The Athletic Hockey Show - Jim Rutherford's exit, Vegas plays without their coaching staff, John Gibson and more

Episode Date: January 28, 2021

On this episode, Ian Mendes and Sean McIndoe discuss the sudden departure of Penguins GM Jim Rutherford. Also, with the Super Bowl pitting Tom Brady vs Patrick Mahomes, we will ever see a superstar matchup in the Final? Then in "Granger Things", Ian and Sean chat with Jesse Granger about the Vegas Golden Knights playing with their coaches out for COVID-19 precautions, and the five most/least profitable teams to bet on so far.Finally, in the mailbag, the duo answers a voicemail about John Gibson, why doesn't he get more credit? Have a question? Send it to [e-mail], or leave a VM at [phone]! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

And we're back for another edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. I'm Ian Meddice alongside Sean McIndoo. Coming up on this episode, we'll dive into the shocking departure of Jim Rutherford in Pittsburgh. Sean will probably defend Jake Muzzen for the whole puck flip at Matthew Kachuk thing. Hey, the NFL's getting their Brady Mahomes Super Bowl matchup, and we'll chat about if we'll ever see that type of star power in the Stanley Cup final. Jesse Granger drops by for Granger things to chat about the most profitable and least profitable teams to bet on after the first two weeks of the season.

We'll answer some mailbag questions about illegal sticks and John Gibson, and we'll wrap it up with a little this week in hockey history. But Sean, Pierre LeBron and Scott Burnside wrapped up their episode of the athletic hockey show yesterday. And it's just as they uploaded it, Jim Rutherford blew up the hockey world. So we get our first crack on the athletic hockey show to kind of dive into this. And I always think when you think of shocking departures in terms of timing the NHL, I always go back to Patrick Wall. Patrick Wall leaving the affalanche in that one summer,

it was like, what is going on here? I kind of had some of those vibes yesterday, but certainly curious timing from Rutherford. But on the positive side, at least it doesn't sound like it's health-related, which is a good thing. But he certainly leaves under strained circumstances in the middle of the season.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, this is for however the penguins or Jim Rutherford might want to push. this out in the public, this is not a normal situation. GMs don't just resign in the middle of the season and walk away from a team. And yeah, I'm like everyone else, as soon as you hear this news about a general manager's in his 70s, your first thought is, oh, no, it's, it's potentially a health situation. And he's been very clear saying that that's not it, but he's not going any further. And I think you don't even really have to read between the lines and some of the comments that are out there.

You can just read the lines themselves. There is something else going on here, but they don't want to tell us what it is. And that unfortunately leads to all sorts of speculation. Your mind goes to all sorts of places. And it could be something big. It could be something awful. It could also be just a simple disagreement within the organization over the direction or over a specific player move.

We don't know. They've chosen not to tell us at this point. The way these things typically work is that we will find out eventually, and maybe at that point that'll add some more clarity of the situation. But in the meantime, it sounds like this happened very, very quickly. And it's going to make things tough on a Penguins team that didn't really have a succession plan in place, it sounds like. And in fact, had parted ways with some people in their friends.

front office in over the last the last few months and years. This is a real tough situation, especially for a team that is trying to win right now. Yeah. And that's just it, right? The penguins are in a funny spot because I think as long as you have Crosby and Malk in there, you're a contender. Whether you think they are or not, that's, I think, the internal feeling in Pittsburgh is that you have 87 and 71.

You're going to be a contender. Like if you looked at that job and let's, and look, we've seen the list of potential candidates. Like, I guess the allure of Crosby Malkin would be great for anybody. But like, would you want that job? If you were, if you were just randomly looking at teams to take over, like I kind of feel like it's a no-win situation. If you go into Pittsburgh as the general manager and let's say you somehow, you win a Stanley Cup this year, next people will be like, well, Jim Rutherford built the team and you did it

with Crosby and Malkin. If you go in and it starts to go. downhill or sideways, it's going to get away from you in a hurry. So I don't know that it's, it's a weird one. Like, I don't know how many people would, would be all over that job. Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, there's, there's 32 jobs for an NHL GM on the planet. And there's a lot more people than that that want those jobs. So I think if, you know, if I was some, if I'm an assistant GM somewhere, if I'm waiting for my opportunity, or I'm somebody who's maybe done the job in the past and second chances don't come around.

That often in this league, maybe I'm hoping to get one. Of course, I'm going to be interested. I think there are very few situations where a potential GM might look at a job and say, I don't want any part of that. I mean, if an ownership situation was completely toxic, if a roster was just completely blown up, then maybe then you say no. That's not the Pittsburgh Penguins. So, yeah, I mean, I would absolutely want the job if I was somebody who was trying to get an NHLGM job.

but they wouldn't be all that high on my list, certainly, for the reasons you just mentioned. I mean, this is Jim Rutherford's team still one way or another. And, you know, if you come in this year and the season doesn't go well, you've sort of got that built-in excuse to say, hey, look, none of us thought we were going to, you know, a GM can does their work, their best work in the off-season. You can't expect somebody to come in when a season has already started and really put their stamp on a team. maybe you get a pass in year one. But this team, their windows open right now. And, you know, Sydney Crosby is not old, but Sidney Crosby is not young and in his prime either. And same with Gennie Malkin.

Same with Crystal Tang. It's very clear on what the direction of this team is. It's winning right now. And there's not going to be a lot of patience. This isn't a situation where as a GM, you can come in and say, I've got a five-year plan. And, you know, we might have to take a step back to move forward, but I've got all these ideas and give me some time. there's not going to be a lot of time because the expectation is Stanley Cup contention for the next few years. So I look at this and I know we always talk about this.

