The Athletic Hockey Show - Jack Eichel stripped of Buffalo Sabres captaincy, ranking weirdest off-seasons, and more

Episode Date: September 23, 2021

Ian Mendes and Sean McIndoe discuss the news out of Buffalo with Jack Eichel no longer being captain of the Sabres, and what it means for both the player and the team moving forward as that soap opera continues. Then, they break down Sean's rankings of teams with the weirdest NHL off-seasons. Also, as Jim Hughson announced his retirement, who belongs on the Mount Rushmore of hockey broadcasting?Then in "Granger Things", Jesse Granger hits on the current lines for NHL player awards for this season, who are your best bets for the Hart, Vezina, and Norris? To wrap up, some thoughts on the Anaheim Ducks in the mailbag, and in "This Week in Hockey History" a rare training camp trade that possibly ended up as a win for both the New Jersey Devils and Montreal Canadiens.Have a question or comment for Ian and Sean? Email [e-mail], or leave a VM at [phone]!Get 50% off of an annual subscription to The Athletic: theathletic.com/hockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back, everybody. It's another edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. Ian Mendez, Sean McIndoo with you for the next hour or so ahead on this podcast. We'll talk about the Sabres stripping Jack Eichel of his captaincy and what it means for that soap opera in Buffalo. Sean's going to talk about his off-season weird rankings, and we'll talk about which teams have the strangest off-season. We'll also talk about the best broadcasters in hockey

in light of Jim Houston announcing he is stepping away from the hockey night in Canada booth. Jesse Granger's back for Granger Things. We'll talk about some postseason awards already. Trophies for individuals in the National Hockey League. We'll open up the mailbag and we'll do this week in hockey history talking about a pretty big trade this week in 1991 involving the Montreal Canadians and the New Jersey Devils. And so as we kick off this episode of the podcast, we bring back down Goes Brown, who was off last

week. And I got to tell you, Sean, okay? So last week, we had Jesse Granger sat in, did a terrific job, you know, sitting in as the co-host. And we had Robin Lennar on. Okay. So Robin Lennar joins us. And you would really truly appreciate this. Because I think I asked Robin the question of, can you talk a little bit about your relationship with Mark Andre Fleury? Robin Lennar says, you know what? It's a double-edged. It's a double-edged. It's a double-ed And you should have seen Granger and I, our faces in the Zoom call were like, Robin Leonard's going to drop a sword reference when talking about Mark Andre Fleury. It was goal. Yeah, that was excellent.

And I just got to say, I did appreciate it did make me feel important that when I took a week off, that you replaced me with two guys. And I had like me and Mark Andre Fleury now have something in common. And we have been replaced by Robin Lennar. And I didn't have time to tweet out any Photoshopped images of how that made me feel. But yeah, it's, give me a call, Mark Andre, because we got a lot to talk about. Yeah, listen, obviously Flurry and the Vegas Golden Knights at times that turned into a little bit of a soap opera. But I got to say, Sean, it has nothing on what seems to be going down between Jack Eichel and the Buffalo Sabres. So on Thursday morning, Sabers General Manager Kevin Adams meets with the media.

And one of the first things he does, one of the first things he does, sorry, is he tells the world Jack Eichel is no longer the captain of the Buffalo Sabres. Now, did this have to come out? Like, did we just assume that that was going to be the case? Should he have stripped Eichel of his captaincy? What, what you read into this? Obviously, it's a tumultuous situation in Buffalo. Yeah. And I mean, the big takeaway here is if you're a Sabres fan or just a neutral observer

and you were holding out hope that there was a way to mend this and even temporarily, we talked about scenarios, I think, on this show where maybe Jack Eichael comes back. Maybe he plays this season, half a season, just shows that he's healthy, shows what he can do, shows that he's still an elite player, and then they move on from there. And this obviously makes that feel far less likely. You never say never because this story has taken enough twists and turns that I think we should have learned that. But yeah, clearly, I mean, whenever you see a move like this, it sends a message. And the message is pretty clear that Jack Eichael is not considered part of this team going forward and not a guy who certainly they want to have as their leader.

And yeah, I mean, he's made it clear that he doesn't want to be there. So that guy probably shouldn't be a leader. I did find it interesting that we kind of heard about this a couple of days ago that that suggests that somebody presumably on the Sabre's side kind of was smart enough to put it out there. So it didn't feel like a bombshell when it dropped this morning. But it is, you know, it's a big story. And you go down the history of NHL teams stripping guys of captaincies, that that's usually the beginning of the end. Not always.

You know, you could point to the scenarios in San Jose with Thornton and Marlowe and the change that they made and ultimately go to Joe Pavelski. And yeah, but that was a very different situation. This feels like something where this is Kevin Adams sending a message and it's a message that we can all read. I found it interesting that they did not name a replacement captain because that suggests at least that they may go into the season without a captain, which would not be uncommon.

There's about a half dozen teams who don't have a captain right now. If they do that, then yes, the question that you started this with of, did they even need to do this? There could be an argument that, you know, just your captain is injured and there's no need to make this official. But I think Kevin Adams wanted to deliver a statement. Statement's been delivered. You know, I think, though, for a little bit of context for our listeners,

because I think when you hear it on the surface that the Buffalo Sabres of Strip Jack Eichl of his captaincy, it's a jarring thing, right? Like, in some ways, it's ceremonial, but in other ways, I think wearing a sea for a hockey team is one of the most prestigious honors you can have. And so when you have it taken away, it is a very public thing. and at times it can be embarrassing, humiliating. But, Sean, it does happen more often than people think. Like, you mentioned what happened in San Jose.

The first one I think of in my mind is what happened with the Tampa Bay Lightning and Vinnie La Calleye in the early 2000s. Where him and Torts were not quite meshing and, you know, Torrella took the captaincy off of La Cavillet. I think Keenan did that. Mike Keenan did that a couple of times, right? Notably to Trevor Lyndon in Vancouver to Brett Hall in St. Louis. It happened to Dustin Brown in L.A. So, like, we do need to point out that it does happen probably a little bit more often than people think. It does.

