The Athletic Hockey Show - Is Byfield’s new Kings deal MacKinnon-esque?

Episode Date: July 17, 2024

On today’s Wednesday episode of The Athletic Hockey Show, Gentille and DGB discuss Quinton Byfield’s interesting deal with the LA Kings, break down Dom’s list of the 10 best contracts in the NHL right now, and answer a bunch of listener questions to close things out.Hosts: Sean Gentille and Sean McIndoeExecutive Producer: Chris FlanneryProducer: Chris Flannery Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic hockey show. Welcome, welcome, welcome to the athletic hockey show. It's a podcast about cottage season hosted by two guys without cottages. Correct. No Frankie Corrado this week. It's just Sean McIndoo. It's just me, Sean Gentile. GGB.

Hello? How are you? Doing good. No Max either. Did you listen last week? How'd you think he did sub it in? He's replacement level in most things, I would say. Zamboni driver level.

No? No? Okay. Close. Only under some circumstances. We sent him all the paperwork to legally change his name to Sean and he didn't, like, he was all weird about it. He was like, why would I have to do this for one show? And it's like, well, dude, do you dress for the job you want, right? Like, I tried to adopt him in the summer of 2017 when he was an intern at the Pittsburgh Post Gazette and it didn't work. So I can imagine, I can imagine it wouldn't go too much better on your end of things. It's fine. Not a team player, but, you know. You know, that's what I say about Max. What's what I say about Max all the time? Just a really selfish, me first guy.

Yep. A lot of attitude. That's pretty much it. So, big pin in the ass. Anyways, Max, please come back when I want to week off. Yes, sir. Probably next week. What's going on?

I don't know, man. I'm just like killing time, I guess. We were blessed with news last night. Yeah. We got a Quentin Bifel. I love mid-July, man, when something that news that would yet 15 minutes of conversation during the season dominates a week. It's a whole podcast.

I hope everybody's ready for some Quentin Bifield discourse, baby. Yes. Brings us directly into what I've learned this week. What have we learned, Sean? I think Quentin Bifield had just signed the new most interesting contract in the league. Five years, 6.25 A.A.V. He's sticking around in L.A. after really showing last year that he was the foundational piece that everybody thought he was going to be.

What I think makes this one so fun and worth watching is the role that he kind of occupies in the King's current plans and future plans and how that's changed over the last year or so. We saw last year, and I think that this is kind of the top line item for me when it comes to this one. Last year, good as he was, he was getting a lot of time on the wing. That's kind of where he had his breakout. out. Now, a year out from that, there's no Pierletoubao to worry about anymore. They're putting, you know, some of the onus that was on PLD's shoulders to be like a down-the-middle foundational piece for as much of a contender as you think they are. You know, that was the way we were treating Pierluc de Bois last season, right?

Like, this is the guy. This is the high-end skilled dude who you can mix in with Kopitar and Dano and kind of be that down the middle game breaker. Clearly not the case. Dubois has been exiled, and now it's byfields, now it's byfield spot. So what they're expecting from him to an extent is to be able to port that breakout ability

and that kind of production that he showed on the wing to center. And I don't, like, this, but the bet hedge here is that the number is small enough where it's like, even if he doesn't do that, even if the, even if the byfield back to center gambit doesn't quite work,

doesn't quite work out and they have to put him on the wing, I think it's still a good deal. If he can port what he did last year to the center position and be that other that other dude with Nolan Copatara, man, that's not just a steal for this season. That's a steal for five years, six years, you know, and potentially down the line. Yeah.

I mean, I like byfield a lot. I like him a lot more after last year. Because he was getting the, you know, he was at that point where he was starting to tiptoe up to, okay, do we have to have the conversation that he's not a bust, you know, busts are guys who don't even, you know, don't even do anything at the NHL level. But is he a guy who's not going to live up to that number two hype? And, you know, in his case, he always had the Tim Stutzel hanging over. He picked right after him.

And, you know, there had been some question over which guy you take. And last year was sort of the break. That was kind of a theme of last year was, don't get too quick to dismiss some of these guys because you had Byfield, you had Lefrenier, yeah, guys that were just showing that, you know, sometimes it takes a little bit. Not everyone's Connor McDavid or Austin Matthews and just, you know, hits the ground running.

So I like this deal. Now, you're calling it the most interesting deal. that's a which is not that's not the best or the worst carefully chosen where that comes from that word i don't think we can say necessarily just yet that this is you know this dude's not nathan mckinan right and he didn't sign the nathan mckinan deal from eight years ago or whenever it was where you knew immediately that that that guy was going to be underpaid from the moment the ink dried on it right that's not that's not where he is there's still a little bit of that goes on there. And again, you know, a lot of it comes back to playing him at center

consistently and not, not, you know, not in any kind of support, uh, so like support role with, with Kopitar or whatever. This dude now is, he gets his own line, you know, sink or swim down the middle there full time. So there is some level of projection there. And I think that's what stops me from being like, okay, uh, we're porting this in at number three. on the top 10 best value contracts or whatever you want to do. I still want to see the production from him on his own line, playing, you know, playing center for a full NHL season.

