The Athletic Hockey Show - It's early, but is Ovechkin slowing down? The under appreciation of Evgeni Malkin and are the Senators and Red Wings contenders in the East?

Episode Date: October 19, 2023

Hailey, Max and Sean review Ottawa's blowout win over the Capitals and Detroit's home ice win over Penguins and ask are Ottawa and Detroit contenders this season? They debate Evgeni Malkin's snub on ESPN's top 100 NHL player rankings and wonder if Alex Ovechkin's struggles to start the year are simply a slump, or the new normal?SUBSCRIBE TO THE ATHLETIC NHL'S YOUTUBE CHANNEL AT youtube.com/@theathletichockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is The Athletic Hockey Show. What's up, everybody? Welcome back to another episode of The Athletic Hockey Show. It's your new Thursday kind of lineup here. It's Max Boltman, Sean Jantilly, myself. It's me, Haley, Salvian. Welcome to the show. Thanks for joining us, guys.

How's it going on? I thought you just weren't going to introduce yourself. I thought you were like, okay, these two. These two crumbums. I got to tell you their name. Me, though. You already know who I am. It's Max, it's Sean and me.

And if you hear anything on the show that you don't appreciate, you don't know who I am. So direct any comments and concerns to Max Boltman and Sean Gentile. I'll send you their emails. No, you won't. At a later date. You will not. My email is impossible to find. Nobody knows how to reach me.

Sean's off the grid. Max, how's it going? Sean keeps talking. You haven't been able to say hello yet. That's okay. I'm not quite awake enough to say hello, but, yeah, what is that? Were you, were you writing late or just up late? Because we know, yeah, we had a game last night.

It was wings, wings, penguins. Yeah, good game. It was, uh, was it, it was the TNT game. So a little, little, it was. It was a late push. I mean, it ends up a three goal spread, but it's a four three game, you know, with two minutes left. And, uh, yeah, I think it's been an interesting start to the season.

I'm sure we're going to talk about that. Yep. Well, I think that's kind of the big first. topic of the day here is, you know, only two games on last night. Um, as Max just said, Max covers the Red Wings for the Athletics. So he was at the Red Wings, Penguins game last night. And then the other game on tap was the senators versus the Washington capitals, both the Sends and Red Wings.

One, I know there was the late push, but we could say when we look at the final score, like both kind of young teams that we talked about, you know, last week, hopefully making pushes, uh, to make the playoffs this year, uh, or next year. I don't know. Some people kind of wrote off the Red Wings, I think. A lot of people thought Detroit was going to be of like Ottawa, Detroit, and Buffalo. It was like, well, we believe in the Sabres and the Sends a little bit more than the Red Wings. So it's been really fun to see the Red Wings have an encouraging start to the season. So both teams win in convincing fashion last night. They're both three one and O on the season. And they're facing off on Saturday afternoon. So that's going to be a fun little matchup, especially when you sprinkle in some of the Alex DeBrinke left us. And, If you don't want to be here, then good luck to you, sir, stirring the pot that's happened between those two teams. But before we get to that, before we tee up that game, like, let's dive into this matchup from last night between the Red Wings of the Penguins Max.

What's the early vibe around this team? Because we know they're 3-1-0. Alex Debrinket, by the way, leading the league in points. It's not Connor McDavid. It's not of Gennie Malkin, who we'll talk about for reasons in a moment. It's to break it. And the Red Wings have a really exciting offense to start the season. Yeah, this is, we're definitely into that, like, okay, it's enough games to call it a little bit of a trend.

It's way too early to know what it means. And that is, that is very much a great area for podcasting. So we're going to try to walk around this one a little bit. But yes, the Red Wings have the leading scorer in the NHL. They are tied for the most goals period in the NHL. They have the best power play in the NHL through four games. What do you make of all that? I have no idea.

I think they're clearly a deeper team, though. And I think that's kind of my takeaway so far. It's not that, you know, this is who they are. But I do think it's pretty good indication that that kind of scoring by committee, that much deeper approach that they kind of tried to assemble and that, you know, at least half of the fan base was really buying into and half was really skeptical of. That does look like it's legit so far. They have goals from 12 different players, four games in.

And when you have one guy with five goals, that is actually really remarkable. J.T. Comfort. What have you said? I feel like he's been, he's been good. Good. Now, I'm not just saying that because I have him on my fantasy team. It's going to be part of why I'm saying it. But, like, he's, you know, I think, oh, I think people defaulted on him to thinking of him as like, yes, he's, he was, he's, he was, he's,

coming off a pretty good year with the avs. It was just a for... But it was the abs. It's the abs and it's also like a fortunate break for him because he just so happened to be one of the most productive forwards and probably the most productive center. Hitting the market, you know, in

a year where it was those, that sort of stuff was in short supply, right? So I think people almost forgot that he was, that we came into the summer with him as him is one of the prizes of the whole of the whole proceedings right and he's been he's been good yeah and

before max can kind of talk about like early observations from j t comfor i think one of the conversation points around him in free agency was like what is jt comfor when he's not just the really good three c on a elite team right like can he be more than just like a reliable middle six guy like can you push him up the lineup if you need can you get him to be the play driver not just kind of the dude beside deep wingers on an elite team. And if it's going to work out well for the Red Wings, I mean, it's early again. I feel like we need to preface this whole episode title, Jeff,

if you're listening to this, our producer, extraordinaire. Just call this like overreactions from the first 10 days of the season. So, yeah, it's early, but like J.T. Comfort and Detroit looks pretty solid. And we're still at the point now, too, where it's like goal totals out. outweigh everything. So it's like, like, J.T. Comfer, knocks in a few. You're like, oh, he's like, not bad. And then you look and it's like, his expected goals percentage is under 40%. Like, whatever. Here's what I'll say. So a couple different things on that.

He's got the one goal, he's got a bunch of assists. And yes, what they've done with him is they've put him into this matchup line. So that line was getting, like, is getting the last couple of games, like a steady diet of, the other team's best players. They put it together kind of by accident, stumbled upon it when they were going 11 and 7 against the lightning. They put him with Andrew Cop and Michael Rasmussen. And so that has kind of become their matchup line. It's also scoring. And so it's like they are going to take some, you know, the brunt of it a little bit on the XG because they're eating matchups for everybody else. But those are three of their best defensive forwards and they stuck them together.

