The Athletic Hockey Show - Kirill Kaprizov-Russia update, NHL Draft trade rumors, Kris Letang re-signs with the Pens, This Week in Hockey History, listener questions, and more

Episode Date: July 7, 2022

Sitting down together in person in Montreal for the NHL Draft, Ian, Sean and Jesse first recap their Wednesday night in the city, before diving into the latest with Kirill Kaprizov, and how this situation may affect Russian players in the NHL Draft. Next, they dive into Kris Letang's 6 year extension with Pittsburgh, and what it may mean for Evgani Malkin's future with the team.The guys then dig into the reports on a failed trade sending Matt Murray from Ottawa to Buffalo and the difficulties the Senators will face unloading his contract, and the Rangers trading Alexandar Georgiev to Colorado that could also signal the exit of Darcy Kuemper. Also, the potential for Alex DeBrincat to get traded on Thursday, and wanting GMs to be more aggressive with big swings.Then in the mailbag, they answer a voicemail about the worst team draft class in history, and wrap up with look back with "This Week in Hockey History" discussing Conor McDavid's 8-year, $100 million deal, and Nashville naming David Poile as GM before the team even had a name.Have a question or comment for the show? Email [e-mail] or leave a VM at [phone]!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 everybody to your Thursday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show coming at you from the draft in Montreal. That's right. This is actually an in-person edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. It's Ian Mendes, Sean McIndoo with you, as always on a Thursday. And we've got Jesse Granger, who usually just drops by for Granger things, but with us in person for the entire segment. And we're going to get to the draft. We're going to get to the Caprizo. We're going to get to this week in hockey history, all of that.

But I feel like the three of us need to share with our last. listeners, our evening in Montreal on Wednesday, just to set the table. And it set the scene and let people understand, we had some missteps. Let's put it that way. Just trying to get some food in this city. Yeah, we had a few. It was an issue. And we started off.

It was pretty good. We were at, you know, a company event. Food was coming a little slow. We figured we'd head on over to the NHL media event. The NHL does this every around draft week. They do some, a little two-hour thing, and it's free food, and that's the magic words when you're trying to get the media to come do anything. And we figured we'd head there.

How hard can it be? Do you hop in a cab? You know, you get an address? What could possibly go wrong? And then, it all went wrong. It all went wrong. Because it turned out the place we were going to was not there? Is that like an accurate way to put it?

Well, I mean, we didn't see it. It didn't exist for us, but then there were reports from other reporters that it did exist. But we still have not confirmed if it existed. We went to the place, had the name of the place on the door, and we wound up in some underground food court, abandoned. Abandoned underground food court. Confirmed the address and that. So I don't know if we just got pranked.

I don't know if like, I'm picturing like Gary Betman like hiding behind a wall shushing a bunch of people when he sees us coming. But I don't know what the deal was. But, yeah, if, Gary, if you're listening, you owe us a meal because we tried to go to your party and it was not there. What do you mean, Gary, if you're listening? I mean, he's listening.

For sure. There's no if about it. The highlight for me of Wednesday night, we share this with our listeners. We hit a karaoke bar. And when I say we hit a karaoke bar, I mean, we watched other people perform. Carrioki.

The two reporters who had the longest playoff run, in Peter Baugh, who covered the avalanche, and Joe Smith, who cover the lightning, you would figure, man, these guys must be gas, it must be tired, there's no way. They were the two that got up in front of everybody and sang. Joe Smith, uh, with a very stirring rendition of gangsters paradise.

Amazing. Just emotional. That was amazing. Peter Baugh, this is my favorite thing. We all said, why is this guy not singing, uh, all the small things? Yeah, yeah. He doesn't do that.

He goes 99 red balloons, but was asking for the German version didn't get it and then said he was completely thrown off by having to sing the English version of 99 red balloons or what is it 99 Luft balloons? Yep, that's it. Yeah, he was kind of switching back and forth. So it's, yeah, there was a clear direct,

it's directly proportional, the success of your team and your karaoke skills. Because you didn't go anywhere and you're, and I cover the other senators. Yeah, so there you go. I tried to get you to sing islands in the stream with me. And it just, you know, he wouldn't go. It's not going to happen.

go with. No. It was an awesome night. Yeah, it was, it was great. You know, for us, we were able to, as athletic members, this is the first time, like, I mean, I've only moved the company for under two years, but post-pandemic, first time we kind of all got together in one spot, all the writers, editors, podcast producers, everybody who helps put our products out there, all together in one room. And this was, this was a really great experience for us to be able to kind of do this again. Because I know for you guys, you did it in Vancouver in 2019. right? And that was the last time a lot of us had ever seen each other

because obviously it all fell apart quickly after that. But a lot of the B-writers are on the road. They see each other there. But I had not seen everyone in three years. I literally met my editor that's been editing my stories for a year

and a half for the first time ever rich this weekend. So yeah, it's been cool. Plus, like we hired so many people since 2019. Like Ian, obviously and a lot. There are so many new faces that we got to see. I wish we got to do this more, but it's really cool when we get to. Yeah. And you know what? And this is the perfect segue for us to kind of get into the first big topic, I think, of the week here. We were doing a panel yesterday. I wasn't even part of this,

but Mike Russo, who covers the Minnesota while, maybe you guys can explain. I know, Sean, you were watching this unfold where Mike Russo is on a panel kind of, you know, speaking to all the reporters and staff members of the Athletic, and maybe I'll let you take it from there. And then we kind of realized what was going on. He pulls out his phone and he starts checking his own. And people were kind of laughing. Like, it's the classic Russo, right? Like he can't take a minute off.

This guy's always working. And somebody on the panel made a comment about it. And he like kind of somewhat seriously said, yeah, I might have to go. And we all sort of went, geez, is there like a trade going down? Is there what's, what's Minnesota doing? And it turned out it was the reports, the Caprizov stories was starting to trickle out. And obviously Russo was the guy who was going. going to go and figure it out for us.

But it was, it was a strange moment. And then within a few minutes, people start looking at their own phones and realize that there was a very strange story unfolding. Yeah. And I think what's fascinating about this, it's a, the best way to describe this for our listeners, it's a fluid situation.

