The Athletic Hockey Show - Martin St. Louis becomes Canadiens' interim coach, Brad Marchand suspended six games, Tuukka Rask retires, and Sidney Crosby is on the verge of 500 goals

Episode Date: February 10, 2022

Ian and Sean kick off the show discussing the surprising news of Martin St. Louis becoming the interim coach of the Canadiens, following Dominique Ducharme's firing on Wednesday. After less than a year as head coach for Ducharme, it leads to a discussion on if other coaches have been fired so quickly after a Cup run. Which would be a more controversial hire, St. Louis...or Patrick Roy? Also, Ian gets an interesting Twitter follower as they record a show.Then, just as the guys were just starting to come around on Brad Marchand being likeable...Tuesday happens and he gets a six-game suspension for going at Tristan Jarry. Also, in more Bruins news, as goalie Tuukka Rask announces his retirement, is he the greatest netminder in Boston's history? Then, as Sidney Crosby is on the verge of hitting 500 career goals, what are some his most memorable ones? And if Ovechkin breaks Gretzky's goal scoring record, would you ever have Crosby's career, or Ovechkin's?To wrap up, the guys answer a couple of mailbag questions, and in "This Week in Hockey History", Daryl Sittler notches ten points in a game, and the NHL's expansion from six teams to 12.Have a question for Ian and Sean? Email [e-mail] or leave a VM: [phone]! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back, everybody. It is your Thursday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. As always, it's Ian Mendez's Sean McAdo. With you ahead in this podcast, boy, oh boy, do we have something to sink our teeth into? As the Montreal Canadians make a shocking change, not so much that Dominic Dusharm is out, it's that Marty St. Louis is in. We're going to talk about that. Brad Marchand gets his suspension from the Department of Player's Safety.

We'll hit on that. He did that in a meltdown game. against Pittsburgh, and guess what? Sid the Kid is on the verge of an NHL milestone. We'll discuss that. Take a couple of your questions where we open up our mailbag, including Jamie Ben's Art Ross game from a couple of years ago. Roll Cup of hockey.

We'll do a little bit of this week in hockey history, including Darrell Sittler, hitting a 10-point night in one game. But, Sean, I'll tell you what. I just need to know where you were, what you were doing, and how you saw it, that Martans-A-Louis is the new head coach of the Montreal Canadiens. Walk us through that. My honest answer is I was offline for a little while.

I get most of my news through Twitter because I'm on Twitter all the time. And this is one of those cases where I wasn't. And I had seen a couple of things go by and I saw his name. And when I looked on, I saw all these people talking about Martin-S-Louis and, you know, as coach and this. And I was like, man, that's a weird rumor to be out there. But, hey, who knows? Names get out there. And yeah, maybe they are thinking about him as an assistant or, you know,

as somebody to bring on. And it took me a while to realize, I'm like, man, people are being weirdly specific about this rumor. And then realized that they were talking about what at the time was basically a done deal. And a done deal for Martin St. Louis to come in as the, new head coach of the Montreal Canadiens with very, very little coaching experience on his resume. I'm probably being even a little bit kind, putting it that way.

It's, it's, it's, it's interesting. I mean, as someone in the writing and podcasting and content business, God bless the Montreal Canadians for this season, because they've, they've given us lots to talk about, but I gotta be honest, I don't get it. And I'm hoping you could explain it to me. Okay, so it kind of gave me, like, and I saw it,

and I think it was Frank Sarah Valley, the first tweet that I saw that had it. And I was, you know, you always think about those fake accounts and you think that I get duped and that's more of a trade. I'm with you. I'm like, Martin St. Louis. And I almost had the same feeling.

Remember when the Islanders named Garth Snow General Manager? and you're like, what? Was that before Twitter though? I feel like that was. Yeah, that was like a 2006 or something.

But yeah, it was the same sort of deal where you heard about it and you thought like, oh, does, Garst, isn't he the backup goal? Like, did he retire? Did I miss something?

And we had missed something, but did it all happen in a few hours? Yeah, that's not a bad comparable. I mean, it's a better comparison, I think, than the one that I've seen in a few places, which is, people are saying, well, you know, what about Rod Brindamore? Rod Brindamore was a player that, you know, that people loved him as a player, and he came in and he brings that emotion, he brings that fire, you know, and they love playing for him. And part of the reason players love playing for him is because, you know, he's been there. You know, he's not somebody who's watched it on film. He's lived it.

And he brings that passion to the locker room. And that's what Martin St. Louis is, the problem is Robert Rindamore spent a lot of years as an assistant coach. He paid a lot of dues and he learned what it took to be a coach in the NHL. And he set himself up well for success. And Martin St. Louis, I'm not knocking the guy, but he hasn't done any of that. So, I mean, I'm not saying that he should have hung up the phone when an NHL team called and said, is this something you're interested in?

But I just really have a tough time imagining the scenario where this works out really well, just given where this team is at now and what he has as far as experience-wise. I mean, look, it's going to be better than it was when they're losing 7 to 1 to the Devils. I mean, there's going to be a bounce here of some sort. There almost would have to be because this team is on the verge of being historically bad. So I don't think that the line for success or failure here is can Martens-in-Louis get this team up to playing 300 hockey? I think, yes, the passion and the enthusiasm he's going to bring and the credibility will probably do that. But as far as being the answer for the long term, if there is any view of the long term here, I don't really see it.

I've been shocked before by things that happened in the NHL, so let's find. I note, but I don't really see the logic here. I got to be honest. Yeah, it's, you know, we should point out a couple of things. We're recording this before they're having an 11 a.m., 1130 a.m. news conference with Marty San Luis, Kent Hughes on Thursday. So, you know, in the interest of transparency here, we're recording this before that comes out. So maybe we'll get some answers, right? Maybe we'll get a little bit more insight. But the keyword here is interim, right? Like, this is a classic interim. They're not married to Marty St. Louis. They didn't announce we've got a two-year deal. It's an interim deal. But what I find fascinating, I just want to, I want to go through. And you've

done this, you've done this a number of times in your columns where you're like, here's what Arpin, Arpin Basu, who writes for us. Okay. I just want to go through Arpin's timeline from last night. And I wonder if this was the breaking point. Like, I'm wondering, are Kent Hughes and the Canadian's brass, Jeff Moulson? Are they just, you? just looking at Arpin's Twitter feed and thinking, okay, maybe we do have to make a change because they're losing to the devil. They're getting smoked by the devils. Here are some of the tweets from Arpin in Dominic Dusham's final game. Okay, this one comes at 837 p.m. on Tuesday night.

