The Athletic Hockey Show - Islanders fire Roy, hire DeBoer in late-season shakeup

Episode Date: April 6, 2026

For the second time in a week there has been a major change behind the bench of an NHL team, this time with the New York Islanders firing head coach Patrick Roy and replacing him with Pete DeBoer with just four games left on the schedule. Today, the guys break down the Isles’ surprising decision, assess John Tortorella’s first week of work with the Vegas Golden Knights, and check in on Macklin Celebrini’s Hart Trophy potential as the young phenom keeps his San Jose Sharks in playoff contention. Plus, the Buffalo Sabres are playoff-bound for the first time in 14 years, ending the league’s longest drought, while the Detroit Red Wings are in danger of extending their nine-year postseason absence after another end-of-season collapse.Hosts: Max Bultman and Mark LazerusWith: Jesse GrangerExecutive Producer: Chris FlanneryProducer: Chris FlanneryWatch full episodes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@theathletichockeyshowJoin our Discord Server: https://discord.gg/VTm9VjkFSubscribe to The Athletic: https://theathletic.com/hockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic hockey show. Hey, everybody. I'm Max Boltman, alongside Jesse Granger and Mark Lazarus, for another episode of the athletic hockey show. And, Laz, I sure am glad that podcast hosts have more job security than NHL head coaches. Because with four games left, just after we had talked about how wild it was that John Tortorella replaced Bruce Cassidy in Vegas with, I believe that was eight games left. The Islanders said, hold my beer. and they have fired Patrick Waugh. They are replacing him with just four games left in the season with Pete DeBoer. This is a, if the Vegas one was a surprise, this is a shocker.

I mean, it's sheer desperation, right? You lose a few games in a row. You start falling out of the playoffs and you panic. I don't know what's a bigger panic move. Doing this with four games left in the season or when you see a coach get fired four games into a season, which we've seen many times in the NHL where there's a guy waiting in the wings and the team clearly is looking for an excuse to move a guy out higher the new guy, that's kind of where this is.

It's like the Islander's still like, all right, A, we need help you. We need something to get some life into this team. This is getting bad and we're going to miss the playoffs in the year that we could have it in a wide open east. And B, we don't want to get stuck with our pants around our ankles. We want to get Pete DeBore now before everyone else has a chance at him. So the Islanders make this desperation move. And I can't honestly tell you it's not the right one. I feel like they had to do something.

This is drastic. But it feels like it might be the smart thing to do, doesn't it? I view this one very, very different from the Vegas coaching move because I think the second thing you said is what's actually happening here is that Pete DeBoer was going to get a job. And the Islanders thought Pete DeBoer is an upgrade over Patrick Waugh. And you can argue with that. To me, that's pretty clear. I think Patrick Waugh is a good coach. I think Pete DeBore is a great hockey coach.

And all he does is win. They were going to miss out on Pete DeBore unless they did it right now. And now they, you couldn't fire Waugh on a windstststress. streak as he's leading you to the playoffs. So what is it? A four game losing streak that they fall on. It gives you a reason. And I don't see his panic move.

Whereas the Vegas move, I see as John Tortorell is a good coach. Bruce Cassidy is a great hockey coach. I think the Golden Knights downgraded at coach in order to try to spark their team for a run this year. To me, the situations are very, very different despite being last minute coaching changes for teams fighting for the playoffs. Well, yeah, you look at it.

Pete DeBoer has been in the conference final six of the last eight years. This is a guy who's had a job as a head coach in the NHL for 19 consecutive seasons, despite being fired five times. That's how well regarded he is. That's the kind of impact he has. Torrella hasn't done squat since winning the Stanley Cup 22 years ago. This is Torrella's last 10 season. I was just looking this up before we went on the air.

Miss playoff, miss playoff, lost in round one, lost in round one, lost around one, lost around two, lost in round one. Miss playoffs, missed playoffs, missed playoffs, missed playoffs, fired. That is not an upgrade. Right. Pete DeBoer wins. Pete DeBore wins. Pete DeBore has not won the Stanley Cup, but he gets teams into the playoffs. He structures them well. He fixes problems and he gets them to make runs. He wins playoff series. And that's something the Islanders are looking for right now. Just to kind of flesh out both of your points about jumping the line, right? As of right now, every team in the NHL has a head coach. Two weeks from today, or less than two weeks from today, that will not be the case. There will be openings. Pete DeBore would have his, would presumably be at the very top of the list for a lot of the teams out there. So if you, are a team that hopes to make the playoffs and hopes to be busy and have a head coach less than two weeks from today, your options basically were risk that he would sign with one of those teams or become the only vacancy in the NHL and be able to offer an immediate

playoff race, which is pretty attractive, I feel like, to a head coach. And maybe you give yourself the option at that new coach bump to. I felt like that was part of it for Vegas as we see this. We see a spark when you make a coaching change. I think that's part of the Islanders have slid too. It's not totally different from the arc of Vegas. I guess it's just different in terms of the candidate. And they did not give John Tortorella a long-term deal, which is, I think, telling. I think you are underestimating a little bit the urgency of now. Like, yes, I do think jumping the line matters.

But the islanders, the way they have played in front of Ilius Serochan, look, we've been talking all year about how Ilya Syroken deserves MVP consideration. His goal saved above expected is so high. Well, how do you get a lot of goals saved above expected? You face a lot of scoring chances. And the Islanders have been doing that all year, and especially lately, during this kind of nose-dye they've been taking. They've been so disorganized defensively. They've been terrible. And Sorokin's flailing back there. He's finally coming back to Earth because nobody could stop all these shots. What does Pete DeBore do?

