The Athletic Hockey Show - Is Gavin McKenna destined to be a Maple Leaf?

Episode Date: May 6, 2026

The Toronto Maple Leafs won the NHL Draft Lottery Tuesday night and the hockey world is buzzing. Sean, Frank and Sean share their thoughts on what the organization should do with the pick and if it helps the Leafs keep Auston Matthews longterm. They discuss the Canucks’ bad luck at the draft and the rumour that Pierre Dorion will become the next GM in Vancouver. Plus, they look back on the Avalanche domination of the Wild in Game 2, Minnesota’s goaltending gaffe, and they look ahead to Canadiens vs. Sabres and Ducks vs. Golden Knights tonight as the playoffs roll on.Host: Sean Gentille and Sean McIndoeWith: Frank CorradoExecutive 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 up, what up is the Athletic Hockey Show for May 6th, 2026. I'm Sean Tintilly. I'm here with Frankie Kratow and Sean McIndoo. We're going to talk about the Western Conference semifinals. We're probably going to talk a little Keynes Flyers because that's a series I'm on. But we are going to start with the NHL draft lottery. I'll just, I'll recount my evening.

I took a little nap, woke up at about 722, to some real action in the Wednesday show group chat, which over the last couple of weeks has taken a slightly negative tone about the Toronto Maple Leafs. The boys were positive, though. It was producer, Jeff, it was Sean, it was Frankie. Something good happened, right? That's a, this is a good, winning the draft lottery,

is a positive thing. Is it not? Man, I'll tell you what, all the fantasy hockey fans out there that think their general manager can wheel and deal the way you can on Yahoo Sports, and there's a lot of Lee fans like that.

I know them. Like, they're in my community. You're related to some of them. I'm related to a lot of them. I hear from them frequently. This is your time to shine. This is your time to shine. because all those crazy offers and options that you think about at 2 in the morning when you can't sleep because the Leafs haven't won a cup since 1967, those babies are on the table now.

And this is your time to figure out how John Chaka and Matt Sundin are going to fix the Leaps because they now finally have legitimate options. they had up until last night, they had the task in front of them of fixing this team and they had exactly zero assets to work with to make that happen. And now that number has moved up to one. We did it, boys. Here we go. Are we, Frank, let's go back to you on that.

Like, would you just flat out, are you making the pick? Are you trading it? Well, okay. I look at it this way. And this is going to be a long answer, but I'll try and get you the Cole's no-term. I don't care, man. This is like, this isn't me. Like, you guys-

CJ, our pal, CJ comes out with a report that Austin Matthews is contemplating whether he's coming back in the fall or not. So clearly, like, he has had more than just preliminary thoughts of where his career looks like it's headed. Now you get this first overall pick. You've been given this lifeline, this life wrap, and you can do something with it. Do you trade it?

Do you keep it? What does that mean for Austin Matthews? If you trade it, what does that mean for the here and now of the team? So if you think that Matthews is going to leave anyways, would you not look at this and say, we're going to keep the pick, we're going to draft McKenna? We're going to trade Matthews two years out from his contract. expiring and we're going to get, I don't know, look at any organization that he might want to go to,

whether it's San Jose or Utah or wherever, and say we want Michael Misa, where we want Tijiginla, and we want Simashev and we want Dickinson and we want a first round pick, and that's part one. Then you, now you have McKenna, player A, B, that are all, you know, 20 to 22 that are going to be very good in the league. So you got three pieces. Then you turn to William Nealander and you say, Listen, Matthews is moving on. We're going with a new core here. We're going to go young early 20s guys. Then you do the same deal somewhere for William Neelander.

And it might not be exactly the same, but you're going to get a good package in return for Willie. He's one of the best wingerers in the NHL. So you turned your fan base after that. You say, we tried it with the core. It didn't work. Here's our new core. It's Gavin McKenna. And it's player A and B from this team, player X and Y, from me.

from this team and we have like five like early 20s late teen studs that we're going to go with here and we might miss the playoffs next year but we're not going to miss the playoffs for very long with this new core group and we're going to try and be good again for the next 10 years is that not how you would play this out if you were thinking long term mac and do you lost me at thinking long term with this group we got assembled look that makes a lot of sense what you just said That is, and at the end of the day, Austin Matthews holds the cards here. So, and I got to say, the fact that indirectly, but through CJ, who we all trust, we kind of got the message that Matthews is, is wait and see even on next season.

That's a big deal. Like, I got to be honest, if that news came out about Connor McDavid or Brady Kachuk or, you know, somebody, I would be waving my arm. arms around going, guys, that's a lot of smoke. We should maybe check if there's fire here. So the fact that it was with Matthews, that has to be a concern. Does this change it? I don't know.