I don't think there is anyone who fully understands what the Canadians are trying to do in their own zone, including the Canadians. Hey, look, the Canadians are losing 5-1 after two periods again. So it's garbage time again with 20 minutes left. This can't actually be true, but it just feels like 5-1 is the Canadians most common score this season, their natural habitat of sorts. Wow.

He then tweets out after the game, the quote from Josh Anderson, quote, I feel embarrassed, to be honest with you. And then Arpin's post-game story is headlined, is tagged, General manager Kent Hughes wants the Canadians to be able to have fun while playing hockey again, except his new team is poorly coached, and it's becoming more and more obvious with every game. Something has to give. I think Arpin just basically called this. If you just follow his timeline last 24 hours, it was inevitable.

Like that devil's game last night or on Tuesday night, that was the straw that broke it all. Yeah. Yeah. And look, if you're looking for a point. positive here or you're looking for a reason to say that, you know, this is this is going to be a good move. Your starting point is it couldn't get any worse. I mean, it really can't. The team has gone from bad to worse to awful to on the verge of making history. And look, I always, whenever we're talking about this stuff, I always feel the need to preface and say, you know, you hate to

see someone lose their job. But this was getting so bad that you almost felt bad. You almost felt bad. for Dominic Dushar. To the point where, you know, I'm sure he wanted to keep going and dig out of it and, you know, obviously would have benefited his career to do that. But there was a point where it just gets so bad that you almost feel like it's time to put someone out of their misery. Even if the plan was, as we were told by Jeff Gordon and by Kahn Hughes that they wanted to, it sounded like they wanted to get to the end of the season and make their decisions then in the offseason. they couldn't. It was just, it got so bad and man, you couldn't help but wonder what's going to happen when fans are back in that arena, when they could be half full or all the way full, and you're playing like this and you still got the same guy behind the bench.

It was going to go bad. So the logic or the argument would be, hey, they didn't want to make a change. You don't want to hire your new full-time long-term coach in the middle of a season if you can help it, because usually you don't have full access to everyone you want to talk to. You want to take your time. You want to do it in the off season. They wanted to get to the off season with Dominic Ducharm. They couldn't.

They had to make a change. So you know what? Bring in somebody and roll the dice. And who knows, maybe Martin Saint-Louis is going to just be able to, you know, maybe he's just a natural at this. And he's going to be the spark that can turn this around. And if he's not, you haven't committed to anything, you haven't risked anything. and you make the change in the in the summer the same way that you were planning to anyways

and you thank martin Saint-Louis and he gets some experience and everybody goes their separate ways and maybe it goes that way that's that's possible to me that the worst case scenario here is not that the team continues to stink if i mean if if they've been bad for half a year if they're bad for the second half then that's not on martin saint-Louis i don't think to reflect badly on him. It's a bad team. And it's a bad, it's a bad roster right now, partly because of how it's constructed and large because of all the people who are missing. And, you know, we've been over that. If, if they finish dead last, that's not the worst case scenario. The worst case scenario is Martin St. Louis comes in and he's just good enough to make you go, oh, maybe, maybe this guy's got,

maybe he's the guy, maybe he's not. And you wind up in that in between zone and you get to the of the season and now suddenly the players love the guy, the fans love the guy, you're kind of sitting there going, well, we got, there's more experienced guys who get higher, but I guess we got to bring this guy on, we got to keep him. And then it doesn't work out, which is kind of what happened with Dominic Dushar, where he, you know, after that cup run, of course, they had to keep him. And it just really didn't work out. That's the worst case for me. But, yeah, if you're a Havs fan, you're looking to find the bright side on this. The bright side is it can't possibly be any worse than sticking with the status quo.

You know, you bring up a good point in Douchard because he gets the three-year extension largely because of that unexpected run to the Stanley Cup. Let's be honest here, it has been less than a year since they fired Claude Julian, right? Like the February of 2021. Hell of a year for Dominic Dushar. Think about that. Like in less than a calendar year, or it was February 21st, 2021, I believe. leave was the date that they fired Claude Julian.

So in under 365 days, fewer than 365 days, Dominic Dushar went from an assistant, to a head coach, to the Stanley Cup, to one of the worst 40 game runs in the history of this league by a non-expansion team to kick to the curb and he's out. And the question I had for you, and I know you have the answer to this because I asked you beforehand, and I'm sure our listeners would appreciate a little bit of historical context here. So this is pretty rare, Sean, that a guy would guide it to.

team to a Stanley Cup final and get fired within seven months, eight months, what have you, of taking his team to the Stanley Cup. So how rare is this? And have we ever seen a coach lose his job in the shadow of taking a team to a Stanley Cup final like Dominic Doucher? I can't remember. Now, maybe there may be some people who can point to a similar case like this. Certainly, we have seen a lot of teams go to the final and lose and then,

fall off the following season. It's not all that rare in the last decade or two to see that. So maybe there's been a team that has made a change like this. I can't remember. The one that comes to mind for me is Al McNeil. And that's going back a ways if people don't remember. We've got to go back to the very early 70s for this one. And Al McNeil was a guy who took over the 70-71 Canadians from their coach

who I believe quit about 20 or 30 games in. He was having ulcers, was having medical problems. Alan McNeil gets promoted, takes the job, guides them the rest of the year. They go into the playoffs. They end up winning the Stanley Cup. I think this is the Ken Dryden year where he comes in as a rookie and they end up winning the Stanley Cup. But along the way, McNeil is just, you know, just a guy who's there to manage this veteran roster. he ends up feuding with some of the players.

I think it's, you know, maybe, I think it was Henri Richard. Henri Richard, absolutely, yeah. He ends up getting, you know, he's budding heads with him. They win the Stanley Cup and Al McNeil gets fired that offseason and ends up not coaching again for several years. I think he ended up coming back with the flames towards the end of the decade. But that was a very strange case. Obviously, we have seen both Mike Keenan,

and more recently Barry Trots leave Stanley Cup winners the following off season, but they've done that of their own accord and not situations where they were fired halfway through the year. But no, I can't really remember a situation like this one with Dushar. But if anyone out there does, reach out and let us know. You know, so I'm just looking up this story of how Al McNeil lost his job with the Montreal Canadiens. So he sits, he benched Henri Richard in game five of the Stanley Cup final in 1971. Okay.

