The Athletic Hockey Show - Do the Devils or Rangers have a higher ceiling?

Episode Date: July 24, 2024

On today’s Wednesday episode of The Athletic Hockey Show, Max Bultman is joined by guest cohost Peter Baugh to discuss Dean Evason’s hiring as the new CBJ head coach, Stan Bowman’s NHL return as the new GM of the Oilers, which active NHL players are on course for the Hall of Fame, outlooks for the Devils and Rangers heading into next season, the no state income tax debate, Joe Pavelski’s retirement, and more. Hosts: Max Bultman and Peter BaughExecutive Producer: Chris FlanneryProducer: Chris Flannery Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Hockey Show. Hey, everybody. Max Boltman here for another episode of The Athletic Hockey Show. Joined today by notably not a Sean. Peter Baugh. Peter, how you doing? I'm great. It's good to be here. I have my first time hosting and excited for it. Yes, longtime guest, first time host on the show today.

And it should be a fun time. We got a pretty good slate here. We got a little bit of news we're going to get into early on. You and Eric Duhatchik did a really good story earlier this week. talking about which active players have the best Hall of Fame cases. Really good story that everyone should check out. We're going to dive into that shortly. We also got a little bit more to get into on the Rangers and the Devils, of course.

Can't let that opportunity pass when we have Peter hosting. And even a little more beyond that. But let's start right off the top with the news, Peter. And a little bit earlier this week, Dean Eveson announces the next coach of the Columbus Blue Jackets. What's your first reaction? My first reaction is I think it's a solid hire for the, Blue Jackets. I actually thought he did a decent job in Minnesota. I know they never got over the first round hump, but I thought he kind of maximized the talent on a lot of those teams. And maybe the

only time I really thought that they should have done better in the first round was possibly the 2022 series lost to St. Louis, where I believe they were up to one in the series and let it slip away a little bit. But like they lost to a Vegas team in seven games that made the conference finals and they lost a good Dallas team in 2023. So I don't think that was his fault. I do think the fit in Columbus is tough, just given their roster and where they're at in the Eastern Conference hierarchy. But I think it's in solid higher.

Yeah, Columbus has been looking hard to find a stable coach for a while now. Obviously, last summer they have the Mike Babcock fiasco, and it puts Pascal Vincent's in a terrible situation from day one. Now, you know, Evanston's going to have a better situation in terms of he has more time to lead up to it. But the roster is still not fundamentally different than the one that he inherited. I don't know. When you look at it, how long do you think it is before people can really expect much out of this Columbus team, even with what we expect to be a positive influence from Evanston? Well, maybe he'll shock us and it'll be really quick, but I still think they're a few years

away. I think the biggest thing for them is Adam Fantilli's development. If this is a guy who looks like he can be a number one center in the NHL, then they're in a much better place organizationally. But that's not going to take them to a playoff contending team this year, just looking at the Eastern Conference where you have what, probably 11 teams that legitimately are trying to make the playoffs. And I don't think the Blue Jackets are in that sphere. They have a talented winger in Johnny Goodro, Patrick Lainey, who knows if he's going to be on the roster. And then they've got a lot of guys. And they, they, they, bulked up on their decor last year a little bit with Proverov and Severson, and they added

Stanley Cup champion Jack Johnson this this summer, but I don't see this as being a quick turnaround. Yeah, you mentioned kind of getting the most out of some of those guys in Minnesota, and probably the Defense Corps is probably the place Columbus is going to most want to see that. They've invested quite a bit of money in recent years. Brandon Steven, Steven, Ivan Proverov, obviously still got Zach Wrenski around, your boy, Jack Johnson, a new signing there. So we'll see how that goes.

Obviously, if they can improve the blue line, that does help a lot. But there's going to still be questions up front, how much firepower do they have? Kenvers Leakins rebound in goal. Still quite the uphill battle here for the blue jackets. But we'll see where it goes. And I do think going with an experienced guy like Aveson is probably the number one thing that they needed to accomplish. Yeah, I agree. It is funny that they have kind of a bit of a flames reunion with Monaghan and Goodrow.

and they still have good Branson on the back end. It's funny that they have have their crew, and then down in South Florida, they have Kachuk and Sam Bennett, and they're in a little bit better of a position of the former flames. Yeah, the flames and the savers are having a tough time seeing their exes work together elsewhere, although I guess Calgary people aren't probably too concerned

about what the Blue Jackets are doing. Yeah, I think they're okay with that one. Around the league, there's enough diaspora from those two teams that you kind of be like, yeah. Yeah. The other big news is today, Wednesday we're recording this. And Stan Bowman announces the next general manager of the Edmonton Oilers. Obviously, this is going to be his first job in the wake of being reinstated following the Kyle Beach situation. And it's a kind of an interesting one. Did you have a thought on the Stan Bowman hire in Edmonton? Yeah. I think my first, my take is that I'm very happy that. I'm very happy that. by all accounts, he's put in a lot of work on himself after the abject failure of what happened in Chicago.

