The Athletic Hockey Show - Have these Maple Leafs finally reached their end?

Episode Date: May 19, 2025

The NHL’s final four is now in place with the Hurricanes and Panthers in the East and the Oilers and Stars in the West. On today’s Monday episode, Max and Laz break down both Conference Finals and make their Stanley Cup picks. Before that, the guys discuss an all-too-familiar Game 7 thumping for the Maple Leafs and the inevitable changes to come in Toronto, including potential destinations for pending UFA Mitch Marner. Plus, thoughts on the “ruthless”, defending Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers, Mark Scheifele’s valiant performance in the Jets’ Game 6 loss to the Stars, and more. Hosts: Max Bultman and Mark LazerusExecutive Producer: Chris FlanneryProducer: Chris Flannery Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Hockey Show. Hey, everybody, Max Boltman here alongside Mark Lazarus for another episode of the athletic hockey show. We are just minutes removed, Laz from the end of the Leafs Panthers game seven. But really, I think we're about an hour and a half removed from it because that game was over a long time ago, a roaring second period from the Panthers. Leif's tried to make it interesting early in the third, did not go anywhere. And the ending is a rather familiar one. a thumping in game seven for the Leafs. And this one, the obvious question is,

will it finally be the one that sparks some major changes? Run it back. Let's run it back. We have this conversation every single spring, right? Is this the time we blow up the Leafs? And then everything calms down after a week or two, and they decide they're going to run it back. This was a good team. I won the division, yada, yada, yada.

I don't know, man. This feels like the end. This feels like the absolute end of this era of Leafs hockey. You absolutely cannot keep doing this. You have your fans who paid, you know, $3,000 to sit in the lower bowl, throwing jerseys on the ice mid-game, which not cool, by the way. You can get someone hurt doing that. This is, this is, it's not rock bottom because they were really good this year.

It's hard to describe something as rock bottom when you had 100 some odd points and you made it to the second round of the playoffs. But it feels like if it's not rock bottom, it's like a brick wall, right? Like you can't get past this. You can't keep going. It can't be more of the same. Yeah, they're not hitting the bottom. They're hitting their ceiling.

That's the very clear message that has been proven over and over and over again is that this core has a fairly defined ceiling. It doesn't make sense. It's not a real logical ceiling. They have several of the most talented players in the National Hockey League. But we are learning that for whatever reason, the chemistry just doesn't work. Whatever you want to call it, culture or character, like Will, you know, I don't know what, which one you pinpoint, but it doesn't work.

We've seen it over and over enough times to know it's not going to work. It's the kind of team that makes you start believing in stupid things like demons and ghosts. It is really, in some ways it's inexplicable because they are so talented and every year they're so good throughout the season. But then the same thing happens every time the plus. You could have guys who are good in the regular season and not playoff performers. And I think that's where we're at. And what's going to be interesting going forward is if and when they do start kind of disassembling this team is do these guys go on to have playoff success elsewhere. Or is Mitch

Marner always going to have trouble in the playoffs? Is Austin Matthews going to have trouble in the playoffs? Is this a Leaf specific thing? Or is it they just happen to have guys that are not well suited to playing a playoff to caliber team like the Panthers who are made for the playoffs? The Panthers were

built not for the regular season for the playoffs and the Leifes were made for the regular season and not the playoffs. Well, it's interesting you bring that up. Mitch Marner's played, going into tonight, it played 82 playoff games in his, sorry, 69 playoff games in his career. How many points you think he's had in those 69 playoff games? I'm going to guess it's a lot.

Like, it's not like, it's like, there's empty calories. I'm going to guess it's like 65 points or something like that. Yeah, 63, right, yeah. Oh, man, almost nailed it. Yeah. My feeling on this is it has a lot more to do. And it, we talk about like, they're not playoff players, right? I don't think it's quite that simple, although it kind of is.

Like, it's hard to articulate. A lot of those is coming in games. games one through three. We've talked about this before, one through four, right? Early in a series. They go up to O in this series. They were up two games and two goals in game three and they lose this series. I mean, it's like the leafiest thing that ever leafed. That you're right. It's the kind of thing that makes you believe in demons, right? Because I think there has to be some, I'm not qualified to give it, psychological analysis here, right? Of what are they running into? that, you know, it's not just that the games don't get that much harder from game four to game six.

There's something inside. There's something mental there. And I don't know if, to your point, I do think that if some of these guys go elsewhere, they will be in situations, similar to what we talked about when we talked about Connor Hallibuck, where maybe there's a little different insulation. I think right now this is where I buy the like learning how to win thing, is it if this whole team is together and they're kind of, they're supposed to be learning something, but they can't quite figure out what is.

is that thing, right? I don't think it's as simple as, oh, once you know this, you do it. There's a, there's just kind of a bin there. There's a confidence that I don't think any of these guys have been in a position to build. And I feel for them, to be honest with you. Like, I cannot imagine frustration of this for them. And I wonder, I mean, I hate to lend credence to this because I do think that we, we overstate things about the market you're in. But being in Toronto, it just magnifies this and escalates this. This is such an exponential degree that I don't. I I do think, if you're already a little, and I don't use this word lightly, but like, weak-minded. And you already have your doubts and your concerns about your abilities and your ability to win and hold on to a lead and yada, yada, yada. And you're in Toronto. And every year it just gets more and more heavy. Like I think, you know, I just covered the Dallas series against Winnipeg. And I'm just blown away.

We'll get into this later in the show. But I'm blown away by Jake Ottinger and how just chill this guy is. Like he talks on game days. He gets better as the series goes on. His mindset never changes. His demeanor never changes. He just knows he's going to win. He has this kind of inherent selfie,

this pre-internatural confidence that I just feel nobody in Toronto has. Nobody on that roster feels like they're going to win. They're wondering how they're going to lose. And then you lose. When you think you might lose, you lose. When you think you're going to win, you win. Alexander Barkoff, I don't think,

made it out of the second round before he was 27. which I believe is how old Austin Matthews is right now. I think his first time out of the second round was at the same age that Matthews is. Now, Matthews was a game away from. But those Panthers teams, when Barkoff was young, were not as good as this Maple Leafs team. It's not an apples to apples comparison. No, but they had talent. I mean, Barkov and Huberto was a pretty darn good one-two punch.

