The Athletic Hockey Show - Johnny Gaudreau making a case for the Hart trophy, Detroit Red Wings lose 11-2 to the Pittsburgh Penguins, NHL GM meetings start this week, Multiple Choice Madness, and more

Episode Date: March 28, 2022

First, Ian, Hailey, and guest cohost Max Bultman discuss the Detroit Red Wings giving up eleven goals in an ugly 11-2 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins on Sunday night, the Calgary Flames downing the Edmonton Oilers 9-5 on Saturday in the latest edition of the Battle of Alberta, Johnny Gaudreau making a case for the Hart trophy, playing great hockey on both sides of the puck on a very good Flames team, Moritz Seider’s incredible rookie season in a potential Calder trophy-winning campaign on the Red Wings blue line, and whether LA Kings head coach Todd McLellan deserves more consideration for the Jack Adams trophy this season or not.Then, in light of the annual NHL general manager meetings starting up this week, the group gives their thoughts on a possible extension of the salary cap into the playoffs, ostensibly to prevent teams from abusing the longterm injured reserve system, creating a way for teams to trade dead cap space, and centralization of the no-trade clause system to avoid embarrassing situations like the one involving Evgenii Dadonov, the Vegas Golden Knights, and the Ottawa Senators at this year’s trade deadline.Plus, Ian and Hailey close things out with a single Multiple Choice Madness question regarding the Toronto Maple Leafs and the possibility of another painful first round playoff exit.And, right now, you can get a 6 month subscription to The Athletic for just $1 a month when you visit http://theathletic.com/hockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back. It is your Monday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. Ian Mendez and Haley Salvean reunited once again to kick off your week. But we've got Max Bolton with us just in case our chemistry is a little bit off. So Max is going to help us out here in the pod today. And you know what? The teams that Max and Haley cover, they were involved in some wild games in the weekend. We're going to hit on that. We'll touch on the NHLGM meetings coming up in Florida. A couple of agenda items there that I think are really interesting.

Is it time to fix the salary? recap loophole for the Stanley Cup playoffs. And what do we do with the no trade list after that was certainly a topic of discussion after the Evgeny Daddanov situation in Vegas last week. So let's kick it off. Haley, when's the last time you and I did a podcast together, the usual Monday host? It feels like it's been a long time. Maybe it's only been two weeks. I don't know. But it feels like we don't see each other anymore. Last week was you and Sean, and then I made a guest appearance from the airport, which it was actually funny how you guys were making fun of me saying that that was like a famous

person at the airport or whatever stupid thing that made me heal uncomfortable. And then immediately after I finished doing the podcast, a couple came up to me. They're like, are you a sports person or something? They were like listening to the podcast. See? What do you do? Well, it's not like they actually knew who I was. they just heard me talking about sports.

And they're like, hello. Are you famous? I was like, no. No, I'm not. Yeah. I just talk about hockey. And then the week after that was me and Sean. And then the week after that, I think it was us.

Yeah, it's been a while. So it's only been two weeks. I don't know. Feels like it's been longer. But this is great. But we got Max Bolton, like I said, with us for the show. Now, Max, the one thing I pointed out with Haley, and she didn't like this last week when she joined us live from the airport,

I was giving her the gears because she was zone one in her boarding. Oh, wow. So, see, you're with me. Well, I actually, I have the backstory here and I endorsed the zone one in this case because she had a lot of work. Like, because she was on TV, she had to do the business class upgrade. I've never actually been in business class, so I can't even say I know what that would be like, I'm a zone three, four kind of guy.

But in your case, I think I probably would have sprung for it too because it's really hard to write up playing. We were texting about it. What if you need to write a whole column and you get a seat recliner in front of you? Then you're just cooked. You're done. You're done. You're T-Rex typing the whole.

I had to. There was, it wasn't, it wasn't too bad. You know, I was like, I can justify this because I started writing my post-edline story like a little bit while I was on air. Like, you know how on Trade Center you can like see everybody the whole time and you could see me sitting by myself the whole time like on my computer? I was like trying to write my story between. little segments and then I had to get to the airport. I did the podcast and I was like, well, I have basically three quarters of a trade deadline story to write. And so I was like, there's no way I'm going to be able to do this. And like, what if I got stuck in a middle seat or someone

reclining? I was like, I'd be done. And I was already, my day started at 5.30 in the morning. It was 7 p.m. at that point. So I was like, I'm getting the business class upgrade. I'm paying for it. It doesn't matter. It's fine. I'll just not buy. Starbucks for the next month. Wait, you paid out of pocket for the upgrade? Yeah. I mean, TSN paid for that. But that's the thing, though, Ian.

Like, TSN paid for my actual flight. So it made the upgrade, like, easier. It's, like, more palatable. It's like, whatever, okay? I didn't have to actually pay for my flight. So I'll just pay for my upgrade. Okay, so here's a tip for you. So years ago, when I worked at SportsNet,

so the next time you're doing your contract, this is for both, this is for anybody. Quarter hours plus business class. Put it in your contract. track that if I fly anywhere where the leg is and pick the, pick the, Haley said four hours, and say, I got to fly, you know, executive or business class and see what happens. Maybe they'll come back and say, no. That's a thing, though, I'm sure.

I'm sure it is. Use your power. Whatever. I've got a trade center question for you before we pivot off of this. Yeah. I need to know what the screen, you're sitting with the insiders. What is the screen peaking etiquette on trade center? Are you allowed to like take a peek at Pierre's phone or Bob McKenzie's phone as this is going on?

Is that like a big no-no? You're all in the same team at that point, right? Yeah, they were in a different studio, actually. Which, because, so there's like two studios in the Bell Media. And I think usually the tradebreakers are in that one studio, but because of COVID, they split the group. So they put the trade breakers in one studio because they're on multiple. Yeah.

Like I think they're on two different panels for the trade breakers. And then everyone else is in multiple panels. So for this year, we were all separate. But someone was telling me it's like, this isn't this on an etiquette thing, but it's like wild. And it's once you hit that point where you just know all the trades are going to start coming around like 2 o'clock. Right. That's when it starts getting crazy because you can just hear they're on the phone like in the middle of a national TV show. Like LeBron's like on the phone like taking calls or people are like waving in the middle of the studio being like you need to you need to throw to us.

Like we've got something like waving and clapping. And I saw a little bit of that. Like you would see a tweet from like Bob or Pierre come in. And like Duffy would be talking and people would be like, James. James. Stop talking. Like people would be in his ear or whatever. It's, it was, you know it's a production when you watch it on TV.

