The Athletic Hockey Show - Ducks push Oilers to the brink as McDavid decision looms

Episode Date: April 27, 2026

The Anaheim Ducks pushed the Edmonton Oilers to the brink of elimination on a controversial overtime goal to end Game 4, taking a commanding 3-1 series lead. The guys wonder about Connor McDavid’s future in Edmonton and discuss the poise shown by the Ducks so far. Plus, The Athletic’s own Arpon Basu joins the show to talk about the razor-close Montreal Canadiens-Tampa Bay Lightning series and the guys recap the action from the rest of the Stanley Cup playoffs, including a Colorado Avalanche sweep of the Los Angeles Kings, Brady Tkachuk’s future in Ottawa after a Carolina Hurricanes sweep of the Senators, and more.Hosts: Max Bultman and Jesse GrangerWith: Arpon BasuExecutive Producer: Chris FlanneryProducer: Chris FlanneryWatch 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. Hey, everybody, Max Boltman here alongside Jesse Granger for another episode of The Athletic Hockey Show. We got a ton to get to after a great weekend of hockey. Arpin Bass, who's going to join us on a little bit to talk Habs Lightning, what I think has been the best series of the first round so far. But first, Jesse, we got to start with last night's late game, an overtime game between the Oilers and the Ducks. We get a little playoff controversy.

I think this is pretty clearly a puck over the line. but the angle on Ryan Payling's game-winning goal obscures it a little bit, and nonetheless, that is a goal, and it is a 3-1 lead for the Anaheim Ducks. Yeah, what a wild game, and it got the finish that it deserved in terms of the craziness. It was an overtime playoff goal, right? I mean, it is as ugly as you can get, but yeah, and, like, I also think that just the fact that there's so much gray area in the NHL's rules, on this exact situation, that it's why there was so much controversy around that, because I think everyone watching the game agrees, even if you're an Oilers fan, you agree, the puck was over the line.

The only drama is in the way that the rules are worded and the way that the burden of proof on the replay is so not explained in the rulebook. Like I was searching, I'm sitting here in my hotel room in Salt Lake City watching that game. the game ends. I've read through the rulebook page after page after page. There's like three pages on the reviews. There is nothing that explicitly says whether it's like, do you have to see, like have 100% proof that the puck is in? Or is it, do we just go with the call on the ice? And then there's the whole, there was no referee around the net when they called it. They didn't call it a goal on the ice for a good minute. They got together and talked about it. Yeah.

And so then you wonder like, okay, so is the call on the ice, is that someone in their ear telling them that they saw it cross? Is that the reaction from the ducks players? Paling was acting like he scored. The crowd was acting like he scored. I don't know. There's a lot of gray area and drama in this. And I understand why Oilers fans could be upset. But at the end of the day, everyone does agree that that puck was definitely in the net.

Yeah. I mean, this is something that kind of always comes up where it's like you're looking for the technicality. And by the time you're looking for the technicality, I think you know the situation here. But it is interesting because this is the second time this playoffs that I almost wonder if a player's reaction signaling goal kind of swayed the ref a little bit. I felt that way about the Kachuk goal that ultimately was overturned, the great save by Freddie Anderson at the glove in the post where he kind of pinned it in game one of that series. I felt like Brady's signaling goal got the ref to signal goal. And I felt that way with this one with like Palin signals and paling signals. and the ref behind the net,

he looks like he's saying no goal there. Right. But then, you know, they, they after, like you said, a minute or whatever it was, call it goal on the ice, which is always interesting to me, like how can they say,

this is the call on the ice when we have video of what you were calling in the moment? I guess they can kind of get together and work those things out. But that ball being said, unless the puck was shaped like a Heinz ketchup bottle, it was in the net. So they got the call right at the end of the day.

Whatever path to get there, and I get it, there's a procedure element to this, but the puck was in the net. Right. The problem I have with it, though, in this one, it's pretty clear that it's in, but we're inevitably going to have another one of these eventually in the playoffs. And here's the problem I have with it. That Carolina Ottawa goal, we couldn't see the puck because it's in Freddie Anderson's glove. And Dave Jackson, former NHL ref, who's the rules analyst. for ESPN said while we're watching that replay. I went back to that broadcast and watched it last night.

And Dave Jackson said, it doesn't matter what the call on the ice was. The call on the ice is irrelevant. All that matters is can you for sure tell that the puck is in the net on the replay? And if you can't, it's not a goal. And they ended up calling that not a goal. Then last night, I feel like everyone, and this isn't just people on like fans on Twitter. This is reporters on Twitter are saying like, well, it has to be indisputable. It has to be indisputable.

And they couldn't, they didn't have indisputable proof that it wasn't a goal. And the call on the ice was a goal. So it stood. And it's like, well, those two things can't both be true. One of those things is not true. And I was actually interacting with Dave Jackson already this morning on Twitter. And he said, well, they saw it wasn't, they saw it was in the net. So they counted it.

It's like, okay. But the way they got there is important. Even though, okay, it's not a, it's a goal. It should be a goal. they got the call right. The Ducks should have won the game. But we're going to have one of these a couple nights. Like, you know what's going to happen. These procedures are important. The fact that it doesn't say it in the rulebook and the fact that even the rules analyst is like kind of contradicting. Like, I don't know what to do with these. And we're going to have another one of these.

And I don't know, we're all just going to be arguing with each other again. It was messy. I mean, I would love to hear from the fans on this one. If you guys, those of you watch it on YouTube, or I think you can comment on our app. But I'm curious to hear from people, what you thought of this goal, obviously, but more so the kind of the procedural element of how it came to be. I am very curious from a fan perspective, how everybody feels about that one. The game itself, though, Jesse, I thought was still a really good game. I mean, it's another overtime game. We've had plenty of them.

I think we've kind of been spoiled in this first round of the playoffs with them. Edmonton early on, I thought it was a statement start for them. Kind of, you know, Tampa, I thought, you know, dug themselves a hole and then kind of showed their metal. Edmonton, I felt like kind of showed their metal from puck drop in this one. and then Anaheim just kind of fights back. And that's what really amaze me is how, like, that should be a really, and granted they're at home, but it should be a really intimidating spot to be in for the Anaheim ducks to go down to the Oilers early.

