The Athletic Hockey Show - Mike Babcock resigns as CBJ head coach, The Athletic’s NHL Player Tiers, training camp storylines, and more

Episode Date: September 18, 2023

On a brand new Monday edition of The Athletic Hockey Show, Ian Mendes and Julian McKenzie are joined off the top of the show by The Athletic’s own Aaron Portzline to discuss Mike Babcock’s resignation as head coach of the Columbus Blue Jackets before he coached a single game, interesting placements for certain players in The Athletic’s fourth annual NHL Player Tiers, Connor Bedard’s hat trick in his first game wearing a Blackhawks jersey, potential storylines as training camps open this week, and more.Subscribe to The Athletic Hockey Show on YouTube: http://youtube.com/@theathletichockeyshowGet a 1-year subscription to The Athletic for just $1 a month when you visit http://theathletic.com/hockeyshowStart building your credit up. Open a Chime Checking account with at least a $200 qualifying direct deposit to get started. Get started at http://chime.com/nhlshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Hockey Show. It is the Monday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show, and we're back in these seats finally, Ian Mendez's Julian McKenzie. Boy, it's been, I don't know, month since we've done this on a Monday. Yeah, about that. Something like that. It's been quite a long layoff, at least for both of us.

And also, producer Chris is back with us, too. Yeah. So we're jumping right into it because, you know, usually this is the quiet time. in the news cycle in hockey. Training camps are opening this week. You rarely get a seismic piece of news in the middle of September,

but we did on Sunday night, afternoon, actually. Mike Babcock announcing his resignation from the Columbus Blue Jackets before he even coaches a preseason game. Aaron Portsland, we set this busiest person in hockey today. I think this is one of nine

radio slash podcast interviews that he's doing. I think I got that right, right? I'm hydrate here. Let me hide here. It's something like that. I'm not counting. I'm not counting.

Plus, somewhere here there's got to be a story written or two. So it'll be a full day. But that's, you know, it's better to have, it's better to have a lot to do than not enough. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I forgot you're a writer as well. Yeah. That's his main responsibility.

Yeah. So listen, take the listeners through this, what this kind of new cycle has been from the time that that Paul Bissonet dropped this piece of information on the Spit and Chicklets podcast. I mean, at that point, did you think that there was even a chance for this to be tenuous for Mike Babcock? Like, take us through this week for you. Yeah, well, not immediately. I mean, it was certainly a story of interest because what he threw out there was,

was, it was quite the, quite the, the allegation. And, you know, you're, the stories we published early were nothing more than here's what Bistinette said, here's what the NHL, the NHLPA, and some veteran players say in response, not taking aside, not who's right, who's wrong here, but simply here's what people are saying. And there were conflicting viewpoints. There were players, there was the NHL and frankly, the PA early on thinking that this was not a big deal, that this had been maybe, you know, overblown a little bit and it's telling. But I think, think it changed the following day. It became a story with legs, as we say, the next day when the PA

came to Columbus to talk to players and did its own investigation. At that point, they had heard from other players that they did not take this as an innocent interaction, a coach just trying to get to know his players, for some guys at least, that went beyond that. And so that kind of perks your interest that this is not going to be a one-day story that just goes away. And then it just, it just seemed to get, you know, more serious as the weekend goes. Mike Babcock travels with the team to Traverse City for the Prospects tournament. And then he's there for the first day. And he's not there Saturday. Everybody else with the Blue Jackets, to my knowledge, remained. Yarmal Khackalainen remained. Most of his staff around him remained. But Mike Babcock left. What does that mean, if anything?

And then, you know, you're hearing from players around the league alleging this or having heard this. And you just get the sense that this was not a just simply a coach. Hey, share pictures with me. I mean, it's kind of ridiculous looking back on it. We have ways of sharing pictures that doesn't require, give me your phone, right? I mean, it's a pretty easy world right now in terms of picture sharing. So all of it just seemed kind of at least strange at the beginning, but then it became obviously more serious as it went along. And then yesterday we started to get word that he was done.

Is that him resigning? Is that him being fired? Anybody else going with him? There's all these sort of questions. And then it became official. We had it fairly dead to rights around 315, 3.30, but not made official until 4 o'clock. and then by then the whole world do. Jeez.