And then to be sitting there all day, it's like, Jesus. I love Trade Center. Like, I'm an American. I love watching Trade Center. I was able to watch it. They switched it over to the point show on ESPN Plus at noon. But yeah, like I was watching it. the morning and then I went on to walk the dog and I just had it I'm like they do set to they're such

pros it's so good yeah and Duthie to me Duthy's impressive honestly oh that's so best he's he's he's the best ringleader he can make a wall look good yeah he's like phenomenal yeah he's a great great host like really super easy to work with I stole his throw line accidentally wow I like didn't look at the next question I was just looking at my question which was a rookie mistake and I brought something up that like Daryl said and then I ended up seeing that that was was like the start of his question for someone else. And I was like, oh my God. It was like my first time working something like this.

And I just stole from James Duthy's script. He was like, don't worry about it. You're doing a great job. Thanks. Yeah. Good guy. Yeah, amazing. All right.

Hey, so listen, I wanted to kick off this pod by asking you both about, even the team I cover, the Ottawa senators were in a wild game where they blew a three nothing lead and lost in a shootout to Florida. But that game paled in comparison. I think to the storylines involving the two teams that you cover. And Max, maybe I'll start with you because, listen, we'll let the listener in peek behind the curtain here. We're recording this late on Sunday night.

So you still have a little bit of writing ahead of you. After the team that you cover, give up 11 goals. So walk us through, like, how you're going to put together, is there like a great quote? Is there something that you're going to build this around? Because it's not often that you cover a game where the team that you cover gives up 11 goals.

Yeah, I mean, you guys know how it is. There's, well, maybe you don't, not quite with 11, but there's seldom really great stuff in a press conference like that. I think everyone is in a hurry to like kind of, on the team side to kind of get out of there. It's not particularly a, you know, a loquacious environment there, right? But there was a couple of things I thought were really interesting. And one of them was Dylan Larkin talking about, you know,

everyone needs to lock in here and realize, that there's a lot still to play for. And I asked him, you know, what do you mean when you say that? Like, what do you have in mind? And he talked about, you know, building in toward next year. And, you know, obviously, when you have a loss like this, I think the question about the coach always comes up. And it's always is the message still getting through.

And I thought, you know, he kind of said, this is on the players. And obviously, Jeff Blasch will ask the same question. So those are kind of the themes. And then we'll see how it all comes together. But, you know, it's one of those games where, you know, you guys know, we don't write off of every game at the athletic. I don't know that I was planning to particularly write tonight, but when an 11-2 happens, you have to. That's a huge deal.

And so, yeah, that's what lies ahead of me here tonight. And it's weird. And I'm sure this will segue us into what we're going to talk about here because they played Tampa yesterday, right? And they gave up one goal in regulation to the Tampa Bay Lightning. And the Pittsburgh Penguins are an awesome team. But, you know, you wouldn't think that their worlds better offensively or anything than the Lightning. So it really speaks to the variance. the wild inconsistency that you're getting out of this Red Wings team that you can have a night

where you play Tampa deadlocked at 60 minutes. And I thought it various times in that game, they even look like the better team, especially parts of the first two periods. And then you come back the next night and it's 11 goals. And it's really quite something. It's not the first game like this they've had. I mean, they lost 9 to 2 at home to Arizona. So it's getting to be a problem in Detroit. You know, and Haley, the game that you covered on the, like, that, like, 9 to 5, Calgary at Edmonton. And, like, to me, I guess this would have been, like, when you talk to people older than

us that covered hockey in the 80s, they're always like, man, the Calgary Edmonton games were crazy with like 13, 14 goals. I guess this was kind of like, would have been like the cover game in the 80s, because that was off, like, that was off the hook on Saturday night. Yeah, it was wild. I had a moment. So like the Oilers scored the 32 seconds into the game. And you start to think like, oh God, and you see McDavid he's making a couple. Like, McDavid was, he's such a fast and talented player. It was, it really is kind of wild to watch him when he's cooking. And he was early in the first period. Like I remember turning to one of the guys next me in the press box. And, you know, McDavid had a couple plays where. He didn't need much space to do something, but the flames were doing a pretty good job at least trying to push him to the outside. And, you know, Linholm scores to tie it up a couple minutes later. And then the flames score two goals in like 16 seconds or something. I mean,

the first goal went off of Darnel Nurse. It was basically an own goal. And then Backland scores. And it was this really weird first period where you come out of it and you're like, oh, God, okay, it was a five goal first period. Like this game is probably going to get a little, this is going to be high-scoring affair. I have no idea what the heck's going to happen because the way that the goals were coming were just so quick. And then the second period, I think I tweeted, like, I don't even know what just happened. I'm not very sure I know what just happened in the second period. Six goals. You know, the flames kind of started to take over. That period ended at six, five. Or it was six, five with ten minutes left in the period. And you were like, holy crap. And,

And it wasn't until the third period where it went from, wow, this game is wild to, oh, God, the flames are destroying the Edmonton Oilers right now. It had that moment where it wasn't just this wild game between the flames and the Oilers. It was, yeah, the flames are completely destroying the Edmonton Oilers right now. They chased Miko Koskin and out of the net. And the second period, Mike Smith comes in, they start mixing it up in the second period. that was fun. Matthew Kuchuk had a little quote about that post game, just, you know, seeing his former teammate. I'm sure they were frustrated. I know what I would have been. And then the third period was, again, where the flames really started to take over.

And it was a Markstrom save. I think it was three minutes in the third period. The game was six, five. Connor McDavid kind of split the D and then had a really good play with a Vander Cain. A Vander Cain had like a... five or 10 bill, whatever you want to call it, opportunity. And Markstrom completely stopped it. And then the flames went and scored 16 seconds later, 18 seconds later. And that was kind of it. Like, Edmonton didn't score after that. The flames were excellent after that. And it was just a wild game. Like, kind of like Mack said, how we went into today not really planning to write anything. I went to the rink, you know, I wrote on the Arizona game, Flames were playing on a back-to-back.

It's like, oh, the Battle of Alberta's been kind of law this year. It's been fine. Like, I wrote last night, unless something wild happens, I'm not going to write. And I didn't bring. So my laptop, if anyone notice when I make the most spelling mistakes is when I'm typing on my computer, because I have a, like, a defective keyboard that I've just never taken back to get fixed. So I bought one of these ones.

This is where I do all my writing. I did not bring this to the rink because I didn't think I was going to write last night. And so I had to try to scramble to write a post-game story when I wasn't planning to do one on my crappy little computer where the A key sticks for like 5 A's and the space key messes up. So I had a similar. Fortunately, those are important keys. So you don't never really need to use A or space. I don't need it. It's like A, S, and like T.

And it's like, all right. But the game was just, I mean, after the second period, I felt like I got hit by a bus or something. I was like, what the hell just happened? Did you guys watch the game? Yeah, I watched a good chunk of it in the beginning. But by the way, so your A button sticks, which I don't think is a good thing for somebody who covers, your top line has Matthew Kachuk, Johnny Gudrow, Elias Lindholm. All of them have A's in their name. And the Calgary Flames.

