The Athletic Hockey Show - Do we finally understand goalie interference?

Episode Date: May 15, 2024

Gentille, McIndoe and Frankie Corrado discuss the Bruins beating the Panthers in game 5, Boston complaining about officiating, understanding goaltender interference, Paul Maurice's potty mouth, Calvin Pickard's playoff moment, Elias Pettersson's disappearing act, if the Hurricanes can force a game seven against the Rangers on Thursday night. Plus, can the Avalanche extend their series with the Stars tonight and what Valeri Nichushkin's teammates think about the suspension to the embattled forward ahead of question period with the Wednesday boys listeners.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic hockey show. I felt the exact words of the message. I felt that, oh, fire. I wasn't mad at them. Understood what they were going through. I just thought they needed some profanity in their life. I brought some. I don't want to excel a lot of things.

I'm like, fuck me. I might get at that. See you. Oh, oh, welcome, welcome. Welcome to the Athletic Hockey Show Wednesday. really funny stuff at the top from Paul Maris. Isn't that great, Sean? He said a bad word.

It's like a young Carlin. Just work in the post game. Wow. What a, what a. Can we swear? It's too. Getting the big live track there from the assembled media as he describes the turning point of that game where he yelled at his team and they scored and they went on to win this. Oh, no, they did.

They lost. We've got breaking news here in the athletic hockey show studio. They didn't win the game. Oh, okay. So it maybe wasn't the great turning point. But yeah, this is the same as last year, right? That's why they went to the Stanley Cup finals because he yelled at his team in that late season game in Toronto and swore at them then. What have we learned, Sean?

Where are you out on this? Because what I've learned is that Paul Maurice is the funniest man on the planet. Are you with me on that? Are you slapping the knee every time this guy gets in front of a mic? I like Paul Maurice. I think he's a good coach. I think he's going to be a wonderful TV analyst someday whenever he decides that he doesn't want to coach an NHL team anymore because that's where he's at. He's going to coach for as long as he wants to and he'll deserve it.

The performance in this series for the media, I'm kind of over it. Like, you get it. We get it, buddy. You can use profanity. He had that bizarre exchange with Wyshinsky, Boston, and blah, blah, va. Like, was that supposed to be funny? Like, okay, man, how about you close out a series?

Maybe. Yeah. I mean, I saw, I'm not going to say who it was because I did. But there was a tweet in my timeline multiple times. So lots of people are seeing this. saying showing that clip saying has a coach ever won the con smite i saw that tweet too they lost the game right i'm not i'm not i'm not i didn't imagine that i feel like they they they were on home ice with a chance to close out the boston brunes uh the brunes are in

the series two by the way um with a chance to get rest and all that stuff and they they kind of lay an egg, but apparently 8 plus coaching because he said, because the thing is, he said swearing and then he swore. That's, Sean, I don't know if you picked up on that, but like, it was like, oh, he said, he used the F word. He said a bad word, which, I mean,

come on, you can't say that. He said the fuck word. Jeff, you got to beef that. Paul Murray said the fuck word. Guys, I apologize. We have. Oh, I just felt, I just felt like McAdoo, he did some profanity out there. trying to get dialed up here. Frankie Corado's here today, by the way.

We should have said that up top. Frankie's back for, I feel like he's just with us every week now, which is great. No complaints. I think I've learned that, pivoting off of that, I think it's kind of impossible for anybody to close a series.

Yep. It would seem. Over to the Rangers, over one, the Panthers. I mean, Vancouver, Edmonton, not at that stage yet, although it felt like last night was sort of an opportunity for Vancouver to all end the series. They don't do it.

And then we've got Dallas with a shot tonight, but to be determined. But yeah, it looked even 48 hours ago, like this second round was maybe going to be a bust. I was going to say how much of this is rescuing the second round for us? because I had it in my head 36 hours ago or whatever. Like, we got a bunch of DUD series here, dude. Like, that's the way it goes. And like, I know, I know stuff's tighter because, again, teams are struggling with a closeout than it was a couple days ago.

But it still feels like it's kind of too little too late from an entertainment. Well, I mean, it's always how you get to the end, right? Because the first round, which is my favorite time of the year, every year in the, But the first round this year was not great. No. And then you got the second round. You had like the opening games were all so good. And also, I mean, we had, with apologies to the Winnipeg Jets, the eight best teams all made the second round of the playoffs.

So it was like, all right, here we go. Undercard's done. First games of those series were all so good that it was like, all right, this second round is going to be epic. And then, you know, everyone's up three, one. everyone's slumping and you sort of go, oh, this could be over. But now, I mean, you've got the beauty of it is these comebacks, if any of them happen, are going to be huge, especially, you know, over in New York where I was going to say, is there one, is there one that you like more than the other, like from a comeback standpoint?

Because I, for some reason, I feel like, I mean, not some reason. Part of it's because Carolina has played really well, even when they've been losing games and whatever. to come back from the whatever it's three three nothing right like three and now three two and obviously

I don't know if I'm I don't know if I'm trying I don't know if I'm trying to convince myself of something here like do they have a chance to do this or am I just trying to convince myself who are going to get at least one

solid all timer series out of this round it's like you said it started out with all this promise. And now it just kind of seems like a dud all around. Like, am I grasping for straws here? Because I swear, it does feel like something's happening. I mean, you're not grasping at struts now, right?

I mean, at 3-0, it would have felt that way. But 3-2, game 6 in Carolina, building's going to be crazy, you know, everything. And I mean, look, the Rangers can say all the right things, but they know you lose this game. And you come back to MSG and having lost three in a row in a series, it's, it's chaos. Pucker in time. Yeah. I mean, this is, I mean, this Rangers team, and again, it's, it's, this is the playoffs, right? How much things can change over a couple of days.

A couple of days ago, they were seven and oh in the playoffs. And we're all sitting there going like, man, this is, this is 1994 all over again, right? Like those comparisons were being written. And now you're sitting there going, this could be not just losing a series. That would be the sort of series loss that blows up a team. That like that... 100% I mean, you can have a good trouble. Time to do something different.

Like something big needs to change. Having said that, I mean, the Bruins blew a 3-0 lead in 2010, came back and won the Stanley Cup the next year and nobody talks about it anymore. So it's not, you know, 15 years ago. It doesn't count. But, yeah. But, I mean, this is, boy, I don't want to get ahead of it because the Rangers are a real good team. And maybe they just take care of business in game six.

But boy, that game seven, MSG, can you imagine? It's tough. It's tough not to look ahead to that. Oh, that building's going to get icy quiet. And it's from an outsider perspective. It's fascinating, right? I mean, this is the drama we're looking for. Same thing, you know, going back to Boston, Florida, right?

