The Athletic Hockey Show - Golden Knights' Cup celebration to shut down the Vegas Strip, next steps for the Ottawa Senators, off-season storylines to watch

Episode Date: June 15, 2023

Ian Mendes returns to the Thursday show with Sean McIndoe to discuss the Vegas Strip being shut down on Saturday night for the Golden Knights' victory parade. Could it be the most iconic location for Stanley Cup celebration ever? Also, with the Senators' sale now behind us, what lies ahead for Pierre Dorian and the team, as well as other compelling off-season stories surrounding the futures of players such as Alex DeBrincat, Pierre-Luc Dubois, and Matt Murray.Next in, "Granger Things" Jesse Granger on the Golden Knights' celebrations, makes a ruling on Sean's "Conned Smythe" candidates, and brings the betting odds for the next Stanley Cup winner. To wrap up, hat trick hat throwing etiquette is discussed, 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]!Subscribe to The Athletic Hockey Show on YouTube: http://youtube.com/@theathletichockeyshowNuts.com is offering new customers a free gift with purchase and free shipping on orders of $29 or more at Nuts.com/hockey23.For 15% off MudWtr go to mudwtr.com/hockeyshow and use code HOCKEYSHOW to support the show and get a discount!Go to dave.com/nhlshow to sign up for an ExtraCash account and get up to $500 instantlyGo to 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. It is your Thursday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show, and great to be back in this seat. It's been a couple of weeks off for me. Ian Mendez, Sean McAdoo with you for the next hour. We'll get Jesse Granger. I think Granger, he's done celebrating, right? Granger.

He better be. Back to work, man. Yeah. Yeah. So Granger's going to join. Get him on the show. He hasn't been writing very much lately. So I think there was like a three-hour window yesterday where he didn't have any new pieces up on the site. So vacation time's over, buddy. Let's go.

Yeah. I think the more evil thing would be to tell him, hey, we're pre-taping for next week. Can we get you really early on Sunday morning? Yeah, that's right. They get the Saturday night. After the parade. Yeah. And they're shutting down the strip I saw.

Yeah. Like to, wow. That's, I mean, that day. To do that on a Saturday night is pretty impressive. I know they do it a lot in the middle of the night for movies and stuff like that. Yeah, yeah. To do it on Saturday at 7 or 8 o'clock local time, that's a big deal there. And you know what?

Well, deserve. Yeah. Well, that was a fun team. Great postseason worthy champion. So I don't know. I feel like this is normally where we tell the fan base to go out and have fun and enjoy it. but I feel like we don't have to tell people in Vegas to have fun. Yeah.

Let your hair down. Guys, let your hair down for one. Come out of your shell, Vegas. Come on. You can do it. If we were thinking about the most like, I don't know if iconic would be the word. Yeah, maybe iconic. Like the most iconic places to hold your Stanley Cup parade.

Like down the Vegas strip is up there, right? Like you're shutting it down. Like if you go through. some big, big time sit, like when the Rangers won the cup in 94, I remember there was actually a legit ticker tape parade, right? Like, it was a ticker tape parade right down, like kind of in the financial district though, right? Like down in lower Manhattan? Did they? I don't, I don't remember. I was going to say, did they go through Times Square or something? No, I don't know. But that was on, if you've ever seen the great ESPN 30 for 30, June 17th,

1994. I believe that was the day of the Rangers Parade. Okay. That that ESPN 3430. That's the day where like OJ and the car chase and all the things that happened on that one day. And it was that Rangers Prate. They might explain why we don't remember all the details. Yeah, exactly. What else were we doing on June 17th 1994? But like I think this is pretty cool. Like I'm trying to think about what would be a more like visually appealing or

iconic place to hold your Stanley Cup parade. I was having a hard time thinking, I don't know that we're going to top that. Yeah, I mean, obviously a parking lot in New Jersey is, is number one. The old Brendan Byrne Arena or whatever else called. I don't know that we'll ever, that will ever fully top that. But yeah, beyond that, I don't know. Like when you think of like really iconic streets, you know, sections of town, you know that that's probably it i mean

there they're most a lot of the big cities have got like the big main street and it's nice you know i mean chicago's got it montreal you know toronto's got young street but we've seen that right like we've we've seen the big parade down the street kind of deal yeah i don't know i i wonder how you could do it in uh in in something that It would just kind of hit the visuals a little harder. Well, I'll tell you what, what, so Ottawa got to the Cup final, obviously, in 2007 against Anaheim. And I had heard that one of the ideas that had been floated, pun intended,

would be that they would, in Ottawa, there's a canal for people who don't know Ottawa. The canal that pretty much runs right kind of close to the downtown core and then right to Parliament Hill, which is the big government building in the heart of downtown. And that the idea would be tens of thousands of fans could line up on either side of the canal and the team would go down the canal in the boat. Okay. For the parade.

Yeah. Which I think would be pretty cool. That's cool. Yeah. I was, that's not bad. Now, has that been done? It feels like, has anyone else done like the water?

Like, did Chicago do that? They've got the river going right through down. Did the Boston Red Sea? Sox not do it when they won the first World Series in 2004? Like I feel like I remember Pedro Martinez getting into one of those like, you know, those boat, those buses that turn into. Yeah. Boat, yeah.

The little duck boats or whatever. Duck boats, yeah, yeah. I feel like I have a memory of that. But I don't know that an age. What was a few years ago? Did Tampa get on a boat? Well, and remember Tom Brady throwing the trophy? Wasn't that from like boat to boat?

I feel like that was a. I think Tampa Bay. Tampa must have been on the water. Coutherov, I feel like Cucherov was crushing Budlights on a boat. Well, he definitely was, but whether that was affiliated with team activities or not,

he's probably still doing that from their last win. Yeah, man. Anyway, so listeners, we'd love to hear if your favorite team won a Stanley Cop, is there any parade route that could kind of match Vegas's strip for you? Like in your city or your favorite team, what can get there? I don't know.

It'd be a pretty short list, pretty short list for me. So listen, we're going to get, like I said, Granger's going to come by. We've got a whole bunch of things to get to. I do want to point out that the timing of my trip, I went away. I told the listeners, I think the last podcast I did was actually, it was the day I was leaving. It was like two weeks ago. And I said, you know what's going to happen? The senators are going to get sold like the minute I get on the.

plane or the minute I land in Italy. But tell you what, wife and I went away for 12 days, got back on Monday, and first thing on Tuesday, the Ottawa was senators were sold to Michael Landlauer. Almost as if. We all spent two weeks going, what is taking so long? Yeah, and Lauer was like, I got to wait. I got to wait for a man to get back. It's like, wait, it's almost as if there's somebody way high up the chain of command who has

not given a final approval on this. Yeah. And yeah. Interesting how that worked out. But the timing of this from a hockey perspective is super awkward. Is it not? Because we're now sitting here on, what are we, the 15th of June. And this is the biggest 10-day window, I think, on the entire hockey calendar.

