The Athletic Hockey Show - Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final lives up to the hype, a possible return for the World Cup of Hockey, Bruce Cassidy is new coach for Vegas Golden Knights

Episode Date: June 16, 2022

Ian and Sean discuss game one of Avs-Lightning, and how Wednesday's game certainly lived up to the hype of this matchup. Also, has there been a harder road to the Final than this playoff run for Tampa? Then, Gary Bettman and Bill Daly each held press conferences ahead of Game 1, and Ian and Sean discuss the prospects of the World Cup of Hockey returning in February, and the NHL setting a revenue record.Next, Jesse Granger returns for "Granger Things" to discuss the Vegas Golden Knights hiring Bruce Cassidy as their new coach, the landscape of still-vacant coaching slots around the league, and John Tortorella possibly heading to Philly. To wrap up, a discussion about the NHL Awards comes about from the mailbag and a look back with "This Week in Hockey History".Have a question for Ian and Sean? Email [e-mail] or leave a VM [phone]!Save on a subscription to The Athletic: theathletic.com/hockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We are back. It is your Thursday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. It's Ian Medda, Sean McIndoo with you for the next hour or so. We'll wrap up game one of the Stanley Cup final, as that one certainly felt like it lived up to the hype between the abs and the lightning. Gary Vettman Bill Daly with some comments, kind of like a state of the union around the NHL, heading into the Stanley Cup final.

We'll hit on some key points there. Jesse Granger for Granger things. We're going to talk about Bruce Cassidy, landing in Vegas. We've got our email mailbag. We got this week in hockey history. We've got a lot to get to. In this Thursday edition of the Athletic Hockey show, Sean,

I got to tell you, I think we put a lot of emphasis and hype on this Stanley Cup final. We were like, this is the dream matchup. Can't wait for it. And, hey, game one lived up to the billing. I think at 2-0 Colorado, we thought, oh, oh, like, maybe this is not going to go so smoothly Tampa, but they showed a lot of resiliency fought back. And hey, it was a great game one to kick off the Stanley Cup. Agreed. Great game. And a good sign for the series because this was, in theory, this is the rusty game, right? This is the game where Colorado had been off for

a week and a half. So history told us this is where you would expect maybe they're not going to be get their best. And, uh, no, it was, I, I don't know that we necessarily saw either teams best. I know that was a big message from Tampa after the game that that wasn't our best game. We didn't show our best hand. Um, but it was, it was a real good game and it looked like what we expected to talented, evenly matched teams. Uh, and it's, uh, with the game coming down to who made a play.

And that, that's my favorite thing about this series is this series is this series is going to be decided by. which players, which star players, or, or, you know, in the case last night, the, you know, the middle guys, who's going to make the plays? Who's going to execute? Who's going to come through in the moment? Not, you know, let's ditch all of the narratives about heart and who wants it more and who knows how to win and all this stuff that we do all the time in hockey.

We just take everything. We go, oh, you know, who wants it more? Oh, that team's going to win. And in other sports, you know, in other sports, you look at, you know, if it's a Super Bowl, you go, hey, this receiver against this cornerback, who's going to make a play? When the ball gets thrown up in the end zone, who's going to go up and get it? Or, you know, in baseball, okay, this pitcher against this hitter. He's going to throw the, he's going to throw the 100 mile an hour heat.

Can he hit it? Can he catch up to it? You know, in basketball, can this guy guard that guy? I want to focus on this series from that person. Which players are going to make the great plays? Not because they want it more, but because they're great players. And, you know, is it going to be Nate McKinnan? Is it going to be Keal McCar?

It's going to be Nikita Kutraup or who's going to stop those guys by making a great play of their own? That's what I'm looking forward to. And last night, you know, it really fit that. And it was a great game. Yeah, I love, like you said, John Cooper's message at one point, he said, look, the better team won, which, you know, sometimes you don't hear that from coaches. And that was great. And this is the only time in this series, though, where there's a 48-hour, like a two-day break, right, between games.

after this, they'll play game two Saturday after this, it's every other night. I don't know if that benefits one team or another, but I, I just felt like, wow, like we, we, it, it, it lived up to the hype and it lived up to the billing. And it wouldn't shock me if, if this series goes, and I think a lot of us think, right, it'll go six games, maybe seven. Yeah. Like, would it shock you if, if three games went to overtime in this series? Like, no, no, these are, these are two very equally matched teams.

And, you know, that, you know, and again, like a lot of times, we all love playoff overtime, but there are times where a game goes into overtime. And, you know, as even as exciting as it's going to be, you're kind of thinking, oh, boy, it's going to be shame. This game's probably going to come down to a balance. It's going to come down to, you know, it's, I don't know, are we really going to get the right result or are we just going to flip a coin? And it didn't feel like that last night.

It felt like these two heavyweights are going to go back and forth. and we're going to see. And, you know, it was a good goal. It was not, like, a great skill play. You know, it wasn't a weak one, wasn't a fluke, wasn't a bounce. That's what we wanted to see. It wasn't one of the big stars getting it. But that's fine because that's part of what makes these teams great is they've, you know,

you can't shut them down because you can shut down the three or four big stars. And guess what? There's guys who would be potentially top line guys on a lot of other teams right behind them. So, yeah, you know, I would love to see. more overtime between these two teams. And I hope the series goes as long as it can possibly go. And you may, maybe you know this off the top of your head or not.

And I was trying to look it up, and I couldn't seem to find the definitive answer. Do we know what the record is for most overtime games in a Stanley Cup final? We do. Thanks to our, our old friendly hockey reference database. Yeah. I can tell you that the record, it's going to be a tough one,

because the record is five. And that was, now, you got to go back to 1951 for that. That was a Toronto Montreal series. And they went, it was a series, I'm going to call it up now. They went five games. It was a five game series. Every single game went to overtime. And it was the Toronto Maple Leafs looks like end up winning that series.

So that's the record. Every game of a Stanley Cup final, a five game series going to overtime. Beyond that, though, the modern record is three. Yeah, that's the only series to go to go over three. And so that feels reachable. The last time we saw that was 2014, which was the Kings and Rangers. They had three overtimes, another five-game series. Year before that, Boston and Chicago, three overtimes.