I mean, we saw it last year. Right. Or famously, the Panthers were the team. Nobody gave a chance to. Came back. Three one. Exact situation as the underdog as the road team. Boston's got a chance now to turn around and be like, hey, man, you guys knifed our historically great season last year.

I don't know. I don't know if we talked about this last week or if this was just you and I speaking off mic or whatever. I feel like I finally get goalie interference. And I think it's because of you. I think it's like years, years of talking to you in one way or another that have, that have like, my success rate on choosing this stuff is like through the roof this year. It only took, it only took 10 years of direct interaction with you to actually learn what goalie interference is or is not. And it came in handy again last night. It did.

And I mean, and I hate, part of me hate to say this because it's, I mean, I feel like I'm, people could apply what I'm about to say to the night. 90% of my colleagues out there. I'm so sick of the whole nobody gets goalie interference song and dance that we do. Like first of all, if you're, and I'm not talking to fans. No. But if you're in the media and you don't understand goalie interference, that's a you problem. I love it. That's, that's you, right?

Like, that's you saying I haven't done my homework to figure out. Now, is it 100% cut and dried like offside review? No, it's not. In fact, I saw like up here in Canada when we were, we were talking. talking about the play last night. It was Sam Constantino on Sportsnet was saying, like, wow, they've introduced gray areas. The rule is full of gray areas.

It is. It's an objective rule. There's a lot of stuff where even last night, right, even on last night, a play that I thought was pretty clear. Again, if you follow me on Twitter for all this blah, blah, nobody understands, goaltender interference.

When I see a play very often, I will tweet out what it's going to be beforehand. And my success rate is pretty good. And again, last night, I said this is, there's incidental contact outside the creed. There's a little nudge in the crease, but I don't think that's going to be enough. I think this goal is going to stand.

Sure enough, boom, I'm right again. Once again, I'm correct in my analysis. But it's one of the few things in your life that you were smug about. You're not a smug person. You were smug about your, about your, that's right, your success rate. I am. I am. should be as you should be it's deserved and you're so every time this happens your entire

twitter feed is nine different reporters going nobody understands this and then me going here's exactly what's going actually actually i do and here's what's going to happen but even on that play there was a little nudge and like it does borowski have chance to get set and you know this sort of thing and it it is very it's it's something that is uh you know it there is gray area. There is opinion. There is subjectivity. So should this be subject to review? I've made the case before. No, it should. It should just be a call on the ice and we go with it. But here we are. If you're looking for certainty. If you're looking for, I'm going to watch a replay and I'm going to say it's 100%. This is the wrong rule for you, man. Because it's, there's gray areas everywhere. And the thing that worries me is when I hear someone like Sam say, oh, we got these gray areas. The other option, it, there's, there's, There's three options. You scrap review altogether, which is what we should do. You accept that there's gray areas.

Or you say we're going to do review and we don't want any gray areas. And congratulations, you've just invented the 1990s crease rule again, which we all hated. But that was black and white. Somebody had a tonal in the crease. In fairness of the crease rule, when did that actually come up at a crucial juncture? Yeah, it didn't. It was fine. What bad luck for the league, eh?

that the very last play before they changed that rule ended up ruining a Stanley Cup final. But that's your third option, right? Now, having said that, my guide to goalie interference that I wrote, I said very upfront in that piece, I'm going to get you to 80, 90% success rate because some of these are just weird plays. And I did think the play, the previous game on the Sam Bennett goal, the early coil gets pushed into Jeremy Swayman, that was one of those weird. weird plays where you don't see that very often where it's like pushing the defender into the goalie. I was actually surprised. I thought that one would come back. Um, so, you know, again,

like, if you want to get to 80, 90%, if you want 100% I can't get you there. Nobody can. This is not that sort of rule. And saying, oh, I don't understand goalie interference because of subjective is like saying, oh, I don't understand roughing. Yeah. I mean, what's there to understand? And some of this is the referee's judgment call. And I will say what's interesting to me is it does feel like the league is trying to kind of move more and more towards upholding the call on the ice, which is what the rulebook says they're supposed to do unless there is a higher standard. There's a higher standard. But they've never really called it that way. And maybe they're moving in that direction, which is great.

but it's not it's not that hard to understand. Like I say in the in the guide that I wrote a couple years ago, like the rule is like a couple of hundred words. It's not high sticking. It's not, you know, it's not dead simple. It's not super complicated, man. Like, I mean,

you can sit down and read it and get pretty much understand it pretty quickly unless you're just really invested in doing this whole nobody understands song and dance because then guess what? Then you get to claim that every call against your team was wrong. which seems to be what most people. That's what everyone's looking. That's what everyone's looking for here. Like that's what, like, here's, like, here's, like, here's, like, the last thing we'll say about about this.

And then we'll talk to Frankie about a whole bunch of stuff. And then we'll hit on some other series in segment three. I'm trying not to come off like a, like an official apologist here, because I don't want to be. Like, they need, they need to be better and blah, blah, blah. But every, every sport has this problem in 2020. Like the NHL is not special. Hockey fans are not special. Hockey players are not special.

And part of it has to do with, you know, the extension of of review. Part of it has to do with extra camera angles and all that stuff. So we're hyper aware when officials make mistakes, A, and then because of the speed of the game, they're making more of them.

Like, do they have to be better? Like, absolutely. That is true for hockey. It's true for hoops. It's true. Talk to an NBA fan about the way they feel about officiating down the stretch in games or or basketball players whatever everybody has angel hernandez everybody hates it how's the NFL doing these days and the difference is you know it's it's i i don't think officiating is getting worse in the nchel i don't think so and i'm gonna go i'll just i'm going to sound like such an old man here now i know i'm trying not to Back in my day, the official screwed up all the time.

We watched one replay of it. We went, that's a bad call. And then we moved on with our lives. Whereas now we stopped the game. We do 10 minutes of freeze frame review for a play that's still, in the case of of goal to interference, largely subjective, largely gray area. We say we're going to do this because we have to just get it right. And then we see a bunch of grayish stuff that all comes down to opinion anyways.

Guess what? at the end of it, you don't feel like they got it right, but you've seen every single freeze frame to convince you that it should have been your team's, the call should have been your team's way. Everybody who's complaining about the refereeing being so terrible, the answer for them is, just call it my team's way all the time,

and then we'll be happy. That's the single biggest problem, is that there is always space for legitimate criticism of officiating, because it's important. So much of this, is passed off as, you know, I just want consistency. No, you don't.

You don't know, you want as many power plays as it takes for your team to win the game. It's coming from a place of bias in 90% of the cases, right? So I don't know. So there you go. There's your, there's your lecture of, in my day,

there were bad calls and we just got over it, a lecture delivered by a guy still crying about, Kerry Fraser. I was about to just say Carrie Fraser and see what happened. Okay, but the exception that proves the rule. Other than that, other than that, we got over. Let's go to Frankie for segment two.