I was so impressed with how Anaheim reacted. This is a team that is super young that they're top. Now, they've got playoff experience on the back end, especially with like Truba and Carlson. I mean, yeah, Carlson. but they're top guys, the other Carlson and Gautier and these guys at Lecombe, there's no playoff experience there. And like you said, you fall behind to Edmonton. It feels like this is going to be a 2-2 series going back to Edmonton.

And all of a sudden, we're all thinking the Oilers are going to win this thing. And they just kept answering. And this Ducks team, I think we're seeing them grow before our eyes. Like we are watching this team figure it out in, like in the middle of this series. Even early in the series, it looked like they were kind of rattled early in game one. And this team is growing up and they have the talent. If they feel comfortable on the ice and they can play to their best of their ability, this team has the talent to win the series.

They do have some very good vets here. Like, I mean, we talk about Anaheim because of how dynamic and exciting their young guys are. Leo Carlson, Beckett, Seneca, Jackson, Lecombe is still a very good vets here. a young player, Cutter Gautier, all like stars, excellent players. Alex Couloran has been there, done that. Chris Crichter's been there, done that. Jacob Trubas has been there, done that, and John Carlson has been there, done that. And of course, the guy behind the bench has been there, done that.

Like, this is a very well-balanced mix of the young, next wave, don't know any better guys who are just laying it on the line, and the guys who have really been there and kind of know how to play in these moments. Yeah. Leo Carlson's been so good. Amazing. He hasn't been the goal. score. Like, it's usually him setting someone else up, but he just controls the puck when he's

out there. Like, he is all over the place. And when the puck is on his stick, it's dangerous. Like, he, he has been so good. It seems like Connor McDavid must be some kind of injured. But also, it really speaks to how good Leo Carlson is how little we've talked about, I mean, we've talked about McDavid plenty in the series, but it hasn't been in the context we usually would. Like, McDavid has not been able to take over the series. And I give Leo Carlson a lot of the credit for that. Yeah. So I like watch these games back, but like last night was the first live one I've watched because they're always playing at the same time the Golden Knights, Utah series is going on. So I'm usually just seeing on Twitter and like this is my life.

The Oilers play at the same time as the Golden Knights most nights like for nine years. And I am my life is checking Twitter and seeing ridiculous stats about Connor McDavid. Like that every game I'm covering, I look on Twitter and there's another stat about how amazing Connor McDavid is. this series, it's been Connor McDavid's a minus 13 in his last 10 playoff games. It's like it's the other way around. I'm seeing these. It's so odd to see negative stats about how bad it's been for Connor McDavid. And like he's still probably their best player on the ice.

Like this isn't to say he's been terrible, but it certainly isn't going the way we're used to for the best player in the world. No. And, you know, I think he's going to find a way here to, you know, it's 3.1. I don't know that I'm saying that Mitt is going to. find a way to back and win this series. But McDavid's going to find a way to leave a stamp. I mean, he's shown us that time and time again when the chips are down. That is who he is. And I'm sure that there's some kind of the way he, the way he's talked so far. Like, it does make it

seem like he must be playing through something. He left that one game with the injury, right? And then he came back and he has that turnover. And it wasn't just the turnover. It was the turnover. And then he didn't even really like try to skate after the guy and they go down and score. It looked like an injured player. Yeah, and then that's what I mean. I know he's not right. I still think he's going to kind of find a way to to leave a stamp on this series. I just don't know.

Like, you run out of runway fast. You get down three to one and like, now you got to sweep them and you might be able to. Like I think at the start, I thought this was like a five game series. So by that logic, you're going to have to win three games in a row at some point. And that can still happen here.

But now the ducks have confidence. And they have, you know, they have the feeling of having him on the ropes. And by the way, Dostal, I know he hasn't been perfect in this series, the save that he's,

he made on McDavid last night. That's the kind of thing that locks a goalie in for the rest of the series and maybe longer. The toe stretch. Yeah. And it's like I actually said this in like game two because I thought Connor Ingram was playing well at that time. And I said it to somebody, I'm like, we have to judge these goalies in the series by like Grant Fure standards.

Like the standard of like back when hockey was. Yeah. Well, like it's like it's like the safe percentages are going to be ugly. They're going to start with an eight. They're going to start with an eight. mate, we need you to make one more save than that guy. And Dostall did that last night. And he's done that consistently for this team in the series.

Like neither of the, and the Oilers goalies haven't. And to me, that's a big part of the story is Stuart Skinner, for all his faults, got the job done in the playoffs. And Connor Ingram clearly didn't. And Tristan Jari last night obviously didn't. And he started out pretty good, though. Like that was the thing. After a period, you were like, oh, Jari's going to have one of those kind of revenge games. And I don't, I didn't think he was all.

awful. But, you know, in the end, it just wasn't enough of a, it wasn't that different from Ingram, frankly. Right. He was fine. And then, and then the last goal is like, is it really his fault? Like, it's bad luck. It goes off this guy in front and then it slips underneath him. But it's also, like, man, how many times have we, like, I feel like we've seen Tristan Jari give up that kind of goal in the playoffs so many times before. And it's just like it just takes you back to, they traded Stuart Skinner, who has a history of being good in the playoffs for a guy. who when he gives up that goal, we all say like, oh, yeah, that's Tristan Jari that gave up. Like, that's what he does.

Like, it's, it's, I don't know. I think they really screwed the pooch on that trade. Well, and the goalie situation has been such a big part of not just the Oilers lore, but the reason that people think, you know, that McDavid's future there could be because they haven't shown a path toward having. And that's not just they haven't had one. It's they haven't shown a path toward having one. And the Jari trade seemed to be the kind of last gas, maybe not last, but a last

ditch for this season effort to try to get one for these playoffs. If it doesn't work with him, like, I feel bad saying like, oh, McDavid's going to leave because the goal he's not good enough or whatever. But that is kind of the underlying message of the contract that he signed is like there's a little bit of a prove it element to this. The Oilers have not proved it in that way. And I don't want to take McDavid out of that because like I said, I don't think he's had his best series to this point either.

But it's part of it. Yeah. And they're going to have, like, if they go out in this series, it's, there are major question marks for this team. If the goalie, if Jari or Ingram, I wouldn't be, I wouldn't be surprised if they go back to Ingram, but if one of those guys wins three games in a row, and then all of a sudden, you're feeling totally different about it. But if they go out in this series, there are major question marks about this team.

