The Athletic Hockey Show - Is there a good way to evaluate an NHL coaching staff?

Episode Date: July 22, 2024

On today’s Monday edition of The Athletic Hockey Show, Laz and guest cohost Shayna Goldman discuss if Leon Draisaitl is the best NHL No. 2 ever, Dom’s list of the 10 worst contracts in the NHL right now, how much an average head coach impacts their team, 4 Nations Faceoff roster projections, and listener questions to close things out.Hosts: Mark Lazerus and Shayna GoldmanExecutive Producer: Chris FlanneryProducer: Chris Flannery Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Hockey Show. Hello and welcome to the Monday edition of The Athletic Hockey Show. I am Mark Lazarus. Ian Mendez has the week off, so I'm very fortunate to be joined by Shana Goldman, the athletic guru of data journalism and video analysis and just about everything else we do and the co-host of the Too Many Men podcast. Shana, how are you? I'm great. What an intro.

I mean, like, you're bringing the energy right now that we need. So thank you. I'm a big Monday morning guy right here. You know, it's now a word of warning to our listeners. Shana is from Long Island. I grew up on Long Island. And my terrible Long Island accent tends to start slipping out. The more I talk to other Long Islanders.

So I apologize in advance if I start coming across a little differently as this goes on. You're dropping F bombs, every other word, you know. That's me outside of the podcast sphere. I try to rein that in a little. I say that for me and Scott's podcast. Well, let me ask you something. This is very important stuff. Do you play the New York Times strands game at all?

Do you play the New York Times? No. I do crosswords and Sudoku puzzles. That's like, that's it for me. Well, they had this, a puzzle last week and it really bothered me because it was, it was hominems for,

uh, for names. And they said that Harry, H-A-I-R-Y was a homonym for, uh, Harry, the name Harry. And you have,

have you ever heard of the three Mary's? No. Here, here, say these words for me. M-A-R-Y, the name. Mary. M-A-R-R-R-Y. Mary.

M-E-R-R-Y. Mary. Yeah, so you said them all three of them differently because you actually speak like a normal person, but nobody else outside of New York says those three things differently. They say, Mary, Mary, and Mary. And it drives me nuts. I used to go around college. I was very popular in college.

How do people do this? Let me tell you. And so the New York Times had this thing where they had Harry and they had Mary for Merry Christmas as Mary. And I'm like, no, they sound differently. Open your mouth when you talk. They're different words. They're totally different words. This is what I'm saying.

We're right and everyone else is wrong. The New York model. I think it's on the state flag. Yeah, exactly. That's 100% true. And it's funny because I don't think I have that strong of an accent. I'm told I do sometimes, but I don't, I don't know. You don't know until you leave.

That's what I realized. Yeah. I went to, when I went to college in the Midwest, all of a sudden, I was like a freak. And people would be like, they'd hold a fork up and they go, what is this? What is this? I'd be like, it's a fork. They would all laugh at me. It was great.

A fork. I feel like I say that differently from you. A fork. I didn't pronounce ours growing up, apparently. I don't know. Huh. I feel like I do. But now, like, I know I'm going to be correct in some of them.

You're going to be all self-conscious about it now. I put it in your head. Yeah. Like for a day and it's going to be like in one or out the other. I don't think before I speak, you know, like that's my issue. So can you tell it's late July, right smack in the middle of a cottage season for all of our Canadian friends and there's not much to talk about. I know we got some arbitration cases coming up in the NHL, but there's really not a lot of news happening in the world.

There's not a lot of news happening in the hockey world right now. And I don't think they want us to veer off into the news of the world, as much fun as that could be. But the content machine rolls on. And you had a story this week that I wanted to talk about, about Leon Drys, Idol, who I think is going to dominate the hockey world coverage for the next, at least until the trade deadline, right? At least until something happens.

You had a piece posing whether he was the best number two on a team ever and what that means for his future. And do you think he is the best number? There's a lot of great number twos over the over the years. Yeah. So my original intention was to measure that. Like, is he the best number two of all time? And then I realized that is impossible to measure. And I went down like 10 different paths because you can look at it one way of being like,

okay, what are his peak years? Right? Look at his five year peak. But it's, does that line up with having a number one there? Are they still together? Is the number one still playing like a number one at the same time? And then you get into like all. these other questions like, should it be when they go to the Stanley Cup final because he just

did? And they're like, well, that's kind of arbitrary. So there's a million ways to look at it that I couldn't figure out the best method to nail it down. Like, is he the best number two? I think he is up there. I think that there are a ton of amazing number two forwards and different rights. But right now, if you look around the, you know, the NHL, especially now that like Stamcoast and Kutrov got broken up and other combinations are changing, I would say he's the one of the best right now because his competition would be what mckinan and rantan marnettan marner to matthews and i don't think anyone really comes up to maybe kachuk's to bark off oh kachuk to bark off yeah definitely i would say dry saddle and bark and kachuk are probably two best number twos in the league i would give

dry sidle a slight edge right now but i could see kichuk overtaking them this year well what's interesting is i went back and i was trying to think of the guys that i would think of and i started thinking of Messier with Gretzky and Bossy with Trotier, Malkin with Crosby. But then you start running into the issue is, it's not always clear who's the number one and who's the number two. Bossie and Trotier, those guys were 1A and 1B. They played very different roles. It's like Jonathan Taves and Patrick Kane, who is really the number one in that situation.

Kane was a bigger point producer, but Taves was probably a more valuable player at their peaks. Stamco's with Kuthorov. They've kind of flip-flop. It used to be Stamco's. Now it's Kuturo. So I think the dry settle one's interesting because he is he is one of the five or six best players in the world, but he is also the clear number two.

