The Athletic Hockey Show - Eric Tulsky of the Carolina Hurricanes, Dallas Stars rollercoaster season and Jack Eichel set to return to Buffalo vs the Sabres

Episode Date: March 8, 2022

Eric Tulsky, the assistant General Manager of the Carolina Hurricanes joins Craig and Sean to discuss the Eastern Conference powerhouse Canes, scouting players the Canes goaltending and the process he went through when he interviewed for the General Manager job in Chicago a few weeks back.Craig and Sean take a look at the Dallas Stars and ask if they would be a playoff team if they were in the Eastern Conference and the guys look ahead to Vegas Golden Knights center Jack Eichel's return to Buffalo, Thursday night vs the Sabres.In our comments section segment, the boys discuss the Hockey Twitter march madness tournament, and Sean's chances of winning the entire thing. Plus we critique the new Stanley Cup playoff logo that the NHL released, and we go over the game tape from Craig and Sean's rendition of 'O Canada'. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hey everybody. This is Craig Custin's with the athletic hockey show. He's back, folks. He was eating tape at the NFL combine last week. Oh, so much tape. Eat so much tape eating. And I got timed in the 40. Well, I clearly don't listen to the show when you're not on it.

Me and Shapiro joked for 15 minutes about you running the 40. Seriously? Yeah. I said you would do it just a shade under eight seconds. Like, what's a good? Good, like, what's a legit, not embarrassing time? Hold on. Let me, again, we're pros at this. I'm joined by Sean Gentile. This is the, I'm just going to, let me just run through the particulars of the podcast.

That's John Jolie. We have Eric Talski, assistant GM of the Carolina Hurricanes on as the guest today. And we're going to talk about Eric in a second here. But no, back to what a, the important topic of the day. Everybody's talking about what's a good 40 time for a 40-year-old dad? in the NFL combine. And also, what's a good cone drill time? Oh, I don't know any of that. How big were those hands? Let's go with the full measurables.

I think I could do it under six seconds. Is that good? No. You don't think I could? No. Oh, wow. Okay. What's Rich Eisen's?

Oh, yeah, whatever Rich is. What's Rich Eisen's done? That's our comparable. Like, whatever Rich is doing it, I'm slower than. That's, that's your comparable. I'm really fast. Are you? Are you fast?

I wouldn't say I'm fast. This is, okay, see this is, this is, this is BS because they're making you watch. Oh, you got to like watch it. They're making it. It's for charity. Oh, no, wait. You know what, actually, you know what? Six seconds seems like, seems like the move.

Like Eisen, Eisen is around there. I'll do it. My son wanted to time himself in the 40 anyways. He's actually, he's an actual athlete doing athletic things right now in life. So I will, I'll see if I can get the sun dial out. we'll see how long that lasts that what the 40 or this idea

Calvin doing athletic things he's got a few years last before you'd realize that there's more to life than he's in a fun mate he's like obsessed with the draft so he was like hey when you go to go to indie where I was just for like I could have been anywhere

I was in a hotel for three days like in meetings and conference rooms but he was like can you know see if you check out this person and see and I'm like Cal I'm not going to do that, buddy. I'm at the Hyatt Regency conference room. Like, I'm trying to figure out what steakhouse I'm going to eat at.

What indie steakhouse I'm going to eat at. But as we've talked about in the past, because I'm so trained to see everything through a hockey lens. And I, when I'm in, I don't know if we talked about this on air, but I know you and I, like, when I'm in the airport, I just, everybody is like a person in the hockey universe. Because I'm, as a reporter, we're constantly looking for people to talk to, I think, or stock. You, yeah, you more than most. I think it's just because... Yes. Like, you have the...

You have the T-1000, like, laser scanner where you're like agent, agent, agent. I'm just constantly looking for it. Because there's so much of, like, it's events and GM meetings and board of governors. That's all you're like, stare. You're like, oh, quick, good. There's Pat Prasan and you hustle over in corner room and poor Pat. Did anybody... I wish there was like a V-O-2 Max drill or whatever those guys, whatever those guys do,

the drill that makes everybody throw up on the treadmill. They should do that. They should do that with NFL with NFL prospects too. Well, Lindsay Barra did that for the, so she said, she did the proper NHL. So what I was going to say, so I'm in this NFL world where I'm now using my, you know, identification skills. So like, I literally saw John Chica in a Patriots jacket, like walking down the street. Now, it wasn't because I'm just my, my dumb monkey brain is transferring.

But I'm like, why is Judge now also he might be? We don't know. Yeah, you know why? He's got some free time. It could be. What else does he have to do? Learning from other sports. So yeah, so that was my, my, that's your NFL Combine Minute.

And so I want to talk about Tulski. First of all, real missed opportunity by us. The Sean Gentile Carolina Hurricanes rivalry, we all know is one of the biggest rivalries in sports. You completely stepped on that. We talked about it coming out of the interview. Yeah. Eric set it up beautifully to like really do a bit at the start of the interview.

But I also thought you were a bit cowardly. So you asked a couple good questions. It's because I like Eric. Like there was a couple like legit. Like I was like, hey, Sean, like that was really thoughtful. And Eric gave a great answer. But I would, you know, here you are. the number one critic, you could have gone any number of directions with your question asking,

like, you know, hey, you know, maybe, have you ever talked to the social media team about toning it down or? No, that's not, that's not his, that's not his affair. He's got a lot of responsibilities. He does. Instead, it was just a lot of like, boy, Carolina's the best. I was like, boy, Carolina is the best. The on ice stuff that I've talked about with them, it's like, yeah, it was a month ago.

And I was like, could they maybe use like another third, like another third line scoring option? No? And it turned into a whole thing. I think they're one of the few best teams in the league. There's a, there's a record of this. You can go back and look. I have them as the second, third, fourth best team in the league every single week. You said, and I quote, I'm reading this right now.

This is from October 11th, 2021. The Carolina Hurricanes, unless they address their porous, deep. defense and lack of depth will never win a Stanley Cup. With the pro scouting department and data department led by the coward Eric Tulski. So I just thought it was a misapportunity by you. Otherwise, really good interview with and Carolina, I mean, just rolling. We talked a little bit. Really, they don't have the money to do anything at the deadline.

So they're probably not. And I don't want to like steal anything from Eric's conversation. But also, you know, when you look at their organizational depth, they really, like, they're kind of set. And so it's just like, let's see what happens with them. I think they more than any other team, especially when you look at the ones that are at the top of the league and at the top of the Eastern Conference. In a way, I think they're the ones that should do the least because that group is clicking in such a way. And their cap is structured in such a way where they couldn't really do anything if they didn't take away from. This isn't a Florida situation where they could add and not really subtract.

This is its own thing where they have $900,000 or $1.2 million under the cap or whatever it is. So they would have to blow something up. I shouldn't say blow something up. They would have to subtract if they wanted to add. And I don't know that that makes a ton of sense for them at this point. Yeah. I mean, no, I really do.

I like what they did. And we talked to Eric about the goaltending a good bit because that's, That's something that's really gone right. That's something that that team in that front office, they made the right call going into this, going into the season. And there was a lot of valid questions about that. But Freddie Anderson's been good. And Eric spoke about that at length. Yeah, I look at them, honestly, and this is true for whatever.

You could go five or six deep in the east. And it's like, if you just port one of those teams over the Western Conference, they would be, they would be, it would be smooth sailing to like a, maybe. not a cup final, but, you know, let's say a showdown with the abs. Because the depth in the east is, is great. And what we're seeing now, especially out of the Western Conference, is like, man, stuff's getting dark early. The wilder, a wreck and the, and the golden nights, I mean, whatever, two straight wins still not quite get it together. I can't watch these games night in and night out and not think, like, wow, the West is, you know, a couple, a couple rungs down the ladder behind the east.

