The Athletic Hockey Show - Matthew Tkachuk's Calgary Flames out to prove the critics wrong, Eugene Melnyk, Ottawa Senators owner passes away and Tampa Bay loads up for a potential three-peat this spring

Episode Date: March 29, 2022

Craig Custance and Sean Gentille discuss the shocking news out of Ottawa, as the Senators franchise announced that owner Eugene Melnyk had passed away, Tuesday night at the age of 62.Matthew Tkachuk of the Calgary Flames joins to discuss the under the radar Flames who are a legitimate Stanley Cup favorite, the best line combos he's ever been a part of, Johnny Gaudreau's hart trophy calibre season and Matty shares stories of his larger than life dad Keith and brother Brady.Joe Smith from the Athletic stops by to discuss Tampa's quest to three-peat this spring, the fanbase's frustration after the Bolts recent tailspin, how the new additions in Nick Paul and Brandon Hagel are fitting in with the team and Joe reveals his go to karaoke song.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hey everybody, this is Craig Custins and joined as always on Tuesday during the American edition of the Athletic Hockey Show by co-host, I would call him, I guess. Grudgingly, though. Sean Gentilly. You were like, you were six inches from saying sidekick there. I could sense it. I was cycling words. Like, you could see it. It was like I spun a wheel in my head.

Sidekick was not one of them. Here I am with this scrappy do to my Scooby-Doo, Sean Gentilly. We are load, producer Jeff loaded us up with an incredible show today. Our guest during the second segment, none other than Matthew Kachuk from America's team, the Calgary Flames. Sean's favorite team in the NHL. For so many reasons, too, yes. No, what we're talking about, guys, get ready for this.

90 minutes of analysis of Will Smith versus Chris Rock. It's the hot topic that's on everybody's minds and we're here to break it down. I think the world's already moved on, in my opinion. Yeah, that was the joke, Craig. Oh, I'm a joke explainer now. Buddy, buddy, you are pissing me off this morning already. Watch out. We're also going to be joined by Joe Smith, who covers the Tampa Bay,

Lightning for a publication I like to call The Athletic. Joe, I'm excited to bring him. Joe is actually on the Zoom right now. Wait a second, wait a second. The Atlantic? Oh, no. Gosh. The athletic. So that'll be good. We're going to talk Lightning, but I think we're going to branch out. But first, I mean, we do want to acknowledge Eugene Melnick, owner of the Ottawa as senators died and um you know this is a complicated complicated complicated one to talk about for sure i liked um ian mendes wrote a column posted last night ian is so good we know ian's good um he just always seems to find the right tone is it's such a pro but without a like but um and this is just generally, but he wrote this story in a way that I thought was fair and appropriate.

Without, without, you have to acknowledge that this guy was not a popular owner by the end, seemed vindictive, froze out. Like, Ian is his professionals you can get and, you know, Ian wrote about it. It was interesting. Like, stopped responding to Ian. It was complicated. People are complicated. But I thought Ian handled a difficult subject well. I don't know if there's anybody that's better suited to.

write about the complexity of Eugene Melnick than Ian Mendez because you look at the top of the story and this is a must read for anybody who maybe isn't completely aware of Melnick's tenure or his legacy especially over the way things have gone the last five, six or seven years since the centers have gone in the tank post-Carlson and Mark Stone and whatever else. Ian certainly has seen both sides of that guy.

whether it's in you know he opens up with melnick doing something very gracious and nice for his daughter when she had what she had had to have a pretty pretty serious operation that that's you know the head side of of eugene melnick and he and he and saw it up close and then the tail side again is somebody who was who was pretty pretty vindictive and and um the last 10 years or so of his of or we'll say the last six or seven years of his of his 10 years owner was disastrous and embarrassing in a lot of ways, right? And that makes for a very complicated obituary or very complicated, very complicated, a complicated legacy, honestly, in a complicated set of actions and and characteristics

and, and, you know, it's a, it's a tough one to work through. You throw in the fact that, I mean, he died. The sense that he had faced a lengthy illness, which we know now, we were unaware of that until, largely, until the news that he had died came out. So there was no, there was no run up to the, to the Eugene Melnick reckoning in the public eye, right? And I think sometimes that happens. If this were a public illness, if we had known that he was ill, I think it would have, there would have been some, it would have been easier and people would have had more time to parse how to do this sort of work today, right?

But we didn't. And with other people whose legacies are less complicated than Eugene Malnix, who have less to sift through, I don't think that would have been as much of a challenge. But for Ian to, who has a wild amount of personal. history and professional history with this man. For Ian to sift through that in a matter of a few hours and come up with something that I think hits on all the right notes. And again, he's 10,000 times more qualified to speak on the man than we are. But for him to do that good of a job and that short of an amount of time is really impressive. So that's on the site. Yeah. And Ian can say it

a lot, a lot better than we can. Right. I mean, in my mind, and we talked about this earlier, You think of his family. There's a family involved, and you think of the heartache and what they're dealing with today. And we'll have time to dissect the legacy, I think, appropriately. That's a tough thing. That's a tough thing to see when people who, you know, are public figures who aren't just lightning rods, but who do, he'd done some, he done some publicly, openly, very questionable things and made a lot of people and made a lot of people unhappy. and you know and for when someone like that dies especially now i mean it's a tough with with the way the way media consumption is and all that it's a tough it's a tough thing to reckon with

and the thing i think something that everybody always asks to remember is you know regardless of what you think of a person they had a family and they were loved and it's just something you got to remember because it is it's tough when you see someone like eugene melnick who has spent the last 10 years you know the top line stuff is so bombastic and crazy that it's easy to lose sight of the fact

that there on some level that this man was a father and a grandfather and had that and had people you know close to him who cared about him because like it's like the it's the Eric Carlson investigation and it's the Markstone disaster and it's it's the it's the arena the arena

bullshit and it's you know talking about moving the team during an outdoor game. Like, yeah. Right. And it's the, it's the, it's the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the crazy story this afternoon, this afternoon,

Google that. Like, there's top line crazy things about this man, right? And that completely dominated the narrative that overshadowed, you know, the person that he was to people close to him. It overshadowed, I think, some of the work he did with children's hospitals and, and, and, and, and, and, because that, because that, because that, because because the stuff that we dealt with as hockey writers was so ridiculous and so centered around around him right so to see it you know that is that is to see some balance pop out

and these remembrances and these obituaries of them is is helpful i think because it was it was very very easy largely because of his own actions if we're being honest here to lose to lose sight of you know, the human being that actually own the team. Well said, Sean. So, yeah, reading Ian's piece. It's well done. And there is no great segue to Joe Smith from talking about you. You mentioned he's a lightning rod, Sean.

A Tampa Bay Lightning Rod. Hey, buddy. How you doing? Hey, Joe. Great, great. We were really, we had five more minutes to wax about about the death of an NHL owner, you know, tallied in, but we broke it off early. How do you like leading off before Matthew Kachuk? You got a, he was really good, Joe, by the way.

So, I hope you brought a lot of energy. It's hard. Well, like in bowling, I'm usually the anchor. So I'm usually the one that, you know, kind of finish it off. So this is weird for me to be a lead off person for this. But I guess when you're, so when you're, so you're the anchor, you're the anchor for bowling. Yeah. So if I'm leading something off now.

So I'm making a kind of... You got the karaoke... Karaoke bonafides on like anybody I know, honestly. Yeah, that's fair. Bowling karaoke. Like, what other... What other, like... I like...

I don't want to call them bar games because that's not right. But just sort of like, sort of, you know, hobbies like that. Are we in a shuffleboard? Oh, you know, I bet Joe's good a shuffleboard. I get a table and we put in our... Backyard for party, a shuffleboard table. Yeah, not quite pure Lebrun level at his conference. but we have our shopperts.

Cottage reference. Ring the bell. Ring the bell. Dear LeBron's Cottage. Ever been? 1-1-22 boogie-woogie abhor. Somewhere. Summer on the life.

That's a saddress. That's a saddress. Okay. Do some can jam too. We've played can jam before. Oh, can jams. A great game. Can jams the greatest.

Especially being close to the beach and everything with that. You know, it's a great place to. Spike ball? I bet you got a spike ball sand pit in your backyard. No, no sand pit. But definitely played at the beach before. Yeah. So.

Can jam, karaoke, bowling. Okay. So Sarah Sivian tweeted to something out like, you know, I want to rank my colleagues on who I want to hang out with the most in the road. And she says, people don't, I don't know if people appreciate this. She's like, Joe's got to be at the top of the list. And I didn't, I don't know if she ever actually did any rankings, but I did see this exchange because he's up for anything anytime.

That is so true. Joe. Let's just talk about Joe Smith just being up for anything, whatever. at any hour of the day. Well, I think that was a reference to her and her boyfriend were up in their Torch Lake and Michigan. My wife and I were in Traverse City or Lelman Peninsula for our annual, like, weekly trip to my uncle's cottage up there.