He benches him for most of the game. After the game, and the Canadians are not losing the series three games to two. Henri Richard says, quote, Al McNeil is the worst coach I've ever played for. In the middle of the Stanley Cup final. Yeah. Okay. according to the report I'm reading, the backlash against McNeil,

because you remember Henri Richard, I mean, this is hockey royalty, right? Oh, in Montreal, absolutely. Okay. McNeil, the backlash was so strong he was receiving death threats. The police had to give him around the clock protection

for the rest of the Stanley Cup playoffs, and that included at the rink and on the bench during game six of the Stanley Cup final. The Canadians came back to win game six and then came back to erase a two-gold deficit to win game seven and then McNeil was relieved of his duty shortly thereafter. Yeah, that's, I mean, you won't see something like that again.

You imagine a player saying that. In the middle of the Stanley Cup. I mean, it wasn't uncommon back. Like, everyone hated Scotty Bowman. Yeah. You know, they didn't say it necessarily out loud, but that wasn't rear at all. So, yeah, it's hard to imagine, though, now.

And so, I mean, we never got to the police protection point with Dominic Dusharma. Yeah. I mean, you ran down his year. We didn't even mention sitting out getting COVID in the middle of the playoff run and missing an extended amount of time. And, I mean, it just unbelievable. I mean, I have no, I'm not saying this is it for him as a coach in the NHL. but he packed more into less than a year than an awful lot of guys, a lot of guys pack into long, long careers.

Yeah. And, you know, I'm thinking to, with Marty St. Louis, just to wrap up the thought on the Canadians here, and we'll bounce around because there's some other pretty interesting stories. But just to wrap up this thought, you know, Marty St. Louis is an out-of-the-box higher and certainly has stirred some emotions. is it what's more controversial the Canadians hiring Marty St. Louis or if the Canadians had hired Patrick Waugh to have been their head coach? Oh man. You know, this might be a more controversial or a more

jaw-dropping moment when you find out about the hire long term. You're never beaten Patrick. Patrick Waugh would would just take over that town for good and for bad in a way that the Marta S. Louis or anyone else is not going to do. No, I don't, I don't think anyone could beat King Patrick when it comes to be in the center of attention and be an ongoing soap opera storyline. Yeah. I all do respect to Martaise, way. I hope he doesn't take it as a challenge, but I don't, I don't think anyone's, anyone's getting up there with Patrick. Well, and the other thing is there's no way, like we just said Marty St. Louis coming in on an interim deal. Like, Patrick would not want to take the job on an interim deal, right?

He would be like, it's five years or nothing, right? You'd think. You would have to think. I mean, that's, and he wants to be the GM, and he might be the goal. He might be their best option and goal right now the way things are going. I think you do. I think you'd just give him everything. Yeah, GM coach.

Isn't that what like Lester Patrick did back in the day for the Rangers? Wasn't he like coach and the goalie? Well, he went, yeah, he went in for one game when he was 40-something. so I mean, Patrick could do it at 50, I'm sure. Yeah. We talked a few weeks ago about player coaches. This is our guy. Yeah.

And you know what? Depending on how it goes, the job might be open in the summer. Yeah. And wait, Lester Patrick was, like, are we, are you telling me, I know we had some fun with the Wendell Clark line, are you telling me that you and I are now older than Lester Patrick was when he went in as the goal? I don't want to think about that because I remember having like books as a kid where they had like drawings of this. gray-haired old man very old man and yeah

I think he was in his 40s that was us that's us oh boy that's if we got pressed into action that's how history would remember us is a couple of guys in their 40s like I think I think you man I always thought he was like in his 60s

or something the way that the pictures were I you know what it was I'm looking it up right now it was 1928 yeah he was he was 45 Oh my God. I'm 45. I'm older than Lester Patrick was when he he came in heroically. I'm looking at the picture of him. This isn't even a drawing. It's a photograph. What happened back then? Did people just, I guess, I mean, you gave up.

Everybody was smoking three packs of cigarettes every day. People are getting married at 17. Like, you're right, smoking. Like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, they're not taking care of themselves the way you I are. Imagine like we need to find that picture of Lester Patrick at the age of 44 and put it side by side by Tom Brady who's also 44. Oh no, oh man. Yeah, that's there's there's no way. There's no way this is the same guy. He's, uh, you know, grandpa or like like, like who is this? Hey, well, this is them at the same age. He's all hunched over and this is, okay, I don't, I don't want to have this conversation anymore. No. Change the subject.

Okay. You know what? I need to tell you something because this literally just happened right now. And we're going to talk about Brad Marchand here. But I feel like you're going to be, this is really weird. You know, you get the Twitter notifications when a, you know, like a verified blue check person follows you or whatever. Okay. Okay.

Will or not? No, no, you're going to be, you're more excited than I am for this. Okay. All right. W.W.E. Hall of Famer Sergeant Slaughter. is now inexplicably following me on Twitter. Now, now I should, the caveat being he's following like 48,000 people. But my phone just buzzed and told me Sergeant Slaughter is following me.

And I feel like I need to share this with somebody. And I feel like you're that person. Are you sure that it was on Twitter? Like you maybe this wasn't like a, like this wasn't a warning or something. Sergeant Slaughter is following you. No. That's okay. Look at this.

Look at all these people. He's not following me. So I'm just going to, you know. Hold on. Sergeant Slaughter's following me and not you? Apparently, yeah. I'm looking down his list right now. I don't.

All right. We will move off of the unexpected social media following Sergeant Slaughter that I just got to Brad Marchand. And what I think is interesting is not two weeks ago, Sean. We had the conversation. We're like, damn, is Brad Marshan likable? Like, look at the things he's doing on social media. And he's poking the hurricanes and he's poking, you know, fun of people, the Oilers, and he's taking people's phones.