And I think that's unusual to have a player who's that good be a clear number two. We very rarely have two of the greatest players we've ever seen on the same team and with their primes completely overlapping like this. Yeah, because if he went anywhere else, he would be a number one. Right. 100%. And he wouldn't be a bad number one. Because sometimes, you know, it's like, oh, in any other year, they'd be the best player. And it's like, well, then the best player isn't very good.

like that is not the case here because he's that elite. And it's interesting too. You said it. Like you said Charity to Bassey and like I think of it the other way. I think of Basi is the number one and Charity is the number two. Like that's how it sticks in my head. But Kutrov, Stamcoast was the most interesting one, I think in like recent years because you truly don't know who it is because right now I would say before Stamcoast left,

obviously it's Kutrov. Kutrov's been the better player for the last few years. But they were definitely years that Stamcoast was the number one. So that makes it really interesting, especially if they're together long enough to have that conversation because you don't always have that. Right. And so your story kind of veered off into what that means for the number two. Can they become the number one elsewhere?

And that's what, you know, I was out there for the Western Conference final. And that's all we kept talking about is does Drysidal want to be the alpha dog on his team? Does he want a team that that's just his? Or does he want to be part of a one-two punch for the rest of his career? And it doesn't always work. Like sometimes Mark Messier goes to the Rangers wins a cup and secures his legacy as a number one himself. But it doesn't always work that way, right?

Yeah. And a lot of the times the number two is not the first to leave. The number one does. Like, Messi became the de facto number one in Edmonton. And then he left to become a number one elsewhere. And that does make sense too. And that, hey, it could happen here, right? Because McDavid's contract is up a year later.

Could in theory, you know, dry saddle say, yeah, I'm staying and then McDavid leave. And then now dry saddle is the number one to Edmonton. Does he ever get out of McDavid's shadow if he does that? So you come into like all these different situations. In some cases, you have it that one's in two stay together until. you know, those past their prime years, which was the case for like Corey Perry leaving Anaheim and now Stamcoast leaving Tampa Bay. So it's always going to be really interesting.

Like how does a player view themselves? Do they want to be the star? Do they want to be the guy? And would you say he's not the guy in Edmonton? Like you would say he's right there. You would put them in the same sentence. You know, obviously there's a disparity between McDavid and Grysadle. There's always going to me.

But I think that if you, you would name the two. It's McDavid Jaisal and the rest of the Oilers. Like we all know that. And then the other part of it is you go, it's not just about wanting to be the guy. What's more important to you? Is it that or is it winning? Because I would say if you're the number two to McConnell McDavid, that is probably going to be your best shot of winning ever, right? Because when are you going to play with someone like McDavid?

And then to have the two of them together, that's the oiler's backbone for their entire NHL careers. Right. And that's dry siddle's dilemma right now. If they had won this year, if they had won the Stanley Cup, it would have been a lot easier to see him say, all right, I'm off. I'm going to try to do this on my own now. now that I've secured that, but now that they haven't won, you know, this year becomes the do-or-die year for both of those guys, because this might be there last year together. And what do you do if you're Edmonton and you get to the trade deadline and you're worried about getting John Tavaris? You're worried that Drysidl might leave for nothing. Can you afford to do that?

Well, if you're contending for the Stanley Cup, you don't have a choice. You cannot trade Leon Drysiddle if you think you have a chance to win the Stanley Cup. So it's a real dicey situation for the players. It's a real dicey situation for whoever's going to be the GM in Edmonton. there's going to be some serious decisions to make. And I think that's going to be the dominant storyline of the NHL all year. I mean, I think so. But then the other part of it is it does sound like they're saying they want an answer this summer. And they could just be saying that for leverage purposes, right? Because the Keynes, it sounded like we're saying the same thing with Brett Pesci.

And obviously totally different scale player in situation. But they were saying that were Brett Pesci. And then he did walk as a free agent. And they were fine with that. So, you know, it's tough to say, oh, we have this hard deadline. We want to know before the season starts. We don't want that overhanging us. but on the other hand, you don't have a general manager.

So it's tough. I know obviously people hiring the organization can say it and can decide that's the mandate for the new incoming GM. But that adds like another wrinkle to all of it because if you're the oilers, you can look very nearby and see, hey, here's how it went south in Calgary because you waited to the last minute and you let these situations play out. But then you could look at the Maple Leafs and go, yeah, but they didn't do that with Nylander and look at how it worked out for them. So it's a really tricky one because I do wonder how much this carries into the next season or if you just stay status quo because you give yourself the best shot to have dry. That'll be essentially your rental for the year, even if he's going to leave. But could you get a haul back for him?

Like in theory, yes, but how often does that happen? When you look at superstar trades, which aren't often, they don't, they rarely take place, right? Guys like the Kukukh, the Kachuk trade, do you think the flames are better off with? they return? No. You're never going to get a package that equals Leon Dreissel. There's just no way. No, you lose the best player in the trade. You probably lose the trade. Unless you are the Peer-Lupe de Waugh trade. Like that is your one saving grace. Well, at least he's in Edmonton where the media will be super chill about it all year and there won't be a lot of talk about it. And they'll be very calm and rational discourse all season long. No one will be a pissy. They have to cover that.

Dom had a piece too. This week had his annual 10 worst contracts piece. the athletic and this one always generates a lot of controversy, it seems. But, you know, I, I, I always watched for Seth Jones. It used to always be Brent Seabrook and then I had to watch for Seth Jones. And Seth Jones is sliding down that scale. I think he had him at eight or seven or eight now. And it got me thinking. I mean, obviously the Jonathan Ubertoe contract is terrible. And Darnell nurses has gotten a lot of publicity lately. But it feels like none of these contracts is quite as onerous, as burdensome as they used to be, is the fact that the cap's finally going up kind of lessen the burden of a bad contract. It just doesn't feel quite as punitive as it

has been in recent years. Yeah, I wonder if it's also because like after we had the flat cap for a couple of minutes, they were like, what, two off seasons where we didn't see a ton of big contracts. So maybe that kind of tilts the scale a little bit. But yeah, I mean, because we look at the ones at the bottom of the list and you go, the Tyler's saying you know, it's not that bad. And maybe it's the context around them, right? We know the Dallas Stars have been supplementing those huge contracts like Ben and Sagan with guys like Logan Stancoe and White Johnston and these entry-level contracts that make everything click.