A couple. All right. So before we get to Eric, I'm going to ask you two quick questions. We'll bang these out and then get to Eric's. He was really good. I also, like, I told Savi he was coming on. And I like how she put it. She's like, he's so good at explaining complicated things in a clear way.

Like, I love that about Eric. He sits there and he'll say, here's kind of the mechanisms of how we approach things in the front office. And it's just, he's, I don't want to say understated, but he is. But then you listen to him, you're like, oh, that was really smart. Yeah. It's almost like he spent a huge. chunk of his life literally explaining complicated concepts in a way for people to understand

them like that was you would think that was that was the that was the realm he came out of right and i think you know sean and i don't we need things explained very very right when eric got you know right when we saw the record i asked him for a picture book set up of some of some of the stuff he was talking about can you can you can you can you give us me in like rebus form please i'm i do I want to see his deck for the Blackhawks. Like I would like, you were angling. You were angling for that. Um, all right.

So the two questions I have for you. One, if the Dallas stars were in the east, would they even be close to a playoff team? Like, what do you do? What's your compass on the stars who are playing pretty well? I've been joking all year about how they're a roller coaster team, right? And sometimes it heads up and sometimes it heads down. and they've been on these four game, five game bursts in either direction. They're at the point now where it's like they've been clicking.

They're seven, two, and one in their last 10. They've done some of it without, I mean, I know Jason Robertson's on a tear right now. He had hat tricks in consecutive games and whatever. So this might not be the timely as bit, but there was a stretch last week where it was like, Pavelsky wasn't doing anything and Hints wasn't doing anything and Robertson wasn't doing anything. And they were still fun in a way to get points out of these games. and now is the big question surrounding them for really the duration of the season is like how top heavy could they be? Yeah. Are they going to be rely? Are they going to be able to rely on anybody outside of the three forwards and then Mero Heskinin? Like, what else do they have? And I think that's kind of what's changed in spots over the last 10 games is that they've gotten bits and pieces from other guys, which was an open question, I think, for a big portion of the season.

Yeah, you sound like you like the Dallas Stars. I'm surprised. They're fun. I don't know how good they are, but it's a volatile team. They've been so up and so down. And now like the elevator's on the way up, right? It has been, it has been for a little bit. And it's coincided with the wild falling off and the Predators falling off and the Jets falling way off. Edmonton woke up today outside of the wild card position. Like on and on and on. The stars glow up is kind of coincided with other Western teams. Like, having the wheels wobble on them. So I think part of it is that they're super entertaining. Part of it is that they have improved over the last 10 or 15 games. And then part of it is that they look good by comparison because that group of teams, when you get outside, say, Vegas, who people still treat as a legit contender,

even though they haven't put it all together, there's that whole glut of teams where it's Dallas and it's Nashville and it's in Newheim and it's maybe the Kings. And like you're sort of trying to, figure out who the best of that bunch is. And I don't know that there's any obvious answer yet. The Kings are in second place in the Pacific Division, right? It's nuts. But I think the stars are right there. And if nothing else, and I say this in the power rings, every single week, they are really fun. And I appreciate them for that. And that may not be good for like the blood

pressure of Stars fans because there's nights where you're just like, what is this team? What are they doing. But they're a blast and I'm glad they're around. Like if I wouldn't, I hope they make the playoffs because a playoff series that involves them could, all outcomes are on the table. So that's right. Let's take it. Um, all right. My second question is also we should probably adopt the stars as our Western Conference team. You mentioned like a couple good Americans in there. Like I look, we should, they're up for consideration. We're just going to put that on the board and think about it for a while. I don't want to rush. Yeah, it's fine. We don't have to, adoption decisions. We don't have to jump in anything here. It's March. So I want to,

I want you to close your eyes and imagine you are a diehard Buffalo Sabers fan. You grew up in Buffalo. You got your, I know you have multiple dining meatballs shirts anyways. I layer, I layer it up. I'm always like at least two sometimes three deep on the on the dining eightfold shirt. You've got, you've had season tickets for years. The second you could afford them as a professional. And, um, you just, you, you bleat. You bleat. You, you bleat. You bleed Buffalo Sabres. And Jack Eichel on Thursday is coming to town. And you have, you're in your seats that you've had for years.

You're pulling up and you got your, you got your bats blue. No, you wouldn't drink a Canadian beer. No, not there. You got, I'm trying to think what. Genesee. Yeah, yeah. Jenny cream, baby. I don't know if I, I hope they sell that at the rank.

That'll be awesome. One of America's great shit beers, Jenny Cream ale. Oh, we should. We should do our Mount Rushmore of terrible American beer. Apple Plus coming soon. That's our next Apple Plus bonus episode.

And somehow there's a way to subscribe to that. Jack Eichl hits the ice for the first time. Are you cheering him, Sean? Are you booing him? Oh, man. He's going to get booed. A lot. Oh, I know.

Yeah, he's going to get booed. I think. But I want to know what you would do. I was always kind of a softie with that sort of stuff when it happened to me back in my fan days, right? Yeah, yeah. I didn't boo Yarm or Yager. And I went and saw him play at the arena when he was with the caps. Like, I mean, that's a bad situation for a lot of different reasons.

It's also a different situation because he's a much more accomplished player. God bless Jack Eichael, but, you know, Yager had an MVP and he had two cups. and there was, he had peltz on the wall that the Jack didn't, when he left Buffalo. But I was never much of, I was never much of a boo the guy when he, when he comes back. But man, if you put yourself in that position where it's like the savers are just, whatever, we don't need, we don't need to go into the laundry list of traumas that that fan base has suffered over the years. I kind of feel like I would make an exception. I think I might

boom It's good It's gonna Really I think I think he's gonna get cheers I think he's gonna get a lot of cheers And maybe I'm completely wrong here About I don't think so

I think the fact that the team Like the whole medical thing was a thing And he wasn't allowed to make the choice To get what he wanted done And he like I And enough fans that are frustrated With the ownership

And the franchise Where they might go Jack And they got a good Like Alex They got a good return So he didn't like screw over the franchise. And the process.

Yeah. So now they're like, you know what, Jack, you did what you had to do. It didn't work out. We love you. I think there's going to be more cheers. I've seen the narrative, the anti-Jack narrative that, you know, people have adopted, I think, or come to agree with there. And it's not something that I buy.

Like, I like personally, the medical stuff. When you introduce that into the mix, that sort of tips it over into fully into the other camp for me. But I don't know, man. There's a lot of bad blood. And I think some of it is, and I think some of it is earned for the way things worked there before the medical stuff happened. And I think that's where people have some maybe earned antipathy towards Jack.

And I think we're going to, I haven't even thought about what the response would be like until until now. That's, that's gonna be really interesting. I typically don't watch pregame stuff, right?

But I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna check in on that one. Are they gonna do like a video? Can you imagine? They're not, no way.

No way. Here's Tim Murray, mad at the lottery when he didn't get Connor McGeehaded. Yeah, that's, that's where it starts is, is Tim Murray glaring

into, into cameras during the, during the, just something where everybody looked pissed. Like, Like, Tim looked pissed. 45 seconds of just like, scowls.

From Tim Murray, from Connor McDavid. Like, that was major. Jack, Michael. That was lemon face from everybody that was involved. And it's like, what did you guys think was going to happen? Like, these teams aren't, these teams aren't very good. Like, you were going to end up on one of them. I'm sorry.

All right. Let's get to the conversation with Eric Talski. He was great. You're going to learn something about the process. He lifts the curtain a little bit on the Blackhawks GM search. That was pretty transparent anyway, surprisingly. And they set out text alert saying who they're interviewing. Yes, it was going.

