The Athletic Hockey Show - Jesperi Kotkaniemi's offer sheet, Jack Eichel changes agents, and more

Episode Date: September 2, 2021

Ian and Sean return for the first TAHS Thursday show of September with a deep dive on the Hurricanes' offer sheet for Jesperi Kotkaniemi. Is this a no-win spot for the Habs? Also, Jack Eichel has switched agents, but how does that affect the situation in Buffalo? Listeners had many thoughts on the August shows, so the guys take some time to address the feedback. Then, in "This Week in Hockey History", the Devils and Blues get into an offer sheet conflict of their own.Have a question or comment for Ian and Sean? Email [e-mail], or leave a VM at [phone]!Save on an annual subscription to The Athletic: theathletic.com/hockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hey, everybody. Welcome to our first September edition of the Athletic Hockey Show at Cian Mendez, Sean McAdoe with you just ahead of the Labor Day weekend, ahead in this next hour or so. We'll hit on a suddenly busy and somewhat juicy news cycle in the NHL, including the battle between Carolina and Montreal over Yersperi Kotkenymi. We'll touch on the Jack Eichel soap opera as well. Plus, we've got a ton of listener feedback that we've got to get through from all of those fun August shows that we did. So we did like the Hall of Fame debates. And I know we've got one of our listeners who's passionate about our omission of Patrick Eliash. We'll get to that.

Our what if scenarios includes the L.A. Kings and an illegal stick. So we'll get to all of that. And as always, we'll get back to wrapping up our show with a little this week in hockey history and how the devils and the blues got into a sticky offer sheet situation involving Brendan Shanahan and Scott Stevens. And tell you what, Sean, a sticky situation. situations and RFAs. That was, you know, basically 1991. We're talking 30 years ago that that happened. And we got ourselves a full out sticky situation. So I did a podcast earlier this week with both Sarah Sivian and Arpin Basu, who cover the hurricanes and the Canadians, respectively. And I asked them, like, give me the like the exact moment you found out that this was happening, what was going through your mind. So what about you? Because you're a guy that always talks about. you know, you would love to see more RFA offer sheets and this kind of becoming a little bit more of a useful tool in the tool bag for GMs.

What was Down Goes Brown's reaction to the Carolina Hurricanes and their very aggressive and unique offer sheet that is Perry Kotkin. So first of all, I found out in a very fun way, which is I've been trying during the off season to mostly stay off of Twitter, which for me, stay off of Twitter, means. not be on Twitter 24 hours a day. And so I hadn't been on and I just went and I checked and I saw something about the fallout to this offer sheet. And I didn't know what the offer sheet was.

So I had this wonderful section of time where I was trying to figure out, okay, who just got offer sheeted? Like did somebody do Elias Peterson? Is Brady Kachuk? Like all the names were flowing through my mind. And when I saw it was Kokonemi, I was kind of like, oh, okay. I mean, that's all right. But then I saw who the team was and I started, like everyone else, it wasn't very hard to put the pieces of the puzzle together and realize everything that was going on in the background and the drama and just the pettiness of it.

And then, yeah, I sure I was probably like most fans. If you're not a fan of Carolina or Montreal, you grab your bit of popcorn and you just sit back and you watch and you wait and you see how it all plays out. And we're almost a full week into it and we're still kind of waiting at least as we record this. We don't know what Montreal is going to do, which is really this is fascinating stuff to me. Like it's interesting from a personality standpoint, just with the teams and the people involved. It's interesting from a roster building strategy standpoint. Like what do you do? How do you get a player from another team with an offer sheet?

How do you defend against an offer sheet? What do you do when one comes in and you have to make a decision? I'm just really interested to see how this plays out, what Mark Bergevin does, what he has to say about it afterwards. And then we all get to sit back and watch the fallout and watch this player on whichever team he ends up being on for the coming season. It's going to be really interesting stuff from a league that typically doesn't give us very interesting stuff to chew on this time of year. And I think what makes this one interesting is it is truly, I guess, predatory is the term. but it's an offer sheet the way offer sheets are supposed to be presented, which is, oh man, now you've created a conundrum for the team that has the rights to Kotkanami.

Because if you go back to the Sabash and Aho thing, as much as I know obviously it ruffled Carolina's feathers that it was like $21 million, they had to pay them out in the first 12 months. But outside of that, it was a pretty easy decision. You're like, oh, you know what? At that term and that AAV, it's almost like if you take out the front loaded ask fact of that contract, the Canadians kind of did Carolina a little bit of a favor because that's a, that's a very good player at a fairly reasonable contract. This one, I mean, it's right.

Yeah, I know there's, there's, there's someone Carolina who object to the, did them a favor phrasing just because they, they probably could have got him for even less than that if they, if he hadn't had the leverage of an offer sheet. But that one had no chance of succeeding. There was, there was no, unless Carolina was literally. couldn't come up with the money and they had seven days. There's, that one had no hope.

And that's typically how these ones have gone. Like even you go back, Ryan O'Reilly, remember Ryan O'Reilly, when Calgary tried to get him out of Colorado, Colorado matched so quickly that we didn't realize that that whole waiver situation was in play, that we only found out afterwards because Colorado basically instantly matched.

With Shea Weber, Nashville took a little bit of time to think about it. it, but not very much. I can't remember the last time we had an off-sheet that went this long with genuine uncertainty. But you're right, this is how it's supposed to work. You're supposed to make the other team have a hard decision to make. And sometimes that might be based on their cap situation. It might be based on the player. In this case, I think it's based on Carolina knowingly and admittedly overpaying the player. They are, by giving him this high of a cap hit, they are shifting his value and diminishing his value because every player in this league, your value is tied to your cap hit.

