The Athletic Hockey Show - Is Marchand‘s season over for the Panthers?

Episode Date: October 7, 2026

The Panthers Brad Marchand suffers a tough break in Los Angeles, Gavin McKenna breaks out of his slump in Toronto and Dylan Larkin scores in his season debut in front of a hostile Detroit crowd. Plus, is Macklin Celebrini in play, to one day break Alex Ovechkin's goal scoring record? The Sean's and Frank discuss this and stick tap Nick Schmaltz and the Hurricanes and demand more from the Canadiens, Flyers and Predators.Host: Sean Gentille & Sean McIndoeWith: Frank CorradoExecutive Producer: Chris FlanneryProducer: Jeff DometWatch full episodes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@theathletichockeyshowSubscribe to The Athletic: https://theathletic.com/hockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Hockey Show. Oh, hello, this is the Athletic Hockey Show. I'm Sean Tintilly here with Sean McIndo doing Frankie Corrado. Today on the show, we got Gavin McKenna's scoring his first NHL goal. Dylan Larkin having himself an eventful night, I believe is how we're describing it. Brad Marchand going down and Alexander Oveshkin getting set for his final NHL home opener against Crosby and the Penguins. They've played a.

few times in the past. Boys, how are we doing? Frankie, you are also in a hotel room. I am back. I'm back on that Bonvoy grand, my man. Oh, baby. Just deciding every morning, do I want the breakfast or the points? That's all.

Points, go on. Sean McIndo, you're at home with a very fancy web camera, it seems. Yeah, I am because I forgot to charge the good one. So I'm sitting at home. No breakfast here. No points. You always get along with me, buddy. Just a comfortable bed and familiar surroundings.

Great. Okay. Moving on. We got the Dylan Larkin season debut in Detroit there, guys. The Wings won. He got booed on his first shift, on his first puck touch. But a funny thing happened on the way of that result. He scored a goal.

Max Bolman was there, obviously, to document all. it. So that's on the site if you folks want to read more about it. But guys, we need to talk about that situation because it's it's incredibly dysfunctional and strange across the board, not just as it relates to Dylan Larkin, as relates to Simon Edmondson and a whole bunch of other stuff with the Detroit Red Wings. But last night was another brick in the wall on that. That's a that was a, that's a wild scene between the booing and the goal and the cheering. Like no one, no one knows what to do. No, it really, it really. is. I'll say this, man, I give Dylan Larkin some credit here because if he wanted to, he could sit

at home and say, I'm just not going to play until someone trades me. He's out there playing. Yeah, he doesn't have the sea on his jersey, which looks incredibly bizarre. There's like, there's weird stuff happening in the arena. They're chanting sell the team. There's not enough people in the seats to do like the flag in the national anthem to make it go from section to section, which is totally crazy because it's hockey town, it's Detroit. You would think that's just a layup. And Larkin has taken his medicine, man. Like, he got booed in the home opener.

He got booed when he stepped onto the ice. He got booed when he touched the puck. And then he scores a goal. It almost has like that, it's such a bizarre existence. But I don't know what your guys' childhood was like, like, if there was ever a moment where your parents told you, like, you have to do something and you'd, didn't want to do it and you just did it reluctantly.

Maybe your mom was like, hey, you got to come to the grocery store with me today and you didn't want to go and you just dragged your ass along there and you were like, yeah, whatever, I'll go. It's almost like that's what Larkin's doing and he's got to play this out. And I don't know. Like, if Larkin plays well or if he plays poorly, what is more likely to get him traded or what's a better scenario for the Red Wings? It's a completely bizarre existence, but he's out there playing hockey.

It's wild to watch. And I'm glad you brought it up because that was going to be something I was going to ask, which was, do we have to give this guy some credit for showing up and taking his medicine? And I think we kind of do. And I mean, it's a situation of his own making. So, you know, we can pump the brakes on on it a little bit. But yeah, he could have stayed home or he could have, you know, his shoulder could have hurt. right up until he was traded.

He could have done the Joey Porter Jr. thing where it's, you know, I'm too hurt to play right up until the trade happens and then I pass the physical. So I think you, unfortunately, you do indeed have to hand it to him. And it, I mean, it was, it was pretty interesting to see him score and to see his reaction. Because if you had told me before the game, he's going to get booed, it's all going to happen. and then he's going to score a big goal. Part of me would wonder, okay, is he going to score the goal,

and is he going to have the big reaction? And then the crowd starts to warm to him. Is this step one? And it didn't really feel like that. It felt like he scored that goal, and he was kind of like, there you go. There's your goal. You're still booing me.

We're not going to pretend that we're pals or anything. But I guess, be grudging credit to him. He showed up, got it done, got a goal, got a win that that team desperately. needed against an Ottawa team that have been rolling. It was a good night for Dylan Larkin, which I think means a good night for people looking for him to get traded because I do think it helps the Red Wings more, although the Lord knows what the decision-making process is like in that organization these days.

I don't know if they know what the decision-making is like, what the decision process making is like, yeah, you know, you mentioned potentially, you know, was he going to, was. Was he going to have an air quotes injury that held him out? I think everyone thought that when he opened camp and he was absent for the first little bit, you know, it was fair to see that and be like, oh, okay, this is like, this is the off ramp here. But he was pretty adamant back then and the team was pretty adamant that like, no, this is like a legit injury and he's, and he's going to be back. And, you know, you give him, yeah, you give him a nickel's worth of credit for actually, uh, you know, being, being in the lineup there. And he said a couple times it seemed like in his post game remarks.

