The Athletic Hockey Show - Is Nathan MacKinnon better than Connor McDavid?

Episode Date: December 3, 2025

The Colorado Avalanche are a league best 19-1-6 to start the season. Sean, Sean and Frank discuss the powerhouse team led by MVP favorite Nathan MacKinnon, and if he is better than Connor McDavid right now. The guys talk about the once-great Winnipeg Jets, mired in a bad slump and having players-only meetings, the breakout season for Jesper Wallstedt and the Minnesota Wild and how the Olympic ice might be three or four feet shorter than a typical NHL surface.Hosts: Sean Gentille and Sean McIndoeWith: Frankie CorradoExecutive Producer: Chris FlanneryProducer: Jeff DometWatch full episodes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@theathletichockeyshowJoin our Discord Server: https://discord.gg/VTm9VjkFSubscribe to The Athletic: https://theathletic.com/hockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Hockey Show. What I put up, it's the Athletic Hockey Show Wednesday edition. It's December 3rd, 2025. I'm Sean Tintilly. Here with Sean Mack and doing Frankie Carrado. Fellas, all business today. How are we doing? All business.

What's going on? It's been a weird year. I got a weird stat for you. I don't know why I'm fascinated by these types of things, but I just am. So you have to bear with me. Here it is. I tweeted about it in case you missed it. But through December 2nd.

I have alerts set up on your tweets, too. I find that hard to believe there's nothing noteworthy coming through that Twitter account. Through December 2nd, so yesterday, there was one team in the Atlantic with a positive goal differential. That was Tampa. One team in the Pacific with a positive goal differential. And that was Anaheim. The last time two divisions only had one team with a positive goal differential through December 2nd was 1998, 1999. It was Carolina in the southeast or the southeast, as they used to call it, and Edmonton in the northwest.

That's weird. The other thing that's weird is that we're having conversations about who's the best player in the game right now. Is it Connor McDavid? Is it Nathan McKinnon? It's up for debate at least as far as who is the best player right now today. See, Frankie, this is why I love you. You gave us the title for this episode right off the bat. that's the job. We have a hook. Thank you for providing it, buddy. I have to give a lot of credit to

the Quizmaster at TSN. As you guys know, the quiz is Canada's favorite game show and he is behind everything that happens on it. And he doesn't just slap the questions together. It's like all week of tinkering and, you know, testing out these questions, calling people, really quite honestly badgering people. And I know he's been sitting on this one for a while. So I talked to him this morning. I took a 6 a.m. flight home for Montreal. He called me, actually, in the car at 7.45, and we talked about it. So I think if everyone's talking about it, we can float the question out there to you guys. Here's the question from the quiz last night.

Has four nations MVP and current NHL scoring leader Nathan McKinnon surpassed, equaled, or remained slightly behind Connor McDavid as the preeminent player on the planet? Sean and Sean, the floor is yours. I love how you explain how it's like a week of work that goes into that question. How many people did you have to call for that? Make it our shot. You know what? I'm willing to bet that that's slightly in the third option was a few phone calls.

I feel like that word was negotiated. So are we talking right now like one game to play for everything you own tonight? or are we talking like there's a draft right now and we got to pick players. Let's do it this way. If you had to rank based on who is the best player right now, not who would you take to start your franchise, not who would you draft in a draft for your fantasy team, who's been the best player?

One through 10, one through 20, right now, is it number 29 or number 97? 29. Nathan McKinnon right now, this moment, this snapshot in, in time is the best player in the league. I think Connor McDavid overall is the greatest player of his generation. He has been the best player long before this. He will be the best player again and will probably hold that title for a long time. But this is one of those times where we're seeing a bit of a dip from Connor

McDavid. Like he seems like he's just a generational superstar instead of an immortal all-time elite this year. and Nathan McKinnon is just absolutely on fire. So right now, one game to play tonight, Nathan McKinnon is my number one center over Connor McDavid. We're watching peak Nathan McKinnon right now. I think I think I'm okay saying.