So I think that's what makes it interesting, right? Because if he can do that, then we're having the discussion. Like, is this extreme great value? But for the time being, he's not there yet. And I think that's what makes it interesting to track. I mean, I'm going to push back. on you a little bit here. I think this is a lot closer to that Nathan McKinnon deal than

you might think. First of all, the number is almost identical. 6.25 for Byfield, 6.3 for McKinnon on a deal that was signed back in 2016. So it was a percentage of the cap. Percentage wise, yeah. You know, not the same. The thing with Nathan McKinnon, people forget this. Second year wasn't great. Third year wasn't great. First year, I mean, here's Nathan McKinnon's first four years in the NHL. Braxton as a rookie wins the Calder with a 63 points season. 24 goals, 63 points. Good, good numbers.

Calder numbers in a not so great rookie year. But not superstar numbers. Second year drops to 38 points. Third year, 21 goals, 31 assists 52 points in year, and that's when he signs the contract. Okay. Quentin Bifield, year three is a full-time NHL, not counting a couple of games he played in, in 2021. 20 goals, 35 assists, 55 points. Pretty much the same numbers, a guy who was second overall pick as opposed to first overall

McKinnon. There's a lot of similarities there. And, you know, I think there were, it's one of these things. And this is people who follow my stuff. No, I'm fascinated by the way that we kind of retcon things in our head that, of course, McKinnon was always going to be this monster that he's become the MVP, the guy who's in the top three or five player in the league conversation. There was genuine doubt back then. Again, not that he was a bust, but that this guy was going to be more of a Ryan Nugent Hopkins number one overall pick than, you know,

or maybe a Taylor Hall and not... Was there the level of doubt, though, that there was surrounding Byfield? Because those first two seasons, even though I'm like, okay, he wasn't good in Year 3 or year 2, year three is certainly similar production-wise to Byfield. I mean, the production was still there to some, at least relative to Byfield, right?

Like three years, three years where Byfield in total had six goals and 24 assists and, you know, pretty nasty five-on-five numbers. Like, I get it. I get what you're saying. We're retconny Nathan McKinnon as like, as a no-doubt, top-tier heart-level player, which he is now. And we're just assuming if that was that people treated that as a given in year two and three. And it's not the way it happened.

But I do think that there was an added level of certainty about what he would become versus what we've seen from Byfield. because he was good when he was 18. Byfield wasn't an NHL player when he was 18. He was playing center basically the whole time, not the case, not the case with Byfield. So like, have they met at a similar point after their third seasons? Like, absolutely.

Like, I think, and maybe it all comes out in a wash. And I agree with everything you're saying. I think the, you know, it's sort of the double-edged sword, right? That if I feel hadn't been as good, your one and your two as McKinnon had. which also means that now you look at Bifield and you're like, this guy is a rocket strapped to his back. He's on his way. Whereas McKinnon,

you were like, this dude's flatlining. This guy is now in year three. And by the way, he signs the contract and then goes out in year four has another 53 point season. Drops to 16 goals. That team was bad for a few years. And a lot of it was some degree of it was his fault, right?

Like that's why he stalled. Yeah. And then for some reason, after year four, I guess this must be when he stops eating white pasta. Sure. And immediately 97 points, 99, 93, runner up for the heart, twice, second team all of this stuff. At this point, he becomes Nathan McKinnon, as we all know him, well over a point of game player. And has been that for, you know, whatever it is, six, seven years since then. And as part of that has to spend a huge chunk of that time hearing about how he's got the best contract in the league, quote unquote best, which is always, you know, when we say best contract, we're always talking most team friendly, that has to drive you crazy as a player.

Do you imagine if every, like our salaries were public and everybody was just like, you know, there's no better value in the league in that Sean Gentile man. I cannot believe how little the athletic pays that guy. And you're locked in for five years, just like, okay. We, uh, there was a media event in Vegas a couple years ago. It was like the, the preseason car wash thing where they bring one player from every team through and they got to talk to us and act like they're happy to see us and all that stuff. And it happened right around, McKinnon was the Aves guy. And it happened right around the time he was signing his current deal. And then there was, there were also discussions. I feel like an extension discussion with McCar going on at the same time.

So the question was like, are you ready to see the. for having the most team-friendly contract in the league to Kail. And he was like, ah, yeah, I think so. He can take that one. You gotta, you must be like just texting your agent, like at least every now and then. Like, hey, man, what happened here? You saw, Athletic just a list of best contracts. I'm number one on it.

Guess who's number one? Hey. Meil, I haven't, I haven't eaten, you know, a nightshade since 2017 or whatever. I stopped eating peanuts for some for some bizarre reason. Like, yeah. What is this, what has this gotten me? Here is what to me is also very interesting about the buy-fail deal. So because I have been banging this drum for years now.

I do not understand why young players sign long-term cheap deals. And to some level, I get it. yes, of course, it's easy for me to sit there and be like, you should be going short term. Injuries happen. I mean, I don't, at the top of my head, I'm not sure how many career-ending injuries. I can think of happening to 20-somethings, you know, recently, but could happen. Performance could drop, you know, and yes, you know, whenever I go on this rant, someone's like, oh, so you'd say no to $30 million.

And it's like, well, no, but, you know, if you're going to just say $30 million is a lot of money, so it's $25, so is 20. Like, what are we doing here? Like, at some point, you've got to pick a number that you think is your worth. So I don't understand why they do it. I didn't understand Tim Stutzel. I didn't understand Jack Hughes. I, you know, go on down the list.