That at some point in the next 36 hours or whatever, this could be a completely different situation. But as it stands now, everyone's just trying to get to the bottom of, you know, is Coril Caprizov, you know, is he detained? Is he about to be detained? And this is all due to potentially, did he falsify a military ID card back in 2017? And if he did, he might be in hot water for that. He might have to serve a year in the military. This is, and I thought Dan Robson and Mike Russo did a fantastic job, I don't know, it was about a week ago, which ended up being a great preview, unfortunately, for what was about to transpire. But,

the dangers of Russian hockey players going back home in the summertime and teams being very wary. This is a really scary situation for Kareil Kaprizov. And I don't even know where this goes, but my goodness, if you're a Russian-born hockey player, how are you staying at home right now, right? Right. Well, and the Flyers, the Flyers goalie prospect, Ivan Fedadov, he got detained and brought to a naval camp for doing, allegedly doing exactly. what they're alleging Caprisov did. So this is a very serious situation. It's like, like Ian said, it's, it's, it's, their families are in Russia. They're they, everyone they know is

in Russia. It's hard to tell them, like, you can't see them this year, but it, it's, I would strongly suggest not going back to Russia for, it feels, it feels simple for us to just say, don't, don't, don't go back. But I mean, that's, you know, that, that's where you're from. And yeah, we don't, you know, we've been saying allegedly, because who knows, I mean, who knows, I mean, knows how much truth there is to this, who knows what the motivations are. But obviously, with the political situation there and everything, it's just a very strange situation and, you know, a concerning one. And obviously, it's, it's our job to look at it from the hockey perspective. And how would this affect the wild if they don't have this guy, you know, but it, it goes well

beyond that. I mean, this is people's, people's lives being affected. So it's, and Rousseau, of course, within a few hours of that moment had, you know, a story out where he nailed down a lot of the details. And if people haven't seen that, that's, that's the one on the athletic to go read because he's got the information in there. There were reports. The initial reports was Caprizov was already in the United States. And then Russo reported that that was not the case.

But beyond that, we're not really sure. And it didn't sound as if, uh, the impression I got, it didn't sound as if Bill Garron was terribly concerned. Right. He certainly didn't seem to have much. clarity. And he didn't see, it didn't sound like the Wilder. This was not a case where the Wilder saying like, no, we're on top of it. Don't worry about it. It was more that they were trying to find out information too. They didn't seem concerned yet. But obviously this could go in a bad

direction potentially. Yeah, the quote that the Bill Guerin gave to Mike Russo was, we're not worried too much about it. We're not going to push the panic button or anything like that. We're just trying to gather information right now, find out if this is credible. So you're right. This is a very fluid situation and certainly something that I think is going to be worth monitoring. not only with Caprizo, but Russian players, even I think even at the draft, like, you know, I asked Pierre Dorian, or I know he was asked about Russian players,

would you draft them? It's going to be really interesting to see if there's hesitation to draft players from Russia, right? Even as you get into free agency, and we're going to get to Evgeny Malkin here in a second because there's some Penguins news to get to, but like, I think it's going to affect the way, like, I think if your team and you're looking at two prospects

and they're like, they're kind of even, but one might have a significant amount of red tape enveloped around them. I don't think you go down that road, do you? No. No. And in fact, in a way, it's, uh, this year almost feels a little bit like the drafts did back in the late 80s and early 90s where there were players. I mean, very good Russian player, Hall of Fame got Pavel Burray, Sergey Federov, guys like that, where they were drafted much later than you would think, partly because teams didn't know if they'd be able to get them over. They didn't know if, you know, would, will we ever see this guy? Will we have to wait years? Is that, uh, is that worth

waiting for. And then within a few years of that, it became, you know, the draft in a Russian player was, in most cases, like any other player. You'd take them high. You'd figure you'd see them fairly quickly. We're almost back to that now. And it does make you wonder because certainly if you've got two similar prospects, maybe that tilts your decision.

But at the same time, you know, the Vancouver Canucks transformed their franchise by jumping up and getting Pavill-Burray when everyone else thought. he wasn't available. Do you see some teams do that? Do you see guys start to fall into a range where maybe somebody that you said, man, we never thought this guy would be around for this late in the first round or in second, third, fourth round.

He's still there. At some point, you got to jump on it and potentially high risk, high reward. Or do you take the safer road? And why do we know that it's Tampa that's drafting that guy in the fourth round? Why do we already know that? Everyone will be sitting around.

Suddenly the smart teams will jump in and you go. Oh, okay. Come on. There we go. Well, like, so that news kind of came out yesterday either right before or during the GM meetings. And I was over there at the GM meetings. And I mean, there's tons of reporters there. We're kind of waiting as the GMs come out.

And that was the topic of discussion amongst the GMs themselves. And obviously the media asking the GMs was the never heard the word Russian more in my entire life than in that room. It's so it's like it's the GMs are for sure taking note. Yeah. So listen, speaking of the GM's availability, I know Ron Hextall was asked on Wednesday, are you close on Chris LaTang? And he said, we're very close and sure enough,

as we start recording this episode here on Thursday, Chris LaTang, six years, 36 million in change with the Pittsburgh Penguins. Are you guys surprised at the term on that? Like six years for Chris LaTang at his end. And look, I think Le Teng is going to go down as one of the best defensemen to never win a Norris trophy. Like, I think he's really good.

but durability has been an issue with him. Six more years of Chris LaTang. Man, I don't know. The term, but I, hey, he's 35 years old. I mean, the, the chances of him being a high level player for the entire terms of this deal is pretty much zero. And that haven't been said, I think if he, if he hits unrestricted free agency, his cap number comes in higher. with some team, given the level of play that he's still at right now. So this does feel like a bit of a classic case of, you know, let's, we give a few extra

years, we get the number down. You are certainly in the last stages of the Sydney Crosby window if you're Pittsburgh. You want to maximize that. You want to, if you can, take one more run, then you absolutely go to do it. What I find interesting is you said the durability has been an issue. I almost wonder if on something like that, do you flip it around? does that become a benefit where you look at this guy and go, okay, you know, is he going to be worth it four or five, six years from now? Well, is he going to be playing four or five, six years from now? Or is this a guy who's, do you almost bake in the fact that, you know, for maybe the last two years of this deal, it's an LTIR thing. And as long as, you know, as we all know, that's how most of these deals end up finishing off. The player doesn't retire. They go on injured reserve. And the team is, for the most part, out of the, out of the cap hit. So I almost wonder if Pittsburgh's kind of banking. on that, that, hey, look, he's five or six years from now where it's not like we're going to have a six

defenseman that we're paying $6 million for. We'll either, we hope, have a very good defenseman, but more likely, we may just have a guy on the injured reserve. Yeah, I mean, he, I see the durability questions, but at the same time, like, he's been banged up, but he stayed on the ice. I'm looking at right now, he played 78 games this year. Last year in the 56 game season, he played 55, and the three years before that, it was 61, 65, 79 games. games. I mean, he's on the ice. It's, is he effective? And when he gets into his late 30s, early 40s in this deal, how effective will he be?

I think the, the cap hit is fine. Six million. I think Chris Tangs is a $6 million, probably more than that now. But six years is a long time for a 35-year-old. Yeah. And now, what does that mean for Evgeny Malkin? I think a lot of people thought this was in an either war situation, right? They probably keep one, probably not both, because they went out.

