The Athletic Hockey Show - Kodak Black breaks Hockey Twitter, Connor McDavid comments on Evander Kane, and Jack Eichel's progress towards Golden Knights debut

Episode Date: January 13, 2022

Death, taxes, and celebrities at Florida Panther games. Ian Mendes and Sean McIndoe discuss a new challenger to this weeks-long discussion as Kodak Black made news with his appearance at a game this week, and the social media storm that followed. Then, they dig into Connor McDavid's tepid comments about Evander Kane potentially joining the Edmonton Oilers, and the market for Kane. Also, do opinions change on the Bruins as a contender with Tuukka Rask making his return, and Bobby Clarke speaks out on Ron Hextall.Next, in "Granger Things", Jesse Granger gives the latest on Jack Eichel, his debut for the Golden Knights on the horizon, and Eichel's thoughts on the NHL pulling out of the Olympics. Also, how the odds have changed for the tournament with the subtraction of NHL players, and Cale Makar's odds for player awards.To wrap up, Ian and Sean discuss the NHL going by a point system in the mailbag, and in "This Week in Hockey History," the Philadelphia Flyers play too rough against the Soviet Red Army team, and Pat Hughes breaks a Wayne Gretzky record.Have a question for Ian and Sean? Email [e-mail] or leave a VM at [phone]! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

All right, everybody. Welcome back. It's another Thursday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show with your regular host, Ian Mendez, Sean McIndoo, with you ahead in the next hour or so on this podcast. Of course, we're going to have some fun with that Kodak moment. At the Panthers game this week, as the NHL certainly went viral and everybody had a lot of fun with it, we'll talk about that.

Van der Kaine and the Edmonton Oilers, a good fit or not. We'll touch on that. Plus, you know, maybe the return of Tuka Rast to Boston. some other stories that are floating around the NHL this week. Jesse Granger is back for Granger things. We'll chat about Jack Eichael's return and how maybe the Golden Knights can fit him in under the cap and when he might come back.

Plus, we'll chat Olympic odds for the men's tournament without the NHLers. We'll take a mailbag question too, and we'll wrap up with this week in hockey history looking at if there are any Wayne Gretzky records within reach and that time the Broad Street Bullies ran the Soviet Red Army right out of the rink in an exhibition game back in the 70s. So we'll get to all of that and more as we kick off this athletic hockey show.

I ask you this, Sean, our two favorite NFL teams are meeting this week. I'm a Dallas Cowboys fan. We're a San Francisco 49ers fan. Correct. Are we doing any of these crazy bets of if Dallas wins, Sean has to do this, if San Francisco wins, Ian has to do that? Like, are you going to make me show up to an Ottawa Senators game in the press box? a Wendell Clark jersey at some point.

Are we doing any of this stuff? You know what? That's not a... Yeah, you got my attention now. We might have to figure something out. I don't... Yeah, I don't know that Sean has to wear a Cowboys jersey during the podcast is really going to resonate quite as well.

But there's got to be some... All right, let's kick... We'll kick this around and we'll come up with something. Yeah. And we'll ask for our listeners help here. Tweet at us and let us know if there's a fun bet that Sean and I should. should do ahead in advance of our two favorite NFL teams meeting in a playoff game. Let us know.

And, you know, maybe we'll have some fun with it. And we'll see what we can do. So speaking of fun, I got to lead off with this because I don't want to say that we can sometimes call the shots or see the future. But a couple of weeks ago, we've been talking about Florida Panthers and celebrities for like the last three or four weeks. You dropped a Walter Cronkite Florida Panthers reference. I ticked off the hockey guy.

obviously. I didn't realize I had crossed the line. But yeah, you make one reference to the Florida Panthers having a boring fan base and celebrities. Oh boy. Yeah. And the hockey guys. And they come roaring back. And we get the Kodak Black moment. Well, I'll be honest. The only other time Kodak Black has entered my sphere was when he was one of the guys that got like the last minute pardoned from Donald Trump back in the day. Oh, wow. Okay. So you're one ahead of me because I, uh, Yeah, I have a feeling there's a lot of hockey fans who were learning who Kodak Black was and probably a lot of Kodak Black fans who were learning that there's a hockey team in Florida. So it may be in that sense. Maybe good for everyone.

I don't know. Yeah, because it was an unbelievable moment. And, you know, your tweet, I got to, you got to walk our, first of all, I, man, why did I bring your tweet up here? I feel like I should have had your tweet up and ready to go. But this was a moment on social media because there was a window of time. I'll call it an hour, maybe 90 minutes, where it straight up looked like Kodak Black was having sex with somebody inside the booth at the hockey game. It was basically the, yeah, this was like the Skydome incident all over again except without even the window. It was, yeah, it was, it was, I, I'm sure everybody.

So you couldn't avoid it. It was everywhere. Yeah, it was, it was, it sure looked that way, let's just say. Yeah. And so we all think, look, for like an hour, we're like, oh, my gosh, this guy is straight up having sex inside a NHL arena in front of everybody. And then there was the alternate camera angle that came through that said, look, she's, she's just grinding on them, twerking, okay?

And you come in from the top ropes with the tweet to end all. tweets, which was, I don't have it now, so tired of watching the NHL and thinking somebody scored only to have it overturned after a replay. That's a mic drop tweet, man. You have had about 100 mic drop tweets in the last couple of years. You all your money for that. But walk our audience through, like, are you sit, like, take us through the process. Here's the process.

It's the exact same process for every one of my tweets. I see something, I think of something, I go, oh, that's kind of funny, and I type it in and I send it. That's the process. People think there's a process. I always get like, you know, somebody will like send something to me, like, how long have you been saving that one? And it's like, you think I'm like doing work in advance on this? It's Twitter. No, I, you think of something.

You don't really think it through all that well. You hit send and then people either react or they don't. And I pretty sure that tweet ended up being. the most shared one I've ever had to give you a sense of where hockey fans were. And this was also, by the way, like late at night. So it was like tweet, okay, a couple of replies, go to bed. And it wasn't until the next morning that I wake up. And, you know, I got like Rex Chapman and Keith Oberman and people like that sending me

feedback. And it's like, oh, okay. That's, thank you. Thank you, Kodak. You know, we're putting all of us on the map here. Okay, so, Keith Olberman interacts with your tweet. Of all the tweets you've ever had,

who is the most famous, even if they just hit like, so that you know that they saw the tweet, who's the most famous person who has ever interacted with one of your tweets? See, I don't see who just retweets her likes. I've turned that off, but I think, I know Will Arnett's,

like, he's a Leaf fan, so he, you know, he's checked in, but I think the number one was I had CM Punk retweet me once with it was it was a Shea Weber joke when when they made it was when the Weber Subant Trade went down and and he jumped in on that. So yeah, that was, I'm big with the with the pro wrestler crowd. Yeah. Now does Will Arnett follow you on Twitter?