Is there anything more important than the draft and free agency just in terms of trying to manipulate your roster? And like this is the time where it feels like you can do the most, right? Yep. This is business time. This is. Yeah. It's a very weird offseason that we have compared to some of the other sports that are

far more stretched out. You know, we have, we go from the draft to free agency in a week. And not only is the draft is obviously crucially important for the draft itself, but that's where the vast majority of the big offseason trades happen. So we just crush. Like, it feels like what would be in other sports two months of news into about a week and a half. And yeah, you want to have everything lined up. You want to know who's making the decisions and for and what the strategy is.

And it does put Ottawa in an awkward situation, especially since this isn't going to close any time soon. So, you know, there's, we know now who the owner will be, but when it's going to happen, when they'll take over. and we will, we're still waiting. Well, the way I look at it is this, and if you're Pierre Dorian and you're on the fence, so to speak, like you don't know if you're coming back for sure. If you feel like you're Peerodorian and you're on the fence, and let's use Alex DeBrinkech as the best example,

because legitimately I do think he's got to do something with DeBrinke here. And I think taking him to arbitration makes sense as a stopgap measure and maybe trading him in the meantime. is a good thing. But A, I don't think he would have the authority. Like, it's not like he could sign the brinket for, here's eight years and 60 million.

I don't, you know, you would need. Wouldn't think. No, no, I don't think you can. But more importantly, wouldn't you try and somehow run that up the flagpole, get that in, even though Ann Lauer isn't in charge per se, wouldn't you want to make sure that the new boss is okay with whatever you do so that when he does take over, he's not like, I can't believe what you just did.

Right? Absolutely. And I'm sure there's some sort of way to do that that they will work out. But it is, I mean, it's a fascinating situation because correct me if I'm wrong. But my understanding is that with this new owner, that this of the four bids was considered to be potentially the worst scenario for Pierre Dorian because it's a hockey guy coming in. He has his own connections.

He may be less likely than the other bidders to come in and say, well, let's see what we've got and, you know, take some time. So Pierre Dorian might be, you know, not to put too fine a point on it. He might be GMing for his career over the next couple of weeks. He might be auditioning for. Or if not the senator's job, maybe he's, if decisions have already been made, maybe he's auditioning for that next job. And so then it kind of becomes what is, I'm always saying that I think almost any GM in the league, what's best for them and what's best for the team is not always aligned. Does Pierre Dorian feel any pressure here to make a big sexy move of some sort that's going to have people talking summer of Pierre again?

Um, versus, you know, some, something like just, you know, going to have, going to arbitration, maybe it's the right thing to do with Alex De Brinkin as an example. Yeah. But it's not going to grab, it's not going to grab headlines. It's not going to make anyone go, oh, man, this story and guy is really, uh, really on the ball. So I don't know. It's, uh, it's a tough situation, unavoidable. I mean, I don't, I don't know that anyone, that there's any fingers to point here as far as

the blame for how the timing on this work, but he does put the team in an awkward situation. Yeah. No, no, it is. It's really weird from that perspective. So, yeah, my guess is Dorian goes in, is the general manager. And you're right, like, at least for the next few weeks.

And you're right, of all the bidders that were on the table, and Lauer is the one who is least looking at purchasing the senators as like a real estate play and more looking at it as, I want to buy the team. I want to, I'm just a big hockey fan. You know, that's the sense I get from, from Michael Landlower. So it's going to be a facet. Just the timing of it is weird because you do, like, if you didn't have the de brinket

situation, I think it would be okay. But this is arguably, like, if you look around the league, in terms of pressing matters that probably need to be addressed in the weeks ahead, I think you've got de Brinket in in Ottawa. Tell me if I'm wrong on this. Pierre-Luc Dubois and Winnipeg feel, and maybe to some extent, Hellebock and the other,

but like it feels like there's a boiling point there, no? With a couple of guys? It definitely feels like the Jets have been a team that have been resisting change for a few years, and they are now

going to lose the ability to make that decision for themselves because between Dubois and Halibuck and then, Mark Sheifley we've been talking about for years now. It feels like they've hit the tipping point where big changes have to come. But again, this is the window of time where it happens, right? In the next two weeks is when teams have some flexibility.

You know, I also look, and Saad had a great piece on what should the Dallas stars do with Ryan Souter. Because there's a guy that feels like a buyout, but then there's implications with that. Do you let them play it out? Like, you know, I feel like. Rough postseason for him. Yeah. Like, what do you do there? yeah, if you watch the postseason, people are like, well, Ryan Suter's done.

Like he's not, he's a shell of himself, whatever. But he's got two years left on his deal. And it's not a super expensive deal. No. So he doesn't have to be, you know, Ryan Suter in this league for going on 20 years now has been a, for a lot of his career, a top pair guy. And more recently has been that sort of solid top four guy. He doesn't have to be a top defenseman to live up to that salary at this point.

You know, at $3 million and change, you know, he can be a solid number four even. And you're not you're not necessarily tearing your hair out over the contract. In the playoffs, he didn't look like that at all. But again, maybe that's, you know, maybe asking a guy to play a full six-month season and then three rounds of the playoffs is too big an ask, and they can adjust that. But it's pretty tough when you're already on another team's books for a buyout to hear your name mentioned for another one.

Yeah. Has that ever happened? Has that happened before where somebody has been bought out, like kind of simultaneously by two teams? I'm not sure. I wouldn't be surprised if it did in the years after, like 0506, 06 or 6 or 7. Yeah.

When they had the, you know, when every team got a certain number of compliance buyouts, so there were all sorts of guys getting bought out with zero dollar cap hits, but still getting the actual dollars. I would imagine it probably happened then just because there were so many guys on the market, but I can't remember it happening where a guy's been on the cap of two different teams on buyouts at the same time. And as we continue to look around like at stories that I think are going to be cropping up here. And like I said, Souter in Dallas, Winnipeg, the Brinket. What happens with Matt Murray? You know, Matt Murray's got, and this is the contract that Ottawa gave him prior to the 2020, 2020, 2021 season. So this is the fourth year of it.

And it's straight, to quote Randy Moss, it's straight cash, homie. It's an $8 million deal, right, with no bonuses. It's $8 million in real cash. And then the cap hit is, you know, six and a quarter. So do you buy them out? Is that the inevitable solution here on Matt Murray? I think they try to trade him. To like Arizona or something?

Either to, you know, in Arizona or something or similar to what they did with Peter Morazick last year, where they sent him to Chicago. Yeah. Keep in mind that the thing with Matt Murray is even though he's always, he's a guy that has always had issues with injuries. He did not play very much last year. All the things that we all saw coming. As soon as that trade happened, you and I had the conversation. I said, this is a terrible trade for Toronto. That all proved correct. But the thing to remember is at the end of the playoffs for the Leafs, Matt Murray was cleared. They chose not to play him. They chose to go Joseph

Wall, but Matt Murray was cleared to play, which means this isn't a situation where you can just send him to Arizona and they dump him on LTIR for a while. and you kind of shrug it off that way. This is a guy who is, at least at the end of this season, was healthy enough to play. So I would not be shocked if they buy them out because I think it's going to be very tough to move them. Still with that year left on the deal at a, as you say, a high cash point. This is, it almost always goes the other way. We're so used to talking about the end of a contract being a lower cash point than the cap hit.

that's not the way the senators do business. They try to load it in the back so that if they get out from under the deal, they're saving extra dollars. And that's what they managed to do on this one. So I find it very hard to imagine a situation where Matt Murray's back with the Leafs. So it's just a question of how do you move him and what's the cost as far as either assets or cap hit down the line? or do you potentially just eat it for next year, put him down in the minors, and that's the end of it? So the guy who traded for Matt Murray, Kyle Dubus is now in Pittsburgh. He brings in Jason Spetsa, of course, and they seem to be tied at the hip.