I also believe that this is not the right course of action for the Oilers. And I don't think that this is a guy who should be running an NHL front office. And I think that I agree with my co-workers, Scott Powers, and Mark Lazarus, who cover the Blackhawks, who've kind of talked about, like, they've, continually pointed out that the Blackhawks, everyone in that room, not taking the complaint seriously and moving forward with it, that led to a future minor being abused. And so I think that I'm of the mind that it's very good that he put in the work. And I hope it was genuine and that he's improved as a person. But I, this is not the higher I would have made if I was that

Benton Oilers. Yeah. I don't think I have an inherent problem with him working in hockey again. And I think, you know, people should get second chances at things. I am surprised that it's right away as a general manager again. When I heard that he was reinstated, I think my brain first kind of went to, okay, he will go be a senior advisor somewhere and kind of work back in that way. I am surprised that it's right away back into the head chair situation. And I don't know, maybe is that a distinction without a difference, I guess you could argue. but to me, I think that there is a difference in having the final say and kind of a book stops here thing after what happened in Chicago. Yeah, and he now is back to being the final decision maker.

So I do think there's a distinction between what you said. I actually am, I'm just judging by how NHL teams operate. I'm not surprised that it was a GM job right off the hop just because we've seen this time and time again of like if if there's a person that an organization thinks is going to help them win, they're probably going to make the move even if it is going to upset fans. And in this case, I think rightfully upset, upset fans. Actually, Edmonton specifically has had a few of those. More on ice in recent years, Corey Perry, Evander Kane. They have not minded taking some negative reaction to their moves.

If it's something that they feel will help them, we will see how it goes. All right, let's get into Peter, your story with Eric earlier this week on the Hockey Hall of Fame tiers. There's a really good story, and I love the concept, because I think at a given time, I didn't really know that I realized how many future Hall of Famers were probably active in the game today until I opened your story and saw. We started talking about a little bit at the draft. We had a dinner there with our staff, and we were debating a couple of guys. And I remember you pulled out a notes app or something and kind of read like,

these are my guys kind of thing. And so then when I read the story and really started scrolling, And I was like, yeah, I can't argue with that one. Obviously, Sydney Crosby, Ovechkin, Malkin. I think you have 16 guys in Tier 1, which is they could retire today and make it. And then there's a whole lot more beyond that that I think have quite good cases once they can just accomplish just a little more that should come very naturally to them. So I guess my first question here to you in working on this piece was, did you go in?

Was there like, okay, at a given time, there are 30, 40, whatever, you know, future Hall of Famers in the league. How did you go about this whole process, you and Eric, who obviously has done a ton of great work on the Hall of Fame? Yeah, and who was on the selection committee. Yeah, of course. I got this idea, actually, because Jason Stark, one of our baseball writers, who I have always loved reading. I'm a big baseball fan. He did this. He does it every year, actually, for the baseball hall fame, and I always read it.

And I kind of read it, and it might have come out around the cup final. And I was just kind of like, this would be fun to do with hockey. And so I had slacked, messaged Eric Duhatchek, and he was in on the idea. I actually didn't go in with a certain number, but when we talked about it, you mentioned that you wondered, like, how many in a given time. So what I did was I reached out to NHL stats, who were very helpful at getting us information and pretty much asked, like, in the 90s, what was the average number of Hall of Famers playing in a given year?

And I think it was 56 or 57. That's a lot of guys. There's a lot of, I think we probably have between all the tiers in this story, somewhere in the 30s of number of players. But there's also a lot of players who weren't eligible because they were too young. We decided you had to have played five years in at least five years in the league. So all the young guys, like we mentioned Adam Fantilli earlier, I have no clue what his career is going to turn out to be. Connor Bedard. Some of those guys just we didn't even consider because we decided they hadn't been in the league long enough.

And then there are guys who will probably pop that we aren't even considering. Elias Pedersen wasn't on our list. Maybe he has a huge shoe years and the Canucks win Canada's first Stanley Cup since 93. Like there's a lot of variables here. But that was kind of, we made the list. We went through every roster, discussed different candidates. There were some omissions that made people mad. There were some inclusions that made people mad.

But that was to be expected, I think. Yeah, I had 48 on my quick count of total players' men. Some of those were kind of outside shots and stuff, which I don't know if we're considering there. There was some right on the cusp. I think most of the right on the cusp guys are getting in. I agree. But you mentioned the feedback that you got. Who was the most controversial omission?

And who is the most controversial inclusion in this lesson? Yes. So there were definitely like people within the tiers that people were, like wanted someone to be moved up, a tier, down to tier. Sure. And that made sense. I think some omission, the one omission that I think got some flack was, we didn't have Nick Baxter in there, who's had a great career, has a thousand points. But we kind of, our rationale was he's never been on an end of season.

All-Star team. He has, I think, two ninth place Hart Trophy finishes. And I feel like a jerk because I'm kind of like talking down on him. But people wanted him included in the outside shot tier, which to me kind of was funny because it was like you want him included in the guys who probably won't make it tier. But I understood why there was some, I guess, frustration at him not being in there just given his importance to the capitals and winning the Stanley Cup there. And he, I believe, was an Olympian with Sweden. So I get that there's a case there, but I didn't see, I didn't really see there being a legitimate case that he should be. in the Hall of Fame.

