The Athletic Hockey Show - Fleury vs. Binnington, and a look at the playoff picture and race for Connor Bedard following Thursday's games

Episode Date: March 17, 2023

On a rare FRIDAY Thriday show (does that make sense?), Hailey and Sean recap their week and discuss Marc-André Fleury's desire to square up against Jordan Binnington in Wednesday's Blues-Wild game, before diving into an action-packed slate of Thursday games that had both playoff and tankathon implications.Save on a subscription to The Athletic: theathletic.com/hockeyshowSubscribe to The Athletic Hockey Show on YouTube: http://youtube.com/@theathletichockeyshowVisit http://betterhelp.com/NHLSHOW today to get 10% off your first monthGo to http://grammarly.com/tone to download and learn more about Grammarly Premium’s advanced tone suggestions Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Hockey Show. All right, everybody. It's Friday. Welcome to the Athletic Hockey Show. It's a special edition of the Thri-Day Show. That's right. It's Friday. This is Friday on Friday.

Friday in the mornings. It's all Friday all the time. This is what we sound like in the morning. Not good. Bad. There's a reason we typically do this on Thursday evening. Thursday evenings. That is why Friday exists, because Friday morning show, it's not the vibe.

But, well, you know, it's raining here. It's very gloomy. It's raining here as well. And I don't know, man. I was up late doing power rankings. I feel crappy from being on driving and flying. and stuff. I'm trying to scrape it together here.

I'm doing my best. So, welcome to the show. It's Haley Salvin and Sean Gentile. That is a peek behind the curtain of what's been going on over the last three to five weeks, depending on which part of this show you're discussing. There's been a lot of travel.

There's been a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes. Obviously. not for me that's why I said depends on which one of us you're talking about so

I was in D.C. for a couple days and then back here and then in Cambridge and no I'm gonna bring this up because I didn't bring it up last week when I was in D.C. I met two. This is what I was going to say

by the way. This is why I'm flashing back to a couple weeks ago because last week, it just wasn't going to happen. I started getting sick last week and you could just tell as the show went on how I was feeling. Any cough medication took cold or the cold, the cold meds took cold. Oh, depending on what you're into, the show either got really bad or really great. Not sure, but I was in D.C. I think it was in the middle personally. Yeah. Yeah. Pluses in mind.

is I guess. It was like kind of funny, but like, dang, they're not really talking about anything. Like, she's talking about Thunderbug right now. So I was in D.C. for a, for the PWAHPA showcase that was held with the capitals. For a super secret women's hockey project I'm working on putting out before the women's world championships that I'm very excited about. But while I was in D.C. By the way, by the way, it's so fun. It's super secret.

It's very funny. I know what it is. You're going to like it a lot. Because we work together. Of course you know what it is. People... I know. I'm telling the listeners that they're going to like it.

She told me about it. No, I'm saying it's super secret and it's a lot of fun. So for listeners who follow the women's game or are trying to learn more about the women's game, stay tuned for this. because it's kind of perfect. Thank you. But while I was in D.C., while I was in D.C., I met some Friday show listeners. Correct.

Leanne? Multiple. Two. And I've got to say, it was very strange experience. I was like, what? Me? It was Leanne. So I met, not we, I was there, not you.

I met Leanne. who was volunteering and not volunteering. She was working one of the tables for the capitals. And she came up and introduced herself while I was on the phone with Sean. So I put the phone on speaker and Sean got to say hello and Leanne was very lovely. So shout out to Leanne.

Don't drive off the road, Leanne. If you were listening to this while you're driving to work, please stay in the lanes. I told her we're going to give her a shout. out and she's like oh my god i'm going to drive off the road don't i don't think i don't people care about you know what maybe she'll listen to this hopefully she doesn't have to work on a saturday just generally so maybe she listens on the other day back on friday on friday on friday after so don't listen to this in the car leanne if you're leant's friend tell her to tell her to

there's no way to prevent that i hate to break it to you uh and then i met joe uh who was kind of hanging out near the exit. He was very nice. Was a fan of the show. So we wanted to give both of them a shout out because that was really nice and very strange. I have imposter syndrome. So I was like, Mary Philippe Blenz over there.

Sair nurse over there. And obviously they cared about those two way more than me. I'm not suggesting that somebody like pushed Phelan out of the way. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no wrong. You told me that Leanne gave. gave Poulan the stiff arm and was like, get out of here. Goat.

Yeah. I got to go talk to my podcast friend. That's right. That's actually exactly what happened. Mm-hmm. Sorry. Sorry, Mary, Philip. Go be nice to somebody else.

Not Leanne. Anyway, so was in D.C. That project's super exciting. It was nice to meet some listeners. That was very kind. them to come over and say hello. And then Sean was in Palm Beach for, I was trying to think, like, what has Sean been doing? Sean was in Palm Beach for the GM's meetings.

It was kind of a boring one. Like there wasn't anything super, super topical other than maybe a little bit of the salary cap dance. But very quickly, Sean, how was that for you? It was good. I'm not going to spend a ton of time on this because everything I think on. I said very quickly. I know, I know. Rousseau, we,

Rousseau dragged me into a, you know, a weird boardroom to sit around a table and record like a 10-minute mini pod that they plugged in on the Wednesday Roundtable show. So I won't, I won't belabor the point. But it was a good, it was, you know, I'd never done one of those first stuff. So it was an interesting experience. Loitering in like an $1,100 a night resort.