He structures a defense. He makes you play better systematic hockey. And the islanders, the timing makes sense. They have like four or five days off here where they can have this little mini training camp before their last four games of the season, see if they could put something together. It's not like anyone in the East is running away with this other than Pittsburgh right now. All these teams that couldn't lose in March can't win in April. So if they win, three out of these last four games, they can still very well make the playoffs. And I think they really believe that DeBore has a better chance of doing that than Patrick Wattos. I think DeBore will help structure them. He's a shot suppression wizard. Like, look at every team

Pete DeBore's ever coached his entire career. They never give up any shots. And then the other part of it is if you look at the Islanders and the core of this team is Matthew Schaefer. And to me, when I think about Pete DeBoer, that's the number one thing that sticks out to me about his systems and the way he coaches is he maximizes offensive defensemen. He did it with Brent Burns in San Jose. That was for years and years and years and Brent Burns was his best player fueling those teams, the transition on those teams. He came to Vegas. Shea Theodore, I thought the best Shea Theodore's ever looked was under Pete DeBore, letting him be that driver of the offense. He goes to Dallas where he's got Heiskenen, Thomas Harley, kind of emerged under DeBore.

I think, I don't know if there's a better coach in the league to get the most out of Matthew Schaefer than Pete DeBore. The guy I first thought of was Sorokin, because as good as Pete DeBore has been for his teams, for his young defenseman, for his offensive defenseman, has not always ended on, and actually has seldom ended on very good terms with his star goalie. And that was the first place. Why? What happened? With this, Jesse.

So I, okay, I've spent the first. five minutes of this podcast praising Pete DeBoer so that setting up so that everyone knows I'm not just a Pete DeBoer. Pete DeBoer, and like I don't know how else to put how more plainly to put this, Pete DeBoer does not know what he's doing with his goaltenders. He doesn't. And he's been to a million places and he cannot figure it out. He couldn't figure it out in San Jose. He couldn't figure it out in New Jersey before that. He ran Marty Bordor out of town. That's a, that's an exaggeration. But he was part of it. He goes to San Jose. It didn't work out. out with the goalies in San Jose. He came to Vegas. It was an absolute disaster, his plan with

Robin Lennar versus Mark Andre Fleury. Then he goes to Dallas and I said to myself, okay, if there's a situation that Pete DeBore can't mess the goalies up, it's one with a star franchise young Jake Ottinger and Casey DeSmith as a backup, who is a solid backup, but is no challenge or no, there should not be a consideration to go to him at any point. Well, Pete DeBore proved me wrong. He did mess up the goalies there. While I want to say it's Ilya Sorokin, how, like, it doesn't matter who the coach is. Like, you can't mess it up with Ilya Sorokin. Pete DeBoer might find a way.

Well, you're not, you're not hiring Pete DeBoer to be John Cooper or Jared Bedner. You are not hiring Pete DeBore to be your long-term coach. He doesn't last. His shelf life is three or four years. It's kind of like Peter Laviolet. A lot of these guys that kind of like burn bright but burn out real quick. I think he had five years in San Jose's his longest stint. Yeah, and he usually burned some bridges on the way.

I mean, I was in that press conference last year when he basically threw Jake Ottinger under the bus and blamed him for the Star's loss, which was just one of the most jaw-dropping things I've ever seen at a press conference, just how casually he did it. It didn't even feel calculated. He's just like, oh, yeah, Jake Ottinger just completely, he's got to make more say he blew it for us, basically. This is what he does. But the Islanders aren't thinking about 2032 here. They're thinking about right now. They're thinking about next year. They got this window here.

It's not as important as it used to be, but when you have a star on an entry-level context, contract, you need to maximize that window as much as possible. And they have one of the very best defensemen in the world for $975,000 a year, whatever it is for the next two years, they need to maximize that window. That's the window Pete DeBore is here for to win right now for an Islanders team that didn't think they were going to have this opportunity when the season started. So they got passed in the standings yesterday. They are now on the outside of the bubble looking in. It's still very possible that they get in as a wildcard. It's still very possible that they get in as a divisional seat in the Metropolitan Division.

It's that close in the East. It's especially that close in the Metro. What is the ceiling, though, Las, of this Islander's team at this point? Because it still feels to me like they're going to be underdogs in any first round series. Well, they were supposed to be retooling, right? Like, Matthew Schaefer, being as brilliant as he was, really changed the calculus on Long Island. Like, this was not a team that was expected to make the playoffs this year,

even contend for the playoffs. But then something like Matthew Schaefer happens, and you feel an urgency that you didn't feel before. I do not think this is going to be a Stanley Gunnard. contender anytime soon. I don't know what they can do this offseason. I don't know what Matthew Darsh can really pull out of his hat to greatly improve this team, but you do have Matt Barzell playing at a high level. You have Bo Horvatt playing at a high level. You have arguably the best goaltender in the world, and you have the most exciting young defense in the league. You should

be able to put together a playoff contending team around that. And the Islanders are one of those teams. We're getting a round or two of the playoffs. You know, that's pretty good. That's kind of the goal right now. That gets some, you know, you get some revenue out of that. You get some excitement in your fan base out of that. You see. sell tickets off of that. Not every team is playing for the Stanley Cup every year. And I think the Islanders right now are in this, all right, we're not as bad as we thought we were going to be. We're not as far off as we thought we were going to be. Let's try to maintain this, build around it and see if we can do what Boston or Pittsburgh's in doing

and kind of get to the top of the pack without really changing things that much. I think that's where they are. And Pete DeBore is the kind of coach that accomplishes that. I think New York's ceiling is very low. I think the deadline was not good for them. Braden Shen, Andre Palat, they got older and slower. Palat has done almost nothing since coming in. Shen has been better than that, but still not maybe the impact that they probably initially hoped. I just don't think, I agree, this team's an underdog in the first round.