So let's take a quick break and be joined by Eric. We are now pleased to be joined by a long time, probably best friend, Eric, would you say? Like, we're probably good friends, acquaintances we've met for sure. Sure. I like you a lot, Craig. You know, you're the best. Thanks.

That's what I'm really what I was getting at, hopefully here. That's what all this hinges on is that people like Craig. No. That's like, that's a building block for the podcast. Is it people like Craig enough that, you know, the rest of it works. As I point myself. Hello, Sean. Eric Talski and in charge of Dili, who's back to the second second.

As always. Eric, AGM of the Carolina Hurricane. Sean's favorite team in the NHL, as we all know. Because of Eric. I'll root for any team with Eric. Come on. So Eric, first of all, thank you for doing this. Yeah, my pleasure.

Happy to be here. I mean, you guys are, you guys are doing well. Things are going pretty well at home. Rattle off some wins this weekend. As you probably know by now, this is my, like this time of year, it's hard to talk about anything but the trade deadline and the approaching trade deadline. And so I'd love to get your thoughts kind of how you guys plan on approaching it, and especially you, like, are you on the road scouting?

Like, what is this time of year like to you? Yeah. So as an organization, we always want to be in on every possibility to make our team better. We want to turn over every rock, see what's underneath. Look for every chance we have. This year at this deadline, we're pretty constrained. We don't have much gap space. an LTIR and don't have much room under our ceiling.

So there isn't a lot of flexibility for us. And it's, you know, we may be limited in what we can do. But we'll be looking at everything. And, you know, if there is an opportunity, especially, probably the easiest place to make a move would be on B. So that's where we're especially focused. But, you know, I don't know, we don't have a lot of space for me. And Richard.

Go ahead. So I was going to answer the other half for me in particular. So I'm not on the road very much. I'm mostly in the office. I lead two groups here. So I lead our data group and our pro scouting group. So this time of year, I'm especially focused on spending time with the pro scouts and talking to them, making sure they understand where the organization's perspective is and

what we're looking for and what we want them to try to find and trying to help them build a set of recommendations that they can push out to the organization of here are people who we think would fit in this kind of role. You know, we think this player would look better with us because he does these things well that are particularly important for us. Now, this other player, we think might not be as good of a fit because he's, his current home is a perfect fit for his skill set. And if he goes somewhere else, he might not look quite as good.

And so trying to get that level of detail and the understanding of the market and the opportunities out there is really a focus for us right now. I'm so used to asking two questions and people just answering one of them, Eric, that I was ready to, like, that's, like, I mean the Cardinals end of like asking two questions. And then it's like, oh, he's going to answer the second one as everyone always does. And then you just move on. But what I was going to say is you talked about how, like, how are you going to afford Dougie Hamilton anyways?

Now, in retrospect, and, you know, you look at kind of how some of the replacements are going and it's worked out economically. And that would have been rough in retrospect. to educate us going on there. No, we could have made it work. We were talking about it. I mean, the number it got to would have been hard. We had sort of a range that we were prepared to go to that we could have made it

work at the number he got. You know, we would have had to make some tough choices. You always have to make some tough choices. There's a hard cap and you can't keep everyone forever, you know, if you're a good team and have good players who deserve to be paid well. And so ultimately, the higher the number goes, the harder that choice is. And, you know, it reached a level where we think a lot of him, we think he's a great player. But it was, you know, it was probably at a point where we needed to go in a different direction.

I mean, you look at the obvious kind of pivot point would have been what you guys did with your goal tenning in the off season, where you had that flexibility to spend on Freddie Anderson that maybe you wouldn't have had if you would have gotten up to a particular number with Dougie. But everything's going great there. You guys, do you guys crack the goaltender evaluation code, right? Like, you can just say we're set and everything's fine moving forward. I would not say that. Goaltending's hard. And, you know, we've had some good fortune the last couple of years where guys have come in and played well for us.

and, you know, it was a tough, those were tough decisions in the summer that we let go of some people who played really well for us, fit well in the locker room, we liked them. But, you know, we felt like we had an opportunity to bring in two guys who had really had a long track record of success and who we felt very comfortable with. And, you know, both of them were coming off of a little bit of a down year and that created an opportunity for us. us that we were, you know, we were happy to take advantage of. Yeah, I mean, because goaltending as voodoo is just accepted as a truism. And you see a team, you know, that's, it was as strong as yours have as much uncertainty in the offseason as you guys did. That, to me, was not to take away from the doggie soccer or anything, but that to me

was the most fascinating part of what you guys did in the off season, that kind of full-on, that full-on overhaul. So, you know, I think that's something that is. especially data struggles with or public data struggles with is the evaluation of goaltenders. And to, again, to see that it's worked out for you guys this far is really interesting to me. So is there on the team, how have you seen a goaltender evaluation specifically shift over the last five years or 10 years in the way that's done in front office versus the

public sphere? Yeah. I mean, you're right that it is, it's just fundamentally a hard problem. I mean, a goaltender who stops 92% of this shots is fantastic and one of the best in the league. And a goaltender who stops 91% of the shots is a decent backup. And it takes an awful lot of shots to tell the difference at that level. And so setting aside all the things about goaltending in particular and guys being hot and cold and all the mental aspects of going did on all of the team aspects that influence performance, just that starting point of

trying to tell the difference between 91 and 92% is hard. And so it's, you know, it's genuinely a challenge. And the statistics are not easy to do. And the I test isn't easy to do either. Like, that's, it's just a fine evaluation. I think we have, we've worked hard to blend both. Freddie in particular, someone who are goaltending coaches really liked. And, you know, they looked, they saw what he did last year when, you know, it was a little tough.

He had some injury problems. But they believed in him. And they, you know, they said, this is someone who we think has a bounce back in front of him. And, you know, so he blends out with some of the data that we're looking at and you come away with the impression that, you know, if we can make it work for him, that was a good direction for us to go. So far, it's panned out. And I'm not going to come in here and say we've cracked the code and promise you that our goal tendings. Yeah, it's over.

It's it. It works. Don't worry about it. You can just write that one in pen. It's fine. I promise you that not every decision we ever make will turn out perfect. That's one of the things that I think is an organization we do really well, though, is we're not afraid to take some swings. And, you know, with a lot of places, if you,

take five risks and three of them go your way, you're getting killed about the other two and maybe you lose your job over it. And here, if you take five risks and three of them go your way, we know you're one decision better than you were beforehand. You kind of mentioned one of those risk categories a little bit earlier where you try to find, you try to identify players who have more to give than their current situation. Maybe that's a third pair D that you think can play up. The flip side of that, and this is something we've seen in a lot of different examples is sometimes those guys are perfectly cast.

There's a third pair of D who's a third pair of D and that's the role he's in and he, and he should stay there. So how do you identify in your role, I'm interested to hear how you identify how you parse those two, right? the guy who is the perfectly cast third pair D and then the guy who's, you know, who has more to give because sometimes the numbers that we see in the public sphere might be identical. So is that a scouting thing or how do you how do you parse between the two? Yep.

It's both. There are things I will ask the data team for that I think will be indicators of whether there is data-based evidence that the player can move up. And there are things that I will ask the pro scouts to look at that I think are evidence of, you know, if you see the player doing this regular, that's a really good sign because he's going to have to do it even more if he moves up the lineup. And so we do, on both sides, there are markers that we look for where we think someone would be able to fit into a bigger role than they're in right now.