That was a lot of fun. But, yeah, I think in terms of newsiness, it wasn't super relevant. The important stuff, so, yeah, were the salary cap dance. I think there was some important stuff in there that Batman said about RSNs for anybody in the U.S. If you're a ballet sports team or an AT&T SportsN team, like basically you're fine through the end of the season and then who the hell knows is going to happen. That's basically the takeaway. And some other kind of more minor, more minor stuff. It was a good experience.

I ate a bunch of fish tacos. Had a horrible flight back on a horrible set of flights back on Wednesday night. And here we are. No, it was good. I'm still sick. Yeah, I know. I can tell. But I didn't take any cough medication this morning.

So I'm here. Take some suit a fed or something. Amped it up. Let's go. You can bring the end. energy. You know what? So because we're recording this on a Friday morning, typically when we're recording on Thursdays, we don't want to talk about the games that are happening or happen because by the time the show posts, it's kind of old news. No one wants to talk

about Wednesday night's games or whatever it may be. So we do have the opportunity to just talk about all the games from last night because there was a bunch of relevant games, games with consequences. So we can dig into those. But this is where I break my rule of talking about a Wednesday night game because it's old news. We are going to talk about

that blues wild game from Wednesday night. I don't believe it was covered on the Thursday show because McIndoo and Mendez are like bums. That's it, clearly. Have you started a few of them? Is that what's going on?

Okay. With Mendez specifically, yes. Goodbye. Why? He's not as nice as you think. Anyways, that game was... You said this multiple times now. I don't agree for the record.

I also dump on Craig Custin's all the time, so... And that one time I said something mean about Harmon, but I'm not really... I don't really talk to Harmon enough for that. I've been too okay. Been okay. Custance. Now there's a guy...

Now there's a guy who you can't say enough bad things about. Let me tell you. Oh, that was the other big takeaway from the adjoining room that you have. Did you call the police? I called 911 on the hour. Craig Custis. Got an adjoining room with me. We had adjoining rooms at the hotel, which was the absolute funniest thing.

Because we got up, we, of course, went to dinner on the first night, got off the got off the elevator, walked down the hall, and we're like, oh, all right, here we go. They should have just given us a really big room

with bunk beds. So we could have had the TV. Or a suite. We could have had the hangout room. I mean, or it's a sweet, yeah, whatever.

I don't think there are a ton of suites at the Boiton Beach courtyard. So, you know, we'll see. I think that was as close as we were going to get to it, to a suite.

But yeah, we should have found some way to rig up bunk beds and have a, have the TV workroom in the other area, but didn't do it. It's okay. I'm glad that you guys had fun. So we're going to talk about the St. Louis Blues, Minnesota Wild Game from Wednesday night, kind of a wild one. So it kind of started, and of course we're talking about Jordan Bennington and Mark Andre Fleury and the goalie fight that should have been. It kind of started in the second

period. Minnesota scored three straight to make it four three in the second. Bennington, of course, after, you know, giving up three straight goals starts chirping at the wild bench doing his thing. Like six, seven minutes later, not even. Ryan Hartman's score is putting the wild up five, four. Again, kind of a wild game, pretty high scoring. And then Bennington gets pissed, jumps into the wild celebration on the Hartman goal. Chaos ensues. Mark Andre Fleury starts skating down the ice. And he was miced up that game and starts going to the linesman who's breaking up the goalie fight being like, come on, come on, it'll be fun. It'll be fun. So we actually have a clip of that that we're going to play for you guys because it might be my favorite thing that I've heard in a

while. So here's, here's Mark Andre Fleury trying to fight Jordan Bennington. Hey, hey, let's go, let's go, let's go. Let's go, let's go. No, no, no, no, no. Come on. No, no, no, no, no. No, no, no. You always know, always want to fight us right, you know?

Okay. It'll be fine, not. Get the crowd going a bit, you know? I'll just get myself here. I don't like having my hair like this, you know? He's gone, he's gone. It's like the sweetest sounding. proposition to fight.

It'll be fun. I'll be good. Please. I would have been great to watch him pound Jordan Bennington. I'll say that much. I don't know how many people. So I said this on my radio show yesterday. Like, why did the linesmen do that?

My head can understand why. They both have their helmets off. We want to help with concussions and brainings. injury, health and safety of players. My heart says, let him beat him up. Let Mark Andre Fleury punch Jordan Bennington in the face. And I'm not even like a huge Bennington hater, honestly. Like I think the bullshit he pulled yesterday is like the reason we got that fun clip and we had like fun in that Wednesday night game between the wild and the blues. So I don't really hate Jordan Bittington

because he kind of brings something different and fun even though he does kind of suck. But it would have been really fun to see him get punched by Mark Andre Fleury specifically. And I'm really upset that it didn't happen. I want to be careful on like relitigating Jordan Bennington because we've done that like, I feel like so many times. I'm tired of the Bennington conversation.

Like the, everything on Twitter when this happens, it's just like, oh my God. And it's just like, enough. this is cinema I was going to say he's annoying like everyone just move on like that's sort of where I'm in Pennington

he's obnoxious like whatever we don't need to we don't need to have the you know have the dialogue about it for the billions of times this huge

conversation around like the psyche of Jordan Binnington yeah about like or like entertainment No, I just think goalie fights are fun. Or the value of villains. Right. As it pertains to Jordan Bennington specifically is what I'm saying.

I just don't. Yeah. I can't do it again. The dudes, the dude's obnoxious and like that's kind of, that's sort of where I live it. It is what it is. Like, I'm not pissed about it when I see him act like that, though. Like, I don't get physically unwell when I watch Binnington like chirp the bench.

