The Athletic Hockey Show - Have the Hurricanes become the 2010’s Sharks?

Episode Date: July 15, 2024

Ian and guest cohost Jesse Granger deep dive into The Athletic NHL’s way-too-early predictions for the 2024-25 season and discuss Connor McDavid sitting at No. 98 as the sole hockey player on ESPN��s top 100 professional athletes since 2000, Mitch Marner avoiding hockey-related questions following his Assist Foundation charity event, the Stars moving their regional coverage to their own free, ad-supported streaming service, and the guys answer listener questions about relegation and tampering rules to close things out.Hosts: Ian Mendes and Jesse GrangerExecutive Producer: Chris FlanneryProducer: Chris Flannery Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Hockey Show. We are back for a Monday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. As always, Ian Mendez with you and one of the co-host chairs, Mark Lazarus is living his best life right now. He's in Cancun. He's been posting picks on social media. He's in Cancun living it up, and that means Jesse Granger,

who's a staple of the Monday show, slides right in. And I need to know, in the middle of July, is Jesse Granger living his best life? Actually, no, you're not because you're on this podcast with me. So no, you're not. It could be worse. Could be worse. I'm having a pretty good summer so far, getting out on the golf course, as you know,

playing some hockey last night. That was fun. So lots of hockey and golf. I'm trying to stay fit in the summer to burn off all the pounds you put on during hockey season. Yeah. Well, like here we are. We're recorded this is the 15th of July. Like, we can stick a flag in it definitively and say,

this is the dog days of summer in the hockey world, right? Like the next six weeks even, the news is going to be pretty sparse, isn't it? Yeah, it feels like all the moves of consequence that are going to happen have happened. Well, except for in Columbus, where Aaron Portsline, who pretty much every Sunday has his Sunday gathering column for Blue Jackets fans. And Jesse, he had the latest on the, the blue. Jackets search for new head coach. Now, interestingly enough, the way he explained it and reported last week, he said, look, Todd McClellan, it fell apart. That was the guy they wanted. But it sounds like they couldn't hammer out an agreement. Now, whether that was the Kings owing him some money

or the jackets or whatever, do you not find that odd? Like, how, how could you not find a path here if you're L.A.? Right? Very, very odd. Especially because it's not like the coach counts under the salary cap. There's a cap hit. Like, when it comes to coaches, it feels like they'll, like you can always just make it work. I mean,

some teams are paying like three coaches at a time because they fire him so quick. It just, I, it seems like if that was your guy, you should have got it. And honestly, just my opinion is I think I'd rather have him

than the two candidates remaining. It's going to be interesting to see how it shakes out. But yeah, it's very odd. Yeah. And the other two candidates that Portsline is reporting, we'll go to Columbus this week, Dean Everson, Jay Woodcroft will go in.

Listen, we all know we don't need to rehash what happened with the Jackets last fall when they hired Mike Babcock and you didn't even run a practice. But what do you think the due diligence has to be here if you're Don Waddell in the Jaggants? Like you, the due diligence process has to be so thorough, right?

Like you can't even find a bone. Forget the skeletons in the closet. I'm not sure you can find any bones here and go ahead with the candidate. Like, this has to be perfect, doesn't it? Yeah, yeah. And I also think they probably should and it seems like they are leaning towards candidates that don't have like an extensive background that needs to be checked. Yeah.

It's, yeah, I mean, like the Babcock hiring, it didn't matter how like, sure, they probably did their due diligence with that. But you knew that there was the potential for issues. And then it happened obviously way quicker than they experienced. but I think that you look at the candidates that are that are left and they haven't to this point had any incidents that would make us question those hires. So yeah, I agree. They can't get this wrong again. And I think that at least on the off ice issue side, it looks like they should be fine with these two. But on the ice to me is where I have more questions.

But usually like you want your head coach in place, you know, certainly at the drive. but by free agency so that the guys that you're signing, and in this case, what, they want out, they got what, Sean Monaghan? And like, like, you got to make sure that the coach is aligned philosophically with the roster, don't you? Like, like, now it's kind of like, okay, now we're, now we're going to reverse engineer.

We're going to build the roster and then find the coach that fits. Rather, like, oftentimes you see, you know, try to marry the two things. But, they don't really have a choice, do they? In July. Yeah. Right. It is the sequence of it is odd. I think it just depends.

I think some coaches want more say in the roster building. I think some like just in Vegas covering the Golden Knights for seven years. Gerard Gallant, the first coach, wanted nothing to do with roster building. Like I'll show up. Don't even ask me if like you think we should find this guy. Like I'll show up and coach the guys we have. And that's it. It doesn't want anything to do with roster building.

And then there are some coaches that are a lot more involved. and like obviously aren't calling the shots. It's not like the NFL where you've got a GM slash head coach, but I do think that some coaches are more involved. So I would bet there are coaches out there that are hired and still have nothing to do with free agency. So I guess it's not that big of a deal. Yeah.

It's anyway, but never a dull day for Aaron Portsline in Columbus. Even the middle of July guy is covering a coaching. And there's the line thing that we talked about last week too. Right. And again, he's on results. Like I would say of all the teams in the league in the middle of July, it's not the dog days of summer for club. Like that's the most interesting team in the league right now.

No head-goons with unfinished business, yeah. Yes. And pretty big pieces of business to finish. So one of the things we did with the athletic last week as we talk about the dog days in summer, it's time for the way to early predictions. And so basically Jake Leonard, who's one of our NHL editors, set up a Google doc. or Google forums, I guess.

