The Athletic Hockey Show - Eric Karlsson's return as an elite NHL defender

Episode Date: March 18, 2026

Erik Karlsson's bounceback season has helped the Pittsburgh Penguins to once again become a playoff contender in the East. Sean, Frank and Sean praise the job of Pens head coach Dan Muse, they submit Travis Green and Rick Bowness as Jack Adams candidates, and they ask did the Colorado Avalanche peak too early? Plus they discuss a staggering potential 8 team turnover qualifying for the playoffs this season to last and Jack Hughes wanting his game winning puck from the Olympics back from Hockey’s Hall of Fame.Host: Sean Gentille and Sean McIndoeWith: Frankie CorradoExecutive Producer: Chris FlanneryProducer: Jeff DometWatch 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? The Athletic Hockey Show for Wednesday, March 18th, 2026. I am Sean Gentile. I sound marginally less disgusting than I did last week. So congratulations to all you. I'm here. I just buddy.

Thank you, man. We set the bar low here. Sean McAnew, Frankie Carrado. Fellas, how are we doing? Pretty good. Like just kind of coming down from that crazy game last night in Montreal. We called it. Habs Bruins.

We'll get to that later, I'm sure. But things are good, man. Like I don't know if you guys feel this. Maybe not you, Gentilly, because you're just coming off being sick. But I feel like fresh. Like, I feel pretty fresh for this time. Congratulations, man. It's a grind.

And it's like you're traveling a bunch and you're staying up watching all these games and it's late and you feel like garbage. But I don't know why March 18th. I feel okay, so I'm going to take it. No, I feel like ass still, just for the record. I would like to establish that. But I just want to point out, look at us, three guys, the morning after St. Patrick's Day, we're all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

That's a good sign that we're a bunch of... I tried on Saturday. I tried on Saturday during parade day here in Pittsburgh. My cousin had some people over, and I dipped over, and was like, nope, not happening. Too old, too sick. I got to get out of here, ASAP. I did find myself, though,

in a pharmacological haze on Tuesday night. I thought it was hallucinating. Turns out I was not. I was on the couch. It seemed like the Pittsburgh Penguins were beating the Colorado Avalanche's ass. I thought maybe that was cold medicine talking or something. it wasn't. Now, that was a wild game to see on Monday night. And that's where,

that's where we're going to start, fellas. 7-2 win for Pittsburgh over Colorado. We're going to talk about what that means for potentially the abs and, you know, if that's any kind of insight on the way they've been playing in a couple minutes. But I wanted to start out by mentioning Eric Carlson specifically, because we've talked a lot about the penguins. I feel like I individually have been wrong about them at a lot of different points. I thought they were going to be a bottom five team in the league at the start of all this. Fast start didn't sell me on anything. I was like, okay, let's see, let's see. I think sometime around Christmas, I accepted that this was a team that wasn't going to be awful. And now it's St. Patrick's Day and we're, I think we need to recalibrate.

I'll speak individually. I need to recalibrate how I think about this team, because right now they look like a group that can win a playoff series. And that had not crossed my mind as a legitimate possibility until the last week or so. And the main reason for that, Frankie, and I don't mean to interrupt you, but the main reason for that is Eric Carlson because he has been a legit number one defenseman this year. We thought he was past that point in his career. He certainly has not been 20th in net rating, which is impressive, 11th and 11th and offensive net rating. So, of course, it's going to be a little bit lopsided, but he hasn't

been brutal in his own zone overall in the season as a body of work. He's scoring points at a 65 point pace. On this season, the penguins are outscoring opponents, 5740 with him on the ice. And most of all, and this is what has sold me on him, and it's what sold me on Pittsburgh, is that since the Olympic break, that is post-Sidney Crosby injury, he's got 14.5. points in 11 and they're winning his minute 7-4. They needed someone to step up, not just in Krasby's absence, but in Fennie Malkins' absence, because he was suspended for five of those games. And it was Eric Carlson. And it has been Eric Carlson. And I think the game against Colorado was as good a proof of that as you're going to find because he was out there against Nathan

McKinnon. Pittsburgh won his minutes. He ended up with three points overall. And he was the engine for them with a fairly dominant win over a team. that, you know, on balance, let's say, has been the best in the NHL this season. And I was not prepared for that. The narrative is shifting so quick for the Pittsburgh Penguins because if you go back to the summer, they're the only team that are true sellers. How many times did you hear that about the Penguins? They're open for business and they got to strip things down and they got to figure out

what's going to work for them moving forward. And as the season starts, you know, they're getting really good goaltending. They're two big boys are playing well and Crosby and Mee. Malkin and their score and a bunch, but the team is playing well. And for the longest time now that Pittsburgh has been out of the playoffs, we haven't really talked about, you know, what it would look like if Pittsburgh ever got into the playoffs because no one really took them seriously. They're a team that was supposed to be rebuilding.