And not just the goalies, but their depth has gotten worse each year over the last couple years. The depth certainly isn't as good as it was last year when, when they kind of, were a strength for this team, I thought. Yeah, it's interesting. The ducks look great. The Oilers look bad, but this is the Stanley Cup playoffs. Things change quick.

I mean, you can hindsight all day, but it's like the Holloway-Broeberg wave. That was supposed to be the depth that would sustain. And it's panned out to a place that it absolutely would have. And we can hindsight it because we know what happened. It's, you know, that's the one that's going to haunt them here. But you're right. Like the depth is thinned out and worse than that, I think some of the key pieces like, you know, Darnel Nurse, Matias Echolm, like these guys are only going to get older. And you're not relying on those pieces to win the Stanley Cup.

You're relying on the big guns and Hyman and Nugent Hopkins as is kind of the complementary pieces. But the more of those guys lose even a step, obviously Bouchard, the more that those other guys lose even a step, the harder it is to see the path. You get to kind of where they were three, four years ago instead of where. where they've been the last two years. Yeah, and like in Darno Nurse's case, like, I'd argue based on his contract, he's one of the big guys. And like, we have kind of like accepted that he's not going to live up to that contract and that he's not. Like Evan Bouchard's clearly the top defenseman on his team. We see Nurse as a depth piece, but he's getting paid like he's one of the guys that's got to be awesome for this team.

And they need him to, to return that value. Edmonton, you think Forrest is a game six here at minimum? Yes, I do. I had Edmonton in seven. I don't think I'm picking Edmonton in seven at this point, but I do think, I don't think they're going to go out in a whimper. I think this team's going to fight back. Yeah.

One team who is out now is the Los Angeles Kings. They get swept by the Colorado Avalanche. It is the end for Anzee Kopitar. We'll get to Kopitar in a second here, but this just looked like the prohibitive favorite Colorado Avalanche cutting through a team that I thought gave it their best fight. I mean, I thought L.A., they kept these games close. They played mostly their style of hockey, but the avalanche looked pretty comfortable playing it and found away every single time. Yeah, and it just tells you how good this Aves team is that the Kings didn't, like, come out here and turn the puck over a bunch.

Like, they were smart with the puck. They forced Colorado to go through all of, like, you're going to go 200 feet. You're going to go through all five of us if you're going to score. And Colorado was like, that's fine. We'll just do that. I mean, they're so good. This King's team has been eliminated in the first round a million times, but it has never looked like this.

Like they have given the Oilers troubles in those series. Even though they always end up losing, they gave Colorado very little trouble in this series. Even with like, like I thought Anton Forsberg was great for L.A., especially early, the first couple games, it was like, okay, can he make this a series? The answer is no.

Colorado's too good. Well, it's not like Colorado has any of these like gaudy stat lines so far. So like you're looking at it and you're like, oh, well, it's not like one player, but they just, they're the better team. And they're, you know, the series that sets up next round, Colorado and whoever comes out of Minnesota, Dallas might end up being the best series we get in these playoffs. I know everyone has their thoughts on the playoff format. Personally, I am enjoying having a really good series like that in the first round.

But I do get it because it certainly feels like that that series could be to decide the Western conference and it could happen in the second round. On the L.A. side of things, to me, like the story is Copatar. And there's a little bit of where does L.A. go from here because of losing Copatar, and maybe we can touch on that. But just one of the great ambassadors for the sport, one of the great two-way centers, one of the great leaders, one of the great winners that we've seen of this era. Yeah, you nailed it. I mean, Copatar is, he's just been such a great player in this league for so long. And I feel like even though he's been getting his flowers from people, he's still a little underrated. Like, I don't think we fully appreciated how great of a player he was off the puck and what he meant for that franchise.

guys. It's going to be tough to replace him for the Kings moving forward. It's going to feel like a different team without Kopitar on it. I feel like the Kings have been the Kings as long as we've known them, and it's going to look like a different team. And Quentin Byfield looked like he was going to take steps this year. I think maybe he didn't quite elevate his game the way we fully expected him to. But he's going to need to moving forward for if the Kings are going to remain a playoff team. I think it's common for Byfield, but the problem is like there's no replacing Copatar barring the miraculous, right? And so like, yeah, he didn't have a huge offensive season this year,

but he remains like one of the better defensive checking players in the world. And he's a hard matchup. To me, the way you go from here if you're L.A. is you kind of have to take a step back into the darkness for at least a year. And then you're probably trying to position yourself to take a run at David or Matthews, if they come loose because you know you have, you can sell the appealing destination. You know, the trade packages for them to put together. frankly, a little tough.

They could get a little easier if they did have a year in the dark and you can come out of next year with like a top eight, nine pick that you can dangle in trade considerations. But that to me is like if you're L.A., if you're one of these big markets, L.A., New York, like you take one year back and then you try to position yourself to use your geography as a huge selling point. I love it. It kind of sounds like the NBA, like when the stars are becoming, like teams are trying to position themselves for the star.

And like, honestly, if there's. one thing hockey could like take from the NBA to like it's it's the NBA is almost more fun during the off season than it is during the during the season and like if hockey gets to that point sign me up and that like just hearing you talk about it it sounds like that it's going to be a fun couple of years well don't take the regular season is lame part from right right just just keep your good regular season keep your very good playoffs add the super exciting off season ideally that that'd be my for sure all right let's say a quick break right there we're going to come back, Arpin Basu is going to talk to us about Habs Lightning. That was another banger yesterday.

All right, we are back and we are joined now by Arpin Basu covering what I think has been maybe the most exciting series of this first round, Montreal and Tampa Bay. First three games I'll go to overtime and Arpin, game four might as well have gone to overtime. It was that tense, that tight in the third period. Yeah, 100%. Like, honestly, there's not a lot to differentiate the two teams at this point. You know what I mean? It's, there were all one goal games. Obviously, an overtime goal game is going to be a one goal game, but yeah, scoring with less than five minutes left in regulation to go up a goal in game four and really breathe new life into the Lightning Series chances.

