The Athletic Hockey Show - Michael Andlauer chirps back at NHL, players experimenting with neck guards and Canucks surprise start to the season: real, or not?

Episode Date: November 2, 2023

Hailey, Max and Sean dig into Senator owner Michael Andlauer's honest comments regarding the NHL's handling of the Evgenii Dadonov trade fiasco. They discuss NHL players embracing neck guards, how truly awful the Calgary Flames have been this season, and if the hot start to the Canucks, Ducks, Canadiens and Red Wings is for real, or not?Subscribe to The Athletic Hockey Show on YouTube: http://youtube.com/@theathletichockeyshowYou’ll be amazed at what you can do with Grammarly. Go to http://grammarly.com/podcast to download for FREE today. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Hockey Show. What's up, everybody? Welcome to another episode of The Athletic Hockey Show, where we're going to kick off the show and not so subtly ask you to leave us a rating and review. Five stars, please on Apple, Google, Spotify, wherever you get your podcast. It's Thursday. That means it's Haley, Salvi, and Sean Jinn, Tilly, Max Boltman. You know this is your favorite day of the week. Give us the five stars.

And if you don't like us that much, just do it anyways. that's my Uber philosophy five stars no matter what five stars are nothing okay but do you would you knock an Uber like what does how this is a great

I thought we are getting we have we have so much like hockey stuff to get into so much news but I just need to know like what needs to happen in your Uber for you to not give them five stars I had a truly unhinged

Uber experience last weekend and rather than give less than five stars, I just acted like I forgot to rate because I couldn't bring myself to do it. So that's how, that's how soft I am. Is it bad if I don't often like give ratings on Uber? I love that Max, Max told that story like it was going to result in him doing something villainous and mean. He's like, he just stalled and then I didn't rate him at all. Well, that's my point. My point is I am truly, if I'm not giving you five stars, I'm just going to recuse myself because I will feel so guilty docking those things for no good reason.

I'm just soft. I know that my Uber stars is like just a shade under five. And that's why, because I can't bear mine going under whatever it is, 4.81 or something like that. Right. Yeah. If I think it's to 4.6, what even am I? You're an asshole.

I'm spotless on Lyft. I think I did something to an Uber driver at some point in the last 15 years. You just kind of didn't answer their question. Anyways, I don't know. I don't go in, I don't take Uber that much unless I'm on the road for work. Anyways, let's move on from that because there is another, another day that is kind of packed with news. And we're going to start with the Michael Ann Lauer press conference in the news of Wednesday about the Ottawa senators just rebrand Thursdays to the Sends hour at this point. Honestly, they've been dominating, dominating the headlines.

So the senators were forced to sacrifice first round pick for their role in the Evgeny Dadov trade fiasco. That news came out on Wednesday. So just to briefly recap for anyone who didn't listen to the Wednesday show or didn't kind of go through the press release. The Ottawa senators traded of getting Dadov to Vegas in July 2021. Vegas attempted to trade him to the ducks in the 2022 trade deadline. That deal was ultimately axed when Dadanov and his representation said actually Anaheim's on our trade list. But then the Golden Knights were like, we didn't get a trade list.

Like we didn't even know that. So it turned into this huge disaster. The ducks don't get their second round pick. The Golden Knights don't get to trade of Genni Daddanov until, you know, the off season or a few months later. But this ultimately traced back to the Ottawa senators. And in the press conference yesterday, in this press conference was to talk about the first round pick that they lost, but also the fact that Pierre Doris.

Dorian was relieved of his duties or they mutually agreed to part ways. So Pierre Dorian after eight years as the SENS GM is out. And Ann Lauer said in the press conference, he got a 73 page report that showed the organization was negligent in nature and embarrassed the league and two other teams. So essentially, again, we know this. The Sends just didn't provide the trade list to the Vegas Golden Knights. And this is from Elliott Friedman's 32 Thoughts column that came out today. One theme that appeared during that investigation and I guess in that report was that Ottawa's front office had different silos or trust circles, essentially meaning that Pierre

Dorian had different people that he would talk to about different things. Like some guys just like weren't included in certain conversations and that ultimately affected the communication and contributed to not sharing Daddanov's no trade list with Vegas. So Dorian out, seems like it was mutual, like, whereas, like, Anne Lauer went to Dorian and said, so you should probably be fired. Wait, no, this is kind of like, this is what Mendez said, like, this was kind of the conversation. It was like, the punishment for this happening is your job. And Dorian was like, yeah, you're probably right.

I need either the explicit facts of this, or more preferably, I need the Glenn Howerton and Mark Critch reenactment of this. I just love the idea of Dorian being like, yeah, you're right. See you later. I'm going to go back up my stuff. It's fine. Yeah. What could that even be?

Like, is that like a give me one good reason that this shouldn't cost you your job? And it's just like, I can't. I can't. Yeah, it was just like, yeah, like you're probably right. So it was a mutual parting of ways, mostly because Anne Lauer wanted to keep the conversation that he had with Dorian private. But I still like Was he fired or did he resign? What happened?

Was he fired? And he was like, yeah, okay. To me, if I'm if I'm Pierre Dorian in that situation and my boss asked me that question, he's firing me anyway. So I'm just going to be like, well, you asking me this means it's over. So can we just do this? See you later. Yeah.

Yeah. But that's kind of the mutual parting of ways, I guess, is what they're saying here. So I think we don't totally need to get into the. I disagree with that. It doesn't matter. Who cares? That's not even the point. It's like the point isn't even that Dorian's out. It's not even the first round pick. I think the whole takeaway and the point of day two of this kind of conversation and the reason we're still talking about this is like the NHL's own perceived negligence. Like one of the biggest things we saw in that press conference was Anne Lauer like hammering the NHL, hammering Gary Bettman.