I don't know. Let's find out. Look at you. Look at you. You are just playing this so cool with the I turn off my retweets. No, I can't because, I mean, you don't, geez, I don't. When we get to your level, I know. Yes, Willernet does follow me.

Oh, my, listen, man. How are you not sliding into Willarnett's DMs and setting them up to join the athletic hockey show? Yeah, that's true. I'm a huge fan of Arrested Development is probably my all-time favorite sitcom. Okay. The seasons one and two. And you're sitting here with Will Arnett, the ability to communicate. directly with Will Arnett. You didn't know that until just now.

So the update is going to be next week. Yeah, Will Arnett doesn't follow me anymore. Yeah. I'll tell you, we'll get him on the show, but only if he does the entire thing in the Batman voice from the Lego movie. Yeah. Okay. I got a potential. If the Dallas Cowboys beat the San Francisco 49ers, you have to slide into Will Arnette's DMs and put in a request for him to join the athletic audience. I don't know. I don't know about that. I'll think about who do you got, though? You got to have, you know, who are the big sense for? fan celebrities out there. Rihanna follow you? Yeah. Yeah. No, no, none of them. The most random follow I ever got

and I still don't know and I'm scared. I would never send him a DM is Ryan Reynolds. And I'm like, I'm scared to death. I'm scared to death. I feel like that beats, that definitely beats Will Arnett. I once had Taylor Swift hit

like on a tweet of mine which was everything. After I saw a Taylor Swift concert and tweeted, what a great It wasn't like a breakdown of a senator's penalty kill. Yeah. Okay. That's pretty good. That's pretty good.

You get Taylor on here and we'll be talking. Yeah. No, she didn't. She didn't. Noted Predators fan. Is she a Predator? I guess the Nashville connection. Yeah.

Yeah. She's been doing like the little claw thing or whatever that they do. Yeah, she's been in a few of those games. Okay. Well, so now we have just willed into existence. Something is going to happen with the National Predators in the celebrity now at some point in the next couple of weeks.

That's how this little curse that we have going. So one more thought here on the Kodak Black thing. Like the NHL very briefly, like they tweeted out like, hey, welcome to the game. They deleted the two years because of what happened. Like, did they, you understand them deleting that tweet, but like, is this the craziest

celeb crossover we've ever seen in the NHL? I mean, it would have to be. Certainly the, you know, spontaneous ones. Yeah, this might be, I think it was last week or the week before we talked about the, like, kiss choking out Gary Bettman in that photo. Right. That may have been the previous clubhouse leader, but no, this might be there. And yeah, like, I get why they deleted it. I think all of us would love to have seen the NHL, like, be cool and tweet out something really funny about this.

but I do not, for a moment, envy the social media manager who was on duty that night who had to, like, deal with that. Like, just sitting there, they're just the meme sitting there, like, tweet something funny, get fired. Like, which button am I going to press right here? And, yeah, I don't, I completely understand the decision to sit that one out. Let's move on to some on-ice stuff here because there's a bunch of really interesting storylines. A van der Kaine, and look, we want to tell people we are. recording this at, you know, closing in on noon on Thursday. So we're well aware by the time this drops, maybe there'll be some news on Evander

Kane, maybe he'll sign somewhere. But are you surprised that the market is apparently pretty hot for Evander Cain, meaning that if you listen to Dan Milstein as agent, there are numerous teams interested in Evander Cain, whereas I think I thought maybe a couple of weeks ago, there might not have been a market for him. Are you, let's start with this, Sean. Are you surprised that multiple teams appear to have expressed interest in landing of Andrew Kane? I guess I would be surprised if there were that many teams that were serious about bringing them in.

I think we have to take this with a big grain of salt. Because like you say, it's coming from the agent. It's coming from his camp. It's their job to create a market and make it appear that there is one. So, I mean, this maybe 15 different teams called to Vander Kaine and said, here's our contract offer. Or maybe the camp reached out to 30. two teams and half the league said, no way, don't even lose our number, don't call us back.

And the other half said, maybe we'll think about it. And then that becomes that there's this stocked market. But the fact is, whether it's one team or two or five or ten, it certainly seems like somebody's going to sign them. And it's going to happen as close to as soon as possible, although the other piece of this is hanging in the air is the NHL announcing that they're going to investigate this. latest alleged violation of COVID protocols, maybe that slows things down. Maybe teams are going to back off and say, hold on.

We want to hear, we want to make sure the league's not dropping another big suspension on you before we commit. But it certainly sounds like there's, however many teams it is, there's enough that he's going to wind up somewhere. Yeah. And you're right. It's worth noting that there's an investigation into kind of, you know, when he allegedly breached COVID protocols over the.

holidays and got back to Vancouver. It's, you know, how did he get back to Vancouver? What was his method of getting back there? Did, you know, so you're right. If all of a sudden, the league says, you know, by the way, you can get a VanderKane, but you're getting them with a 25-game suspension because we already suspended up 20 games. So we're going to, like, it absolutely would impact the team's approach. I want to play a little audio here because Connor McDavid's response, and I'll classify it as a tepid response.

got asked, McDavid got asked on Wednesday about the possibility of Kane joining the Oilers. Have a listen here to McDavid's very, like I said, tepid response to the idea of Evander Kane joining Edmond. I'm not really here to discuss optic issues. You know, if fans don't like it or the media doesn't like it or whatever, I think, you know, it's, it is what it is. I'm sure there's lots of things that go on on the ice and whatnot that fans don't like. And we don't necessarily have to discuss those up here with you guys. So, you know, the public opinion is something that obviously matters a lot. But we're here to try to win games and try to put together a good team on the ice.

And, you know, if Kenny thinks that that's what he can do, then that's what he can do. I think, you know, Kenny's got our full support and what he does. So, Sean, what I took away from that clip was, like, McDavid at no point makes a definitive statement about Evander Cain. His body language, like he shrugs, I think, somebody even, I think it was Mark Lazarus, or Chicago reporter said, it was last, yeah, he said, if you watch the video, McDavid shrugs nine times in about 60 seconds. The body language wasn't great.