So we determined not to have him. His best argument is the assists, right? Because he's one of the defining playmakers, certainly of his generation, but he does rank quite high, top 50 all time in assists. The goal would go on the other side of that. The goals would not jump out at you

and scream Hall of Famer, but that's not necessarily his game. So that is an interesting one. He's got the cup, but I do think he's kind of one of those. And Shane actually had a really good story this week about kind of riding shotgun done to an all-time grade number one.

He had kind of that effect to him, maybe overshadows him a little bit, but also maybe elevated some of that team stuff and certainly has a role in a few of those assists, I might say. Yeah, I was going to say that certainly plays a factor there. So we determined, we decided not to include him in the outside shot tier, which I don't think a lot of Capitals fans weren't thrilled with that. Brad Marshawn, shockingly, was a pretty divisive person. I think he's pretty safely on the cusp tier, four-time end of season, All-Star.

He's got a number of high finishes and Hart Trophy voting won a Stanley Cup. Some people were like, this is a lock. He should be higher up. Other people were like, why is he in this tier and not with Claude Jureau and some of those players? So definitely some that he was a divisive one, which I think is fitting given his on-ice reputation. I wonder how much of that, though, has to do with what a late bloomer he was. Because if you took Brad Marchand at age 26, you would have said he had virtually no chance of being a Hall of Famer. Actually, you probably would have said literally he has no chance ever being a Hall of Famer.

Yeah. And if you take Brad Marchand from age 27 to 35, all of a sudden you're comfortably over a point per game. Certainly he's played a, you know, that's when all the All-Star teams start rolling in. And that's when you can very easily say he was a top five to six winger in the sport over a fairly long period there. We're talking about seven, eight years of his career. So there's always the debates about are you going for the compiler, the overall resume? I think if you still look at the top line resume, I can understand where people are a little eh. But the eight year peak there, which is not a short peak, I almost think how do you argue against him?

I think I think a little more like you do. And there's also the international play. He was one of Canada's best players at the Hockey World Cup. He's one of the guys that have been, I think, gotten a bad break with the Olympics not playing. I don't know if he'll be on the Olympic roster in a couple of years. It'll probably depend on how his game ages. But you would think Canada would have had a really good shot to win gold in 2022 or 2018. He's probably on that team.

All of a sudden, he's got a World Cup and Olympic gold, all of that. But he, I'm with you. And I think that one of the things is, is that he's still playing at a pretty high level. So if he has another, I don't know, three good seasons where he gets himself over 1,100 career points and maybe he can sniff 500 goals, I think that it's hard to argue against him.

And I think that's why we had him a tier above the Claude Jaroos, the John Tavares, those players. Yeah, having your highest, heart finish is five. I don't think it's a disqualifier. It's probably not ideal. But the fact that he's got four top 10 finishes, five top 11 finishes for it really tells you he was one of the most important players of his generation. I think that's usually a pretty good indicator. Yeah. For a five year span there, he was a top 11 player in the sport based on Hart trophy rating, which is absolutely very good. And if at a given time there's 50 Hall of Famers, well, hey, right?

that's that's kind of why we have those stats um all right so any other guys that you really struggled with here like who was your toughest inclusion that you you put on the list and did you and eric have any big disputes i guess i should say um we didn't have i fought a little bit harder for petrangelo to be in the on the cusp rather than in the outside shot category and some of that i think was just with with uh shay weber just getting inducted i thought that petrangelo i i find to be an interesting case of this is a guy who's been a number one defenseman on on two Stanley Cup winning teams. Um, he's been a three time end of season all star. He's a little bit, he's kind of like his resume is a somewhat similar to the defenseman version of Marchand,

where he, he's never won a Norris, but he's been top five, I think three or four times, top 10 and another time. Like he's, he's had an amazing career. Um, and I think if he kind of, he's only 34 and he's under contract for three more years, four more years, I think. He's going to keep accumulating numbers and I think he's in good position. So Eric, I think was okay with it, but that was one where we like, we definitely had a discussion there about him. Were you on our mock Hall of Fame panel election this year? Or were you still too deep in covering the Stanley Cup final for that? I was, yeah, I was not on that. I've never done that. I should sometime. All right. So there was a couple players that we debated in that process. And the debate kind of centered around,

How do you judge, you know, some of these defensemen who don't put up that many points? And I feel pretty strongly that you have to get over whatever that mental hurdle is in your mind of like, yeah, you need this many points, this many goals to get. And especially when you're talking about this kind of defenseman that Chey Weber is, that Petrangelo is, anyone who's played this sport or coach this sport is going to go to bat hard to have some of these guys on their team, a lot of these guys on their team. I don't know if you can win without these guys. So I don't know how we get into a place where the Hall of Fame can only be filled with the guys who actually scored the goals and not the guys who keep guys of that caliber from doing the same to their team. I think it's a criminal underrepresentation of defensive defensemen in the hall. Yeah. And I think Petrangelo, like it's not like he's had no offense either.

Like this is a guy who contributed defensively. And especially like on those St. Louis teams and even in Vegas has had a 54 point season. which for a defenseman who plays tough minutes is really good. So I think I was pretty, I think the winning two cups, captaining one, I think all that matters. I think he has an Olympic gold too. So he has the international. Three all-star teams.