You said you're not on the road a ton right now. Like the favorite pastime of people of reporters at games is to go right to the sheet and see which scouts or which games and then try to correct the code of who's scouting who. but it's always like ridiculous to me and it's like oh hey Don what else with this game because it could have been on the schedule for months but also like I would hope

you're not trading for a guy based on what Don sees in Columbus on a Saturday night so as somebody who's managing your pro scouts who are doing that who just saw somebody in Columbus and Saturday night versus the data which tends to want to look at the larger sample how do you balance that when those scouts

bang at a table saying hey this guy's playing great right now I just saw he's, you know, versus, hey, like, let's not get caught up in what happened over the event this time of year. Yeah, so we've worked hard to structure our scouting reports in a way that sort of focus on both things. So game by game, what did you see today is a completely separate question from considering all of your viewings. What do you think of the player? And we have both of those kind of reports in our system. so that then the scout is thinking about them as two separate questions

and the organization and integrate them as two separate pieces of information. Is there data that also does the same thing? It's like how is the guy playing right now versus how is he, what do we think of analytically as a player? Yeah. Of course, you can always do that. The concern with data is always the finer you slice it, the easier it is for what you're looking at to not mean very much.

Right. So that's always a challenge that you have to balance. I like to use fine slices of data to make the argument that I want to make in favor of your players. That's what almost everyone does. And also like even setting aside the sample size thing, like you're always going to get into the questions about, okay, he's playing well now for his team in his situation.

That could all change tomorrow if he moves to a new team in a new situation. Actually, it tends to, right? It usually does. It usually looks much different when I switch teams at this time of year. I do think that's a challenge and you have to be careful with it. But, you know, there is value in knowing who is at their best today. Yeah. How long have you been heading up the pro scouting department?

Like, how long has that fallen under your purview? Is this like your, is this the second or third season for that? This is my second year, yeah. what's that experience been like and what did you think whenever that was you know kind of included in in your role change a couple years ago because that's you know you're heading up data and you're heading up scouting i mean that's those are those are the two those are the two big ones and they're both and they're both you yeah well so i don't i make it sound like i do everything here yeah it's no it's it's all it's all you that's fine we can we can just we can guess you up here it's

Okay. So we have an amateur scouting group that is separate for me. I focus on the pro-scouting side. We have a development group that is also run by. So there in New York, our other assistant GM leads both of those groups. And they do a lot of important work. And we have a fantastic prospect pool. And they get the credit for that. So it's important to me not to come across like I'm doing everything here. We know where Eric. It's okay. We had a certain argument. So it was interesting taking the group over. I, you know, it was, I had not, I'd never written a scouting report before, right? I'd written statistical reports, but not scouting reports. And so it was important for me from day one to sort of make sure I was taking advantage of the experience they had and, you know, not coming in assuming I knew everything, but listening to them. And, you know, I had certain things that I wanted to see.

and that I pushed. A lot of it was on the communication side and how we were thinking about what problems and how we were pushing information out to the organization. And then I also started doing my own scouting reports and making sure I had been a user and had seen why they were doing things a certain way because everyone is going to have things that they want to change.

And it's a lot easier to explain why if I've done it your way and seen the way you've been doing it and said, I really think it's going to be easier or better or more efficient if we make this tweet to our reports or this change to what questions we answer, whatever it might be. And so some of the things like that shift to having game-by-game evaluations separate from overall player evaluations like that. That was something that I needed to sort of be doing firsthand and understanding the way they were doing it now and help make sure I could see how this would fit as we made that

transition. How big is your pro-scanning staff? I see what's listed on that. It looks like it's fairly small. Yeah, we have two full-time employees and three part-time employees. So, I mean, that is small? And is that by design? What does that indicate in terms of priorities or what do you think of pro-scouting staffs?

I don't think it's that small compared to the league. I did a skim of team websites myself recently. And most teams had about five or six guys listed. They may all be full time, in which case, you know, that's clearly bigger. But we're not that far off market in terms of the amount of investment. You know, I think our push recently has been to broaden out the understanding of what a pro scouts is. So there was a time when the only way you knew what happened in Columbus on Tuesday was if you had somebody in Columbus on Tuesday. And that's not where we are anymore. And so as an organization,

we've been using more video, using more data, and taking advantage of the bandwidth that creates because it takes a lot less time to watch a game on video than to drive to Columbus to watch the game. and so when you make that change, you get more time to cover the HL, to cover reserve lists, to cover college and European free agents. And a lot of that stuff, we've expanded our crow scouting mission to help make sure that we're covering everything that could feed into our pro team in the near future and not just the people who are already in the NHL. Right.

All right. I know we're probably pushing limits of how long we can keep you here. But I did want to, you were a bit in the news a little bit recently. The Blackhawks brought you in for an interview for the GM job. Also, they were pretty public about anything. I don't, it was, it felt very NFL like where it was like, hey, coming in today is, you know, random Cubs, whatever, and Eric Talski. What was that process like for you?

And also the fact that it was, they were fairly as transparent as teams have typically been in that search. Yeah, it was interesting. So I, you know, I got, Don called me down, told me they had asked for permission to talk to me. That was, you know, I was like, great. Sounds like fun. So I went and met with them, spent a day talking to them. It was mostly kind of general, like, how do you picture an organization running?

What do you, how do you approach this, How do you think you'd set up an organization to be effective, sustainably effective? And so that was a lot of that kind of organizational discussion. And that was fun for me. And then, yeah, at the end of the day, they told me, in their experience, the names will always get out anyway. And they'd rather be in front of the message and play it out themselves. And so I had not expected that. I found myself scrambling to tell people quickly before it was out on Twitter.

Because, you know, when I got asked to interview, I was told, you know, everyone wanted to keep confidential. And so I didn't tell very many people at all. And then there was actually never mind. We're telling everybody about this. By confidence. So we mean we're going to announce it with our Twitter. On Twitter. Yeah.

With a million dollars. You know, I understand how that. changes, right? You start doing it in a name or two get out and you say, you know, let's just get in front of that. So, you know, I don't, I don't fault them at all for making that switch. I understand where that comes from. But I, yeah, so they interview since Chicago. My parents live in Chicago. So I stayed with them. And I actually, I told them, hey, I'm going to be in Chicago for a night. Can I stay with you? And then, you know, didn't tell them why at first. So I was trying to keep at that level of confidential. Wow. You think they might have guessed?

So I got a text from my mom a few days later like, wait a minute, the Black Hucks just announced they're bringing people in for interviews. Mrs. Tolstke was connecting the dots. Yeah, she figured it out. I just, you know, as one of the first wave of guys with your background that are interviewing for GM spots and that have risen to the level that you've risen with, I, you know, tracking me. your career and seeing their responsibilities that that you've added in Carolina to the point where again, you are interviewing for the Blackhawks job. What have you added to your skill set over the last five years or six years that has made you a viable candidate for those jobs? And has made you somebody that, you know, ownership groups are, are targeting and comfortable speaking to and comfortable with the prospect of you of you in the big chair.

Yeah, so I think a lot has changed for me over that time. When I came into the league, I didn't know how an NHL team worked. I'd never talked to a coach. I had never talked to, I'd had one or two conversations with people in management, but it's very different when you're inside and you start to hear things about, you know, how and why some of these decisions get made and building out that understanding of a lot of the things that go into process. that you can't see from the outside.

I think made my understanding of how things work and my ability to make suggestions a lot more sophisticated and robust. And really, you know, that experience, I hate to say you just need to take time and put in your dues, but I think being around and seeing some of this does actually make a real impact on somebody's ability to see the whole picture. I came in with industry experience leading and managing groups, thinking about problems and having to make decisions, having to make medium and long range plans. I think a lot of that kind of strategic thinking is a transferable skill. But the time spent in the game was what helped me get a sense for where that applies to individual details of an NHL team.

in particular. Was there anything that the Blackhawks that you were surprised by or just stood out about the process? No. So going in, the thing I was really not sure about was how much it was going to be about their team in particular versus running a team in general. And I was actually, I went into it basically prepared to refuse to answer questions about their team. Because I'm like, look, you know, we're going to be looking. to be buyers at the trade deadline that's coming up. And I think you guys are probably going to be sellers.