The stats are just overwhelming. Five goals in his last four. I had two last night, three one win over Vancouver. Led the league in even strength points in November. Tied for first in points. third in goals, third and even strength goals. He's got points in 11 of his last 13.

And this is the thing that struck me, and this is something from our old buddy, Corey Mazasak. The abs are outscoring the other team 37 to 9 when he's on the ice this season. That's what tips it over. If we want to just limit the discussion to, is this the best version

of McKinnon we've seen? I think there's a fair argument for that. But if you want to frame it as, do we want him versus McDavid? It's, I think, I think right now until McDavid finds the seventh gear that we've seen from him so many times over the last, however many years. I think it's, I think it's McKinnon. And I don't know if it's like, I'm surprised to hear myself say that on some end. I don't know if it's like an aesthetic thing or what.

But like what tips me over, I think on to team McKinnon on this is just, it's stuff like the media session last night after beating Vancouver. It was like it was just kind of a boring game. A lot of whistles, a lot of icing guys. He was completely, he was bored, but he was also mean. And I think that's the kind of stuff where I'm like, okay, I need one dude for one game. Yeah, I'll take the dog. My answer, if I was on the quiz last night, but we're doing the quiz this morning. So my answer is he has surpassed for the time being.

And it should be okay for us to have. conversations about Connor McDavid and Nathan McKinnon and realize that just because McDavid is in the league every single year, he doesn't have to be named the best player at the given time. Like Nathan McKinnon has clearly closed the gap, but it does feel weird. Like truthfully, it feels weird that we're having this conversation because it's always just been McDavid is stand alone the best and everyone is kind of falling in line after that. So it does feel a little odd. But at the same time, I can't help but wonder if the timing of things helps facilitate this for Nathan McKinnon.

Like Colorado, since winning their Stanley Cup, they haven't been going deep into the playoffs, whereas the Edmonton Oilers are going deep. They're one win away from a Stanley Cup two years ago. There are two wins away last year. Those are a lot of hard miles, not to mention the hill that the team had to climb both seasons with slow. starts. So you're trying to leapfrog everyone and go on heaters. And it's not like, it's not like McDavid is surrounded with the same type of team this year anyways that McKinnon has in Colorado. So it always feels like it really falls on McDavid's shoulders. So the fact that there's like there's a lot of work for him specifically, the mileage the games played

recently probably helps Nathan McKinnon close the gap. And now we're looking at it saying it's fair to say that Nathan McKinnon is the best player in the NHL right now, but I never would have predicted that we'd be having this conversation December 3rd, 2025. And how, I mean, this could be interpreted as us, you know, taking a shot at McDavid or the start that he's having. It's not that. Like, how great is Connor McDavid that the fact that the second best player in the world is having an all-time heater is having maybe the best year of his career and that is enough for us to go

maybe maybe just in this this snapshot of time number two has surpassed number one that's how far ahead connor mac david normally is when everybody is playing at their peak level which he he hasn't been so far this year whether it's fatigue uh whether it's it's the distractions of the contract and I don't know whether it's just the normal ebb and flow of how pro sports and the NHL in particular works. This is what was needed to open the door a crack for the, again, the second best player in the world having the season of his career to maybe just for a moment get a nose ahead of Connor. And one of the elements for me anyways that that helps nudge this in Nathan McKinnon's direction. And this is another thing that sounds weird to say because Connor McKeon. David has scored 64 goals in a season in this league before.

But Nathan McKinnon is absolutely the better and more potent goal score. Like he's got 22 this season. He's had 51. He's had 42. Call it a down year last year for McKinnon having 32, which we've certainly seen from Connor McDavid in the past. But like he is much more willing to shoot in more dangerous areas and be more of a shot threat than McDavid.