They had similar pedigree to Matthews and Marner. I think there were the exact same draft slots or very close to it. Yeah, you're right. I mean, it could be 15 years from now, We're having a podcast talking about Austin Matthews winning his fourth Stanley Cup and what an all-time clutch performer he is. He's still a young man. There's a lot of hockey in front of him.

We know how good he is. But until he does it, this is going to hang around his neck like an albatrage. Just like it's going to hang around Marner's neck, Tavaris's neck, and Nielander's neck, Riley's neck, all of their neck. Well, Nielander's kind of been a dog. Nealander shows up for these. He's done a lot in these playing. I do absolve William Nealander of a lot here.

And that's fair, yeah, but it's, I also think it's interesting because Nealander is kind of thought of in a lot of ways as the fourth guy in that, right? Like, he's not, he doesn't share the burden that Matthews and Marner do. Like, the burden is lesser on him because he's not expected to be the number one guy. So it's easier maybe to kind of get through that. I don't, I don't, we're getting deep into the weeds psychologically here because there's no way to explain it without it being a mental thing. There's just, for it to happen once, hey, hockey's weird, man. Bad bounces, fluky things happen. Happens two or three times, all right, something weird here.

Happens every freaking year in the same gut-wrenching fashion where they just collapse at the worst possible time and there's just no way around it. This team has a confidence issue. It's got a mental issue. It's not strong-minded. They can't handle this. And what's interesting is I feel like that's a big part of the reason you go out

and you sign Craig Barubi to be your head coach. And to be honest, a lot of this playoffs, I thought, yeah, that worked. They nailed this. right? And it's only been in the last week or so that you start to go, ah, it's just that wasn't within his power to fix or something. I don't know. But I did feel like this Leafs team was the most playoffs Leafs team that we have seen. And I know that the ending the way it did, going to ring hollow for everybody and people

are going to point and laugh and whatever. I thought they were good enough to make it out of this round. And if they made it out of this round, I thought they were certainly good enough to beat Carolina. And they would have been in the Stanley Cup final, in my opinion. and that's the margin. One game, and that's the line, and the legacy swings on that.

Well, that's what's so difficult about this, right? They won their first round series, which for years they couldn't do, right? They beat the senators. They handled some adversity where they blew a 3-0 lead and they got to 3-2, and everyone was like, oh, God, here we go.

But then they went out and they won. And then they went against the defending Stanley Cup champions, the defending two-time Stanley Cup finalists, and they took them all the way to game seven. They won a must-win game six on the road in Florida and force this game seven. So they did a lot of good this playoffs. It's not like this.

They didn't get swept in the first round, six loves, six loves, six love, six love here. They did a lot good. And if they had one more good game, you know, we're never talking about this again. And they are running it back.

And they're resigning Marner, and they're going to keep Tavaris and on and on. But one game decides a lot. And when you come out in the game seven and you give up the first 25 shot attempts, when you have 10 shots on goal through the first two periods of a do-or-die game, When you play a game like that and you lose at home for the second straight home game in that manner,

it's, that is enough of a sample size for me that this is done. This era, you know, Shanahan, Marner, Matt, I mean, you don't trade Austin Matthews. Of course, you don't trade Austin Matthews, but you have to rethink this entire team around him because this is never going to work. And that's the tough part is because it does feel like it has to blow up now, but the only logical things to do are, to let guys walk for free where you're getting no ass but cap space, right? Like Mitch Marner was their leading scorer

by almost 20 points this season. And are we going to sit here and say like the best thing the Leafs, the only thing the Leafs can do is watch him walk for free or trade is signing rights or something like that? Yeah, Neelander's signed for eight more years. Matthews has signed for, I think, three or four more years.

Max Domi is signed for three, four more years. Morgan Riley is signed through, I think, 2090. Chris Tanniv has signed long term. Like, this team, you can't blow it up. They need to blow it up and they can't blow it. I don't know. Like you said, is lose guys. I don't know what they need to go that scorched earth.

It's just like, that's the tough part, right? So it's just excising Mitch Marner, your best player? I don't know. That's what I'm saying. That's the frustration. If I, okay, this is what I would do, right? And I'm talking like I have, you know, omnipotence here that I can just puppeteer all these things, right? I think Mitch Marner should go somewhere a little more out of the spotlight.

I think Mitch Marner should go to Anaheim. He should go to Utah. He should go somewhere where the spotlight is not going to be as bright. He gets another kind of crack at this. He can be the guy. Chicago's going to throw like $15 million at him. That's a little too bright, I think, in my opinion. For what needs to happen here, right?

I think Mitch Marner can have an incredibly successful career. He's an amazing player. He's one of the 10 to 15 best players in the world. I would send him to one of those places that are a little bit out of the spotlight and see what happens. Then, if I'm Toronto, my first call is to the guy who has done this to them, every freaking year. Brad Marchand? And say, come teach

this room what it is. Oh my God. Be the guy that you were in games. He was amazing tonight, Las. He was. He and Seth Jones of all guys were two of the best players on the ice. That third line was phenomenal.

Florida's just got it, man. That third line with Marchand on it and I think it was Lundell and Louis de Rhinan like just a fabulous line. And it is. Brad Marchand, he's got the it factor that the Leafs lack, right? he's got it. He knows how to do this. And the confidence that he gives to a room, it's like Miko Ranton and walking in like,

hey, I know how to do this, guys, hop on my back. Brad Marchand is not the player he once was, but he has the swagger he's always had. That's a fascinating idea. Can you imagine? Like, that's Hulk Hogan joining the NWO, man. Like that would be an unbelievable heel turn for Brad Marchand to join the Toronto Maple. And the cash savings that you would have on the difference between Marner's next deal and Marshan's next deal.