It's not really fair for me to walk in here and tell you what I think of all your players. Like, I am currently employed by the hurricanes and I owe it to them to respect their interests first. And so I was planning to just duck those questions, but they were very courteous in not going anywhere near anything like that. And so, yeah, that made the interview easy for me. So was there a moment in the interview where you realized that it wasn't just like a fishing expedition that they weren't just trying to figure out the secret sauce? No, so they gave me some information ahead of time about what, you know, they asked me to put together a presentation and the topics in that presentation were all pretty high level.

And so I went in knowing, you know, that might be the focus. And then they never pivoted to, okay, and what would you do about these players on our roster? What do you think of Dominic Kuboli? Yeah, whatever. What would be your ask of a trade deadline deal? Just for instance. I mean, they have some serious strategic decisions in front of them. And I think it would have been natural to ask candidates, you know, how they felt about that and how they would approach it.

because, you know, I could understand it if they said, if somebody is not on board with what we think needs to be done, they're probably not right for us. Yeah. My sense of the way they were approaching it was that at least in the initial rounds, it was much more, we want to make sure we're comfortable with the way you think about problems. And if we are, then we're probably not going to tell you, you know, hey, you need to, you know, make this move with the roster. So they were trying to get a feel for how their candidates approach problems and think about things more than about what they think about specific players or a specific situation. How many, who was running in the interview? So there were three people in the room who was Danny Wirz, Jamie Faulkner and someone from HR Sharra Meisinger. You had your slideshow, you got a deck ready to go. Yeah. So they asked for a kind of 45-man presentation. So I put that together.

You look at the net that they cast, whether they're speaking to Greenberg from the Cubs or whatever. And that got a lot of attention because they were obviously looking at maybe some less traditional candidates to fill that job. And then they end up going with Kyle Davidson. He'd been doing the job on an interim basis for the last few months. And that got a lot of attention because it was like they cast this wide. net and then they actually end up hiring the guy that the guy that's been there that's been there the whole time. So as somebody who is as close to the process as you were, did you get the, did you get the vibe that this was that, um, I'm trying, I'm trying to phrase it the right way. That this was as wide ranging a search as they, is they made it out to be.

I mean, you know, it's, I can't say for sure because I wasn't in the room when they were making decisions or they would have made a different hire. Yeah, I recommend me for the job, actually, Eric says. But my assumption, nothing, it came across like they were really genuinely interested in hearing a variety of perspectives and thinking about what different voices had to say, what different pairs of eyes saw in the way a team can and should be run. And, you know, I don't know for sure. But my bet is that Kyle didn't get the job because he was there. Kyle got the job because they liked the way he thinks. And they, you know, they came away feeling like we saw a lot of strong candidates.

But in the end, we're still very comfortable with the person who we have seen. And, you know, I don't think he was handed the job. I think he earned a job. I don't know him at all. But I do know, it seems like a decade ago. with the last GM's meetings, I was at, that was in person that was right before the pandemic. I remember talking to Stan about Kyle, like Rand, I was doing something, you know, 40 and 40 or something. And he was, I'd never even heard of him. And he's like, this, this is a kid that's,

like, blown me away with his intelligence. And he's, he's got a huge future in this game. And so, like, I, you know, that, like, stuck with me. I'm not surprised to see, you know, based on what Stan was saying about him in that moment, have the success. I don't know if you know anything. I don't know. I also don't know him, but it's a good thing. And I'm thinking, boy, that's a good situation to be. And I want everyone who doesn't know me to have heard good things about me, too. Yeah. I've never heard a good thing like you, Eric.

Tough bounce. Oh, man. But thanks for doing this, man. I know you got a lot going on right now. It's always good to catch up. And appreciate it. Yeah, it's my pleasure. Thanks for having me.

It's a fun time. Always good to chat with Eric. And then we find out afterwards. that he was all ready to take you on, Sean, in your hatred of the Carolina Hurricanes. No, he made a very funny joke that you stepped on and ruined. Well, I mean, we can go back and listen to see who stepped on. Very, very effusive of his praise for you.

And then he said, hello, Sean. Because, again, I have the Carolina Hurricanes at four instead of three every week in the power rankings. Eric made his bones as an internet commenter. Well, that's, I mean, he was ready to. And just troll. Like, he was ready to slip back into that role and just be like, you do the whole bit.

Whatever you say about Carolina, I'm not saying about you. I don't want to betray his trust here. But I've heard from him in the past about about some things I've written about that team over the last, over the last couple months. We'll just leave it there. It's, I mean, we have a big new rivalry on this podcast. It's me versus Eric Tulski. And I'm here for it.

Oh, that's great. It was cool to see him in the mix in Chicago. I'm so, that made me so happy, honestly. I don't know. I'm a sucker for that sort of stuff for a lot of different reasons. So I was, I was rooting for him hard to get it. I was laughing because I liked your question because you're like, let me see how I can phrase this without saying, was the interview a sham?

A sham? Was that a shame interview? That was basically, it wasn't. It was basically like, it was the most thoughtful I've ever seen you ask a question. Usually you just, you talk your way through it. This was like, Huh. Did you feel based on the fact that the guy that was zero along?

Anytime you find yourself like looking up the ceiling and saying, I'm trying not to phrase this the wrong way. That means you're right on the verge of stepping in something. But yeah, I mean, it is true. That was a public concern. It was part of the narrative in the Blackhawks going with Kyle Davidson, like just how legit were these interviews. So I'm glad to hear from Eric that he felt like it was, it was,

it was as legit as it needed to be. We should get Kyle on here since we all were like, no, we don't know him. You know, like, I imagine, I mean, maybe not right now. I'm sure he's busy, but you know on the job. He's busy because they have, they have 10 players that they should think about trading in the next, in the next 14 days. I said this, I said this whenever they made that higher. And I know Laz and Powers did too.

I mean, obviously there's fault defined in, in the way that process played out because it's the blackcocks. and we have a reason to question them in general. But this is such an important deadline for them because of, for a lot of different reasons, right? That I can see the logic. I can see that that was a huge part of the decision-making process where it's like they can't, they can't screw this up and they can't have someone who's,

whether it was Eric or Greenberg or whoever, you need someone who's ready to hit the ground running in the next 14 days with that. Maybe this would have come in the second interview or whatever, but I do think it's important to at some point say, hey, like, what are you doing with? Here's our list of players that have been around here a long time. They would have had to gotten to the bottom of that at some. Like, if they're like, hey, we're bringing you back and we're really interested. This isn't a fishing expedition.

It wasn't interesting to see how they're trying to tow that line. Seriously, which guys are you going to move out and how is that going to look? Because this is really, really important. Yeah, like that probably had to have been asked. And maybe that's the advantage. Kyle Davidson had it was he could. just talk freely. 100%.

He's been thinking about it for six months or two years or however long it's been. Like his job has been to evaluate these players and what they mean for the future of this franchise, right? So he had a built-in, baked-in kind of advantage there. Coming up next in our final segment, we go back to the comments section. Answer your user questions in a segment formerly known as the only good segment. Yeah, I think in sports. I think Eric, I think Eric was a pretty good segment, so we have to, we have to revise that. We do.

I think Eric was great. This is like, this can be the best segment, the second segment. It can be. It's capable. It's all about. It doesn't always rise to that. It's not our fault. It is it our fault?

Never. We'll be right back. Welcome to the only good segment on the show. I know we talked about maybe altering the title of this out of respect to the end. to the NHL luminaries who we interview every week. Well, I'm starting to hear back from some of them and they're like, hey, it was a pleasure to be on your show. You know, I'm always happy to carve out a few minutes to help educate the fans.