You know, Slavkovsky. I think, you know, probably is a deal where you're going to look back and be looking at your agent going, man, I know we got the security. And I know I don't have to think about it. But, man, I'm getting tired of here at how many tens of millions of dollars I left. So I don't get that. Byfield falls into that group too, but he signed for five years. He did not sign for eight years. That's right.

And that I think is real, real interesting. And it probably changes the dynamic of how we should think about this cap hit in a way that maybe we're not fully prepared for because we're just used to like, that's a good point short term, long term. And five years is a long time, so it's a long term. But it's not. It walks him right to free agency at 26, I think. UFA, which if you're a Leafs fan is sending some shutters right now, because that's the same gambit that basically Marner and Matthews did.

And it puts him in a great position. So I kind of get why, you know, when people are like, dude, you've left money on the table. Yeah, but maybe he's given it like, like he, they didn't buy. any UFA years they didn't get any of that. That's it, right? He literally is not going to lose out on a single, on a single year of free agency, right? So that's the give back. Like the numbers, he's the guy we think he used.

And 26 years old sitting at UFA. Let the stampede begin. Yeah. Especially since the cap's going up. I don't know. Not a lot of people mention that, but caps going up. Did you hear that it didn't rise like at all for a couple years there? Isn't it wasn't that feels like it would be is that true?

It's good. Boy, I'm glad I don't cheer for a team that gave everybody on the roster massive deals in 2019 on the assumption the cap would go up for everybody. All right. Having had that conversation is Quentin Byfield knocking on the door of the top 10 best contracts in the league, which is the piece that dropped today. This is from Dom and his model. not me and it's and it's an attempt to quantify yeah you can tell it's not you can tell Sean wasn't involved because there's no Taylor Swift lyrics anywhere stop it that's probably not true there probably a few in there I would not funny yeah yeah seriously he uh he wrote out the lyrics

of a song with like the with like the last letter of every paragraph or something probably some psychotic easter egg planted there but we've got uh we've got a top 10 and and to be clear this it's quantitative. So what Don does is he basically, the model figures out what somebody is worth each year and projects, you know, with aging curves and all of that. And then how long is the contract and, you know, how much value each year of that? So basically the longer the contract remaining, the better. There are some deeper here, like you mentioned, Kail McCarro earlier, isn't on the list because he's only got a couple years left. And that's just not enough time to produce as much value as some of these guys who have six, seven years to go.

but it's a pretty good list. I guess what I learned is, I think maybe that the Hughes brothers need new negotiating strategy because two of them on the list, Luke, what's up with Luke? He's got to make up the money for everybody else. You've got a,

and it's the same, by the way, it's the same agent for them, and Nathan McKinnon. Back to that. Interesting. So I won't say who it is, because he's so powerful he could snap his figures

and I vanish out of the hockey world but I didn't get fired. I'm literally afraid of him. You're just going to, yeah, you're going to get snapped out of existence. Let's just say their agent is clearly playing 4D chess that my mind cannot understand because Jack Hughes number two on the list based on his deal, his $8 million A.A.V.

That still has six years to go. And Quinn Hughes coming on, a Norris trophy. Quinn Hughes, a long-time favorite of Dom and his model, of course, has just three years left at 7.85. But he shows up at number nine. And that is to make the top 10 with only three years left on your deal, you have to be a real steal. And he is. And it's sort of one of these things where if you're a Vancouver Canucks fan, you're so happy to see your best player on this list, which are two years away from,

extension arm again. Having, having the conversation again. And it's going to go a little bit differently next time. Yeah, Byfield probably slots in towards the back of that. Like, we can just do it. I don't, I don't have the exact math or the spreadsheet ahead of me. But like you look at number 10, right? It's Matt Boldie, signed for $7 million for five more seasons at an $11 million

projected valuation. So that's basically Byfield at this point. you know, with some room to, with some major room to improve, it should be said. Like annual average of 6.3 projected value of 10.2. So that's $4 million of surplus value for the next five years, which is, you know, right there, right there with boldy. So if you're going by the way Don's broken this town, you put, you know, put byfield at eight or nine or ten right now.

That feels about right. Yep. Any, any shocks on the list? Number one, I guess we should talk about. not surprising certainly should number one is number one is gustav forsling um yeah man i that's still it did you get to how about this did you get tired of hearing the the gustav forsling origin story at any point during the during the playoffs because i feel like anytime he did any time he did a single thing i was like guess what guess where they got this guy he was he was on waivers a couple

years ago did you know yeah we we we get it but it is worth reinforcing just what a great value that guy is right like we don't need we don't need to talk about about about where he came from. We can focus on the fact that he's paid $5.8 million through 2032 with a projected value of 11.4. And here's the thing, and I will admit this, when I saw him on the list, I went, yep, for sure. Oh, yeah, you know, eight years, everything. And I kind of thought to myself, you know what? Great job by the Panthers because they locked this guy up before last year, before you had the big breakout. That's exactly what you want. You know, you bet on somebody. I remember I remember years and years and years ago

when the Predators gave Roman Yosey 8 years times 4. And I was like who's Roman Yose? And obviously ended up being extraordinary value. And I thought this is the same thing. They signed him last summer. You give him 8 years, give him the security and then he goes... Similar to back then because there were guys in the Preds, obviously

that was when Shea Weber was still doing his thing. There were dudes on Nashville on defense who had higher provolite. And it wasn't just Weber either. There were guys like you know, like Dan Hamhuis was still around, right? There were a bunch of guys above him theoretically, I think, in terms of flying Suter was still around. He may have been like a, that was the big one that I was swinging and missing on.