Plus the savings you're going to get on whatever hometown deal John Tavares gives you is enough to get you a player who can make your third line, much more like what Florida's third line, which I thought was the difference in the last several games. It certainly I thought tonight their third line. That was Marchand, Lundell, and A2 Lustarinen. You can go get another player for like $6,7 million, and pop him there and give yourself something like that,

to have the true depth so that you are not so focused, so everything riding on whatever. Austin Matthews, Brad Marchand, and Matthew Nyes do, or however you want to arrange it is in the top top six, right? You're going to have a legit third line that would give you some depth. That's the difference that you get on the savings. That's the

one problem with these super, superstars is they make so much more than players who I think they are better than, but are they that much better than, right? Is Mitch Marner worth almost double what Brad Marchand is worth? Clearly not watching this one. Well, with the cap going up the way it's going

up, that's going to be less of an issue. Teams are not going to as top heavy as they've been. This whole core four era, the Leafs have been the poster child for being too top heavy, and you can't win if you've got three guys making 10 million or more and yada, yada, yada. But I mean, I'm trying to think of recent champions.

Really, maybe Colorado a few years ago is the only team that really was like dependent on two or three superstars. Every other team, when you look at the blues, you look at even the capitals when they won. They were just deeper. They're more, they're just, and Florida, of course,

has superstar players, but they have a great line of. Bill Zito has done a terrific job building a team. Not just a handful of stars. He's built a team. And that's what Toronto's never had. And they've tried, right? They tried. They went out and got Chris Tanner. They tried to get a little tougher. They went out and they got, uh, who? They got Lawton. They're like at the deadline this year. They're trying to get tougher. They're trying to get more playoff ready. And it hasn't been sufficient. So I'm not sure. As, as great as Brad Barnshend is, he's not the player he once was. He's, what, 37 years old, whatever. He's not going to produce anywhere near a Mitch Marner level. No.

And I don't know if that's going to be sufficient to fundamentally alter the DNA of this team. If Chris Tannov doesn't come in and change your DNA, then I don't know if anybody does. I think Chris Tanov did make a huge impact. They still lost. They lost. They lost in game seven. But I'm saying I don't think they're as far off. I don't think you need to blow this whole thing up.

You need to make important. Like this is, this is surgery, right? These are important changes. But I don't think we're talking about replacing every organ. That's fair. Well, you can't. I mean, this is the way the contractors said, you can't as we went through. Nor should you, though.

You trust this front office to make those moves correctly. That's the question. Do you trust the Shana plan this many years in that they're going to make the right decisions in those regards? I don't know. I mean, but how can you? Right. Because they've never had that kind of decision in front of them, not this level, right? I mean, I guess you could say they have and they've chosen to keep running it back, right?

Yes. But at this point, something has to change. What I'm saying is exactly to your point, right? Like, he's not going to be as good as Mitch Martin. but you will be more of a team. Barube has hated this core four phrase. It's time for it to go. And the best way to get rid of it is make it so nobody even freaking knows who the core four are anymore.

If you try to say, okay, well, who's the Marner replacement? Is it Marshand or is it this other guy that they signed with the savings between the gap of the two, right? Like that's what I'm talking about. You get two players there. And then you start to go, okay, well, the core is, well, it's Matthews. And well, Neilander's really good. And Morgan, right. And then you start to, oh, I've just listed off a bunch of.

of players, right? And no single one or two of them are going to wear the whole thing in the way that Austin Matthews and Mitch Marner have for the last several years. It's the right idea. It's just I don't trust this organization to execute it properly. They've proven incapable of doing that year after year after year. Let me ask you this. Anthony Stolars doesn't get hurt. Do they win this series? I think they do. And that's, I don't know how we made it 16 minutes into this episode without talking about that. That's a really good point. That is a series changer. right now I don't think they win game seven with them necessarily because I thought Florida was just un they were not able to be overcome they were so good I mean the Leaves did

have an excellent push in the second half of the first period when it was zero zero like I don't know how it was zero zero after the first seven minutes of this game yeah Florida was all over them the zone time the pressure was immense but when the Leaf survived that and then they had some push I was like okay this is the most proof yet of like this team's not going to fold. Then the second period happened. And I don't think anyone was saving him in the second period. I don't think that was about Joseph Wall. Right. I think that was just how good the Panthers were. But I could have seen him closing it out sooner if they had Stolars. Yes. Well, that's what I mean. We talk about the fine line between, you know, the end of an era and, you know, the breakthrough.

And if Anthony Stolars is in there instead of Joseph Wall, maybe this doesn't have to go to seven games. Maybe they were able to hold on to these leads and they're able to close out the series earlier. And we're not talking to it. And Mitch Marner is definitely resigning. It's just, it really is incredible. the sliding doors moments in a in a playoff series there's always tons of them but the magnitude of them with this particular team the highest profile team in the league with some of the biggest stars in the league and the biggest storyline in the year year after league year after year is is it the same old lease or not and one little play here one little injury there can just fundamentally alter a franchise for a decade it's wild and i don't know if it's a good thing right i don't know if that's a good thing but it is the reality

So we're going to find out. I mean, it's certainly the reality in these super high spotlight markets. That's why I think Mitch Marner should go somewhere where it's not quite as intensely cover. Where would you go if you're Mitch Marner this summer? I mean, I'm biased because I think about it. I think he'd fit in so beautifully on Connor Bedard's right wing. He's a responsible 200 foot player.

He's a playmaker. He would make Connor Bedard instantly a hundred point guy. And there's enough young talent there that he could be someone that really expedites the process. and the hawks have as much cap space as anybody. They can overpay him and they will overpay him. If I'm him, I don't want to go, I don't want to go run and hide, right? Like, what does it say if you say, I got to go somewhere to, I got to go somewhere quiet?

Yeah. I need to get out of a tough market. And Chicago, frankly, not that tough a market. It's not. It's an American market. There is no American market that is a tough market, not a single one. When you really think about it, hockey is always, it's never the biggest story in an American market. It's not that scary in Chicago.

It's not that scary in Philadelphia. It's not that scary. In New York, you're like the seventh or eighth most popular team in town. It's not that scary. So I think, you know, if he runs off to Anaheim, Anaheim, it looks good right now, man. That's a program on the rise. Utah, program on the rise. I get it.