Is there any scenario in which you could see Matt Murray gets bought out and Pittsburgh brings him back on like a one year, 800 grand? and type of deal. Because again, they got some moving parts there with Tristan Jari and whatnot. Any way you could see that if you looked into your crystal ball. Sure. And I mean, I'll go one further. If it plays out that way, Matt Murray's going to have a hell of a season in Pittsburgh. I mean, every leave fan knows that.

If they buy him out and he then signs a cheap deal with the GM, they just got rid of. I mean, get your Vesina Betts in now because he's going to win 30 games at least for that Penguins team. There's no question in my mind. I thought where you were maybe going with this was, is there a scenario where Pittsburgh could be the trade destination? Or they eat the salary? Toronto eat some salary. Toronto would absolutely need to eat salary. But, you know, Kyle, again, Kyle Dubas liked him enough to trade for him last summer.

He is a sue guy. He is, you know, whatever else. That I have a real hard time. See, I mean, I'm not sure Kyle Dubas is picking up. the phone for too many 416 area codes at this point. No. And I don't think he's too eager to get his old team off the hook, even if it's a hook that he put them on in the first place.

See, if Trilliving was smart, he'd keep his old Calgary 403 area code. So Dubis would pick up. That's right. 403. Who's Brad Tee? Yeah. Well, he's got to be calling, I mean, he's got to be calling Brad Trilliv's got to be calling Calgary because this is the blueprint for the Leafs, right?

you hire the Flames GM. Yeah. The Flames replace that GM with his apprentice. And then the master calls the apprentice and absolutely. Gets Doug Gilmore. Rips him off in a trade. Elias Lindholm for, I don't know, I'm trying to think who the moderate equivalent of Gary Lehman would be. I don't think he's on the Leafs roster.

No, no. But anyway, so it's going to be interesting with a few of these, with a few of these names like Matt Murray and what happens there. Did you find it, like I said, I didn't think it was weird at all. In fact, I kind of figured Spetsa would end up wherever Dubus ended up. So that part's not a surprise. But what do you think about Jason Spetsa getting named assistant general manager when there is no general manager? Like as the way the structure is in Pittsburgh, Cal Dubus is the president of hockey ops. There's a blank spot at general manager.

And Jason is now the AGM. Yeah. And I mean, I still, I've said this a bunch of times. Everybody's acting like it's a sure thing that Kyle Dubas has got to hire a GM. Kyle Dubas could just decide he wants the job. He's got it right now. He is the interim GM officially. He could just say, you know what?

Yeah, I think I am the best guy for this and take the job. I don't, it is a little bit weird. I saw somebody on Twitter was saying, like, has this ever happened before? and apparently in somebody said in Vancouver, they hired all the assistants before they brought Patrick Alvin in as the GM. Yes. So, you know, maybe not all that unusual. The thing with Jason Spetsa is this is, like we all love Jason Spetsa,

but he's very much learning on the job. He's still got the trainee hat for front office. So I think a lot of us think he maybe someday might make a really a real good GM in the league. But I don't think anyone who comes in as GM in Pittsburgh is going to be looking over their shoulder at Jason Spencer right now. He's clearly still there to learn. He's not, he's years away from being ready to move into the big chair himself. So I think it's different than if they had hired some veteran or some bigger name executive to come in and be the assistant. Suddenly, if I take that GM job, I'm going, well, who's this guy? Why is he looking over my shoulder?

I want to ask you about this totally random thing that happened on Wednesday night. And this is from Major League Baseball. Okay? So Mets and Yankees are playing a Subway Series game. And the Yankees have one of those great plays where they steal home. And they cut to a shot of the crowd. And people are cheering. It's a Mets Yankees game, right?

So the crowd is kind of split. And in the crowd. And this guy sticks out like a sewer thumb because people were like, how did you even see this guy? But, and I tweeted this out, at the 17 second mark of this video, there's a guy wearing a Connor Baderd Chicago jersey.

Number 98, Connor Badaard. At a Yankees' Mets game, there's a guy in a Baderd Chicago jersey. So I got a couple, I need a jersey ruling from you on a couple of things here. Let's start with this. I feel like the Jersey fouls thing

is someone else's gimmick. But okay. That's why I said jersey ruling. Okay. That's why ruling. Welcome to Jersey court. Yeah. Jersey.

Jersey, it's called sweater penalty. It's a totally different thing. Exactly. It's totally different. But how do we feel about people wearing jerseys, like NHL jerseys to baseball games, football games, I guess basketball games? Like, do we care if somebody came to a NHL game wearing a year? Yankees jersey.

Like, do we care? Do we not care? Do we just let this go? But is it weird? I feel like it's fine. And I also feel like it's, I mean, first of all, obviously, I mean, Conradard is, there's probably a lot more excitement about him in Chicago right now than the baseball teams necessarily. But I would say the other thing is like, I feel like it would be weirder the other way,

because at some point in the NHL, it just became this thing that everybody wears jerseys to games. like it's it's jarring if you go back and watch highlights from the 80s and 90s and you just see people watching hockey in their regular clothes like there's a couple of guys in suits there's people in t-shirts there's like always somebody's got like a weird like early 90s sweater uh happening they're just regular people in regular outfits whereas now 90% of the crowds all wear in jerseys which you guy if you're a marketer you're thinking how did we how did we ever score this this that's Yeah, you got to pay a couple hundred bucks for your tickets, but you also have to pay 200 bucks for the jersey to wear. So it would look a little bit weird, I think, to see somebody showing up in a, you know, in a Yankees jersey at a hockey game, whereas baseball doesn't really have that.

You do see a lot of team gear out in the stands, but baseball is kind of the one where you still see everybody looking like normal people. I feel like all the sports are like. Am I crazy? like hockey is the only sport where everybody is dressed up like the players. Yeah, I think so. I agree with you more so. Although if you go to NFL games, I mean, there are tons of jerseys.