And, hey, we all had to fill out questions on who do you think is going to win the Stanley Cup? And who's going to win the President's trophy and this and that and the surprise team and yada, yada, yada. So with the caveat, Jesse, that this is way too early, almost 50% almost half of our writers and experts with the athletic selected the Edmonton Oilers as your 2025 Stanley Cup champs. And I ask you this, is that just based on the, hey, Florida just went to the. cop lost and came back at one, well, clearly that's going to happen to the Oilers here. Probably. Like, I didn't vote for the Oilers, so I can't put, like, I don't know inside their minds what their reasoning was, but I had the same exact thought you did of, well, I mean, the NHL is a

copycat league. The GMs just copy each other, whoever wins that they try to build their team after that team. And apparently that's what we're doing too. We're just going to go with the same storyline, the team that lost. I understand. I picked, I did pick Edmonton to. win the president's trophy. So I'll say I am high on the oilers like everyone else. It's the logical

choice. I will say that I went into these predictions. The preseason predictions, I take a lot more serious. I'm like, I like really drill into it. Which team do I think is going to? These ones, I tried to have some fun. I tried to bring the readers some more interesting team names. I picked the devils to win the cup in our way to early predictions. And I think I was the only one that chose them. Do I think the devils have the most likely chance of winning the cup of any team in the league? No, absolutely not. But I think they can win the cup and it sounds like fun. And I just wanted to have a little more fun and go off the board with these.

So I did not vote for the Oilers. Did you pick the Oilers? Okay. So can I just peel back the curtain and explain what happened when I tried to fill out the Google form? Yes. So I fill out the form. Okay? I fill out the form.

I go to click submit and then you know the, can you please prove you're not a robot? Right. It comes up. I'm like, yeah, of course I'm not. a robot. Sure, I'm a little bit dull and boring, but I'm not a robot. I can easily prove I'm not. And it's like, the first one I think was click every image that has a motorcycle. Yep. And you click it. You're like, sorry, you didn't pass. And I'm like, what? What did I miss like a side view mirror or something? And like, you know, so the next one comes up and it's the crosswalk thing.

And I'm like, now I can't tell what's going on. And I didn't pass that one. Then there was one for a bicycle pick all. And I didn't. Jesse, I couldn't beat the system. And I kept and I'm like, okay, I'm out. I'm out. So I didn't even get to vote in this. Now, I would have picked the Oilers. I would have picked the Oilers if you weren't a robot. If I wasn't a robot, does anybody, this has ever happened to anybody else where like, okay, I get it like the first time. I've failed once, but I've never failed more than once on them. I couldn't stop failing. It was three. It was, it was, I think it was motorcycles, crosswalks and bicycles. I'm like, okay, the next one is usually traffic lights, right? Yep, yep. Whatever. And I'm like,

okay, I can't do this. I'm out. Maybe I'm a cyborg. But I was interested. I was like, okay, I wonder who picked New Jersey. So now I know it was you. The other team that got a little bit of love, the Nashville Predators, who I think everyone would say,

if you had to pick the team that kind of won the summer, right? The summer winner, I mean, Utah is pretty close. A lot of people like what Utah did. But I think Nashville kind of loading up with your boy, Marsha, so we see. Stamco's, you know, all of the people. Yeah, exactly. Brady Shea to solidify that back end.

They re-up UC Soros. They kind of have all the pieces there. Were you surprised that Nashville got like Stanley Cup love? No. I think that we, I think we should be changing our mindset on way rosters are built a little bit. Because I think we've sort of looked down on the teams that win free agency. And like I,

like Kelly McCrimmon here in Vegas said the Golden Knights, obviously didn't sign anyone and watched six players leave as UFAs. And he said a lot of mistakes are made on July 1st when this kind of money. And he's not wrong. There were a lot of contracts signed on July 1st that are going to be mistakes. But I also think that we for so long have said, no, you build through the draft, you make smart decisions. You don't just go spend a bunch of money. Well, what team has gone out and made the biggest moves and spent the most money of anyone in the league?

It's the golden nights, the team I cover here in Vegas. And they want a cup doing it. And you look at Tampa Bay and Colorado, they were very aggressive. They made some big moves before they, not quite like Vegas. But I do think that in for whatever reason, GMs being more aggressive, it is proven to work. And it's not just you're just chasing and signing all these guys and they're going to be a disaster. And I think that the winner of free agency is sometimes looked down upon. And I think we should stop doing that.

Now, we'll see if it works for Nashville. I think they've got all the ingredients. You mentioned all the great signings. They still have got Philip Forsberg, one of the best. goal scores in the league. Saros doesn't have to stand on his head every night. If he gives up more than two, it's over. That team is awesome. I can't wait to watch them. I'll say this. I didn't pick Nashville, but in terms of what team am I going to be switching to on the NHL package to try to watch the most games every night? It's the Nashville Predators. I want to see what that team looks

like on the ice. So I'm excited for them. I think they're going to be good. And I think that the philosophies of how we build teams is slightly changing over the last few years. Okay. You're a Western Conference guy, meaning like you, you know, you cover Western Conference team. You're in your Pacific time zone. So when we look at the West and we have the super heavyweights, right? Colorado, Edmonton, Dallas. I think it's fair to put Vegas in there because they've been so good for so long.

Are you putting Nashville in that super group? Like, are they there? Are they in that tier? Or they are in the Vancouver tier? Are they ahead of it? Like, what's that what's that power ranking look like? It's, yeah, I mean, it's tough to say, because we haven't seen them on the ice. We don't know how Stamcoaston Marsha and all these guys are going to fit. But to me, I would say, man,

Colorado, Dallas, Edmonton, Vegas. That's the first tier. 1, 2, 3, 4. Yeah. Yeah. And then Vancouver, Nashville, Winnipeg. And maybe L.A. I mean, L.A. didn't exactly have the best offseason,

but they're a great defensive team that was right there. So I would say Nashville's in that second tier with Vancouver and Winnipeg and possibly the Kings for me. And then one of the other questions we got asked is, okay, who's a surprise playoff team for you? And this would have been, again, if I was not a robot, I would have picked this team. It would have been the Utah Hockey Club

because I think a lot of people looked at them last year and thought they were kind of hanging around the playoff picture into January until the relocation rumors came up and then their season sort of spiraled out of control. And I like what they did in the offseason with the Marino and the Surgachev, right? Like they bolshed up the defense, which was a huge question mark. I love the young talent on that team with Clayton.

