The Athletic Hockey Show - Is it too late for these NHL teams to make the playoffs?

Episode Date: February 2, 2026

Every year we look at the NHL standings around Thanksgiving, see which teams are in the playoffs, and figure that’s basically how things will end up. But, is that really how it works? Today, Max and Laz compare the playoff field from the end of November to the current standings and decide which still-outside-the-playoffs teams are really cooked. Before that, the guys discuss the breaking news that Barry Trotz will step down as GM of the Nashville Predators, as well as give their thoughts on the Bruins-Lightning Stadium Series game, featuring a very rare and always fun goalie fight. Plus, a quick look at tonight’s Sharks-Blackhawks game featuring the first Macklin Celebrini vs. Conor Bedard matchup of the season.Hosts: Max Bultman and Mark LazerusExecutive Producer: Chris FlanneryProducer: Chris FlanneryTake our listener survey: http://theathletic.com/survey26Watch 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. Hey, everybody, Max Boltman here alongside Mark Lazarus for another episode of the Athletic Hockey Show. Fun show on tap today. We got a lot to get to. We're going to do an awards watch. We're going to check in on some of the teams that we've been expecting to make a late push and really haven't.

We're going to see if it's time to stick a fork in anybody. But first, it's been a newsy weekend, Laz. And that continued into the early hours of Monday morning. Barry Trots is going to step down as the general manager. of the Nashville Predators. Elliot Friedman was the first to report that our peer Lebrun confirmed it this morning. The team's going to have a news conference at noon central on Monday. He's going to stay on his GM until they have a successor in place.

But Barry Trots is going to be stepping down. It was a fairly short-lived experiment here from him going behind the bench to the executive suite. Yeah, I think being a great coach does not necessarily translate to being a great GM. This guy is one of the true great coaches the game's ever seen. I always look back to when he took over the islanders a few years back, and they were literally the worst defensive team in the league statistically. And then the next year, with largely the same personnel, they were the number one defensive team league.

There are very few coaches that are that impactful. As a GM, it was kind of a disaster. The Stamcoast, Marcheseau and Brady Shea signings, they really went poorly. Marcheseau is getting paid like a 40 goal score and he's not. Brady Shea is getting paid like a number one or a number two for the next, what, six years? And Stamcoast has come around in the goal. goal scoring, but he's still in like a 50, 55 point face. He has not lived up to this at all.

That was his big decisions, was going all in to summers ago, and it was a disaster. And I think he's, you know, kudos for him for recognizing that maybe this isn't the milieu for him. We talked about it in the past and how the two jobs really differ and how there were some ways that Barry Trots probably was managing the Nashville Predators the way that a coach would want their manager to manage it. Get me the best players. Get me the Khan Smythe winner.

get me this veteran leader 40 goal score, get me a good, reliable two-way D. I don't care what it takes, just bring it in. And you see now that this is why there's a little bit of that separation. And, you know, I don't think that Barry Trots wouldn't have been able to figure it out. Him stepping down, I think, is him deciding, I can't speak for him. But I think he would have, over time, been able to get there. But for the Nashville Predators, it's obviously a tough one.

He's such an important figure in the history of that. franchise. And beloved in the Nashville community, like he's a great guy. Everybody loves Barry Trots. Everybody wanted him to succeed. But it's a very hockey thing, right? When you look at like major league baseball, there's not a lot of former players or coaches that become GMs. When you look at football, you'll see like Matt Ryan was just named, you know, the president of football operations in Atlanta, but he's got a GM that's actually doing the GM work. In hockey, we're starting to get away from it a little bit with the Eric Tulski's and Kyle Dubas of the world. But like, I never understood why being a good third-liner for 20 years in the NHL makes you a good evaluator of talent and roster builder.

But hockey seems more than any other sport to really put former players and coaches into executive roles that don't necessarily fit them. Well, I think there is a talent evaluation portion that I think really does translate. And just having been around that much hockey, seen it up close, seen, you know, what works together and what skills, how they kind of age. I think that that does all translate from players and coaches. It's just that there is so much more to the job than talent evaluation, right? And so, you know, James Myrtle and I just did a recent story on the agents who have,

who have become GMs and who have become executives. And, you know, Bill Zito's had a ton of success in that. You know, Ken Hughes is running a pretty strong rebuild there in Montreal. Jeff Jackson is the president in Edmonton, not the general manager, but atop that department. And there's a lot of Aegeeums. It's a business job. And those are business positions. Being an agent is it's about the money.

It's all about the money. It's cat management. And I know every team has an army of cap, you know, capologists and everything like that. but the decision still has to come from one person at the top. And coaches and players, like you said, they are skewed towards the present in a way that a GM necessarily isn't. That's right. The whole job is Longview and that's the opposite of the other role.

So it's interesting. I mean, I think you see some of the more successful players turned GMs. They don't go right into it. And you're seeing it right now in St. Louis. Like Doug Armstrong is grooming his successor, Alexander Steen, right? But he's working with Doug Armstrong,

under Doug Armstrong, where he's getting the on-the-job learning before it's, just his call to make. And, you know, you saw Steve Eiserman in Detroit kind of did an apprenticeship under the Ken Holland regime, right? And so you see these guys, Pat Verbeak, same deal. You see them do the job before it's their call. And I think that's an important side of this. So we'll see where it all goes in Nashville. I do think it's interesting that he's staying on until the successor is named. What do you think that means for their trade deadline when you have a GM who has just proclaimed that he's a lame duck GM? And now he's going to make some really big decisions.

Not only that, but there are only a few points out of the playoff picture right now. They are one of those teams where you don't know which way they're going to go. Like, I don't think anybody looks at that team and thinks that's a serious contender. And I think most of us think that the future is the way to start looking at this team and start thinking long term. But again, is Barry Trots wired to do that? Is he going to be willing to sell pieces off when, you know, he's just a few points out of a playoff spot? And I have to apologize for my voice right now. I know I'm probably tough to listen to more than usual, but we're fighting through.