It's kind of just like, oh man, there you go. There he goes again. Somebody punch him. And then the flip, right, and then the flip side of it is that like the Binnington defenders, especially in the blues fan base, and I get it. They love Jordan Baird and this man won them a Stanley Cup, right? But like, don't be soft whenever people call your obnoxious goalie obnoxious. Like that's other people's prerogative after like, after multiple.

Years of this happening. Yeah. Yeah, it's like, all right, this dude's whack. like it doesn't need it doesn't need to be more than that never see it i've it is a there is a i got to give blues fans credit because they're rider die with that dude when for a lot of reasons they shouldn't be because he hasn't been annoying and bad for for years so yeah absolutely credit credit credit to the fan base for sticking with him but yeah i'm kind of done done with him overall but the fact of the matter is we lost out on a goalie fight i think that's the i think that's the

tragedy there and we lost out on a mark andre we we lost out on a mark andry we We lost out on a goalie fight that objectively, I think objectively would have involved the two funniest possible people in the league. I'm sorry. And so I had somebody from Vegas on my radio show yesterday, and obviously Flurry is now with the Minnesota Wild, but I was just like, well, what would this have been like? Is this something that surprised you after covering Flurry? So I don't know if you can speak on this, Sean, but he was like, I think Flurry is kind of like

always wanted to get in a goalie fight because he thinks they're like. because he thinks they're like really cool. You know, he'll like see goalie fights happen in junior, he'll be like, oh, man, cool, oh, fun. Like, there's just like something fun about it for Flurry. And I think that you heard the passion in that clip we just played. Like, he wanted to go. He always wants a fight.

I'll be good. I'll be good. Like telling the linesman, like, it'll be a safe punch. Just a little punch. Just let me get to him. So. He missed out. he missed out on one already, because this is, my God, this is probably this, I believe this is

2011. It was a, it was a total farce. It was an embarrassment, honestly. Penguins versus Islanders, there were, it was, it was a disaster. So the, the vibes were a lot, were a lot worse for that, for that, for that incident than, um, than the one that, than the one a couple nights ago. Like, this is, you know, whenever Trevor Gillies can cussed Eric Tang Brady and, you know, there everybody was fighting everybody it was ugly it was an ugly ugly scene the penguin's goalie for that game was brent johnson he was flurdy's backup at the time and that is the last goalie fight i can explicitly remember seeing this is 12 years ago and that is when brent johnson one punch to rick d pietro and broke his orbital and like injured him and it was it was again bad bad scene

and just kind of Flurry randomly had the night off. I think that was maybe during a back-to-back or whatever, whatever it was. So Flurry wasn't in the net for that one. And I sincerely feel like since then, yeah, he's had kind of a fascination with it. And he also kind of of a type with that, that dude is more obsessed with scoring a goal as a goaltender than anybody I've ever heard talk. So he must have been, you know, just inconsolpe. excuse me, inconsolable when

Linus Olmart pulled it off last month. Yeah. He's a renaissance manor he's trying to be. He wants to fight. He wants to score, but neither's happened for him so far. So the little bit of news out of that altercation, not between Flurry and Bittington, but Binnington going after Ryan Hartman

is that Jordan Binnington had a hearing for roughing and unsupportsman like conduct yesterday and then was assessed a two-game suspension. So no Bennington with the blues for the next two after his latest tantrum. I think my favorite part was after like getting five goals scored on him and getting kicked out of the game. He's like doing the let's go.

That's for me more than anything else is the shit that makes him. And then Goligowski scored. That's what makes him annoying. Yeah, and then Ghalagoski scores to make it 6-4 and does the, let's cool. Anyways, that was a fun one. Alex Gologsky's been a low-key, very funny person for many, many years. Yeah, so we've got to wrap this up because we've just been, like, talking about nothing for 20 minutes. Danielle just told me to shut up and move on.

It's exactly what she said. She's so mean. Let's go on to some of the games from, she didn't say that, Danielle's lovely. She bought a PWHPA hat on the weekend. So. Didn't even know that. Shut out.

I knew that because I actually talked to Danielle outside of our podcast. That's, so do I. Should we save the game breakdowns for the next segment? Hmm? I told an unnamed PWHPA player the other day that my podcast producer, Daniel, bought a hat.

And she had a lot of fun in Anaheim. They're like, oh, cool. Great story. And that's the end of that story. She said, oh, cool. Should we go to break? I hope everyone enjoyed the first 20 minutes because we're awake now, I think. Now the show begins.

Welcome to the program. Oh, Haley, good to have you. Okay. Yeah. I'm fine. You're the sleepy one. So let's get into some of the. games from last year. What? I'm sick now. Yes. I'm sick. You can't take my sickness.

Yeah, I know. I'm not the one who's talking about it. I know. It just so happens and I'm sick too, okay? Other other people involved in this podcast get ill. Bastard. Okay, so let's talk about some of the games from last night. Um, because again, lots of games. Yeah, I'm just going to move on from that. You can't just call, you can't call me that. Lots of games on the schedule last night. I feel like Thursday nights are typically the big ones, lots of consequential matches.

So I do want to start with the team that I used to cover. So Calgary Flames, they lose the other night in overtime to the Arizona Coyotes. And that's like another one of the, after, you know, a couple games before losing to, the Anaheim Ducks. And that kind of felt like the backbreaker of everyone being like, yeah, it's done. Like they're toast. It's over.

And then last night they come back and beat the Golden Knights who were on a four-game win streak, have the best record in the league since All-Star break ended. They're like 13, 2 and 2, obviously before this game. So now 13, 3 and 2. Best record in the NHL since All-Star. And the flames beat them 7 to 2. Tyler Tofoli with two goals, four points. He's at a career high, 60 on the season.