You bring it up in all your columns. You are the general manager of team chaos. So is there any way I see Ron Hextall's name floated out there? And you think about that great interstate rivalry between the Flyers and the Penguins. And I know Ron Hextall was kind of associated with a couple of other teams. and he was also in the front office with the LA Kings, there's no way Ron Hextall is the general manager in Pittsburgh, is there? I mean, if you want to do a rebuild and you want someone who has experience

hacking away at a Pittsburgh Penguins roster, Ron Hextel is the perfect guy. Because he did that during his career. I mean, remember him chasing Rob Brown around and all of that stuff. Look, hire the best guy. You know, I've got no problem. I would rather see a team going higher somebody who's associated with a rival rather and go and just hire somebody's kid or somebody who happened to be your former star player or the way it usually works, you go out and if he's the guy, you go and get him.

Now, what's interesting, and I wrote about this a few years ago, and I just said a couple minutes ago, I said, you don't get a lot of second chances in the league. And I bet a lot of people went, wait a second, what are you talking about? This is the NHL. They recycle the same people over and over again. That tends to be true for coaches. For GMs, not as much. For GMs, I took a look at the list a few years ago, and I realized that if you were a GM who has won a Stanley Cup, then yes, you will get another job in the NHL very likely somewhere.

If you're a GM who was at your last job for 10, 15, 20 years, you will probably get another opportunity if you want it. You know, if you've done both of those things, if you're Lou La Merello or Ken Holland or whoever, then yes, absolutely, teams will be lining up for you. If you're a GM who's just had a typical, you had five or six or a seven-year run with the team, you had your ups, you had your downs, but you didn't win a Stanley Cup, it's really hard to get a second chance in this league. There are very, very few guys who have had that. And you can look down the list of guys that had pretty good runs as GMs who haven't got those second chances. Mike Gillis being a guy, whose name is out there. You know, this guy built the best team in the league.

He leaves. no second chances. And a lot of guys who had a lot less success in that, same thing. You know, it's kind of a one-shot deal. So you look at a guy like Ron Hextel did a pretty good job. Certainly had experience. He had been in L.A. and all of this, he was ready to go. He was, and I don't think he was awful.

But does he get that second chance? And it's interesting to me that he gets mentioned as that guy because, you know, he didn't win the cup. He didn't have that long string of success. Typically, guys like that don't get as much attention as you might think. they probably should, but a lot of times, at least in the last decade or two, because it used to be different. But these days, teams seem to want the next guy, the assistant, the guy who's coming up with some new ideas and fresh eyes. But are the Pittsburgh Penguins a new ideas, fresh eyes sort of organization right now, given where they're very clearly focused with this aging roster?

Yeah, the guy I wonder about too, I wonder, like, sometimes we've heard Sidney Crosby's agent Pat Briseon be thrown out as a, I don't. wonder if there's any way like this is the opportunity for Pat Brise on his star client you know anyway if they're looking to think outside the box and we've seen hey you brought up Gillis and you think of some of the other general managers in the past have have moved from being an agent to being a general manager it's I don't know if it's that crazy to to think that maybe Pat Brisson if he's going to take a swing this might be the one I mean if you're if you're ever going to see somebody come up into the GM role through any path other than lots and lots of front office experience being an assistant somewhere, that's the one is going

from player agent. We have seen that work. I mean, you mentioned Gillis. Pierre Lecois comes to mind. There's a guy who made that jump and goes and builds Stanley Cup winners in Colorado. I, Pat, he gets mentioned every now and then as a candidate or, at least as a guy who could potentially make that jump. I'm not completely sure that he wants to do that,

only because this is an extraordinarily successful player. I mean, he has, he has, he's at the top of the pyramid as far as, as far as that particular job. Now, maybe that means he's looking for a new challenge. If it was ever going to happen, you've got to think this is it. I mean, this is the scenario right here where that door is, open. It's going to be interesting. You know, that would be a fascinating dynamic with Sidney Crosby, you know, suddenly going from a client to a player on a roster. It would be

really interesting to see. I'm not convinced that he does it and I'm not convinced that he wants to do it. But if he ever did, this is it right here. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking to. Look, the Rutherford story came out of the blue. Nobody saw it coming. One story that we all predicted what happened this year, Sean has played itself out, and that is Matthew Kachuk is going to be the most hated player in the all-Canadian division. We saw that certainly come to fruition this week with the head-to-head matchup with the Toronto Maple Leafs

and him getting tangled up with Jack Campbell, and then the infamous end of the game, Jake Muzin flips the puck at Matthew Kachuk, and then Matthew flips out. So let's break this down. Where, like, how do we look at this? And I know that you often look at things through the blue and white goggles. And that's fine.

And I think a lot of people appreciate that about you is that you also have the ability. Like when the Leafs are in the wrong, you call it out. So I want to know, Jake Muzin, did he cross some sort of artificial line by flipping that pocket? Matthew Kachuk, his time expired earlier this week. First of all, thank you. I appreciate you highlighting my ability to the objective. objective on these sorts of things. Matthew Kachuk should be in jail and Jake Muzin should be our next prime minister.

Oh, there we go. Look, I mean, we all know the deal with Matthew Kuchuk at this point. Tremendously talented player who also has that agitator side of him. And the agitator role is one that has existed in hockey for decades. I mean, I remember as a little kid going like, why is everybody mad at this Kenny Lindsman guy? And my dad having to go, oh, yeah, that's the rat. and here's why he's called the rat and here's what that role is.