Maybe it does. You know, the, the, the Leafs have got a ton of needs on this roster. But from Austin Matthews' perspective, the number one need is probably, I need a winger, so I'm not dragging, you know, Bobby McCann and Max Domi's of the world up and down the ice all the time. time. And now you've got your guy. And it's, it's simplistic to say that you take a, a shifty, skilled winger like McKenna, and that's your new Mitch Marner. But it's kind of your new Mitch Marner. Like, you know, as a best case, maybe is, is, is a better way. Offensively,

I don't think that's, I don't think that's out of the, but, you know, offensively, he can, he can fit in there. And does, does that move the needle for Austin Matthews? It might. It also might not. It might be Austin Matthews going, oh, great. So I've got a babysit a teenager for a couple of years while we're waiting. And, you know, keep in mind, the Matthew Schaefer's of the world aside, guys rarely have a big impact in year one, sometimes not even in year two. And McKenna's viewed as a good prospect, but he's not, you know, he's not at that level of a guy where, you know, We're expecting him to come in and be Crosby or McDavid or what people thought Connor Boudard was going to be.

So it's tough to say. And the thing with Austin Matthews is, if you're the Leafs, best case is he says, I love it. I'm in. I want to be part of this. I buy the vision. Can't wait till next summer when I can sign an extension, all that stuff. Okay, great. That's the best case.

the not as good case, but not terrible case, is one that is kind of Frankie was alluding to, which is awesome Matthews says, I'm not really in, I'd like to explore somewhere else, trade me, but I'm willing to go to a bunch of different places, which is what you need in order to get those, those kind of packages that Frankie's talking about. The worst case is Austin Matthews says, I'm out, I don't want to be here. here and here's my list of three teams or two teams or one team that I'm willing to go to. And at that point, you don't, unless you're willing to get really ugly about it, you don't really have any options. You're, you're, you're, you're up the creek at that point. And you're,

you're basically paying the tax on all the mistakes of the past coming due at the same time. So that is a question. What does awesome Matthews think about this and how can this new management group that I feel like we all had strong opinions on up until last night at about 715? We're just distracted now. We are distracted. And look, there's made them. It made those guys smart. Two things.

They weren't before. They are now. Two things can be true. Number one, whatever you thought of John Chicaa and Matt Sundin. and Keith Pelly and the press conference and the process and who they talked to and how they did this and how they wound up where they did. Any feelings you had on that leading up to Monday while you were watching the press conference in the hours afterwards, none of that changes because some ping pong balls bounced. Okay.

Nobody got smarter. Nobody got, you know, if anything, if you thought we had a bunch of dummies running this team, Now you just got a bunch of dummies who are a little bit emboldened and, you know, think the plan is already working. So that didn't change anything about that group. But as far as the future and what the roadmap looked like for this team, it did change some things. And it does suddenly take this group that not a lot of us had much confidence in and give them, I wouldn't even say an easier path, but maybe now there's a manageable. There's a workable path. opposed to expecting the impossible, which is get this junk heap of a roster back into contention

overnight because dot, dot, dot, magic beans, question mark. It makes the situation with Matthews manageable, like, regardless of what happens. Yeah, I'll go with maybe on that. But you can see the path forward, though, and I think they're all workable now. If it's a situation where, you know, if they, if we're at the draft or at free agency and all, and there's even more smoke around them, maybe, maybe Matthews wants to explore his future stuff, then okay. And if you wants to stick, okay. And the path that's available now, which I don't think would have been available, you know, 24 hours ago, frankly,

is that you can play it both ways. You can have a year here where you don't have any ultimate resolution with Matthews. If he tells you, I want, like, let's wait and see. Let's see how this goes. That is an option now in a way that it wasn't before. Because you see how things work with McKenna. You see how things work with the new management team. You see what the vibe is just more generally with Matthews and I guess to a lesser degree,

Nielander, how they respond to it, how they feel about it, what the team looks like, what the roster looks like after a full-off season's worth of work, what it looks like after a season's worth of games. And that, to me, is when the plan that Frankie talked about before, assuming the Matthews is healthy enough to not completely nuke his value, next summer is when you start talking about, that's when it turns into, are we extending Austin Matthews?

Are we keeping Nylander around? Are we turning this into those guys with, with McKenna plus whatever, whatever stuff you add. Or is that when the blowup happens? Is that when the rebuild happens? Is that when you try to trade Austin Matthews from Michael Mesa or Beckett, Zanica, or, you know, one of those kind of a package led by those sort of players? And then you have your post-Matthews McKenna core.

So I think that makes sense now in a way that it didn't, that it didn't before either because there was no intermediate, to me, there was no intermediate route. It was either you, you got to try to, you know, decide on the 30-year-olds now or in one way or another and enjoy having, you know, the fifth pick in the draft or whatever we were looking at before. I think, I think this opens up a route that wasn't present previously. The other thing it kind of does. And this is maybe more psychological than anything else.

But it does make it feel a little bit more palatable, especially if next year goes sideways, to just do the tear it down rebuild. Because the thing looming over that has always been, you don't have your next two picks. They're going to Boston and Philly. So what can you really do? What are you going to bottom out?