And now all of a sudden, that Tofoli's having that kind of a year? No, not at all. Did not know he was at the 60 point mark. And also would have thought that he would have, you know, maybe thrown up a little bit more productive season at some point in the past. Yeah. Wild. Good for him.

And he's on pace for a career high in goals as well. So he's now at 28. the year with about, I think they have 13 games left. And his career high is like 31. I think he's on pace for like 33 goals. So this is going to be, you know, a career year if things all kind of go as they happen for Tyler Tofoli. So this is just like this is like, of course, like this I think is is an example of how the flames have been out of sight out of mind for me like over the last, you know, however many weeks, right? Because yeah, whether it was, uh, the coyotes game or any of those like quote unquote backbreakers that came before that,

I'm like, okay, they're not a serious team. So I don't need to treat them as such. So I'm like unaware that Tyler Toffold is going to score 30 goals again and whatever. But we need to pay attention to them apparently all of a sudden, right? Right, because all of a sudden Jacob Markstrom is looking better. All of a sudden, there are three points back at the Winnipeg. jets who continue to just kind of flounder. They lose to the Boston Bruins last night, three nothing.

So the Predators are a team that, well, this is, again, there was so many good games on last night, games with like consequences up and down, the standings. So the Preds have a better points percentage than the Flames with games in hand, but the Preds lost the Blackhawks last night, two to one. So last night is like a pretty good. evening if you're a flames fan who's still holding out hope because there are three points back of the jets and the jets have not looked good lately uh do you have a thought on what's going on in Winnipeg right now three five and two in their last 10 they've lost two straight again

you know they're kind of they're bleeding points they're uh up three points on the on the flames um a little on the next level, the next level of projection sort of stuff there, sinking like a stone, uh, is well, I,

I'm, it, as far as the jets are concerned, this is like, the way they've played, I feel like is something we were anticipating a little, happening a little earlier in the season, right,

for them to come back to earth a bit. And now it's happening. It didn't, obviously. So I, I, kind of bought in on them. You bought it on most of the Western Conference,

partially because they were playing well, but also because the flames just, you know, didn't seem like they could get it together. And then the Preds sold at the trade deadline. So you're like, all right, this is kind of a wasted season in Calgary. Nashville started the rebuild process. We can kind of internalize the idea

that the jets are going to make it. At one point, not long ago, this is like in the first half, of the season, but, you know, not on that far back. The Jets had a 90% chance at the playoffs, according to domesticians' projections. Since then, which is like I think whenever we had to just accept

or accept that we were wrong about them at the start of the season. After everyone got roasted by Marat saying that nobody's paying attention to the Jets. So Marat convinced us and possibly led us astray because, Since you wrote that, like, hey, the jets are actually good thing, they've gone 20, 21, and 2 since then. Which has taken them definitely out of a lock position and made the race in the West, you know, a lot more interesting. I'll take it. This is good. Like, it's good to have one wildcard spot at least, you know, up for grabs or at least ostensibly off for grabs as we, you know, cruise towards the second half of March.

I love it. So the one thing about the West kind of playoff race, or at least specifically in the Pacific, I saw Durantz posted this about Sutter and like looking at the drop of the flames chances at the playoffs and said this is where Sutter mocked Pelletier's debut. It's not true. The flames have been consistently inconsistent all season.

We are not watching something different in game number 69. or 70 or whatever point in the season we're at right now. This was not some miraculous people realizing that Daryl Sutter is a little bit mean sometimes and now the flames are bad. That is like the model catching up to the way that the flames had been playing. And that is the Edmonton Oilers. If you just look at the little black line from Edmonton, that's the Oilers getting their crap together and going on a run

and becoming arguably one of the best teams in league as well. and Seattle not falling off and L.A. not falling off. This is not Darrell Sutter was mean to Jacob Peltier because if people would like watch all the press conferences Darrell Sutter actually speaks a lot

about how much he likes the kid and he brings energy and he's fun, etc. To hypothesize that maybe something like less than ideal is going on in that locker room we've seen we've seen stuff with Euberdo we've seen stuff from Alan Walsh.

Yeah, Alan Walsh made that tweet. Yeah, something, right. So, so what I think it's, I mean, we've heard, you know, rumblings, I think, coming out of there that the vibes, that the vibes in the Flames Room have been intermittently, you know, pretty, pretty sour this season. So I, it's correlation versus causation, right? I don't, I don't think it's news that, you know, that it doesn't see it at various points throughout the season that the coach and the players have not been on the same page.

I don't think we're telling Taylor of the school by sort of alluding to that. But, yeah, their performance, I think the way to put it probably is that their performance, their individualized performance since the Peltier situation, like, really hasn't changed. They are who they are. They're an inconsistent team with a goalie who is, who's lost himself, maybe. I think that's right. That's where they are today. And it's where they were a couple months ago.

Yeah, because Lidar started to drop off as well. Dan Vlodar was no longer the, I'm going to push Jacob Markstrom out of the number one spot player anymore. And I also think, like, I don't think Daryl, this might be an unpopular opinion. I don't think Daryl was mocking Jacob Peltier. I think he was mocking the local media in the media, in the media who keep talking about Jacob Peltier.

That is all people had talked. about all season. Yeah, it's not a, it's not a cool move. That's, that's a, that's a shitty, like, then, yeah, of course. It gets caught, gets caught in the whole, it gets caught in the crossfire of Daryl Sutter's, like, old man, axe grinding bullshit with, with, with the media. That's not, like, that's not, that's not something you should do ever. Like, I get it.