Like, yes, I feel like this is a problem. I want them to trade for Andreas Athenus C. And just see Haley just be like, oh, damn. Control C. Control Z all day. Yeah. Okay. Actually, I know Max actually has a question for you,

because we do want to talk a little bit about some trophy stuff and awards. I know Max wanted to ask you something. I'm going to have a question for Max after. Well, okay. So mine'll double dip-ish on this because the whole time that I was watching this play out with Calgary Edmonton, I was thinking, what is Darrell Sutter, Mr. The only award I want is the Jennings thinking about this game where his team is like wins

by four goals, but they, or four goals, three goals, but they give up, yeah, four goals, but they give up five and they give up five by the halfway mark. Like, what did he say after that? He was fine, honestly. Like, I was a little, you know, a lot of people like, oh, Daryl's not going to be happy. But I think Daryl looked at it and he said, I asked him after the game because there, you know, was, there was this really funny, like, really awkward, like silent pause when the players came to the podium last night because I feel like everyone was just like, what the hell just

happened? Like Matthew Gachuk and Johnny Gadro came to the podium and everyone just stared at each other awkwardly to be like, uh, so what'd you guys think of that game? That was weird, right? It was like a really stunning display of work by myself. I mean, I, that was, I asked the question. I was like, so what did you guys think of that? That was weird. It was great. But Daryl was fine. I asked, like, how do you, I asked him, like, how do you assess a game like that? And he was like, and he was like, like, you know, they had five power plays before we had one. They scored on three of them. And that's the thing. Calgary scored nine goals at five on five. The Oilers had two goals at five on five. So the flames let the Oilers into the game by the power play. I mean, their power play is so great. And that's the thing. It's, you would think that a team that had a power play like that would have better results. You would think that a team that scored nine goals would have, five

goals would have better results, but they led in nine, five on one goalie, four on the other. And Darrell was, you know, he was fine. He was like they scored in the power play. They have a really good power play. We knew that you had to know it was going to be a high scoring game when the first goal went in 30 seconds in. And we just knew we had to score more than them because they had those power play opportunities. Like he was tame about it to the media. I don't know if he was particularly happy. This is a, this is a coach who thinks the NHL is. as a 3-2-2-1 hockey league, right? And it was surprising because a lot of the conversations around the flames lately have been,

you know, they were mixing up the lines and trying to get some more consistent scoring from lines 1, 2, 3 because, you know, this is the time of year when the games get tighter and goals are harder to come by and then they score 9 at 5 on 5. But Darrell was fine. He was like, we were, other than giving up, you know, a textbook 2-0 early as, the game, like we were the better team. It was quite simple. So he was surprisingly, like, I mean, they won.

I'm sure maybe it would be a different conversation if they lost nine to five. But. Rebdings gave up nine, even strength goals earlier this year to Toronto and a shorty. That was a 10-7 game. And that was one where like, you know, the Redding's lost that. But like, that was a game was like, they came back. They were down huge. They came back.

And Jeff was like, I don't even care about the comeback. That was ridiculous. Haley, did you jump in on the, on the, all those dolly parts? Martin nine to five references. No, I didn't. I did see them. I didn't jump in on the joke. What did I do?

What stupid joke did I make last night? I have this one meme that I found. I wish I remembered where I found it so I could give the person credit because I did not make it. And I found it like in the summer, like nowhere close to it being hockey time. And it's three rats with little sunglasses on, one's putting up a piece. sign and it says, did you know that rats spelled backwards mean star? And I found it in the summer and was like, this is going to be so perfect for the Battle

of Alberta because everyone just calls Matthew Kachukuk a rat. That's pretty good. It was like, this is my perfect Battle of Alberta meme. And when Kachuk scored, I like tweeted it. I feel like the Florida Panthers fans are going to steal that. though because that's that's their thing right like the rats that's true they throw rats yeah i'll tweet that out when the panthers do something in the playoffs maybe when i jump back on that's right get ahead of it yeah you gotta get ahead of it yeah that's my battle of alberta

kitchuk meme and but the thing too when i tweeted i was like is this kind of rude does it seem like i'm calling him a rat oh i mean honestly rat it's just like a it's like a hockey like it's called brad marshawn to rat he's a superstar yeah exactly yeah anyway I didn't get on the Dolly part in 9 to 5. I posted a rat meme in a picture of a dog who looked like you got hit by him. After the second period, I was like, this is we right now. And it's this dog in the original dog picture is like when you've been partying for days and realize you should probably go home. And it's just this dog who like is very disheveled and unwell looking.

And that was me after the second period. When I realized I need to write a story on this and I don't know what the hell just happened. I was just going to say, I love the thought of you deciding, like, should I need to write off this? Should I write off this? I did already post a rap meme. Like, maybe I can count as my contribution from this one. Can I just let this meme stick? We paywall this?

This is my analysis. Yeah. But I think that was a game too. And like we can, you know, we can move on and talk some trophy stuff too. We did this two weeks ago when it was Sean Domini. And I talked about Johnny Goddrault's case. for the heart. And I think after that game, you know, he's third in the league and in scoring now. He's got 90 points in 64 games. He is going to, like, he's only nine points back of the 99 he scored in 2018,

19, and he came fourth in the heart trophy ballot that year. And the big differentiation point for me is like, and Johnny will be the first one to say this. Like, the flames lost games on his stick that year because he wasn't very good in the D-Zone. He didn't check. He didn't play a complete game, and he's doing that now. Like, Johnny Goddrow, like, Daryl calls him the team's best checker. And it's not in the, he's not big on the forecheck. He's not checking in the way that, like, Milan Lu Cheech does.

He doesn't have the physical presence. Johnny Godro is not throwing hits, but he checks in a way of just being in the right position and being in the right spots and moving his feet, having a stick in the right spot. He knows where to be in all three zones now, and that's something that Johnny Goddrault has never had, and he'll admit that. He knows he's a better player this year in terms of, you know, in all situations, all three zones kind of player. And like, you know, not all points are created equal. The majority of his points are at five-on-five. He leads the league in five-on-five scoring total and five-on-five scoring per 60. So he's not just cooking on the power play. You know,

Rice Idol and McDavid have more points than Johnny Goddrow. But Johnny Goddrow and Matthew Cichuk have more points at five on five than anyone else in the league right now. I think Matthews has a great heart case. I think Igor Shosturkin, I know he had kind of a tough, he's had a tough week. The last two weeks, some of his games haven't been great. But I feel like Johnny Godro is a legitimate case. I don't know how you guys feel like am I just too close to it in Calgary, but watching this guy play and seeing the way that he is this year compared to the last time he was in the heart. conversation. Like, this is a better Johnny Goddrow on a better Flames team.