And they redid Brian Rust, right? And he got five in change. He got Latang at six. Who a lot of us thought would be the third one to go out of that? You thought it would be Latang and Malcolm first. And then they would, and when they did him first, it really did feel like this was one or the other. I think we need to start wrapping our heads around the fact that

Faginian Malcolon is playing elsewhere next year, which is so weird, right? Like it's, I can't even picture him playing elsewhere. It's going to be, yeah, it's going to be a strange one. And we see this all the time with great players who, in the last couple years of their career. But yeah, it's going to be, it'll be interesting to see where he goes

because this is, this is a guy who, you talk about durability, this guy who hasn't been on the ice a lot, but when he is, he's still an absolute elite, offensive player in the, in the NHL. So, and whenever you see something like this, okay, what now, what does he want?

Does he, does he want to go somewhere and win? Obviously, he's got three cup rings. does he want to go somewhere where he's going to play a certain place in the lineup? Is it about the money? Is it about maybe, you know, now you got a bit of a chip on your shoulder? Pittsburgh didn't want me anymore. Okay, I'm going to go somewhere else and, you know, I'm going to find a great fit, have a great season, stick it to them a little bit.

We've seen guys do interesting things over the years and go in different directions. And you figure, I mean, if it, you know, anytime a guy hits unrestricted free agency, you've got a right to go for the money. I mean, that's, that's, he's got families, you absolutely go for these contracts when you have a chance to have. You figure if money wasn't an issue, he'd be back in Pittsburgh. Right. You'd have to think, right? So, I mean, there's clearly got to be a number somewhere, but will other teams be willing to hit that number?

If he hits the open market and there's 31 other teams bidding on him, I'm sure somebody will talk themselves into him being worth whatever it is that he's, that he's looking to get. Right. It seems like that number is going to be. Like there's going to be a team out there because, like you said, there's a potential for this deal to eventually be terrible if he can't stay healthy. But at the same time, a rejuvenated, motivated chip on his shoulder, Evgeny Malkin, sign me up. So there will be a team out there that takes a chance.

Okay, let's talk this out though. Like, like, there's not a lot of teams, like, certainly there's not a lot of Stanley Cup contenders that could suddenly absorb whatever we're talking about. if that's an $8 million, whatever the deal is, right? Does Fgeny Malkin want to go to Seattle? I don't think so, does he? I mean, it's tough. Because usually this is where we're talking about,

well, they want to go somewhere and win. You know, if you're Claude Jureau, he wants to go chase a cup somewhere, Fegney Malkin's got three. So does he, does that rank as high on his list? I don't know, you're right. There's not a lot of cup contend. I mean, as soon as you say that,

we're all looking at Jesse going, all right, how is Vegas going off? Well, when you said there's not a lot of cup contenders with cap space, I'm like, I mean, the Golden Knights were over the cap when they traded for Jack I. Hey, hey, hey, we said cup contenders. Right, right. But I'm saying if you can do that, then anyone can. 15 million over the cap, not a big deal. So, I mean, maybe, maybe they need to hire the Golden Knights, like assistant cap guru, but you can make this work. Yep. There's, there's got to be way. And I mean, there's also teams out there that maybe we don't consider them

cup contenders right now. But if they get a full power to getting Malcolm, then that that maybe gets them to that list. The one that, there's, the one that. sort of got shot down yesterday was, and I mentioned, I think even on last week's show, that I would love to see him go to Washington, go in, fill in for Nick Baxter, and they sort of shot that down saying that they are moving forward on the assumption that Baxterm is going to be back at some point during the year. This isn't something where you just write them off as LTIR all year long. So that would seem to knock that one out, but I'm sure we'll find some other places for him.

Yeah, you know what? And what I love about this week is it's not just a draft. It's all this trade chatter and free agency stuff. You mentioned, Faddy Malkin, wins three Stanley Cups, the guy who backstopped him to two of them, Matt Murray in the news cycle here on Thursday. And I thought this was interesting. Elliot Friedman, the first to report,

a deal between Ottawa and Buffalo went almost to like the one-yard line, couldn't get it over. Darren has subsequently reported that the deal would have been Ottawa retained some salary on Matt Murray and then flips picks in the first round. Ottawa would give up number seven overall fall back to 16. That's the pick that Vegas gave. Buffalo for Jack Eichol.

If I'm an Ottawa fan, would you not be sour to think that you had a top 10 pick and you moved out of the top 10 and the return you got was we don't have Matt Murray? Like, I feel like if you're going to move out of the top 10, don't you want something tangible to help your team? Or am I off on this? You'd like something tangible. I think if I'm an Ottawa fan, not having Matt Murray is a really good thing. Because we know, look, it hasn't worked out for him in Ottawa, whatever you thought of the

deal, the trade that they made, the contract that. that they gave him. It hasn't worked. It's time to move on. And that's going to be a tough contract to move from. And we know, any team looks at the cap, but we know Ottawa is a budget team, and we know that this contract is backloaded. It's unusual in that sense and that the real dollars are higher than the cap hit. I think it really restrains what Ottawa can do to have this guy still on the books. And if they can move on from him and yeah, they will have to retain to me dropping down from 7 to 16 in a draft that's not super top heavy, that's a pretty reasonable price to get out of something like that.

You've still got a 16th pick then that you can flip potentially because Ottawa is one of the teams that we're looking at wondering, will they trade a first round pick to improve right away? You could still get a pretty good player with a 16th pick. So I think that was a good situation for Ottawa and frustrating for them that it was Matt Murray who said, No, as with any of these deals, it's sort of like you go, good job by the GM, in this case, Pierre Dorian, good job by him in putting a deal together to clean up the mistake that he made.

And it is his mess. And he's the one who's got to fix it. But it was, I mean, that was a bad contract at the time and it looks worse now. And they're going to have to, at least at the very least now, with this being out there, I guess the price tag is set. And if there's anyone out there looking at that going, I wouldn't mind having the seventh overall. pick. Now you know how to get it from Ottawa. Right. That was what I was going to say is I think this really kind of shines a light on the market for how tough it is to get rid of Matt Murray's contract. I mean, the fact that

they're looking to move a 10 spots back in the draft, nine spots back in the draft just and Ian said they're retaining salary and we don't know how much, but to me, that's a steep price. Like I agree, Sean, it's, you're going to have to pay something. You're going to have to add a sweetener in there to unload this contract. But to me, me, that's a steep price. And it just shows what the market's like. If they were willing to do that trade, obviously it would have gone through if not for the no movement clause. If they were willing to move that far back in the draft just to get rid of him, it tells you there's not much else better out there right now. So a tough market. Well, this is what I love about doing the podcast here

is we're getting some live news as it's happening. And the goalie musical chairs, Matt Marie doesn't go to Buffalo. Sounds like he might go somewhere. I think Darcy Kemper is done in Colorado because the New York Rangers have announced that they have shipped off Alexander Georgiev to the Colorado Avalanche in exchange for, so the Rangers have acquired a third and a fifth round pick as well as an additional third round pick next year. So two thirds and a fifth for Alexander Georgiev. And boy, here we go. And we were talking about this before.