It's just the reality. McDavid wants to make the pass that leads to an empty net goal or almost essentially like pass the puck into a net after deaking out the goal tender. But McKinnon has this ferocity at which he is attacking the net. And for me anyways, like the goal scoring sounds weird to say. Guy scored 64 goals. Usually you would say that guy's the better goal score. But today, Nathan McKinnon is the better goal score. Do you guys feel like he maybe got annoyed that he gave up the goal score?

scoring lane for a little bit. Like he, like Morgan Geeky ties him. He comes out and scores two goals last night. It's similar to what we saw from him last week, whenever some of the young guys were catching up to him in the, in the point chase. It's like,

okay, never mind. I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I know it's, I know,

I know it's December, not annoyed. What, okay, what? Do you, like, pissed that a guy named Morgan Geeky was in the same category as him. Like,

you don't think Nathan, McInnan looks at that and says, dude, no disrespect to Morgan Geeky. He's a really good player. He's having a hell of a year. But you think Nathan McKinnon cares about Morgan Geeky? He probably looks at that and says, dude, you're nowhere near me. We got it. And I am going to blow away from you.

Not annoyed. Pissed that Morgan Geeky would even enter the conversation, my friend. I'm not getting passed by some guy named after a diary of a wimpy kid character. Yeah, I'm not getting passed by a guy that didn't get qualified. by the Seattle Crackin. No disrespect again. No disrespect again. But, Nathan's going to get down a little bit.

Morgan Geeky tied for the league lead and even strength goals last year. Excuse you. This is his second randomly really good season. He's at two now. No, I'm playing the role. I'm playing the role of Nathan McKinnon. This is not me talking. I'm talking like McKinnan right now.

Let's see. The other, the other thing I wanted to bring up to, And we should be able to have this discussion without turning it into Slagfest on Connor McDavid because that's borderline impossible and crazy. But I will say, I will say, if we want to frame this in the Mac and do way,

and if we want to say, like, who is the guy you won on your roster in a must-win game? Connor McDavid was on the roster in a must-win game. He was on the roster in a game seven of a Stanley Cup final and his team lost. And if we want to make that to differentiation point for this discussion, take the dude who won the cup because it feels like they're close enough right now.

Maybe not last year, maybe not two years from now. But right now, I think it's okay to pick hairs or split hairs and be kind of pedantic about stuff. And if it turns into rings discussion and rings culture stuff, like, so be it. I'm okay taking the guy that has one if this is what it comes down to.

Okay. Counterpoint. Connor McDavid played in another game. this year where it was one game for everything and it was a gold medal game at the Four Nations. That's true. And he scored the overtime winner. Now Nathan McKinnon was on that team.

So he gets a win as well. But you got to consider the competition in that game too. It's tough. I can't believe John Joddil is called Connor McDavid, a choking dog. He's a choke. He's a choke card. That's a wild take.

Wow. Crazy. Crazy stuff. But you know what's going to be telling is, now with the Olympics coming up, we're having the conversation. Everyone's having this conversation. It's fair to have this conversation at this point because of how well Nathan McKinnon has played. But when we get to the Olympics, it will be telling how other teams and other coaching staffs view this, especially if McDavid and McKinnon are playing on different lines, right? Like, what are the Americans going to do if they have last change?

Who gets the quote unquote hard matchup? Like, yeah, there's a lot of good players that, Well, it goes without saying, there's a lot of good players that you could play against either of those guys and be, you know, comfortable with. But there's going to be a matchup that will tell us. There's going to be a matchup and there's going to be an ice time allocation that will tell us what's what right now in regards to, you know, both of these guys and who is, I guess, being taken as the more dangerous threat at the given moment. I think that's going to be a fascinating storyline at the Olympics. The good news for Team USA is apparently they're going to bring three checking lines of just grizzled veterans. So it won't be an issue. They'll be fine. And then three guys who can score. That's probably not that important. Yeah.

Just quickly on that, I need to jump right over the top rope on that real quickly. Is the Americans forever, the Americans forever had this like MO that like we're not as skilled, but we are going to forecheck and we're going to run you out of the building and we're going to check, check, check. and now American hockey has exploded with all these superstar skilled players. And you know what the Americans are going to say? Nah, we're good. We're just going to check, check, check, check, just like the old days. This is definitely, this is definitely worked.

