The Athletic Hockey Show - How the Wild’s Quinn Hughes impacts the Avalanche and Stars

Episode Date: December 18, 2025

The NHL world is still buzzing about Quinn Hughes joining the Minnesota Wild. Joe Smith joins Hailey and Sean to talk about the star defender's immediate impact in Minnesota, what the odds are that he sticks around long-term, and how Hughes being with the Wild will impact division foes Colorado and Dallas. Plus Hailey and Sean discuss the red hot Florida Panthers, the stumbling Winnipeg Jets, and another ownership change with the Penguins.Hosts: Hailey Salvian and Sean GentilleWith: Joe SmithExecutive Producer: Chris FlanneryProducer: Jeff DometWatch full episodes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@theathletichockeyshowJoin our Discord Server: https://discord.gg/VTm9VjkFSubscribe to The Athletic: https://theathletic.com/hockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Hockey Show. What's up, everybody? It's Haley Salvean and Sean Jintilly here with you for another episode of the Athletic Hockey Show. Joe Smith, our Minnesota Wild Beat Writer. We'll join us later in the show to chat the big Quinn Hughes trade. But first, we'll get some news. We'll get some notes around the NHL with Sean. News and notes.

Wow. That's right. That's always our first. little segment. I've trademarked it. Only on Thursdays here, folks. You'll never see this on any other podcast or radio show. On this planet. What's up? I feel like we haven't done this in a while. Yeah, because you bailed on me last week and made me talk to the dreaded Chris Johnston all by myself. Thanks for nothing. I know, CJ. He was like, oh, Haley's sick. Yeah, I'm available.

I'm in. Thursday. Tell Gentile. Tell Gentile. To ring me up, let's go. No, I couldn't speak. I had like, it's been a long time since I felt like a little kid when I was sick. That makes sense, like the full, like I was freezing cold, body aches, fever, headache, lost my voice. Like, it was like, I need my mom.

Yes. I need a soup. You need to be nursed back to help. Acting like either a small child or a small child or a very small child. very, very old woman. Yes. Hey. It's one of the other.

Yeah. Really, really just feeble and was like, I can't do the show. But I'm okay now. I'm feeling better. We're back. I'm glad to hear it. All right. So a little bit of news that we want to get to before we chat with Joe Smith.

This came out on Wednesday after you guys were done with the show. But the Pittsburgh Penguins once again are being sold this time to new. owners, a Chicago-based family, the Hoffman family, Fenway Sports Group. They're out after four years, FSG, which took control of the penguins from Mario Lemieux and Ron Berkel in 2021, selling the team off already. I got a text from my dad last night being like WTF. FSG selling team, question mark, question mark. He was flabbergasted. So can you like address my dad and the nation, Sean? Like what's the nation who wants to know? The continents, yes, Canada and the United States.

Yeah, that's right. I guess my dad's not in America. What's going on here? Because it seems weird, and this is the 13th time in the team's 58-year history that the Penguins will have a new ownership. It's once again another group of out-of-town billionaires. FSG wasn't bad ownership, but fans didn't really love that they had zero ties to Pittsburgh and now there's a Chicago family coming in.

Like, what do you make of this? How should Facebook? fans or people like my dad be feeling. So my understanding of this is that last year, whenever FSG publicly said, all right, we're looking for minority investors, anybody want to buy $200 million piece of this team? Talk to us. The Hoffman group wanted the whole thing. They were like, how about we just try to buy the entire thing?

In Fenway Sports, you know, they are a money-making endeavor above all else. I think they saw the opportunity to take a $900 price tag and turn it into a $1.75 or $1.8 billion sale price and said, okay, yeah, we can try to make that work. So it's been it's been slower going than we thought initially in August, FSG and the Hoffman group entered into an exclusivity period where they were the only ones who were allowed to negotiate. That lapsed. There was some question, I think, a couple months ago over whether the deal would go through,

but here we are. It's December the 18th, and, you know, we got something done. A couple points. FSG certainly was disengage is probably a harsh way is probably the harsh as possible fair way to put it

Penguins were not their priority no no because they got to worry about Liverpool and they got to worry about the Red Sox and whatever else there was no full-time FSG executive in town right so so they're taking or the Penguins management is you know taking calls from