Like, man, this is going to be a fascinating summer for musical goalies, Mark Andre Fleury, Darcy Kemper. Vili Huso, Jack Campbell, Matt Murray. I think this probably means the end of Kemper, no? Yeah, in fact, Elliot Friedman just tweeted seconds ago that now Darcy Kemper expected to hit the market. So it's a big name that we didn't necessarily think was going to make it. And he will.

How often does a goalie win a Stanley Cup and immediately hit the UFA market? I mean, not very often. And I think there's- Was it a paging anti-Ni Emmy? Did that not happen to him? That happened to Anthony the Emmy, didn't? Didn't he win a cup and they're like, see you later? Yep.

We're going to San Jose or wherever he went. And I just, I think, like, I think Darcy Kemper's a better goalie than Philip Grubauer, but I think the way it went with Grubauer in Seattle and he got that massive deal after playing so well behind that ridiculously talented Colorado team, I think it may put some worries in some GMs out there about Darcy Kemper. It's like, yes, we know he's good. proved he was good in Arizona, but is he going to be worth what you're going to have to pay because he's a Stanley Cup winning goalie now.

And that's it. It's a good time for him to hit the market, obviously. He'll never have more value. But you do wonder if anyone is scared off would be the wrong term. But if anyone is factoring in how good of the team he's on. But, you know, there's always some GM that thinks that their team is, you know, one elite goaltender away. And if this is the guy you think it is, it does make a real interest.

We've been talking about Flurry. Where was he going to go? There were reports this morning that it was done with Minnesota and then it wasn't. I guess, you know what? Credit to Joe Sackack. He obviously made up his mind and he ends up being the first to move, which is, you know, again, the smart teams tend to do that. And he obviously had his guy and he went and got him.

I think he learned his lesson from last off season. Last off season, Colorado was kind of left at the altar. They thought Gruberauer was coming. back and suddenly he wasn't and they were forced to trade that first round pick for Kemper. I think Sackick saw that and saw this musical chairs. Ian's been talking about and he's like, you know what? We're not going to be the last one standing up with no chair at the end of it and have to and have to do something drastic.

Let's, when they have no leverage. If Darcy Kemper leaves, now suddenly you don't have any. I think right now they had a little more leverage when negotiating with the Rangers. And it's going to be interesting to see your give because a couple years ago, he, like, I thought he was one of the young goalies that's like rising in this league. And he's kind of, I mean, obviously Schisturkin took over that job and that kind of limited your gifts chances. But I don't know.

It's going to be interesting to see if he can bounce back to that level he was at a year and a half ago, two years ago. Yeah. So again, this is, all this stuff is kind of, all these dominoes are falling as, as we're speaking. And that's one of the exciting things is that we know in the next 12 to 24 hours. There's going to be a bunch of other trades that go down like this. is I feel like today might be the day on Alex DeBringcat, too. Like, if you're Chicago, do you not feel like if you're kickstarting a rebuild,

would you not want to have a first round pick? Another one added. I think a lot of teams will be hesitant to move next year's first round. Like that Connor Bredd stuff seems like teams will be real hesitant to move at 2023 first rounder. But there's some first round picks probably in play tonight. And if you're Chicago, you're looking to retool and DeBrincat is the guy you're looking to move. it would likely be before the draft opens tonight. NHLGMs, even the ones who are in theory, patient,

in theory and long-term rebuilds, which certainly seems to be the case in Chicago, they want to pick now. They want to open their presence now. They don't want to wait until Christmas morning or wait till a year from now. They want to get that guy into the system. They're always convinced that, you know,

this is the guy that, that we need to go out and get. This is the guy we need to have the opportunity for. So I would be, put it this way. We have been hearing to Brinket for so long. There is still an argument that it doesn't make sense for Chicago to do it, but I think it kind of has to be now or never you would imagine because they're not looking to do, you know,

they're not looking to bring in players. Now, maybe if it's a top level prospect, then you can be a little more patient. You can do that down the road. And obviously teams will have more prospects after the draft. But it's very rare for a team to draft a guy and then move him. So I think it's today. And if it's not today, then maybe it ends up not happening.

Yeah, it's going to be, I don't know, it's going to be interesting to see how many trades there are. This is the first in-person draft in three years. And I remember when the draft was not live, I mean, the first year of the pandemic, we all kind of said like, oh, they're not all together on the draft floor. Are we going to see any trades? Are we going to see anything? And I was talking to Golden Knights GM Kelly McCrimand about this yesterday. And he said it was actually easier to do trades, not in person, because you're in a room with your whole staff.

You can talk freely. There's so much better communication between your people. You may not have as easy access to the other GMs, but you can all just stand in the room and talk this out. Whereas now you're going to be at that table. They're kind of whispering to each other. It's going to be interesting. After two drafts of having that luxury, how the GMs kind of, I don't. I don't know. I'm curious to see if this is a really busy trade day or if it kind of goes away.

And how much of it happens right now in the hours leading up versus on the draft floor where, you know, which GMs are willing to play chicken? Which ones are willing to go right up until and, you know, and that's where it gets fascinating. It's my favorite part of being at the draft is just watching, you know, you go and you watch the draft floor. Who's talking to who? And most of them are just talking about golf plans or, you know, how's the fishing. But it's, you never know. And it is, are they talking? and trade is he may be talking to that guy because he wants to be seen talking to him. And maybe there's somebody else that is supposed to notice that those two teams are talking. It's a little bit, it can be a little bit fascinating.

And of course, from a distance, you can read whatever you want into it. Kyle Dubas talking to Ken Holland. There's obviously a McDavid Matthews deal going down here. And then, no, they're just asking each other where they ate dinner. Yeah. And how about this for Joe Sackick and the abs? They don't have a pick in this year's draft till the sixth round. after this one was done with the Rangers.

They don't pick to the sixth round. They don't pick to the sixth round and they just, you know, apparently parting ways with a goaltender that they paid big to get last year, you know, probably maybe even overpaid. You know what? None of it matters because they won the Stanley Cup.

So it is an ad, like anything that they did leading up to that and around it worked and it's a free pass for Joe Sack. Well, like, yeah, it's, it's, it's, again, I think, and we've talked about this, like, general managers need to be more aggressive. Like, just be more aggressive. Like, it's okay.

Like, go ahead. Trade your first five rounds of draft picks. Like, it's okay. Like, you know, it's, uh, well, especially this time of year when we're seeing the NBA trades, right? Where there was, I mean, they're trading multiple first round picks well into the future in some cases. And, uh, yeah, the GMs in the NHL, I've been banging this drum for years.

They've, they've become more, more, it feels risk averse. And I think part of it's what, Jesse just described the big room full of all the people who get to say, you're talking trade. There's so many people in the room that you've got to touch base on. I mean, 30 years ago, if Cliff Ledger and Ron Coran wanted to make a deal, they sat down, they ordered a couple of beers, and they had a deal by the end of it, and they didn't have to check with anyone. Maybe you might have to call the owner and let them know that you're doing this or that.