Yeah. So I'm a big believer in Alex Petrangelo and that was one I kind of argued for. We didn't have any like huge disputes. I think some of the, I initially had, which this probably would have been controversial too, but I initially had Matthew Kachuk in the on-track tier. And after talking through it with Eric, we moved him down a tier, which I had to check back in a few years, which I think is fair because he really, he's had, it Kachuk's interesting of like the Florida tenure has been so, so good.

And I think that that has really vaulted him up a level. But before that, he only had one season of over 100 points. he's only been top five in Hart Trophy voting once. But I do think that he's someone that in the next few years will continue to be on really good Florida teams. We'll probably have another few really big seasons where he's end of season, all-star teams, all those things. But I thought that was an interesting case and also probably would have annoyed some people if he was a level up. The one that surprised me was Sebastian Ajo. What was kind of the debate around getting him onto the list?

He's going to check back in a few years, tier. so this is not like he's not on the cusp he's not an automatic for you guys but to include him over you know he's to me he's one of the many centers who's somewhere between 10th to 15th and the league kind of thing so like how does he kind of work his way in here that's a good point I mean I think there are a number of players who could have been that like Elias Pedersen could have been in that spot you know like there are a lot of a lot of guys like that I think that it was almost more just like he's kind of an interesting stand-in for these like hurricanes teams in general of like if they ever can go on a run and win a Stanley Cup or make a Stanley

Cup, Aho's going to have to be a huge part of it. And if that happens, then I think his case goes up a whole another level. He's a, you mentioned like the Petrangelo's like a not an offensive defenseman. Ajo obviously puts up big points, but like that whole Carolina team is so sound defensively. A lot of them. the time that I think he's kind of an interesting one of those like two way forward to who I think sometimes maybe get a little overlooked um so we had him in there I don't I don't think his cases he's certainly not on track to me I think if you were to sort the players in this check back in a few years tier he's definitely below a lot of the others but I I thought he's done

enough to at least earn like a there's a world in which he kind of continues this like being a really strong player and then if they go on a run who knows what happens. But I understand some of the confusion there, I guess. And he plays for a guy who, you know, along those same lines, right? Like Brindamork, I think could kind of be in on that exact same kind of argument. But to the point that you made, like we talk about Brindamore potentially going into the hall. Every year he's a topic. He's got a cup.

And you wrote in the article, what determines if Ajo has a serious candidacy could be, whether this is fair or not, whether he ever gets to hoist it. Yeah. And I think sometimes I think that's unfair, but weirdly with Aho, I kind of do see that as fair. Like this is a guy who is a really good player, but you do, if they win a cup, that means that he was really, really good on a Stanley Cup run. And I think that matters a lot. And that's where like moving, kind of bouncing around a little. I think Ryan O'Reilly's like a really interesting case. And I think we had him on the, outside shot tier. And I think that's the right spot because I don't think that he'll get in,

but he's got a consmithe, he's got a Selke, he's got a Stanley Cup, he's got a Lady Bing. Like, that's quite a, quite a trophy case. And I think some of it might come down to like how his game ages in in Nashville. But one of the things I said was that if Rod Brindamor's in, it's hard to put Ryan O'Reilly in. Right. Same for Hendricks Zetterberg. I think all those guys are kind of of a type. And I think that is a type that's undervalued by the hall. And I like your point about why that type needs the cups more than others because the argument, like we talked about with a defensive defenseman is, teams want players like that to win. But if that's going to be the argument, they better have won. So I think that that is a

very fair line to draw. Anything else you want to touch on in this one before we take a quick break? I'm curious what you thought of Jack Eichol. I think he is one of the most fascinating cases. On talent, he's definitely there. I think he has a chance to get the numbers there. I think going to Vegas is going to put him in a position to have kind of the success, the team success that I think we like to see. But I think it's two things. There's the mistime right in the prime that that can sometimes hurt guys and certainly has potential to hurt him.

And it's can he, and you wrote this, I believe, if I remember right, that, you know, can he stay healthy? Can he stay on the ice and continue to put up numbers? because he has had a little bit of injury concerns over his career. And he's probably not going to have quite the overall peak that you would want to get in on just a peak argument. He's probably going to have to compile a decent amount here. Right now, I'd kind of lean. He's not on track.

But if he has five great years, that can change. He needs to, like, put together. He's an interesting case of, like, his resume right now to me. Yes, he has the cup and he was great in that cup run. but he doesn't really have that much else. Like he does one top 10 heart finish. That's his only year getting heart votes. But it's an interesting case because everyone knows that the talent is there.

And to no fault of his own, like it just hasn't had the chance to really come out. So I just, I find him to be a really interesting, like, player. And I'm really curious how his career goes in these next few years because I think there's a world in which he could put up three 100-point seasons in the next six years and then things look a lot different. But right now I'm with you that I think he's a little more on the, he's not quite on track, which is a shame because I think it's more his body hasn't let that happen than anything he's done.

