The Athletic Hockey Show - Jonathan Toews will not return to Chicago Blackhawks next season, NHL playoff teams are set, and Pittsburgh Penguins' postseason streak ends

Episode Date: April 13, 2023

Ian Mendes and Sean McIndoe discuss Jonathan Toews playing his final game for the Blackhawks on Thursday night, and both Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin missing the playoffs this year. Also, is there any hotter seat than Penguins GM Ron Hextall's, and the futures of Dallas Eakins in Anaheim and Pierre Dorion and DJ Smith in Ottawa. Next, Ian gives DGB powers to pick the playoff matchups, and the many goalie concerns for playoff teams. To wrap up, they answer listener questions in the mailbag, and discuss what could possibly be the best name in sports in "This Week in Hockey History".Have a question for Ian and Sean? Email [e-mail] or leave a VM: 845-445-8459!Subscribe to The Athletic Hockey Show on YouTube: http://youtube.com/@theathletichockeyshowGet a 1-year subscription to The Athletic for just $1 a month when you visit http://theathletic.com/hockeyshowThis episode is brought to you by Better Help, visit http://betterhelp.com/nhlshow today to get 10% off your first month Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Hockey Show. Welcome back to a Thursday edition, the last one of the regular season of the Athletic Hockey Show. It's Ian Mendes, Sean McIndoo with you. Coming up, the field of 16 playoff teams is all set. We'll kind of break that down. We'll look at the fallout in Pittsburgh. We'll chat about some really interesting storylines. I think going into the playoffs, not the least of which is goal-tending.

I think it seems like a constant. theme for so many playoff teams. So look, we got a lot to get to, but it's interesting, Sean, that here on this Thursday, the biggest news comes from a non-playoff team. And that would be Chicago announcing that Jonathan Taves is not coming back next year, which it's interesting, right? Like, I was always curious how this was going to go. But this seems like it's the team's choice.

Yeah, well, it does. And to be clear, that he's not coming back to Chicago. This is not an announcement of retirement or anything like that. He may very well play next year, but we now know that it won't be with the Blackhawks. And that is, yeah, that is a surprise. I think most of us had probably assumed, even given what's going on in Chicago, even given that there's the rebuild in place, that if Jonathan Taves wanted to come back and was healthy enough and ready to go,

that there would always be a spot for him. Now, obviously, you're not bringing them back at a $10 million cap hit or anything like that, but I think that would have been recognized on both sides. And instead, Kyle Davidson makes the announcement that basically he wants to continue to clear the decks and to have this be not just a rebuild, not just a, you know, a season where you chase after a top draft pick, but a real. really a complete and total reset of everything, good and bad. And that means no more Jonathan Taves in Chicago, which is stunning and a little bit sad. The good news is by making the announcement today, we all know going into what is now his final game as a Chicago Blackhawk. We know what it is. And we'll give the fans there in Chicago a chance to say goodbye in an appropriate way.

Yeah, it's a rarity, right? I mean, look, Claude Giroux went through this in Philly where they kind of made it very clear, this is going to be your last game at home. So it's very rare that you get this type of scenario where the, usually what happens is the guy has to come back the next year with a new team to be celebrated. So this is unique. Now, we can agree that there's probably 30 other fan bases right now, Sean, saying, boy, wouldn't Jonathan Taves look good as like a cheap third line center on our team? Right? Like don't you feel like every team is saying, God, I hope he comes back and is willing to take a small salary and come play for my team next year, right? Yeah, I think any team would love to have the guy.

I mean, he's a known commodity. He's a big name. Even if he is not the player that he used to be, and he certainly isn't, you've got the leadership, you've got the experience. The health is a big question. I mean, look, what he's been going through the last couple of years has been a pretty scary situation. And, you know, that's got to be the first question to answer is, you know, what's, you know, what is even, you know, can he come back? Does he want to come back? He had the interview with Laz where he basically said, if I'm not all in, then it's not going to happen.

So can he get himself to a point where he feels all in? And maybe this has an impact on that. You know, it's possible that maybe the Blackhawks were the only team that he could get himself all in for. Or maybe it goes the other way. Maybe the fact that it's, you know, the bridge has been burned now means that, you know, maybe that reinvigorates him and gets him thinking about some other scenarios. It'll be interesting to see. But yeah, I mean, obviously if he's, you know, if he's willing to come in at a low number that a contender can fit in their cap,

it's hard to imagine there wouldn't be a lineup of teams that would be interested. Yeah, and I know Winnipeg fans are probably thinking how good would he be for him to kind of quasi-homecoming, all that stuff. But anyway, this is a, it's an interesting turn of events because, like you said, it's Chicago making it very clear that they're moving on. And there was no chance to move him like Kane at the deadline because of the uncertainty around his health. But it's amazing now that you go into next year, you know that officially, that Taves and Cain era over in Chicago. And I think, like, for me, one of the big regrets is that when Chicago was at the peak of its powers

in the early 2010s, that we never saw them in Pittsburgh play, Sean, in a meaningful Stanley Cup playoff series or Stanley Cup final. And yet there's some, to me, there was some, I guess, tinge of irony, that it's Chicago that puts Pittsburgh out of the playoffs. Like, we got to talk about this here, because, you know, I was listening to the Tuesday podcast and listening to Jen Tilly and listening to Brian Boyle.

And at that point, everyone was like, well, all Pittsburgh has to do is beat Chicago and Columbus and they control their own destiny. And they're in the playoffs. And then obviously they lose. The Islanders win. And here we are. Like, what's the fallout here? Like, how are we feeling about a no-Krosby, no-Ovechkin playoffs for the first time in 17 years? Yeah.

