The Athletic Hockey Show - Every playoff team could win the Stanley Cup

Episode Date: March 18, 2024

On this Monday edition of The Athletic Hockey Show, Ian and Laz discuss Laz’s devil-may-care attitude about singing out loud at the supermarket, little appetite at this week’s GM meetings to make change to 3-on-3 overtime, and potential PWHL expansion.Then, Down Goes Brown, Sean McIndoe, joins the show to talk about why the NHL standings are a bit of a mirage, the Panthers as the league’s new love-to-hate team, and This Week in Hockey History.Plus, to close things out, Jesse Granger and the guys discuss VHL goalie Artemi Pleshkov stopping a record 124 shots in a 1-0 quintuple OT loss and how many teams could realistically win the Stanley Cup this season.Subscribe to The Athletic: http://theathletic.com/hockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Hockey Show. Welcome back to your Monday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. It's Ian Mendez and Mark Lazarus with you for the next hour in change. Sean McIndoo, down goes Brown, it's going to pop by. We'll chat about his weekly power rankings. And last, he's got the Florida Panthers listed as a hated team. So we'll chat. Is it possible to hate the Panthers?

I don't, you can hate Nick Cousins. I think everybody in the league, particularly the players. I mean, he won our most punchable face award in our player poll. I don't know if anyone really hates the Florida Panthers yet. You have to kind of accomplish something. And, you know, the Panthers had their great run last year. But they haven't won anything. They've never won a cup.

They've rarely been a contender. I think we got some ways to go. I think Sean's reaching a little bit. I think we want someone to hate so bad. So I think he's reaching a little bit. So we'll chat about that. And we'll do some fun this week in hockey history with Down Goes Brown. Jesse Granger is going to be by,

talk some goaltending and things like that. But, Lesz, I want to kick off the pod here on Monday with something that you tweeted late last week. Okay? So, folks, this is from Mark Lazarus's official account on X. It's not official. I don't pay, I don't give Elon any money. It's not official. That's, yeah, that's right.

Mark Lazarus tweets out, just caught myself at the grocery store singing Dancing Queen at a surprisingly high volume. wasn't even playing at the store. Got embarrassed for a moment, then realized I didn't care and started singing again. Aside from everything hurting all the time, being old rules. Mark Lazarus caught singing Abba's dancing queen by himself. So you need to paint the picture here.

Like, are you in the produce section? Where are you in the store? I think I was getting eggs and milk. so I was in the dairy department and I don't know I don't even know how it came into my head but you know what Dancing Queen's still a bop

it's still it's total banger man like that's I don't care what like I have no shame anymore I think living life on Twitter combined with my old age combined with my love of embarrassing my daughters who were not there at the time I just have absolutely no shame anymore and if I want to sing Dancing Queen

in the dairy department of the grocery store I'm just going to do it I don't care anymore It's such a luxury when you reach a certain age. You're married. You have kids. You don't care anymore. You just don't give the slightest crap what anyone thinks of you. And it's glorious.

It's the best part of getting old. There's a lot of bad things about getting old. You can see all the gray in my beard right now. Everything hurts all the time. Nothing ever gets better. But I do not care at all what anyone thinks of me. And it's the best. Do you imagine what it's going to like when we're like 70 years old,

just how free will be? I just don't know how I would personally react If I'm in the grocery store And I'm looking to get some eggs and milk And the guy next to me is singing dancing quick I'm thinking Okay, that's a little, that's a choice That's a man living his life

That's what it is Yeah, living his best life Now are you just singing the like Having the time of your life Are you singing just the chorus? Are you starting at the very beginning of the song? I think it started with the chorus I don't know, it happened like I

I didn't even realize I was doing it until I had stopped doing it. I think I opened up the eggs. You know, you got to like check to make sure none of them are all cracked. And that's when like my focus shifted. And all of a sudden I had something to focus my brain on. So that's when I stopped singing. And then it dawned on me, oh, I've been singing out loud this whole time, haven't I? Okay.

I'm going to need a ruling from the listeners. Is this normal? Is this weird? Is this acceptable? You know where this happens? I think where this started happening was in the early days of COVID, when we started going back to grocery stores, but we were still wearing masks

because you had like this like, it was like a shield, right? You're wearing this mask. Nobody can tell where the singing is coming from. So I was more willing to sing. I think that's part of it. And then back, you go back to when my kids are,

they're 12 and 8 now, but when they were babies and you're moving around in the cart, you're singing to them all the time. Like you could talk to yourself. Like having a baby is an excuse to talk to yourself. And then the mask was an excuse to sing to yourself. and now I'm just an old person who likes to sing. So here I am.

There you go. Okay. Well, you and I are here for the next hour. And by the way, I guess I got to ask here. I mean, are you willing to do a lot like a live rendition here on the athletic hockey show to allow the listeners to get a better picture? I think we're required to. I think we have to pay rights fees if I start doing that. So I don't think that's the best idea.

Yeah, that's a smart answer. That's a good way. That's a good way to get out of it. I would love to. but we don't have the road. Oh, totally. Can't do that though. We're costing New York Times of Fortune.

Yeah. Hey, usually we have Pierre LeBron and Chris Johnston with us on Mondays kickoff the week with the kind of the insider stuff. They are down in Florida right now covering the GM meetings that are taking place over the next 48 hours. And I don't know like there's anything going to be super newsworthy out of this last. Like asking LeBron and CJ last week, they didn't seem to think. But one thing that's come out. out is that George Peros, who of course is with the Department of Player of Safety,

he's going to basically have a session. It sounds like there's going to be like 32 general managers, and Peros gets up, and he's going to kind of explain his rationale for, here's why I gave Morgan Riley five games. Here's why I gave, you know, whatever, David Perron, six games. And there's going to be an opportunity for the GMs to kind of push back and ask about consistency. of all, wouldn't you just love to be a fly on the wall for that?

Just to see how that shakes down. So do you think he brings the wheel of justice with him? Or does he just explain the process? Yeah. Yeah. Now, many of you have heard that we have a wheel of justice. And here it is. And here it is.

Now, you want to make sure you're spinning counterclockwise, you know, I can imagine. Like, I know we can't get transparency. on everything. But my goodness, wouldn't you love to see a live stream of that? I think every GM's meeting, I had that same thought. Man, I'd love to be in that room. I'd love to hear what these guys have to say to each other in a protected space like that, right? Where it's just all of them in the room together and no cameras and no recording devices. I would think you'd get a little bit more of the unvarnished truth of how they feel. And I do want to

know what they're saying. Do they like the job that Paros is doing? Because I don't think there's ever been an incarnation of player safety that people have been happy with. When Shanahan started running it, he was too severe. You know, Paris comes in. He's not severe enough. And there's never any consistency. It feels like I'd love to hear what the questions that they're asking, George Paris, right?

Because I have a feeling I know what Paris is going to say. He's going to give his priorities. But I want to know the questions. You know, the GMs get to play reporter in this situation, right? Yes. They're the ones in the seats during the press conference, getting to ask the questions. And I want to know how interesting their questions are.

Are they asking dumb questions? Are they asking detailed questions? Are they asking philosophical questions? I want to know what they want to know. You know, it's a great point, right? Because how many times have general manager's been the one on the podium receiving the questions? And now you're right. It's like we should hand them those little old-timey fedoras with the word press on it.

And we let them in and they get to be all-time. But it's true. Like I'd want to know which general manager is asking kind of the most thoughtful, pointed question, you know, like, how, like, do they actually learn anything from us? Or are they just like fans and you've got like, you know, you know, Bradshaw living going, why does the league hate the Leaf so much? Yeah. What do you have against us? Are you just jealous? You're just jealous, aren't you?

Yeah. So that's going to be what kind of comes out on Monday. We'll get a sense of that. It sounds like an Imperial LeBron ended up doing a hit on TSN late last week, last. And LeBron said it didn't sound like there's a huge appetite to alter the three-on-three the rules. And for the listeners, people that have been paying attention, there's some traction for the idea of an over-and-back rule. Meaning, you know, and maybe you make it at the center ice red line and say, okay, once you cross that, it's like basketball. Once you cross it, you can't go back over it.