And he's a guy that I don't even think you can hold the hard stuff against too much because early in his career, you know, there's a little bit of a debate in the pro hockey writers association of should you vote someone for heart if they're not on a playoff team? Yeah. I tend to fall on the side of you should not if they're not in a playoff team. and he was not on a playoff team for the very early portion of his career.

He's barely really been helped. I think people would have been pretty ready to give Jack Eichel heart consideration after winning the Stanley Cup last year, whether that's right or wrong criteria this season. He didn't say super healthy. He was only a little above a point per game. But I don't think, I'm not real enough that he's going to get that consideration if he does pop for like 90 plus points again.

And even in Buffalo, like I know that not making the playoffs didn't help, but also like he had one season where he had 82 points. points in 77 games, and then he had a really good 2019-20 season. But other than that, like, it's not like he had many seasons where it's like, oh, this guy could have been on hard ballots if his team was a little better. Yeah, I think he's going to need to be a guy that compiles, gets up to 11, 1,200 points kind of thing if he wants to get in. We'll see where it goes.

All right, we're going to go to break here in a second, but first, the Olympics are about to start and there is no better place to get your women's soccer coverage than full-time with Meg Linahan on the athletic podcast. network. Get exclusive player interviews and behind the scenes stories from Meg Linnehan in France, as well as post-match reaction from Tamara Griffin and Steph Yang. Don't miss a moment of the action. Tune in to the full-time podcast after every U.S. match and catch up with our newsletter the next day to stay in the know with the most comprehensive coverage available. We are back and Peter, I would be remiss if I didn't make you do a little bit of beat report here,

having you co-host the pod. So you cover one of the maybe most, most, interesting teams of the offseason. The New Jersey Devils were certainly among the most active teams this summer. They make the big trade that everyone wanted them to make and they go get Jacob Markstrom. What do you kind of as the dust settles here? What's the vibe out there on the Devils? And what was your take on everything they were able to do? I think there's a lot of excitement around this roster. I think last season was so disappointing. Some of what that was the devil's own fault of not really addressing the goalie situation as much as they probably should have. And then some of it was bad luck with, with Hughes being hurt. And even though he played

most of the year, I think people who watched him, you could tell that he wasn't, wasn't 100%. And then Dougie Hamilton was a huge loss forced a lot of these young defensemen into bigger roles than they were maybe ready for. But now they've kind of bulked up their team where they've added all these, these new defensemen to where there may be a little more like the team in 2023 that beat the Rangers in the first round. And they kind of, they added at forward two in more subtle ways. Stefan Nosen, bringing back Thomas Duthar, Paul Kotter. But I think it was pretty much a slam dunk off season for them.

They didn't give up too, too much for Markstrom. I thought it was a fair deal. They were able to keep their top 10 pick this past summer and take an interesting, really big defenseman out of Russia. And I think they're in a good spot entering the season. They also had Brett Pesci, and that becomes, I think, maybe the most interesting position group that they have here now, because you got Dougie Hamilton coming back,

you got Brett Pesci coming in, you got these two young guys who are no longer going to be rookies and Hughes and Nemets. All of a sudden, you know, the devils are, you know, top to bottom, maybe one of the most talented rosters in the NHL. Totally. And we have to mention the new coach, too. I mean, John's Deep is like, like, that's a huge wildcard. And I think I know Toronto,

there's a lot of frustration there by the end, but I think he's a pretty good coach. And I also think that having, I think your second coaching job is probably a lot easier than your first one. And I think that a change of scenery probably is what the Leafs needed, but also I think could be really good for him. And I think he could have a good impact on this team with a lot of young players. So you covered the Avalanche previously. And I know you weren't there when they made the leap. But I want, you followed it from afar, certainly. I want to, you followed it from afar, certainly. I wonder, do you see kind of any rhyme in the devils and what they've kind of done? You know, you kind of have this captainly, second line, reliable guy in Nico Hesha.

You have this, you know, breakout star. First overall pick, maybe it took a couple years. And now they're one of the elite players in the league. Hughes does have a little bit of the health question. I don't know it was ever a huge issue with McKinnon. And then they just kind of start to bring in all these, you know, really strong seasoned role players. And, you know, maybe Peschi's your Nazim Kadri kind of thing. Is this a forced parallel by me, or are the devil's ready to take their avalanche leap? Yeah, I think a lot of teams like to see themselves

as the avalanche of like a homegrown team that have a lot of young players that develop. But I do think there was one off season where the avs went out and like really started to go for it and they traded Tyson Barry for Nazim Kadri. I believe they got Don Skoy that same off season. Is that the same Taves year too, Devin Taves? Or was that one year?

He was the next, or yeah, he was, he was before. Taves and I started at the same time. And he, he was, that was Taves and Brandon Sod were their big additions that year. But you started to see like at a certain point, they, they started to flip the page from being a like, okay, this is a fun, good homegrown team. We don't want to give up much to like, all right, now we have to like start to try and get this to the next level. The Devils had a bit more of a setback than the abs ever did in terms of like the abs. Thavs never missed the playoffs once they made it in 2017-18, and then they had a, they won a series in 2018-19, and then that was when they started to kind of accelerate things.