There are a NFL. There are. But yeah, and it's weird. It's a New York game too. Imagine basketball. Just everybody was wearing the tank tops. Like, you know, just. With no sleeveless.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's weird. Anyway, it's weird. Anyway, normalize not wearing a jersey to a hockey game, is what I'm saying. You go right ahead. As long as it's not brightly.

colored and you're not sitting right behind the net. What's that orange or neon yellow, the guy that you always point out? There's multiple guy. There's many people out there. And I pointed out, it's a running bit where you don't see them until you see them. But then once you do, you can't see anything else other than the one guy wearing the bright orange or the bright green or somebody's wearing their hunting vest to hockey game. Yeah, you can't unsee it. And then now this person, this guy already made a.

baddard Chicago Jersey. And I'm wondering, is that okay now? Like, are we, that's safe. In this case, yes. Yes. I mean, there are times where you see people getting ahead of things on a trade or even a draft or something. But in this case, yes, it is so obvious that they're picking him. There's been no whispers or suggestions at all that anything is going to get the way of this. I feel like once he hit that 99% likelihood, you go, you go. right ahead. And with Bredd at least, we can feel like we can pretty safely assume we know the number, too. That's the other thing you'd be worried about. You guess wrong on the number and then you're, then you're stuck. But I feel like this is, this is pretty much locked in. I don't mind, I don't mind

this guy getting ahead of the crowd. That's, I will, I will allow it and I will, I will not call a sweater penalty on my new, this new, this new sweater. We just invented this. We just invented now. No one else. What would be really, really, risky is if you did like a Ducks Fantilly jersey, right? Yes, that's where you're getting risky. Yeah. Yeah.

You got to be careful on that one. And yeah, you don't, uh, anything, anything outside the first pick, I don't think you want to mess around with. But, uh, this, this one, I think it's okay. And how do we feel about like, would it be cool? If you saw somebody wearing a Quebec Nordigues, Lindrosse jersey right now, would you say, Well, I know, I know it wasn't Eric Lindrosse. I feel like now, yes, that would be a...

Now it kind of seems cool, right? It's kind of a cool, like, a nostalgic, ironic sort of thing. You know, you would get the joke. I feel like that was okay. Even funnier if they were, instead of wearing it, we're just carrying it folded over their arm walking around. Yeah, not putting it on. That's, I feel like that would be just fine.

Yeah, I'm good with that. Okay, we got your... Although, I mean, if you got a Nordicx 88, it's probably joking. So Sackett, though. Yeah, original, the OG Joe Sackett. The original 88 for a year. There you go. I got your Halloween costume all set.

You're going to wear a Quebec or have a Quebec jersey folded up in your arms walking around. Walking around. People will be like, who's that guy that looks so much like Eric Lindross? That's, you know, you know, I often have that problem walking down the street. People are like, Eric Lindneros? I'm like, no. And they're like, well, professional athlete, though, right? And I'm like, believe it or not, no, I'm not.

All right, time for us to bring in the very busy Jesse Granger, as Sean said off the top. I think it's been three hours since he's posted his story. So we're kind of busting his chops a little bit. Jesse joins us every Thursday for Granger Things brought to you by Bet. MGM. So it's been about, well, just under 48 hours since Vegas hoisted the Stanley Cup at T-Mobile. How many hours has Jesse Granger slept for since the Knights won the cup? Yeah, I got.

just last night I got to catch up on it a little bit. I got a solid six, I think. The night before it was not as much. It was a late night in Vegas. There was obviously a lot of national media in town, so we went and hung out after all the work. And it was obviously late. I mean, so I had covered one cup final before, but the Capitals won, and I was kind of dealing with the Vegas side of thing. So I didn't go out on the ice. I didn't do that whole thing. So that was my first time going out on the ice. and you're out there a long time. So it is a late night. Once you get back to the media tent to write,

you've already been, it's well, well after the game had ended. So yeah, it was a late night, but a lot of fun to cover. Two things. First of all,

I really appreciate that you guys hung out. Yeah. Just hung out in Vegas. You know, just sit around. Yeah, play probably playing some cards and talking about your,

your feelings. And yeah, being on the ice, If people don't know, there is no locker room availability with the winning team, the way that there is every other game. You just, the media goes out onto the ice and does their, it's just kind of this chaos after the cup has already gone around. After all that's been done. But the family is there. There's employees.

It's really wild. I've had a chance to do it a couple of times. Not really even because I needed to so much as it was just. like I got a press pass. Of course I'm going out here. And, you know, I remember doing it in L.A. Because when the home team wins the cup, I mean, you're just looking around at the crowd is going nuts.

And there's all this family running around. And man, I get so nervous watching all the people trying not to wipe out on the ice, especially the women in like the high heels and stuff where you're just like, oh, my goodness. And I said there was one lady took a real bad. She ate it hard in in L.A. And we ended up in an elevator with her afterwards. And she was telling her friends the story. And let's just say she was already going viral at that point.

She wasn't really thrilled about it. It was really cool going out there. There were obviously kids everywhere. But seeing the parents and just being able to chat with them, like I've talked to a handful of parents over the seasons, but not in that type of setting where you can just kind of talk to them for however long you feel like. And they're all,

obviously, all in a really good mood. So talking to the parents was a lot of fun. They're everywhere. And there's just kids running around. There were a bunch of plastic flamingos that fans had thrown onto the ice.

That's kind of what the fans do here in Vegas when they win. Usually there's one or two this time. There were like 50 of them. And the kids, all the players kids were playing soccer with the plastic flamingos, kicking them around the ice. It was a pretty crazy scene. It is,

it is cool. My all-time favorite highlight was one of the players. I want to say it was Justin Williams. It was, you know, kind of media were asking questions and he was trying to talk to people. And then suddenly he just kind of stopped and he was like, where's my kid? And like everyone in the media just like started looking around and then like a couple people parted, like this two year old got like, and they're like, is that one yours? And he's like, yeah, that's it. And they brought the kid back.

So it's a pretty wild experience. So I want to ask you, Jesse, about Sean's column today, which actually maybe, well, Sean, we'll let you explain just to the listeners because I think last year was the first you did the concept of cond smite. Cond smite. So explain to the listeners who, what kind of the genesis of this award. And then maybe you could run down for Jesse and the listeners who the candidates are this year. And then let's let's let Jesse make the definitive ruling here for us. Okay.

So the concept is it is a team award that is presented to at the end of every single. season where you look at the champion and you say, okay, which team made the dumbest trade with them that contributed the most to them winning the championship? And there's always somebody, right? Every team has at some point ripped off in a trade, somebody or other. And in some cases, there's more, there were more than a few. Like, for example, last year with Colorado, it came down to, do you go with the Leafs and the Nazim Cadbury trade?

or do you go with the New York Islanders and the Devon Taves train and then you went back and forth and some years are easier than others and I did it last year and I think I went back and did everyone from the cap era and I didn't necessarily intend it

to become like a recurring thing that I'd look at every year but then when I realized I'm looking at Vegas going holy smokes this is the all time Colin Smyth I mean there are there are players of the team that I didn't even mention

in the article that would have been like an easy winner on anybody else because this is how Vegas builds its team. And so I will run. Like I say, I had to narrow it down. I got people reading the piece today who are like, you know, where's Shea Theodore? Like, where's, you know, where's he? And it's like, yeah, I only had so much room to work with. But I will give you the six candidates.