You don't get the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for doing that. And now, like, you already got your pot of gold. in the sense that you got a first overall pick. Lots of teams bought them out for two years and never get the first overall pick because, you know, the lottery just doesn't bounce that way for them. So you already got it. Yeah, it would be nice to get a couple more high picks, but you've got something now to build around. And that something is not, you know, whoever they would have got at fifth this year if they had kept the pick and stayed where they were. would have been a good player, but would it be a building block that you can do the whole team around?

Heaton Veerhoff. It's different for sure. Yeah. So it just kind of gives permission. It sort of opens up a few more options. Again, you know, does it change it from, you know, from a roster building theory all that much? Probably not, but just, you know, the psychology. And frankly, just of the fan base, just the, you know, the vibe was so negative.

yesterday. I mean, there were points yesterday where I actually found myself thinking, like, are there scenarios where John Chak it doesn't make it to opening night? Like,

is it going to get this bad? And now through absolutely no credit to anyone, other than just pure dumb luck, it's better now. And, you know, you're starting to see the, you know,

the fans are kind of, okay, we're so back, you know, all of that. And a lot of it's tongue-in-cheek and having some fun with it. but it buys them maybe a little bit more time, a little bit more credibility.

And after Monday afternoon, they needed any ounce of credibility they could get because it was, it felt like it was about to get real ugly, real fast. Yeah. And, okay, so we started the show kind of talking about how if you were a hardcore Leafs fan and you have all these wild imaginative ideas, now's your time to let them run free. So I wonder this. I wonder if none of it matters for Austin Matthews anyways. Like I just wonder if John Chaka being the GM is the non-starter.

And it's like, good for you guys. Like, it's great that the organization is going to get the first overall pick. Like, John Chaka is not my cup of tea. Like, remember when Shane Dane was brought into the organization? Shane Dane was brought in with the hopes of kind of helping Austin Matthews stick around for the long term. Shane Done was Austin Matthews hockey hero out in the desert. We know the story now that John Chaco was the GM, didn't bring back Shane Done when he was willing to come back and do whatever, push pucks and practice, you name it, he just wanted to be there.

And that wasn't the case. So chances are Shane Done is probably elsewhere very soon. So optics and PR are very important in a big market. So if you're the Matthews camp, How can you use this to your advantage and plan the best most graceful exit possible? Because you always say in life, leave it better than how you got it, and don't leave the room smelling like you know what. So if you were the Matthews camp, you could look at this and say, okay, didn't want to play for this GM anyways, didn't have interest in what his vision was going to be. Don't believe in him. These guys are getting the first overall pick now. Well, that's great.

I can give them two years notice that I'm not going to re-sign there. So they have plenty of time to make a substantial deal because whatever team wants to acquire me, and I'm going to give them a list of five teams, let's say, that they can work with that I would sign with. They're going to give them a good package because they're getting two years plus whatever extension I'm potentially going to sign there. Like the Matthews camp, if they really did not want to be here, they could leverage this situation to make it a PR like sweetheart of a deal for them as they exit the door. And it's not Matthews getting pitchforked on his way out. It's like he gave you advance notice. You know, you got the first overall pick.

You're going to get a great package for him. And he didn't leave the organization in a worse spot than when he got there, which I can attest to. was not in a good spot when he got there. So they could really leverage it if they really had no interest in coming back. Yeah. And I do think it's a situation where if that were to, if he were to get to the point where it's like, okay, this is not like, I don't want, I'm not going to sign another deal here. I think it's very feasible that it would be, here's a list of five. Not a list of two, not a list of one.

I think, you know, it would surprise me if it got to that point, if he really hamstrung him. So, so, you know, there's an exit, there's an exit route. There's also a world where, you know, everything works out too. And I don't think that was available to them, you know, 15 hours ago. There's a world where everything works out and Austin Matthews stays and this team, like, is a wild. card. Completely. Completely.

It feels like for where they, they've still got, they've still got a mountain to climb. But at least now they've got a little pickax and, and get him started instead of Keith Pelley going like, all right, do it. Here's some flip-flops. Go get it done. This is the rock hammer. This is the Andy Dufrein rock hammer that is using the dig his way out. Like, Chaka's been asked, right?

Like, he's done a couple sit downs recently and he's been asked where. like where do you need to address the organization first? The first thing he's said is very funny, right? Like what's the first thing that sticks out? Blue line. He said it at least twice that I've heard. So are you going to take Chase Reed first or Carson Carl's first? I mean, it feels like if you really wanted to get creative with this pick,

is there a world where you could trade down a pick or two so you could draft the defenseman and then get something that helps you? who's a really good early 20s player. What would you guys think if he did that? I would think he's creative. As a Leif's alum and as the internet's most famous Leifes fan. I would think these guys mean business. Right?

I think they meet like these guys are creative and they're willing to be cutting edge and try some things that are out of the norm, something that the like previous. Illegal under N. JL bylaws, yes. Yes, yes, totally.

That's what I would think. Let me lay it out for you. Okay. How about this? We're talking about, oh, the Leafs won the lottery. The Leafs won the lottery. Whenever a team wins a lottery, that means a bunch of other teams didn't win.