I get if he was annoyed by the question, but, but he embarrassed the player. And that's, and that's something that, you know, does Daryl Sutter, do that publicly 10 years ago? Probably not. And I think that's a characteristic of coaches, especially more and more moving forward, is that the one thing a lot of these guys do that have success in the NHL in 2023 is they don't embarrass their guys publicly for any reason. And they don't use them as weapons in a fight against the media. And that to me was like the issue with what Daryl did. Right. John Cooper's not doing that, right? Mike Sullivan's not doing that. There are coaches who've won a lot more, a lot more recently than Daryl has.

The one thing with Daryl is he's never going to say something in a press conference that he hasn't made clear in the room. It's not a cool thing to do. The only point is that that chart is not because of him. That's all. And I think that I'm sure there's things that have been going on that room. Like I have heard, yeah, vibes aren't great in there. I would imagine there's issues with the flames that are certainly Daryl Sutter's fault.

Just not just not the nose dive from that particular point. Yeah. Okay, so let's go to the Edmonton Oilers because Dom ranked them five in the power rankings. You ranked them 10, so they're kind of in the middle of those two numbers at eight overall. Oilers beat the stars last night, four to one. Connor McDavid, he's at 131 points on the season. Oh, and by the way, Leon Dreisdels at 101 points on the season. Like, I've been kind of tracking the McDavid, like, ridiculous season.

I don't think I realized that tricytel was tearing it up, too, which is really stupid of me. I cover this league. However, I was like, oh, my, why do you have the Oilers so low? Yeah, so low. They beat the stars. They beat the stars. to have them. It is disrespect.

They beat Dallas. They beat the best team in the Central. I like Dallas more than them. This is like there's like there, some of this is cumulative. Dallas only has three points more. I get it. Dallas,

Dallas is still a better five on five team than, than Edmonton is. And I think part of it is I just think less of the oilers is a baseline than most people do, right? So that's the way this stuff works. Like, Dom has teams that he likes less than most. And the end result is like when we do these stupid rankings that, like, you know, they have more work to do individually with whether it's me or him or whatever.

He had the kings like 18 a couple weeks ago or whatever it was. That doesn't make it wrong. It just means that, you know, he appreciates what they bring to the table a little bit less than me. And I think that's been the case with Edmonton, at least initially. So now it's like things are looking different. They're a much deeper team. I love what Nick Buegsted brings. I certainly love what, I love what Matthias Echon brings. I see the exact kind of guy that they needed. But, you know, there's still work to be done. And also, I tend to, like, for better or worse, I think I weigh a little bit, a little bit more, like, goalie situations on this. And I just don't,

I don't, like, if we're trying to, like, if we're trying to. to decide which teams have the best chance as currently constituted of winning the Stanley Cup. Like, I'm sorry, I'm not sold on Stuart Skinner and I'm certainly not sold on Jack Campbell, right? So give, sweet boy Jack Campbell, I know. That's a, it's a terrible thing to say. But like, I'm sorry, man, you put those teams with Jake Otten, one has Jake Ottinger and one has Stuart Skinner next to each other in a playoff series.

Yeah. And what has Connor McDavid? Sure, I get it. If Connor McDavid can do what he wants whenever he wants, why haven't the Edmontonel ever won a Stanley Cup? Okay, however, like, I thought Jake Onger was incredible, incredible in the playoffs last year. Jake Ottinger was great. With respect to Johnny Goddrow and Matthew Cucuck,

who were not great in the postseason, other than like the OT heroics from, Johnny in that first round, Jake Onger wasn't facing Connor McDavid in the first round. Sure. It's it's nitpicking to to take like, I think that one team is one.

And also you're getting angry like at McDavid being like if he could do it, then why wouldn't he do it? He was playing against Colorado. Like he did it up until he faced the best team in the league. So what? That team was a. That's right. Beast.

He could turn it on against the first two opponents. Yeah. The other teams are out there too. It's not just him choosing to do what he wants when he wants to do it. It is unbelievable as he is. I love the record. I think you're mad about a thing that just Dom says all the time. No. Conno McDeveevee could do what he wants. I mean, I've made, I've had that conversation with Dom, but no, it's a line, it's a line that everyone uses. It's illogical. Not me. Not you. No. So he yell at me about it. I'm sorry.

There's other, there's other teens out there. There's other rosters. Stop yelling. Jeez. I'm just, and like I said, I think by the time it's all said and done,

I would imagine in a couple weeks, whenever we thank God, do the last one of these for the regular season, could the oilers be, you know, farther up on my list? Like, absolutely. They look great. The additions are paying off.

You know, they're better, and they've improved as a five-on-five team. just in general over the course of the season. But it's also not some wild show of disrespect to have them at nine instead of five or wherever Dom had them. Like, it's pretty good.

There's a lot of teams in the league. There's a lot of really good ones. Yeah. Okay, the LA Kings, their game wasn't as big of a deal because they were playing against Blue Jackets. They win 4-1. But the Kings are interesting because I think they're one of those.

teams similar to the Cracken-ish and the Cracken one last night kind of was closer game than you would think Cracken beat the Sharks 2-1 and O.T. Those were two of the teams that I think have been kind of in control in really good spots in the Pacific Division slash Western Conference playoff race for a while. And those are two of the teams that I think people kind of kept talking about like their fake good, at least with the Kings and with the Cracken people were being like, okay, how long is this going to last? And Domino, had a lot about the Kings and his 16 stats about how they were the team that people were waiting to come back down to Earth and now all of a sudden they're like becoming the team that

the standings kind of said they were like their underlines and the way that they're playing they're like five on five numbers their play driving etc etc is all kind of catching up to the way that the standings looked in the way that they people kind of talked about the Kings early in the season and how they're kind of trending in the right direction at the right time. And it's not just because, you know, you get rid of Jonathan Quick, because this is all kind of their five-on-five play, their goals four, goals against. And I mean, mind-you, Jonathan Quick would have something to do with goals against, even though it was mostly Phoenix Copley playing at this point. But like all of their five-on-five numbers are looking better post-all-star.