And then you can, I've got a poll going. So I've asked the readers, but I want to get your your feedback. as well. And the six options are the Buffalo Sabres for giving up Jack Eichel, the Ottawa Senators for Mark Stone, the Washington Capitals for the Chandler-Stevenson trade, St. Louis Blues for Ivan Barboshev at the deadline this year, San Jose Sharks for Aden Hill, who they got for a fourth round pick last summer. And then the last one, the controversial one, and the one that maybe people are yelling. at me right now is Jonathan Marshalo, which feels like the easy call, because we've all been making fun of the Panthers for that for years.

Marshal So just wins the consmite and beats his former team. So it's obviously him, except he didn't get traded to the Vegas Golden Knights. It was Riley Smith who got traded. Marciussoe was an expansion pick. And even though they're kind of grouped together in our minds, the actual. the actual transaction, that was not a trade. So I put him on the list with kind of a question mark, because I don't know if that should actually count.

Of those half dozen guys, factoring in those two factors, their importance to the team and the lopsidedness of the ripoff of the trade, where are you passing you? You had a consmite ballot I saw this year, but this is the more important because this is, this is the consmite. What are we doing here? It's a great question and it's not easy to answer. I'm, so I think I'm going to go with Mark Stone as the winner and or the Ottawa senators, I guess, however you put that. The reason being Jack Eichol, phenomenal, but the Golden Knights gave up a lot

for him. And those players, Alex Tuck is scoring a lot of goals in Buffalo. Peyton Krebs is a good young player and they gave up some high draft picks for Jack. So I think you could argue Buffalo did all right in that. They're not doing as well as Jack Eichel is, obviously, because he just has hoisted the Stanley Cup, but they're doing all right in that trade. When you look at what Ottawa gave up for Mark Stone, and Pierre LeBron wrote a brilliant piece during these playoffs, talking to Pierre Dorian and a few other GMs about how they basically had no leverage because Mark Stone had decided I'm only going to sign with Vegas. So you either trade me there or you trade me to a team that I'm not going to sign with and they're not going to give you anything. So he was he was cornered. I

will give the senators some excuses as to why they got flee. least so badly. But Mark Stone is the most important piece of this team. He wasn't my Con Smyth vote because he didn't have the best postseason. But if you were going to take a player off this team and you said, which player, if you were to take them off the team is going to hurt them the most? I think it's Mark Stone by Miles. Not just because of how good of a player he is, but he is the emotional leader in the locker room. This team is different with Mark Stone. I think a big reason, even though they were the one seed going into the playoffs, not very many people were picking the Golden Knights to win the cup when the playoffs started. It was all Edmonton. It was a lot of

the East teams. And the reason, whether people knew it or not, I think, is because Vegas didn't look good down the stretch. Their numbers weren't great. Their metrics weren't great. And that's because they didn't have Mark Stone. And then suddenly you insert a healthy Mark Stone in the lineup. None of us could have seen that happening. And they're the best team in hockey. Not just because of how good he is, but he just makes everyone around him better. And then you look at that trade. They gave up Oscar Lindberg, was kind of the throw-in, but the big prospect was Eric Brantstrom and a second round pick, and that's it. And I was very high on Eric Brantstrom at the time. He hasn't turned out to be the player, well, he hasn't turned out yet to be the player that I thought he could be. When I saw him in

rookie camp, I thought he was going to be not Cal McCarr, but a lesser version of that style of player. I thought he was going to be sensational. And he hasn't been that yet. But that's all they gave up, a second round pick for the best player on the team, the captain, the most important player on a Stanley Cup winning team, that would be my vote for Conn Smyth. I will throw in, and I'm sure you probably got this in the comments, but I think he might be second after Mark Stone. As for conning, is William Carlson. Yep. Because a lot of these players, these teams didn't want to get rid of. The senators didn't want to get rid of Mark Stone. They had to. They had no choice. He's going to leave. We're going to get nothing. Let's give him up. William Carlson, the Columbus Blue Jackets, in the expansion

draft, they said, look, we don't want you to take Eunice Corpusallo. We will give you a first round pick if you'll take William Carlson instead. We don't want this player. He's no good to us. Have him. We'll give you a first round pick if you take this bad player rather than Eunice Corpusalo. And then he went on to score 43 goals. And he was another guy. I tweeted after the cons my ballots, I was like, there's five guys that could win this and be deserving of it. And I thought William Carlson, throughout these playoffs, the way he shut down Connor McDavid, the way he shut down Dallas's top line with Rupert Hinson, Jason Robertson. He did it to Winnipeg in the first round.

He was sensational for this team defensively, and he scored a bunch of goals. So, like you said, there are a lot of candidates. I think Carlson is up there on the Condes Smyth rankings. Carlson's another one where technically an expansion pick, but you're right. That was, that trade was specifically about him, whereas the Riley Smith, it was just sort of everyone knew Marsh. So I will tell you, the fan voting, they have

it is Jonathan Mars or so is leading right now meaning that the readers are willing to bend the rules a little bit but number two after that is Mark Stone

I think them beating Florida is probably what's if like because they beat the team that gave them John and the Marsha so that's probably giving him the edge

in that and I would agree with you and the readers tend to agree with you that Jack Eichel even though he's arguably the biggest star on this list

is I don't think he's the pick because I think Buffalo does that trade again. If you put it to them right now, I think they say, you know what, we'll do the deal again. So you're not, you know, you haven't been conned if you're happy with the result. So I had to have Eichel on the list, but I agree with you that he's not the guy. Yeah. And, you know, on the stone trade, too, don't forget, like, you know, Jesse, you're saying you were pretty high on Eric Brandstrom.

Don't forget, Pierre Dorian went to the podium that day and said, this is my proudest day as general manager. you don't understand what we got in Eric Brandstrom. Best day I've had as general manager. Think about that. And then I had to apologize for that. And then he had to walk it back. And, you know, like I did what turned out to be a very, I guess in hindsight, contentious interview with Dorian on the radio right after the trade.

And I pushed him because I felt like he didn't quite understand how the fans were feeling. Like the fans were, I would argue. And Ottawa fans can correct me if I'm wrong. Ottawa fans were more crushed by losing Stone than Eric Carlson. That's how much they believed in Stone and thought he was the guy. And so I had this kind of contentious interview with Dorian in which I pressed them. And we went back and forth. And Peter and I, we have a, I always say we have a Ross and Rachel thing going on.

You know, like from friends. We're hot and cold. And that's neither here nor there. But it was from that trade with Mark Stone. And Sean will remember this is like two weeks later, the owner of the team Eugene Melnick went on radio in Ottawa and called me Bush League because of my handling of the stone trade and thought I was Bush League in the way that I handled the stone trade. And I thought, come on. Like, what are we doing here? Honestly.

Thank you. You can tell a lot about a person by who their enemies are. And I think the fact that you had Eugene Melnick gutting for you kind of tells me. people all they need to know about who was on the right side of that. It was a very weird time. That's all I'm going to say. A very weird time. But yeah, in hindsight, obviously, I'm really happy for Mark Stone.