You know, he said, you know, I got to, I had to stand up and, you know, take it like a man, basically, which is, I don't know if that's, that's, that's one way to approach it. I don't know, I don't know if that's necessarily 100%, you know, the way that, I'm sure that there's Red Wings fans who hear that and are annoyed, but there's also no, no correct way to go about it. But yeah, now the question becomes what's next? Like, does this grease the skids for a trade? McIndo, you mentioned this, does it make a trade more or less likely, less likely?

And I think I would imagine there's still a sense in Detroit, you know, that they're trying to salvage the situation. Like if they really wanted to trade them and if they thought it was completely untenable and they, you know, that they just wanted to cut the court ASAP, they could have done it already, but they haven't. And there's some reason for that, whether it's they want them to rehab his valid. you a little bit more, whether they want them to just hang around and stay on ice and open up the trade list, whatever it might be, they haven't done it yet, right? And that's what I, that's what I think it is. Because there's a couple of scenarios here. One is he plays great. And then the wild or whoever it is up the offer. That's, that's possible. It's also possible, although it would be very funny for him to play so great that Detroit goes, you know what,

maybe we do keep this guy and, you know, and it all works out. But I actually, actually I like it here. And I don't want to go play in Vegas or whatever. I think it's it's a little bit of send him out there, let him take his medicine, let him hear from the fans, which he's now done twice because the home opener, he was introduced and he went up for that too. And maybe he opens the list up a little bit, especially when the team is three and seven and one and completely out of the race already.

maybe he goes, all right, I gave you three teams. Here's a couple more. And maybe that's enough to get it done. I wonder. Or maybe there's no plan at all. And they're just kicking the can down the road and see what tomorrow brings. That's kind of where I was going to go with it. Like, I wonder if it's just the Red Wing saying we have quite a bit here that's not settled.

Like the Larkin situation, the Simon Edmondson situation. We don't have like a full kind of GM title. We have like an interim thing. and I wonder if they're just like, we're going to hold on to this thing and see if we can just kind of get our backyard cleaned up before we make any kind of big franchise altering decision. And that leaves Dylan Larkin kind of playing. Now, I will say this, like, there's got to be, and maybe you disagree, maybe you don't, but isn't there a little bit after seeing everything that the Red Wings did or did not do this summer? Isn't there a little part of you that's like, maybe Larkin wasn't that wrong about everything. here. Maybe Larkin is a little bit vindicated in his thought process and saying, like, this is a bit messy. Like, I don't want to be a part of this anymore. This lacks direction. It can't just be all on Larkin for being the bad guy and saying, I want out. Like, maybe he's kind of pointing out that there's some stuff that is significantly wrong here. And you guys

got out of it up or I'm out of here. Like, I think, I think that was how I felt, that was my take on the entire situation until two years ago. I was like, this is an organization, blame Eiserman, blame Chris Illich, like, divided up as, as you like. This is an organization that, to some degree, has failed Dylan Larkin. And I know, like, is he a true one Cionic contender? No, we know that now. But, like, they didn't do a good job of building around him largely due to the lack of direction. Like, they couldn't pick a lane.

They couldn't pick a contention window, and they paid for it. I would have entirely been on Team Larkin two or three years ago and then he signed the extension. And that is that's the variable for me. When like when you take the money and you lock in for for another nine years or however much, you know, however many years are spread of costs across his contracts after he signed the sign the second one, that's when it's like, okay, yeah, you've been done dirty over the last few years, but you know, you took the bag. and you bear some of the blame now. So, yeah, that's, that's, that's, that's sort of where I was, where I was at on it. Yeah, but at the same time, I don't blame guys for taking the bag. No, no, not at all.

You can always do this. How many times have we seen it? Sign your contract, right? And you say, it's not working here. I got to go, like, secure your money. And I think part of that would have been him being sold on, we're going to do this the right way, we're going to continue to build. And when you agreed to.

a contract when potentially that's what's being told to you. Like, did you guys hold up your end of the bargain? Because I did. When I'm not in the lineup, you guys lose. And like, I don't know. It takes two to tango in this thing. It can't all be on Larkin. But also, let's not lose side of the fact that the last couple of years down the stretch

when the Red Wings were right there knocking on the playoff door, Dill and Larka was not good. Score some goals in March, buddy. Yeah. And that's, you know, Steve Eiser. maybe shouldn't have said it publicly, but Steve Eisenman wasn't wrong when he said, you know, the reinforcements were supposed to be in the room already and those guys didn't get it done. So I think you're right, Sean, to an extent.