And Carolina is diminishing the value of the player they're signing, which sounds crazy and sounds like something you would never do. But it makes sense because they are pushing his value down enough that it now makes it a difficult decision for Montreal. Because if they had signed him to an offer sheet with a cap hit that started with a three, it's an easy match for Mark Bergerman. It's not something he even has to think about. The fact that the number is so high and frankly so much higher than it should be under ordinary circumstances is also exactly what makes it possible that they're actually going to get the player this time. And it's really interesting. Just, you know, from a, again, just from the game theory, the strategy that goes into this, they have approached this.

I think in a much better way in terms of having a shot at getting the player than Montreal did two years ago. And then, of course, it leads to the question of should they want to get the player at this number? And is that going to be the right move? And time will tell. Yeah. And I think what's really important to point out, there's a couple of things here that I think it's really important that we understand it, our listeners understand it. And that is people, you'll hear people say, well, now Yaspiri Kotkinemi's floor will always be $6 million. And that's not necessarily the case because, and let's just play out this scenario.

Let's say the haves don't match. And they're like, you know what, it's not worth it. 6.1. Let them go. After January 1st, the Carolina hurricanes could conceivably sign Yisperi Kottkinemi to a four-year deal at an AV of four per. Like, like, there's, that's really important that the only time that that $6 million figure comes in is if we get back to next year at this time and he hasn't been signed to a contract extension, that's when they got to qualify him at that number. You can try and get it a little bit lower, like I think it's 85%. But that's the only time.

Like, I think it's really important for people to understand. After January 1st, yes, Barry Kotkinemi can be signed to any contract of any term with any AAV and it doesn't have to be. starting with a six. It could be starting with a three or four, whatever. So there is something to be said for the Kotkanemi camp. What if Carolina went to him and said, listen, we're going to make this predatory offer sheet. Get this done. Let's have a deal done in the drawer for January 2nd. That's a little bit more reasonable for us because we, you know, and that's the type of thing that could happen. Whereas if the Habs match, I feel like, yes, tell me if I'm wrong here. I feel like yes, Barry Kotkenami has one foot out the door. Otherwise, you wouldn't, would you sign an offer sheet

with a $20 signing bonus. Like, this is really sticking it to the Montreal Canadiens. And Kotkinemi in some regard is complicit. Like, you could have signed that deal and just said, listen, do you mind just taking out the $20 offer signing bonus? Like, I think that you could have done that, couldn't you? Yes, you could have. Although, if I'm a $2 or $3 million player and somebody wants to offer me $6 million,

I don't know that I'm going to push back too much on, on the $20 punchline that they want to slide. And I mean, he may not even have known. That might have been something where they go to the agent and go, we're going to drop this in there. And they say, you know what? You want to double my salary? I'm not going to worry too much about a $20 dig.

You want to throw at somebody. But you're right. I mean, this is part of when we talk about how come there's no offer sheets in the NHL and this is something that commonly gets brought up is the player has to sign it. Now, that doesn't always mean that the player wants out. It doesn't mean that there's something fundamentally broken in the relationship. The Sebastian Aou thing, he probably knew when he signed that, that it was going to get matched. And this was just a way for him to get his contract done and move on.

Maybe. Or, you know, we'll never really know, I guess. But in this case, it's not simply the fact that he signed the offer sheet, but everything that went with it. The way that his development has gone on the last three years, being sent down, being a healthy scratch in the Stanley Cup final. Yeah. This isn't something where Montreal has made it abundantly clear that they love this guy and want him to be part of the team going forward and he's eyeing the door. There's been a bit of this on both sides. So you're right.

Carolina could have, could sign him to an extension. We need to be a little bit careful here. They can't have a done deal in their back pocket right now. They're not allowed to do that until January 1st. Nothing is binding. And, you know, could they sign him to an extension with a cap hit that started with a four or five? Yes, they could do that. Could they do what I've seen some people suggest and sign him to an extension with a $2 million cap hit?

And then it turns out that the $6 million was just front load and really it was a different deal. there are put it this way anything that Gary Betman thinks was done under the table or done in a way to circumvent or make this unfairly difficult for Montreal Gary Betman has very vast powers to step in and and slap a team on the wrist for doing certain things and Caroline is a smart team they're not going to have anything done and signed and sealed that they're not allowed to have done so I do think that's up in the air a little bit. But you're right. If he goes back to Montreal, they match and there's bad feelings. He can absolutely say, you know what? I don't want to talk to you guys about an extension. Talk to me in the summer and the qualifying offer starts with a six.

And if you don't want to give me that, then I walk as a free agent. You get nothing. Okay. So one of the options as well that I think you kind of laid out in your column this week for Mark Bergevan is, and I think, and I apologize, I don't have your, call them up in front of me. But I think it was the Chris Grattan situation back in the day. But there is a potential that the habs and the canes could work something out. However, the amount of toxicity between the two franchises would seemingly make that a non-starter. But could you walk

us through what potentially could happen involving Kotkinemi goes to Carolina, but the habs don't necessarily get a first and a third back. They get a different form of compensation. Right. So this is, first of all, a couple of things that are important is number one, the moment that the offer sheet gets signed, Montreal can no longer trade the player. They cannot trade, for example, trade his rights to some other team and say, you can match if you want him. They cannot, he is untradable during the week that they have to figure out if they want to match. And if they do match, he is also cannot be traded during the coming season. It's one year where he essentially, it's not even a no trade clause. It's because no trade clauses can be waived. He cannot be traded by the Montreal Canadian. So if they match, they are stuck with them for good or for bad for the year. But there are a couple scenarios where Mark Berger-Van can trade his way out of this.