It's, I mean, that's pretty stunning. And when you hear a phrase like that, it really does feel like the end of an era. And, you know, it's, it's maybe, maybe it's appropriate, right? And like this, this happens at the same year that Connor Bredd's about to come in, maybe the same year that Connor McDavid finally gets that first Stanley Cup. But, yeah, it's, it's strange to have it without, without either of those guys. And, you know, we've had a couple without Ovechkin. But, I mean, with Crosby and the Penguins have been the one consistent team that you could count on to always be there.

And that's why I think so many of us, even right up until the end with everything that's gone wrong this season, all the different issues and controversies and failures and weaknesses on the roster, you sort of felt like, yeah, but at the end of it, they'll find a way. And I mean, they did find a way to have the door wide open for them. They just had to beat the two worst teams in the league that are actively trying to lose right now. And man, that loss to Chicago has got to be the most stunning game of the year and the worst outcome of the year for two teams at the same time because that may end up being the game that also caused Chicago, Connor Bedard. Okay, but what's more stunning that Chicago beat Pittsburgh or at

some point this season, Chicago beat Boston. Yeah. I mean, there's, there's that too, right? It's, man, you never know in this league. But it's, to, to beat Boston, obviously, the historic season they're having is, it's, I mean, all you need to say is that literally every time Boston lost this year, it felt like a shocker. But it's one thing to do in the middle of the season. It's another thing when, I mean, Pittsburgh has everything to play for. Yep. And look, I mean, we've, I mean, we say it a million times, right? It's a cliche at this point. Players don't tank.

Hockey players are wired to give you as close to 100% as they can give you every time they go out there. And so even when you look at it and you say, well, only one team's got anything to play for. That's often a chance to fall into a trap because both teams have something to play for. They're playing hockey and that's what they do. But that said, I mean, if there was ever going to be a game where, you would expect one team to just come flying out there and really, really take hold of the game and play like their seasons were on the line because it was, that was the one.

And, you know, it's not like the Penguins got their doors blown off, but it's also not like they played fantastic and just ran into a hot goal. Yeah. Like it was, it was a game they probably deserved to lose. And it's stunning that it would come to that. Do you think we ever see Crosby and Ovechkin in a playoff series? against each other ever again? Or does this feel like, okay,

let's definitively close the door on that? Like maybe one of them makes the playoffs again. And if they do somehow both make the playoffs again, they're probably not going deep enough where they meet each other. Like, do you feel like it's time to, like, close the door? It's certainly hard to envision a situation where either one of them is on a team that's finishing first

to get like a one versus eight or two seven matchup. Or that, as you say, that they're both winning around. and getting into a round two or later matchup. And it's also, you know, you never say never, but it's almost impossible to imagine either of those two guys on any other team. We would have said the same about Jonathan Taves even a week ago. So, I mean, you never say never, but I think that's it.

I mean, it's even if you give them each another two or three years, I don't, I have a hard time seeing that scenario. So let's talk hot seeds here. And if we had to pick a temperature for the seat that Ron Hextol, is there something hotter than scorching? Like, like it's, I don't even know, scale of 1 to 10 doesn't even feel like it's going to be doing justice. But is there anybody in the hockey world right now, Sean,

and I'll use head coach and general manager as the jobs, who's sitting on a hotter seat than Penguin's general manager, Ron Hextol right now? I don't know that anyone's hotter than Ron Hextall. the Ron Hextel seat. And to answer your question, I think what's hotter than a hot seat is when the seat has already burnt into ashes. And there's nowhere left to sit because, I mean, the debate I was having on my show yesterday was not does Ron Hextel get fired? It was, does Ron Hextel make it to the pack up day?

Like, does Ron Hextel get to give the final press conference that we usually see when teams wrap it up after a season where they don't make the playoffs or does he not even make it that far? And I'm I'm leaning towards maybe he doesn't even make it that far because it's one of these situations where I think we all know it's coming. The level of, I would argue, very valid criticism that was aimed at him all year, particularly around the trade deadline. But, you know, really his entire tenure in Pittsburgh, I think it's been fair. And I think, you know, unless this new ownership group really sees something that the rest of us aren't, if there is some element of this strategy, some element of this vision that hasn't maybe been articulated or had been put into place yet that they really believe in,

I just don't see a scenario where they don't make a change. and I don't see a scenario where it makes sense to spend two weeks thinking about it. I mean, we saw this to some extent with Bruce Boudreau, right? Like when you've made the decision, just make the decision. It doesn't do anyone any good to just twist in the wind. So, you know, you'd like to see them make the call and move on. As far as anyone else, I don't know that there's anyone on the GM side that I would put there. Certainly there will be some people under the gun.

and to some extent we have to wait for the playoffs. Toronto being the obvious case there where what happens in the next couple weeks might determine it. I do think on the coaching side, you probably do have some names that we could throw out there because, you know, this was a, as many people have noted, this was a very weird year. We only had the one mid-season coaching change. And I don't think it was that hard to figure out what was going on. I think there were teams that were bad that in a normal season, would say we're going to make a coaching change and in a Connor Bredard season say, well,

you know, wait a second, maybe we ride this out. If the coach isn't helping, you know, that's not the worst thing in the world. We'll get those lottery odds and then we make our change. The guy that really jumps out to me, and this is never a fun topic to talk about, but the guy who jumps out to me is Dallas Aitans in Anaheim. I think a lot of us were sort of wondering if that move would get made last offseason. When you look at a team that not only could finish dead last, but can't keep the puck out of the net. You know, obviously the systems aren't working. The young kids have developed reasonably well.

So, I mean, that's part of the job description there. And, you know, that's been okay. But with a new GM in place, who's now got the full year under his belt, I'd be very surprised if Dallas Aiken isn't a name that we hear some action on and probably pretty much immediately after the season ends. Yeah, it's funny because in the NFL, and I'm with you, I don't love talking about this, but look, it's part of the job. It's part of what we do.