It, and the circumstances can always be different. You know, a few of those cases that you mentioned were situations where it was kind of a passing of the torch. Obviously, the Kings, handing it over to Danza Kopitar that they wanted to make it clear that this was his team now. it doesn't always happen with bad feelings, at least publicly express bad feelings. But the reality is in a lot of those cases, we mentioned, the dynamic is that the guy

who lost the captaincy under whatever circumstances is still there. And he's got to go into that dressing room every day and see the new guy wearing his sea. And he's got to deal with that. And that's, at least for now, not the case. I mean, Jack Eichel, going to report to camp, he's going to fail his physical. He's going to presumably go home, and that may be the last that we ever see of him formerly associated with the Buffalo Sabres.

So, you know, again, could Kevin Adams have said, you know what, we're going to send him home? He's never going to play for the team again, likely. But we don't want to burn any bridges. We don't want to close any doors. So we're not going to strip him because we're not going to replace him. Yeah, you could have done that. And that's going to be interesting to me because, I mean, camp is just starting. We got a few weeks before the season starts.

They could name a new captain. Ross Mustallion just signed a new contract. Maybe he's the new guy that you say you want to build around or maybe you don't. Typically rebuilding teams are more likely to just go without a captain for a few years, wait until somebody takes hold of the team. And that's what's frustrating if you're a Sabres fan, because that was what Jack Eichel did. And it was his team. And this guy was literally, you know,

your franchise player. And now this is just another brick in that wall that's crumbling. You know, I think when you look back at the offseason for the Sabres, Buffalo fans are like, oh my gosh, like what, we had such a tumultuous summer. It was so weird. And yet, as you dropped this week, you kind of did your offseason ranking of who had the weirdest offseason? And what I think it's really important to point out is in your ranking system here, your scale. It's not who had the best offseason, who had the worst offseason. It's just like

who had the strangest offseason and who had the weirdest one. So can we start in the Western conference? And I thought it was interesting because the Seattle Cracken are a brand new team. Like you would think that they're working, they're starting from scratch. How could it be weird? And yet you kind of gave them a pretty high ranking on the weirdo meter for the offseason. What happened with the Cracken? Which, I mean, first of all, just the fact that expansion drafts, expansion teams are rare, and so it's strange to some extent, just the fact that this team exists at all now and finally has a roster. But the thing that stuck out to me with the Cracken was what they didn't do. And the almost total lack of maneuvering and trading leading

up to that draft and in the immediate aftermath of it, I found that very interesting. And the point that I make in the post is, look, I think when it comes to Seattle, we can all acknowledge that the Vegas Golden Knights have set the bar of expectations at a very high level, probably an impossible level, both in terms of the success that they had on the ice, but just the, you know, the moves that they made and everybody's sitting back on, okay, okay, Ron Francis, what's your Florida Panthers move where you go get two real good players? Where's your William Carlson that you're going to pluck out of nowhere? Where's all these first round picks that you're you're going to get.

And yeah, it was probably unrealistic, especially in a league where we know that GMs react to things and they overcorrect and they all saw what happened with Vegas and they say it's not going to happen to Seattle. So I get that it was going to be difficult for Ron Francis to live up to the Vegas model. But even other expansion teams, you look in the modern era, virtually every expansion team made a bunch of side deals before their expansion drafts. You can go back to the, you know, the Minnesota, Atlanta, National. Nashville Columbus cohort.

And even before that, when Ottawa and Tampa, those teams were coming in, they were swinging a bunch of deals. And some of them worked and a lot of them didn't. But it really is close to unprecedented for an expansion team to come to the NHL in the modern era at least and do virtually nothing other than just pick their players and go from there. I found that very strange. And I would love to know, was this a strategic thing?

Is this a case where Ron Francis just set the price too high? Maybe misread the market. Maybe he didn't want to go back on after he had said, here's the final offers and nobody took it. I'd love to know that. But it was very interesting to me because even if you set aside Vegas, the expectation is you're going to be wheeling and dealing and he just didn't do it. So, you know, Seattle again, like you said, it is.

It's a weird offseason for them. In the Eastern Conference, what I thought in your, you know, Bizarro meter rankings is the two teams. teams that were involved in arguably the most, like, salacious moment of the offseason was the Yersperi-Kanemi offer sheet. And you have the Habs and the Carolina Hurricanes pretty much at the top in terms of the weird bizarro meter ranking. And those two teams were kind of one-two for you, right, in the Eastern Conference? One-two, yeah. And the big gap between them and number three, because there were a lot of teams that did some strange things, as always

happens, but those are the two teams that stand out. And the offer sheet is the great big cherry on the Sunday for both of those teams. But even putting that aside, both of those teams had very strange off seasons. I mean, you look at, you start with Montreal coming off the success that they had, you had the, you had the, remember the whole Kerry Price expansion story that for a few days, they don't protect him. Oh my goodness, are the crack I'm going to take Harry Price? What would this mean? and then, you know, nothing ever came of it, and we all just kind of forgot about it. But you had the Philip Deno situation where he leaves.

You had them losing their H.L coach under some circumstances that, you know, maybe seemed a little odd. The Logamayu story, obviously, we talked about. That wasn't just an embarrassment for the whole organization. And they added some guys too. I mean, Mark Bursiman didn't sit back. He did a lot of stuff. But even before the offer sheet came along,

Montreal had been very busy, a lot of heads. a lot of headlines. And the other piece of this is this is all happening under this question of, is Mark Bergervan even coming back after this year? We all assumed when we saw him go on that run that, okay, Bergervan's locked in, he's going to sign a big extension. And he didn't do that. And he indicated that, you know, I don't know what I'm going to do after a year.

I may not want to continue. And certainly that would be his choice to make. but it's very interesting situation, and it's a situation that under most years would easily get you to the top of the rankings, except along comes Carolina, and they've got their own whole long list of weird stuff that they do. Like, and like, it's funny,

because when I'm thinking about what Carolina did in the off season, I almost forgot about Tony DiAngelo. I was like, oh, yeah. They got that's, they got, that's my favorite part about writing this piece is that there's always a lot of stuff that, you know, Obviously, anything that's recent, we all remember and anything that was really big. But there's a lot of stuff that you just, as you're going through it, you go,

geez, I forgot about that. And, you know, a lot of times it's because it was something that was a big story and then it didn't turn out to amount to anything. You know, we talked about the Kerry Price expansion. I'd give you another one with Carolina, the whole Rod Brindamore thing. Remember how they finished the season? And it was like, you're going to give this guy an extension, right? He's coach of the year.