You know, it would have been tough going down 3-1, going back home. They make a 2-2. This series from the very first minute of it seemed like it was going to go 7. Now it only seems like it's going to go 7 even more. You know, but I think a really big test here for the Canadians, like Tampa made adjustments in game four, really significant adjustments, you know, gutsy adjustments by John Cooper, I thought, because they could not afford to go down 3-1. And now Montreal, Martin-S-Louis is under the gun a bit to fix some things because when your top line who's been so dominant all year as being outscored

four-nothing at five-on-five, four games in, that's not going to get it done in the playoffs. And he's going to need to find a solution for that pretty fast. You obviously cover the Canadians primarily, but let's start with Tampa really quick here, because Brandon Hagel's been the most impactful player in these playoffs so far. Certainly if you look at the goal column, he's been living around the crease, and he's obviously a huge part of that comeback yesterday in the third period. What can Montreal do to find an answer to him and how successful he has been? I mean, you hit it.

They can't let him live in their crease, which he's done. And it's not even that he's going in there and like physically dominating them in front of the net. He is very deftly in an almost sly way, just taking different routes to get there, timing his arrival really well. Like it's, you know, he's, he's doing it with guile. He's doing it with intelligence and hockey sense. He's not doing it, you know, he's not a physically imposing man. He's just a super intense, somewhat violent individual who's really, really smart. And they need to do a better job of keeping him away from that net front area because both his goals last night came in the crease.

I mean, he was in the crease. And he had every right to be there. The Canadians have to make it so he's not there. And you can't have a guy standing in front of your own net on the powerplay and not have his stick tied up. Like, that's just inexcusable. You can't have that happen. And it's happened multiple times in this series, not just with him, but on the powerplay in general, that was, you know, the second time a goal like that was scored in this series. and that can't happen.

And the winning goal, you know, everyone could call it a lucky bounce. Kane and Gully referenced after the game, you know, like maybe next time we shouldn't let a guy score off his face. Well, there's a reason he scored off his face is because he's standing in your crease. Like get him out of your crease. Like that's how you prevent that?

And so yeah, and I thought how many coaches when you have the NHL's leading playoff goal score would take that leading playoff goal score, take him off his line and put him on another line to get that other line going, and then have that work in a critical game for situation. Like that's playoff experience. Like that's John Cooper being the longest tenured coach in the NHL.

Like that was a really gutsy move on his part and it worked out beautifully for him. Part of the reason this time of year is so great is because I feel like things just change so fast. I mean, at one point it's 2-0-0-Montreal. It looks like they're going to go up 3-0. The building's rocking. And then it's just like, it changed so fast. There was the hit on Slavkovsky. all of a sudden it's 2-2, Tampa wins home ice back.

It felt shocking to me. This is the youngest team in the playoffs. How do you think Montreal is going to handle this? Do you think it felt as shocking to them as it did to me watching on TV? It had to, right? Yeah, I think so. I mean, the way that second period ended, for sure, you know, they were a minute away, less than a minute away,

from being up to nothing going into the third period of game four with a chance to go up 3-1 in the series. All of a sudden it's 2-1. they almost give up the tying goal even after Gensel scores with less than a minute left to make it that would have tied it. So they were kind of reeling a little bit and Tampa's going back to their room, feeling really good about themselves. But yeah, so it does change quick.

And, you know, I think this series has been full of little learning moments for the young Canadians, including their young coach who's only coaching in his second playoff series. And there's a lot to learn. Tampa Tampa was the more desperate team in game four and down to nothing that late in the second period something had to give and you know props to Max Crozier like that gave you know

that fired up their bench like in a big way and you know that was about a year after almost exactly a year after Tom Wilson just crushed Alex Carrier in game four last year on that same ice surface a game that ultimately the Capitals won and that hit was seen as the turning point in the series. Similarities are not that, you know, the Canadians are not down 3-1.

It's 2-2. Like, it's not exactly the same thing, but the similarities were very hard to ignore last night. And the fact that the Canadians seemed a little shell-shocked by that hit and gave up the goal after. And, you know, it's not, it wasn't a direct correlation because a year ago, everyone just stopped playing because they assumed Wilson was getting a penalty. And while they stopped playing, the capitals literally went in the, scored, like it's at that on that shift. But, you know, that's something they can't, they can't allow, they can't just give up momentum that easily, like one hit and momentum's gone, you know, and that's what, you know, young teams have to learn that. Coming into this series, I think the way I saw it

going was Tampa had all the talent to cancel out Montreal's stars. And I certainly thought this was going to go seven games, but that they would go blow for blow with the stars. And then Tampa's depth would kind of be enough to carry the day. What I've been interested in, though, Arpin, is that I think Montreal's depth has showed up more than I expected. You know, Texia had a big goal. Doc. Zach Bullduke scores a big one yesterday. And Montreal's big guns have delivered, right?

Slavkovsky has the hat-trick in game one. Lane Hudson has an overtime winner. Cole Cawfield obviously gets on the board yesterday. But at five-on-five, that big line, the Suzuki line with the Slavkovsky and Caulfield, has really been kept in check it. And Montreal's depth has done, I think, enough to give them a chance to win this series. They just got to get, is it fair to say they just, if the big line can score a five-on-five, That's the path here now.

Oh, 100%. The depth has done its job. It's allowed them to get to this point tied 2-2. Like if you had said before the series, the Canadians' top line would have a 38% expected goal rate and would be outscored 4-0 at 5-on-5 through four games. I would have told you the Canadians have been swept. Yeah, that's it.

The series is over, you know, but it's not. It's 2-2. So that's the kind of the silver lining here is for, is the Canadians, they have a lot more to give. Like, they've gotten nothing from that top. And it's not fair. They've gotten no production from that top line, you know? Like, but there is something to say, there is something to be said about, you know, canceling out the other team's top line.