Boston and in whatever else. And I think that rubbed certainly a big chunk of the fan base the wrong way, because you do feel like there's an absentee landlord component to all this. But also Fenway, and this is where Penguins fans need to be careful with being overly excited about this, Fenway paid all the bills and they cut all the checks that Kyle Dubas could have wanted that hockey staff is enormous. It's a 13-person front office. It's a 26-person scouting staff. It's a team that could have spent to the cap if it wanted to. So financially, you know, there was plenty, plenty, plenty of support from Fenway. Now there's like, there's certainly an emotional component to it when you're talking about an ownership group clicking with a fan base that it wasn't present. But I think

you got to be careful if you're a Penguins fan who's, who's overly excited about this for, for that, for that reason. Now, is it the Hoffman family? Yes, in the sense that it is a, that it's a family-owned, a family-owned concern, and there is a father and children at the top of the food chain. But it's also the Hoffman family of companies, where they own hundreds, literally, of brands that they've bought into over the years. So this isn't necessarily the mom-and-pop shop, everybody's family approach to things, and it's also not the, singularly wealthy guy model that they've seen in the past either. So there is some, you know, there is,

be careful before you start framing it, framing it that way. Now, do I think that this is an overall good thing for the penguins? Yeah, I do. There's a chance to get Mary Lemieux involved back in more intimately, which had certainly been an issue. In the Hoffman family, above all else,

seem like they really care about hockey. They own the Florida Everblades, and they've been trying to buy a professional, you know, an NBA team or an NHL team for years. So we can, they have hockey ties, yada, yada, they check a lot of boxes. And there's certainly a reason for optimism over this. But I do think, you know, Penguins fans from what I've seen online probably need to slow their role just a little bit. Let's see how this pans out before we're ready to, you know, call it an unfettered upgrade over whatever we saw from Fenway Sports. Yeah, and I don't know if anyone's saying that yet.

It's more just like, why are they being sold already of what's going on? So there's a lot of stuff from Josh Yoey. Rob Rossi also did something like who is the Hoffman family back in August, actually. Like that's how long this has been kind of percolating in some hockey circles. So Rob did a nice job kind of introducing who these people are, what this company is, the Everblades, which they own have been fared pretty well. It's an ECHL team, but they've done well under that ownership. So lots to chew on there from Rob and from Josh.

And I think it's just like, FSG looked at the penguins, like this is their corporation. And it was like, oh, we have an opportunity to make a bunch of money here. Take the penguins then. And like, that's good business. But it leaves fans being like, what the heck is happening? Are we okay? It looks like the short answer right now is yes, but let's also wait and see how the new ownership group does. Yeah, they sold because they could make a billion dollars plus whatever profit they made on the team over the last four years.

You know, is it a short turnaround? Absolutely. Should that make people nervous? Yes, to some extent. But I don't think there's any particularly difficult explanation as to why this happened now. A billion dollars is a lot of money for anybody. including FSG. Yeah.

All right, let's get to a couple games from last night. There's two that were on the schedule Wednesday night that stood out to me for more than just the stat line. There's some bigger takeaways that we can get to from last night's slate of games. Number one, the Florida Panthers. They are charging up the standing, Sean.

They win three to two last night against the Los Angeles Kings. Carter Verheaggy. He's got seven goals. He's been great in December. his line with Sam Bennett and Brad Marchand have been excellent in the month of December, and so have the Florida Panthers. They have gone from last in the east on December 2nd to winning six of their last seven,

and now they are one point back of a wildcard spot or just a spot in the Atlantic. They're one point out of being in a tie for a playoff spot. So a huge month of December for a team that could be getting Matthew Chuck back in about a month. Yeah, and they're beating relevant teams too, right? Like we see it. Saw it last night. They beat the Kings. Kings are good.

Beat Tampa before that. Beat Dallas before that. Utah, the Islanders, Columbus, to some extent. So this is, this isn't Fools gold. They're not beating up on the flames and the Cracken and, you know, the dregs of the league here either. They're 2920 and goal differential over those seven games. I think this is the push that everyone, you know,

you know, overall was expecting from them, but also they had been mediocre and, and, uh, and struggling to some extent for long enough where it was fair to wonder whether this was going to happen. Like we were getting to that point where it was like, it's moving day, right? Yeah.

If they're, if, if, if, if, if they're going to snap into Panthers mode, they need to do it pretty quickly. And I,

I, I think we've seen them do just that. Yeah. And the Panthers still don't know if Matthew could Chuck will be, I saw this, uh, this morning, um,

given a lot of the, talk about the Winter Classic coming. Role models playing the festival or whatever. But if you care. His name is role model. Is he a, oh, okay. He's a singer. Good for him.

He's fun. The Panthers don't know if Matthew Kachuk is going to be ready in time for the Winter Classic. So I say about a month, we still don't exactly know. that's probably the ideal timeline if he's back in January, especially if you want him playing for Team USA at the Olympics, you probably want him to get like a couple weeks of games under his belt before heading to Milan.

But we'll see. I think it's still the fact is we're finally starting to see the whole like stay above water until you can get some guys back. Yeah, they're right there. They're doing more than that now. Yeah, they're a point out of the wild card. they're a point out of third place in the Atlantic Division, which is currently Tampa. Like, they've bridged the gap.