You didn't have the analytics team. You didn't have the five assistant GMs, you know, the scouts and everybody. And you do wonder sometimes if it's just, you know, paralysis by analysis where there's so many voices that at some point it just becomes easier to, you know what, we're just going to keep the picks, stay on course. Let's not make a move that is potentially going to backfire. And even if it doesn't backfire, I'm going to get criticized for before it even has a chance to. I'm going to get ripped on Twitter. I'm going to get ripped on call in radio. You know what? Let's just stay there. Nobody ever got fired for staying in the course. Right. I agree with Ian that the GMs should be a little more aggressive in the right circumstances. Like to me, to me, it's so freaking hard to win a Stanley Cup. And you can't manage your team to win a cup now and build for the future and keep my picks and build my prospect pool. And when it's like, if you've got a team that you think can win a Stanley Cup right now, you need to try to win right now. And that's mortgaging the future to win right now. And that's what Sackick did. And he won a Stanley Cup. And if it doesn't work, you end up like the Golden Knights are right now. But to

me, it's, yeah, it's, it's hard to win. And if you're trying to win now and five years from now, 10 years from now, it's just you got to get really, really lucky. I think you can make it a lot easier on yourself by doing what Sackick did, which is going all in and trying to win with a team you think you can win. There's 32 teams in this league. And, you know, your odds at any given time, if you just follow a real typical patient building, it's going to be very, very hard to be the best team out of 32. You really do have to squeeze that window and make, you know, and look, it hasn't worked yet for Vegas.

Vegas has got one of the best teams on paper that they go into this year as a, as a cup favorite. And I would always, I would rather be a fan of a team like Vegas. It takes big swings versus some of these teams. And we're not talking about the teams that are rebuilding. There's a certain point where you've got to be patient. You do have to let things play out. But boy, there are some GMs who just seem to talk themselves out of.

making the big moves. And I admire the ones who go and take the big swings, even when they don't work. So listen, we're seeing lots of trades start to happen here, signings. And then sometimes what happens is it overshadows the draft, right? And we should probably hit on this because, and actually, this is a great little segue for us to work in our BetMGM sponsorship again. Because we do Granger things with you, Jesse, but we figured, you know what, we'll do a little spin on our bet MGM segment, which is looking at the odds for the draft on Thursday evening. And in particular, maybe you can walk our listeners through what the odds are of trying to nail the first three picks in order.

Yeah. So it's almost like a horse racing trifecta. You can put a bet in. I think it's draft. Yeah, Draft Kings is offering it. You can bet all three of them. but just the regular odds. Like Shane Wright, minus 142 to go first overall.

So that's a favorite, but not a prohibitive favorite. I think especially with the first overall pick because there can be reports. You're not dependent on who the team in front of you takes. Sometimes that can be minus 900 if it was Connor McDavid going number one over. So I think the fact that even the number one overall pick is only a minus 142 favorite. and then Slavkovsky, the projected second pick, is right there behind him in the odds. And then Logan Cooley is the third projected pick, I guess. He's right there. It seems like there's a separation between those three when you look at the odds.

And if you were to bet that those three go in that exact order, it would be minus 150. So you're actually minus money picking all three of those guys in that order. It seems a little crazy with how... nowhere near that bet. It really does feel like there's, I mean, there's still big question marks over the number one pick. We don't know what Montreal is going to do. By the time you get down to three, there's all sorts of things.

And that's, that's even if it's, we don't even know who's going to be making the second pick because New Jersey's pick is apparently in play and they're a team that could move. So maybe somebody jumps up. And if they do, they probably got somebody in mind and it may not even be one of those three guys. another interesting prop that I just saw. You can bet the over under total number of Canadians to be selected in the first round. And it's only eight and a half.

The over is juiced. The over is minus 190. So you're paying a price to bet over eight and a half. I'm not a draft expert. I don't pretend to be. I don't know who the 26th prospect is and everything about his game. But it's eight and a half seems like a really low number for Canadians in third. 32 picks.

Yeah, I guess, I mean, one out of every four, basically, right? It shows you how international, I mean, I mean, obviously. But is there like overrunners for other nationalities? No, just that one. Yeah, that's the only one they have. I'm sure there's been some drafts recently where you've had eight or nine Americans go. Right. Yeah.

The U.S. development program is really churning them out. In the story of the last few years. So that is probably what pushes that number down. Yeah. And they've got Kooley, who's going probably top five for sure. Cutter Go T.A. This year is going top five. I think they have a couple of other guys that are first rounders too.

So, yeah, I mean, that program is so strong. Well, I'll tell you what, why don't we stick with the draft theme here and shift it over to the mailback here? In fact, we've got a voicemail that's draft related. I want to remind our listeners, you can always reach us via email at the athletic hockey show at gmail.com. Or leave us a voicemail. Like Jonathan from Waterloo did, the voicemail number for us is 845, 445-4-5-8-45-8-5-5-4-59. and Jonathan has a question essentially about the worst draft class ever. I was looking back at the Ottawa Senator's draft history

and looked at the 2002 entry draft where the Sons had eight picks scattered throughout the first, second, third round all the way down to the ninth round. And they only had two players, Jakub Klaffisch and Alexei Kegarodov make the NHL. They played a grand total of 17. games and scored a grand total of 15 points. So my question for you is, what is the worst draft class that a team has ever put together? And I'm not counting classes where they only had,

you know, two draft picks in the late rounds, but where they had lots of volume, they had the opportunity for talent to come through, and they really just swung and missed. All right. This is right up your alley, Sean, because, you know, Jonathan talks about Ottawa's 2002 draft class

in which they took Jacob Kleppish and Alexei Kaga Rodoff. They took both of those guys and flipped them out. Kleppish they traded for Vatslav Verata. Kegar Rodoff, they traded for Kyle Turas. So Ottawa was able to at least take those players and move them into usable NHL assets. But those two guys only played a handful of games together. But Jonathan's question is,

is there a team that had a worst draft than the 2002 Ottawa Senators? knew the answer right away. Yeah, there absolutely is. And it's a great question. I love it because it lets us tell the story of probably the worst draft ever, which is the 1990 Edmonton Oilers. They're coming. There are a few days after winning a Stanley Cup.

So maybe we should preface it by saying they just won a Stanley Cup in 1990. So, you know, maybe that, maybe they weren't at their best. And there's 50, when you win five Stanley Cups in seven years, are you really even thinking about the draft? Well, obviously not. Because here's what happens. happens. This was back in the days where the draft was 12 rounds long and Edmonton had 11 picks. They had a pick in every single round except for the 11th round. So they've got 11 swings

here and they're picking 17th overall in a pretty good draft. 1990 obviously was famously a lot of big names at the top of the draft. Owen Nolan, Keith Primo, Yarmory Agra, went sixth. Edmonton's pick comes up at 17th, and they take a kid by the name of Scott Allison out of the Western Hockey League. And he never ends up playing in the NHL. In fact, he is over in Europe within a few years. It doesn't work out.