The response was lukewarm. What did you make a Connor McDavid basically given a giant shrug to a Vander Kaine potentially joining the Oilers? Well, I mean, it was a shrug, but it was also a shrug accompanied by an endorsement. You know, him saying that, yeah, you know, Ken Holland can go and do that. It was a shrugdorsement. Yes, that's what we're going to call. Shrugdorcement. So, you know, which, and that was disappointing to a lot of people because I think a lot of people would have liked to have seen Connor McDavid stand up there and say, no, we don't want this guy on the team.

We know what he's been accused of, both with COVID, with other things, his treatment of women. This is not a guy that we want on the team. And even if he can score goals and help us win, some things are more important than that. I think that's what a lot of people were hoping for. I think those people were destined to be disappointed. I mean, that's just not really the hockey player mindset. And it's, you know, what I saw from Connor McDavid is it was about 80s. 80% a guy trying to do the hockey thing of not really saying anything.

And 20% a guy who, as we've all known for a while, is very frustrated with how things have been going in Edmonton. He sees another season slipping away and just wants his GM to bring in some help one way or another. And it certainly seems like if the Oilers aren't the frontrunner, they're pretty close. and from a purely hockey perspective that it probably makes sense. Obviously, when you're talking to Vander Kaine, it's a lot more than just the hockey perspective. And, you know, I'm all for second chances. I think we all should be,

but this is well beyond a second chance. We're on to fourth and fifth and six chances here. And at some point, you would think enough is going to be enough. But I guess we haven't reached that point. And we'll see how it goes. You know, we see this in hockey. We see this in all sports, right? Where guys become available and there's lots of red flags, but they can help a team win.

And, you know, the example that I think is maybe at the top of everyone's mind just because it's recent is Antonio Brown. He signs with Tampa, everybody says this isn't going to end well. Fast forward to a few weeks ago, it doesn't end well. It ends terribly. We have this ridiculous situation with him walking. out on the team in the middle of a game. Throwing bombs at the team and its leadership on the way out, you know, just ends as badly as it could possibly end, just like everyone thought.

But in between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers win a championship with Antonio Brown. And I think whether you're Ken Holland or any other GM that's under the gun to get your team to contending, that's probably what you're thinking of. You know, I'll bring this guy in, maybe short term, maybe we don't commit pass. this year, but just help me win. And we will overlook all the other stuff because that's what we tend to do in sports. Let me ask you this too. We're talking about this from a team's perspective.

If you're a team, would you bring in a Vander Kaine? Just for a second, let's put ourselves in Kane skates. Okay. If you're a Vander Kaine, Sean, would you rather sign at Edmonton potentially pump up your statistical profile, playing, riding shotgun with Connor McDadee? or maybe it's Leon Drysidal, but you're going to be put in a situation where you're probably playing with one of the two or three

best players in the game. Or would you rather go to Tampa and maybe you're like just a quiet piece and get a chance to win a cup and you can prove to everybody, hey, I'm not disruptive. If you've got a good culture, I can be a good fit. If you're a Vander Cain, would you rather go and play with Connor McDavid

and maybe show to the world that you're still an elite player? Or would you rather go to Tampa and try to win a Stanley Cup and prove you can be a quiet kind of bottom six might be a stretch, but more of a complimentary player. Yeah, I mean, I don't know what Evander Kane would want. I'm not in his head. Players prioritize winning and things differently. If I'm his agent, I'd rather him go to Edmonton and put up big numbers. I don't know that if he's going to hit the open market this summer, I don't know that having quietly been a third line guy in Tampa is going to increase the market value all that

much versus if you see him performing like an actual elite player in Edmonton, and also the possibility that he could go into Edmonton, they start winning, people suddenly start saying, okay, if Andrew King turned them around, that becomes the narrative versus a team like Tampa that's already fantastic. and you say, well, did that really change anything? Because there's going to be a lot of teams in the offseason under pressure to improve. And if they can look at a guy that, oh, he saved the oiler season, maybe he can do that here. That's probably what I would prefer if I was his agent and just wanted to guide him to the decision

that's going to make him the most money with his next contract if he gets one. Before we get to, Jesse Granger is going to drop by here for a return of Granger. Thanks. I just want to hit on a couple of quick things from around the league. Sean, Tuka Rask is scheduled to come back to Boston Thursday evening, returning after missing months. He's had the bad hip, had to go, undergo surgery. He comes back to Boston. Does this alter your view of the Bruins?

If Rask can get back to being the rask that we've seen in the past, does this change your opinion of Boston and where they stand? They're obviously headed to the playoffs, but does this alter your view of them as a contender? Yeah, it might because, you know, the Bruins are just kind of quietly, lurking along, looking like a playoff team. The focus in the Atlantic has been on that top three race with Toronto, Tampa, and Florida. And then the Bruins are a little bit back and look further back than that because they're so far behind in games played. The question with the Bruins is this season so far has been goaltending. And it's still a question because to harassed, at his age, given his health history, we have no idea what we're going to get here.

This may not work. But it might. And, you know, as you phrased it, if he comes back and he looks like the Tukuraska of old, which is to say an elite top 10, maybe even top five goal tender in the league, I think absolutely that has to, at the very least, it turns the Bruins into that wildcard team that nobody wants to play. You get to the end of the year and you're looking at the standings going, yeah, we're going to win our division. But, oh, man, we got to play the Bruins in round one. I don't think anyone wants a part of that.

if Duke O'Rasque is as good as you can be, least of all the Maple Leafs, given the history there. So, yeah, I think we're all sleeping a little bit on the Bruins and this move, if it works, that's a big if, but if it does, it'll wake us up. One other thing I want to hit on, because this to me was a fascinating piece of audio that dropped, courtesy of the Cam and Strick podcast,

Andy Strickland and Cam Jansen do that out of St. Louis. And they had Bob Clark on their podcast on Cam and Strick. And have a listen for our audience that didn't catch this. Bob Clark ripping into Ron Hextall and basically saying that the Flyer Scouts wanted to draft Kail McCar. And it was Ron Hextall who overruled them and selected Nolan Patrick instead. Have a listen. This is a rather interesting piece of audio that was dropped earlier this week. He alienated everybody right away.

He shut his door. He locked the doors. The boss and nobody else was part of it. We end up drafted, we get the second pick in the draft, and we end up drafting Nolan Patrick. None of our scouts wanted Nolan Patrick. It wasn't, I mean, I don't know where Patrick should have gone after his performances in Brown,

and he's a pretty good player, but he certainly, they wanted Bacar. Of course, he went next. No, he's a superstar, and Patrick hasn't played number. But Hexel made that choice himself. And there were other choices that were made in our drafts that we're paying for. You know, we've got two or three first round picks that are never going to play. And that's why we're struggling.