The one that I mentioned, the Chris Grattan situation is, in theory, Mark Bergevank can pick up the phone. He can call Don Waddell and say, look, I'm not going to let this player go for a first and third. that doesn't fit what my team is looking for right now. It doesn't fit where we are as far as our Stanley Cup window. If I have to choose between a first and a third or matching the offer, I'm matching the offer. But if you could sweeten the offer a little bit, I might be willing to let the player go. And that could be a situation where it's, you know, maybe it's better picks. Maybe it's a prospect instead of pick.

Maybe it's a player off the roster. Something like that. let's work out a deal where you give me something else in exchange for Kakkiyami and then I let them go. Now, you can't negotiate the compensation that is built into the CBA and it can't be changed. But what you could do is basically I have a handshake deal that says, I'm not going to match. And then as soon as I get the first and the third, I flip one or both of those picks back to you in exchange for something else. That happened with Chris Grattan in 90s, late 90s and 97, I want to say. Yeah, I think so, yeah.

And it was, and he signed an off sheet that was four first round picks. It was Philadelphia and Tampa, but Tampa didn't want the picks. So they flipped the picks back or at least some of the picks back and they got Mikkel Renberg. That whole situation didn't work out. They ended up flipping the players back for each other a year later, which was kind of funny. This is one of those things. It's interesting in theory. And there is nothing in the rulebook that would prevent the teams from doing this.

but realistically, a couple of problems. First of all, there's clearly some bad blood between these two teams. So I don't know that Don Waddell and Mark Birchvander are having any conversations, period. The other problem is it's been reported at least that the two teams did talk about a trade before the offer sheet was made. And obviously, they couldn't agree on compensation at that point. And that could have been anything picks players, what have you. So if they couldn't agree back then when Kotkenemi was theoretically a two or three million dollar player, I don't know why they would be able to come up with a deal now that he's a $6 million player.

But they could. In theory, they could. The far more likely situation and the way that I still think this ends is that Mark Bergevin right now is furiously calling around the league saying, what can I get that will help me right now in exchange for Carolina's first and third? draft picks that I'm going to get his compensation. And I still think that's a realistic way that this works out, is that Mark Bergervant says, I'm not going to match. Have fun with your new $6 million player,

but I don't want the first and third pick. I'm going to take that first and third pick and flip it to some other rebuilding team that wants draft picks, and I'm going to get help right now. And if it plays out that way, that could actually be a win, win, win for all three teams involved. Carolina gets the guy they want. Montreal gets better today because they could get a veteran guy who's better than Kotkanemi is right now to help them try to get back into the playoffs and back after a Stanley

Cup. And then some rebuilding team gets draft picks that they're going to want. I still feel like that's the exit strategy here that actually works for all the teams involved. Yeah. And a good example of that would be a guy like Thomas Hurdle, where maybe Thomas Hurdle is, you know, San Jose is looking to move him. They're looking for a first round pick and something else. And then all of a sudden, like you said, that that's a scenario where it could be win, win, win.

Let me ask you this question because I asked Arpin, who covers the HABs. I asked them this in the bonus episode of the podcast we did after this offer sheet came out. Okay. And you and I think had talked about this earlier in this summer. I asked you the question, who gets booed the loudest at the bell center next season. Okay. So new options here. So which player, which visiting player gets booed the loudest at the Bell Center next year?

A, Mark Schifley, B, Nikita Kutcherov, C, Yaspare, Kutkiniemi. That's a new contendary merger. You know, hockey fans have short memories. I feel like the recency here, it might be Kockenemi because this is one of those things. We've talked about in the past that booing, that booing returning players. players, a lot of times doesn't make sense when fans do it because it's a guy, you know, he got traded or he just left his free agent. He didn't do anything wrong. He, uh, whereas this is a case where you could argue that this guy is orchestrating his exit and he's kind of putting

the screws to the team and the way he did it. I think it might be him, um, even though, you know, what, what, you know, Shifley did on the ice was far worse. And Kutrov, I mean, it was pretty funny, but, uh, that, that should also earn you some booze. But yeah, it's good, if you're, if you're, Yeah, if you're a Montreal hockey fan, you like booing the other, the other team's players, you're in for a big year because it's going to be, you're going to have a lot of options. Yeah. So the last thought on this offer sheet stuff is obviously people like you and I, hockey fans, we want this, right? We cheer for the maximum chaos.

We love it. We love the drama that comes with this type of offer sheet. You think that this opens the door to more offer sheets? I'm going to throw out some names here because there are still some legitimately high-end. In fact, the guys I'm going to mention, I think, are certainly in a stratosphere above a yes, Perrycott Canami. So I'm talking Kareil Kaprizov, Rasmus Dahlin, Brady Kachuk, the two in Vancouver and Elias Pedersen and Quinn Hughes.

Do you think we see any offer sheets there? And if you're one of those teams, the Buffaloes, Minnesota, Ottawa, Vancouver, should you be worried that, uh-oh, like, maybe we're entering a new air. of teams being a little bit more emboldened to make an offer sheet. Yeah, it's going to be really interesting to see how that plays out, because I think there's two ways you can look at it. And it might depend on what the outcome is here. The first way to look at it is you say,

Montreal tried to get a superstar when they offer sheet at Sebastian. And here's what they have to show for. They didn't get the player. Carolina instantly matched. Everybody kind of laughed at Montreal going, what were they thinking? Why did they think that was going to work? And now two years later, they're being targeted in what seems pretty clearly to be a retaliatory situation. So the message here is don't try. Mark Bergervan, whatever you thought of the offer sheet that he tried in 2019,

at least he used one. He was finally the GM that actually opened the toolbox and used a tool that was available to him. And here's his payback. Here's what you get. So the answer if your GM is don't do offer sheets at all. That's one way to look at it. Now, the flip side of that is if this offer sheet works, if Montreal lets the player go and Carolina gets him, that sort of changes the perception. Because the biggest reason, people always ask me, how come there's no offer sheets? Is it because the GMs are all buddy, buddy? Is it because of the compensation, this or that? The reason there's no offer sheets is because they never work.