Like, this is a mess, but it's a mess that Dylan Larkin had a big hand in creating. So I don't think he gets to sit there and go, hey, man, you got to clean up the kitchen here. It's like, dude, you're the one who spilled the juice all over the floor. they need to figure out the Edvenson situation before they do anything else. I think that's the first domino that needs to fall. And when they decide how to move there, whether a deal gets done, whether a contract gets signed, whatever ends up happening, like that needs to be their primary focus. Because we know now that at least for better or worse, like both sides are willing to coexist

for some amount of time. And I don't know if you can say the same thing about the Edmondson. For some amount of time is the, that's the key. that's the key. I wonder how what conversations have happened behind the scenes where maybe Dylan Arkin's been told like look, the market isn't there right now, show up, play well,

we'll get it done within. I'm sure they didn't give him a specific you know, it's going to be two weeks, it's going to be this, but it may have been indicated to him that we'll get this done early and if this drags on and on at some point does he go, you know, I've been there's a like, it's like, hey buddy, there's a fire over there that's burning a lot a lot hotter and in a lot brighter. We need to figure out the big young defensemen.

Well, we'll talk to you in a couple weeks. On that note, before we pivot to Brad Marchand, like that is one of those things that I find maybe the craziest about this whole situation is Larkin didn't want to be there. And it was made clear. Edmondson was willing to go to camp without a contract, be there, negotiate. it and be ready to start the season, and they fumbled that. And it's like, so you're doing it wrong both ways. One guy doesn't want to be there. You haven't traded him. You don't know what's going on. The other guy really wants to be there. You know exactly what he's worth around the league,

because we're seeing players that have way less track record, way less impact, signed for big money. So guess what? You've got to pay him. Eight and a half million is no longer going to cut it for Simon Edmondson. It probably was a year ago, not anymore. and you fumbled that so much that he's gone back to Sweden. I think that's crazy that he was willing to go to camp and be a good teammate and be there and you still couldn't get that deal done. That ticket essentially writes itself. It's a mess.

What we do know, and this is fresh as of last night, just when we thought we could throw a blanket on the Dylan Larkin-Florida Panthers connection because that's obviously was those lines had been drawn because the, Alexander Barkov injury. We hear from Pierre LeBron and the Panthers that they think it's an eight-week injury or so for Barkov. So disaster averted, you know, they don't have, they're not going to be able to spend his cap hit on on anything else.

Okay, we can, we can move on from Florida Panthers trade discussions. We no longer can because Brad Marchand appeared to seriously injure his leg last night. It was, he slid into the, he slid into the goalposts. you know, the vibes post game were a whole lot different than they were for Barkov, too. There was no Paul Maurice being like, well, this is a different situation than it was last. There wasn't any, like, undercover optimism. You know, coming out of Florida yesterday, it seems like they think it's serious. And the video certainly backs that up.

So where are we at on Florida? Where are we at on Marshand? And is this a situation in your guys' purview that we should monitor as, you know, Brad Marshan goes on LTIR, and we're right back where we were three days ago trying to figure out who Florida's going to swoop in and add. Well, wasn't this like the superpower of the Panthers was going to be that the band is back and everyone's healthy. And they had a year where they were hurt, but they're rested and they're recovered. And now everyone's going to be moving in the right direction and good luck dealing with the depth and the style of play that the Panthers play. Now, if Barkov's going to be out for a significant period of time,

Marshand as well, they come back to the pack and they become more getable. If the injuries stop after this, they're a good team, they're not necessarily a great team, and they're right there within that battle in the Atlantic Division. Could be a little better, could be a little worse than some of those other teams, but there's not that much separating them. If it continues to cascade the same way it did last year, and there's a chance that could happen because it is an aging team. It's one of the oldest teams in the NHL.

Then you're talking about a potential repeat of what happened last year and then missing the playoffs. They have to find a way to stop the bleeding when it comes to the injuries. But ultimately, like DGB, I don't know if you see it this way as well, if the Panthers are healthy in March into April and they're in a playoff spot, they're still the Panthers. and they're still right where they're supposed to be. Can they weather it and can they not have more of these situations pop up between now and then is going to be the big question.

That is exactly the question. When I did my season preview post where what I do is I take all 32 teams and I drop them into four separate divisions, bottom feeders, the mushy middle, the true contenders, and then I have eight teams that I'm really not sure on. And I had the Panthers in that group, not in the contender group where most people seem to have them. Because I basically said, look, all the DNA is there, all the pieces are there. If the Florida Panthers are right back in the mix, if the Florida Panthers win the Stanley Cup, I'm not shocked.

I don't think anybody is. But are we sure that it's a done deal? Are we completely positive that now the Barcobs back, this is going to be the same team as before, given their age, given some of the stuff we saw, last year and obviously nobody was projecting that Barkov was going to get hurt again. And the Marchand thing, so it's a freak injury, but also when you got guys in their late 30s, you expect that there's going to be some missed time. And, you know, Frankie, you're right. If we get to March, and they're the eight seed, nobody wants to play them.

Nobody is going to want a piece of that. I mean, whoever's sitting in first place in that conference is going to be, wow, this is our reward we got to take on the the freaking Florida Panthers in the in the first round. That's going to be a mess. But we said all this last year. We said that last year. Remember last year Matthew Kachuk will be back. Barkov there was talk, you know, maybe in the playoffs, he could he could even come back,

watch out for these guys. And then they just faded and faded. And by the time guys were close to being healthy, you're looking at the standings going. It's just not going to happen. And that could be the case again this year. we'll have to see. But it's a tough one because especially, I mean, that injured to Marchandah last night, you don't want to speculate necessarily, but it looked like it could be a season ender.