And the further down the lineup, you go, like, this is not new in a playoff series where the top lines cancel each other out. Maybe the second lines do the third. And the Canadians haven't gotten anything from their top six, really, because the Demidov line, which is currently has Capannon and Newhook hasn't given them a whole lot either. So it's really been the bottom six for the Canadians that's done the bulk of the heavy lifting here. You have to imagine the Canadians are not going to win this series unless that Suzuki line puts its stamp on it at five on five. Getting outscored four nothing in four games and having a 38% expected goal rate is not going to get it done. And so I'm going to be very interested from about mid-November until the trade deadline. Uri Slavkov

on a line separate from Suzuki and Caulfield. Alex Texier had a lot of success with those two guys playing, kind of complimenting them. And Slavkowski became the player you see today and the player you saw at the Olympics. He became that

largely due to the responsibility he felt to drive that line and he became a driver because he got away from Suzuki and Caulfield. He wasn't deferring to anyone anymore. He took charge of that line. So Marty has a very strong sample size of knowing that something else works. What he's been trying so far in his top six has not worked.

And objectively, there's no way you can argue that it has, other than the fact that defensively, they've been pretty decent. If they want to get some offense, that's an option that's just sitting there. And, you know, we were talking to, a lot of people were talking to Slavkovsky about that time when he was with Demidov on a second line. It was with Capandon as well. And he talked, he said all the things that I just said, you know, gave me confidence.

It did blah, blah, blah. At the end, he kind of smiled. He said, and you never know when we might see it again. And then he just kind of looked up and you're like, what are you talking about? And sure enough, here we are four games in. It's two, two. Cooper made a very gutsy adjustment. I think it might be time for Martin San Luis to make a gutsy adjustment of his own.

I was messaging you yesterday about the goal. and Jacob Dobish and how great he's been. I was going to have a story that ran this morning. It's going to run here in the next couple days on Dobish and what he's done. But what have you seen? He's a young goalie. He's got Vasilevsky staring at him 200 feet down the rink. And I think he's at least matched Vasilevsky, if not outplayed him. What have you seen from him and the confidence he's given these guys? The goalie situation has kind of been in flux all year. He really took control of it down the stretch. And he's been solid for him. Yeah, I mean, you know, my big thing when San Montaumbo was trying to figure it out was like he has to figure it out because going into the playoffs with a rookie tandem, let alone a rookie starter, is not a recipe for success.

You know, you can count on one hand and you wouldn't even use up all the fingers the number of times a rookie goalie has led an NHL team on a long playoff run. It's not very common. But so far, and Dobesh was talking about Vaselowski on the other side, and he mentioned how he's beaten him the last two times they faced each other in the regular season, and how that took a bit of the aura off of Vaselowski for him. So, you know, in terms of goal saved above expected, it's basically every game, they've alternated wins and losses. So every time you look at that list, either Dobesh is won ahead of Vaselowski or Vaselisky's

won ahead of Dobesh depending on the day that you check it. But they're both, they've both basically hovering around zero, right? They're hovering around, they're saving the shots they're supposed to save, which if you're Vasilevsky, maybe you're a little disappointed with, but if you're Dobesh, or if you're looking at Doebesh, and he's a rookie, this is his first real time as the starter. He played in the playoffs last year after Montaumbo got hurt, but this is, he entered as a number one. That's a whole different mindset. I think he is, he is played up to expectation. I mean, he's, he's, last night, he was a little bit, there were times last night where

he was sliding outside his crease and he found himself, he was swimming a little bit. And I was like, oh, that's some vintage dovet there. Like, that's, that's the stuff that he got out of his game. But, you know, I can't put any of the goals on him that were scored. I mean, maybe you'd like a save on the Gensel shot at four on four, but that was just a hell of a pass by Moser. And it was on Gensel sticking off immediately. Like, I don't know how you make.

that, like, I can't put any of the goals last night. And frankly, I can't think of maybe the Hegel goal in game three. Softie. Yeah, that was a softie, but not too many softies coming from Jakub Dobesh. And that's pretty much all you could have asked. Like, that's all you could have asked for if you were the Canadians. It's for Dobesh to make the saves he's supposed to make. And he's done that for sure.

All right, we got to let Arpin go. He's got some pressers to get to here this morning. Arpin, thanks for joining us and keep enjoying the platonic ideal of a playoff series there. Yeah. All right. have a good one. You too. A lot of good stuff there, Jesse.

I mean, this has been to me. It's the tightness of the games, the back and forthness of it. The only one that I think I can really go head to head with it is Minnesota, Dallas. And we'll get to that one in a little bit, I'm sure. But yeah, I mean, the adjustment factor of this, I think he's right to point out as a huge swing factor in this series. Because you get, you get Hegel offline, but you also match up multiple Selky candidate centers from the past couple years in Gord and Sorelli.

And that's obviously a big part of the reason at this point that the Suzuki line has stayed in check as the matchups are facing. Right. And then on the other side, you've got probably the favorite to win this year, Selki and Nick Suzuki. And that's why these coaches are trying to find production from their top guys because they both teams have elite shut down forwards. The goalies have been good like Arpins said. And yeah, I mean, I don't think there's another series that is like even the, even the Minnesota Dallas series. like there have been games where one team was way better than the other and then they kind of change. In this series, it's like every game is a coin flip. And it's just, I think I saw like the expected goals for each series broken down. And these guys were like 50.0 to 50.0.

It cannot get any closer than these two teams. No, it's been fantastic. Minnesota Dallas, I mean, to me, the, it's been the my big punch, your big punch. These ones have been every game is within an inch. And both are kind of fun series to. to take in in that way, but I really like the tension of every game. And I thought Kane Sends was going to have the potential to be a little bit like that. And it was just this much better by every single one. That series is over now, Jesse. Yeah, yeah, it was very

close sweep, right? As close of a sweep as you can get. It's just, there was just, it's tough to come by offense with those teams. And we knew that that was going to be the case. They are the number one and number two shot suppression teams in the league and they were in this series. But the Keynes, I mean, they had the better chances by far, I thought. Like, in terms of, like, quantity, it was pretty even. But quality, I thought, I thought hurricanes got the quality chances. I think I said this to Haley on Friday of last week. But if you had told anyone that Linus Allmark was going to have a 932 save percentage in the first round of these playoffs,

what would you have said happened in that series? Yeah, I would have thought they won for sure, especially if you told me it's Freddie Anderson. And the other night, like, maybe Brandon Bussie, because the guy had a miracle season and, like, maybe he stands on his head on the other side. Freddie Anderson, this performance by him is, again, I'm the goaltending expert. It's why it's impossible to predict what goalies are going to do. I mean, this year, this guy's been in the NHL for 14 years. Prior to this season, he had never lost more games than he won in his season, which is a damn

impressive accomplishment just on its own. This year, he finally did it. He lost more games than he won. He had his worst safe percentage he's ever had. his career, his worst goal saved above expected. He's 34 years old or 35 years old. It looked like Father Time had finally caught up with him. And it's like, man, they could not have gotten Brandon Bussie in a better time because it looks like Freddie Anderson as good as he's been for as long as it's been, finally fell off the cliff. And then you get to the playoffs and he's just

awesome. Like the hurricanes have a way, have a habit of making goalies look good regardless. But that wasn't what this was. Like Freddie Anderson was legitimately awesome in this series. And it's, I didn't see it coming. I don't know how Rod Brindamore saw it coming. Props to him. He's a great coach. He saw it coming when no one else did. But yeah, Brady Anderson, back from the dead to play some awesome hockey for that.