I mean, he's not young anymore, but Clayton Keller and Logan Cooley. And, you know, like all like I love the Dylan Gunther kid. Like they have all these pieces. I kind of feel like with a new look and a new feel and a new feel. that's my dark horse playoff team was that did you also go utah on that question of who's the dark horse playoff team i did and yeah 53% of the the voters did so we we were pretty overwhelmed and the next closest was was washington at 18% so it was a pretty overwhelming choice yeah i totally agree with everything you said i think that the coyotes were already a tough

team to play against like they didn't win a ton of games last year but i every coyote's game i watched last year was a battle. And then you add Sergachev and Marino to the defense. Like, they are going to be tough to play. Like, nobody is going to look forward to going in there. Then you add in the new building that none of these players have been in. I have seen it in Vegas. I've seen it in Seattle. Nunes helps a lot. And I wrote that in the store, like never underestimate the impact of a fresh start. And the Utah team, even though it's technically the coyotes. It's brand new team, new logo, new city, new arena. There are going to be players on that team that step up and level up into a different tier of what player they were last year. It's going to happen. You saw it in

Seattle. In Vegas is obviously the extreme example because they had like 20 guys do it. And that's how you go to the cup final in your first year. But I am fully expecting one or two players on that team to be a different player, a different tier player than we usually see them as. And I absolutely think that they're a good pick for our course to make the playoffs. Man, you know, You talk about newness and stuff. Like, you know that feeling when you step into a new car? There's like that new car smell. Yep.

Maybe you should bottle that up. Like, is there, like, that new arena smell? Like, there's just something different. Like, you walk in, like, when you walk in and you step into a brand new car and you drive off the lot or you stuff, just there's a different energy, right? You're just feeling like something totally different. I'm with you. I think Utah, it's sitting right there for them.

Yeah. We are human beings. These players are human beings. and there is something to, you're the coyotes, you've been a joke for however long you're playing in a joke of an arena. You don't enter the season with the same optimism that I guarantee the same players going into this year in Utah. There's a totally different optimism simply because everything's new than they had the previous years going in. I love how you point out the players are human beings after I failed a test as a robot.

These are human beings. I'm not tested them. I haven't given any of the Utah hundred. hockey team players and robot. They have real feelings and emotions. They're real people. You know, we actually have a question on Twitter that nicely dovetails into the next part of our

all too early predictions poll that we took. And this one came on X from Alex, who I think is a big senators fan. And Alex said to post to us saying, on the Monday podcast, I want a 15-minute segment of Jesse Granger breaking down Linus Olamarks's goaltending style. and how it guarantees the senators' playoff chances.

And the reason why I bring that up, everyone also had to pick a dark horse Stanley Cup contender. Jesse Granger went Ottawa. Yes, the senators who have missed the playoffs in seven straight years, Granger's like, but now you did say earlier, you wanted to be a little crazy, a little fun in the summer stuff. But hey, can you give some optimism for the people in Ottawa? I like everything they've got in Ottawa.

And look, I am on the bandwagon and I've, trust me, I've, I, the comments section is a mix between, uh, senators fans trying to name me mayor of Ottawa and also them warning me. Why, why, why on earth would you ever want to latch yourself to this franchise? And I'm, it's probably not going to end well, but I am on the Ottawa bandwagon. And then, and what was, I was the only one to pick them as the, the dark horse, which is not surprising. And then I go down to when we, when we, when we had to. pick the Eastern Conference playoff field. And 18.8% of people picked them to even make the playoffs, which to me is, that's shocking. I thought there would be a lot more that picked them to make the playoffs.

But it's one in five, yeah. Not exactly confidence inspiring for my Dark Horse pick. But I like Ottawa. I think that they've got young scoring. I think scoring is not going to be, I don't think scoring is going to be an issue for this team. I think keeping the puck out of its own net will. And when I look at every, I talked about it a little bit.

last week, I think people are overestimating how much Boston helped Linus Olmark. I think it's more the other way around. I think Allmark made the Bruins defense look better than it is, not the other way around. The Bruins defense made Allmark look better than he is. And you look at the senators and you see all the goals they gave up and you just, I feel like the general consensus is that's a bad defensive team. But when you look at the underlying metrics, the scoring chance is given up per game, the high danger chances given up per game.

And most important, expected goals given up per game, all of the, those underlying metrics are solid. They're not great. They're not a top five team in the league, but they're top half. Yeah. 15th, 15th in the league. And that's with having a sieve in net that you have no confidence in. And every time you give up a scoring chance, it's in the back of your net. That kills your confidence. I think you put a goalie back there that makes some of those saves, bails you out every once in a while. Not only does, I think it's for sure going to bring it up to that middle of the pack level. But I think it might even get better because now of a sudden you've got a team

playing with confidence that actually believes it can win because the goalie's making saves. I just, this has the potential to end poorly. I realize that. This is not without risk. The team hasn't made the playoffs in forever. But I like all the ingredients. I like everything they've got. I think Olmark was the perfect goalie to add because he's calm.

He's not a fiery guy that needs to be real competitive. Like those kind of guys, I think going into a team like that has the potential, like it's got a young team that doesn't know how to win yet. Maybe not the right combination, but I think Olmarks, the combination of his play style and his demeanor in net is perfect for what that team needs. And like I said,

I like everything they've got. I think they have a chance to be a really good team this year. Jesse Granger for mayor. I like it. Ottawa, you have them in there as a dark horse down the cup contender. Now, we were also asked the question, who could be the most disappointing team? And the team that you cover now, the Vegas Golden Knights,

in a tie with the Carolina Hurricanes. Jesse, I'm going to say, I'll let you talk about Vegas because that's really your lane way. And you can speak with a great degree of, I think, expertise on the Golden Knights. Carolina has entered the sort of San Jose Sharks territory for me. Remember the sharks of the 2010s? My God, every year they should be.