But I don't know, man. If I'm him, I don't want that narrative hanging over me. I had to go run and hide somewhere where nobody cares about hockey. I'd want to go somewhere big. Isn't as simple as running and hiding? I don't know that I'm saying run and hide. You just phrased it that way, basically. I said go somewhere where it's a little less like intense.

The lights are a little less like it's all on you. Everywhere's less intense than Toronto. Okay. That's a good point, though, not Montreal. But it's a good point. And you are right about the American markets. I mean, the cliff from those top Canadian markets to even the top American markets is a big difference. You and I travel the country during this day.

And we go to so many American markets where there's like three actual reporters in the room every day. Like, this is not a, there are no scary markets in the United States. All right. That's a good point. I still think I love the talent fits in those places, too, though. I'm not just saying it to go be hiding. And if he wants to go play for Joel Quenville, all players, they want to play for Joel

Quinville. So if he wants to go to Anime, he'll be very successful there. There's no doubt in my mind. And there's something to be said for living in Southern California. Be part of building something in Utah? Yeah, yeah, maybe. Start of a franchise. That's cool.

It is cool. You know, you've got to be a singular mammoth. I don't know what the hell that means, but there is an appeal to it. I just, he's just got to get out of Toronto. It's just, he's got to, he needs a fresh start more than just about any player in the league right now. Okay, so you're saying the same thing. Let's take a break right there. All right, we obviously spent a lot of time on the Leafs there, last, but we should talk about the Panthers.

And I thought there were points of this series where I was thinking, ooh, three long playoff, or I guess two of the last two years, and then this one have caught up with them. It's a game seven win. I mean, it's another long series for them, but do you feel pretty good about the Panthers and where they're at going forward after what you saw tonight? It's really incredible.

I mean, to think, if you thought like three years ago, someone told you that the Florida Panthers were going to become this model franchise, this ruthless, unstoppable killing machine, you would have laughed in their face. This was maybe the biggest joke of a franchise in all of pro sports.

You know, replacing the islanders and the clippers at all those teams from the 90s and 2000s, the Blackhawks back in the day. Like, for them to, what Zito has done there is nothing short of extraordinary. This is a perfect playoff team. This team reminds me of like the kings in the early 2010s where they were like, they were built to just coast through the regular season and then just destroy people in the playoffs.

Just, just eat your heart. Like they are so, I keep them with the word ruthless. Like this team knows it's going to beat you. It doesn't sweat anything. It's the complete antithesis of what the leaves are where the leaves are like constantly like, Oh, God, are we going to win? I don't know. The Panthers are just going to just eat you alive.

And it's just incredible that the Florida Panthers are the model franchise in the NHL. What a world. It's amazing. And MA inherited that title from the team on the opposite side of their state, the Tampa Bay Lightning. Right. It's wild to me that that is the state of hockey in Florida, where they are just the, they're the kings. They're the undisputed, along with Vegas, I suppose. I mean, really, it's the Sunbelt's world.

It's the Sunbelt, Carolina, Dallas. Like these are almost all the best franchise. It's basically Edmonton and a bunch of Sunbelt teams. It's really incredible. So here's, ah, man, people might hate this take. Is there anything to do with what we're talking about here and what we talked about at the end of the last segment? Like, is there more freedom for general managers who are operating in these states where

the intensity and the passion and the whatever it might be, the coverage is just a little, there's not quite the same eyes and you can kind of just work. can just do things without the maybe pressure to like go get a big splashy ad every summer. You know, I wrote a column off one of the Dallas Winnipeg games, and I had this one of the most unhinged comments I've ever seen. A bunch of Dallas people quote tweeted and it just went, it went nuts where that was basically their argument is that it's not fair because there's no pressure in Texas, right? There's no pressure to succeed. So players go running high down there basically and they put on their cowboy boots because the fans are all dumb rednecks and don't know anything about. the sport. That's not what I'm saying for the record.

No, but this is what this guy would say. It was basically basically saying it's like people are always complaining about the fact that Florida and Texas are tax-free states and Canada as such high taxes. This guy's argument was it's not fair because there's too much pressure in Toronto and Winnipeg and there's no pressure at all

in Dallas and Florida. Which is basically what you're saying here. Well, the take just kind of hit me from the side. I didn't think it through but as it hit me, I was like, well, I am on a podcast. I should probably just talk. There's something to it. Look, we just had a conversation about how every American market is really pretty tame. But there is still a difference between Boston and South Florida.

I mean, I remember, I once was in a scrum in South Florida. It was Joel Quenville's first game against the Blackhawks back when he was covering the Panthers. There were 22 of us in the scrum. 22, I counted for the story. 22 people in the scrum. 19 of them were Florida Panthers team employees. It was me and the local radio guy and George Richards. Like, that's all.

Like there is no media coverage in Florida of the best team in hockey. And I do think that some players kind of like that. They don't want to deal with us. Nobody likes us. I get it. But I don't think it's a competitive advantage. I think that it maybe will sway a certain type of player because there are players. They want the spotlight, man.

You're a professional athlete. You want the marketing opportunities. You want your ego massaged all the time. You want to be a star. Alexander Barkov is one of the handful of best players in the league and nobody who's a casual sports fan has ever heard of him. That doesn't happen when you're in Toronto. That doesn't happen when you're with the Rangers.

So there is a give and take there. That door does swing both ways or some players want to do that. And some players like, yeah, I'm not so sure. It's an excellent point. Patrick came when he talked about why he wanted to go to Detroit, specifically referenced like the fans and the passion of the fans and like the knowledge of the, like all this stuff. The original six still holds an appeal.

People who will appreciate fully his greatness and knowing it'll be on display in an original six market and all this stuff. He didn't say that. I'm talking for him. But that's kind of what I took away from it. He wants to play in a place where the lights are on. He likes those moments. He likes the spot. Well, he got to experience that in Chicago.