And now we can sit here and have the conversation of, you don't want to play Pittsburgh in the playoffs because Sidney Crosby and Evgeny Malkin and Eric Carlson in the playoffs are going to be really good players. And that is going to be a struggle for some teams. And I'll throw a couple numbers at you guys real quick before I pass it over to DGB. But the Pittsburgh Penguins right now, according to sport logic, like goals for per game, ninth in the NHL. Expected goals for per game, fourth in the NHL, eighth in shot attempts, seventh in shots, second in slot shots and inner slot shots and sixth in offensive zone possession time. Like this is not a team that's just like caught a little bit of a heater or they have like

this unsustainable shooting percentage. They're generating what they're scoring. And now it's like we've been clamoring for, oh, Sidney Crosby has to be in the playoffs. Guess what? He's going to be in the playoffs. And you probably don't want to play him in the playoffs because we don't know how many more cracks he's going to have at it, but he's going to have a crack at it this year. And don't forget, you're talking about that Colorado game.

That's a game that's been circled on the schedule since last summer, because this was supposed to be Sidney Crosby's first game against his former team. Remember when Sidney Crosby was going to the Colorado Avalanche, that was, you know, we'd all connected the dots and figured out that was going to happen. I don't think it's happening. I'm grateful for Pittsburgh season for one reason only, is that the way they've played has stopped me from getting asked on Canadian radio 15 times over the last three months. Like, you think it might be, you think deadline, Crosby, what's going on?

Montreal, Colorado. All right. Where's he headed? Let me ask this, because Frankie's right. We spent the summer looking at this team going, well, they got to. trade Brian Russ. They got to trade Ricard Cal. They got to move all these guys because they're going to stink.

And then the league will rig the lottery and they'll get Gavin McGath. So I have to do you know, per the sports writer bylaws, I have to do the thing that we always do when we get a team wrong.

Especially when we think a team's bad and they turn out to be good. I have to say it's got to be the coach. So is Dan Mews now in the Jack Adams frontrunner conversation with what he's done with this team? Is this the thing where we couldn't all possibly have been wrong about how good a team was? So therefore, the coach has to be a miracle worker, right? Well, yeah, I think there's a lot of validity to that.

Like, first time head coach takes a team with very low expectations and a team that would be difficult to coach. Like, keep in mind, you have to try and satisfy. by Crosby, Malkin, Latang, Carlson, while at the same time integrating new players into that group like, I don't know, Brazo, Mantha, like Tommy Novak, like Ben Kindle, an 18-year-old kid who just got drafted. Like, he's kind of meshed these two worlds together now. And this is the product that they're thrown out there. And Dan Mews was always kind of known for being this like really intelligent kind of tactician had run the penalty kill in his time as an assistant coach and done a really good job with that. And now we're kind of seeing what he's done as a head coach.

I mean, yeah, he would have to be in your top two to three, at least when it comes to coach of the year. I think he's coaching players individually in a way that Sullivan wasn't at the end, for sure. And Carlson said it, has said it much. He said it early. It was easy to joke about the way Carlson was playing like early in the season and be like, all right, he's just happy to be away from Mike Sullivan. But like, I don't know, maybe. And he's like alluded to as much where I think Dan Mews, if you want to look at it through the, through the Carlson prism, I think he's okay with Eric Carlson being Eric Carlson in a way that, in a way that maybe Mike Sullivan wasn't. And he's also good at mitigating what Eric Carlson maybe isn't so great at.

in a way that Mike, no, Mike Sullivan wasn't. And I think that kind of individualized, you know, contextual understanding of the guys that you're coaching is the sort of stuff that should make guys, should make coaches Jack Adams candidates. Like, I don't know if he's going to win. I know there's a push for John Cooper just because of, you know, what he's done with Tampa and the fact that he's never won one, and everyone's going to want to vote for Lindy Ruff, and there are people who are going to want to vote for Joel Quinville.

Like, that's all well and good, but I think Muse has absolutely push. his way, you know, to the front of the line here because he, the things that, the buttons that he's pushing are working. This is not a team that's winning games because of a goaltender heater or whatever else. This isn't a team that's, uh, that's coming off an unlucky season that has that had a bunch of talent in the mix. This is clearly, you know, the coach pulling levers and pushing buttons in a way that, you know, you don't often see from, from, from Jack Adams candidates. Yeah. I think he's got to be in the mix. Since, since, since we're on the subject, I'm going to go, I'm going to throw two names into the Jack Adams conversation and you tell me

why they wouldn't be considered for that award. If their teams make the playoffs, Travis Green, Rick Bonas. How can you argue with those as well? Because as far as I'm concerned, when you have bad goaltending, that sinks your season. And Travis Green has had the worst goaltending in the NHL and they still have a very realistic chance of making the playoffs because of how they play as a team. not just Stutzla goes hero or Kachuk goes hero. They don't have Jake Sanderson. They're not going to have Nick Jensen now. He's got a meniscus surgery coming up.

