The Athletic Hockey Show - Draisaitl calls out Oilers after another loss

Episode Date: February 5, 2026

The Edmonton Oilers can't get a save, defend or win right now, and Leon Draisaitl speaks out about it post game, putting the blame on everyone, including the front office and coaching staff. Sean and Shayna discuss the turmoil in Edmonton, they welcome Peter Baugh from New York to put a lid on the Rangers trading Artemi Panarin to the Los Angeles Kings, and they ask if Gavin McKenna's felony assault arrest in Pennsylvania will affect his draft ranking.Host: Sean Gentille and Shayna GoldmanWith: Peter BaughExecutive Producer: Chris FlanneryProducer: Jeff DometTake our listener survey: http://theathletic.com/survey26Watch full episodes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@theathletichockeyshowJoin our Discord Server: https://discord.gg/VTm9VjkFSubscribe to The Athletic: https://theathletic.com/hockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Hockey Show. What up, what up? This is the Athletic Hockey Show for February 11th. It is a Thursday. I am Sean Gentilly. I am here with Shana Goldman. Haley Salvean is in Italy right now. She is there for the athletic,

and she is there to do television for the Canadian broadcasting company corporation. What is the CBC stand for? corporation thank you producer jeff haley's doing double duty over there she misses you all and she sends her love from a game that just got canceled

due to a norovirus outbreak on the Finnish women's team so good luck and godspeed everyone who's in that arena right now she hello how are we doing oh I'm great too Americans trying to figure out what cbc stands for

you don't have norovirus I assume. Thank goodness I don't. You know what? It's just of all the things, of all the drama of this, it's like we're not even talking about the fact that they're playing on the ice, but there's been so much about for weeks because we are talking about neurovice. Like, welcome to the 2026 Olympics.

Here we go. This is like, this is what I was hearing from all my friends with kids last month. It was norovirus. Everyone was trying to find whose kid was patient zero. So, like, I feel like this is going to happen with all these teams. There are children getting thrown under the bus by Olympic teams right now. A little bit of breaking news from Michael Russo, by the way. Jack Hughes will be going to the Olympics for Team USA.

He'd been injured, of course, and out of the lineup for the last week or so. That's good news, I suppose, for him to be a middle six-winger or healthy scratch or whatever, whatever decisions. whatever a lot of decisions the U.S. team makes with him, right? I mean, yeah. Great, great work, everyone. I mean, it's a tough one because on the one hand, you're like, if you're the devils, you go, we can't take the Olympics away from him.

Look at what we've done to this team this season. It's a little bit of happiness. But on the other hand, if you have any shot, any shot of all of fixing this, you need Jack Hughes to be 100%. So him going to the Olympics a little bit risky here. But yeah, it'll be interesting for Team USA, because in theory he should play center, not very good on the wing.

In theory, that would be good. But from what I understand, there's no other options to replace him. There are no other, because they have so many centers. You can't look at a winger. You cannot look at a right-handed winger. They're too many, they're too short.

There's like a bar. If you're not this tall, you can't be on the team. You can't get on the plane. So there's no one's help. I wonder what Jason Roberts is doing like cool cofield cool cofields cofield gets lost in all this he's getting as screwed as anybody um so yeah whatever we'll have plenty of time to talk about whatever happens with the with the men's tournament down the line we'll be we'll hit that ad nauseum for sure we do have NHL stuff to talk

about uh we have and it's it's it's less it's less fun and it's and it's less positive because it involves the Edminton Oilers and Trist in Jari. We'll start there. They lose to Calgary 4-3 last night. Jari had another stinker. I'm sure, Shana, I'm sure we'll talk about that more in a moment here. But I think the big headline coming out of that was Leon Drys Heidels postgame, where he sounded like he was 60 years old, getting off a factory shift and just didn't have any answers about, about, about, what stuff's turned into.

Yeah, he has not shed his pissy reputation. I'm grateful for that because he- I love Pissy Leon. Pissy Leon's my favorite Leon. Yeah, like someone needs to say it. Someone needs to be honest and like, you know, we wasn't pulling any punches. Were they good defensively? Do they leave their goalies out to dry all the time?