And I don't want to fault them because when you run a program in which you're legitimately a Stanley Cup contender for five years in a row, you should be proud of that. And sometimes I think we're too quick to criticize. But that sort of feeling of, I don't know if we're just sort of tired of like fatigue, hurricanes fatigue. But I think that's partially the reason why a lot of us picked Carolina as a potentially a disappointing team. I think they've become the San Jose sharks.

Right? Yeah. I think they also didn't have. the best off season, right? We saw a bunch of teams load up with additions and Carolina lost some players. That could be. That could be. But now, where do you come out? Like,

Vegas being on that list, I mean, they've really, they've had one truly disappointing season, and that was the year they missed the playoffs altogether. Outside of that, hard to say that this team has been underwhelming or disappointing, but what would constitute a disappointing season? Just missing the playoffs,

I guess. I think missing the playoffs. I think another first round exit would be disappointing for this team, considering the window. This, like, this isn't a young team that built through the draft and has years and years of, of contending still left on the table. I think the window is tight for this team. I personally still think it's open, but I think it's getting very close to closing with some of the age of these core players. So I think if they were to not win another playoff series, that would be a disappointment. And I'll start by saying this. betting against the golden nights is a very good way to lose a lot of money for the last seven years.

The team figures out ways to win. You don't have a lot of success expecting failure out of this team. However, I understand why they received a tie for the most votes in terms of disappointment because I see a very clear path to disappointment on this team. Will it happen? That's totally another question. But I see the path for it. And the reason being, they lost a lot of depth, a lot of depth this year through free

They didn't see the loss. Six players. It's not just Jonathan Marcia, so who was the big people, everybody talked about. They lose Chandler-Stevenson to Seattle on a big deal. And again, I don't blame the Golden Knights for letting him go. That was a seven-year contract. I probably wouldn't have paid Chandler-Stevenson that kind of money, but good for him. And he's a huge player. I mean, he's the second-line center for this team. You lose him. You lose William Carrier, who's been a huge part of the fourth line. He's a physical presence down there. They lose Michael Amadio, who scored a bunch of goals for him last year. They lose Anthony Mantha, who was a deadline edition. They lose all these forwards. And the reason I bring this up is

because the Golden Knights are injury prone. Mark Stone has only played 55% of the games over the last three seasons. He has barely played half the year, three years in a row, and he's the most important forward on the team. Jack Eichol has missed significant time, not a week. We're talking months, and he's missed that every season with the Golden Knights. He always has something come up. This team, because of its age, Alex Petrangelo, has missed significant time each of the last few seasons.

Now, the past few years, they've been able to overcome it. The one year they missed the playoffs, it's because they couldn't overcome it. They were too injured. They was the year Robin Lennar was hurt to, Annette. They couldn't overcome it last year and the year before that when they won the top. They had the same amount of injuries just decimated by them, but they were able to overcome them, one, because of depth, two, because they were able to make huge additions at the deadline to supplement the guys that were out.

And it's like, okay, well, Mark Stone's out, but we're going to add Noah Hanifin and Tomash hurdle to the lineup. All of a sudden, we can survive to the playoffs until Marks don't get healthy. Well, the Golden Knights are running out of real estate to spend at the deadline. They don't have a first round pick for the next two years. They've only got two first round prospects in the pipeline. And one of them is Trevor Connolly, who they just drafted, who I don't expect his trade value to be all that high at the deadline. Yeah.

And so I think they're going to have a harder time adding at the deadline than they've ever had because I think they've been spending and spending and spending and spending. and the bill is finally due. They don't have a ton to spend. So they're not going to be able to supplement their team that way. And then the depth, you have players like Brendan Brisson and Jonas Rombier, who have been great at stepping in when players get hurt. Well, now they're already in the lineup. They're like they aren't the replacements.

They are in the lineup already. So when people get hurt, you're going to have to dig even further into that. And they don't have a particularly deep prospect pool because they've traded most of their picks away and with good reason. It's worked out for them. But I just see a lot of things that have been kind of, they've been buying and buying and buying. You're finally starting to see it catch up to them.

The way we've seen with Tampa the last couple of years. And I see if the Golden Knights have another injury-plagued season, which they've had three in a row. So it wouldn't be surprising if they do have an injury-plag season. There could be trouble for them. Okay. Well, yeah, I mean, you lay it out. When you lay it out that way, I can see the path to a disappointing season.

But still, I think most fan bases would trade, you know, If this is the start of the decline, like you said, kind of where Tampa is where that the rent is due at some point. Most fan bases would be like, give me that. Give me that five-year window where we win a title. We, you know, we're right there. We get to another cup final, all that. All that stuff. One other thing I want to hit on from that all too early predictions piece that we did with the athletic is the coaching carousel and kind of who is on the hottest seat. and the name that came up at number one is Derek Lalonde in Detroit. Now, I wonder if part of this is, okay, well, all the other hot seats have all been extinguished. Like everywhere else, it feels like 23, 24 jobs have changed hands in the last year and a bit.

Derek Lalonde has had two seasons in Detroit. And in year two, the team improved by 11 points and missed the postseason by exactly one point. So I ask you this, Jesse, is he actually on the hot seat or is he just on the seat that's like tepid because everything else is ice cold? Yeah, I think it's 100% the case of, well, every other coach that might get fired already did. So it's a brand new coach. So they're not going to fire him right off. Like with the amount of turnover we've had with NHL coaches, it's unbelievable. And it doesn't leave you very many options on these polls. when I was going through the list, it's like, okay, all these guys were hired in the last year.