Suter was definitely around, right? So I'm sitting there going, okay, great job by Florida, right? They sign a guy last summer. He has an amazing breakout year. That's always what you want. And I looked at it. I'm like, wait a second. They signed him at the end of this season.

Yep. So he had already had 80 or 90% of the year. He finished with Norris voting. He was finished in the top 10 of the Norris. Now, he hadn't had that playoffs where everybody just went overboard talking about how great he was. But, like, man, they got a hell of a value off of them. Absolutely. Given that he had already had that season.

Yeah, that's another one, man. I think it just speaks to the kind of conservatism, like low-sea conservatism in this case, that's inherent with the sport. It's just a cultural thing where for whatever reason, dudes are like, yeah, okay, five years. Like, if the number makes sense, I will take that over risking, over risking something. I've heard, and I'm sure you've heard the same thing,

that, you know, not all players, but a lot of players just absolutely hate the contract. Like, I mean, you've got, you know, you're talking to your agent all the time. The wife is asking you what's going on. The kids want to know. Like, are we going to have to move your families? Like, it's just the idea of I don't have to do this again for eight years is probably pretty strong.

Especially when, let's keep in mind, this isn't a Nathan McKinnon or a Quentin Byfield or a Jack Hughes. This is a guy who is a guy who, he knows what's at stake. He knows what the other side of the coin is. This guy's NHL career was dangling by a thread not all that long ago. if anyone is going to say, you know what, give me eight years, multiple, like, okay, so maybe I'm leaving 10 or 15 million that I was never going to spend anyways on a table somewhere. And, oh, by the way, I'm in Florida where I'm going to have to look up the tax rate in Florida. It's probably high. You swiped it out from beneath me.

You got to remember Florida state taxes through the roof, I believe. Yeah, just really crazy. But not a surprise there at number one. I'm just looking to see if there's anyone. We won't read every single name on the list. But I guess Josh Morrissey surprised me a little bit. Josh Morrissey's a guy, if we're looking at him through the lens of the Dom model that has swung, the pendulum has swung in the correct direction for him over the last few years.

Like, this is not a list that Josh Morrissey would have sniffed three seasons ago. Four years ago, he had just, he just had an eight-year deal, paid him $6.25 million. So he's halfway through that deal. When he signed it four years ago, Dom's model put that deal on the 10 worst contracts. Hated it. And hate Josh Morrissey, but didn't love Josh Morrissey as a guy. making number one defenseman money. I personally hated Josh Morrissey.

Well, there is that. You can't rule that out here. Every now and then the model, if you've ever been near it, it starts to smoke a little bit and the eyes glow red. I don't know why Dom has eyes on it to start with, but it's really...

Yeah. But then you just, you hold up a Maple Leaf logo and it makes little hearts and bird chirping noise. It's crazy. It's fine. I've seen it.

That's what it does. So that one is, that's fascinating to me. that the same contract on a guy getting older goes from bad to good. Obviously, you know, again, tap going up, all that stuff helps. But he's projected as a, you know, the model has come around, let's just say, on Josh Morrissey. And for me, looking at this list, and this is true every time Dom publishes it, honestly, it hammers home the point that I think honestly does need reinforcement consistently in the NHL.

There are a lot of stars on this list. And there are a lot of stars that are making contracts that to the naked eyes seem, you know, fair. They put them at the top of a lot of Aavv lists, right? Like Matthew Cachuk is on this list. Matthew Cichuk makes a ton of money. That's part of the narrative surrounding Matthew Cichuk. He is, but he is an elite talent too, like Quinn Hughes and Jack Hughes and

Nathan McKinney. Nathan McKinnon. He is on the list. Yes. On a deal that was the most expensive in the league when it was signed. It's been passed by, and Austin Matthews is in the honorable mentions. And the only reason Connor McDavid isn't number one on the list is because he's only got two years left. Leandro Sidel with one year left, I mean, if, you know, those guys would be at the very tough.

Like, it is very hard in this league the way things are now set up to overpay truly elite talent. you can certainly overpay guys you think are elite and then they turn into Jonathan Hubertoe. But if you, if a guy is a superstar, it's very, very hard to overpay them. Most of the overpays are a little further down the lineup. And I assume that's coming in a couple of days from Dom where he'll have the worst contracts, which is always far more fun. Much meaner. People get much anger at him.

We will find some replacement for Josh Morrissey from three years ago when Jets fans were. We spent whatever, the better part of an offseason screaming at Tom over that. Turns out they might have been correct. All right, let's go to a break. All right, we're back. And since it is July 16th and we're lazy, I suppose, we asked you guys for questions. Sean did specifically. And you came through in a big way.

There's a lot of really good ones here. Nice work. Yeah, way to go. Thank you for doing our jobs for us. We'll start with this one because this is offseason content. If offseason content has ever existed, it's from Patrick at Patrick'souting. Just reading back on some of the NHL 99 list you guys made, McDavid was ranked 16th then.

Where would he be ranked today? Patrick's talking about, again, the NHL 99 project that we did last year, where a whole bunch of us submitted ballots and wrote a bunch of stuff. and da-da-da-da-da-da who is basically done in the 2022 off-season. Yeah. Some of us were maybe on the phone with, say, Chris Pronger shortly before our writing deadlines were, came up and maybe got yelled at for doing stuff. How'd that go, fun? It was unreal.