And that's always what the season was going to be like for them, is finding a way to keep their head above water until Kachuk comes back and then kind of seeing what happens. So, yeah, I'm not surprised by it. I don't think anybody should be. No, it was a matter of time. At the same time, you know, a little bit earlier this month, and certainly at the end of November, they were looking shaky enough where you're like, maybe this isn't actually going to happen. but, you know, they're the champs for a reason, man.

And they've, and they've, they've shown that over the last seven games. And Sam Bennett's playing better lately too. I know we had Shana on. Yeah, when we had Shana on, it was like, should we cut him from Team Canada? Like, we don't need him and Tom Wilson. If Sam Bennett's going to have eight points in the NHL or whatever it was. So he's come alive. That line has come alive.

Carter Verhegey, as I said, seven goals in the month of December. only Connor McDavid, Nathan McKinnon, and Alex DeBrinke it have more. So that guy and that line are doing a lot of work for the Panthers right now. Carter, Carter, Hagee is capable of carrying a team for stretch. Yeah. He's a, he's a streaky dude. Sometimes the percentages don't go his way. But when he's, when he's at this level, man, he's capable.

Yeah. He's capable of being, you know, the first or second or third best player on a team, no question. When he's on, it works. Okay, one last thing before we get to Joe Smith. The Winnipeg Jets lose again, one-nothing lost to the St. Louis Blues. They might be in some trouble, John. Yeah, and Maradettech had a great piece around this morning saying, you know, just as much. This might, this just might not be their year.

That's kind of what it boils down to. I think they were a team. You know, everybody knew what the potential stumbling stumbling blocks were for them. You know, they had a bunch of guys have career years last year, and they rely on Connor Hellebuck, just like we all know. You have some of those guys play a little bit worse

than last season. You have Jonathan Taves clearly not be the answer at a minimum. And then you have Hellebuck get hurt. Man, that's just a recipe. It's a recipe for bad news. Especially now, I know we talk to Joe a lot about the state of the central division. You know, I think the alarm bells should be blaring in Winnipeg right now.

No question. Yeah. His tweet with the story is actually very funny. It says, are the Jets already cooked? And the headline is, are the Jets good again or already hopeless? A debate with myself. Marat's not cooked. Marat is cooking.

Yeah, Marath's cooking right now. Yeah, they're interesting because I'm sure we'll have the same two conversations about them all year is, oh, actually, it's fine. The Jets are looking good. I apologize. And then, oh, no, they're cooked. And that is kind of how we've talked about them over the last couple years. It's been a bit of a streaky team. But Hellebuck is back.

Is that enough for them to get into playoff contention? I don't know. He'll have some stretch where he allows, you know, four goals and seven games or something. And then, you know, okay, that's, I feel like that's certainly potentially on the books for them. But, man, Central Division's a Beast. Yeah. And one of those teams just added the second best defenseman on earth with a little trademark, with a little trademark sign next to it.

I feel like we need to start charging people. This is really funny. Marat's great. Are the Jets good again? Are they any good at all? Today my brain goes toe to toe with its worst enemy itself. It's great. Read the story.

61% chance to make the playoffs according to Dom's numbers. So that's a very funny part of Marant's piece too. Now the Jets want to listen to Dom. Very, very interesting. So we listen to Dom now? Uh-huh. It's really funny. I don't personally.

No, never. I can't speak for the Jets. I just feel like they're going to be stuck in the mushy middle and that's obviously not a great place to be. That's where they've always been. I don't care if they were winning President's trophies. That's a mushy middle team, my friends. I hate to break it to you. Okay, well, now everyone's going to be mad at us.

Anyways. Let's take a break. When we come back, we're going to talk to Joe Smith about Quinn Hughes. I don't know if you heard. He's on the wild now. It's crazy. That's coming up next. All right.

I know we've had a lot of Quinn Hughes conversations over the last week on the athletic hockey show, but somehow nobody has been able to wrangle Joe Smith or Mike Russo. They might be busy. Something might have happened. I don't really know what's going on in Minnesota, but we finally got Joe Smith here on the show. It's been busy.

What's going on over there? Why? What happened? Yeah. State of hockey's been pretty excited in the last week. A little busy. here. But yeah, if you're a hockey fan, and I mean, just a blockbuster trade like this rarely ever happens, right? One of the top players in the entire world. So it has definitely made a

huge impact on the wild, on the NHL and the Central Division, which is murderous right now. So, you know, clearly, judged him in the first couple of games and the ovation he got the first game in his debut. They're really going to love Quinn, and I think they hope that Quinn really He loves them. What has the Quinn Hughes experience been like in Minnesota the last five days? You just spoke a little bit to the reaction, the response. I know there was so much on social media, just like seeing Quinn Hughes in the Wild Jersey the first time.