And I'm just going to assume they aren't going to get fired in the first year of their job. So we only are left with a few teams. And Detroit is the team that has the expectations that hasn't done it. So you look at like there are plenty of other teams of expectations, but we've seen them do it. This Detroit team has not made the playoffs. And everyone expects them to make the playoffs. They expect them to take the step this year. They kind of expected it last year.

They almost did it. I think this year, that's just the feeling. Now, in terms of is he actually on the hot seat, I don't know the dynamics of Izerman and all that well enough. He could be very safe in his job for all we know. I just think the outside, it's the expectations that Detroit has. And to kind of go back onto my Ottawa bandwagon a little bit, I'm surprised at the confidence that Detroit will make the playoffs compared to Ottawa. I mentioned that Ottawa only got 18% of the vote. Detroit's all the way up there, 31%.

They're like basically the top seven teams are all like 90% or above. We pretty much know who they're going to be. And then there's that one last spot in the east that everyone kind of is up for grabs according to all of our opinions. And it's Detroit, the Islanders, Capitals, Ottawa, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, all kind of split. Why do you think the confidence in Detroit is so much higher than it is in a team like Ottawa? I think it's because they missed by one point last year. I do.

And I think that thing was such a turtle derby amongst Washington and Pittsburgh. and Buffalo. Like, they were right there. Whereas Ottawa was never really in it, right? Ottawa was kind of hanging out with Columbus for a good chunk of the season. So I think that's why. But I've, you know, paid attention to your writing and a lot of things that you've said about Detroit's goaltending, which you're not sold on at all.

And so. Yeah. If you can stack all four of them in the net at together at the same time, solid save percentage. Yeah. I mean, they like, again, I think Ottawa and Detroit to me are a comparison. terrible teams. They're both young, talented teams, haven't taken the step yet. One added a Vezna winner in Linus Olmark, who's been the best goal in the league for the last two years statistically.

And the other one added Cam Talbot, who isn't terrible, but is very, he's 36 years old, 35. He's getting up there and hasn't been a number one on a team that has done much in a while. And including last year in L.A., his statistics were good, but I think the Kings are, I think the Kings make life easier on their goalies than most teams. I think you look at David Ridge's stats behind that team. I think it's a product of the King's defense more than it is Camtow. But we're going to find out this year in Detroit. As we hit the dog days of summer, the athletic isn't the only outlet where we're kind of

looking at some of these dog days type of stories, right? Like I'm talking the, hey, here's your two early predictions. Now, ESPN. It's kind of a dog, like, I mean, they have the SPs. Like this is the kind of a dead period, right? As you get the All-Star break and Major League Baseball, all of that. They have a new kind of feature that's going to be rolled out here. Jesse, and I'm curious to get your opinion on this.

They are already, and I know it's only 2024, but they are ranking the greatest athletes of the 21st century, meaning, I guess, January 1st, 2000 to now. Your body of work in that window. And today, they released kind of the back-core. So 75 to 100. There's exactly one hockey player on the list, and it's Connor McDavid,

and it's Connor McDavid at number 98. Connor McDavid comes in at number 98. And the reason why I bring that up is he's behind the likes of Derell Revis, Rory McElroy, Aaron Rogers, Roy Halliday. Like, these are all great. These are all, Kauai Leonard. like these are all great players.

Do you think that this is a case of, boy, hockey gets buried, that Connor McDavid is below Kauai Leonard, is below Aaron Rogers, Roy Halliday, Daryl Revis, the best athletes of the 24th century. Does McDavid not deserve to be a little higher than number 98? I mean, yeah, I would think he's probably higher, but I think you're spot on in terms of why it happens. it's hockey is clearly the fourth of the four major sports,

at least in the U.S. Obviously in Canada, it's a different story. It's why I love going to Canada so much because you go in a bar in Canada, the hockey games are all on. I don't have to beg to get the hockey game on the TV. It's, you look at those players and, okay, you could argue, you could argue, well, Aaron Rogers has a Super Bowl and Kauai Leonard has an NBA championship.

And Conmer me, David, does not. have a Stanley Cup, but you could also argue, well, how long have either of those players been the best player overall in their entire sport? And Connor McDavid has certainly been that for a while in hockey. So yeah, I'm a little surprised in terms of just being that low. But I'm not surprised that there's, that he's the hockey player on the list because who else would go? I mean, like Sydney Crosby should probably be up there. But other than that, I can't think of another hockey player to add to the list if Connor McDavid being a 98 is the standard.

Okay, so I'm going to ask you, I think there's two other hockey players that are going to end up on the list. One is Crosby. I think the other has to be Ovechkin, doesn't it? Yeah. Doesn't it? I mean, he's chasing Gretzky's goal record, I guess, but it's like

800 goals. How many seasons has Alex Ovechkin been the best player in hockey? I don't know. How many seasons was Kauai Leonard, the best player in the NBA? He was never the best player. It's clearly a different hurdle, a clearly a lower bar for the NBA to get on there. Because you're right.

Kauai Leonard probably was never the best player. It's probably been, I mean, I'm not a huge NBA fan, but LeBron James, I feel like has been the best player since he got in the league. So Kauai's been there that whole time. But I just think that the standard for hockey is clearly higher. You're right. Ovechkin will probably get on just because of the goals. but Ovechkin shouldn't be above Connor McDavid.

I mean, I don't know. I guess we're caught in the last 25 years, so I guess he should be. Okay. So how high do you think Crosby ends up on this list? McDavid's 98. We're going to guess that Ovechkin is like, let's say, 55 or 50.