And you know what? This guy's pretty funny. And then, you know, we're hearing stories of he's helping out people back home where he grew up. You know, Brad Marchand, he's just misunderstood. And we're like, yeah, maybe he's turned the corner. And then Tuesday night happened where he went after Tristan Jerry a couple of times, not just the time he got suspended for the thing where Jerry looked like you're trying to get the puck to the fan. Which a lot of people.

thought was kind of funny and, you know, I mean, it was a jerk move, but he was playing the character, right? He's living the gimmick. It's, and it's in Boston too, right? Like, so it's not like he's taken away in Pittsburgh. He's doing it, which maybe it's a different conversation, but what are we making this now? And he gets slopped with his six game suspension. Yeah. And then at the end of the game, things kind of go sideways. And he both throws the punch and then comes back with the stick. And, I mean, that's really what got on. I mean, you throw a punch that maybe gets you a fine or maybe a game.

But when you come back with a stick near somebody's head and face, even someone wearing a goalie mask that clearly crossed a line in the eyes of the Department of Player Safety. And so bad news for the Bruins, but good news for all the rest of us, because we can go back to hating Brad Marchand. it's the natural order of things. You know, we, we can go back to considering him a rat and all the rest of it and, and not having to like this guy as much, which, you know, as I said, it's, it's more fun that way, I think, for everyone, probably including him. Yeah, it's, you know, it's funny because he's the guy that was banging the drum the loudest about the Olympics, and now ironically, he's going to be off in pretty much the same window

that the men's Olympic tournament is taking place. And I, boy, you know, I, like, in your estimation, what did you have a bigger problem with, with Marchand? Was it the punch that Jerry were kind of going by him and sticking him in the mask? Yeah. It's, it was the stick. I mean, and I'm not, I'm not trying to act like a punch. And, you know, a bit of a sucker punch is, is, is nothing.

But, you know, Jerry was mixing it up with some guys too. and, you know, I think it had been left there, but you can't go in with a stay. I mean, if that stick slips through somehow, gets through that mask and, you know, it's up around someone's face or eyes, that can do some damage. And there's no need for it. It's over. You're being pushed away by the linesmen. It's done.

And that, you know, that's always been a thing in hockey is once the linesman's in there and is directing you off the ice, you got to go. You know, you can't, you can't spin off and try to get back into the altercation and, you know, especially if you're going to do it waving a stick around. So it's, you know, it's the sort of thing. I'm sure he maybe felt like he had his reasons to do it and, you know, maybe he looks back and feels like it got out of control on him or maybe he looks back and it feels justified and all right, in that case, you do the crime, you do your time. And, you know, nobody got hurt out of it. It ended where it ended, but it was the sort of thing that the league is going to take action on.

I was a little surprised when they went in-person hearing and that they went as high as they did, but not shocked. I mean, that was certainly within the window of what they could have done for that sort of thing. You know, and sticking with the Bruins, too, they're in the news, and that Tuka Rask has officially decided to hang them up. And it's been a great career, 15 years for Tuka Rask. all time winning his goalie in Boston Bruins history. 308 wins, Sean.

And I've seen the conversation kind of being bandied about people saying, hey, Tuka Rass is the greatest goalie in Boston history. And then that opens up certainly a conversation of, hey, can you be the greatest goalie in your franchise's history when you've never won a Stanley Cup? And Tuka, of course, went to the Stanley Cup final. I just couldn't get over the hump. I mean, as I look at the all-time list of goalie wins for the Boston Bruins,

Okay. So this is all-time regular season wins. Rasky's number one in 308. There's a couple of other guys that are kind of in the 200 neighborhood and up. Tiny Thompson, which is an all-time great name. He won 252 games. Frank Brimwick. And I'm not looking at him. I'm not looking at either of those guys up because they're going to be wrinkled up shriveled old man. I'm going to find out there 27. So I'm not doing that. 27-year-old Tiny Thompson looks like Tiny Tim or whatever. I don't even want to think how small you have to be to be called Tiny in like the 1920s. I don't know, but unless it was one of those ironic names where he was like six foot three.

Oh, yeah, he was the biggest goalie. Yeah, okay, well, he was Tiny Thompson, I looked it up was 510. So it probably was ironic because back then 510 was gigantic for a bulltender. Legit, he was 5'10 on his hockey reference page. It was a big boy. Okay, Tiny Thompson was, but it's like right on the cusp, right? Like five, like, it's not quite ironic, but maybe in the 1920s, it was probably ironic. That's what I'm guessing, yeah.

Yeah. Tiny Thompson, Frank Brimzick is next and wins. There you get into a little bit more of the modern era and goalies that won Stanley Cups in Jerry Cheever's and Tim Thomas. Thomas has 1096 wins. If I asked you just, and again, we're kind of looking at this from afar, is Chouca Rass the greatest goalie to ever play to the ball? Like, does he deserve the mantle of greatest goalie in Bruins? I think you can make the argument really well. I mean, it's hard looking back at guys that played even pre-original six.

You know, Tim Thomas was the greatest bronze goalie ever in terms of if you have to win one game, that's at the height of his powers, that's the guy that you want. For two years, Tim Thomas was head and shoulders the best goalie in the NHL, period, including a year that he won the Stanley Cup, didn't have the longevity. certainly and didn't have the long career because he didn't make the NHL for so long. So I'm not sure, you know, this kind of gets down to what do we mean when we say somebody's the best. Do you want the long career or do you want the peak? I don't think, you know, Tim Thomas at his peak was great, but Dukeuras was a resident guy at his peak.

And Jerry Chevers was very good, but I don't, I'm not going to move Jerry Cheever's ahead of Tuka Rask because he won a couple of Stanley Cups in an era where there were 12 or 14 teams, half of which were expansion teams. And, I mean, it really, you kind of had to beat the Havs. And that was it to get to win the Stanley Cup back then versus Tuka Rask not doing it in a 26 or 30 or 32 team league. I think it's just, it's very different. I think you could absolutely make the case that Rask is the best ever. And it's weird.

I honestly feel like, and maybe some Bruins fans can tell me if I'm imagining this, but there's always been this kind of knock against him that he wasn't your big game guy. And it's as weird as it is, I feel like if 2011 never happens, I don't feel like that sticks to rest the same way it does. If we just skip like right from 2010 to 2012 and he's the guy, he never won a cup, but he gets you to a couple of finals and then he's considered a great goalie. but the fact that one of the years that it wasn't the Tukarash show and that Tim Thomas comes in and holds down the job, and they go all the way that year, I almost feel like that set this unrealistically high,

a set of expectations. Because, like I said, Tim Thomas, for a couple of years there, was as good as any goal he has ever been short of Dominic Hasick and maybe even close to his peak. The fact that Tukuras lost his job to that guy and they won a cup doesn't mean that Rask was a guy you couldn't win with because they did win with them. They won an awful lot with them, both in the regular season and the playoffs. The fact that they collapsed in a few seconds in 2013 and lost a game 7 at home in 2019,

to me, does not make this a guy that you slap a loser label on. He was great. You know, I'm looking at the all-time list of Bruins goalies here. And you know how you usually do, you do your evil trivia on the website, on our app and our website with the Athletic? I got a great question for your, you know, next time you do a multiple choice. Okay. Which one of these goalies never played for the Bruins? Because I'm looking at a list here.