Like Travis Green deserves a lot of credit. And like Rick Bonas, what changed in Columbus? Exact same team. I mean, you made a couple trades at the deadline, but it's the same team except new coach. And now all they do is win. If you go back to January 1st until today, the Buffalo Sabres are the best team in the NHL with 44 points.

the Columbus Blue Jackets are second with 41, and wouldn't you know it, the Pittsburgh Penguins are third with 40? Like, I don't know, says a lot about what's going on with those three teams. I love the idea that, and I'm trying not to get out over my skis on this. You talked about Columbus and Buffalo,

that could be a first-round matchup. Imagine those two teams, those two buildings, the fan bases. I don't even, I mean, who do you even bandwagon in that case. Plus, it's Lindy Ruff versus Rick Bonin. How many times do we sit here and talk about how this league is all about just bringing the same guys back over and over? Why don't we get a fresh set of eyes?

Why don't we get a, why don't we bring some new voices in here and let them have a chance instead of recycling the same guys? Apparently, with the three teams we're talking about, Dan Muse the rookie, Lindy Ruff, and Rick Bonas, who's been doing this since the 80s. If we get, if we get Savers, if we get Sabers Blue Jackets, this is pop quiz for you guys. What would be the combined age of the head coaches in that series?

I just did some of that. Both, what, 70? So I don't know, 140? 137. Wow. God bless, man. They're doing it. It's really doing it.

And Rick Bonus, I got time for Rick Bonus. He could, like, that's a guy who could coach so he's 85 if he wants to, I think. Anyways, like, he's, he's got a lot of youthful energy, let's call it. And if people are wondering, there's plenty of precedent for guys getting Jack Adams' votes and even winning it based on less than a full season. So I don't think there's a ton where it's as, as few games as it would be. But, yeah, I mean, if they make the playoffs by going, like, 35 and 5 under Rick bonus, you have to. I don't mean this is a knock on broadcasters.

I truly don't. The Jack Adams is a broadcaster award. And I, Rick Bonas has been particularly good to the media over the last, however many years, right? And I don't, if we're talking about the Columbus Blue Jackets, whenever award ballots are due, which is when the puck drops during the first playoff game, if we're talking about them pushing their way in, God knows what their record would have to be because it's been out of control since

bonus took over. There's still some work left to do on that end, but, you know, the wind's blown in the right direction for them. I, he's going to be a finalist at, at minimum, right? How's he not? How, like, what, what, what's your possible argument against it? Just that it's a deep field, I, I think. I, I feel like there's probably, I feel like there's, you know, I would say five, five guys who could pretty credibly win it this year, and, and sometimes there's not. There's other seasons, there's other seasons where Rick Bonas would be doing a lap around the field when it comes to Jack Adams. I just don't think. Joel Quenville would be too. We were talking about it in the first half of the year. Quenville Cooper, who's it going to be? All of a sudden now,

we're talking about all these other guys because their teams have had such drastic upticks in the last few months. And this is like I said it half jokingly, but this really is an award for coach of the team that is the biggest surprise. Half the league is a surprise. Half the league is a good surprise, and the other half have been miserable surprises. So, I mean, it is a deep field because you look around,

and it's just none of us had any of this figured out, so it's got to be the coaches, I guess. Let's talk about that now, and we'll talk about the East playoff field, kind of through that wins. Frankie wants to dump on the Colorado Avalanche. We'll save that for second and two. How do you know that?

see you guys. I wasn't, I wasn't, I'm very perceptive. I'm a very perceptive young man. I wasn't going to dump on them any more than what their star player dumped on them after that game against the penguins. Let's go. Eastern Conference, this is, this is very real. Producer Jeff said this and I, I very regrettably did not, did not, did not completely trust

them. I did, I had to go back and make sure. We are looking potentially, this would be tough. we're looking potentially at an eight-team turnover in the playoffs from this season to last. Sabres, Penguins, Islanders, two of Bruins' wings jackets would get it done. And then in the West, it would be Ducks, Mammoth Cracking. I think that speaks, you know, we're talking about the Jack Adams field and how there's a bunch of surprised teams. I think there's no better way to elucidate that than to say, like, we're, a 50% playoff

field turnover year over year, that doesn't happen. Like, we can look at the last couple years for proof of that. And the sabres are leading the way there. Obviously, they win last night. Tied atop the Eastern Conference. They're 10-0-1 on the road in their last 11 games, which is wild. And there are two points from their best points total since I think 2011, 2012, which is something in Matt Fairburn's story coming out of that game against Vegas last night.