We don't often get. get this from owners or really anybody in those positions. Anne Lauer, and I promise I'm almost done. I'm just trying to get through the notes and then you will hear from Sean. Thank you. Anne Lauer said the team did not know about the Pinto investigation until recently, like well after it had already begun. He said that he did know about the Dadov probe during the sale process,

but said it was framed as a non-issue. Here's what Michael Ann Lauer had to say with more context. You just kind of mentioned how you never anticipated this. He sort of inherited this situation. I think a lot of fans are wondering why you should have to, this organization have to pay for something that happened 18 months ago, not even on your watch. What would you say to that?

I totally agree with you. That's a question you have to ask the NHL, why it took a whole year since the hearing. Granted, it was a two-day hearing. 73-page reports. It's not something that's just slam dunk. I know, and the commissioner had a lot of times. to deliberate on it and think about it. But why I inherited this is beyond me. There's no reason

for it to last that long. I knew about it, the due diligence process. And it was basically, from the seller's perspective, it was really a non-issue. So I don't know first round is a non-issue to you guys, but it is to me. Guys, let's start with Sean. I'm done talking here. That's the setup. That's the news. That's the spark notes. What's the big takeaway for you, Sean? First off, okay, so it's Thursday afternoon. All the insiders have reported in some capacity or in one way or another that Ian Lauer's not going to be fined for this. Which, okay. Good.

I mean, sense fans would literally start like a go fund me if he was. They'd be like, we'll pay for it, King. Who said that? It was Mendez. They were like, hold on, King. We've got you. Um, on some level, I'm surprised by that. On another, I'm not because it's like, you don't necessarily want to draw more attention to what's gone on or further piss off a man who just paid a billion dollars. Just a shade under, yeah.

Just a scotch under a bill to be in the club. So whatever. The point, though, is that what he's, this is blistering shit from an NHL owner. I've never, what's the, the money quote and I have it. We just played it. Well, I mean, it was the money, we just played the money quote. It was that maybe they just wanted to keep the, I wasn't, yep, keep the value high. Yeah. And then that is, and he's like, I, I don't know. Maybe, maybe, maybe not. What I'm hearing is an echo. Michael Anlaw asked the HL, why should I not say this is bullshit? And the NHL said, we agree.

Totally. We're, we are finding, we are docking you a first round pick for not disclosing the conditions of a sale for not disclosing the conditions of a, of a sale. Like it's a wild, it's a wild situation. I was like initially kind of not really paying attention to Michael Lauer's press conference because we've all, look, we've all heard it before in some capacity, right? get fired, things follow sort of a script. It took me a little bit to realize that this was, that this one was deviating a bit. There was some heat on this presser. From what we typically heard.

Yeah. And Haley, you said this. That's why we're still talking about it today. Because he lobbed some, he lobbed some bombs. He threw some, he threw some haymakers at the, at the league when it, when it comes of this stuff. And I loved it. I loved it because it's directly in line with,

Something we've seen over the last couple months, even more than we've seen it over the last couple years, is this just labyrinthine lack of transparency by the league when it comes to these important decisions where it's like there's no internal logic, there's no communicated logic. The only thing that we're left to do is media, as fans, or whatever, is you see this, you see these, like the Pinto, great example, you see the saving grace for that for like the Pinto suspension when it happened. was like, every, they've got to know more than this. They've got to be communicating more than this to teams, to the PA, like whoever.

And what we've seen in Lauer's like the, the biggest, baddest, most glaring example of it is that they don't. Yeah. They don't. They don't communicate this stuff. They don't communicate it publicly. They seem to be doing a crummy job of communicating it privately. If a man, this goes back to what we said before, if a man who paid damn near a billion dollars, be in this club isn't getting satisfactory explanations for things that affect his business in his

bottom line so directly a first round pick like a half half season suspension for for a very important young player he's not getting satisfactory explanations for that like like of course we're not of course reporters aren't of course fans aren't it goes through like the entire process is is just littered with a total, you know, lack of transparency, lack of satisfactory explanations, however you want to say it. And we got a big time bid of proof for Manlauer yesterday as far as that was concerned. I loved it. I agree.

And I think the punishment was a little bit of a joke. Obviously, I think the fans of 31 other teams, like, have to be thrilled that another young, up-and-coming good team lost their first-round pick. So you're probably not going to get that much pushback on it from the NHL. fan base outside of Ottawa, I'm guessing. But I don't understand the, it's just so arbitrary to me. And I get that they like embarrassed the league or whatever. But that's why it's so harsh, right?

Because it's like you embarrassed us. But did you even think? Of course it was embarrassing. Apparently that's the worst thing you could do. Yeah. And, you know, we go back to the coyotes combine thing. And that's like, I think the best comparable for, I guess, this kind of. That's the best precedent that says something like this could happen.

It is. We've known about this since the Dadov trade, obviously, got canceled. We knew why pretty quickly. Like, did you even think this was a possible ramification for that? I thought that it was something that they just swept under the rug for the last 18 months. And they hope people forget, because God knows they've done that before. You just hope people forget about it. Yeah.

It's one of those things where, like, clearly, we know. Go ahead, Ailey. No, and all I was going to say is we know that this wasn't actually swept under the rug because they didn't have a 73-page report done in two days. Like they've been working on that for God knows how long. Came out before the Hockey Canada investigation, by the way. If the fine is actually to do with a front office that has different silos and trust circles, we're going to be taking a lot of first-round picks away around this league.

If that's the actual reason for this, right? It's just that this one resulted in an embarrassment for the league. So whatever, Ottawa fans, I feel for you, I think this is a joke, but it's just what it is. I think the biggest thing for me is, look, like the Sends acquired, the Sends got of Gennie Dadnav when I was still covering the team. Like, this is how long some of this saga has been going on for. They traded him 18 months ago. Like 18 months ago was when this all started. And that's the biggest issue is like, fine, you know what?

First round pick, do it. make it, like, why does it need to be handled when it's Michael Ann Lauer that's in charge? Like, why did this need to be a new, and that's this whole thing of like, why did I inherit this, excuse me? Is this like, why wasn't this slap to the former regime and like the GM who did this? Like, why did this need to happen for me? Like, if it's the GM's fault, why did it need, why did you need to wait until I bought this team and da-da-da-da-da, is it because I wasn't going to want the team if I didn't have a first round pick in 2024? Because what's the implication?