But I don't love that you call the next segment, the only good segment right after I'm on. And I'm like, understandable, GM of the team. But yeah, yeah, that's right. We do just kind of go into the comment section of our app and read bullshit and pretend that it's better than talking to, you know, Don Waddell or whatever. But in any case, still what it's called, buddy. It is my favorite segment. I will say, I look forward to this.

Our favorite, I think our favorite segment on the show is almost worse because it's like, we're to deal with the guest. Directly, yeah, directly implying that we don't like talking to these people, which is, we'll say not the case. We'll say nine times out of ten. It's not the case. What time, what would be the tenth one? Which?

We're looking, we're looking West, Western Canada for that one. Mike H. So I was off, I know all of you listened to every episode of the Athletic Hockey show, for which I appreciate. But if you didn't, I was gone last week. So a lot of these questions are in reference to Sean Shapiro hosting the show. And I have no idea what they're referencing. But we're going to, I will comment on them anyway.

ways because I feel strongly, I mean, I like weighing in on things I have no reference to. So Mike Gage says, oh, we're bragging about regional journalism awards. Oh, this is in my wheelhouse. I would love to brag about regional journalism awards. You know, to talk about somebody who loves regional journalism awards. We got a little 6.1 in the 40 here, baby. I have a Tennessee Press Association first place award for best graphics and illustrations that I need to hang up.

Mike, you should hang that up immediately. I've got a spot in the wall behind me. I'll hang your award up. That's better than what me and Shapiro were talking about. He had like a Dallas community newspapers thing, or Texas community newspapers thing. And I talked about receiving an honorary mention for Best Sports slash Outdoor column from the Pennsylvania Journalism Society of a few years ago. It was a piece of paper. It was clearly something that was printed out from a computer.

That said you won a Pulitzer. I didn't win it myself. That's not a region. Journalism Award. You could always... I mean, it was... I never know what to do with that, honestly. I never know how much to...

If you're listening to listen to you're like, what are they talking about? Sean, he is on a... He can literally say he won a Pulitzer. Genuinely. I was... My work was part of a submission that won a Pulitzer, yes. Which is how the Pulitzer works. I didn't get invited to the ceremony in New York, which could have been because

You left the company? Shortly before that, I quit the company and brutally made fun of the owner of the newspaper on my way out. I feel like that could have had, I feel like that could have had something to do with it. I will never know, though. There's no way to say. Having a public freak out on the owner of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette or his union breaking and or institutionally racist kind of approach. I thought those tweets were Policier in my opinion. I, you should have entered those.

They should give Pulitzer for tweets. Oh my gosh. Have you seen, by the way, the evolving hockey, the evolving hockey bracket? Is it still going on right now? Yes. The first round of voting is complete. And I made it through. Oh, my gosh.

When I looked, you were down about 100 votes and I didn't know how to vote. Macon-Doo gas me up. And no joke. I won by eight votes. That's amazing. And among, like, there was thousands of votes. So if you're not familiar,

there was a March Madness bracket of, um, hockey Twitter moments in time, essentially. And there's brackets. There's like a, there was a media quadrant and a, you know,

whatever. There's, it was divvied up. You really, like, I don't know if there was a key code to, to translate some of these. You really had to have been around for,

the evolving hockey. The evolving hockey boys did a good job of setting that up in such a way. Or my God, the evolving wild boys, my bad. They set it up in such a way where there was, the bracket was well done. Like it was in a Google forum and there were some. Some explainers. Some added, some added kind of context. And so, so, you know, in true March Madness fashion, they seated every memorable hockey tweet from the last.

at all time. And I had a couple gripes. Mostly that you were... I'd love to hear this. What were you? A 14 seat? So, Sean's infamous Emerson Edom tweet. Emerson poop him. That's right.

An all-timer in Twitter, hockey or not, was the 14 seed, which was... Well, I thought it would be like top three. This is like... The important thing that happened coming out of that is that I was initially a 15 seed. They reseeded and got me a more favorable matchup in the first round. I was initially supposed to go up against the infamous David Staples' tweet when he went into the Oilers' new arena and mistook a hand-washing station for a urinal.

I don't know. familiar with that one. I'll, I'll explain. That would be a tough mackett for you, I would say. It was,

it's one of the, it sincerely is one of the funniest things I've ever seen. Like he was like, there's, he was like, there's long lines at the, at the, there's long lines in the bathroom.

Here's what the oilers need to do, basically. And it was a photo of like, around hand washing station that he thought it was like an old fashion like trough that you pee in, in an, in a men's bathroom in an arena. And someone said, David, that's a hand washing station.

Ah. And it was really, really, really funny. And I would not have even voted for myself over that one, just because of the unintentional comment, like, whatever, tough break for Staples. But that was, that was really funny. And I wouldn't have voted for myself there. But I got put up, I got put up against another tweet in the three seed that we're not even going to talk about that I. Seriously? You can't.

Do I know it? I. It was an embarrassing media moment, yeah, on a level that wasn't even mistaking, again, urinals for hand-washing stations. And you know me well enough. I probably don't want to talk about it then. Definitely not. I would talk about it for just me, but I, but this would make you uncomfortable to bring up on air.

So it was a more favorable, more favorable first round matchup for me, which I didn't even know happened. I didn't even know that the adjustment took place. Oh, wow. And then the boys sent out the, you know, whatever. 15 minutes left in first round voting like get your votes in and i was down by like it was like you know 52% to 48% or something and mackandu was like he like mobilized the troops and i ended up winning by eight votes that's great so and you deserved it that's a pretty that's a pretty good

that's a big upset in seeding harlots so we're in so again if you just go to the the evolve at evolving wild there's they have the whole uh breakdown of the of the bracket they have the second round All right. I'm loading it up. The second round stuff here. And I am currently, um, the match,

the, it's two Cinderella's. It's 11 seed versus 14 seed. It's me a few hours after Emerson, Edom, Emerson poop him, versus a deleted tweet from the flyers from 2013, where they sent,

um, a link to a store on their website. And the tweet was, the day is set on Wednesday, July 10th, Flyers prospects will shit the beach to compete in the annual trial on the aisle. There was a typo. They obviously meant hit. And people thought that was really funny because they said shit instead.

I believe that I have a chance to move on again here. Well, I mean, a typo isn't that funny, really at the end of the day. It depends. Maybe, again, to go back to our initial discussion on the tweet that I'd be. like is a failed DM a typo? Is that in that same category? Maybe sending something publicly that you were trying to send privately?

Is that a typo? Because that one is pretty funny. I think your toughest competition is going to, I think one for one should have been a top seed. Like that's such a memorable moment. It was, that was, okay, so. I was surprised that's a course scene. That tweet from Bob McKenzie,

which was about the infamous Adam Larson for Taylor Hall. Yeah. That was seated fourth in the media bracket. Trade is one for one, Adam Larson for Taylor Hall. And then it's going up against Craig Button getting, getting got by an old both of these nuts kind of situation. So, Bob's. I'm not seeing that.

You're reading it? So Bob's in that one. my favorite Bob I think was this the same year no it was not it was not but the the Bobby Mac tweet that I like more from that uvra is going up against the urinal sink yeah that's a that's a per year that's a great one

because that is 100% the wild part about that was he's talking about Derek England's I think he signed a three year deal with that as a Calgary deal yeah signed up I'm pretty sure sure it was, I'm pretty sure it was for three years. In my reaction, when I saw the report, the initial report of the contract, I said to myself, like, is that, is that per year or for, or for the duration of the deal? And then Bob very subtly kind of answer the question that

everybody else has. But yeah, that's a 10 seed in the media, in the media bracket. And again, it's going up against David Staples. The urinal needed to solve lineups at Rogers Place. fast, efficient, keep your eyes in the sky, do your biz, sick of hearing about this. And it was a place, again, for people to wash their hands. So that's a tough one to beat. I think you get out of this round. I think you lose to that's per year. That's my prediction.