I caught him while he was on vacation. He was in Nashville with his family, and he was clearly just, like, sitting at a hotel bar, like, did he BS me for two and a half hours, most of which, I couldn't use in any journalistic capacity at all. It was a great conversation. Again, it almost made up for getting yelled at for how late I turned the one in. Anyways, Connor McDavid, 16 overall on that list. Sean McIndoo had him at 26. Sean Gentilly had him at 19.

Let's start with you, dude. Where is he now based on the last two seasons of production? So, I mean, clearly he's, he's, he's moved up. But I have to say, this was, it was the top top 100 of the modern air.

So we were starting in 67. Man, we had him at 16. That was pretty high. It was pretty high. We had him ahead of Mark Messier, ahead of Marcel Dion. I had a bread hall,

Timos Salani. We had him ahead of a lot of. I had him directly ahead. of Brett Hall, Potfin, Marcel Dionne Salani. Or Tamro Durr, even, you know, hard to compare to goalies. But so, I mean, it's not like one of those things where you look back and go, yeah, we were, you know, we didn't have him high enough. And since then, he's made us look foolish. Like, we had one, like, well, let's just go through the guys that are right ahead of them.

I will say, we did make that mistake with other players. We made that mistake with Leon Dreisato. You should have. You should have been on the list and he wasn't. We took shit for it when it came out. It was deserved. Deserved. And it has only been proven to be more correct over the last two years.

Yeah. You know, Austin Matthews was another one that at the time we sort of argued about we had him in the 60s. You know, he hadn't, you had just won the MVP, you know, for the first time and that sort of thing. But here's the guys that are ahead of McDavid. Because even two years ago, we all knew McDavid was a generation. generational super star. But the guys ahead of him, Steve Iserman, Ila Fleur, Joe Sackick,

Mike Bossy, four forwards, that he's got to move. If you're sitting there going, he's obviously in the top ten, he's got to pass those guys, plus Patrick Warren, Raymore. Like, we're talking all time grades.

So this is one of those things. This is, whenever you do a ranking, it's fascinating to me because very clearly when people react rankings. They don't look at the full list. They kind of do it by vibe, right? You go, Connor McDavid is obviously a top 10 player. He is obviously a top 10 modern era player. Okay. Who does he pass?

You know, you start going down the list. Is he better than Gretzky, Lemieux, Bobby, or Sydney Crosby? Yeah? No. Okay. Well, all right, is he better than Steve Eisenman? We had like 1,500 points? Is he better than Joe Sackick? already. Like, we're talking... Those are the guys who are basically immediately in front of him on my list. It's Sackick Bossie, Broder, Eisman, Lafleur, Messier. Mike Bossie, arguably the greatest goal

scorer ever. Is Conner or David already better? He might be. But the thing, what I'm trying to demonstrate is the, there are way more guys that feel like obvious no-brainer, have you ever watched the sport top 10 picks. There's a lot more than 10. And as soon as soon as, as you start writing them down and trying to sort them out, it gets tough. And the thing with McDavid is, again, we are only giving credit up until right now. So in 2022, it was up until then. Now we're, you know, we give them these extra two years. Fine. We're not projecting into the

future. I think we all agree by the time he's done. He's almost certainly a top five. He's probably pushing Crosby out of that all-time top five or maybe it's Gory Howe or whoever. Like, he's that good. But right now, right now, a lot of times people look at it and say, what if, you know, if he retired today, if we, you know, turned on the news tonight and it said, you know, Conner McDavid suffers horrific injury while training, career over. It's not even so much of that. It's more like what if Connor, if Conner McDavid shows up, let's say he takes the Stanley Cup loss really hard. He shows up. He's fat. He's out of shape. And he's a 50 point player for the next five years, just chugging along, you know, which sounds ridiculous. And would be. be unprecedented for a superstar at that level. But we've seen guys, like, Danny Heatley was on pace to be one of the greats ever until he was like 28. And then he suddenly was, you're treading on dangerous ground here. People are going to, you're going to, there's, there's a lot of guys who were at that level. Uh-huh. And then they just weren't, you know, Jimmy Carson for four years

looked like he was going to be a legend. And now the young people listening to this are like, I don't know who Jimmy Carson is. Is that some dude from the 30s? Exactly. So the point is, if that happened, where would you rank him? Would you honestly still look back and go, man, he was great for nine years, won a few MVPs and then he wasn't very good. Is he better than Steve Iserman? Yeah, he might be. Eiserman never won an MVP.

Like, McDavid might already be there, but it's tough. So where do you put him? Who are you moving about, like, let's, we can, I think, safely assume he's moving up and not down. Yes. With all due respect to, you know, Paul Coffey has not, I don't think done anything in two years to move back up the list. He gets, no, he gets a couple bumps up the list for telling the Oilers power play to be

good last year. For skating up to Evan Bush's yard. Not going to punch out. There's all right. Go ahead. Let's go. How about? What if you were like me?