Fellas, what do we think of the East-East playoff field? I don't want to do this every, I don't want to do this continually for the next few weeks because there's going to be changed. But I think it's worth talking about today. Like, where do we think of the East playoff field who's looking good and who's probably looking, you know, from the outside in at this point? My initial thought is this, that because there was all these like new teams on the block, if you were Tampa or you were Carolina or you were like fans of those teams,

you looked at this and said, this is our year. You kidding me? We're going to get the Islander. We're going to get the Red Wings. We're going to get the Sabres. Like we can get any of these teams that haven't really been here before. Like we're licking our chops. The Panthers aren't in our way.

You know, Boston's not what they were a few years ago. You know, Toronto's, I guess Toronto loses in the playoffs all the time. So what are you really scared of? But they're a good regular season team, right? And now because these teams are still playing at such a high clip, and now the Buffalo Sabres are first in the Atlantic, and it's not the Tampa Bay Light. I don't know.

If you're Tampa and Carolina, you're probably look at that and saying, I don't feel the way I used to feel. These teams are really good. They're playing this way for a reason. And if we've learned anything over the years, it's that like if you're playing that like urgent, intense hockey for a couple months leading up to the playoffs, it helps you come playoff times rather than being in, you know,

some kind of like the lethargic funk waiting around. So who looks good, clearly. Buffalo looks good. Pittsburgh looks good. And then the two teams that you don't want to see right now, in my opinion, are not in the playoffs today. It's Columbus and it's Ottawa. And I think if you see either of those teams in the first round, you're not exactly thrilled that those are the teams you have to play. Yeah, it brings me no pleasure to report this.

But I think the Ottawa senators are the best team in that group. Oh, my God. Of Mabies. And Frankie touched on it. It's been disguised because this is a very good team at pretty much everything that was getting terrible goaltening. And that's what was keeping them out of the, just out of the playoff picture. You know, they were hanging around with terrible goaltending. And goaltending's been better.

Allmark's been better, you know, since the, since the whole weird incident with, you know, with him leaving and then coming back and the, the rumors and the letter and all of this, the statement, the capital S statement. It's this team, they get into the playoffs, right? There's going to be a lot of people, especially, you know, maybe fans in the Western Conference or whatever who don't follow it as close, who are going to be like, okay, so Ottawa up against Buffalo or especially if it's Carolina or Tampa, they're going to go, Okay, Ottawa's happy to be there, but I mean, geez, they lost to the Leafs last year of all teams.

So, I mean, they're not. And then they're going to be surprised when this senator's team gives some Stanley Cup contender absolutely everything they can handle because they've got everything lined up other than the goaltending and the goaltending is starting to show on them. Allmark since the Olympic break, 882 save percentage, 1.7 goals have to be a lot of expected. I mean, it's, it's only, it's only six games. I know he'd been okay. It points before that. He doesn't get a lot of shots, though. That's, that's the thing that's going to skew his, like, save percentage is they give up nothing. So it's not like he has to make a ton of saves, but when there's a good chance in front of him, he just has to make that, like, that sharp

save where maybe there's been, like, it's been a lull in the game and you haven't been as busy as maybe you normally would if you were in a rhythm. That's, that's his big challenge. when he's playing. Because they don't give up a ton. You just have to make, like, you're going to have to make, like, three or four big ones when they do arise.

You don't get the empty calorie freebies. So, let me ask you guys this in the east. Let's flip it around. There are five points out of a playoffs about today, by the way. Yeah, and last night was a bit of a rough night, but they've got games in hand on, on most of those teams, a couple of games in a few cases.

So we talk about Ottawa, Columbus maybe getting in. obviously that means somebody comes out who is I touched on this in my Monday column who's under the most pressure like who's the team that you look at and you go

oh they can't they can't miss can they and there may be a danger of it it's Detroit 100% right like I feel like you know Boston and the islanders are similar in that obviously

you're holding down a playoff spot all year you want to make the playoffs It'll be crushing to lose out in the final weeks. But both of those teams are better than expected. Both of those teams are ahead of schedule on what they're trying to do. The Red Wings, especially in the first half, I mean, they were flirting with first place. I think they were there. They were there for at a couple different points.

And I know, I know, because that was my pick and I had some pushback from Detroit fans saying, well, look at all the injuries. And having, it's not even so much all the injuries, but all the injuries in the same position, like all the centers going down one at a time. But this was a very healthy team in the first half, too. So, I mean, it does kind of even out a little bit. I can't imagine if we're looking at the end of the year. And after all of the pieces that we all wrote about the patient conservative Eiser plan,

oh, get your apologies to Steve Eiserman ready, because you're, You all said he wasn't doing enough, and now here they are. And especially after they finally go out and trade a first round pick to supplement the roster, if they'd miss, I mean, that's catastrophic in Detroit. It's devastating. Yeah. It's devastating. And they have, I believe they have the least man games lost in the NHL right now. But it's Larkin and it's cop and it's March.