It is their second line, but it kind of maybe has the character of what you would typically think of as like a shutdown third line just happens to have a couple of guys who have put up, you know, 40, 50 points in the past on it. And so it does a little more. Comfer, I think is a huge piece of that because you watch him. I definitely in my head had like, okay, this is a guy who can do the dirty work. And he put up 50 points last year, but he's playing with Miko Ranton. And like, what is that going to look like when he's not playing with Miko Randon? There have been times where it looked like he was going to play with Lucas Raymond, who is good and skilled, but not Miko rant in them. What I've found is JT Comfer can drive a lot more than I was giving him credit

for on entries. He is smart. He is skilled. He is patient. He wins pox. He uses his body well. And when you put him in that situation where he's going to play with two other guys who I think can play his brand of game and he can be the skill guy on it, it has still worked. So I do think they're not going to keep that same line together all year. They'll probably have to split it up at time, especially when they want to get cop and comfort both at center. I do think that's a line that probably will take it on the chin with some underlines because of their matchups and still find a way to help the Red Wings win because of what they're able to take in and what they're able to do against it. Right. And if they're losing the expected goal battle,

but Andrew Kopp is like, you know, scoring a big goal at an important time. I think you can live with the XG not being great if you're actually winning the actual goal battle. And I think that's kind of what you said, Max, is like it's for four games. And I think the Red Wings power play is clipping along, like, almost. 50% to Brinket scoring every single night. We know from last season that didn't happen, but we need to like, you know, maybe pump the brakes on what De Brinket look like in Ottawa because it was a very different situation. It took him 16 games until November 16th to hit the five goal mark with the Sends last year. Obviously, he's on the top line in Detroit. He's got chemistry already with

Dylan Larkin, so it's totally different situation. But like, he's not going to score every single night. And if he was, I'll, you know, apologize to Alex to Brinket. If you mean, if Alex to Brinket. Specifically, and I'll congratulate him. on his 82 goals season. He doesn't score 90 goals or whatever. Yeah. But as you said, Max, I think, like, what is significant is that it seems like the Red Wings have enough pieces this year that they can withstand a slump from Alex to Brinket.

Andrew Cobb can pot a few. J.T. Comfer can do something. If Lucas Raymond can take steps in the right direction, he can step up. More at Sider, like, it's an encouraging start, but at the same time, yeah, they're not going to score five goals all season and have a 50% power play. But it seems like they got a little bit more juice to sprinkle around on that team this season, which is encouraging. Absolutely.

To get where they've gotten, they've gotten one goal from Dylan Larkin, who was the leading score last year and one goal from Lucas Raymond, who I think was maybe their X-Factor player coming to this year. If you had told me that before opening night that the first four games they were going to get one goal from Dylan Larkin and one goal from Lucas Raymond, I probably would have their record flipped in terms of what I thought that would mean. I think I would have had it at one and three. Instead, they're three and one. And that is the case and point for kind of the approach that they tried to take the summer with the depth. Yeah, I mean, the top six dynamic, it's,

it got to it in kind of a, they're getting to it in kind of a backwards way. But if this is the way it works where you have cop and comfort out there, you're, you just throw them to the wolves, right? You say you guys eat tufts, play against top lines, score when you can, make it, make the inline dynamic their work because of goals and, you know, and taking tough minutes away from everybody else. And then you have the top line cook, regardless of how it happens, even though it's been more to brink it than Larkin, I think, than like, then maybe anybody would have guessed.

You say, all right, we'll take it. That's a functional dynamic in your top six. And I don't know, is it sustainable? Like, we'll see. But if this season works out for the Detroit, Red Wings, this is what it's going to look like in some form or fashion, right? To have to have one of those lines do the dirty work and then be able to free up Larkin and to bring it to some extent to do what they want at five on five. And the only other thing I'd say is it's going to have to

mean more defense because they are going to regress to them, mean offensively. And so what you're going to have to show is, yes, this is the kind of the character, like the depth scoring look it's going to need to be. It's also going to need to look a lot tighter. And it's going to need to start looking a lot tighter as soon as possible because their next game is against the team they're tied with for the most goals in the league, the Ottawa senators, who also, by the way, and even more so, I would say, in my opinion, look like a freight train. And that's a great transition. Thank you, Max.

There's three teams in the NHL with 19 goals through their first four games, three teams that are three, one and oh, and that's the Detroit Red Wings, the Ottawa Senators, and the Carolina hurricanes. One of these things are not like the other ones. consistent playoff contender and the other two of the ones that, you know, people are hoping, like, let's see what they can do this season. Can they make it in? And the Sends having one of the top offenses in the NHL this year after everyone's saying, like, they cannot have another slow start under DJ Smith. This cannot happen again.

Everyone's on the hot seat. Things got to work out better this year. And it has. And it's interesting because it has kind of without, you know, they brought in Dominic Kubalik. that was one of the trade pieces from the Brinkett deal. They were hoping he could add some middle six scoring that hasn't happened yet, but I guess that doesn't matter when you have Brady Kachuk and Claude Drew and Tim Stitzla. Oh, and Josh Norris is back and Jake Sanderson's a stud on the blue line. Sends looked good. You just looked really good last night, Indy.

Oh, it was, you just kind of knew that that sounds so lame and corny, but I feel like you just kind of knew he was going to come in and score right away. He's got a great shot. I remember when I was covering the Sends, I forget which player it was, but people were always saying, like, you know, obviously you're not going to compare a young kid on the sentence to Ovechkin, but when you got Josh Norris, like, lining up at the top of the circle and the power play,

he's got an excellent release, and he kind of likes to hover in the OV spot. He's got a great release. He scores twice in his season debut. and yeah, Sends beat the caps in pretty convincing fashion, and now they're going to face off against the Red Wings on Saturday. It really seems like Ottawa's young guys are, they've taken that step, right? Like, Jake Sanderson was really good last year, and to start this season, I mean,

he's taking that leave, you know, offensive explosion for Jake Sanderson. I'm sure everybody that's, everybody had penciled in, right? But it was always possible. Like, when you have a guy who skates like this and is this smart, like it's not like we didn't see offense from him in college. No. He was, so to me, it's all coming together for the senators here. We talk about the Red Wings and how it's happened,

how they would have kind of drawn it up with their offseason plan. This is how the senators have drawn it up with like their five year plan. Yeah. You know, like, this is, you know, I don't want to like, I'm not trying to make like the unparalleled success meme here, whatever. This is what they were going for. They're three years away from being three years away.