And you get a bunch of complaining. And I'm hearing some not unjustified complaining coming from our friends out west in Vancouver, saying this was, and look, the Canucks deserve the number one overall pick. I'll say that with no, no problem. They were the worst team in the league by a mile. They weren't tanking. They didn't do any

of that. They were trying to win. The Quinn Hughes stuff happened. It just all fell apart. The Canucks deserve the first overall pick. They didn't get it from the lottery. Okay. Now what? You're going to sit around? You're going to complain? Or are you going to do what a GM in Vancouver did back in 1999 when he wanted some high picks? When Brian Burke looked at the Cedines and said, I want both those guys. And he made it happen. figured it out. He sat down. He made a whole bunch of trades, got everyone together on the draft floor, wrangled it all together, and he got it done. Now, different era, all that stuff. Sure, of course. And I'm not saying Brian Burke was the model GM that everyone needs to follow. But

Brian Burke wouldn't have sat around going, oh, the lottery didn't cooperate. I guess I just have to go, hey, Vancouver, you got a number three pick. Maybe could that get flipped to two or even one? it probably could get on the phone let's go we'll have a couple of new we got we got chica and to be determined in vancouver yeah who's who's chica calling on the phone you know you got nobody to call rutherford right brotherford's right in the show there anyways and and so and and and you call up rutherford and you go hey man i i heard what's this about you're retiring you're stepping back after the draft oh that's a tough one boy it'd be nice to go out with a splash wouldn't it be nice to just drop a new gun yeah man there's

There's places and, you know, the same, whoever's four, five, six on down the line. Oh, we didn't get the pick, we want it. All right, pick up the phone. Call up the Wonder Kid in Toronto. Get this all figured out. Type into chat GPT. What would the Leafs want for the first overall pick and whatever. I mean, that's, you know, that's what they're going by.

So there's a way to get this done if teams are motivated to get something done instead of just sitting around on their hands, making excuses about how some ping pong balls screwed them over. I think that's the other big bit of news that come out of last night is that before, barely, barely after the ping pong balls dropped, we got news out of Vancouver that Jim Rutherford's going to transition to alternate governor role. He's going to step back and blah, blah, blah. So there's no one at the top of that organization right now, Frankie. It's allegedly. What a day for Canucks fans. Like, the, first of all, it's been a whirlwind couple days for them because I'm sure you guys saw the reactions in Canucks Twitter, which is a wild place at the best of time.

Possibly the wildest, I think. I think Canucks Twitter might still lead the league in craziness per 60. 100%. And so they catch win that Francesco Aquilini loves Pierre Dorian essentially, and there's a good chance he's going to be the GM, and people lose their mind out there. And then they lose the draft lottery, but they'd lose the draft lottery to Toronto,

who they hate, they hate Toronto more than they like themselves. That's how deep it goes out in Vancouver. Like people don't understand that, I think, unless you've experienced it. Like, I always tell people this, that when I got drafted out there, people would say this to me all the time, like locals or whatever, who I met. Like, you must be weird for you being out in Vancouver. I said, why? Well, because, you know, we hate you guys so much in Toronto. Really?

You guys hate us? Like, yeah. You guys don't hate, like, I'm like, no, we don't think about you at all. And they, that's why we hate you. Anyways, so it was the worst possible scenario for Canucks fans. But I did see the hysteria surrounding Pierre Dorian. Listen, was Pierre always the most comfortable in front of the camera? No.

Did he say the right things most times in front of the camera? No. No. Again, no. Was he good at his job? No. He was good at aspects of his job. Keep in mind where Vancouver is right now.

Vancouver's in a spot where they're going to have to pick a lot, like they have to make a lot of draft picks, and they're going to have to hit on some draft picks. At the very least, Pierre is a good evaluator of talent and has ran good drafts on a limited budget in Ottawa. They don't have a huge, you know, kind of amateur scouting budget. So if you go through the history, listen, Not everyone bats 1,000 percent, but in, you know, looking back at things, he drafted Drake

Batherson in the fourth round. He drafted Brady. After that, he drafted Shane Pinto in the second round, Mark Castellick in the fifth round. The 2020 draft might have been a master class. Stutzla, Sanderson, Greg, all in the first round, Cleven in the second, Marilinen in the third, Cole Reinhart, who's having some success in the sixth round, where the big miss was at 10 in 2021 with Tyler Boucher. But that's, I guess what I'm saying is,

at the very least, he can evaluate and run drafts and pick good talent. And if he does that, let's say he's in your organization for three years, and he does that, look what he left for Steve Stales. Yeah, he left him a pile of poo with the Dadenoff thing. They had to figure that out. But he left the core of the team there for them to make. the playoffs. It's a very successful core too. They've won a ton of playoffs. Not recently, no. I will say this. The other thing being here in Ottawa, Pierre Dorian's, you're right, he was very good