That's it, right? Yeah, I think that's future. I would take a sweet 16 trip. It got to the point last night where, again, I had no idea that this was going on because I was like, okay, I'm going up against the urinal tweet. Like, I'm done. And then I saw that I won. So I looked up like the best 14 Cs in the history of the NCAA tournament.

Yeah. Kind of underrepresented. Like you don't see. It's a weird one. It is a weird one. Maybe Butler? Everyone always talks about like the 15 seeds over. Yeah, 15 is.

Whatever. You always pick 12s over fives. That's like that. That's the big one. Not a lot of 14 seeds. Tennessee Chattanooga made a run a couple of a few years back. that I remember, but I don't know, man. I'd be happy if our squad made it to the Sweet 16.

We'll see. So, dear listener, and basically, I'm just talking to Caleb B here. We know Caleb was willing to dig in and do the work. Go vote for Sean. And is that Emerson to you? Ignore it. You don't have to do anything else, honestly. But, oh, my God, the guys did such a great, did such a great job with this.

It's a great practice. It really is. it's, it's, and it's, the good part about it, I think, is that there's not, there's not recency bias here. Like, like, like, those guys have been around for a long time. They've been doing stuff on the internet for a long time. So there's stuff from 2011 and there's stuff from five years ago and it's, it's a fun walk done. In fact, I want to, as, I, like, missed opportunity by us to not sponsor it. Like, I want our, like, Tuesday, the athletic hockey show logo right in the middle of this.

It's just a classic, like, an idea that I'm sad that I just didn't execute myself. Yeah, yeah. It's so good. I think one of my favorite ones of all time was Ryan Whitney tweeting about a hangman game between Jordan, Eberlin and Taylor Hall, like 10 years ago. Eberlian Hall in the worst hangman game in history. Epps can't spell banana and Hall can't figure out the second word is split. That's unbelievable.

I don't, and it brings back, man, we're like, we're already nostalgic for early hockey Twitter. It's, it's so good. This is like, did you watch the shack, the shack? Yeah. Half a take a gasp. Do you know how dumb I am? I watched that and was like, did he do it again? I thought he just repeated, because I mean, how long ago is that?

It was like five years ago now or whatever. Yeah, yeah. I was like, holy shit, did they this happened a second time? I, yeah, like it was presented in such a way where it looked like. So I, yeah, yeah. I thought they were maybe talking about, you know, the rise in gas prices because of, because of the Ukraine situation. Like, I didn't know why they were talking about it again.

This is my first exposure to it and the what's close to the west coast of the moon. I didn't know any, I didn't, I missed that all. There's a, um, in the comments of the shack thing, we're so far off course here, but whatever. Oh my gosh. Somebody made an animation of that whole of that whole thing. Like someone did a full. on cartoon of the, of the, you know, put $20 in your gas tank four times instead of $80 at once.

It's like, did you ever, that was like when there was a whole, I mean, people, there have been like long form stories written about this because it was just one of the most unbelievable threads in the history of internet message boards was when in the bodybuilding.com forums, people got into an argument over how many days were in a week. And it went on for months. And it was like somebody was in the shack position where they were like, no, there's actually six days in a week. And it was that. That's amazing. We've been on the internet for too long, man.

They need to take it away from us. Hey, did you see the NHL change to Stanley Cup logo? Yeah, I kind of like it. Yeah. Right? Time for a change. It's been 20 years or whatever. It's like, that's what all that shit looks like now.

There's less, less vectors. So it scales better to use on, you know, screens and tablets and phones and whatever else. So you take away some of like the busier design elements. Like you simplified a little bit. But the thing that I thought was cool that they did was they kept the cup still pretty detailed. Like there's like you can see there's like shadows and stuff on it, which like was kind

of a, which was kind of a surprise. It wasn't it wasn't a replay of what the NFL did with the Super Bowl logo a few years ago, which is completely made it. antiseptic and pretty boring. So, yeah, I don't know. I'm on bore with it. I typically hate that sort of, like,

I always find something to complain about whenever the NHL does stuff like that, but I honestly liked it. Hey, they got one right. You should rank them in the Athletic. Yeah, it'll be the number one story on the site for 10 days. It really would.

Fish in a barrel. I'm a lazy, lazy man. Back to the reader comments. 40 minutes into the segment. Comment number two. I do want to acknowledge Caleb here saying, Shapiro has a good point about a hockey writer should know, because I want to defend myself, the words to O Canada.

I know it's just from listening to games on streaming radio. I feel like I could sing O Canada in an arena full of people without the words. But when you're singing acapella with Sean via Zoom, you don't want to mess them up. So, yeah, I was reading them. I know the words. I didn't want to be disrespectful. I don't want to be like,

rub blah blah that like that is oh i'll me failed because that's what you sounded like but and that's what i said last week like i that was my best effort like i took off my baseball had you know i was not trying to do a big the last thing on earth that's exactly what i said the last thing on earth that i wanted to happen was for us to be accused of like turning that into more of a bit than it already was like you didn't need us to sit to sit to like pretend that we didn't know the words or sing worse than we would have otherwise. Like we had to at least give it our best shot. And part of that was,

which was still horrendous, especially about you. We needed to have the words on the screen in front of us because like I wasn't, I wasn't going to forget. Like there's, there is no way that was happening. Oh, I ran into Mark Caboli,

who covers the Pittsburgh Steelers at the NFL Combine. He said he turned it off. He couldn't make it past five seconds. So I just want to relay that to you. That's funny. Kopol he's usually so positive about so much other stuff. It's wild that he would bail on that. Colin C says,

I just watched the sensationalized cable news appearance. You did decently well hiding your regret to do that interview. So if you already addressed this in the last pod, we don't have to go deep here, but I do find it interesting year on cable news at all. I'll say this. The video is on YouTube of my appearance on Dan Abrams Live last week, and I have not watched it.

like that one's that one's getting memory hold for me. We should turn it over to our social team and see if they can work up a video with background images. Jerome, Jerome's going to throw us out of the bus again of me trying to follow a woman who got accused of being a Putin plant and then accused Dan Abrams of being a George Sordo's plant. Coming up next, Sean Gentile. I'm not even,

how are you even in the, I'm not even, I sincerely am not even sure they went to a commercial. I think it might have been like directly and I was like my first reaction I don't know I don't know if I said even said this to Shapiro or not my first reaction was to open like and I had to stop myself from doing this because I would look like an asshole my first reaction was to be like was to come on to be like yeah Dan thanks for having me I would just like to say straight away that I am I am also not a plant by either Vladimir Putin or George Soros so thank you for having me that's how I started a interview did not do you did not do did not say it. It was one of those things where I was like, if I do this, I'm going to get yelled at. Like, someone's going to yell at me. Yeah. It might be like, it might be like a handsman thing where he like slacks me and is like kind of being funny about it, but also it's like, I don't know about that. I feel like you've gotten one of those before, by the way you're saying

that very like, what was it? No, no comments. I'm proud of your ability to self-edit. I didn't know you had that in the moment. You have no idea that things, even on this podcast. of things that I almost say and don't. No, I think you actually do better job than anybody that then handsom and gets you credit for and self-pedity. I know where the bodies are buried, baby. Let's just say that. Oh, my gosh.

Where your bodies are buried. That's true? Literally. Oh, yes. He's a murder. Is that the application here? Michael Kay writes, I will say the double Sean show was a nice reward for all of us who have to deal with Sparty Weekly.