And then the last time before that, a series that you certainly know well, was the Habs and the Kings back in 93, one of course. Montreal won three straight games, I believe, in overtime games, three and four, the Desjardin game, and then the two games in L.A. when they were unbeatable in overtime. So that's really, that's the modern record at the very least. Dallas and Tampa went twice, Pittsburgh, San Jose twice, Kings and Devils twice. Two in a series is not uncommon. Three, you're getting into rarefied air. And then if you want to take a swing at the record, you got to go, you got to go all the way to five, which I think is even as excited and optimistic as I am very

this series. That feels too good to be true to me. You know, and then the other thing I think about is, you know, after watching a game one like we saw on Wednesday and you think, you know, these are pretty evenly matched teams, you start to dream about the delicious scenario, Sean, of a potential game seven Stanley Cup that goes to overtime, right? Like, you and I, we have not seen that in our lifetime. Here's my question, though. So that has happened two times in hockey history. Okay? Two times we've had a game seven overtime to win the Stanley Cup. don't we know that like why are the like the the last guy who scored a game seven

overtime goal to win the cup why isn't that guy like why isn't his name top of mind yeah and i think you do you nail it's because it's so long ago that uh they're just uh you know not too many of us remember it and it's it's so long enough ago that it's not like you know as forget about the youtube era it wasn't even like the tv highlights era so it's it's not even something that uh you know most people have probably never seen it. And certainly have never heard the names. And I'll give it away Pete Pabando and Tony Leswick are the two guys that have done it.

And you're in the, but both times you're in the 1950s. So, you know, if I don't even know if the footage exists. I don't know that I've ever seen it. And I'm supposed to be the history guy. Certainly it's not, you know, something you saw over and over again. And compared to, you know, for example, Bobby Orr's overtime winner. which we all know and we've all seen. But yeah, that was a four-game sweep.

It's a little strange that it's that rare. And yet we don't know the names. But again, that's just it. It's so long ago he would be. I got to be honest with you. I would be thrilled to see a game seven overtime in a Stanley Cup final, especially in this series. But wouldn't half of you be terrified going into that overtime

that something stupid was going to happen? I'm not talking as a fan. Like, obviously, if you're an apps fan or a lightning fan, you'd be, you know, on borderline cardiac event. But I would just be sitting there going, like, please don't let a puck go over the glass. Please don't let there be a review or some dumb thing or some missed call or some non-review of something that we should have had.

Let's not, I mean, the, the only thing that we can thank goodness about with the Brett Hall skate in the crease situation is at least that wasn't a game seven. Yeah, game six. Imagine if it had been. I mean, that would, it's, so I, man, I'd, love to see it. And I'd be jumping out of my chair if it ended on a, you know, a great rush by by somebody, you know, Stephen Stamcoaster, McKinnon scores a memorable goal that would live forever. But there, man, there would be, there, there's so many like just little tiny

mind fields that you'd be worried about as a fan that this being the NHL, they'd find a way to step on the rake right in front of everyone. Yeah, you know, it's not going to end on a Nate McKinnon coast to coast. It's going to end on Andre Palat. Did he kick it in? Yeah, exactly. And, you know, people will be, it'll be like, it went off his hip, but did he thrust his hip? And, like, you're key and peel. And it's like, you know, you're looking into rulebook. And you're like, oh, actually, weirdly enough, the rulebook here has like coffee spilled on it. And nobody ever fixed that.

So we're not actually sure what it says. And yeah, that's no in our luck, it would be. But then again, no in our luck, we don't usually get great series like this. So maybe this is, maybe this is it. I like to think of it as we've, we've all been through a lot the last couple years. and maybe the hockey gods have just said, you know what, for once we're going to crank up the faucet and let everybody get a good long drink of great hockey without anything too dumb happening. You know, you know that this podcast, the Thursday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show,

really only serves as me trying to pitch some ideas to you sometimes for columns and research stuff. And I don't know, and I apologize. I feel like I've read everything you've written in the last two weeks, but I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. But I don't know if I saw this anywhere. Like, so look, like this has been a remarkable run for Tampa. Like I had Joe Smith. We had Joe Smith on earlier this week.

And we, you know, Joe said this is clearly the toughest path Tampa has had in their three years getting to the final. Like, you know, you play Toronto, Rangers, you know, Florida and now Colorado. They all win 50 games. And I thought about that for a second. I'm like, man, you add it up. And those four teams have won 200 and, they won 200. in, they won 200 and 20 games. So I ask you this.

And I apologize if you've already done this, but I haven't. I haven't. Okay. No, I don't know. What is the hardest path that a team has ever had to win a Stanley Cup? And because I kind of feel like if Tampa somehow pulls this off,

beating four teams who combined for essentially, they beat four 55 win teams, would have to, like, so I think we need to look it up. Yep. What's the most wins that it, you know, the toughest path, so to speak, of a team to ever win the Stanley Cup? Yeah. And I would, I'd love to find that out because, you know, we've famously, and we talked about this, there's a lot of teams that by the time they get to the final, there's a Cinderella team waiting there. And the Cinderella team usually doesn't win. My first thought when I saw this question was to go back to the 96 Avalanche because they had to beat that Detroit team that had 62 wins, which was a, which was a record.

that, you know, arguably, you know, arguably the greatest team to not win the cup. Certainly, the list of teams like that that have lost to a cup winner. I mean, we saw the Blue Jackets a few years ago beat the Lightning, but they didn't win the cup. But I look at that, and they didn't beat anyone else good. Hey, man, they beat a Vancouver team that won 32 games and lost 50 and was still in the playoffs. So it's a tough one. And I don't know the answer off the top of my head and just purely on the numbers. You know, how many wins did you have to overcome?

I can't imagine there's too many more than this. And I know, I know there's people who are going to go, oh, you know, you beat the Leafs. The Leafs aren't the, you know, leaves always lose. So that's not too tough. And Florida didn't know how to win and, you know, on down. But, yeah, four straight 50 plus win teams, that's tough. Even in the loser point area, even in the, you know, three-on-three overtime era, That's a lot of wins.

I can't imagine that there's anyone's beaten that, but I don't know. We might have to figure it out. And get interns on it and we can see. And even like even if you strip away the teams that they beat, like I'd love to know how many teams on their path to winning the Stanley Cup would have potentially taken out. And we'll have to wait and see when the awards are doled out.

But there's a chance Austin Matthews wins the MVP, right? Like the Hart trophy. they already beat the President's Trophy winners in round two, and then probably the Vezna Trophy winner in round three. Like, if you took out the Hart Trophy winner, president's trophy winner, and Vesna Trophy winner, like that also has to be, would be like, hey, we have to wait and see how it plays out.

But has that even happened before? We're a team. I can't imagine. I can't imagine. And, you know, just to put in context, like, I'm going to scan through this and see if I can I can figure this out because the thing is you don't even have to go back that far. Again, if we're just talking about 450 win teams or whatever the wins adds up to, back before the loser point and shootout, especially the shootout come in, I mean, there was one 50 win team a year, if that in most years. It was extraordinarily rare for a team to get to 50 wins because you had ties, because you had ties, because you had.