Right? We've played our way to so many silver and bronze medals since 1980. It's fine. The Robertson stuff is just, I know we talked about that last week, but it's, it's funny to see how that's hung around with the, the with the interview that Garen gave to Pierre LeBron, something we talked about on the last show. Like, I do appreciate Bill Garron for giving us something to talk about

and something to watch for the next two months because people aren't forgetting it. And nor should they, because Jason Robertson's going to be sitting at home, eating chips whenever the Americans are one goal down in the third period of the gold medal game or whatever. He had his chance last night against Mike Sullivan to show what he could do.

No points. we need to that's the level that's such a disappointing performance that that's the sort of thing Gentile would call polling a McDavid see if the Rangers

if the Rangers would have played that game at the Garden like if that game was not in Dallas it would have been Hatrick City for Robertson so you can thank the schedule makers for whenever Robertson's left on left off their roster all right boys we're going to take a little break

we're going to come back We're going to talk Minnesota Wild, Winnipeg Jets. Stick around. We'll be right back. All right. We spent the first segment, digging my grave with McDavid. We know this just means he's going to have, you know,

14 points in his next three games. It's going to make my life hell. That's the way it goes. Win a game seven sometime. That's what I say. I wanted to talk about another really solid performance last night. We're getting used to the yes, Esper Wollstett experience in Minnesota.

This is the latest shutout in a long string of them. Shuts out Edmonton 3-0 on 33 shots. He's won seven straight games, 944 say percentage overall. We have a great fake stat coming out of this game, fellas. The second fewest appearances to reach five shutouts as a goaltender in their career. He did it in 15 games. Frank Brimsock did it for the Bruins in 1934. That's right.

Mr. Zero himself. We all remember. We all remember that, don't we? Walsstett's the front man for what we've seen from Minnesota over the last little bit. This is a team that I watched in October. They looked as bad as bad as anybody could look.

They were just empty at five on five. To the point where I was ready to stick a fork in them. I was like, this team, for whatever reason, just does not have the juice. It's, it's, whether they, whether they dig a hole for themselves or what this isn't going to work out for them. In comes well-stead. Now they're 12-1 and two in their last, in their last, last month or so. In that stretch, they're outscoring opponents 46 to 25 overall, which is significant. They're also 14th in goals per 60 during that stretch overall. So this is a team that's, you know, the goal differential is incredible, but they're also not putting a ton on the board.

I think it's fair to say that Walsstead is the driving force behind this. And Rousseau and Joe Smith put together a really nice thing a couple days ago trying to explain how this team has dug out of the hole. And there's a ton of validity to it. But to me, man, I look at the shot in the arm. They've gotten from that dude. And also to a lesser extent, Gustafsson. And I'm like, the season has been safe for them because they look cooked.

Now they're now they're second and a bunch of stuff. to the abs. That's going to be, that's going to be one of the best goaltending duos if those two guys stick together, Wollstett and Gustafsson. It's going to be hard to rival that for a lot of teams who lack talent in the net. And I find last night's game so significant because the Minnesota Wild play against the Edmonton Oilers, aka a team that lacks talent in the net. And if only the Oilers had an opportunity to acquire a player like Walsstead, oh wait, they did. They did have that chance. If you go back to the 2021 draft, Edmonton trades down. They end up picking 22nd and 90th. They draft Xavier Borgoll and then in the third round, Luca Munzenberger,

who's never played an NHL game clearly. But the biggest insult to injury with that is not the fact that, you know, Edmonton has been searching for a goalie and needed a goalie at that moment. and they didn't recognize that that was the guy they should have drafted. Not that now Walshstead shut them out, you know, won nothing, which is like the most insulting score because it's like we just needed one goal to beat you and this guy did the rest. It's the fact that right after Xavier Borgo, Wyatt Johnston got picked by the Dallas Stars.