That's the Raptors, Bruno Cabuclo. I'm sorry. Well, but it was pretty much the same. But this was the plan. These are the pieces. Obviously, you get some, like, pleasant surprises. Maybe they didn't think five years ago that they were going to have Claudea and Vladimir Tarasenko in the mix.

They just thought it was going to be, you know, Brady and Stitzla. And I think the thing I keep coming back to is we're sitting here and having this conversation about Tim Stitzla and Jake Sanderson being, you know, kind of the straw that stirs the drink on offense and defense. They got both of those dudes in the top five in the draft when I was still covering this team. And it was so devastating for Sends fans when they did not win the draft lottery. And it was like so doom and gloom and people were panicking when they took Jake Sanderson. I think there was even maybe some like questions of do we want byfield? Do we want Stutzelah? Like how is this going to work out?

And I think we can fairly say that the Sends got the two best players that went in the top five. Well, he had the, Corey just did a redraft of the Stutz. God help me. Was that 20, 20, 20, that was 2020, wasn't it? 2019. Oh, my gosh. It was during the pandemic. I remember that because I knew it was a law for near a draft. Those three years are still the same for me, I think.

I actually didn't age for three years. I'm still only. Congratulations. Good for you. I was young at the start of it and then not whenever it was over. COVID birthdays don't count. Just subtract three from your current age. I like going to bars a lot less now than I did in February of 2020 for whatever reason.

It's Stutzel at the top of that redraft that Corey did by a country mile and he said as much, right? Like, I know Haley, you were kind of on that train whenever it happened, but it's only been borne out more over the last few years that I think there was always a possibility that Stutzel was going to be the guy coming out of that draft. Like there were people, there were people who thought that led by, give him his flowers. led by Corey Prondman who were like, this might be the dude. and it happened a little more quickly than anybody anticipated, right? So good for them. The other thing that I wanted to know about the sentence, and I know we're talking about how everything's falling into place,

and this is exactly how they drew it up. And, you know, who could have envisioned a better start to the season for them? And that's true because they've been awesome. They're tied for the lead and goals and whatever. They, you know, smoke those boys last night. It's fine. They're doing it without, you're... Huh?

I was going to say, where are you going with this? I'm scared. They're doing it without Shane Pinto. This isn't how, this isn't how they drew it up. Like, there is this, it's not, I don't want to make it sound like it's an axe hanging over the head of the roster because at some point he's going to be back in the mix and everything's, you know, going to be fine theoretically. But like, they're making everybody forget about this huge preseason ongoing issue

where you have a guy who is slotted in as your long, term third line center or middle six center, let's say. And he's still not in the mix to the point where it seems like people are forgetting that he is not, this is not a choice that he's making for himself. This is cap related mismanagement by, by Pierre Dorian in one way or another. So at some point they're going to figure it out, they're going to have to move somebody. So cross your fingers if you're a Sends fan. But like, I think we even,

I think to an extent, because we saw it on, we saw it on SportsNet, but I saw Sends fans freaking out over it on the Canadian. You're stealing all my points. On the Canadian broadcast, they're like, you know,

why is he, if you're Shane Pinto, like, why are you sitting at home right now? Like, don't you want to be a part of this? Like, yeah,

he does. The cents have $65,000 in that space. I was going to say, there's like 63, like, $63,000 reasons that represent every dollar of the cents have to spend under the salary cap for, for why this is happening.

So like it might not work out. It might not. It's obviously on a clean fix. If it were, he'd be on the roster already. But they're going to get better at some point, right? Because that's, regardless of,

of how it happens. Yeah, you're adding another 20 goal center into the next. Right. Yeah. Like a casual 20 goal center who can take defensive zone face offs and be on one of your top PK units and be like a reliable two-way guy who can, score 20 when I was covering the team in the pandemic and it was the 2020 draft by the way since

we were all like 2019 2020 2020. Max probably actually said the correct answer because he is smarter than both of us. It's why Max is now on the Thursday show if you're wondering. They needed someone to rain Sean and I. That's offensive. Okay. But I feel like I spent so much time just watching the University of North Dakota when Shane Pinto and, you know, Jacob Bernard Docker, Jake Sanderson are there, spent a lot of time talking to Brad Berry. And again, Shane Pinto is one of those picks that people were like, what are they doing? Like, Bobby Brinks on the board. Why are you going? This is a reach. And it's another one of those

draft picks that aged really well for Pierre Dorian and Trent Mann, who's no longer with the organization on the ladder, and aged poorly for fans who freaked out over that. Shane Pinto showed immediately in his first year of college that he was going to be worth that pick, same with Jake Sanderson. So, like, I don't know how they're going to get it done cap space-wise. Like,

I think sense fans I've seen are kind of worried they might lose, like a Matthew Joseph if he continues to have a strong start to the season. I think if you're a sense fan, you're probably hoping somebody wants Dominic Kubalik. I think anybody could have had Dominic Kubalik at any point over the last few years. parts where you kind of wonder, like, when you're trading Alex to brinket and you know that you've got young guys to sign, why are you taking cap in? Like, just take what you can. And maybe that's a misfire. Like, maybe that's an oversimplification on my part. But, like, I feel

like you should have, again, it's so easy to say, like, just don't get a contracted player, but the Red Wings probably were like, we need to get something off the books. I don't know. I also think it was scoring. You're some. contracting to brinket. You don't know if you're sure that you're getting Tarasenko yet. Because again, he was supposed to be like a middle six scoring option. And then when Tarasanko is an option, you're not going to say no. Right? So it's an oversimplification. I just don't know who they're going to have to lose to make that work. It's like a, it's a monkey's paw situation for the Sends fans

where it's like, boy, I'd love it if we had the space to sign Shane Pinto and then like, be careful what you wish for. Because who are you going to lose? Are you going to lose somebody? Is it going to take someone getting hurt? And then you have some LTIR money. It is like, I don't know. Like this is, there's,

this is going to work out eventually. But the route, the route to it is still kind of fraught, I think. Yeah. Yeah. And I think the important thing is to say too. And again,

you know, we don't want to be rude to anyone who does broadcasting. But like, I do think the conversation about the Pinto negotiation, that we saw on TV was a bit more of like, why is he not signing?