He might get a little higher. Like, remember, if the voters in this look at goals, like they're home runs. Right. than maybe Ovechkin's in the top 30. But I think no. He should not be higher than Sydney Crosby. He's higher than Crosby.

He's high. I don't think so. I don't think so. I don't think so. But how high does Crosby crack the top 20 of athletes of the 21st century? I mean, based on everything you've told me about where these players are ranked, I'm going to say probably not. He should, he deserves to be. He is the, he is the face of hockey over this.

span and he's done everything a high right like there there's nothing that you can do as a hockey player that sidney crosbie has he's been the best player in the league for a long time he's still one of the best players in the league even as old as he is he's got multiple Stanley cups he's got an Olympic gold medal for his country like I the dude's done everything there is to do he's the best hockey player in the world over the last 20 years like he should probably be in the top 20 but based on everything you've told me I'm going to guess probably not what do you think I don't think he's going to because if you start to think about it, LeBron will be in there, right?

Right. Tiger will be in there. Tom Brady, Peyton Anning. Tom Brady, Serena, Federer, Nadal, Joker, right? All those tennis players should probably you just said,

Lori is like way down there in the bottom for golf, though. Like, I don't know, I'm a golfer guy. I was golfers more tennis players. I was surprised Rory was that low. I thought he would have been a bit higher, a little bit higher. But I guess maybe the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,

drought has heard of it. Anyway, regardless, like, I don't know that that Crosby is going to get into the top. You know who I think is going to get into the top 20, not to take this too far off the hockey talk? Are you curious to see? Where does Shohay Otani end up? I think he's going to end up in the top 20. But, okay, I do not watch baseball. I'll qualify this with the only showtai knowledge I have is what they show on, like, ESPN. He's only been like a top player for like a few years, though, right? Yeah. Yeah. But I feel like. been good for a lot longer than show hey otani's right yeah but i think that i i'm curious i here's my prediction o'tani will end up ranked higher on this list than crosby oh that would be

that that's a disaster that's my that's my prediction i'm not saying i agree with it that's my prediction that'll be a disaster i hope i hope that happens so we can laugh at it because that exactly we can come back in in a couple of weeks and and laugh about that a couple of other things I wanted to hit on here on this month. Here I thought it was the dog days of summer. We got a lot to, we got a lot to chew hunt. So late last week, Jesse, the Toronto Maple Leafs forward Mitch Martyr had a charity event that he's done. I believe this is now six years in a row that he's done something for the Mitch

Martner Assist Foundation. And every year he has kind of a gala, golf tournament. And he's always had a media availability. So, hey, I'm doing this. Come on down. bring your cameras, reporters, you can ask me whatever you want. This year there was a little bit of a change. Mitch Martner basically at his camp told the major outlets, stay away.

He did grant a few interviews to kind of local general news stations with the caveat, you can't ask me any hockey related questions. Don't ask me about my contract. Don't ask me about the Leafs. Don't ask me about it. What do you read into that? Like a guy that is always invited the media to attend something in the summer, does that give you a window into,

I don't feel like this is going to have a positive outcome of him staying in Toronto long term? Well, I think I don't know about what it tells me about the future, about like where he's actually going to play. But I think it shows you that the pressure and the just the outside noise is getting to him a bit and that it's bothering him. And that's not ideal in terms of like if we expect him to perform at his highest level, that that team as a whole didn't perform at its best in the playoffs. And I just think that it shows you like you said it perfectly,

a window into his psyche. And right now it's clear that this entire situation is bothering him more than it has been in the past because it's not like this is brand new. Like we haven't talked about Marner getting moved from the Leafs. Like we've been doing this for years. and it hadn't bothered him in the past. It's clearly coming to a head now. It's clearly bothering him more than it has.

In terms of should he have done that, I wouldn't have suggested it. I think it makes it more of a big deal than if you had just answered the questions. He's trying to avoid those questions to create that are going to create controversy. I feel like him saying, I'm not answering any questions, actually created more than if he had just answered them. But I think it tells you that he is frustrated with this situation. It is bothering him. And whether it's through an extension or him getting moved, it seems like he is yearning for a resolution to it.

Yeah. And look, he holds a lot of the cards in this one because he's UFA next summer. So if you're him, you're like, hey, I'm just going to show up. I'm going to play out the contract and I got all the leverage and all the power in the world, right? But I wonder, do you like, like there were times last year, Jesse. that he just declined immediate request. Just said, hey, and they would say, hey, Mitch isn't talking right now.

He's on a break, all that stuff. I wonder if that's the approach he takes all season. Now, theoretically, you're supposed to get fined, right? If you don't make players available and whatever. I wonder, though, if he's just of the mindset of, look, this is just going to turn into a circus, you know, if I were him, what I would do is say, okay, at the opening of training camp, maybe not, at some point in training camp, I say, listen,

we're going to have one availability. I will say, I will answer the questions one time. And then out of respect for the negotiations, I'm going to ask that we just keep everything enough. But I would do it one time, one time. I agree. And I think that a lot of times with negotiations or even like injury, stuff, I feel like a lot of times the NHL hurts itself and players hurt themselves more by.

being quiet and not saying anything, whereas if they would just be honest and say, like, it would just be easier on everyone. It's easier than trying to hide it and trying to avoid it for the entire season. I totally agree with you. Be super open, honest. Talk about it. Talk about how you're feeling. And then I think I'm not in Toronto.