And so we're like, hey, you should meet up. We're really close. And she's like, why you come up, we're going to boat with us. Our friend has a boat was going on a boat. And so we drove like an hour from like Lelandall to go on the boat with them and hang out. So that was my joke that who's best have a beer on a boat with of your colleagues? and it was me because probably wanted you to do that. But, um, like that's like you're on vacation with your wife.

In some colleagues like, come on. She can't do. Yeah. Go to come on. No, it's just like, yeah, I'm in. It's, it's, it's, it's, I love that like, whatever the opposite of that, that's me. I'm always like, no, no. I can have a time for the whole weekend.

I think I could see you once for a year and I'm like, no, I'm too busy. Nope. No. Nope. I'm, I can't. I'll tell you, I'll tell you is that, you know, the worst colleague to have a beer in a boat with. Max Bolton.

The worst. The worst. Speaking of Max, great story today about his trip to Sweden. Max crushed it if you're like Max as much as we hate to compliment him because he's such a bad person. Mean. But and but he really did a great job. Max, you know, we've all talked about this. We all miss going and doing proper journalism stories in the last two years.

Joe, like Joe is as good at this as anybody is going on a trip and writing something you need. And maybe I'd like like we can even start there because you've started doing that again and it's fun. That's a bless. I went to open to Sweden. Yeah. Yeah. And Max just went over there and filed like 15 stories. What?

Can I go to Sweden? This is. Matt went to Sweden. Joe went to Sweden. We know if we send Joe or Max over, we're going to get our money's worth. Oh, I think that's all the little you know with me too. You know, you know, you know that you won't. I got very lucky.

Like Victor Hadman Zab was like kind of my Uber driver the whole time, you know. I can show me around. Like, you basically show me around. Yeah. So, like, it was, I mean, Mac's story was terrific. We talked about the weekend. I was in Detroit for the game, a lot of the game. But yeah.

Oh, you were? You should have called me. I would have met up. Yeah. You were free all weekend, right? You were just late around. Definitely didn't have anything important. It's not at all.

What's your favorite one of those? Like, which of those, like, embedded? I like the one you did with the Lightning Scout. Like, that was, I thought that was, like, in terms of recent ones. But, I mean, the work you did going to Sweden in being driven around by Victor Edmund's dad. And that town has produced like 10 Hall of Famers in their population 11. Naslin, Forrestberg. Like, it's like insane.

Like, it's in Nazlin, I met with him, met up with him like for lunch at Mamma Mia's is that pizza place that they are Italian restaurant that they all would go to with the cup afterwards and stuff like that. And, you know, it's such a, it's a cool, it's tiny like, you know, blue collar town, but it produces all these. NFL stars, right? And you never would understand why. But I guess they were all playing from a young age. And the guys who were before, the Siddines were paid forward. And he'd come back in the summertime. And so what had been was like seven or eight,

he'd be able to play with a lot of these stars that came back. And so it's kind of like, and Victor Hadbin has a place there, obviously. And his parents still live there and able to go see his childhood home and where he still has a Norris trophy in his childhood home where it's in the living room where they have a showcase. And that's where the North trophy is, you know, and that's pretty cool.

That's amazing. I had a version of that. I went to, when Rob Blake made the Hall of Fame, I went to his parents to live in the same farmhouse in, you know, Ontario. I'm sure there's a proper name for the city, this Canadian city, whatever it is. That doesn't mind. Tiny little town in Ontario. At least I'd mentioned the progress and didn't say Canada.

And like they, it would be, it was like humble farmhouse, things hadn't changed in a hundred years, but also a Norris trophy or whatever, you know, like, I'm like hockey royalty. A humble, a humble farmhouse, yes. Rob Blake's mother was churning butter outside of the homestead. And then it's like, oh, there's the Stanley Cup next to the fireplace. You're like, what in the world? Like, it was, and it was awesome.

Like, I just would walk around looking for like clues that a, one of the greatest defensemen ever played there. It was awesome. Yeah. Those trips are why we do our job, right? We enjoy doing those kind of trips. and I was in Ovik for when I was Stockholm, they had the global series there. And so I was like, just took a short flight to get there.

My flight was diverted to a smaller town. And so I had to go take a bus from that town to Ovik where big trabens that picked me up. And then we showed me the child at home and then went to the different, the rinkmodo where I was at the top, you know, factory at least before of NHL players. Now it's kind of on a down swing. I mean, Orlando is there from the Canadians, right? Yeah. So, but the scabble was fun too. It's the work that I think people can start doing again.

Like it kind of came up. That's the state of all this came up yesterday because I was talking to Haley, Salvin, about the Matthew Kachuk interview, right? And I was just saying, like, Craig, Craig's never talked to him. Like, I was maybe in a scrum of him once or twice. And Haley was like, he was, she was like, I don't know him either. Like, I haven't had a one-on-one with them. it's been Zooms and whatever else.

And that's sort of like, that, that's a reminder that this is Haley's second season in Calgary. And she is, and she is a great reporter who's really connected to that team. And she has had minimal one-on-one time with Matthew Kachuk, because that's just, that's just the state of things. That's the, that's the way it goes. And like, neither of us knew him either. We had no experience with him whatsoever.

And that's because, you know, that's sort of the way it goes. That's sort of the way it goes when you're, when you're, when you're, you're, when you're not in a locker room. I have a reference to that too. Like, you know, and obviously it's different because I've covered this team for a long time.

But it was the second boat parade that they had to the Lightning Stanley Cup. And after the Zoom's the first playoff round and then obviously last playoffs were more, had to watch the games in person.

But a boat parade had wrapped up. They all weren't getting off until the trolley to go back somewhere else. And I just saw Steve in the Samkos and so I had to shook us hands and said, congratulations on two cups.

I haven't seen you since the first one. I had seen in person since the, uh, the bubble, you know, um, you know, because you had the Zoom interviews and you had like, you know, stuff like that, but the only times you'd able to see them were, I mean, yeah, you were in the, you were in the, you were in the bubble too, at least. Well, I was in the bubble. I didn't go. You know, I was in Canada. So a lot of it couldn't get in. The Americans, they wouldn't see it's what am I saying? That's right. So we had obviously great coverage out there, but, you know, covering games off TV and Zooms, um, is quite a, you know, it's great. Uh, it's great.

Never better. You're also doing something that you haven't done in a while, which is covering a team that lost, you know, whatever, six games out of 10 or whatever, whatever that little skin they were on or six out of eight. I mean, that's like, that's foreign, that's foreign territory for you. Yeah. It's been, it's been like, how long has it been since there's, especially, I mean, look, but before the show, Joe is sending us, you know, some, some, some, some,

tweet replies from lightning fan bases handling it's really well. From lightning fans who just they don't, they've clearly forgotten how to handle this right? Like this team has been too good and broken brains. Can you read some of those mean? I need somebody to read the mean tweets because it's. I got them all right. I got them I got them on Slack here.

Do we have an intro music? What's the mean tweet theme song? This is uh, we won't read that. We won't read the names because whatever. They do absolutely nothing. Pathetic. This team has no fire. Pure trash. This is on March 24th. They want pure trash.

So let down me, you're two-time raining. It needs to be said that they've won their last two games. I wonder how this guy's feeling. Hey, hey, ho, John Cooper's got a girl. Yeah, baby. Is this person, this is indistinguishable from parody. Like, if you invented an overly aggressive, ridiculous tweet from a pissed off lightning fan, that's exactly what it'd be like.

Wow. Winless since we acquired Hegel and his losing mentality in Chicago. This is, this is, I agree. That skid was all Brandon Hinkle's fault. Poor guy. He brought the losing, the loser's stink of the Chicago Blackhawks to the Tampa Ve Lightning. I'm not what, you know, wild card. That one might be real.

I think he brought, it's contagious. You brought the losing mentality. Nick Paul Cape Romano was too, right? Oh my God. Oh, too much losing. Yep, all right. Go ahead. That's definitely, that's definitely something.

That's definitely something that happens. Those guys walked in the locker room and Braden Point in Nikita Kutrov and Andre Vasselis. You don't think we know how to do this anymore. You guys, do you guys feel weird? I feel weak and powerless. It's because Brandon Hagel's standing by them. Wild card at best. First round exit, maybe in a sweep.

At best, a first round sweep. This is great. They're going to lose it. They're going to lose it. Yeah. They won two straight now. They're losing in three. They won the last couple games and they play Carolina tonight.

So maybe it's back on the, if they beat Carolina tonight all of a sudden, maybe the narrative changes there. I mean, this is it. If they beat Carolina, here comes cup number three. And if they don't, they're losing in three games in the first round. I want to check in if they beat Carolina. I want to check it back in with these three or four people. Read the last one, too.