All right, we're back. Frankies here. We don't want to belabor the point on Bruins Panthers. I'm sure we talked about that enough in the first period, but something that does hang over that series, it's going to be a thing for as long as they're playing, maybe in the next year. Who knows? is the Martian thing.

He's status for the next game. Who knows? Seems like they're lighting prayer circles and whatever, burning sage to try to get him back in time for this next game. He's obviously out because of a pretty controversial hit by Sam Bennett.

Frank, you have something to say about all that. I think you have some experience in a similar situation, right? Well, okay, so it's obviously, it's a greasy play from Sam Bennett. Can we, can we admit that? Like, we can all come to that conclusion, right? I think everybody, but Sam Bennett, you can admit that. Okay. Now, put yourself in Sam Bennett's shoes and think about the, I don't know, the history

lesson of Brad Marchand going to make hits. And if you're a player and you need to be aware of Brad Marchand when he's on the ice because you don't know if he's going to cut low and clip your knee, you don't know if he's going to maybe hit you with a flying elbow. you don't know if he's going to get you with his stick in the air. Like Brad Marchand has a history of, you know, at the last second, doing something really greasy and getting you. So I think if you're in that situation and you're Sam Bennett, you have a decision to make now. Are you going to let him maybe do something greasy to you or are you going to be the one that does it?

And sure enough, Sam Bennett sees Marchand coming and the camera angle, like it's hard to see it, but he does get him with his hand. And it is a greasy play. But I almost can't even fault the guy. Because if you see Marshan coming at you, it's almost like it's old school hockey. It's old school hockey where it's like kill or be killed. And you're going to come at me. I know what you're all about. And I'm not going to be the one that gets killed in that situation.

Like my dad used to tell me when I was in minor hockey and we would all wear cages. It goes, if some dummy is going to run at you late after you pass the puck, just put your stick right in the kid's face. It's the guy's wearing a cage. You know, he's not going to hurt the kid. You might take a penalty, but he's probably not going to run you anymore. And I think that, you know, that's kind of situation applies for Sam Bennett here where it's like, I'm not going to let you take me out of the series.

I'm not going to let you do something greasy to me. So there you go. And I don't know if anyone really feels sorry for Brad Marchand. You don't want players getting hit in the head and all that kind of stuff. But, I mean, if that's Charlie Coyle going to make that hit on Sam Bennett, Sam Bennett probably doesn't get his glove up in that situation. But I think that's because he sees exactly who's coming to hit him. And you can see it on the reverse angle, the one that dropped.

Everybody goes, like, okay, maybe there was more to meet the eye on this. You can even see it then. Marchand's coming in. He's got his elbow higher than naturally than it would naturally be because he's trying to, you know, if nothing else, he's trying to create the doubt. And he's trying to, he's trying to plant that seed with Bennett. Like, where is he going to go with this? Ask Marcus Johansson how he felt after Brad Marchand basically tried to decapitate him.

Like I'm sure Marcus Johansson thought, okay, well, he's not going to elbow me in the head out of nowhere with a flying elbow. He thought wrong, right? So I don't know. Like you're in that situation. Like you got to defend yourself. So I don't blame Bennett for not only defending himself, but also. And this sounds like this is going to sound so archaic and so violent. And if you pulled a little, you know, snippet of this, you're going to be like, well, this guy's.

You know, he's promoting violence towards Brad Marchand. That's not what's happening here. I'm just letting you know what a player is thinking in that situation and it happens quick, but guys think quick on the ice. And like that's, you know, that's all we're trying to do here is just provide a little context as far as, you know, that kind of kill or be killed mentality in that situation. It's the NHL playoffs. It's a little bit violent.

And there's a little bit of profanity from time to time as well. And, you know, that's another thing I've learned in this series is that if you get called into HR at your desk job, you know, working for KPMG, you can just say to the HR people, I thought coworker X needed a little profanity in their lives. And I think you get away with it. And I think it's all good. A hundred percent. I want to go back to the Barnshan thing. Just real quick. Just two things. First of all, producer Jeff absolutely do pull that out of context clip that makes Frankie. sound like the second coming of Don Cherry, so we'll get the record ratings for this one. You said things happen fast out there. This is one of those things where as somebody who never played at that level or anywhere close to it, I need your help on this. At the speed that that's happening, in the, like, I mean, the fraction of a second that it takes

to go, oh, someone's coming to hit me, it's Brad Marchand, I got to react. does Sam Bennett actually think I'm going to punch this guy in the mouth as he's coming towards me or is it more a case of I'm going to get my hands up and then the way it happened it just happened to be the you know the worst out of the latter

totally the latter it's just like my hands are coming up and I don't like I don't think Sam Bennett is you know Floyd Mayweather like I don't think he's it would be a hell of a skill play in a weird way to be able to drill a guy tag him like that Exactly. It's more just, my hands are coming up and you're trying to hit me and I'm going to get you before you get me. That's what it is for me. And yeah, you can process a lot of that stuff very quickly. I think if you add in, you know, did you intend to punch the guy in the face? Like that's when I think it gets a little bit, you know, a little bit dice. But I have no doubt that, you know, in that situation, it's a second, let's say. And it's recognition. There's 63. he's coming to hit me. My hands are going up and, you know, I'm not going to take any chances on what you can do. Yeah. If he had the processing speed to be like, all right, there's four different things I can do here.

Like, like, do I, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, if he had the ability to do that, Sam Bennett would be, you know, a Gretzky level setup, man, right? Like, if he had, if he had the computer level brain power to run through those different scenarios and choose the outcome that allows him to defend himself. And also not hit Martian in the head, like that dude would would be having 150 assists seasons, right? Like, it's, it's, it's tough to expect people to be able to make those decisions in, in that, in that, in that short, which doesn't necessarily excuse it. Like, you are responsible. A hundred percent. There's a great point. It's a great point.

There's a difference between an explanation and an excuse. And I think that's kind of, I think that's kind of what, what we're getting in here, right? Like, of course, you don't want to see Sam Bennett, punch Brad. Marchion in the head, whether it's intentional or whatever, don't want it. But it's also our job to kind of try to suss out why this happened, like, you know, if there were other choices. And when you've got Bruins fans breaking it down, like there's a per hooter film, like frame by frame going like, look, here's, you can see the exact moment that he decides to the assassination

of Brad Marchand by the coward Sam Bennett. You can read Malice. He's got the beard. for the Howard Jesse James, too. It fits. Listen, if you want to freeze frame everything, I would like everything that Marchand has done when he went low on Sammy Sallow

and took out his knee in the Stanley Cup playoffs. I want the Marcus Johansson. I want the Timothy Lilligrin, you know, borderline slew foot. I want all those other things freeze framed as well. Like, let's call, you know, call it for what it is. It's got to go both ways. But, you know, yes. And we started this whole thing by all three of us admitting.

it is a greasy play by Sam Bennett. That can't be lost in all this. But that's just, I think we're just trying to shed some light as to why that actually happened. And for the record, like every Bruins fan right now is like, oh, you got, you know, you got the ex-Mapleaf and you got the Leafs fan and they just don't like Brad Marche. Hey, there's no fans of Sam Bennett in Toronto either. No kidding. This is the guy who's no way.