I think it would, if you have a press conference like that where you're very open, maybe there's like, maybe they actually will let you go the rest of the season without asking constant contract questions, like, because you've answered the questions. that they have rather than everybody just wondering what's happening. I think a lot of times the speculation can be worse than if you are just are open and honest with people. So we'll see. Before we get, there's a couple of mailbag questions I want to get to before we wrap up this

episode. I do want to point out something that the Dallas Stars did last week that I'm interested in because we're in this era where a lot of the, you know, we all saw that that Bali sports sort of imploded and they were the regional rights holders for so many teams in professional sports. The Dallas stars last week, Jesse, becoming, according to Sportico, the Dallas Stars become the first of the big four sports

teams in North America to move its local broadcasts from a regional sports network to a streaming only option. So the Dallas Stars have signed up a seven-year contract with a company to launch a

streaming service called Victory Plus. It's going to be a completely free ad-supported service. So all the Dallas Stars games that aren't on TNT or aren't on ESPN that are available for the fans in Dallas will be available on a streaming service. That again, they're saying it's going to be a free service. It's not like you've got to subscribe. Now, I'm sure they've run that I'd be so curious to know. Like, because now you own the broadcast, like, there's obviously revenue generating.

opportunities for you there. But do you think that this is the tip of the iceberg that we're going to now see? It's going to start with Dallas, and we're going to see a lot of teams going down the streaming only platform. Yes, I do. And I absolutely love it. So Vegas did something not quite as extreme, but along the same lines just so. I'm speaking from experience, seeing how this has worked out for the Golden Knights.

So the Golden Knights were on one of the regional. sports channels that had financial issues prior to last season, they left that channel and are now on just the local channel 13 ABC, whatever. That's what the games are broadcasts on, but they also have streaming. They offer streaming alongside the TV product. And it's a very similar thing to Dallas, but it is a subscription. It's not free. It's called nighttime plus is what they call it out here. I use nighttime plus quite a bit last, this past season, and I love it. And I think that the biggest issue with the regional sports networks was none of them had streaming options. And when you're not at your house and this day and age, nobody's watching sports

on their TV. Like everybody's, you've got it on your phone. You've got on your laptop. You've got it on your tablet when you're out on the go. The nighttime plus that the Golden Knights had made it so much easier to pull up a Golden Knights game and watch it live wherever I was, whenever I needed it, it was very, very easy and easy to use. So I think that the streaming, assuming, because you're going to have the traditional customers that just want it on their TV and assuming those kind of people can find the streaming service on their TV. To me, that's the only issue. If the streaming service is hard to get on the TV and your traditional older customers that don't want to mess with a tablet and don't want to mess with their phone, they just want to watch it on TV like they always have,

As long as they can find that easy enough, I think it's a home run. I can't see any negatives. I think it's the way of the future. I think all teams will have it soon because it's just better. You know, the only thing I have with streaming is, and I watch a ton of games and events on streaming, is the lag time is sometimes 20 seconds, 30 seconds before or, sorry, later than somebody watching over the air. and if you're in a group chat with people, there's nothing worse than getting a text like, holy smokes, I can't believe it.

What a play. And you're like, what are you talking about? And then 20 seconds later, ah, like, you know what I mean? Or like, that type of thing, I try and flip my phone down. Don't fly the Twitter. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So that's the only part. But I'm with you. I think the option, like the younger, like if you're kind of 35. five and under, you're a streamer and you're a cord cutter and you were, or you never were with cords. Like you, you never really had, you know, so I, I think that is the way, like,

and a lot of NHL teams, I know in San Jose, and I think in LA, but certainly in San Jose, like they've launched their own audio network. That's basically, there's no more traditional AM radio broadcast. It's all on the Sharks audio network, right? Like, it just seems like this is the, this is the way we're going. I'm curious to see how it works out. for Dallas. Like how do you, how do you make that money back when you're giving it for free? That's, that's my question. How do you monetize it? There must be through the ads, through in-game stuff. But that's, that's, you're absolutely right. It feels like it's, it's the wave of the future. Okay, let's wrap up. And we're going to technically make this

our little Granger things presented by BetMGM, the exclusive betting partner with the athletic, but we're going to open up. We got some questions via social media. I read one earlier when Alex asked you to sort of break down Linus Allmark. I've got a couple of other ones here. Here's a post we got on X from a username Twist who says, here's a thought for you guys.

Could you ever see this happening? The NHL expands to 40 teams, but they have a promotion relegation system. So kind of like what you see in the EPL and soccer. You have different

tiers. And maybe you keep the number of NHL teams at 32, but there's eight relegation teams waiting in the wings, and maybe you get bumped down to the AHL for his season. I don't see it happening. I just, can you imagine all of a sudden one year, the Edmonton Oilers or the Toronto Maple Leafs have been, like Connor McDavid's relegated to the AHL,

and you know, you're going to see him playing in Bakersfield or, I don't know. Like, I love the outside of the box thing. I just, I don't know. I think it's, it's baked into the euro system and it's been that way for a long time. I don't know that we can recalibrate the North American system for relegation. I wish we could. I think it's a spectacular idea. I love the idea of relegation.

But what if I? Because the more sports is tanking and that immediately, there is not a proposal that will end tanking faster than relegation because that's an insane amount of revenue loss. And that's why it'll never happen. The owners will never agree to this because, wait a minute, you're telling me there's a chance that if my team sucks enough, I won't make any money next year because my team's in the HL, absolutely not. Think of the sponsorship losses like the not just ticket sales because people aren't going to want to pay the same price to go to an HL game. But you're like, you're going to lose millions of dollars of revenue. Teams in the Premier League. That's the reason you don't want to

get relegated because your budget is completely shot. You have to sell players if you get relegated because you literally can't afford to pay those players anymore. That's the reason it will never happen. The owners would never agree to setting up a system where they could potentially lose a bunch of money. But ignoring the reality of it, man, would it be fun? The games at the end of the season, if the Oilers are on the brink of relegation and Connor McDavid is on the brink of relegation, they're in last place or second to last, whatever. Their last couple games of the regular season are must watch TV. You go from games that nobody could possibly care about to you make those games the most watch games of the entire season, almost as much as the playoffs because you want to see

who gets relegated. Those are the most exciting games in English soccer, the games to avoid relegation. I think it would be absolutely amazing. It would get rid of tanking. It'll never happen for sure. Man, as a guy who's covered the auto with senators for the last seven years, I don't like this relegation talk. I'd be downed of the HL so fast it would make your head spin. I would lose the team I covered. I would lose them. But I love it. I love the outside the box ideas.