Hexie made some huge mistakes. He gave the blues Braden Chen, too, you know? So, I mean, you know, so. That was just as bad. You know, nobody do it. Hexie made that on his own. All our scouts, it was at the draft. Our scouts were so mad at Hexie.

for doing that. We also had a chance to get O'Reilly from Buffalo, but we didn't. Obviously, that was the manager's decision, but it was another one that the scouts weren't consulted on. All right, Sean, one thing we've learned about hockey, and the Flyers would be a great example of this, it's rare that you kind of take a shot at your own. Like, like the Flyers, you're pretty tight-knit. Like, to see Bob Clark publicly ripping Ron Hextall, to me, it was eye-opening. And, man, I don't even know what to say. It was, it was quite an eye-opening comment, jaw-dropping, that Bob Clark would sell Rod Hextall down the road,

a river like this, because you're telling people now, we should have had Cal McCar, and we'll get into Cal McCar here with Jesse in a second, but I can't believe that he would publicly just do this. Can you? Well, you don't hear it often, but I think if you had said last week that, you know, We're going to see a well-known NHL name throw somebody from his team under the bus.

He thought, no way. And then if you said it's Bob Clark, he might have gone. Yeah, that's a good point. Okay. I mean, you know, we know the Eric Lindress history, the Roger Nielsen comment, that sort of thing. Look, it's an interesting peek behind the scenes. Some of the stuff that he's saying about, you know, was Ron Hextel too closed off? Was he closed door, you know, my way or the highway?

Maybe a lot of managers are like that in, you know, all. you know, in any industry. So it wouldn't shock me if you see that in the NHL and maybe Ron Hextel was that sort of guy. I will say this. I don't buy this idea that all the scouts want to kill McCar and that Ron Hextel picked Nolan Patrick. I went back.

I looked at the draft rankings, 2017 draft. Every single ranking had Nolan Patrick first or second. That was easily a consensus pick. Kale McCar ranked anywhere from fourth where he ultimately went on a couple of listings to well down. He was, I think, 10th in the official North American skater rankings, some of the rankings, including our own Corey Prime and had him as low as 18th. Now, that doesn't mean that there wasn't a scout out there somewhere saying this guy's better than Nolan Patrick, but the idea that this team unanimously wanted this guy over the consensus number two,

if not number one prospect in the draft, I don't really buy. He also goes on to say that, that McCar got picked with the next pick, and he didn't. It was Miro Heiskenen who got picked with the next pick. And a lot of people now are, I even saw someone saying, actually, it was Heiskenen that the Flyers scouts were interested in.

So it's Bobby Clark might not even have his details right here. But I'm not really buying it. And I think if you look at Ron Hextel's draft record in the five drafts, I think it was that he was, the GM for. It's not bad for the Flyers. It's not great. But he, you know, he got some good guys, even Provarov, Carter Hart in the second round. You know, his drafting record isn't awful. So I think there's clearly something personal here. And I'm not going to defend Ron Hextel as having done a great job in Philadelphia, but I'm not really buying what Bobby Clark is selling here.

All right. It is time for us to reintroduce Granger Things brought to you by our good friends. that BetMGM, the exclusive betting partner with us at The Athletic. And we welcome him back after he was away for a week. It's Jesse Granger. Welcome back, my friend. I guess a very belated, happy New Year to you. Great to have you back in the saddle here in 2022. Yeah, thanks for having me, guys.

Last week was crazy running back and forth from jury duty at the courthouse to the arena, back to the courthouse. It was one of the busier weeks of the entire season for the Golden Knights in terms of games. So the perfect week for me to get jury duty. So, I mean, like, this wasn't, again, we know that you can't give us details on the case. But this wasn't what, see, Sean and I were thinking, oh, my God, is Granger sequestered in a hotel? He can't get out. And what happens in Vegas, if you're in a court case and you get sequestered, are they putting you up at like the mirage, at like the Bellagio or are you somewhere else?

Like, how does this work in Vegas? Yeah. So I was, luckily, this was not a major case where I. had to be sequestered. So I was, I did miss, I think I missed more practices last week than I had in four years covered the Golden Knights. But, um, I was able to go to the games. I wasn't locked in a hotel. I don't know where they would keep you. It definitely would not be the Bellagio. Um, the courthouse in Vegas is downtown. So it's like old Vegas, like the Golden Nugget, Fremont, those kind of casinos. Um, I don't even know if you'd be at one of those. I really don't know. Um, it would not be on the strip,

though. Oh, endless shrimp cocktail. There you go. Right. All right. So listen, you talk about this being a busy week for you. And of course, it comes with Jack Eichel being back in the news. And Eichael kind of did his one media availability. What he says will be my only time I speak to everybody until I'm ready to play again. So what was your takeaway? And do we have a better sense now, Jesse, of the timeline involving Jack Eichael

and when we might see him suit up for a regular season game? Yeah, it was exciting. Luckily, I was able to make that practice. That was probably the most anticipated one of the season. and he was out there looking like himself. I mean, he looked, he looked pretty tired towards the end of it. First time, he's been skating on his own, but when you get out there with other guys and you've got to keep up pace

and there's actually conditioning drills, you could tell he was feeling it a little bit, but still had that same wicked release that he's always had. That kind of jumped off the page. He speaking with him, he doesn't want to put a timeline on it. That's not surprising. He said the Golden Knights have not asked him for a possible return date. They're kind of taking all the pressure off of him,

and just letting him whenever he feels good. He kept saying it's a feeling thing. It's when I feel confident. It's when I feel like I can be the player I want to be. But I think the one thing he did say that kind of gave us a glimpse into his mind was someone asked him about the Olympics, not related to his rehab, just about how disappointing it is that NHL players aren't going. And Jack mentioned, I think his exact words were, I wouldn't say I was going to be healthy and ready to play in the Olympics,

but I also wouldn't say I wasn't. And so I think that, and like the Olympics start here in, what, two weeks, three weeks? Two or three, yeah. Yeah, so, so I don't think Eichol's going to be on the ice before the Olympic break, but I do think it's a realistic possibility

that he's back on the ice when the NHL teams resume play, and obviously there are going to be a lot of makeup games. The Golden Knights only have two, well, four now, now that here coming up, this next upcoming community, Canadian road trip has been canceled. So they have a lot fewer makeup games than most of the teams. So I don't know how often they're going to be playing in the month of February. They only had like two games scheduled in the month of February prior to rescheduling.