So what we're seeing now is a lot of teams in three and three, they kind of, they enter the zone. I don't like what I'm not liking this. So they get out and they regroup. And sometimes they almost go back to their own blue line. And now we're wondering, is that. To their own goalie half the time. Yeah, sometimes they go back into their own zone. And I, it didn't sound like there's.

enough support for that. But where do you come down on that? Do you think that, yeah, you know what? Let's create a half-court rule like we see in basketball in overtime. And once you cross the red line, guess what, guys, you can't go back over. Absolutely. I mean, look, three-on-three overtime is already not hockey, right? It's just as much of a gimmick as the shootout is.

It's not hockey. It's not how we're taught to play hockey. All the structure of hockey goes out the window. It's already a gimmick. It's a great gimmick when it's played at a great level. let's gimmick it up more. Like whatever you have to do to get it back to those early days in like 2015-16 when it was just absolute unbridled chaos.

That's the whole point of three-on-three overtime. This is not supposed to be standard boring hockey. So let's create an over-and-back rule. And anything you can do to juice it up a little bit, they should be doing. And this is the GM's meeting. Like that appetite might not be there. But this spring GM meeting seems to be the one where the ball gets rolling on actual changes. that get implemented in the summer.

So I don't think it's inconceivable that, you know, even if it's only, you know, a handful of GMs, and there is some appetite for it. I know there are some GMs that have already spoken out about this. If they can get that ball rolling a little bit, maybe by the summer, they actually implement some kind of a change because this is the kind of thing that the league is content to change. Overtime is a gimmick.

So whatever they do, they seem to be a little more loosey-goosey with the traditions of the game with overtime. And this is the one to do it with, because otherwise, what's the point of having three on three if it's boring. If it's boring, just play five on five. Yeah, or four on four, you know, whatever. Like, yeah, I agree with you. Like, on the weekend, Edmonton, Colorado, like, to me, it actually kind of lived up to the hype. You know, this was the clash of the Titans in the Western Conference. And the game

did go to overtime. And I'll tell you last, as I watched the end of the third period in overtime, I was excited for overtime because I thought, we're going to see Nate McKinnon, Gail McCar, against Connor McDavid and Leon Dreyze. sidle. This could be a lot of fun. And the overtime itself wasn't as sort of freewheeling and as exciting as I thought it could have been. And I thought, yeah, you know what? If we can't get a fun three on three with McDa... And I'm saying it wasn't awful, but it wasn't what it could have been with McDavid and McKinnon, Drysidal and McCar. And if that's what it is, then what's the point? All three on three is now is possession game. It's a possession game. And that's why you have,

you know, they enter the zone. And if they don't like what they see, they don't try to force the issue. They double back. They go back into the neutral zone. Sometimes they go back into their own zone. They pass it to their goalie. They do a whole brand new breakout. They don't like that one.

They circle back. And all of a sudden, two and a half minutes of this overtime have passed. And there hasn't been a shot on goal yet. Because so many of these winners are scored in transition, you know, off of a rebound or off of a turnover, that these teams are so careful with the puck now that all that fun of three on three, every now and then it happens again. Like one person makes some kind of loosey-goosey play. and then all of a sudden it's just absolute chaos

and that's what you want, right? So anything that can make that, to have a McDavid-McPenon overtime, disappoint, and obviously it ended fantastically with a buzzer beater, but to have that kind of overtime not be exciting, then what are we even doing here? Do you have any interest in the format that's been thrown out by some people?

So if you think of football, each team in overtime now they get a possession, right? You get one possession, and if you score a touchdown, the other team has to score a touchdown to kind of keep the game going. Is that just in the playoffs? Or is that still regular season? You score a touchdown. It's over, right? Like there's nothing worse than NFL overtime rules.

Right. No, no. But playoff NFL overtime, right? Is, or college football. Right. Yeah. Or college football. You get the mini games.

So college football is great. That's the overtime we should have. Everyone gets equal possession, basically. So would you ever be last in face? of this. To start over, let's say it's the two teams we cover, it's Chicago and Ottawa. By the way, we get Chicago and Ottawa coming up pretty soon in Ottawa. We do. We do. And I'm sure that that's a game. Everyone's got circled on the calendar. But let's say it goes to overtime at Chicago, Ottawa. So to start overtime, Chicago gets a four on three power play. They have one

minute to score a four on three power play goal. And if they score, or Ottawa gets a four on three power play for a minute. And if they don't score Chicago wins, if Ottawa scores, we do it all over again. And then if a team scores a shorthanded goal the other way, game over, like a pick six. Any interest in that or overly gimmicky? Ian, that's the worst idea I've ever heard in my life.

That is the most convoluted, ridiculous. I thought this was a safe space where I could throw out. That is a truly, truly horrible idea. Why? Why is a thumb? Then watch an endless shootout than watch whatever hell that is you just explained. That's horrible. First of all, four on three power plays suck, right?

Okay. Every time there's a penalty and three on three on three. Whatever you want it to be. Oh, that's just. You get a power plate for a minute. Did you come up with that or is that someone else's playing it? Because that's horrible. I, if it was a good idea, I would say, you know, I thought of this.

But you have to have. That's too convoluted. Hockey's supposed to be free flowing and end to end. What we're trying to get is end to end action, right? And a power play does not create end to end action for the most. I mean, every now and then, sure, a short-handed odd man rush. But we want even strength end-to-end breathtaking action, breathless hockey. That's what we're looking for here. And three-on-three can give us that.

But we have to sometimes, coaches are their natural state is ruining everything. They just want to make everything boring. Coaches don't like track meets. Coaches don't like end-to-end. They want total control. And I get that. That's their job. But fans don't want that.

Fans want the chaos. So we have to kind of force the coach's hands every now and then. We want free flowing, even strength hockey. And three on three can give us that. We just need to give it a little push. Okay. So you don't like, I do not like your idea. And I now think less of you as a human being because of that.

As a human being. I'm just trying to think of something outside the box, and it would be like kind of stealing a football idea, right, and bringing it into... Football is like a static sport, right? It's like you set up, here you go, here's a play, there's an offense, there's a defense. Hockey's like basketball.

It's free flowing, and you're on offense and defense at the same time, usually. You're just kind of going back and forth. So it doesn't translate to me. Okay, well, hit us up The Athletic Hockey Show at gmail.com. Let us know what you think. of that idea and let you know what a terrible idea he came up with is and more importantly let us know what you think about a grown ass man singing in a grocery store okay look at home attacks i see how it is yeah just because you're not comfortable in your own skin man come on

that's right let your hair down buddy right and the lights are low oh see you did so you did start at the beginning of the song i was wondering i was wondering now i got my answer i'll start singing Waterloo, too, if you want me to. I'll just go right into it. Oh. The whole, the whole, uh, Mamma Mia soundtrack is coming your way. We should have an alternate version of the podcast where it's just, Las singing, singing tunes. I'll do it. Don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't threaten me with a good time. Hey, that Epiton, Colorado game, by the way, it did end, but can I be honest? Okay, again,

I don't know, I thought this was a safe space, so maybe I'm going to get attacked for this again. But there was, as the game was, I thought was wrapping up with about five seconds left, I thought, okay, you know what? Ah, this overtime wasn't great. At least now, you know what, I'm kind of interested to see McDavid and McKinnon, you know, in a shootout. Maybe that'll be fun. Or Terry Lechon scores with less than a second left.

Is that wrong of me at that point to say, ah, I was kind of disappointed. At that point, I was like, you know what? Give me the shootout at that point. first of all, what an insane play that was by McKinnon. Just how great is he? I mean, just to just to position himself to be able to get that puck and make that pass. It's like the entire Nathan McKinnon experience, right? He's just, he's so strong, he's so aggressive and he's so skilled.

I love, he might be my favorite player in the league to watch, even more than McDavid, because he just is this total package of just like pure hockey. I love it. You know, it's funny you say that. Like, we're going to have Mack and do on later. and I think he's like the number one hater of all things shootout. And I kind of look like I

there's nothing gimmickyer than a shootout. It's awful. It's a terrible way to decide a hockey game. But we get them so infrequently now that I do find myself kind of looking forward to them. Yes. We used to get like a dozen shootouts a year per team. Now it's like you get like two or three a year. And it's you know,

I kind of like miss watching Patrick Kane and Jonathan. You know, Patrick Kane do the slowdown followed by Jonathan Taze always going five hole and somehow always scoring and seeing who's going to be the number four guy if it goes that far. Like, I kind of start finding myself enjoying shootouts a little bit more because they're so infrequent now. Because three on three generally works. Okay, so maybe I'm not alone on this and maybe we're not alone.