So not only did you fumble not picking the goaltender, you made the trade, you drafted the wrong player, and then this stud gets picked right after the guy that you specifically targeted and wanted to draft. That is crazy all the way around. And it almost comes, I guess you can say it comes full circle last night with him shutting out the Oilers. And like just to piggyback on some of those numbers you were talking about Gentilly. Like in the month of November, this guy was 6 and 0 with a 1.14 goals against and a 967 save percentage with three shutouts. Are you kidding me?

this guy's unbelievable. And they've got two franchise goalies in Minnesota. That sets you up for a lot in the future. And they're scouting staff, the guys who found him and decided to make that pick because Lord knows, there's teams that are tentative to select goaltenders in the first round.

Minnesota wasn't. So that scouting staff deserves a lot of credit for pulling the trigger on that guy at that moment. And they do. but two months ago, we would have looked at that pick and said, what a bust that's turned out to be. Because, I mean, look, you take a goal in the draft, even if it's in the first round. You're not going to see a payoff on that for a few years to come.

They just take longer to develop typically. But this was a guy, you know, he played a handful of games each of the last two years, did not look like an NHLer. And this was the Philip Gustafson show. This was his team. He was, you know, going to be the starter. And, okay, hopefully the kid can back up and not, you know, not embarrass himself and he'll get some experience and you build him up from there. And no, didn't need that.

He's ready to be Terry Sautjuck right now. It's, it's, and it's just one of those things where you look at it and you go as much as you talk about the Oilers with their goal tending and other teams where you just say like, oh, how come you didn't address the goaltending games? Some of the times it just feels random. And again, this guy was a first round pick. It's not like he's come out of nowhere. But this was not something that any of us looked at this Minnesota Wild team at the beginning of the season and said, yeah, you know what? I think their young backup goalie might suddenly turn into the Vezna frontrunner.

Did the Wilde even look at themselves? They signed Gusson to a big money extension in October. Like a team that thought they were a year away from a changing of the guard. So, you know, hey, that's some of that is, is what roster building is, right? You try to get yourself some lottery tickets or some guys with higher ceilings and you kind of hope that you can develop them and that eventually they wind up hitting that. But it's a strange one. And I got a question for you guys. Have we jumped the gun on already putting Matthew Schaefer's name on the Calder Trophy?

Because as amazing as he's been, goalie. goalies qualify for the Calder too. They don't usually win it, but I mean, if you've got a goaltender in the running for the Vezina, does that not at least get him into the conversation as good as Matthew Schaefer's been? Yep, he's going to have to play more, right? Like, he's going to have to get the net. He's going to have to keep it up. Like, I'm, you know, keeping up a 967 is going to be very, very difficult.

But if he has a Dustin Wolf-esque season and, you know, the storyline matches up with Minnesota. Really tough start, but this guy gets the net and all of a sudden drags Minnesota to a top two, three spot in that division, which is a really difficult division, he'll have a compelling case. And listen, Matthew Schaefer is the frontrunner. Matthew Schaefer is also playing 23 minutes a night as an 18 year old. So it's justifiable. But if this guy continues to play close to what he's playing like, yeah, he's going to be in the running. And it's going to be, you know, as far as we'll see how it kind of shakes out. out, but it'll be like Schaefer 1, Walsdette 2, and then you're talking about Demidov, Seneca, and maybe a couple other guys. But, like, that's how quickly this guy has really put himself into that conversation. That's it. And if Wollstead wins it, it's going to be a weird looking trophy because it's going to have Matthew Schaefer's name already engraved, crossed out, over top of Demidov's name,

which was already engraved before the season even started. And now that's crossed out. And who knows, maybe one of those guys. takes it back or maybe it ends up being somebody else but it's uh it's a fun race and i got to tell you though every minnesota wild fan was loving this conversation right up until frankie dropped the dust and wolf comparison oh my god and boy you you want to talk about goldtending i dare you and who even knows with these young guys oh my god yeah um well it's it's a league award right this isn't the writers voting on this as we do for the colder but do you know who

the NHL rookie the month was in November? It was Walsstadt. It was Walshatt. So like, I don't know that that means much, but I think it, if nothing else, it's an indicator of how well he played in the last month. And Frankie,

I'm with you. I don't, I don't see him if he starts 39 games or something for the, for the wild down the stretch here. It's tough to see it happening, but I don't know, man. Well, think about what he's done for his group.