We're hockey tough. Max feels like crap. I sound like crap, but we're trying, guys. We will get through this one. I bet we're feeling, well, I bet Andrea Vasiliski and Jeremy Swimming, they didn't take too many blows to the head last night in that game. But anyone who was braving the cold there in Tampa was rewarded with one of the best outdoor games we've seen in years, frankly. You know, I'm torn on goalie fights.

Like everybody loves a goalie fight, and now we've gotten two in a short amount of time. You know, I'm not a big fight fan in hockey. I like it when it's in the heat of the moment and you understand why someone's like someone does something that's cheap and they go and retaliate. Andre Vasselowski racing 150 feet down the ice to fight some guy and then they're both laughing about it afterwards. Like that was so cool. I don't know. It's a little forced, but it's undeniable. In the moment, you're like, oh my God, you can see the benches going nuts.

Like it's undeniable how much fun it is. Well, but here's. It's so manufactured. I think it meets your original standard because Vasselowski didn't just do that because there was a scrum. He did it because Jeremy Swimming was on top of his player. And I don't know that he actually landed a punch with the blocker. But certainly from Vasilevsky's angle, you could see why he thought that that may be the case. And he's going and sticking up for his team.

It's an interesting dynamic that this is why I'm pro goalie fight for the record. In general, I don't like when goalies start throwing that block around. They're the most protected player on the ice. I get that they're vulnerable and it's why they're so protected. But if you breathe on a goalie, someone's sticking their glove in your face or worse, right? And so when a goalie decides to take it into his own hands, like they know no one can really go back at them in full, except the other goalie.

And so that's where I like Vasilevsky, making the full charge up the ice to stick up for his guy. It looks like those intermission games where they have the guys dress up in sumo suits and they just bump into each other because they're so obscenely padded that it's almost difficult to get your, like you have to have a long reach just to get to the guy's head through all the padding. So it's just, it's comical to look at. It's fun.

but it almost feels like the Four Nations fights to me where they were, you know, the Kachuk fights. It was just manufactured. It wasn't really in the room. I thought it was real. I thought it was heat of the moment. You have to do it. Like when the other goalie gets involved in a fight, that's when the open invitation is there.

You have to level off the playing field. I get it. But, I mean, they were giggling during the fight. Like, they were like, this is cool while they were fighting each other. You could tell how excited they were to do it. There wasn't a lot of hate in that fight. No, and I think they were, they probably enjoy that they can now tell everybody

they've been in a goalie fight. If that was the only thing about this game, it would have already made it notable, but this was the total package. You get the home team, Brandon Hagle scores 11 seconds in. Then the Bruins blitz them to 5 to 1. Tampa comes all the way roaring back, ties it at 5-5 cents to OT. You get the false winner from David Posternak, where he thinks he's won it, but it's called off for a penalty that I don't know how the whistle wasn't blown. I've watched the video back. I think I see the ref in the near side corner put his arm up.

And no one blows it as Boston skates the puck the whole way up the ice, Posternak scores, and then taken off the board, Tampa ends up winning it in a shootout. It had tons of theater. That's to say nothing of the fact that it somehow was cold in Tampa. How lucky did they get? The whole point of this was to be, it's like this engineering marvel where they were able to get ice in 70 degrees. And then it was just hockey weather anyway. It was perfect.

So as someone who's fairly outspoken, I do not care about outdoor games. this one was the best I've seen in at least a decade, I think. I will admit, I had turned it off and it was watching the Grammys when it was like four to one, five to one. And then watching it along online where people are like, oh my God. I'm like, okay, I got to switch back. And I went and I caught like once it was like five, four, I started watching. And it was great.

And, you know, I've been very clear on the record. Like the outdoor games are good. They are good for the people that are there. For the live audience. For the local people. Yeah. This was the first one that really translated to TV since, I don't know, maybe the one at the big house in Michigan.

Yeah. Well, that was a great one. I mean, the OG is always number one in my book. The original. Buffalo, yeah. Yeah. Pittsburgh Buffalo, yeah. But John Cooper's outfit there, I can't, you can't lose that game if you are dressed like a mobster.

Can you imagine going to the post game press conference still looking like that if you lost? Especially if they hadn't made that big comeback and they lost five to one. Would you have changed? Would you put like a pullover on like for the presser? Like that's what I want to know. But hey, mad props, he went out there. It was 39 degrees. that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's

you know, chest out, no jacket, you know, he committed. No buttons. Yeah, you got to, you got to, you got to, you got to appreciate the commitment to the bit there. Yeah. That was good stuff from John Cooper in, in a good game overall. All right. So we got a lot to get to, we're going to get to an awards watch in the next segment here, but, but first, I want to get to the standings as a whole overall. And we always, our producer pointed this out to us. We always talk about the Thanksgiving line at Thanksgiving. And then we kind of don't really revisit. it until the next Thanksgiving when we want to make the same point again. So let's do that here as we approach kind of the 60 game mark for most teams,

mid-50s, high-60s. And honestly, it's holding up fairly well. Now, part of that is because, as you've pointed out, this is not about in-out. This is about within four points of the playoffs at Thanksgiving. But even then, there's quite a bit of sameness here. Yeah, like New Jersey is the big falloff. Ottawa and Washington are now out from Thanksgiving, Detroit, Buffalo, Montreal, in the east.

The Oilers are the big story in the West getting back in. But by and large, this is holding true so far. Well, I mean, 95% of the league, I think, was like within four points of a playoff spot. The league is so squished up this year. And even in the Atlantic Division where everybody got hot at the same time, the standings are still pretty tight because everybody got hot at the same time. So I feel like this is like an anomaly of a year where the Thanksgiving rule doesn't really apply because there was only a couple of teams.

Like New Jersey is really the only team. dramatically different from around Thanksgiving. Yeah. Ottawa's fallen off a little bit too. And they're not out of it. They're eight points back right now of the second wild card. So they've got work to do, but it's certainly not impossible. But I'm just struck by the West.