Is he, okay. Eiserman, Lefleur, sack it, bossy. Is he passing those guys? I have him on my personal list here, and I'm going by where I had him before. I have him in 19. I can stomach pushing him up to 14th. I can't put him in front of Patrick Waugh,

who I think is the second best goalie of the expansion era. I can't put him above Sackick at this point. can't put him above Mike Bossy I can put him above Martin Broder that's where he is for me so he jumps Broder he jumps Eiserman because his high end is

like you said Eisenman never won a heart this guy's won several and we'll continue to win them and I can put him above Lefleur, Messier and the aforementioned Paul Coffey so I have him going from 19 to 13 I think I could twist my own arm into going ahead of those guys that I mentioned, Lefleur-Sacki, Bossie, Ezerman. Patrick was is tough because it's a goal, right?

I mean, how do you really compare? I think it does, I think it is just like this guy I thought about putting it ahead of a on my list. Like, I just can't. It's, it's, that can't get there. That to me ends up at 11. Yeah. And again, I know people are out here going, that's crazy.

How could he not be in the top 10? Well, here's the guys that would be that are in that top 10. You tell me, you stopped me when Connor McDavid already with no future achievements. As of right now, he says, you know what, guys, I've decided I'm going to become a DJ and I don't want to do hockey anymore and he retires. You tell me who he's better then. Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, Bobby Orr, Sidney Crosby, Yarmour, Yard. Alex Ovechkin

Then comes Dominic Hasick, okay, it's a goalie, it's tough. Nicholas Littstrom, a guy that everybody thinks is the second greatest defenseman of all time. Number nine is Phil Esposito, a guy who's at his peak was Connor McDavid. Yes. Or Ray Bork, who actually is the second greatest defensive of all time. You said yes for Esposito.

Are you saying you... No, no, no. I was, I was, I was, I was absolutely not head of Esposito. I was agreeing with you by saying that, yeah, that there were a couple years there where Phil Esposito basically was kind of McDavid. Phil Esposito won five scoring titles. He was, uh, an MVP twice, uh, but was a finalist five times. And basically Bobby Orr was on the same team as him. So he didn't, you know, that, that's why.

But, and, and, and also broke the scoring records, but both goal scoring end points by like 50% miles. Like, I mean, it's just insane. Right place, right time, all that sort of things as far as expansion. He was a guy without getting too far into this list because God knows we've talked about it at length over the years. Esposito was a guy who I gained a new level of respect for when I was like researching and talking to people and writing stuff for this list. I knew that Phil Esposito was great. I was aware of, you know, the numbers and all that stuff. And if you'd have asked me at the start of this like where he's, you'd be like, oh, he's top 10, right?

Like, sure. Or top 20, sure. But I had him at 10th. And I think that's, and I think he stays there. Yep. So that's it. I don't think, and, you know, again, we all agree that when this is over, McDavid's going to be there.

Mm-hmm. It's, of course, he's going to blow by just about all of those guys. He might be number one by the time he's done. Yeah. It's possible. You know? But I think the only thing you can go on here for me was like, and this is the way I try to think of it then is like, if it ends, if it ended, if whatever, if, if, if, if,

if Connor McDavid had decided that he was done after the 20-22 season or the 21-22 season, if he was like, I'm done. I don't want to play hockey anymore. Like, that is where he would have stood. I tried not to project all that much, you know, but he could be, he could be one. He could be two. He's probably going to be top five. Because we're going to look foolish.

Like, I guarantee two years from now, somebody will be like, you guys want to, hey, this didn't age well. Yeah, well, it didn't age well because we're two more Connor McDavid. MVP seasons into it. People are going to be saying the same shit about Kiel McCar next season. After he comes back and wins another Norris, they're going to say Kiel McCar was on this list. And they're like, well, he played a season and a half by that point. So, yeah, like, sorry. All right. I think that, yeah, that was, that was a great. We could have talked about it for 45 more minutes, I think. So thank you to, who was that again? Patrick.

This is a question that was invented in a lab for Sean McIndoe. It's from our buddy, Koharski's donuts consistently very funny, very funny in the replies. What is the least consequential rule in hockey? Something that rarely happens in a game and doesn't really affect things too much when it does. It's a rule that's there because someone decided a long time ago that that's just the way it'll be

and so it still is today. Have you, you must have made a post about this at some point. I've made, I've made a bunch of rule post related. So I, and this is just a chance for me to kind of nerd out about the rule book. And there's a couple of ways you could view this question. I'll give you one that's least consequential in the fact that it's in the rulebook,

in black and white, and we've all just agreed to completely ignore it. And that's that goaltenders are not allowed to freeze the puck. Unless they are being directly and actively checked, if a goalie makes a safe, he has to play the puck. You know, when you're playing NHL,

whatever year it is and nobody ever freezes the puck, you're just always trying to pass it to the defenseman and you get scored out half the time, that's what's, following the letter of the law. It is. Unless somebody is right there on you, like trying to get the puck, then you can freeze it. But how, you know, when you see a goalie make a glove save and the whistle blows immediately, that's not what the rules are.

The rules are, the goalie has to make an attempt to play it. And then if somebody is actively checking him. So I would put that one up there. Another one that I love is, you know, the rule about stick measurements, we all know, for whatever reason is just never used. I can't even remember the last time somebody called for a stick measurement, which to me makes one of the most useless rules in the rulebook, the fact that if somebody calls for stick measurement,

there is a specific rule for what to do if the player breaks his stick rather than handing it over. Like if he just steps on it and, and I think what it is is you're basically automatically guilty for two minutes, but you also get a $100 fine, which nothing says this rule, was put in in 1923, like, like that. This is like every now and then.