NFL, they have something, you know, the first Monday after the end of the regular season, right? You see eight guys, nine guys all on the same day. Black Monday. Yeah, that guy's gone. He's gone. You know, NHL's a little bit different. I want to pick your brain, though, because sometimes I think I'm too close to it. But Ottawa was a really interesting situation because Pierre Dorian, Sean, obviously they missed the playoff.

this year. Okay? No general manager in the salary cap era has kept his job after missing the playoffs in six straight years. DJ Smith has been the coach here for four years. And I'm pretty sure we haven't seen a coach keep his job after missing the playoffs. I have to double check that one, but four straight years. My question is, externally speaking, do you feel like the Ottawa senators have done enough

that those two guys should be safe? see there's a new owner and that it could all be completely different. But in your estimation, did they do enough in Ottawa to save their jobs? I mean, you're absolutely right. The ownership is what hangs over this because the question you always ask when you're talking about making a change, especially for GM, which is a, I mean, not that making a change a coach isn't a big deal, but you change GM. I mean, you're changing the entire structure of the organization.

and the question you always ask is, okay, who are you going to get that's better? Who's the upgrade? Now, are there guys out there who could be an upgrade over Peridorian? Yeah, I absolutely think there could be. But who's going to want to come into that situation? Who's going to want to take that job if ownership hasn't been figured out by then? If you've still got new owner, I mean, so you're going to sit down, who are you interviewing with? And who's hiring you?

and is it possible that the person hiring you a week later might not be there or might not be in that position anymore because somebody new has come in. I, you know, look, there's 32 jobs in the NHL. You know, somebody's going to take it. But I think a lot of the top candidates who might be interested in going to a good young team that's got some pieces and got some momentum might say, you know what, I want to hold off on that. And so maybe it makes sense to sort of to go an extra year. And then it leads to, okay, if Dorian is going to stay around, what does he do with the coaching position? Because, you know, I like DJ Smith as a coach a lot. And I think that most of the problems that have been in Ottawa have been related to the roster construction more than the coaching.

But at the same time, like you said, four straight years without the playoffs, and especially all of these bad starts. you know, we said it all year with Ottawa, right? Like, they just, they got to get out to a good start. They can't torpedo their season one month in like they always seem to. And it, I mean, it largely happened again. They were able to claw their way back. And, you know, there was that stretch in the middle that, you know, if you're, if you're a DJ Smith supporter, that's what you point to.

But is it enough? I don't know. I mean, a lot of this is going to come down to Pierre Dorian. How does he feel, you know, presumably if he goes, then the coach goes as well. Typically, you don't keep a coach and move on from a GM, but it wouldn't shock me to see changes in Ottawa. It also wouldn't shock me to see a status quo that you wouldn't expect, given the record. But I guess we'll see. And by the way, he said, you know, guys had missed playoffs four years in a row.

Jeff Blasheld missed six years in a row and kept coming back and back in Detroit until he finally went last year. And then that Detroit team didn't really get all. all that much better. So maybe maybe that's your argument for a little more patience. Yeah. Anyway, it's always good for me to get the outside opinion. And Ottawa's like the classic, like you can make an argument for and against.

And there's not too many markets where you can do that, right? Most markets, it's pretty cut and dry. What do you do with the GM? What do you do with the coach? And in Ottawa, boy, you can look at it. And I do think, I think it would be more cut and dry if the ownership issue was solidified. Yeah.

The one of the guy that I'd mentioned is, and it's a little bit of a different. situation, but Peter Lavillette in Washington, we just talked about them missing the playoffs. Apparently, reportedly his contracts up, so it wouldn't necessarily be a firing, but I wonder if we get a word from Washington that, you know, that we won't be resigning him and we're going to go in a different direction. That one wouldn't shock me on. Okay, let's move off of the non-playoff teams and into the playoff teams, because like I said earlier, Wednesday night, Islanders punched their ticket the 16th and final team.

It's pretty crazy that here we are having this conversation. Regular season is ending like kind of in the next day or two. And we only have one playoff matchup set. And that was a playoff matchup that was essentially set at Christmas time, Toronto, Tampa. Everything else is up for grabs thanks to, you know, the only teams that we know are really truly locked in essentially. Like the Wild and the Rangers are locked into the third place spots in their divisions. But the wild card teams in the east can move.

the top teams in the West can move around. So given that, we don't know what's going to happen. Let me ask you, if I could give you a magic wand and Sean gets to pick, handpick the matchups he wants to see right now because everything's up in the air. What are the things that you want to see when the Stanley Cup playoffs start on Monday? What are the matchups outside of Toronto, Tampa? You're like, yes, sign me up for that. If I've got that magic wand, I think the first thing I'm going to do,

do is I'm going to wave it over the Pacific. I'm going to have Edmonton catch Vegas for top spot in the Pacific, which they need two points to do. So they need to win and Vegas needs to lose in regulation. So it's unlikely. But you bump them up to that spot. They would then be the number one seed in the Pacific and in the West and they would get Winnipeg. We'd get that old smite division, all Canadian matchup. I think that's a lot of fun. Plus that also gives us Vegas LA in a series where potentially you'd have Jonathan Quick involved at some point, not necessarily as the starter game one, but how fun would it be to watch him against his old team? I think that's, you know, that that's potentially a real good matchup.