And it's the sort of role that you hate it when it's on someone else's team. When it's on your team, suddenly you can justify it and you can figure out why it's not so bad. And Matthew Kuchuk is one of those guys like a Brad Marchand who doesn't need that in his game. But maybe he does. Maybe that's part of what makes him who he is. But sometimes guys go over the line. And look, the Jack Campbell thing, I've been watching hockey. long enough to know what it looks like when somebody gets pushed on top of a goalie.

And I know what it looks like when somebody gets pushed and decides to fall on top of a goalie. And when you've got both of a player's knees coming down on the back of somebody's head who's already injured, yeah, that's going to upset a few people, to put it mildly. That's going to get the attention of teams. I think given that, going into that rematch game, a lot of us were wondering, how are the Leaf's going to respond? What are they going to do? They're going to go after him? Is Wayne Simmons going to challenge him on the opening faceoff? and what's going to happen.

I think a puck flip, all things considered, was a pretty mild response. And it was a puck flip. He didn't, you know, yeah, if he turns around, takes a slap shot at the guy from point blank range, that's a totally different deal. You're talking about attempt to injure there. Flipping a puck at somebody, it was fine. And then the reaction, of course, which is why everyone's talking about it. I mean, if it was just, you know, he flipped a puck, people would notice it for 10 minutes

and move on. But it was the big meltdown. And that's the part that interesting. because you would think that if you were the agitator type, you would know exactly what sort of reaction people are looking for when they come at you with that, and that you wouldn't give it to them. Like, I mean, that's the most frustrating player in the world is the guy who is the agitator, but then when you come after him, he acts like he doesn't even know you're there.

That's how you drive someone crazy. But so often these guys don't tend to do that. They go overboard in their reaction, and maybe that's just because it's the sort of personality you have. I mean, I remember seeing Matthew Barnaby have these epic meltdowns. You know, Sean Avery every now and then would he be cool and cool and then suddenly just lose it on somebody. You know, that's part of what makes these guys who they are, makes them good at it. But I will say that I think that given the overtop reaction for Matthew Kachuk,

he took a situation that probably wouldn't have been a big deal and ended up probably taking an L on it that he didn't intend to. I love that breakdown of the whole thing. It was so good. It was so good. And it's true. Like if you look at that and it's broken down in slow motion, if Matthew Kachuk catches that puck, it's like a boss, not a boss move, but it's just kind of like I think he can kind of sluff it off a little bit. But it kind of hit him in the chest.

He juggled it. He tried to swipe. I feel like if he did catch it or bat it out of the air, he would have just skated off. Exactly. That's it. That was. And that's the opportunity. You get one shot.

He was so close. And it would have been great. We all would have been talking about, you know, at least maybe one in the game. But Matthew Kuchuk made Jake Mazza look bad the way he caught that puck. It is truly a game of inches. And it just, you know, you get one chance to make a play. When the opportunity is there, you got to be ready. And unfortunately, the puck didn't bounce well for him.

And you saw the result. Hey, listen, I want to talk about something that, you know, you and I talk about how the NFL markets its stars and they always get, it seems like premier matchups. And we saw in the final four in the NFL, you got Rogers and Brady, and now in the Super Bowl, you got Brady and Mahomes. And I'm thinking, hey, are we ever going to see? And let's just pick two of the best players in the game and Sid Crosby and Connor McDavid.

Will we ever see them play in a meaningful game? And then I was thinking about it, Sean. I'm like, when have we ever seen the best players in the Stanley Cup final head to head? And you know what I realized as I went back in my mind? Do we give David Volick enough blame for taking away a Lemieux, Gretzky, Stanley Cup final? Like, I think if Pittsburgh wins that series, they probably roll over the Habs in the conference final, I would think. And we would have, I don't think I appreciated how close we were. I think we all focused on, oh, we could have had a Habs Leaves Cup final.

We could have had Gretzky and Lemieux in 1993. we never got it. I feel like in the NHL, we've never had that. Here's the elite, elite player, the two best players in the game are going to meet in the Stanley Cup final. Am I wrong on that? I mean, you're not completely wrong. No, I mean, we never got Gretzky-Lameau. That is the one that would have been the ultimate.

I don't know that we've ever had two guys who were that good, that close to the same prime. ever. And the fact that, you know, obviously they were in different conferences, never connected in a Stanley Cup final. And then even when Gretzky went to New York and, you know, by that point, we didn't get that Pittsburgh, New York matchup that we'd seen before. That was such a huge missed opportunity. And look, I mean, part of this is the NFL just does a better job of marketing at stars, which means it has more players that feel like they're a big deal. You know, if you would say at the beginning of year, who's the biggest star in each conference? I'm not sure. you would have said, he probably would have said Patrick Mahomes. I'm not sure you would have said

Tom Brady. Maybe you would have. There might have been other guys who would fit that mold. The NFL is just better at marketing than the NHL clearly. But it's also the nature of the NFL. A star quarterback is so important to a team and is, if you have a, like I was looking up a list of best quarterbacks to never go to a Super Bowl. And I got to be, I think like it was a top 10 list. Bill Barnwell wrote it. Number 10 on the list was Jeff Blake. And all due respect to Jeff Blake, like there's not a lot of top 10 lists that have Jeff Blake on it.

So the fact of the matter is in football, if you've got that superstar at quarterback, you're probably going to a Super Bowl or two or maybe a lot more than that. In the NHL, that's not necessarily the case. I mean, Connor McDavid proved positive, right? You can be the very best player in the world. It's not going to guarantee your team much of anything, let alone a chance to to go to the final. You would love to see, I mean, Crosby versus McDavid would be so great.