Anne Lauer's saying that the other two teams were pissed enough to, you know, meaning the Vegas and Anaheim were pissed enough to keep this as an issue. Well, think of the immediate aftermath. Everyone was like, the Vegas Golden Knights were a joke.

It's just like, oh my God, you idiots, you didn't get his no trade list. So it was just like, no, it wasn't us. And they wanted people to know that it was, in fact, the Sends, who biffed it. And Michael Ann Lauer for as angry as he was, and as annoyed as he was with the league and the situation, like he still owned up like our organization was 100% at fault.

Like we were negligent. This did not need to happen. Like it's our fault. It's just the way that the rest of it was handled. That's the problem. Max, did you have? What happened to John Chaka though, right? Like what when something happened, right?

Like some of this should have just been a, okay, Pierre Dorian gets a one year suspension for running this like organization that had this failure. Like that should have been, if anything, right? Like, I don't know. And that's probably why Anne Lauer was like, you know, this is going to cost you your job, right? Yeah. The facts of this are simple. Like, Anne Lauer said as much.

Like, there was a no trade list. It didn't make it to the ducks. Like, whatever. That's what happened. 18 months, 18 months for that, that's where you start seeing stuff. And you're like, okay, wait, you need 73 pages in a year and a half to explain something that's simple. Yeah. It's ridiculous, honestly.

That's why he was like, you'd have to ask the league about why it took so long, so I don't know. It's because the point here always, always, always, always, what the league tries to do is give themselves flexibility to respond to this sort of stuff based on whatever the whims of the principles that are involved in, right? Whether it's the public, whether it's owners, whether it's the PA or players or whatever. They don't want to get themselves hemmed in in any capacity. Right. Right. So the end result is you sacrifice a decipherable process, an understandable process, maybe a process with some amount of integrity to the whims of whatever's going on at any given time, right? So there's no consistency, like where I know we keep talking about transparency.

A big part of transparency is consistency where you know what you're getting from a given situation and you know why you're getting it. And that to me is like that's what's lost. That's what's lost on the team end of things. And that's the craziest part of what Anne Lauer said. I know I'm like repeating myself here, but it's one thing for us to not know this. It's another thing for teams not to know it. And that is the craziest part of it.

At the end of the day, an owner who paid a record price for a franchise feels like he was misled during the sale process. Yeah, not for nothing, too. That is a serious allegation. and he almost came out and he made it as plain as he possibly could being like, I don't, I don't know why they didn't tell me. That is wild. That's wild.

And that's why we're still talking about this today. And I'm glad we are because it's of a type with so much stuff that we've seen from them, you know, generally and also very specifically over the last, over the last few weeks. It doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make any sense that the coyote's, the coyote's penalty was one thing. the Blackhawks penalty was another. And now we're talking about the Ottawa senators getting docked a first round pick

when another organization got docked 2 mil for a set of violations. There was a whole hell of a lot more egregious than leaving of Gennie Daddanov's trade, no trade list in a drawer. It's insane. And I'm glad that Michael Ann Lauer is laying waste of this shit. Like I'm like welcome to the league, dude. I'm glad you're here. There's at least a consistency in the,

Ottawa, Arizona, like, this is like, you know, you kind of did something to screw over other team's idea, right? Of like, that's the cost for that, right? You cheated in some way, right? I get that. There's at least some, but it just seems, I guess the rate, you could probably couldn't have a rulebook that literally lays out the punishment for everything bit by bit, but it's, it can be more than it is now. Yeah. You can have an internal logic that, that you apply on on a case by case basis where you don't have to. to say like, all right, if you don't disclose a no trade list, this is the penalty. Like, if the process is sound enough, you can explain it in the moment.

But it's such a stupid thing. There shouldn't need to be a rule. Like, that's such like a weird thing that happened. Like, why would you even think to have a rule in place to say, like, make sure you give the no trade list by the deadline? Totally. And wasn't that the actual embarrassment to the league is that they league had to sit through a month of everybody talking about how they needed a central clearinghouse at central registry? that's nothing, right? It's just like, that is such a silly thing to happen. Like, you shouldn't need a rulebook.

And I think Sean made this point. It's about the transparency. And it's about, it's what Anne Lauer kind of called out almost in a way. And we saw it very specifically in the last 10 days with the Ottawa senators is, you know, with the Shane Pinto thing, all we get is the one line. There wasn't evidence that he bet on an NHL game. The only rule in the CBA is you can't bet on NHL games. yet Shane Pinto still gets 41 games. And it's like, are the rules just this vague?

And yes, there was a memo sent to players reminding them not to do X, Y, Z. But it's like, are the rules and the guidelines this vague so, like, you can decide when the moment comes what you want to do? There's no other way to look at it. My interpretation of, like, you know, the rest of it. There's no other way to look at it. Like, that's the conclusion that we've been left to draw is that they keep this stuff deliberately vague so they can, so they can, so they can, you know, incorporate whatever questionable factors into the ultimate, into the ultimate decision.

The Pinto thing is a whole other, you know, you're tempted to just like put it off to the side and say that it's something else entirely, but it's not. It isn't. And teams still aren't like players. I'm glad it seems like the players association seems like they're taking the lead here and giving players, you know, a certain set of guidelines because it doesn't seem like it's coming from the teams. I talked to two executives today who said that nothing has been sent to the team level to, you know, like, I don't know, prevent something like help prevent something like this from happening again. It's crazy.