And I think I would probably bump Colorado up to number one. I like that Dallas, Minnesota matchup. That's got some fun elements. Obviously, there's history between those two markets. Ryan Suter in there. I think that could be a fun one. That leaves you with Colorado, Seattle, which, you know, the, I guess if you're looking for a great David Goliath story, you know, if you love the underdog, the second year expansion

team versus the Cup champions, I think it would be, you know, probably not a great series, but, you know, that gets Colorado through to play whoever comes out of that Dallas, Minnesota. So I would like that. You know what? Give me jersey and the Rangers. You know, let's get that 94 vibe back. I like that one. And I would probably say, man, I probably prefer to see the Islanders go up against Carolina

and have Boston go Florida. And part of that reason, and this is, you know, people would disagree with my reasoning here. The Islanders scare me a little bit against Boston just because of the gold ending. And I don't want to see Boston get knocked out and upset in the first round. I know a lot of people love upsets. The Leaf fan in me would love to see them get knocked out. Don't get me wrong. I'd love to not have to worry about them in round two if my team can even make it.

But I said this with the lightning as well. Like in 2019 when they lost to Columbus, I don't love that. I would like to feel like the regular season matters. And like what happens for 82 games hasn't just been a waste of our time. It hasn't just been, you know, meaningless. that I like it when a great regular season team goes two or three rounds or into the final. And then if they get knocked off, then it really feels like, you know, something more meaningful has happened. So I think Boston, Florida would be a fun series, lots of talent, you know, lots of star power.

And I think Boston would win that series. And as a fan of the NHL, I prefer to see that. So I think that's where all my matchups lay out. You know what, though? And I'm with you, and I'm shocked, though, that the Leaf fan in you isn't just hoping that Boston gets knocked out. Aren't you proud when I try to act like I'm a little bit, impartial?

Impartial. But, like, and I, I've said this before. Get swept. And I said it in 2019 with Tampa and I just, and I hate that I feel this way. I don't, I'm with you. I want the regular season to matter. I want the teams that were dominant the regular season to be able to be successful in the Stanley Cup plus.

But I talked about this earlier in the week. And I just want to float this by you because I don't understand how this can be. But since they started handing out the President's trophy in the mid-80s, I think 1986 was the first year of it. Okay. The eight teams that have won the President's trophy with the most points, none of them have won the Stanley Cup. Basically, the cutoff is 119 points. If you win the president's trophy and have more than 119 points, there is some weird ass curse on you and you don't win the cup.

There's only one team that got to the cup out of them all. All of them seem to have, whether it's Tampa in 2019 or it's the Oilers in 86 with Steve Smith or it's the Penguins in 93 with David Volick, there's always something weird. that happens. Like, I don't want that for the Bruins, but just stupid NHL history tells me that's what we're going to get. That's pretty amazing.

That's, uh, I feel like you and I should, we should do a collab piece on that if and when Boston gets knocked out. Try to look back and see like, what's the common thread here? Like, honestly. Like, how can this be?

That's, it's a good question. And, uh, yeah, I mean, I guess what I would hope is, if Boston goes out, let him go out on an upset that we at least,

at least feels memorable in that. Like, you know, you mentioned David Volick, okay. You know, game seven overtime, you know, absolute silencer on the crowd. Okay, you know, that's one way to do it versus, I mean, if you're not a Columbus Blue Jacket fan, do you even remember any moments from that series with Tampa? Just game one, because Tampa was up three nothing in game one. And we all thought, wow, they're going to roll them in four straight.

Yeah, there was a sweephole. Yeah, yeah, there sure was. Yeah, no, you're right. It's, I don't know what it is, but man, I, the Boston Bruins, I mean, we're almost, they've been so good all year that it's, it's almost like it feels like it's not even worth talking about. I mean, they just broke the single season points record that had stood for 45 years. I mean, that's, this, this isn't some inflated record that, you know, I know we can point to out of the loser point error and sure. to Italy, but I mean, nobody's come close to this before. And, you know, now they own the wins record.

They own the points record. They got to finish it. But if they do, we got a conversation about best team ever, I think. Yeah, I think so. I think you do because, like I said, look at all. A single season team ever. I mean, that Montreal team that was in the midst of a four-year dynasty and we're never going to see something like that again.

But for pure single season, they got to be right there. because my argument has always been like, look, I get that, hey, when the Habs did what they did in the 70s, there was no overtime, let alone three on three in shootouts and all of that. And they only lost eight times, right? Yeah. So there's more points in play these days. But also, there's far more parity these days. I think I was looking at it. Of the 17 teams, I think, like half the teams in the league finished 400 or worse that year that the Hads.

I mean, there were just a lot of really terrible teams all the time. was there, right? Yeah. So bad teams. Some really bad teams and that translates to easy points for the good teams. Now this year we've had some uncharacteristically bad teams and we all know why that is with Connor Bedard and what teams are strategically trying to do. But to do it in the parody era is still pretty amazing to me.

Can I throw one more weird stat at you? Yeah. And depending on what happens tonight, there is a possibility that the Maple Leafs and Lightning Series could tie or even beat every other two versus three matchup we've ever seen since we went back to that format in terms of the gap between the two teams. There's currently a 13 point gap between the two teams. The most ever in the decade since we switched back to this format has been the year the Winnipeg, remember Winnipeg in Nashville were neck and neck for the president's trophy.

And it was Winnipeg ended up playing Minnesota, I think. There was a 13 point gap that year. But there's a chance that this could be, you know, for all of the talk about, oh, you know, the Leafs and the playoff formats unfair and all, they've got such a tough path out of the Atlantic. The Leafs could have, in theory, according to the standings, the easiest matchup of any two versus three that we've, that we've ever seen in the last decade. That feels pretty amazing to me. Wow. Okay.