And at his age, if you're talking season enders, you got to wonder about impact on career as well. And that's pretty brutal. But, you know, guys 38 or whatever it is, if you're playing for, for contending was that he was going to play 84 games. Plan maybe had a flaw in it anyways. I mean, the other wing on his line is Brady Kachuk. I think that's, it would be a great time for him to, for him to step up and look like the player.

They thought, like, he's got zero points through four games, by the way, Brady Kachuk. So wouldn't be a bad time for him to, from to step up and earn his paycheck and, you know, back up, back up all the, all the, all the, all the nonsense we've heard about him over the last however many years. One thing the Panthers do have going for them as of right now is Jacob Markstrom looks pretty good. Like Markstrom looks like exactly what he was supposed to be there. He's been really reliable and quite stable in the net. So that's something like, hey, they didn't get that with Bob last year.

Maybe that's something that looks and feels different this year, even though it's starting to have the repeat episode of what we saw last year with these guys. Made Beliefs get a comeback win over a Preds team that is a tough watch, man. They were, we were going through season previews stuff. They were at the top of the, at the top of the ugly watch, or the bottom of the watchability rankings, man. There's just not too many reasons to pay attention to them. So Belief struggled with them on one hand.

On the other, we got the Gavin McKenna breakout. Scores a goal as his first assist. but before that nice little moment outside the dressing room where he has his picture taken and all that stuff. I mean, it wasn't time to worry about him. He's a teenager who is playing NHL games, but I do think it was, you know, a jolt of excitement for a Leafs team that needed it to some extent and also needed a kick in the ass to beat a team that stinks, which is the Nashville Predators.

Yeah, and needed it on home. mice, which it feels like that game was as important a fourth game against a non-rival on a Tuesday night as you could have, because had they start at one and three, you know, it can get late early. And I know we can point and say, well, it's the Toronto market. They freak out about everything. But you know what? this is a team that has got to prove to us that they're they're good enough to be back in the

playoff mix and especially last night when it was 3-0 Nashville and you're sitting there going man what is this score we're going to look like by the end if this ends up being a 6-1 game or something you're going to have fans booing you're going to have the arena half empty by the final buzzer and luckily I guess for the Leafs from their perspective got it turned around And Gavin McKenna was a big part of that, and Austin Matthews was a big part of it, which is important, too, because we haven't quite seen it yet from him. And then, of course, Willie Nealander just looking like an absolute stud out there. That's what you need. This is a very top heavy team as far as how they've been designed.

They've got two lines that can score and two lines that probably can't. Jack Roslavik getting a goal kind of reminding us that he's on the team was a big touch as well. it all went about as well, you know, other than giving up the four goals, it went about as well as it could have gone from about that 23 minute mark on. And they needed it. Yeah. It feels like Jim Hiller is learning a lot about his team. And to your point, DGB about it getting late early,

if they lose that game, they're embarking on what probably is the toughest road trip in the NHL today. Like we've seen different variations of like gauntlet road trips, but Vegas, Colorado, Utah, that's not fun this year. And it's not going to be fun for the next few years. And so if they are behind the eight ball going out there, the season could look a lot different. And I think like Austin Matthews probably recognizes that urgency with the game he has last night because it's not just about the goal that he scores.

I think it's the like the process and the way he plays that game where coming up with pucks, challenging one-on-one. The one shot, like, I thought it was so brilliant. He's, I think it's on the power play. Instead of ripping it under the bar, trying to rip it under the bar and missing the net, he goes pass off of pad right into the slot. And I'm like, it's just a,

it felt like it was a really mature kind of game and moment from Austin Matthews, not to mention, like, utilizing his natural gifted tools to help himself. And Gavin McKenna playing with Matthews and Neelander for however many shifts it was, there's a lot of parts that you can move around in that top six and even spot into your bottom six

if you want to get a little more scoring or a little more punch. But beautiful, beautiful first goal for Gavin McKenna. Like that's exactly the way you want to draw it up. The other thing, Frankie, on Austin Matthews, is I don't remember who it was, but earlyish in the game.

He got his legs kicked out from under him. And he reacted to that. Like, he looked ticked off. I'm wondering if he was playing a little bit mad, which maybe isn't the worst thing in the world. No kidding. For him, you know, obviously he's not a guy you consider a power forward where you want him running around out there, taking names and numbers. But maybe that was a bit of a bit of a wake-up for him. And by the way, speaking of wake-ups, Frankie, did you have a lot of sense?

sleepovers in your NFL career? Was that the, it was that a thing? I had zero. I had zero, but I legitimately, like, played with guys that would do stuff like that. Like, this is not abnormal for guys to do it. Like, I swear to God, I played with two guys that, like, on the road would sleep in the same room. I don't know why.

What team was this? It was like one of those. It was just one of those things. Like, I don't know if they were playing video games, but anyways, it was. yeah, that's kind of funny. The fact that, like, he lives with one guy. Maybe that's it. Maybe it wasn't so much sleepover.

It might have been an audition for the Fortnite squad. That's right. Ever since Mitch left, it's been, it's been tough going in Toronto. So this may have been. That's like the undertone of all that is like, Awesome Matthews is the old guy now. Is having the youngsters stay at his house? I'm picturing that.