drafting. Decent? Well, I would say very hit and miss on traits, but he won the Eric Carlson deal, which nobody at the time, remember, we're all making fun of him five assets or whatever it was. He won that trade, but his number one skill with a bullet managing up to the idiot owner. In Vancouver, I'm not saying, but yeah, that was fascinating yesterday watching because it felt like what we saw yesterday was a trial balloon being released up into the air and then an entire fan base just pulling out like the, the duck hunter light guns and just absolutely blowing that trial balloon out of the air and sending him plummeting to the ground. because by the time the lottery rolled around,

we were getting reports and that Dorian was out. We'll see. We'll see how it goes. But that might be an all-timer trial balloon. And, hey, question was asked. Answer was delivered. Do with that information what you want now, I guess, Vancouver. I want to ask, Pierre, because I see him around sometimes.

He works for RDS. I've never asked him this, but I'm going to try to when I see him again. when we all went home when COVID happened, it took a little while, but eventually we did exit meetings, which, you know, on Zoom, which I thought were kind of pointless at the time. It could have just been a phone call with, you know, Peter McTavish, who was the assistant GM and he was running Belleville. But it turned out it was Peter, Pierre, the head coach, and I think Sean, the other AGM, and it was all on Zoom. and I didn't go on with my video. And so I log on and Peter goes, Frankie, can you turn on your video? I said, no problem, guys.

And I turn it on. And I'm on like the fourth hole at Rattlestick. I was going to say, what course were you on? And they all look at me and they're like, we'll keep this brief for you. I'm like, thank you. Much of a putt comes up for. Yeah, yeah. You're like, I don't, do I still have to hit mute and pretend I'm not about

to take my T-shot here. Do you imagine if they're doing some kind of evaluation? I just went, guys, hold on, I just got to, it's my turn here. I got to hit my shot. I got to ask him about that. I bet he doesn't even remember because there was probably eight other guys that were on the golf course. Yeah, I was going to say, you were not the only one who was logging into Zoom from that,

from that environment. All right, let's take a break. We're going to come back. We're going to talk about game two of Minnesota, Colorado. maybe a couple other things, stick around. All right, we're back. Fellas, game two of Minnesota, Colorado. I thought we were going to get another 9-6 game very, very briefly there.

We saw two goals in six seconds. That's not what ended up happening. 5-2 Colorado, they go up 2-0 in that series. I think that game more than anything is about the wild goaltending situation. Philip Gusson comes in, allows five total on 20. You know, they weren't all bad, but a couple of them sure were. You know, they move on from Wollstett, at least for a game. Yes, it was bad.

He'd been incredible for them in the postseason up to that point. The second guess, and quite fairly, is taking place right now. There's a piece up on the site from Rousseau and Joe Smith saying as much. Where are we at this as a group? because I tend to agree with the Minnesota beat guys that this was an unforced error on John Heinz part. Well, it was. And like, answer me this, in a game where your goalie gives up nine,

you would have it in the back of your head that at some point you might want to go to the other guy. And in this case, it's Gustafson, who hasn't played in like over 20 days. So your goalie's giving up nine, even once your goalie gets to like five or six, Don't you start to think, well, maybe if I put Gus in, finish this game, this game is what it is. It's game one of the series.

It's flip a coin. That helps him for the next game instead of throwing him out to McKinnon to feast on him and Natchez. Like, McKinnon basically had a signature game last night. Like, I think that that was a little short-sighted of them. It's a freebie pull when the game is going like that. And at the very least, it gives the guy a rep or two. to just to feel game action instead of throwing him in like that. It does, except game one was just so weird because your guy gives up nine goals.

And yet, at no point were you out of that game, right? I mean, it's, it, you would expect, yes, when time you get to like goal number seven, get your guy out of there. Seven, five. That's the one. Seven, five in the game. But then it's seven five, right? And you bring in a guy.

And if if, if, if Gustafson comes in and gives up a softie, you're saying, oh, man, you guys were right in the game. You were right there. And, and you tweet. I don't know. This is the sort of thing where it didn't work, obviously. You know, Augustusen wasn't great last night. And now, now what do you do?

Because now you've, you've, you don't really have confidence in either guy. And Colorado's offenses in, is in your head and it's, it's a mess. But it is, it's tough. I like, you know, you guys gave up nine goals. It's not unreasonable to say we're going to give the other guy who's pretty good and has been pretty good for you for the last couple of years. We're going to give him a shot at it. But it is tough in Minnesota.

And I don't know if you guys saw, but Jesse Granger had a real interesting tweet where he was looking at how far back you have to go to find a team that won the Stanley Cup while shooting. choosing to use multiple goalies in the same offseason. And you got to go back a ways. It ends up being Washington in 2018. Babrovsky played every game, Vasilevsky played every game, Bennington played every game.

Colorado and Vegas did switch goalies at some point in their playoff in their cup runs, but that was because of injury. It wasn't because the coach said, we like this guy better than that guy. It's the old cliche about if you have two goalies, you don't have one. hey, there's a lot of teams that would prefer to have two goalies over the zero that they have now. But it's tough when you find yourself teetering back and forth and now it's two nothing.