I don't have it in front of me, Craig. If they didn't have the best goalie, the rest of the team looks like crap. Like all they have is Vasilevsky. That's kind of true. but that's like one at times, but that's true for everybody. And that's one of my favorite lines of logic that pops up.

And it's not just with fans. It's with, it's with, it's with the analysts too. Yeah, it's with media. We're just like, well,

whatever, like the Rangers suck. How good are they? If you remove Vasilefsky and Bradenpoly and Coet and Coathe their average. Yeah, right.

Well, if my aunt had wheels, she'd be a wagon. Like, whatever. He's on the team. He counts. He takes short from the bulls.

The Bulls aren't that good. Are they more are they? Like, sorry, the Rangers, the Rangers have Igor Shisterkin. Like, that matters. Yeah, but they didn't. He's part of the team. I mean, it's worth checking in with you at this point because, you know, like you said, they won, they won two straight. But like, how are Hegel and Nick Paul?

How they looked over the last, over the last handful? Because that is, that's a big, you know, that's a big undertaking to incorporate those guys in a real way over the stretch. Yeah. And people forget that when Coleman and Guedro came in, it took him a while. Like, it took Blake Coleman through the pandemic. to kind of feel comfortable and they didn't start coming to that line together until the bubble, right? So it takes guys, you know, each guys have different, you know, there's families or moving everything from across the country and like they have to adjust

to a new system and they're both on the penalty kill. They've been terrific on that way. But at least with them, they've been good the last four or five games. They've been fitting in well. They've been not being played a ton of minutes. They've been giving them way to ease in. But if they're going to go where they want to go this year, they're going to need guys like that to be either play on a checking line or the penalty kill

or whatever. There's a reason why they paid a lot of happy price for Brandon Hagle, and they'll have him for the next three, four years, too, under contract, especially if you lose Andre Palad in the off season because, you know, too expensive. But overall, they've been good. I think they'll fit in well with the team's culture here and trying to find some balance up front, which has been important since they lost that Gord line last year,

which they kind of still were trying to replace since then. I'm glad you brought that up about the adjustment because I don't know if you and I I've talked about this with people, but maybe those trades don't look as smart if it wasn't, if there wasn't a pause and they had a chance of practice with the team going into the bubble.

Like, there were a lot of things that were out of the lightning's control that ended up being pretty okay for them in terms of getting those players integrated into the lineup in the time. Yeah, Coleman had like one point in this first nine games in Tampa

when he came over. And then, you know, obviously it was, you know, his wife had a baby right when he came back over Tampa. So there's this huge life. adjustment, but, you know, it's a lot of pressure coming in at the deadline, especially when the cup, you know, team going for a cup wants to bring you in and put you in the light up and play an important role and that kind of thing. But, um, but yeah, I think for them, they'll be fine,

I think. I mean, the same thing happened to Blake Coleman in Calgary, too. Like, he got off to a slow start and everybody loves, everybody loves Blake Coleman, right? He's like, he's a perfect hockey player. He sees skates and he plays hard and he scores and whatever else, deserves the contract. They don't win a cup without him, whatever, but it's worth, it's, it's worth remembering his start in Tampa and then his start in Calgary. Like, even these guys who are clearly, like, major, major, major components of competitive teams, it doesn't, it doesn't, it doesn't happen right away for them. I, yeah, I don't know. I'm not overly worried about, about, about, about, uh, about Brandon Hagle. 53% expect the goals percentage. That's fine. I mean, they hit a couple, couple rough games,

you know, in terms of actual goal percentage, but I don't know, I wouldn't worry about. them all that much. They have time. That's it. They have, there's still 20 or whatever, 18 games left in the season. Like, it's okay. It's another example of, you know, when the GM says, tries to max it, we take expectations, right? It's like, we're not going to do anything at the deadline. We're not doing anything. We're not

anything. We're not, you know, no cap space, can't do anything. Can't do anything. You know, it's one of those things where got the, got the Steve Eisenman, the Steve Eisenman background. It's just like, no, we're not going to, no space. Why would, why would, why would we do anything? It's impossible. Yeah, why you even ask me. We have no money. We have no money. Get the hell out of here, actually.

Leave me alone. Why are you here? Why are you on my computer right now? But obviously, you know, all joking aside, it was, they recognized the need on this team as good as they are and as good as they've been, you know, especially with the Eastern Conference and somebody you've just had gone with this year. You know, Florida added up, you know, Carolina is really good. And they feel like it's their time.

You know, everybody feels like it's their time, right? You know, going to the playoffs and so you have a team that the Lightning who has already had their time, you know. twice in a row is going to be. It is very literally there. Yeah. They're over. Fire John Cooper or whatever.

Whatever buddy was saying in the Twitter replies. So like keeping it real then, Joe, do you think they're capable of winning a game in the first round? Or is the sweep probably? I kind of lose the maple leaves in two or whatever. You can't lose in two. You can't lose in two. You can't lose in two. No.

No, I mean, whether they can win it all again, they'll be raised to be seen. Yeah, I think if they're healthy and they're all together and they obviously have Andrew Asaleski still on their team, I think, you know, they could go on a run again, it just a matter to stay and healthy, I think, for them. But all the matchups are going to be tough no matter what. If you have them in the wild card and even they play against, you know, Carolina or what? Anybody who ends up pretending to know anything about the Eastern Conference is going to be

lying to themselves. Like that whole group at the top, I mean, even if you want to extend it. it down to Washington because they've ridded the ship a little bit, a little bit recently. I mean, there's eight really good teams there and in five like probably really, really good teams, right? So, yeah, I don't know. I'm not

going to pretend to know anything. I do know that only one team has won the last two Stanley Cups and only one team has Andre Basilevsky. That's for sure. But imagine if they didn't. But what if they didn't? Brian Elliott's pretty good too. He didn't play well. Oh, really? Yeah. He's on the team too. But I didn't know that he'd been playing well.

You could have told me anything about the way Brian Elliott's played over the last hour long. I'd be like, yeah, sure. Well, I wonder Craig's perspective on this too. Like, you'll get some of the old wings teams. Like, they went back-to-back cups. Like, there's going to be a stretch where, like, it's hard to get up for games in February in the middle of 11 games in 11 different cities. Do you think the lightning care about these games right now?

They don't. You know, like, obviously they care to be, like, professional and then one of the ones to get their butts kicked. but like I think the whole focus is getting better for the playoffs, right? And so, and making the game ready for them. Like, I'll talk to Jeremy. I'm not sure how many, I don't know how many teams in Eastern Conference really do care about what's happening right now. Because like stuff just has seemed locked in for so long.

You watch these games, it's spent whatever, six weeks, eight weeks. It really does feel like we're, it feels like we're treading water here. Not everybody can be like the Vegas Golden Knights and fighting for their playoff lives, right? That's true. They have to win. They have to win. Who cares what these Eastern teams do? They're just jockeying for seating.

Yeah, everybody's in their own spots because, you know, unless Columbus goes on a miraculous run or whatever it is, you know, the one's going to take tempo out of a playoff spot, right? So it's just a matter of them playing up to what they want to do. And, you know, it's, yeah, much as we all, much as we all love Elvis Merslickens, I don't think, I don't think, I don't think that's happening for them. Well, how about this, Joe? Because we got to get to the Matthew Kachuk.

I feel bad. Like, I want to sit and talk to Joe Smith for the whole podcast. Yeah, Matthew, but we want to get to Matthew. Matthew, Chuck. I know. He was good, though. He was good. He was great.

So I'm excited to get to that. And maybe we've asked you this before. What is your go-to karaoke song? Let's end this the way we brought it in. I know this answer. But go ahead. Oh, boy. Well, I like to say it depends on the crowd because you want to like, you know, the

environment, I'm more of a stage presence versus my singing voice thing. So I think, you know, you know. Joe Kosan charisma, baby. That's could that be the title of the podcast. Like, you know, usually go-to is Gingster's parents. I spent by Culeo. But I sang that in Ottawa one time

and people were like so young that they didn't you know, remember 1994. So it was a long time ago. That's brutal. So I had to go like with a newer song. But that one... You've got a ballad in the bag that I've seen you perform.

The slow song. Which one? Oh. Hmm. I'm trying to think which one would be. Like a rock ballad? I don't want to try to blow up your spot here. Is it the meatloaf song or no?

Wait, you get up there. do a 45-minute song. That's sexy. And to close out the night at 9 o'clock, because he's going to do a three-hour song, Joe Smith, with Paradise by the Dashboard Light. That's it.

Me and you need to do Paradise by the Dashboard Light during the playoffs. I'll do the, I'll do the woman's part. It'll be great. No, my wife and I, that's our idea was I'll do anything for love, meatloaf. So, uh,

R-I-B, so, but, uh, IP. R-I-P. That was the, our second date or outing. Like, I lost a bet over Michigan basketball game. Michigan, Indiana played basketball and we bet on it. And Indiana went out to 45 to 3 run or something like that and beat Michigan.