The devils are accelerating after a setback, which I think is a little interesting of like, they realize that there's more there and that they need to be aggressive. So I don't think that that parallel is totally off-based. I think that's also just like how a lot of good teams are built is you have to like hit on your top-level draft picks. you have to have a top line center, you have to have good defensemen. And the Devils maybe found their top defenseman if Dougie Hamilton's their number one, which who knows how much longer he will be if Luke Hughes and Nemich keep developing.

But like they brought him in from the outside rather than the abs drafting Kilmakar. They never had a setback after the 17-18 season, but couldn't you argue that the 16-17 season was like that was the worst team in the NHL that year after it was the worst team in in the cap era like that was like that was like a they had a low like a they bottomed out more than the devils ever did and then they kind of like turned it around a little quicker than people are expecting mostly because nathan mckenon really emerged as a superstar level player yeah we'll see if that's in store for the devils obviously but it does look like you know they for a lot of people and i'm one of them we looked at kind of the underlying numbers for the

devil's all season last year and thought why are they not better and maybe concluded it's all the goalie's fault which is certainly not fair of us but they wouldn't they got the goal too maybe not like fully unfair i there was truth to it yeah it was certainly a big thing that team was just a weird every time you started to feel like okay they're starting to string a few wins together there are only a few points back in the wild card race then they'd like lose a game to the coyotes or the ducks or something and it would just it would be they they would they had too many backbreaking losses to make the playoffs I think like emotionally as much as actually in the standings you know absolutely and they have gone and addressed I think one of the ways to give yourself you know as little of that

effect as possible which is really steady goaltending I think with steady goaltending that's the quickest path to just like a steady locker room is maybe oversimplified as that might be you're probably not going to have dramatic swings with Jacob Markstrom. And at least that's what they're hoping as part of this big offseason. The other side of things, Peter, you cover multiple teams out there in the Metro. That's true. The New York Rangers. And they did not have this super big ambitious offseason, although depending on...

They had an ambitious off season. They might have had the ambitions. They were not able to execute on those ambitions in the same way that the devils were. Yes. I think the Rangers. is in many ways going to be defined by the Jacob Trubas situation, which played out in public a little more than probably was for the good of everyone involved. They certainly were looking into trading him. A deal never got done. Truba certainly had a lot of control over the situation

with his no trade clause and kind of the timing of how when his no move clause went to the no trade clause. And you can read on the athletic site if you want a little more. We don't have to get way into the nitty gritty here. But in short, Jacob Truba is still on the roster, and the Rangers' main edition is Riley Smith from Pittsburgh. I think it's a good move, and I don't think that they, I think their roster is very similar for next as to very similar to what it was last year. What I think this sets up that's interesting is a really big trade deadline coming up for Chris Drury, because I think that this year's Rangers team, they're in a bit of a window right now where they've got a, they have Schisturkin on this 5.667 or whatever his contract is for one more year,

and then that's going to double, and the cap hit is going to be pretty high. Maybe not fully double, but close to double probably. And you've got Lafrenier on a cheaper deal right now, and you have Panarin still playing at an elite level. And the farther this goes, all of those Rangers players are going to be one year older. So Banish Ed's going to be a year older. Pinaran, Trocheck. So I think this is a pretty important year for the Rangers, and I think this deadline will be really big for Chris Durias, GM. So you say that they come back with pretty much the same roster, which is true.

They had Riley Smith in there, but generally the same roster. We just talked about the Devils who made some big ads, some splashy ads, but are coming off a year where they, you know, we're picking pretty high in the draft. I think they were 10th, 10th pick team in the draft. Yeah. Who would you rather be? A team that's coming back with the same roster, basically, but. it's the same roster that made it to the Eastern Conference finals or the team that had this

hiccup year, finished low, made these splashy ads and that kind of has this buzz coming in. I think I go back and forth on this for this coming year. I think right now the Rangers still should be looked at it. The Devils maybe have more upside. But I think if you're asking me which team I'm most confident will be a good team next year, I think the Rangers just because we've seen it the last few years. They've been a very good team. The Devils have had one good year and have had some inconsistencies. Now, if you're asking who I'd rather be in three years, I'd rather be the Devils in a heartbeat.

I think their situation is lying to be really good for a long time if they can stay healthy, which is a big, if, as always, in the NHL. Very interestingly, our sponsor, BetMGM has the Devils plus 100 to win the Stanley Cup this year, and the Rangers plus 1,400. does not necessarily mean that's who they think it's going to be or they think that likelihood is. Obviously, there's a factor in this of trying to get people to bet on things. You've got to set a line that entices people to bet.

But I find that interesting because I agree. I would rather be the Rangers this year. I think you know that there's a Stanley Cup ceiling with that team. There's no doubt there's a Stanley Cup ceiling with that team. Yeah, I weirdly, part of me does wonder if the devils have a higher ceiling for this year than the Rangers. Just in terms of like, we saw the Rangers last. year, you saw in the playoffs what can happen with that team, which is that when the power play is

really clicking and going well and you have to start playing out of his mind, they look close to unstoppable. But a power play is probably not going to stay hot for two full months. And if you run into a rut and you can't produce it five on five, it's going to be really tough. Whereas I think this devil's team, there's a chance that they could be really, really good and better than we're even expecting and make a real run at this thing. So I think the Rangers are the safer bet to be a really good team, but I actually don't necessarily disagree with that line in terms of like actual Stanley Cup winner.