And that's not really the case. It sounds like, and this is from Darren Dregor, from TSN, like he says like there's no stalemate here. Like everyone's trying to find a solution. This is a cap issue. And then I think the thing that obviously we've just said this, we've made the point, it's a self-inflicted cap issue. Sure, it's, you know, hindsight 2020, but, you know,

you got a, you got to earmark some money for, And on some level, like, I'm fine with, like, you mentioned Teresenko. This is, like, kind of where it all comes back. Like, I'm theoretically, conceptually, I'm okay with Pierre Dorian being like, look, we can sign Vladimir Tarasenko. Like, let's get it done. Get that contract filed. Let the chips fall where they may.

Like, it's going to work out eventually. Like, I'm fine with that. But we're at the point now where it's October 19th. It's like, you got to. stuff hasn't fallen into place, right? So procedurally it's fine, but the result has not been, not been great.

You know, and it's all, but like, but then again, who gives a shit? Because they're, because they're, they're a wagging. Like, what does it matter?

Yeah. Like, it's probably going to work out fine. Everything's going to be great and awesome and fun. And by the way, Ridley, Greg is in that middle six center position,

and that's kind of fun in the interim, honestly. We like it. I have to say, I do think, You know, the, the, we are probably underrated the possibility that injury solves this thing for them. It usually does. Like, something's probably going to happen.

That's every team, every team faces into it. And it's nothing, you know, nothing disastrous. But like, guys get hurt. It just tends to work out that way. There is attrition over the course of an NHL season. And because of the way the cap is set up, like, it creates, it creates money where there wasn't before. Not to, like, bring some bad juju in here, but the Sends injury history over the last few years is. not great. So there probably is a good chance that something happens.

Okay, so Max, we're going to get to your question after the break. I have a feeling that it's going to transition well as we're talking about these two young, exciting teams to a couple of older teams who we want to dig into some older players, some questions and concerns that we have. So we're going to take a break. We'll be right back. I can't speak. All right, welcome back. Max, you have a question. What's up? I do. It's taking me about. back to college. Max, you've raised your hand.

Where'd you go to college? The University of Michigan. John, thanks for asking in Arbor. Public Ivy, I've heard. Paul and Fingerman's Deli. Harvard, the West, or Midwest. Everything I could say to make everyone listening to this week. Including me.

Yeah. We're trying to get the ratings up. Yeah. Another thing that might get everyone listening to this to hate me. My question, A Lee, is this. Okay, obviously the center's win is impressive no matter what, but where the Washington Capitals are at to start this season. My question is, are we, how worried are we that we're not going to get Alex Ovechkin and Nicholas Baxter

back to how we know and love them? Yeah. So a little relevant statistic that goes with your question. Alex Ovechkin was held off the score sheet like he didn't have a shot on goal in back-to-back games for the first time in his career last night. I don't love that. It feels like, and look, again, we're, what,

four games into the season, two games in the season for some teams, the schedule is just hilarious. We get to watch every single game at 7 p.m. on the dot, and some teams play all the time, and others don't play at all. But yeah, that was, that's a rough one. It's early. We don't want to overreact,

but that stat with the way that the caps have looked when we've watched them, it seems like it could be a rough season for Washington. And I feel like we predicted this too. Like it's not a total shock that the team might not be very good. But the Ovechkin thing is like, we don't want to overreact,

but also it's like, oh my. On the one hand, it's actually kind of shocking that it hadn't happened. That's kind of impressive that it took until he was, what, 38 years old to not have shots and goal in back-to-back games, but then you're also kind of like, oh. Right. And we saw last year, Baxter already looked like it was headed the wrong way, and we know where the team is at. I don't think, I didn't think any of us expected the Capitals to really even threaten the playoffs this year. But you still, in your mind, are planning for 40 to 45 goals from Alex Ovechkin. And we may still get that. I'm not trying to overreact.

A lot of times the stars do age in a way that, like, no one can even account for. I'm just saying, you see an output like that. And maybe it's a start of the year thing. We know older guys start slow. Yeah. This is the first time I've even considered that we might not see the OV we're used to seeing. Yeah. I think one thing, and I saw this on social from Tom Galletti, from NHL.com.

And to be fair, he went without a goal in his first. three games for the second straight season. So this happened last year. You know, he went the first couple without scoring and then we know what happened last year. He, you know, hits a bunch of milestones, et cetera, et cetera. The longest he's gone before score without scoring his first goal was in 2012-13. He went the first four games without, and then he led the NHL and goals that season, not saying he's going to win the rocket this year.

So a couple things to like, you know, lower the alarm bells, lower the volume on the alarm bells. And he also had four shot attempts last night, but they were all blocked. Five attempts versus the flames on Monday. Three blocked. Two missed in that. So is it a shot selection thing? Is it a release thing? It's tough to know.

But, you know, goal scores are streaky. But I do wonder if the way that the caps are constructed right now, if that's going to have an impact on Ovechkin's production. Sean, what do you think about the caps? Is this going to be a bit of a rough year in Washington? I don't want to overreact it right now or this is like overreaction Thursday or whatever. Yeah, I know.

We keep saying, I don't want to overreact, but, or it's early, but that's the episode title for Jeff. But if this is the end for, or the beginning of the end for Alexander Ovechkin, like this is what it looks like. The difference between, I know we're talking about last year, he didn't score and his first few games, and he's had rough stretches in the past typically because of coaching,

whether it was Dale Hunter or playing right wing with under Adam Oates and all that stuff. They're always underlying, you know, circumstances or mitigating circumstances. Dude is 38 years old now. The end comes for everybody. It's going to happen at some point. At some point in the next five years, five months, five minutes, Alexander Ovechkin is not going to be an effective NHL player anymore. I don't think we're there yet, but we've seen it more than enough.

And even if you limit the discussion to players in this all-time first ballot, top 15, top 20, I go back to the NHL 100 list we did last year, the all, whatever it was the all-time list, where Greetsky was number, was number. one, I always forget what to call it. If you just limit it to like the top 15, that list is dotted with guys who got old overnight. It happens. It happened to Joe Sackick.