And so I had to sing a karaoke song for choice at the next time we went out. And she gave me three choices like a back street boy, something else. But I picked this one because of the sentimental to her and her family. And I went on stage in Gulf War, Florida and sang 13 minutes of all doing anything for love. Who wouldn't marry you after that? Come on. I'm not saying it sounded great. but gave it a shot.

Right. It's all about stage presence. Yeah. That actually, that brings us into our, our meatloaf in-memorium segment. It's several months late, but we've been working on this for a really long time. Jeff spent a lot of time. All right, peemeelove. All right, P meatloaf.

Well, Joe, thanks for joining us. Absolutely. We'll bring you back when, after the first round sweep. Yeah. And we'll do the debriefing where it all went south for the overrated Tampa Bay Lighten. John Cooper Hey ho Hit the road

Goop's gotta go Hit the road Coop He'll be fine It'll be fine Just relax guys It'll be all right But looking forward to talking to you guys

And Craig still has a bet over my head At the Michigan Michigan State football game I need to Football season's right around the corner I'm just gonna I'm gonna hold that for like three years And just keep you

And cash it at the most At the most opportune time Well it's no fun We can't make Joe sing Because he would be like Yeah sure What do you want me? Meelope, whatever. I'll do a 50-minute song.

Whereas when Sean and I lose a bet and we sing, it's, you know, it's torture for the audience. It would be like, Joe, be like, sure. So I don't know how to correctly, like, cash in on that in the most effective way. I'll think it's not easily embarrassed, so that's a good thing. I know. Like, what do you do with somebody who's not easily embarrassed where I'm humiliated by. Daily? Yeah.

I'm like, this wrap up is terrible. I'm embarrassed by me every week. Every week. Thanks for you guys though. Thanks, Joe. Thanks, brother. That's always great. Thanks for doing this.

We'll be right back. You're now thrilled to be joined by American as we don't have to stress that enough on this podcast. Matthew Kachuk of the Calgary Flames. On a bit of a heater, holy cow, Sean and I were just talking about your line and how things have been going. And it's, what was the point total for that line? Sean, do you know the number from Saturday? On Saturday? Oh, God, it was 11, was that?

Yeah. Yeah, Matt, well, first of all, Matt, thanks for doing this, man. Yeah, of course. Yeah, thanks for having me. So let's just start there. I mean, it's clicking so well for you as much as we want to talk about the Oscars still. It's really clicking for you guys. Is there anything that's happening different? Are you something that's you're seeing differently or why this is going the way it's going to the three of you right now, especially doing this train?

Yeah, I think that a lot of it has to do with, you know, if this are, first full year playing together, but we played the last, let's say, like, eight to 10 games, maybe at the end of the year last year. So we kind of got familiar with each other a little bit last year. And this year, we didn't play with each other at all in training camp. And then one of the last preseason games, you know, a couple, maybe there's a couple injuries that they just decided to put us together. And like the chemistry was just back, just like we didn't, you know, go away for the whole summer. So I think that's what started. And then this year we've pretty much, from the majority of the year, except for maybe like five games have played together.

And, you know, it's gone, it's gone solid. And I think that we're taking advantage of, you know, like this, an opportunity doesn't come by this much where we have a really great team. And we just want to be a part of a great team here. And we know that we have to provide a lot, not only offensively and defensively. I think that, you know, one of the cool numbers, too, is, you know, we're heavy plus players. which has been obviously helped our team and being on the ice for more goals and goals against. So it's just a little bit of different, you know, we're all different players, but we are all similar mindset, all very smart players. So that makes it a lot easier.

Yeah. I mean, you guys, what? I know Daryl broke you up for a little bit there last week, and then you end up combining for a goal after whatever first shift. You've been back together for 30 minutes. I mean, that is something we've seen from him. You know, does it mean a lot for you guys to know that that's, he can, he can fall back to, to you guys as a, as a combination, right? Like, you can, he can try to spread you guys throughout the lineup, but there's always kind of that, you know, that anchor that you guys, you guys provide. Yeah, absolutely. I know we played awful against Buffalo at home.

We lost one nothing. And then, you know, going on the road, we've noticed, you know, like, it's, the other team gets their matchups or whatever. So, um, if we're able to, you know, play on separate lines, some shifts and together, There's some shifts. I think it can really only help our team. So I think that was kind of the mindset there, was going on the road and splitting us up and trying to grit,

you know, more throughout the whole lineup and it obviously worked. And then, you know, played a few games at home, not together the whole game. And then, you know, against Arizona, put us back in the second period. And, you know, we had a pretty good rest of the game. So, yeah, it honestly doesn't matter to me who out there with, but playing with those.

guys for majority of the year, it's definitely very comfortable. And we're going to end up talking about Johnny, I'm sure, but I wanted to ask about Elias Lindelm specifically. I think since February 1st, he's got, I think it's 19 goals. I don't know if he, he might have scored, like, in the last 15 minutes when we're talking here, but, like, he's, I feel like we're watching the end of him as, like, an underappreciated player. Like, I feel like at the start of the season, he was a guy on that list to everybody always talked about is, you know, you look at his production and it's always there.

But what he's done, especially over the last, like, six. weeks. He's just been, it's impossible to, impossible to ignore. So what kind of players is he and why do you guys, why do you guys mesh so well? Because the production is again, just crazy. Well, he's the guy that covers up, not only the offense, but covers up for myself and Johnny a lot, allows us to, you know, think a little bit more on the other side. But, you know, playing with him, you're never really in the D zone, which is great. He always has the puck. He always is, you know, wanting give and go. He always finds a soft spot. And he always, you know, zone. His shot is elite in the NHL, right up there with some of the best. And he's scoring at

will right now. So put the puck anywhere on a stick or anywhere around him. It's a good chance it's going in right now. But to your point about being maybe underrated, I think, I don't know whether it's just, you know, maybe the market here in Calgary, but I've said this for a while, like a lot of the guys are underrated RTA. I think Marky's an underappreciated goal in the league. I think that Johnny's under, you know, underrated compared to some guys throughout the league. And I've always said this about a guy who I played with the majority of my career. So far, Michael Backland is a very underrated player as well. So maybe it's just the market what it is, but I can go down the list pretty much most guys on the team.

Andrew, Mangiapani, you know, another guy. So I don't know. I don't really have the answer to that. Maybe it's just the market. East Coast people don't get to see us as much. I don't know. I mean. I thought you were going to throw yourself.

I know, let's go. I'm also, I'm a little underrated, but you can get it. The most underappreciated player of all is number 19. You said that there was a point, you said that there's definitely a, I don't know if it's a sense of urgency or a feeling that you have something special that you want to capitalize as a group. Was that something you went into this year feeling as a group, or was there like a point this year like, oh, hey, this is one of those teams? You know what I mean?

Like, was there that kind of feeling that materialized? Yeah. Well, I think last year was, you know, one of those years were a very disappointing year and where we felt where we played way worse, like, than what we were. And then, you know, there was a lot of changes that were made. And we came in this year and feeling really good about some of the pickups. And I think, but you don't really know, you know, what you have in the summer. And so, like, everyone says, you know, we have the best team ever in the summer.

And it doesn't matter until you come out there, the first, you know, you know, a month or two or, you know, consistently throughout the first half of the year, I guess. And we just kept getting better, better and better. And, you know, we were a great road team at the start, which pretty much set up our first half of the year. And then in the last three months, we've been a great home team taking advantage of home ice, where we had a lot of makeup games and basically our whole schedule the last little while has been at home. I don't know. You just, we've kind of got all the makings of a good team talking with guys.

have been on, you know, winning teams and playoff teams. We have, you know, some of the recipes that they had and, you know, whether it's a great goal, great goalie or big heavy guys, just, I don't know, a hard team to play against and guys that have one. So I don't know, I think that we have a chance to do something special, but we got to continue to play well, because honestly, at the end of the day, we haven't even made playoffs yet. So everyone's jumping the gun a little bit. We got to do that first, then we can more about that. I mean, the start you guys had, because I know that, there was that road trip to where you came, well, you won in Pittsburgh and you won it and you

won in Washington. That was in October or whatever it was. The start you guys had had to make it easier if you look at if you look at the job that country living had to had to do like you guys stated your case early on that this is a team a team that's worth adding to, right? So you see you see him bringing in to Foley and you see him bring bring in yarn croak. I mean you guys have, but you guys have been there you guys have been there from the from the jump kind of kind of proving it. Yeah, we had one little dip. I think it was in the early part of January, but pretty much most of the season, we've been pretty consistent and played pretty steady and kept improving.