That shocks me. That shocks me. Well, it's true. Welcome to the NHL. One more quick thought on the Sends conversation before we move on and shift gears to other things is we should mention that the first round pick that they lose, they kind of get to choose, 2024, 2025 or 2026. And I think the big question is, if you're the Sends, what do you do? Max, you're our kind of prospect draft expert of the trio here. If you're the Ottawa senators and you just went through all this stuff over the last 10 days, Thomas Shabbat's out, you've got these injuries. No Shane Pinto, 41 games. You're probably not going to have a great finish to the year,

which means you might draft well. So you think they keep this year's pick. What do you think? What do you do if you're the Sends? Yeah, I think you trust that you're a team on the rise and that your pick should keep getting later. Ultimately, that's the goal is to give up a pick as late as possible. If you're picking, let's say, 15th this year, I think you're taking that pick and trusting that you're going to improve as your young players continue to join the fold and get better in coming

years. I think you're keeping that pick and kicking it at least another year. And eventually, if you get into like the mid-20s, I think it's fine to say, okay, this will be the year. But Ottawa has actually been in this spot before. They had the conditional pick on the pick that they gave up for Matt Dushane. And I think they had the choice in the Brady-Kichuk draft year. And they kept that one at number four. Ended up being the worst team in the league the next year. But it ended up moving back to four.

That was Bowen-Virum. They made the right choice then. I think that's the same calculus. If you like what you can get at that pick, you keep the pick. I think to me the bigger problem is at some point, whether it's this season, next season, whatever, that's going to be, that pick is going out the window and it's something that they can't move at the trade deadline. That, for that, for this particular team that has its core in place, has every intention and every

possibility of winning meaningful games at some point over the next couple years, whether it's this February, next, whatever, there is going to be a trade that they can't make because of what just happened. And that, if I'm Michael Inlower or if Steve Steyos or if I'm whoever a play, that bothers me more. than not being able to add the 19th pick in the draft or whatever. That is serious capital if they could use to improve the team that they're not going to have. We should also not totally dump on like 28th overall picks or whatever because Shane Pinto and Ridley, Greg, we're both late round first rounders and that's their middle six, bottom six centers.

So that's either a valuable player or a valuable tradable asset that they're losing. And this is a team also that doesn't have a whole lot of cap space. And what is often the sweetener to dump cap and open up. space for yourself first round drop picks. So they do have two this year earlier because they have the Boston pick that they got from Detroit. So whatever is the later of the two, I think is the technical phrasing, which will be the Boston So maybe they just punt this year.

No, you probably want to pick twice. I continue to be very concerned that we curse the Ottawa senators at some point on this podcast a few weeks ago. Should we just stop talking about them? But it seems like it. Yeah. Yes. All right.

Let's move on. Okay. let's leave the Anne Lauer Sends conversation. There's some other things to move on to really quickly before we go to a break. Obviously on the show the last several days, there's been a lot of talk about Adam Johnson. Tragic death, a horrible thing that happened. You know, the guys Ian and Julian have talked about it over the last few days. But the one piece that has kind of continued into today on November is we're seeing a lot more of a push for neck

protection for players. The WNHL became the latest league to make neckguard protection mandatory for all players effective this Friday. That's tomorrow. Or as soon as the equipment is available to clubs, the OHL, the QMJHL already did it. A big issue I think is going to be supply, like all these manufacturers need to supply and get out all these neck protectors. But I think the piece today is we're seeing guys in practice in the NHL now, testing. out different neck protectors. So I think Tom Wilson was skating at practice, testing went out in Pittsburgh, Eric Carlson, Ryan Graves, Lars Eller, Marcus Peterson was wearing one as well. And this note was from, on NHL Network Radio, Bill Daley said that Betman spoke to Marty Walsh,

the NHLPA executive director about putting this squarely on the radar. It's going to be an adjustment for players, but the league is strongly recommending cut resistant materials for use currently by players. I think grandfathering it in is going to be the play. Like you can't just say this is mandatory. Now, I mean, you can, but players are going to test it out. They're seeing what works, what doesn't. And, you know, it's one thing to see guys in the American League or junior starting to wear neck protection after what happened with Adam Johnson in the UK. But I think it's another to see Eric Carlson and Tom Wilson taking a spin with something. So that's just one bit of news. today.

Yeah, I feel like the key there is going to just be comfort. If the players feel like they can wear them comfortably and breathably and all that, or if the manufacturers can innovate a little bit and find the right balance here between resistant and not bulky and hot and uncomfortable, that feels like the path, I think. Yeah, and like it doesn't look cool. It's not going to be an acceptable reason anymore. It's going to be what you said, Max. like, is it comfortable? Can they do it? Is it restrictive? Whatever? Not just like,

this looks stupid. It looks like I'm wearing a turtleneck. Like, that's not. It's not going to work anymore. All right, let's take a quick break. And then when we come back, there's some teams that are having pretty good starts the season. At what point do we start just saying that these are good teams? I don't know. Let's talk about it. We'll be right back. All right, so we are three weeks into the season. Three weeks into our little show. Happy anniversary, guys. This is so sweet. Maybe it's four weeks. I don't really know, actually. It's been a blur. We're all so happy. Time flies. We are at a point in the season where we're no longer saying it's early, but, but it's also probably a little bit too early to start making bold proclamations. Like, we're in

that spot where it's like, at what point do we start to shift? the idea that a team is having a hot start to this team might actually be good. There are some teams who are right where they should be in the standings. Vegas, Dallas, the abs there at the top, San Jose, Chicago in the basement. Arguably, flames should be in the basement, where they are, 31st place, by the way, in the league. Not great. But we also have the 6-2-1 Canucks, the 5-2 and 2-2 habs and the 6-3-2 Red Wings.

to a lesser extent we have the 6-4-0 Anaheim Ducks, who, by the way, have the same winning percentage or points percentage as the Carolina Hurricanes, perennial playoff contender the Cains. So it's like, okay, what's real or not real? Like, who are the fakers and who are the teams who are actually going to be legit? What do you guys think?

Is it too soon to start saying this team might actually be good? Like, we're getting there. I think it's still too soon, but like we're getting close enough. Max, you cover. the Red Wings, they're 6, 3, and 2. We talked about them a lot in the sense of their power play percentage, was kind of keeping them afloat to that hot start. And the hot starts cooled off a little bit,

but they're still in the top half of the league and still have a pretty good record through, what, 11 games? I can't do math that fast. Yeah, it's still too early to me, for me to be at real yet. Of these teams, Canucks are the one, I believe, in the most. For a couple of reasons, I think they have kind of the star, power that makes you think, okay, this is not going to go away. They play in the easiest conference.