The West has remained so consistent. The only real change there is that Utah falls out and they're tied for the last spot. They just lose out on a game in hand. And they actually have the regulation wins tiebreaker over the Kings. So it's remained remarkably steady there. There are some teams, though, that I think we expected would make their push and really haven't. So I want to know the Florida Panthers are one of the most talented teams in the league, two-time defending champ. But yeah, they are also eight points out of this.

They've got games in hand on the Bruins, but they're nine points back of the Bruins. They have two games in hand on them. Are you willing to call it on the Florida Panthers yet? I'm not stupid enough to say it's time to stick a fork in them, but I'm getting the cutlery ready. It's eight points out behind Buffalo with the same number of games this late in the season is concerning. Like, I know early February doesn't feel that late,

but remember, it's about to be March real quick because there's no games for a few weeks here. You know, they had that stretch of, I think it was five wins and seven games and all on the road. And I'm like, all right, here it comes, here comes the Panthers push. But now they've lost three in a row against, like, mediocre teams, Utah, St. Louis, Winnipeg, not exactly cup contenders. We keep waiting, I feel like, for Boston and Buffalo to come back down to Earth and allow these guys to get back into it.

But I don't think Boston and Buffalo are going anywhere. Yeah, no, I mean, Buffalo. Florida can't do this on their own now. They're going to need help. And those teams are not looking like they're going to help them. No, that's true. And Buffalo certainly has been red hot. They still have a little bit of proving, I think, for me.

And that holds for all of these really rebuilding East teams that we just haven't seen it. with the exception of Montreal and Ottawa last year, I guess getting in, we haven't seen like the full, okay, this team is fully trustworthy here. But the gap is at some point going to get to a place where it's just the math, right? And I think, you know, Boston, I've been waiting for the Boston falloff for three, four years. Every year I think, okay, they're not going to be able to do it again this year. And then last year it happens, I thought, okay, it's done and dusted. Well, I'm not so sure that they're not going to end up in a divisional seat in the Atlantic division.

Like, Poster-knocking geeky is as good a goal scoring combo, I think anywhere in the Eastern Conference right now. So it is going to be a tall task for the Florida Panthers. I am not ready to write them off either because of who they are, but I am ready on the Toronto Maple Leafs. Well, hang on. I just want to say about Florida one more thing here. Yeah. Sergey Bobrovsky is awful right now. He has been terrible this year.

Out of 85 goalies, evolving hockey has him 79th in goal saved above expected. How different does this team look if they kept Brandon Bussy? Well, probably very different, although I think you're still probably riding Bavrovsky very heavily because he's... But not, maybe not to this degree? No, and it's probably the degree to which they've ridden him is probably why this is happening. He's just played so many games on those deep cup runs that I'm sure it's very hard to maintain that, you know, another heavy workload season.

But I don't know that they're going to Bussy as much as Carolina's gone to Bussy, you know? No, but I mean, it's just, I mean, you can, you. can't win without you're already missing Matthew Matthew Kachuk for most of the season. You're missing Sasha Barkoff the whole season. You need your superstar $10 million goalie. Nobody's going to complain about the guy he just won two cups. No. But he's not holding up his end of the bargain this season at all. No, and we did see, I think, a little dip from Vasselowski after their long cup runs as well. Like,

there was a little stretch there where he wasn't looking quite like normal Vasilevsky. He's back to it now. Brovsky's older than Vasilevsky is and was then. So we'll see how that plays out. But you're right. That's the only, that's the ticket. If they get him right, they will make a push. But if they can't, then the math gets even harder. Yeah, the math. Now, let's get back to what you were saying.

The math in Toronto, the exchange is not favorable for them. They are eight points out with one fewer game left than Buffalo. It's one thing that's the same goal differential. It's the same minus 11 goal differential. Like we are, but it's on paper, you're like, okay, they should catch up. The Panthers should catch up. The Leafs does not feel like they should. catch up. And they've got, what, 11 straight games without a regulation win?

Like, they're by just about every metric, they are what their record says they are. They're just not good. And they're not going to be able to jump over Ottawa and Florida and Washington and Columbus just to be next in line for the playoffs. So you jump over all those teams, you're still not in the playoffs. They're toast. It's over. I thought Myrtle and CJ had a really good piece over the weekend about whether they could pull off something similar to what Boston did last year, like a one year extremely aggressive sell off and get get themselves back in position. I think I left the exercise thinking that the answer to that is no, but what do you say? They don't have anything to offer.

Like what do they what do they have that people really want that's going to get them major assets back? They don't have a Bradmarshans to trade. Well, the thing is the piece that actually got Boston the most assets last year is on the Toronto Maple Leafs roster because they got those assets from the Toronto Maple Leafs. It's Brandon Carlo. But his value has, it would be impossible. to say that his value is not diminished over the last year. Sean McIndo said it perfectly. Like that pick that is top five protected and they're going to get the sixth pick.

You just know it. You just know that it will not go the Maple Leaf's way. And then they don't have a first round pick the next two years either. So like the long term rebuild isn't going to work. The short term retool is probably not going to work. They're in trouble, man. Would you dip it? I think Morgan Riley would be the best defenseman available on the market if they moved him.

Would you move Morgan Riley or does that defeat the purpose of the quick turnaround retool? I just don't know how realistic at quick turnaround rebuild is, the retool. I just, I don't know what they do. If you trade Morgan Riley, great. You might get a first round pick for that, but that's not going to single-handedly jumpstart to rebuild. That's still kicking the can down a few years. They are, they are boxed in right now.

They have a superstar in his prime who's not playing as well as he used to, and they're, they don't have the pieces around them to make a playoff run, and they don't have the pieces available to gain assets that will help in the short, or learning term. They're, they're in trouble. Yeah, this is a team that like many other teams that really goes all in for a four, five, six year run is the bill has come due. The thing that makes I think especially miserable for Toronto is that they didn't, they don't have those memories to look back on of playing into June and like, well, we did it for that and you got to remember that. Like it, it just got memories. They're just horrible, horrible, horrible.