I'm curious about the players who stepped up and said something felt wrong because we've seen people like Boone Jenner and Johnny Goodrose say that it was effectively harmless. So I'm very curious about who in that locker room or what type of player ended up going to the PA and saying, no, I felt uncomfortable. Do we have a sense of who might have said something? Yeah, I don't know if it was, if it were, if it was a player or players in the Columbus room, my sense is it was also players from Babcock's previous stops

who were like, that sounds familiar. I went through that too. Yeah, so, you know, today's media day, literally none of this is going to be about this season coming up. There may be some questions, but the predominant feel of this is going to be, you know, about the Babcock situation. And one of the questions that I think is perfectly fair to ask,

to Boone Jenner, to Johnny Godreau, is, you know, what you said, if you had to make a statement today or a comment today on this, is it a different statement or comment than it was earlier in the week? And I'm willing to give them, I think we all should, the benefit of the doubt at this point, it is possible that their interactions as veteran players with Babcock were different than the interactions between Babcock and young players. If you look at Boone Jenner's statement, it is limited to his experience. And sometimes in hindsight, you read things differently than you did at the time, knowing what you know.

So, you know, Boone is a guy that likes to keep things simple. He is one of the more respected players in this league, really, but also in this room. But I think he will have some tough questions today. And it does call into question this room. Is it still a Galvanon? room in the same direction. Are there players, is this fractured because of this? I certainly don't want to make that leap.

And a player last night told me that the players, it still feels all together to him. But I think that's a question that bears asking. What's the feeling in the market, Aaron, on Yarmal Kekalainen and John Davidson? Obviously, somebody had to vet this situation. I went back and I reread all of your stuff from July. And you were very kind of like, hey, like the jackets have to be careful here. I hope they know what they're doing. Like you, you know, all of you go back and look at your writing.

So there was a lot of questions around the hiring from the onset. And you were, I thought you were spot on and all of your stuff back in July. But how much of this now is on Keck Alinin and Davidson? And is there going to be a groundswell of support or people saying, you know what? We got to topple this regime from. the very top. Yeah, well, so if you know how the Columbus market works or this organization works, the ownership group here, by my mind, it's really all you could want in an ownership group. They put hockey people in charge and they back out. This is not Jerry Jones. This is not Mark Cuban.

They let hockey people make hockey decisions. And overwhelmingly, from everything I've been told, the GMs here get what they want. You know, look, we want. We want a, Damon Severson for eight years. You got it. This is your decision. You think this is the right move? You got it. You want to trade for Panarin? You got it. You want to move this player, that player. I mean, they've been supported by ownership a lot. This is one of those times where the ownership I don't think can just sit back and let hockey people continue to make hockey decisions. They have to be looking into this to see where this went wrong and who is making the decisions for them. Now, they would have, they would have supported the hiring of Mike Babcock. You don't just sign a coach to a two-year, $8 million contract without ownership support. So they would know who went to bat for, for Babcock from day one. How do they wish to proceed? Again, much like the players, I think, until further notice, Yarmalkekelan and John Davidson, in some ways deserve, they have to own the hiring here. There's no question about this.

but they deserve to answer the question, is this a different story now than what you thought it was early in the week? And as I've said, you know, from the start here, if they were just attempting to hide this and make it go away, that's a not great look that as an owner would concern me. But really, the other way concerns me deeply as well if I'm the owner, that your players feel more comfortable

telling the truth, their truth, with their experience to other people, including the PA, than they do to people in charge of this team. That's not a good look. So where did it go wrong here? And how do you fix that? I think there's a lot of sort of fallout here still to come. I can imagine that. The one thing that I'm still kind of processing is the fact that the organization went through the trouble of, I don't know the process as,

as intricately as you might, but they had to have vetted Mike Babcock at some point throughout this process and deemed that he was worthy of a second chance, whether or not he was deserving of it. And then all this comes to a head and all of these stories of the last few days leads us to this point. Like, was this risk really worth it? I don't get the sense that it really was for this organization. It wasn't.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, obviously now we can say that it wasn't. He didn't make it to opening night. he didn't run a single practice. I mean, has that ever happened in pro sports? I was reminded today of Mike Price, the Alabama coach who was hired and fired before he ever coached a game. I think Notre Dame hired a guy and fired him before because he lied on his resume. But I've never seen this in pro sports where a guy doesn't make it to opening night.