I think the Islander's ceiling is how many series can Ilyosuriken steal them single-handedly because they're not better than anyone they're going to play in the playoffs. All right. The question I want to answer before we go to break here, and we're going to talk about the comp for this, which is the story. that's playing out in your market right now, Jesse, in Vegas. But first I want to ask about Patrick Waugh, because he's had now two stints as a head coach. The first in Colorado, I'm pretty willing to write off as a iconic player learning just how

hard it is to be a head coach. I felt like this Islander's tenure was fairly successful, but ultimately the islanders still felt the need to pull to shoot here. Will we see a third act for Patrick Waugh head coach, Jesse? That's a great question. Like you said, they're probably going to be, I don't know, seven, eight teams needing the head coach. Like, we see this every year, maybe a little less than that. I would imagine Patrick Wa is going to be one of the candidates for those jobs. So it wouldn't surprise me at all to see him

get another job. I agree with you. I thought that this stint was good in New York. I think you like, you listen to him talk. He's not just a great goalie who named Patrick Waugh. Like, you listen to him talk. He understands coaching. I think he's a good coach. The NHL loves hiring previously fired head coaches instead of giving new young assistants jobs. So yes, I'll, I'll guess Patrick Waugh. does get a job in the NHL next season. And by the way, it's not all just on like the strength of his playing career that he's gotten these. He was a remarkably successful QMJHL head coach before coming into the Islanders here. And don't forget, when he came to Colorado the first time, he took a bad team and took them to a division championship very quickly.

Like, he has succeeded in the NHL. I know we always complain about retreads. I complain about the retreads as much as anybody. But, I mean, Paul Maurice has been in the Stanley Cup final the last three seasons. Pete DeBore has been to all these conference finals. Rick Bonas, we were just talking about him a couple of. weeks ago as coach of the year, who's more of a retread than Rick bonus. Peter Laviolette was in the conference final a couple of years ago. There's a reason that these GMs get, you know, they rehire

these guys. And yeah, part of it is a lack of imagination, but it is a lot safer to hire a Pete Debor or even a John Torter. Well, no, you're not so John Torterill, but it is, it is a lot safer to hire some of these retreads than it is to try to find the next Dan Muse, because you might get stuck with the next Jeremy Colleton. There's a lot of guys who flame out real quick when you're trying to be the smartest guy in the room and pick someone new. It's really difficult to do that. We appreciate it when we see it. When you see it, Dan Muses, you're like, yes, good job.

You found the next great coach. And look at what a good job he's doing. But it's just a lot safer to hire a guy who has succeeded in multiple places. And frankly, Patrick Waugh has. He succeeded for a little bit in Colorado. He exceeded expectations on Long Island. He's going to get another job because this is the NHL. All right.

Let's take a quick break right there. We'll be right back. We'll talk about Tortorella and Vegas. All right, we are back. And we are one week, Jesse, into the, John Tortorella experience in Vegas. So we'll stick with the theme of new coaches hired late in the season trying to work some magic here.

I've always kind of imagined when John Tortorella walks into a new coaching situation, the first thing as he does is he walks into the locker room, flips a table and you go from there. Am I wrong? We're seeing a new page turned, I think, for John Tortorella. It's interesting because this is a coach known for his, like, aggression, I guess, and and yelling at the players at times and his emotion. And the players have mentioned the emotion he's shown on the bench already, but he's almost trying to do the opposite here in Vegas,

where he came in and he said, the Golden Knights hadn't been scoring many goals. And that was the biggest problem for this team when they made the coaching change. And John Torturel came in and he's like, I just want them to play without thinking. I want to try to relax them. I want to try to make it okay to make mistakes. And I thought the great example,

and it was kind of a good anecdote for what he's trying to get the players to do. After his first game, Tortoril comes into the media room and we're all like, all right, first Torts post game. I wonder how this is going to go. And he's just cracking jokes about himself the entire time. He told us that he was calling Nick Dowd, the wrong name for half the game. And he was calling him Wardo. I don't know if that's like, Joel Ward is an assistant coach for the Golden Knights.

I don't know how he got Wardo for Nick Dowd. But he was calling him Wardo. And the player, he said the players on the bench, just let him. do it. They thought it was hilarious. They were just like, don't, don't tell him that he's call him the wrong name. Just keep letting him call Nick the wrong name the entire time. So he came in and he like, he cracked a joke about that. He cracked a joke about how when the power play ended, he didn't have a line ready to go out. So they're just like scrambling to get three players on the ice. And then he and basically he's admitting all these mistakes and he's like, and that's what I

want the players to do. Like just if you're going to make a mistake, make it out of aggression. I don't want you to be on your heels worried about mistakes. And I think that maybe that's what they thought was the problem under Bruce Cassidy. Bruce Cassidy is a very X's and O's strategic coach. And maybe the thought was the players are afraid to make mistakes under Cassidy because it's such a rigid system. And they brought Tortorella in. And he basically hasn't changed anything systematically.

He's just telling them to play simpler and play more aggressive. And if you're going to make mistakes, do it out of aggression. And so far it's worked. It's so strange because it felt like, you know, when the move happened, it was like, all right, you think it's hard to play for Bruce Cassidy? Here comes John Tortorella, guys. You better shape up. And then he comes in as this cuddly soft version of John Tortorella.

And you wonder how long that's going to last, right? Is he coaching just for the rest of this year? Is he going to be back next year? Is he just kind of like play acting here? You mentioned, I wanted to ask you, like if any, because to see what happens along Ireland, we're like a week in the future here when you look at John Tortorella. And we're talking about compete to bore,

make these structural changes that'll save the Islander's defense. You're saying he's not doing that in Vegas. It's just a vibe shift. He came in, I think the first sentence out of his mouth when he was introduced as head coach, the morning skate of his first game, he said, I'm not going to make any changes. Everyone just kind of looked around like, wait, wait, what? Like fired the coach, the Stanley Cup winning coach with eight games left so that John Tortorella can not make any changes. He was, he was kind of like it's not all like exactly black and white that way, but he did say like,

I don't plan on making any major strategic alterations to the way this team is playing. He didn't feel like there's enough time to install a new system and make it effective. It's more a emphasis thing. Like he's emphasizing different things on the forecheck. The forecheck itself hasn't changed, but he's just emphasizing different things on it, different things on the breakouts. He keeps saying, play faster. I'm a little concerned that the Golden Knights weren't playing slow because Bruce

Cassidy had them playing slow. I think they're playing slow because they're slow. That isn't going to change under John Torell. And he has, that's probably the word he's used most is play faster, play north. You're going to hear that most coaches talk about that. But that has been his biggest emphasis. I just, they've gotten the bump. They've won three games in a row.