And you've been in the series. Like you're not getting your doors blown off here in the sense that the wild have shown, they can play with the avalanche. But playing with them and beating them are two different things. And yeah, the goaltending is the big question. right now. And I mean, it's, it's, if we go out there for game three and the first shot goes in, even if it's not a bad goal, even if it's a bounce or a sniper, we know that camera's going to the backup on the bench, that camera's going to the goalie, the, the coach, the goaltender

looking at the bench, that sort of thing. We, we know how this script goes and it rarely works out well for a team. It's a thought I had whenever Chris Knoblock was talking about going of Tris and Jari went for that game against Anaheim. And he tried to justify it by saying like, look, hey, we see it. We see it across the league. You know, like, we knew coming into this that we were going to play two goalies regardless. Like, we're happy with both guys we have. Babba, blah, blah, blah.

He does the whole, you know, the PR massaging of the situation. And he's saying that. I'm like, I'm not really, though. Like, I get the teams do timeshares in the regular season. And I get that, you know, we've seen, you know, like Jesse outline. guys take over for injury and whatever. But if you are coming into a situation, whether it's a series,

whether it's the playoffs at large, being like, yeah, we're probably going to play both guys in this over the course of the next 10 days. That's not a spot where you want to be in. Like, you can convince yourself of it. Like,

you can try to, you can try to spin it whatever way you want, but that's, that's still not the way it works once, you know, April and May and June, uh, come around.

It's interesting. Sorry, Frankie. Can we, can we, can we just mention how, weird the goaltending is in the second round. Our buddy, Ryan Lambert, made a point to me yesterday that I found interesting.

Do you guys know how many goalies who are starting in the second round have ever had a Vesina vote? Even so much as won Vesna vote? I'll give you the whole list. Like a first place vote? No, not even first place. On a ballot. I'll give you the whole list.

All right. You're ready? It's Freddie Anderson. That's it. And Freddie Anderson. That's the list. What world are we in when playoff Freddie Anderson is the gold standard for your goaltending?

Well, Brady's been really good actually. He's been really good. He's been really good. He's been really good. And the guy who's got the reputation, he's the one lock. And everyone else is. And I mean, if you're Stan Bowman, you got to be tearing where your hair would be if you had any out because you're sitting there going, everyone's.

fashion me because I didn't get a goalie. Nobody's got a goalie. And it's everybody's got, or everyone's got good enough goaltending. Nobody's got the supersedes. No Vasilevsky out, no swayman's out, uh, Ottinger's out. You all go down the list and not even getting into the guys who didn't even make it. It's, uh, it's, it's such a weird position. And sometimes it works out. Sometimes the weirdness works for you and sometimes you're the Minnesota wild. Yeah, like Freddie, Freddie was really good at Anaheim. Um, But Jonathan Quick was better. And then he got traded to Toronto, and he played on some poorest, poorest teams in Toronto,

where just eventually the dam was going to break. And now he's playing well. So I'm happy for Freddie. But I think it's interesting how narratives can shift over time because DGB, you take us back to the Washington capitals using Gru Bauer and Holpe. Well, the season before, it was Matt Murray and Mark Andre Fleury. And the season before that, it was Jeff Zackoff and Matt Muriel. and Mark Andre Flores. The Jeff Zatkoff game against the Rangers.

That's still one of the craziest things I've ever been in the building for. If we had this conversation in 2019, we would be saying the days of a number one guy playing all 22 games. It's over. We have three years of evidence of sample size where you need both guys, the wear and tear, just the unpredictability of the position. but it has gone the other way. The pendulum has swung because of Bobrovsky, because of Vasilevsky, but I still think there is a world where, you know, we've seen this.

We've had these conversations the other way before. So I'm not saying it can't be done. Ultimately, it depends more on what's happening in front of the goalie than just the goalie itself. Because there were times in those series where the team wasn't playing well and they had to make a change. and it wasn't just the goaltending. And that sparked something. So I'll be hard pressed to believe that happens for Minnesota against Colorado.

It feels like Colorado, it feels like anyways, they're going to go to the conference final without losing a game. That's kind of what it feels like. So they're in tough, but I don't know. We'll see what they go with. I think if you went with Gustafson, you probably want to go with Gustafson again. Yeah.

Or else why even go with him? Just your pot committed to Walsstead at that point. but maybe the night off gives them a chance. It's a tricky thing to navigate. Yeah, they made, they made a mess of it. That's kind of what it boils down to. All right, we got two games tonight. We got Montreal, Buffalo, Anaheim Vegas.

Let's start with game one of Sabres, of Sabres Canadians. Quick thoughts, Frankie. Where are we on that? Let's do some picks. How do we see this one playing out today? Let's say Habs and seven. I think this one goes the distance. I think it's close, but not low score and close.