And oh, yeah, we're on it. Don't worry. And it just, it went, and it went. And there was this talk that, well, maybe it won't happen. And maybe the Rangers are waiting in the wings. Maybe they want to hire this guy. That's why they haven't picked a coach. And, you know, as it turns out, he signs the extension and he stays.

And so people kind of forget about it. But that was a very strange story for a while at the beginning of the offseason. Just, you know, the trading away, a team that has for years not had a goaltender, can't seem to find a goaltender. And they finally look like maybe they've got one for the future. and they trade them away to Detroit for next to nothing because they don't want to pay them. And then they bring in a couple of guys, you know, Frederick Anderson, especially that you might scratch your head a little bit and say, is that really going to be an improvement? So they also, very strange offseason before we even get to the offer sheet and all of the

drama and stuff that surrounded that, really interesting stuff. I mean, certainly if you're a Hurricanes fan, your head's probably spinning. I had one band reach out to me and he used the word whiplash, which I think is probably a good description of how you feel. But if you're a fan of any other team, you know, we say this a lot, right? We look at other leagues and we go on the NHL off season. It's so boring compared to the NBA. It's so boring compared to the NBA. Carolina did their best to give you entertainment.

They certainly kept the headlines churning and you got to thank them for that, I guess. You know, and the other team that maybe kind of slides by a little bit because the habs and the hurricanes seem to dominate in your bizarro rankings are the New York Rangers. And, you know, I think what I find interesting, and you tell me what you think of this, but remember about 10, I think it was about 10 years ago. And the Buffalo Sabres were a pretty good team. And they were kind of a playoff team. But I think it was 2011, somewhere in that neighborhood. Milan Luchich runs over Ryan Miller. and the Sabres didn't quite respond

the way that their fans wanted to and it feels like that was like this definitive moment in Sabres history that they've never been the same. It's been 10 years and like, I can't help but think, Sean, that the Rangers and the Tom Wilson thing, it might be this definitive moment but they've overcompensated.

They've like, they've overcompensated for this one thing that happened because I kind of felt like the team was trended, in the right direction. I kind of like the pieces. It was like a nice slow patient rebuild, which is like the polar opposite of what you think of when you think of the Rangers. And then this happened. Do you kind of feel like maybe they're way too focused on the one thing that happened to them last year with Artemi Panarin? Now, I do. And because it felt like almost everything they did in the offseason was through that lens of how does this affect Tom Wilson and how

as this. And like, they play the capitals three times this year. They have opening night. Everyone's focused opening night. Oh, boy, here we go. It's, it's going to be wild. And then they don't play them again for months. I think it's like February and then again at the end of the season. So he got 79 other games. And, you know, it's, it felt like everything they did. It was all about adding grit, adding toughness. Every guy that came in when it seemed felt like the first question, what about Tom Wilson? You know, have you ever people are looking up. Has this guy ever fought Tom Wilson? And, you know, as I said in the piece, I grew up watching the 80s and 90s Norris Division.

Yeah, exactly. Right? So I'm, I've got some experience watching teams respond to toughness and add toughness. And I don't know that I've ever seen anything quite like this. The Sabre's situation with Luchich is up there. And I'll say this. When it comes to the Rangers, you got to remember this piece that I wrote, this is the offseason rankings. And I start the clock in the off season as soon as your last game is played.

All the stuff with Tom Wilson and then the chain, Jeff Gorton losing his job, John Davidson leaving, you know, that all happened that week that was at the end of the season. So that's not even being counted here. If it did, then they might be given Montreal and Carolina run for their money. I'll say this. I always go into the comments. I always weighed into there. I've had some pushback from Ranger fans, and I want to give kind of fair time to that.

There have been a few Rangers fans saying, no, this is a narrative. This is the media is turning everything into the Tom Wilson show. This was a Rangers team that was just addressing some areas of need and didn't really, this idea that they sacrificed all this skill for grit and toughness is getting overblown. And I had one Ranger fan saying other than the trading away Pavl Pich-Sinvich, what skill did they lose? and that's fair. My response would be

that this is a team that missed the playoffs by double digit points last year. This is a team that lost more games than they won last year. It's not like they had a surplus of skill

to start with. So if you're subtracting from that, even given that you've got a lot of young, good pieces that you would expect to improve, I'm not sure that's the best plan.

But, you know, I will give fair time to the fact that some Rangers fans feel like this is something that is maybe either invented as a narrative or at least, you know, had maybe some truth to it, but it's getting pushed too far. And okay, I'm, I'm open to that. I'll hear that argument. But I got to say, my reaction has been, it feels like, it feels like there is a big poster of Tom Wilson in Krister his front office or maybe in James Dolan's

front office. And they're, they're looking at that every single day going, how do we deal with this? and it's, you know, it's one guy on one team that you're going to play a handful of times. I don't know. I don't know if it's the right way to approach it. Yeah, I love in your comedy. You have 79 other games that you have to worry about. That's it, you know, and you're trying to make the playoffs in a very, very tough division. And, you know, look, part of this is also, you could make the case that the Rangers already dealt with the Tom Wilson thing.

I mean, remember there was that gong. show of a game where there are all these fights and they bought Tom Wilson. You know, it's not like, you know, if I remember right, I think the Sabres situation with Luchich, it was they didn't play again for a while. So it kind of hung over everything. You know, with this one, Drury or whoever could have said, you know, we dealt with it. We're moving on. We're going forward.

Clearly there was a desire to get some toughness where that came from. You know, who knows? And yeah, toughness still matters in hockey. It's, uh, I don't have an issue with the team. and we need to add more of that element. But it just felt like by the time you got to the Ryan Reeves trade, it was like, what's going on here? I mean, how much do we really need?