Absolutely. But do you need some timely saves? Also, yes. As much as you put it on draw, I think the bigger issue is you put it on management for putting them in this position because they literally literally, we're like, we have Stuart Skinner. What is the Eastern Conference version of Stuart Skinner? Ah, yes, Trishon Jari, who has durability issues.

This will help with his contract that takes up, I don't know, the rest of Connor McDavid's next contract. That's what you want to tie your Stanley Cup window two. Great work all around. So it's not bad enough that you have pretty much $7.5 million in dead cap space because had to sign Trent Frederick for eight years, had to, you know, give injury, mind, mind as you're planning to your deal. But on top of that, the goaltending is still bad. So they don't have depth scoring. They don't have goaltending. It's the same story every damn

year. And they make expensive bets on trying to fix their problems too. I feel like that's a problem. That's been an issue for them going back even pre-Stand-Boman. It's not just that they went out and got Tris and Jari. It's that they went out and got Tris and Jari at Tris and Jari's cab hit, right? And they send assets back to Pittsburgh. For a goalie who was volatile on his best day, we, I'm, Shane, I'm sure you and I joked about this. I'm sure I joked about it on the pod. It always felt in some way like Tristan Jari was destined to land on the Edmonton Oilers. It just felt like that was the kind of panic move that they would make to address a problem that's needed,

that's needed addressed in one way or another for a long, long time. And of course, of course, that's how it goes down. And look, has he been, has he been putrid? No. Not, he hasn't been the worst goalie in the league. You know, he's about, he's, he's, he's, he's at about zero on goal saved above expected. His safe percentage is horrendous, but, you know, so it goes. I don't necessarily want to lay all this at his feet.

But I'll lay it at the front office's feet. And I'll lay it's, I'll lay at Stan Bowman's feet. because this is not a guy. This has never been a guy who you should bet on. Like the fact that they watched him for any amount of time in Pittsburgh, outside of the random four week, five week stretches he would have where he looked like a top 12 goal tender. It's wild to me that any team with real aspirations would have ever gone and gotten him.

And it was funny when the trade happened. And it's, and it's, yeah, I was. going to say in some regards it's sad now because because you're watching it's February 5th Leon Drysito should be pumped up to be the flag bearer for for the German for the German Olympic team in Milan he should be worrying about other things than then Tris and Jari you know laying another stinker down for for that team so it is yeah it's it's it's depressing it's depressing it's pressing in some degree but the problems extend beyond him don't they I mean we got the the Trent Frederick situation where he sees he sees McDavid get

hit and then just does like a drive-by and doesn't address it in any way at all. Trent Frederick gets scratched yesterday, presumably because of, you know, that, that situation. It's, it's a mess. It's, it's a mess in Edmonton. And I don't know, I don't know how many buttons are left to push, Shea, except for maybe the, the Chris, the Chris, the Chris, not black shaped one. Yeah, it feels like there aren't many buttons left to press because they literally jam them all into place with all of the money that they have taken on.

And that's the thing. How many goalies have been moved in, because this is not like, okay, Edmonton needed a goalie this year, all of the sudden, and all of the good goalies are gone. No, no,

no, no, Edmontons needed a goalie for some time. You look at the John Gibson trade, McKenzie Blackwood, Sheelhoffs, Wedgwood, all of these goleys. There's been a ton of movement.

There have been so many different options over time and they're just like, no, no, we're good. The Sabres had a three goalie situation, Maybe you could have gotten something or that. Nope. This was what they chose. And they didn't just choose someone that it's like, okay, for the rest of the year and then figure it out.

It's like, this is what you are committing to. And honestly, you look at it and go, Trish and Jari does not have a playoff record, like, worth betting on because he's either not healthy enough to playing the playoffs or hasn't been good enough. So if the goaltending. Almost single-handly responsible for Pittsburgh losing a playoff series to the Islanders. six years ago or whatever that is. Stuart Skinner can lead the penguins over the islanders this year. This year is we're shaping up to get. I mean,

it would be even funnier because like, listen, is Stuart Skinner chaotic? Yes. Would I rather have watched a jarring skinner crease for the chaos? Because at least there's some upside there. You're like, okay,

sure, but then you have to outscore your problems, right? Like if that's the way you're going to play, and we've seen the oilies play this way for so long, and like the defense can be good, but sometimes they play it really loose And like, it's a lot about the offense.