It makes it believable to think that they're going to keep having these results. I don't buy the HABs. I don't buy the ducks. And I'm going to kick the can on the Red Wings. I'm still a skeptic, but I think that it has worked better than I expected it to coming in. So I want to allow that it could actually be better than I expected. Okay. Sean.

The funny thing about the Canucks, honestly, is it's some of their underlying. aren't great. Like, the difference between their actual goal percentage and their expected goal percentage is miles, you know, miles apart. That to me almost, this is counterintuitive, but that to me almost makes them like them more. And Max, you said this, like, the star power at the top of that lineup, Elias Pedersen two nights ago, just sick, right? Like, he's, he seems like he's... He got called out by his coach, by the way, after that game. Uh-huh. Yeah, which is really funny. Talk it.

I'll talk about talking. He's a hard camera. But like, yeah, for sure. Quinn Hughes going supernova, it seems like, leveling up in a way that I think a lot of people expected him. You know, he's hitting, he's hitting notes that I think a lot of people knew that he could. And he's doing it well, really, really good defensively. Um, on top of the having, you know, one of the craziest offensive toolkits among any defensemen, right? So they have those two guys at the top of the lineup.

Thatcher Demko, it's been really good so far. He's out. He's at a weird couple seasons, had some injury problems, but we know we've seen it from him in the past that he's got high level. Maybe not, you know, maybe if you think the top tier is like, Sorokan, Chasturkin, Vasilevsky, maybe Jake Ottinger, you know, Hellebock, guys like that. If you want to keep Thatcher Demka out of that group, fair.

That's fine. But there's a whole big group of dudes. below that, five, eight, nine guys that I think he is at the head of the back for, where it's like they're not guys who you want to write in pen every single year. This guy's going to be good, right? Because you can do that with very, very few goaltenders in the league. But I think Demko is at the head of that second group. If he can keep this up, and if Pedersen and Hughes continue being the guys that, you know, that they have been for the last 10 or 12 games, I think good things are going to happen. And I think I think the process is going to catch up with the results.

that we've seen so far, right? Yeah. So, yeah, I don't want to, and I know it's a boring answer. It's boring to say that the Canucks are a better bet to keep us going than the Canadians or whatever, but it's true. They have the high-end talent. They have the high-end goaltender. And I think in Rick Tockett, they have a guy who, at the start of the season, he was

my pick to win the Jack Adams, because everything seems like it's in place for him. He's got a talented team. He's got a high profile, just in general. And he's a good coach. And we're seeing that he's a good coach. Like he's putting that on display. So even though, you know, the X goals aren't where they need to be and there's some warts on what we've seen from Vancouver that maybe don't match their record, I still love them moving

forward. And they've, and this is, I think this, it kind of comes down to this too. They've banked so many points on November, on November 2nd and stop laughing. I don't appreciate it. It's just like, you're like Don and Max's about the stars. Like, wait, wait, let me tell you something. Let me tell you something. Let me tell you something.

But I think this is what we're talking about, though. It was like on November 2nd, you're looking at a team that maybe has banked enough points to be like, they all count. Like, we're there already. They're up to an 84% playoff chance. 82%. That's crazy. That was my point.

I do the same thing in my head. I do the same thing in my head, Sean, where it's like, okay, well, if you can be at, you know, 18 points or whatever after 12 games, which is in play for them, it's not a hard path the rest of the way over the next 70 games to get to like 75 points. or whatever, 78 points. And that math is really good. One other guy I want to mention, I wouldn't put him in the star category

that we're talking about the Pedersen, the Hughes, the Demco. They made a trade at the end of last season for Philip Hironick that a lot of people found very confusing. Me among them, he's been excellent for them. His expensive goals share so far as north of 53%. The big question when they traded for him, had they traded for him at what was going to be the high water mark,

he had improved defensively, was that going to keep up into new surroundings? so far through 10 games, it's been a resounding yes. These next to Quinn Hughes, you know, obviously you're going to good luck parsing out, you know, all the credit for all this stuff. It's worked. And I think that's a credit to Vancouver. To Sean's point as well with the playoff percentage,

their start has been one of the best starts that they've had in a decade plus, and it's seen their playoff chances rise up 24% from the start of the season. They currently have an 82% chance at making it, according to Dom. And I think we're all going to agree that the Canucks, between the teams that we listed, Canucks, Habs, Red Wings, Ducks, the team that I think we can all say, like we think they're going to be a playoff team

is going to be the Vancouver Canucks. Max touched on the Red Wings, I think with the Canadians, I looked at some of their underlying, like they're at a 20% power play right now, which is helping. That's 15th in the league. And they have a 96% save percentage

at 5 on 5, which is best in the league, according to evolving hockey, Jake Allen's had a really good start to the season, 9.30s, percentage through four games in all situations, and their backups at a 905. They're shooting around just under 9%. So that's one thing where it's like, okay, it's not like they're shooting 12% or something, but they are definitely being uplifted by their power play. And also, just kind of a nice story on the HABs. Sean Monaghan has yet to be on the ice for a goal against, and he's had a really good start to the season.

And I don't know if there's somebody who I covered in Calgary who you would just hope is going to be okay and finds her game again more than Sean Monaghan. That dude went through so much health-wise, like two new hips, basically, wrist issues, so many health problems, guts demoted to the fourth line and he's okay with it because it's what the team needs right now, whatever. Like, I'm just happy that Sean Monaghan is healthy and he hasn't been on the ice for a goal against yet and I just think that's really nice. Max, what do you think? I got a question for you guys about the Red Wings. So I see them very important. So I thought you were going to talk about

Sean Monnier, and it's right? Oh, I agree with you. I hope he succeeds tremendously. Yeah, exactly. I see the Red Wings up close and my big, my big thought about them is that the offense has been ahead of what I expected and the defense has actually been behind what I expected. It was their identity for last year. How do you handicap that going forward? Do you trust that the defense is going to catch up while the offense comes back a little and it leaves them where they are? Do you think that the defense catches up

and the offense stays and they take off? Or do you think, oh, if the defense is bad, when the offense regresses, they crater? Like, which bucket would you go to? Well, is the defense, is the defensive problem, like, because of the new business they brought in? It just seems like non-christiness.