It happened to Steve Iserman, who was, you know, I know people love to talk about the mid-career pivot Eiserman made to being, you know, a little bit more of a defensive-minded player and he had a long tail at the end of it. But he was effective really up until the end. And same goes for Sackick. It was like one year he was, you know, a 30-goal player. the next year he was old and hurt. And then there was a couple years in steep decline, and then he was done.

And it's happened before. In the discussion on Alex Oveskin for the last few years, increasingly so after last year, is that this guy is a power play creation. Like his play at five on five has slipped. There were signs of slippage on the power play last year. The main reason his production came was because he was force-fed shots from. the point. And you get, look, those all count. We always say it. I say it in discussions with Dom. We say it on the show. Power play goals count. It's a part of the game. But when it's,

it was such a huge part of his game over the last couple years, in such a huge part of what made him effective and irrelevant, if that goes away, then we have a real problem. Like if the shot volume on the power play, which is the single biggest reason to believe that he was going to keep cruising for, for the Gretzky record, for the goals record. It was shot volume on the power play. And guess what's left in the last two games? Shot volume on the power play. If something happens, whenever something happens that knocks out that part of his game,

it could get ugly. And if it's happening, whether it happens now in a year, whenever, at some point it will. And it's going to look a lot like what we've seen the last couple, last couple nights. Right. they're a really interesting team as a whole, too, with the Caps, because it seems like it's a team that, you know, the kind of way that they were going at the deadline, I thought it was great. You know, they kind of knew where they were at and they just started selling off assets last year. And I thought that was smart. And it kind of turned into a bit of a quick retool coaching change. They bring in Spencer Carberry, you know, a couple tweaks on the roster. But at the end of the day, the roster in terms of like the core looks pretty much the same. Like we're still talking about Kuznetsov and Backstrom and Overs. Ovechkin and Tom Wilson, but then there's some, T.J. O'Shi, we could go down the list, John Carlson, but there's some, you know, window dressings that have changed. And there's some young players that are on this roster. Like, shout out to Short King Matthew Phillips, who scores his first NHO goal against the Calgary Flames. So it's going to be interesting. They're a team that kind of is marked with a lot of ifs, right? It's like if Kuznetsov is going to have, you know, a good season. If Ovechkin can score 35 again, if young players can take the next step, if Max Patcheretti can, you know, be effective after his injuries last season. And then if all of those things happen, well, then, you know, maybe they're

going to be in the fight. Maybe they'll be in the middle of the pack. Maybe they'll be competitive. It's, you know, three games in for them. They're one, two, and oh right now. And we haven't really seen that click yet. But, you know, they're a team. I said this last year. I thought the caps were like toast and they had a pretty good run at one point. And then they ended. ended up not being great by the deadline and started selling. So they're going to be an interesting team to kind of watch go up and down throughout the season. Yeah, you can only delay that for so long, though, right? Like, whether they're toast now or like, Nicholas Bactrin,

when he came back from hip surgery last year, over the course of the last 30 or 35 games, whatever he played after, I don't have the exact number ahead of me. He scored less points per six. He had five on five than Lars Eller. And Larzeller is like the platonic ideal of an all defense, no offense, bottom six guy. So if you're Nicholas Baxter, you come back, if that's who he is moving forward,

they're in deep, they're in deep, deep trouble. And it's proof, again, like I keep coming back to this where it's like, this happens quickly. And when you have guys like Ovechkin or Crosby or, or Gennemalkin or whoever, you need to make hay while these guys are still good. And you cannot take for granted because a guy was a point per game player at 36

that he's going to be the same guy at 37. This is how it happens. Yeah. Let's, let him, we can't let him age. I'll say this. We can't let him age out,

though, until he gets the Gretzky record. So, unfortunately, I don't think he's done. No, I still think he's going to go 40 years this year.

It's fine. It's just like a fun stat to bring up. You know, it's just like, oh, we might be having this discussion again in three years, right?

Like, I don't want to make it sound like like this is, it's happening right now, but when it comes, this is what it's going to look like. That's all that's all I'm saying. All right. Let's end our early season dump on the caps. We were sorry. We're just a little worried, but maybe it'll be okay. So we've kind of hit the three teams that were in action on

Wednesday night. So let's hit on the fourth. It was the Pittsburgh Penguins who lost to the Detroit Red Wings. Eric Carlson gets his first goal as a penguin. He had another, I think a primary assist for Carlson. He's looked good. I just think it's so. fun that he's on the penguins. It really is a cool thing that's happening right now. Something to keep an eye on, obviously. But the big thing we want to talk about when it comes to Pittsburgh is of Gennie Malkin. He scores last night. Again, he's had a really strong start to the season, seven points through the first three, four games for the penguins. Again, I really don't know how many games everyone's played. It's four games for the penguins. Penguins play all the time.

I guess so. I hate that. That's a whole other discussion. I hate this guy right now so much. So seven points for Evgeny Malkin to start the season. But not a top 100 player, according to ESPN. This has been kind of a big thing. Our colleague Josh Yowy had a pretty good piece. The best part about Yowie's piece, you know, getting the reaction from it is like, usually you would think that guys wouldn't care. Like you go into the room and say, hey, did you see this?

What do you think? Can they be like, whatever? Guys seem actually, like, genuinely pissed off that Malkin was not rated in the top 100 and they were like pissed off about some of the players who were on that list over malcon. This is not the first time that he's been left out of a top 100 list. He wasn't on the NHL 100, which was the top 100 players of all time. That was in 2017. We should say he was on the athletics player tiers.

He was in the top 100. He was in like the mid-60s for us, right? So we think of Genie Malkin is a top 100 player, but according to a panel of 50 experts by ESPN, he's not. And I think we can just say that's incorrect. Max, do you want to start? Yeah, I mean, last night I just watched him and he was certainly one of the best players on the ice. He scores the goal the minute in and that's a breakdown that I, you know, it's the Redmings can't have a minute and you can't lose if any Malcolm and you can't

give him that kind of space. But he also just, there's just so much about his game that's still so amazing. There was a moment where he was poking around Villiersouso, around the crease and Moritz cider kind of stepped in on him to pull him off there. Mort cider's a horse, right? Like, for a young guy, he is exceptionally strong. And Afghani Malkin just completely man-strengthed him into the ice. And there's kind of the legend with Malcolm, like you just, you don't poke the bear or whatever. And the bear, to me, was not Moritz cider messing with him.