Yeah, I mean, the really, the strange thing here is I don't get the sense, certainly from his statement, certainly in our brief interaction the day that his statement was made, that Mike Babcock thinks he does, he did anything wrong here. And in one sense, that's his best defense here. I didn't think I was doing anything wrong. It's also the worst possible proof that he still hasn't learned from anything that went sideways with players in Toronto. And, and I have to say, like, like, there's a lot of, there's a lot of people who are looking at this as, you know, young players, this generation can't handle an old school coach or, you know, players are too soft and delicate now. I think that is completely unfair and irrelevant.

This is something, this kind of stuff, the Mitch Marner story, as it's been relayed, that's not a healthy interaction with the player. And I don't care what generation it is. That never makes sense. The thing, this invasion, of privacy, which is how at least some players perceived it here, that's never acceptable. Like, who has the right to dig through somebody else's bank statements, their route through their purse? Look through, that's a private effect your cell phone is. Your pictures on that, your interactions, your text messages, all of that is, you know,

it's your stuff. It's where you keep your life in a lot of ways for us now. And for someone to just to go through that. And again, it was different. at least they said it was different for Jenner and Goddrow. Other people, other players didn't take it that way. And apparently the PA believes them. And, you know, they felt that the Blue Jackets had to act here.

I didn't like Babcock's statement that it was too big of a distraction that makes it seem like everybody's response to this was more the issue than the fact that he actually did it. I mean, again, not owning, not recognizing where you. you've really gone off the rails here. So I know the Blue Jackins aren't probably big fans of Paul Bissinette, certainly a way that this was delivered. He did him a huge favor in my mind by delivering this and letting this play out as it had to play out before it got worse or too serious as the season went on. The one coach I can think of, too, that Bill Belichick coached the Jets for like a day.

You remember that? That was by his choice, right? Yeah, and he walked away and they went to New England. But yeah, it's a small list of professional coaches or, you know, high, coach you get hired and you don't even coach a single game. This is a really tough situation for Pascal Vanson to come into because this is, I mean, let's be honest here. The only other thing I can think of is Jared Bednar in Colorado.

Remember Patrick Wall like up and quit in August? And it was like Bednar was, you're thrown in there. Yeah. This is a tough one. Like, how does he navigate this? And Bednar, of course, came from the Columbus organization. Right, right.

So there's a link to that. And I think the Bednar thing was like, who? Like, I don't think a lot of people knew him. He was a heck of a coach. It just won the Calder Trophy in Columbus. I'm not discounting that at all. I don't think he had a league-wide reputation at that point. I think Pascal Vincen is a little bit different.

And I do think he is a very well-respect. hockey mind. Strangely, the blue jackets passed over him twice for this job, which makes this even maybe a little more awkward. But I will say he has gained a lot of respect in the room. They didn't feel coming out of a first-time head coach Brad Larson that it was wise to go to another first-time head coach in Pascal Vincent at the time. They went to Babcock.

They've had success here with demanding coaches in the past. Ken Hitchcock, John Tortorella, it's worked. So they went that direction again. Recklessly, we can now say, because the things that Babcock has been accused of certainly have never been put upon Hitchcock and Tortorella. But it's a tough job for Pascal Vincent. And really, honestly, at the start, it's not about hockey. There's a lot of hockey questions here in terms of how your defensive pairs go,

what your center depth chart looks like, you know, all these things that are typically ruminated this time of year. His first order of business, by my thinking, is to just make sure that this room has everything out there and everyone is galvanized and united in the right way. And again, I've had a player tell me that they are. I'll take him at his word. That's a good sign. If I'm, if I'm Pascal Vincetta is really the focus of the early part of training camp, as tough as that is because you've got 65 guys here. It's not really even your group until you start making wax at it. But I would think the leadership group would be brought in, where they're probably tired of talking, but brought in for another come to Jesus here and make sure everything is out

and on the table and that the team can go forward from here. We know Yarmot Kekhalainen will be among those speaking today for Media Day. Do you think he should still continue as general manager of the Columbus Blue Jackets? Considering his hire, ultimately put the blue jackets in the mess they're in right now. I'm going to reserve judgment on that one. I don't want to take the easy way out of this or sidestep it, but I think it depends on truly, if I'm the ownership, I want to answer is for how they ended up with Babcock. And I think there should be consequences for hiring him clearly by by it backfiring this quickly. It was the wrong hire. We can say that with certainty now. But I would want to know what, what did Yarmou And really, what did John Davidson know? And when did they know it? Were they, because look, their