They've got nightmares. Yeah, exactly. All right. One more team that I want to see if you're ready to stick a fork in and I'll tip my hand here. I am the Winnipeg Jets. Connor Hellebuck obviously is the reigning MVP. I'm not doubting that he can get extremely hot for them. I just don't see the total package there in Winnipeg to make a push, even given that the West is a much easier path to recovering in the East. I mean, they're basically tied with Chicago. They're just a point up on Calgary and no one's thinking of them as contenders and rightfully so. Like it's it's, it's, they're nine points out. They got a game in hand, but they're still behind Anaheim, they're behind San Jose, they're behind Nashville.

It's a bummer. I really wanted to see Jonathan Taves in the playoffs again. I thought that would have been really cool and he's been playing well lately. But other than that four-game win streak they had earlier this, I think last month, they've just shown no signs of life. It's just, it's not happening. Would you make any sell, like major, obviously UFA is not included? Would you consider like a retool, a more major sell-off in Winnipeg?

I don't think I do. I still like the pieces they have. I don't know why it's not working right now. but they don't have a lot of like, you know, they have guys that are locked up long term. Their core is not going anywhere. So they don't really have the pieces

that are attractive to most teams this time of year. It's interesting because I've made the comparison between the Jets and the Rangers on the show a few times. And I meant it to prop up the Rangers. I've said, I don't see what the difference is between the Jets roster and the Rangers roster. You know,

why are we all discounting the Rangers? I still don't really see the difference between the Jets roster and the Rangers roster. And now I mean, that in a very different way. It's a little bit younger on the stars. Like Kyle Connor is obviously yet to be 30, so that's a favorable thing. But it's still a team that it's getting old in a hurry. And, you know, Mark Schifley's getting well into his 30s now, like Niederwriters well into his 30s now. Adam Lowry is well into his 30s now. And the young talent, you know, Volardi's been a huge success there.

Perfetti, I think there's another level for him to get to, but how long can you really wait? And it may just be a team that kind of tops out as a conference finalist team as the peak of their era, which similarly, you know, disappointing as it was in New York. I mean, they won a president's trophy last year, so they can do it with largely this team. Nikolai Yelers, I don't think it makes that huge of a difference. Maybe they're just hoping this is a fluke. Next year you have Hella Buck back and healthy a full year of him and you make another run at it. I mean, I don't think they have much of a choice but to run it back. So I think this is what they're going to be.

What about Washington? Washington six points out, and they have two fewer. games left than Buffalo. So they're basically in the same position as Florida and Toronto. A couple of overtime wins over Detroit and Carolina gave them some life here. But do we think that Washington's cooked too? Only, I would say that if you put them head to head with Florida, you prefer Florida's roster. So in the same position, you're obviously going to take Florida. I don't think that they're like completely cooked though. Like I think they're in, they're in that same bucket. It's just that they have to overcome the same thing Florida does and they have to overcome Florida. Like when I,

they were in Detroit last week. And I thought they looked very good. It's still a very strong team. It's a complete team. They play hard. But if not for an Alex to brinket, I don't know if you saw this, but to bring it had a dump and bounce that went off the photo well and then took a weird bounce in off. It was like an old Joe Lewis Arena stanchion bounce. The other thing though that that hurts Washington as I'm talking is the goaltending health. Like Logan Thompson was out. Lingren seemed to hurt himself at the end of that game. And if you're going to make any kind of run late in a season, What it really takes is what's happened in Buffalo is a goalie getting absolutely red hot for you.

So that makes their path a little bit tougher. So my lean is that I don't think they're going to get in, but I wouldn't say it's an impossibility. The alarming thing about all these conversations we're having is it means that we are starting to believe in Pittsburgh, and in Boston, and in Buffalo, which is not a thing I would have said at the beginning of this season. In Pittsburgh, we wouldn't have said it a week ago. Like we had Rossian and we were like kind of making fun of him for bringing up the penguins here. and they've won six in a row. Their goal differential is the third best in the Eastern Conference.

Like, what is going on here? Sidney Crosby's watching highlights of himself winning cups and crying. Like, he's got the fuel again. Like, oh, man, we're going to see something here. They're only six points up on the capitals and the blue jackets. But the fact that they're in the metro and that they have that avenue. It's not just the, you know, in the Atlantic, it's like, oh, you're fighting for a wild card, basically. I do like where the penguins sit.

And I didn't expect to be saying that a week ago, let alone. a month ago or two months ago. Islanders too, another team that we were not expecting to contend this year necessarily. The Eastern Conference is really fascinating this year. We're seeing some new blood,

some old blood that we didn't think was going to be new. And it's been, hey, parody rains. And it's, it's been good for the league this year. I will say, I believe in the Islanders pretty early.

Like you saw how special it was when they got gone with Schaefer. Sorokin, I think is the Vesina favorite for me right now. I have believed in the islanders for some time now. it's funny because they're actually more vulnerable. They're behind the penguins in the standings right now.

They're the team that those metro teams we're talking about are trying to chase down. But I do like where they're situated with the goaltending. I did have the Islanders in the playoffs in our preseason predictions, I'm pretty sure. I think I was like one of only a handful that did, but I was just throwing darts basically. Yeah. All right. Let's take a quick break right there. Before we do, it's a final call to fill out a quick survey about you and your podcast habits

by going to the athletic.com slash survey 26. Three entries are going to win a $100 Amazon gift card for new. listeners, long-time listeners, everybody, we want to hear from you. Visit theathletic.com slash survey 26. That link is also in our episode description. We'll be right back. All right, we're back. And, Laz, now that we're getting toward serious awards debate time, I figured it was a

good time to do a proper awards watch. Dom does a great job, I think, throughout the year, really keeping everyone apprised of the races. He sprinkles in some new wrinkles. I often wonder if he sways votes with those things because... Oh, those, they absolutely do. When Shana does her Selky things, you know every voter is reading that. Like, who am I forgetting?

Like, it's like a, it's like, you know, they don't, they don't make your decisions for you, but they will remind you of someone that you might have forgotten about it. It's a really great resource when really smart people make really deep dives into these things. Just kind of a backup plan almost. Absolutely. So we're not going to do that. We're just going to go off live. We're going to talk out of our asses, yeah.