I think it's high score and close. And it's going to be different for Montreal, right? Like McDonough and Cheranak, they were gobbling up Coffield and Suzuki in the corner. Sorelli was all over Suzuki. Those characters are not really in this series. Where it's different is Dahlene and Byram and Power, they're really mobile and they're up the ice and they're engaged in the offensive zone. So you have to be aware. So what you will gain in.

in space for your top guys in this series, you will have to be equally as aware of their mobile blue line and how that can hurt you. But I think it's close in the sense that it's a lot of 4-3, 5-4 kind of games. That sounds fun. Yeah, I think this series could be the most fun of any series. And we had some good ones in the first round, so I'm putting pressure on them.

But all the ingredients are there for this to get. really volatile and yeah I'm I'm kind of with Frankie that I see it going long I see it being you know not high scoring but but not not the I don't think we're getting the one nothing game like we had in the in the Tampa series and I I think it's going to be all sorts of fun to watch and you know just just to get into and kind of watch the these two teams go at it I I am kind of not not to look too far ahead kind of fascinating it by the idea that everyone's picking this game to this series to go seven. And I think it does too.

I'm picking that as well. Meanwhile, we got Carolina on their way to a sweep of the flyers, and they're already two games ahead. Like, welcome to the party, Montreal and Buffalo. How long,

if Carolina ends that series in four, they're going to have two weeks in between that and the conference. I'm psyched. I'm psyched to the prospect of that because I can actually go home for a couple days. That'd be nice. I mean, we'll get you to Buffalo. Eight days, eight days in Buffalo when they're, when I'm, when I'm just like waiting for that series of start.

Yeah, yeah, I can make that. That would be fun. But, yeah, this is, this is going to be a good one. I can't wait. Buffalo, the easiest team to root for. Montreal, also a very easy team to root for, but I think they're playing the heel in this series. So we'll see how that goes over. Both the buildings are going to be rocking.

It's 1980s Adams Division Energy. this has the potential to be an A-plus series. I believe in Suzuki-Kof-field in Slavkovsky. I think that's what it comes down to for me. They were not good at 5-on-5 against Tampa. That's fine. Ain't playing Tampa no more. This is a different set of,

I think those guys, much as it pains me, much as much as we've talked, we've talked about the savers a lot. We talked about them consistently, even when things were going badly. I think we've, we all have some degree of fondness for that team. I, I don't, I don't think I can get there with them.

But we'll see, man. It's going to be fun. Patrick Division and Energy, but like, I'll take it. Frankie, what's going on for you this week, man? Are you, uh, light week? I hope so. Lighter week, yeah, day off today and tomorrow. I'm actually going to do a CTV news hit with my buddy Matt Scooby and about,

45 minutes. So hopping on the real news channel. Wow. Go put on a tie, bud. What is this? You can't, you can't get away with a hoodie. No, you got to throw on a tie. But actually, kind of getting ready now for Memorial Cup, which is coming around the corner,

CHL heading into their championship series. So it should be fun, boys, and always look forward to catching up. Love it. Talk to next week, man. All right, Sean McAnew, we are back. I would like to tell you something that I've learned. What have we learned, Sean? I've learned that we are going to learn something about the Anaheim Ducks tonight against the Vegas Golden Knights

because what we saw from them after game one, there's a controversial icing situation there. They were pissed. Joel Quinville pissed. Everybody's pissed. I don't think we saw them get mad against Edmonton to that degree at any point. Yeah, they lose game one. I didn't, I was around for that. I didn't get the sense that there was any degree of frustration. there. And then from then on out, there was no frustration at all in that series for them. I think they're in a different spot now. And I think when they, because they played a night, I believe it's at 9.30 Eastern. When that goes down, I think they're going to find themselves in a spot that they haven't been in. And that's always what the playoffs are like for teams that are doing it for the first time, right? You see them respond to different situations. Every game's different and yada, yada. But that's a cliche. But I think especially for, for a team that's getting its first protracted, you know, run in the playoffs, and that's certainly where the ducks are.

I think it's worth watching how they respond to different circumstances and in different situations. And this is one that they haven't faced yet because they were mad after game one, and it was understandable in a lot of ways. Yeah, and I think you put it perfectly in something you wrote about Carolina in the series you're covering where you said any any team can win the cup when things are going well you got to be able to win when things aren't going well and and carolina showed they can do that now we find out if anaheim did uh shout out to the hockey gods by the way i was getting a little

tired of offside reviews and interference controversies uh-huh and they've mixed it up they've given us the is the puck over the goal line in the first round and now i guess we're doing icing we're going to get mad over icing that's fun i don't even want to think about what's going to happen in the conference final, but maybe we'll get face-off violations will be the, uh, oh my God, by the way, by the way, just, just the, it's funny, you brought that up. Every, I, I don't know, it'll be a different, it'll be a different crew officiating Kane's flyers whenever that happens on, on Thursday. That was, I, it was absolutely egregious how long it was taking those guys to drop, to drop the puck. It was, it was incredible.