As you know, Jesse, one of the most intense athletes have ever been around. But in a good, like, if you get him at the right time phenomenally, he's open. He'll chat with you. But when he's hardwired, oh, boy, like, look out. Yeah. I always say, like, every hockey player loves hockey. I don't think there's a hockey player to ever play the game

that loves it more than Mark Stone. There might be a few that love it as much. I don't think it's possible. Exactly. Mark Stone does. Yeah, I just wish people could understand how, yeah, and he's just a great story. He's just self-made story.

So Stone was great, getting the Stanley Cup was great. Now on Saturday night, he's going to be taking that cup right down the strip. So you're a Vegas guy. Like, how often do they close the strip on a on like a Saturday night.

Not very often. I would say so like obviously New Year's Eve. They close it down for the New Year's Eve party, depending on what day of the week that is. It doesn't really matter what day they're closing it for that. They also close it a couple times around Christmas. They have like a Santa Marathon. I don't know.

Maybe rock and roll is what it's called. I don't know. There's some marathon where everybody dresses up like Santa Claus and runs down the strip for like charity. That shuts it down. but that's about it. They don't shut the strip down very often, at least both ways for sure. So they're they're completely closing it between Flamingo and Tropicana, which is the biggest, like, if you think of the Las Vegas strip, if you've never been here or you've only been here a couple times, when you think of the Las Vegas strip, basically that block is what you're thinking of.

It's longer than that, but this is Caesar's Palace is right on that corner. And then it's the Bellagio, it's MGM, it's New York, New York. all the casinos you think of, the Paris, the Eiffel Tower there, everything. That's where they're going to be going down. And then they're going to make a little U-turn and then follow that area. If you've ever been to T-Mobile Arena, there's that little park area with all the bars and restaurants and stuff leading up to the front of the arena.

They're going to go through that and then they're going to end up right in front of T-Mobile Arena. They call that little area at Toshiba Plaza and that's where they're going to do the rally. And I'm excited because it's going to be, it's starting at 7 o'clock. it's kind of a nighttime parade. It's obviously not going to be dark when it starts, but it will by the time it ends. And I thought they should have started it a little bit later,

but I guess I could see how, so right now starting at seven, the rally will start at nine. They don't want to go too late with the rally. They want kids to be able to go, would be my guess, is why they didn't start it later to where the lights would be on

at the beginning of the parade. But I'm hoping while they're still on the strip portion of it, it gets dark enough for all the lights to come on and you get that visual. I can't think of a cooler championship parade visual than the Las Vegas strip lit up with all these fans. If anyone saw videos of the outside of the arena the other night, it was insanely packed. I expected to be like that on Saturday. It should be a lot of fun.

I can't wait to see what it looks like. So when we do this segment with you every week, we usually have, you know, we look at some odds. We look at some things that might happen. Obviously, now the season is over and there's not necessarily odds per se, but there are futures we can look at. And let's look ahead, believe it or not, to next year at this time. And we've already got the early, early odds on the Stanley Cup champion in the spring of 2024. So you've got the list in front of you.

And we don't have to go, obviously, we're not going to run through 32 teams. I want you, though, to tell Sean and I, like, one of the two or three teams that you're like, wow, I'm surprised that the odds on this team to win it all next year. So we'll just look at the top real quick. The aves are the favorites. I don't think that would surprise anyone. Oilers are second at 9 to 1. The Bruins are 10 to 1 at 3rd.

And then the Maple Leafs. I'm surprised the Golden Knights are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. They are the 8th team on this list after winning the Stanley Cup, behind the Devils and Rangers, which are. two good teams with young players, but I was a little bit surprised that the Golden Knights wouldn't be higher. And then the one that really surprised me is, look, I don't, I wouldn't say I'm going to pick the Seattle Cracken to win the Stanley Cup next year, but they were a very good team that won a playoff series this year. And they are more than halfway down the list at 50 to

one. And they're behind teams like the senators, the sabers, the penguins, the flames, teams that didn't make the playoffs or didn't do anything in the playoffs. I was very surprised to see the cracking all the way down there. And then the other one that kind of piqued my interest was the Washington Capitals, look, they missed the playoffs. They're probably heading in the wrong direction. But should they have the same odds to win, like, right, they're right above the Columbus blue jackets? Like, have they really fallen off that bad? I mean, they're basically down there with the blue jackets, the coyotes.

Like, I was surprised to see the capitals that far down the list at 66 to 1 to win the Stanley Cup. I know they're heading the wrong direction, but I think a lot of things went wrong for that team that could go right next year. And you could see them in the playoffs. And if you've got a team with 66 to 1 odds to win the cup in the playoffs, you're feeling pretty good after. I mean, you just saw the Panthers. What they did is an 8 seed. So, yeah, that was what is. Are there any teams that you guys would, are curious about their odds or if you have any thoughts on any of those?

Who's got the worst of the worst? The worst of the worst. So there's two tied at the bottom at 250 to 1, and that is the Anaheim Ducks and the Montreal Canadiens. Okay. And where is Chicago? How much is the Connor Bedard factor? I mean, they can't be that much.

I see why they wouldn't be the very bottom, but they can't be all that high. No, they're not. There's a group of teams right of, above the ducks and Canadians. So they're both 250 to 1. There's a group of six teams above them at 150 to 1. And the Blackhawks are one of those teams along with coyotes and the flyers and the sharks.

And then the blue jackets are right above them. So yeah, they're not getting much of a bump. 250 to 150, 150, but it's really, really not. But yeah, no, these odds are, I think a lot of it is what you'd expect. Let me, sorry, and I don't think you mentioned them before, where are the Panthers. Yeah, so that's another team. Like the, there's not a lot of belief in the two teams that just were playing in the Stanley Cup final. I mean, the Panthers.

So the Golden Knights are, I think I said, the eighth team. That would make the Panthers the 11th best odds at 18 to 1. There's a lot of belief that the flames are coming back. I mean, the flames are right there next to the Panthers, which is, I mean, yeah, that's, that's surprising to me from both perspectives. The Panthers would be 18 to 1. Considering, I mean, like, like we said at all playoffs, like that was not a, Like sometimes an eight seed makes a run and you're like, yeah, but they're not really that good. They just had like a really good two months.

The Panthers were not a normal eight seed. That was a really talented team that absolutely deserved to be in the Stanley Cup final. Now, goaltending is going to be like, can Bob do it again? Like can he do a full, do what he did in these playoffs for a full season and where is Spencer night and can he come back and be strong for them? That's the only real question because I think this team is really strong at forward. and I think they can improve on defense, but they've got some really good defenders too. So I was surprised to see them down there.

