? He's doing a bit. And they're going to go look it up and they're, they suddenly feel a lot less confident about it. Unless, I don't know, maybe, you know, Claude Lemieux is here for his in-person negotiations. Yeah, unfortunately, Mr. Isman's not here, but assistant GM Darren McCarty has agreed to take the...

Yeah. Or the side or an eight-year deal at the league minimum today. Yeah. Man, yeah, that, yeah, it's crazy. Like, I don't think enough people know about that. And you know what? Let me point out one other thing that I brought this up on Twitter. And I know the Oilers lost game one.

But how come we're not talking? talking about the fact, Sean, that we're like, we're really, we're awfully close to an Evander Kane, Ryan Reeves, Stanley Cup final. Like, that's right. How are we not talking about this? There are so many. I've mentioned this, but all four possible combinations are amazing matchups for the final. And usually this time of year, there's at least one.

Like this time last year, we're all like, just please not Montreal Islanders. Like that would be too defensive. That's going to be terrible. Please don't let that. And we almost got it. but I would take absolutely any of them. You know who I feel bad for, though, who's got to be so nervous right now,

is Vancouver Canucks fans? Because if we get Edmonton, New York, Mark Messier is going to be everywhere. Yeah. You are not going to be, it's going to be two straight weeks of Mark Messia. The Devils fans too probably are, you know, going to be hearing about guarantees and everything.

But just if you're a Canucks fan, you're not going to be able to turn on your TV without Mark Messia. a smiling face and telling you what a great leader he was. That's going to be a rough one. But yeah, every single matchup is potentially A-plus. But yeah, Ryan Reeves, Van der Kaine, old buddies. Yeah.

Okay. One more this week in hockey history, June 3rd, 1993. For a lot of Montreal Canadiens fans, this is a memorable game. It's the Marty McSorlie illegal stick game. And Eric Desjardin ties it late after Jacques Demer's calls for the illegal stick. And then Eric Desjardin wins it in overtime. Look, I grew up a Habs fan. Bob Cole, that's one of my favorite Bob Cole calls of all time.

I think it's the best Bob Cole ever. And that is in the esteem I hold Bob Cole. That is an enormous compliment. I think his call on the Lemieux goal against New York, or sorry, against Minnesota in 91 is probably my favorite. I think he captured the moment perfectly. But yeah, Desjardin. We could do a whole podcast on Bob Cole calls.

But I feel like this game is an underrated, like this doesn't get enough credit as an all-time great game. Like all-time. And I think partly because Montreal goes on to win a series in five. And, you know, when you win a series of five games, you go, wow, one thing didn't really change. But remember, L.A. goes into Montreal and wins game one on the road. Game two, they're minutes away. They're leading at the end of the third period. They're minutes away from taking a two-nothing.

lead back home. I mean, you can't tell me they're not firmly in the driver's seat in that. So maybe Montreal wins, you know, the wins out anyways. But they're that close. And then you get the illegal, the Chalk Demers calls for the measurement. Carey Fraser measures the stick. He actually notices a stick this time, which was a nice change for him that year. He calls the penalty.

McSorley goes to the penalty box. We all remember that. But we remember it as the McSorley game. And Eric DeJerdinand scores his. second goal of the game to tie it and then completes the hatcher for the winner. A defenseman with a hatrick in a three two win in the Stanley Cup final. All time great Bob Cole call both of them honestly. But

two very similar goals too which is always great. Eric Desiardin to me is a and I'm going to write this column probably in the summer. Like the Hall of Very Good. We use that as an insult sometimes. We say like Kevin Lowe. No, he's a Hall of Very Good guy. But I'm talking to guys who nobody thinks should really be in the Hall of Fame, but they were just great players that we don't talk enough about how great they were. Eric Desjardin is a classic first ballot, Hall of very good guy.

And this was his signature game. And we should talk about it as the Eric Desjardin game, not the McSorley game. Yeah, I love it. You know what? I could be wrong on this. I think there's only been, and I think maybe I'm wrong, but I think there's only been one other defenseman in the last 30 years with a playoff hat trick.

And why do I feel like it's, some, like it's some, I don't want to say obscure player, but not, like a, yeah, it's not like an especially a guy that you would expect to. You ready for this? And as soon as I say it, you'll be like 100%. Andy Delmore. Yes. Andy Delmore.

That's why. I mean, I don't. I think he's the last guy. Unless, did Dustin Bufflin get one as like kind of a shady? Well, that wouldn't, that would be when he was sort of playing forward. But, yeah, no, that's, boy, that's a great one. That's, yeah, Eric Desjardet, man. That was at 4, I'm going crazy.

We changed the whole series. Absolutely turned the series around. And, yeah, I mean, we all remember the stick. But, yeah, we should remember the guy who scored both goals too. Yeah, all right. We'll leave it there with a random Andy Delmore reference, too. That's a name by I thought of. So you're an expert guy, too.

Is that why I remember that or is that somebody else? No, you're thinking of Andy Sutton. Okay, I got my Andy's mixed up. Yeah, well, we'll do a whole podcast. We got the Bob Cole, great calls, and then we'll do random andy's. Random Andes. Yeah, that's it. Andy Delmore, Andy Sutton.

Why can't Andy McDonald? Andy McDonald's. Wait, Andy McDonald. Is that the same as Andrew? Is that Andrew McDonald? Oh, is it? Wait, I seem to remember him being an Andy. All right.

Is he? Now I'm all over the map. I'm sputtering here on my, on my andies. Yeah, Andy, well, yeah, Andy McDonald. Oh, yeah, Andy McDonald. Yeah. Andy Bathgate. Okay, now I'm looking up the Andy.

All right, get us out of here. Get us out. We've already gone long and I'm going to start reading the entire, I'm going to start talking about Andy Aikenhead here in a couple of minutes. Okay, we'll leave it there. All right, thanks everybody for listening to this Thursday edition of the podcast. As always, email us your questions, the athletic hockey show at gmail.com. You can also leave us a voicemail.

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