You got to just outscore all of the chaos. So you say, Injimandrapani, who has not repeated his breakout season from Calgary now, for years. That might as well been a hundred years ago at this point. That feels like it happened in a different lifetime. And he's been on how, you know, multiple teams since moved around the league, still not working. And then the Trim Frederick of it all, they trade for him. That's one thing. Then they commit eight years.

And I get it. The idea is like, if you go eight years, the cap hit will be less. That is a fourth line player. And yes, they tried him with McDavid and Drysad. I remember like in preseason moving here, and it was like, okay, maybe there's potential here you could be that grinder on the line. No, not happening either. And it's like, who could have predicted this?

And now your hands are tied going. Well, he makes so much money. We should, he should be able to work with, with Connor and Leon. Yeah, in theory. Incredible. Nope. Enjoy. Enjoy, enjoy long term of this.

And then you have to buy your way out of contracts. Now it's assets you can't spend. Oh, and as you mentioned, you packaged assets to get your already in the first place. trade for a $5.4 million gold tender, fine. Roll the dice on a gold tender like Tristanjari. Fine. They can't be the same dude. That's what it is.

It was like, yeah, let's throw some spaghetti at the wall in the form of Tris and Jari. Like maybe it works. Like theoretically, fine. Maybe you get a half decent 1B who can win you some games. Those guys shouldn't cost $5.4 million. Go find someone else. give yourself a different option. And I know this is stuff we could have said in December or whenever that was.

But as we all saw coming, it's biting them. I think we did say it then. Yeah, well, yeah, we're just saying it again. We are correct in our analysis. We are right. This is one of the rare occasions where, you know, everybody saw the way this thing was going to go. And it's in its followed script to the T. Okay.

We got Pete Bot coming on. I'm sure you folks have heard this already. There was a little bit of coverage on the site yesterday about it. Artemian traded to Los Angeles, no longer a New York Ranger. Pete Boz is our guy in New York. He's covered this well. We're going to talk to him about all things. Panarin related after the break.

All right, we're back and we're joined by Peter Baugh, New York hockey writer. Writes a little bit about the Rangers, I would say, Pete. I don't. Every once in a while. Can we say that's your focal point, or are we not allowed to lay it on these times? I do, I do, I would say, I certainly write a lot about the Rangers, but then try to write about the New York hockey scene as a whole and, and do some features league-wide along the way. I made some stuff go down in the world of New York hockey yesterday. Obviously, the big Artemian trade.

The Rangers move him to Los Angeles for a pretty underwhelming package of picks. And what the hell was the prospect? name again. I always forgot it. Liam, Liam, Liam Green Tree. And then Panarin, of course, immediately signs an extension with Los Angeles. Pete, we talked about this yesterday on the live stream React, but I think it's worth kind of revisiting again. This is an underwhelming return. And I think that was the overwhelming response whenever the trade went down initially was, is that it? That's what Artemian Fonarine and brought you back. back. That's the topic of your piece that ran this morning. Why did it go down this way? And why was the

return what it was? I think there, if you look at why Panarin didn't get the Rangers more return, the biggest thing is leverage. And Panarin had a full no movement clause, which he negotiated when he signed in July 2019. Chris Dory wasn't the GM at the time. Jeff Gordon was. And I don't think anyone really got hung up on the no movement clause because this was a superstar player who wanted to wanted to come to New York, who other teams wanted, who was willing to sign there for probably less than he could have gotten in other places. And a no movement clause was part of the deal. And that's just how things work. So Panarin and his camp, once it became clear that a trade was going to happen and the Rangers gave them permission to talk to other clubs about extensions,

which was clearly Panarin's preference going into all of this. Panarin, so he goes through all these teams. He presumably talks to a bunch of them. They pick the deal. that they want, the place they want to go that's offering them the extension that they want, and he and his camp choose Los Angeles. So yesterday morning, this is Chris Drury said, late in the morning, the Rangers were informed that the Kings were Panarin's choice. He was only going to wait for there, whether that was yesterday before the 3 p.m. roster freeze or at the March 6th trade deadline. So the Rangers at that point did not have a ton of leverage. They could really only negotiate with the kings.