Like, more at ciders, like, not been great. Like, I haven't watched the Red Wings as closely as you have, Max. So I guess the question is like, do you, like, you would think that their defense would get better as like some of the newer pieces on that blue line get more accustomed to the system. Maybe. I think that's plausible, right? So like, if you're going to be a Red Wings optimist, that's what you're saying is that like, okay, you get these pieces in and you've scored. That's great.

And now you lock in, guys get more familiar. To me, it hasn't really been any one thing. It's just an overall kind of not crispness, right? Like too many obman rushes, et cetera, whatever. I think you'll see a mix of both. I feel like the offense will like dip back a little bit and the defense will get a little bit better. So there'll be this kind of like meat in the middle of like regression and improvement. Just like shifted a bit.

Distribute a little different. Maybe. That's probably the glass half full look on the Red Wings. Should I keep David Prong on my on my fantasy team? He's on the first power play. He's not in the same five on five role, but he's on the first power play. And the first power play, I know it's had a quiet couple of games. but I still think it's a really good power play.

I haven't won yet, and I thought my team was really good, and I'm getting really pissed off. You guys want to collude? Just drive the rest of the way crazy? I think that we should. Let's just trade each other the same. Like, if Sean's already got a win in the bag,

like send me Elias Pedersen for the day. I'll send it back, I promise. I just need a few more points. Let's take Petterson as a way to shift back to the Canucks. because I do think that that is going to be a playoff team. We've all said it. And Elias Pedersen is going to be a big part of that. Sean already mentioned the game.

He had a hat trick the other day and a 5-2 win against the Preds. And to talk about Talkett a bit more, after that game, Rick Talkett, like if you would have just seen the quotes or just listen to the presser and then looked at the score, you would have been like, what, win 5-2 and Tocke's like that. Like, we're happy with the win, but that wasn't our brand of hockey. like that wasn't a good game. Like there was some sloppy stuff in the D zone, not great in transition, you know,

just wasn't a great game. The underlying numbers weren't very good. Pedersen gets a hat trick and Tocke's like, yeah, he turned the puck over a lot. J.T. Miller has had a really good start to the season. He got benched for four minutes and Talk, it said after the game. Like, I love the kid.

Like, he's played great hockey for me. But, like, sometimes you just, you need to sit. And we're seeing a coach take a group and say, like, yes, we're having a really good start to the season. Yes, we're winning this game. Yes, you scored three goals already. But we're not going to accept these little things. We're not going to let these things creep into our game and allow it to derail the progress that we have made. And I think the big thing for me, and again, I guess I'm more of a glass, half full kind of person with the Canucks as well. The 2022 Vancouver Canucks, the 2021 Vancouver Canucks, trot out their B game. and they lose that game six to two.

They don't win that game five, two. That is a reason for optimism with this team is that they can have a game where their coach rips them after and you get benched and your number one center has a shaky defensive game and you're still winning five to two. I know the Preds aren't great, but they're not terrible. And the Canucks last year would have lost that game. So things are looking up,

even if they're expected goal rates, not great. It's what Sean said. Some of their underlying numbers don't look very good, but there's reasons to believe that the ship's going to go okay and that this team's going to be okay. And according to Elliott Friedman, they're looking to add, too. Front office is already really active.

They've had a good start. They want to add to that group. They need to shut some cap to be able to do that, but it's going to be a interesting team to watch. Glass half empties, there's some red flag showing with the underlines and stuff like that. But glass half full is that again. Yeah, the Red Wings underlyings are better, but the Canucks play in the West, and I think that matters a whole lot more.

And it's the Pacific, too. Look at the Calgary Flames. I don't think the Oilers are going to be 29th in the league when it's all said and done. I think the Oilers are going to figure it out just by virtue of having Connor McDavid. But the Seattle Cracken haven't been good, and the Calgary Flames are disaster to the point where they are pausing all contract talks and potentially going to take a radical approach. They're at another inflection point. They've had an inflection point every year for the last five. Are they actually going to do something? I don't know. They should. If just for the Calgary fans who've been stuck in the mushy middle for their entire lives since 2004. Rescue these people from having to watch another 17th overall team in the league, right? Yeah.

Do we want to talk about the ducks quickly? They're kind of fun, actually. Like if you would have told me at the start of the season that a Wednesday night, Ducks, Coyotes game would have been really entertaining. I would have told you to leave me alone. If you would have told me that Frank Vitrano, Ryan Strom and Mason McTavish line

would have the same amount of goals as Sidney Crosby, Brian Rust, and Jake Gensel at 5-on-5 through 10 games this season, I would have told you to leave me alone. Where did you pull that one from? Evolving hockey. That's been a great line. are kind of fun.

They are. I think they're fakers, but that's okay. I don't think they're like project 6-4-0 over the course of an 82 game season. They're not going to finish with the same point percentage as the canes. And that's okay.

It's fine. There's good stuff happening there. Like the McTavish, you know, production is great. Zegaris is, you know, his, there's signs that he's improved

on this stuff that Greg Cronin wants him to improve on. But it's come at a cost as his like point production, but I feel like that's probably okay in the long run. I think that's probably something you need to give to get there in the long term with that. I'm not surprised. If the end result is the ducks being like

a not terrible watch with Zegris and McTavish and a couple of those other, you know, key young players making real tangible steps, like huge success. And McTavish is the one that's like, that's really a big deal, how he started, you know, 12 points in 10 games from a 20-year-old center. Like, that's big time stuff. That's a huge difference maker for that franchise.