And we went on that big road trip, and then we had another big road trip where we won pretty much all of them. So definitely our road schedule to start, you know, everyone could have looked at it and been like, oh, as long as we, you know, somehow get through this, you know, and then, you know, we'll be fine. But for us to win that many games and take care of that, really set ourselves. up and I've never really been a part of a good start in my career here. This being my six year, we've never had a good start throughout the first 10 or 15 or 20 games.

It's always been like right around 500. So to put ourselves consistently in a playoff spot since that first road trip was, it makes it a lot easier. Don't have to scoreboard watch starting in October and November. All right. If we eliminate your current line, I was seeing what this is like you've been on some great teams like throughout your lifetime. What's the best line you've ever played on? Like, like an all, all live.

Yeah, you could throw out whatever you like. You're like, man, one game I played with, whatever. I'm going to, we'll do that. Well, I would say that, you know, there is a stretch at the beginning part of my career where myself, Michael Backland and Michael Froeke played really well together. When I was in London, we had a pretty crazy line. And then when I played at the U.S. team, we had a great. great line as well. So the U.S. team was with Matthews and Rossevik and then London

was Marner and Dvorak. I don't know. It's a tough question. I mean, it's a, it's a tough choice for, it's a tough choice for a reason. Like, you've got, my God, you just like, think, think of the name, you just ran it out. You're like, Matthews and Marder. Yeah. Yeah, I would say, I don't know, and it's probably too early to ask that. Maybe ask me right in the summer because Because the first two names I listed are the first two lines we won. So maybe they're at the top of the list just because he won the championship. But it's too early to answer that. Got to give me the rest of the season.

We'll give you some time. Yeah. Sean and I were talking earlier today. So Sean's from Pittsburgh. I'm from Detroit. You know, like I don't know if we appreciate the battle hopper. Maybe as much as you see it every day. Like how long?

Definitely you guys don't know. I know. We always hear about it. I'm like, really? Like, I don't want, come on. How big a deal is this really? Can you, how long did it take for you to realize how big, like, are you there? Like, how long did it take you to go, oh, hey, this is a big deal?

I think that right when I was drafted by Calgary, I was telling stories about how, you know, Edmonton was going to pick me. They had my jersey ready. And then when Dubois was drafted, they, like, ripped off my name and gave it to Pliarvy. And I was, like, telling that story. and like, oh, you don't have to worry about that. Like, now you have to hate, like, now you hate them.

Yeah, yeah. So, like, right there, I was like, yeah, obviously. A reason. There's a great reason. But then going to rookie camp or like the, yeah, Penticton rookie camp, whatever it was. We just played them. And it was like a crazy game for being, like, rookie camp, like intense fights, just, just hatred. And my first two games in the NHL were against them.

and they beat us pretty good, but it was their home opener. So the building was electric. Like it was their new rink opener. It was my first ever NHL game. And then, I mean, we've had goalie fights. You've had great games. There's star players in each team. I mean, the other night, the other Saturday, less whatever it was when we played them.

It was awesome. It really was the electricity. And the crowd was the first fully sold-out game here. And who knows how long. Um, even just driving back to my place after the game, everybody was out in the city. Like you, I mean, it was, the whole city was crazy. So, um, lots of fans from, there's a lot of fans that live in Calgary that are from Edmonton and vice versa. So you have, you know, fans of both places, but it's so close, so three hour drive. So it's probably, I can't, I can't even compare, like I would like to say Cardinals Cubs, maybe rivalry, but with way more.

hatred because I've been a bunch of Cardinals Cubs games recently and they're a handful and it's just yeah it's got to be up there for one of the greatest rivalries in sports and the fans are a huge part of it i mean you're talking about driving back to your place people are going crazy i mean part of that's part of that's because of you i watched i watched the last two periods of that of that game it was a blast you you had your run in with smitty i mean like that's that's what it's about like that's the sort of thing you know when we do here about that rivalry. Like, we haven't, I mean, it takes both teams being good at the same time, right?

And I think that's, I think that's something that we're, that we're seeing now, right? Yeah, exactly. And I think like a weird, a weird part too is most rivalries that are that intense don't really have players that, like, play for both teams or, but it's a little bit different with ours. Like, we have, we have Luch. Like, we had Cam Talbot, you know, they had James Neal. they've, you know, Smitty.

There's like a bunch of, like, more guys than you'd think have played, you know, for both, which is kind of kind of odd. And it just adds to it all. Just, it's crazy. So that's why you had the opportunity to, you know, touch base with him and say, how you're doing? And, you know, you're just, you're just, you're just meeting up with an old teammate at the goal line, right?

That's all that was. Yeah. Not many words were said. Yeah. All right. I know, I know we got to take schedule here, but we are going to have Brady on. So we always like to let people plant. questions. We were doing this with Jeff and Quinn. Anything you can prep us for in that

conversation with Brady that could throw them off? Oh, man. I'm trying to think of new stuff with Brady right now. I mean, just bought a house. Maybe going to ask him all that stuff's going, but no, we go homeowner. Homeowner Brady. That'll be fun. Yeah. He doesn't have to live rent free off his brother anymore or his parents. So that's nice. No, you guys can give him shit for, you know, finally being four years into the NHL and getting a place and not having to live with mom or dad. Yeah. Take your time, Brady. Geez. Yeah, I don't know. He's, I'm sure if you ask him, he'd have way more ammo on me. Yeah. He's too nice of a kid. Is that the dynamic? He's too nice. Yeah, he's too nice of a kid. And plus the stuff, if I tell you to make fun of him, he'll actually take it to heart. He'll get mad.

He's the little brother, man. That's the little brother, man. That's the little brother. He's not too sensitive. He's a good kid, though. No, it's, they're actually down in, they're down in Nashville right now. It's my dad's 50th birthday today, too. So there's a bunch of them down, like my parents and their friends.

And so he and Brady's staying over after the game tomorrow. So I'm sure they're going to have a nice little night to celebrate the 50th. Would you get a, would you get Big Walt? What are you going to do you get him for 50th? He was just here for, he was actually, just here for a week or week or so, and he brought his brother, my uncle, and it was his first

time in Calgary. And what I tell you, there is not one person that loves coming to visit me more than my dad. He absolutely loves it here. We went to Banff one day. He just, it's a week-long party with him. So I feel like a babysitter when he's here. I swear. It's crazy. It's like those these jacking answer. Yeah, I can't believe it. He's having a good time with you guys. Wow. Yeah. I just think when he comes, he was. like feels, you know, like you... It's like 20... It's like a time machine going 25 back years for him, right?

He's like, okay, this is that a war. Or back in the Arizona days when he was younger. So, yeah, he loves it. Awesome. Wait, but before we call on second, I was like, no, no, no, no. Not yet. Last thing, last thing before you go, man, the Johnny for heart train is, is rolling. So, so stump for him.

Why does he, why does he deserve it? because I think I think he's in the process of scooping up a lot of votes over the last couple weeks. I mean, it just, it shocks me that he isn't one of the V frontrunner or at least one of the top two or three, four right now. I mean, he has to be. If he's not, there's just something very, very wrong with the system. And at the end of the day, he doesn't, he could care less about it. Right. But it just shows that he's having this probably one of the best seasons in Flames history.

And how much he means to our team, what he provides. You know, and it's it's like we were talking about earlier. It's not just like the offense too. He's probably leading the league in plus minus and one of the best defensive forwards because he has the puck the whole time. He never has to play defense. I mean, Darrell calls him one of the best checkers on the team constantly, right? Like that's a line.

That's a line he uses all the time. He is. And he's just, anytime you need a big goal or big play, you know, he's the one that's surviving it. It's not like some of these other guys on other teams that are playing like 23, 24 minutes a night too.

I don't know. I just, I can sit here forever and talk about him and Wendy and the rest of the team and, you know, how many, like, Marky for best goal in the league.

Like, again, coming back to the Calgary Mark, I just don't think people either watch or respect us enough. But we'll, we like that. We'll try to prove people wrong. Awesome.

Well, thanks for doing this, man. Awesome. Appreciate it, guys. All right. Take care. Good talking. Thanks a luck, man. Sean, I like that you, I like that you extended it.

That was a good fine, good way to get. I mean, you extended it, but you also knew you, you gave him, you threw them something that you knew you would want to expand that. I think that's a pro move. That is. That was right. You're like, all right here. Like, give the elevator pitch for Johnny Godreau for MVP.

I don't know if I would vote for him today necessarily. but we are getting... I didn't hear that as part of the question. We're getting close. That seems really fun to watch. They're really good. Who are you voting for? Jonathan Gubertoe or Johnny Boudreau?

Wait, someone told me that Jonathan Ubertoe is a heart candidate, so he's off my valentire. Brady Kachuk as the little brother. That's like a teaser. That was such a little talent. That was so telling to me. Like, if it was reversed, Brady would have no issues given, but like Matthew's like, he's sensitive.