Two of them, I barely count because Vancouver, I think it didn't matter who the coach was. They were going to beat the Vancouver Canucks. Calgary, it was a tough game. They ended up getting the win. The win up in Edmonton was very good. Yes, they were missing dry siddle and hymen. so you could even poke holes in that one, but I thought that was one of the better games

the Golden Knights have played in a while, in months. So they are trending better. We haven't seen them play against a really good team yet. And part of me wonders if this initial bump that they're getting from Tortorella and the excitement of having a new coach that they all seem to really like will wear off by the time they play against a playoff team,

which I've said multiple times on this podcast, this team cannot beat good teams. They haven't beat them all year. Well, they may not see a playoff team, at least one at full strength until the playoffs, because their next five games, their final five games, at Vancouver,

at Seattle, at Colorado, who should have clinched by then, may well be resting guys, and then home versus Winnipeg in Seattle. So this may be one big surprise as the postseason begins of like, what do the Tortorella Golden Knights

actually look like in a playoff series? But what you said there, Jesse, I think resonated with me. It was very similar to what I experienced when Todd McClellan came in in Detroit a year ago. And it was, the words were like,

you know, robotic, stiff. Like, they felt too rigid as well. And McClellan had the viral practice quote, you know, play F in hockey. You've done it your whole lives. And that really worked. That resonated with players. He did not change really any systems in season.

Similar deal. You don't have a training camp to do a full install. You just kind of have to inject some spirit into the group. And I was struck by how powerful that was. But it definitely has a shelf life because coaches, they're wired to ultimately come down hard on you too. You can free guys up, but inevitably, then you're going to play too loose, and it's the push, pull, it's the seesaw, it's whatever. It always comes back the other way.

And what I think is interesting, we mentioned it in segment one, Torterella is not on like a long-term contractor. This may really just be, we don't even need the second half of that. Just free them up, see what they really have in them for this run. They're built to win right now. Mark Stone's not getting any younger. It can really just be, let's inject as much life as possible. And I know we all have fun with the Tortorrella caricature, and a lot of it is true. But I've talked to a ton of players over the years that played for Torrella.

And players like playing for John Torrella. They like him a lot. Like his public persona is different than his persona in the room. And they like playing hard and they want to be held accountable. And they do kind of find Torrella fun to play for. Even though we watch and it's like, oh, God, he's here he is, playing for another overtime point. You know, and it's like, the fact that he's the safe as deaf guy is hilarious because

his teams are like death to watch. But players, not everybody. There are ones that there are players that clash with him. And when you clash with Torrella, it's more severe than when you clash with a normal coach. But players like playing for John Torterlla. And the dead cat balance you get when you hire a new coach, it usually lasts a week, week and a half maybe. No, it's like a month. It's like a month now.

I mean, look at some of the recent examples. Columbus with Rick Bonas. That was more than a month. Detroit had two seven-game win streaks in their first five, six weeks under McClellan. Like, it is longer than I thought. Well, we'll see, because they need that. If you get a month out of this and you're winning a playoff round or two, and in that Pacific Division, that's not that big of an ask.

And I think that's why Vegas was so, you know, Vegas is such a ruthless organization to begin with. But they're willing to do this because they still think there is a very clear path to the Western Conference final for any of these Pacific Division teams. In this pillow fight, you know, you win three games and you're looking pretty. So, like, they're one point out of first place right now. Anaheim is like a negative 15 goal differential. they're tied for the division. Like, this is not a scary lineup. And Vegas knows it has the talent.

And they're just hoping that John Tortorella can get it out of them. They could win the division at this point. I mean, they're a point back. Edmonton, they just beat head up. I mean, we'll see how the Oilers finished. Oilers have been hot. But the ducks, like you said, struggling. Vegas can win this division and go in and face a wildcard team in round one.

Like you said, they've got Seattle twice. They're in free fall. They got Vancouver again. I mean, this is not a demanding schedule they're facing down the road. to their. John Tortorella is being set up to succeed here. Right. And I think when you mentioned like the players like playing for him, to me, I think John Tortorella is a, is a good fit for this group of players because he's such a hockey guy. Like he's, he's just like one of the players. Like when, when things are going well,

it feels like you've got a player coaching the team because John Tortorale is just a hockey guy. And like, I talk to players that have moved on from the Golden Knights that have gone to other teams. And they, they mentioned that there is a tenseness to the building in Vegas. And when you operate as ruthlessly as the Golden Knights have, where every player, like, if you have a bad month and we have a chance to upgrade from you, we will without hesitation. I don't care if you have six years left on your contract. We, like, it, it, like, I remember Riley Smith had the great quote a few years back. Someone asked him, like, are, like, are you nervous? Or are you thinking about your contract playing in a contract here? And he's like, this is the,

the Vegas Golden Knights every year is a contract year. Like, there's no such thing as we are always at that, like that possibility is always there. And I do think that it affects the players. I don't think it always does. But I think when they go through a bad stretch and they can't score, I think there is a tenseness to the building because of the expectations that this organization is set. And because the players know that at any moment, this team will upgrade and it could be

you who's getting upgraded. I think a coach like John Chordor like Bruce Cassidy, I've said this a million times. I think it's a downgrade. I think Bruce Cassidy is a better coach, period. If it was me, I wouldn't have done it. However, Bruce Cassidy is also a type of coach who can make players tense because he's so intense with the strategy and he's so intense with the systems. Whereas John Tortorella is just kind of a hockey guy and I think he has loosened this group up. Can he do it in the playoffs?