And especially I thought McKinnon and Rantan and Drysidal and McDavid, like I was like, oh, you know what? This can actually be kind of fun. Depends on the teams, right? Yeah, exactly. Too horrible. Chicago. Yeah, exactly.

which now, by the way, we have just wielded into existence. 39 round shootout. I've been awaiting my whole life for a 39 round shootout. Is 17, 17s the highest, right, that's ever been? I think so. We haven't gotten to the point where they put the goalies and coaches out there yet. That's the American Malik. The Merrick Malik one, I think.

I want the e-bug out there. I want them coming up with anything, anything you could possibly come up with every single guy should get a chance. Okay. But yeah, I was kind of low-key disappointed at that point, because once we got to the three seconds, that puck was dumped into the corner. I was like,

well, that's the game. That's that. 20 rounds, 20 rounds, Chris, our producer, Chris Flannery says, was the record. Caps Panthers in 2014. So how did that work?

Did they, I guess the guys got to go a second time? Yeah. I guess I was going to say, like, I don't remember that. I think the longest one, I remember, I remember covering a Blackhoss game in Columbus

that went like, 13 or 14 rounds. And it was, it was hilarious. The guys they were trotting out there to play it never taken, like a breakaway in their lives. And it was,

it was, it got, it started boring because it was a shootout. Then it got stupid because it kept going on. But it's like a joke where it's like not funny. But then you say it like 15, 16, 17 times it becomes funny.

That's what that shootout became. Like the longer it got, the stupider it got and the funnier it got, the more entertaining it got. See, I think after each team should be a lot. Again, this is the gimmick.

If it's going to be gimmicky, let's lead into the gimmick. I think each team should be allowed to pick their first, let's say, five shooters. You pick your first five shooters. If you're not going to allow the repeat to happen, which I think I would be a fan of, I'd rather just go with the best players, then the other team should be allowed to pick the shooter. Oh, I love it. I love it. It's like the end of mean girls at the Mathletes Bowl.

Exactly. I love it, though, because I don't want to see the repeat. Look, I was in Sochi for the, the Russia-U-S game, the T.J. Soshi game. It was fun as hell to watch Kovilchuk and Oshie just going back and forth like that. Yeah. But the fun of a shootout to me is when it does get into those deeper rounds and you start getting guys that you didn't know could do. Like Michael Roosevelt, you know, old defensive defenseman with no foot speed whatsoever, he had this one move that he would do in practice when they would practice shootouts and it never failed.

He was just the perfect forehand, backhand, roof job, kind of the classic shoot. shootout move. And he was just for some reason, Michael Roosevelt was great at it. And one time, the Hawks got into like the seventh or eighth round of a shootout. So Joel Quenville says, the hell with it. They threw Michael Roosevelt out there. And he scored the game winner because he had an unbeatable shootout move. And it's the most memorable shootout move I can think of because it was Michael Roosevelt. So I don't want to take that away from the shootout. That's one of the few redeeming qualities of a shootout is when some guy that you just didn't know had it in him pulls off the Forsberg or something like that. I love that about the shootout. Yeah, I

So I take the other team. After five shooters, you get to choose the opponent. Because you would choose the defensive defense. You would choose Michael Roosevelt. And then when he scores on you, you're just like, oh, crap. That would be awesome. I think that would be a fun. There.

You've redeemed yourself. That is a great idea. And you have really redeemed yourself. Yeah. Oh, man. Hey, I thought it was one of the big stories of the weekend too, Las, was not one, but two neutral-site games in the PWHL, professional women's hockey league. And they drew up, they drew a pretty good crowd.

So in Pittsburgh, they had more than 8,000. And in Detroit at Little Caesar's Arena, they set a record for the biggest attendance for a women's professional hockey game in America at just under 14,000. Max Boltman and Josh Yoey both writing about those experiences. Does it seem like if the, if the, if the, if the WHL is going to expand, I think it's going to at some point. Last is, this is just a slam dunk that those are the two places that they're going to? or like how much appetite talk is there in your city in Chicago of getting I think it would be great to have it in Chicago. I'm just selfishly I want it in Chicago.

But I want the PWHL to be smart about this, right? Like these were one-off games and the crowds were fantastic and it's awesome to see. But I want them to, you know, do their due diligence and make sure that there's going to be a viable, sustainable fan base before they get too big too quickly, right? Because I want this league, I think we all want this league desperately to succeed and create, you know, a true, you know, global women's hockey league. I just want them to do it right and not get ahead of themselves. Like what they've got right now, they've got six markets that work.

I do think Detroit and Pittsburgh are natural markets that would do great. I think Chicago would do great. I think there's a ton of markets out there that are just right for this stuff. But maybe wait a few years, a couple of years at least. You know, establish the six franchises you have, like really put some roots down and establish the league as not just viable, but wildly successful. And that's when you capitalize and you start expanding.

I think if you just immediately double the size of the league, you run the risk of having some issues. So I just, on one hand, I badly want to see it get bigger and I want it in my town. On the other hand, I want to make sure they do it the right way. Yeah, I'm with you there. I think you've got to be. And a lot of this has to be, unfortunately, geographically based for now. Like even Minnesota is a bit of an outlier in the way that this league is currently constructed, right?

So it kind of feels like until further notice, that's going to be the furthest point west that they go, right? Right. Is that fair to say? And the reason they're out, it's just because Minnesota is such an unbelievable hockey state. Like, look, there are three guarantees in hockey in the United States. It's Boston, it's Minnesota, and it's Buffalo. Every hockey player that's American comes from either Minnesota or Boston. plays college in either Minnesota or Boston,

and Buffalo just has, like their playoff ratings, even though the Sabres never make the playoffs. It's through the roof. Those are the three guarantees. That's where you start. And I get that. Detroit, Pittsburgh,

Chicago, Philadelphia, that's where you go next. Is Michigan not on that list last? No, yeah, that's fair. I'm probably understanding Michigan here. Yeah. Michigan, that's more of, I feel like that's more of a recent trend,

like in the last 10 or 15 years. I just feel like Buffalo, Minnesota, and Boston, that's like the roots of American hockey. And Detroit is certainly, you know, absolutely the next one in that conversation to make it interesting. Pittsburgh, too. I mean, Pittsburgh, you know, I did a story on this years ago when I was in Pittsburgh. It's incredible to how hockey has expanded in Pittsburgh. In 1984, when the Penguins drafted Mario Lemieux, there were three ice rinks within, I think it's like a 60-mile radius of Pittsburgh. And 10 years later, there were something like 70 of them.

So we see players come out of the Pittsburgh area all the time. You know, out of Upper St. Clair and Peters Township and all these towns, Bethel Park, all these towns in the suburbs of Pittsburgh are creating players now. It takes time, though, right? And that's Michigan's ahead of that now. Pittsburgh is next on that list in becoming a great American hockey factor. All right, Las. Let's bring in our pal, Sean McIndoo, down goes brown.

In fact, maybe what we'll do, Las, is we'll present to him the conversation we were having a few minutes ago. And we'll let him make a definitive ruling. Does that sound fair? All right. I'll try not to, I'll try not to taint the, uh, the,

the, the, the, the sample pool here by saying anything. Okay. So we know you like, you know what? Now I'm just trying to butter this guy up. But when I think of you, Sean,

I think of an outside the box thinker, somebody who likes creativity. Right? Sure. Yeah. Absolutely. Sure. Yeah. So we were just, uh,

debate. Look, the GM meetings are taking place down in Florida, and they're talking about ways to improve overtime, potentially three-on-three, whatever. So I floated the idea to last, and I feel like I've heard this before. So this isn't, this isn't an original idea that kind of like what you see in college football, would there be any merit to overtime playing out as follows, which is to start overtime, and we use Chicago and Ottawa as the examples. So Chicago and Ottawa are playing in overtime. To start over time, to start overtime, Chicago gets a one-minute power play in their end of, they get one-minute power play.