Like I. And I'm underlining. Hockey gods hear me. I'm underlining the according to the standings. This is not me making any calls. I think everybody agrees that the lightning are not, they're not the team their record says they are, and the Leafs in the playoffs have not been the team

their record says they are. So nobody's expecting that's going to be a blowout series. But for all the talk about, man, what a, what bad luck the Leafs have to keep drawing the lightning. The standing say otherwise. Oh, man. Okay. And here's my other question with a weird thing.

Now that I just thought about this with, if we do get Boston, Florida in round one, the Panthers won the President's Trophy last year. Have we ever had a first round playoff series in which the current President's Trophy winner played the reigning President's Trophy winner in round one? That's a great question. I'm going to guess no.

Off the top of my head, I wouldn't think so. I mean, obviously a lot of years, they're in different conferences, so you wouldn't see it that way. Did the Nordiques win? Okay, because the Rangers won the President's trophy in 94, and in 95, they played Quebec in the first round. Did the Nordiques win the President's trophy in that 94-19- Detroit?

That was when the Red Wings were winning. Okay. I think the Nordic may have been in the number one seed, but yeah. Came to the top of my head. Yeah, I'm just, I mean, I'm looking at a list of the winners, and nothing is jumping out at me as something that would have been a likely match. up. Yeah.

Yeah, that's right. Detroit was in the West. I'm looking at the, I'm getting confused now. Yeah, I don't know. I was thinking about that. There was that Chicago, Vancouver matchup in,

uh, uh, 2000 and 11, I think. But that was, that was right around the time. They were both winning it, but I think that, you know what, 2011. 2011,

Chicago was defending champs. Exactly. But they had not won the president. They didn't win the president. They only won the President's Trophy the one year and that was 2013. The lockout year maybe, right? Yeah. Yeah.

Where they just got off to that crazy good start. So anyway, that's something for people to pay attention to do. If we get Florida, Boston, I don't know that we've ever seen current President's Trophy, reigning President's trophy round one. Good call. Yeah. Okay. One other thing before we open up the mailbag, we got tons of mailbag questions, which are always fun.

Do you ever recall a year in which so many teams headed in the Stanley Cup playoffs with a big fat question mark hanging over their crease? Okay. Like, I'm just going to run through this real quick. I mean, tell me if I'm wrong on any of these. But like, obviously, look, Toronto's goalie issues have been well documented this week with what they've had to do. But like, obviously there's question marks about Murray. Samsonov is dinged up. You go to Edmonton.

They're pitting their hopes on a kid in Stuart Skinner. Martin Jones led Seattle win wins, but his safe percentage was 8.87. Minnesota's got a legitimate debate on their hands. Fleury versus Gustafson. I think that's going to be fun to watch. We're talking about the Panthers. They got into the playoffs thanks to not Sergey Bobrovsky,

but the red-hot Alex Lion is carrying them. Carolina in Vegas have kind of rotated goalies all season, seemingly no rhyme or reason as to who's the number one guy there. I feel like half the teams going to the playoffs have like a legit question going into the playoffs about the goal tentating. Like, have we ever seen a season like this?

I'm not sure that we have. And because, I mean, we didn't even mention LA was, you know, had the question all year. And then they go and get Corpusalla at the deadline. You know, there's others out there where you, I mean, it feels like there's, I mean, who are, flipping around, who are the teams that are locked in?

No questions asked, feel great about their goaltending going into the playoffs, right? The two New York teams? The two New York teams, Tampa, Boston. Boy, out west, I mean, I don't think Colorado. Colorado is another, you know, questionable. Yeah, I mean, Winnipeg. Dallas. You're right.

I mean, Halibuck might be the guy. And then Dallas, I think, is the only other one. That's it. And, you know, we all kind of laughed a little bit when Stuart Skinner got picked to the All-Star team a few months ago. But, I mean, now you look at it, go, yeah, he might be the best guy in that. in that division, boy, it's, you know, it used to be that you needed that one guy to go in. And look, some of these teams are in this situation by design where it's, you know, they've got a one versus one A.

I mean, if you're Minnesota, you're probably not too upset that, hey, we, you know, we thought we're going to have to ride Mark Andre Fleury. And as Gustafzink guy comes out of nowhere and exceeds expectations, I think that's a little different than some of these other. other ones. But yeah, it's a tough one. And, uh, and, and, and, and, and some of those are going to be series where it's going to be, you know, like, I mean, New Jersey is another team. I don't know that I fully would say I trust the goaltending there. And they're going up against, against Chasturkin. I mean, the Leafs, we don't, we don't know if either guy's going to be healthy. They're going up against Andre Vasselowski and we're all arguing about, ah,

whose third line matches up with whose and you're kind of sitting there going, man, maybe it, maybe it's not even going to go that deep with that series. It's a tough one. It's, it's, It's an interesting situation. Yeah, I just don't remember this many teams with question marks and goals. So it's going to be interesting. And it should make for a fun first round of the deal on the complacent. I'm sure by the time we reconvene for the Thursday pod next week, they'll be at least, like, I would say by the time we get to like game three or two or three of most series,

that a lot of teams will have done a goaltending switch. Yeah. I'm going to say four teams will have changed goalies, not for injury-related reasons. Okay. Yeah, that's, boy, that's... That's one out of every four teams. Yeah, that's...

That's half the series, in theory, if it's spread out, would be... Because that's a tough one. I mean, to do it after one or two games, Yates, but you... I'm not saying you're wrong. We'll love to hear from our listeners, too. You can always hit us up via email. Athletic Hockey Show at gmail.greens. Leave us a voicemail 8454-4-5-8449. Let us know if we're spot

on with any of this stuff talking about goaltending, the penguins, you know, anything we've hit on here. Let us know your thoughts on that. We love to hear your feedback. And speaking of emails and whatnot, let's open up the mailbag here. Let's start with this one with Jeff. Jeff writes into the athletic hockey show. Listening to last week's show, you guys talked about an old defenseman named John Gibson got me thinking, who's the most famous quote unquote other player with the same name, i.e. the second John Gibson, who is the most famous guy to also have the same name

as a fellow NHL star? And who are the most famous pair of players that shared the same name? So I guess kind of the same question. Like, do we have, obviously the Sebastian Ajo thing is current right now. We had two step on Riches for a while. Back in the day with Vancouver.