You didn't necessarily get a result. I'm just looking down and even trying to find a season where there were that many 50 win teams, let alone to have to go through them. It's really tough. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, and Tampa still has a long way to go. They have to win four games to close it out.

But certainly the path to get here is unique. We'll say that. Colorado wins game one, Sean. and they ended up beating Edmonton at the end of that series without Nazim Cadry. And I just want to ask you about this, because look, he had a fantastic season and is probably in line for a pretty big raise and a payday. Like he produced like a number one center. I don't know if he is, but he certainly produced that way.

If the Avalanche win the Stanley Cup without Nazim Cadry, you think in any way that impacts him resigning there, either them saying, you know what, we kind of, we. got through without you? Or do you think, you know what, he's probably played so well anyway. This is a moot point. Like he's priced himself out of Denver. That's what I think has happened. He's, he's probably, it's going to be very unlikely. I think that they could bring him back because he just, you know, he had a career here. He did everything they asked of him. And this is his chance to really cash in in free agency. He's been on a, um, a great value contract for the last few years.

And I often wonder how much, you know, whether, whether these. Players really love seeing their name show up constantly on the list of best contracts. And, you know, they're saying they're going, yeah, that means I'm underpaid. This is his big, big swing at it. You know, maybe if it goes the other way, maybe if Colorado loses this or he doesn't play and they just, you know, they just barely lose and everyone goes, man, if they had Cadre, that could have been the difference. Maybe that incentivizes them.

I just don't see how it's possible. It's more a case, I think, where obviously what he did in the regular season and in the playoffs before he got hurt where he was he was very good up to his price and it would be great for him to be able to get back a just to play in a final which he hasn't obviously had a chance to do in his career but you know maybe have a few more of those big moments that some GM somewhere sees and goes man I got to get this guy we got to have our this guy is our number one center next year but you know we'll we'll we'll see i i did Colorado he's a great player I'm not sure at this point, Colorado needs him because that team is just a machine right now.

One of the traditions of the Stanley Cup final is that the NHL kind of holds a state of the union address. And Gary Bettman, Bill Daly. Sean met with the media in Denver on Wednesday ahead of game one to stay on the cup. And as usual, when you have these types of sessions, there are some newsworthy nuggets that come out of it. One thing I thought was interesting from Bill Daly is he says, we want to really push

hard for the World Cup of hockey February 2024. And not only do we want to establish it for February 2024, we also want to kind of get the cycle going and not just establish that one, but in kind of reading between the lines, it felt like, okay, well, maybe every four years they're going to do that. We are not used to a World Cup of hockey disrupting the regular season. You know, when we grew up, it was the Canada Cup, World Cup. It was in September.

what do you think about them possibly hitting paw? Like, does this bother you at all in terms of thinking like this might be it for the Olympics? Or like, like, how do you read the fact that the NHL is talking about pausing its regular season starting in February 2024 to play a best on best? Yeah. And so the obvious point to make here is 2024 and if it's every four years, that staggers you with the Olympics. So in theory, it's absolutely possible that we do, you know, we do an Olympics. Two years later, we do a World Cup and you go back and forth. My first thought hearing all this is, wait a second, I thought pausing the season to go to the Olympics was the deal breaker.

I thought that's what all of these owners couldn't stand. It was so terrible. There were injuries. It disrupted the flow of the season. Oh, apparently all of that was nonsense. And as long as it's the money's going into their pocket, they're completely fine with it. I'd be fine with it, too. I love the World Cup slash Canada Cup.

It's, you know, if it is treated as a big deal and the players treated as a big deal, I don't want to watch a two-week all-star tournament. But if it's, you know, if they're really treating it as a big deal, and typically they have in the past, I'm fine with it. I mean, we've paused the season to go to the Olympics. It was well worth it. I don't remember too many people complaining, you know, about, oh gosh, this three week, two or three week break.

You know, clearly this would be under NHL control. So, you know, there's not a big travel situation. You're not going over to Europe or wherever to do it. I think it makes perfect sense and probably generate some nice revenue that, you know, which is something that both the league and the players should want. I'd love to make it happen. I don't understand a way it hasn't happened, you know, much more than it has previously. I mean, the fact that, you know, yes, the Olympics came along and complicated.

it. But when you look back at that 96th, the first World Cup, where you get Canada in the U.S. pulls off the upset and everyone's saying this is a new era, you know, if you had said at the time, there's going to be two more of these things in, you know, whatever it's been 25 years, you would have been shocked. The Olympics have been great, but I think the World Cup is great too. I'm all for it, even if, you know, it reveals what we already knew, which is most of the reasons against going to the Olympics were total nonsense to start with. You know, I, it's remarkable because, right, and I'm right on this, right? When you think about it, the last time we truly had best on best was Sochi, right, 2014, because I, like, I didn't, I don't include the 2016 World Cup of hockey because of the altered format.

It didn't quite feel like it was best on best in terms of nation versus nation, right? Is that fair? I would, I feel like that was best on best with the obvious asterisk that, you know, we, we all like the team North America, the, you know, the kid group as. you know, as a team. The fact that that came down to Canada against team Europe in the final was, you know, it was a dud of an ending and it, you know, I think in hindsight, well, I mean, look, we would have loved to have seen Connor McDavid play for Canada, you know, Assam Matthews play for the U.S., but who knows if they would have been on those teams.

Awesome Matthews, remember, hadn't even played in the NHL at that point. So, you know, it was a neat marketing gimmick. But yeah, I do consider that a best on best, but certainly if I was if I was going to go through and rank them all, I think that one would be pretty much a lock for the bottom. One other thing that I want to hit on that Gary Bettman talked about, Sean, on Wednesday was that league revenues were an all-time high this year, that when they are finished doing the calculations, they'll come in north of $5 billion. $5.5.2, I think, was the number that was kind of thrown out there. and the idea is that, hey, maybe this flat cap world isn't going to last as long as we thought that maybe within two to three years, we're back to the normal, you know, things escalating the way that we thought they would.

In fact, it will, the salary cap will go up by about a million dollars per team next season. It doesn't really make a big deal for a lot of teams, but it's slightly trending in the right direction. I'm curious, like, because I saw a lot, there's, there's a lot of cynicism. And that's a function of social media. But when people see Gary Betman says league revenue is $5 billion and all you see is, you know, sarcasm and negativity. I'm wondering, though, as hockey fans, how should we perceive this piece of news? Because it does feel significant.

It does feel like the business has at least recovered to where it was pre-pandemic, right? It feels like it? Yeah. And that is, it does. And, you know, maybe we are getting back to normal. And look, anything, when you're talking about the pandemic in sports or anywhere, anytime you get to earnestly use the phrase getting back to normal, that's a good thing. So, you know, and it was no guarantee.