Sean, that's, we have to get it right. Dude, not understand. The game, the rulebook doesn't serve the game. The game serves the rulebook. We have to get everything exactly right. I've said for years, we should be doing replay review on those face-offs. There's always somebody with their foot over the line. We could, we can wipe every goal off the board.

Brindamore is going to say it. He might say that. If this, if face-off stuff starts to creep in, he's going to find, he's going to find some way to say that it should be reviewed. I've been saying for years, that is going to happen. someday. There is going to be one where it's going to be so obvious. And then it's going to start the same way. Someone's going to go, guy, I mean, couldn't somebody just do a quick? Dude, I'm telling you. Brindamore, you know, we just have a guy. We just lower a guy Mission Impossible style down and he hangs over the ice and he just yells down to the refs if they

miss anything. We have to get it right. That is unironically what Rod Brindamore believes. He thinks that everything should be reviewed. He thinks that he thinks that high stick should be reviewed. He said it again yesterday. He's like, I don't just like, just like have a have a guy who looks at it. Don't let Selky winners become coaches in the NHL.

Ban all Selky winners from the coaches association. Here's what I learned this week. I feel like we didn't talk enough about the Maple Leafs so far on this week's show. So I'm going to just throw out there that what I learned is that apparently it is possible to make trade.

in the NHL and have the NHL not really be sure what the traders because we found out this week and our own Kevin Kurz was the first one that I saw it from that apparently there is a custody dispute happening now

between the Flyers and the Bruins over this next Maple Leafs first round pick because of course the fact that the Leafs did not lose their pick last night means that they now, the next two, go to Boston and Philly, we thought, but maybe the next two go to Philly and Boston because there's some dispute over who owns which one. And all I know is that anytime an NHL team makes a

trade, I'm told that there's this incredibly elaborate process where 47 people have to get on a phone call. And it all has to be worked out and all these details. But apparently you can still be in a situation like the Leafs where they made these two trades. And I guess this the conditions aren't clear or something is worded in a way or it's open to interpretation. And we don't know who gets this year's Leafs pick and who gets next year. We know the Leafs don't have either of them. We know Boston and Philly are getting one each. But we don't know who's got whose.

And it doesn't seem to me like in a professionally well-run league that this sort of thing should be able to happen. But here we are. You know what the league should do? They should punish both teams involved because that's, That's how they roll. Whenever something happens that they should have a handle on, whether it's the Daddanov situation, whether it's a Capsar Convention way back when with backdiving contracts and,

you know, Ilya Kovych and whatever, they just punish the teams for doing it. They say this wasn't our fault. Sure, we let it happen, but this is on you guys, actually. First thing you do is you got to take a draft pick away from the senators. Clearly. Just to send a message. just to let everyone know you're serious.

And then I just, you know what? I mean, I don't have a dog in this fight. I don't really care how it works out. But I think if this whole thing was this badly screwed up, you know what, we just scrapped the trades entirely. Just give everything back. Brandon Carlo goes back to the Bruins. The Leafs get their picks back.

I don't know what we do with Scott Lawton, but I mean, you know, we'll figure that out. And we just start over again. And if you want to renegotiate, if you can find Bradshaw living, you know, go ahead, but yeah, I think he's available. I think that's just what's fair for everyone. And I'm all about being fair and getting it right.

Just ask Rod. And if it doesn't work out, then, you know, whoever gets drafted next year, maybe the flyers in Boston can split custody. They can do like, there you go. Weekends and awkward, get the kids. Get the kid for, and parking lots,

a trucky cheese. Wednesdays and weekends for one every other day for everyone else. You split up holidays accordingly. I think that's, that would work for me. What's up with you this week, man? So I got,

had my, had my draft lottery rankings yesterday. Today, I've got a post where I go through all 15 teams who now know where their draft picks are based on the lottery. and I explain why they should trade those picks, every single one of them.

It's an act of utter futility that I do from time to time, because we know none of these GMs are going to trade anything, but here's my argument for each and every team. And then tomorrow or Friday, I'm going to have a fun one. I don't get to do this one every year, but we're going to look at some games from this season that in hindsight, changed the results of the draft lottery. The draft lottery week is one of your many times to shine.

It is. That's when we're getting pure, unfiltered McIndale. One of my favorite weeks of the year, I get a ton to write about. I'm a least fan. It's the second round of the playoffs, so I'm usually not busy with watching any hockey. This has been a big week. I've been enjoying it a lot. And yeah, let's, let's, the comment I hear off.

when I do the games of change the lottery pieces, people write to me and they say, thanks very much. That ruined my week. And that's really the feedback that I'm looking for anytime I write anything. As an empath, I'm going to get upset 15 different times here, too. Great. It's going to be exciting. All right.

That's what's coming from Mackin do. I'm back on Thursday for our next show. That's me and Shana. I am, again, in Philadelphia for Keynes. for Keynes Flyers. We will talk you tomorrow. Enjoy the games tonight. And again, me and Shannon tomorrow morning.

See you then.