So you go, okay, maybe it's not such a huge deal anymore. And with Seth Jones, you look at where the Blackhawks are and you're like, well, okay, they have to reach the cap floor anyway. Maybe we're just contextualizing them a little bit more or maybe teams are getting smarter. I want to say that. But then again, like number two on the list is a contract that was signed. Chandler Stevens, right. Yeah.

And even that one you look at and you go, it's not that I think he'll be bad in Seattle. I think he makes a lot of sense for them. You go, I just wouldn't give in that much money or that much term. Yeah. And that's the thing. I mean, if your value is $2 million underneath what you're actually getting, it's not a great contract, but it's not the end of the world. Whereas for the last three or four years, $2 million has been the end of the world.

So I think, I think you're right. I think we are kind of putting things in their proper context a little bit more, which is nice to see. The one that stood out to me is Tom Wilson. I feel like two, three years ago, Tom Wilson was on the verge of like mega startom, right? Like he was out there murdering guys,

but he was also scoring goals all the time. And he was like this perfect modern day power forward. He was an all star this year. I'm pretty sure I saw him at the All Star game. Now that I think about it. Yeah. Pretty sure I spoke to him at the All Star game. It's all becoming a blur.

But he's, he is, his contract's not very good. Like he's not a, he's like, he's like a 15, 20 goal guy now year to year. He's not, he hasn't, never really took that next step where we thought he was going to become this like 30, 40 goal guy. How do you look at his career arc here? There's a couple things. First of all, the team got worse around him. That's out of his control. Second of all, the way those types of players age, I think is interesting because when you play a more physical style, there's more wear and tear on your game.

If you play a net front role, you're going to be cross-checked a ton that is more wearing tear on the body too. So all of that in mind, and then you think of just the overall capital's trajectory, right? And you could see where this was going with their aging core. You go, is that the contract to sign when they did? And I would say, probably not. Like I wouldn't have gone for that. And I certainly wouldn't have done it a year early. And I think that was the biggest hit of all of it.

Because if you're signing a year early, it's to avoid a player going to the market, right? And potentially getting their value higher when other teams can show some interest. or another player getting signed and that setting the market. I don't think, I don't see how there are any concessions here and any benefits to signing this one early. So it makes it look that much worse to me because he didn't take those next steps. And realistically, you have to think,

would you expect him to in a contract that starts when he's 30 years old and carries into his mid and later 30s, which for a good player can be worse years, let alone for a secondary player like Wilson. And then you add in the context of like his playing style and how that'll, you know, age. it's all like a mix of bad because I think even when he was very good, it was as a secondary guy.

It was never, you can be a complimentary start, right? And I would still put him a tier below that as just like a top six or, you know, a top nine fixture that can complete a line and add something different, add some sandpaper to it. So it just felt like he was very overhyped by his team.

And I can't blame him for taking that deal, right? Oh, it's never the player's fault. Nobody should ever like say, no, you know what, that's too much money. I'm not going to accept. Yeah, sorry. You know what?

That's seventh year. Why would I want that? And I hate it when fans get on a plate like the Darnell nurse thing was tough. I saw it with Brent Seabrook for years where, you know, Seabrook was very conscious of the fact that he had, quote, unquote, the worst contract in the NHL. That was Stan Bowman's fault. That was future Euler's GM potentially Stan Bowman's fault. He took, he gave him an eight-year contract that took him well into his late 30s for a player who was. already on the, who's never fast to begin with and was already declining.

What is Seabrook supposed to do? You know what? I don't want this lifetime security for my family and for generations to come. I deserve less term and less money. No player's going to say no. So I don't like it when the players get, you know, heat for a bad contract. That should always be on the general manager. But the caps are so weird because the caps have no point, right? The entire purpose of the Washington Capitals organization is to get Alex Ovechkin to 900 goals. It's the only thing that matters to Ted Leonez is right now, that in ruining our lives by buying cap-friendly. He just, there's no, they're not really trying to win. They're just trying to not be bad. They're just trying to hover. And that's what they're doing. So they make all these

perplexing signings and all these perplexing trades. When everyone around them is either blowing it up or tearing it down or building it up, he's just kind of hovering because he knows he can't win, but he can't lose either. He has to keep things interesting as long as Opechkin is chasing 900. It's such a weird situation to be in as a caps fan. Yeah. When their season ended, I got to do like, what comes next and I, you try to outline all these different scenarios. Like, what could they do? Could they try this? Could they try that? Should they try? And it just feels like they're just trapped in this limbo. The one like saving grace I'll give them is I felt like they overperformed so much this year. And a lot of it, I think Carberry did a really good job with what he had to work with. And we kind of

see them taken to their, you know, the fullest extent that they could be reaching round one. And a lot of it had to do with Charlie Lingram, but the team in front of him got better as the year went on. Ovech came bounce back. So I could see that glimmer of hope that you say, maybe we can make a couple good moves and see if we could be a slightly above average team and that'll help Ovec can reach his goal. If they can get another round of the postseason,

that's always a good thing for ownership, right? Like every owner wants to make the playoffs and benefit from that revenue, even if the draft picks don't work out. And we've seen them make trades over the years to boost their draft pool pick. Like last year, when they kind of retooled on the fly at the deadline, you see they collected all these,

picks and I kept going, what's the next step of this, though? Because you're doing it and you think you're going to take all of these assets and turn yourself into something better. And they didn't do that at all, right? They just use the picks and you're like, that's a little odd. But then again, if you're going to, you know, ideally make the playoffs this year and now your first round pick's going to be worse and you want to do it again next year, it makes sense, like in the long run, I guess.