I mean, let's not forget, in 2020, we didn't know what the future of this league was, what sports was. I mean, I don't think anyone was predicting that the NHL was going to go belly up, but we didn't know that, you know, certainly that within two years we could get back to something approaching normal. and you know I know there's there's I did I saw some of that cynicism on on Twitter where you know people are going well you know the cap is still flat the you know all of this stuff remember the players still have to pay back you know that that's and that's escrow and flat cap and everything because the league fell so far short of its revenue targets for a couple years so that that's all part of the deal you know it's good news the only caution that

would put on it is the same thing I put every time that Gary Betman gets up and says record revenues and people are, you know, there's always a certain crowd that says, you know, what a, what great leadership, what wonderful times this is in the NHL, record revenue. Don't compare the NHL when it comes to revenue, when it comes to TV ratings, you know, don't, don't compare it to just what it was before. Compare it to everybody else, you know, is if the NHL was the only league having record revenues right now, that would be an unqualified success story. It's clearly not. In In fact, you look at the explosion everywhere else, the NHL still feels like it's trailing behind. You get these press releases sometimes, or it's like best ratings for a conference final in years.

And you go, great. And then you look and you realize there are half the ratings of what the USFL is getting. And you go, oh, okay, that's, you know, context. Maybe this isn't the great success story. Gary Bettman is his entire leadership era whenever that final chapter gets written should be. judged not just on what came before in the NHL, did he improve? Because anybody would have. There was literally no way that you couldn't have record revenue, you know, given the sports landscape. Judge him by what could have been and what were the competitors doing and

where does the NHL rank, you know, among that. And look, I will give full credit. He managed through this pandemic very, very well. The NHL, we got the Stanley Cup handed out. We got the playoffs. We got seasons with probably as little disruption as we realistically could have. Great job by all involved. And if we're getting back to normal, that's excellent. I'm not willing to throw a ticker tape parade and call this guy the best commissioner in sports just because he's breaking the already low records that his league has established. But it's good news.

You know, and it's certainly, it's certainly better than what we probably thought a year or two ago we might be here. And, you know, and the other thing that they said is, as we talk about kind of returning to normal, the schedule will return to pretty much normal. They've already circled the date. I know there's a couple of games in Europe that'll happen in early October, but October 11th, he's already said, hey, circle your calendars. Opening night in the regular season in North America will be October the 11th. So it does feel like they're kind of getting back to the, you know, quote unquote normal cycle, normal, normal everything. And I would have loved it, though, this, and again, it's hard to do, but man, if you could ever get back to finishing your season

before June 1st, I don't know that we'll ever get back there again, it just feels like it'll never happen. But that would always be my wish. Is there a way you even start, even if you started the regular season, September 25th or something, you know, September 30th? Is there a way you can shoehorn it in and finish? This is the Pierre LeBron push, I think, that he's made that. Let's Let's start in September. And the way you do that is you shorten the preseason that nobody likes. You know, we play eight preseason games. The only people who like that are the accountants who get to when you buy season's tickets

force you to buy four home games in the preseason that you do not want. But you have to. That's the only reason we have this. I mean, the players play in a couple of the games and, you know, and that's it. We have to put rules in place just to get these teams to field. recognizable names in a roster because otherwise they would, you know, they wouldn't even bother doing that. You shorten that is what you do. I mean, if you start camp a few days early, turn it into a four game preseason, you know, you can still do the rookie tournaments and all of that

for, you know, for the younger players who might need actual, you might really want to see in game action. Shorten that down. Yeah, start in September and, you know, we can get it done, we can get it done earlier. that would be nice. But the NHL doesn't seem to see an issue with this. And, you know, in fairness, the years ago, we always used to say, oh, the ice is going to be so bad. And they've done a better job managing that. I mean, we're going to be playing hockey in Tampa at the end of June.

And I haven't heard anyone express concerns over ice and that. They've gotten much better at that. I would assume the TV partners are happy with it. Because if the TV partners weren't, they would say jump and Gary Bebeth. and would ask how high. So I don't know that we're ever going to see that. But, you know, I'm, I'm in favor of anything that gets me a longer summer vacation. And I think that's, that's really the bottom line. And speaking of LeBron, we're still waiting for our cottage invite. Yeah. That's it. I mean, that's probably it. I mean, it's, it's, maybe we're on the, like,

June invite list. And he just, he just, he just ever up to it. Yeah. That probably, that's probably it's, maybe, maybe that's the explanation. All right. Time for. our weekly visit with Jesse Granger for Little Granger Things, a presentation of BetMGM, the exclusive betting partner with the athletic. And tell you what, Jesse, the team that you cover the Vegas Golden Night, certainly in the news cycle and getting this out just before, you know, the NHL always says, hey, don't, don't distract from the Stanley Cup final. We don't want any big announcements about coaches and general managers and whatever during the final.

But Vegas slid this in just before game one of the Stanley Cup. Bruce Cassidy is the new head coach in Vegas. And I know you're set to get the introductory press conference with Bruce, and I'm sure we'll look for doing your stuff on Friday in the athletic. But what was your sense of how this all came together? Because clearly two or three weeks ago, he couldn't have been on Vegas's radar. Yeah, I think that's an interesting point.

And it's kind of, I guess, changes the way I felt about this coaching search. Because when they fired Pete DeBore, it wasn't as if, if Pete DeBoer had done a terrible job and it was obvious that they needed a new coach. I mean, he had been to two conference finals in his first two full seasons here. And a lot of this season, when they missed the playoffs, they placed the blame on the injuries. So when they fired Pete DeBoer, I kind of thought in my mind, they must have someone in mind that is going to replace him because he's a really good coach. He had done a good job here. And to me, you don't fire that guy without a good idea of who you're hiring to replace him.

clearly that wasn't the case because Bruce Cassidy still worked for the Boston Bruins when they fired Pete DeBore. So I don't know if they foresaw that that change happening in Boston or if maybe they had someone else in mind, maybe a Barry Trotz, someone like that. And they changed their mind throughout the interview process or maybe they really were just totally open. And maybe they really did when they fired Pete DeBore. They said, they didn't have someone in mind. And they said, let's look at all of our options. And they decided that Bruce Cassidy was the best one. Barry Trots was obviously the name that we were all kind of connecting, probably to every team,

but especially to Vegas just because they always seem to go big name hunting around this time. Do you have any kind of sense? Is this a situation where Barry Trott said no to Vegas and is maybe narrowing his list down? Or was it maybe a case where we said for a while and Barry Trots, everyone's going to wait, everything's going to be on hold. but then this other big name comes along and it's like, you know what, we're not going to wait around. We'll take 1A if one is taking too long to make a decision and we'll swoop in and get them and make sure that we're happy. And, you know, sorry, Barry, you take all the time you need, but we're not waiting around for you.