I think it's much, much harder to do it in the playoffs when now you're facing Anna-Hoddala. or Edmonton, and if you lose, what do you think this team's going to do this summer? They're going to replace half of you. So it's like the tenseness can come back when the playoffs get here, but I think Tortorella is built to help them with that. And Tortorella has mellowed in his older age. I think that's pretty clear. This is not the same coach who was in Tampa in 2004, you know, years in the media,

years is kind of becoming like a little cartoon character himself. He's kind of embraced the kind of the caricature again of him. and I do think this is a mellower. Like that intensity, that fire is still there. But this is not the same guy from 20 years ago. He's also won a gold medal with a handful of guys on that Vegas bench. And I think that matters here too, the familiarity with Eichel, even though it was a short stretch.

Like they've been to a battle, a major high profile battle together and won it. Noah Hanifan, same deal. So that could end up playing in their favor. The question I have, just to kind of tie these first two segments together, do we think that the islanders make the move they made yesterday, if they don't see Vegas win those first three games, you know, under Tortorella. And if both of these two teams go into the playoffs and win around,

we know how copycat a league this is, is this going to start being something we have to be thinking about at mid-March every single year, how many teams are going to fire their coach looking for that one final bump and win a playoff round off of it? I don't know. It didn't really happen after the Devils did it in the early 2000s. That was like the most extreme example and the most extreme success, and it didn't happen then.

But I think this is just always, like if you're a GM, if your ownership, this is really the only card you ever have to play in season is firing the coach. And yeah, it's a little drastic. It reeks of desperation to do it this late in the season. But, you know, like you said, new coaches bring new energy. And if you think your team has a path and nobody in the East is really all that scary, nobody in the Pacific is really all that scary. All the scary teams are in the Central Division right now.

If you see a path and like, man, we could win two playoff rounds here. If we just make sure we get in, I understand the impetus. I do think it is, they are acts of desperation and they don't necessarily make your team better, but they might make your team more successful. And I understand the impetus. No team in the Pacific is all that scary. There is one player in the Pacific. Well, there's multiple players in the Pacific that are all that scary.

One of them, of course, is Connor McDavid. But one of them is also massive. on Celebrini, Las. And at this point, I mean, we're talking awards all the time on the show at this point. It's that time. I know we're all thinking about them in the back of our minds as we try to pre-organize a ballot. Celebrini is an interesting one because a lot of voters do kind of have a block around the hard trophy of if you don't make, if your team doesn't make the playoffs, you cannot be on their ballot. You certainly cannot be on top of their ballot tends to kind of be a rule of thumb. Man, if Celebrini doesn't feel like a worthy potential exception to that rule, though, Les. It's interesting.

We've been kind of like over the last few months saying, you know, well, don't, you know, Macklin-Cellabrini deserves some heart votes, right? He deserves some heart love. And now it's like, if they make the playoffs, if these San Jose Sharks, and if you've watched the San Jose Sharks, you know this is not a good hockey team. It's an exciting team. It's a fun team. I'm in San Jose right now.

Can't wait to watch Blackhawks Sharks Night. That's going to be fun. But this is not a good hockey team. If this team is dragged into the playoffs by this 19-year-old phenom, I think he becomes the favorite. And it feels like the narrative is heading that way. Over the last few weeks, we're seeing more and more talk about that. We love, you know, the writers vote on this and we get debate all day long about the what valuable really means, right? And the most outstanding player versus the most valuable player debate, we have every year ad nauseum. But this is the Taylor

Hall year, right? This is a player who's so much better than every one of his teammates, who has so many more points than any of his teammates, and dragging a team that nobody expected to make the playoffs into the playoffs. If these sharks make the playoffs, I think Macklin-Selabrini wins the heart trophy this year. Yeah, I mean, to Mark's point, it's, I think it's 106 points for Celebrini and 54 for Will Smith, who's second on the sharks. How is that even real life? It doesn't even, like, in my head, I'm like, if these players are on the ice with him and he's getting all these points, like, doesn't somebody else have to get points eventually? It's, it's pretty wild for, for, for, well, it's funny, because his 52 point gap.

Celebrating his percentage of his teams of being in on his team's goals is like the same as Connor McDavid's even though that gap is that huge. It's really kind of incredible. And to me, like I try to not make it. I definitely adhere to the valuable definition, but I still try to not make it like guy who has the worst supporting cast award. But I look at it and the fact that he's within 20 points of Connor McDavid and you look at who Connor McDavid is surrounded by and how overall good that team is, even in a bad year, We know how good the Edmonton Oilers are. The fact that Macklin Celebrini is in that neighborhood and just watching him, you see what a driver he is.

We saw it at the Olympics. One of the sneaky battles of this award season is trying to keep any opinions formed in Olympic hockey out of your balloting. But I don't know how to unsee what I saw with Macklin Celebrity at those Olympics where he, to me, seemed like the second best player on Team Canada at 19 years old and not phased at all by that moment. I like there's sometimes an award or an argument with in awards voting with players on bad teams. It's like, yeah, they have all that. And they're that much better than their next best teammate because they, there's no one else. They get every opportunity.

They get every goal, whatever. There's a pretty easy refutation there. If you're willing to just kind of glance over at the Olympic action and see, nope, he does it when he's surrounded by superstars too. Yeah. I mean, to me, the story is like, Celebrini is in that tier. I was just looking at the, the player tier story that we did at the, beginning of a season. I love going through that every year. And like, you look at Celebrini. I think he was in

like the third tier down. And it's like, it's wild how. And they were very bullish on him. Like, that was a pro Celebrini take to put, to put him that high. And now you look at it and it's like, he's clearly in the same tier as McDavid and Kuturov and McKinnon. Like he is that level of player and he hasn't even turned 20 yet. It's pretty wild. Our producer told us just before we, we started recording this, that Macklin Celebrini is plus 2,000 for the heart. I don't think he's the favorite right now. I still think that that belongs to either McKinnon or Kuterov. It should not be plus 2,000. I'll tell you that. I'll tell you. I agree 100. Like that's, you know, we're not allowed to gamble on these awards, obviously, because we're voting on them. But man, I would

recommend to my friends and family throw some money on that one because I'm telling you. We are, we as the writing group, and I don't say this as me, I like to think I, I, I'm a very meticulous voter and I spend hours and hours, you know, but we as a, as a, as a, as a, as a voting body seem to be very prone to quote unquote narrative. And the narrative behind Macklin Celebrini, especially because Sidney Crosby won the Hart Trophy in his second year, Connor McDavid won the Hart Trophy in his second year. And look at what Macklin Celebrini is doing.