I like their moves. I think Matt Roy is a good signing. I think that, you know, Jacob Chikrin is going to be good there and be what they need. And even something like Du Bois, like they got better down the middle. I just don't know if it's going to get them anywhere, but maybe another round one exit. I love that you mentioned Carberry because I'm always, my favorite thing that you do is when you write about a coach's impact on a team. Because I've been like, I'm out on coaches in the NHL for the most part. Like for every Barry Trots who can come in and like literally chink the worst defensive team and make them the best defensive team in one year,

there's a million dime a dozen coaches who just have very little impact. you know, maybe they change the vibes in the locker room, but they have no real impact on the ice. And I've always kind of looked at coaches kind of askance. Like, this isn't like the NFL where, you know, your fingerprints are on every single play. You're calling everything that's happening. And like a Bill Belichick can come in and completely change a team. It's interesting to me when you write about the H&HL coaches, though, because you find like these little subtle things that they do. This is a dumb question, I think.

I'm a dumb guy. But what kind of impact do you think an average coach has on a team? Like how different, you know, aside from the vibes, like, you know, the Oilers were in free fall, I don't think that that was Jay Woodcroft's fault. They bring in Chris Knoblock and everything goes great. Well, great coach, right? Okay, yeah. But like, your average coach doesn't really change all that much.

You're not fundamentally altering the DNA of a franchise. Yeah, usually you're not, right? And it's rare times like a Barry Trots, you said, does. And it's interesting too because he has a shelf life. He, I think, was a fantastic coach. But after three or four years, He's going to wear out as welcome because that defensive system is going to take too much hold that unless you're throwing in great offensive players to kind of counteract that the entire time,

you're going to get to a point where you go, we need more offense, right? And it's going to be the same when you're such a good offensive team that you're going, well, now we need new defense. I think an average coach at the most at the least sometimes can come in and just have fresh eyes. And that's why like someone like knoblocked me is so interesting because I don't think Woodcroft was necessarily the problem. I do think he tried to enact a system that he wasn't fully prepared to execute. He had the ideas, but not the answers on how to do it and how to fix.

And I think someone like Knoblock came in with completely fresh eyes, not from the organization in any which way, not from the AHA affiliation. And he could look at it and go, okay, this is where we're getting things wrong. And these are the breakdowns. And this is how we can try to clean it up to take that idea and now actually make it happen. But I think the thing is, even if we talk about an average head coach around the league, it's not just them. And I think the hardest thing in the NHL is that we don't know the true impact of assistant coaches.

Like we often don't see it, right? Maybe one gets swapped out. And there's rare cases like the devils, not this past season, the year before, when they swapped out their assistant coaches and got rid of Reki and had Brunette takeover and got rid of Elaine Nazardine. You sell Indy Ruff with two totally different assistant coaches. And it seemed like they were much more apt at helping him execute his vision. and you go, is it just that he's better as a people manager and he needs great tacticians?

And then you get, you know, that's a whole other conversation. Is he the vibes guy with the ideas but can't make them happen and you need coaches that can? Or are they inputting their own takes on it? Are, you know, is that assistant coach just making the head coach's dream happen or do they have their own ideas? Like, it depends on every single team. And oftentimes we don't even have enough time to figure it out because then players are interchanging and, you know, trends around the league are changing. So it's so, so tricky to say.

And I feel like an interesting experiment would be like if Rod Brindamore would ever leave the hurricanes, which is never going to happen, could he make that same system and identity that he has built up in Carolina work somewhere else? Could we see him transfer it? I don't know, honestly. I think we've had little glimpses. Could Brad Straw make it work as a head coach in the NHL and do what he's done as John Torterill as assistant in Columbus and Philly? Because he has an identity. Would he have that same identity if he was a head coach versus an assistant? And also don't know.

Like we don't get enough of a chance to learn about that. Yeah. And you look at like Lane Lambert comes up to replace Barry Trott's guy. And all of it falls apart, right? Like they don't have any of that same identity they had with under Barry Trots. So it's interesting to see. Again, football, a new offensive coordinator comes in and you can see the difference. You can see the personnel changes.

You can see the way that they're calling plays. A new defensive coordinator. Same thing. In hockey, you know, a lot of these coaches have specific jobs. Like you're the power play guy. You're the penalty kill guy. And if one of those things progresses significantly, oh, that coach made an impact. But a lot of these coaching staffs, they're much more collaborative than they used to be.

It's kind of like it's a group thing thing. There's not just the power play guy. They're all talking about the power play where this guys might be on the ice and their practice working with the power play. But it's a group effort from the coaching staff and even the leadership group to talk about that power play. It's not so delineated as it used to be. So it's really difficult to tell, you know, we don't understand necessarily the dynamics of a coaching staff in the NHHA. and the impact it has. And some coaches are more hands-on than others.

Some are kind of like above the group. And some are in there, getting their hands dirty. And it's fascinating to see because every fan wants to blame somebody, right? Yeah. And it's easy to blame like, oh, the power play coach, fire him. And it's like, you know, under Joel Quenville, I must have, the fans must have fired 13 assistant coaches over the years because it was always their fault, right? It was never Joel Quenville's fault.

So you don't know where to, you know, sometimes the head coach gets the blame. Sometimes the head coach gets too much credit. it's kind of like a goaltender almost where sometimes it's not really the goalie's fault when his numbers are good or bad. It's it's kind of more of a group thing. And that's the thing about hockey. It's such an improvised fluid sport. It's really hard to nail down the impact that you're having from off the ice.