I got to be careful. I got to be careful with what I say. I forget, yeah, there's a brother, there's a big brother, little brother dynamic here. It's great. Quite literally. No, we're going to make it a family affair. We're going to have Brady. We're going to have Walt.

We're going to have Chantal on. It's going to be a family affair. I would like to formally wish Keith Kachathe, happy 50th. Just text. Just text them or something. We all know. We all know what you're going to do as soon. we hang up here.

Yeah, but like, publicly. Publicly. Publicly. I would like him to know that I am wishing him. I would, not only will, I will, I will text him,

but I will, I would like the world to know. Because nobody's enjoying their 50th. Like, like, Keith can check. That's a well-earned 50 years. He can celebrate with,

he can celebrate with Matthew on his next, on his next trip to Calgary. That's great, too. I love that, good. Walt's showing up and, and, in,

in, Ripped it up with Matthew. Oh, brother. Too good. Like, look, I don't want to harp on the fact that he's in Calgary and he's right. Nobody's, Audi's is paying attention to the Calgary claims. It's just too bad. Like, the whole, the flames are a good story.

Matthew Kachuk's a great story. He's a, he's a superstar. Nobody, like, nobody plays exactly like Matthew Kach. I think that team is, I think that team is potentially prime for a playoff run that gets a lot more people paying attention to them, especially down here. They're really good. They're no doubt the second best team in that conference. And I don't think it's particularly close between

them and three. I think that's my cup. That's my cup winner. I think the gap, I think the gap between the Avs and the flames is smaller than the gap between the flames and whoever you want to place a third, whether it's Minnesota or whoever else. And you got the

Darrell Sutter, like Darrell Sutter knows how to navigate his way through a postseason. I mean, we're doing it again. I mean, We talked about it on the trade deadline wrap up and whatever, but I love what Bradchu Living did. They needed stuff. They needed a secondary score. They needed a versatile guy who could potentially play a three seed.

They got both with Tafoli and Yarn Croke. That's a, he did a really, really good job. Well, that's wrap way too much. I feel like we should include the Calgary flames. They're kind of an American team. I think because they have two superstar Americans. I do want to, I don't want to exclude them from our, or show money for.

And then you got, you got Lindel, he's Swedish. It's close enough, not Canadian, played in Carolina. He's like 25% American. We can cut them out of our level.

We'll just be like, you know, we won't talk about. They're the only, it's more that they're the only Canadian team that I have any interest in talking about. Yeah. I don't want to sit here

and talk about the Maple Leafs. I don't want to do, you know, mid-season assessment of Connor McDavid and Leon Dry Seidel. I have no interest in that. I've never, given a single wit of attention about the about the Winnipeg Jets.

We can talk about the flames. We're allowed. Okay. All right. All right. Let's take a quick break. And then we've got the creative segment in podcasts. Featuring iPhone comments, baby.

The list is long. Hell yes. Is it? Oh, yeah. Good work. Everybody. All right. We will be right back.

iPhone users. Oh, represent. 208 comments, baby. For the first time in however many months, iPhone users can comment. Can I just say 28 comments doesn't sound like a lot. It is. Like, you know, a normal story might get 400. I hope

people realize just how hard it is to find this specific episode in count. 28 comments. I think people should realize how funny I find that specifically. You, whoever, those of you that left a comment, I've just. God bless Couldn't be proud. This is like my thing that makes me happiest is that people jump through 6,000 hoops

to get to this comment. And finally they can do it. None of the kids have graduated from high school yet. But whenever that happens, we'll have a lot to live up to. This is a happy day for Greg Custin's. All right. Number one, shout out to Josh Hahr because he finished. Well, he said, go iPhone users.

Finally able to comment. Josh says, Pierre mentioned that pens needing to resign Malkin and Latang. on, this in the comments for our episode with Pierre LeBron last week after the trade deadline, he was, he was unbelievable. I mean, we all said it, right? Just like dropping little nuggets, like at. Like, taking shots at us, breaking the little bits of interesting news. That's the Pierre.

That's the Pierre experience is like he peppers in great little bits with like calling you an asshole or whatever. That's what it's like. If you want to know what it's like, hang out with Pierre LeBron, it was pretty close. That was it. is it. Okay. Pierre mentioned the pens needed to re-sign Malkin and Latang.

Do you guys think they do it? Would they let both walk if one decides to and then trade Crosby after? No. Oh, wow. Never. Sidney Crosby will not be traded by the Pittsburgh Penguins unless he demands it.

Or do they find replacements and make one more run at it? I think they that's a great question. Good question, Josh. I would be more concerned about La Teng. I think he is still playing at a very high level and realizes he had that he could potentially sign one more very long very lucrative contract so if it doesn't work out i think that's i think that's that would be the sticking

point but i ultimately do think that both those guys end up end up back around and i think that what we've seen from them because of their play and because of the fact that ron hextall notoriously conservative and cautious and whatever else goes out and trades for ricard rickle i think we're going to to see in some form or fashion unless they unexpectedly lose two or three of Brian Rust and Crystal Tang and of Getty Malkin. I think we're going to see another run by them. So inevitably it's going to end during Sid's career. Like there's no way they keep this going. Is there a, you're right. The only way they trade him is if Sid asked out, is there a scenario where Sid says, hey, I do want to, I want to one last run with a cup with the fill in the blank. Do you think

thinks it cares more about ending all in one place or chasing a cup when he's... I think for as long as Malkin and Lattang are in pocket there, I wouldn't, I wouldn't worry about that all that much. If it... I'm not worried about it. I wouldn't say worried about it. I think, no, I know listeners, you can't see. This guy's got fear in his eyes right now.

So scared? I don't think, I don't think Sidney Crassie is being traded by the Pittsburgh Penguins. I never, I never have. It's something that comes up once every 18 months, I feel like, where... You know, him and Nathan McKinn and her friends and blah, blah, blah. I'll believe that when I see it. Okay. Yardana, she's back.

I remember her from the early episodes. For months now, I've been able to comment on podcast episodes. Every Tuesday I tried my luck, but every Tuesday I failed. No matter what I tried, the app would not post my comment. I suspected a Canadian conspiracy, which I think she was right to, frankly. Finally, though, the troll has once a grander. I can't agree to let iPhone users pass. All is well again in this dark and dusty corner of the athletic app.

Can't wait for the next unprofessional interview from my two favorite slackers, hashtag the Tuesday Boys with 3Zs. Oh, okay. That's sweet. Now, first of all. This chronologically, she just heard our last unprofessional interview, which was with Matthew Kachuk. I thought we were fairly professional in that one. Yeah, because we had to. Well, we did an uncommon amount of pre-show preparation, as in we spoke to each other on the phone for 10 minutes about it before.

So that's just, so Sean, for the backstory there, Sean called me, this never happens before an interview. Sean calls me up and says, hey, let's talk this through. No, no, no, no. That meant to me that Sean was worried that I was going to have no idea who Matthew Kachuk was or has done. And he was trying to avoid me from looking back. You are not far off from that. You sent me a bunch of texts about it and we're like, hey, what, like, what are we supposed to talk to Matthew about? I don't, I don't know him not well. And that has never happened to me before.

I just meant he's not, you know, there's some players like Matt Ducane, we can just jump in and pick it back up. But I didn't mean, I didn't know, like, that he was having a good year or whatever. Like, I've paid some attention. He's, you know, he's a chuck, baby. He's, he's, I mean, him and Brady, they can be a little peppery. you got to come correct on that stuff. I think that's fine. Carlos L, I've been shouting into the void

that the Monday show was to blame for a month. Glad to be back. Carlos blames. Carlos. Our rivals, Ian and Ian and Haley, which again,

I don't think he's that far off. It's very possible. Great hashtag. Michael S, now that iPhone users can finally come and I'm sure the quality of this forum will only suffer more. I love you all.

Michael K. in there talking smack again as he's wanted to do. Kevin T. For as long as I've been listening, I've been wanting to ask you guys, what is wrong with you? Seriously, what is wrong with you? It is not in any way difficult to find the comments on here.

You make it seem like it's some sort of arduous journey that could not possibly be described by mere mortals. Wait, wait, wait, hold on. That's what he's mad about? Like, of all the things we do wrong in this podcast, I thought we used to be like, what is wrong with you? Why do you interrupt guests constantly? Why do you not talk about hockey ever?

You think to be over exaggerate how hard it is? I think it's hard to... Sometimes you have to click like four times to play something. Oh, it's awful. A true Odyssey. I often need a drink and a nap afterwards, much like when I listen to the show. Seriously, what's wrong with you?

Love the show. That's what Kevin T says. Kevin, I don't know if you realize this, buddy, but we're dumb. It's tough for us to make it to the episode page. We're not smart men. The amount of work producer Jeff does in the background to put this all together. He knows, like, from the ad reads to the guests, he's just like, show up at this time.