We'll see. Maybe the Rangers end up being that big, bad team that everybody hates playing all year long. Or maybe we get into mid-November and you're looking at it going, geez, there are already five points out of the playoffs. When do we play the Capitals again? Oh, not for three months. Great. You know, I wanted to hit on one other story that I think is, you know,

it's obviously significant. to hockey fans on the north side of the border, and that is longtime hockey night, play-by-play man, Jim Houston, Sean announcing his retirement. After a few decades in the game, and certainly had been the lead voice for hockey in this country, in the same way that Mike Emmerich was the voice of hockey

in the United States on NBC. Jim Husson has been that on Sportsnet and CBC for the past decade-plus. And, you know, I want to get your thoughts on this, but I want to share a real quick Jim Husson story because I love Jim. And Jim has always been so nice to me over the years. But I'll never forget, Sean.

So the 2010 Stanley Cup final is Philly in Chicago. And I'm in Philadelphia for that game six. And like everyone else in the building, completely shocked when Patrick Kane scored the goal. Like I didn't realize the puck went in. It was eerily silent in that building. And you could just hear Kane screaming coming down the ice. Well, after the game, if you, if, you know, for for people who don't know, but, you know, the media kind of travels in large contingents and we kind of all stay at the same hotel and there's a kind of a media reception room that we go to. And I'll never forget, Sean, at the end of that night, game six, go to the little hotel, a little bar, whatever in Philadelphia.

And there's Jim Houston. And he looks like just crestfallen, sad. And you could tell. It bothered him. he was crushed, Sean, that he didn't get the chance. He didn't get the call right, because nobody knew, right? Nobody knew what the fuck was. And, you know, I think in his mind, he was thinking, like,

how many chances are you going to get to call a Stanley Cup winning goal in overtime? Like, it's pretty rare. And I remember him looking so, like, so sad, so dejected. And I was so happy that I was two years later, right? Or 2014. 2014, when Alec Martinez scored that goal, I was so happy because I thought he got it. He got his chance. He got his opportunity to call the Stanley Cup winning goal in overtime.

But I got to tell you, huge fan of Jim Hewson. I thought he called a great game. Can think about all those, you know, the great save Luongo and all that stuff. I loved it. I want to know if you're power ranking the all-time voices in hockey, where's Jim Houston come in for you? Yeah, he's up there. I really liked his work. You know, you and I grown up in Canada, not just in hockey for a lot of years. He, you know, he's involved in other sports as well. I do have to say I'm deeply bothered by hearing that he's retiring, given that this guy looks younger than you and I do. Yeah. I did there's no way. I saw somewhere like after 41 years in the business and I was like, there's no way. There's no. Did this like, did this guy, you know, was he? born holding a microphone, like, come on. But don't you find that like,

people in like the 70s and 80s, like they started doing games when they're like 21. You're like, what's going on here? Yeah, that must be it. It's, yeah. I started my career at the age of 17. I was calling games and, you know, some minor hockey league team.

And you're like, oh, how is that possible? Yeah, that's true. That must have been what happened with him. Yeah, he's up there. I mean, I think if you're doing the, your Mount Rushmore, I mean, there's a few names that you have to put on there for play-by-play for hockey. And you'd start with Foster Hewitt and then Bob Cole, I think would be the other one that I'm,

it's just beyond debate that those were sort of the two voices of hockey for full eras. And then, yeah, I mean, if you're going in the U.S., I guess it's probably Amrik would be the first one that you put up there. And then that fourth spot, yeah, I don't know. You know, Houston's in the running. You know, Danny Gallivan would obviously be a guy that you'd also look at if you're going back in the past. There's probably an argument to be made that I should have two Canadians and two Americans, but I don't have to. We'll leave that to Gentile and Custins to prop up their side of the border. Yeah, that fourth spot becomes it.

I would probably go Hugh would Gallivan Cole Emmerich as my big four. But yeah, Houston's up there. He was really good for a lot of years. And he's the voice that you hear for a lot of these great moments. Yeah, man, for me, Chris Cuthbert might be there. And maybe Chris will, because now he's going to become the lead voice, probably for hockey night, for the foreseeable future. Maybe he'll have an opportunity to carve out more of a niche as, you know, having these signature moments. Because he was the guy back in the day when we were kids.

Like, I always think of Chris Cuthbert. as he was the smite division guy for like all of those, you know, Theo Fleury, the overtime goal and, and some of the great moments. But he only really came into the national scene a little bit later, right? And so, but I think he's got a great opportunity to kind of maybe push his way into the, the Mount Rushmore, so to speak, of great voices. Yeah.

And he's real good. And he's, he's been doing it for a while. He's the one time I was ever in a hockey nine Canada booth, which was Chris Cuthbert. Wait, what we, hold on here. Yep. You can't just drop in. Back in college. Brown was in a hockey night in Canada play by play booth.

Back in college, you and I had a mutual friend who did some work with hockey night in Canada. And one time I got set up, he said, do you want to come? And basically, you'll, I was in the booth. I wasn't speaking. I wasn't part of the broadcast. But basically, you will be their assistant. You'll be their helper. And I remember the job, the.

My main job was they said if there is a goal scored very quickly write down who scored the goal and who got the two assists and pass it over. If you've ever wondered like how do broadcasters always seem to know right away who got the assist before they even announced it? Part of that is that there could have been somebody like me up there. And I remember saying like that actually sounds tough because how do you, you know, a goal gets scored. How do you remember the last two guys? And, you know, I was given some tips about, you know, you just got to keep a running kind of. commentary of names in your head. And they said, you'll get used to it.

Just hope there's not a ton of scoring early on. Because you'll get into the rhythm as the game goes on. And it was a game between Montreal and Ottawa. And I swear there were like six goals scored in five minutes. And I was losing my mind. And I probably didn't do a super good job and just constantly writing this stuff and firing it over at him. And yeah, I was not put it this way. I didn't get any voicemails from Chris Cuthbert inviting me back into the booth after that.

But yeah, that was that was an experience for sure. And he was a very, very nice, classy guy, even to some no-name college kid who didn't seem to know what they were doing. I'm just picturing you sliding a piece of paper over to Chris Cuthbert and it says Oleg Petrov, question mark. Yeah, just question marks. Yeah. He's just looking at it going, these are just guys from the 93 Leafs. and I'm just shrugging. Like, I'm doing my best, man.

I don't know. Yeah. Oh, man. That's, yeah. See, that's gold. Like, I, see, I love, like, I don't think people realize that you were up in the booth for a game. But, but you don't, for the most part now, the way that you cover the game is kind of from afar, so to speak. Like, so, like, when's the last time you were in a, like, and for a lot of us, we haven't been in a press box a long time.