It's a six one win in his debut. Just like immediate star power on the power play. Like there's just so many prongs to what Quinn Hughes is going to mean for this franchise. But what does the first few days look like for you, Joe? Well, initially there was just a huge amount of shock, right, along everybody, and the people not realizing, oh, this has happened to us, right? And then it went into a lot of genuine excitement. Among the players, too, they were doing these group chats and, like, Flina found out he was calling everybody from Krill and Spurgeon, like, hey, do you see what happened? And players

were just generally pumped. They're going to miss the guys that they traded in Marco Rossi and Z. Boullium and Liam Ogren, but they're genuinely excited, of course, about this big-time player and Quinn Hughes, and the first game at Grand Cristina O'Reira was electric. I mean, the guy got a standing ovation at the end of warm-ups. Just the whole game, anytime he had the puck on his stick, you know, it was anticipation and making some noise and there were signs. And, like, I think he really was blown away. He said, he knew this was a hockey market,

but he was kind of just blown away by the response and how he was valued, not just by the wild fans, but by Bill Guerin. Like, I'm sure you saw the quote about that. about him sacking up and giving up a huge package for him. But yeah, like there's just a genuine amount of excitement around the fan base and that whole place went nuts on Sunday and then Tuesday. And they're obviously riding a hot streak as it is. And they're really banged up.

They're missing like five regulars right now. They're still on this stretch of really good hockey. And so they're hoping that once he gets settled in and they get some of their regular players back, that they'll be able to keep this rolling in the second half of the season. But crazy right now with how good they've been. there's still third in the division and third in the league. Right.

Yeah, I think it's an indicator of how good they'd been for the last six weeks. Really outside of October, they've been incredible. They were doing it without much in the way of production from the defense, right? Like, they were, I think, 29th in points from the blue line. They had no players projected to have a plus offensive net rating at defense, which is crazy. so that the fact that they were able to put together that run and still have, you know, a pretty serious area of need in the first place was impressive. And then you tack on the fact that like you, outside of maybe Kail Makar, you couldn't

address that issue with a, with a better fit than Quinn. I mean, it's, I, the optimism has to be incredibly, incredibly high for good reason. Yeah, absolutely. And he mentioned the points from the blue line. And Faber has been really good the last five, six weeks offensively. and you saw his first game with Quinn of just how much he was more up in the play and creating offense.

But you're right, they don't create much points from the blue line, but he fixed that automatically and the power play becomes that much better. Wait until Matt Zugrello gets back from his injury. And one of the issues that they've had were not as much rush chances, zone entries, all that stuff, and that's what his specialty is, basically one-man breakout.

And so for him to be able to fuel the offense a little bit, which they've been struggling for secondary scoring, only makes the rest of the guys better. Do you think the plan is to keep him with Brock Faber, Joe, or do you see the wild maybe splitting them up to give Faber the more defensive minutes and then you just give Quinn the time to be that one-man breakout? Or do you like the idea of them playing together to help push Faber more into the offensive side of his game? Well, it's still early Haley.

but I think the first few games, I think they're going to try to stay with that. Assuming Brodine gets back and is healthy, I think Brodine and Spurgeon are a really good second pair there too. So they play together for a long time before. So I think they can do both. And so I think the way it slots in now, it'll be, you know, hues in favor,

Brodine, Spurgeon, and then when they're healthy, Middleton and Bogosian. So it's hard to find maybe outside of Colorado a better top six, I think, right now. Yeah, it just, it makes everything fall into place for them, doesn't it? Like, yeah, I look at Brodian and Spurgeon and, you know, I think their game is such that you could imagine Minnesota using those guys in the way that we've seen Tampa Bay use Ryan McDunna and whoever else over the years, where you say, all right, you guys, you guys maybe, maybe get some of the D zone starts, maybe eat some of the tuffs and free up at least a little bit more matchup. up wise for for Quinn for Quinn for Quinn and favor to to feast it it's wild it's wild what happens whenever you add a top two defenseman in the league to your blue line how everything else just

kind of magically falls into place but it feels like it feels like that's what we're looking at with them right now yeah and i think if you're a wild fan like when else in the history have you had arguably three of the top 20 players in the world on your team you know with caprisoff i think boldie's in that category um and hues so he just changes the complexion of the entire team, basically, from the back end forward. And, you know, I think one of the needs that they had going in was either, like, a help up front, like a scoring winger or something like that. I think he creates so much office from the back end.

It makes other guys better and creates more his own opportunities and that that's going to help fix that need. Even though I think they're still going to try to fix that or try to address that before the deadline, I think that does help in the short term. Yeah, doesn't that? It kind of gives them options moving forward. It gives Garon options moving forward. in terms of what he does next, right?