Here's how, I didn't even have my mic on for the Matthew could check. Yeah. Oh, yeah, by the way, guys. He's like, hey, he goes, Craig, hey, look, look, if it's not too much trouble, you are a professional podcaster. Do you think you could turn your microphone on? Turn the mic on. So it's not the laptop mic doing all the work.

Kevin. Thomas W. you. In my hypothetical world, I like to think Vegas traded their playoff hopes for iPhone users to comment. I'll say what? They traded it for something because they're in deep, deep, deep, deep doo-do. What do you give his trade grades? Thomas gives iPhone users an A-minus and Vegas is C-plus, which I think I'm hoping. This is amazing. I'm hoping that that is Thomas realizing that I wrote 20. 25 trade grades or however many it was. My go-to format, winners get an A-minus, losers get a C-plus.

I probably gave out those two specific grades a half dozen different times. I hope Thomas is like, Sean just, like, I hope that's what he did there. I'm going to give him credit. We're going to give him the benefit of the doubt there. Shana M. Yes. Now I can finally ask a question for the Michigan boy and C.C. Why do Detroit Red Wings fans sing the beginning of Don't Stop believe. He's leaving South Detroit. Is there, is this their fans, uh, is this their fans hope that

they'll once again be power, that the once again be powerhouses. And look, we know that, we know that there is no South Detroit. I know it's Windsor, whatever. What's the question? So why do they sing that song? Yeah. Don't stop believing. Why is that, why is that thing in general? Yeah, that's a, that's a good question. Whether he's leaving, like, and I know, like, like, South, again, so everyone I like to say like, there is no South Detroit. But like, technically there is, like there's, like, there's, if you have a, city there's a southern part of a city. I've never understood like I get Windsor south of Detroit but people aren't like there's no South Pittsburgh that's Georgia or whatever like

it's like a southern part of Detroit would they're not be like whatever south of the city center? That's one of those things that people realized I feel like 10 years ago and now constantly I mean it's cool to say that I get it I just think at some point they were like whoever was running the Joe Lewis arena music was like hey Detroit's in the song it's that simple they say Detroit. That would be my guess because it's like they, you know, they do that. And then that they play it. And here's what happened. Because I was, I've been to six million games at Joe Serena. Whatever order of songs they decided one day in like 1998, they just stuck with. Like they, it was never up. I could tell you at what point we were in the second period based on what song was being played. And if you're a Red Wing season ticket holder, you know this. You're like, oh, I'm singing along. Oh, this is the TV time out. Uh, in the, in the, they just didn't and then they largely brought it over to Little Caesars. So and so then fans being awesome just made it into, they're like, hey, this has always played at this point.

We're going to sing with a lot. Like there's various songs that Rubbins fans sing and they, when the music stops, they keep it going into the play and it's fun. And that's, I don't think it was by design though. I don't think some, some, some, some program, you know, music programmer was like, hmm, maybe if we conclude that they're whatever. People don't pay attention to lyrics. So, so you hear South Detroit.

It's, it could, it could, the last, the way, the way those lyrics are sung and the, in the, in the core progression that's under them, you could literally be saying like, Steve Perry could be saying South Detroit is a hellhole after that and people wouldn't, people wouldn't, people wouldn't pay attention to it because he just said it's like, born in the USA. That's like, that is exactly, that is exactly what I was going to say. This is, this is Ronald Reagan trying to co-op born in the USA or whatever. Any, any, any, I mean, really, lots and lots of. of Republican politicians have tried to co-op that song. And Bruce Brinksney is always like, uh, no, clearly not paying attention to the overall, the overall motif. Michael Kay is back. He says, hi, Sparty, back after a one week hiatus. He says he knows that we bypass all his comments.

It's obviously not true. There's been a week's where he's been the only, Michael Kay, we don't, that's true. Never would do such a thing. If Vegas is the one who did wrong, should they be punished? He's asking about the Dadanob trade. Now, if it's Ottawa who didn't give info to the NHL in Vegas, should they be pun? I mean, nobody's getting punished. The punishment was the trade getting avoided,

and they want that to disappear. I think that's where we are. How about the punishment being the league is humiliated, that they're run by fax machines, and there's no centralized trade requirement or trade clause? Like, are we at a point where cap-friendly has more information than central registry? Is that what happens to you?

There's so many different, like, why is this not centralized? I mean, in Pierre, after this episode did a, I mean, he wrote a couple different things about the fallout from that, from that catastrophe. And it's classic NHLGM bullshit, right, where it's like they don't want anybody on anybody else on earth to know who is on the no trade list because they don't want hurt other people's feelings. And like, like, whatever. It's like, it's this mindset that, you know, still pops up in weird, in weird spots like that. So the fact that the league didn't know that is just. I mean, completely unforgivable. But again, you know, just another day in the life.

This is not something that happens in other leagues. This is not something you see in other trade deadlines in other North American professional leagues. Like, can you, I know I feel like I say this a lot, but can you imagine in the NFL if like the Patriots and the Cowboys made a trade? And then they were like, oops. This is not. There was a scrap of paper from a previous thing. This is not a trade being nixed because of. a failed physical or, you know, something, something unforeseen like that.

This is just straight up incompetence by, it really seems like three separate parties. You can blame the league and you can blame the senators and you can probably blame the Vegas Golden Knights to some extent because maybe if they would have called a Genni Dadov's agent before they traded him, they would have known that he had a no trade clause. I don't know about that one. Why, I mean, do you confirm every, no trade clause list you have on your, I mean, maybe you shouldn't now, I would, but. Maybe you give, you, you think it's crazy for them that, for them that on trade deadline date to give whoever the agent was, like a heads up before him, but before, before this, before the shit gets processed. And he says like, oh, whoops, actually, you can't do that.

They do that with. I'm going to ask for forgiveness later, guy, Sean. Yeah, I mean, Vegas, Vegas clearly is too. Vegas try. And that's the thing. I love that saying, like, it's better to, it's better to beg for forgiveness and ask permission. But sometimes people aren't going to forgive you. That's something to remember.

William T. I like this one. Pierre marched straight into the American show and established his alpha dominance on both of you. Absolutely did. In the intro told us to like F off or whatever, whatever he said. He definitely swore at us. I can't remember what it was. What you guys couldn't see is he took.

like a giant piss on our rugs. I've seen that in person too. And just said, all right, I'm here, boys. Let me take over this podcast. Yeah, there was no, I think we were deferential. I'm the cabin now, boys. Scotty. I've just been dealing with it my entire life with Pierre.

Like, that's, we just slotted into place. Oh, man. I, my first Pierre experience was like a lot. I was definitely like little brother tagging along with you and he was, who else this? I'm like, Sean, can you hang out with us? Yeah.

All right. Michael Kay, this is, this is not. Michael Kaye, a dominant performance out of Michael Kaye. This is a really good one. How come when Sean and Haley work together, it goes great, but the second Craig or Ian shows up, it devolves into a throwing shade onto each other thing.

I really think this is a Craig versus Ian thing. What do you think, Sean? That's absolutely, Michael Kay, you couldn't be more correct. Oh, God. Craigdian. I'll tell you. Craigdian,

super mean dudes. They've hated each other for years. This is just that. This is, this is, I'm going to keep it moving. That's not true at all. I feel like this is devolving.

We're going to get criticized like we did about the Twitter bracket. Because we're enjoying this sincerely and I'm having a great time here. We're not allowed. And users are like, you guys are talking about like your friendships with other employees too much here. Carmela, now that iPhones are accepted, I no longer have to tweet to Sean and Craig for my thoughts.

Mentioning Ryan Kessler made me think of one of my favorite Americans, Brian Rolfsky. Specific shout-out to his 2010 Olympic performance. I'm completely on board with everything Carmela said here right now. Is he one of the most underrated American hockey players and who else makes that list? I love that.

Great question. I love that. And Carmela, I think you may have given us our next topic for our Apple podcast premium show. Do we do the underrated American Mount Rushmore? American Mount Rushmore? Yeah. Yes.

I think so. They can go into our summer list. So I will say a couple things here first. I don't want to just put off this whole comment to later. Brian Rufalski was nobody remembers. Well, I mean, Carmelo does. But everyone, like if you think back to that tournament, you think of Ryan Miller, right? And everyone's like, oh, Ryan Miller carried that team, which he did.

but Brian Rofalski was unbelievable in that tournament. Unbelievable. So when I think of Brian Rufelsky, I think of that, I also think of him just like leaving with a year left on his contract. I'm done. Like leaving real money on the table and just being like. While he was still very good. Yeah.

Like he was, he still had, he could have signed another contract after that. Yeah. Right? Like, I think it's probably screwed over the Red Wings on some level. They never really, like, I think they signed Ian White or something. They had to scramble a bit to, I'm sure that's not what it happened, but there were some version of them having to scramble and it didn't work out.