And that's the issue is that, you know, March and April, the last few seasons, you know, for Detroit has been awful. Like that's where they've been well below 500. And right now, since the beginning of March, they're a 500 team. They're 3, 3 and 2. They're 500. They've got eight points. They cannot afford to dip below 500 because their next five games are against divisional opponents.

So we will know in the next week to 10 days, what's up with the Red Wings? Like they, and last night, they got no favors done for them. Boston gets a point. Montreal gets two. Columbus wins. It was the worst possible scenario on the scoreboard for them last night. Yeah, they're four, four and two since the Olympic break. They've been a decent five-on-five team. Like, their top 10 in Goalshare and unexpected goal share since Milan, but, you know, things happen, right? So it's, and they haven't had Dillenarkin for a huge chunk of that. And we all know how important he is of that team. But yeah, Montreal, Boston, Ottawa, Buffalo in a row coming up between now and in the 27th of March.

Like that's not like an elimination stretch necessarily, but it's as close as you're going to get with like 15 games left in a season when you're already in playoff position. Like that's, we're going to know a whole lot more about Detroit after that run than we do today. Let's take a break. We'll come back in the second segment. We'll talk about Colorado, some other stuff. we'll get Frankie the hell out of here. All right, we're back. That's enough Eastern Conference talk.

We're heading west. We're going to talk to Frankie's least favorite team in the NHL. Colorado Avalanche. What do you do to me, man? You hate them. You hate them. You said it yesterday. I don't hate it.

Before we start recording, Frankie, you were saying all that stuff about them. Saka, you'd see him. Some interesting remarks about you. You want just facts? You want just facts? Give me some facts, brother. And by the way, like, going into trade. Trade Center, I had the abs as my fourth most likely team to win the Stanley Cup, and everyone else had them first.

And then they go out and they make the trade for Cadbury, and I'm sitting on the desk, and I'm like, well, they kind of won the day. They got Cadbury, they got Nick Waugh, they got Brett Kulak. I'm like, they addressed every possible need that they could possibly need to address. I'm moving them up to number one. And I put them ahead of Dallas and Tampa and Carolina. and I sat there and I'm like, did I truly believe it? No, I didn't truly believe it, but I went with it anyways.

You're swayed, swayed by Canadian media, man, it happens. It sounds like somebody's ready to start writing a power rankings column. I was swayed. And now, if let's just, let's just, this is cold hard facts, okay? Keep in mind, I will preface this by saying Colorado, very good team. But since January 1st, they're the 19th best team. team in the NHL. They're scoring 3.26 goals per game and they're giving up three, three goals per game. 1411 and 2 in that stretch. So they're playing like a 91 point pace since it, since general.

If you go back to the range from October 7th, when the regular season started to December 31st, that's 39 games. They were 32 and 7. They were scoring 4.05 goals per game and giving up check this out, 2.15 goals per game. So will the real Colorado Avalanche please stand up? Who are they? Are they a bad team or are they a good team? Are they some like, are they a wagon? They're somewhere in the middle as far as I'm concerned. And their captain is even saying as much right now. Because he's kind of talking about how new guys don't know what they're doing and we're making silly mistakes. It's like, it's not two weeks now. Like we're, we're two and a half months. that they have not been playing quality hockey.

So where are they? And for a big chunk of that second half, slump. You could say, look, these guys were so good in the first half, they are so far ahead in the central. Of course, they're going to take their foot off the gas a little bit. Nobody cares if you break the single season points record for a team, because we've seen how that's gone for some teams in the recent past. Of course, they're taking their foot off the gas.

Well, guess what? Check the rearview mirror. Dallas Stars are right there now. And this isn't just, you know, yeah, you want to finish first. Tampa wants to finish first over Buffalo. You know, I'm sure in the Pacific, yeah, it matters. It is absolutely crucial that you finish first in the Central because that means you get to skip the Minnesota Wild. And instead, you're going to be playing some, you know, L.A. Kings or the Cracket or something.

you will never see a bigger drop-off in as far as the threat level of your first-round opponent. The stars are right there behind them now. And sometimes, you know, sometimes the team does take its foot off the gas. And then when you go to put that foot back down, the gas pedal isn't where you thought it was. And you can't find it. And that seems to be where they are. And, oh, by the way, coming off that loss and with all the criticism and everything, guess who they got tonight? the Dallas stars.

This is it. This is the regular season game of the year, potentially, because this is Colorado's chance to kind of slam that door and go, all right, you know what? We got our problems where, you know, we obviously have some things to figure out, but we're not giving up first in the Central. Forget it.

It's ours. If Dallas wins this one, especially in regulation, uh-oh, look out. Maybe Colorado, Minnesota is on the radar now. Yeah, because it's just this sheer amount of time that they have been mid. Right? Like, this isn't a two-week thing. This isn't a post-olympic thing. I mean, I called it a slump, but it's how many, you know, a slump is weeks. It's not months.