He got to be king of the world for like five, ten years there. And once you've got a taste of that, you know, hiding out in a chill town is not necessarily that appealing. Yeah, so he didn't specifically compare Detroit to other places like that, but I remember him talking about the passion of the fans, the knowledge of the fans. Some guys are wired that way. Some guys aren't. Yeah. It's interesting. It's a good point. And I think ultimately the genius of the Panthers is in their roster construction, right? I think Bill Zito has done a just amazing job with this team. We talked about their two deadline additions, Brad Marchand and Seth Jones coming through so big tonight. I mean, Seth Joan, you covered him all year. Did he have a game as good as this at any point in Chicago? Certainly not one that mattered. I mean, he was great today. I mean, whether it was, you know, score.

Yeah, exactly. And I think that's, you know, yes, Bill Zito has an inherent advantage that he doesn't have to pay guys as much. But there's also a reason people want to play there. They want to sign there and they don't care as much about the money. And yeah, the weather's nice. You know, if you're into that kind of thing and the money's nice. But they want to go somewhere they can win. Above all else.

Look, if Winnipeg was an unstoppable juggernaut, players would be fighting each other to go sign a Winnipeg. That's what it comes down to. Nobody wants to say that. Everybody wants to come up with an excuse. But if Winnipeg was freaking awesome, everybody would want to sign a Winnipe. Buffalo. Buffalo, say, oh, Buffalo would be an amazing market to be good in. Like, that fan base is psychotic in all the best ways.

You know, you want that as you're a professional athlete. You don't want to toil in anonymity. You want to be a star. You see Bill's fans, right? I mean, that would be what it would be like if the Sabres were like that. Josh Allen's doing fine on endorsement deals, right? He's in every freaking commercial. Most definitely.

So, now, hats off to the Panthers. I mean, I think top to bottom, they are as deep as any team in the NHL. Sergei Bobrovsky remains one of the best goaltenders in the NHL. I think it would be fascinating to see them. And really, all four of these, we will talk about this later. All four of these teams would make for something truly compelling, Stanley Cup final matchups. We don't talk enough about Bobrovsky's like career resurrection.

Like, for this late in this career, like, we were, we were like, this is the worst contract in sports for a couple of years there when they signed him to that 10 million, 10.5 million deal. And man, it's a bargain now. The guy's the ultimate playoff performer. He's the new Vasilevsky, this late in his career. It's incredible. And he is a perfect example of what we were talking about earlier with Barkov and

Matthews and Marner and the narratives and how these change. But Brovsky was not the ultimate playoff performer for a long stretch of his career. In fact, I think he got to, if not age 30, close to age 30 with a tag of like he can't win with them in the playoffs. He was hella buck. Two-time Vezina winner who could. couldn't do it in the playoffs and therefore was a choker. Like, that's the narrative.

And look at him now. Yeah. I thought he was stellar. I mean, as the game went on, the pressure comes off. But in the first period at zero zero, he made some 10 bells that were massive, multiple breakaways. Like, it was big time. I'm not saying Scott Lawton's breakaway couldn't have gone a little better on Scott Lawton's

end of things. But he saved it, you know? Yeah. And he's done it for three years now. Like he is, he is as big a reason as anyone, including Barkov, that they've made it, that they won so many playoff series in the last three springs. Or it wasn't Lawton. I think Lawton sprung Lawrence.

Okay, so let's go to the West now, Dallas and Winnipeg. I thought this was a tremendous series. I wish we could have gotten a game seven of this one too. But it kind of felt like we did because we did get overtime. We had unbelievable. First of all, first of all, you only say you wish you had a game seven because you wouldn't have had to made that flight plan back to Winnipeg from Dallas like I would have had to do. Yeah, no, I just would have gotten an extra day to walk around and percolate on it.

It would have been great. Why, what are you been doing? Nothing at all. This series has been, it was great. Just like the Colorado one, I mean, I've been kind of embedded with Dallas through the first two rounds for the most part. And the hockey's just been great. There haven't been the kind of like the dramas that like Florida's had and Toronto's had and controversial hits and yada. It's just been really, really good hockey between really good teams.

But there was just unbelievable emotion in game six. So much of this coming from Mark Sheifley, who factors into this game in so many ways. He scores the first goal in an all-time moment. I thought it was an amazing goal. And I cannot imagine, first of all, playing with the weight of that. Hats off to Mark Sheifley, incredibly gutsy game by him. And then the other side of it, the gutting part. I mean, I think my wife was literally in tears when she realized that Mark Shafley was in the penalty boxes, the season end.

The shot of him, like right after Thomas Harley scores the overtime winner. And they, you know, they cut first. to the mob, the green mob of then celebrating. And then they immediately cut to the penalty box. And Mark Schifley, he was like 12 hours removed from learning that his dad had died. Just his head hanging low. It's just, it's absolutely gutting. I mean, sports are always so gutting in so many ways.

But this was like, this was like a new level of it where you just knew what he had been going through that day and what everything had meant to him. And just the agony in his face as he went through that handshake line. Like you can't, we've seen, you know, There was the Marty San Luis game. There's the Brett Farr game. We've seen guys do this before, but we've never quite seen it end in this fashion.

And it was really, really hard to watch. It was hard to listen to Scott Arneill talk about it after. It was hard. Even the Dallas Stars players were having trouble kind of getting through talking about it. Like, it was just, it was as emotional as seen as I've ever seen at the hockey game. I am of the belief that he made the absolute right decision to trip Sam Steele there.

Do you agree? Yeah, probably. I mean, it should have been a penalty. shot in my mind. I don't agree, but we'll talk about that in a second. But I, like, just hockey wise, a breakaway with 15 seconds left. You're taking that yeah, you take the penalty to prevent a goal all the time. But that said, it's Sam Steele. He's not exactly

a proven finery. He is, they had 11 forwards dress that night and he's the only one who wasn't really a scorer. Also the only one who had scored. That's right. That's hockey for you, man. But so I mean, in, in the heat of the moment, in that split second, you can't really be processing all that. He's just, oh God, breakaway, stop him. And I think he, yes, I don't think that anyone can blame Mark Schifley for that loss.