Two picks later, Heath Kachuk goes, and the pick after that is Martam Broder. So that hurts already for the Edmonton Oilers. But they then proceed to pick 10 more guys in the 1990 draft, total of 11 draft picks that they use, those 11 guys play a grand total of zero NHL games. They whiffed on the entire draft, took a couple of goalies. They, you know, they were all over the place. They were taking guys from Europe, taking guys from Canadian Jr., Quebec, didn't find a single NHL player.

And I don't believe, unlike Ottawa, this wasn't even a case where they were able to flip some of these guys and turn them into assets. I mean, they really got nothing out of this draft. And to this day, I don't believe that's ever been duplicated with that number of picks. I'm sure there are probably some teams like Colorado this year, didn't have many picks. And obviously, when you go back a couple of years, there are teams that are still waiting on guys. But no, this 1990, 11 picks, one single NHL game. You know, somebody should do a deep dive on the Edmonton Oilers, Amateurs scouting from the late 80s, early 90s.

Okay. So think about this. You mentioned Scott Allison taking the first round in 1990. No games played. The year before, Edmonton takes a guy named Jason Seulis in the first round. Yep. Never plays a game.

Back to back years, your first round pick, they don't even play a game. And then a couple of years later in 1992, they take a guy named Joe Hullbig, who plays 55 games. Yep. Yeah.

And in fact, you go back to 87, again, first round pick, never plays in the NHL. 88, they do get a player, but is Francois Leroux, who was a decent, tough guy in the league for a few years, but he scored three goals in his NHL career. So four years, four first round picks, three NHL goals turned him into.

See, at least that answers a future mail-by question from one of your down-goes brown, you know, followers who'll be like, what's the worst four-year stretch any team has ever had in drafting in the first round? It could always be worse. You could always be the, you could always be the late 80s. early 90s, emminton Oilers drafting, but you'd probably

rather be the late 80s, early 90s oilers on the ice. They were doing pretty well there. Vegas Golden Knights Beat writer Jesse Granger, oddly quiet during this draft talk.

You don't even know what a draft is, do you? Yeah, it's kind of ignored on the calendar. Yeah. Not even, they don't have a pick today,

obviously, from the Jack Eichel trade. If they did, they'd be trading him in the next few weeks. So, yeah, it's not a, not a big event

on the, Golden Knights calendar, although, which is strange because like Kelly McCrimmon, his background is in junior hockey and he's so into it. Like when you talk to him, he's super into it. He's like super proud of the amateur scouts. They have picked some good players, Nick Suzuki, and they've turned them into veterans. It's just a very different way of doing it. Yeah, it is. It's remarkable. Like, you think about, like, you don't, yeah, and that, that, we talked about this, the one year that they had, Was it 2017 that they had? Three firsts out of the expansion draft, yeah.

You know, like Eric Branstrom was supposed to be so good. And I still think he's a capable of Langell defenseman. Don't get me wrong. But he's certainly not, you know, the top four guy that I think a lot of people reported him to be. Right. I remember that that rookie development camp after that. And I thought Brantstrom was the best of the three of Glass Suzuki and Brantstrom. And clearly that is not correct because Nick Suzuki is amazing.

But I, he, I mean, he looked initially like the way he seen. Gates, he looked like he was going to be a superstar. Obviously, still got a lot of his career left. He can turn it around, but he has not been what I thought he would be. Yeah. Some more emails to get to here. Again, the athletic hockey show at gmail.com. Samuel writes in.

Now, last week, Sean, you put me on the spot and kind of asked me to give you my pitch for Daniel Alpherson for the Hall of Fame. I famously said, Danny Alpherson's better than Rocket Richard. Let's just move on. But Samuel says, look, just want to say, Sean is correct. about one-team guys in the Hall of Fame. Here are some important stats for you. Daniel Alpherson had 1,113 points with Ottawa,

which was the most with one team and not being in the Hall of Fame. That means the guy who has the most points to not be in the Hall of Fame with one team is now Patrick Marlowe, 1,111 career points with San Jose. Interestingly enough, the guy who has the most points

who played with only one team for his whole career, Dave Taylor, 1069, with the LA Kings, although he will probably be passed at some point very soon by Anse Copatar, who's got 1067, and I have a feeling he will stay with L.A. for the rest of his career. And I'm also assuming Patrick Kane and Evgeny Malkin will both be Hall of Famers as we talked about earlier. Maybe Malkin doesn't stay his whole career with Pittsburgh.

That's interesting. Like, Marlowe is a real interesting Hall of Fame case for me. Like, a guy played the most games of all time. Like, I don't know if that's enough to get him in, but that's a hell of an accomplishment. Like, the guy broke a Gordy Howe record. So I don't know where you guys sit on, like, sometimes, we can, and this is silly to say, but sometimes I feel like a Hall of Fame discussion

should just come down to your gut and not looking at stats and numbers. And if you're like, is he a Hall of Famer and isn't he? And I don't know on Marlowe. I'm like right in the middle on him. You could, I could go either way on Patrick Marlowe for the Hall of Fame. Yeah, I never viewed Patrick Marlowe as a Hall of Famer.

And, you know, you look down his player page, never won an award, never really came all that close. I think he had one year as a top 10 our trophy guy. If your bar for the Hall of Fame is were they in the conversation as the best at that position for any stretch of time? The answer is Patrick Marlowe was no.

He never was. Now, there are guys in the Hall of Fame that you could say that for. And the reason that guys get into the Hall of Fame despite never being in that best ever conversation are because they put up big numbers over a long career. Dino Cicerelli being a classic example.

a guy that was never somebody that you viewed as a major star. He was a very good player on some very good teams, but he goes into the Hall of Fame because he's a 600 goal guy. Patrick Marlowe scored 550 goals, had nearly 1,200 points in the dead puck era. Those are really impressive numbers. I've kind of resigned myself to the fact that I think he is going into the Hall of Fame. I think once he broke Gordyhaus record,

that becomes the sort of thing where I do think he ends up getting in. And again, this is, to my theory, that guys who are associated with one team, as Patrick Marlowe clearly is with the sharks, they do tend to get a little bit of a boost to their case. So I think he gets in. He wouldn't be in my Hall of Fame, but I've sort of resigned myself to the fact that the real thing is probably going to find a spot for him. Yeah. Sean's Hall of Fame is just Wendell Clark, though. Just like a bronze bust of Wendell Clark. Yeah.