If this one does work, that suddenly might shift the balance. I think if Montreal just matches and just takes the player, that could be it for offer sheets. Because I think a lot of GMs will say, you're just going to get retaliation, you're just going to run into problems. And, oh, by the way, Carolina gave this guy twice the money he should have got and it still didn't work. What's the point? I'm not going to bother with it. But if it does work, then yeah, that does, you know, there should be at least a few owners calling up their GMs going, how can we never do this? How come, you know, look at all of these great players that are out there.

How come you're not taking a run at these guys? Are you, are you considering it? Are you thinking about a way to do this? Or are you telling me that you can't, even though it's right there in the CBA? And by the way, you know, we have off-sheets in the NBA. Teams use them all the time. There's no, you know, there's no unwritten rule against it in the NBA. How come we can't do it in the NHL?

I really feel like if you're someone who loves offer sheets and you want to see them happen more often, and I think most fans fall into that category right up until it's your team that's on the receiving end and then you're not sure. You should be rooting for Carolina and get the player here because I think that that's what maybe opens the door and changes some thinking.

And if Montreal just matches and walks away from it, then I think it may be a while before we see another one of these. You know, Carolina and Montreal, Sean, this has become in the last week, certainly the spiciest story and the most, you know, the thing filled with the most animosity in the NHL.

It is sort of pushed Jack Eichel v. the Buffalo Sabres to the background. But there was some news here, right, in the last week or so, with Eichael changing agents. He goes to CAA's Pat Brise on. He was previously rep by a couple of guys from Boston in Peter Fish and Peter Donatelli. So he's out with Donatelli and Fish. He's in with Pat Brise on. I don't know if this is going to grease the tracks for anything. thing. And I don't know, maybe these stories are all connected. Maybe the Habs find a way to get

Jack Eichael. That's also there. But my question to you is, what is, as we head in the Labor Day weekend, how does Kevin Adams come out of this looking okay? Is there, do you see Sean any path for Kevin Adams to get out of this situation with some degree of success? Yeah, it's, it's tough. I mean, at this point, it doesn't feel like the question any longer is, how do you get fair value for Jack Eichel? It's how do you get as many pennies on the dollar for this guy as you possibly can? And look, we all know the situation. We all know where the leverage is. I don't think any of us at this point are expecting Kevin Adams to get a franchise changing windfall like you may have got a year.

ago if you had moved him last summer when he was healthy. The injury changes things. The fact that he's coming off a bad year changes things. This is, it's a bad situation. And I would imagine that Kevin Adams would love to be done with this already. He probably would have loved to have gotten a great offer at the draft or somewhere around there and moved on. Clearly that didn't happen, at least in his eyes, is that because his demands are or unrealistic, maybe. Or is it because everyone in the league knows the situation and he's just being low-balled? And at a certain point,

you've got to be realistic about what you can get. But if the offers just aren't there, it doesn't make the Sabres any better to trade this guy for next to nothing. You've got to get something that you can hang your hat on for going forward. So in terms of your question, what's the path out of this?

I think we can assume that the offers have not been there yet. The injury situation probably is a big piece of that. I'm wondering if the path for Kevin Adams isn't that he calls up Jack Eichol and his people and says, look, I'm not giving you away for nothing. All the offers I have on the table right now would amount to me giving away for nothing. So I'm not doing it. You are Sabres property for the next four years. let's figure out what to do with this injury.

That's in terms of what types of surgery is, that's a whole different debate. But let's figure this out. Let's get you back healthy. Come back to Buffalo. Put on the uniform. Get on the ice. Show that you're still an elite player.

And by that point, you know, some other contender will have an injury or a hole in their lineup. They'll see you playing. They'll see that you're healthy. The injury questions go away. The offers will get better. I will move you at that point, but I can't do it right now because the offers and the question marks just aren't there and I will not make a move that's going to cripple the Buffalo Sabres going

forward. That's a scenario I could see playing out and then it becomes very interesting. What does Jack Eichael do? Because does he say, okay, you know, I'm going to get healthy. I'm going to show up. I'm going to play my heart out for the Sabres and show everyone that I'm an elite player in this league. Does he come back, but he's not happy about it? Does he sulk his way through it?

Or does he say, you know what? No, I'm not coming back. I'm done. I've played my last game for the Sabres and trade me. Or I'll sit at home and you'll get nothing at all and see how good your team is then. And, you know, when you see a guy switch agents like this, you wonder, is he battening down the hatches for the storm this to come? I don't know. You know, obviously there's a ton of behind the scenes maneuvering here in conversations that we're not party to.

but I'm really interested to see how this plays out because I'm starting to think that that might be the only play for the Sabres is to say we need you back and you haven't played your last game for the Buffalo Sabers. We need you back and in the lineup and then the question becomes

is Jack Eichael open to that or does he say, you know what? No, I'm done. Give me a call when I'm traded because I played my last NHL game until then. All right, tell you what, Sean, you know, I think in the month of August we had a lot of fun.

some kind of out-of-the-box, kind of big-picture, fun shows that, you know, hit on what-ifs and Hall of Fame debates and some things. And we got a ton of feedback that we haven't had a chance to get to. So we want to remind all of our listeners here to The Athletic Hockey Show. You can drop us a line, the athletic hockey show at gmail.com. So if you want to send us an email, any feedback you have, even like this episode, about Kotkenyemi or Eichel or anything we've hit on, the athletic hockey show at gmail.com. But we want to remind you as we kick off a new season here.