You know, Crosby versus McKinnon. You can go on down the list. It would be nice to see. We haven't seen much of it. We've seen a few, you know, we had Crosby versus Lidsdriven back-to-back finals. We had Patrick Wagegatz, Martam Broder, and a Stanley Cup final ones. So, you know, there have been ones like that. But in a 32-team league with this much parity, where it just feels like the difference between

the best and the worst is so small anyways once he get into the playoffs. I mean, we're really counting on luck, whereas the NFL can look at it most years ago, we're really expecting that we're going to get this sort of big money matchup. Yeah, and I think about it too. I know you mentioned, you know, Crosby had a couple of Stanley Cups against those great Detroit teams. The fact that we never even got a, like Chicago and Pittsburgh had these sort of concurrent mini dynasties and yet they somehow never met in the final. Like, it's so random.

Like, I just don't understand how we've had, like, the NBA is also another great example of, like, hey, you're two, you got two superstars. You're probably going to at least your conference final. In the NHL, as I think back to it, like I said, we got David Volick, maybe robbed of a Gretzky-Lamue final in 93. I would argue maybe when the Oilers and the Islanders met the first time that that might have been the greatest collection of star power ever in a Stanley Cup final because on one hand, you had. Bossie and Trotcheye and on the other side you had Gretzky and Curry and obviously Messier, but really since then, I would argue, you haven't had elite center and winger against elite center and winger or something of that, something of that ilk. Yeah, no, I mean, it used to happen all the time in the original six, but that's because

there were six teams and you were much more likely to get certain matchups and the star power on each team was bigger. You talk about the near misses. I mean, I always look at, The one that that always bothers me, both because of the matchup it cost us and also because of what it did to how the game was played is the 96 Panthers beating again Mario and the Penguins in the conference final. I mean, we were one game away from Mario, Yager, Francis versus Forsberg, Sackett, Patrick Waugh. I mean, that would have been the matchup we'd be looking back on and saying like, look at all the stuff around. Instead, we got Scott Mellonby and a four-game sweep where Bouv. Vait Krupp scores the cup winning goal on a screen point shot. So, I mean, that to me is the near miss.

You know, I'm sure there are others. Obviously, there are, you know, you're more likely to go to the Stanley Cup final with a big star or more than a few big stars. But it's just, hockey is such a game where it's, it is the whole 20-man roster. You can have the most star-starred roster. You can have the most star, you can have the best win. or in the best center and the best blue line and you run into a hot goalie, game over. See you next year. And, you know, the NFL to some extent has that, but not as much as hockey.

I'm not sure any sport does these days. And it is unfortunate. It does cost us some of these matchups. We do get them sometimes earlier on. I mean, we did get Crosby-Ovechkin multiple times in the playoffs, which was great. But, yeah, it would be so much fun to see it on the biggest stage. and it just doesn't seem like it ever works out that way for the NHL. You know, one other tie-in to the NFL that I wanted to bring in is last week in the conference final,

I think most people, if you didn't have a horse in the race and you weren't a Kansas City fan, I think most of us were probably pulling for the Buffalo Bills. They're kind of this lovable loser franchise. And the NFL's got a couple of them, right? I think Cleveland falls into that mix. Detroit probably falls in that mix. And it got me thinking, like, do we have that in the NHL? Do we have like a lovable loser franchise?

And the reason why I thought about it is I think of some of the teams that have the longest droughts. Obviously the Maple Leafs, the Vancouver Canucks, like, they're not lovable. Do we have a lovable loser, Buffalo Bills, Cleveland Browns, heck even the Chicago Cubs were kind of like that for a long time in baseball? Do we have that in hockey? Are we just so full of hate that we can't allow it into our heart? We have too much of it. That is probably part of it. I mean, I even with my Maple Leaf Homer glasses on, I'm not.

I'm not going to sit here and try to ever suggest that Toronto Maple Leafs are lovable in any sense. I realize that a huge percentage of hockey fans out there would never root for the Leaps and hope that drought goes forever. We've lost a few in recent years. I feel like you could have put the Washington Capitals on that list until 2018. Two years ago, when I was doing my playoff bandwagon rankings, I said, this one's easy. It's the St. Louis Blues. You've got to be cheering for the Blues. They'd never won a cup.

They had so many near misses, ups and downs, tough outs. But then they win. So now they're off the list. I think maybe you could make a case. I'll throw a couple of teams at you. And you mentioned one of them, which is Vancouver. They check all the boxes as far as been around forever, never won, had some excruciating near misses. The two game sevens, 94 in 2011.

But again, are they lovable? And how much of that is the organization, how much of that is the fan base, and who knows, maybe they don't get there for a lot of people, especially up here in Canada probably. You talk about the Buffalo Bills. What about the Buffalo Sabres? Again, this is a team, been around forever, never won, have been bad for a lot of it, especially recently, lost in a final on a goal that shouldn't have counted. They maybe could get there. I could see. I don't find that there's a lot of people out there right now who really can't stand the Buffalo Sabers.

I could see a bit of that. And then the one other one that I'll mention, and this one's a little tricky, but I've said before that I feel like the one team that nobody really hates in this league is the Winnipeg Jets. And, you know, if we talk about Winnipeg Jets history, and here I'm combining version one and version two, which I realize is there are different franchises, yes, but there has been a team called the Winnipeg Jets since 1979 when they came over in the WHA. Obviously with that big 15-year gap where there was no team. team, but that just adds to it, even the fact that, I mean, these guys actually, oh, yeah, your team was bad for a while. Your team had some bad playoff exits. Our team didn't exist.