Look what he did, like you said in Milan. Look what he's doing now. If these sharks make the playoffs, I'm telling you, he has a very real chance of winning this thing. It's interesting, too, because the McKinnon momentum was so strong for the first half of the year. You take it for granted, don't we? Yes.

It's a blend of, like, he hasn't been quite that good, but he's still been awesome. But I think most of it is just that we got, people got bored of talking about how good Nathan McKinnon was. You have to fight that. You really do have to fight that when you fill out your ballot. And I, like, I voted for Nathan McKinton on top of my ballot a lot. I still, he's going to be very high on it one way or another. But I think especially, like, when I saw how much the Kuturov conversation picked up in the last month, and certainly it's earned. Like Kucherov's an awesome player.

He's having an unbelievable. stretch of hockey, not just for like 20 games or for like 50 games here. But I always wonder, like, how much of a late season push is just the people were like, well, I don't want to have decided my heart ballot in January. So let's, you know, extra count what's happening recently here. The aves are victims of like the team and McKinnon. Like they were just so good at the beginning of the year. I feel like they all took their foot off the gas pedal a little bit. And it'll be interesting to see if they can turn it back on in the playoffs. But it definitely seems like that team is not operating. at the same level of urgency, at the same, they just don't care because they're so far ahead of everyone,

and they have been for months. Yeah. It's like the John Cooper, Jack Adams, where it's like, we take it for granted. Like, of course Nathan McKinn is great. I don't want to vote for him again. And that's a lousy way of doing business here. That's not why, that's not how the voting is supposed to work. But I think you're right, Max.

I think there is a, you know, ooh, shiny new toy sensation where it's like, I want to vote for something different. I want to change the narrative here. And I do think that Nathan McKininininin and Connor McDavid, they're victims of their own success in that way. It's funny too, because I think there's an idea that like the hockey media is a hive mind. I think in reality, we're a collection of wannabe contrarians who don't realize that we're all being contrary, trying to be contrarian in the same way often at the same time. We all want to be first to the new guy. And then we all end up there. And it's like that, you know, now we're all going to vote for Kutrov.

We're all going to vote for Celebrity. And McKinnon's going to be like, you all said you were voting for me three months ago. Anyway, let's take a quick break right there. we'll come back and we'll talk about the other end of the NHL standings. All right, we are back. And some big news that happened over the weekend that obviously got a little buried by the deluge everywhere else. Buffalo Sabres are going on the playoffs, Las. The Buffalo Sabres have snapped a 14-year playoff drought that is very good news.

Obviously, in order for it to happen, it had to be very bad news for a long time too. But I think we could all probably feel the collective pressure release everywhere within the Rust Belt, certainly, of Buffalo fans letting their shoulders drop for the first time in a decade and a half. I loved how the Sabres kind of leaned into it, too. They didn't pretend like this wasn't a big deal. All the memes they were doing online. These were like, you know, Andy Dufraying coming through the pipe and the rain coming down on them. They were all excited about.

I love that. But how Buffalo was it that they couldn't even celebrate it? The night that they get, they clinch, they're down three nothing to the capital six minutes in. They've lost a couple there. They're kind of sputtering down the stretch here. It's two, three, and two. And even if you're a Buffalo fan and you've been waiting for this for 14 years, you're like, oh, God, we might lose in the first round. It's just until they actually do something in the playoffs, I feel like Buffalo is always going to be this doom-saying fan base.

But I'm so happy for them. We talked a lot this year about how much I wanted to see a Buffalo Detroit first round series. These two fan bases being rewarded for their infinite patience this last decade plus. But Buffalo, nobody wants them more. Nobody's mad at the Buffalo. Like nobody hates the Buffalo Sabres, right? they're the ultimate bandwagon team. If your team isn't going to make the playoffs,

who's not going to root for the Buffalo Sabres? I wonder if they become like a power, how long that lasts for, just like the Florida Panthers. But I think everyone in the hockey world is excited to see Buffalo. Arguably, I don't think it's even arguable, the best hockey market in the United States finally making the playoffs.

Yeah, it's, they're everybody's second favorite team. And I said it a few weeks back. It's like, I think the playoffs need the Sabers as bad as the Sabers need the playoffs. because you look at the Eastern Conference, and to me, there's so much just, like, mid. Like, there's so many teams that it's like the first round series don't have the same pop that they do in the West with, we're going to get Minnesota, Dallas, like, I want to see what Colorado does. To me, the Western series have a little more pop to them, except for Buffalo.

Like, Buffalo is going to be the playoff series. Everyone wants to watch because everyone wants to see this team either succeed in root form or are they going to do what Buffalo does? It's like to me, Buffalo being solidified the playoffs gives you one series in the East that you're for sure looking forward to every other night. Yeah, here's how happy I am for Buffalo. They wrote me a speeding ticket when I was there a week ago and I'm still happy for him. Normally, that would be disqualifying. That would be a mental ban list for me. On the New York throughway, they'll get you on the throughway.

Yeah, exactly. It was, I don't know what everything's called, but it was a, I was not pleased. It happens. I'm very happy for them. And on my way in, I drove by a sign that said, welcome to Lindy Ruffalo, which I love that for Lindy, too, that they're renaming the city limit sign for him. You know, is it him?

Is it a group of players finally realizing it's now or never? You know, it obviously happens at the time that they make the GM change, which probably lights as big a fire as anything under the players. Like, you can talk about the new coach bump. If the GM who brought everybody in gets fired, everyone has to be really scared, really. can, you know, at least contemplating what, what is their future going to hold? And whatever it was, it seems to have really kicked them into a totally new gear.