Exactly. On a dirty play that nobody outside of Toronto even bothered to look at. No fan. I mean, this is this is sort of one of those things where, you know, it's like every, I feel like every fan outside of Boston and Florida is like watching that collision and just doing like the Jerry Seinfeld. Like, oh, that's, that's a shame. That's a shame.

That's eating the popcorn going, oh, well. But you know what? So Don Sweeney kind of was talking about accountability for officials. And correct me if I'm wrong. Correct me if I'm wrong. Did he not kind of allude to officials being made available? to talk about things, like, accountability-wise. Is that, like, is that what I picked up from that?

Yep. So when I played in Sweden, they did that. They would interview officials after games, and they would have to explain themselves on the broadcast. They would go to the, you know, between the benches, throw the headset on, the camera would be right in their face. And, like, in the studio, they're grilling the official with questions. Like, would that not be?

Would that be a ratings boost? Like what would that be in the NHL? Like imagine Wes McCauley having to come over and explain. It would be, Wes McCauley, everybody acting like he's the funniest guy on the planet. And it would be every other dude trying to swallow their own tongue on live television

because we've seen what happens when you ask these guys to like announce goal or no goal. And they look like, remember when you had to do public speaking in school and there was always that one kid you were worried about because you're like, you're not doing well. That's actually going to be an NHL reference. referee. Oh man, that would be such a train wreck.

I think them. I mean, I just not really was they were that, like, you know, sometimes in other sport you get like the pool reporter gets to go with, but oh man, doing it on live TV. Can you imagine Jack Edwards interviewing somebody, interviewing some ref and being like, I can picture it now.

Like, I can picture it in the studio because I've been there with Duthi, right, when he kind of, you know, goes over what he wants to say and, and, you know,

we kind of, it's not rehearsed. first, but we kind of know what direction everyone's going in. Like, I can't imagine, you know, here comes the official who missed the call. And you know what I would love to hear if I was in that situation? Let's say the official missed a call or two. I would love for the official to just say, I flat out missed it. Don't give us some like run around excuse about this and rule this and rule that.

It's like, the game happens fast. I legitimately missed it. That would be so refreshing to hear from, but we don't hear from these guys. So I don't even know what is refreshing at this point with the official. And we don't hear it from the league either, ever, which you do in other, right? I mean, the NBA, they've got, what is it, like the two minute report or whatever they come right out where they're like, they break down everything. NFL a couple of times a year, there'll be some controversial play. And the NFL will just say, look, we got it wrong.

And they kind of like apologize to the team or whatever. And obviously that doesn't help anyone. But at least when you do that, when there's a play and you then say, no, we got it right. there's at least some amount of credibility there whereas the NHL it's like everything is just like no we nailed it again man 100% we got it continues man we just on and then you have the and then you have the rules analysts on that which are on every network now and it's always like yeah game was pretty fast

you know you can't expect like there's always there's like okay well I got to say the rules analyst like I love Dave Jackson I think it's great. I think he's always, what impresses me about Jacks is he's always available with the backdrop behind him and he's ready to rock. And he doesn't know when he's going to be counted on to go, but there he is. It's like Sean throws to Jacks and let's throw it to Dave Jackson. And there he is.

Like, he's got the explanation every time. He does a great job. And the thing I like about Dave is he doesn't agree with the official 100% of the time. he has said he goes he goes he has said he goes yeah you know what that probably shouldn't have been a call but you know i can i can see why he made the call like he he does a good job of working it in the rules official i love it because it's so good in the nfl like they do it so well where the guy will come on and be like no they blew that call that that was wrong they have it wrong and you go okay great and then because he does that the next time when he comes on and

goes, oh, they got it right. As a fan, you're kind of like, it carries similar way. Maybe I'll cry about this for the entire week. So the other night, I'm, I'm at the TSN studios and where Studio 8 and Studio 9 are, it's like a shared area. So that's like the Jay Onright set and there's like a little mini studio. Anyway, so they're doing MLS and Kevin Kilbane is there with Mark Roe and they're doing a game. And you talk, so I go over and talk to them. You talk to soccer guys. They're so blunt about how poor the performance of players are. And it's like they will flat out say like, this is the worst thing my eyes have ever laid eyes on. Like this is awful.

Like in, and in hockey, we try and, you know, we massage it in a little bit. Like these guys are absolutely ruthless in other sports. And it's the same with football. Like they will go out on that, you know, that post game show, they will shred guys. Soccer is no different. And, you know, the basketball guys, like that TNT panel, like they shred guys as well. You know, in hockey, it's like, you know, it might have been a play, might not have been a play.

Like, we're, he'd like that one back. That's Canada. That's Canada. That's Canada. That's Canadian. I thought we had, I thought hockey players were the toughest guys in the world. I thought they were so tough. Canadian politeness slash slash passive aggressiveness coming through on the, and the,

GGB. Could I tell you. You're right, Sean. I apologize on behalf of. You know what, though? You mentioned like hockey players supposed to be the toughest guys in the world. And you know what drove me nuts is hockey players and myself included. We're insecure people.

And here's an example of how that works. You go to the rink. You got a haircut and you don't want to go to the rink because you got a haircut the day before. And you know you're going to get shredded. And it might be a good haircut, but you know you're getting shredded no matter what. Or you wear like new jeans or you wear a new shirt that no one's seen before and you don't want to do it. You're like, ah, I think someone's going to get on me for this. It's like, why are we so insecure about things?

This is why they don't, this is why there's only like three guys who wear interesting clothes to the, to the game. Like, we always thought it was a personality thing. You know, it's just you don't want to get roasted because everyone's like, suddenly you're Frankie no socks and. And that's your name. And that's your name. Frankie capa jacket.

Trust me, 16 euros old in Sudbury wearing a cap of jacket. That sounds like I'm going to say, that is very, that is very specific. That's being drawn from actual experience. experience. Yeah. Well, okay. And so, you know what? Since we're on the topic of like guys that, you know, have a little bit of a flare, you know, for the different. Elias Pedersen has been one of those guys throughout the course of his career. Like, remember during COVID, like Pedersen was really kind of pushing more of like the social media presence and like that kind of went away. I think he's he's an unbelievable talent. He is not playing up to that capability right now in this series. And, Like, it's crazy to think that the guy that you're, you've committed to now, long term, what is it, 11.6 million, eight year deal. And he's considered to be a quote unquote X factor in this series. Because if you can get him going, man, is that ever going to help your team? Whereas like, that should be the guy that's going no matter what.