The bear was probably this ESP list. Tells him, he's not one of the top of hundred players. And he goes, really? Okay. Let's see about that. Yeah. here we go. The thing that was for me last night when I was having this conversation, I was trying to like get in the mindset of leaving up. I was like, well, I guess he was just

okay last year. And I was like, wait a second. He had like 83 points. He had 27 goals, 83 points. I'm like, maybe it was the year before. Like, oh, he had 42 points before he got injured. So I was just being like, there was been one year, I think, in the last his whole career where he wasn't a point per game player and that was in like shortened or injury seasons like there has not been a time I think where we can put our finger and say like this has been an ineffective player like and then when you look and I know Sean's going to have a lot to say about this I think when you look at some of the other players on that list because this is always what happens right is like well who are you going to take off the list to put them on maybe J.T. Miller maybe Sergey Bobrovsky I understand you maybe want to have a

certain amount of goalies on there, but Bobowski was just fine in the regular season last year. He was an average goaltender in the NHL, below average at times last year in the regular season. And you've got Bobrovsky over him. And it's like, you look at the list and they didn't treat, I feel bad, because I feel like we're just dumping on this, but like this is a big topic right now. Is his of getting him all going to top 100 player? And to us, he is. And there were players that you could kick off the list because they didn't treat like aging

players the same. Joe Pavelsky's on the list. Ovechkin, who we just talked about, is on the list. They're old dudes on the list who are not as productive as, as Evgeny Malkin. So it's like, I have people I'd kick off the list for him. That's why these lists get made. Like, as someone who makes these lists, like at some point, you just, you got to live with the decisions you make and you got to live with, you got to live with the numbers. That's the way it goes. We write this stuff so people talk about it. And so people debate it. And like, that's part of the fun.

Right. But I'm also allowed to say I'm not, I'm not trying to, I'm allowed to preface it by saying I'm not trying to dump on ESPN. I'm just giving my opinion. I know. But what I'm saying is like, Greg, Greg's fine with this. Like, it goes with it, it goes with it. It goes with it. It goes with a territory, right?

Yeah. What do you, is if Gany Malcon, a top 100 player to you, Sean? Yeah. He definitely is. at this point. I think it's, but I, I don't think it's quite as egregious as some people made it out to be.

Like, we had them at 65 or whatever. This isn't leaving out a top 30 player. But of course, like, you're saying, you're saying it wasn't as egregious as for the athletics or ESPNs? I'm saying,

I'm saying people are so mad about this. They're mad about this like, like, like, 2012 era of Guinea-Malkins been left off. the list. And that's not true. Like there had, but I think he's, he's not the five on five player that he was. A lot of those points last year came on the power play. Like, whatever. This is all a preface to me saying like,

I think it's, but neither is Ovechkin. He's like 36 on the list. Yeah, I know. That's what I'm saying. Like that they're, when you put together these lists, there should be some kind, there should be an internal logic, right? Where you say like, here's what we're valuing. Here's what we're, here's what we're, here's what we don't. Here's where we're rewarding players. where, you know, we're deducting points. Right. And just because somebody's on, like, a Gretzky watch list doesn't make them a top 40 player in the NHL. Maybe all time, 100%, but like the whole preface of the story was, who are the top 100 players playing this season? Yeah. And Ovechkin is number 37 and if Genni

Malkin is not in the list. If you're going to, if you're going to include, you know, Russian forwards in their late 30s who are showing signs of decline, but still produce, enormously based largely on the power play, it shouldn't be 137 and ones off the list. Like that's a gap where you're like, okay. Is it Ganyi Malkin worse than Joe Pavelsky? They're the same age. They produce about the same amount.

Pavelsky comfortably on the list. Like, what are we valuing here? And I think that's part of what gets lost, you know, if you're not super explicit in how you come up with these lists in the first place. And I say this is someone who over explains things, right? Like the player tiers thing, we like went to ridiculous lengths to be very clear. Like, here's who we talked to.

Here's how we came to it. You know, here's the sort of things that we valued. When we're moving things around, that's part of the reason we do it in tiers in the first place. So you can say like, all right, tier 4A, here's where the old guys go. This is where the guys who are in, you know, productive, productive weapons in their late 30s. But, you know, maybe you're in for some amount of decline. we're going to put all of them together because they're functionally for the purpose of whatever we're doing here, they're the same. And I don't think that that's, that was, that just wasn't

part of, you know, the write-up. And I'm, and I know for a fact that Wachinsky's going to explain this, you know, today on, on, on the drop, the show that he does. Totally. With Arda on, on, like, free espion. So we'll get, we'll get some, some added level of, uh, explanation here. But you look at it, and it's like, yeah, I don't. I don't agree. I don't agree with it. And this is what happened. They talk to a ton of people for this.

Like 50 people, broadcasters, whatever. But this is what happens when you talk to that many people for this, right? Like, it's like,

the process kind of, it leaves you. You turn it over and put it in the hands of a bunch of voters. And if they've, and if there's some kind of mass mistake, then you got to kind of live with the results. And I think that's,

I think that's part of what we're seeing. here too. Because like, Sir, Bobrovsky. Not to dump on Bobrovsky again, but like for God's sakes, man, the guy, he was below average and save percentage last year, below average and goals saved above expected, has been with the Panthers

across the board. That dude is a mediocre regular season goal tender. God bless him for what he did during the playoffs, but like, let's be honest about regular season production here, right? So, yeah, I don't know. It does make a ton of sense to me, but also I'm grateful to have

something to talk about for 15 minutes too. Yeah. It's kind of counterintuitive, but I think it's more egregious to leave him off that all-time list than it is this list. Even though this is just a 100 players right now, like it's more egregious. But both are wrong. Like I think he probably belongs somewhere not far off of where you said, Sean. Like he's a point-per-game player last year. There's just not that many of those in the NHL.