Exactly. So Dom's resource is probably the best resource, but ours is the one you have today. And so let's start with one that we don't actually get to vote on. And that's the Jack Adams. And I'm very glad that I don't have to vote on the Jack Adams. It seems like coaching seems like such a hard thing to judge from the far. Right. Like, I mean, I think if you cover a team, a beat, you know the impact that a coach has had on that team.

I have no idea what the impact of Lindy Ruff has been on the Buffalo Sabres, especially because it seemed to come at the Kevin Adams firing. And yet, according to about MGM, Lindy Ruff is now the favorite for the Jack Adams Award. Plus 1. We're the chatting fire Lindy not that long ago? It's remarkable. John Cooper is next plus 260. Jared Bedner plus 300.

Dan Mews plus 1100. Todd McClellan plus 1,600, right? So again, like this award often just goes to the coach of the team that most exceeded expectations. That could be Buffalo, certainly. I think Pittsburgh has exceeded my expectations even more than Buffalo has. And there's a huge gap between Lindy Ruff and Dan Mews. But there's also this argument that's like, should we not?

honor the most impressive teams in the league in some way. And that would be the argument for both John Cooper and Jared Bedner. First of all, it's the broadcasters that vote on this. And broadcasters have a more, tend to have a more, I don't want to say with a broad brush, tend to have a more traditional view of these things than maybe than some of us do, like when we're doing our hours of deep dives into defensive forwards and stuff like that. The broadcasters, a little more vibes based, right? And it should be John Cooper.

This should be the year. He finally doesn't. Nobody saw Tampa being this good. this late in their run. They've had injuries. They've been, you know, they've overcome a lot. He's the best coach in hockey and has been for a very long time. And I thought for most of the year that he was primed.

This was going to be the year to do it. But there is the Lindy Ruff. There is Joel Quenville if Anaheim gets in. There is Dan Mews. There are some of these. He's doing the most with the least, which is how the narrative usually goes. I'd like to see it be John Cooper.

I think if it was the writers, it would be John Cooper. I think the broadcasters might lean towards frankly Dan Muse. And I think Muse has a very good case. Sure. It does seem, though, like Sydney Crosby is willing them, right? Like, if anything, to me, this feels like Sydney Crosby's heart candidacy, late career heart candidacy driving the penguins more so than anything.

But I can't argue. Like, I discounted the penguins at every single opportunity. They will not go away. I have to give Dan Mews a ton of credit for that. I will say, like, covering the Red Wings, like, their turnaround since Todd McClellan took over has been absolutely. staggering. Like at mid-season, at Christmas last year, they were completely dead in the water. He takes him to a 96-point pace second half of this year, and they get better this year. I don't

think they're going to ultimately have the high-standings finish needed to get him this award. But like I said, when you cover a team up close, you really see the coaching impact. He has made as big a coaching impact as I can remember seeing up close. In my backyard, I mean, Jeff Blaschell is completely overlooked in Chicago because the Hawks aren't going to make the playoffs. Yeah. But they are so much more competitive than they should have been. They should have frankly been worse this year than they were last year because they got younger. And they have like 7, 8, 9, 10 rookies in the lineup. Their defense is five guys under 24.

For them to be as competitive as they've been, that is a mark of a really good coach who has them buying into a system. They have the best penalty kill in the league. This is stuff that comes from coaching. And you don't have to make the playoffs to have done a really good job as a coach. It's interesting because when Jeff Blaschell took that job, my first reaction was, is he sure he wants to do another. I cover Jeff Blaschell here in Detroit.

I thought he was an excellent coach. And I thought he was an excellent coach in a situation that was frankly like impossible to win in. And I thought his next job needs to be somewhere that he can win right away and prove it. So I was a little surprised when he took another rebuilding job. I think that what you've seen so far has validated it. He does work very well developing young players. And I think his best strength is instilling winning habits in players.

It's his biggest emphasis. I'm sure you've heard him say that till you're bleeding. That's right. Drink every time you hear winning hockey. But it's real. And I think it gets into the room. I think he's a motivational guy. I think he's a good leader.

And I think I've seen it in the tweets from you and Scott where he's just like, yeah, Artem Lefshanov wasn't good enough tonight. And I don't think it's a bad thing for young players to hear that plainly from their coach. And know that it's not going to mean you're never getting back in. I'm not demoting you to the fourth line for the rest of the season, but there's going to be accountability here. And it's how you're going to get better.

And as the years gone on, I've gone, oh, actually, of course he wanted to go to another. And now, granted, the more advanced rebuilding team, he was mostly there for the Red Wings tear down. but of course he wanted to go to a young team that had young assets. He's really good for young players.

I'm a coaching skeptic. Like I said earlier, like Barry Trots was one of the exceptions to be a guy who could come in and single-handedly change a team that's unusual. It's not football where a coach has his fingerprints on every single play that happens. But we really are having a really good coaching year. There are eight, nine, ten coaches that you can point to saying they are making a significant impact on their organization in the long term and also in the present.

It's been a really good year for coaches. Yeah, absolutely. All right. to the next one here, and this one, I'm leaning toward Nathan McKinnon here, but Maclin Celebrini has done absolutely everything in his power. And I'm, I tend to be someone who likes my MVP to be on a playoff team. I don't know what more Macklin Celebrini could have done to prove that he's the most valuable player in the league. He's plus 190. McKinnon's minus 235 right now. We're talking about the Hart trophy. You forgot to mention that. But yes. My apologies.

I think, pretty sure people knew we weren't talking about this. I'll give every trophy to Celebrini, frankly. He's certainly an absolute top tier candidate. I think he has 79 points and Will Smith is next with 38. It's kind of like the Taylor Hall MVP year where he was just so much better than everybody else on his team and if he get in they get in. I don't know. Why isn't, why don't we ever talk about Nikita Kutrov?

Like coming off the game yesterday, he had a goal and three assists. He's got 86 points. His next highest, Jake Gensel, I think, is in the mid-50s. Yeah, his team is better. There's four point a game guys on the lightning. I get that. But Kuturoff, the lightning are 17 1 in their last 19 games. And in those 19 games, Nikita Kuturov has 15 goals and 29 assists.