So I think he deserves to kind of be in that conversation. You know, for me, and I'll ask Max's opinion in a second, I only want to wait to see what Dom and Alan Walsh think of this. Then I'll weigh in. Then I'll weigh in on this. Pretty sure. Johnny Goddrow passed Jonathan Hubertow in scoring last night. Yeah.

I'm curious to see what Max thinks of this. It's funny that you should say that because I, as this, as that game is happening, I see John, look up and I see Johnny Godro. I think at that point had four assists. I don't know if he ended up getting a fifth in that game. I think he did. He did. Five.

Yeah. And I'm thinking like, where does this guy sit in the MVP? And so I'm like, you know, I'm going to go look at Dom's player cards and just see like how he grades out some of the other things like. Because for me, like candidly, I have a Selkie vote. And if I was being cast today, I have a strong feeling that Elias Lindholm would be on it. And he's been pretty dang productive this year too. And I tend to think that like when you're one of the highest scoring players and you're also a Selky finalist, Like that is a really strong heart case in general when you're on a good team because that's really complete.

But it's interesting that you say that about Sutter saying Godreau is the best checker because I go and I look and it's like, man, all these guys. And they're aligned. So it makes sense that all their impacts are going to ultimately look pretty dang similar to each other. And that's why you got to watch the game to know who's driving the buzz and all that. I was just trying to parse it. Because to me, it's like Lindholm is such a defensive conscience in my mind. When I've watched him play, I always think this is a guy who's always in the right spot and looks really. really hard to play against, but also, you know, really imposing as an offensive player.

But his release is so quick and so good. And Kachuk brings all these elements that it's like, you know, I almost think if you were to take him out of the picture, all of Calgary looks a little different. But especially offensively, like, you watch some of the plays that Johnny Goddra makes, and it does seem like the straw that stirs the drink a little bit. And so that's kind of where I'm, like, I guess if you're going to force me to pick one, By the way, I don't even want to leave Jacob Markstrom out of this. Like, he has you have 10 shutouts this year.

So it's crazy because, like, that's the hardest part about the heart for me is it, it often ends up going to a guy who's like the far and away, at least in my view, best on his own team, right? Like, sometimes you wouldn't cast a vote for someone. I'm like, I don't expect anyone on the lightning to be on my ballot this year because they're all so good. But Calgary, like, I feel like there's multiple guys with the case. And I do think Johnny has the best one.

And that's probably what will, like, hurt him in the heart conversation is because people are going to say, well, like, look at the line you play on. But I think when you watch the game, like, you know, the story I did last night was about, I just ended up having something more fun. I was like, you know what, this was the best battle of Albert in a while. Here's the five best moments. And you could have just picked all five of Johnny's assists because they weren't just Johnny Goddrow being in the zone for a while and then making a play. it was Johnny Goddrow in transition, carrying the puck into the zone, holding it, holding it, holding it, holding it, and making a gross play to somebody. Like, he drives the offense on that line. But I think what makes that line so dangerous, and I've put this in my story all the time. And Daryl's talked about this too. Like, I don't think people talk about Elias Linholm enough. And it sounds so contradictory because I'm saying Johnny is the guy on that line.

But, you know, Daryl has said Elias Linholm is the best all-around player on the Calgary Flames. And he's like the MVP of that line. Like he does the dirty work in the corners. He's got a great shot. He's the defensive. He's a really good defensive player. So is Matthew Kuchukh this year. It's really hard to pick who's the guy on that line, let alone the dude on that team and the guy from the flames who could be in the heart conversation.

I do just think that Johnny's been the most consistent. this year. And I mean, again, he has 90 points. So we'll see what happens. But I wanted to ask Max, since we're talking about trophies. I made some friends in Detroit like two weeks ago with my more at cider tweet. And some Leaves fans were upset with me. But like, what he's doing this year is incredibly impressive.

It wasn't even just the McDavid play. He stood. it was against Florida or Tampa, like he stood some guy up on the blue, on the neutral ice. Someone went to hit him and he just took the contact and hit the dude. Like he is, he is legitimately like he is the best rookie this year in my opinion. Like he is have he is he has such a good impact on the game and he's only, what is he, 20 years old. Yeah.

He's playing like 25 minutes a game down the stretch right now for Detroit. And he was carrying around, he needed Kaiser for half the season. And like, no offense to Danny DeKeyzer, but this isn't a 20-year-old, you know, playing with Chris Tannaver or something. He's been really good this year. He's been great. And it's interesting because, you know, you talk about kind of the team context, and that's where it's most interesting to me that I'm curious to see how voters come down on this. Because I think we have seen a shift in the PHWA voting base in recent years to a lot more attention being paid to underlying numbers, things like expected goals here, things like shot share. Things that the Red Wings as a team are truly, you know, they were better at early in the year.

And it's really gotten rough. And so I'm curious to see how people take into account some of those underlying numbers for a more excited. And I think you go when you look at, you know, Dom does his awards watch. And I think people sometimes get a little too caught up in the order that like the GSVA thing spits out because Dom is not purporting to say this is what the ballot should look like, right? But, you know, ultimately that's one reason I think that he doesn't always appear as high on those lists as a lot of people would like him to see because his expected goal share is like 47%. And I'm curious to see how voters deal with that. Because to me, I look at it and I say, this is the best defenseman on the Red Wings. This is a guy who looks like a true number one defenseman right now.

It plays in all situations. He excels in almost all situations. Can get a little mistake, you know, prone in the O's not prone. He can make a few mistakes in the O's. trying to make a play happen, what rookie doesn't. But he's really, really good. And I don't know how to punish or not punish him for something like that number. Because I think that's an area where, like, guys like bunting, even earlier in the year,

I don't know where it's like now, but Zegras had a clear edge in him there early in the year. Bunting, I'm sure does, you know, playing on that line. And that's the thing. I don't hold the age against guys at all to me if you're eligible for the award. You eligible for the award. All the replies I got of people being like, bunting's like 57 years old. I know. Come on.

That's not my issue with Michael Bunting. Capris off. We dealt with this last year. We dealt with it. Don't blame the guy. It's not his fault. He doesn't make the rules. Bunting's having a good season.