So just off of that, he needs to be in the top. he's paying the tax for them missing the playoffs last year. That's a big part of what this is. Like they're looking. But like, Codry's on the list and the flames were like a horror show last season. So again, it's just like what are we,

if that's what, if that's like the value you're going to place on certain things, right? It's like all timers, like cool old dudes, teams that missed the playoffs last year, but like you're probably going to be better. Like it's just inconsistent. I'd love to be able.

career high was all career high like ever was only like three points more than malcon scored last year there are guys ahead of there are guys on this list that we didn't even consider for for player tears like that were just not even weren't even a discussion point yeah so why do we think and max this goes back to your point about the like top 100 list and you know you know we had it in a story like people kind of call him like Mr. 101. Why do we think of Genie Malkin is being left out of these lists? Because we know it's not the point production. We know as people who watch the penguins for our jobs,

whether they're playing against the team we cover or it's for national games, whatever it may be. We know that it's not based on the way he plays because Max said last night, he was dominant. When you just watch him on the ice, he does all these things, even still at 37, that makes him a dominant player.

So I don't know. You know, there were, you know, I forget which playoff series it was, but there was probably a year where Malkin should have won the Kahn's mite, but it went to Krosby. Why is he the guy that gets left out of this stuff? Is it just because he's Cosby's second line center? He's the second wrong of the two-headed monster, so it's like whatever. Drysidl, Dreysidl takes hits for that too.

Or has in the past. Oh, come on. He has. Oh, sure, he has. Absolutely yes. I think we're at a point where everyone acknowledges that Leon Dricidal is like one of the best players in the league. Yeah, but it... How many top six heart trophy finishes do you think Leon Dry Sidal has, Haley?

Four? One. Yeah. And it was the year he won? It was the year he won it. So they're like, alright, get it. David was a little bit banged up. It's human nature to ding the second best player on a team, even when it's an all-timer, like Evgeny Malkin or Leon Drysidal. And they've all come pretty much the last four years. In 2018-19, he had five, 50 goals and 105 points and did not even make it onto a ballot.

Not one person's ballot, not one person's five spot had room for 50 goal, 105 point Leon Drysiddle in 2018. That's wild. And I feel like I didn't have a ballot yet, so nobody can blame me for that. I had just graduated. I was working at CBC News. Okay, don't yell at me. I'm young.

It's not my fault. I think the interesting thing about Drysidal and I feel like we have moments as hockey analyst. where we say players are like underrated or underappreciated way too often. But I felt last year during the playoffs when he was on a heat or I was like, do we underappreciate this guy? Like do we underrate that Leon Dreisidel might be like, you know, the second or third best player in the NHL?

I mean, he gets the, he gets the Canadian bump though. He plays for a Canadian market. Yeah. So, I've Guany Malcon, neither of those things going for him. Yeah, you're right. A team can't have two MVPs because then the one MVP is not as good if there's two. And then with the NHL 100 list, it's because he's Russian. It is.

Like, it just is. There's a, there's a, but was an Ovechkin on that list? Undeniable, that's an undeniable case. Was Ovechkin on that list? Yes. That's, but, but he's the second best Russian of his generation. And he's, and he's the second best player on his team. And I think people have, have trouble parsing that out when it comes time to, you know,

rank these guys in order. And I think, and I think over the last couple years, as early as the ESB analyst, people have internalized two things, even though they're not true. It's that he's old and hurt, which only half, only half of that's true. He is old, he's healthy, but he's healthy now. And he's productive. I think whenever he blew out his knee, people are like, all right, that's the end of Evgeny Malkin being a point per game player. And we're two seasons in. And then he came back and became, that was, but that's the same thing I did. Like, I almost was just like, well, I guess he hasn't been that great since he blew out his knee. and then I looked it up. Yes, we were talking, I mean,

whatever. You and I were talking about it last night. It was like, I mean, I said it earlier on the show. I had that moment of like, oh, you know,

shit. I'm an idiot. He had 83 points and 82 games last year. Like, there's no, there's no reason to keep them off unless you're like, unless you're expecting a drop off.

It hasn't, it hasn't happened yet. Galaxy. Or, yeah, or if you're just over-complicating things. J.T. Miller. Well,

we look forward, we look forward to hear. hearing the explanation when that drops on the drop from Greg Rishinsky. Let's take a quick break because we kind of went in on Malkin for a while and we've got a few more minutes left in the show. So let's take a quick break when we come back. We'll kind of wrap things up with some final thoughts. Only two winless teams left in the NHL. Who are they?

You'll find out. All right, welcome back. It's our third segment. We don't really have anything fun plan, but here's a fun little trivia question. At this point in this season, there's only two teams who are winless. So it's kind of fun, parody or whatever. Everyone's got a win except for two teams, 30 teams and won once. Fun for the Anaheim Ducks.

Last year, Sean and I had a reoccurring segment of have the Ducks won a regulation game yet. And it was essentially every week just like not yet, like back to you in the studio. Happy New Year. The Ducks still out. It took the Ducks until November 23rd to get a regulation win. To be fair, they had like a bunch of shootout wins over. time wins, but they didn't win in regulation until November 23rd. November 23rd, that's, that's Canadian Christmas, isn't it?

That's like never funny when you say it. You made that joke so many times. I know. That one's for me. You made that joke on the Tuesday show. This is not Tuesday Boys with 3Zs. That show's dead. Oh, I have to say it that way.

Jesus. It's gone. Craig left you. It's over. Dad stepped out for a pack of smokes. He said he'd be right back. He left us. But yeah, two teams that haven't won yet.

Anyone want to? I know one of them. What is it? Seattle Cracken. Oh, well, that wasn't the, I thought you didn't know either of them. And the obvious one is the San Jose Sharks. I guessed the one that I knew. Yeah.

San Jose Sharks and the Seattle Cracken are winless. I think one we could have guessed, right? I feel like Sharks fans were probably happy about that. great job team keep it up. But yeah, the Cracken, haven't won yet. We knew that that was a team that was going to regress or be somewhere more in the middle because they were shooting, what, 16, 17%

as a team last season, lost some of the debt players that made things really work well last year, Daniel Sprong, Carson Sussie. For them to have either, what, four games in, they haven't won yet. It's not a reason to be concerned.