And you know, where else they got a lot better? In net. Like, Copley's a good guy to have around, and he helped them at multiple points throughout the season. But, like, they have another viable option there now. Unis Corpusallos played three games for the Kings. He's got 929 save for Cajor cross them and has made 78 saves on 84 shots. That's better than what they were getting from Phoenix Copley, and God knows it's better than what they were getting from John Quick. So that's a factor, too.

Like I liked, because this isn't, Corpussollo's been good. He's been, he's been like pretty solid for the, for the blue jackets throughout the course of the season. And has the, has the dude stunk for most of his NHL career up until this point? Like, absolutely. But A, goal is weird. And B, the dude had a serious operation on his hip last off season that it seems like, dealt, like, solved some ongoing issues for him. So if this is the guy he is, and it seems like he's going to potentially have a chance to, you know, start the season,

is there, is their number one? Then I think we'll have done a solid bit of work. Gavricab also been pretty good too. That team got better at the deadline. So Gavikov, since Jordan of the Kings, has been on the ice for 71% of the expected goals while outscoring opponents 7 to 1. This was before the game last night. This is from Dom 16 stats.

And Dom even said, he's like, this is the biggest bowl of crow I will ever eat. Yes, it is still early. But Dom hammered them for being like, why wouldn't you just get chikrin? Like, Gavrikov, Gavrikov, really. And he's been, the early returns have been there for the L.A. King since acquiring Vladislav Gavikov. Let's go to Rangers Penguin, Sean. So I feel like we've been talking about the Eastern Conference playoff race a lot. so we just did a nice little spin around the West

because the West is getting more interesting, which is great, but the East is still the big talker, that wild card race. I think the Sends are fallen out of it. They lose again last night to Colorado, but Sends lose to Colorado Avalanche and Sends fans want DJ Smith fired immediately once again

because everything is his fault. But yeah, The Sends have fallen back. They're behind Florida, Washington, Buffalo now. And they've got, what, 70 points. They're eight points back of a playoff spot. They've lost four straight. Unless they put on some huge run in, like, Florida, the islanders, Washington, Buffalo

all fall apart. Like, it's probably over for Ottawa. But I've said that before, and then they burst back up. Penguins are sitting in the first wild card spot. They lose to the Rangers last night. Tristan Jari's back Jake Gensel scores What do we think?

I think that's the To me that's the big headline for Pittsburgh coming out of that coming out of that loss of the Rangers Is it ideal to not to not You know Bring a point out of the garden

Given where they are In the standings both in the wild card And in the division like yeah sure But Jari looked good And he hadn't That's a major That's a major a wild amount of their season hinges on that dude.

And they're lucky because Casey DeSmith has like kind of phased back in after looking pretty rough for a large chunk of the season. As Jari has kind of struggled to, you know, find his stride after missing some time. But Casey DeSmith isn't one of them a playoff series against the Boston Bruins. or the Carolina Hurricanes. That's just facts. Like, if he could have, he probably would have done it already. Like, we've seen a lot of Casey DeSmith

over the last couple years. But Tristan Jari, you know, maybe he can. He's physically, physically gifted. He's, you know, as long as he's healthy and he's got his head on, head screwed on, right? Like, he's top 12 in the league. I think it's fair to say,

but he hadn't played like it remotely, recently, until that game against the Rangers. He looked phenomenal. You know, he saved, had almost six-tenths of a goal saved above expected. He's, you know, save percentage was there. He looked good. He looked right. And he hasn't for a while.

So if the penguins want to have any prayer of even, like, extending a series against whoever they get matched up with in the first round, They need him to be in top form. And I'm not sitting here saying that, you know, if Tristan Jari is good, like, don't count them out against the Bruins or whatever. Like, that's not what I'm saying. I think that team's destiny is still to make it to the first round and get stomped. But it'd be a lot more interesting,

and they'd have a much better shot at at least extending it if Jari was right. And last night, he looked at. The Penguins are interesting because every time I see a story about them or a tweet about from penguins Twitter or some news from the penguins, it's like very doom and gloom. It's like, oh, this person's injured and, oh, you know, here's a column about how crap the penguins are. And then you look at the standings and like they're in the first wildcard spot. Every time I look at the standings and try to track like, what's going on with the penguins? I'm expecting them to be way further down.

But obviously that's the expectation that's been set in Pittsburgh. obviously I understand why people are irritated with that team. I was tweeting about them on deadline day being like, I don't understand. That was it. That was my, that was my penguin's analysis. I don't get it.

That's true. That's as good as anybody can do. You committed to going all in with your big three, but you won't like commit to like properly building around them. So what you just brought them back for what? To overpay a bunch of debt players besides Sydney Crosby and not do anything? That's right. That's right.

That's what the issue. That's what the issue is. And people here know it. And that's another part of the problem. It's frustrating to watch because it's like if we could have like done this better, like all this bad shit that's happening to the penguins. And they're still the best wildcard team, right? Imagine what this team would be doing if they were built just a little bit better,

a little bit. So I can understand. There's specific ways too. There's players out there that are tearing it up who Ron Hextall had no use. like Jared McCann. Imagine what this team would look like if they had Jared McCann. He's on the,

he hit him and Chris, in Brandon Tanev both. I almost like, I did say Chris Tanev again. I'm never, I'm never going to get that straight. Ever. Yeah.