Because I think before, you know, it's always been an issue for them where we're talking about center depth and is, is Rossi, you know, is he a top six piece, you know, blah, blah, blah. All these questions we've had about them down the middle for a couple generations worth of players moving back. Now it's like, you know, when you have that element in the back end, you can probably get a little bit more creative. You can get a little bit more flexible in terms of,

in terms of the kind of additions that you make to the forward group. It doesn't just have to be they add a center because that's just, you know, that's where they're lacking. It seems like they have added some real flexibility in terms of future moves. You know, Dinaola, you're off. Should we brought up in this conversation too? So I don't think this deal gets done or they feel more comfortable about this deal getting done in trading Marco Rossi. The Danila Yorov has emerged so well as a rookie here, the Russian here, a first round pick. Same draft class as Ogrin has really stepped into like a top line role.

right and now he was with caprice off and teresanko the russian line since the mensigrello is injured but his 200-foot game is smarts he's got some size to him so um i think for him to to kind of develop to where he is made bill garren feel more comfortable doing rossi because like you know if you like him or not he is a top six center a guy who's played almost every game the last couple years and very durable and smart and strong so um to have him there and then joel ars thanek at one of the top shutdown centers is number two center. Ryan Hartman, Enrico Sturm,

great guy for playoffs and draws like that too. So there's still be a little thin there in terms of behind there, an injury away from being a little bit of an issue, but like you said, when you have puck movers in the back end that helps create some more opportunities and the like,

and you have some wingers who drive play like centers too, like a member covering Kutrov in Tampa. He was like, he created like a center, right? The way he entered the zone and all that stuff like that too. So you can't have guys who aren't in that center spot create like that. So we've talked a bit about the Central. It's a meat grinder in the NHL right now with the abs,

the stars, and the Minnesota Wild. And I think the Wild were obviously looking like a contender before this trade. We've mentioned that in this conversation. They were playing really well outside of a bad start to this NHL season. But now the Minnesota Wild add that number one puck moving, play driving, defender and Quinn Hughes. somebody that the abs and stars kind of both had on their cup checklist.

So, Joe, I'm curious, how does this trade shake up the central a bit to you? Or does this make the stars even, or the wild, excuse me, even more competitive against the abs and the stars? Like, how does this maybe change the makeup of the top of this division and maybe even the league for you? Yeah, what, I don't think it just supplants avalanche all of a sudden, right? I think the avalanche are still the class of the NHL and for a lot of different reasons for that. But I think if you are the Minnesota Wild or the Dallas Stars, you don't have to go through that first round series.

And that gives us a much better chance to get out of that one. And then go, once you get out of that one, I think for this franchise and fan base, just a mental hurdle getting out of the first round, haven't done that in 10 years. So I think to do that, all of a sudden, anything's possible. Right. But I do think in the elements of the top three, it does give them a better chance to advance. it doesn't give them all of a sudden the number one team in the central. I think Colorado still is up there.

But the wild have played those teams well this year, maybe not in previous years, but they have played them. They both beat them both and their home matchups this year. So even while short-handed. So I think they ended the Avalanche's Levin' game winning streak and the Stars 11-point streak at the same time. So I think it does make it even that. I think they're all, I think Dallas and Minnesota are pretty deadlocked right now

in terms of what they have. I think Colorado is a little bit ahead of them. It's definitely puts them in a much better position, I think, to me, to go into a series and say, you can win four out of seven now. Just more generally about the wild, what's the division of labor going to look like with Philip Gustafson and Jesper Walsett moving forward? I mean, Walsstead's been a revelation. He's a top prospect who comes in and he's got however many shutouts now. But Gussopson is, you know, clearly in the last couple weeks, given us a nice, or the last week or so, giving us a reminder of his bona fide. as well. So is this a situation where we're going to see it's like a 50-50 timeshare moving

forward or what's what's the going thought in terms of what things are going to look like in the net moving forward for that? Yeah, it's a tough question. I think they have gone, aside from one rare example of not of the strict goalie rotation, the back and forth 50-50 the last month or so. And I think that will continue going forward as long as the schedule is as condensed as it is. So, you know, because Gus has sent out the other night. Both of them are kind of feeding off of each other. Both of them are staying fresh, which is important. I think we'll be interesting to me is what happens down the stretch. Do they give it to a guy and say, hey, this year's the number one now? Because it's hard for me

to envision a goalie split in a playoff situation that is harder to do to have your goalie go back and forth 50-50. So I do think they're going to continue that from the time being of having Walsett and Gustavson splits to the starts, which makes sense because I read how well things have been going so why change what's not broken but i'll be curious if that changes from john hines like down the stretch if somebody can quote unquote win the net and all of a sudden have that going to the playoffs versus just going half and half um all right so one more question for you joe i know you and rousseau have been working on a ton of this quinn hugh's content everyone can read it at the athletic but obviously one of the big ones uh is the kind of future looking question