And like I said, there's a lot of belief in Calgary in terms of the odds. Either that, maybe there's not a lot of belief, but maybe the sports books are trying to protect themselves. They think that that would be the team. Everyone is going to jump on and say, look, they had a bad year, but look at all the talent they've got. That's going to be my long shot pick. And the sports books are trying to get ahead of that would probably be, I guess. I mean, the only thing I could think with that is we're only a year removed from them being, a really,

really good team. But then the same is true of the floor of Panthers. And the Panthers just went on a long playoff run. So you would think they would get it. I don't know. By the way,

Jesse, just, uh, only because I think it's only fair that you get a chance to respond, but I am looking ahead in our mailbag. And, uh,

we do have somebody who says that Jesse Granger didn't vote for Aiden Hill on his cons might ballot. Golly union card revoked. How do you feel like you? Do you want a different? made yourself real quick. You just want to hang your head in shame or whatever goalies. Drink from your water bottle, go skate into the corner for no reason. How do you respond? I love that, by the way. I knew this would happen when I put my ballot in. But as much as I love goalies, I take the Consmithe

voting and the awards voting very, very seriously. And I mean, especially cons might, there's 18 of us. Like, it is, your ballot is incredibly important as to who's going to win this award. And to me, I didn't think Aiden Hill was one of the three most important players in this run, most valuable players in this run. A couple reasons. One, he only played an 11 of the 16 wins. It took to win the Stanley Cup. So about 68% of the wins. If he had played the whole playoffs, I think it's a little bit different story. And then the other thing is, there were five guys that could win this award. I mentioned William Carlson earlier. He wasn't on my ballot either. And I, and like, this isn't, William Carlson could have been in the top three. William Carlson could have been

first, in my opinion. Like, I think there's a realistic argument that William Carlson's the consmite winner. And the same goes for Aidan Hill. He was sensational down the stretch, but two things hurt him. One, he only played in 11 games that they won. And two, the fact that Laurent Bresois was so good before he came in. And the fact that every goalie they plugged in this year was great. behind that defense, including Jonathan Quick, who was the worst goalie in all of hockey in L.A. comes in and put up good stats behind this defense. I think hurts Aden Hill a little bit because it, I'm not saying Hill didn't play well, but this team makes it very easy on its goalies.

So I think when I'm looking at, okay, who's the most valuable? I'm thinking, if this team didn't have Jonathan Marsha, or Jack Eichel or Mark Stone, which were my three cons my Smythe ballot picks, they're in a lot of trouble without those guys. whereas I think they've shown all season long that without Aiden Hill, they probably still would have figured things out because this defense is so good. So yes, I understand why goalie union members would be upset with me not voting for a goalie for the cons of my. But I have my reasons. And I think Aiden Hill was great. If I had a ballot of four people, he would have been fourth on there.

But he just didn't make the top three because I thought they had three more valuable players on this team. And I think it speaks to how good this team was that they've got five legitimate. Smythe candidates. Yeah. I toss that back to the goal of union for consideration. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

But yeah, I think you're right. If he had played the entire, Laurent Brassois didn't help them early on, it's a much different conversation, right? Totally different conversation. But it was almost like those years where Pittsburgh won and they split it between Flurry and Murray. And like, it's just, yeah, I totally get it. So, all right.

Great explanation. We look forward to your coverage, hopefully some picks and videos from the parade. on Saturday night. That's going to be a lot of fun. Listen, I think Sean and I both want to say, what a terrific job. I know you've been getting some flowers from everybody on social media,

but it's our opportunity, too, to say the same thing, because your coverage over four rounds at 82 games of a season, then four rounds, it can become exhausting and grueling, and yet it never showed in your work. It was always creative and fun

and in-depth and comprehensive and all those things. And so, you know what? You deserve all the praise coming your way for a wonderful run. Thanks, obviously, for doing all this stuff with us in the pod. But I hope he gets some sincere downtime here because you really deserve it. Thank you, Ian.

Second that. Thank you, guys. All right, that was always great with Jesse. And, yeah, what phenomenal work that he's done throughout the course of this playoff run. Because, like I said, and you know this too, Sean. Like, being a writer, it can be a little bit grueling and taxing to kind of just come up with new material, fresh material. And then on top of that, try to write in a very. clear and concise and creative manner when you're writing four, five, six, seven times a week, whatever.

So I thought Granger was just dynamite in that run. Absolutely dynamite. Yep, for sure. Yeah. All right. So let us open up the email. So wait, yeah, you read the one email, which was about Aden Hill. Chris in Vegas also has an email.

It says, what an amazing victory Tuesday for Vegas. So great to be in the building to watch the Stanley Cup lifted. I've been a hockey fan for more than 30 years. see, to be there to see my cup raised for the team I root for, couldn't be better. But quick question for you. My friend who came to the game with me had a very nice, fairly new Vegas Golden Knights hat until the third period. Our seats were in the upper deck about six rows from the very top.

I made him throw the hat for the Markstone hat trick. Probably should have asked somebody this before last night, but should fans in the upper deck of arenas be throwing hats for hat tricks? If you're in the lower bowl, yes, your hat's probably going to land on the ice. But when you're throwing from the top, maybe it doesn't get there. Do you have to just an obligation of throwing it forward until it reaches the ice? Anyway, having a great time in Vegas. Tell Jesse to get some sleep.

That's from Chris in Vegas. Yeah. So the etiquette around hat tricks, I'll start with the easy part. Yes, if you're in the first deck and a hat from the upper deck doesn't make it to the ice and lands near you, you are more. early obligated to finish the job. That is not your hat. You do not leave that hat.

You got to help that hat get to its destination. As far as the do you have to throw your hat for a hat trick, I'm, I'm sympathetic that, you know what? Some people, a lot of these hats are expensive. Some people may also be, I'm always thinking to the people who wear like, I've got hats that I've had for decades. These are meaningful hat. I don't want to just toss this thing based on, you know, based on a hat trick in the regular season.

Now, if it's a cup clinching game, I feel like at that point, yeah, fire it down. If this was a new hat, absolutely, I think it goes. But I'm not, I'm going to stop short of saying that you have to, that you're obligated to toss the hat because everyone might have their own circumstances. And, you know, I've got a few that I wouldn't want to part with. If you pressure your friend into it, I do think, you know, Chris, maybe you, you, you, you'll owe him like half a half a half. hat at least. Half a hat. And chip in at the very least to get the replacement.

But yeah, no, I'm not going to, I'm not going to say you have to throw it. If it's your hat. But if it's somebody else's that lands near you, yes, finish the job. Absolutely. No question at all on the ethics there. And I'm pretty sure. I think the way it works is if you do throw your hat on the ice for a hat trick, you usually can retrieve it after the game through lost and found.

Wait, really? Yeah, I'm like 99% Yes, in Ottawa, hold on, I'm gonna as we, let me look this up. I'm pretty sure, because I've seen there's like a garbage bag of hats at security or whatever. And my understanding was if you went to them and said,

look, you know, whatever, Tim Stutzel had a hat trick threw my hat, can I get it back? And then they say what? Can I get a description? And you're like, yeah, it's got a senator's logo on it? And they're like, yeah, okay. Yeah, we've got that one right here. Do they just set it all out on a table like at my kid's school at the end of the school year and you just show up?

I've never heard of this. Okay, hold on. I probably should. I mean, it shows you how many, you know, I'm a belief fan. We don't get to do this very often. So here we go. I have an info. This is from a CBC article in a couple of years ago.