I'm picturing at the sleepover. Austin Matthews goes to, of Fortnite and Gab McKenna's like, what is this? What is this? It's not a, I've seen this one before. It's not a young team anymore. It's crazy. Like, they, they're one of the oldest teams in the NHL. I'll tell you what, like, I did the Habs game last night, and they looked like a young team last night. Yeah, you were, you were there, you were there in person. Let's, let's get your, let's get your, let's get your, let's get your takeaways on, on, on what that looked like before we hit, hit the breaker. It, it looked like the Habs were a team where their average age is 26 and they made careless

decisions with the puck and a lot of turnovers and eventually like eventually just fed into what the Carolina Hurricanes do so well. Transition the puck and jam it right down your throat. And that's, you know, it was last night was Hurricanes hockey to a T and Habs hockey when they don't have their best stuff and they haven't played a good game yet. Like there are three games into this thing and the Habs have not had a single good game. They had a horrible second period against Pittsburgh on Saturday. They had another bad second period last night against Carolina. Like, coming out of that second period, the hurricanes had 10 scoring chances off of turnovers. The high danger chances were 16 to 6 for the hurricanes. So as much as the

habs are a year older, and maybe they're a little deeper because they have Crieder, although they're missing Yvonne Demetoff now for the next two to four weeks, I think there's, when you play the hurricanes, it kind of reveals where your struggles are and what your weaknesses are. And as much as the habs may, you know, think they've gotten better, which may be on paper they have, as far as how they approach those kinds of games, they still have quite a bit of work to do. But you know what? Full credit to the hurricanes, too, who have not looked great to start the season, that was a big kid game last night. That was sort of the, okay, the champs are here. And it felt like that was the first time we really saw that from them to go in and send a little message to

you know, this still very young Montreal team. Hey, you still got a little bit of ways to go before you're going to take what we have right now. So that's a real good sign if you're a Carolina fan that they do have that level and maybe they're not going to have their foot mashed on the gas pedal all year long because it's a long season, but it's it could still be there when they need it. It's always nice to remind them of that playoff series, right, in October. That's, I feel like that's what yesterday was. Hey, remember, remember that? This is the same rules to apply. All right, we've got three games tonight, including pens and caps in D.C. That is where I am currently located. Alexander Ovechkin is preparing for the final home opener in his career.

I'm going to talk about that next, including take a little look at whether or how his goal record will ever be broken. There's an interesting piece from Dom and Shana. Even though I completely disagree with the premise of it, we'll see. We're talking that after the break. But first, I have a question for you, folks. How do you rank a 50-goal score against a shutdown defenseman? That is the fight at the heart of the Hockey 100. This is the Athletics New Book, Rang the 100 Greatest Modern NHL Players.

It is out October 27th. Go argue about it in your group chat and also CC Sean McEndo with all those arguments, because again, he wrote it in its entire tea. We will be right back. All right, we're back. Boys, we've brought this up already. It came up in our group chat. I am in Arlington, Virginia.

I stopped by to do some generic caps reporting a couple days ago. I said to my girlfriend, before I left, it'll be nice to not have to ask people of Alex Olvechkin on this trip. That is a rarity in these parts. turns out I did. He retired or announced his retirements on Monday. It was unexpected on my end. I was not tipped off.

I was here randomly along with plenty of other folks who were, who cover the beat consistently and were very, very surprised by the announcement coming when it did. It's interesting timing for it. Oveskin said, you know, a couple different ways, a couple different times. that it was all about the home opener, that it was, you know, it's a good, it's a good day for hockey,

it's a good day for the sport in D.C., the penguins are in town, blah, blah, blah. But I'm wondering, on both the year ends, what did you, what did you think of, of the timing there, and what do you think of,

of what seems to be the final decision from the big boy? I mean, it's fitting because, realistically, there was some thought last year that he might just go away. And that might just be it. And there's not going to be this big announcement.

Maybe he doesn't want that. And the contract was expiring. And next thing, you know, he's back. And so when he's back, you're like, how many times is you going to want to do this? How many times is he going to want to answer the questions? Also, like, how long, how much more can you actually do it? The games, the practices, the flying around, like the 84 game season, all of it. It's a lot, especially at his age.

and it's not like, you know, it's not like there's not wear and tear there. You see the clips of OVie early in his career, halfway through his career. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's going on the forecheck. There's some wear in terror. Like full steam into the boards.

Like that adds up when you're pushing 40 years old. And he'll still do it every once in a while, not nearly at the rate he used to. But I think the time is right. It makes sense. There's not a lot of like unfinished business for OV. He's got the goal scoring record. He's got a Stanley Cup. What more does he have to prove?

What would he be hanging on for? I just wonder if he went through training camp and was like, okay, I don't, I don't think I can do this again. Like that's, that is my thought. And I think that's why it happened when it did. He said that it was a decision made in the summer. I don't know. You're right.

It may have been, it may have been the camp. Or it may have been seeing you. That might have been the other one. Oh, yeah, he definitely knows who I am, for sure. And he's like, I'm out. I'm done. Let me ask you guys this. He's the all-time leading goal score.