So I think a legit possible return date for Jack Eichael is coming off that initial Olympic break. When the Golden Knights come back, I could see him on the ice then maybe a little bit after that. But it's still pretty miraculous. It's hard to believe how fast he recovered. I mean, he said he went to dinner the night he had the surgery. He went to dinner with his parents, which is crazy to me. You would think putting an artificial disc in a spine would require you to stay in the hospital for a lot longer. But he said this thing's been pretty smooth.

And it looks like he's going to be back in game action pretty quick. And now they can say that, you know, it's up to you, Jack, but they do have to make some roster moves to fit him in under the county. It's not like he can just walk into the coach's office one morning and say, I think I'm ready to play tonight. They need to either swap someone else onto the long-term injured reserve or probably more likely at this point make a trade. And we're always told that, gosh, these trades take so long to put together. Is it like how much of a scramble or do you get the sense that it would be a scramble or do the Golden Knights have a plan in their back pocket that they're just waiting to move on? Yeah, I mean, you'd have to assume that Kelly McCriman and George McPhee have been thinking about this from the moment they traded for Jack Eichael, what they're going to do in this situation. And you have to assume that they do have some sort of plan. But I think that their plan is fluid. And like you said, it's because of the other injuries. Like right now, Jack Eichael actually could walk out and step on the ice and play because they have Max Patertetti and Alec Martinez both out with long-term injured reserve. And Patcheretti makes $7 million. Martinez makes 5 million.

That's more than enough to fit Jack Eichel in there. The problem is those guys are going to be back eventually too. And when they are, they're going to have to move some space. It looks like it's going to be like if everyone were healthy and they waived some guys to get down to the 23-man roster, obviously, because they're at more than that right now with all those guys on LTIR. It looks like they're going to have to wait to get rid of about six, maybe seven million, which is a lot to move. But if a guy gets hurt. between now and then that's worth $4 million, all of a sudden you've only got to move $2 million.

So like it's definitely a moving target. And like right now, Max Patch Ready, he underwent wrist surgery. My understanding from talking to everyone around that is that they do not expect him to miss the rest of the regular season. So if he was, we're going to, then you would say, okay, Kuchrab situation, they'll just play without him and then he'll come back in the playoffs and there's no cap and there'll be $7 million over. But I don't think that's going to be the case with Max Patch Ready.

Alec Martinez's injury is a little grayer. He got cut in the face with a skateblade. We all kind of expected him to be back a couple days later, and he hasn't. It's been months, and he hasn't played. Pete DeBoer hasn't flat out said it's a concussion, but he has said some things like, well, there are symptoms with the head when you get a boot to the face, and we're trying to figure those things out. Like, he's said some things that lead you to believe that Alec Martinez could be out with a

concussion. And as we know, as we've seen with other players, like, that could last a couple days. That could last for the rest of the season. You never know. So the Golden Knights have had so many injuries this year. I think that's going to play a factor in who they do have to trade. But it does seem like at some point they're going to have to trade some legitimate salary off this team. Well, as you mentioned, look, Jack Eichol is not going to be available.

It's all a moot point now about the Olympics and Team USA. But as the American team gets set to be unveiled and we know the other teams in the men's tournament will be unveiled here in the days to come, it's going to be really interesting to see how this how this tournament plays out and the odds I would imagine have altered based on the way we looked at them when we thought the NHLers were in the mix and now that we know there won't be NHLers. So where's some smart money?

If somebody's looking to make the Olympics a little interesting for themselves, what are we looking at here in terms of money lines heading into the Winter Olympics on the men's side? Yeah, I know that we're all disappointed that we aren't going to get NHL players in this best-on-best international tournament that we were all excited for for years. But I got to be honest, I think taking the NHLers out actually makes it a more exciting tournament in terms of just the results, because you suddenly don't have these two powerhouses in Canada and the U.S. and Sweden to some point.

Russia is now the favorite at plus 165, so $100 bet would win you $165. Finland is the second favorite at plus 450, Sweden right there at plus 450. Then finally, you get to Canada at 6 to 1 plus 600. The Czech Republic is at 900 and the U.S. is at 14 to 1 right now. That is pretty crazy. It's going to be interesting to see how those odds change as we get these rosters. I think Canada and the U.S. might have some players with some big names, especially some prospects in the U.S. side.

I know the Golden Knights top prospect, Brendan Murson, he's a first round pick. He might be playing for Team USA. They're going to have some exciting names. Maybe those odds don't change. So if you're going to bet on Canada or the U.S., if you think that they can still win this thing, even with the amateurs, I would bet them now before the rosters come out,

which I think that could be as early as today for the U.S. So if you were going to bet a North American team, I would bet them now before those rosters come out. I think Russia jumps immediately to the forefront, just because there's no country that, has non-nate, like more talent outside of the NHL than Russia. Because the KHL is so popular there, because they keep talent, you see, like, you see guys all the time that are, that are superstars in the KHL that we say, wow, that guy could be a top

six player in the NHL. You don't basically see that anywhere else in the world. So I think Russia is clearly the favorite. The other thing that's interesting is China is 1,000 to 1 to win this thing. I do not expect. I wouldn't. put a dollar on that, but I just, as I was going through the odds, I couldn't help, but not, I had to at least mention China is a thousand to one. I don't think I've ever seen odds like that in a, in a tournament this small. Wow. Is it, is all the betting, is it gold medal only, or can you get any odds on a team two medal or specific metal or any props or anything like that, or is it just gold or nothing? That's a good question. On bet MGM, all I can see right now

in terms of futures for the Olympics is just gold medal. So maybe as it gets closer, there may be like some other books. I mean, offshore books, you can bet pretty much anything. But yeah, for, because I got China is my silver medal favorite. So I can't. I got a weight. What you need to do is, see, if you've got them for your silver medal, you just bet them at 1,000 to 1.

Then when they get to the gold medal game, you can hedge and bet the crap out of the other side and you've automatically won money. There you go. I like that. Hey, one other future we wanted to hit on before we let you go, Jesse, and that boy, Kail McCart feels like he's a human highlight reel these days. I would imagine it's pretty much a lock that all the money is headed on him or on him to win the Norris.

I'm wondering, though, are we getting some chatter about Kail McCar and the Hart Trophy and maybe something else outside of the Norris right now? Yeah, so as you mentioned, he's been absolutely ridiculous. He's, to me, the most fun player in hockey to watch right now. We always ooh and awe over Connor McDavid's skating, and his skating is the fastest of anyone in the world, but it still looks like ice skating. Kel McCar doesn't look like he's ice skating. There are plays he makes where I didn't know you could move that direction on ice. I didn't know you could change directions like that while going that speed.