Exactly. And as we've talked about on the Thursday show with Down Goes Brown, we say the award isn't who's going to be the best player five years from them. Absolutely. The award and who has the most upside. The award is which guy in his first year in the league had the best season based on their age. Do we think bunting is, sorry to cut you off? I just think it's interesting when we're having the Godrow chat. It's hard to separate Johnny Goddrow from his line-mates,

why I'm Linn, home, and Matthew Gochap. But how, how this, this is what I mean when I'm making the kind of thing. And again, I feel bad for, you know, his, his D partner. But, you know, Mort Sider is playing really well without a really good defender beside him. Michael Bunting is playing with two guys who have heart trophy, you know, conversations around them on their own. maybe Austin to a bigger extent than Mitch Marner, but he's not playing with two nobody's. He's playing on the Leaf's top line. And the flames top line has been the best

and most productive in the NHL at five on five this year. They're outscoring teams. At five on five, I think it's like 58 to like 24 or something. I don't have it off the top of my head. And the next best line is the Bunting Marner, Matthews line, but they have like 15 fewer goals for. So that's the thing for me is, you know, it's hard to separate. Like, is Michael Bunting, are we really going to say that Michael Bunting is driving play on that line? It doesn't mean he's not having a great season.

It doesn't mean he's not a very good hockey player. He's doing a lot. He's doing great. But I just think what more at Sider is doing, yeah, the Red Wings aren't great. But I just, I look at a rookie blue liner playing the way that he is against the kind of competition that he is. And I just think it's more impressive than. Bunting, you know, pitching in on the top line in Toronto and playing as well as he is.

They're all really good. That's the bottom line, right? I mean, they're all really good. Boldie is the guy who gets lost in this, I think, fairly. Like, there's no games played minimum here for Matt Boldie, who's, I haven't looked in the last few days, but, like, was hovering around a point per game for quite a long time there. And every time I've watched him now, I don't know if it's because I primarily watch him when he plays against Detroit. It seems like he's scoring in almost every game. I know he's falling. off the point per game pace. But like that's, he's an outstanding player too. And I don't know if he's going to get the do that I think he deserves. So it's a great rookie crop this year.

Between Zegra's between Rai. Between Raymond, between Anton Lundell and Florida, it's amazing. Like, I'm going to have a hard time narrowing it to five for sure. Yeah. And Ian and I talk about this all the time when you're talking awards, when you're talking Hall of Fame. Like, there's all these things people, it turns into like why I hate this guy sometimes. And like, that's not the case. We're not trying to say like this dude isn't good because I think. player X is better. I think a lot of times those conversations can turn into that quite quickly and they're all really good. That's what makes this really difficult and makes it kind of a fun debate too. You know, one other debate I want to bring up here before we move this along is

Coach of the Year. And I feel like Todd McClellan, who by the way on Monday night against Seattle will be behind the bench for his 1,000th game in the NHL. So you're going to see McClellan in the news cycle early this week. Thousand games is certainly a big accomplishment. but I think he deserves some love here for the Jack Adams. I mean, I don't know where the two of you had L.A. in your preseason projections, but I felt like they were, you know, they were kind of this kind of team that was, you know,

filled with some really good veterans and filled with some really good young players, but were they going to mesh? Hey, not only are they going to mesh, like they could be playing game one of the Stanley Cup playoffs at home. I was going to say Staples Center, but now it's a, what is it, crypto? Crypto.com.

I can't need to go there. I'm going next week. Into the crypt. Oh, isn't that what you called it, Max? I don't think I made that up. I think I stole that from someone. It's out there. I didn't get it at first, to be honest.

I was like, why is he calling it that? That's really weird. I was like, oh, the name changed. When I was there, it was still Staples Center, and I was so disappointed because I had like a crypto joke to make and then I forgot it, so it didn't matter. So let's go around the horn here real quick. Does Todd McClellan deserve some love for Jack Adams?

Max? Yes, absolutely he does. And we talked about a little bit in the pre-show as we were kind of talking about, you know, segments, a little behind the curtain here. We do talk about this stuff before we record. Whenever I've watched LA this year, that is a team that I would not want to play against. They are heavy. They are, you know, they're defensively so tight that they don't really give you anything easy. And those are things that, you know, L.A. has a lot of good players.

They've still got Anzee Kopitar, who somehow still looks like prime Anze Kopitar. But yeah, I give a lot of credit. it to a style like that when it's so cohesive to a coach and when you can have these, you know, their fourth line is hard to play against. Like their fourth line can score on you. They're not going to give you a lot. Like up and down the lineup, that's a team that causes you matchup problems. I look at that and look at where they were even one year ago.

I have to give a lot of credit to the coach. So the answer for me is a yes, Ian. Haley, same thing? Yeah, I do agree. I think I didn't trust any of the California teams coming into the season. I thought when you looked at the Pacific Division, it was like, It was going to be Vegas, Calgary at the top. Edmonton, that was kind of the top three teams.

Everyone was kind of discussing. And nobody really expected the California teams to do a whole lot this year. I thought the Kings made some good moves in the off season. Like Rob Blake does get some credit for bringing in like Philip Dineau. And they brought in Victor Arvinson too, right? You know, Quentin Byfield's playing this year. That's, you know, that was a move from previous, you know, drafting him. but I thought the Kings made some good moves,

but I didn't think they were moves that were going to make them good right away. I thought it was like, okay, this is good. This probably isn't their year. But like this is a team that has got some good pieces now and we'll see how they can kind of move along with it. So I think they've been a really good pleasant surprise. I think when the flames first played them early in the season on the first L.A. trip, you know, they were tough.

They've only played them once. They're playing them again two more times. before the season ends. So I've only seen them up close to one time, but that was a tough game. That was a hard game. It was really tight. They don't give a lot. That's a really well-coached team that has pieces.

And I think you start looking at the playoff picture. You're looking at the playoffs start now thing. And I think this is a question maybe for you guys. Like, if you're the Flames, would you rather play Edmonton in the second round or L.A.? Because I would think, like maybe it's, yeah, I agree. Yeah, I think it's Edmonton. The Kings, the Kings can play that gritty, like hard style and they've got better goaltending.

Like if you're Calgary or your Nashville, whoever makes it to the second round, whoever it may be, would you rather play the Kings or the Oilers in the second round of the playoffs? Like who's the tough, like, I think the Kings are the tougher, bigger team to beat right now. Yeah. The only thing I would say is maybe Daryl. Sutter, does he know a little bit about Copatar, Dowdy, a little bit to push their buttons or that would, but I'm with you.

Edmonton's too loosey, we saw it again Saturday. They're too loosey goosey. And so I would rather, I know there's the McDavid Drysidal thing. That's the thing. They've got the ultimate kind of Trump card and those two guys, but Drys had a hat trick on Saturday. And it didn't matter. And it's the ultimate Trump card the other way in that, you know,

like it's no secret at this point. Like that is, until they find an answer in goal, that is a team that isn't going to strike fear to anybody because you're not going to ever worry that you can't come back. I'm surprised they didn't get a goal at the deadline, but at the same time, like, who was there? That was a legitimate grade. There was nobody. It needed to be this offseason or the last off season, frankly. Yeah. Hey, listen, before we let Max go, I just want to hit on, and by the way, all week, Pierre LeBrun and Mike Russo are going to have extensive coverage of the NHLGM meetings taking place down in Florida.