Okay. And of course, now the internet is frozen on me. but it says what happens to hats from a hat trick? So in Ottawa, you have two weeks. The guest services will hang on to hats for about two weeks after, during which time owners can show up and claim them. In order to get your hat back, they must give a very specific description.

Hats that are not claimed are then sent to an organization that's got a senator's logo. need more descriptive. It's black. Yeah, that's it. Okay. Okay. And then if you do not, they send it to an organization, if you don't claim it, it's sent to an organization that washes and cleans the hat and turns around and donates them to local charities and shelters. The Carolina Hurricanes apparently will automatically donate. Anyway, so I told you, I was pretty sure. See, I assume they got donated. I figured they were donated. So now I want to know, I want to know a few things. First of all, all those kids in that heartwarming clip throwing their hats at Tim Stutzler after he had his first hat trick in the bubble and there were no fans to throw and then they like went to

his house and threw the hats in the backyard. Did they all get the hats back? Did they show up? Yes. Bring the doorbell the day later and. No, they got them all back right away. Right away. They got them all back right away. So, and I would like to announce the opening of Sean's hat store, which will be operating next year after I think I've now got my supply chain issues figured out. I'm just going to show up demand hats. By the way, can we talk about how great it was? A few weeks ago, we were talking about like famous objects and stuff like that that you would want to either get back or destroy or whatever was that big gold hat that somebody threw

on the ice that you saw Mark Stone going like, keep this one. This one's for me. That is going to be phenomenal. that there's a keepsake someday that had this big shiny gold hat in his house somewhere. That's fantastic. I saw that hat and I thought wouldn't it be great if at some point Mark Stone

is doing a charitable event or something? He autographs that and auctions it off. Wouldn't that get a ton of money? You're a Vegas fan man. That would be absolute can't miss. Yeah. Or apparently you can just show up at the Golden Knights Arena and say that's your hat.

That's my hat. Can you describe it for me? It was gold. Hold on. Yeah. Hold on as you're looking at the clip on your phone. It's cool. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was definitely me. I think Mark Sto'll pick that up. Yeah. We just add you the list because you're the 400th person to report that that was your hat. But we'll get that to you.

Oh, man. Let's wrap up the Thursday pod with a little this week in hockey history. We'll go back down memory lane here with a couple of Stanley Cup finals. June 15th. So on this date, 2011, 12 years ago, the Boston Bruins, behind Tim Thomas's Konsmite trophy winning performance. shutout Vancouver in game seven to capture the Stanley Cup. I'm going to ask you this question.

Just in the salary cap era. So 06 to now. Yes or no? Bruins-Kinnucks 2011. Best Stanley Cup final? Yay or nay? I don't think so. I don't think it was.

It's one of the few seven games. We haven't had a lot of seven-game series. But man, it just so many of those games were lopsided. It was a, I think you could make the case for the most interesting. interesting series, most fascinating series, the way it played out. There were a couple of close games in Vancouver especially, but there was like the big blowout, the game seven was not close. I don't think so.

To me, it was the 2009 Detroit Pittsburgh rematch, right? It was the second one that went seven, I think, that ended with the Flurry Save on Littstrom. With, yeah, Max Talbot with two goals and the Flurry Save, yeah. Not to mention that even, especially in hindsight, the passing of the torch from, you know, the previous era's great champions in Detroit to Pittsburgh. To me, that's the number one. I'm not sure how far down the list I'd go for Boston, Vancouver. But it just, it didn't, the signature moments in that series all feel negative to me. It's, you know, the suspension hit, the fans booing Bettman, the riot obviously.

Tim Thomas trucking the Cedines. But yeah, I don't know. Yeah. And then the other, this date and hockey history, I can't believe it's been 25 years since this. June 16th, 1998. So 25 years ago, Detroit sweeps Washington. They win their second consecutive Stanley Cup.

And I think this is maybe the most powerful and poignant moment we've ever seen with the Stanley Cup. And that is Vladimir Konstantinov in a wheelchair being handed to Stanley Cup by Steve Eiserman. Just a powerful moment because obviously the accident from the year before. But boy, isn't that, isn't that wild? Like that's a quarter of a century ago, 25 years ago. So long ago. And, you know, Constantine off to this day is still, you know, having medical problems and difficulties with this care and all of that.

But that was an emotional moment. And a weird bit of trivia. Steve Eisenman, his captain of the Red Wings, they won the cup three times. He never handed off to an active teammate in all three. Yeah, Bowman was the last one, right? Yeah, 2002 he gave it to Scotty Bowman, who skated with it. 98 was Konstantinov and 97 he gave it to Mike Gillich, the owner, as his first handoff. So Steve Eisenman never handed the Stanley Cup as a first handoff to a teammate from that game.

Wow. You know what? I didn't realize that. It's interesting because especially in 2002, there were some teammates there like Hachick, like Robitai. The old guy had never won, right? Yeah, Steve Dushan, Frederick Olson, I think was on that. Yeah. But I mean, that was a lot of talk about who would be. But it was, yeah, Bowman at the time, we didn't know for sure. There was a lot of speculation that he, that he was maybe done, but we didn't know. But that was the great thing where Scotty Bowman went and got. a skates on. And so he came out and did just take the hand off from the cup, which obviously he had done many times, but got to skate around with it, which was a very cool moment. And as you were watching it, you sort of realized like, this is, this is it for him. Yeah. And like, it's funny with Bowman. Like, how many, he won nine cups? Wait, how many cups did he win? I think it was more than that. He was, it depends sort of what you count because he would, there

were some that he won as an executive. And, but he won, geez, how many in, but he, but he was, He went six in Montreal? As a head coach, he won. Was it not just four in Montreal? Was he there before? I don't even. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe it was just the four in Montreal.

One in Pittsburgh. Because he came for the second one. And then two in Detroit. The three in Detroit, wouldn't it have been? Oh, yeah, sorry, three in Detroit. So, you know, whatever. It's seven cups, eight cups, whatever. But it's funny that, do you think he ever thought about doing the skate thing on one of the other ones?

He's like, okay. If I get six cops, I'll skate around with it. Like, I wonder if you ever. I'm surprised it didn't catch on. I mean, this is the, nobody's done it's a chance. I mean, yeah, I don't know. I mean, you could have, Bruce Cassidy could have done it. I mean, he could have gone and got his skates on halfway through the second period of the clenching game.

That's, he could have played the third period. Yeah, he could have. I'm putting my guys, I'm putting myself in. I'm going in. I'm playing goal. I'm going to find out. Everyone says that anyone can play goalie on the golden nights. I'm going to do it.

I'm going Lester Patrick. Anyway, okay, we'll leave it there. So when we get together next Thursday, man, who knows what's going to have happened? This is, like I said, this is the start of the aggressive season in trades and whatnot. So it could be a really interesting seven days when we do this again. So between now and then, though, we'd love to hear from you. Email us any questions, anytime. The athletic hockey show at gmail.com.

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