I also, Dom's 16 stats column this week. Stats. Yeah. I'm not, geez. I'm pronouncing it like Dom. Max is German. Would de Stats. Um, the staty had about the ducks defense was shocking.

That is not really a team. I was going to peg for that kind of, but I guess that's the Greg Cronin effect. Greg Cronin got thrown out of the game against the penguins also. And I think all the guys loved it. It was just like, it showed that he gave a shit. Like, we love this. We love Greg Cronin. Me Max got a taste of that, former guest on the Tuesday show.

Did he yell at you if you asked a stupid question? My guy. My guy, Greg Cronin. I like Greg Cronin too, but he doesn't like me. He doesn't like me. So. Really? I don't know.

Max made fun of his accent. Oh. I didn't make fun of you. Very, very cruelly. Did Max, did you do a fake Boston accent to Greg Cronin? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Okay, so Sean, when they had Marty Walsh, Sean, after the interview said, I almost asked him, are you from Boston?

Because of how thick his accent was. But Sean had restraint. And the next week we had Greg Cronin on, and I thought it would be funny to do Sean, joke to Greg Cronin. I don't know that Greg Cronin found that as funny as I did. But he played along. He was a good sport. But I don't know that he likes me.

Our friend. We laughed. We laughed. Oh, how we laughed. We had such a great time. Oh, that's really uncomfortable. Yeah, producer Jeff sent a note in the chat being like, Greg Cronin's from Boston, eh?

And I was just like, yeah, I didn't get the joke. But I guess he was making fun of Matt. That's it. And now we're going to laugh and laugh. That's right. So it's still a little bit early, but I do think that for these teams, the one team we could say, yeah, they might actually be pretty good this year. It's going to be the Canucks.

My only concern with the Canucks is with their depth. Like, do we love what they have on the third and fourth line? It's fine. We've seen top heavy teams do well before. It'll be fine. that's i mean yeah that's what jim rutherford's job is right right and that's why they're already looking to

jim and patrick jim and patrick olvin can go out and try to add depth it's not it's easier said than done but it's not jim rutherford's job it's patrick alveen's job yeah right um Patrick alveen is the general manager of the vancouver canucks got a bridge to sell you there buddy if you believe that one anyways

do we want to hit on the flames very briefly like our like on the inverse of this They're not a team that are having a great start. And we're like, are they really this good? No, no, no. Let me do the set up. But I am going to bring up a stinky team. Are the flames truly the second worst team in the NHL behind San Jose?

Because that's where they are right now. Two, seven and one start to the season. Only the sharks are worse. I don't think they're the second worst team in the NHL. I do think that they're a lottery team, though. Like it's, it's very interesting to go back and just trace. I mean, we all remember Dom's. When Johnny Goddrow leaves and Matthew Gajuck says, I want out, you don't.

I know. You don't. At the same time. Try to slap a Band-Aid on. Just freaking rebuild. Like Jonathan Hubrude was coming back the other way. And we all, that was the year. That wasn't that the same year that Dom was like fighting everyone on earth,

including Huberto's agent? about whether Huberto was like for real or a product, right? Like I'm not saying this is all on Jonathan Hubertow by any means. He is a really good player, but it does show you what the gap there is between Kachuk and Hubertow, I think. Oh my God, 100%. And there was no question that Matthew Kachuk was the best piece that was moved in that deal. Everyone said the flames won it because they got a bit of quality and quantity.

They get the first, they get a pick, they get a prospect, they get two and a, HL players to fit back into their roster. But like there was no person who watches hockey was saying that the flames got the best player. Like Matthew Chuck went out the door and that's bad. But I just think when you trace it back when we're talking about the last few years and I wrote this story when I covered the team, it's like Johnny Godro wants out, now what? Here are the three options.

They can do nothing. They can retool or they can finally mercifully again. for those fans who have watched this team finish 17th, 18th, draft 13th, 14th, like, just blow it up, like rebuild, start fresh, like get what you can for what you have. And the problem with this team has been, they're too good to blow it up, but they're not good enough to actually win anything or make it pass the second round or like win meaning, win when it matters in a consistent way. And they took the door number two.

They did the retool and it hasn't worked. A round or two A round or two of playoff revenue is a powerful, powerful thing. And I think that it's caused a lot of owners and a lot of GMs over the years to make questionable decisions. 100%.

Is there a team in a league with worse vibes in the flames right now? I mean, I don't think they're the worst team in the league. The Nikita Zedorov quote, that vibe was, he was, he put some heat on that presser when he was like,

when he said Daryl Sutter's like there's no excuse anymore. Like Darrell was the problem. Well, now we don't have Darrell. What's the problem now? Very funny. I love that, actually. I respect that a ton.

Me too. And Nikita Zedorav was one of those players who excelled under Darryl Sutter, liked playing for Darrell Sutter, but he acknowledged that Darrell wasn't going to work for them because of the fact that like there were guys in the room that didn't like Daryl and it was splicing the room.

That was the problem is like Daryl Sutter couldn't coach that group because there were guys who, like, didn't like him, and it just split everything. There was dudes who didn't give a shit. There were dudes who loved Daryl and dudes who hated Daryl. And there were all these issues last year. You removed Daryl. You removed Tyler to Foley.

And now you still have a team that's not winning hockey games and is 31st in the NHL. So that's our flames. That's our Canada corner since we were talking about the Canucks flame so much. Want to talk about the leaves for 15 minutes? No. No? No. Yes.

Okay. I'll talk about I'll talk about the Leafs with Jeff later. Let's take a break. We'll come back and I actually don't know what we're doing in the third second yet. It's a surprise. So I'm going to steal, this is the surprise because this is Thursday boys with 2ZZZ with your host Haley Salvean.

So now we're going to just open up the comment section. I'm ripping off Craig Custin's. This sucks. And then next week we're going to do the full 50 with Haley and Max and Sean. Full 50. The full 45. Because I don't want to talk to anyone for 60 minutes.

I'm going to end up doing a Craig impression. Do it right now. Not now. Going on vacation? Sean's actually not available. The crack impression is I just run out of the room and my chair spins. Yeah. He's just not there.