He just happened to be the guy who was in that situation. But, man, imagine sitting there that entire overtime intermission knowing you have to go back out there into the penalty box. When Dallas and all that firepower is going to have a clean sheet of ice, that's just, that's the long 18 minutes, man. So you say you think it should have been a penalty shot. I say I don't think it was a clear breakaway yet. I don't think that's the letter of the law. I don't think there's anything about a clear breakaway. It's a clear scoring opportunity, I think, if I remember correctly, like, it doesn't, he was going to have a breakaway.

And Mark Scheifle prevented him from having that breakaway by tripping him. To me, he had a clear line to the net. That's a penalty shot. I think it has to be a break. I mean, scoring opportunity, you could have a clear scoring opportunity and a guy, you know, hooks your stick and you don't get a penalty shot. I think it's only on a break. Well, they very rarely call penalty shots because they're always afraid to, but especially in that situation. Can you imagine calling a penalty shot with 15 seconds left in a tied game seven?

It's a lot easier just to call the penalty because clearly it had to be something. Here's my question. If you're the Dallas Stars, would you rather have the power play or would you rather have Sam Steele taking a penalty shot? I would probably rather have the power play. I think so too. If you go look at like the very best shootout numbers, there's like a handful of guys who are like 40 or 50 percent. But most guys are like at the same level as a power play, like in the 20s, 20s and low 30s. 30s maybe. And, you know, if it's, you know, Matthew Shane or Miko Ranton and or Jason Robertson,

you probably want the penalty shot. But Sam Steele, that's not his bag, man. So it probably benefited them. Here's the rule. Penalty shot is awarded when a player is unfairly prevented from taking a clear scoring, taking away a clear scoring opportunity during a breakaway situation. Player must be in the neutral or attacking zone, in control of the puck. That comes into play with this one. And have no other opposing players to pass to other than the goaltender, unfairly prevented from scoring means the player is tripped. Obviously, that box is checked? So to me, the two questions are, is a breakaway situation, like an imminent breakaway?

Because this was an imminent breakaway. There's no doubt. Well, no. But that's not the unfairly prevented from scoring. That clause is the one that's relevant here. It doesn't have to be a breakaway. He is unfairly prevented from scoring when he had a clear shot on goal in my mind. Did not have control of the puck.

I think that is relevant. Like, he had pushed it ahead. I mean, it's kind of a, I'm not going to say it. It's a no chance, but I was okay with the no-call is where I'm at. I think it was, like, that's going to be, that's going to be called a power play and not a penalty shot 99 times out of 100. The absolute sheer gall it would take for a referee to call that in that situation. I mean, we just know that's not going to happen. What do you think, Dallas going forward?

I mean, they're now going to run into Edmonton. And I think this is a heavyweight tilt cup final worthy kind of matchup. Rematch. Rematch. to get McDavid and Drysidal against the deepest team in the West. But Edmonton just ran through who I thought was the next deepest team in the West in Vegas. And they did it pretty convincingly. Dallas needs to score because like they're like Dallas grinded Winnipeg and even Colorado into

the dust kind of the way they won these series because Miko Ranton is only one scoring for them and he's cooled off too. Last few games, he's not he's not scoring a hat trick of period anymore like he was for a little while there. And you know, Jason Robertson, had zero points in that playoff series. I know he's coming back from injury, but he's got to produce. Matt Dushane has not had a goal. He scored 30 goals this year. He has not scored in 13 playoff games so far.

Mason Marchman hasn't scored yet. Tyler Sagan's not scoring since like game three of the first round. Jamie Ben's not scoring. Like right now this is a top heavy team where it's basically ranting in and Ropei hints doing all the heavy lifting here. And you had the Mikhail Granland hat trick and then beyond that hatrick he hasn't done anything in any of these games.

That's not going to cut it anymore. Jake Ottinger and Miko Renton was enough to get him there. But the Oilers are going to score. The Oilers are not going to be held off the board. You're not going to beat them two to one, even with Jake Ottinger and Net. So these guys got to get off the Schneider. If Matthew Shane and Jason Robertson continue to struggle, then the stars are probably going to lose this series.

I think they're the key to the series. We always talk about the stars in their depth. Right now, through two rounds, they've been like a Leafs or an Oilers team. They've been top heavy. And if they don't find that depth scoring again, they're going to have a really hard time keeping up with the Oilers, even with the dicey goaltending they have. How about for the Jets?

I mean, where do you go from here? To me, the obvious thing is you're trying to find a second line center, right, to elevate your top six a little bit. Other than that, I think you are pretty much running this back to a large degree here, as much as they also have had some playoff demons. It's a really good team. It's really well coached. Scott Arneal, he's done a great job up there.

It is. It's a pretty well-constructed team. There's a hole here and there. It comes down to, you know, can hell a buck had a decent game last night or Saturday night on the road, which is huge because his road numbers were just horrendous. They were like Zamboni driver level horrendous. His save percentage was in the 700s.

Zamboni drivers have a pretty good track record, actually. That's true, they do. So do so do CPAs or accounts, whatever Scott Foster was here in Chicago. He's got to be better. Like it's what we were talking about with, with Bobrosky, Hellebuck is the best goalie in the world. Dot, dot, dot, dot in the regular season. And he has to prove it in the playoffs.

And he has not done that yet. He had two straight shutouts in Winnipeg in games, what? I can't even do with the math here. Two in five or whatever, four and five. I don't know. I can't keep track of these games anymore. My mind's a blur. But he had two straight shutouts in Winnipeg.

But that's not enough. You have to be able to do it on the road. You have to be the same goalie, Holman Road. And he is not. He has not been for three straight post seasons now. He's been a disaster on the road, and sometimes a disaster at home. And as well-constructed as the Jets are, they're a team that's built from the goaltender out. And if Hela Bucks not performing, then they're never going to get beyond a round or two.

I thought he found it as the series went on. I mean, even in Game 7, like you said, I don't think he was spectacular, but he was good enough to win that game, no doubt. He was. He was. That was a comforting game if you're the Jets. Even though you lost, he played well. he made it. You know, the stars didn't put a lot of pressure on them, but he came up with a few really big stops. And that's something he can build on going forward because he still has a lot to prove. The narrative in my mind has not changed on Connor Hellebuck.