We lost our team for 15 years. I don't feel like there's, even in Canada, there's anyone where they say, like, the Jets are our number one rival. Like, Edmonton and Calgary have each other. Vancouver has almost everyone all the time, but I don't think it's Winnipeg. Never really had success in the playoffs, had that one little bit of a run a couple years ago. I feel like that's the one, certainly when people ask me like who would Canada ever get behind one team, that's the only option in Canada is the Winnipeg Jets. And I feel like down south, maybe there'd be maybe some people would want to jump on that bad way you can too. But that's the only one up here. Yeah, that's a great point.

And you know, I think as we wrap up this portion of the conversation, I want to say, I feel like the 94 Canucks were super lovable. Like, lovable team. Here's my working theory. Tell me I'm wrong. the Vancouver Canucks started becoming a team that people hated when they brought Mark Messier on board. The minute Messier, think about it, from that point forward, it became, after Messier was then the Bertuzi era, and we think about that. And then here comes the 2011 team with Rafi Torres and Max Lapierre and, you know, Alex Burroughs.

Yep. I feel like that's the point that they stopped being lovable was when they brought in. In fact, to even some of their own fans, they stopped being loved at the point. Yeah, and I mean, I mean, we may have to bleep out the word messier because a lot of Canucks fans still find that objectionable. But yeah, that's not a bad theory. The 94 team should have gotten even more love than they got. The only reason they didn't was because this was back, we talk about the Canadian Cup drought. The HABs had won the year before the Oilers, Flames, Canadians had won all through the 80s.

So, you know, back then it was like, oh, Canadian team lost in the final. Oh, well, 25 plus years later when we're still in this drought, yeah, that's, that, that was the best of the bunch as far as being one that we could get behind along with the 2004 flames and the 2006 Oilers. But, yeah, I would say that that that and then certainly the Bertuzi era. And then that 2011 team, which was the best team in the league and should have won the Stanley Cup if the best team was going to win. And also was one of the most hateable teams that I have ever seen as a hockey fan. You know, that bothers some Canucks fans when I say it. Embrace it. I mean, that was part of their personality and part of what they were.

And it's maybe there's, that team was so easy to hate that there's still some hangover now on a team that is, it is now should be very easy to root for and easy to get behind. But there's there's still some hangover, I think, from that 2011 squad. Yeah. And in hindsight, think about how crazy it was that a good chunk of Canada was in 2011 was cheering for a team that. had Brad Marchand on it. Yes. Like think about it. Exactly.

Exactly. When that guy is like the flucky underdog that you're getting behind, then you know something's gone off for else a little bit. All right, Sean, it is time for you can hear the theme music. It's a little Granger things. We go down to Las Vegas to connect with our Jesse Granger. Talk about some betting and some lines in the early couple of weeks of the National Hockey League. But I'll tell you what, Jesse. What a remarkable story.

You kind of laid it out in the athletic this week about the term abundance of caution is going to be probably embroidered on some pillows here for NHL fans because we've all heard it. Abundance of caution and it played itself out with the coaching staff. How just walk our listeners through that evening when you found out that guess what? The coaching staff's not going to be there and Kelly McCrim and the general manager is going to step behind the bench. Yeah, it was a pretty wild Tuesday. I think going into this season, we all kind of, in our heads, prepared for what's going to happen when a whole line of players is out or a defensive pair is out or we have extra goalies on the taxi squad. But I don't think coaches really cross my mind that much. I don't know about you guys. But Tuesday, Peter DeBoer did morning availability like he normally would in the morning.

Things were as planned. And then at about 2 p.m. Pacific time here, Vegas, about four hours before they were scheduled to face of St. Louis Blues, they found out that at least one coach, had tested positive. According to Kelly McCrimman, it looked like it was one coach, but they, like you said, out of an abundance of caution, they decided to hold the entire coaching staff out, including Pete DeBoer. They're lucky that general manager Kelly McCriman has a long history of coaching. He coached the Brandon Wheat Kings for 13 seasons. He was also the GM and the owner up there. So he has some experience, albeit not at this level. And then they were also fortunate that they just happened to move their AHL affiliate to Henderson, Nevada here a couple miles away from Las Vegas just this season.

And so they were able to use Manny Viveros, who is the newly appointed Henderson Silver Nights coach and his coaching staff. Joel, former San Jose Shark player, Joel Ward is on that staff. And it looks like they're going to coach the game tonight, too. I haven't where I'm actually going to head to morning skate availability when I get out of here with you guys. But it sounds like that coaching staff, along with Kelly McCriman, is going to have to coach another game. And they all drove to T-Mobile Arena with about four hours notice. And the team played a pretty decent game against St. Louis. I mean, they did have too many men penalties, which kind of hints at some, some confusion on the bench and just some new voices running things back there.

But overall, they came back to earn a point from a two-gold deficit and got a tough point against one of the better teams in this division. You know, Sean, I think every team, we kind of touched on this last week. We're talking about Babcock. I think every team should have one emergency coach that's waiting in a room. Maybe it's John Torchetti. Remember John Torchetti? Like, that guy's like the most classic interim. I think he's been an interim coached in three places for like 20 games.

Every team should have a John Torchetti that's waiting in like a sealed room somewhere inside your arena. And if something happens like this, he's good to go. You just break the glass and they come out. They can also drive the Zamboni because I hear that's a good profession for emergency backups if they need a side hustle. But yeah, that's, I got to be honest. I spent a lot of time thinking about, you know, COVID, how is it going to affect things? What's going to happen to play? This never occurred to me, this scenario.