Now, the one thing, as I write in this story, that Chris Dury did have as a leverage point was time. He could have chosen to wait it out, to tell the kings, look, I'm not going to do this until you give me a little bit more. And maybe that would have worked, and maybe it wouldn't have. Maybe Ken Holland would have called his bluff and said, look, you guys don't want to lose Panarin for nothing. you know that he only is going to come here, this is the best offer we're giving.

I do wonder what happens if they take a little bit more time. Maybe L.A. gets more desperate because they need to get a deal done sooner because they're fighting for their lives in the playoff standings. Or maybe it doesn't and it ends up just the same. I think the Rangers are excited about Green Tree as a prospect. He's a captain in the OHL with Windsor. He was the King's top prospect, which, to be clear, the Kings have a pretty depleted prospect pool. So that's not saying a ton, but he's still on Corey

Prondman's list of top under 23 players. I think he was in the 100s on that list. So he's, he's a legitimate prospect. But yeah, I think when you look at a, you're trading a franchise player and you only get back a decent but not great prospect, someone who's a middle, potentially a like middle six player as well. And then you get a third round pick that maybe becomes a second if the Kings win a playoff series. That's, it does feel a little, um,

a little underwhelming, but I think you can look at a lot of the reasons in it. You kind of see how it got to this point. I, I understand why, um, the, the,

that's just a fact, right? Like the, the Rangers didn't have, didn't have leverage here. I'm, I'm with you on the idea of, the Kings played a night, by the way.

So like, what if they, what if they, what if they lose this game, going to the Olympic break, they're, you know, they have time, Ken Holland and company have time to stew on their placements in the overall state of things. Like, I'm, I'm with you on that.

They, I sure, I get white fanarian wanted, wanted to have this done and dusted before, before the break, but, you know, whatever. I, I, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, is like, as it relates to jury, he didn't have leverage in this. Yes, Jeff, yes, Jeff Gordon gave, gave Panarin the No Movement Clause. That's what you do when you're trying to sign a player

who's going to show up on Hart Trophy ballots, which Artania Panarin did during his time in New York. The overall, what contributed to the Rangers' lack of leverage overall, and Drury's lack of leverage overall was the way this season has gone, though. The lack of leverage doesn't solely stem from the No Movement Clause. a lot of it stems from the overall situation that they're dealing with on on that team from an on eye standpoint from from a cultural standpoint from chris jury tattooing i don't want artemmy panarin any more on on his forehead publicly of a few weeks ago like there is some element of this lack of leverage that's kind of directly created by chris jury so i so and i i'm not saying the year the year that you're uh stating otherwise or or anything but i've

seen that elsewhere where it's like, well, like, what do you want jury to do? It's like, well, he kind of, he kind of made it, he made part of his bed. This, this isn't all in a no movement clause that Jeff Gordon gave to a, you know, a superstar player eight years ago. Can I add to that to the leverage thing of it? Like, what stands out to me, too, is the, the way it's, it's all happened, right? Of the, there's no interest in negotiating here. Artemi Panarin is on the movement. And it's like, well, if you're rebuilding, that would have made perfect sense, right? If the Rangers said this is not a retool to rebuild, every single player on that team basically is like, besides Fox and Shastarkin are on the market. But when you're retooling, you do have to think about it of how quickly are you intending to retool?

And are you going to be better in two years with Panarin on your roster? Because, you know, not a ton of wear and tear on him, some pretty strong comps that point to a more graceful aging curve. Plus, we see what he's doing at this level without much support around. them compare that with like their pipeline, their developmental track record, all of that and go, are they realistically better? Could they move other players and then keep him and be fine? And they were like, no, no, absolutely not. So it like there was no gray.

There were no question marks. Right. This is what they're doing. And it feels like they really did hurt their own leverage in that way. That's the issue is setting the timeline publicly like that. It's like, wow, we actually want to be good in two years. And which again, Shannon, I know that this is what this is what you're saying. You know, the implication there is like, of course we're not going to trade Adam Fox.