He was awful in so many games in this post. He got pulled in all three road games in the first round, somehow still won. And then he got two really bad games in Dallas to start this series. He has to prove that what happened Saturday night is the new normal and not the exception that proves the rule. It's the gutting thing about the playoffs. And this applies to Toronto. This applies to Winnipeg. You play the whole year to get into these moments.

And it may take you, I don't know, how many times take you to learn to do anything, right? Seven, eight, nine, ten times potentially. 10,000 hours, right? Yeah, right. Except for you have to wait a calendar year before you get another chance to do it again. It has to be maddening. It's like a reminder that that entire grind of the regular season doesn't really matter. It doesn't.

And the best teams know that. Florida knew that, Florida knew that. Edmonton knew that. They just get me to the playoffs. Let me get to the playoffs healthy, and that's when I'll turn it on. So now Hellow Buck's got to go through yet another regular season before he gets a chance to prove to anybody anything.

Because if he goes out and he has a 950 save percentage next year and he wins 50 games and he wins his fourth Vesna, nobody's going to care. Nobody's going to care and nobody's mind will change on him until he does it in the playoffs. There's a very real chance he's going to win the heart trophy this year. I think he's going to, yeah. I voted for him, number one.

And it's going to feel tough, right? Because he knows what just happened in the playoffs. He deserves it. It's a regular season award, and he deserves it. He's got to go out and get himself a consmite. That'll change the minds. All right, I was ready to turn the page on the Panthers Leaves Game 7, but like I said, we're recording this in the immediate aftermath.

And here's a quote, Chris Johnston just tweeted out. Brad Marchand says this wasn't actually a big game. game when you've played for a Stanley Cup and says Leif's fans unnecessarily, quote, beat the pressure, end quote, into their team, quote, how do you not feel that every day? He asked rhetorically, referring to Leif's players. So maybe Brad Marchand's not going to Toronto, Les. It's such a great quote because it works on so many levels. One, it's 100% true, right?

It's everything that we were kind of talking about there. But two, it's such a dickish thing to say. Like, it's really twisting the knife in some ways. It's like digging at the team for being mentally soft, but also digging at the fans who hate him so much. It's your fault, really. Like, oh my God. Brad Marsh, that is such a calculated quote. He was thinking about that, like, after the morning skate this morning.

What am I going to say when we win tonight? Like, that's just, that is beautiful. Yeah. Not only is Brad Marchand not going to be a Toronto Maple Leaf. Brad Marshall should sign his next deal with the WWE because this is peak heel. Just incredible. He's just, he knows what he is. He knows his job.

He knows his role in the league. And he just embraces it. He's just, I am the heel. I'm going to have some fun with it. God bless that, man. Unbelievable. All right. Our friends at BetMGM, the official betting partner of the athletic, have updated Stanley Cup odds now.

Oilers, the slight favorite plus 240, Panthers right behind him at plus 250. So they seem to kind of like a rematch. Not far behind, though, stars plus 275 hurricanes plus 300. They're kind of telling you it's anybody's final. So I'm not, I will eventually ask you who you got, but I want to first ask you, which matchup do you want to see? Ah, see I kind of wanted to see Toronto Edmonton just to see the world explode. And, you know, I think that's probably what the NHL and TNT probably wanted to is, you know, that's two Canadian markets. You can, you can market the hell out of McDavid versus Matthews, right?

These other teams are great teams that are just a little tougher sell, I think, for the American audience. least. I kind of want to see Stars Hurricanes. I think they're the two best constructed, coached, and, like, structured teams in the league. I think that would be great hockey. I know everyone says the hurricanes are boring, and, you know, Sean Gentile

has been writing about that a lot while covering them, but I think that would be just great hockey. Just like, from a strict, you know, competitive standpoint, like, the Panthers inject chaos into it. So, you know, they bring in the

physicality and the nastiness. And the Oilers have the guys who can just take over a game in dry-sidal and McDavid. But the stars and the hurricanes, those are the two best teams, I think, in the NHL. I think that's who I picked at the beginning of the year was stars over hurricanes. So I like being right about things. I think they would all be great series, first of all. There's no bad ones here.

No, this is a great pool to choose from, perhaps not for my marketing standpoint. I don't know that three Sunbelt teams in Edenton is how you would have. Toronto it up. But great hockey, no matter what. I want the rematch. We've talked about Toronto and, you know, trying to get over the playoff hump. We talked about that a little bit with Winnipeg. That's been a story for Edmonton, and I think they are able to finish the job this year. They came really close last year. I could not believe that they battled back to make that a game seven a year ago. I think a rematch would be spectacular theater to see what they can do in a second opportunity against the Panthers. Yeah, no, I would not be shedding a tear if we

got Edmonton, Florida again, although I think the writers covering that series would after travel nightmares they had getting from South Florida at Edmonton, apparently was very difficult. I had to do it from Dallas, and I knew how hard that was. There's something to be said for the kind of super team era that we seem to be kind of in that. It was the Blackhawks for a number of years, and then it was the Penguins for a number of years, and then it was the lightning for a number of years, and now it's the Panthers. Like hockey was the sport that never had that really. In the cap era, there were no repeat champions. It was too hard to do. And now we're starting to see kind of teams building up these like three or four years swings where they're

just dominant. And I think that is good for the game. That's what the NBA always gets. That's what the NFL has the chiefs in the Super Bowl every year or at least in the AOC championship game. There's something to be said for that because it builds up the rivalry and it builds up the familiarity with the casual fans. So I do think that, you know, that's probably what the league is kind of hoping for. You want McDavid in the spotlight, certainly. And the Panthers, that's the, that's the big bad team right now. And they do bring that chaos factor. I want to see something different. But yeah, I will be parked in front of my big old 75 inch TV watching the hell out of Edmonton, Florida, if that's the case. I will say, like, the interesting thing on

Stars Oilers, too. We talked about that series a little bit earlier, but it is the most certain goalie situation remaining, or at least one of the two most certain, you know, Dallas and Florida would be the other, versus the least uncertain, probably the least through the whole playoffs in Edmonton. If both goalies are healthy, do you go with Pickard or do you go with Skinner? Skinner's getting hot and he's done it before. I think I would go to Skinner. I think you do too.