Those guys are relevant bottom six players who are on the Seattle Cracken ultimately because Ron Hextall for whatever reason wanted to protect Jeff Carter for the expansion draft. That's it. That's why that happened.

And people look at those guys. An age probably would have, like, protected him in and of itself, right? Yes. And it was up to Hextall to understand that, like, the Seattle Cracken had no interest in Jeff Carter, right? So that combined with a contract that he gave Carter last season. Shocking. It's shocking that the analytic heavy front office in Seattle was all in on Jared McCann.

I'm shocked. Yeah. Who could have seen that one coming? That they- though technically he was with the Leafs after that little swap for all that crap, but then even the Leafs let Jared McCann go for Alex Curfut. Yeah. We're all looking for the guy who did this.

Who let McCann go to Seattle? Who did this? All of you. Well, that's why I didn't even, I didn't even, like, I didn't even want to crack into the specifics there because, like, yes, that the trade was flipped or whatever. But the genesis of all that was that he wanted to keep Carter. He lost both of those. guys because of that. So you have

like the bones of a great bottom six that are that are elsewhere, right? And Jeff Carter has been putrid and people know it and they've watched it because it's been true all season long. The other thing and the other fundamental problem I think

that people have with the job that they've done is that Sidney Crosby has been fantastic. He has already clinched another point per game. Season, he's been great. So people see that and it's just like, what? Like what are we supposed to, like, what are, what are we supposed to build? It's frustrating.

It's, it's wasting the gift. You talk about it all the time. Sydney Crosby is in his 30s and he's still a point per game player. He's still Sydney Crosby. And you can't figure out like, you know, his consistent line mates or who plays on the second line? It's crazy. It's crazy. dude's been healthy

healthy for the duration of the season same goes for Malkin and again he's he got his 82nd point last night right? It's almost like Malkin had a massive knee surgery and that's why he was a little bit slow last year. Yeah and now he's like one of the best $6 million centers in the league

Krosby by the way we sort of talked about McDavid like coming up on on Grisky stuff and whatever like breaking Graskey records Crosby has had 18 point per game seasons to start his career. And that's one behind Gretzky's record. Gretzky was at 19 in the 80s.

And that's it. Everybody else, you know, everybody else is looking up at those two. And we're talking about... We're talking about... Huh? I'm sorry, I just pulled up the penguins like a DFO line. So I'm like, oh.

Oh, it's... It's terrible. It's terrible. And he's moving out bad parts for more bad parts. Why is Raquel on the third line and Alex Nealander's on the second? Is Raquel not playing well? No, Raquel's been fine. Nealander's,

Newlander looked good in his first couple games. And I think they're just, and they're just trying to see if he's an option. Like that's the point in their season that they're at is they're trying to figure out whether Alex Nealander is like a middle six option. And it's crazy. And it's because of, Yeah, right.

And it's because of text. It's a great day for hockey. Sorry. That's what they say. That's what they tell me. I have a cup that says that. This has been the penguins whining segment of the episode. Should get my dad on once to just talk about the penguins and he'll probably still talk.

Because my dad used to take me to Pittsburgh, go to Penguins games all the time as a kid. So I bet my dad would be like, you know what they need. They need Pascal DeBuy. What, he's not wrong. Someone like him, maybe. I think you're right. I think you're right, Frank. We saw Bill Garon in a parking lot near the double tree.

And my dad was like, hey, that's Bill Garen. I was like, the guy they just acquired at the deadline, those were the good old days. I loved, loved being able to witness the Mike Russo-Bil-Garon interactions firsthand at the GM. The draft, too. Isn't it the funniest experience? Oh, my God. So we were, we were waiting outside the GM's rooms at the draft in Montreal. And, you know, Bradtree Living comes out because there's the bathrooms. Bradtree living comes out. Goes to the bathroom. He goes, oh, hey, Haley, how's going? How are you having a good summer? Okay, see ya. Just nice, nice guy. And I'm not there to get a scoop. I'm just there because it's like, this seems like I'm supposed to be doing this right now. I should go to the GM's meetings, right? And then Garon comes out and sees Russo. He's like, oh, Mike, I'll talk to you later. I'll catch you later. Like, Mike, once we're done, I'm just going to the bathroom.

And I was just like, I loved that so much. I'll tell you, watching Russo work the room at this hotel with these guys, what a treat. Guys, an animal. He's a freak. Respectfully. With respect. Respectfully. in a positive way.

Yeah, a good, a good freak. Okay, let's move on for the pet. Wait a second, one more Russo thing. Okay. His, I saw, he has Lifetime

Titanium Elite status at Marriott. Jesus. I didn't even know that was a thing. Like, just keep adding adjectives. Yeah.

It's like, I think, right. Lifetime status, there's like titanium status, elite status. He's somehow all three at the same time. I didn't even know. I'm like, here's me like a bomb. I'm like, hey, might be able to hit gold this year. Let's let's let's let's get like in. Lifetime titanium elite.

That's great. Yeah, so you've got like lifetime status. So it's like the amount of years you have at an elite status. if you hit like five, then you're a lifetime. So I'm like two years away from being a lifetime gold member. Some stupid like that. I've had like 37. So that's what happens?

Okay. Yeah. So if you hit like that level and you have it for multiple years, then you get lifetime status. So if you were like five years in a row at titanium elite, then your lifetime titanium elite. status. Just the fact that Titanium elite exists. Yeah, plutonium ultra Microsso. Okay. That's right. That's impressive.