And he's not. And I don't know, like he looks not disinterested because that would, I think that would be unfair to say that he's disinterested. but man, it's not really engaged to the level that he can be. And kind of got called out by Rick Tocke for it last night. Well, actually, I was going to say not by name, but he kind of did. Like he initially said, we got like five or six guys that need to be better. But then he did say like Elias Pedersen is one of those guys who has to be better. One goal, four points, 10 playoff games.

For a team that's, I mean, this is one of those things, right? where you're he was also but not to interrupt he was also brutal against Nashville like like he came around a little he came around a little bit at the end and made some hard plays that people were looking for but in games I know a lot of people I said he was a non factor a lot of people have said like you know maybe he's hurt maybe he's playing the but the fact that talk it kind of kind of went to him maybe suggested he's not it's one of those things right on the one hand if you're the Canucks you're going this is we're going to lose this series like we need all hands on deck to beat the oilers we can't do

it without Pedersen. We can't do, like, you know, the fact that we've even made out of a round without our best player, our best, you know, offensive forward at least. The flip side is you're sitting there going, man, at any moment, that switch could get flipped and when it does look out. We're at the point now where we're having the linemates discussion about Pedersen, where it's like, oh, he's playing with, he's playing with Mikhail and he's playing with Sam Lafferty and, you know, that's a tough draw for him.

And when you make 11.6 million. dollars against the cap you are your own linemate like it doesn't matter well hold i the discussion start the discussion start like you like Mitch marner has uh would would like to interject here yeah I know I I get it I get what you're saying I get what you're saying on that but who else should his linemates be because JT Miller and Brock Bessor that works too well and even even like garland Garland Garland and Joshua and Garland and Joshua work really well together in linstrum and Joshua the Those guys, those guys look, those guys look great. Like, yeah, that, that, that line with Lindholm, Garland and Joshua, part of the fear, I think, I don't know if it's a fear, but like when Bluger was the center iceman there for that line, that was one of the best lines in the NHL for a period of time.

Now, Lindholm, like, he's really found his game. Blugher is playing well lower in the lineup when, when he's playing. And like for Petterson, I just, you know, he's one of those guys that when he's at it. his best, he's willing to challenge you one on one. He wants the puck on his stick. And I don't see that right now. I see a guy who's kind of shying away from things a little bit. It's almost like, hey, maybe don't pass it to me. Like, I'm not as available. It's weird. It's weird because when he plays confident, he's such a unique talent, but Vancouver's not getting that right now. And you know what? To go back to your point about like maybe he's playing hurt, that always

pops up with him. Anytime he's struggling, the first thing people do is say, it's got to be the wrist. The wrists have been an issue over the years. And then even earlier on this year, people were watching them and saying, maybe it's a groin. Maybe it's a hip. Like, it can't be that every time you're not playing well, it's, there's an underlying factor. Of course, that's the case. But the fact remains, if you put yourself on the ice, you're kind of open to the criticism. And it's funny that we mentioned this. So I'm in like my home studio office here. I have a book someone lent me a long time ago. This is when

I was 16. Someone lent me this book. It's literally called the new toughness training for sports. I think both you guys should read this at some point. But one of the chapters one of the chapters is literally called no one cares.

And it's all about how if you put yourself out there, people are, people are expecting you to perform. You need to put your performer self out there. You separate your performer self from like your human self. And when your performer self is out there, people expect you to live up to that expectation. And the chapter is all about that. So regardless of whether your hip's hurting or your wrist is hurting, if you're out there, no one really cares what's bothering you. So you have to wrap your

head around that and take yourself to another level mentally. This is more, it's like a, this is a tennis book because, you know, tennis is so grueling for those guys. And, you know, there's no clock that ends the match for you. You need to do it yourself, but it's just you. But that's, you know, that's kind of where he's at. Like, you make a lot of money. They've committed to you. You're supposed to be the first line center. And your team has a golden opportunity here to do something really special on the back of your third string goaltender who's playing outstanding. And that's a guy that you should be counting on. But he's, he's not at the level that he should be at. Let's talk about the goalie because obviously the big story is Edmonton, Calvin Picard.

What the heck was going on with Chris Knoblock after the game going? Yeah, I don't know. We don't know for next game. We'll see. It's like, we'll see. Dude, you just yanked Stuart Skinner who was playing historically terribly, torpedoing your season. You put in the backup. The backup plays.

It wasn't great, but it plays well. the team plays well in front of him, you get the win. Do we think there's any possibility that he's actually going to go back to Stuart Skinner for the next game? No, no, no, no. It's zero, right? You know what it was telling? You know what was telling after the game? Like, Drysidal was talking about Calvin Pickard, like, glowingly.

Like, how well he played. And, like, that should tell you a lot because, you know, that's a guy in with McDavid in the prime of their careers, talking about how it's cup or bust this year. And it's like every series that those guys, basically every series that those guys go into, they've had the second best goaltender, the second best goaltending performance, I guess outside of the last series against Los Angeles. But, I mean, how do you keep rolling that out there with two of the best players in the world in their prime, you know, trying to win?

So I think those comments from Drysidal where he really goes out of his way to praise pickard for his play is like that's kind of indicative of of how they feel about you know where the goaltending situation should be at there like i don't know how i know there's certain priorities for teams but at some point you kind of have to get around to the goaltending being a priority there and i guess you could say that they tried to do that with jack campbell giving him five million dollars a year as a free agent but that's that that feels like it's so far in the rearview mirror at this point. What's it like as a, again, this is this is a thing that we hear about a lot from players, but maybe you can describe it. That, that feeling of how do you play differently when you feel

like every shot on net is going to be in versus when you feel like you've got just a competent goalie back there, let alone somebody playing great. Is it, is it as big a difference as it's kind of made out to be? It is in a way, because when, when you know the guy behind you is struggling, you're playing like a little more frantic. Like I got to get in front of this shot. You know, I got I got to do this. I got to run out to run out of position here. Like things can be a little more frantic in that way because you feel like you have to overcome what's happening behind you.