there are no long-term guarantees from Quinn Hughes in Minnesota, but there's maybe reason to believe. Why is there reason to be optimistic about Quinn Hughes's long-term future in Minnesota? I know it's early, but we have to ask. Well, I know it's early, but it's not too really for fans to wonder, right? I mean, the minute this happened, you're wondering, you have this big of a haul in a trade, you have to feel like there's some way to keep them. And I think what struck me in his press conference, which the quotes have gone viral ever since was he didn't have to say all the things he did about the wild and how much they

give up to give him get him right he could have said i'm open-minded let me i've been here four hours let's see what happens let's play it out but he went out of his way to basically say it made a big difference for me that billy garren was sacking up and give us all these prospects and this package to how much they valued me i think he wants to feel valued he wants to feel important he wants to feel like he's a big part of the future and so he said he'll remember that um so i think that was a signal to me and people i've talked to and Rousseau talked to who know him well, say that was not that lip service at all. That was not phony. He truly means that. So his relationship with Bill Guerin and how this trade came about and how it was handled certainly will help them with some goodwill going forward.

But the number one thing to me and what's important to Quinn Hughes is winning. And so I think the best thing that the wild can do to convince him to stay is have a strong second half and a good playoff run here this year. And if he feels like if the hockey's good, a lot of other things fall into place as well. And so I think that's what will be important for the wildest show as there I are a true contender now. But if they do do that, then I don't think it's hard to argue for him a better place.

He said he's close to Detroit to his family. He's still on the East Coast, kind of. And then if you signed a three-year... Yeah, how far as that job to the beach from Minneapolis, right? East shore's a little far away. But most, the Jersey Shores far away. But let's say you sign a three-year deal, right? And then you lock up with Jack when he's a free agent, right?

And you're both free agents together. So they don't, he just ends up to sign a eight-year deal next summer. You can sign a shorter deal, go for a cup runs here, and then all of a sudden have options then. So. And go to the beach. Yeah. Are they viewing this as two playoff runs with him regardless? Like, is there a world where we, uh, where, where he gets flipped into deadline again?

next year or can we pencil them in for that much? It's hard to imagine knowing Bill Garan the way he like he goes for it and he's a risk taker. I can see them doing the two playoff runs with him depending on how this one goes of course. But you know, in theory they like to have some sort of idea before then if it's going to happen. If they don't, if they're told kind of like Vancouver was told that it was time, then I think they'll have no choice but to make that move at the deadline a couple years from now and recoup some assets. But all they're thinking now is like, hey, this is our guy. He's a big part of our future.

And we're playing it like this is a guy who's going to be on this team for many years to come. So let's just enjoy the ride and see what happens. And there's a lot for fans to enjoy it now with Quinn Hughes on the back end. All right. Quinn Hughes' third game with the Minnesota Wild tonight, Columbus Blue Jackets, Minnesota Wild. Joe and Rousseau will be there. Keep reading all their content. There's actually so much stuff on the website, Joe.

It's crazy. It really is wild. As someone who's worked with Rousseau, the last little bit on Rivalry series, I'm like, oh yeah, I forgot just like how your motor operates. That dude is like on another one right now. You guys are both machines.

I want one solid, meaty Quinn Hughes feature every three days. forward please. I'll, I'll take it. Yeah. Last Friday and Saturday, I think we're like six stories, I think Friday and Saturday.

It was like crazy. Even read them all. It was great prep for this. Thanks so much, Joe. We appreciate it. Thank you guys. Thanks so much to Joe Smith for joining us on the show to break down the Quinn Hughes trade a little further.

Like really just can't speak enough to how this trade is going to impact the central. I don't, like Joe said, is it going to mean that the wild are going to beat the abs? No. but it makes everything more juicier and it makes them at the very least more competitive and able to win a playoff series which is what fans have wanted to see for a while.

For, yeah, seven years or once in seven years, whatever the streak is. Yeah, it just ensures that they're going to go into whatever the first round matchup is without having some major box left unchecked, right? Because that's serious stuff. You know you're going to be playing against Keel McCarr and you know you're going to be playing against Miro Haskin.

I know the jets are a mess right now, but you're potentially playing against Josh Morrissey. Like you're looking at guys who are top 10, you know, at the minimum defenseman in the league. And when you don't have anything approaching that, and all due respect to Brock Faber, but he doesn't have that level of dynamism that we see from those guys. You know, it's important to be able to go out and get somebody who can go toe to toe with them. And Quinn Hughes can do a whole lot more than that. So, yeah, I think it's a big deal for the central. Absolutely.