But I agree with Sean that, like, he wouldn't be in my Hall of Fame either. And we have this discussion on Wednesday's show quite often. Rob Pizzo loves talking about how it's the Hall of Very Good. And not the standard is not as high as it should be. And I agree, but I also agree with Sean that with the standard that it currently is, not what we think it should be, he's probably going to get in. And I think that that record, most games, I think just having that one accomplished, like obviously you have to have the rest of the career,

but I think that that one, if he hadn't broken that record, he'd have no chance. but the fact that he broke it gives him not only a chance. And the fact that he broke Gordy Howe's record, because, you know, if I put you on the spot and I said, who's played the most games in the NFL, the NBA, Major League Baseball, there's a good chance you wouldn't know. I mean, those aren't records that necessarily are. Is it Clay Matthews in the NFL? It could be, or could be, it's probably a kicker, right, for the NFL.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. One of the Germanica brothers for sure. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, it doesn't tend to be one of those howluster.

records, but in hockey it was because it was Gordy Howe and he played forever and, you know, the silver-haired Gordy Howe and that was one of those records. We used to talk about as being an unbreakable record. And then Patrick Marlow sticks around and, uh, and ends up breaking it. I do, I do think he gets there. And, and by the way, just for the record, if you do want to get your email read on this show, starting it off with, I just wanted to say that Sean is correct is the best way to do it. Yeah.

Like that's what I was guaranteed. Yeah. You start off that way and then you can just ramble into whatever you want. So we won't even, we won't even check the rest of it. You're going in. You're on the show. Yeah. And do we get an answer?

Do you have an answer on the NFL? It's George. Morton Anderson. Morton. Yes, you're right. It was a kicker. 300. I mean, it's all kickers.

It's Morton Anderson. Adam Vitory. Gary Anderson. Yeah. Tom Brady's up there, though. He's number seven overall. And he'll probably play for like eight more years. Yeah.

Yeah. Got another email here from Sosa. Or Sousa. I'm not sure how you pronounce that. I apologize. But, hey, Thursday, show, your episode about, one for one and two for two player trades got me thinking. What is the biggest trade in NHL history,

meaning maybe the most movement of players and picks? I would assume it would be a three-team deal. And by the way, has there ever been a trade that involved more than three teams? Thanks, FYI, the Thursday edition of The Athletic Hockey Show is my favorite. I love this week in hockey history segment and I do not buy into that Monday versus Tuesday show drama.

That comes in from... So, by the way, Monday versus Tuesday show drama, I did see Haley Salivian and Sean Gentile going for a walk or having a coffee this morning. So I, you know, I don't know of that. Maybe it's like one of those wrestling things where they actually like each other.

Yeah, it's a K-Fave thing. Yeah. So do we know, like, Calgary and Toronto pulled off what was that, a 10-player deal. And that was the Doug Gilmore trade. No, no, no. That was the Alexander Gideyik trade.

You know that that's what it was. And it was 10 players. That was the biggest trade ever. certainly in terms of players still is. I believe it is also the record holder for picks and players combined. There were no picks in that trade, but I don't think we've gotten past 10,

although there's certainly been some that have gotten up there, 7, 8, 9. The Leafs and Senators, whenever they make a trade, they just throw all sorts of names into it. Has there ever been more than a three-way trade? That's tough because really the vast majority of even when you talk about a three-way, trade, it's actually two separate trades.

Right. It's, or in some cases, two or three where, you know, assets are moving around, but they are distinct, uh, single deals. Whereas it's, it's rare to have one trade that is, you know, an actual, uh, three team trade. I don't remember there ever being a four or more team trade. I, I'm sure there are cases where a team got an asset and then, you know, maybe shortly thereafter flipped it over to the other team. But as far as four teams sitting down and all coming up with something,

I don't know that's ever happened in the NHL. Happens in the NBA quite often. Yeah. It's not unusual to see there, but not in the NHL. Man, the one deal I'm starting to think of, do you think an NHL team would ever have the backbone or the stones? What was the New Orleans Saints that traded their entire draft class for Ricky Williams? They're like, you can take our entire draft.

Like, okay, I'm going to throw this out there because Alex DeBringcat is, in play. And in Ottawa might be, if you're Ottawa, would you say, you can have our entire draft class this year. Go ahead.

The whole thing. We got eight picks. All of them are yours. And who says no to that? Ottawa or Chicago. Yeah. I mean. Chicago, I think maybe, right?

I think so. I mean, you're not, you know, at a certain point getting fifth, sixth, seventh round picks doesn't really, but there is the sticker shock of the offer. I mean, who says,

no, Ottawa scouts say no. I mean, imagine those guys, they did, You would never see that. Has it ever happened in the NHL? Yes, this did happen. Apparently. Who traded their entire drop?

Nobody has ever done it. They wish. They absolutely wish. But apparently, reportedly, 2012, New York Islanders offered the Columbus Blue Jackets, their entire draft to move up to second overall. And that was Ryan Murray. Ryan Murray.

So, I mean, it would have been, it's not the player that you would think going. back. No, Milbury was gone by then. That was Garstow? It, I believe, yeah, it must have been. Yeah, that was the, uh, the Garstnow era. And again, this was, yeah, they, they offered to trade all of their selections to Columbus.

Where were they, where were they picking in the first round? Uh, they had the fourth overall pick. What? So I mean, it was a massive job. Yeah. And, and, and, yeah. Maybe they wouldn't have taken Ryan Murray, though. Or was that their intention?

Well, they must have. I mean, I would assume they weren't moving all the way up just to, uh, to, to, to, take the same guy that they did it because i mean that would have been the was that the griffin ryanhart pick that they ended up flipping to admit yeah that yes right right i mean that that not not the player you would have thought certainly not the draft i mean that was that was a weak draft even at the time we thought uh you know even if you thought nail yakopov was a sure thing which some people did yeah boy that's uh that's a tough one but yeah they had uh yeah seven seven picks and it was reported that they they offered to move them all and columbus said no

Columbus said, man, I'm surprised you don't see that more often from an, like, here, here's my entire draft class. Have at it. Take it. I think like Sean said, the, the, at some point, like the fifth and sixth and seventh round picks are, I mean, there are lottery tickets. It's not. I guess in, in football, in the NFL, you're drafting a guy in the fifth round.

Like, he, like, there's a good chance he plays on your team this year. Like, whereas in, in hockey, it's obviously, it's, you're, you're drafting 17 year olds. It's a lot different. So Sousa there said that they really appreciate the this week in hockey history segment. And that's where we're going to wrap up here. A couple of interesting this week in hockey histories. Let's start with this July 5th, 2017. So just five years ago, Connor McDavid signs an eight-year $100 million deal.

Eight years, he's halfway through it right now. If Connor McDavid was a UFA this summer, what's the number, guys? What's the AAV on Connor McDavid? because I'm thinking it's more than 12 and a half. But is it 50? It's far more. Is it 15 million? Connor McDavid left an enormous amount of money on the table by signing that deal,

by signing a max length deal. You know, the fact that he took eight years versus taking two or three at a time. And even given that the cap ended up going flat, which we didn't expect, he left a ton of money on the table, which is his right. I mean, look, he's, it was a $100 million deal. He's certainly not eating ramen noodles for dinner at all. And if he wanted the security, if he wanted maybe to leave a little bit of money to make sure that they could build a team around him, that hasn't really worked out.