But on the other, you know, on the other side of things, if you have a goalie that plays really well and you may be like over-rely on him, you can get sloppy. Like you can get casual and be like, ah, you know, he's got it. Right. And, you know, both those things kind of exist. There's a happy medium there. And, you know, it's so cliche, but it's so true. If everyone just does their job to their capabilities, then everything works really well. If I'm a defenseman, maybe I don't need to run out to the corner. Maybe I don't need to put myself out a position to try and block a shot because I just know, you know, hey, that's a good spot for my goalie to make a save. I expect him to make it. He does his job and we roll on from there. But when that's not happening, now you change your game a little bit. And, you know, that kind of affects the whole ecosystem of what's happening on the ice. I think that's like the element of the goalie pool too that's like not really explained all the way, all that often. When it's, oh, they need the team needed a jolt or whatever. Like so many times the jolt specifically is telling the players like,

you guys are too comfortable in front of this guy. Like, you're not bringing it at the level that you need to. And because of that, you hung them out to dry and it, and it's not good enough. It's not just like, oh, shit, they pulled the goalie.

Like, anything can happen. We're not playing well. It's like, you specifically are not playing well. You're relying too much on a guy. And it's, and it's not going to work.

Yeah. Yeah. And you know what? And it's, it's one of those things now. So for Edmonton, like, It's not an ideal situation because, like I said, you signed a goalie for $5 million.

He's not available to you. And you've got this guy in Stuart Skinner who had a really good regular season and probably will continue to have good regular seasons, but it feels like he's hit like this mental block in the playoffs where, you know, last year, he was a good story. He got thrust into that situation. He kept getting pulled and especially against Vegas. And now it's like he gets pulled against Vancouver. you know, at some point, okay goaltending or average goaltending is not going to cut it for a team that has Stanley Cup aspirations.

Like you can be an okay goaltender, but for a period of time, whether it's four weeks, six weeks, if you go the distance, let's call it eight weeks, you have to play, you have to go on a heater. Like you have to play like above your level, which is okay. and that's the thing for Edmonton. It's like if you really have Stanley Cup aspirations, like how is okay goaltending going to cut it for you? And we're seeing that publicly from those dudes. And we talked about it a bit with Drysidal, but also McDavid,

where like in the run up to this series, he's like, he said it explicitly. He's like, we're in the prime of our careers. We're all in our, we're all like in our mid-late 20s here. Like, it's time to go.

Yeah. So there is that like extra awareness that you have or that you're seeing from those guys. And even a guy like McDavid, like the fact that he like lays that out there in terms that explicit after being just a cipher publicly for for most of his career. Like that's as much public urgency as you're going to see from this dude right now where he's like, listen, like it's time to move. And in the fact that he said that, you know, speaks to something. It kind of just, you know, it comes back to it's the playoffs. Win or don't win?

Like find a way to do it or you're not going to do it. And sometimes there's no X's and O's explanation for it or whatever. And that kind of leads us to Toronto and where they're going to go with their coaching search. Because, you know, there's a team who's trying to do something here and that's win. And so where do you go now with your coach? Is it, you know, is it Barubei who's won and, you know, definitely like a motivator kind of, you know, really going to push the buttons, be accountable, all that kind of stuff? Or is it going to be, you know, Todd McClellan, who, you know, structure is kind of, you know, his. name of the game, if you want to call it that, but he's never won. And for me, like, looking at

Toronto, structure was never the issue for this team. You know, the issue is trying to find ways to get the star players to play at a higher level. And, you know, where this team has maybe gone wrong in the past is they didn't really lean into one thing. You know, they tried to just become this jack of all trades along the way. And if you're going to lean into, we want to win, we want winners. We want someone to teach us how to win. Well, you probably need someone who won before. So that probably leads you to Craig Barubi. And probably not Todd McClellan, who hasn't been out of the first round in several years. And I say that over a decade. Yeah, I like Todd McClellan. I, in fact, I remember, I can't remember what series I was covering. Maybe it was an Edmonton one,

but I was, I was in the room when he was doing a post game and he left. And I remember turning to, I think it was Myrtle next to me and going, like, he's going to be a good coach. the Leafs someday because I just felt like that was that was you know going to be a fit I don't think it's now I feel like Garube is is maybe almost too obvious at this point

for the Leafs because not just as far as being the guy to come into that room and everything but as far as selling it to the public I really feel like in Toronto right now you see these clips going around social

media of Craig Baroube swearing at his players or him at post-game press conferences talking about how the stars. And that, like, in Toronto right now, people are like, yes. Please bring in someone who's going to yell at these guys and make them uncomfortable

and not tell them to have fun before game seven. Yeah, I don't know. Bring that dude in. Bring that dude in. Don't bring in the guy who was the coach of the last best team to not win a cup. Because that's what the, that's what the start.

That's what the sharks were, man. I watched it in person for years. That team had so much going for it. And McClellan, you know, is a good coach. Absolutely. But like, what is the takeaway there? Is that they came close but not close enough year after year after year? Like, is that that's the dude that you want to bring in?

Just cut the check for Burmere. Like, come on. Lean into it. Like, and you can justify it. You can justify it so easily. And just the one word you need to use is winner. And that'll justify it for the fans. And you'll sell the message.

And ultimately, after that, it's up to the team to execute. And you know what? When we do the show next time, I'm going to text you guys the morning of, maybe the night before and just say, let's have fun. And we will be highly, highly motivated for the show. Let's have. Well, wait a second. We got to know what we're going to talk about, right?

No, no, no, no, no. Just have fun. Just have fun. That's the message from, have fun out there. and also nobody cares. You guys, we'll do it next week. We'll have some fun next week. There we go.

That's breaking news. I love it. Frankie Gradoe coming back for the May 22nd episode. Have fun out there, buddy. Have a good day. All right. No profanities. It's the worst thing you can do.

There's terrific stuff from Frankie as always, right? He's a nice guy. He's a good guy. He's a good guy. He's good at his job. Good guy other than when he told him. told us to work out more and stop complaining. But you know what?

What I wanted to say is like, needed to hear that. I'm playing through the, the pollen count here in Pittsburgh, PA is just through through the roof, brother. I feel I'm, I'm playing sick. I'm playing. I'm sore everywhere, man.

I don't, uh, it's, I don't think people realize the sacrifice. You know, a lot of people are going to say, you know, some of Sean's columns haven't been all that good this week. Like, oh my guy,

I can't believe he got Quinn and Jack Hughes mixed up on another birth. Dude, when you find out what I'm playing through, you're going to, you're going to feel bad for criticizing me when you find out that my lower back is wildly sore. You're growing. We got to talk about stars, abs. That's the game that's tonight,

Wednesday night. It's actually the only one on the schedule. We're at, we're at that point already where, you know. I hate this. I hate going from round one to that first night with like one game and you're just like, what's, we doing here. And it's a 3-1 series. Yeah, I mean, isn't like Dallas is, Dallas is up. I mean, look, I don't want to

count out Colorado, obviously, but there's something about the 3-1 game where you're like, let's see what happens. If this gets to 3-2, it's like, we just talked about with Carolina and the Rangers, right? 3-1's the throwaway game where you're, where it's, unless you have to watch it for work or if you're really involved with it, you know, on the fan level, you're like, this will be on as, screwing out on my phone or cooking dinner or doing something else and we'll see what they can make of it. Yeah. But I do buy into this idea that if you're going to be down three to one in a series, it's actually not the worst thing in the world to be the visiting team.