And if they can't score, Ottawa gets a one-minute power play. If they score game over. And if somebody scores a shorthanded goal, it's like a pick six game over. And you just go back and forth until somebody scores a power play goal or the other team doesn't. And I just threw it out. Las called it, I believe, the stupidest idea in the history of Western. civilization. I was just objectively there. Just throwing it out. I'm just throwing it out.

And I, you know what? Keep throwing it out. I think that's first of all, I got to say, I'm fully in favor of anything to get a Chicago-O Ottawa game over with as quickly as possible. Why would you, why would you do that? No, I, I get it. I don't love it. I prefer what we have now. I prefer the, I still think that when three on three starts cooking, it's great.

And it does give us those great moments. Like, you know, we saw with Colorado Edmonton over the weekend, right? You get like that. Yeah. There are times where five minutes of three on three is fantastic. What I would like to see is 10 minutes of three on three, which then all but eliminates the shootout.

just in terms of, you know, you'd see more and more games ending. And maybe even then when you did get a shootout, instead of rolling your eyes and going, oh, God, one of these stupid things, you might go, oh, this might be our one for the year. I'm actually going to watch this and see what happens. I would prefer that to going even harder on the gimmicks than we already do in overtime. Because, I mean, it feels like we're already at a point in overtime where it bears, So little resemblance to anything that happens in the playoffs that, you know, I'm sure you guys run into this problem. You look at the standings today and you're trying to figure out like, how do I even parse this?

Like what this team has a lot of loser points. Is that is that bad or does that actually mean that they're, they haven't been good in overtime? And maybe that doesn't matter because it's just, it's a skills competition and it's not going to happen. But I don't know. I get confused. It's something I hate about the NHL these days. When you do your rankings, you do your true goal differential. you take out shootout points, right?

Do you take out the overtime points too? Overtime goals don't count in your goal differential? I don't, but I do, you know, I think about it, right? The NHL for some reason, they count winning a shootout as a goal in your goal tool. Who scored the goal? Nobody. Doesn't show up in anyone's stack column. Doesn't help anybody get to 50 goals or whatever else, but it's just this mystery goal that

the league sprinkles in. So I take that out. But yeah, no, I mean, it's, I've, I've had this discussion and I've, I've written this column where I've said, you know, I'm always talking about the loser point. I can't stand the loser point. And sometimes people put their hands up and they say, it's not actually a loser point. It's a bonus point. You don't get a point for losing. You get a point for going to overtime and then whoever wins in overtime gets a bonus point.

And that sounds like it's just a semantic discussion, but it's really. really not. It actually changes your entire interpretation of the standings because you end up looking at it going, maybe that team with a lot of loser points is a fake team. Or maybe they're actually the better team and it's the team that doesn't have a lot of loser points because they always win when they get to overtime. They're the fake team. What are we doing here? The standings are so dumb right now that we don't even know what we're looking at. And a cynic would suggest maybe that's what the league and its GMs want is for everyone to be able to, you know, you can always find a way to think your team is doing better than they are.

Well, that's what cracks me up about like the Islanders right now. They have so many overtime losses that I don't know if they're any good or not because they're getting to overtime. They are in almost every single game, right? And the reason they might miss the playoffs is because they keep losing in a style of play that doesn't exist in the playoffs. So if the Islanders get into the playoffs, if they do manage to get in, are they more dangerous than people think because they won't have to play three on three, which they're

god awful at apparently? Like, it's really hard to gauge how good these teams are. And the flip side of that, though, is also in the regular season, getting to overtime is a skill. There are very, very clearly teams that play. I mean, every team plays for overtime when it gets late in at the tie. But there are very clearly teams and coaches that are better than others at getting their teams to overtime. But that doesn't get you anywhere in the playoffs because you still have to keep playing hockey. And it's, you know, I've mentioned this a couple of times in my column.

The Boston Bruins are on pace right now to be the first team in history to have more loser points than actual regulation losses. To have that third column be higher than the second column. It never happened before. What does it mean? Well, as a hockey expert who spends every waking hour thinking about this sport, I can tell you, I have no idea. Good, bad. Don't know. Don't know.

Great system we have here, guys. Awesome. Your column this week to kick off with the weekly rankings, you kind of use what you talked about on the pod with Gentilly to kick things off. And that is, are the Florida Panthers, like, should we consider the Panthers like a villain in the NHL? And Laz and I, right off the top of this pod, Sean, we're like, man, I don't know that they have that sort of hated feeling around them just yet. So can you sell, sell Laz and I on the Panthers being? I hated team.

Yeah, and I'll admit, it can be a bit of a tough sell because it was two years ago, I did my playoff bandwagon rankings, and I said, guys, this one isn't even a question. Everybody should be cheering for the Florida Panthers. They're the underdog. They hadn't won a playoff series in 26 years. The Big Brother Lightning are always kicking sand in their face. They're the small market. We've all been making fun of the market for years, trying to take their team away, move it to

Quebec or wherever. It's time for everyone to cheer on this lovable group. Now, two years later, after we've seen that team win the president's trophy, we've seen them go to the final last year, they might win the president's trophy again this year. So that checks the first box, which is they got to be a good team. You can't hate a team that stinks. You know, you can, you don't have to like the teams that it's, I mean, everybody for years, as you've heard it, you know, everyone's always dumping on the Blackhawks. He can't do that anymore. They've stunk for four years now.

I mean, come on. You can't kick them when they're down. It's got to be a good team if you're going to hate them. So Panthers are a good team. That checks the first box. Second box, have you seen them play? Got a lot of dirty players on this team, including the poster child, Nick Cousins,

the guy who is probably the most hateable player in the league, a guy who is in our player survey named the most punchable face, I think it was. Great category, by the way, whoever came up with that. I know it was Jake Leonard. Good job on that one, Jake. There you go. Nick Cousins runs away with that one.

And that was before he did. I mean, I think when I was talking with Gentile about it, it was right when he had done the whole fake injury thing and then jump back up and got in the fight. I mean, this guy, you hear Kevin BXA, who's generally a pretty, you know, a pretty under control guy goes on this whole rant on Hockey Night in Canada. So, you know, very, they got the easy villain to hate. They've got other guys, you know, they got Sam Bennett. is another guy who's throwing some dirty hits and that sort of thing. You could certainly look at last year in the playoffs. I know a lot of people were looking at them going, wait a second,

this is just a team with a hot goalie. This is a team that just, you know, what are we even doing? What does the playoffs mean if we're just waiting for a goalie to get hot? So you don't have to like the way that they played. Paul Maurice, I mean, he's a guy, we kind of tend to like him in the media because he's got some good sound bites. But he's not a very difficult coach to not like, especially if you're up here in Canada and you saw him quit on the Winnipeg Jets,

walk away, go, I'm done with coaching, and then whoops, here I go down to Florida to slip into that job just a few months later. This is a team that takes a ton of penalties, but also because it's the NHL, they get a ton of penalties called for them. You know, they draw a ton of penalties because it's the NHL and you can be as dirty as you want, and the refs will always even it up. So that's a good reason to be tired of these guys. And oh, by the way, yeah, Matthew Kachuk, do you remember when this guy was like supposed to be the biggest rat in the NHL?

Yeah. The poster. And we just gave you, I just gave you five minutes of why to hate the Florida Panthers. And I didn't even get to him yet because he's like third or fourth now on their list of hateable players. And somewhere Drew Dowdy is just pounding on the table saying, I've been telling you about this guy for years and years. A guy who, again, quit on a Canadian team, went, you know, zipped on down to Florida where it'd be. nice and easy and he wouldn't have any pressure. And they're probably going to finish first in the Eastern Conference and beat on some poor

underdog like Detroit or the Islanders or wherever in the first round. If you don't hate them yet, I'm just, give me till the end of the first round. And then let's see where we're at because I feel like this is a team. And yeah, I know if people are like, oh, you're just a Leafs fan. You're just saying this because they beat you in the playoffs. Yes, absolutely. 100% that is a big part of it. but not because they won,

because I got to watch them up close for five games and go, wow, these guys are way dirtier than I thought you'll find out too. I think that's just it. I think they need a little bit more exposure nationally, right? Because they're kind of tucked away down in Florida. They're never on TNT. They're never on ESPN.