And there's two items on the agenda that I think are worth discussing and are kind of good fodder for a podcast like this. The first would be, and we've seen it, it started in 2015 when Chicago went deep with Patrick Kane, and we saw it with Nikita Kutjarov, and maybe Vegas is going to deal with again this year. It's the old, we're over the cap, and we're going to put a guy on LTIR,

but we'll bring it back with the playoffs. And you've seen people say, hey, why does the salary cap disappear for the playoffs? Is it time to close that loophole, keep a salary cap? And I'm just curious if you think it is time to change this. Like, Max, do you think, hey, yeah, you know what? If it happened once in its aberration, that's okay. Well, now it's happening multiple times. And now it could be a deliberate strategy in building your team to do it.

Is it time to close this loophole? I'm a little torn. I think in general hockey can have a tendency to react to isolated instances with the fervor of complicating things that, you know, unintended consequences happen, right? But this does seem to be becoming frequent enough that, like, I think it merits discussion. My main thing would be how you're going to do it? Because some of the ideas that I've heard thrown around, one of the ones I've heard thrown around is

that it's the salary cap will apply to the skaters that you dress. And I don't like that. I don't think that's going to solve anything because one of the things you see is that, you know, maybe not so much for teams like Tampa. But a lot of the teams that are cap crunched in the NHL are cap crunch because of one or two bad contracts that they're not going to mind taking those guys out of the lineup, really anyway in the playoffs. You're not really doing anything competitive balance-wise, except opening a door for them to go out the other way. It's opening another loophole,

basically. Yeah, it's a good point. So the one I like that I've heard, and you know, you'd have to see how this would work. One thing I don't like as a rule, I don't like assuming just offhand that all these players are playing ball with this. I think pro athletes are hyper-competitive, and I think it can sometimes be a little, we take it a little bit for granted that, yeah, Okay, they're fine with not playing and all this stuff. Like, I think that's something that we ought to be a little cautious of. But Mark Stone didn't look right. Like, he's on LTIR for a reason, guys.

Like, he came back from that back injury and had like eight goals and three games or something. He didn't look like Mark Stone. But the one I like is if you aren't, if you're on LTIR when the regular season ends, you can't play in the first round. And if you're on, you can try, you can at that point file to come off. And then, you know, you can play in the second round or whatever. skate or whatever and then you can play. Exactly.

So that would be the one that I would find the most compelling because that does just, I don't, I think you can, there are teams like Tampa last year that knew. And I'm not necessarily saying Kutrov could have played, you know, X date, but they knew that they didn't even to make the playoffs.

But I don't think there's many teams that say you don't need a guy to win around. I think that would be the best way to do it. And that's the thing. And we're seeing with Vegas, like, yeah. Yeah, using LTIR is great.

But you've still got to get to the playoffs. Yeah, basically, you know, it's not, you know, if this was some, and I'm not saying that this was something that they did on purpose, but if it was, it's backfiring completely because they've been a disaster. So I think it's just when you start to see, you know, they trade for Jack Eichel and then Mark Stone gets put on LTIR. And then, you know, Alec Martinez gets activated, but they still can't get rid of, um, if Genni Dadov's, uh, Dadanov's contract. Oh, and then all of a sudden, like Riley, Smith goes from IR to LTIR. Like there's little moments where this stuff happens where it's like, come on. Like that is too convenient to work in your favor. And I think that's where people are coming from when they're saying like something's got

to give here. But at the end of the day, like these guys are still hurt. Isn't the best answer just to make this a soft cap in a luxury tax though? Like if we're really this worried about it, why not let the teams that want to spend and want to go all in, go all in with a luxury tax? Like if that, if this is becoming that big of an issue, isn't that the answer above Yeah, because then, you know, and I think it's really interesting. I would love to know what 10 GMs who brought that up were.

Like, was it the, you know, bottom dwell? Yeah, sure. It's the fierce thing. It said there was 10 GMs who said they want to have this discussion. I would be, I'd be interested to know, is it the guys who were in that second tier below the Vegas and Tampa, you know? Yeah. Like, is it the Calgary's or the, I don't know, like, Boston's who are being like, come on. Like we're trying to build our roster here within the actual salary cap.

We're not playing gymnastics. Or is it the Ottawa's, the Arizones who are just, you know, taking on contracts or doing what they can against the cat floor? And they're not playing Tampa in the playoffs anyway because they're not in them. So I'd be curious, like, who's driving this conversation? Yeah. So the people who are trying to play against Vegas in the playoffs when they destroyed them in the regular season because they didn't have players. And now all of a sudden they have them. I'd be curious to know that.

Not that it changes it a whole lot. I just, I don't know. I think it's maybe a bit of recency bias because it's two years in a row where we're seeing this happen. And I mean, it might not even work out for the Golden Knights. They're barely hanging on to the second wildcard spot right now. No. Like I have more faith in, I don't know how much faith I have in like Dallas and Vancouver

to keep playing well to make the playoffs. I would probably have more faith in Vancouver to take that second wildcard spot out of the three of them right now, though. I don't know if Alec Martinez being activated makes the Golden Knights. Yes, they're ready now. I don't know. I don't know how I feel. It's just the Pacific is fun. That's the best division to watch right now in terms of all the movement within the division.

Legitimate race. Yeah, it's a legitimate playoff race right now. Whereas the Atlantic, it's more about jockeying for position. They're all making order. The Pacific is like, hey, we might. might miss it. Hey, here's my proposal for, and tell me, Max, this kind of goes along the lines with what you said about

a soft cap where you pay like a luxury tax, you can go over and above. I've always thought if you're the Ottawa's or the Buffaloes or the Arizona's and you got 20 million in dead cap space that you don't use. Like, I think you should be able to trade that to Tampa, to Vegas. And so then the,

that, to me, that's a big problem. If I'm the NHLPA, I don't like the fact that Ottawa is sitting on 30 million in not using it. Or, you know what I mean? Yeah. So that, that would all, that's always been my thought. And then Ottawa can say, okay, we'll take a second round pick for two million of cap space. Or what, I don't know what the, what the value.

It's not that much different than like, I mean, it is, but it's not that much different than salary retention. We'll give you a seven to retain 50% whatever, you know. So why not? It's different. It accomplishes like you don't, you keep the money is still the 50-50 split then, right? It's still in the same ecosystem. 81.5 times 32. And you want this much slice of my pie, I will trade it to you and it's going to cost you this.

I don't hate that. I mean, I can see the other contenders hating that for sure, like teams that don't feel like. You know, like let's say this year you're a team like, let's say Carolina who didn't go all in despite the fact that I think they're right there. Like this isn't like me making a Carolina money thing. I know that can sometimes be a thing. I'm just saying they're not a team that went all in. right, like Florida and Tampa did. They could have gone all into a totally different level with the system that we're talking about.