Yeah. To go into a game five because it's, you know, in theory, this is the tough one. but it can also be the one where maybe the other teams, you know, sitting back a little bit. Maybe you don't get their best game like we saw from Florida in that situation. You win that. Suddenly you're home for game six. You win that game seven coin flip at this point. You know, home ice out the window probably.

And we have the Nutuchin factor too, right? Where that's that could go one of two ways is like they're out the guy, a guy who's, been their best player, really, for the first round and a half. Goal score. Certainly goal scorer. And it did seem like I, on the one hand, this feels a little easy from a narrative standpoint. That's kind of what I was, that's kind of what I was getting at.

Like, but the fact that it broke on Monday. And it kind of came out of nowhere. And we did see, I thought Colorado's weakest game of the playoffs. Like, they did kind of come out looking off. I wonder if that had any. And it's such a weird situation because obviously anytime you're talking about somebody in player assistance, you want to just, I mean, the person comes first ahead of the player. You want to wish them the best and all of that stuff. But the situation last year was so strange.

And we never really got an explanation on any of that to the point where with this, it's confusing, right? Because you're like, should I wish the best for this person? is this like what am I supposed to say here and some of the comments from Colorado players maybe I'm reading too much into it but I it's Jack John Jackson specifically to our buddy Corey Mazasak who works for the Denver Post yeah guys guys making their decisions and you know that that sort of thing it sounds like they're pretty ticked off about this more so than saying you know hey we we just want to want the best for our teammate again maybe that can that can be the thing that fires you up hey guys you know before they

you know get we we lose tonight everyone's going to say it's because we didn't have this because we didn't have this guy let's get out there and show everyone that uh you know that we can play without them maybe i don't know again the the whole and i'm not even saying that the stuff last year that we needed to know all the details or then but but this is kind of the offshoot of that is it's it's a mitigating factor because Because you can't just... It didn't come out of nowhere. No, it didn't come out of nowhere.

And there's a lack of clarity on what happened in Seattle last year when we all, for anybody who does know the story, Valerie Natchewskian misses a morning skate. Aves doctor goes to his hotel room, finds a woman in there. She is in bad enough shape to necessitate a 911 call. Paramedics come. Not a good situation. Yeah. And that... Lots.

of unknowns and yet even with all the unknowns like there isn't a scenario where it was a good situation let's put it that one to put it mildly but we don't you know we don't know all the details and then even with this there's there's

reports that he failed a drug test there's other reports I wouldn't say refuting that but not lack of lack of confirmation which is Pierre Lebrun wrote something that encapsulates everything very well well, but he did not get confirmation from the abs or the NHLPA that he fell to drug test.

And when it's player assistance, like there needs to be a process, there need to be some rules. Privacy does kick in. Like I'm not saying we need to know every detail. But the fact that we don't know every detail means that there's an information void. And I mean, I guess to take it back to hockey, which may or may not matter in comparison to whatever else is going on. it's a double whammy for Colorado because as much as, you know, first of all, you're losing a guy with nine goals.

In a play in a postseason where it's damn hard to score, that's a major, major loss. And as much as you can say, hey, guys get hurt in the playoffs, this isn't that. And who knows how that's playing in the room.

We have no idea what the team dynamic is. Because do they go out to win for the guy? Do they go out to win despite the guy? Do they not? From an on-eye standpoint, it's a wild card. From a non-eye standpoint, Natu Shuskin's play has been the big variable for Colorado, too. Like, that's the kind of thing that they were missing out at various points throughout the regular season. In the lack of a presence like that is why people are like, can they get it done?

Do they have the second layer of player behind McKinnon and Ranton and McCar and Taves that it's necessary to go on a run? Well, they did. They did two days ago. and now they don't. So tonight there's a few different doors to walk through in terms of narratives. And it's going to be fascinating to see what happens because it's a choose-your-own-adventure thing that's based on the result. 3-1 series lead for Dallas. Game one goes into overtime and then Dallas wins three straight.

So momentum, which doesn't really exist in the playoffs past the first shift of the game. except when it does is all Dallas's way Colorado's facing the adversity like Dallas is at home everybody's hot

you know why Johnson's going crazy like this this feels like this is your if you're if you're Dallas stars you're kind of looking at this going all right hold on a second everybody looked at this series

and said this is going to be a seven game battle we just had the seven game battle against Vegas the the the thinking going into this series was, okay, Edmonton's going to wipe out Vancouver and then sit back and rest while Allison Colorado smash each other.

Now we've got maybe the flip side. Edmonton's having trouble. Edmonton's on the ropes against a real good Vancouver team that's given them everything they could handle. We got a chance to finish this thing early. This could be, you know, not to put,

not to overhype it, but like this could be their Stanley Cup right here is to get a few days, get guys healthy, into it, man, we could look back and say like the fact that we finish that series. And yet with everything going on with Colorado, you could see, absolutely, you see them getting the win, you know, maybe tonight's the Nathan McKinnon game or the Kail McCar game. And then suddenly everybody is going, ooh boy, Dallas is in big, big, big trouble going back into Colorado for game six. That's a big set of sliding doors, man. And also like most teams do need one. Most teams do

need one series like this where the game are too shorter than you anticipated and it lets you rest and get guys healthy. So we'll see what happens. We do have a bit of breaking PWHL news. I always love when this happens. Natalie Spooner, leading goal score for Toronto out for the playoffs. They're trying to close out Minnesota in that semi-final series. We had one team move on last night. We had Boston eliminate Montreal. And now if Toronto gets it done, they're going to have to do without Spooner. Who's like, by all,

I'd be stunned if she didn't win MVP. She's been phenomenal. And she's out for that duration now. That's big. Yep. This is a real, real big but still. Let's get a little Toronto-Boston action in a hockey class. What could go wrong? What could go wrong? What could go wrong

for the Canadian team? You never know. We have some questions. You guys are great last week. We asked for more and you provide and you provided them. Go into the app. Tap on listen. Tap on the athletic hockey shows. Scroll down to our episodes.