best defense is that the NHL and the NHLPA, when they immediately looked at this, they came to the conclusion initially, that is, was a fairly innocent situation. Did they try their best? Did they try to just make this thing go away? Or did they really try to root out the truth and the problem here? If I'm the ownership, if I'm the bosses of these. guys, Mike Priest, the business side manager, John H. McConnell, the majority owner. I think those are very, very fair questions that have to be asked. I'm not sure what we'll learn today at Media Day on that front, if anything, but I would think that those questions will be asked as well. Before we let you go, I got to ask you this, towards the end of your column that you wrote on Sunday,

you kind of outline some of the missteps in Blue Jackets history that how, you know, they've had, you know, various missteps over the... Yes, they have. They're 20 some odd years. I need to dig into a little bit about Boomer. Okay. Who you described as a, I believe it was a phallic-shaped mascot who lasted. That's correct.

That's correct. Who actually technically lasted longer than Mike Babcock in that he got one game. Tell our listeners about Boomer the mascot for Columbus. So the Blue Jackets introduced to third jersey. I want to say this is 2010. It's a really nice jersey. jersey with the cannon on it. This is the blue jackets, of course, is a Civil War reference, the Northern Army, the Union War powder blue, and all of those codes were made at a warehouse

in Columbus. So in a fairly anonymous city, that's a pretty good hook for a nickname. Go with it. So the cannon is here in the arena. That's a Civil War era canon, 1857 Napoleon field, field gun. I know all these things. And they decide that, you know, Boomer's a lot of fun, but Boomer's also, or sorry, Stinger is, is fun. and the kids kind of like Stinger a little bit, but he's also an insect, and it doesn't really drive home the point of the nickname. So let's get a Boomer, a Civil War, a Canon inspired mascot, and this gives the birth to Boomer, who I'm told, when vetted in a room, look like a cannon. when seen before 17,000 people, it looked like a, I can't, this is an adult podcast.

So I'm not sure what I can say kids may be listening. It looked like a fallacy shaped. You know what? You could say the medical term. It looked like a penis. And here comes. And the crowd just. kind of goes, oh my.

And there are audible, there's audible laughter. Now, at the risk of getting too profane, it gets worse. Boomer shot T-shirts out of the top of its fallacy. Yes. And like, oh, my God. Oh, my God. And Boomer is never seen again. I finished the game.

But Boomer, and I'm told. Somewhere in this building, I'm a nationwide now ahead of Media Day, boomers, that boomer mascot, the outfit, exists. It remains. It's still here somewhere. And there are lots of people, people made T-shirts that celebrate Boomer. It's become part of the mythical past of this team. But, I mean, we covered that with stories for the next several days.

Puck Daddy, are, you know, a great friend of many in the media. Yahoo had a, this is like a ball to him. He went with it forever. This was pre-athletic. And the dispatch, very conservative newspaper. I think we could say phallic-shaped. That was as best we could describe it. You couldn't say penis is what you're saying.

What's that? You couldn't say penis is what you're saying. That is correct. The folklore of this team. And, you know, it was embarrassing. to a lot of people. It's embarrassing to management, for sure. But I don't think people are embarrassed by it now. People joke about it. And every year, someone says, bring back Boomer. Let's turn this thing around. Get Boomer out here. Let's go. And I kind of think they should,

but it hasn't happened yet. Well, listen, we appreciate all the time here, the insight, that little anecdote about the mascot because, you know, I don't think that's a story that everyone nationally knows about the Blue Jacket. So it'll be in the book one day, Ian. Yeah. Listen, busiest person in hockey today is Aaron Portsline. We thank him for dropping by the Athletic Hockey Show. Monday edition. We're really looking forward to your coverage here the next couple of days as you speak to Kekyllian, Boone Jenner, Johnny Goodrow, etc.

Thanks so much for dropping by the pod. Yeah, always a pleasure, guys. Thanks for having me. One more thing here, Julian, just to wrap up on the Babcock thing. And I thought whenever that was two, three weeks ago, you nailed it on the Bill Peters hiring in Lethbridge. And I wrote a column today, which kind of looked at the parallels between, you know, Bill Peters gets a second chance. Mike Babcock gets a second chance.