Yeah. When's the last time, was it the outdoor game? Is that the one out in San Francisco? Is that the last time you were in a press box, press box, press gallery? thing? Yeah, now I'm trying to think. There was, uh, I, I feel like I may have been down to Toronto and done a couple of games in the meantime, but yeah, it was back in the Grantland days when, when I was kind of their, their main hockey guy and they, they would send me anywhere. I, I, I, I, I, I kind of went all over. Uh, but yeah, not since then, really. It's that there's, there's,

there's not much need for it. And, you know, we're here in Ottawa, but I, I can't remember the last time I was up in, in the box in Ottawa. So, yeah, that's, uh, it's, it's, it's just, For some reason, when your job involved sitting around trying to figure out what hockey players' last name's rhyme, apparently you don't really need to be right in the middle of the action to do that stuff. I can't imagine you asking the first question in a press conference. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, Mr. Bettman.

Can you please settle at this? Havell Burry and Chris Drury's last name rhyme. Can you please, can we get a ruling on this? Why am I being escorted out? Yeah. Mr. Bettman, could you please say Mary, Mary and Mary three times? Yeah. Oh, that, yeah, that's cool. All right, Sean, we pumped his tires earlier in the podcast,

and he was a terrific fill-in co-host last week, and we bring them right in here for a little Granger things with Jesse Granger. This segment brought to by BetMGM, the exclusive betting partner with us here at the Athletic. And Jesse, I told Sean earlier how much you and I had to stifle our giggles when Robin Lennar said, you know, it's a double-edged, double edge and he went ahead and said it. It's a double edge sword. But boy, did we have some fun with Robin Lennar having that reference dropped in the interview. Yeah, he was great as always.

He never has a shortage of things to say. So Robin Lennar is always a great guest. Yeah. No, it was great. And so look, we're back having some Granger things. And I think what we wanted to do today is talk a little bit about some future odds and lines for individual annual awards in the NHL. And I think what's really important here is we don't want to talk about the obvious. So let's start with the Hart Trophy. And yeah, okay, Connor McDavid. Yeah, that's great.

I think what our listeners would love is, hey, give Sean and I some sneaky names here that might be good, maybe offering some good value here at the end of September. Yeah, I think, and to me, the way I look at these, just to let listeners in on sort of my, the way I look at futures and especially trying to pick out value guys. Like obviously McDavid plus, he's three to one to win. heart. You're not going to win any money even betting him, so why do it now? It's, it's kind of a pointless bet, especially risking the entire 82 game season and hoping that guy stays healthy. The way I look at it is kind of based on teams. I think of it in the, because it's so hard

to pick out the guy who's going to have that breakout season, like if you bet on Leon Dreys Idol, for example, the year before he got it. Obviously a good player, but there are so many good players in this league. To me, I like to think of teams, I think, are going to be near the top and then try to find a top player on a team that you can get good value on. And you just hope that that team ends up winning. And that's what always inevitably happens is someone ends up on the heart ballot that you didn't expect at the beginning of the year because their team won more games. And the best player on a winning team gets votes. A guy like this kind of stands out is, I don't know, Matt Barzow is a guy that I look at.

I think that that team doesn't get enough credit. when I was picking, the athletic asked us to make our picks for the season. And once again, I'm like, I wasn't picking the Islanders. I'm like, no, I need to pick them because I never pick them. And they're in the conference final every year. So I think a team like that that you know is going to be good. I think a guy like Braden Point, he was a monster in the playoffs. You know Tampa Bay is going to win a lot of games. I think he would be a decent value at heart at 16 to 1. And, and, you know, Another guy is Patrick Kane. Chicago is going to be a lot better this year. They look like they're going to be a lot better. If they can be in contention, we saw how good he was last year and he's been putting up ridiculous numbers. But when you're on a team like Chicago that's not winning, you're not going to get many heart about unless you're lighting it up like McDavid. I think if Chicago can be a little bit better, I think he would be in that conversation as one of the best players in the league. And he is 20 to one right now. So those are the guys for Hart. Do you guys see anybody that kind of piques your interest in that trophy? One name that maybe stands out a little bit, just and this is kind of on the same logic that you were using, Mark Stone. Now, not a guy that necessarily is going to put up huge numbers and just jump right to the front of the line. But I'm looking at, on my list, he's the 18th name listed. When you've got to get 18 names down for a team that I think most people would probably put in their top five, especially in that division, they're going to be in. That one doesn't seem like a bad one to take a flyer on if you're getting

25, 26 to 1 odds. Yeah, and Mark Stone was a point per game player last year. And I'm hesitant on that. I think I mentioned it before on here. They were playing the same teams every week and that division was so bad. It's going to be interesting to see if he can do that playing a full NHL schedule. But he was a point per game player and that's about what you need to get on that list. And if they're 105 point team and, you know, Mark Stone's a guy that there's been a lot of Selky push for him, you know, and he's a guy that always comes up. He's one of the most underrated players, and boy, you really have to know the game to appreciate everything this guy does.

Is it possible that that could swing all the way to, hey, let's skip the Selkie and go right to the heart conversation? You know, I don't, I don't think it's likely, but at these odds, you don't need it to be likely. You just need to be awesome. Exactly. For me, a guy in that same boat is Barkoff, right? Because I think a lot of people look at Florida as maybe a top. top five, seven team. And he's got a heading into last year of his contract.

Like, I don't mind, I don't mind Barkoff in that spot, to be honest with you, too. So, yeah, lots of great value there. Let's move down to the Vezna Trophy because as you look at it, I don't think it's a shock that Andre Vazolevsky coming off of back-to-back Stanley Cups and really being just statistically dominant is your odds on favorite. As you start to peruse that list, guys, who jumps out at you? To me, this is the one where I've got this circled in red sharpie as many times as I can circle. This is the best value on the board for any bet you can make.