Okay, so one thing I did want to bring up, and this has been on my mind since I saw the Quinn Hughes quote everyone wants to talk about. And I don't want to come off like I'm poo-pooing Bill Guerin or the Wild. I'm not raining on your parade. I think two things can be true here. Do I take Quinn Hughes at his word that he likes being appreciated and Bill Garron did a good job trading for him? Yes. However, all I see when I, every time I see that quote about Bill Garen's sacking up, I just see that as a shot at Tom Fitzgerald and the Devils for not making the trade that everyone thought was going to happen or everyone was asking for. To me, that's like, thanks Bill, our like ice cream Sunday king throwback to our. That's a pole, yes, deep poll. Real fans will know. Yes, I think that's like, thank you, Bill, because it was a good trade.

He did sack up. You like wince every time you say that, by the way. It's gross. I like, it's whatever. It's not for me. But I also see that as like, hey, devils, I see that you didn't make this deal. I see you. Yeah, we should have brought in McIndoo to do his trades are hard bit.

Someone think of the poor. Well, I could have Quinn Hughes' butts. What am I to do? No, and we see the excuse making too where the devils are up against the cap and they would have had to maybe move Andre Palat or Dougie Hamilton or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Just do it because then you run the risk of Quinn he was ending up in Minnesota. Pretty good situation.

As Joe said, it's close to Detroit. He's playing with Carol Caprisov, and he's playing with Matt Boldie, who he's going to be on the Olympic team with in a couple months, mind you. It's a pretty good team in winning changes the calculus. So if he does end up in Minnesota, say they do beat the Dallas stars in the first round of the playoffs, then who knows what happens, man, you are putting a lot of faith in the allure of playing with Jack and playing with Luke because Minnesota is a pretty good place to play hockey

for a lot of different reasons. And absolutely, the door is open right now. And the fact that it's open because they couldn't clear cap and trades are hard and bupah, blah, blah, that's tough. Yeah. I'm not, I'm not buying the sob story. And I just see that as Bill did it and you didn't buy. It's true.

ball don't lie man Quinn Hughes is on a new team right now and it ain't Tom Fitzgeralds so it's the way the ball bounces it's the way the puck bounces All right, that's enough sorry wild fans

like we've been gassing you up all week I just I needed to get that off my chest First round loss incoming The street continues yes That's not what I said Not what I said Okay one last thing to wrap

the show. There is a little update on this. I was ready to spend 45 minutes doing a deep dive on, like this was going to be like a Haley and Sean Find Out episode of what happened in Seattle. I've got documents. I've got tweets. I've got one minute press conferences where only one person asked a question and I wanted to get to the bottom of it. Sound of Hockey did. So thank you to Sound of Hockey. You've saved Sean and all of our dear listeners from me trying to investigate something. From 45 minutes worth of investigating a topic that...

Really doesn't need much investigation, I just... No. I was just really interested in it. Sure. And then Joe Smith was available, so we changed course. But really weird situation in Seattle. The Krakhan have lost eight of... or nine of their last 10, excuse me, head coach Lane Lambert comes out after they lose to the

abs, which was actually kind of like an entertaining. It was like a decent game. I know the Cracken haven't been great, but decent game, at the very least entertaining. Lane Lambert comes out, takes four or five questions from the team employee. It's about one minute. They're all short answers and then he leaves. For those unfamiliar, of how that works. Typically, coach comes out. There's a microphone or people, it's a scrum. All the media ask questions.

Like, I have never seen anything like that in my time working in the NHL where the local media in the room, because there was some, there was, it's not like they weren't there. I've never seen anything where the media were not allowed to ask questions. That's actually, like, against the players, the media writers association and, like, league media policies. So just like a truly wild thing. And the thought was like, who did this? Like what happened here?

They treated it like they're the only analog I can find is the way it works, the NFL whenever there's a bad call and there's a pool reporter. And someone gets designated as the person to go ask so and so about what happened with the overturned touchdown call like in the fourth quarter. Like that's the only, that's the closest comparison I can make here. I've certainly never seen it where there's a pool reporter situation basically for a head coach. Yeah. So from the sound of hockey, they wrote about this last night actually.

So I'm glad this came out. And a member of the Crackens Communication Department explained what happened here. Because honest, it looked like Lane Lambert was like sour grapes being like, I'm not answering any freaking questions only from my team staff. Like it looked like this was a coach's decision, in my opinion, which is just like such sour grapes like you guys have lost and now you don't want to speak to anyone. Like, I don't know. Get over it.

That's always my thought with like the media crankiness. And it looks like it was the PR department's decision, or so they say. they are now saying to the sound of hockey that they got the questions funneled to the team reporter so the team reporter was like asking them hey what questions do you want to ask and then he asked them of Lane Lambert instead of letting everyone ask their own questions he retained the microphone for the whole one minute press conference and then Lane Lambert left. So the team rep from the Cracken is saying that it was their decision.