Like we always talk about goaltending. It's so important. How important was goaltending to the Winnipeg Jets this year? Because now they don't have Connor Hellebuck, and they're having players-only meetings after losing to the Buffalo Sabres. And the guys on Toronto radio, we're talking about that, and I think it's a valid point, right? Like, you lose to Buffalo and you have a player-only meeting.

Isn't it insulting to the Buffalo Sabers? Like, you guys are so bad. that we lost to you in that fashion and we need to sort things out. Something needs to be done. Every time you win a game, the other team either fires their coach or has a player's only meeting. Yeah. And it's a little insulting, but I get it. I get it.

That's kind of been what has marred the Buffalo Sabres for quite some time. But, man, last year Winnipeg, here's my whole thing on the Jets. Last year, they were a really strong defensive team. They were hard to play against ice, like premium ice, was at such a premium to acquire in those games if you were the opposition. And then you had the last line of defense in Connor Hellebuck. And everything was great in the regular season, well documented how the playoffs went. They come back this year.

They're not as deep of a team because they don't have Nick Eilers, but pretty much everyone's back. Like they added Jonathan Taves, he was never going to be the answer, But Nemesnikov's there, Perfetti's there. The third line is basically there, save for Mason Appleton. And your depth guys are there. It's all the same guys. But they have been horace.

And Connor Hellebuck was masking all of that. And now you don't have him and you're getting, you know, thumped by the Sabres, having a players-only meeting. Now you've got to play Montreal in their building. I mean, it just goes to show you what Connor Hellebuck was masking for that team this. year. It was different this year. He was more deserving of an MVP this year for me anyways than last year because of the way the team had been playing. And Frankie, how much does it change how everybody else plays based on the goaltender?

Like, who is the best goalie you ever played in front of? And I won't ask who the worst was, but he played for the Leafs. So, you know, I probably figured out. I had to worry about when it comes to bad goalies, I had to worry about my own backyard before anything. But like, I'll give you an example, man. Like, you know, there's, let's say your, your other goalie goes in and he's bad and everything seems to go in. You're nervous, you're tentative. You feel like, oh, I can't make that play because if it doesn't go right or I got to make a stand here and be super aggressive because if I let a shot from this area of the ice, it's going to go in and I'm going back to the bench with a minus and it's just not a good feeling.

But I would say Winnipeg shouldn't have been looking at it that way. This should have been a bit of a rallying point for the Jets because for the first few games anyways when Comrie or Millich was in the net the Jets were getting about like even on Goals Saved Above Expected maybe just a little bit more, maybe even, maybe just a little bit less.

It wasn't like you were checking the report after and it was minus 2.5 goals saved above expected. So this should have been the Jets opportunity to say we don't have our safety blanket anymore. We need to figure this out as a team. Like, we need to play with the pace and the structure and the defensive acumen that we know we can because we've done it. And they clearly have not done that. So there's another way you can look at it, DGB. You can be nervous about who's in the net. But if the guy is in

the net is about doing his job, like in and around it, then it's more on you to be like, I need to elevate a little bit more. And you cannot honestly say that the Jets have done that at this point. they're 4-9 and 0 in the last in the last 13 games they're if the playoffs started today they'd be outside in that stretch in that 13 games stretch they've been outscored 45 to 32 and they're like mid at mid-table across the board in terms of expected goals for expected goals again so this is a mediocre team that's getting like frankly like you said it's not league worse goaltending they're getting average goaltending. And it seems like they don't know how to function whenever they're getting average

goaltending versus versus high-end goaltending. Is that, is that fair to say? Like, are they so accustomed to having the hell of buck safety blanket that whenever you just throw in, you know, someone like Eric Comrie who's,

again, this isn't, they're not getting, he's not doing beach ball stuff. back there, right? Like, like, they're getting, they're getting half decent play from, from their guys in the meantime. Yeah. Like, but the results are still just putrid. He, he's not doing some of the stuff that DGB suggested, some of my old goaltenders were doing, which I would never suggest because they are the best and I love those guys, every single guy that