And instead of us asking, you know, should these guys be getting second chances, I think we need to do a better job of asking like, what's the due diligence process here? Like, what's the vetting going in? And I want to read a quote. This is from July, okay, from Yarmalkeleinen, in which he's asked about the vetting process. process on Mike Babcock. Here's the quote, and I want the listeners to really pay attention to this. Quote, I have a big network. I've been doing this for a long time. I talk to people I know who are not only Hall of Fame hockey people, but Hall of Fame people with character. Those conversations are really important to me. They're trustworthy people who I have a really good relationship

with and all of the feedback from people who have worked with Mike Babcock for years, a lot closer than I got to know him, were positive. Everybody says Mike's a great coach, but more importantly, they said he's a really good person. That was basically unanimous from everybody I trust that I spoke with, end quote. What is that saying? Hold up, hold up, hold up, hold up. that Yarmu has people who lied to him. The P must not trust the people in a circle.

Because well before Mike Babcock was even in consideration for this head coaching job, people painted Mike Babcock as a bad person. People painted Mike Babcock as not the best judge of character, not judge of character, but also just not the best character. Like, where did you get that from? That is such a, that's such a wild, I have to admit, I did not see that quote until you read it to me. That is a wild thing to say.

If Yarmou had come out and said that, you know, he spoke to people about Mike Babcock and what he's been like in between the transition from Toronto to the present day, and he said to the media that he learned that Mike Babcock has been trying to change and that he's turning himself into a better person. That's a lot easier to stomach than that particular quote, because there are a handful of players, and I'm willing to bed, there are other people in the hockey world who have very different things to say about Mike Babcock. That's what just makes this, that's why I asked the question about Yarmone's future,

because to go through a situation where you're hiring Mike Babcock and you know that's going to bring about the blowback that it will. But knowing that if he makes a mistake, that leash cannot be that long. Like, I think you have to wonder sometimes if it's worth the risk to hire people like a Mike Babcock, despite the fact that they've won as much as they've had. If you really think about it, this man won one Stanley Cup. You did coach another team to a Stanley Cup, but he has one Stanley Cup.

He was what Team Canada's number one choice as a head coach for the Olympics. We get that. But you don't think they could have put another coach in there. Like, I get that Mike Babcock did all that, but that was years ago. There wasn't anyone else they could look to in their organization or anyone else outside of the organization

who they would have brought in for all this. And I know some people will hear this to be like, It's all about wins and all that. But this is just an example of how, yes, winning is everything, but you really have to be careful about the people that you vet. And stuff like that could blow up in your face as it literally just did for Columbus. You know, as soon as we let Aaron Portsline off the call on the pod, the Columbus Blue Jackets have issued his statement.

So you asked, and both of us asked about Yarmal Kekalainen, and whether or not he would be maybe facing some discipline, maybe on the hot seat, that does not appear to be the case. So here I'm going to read for the listeners. This is the statement put out by Blue Jackets owner John McConnell. Quote, our ownership group is deeply frustrated and disappointed by the events of the past week. We have been in contact with John Davidson, Yarmalkelein, and our management team throughout this process. And we're in full agreement with Mike Babcock stepping down in Pascal Vance. leading our team as head coach.

We had candid conversations with our leadership after last season about our goals and expectations for growth and progress on the ice in 20, 23, 24. Those expectations are still in place and can still be achieved. So we do not anticipate further changes to our hockey leadership team at this time. Additional disruptions would be detrimental

to our players and coaches as they prepare for the opening of training camp in two days. We will continue to have regular communications with our hockey leadership and are looking forward to an exciting season. End of statement. So you know what that says to me, Julian? That says to me like, boy, if this story had happened in July, maybe we'd have more

runway. Oh, yeah. Do you not get those vibes from that? Absolutely. If this is a story that broke out in July, Yarmou Kekyllainen would be out of a job. They would have someone else in place. and that would be more than enough time for them to get acclimated in time for the start of training camp. With training camp starting in two days, this organization has already gone through enough change,

enough instability, if you might say, for them to let go of Yarmou Kek al-Lyin. While I would still think it might be the right decision, the organization feels that's way too much for us to endure. But I also think that if this team doesn't do well, Yarmou, would still be out of a job anyway. Like I think unless the Columbus Blue Jackets find a way to surpass a lot of odds and a lot of expectations, Yarmo has to do a lot to keep his job for next year, I think. I think, I have to imagine ownership is very cross with him at how everything is blown up. Interesting statement, though, that they don't anticipate further changes.