into the fall, we love hearing your voice and we love getting voicemails. And you can do that by dropping us a voicemail at 845-4-4-5-845-845-4-5-4-5-8-4-5-8-4-59. And Sean, that's exactly what this fan did. Now, this person didn't leave their name. We would love to get, next time you're leaving us a voicemail, leave your name. But we'll just call this disgruntled devil's fan or angry, angry devil's fan. Have a listen. This is in response to our Hall of Fame debate,

and this Devils fan feels like we had a significant omission. Hey, so I just listen to the Hall of Fame debate. I'll be honest, it is just so biased for players that played in Canadian markets. It makes me sick. I mean, you guys want to talk about Daniel Alfredson for 10, 15 minutes. You want to talk about a winger with a winning pedigree and has just as good numbers as Daniel Offrickson looked no further than Patrick Eliasch.

I mean, come on. Guy leads the franchise in goals, assistant points, and has two Stanley Cups. And he also never took a slap shot at Scott Niedemeyer at the end of the period. So that's really all I have to say about that. All right. You could sense the passion. And the shot at Alfredson was in there.

Look, I think this caller makes a couple of really good points. And I do think when we talk about those great Devils teams of the late 90s, early 2000s, I think of Brodur and Stevens and Niedermeyer and, you know, whatever. I think Patrick Eliash is criminally underrated. And I do think there is a case to be made that he deserves the same consideration for the Hall of Fame as in Alfredson, as, you know, Roanick or whoever you want to put on that periphery. So I actually agree with this caller.

I do apologize that maybe we omitted. Eliasch, there's probably some other guys we omitted. But I do think, Sean, there's a case for Patrick Eliash to make the Hall of Fame. Yeah, I think there's a case. And yeah, thank you to this caller for calling in and interrupting apparently his drum practice in an abandoned warehouse that he was calling us from. Look, Patrick Ellinish, Hall of Fame conversation, yeah, I think he can be. in the conversation. I think a lot of that

conversation goes pretty similarly to the Daniel Alpherson conversation, which is these guys were both had long careers, essentially overlapped each other, so we don't even have to worry about era when we look at the two of them.

And, you know, you look at Patrick Elias, good player, but this guy is a, he's a forward who scored just barely over 400 goals, got just barely over a thousand points in a 20-year career. Never won a major award, was a postseason All-Star once, was a very good player. You said underrated, I think that's probably accurate.

He probably was a guy who didn't get enough credit, but also was never anywhere near the best winger in the world conversation that you sometimes like to see for Hall of Famers. and was a guy who, you know, I think the case for him maybe, as the caller, you know, the caller I think said he had a winning pedigree. That's not a thing. But he did win two Stanley Cups. He won two Stanley Cups as at best the fourth most important player on his team. And again, that's not a knock.

I like the player a lot. But he was the fourth best player on those Devils teams that won two Stanley Cups. So I'm not sure that he necessarily put him in. Now, Kevin Lowe got in the Hall of Fame based on being a lot lower down the list on a multi-time Stanley Cup winner. But I think there's a difference between having six rings and two. Patrick Elish was a real good player. But for a guy who was a solid two-way player because everybody in New Jersey was, but was only in the top 10 in Selkie voting, I think, once in his entire career. 400 goals and 1,000 points, I don't think gets you in.

And if we're comparing him to Daniel Alpherson, where I said on the episode, I think Alpherson's case is kind of a coin flip. Daniel Alpherson outscored him by, I think, something like 50 goals and 150 points. So if Alpherson gets in, maybe that opens the door. But I don't see how LF gets in before Daniel Alpherson, unless you're just going based on the fact that he had two Stanley. cups and and I don't think that should be enough. But I, but I do think in Eliasch's defense, if you are your franchise's all-time leader in

goals, assists, points, and you won two Stanley Cups, like I, there's something to be said. Like, I do think that we do overlook Patrick Geliash. But like, like, that's why it's a Hall of Fame debate show, right? It's because there's legitimate debates. It's not the Hall of Fame Slime Dunk show because that that wouldn't be, that wouldn't be compelling. Now, we did also have a show about the most likable players, okay, the players that we thought, if you were coming up with a list of the most universally liked players in hockey history, who makes the list? And so in that episode, we did have some, and again, just like we

omitted Patrick Eliasch from the Hall of Fame debate, which that caller says we shouldn't have done. We had some emails here. Justin from Rochester says, I could not believe you left Henrik Lundquist off the list. So that was huge. And I think a part of, you know, Justin also says, I think, is there anything to be said about the nationality of the players that seems to make them more likable or not? He says, I think that it seems like people from non-traditional countries, like a Jonas Hiller or Anse Copatar or Matsukarello, they seem to be generally well-liked.

While people with these kind of big rivalries like Don Cherry versus everybody else or Nick backstream at the Olympics or whatever. It feels like their fans are a little bit more divided. So Justin is saying, look, first of all, and he's probably right. Like, we probably shouldn't have left Henrik Lundquist off the list. Like he is legitimately one of the most likable players of all time. Yeah, I mean, I think you could absolutely make a case for Henry Lunkwist to be on that list. It's a little tough given that his career has just ended.