Robin Lennar is 16 to 1 to win the Vesina. He is the 12th best odds of any goalie. There are 11 goalies with better odds to win the Vezina than Robin Lennar. And that is absolutely insane to me. simply because so like for Vezina trophies it's voted on by the GMs and it's almost always the goalie with the most wins the goalie with the best save percentage it's very simple

statistic like goals saved above expected rarely results in a Vezina is what I'm saying and the same statistics that lead to Vesina wins are the same statistics that goalies get credit for in fantasy hockey if you look at fantasy hockey rankings Robin Lennar is the number two goalie in the league behind Andre Vasilevsky. And if you look at where he's being drafted in fantasy hockey,

he's being drafted as the second or third goalie in the NHL. Based off, he plays for one of the best teams in the league in Vegas. He's going to get a bunch of games. They play in the worst division in hockey. He's going to rack up those wins. Robin Lerner has historically throughout his career been a very good safe percentage goalie just because of the style he plays. I think everything here is setting up for Robin Lennar to absolutely be a Vezna candidate,

at least maybe as a finalist. And the fact that he right now has worse odds than guys like Thatcher Demko, Peter Morazic, Alex Nadelcovich, who's going to be playing behind God. He's going to win Troy. He's going to win 12 games this year. He has, he's 14 to 1, and Robin Lennar is 16 to 1. That is insanity to me.

Yep. You know what? I can't disagree with anything you said. I'll throw one other name out there that for a lot of the same reasons. Darcy Kemper is. listed at what, 14 to 1 on the list I'm looking at.

Again, a guy who in theory is going to win a lot of games, but he's the main guy. And the other piece I would say is this is voted on by the GMs. The GM seemed to love Joe Sackett. And the fact that, you know, if I'm a GM and I'm looking at different options, the guy that Joe Sackett traded for went out and got, went out and

proactively got that maybe I nudge that I got my list a little bit to make Joe look good. Well, listen, speaking to Joe Sackett's guys, as we look at the Norris trophy odds, Kail McCar, is your odds on favorite to maybe win the Norris trophy. And the reigning Norris trophy winner, Adam Fox, comes in second, Victor Hedman, third. But again, the point of this exercise isn't to look at, you know, the overwhelming favorites. It's to look at who could be some sneaky good bets or give you some sneaky good value. So as we look at the Norris trophy right now, any names,

jump out to you that the odds are looking pretty good here at the end of September? Yeah, to stick with the theme of teams that I expect to be a little better, I think Vancouver, they had such a bad year last year. The year before in the Pacific Division where I got to watch them a lot because they're playing Vegas all the time. They were really good. They played Vegas in the playoffs. They played them to seven games. They were tough. Last year was such a disaster for that team, finishing near the bottom or in the bottom of the north. And I think that that team, you look at the talent on that team. You look at the, like I've mentioned before, the Pacific Division does not have a lot of good teams this year.

I think Vancouver is primed for a bounceback. And if they do, it's going to be large part because of Quinn Hughes. And I think he has the chance to be the best player on that team. And at 15 to 1, that's pretty good odds for a guy who I think two years ago, he was seen right there with Kail McCar. It was the argument, which one of these two is better, which is these two is the better young player. McCar now, obviously, he's 4 to 1, not 15 to 1 like Quinn Hughes. and that's because McCar has kind of stayed in the spotlight because his team, the avalanche,

have been so good and Vancouver kind of fell out of the spotlight because that bad year. I think if Vancouver has a bounce back year, Quinn Hughes is going to get a lot of credit for that. And 15 to 1, I think those odds can go down really quickly if Vancouver has a hot start. Yep, that's a good case. I'm a little disappointed. What I thought was a Dark Horse pick was Charlie McAvoy, but he's listed here. He's fifth on their list. So I'm obviously a little late to the part.

party on that one. Meryl Heiskin's another guy that that I might look at at the same odds as Quinn Hughes, especially since given what happened last year, it's clear that the days of Norris voters only wanting to cast their ballots for veteran guys who've been around for 10 years and treating it like a lifetime achievement award are passed.

Let me give you one actual long shot or maybe even two because they're both listed the same odds on mine. Jacob Chikrin, just, you know, Arizona obviously doesn't get a lot of attention, but this is a guy who seems like he's breaking through into becoming an elite guy, going to have more responsibility with Beckman Larson gone. It's his team, or at least his blue line now. You could see a narrative forming there if he has a big year.

He can score goals. You know, maybe that ends up being some people look at it. And then the other piece is, and again, I'm looking at what happened last year where, you know, I thought Victor Hedman was going to win because I just thought the voters are going to, to go with the familiar, but there was a really good case for Adam Fox, and it was being made, especially by a lot of people in the analytics community, and that seemed to bubble up, and it seemed to actually take hold, and people looked at it and said, you know what, yeah, you're making a good case, and we're going to vote for this guy. I might look at,

you know, who else is there out there that is maybe a dark horse that the analytics guys really seem to like, and if he had a breakthrough year, could they put something together for him? And the guy that I look at is in McKenzie Wigar in Florida. They seem to be a lot of to love this guy. And he's not certainly a household name, not a guy that necessarily has been at the top of the list or, but was a top 10 finisher last year. So he's way down the list of, you know, something like 35, 36 to 1. Yeah, if I was going to go for for a big long shot, I might, I might put a couple bucks down

there. Yeah, I completely agree on Weger. And I can see where you're going with that one. His analytics have been great. Yeah, I think that's a, I like that play a lot. Right there with those. two guys at 35 to 1 is Mark Giordano. If Seattle is the surprise team that Vegas was, maybe he gets a bunch of credit and is on

that ballot too. Yeah. And he's got a, you know, he's got a Norris trophy already in his, in his cabinet. Would you guys put any money as we wrap this conversation up? There are three former, not including Gerardano, but there's three other former Norris trophy winning defensemen in Brent Burns, Eric Carlson, and Drew Dowdy. And they're coming in at, you know, roughly between 30. I think roughly 30 to 1 for Burns, 36 to 1 for Dowdy and vote 50 to 1 for Carlson.