Blah, blah, blah. You can leave comments there. They're back to being great after a couple off weeks. I know you guys could do it. Top one from Eddie F. Thank God for Frankie transitioning that convo

out of the Maple Leaf's uncle talk, which was we're doing the Leafs post-mortem. And Frank did do a very professional segue which he's already much better than either of us at. He did it a bunch of times in our segment today where he just, you know, he has a sense of when it's time to move on. He did it last night. Former Maple Leaf, GTA native, Raggy Carrado was like, yeah, time to move on. Yep. My question here, though, for you, I guess maybe for Eddie, Maple Leaf Uncle Talk, I'm worried that I was included in that,

in that characterization. Like, do we, are there two Maple Leafs uncles in this, in this, in this chat or is there only one? I don't know if I can handle being lumped in with you as far as that's concerned. Wow. That's, uh, I think that's what the implication was. I think, I think it was like that I was talking too much about the Toronto Maple Leafs and needed it needed to, need to, need it to, don't like, I don't like this.

I'm yelling at the mirror. I'm yelling at myself. I'm turning this question inward. I got to, I got to be better if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, I'm going to, okay. making the implication that I think. is. All right.

Listen, Eddie F in the chat. Our pal, Sean here is he's got, he's got one raving Leaves Homer and he's got a former Toronto Maple Leaf player. It's going to get Leafy, man. I'm sorry.

He's doing his best. He's trying to, he's, he's trying to wrestle a conversation away. Um, but he's, let's let's go, let's go easy on.

I'm, I'm doing, I'm doing my best to steer a wave. from the discussion. I say as we just had another, another Leafs coach. Yeah. Fit in segment two.

Okay. Corey E. I'm going to comment based on the Thursday show since there's no comment section there, but for the Utah team names, I don't know if we talked about, me and me and Haley and Max talked about this. Can we just encourage the evil billionaire persona here and call them the Utah Smitties?

I think I like Smitty's more than plenty of the other suggestions there. Mm-hmm. Do we like Smitty's more than Uri and Glacier and Mammoth and powder? First of all, let's be honest, it would be the Utah Smitty singular. S's are so uncool. Now, why Smith, like is this, are we just assuming his nickname is Smitty? Because we could go the other way for hockey, right? It's either an E or an Er, the Utah Smithers.

There's your logo. Here's your logo, right? The logo can be, uh, yeah, the logo can be Mr. Burns passed out on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the compass in front of the, in front of the courthouse pointing to W&S. That would be a great, great center, a great center center, uh, I think we might be on to something here, man. This, this could be it. We could also just call them the Utah Qualtrix and name it after, after the company that,

that Ryan Smith founded. Um, which is definitely a company I was super familiar with until. Yeah. Until three weeks ago, right? You're totally, you totally, made my life better in so many ways with their product that does a thing. Yeah. No, I love their, I love their cloud-based subscription software platform for experience management, right? Like, that's, that's, I, anytime I need a cloud-based subscription software platform for experience management, I go to Qualitrix.

How many times are you having an experience? And you're like, this isn't being managed very well. And then this, I, you know, to the clouds and only there were some cloud-based. of you. That's definitely a real thing. Do you have a, do you still have a favorite Utah team name? What's the, what's later in the clubhouse for you?

Is there one? Not of the group that they had. Because I'm still, I'm still on team Scorpions. I've had this conversation before. Like every normal person of my age, every normal sports fan, I spent a lot of time as a kid making like fake leagues and,

you know, that sort of thing. No, not you. fake league. The two names. The two names that always, you got to have the dragons and the scorpions. And I don't feel like,

you know, neither one of those has been used. I don't feel like Dragons works for Utah. Utah Scorpions is great. I don't mind out of the, out of the list that we've had, you know, somewhat Mimi kind of, you know,

as somebody else would say, the epic bacon guy type of. Reddit. Yeah, I didn't mind the Utah Yeti. I could go with that. You could talk me into that, but... I think I like Mammoth more than Yeti from the Reddit group. Neither of them are...

Yeah, I mean, it was... Neither are good, neither are good, whatever. As long as... Are you with me, though? They have to pick a name. You can't be the Utah Hockey Club for a year or whatever. Here's what's going on. I think we talked about this on Thursday.

I think either that or this is yet another off-my conversation that I'm assuming took place on a record. Or we're just repeating last week's show. That's what's just fine. Like either or. Like I said, like I said, pollen counts pretty high. They get to sell more merch. This, this genius.

Like they watched it work out for the PWHL where you get to sell it in the Washington football club. You sell a bunch of generic stuff in year one. You sell it to the die hard because everybody wants gear to wear. And then you can pivot in every. Everybody can buy, you know, Dylan Gunther jerseys when they're the Utah outlaws in 18 months. And you sell a whole bunch more stuff.

It's fine. It's genius. That is how you end up with a company as great as Qualtricks, the cloud-based subscription software platform for experience management. That's the kind of brain power that you're seeing a player. Do it Smithers. Get on that. We got one more.

TIG, he's one of our old buddies. He's back. which Stanley Cup final matchup would Gary Bedman hate to see the most and also based on where the current series are right now is he putting in any calls? Of course not. He would never do such a thing.

But we can guess which one he would be the most unhappy to see. Do we have a leader in the clubhouse? It's clearly Vancouver in the West, right? I mean, it's a Canadian team and they don't have Connor McDavid. I feel like you put Emmetton in the final the league could

grudgingly get behind having two of their biggest stars in a final. The U.S. TV ratings for Vancouver in the final would not be good. And then it's Vancouver, I mean, it's Vancouver, Florida, probably over Vancouver Carolina. I mean, New York and Boston are both big markets. I mean, I don't, I'm, the reason I'm, I'm confused here is because it's been explained to me by several Boston Bruins fans that Gary Benman actually wants the Panthers.

to win because, right? I mean, obviously, I mean, if there's one thing Gary Bettman in the NHL hate, it's marketing original six teams. Oh, they can't stand that. Yeah. No, thank you. I think it's Panthers. I think it's Panthers, Canucks.

You get Roberto Luongo to be like the celebrity spokesman, him and Pavel Burray, but that's, uh, that's about it. Yeah, I don't think it's, I think it's Vancouver, Carolina, because Florida, you can at least get, I mean, whatever. run the Matthew Kachuk angle into the ground. You can do that. Like there's, there's,

Paul Murray's comedy hour after every, you know, whenever, whenever you can have the funniest man on earth, give a postgame presser every day, you got to jump on the opportunity, right? That's true.

Yeah, okay, I'm, I'm with you. It's right. Rod Brindamore versus Rick Talk, it might be the most intense coaching matchup. It's even possible.

I'll take that. I'll take that from a writer's standpoint. All right. I'm glad I'm glad we agreed on this. Thank you, Sean. Thank you, S. Francesco Carrado. Thank you for listening to The Athletic Hockey Show. Please leave us a five-star rating and review it if you're enjoying the show and that's your thing. If not, just leave us along.

Thursday, it's Haley, it's Max, it's me. And the two of us are back again next Wednesday, like Frankie said in segment two. He'll be back on the 22nd. So see you then. Have a good week. And we'll talk to you soon.