Maybe we let it, especially under the circumstances it did with the health problems. maybe we let it settle and see where he stands in a couple years. But yeah, he's, sure, you want to put him on your list. I don't have an issue with that. Whether nationality comes into play, I don't know. I don't know if it does anymore. Certainly there was a time in the 90s, for example, where if you were European, that worked against you. There was this, this idea of the flashy European who was, you know, coming over and here's this game full of hardworking North American boys.

and these guys come in with their fancy hair and they just want to score goals and all of it. And it was nonsense at the time. But even guys that we look back on now is very popular. Timoslani and guys like that, Jagger, were sort of viewed in a certain way back then. And thankfully,

we've gotten past that. I don't know. I think, you know, certainly when it comes to showing personality, being able to speak the language is part of that. You can see European players come over and maybe struggle with English than at least early in their careers,

they don't get a chance to show their personality in the same way that other players do. Maybe that's a factor. Beyond that, I don't know. I'm not sure that it does, but maybe different fans with different perspectives would feel differently. Tyler also says,

when you guys are talking about the most likable players, in my opinion, you can't have a likable player list without Saku Kovu on it. Beloved by so many has returned to play after battling cancer was legendary. So, yeah, I think that's, again, we, we always leave room. I hope our listeners know this. We always leave room for the fact that we may have missed things.

We may have overs. There's oversights. There's just omissions that, you know, sometimes things just don't get on our radar, right? And I think, sacral. And when we sit down and say, here's a list of 10, we're not necessarily saying, here's a list of the only 10. Yeah. And, but yeah, Sacriko, it was a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, great addition. And yeah, I think you could absolutely have him on that list. Certainly

beloved in Montreal, beloved in Anaheim and around the league. I don't know of anyone who has strong feelings against Sakukoi, especially given everything he had to overcome in his career. So, you know, like I said, we did a Hall of Fame show. We did a likable show. We also did a what if show. And the what if show was really fun, where we just said, what if this happened? Or what if this transpired in hockey history? And we got a couple of, you know, notes from our listeners here just on feedback thing. So Phil, Phil has emailed us. And Phil says, as a long time Los Angeles native and Kings fan,

I'm less interested in your what if questions about Wayne Gretzky and his high stick against Toronto, although I fully understand the Canadian obsession with it. But I'm more interested in the what if around Marty McSorley's illegal stick in the Stanley Cup final. there's a lot of bitterness among the LA fans about that particular call. So that comes in from film. That is a good one. Like it's funny, like in the span of probably a week of real time, the LA Kings were involved in two of the most infamous stick-related plays in hockey history.

One is Gradsky and the high stick missed on Gilmore in game six overtime. And then about, like I said, about a week later probably, Marty McSorley with the illegal stick. So let's play out Phil's what if. what if the Montreal Canadiens and their head coach Jacques de Mares, Sean, don't call for the illegal stake on Marty McSorley. What happens? Yeah, it's, it's, that's a great one. And yeah, same referee in both cases too, Gary Fraser.

It's, I think you can make a strong case that the Kings win the Stanley Cup day. They're probably win that game because they're up a goal at the end of regulation when that call gets made. Eric Dajerdant scores the goal to tie with the goalie out. and then goes on and scores the winner in overtime. If they win that game, they're going back to L.A. they're up to nothing. There's a real good chance they win that series. Now, obviously, Montreal goes on.

They win the two games in L.A. and overtime. Maybe that still happens, and we go back to Montreal and we're tied, and who knows. But, yeah, if you're a Kings fan and you want to say that call cost us the Stanley Cup in 93, I'm not sure that you're entirely wrong. And, you know, to flip that around, I think you could make a good case that Jacques de Merse made a decision behind a single decision behind the bench that won his team of Stanley Cup that they otherwise wouldn't have won, which is another reason why I think Jacques Demers should be in the Hall of Fame as a coach.

The only guy to ever win back-to-back Jack Adams and a guy who won a Stanley Cup for the Montreal Canadians by making a very gutsy call behind the bench. And yeah, maybe that decision was what cost the L.A. Kings, the Stanley Cup. I'm not necessarily going to try to talk, Phil, out of that. It's one of the rare instances because I think if you look at other sports, you can sometimes directly see the coach or the manager's influence strategically in a game. You think of baseball, I always think a Grady Little. Grady Little leaves Pedro in 03.

We know how that played out. Or I think of in the NFL, I think I always think of Sean Peyton and his onside kick call in the Super Bowl that really changed the momentum. And again, these are calculated decisions based on strategy and there's an element of rolling the dice. You don't often see that in hockey. And I think that's what Jacques Demarest did. He's like, you know, screw it. I'm going to roll the dice. Yeah.

And, I mean, it's funny, because I love Shock Demers and I want to give them all the credit for this, but I can hear all the Kings fans screaming at us right now saying he didn't roll the dice because he knew it was an illegal stick because Montreal cheated to get in there and get access to the equipment and all of the conspiracy theories that go with that. It's a great underrated play in NHL history. The fact that that's out there. And maybe, hey, maybe that's why this country can't win a Stanley Cup. Maybe the hockey gods were angered by Jacques de Meres calling for that measurement. I don't know. Yeah, exactly. All right.

One other what if question was posed to us by Patrick Craig, who as soon as I read that, like, wow, Craig Patrick, Patrick listens to our show. And I mean, no, it's Patrick Craig. So it's the other way around. But Patrick has emailed us and said, go back to the 1996 Stanley Cup playoffs. What if Grant Fewer doesn't injure his knee against, well, it was against Toronto? Do you think the Blues beat Detroit in the next round? And maybe St. Louis gets to the conference final against Colorado.

And you think about that, what if? Like, then we, I think we don't see the Colorado-D Detroit rivalry. We don't. Explode. I mean, it probably comes down the road. We do get some great games. But that was the definitive, like, catalyst, right? That was the igniter.