He's one of, I mean, I think just about everyone would have him on the top two or three of modern era, cap-era players. Now that we know that this is his last year, does he get that treatment you sometimes see guys get in pro sports where every place, he goes, like, are they going to be doing the pregame ceremonies? Are they going to be calling them out, giving them golden sticks or, you know, little souvenirs from various, uh, various spots? Or does he just get the, you know, a nice little ovation from the fans and, and move on? Because he, he feels to me like, it feels to me like if Sydney Crosby made this announcement, I feel like you go into Montreal, last game of Sidney Crosby, they're, they're pulling out something for him. I don't know if they will for Oveche.

for, you know, for various reasons, including some of the off-ice and political stuff that makes it, makes it tricky with him. But I'm genuinely curious. Do you guys think he'll get, get that recognition from other teams, other outside of Washington? I do. Like, Anse Kopitar got it. And Anzee Kopitar is a really important player to the Los Angeles Kings. He didn't have the responsibility of like saving the league coming out of the lockout the same way that Ovi and Sid had to. Also didn't have like the individual success that OV had. Very decorated career for Anzay Kopitar, but all it takes is one, right?

Like you know how these things work. Yes. One team will do it. And then the next team is going to look at that and say, well, they did it. We have to. So now it's going to look bad on us if we don't do it. And that's kind of how it goes. But I would expect everyone to have something of some sort for OV on his way out.

I think video package is probably the way to go. I think, you know, for the reasons that McIndoo kind of alluded to, I think, I think, you know, that's going to stop the Putin issue is going to stop him from getting the Mariano Rivera, you know, here's some, some goofy trinket that we're going to present to you at Center Ice. That's, that's going to, that's going to stop that from happening in certain spots. And I don't think that'll be the case with Crosby. I think if and when Crosby, when Crosby, when Crosby, ever retires if it turns into a thing where we know it's last year, which I am far from sold on, at least on the latter part of that. I think he's the guy who would get, you know, all right, here's the golden rocking chair from the Minnesota Wild or whatever. I'm not, I'm not sold on that happening for, for, for, for Ovechkin necessarily. Which is going to, it'll be awkward then if it doesn't happen for Ovechkin and it does for

Crosby. Crosby is a better, more important player. That's fine. That's fair. Well, I mean, listen, like, Crosby Crosby's been squeaky clean forever. Yeah. Right?

Like, there's never been a single controversial thing with Sidney Crosby, unless I'm missing something. But I can't remember a single thing that was controversial about Crosby. There's like, there's 25 jokes, potential jokes that will get me fired that are, that are just rifling through my head right now. The mumps. That was the most controversial, Sydney Crosby moment. getting the mumps from Beau Bennett

and actually exposing children's children to them at the hospital. That's it. I mentioned this in the tease. This is an interesting piece from Dom and Shana. And I think it's couched the right way. Like you have to ask the question if anybody's ever going to top the goal record.

It's a fair thing to look at. I think the answer realistically is no. Because you look at, because you look at this list, you look at all these guys. It's a discussion that we had a few years ago about Austin Matthews when he was truly ahead of, ahead of Oveskin's pace at that point in his career. That's all well and good.

There are always going to be star players who, you know, who are when they're 23 or 25 are in the discussion there. The difference with Oveskin, it is and it always has been the fact that he kept it going through his 30s and 40s, and he, you know, through his late 20s, mid 30s,

really up into the last year or two. That's, that's a differentiation point. It's not, it's not that he scored, you know, in the, in the 60s when he was,

when he was in his early 20s, it's that he kind of, it's, it's a bad season for him, basically outside of the one. It was, you know, was 41 goals.

Like that's, that's, that's the average. The, the crazy thing when you look at OV's goals over the, years is he's had a few weird ones where, you know, two years ago, 65 games, but 44 goals at, you know, in your late 30s. It's crazy stuff. And if you look at, you know, from when

Austin Matthews stepped foot into the league, 2016, 27, 2017, sorry, no one has more goals than Matthews. He's at 430 today. He's played 693 games. It's a really great score. It's a really great scoring clip. It's obviously slowed down the last couple seasons. But you know who's third in that time is Alex Ovechkin with 404? So to your point, Sean, like as much as Matthews stepped in and lit the league on fire and had 60 and then had 69, like it's not like OVey fell off in the last 10 years. OV's right up there. He's third behind dry-sidal. And so that pace late in his career is going to be the challenge. for Matthews and Dreysidal or whoever is going to try and push up on Ovi's goal total. That's exactly it.

Like I know a lot of people look at Matthews and they go, he's been a 30, 40 goal guy the last couple years. Ovechkin had that stint in his career too back after the, you know, after the Halak series in that when the Capitol sort of had the identity crisis. The Dale Hunter years. Exactly. Yeah. But it's the longevity that's unbelievable.

And look, I can't conceive of somebody breaking that record, but I am also old enough that there was a time I couldn't conceive of anyone breaking Gretzky's record, especially in the era that it happened. You know, and that, I guess, is the one thing I would say is the unknown here, because will we ever see somebody who can score like Ovechkin for that long again? I don't know that we will. I mean, if you have a 15-year career in the NHL, which is pretty good, you've got to score 60 goals a year to get the conversation. That's not possible. That's not something you can do in today's NHL. But that is today's NHL. And this league does evolve, and we have seen low-scoring errors and we've seen very high-scoring errors.