There's a couple of guys that I completely forgot they played for the Bruins and they're goal. Okay. So one you're going to know for sure because you know everything about this guy, I think, is Felix Potfan. I have no recollection of Felix Potvin. I have no recollection of Felix Potvan played 12 games for the Bruins, it looks like, back in 2004. Yeah, he bounced around to a lot of the deal. I don't, I remember that he played for the Bruins. I couldn't give you any memories of him playing with the Bruins.

Yeah, okay. So he's one guy and I'm like, okay, well, I don't really remember. Oh, sorry, maybe he played 12 games. I can't quite. Anyway, so I don't really remember him playing for. The Bruins. I also have no recollection of Marty Turco playing for the Bruins. Ooh.

Do you? Yeah. Five games, it looks like. Only five. Okay. Yeah. No, I don't remember that. No,

right? So I think you've got the basis of a question here, which of these guys, I think you can pick another goal. And then there's one other guy, Tim Shevelday played for the Bruins. Wow. Do you remember? No, I remember. I mean, Shevel day, I remember with the Red Wings, obviously.

as a Leafs fan. And I think he went to the Jets, right? Yeah. Yeah. No, I don't remember the bro. But that's the thing. Like the goalies bounce around so much. There, and especially, and maybe this, well, maybe this, this isn't, maybe this is me just,

just thinking this. It feels like back then, 80s, 90s, early 2000s, goalies bounced around a lot. And there were, like, you know, like Sean Burke ends up playing for like six or seven teams. Kirk McLean goes on and plays for five or six. teams. There's, you know, guys like Ron Hextel was played for more teams than you would think. And whereas now it feels like guys maybe go longer with one team, but maybe that's, maybe that's not the case.

But yeah, those those like B minus goalies kind of bounced around everywhere back then. Yeah. So anyway, next time you're doing the trivia, you can go Felix Bodvan, Marty Turgo, Tim Shovel Day, and then just pick anybody you want. Yep. That, you know, Kirk McLean would be a great guy, right? like to throw in people like, yeah,

probably Kirk McCleine, like, well, but then again, I don't remember Marty Turco playing for the Bruins, right?

Or feelings spot band. So, you wouldn't, but those are exactly the, the types of questions. Hey, and just,

just put a bow on this. As a teenager playing competitive ice hockey, Thompson acquired the nickname Tiny as a joke as he was the tallest player on the team standing

five foot 10 and the nickname stuck to do the rest of his crew. So I was right. 510 made you the tallest guy on the team. back then. And yeah, so that's, it was.

It was, it was like a little John type ironic nickname. Yeah, like, well, they always say, like, if you could travel back in time to the 1700s, 1800s, right? Like, we would be, we would all be Zadena O'Chara. We'd be like, wow, who is this young-looking giant? What do you mean, he's 44? Yeah. Yeah.

Hey, by the way, there's one other random name of a Bruins goalie here. This is a classic. Do you know the Bruins once had a goalie named Percy Jackson? No, I didn't. Like the Lightning League series? I'm assuming not the author, but 1932 to 1936, Percy Jackson played goal for the Boston Bruins. That's an interesting one. I didn't know that.

I knew that there was, there had been, there was a goalie in the NHL name Richard Bachman and a forward name Stephen King. I don't know if we ever saw them in the same place at the same time. Yeah, that's, that's, oh boy, I'm already making my, uh, uh, NHL players who share names with authors, all time roster. That's going to be a 4,000 word article. Oh, man. Well, there's got to be like some Tom Clancy to play for the Rangers back in the, we got to work on this. I mean, step one is I'm going to have to, you know, find some books and actually, uh, uh, learn the names to some authors. But after that, I'm, I'm going to be all over it.

Okay. Hey, I mentioned obviously Marshaan kind of went off against the penguins. Sidney Crosby is sitting on the precipice of a milestone here. Could get it as early as Thursday in Ottawa. I feel, look, listen, I feel like I need to point this out. I don't want Sid to get his 500th goal in Ottawa Thursday, not because I don't want to kind of witness history. I think that would be cool.

I think if you score your 500th goal and there's 500 fans in the building, it's not the same, right? Like, it's not, I don't want it for him. I, I, I'd prefer it to be in another moment. Like, don't you think if you're Sidney Crosby, if you play in front of a full house, maybe you, it's fine, would you want to score your 500th goal in front of 500 fans? Well, I mean, you could give like each fan a puff with like,

each fan with a goal from one of your goals. Yeah. Everybody look under your chair. There is a piece of paper with a description of one of Sydney Crosby, these goals. Yeah. And you're going to get, yeah, no, it's probably not the, uh, the all time greatest moment.

I mean, there's, uh, it's always great when you see a guy get the, like hit the milestone at home or like on his former team, you know, Wayne Kretsky doing it against the Oilers. Uh, this would be the exact opposite of that. I think we can say. Yeah. And listen, it's funny that you mention, uh, you know, everyone look under your seat and you'll get a description of one of Sidney's, uh, goals.

So if I asked you, you know, if you think of Alex Ovechkin, you think of some unbelievable, like I was thinking of the Ovetian goal that he got against Arizona years ago, right? Remember kind of on his back? And he, you know, he's got a couple of those in his resume. There's the one where he kind of spins around in the neutral zone and comes in. And, you know, when you close your eyes, you can think of a couple of iconic Ovechkin goals. When I ask you to do the same thing for Sid Crosby, is there a jaw-dropping?