Yeah, I think both of those, I think there's a chance that either of those options happened. I think there is a chance that maybe Trots didn't feel like the Golden Knights were the best fit for him. He obviously has a lot of suitors. Barry Trots is almost interviewing these teams more than they're interviewing him. I also think that, like, there have been, I've heard rumblings that Barry Trots may want to get into management and may want to have a say in some of the player personnel decisions. And in Vegas, that was absolutely not going to happen. Kelly McCriman and George McPhee have made it very clear from day one, five years ago, and this organization started that the general managers will manage the roster and the coach will coach the roster. When Gerard Gallant was hired, they made a point of saying that during the press conference.

Pete DeBore has mentioned several times that he didn't really have anything to do with player personnel decisions. That's all the front office. And I would expect that to continue. So maybe that was a reason that Barry Trotz wasn't a fit here. I'm not sure. Maybe they just thought that Bruce Cassidy. I mean, Kelly McCriman talked a lot in his press conference when he announced that Pete would be fired. He talked a lot about the voice, that they needed a new voice.

and they thought this group was going to come back with a chip on their shoulder after missing the playoffs, and they wanted the right coach to kind of steer that momentum, and maybe they just thought Cassidy's the guy to do that. Yeah, and it is remarkable. Like how many franchises and certainly expansion franchises, Vegas is the top of the list, but to have Galant, DeBoer, and Cassidy back to back to back, like that's some, those are some pretty good head coaches.

And what I'm also interested in, too, why don't we bounce this around the league is that it sounds like John Totorella is going to at least meet with Philadelphia to potentially, you know, iron out some contract details this week. Feels like maybe that situation is, it feels like that one might be resolved in Philly. But you still have, if I'm not mistaken, you got Winnipeg open, you got Detroit open, you got Dallas open and Boston, right, because of Cassidy. Like, we're getting awfully close to the draft. We're getting awfully close to free agency. We're getting all like, and at some point, musical chairs are going to stop.

But boy, like, I don't remember a year in which so many vacancies were there, but also so many qualified candidates. We're sitting there waiting in the wings. My question is outside of Tortorella, the Philly. You guys having a strong inkling about where some of the other pieces might, might fit in? It's hard to say, because don't forget there's also. teams like Chicago and even Florida that have interim guys that are have not had that tag removed

yet. So, you know, I think in Chicago we wouldn't be surprised to see a change. Florida, it would be a surprise, especially, you know, that they haven't done it yet. But it is. It's going to be musical chairs a little bit. And it's a tough, it's a tough year to be like trying to break in to a head coaching job. We have seen, you know, Lane Lambert got the got the job. But it's a tough year where there's this many guys floating around, especially if Tortorale goes to Philadelphia, which it sounds like he will. But what a weird story that we,

can you guys remember hearing they've offered the job as a report, but then nothing else? I mean, that's, obviously, that's a step in the process. But why did we know and who was it that felt like they, that we needed to know that in terms of putting that out to the media, that there's an offer but not a deal yet? Yeah, I agree. that is a little odd. That whole thing has seemed a little odd. And I totally agree with Sean

that like this is not the year. Like if you're a coach trying to become a first time NHL coach, this is not the year. You want to be on that market just because of all the veterans. I think of all the guys that are still out there and the teams that are still looking for coaches, to me the best fit. I like Pete DeBore in Dallas. And I was talking with Saad Yusuf, our stars writer, about this the other day. And I just think DeBore's system that he ran here in Vegas that maybe the Golden Knights struggled with a little bit down the stretch, especially scoring. He just, he likes generating his offense from the point and getting those dirty goals in front. And to me, the stars, obviously Joe Pavelski worked in that system really

well in San Jose, but I think the stars have the personnel to play the type of hockey that Pete DeBore likes. So to me, that would be a fit. But I'm always going to be the proponent of trying new things. I was writing about all these new candidates, Broberg over in Sweden and all these guys that I thought should have gotten an interview in Vegas, and they obviously didn't. And I knew the Golden Knights in the end would end up going with the experience coach. But I would love one of these teams to try one of these outside the box guys and just give someone else a chance to see if it'll work. Yeah, it's true, right? Sometimes it feels like there's 32 jobs and like 35 candidates. And like they all just kind of switch.

And at any one time, there's only two or three guys on the outside looking in. The only one I could think of, Sean, when you said, do you guys remember his story where a guy kind of gets offered a job and it's weird? And it was the Indianapolis Colts? Was it Josh McDaniels where did they not even have a press conference? And they were like an hour away from the Josh McDaniels or new head coach press conference. And all of a sudden he was like, I'm staying in New England, right? Yeah. He changed his mind, I think, was the, yeah.

Like every now and then, you do get little things. Like I remember when the Leafs got Mike Babcock, there were reports that like Gie Bouchet was on a place. plane to come in, you know, because he had been, he was the backup and it sounded like Babcock was on the way to Buffalo. So, you know, the backup was getting called in. He was putting his gear on, so to speak. And, you know, you do hear it sometimes. And I'm not, I'm not suggesting there's anything out of the ordinary here behind the scenes. I mean, you, you do, you decide on your guy. And then you got to hammer out the contract. But it just, it felt weird to me that that, that would come out because, you know, this early in the relationship, neither side should be leaking

anything. But maybe it just got out some other way. And do you guys think, like, in some levels, John Tortorella to Philly seems like a match made in heaven, right? Like the, it's like a blue collar abrasive style of a coach meets the blue collar abrasive Philadelphia. But at the same time, it also feels like, oh, this could be an explosive situation here. And like, just, you just, you. given where Philly is in their kind of in their cycle of success and all the how does this actually play out? How do you guys think that this plays out? John Totorella and Philly. If I say over under two seasons, what do you take it? Um, I, you know, I'll say over. I think John Turberle is a good coach and I think that he gets an unfair reputation for being a jerk, uh, because he's a

jerk to the media. And we're the ones you get to write the stories. And there's, there's very, there's not a ton of evidence out there that the players feel the same way. In fact, there's a lot of players that seem to really like the guy. And obviously, there have been a lot of coaches that players didn't like, starting with Scotty Bowman and, you know, Pat Burns and name a bunch of others that had great success. But I think John Tortorale should, you know, he should be fine. He should do a good job. The problem in Philly is they need to rebuild and the boss doesn't want to.

And it's not, and I don't mean Chuck Fletcher. It's Chuck Fletcher's boss thinks this can be fixed quickly. And I don't think it can. And I think that until they figure that out or prove me wrong, I guess, I think they're going to be spinning their wheels. But, you know, John Tortorella, we saw in Columbus with a team that, you know, was in tough. He got as much out of them as he could. I think he'll do the same in Philadelphia. Yeah, I agree with all that.