Let's read some of the comments. On either side of the mic. So the one Hey Sean Yeah Craig what's up I'm back I missed you a lot Oh thanks man

Craig doesn't sound like that The first one The first one God did The hey Sean Hey everybody Welcome to another episode Of the athletic hockey show It's Craig Custon

I've forgotten his I forgot in his voice We are pleased to be joined by Haley Salvean, the best person we've ever hired here. Max, also tied for the best person we've ever hired here. He says that about everybody. I miss him. I know, I love Craig.

Now I'm upset. This was supposed to be a fun bit. Now I'm sad. I'm going to call Craig later. A few of the comments that I found interesting, though, screening my calls, but that's okay. You're the second best person you've ever hired. That's how you know Craig does.

doesn't love you. Sean's the oldest boy. The oldest boy. The eldest son. The eldest son. My first name is actually spelled with a C-I-A-N. Deep cut. Okay, so last week on the show, we asked our dear listeners and fans, fans of us, specifically, what they think about the draft.

Like, do you care? And nobody cares. So I'm glad he cleared that up. Okay. Next question. No, Corey S. said, I'm extremely interested in the draft, but not the show or the TV product of the draft. Mack, Zed says,

I personally don't care about the draft. I consider myself an avid U.S. fan, and Avs diehard. but like Mack said, I don't know who any of these guys are. Most these guys are years away from playing, and it's not like the current draft is some amazing watch experience. If this didn't affect the media, I don't think it would have registered on most fans' radars. Fair.

So I feel like we were, I feel like that's what we thought. Like we were just complaining. And nobody actually cares. I took a couple straw polls I took. Yeah, it confirmed, confirmed my inkling that people generally don't, don't give a shit.

It's just fine. You shouldn't. Okay. Because we've been talking about mascots so much, we got a we got a I don't know the word I've been talking for too long we got a submission thank you Max

I need a nap you can't where is it I lost it okay the Kingston FrontNax this is from Ted C the Kingston FrontNax is a junior team

in the OHL their former mascot was Count Frontnack he's not nearly as creepy as Friar Dom but he's close we've looked at Count Frontenac and I think Max likes him, Max.

Yeah. I do like him. I especially like his teeth. It's a very toothy, evil smile. There's no way to take a photograph of this man, and he doesn't look like he's done something devious. And that is a great quality. Yeah.

That's definitely a leftover pirate costume. He's wearing a little pirate hat. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but. What's interesting is. to me too is there's some photos where the hat is floppy and there's some where it's rigid. So does he have two hats? Does the hat, like, I love if he has a hat rack. Ted, see, let us know.

I just found in 2015, in 2015, there was a petition to bring back Count Frontenac and there was only six supporters. That's really rough. Hey. It's really rough. If Count Frontenac has six fans, I am one of them. If Count Front Neck has no fans, I am dead. Max Bolton actually just signed the petition. There's now seven supporters.

That's right. He goes somewhere in between Scorch and Bowie on the power rankings, below Scorch above Bowie. So Scorch is still first, correct? Yeah. Well, Friar Dom is exempted from this, right? Because I already knew about him. Scorch number one.

Boltman. And your personal ranking is. It's like when I had beef with the terrapin from Maryland. I just out of pocket tweeted. Don't remind me. I just randomly tweeted like I think Maryland has the stupidest mascot. Like it's just a turtle, L. well, and to Studeau.

What made you tweet that, really? I don't know. I just saw the turtle. I was like, that's really dumb. It looks like a bird with a shell on it. And just, it's not like turtles. To Studeau, I don't like turtles or,

Birds. I don't like totals. That's what I was going for. I couldn't do it. Should it use the voice. I should have done it. This is what the third segment is. It's this random mascot generator.

In Sean's Impression Corner. Yeah. It's only wanted Craig and the I Love Turtles, kid. It got more in common than you think. It's three idiots try to fill five minutes so they can close the show. A mission accomplished. We're there. How long did you have been, Jeff?

If this doesn't convince them to give us a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts, what will. Listen, we did like 45 minutes of hockey talk without getting sidetracked. This is our little goofy, it's just silly goofy mood for five minutes to end the show. It's one for them and then one for us, you know? Just like Marty has always said, my friend Marty Scorsese. If you guys leave us a five-star review and send a screenshot of it, we'll pick one person and Sean will record their voicemail for them,

their voicemail answering machine. Okay. I'm in totally. That's great. Five star review. Apple, Google, Spotify, wherever you get your podcast. Can you review on the athletic app? I don't know.

But you can comment on the athletic app. If you have things you'd rather have us talk about in the third segment, let us know. I'm ripping off Craig Custin's again because I... We do need a new mascot. Let's keep him coming. I admire him. But yeah, we really like Count Frontac.

He's a creepy little... pirate man with great teeth. Bring him back, Kingston front knacks. We're going to put the pressure on bring back scourge and bring back count front neck. And while you're giving us a review, five stars, please, even if you hate us, it's fine. You can subscribe to the athletic NHL's YouTube channel as well. All of our clips are being posted there. Lovely producer, Danielle, has been doing a great job of that.

That's YouTube.com slash at the athletic hockey show. The athletic hockey show returns Friday. that's tomorrow with the prospect series with Max Bolman and Corey Pranman. Sean and I'll be back next week, but not Max. Because he's getting married. That's true. We got the marriage license this morning. Oh, that's exciting.

Wait, does that mean you're married? No, we have to still, like, give the ceremony and sign up. Wait, so I have to record, I have to record and then draft to Detroit. I just realized that. Damn. Gotcha. I'm actually in Phoenix. Why do I have to do that?

I'm in Phoenix next week on Thursday. Uh-oh. So maybe we won't have a show. But you'll find out next week. This is not a conversation for the pod. Tune in next week to find out if there's anything to tune into. Yeah, Thursday around 3 o'clock. If there's a show, we had a show.

If not, you know why. Thanks, everybody. We'll maybe see you next week.