And it should have. And we saw it to some extent in the NFL, but it never occurred to me that we would see something like this. Is this something, when something like this happens, do the lines move on a game like that? Do the odds makers even know how to factor that in? Or is that something where, you know, if I was looking to put a wager down, is that an opportunity? or is that something where that makes someone like you go, I'm going to stay away because I don't want any part of this weird situation. Yeah, I would probably stay away from it. The odds didn't move a whole lot and they're probably not going to move a whole lot in a hockey game when the coaching changes.

But I will say if this is something that happens throughout the season and say we're towards the end of this season now and it's happened 10 times. And all 10 times those teams without their coaches lost, like as a trend starts to build, the market will start to bet on that. So then if it keeps happening, you'll start to see the lines change. because the lines are basically just controlled by where the money's coming in. So like I said, I think if this is something we see moving forward and we can find a trend on it, and you guys know I'll be looking for it, if we can find one, then maybe that market will start to shift those numbers. Like you said, it's something we probably should have thought about.

The coaches are in the same room together every day. So if one of them tests positive, there's a pretty good chance it's going to be the whole staff that's held out. So this might be something we see throughout the season. So as we talk about trends and looking for some early season trends here, Jesse, let's start with, I guess, the positive here. Let's look at the four or five teams that you think, as you look at the first two weeks, have been the most profitable in terms of wagering the first two weeks of the National Hockey League season.

Yeah, so the way I figured out this ranking as I basically went through and decided, okay, I'm going to put, if you had put $100 on a money line bet on every game for each team this season, which ones would you be winning the most and which ones you'd be losing the most. And winning, I mean, obviously Florida and Dallas, the two teams they got the late start. They're three and no. No surprise to see those teams up there. If you bet on them, they've won every bet. So, of course, they're going to be profitable.

But what was funny to me was they're not even the most profitable teams in the league so far. Winnipeg Jets, who have gone five and two, they've got three big underdog wins this season. And they've surprised some people. And I think that the market hasn't quite caught up to them yet. And to me, what's been the most surprising is they aren't beating teams with just Vezina caliber goaltending on the back end like they did last season when they won games. Five of their seven games have gone over the total. And you've seen their guys, Eilers and Shifley and Connor have really gotten the scoring going.

And because of that, if you would have bet on the Winnipeg Jets in all seven games, despite them losing two of them, you'd already be up $246.15 through this early part of the season, which is, like I said, impressive to me. And then the other team that kind of shocked to people, Toronto's also on there at six and two. And they have the most points in the NHL at this point. No surprise that with the most wins, they're also one of the more profitable teams.

But the other one that kind of surprised me on this top five list was the New Jersey Devils. They're three and three. They're a team that not a lot of people have high expectations for. But because of that, because they aren't getting the most high expectations, and that means you've been getting the best of the number so far. Jack Hughes has played really well. they've won all, or sorry, they've been an underdog in all six of their games, and yet they've came on top three times, three plus money wins will get you on the profitable

side. If you can, if the jets can, or sorry, if the devils can just stay above water, it's around 500, they're probably going to be a profitable team to bet on all season long. So then let's look at the other side of the coin here as we wrap up our conversation with you, Jesse. What, what five or four or five teams have been on the opposite end where you would look at them in the first two weeks of the season and be like, they haven't been, they have not been giving anybody a return for their money. Well, we'll start with Arizona.

They're the fifth least profitable team. If you had bet every game for the coyotes so far, they're two and five, and you would be $273 in the hole. That's not great. That's partially because they've played the Golden Knights four times, and they went one and three in those games. But also because they haven't taken care of business

when they've played bad teams. The coyotes have already lost as minus one, favorites against the sharks and the ducks this season. So they haven't been able to help better as much. You look right past them, Columbus Blue Jackets. I have at number four. They're technically in first place right now in the Central Division, which is weird, but it's kind of a formality considering Dallas and Florida are both three and I sitting beneath them. But they do have the most points in that division. But despite that, all of their wins are coming in overtime, which if you're a money line better, that does you know good. You look at Columbus's record, two, two, and three. Oh,

that's not so bad. But in betting terms for for all intents of purposes, they're two and five. And to make matters worse, they've also lost as heavy favorites. They lost to the Detroit Red Wings as minus 175 favorites back on January 19th. So they've been struggling. The other teams, Ottawa, not surprising at 1 in 5. The Chicago Blackhawks, 2 and 5, their only two wins have been over the Red Wings. The good thing about the Blackhawks is despite being so not profitable, at least they've been predictable. Because they're 2 in 5 right now.

They're 2 in 0 as favorites. They had two games that they were favored against the Red Wings and they took care of business. And then the other five games they were underdogs, you know, they're going to lose to the good teams. So I think with Chicago, we're starting to learn kind of where they are. At least they're predictable despite not being profitable. And then at number one, the New York Rangers. A lot of these teams I've lifted as the least profitable are teams we expected to not be good going into this season. The Rangers, on the other hand, I don't think anyone saw them as cup contenders, but the way they ended last regular season with that hot start, the hype around Panarin as a heart finalist and Alexei Lafranier have gotten people excited about this team.

and their one and five start has really put betters in the hole if you're if you've been leaning on the Rangers just because like I said, the expectations are a little higher for them. They've lost as heavy favorites. If you had bet every game so far for the Rangers, you would be $404.76 in the hole already. All right. Well, listen, Jesse Granger, again, it's early in the season, but it's always great to pick your brain and kind of see where these, uh, uh, trends are headed. Enjoy the games this week and we'll hit you up again next Thursday.

Thanks, guys. Thanks, Jesse. All right, Sean, that was a great visit with Jesse Granger. see the wheels turning in your mind because, you know, we record this on Zoom. As Jesse Granger lists Arizona and Ottawa as the least profitable teams, I can see the wheels turning in your head there. No, no comment. Nothing to say on that. Hey, listen, we love getting feedback from our listeners here, and there's a couple of ways you can hit us up. A reminder, you can email us questions at the athletic hockey show at gmail.com. Or you can leave us a voicemail.