They wanted to do it to protect their head coach. It wasn't the head coach's idea. And they now feel bad because they put, you know, everyone in, you know, a bad position. It's just like, it was so weird. It was so weird. Yeah, it's not how it works. I think it's indicative of how stuff has gone in Seattle this season. I know there was a stretch a month or so ago where they were using smoke and mirrors

and chewing gum and toilet paper to rig their way up to the middle of the standings. It's a team that everybody thought was going to be quite bad. And they are indeed quite bad. They've lost nine of ten or ten or eleven or whatever, whatever the stretch is. So stuff's going sour and people are getting mad. And that's, hey, that's life in the big leagues. That's the way it goes. you're going to have losing streaks where, you know, where the coach or whoever else doesn't

really feel like answering questions, but anyhow, it works, you know, and I think it's definitely a little bit of a welcome to the big leagues moment, whether it's Lane Lambert, whether it's the PR staff, you know, that's not how things are done. And people are going to notice if nothing else, man. Yeah. It might be how it works in other parts of society, but this isn't full on state. media. Like you can still have some independent outlets asking, asking potentially difficult questions. Yeah, yeah, definitely weird. It just made it look like he was hiding from the media or that the comms department didn't want media being hard on him. Weird choice. It blew up yesterday. So it was, it was a weird choice in Seattle. That team stinks too. So whatever. Like there's, there's going to

I mean, there's going to be more moments like this for them moving forward. I hope I, I hope they're used to dealing with, you know, bad losses. I just think there's like. Potentially difficult questions because Seattle stinks. Okay. You don't need to pile on. I was going to say like there's other, there's other ways to. That's a bad hockey team.

Yeah. And listen, like I covered Daryl Sutter in Calgary. Like I've dealt with coaches who like don't want to deal with the media. There were some games and it was actually always kind of funny. There were some games where like Ryan Huska would come out. because Darrell just be like, no. Someone else go, fine, send your assistant, send someone else. You're sick of meeting the music.

Ask one of your assistants to go do it. When it was funny is if Markstrom had a bad game, then Jason LaBarber would come out, which you know was Darrell being like, this is your fault. You go talk to them. Human shield, yes. So there's different ways to. It was just weird choice. The Cracken got dumped on pretty heavily.

online yesterday. It was just like an unforced error. Just have Lambert come out and do it and do a one-minute press conference with everybody and give short, bratty, angry answers to questions from a wider range of people than just Bob Condor, who's the... I was trying not to name him because they put him in a bad spot too. Awful. Like, I feel bad for him more than anything.

Completely. Because what's he supposed to do, be like, no, I'm not going to do that. It's just unfortunate. Just a really weird situation in it. a tough time in Seattle. And a great look into the tangled web of working in media in the 21st, a quarter of the way through the 21st century, too. It's fraught on a lot of different levels.

But that's a bit more sausage gets madey. I'm glad we didn't have to investigate that. Thanks to Sound of hockey for getting the answers for us. Yeah, you guys only got eight minutes of that versus 45, so congratulations. I had all my notes already. All right, there's 10 games on the schedule. in the NHL today, as we mentioned, Columbus and Minnesota. If you want to catch the third game of Quinn Hughes in a wild jersey, Seattle Cracken,

Calgary Flames tonight, we can, let's see. Get psyched. What a game that is. Dallas, San Jose, Edmonton, Boston. Oh, Toronto, Washington's interesting. Pittsburgh Penguins, Ottawa Senators. I don't know why I'm reading the schedule. We've already hit our time.

We stop. Thanks everyone for listening to this. I was trying to find like a good show because every, or a good game. Because I kept being like, eh, eh, trying to sell the game of hockey. Anyone listening to this is already, if you're still listening to this pot, I'm sure you like hockey a lot. So thanks everyone for listening. This is our last show of the year from Sean and I, Max Lazz and Jesse at the next show on Monday. Sean and I will return on January 8th.

Happy holidays, everyone. Wow, we got a really big break. This is great. Bye, everybody. I'm in a great mood now. I'll take it. What the fuck is his role model? I don't even know what that is.

You're a rapper? You've heard one of his songs before. He has that song called Sally. Uh-huh. And then he brings out, like, famous people who's like, where's my Sally tonight? And then, like, Kate Hudson comes on stage. This is not really about him.

He used to date Emma Chamberlain. I was going to say that. on the show and you would have been like this is like I these are people who I'm just not I'm not supposed to know how they are this guy his mother's real name is Tucker Pillsbury are you kidding me I would just go I would just go by Tucker Pillsbury can we drop that into the show