I mean, that's unnecessary, Michael. Yeah, you got a terp and a bowling green eagle? Actual question for you, Sean. Oh, this is an interesting question. What is the word with how Malkin is taking the stuff coming out of Ukraine from his home Russian? Hostics comments on suspending all Russians. Oh, it got serious.

I was just reading along and now it's a very serious question. Again, Ron Burgundy moment for Craig. You just, we haven't heard from Malkin on this yet. He's in a fundamentally, always has been in a fundamentally kind of different spot. And Ovechkin is where he's, you know, doesn't have a photo of him with Putin is his Instagram avatar, you know, didn't start a Putin fan site. It like doesn't have that sort of history on the topic that maybe Ovechkin does. But he still is also one of the highest profile of Russian athletes in the world and his parents. still live, you know, in, I don't know if it's, whether it's in Moscow or Magnitogor's.

I'm not exactly sure where they are. He's got family over there, spent his off-season is over there. So it is a consideration for him. But I think he's one of those things where Malcan is really good at waiting stuff out and kind of flying under the radar. And he'll eventually speak about it, but he's clearly, you know, delaying it for as long as he possibly can understandably in a lot of ways because he's not going to have anything to say about it. Like he's not a Putin ally in the way that Ovechkin is. So he doesn't really have to, he doesn't quite have that obligation or the need to speak to answer questions that maybe Ovechkin did. So no, we haven't heard from Malkin, but I know that I'm sure he's, I'm sure he's extra.

I can say with the degree of certitude that he is extremely, extremely concerned. about everything. But I wouldn't, I wouldn't want to say anything more, more than that. All right. And the last one, Jason K says,

hey guys, I haven't commented in a while as I couldn't answer the troll's riddle. Stop, when you get stuck in the troll on the way to the comment section. The riddles three. The riddles three.

They are difficult. I always find a way through that. Two questions. What? You can answer either one, Sean, because we've gone way too long here. What should my beloved devils do? goal for the future.

The UFA route, Hope Blackwood figures it out, or see if Nico Dawes is something. And the second question, what were your original AIM email addresses? Mine was Y2J85 that I made in 1990. Y2J, that's good. That's good. Chris Jericho reference, I would imagine, of some sort. Mine was a, mine was Lscor Show 2011. It was a Weezer song.

I made it when I was 12. that could have been worse could have been a lot worse I was pretty cool 12 year old I well looking look at me now mom all right

I don't I think you'll be shocked to hear this my my I remember one of your instant messenger names was it I was gonna all right I don't know I just assumed it was like my initials or some sort of my birth year

I'm very like no this was no joke this is the one music communicator when we first started working on when we first started working together or like almost 15 years ago at this point. It was like urban achieve or something. It was like Urban Achieve or something.

Oh, that's right. It was a Lobowski reference. That's right. That's when I was like, okay, I think this, I think this, I think me and this. No joke. I was like, yeah, maybe me and this guy will get along. That's why based on my instant messenger. It was a good sign.

It was a good sign. That's really, I'm glad you remember that. Is that because you read the transcripts daily? Like you go back and pull up the. Do you delete text messages? Do I? Mm-hmm. Yeah.

I don't. Oh, gosh. I have years, years and years. Wow. Possibly incriminating text save for a lot of people. Weirdo? I don't know. It's like definitely...

Is it the correct of some sort? You can take it as you wish. Um, I think my avatar for that or some, because I'd use that now that you, I'm glad you brought it up. It's fun. Um, I would have, I had a Lobowski looking in the mirror at the time cover. in that moment, the person of the year. The person of the year, the urban,

little Lovowski's urban achievers. Get a job, sir. That's the last question. Anything you'd like to add before I start pumping up the other, oh, yeah. You want to answer the actual hockey question? What are they going to, what are they going to, if Blackwood sucks, they're in, they're in trouble.

I'm just interested in seeing what they do with the deadline in general because they're sort of an interesting team. Tom Fitzgerald did an interview with Pierre Lebrun. They posted yesterday that's worth everybody's time. I know PK Subban isn't good anymore, but I'm still kind of fascinating to see where he ends up. Yeah, that is where it was fun. How about that?

Yeah. How about PK Suban to Florida? Okay. They need a right D. The Devils can eat half of the salaries. So you get PK Suban at $4.5 million a year. And we can get PKK in some meaningful games and see if that change. changes the outcome.

It would be fine. But yeah, if Blackwood, if Blackwood sucks, they're just going to have to go from square one. And it seems like you might. I can't believe you asked that question, Jason, because Sean and I literally, before we hit record, we're talking about Scott Wedgwood and how we thought he was going to be the greatest goalie of all time because I, I one time saw him play in,

who was he with, Plymouth or Windsor? I forgot which side of that battle. He was on and he made 90 saves. And we had a podcast back in 1996 that we talked about it. We dedicated an entire segment to, It was like, it was Taylor, it was Taylor versus Tyler. It was the Hall Sagan draft year and Craig went to the game and those guys got completely

overshadowed by Scott Wedgwood. The premise of the discussion was like we are just ancient at this point because Scott Wedgwood is whatever, probably 33 and like a journeyman goal tender now. Oh, his son is actually Corey's number three rated. Oh no. I don't think so. The very, the very mysterious Corey. Tyler, Tyler Wedgwood.

Oh, no, it's like, it'd be like, it'd be like, Kaigan or something. Kergin Wedgwood? I hope it is. That would be great. Thank you, everybody, for the comments. Again, if you want to leave a comment in the part of next week's show, and why wouldn't you, all you have to do is download the athletic app, become a script subscriber, which you can right now. What's that?

Theathletic.com slash hockey show gets you in for $1 a month for, six months. That's our best deal of the year. So go do that. Download the app. Subscribe it with that deal at theathletic.com slash hockey show. And then all you have to do is find your way to the comment section. Super easy. I can't wait until we actually fix the comment section. We're going to have to start.

That's how we're going to open the show. It's just play like. When the comment section's fixed, the hallelujah theme or where that is. Yeah, right. Have like audio of trumpets going. Of party of party favors and fireworks. Like, congratulations. If you have an iPhone, you can leave a comment on the athletic podcast section.

I'm sure the New York Times is number one in line for their, they told me. They're like, okay, here's what we got to get to work on now that we own this fine company. That's actually move number two. Move number one is I'm putting together an op-ed and I'm going to keep the subject to myself, but they've, that's great. They like the way I think and they want me to, they want me to be a part of that. Congratulations. I hadn't heard that. We'd mentioned the athletic audio plus on Apple Podcasts, which Sean and I occasionally do when we do our Mount Rushmore's of whatever, because that's how we prepare for it.

This week, actual pros, Ian Mendez and Haley Salvin, who were just so good at their job. So good. Man, let's just take a moment to appreciate just how well they... What do you think they talked about? Well, how would anyone know? You can listen to that. You can listen to these in the athletic podcasting section. You do not, if you subscribe, you can listen to them.

Okay. In our app. Of course you can. I knew that. Start with a 30-day free trial that it's 99 cents a month after that. That's athletic audio plus on Apple Podcasts. And we've got the show returns tomorrow. John Vogel is going to join Rob Pizzo, Sarah Sivian, and Jesse Granger.

I'm assuming to expand on the Jack Eichael conversation. What do you guys? What do you think those guys are going to talk about? They can't use. We already talked about the fan response. Can't use that guys. So. Hear that.

You got to say, figure something else out. I'd ask a different question because we already. Because the flag has been planted. That's like when we, that's like when Cory Providence had the Friday show and we still. We did a whole show about his piece. He was so mad. Yeah.

We should. You can, in two weeks, our show is going to be the prospects that could move at the deadline. Thanks for listening, everybody. It was great to be back. I said it like I was going to say something else, but I'm not. I thought you would shot. I thought maybe you would jump in that. Oh, no. I just, whatever.

Okay. Bye.