I don't want to be the Debbie down here, but should we be concerned about the Buffalo Sabres, the way they've been playing down the stretch here? Like, they're not in the situation that Colorado is in where they're just playing out the string. They were playing for, you know, positioning here. And all of a sudden, they're just giving up so many goals. Their defensive shortcomings are really kind of coming to bear. The goaltending's not there. They're not really getting bailed out the way they used to.

should we be concerned on one of these teams that's scratching and clawing and fighting to get in, kind of like the Florida Panthers a few years ago, that that team is going to be able to just take it to the Buffalo Sabres who are kind of limping into the finish line here. Yes, I think that that's a real consideration. I mean, I don't know how much to totally buy some of the Buffalo, like, oh, they play too much of a track meet hockey. Like there's certainly some of that in their game, but I also do think they have heavy players. They have two-way players. Like their blue line is young and definitely tends toward getting the puck north really fast.

I don't think it's necessarily the prototypical playoff blue line, but it's incredibly talented. And they can hem you in for days. And that's hard to do in the playoffs, but they can do it. The issue is, if you're going to be even a little leaky in the playoffs, you got to be able to get bailed out by your goaltending. And Alex Lyon was doing that. And Ukapakalukin is capable of doing that. But they haven't been getting it lately. And that is a scary situation to be in.

right on the doorstep of the playoffs. You're going to need your goalie to make some rush saves if you're the Buffalo Sabres playing the way that they are. Yeah, I mean, there's definitely reason for concern just because the lack of pedigree and history with those two goalies. Like if it were, if it were a, like Ilya Sorokin who had a bad couple weeks stretch, we would just say, ah, whatever, I'm not worried. But because Alex Lyon has a history, his whole career, basically, he has been a hot and cold goalie. And we talked a little bit about it when we were talking about my goalie tandem power rankings. I think part of the reason he's so streaky is it's built into the way he plays. He is really aggressive in terms of the depth.

He comes out of his blue paint to challenge. And when you do that, if you're reading the play really well, there's never any net to shoot at because you're in the right spot and you're so far out there that these shooters, there isn't a corner to be picked. But when you're not reading the play as well as you can and you're just a half beat behind, that's a way of playing that will give up a bunch of goals. So I think there's a reason he's been streaky. You need to hope that he's hot at the right time.

Obviously, you have UPL, who's another great option. But yes, I think there is reason for concern with the goalies. They've been awesome, and I think that they could be awesome in the playoffs. But the fact that they're having a little bit of a cold stretch here, and there's reason to see why I would be a little concerned. I am still waiting to see someone get Kevin Adams on the phone and talk to him about how he feels about all this. And I really, the GMs had a sense of humor and a sense of defiance. and any kind of, you know, fortitude,

they would vote Kevin Adams' GM of the year. Because the GMs vote on the GM of the year. It would be smart of that. And if they want to say, don't fire us. Don't fire us. We do a good. It takes a while. It's a long-term project.

It's a five-year plan. It would be the absolute funniest thing if the GMs vote at Kevin Adams' GM of the year. Self-servingly, every GM who's even a little close to that hot seat should be putting his name in the top of the ballot so they can take it to their owner and go, look, this is the situation. Just give me one more year, man. Just give me one more year. We're this close to the diamonds. We're with our pickaxes.

We're this close to the diamonds. Don't do this right now. Then the owners are going to say, yeah, and they got there as soon as they fired him. All right. So let's use that as a springboard here because I want to talk about the GM in your neck of the Woods, Max. Yeah.

Steve Eisenman, we all know how tight he is with the organization, with the fan base, with the ownership. They are free falling in March in April again. They might miss the playoffs here. is there any way that Steve Iserman is on the hot seat right now? Yeah, there is. It's interesting because I don't know if you tabulate the playoff drought the second Buffalo clinches or if it's at the end of the season,

but like as of now, Buffalo does not have a playoff drought because they're in. And that means the longest playoff drought in the league belongs to the Detroit Red Wings at nine years. They could still break it this year too, but it's not trending that way. It's gone really bad for them lately. they've lost six of their last eight in regulation. It's been seven years under Iserman. And, you know, I still have a hard time seeing the Illich family ever fire him. Like that would surprise me.

But this is a collapse. And it's been a collapse for it, depending on how you want to measure it, like four years ago, was it a collapse or, I mean, they sold at the deadline, right? Maybe that made things worse, whatever. But it's the fourth straight year that in March they've come completely undone. there's clearly something with this group that it may be a different story every year. And that's what they've kind of repeated over and over when we ask them about it is it's like it's a different team. It's a different story.

And there's different details to it for sure, different kind of arcs. But it's the same result year after year. And I think for a general manager who's been in that job for seven years, it's kind of unavoidable that those conversations start to pick up. So I don't know, you know, Elliot Friedman floated the theory on his podcast of a, you know, kind of a bump up, the Ron Fran. effectively. I think that that is interesting. I don't know. If you do it that way, I question like what really changes. Like if it's still ultimately kind of the same guy at the top, even if there's a different person in the chair, it's kind of a new voice. But like, I think it would be naive to say there's no chance of a front office shakeup of some kind. And it's been as,

this is probably as bad of a of a collapse as they've had. And that tends to have some kind of consequence. I saw in your story, Tom McClellan, an interesting quote. He's talking about whether it's a confidence issue or a mental fortitude issue. And I'm not sure there's a huge difference between the two, but I know what he means. I've been in rooms where guys are just frustrated and feel snakebitten and feel cursed. And I've been in rooms where players are mentally weak. Which one is more likely in Detroit right now? I don't know. They have a problem going back years where when things go wrong, they go really wrong. Like they spiral on them. And it happened last night.

I mean, they were up 1-0. They played a pretty good first period against the wild. They give up a goal 18 seconds into the second period. And then they give up three more in the next 11 minutes. Like 12 minutes. That was snowball effect. And that's mostly what McClellan has

eliminated from their game through most of this season. Like that was the biggest reason that I was willing to kind of buy into this being a different situation this year. Even when some of the underlying number, of the five on five scoring were low. It was like, yeah, but what's really killed them in past years is A, they didn't really have goal tending, which John Gibson has mostly given them this year, at least like steady, true 1A consistently goaltending. And B, like when they went on a losing

streak, when they lost a game, it always became a losing streak. When they gave up, you know, a goal that they shouldn't have. It always became two or three goals. That was out of their game for 60 plus games this year. And it has come back at this time of year, which is something psychological seems like it has to be the answer to that. I feel like Gibson deserves more credit than he's been given league-wide for the season. He's at a tough month is the thing. It's like 900 since March 1st, but I agree. 900's above league average.