I played with. But I guess, this is what the group chats for. See, we can, we can get the Crotto that the Crado leaves, leaves team-mate's goalie power rankings. No one ever cost me a minus. I cost myself every minus out there. But I will say this. Like, I played with Jacob Markstrom for a year in the minors, and we went all the way to the finals. And that year, he was a beast.

Like, he kind of shouldn't have been in the HL that year. And he knew it. Everyone knew it. But he kind of just embraced like, I'm going to go get it. And I'm going to force my way back up. And he sure enough did. And then became one of the best starting. goalies in the NHL. But that year, if there was ever a game where we needed a little extra

juice, he had it for us. And if there was ever a game where maybe he struggled, you could bet you're bet the house that the next game, there was nothing going in. It was crazy, the bounce back that he had. And it was remarkable, like the mental fortitude. And it's, it's not easy to be a starting goalie in the NHL, but like what we're talking about with the Jets is more about second line doesn't have a lot of presence. You know, Adam Lowry is still getting up to speed from the injury. Like, they're just, they're not, they're not as sharp as they were last year. And they don't have, they don't have the, the Ray Donovan of goaltenders to clean up their

mess back there anymore. I was not expecting a Ray Donovan reference to today. Toss that one off, baby. Here's the last thing that scares me about Winnipeg is we talk about other teams that are, have had slow starts or bad stretches. We've talked about the Oilers. The Oilers are one point out of a playoff spot. We talk about, you know, the Maple Leafs for, you know, for months have been a disaster.

They're three points back of second place in their division. You look at the Jets, they're looking up the standing specifically in the central. A lot of teams. Uh-oh. They are, I mean, you've got Colorado running away. You've got Dallas right behind them. You've got Minnesota is unbeatable right now. So, I mean, you're almost looking.

looking at it for Winnipeg going, like, what's our best scenario here? Are we, are, do we now have 50 games to get a wild card spot? And that's our best case scenario. After winning the President's trophy a year before, we're going to be a wild card potentially have to play Colorado in round one. It's top. It's the one division where you, you just can't fall behind if you want to, you know, certainly if you're trying to get home ice for the playoffs, good luck, because the teams ahead of you are not playing along. They are just disappearing over the horizon right now. I just tread water until Michael Clayton comes back.

That's what Connor Hullabuck's nickname is. That's my media of choice. Frankie, you got to jump off. I know you have a game tonight. Which one is that? It's has... No, I got Leaf Panel tomorrow night. Oh!

Leaf Panel tomorrow night. So getting the big show treatment, DGB will be watching. And then back... P.Js. Back in... Yeah, exactly. Back in Montreal on Sunday for Habs Blues, the Bull Duke Mayew Bull. Oh, man.

Very nice. Go get it. We know you got to jump. We'll talk you next week, bud. Okay. See you, boys. All right, there goes Frankie. Before me and Macon, you tell you what we learned, wanted to share some news about the network.

The tennis podcast managed to secure Andy Murray's first major interview since retiring last year. It's a big deal. He's going to lift the lid on what it was like going head to head with Roger Federer, Raphael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, and he's going to talk about how retirement has reshaped his perspective of his career. So that's big news for the tennis heads out there. All right. McIndoo, what have we learned? What have we learned, Sean?