It was the 96, right? The playoffs is what pushed it all over the edge with Lemieux and Dre. Raper and everything. Like, this is a great what if question. What if Grandfure doesn't get hurt? Do the Blues beat Detroit in the second round? Yeah. And I think that is the big, what if the repercussion is if that Blues team with Wayne Gretzky,

and that was a loaded team. They weren't a very good team in the regular season, but they were loaded with Hall of Famers. If they beat Detroit, then first of all, we don't get the, we don't. don't get the Detroit Colorado rivalry the way we had it. They would still be two very good teams and they'd have a rivalry in that sense, but we don't get the Claude Lemieux Chris Draper

hit, which means we don't get Darren McCarty, which means we don't get WAA versus Vernon and everything that flows after that. Maybe St. Louis ends that series earlier. If St. Louis beats Detroit that year, that Detroit Red Wing's team probably gets blown up. Remember, this was back when Detroit couldn't win the big one. They had

you know, and they ended up losing to Colorado in the next round, But if they can't even get past St. Louis, get out of the division, maybe it comes even sooner. Does Wayne Gretzky stay in St. Louis? If the Blues go on a long run, maybe the Blues even win the Stanley Cup. Does Gretzky stick around or does he still want no part of Mike Keenan? There's a ton of what ifs on that. And it is really interesting stuff.

Now, I would point out, John Casey comes in as the backup. You know, that famous game where Steve Eisenman scores the double overtime winner, that was a one-nothing game. So John Casey shut out the Detroit Red Wings for four plus periods. I don't know that you necessarily point to him and say he's the reason that they didn't win. But yeah, that is another good one. And I do want to say, by the way, thank you to Patrick. I did appreciate, as a Leif's fan, I did appreciate his phrasing there of, you know, Grant Fear injuring his knee as if it was just something that happened and not Nick Kiprio's performing a people's elbow.

directly onto Grant Fier's ACL in the playoffs, which is one of the kind of low-key, probably more controversial plays that the Leafs have been involved in. But yeah, it's a good one. And yeah, if you're a blues fan, I know you're looking at that team. If you don't remember the 95-96 Blues,

go and look them up. You will be stunned at the level of talent, or at least the level of name, big names that were on that team. Mike Keenan put an All-Star team together, and it didn't really work in the regular season, but it almost worked in the playoffs, and maybe it would have if Grand Feure had been there. Yeah. All right.

As we always do, Sean, too, we kind of, we've rolled back into September. Like I said, August, we had a lot of fun kind of going outside of our usual format and doing some big picture fun things. But as we get back into the fall and get back into kind of what we usually do on the athletic hockey show Thursday episodes, we wrap up with a little this week in hockey history, because I think our listeners can really benefit from, you know, your expertise in particular on some fun, interesting moments in the history of hockey. So this week in hockey history, you wouldn't think the first week of September would be full of moments, but there are a couple. Let's start with this. Let's go back to September 2nd, 1972.

So September 2nd, 1972, it was game one of the Summit series. And it was the Soviet Union who was largely an unknown entity playing to play. team Canada at the Montreal Forum. And Sean, the Soviets beat Canada 7-3 in what I think has to be one of the most shocking results ever in a hockey game. Because again, at the time, I think you're thinking, oh, we've got Team Canada. We got Esposito and we've got our best, you know, our best players are going to take on these guys from this country behind the Iron Curtain. We don't even know. But not only do the Soviets beat Canada, like they beat them 7-3. This wasn't a 2-1-plus. hockey victory, they schooled them. And I think, Sean, the 7-3 win has to go down as one of the

most shocking results in a hockey game ever. Yeah. And you know what? I like the way you phrase that. The most shocking result? Yeah, I think so. Not the biggest upset. And, you know, you can kind of use those two terms interchangeably. But what was interesting here is, you know, in hindsight, I think for modern fans and younger fans, they may look back on this and go, why were people so surprised? It's, you know, it was the Russians. The Russians are great at hockey. And we know, of course, that Canada and the Soviets would go on to, for the next couple of decades, have this rivalry going back and forth for who was hockey's superpower. But back then in 72, at least in North America, everybody assumed Canada was going to have an easy time with this.

It was going to be a fun little exhibition. We were going to, you know, see what the Soviets were made of. but Canada was going to, in the eight game series, probably wins seven or eight games. That's a big part of why it wasn't a seven game, a best of seven series. Because it was best of seven, it was only going to last four games probably. You had to make sure that you were going to get the full eight games so that both countries could host. And it was a shocking result to see Canada just get manhandled like that, even though you could certainly make the case that if we had all been paying attention and we all understood how

the Soviets were, we wouldn't have been shocked. But at least here in Canada and in North America, it was. It was a complete shock, even though looking back, maybe it shouldn't have been. You know, and I think so obviously for a lot of our younger listeners to the podcast, they, you know, heck, you and I weren't even born for this summit series. So if we move forward now and let's just look at the 21st century, is there an equivalent in terms of a shocker in the hockey world? Like the one I think of is Tommy Sallow in that meltdown in the O2 Olympics.

Is that the one where Sweden loses to Belarus in the Olympics? Is that the most shocking hockey result of the 21st century? I think probably, at least in terms of international play, that's probably the one. And that one is an upset, right? I mean, that one is shocking because of the upset value. That one, I would say, on the men's side and then on the women's side, maybe a couple years ago in Finland, sort of made a run and finally disrupted the U.S., Canada dominance, and on the women's side, maybe would be another one you'd put in there.

But, yeah, I think, you know, those are examples of the sort of, you know, result where you're sitting there going. There's no way. And, of course, 72, the Soviets go on to continue to dominate for the next few games of the series, the Canadian games. It's, you know, I think you put Sweden and Belarus back on the ice. Sweden probably wins the next, you know, the next seven games if they get the chance. But, yeah, Soviets gave Canada everything they could handle. And then, of course, that all leads to the famous Paul Henderson goal that this entire country hasn't shut up about ever since. Man, I'm surprised we didn't get into Hall of Fame debate, Paul Henderson.