Two Peter's Fobotas. Vancouver had two Greg Adams at the same time. The only team to ever have. Yeah, Greg. And both of them were pretty good. It was the only team to have two guys with the same name at the same time. And they had to put the middle initial on one guy, didn't they? I think they did.

Or I think it was like one of them was G. Adams and one of them was at it. Like it was some weird thing they had to do. So that would definitely be up there. There was the two Nicholas backstroms for a while and it was spelled differently. And one was a goalie. Nicholas, yeah, Nicholas with a C was the center. And Nicholas without the sea was the goal tender. That might be the one.

And then the other one, there was a decent player in the 80s named Taylor Hall. There was? Yep. There was another Taylor Hall. In the NHL? Yep. Mm-hmm. What?

He was, you know, I may be pumping the tires a little bit to say decent, but I'm looking at now. You played from 84 to 88, played with the, with Vancouver and Boston. Yeah, decent. He maxed out at 20 games in a season. So maybe I'm being a little over the top here. Yes. Here's the measuring stick as to whether or not you were a decent player in the 80s. Okay.

If you didn't appear in the sticker book, then you, that's my measuring stick. This Taylor Hall wasn't in the Opeche or the Topps or the Pinnuini sticker book. That's probably a good way to put it. And yes, if you're doing it that way, then I may not be able to, I may not be able to defend that. But yeah, no, there was, there was indeed another. And he went on after, because I remember I wrote it, but he was my obscure player in one of the original grab bags. He went on afterwards to become a front office guy. And I believe is the peak of that career came in the ECHL.

He was the GM of the Tulsa Oilers. So Taylor Hall of the Oilers before there was a Taylor Hall of the Oilers. And not to mention Taylor Hall of the Bruins before there was a Taylor Hall. There you go. This guy just lived the, the one that I thought was so close was we did briefly have there was Joe Sackick and Joe Sacco. Yes. And Joe Sacco was the coach of the, the abs, right?

He was, yeah. He was the, and in fact, at one point, looked like, you know, he was, he and Joe Sackick were going to be working together, which was not okay. If anybody, if people like this sort of thing, I wrote, I think this was a couple years ago. This may have been during, heckstle, heckstle, right? Yep, yeah, there was, yeah, that's right.

Yeah, haxtel and hexstle. There was, during, I think this might have been like, during the pandemic where there was just no sports. And so they told us to go completely nuts. But I wrote a piece where I assembled a roster that I called the off brand all stars, where it was all guys whose names were similar to superstars, but not quite. Starting with the immortal story of Wayne Grotsky, who was a guy who did not make the NHL, but played at a high level in Edmonton, of all places, in the 70s, Wayne Grotsky.

And his career ended right around the time that Wayne Gretzky arrived in Edmonton. So, you know, connect the dots. There might be a story there. I love the fact that you put this disclaimer, like, as if there's a difference between the stories that you generate during the height of the pandemic and what you're putting out now. It has to be for me to feel the need to clarify that. Yeah, I just called it up here. This was, it's from June 2020.

Yeah. The off brand. Yeah. The off brand, Michelle Dion, Alec Ovendon, Joc. Vendon, Joe Sacco was on there. Yeah, Joe Sacco's got to be on there. And another one, another personal favorite, Gila Rose.

Oh, he's not Gila Rler. He's not the flower, but he's A-Flower. Yeah. And I guess the other one I should mention is, there was also another Jack Hughes. And he played for Colorado. So technically even the same franchise, there was a, there was another,

another Jack Hughes out there. There was? Again, that was 80s? Yep. I don't know. He'd have to. He played 46 games, according to what I'm reading in front of me here, in the early 80s. Almost made the U.S. Miracle on Ice Team. But it doesn't say here whether he had a sticker in the sticker book.

So I don't know. That's the cutoff. All right. Rick writes into the show via email. Guys, thanks for always producing the interesting, entertaining podcast. Is it time for us to finally drop the narrative that the Pacific Division is weak? Pacific is going to end the regular season with more 100-point teams than any other division. We're going to have four of them there with Vegas, Edmonton, L.A. and Seattle.

As of me writing this email to you guys, the regular season Western Conference winner will be either Vegas or Edmonton. They don't have the most dominant team in the league. Of course, that's Boston. They don't have the analytics darling. That's Carolina. But is there any other division that you can point to me that has four teams that you'd be as afraid to meet in the first round as the Pacific division, can we finally say the tides are changing? That's from Rick.

Yeah, I mean, I think we can, I do think we can drop the narrative that the Pacific are a significantly weaker division than the other three. Now, you know, are they the weakest of the four? Maybe not. You know, do all four of those hundred point teams really scare me in the playoffs? Not necessarily. I don't think a lot of us are buying Seattle stock right now. L.A., you know, especially since they've cooled off, maybe not as much.

But we'll see how it plays out in the playoffs. Yeah, I mean, especially if Edmonton goes on and wins the cup, then, you know, that's another feather in the cap. There certainly are other divisions that I'd probably be more concerned about one through four. But, yeah, certainly the idea that the Pacific was some sort of weakling division that would be easy enough for a Vegas or wherever to jump up and win. I think you could absolutely make the case. I mean, they've got the 400 point teams. They have the team that's going to just miss the playoffs. There's another Pacific team.