I hesitate to say over the two years just because of what Sean said, the roster construction of this team is not that good. And I could see a, I could see it going down a road like, like Ian mentioned of explosion. Like, if things don't go well on the ice, I could absolutely see Tortorella and the Philly media going at it and it just becoming difficult to deal with. But at the same time, I do think that like, like Sean said, he gets the most out of his teams. I think this Philly team does have some talent if they can get some goaltending. I think that they can, I don't think this team's going to compete for a long. and playoff run at all. But I do think they could maybe fight to try to sneak into the playoffs with some good coaching if they can get a stop or two from their goalie. Yeah.

I'm just thinking, like, you mentioned the media. Was it, was it Voracek a couple years ago who got into it with a reporter calling him a weasel and all of that stuff? And boy, you thought you had it rough with Jacob Vorichick, wait until it's John Tortorella there. I don't know. When's Larry Brooks deal up? We got to bring him. And that's, that would be the equivalent of like the Rangers go in and get Ryan Reeves to deal with Tom Wilson. You go get Larry Brooks when your team hires John Tortorella because he can handle him. I always think of that of Travis Keneckney's face when Jake Vorichak... That's right.

Shout it down the reporter. You just see Travis Kineckney like, what? What is going on? Why are Mummy and Daddy fighting? You know, Sean, you said, you know, there's been a long list of coaches that weren't liked by their players, but they were successful. And Scotty Bowman was the name you brought. up and, you know, he used to grind his players.

I would pass along, and I don't know if all of our listeners, no, this is a classic Scotty Bowman story. I'm sure you guys have heard this one, but just for the benefit of our listeners. So back of the day, the way Scotty Bowman would bust his players for breaking curfew, this is ingenious to me. He would get a, so let's say curfew for the habs was whatever, 11 p.m. Or, you know, 12 p.m. At right at curfew time, he would take a stick and a Sharpie down to the lobby, give it to

a bellhop or whatever. And when the players would come back, he would ask for their autographs. And then Bowman, the next day, would go to the guy, give me the stick, and he would read the stick. This is the, I think this is true. And he would read the stick and be like,

that guy's late, that guy's late, that guy's late. And like, what a car. It's brilliant. That's brilliant. If you've ever been turned down for an autograph by an NHO player, you can thank Scotty Bowman. That is brilliant. I love that.

Like Steve Schutt famously said that he hated Scotty Bowman, 364 days a year. The only day he liked him was the day they gave out the Stanley Cup rings. And other than that, he couldn't. By the way, just speaking of winners, I got to, just as we wrap up, I got to grudgingly tip my cap to Jesse. He took the lead in the, we gave the update last week, if you were listening on our tied race for the title. And we split on game one.

He had Colorado. I had Tampa. And, you know, I think I get a loser point. out of it at least, because it went to overtime. But Jesse's now got the lead. So I'm in tough. Jesse's in the driver seat. I got to, you know, I got to acknowledge that.

Yeah, we got probably looking like six games to decide this. Yeah. It's going to be fun. I was sweating when Tampa scored the two goals to tie it because I had picked Edmonton in that final game against Colorado in that series. And I was the only one that picked Edmonton. And Edmonton was winning that entire game and then blew it at the end. and I thought the same thing was going to happen to me last night.

See, now all Granger has to do is just match your picks for the rest of the series. Yeah, but you watch. Watch how often I'm shifting my picks. Like, you think, you think Jared Bedner was tough about naming a starting goalie. Watch me shift back and forth. I'll be saying, I'll be putting fake picks in there. I'm going to have burner accounts dropping bad information. It's, uh, it's, it's going to go psychological warfare here.

Should be a lot of fun. I can't believe how well we've done. I'm like 52 and 31. I would not have predicted I could pay. pick 20 games over 500 when this thing started. I did not have anywhere near that amount of faith in my own picks. Yeah, I mean, we're leading that pack, but we're still well behind all the commenters who apparently are 100% each and every one of them.

They've known every game. It's a fantastic talent to have. Amazing. All right. We'll leave it there. Thanks, Jesse. This is great. Awesome.

Thanks for having me, guys. Thanks, man. All right. Always fun connecting with Jesse Granger there. Why don't we open up the mailbag here? We wrap up, I'll start to wrap up this Thursday edition of the pod. A reminder, you can always reach us at The Athletic Hockey Show at gmail.com. The Athletic Hockey Show at gmail.com.

Or leave us a voicemail. You can give us a call. 845-4-45-845-49. All right. Joseph writes in it. A couple of weeks ago we talked about, we had a power outage here. And I don't know. I don't even remember.

Anyway, Joseph says the image of Ian sneaking into housing. and stealing coupons off refrigerators is still cracking me up. Now I've got this recurring NHL awards show worthy bit rolling around in my head. It's Ian sneaking in the various NHL houses to steal coupons, maybe 50% off John Deere from Darrell Sutter's Place. Austin Matthews' Bogot deal at Jose Banks, Connor McDavid's Acme rocket skates. Somebody catches Ian in the act, beans him with a baseball.

Ian continues unfazed. It's comedy gold or bronze. whatever Alan Thick would have been fine with. Yeah, I was going to say, saying NHL award show worthy bit, I don't know if that's a compliment or not. But you can take a baseball. We've seen that from you. So that's, he's got you on that one. He does.

Now, the NHL award show is taking place next week in Tampa in person. So this in theory should be the return of cringe-worthy skits, right? You would think, but it's a, it's a shortened version. We do have a host. Like, I thought we were just getting press releases, but it's, Tracy Morgan, right, is going to, no, not, um, oh, uh, it helped me out. The guy, it's Saturday Night Live.

The guy who's been on Saturday Live for 20 years is, is hosting it. Keenan Thompson. Thank you. Keenan Thompson. I wish we had Tracy Morgan. That would have been, uh, we're not getting that level of celebrity. But, uh, yeah, uh, yeah, it's, I hope we get some skits.

Maybe some good ones. I'd be fine with some bad ones. But because those tend to be just as good. You know, I'm a fan of NHL Awards cheese, unreservedly. I'd love the Allen Thick era. I'd love the Ron McLean monologues. I was even a fan of the Ryan Getslaff, Bobby Ryan's silver sketch. I thought that was good.

I want as much of this stuff as possible. I don't know how much we're going to squeeze in in an hour. or whatever they've got scheduled. But I got my fingers crossed. I'm on board. I don't understand why at some point, and maybe you can reveal if this ever happened. Okay?