These are obscene numbers. And I feel like we always overlook him compared to the centers, compared to your Kail Makar, and yes, compared to Celebrini, a young guy who we're all excited about. Nikita Kuterov deserves a little bit more love here. I think it's just how much of the game and how much responsibility centers have, how much of the game they impact and how much of it falls to them, right? And it reminds me a little bit of like in the NFL, you have the MVP and it's always a quarterback and you have the offensive player of the year. And so like Nikita Kutrov might well be the offensive player of the year, right? Like he is

as dangerous on a power play as anybody in the league. He's as talented as Connor McDavid. He's, he's a brilliant player. Doesn't skate quite as well. But McDavid, partly because of that skating, impacts the game more. McKinnon impacts the game more. Cellebrini impacts the game more. And I get it. Like the most important place to impact the game is the scoreboard. It is. But there's all these little things that don't end up on the scoreboard that the center is responsible for that a winger just isn't. And I think that's why he gets overlooked. It doesn't take away from the fact that he's like a top five or six player in the sport. But I think that's where it comes up in MVP can consider. I do think we're also kind of like taking Connor McDavid for granted what he's done to get the Oilers back into

this mix. Like he's got, what, 88 points in his last 46 games? Like these are just, these are numbers we never thought we'd see again, just a few. years ago. But I want to throw another one at you. Ilya Seroquin. Where are the New York Islanders without Ilya Sorokin? By far, the league leader and goals saved above expected. One of the more surprising teams in the league. If they get in, they're getting in not because of Matthew Schaefer. They're getting in because of Ily Sirroken. I'm pretty sympathetic to this. And we just saw a goalie with the MVP on these grounds a year ago in Connor Hullabuck. And I think that that does meet the criteria that I just laid out. Who impacts the game more

than a goalie if we're getting down to brass tacks, right? Absolutely. So yeah, I think there's a very real compelling case for Ilya Sorokin there. And his odds are pretty favorable if you agree, plus 20,000 on bet MGM. So if you are of that of that mind. It's a hell of a year. Like this is usually like the Norris that we're fighting over or the Calder. The heart with McKinnon, McDavid, Coutcherov, Celebrini, Sorokin. Like this is an incredible, like just ranking your top five is going to be so difficult

this year. Absolutely. I mean, and so like I really try hard to not go off the playoff beat path. I broke it a little bit last year by putting Zach Wrenski at the bottom of my ballot. And now I'm going to have to do the same thing for Celebrini because I just don't, that team, and I don't, you could do this on a lot of bad teams. And that's why typically you see it go to someone on a playoff team because you could always go to a bottom five team and go, well, their best player is so important because they have nothing else. It's, Celebrini is like a top five-ish player in the world right now. And the fact that he's able to do that in a context where I don't.

think most players would be able to show that they're at that level just speaks to, again, how much he impacts the game. It's all these little things. He wins pucks for teammates. He's all over the score sheet. It's goals. It's assists. I don't think he's in like a Selky tier yet, and that will probably be if he gets their lookout. That's when he actually will just be Sidney Crosby. But Macklin Celebrini is remarkable. And man, you're right. It's a heck of a year for the heart. I do think, you know, it's easy to dismiss San Jose a little bit in the standings because they have so many overtime wins. I think they're 11 and 4.5. for in overtime and shootouts.

But it's Macklin Celebrini that's doing it almost every time. So it just, if anything, that just burnishes his, his, his candidacy because he's the one winning in overtime, too. Absolutely. There was a great stat over the weekend. SportsNet staff tweeted out. The sharks were, I don't know if they've played again since this, but one, ten, and two, when Macklin Celebrany doesn't have a point.

Like, he's just, if he's on, they win, and if he's off, they lose. And they don't always win when he's on, but they have no chance when he's off. So there's no team that has a greater disparity between their best player and their second best player. So that's a pretty good argument. I think that's right. All right. Let's go to the Norris here. And Kyle McCar remains the favorite at minus 140.

Boy, is he, though. Is he? Is he? Zach Wrenski is making one heck of a push there. Let me go through these. Werensky plus 105. So he's gotten close. There's a drop off from there.

It's Quinn Hughes plus 3,000. Evan Bouchard plus 3,000. Lane Hudson plus 3,000. More excited plus 8,000. That's a good bet. Darren Radish plus 20,000. Darren Radish is getting mentioned with Kail McCar, Zach Wrenski, Quinn Hughes. He's got like 17 goals.

He's a point-to-game guy. He's been amazing. He has taken full advantage of Victor Hedman being out and stepping into that role. He's been excellent. I'm sure he's going to get a heck of a reward for that. But let's talk about the very top of this ballot here. Like certainly BetMGM is handicapping this as McCar v. Werenski.

I'm the early narrative was, that McCarr was running away with this, right? And now Werensky's worked his way back in. Cider's kind of like the hip pick. Look at his actual defensive ability and his impact on the game. And then there's Quinn Hughes, who's been playing 28 minutes of night

since getting acquired by Minnesota. I don't know where you go at this point. I don't think McCar is the favorite. I think Werencki is. I think Cider or even Evan Bouchard can possibly overcome that narrative here in the last couple of months. Well, here's the interesting thing is that McCar's

dominance in this award. He's a fantastic all-around player. But the reason that he enters every single year as the prohibitive favorite is because you know he's going to lead defenseman and scoring. Werensky is leading defenseman and scoring. Right. And actually, Bouchard has tied with him. He just has played more games.

So if you give Werencki the best part of McCar's candidacy and then you take in the, yeah, Werencki probably is a little better defender than Kill McCar. I think that is a very strong case. Now, the flip side is, again, we don't always love to give awards to the guys on teams that miss the playoffs. And it's not as big a thing for the Norris as it is for the hard. But McCar is on the best team in the league. You could use that for him or against him.