Do you not think they can win the Stanley Cup? The Rangers. Yeah. I think they can. I just think that I think they're going to need to add at the deadline. Like I don't think as presently constructed, I think they're in the inner circle or whatever. I wouldn't bet on it. but I think if they make a good addition and can really,

they need to find a way to play better at five on five. It's just like we saw that against the Panthers. They got worn down defensively. Their decor couldn't break the puck out as easily as it should have. The neutral zone was a mess for them. I think that they need to add a little more. I think they could. I'm not,

I certainly wouldn't discount them. But I don't, I don't think it is as simple as like they are in the, they made the conference finals, so surely they're right there because I did see a Panthers team last year that was better than them in a lot of ways. And goalies are weird. If Igor Shosturkin isn't as a lead as he was, that series is a lot shorter. And Carolina very well could have beaten the Rangers. So last year they had a great Igor run.

Will they get it again? I think you can probably bet on it because he's incredible. But I don't think that it's a slam dunk. If I'm making the case for the Rangers, I'm saying we saw Alexi Lafranier take a clear step last season and especially in the playoffs. And if he can carry that in at an age, by the way, that it is not at all unusual to see people continue taking steps. If he continues that, exactly. If he does that again and if they can get something like that from Capo-Caco, it doesn't have to be to the same level, but if they can just get Caco back to even maybe where he was a year prior where it looked like he was kind of taking that step. and maybe you get the same thing from Braden Schneider,

all these guys in the same 22, 23-year-old age window. I think that can counteract a lot of all these 30-year-olds at the top of your lineup are one-year-older thing. But you are, you know, the devils have that same kind of thing going with Hughes and with Nemitz and even with someone like a Dawson Mercer. So it'll be interesting, but I think you're going to have a fun season out there. That's my best bet. Does BetMGM have lines on that?

Peter Baugh. Yeah, on me having fun. Yeah. Yeah, I think all is fun. I agree with you. I think Laffernier is fascinating. I really wonder if they find a way to get him onto the top power play unit.

Because I think he's earned that, but I also don't know who you take off. Like you're not taking Adam Fox off. Chris Kreider, I'm pretty sure is the franchise leader in powerplay goals. It's tough to take him off, especially with how good he is around the net. Are you going to take Trochev, Zabandad Panarinoff? Like, that's tough.

but Lafranier looked really good in the playoffs. And if he is going to continue to ascend, I think you've got to find a way to get him more ice time. All right, that's a good spot to leave off. We'll be right back. We're going to talk about, among other things, taxes. All right, as promised, we are going to open segment three, Peter, with an ode to the IRS or something to that effect.

Dan Robson actually had a really good story this week. It's called Anywhere but Canada. It is about the kind of the tax dispute. John Tavares is going through. There's some potential ramifications for many NHL players down the line. It's a really good story that there's no chance we can hit all the nuance of. So I'm just going to take it a little more abstract to you because this has been such a talking point this offseason. I think for obvious reason, the Panthers win the Cup.

We just watched the Lightning win a couple cups. Dallas has been a really good team. Vegas. Vegas won the Cup. How much of an advantage do you think no state income tax teams really have? And is it proportional to the amount of coverage is getting this summer? I think it is an advantage, and I don't think it is proportional to the amount. And that's less so Dan's story, but more just like the discourse of if Florida, like,

had an unfair advantage. Because to me, Florida didn't win the cup because of the state income tax. They won the cup because they took interesting risks on free agents like Oliver Ekman-Larsen, and they kind of traded for a bunch of guys who had maybe hadn't been great in the first stop of their career, but had a higher ceiling. And they found a way to bring that out of them. And they got Gustav Forsling. I think it's possible that they sustain this level of being good in part because of the tax benefits of living there.

Just in terms of like, Forsling extended for below market value. Reinhart, I thought was a fair contract, honestly. but maybe he could have gotten more if he went elsewhere. But I think that these teams often win because they make good savvy moves, and that has less to do with the tax benefits than anything else. And we've talked about, we were talking before the show about, like Edmonton right now, people want to play in Edmonton because Connor McDavid's amazing, and they just made the cup final.

And so they're getting good free agents who like want to stick around there, whether it's like Henrique resigning or Yanmark re-Signing. signing or getting Jeff Skinner after he got bought out. Like, if you have a good team with good players, people are going to want to play there. And so, yes, there's a bit of an advantage, but I don't see it as like the end-all be-all. There's a chart in there, and I thought it was really helpful. It kind of shows the tax rate percent and then the number of cup wins since 2005. And obviously, it does paint a picture that the lower tax teams have had more success since 2005.