He's been pretty incredible. Most goals in his first 30 games by any defenseman since Bobby Orr in 1975, you mentioned the Norris. He's plus 200 to win the Norris. Norris, so two to one, basically. He's by far the runaway favorite. The percent of money actually just got updated this morning. It's kind of insane. So Connor McDavid is the runaway favorite to win the heart. And 61.2 percent of the money bet at MGM on the Hart trophy is on Connor McDavid. So just to give you some perspective, 61 percent. For the Norris, 81.6 percent of every dollar put on the Norris trophy in Las Vegas for bet MGM has been on Kale McCaw.

that's pretty insane. The book would get slammed if he were to win that. And then when you go to Hart, I don't have his, he didn't pop up on in terms of like the money bet. So right now the money is not on him for the heart. So if you want to get on that, you'd be early. He's 50 to 1 to win the heart right now, which is incredible odds. I mean, there are there are probably 15 guys above him in terms of the odds to win the heart. In my mind, I don't think that's a bad bad right now. 50 to 1 because I think it's going to be tough for him to compete with the numbers that McDavid and Ovechkin put up. But I do think that, I mean, the guy is on pace to do something that like puts him up there with Bobby Orr. And I think you get towards the end of the season, I think narratives play a lot into these awards.

And I think if you look at Kail McCarr and we're coming down to the last 10 games of the season and he's possibly chasing some sort of Bobby Orr milestone, he's going to be in there. right? Like he's going to be a finalist for the heart. If that if that's the case, if we, I mean, we're only a third of the way into the season, but if he's still on this Bobby Orr pace at the end of the season, he's absolutely going to be in consideration for the heart. So at 50 to 1, that seems like it would be a pretty good value to take that right now. Yeah, I'd jump on that at those odds. Because here's the other thing, right? And this, this would have felt stunning to say even a couple weeks ago. But if the Edmonton Oilers missed the playoffs, there's a lot of hard voters who will not vote for somebody who misses the playoffs or will move guys down their ballots.

So that could kind of blow the whole thing wide open. I will say this. The Hart Trophy famously is basically an award for forwards. The last defenseman to win the heart was Chris Pronger in 2000. And I'm going to read you the top five forwards on that St. Louis Blues team in scoring. They were led by Pavel Demetra, who had 75 points, a 30-year-old Pierre Turjan, Michael Hansu, Scott Young, and Lubars Bartecco were the top five forward scoring. So you compare that to the Colorado Avalanche with Nathan McKinnon and Michael Ranan and the talent that they have. I could see some voters saying, man, that team's so stacked.

Are you really the most valuable versus a guy like Chris Bronger where that, I mean, it was him and Al McKinnis. carrying that Blues team. It's pretty dicey. So I think he's a long shot, but 50 to one long shot, no way. That feels way too generous to me. And I think when, like, I totally agree with the forward talent. I think assists, like if he was putting up all these points with assist, I think that that would be more important, right? Like, well, he's just getting the puck up to these superstars.

But McCar's scoring goals. Like, it's insane how many goals. I mean, he's at 16 right now. there are only two other defensemen in the league with more than double digit. And I think, yeah, it's Roman Yossi with 12 and Eckblad with 10. And he's at 16 already. And he's played. And they're ridiculous.

Every day I go on Twitter and there's like some new highlight where I'm like, how did he do that? That's crazy. So, yeah. He's fun to watch. Is he the best defenseman in the NHL right now, like hands down? I don't know about hands. Look, look, I think you get a lot of Florida fans telling you that Aaron Eckblad is really, elevated his game.

And I think some Tampa fans would, I guess it's an interesting question, right? If you had to pick one defenseman, you got a game seven tonight. Would you go Victor Headman? Would you go, would you go, would you go, Kail McCar? Would, like, it's a great question.

And I think it depends on your philosophy. I think a lot of people would go Victor Headman if they had one game to win tonight. But I, I, I, what McCar is doing, it's like he's a wizard out there. And I think it's great for the game. I'd probably lean McCar, but there's probably two or three other defensemen in the conversation. Yeah, big-bodied guys.

McCar's not clear and out the front of the head as well as headman is. But, yeah, I think I'd take McCar, too. Yep. Me too. Here's where Sean says, actually, and here's why Morgan Riley deserves to be a conversation. As I learned this week, Thomas Shabbat's apparently the best defenseman in the entire world. So he's got to be in the conversation, too, right, sense fans? Oh, boy, here we go.

All right. Hey, Jesse, we'll leave it there. appreciate the visit. Great to have you back in the mix and we'll hit you up again next Thursday. Yeah, thanks for having you guys. Thanks, Jesse. All right, great to get Jesse Granger back in the mix.

And you know what? You did mention Ottawa Senators fans and Thomas Shabbat. I feel like I just want to hit on your column this week because it was an interesting. You had salary cap court back in session where you looked at a handful of players around the league and asked the question,

is their contract good or bad. And apparently you drew the ire of Samada with Senators fans for suggesting that Thomas Shabbat's eight years $64 million contract could potentially be bad. What I think is interesting is you came down to the conclusion. At the end of the day

you're like, actually, you know what? It's not a bad contract. Like is he a touchover paid for what he produces? Yeah, maybe. But it's not a bad contract. And yet, there's a lot of people that were angry that you even brought it up into the discussion, right? Yeah. And look, the point

of the piece is to take guys who are kind of in that gray area. You know, I had people say, well, how come you're not talking about Jeff Skinner? You're not, well, because those contracts are clearly bad. Nobody's debating a lot of those ones. I wanted to pick some where I felt like there was potentially some debate. And I will tell you, like I've, as an Ottawa guy who's, you know, not a sense fan, but, you know, I'm out there. I hear from a lot of fans on things. I've had people ask me that.

They're like, what's the deal of Tom? Shirt? Like, this guy is, you know, he's good, but why is he one of the 10 highest paid defensemen in the entire league? And so I put him in there. And my conclusion was it's not a bad contract. In fact, I concluded that much more, you know, I think out of the five guys I I had in the piece, that was the easiest one for me was to say, no, it's not a bad deal.

But here's the argument why it could be. Here's why I don't think it is, and that's that. And there's, you probably know this as well as anybody. When you put stuff out there, there's different types of feedback you get. Sometimes people are angry. Sometimes people disagree. They can be respectful. They can be not.