The number there is 845, 445, 845-845-4-5-4-5-4-5-8-4-5-8-4-59. Guess what, Sean, we have our first voicemail ever on the podcast. Very exciting. Okay, so here we go. Have a listen. We've got a call. I think it's, well, it's clearly from the left coast here, as Jeff wants to kind of weigh in on John Gibson's hot start. Hey, this is Jeff Long Beach.

Got a question for you guys. I'm curious about John Gibson with the Ducks. What do you think? Does he suffer like most West Coast players who are elite suffer in that they would be getting more credit and more coverage if they were playing on the East Coast? Do you think that's the problem John Gibson is facing out? Love to hear about it. All right, Sean. Boy, accusations of East Coast bias.

Well, I never. Here's the thing. You would know better than anybody having gone through the Jonathan Bernier and Vesotoskola experiments in the past of these hot goleys on the West Coast come out this way. And I don't know if you throw Freddie Anderson into that or not.

But hey, listen, John Gibson is legit having a, not only a Vesna caliber start, like this is a heart trophy stuff that he's putting down there. Do you think we appreciate what John Gibson is doing all over the national hockey league so far? You know, Gibson's a tough one. And I don't think it's an East Coast West Coast thing. I think there's lots of players out West who get plenty of attention league-wide,

including some goalies. The thing with Gibson is it always felt like, yeah, maybe early in his career, not because of where he played, but just because he was a younger goaltender, it maybe took a little bit of time for people to catch on to this guy. It was really good. And then it seemed like a couple of years ago we hit that tipping point where people say yeah, you know what?

This guy's one of the best goaltenders in the league. And it was a couple of years ago that he started off fantastic. And again, like you just said for this year, people were starting to think, like, is this guy a hard candidate? Because the ducks weren't expected to be all that good. And this guy's playing out of his mind.

And then in the second half, he kind of fell off. And it was just, it may have been just a fatigue thing or just trying to carry a whole team. And then last year, he wasn't great. I mean, he really wasn't, at least compared to the expectations that maybe people have built up for him. And so it's almost like everyone kind of went, okay, now we'll take a step back on him. And now he's doing it again. It's not just a media thing and a fan thing.

You know, Craig Custin's, when he does his goalie tiers, where he talks to people within the league, scouts and coaches and front office people, there was a real mixed feedback on John Gibson. And there were some people saying, yeah, this is an elite guy. put him near the top of the list. And there's other saying, you know, we're not necessarily convinced. And, you know, is, is he a guy that can really is able and is willing to do what it takes to to get to that top level? So there is still a lot of mixed opinions, even within the hockey world itself on John Gibson. And maybe we should expect that.

He's a goaltender, right? Goleys are up and down and all over the place. and once you think you've got them figured out, suddenly they go out for a few weeks and play the exact opposite way you thought, and you've got to go back to the drawn board. Let me dip back into the mailbag here. And again, thanks to Jeff for our first voicemail.

This one comes in from Kevin McAvoy, who wants to talk a little bit about stick curves with us Sean on this episode of the podcast. Kevin writes in, it's common knowledge that some players like Ryan O'Reilly have a borderline illegal stick, but the rule remains about stick curvature and from time to time it gets enforced. In a league that struggles to score goals, why do we care about players' sticks? Let's innovate. Is this something you guys ever think the NHL would look at or would

people just freak out like they always do? That comes in from Kevin. And it's a great point. We talk about this. Every other league, let's create rules that promote offense, right? Whether it's ball back in the day, designated hitter and lowering the mound in the NFL, we'd all know about the rules to protect the quarterback. And, you know, we've seen the numbers become video game. The NBA's got three pointers going left, right and center. And the NHL is like, well, let's just measure that stick here and make sure, like, do you think there's some merit to what Kevin Wright should we be throwing that out and just going

ahead and letting guys do whatever they want? It's, I mean, it's not a bad question. I mean, first I'll answer Kevin's last question first. Would people freak out? Yes. they know. People would suddenly have very strong feelings about the hollow tradition of heaven limits on stick curves. And, but no, he's right. Because this, this rule is, first of all, it's an artifact of a long gone time, right? I mean, for the first, uh, several decades of the NHL, there were no stick curves. People used flat blades. And then, uh, there's some dispute as to who came up with the idea, who was the first to use it. But, you know, we all know the story of Brett Hall is Dan McKita having the crazy banana, blades and suddenly the puck was going all over the place and there were goaltenders who back then weren't even wearing masks going, hey, we can't have this. We have no idea where this puck is going.

We're going to get hurt here. And so rules are put in place. And, you know, fast forward to decades later, do we still need them? It's such a strange rule because it's, I mean, the only rules in any sports rule book that is there and is very clear and yet is only enforced when the other team says, hey, can you enforce this rule, please? You know, a referee will never look over and go, hey, that's an illegal stick. That's two minutes. The team has to ask for a challenge.