And I don't think we'll ever see something like the 70s and 80s again. But if we do get back to a point where, you know what, it's not crazy for someone to score 60s. 60 or 70 goals. Maybe we even get the very best of the best can get an 80 goal season. Well, that gives you some padding for those years where you're hurt or where it's a bit of a down year or whatever it is. Then it kind of becomes a conversation. But in today's NHL where it's six, six and a half goals a game total, I just, I mean,

all you have to do is look at his total. I said 15 years, divided by 20. Okay, 45 to 50 goals every year. for 20 years, no injuries, nothing, I mean, just pure consistency. How do you project that to anybody? I'm not sure it's possible. Right. And the thing with Ovi is if you look at the first, call it 11 years of his career, so 05, 06 to 2016, 2017, he led goal scoring in that time frame.

Like, it wasn't even close. He had 558. He had 558. and Crosby had 382 in that time. Yeah. Like, that was, that was an era.

Close. Guys were winning the Rocket Richard with 41 goals. Yeah. Jamie Benz winning the Art Ross with 87 points. To, to say that this is the era where we're going to see somebody do most of the heavy lifting for breaking a Wayne Gretzky scoring record, it would have been completely inconceivable.

And you're right. Like, there are guys. Awesome, Matthews, sure. They're talking about Macklin Celebrini in the most recent post as a guy who's on pace. Look, there was a time you would have looked at Stephen Stamco's and said, this might be the guy who's going to do it. He had a 60-goal season very early in his career in very low-scoring era.

So you would have said, okay, maybe he's the guy. But, you know, you look at Stephen Samco's first ballot Hall of Famer, a guy who's easily accomplished everything you could have ever expected for a first overall pick, he's not going to come close. No, it's just the reality of how happy. It's one thing to score 65 goals when you're 22 like Govetskin did. That's incredible and impressive, obviously, for a lot of reasons, including the era that he did it in. It's something else entirely to score 50 when you're 36.

And that's something he did as well. So there needs to be that you need to get to your peak early and you need to maintain something close to it literally until you're 40 years old. Like the variable, I think, and they mentioned this with Salabrini, is that he, Malcolm Celabrini has 70 NHL goals already. He went 25 and 65, or 65, rather. He went 25 and 40 in his first two NHL seasons.

Ovescun didn't start playing in the NHL until he was 20 because of the lockout. There is like, you know, if you really want to drill it down and look at it on a, on a, on a, on a, on a closer level, you know, is there a world where 30 years from now, a kid comes into the league and has, it immediately has 80 goals as an 18 and 19 year old? Like, yeah, sure. But I think expecting that and predicting it from anybody at any point is, is a really, is a really, really tough thing to do. And this whole conversation, we're assuming. 80 plus games every year. No lockouts. No pandemics.

No weird stuff that for whatever reason, you know, no NHLPA negotiating down the number of games or something like that. Yeah. No random season loss to a, whatever, a shoulder injury when he's when he's 24, avescan avoided that too.

Like there are so many variables that you got to account for. It just makes it awesome. The guy never got hurt until finally he breaks. his leg and missed like a week. That's right. Then came back and scored it at 57 goal pace for the rest of the season. He came back early at that age. He came back early.

That is like superhuman stuff. Crazy. And if you were going to break that, if you were going to break Ovi's record, you have to be on pace now. You're not going to make up ground as you get older and as the wear and tear picks up. You need to open up a lead when you're 18 or 19. and then basically keep that pace throughout. Once you fall behind, you're done.

It's over. It's game over. So just stay on pace and stay there for 20 plus years. And we'll check in with you. And don't care about anything else other than scoring goals. That's right. No back checking, no nothing. Just find a spot that nobody covers for some reason and just go to town.

And hope you're with a franchise and a coach that's willing to accommodate, accommodate all your deficiencies over the last couple of years of your career. That's fine. Easy. It's an easy ask. Frank, you got a couple more days in Montreal, don't you, bud? Yeah, we got your favorite team,

the Preds coming into town on Thursday. Sleep on. Yeah. First liner Alex Kerfoot and Matthew Wood. They're all coming to town, boys. Yeah, it'll be, I think, like, Montreal has to, like, they have to play way, better than what they've played like because no one's just going to give them the Atlantic

Division. I get it, exciting young team, but if they don't clean up some of the stuff they're doing, they're going to be like working their way up the standings quite a bit here. Well, take it easy, man. Stay cool out there and talk to you next week. All right, boys. See you late. All right, there goes Frankie. We're back. Sean McIndoe. What have we learned? What have we learned, Sean? I have learned.

But I think the Philadelphia Flyers might be cooked. We're not. The reason I pause there a little bit is because there was a part of me that wanted to say they might be done already. And there's 80 games left. Yeah. I'll give them to 76 games. But the only team in the East without a win, 0 and 4, 2 loser points. that their goalie stole for them.

I mean, that, that's bad. When your goaltender has to stand on his head to get you a loser point. Not a win, a loser point. That's rough. Not a lot looking good for that team. And I don't think they're done, but. They're not done because the metro is bad. Yeah.

Yeah. Like I don't, they're not, that's through no, that's just situational. That has nothing to do with them. They're just, they're just in a division where there's going to be wins to, there's going to be wins on the board down the line. Yeah, but it's, it's ugly. And, and, you know, there's, there's the concept in sports of the, the, the, the, the, the tapes game where something just goes so bad that you just go, let's, let's

just forget it. That winner against the penguins, I wonder if that's sticking to them a little bit. Like that went so badly that that's throwing them off course a little bit. Because look, we all looked at that Flyers, Penguins playoff matchup last year and went like, that's fake. That's not a real first round. Yeah. And at least one of those spots is going to be up for grabs. But we all figured it was going to be the penguin spot.