We'll see how long it lasts. Yeah. Okay, let's put a pin in it right there. We'll come back. I think we'll talk a little bit more about this series after the break. All right, we're back. And Jesse, we were talking about Kane's Sends. And obviously the Kane story, like, goes on here.

Like, they are in my eyes, I think, especially with how much it looks like the Atlantic teams are going to beat each other up a little bit. like Carolina getting an early sweep, getting some rest. Like they are looking like they have at least a very good path to the conference final and perhaps based on what they go through there, they may end up being the favorite to get to the final at this point. For the Ottawa side of things, it's a much more complicated way to sort through everything as this season ends. Because the first email I woke up to today was odds on Brady Kachuk's next team, right?

And I'm sure that that is the dread of, and I know that there was some frustration. Brady didn't have an amazing series. but it's your captain, it's your kind of identity guy. What do you mean, I feel bad for the Canadian teams. I feel like every time one of them gets eliminated, we start talking about which of their star players is going to be gone. But that is an inevitable part of this story is Brady Kachuk's future looms over the

Ottawa senators right now. Yeah, it's brutal. And it's, it's not fair. Like, I cover a team in a market in Vegas where it seems like every time one of these players becomes available, that's the destination. They, like, they're telling their team, Noah Hannafin, Rasmus Anderson are telling their team like, no, I'm going to Vegas. It seems to be the opposite for Ottawa and Winnipeg and Edmonton and it sucks.

But we also still have to talk about it because it's huge news. And if this felt like such an opportunity for the senators to me, maybe I'm wrong. To me, the Eastern Conference felt so wide open going into these playoffs. And they were hot coming in. they were like the hottest team in the east coming into the playoffs. It felt like this was a great chance for this team to go on a run. To not win a single game is just like we said, the games were close. It wasn't like they didn't show up at all and were just terrible.

But to not win a game, when going into these playoffs, it felt like they had as good a chance as anyone is just falling flat on your face. And everyone in that team has to be questioning their future. It's interesting because like I cover a team in Detroit. where the story right now is that you keep hitting the same wall. And Ottawa is a long way from that, right? It's two years in a row they go out in the first round. There's more room before anyone's going to start talking about they can't get over

the hump or whatever. And yet there's a similar element of like time pressure here. And part of it is Kachuk's contract, obviously. I think Claude Jaroos future is almost every bit as interesting here and how long he's going to keep going with this. But when you, when you end your season at the same exact spot as you did the year before, and you can't really point to tangible progress. It just muddies the waters on everything.

Like, I think this was a better senators team this year. They didn't always get the best goaltending, although they did in the playoffs. But they ran into kind of the souped up version of themselves in the first round. We talked about, you know, the shot suppression genius of the Carolina hurricanes. Like, the Ottawa senators were like a top three underlying metrics team in the NHL this season. They just happened to run into, I think, I don't know if Carolina was one or two, but they're always one or two.

Colorado is certainly right up there with them as well. It makes it hard to measure yourself and hard to know, like, did we make progress this year? Or did we just, you know, run into the same wall? And I lean toward progress for them, but, you know, the results actually say they played fewer playoff games this season. Yeah. And the good thing is, I mean, there's the whole like forcing your way out with a trade situation. But he's, Kachuk still has two years left on his contract after this year. year. So it's like you, if you have some runway to show that this team is good enough to win a

Stanley Cup, that they are making the progress you're talking about. It doesn't have, it didn't have to be this year. It doesn't even have to be next year technically. I mean, they've got some time here assuming things don't get crazy. And like, with sports, the contract doesn't always, isn't always everything. But there's still plenty of time left on this deal to figure things out. The thing that I, that I run into, though, is like I talk about how hard their opponent was, okay, let's say they go through the Atlantic path. You take it him as favorites over Tampa, over Montreal. Like, I mean, they're, I think they make very good series with any of these teams. Yes. But the Atlantic is loaded. And so like for, for the Ottawa senators, it's not,

you can't just kind of default to, yeah, but we played Carolina. If it was, I mean, yeah, if you played Boston, I think you win, but you don't get to play the other wildcard team as a wild card team. If you play Pittsburgh or Philly, but they're not in your division. So it's a, it's a, it's a tricky road forward here because I think the senator. are probably going to have to, they're probably going to have to do most of this internally. It's, you know, the free agent class is pretty underwhelming. That, you know, Yakumchuk, I think becoming a full regular that helps. Healthy blue line helps a ton.

They did not have a healthy blue line for much of the late season, including the end of this series. But there's not really like a savior or anything you can point to coming. It's more, can you get more from the guys you have? Yeah. And I'm, I'm a little concerned about Lena Solmark. I know he was great in this series in terms of making the saves. his movement still wasn't great. I mean, he's the master of he did this wrong, he did this wrong,

he's in the wrong spot, but he freaking gloves it because his hand-eye coordination is unreal. But his numbers were not good this year over a long 82 game season. Levi-Marolin, I think they hoped he was going to take a step forward that he didn't take. It wasn't, we haven't seen him emerge as a legitimate, like, tandem. Like, we can rely on this guy to start 40% of the games type of goal. so and Olmark's only getting older. He's getting to 35 now. So it's like I think there's a little bit of concern with that too.

How much longer can you get? Look, they got the performance out of Olmark in the series. Wasn't on him. He was their best player. But how long how much longer can he do this is a legitimate question to ask? Yeah. The one Atlantic team in the playoffs I did not mention there. And we were talking about Ottawa is the one that I think actually would have made for the most fun series of that potential pairing combination.