I can't believe what I just saw a goal that. he's got on his resume for you? I don't know if it's this to the same level as that one Oveckin goal, but he definitely has scored some nice ones and he's he's also, you know, he's had some real nice ones where he's

you know, bat it pucks out of the air coming in at high speed and knock to rebound in and stuff like that. I don't know that I have anything that I would hold up as the highlight real goal. I mean, obviously the most

famous city Crosby goal is the one that's not even on that list of 500 because it's the Olympic gold medal winner. And, you know, I'm sure there's somebody out there muttering about how you'd rather have the gold medal winning goal than some fancy on your back goal against the coyotes or whoever. But, no, it's, you know, Crosby, he's got the 500. He doesn't have, like, necessarily the incredible highlight real goal. but he also doesn't have like the signature goal like Ovechkin has. Ovechkin, it feels like there's the one goal where he flips over on his back and then 750 power play goals from the same spot on the ice that look exactly the same.

Crosby could beat you all different ways, all over the place. And it's sort of, you know, it's funny. I was saying on my other show today that 500 feels like the wrong number for Crosby. It feels like he should either be much higher or much lower than that. Like you almost like you almost expect he should be at 600 or 650 or something. But he's, you know, he's a center. He's a playmaker and obviously missed a lot of time in his career as well. So it's going to be a great moment.

And I'm starting to think this guy's going to the Hall of Fame. I call me crazy. Well, hot takes are coming on the Thursday show. Okay. Actually, this might be a legitimate hot take question for you. Okay. And we're going to go ahead and assume that Ovechkin breaks Gretzky's record. Okay?

So let's say Gretzky break, sorry, Ovechkin breaks Gretzky's all-time scoring record. Now I'm going to ask you, whose career would you rather have? Would you rather have Sidney Crosby's career, which is three Stanley Cups, two gold medals, obviously, you know, heart trophies and Art Ross trophies and, you know, 500 goals and all these things? Would you rather have Alex Ovechkin's career, which would be the all-time goal scoring record, a Stanley Cup and, you know, obviously a bunch of Rock and Richard trophies and some other accolades. Whose career would you rather have?

Now, let me clarify what you're asking here. Is this whose career would I rather have like for my favorite player on my team? Or is this whose career do I want? Like I get to snap my fingers and I get to be this guy. Yes, you get to be that guy. You snap your finger and you get to be that guy. Who would you rather be, sit or over? Somebody actually asked me this.

in a mailbag a few months ago. And my answer was that I'd rather be Ovechkin. And my reason was not getting into, you know, well, who won this or this award or that. It's just, this guy, there is nothing, or at least very little.

I've played a lot of sports, all the sports in my life. I've been good at some, not so good at others. I don't know if there's anything as much fun as scoring a goal in hockey. Like just, all the just, all the different ways you can do it you know just just getting the shot off and watching it go where you wanted it to go and get

past the goal and go into the net it's just such a great feeling and this is a guy who's going to have done it more than anyone else in history in the NHL that just sounds like it would be fun as hell and he looks like he's having so much fun out there and uh you know compare that to Crosby you know I have a center now I got to play defense I got a back check

win faceoffs all this stuff No, I want to stand in the face off circle and hammer the puck 700, 750, 800 times into the top corner. I think that would be great. Now, if Ovecund had never won the cup, then maybe you start to go, oh, boy, I don't know, would I really want to go through the whole career? But the fact that he got it, to me, that seals the deal. Plus the fact that if I got to have their careers, that means if I'm Crosby, I've got to go through the concussion, I've got to go through the questions. I mean, am I going to play again and all that stuff, whereas Ovechkin's been pretty hells. healthy. Call me shallow, man, but I just like seeing the red light go on. I think, I can't think

anything more fun than being the guy who did that more than anyone else in the history of the game. Yeah, I tend to agree with you. And again, I think it's because OVs got his cup too, right? Yeah. If he didn't have the cup, it would have been that becomes tougher. Yeah, it's a little bit tougher, but he's got a cup. Three cups, gold medal against being the guy. Because let's be honest, right? I mean, if Ovechkin doesn't get the cup, then that's the asterisk that we all put on him, fair or not. You know, people like us, he retires.

Oh, he retired with 800 goals, but you know what? He never got blah, blah, blah, blah. He doesn't have to deal with that now, or at least he shouldn't. I'm sure some people will still try to stick on him that he didn't win enough, but he got his one, and the difference between one and zero is massive. So I feel like that makes all the difference.

Yeah, well, ask guys like Joe Thornton or Marcel Dionne about just getting one, right? Ask a Lee fan. I'll let you know. Yeah, I was trying to stay away from that. Thanks. Let's open up the mailbag, shall we? Open up the mailbag, and a reminder you can reach us at the athletic hockey show at gmail.com.

The athletic hockey show at gmail. Or drop us a voice bell. We've had a couple of those in the last couple of weeks. 845-4-4-5-8459. All right, we've got a couple of emails here. Sean, let's get to this one from Chris. And a couple of weeks ago on the Thursday edition of the pod, We were talking about Jamie Ben in that kind of surprising Art Ross trophy.

And I think we said, didn't he went like on the Sunday, the last Sunday of the regular season, he racked up a handful of points. Well, Chris has emailed us and said, you know what? You guys were talking about Jamie Ben and the Art Ross. I was at that game as an Islanders fan and I'll confirm your shockingly good memories. Jamie Ben won the trophy with a hat trick. And the third goal went into an empty net. He then assisted on a fourth goal with just nine seconds left.

That was the cherry on top. John Tavares is gone, and I'm still mad about that. That's from Chris, because, yeah, Tavaris was right, it came right down to that final weekend, and Tavaris could have had the Art Ross trophy, right? Yep, it was, that was, he was the guy who was going to win it. And then Jamie Ben pulled off the four-point game. And, yeah, I remembered the late goal.

I didn't remember that there had been an empty-net goal before that. Yeah, that was a heartbreaking way to lose it. Although, I got to say, I'm shocked by this listener email that we've got an Islander fan who's mad to this day that John Tavares didn't win. I feel like you retroactively. Every Islander fan I know seems like they would retroactively be glad that Jamie Ben got those goals. He took that honor away from the traitorous backstabbing bedsheet-loving snake who betrayed his team by becoming a free agent and signing with a different team. Yeah, Johnny bedsheets or whatever they were.