They acquitted themselves pretty well this year. Okay. You got a lot of feedback, I'm sure, for the nutty idea this week that you had on the draft proposal in which you said, look, 16 teams don't make the playoffs. It's the buddy system. You basically have to pick a team that you think is going to win the Stanley Cup, if the team that you pick wins the cup, you get the first overall pick.

It's just crazy enough where it might work. It was a lot of fun. I know you got a ton of feedback from that. So let me read this email from Andrew in Toronto. And then you can take this in whatever direction you want, because like I said, I know you got a ton of feedback on that piece. So Andrew writes in,

I read Sean's article on his new draft proposal, and I loved it. I realized that it only works now because there are exactly 16 teams who make the playoffs and 16 who don't, which got me thinking. Why not take this idea one step further? Have the non-playoff teams have their own playoff to determine the draft rankings,

either the number one pick overall or the entire draft order, and you make it a single game elimination. Not sure how it would work with scheduling, but that way you wouldn't have teams trying to make their own team as bad as possible during the regular season. It might ruin the trade deadline that comes in from Andrew in Toronto. So he's saying you take those 16. non-playoff teams, you play a one game,

some sort of single elimination tournament and the team that is left standing, you get to choose first in the buddy system. So I get the first pick, and I'm taking, whatever, I'm taking Boston. Boston wins the cup. I get the first overall pick. Extra wrinkle there that's not needed?

I mean, it's, it's an extra wrinkle. And, you know, it's a similar idea to what you hear a lot when this discussion comes up is people say, let's do a tournament. Let's, you know, whether it's 16 teams, whether it's maybe just you take the bottom four teams and, you know, you do some sort of playoff, have them play and win that top pick rather than tank their way towards losing it. And I, you know, I like the idea. I just can't imagine it working in reality because these guys, I mean, I know we just said, hey, hockey players don't quit. but man, these guys are beat up this time of year to get through 82 games.

Everybody's playing through something. Some of these guys are, you know, it might even be something more significant. A lot of them have been shut down already, had their surgeries and already in rehab. But it's pretty tough to grind out 82 games when you know you've got nothing to play for, let alone to then get to the end and say, oh, hold on. No, you're not going home yet. You owe us another week. You're going to go out.

You're going to play. And then, you know, yeah, I mean, it's, it's, again, in theory, it sounds great. Imagine Chicago playing Anaheim. Winner gets Connor Bedard. I mean, how fun would that be? But then you're kind of sitting there going, all right, well, who's, you know, who's Chicago's number one center right there? Like, they're going to be sitting there going, oh, so I'm, if we win, we get the guy who's going to step in and replace me next year.

We get the, you know, the guy who's going to make me potentially expendable. Do I, you know, is that, is, yeah, I'm a free agent. I don't even know if I'm going to be on this team next year. It leads to weird situations. I love the concept. I just don't feel like it's that realistic. I think, you know, again, to go back to the old, you know, the old playbook, I think the gold plan.

It introduces a lot of this in the sense of making you win your way in and setting up these matchups that matter, but it does it in the regular season, which I think works better. I love the idea. I love the concept. If I could wave a magic wand and make it work and know that we weren't just going get a glorified version of All-Star game effort. I'd do it in a second, but I just don't see that happening. One more email here from Eric in Virginia.

And I appreciate it. We got so many emails this week, but I'm just, I'll read one more here from Eric in Virginia. And last week we talked about you had, it was part of our rules court where we had a fan saying, you know, we should do three on two power plays in overtime. That way, you know, you're able to open up the ice a little bit instead of doing four on three, let's go three on two. We thought, hey, it's a fun idea.

Eric and Virginia wants to know, would it then not be natural to have penalties shortened to 45 seconds in overtime? To me, it seems like a three on two for two minutes would pretty much be an automatic goal. If the length is more proportional to the overtime length in general, five minutes, it would still be a major opportunity, but this would no longer be a sure thing. They should also reduce the ref's hesitancy to call penalties and thereby feeling like they are deciding the game. So what do we think?

Do we think, and maybe there's a, maybe there's a discussion to be had that all penalties in the, in overtime should just be one minute. Yeah. Right? Like there's, there is that argument. Yeah, a minute or, you know, whatever, whatever you're going to do at 45 seconds,

certainly for regular season, especially if you're playing this, you're already, you're already playing with the fabric of the game by going to three on three. I don't hate the idea. And I think Eric nails the big reason why, which is that it reduces that hesitancy to call penalties. We know that the refs don't like calling penalties in overtime.

And I think we've all had the feeling of sitting down, you're watching an overtime. It's exciting. You get a minute in. There's an obvious penalty. The refs arm goes up. And you're sort of like, oh, man, that's, man, that power is going to eat up like the rest of the overtime.

Like that kind of, you know, because overtime's more fun when it's going back and forth. So to have that shortened up, yeah, I don't mind that idea. Because, I mean, the other thing that always happens when you get that two-minute penalty in overtime, you're like, here comes the makeup call at some point in the next 30 seconds, right? And sure enough, you get it. And then, you know, we go back to playing even hockey. You know, I don't hate this idea. And my suggestion to Eric would be drop it in the rulebook suggestion box and maybe we'll put it in front of the court for the next edition. Yeah, I love it.

All right. Let's wrap up. And again, always you can email us, the athletic. Hockey Show at gmail.com or we even read the comments there in the comment section of the podcast. So drop us a comment there. We love the feedback. And I know that next week at this time, I'm sure we're going to end up with so many emails and thoughts and whatever about week one of the Stanley Cup playoffs.