Yeah. It's been, it were, it's been weeks, but unfortunately it's been almost seven weeks for them pretty much. It's like post, post-holiday calendar flips, you know, they're playing at a Utah mammoth pace then, since then, basically. So, not necessarily which one to say. So let me do this, okay, because. Sean, you and I both do power rankings. Yes. But we come at it from kind of different angles, right? You and Dom do the Friday rankings,

and it's sort of like in the moment a little bit, versus my rankings, when I do, here's my top. I'm saying here's who I think is going to win the Stanley Cup, just like Frank Yon on deadline day. I've had Colorado number one since, I think, like the second or third week of the season. Every single week. they have been number one in my rankings.

And there have been a couple times I came close. There were a couple times I almost put Tampa ahead of them. Yeah, we had Tampa ahead of them a time or two. That looks a little bit smarter because Tampa's backed off a bit now. But I'm starting to feel like I don't know how much longer I can keep this up because, I mean, looking at that, I mean, certainly if they give up top spot in Central, forget it. Then they plummet down. Well, what if they lose, what if they lose to Dallas tonight?

Does that make Dallas number one in the weekend rankings? I mean, Dallas is, because that's the thing, right? Okay, so if I'm going to drop them out of number one, who goes in? You know, and you look around at the other division leaders, it's not going to be anyone from the Pacific. No. It's not going to be Buffalo. I mean, Buffalo to be the Stanley Cup favorite feels like a little over the top. Carolina, you know, Carolina is kind of a boring choice, but maybe that should be.

I know Dom's model loves the lightning still, and, you know, that's an option. Tom's model likes the lightning more than Dom does. Dom's model had the Leafs as a 100-point team also this year, but that's besides the point. You guys had the lead. Whereas you two had the Leafs as a 110 point team at the start of this. I think I said I had them down at 81, and a lot of people complain, but I just, I mean, it's, it kind of comes back to whoever comes, out of the Central is the cup favorite. And that's going to be, you would assume, like, I mean, you definitely would pick whoever

finishes first because, I mean, somebody's going to win that Minnesota series, but they're going to be pretty beat up coming out of it. I don't know. I mean, help me out. Give me the argument to not have Colorado at number one for the 20th week of row or whatever it is. Their power plays terrible. That's a big part of it.

It's been better in March. Like, I think in March it's over 20 percent. But regardless, like, it's, it's, it's, it's over 20 percent. But regardless, like, it's still been bad all season long. And I think it really just comes down to, like, anecdotally, because there's still a, like, there's still an analytical darling. They're still number one and expected and goals and, you know, right across the board, offensively, defensively.

It really just comes down to, like, an anecdotal, do they defend the right way at the right times? Do they get too frustrated with things? Do they force plays? Like, I almost feel like with the abs, like, it's going to come down. to a little bit of an eye test thing here when we kind of assess what's their likelihood of winning a Stanley Cup because their stats are going to be so skewed from going 32 and 7 to start the season. Power play counts, man. And since, even since Jan 1, which is what we're using that as our

line or using that as our delineation from when they started playing, you know, pretty mediocre hockey. They are 30th in the NHL and power play goals four per six. That's just a good way of, you know, That's a nice sub-in for percentage of effectiveness. And it's not just because they're not, it's not just because of cold shooting or bad luck either. They're 20th and Enchance generation on the powerplay, too. So, you know, it's not hard to, it's not hard to pick. I don't, I don't even want to say that it's net picking.

It's not hard to find, you know, bits around the margins that make you think that maybe there's some, enough going on there to take them out of the number one spot. I think, I think Frank might sell me. Interesting. Who do we like right now? Let's just do a quick spin at the bottom of the West. Because we got Utah. We got, I shouldn't even say bottom of the West.

That's obviously not correct. The other Western teams. We got Anaheim, we got Seattle, we got Utah in various points of the playoff picture. Who are we feeling in that space right now? Utah. I kind of like Utah, man. I feel like they've made the right moves to address their team.

Like their goaltending has been pretty good for this season. They play with a lot of speed. And I just think if you're kind of looking at, okay, Utah, Seattle, Los Angeles, I mean, San Jose is right there as well. I think the celebrini factor, of course, is a huge thing. But as far as, like, putting it all together as a group that's, like, ready to be on the precipice of pushing, like, these established good teams, I feel like it's Utah. Utah's in.

And in fact, Utah could do something we've never seen before, which is, they'll be a wild card because the big three in the central are so far ahead. So Utah's going to be a wild card. They're going to cross over to the Pacific. And they could do that with more points than any team in the Pacific Division. They could have the best record of any of the four teams in the Pacific Division, which they're not in, but they would be temporarily, which does a whole lot of interesting things. First of all, for those who are wondering, they're still the four seat as a wild card. They don't get home ice or anything like that.