I don't know how often they are on Hockey Night in Canada. I can't imagine it's very often. So unless you see your team, if you're in a Western Conference city like I am, you never see the Florida Panthers. You have to go and seek them out. and the average American hockey fan does not seek out most hockey games, particularly the Florida Panthers.

So I think they need one more deep playoff run where they're really exposed to the, to the population at large for that really to catch on. Because last year was a fun story because they barely got into the playoffs. Right. Like they were the fun underderella. Yeah. And I know there's people out there going, hey, the Panthers,

they made Bruins fans and Lee fans sad. So they can't be that bad. I get it. But your time's coming. And yeah, I mean, Lazz, you being in Chicago, me being a Lee fan, we know the number one sin you can commit in the eyes of the hockey world,

if hockey fans out there is to be overexposed, to be on TV a few too many times, get a few too many stories, all of that. So Florida's not there yet, but give it a little bit of time, man. They will, they might be right there. It's interesting because Florida doesn't have any media there either. Like there's nobody that really, like when the Panthers are on the road,

there's no reporters traveling with them. There's no national people base down there. They just exist in this little kind of like side bubble. So the playoffs is really the only chance a lot of people have to see them play regularly or read about them. We need George Richards to pull like a big heel turn or something and write some outrageous column about why, you know, the NHL should get rid of all its Canadian teams and all of this stuff. If anyone could do it, it's George. I would be fantastic. We're begging you, George.

Come on, man. Come on, buddy. It needs you here. But now the Panthers have never won a Stanley Cup, right? Like, as I was looking at, as I was looking at, as I was looking at, as I was looking at, I was looking at. at the playoff field right now, there's only three teams that are in the mix of the playoffs that have never won a Stanley Cup. Florida being one, Winnipeg being one, and Nashville being the other one. I kind of feel like Winnipeg and Nashville, if you don't have a horse in the race,

so to speak, I think you'd be like, I'd like to see that city, that franchise win a cup, right? But we don't, so what we're saying, Sean, is we don't feel that way about the Panthers anymore. they don't have that lovable like Winnipeg still feels a little lovable Nashville still feels kind of lovable right now but what you're saying is Florida's not I I'm just going to say you know how many Stanley Cups have the Maple Leafs won in the lifetimes of 95% of the people listening to this podcast that doesn't seem to help the lead yeah I don't I don't see any lovable underdog energy being directed to the Maple Leafs and you know there's there's plenty of other teams that would

probably fit into that category too. Again, there is some of that, and especially if they run into Tampa, let's say, in the first round, which is a plausible first round matchup, I do think a lot of people will be saying, all right, it's time. They've lost to the lightning a couple of times. It's time for the Panthers to beat Big Brother and kind of emerge. You know, maybe. Great.

Sit down and watch it. And, you know, when Nick Cousins' elbows, Nikki Kutchev in the head. or, you know, ends Stephen Stamcoast's season in his last season with the lightning and we see him get dragged up. Then come back and say, Sean, you know what? You were right all along. We should have listened to you. We love doing, when you jump on the Monday pod, Sean, we love doing a little this week in hockey history. So why don't we wrap up your segment by taking a little trip down hockey history here and just chatting about a few things that happened this week in NHL history.

We're going to start with this. I was shocked. that this week, and this isn't a typo, this isn't a mistake, this week in 1940, Chicago became the first team in the NHL who take a chartered airline flight when they flew from Chicago to Toronto for a playoff game. Would you guys not think that if I, if just we asked people randomly, what year did the first NHL charter take place?

You'd probably think, oh, well, maybe in the 70s or the 80s. So 1940? Isn't that to surprise you guys? Classic Chicago getting special treatment. As always. Yeah, that's pretty impressive. It's funny because I'll talk to like Troy Murray a lot. You know, Troy Murray does the radio car.

He's a radio analyst for the Blackhawks. And he played for the Blackhawks in like the 80s and 90s. And they were still flying commercial back then because Bill Words was so freaking cheap. Yeah. You know, they're connecting through like, you know, they can't even take a direct flight because it was cheaper to like fly through Detroit or Atlanta or some crap like that. And this was like, you know, 30, 40 years ago, they were still doing this. So for 1940, I didn't know they had airplanes in 1940 like that.

Flew like commercial passengers. That's kind of impressive right there. Weren't they all supposed to be original six? You're supposed to be on a train. You're supposed to. Right. Yeah. I was understood.

You're in the train. You're in a suit and a fedora. You're playing car. Smoking heavily. Smoking heavily. And then at some point somebody from your car goes accidentally goes to the other team's car and then there's a big fight on the train. That's how it has been explained to me.

Yeah, and the sportswriters are also on the train and they're having whiskey. They're having whiskey and coming up with amazing nicknames for the players. And then Roy Hobbs strikes out the whammer and the rest is history. Exactly. Oh, bad. So anyway, there you go. 1940. That surprised me.

This week in 1967, I had no idea about this. March 18, 1967, Gordy Howe had a shoulder injury. And instead of watching the game from the stands or wherever he would, to watch from Detroit decides, guess what, Gordy, you get to coach the team tonight. So Gordy Howe, March 18, 1967, while Detroit coach Sid Abel watch from the stands, Gordy Howe coached the team for one game. Detroit lost five to three. I couldn't help but think, like, can you imagine, like right now, like, let's say

Sidney Crosby's got a lower body injury, he's going to miss a game. Guess what? Sid gets the coach for a night. Mike Sullivan's going to walk. That would just never happen, would it? I mean, these days in Pittsburgh, who knows, that might, that might work for them. Hey, I love it, man. I miss the days of player coaches, player managers in baseball.

You know, that was, those are, those are good times. I want to see that again. But, yeah, no, I don't, I don't think we will, let's just say. I wonder what the salary. Every, every ex-player gets to become a coach, but you typically have to have the X player part before you get through. Hey, half of them become GMs. That's true.

Doesn't this feel like a Lou Lamarillo thing, though? I could see Lou do it. It's like guard the smell. Yeah. If Zach Perise was still on the team, you could just go there and be a coach for a day. If Patrick Wa has a go and do, you know, when, when, if when Patrick Wa gets suspended, throw Matt Martin back there. You could see Lou pulling that, right?

Just get him back there. How hard can it be? I'd wonder about the legalities of that within the salary cap world. Like, there's a reason, like, you know, a lot of, a lot of, uh, goalie coaches are still young enough where they can go out there and practice with the team and then fill in for a day if a goalie has a maintenance day, but they can't be the ebug anymore because of the salary cap, they would have to go on the cap. I wonder how that would work in

reverse if you were put into a coaching situation, if there would be some kind of league violation with that in this kind of Byzantine modern NHL. Dude, you know what's happening in Vegas. Noah Hannanvin's going to sign an eight-year contract for league minimum, but he's going to get a contract to coach one game a year for. $10 million. And we're all going to, oh, we're so mad at Vegas.

Lou Paul. Yeah. They thought, by the way, Detroit lost that game five to three with Gordy Howles. Does that make Gordy Howe is the worst coach in NHL history? Loser energy. Yeah. This week, 1964, Boston goalie Eddie Johnston became the last goalie to appear in every minute of all of these teams games in his season. It was a 70

game season. Eddie Johnson played every minute. Now, this is what I find fascinating. You're thinking, wow, this guy, every minute must have a great year. He won 18 out of 70 games. There was no, there was no better option. But I'll ask you guys this. And Sean, both of you guys are a real hockey historians. You guys know the game. Everybody thinks about Glenn Hall playing 500, starting 500 straight game. unbelievable street.

Do we need to put Eddie Johnson playing every minute of every game kind of in the same ballpark? Like, do we give this enough love? Probably not, considering I'm guessing, most people just heard this fact for the first time. Obviously, it's a little easier to talk up Glenn Hall, Hall of Famer than Eddie Johnson. But you know what?

This record must be even more unbreakable, because whenever we talk about crazy goalie streaks, the one I always go back to, and it was a long time ago now, but Grant Fear, remember the year that Mike Keenan was just like, Grant Fear is going to start every game. Grant Fear is just,

I'm going to go old school, Crazy Mike Keenan, of course, says, I'm going to put Grant Fear in every, and I think he started, what do you make it to like game 75 or something before he got hurt? Yeah.