That's the Buffalo Sabres because Ottawa is such a stout. physical team. Buffalo is such a fast, exciting team. And yesterday, their game four against Boston was the pinnacle of that fast, exciting team. I mean, part of this is candidly, like a no-show by the Boston Bruins early that allowed Buffalo to get out to such a good start. But man, the Sabres look good. I mean, they had started trailing every other game of this series. They come out storming the beaches in this one. Yeah, that's the key. I feel like Boston has got that early goal in every game. And it allows them to kind of sit back and it's like, okay, we're not going to put a bunch of skaters up the ice and forechecky. We're going to sit back and defend and wait for you to make

mistakes. And it's Buffalo. They're high flying. They're going to make mistakes. So that's like what to me, that's what those games would look like. You nailed it. Buffalo gets the first goal. Now Boston has to push for offense. And pushing for offense against this Sabres team is a dangerous proposition. And they found out. I mean, this is what we've seen from the Sabers all year. We hadn't really seen it in the playoffs yet. And it was, Jeremy Swamon had a sunburn on the back of his neck. It was brutal. What did you make of his interaction with the bench as he comes off the ice there late in the game? I know everybody made a big deal of it, and it's my job to defend the goalie, and I will defend him. I don't think it's a big deal at all. I think that if Nathan McKinnon

gets onto the bench and screams at someone, we're all saying, what a leader. This guy's awesome. He's holding everybody accountable. But for some reason, if the goalie does it, it's like a travesty and there's a and there's like a divide between the team is like what I'm seeing on Twitter. That's nonsense. Jeremy Swamen is a crazy person, right? And like in a good way. Like he is a, he is a super competitive athlete.

Like that's why he's so great in the playoffs. He's the only reason this series is as close as it is. Like he was so good in those first few games. And he wasn't happy with the effort in front of him. He let them know on his way out. He had to sit for the rest of the game because of it. And I have absolutely no problem with it. And I would be sure.

shocked if any of their players do. They all know Jeremy Swayman. They know how he is. Yes, he was angry. Yes, he yelled at them. But like I said, if it wasn't the goalie, I don't think we would be making anything of it. But it's the goalie. So here it is. I don't think there's anything to it. I mean, we all saw the Amazon clip of Connor McDavid in the locker during the cup final, right? I'm sure that the words were pretty close to identical there from Swamon to what we saw from McDavid there, although we don't have any audio from it. Yeah, yeah. He's, Yeah, it's like he is, some goalies just they're like they're, they're, they're zen, right? They're in their own little universe.

Like they're just going to go sit on the bench and like, you guys know what you did. That's not Jeremy Swamen. He is a fiery guy. And we saw, like if you told me, a goalie is going to yell at his team on the bench this postseason. Guess which one it was? It is. Jeremy Swamen would have been my guess.

He, yeah, well, no, there's no Jordan Bennington in this year's perhaps. So I guess that's why. But he also has the cachet to do it, right? I mean, this is not a goalie in his. first or second. Jakob Dobish, I don't think, could do this to the Montreal Canadiens Ben. Jeremy Swayman is the reason the Boston Bruins are in the playoffs right now. And we all thought was their best chance to get out of this series.

And you know what? It's not over yet, but you dig a three one hole, much like you dig a hole in the game. It's going to be very hard to beat the Buffalo Sabres three times in a row. But it's not impossible. And one of the reasons it's not impossible is because Jeremy Swayman is such a good goal. Now, that being said, we talked about the goalie switch in Carolina. like Alex Lyon coming in, it's a different look for the Buffalo Sabres here. Like I think Google Peckalookin is a phenomenal goalie and probably deserve to start the series the way he did.

But Alex Lyon's a beast. And when he's playing confident, it's really hard to shake him. Yep, yep. We've talked about him on this show. He is a streaky goalie. It's because of how far he plays out from the net. But when he's feeling it and he's reading the play correctly and he's getting out to his spots up at the top of the crease, there's no net to score on. and he looks that way right now.

And that's the luxury of having two talented goalies. It's like, and like honestly, they win this series. Say Lion has a couple bad games to start the next series. I'd go right back to UPL. Like I think that they are both good enough that if one of them starts to not look like he's seeing the puck well, he's not feeling it. Just go right back to the other one. It's a luxury.

It's, it's, this is a new dynamic in the NHL that we're not used to seeing where you could just go from one goalie to the other. But I think the sabers are a perfect example of having. two evenly matched goalies and just play the guy that's feeling it. Yeah, absolutely. Let's get to the series you're covering here. Utah and Vegas. It's been, you predicted early on that this was going to be Utah's series.

I pushed back on it, but it's starting, the mammoth have started after a, I thought kind of a game one lesson from Vegas of like, this is how you do this. This is playoff time. This is how you do this. Mammoth,

pretty fast learners, it looks like. They are, and they're pretty fast skaters. And that's been the difference in the series is they are flying. Like Vegas has controlled the territory, I think better than any team in these playoffs. Like they have spent more time in the offensive zone than any other team in the NHL playoffs. And they're not doing much with it.

They'll hold the puck in the zone in the mammoth zone for 10 minutes at a time. And then you look back on that 10 minutes and it's like, man, it felt like they were dominating. But did they really generate anything from like in front of the net? And the answer is usually not really. then Utah gets it for 11 seconds, go straight down and creates a high danger chance, like right in front of the net. And sometimes it goes in,

sometimes it doesn't. But it's a very interesting clash of styles where it feels like Vegas needs the puck for multiple shifts for that to like build up for them to get a goal. Whereas Utah, it's like, if you make one mistake, it's one-nothing mammoth.

And that was the case the other night. Vegas, it was first playoff game in Delta Center history. it was so loud in the building, and I think the Utah players were nervous. Like, I think it actually helped the Golden Knights because it was such a big moment, and they wanted it so bad that they were a little nervous. And for the Golden Knights, it's like, okay, this is just another playoff game. We've done a million of these. And the first 10 minutes, it was 10-0 shots for Vegas.