Of course we're not going to trade E. Igor Schisturkin. Of course, we're going to be looking for a certain type of player in return, ideally, for our tradable assets. That's the undercurrent to the letter, to the letter part two from Chris Jerry a couple weeks ago. And that's what makes this, that's what drives down the sympathy factor for me pretty seriously. Yeah. Yeah, and they, to be clear, Drury talked last night for the first time since September. He didn't talk initially after the letter came out, but he spoke last night.

And he said, he did say that he didn't put a timeline on any of this. So it's still kind of to me, like, I don't, they can say it's a retool. I'm curious to see how in these next few weeks, how many other trades happen and how much of a retool it is versus rebuild. Because if you start trading off a lot of guys, you can call it. a retool, but it's like, what are we doing? Retool implies something. I know he's not saying, like, hey, we, we want to be challenging for president's trophies by 2028. Like, it's not quite that explicit, but like the retool versus rebuild thing is part of what came back and bid him and contributed to the lack of leverage that created the, the, the circumstances that returned what it returned.

It's giving accelerated rebuild, right? Like, again, part two, accelerated rebuild part two. What is that? What is that? What is that? Will we get a third letter? We can't say accelerated rebuild twice. So, so what do we, how do we, how do we, how do we, how do we classify it? Yeah.

I would also say that one of the other things that contributed to the kind of points of leverage is that the Rangers at the end of January decided to start sitting Panarin for roster management reasons while he was kind of negotiating and talking to teams. And I think you can can look at logical points as to why that makes sense. you don't want him to get hurt, all of those things. But that by doing that and by saying he wasn't going to play before the Olympic break, I think that perhaps set like a kind of quasi deadline of you really want to get this done by the Olympic break if you're going to set a player out for however many games going into the break.

And the Rangers ended up getting it done. And part of me also wonders of like, did the Rangers just want to kind of move past this to to start looking at other business. Because I wrote in this story, I mean, I really, I don't know how much more they were going to extract from the Kings. I think it's possible that if they waited, maybe they get a little bit more, but I don't know if they were going to get a ton more. The big tests are going to be how they handle Trocheque, how they handle Schneider, how they handle Lafranier. These are guys who they do have leverage with and who could bring back pretty prominent returns. And maybe they just wanted to focus on that. Maybe they wanted to get the Panarin thing out of the

way have the tone set and then move forward it'll all it'll all come out in the wash whenever bill garren sends three first rounders and you know a top five prospect back to back to new york for viny trocheck in three weeks like it'll that'll fine it'll be fine it'll it'll it'll even out um well they they they have a chance to to reset here and do like get get some like you said first prospects if if they want to trade trocheck it's still the big question for me is how do you find the kind of high level top six talent? They've compiled some decent player like Green Tree seems like a decent prospect who maybe could be Corey Pranman. I don't know prospects too well, but Corey Pranman, I've read what he's written about him and

described him as a potential middle six player. Those are useful players to have and you need them. But you also need high level skill. And the Rangers system doesn't have a whole lot of that. You have Gabe Perrault who's, I think, shown flashes. this year in his first extended look in the NHL. But you don't have a whole lot of high-end skill. And I think that's going to be a big challenge for Drury going into this next little stretch is identifying players that can bring a bit of that to his team. This is a question for both you guys because I think you're both situated to speak on it.

What kind of player is Artemian in 2026? What kind of player has he been for the Rangers in the last stretch of games? And look, I know two years ago, should have shown up on more MVP ballots than he did. We're past that point now. There's, there's been at least some, some degree of decline in,

in the production there. What kind of player is L.A. getting back and, what, what does he look like, you know, thus far this season with, with New York? I guess,

Shana, we can start with you. I mean, he's still a needle mover. Is he older? Yes. Is the production a little bit slower? Yes.

But you don't know how much of it's the effects of aging versus the context of the situation. It's always hard to extract that, right? And like we see it a lot of like aging vets moving at the deadline. Think of like Claude Jureau. And it was like a similar situation like the productions down in Philly. But here it does feel like he's done a lot with a little despite his surroundings.

Like this is still an elite player in transition. This is still a really dangerous puck mover. He's super dynamic. He's hard to battle off the puck. And some of, you know, his skills age better, right? He's not just a sniper relying solely on a couple shots a game. Like the shot volume has ticked up since he's been in New York. and passers generally age better.