I found it notable that, you know, the Canadian team's tax rates are all right around 53 percent, 50 to 53 percent. The California team's tax rates are all 49.6 percent. And that both the ducks and the kings have won cups since 2005, the kings won multiple. So it doesn't seem like it's totally inhibiting anyone with a high tax rate here. I wonder, the way I can't always view it is every team has different advantages. So a lot of the Sunbelt teams, yeah, they have the tax advantage. but they don't have the history advantage or in some cases the financial advantages that some of the Canadian teams have in other ways, right? You can have a, you know, a bigger budget for non-capped things that you're probably going to spend on.

You're going to have your players, Mitch Martin and Austin Matthews did like an iPhone commercial. I remember a few years back that I imagine was not cheap for Apple on that end of it. And so I always feel like there's kind of every market has its own advantages. The California teams have the high taxes. they don't necessarily have the quite so much history as like the original six teams or but they got the weather right and the I guess the Sunbelt teams have the weather and the tax I just it just feels like every team kind of has their thing and maybe that the tax states are having a little bit of a moment but I tend to agree with you that it's I don't think anyone

say in Vegas Tampa and Florida only were able to do this because of their taxes they did a lot of really good things in roster construction that that then they leveraged when when it was time to extend these guys, but they weren't all signing as UFAs for discounts. They were signing to stay at discounts. Yeah, I think you look at, like, Tampa, like, taxes didn't help them find Kutrov in the middle rounds or, like, I think it would be foolish to say there is no advantage. Like, it certainly helps. But I don't think that, I think that what you see with teams that win is like they don't

have, like, prohibitive contracts or at least not too much. many of them. And I think a lot of teams overspend on free agents. And if you're relying on free agency anyway, you're probably not going to be in a good spot because like what we've seen as teams that win generally are teams that trade or draft and develop their big guys. So like trades, look at Florida. Like Kachuk, they traded for. Reinhardt, they traded for. Verhege, I think was a trade. Maybe a cheap free agent signing. But they got him when his value was lowish. Max, what do you think?

I'm going to steal your joke, but like, how could Toronto try to get a player like Carter for Hagey? That's right. On the cheap, how could they even manage to do that? Yeah. No, exactly. So it's, to me, like you said, it's real, but I think we got to be careful to go between kind of,

and again, this has nothing to do with Dan's story. This has been a big talking point this whole summer that his very good story just kind of reminded me of, talking about it and, you know, the impact that it has, I think shouldn't get carried away with saying that, you know, these poor big market Canadian teams have no way to compete financially with a team in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Sunrise, Florida. Come on now, right? Like, let's be serious about that. Yeah. And maybe, maybe what it is is it shortens windows. Like, maybe these Sunbelt teams or whatever can elongate their windows a little more.

But like the Winnipeg Jets made a conference finals in 2018 and like lost a bunch of one goal games to Vegas. And like Winnipeg is like that is not that is probably the toughest market to get players to go and to like and and it has all the tax things. So like I think that it's yeah, I wouldn't say if you make good front office decisions and have a good coach like you can still win. Absolutely. They have they have it the toughest because there's the player retention. side of things that they keep, it seems like they get hit by it every year or two, a star player is either asking for a tradeout or not wanting to sign or, you know, going to go to walk themselves to free agency, basically.

I feel for them probably as much as anybody here because I think they've scouted actually quite well. They've done what I think what we're saying. We make the Verhegey joke, right? Toronto drafted Carter Verhege for those who don't know. You know, Winnipeg's had a bunch of players that they drafted who they just didn't get the full kind of run that they probably would have expected to get out of those guys when they drafted them. And it seems like Rucker McGrady may end up being the latest.

One of the other bits of news here, and we've got to get things moving, Peter. But Joe Pavelsky made his retirement official on Monday. I know we've known this is coming for a while. He was not in your Hall of Fame tiers. And so when I saw that come across here, why was Joe Pavelski not in the Hall of Fame tiers? He's the leading scorer of his 2003 draft class. sure is, Max, and I'm glad you asked that. It is because we have criteria laid up at the top that says that we only did active players, so players who, and the way we define that was who are

under contract for next year and played a game last year. So that took out Jonathan Taves, which a lot of people in the comments were like, why is he not in here? He's still active. It took out Joe Pavelski because he's not under contract because he retired after a great career. And then Karel Kaprizov was, didn't play five years, which was one of the criteria. So that was, I'm glad you gave me the floor to clear that up because a lot of people in the comments were not thrilled with me. Well, I don't know why you would expect me to read the intro. I'm just going to the letter. Yeah, exactly. And it's totally fair. Like I would too. Like that's what you do. You go to the list. It is, I mentioned the 2003 class. Eric Duhatchik,

Like I said, does a lot of really good stuff on the topic of the Hall of Fame. He's got a really good one on how many players from that O3 class will make the Hockey Hall of Fame. Pavelsky maybe does have a little bit of an uphill climb here. But he is the leading score of that class, which includes a bunch of excellent players. Eric Stahl, Patrice Bergeron, Ryan Gatslap, Brent Burns, Mark Andre Fleury. He's nowhere near the leading scores, I hate to say. But it's a very well-done story by Eric Duhatchik that I would encourage everybody to check out. that is going to do it for us.

Thanks for listening to this episode of The Athletic Hockey Show. If you are a Spotify listener, you can now leave comments on our episodes. Show is going to be back Monday. I'll talk to you then.