Like, they were completely dominating the game. But Karel Vamilka stood on his head, kept them all out, and then what do you know? Utah gets one chance, and it's in the back of the net. And then they score two quick ones. Another one, it was 4-0. This Utah team doesn't need much, doesn't need much space. The Golden Knights haven't given them much space. I mean, they held them to 12 shots on goal.

That's the fewest in franchise history. But they still score four goals on them. It's a fascinating clash of styles between these two teams. Obviously, whenever it's a 2-1, and when it always is, or almost always is in a game four, it's a crucial game. You go down 3-1, it's just really hard to dig out of it. So this is make or break virtually for Vegas right now.

Like, what do you think the key for them is tonight? Their big guys need to show up. I mean, Jack Eichael got on the board the other night, but it almost felt like it was like a nothing goal because it was for nothing at the time. And it wasn't like an amazing play he made. He just was standing there and the puck pop to him and he just put it into the empty net. He has not looked like himself since the Olympics. And I don't know if like he, there hasn't been a.

injury, like in terms of him missing time or anything. I don't really know what's going on with Jack Eichael, but it's not just the production. He's not carrying the puck with the same pizzazz that he normally has. Like normally, when Jack Eichael gets the puck, everyone on the ice is like, it's high alert, like something's about to happen. And that hasn't been the case in this series or down the stretch in the regular season. He's not driving the play the way he normally does. He hasn't been terrible, but he just hasn't been the game breaker that Jack Eichael usually is, especially this time of year for the Golden Knights. Tomash Hurdle ended the regular season on a 20-game goalless drought.

He hasn't scored in three games. I was talking to him yesterday. He's clearly feeling it. And like Tomash Hurdell is about as upbeat, optimistic of a person as you will ever meet. Like if there's a person built to get out of this situation, it's Tomash Hurdle. But he needs, they need him to score desperately. Pavl Dorofiev, leading goal scorer on the team in the regular season, has been completely invisible.

Like he hasn't made a play in three games. John Torturella moved him from the second line to the third line to the fourth line. Now he put him up on the top line for tonight's game with Jack Eichol just trying to get him going. So to me, you look at Logan Cooley and Dylan Gunther making plays for Utah. Vegas's top guys have not made plays. And if they don't, they're going to lose this series. If they do start making plays, Vegas is in good shape, though. This team has plenty of talent.

And if Eichel and Stone and Hurtle and Pavel D'Othorpe have start scoring, they're going to be fine. If not, and this is not just this season. Like this is what happened to them against Edmonton last year. It's what happened to them against Dallas the year before that. These players are playmakers who don't necessarily like to shoot and finish the play themselves, and they need goals from those top guys. Well, but they kind of have a similar dynamic to Edmonton right now where it's almost like how many, and they haven't run into this problem yet in these playoffs, like actually

speaking, where they've scored like five goals and found a way to lose. But I don't feel real confident that if they score four, that Utah can't get five. It's, the other interesting thing, so like Tortarella mixed up all of his lines. He changed all the top three lines. He changed both power play units that he went from,

like Vegas has had one of the best power plays all season, and it's been, they've loaded up their top unit, and their second unit is basically an afterthought, and they hardly play. Yesterday at practice, they basically split their skill between the two evenly, and they've got two evenly matched power play units.

It's going to be interesting to see if that, has an effect. But the other thing that he hasn't messed with, and I asked Torterell after the game, if there was any thought of putting Aiden Hill in the net, and he said absolutely not. He was not pulling Carter Hart. That fourth goal was brutal. The first three, I have a hard time putting on him, but the fourth goal, it's a Lawson Krause, Rister from the top of the circles with no traffic, and it just beats him, blocker. It was brutal. I would have put Aiden Hill in at that point in the game. Torterell said never a consideration. It's going to be interesting to see, like, especially if Hart's struggles out of the gates tonight.

Look, Aden Hill has been objectively awful this season. Like, he had a terrible year. He got hurt. He never looked himself. He never came back from it. His safe percentage is a career low. I get it. I get why he's not in the net.

But also, you've got a goalie sitting on the bench who has like a 920 career playoff safe percentage, has won a Stanley Cup with this team, and is probably very angry that he lost his job. Like, to me, if I'm Tortorella, like, that's like the, the, the emergency, in case of emergency, break glass, like put Aden Hill in the game and see if he can stand on his head and bail you out. Like, I think they still have that option available to them. I mean, is it that different from Freddie Anderson and Brandon Bussie, which has worked out so well for Carolina, right? I mean, it's, it's, I, Freddie Anderson probably doesn't have quite the historical playoff pedigree that Aden Hill does, although he's longer career.

But I do think it's kind of a similar dynamic of like you have this proven quantity that your team has played well in front of in the past. I think there's something to that. That game will be on 930 tonight on ESPN. Probably more like 950. Let's be real. Eastern time. The early game, Penns Flyers, an elimination game, 3-1 is the series, Philadelphia. It goes back to Pittsburgh.

Pittsburgh showing some signs of life. Do you have any faith that the penguins get this to a game six? I do, just because they're the penguins and they've got Sidney Crosby, and he came out there. And I thought that was such a big statement, Crosby scoring that. opening goal, like we're, he, he is dragging his team into this. And if you're the flyers, like, I remember, like, they were talking to Trevor Zegris on the ice before the game. And he said, like, they've got Hall of Famers on that side. And he was saying it just in like a way of respect because they were smoking this team three nothing. But it's also like, if they win a game and

then they, they go up one nothing early in this game, that same thought in your head of like just showing respect is like, hey, wait a minute, they have a bunch of Hall of Famers over there. Like, this team isn't going away. Like, I think it's very important. for Pittsburgh to get out to an early start, to give Philadelphia some doubt, because I think the Flyers have been clearly the better team in this series. So I'm not going to pick the Penguins to win three straight, four straight, because they haven't been the better team. But I think that there's a dynamic there where things can start to get dicey for the Flyers real quick. You're doing the old, old Red Sox, don't let them win tonight. Right. Don't let them win this one.

Yep, exactly. It's, it's a bunch of dudes that have won a lot of playoff games on that other side. It's it can make you nervous. Yeah. All right. A lot to look forward to there. Great show today. That's going to do it for us. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Athletic Hockey Show.

Sean, Sean and Frank, you'll be back with you on Wednesday. We'll talk to you soon.