But even in that season, again, Mike Keenan being Mike Keenan, pretty frequently, pulled Grant Fear out of the game. And their backup that year was a guy named Bruce Racine. And he ended up playing 10, 12, 15 games without ever getting a start. He holds the NHL record for the most games by a goalie without ever starting,

because it was his only year in the NHL. They finally went and got John Casey late in the season to come in and be the backup and the guy who did end up having to start in the playoffs after, you know, Grant Fear had his tragic Nick Kiprios adjacent. injury that was a total accident. But yeah, I mean, if even Mike Keenan was like, yeah, yeah, I'm going to start a guy every game. We'll let him go after Glenn Hall's record, but play every minute, that's rough.

I'm assuming Boston didn't have a backup, but imagine being that guy, just sitting there 60 minutes a night, tonight's a night. I got to be ready. I got to be ready. Eddie Johnson's also one of the great storytellers. If you need any story about old time hockey, give Eddie Johnson a call. And they'll give you this. I always say, I wore number one because that was my.

IQ back then. He talked about how like the pads they wore, they weighed like 35 pounds as opposed to like the super light pads they wear now, just how different the game was back then. But here's my question. Did they never pull him for an extra attacker the entire season? Seems like they were losing a lot. It wasn't a common strategy for even even back then. It wasn't necessarily completely accepted. So I wonder that. Yeah, I wonder did, was it he played every minute that any goalie played? Yeah, was it just nobody else played goal for the Bruins. Right.

Or at that point, they're not keeping track of time on ice, right? Like, so maybe he did get pulled, right? So maybe he probably did get pulled in a game. And then they're just like, they're not keeping track of ice time, right? I would have to imagine. But, yeah, I mean, to make it through, I'm not surprised that he wasn't injured because our definition of injury back then. I mean, he probably took a slap shot right to the forehead.

and ah, you're fine. You know, what day is? It's close enough. It's funny because when the Flames retired Kipersoft's number just a few weeks ago, I went and I looked at the stats, like is making Kipersoft really a guy who deserves like, you know, Jersey retire him? I never thought of him at that echelon.

You look at his stats, he played like 77 games every year. It's unbelievable. He carried a lot. Broder had a few of those, a few of those too. But, yeah, it's back then, yeah, you play. I'm surprised he didn't get kicked out of a game.

That would be the one that, although I guess even then, you know, it's like, yeah, he got hit in the head with. the puck, he hit the referee over the head with his stick. He's fine. Put him out there. It's just not like today. We're also soft. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's your next call with Mark. There you go. Yeah.

Before we let you go, Sean, just give you a chance to either tee up anything you got coming down the pipe for, you know, for our readers or I know, Wednesday, it's you and Gentile. I think our pal, what do you guys call him? F. Sean Carado. Frankie Carado. F. John Carrotto. I'll be back.

I'll tell you what. I'll tee that up because I just got back from a week's vacation. I don't have the first clue what I'm writing for the rest of this week. I got my rankings out this morning, but who knows what's going to come the rest of the time. I'm still trying to doggie paddle my way back up to the surface. But yeah, definitely by Wednesday, hopefully I'll be caught up enough that I can sit with Frankie and Sean. Frank's a new dad. Pretty exciting.

So it'll be it'll be three. sleepy sounding guys instead of the usual two plus a professional. Awesome stuff. All right. Always great when you drop by the Monday pod. Thanks for this. And yeah, we'll be listening on Wednesday.

Right on. Thanks, guys. Okay, Laz. A little trade here. Down goes, Brown is out. Jesse Granger is in. And as always,

when we have Jesse on the Monday pot, it is a presentation of PetMGM. The exclusive betting partner with the athletic. I'll tell you what, Jesse, we just wrapped up a little this week. in hockey history with Sean McIndoo, a little trip down memory lane.

I did leave one thing off because I thought it was a perfect segue. So this week in hockey history, guys, in 1991, Ron Tugnut, then of the Quebec Nordiques, made 70 save, 7-0. In a game at the old Boston Garden, Quebec ended up scratching out a 3-3 tie, thanks in large part to a 70-save performance from Ron Tugnut,

which I always thought was super impressive. until I heard what happened on the weekend, guys, in Russia. No, this isn't the KHL. This is like the second tier in Russia, but still impressive nonetheless. Russian goaltender, or Temi Pleshkov, makes 124 saves. You got that right.

1-24, 124, 1274 saves in a 1-0 loss. Loser. Loser. I mean, guys, what are we thinking? thinking here? What are we thinking? I'm thinking that kid has got some incredible, like, leg endurance. I think like any other normal human being is laid out on the ground with it. Like, they're not going to feel their legs for three weeks. Because he saved 124, but I want to know, we don't have coursey stats for this league. I don't think. But I need to know how many shot attempts he

face because I think what a lot of people like just generally don't think about is that it's not every save you make. It's every shot you face because even the miss. shots, you put in the same amount of, like, exertion because you've got to line up to the shot. You've got to react to it. The shot goes wide. You still had to react to it. I can imagine this kid was just in the, like in his stance, no relaxation, the entire

game. That's unbelievable. 124 steps. We're, we're, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, went to like, it, like, puttons. It was, I wanted, because this sounded like, you know, Putin's vote counters, counting the shot attempts here, like, like, like, 100. If it went four or five overtimes and okay, then that's realistic.

Like 120 shots. My God. Quintuple overtime, I believe. Quintuple overtime, I believe. All right. Okay. Let me ask you guys a question here. And I want the truthful answer.

I don't want you guys giving the answer that you think you want people to hear. I want the truthful answer. And Jesse, you're a goalie, so you're perfect. But last, I want your opinion on this too. If you're a goalie, and this is a for a regular season game, I'm not talking about the playoffs. Would you rather make a hundred and twenty-five, saves in a 1-0 loss, or would you rather give up,

let's say, seven goals on 19 shots, but your team wins 8 to 7? Be honest, what would you rather have? I'd rather have a playoff game. Yeah, there's no question. Like, you're going to say to the press that you're,

you'd rather have the seven goals in 19, and win 8-7, there's no effing way any goalie would prefer that in a regular season game. Yeah, I mean, I would tell the press, I'd rather lose with 124. I don't care. I have no shame. That's an amazing game.

I mean, but the thing is, if you did this to forwards, if you said, would you rather score five goals in a loss or turn it over seven times and get benched halfway through the second, but you win the game.

I think all of them would rather score the five goals. They might not admit it, but I think it's the same. That's an absolute no-brainer for me. I want to have a lot of 24 days. I kind of feel the same way. I want to give me my hundred and 24 sales. Which game are you going to tell your grandkids

about 50 years from now. Let's put it that way. Exactly. I started looking up, when you guys sent me this link, I started looking up like most saves ever by the NHL and you go into the playoffs. And what's funny is almost all of them lost the game. You like these great goalie performances are almost always in losses. Like I like Dominic Hasch sticks out. He made the 70 saves against the devils in the playoffs. And he lost one nothing, just like this goalie, by the way. I don't know if we mentioned that. The goalie lost one to nothing. He gave up 100. It was a shutout until the final. How mad at his teammates was he after that?

Right. And then I think about the Eunice Corpusala one, remember back in the bubble against Tampa Bay. He had 85 saves, which is the most in the NHL history. And that was also in a five overtime loss. Igor Shisterkin a couple years ago, I think two years ago against Pittsburgh in that triple overtime game, he had like 70-something saves. He lost that game also. It's like, yeah, you don't get the glory and the win if you're a goal. If you want to make all those saves, you are going to lose.

Well, if you're giving up that many shots, chances are you're on your heels the whole game, and it's only a matter of time, right? Yep. Yeah. Yeah, Bob Mason back in the day for Washington, I think, had like a 60-some-odd save in a over-a. Pat LaFontaine scored on him. So, yeah, same thing. It always seems like the guy that gets the 60 saves is the guy that ends up losing the game.

Jesse, when you pop by on the Monday show, we love to look at some odds and, you know, things along those lines. As we close in, we're about, you know, a month. the way from the start of the Stanley Cup final, boy, the field seems super wide open, doesn't it? Like, if you asked 20 hockey fans to say, who do you think is going to win the Stanley Cup? Boy, you might get eight or nine or ten different answers, right?