Johnny bed sheets, yeah, don't call, not pajamas. Yeah, not Johnny pajamas. He never wore the pajamas. We didn't see the pajamas. Yes, they could have, maybe he had the PJs on underneath, but we didn't see that. They were bedsheets. Okay. James emails us as well and says, with the recent talk that the World Cup of hockey might

be returning to February in 2024 and presumably replacing the All-Star game, is it time that the NHL return and, sorry, and with the possibility of, the NHL returns the Olympics one day. It seems to be like the All-Star game may lose even more importance than it already has. Is it time for a major overhaul here? And, you know, it's an interesting point. What did you make of that? And these stories don't get floated out out of nothing.

There's obviously some concrete intel on this, that the NHL is contemplating some sort of best-on-best tournament in season, February of 24. And I got to ask you because, Sean, in the past when they've done a best on best outside of the Olympic cycle, be it the Canada Cup, World Cup of hockey, it has always been in September.

What do you think about pausing the season and doing this in February? Yeah, I mean, it would work fine. If that's what they need to do to get some sort of best-on-best hockey out there, then go ahead and do it. I'm all in favor of it. I certainly am not going to shed

any tears over not having, you know, if it means the All-Star game gets bumped. No issue with that. I'm on record. It's not really being much of a fan. I prefer it in September. I, and maybe that's just force a habit for me. But I think, you know, I like the fact that the players come in. First of all, everyone's healthy. So you're not worried about, you know, oh, this country's missing this guy or this goalie's hurt. And now, you know, that's going to change everything. It's true best on best, just about everyone's healthy and they're ready to go and you can even you know you can do it sort as you're also doing training camps even because the superstars oh you know if they miss if they miss their camp that's that's not the end of the world so uh it all it it's it tends to fit in well i i like

september but if if they've got a reason for not wanting to do that i don't think that's a stick it's not a reason not to do it put it that way if you want to if you want to do it in february go ahead. I do have to point out that for years and years now, we've been hearing every time it comes around to the Olympics time, all these NHL owners crying about, oh, it's so disrupted to the schedule. It throws off our schedule. And now that it's something that they're actually going to put together, they're going and saying they want to put it in the exact same spot and disrupt their own schedule, the exact same way. If I didn't know any better, I think that maybe they weren't being completely honest about why they didn't want to go to the Olympics in the first place.

Yeah, exactly. The answer is all, I've been told many times, the answer is always money. Don't even think for a second the answer is something other than money. It's always money. So follow the money trail. Hey, but I got to ask you, though, if we go to this format, World Cup of hockey every other year, it's got to be best on best, right? Like, we can't have the Young Guns team, can we?

I don't, I mean, I'd rather not. I'd rather have best on best. I know the young guns were fun. It was a very cool thing to see. Yeah. You know, they were fast. They were skilled. It was really eye-opening.

I do think that it was a little bit of a lightning in a bottle thing and that you had McDavid and McKinnon and Matthews and all of these guys could be on that team. I don't know. It's always going to be like that. But no, I would rather see, you know, I'd rather see Connor Bedard on Team Canada. than see him having to skate around with, you know, with whoever else from the American side is, is on the Young Guns team.

And same with Team Europe. And I know that, you know, part of the issue with that is he say, well, yeah, how many teams are you going to have? You're going to do six? You're going to do eight? Well, what about this player? He doesn't get to play. What about these guys?

They're not going to be invited. And the answer might just be, yeah, maybe that just is how it goes. but I would prefer to see not you know don't do the young guys do something like that at the all-star game you know with the listener was asking about do we mess with the format of the all-star game do something like that have have a young you know have a rookies versus young guys versus older guys versus the super old guys and you know maybe people find some pride playing that way I don't know but I I don't love messing with an international tournament even though I will admit that it did work out pretty great the last time.

You know what? And I wanted to bring this up because, you know, last week on the podcast going into the All-Star game, I said, you know what? I wondered, did the NHL lose its kind of sizzle or like the All-Star game lose its competitive edge when they shifted the game from a Tuesday night to a weekend game, right? They were like, yeah, maybe that. I just thought of something during the week. I'm like, well, wait, wait a minute.

do you think it lost its edge when they introduced the skills? Like, it's almost like the skills competition made it into a carnival and a novelty act, the whole thing. Well, is there an argument for that? Or maybe the,

maybe the issue is that the skills was just so much fun that it kind of, it was supposed to be the thing, the appetizer, but the appetizer became so good that you sort of realized the meal itself. wasn't as good as you thought. I don't... Yeah.

Because, you know, those early skills competitions were pretty competitive, you know, and they were pretty simple, too. It was, we're going to do hard a shot, accurate,

we're going to have a race. You know, that was pretty much it. And, you know, now it's, it's obviously, look, they're trying new things now,

and I'm not going to, I'm not going to rag on the NHL for trying some things and trying to get creative. But, yeah, I mean, the reality is,

I think where it lost its luster is as the NHL got more and more competitive. Everyone got bigger. Everyone got in better shape. Everyone was going full speed all the time. And to have another game where you're expected to go full speed, it was like, forget it, man. I'm exhausted. I am just going to go out there and I'm going to play at half speed. And so is everyone else.

And that's the best you're going to get out of us. And that's where we wind up. You know, and again, I just have this memory come back. as you talked about those early skills competitions, can I bring up something? You tell me if I'm wrong on this. Okay. But, okay,

Raymond Bork was like the first guy to go four for four on shooting the targets. You remember this? I remember him going four for four, yeah. Yeah, I think he was the first guy. But I remember sitting there as a kid watching and thinking like, I kind of feel like you're an NHL player. Like maybe you should hit four for four. But I remember, like, Pete, the place went bananas.

It was like, it was unbelievable. was like, I don't know. Like, I, I kind of feel like if you're an elite NHL player, there's four targets and you hit them and you're not that far. You're kind of in the high slot. Am I the only one who isn't overly impressed by that? We're going to get Ian out there and we're going to see what he could do. Yeah.

Maybe, but that was the thing. But then you saw it happen and you were like, oh, man, even these guys kind of struggle with it a bit until Bork came in. And it was great. I love the accuracy shooting because it's, you know, the, the, the, the, the, the, The hardest shot is great, but the hardest shot, you can't tell who's got the hardest shot. It's just eight guys taking a slap shot and then a number comes up. Same with the fastest skater, if it's not head to head at least.

You have no idea really as you're watching it, whereas accuracy you can see it. But yeah, that Ray Bork, that infamously, according to legend, may have influenced the decision to have him go in the shootout years later in Nagano. So maybe. See, another reason they hated. Yeah, that's that was the moment that we all. turned against the All-Star weekend. Yeah. All right. Let's, as we always do, we're going to wrap up with this week in hockey history.