I mean, Pickard had the net there for a little while. But yeah, it's, but this is the thing. We've seen several champions now over the last handful of years do it. Like Aiden Hill was one of three goalies who played for Vegas that year. It's becoming more and more common to not just have your Ottinger or your Bobrovsky. And, you know, I don't trust Freddie Anderson. That's my concern with the hurricanes. I've seen time and again that the later you get into playoffs,

Freddie Henderson kind of turns into a pumpkin a little bit. So that would make me nervous. Ottinger I full faith in. Bovrofsky obviously full faith in. Edmonton's going to have to win a lot of six, five games, which is good TV, but not necessarily the easiest path to a Stanley Cup. But what amazes me about them is they do have to win a lot of games like that. I don't know that it's exclusively.

I think they've started to find that, you know, three, two ability or whatever. But whatever the score is, it's like, it's like an NBA game. Whatever happened in the first 40 minutes doesn't actually matter because it's going to be decided in the last however much is left. In the NBA, it's like the last eight in the NHL is the last 20. The Oilers will turn it on in the last 20 minutes and just be amazing. They can be down three goals. You're not counting them out. Oh, absolutely.

Remember, I was a few years ago that. on dry siddle on like one leg went thermonuclear. And last year it was McDavid with 40 some odd points in the playoffs. They have just absolute monsters. I do want to read Tom Drans, our colleague in Vancouver just tweeted this. This is interesting. The NHL's final four will feature the three teams

Carolina, Edmonton, and Florida that were the best in league at generating shots on goal at five on five. The fourth Dallas acquired an offensive atom bomb ranton in that midseason. Might need to update our defense wins championships bromides. Are we seeing a sea change in the NHL here? Well, why don't you

scroll and the replies on Drance's tweet and see what I said to him. Oh, God. Are you tweeting during our broadcast here, man? I think it was on the way up. Did I just call this a broadcast? Same three were also one, two, three in preventing shot attempts. Yes. That is a good point.

Cheerfully withdrawn. They're just three really good teams. They're really good at everything. It turns out being good at stuff is good. Okay. We learned something today. But he does have a point. I mean, we are in an era where it's not just, you know,

course of goals, man. You got to be able to score to. You got to be able to do it all. And that's the beauty of the NHL is there are very few teams that can get to this point of the season, the final four, let alone the Stanley Cup final are winning it with a glaring weakness, right? I think hockey is, to me, more and more, I believe it is a weak link sport. You are only as strong as your weakest link.

A strong link can only get you so far. And I think we learned that through the early part of McDavid and Drysiddle's careers. And now they have this amazing team around them. And yeah, the strong links look even stronger because of how few weaknesses there are around them. And for years and years and years, especially like the most of the cap era, if you had a lead entering the third period,

you were going to win that game. Teams would go like 40 and O entering the third period. That's not like that anymore. We see two-gold deficits, three-gold deficits, disappear in a heartbeat because this is an era of great offense where we have these incredible talents and these incredible teams. So you need to be able to score in bunches. That's why I think Dallas, they're not there yet.

They have to have to have some depth scoring. Carolina is going to need some more. They never have the finisher, right? That's why they went out and got ranted, and that's why they got Gensel in that last year. You know, Svetchenikoff and Ajo are fabulous players. They're not elite finishers. So these two teams have a lot,

because Florida's got some scores. They've proven it time and again, and the Oilers have two of the most gifted offensive players we've ever seen in our lives. So got to score some goals. That's my question, too, with Carolina. I mean, I think that they absolutely have it in them to beat Florida a few times,

three to one, two to zero, whatever it might be. Like, they can be relentless on you. They can keep a ton of pressure on you all game. I'm not yet convinced that if they go down two goals, that they can come back and win that game. And their whole strategy of, you know,

funneling pucks to the net and creating chaos, that's where Bobrovsky thrives. He's great in those kind of like quick, quick twitch, reflex, rebound, you know, traffic in front of him. That's where he, that's what separates him from other goalies. So he's not a, goal that's going to just like fall apart in that situation. It's going to be interesting.

Okay. So we picked a matchup. Who you got? I mean, if you had to, you know, call you right now, Oilers, Panthers, Stars, Cains, who you got? I think I'm sticking with Dallas. I feel like those guys, they have to regress to the mean at some point. I just believe in Jake Ottinger more than almost anybody else in this, in this group.

And I think that it's the best constructed team. What Jim Nill, we talked about Bill Zito a lot. Jim Nill, we don't talk about him enough and what he's been able to do in Dallas, too. It's a perfectly constructed roster. They can move the pieces in any much way, and you've got four scoring lines. And now they got Miro Haskin' back.

He's going to get stronger and stronger now. He's got a few days off here before game one, which is it works out beautifully for him. This is now the Dallas stars at full strength. And if those depth scorers start scoring, look out. They would be a very worthy champion. I could absolutely see it. I'm going with Edmonton.

And I'm going to grimace when I say it, of the goal tending, but I've been very impressed by them. I think they're ready. I would love to see Connor McDavid win a Stanley Cup. I do believe that he needs it still. He is the greatest professional hockey player I've ever seen. He's the most talented man I've ever seen play hockey. He could be Dan Marino and go his whole career and not win, and nothing would change

that, but he still need the cup to validate that career in some way. And I want to see him get it. He wants it so bad. He's a likable guy. and he's the most exciting player I've ever seen. I would be perfectly happy to see Evanton hoist the cup. Our producer says, are we both taking Florida to get to the final? I think I am.

You? I think so. I don't trust Freddie Anderson. And it's the same thing every year with the hurricanes. They don't have the elite finishers and they don't have the goalie. It's going to be a phenomenal final four. And it was a great way to get there with some phenomenal hockey this weekend. That is going to do it for us.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Fletic Hockey Show. Please, if you're enjoying the show, leave us a rating. in a review. It's two Shons and a Frank on Wednesday. Fuck to you soon.