Like, it feels like a wide open field, right? Absolutely. And it's not just at the top either. Like, I think, yeah, like usually there's one or two contenders that everyone says are the most likely to win. I think if you said who's the most likely to win, you'd get a bunch. But then also it's like, well, who can win?

And I think to me, the teams in the bottom of the playoff chase are better than they've been in a while. And I think that part of that is also just the top teams not being we don't think of as dominant. Like there isn't a powerhouse, I think. I mean, Florida's been really good. But I don't think we see them on a different tier than Colorado and Dallas and Edmonton and all the other contenders. So I think that combined with the fact that the bottom of the playoffs are seemingly really competitive. To me, looks like it's going to be an awesome playoffs. But yeah, I wanted to go through it with you to and see if you guys agree with me,

because I got a pretty ridiculous number when I did this exercise. So I want to see what you guys. I mean, you can get a ridiculous number in the Western Conference alone. I mean, it's quite how many real contenders there are this year. It is, it is. Okay, so we'll start from the top and these ones will be easy. But Panthers are six and a half to one. I imagine you guys both think the Panthers can win the Stanley Cup.

Sure. Yeah. Avalanche 7-1. hated team now in hockey. So, I'll tell you what, my Twitter mentions, as a reporter for the Vegas golden nights, my Twitter mentions disagree with Sean. Yeah, I know. Yeah.

I've got about 7,000 Twitter replies during trade deadline week as evidence. Yeah, Vegas is the undisputed most hated team in the league. Yeah. Yeah. Listen, Colorado absolutely slam dunk. We saw it again on the weekend. They beat Edmonton. They're legit.

They're the scariest team in the league to me. Yeah. Yeah, I think so. And then we've got the Hurricanes. Of course they can win. I still, I, and Kuznetsov looks great and Gensel scored and they're loaded. I question their goal tending. I really do. It's an annual thing with them.

But this is the best, like the hurricanes have been contenders for what, four years now, I would say. This might be the best one they've had yet. This might be the best thing they've got. I watched them last night in Ottawa. and they just, it's like they decide, oh, okay, we'll show up now. And they won seven and two. They're just so fast and so deep and so hard on the porch. It's just incredible.

But it's the same thing we've been saying about them for two or three years. Is that gold-tening good enough? But I agree. Like, I guess if the question is, do you see a path to them winning the cup? I think the answer is clearly yes. Oh, no question. Yeah. Yeah.

All right. Next up, we've got the Edmonton Oilers, and they are seven and a half to one. the hurricanes. Like, I mean, it's the goaltending, right? That's the only question I have. Scanners been good though. Yeah, he has been good. Skinner's been very good. I mean, I think sometimes we, something happens early in the season and we, we like let that form our opinion of the team. And like Stuart Skinner had a, he struggled out of the gates. And then the Jack Campbell thing was such a disaster. And the fact that they had to send him to the H.L. I think that's all stuck in our minds of like, okay, Edmonton's goaltending is terrible. But last year,

they went pretty deep in the playoffs. They lost to the. eventual champion, Vegas. I think, and that was a really close series. I think if Edmonton beat Vegas in that series, they could have ended up winning at all. And Stuart Skinner was good enough. So, and he's looked good in the second half. So he's, he's kind of restored a little bit of my confidence in him. And certainly McDavid and Dryside, I can carry a team through a playoff series. Of course, Edmonton's a contender. Right. And then next we've got the most loved team in the league, Vegas Golden Knights at nine and a half to one. These odds are, these, these odds are kind of surprising to me that you have Edmonton ahead of like Dallas and Winnipeg and Vancouver.

and the Rangers, like, I guess it's where the money goes and people want to bet on McDavid, but I'm surprised at the order of this so far. Like, Vegas is in the last playoff spot right now in the Western Conference. Yeah, and there are only, what, four points clearly of St. Louis right now? Like, again, it still feels like they'll make the playoffs, but they're like a sub-500 team over the last, what, like three, four months of the year right now. They went 11-0-1 to start the season. Best start for a defending cup champion ever.

And from that moment on, like 12 games into the season, they're below 500. I don't know if I have Vegas as a legit. I mean, of course they could win. I mean, it's largely the same team as last year. But they'd certainly be lower on my list than this. But yes, I could see a path for Vegas winning a cup. Right. I think I agree with that.

And then we've got the stars at 10 to 1. This is my pick. Like, this is the team. This is the best, the best constructed team in the league right now. They have everything. And assuming Jake Ottinger can be Jake Ottinger again. this is the team to beat for me. And I feel like it's like the Florida thing

where they're just, they're not on TV. So people don't think about how they don't see, they don't realize how good the Dallas stars are. And when Ottinger gets it any, granted he hasn't had the type of season you might expect. He has that ability to get stupid hot. Oh yeah. Steal your games hot.

Was it the Calgary series a couple years back when he was a rookie? But he doesn't even have to do that. For them to win the cup, He just has to give them kind of like a 905, 910, say, percentage. He doesn't have to go 940, 950. Even just 910, I think that team's good enough. Yeah, I'm with you. Like 100% the Dallas stars might be right up there with Colorado in my mind in the West.

Yeah. And then next is the Rangers at 11 to 1. And I know you guys said Colorado is the most scary team. For me, I think the Rangers. And I picked them in our latest, like, writer predictions. I picked the Rangers to win the Cup just because to me, this team is stacked up front. They've got great defense. Obviously, Adam Fox back there.

And now finally, Igor Shasturkin looks like himself. His last 13 games, he's 10, 2, and 1 with a 941 save percentage and three shutouts. If you only count his last 10 games, there are only seven goalies in the league with more shutouts than him, just in his last 10 games. It's unbelievable how good he's been. And when he's on and that team's that good, I want nothing to do it. playing against that team in the playoffs. I also think the East is at an advantage because the West is going to be such a meat grinder

that whoever comes out of the West is going to be an awesome team and they are going to be gassed. Like, I can see the Rangers winning a couple of short series, having a little bit more rest. I mean, it's going to be an absolute bloodbath in the Western Conference this year. Yeah, I agree. And like the Rangers, it's funny. Like, I don't know what it is about them. Like, maybe because they're an original six team or whatever it is. But, like, my God, like, if Schisturkin is, like, they might be the best team in the East by a mile.

If this is the Shasturkin that they're going to get in April, how would you bet against them? Like, they got everything. They got the high-end talent up front, right? They have all the pieces. And that guy, I don't know. I don't think anybody in the East, if every, like, and that includes Florida. If Shasturkin is going, I'm taking the Rangers. If he's going.

And the fact that Jonathan Quicks playing as well, he's, as he is, means we should get a fresh, Shasturkin. They have no reason to play him any more than they have to down the stretch because, I mean, they're winning every night with Quickennet. So you can keep your guy fresh. Next, we've got Boston at 12 to 1. I think we give them a chance. I know they're not as like Boston's such a weird team because they tricked us all last year.

And now they're obviously not as good as that team. So you say, well, they couldn't win it last year. How are they going to do it this year? But I feel like they could absolutely win the cup. I mean, in the randomness of the Stanley. Cup playoffs, yes, I don't really have them in that same tier as every other team we've mentioned. And again, I would have Winnipeg and Vancouver higher than them right now. It's a very good team. And we've seen mediocre teams win Stanley Cups before in the

randomness of the playoffs. And, you know, with two good goalies, sure, it's conceivable, yeah. But why don't we, okay, what's wrong with us here? And I put so many things on the top of the list. So, yeah, so many things are wrong with this. But like, last year the Bruins had a record-setting year, even coming into this year there's people like, they're having a great, guys, they might win the president's trophy this year.

They're that good. And yet we're kind of like, I don't know. Like, why? Like, what is it about the Bergeron? Basically, it's just the Bergeron factory.

You can't lose Bergeron and get better. It's inconceively. Right, right. Yeah, exactly. We're all convinced. Our brains cannot process that. Yeah. Exactly.