But I don't know that I'm inherently opposed to that. I'm in favor of teams wanting to be better. So I like this idea, Ian. I know Max has to go, but I have, like, there's one more thing. Does the fact that Carolina didn't do as much as Tampa and Florida worry you about the Carolina hurricanes? Like, they've got a good roster. But I think when you look at what the other team, who are going to be their top competition the playoffs did, like they got better.

And Carolina added secondary scoring in Max Domi. Like, is that going to be enough for a team going up against, you know, potentially Tampa who nobody's beaten in the playoff round since 2019 in Florida, who added to what, in my opinion, was the deepest forward group in the league? And they beefed up their defense and they're going to get Aaron Eckblad back. Like, is Carolina going to be in trouble because they didn't do enough? or we just like, you know what, they're good. They didn't need to do anything.

Yeah, it's a great question. It's one that's going to get judged in hindsight, right? Like, whichever way does this go. I mean, the famous one I think was like, right, like, all Washington did the year they won the cup was at, I think it was Michael Kempney, right? Yeah, that's a good point. You know, it's sometimes those small, subtle moves at the edge is what does it because what you have works, the chemistry you have works.

Yeah. All you need is window dressing. Right. You don't want to have to shuffle your lines and, you know, work in somebody like a, I'll use Claudeau because he was the biggest name that got traded. You know, I think Claude Jureur is probably not, not too hard of a guy to play with and figure out, but you just never know how long that takes for a guy to get his feet under him. You know, I think that's probably most extreme in goal.

So, you know, teams that were looking at net, like, that was probably the thing that would concern me. But you look at Carolina, like, you're not messing with the top two pairs. You don't probably really want to mess with the top two lines. So at that point, yeah, depth forward. I get it. Like, you know, am I going to criticize it if they go out in round one? Yep, but I get it.

Hey, Max, before we let you go, let's just round off this conversation about the GM meetings coming up on Monday, Tuesday in Florida. And obviously, Evgeti Dadaunov was front and center with the, I've been traded, I haven't been traded, a fiasco with Anaheim. And it certainly opened a lot of eyes to the way that no trade clauses are handled. And I think for a lot of us, we just assumed that there was some sort of central registry or there was. some sort of, I don't know, more accurate system of keeping track of who was going where and who didn't want to go where. And now people are saying, okay, we need to centralize this. And you brought up a really interesting point earlier with Max when you said, you know, sometimes the NHL, we like to overreact to something that's an aberration. So I'll ask you

this. If you felt like the cap violation has been a bit of a pervasive problem, where do you stand on the Dianov and do we need to change this system? here. This would be one I would not change. This would be one that I would say the lesson learned is going to be from the embarrassment and from the clubs taking pains to not experience it again. Now, I'm a reporter. Would I love the transparency of having it publicly available? I don't know that it would be in a case where it's with Central, but you can certainly see a world where the more people who know, there's always more chance of it getting leaked. And I'm just generally in favor of there being more information out there. But I do see the Pandora's box that you open when

you have that and what that could kind of create. And I think, I think it was Elliott Friedman on 32 thoughts who touched on this of just like, you know, what is it like for a player who submits a no trade clause and then a team knows that they're on it? Like, I can't imagine that's a real comfortable spot to be in. And so while the reporter in me is saying, hey, transparency is always good, this would strike me as one of those things that I highly doubt. We have another instance of this in the next three years just because everyone's going to remember how shitty it was. Yeah. Yeah.

Like, I don't think that's something where you need to implement a rule change because that was just like, get your shit together, everybody involved. Yeah. Yeah. Not like a we need to change the rules here. It's just, we don't even know exactly what happened. Like, I think it was just like so many people needed to do something wrong for that to happen, basically.

Not just the sense. It's not just finger pointing at. Like, you know, Ottawa, you didn't tell them. It's not just finger pointing at Vegas. We're not checking. Like, that's like an all around what the hell just happened. I don't think that's going to happen again. With how long Vegas has known that they had a cap crunch, even if there was some kind of

issue on this, this is the kind of thing that I do think can be solved with enough. Now, if Ottawa, I guess, truly had forgotten or didn't know or whatever that this list is filed, then that's that. But, you know, I think that's the kind of thing that this experience will stick. I mean, you guys know how it is. You're writers. When you guys make an error in a story, when you spell a guy's name wrong, do you ever spell that guy's name wrong again?

Right? Like, all I need to do is spell a guy's name wrong once, and I'll never forget it because it feels terrible. When somebody corrects you, like, that's not how you spell this guy's name. Yeah. Auto correct has killed me. It's now Travis Harmonic. Yeah.

Every time. Every time I type in Hammondick, Harmonic. And I got to just add it to my dictionary. I think it's just crazy to me because, you know, just think of when Blake Coleman signs. And again, we're writers. Blake Coleman signs in Calgary. And I, you know, go and I talk to some people and try to figure out, does he have trade protection?

And, you know, you make a couple calls and you find it out. And I'm just a Joe, freaking Schmoe hockey writer. And I can find out what Blake Coleman's trade protection is when you make a couple phone calls. The fact that an entire hockey organization couldn't do that is like, uh. But it sounds like they, like, from, you know, we're all going secondhand here, right? But like, it sounds like, they, made the effort and it was an honest mistake that didn't happen. I understand people's response to say, we shouldn't even have a world where honest mistakes are on the table on a matter like

this. It did create an embarrassing situation. It did create a really tough situation for it to Donoff. I just, I think the sting of it, the memory of it and the other people observing it, it's going to make everybody a whole lot more careful that they do not want to be in the middle of the next one. I bet we don't have one for the next three years. And he's playing really well now too, which is nice. I just... Overtime winner. Can you imagine if they try to trade him again, though. Like, Vegas is that ruthless that they would be like, no, we need the cap space. Doesn't matter. And then you won't be able to play for the rest of season, right? Yeah. Yeah. Can you imagine? They're ruthless, ruthless with Mark Andre Fleury with this. Like, if they try to trade him again, I'm just like, oh, my God.

Yeah. Hey, listen, Max, we know that, again, we, we said we're taping this recording this late on a, on a Sunday. So we appreciate you doing this because I know you got a lot of work ahead of you. We're looking forward to reading that. That unfortunate recap of the Red Wings giving up 11 goals against Pittsburgh. What are you going to write about, Max? We appreciate you dropping by because this was a lot of fun and you helped us, you know, guide the conversation here for the past hour. Oh, my pleasure, guys. It was great to be on. And yeah, thanks for the good talk. Really good, really good stuff. This was a fun. This was a good brain wake up to get writing. So that's good. There we go. More fun than being on the Tuesday show, right? No comment. I got a lot of, wait, the Tuesday show.