Players who play on the power play, that tends to age better. And when you compare that to what the kings have, they have good defensive structure, but they don't have enough offensive pop. It feels like on paper a perfect match when you take out the ages, right? Because the kings are, that's the whole thing of it. Like, as much as Panarin, everything points to them aging well, when you're a younger roster, I think you can bet on that. And that's why the two-year deal works out a little bit better here for both L.A. and Panarin.

But it feels like he is what that team's been missing offensively. add him into the mix, everyone else jumps down a roll on the depth chart, and it's more fitting for everyone in L.A. How do you like him as a potential line made for Bifield, Jay? I mean, I like that. I do think it'll be interesting to see because he's one of the, Bifield's been one of the better puck movers in L.A. this year. So it's not even a redundancy factor.

It's, is it stacking too much on one line? Yeah, and then the rest lacks. But I would say, why not you have, right? You made the trade now if you're L.A., so you have that extra. weaker so to test things out and figure out where he fits. Like, why not mix a match and see what works? Yeah, I think briefly, because I'm a nerd and remember this stuff, you mentioned he should have appeared on more Hart trophy ballots in 24.

He got fifth that year. Look at the numbers of the four forwards that were above him. I think he was in the right spot. Yeah, that's true. Austin, Austin, he was fifth. He was fifth. Austin Matthews was fourth and he scored six. 69 goals. Here's the way I'm going to wiggle out of that, though. I didn't say he should

have finished higher. I said he should have shown up on more ballots. Those are those are different. That was the toughest year of voting ever. That was like what was. Coutheroff McKinnon, Matthews, McDavid. And then you had to pick a five and it was like Roman Yosey, Sidney Crosby. He should have been, he should have gotten some more, some, throw a few more fifth place votes at him. That's, that's what I'm saying. That's all, that's all slide out of that, out of that take. he had i'm looking at hockey reference though shan and he had more fifth place votes than anyone stop doing this to me pete i'm i'm i told you i made a i took a stand i'm reversing it i would say seasons past he should have gotten more votes have a bet sure yeah there we go i'm i i i couldn't

pass up whatever what else what else what else do you want to say hit us yeah hit us with the final word here then get the hell out of my sight he uh So he started this season really slow. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but his production was really down to start the year. And I think our colleague, Vince McCogliano, talked to him at one point. He mentioned that the contract stuff was kind of weighing on him. And then he shaved his head and for whatever reason,

that sometimes seemed to service some good luck for him. It worked once, it worked twice. Who knows if he needs it again? He knows it's in his back pocket. Exactly. It's kind of like the last ditch effort, I suppose. But he, his production picked up, and I think you look at now. And he was still, I mean, this Reinder's team was, was, has been frankly pretty tough to watch the last little stretch.

But he's, he is still made a difference offensively. And he can, like you said, on the power play, he's, he's a weapon. And I think I want to say Ken Holland on TNT last night, mentioned the, the power play is some, an area they, they see as. Yeah, they're, they're 28th in goals per six. Yeah. They're bottom five, a five on five and on the power play. On both. Tough.

To add to the power play, too, I wonder where he plays there on the power play, because before he came to the Rangers, he always played the left circle. He was a good right-hand-and-drop from there. And then they started him there. He played there with scoring a bunch of then Zabandra was the better fit there. Like, you have a lot of options. Hey, they try. The Rangers had to try him at Power Play quarterback this year on the failed five-forward unit,

so he can really. He made a five-forward unit look bad. I can't believe it. I can't believe But he Yes, he's going to help their power play I think he's still a really effective player Like he's gonna finish

I mean he's now his games played or down Because he set out the last few But like I don't know the point pace Off the top of my head But I would guess it was around 90 points By the time of the trade And I think that's kind of what he probably is at this point He maybe isn't an 100 point guy anymore

Maybe not a 120 point guy But I think he's someone who can give you 30 goals and 90 points points and that's a really valuable player. Is he valuable enough? What are the Kings at? 61 points? I mean,

that's the most interesting part of this. What's tough of that is like if they get in, they're going to have to probably play Colorado in the first round and that's not a really fun matchup. And so does Panarin put the Kings into a place where they can contend with the best teams in the West, the Colorado is the Dallas is? I kind of struggle to see it. But he helps, and they got some term with the two-year deal.