It's crazy. I hate to use the word disrespected because it doesn't, I don't know if that's the right adjective. But I just feel like we're all sleeping on the Bruins again and it's kind of weird. No? I agree. You're not wrong. You're not wrong. Yeah, it's weird. Anyway, next at 15 to 1, we've got the Toronto Maple Leafs who I think we might finally hit a roadblock here just because of the history. The Canucks on these odds. Yes, but this team is

really good. That's what we're learning is people put their money, spend it stupidly. Yeah, but Laz, in going back to what you said, Winnipeg's path to get to the cup looks, especially if they don't win that division. Like, you want to talk about a meat grinder, Winnipeg might be the best example of a team that, like, you've got to go through Dallas and Colorado, and that's just to get to Edmonton or Vegas,

or like, you know what I mean? So, I can wrap my head around it. Now, Toronto, they're going to have to likely go through some combination of Boston and Florida again. right, to get out. So I'm not saying that it's impossible. I'm just saying I can actually see that being a touch easier than Winnipeg's path. I don't see the defense.

I don't see the goaltending. I don't see that as a true cup contending team. I just don't. They're so talented up front. And part of me wants to see it because it kind of would be fun for Toronto to go on a run. And like for everyone to be all mad about it, it would be kind of fun to watch on the outside. I just in that, and again, the east is, you know, we're talking about the West meat grinder. You already said mentioned Florida, the Rangers, Boston.

There's a lot of good teams out east too. I just don't see Toronto beating three of them. All right. Mark's out on that one, but I still am in on Toronto. But I have more contenders. It's just. Yes, you do. And you've mentioned these next two.

So we'll do both these at the same time because they're both 15 to 1. And it's Vancouver, which it's funny that we're this far into it. We haven't got the number one seed in the Western Conference yet. This is what I'm saying. So we've got Vancouver and Winnipeg both at 15 to 1. one, they both have goal scores. They both play good defense and they both have elite goalies. 15 to 1.

Connor Hellibuck at 15 to 1 is by far the best value bet on this board. Like, no question about it. Yeah, like I was talking about how Ottinger and Igor can, like Schisturkin can steal games. Helibach's best goalie on the planet today. Like if I had to win one game tonight and I take him, I understand Vaselowski what he's done, I get it. I did one game for all my possessions tonight. I'm going hellabuck. And Tofoli's been a great fit.

Monaghan's been a good fit. And guess what? That might be, if you're going to talk about great storylines, the plucky little market that almost lost its stars, that had to have the commissioner come into town to talk about, lack of ticket sales. They win the state. Like, you can't get a better storyline than that.

I'm with you guys. 15 to 1 would be the smartest. money on the board for me. I've been in that city for the playoffs twice, the first season, 17, 18, in the conference final and then last year, and man, is that city fun in the playoffs. I cannot imagine what would happen to that city if they won the Stanley Cup. Yeah. Vegas, Vegas, guy who lives in Vegas says Winnipeg is fun. I love it. You know what? I've only been to Winnipeg twice, and it was both in the spring during the playoffs. And I, like, every, I always tell people like, I've been there a hundred times in January. This city's amazing.

It is by far the best in arena environment in the NHL. It's great. I've never covered a playoff game there and I badly want to. I'll tell you, the description of every Canadian city, though, is it's beautiful in the summer. I love Edmond in the conference final. The 11 o'clock sunsets, it's the best. I love Evan. Yeah.

So those two get us to 11 teams that we believe can win this 10 for Mark since he doesn't believe in Toronto. I don't blame him. But it's ridiculous. And to me, there's still a few more because we've got the Kings up next at 25 to 1. And when they get a lead, it's over. I've never seen a team strangle teams once they have a lead. They go to that one-three-one zone or trap in the neutral zone and you are just screwed. They're like Team Canada and Sochi.

They just suffocate you. I think the Kings can absolutely win the cup. I think it's a murderous road to get out of the West. But I think that team has, they've got the great center day. depth. I think the Kings can do it. I don't think they're a favorite to do it. I don't think they're likely to do it, but I think they can. Yeah, I think if you're Vancouver and you win the division, you don't want L.A. in the first round, right? Like, like, I'm with you that I wouldn't want L. Like, give me Nashville. And I'm not saying Nashville is not a scary team because Saros can

do the game, but I'd rather face Nashville than L.A. Oh, yeah. There's, there's no easy paths to the San, to the Stanley Cup final this year in either side, but particularly, the west. There's no easy path. Yep. So that gets us 12. And now the 13th team would be the Tampa Bay Lightning at 30 to 1. And they have not played their best. But I personally think the Vasselowski. I know, I know, I know, but no. The Vasselovsky has not looked himself. And I'm not convinced he's going to look himself in the playoffs. That part concerns me. That back surgery, I think he came back too early because they were losing so many games. I think that if if they had an actual backup Goli and they had like invested more than $4 in that position, they would have not just completely

falling apart without Vasselowski and he would have had some more time to come back. So I'm not convinced he's just going to turn into Andre Vasselowski, but the fact that the two time deferred, not defending, but two time cup champions with all these future Hall of Famers on it are 30 to 1 and they're the 13th best odds to win the cup is just shows you how deep the field is. And who do they beat on the weekend? to beat the Florida Panthers. Right, right. So, so. And you know, the most intriguing game of the week for me coming up,

it's in your barn later this week, John. I think it's on Tuesday. It's Tampa and Vegas. I'm super interested in that game because, you know, if Vegas loses that game, again, they start to look at the rearview mirror, but I don't know, Tampa, Vegas this week is a really interesting game to me. So that would be 13, and then this is pretty much where it ends.

I'll read the next few. The Predators are 60 to 1. So you see lightning are 30 to 1. And then there's the huge jump up is Predators 61, Islander 66 to 1, Red Wings, 80 to 1. If I had to make an argument for one of those, it's Nashville just because I think they play the right style of hockey. They are swarming. They are just a nuisance to play against. And they've got a goalie who can steal a series.

Like if UC Soros has a good week, you lost that series. I don't care what team you are. I don't care who your scores are. If you see Soros has a good week, you're out. Well, you can say that about Sorokin, too, though. Right, right. You could. You could.

He's not having as good of a year as, as, and honestly, Saros is not having it as good of a year as he does sometimes. But, yeah, I agree. You could say the same thing for Sorokin. So that would be. That's the beauty and the stupidity of the Stanley Cup playoffs, right? It is literally any team. I mean, the Kings won as an eight seed in 2012 because Jonathan Quick went insane.

That's all it takes. So if you throw Nashville and the Islanders in there just for fun, that would be 16 teams. I was not throwing them in. I was not throwing them in. But the point of it is there's half the league that we think could win the Stanley Cup. It's unbelievable. I cannot wait for the playoffs. It's going to be a good one.

But that is literally every team that's in the playoffs. Right. And again, it's partially hockey. It's partially hockey. But I didn't feel the same way last year. And there have been years where the teams that just got it. Like I can remember a few years ago, Nashville played college. Colorado in the first round.

And it's like, that Nashville team had no chance to win it all. Like, I really do think. There's 11 or 12 elite teams in the league this year. Like the disparity between the halves and halves. It's like our fantasy league, Jesse. It is, it is a, there's a huge gap between the top and the bottom right now. And the top is pretty deep and the bottom is pretty deep, too. Like, it goes up in a while.

So I think that's what we're seeing more than anything is just the, the, the parody that this league loves to tout. It's not really there anymore. We have elite teams and we have horrible teams that are starting all over again. Yeah. Well, it's going to be fun. When this thing gets rolling in about a month, I agree. There's probably 10 different teams and 10 different fans.

It's going to be a good one. I think they can win the Stanley Cup. All right. We'll have to leave it there, guys, because, yeah, we've, we've just chatted here for like over an hour last, you and I. I think that's our job, Ian. I think that we're supposed to do that. Yeah, that's right. That's a good point.

We'll leave it there. We'll wrap it up. We want to thank everybody for listening to the Monday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. Again, anything that you want to weigh in on, hit us up. The Athletic Hockey Show at gmail.com. And if we get enough emails, maybe LAS will sing Dancing Queen next week. I'll do it. I said, don't threaten me with a good time.

All right. So there we go. We'll leave it there. Have a great week. Again, your next edition of The Athletic Hockey Show comes your way Wednesday. As Sean McAdoo mentioned, it's Gentile. Back in due and Frank Corrado back in the mix. Lazan and I'll hit you up again next one.