Any chance any one of those three guys can rediscover the game of their youth or the ship has sailed on all three of those guys. I think if I were to put money on one of those guys, it'd be Dowdy only because I think the Kings are improving. And I think that they, I think they're heading in the right direction, whereas I think San Jose is kind of in the beginning stages of their rebuild. I think Eric Carlson's probably the better of those three, but I think Dowdy's in a better situation where maybe if that LA Kings run, and again, I keep going back to it. The Pacific Division is wide open. There's one team that made the playoffs in that division last year, and that's the Golden Knights. After that it is so wide open. So if the Kings and these young prospects that they have coming up take a big step forward and they make the playoffs or something, maybe Dowdy is kind of the guy that they rally around and he gets a lot of the credit for it. Yeah, that's, you know, I don't think I would bet on any of these guys. but Dowdy would be my guy.

The other piece of this is assuming we have the Olympics, if Dowdy ends up on Team Canada, which you could see given the veteran presence and plays well, obviously the Olympics are not supposed to factor into an NHL award, but we know who's voting on this, right? It's the media. We love a story. That could be part of the Drew Dowdy redemption tour.

If he goes to the Olympics and actually looks like old Drew Dowdy with the whole world watching, that's going to move him up a few lists. So if I had to talk myself into one of them, it'd be him. But I don't know that I'd be putting any money down on it. Yeah, we have to make sure that we cut an audio clip and send it to Drew Dowdy of us saying he's like a, you know, 40 to one shot to win the Norris. Because he just seems to be motivated by the haterade. He likes that stuff.

Hey, we'll leave it there. Jesse Granger is always great to have you back in the saddle as our expert here when it comes to all things with the futures and the lines. part of this segment brought to you by BetMGM. Listen, thanks for this and we'll get you again next Thursday. Thanks for having me, guys. Thanks, Jesse. All right, always great to get Jesse Granger with us back in the, for Granger things. Going to open up the mailbag here.

A reminder, a couple of ways you can reach us here on the Athletic Hockey Show. You can drop us an email with any questions you have for us. The email address is The Athletic Hockey Show at gmail.com, the athletic hockey show at gmail.com. Or you can drop us a voicemail. Leave us a voicemail. We'd love to hear your voice, love to play the audio clip. So if you have any questions or comments or, you know, things you want us to tackle,

you can actually pick up the phone and give us a call 845-4-4-5-4-5-8459. So do that, and we'd love to hear from you. Hey, let's open up the mailbag here, Sean. Let's tackle one question this week. And let's go to this email that we got from Enrique. Enrique Tarikez has written in to us and says, look, can you guys tell me anything? about the Anaheim Ducks. As a diehard fan of the franchise,

I feel like I never hear anything in the media about them unless it's something bad. So I have a lot of love for other franchise. I hear a lot of love for other franchises, but never about Anaheim. So let's help Enrique out here. John, what do we think about the Anaheim Ducks going into this season? No opinion. Next.

Yeah. No. You know what? I love that question because just like just say anything. Just remind me my time. team exists. I think Anaheim, look, they're clearly a rebuilding team and they're at that stage of the rebuild where I don't know that it feels like they're coming out of it quite yet to the point where like with a team like L.A. or maybe even Ottawa where you say, hey, you know, they're going to

take a big step forward and I don't know that Anaheim's quite there. They've got real good prospects. They have got, you know, Corey Praman consistently ranks them near the very top of his pipeline rankings. I will say this. I don't talk a lot about the ducks, but I have mentioned them pretty consistently as my dark horse pick in the Jack Eichael sweepstakes.

I think that for all the same reasons that we keep pointing to L.A., I think all of those reasons apply to Anaheim as well. And if they were to decide that they wanted to accelerate and go after a guy like that, I think they make a lot of sense. The interesting thing for Anaheim

this offseason, And it was kind of one of those under the radar stories a little bit, at least from an Anaheim perspective. But when we were talking about Montreal and their bizarre offseason and I talked about their AHL coach leaving and what that meant, that was a guy named Joel Bouchard. And he went to Anahe and he took their AHL job in San Diego, which part of the reason that it had some people scratching their heads a bit is it felt like a bit of a lateral move. You're going from head coach in the HL one place to head coach in another. But I think the circumstance is pretty obvious that you've got Montreal now seems like they've got their coach, their new coach locked in. And then you look at Anaheim. You look at Dallas Acres.

I like a lot and think is a really good coach. But the results have not been there. They weren't there in Edmonton and they have not so far been there in Anaheim, although with a rebuilding roster. And I think a lot of people, when they said Joel Bouchardt go and take that job, San Diego, they went, ah, this is, this is a case where Anaheim is they're not making a coaching change, which a lot of us thought they might do in the offseason, but they just hired their next head coach. And he's there and he's going to be ready to come in as soon as if and when they make a change

on Dallas Aiken. And so that's a situation to watch where, you know, Bob Murray gave the vote of confidence. And Bob Murray is on a hot seat too. And he's been there a while. And it'll be interesting to see how much rope he gets. but that was a case where it certainly felt like Anaheim was kind of taking a look ahead at the future and saying, we still like Dallas Aiken and we still want this guy coaching our team. But if and when the time comes to make a change, who's our next guy?

Do we have him in the organization? And if not, let's go out and get him. And they found somebody who was looking to make that move. You know, I think Anaheim is an interesting team because I think the Pacific Division is so weak that you could talk me into John Gibb getting crazy hot and kind of, you know, like he, he has that ability. That's what has to happen. Yeah. The thing with John Gibson is, you know, it, he, it took us a little while to catch on

to the fact that this guy was one of the best goalies in the league. But for the last couple years, he hasn't been especially good or at least consistently good. And I think, you know, partly because it's been partial seasons and obviously there's been a lot of other stuff going on, that that's maybe floating under the radar a little bit. So, you know, if you're someone who doesn't follow Anaheim at all, and you know, you might look at them and go, well, they got one of the best goalies. So who knows? And yeah, you're right. If John Gibson gets back to what he was, then they've got to punch your chance because that division is weak.

And if you got a goalie, you've got a chance. But the question is, what is John Gibson? And that's going to be a question to watch this year because, you know, we've all seen even the all-time great goalies have one bad year. year, a couple of bad years starts to worry you, but once it gets past that, it becomes a trend. And I don't think John Gibson's been bad. I don't want to overstate that. But he hasn't been the John Gibson that we got used to a few years earlier than that. So that's going to be an interesting story to watch. How well does he play and how much can he lift a young team that's going to be in front of them? And it's a young team. And I think it's a fun team actually to watch.