Why would the league not ever have, like you are the preeminent comedy guy in hockey, okay? You have firmly established. You have the quick wit, the humor, the historical knowledge, all the things. It all comes together. Why wouldn't the league at some point,

five years ago, 10 years ago, even now say, reach out, hey, down goes brown man. Why don't you ghost write the award show for us? You don't tell anybody. We don't tell anybody. But like, did that ever happen? Okay. Why doesn't the NHL?

Yeah, the NHL has mixed feelings about my work, let's just say. And I don't know that they would trust me with that. But I will tell this story. I don't know if I've told the story before. Years ago, this is, this is, I mean, I don't remember what year this was. But Jay Moore hosted the show for a couple of years. And I think it was the first year that, in fact, I do remember because it was 2010. He was, I think, his first year of hosting it.

And he announced it online. And a bunch of people, for some reason, like, tweeted at him like, you should get Down Goes Brown to, you know, to give you some material. And he messaged me. And he was like, I don't know who you are. What's going on? But yeah, let's do it. Let's, you know, send me some stuff.

And so I did. And it ended up using like a little bit of it. not, you know, he didn't, you know, Jay Moore's been around forever. He doesn't need some random Twitter guy writing stuff. But I remember the reason I know it was 2010 is because it was a joke about, um, uh, I gave him a joke about like, uh, he, he went into the, uh, into the washer room and Chris Progner was going through the urinal stealing all the pucks. Good timely 2010 Stanley Cup, uh, humor. And he, he used like some version of that or, or whatever. But yeah, So I did, you know, kind of.

And then I think he hosted again and I never heard from him. So I was clearly, clearly it was one and done. But yeah, Jay Moore, it was just a very funny message to get because he was like, I have no idea what's going on here or who the hell you are. But yeah, shoot me some stuff. And so that was, that was a fun, that was a fun experience. Okay. Keenan Thompson, I'm just going to tell you this right now. Keenan Thompson, slide into Sean's DMs, please.

Like, just do it. Yeah, I got a feeling that the fact that I called him Tracy Morgan might write off. And then said that Tracy Morgan was a bigger celebrity than he was. I feel like I may have already disqualified myself. But between him and Will Arnett, we can get quite the little comedy troupe going in my DMs and we'll be all set. See, this is, I'm just saying NHL, just reach out, have him write your jokes. and you could look, they're going to be vetted anyway. So all this stuff that you, if you take a shot at Gary or you do something,

it's all going to be taken out. But there's going to be quality jokes that nobody in that department is going to be thinking of that only you have. And I don't understand why they wouldn't. That was my other joke is that like after the Oscars, after the Will Smith thing. I was like, is it weird that the NHL just invited me to come to their award show and do my Zadano Chara is so old jokes? Because, yeah, that's, that's all we need is Gary Bettman coming up on stage. and taking a swing at me. That's all I need.

That would be the final feather in my cap. Okay. You know, next year, I think here's what you and I should do. Okay? And maybe it's the podcast version of it, whatever. We do a shadow version of the award show, jokes, humor, whatever. And then we just run it at the same time, whatever, but then show the world that the humor is right here, especially with you.

Or maybe show the world. that it's easier said than done. And this stuff is harder than it looks. I don't know. This is, I feel the same way about this and I feel about the players on the ice. I want to sit on my couch and criticize. I don't want to actually get up and do.

You know, I don't want to be the man in the arena, literally in this case. I want to be the guy. I want to be Stattler and Waldorf up in the, up in the cheap seats. Yeah, the cheap seats. All right.

Let's do another email or two here. Chris writes into the show. listening to your This Week in Hockey History segment last week about the first pick spitting the wheel of Vancouver and Buffalo reminds me of the coin flip

that they had to do with Columbus and Minnesota back in 2000. The first coin flip hit the table, hit the floor, they had to flip again. Both times it came up Minnesota. And I think that's where

the luck has been with the blue jackets ever since. That's from Chris. That's a good story. I hadn't heard that one, but yeah, that feels very on brand

for the blue jackets. Yeah. I don't remember. Like, so they actually, they did a coin flip. Like, no. Yeah. I have no recollection. Probably, probably because they remembered the wheel and they're like, let's flip a coin.

We can't screw that up. And, well, at least they didn't get to, who was the refer? Was it Phil Luckett who screwed up the, in the NFL? Phil Lacket. With heads and tails. Yeah. Jerome Bennis. Oh, no, you said, Till.

Yeah. Jerome Bennis. That's right. Jerome Bettis. Yeah. Yeah. That was so good. And didn't that same referee luck it?

Like the next week there was like a controversy on like a fourth and goal. There always was with him. You were never confident. There was something. Yeah, when you saw him. It was never going to go well. There are certain referees that is just in hockey too that just exude, you know, like a level of competence. And then there's other ones where you're just like there's no way we're getting through this without something happening.

All right. One more here from Adam. It says, Sean, which player do you think the Leafs could end up with at next year's trade deadline to get them over the hump? And Adam's got a few players listed here. Patrick Kane, Joe Pavelski, J. T. Miller, Tyler Brutuzi, or kick it old school. Go JVR. James Van Riemstike. I don't see why that would make sense. But yeah, all of the above.

Let's do it's Toronto, right? They all want to come to Toronto. They'd probably all play for free just to do it. It's all Americans, though. Like, what are we doing here? We don't think we're, don't tell Don Cherry that we're not bringing any hometown kids in. Who knows? The Leafs are going to be so capped out, but maybe they can figure out a way to bring somebody in.

But I don't know. I'm going to, I'm not there yet. I'm still focusing on who they're going to sign to a minimum, league minimum deal at the, once free agency opens, just because the allure of playing in Toronto, the center of the universe is so great. One of the names Adam brought up there was Patrick Cain. I just want to wrap up by asking you, how nuts is it to you? And I read Powers and Las in Chicago on this. How nuts is it that they're like, I think we need to trade Alex DeBringcat.

I'm like, this guy's 24 and like a legit 35, 40-goal guy. He's like, even if you are saying let's strip it down and rebuild, wouldn't he be a key piece for, like, Do you not find that to be one of the most bizarre stories of the off season that the Chicago Blackhawks are shopping Alex Debrinkat? And I get the logic. I mean, the logic is he needs a new contract coming up. It's going to be a big money deal. You're starting a rebuild. It seems like it might be the full on tear it all down sort of rebuild.

By the time you come out of that, he's 27, 2080s, you know, maybe past his prime. He's the best trade ship you have by a market. mile. Maybe they figure that this is, you know, they can get a high draft pick. Maybe they want to load up on, on Connor Bedard lottery tickets. I get all of that. You still need some players. I mean, you know, we've seen in Ottawa and you can name other places where they strip it all down. You still need somebody to keep the lights on. And how, what assets are you going to get, unless you get real lucky in the lottery with the first round pick that are going to turn into a consistent 40 goal score in his mid-20s, I don't get it.