But we want to wrap up with this week in hockey history. And I want you to give our listeners a little bit of a backstory on, let's be honest here. This might be the greatest name, not only in hockey history, but in sports history. because this week in 1945, Sean, Toronto Maple Leafs rookie goaltender named Frank McCool. That's right, his name was Frank McCool, posted his third consecutive shutout in the Stanley Cup final. The Leafs would end up winning the Stanley Cup that year with Frank McCool backstopping them to the championship. We need to know a little bit more about this guy. Frank McCool.

What a great name. Eagle, what's his nickname? He didn't need one. He was already all said. I mean, geez, if you were watching a movie or reading a book and there's a character called Frank McCool, you wouldn't even buy it. But yeah, he was a good player. He wasn't, it was a weird story because he came in with the Leafs in 1944.

Now, this is right around the wartime, right? Like we're still seeing rosters affected by guys not being available because they're overseas. He comes in, he plays pretty well that season. wins the Calder trophy, rookie of the year, 1944-45, and then, yeah, goes into the playoffs and stands on his head, has the three shutouts, has the record for fewest goals allowed in a Stanley Cup final that I believe was since beaten by Tim Thomas, but just a, you know, a fantastic performance.

And then comes back the next year, doesn't play as well. And that's it. That's his whole NHL career. He, he, he, he, uh, he had, he was one of the guys. And man, this is, how is this for an old-timey sports story? Because you hear about this with the old timers, but, but, you know, almost never anymore. Uh, he had really bad ulcers. And that was what, like from the nerves, like getting nervous about the games. From getting, I mean, that's what they attributed to back then. That's, that's, that's what they thought it was. I mean, it's, uh, you know, it doesn't sound so McCool to me.

Maybe not, but he kept his mccul during the games, but I guess outside of them, not so much. And yeah, he had bad ulcers and those health problems combined with competition of players coming in and everything. He's out of the league basically at the age of, you know, in his mid-20s, two seasons, one cup, one calder. See you later. like would you be affected by the name of an athlete like obviously a guy comes in is like okay what's your name frank mccool i play goalie you'd be like okay like i like if a guy came to you and said my name is like my name is simon shaky yeah would you would that would that scare you off my name's johnny siverson yeah yeah like well would you would you be scared yeah you know would you

legitimately be scared? You might, but maybe the flip side is you'd be like, man, if you're getting here as a goaltender, you're pretty good. Like, there have been some cases. Give me something. There have definitely been some, some pro sports guys that, uh, that have had names that didn't feel all that appropriate to. The, the most appropriate of all time is you saying bold, right? Yes. Yeah. Nothing is going to touch that. But I mean, for example, But the Pittsburgh Steelers new quarterback is named Kenny Pickett. That's not a great name for a quarterback, right? Like you've got to be pretty good to, you know, to still be slinging it around.

I don't know. I feel like the, for a hockey player, the least appropriate one was Larry Playfair. Because he did not. He did not. How many people in minutes did Larry Playfair? And being like, is his name Playfair? Because he's just so nice. And then like, you know, he started hitting some dude over the head with his stick.

I was like, oh, okay, never mind. Yeah. That'd be good. I want some emails on that for sports, but especially hockey. Like the inappropriate names, the names that did not quite fit who the player was. There's got to be a few. I wonder if there was ever a goalie with that type of shaky slash sieve slash something, you know, in their last name that, and I'm sure maybe we're just not, we're not thinking of somebody. Oh, yeah.

We'll think of 10 as soon as we finish up. As soon as we upload the pod. That'll be good. Get us to us next week and next week we'll spend the entire show talking about this instead of whatever happened in the playoffs the night before. Yeah, the jittery goal. Speaking of the playoffs, you know what? I feel like Toronto Maple East fans in a weird way as we wrap up the pod,

you might want to send a thank you note to Damar de Rosen's daughter. Now, for people who didn't see this, Chicago Bulls, DeMar de Rosen used to play the Raptors. his daughter was at the play-in game, Raptors Bulls, and she's screaming at the top of her lungs every time the Raptors went to make a free throw, and the Raptors missed 18 of them and ended up losing the game. The reason why I bring this up and why has a hockey connection

is the feeling was, Sean, that if the Raptors had qualified for the playoffs and had a series, that we might have seen a back-to-back in Toronto, Tampa. And now they're going to be able to have that series a little bit more in a traditional one day on, one day off. I think, I think you should be thankful for that. I hadn't even thought of that.

Yeah. Yep. Shout out to the kid. Good work. Did you have a problem with that? Just out of curiosity? You know what? I didn't, I'm not a big NBA fan and I didn't, I didn't see it in real time.

It was kind of funny because I did see some things pop up in my Twitter from people going, like, somebody's screaming at this game. It's really annoying before they realized that it was, that the cameras found it. and they figured out who it was. Yeah. I, you know what? To me, as someone who didn't really have a rooting interest, it's a funny story,

I like it. If it happens to the Leafs and, you know, Stephen Stamco's kid is, putting a laser pointer in Sampson-Lof-Eye. Yeah, then I will probably reserve the right to have a completely different opinion. Yeah. Anyway, it was, it was certainly fun.

And yeah, like I said, had a little bit of an impact on the Leafs playoff schedule here for round one. All right. That's going to put a bowl. By the way, shout out to Darren Pupa. How could we forget him? Oh, my God. Shaky goaly names.

That's, you know, he's got to have him out there. Oh, my God. That is the perfect way to end it. We'll leave it there. All right. Yeah, puts a bow on it. Thanks, everybody, for listening to the Thursday edition of The Athletic Hockey Show. Like I said, hit us up with an email, the athletic hockey show at gmail.

Or a voicemail at 845-4-45-8-85-8-5-8-5-8-5-9. Not a subscriber with The Athletic. You can get a one-year subscription, $2 a month, 12 months. You visit the athletic.com slash hockey show.