Again, it's early. but the Cracken are probably going to fall somewhere between year one and year two, right? They're not going to be as bad as the first year, but they're not going to be as good as last year. I think that's probably fair to say at this point. That was probably what people were saying in the preseason, too. Yeah, I mean, this is, it's similar to what we talked about with Oveskin. Like, this is how a regression for the Cracken was going to look. Like, they shot almost 11% as a team at 5 on 5 last year, 11.5.5.

last year, 11.55 overall when you factor in the power play, which is crazy. Like, that's not... Why did I say 16%? Because there were a bunch of guys in the team. The funny goal that everyone always loved was that there were like 11 guys that had 16 goals or more. Like they're like, whatever. There were plenty of guys on that team who were shooting 16% individually. It's not going to happen. Again, that's not a year over year result the year you're going to see. There just aren't enough true talent shooting guys on that team to sustain that. for another season, which is fine. They lost some of the forward depth, too,

a guy like Ryan Donato gone, like, whatever. So they're less of a deep team than they were last year to some extent. And the gold tending was bad last year, and it's bad again. It was fine last year. It wasn't bad last year. I think it was bad.

It was closer to bad. Martin Jones was good last year. Martin Jones was good for the first, Martin Jones was good for the first couple months of the season. Yeah. And then group of, when he came back from injury, he was solid. Their goaltending had some swings.

I thought they were fine last year. They had the third lowest save percentage in the league overall last year. Maybe it's because they were good compared to year one. That is absolutely true. They were good compared to year one, and they were good enough to get buoyed by a team that shot 10% overall. Oh my God. I didn't even mean that.

I love Bowie. I'm on an island with that one, too. I hate Bowie. I think he's cool. I hate Bowie. Is that the dog? That's the Australian dog? No, it's the troll.

Oh, I don't know. Cracking troll. I don't know. I've never seen this man. Not familiar with your work. I'm sorry, Booie. I was not familiar with your game. That's what you're going to be saying.

Oh, did you guys see the clip from our pal, Charlie O'Connor? of Gritty coming down from the rafters, and there's like five people in the stands. Like, Gritty's got the full, like, coming down the rafters, like, pre-game show and just, like, nobody's there. It's just like... You got to time it better.

That reminds me, any time I see a mascot, anytime I see a mascot come down from the rafters or the video board. No one's at the game yet. I always think it may... It's a top 10 internet clip for me. where the Denver Nuggets mascot tried to pull that stunt. This is like 10 years ago now, maybe.

Either of you know what I'm talking about here. No. The Nuggets mascot, which is like a cat of some sort, it's like a mountain lion or whatever. Whoever was playing, whoever was in the mascot suit either got a little sick or got faint or got scared. Thank God.

After the fact, we found it like nothing bad happened to this. person, but they passed out. They passed out when they were wearing when they were wearing the harness. So they dropped the cougar down down from the board. And it was completely limp, completely lifeless. It looked like someone lowering a dead body down to the down to the floor. And again, I want to, that's why I prefaced it. This person was okay. Like that was, that was, it was like, everybody was like, Like, we need to make sure that everything's copacetic here before we... No! Oh, God, they didn't care.

They just, like, dragged them off the... Cut, cut, cut, cut. Oh, Jesus Christ. Anyways, the other one was team. Yeah, it's the San Jose Sharks. So, no surprises there. We saw that one coming. It's fine.

I think the one question I have, I'll throw this at max. Do we have any concern or thoughts on the Tampa Bay Lightning being one, two, and one? A little, but I also think we expected them to start slow with Vasilevsky out. They've just, they've thinned out. And I think that we knew that that was going to happen with the salary cap. And I'm a little encouraged, actually, to see, like, you know, Brendan Hagle is producing as they need him to produce to survive that. That's right.

He's on my fantasy team in the athletic. official lead. That's nice. Just want to say that. Yeah. And I think that they are in a little bit of like a, I still think they're going to make the playoffs. I think they're going to have to figure this out a little bit without Vasilevsky and

survive that a little bit. But the star power, I think, is just so much that I'm completely unwilling to, to write them off even if they go like, even if they keep up this pace for the next like three weeks. Yeah. The other teams to kind of keep an eye on for that too. the Oilers are 1, 2, and O'O, and the Kings are 1, 1 at 1. And I feel like the common denominator between those three teams is like, you know, question marks and goal.

With the Oilers. So, Cam Talbot have a decent game. They're going to need one of those guys to consistently be okay. Yeah. We'll see. Yeah. So we'll keep tracking. We're not trying to overreact.

But we also have to talk about stuff for 4. 45 minutes to an hour. Put Alex Ovechkin in a home. It's over, baby. Let's go. Sean just ranted about how Ovi's toast and the caps are horrific. So if you're a Capitals fan who's listening, I do apologize. I'm paraphrasing.

And then Max didn't talk for like 15 minutes at one point because Sean was wanting. Just going to watch mascot fail videos for the rest of the day, I think. Yeah. What I actually was doing was looking up, uh, A second ago, the mascot that I am the most interested in is the Providence Friars mascot. He's terrible. He's just learned. Is he just as dude?

Does he just walk around? Friar Dom. That's what I call Domest Hitchin, too, because he's, like, I call him Fryer Dom because he's actually bald. A lot of people don't know that. He's got like the full horseshoe around the top. That's a wig. Have you ever seen him, Haley?

Friar Dom, I think so. You got to look up some of these photos. His expression works in like any scenario to make it terrifying. Yeah, his eyes are lifeless. Holy. Yeah. Oh, man. He, he, he, oh, we have an athletic story about him.

How the creepiest mascot in the country came to be. Oh, he's the only mascot I care about. Sorry, booey. I wasn't familiar with your work. But that's the end of the show. Thank you, everyone. and for listening, we just want to remind you that you can subscribe to the athletic NHL's YouTube channel at YouTube.com slash at the athletic hockey show.

So that was it for this Thursday again. Just a reminder that's kind of your new, or this is your new Thursday crew. It's me, Haley, and Max Bolvin and Sean Gentilly every week on Thursdays. And the Athletic Hockey Show returns on Friday with Max again. Sorry that you have to get him twice. And Corey Prominn. for another edition of the prospect series. Thanks everyone for listening.

Thanks, guys. You're welcome. Goodbye. I gotta get, I don't know how to end these shows. Goodbye.