So, I mean, even if they've got a better record than Anaheim or Vegas or whoever, they still are the road team. But we have seen teams cross over. We have never seen a team win a division that they're not. in. And I would love to say, I'm, I'm rooting for this. Hey, hang the banner. Hang a banner that says Pacific Division Champions. Oh my. 2025. I think that would be fantastic. But yeah, no, I mean, Utah's in. To me, it's, it's three teams for one spot.

And it's, it's, it's fascinating because it's, you know, it's L.A. who we're all sick of, because they always make, it makes me sick that they're still in this race. No one wants to see them play. It's Seattle. It's Seattle who are not, just a team that nobody's paid any attention to all year. Like we've all just kind of been waiting for them to drop out of the race. You know, even now. It might be happening right now too.

The different models all have them, you know, like 10%. And they've been holding down a playoff spot for the vast majority of the season. And yet nobody, like nobody wants to see that. that Seattle, Colorado rematch. There's no better indicator of how bad things have gone for the Kings, like that they can't beat out the Cracken for this. Like, despite their best efforts, they're still run behind. And then you've got the San Jose Sharks, and that's what everybody wants to see.

So you know we're not getting that, because that never happens in the hockey world where the team that everyone's room for. But yeah, like, and here's the craziest thing of all. And to me, this is even crazier than the Utah thing. You look at these three teams. Okay, you know what? We've taken our shots of them, but they're in the mix, right? San Jose is a great story, great young team.

L.A. you know, have been up and down, but they are fighting for it. And Seattle, a team nobody gave any credit to, thought they were going to be bottom five, and they're fighting and holding onto this spot. Hey, it's three pretty good stories, right? And then you look at the standings, and they're all sitting there at 70, 71 points right now.

You know, Welts has 70 points? The total tire fires in Toronto and New Jersey were both of whom have to fire everybody because it's been the biggest disaster in history. And if you took the Devils or the Leafs and just dropped them in the Western Conference, oh, guess what? You're sitting right in a playoff spot today. It's absolutely ridiculous. It's bizarre.

Division of champs. It is bizarre, man. Yeah, it's crazy. Frankie, we got to let you go. but I know you wanted to talk Cole Cofield. He scores his 40th goal of the season last night for the Canadians. It's the first time it's happening like a gazillion years. You guys said before the record that Stefan Rishay was the last guy to do it, which was new.

Less guy has more than 40. Yeah, Rishay was the, he had more than 40. Vinnie Domfuss was the last one to have 40. That was in 93, 94. And Cofield got 40 last night and that building was berserk. Like it was crazy. It was a nightmare for every other team that's in that playoff race because Boston gets a loser point against Jersey. They get the loser point against Montreal.

And Montreal collects both. But like that city, that building was going nuts. And crazy to think that a team like Montreal has not had a 40 goal score. Like, it's amazing. 40? They haven't had 40 goals score in over 30 years. That is crazy, crazy stuff. I wrote about this earlier in the season.

And it was like, you know, I pulled how many other teams and how many guys they've had scored 40 goals. I mean, scoring 40 goals isn't nothing, especially when we were dead puck era for most of that. In 30 plus years, when you're this great legendary franchise, they just, they didn't have anybody. Patcheretti had 39 one year. That was the closest they got. He must have been close. Good God. That's the closest they had.

But no, it was fun. And they got Detroit, Montreal on Thursday. That is going to be, man, nerve-wracking game for a lot of people watching. What else you got the rest of the week, bud? I'll be in Ottawa tomorrow for a little panel work. We got the Sends and the Islanders. The Schaefer Show continues in the province of Ontario. You want it.

Your boy, you get to talk your favorite player, Matthew Schaefer. Thanks, bud. Talk you next week. All right, there goes Frankie. We're back. Sean McIndoo. Guess what I learned. What did you know?

What have we learned? I learned Sean. I learned that the feel-good positive vibes of the U.S. men's Olympic team didn't quite cross over to Team USA for the World Baseball Classic. We saw the baseball boys game-worn jerseys from the Olympic team yesterday ahead of their game against Venezuela. They got and promptly lose 3-2 in the final of the World Baseball Classic. I really thought that some of that goodwill and positivity,

that the U.S. Olympic team engendered in Milan would have carried over to the baseball squad. It just didn't happen. I was shocked by this. It's a shame. I mean, I think some of the vibes carried over. I just didn't. Yeah, which was?

It turned out quite in the winning way. Here's my question. Speaking of great and positive vibes, now does this mean that the ball from that baseball game? Does that go to the baseball Hall of Fame? Or does that not happen? because I know, you know, Jack Hughes is pretty bad. Who on the Venezuelan team is going to be pissed about this?