Wrenski's team very well might miss the playoffs, and you might hold that against them. And the Norris has always been the most, like, whose turn is it award, right? Like, it always sounds like it goes that way. It's not, it's a knock on us as a voting body that we do that. But McCar's gotten his Norris's. And Zach Werenski, you know,

kind of entered the conversation a year or two ago and it gets it better and better every year. And it kind of could be his turn. So if he's, if it's, if it's a coin flip, between Wrenski and McCar, I could see the voters leaning towards Wrenz. What's interesting is earlier this year, I messaged Dom and Shana with kind of a pitch to them that I don't know if they're going to do anything with. So if they are, I'm sorry for ruining it on the podcast. I kind of saw this as the year of the defensive defenseman

strikes back in the Norris because we had Cider. We had Jake Sanderson, Matthew Schaefer, Miro Haskinen. These are kind of more classical, true two-way defenders. All of them are fairly high in the bed MGM odds. It's just that there's such a gap from the top guys. You know, those offensive D have kind of started to reclaim looks like from the odds, a grip on that. But, you know, you see a play like the Bouchard play on the favor goal this weekend where he just kind of swings his stick.

And it's like, this is why people are hesitant to call this like the best defense men or, you know, to put them on Olympic teams because that's, I'm not saying that's who Evan Bouchard is. Evan Bouchard is not just one bad play, probably at the end of a shift where he's tired. but things like that stick with you and you go, oh, okay, like, you know, and that that hurts the offensive deed. It doesn't look like it's hurting them in the odds right now. But I don't see too many plays like that from Sider, Jake Sanderson and Miro Heskin. No, and you want guys that kill penalties and that are like, you know, very effective defensively.

You really are looking at, it's supposed to be the best all around defensemen, right? You know, the PHWA for a little while there had like, I think was the Rod Langway Award or to a defensive defenseman. But that's insulting to guys who are actually good at both. Like you, there are, there are defensemen, like Mo Sider. who is really good at both ends of the ice. And we should be trying to reward the best all-around defensemen, not just the guy who scores the most points. But it's interesting because when I started voting,

I remember reading that award and being like, okay, it's telling me, don't leave out the offensive guys. It's an all-around award. Otherwise, Jacob Slavin wins it every year. Like, that's not what we're looking for either. Right. And so now I've recalibrated,

and I'm almost like, I feel like I'm having to tell people, it's not just the off, it's all around. Like, it was one way at the beginning. It was don't forget the offensive guy. and now it's almost don't forget the defensive guys. A few years ago, Roman Yossi had 100-something points and didn't win the Norris. So I think we're getting a little bit better at that.

Yeah. But it's kind of like the Selke. The Selke is supposed to be for defensive forward. It should be like a Marcus Kruger David Kamp type, right? It's supposed to be that kind of guy. But we give it to the best two-way forward. So it becomes Bergeron. It becomes Barkov, Nikohyshire types.

So I feel like the Norris is evolving into that same direction where we're finally voting on it the way it should be. And it shouldn't just be about point totals. It shouldn't be, but the recent history has been all about. We're trying. We're slowly evolving. We're slowly crawling up the hill. Yeah. All right.

One that is unquestionably about box score numbers is the Rocket Richard. Nathan McKinnon is the runaway favorite there. Mine is 275. Next up is McDavid plus 450 and then it's a big gap. Cole Cawfield, Jason Robertson, Austin Matthews, Carrillo Caprizz off Leon Drysidal. These are kind of your candidates. There's some more fringe ones down the ballot, Morgan Kiki. But this looks like McAfee.

Kenyton's to lose. Yeah, I mean, that's just that, you know, there's no voting involved on this. It's just who's going to score the most goals. And he's got like a six goal lead right now with only 25, 30 games to play. So I think he's an easy call. If the Montreal Canadians can play enough overtime, Cole Cawfield will win this. But that's a lot of overtime that it's going to take for Cole Cofield. What do you think about the selfie?

Because it feels like, again, this is always the hardest to vote because everyone has a different criteria on this. Well, no, the Lady Bing is the hardest to vote, because it's ridiculous. But the Selki of the major trophies is tough. I keep seeing Nick Suzuki. And Nick Suzuki is a fabulous player. I love Nick Suzuki. He's a really good defensive forward too.

He averages less than a minute of penalty kill time per game. Can you win the Selke if you're not really a penalty killer? Because that's disqualifying to me. A minute is about, a minute per game is about my threshold when I go through it. Like I do some filtering of guys. He's like 14th on the Canadians in ice time. He's not in the major rotation.

Yeah. And I think that is a very valid, you know, consideration there because I want my Selki guy, my best defensive forward to kill penalties. They took away our easy answers, Las. Patrice Burr-Rond retired. Alexander Barkov is out. We're going to have to use our brains this year on this award more than we ever have before, right?

But there are some good candidates out there. I think Rope Hintz is a good candidate. You know, Mitch Marner as a winger has always been a controversial one. Mark Stone, ironically, is getting enough points now that I think people are going to consider him as much as they ever have. But you're right. It's a tricky award to vote on because Anse Kopatar probably at a lot. other guy who should always be in this award.

And even though he's getting toward the end of his career, still an extremely hard player to play against, there's kind of, everyone has different categories that they use on this. And some of it's PK and some of its expected goals. But there are also, I think, workload thresholds. Like you gave up like a Marcus Kruger, right? Like there's there's a kind of a minimum workload. I want my Selke guy to play top two line role, if possible. And that might not be in the spirit of how the award was invented.

But if I'm going to call someone the best defensive forward, I'm going to assume that means the coach is playing them a ton, you know? The hurricanes really throw this too. Anytime you start looking at numbers. Oh, my gosh. The whole list. It's like 11 hurricanes and then somebody else. It's really annoying.

They seem to game the system with their just possession dominance because they just don't give up a whole lot because they have the puck all the time. But I want to throw a name out there. Yanni Gord, he's second in the league in high danger chances against per hour, despite being top 20 in D zone starts. He is being used as a true defense. forward and he's exceeding expectations on a really good team. He would be one that kind of comes into that. He doesn't score enough.