Okay, final game I think we should get into here. Because we've kind of gone over all of them. We don't need to talk about coyotes canucks. Actually, I mean, why do you keep winning? Stop it. the badar like no the the draft lottery date is set for may 8th and the Arizona coyotes keep winning hockey games I think they need to trade too valenaki coach uh thank you for saying that I talked to Andre about Marco Rossi a couple years ago and he's like

such a smart coach he's a really good talker I was ready to draft Marco Rossi myself. I was like, first over, Marco Rossi first overall. Like I had a 40 minute conversation with Andre Tourney about Marco Rossi. I was like, oh my God, you're so right. He should go first overall.

So I've always appreciated Coach Bear, as they call him. The fight and tourneys are now seventh in the tankathon standing. Six point five odds. Six. Point five percent chance at winning Connor Bedard. Like, what are you doing? Be worse at your job, Andre Torney. Please.

Yeah. It's too much. He's got a stop. And then they got 3.5% in the pick that they got from Ottawa. So they've got two kicks at the can. How about Montreal? Making a run.

Bottom five. Yeah. They got. Closing. Closing strong. Yeah. 9-5L to the Florida Panthers last night. That was tough.

Was there another game you want to talk about? That was it. The 9-5. That was it. Win of the Florida Panthers against the Montreal Canadiens. There was a goalie pole in the first period. The Panthers, the first period. Panthers should scare folks, I think.

maybe scare, certainly should scare the islanders and the penguins. That's a team with a lot of talent on it. It's a team that, you know, has Anthony Duclair back in the lineup now. I don't know. I might run out a runway here,

but I wouldn't, I wouldn't want to, I wouldn't necessarily want to see them chasing in the rear view. So they had seven goals in the first period. It's a lot. The Panthers. Throw back to last year, too.

Uh-huh. So after everybody said that, Matthew Kuchukuk and was never going to have a year like that without Johnny Adrow ever again. Oh, who said that? A lot of people. Two years ago, people were saying that man wasn't going to be worth $9 million. I thought I was going goddamn crazy. The column that I had to write being like, this might just be a one-off.

I think Matthew Kuchuk is having a hard time in the pandemic. People are like, he's not, Matthew Kuchuk is due a $9 million qualifying offer. Do you pay him that? Or do you trade him because he's not going to be worth $9 million? I'm so glad that we're seeing this from him. And we're also seeing deals signed by guys like Posternak and whatever, where we need to reframe how much an elite hockey,

our concept of how much. elite hockey player is paid per season because it is and has been way, way, way out of date. $9 million for a player like Kachuk or $10 million for a player like Tim O'Meyer, which is a qualifying offer. Yeah. It's not crazy. Stop pretending that it is. Reframe your sense of the value of what these guys bring, of what elite players bring to

the lineup because they're the ones for whatever reason that get like squeezed out, right, by by GMs. They're the ones that are undervalued. Sure. The context, though, was that Kichuk had 43 points in that bubble year, right? Like, that's why people were saying that. It wasn't because he scored 100 points. So, like, it's flashback to 2020, 21.

And people are like, oh, my God, he's terrible. He's toast. Don't give him that QO. And now he's on pace for an even better year than last year. So last season, he had 42 goals. 104 points and people are like he's not going to do that again. He might not hit 42 goals, but right now could Chuck is on pace for 111 points. Yeah.

And he never takes the flip-flops off. No. Living that flip-flop, Jimmy Buffet lifestyle and wherever he is, good for him. Yeah. No, like just specifically, like what I was talking about is when McKinnon signed, like, also when McKinnon signed his extension and people were like, you know, I was, you know, at a thing where that I was at a media news event in Vegas that McKinnon's extension, I think, was announced at or something.

And he's like talking to the media about it. We knew that it was going to happen at some point, you know, in a couple days after that. And somebody asked him like, oh, you think it's, you think it's like maybe going to start with a 10? And he was like, ah, yeah. It was basically like what the question was. And people were like, no shit.

Like what? Yes, of course. Like, this is crazy. this guy's he's a top five player in the league like of course of course he should make you know 10 million dollars over the course of a long term deal it's crazy there's this weird thing where people think nobody should make more money than Connor mac david and it's like connor mac david chose to sign that contract and he's getting paid but that doesn't mean that everyone else needs to tuck under because he's the best player in the world get the bag it's a

weird thing that's that's unique to hockey where like the value value of a contract is always tied directly. It's like tied directly to something else. Nobody should ever be paid more than the worst player, I feel like is because Gretzky made this much so like nobody else can make that much. And then the 90s were crazy and out of whack. But then it turned into, you know, Crosby and Ovescu make this much. So, you know, nobody can outpace that.

It's damaging. It's damaging. It's damaging for the player's cause and it's damaging for the overall, you know, for the overall situation there. because like whatever this is like half a rant but like look at what happens with quarterbacks in the in the NFL the highest paid QB generally outside of like the Mahomes and Aaron Rogers of the world is whatever starting quarterback came up for an extension in a given off season that's just the it's just the nature of it right the cap goes up

but for whatever reason what elite players are paid is not and I'm glad to see that that's changed or changing at least yeah I think those are all the games. You got anything else? All right. We can wrap this up. I'm ready to settle into the couch and watch basketball for 12 hours or so. That sounds neat. Happy Friday, everybody. All right.

Bye. Well, we'll figure out if we do this again on a Friday morning. We just love to experiment and, you know, see what our dear listeners prefer. This has been a Friday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. Just a reminder, if you're not an athletic subscriber, you can join us at the Athletic dot com slash slash hockey show to get an annual subscription for $2 a month for 12 months. Thanks, everyone.