I learned that the Olympic rink, if it gets finished on time, is apparently going to be four feet short, which I am fascinated to see how that plays out. Look, I want to make fun of it, but also you can tell that, like, don't you get the sense that Gary Bettman is just itching for excuse to pull the plug on this? So, like, I feel like if we make a big deal out of this,

you know, he just jumps on that. But yeah, I'm fascinated. He's the guy in the, he's the guy in the, bar saying give me a reason. Exactly. So I don't know, four feet. I, I, I'm assuming they're just going to take that out of the neutral zone,

but maybe not. Maybe like one of the nets will be like, you know, in the end boards. Right up against the boards. All I know is, yeah, when, when the Kachuk brothers are going full speed on the dump and chase, they're going to, uh, they're going to be in for a surprise, uh, a fraction of a second earlier than they normally would. I think, I think the,

the construction, delay is I'm more concerned about that personally. The fact that the the rink is going to be four feet short does not speak well to the planning that went into this whole. That just sounds like good, clean fun to me. Feels like part of the same problem. I don't know how comfortable would be, but.

We had Russo and CJ are on this. They had a reported story published on Tuesday. One source well versed on the building. status told the athletic that organizers needed, quote, a big bomb, not just a fire to get their asses in gear on the construction. That's great. It's supposed to be finished by mid-December, and it sounds like there's no roads that lead up to the arena right now, so that could be kind of an issue. Do you want to hear my big conspiracy on why this is happening? Yeah, absolutely. Just looking for justification to bring Tom Wilson to Milan, baby.

small ice tight checking we've heard more than enough about it from both GMs already Tom Wilson five goals in his last five games they want an excuse to put him on the roster and leave off badard and they're creating it for themselves this could be it I I think what they might need to do is just you know every player they're looking at their you know what's their experience have they played internationally how are their numbers I think now they got to look and say is there any kind of construction background here? Like, Paul Wilson, like, you're like a, you know, you're like a real hard hat sort of guy.

Like, yeah, I do bang and crap. No, no, we mean put on this hard hat and go get that rink finished because we got a game in six hours and they, they didn't get around to finishing this up. Brock Nelson was your uncle a contractor? Did you work summers for him back in Minnesota? We're doing like clean up sites or whatever. Yeah. Some light, light construction work.

What I've learned is that the color on color game between the Rangers and the wings, was that Leafs and Wings? Oh my God. No, it was Rangers. Red Wings? It was such a smashing success that I forgot the teams that played in it. But we're going to get more. There's one coming up.

I'm not going to totally spill the details yet, but you can expect more color on color games on TV in the future. I was wild to see how much. Who it is and when, but you can't say. I mean, I told you. Got a little bit of a scoop. Yeah, I mean, I know. You know it too. I will be dropping this scoop on social media immediately after this.

Must credit. Follow down goes brown at blue sky social. That's where it's going to live. I just, I like seeing this because first off, I was surprised that people lost their minds over it the way that they did. Yes, it looked cool, but the amount of attention that. it got not just from hockey fans, sort of took me by surprise. So kudos, I guess, to the league for realizing that, you know,

they stumbled into something cool and trying to make it, trying to make it happen again. I enjoyed it personally. Yeah, it looks good. They should do it more often. It's weird that it took them this long to figure it out, but better late than never. Better late than never.

Can I give you a bonus? The NHL story. I'll give you a bonus thing that I learned because I was just looking at the Euler schedule. They are in Pittsburgh in two weeks. So all you pulleys out there, if you're looking to figure out when Connor McDavid is going to break Siddler's points record,

and then gesture up at the press box every single time. Oh, man. In Pittsburgh. He's going to point directly at me. And they're going to be wearing orange jerseys or whatever. That'll be a color-on-color matchup, too. Yeah, exactly. Just tie it all together.

All right, Sean McIndoo. Thank you very much. And all right, Frankie Corrado, off in the distance. Thank you very much. I know you can hear me. Thank you fine folks for listening to The Athletic Hockey Show. We're back on Wednesday. Haley and Shana are here tomorrow.

I may or may not be there. Tune in to see. Not that you care. But either way, have a great week. And thank you fine folks again.