And does he play enough? Right. I don't think he's at quite the Anzikopatar workload. Although now that I'm looking at his minutes, 729 at 5 on 5 is not a small number there for the Tampa. I feel like this year, because we don't have Barkov, because we don't have Bergeron,

it feels like there's a chance to actually give this to a true defensive forward. And it probably won't happen, but I'm inclined to start giving some more guys like that a little bit of attention than this. And he would be in that spirit as well. Like he would be in the spirit of he plays a role defined by defense. Like he exists on that team to check. And I think that the founding of the award probably did intend it to go to guys like Yanni Gord. It's just, you know, things evolve.

And you can fight the evolution or you can accept that, well, this is how the standard has been. This is what it is. I've found myself kind of inclined toward Anzee Kopitar this year, and I'm trying to decide. I'd love to see it. Yeah. That's where things stand right now. Is it Schaefer running away with it for the Calder? I think so.

Yeah. I mean, Beckett's Seneca's been amazing lately. He's going to make a push-up ballots, but I think it's pretty tough to not go to Schaefer with what his overall impact has been. One of the things that's wild to me is Yesper Walsstead is having a Calder-worthy campaign. He might get treated. Like Rousseau has really beaten the drum that Walsstead could be on the block as they try to had pieces. I don't know if anyone's ever been traded during a Calderworthy campaign before.

We talked about the idea of trading Walsett on the prospect show last week. And it floors me a little bit because it just feels like everyone, you're one Gustafsson awkward movement away from being like, oh my God, how could we trade Yesper Walsett if that happens? And for a team with cup aspirations, I know that it's probably their best opportunity to get that number two center they desperately need. But we've seen a lot of. We've seen a lot. over the last few years how much you need two goalies in the playoffs. Ask the Pittsburgh Penguins on their cup runs, how much it helps to have two bullies you believe in,

especially if one's a young one, right? I mean, yeah. All right, let's take a quick break right there. We'll be right back. All right, we are back, and we're going to go kind of quick to the finish line here, Lazz, because I know you've got to get down to the arena to cover what is going to be a very fun game tonight.

It is Bedard celebrating. Not the first time they've met, but perhaps the first time they've met when we're considering both finally among the true elite players in the NBA. Yeah, this is the first time they've met as superstars, right? And that's going to be exciting. And Badard's been heating up a little bit since coming back from his shoulder injury.

Celebrini's just dominant and awesome. It's interesting. I keep looking at these as the team situation. That's one of the things Jeff Blashe'll see that she's. It's not Celebrini versus Bedard. It's the sharks against the Blackhawks. And they're both kind of on this same path. And the Blackhawks, we thought were a little bit farther down the road.

But Celebrini has been so good. And this is why we were talking about him as a heart candidate, that they're kind of on equal footing. Because again, if you take out the overtimes, they've both got 16 regulation wins. These are both teams that are a little better than we thought they'd be, but aren't, quote, unquote, good yet. So it's exciting to see they're going to be matching up and measuring each other against each other for a long time to come. Yeah. And I think if I'm Connor Baderden this matchup, the narrative is always that, oh, Celebrini, he'd do this more dirty work. He's the more complete.

I'm going right at him. Like the whole game, I would be all over Macklin Celebrity and trying to prove that like, hey, I'm just at this level that he is. I can go into the corner with him and I can come out with a puck. I can win that battle. That's what I'm hoping to see tonight. That's the thing. And then that narrative that Srebrenia is so much more defensive-minded and harder on the puck, it's not accurate.

No, it's not statistically. Not statistically. And not this year, especially when, you know, the Badard that we're seeing this year is different than the guy we saw the first two years where he was, you know, a little, he was a goal scorer and he was a little tentative. Like he is initiating contact. He is winning puck battles. He is playing smart in the first.

defensive zone and they just they just put frank naser on his wing so he's got a little bit of offense to play with tyler bertus you'll be up there you know he's going to want to score a bunch of goals tonight if you can the expected goals number so bad darred they're both like in the mid 40s for expected goals right so it's like bad darnd it's 2.574 expected goals for 3.41 expected goals against per 60 celebrating it's 2.78 and 3.22 so slightly in the celebrate the actual goal is actually do go much more in celebrini's favor but to your point like these guys both still give up plenty of chances because they're still 20 years old, 19 and 20 years old. But Badard has taken a step in this regard.

And you've talked about it throughout the year. If I'm Badard, that would be my main objective of this game is to show that, like, hey, I do all the same things this guy does. Right. And I think it does matter to him. I talked to him earlier in the year. I sat down with him and Frank Nazar and we had like a kind of goofy conversation. And I brought up the whole Celebrini comparisons.

He says he loves it. He's like, that's what's, that grows the game. When Fans are just, I think he said, just shreds. lighting guys they don't even know to compare it because they want their guy to be the best guys. Like that's what grows the game. That's what fans like to do. And he likes it too. He says, I don't read it, but I like that it exists. So I think he appreciates that. There was some question for all these reasons that, like, whether is Badar going to stick at center? And I think this year has kind of answered that question in the affirmative.

But the Blackhawks have a bunch of young centers. And I thought you did a great story on this, I think was it last week and how they've used Oliver Moore. And they've kind of reworked how they do some of these things. Frank Naser bumped to the wing, which like I would have said Nazar is more of the true center at one point in time. Right. And it's interesting because Bedard, since the shoulder injury, he's not taking face-offs. So Nasar starts every shift at the center. And then they just kind of play.

And it's like, never first in his own. Yeah. So like they have two centers on almost every line now. And that really allows these guys to play a more free flowing style and a little more creative and not get bogged down in their defensive responsibility because they know someone's there to back them up. Yeah. It'll be a really interesting one. I'm looking forward to watching it.

I'm sure you're going to have some great coverage on it. That is going to do it for us. Thanks for listening to this episode of The Athletic Hockey Show. Remember to subscribe on YouTube at YouTube.com slash at the athletic hockey show to watch full episodes. All the shons you want, none you don't. Frankie Carrado, all back with you on Wednesday. We'll talk to you soon.