That's right. It's true. It's true. We have to redefine what's good goaltending with all these kids scoring like Macklin-Celebrini every night. I haven't checked it in a couple weeks, so maybe he has fallen behind. But, I mean, for a while there, it was like since the middle of December. which is a very, very long time.

John Gibson led the NHL and save percentage since December. Like this isn't a month. It's been months and months and months of very good goaltending. And I wonder if maybe he was part of the reason that, like you mentioned, like it covered up some things. He would stop the bleeding. Like you'd give up a goal, but it wouldn't turn into a bunch of them because Gibson would bail you out. And I wonder if he's up there in age. It's been a while since John Gibson has played meaningful games in this time of season.

It's been a while since he's played this many games in a season. I wonder if he's running out of gas and isn't able to cover up some of the mistakes that he was earlier in the year. He started something like 14 consecutive games for them, including both ends of a back-to-back. He ends up getting pulled on the second half of that. So you can kind of question, I guess, some of the wisdom to that. Not the back-to-back this weekend, the previous one. But yeah, it was, I actually think that they want it, like, maybe a little too much. Like, I think it's just, it's on their, it's on their shoulders.

it's on their faces. It's like, this can't happen again. And I feel for them. It's a brutal situation. But it's happening again, and they have not found a way to make it stop. And the way they lost to the wild was so brutal. They do have that collapse.

And they come all the way back. Patrick Gane takes a bad penalty. They lose it late. I mean, it's almost worse to come close. And then that's when you're really getting in your heads. Like even when we do things right, we're still coming up empty in there. And you start gripping the sticks too tight.

These are human beings. I know we think of these. These are professional athletes. They have the memory of a goldfish and they can move on and flush it. They can't. These are, they understand the situation. They know the history in Detroit. They know how much this matters.

They know their own history. And they're feeling it every single time they hop over the boards. They're feeling the weight of that. No matter how veteran you are, even Patrick Kane is going out there, feeling the weight of that playoff drought right now in Detroit. Because I really think they thought this was different. I mean, Kane had a quote earlier this year that was like, I've been on good teams.

This is a good team. You know, like there's numerous instances of the way that they've talked and be like, oh, they really believe in what they have. Steve Eiserman traded in unprotected first round pick at this trade deadline. That was not wise to not protect that pick, but that tells you how much he believed in this team. And I thought, like for the record, I thought that was a good trade. I would always protect the first round pick. Even the Florida Panthers protect their first round picks. So I'm not justifying that.

But that pick looked like it was going to be like 22 at the time they made that trade. I thought that was a perfectly fine trade. so I'm not, you know, changing my opinion on that a month later when it's convenient. It's just like, I'm telling you, that's how much they thought that this was different, is they were willing to trade their first round pick without protection on it. And it's just all come collapsing down on them. So it's not too late. There are two points out.

Technically, it's still there. But over the last month, they have not looked like a team that can easily make up a two-point gap with five games to play. And it looks like that by the end of this year, they may very well be the holders of the longest playoff drought in the NHL. which is insane. Like this team went whatever, 20-something years making the play. They had the all-time streak for playoff. And then it wasn't like they missed it a couple years, then made it a couple years, then missed it a couple of years, then missed it a couple, and then started the drought.

It literally went back, like they went with 20 years without missing the playoffs. 25. And then immediately into the longest drought in the league. That's absolutely insane. It's something for the Toronto's of the world to keep in mind. Tear down rebuilds. They're long shots, man. They're really, really difficult to pull off.

They take a really, really long time. They really, really test your fans' patience. You look at what Pittsburgh and Boston are doing. That's what everybody's going to want to do now. This is fascinating that you say that, though, Las, okay? Because I feel like right now, both Toronto and Detroit can kind of look at each other, Spider-Man meme, right? Toronto's looking at Detroit and saying, see, this is why we can't tear it down.

And Detroit, in a similar vein, has to be looking at Toronto and saying, like, we can't, you know, do something drastic with our roster here because it doesn't always make things. better. And now, I think they need to do something with the roster. And let me be clear about that. But there was scapegoating in Toronto that I'm starting to see a bubble among the fan base in Detroit. And they want to, you know, pick a scapego to blame and say, we got to get this guy out. And that'll fix everything. Look at the Toronto Maple Leafs. It will not. It will make things worse. And you will be in a worse situation a year from now. That's not to say run it back. I'm not saying

copy Toronto, because that obviously wasn't working either. But that's how bad a situation you get to when you're in this spot where you have this hump that you can't seem to get over. And you want to be like, okay, just change this and it'll all fix it or blow it all up. You can blow it all up and you can do this whole thing again. It's it's the worst spot you can possibly be in the NHL. I love how the Toronto Maple Leafs have become the cautionary tale in all situations. They tanked. It didn't work.

They ran it back a hundred times in a row. It seemed like it worked. And then it didn't work. But then they kept running it back and that didn't work. And then they're like, okay, we're going to get tough now. We're not going to be a skill team. They're going to retool. And then that didn't work.

Like, no matter what you're doing, you can look at the Toronto Maple Leafs and go, oh, God, we're screwed. Yeah, which era of Toronto Maple Leafs don't you want to be is the ultimate question. I know. It's crazy. It's crazy. There's a lot there. I mean, we could do a whole podcast on the Red Wings. But I think we should probably wrap there for today.

Thanks for doing this to both of you. And thanks to you all for listening for this episode of the athletic hockey show. All the Shons you want. None you don't. Frankie Carrado. All with you. Wednesday. We'll talk to you soon.