That would have been fun. All right. Let's wrap up this edition of the Athletic Hockey Show by kind of, we're going to make this go full circle. because we opened up the podcast talking about a contentious situation between the Montreal Canadians, the Carolina Hurricanes about Yes, Barry caught Canyami. Well, 30 years ago in September of 1991, Sean, an independent arbitrator awarded the New Jersey devil Scott Stevens as compensation for St. Louis signing Brendan Shanahan as a restricted free agent. So what was the, I mean, was there, what's the bad blood between St. Louis and New Jersey

back in the day? And this is one of the biggest transactions I think we've ever seen in the NHL. Yeah. And it was, it was huge. And boy, I mean, you talk about offer sheet drama. This was back in the days of RFAs. It was a big deal. And it was the St. Louis Blues.

It was, you know, ronk around in the blues saying, hey, we have the ability to sign other teams, RFAs. And they went and they did it. They got Scott Stevens out of Washington. Scott's teams at the time was a very young defenseman, but it was a very young defenseman, but was already fairly well established as one of the best and certainly most physical players in the NHL. St. Louis goes and signs him. They give up five first round picks, huge compensation to Washington, but they get him. And he plays very well in his first year in St. Louis, wants to be there.

It looks like he's going to be a key piece for the long term. So the next offseason comes along, St. Louis says, hey, it worked once. Let's do it again. So they go after Brendan Shanahan from New Jersey. Now, under the rules at the time, that meant that the way compensation worked was both teams submitted what they argued would be a fair trade and then an arbitrator had to pick one. St. Louis says, okay, for Brennan, we're going to give you two good young players. Guys, you've probably heard of. Rod Brindelbar and Curtis Joseph.

And I think there were some picks involved. A lot of people looked at that and went, that's very fair compensation for Brennan. But New Jersey and Lou La Marello decide, you know what? If we're already got a pretty good offer as the baseline, let's shoot for the moon. We're going to ask for Scott Stevens. And the arbitrator agrees. And it was a shocking result at the time. Everybody had just kind of assumed that it was going to be Joseph and Brindamore.

But the arbitrator gives Scott Stevens to the New Jersey Devils. And that's how the devils acquire the guy who would go on to become a key. piece of three Stanley Cups. And, you know, what's interesting about this is one piece of this that a lot of people don't remember is Scott Stevens was furious at the time. Scott Stevens did not want to play for the New Jersey Devils. In fact, he refused to report. He said, I'm not going.

Figure out a way to undo this, figure out of do a trade, do something. But Lou Lamarillo dug in his heels, not surprisingly. and eventually Scott Stevens did report. And, you know, it's funny that these days, I mean, you picture Scott Stevens in your head. He's wearing a devil's uniform, of course. He's one of the all-time greats in the history of that franchise. But at the time, didn't want to be there. And the other piece of this that a lot of people forget is a couple years later, when his contract ends,

he goes and signs back with St. Louis or tries to in like, 94, I want to say. And New Jersey not only ends up retaining him, but makes an accusation of tampering. And there's this whole big thing. Did St. Louis tamper with Scott Stevens? Turns out they did. They basically had evidence that they had given Scott Stevens his contract before, you know, when he was still New Jersey Devil's property.

And they ended up losing a bunch of draft picks for it. It was this whole, whole big ordeal. So St. Louis really got burned on the Scott Stevens thing. twice in terms of free agency. But, may, you want to talk about a what if in hockey history. What if Scott Stevens doesn't wind up with the New Jersey Devils? Do they win any of those three Stanley Cups, let alone all three? And if not, what happens if St. Louis gets him back in 94?

Boy, that would set off a whole chain reaction of results. But it ended up, we didn't see it because you don't want to play poker with Lou Lamarillo, and you don't want to get him mad and the blues tried both of those things and it didn't go well for them. You know, I think about this too, and this happened September 3rd, 1991. If I'm not mistaken, Sean, that week, Scott Stevens and Brendan Chanahan were teammates for Team Canada at the Canada Cup. And I always thought, like, wouldn't that be super awkward? Like, you basically got traded for each other and one guy doesn't want to go and it's like against your will. And it's like, now you're, they were teammates, right?

In that 91 Canada Cup. They would have been. Yeah, that that would have been a. a real awkward situation. You also got Eric Lindross is there. He's refusing to report to Quebec. So that would have been a hell of a dressing room. And yeah, I wonder if Scott Stevens and Eric Lindross had any conversations about how

unhappy they were on their new teams. And hey, yeah, maybe I'll see you again down the line in a few years. Jeez. All right. Hey, listen, we'll leave it there. This was a lot of fun going back to our kind of usual format. And again, there'll be no shortage of stuff here as we kind of get into Labor Day. and the start of the season.

So listen, this was a blast, and we want to remind people, too, as we get back in the swing of things, our Friday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show will come your way with Corey Promin, Max Boltman. It is the Return of the Prospects edition, and Corey has ranked all the teams of the NHL

based on their under 23 players, the old Prospect Pipeline. Buffalo Sabers fans, you're going to want to actually tune into this one because your team's at the top of the heat. So make sure you tune into that. And a reminder, email us any questions you have the athletic hockey show at gmail.com,

the athletic hockey show at gmail.com. Or like I said, drops a voicemail at 845445-845-8459. And if you're not a subscriber with us, you can become an athletic subscriber for 50% off an annual subscription by going to theathletic.com slash hockey show.