It just seems like you could, you're deciding who's getting used. Certainly that makes a difference. If a player is just in a doghouse for one coach and then gets freed from that doghouse by a new coach and goes off, that's great. Hey, what a great coach this is. But again, that's just fresh eyes, like you said. Yeah, and it'll be interesting like Lane Lambert, you mentioned. He's going to be in Toronto as an assistant coach, which seems like a good fit for him because he's been a good assistant coach.

But we also have never seen him be an assistant coach for anyone outside of Barry Trots at the NHL level. So will he get his identity back this way? Will we learn his identity or see that was the Trots effect versus the Lane Lambert effect? And, you know, the problem to. Will Craig Barube allow him the power to have that identity to bring it back? Right, exactly.

And for me, like Barabay, I look at it. I'm like, I don't think he's much of a tactician. He feels like a people manager. So will we see Lane Lambert take his own ideas out now at this point? Like, honestly, I don't know. And the other problem is how often do we see NHL head coaches pair up with assistants and stick with them forever, right? Peter Lavillette right now has Phil Housley.

He's worked with him before. We saw Lane Lambert go team to team to team with Barry Trots. Sometimes that entire bench then, you don't get that refreshed look. So it's always nice to see a head coach go in and have completely different assistance because who knows if there. the results would be totally different than before. And sometimes, you know, you look at a guy like Paul Maurice, right?

And I think when he left Winnipeg, none of us had much faith in him because what did we learn from him all those years in Winnipeg? And he goes to Florida and he seems so refreshed and has been unbelievable there, right? Like how many of us are like, we're wrong? Different assistant coaches, different vibes for him. And also he had a chance, I think the most valuable thing is he had time off

to learn to and go, where did I go wrong? Like you're not getting fired in two weeks later. getting a new job. So you, why would you change anything if you got rehired two seconds later? So there's all those different factors that go into it. Like I wonder what is the most valuable thing for a coach? Is it having to work with a completely new staff? Is it having to take off and look at the game a little bit differently? Is it a combination of both? Like I wish coaches spoke on this a little bit more, but I guess it is a little awkward because you don't want to be like, oh yeah, my assistants, they were crap at my last job. So that was the problem. They really couldn't do

what I wanted or is it on you, like the hockey way would be like, I, I needed to change, but we don't know how or what, or was it just that the roster wasn't built for you? Wasn't, you know, is it not collaborative enough between a coach and a GM to build a roster that fits a coach either? Like that's another thing that we could even question. Well, it's interesting. You know, you mentioned, you know, failure can be, I think Yoda said this, failure the greatest teacher is, right?

Like, that's a, that, you know, so you wonder about a guy like Pete DeBore who has been fired like a hundred times, but's never been out of work. Does he have time to think about what I did? Does he change, does he tweak his style? Or do you just bring the same style everywhere he goes because it works? Because he's never really failed. He's been fired, but he's never really failed. And he's never had that year off to like sit there and think about,

think about what you've done and evolve as a coach. You know, we always complain about the retreads in the NHL. But retread, you know, Bill Belichick, again, he was a retread. He failed with the New York Giants. And I think he failed with a bunch of teams, actually, but the Browns and the Jets before he, you know, stumbled into a dynasty because he had the right personnel around him.

It's just, I find coaching fascinating because it's so unquantifiable to me. It's so hard outside of a Barry Trots or a, a Tibido in the NBA. Like, it's really hard to quantify a coach's impact when it's usually subtle changes they make, not these wholesale DNA changes. Yeah, exactly. And, like, then sometimes, I'm quick to be like, you know,

retreads are bad, but hey, some are good. You look at someone like John Tortorella. And I think him and Mike Sullivan, getting time off was the best thing to ever happen to them. And then they went their separate ways after Vancouver and look at how each of them have changed. And I feel like Tortorella, who everyone thinks is the most stringent coach,

has learned to evolve and look at the game differently and start valuing things like scoring chances, which he didn't before. Like, you have to look at each coach differently. And it's so hard to not make that. overarching statement, even though it's the truth in the NHL, right? Like, how often do we see a fresh voice? And if we do see a fresh voice and they fail, then it's, well, that's bad.

It's so hard to say. And I'm going to be really curious if we see guys like David Quinn now. I want to see like where his career goes because I wonder, is he ready to be an NHL head coach? Has he just been put in bad situations? What has he learned? Could he be a good assistant coach and then jump back into the head coaching picture? Like, that could be a retread that could come.

in with a totally new perspective in a couple years maybe. But then he gets that break, right? I guess now, do we think the Blue Jackets will ever hire a coach? Are they just going to go into the season with that one this time around? I mean, honestly, after last year, maybe they should just go coach list. Like, no, at least, at least they're, it seems like they're trying to do the right thing now and find, find the right fit for them. And if it takes time, so be it, right? Because you could say, well, then they're going to go into the year without a roster that the coach got to really have his hands on, but how much would you really get to do that anyway? Like, it's not like this is a team with no foundation of contracts or prospects to build on.

So now you have to find a coach that makes sense with that and wants to be there. It's, they have a complicated one. Everything's always complicated in Columbus. You know, people keep asking like, well, if they didn't go through Mike Babcock situation last year, would they be hiring Joel Quainville right now? I don't think they would because I don't think he's the fit for this kind of team. he's the next coach, right? He's not the coach to usher the young guys in.

He's the guy, first, he doesn't belong in the NHL at all. That's a different story. But he's the next coach that comes in, right? He's the guy who comes in three or four years down the road when they're ready to turn the corner. That's what he did in Chicago. That's what he's going to do with his next shot. So I'm sure he wants to work and he wouldn't say no to a job right now,

but I don't think that's the guy you hire for a young kind of, you know, building up team. You hire him when you're already built up. Yes, but I also wonder if they felt, that they were ready for that next step last year when they hired Babcock because to me, he is not that developmental coach either. That's true. I think Babcock is one of the most overrated coaches ever. I think you look at his time in Detroit and look at the players that he had on his roster.