Want to let our listeners know, though, no Jesse Granger this week, no Granger things. Usually that segment is brought to you by our good friends at BetMGM. But this week, we're recording the pod late, late, late on Wednesday night, pretty much almost midnight eastern time. And the Golden Knights are playing right now. So no Jesse Granger this week. We'll get Jesse back in the saddle for next Thursdays. Show, but as we always do. We wrap up with a little this week. in hockey history, where we go back and we look at some things that have happened this week

in hockey history. This is a pretty good one. I think if you're a Toronto Maple Leafs fan, February 7, 1976. Darryl Sittler notches a 10-point night at Maple Leaf Gardens against the Boston Bruins. 10 points in the game for Darrell Settler. I feel like this is completely unbreakable. And the reason why is I feel like, Sean, we went through the Gretzky and Lemieux era. and those guys didn't even get to nine.

Like if Gretzky and Lemieux couldn't get to nine points in the game, you tell me how somebody in the year 2022 is getting to 10 points in the game. Or sorry, 11 points in the game. Technically, if you want to talk about breaking this right. Yeah. I mean, even, well, okay, here's my counter argument to why it's maybe not unbreakable. Any record where Sam Gagne got 80% of the way there, I feel like Connor McDavid early underside.

or somebody could get there. And we've seen guys get like five, six points by the midway mark of the game. I feel like there was one even relatively recently. And every time it happens, I get nervous. Because I, you know, as a Leafs fan, I don't remember this guy. I was too young for this game. But it's one of the few cool things in, you know, even relatively recent NHL history that the Leafs can actually claim.

and I don't want to see it broken, but I find like there's a couple of times a year where I start to get a little nervous here, you know, so-and-so's second period. They've already got five points. And you're kind of going, oh, oh, this maybe, maybe we're going to see something. It hasn't happened yet, but, and I certainly don't think it's likely

anytime soon, but I don't think it's, I don't think it's undoable. I think it, you never know. If Jamie Ben can get four points on the final night to steal the art, Ross, do it in February against, well, probably against the Canadians. The Kent Haps. Yeah. But I'm having a hard time thinking of another record that's a single game record that would be as untouchable as this.

Although it's hard right in hockey. Like, it's okay. There's 10 points. And I guess what? Are we saying six goals is the record? Well, that's it, right? Joe Malone was seven goals. But that's in the early days.

You're up against tiny Thompson back. Yeah, exactly. How do you score against a guy that big? It's crazy. He could almost reach the crossbar, man. This is wild. Yeah. It's, yeah, six is, you know, six is definitely not untouchable because we've seen guys get to five relatively, relatively often. Yeah, I'm sure there's some other more obscure ones that are out there too. But that, yeah, that probably is the toughest one. But that's, that's the beauty of sports, right? One single game, you never know. You never know. You never know if. you're going to see something wild that's never happened before. You're right. It's very unlikely in this still low-scoring era, but you never say never. One more to wrap up the podcast. This one was interesting to me,

and maybe you could walk us through this. So this week in 1966, February 9th, 1966, the NHL announces, hey, we got a six-team league coming up in the fall of 1967, so kind of, you know, 18 months from now, we're doubling the league. The league is going to have 12 teams. But what I've always wondered, Sean,

is when the NHL expanded from six to 12 teams, they did a very strange thing, which was they took all six expansion teams, like the St. Louis's and the Philadelphias, and they put them in the same division. They put them in a Western division. And what this did was it guaranteed that one of those teams, which would

in the beginning was St. Louis, would get to the Stanley Cup final. And I've always wondered, like, why didn't they just take three teams from the original six and whether that was, you know, New York and Boston and I guess,

again, maybe geography was the issue there. Yeah. Well, but it wasn't because they had the West that had Philadelphia and Pittsburgh in it and they had Chicago in the east. So what happened here? Why did they put six, expansion teams in one division?

They decided that it was for competitive reasons. They knew that the six expansion teams were going to be terrible, and they didn't want those teams to just be getting crushed and be nowhere near the playoffs for probably years and years, which for the most part, they would have been. So they made the decision, they made the decision to put them all in one division, which was a, that was a questionable decision to start with. You know, even geographically, you could have at least put Detroit and Chicago and then, you know, who knows, there would have been ways to do it. But they made the decision to put the expansion teams in a division and give them four playoff spots, which at least gave them something to play for. It meant that all six teams started with off feeling like we can make the playoffs this year.

Where it got really weird was the decision to then keep those two divisions separate all the way to the Stanley Cup final and not do some sort of crossover where you could say, all right, where you, you know, yes, you can make the playoffs, but now you're going to cross over and you're going to play the East. And we're still going to get our Boston, Montreal final or whatever it's going to be. And they decided not to do that. And so we wound up with St. Louis three years in a row going to the final and getting swept every single year. Yeah. But then they changed it because then by the early 70s, you know, you would get, you know, Montreal, Chicago. Three years. It got us, 68, 69, 70 did get us the Bobby Oracle.

That was probably the one, you know, most memorable moment. And then in 71, the Al McNeil year, that was the first year that they mixed it up. And we got back to having non-execisement. expansion teams, at least not being guaranteed a spot in the final. Look at that. All comes full circle. Back to the 1971 Montreal Canadiens and Al McNeil. And, yeah, again, imagine calling out your coach in the middle of Stanley Cup file.

He's the worst coach I've ever played for it. Good thing there was in Twitter back then. Because that one would have been. Absolutely. Yeah. Hey, listen, this was a lot of fun. There's never a shortage of things to talk about. So listen, enjoy the week coming up.

enjoy the Super Bowl coming up, even though, can I bring up the fact that the four, we haven't really talked about the four Uniteders getting bounced. Yeah. You know what? It was tough. It's a needless drive-by by me at the end of the show. Well, let's talk about how our teams got bounced in the football playoffs.

Sure. Yeah. I have that conversation. Yeah. All right. We'll leave it there. We want to tell everybody again. We love it when we hear your voice.

You can drop us a voice bell at 845, 445-8-48-54-59. or like I said, an email is always open to. The inbox is open. The Athletic Hockey Show at gmail.com. If you're not a subscriber to us, you can join us at theathletic.com slash hockey show. Get an annual subscription. That'll be $3.99 a month.

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