And, you know, it's not like the cap is going to be a big issue because Kane and Dave's that those deals are coming up. So I don't get it. I will say, and I say this for every GM, every situation, you should never be hanging up the phone when people call. So, you know, Kyle Davidson's doing the right thing. If he's saying, look, look, nobody's untouchable. I'm not doing untouchable.

We just miss the playoffs. You know, this is nobody's earned untouchable status. Chicago, maybe cane and taste, they've got no movement anyways because of all the waiting they've done, but nobody else, I'll listen, but they seem to be going past listening and kind of aggressively shot him. I don't fully get that. And what a stark difference year over year where like last year they're like, let's get Seth Jones and Mark Andre Fleury and let's, you know, go do all this thing. And now it's like, I mean, different GM, obviously. Yeah. You know, that is part of it to me is I do wonder, look, NHL GMs love to rebuild, uh,

Because rebuilding cranks the pressure down. It buys you time in almost any situation. If you can get ownership and the fans to buy in on a long-term rebuild, you've got three or four or five years. Maybe this is his way of signaling that this is a full-scale rebuild. We are going to tear this all right to the ground. And so, therefore, as a rookie GM in a tough market, you've got to give me three or four years at least. That's maybe not a great way to look at it. but that could be where he's coming from.

Let's wrap up the show like we always do, Sean, on a Thursday with a little this week in hockey history. Got a couple for you here. Let's go back to June 16th, 199. In fact, Thursday is the exact anniversary, 32nd anniversary of this. June 16, 1990, the NHL draft is held in Vancouver. Owen Nolan is taken first overall by the Quebec Nordiques.

And then he's followed up by Peter Devette, Mike Ritchie, Keith Primo, Yarmier, Yager. I ask you this, Sean, is that the best top five draft class ever? I know there's obviously years where the one and two were better or whatever, but one to five, all things being equal, have we ever had a draft class as good as 1990? I don't know that we've ever had one where every single one of the top five, really, I mean, I would say that they all hit. I mean, only one Hall of Favor in that group, but they all played almost a thousand games.

They all were the sort of player you expected. Certainly my 1990 pro set hockey card collection thought this was the best draft ever. Because, man, I had a bunch of these guys. I was convinced that was my retirement fund. But it's a real good class. And condolences that I know Islander fans are slamming their head on the table because they had the sixth pick in that draft. And they watched those five guys. And they took Scott Sizzins who played two games.

And then Daryl Sodor and Daryon Hatcher went right after that. Two more thousand-game defensemen. So pretty remarkable. You also had the two huge trades in the first round. You had the Buffalo and Winnipeg swapping picks as part of the Dale Howardchuck Phil Housley deal. Buffalo gets Brad May. But Winnipeg hits big and gets Keith Kach, 500 goal guy. And then the biggest one of all, of course, is Calgary, sitting way down at number 20,

deciding that they need a goaltender. They're going to draft their goalie of the future. And the guy they want, they're not sure he's going to be around at number 20. So they call up New Jersey and say, let's make a deal in flip picks. They move up to number 11. They get their guy, Trevor Kidd. New Jersey drops down to 20. New Jersey takes a goalie to a kid by the name of Martam Broder.

You talk about what might have been for the Calgary Flames. If they had just stood put, maybe we'd be talking about Martaam Broder, the flames legend instead of the Devils. we'll never know. One other this week in hockey history, June the 18, 1987. It's also kind of draft related, but one of the weird ones,

the Eric Rangers trade their first round pick to the Quebec Nordiques in exchange for their head coach, Michelle Bergeron. That's right. The Rangers traded a first round pick in the following year's draft, right, 1988, to Quebec for their head coach, Michelle Bergeron. I would have, wouldn't you,

if you could go back time and listen to any phone call in the history of the league. I would love the Quebec Nordique's phone call to Michelle Bergeron to tell him he's been traded. That might be at the top of my list. How did that play out? It's, I mean, exactly like it sounds, first of all, Rangers GM, Phil Esposito, one of the wildest traders, maybe the wildest trader we've ever seen in this league.

And I guess just ran out of players to trade and decided to take a big swing at a guy Michelle Bergeron, who was considered one of the very best coaches in the league at that point. I believe there was a contract situation in Quebec. There was some question about what he was going to be paid. And so the Rangers, the big market Rangers, swoop in. They give up a first round pick for this guy who's going to come in and be the final piece, in theory, to turn it around. Doesn't work out. in fact, the Rangers end up finishing, I think, 17th the next year, which translates to a fifth round, or sorry, fifth overall pick.

So they end up trading what they think probably is going to be a late first round pick. It ends up being the fifth overall pick, although luckily for them, unluckily for the Nordiques, they end up taking Daniel Dore, who is a bust. It was a weird, a very weird draft that year, started with Mike Madano and Trevor Lerkes. Linden to two A plus picks, then a bunch of guys who didn't turn into anything, but then Jeremy Roneck, Rod Brindmore, and Timoselani go with picks eight, nine, and ten. So this was almost an absolute disaster for the Rangers. The Nordiques had grabbed one of those guys with that pick. But it had never happened before.

It has never happened since. I believe it is no longer allowed in the NHL. I've never had anyone be able to really confirm that for me. But certainly the fact that it hasn't happened again. We've seen it in, again, the NFL. We remember guys like John Gruden getting traded. But I don't believe that coaches can be traded in the NHL anymore. And the one time it happened didn't really work out for other side

because the Nordiques, you know, didn't get anything out of that pick. And Michelle Bergeron didn't have success in New York. And he was fired relatively soon. I think he lasted a couple seasons at that. Yeah. No, it's one of the stranger stories in NHL history. And we figured we'd highlight it there. All right, that puts a wrap on this Thursday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show.

Again, I think we need to get our listeners to start a, just like they tweeted at Jay Moore to get you on board for writing jokes. Please don't do that. Yeah, get on board and tweet at Keenan Thompson. I can't believe if I forgot his name. How can you, how can it's a hockey fan? Keenan, that's a great hockey name right there. And I can't believe I'm worth it on that. Yeah, please don't tweet on.

Don't do it. All right. Well, we'll leave it there. Thanks, everybody, for joining us. Hey, if you've got questions for us, by all means, like I said, we'd love to hear from you, The Athletic Hockey Show at gmail.com. Leave us voicemail to 845445-4-5-4-5-8-4-5-8-8-8-5. 845-4-5. If you're not a subscriber with us, you can join us at theathletic. Get an annual subscription for a dollar a month for the first six months. You can also subscribe to The Athletic Audio Plus on Apple Podcasts. Get all of our bonus content from our entire network.

You'll start with a 30-day free trial. And then it's just 99-9. sent some of that.