Okay, I got one more here. Another post we got from Jim. Jim Jerome has written to us and said, can you guys talk a little bit about some of these CBA rules that just constantly seem to be ignored? And what seems to be all over for Jim is the tampering. And come on, you're telling me that a free agent on July 1st signs within a couple of hours, you know, I guess we could talk to the Vegas reporter about salary cap shenanigans.

I was going to say, as someone who covers the Golden Knights, I don't know anything about ignoring rules. Yeah, what are you talking about? But how do you feel about on July 1st when you hear, okay, this guy's signing, or even before noon sometimes we hear this guy signing that, like a few years ago, they had a quote unquote legal tampering period. Do you remember this? It was like five days before free agency open. I don't mind that.

At least it's out in the open. And like, don't think that, I don't take us for stupid. We know that these conversations are happening, right? So why not just make it legal to tamper within a week? Right? I totally.

Yeah. Selfishly, I don't like the, oh, this guy's down to three. I hate that waiting for Pierre and Elliot to tweet out. Like, I just like it that they sign immediately as soon as the thing, like personally, just that's I prefer that they just announced. So I don't have a problem with the tampering, but they, it's clearly, they clearly aren't following the rules.

Anyone that's paying attention knows that. Yeah. Do they need to fix it? I don't know. I personally don't really care. But I do agree with that they're not following the rules the way that they're intended to be followed. No, no, not at all.

But I don't know if you're like, I mean, it's funny because in the last year or two, obviously the salary cap shenanigans have become a hot topic. Some of these quick July first signings. But I would say after this summer, the one that really seemed to get to stick with people is the tax differences now. Right. Between a Tampa and a Nashville or playing in Canada or playing in California, whatever. Like that would be the one. Like people, like, I do you think there's any way, so this, this current CBA expires in two seasons, they have two more seasons. So anyway, the owners or the players address this discrepancy, we'll call it.

Will they? I don't know. I think that they should definitely look into it. I think I said it on this show. It's impossible to deny that it's an advantage at this point. When you look at all the, like Tampa Bay, Vegas, Florida now, Dallas is. been in it every year. Nashville has been very good. There are so many teams in these tax in state. They don't have state taxes and they're killing it in the salary cap world. And I think

that the flat cap magnified that advantage because now everybody's pressed against the cap and Vegas is signing players for less than than Canadian teams are signing for because the player knows they'll bring more money home in the end. That's a huge advantage. I don't know how you fix it. I think I've proposed that maybe you make the salary cap like the total number. So say it's $83.5 million for Vegas. Well, whatever you're going to pay in taxes, you just add that percentage onto your cap. So if you're the Maple Leafs, you have $95 million or whatever, just the equivalent of it. I don't know if that works.

I am not smart enough mathematically to know if that's going to work out or if it's going to be a disaster. But I think that if there's a way to even the playing field, it should be. be done. I don't know if they will. I just think that it is impossible to deny that that's an advantage for these teams. It's not an over like Edmonton was one goal away from winning it this year and they've got taxes. So it's not like it's impossible to overcome it. But it is, it is a hurdle to overcome if you're a state, a team of state with Texas. Yeah, but I wonder for the Canadian teams like if you think of some of the biggest stars happen to be American, right? Austin Matthews, Brady Kachuk, you know, go down.

the list. Like, these guys are a hellabock. That's Demko. Demko, Besser, they're all Americans playing Canada, right? And even if you're not American and you're playing Canada, but you're getting paid in U.S. dollars living in a place where that dollar goes like, it's actually worth like

a dollar 30. That's a good point. There's something to be said for, okay, does that negate some of the tax difference if you're Austin Matthews and you look to buy a, you know, a three million dollar home in Canada in Toronto. Okay, the home's three million, but actually it's only going to cost me, you know, 2.3 or, you know, whatever the exchanges.

Like, that's, that's an advantage, right? So I just wonder who do you think would push for that more? The tax thing. The players are the owners like to sort of re-fay. I don't know. I would love to know. I would love to know. I mean, the players would be pumped either way, right?

That's just more money being able to be spent on players in general. So I don't think the players. That's what I think. Right. The owners, the question is, do the owners want to spend? Like, do some of these owners, like, if you told them, hey, you have 10 million extra dollars under the cap to spend. Do you want to spend another 10 million?

I think some of them would be like, hell yeah, I want to ice a better team. But I also think some of them would be like, I think I'd rather just keep it at 83 and I can use the excuse that that's all the money I can pay. Oh, I know. Exactly. You'll never get a uniform answer from owners or players, right? there'll always be outliers on either side. All right, well, listen, that hour flew by.

Here we were at the beginning of the show saying, oh, it's the dog days of summer. We're going to have nothing to talk about. Well, guess what? That 60 minutes just went by. It felt like 60 seconds. Didn't it? Yeah, so much Ottawa senators to talk about.

It's great. Exactly. Granger for mayor, by the way. That's going to be the campaign slogan. All right. Thanks, everybody. Thanks for Jesse, for sitting in for Laz. I think Laz and I should hopefully be back together at some point

next week we can knock another show out. I believe we're going to have Sean and Sean back later this week too for another episode of the athletic hockey show. Thanks for listening to the Monday show. Leave us a five-star rating and review. If you're enjoying the show, by the way, if you're listening on Spotify, you can now leave us comments on the episodes right there on Spotify. So take advantage of that. We'd love to hear from you there. That does it for the Monday show. And Jesse, myself, Las, some combination of three of us, we'll hit you up next week.