The reason we're still talking about this is because it's, it's 100% because GMs or whoever just don't want to draw attention to the fact that these rules are still in the rulebook. This is like every now and then you'll hear like, oh, it's, there's a law in Oklahoma where it's illegal for women to eat apples on Sundays or whatever that just could say. So it's like, ah, they just kind of don't want to, like, let's just, let's just, let's just, I can leave it on so we don't have to acknowledge the fact that it was there in the first place. I will give you a couple others.

And if people, I wrote a post on this, I just found a couple years ago. It says, want the NHL to call the rulebook exactly as written. Be careful what you wish for. It's from 2019. You can go Google it. But I'll give you some other things. Goaltenders are not allowed to adjust their equipment. So, you know, when like the mask gets loose or there's a problem, they have to leave the game.

And they get it adjusted and then they can come back in. But the backup has to come in. we just don't call that. I mean, goalies just openly go to the bench and everybody waits and he puts his skate up on the boards or he hands the mask over. And it's just like too bad. Everyone's just going to say,

and of course, you imagine in overtime like the backup having to come in cold because Igor Shisterkin's, you know, strap got loose all of a sudden. It would be ridiculous. But that's what the rule is. You,

let's say you can't come on to the ice during a break to warm up or test out an injury. That's illegal. we see it all the time. You know, when a guy's like, you know, you see like someone will, you know, C.J. will, like, tweet out, like, you know, Smith just came on the ice and took a couple of skates and during the commercial break. Nope, can't do it. Illegal. And maybe my favorite one.

Good luck to your hamstrings. Like, well, like, let's see. Good luck to your groins. You're coming in cold. Sorry, brother. A misconduct penalty shall be assessed to any player who persists in any course of conduct, including threatening or abusive language or gestures or similar actions. designed to incite an opponent into incurring a penalty. If you try to get the other team to commit a penalty, 10 minutes.

Hey, shout out to Brian Marchand, who just broke Tiger Williams' all-time career penalty minutes record. I mean, he'd get a misconduct every game. He'd get 800 minutes a year. Dave Schultz is no more. And also, maybe my favorite of all of them. And then, again, this is the rulebook. This is not opinion.

This is black and white in the rulebook. A minor penalty shall be assessed to any identifiable player who uses obscene, profane, or abusive language or gestures directed at any person. No swearing. Two minute penalty, if you swear. Here's what I'm saying. Sean, we have the technology to just get it right.

Why don't we have replay review if a player swears, we grind the game to a halt, and we do a little audio analysis, We bring in, you know, John Boy to do lip reading. Yeah. No, yeah. And if it's,

and if he swears, and even if it takes us 10 minutes, if we find somebody swore, it's two minutes. It's in the rule book. We have to get it right, Sean. Don't you know?

I think there should be. The sport is there to serve the rule book, not the other way around. If we have the craft hockeyville game, the preseason game, every year where they played a community rink or whatever, wherever it is, they played,

Like when the penguins played where the Johnstown chiefs played a couple years ago, stuff like that, total gimmicks. There should be a preseason game where the rulebook is called to the letter. And you can throw Tyler Bertuzi in the box for dropping F bombs or whatever. Should happen. And here's the thing. And I know some people are listening to this and they're going, these are not good rules. I don't want them enforced. I got news for you.

Rule 39.2I, minor penalty to any player who challenges or disputes the ruling of an official, period. Arguing with the ref, two minutes. So if you don't like these rules, guess what? You just got two minutes. Go sit. Double minor. Down in, go sit down in the laundry room,

go into the crawl space, two minutes. Now, here's my one problem. I don't know how we would do replay review on this. Because, like, if somebody questions an official, and I want to review that, am I not questioning the official by asking for the review? So then the other coach would be like, well, I want to review his review, but then they'd be like, well, that also is quite, by the end,

it's just there's nobody left on the ice and there's no hockey, but you know what? We would be getting it right, and that's the only thing that matters. Do you know in the state of Georgia, it's illegal to consume fried chicken by any other means than with your hands? You're not allowed to eat fried chicken with a fork in a knife in Georgia. That's the kind of stuff we're talking about here. Am I on a list of ridiculous old-time laws in the United States right now? Yes. Yes, I am. but that's that's where we are.

All right, we got time. Next time here in Georgia and you see someone eating fried chicken and the knife and fork. On the cops. Coach's challenge, baby. Replay, review that. Gotta get it right. It's from Sam at two down through 12.

I like this one. Now that we've properly had some time to digest everything, where this year's playoffs actually is good as people said they were. You know what? That's good. Might have to be my offseason column.

Did either of us say they were that good? Were we in that cohort of people that Sam's talking about here? Because I definitely heard it from other people. I feel like on this show at times we're like, yeah, second round is fine. I don't think we gassed it up, but to a ridiculous degree. We didn't gas it up. And I mean, I think when you look back, there wasn't as much overtime. there wasn't many game sevens, as you would like.

I will say that I think the Stanley Cup final was, I mean, it may quite possibly be remembered as the best of the cabare. Probably right up there with the Penguins Red Wings rematch. The rising tide lifts all boat situation. Yeah. Because I think when I did my rankings of the series, well, no, I did the rankings in the final. I go back and I rank each

So you're making a face like you don't read all that Didn't me and Mendez do something like that? No He's been copying me for Who isn't it? Where is Mendez? A lot of people get us mixed up too Why isn't Mendez doing one of it?