Haven't you gone on there with Sean whenever Craig decides to disappear? I'm loyal to the Americans. You can't get me on that. Yeah. You were going to say yes when you thought we were asking about the show with Corey. No, Corey's my, no, that's the Friday show. You got to figure out the days here. Yeah.

Cory's my ride or die. Everybody listen to the Friday Prospect series. I'm going to do an unsolicited plug here. Yes, do it. I ride for the Americans, but this was very fun. Awesome. Thanks, Max. All right, Haley, that was great.

You know, Max, Max is a really insightful, one of the really insightful bright young writers in this industry. He's so good. We get a chance to kind of, you know, share his insights with our listeners because he's really good. And I think it came across there. And I'm looking forward. I'm going to, I think we're going to do a little collab piece, Ottawa and Detroit are meeting this weekend for Home and Home.

We've got an idea for something. I'm looking forward to that. I know you've done some collab pieces with Max in the past too, right? Yeah, when I covered the Sends, we would do like little rebuilders roundtables and, um, or things after the draft, the draft lottery.

We would always collaborate on stuff because the Sends and Red Wings have been kind of closely linked in terms of their rebuilds. And Max is great. Um, he's such a good writer. I've said before like, I hope that team starts to get good like for him because the Red Wings already have a great fan base.

They seem fun. Like it is a big fan base. This stuff always does really well. But if the Red Wings can start, you know, turning this rebuild into, you know, actual, you know, moving up the standings and turn it into a competitive hockey team. And there's going to, there'll be more eyeballs in his work. I think it's going to be great because he's, he's so talented. He's so smart.

I feel like when I'm stuck on story ideas, sometimes, like I have, I'll go and look at what Max's been doing. You'll creep on Max's feed and see what he's done. Absolutely. I'll go and see what is, more so when I covered the Sends, because some of the storylines were similar, but I would just go and look at what Max was doing because it's just really solid good work and he executes everything really well. We went for a drink when I was in Detroit earlier in the season. And that's a great city.

Like Detroit's a low-key good city. I really enjoyed it. It does. It's a good spot. All right. Hey, listen, we're going to wrap up this show. We had Max for like 95% of it. I'm going to wrap it up, though, with a little multiple choice madness.

I only have a singular question for you. Okay. And it's a potential playoff scenario, and I need your answer here. Okay. And this isn't from like a tactical perspective or like a strategical perspective. It's from straight up comedy. Like what to you would bring more cruelty? What would be funnier here?

Okay. If, I'm going to give you two options. A, the Toronto Maple Leaves play Boston in round one and lose again. Or B, Toronto play Toronto play. plays Freddie Anderson in Carolina in round one and get bounced that way. What, like, what would you think is more comedic gold, losing the Boston again or losing to the guy that used to be their number one goalie who people thought couldn't get them over the hump and then having that guy knocked them out in the first round?

I know everyone likes to make the, it was 4-1 or whatever joke, but I think it's got to be Freddie Anderson because the year that the Leafs lost to Boston in that round, like, that was kind of the beginning stages. of what's turned into this Leafs team, right? Like, that was kind of year one. It sucked, whatever, but this is, what, year seven, six of this kind of core nucleus with nucleus with Matthews and Marner, et cetera. I feel like it's got to be Freddie Anderson because he played a very large role in them

not getting through last year. Like, he was not good for them in the playoffs. And so if they were not just to lose to Carolina in the first round, like, if they were get goalied by Carolina in the first round. Like, you know, that's the thing. Like, it's not just lose to Carolina because Caroline's a very good team. Like, if Freddie Anderson completely shuts the door and he's now the reason why they couldn't make it pass a first round two years in a row, it's got to be that.

It's got to be, right? So I only say this, I guess, because for years, Ottawa couldn't get past Toronto. Toronto knocked Ottawa out of the playoffs four times in a tight window of time in the early 2000s. So I think there would be some sort of circle of life type of thing where I'm like, ah, you know what? If Toronto lost a Boston four times, man, that would be pretty delicious.

Right? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. It's still Freddie Anderson for me. He was not good in the playoffs last year. And if he... Listen, maybe you can...

He's been really good this year. He has the best save percentage and goals against average in the league right now, or at least it's one of them. Like, he's been excellent this year with Carolina. And Carolina's got two good deep pairs. They're, you know, a good team. They've got good center depth. It's a really good hockey team.

So I don't know. That division, that conference, like, I don't know how. I said this on Trade Center Day. And a couple people were like, how do you not have Tampa's a favorite? No one's beat them. Like, you can't say anyone's a favorite in the East. Right. Like, how are you supposed to predict?

Except for Washington. Don't you? Would you not agree that like Washington kind of feels like the one team? You're like, there's no pressure on them, which might make them a little bit of a sneaker. But like to me, I don't see Washington as a team that's going to go in and like do something crazy. They might. Right. But in terms of like pressure on teams to do something, like I think Washington's pretty low on that list because I think their window of contention is shrinking, shrinking.

I never want to bet against a team that has Ovechkin doing what Ovechkin's doing. But I think it's just like, look at the Leafs first round matchup options right now. It's like Tampa, Carolina, Boston. Like, they're in a wild card spot right now. I think they technically are not if you look at points percentage, but I don't know. I don't know, the East is going to be a dog fight. That's going to be a complete battle to get out of just the first round. I think that's going to be where some of the best playoff matchups come from is the

Eastern Conference. The West is, you don't want to underestimate anyone in the West right now because the playoffs are a different animal. But like you're looking at the West and you've got Colorado and Calgary at the top and everyone else is kind of duking it out. But the East is just going to be wild and is a ton of fun. The first round of the playoffs is my favorite. Yeah. I love the first round. Oh, Tampa, Florida last year.

Great example of. Amazing. Carolina Nashville. So fun. Carolina, Nashville. Yeah. I loved that series. I loved it, loved it.

I was upset. I wanted Nashville to be Carolina. I don't know why. They were really fun. It was just a random series, right? Like it was, it was great. Yeah, we need more of that, I think. Yeah, I think it'll be, I think we'll get more of that this year, I think. Yeah. Hey, listen, we'll leave it there. We'll wrap it up. I feel like the chemistry was back, I think, for the two of us, you know? It's not even that bad. Even though we've only done like two shows together, I think, and it feels like in 2022. This was great. Maybe it's because we recorded on a Sunday night and it wasn't grumpy. Maybe. Maybe it should we always be doing Sunday nights?

Maybe. It might be smart. I don't know. Yeah. We'll see. Well, okay, we're going to leave it there. We want to thank everybody for listening to this latest edition of The Athletic Hockey Show. We want you to follow us on your favorite podcast platform.

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