And then they haven't been good for years. So he's underrated. I'm not putting it all on Brian Rolfsky. He's underrated in general. Like just not just an underrated, an underrated player. He was so important. I think part of it is because he has no interest in like he disappeared. So there was years after he left.

I'm like, that's such a good story. He went down to Florida or whatever. I'm like, I'm going to find Brian Rolfsky and we're going to talk about just walking away from millions and it's a really good human interest story and I love that kind of stuff. And just Brian is not, he's just, he's done with it and he's living with his family and he's living his private life. And so that's why you don't hear from him or about him unless Carmela brings him up. That's the only time I hear about Brian Rolfsky is from Carmela typically.

Carmela, you can leave a Brian Rolfi comment once a week. I think that Phil Housley's kind of underrated. And I was thinking about this. I think I was thinking about this because we've had to do, we're working on a big project involving lots, involving evaluating the careers of a lot of different players. And man, he really was. The guy's really one of the best,

he was one of the best defensemen in the league for a decade. And I think he was sort of, I don't know, is because he played at the same time as cellios or whatever. I think that probably had something to do with it. But he feels kind of underrated to me. Well, we just need two more spots then. We'll find some. Whatever.

That's what we're doing in... That's coming up in the Apple Podcasts bonus episodes. If there are a Muppet Athletic movie, who would play you two? God, wait, we've talked about this and had to eliminate our answers in the past. Who would play you two? Gonzo and Rizzo, Kermit and Fuzzy. Is Don played by Dr. Bunsen Honeydue?

Yes. I mean, Dom might be beaker. Gonzo and Rizzo kind of makes sense. For us? Yeah. Probably my two least favorite, if we're being honest.

That's complete bullshit. Muppets. Rizzo is really obnoxious and Gonzow is a big nose. Based on your comments from last week, have either of you seen Torz's pregame speech had a game one of the playoffs against Tampa? No, but we're going to watch it. Yeah. We need torts on.

I know Torts is like, I'm trying to lay low. I'm not doing a bunch of stuff. Yeah, he's only on TV. Come on. Lay low. I'm going to lay low by going in front of millions of people. Yeah, and having to sit there and watch an RC car with a plate of chicken palm on top of it wheeled out once a week. That seems like that's part of his game.

We need to get, we need to get torts on at some point. I would love... I know he's listening right now. So, John, let's just... Can we just do this? Yeah. I don't know if I would even say anything. I would love to just watch, like...

I need like a solid, good 20 minutes between you and torts. I think that's when it needs to happen. That'd be fun. I want to read Morgan D's. Okay. Thanks for the Doc Emric love. Oh, so if you go back and listen at the end, we talk about nobody worked a dressing room like Doc Emmerich. And it's true.

So good. Just a pro. It was truly a privilege to have him called Devil's games for as long as he did. He would always find time for fans at the arena and really was just as good as you can be to anyone who came up to talk to him. True. He needs to be on our list that people talk to. Since the topic of officiating has been brought up at the GM's meetings and since us Devils fans don't have a beat writer at the Athletic to put this in a mailbag. Shana, by the way, is doing a great job covering Devils, but I understand Morgan.

I am going to throw this out here. It is super weird for Devils fans to have an offensive player of the caliber of Jack Hughes. The interesting thing is that the Jersey fan base now gets to experience how great offensive players are just manned. This is a great comment. I haven't thought of that. That's amazing. Yeah. Devil's fans for years have probably been on the other side of this.

Now they have a superstar who we basically catapulted to superstar. Nobody believed in Jack Hughes with Sean and I. Nobody. I saw the devil's Twitter account was tweeting out like a bunch of old tweets that said how he was a bust and acting like they believed. I think the devil's Twitter account actually started to doubt at one point. Absolutely. Whether or not Jack uses the start. He's already, I use this tweet in the power rings, but I'll use it again.

He's at 0.7 points per game for his career again, or not again, already. After a pretty slow start. And that is like star, that's like star level production already. He's there. It happened. And this is all because we interviewed him and he immediately separated his shoulder. But we gave him up. We pumped him up.

Mm-hmm. I was at The Devil's Game Sent. I'm just going to jump to the question. The style of officiating has to be dictated from the league office, right? Craig. Of what? Not letting star players be star players? It's more of just an overall mindset.

I don't think there's any like, there's never like, you know, an edict that comes down where they say don't call interference. And Morgan, you, I mean, again, how long did you watch Ken Danico, right? Like, you know, you know, you know, you know the draw. Come on. This is payback for you personally. But yeah, it's not, you don't have, there doesn't need to be an edict from the league because it's just in the water. It's part of the NHL's DNA at this point. You don't have to tell them to do anything because all the systems are already in place and the track record is in place for them to just do it without being asked.

So the flip side to that is when, so I agree. I don't think there's some conspiracy theory where they're like, hey, let people do whatever they want to jack use. But here's a here's a huge. And if there is, we're going to find you. and we're going to get you. Yeah, we will put an end to that. But when are we going to get to a point, especially in the playoffs, where you're going to say, let the stars be stars.

You can't touch Connor McDavid or we're going to call a penalty. Never. We need the flip side. I don't think there's a grand conspiracy theory, but I do think there's years and years and years of history and DNA that has to be overcome with Gary saying, sending out a memo that says, we need to be more star driven when we're on the biggest stage because right now we're the opposite.

This is not an email that comes out in October. This is not something they give a shit about for three weeks and then go back to the way they were calling games in, you know, 1995, 1997 or whatever. It needs to be a playoff thing. And I have no confidence and no belief that it will ever happen.

Not in our lifetimes, buddy. I mean, it would have happened. All right. Like, if they, if they believed it, it was an important thing to do, it would have happened. Like, what would have to happen for them to do it? Like, we've seen them, Sydney Crosby went through his whole, his entire career doing it or dealing with it. Connor McDavid is now, is now dealing with it. They don't, it's not a priority.

If it was, they would have fixed it. Maybe, maybe it takes somebody at ESPN or somebody saying, hey, you know, it would be a good idea. You know, we spent a bunch of money here. I don't want some team that's just beating up our best players and trapping or doing whatever, winning the Stanley Cup. The New Jersey. Can we make this a little bit more? Yeah.

That is. There's a bit of irony in the question. I love it. We kind of wrap. We're so. Yeah, we're way over time. Thank you guys. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank all you folks for, gosh, for post and comments. We say it. We're saying it again. We say it every week. Yeah, thank you. It was a good batch to it. iPhone users can roll.

So come hang out and help us do our jobs because it is so easy to sit here and be us based on stuff you guys right and just without any kind of prep work or forethought. I want to thank Joe Smith and Matthew Kachuk for joining the podcast and for Pete with the flames for setting it up for producer Jeff for doing all of the hard work that goes into actually putting good guests on the show because you know Sean and I aren't going to help. We are not pitching. Lazy, lazy, lazy man. My goodness. Bill Daley and Elliot Friedman, Mike Russo is down at the GM meetings right now. And so he is, he's going to have some good. I'm sure he's squirling away great stuff too.

He's going to have some good stuff. Bill and Elliot will be joining Mike Russo. Maybe Mike can ask Bill, when is he going to send that memo? I think that's, I'm going to plant that question. Here's a comment from Craig C. Hey. Yeah, Craig C asks. Michael, I have a great question for you.

Make sure that you're following us on your favorite podcast platform and leave a a rating and review if you like us. Five stars only. Five stars. Four star. Yeah. Don't bother if it's a four star. That actually hurts my feelings.

Makes me sick. Subscribe to the athletic audio plus on Apple Podcasts to get all the bonus content from our entire network, including our future Mount Rushmore of underrated American players. This week, Ian Mendez and Down Goes Brown, who I wonder if he has a name. Who is that? Provide the bonus content. Start with a 30-day free trial, then it's just 99 cents a month after that. And right now, this is the best deal you'll ever hear.

You can get an annual subscription to The Athletic for just $1 a month for six months when you visit theathletic.com slash hockey show. And, I mean, you can't beat that deal. Max Boltman is joining Sean next week because I am taking a week hiatus to go to Harry Potter, World. Oh, is that? Is that where you're going? In Florida?

In Florida or California? I don't know. I mean, how many details do you want to give out? Where are you staying? What address? What's your social security number, bro? I live on, would you call peers address? 1-1-2-2-Bogie Woggy Wurly.

Way? 11-2-2-Bogie Avenue. So, Max, finally, Max Baltman, some, putting them to work, finally, doing some good work. Boom. Oh, and we got Rousseau and LeBron on. the athletic hockey show tomorrow with Julian and Sivie and Jesse. So just all kinds of stuff on the athletic hockey show. Packed house on Wednesday. Great stuff. I love it. Goodbye, Craig. Thanks everybody. Goodbye, Sean. Thanks everyone who showed up. Thanks for the great comments. Love you all.

To all a good night.