Come on. Where's he? He could. You could. But mine would be the canonical one. Of course. And I had, I don't remember what I had is the best,

but I mean, that would have been the best series. And if you're going to have one series, it's just, you know, really, really good. Yeah, have it be the final. We had one game seven over time. I don't remember which series it was, but it was, you know, you'd like maybe more than that.

I think this playoffs were very, very good this year. But I don't, you know, where would they rank all time? Were they all time great? I don't know. I guess what it comes down to is it depends what people were saying that they were. Yeah, I had Oilers over Canucks as the best series prior to the final. That's true. Stars and Golden Knights are very good.

I like Stars and Golden Knights. I don't know. Like this one felt up until the finalist, it felt it felt mid to me, honestly. It didn't feel great. I feel like people were pumping it a bit much in the first round, first cover. And then, well, the other thing that was interesting about it, though, which some people would say this is what makes a great playoffs and other people will take the exact opposite view, was that it was almost completely chalk as far as the so-called better team, the face.

of winning almost every single. I think that's my biggest issue with it, right? Is that we didn't have, there was no real Cinderella run through any of this. And I'm kind of the opposite. I'm tired of having to get excited because some random team gets hot for a few weeks and go like, isn't this great upset? I like, yeah, we have them every year. It applies directly.

Like, the same logic applies to the NHL playoffs as it does for the NCAA tournament to me. Like, you give me a Cinderella team that makes the Sweet 16 or whatever. or like, when's a gamer three? Like, great, awesome. I'll take that. I don't want to see, you know, St. Peters in the final four or whatever. Just not the way it is. So, yes, I'll take a Cinderella run, but I don't want to see that shit in the conference final.

And especially when you're seeing upsets all the time. And again, I say this knowing that there are people out there. This is their favorite thing about the NHL playoffs. A lot of them will point to the NBA. The NBA feels like you know with 90%. certainty who's going to win every series. There's not as many upsets, at least until, you know, early on, you almost never see a 1V8 upset, that sort of thing.

And they go, wow, who cares? You know, I want to see four and five game series. In the NHL, anybody can beat anyone. You have no idea. And my argument is always like, you're up to a certain point. That's fine. But at some point, you're flipping coins. And if you, you know, we could have the national coin flipping championships.

And if they would be completely unpredictable and anybody could win, on any given day and it would suck because like there's nothing involved other than than random chance. A series like this or a season, postseason like this, kind of renews my faith in a way in the regular season, that the regular season does matter in the NHL because that's a big problem in the NHL right now is regular season doesn't matter. It's six months to figure out 16 teams that are in and 16 that are out and that's it. That's all that we learn.

And then the playoffs start and it's chaos, except this year it wasn't chaos. So this year it went pretty much according to plan. A couple of mild upsets, but, you know, the teams that deserve to get through did and the teams that didn't, didn't. That's well said. I agree with you. Like it's, like I said, it's fine, fine year, buoyed by a pretty remarkable Stealing Cup final. I'll take that, man. Like, like more often than not, that's good enough for me.

And I think that was the case again this year. We'll close on one final one. This is from German Kampalta. Germann Kampalta? It's your favorite type of patio beer. Ooh. Give me something light. Good lager.

Not, I'm, I'm sure your local brewery scene is awesome, but I don't need to compete in the Hoppy Olympics of who can make the most undrinkable beer. Don't like sours, don't like anything. Also not a light beer guy. You just give me a good, clean, crisp lager. I love. I love domestic light beer, brother. Really?

I've come off. I've come off the IPA thing too. I don't need the, you know, you know what did it for me? Hobsicutioner or anything like that. I got invited to a party where it was a bunch of dudes who were like all at home brewers.

Me too. And one guy showed me like his basement seven. And it was cool as hell. Like I was like, I left going like, I wonder if I could do this. But they all had their beers. And it was just like,

it's tough for me not to roll. I'm too old for this shit. Oh, yeah, this is good. Oh, another sour. That's crazy. Cool. Favorite patio beer. Either a Modelo draft or a can of Miller High Life.

Give me one of those. Wow. Really, really cold can of Miller High Life. That's number one for me. No, I'm not as familiar with the Miller High. Like, does the can do anything to tell you that it's cold, or do you just have to completely guess based on touching the pan? It's not, it's not space age technology.

like in my beloved Coors Light either. You just got to, you got to touch it. It's fine. All right. Well, still. Guess, by the way, not coincidentally, guess where I have my fridge right now. And on that note, I think it's time for one or three of those.

Thank you folks for listening. Thank you for the questions. This is the athletic hockey show. We want to remind you, if you're a Spotify listener, you can now leave comments on our episodes. be nice, I guess, right? Any other requests with that, I want, Sean?

No, that would be good. Get those comments, questions, everything. It is so much easier on us. When you just ask us a cool question about something we wrote two and or five years ago. And then we can Google it and just read it for me to know.

It's just reading an old article to you that I've also forgotten. So it's new to me just like it is to everyone else. That's a show. put it on the dock for a couple weeks from now. That sounds great. Take it easy, brother. And again, thank you folks for listening.

Have a good summer. We'll be around periodically as well the rest of the crew here at the athletic hockey show. So take it easy and thanks again.