They almost never do. We know that, you know, he mentions Ryan O'Reilly, but there's players all across this lead who have illegal sticks. And you always hear talk that there are even some players who have the illegal stick for most of the game, and then they have the real stick that it will break out in the last five minutes just in case. And in the rare times that a coach does ask for a measurement,

it's treated as if like it was this horrible thing that the coach did. I mean, my goodness. I mean, there's still people that look back and say the 93 haves only one because they did this horrible, dirty thing of pointing to the rulebook and asking for it to be enforced against Marty McSorley. And you and I, we remember Ron Wilson calling for a measure of senators a few years ago. People lost their minds. How could you do that? What do you do? So there is an argument to be made that if we don't really need this rule anymore and we, and we,

We're not even supposed to enforce it. Why don't you just take it out of there? The argument against it would be the reason that we did bring this in way back when is those sticks with the really deep curve. It is a little tougher to control where the puck goes. It's a little tougher to see where it is. And if you were to get rid of this rule and people are going out there, they wouldn't have the crazy banana blades from the 60s. But if they go out there with a big curve and then a shot, you know, somebody takes a shot and it goes and it's not the goalies anymore you worry about. But some defenseman standing in front of the net gets hit in the face with a slap.

shot because the control wasn't there. That's when everybody sort of says, well, wait a second. Maybe it's maybe this is now a safety thing and not a scoring thing. But yeah, I agree with Kevin that it's a completely bizarre rule and good luck explaining to a new hockey fan that there's a rule in the rule book that no one's allowed to lose and none of the referees can enforce on their own. It doesn't make sense to a lot of people. Yeah.

And to me it's like pine tar and baseball, right? Like it's like this arbitrary thing that like it doesn't really have an impact on anything. and it only gets called once in a blue mode. Hey, listen, let's wrap up this edition of the podcast, Sean, with something that is right up your alley, and that is this week in hockey history. So, hey, Wayne Gretzky, by the way, celebrated his 60th birthday earlier this week.

And, Sean, on this date in hockey history, so January the 27th, 1984, Wayne Gretzky extended his point street to a record 51 straight games, and it was broken up this week as well. in a game against the LA Kings. And Gretzky's 51 game streak, I guess my question would be, how come we don't hold,

like when you think of Joe DiMaggio, it's one of the most revered streaks in sports history, 56 games, no one's come close to flirting with it. Nobody's really come close to flirting. Mario got into the mid-40s, but that's about it. Why don't we hold Wayne Gretzky's point streak in hockey

the same way that baseball fans hold Joe DiMaggio's hit streak. Yeah, and we probably should. I think it's two reasons. First of all, if you're going to talk about a record and play up a record, you want it to be a record that there's some chance will be broken someday, and today's NHL is anybody ever going to get anywhere close to this? It seems pretty unlikely. But I guess the other reason might be, you know,

it's buried right there in the question. It's Wayne Gretzky and it's 1984. Wayne Gritsky's rewriting the record book at that point. And I think there was probably just record overload for a lot of people. And not just Wayne Gretzky. I mean, we know, you know, I'm always complaining about scoring being so low now. But in the 1980s, it was through the roof. I mean, that's when you hit the full-on explosion.

Records are just dropping left and right. And maybe this one kind of slipped by versus a Joe DiMaggio thing, where even as it was happening was the biggest news in all of sports and people remembered it and you told your kids about it. And they told their kids about it. Whereas the Gretzky thing, it's just sort of like, you know, if I sit down to, you know, talk to my son about Wayne Gretzky, and he says, what do Wayne Gretzky do? I'm going to talk for a long time about a lot of different things when Gretzky did before I get to this record point streak. And maybe if it had been somebody else or somebody had beaten it along the way, we would view it differently.

But it's just sort of the Wayne Gretzky record book overload. Yeah. And you know what? And technically it's actually a 60 game point streak because the previous nine games of the, uh, prior regular season, he had points, and then he started the next season, 83, 84 with 51 straight games. So it's a remarkable street that I just don't think we talk about.

What to wrap up with. This one is a bizarre one. I had no idea about this story. So on this week in hockey history, Sean, the Montreal Canadians hosted the Buffalo Sabres at the forum. The Sabres barely got to the arena in Montreal. They were barely able to fly out of Buffalo. It is one of the most historic snobes.

snowstorms in in in buffalo. They call it the storm of 77. Players couldn't get out of their homes. They somehow flew to Montreal in this snowstorm. Only had 14 guys that they dress for the game. And this is the remarkable thing. They scraped out a 3-3 tie against arguably the greatest team in hockey history. My question to you, because I put you at the top of the list of hockey historians

and people who love this type of quirky thing. why don't we talk about this game and this moment more, the time that the buffalo sabers could only dress 14 players in a snowstorm, flew out to Montreal, and tied arguably the greatest team in hockey history. Yeah, it is a great story. And it's one of a few that you don't really see this anymore. Obviously, we still have the big storms. But these days, you know, everyone, they know what's coming.

Teams can make different travel arrangements and games are postponed. There's a lot of very weird NHL history that. involves big snow storms and players not being able to arrive. Teams not getting there. Officials not getting there is one of my favorite stories and all the weirdness that happens with it. And yeah, it's one of those things where you talk about great upsets. And I mean, fingers crossed, we won't see something like that this year.

But if there was ever going to be a season where you'd see some team going out there with a really depleted roster, this might be it. And I don't think it would be shocking these days to see a really good team lose or, you know, go to overtime against a team that was missing a few guys. But back then, the haps were unbeatable. This probably does stand as one of those great kind of regular season upsets. Even though it was a tie, you know, people say there's no good ties. Here's one right here. This one was a crazy story.

And, yep, we probably should talk about it a little bit more than we do. All right. We'll have to leave it there. Sean, listen, always a ton of fun doing this podcast with you. Enjoy the games coming up and we'll do this again next week. Right on. Sounds good. All right. And a reminder, if you're not an athletic subscriber, you can join us right now at theathletic.com slash hockey show. And everybody, just enjoy the games in the days ahead. I'll be back on the athletic hockey show on Monday with Haley Salvean to break down everything that happened on the weekend.