And I think to me, Trevor Zegris is going to be really interesting because he played 24 games last year, which gives him like just enough of a taste of the NHL, and he's still eligible for the Calder Trophy, right? And he's my Calder pick, yeah. Yeah, and I think that he's going to be a really fun guy to watch. And I think he probably showed it was a small sample size. He showed he can thrive in the AHL.

I think he's going to probably get as many touches as any young centerman in the national. Hockey League this year based on his age. I think he's fun. And I really like Jamie Drysdale, too. I think Jamie Drysdale is a really good young defenseman that you would look at him and think, you know, like if Zegris and Drysdale end up playing the full season in the National Hockey League and end up being as good as we think they can.

And John Gibson's like playing like he was two years ago, I kind of feel like the Anaheim Ducks could be a fun team. And because that Pacific division is so weak, maybe they can sneak in. And if they sneak in, presumably, because of John Gibson is having a great year, who wants to play them in the first round? Right. Yeah. You know, if they sneak in, let's assume that there's only going to be three spots coming

out of the Pacific, they sneak in third. Who's that second place team? Edmonton? You think Edmonton wants to play John Gibson or whoever else might be in that spot? You know, hey, we learned last year, right? Make the playoffs and then who knows. Yeah, exactly. All right.

As we always do, Sean, we're going to wrap it up with a little this week in hockey history. And, you know, look, late September, it's not a time where a kind of things have happened in the news cycle. But we do want to focus on something that happened. A really significant trade happened on September the 20th, 1991. So we're going to take our listeners back 30 years. So 30 years ago this week, Montreal Canadiens and New Jersey. Devils engineered a really significant training camp trade. And you don't often see these types of trades.

It was a two-for-two trade. And I think it kind of worked out for both teams, Sean, because the Montreal Canadiens pick up Kirk Muller and a goaltender, Roli Moulanson from New Jersey, in exchange for Stefan Rieshay and Tom Chorsky. And what I think is neat about this is Mueller, of course, is a guy that wins a Stanley Cup with Montreal a couple of years later in 1993. And then Rishay and Chorsky are a part.

of a devil's team that win a Stanley Cup in 1995. And I can't help but think that like, man, this is actually one of those rare deals that it seemed like it worked out for both teams. Yeah, it probably did. I think both teams would be happy with it. And it's, yeah, it's one of those fun trades from the 1990s where it's on the surface, it looks like a hockey trade, right? There's no draft picks.

There's no, obviously, there's no cap to worry about back then. But a fun thing to do with pretty much any, a good rule of thumb, any 90s blockbuster trade is to look back and ask yourself, was there a salary dispute involved? And had any of these players actually walked away from their team to force the trade? Because that happened a lot back then. We've forgotten it because it's really not a piece of the modern NHL. But back then, contracts could be renegotiated any time. So a player could just go, I don't link my contract anymore. I'm not going to play until I get a new one.

And it happened all the time. Guys, like Messier did it. Doug Gilmore, everybody, you know, crushes the Calgary Flames for that trade they made with the Leafs. Doug Gilmar had walked away from the Calgary Flames. He went home to force their hand into making a trade. And sure enough, you look at this trade. And yeah, we find that again. And it was Kirk Muller had just days before this trade was made.

He had gone home from training camp. And it's interesting because this, you talk about all the dominoes that can fall from a move. And we talked about this one a couple of weeks ago, Scott Stevens, when he came over to the New Jersey Devils, that franchise changing move where they get him as compensation and the arbitration for the signing of Brandon Shanahan by the Blues. And Scott Stevens is not happy. And he doesn't initially even want to report to the New Jersey Devils, says I'm not going to play for them. my one out eventually goes. And of course, now you picture Scott Stevens. Of course, he's wearing a devil's jersey in your mind.

But at the time, he didn't want to be in New Jersey. But one of the repercussions of that is when Scott Stevens arrived in New Jersey, having already signed this big contract with the blues and then been transferred over to the devils, he was making two or three times what everyone else on that team was making. And a few guys on the devils went, hold on, wait a second. And if you can afford this guy, we want to change our contracts up too. And Kirk Muller was one of them.

Ken Danico was another lifelong devil who said, I want a new deal. And of course, Kirk Muller walked away. He said, I'm going home until I get a new contract. And Lou Lamarillo, even back in the early 90s, he was not much more mellow than he was today. He wasn't having it. And so he flipped Kirk Muller, who was the devil's captain at the time. flipped him to Montreal, got Stefan Rishay back. It said at the time, which was quite funny, that it had nothing to do with the fact that he had gone home.

It was just a, you know, just a move that seemed to make sense. But, yeah, that was one of our early lessons that Lou Lamarillo was not messing around. And it was a situation where, hey, I mean, it worked out for everyone. Kirk Muller was thrilled. He's a Kingston boy. To get a chance to go play for the Montreal Canadiens was probably a great opportunity for him. and Stefan Rishi played well for the Devils. Worked out for everybody.

But again, just that ground rule, that rule of thumb, anytime you're looking at a 90s trade, dig into it a little bit, see who forced it on the player side, and then you will almost always find that there was somebody. All right, hey, listen, we'll leave it there. Great to have you back in the saddle. Like, hey, man, we missed you last week. Like I said, Granger did a great job jumping in,

but we're looking forward to as the season kicks off, training camps open up doing this every Thursday. So listen, have a great week, and we'll get you again next Thursday, I'm sure there'll be a whole bunch of columns you write between now and then that we can sink her teeth into. Right on. Sounds good. All righty. Hey, folks. And a reminder that coming up on Friday, the Prospects series of the Athletic Hockey Show,

featuring Corey and Max, Max Boltman, Corey Prondman, they're going to be interviewing the guy we all think is going to go to number one overall. Shane Wright, of the Kingston Frontenax is going to be the guest on the Prospect Series of the Athletic Hockey Show. So make sure you tune into that. And thanks everybody for listening. Like I said earlier, drop us in an email. If you want to, got any questions, got any feedback for us, anything you want us to tackle, the athletic hockey show, gmail.com.

We'll go through that email list and try to dig out some questions for next week. And a reminder, if you're not a subscriber with us, you can join us at theathletic.com slash hockey show. You get 50% off an annual subscription.