And it's like, cool, who among us wouldn't thrive with that? And it's not to say he didn't have any good ideas, but I just think he gets so overhyped for an amazing roster. And I wonder if they felt that he would have been that guy to help them turn the corner and be a playoff team based on the moves they made, right? Like Damon Severson, that was a right now move, not a long-term move. And same with Johnny Goddrow. So I wonder if they would have thought that they were in a position for a coach that could

have helped them turn the corner, which felt like an overstatement for where they truly were. But, you know. I'm glad to hear you say that about Babcock, because you're just further proving my point that coaches don't do anything. I appreciate that. Hey, in some team, it's amazing what coaches do and don't gain reputations for us. sometimes, right? Like, sometimes it's, oh my God, this coach was this and they have this reputation for that. And it's like, but do they? Like, it's, again, it's hard to tell an hockey sometimes. Is it the players? Is it the team? And like, the Oilers are the example of coaching does matter, even if you have two of the best players in the world because you need the rest of the roster to click. But I feel like Detroit was so stacked that I'm like, I would give more credit to the players and the coaches. Yeah. Do you care about the four nations face off at all? Because I find myself not caring at all about the four nations face off. At the moment, No. Do I love building international rosters? Yes. And when it's on, am I going to watch it? And I mean, listen, if that's, it's kind of like a break for, I don't imagine having to like write much about it. But like you can just like vibe out and enjoy. Like I will enjoy that. Sure. But to me, I also right now, maybe it's because it's the off season and I have time to actually think a coherent thought without 20 games and things break.

I wanted to ask you that. Let me interrupt you real quick. I wanted to ask you that. You watch more hockey than any human on the planet. Like you have like, you know, your four screens set up and you're watching and you're giffing every game. Like it's incredible. What do you do in the summer? Do you just have like a baseball set up? Like like, how do you, how do you, how do you like wean off the, you know, you're, you're like an addict all year? And then you have this whole summer where there's, there's no fix. Well, I have tennis, which I love. So the three screens have been clutched. for like the grand slimes for Wimbledon like that was my everything. The fact that day one of Wimbledon and uh,

overlapped with pre-agency was the worst thing. But, uh, I truly love that. Don't go anywhere without a TV. And then I had Euros and Copa. So even like sitting by the pool, we were pulling out multiple TVs to have like euros and tennis at once because I am the worst with it. And you know, like everyone looks at it and they'll think like, oh, it must be because of like my boyfriend wanting the TV.

Like, no, no, these, these are mine. You're dragging him along. Yeah, I, I am, I'm the worst with this. I need it at all times. But this week is slow before the Olympics, which I'm going to be, I love it. I love all of it. I'm going to be watching like synchronized diving and gymnastics and skateboarding. It's the only, it's the only sports I can get my kids to watch.

My daughters will only watch like when the Olympics are on. So I take what I can get. That's good though. It's a good building block. That is great. But no, this week I, I like, I'm off the rest of the week after today. So I'm going to unplug by, I've just been reading a ton and sewing. Like that's how I unplug.

And I don't want anything sports at all, not even in the background while I'm sewing. Like I'll have like go more girls on or something. And everybody should go to Shea's Etsy shop. I got my daughter still wear their ponytail holders that I got from, I got their favorite mascot. She calls it, you know, my daughter calls the Avalanche one, her Bernie one. And Toronto one her Carlton one. one still wears those. I do think that you're biased against fat people like me with all these

midriff showing shirts that you're always making, these little half-thod-offs. I will not be seen in one of those, unfortunately, but, you know, factor us fatties in. It's tough because it's all, all of the clothing is 100% thrifted. So I get sweatshirts that are stained and I either patchwork to change that or sometimes just a simple crop top. But most of it, like to start, this was all geared towards the girls. Like I was not thinking about making anything for men. And then some guys were like, can we get non-crops? And I was like, first of all, you could totally wear a crop top.

But, you know, like I never thought about that. Because I always look at it like the merch is so bad for women. So that was my original intention. But now it's nice like, okay, men want this stuff too. Like even the puffer vest, like I only had patterns made for women. Now I'm going to start, you know, crafting them that they work for men too. Because why not? why not all have cool gear and get some clothes out of landfills.

It's really weird. Like I can't wear an HL gear anymore. Like I feel very strange putting, even if it's just like I like a logo. I can't go out wearing a cracking hat that would look weird. Like, you know, it's something about the job. Well, you cover one team though.

And I feel like that makes sense. Like I feel like if you work for a team, you wear their team's gear. If you cover one team, it might feel like weird for me. I mean, I have hats for a million different teams. I probably wear like,

my golden seals hat and like retro logos we know. Sure. Like yeah, I could put like a like a Quebec Nordique's hat on probably. Yeah. But like if I'm wearing gear, it's thrifted. Like it's I have like what I'm wearing in the summer. It's literally like I have a Detroit Red Wings thrifted shirt from the 90s or Winnipeg Jets one with the old logos.

Like I wear stuff like that probably on a daily basis and I have stuff for every single team and because it was for me for a while. I was like I'm not wearing gear. I was going to like games casually and I'm wearing like a too many men sweatshirt because I felt funny. and now if it's like old and reworked and whatever, I feel completely fine. It has to be from, I guess,

2000 or older for me to feel good wearing it. But it works for me because I feel like I'm doing something. In my like sick brain, I'm like, well, it's thrifted and someone was going to throw this out and be wasted. And now it has a new life that I'm like, see, now I can wear NHL year again. There you go. I do have its team North America hat from when I covered the World Cup.

So I guess that can get us back into this discussion. And Ian is much better at this than I am. He keeps things on track. It's like we hit a topic and we move to the next topic. He's always got like some really smooth intro and segue. I'm just, I'm all over the place. And so am I. I am dragging people off the rails.