But that's his right. I'm not criticizing him for signing the deal. But if you're talking about what would the number be, the number absolutely would have been much higher. And if he's a free agent now, I mean, what's the 20% max? I mean, you're probably getting close to there for some team. I mean, there's, and he'd be worth it. He'd be a steal at a number that was started with a 15 or 16. Mike, I always think, like, if I was in that stratosphere,

so think Crosby, McDavid, whoever, you know, whoever should want to put in that stratosphere, man, wouldn't you be all about three-year deals and give yourself a flexibility to get out of what you think isn't a great situation. But B, you could, you could leverage yourself and monetize yourself in a way in which

you can't on an eight-year deal. Like, it's, the hockey thinking is get the long, get the longest deal possible, get security. It's security and a lot of the guys hate going through this. Part of it is a, it's such a violent sport. I understand it. Like I do.

Like I understand. But there's this, like the one percenters, the McDavid's in the crowd, I wouldn't, I wouldn't do this. Which is, I mean, this is what they do in the NBA, right? I mean, LeBron James famously, feels like he's a free agent every few years

and moves around and can maximize both the dollars and the situation that he's in. In the NHL, for whatever reason, we just don't see that. It is lock in, get the security, and look, you can never tell someone don't take security.

We can see what happens. We've seen careers cut short with injury, that sort of thing. And as I say, a lot of guys just, they hate going through this. And the idea that, okay, I don't have to do this for another eight years, great. I'm happy to get it done.

I mean, at some point, though, you're going to see somebody do it. I mean, to some extent, like Austin Matthews did five years. He didn't jump in in the full number. You know, at some point some young star is going to say, no, I'll do two-year deals. That's it. And, you know, take out a great big insurance policy so that if, you know, if heaven forbid you do get hurt or the value comes down, but you bet on yourself. And especially these days now with that.

with the cap, hopefully no longer flat fairly soon. We're going to see some player do it. And then once they do it, we're going to go, man, why didn't everyone else do it like that? And I think that'll be the new thing you'll see in hockey. Yeah, 20% of the cap, by the way, of the $82.5 million is $16.5 million. And I think that would, I think McDavid would still be underpaid. Yep.

I wouldn't blink. And, you know, I know you could say, how would you fit that? Well, you know what? I'd fit it by getting rid of the $5 million guy in my third line. I will pay top dollar for Connor McDavid. but I wouldn't have an issue with it. All right. One other this week in hockey history will take you back to July 9th, 1997.

So this week in July of 1997, the Nashville hockey team. I called them the Nashville hockey team because at this point they hadn't been named the Predators. But they went ahead and named their general manager, David Poyle. Okay? To give you some context of how long ago this was. In fact, let's play a little game here,

see if you guys can guess this. What was the number one movie at the box office when David Poyle, was named the general manager. Was there a Batman movie out that year? There was, and you just missed it in terms of the arc. I think it was Batman and Robin. The bad one, yeah.

Yeah, the bad one that summer. That one came out a couple of weeks earlier. It was Men in Black. Original Men in Black. Think about that for a second. Original Men in Black came out when David Poyle got his current job. And at the time, David Poyle was a veteran

G. This is a guy had been around forever in Washington. 15 years in Washington. Yeah. And what was the number one song on the Billboard charts

this week in 1997? I'm assuming it's not the men in black soundtrack because that was that was everywhere back then. That's right. It was Will Smith's,

yeah. I was bopping around on that one. Yeah. That's what was number one? Oh, and we just missed out on Mbop by Hansen by a couple of weeks.

That would have been amazing. And this song was number one of the charts for about 12 weeks in a row, the Puff Daddy, I'll be missing you. Really? Yeah. There you go.

But just to give you an idea, like, think about this. Like, it's been 25 years. I feel so old right now. I hate this segment. I know. Not fun for me. Yeah.

I don't remember any of this. All right. What were you like seven years old? I was seven years old. Yeah. See, get out of here. This is not. This is Sean and I were 20.

I don't, it's bad enough I got to keep up with these guys at 3 a.m. I'm not doing, I'm not getting lectured about mbop by some seven-year-old the next day, forget it. But isn't that remarkable, though, that David Poyle, like, so in his time in Nashville,

they obviously got to the Stanley Cup final in 2017 and lost to Pittsburgh. But outside of that, his tenure has been really, I think, highlighted by, hey, some good regular seasons, playoff disappointment. Did win a president's trophy, the, oh, yeah, do they have anything to commemorate that?

I don't know, did they hang anything? I think they might have. But this is one of the great mysteries to me is like, like, I don't, like, what's the, like, are people phoning in the talk radio in Nashville? Because I know in a lot of markets, even after 18 months, like, we will never win with this guy's job manager. Like, 25 years. Are people phoning in to talk radio in Nashville about David Poyle?

Or like, what happens there? I mean, probably, but it's like, obviously it's the owner that makes a job. decision. I don't think all owners are determined to win a Stanley Cup. I think Nashville has been very good for the whole time they've been there. They have a good fan base. They sell out. Things are good. Things could be worse. And I think some owners view it as, hey, we've got a great fan base. Cash is rolling in. Buildings full every night. Why? Maybe we won't win a Stanley Cup with this guy, but it can be a lot worse than this. Yeah. And I mean, there's something to be said for stability, but this is an extreme case. There does seem to be a point where as a GM,

you get past a certain number of years and the rules don't seem to apply to anymore. Like even, you know, there were a few years in New Jersey wasn't very good. Nobody was calling for Lou Lamarillo to be fired, right? Because at some point, it's just Loo's team. And, yeah, the David Poil there in Nashville and he, I mean, not in 1997, but not long after, would have hired Barry Trots, and Barry Trots was a coach there forever. So they had absolute stability and unfortunately hasn't translated to the ultimate prize quite yet. Yeah, hey, listen, this was great. Like, to be actually able to do this in person was great.

I think that it flowed really well. We got about 20 minutes, like we're about to wrap up here. We have 20 minutes to head to the NHL's got a free complimentary media lunch. What do you think we can? One of the odds of us finding this. Not falling for this one again. Or is it one of those Atlantis deals where we just... Forget it.

You can't find it. Yeah, I'd say minus 150 we end up in an underground abandoned food court. Yeah, exactly. There's like the bars are down on the Sabaro and we're like, this place isn't even real. Yeah. Unbeligible. I'm waiting for the doors to lock behind us.

And suddenly an evil Gary Betman laugh comes out, well, well, well. Look who's here. Look who's not laughing anymore, eh? I love it. All right. Hey, guys, this was great. I want to thank everybody for joining us for this draft edition

of The Athletic Hockey Show coming at you from Montreal. We'll get you again next week. It should be a really interesting week after the draft. We've, of course, have free agency on Wednesday, so we'll get you all covered in the shows next week.

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