And, you know, the Flyers at least youngish team, certainly good young pieces coming in. and questions about what the ceiling was, but certainly a team that you looked at and you said, okay, they can take a step forward from last year. Not yet. Yeah, no steps at all. They could, or they could look like a team where the center death chart is Christian Devorak,

Trevor Ziegres, Noah, Kates, and Sean Keturier in 2007, because that's what they are. Like, that's a team that is bad down the middle. They tried to sign Leo Carlson for 100 years and a trillion dollars for a reason. It's because they have, not one, but probably two holes on their on their top, on their, on the, on, on their top six. And they're looking apart right now.

Like I do, I do, I do agree with you. Like, I thought there was a world where, you know, they wallpaper over that enough for this season. You know, you see some, you see some, every, Puerto Martone has the colder year that everybody expected them to. And, you know, Zegers continues to look like a legit top six center and blah, blah, blah, right? There were, you get a full year, a Tyson Forster who was a really good player who they missed down the stretch last year. Like there were reasons to believe in them. Kind of ironically, my biggest concern for them outside of the center depth chart was that, you know, Dan Vladar, like, can he do what he did in two consecutive years?

And I don't know. Like, I don't think he's. He has a big good event. He is, yeah. I'm starting to think that. giving your goaltender a big extension based on the one strong NHL season he's ever had.

Maybe that doesn't even kick in until next year. That's a little bit rough. And I mean, flip side is Joseph Walls look really good. And it's two games. It's goaltendering. You know,

it's hard to save. But it's not off to a good start there. And, you know, part of it you wonder, I thought Rick Tocke did a fantastic job last year. Some stuff. Some coaches, there are some coaches that year one, you take the step, and then players maybe start to tune you out a little bit.

I don't know if that's talk it. I don't know if this is just a losing streak. Look, almost every team in the league is going to lose four games at a row at some point. It's the fact that it's the first four that we're talking about it. But there's not enough talent on the roster, man. It's not like you watch those four games and you go, you know, they deserve a better fate.

It'll leave it out. No. No, they might have been lucky to get the two points. And they're panicking. Not too. Like, this is like you can,

it's not difficult to read between the lines and the stuff talk it's saying in the vibe there in general. Like this is, this isn't, you know, they're not publicly treating this like a blip on the radar. This is like, uh, uh,

oh, we need to, we need to write the ship quickly. Sean, I learned this morning that Nick Schmaltz is leading the NHL in Goals with five. I learned that too. Stick tap to producer Jeff for putting that in the show package because if I hadn't seen that and you would just quiz me, this podcast would be about seven hours long of me listing names before I got to. Nick Schmaltz is the leading goal score.

I barely recovered from the Morgan Geeky experience last year, and now I got to do this. It's going to be tough. Nick Schmaltz is a good player, man. He's one of those guys. I think I talked about this in some capacity over the last couple weeks. Like there are always players who over the summer when we do the player tiers project, where you hear coaches and execs and whoever else talk about them and they're high on them, and they sell you on them.

And Nick Schmaltz over the last couple years has been one of those for me. Like, he's got a lot of fans in the league. There is a player development coach who, you know, just in particular, who is gassing him up. Like, not perfect, but he's, you know, he makes the team better, you know,

in a bunch of different spots, right? Like, he's, he's a fixer on a line. And like, is he a guy who you want playing one C minute, which he, currently is for for utah no but he makes sense for them he makes sense as a line made for for clayton color um and he's you know that's what a nine million dollar hockey player looks like these days it's true as long as he keep shooting 30% all year long he doesn't he doesn't need to if he's if if we're talking about nick schmalt's having 70 points at the end of all this it'll have been

a good year for him and in money well spent for utah but man i i i uh on Wednesday, October 7th, when I woke up in my bed at the luxurious Ballston, Arlington, Virginia mall residence in, I did not expect Nick Schmaltz to be on top of the goal list. So, salute to him. McIndoo, what is on the docket for you the rest of the week? I've got a post up today where I'm looking at what we learned from the prediction contest. I read that. And you didn't mention my entry or Frankie's entry at all. No, I did.

Well, I mean, you know, spoiler alert, right? You guys are going to win, so I don't want to give away everything that's going to happen. But it's fun. Like, the fun part of the contest, obviously, is just having the contest. But it's also a chance to, in this case, it was about 1,200 people entered the contest. Let's see what fans think. And it's always interesting to see what people say for the questions, but also what they don't say. Who are they not naming?

Who do they not? believe in. And I think there's some interesting insights in there. So that's that's up there today for people to check out. And then I'll be doing something later in the week. I don't know what yet. And the prize for the winner is a signed copy of your book, The Hockey 100, out on October 27th. Going to get it signed by Dan Robson. All by yourself. Yeah. Oh, man. I would love, I would love Robson to sign it to sign up. I care less about you. All right, buddy. Good show. We'll talk again next week. I'm back tomorrow with Max and Shannon for a live edition of the show.

That's Thursday at 3 p.m. Eastern, 12 p.m. Pacific. Hopefully see you folks then. Have a good night.