And I was a little surprised, honestly, with some of the numbers that were being thrown around by the insiders of what Panarin was looking for. The fact that it only ended up being a $22 million extension was a little interesting to me. And I wonder if other teams offered more in terms of years, and he decided to kind of go the shorter term. route and then try and get one more deal in a couple years. It's just interesting that if you're signing with L.A., that's the one thing, right? Because he's the top region winger still in the market.

Like, he's still, that's why like the leverage two of it all, it's like the Rangers had none, but it's like any team that's interested in signing him, this is your shot. But if you're him realistically, do you commit four years to L.A.? Do you commit six years to L.A.? and think that's where you're ending your career? I, who's in if you're L.A., the flip side of the coin is like, Like, if I'm Ken Holland, I'm like, okay, this is, this is fine. I feel better about signing a 35-year-old Artami Panarin for two years versus seven or whatever. Like, I think, I think the contract weirdly makes sense for both, for both sides. And he played his first game in a King's Jersey tonight, I believe.

No. No. It's not after the break. I've been corrected all over the place here. You know, I would have been fun because there's no other league game. Like, that would have been like Vegas, L.A. Let's cook. No.

Boring. Boring, boring, boring. So we do have to wait until after the break to see our Timmy Pinarian at King's Jersey, but hey, he gets to try to house hunt, I guess, over the Olympic break. And that's really all that matters. Pete, thank you for your time, man. We'll talk to soon. Yeah, appreciate you guys.

All right, folks, we're back. Thank you, Pete. We love Pete. Do we love Pete? Do you like Pete? Do you like Pete? You know what? This is the time I'm going to say, I'm like, I hate him.

Yes, we love him. He's not listening to this. We're going to do a quick little news lap here because there is stuff that we need to talk about. Gavin McKenna was charged with felony assault yesterday in Pennsylvania. McKenna is at one point was certainly the presumptive number one pick in the upcoming NHL draft. He's still one of the very tippy top prospects. Shane, I was on this last night, so I had the pleasure of a... trying to track down police and state college and what have you state college

Pennsylvania police department they uh they go to answering machines at five o'clock at the test there that was pretty fun um it's we need it's a developing situation with with with Gavin McKenna and it's certainly a serious one the the felony charges stemmed from an incident uh where he allegedly punched him in twice put him in a situation where he needed some facial surgery. It was in a bar district after their outdoor game. Last Saturday, there are certainly other details that have yet to be confirmed or yet to be released. It's developing, but what's clear is that this is a major problem for Gavin Kenna.

Because felony assault charges, like the one he's facing in the state of Pennsylvania are punishable by up to 20 years in jail. So we'll see how it shakes out. There's certainly a lot of legal maneuvering to be done. he's going to be in court next week for his preliminary hearing. We'll see how things go from there. The upshot is that this is a serious roadblock for Gavin McKenna. And it's not something that's going to go away particularly quick.

The final form got to wait and see. But this is a very, very real issue clearly because it is felony assault. Yeah. This was a shocker. Like it's easy to get the jokes off of like, I would, I would choose that over going to the Vancouver Connects first overall too. Like I get all those out there. But I'm like, I was glad. I was glad I had to do work stuff for this.

So I didn't have to just watch the same jokes getting made over and over and over again on Twitter. Because that's really, that's really, that's really fun thing that happens now. Whenever any hockey player is involved with anything of that type. There's five different jokes. And the dumbest people on the dumbest people on. the dumbest people on earth take, take turns making them. So that's,

that's the upshot. But yeah, got to wait and see on that. Court date on February 11th, I believe, and we'll see what comes out of it. One of the plays that stood out from last night, Shana,

was in Bruins, Panthers, the, the Sanisville and his elbow to the head of Charlie McAvoy. I saw that live. I'm wondering, I'm wondering,

if you did too. My first reaction was, oh my God. happened to Charlie McAfee again because he's had such bad luck with injuries overall, had such bad luck at Four Nations. My immediate thought was, this dude is concussed, A, and B, he is going to miss the Olympics. Now, thankfully, he came back during the game.