Is it going to be upset? Why would this famous hockey puck be in the Hockey Hall of Fame? I can't figure it out, says Jack Hughes. I'm trying to get it. That's bullshit that the Hockey Hall of Fame has it, in my opinion. Why would I have that puck? That's used to Wichinsky. That's not you doing a bit of like pretending to be a dumb guy,

not understanding how Hall of Fame's work. That is. The actual Jack Hughes quote. So yeah, great, great day for... I got a Jack Hughes impression that I'm workshopping. I don't think it's quite ready for the light of day yet. But I think maybe at some point I'll be able to. Are you taking it to like the Wish with the Wysinski impersonating camp and getting some tips?

Yeah, I'm just, it's a variation on my two other impressions, just like the case with Wish. Do you have to knock your front teeth out for it to work? I actually did that. already. We can talk about that off mic. It was a dark day in 2004. Okay. All right. Well, yeah, great week for

Team USA across sports. Real, real cool, cool vibes. Speaking of cool vibes, here's what I learned. And I wouldn't say I learned it because I knew this already. Don't wear a Habs jersey

to, just in general, is kind of a good life rule, I think. But don't wear a Havs jersey to a game involving other teams. Because last night, the Leafs played the Islanders in a game that was attended by 18,000 Matthew Schaefer, friends and family. And one guy wearing a Havs jersey, doing the old, you know, wearing the jersey, wearing the jersey of a team that's not playing, representing the crest in hostile territory. Hockey gods apparently didn't like it because he got drilled in the head with a hockey puck. Million to one shot, Doc.

Million to one. Yeah, I mean, they got him. And he, you know, we wish him all the best in his recovery. But a little life lesson. You know, the hockey gods don't appreciate it. have you ever done that? Were you in night? Were you ever wearing a Doug Gilmore jersey to, you know,

a Sends game that he was involved with? I can't promise that I haven't done it. I would actually bet money that you have. Well, I mean, the reason I'm hesitant is because it's not like I'm at that many Senators games that the Leafs aren't playing. True. And I don't, I should say I don't wear the Leaf jersey in the press box. Congratulations.

You know, or if I do, I keep my code on at least so that, you know, because I'm a professional. And that's, that's just, that's just how I roll. Leif's long johns, no promise there. You can hide those under anything, my man. That's, that's between me and, and myself. So, yeah, so tough break for this fan. Not, I would say not quite up there with the immortal Steve Sullivan fan incident. Oh my God.

As far as fan karma, but pretty, still pretty good. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, just go on YouTube type Steve Sullivan fan and sit back and enjoy it because it is maybe the greatest thing that ever happened. I'm not even going to, I was going to do like a quick, a quick synopsis of that whole thing. I don't, I don't even want to. I think people, if you haven't seen that, I think you need to see it with completely fresh eyes. It's that clip is like the old quote about watching Gretzky play. Like somebody's seen it for the first time and somebody's seen it for the last time. And neither one will be. disappointed because it's it's so good. Do you got to post stuff today? I always ask that. You always do. It's a dumb way to get into this.

We are bringing back a cap court, salary cap court, and in which I ask the question, does anyone have a bad contract anymore? Because I don't know if you've heard this, Sean. The cap is going up. I saw a tweet by Allard Walsh. It's going up to $11 billion T dollars, I think, in the next few years. So is anyone have a bad contract anymore and I think I found a couple of guys but it was it was tough sledding I got to be

honest with you is Wade Redden still in the book summer he probably is yeah I mean if she she Weber is still out there so uh you know who has control his contract right now is it is it is it Utah you know what it's uh Chicago I believe has got black ox legend shit yeah Vegas and Carrie Price is still out there uh on the books of the San Jose sharks so You know, if the sharks can make a bit of a run. Who knows? Check in and see how his rehab's working. Yeah.

Thanks, buddy. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Frankie, wherever you are. And thank you, producer, Jeff. We talked about this earlier. Dallas versus Colorado is the big game the night. But we're also getting Pittsburgh, Carolina.

That's a fun one. Two pretty solid games on a six-game night. I'm back Thursday with Dom and Russo. Russo, shock you, is it the GM meetings? Another plum assignment to keep a lot of the cold in Minnesota, shocking shock. They didn't call you for that? Like, you do a lot of traveling. You didn't get the tap for Florida?

I did the GM meetings once. Pierre was sick or something, so it was me in Russo. It was the weirdest experience in my life. You'll never guess which GM, I'm pretty sure, escaped through the window of a conference room in Florida that year. Wow. You'll never guess. Right out the window.

Well, I know it was it the year that Mark Bergevin tried to hide behind the plant. And nobody could tell it was him. It was just a random guy with 36-inch biceps. Yeah. It's a random jack guy wearing multiple scarves hiding behind a plant. Be anybody. Never know. All right, folks.

Enjoy the games. Like I said, I'll be back with Tom and Reese tomorrow. And we'll see you again real soon.