But there's that weird moment where you get feedback that doesn't seem to match what you actually said. And then you realize, oh, there's probably like somebody posted this on a forum or read it somewhere. And people haven't read the piece. They've just read the headline and they're mad about that. And I think, I hope that that's what was going on. But yeah, I defended your boy since fans.

I don't get why you're frustrated unless you believe that he's, you know, that the contract is completely beyond any debate, in which case I tell you, other fan bases don't feel that way. Yeah. So I'm on your side. But if you think it's not something that anyone out there is even quite. questioning, then I got bad news for you. Yeah. And again, people should check it out. It's a great column that looks at, like you said, it's those gray area ones. It's not the guy, like you said, Jeff Skinner is probably the best example of that or, you know, P.K. Suban this season or, you know, pick a guy that you think is making way too much. That's, that's not a fun debate. There is no debate.

A debate is something that legitimately you can look at two sides of something and then try to come down with a, you know, a firm conclusion at the end of looking at all the facts. So I, I, I thought it was good. Yeah. I mean, like I say, Shabbat's the tie for the 10th highest cap hit in the league. Is he the 10th best defenseman in the league? I can't imagine anybody would try to make that case right now. So it's worth discussing.

But like I said, I came down on the same side as Sends fans. So it was a little strange to have my phone blowing up with guys with Sends logos in their Twitter picture calling me an idiot. But it's how it goes. Yeah. All right, well, let's get into some mailbag. Actually, we'll take one mailbag question this week. And this one comes in from Kevin. I want to remind our listeners, if you do have a question for us,

we love answering your questions and queries and anything you've got ideas. We love quirky, weird ideas, too, for rule changes and the way that the game is done. So you can drop us an email, the athletic hockey show at gmail.com, the athletic hockey show at gmail.com. Or you can give us a phone call at 845-445. 8459. Kevin has a question, and this is something that I think has been nagging at us for a long time. Sean, I know you in particular don't love when people are talking about teams being 500. When really you've lost more games than you have, it's like fake 500.

Well, Kevin says, I just wonder, why is the NHL determined to stand out as the only Pro Sports League to sully its own reputation by assigning standings based not on wins and losses, but on points? And I say that because some games are worth two points and some games are word three. And Kevin says, you know, why doesn't the league just base its standings on who won the most games? And then in the event of a tie at the end of the year, you just look at the fewest number of regulation losses to determine who deserves to be higher in the standings. To me, it wouldn't alter these standings all that much, but it could certainly have an impact on the wild card spots. And it would certainly eliminate the greatest insult to math, as we know it, which is a team said to be above 500 when in reality they've lost more games than they've won.

What do you think about that? So that comes in from Kevin. Yeah, I mean, I'm certainly on board with what he's saying about 500 and how ridiculous it is that some games are worth more points than others. And, you know, he doesn't even really touch on the fact that we clearly see in the third period of tied games that teams start clamping down and playing for the tie. and it becomes a very often very boring hockey. The final minute, you just got some defensemen standing behind his net with the puck with no one near them because everybody wants to get to overtime. So yeah, I mean, there's lots of reasons I don't like it.

He's right. The NHL is the only of the big four North American sports, although soccer, I believe, also has a point system that they use, although they use their point system to incentivize teams to go for the win, not to go for the tie. So it kind of has the opposite effect. The reason the NHL is the only league with points is because for the longest time we had ties and ties were worth half a win and that was the easiest way to do it. I think you could absolutely make a case that now that we don't have ties anymore,

we should just go by wins and losses, same as every other league does. The argument against it would be that even though three-on-three overtime is entertaining and even though there's maybe a handful of people out there that still like the shoot-out, that those shouldn't count as real losses. That if you, you know, you should still get something because to lose in a shootout is kind of like losing a coin flip. And it's, it's not fair that you get nothing. And, you know, if you believe that, that's why you need to go to the three to one system. And then, you know, you're still getting something for those losses, but we're incentivizing going for the win.

or you could just flat out go for the win and say that's it. We're treating all wins and losses the same. It would be easier for new fans to understand. It would make a lot more sense. I'd be fine with either of those solutions. I think either one of them would be better than the mess that we have now. But as far as his real question of why isn't the NHL doing this? Because the NHL is run by the GMs,

and the GMs love that they have these fake standings pages, that inflate their records and make it look like they're doing better than they are. And that's simply it. It has nothing to do with keeping the playoff races closer. It has nothing to do with all these other excuses. The NHL throws out there that don't even make sense if you think about them. It's the GMs like, the GMs know that they are measured by their one loss record, and so they figured out a way to game the system and have a fake one loss record that looks better than it is.

and it would take real leadership for somebody to come in and take that away from them. And clearly that hasn't been the case yet. All right. So, Kevin, we appreciate that question and want to encourage anybody else. Like I said, we love the questions from our listeners. The Athletic Hockey Show at gmail.com, the athletic hockey show at gmail.com. Drop us your question. We'll tackle it at some point down the road in a future podcast episode. Let's wrap it up as we always do. With a little this week in hockey history, Sean, let's,

pick a couple of dates here from January this week in January in hockey history. I want to start with this. We'll go back to 1976. And to give our listeners a little bit, especially our younger listeners, a little bit of a perspective here, understand that in the mid-1970s, the Soviet Red Army team would come over and in the middle of the NHL regular season would play these hotly contested fierce games against NHL teams. Like imagine if like right now randomly in the NHL schedule, like,

Oh, by the way, like, you know, St. Petersburg is coming from the KHL, and there's going to be this spirited game against the St. Louis Blues in the middle of January. It's spirited. Not like, you know, an exhibition game where everyone's going half speed and trying not to get hurt. This was, this was, I mean, these games in some cases were more intense than a typical NHL game because, I mean, this is the sad. The Soviets are still the enemy, you know, and even if you get past that, they're, you know, that the other side of the, hockey world, they play this different style and we got to show them that we're really the best and, you know, all the lingering stuff from 72. And yeah, this was, nobody was fooling around in these games. These were high intensity.

Yeah. And on January 11th, 1970s, the Philadelphia Flyers hosted the Soviet Red Army team of the game at the old spectrum. Flyers, of course, were the at the time, the two-time defending Stanley Cup champions and were known as the Broad Street Bullies. And in the middle of that game, Sean, the flyers. the Flyers were doing what the Flyers always did back in the day, which was run around and they were being physically intimidating. They were running guys. And the Soviet Union and Victor Tickenoff was their head coach, the Red Army team. He pulled his team off the ice in the middle of the game.