It seems like he's fine. Didn't speak post game, but all signs point to, you know, point in positive directions there. Was that the worst elbow you've seen in the game all season long? Because I'm kind of, I can't think of anything that topped it from our guy, from our Sanis Villamontas. Yeah. Like my first thought was like, can we get, can someone please ship Charlie McAvoy,

a giant thing of stage? Like I don't understand what's going on with this like injury luck. It's awful. But that, I did not like the elbow. And what I did not like most of all was that the Florida Panthers ended up with a power playover and I'm watching this happen. Isn't that incredible? It's something.

And I'm watching it live and you hear the broadcast say he lost his balance. And I'm thinking, I too would lose my balance if I was elbowed in the face. I would definitely lose my balance, but not to. Yeah. If someone hits you in the head with a baseball bat, you might lose your balance. Yeah. What gets me is there is a system in place.

Now, is the system properly used all the time? No, we see it all the time where it's like, look, we're going to review this and still come up with the wrong call. And that is aggravating enough. But when something like that happens, I don't know how you don't just, like, especially you see a player on this. it's right we say it we hear it all the time that injuries are not what's going to decide things it's just it makes it ups the severity of things right when the department of player safety looks at it but when you

see a player on the ice is your gut reaction not maybe we should take a look at this maybe we should stop things go through the review because i saw a player leaving his feet with the elbow up very intentionally i saw a player who is an NHL hockey player and i'm sure has understands like how has control over the situation and that he could have avoided McAvoy. This was not a, this collision had to happen type thing that it's like, it just, that was a reactionary thing. Like, it looked a little bit intentional to me. And I think upon review, you should have seen that if somehow you missed it at first pass.

There are elbowing minor penalties for a reason. Like they, like they exist. It's a, it's a call that's made and it's a call that's made appropriately, right? that was on one of them. That was nasty and should have at minimum cost them a whole lot more. It should have cost them too much. There's no way on earth we should be talking about the Florida Panthers going to. That should have been just taken off the board there.

It's going to 5,000 of a day. The same amount you get for showing your middle finger on a broadcast, by the way. you should have come on last week for that it was my moment i really i've never enjoyed a story more we should have me and mac and you should have kicked off frankie and had you had you on in his place i'm going to say here with my middle fingers up the whole time and then we could not show this broadcast to children what are we what are we going to do what are what will the children well all those little children who looked at william neilander for guidance what's what's going to happen to them She, I think this might be the last time we talked before the Olympics.

So let's close out with this. I want to pre- The Olympics literally are start, are you talking, the, the Olympics. The Olympic men's, the Olympic men's. Did the puck, well, yeah, did the puck drop yet? Not yet. Okay, so I'm technically right. Certainly the last time we'll talk before the women's tournament.

Probably the last time we'll talk before men's. Give me a hot take. Any hot take we'll do. I want to know the hill, the Olympic hill that you're going to die on here. Checkia is winning a medal. Oh! But I feel like everyone has... You know, we have to do those bold predictions.

And I wrote up something. I'm like, that's going to be mine. And then there were two already that were that. And I'm like, maybe that's like a vanilla prediction now. No, no, no. I think it counts. She could say Czechia silver medal. How about Czech is going to win two medals?

That I am very here for. I don't know what it is about Team Chequia. Maybe it is because I am Czech. And it's rare. I get to root for my, like, a country that is mine in something. but they're like my favorite little disruptors. And it's like that playing style on the women's side is so much fun that I'm like, yes, this is the team we need. But on the men side now, I'm like, all right, let's see what they can do.

Like, Czechia silver medal? Who says no? We love it. Welcome back to international hockey, David Posternak. Thank you very much. And thank you, Shana. And thank you, Peter Baugh, wherever you are. Who we love, we don't hate.

Thanks to you. fun folks for watching and listening to this episode of the athletic hockey show. Max, Laz, and Jesse have the next one that's on Monday. They're going to preview Team USA, Shannon's beloved Czechia, Sweden, potentially more. Frankie McIndoo and I are getting Canada, Finland, and Slovakia in a special Tuesday edition of the Athletic Cocky Show ahead of the Winter Olympics. So that's what's going on. Again, we appreciate you listening and watching and however you can.

consume this. Have a great weekend.