So I'm glad I can do that. So, you know, personally, I wish that they would just wait for the Olympics. And that would be the first quote unquote best on best we have. I think that would make it a bigger deal than this. But I understand there's money to be had. So when there's money to be had, they're going to go get the money. You said, roster building seems to be the only fun part of this for me. Like, I'll watch it.

But it is fun. Like when I was up in, I spent a bunch of time in Canada during the playoffs and also during the All-Star game when it was in Toronto. And all anyone talks about in Canada is how bad their goaltending is and how they have the greatest forwards ever, the greatest defenseman ever, but we're going to lose because you have no goalton. The U.S. has all the goaltending. Yeah, if Jordan Bennington is like the best you got, you're in trouble, man, aren't you?

Yeah, that's, it's definitely. not ideal there at all. And in an assortament like this, when it's best on best, like you would think goaltending is going to be more important because sometimes we see defenses completely loosen up, right? And sometimes we see it, you are going through the best defense. Like, you don't know what the team's going to build. And for Canada, their defense could be pretty sick.

But I wonder how offensively minded this team will be that they would need a little bit more from their goaltending. So that'll They won their last Olympics by playing the most boring hockey in the history of hockey back in 2014. Yeah. And that is not,

I mean, you're going to have Cal McCar and Bouchard and Dobson. Like you truly can't be a boring team anymore if your team Canada. So I wonder if it's going to be like, if they're going to be like the Colorado avalanche of, you know,

what the year they won where it's like you're so elite everywhere and you're such a possession heavy team that goaltending. doesn't matter that much, which I mean, Hill and Skinner are two Canadian goalies with a ton of experience of that, right? Because they play behind such good teams. But it'll be interesting because there are other teams that like you're going to go against US's goal tonny. It honestly helps for Canada that Russia wouldn't be in it because Sorokin and Chesdurkin as a tandem and Vasselowski, like that's tough to beat. Yeah. And then you got the Americans obviously have Hella Buk

and Demco and what Jeremy Swayman. I mean, it's a pretty deep pool that the Americans have. We're talking about this because NHL.com will least their first. I don't know if it's their first, but they had some roster projections this weekend. Team USA, no Brock Besser, no Tage Thompson, no Alex to Brinket. Are we that deep? Can we afford that? I mean, there are some really good players that you can have.

I would be curious if all three of them don't make it. Like, I like. goals. Yeah, I like the idea of a guy like Keller who I could see being like some underrating being someone to get like the early name in there. But I don't know. Like Caulfield ahead of some of these guys? Is he there yet?

I hope he is. Are we projecting that? I hope he is too. That feels like a projection more than an assertion. Yeah. I feel like after this last season, I would wonder if it's going to be like a Besser versus like a Caulfield or Connor for a spot because you look at them. And I feel like I can group them all as those like complimentary wingers who all

have some defensive flaws, but are really good at scoring goals. And obviously, you're going to need goal scores. I wonder how much it's going to be like, these are the best players versus these are the players that bring different skill sets that we need. Like Tage Thompson after last year, I get why he wouldn't make it. But if he can bring the offensive two seasons ago with the defense that he improved on this year, like that's someone you might want to have too. And to have another player who could play center, it's pretty huge because it always helps

to have forward versatility, especially in something like this. I feel like they have so many good wingers here. I would be very curious if he gets that nod because of that. Yeah, Canada, when all those Olympic runs, they would always have, they would have like John Tavirus playing wing and Jonathan Taves playing wing. And it just makes you so much more versatile. And, you know, different guys can take the faceoffs and everyone's more defensively responsible.

It makes such a huge difference to have more, you've got to have more than four centers on a team in a tournament like this to really succeed. Yeah, absolutely. And like US could have that, you know, Eichel, Larkin, Matthews, Miller, those are, and Trochak and Jack Hughes. Like that's six right there. But I don't know, like I feel like that could be something that gets T. Thompson on here too. And it'll be interesting.

See how everyone else builds. Because if you thought of like the old years of USA hockey, you'd be thinking about like the size and physicality. They always tried to be like the years of like David Back is Ryan Callahan and Dustin Brown playing together. And it's like, well, size is a priority. Then you're going to go for Tate Thompson and rightfully. But I like that there's short kings on this roster and guys who bring something different. But if DeBringt and Caulfield are not together, I feel like they're saying we have a limit on how many short kings we can have on one team.

And I think that's a calamity. All right. Let's bring this home with some listener questions. We put out a call for some questions on some rapid-fire things. You mentioned Jack Hughes. So I'm going to know, is Jack Hughes a top five forward in the NHL right now? So we're working on our player tiers and just did our, our first iteration of the list. And I think the answer right now is no, but I think he can be

because right now you're probably going McDavid-Joytrysidal McKinn, not in any order, Matthews, and, you know, that fifth slot, maybe you're giving to Poshnock, maybe, you know, there are other names, I think jumping out. Kutrov could get it after he was in the MVP race till, you know, the very end. I would say he's just outside of it, but a healthy Jack Hughes, on a more functional devil's team could definitely get there. It's crazy how like the top five 10 years ago is compared to the top five now. I mean, I always come back to Jamie Ben winning the scoring title with 89 points. It's like, it's a completely different sport that we're watching these days.

Yeah, I just really forgot Matthew Kachuk. That's the name I'm like blanking. It was Kachuk and Barkoff. That's like I mean. It's just a lot of guys. Yeah. Hughes is, I would say top 10 right now. Can he become top five?

Yes. but he did not do that. It's a tough list of crack. Yeah. It's not an insult. I don't know if you saw Alan Walsh tweeted out a graphic. I guess you got the data from Sportico about where each of the major four North American sports leagues generate their revenue from.

And basically the NHL is like 50% gate-driven. And every other sport is making most of their money off of TV deals. So we got a question to why that is. And I think it's pretty obvious. It's just hockey is not a national sport in the United States. Hockey is a regional sport. Like I always talk about Chicago. Chicago is an unbelievable Blackhawks town.