And there's the infamous clip of Bob Cole. Yeah, they're going home. They're going home. The Philadelphia Flyers are running around and they're going home. And the Soviet Union team had to be, as the story goes, Sean, were basically told through a translator, okay, you guys can leave. If you do, you're not getting your money.

You're not getting your share of the gate and all the things. So they had to come back out on the ice. The Flyers ran rough shot over them, beat them 4'1. Here's my question, though, for you. Were the Soviet Union's forward thinkers? Were they ahead of their time for calling out this type of play? Because back in the day, we were all bloodthirsty hockey fans. They take them out.

And now it feels like a lot of fans have switched and said, you know what, the game doesn't need that. It should be a beautiful game with skill and a little bit of physicality, but that type of stuff should have been outlawed. Should we, should some revisionist history be done and say, you know what? The Soviet Union should be applauded for trying to call this out back in the day. I mean, they were ahead of their time, certainly in the sense that, I mean, hockey today doesn't resemble 1970s hockey at all.

I mean, and, you know, when we talk about the Flyers running around, like they were a real tough team, They could hit, they could fight, they could also hack and slash and be very dirty. You know, for all the, we like to think back then that in North America, we were tough and it was the Europeans were, no, no. The flyers could break an ankle just as easily as they break their, break your nose. And yeah, I mean, hockey has evolved from then, certainly to resemble far more what the, what the Soviet program looked like than what we were doing. over here. So in that sense, yeah, forward thinkers. At the same time, they knew exactly what they signed up for when they showed up in Philadelphia and they got halfway through the game and didn't like it and they quit and went home or tried to at least. So I don't know that we need to

revise our views of that game too much, even as we concede that, you know, all these years later, this is the style, the Broad Street bully style of play is no longer part of the NHL and the Soviet style is much more prevalent. You know, can you even imagine now? Like, do you ever think, I don't think it'll ever

happen again? We'll never get an NHL team. Like, first of all, like, we don't even see NHL exhibition games anymore against teams from other leagues. Like, we, we We even saw that a little bit in the 90s, right? Like some teams would go over to Europe and play. You see it a little bit when they do like the opening season, you know,

they'll send a team over to Europe. And sometimes they'll play an exhibition against, you know, one of the club teams there. But it's, it's, and it gets very little attention over here because it's just for you as a warm up game that they're having. Yeah.

No, I, yeah, it's, it's crazy to think that they were doing this in the middle of the regular season, like these. It would, yeah. And they're fierce games.

They were, they were, Game 7 intensity, like off the charts. And, you know, even later, they did this, you know, I remember going to one in Maple Leaf Gardens where it was, I think it was Moscow Dynamo came over to play the Leafs. Not as intense back then. You know, things had calmed down a bit, but still, it was certainly compared to what you see now when you put exhibition in front of a game and NHO players, everyone kind of slows down to half. speed. You know, there was some pride on the line. People wanted to prove that, you know, this style was the best style and this country had the

best players. It was, it would be hard for, I think, a fan today to imagine what those games were like back then. Yeah, let me throw one more this week in hockey history at you, and that is January 11, 1985. Edmonton Oilers forward, Pat Hughes becomes the first player to break an NHL record that was previously held by Wayne Gretzky. Gretzky, up until 1985, for a little window, had held the record for the fastest two short-handed goals in NHL history. Gretzky had scored two in 27 seconds during his unbelievable 1981-82 season, which, by the way, like, I didn't realize, like, Gretzky was killing penalties back in the day, too, which is

mind-blowing to me, right? Yeah, why not? Was he blocking shots? Like, can you even, like, nobody was blocking shots. fact that. There was, no, it was, Craig Ludwig was the only one. Yeah. And with his couch cushions on his legs. No, I don't think Wayne Gretzky was blocking shots. And he wasn't, I mean, honestly, he was barely even killing penalties. It's not like he's back there in a box, you know, breaking up passes. He's just sitting there going, all right, we got one less guy,

but I'm still going to score on you. And usually he did. Yeah. So Hughes breaks a Gretzky record and scores two goals in 25 seconds. And it got me thinking. Okay, well, obviously, we know that Gretzky's all-time goal record is within reach of Alexander Ovechkin. Are there any other Wayne Gretzky records, Sean, that are potentially within reach or that, you know, you could see another Gretzky record fall at some point? You know what? I called up a page that has all of his records, and I figured I'd be able to find a few. I don't know.

There's any of the single season ones barring a massive change in how the game is playing. are out of reach. Any of the rate-based one, you know, goals or assists or whatever per game, I think are out of reach. There is, I mean, most career overtime assists. He has 15. I could see somebody getting to that maybe, especially since we're encouraging so much more overtime and overtime is higher scoring. Doug Gilmore is second on that one. So, you know, somebody, and he, he had 13, so somebody got close. I could maybe see that one. The one that I think is, you know, is going to be tied is he holds a record for most 40

goals seasons. He had 12th. And I believe Alexander Ovechkin will have his 12th this year if he gets there. So again, it's goal scoring and it's Ovechkin again. But beyond that, I mean, you got to really dig down. I think there was one where it was like. points in a period in the playoffs or something was like three or four. Maybe somebody gets that.

Oh, here's the other one that I did find was he holds the record for the most assists in the Stanley Cup final. And he had 10 in a series. I could see somebody, you know, a seven-game series. Could somebody get a, you know, an assist in a half a game? I could see somebody doing that. Kretzky did it in a four-game series because he's won. Gretzky. But yeah, you know, maybe something like that I can see. Other than that, until we add like another round to the playoffs and something like that,

I just don't see any of these being in play. He's just, it's so ridiculous. Well, listen, we'll leave it there. This was a super fun show. I don't know if you and I actually do this show. Again, we may not be on speaking terms next week after this Dallas, San Francisco game coming up on the weekend. So we'll see if we're on speaking terms. and doing the show next Thursday. Yeah. If there's a guest host for whoever's team loses, then you know what's up.

You can put the pieces together. All right. Thanks everybody for listening to this latest edition of The Athletic Hockey Show. Like I said earlier, drop us any questions to The Athletic Hockey Show at gmail.com. If you're not a subscriber with us,

you can join us at theathletic.com slash hockey show. Get yourself an annual subscription to The Athletic for just $3.99 a month. You can also subscribe to the Athletic Audio Plus on Apple Podcast. get all of the bonus content from our entire network. You'll start with a 30-day free trial. And then it's just 99 cents a month after that.