This town loves the play. It's still as terrible as they are. They're still filling up the largest arena in the league. But once the playoffs start, not a single person in Chicago is watching the playoffs. Like this is not Buffalo or Pittsburgh or Boston where everyone's tuning in regardless. This is not a hockey town. This is a hawkstown. And I think there's a lot of those in the United States.

States where the TV deal will never be what it is for those other sports because you'll tune in to watch LeBron or Steph Curry or Janice or whatever. You'll tune in to see Patrick Mahomes or whoever, but you don't do that for Austin Matthews or Connor McDavid, not in the United States. Yeah, I don't think it's a bad thing that gate revenue is a huge part. Like, listen, you're successful if you have asses in the seats. Totally understand that. But I think part of the reason it's not, like the TV deals aren't better is the NHL's marketing. And I'm going to put the blame on them for this, I think the TV deal could be more valuable if they made the game bigger. And I think that they've constantly held themselves back from it.

It starts at the grassroots level. It starts at making the game more accessible and more welcoming to different people or maybe people who don't know about the sport. Sometimes I feel like fans are so elite is like, oh, you don't know what an icing is. And why would you want to learn about a sport where you enter it and you feel that way? So I think some of the efforts this year with, you know, the Disney games and things like that, explaining the rules to kids as it goes on. So you learn it definitely helps. But I think the fact that this is a sport geared towards white men and white men only and they're not doing

enough to make it interesting to everyone else and worthwhile to join in like the TV deal is not going to do it because it's not going to attract a national audience. So maybe if they work on that, things will start to change. But there's a reason the viewership isn't there. And I feel like sometimes, well, the networks don't do enough and they don't put the effort in. But there's probably a reason they don't and they feel that hockey's just not as valuable to do it as the other sports. Hey, I just watched a week worth of programming that said, I'm an aggrieved and underrepresented minority now. So don't you dare to talk about white men that way. Yeah.

So we had another question about how different things would be, not just in Vegas, but in the league. This is an interesting question, actually. If the penguins had protected Mark Andre Fleury and not Matt Murray in the expansion draft, how different would things be? Like, I'm of the belief that Vegas would have just moved heaven and earth to do whatever they can to win right away anyway. But if they hadn't gotten to that final in the first year, would they still be this aggressive? Would the league, would the league landscape be different if Matt Murray was Vegas's goalie instead of Mark Andre Fleury? It's so tough to say because like we don't know what Matt Murray would have looked like in his first season of Vegas because at that point he had won, sure,

but like he wasn't the bonafide number one started. I think in Vegas he would have had to be. But also it would have made their first year a lot less chaotic Vegas because they went through like five goalies in their first year because they were so hurt. And the other part is I wonder if the misfit vibe would have been different without Flurry, you know, how much of their locker room chemistry would have been different? And, you know, would they have still come together in the same way and made such an impact? I feel like he was such a perfect person to be a cornerstone of a franchise even at that point in his career. So I wonder how much it would have been different for both sides of it. but, you know, we know why Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh looked at Flurry as such a flawed goalie too in so many ways.

Like, would it have helped them? Would they have been, would this, the questions that they're facing now have come sooner if they were older a couple years ago versus Murray? Like, I don't know that. It's really interesting because I think it would have had huge impacts for both sides, like vibes and on ice results. I do think that's the biggest of the dominoes that you could look to when it's talking about how things would be different in Vegas and league wide.

I think that's the one, though. That it is an interesting point of discussion. Yeah, definitely. We have a question. This is something that we deal with in Chicago a lot, but this question is geared more towards San Jose is how many players on entry-level contracts is too many? Like, this is something the Blackhawks are concerned about because, you know, they almost want to get players to their second contracts because you got to have some kind of,

you don't want everyone getting their big payday at the same time. You can't have all your number, like the Blackhawks have had eight first round picks in the last three drafts. and you can't have them all coming to that second contract, that big payday at the same time. So we always, you can't win the Stanley Cup without some players on, you know, six-figure deals. Like you need that. That's a, that's a, but how many is too many? San Jose have tons of high-end prospects that could be in the NHL within a couple of years. And they're in that same situation in Chicago right now where it can become a challenge to roster building if all your guys hit at the same time.

Yeah. I think, you know what, I wouldn't put a limit on it, though, because even in San Jose, you look at it and you go, how many guys are the top tier quality that they're going to get that massive second contract? I don't see that their prospect pool has it. Like they have a lot of guys, but not a ton of stars. And they're starting to get those stars, obviously like Celebrity is the leading one. But it's never bad to have a lot of entry-level deals. And most cup champs, I think I read about it last summer.

And the only team in the last like 10 years to not have anyone was Vegas, but they had those. those reclamation projects and those six-figure contracts like you mentioned, I don't think it's bad to have, but it's what are you doing to kind of supplement them after that tier of them is gone? If you're replacing ELC contracts and you're going for the big deals, do you have another ELCI to come in and keep balancing the books? Like that is most important. But I think it depends on the team in the situation because it's not just that.

It might just be like the young guys. Do you have enough young guys? Do you have enough players with like age versatility? Well, we got about a million other questions, but they're all just like, what do you think about the Sabres? What do you think about the wild? We'll save that for the preseason when you write 9,000 million words on every single team and their analysts.

Shane, I really appreciate it jumping on this week. It's been a lot of fun, very enlightening. We all know now that coaches are irrelevant. We know that there are three ways to say the word Mary. And open your mouths when you talk people. That's all I'm saying. Like, I'm in the Midwest here, and everyone just talks through their teeth. And that's why all the words sound the same.

Just open your mouths when you talk. Please, please do this service. That's all we ask of you. The athletic hockey show's new motto, opening your mouth when you talk. That's all from us. We'll see you later.