Again, we'll see how this all plays itself out. Boy, Porchline's going to be a busy guy this week. He's got enough material to probably write two weeks' worth of stuff out of this. Seriously. And it brings up a good point, too, in terms of talking to guys like Boone Jenner and Johnny Goddrault and wondering if their statements would still be the same in light of everything that's happened now. I mean, or hey, maybe they genuinely did not have awkward interactions compared to some of the other players on that team. That's made the whole difference.

I wondered about this at this time last week around then. wondering, okay, who are the players who really feel uncomfortable about this? There is obviously reason to doubt knowing that Mike Babcock has made players uncomfortable and maybe worse. Not maybe worse. He has made them feel worse before. So for it to get to this point, it's just really disappointing for this organization. It's just a mess right now. It is.

And again, the timing of it couldn't be more awkward. Training camp basically set to open around the league in about 48. hours. And the opening of training camp, Julian, does mean one thing. And that is the player tiers. Dom, Gentilly, Shana have dropped the, what is this, the fourth annual? I think they said fourth annual player tiers. So they separate the best players in the league into a handful of tiers, i.e. You know, the absolute bona fide MVPs, franchise players, et cetera, et cetera, okay? Yes.

So they look at the top one. I think it's, yeah, not I think I know. It's the top 125 skaters in the league all kind of put into different categories. They kind of combined quantifiable data, underlying stats. that type of thing, mixed with lengthy discussions with people from around the league. And they talk to scouts and coaches and executives and everybody kind of makes a list and whatever. So they put this together. And I don't have a problem at all with the first tier.

Like the MVP, here's the top 10 players in the game. You tell me, I'll read them out. You tell me if you have any quibbles with anybody on this list, just say it after I read the list. Connor McDavid, Leon Drysidal, Nate McKinnon, Austin Matthews, Kale McCar, Jack Hughes, David Posternock, Matthew Kachuk, Adam Fox. I don't necessarily have an issue with it. I think the top 1A for Connor McDavid is totally fine. Drysidal McKinnon, Matthews and McCar as 1B. I wonder if Matthew Cucuck would have been a 1B player after that playoff run, but I think having him as a 1C makes it's totally fine.

It makes a lot of sense. There's no obvious submission in that particular tier. These are all players that if you were, like if you're starting a fantasy draft, you're putting all the players out for people to draft for their. teams, those are among the first players you would pick. And if you're starting them as your franchise player to lead you to glory. And I don't think they got any of this wrong. So here's where the debate might begin for some people.

And Sidney Crosby's not in that top tier. He's not a top 10 player. No. He's leading off tier two in the lead off spot. And this is an elite tier, right? And you're talking the Caprizov's and the Rantan's and the Robertsons and the Kucheroves and the, you know, like these are all elite players. Sid is not in the top 10.

Here's where I come down on it. Julian, I still think if I had a game seven to win tonight. I probably take McDavid first. I don't think I would overthink this. Boy, Sid would be pretty darn close to be in my next pick, though. How many players,

how many players would you pick above Sidney Crosby? So McDavid. So just Cardiff, David. That's it. So you're taking Conner. So you're taking Conner. Can you make an argument on McKinnon?

Yeah, I absolutely think you could make an argument from Nathan McKinnon. But maybe that's it. Maybe that's it. I wonder about Leon Dricidal too, who was shown to be an elite playoff performer these last two seasons. And I get that maybe the last playoff series against Vegas, he kind of faded out. But like he had the year before where he bawled out on one leg. But to your point, Sidney Crosby is Sidney Crosby. And Cidney Crosby is still playing at an elite level.

There's a reason why Pittsburgh is all in on this year. And I know people are like, oh, the core is kind of old. Sidney Crosby's 36 years old, and he's still capable of having 90-point seasons. You don't, it's very difficult to give up on that type of player. 93 points last year. Like, it's very difficult to give up on a player who's still playing that well in his peak. But to your point, like, as a top 10 player in this league, like, you give him the benefit of the doubt because it's Sidney Crosby. But, like, who else do you swap out in that top tier?

McDavid, you don't? I would say maybe Adam Fox for me, like if you're asking me, but I love Adam Fox. Adam Fox, you can make an argument is the best defenseman in the league. You could make the argument because I think McCar is. Macar is, but you can genuinely make an argument

for Adam Fox. McCar and Fox should be trading Norris trophies for the next how many seasons. Yeah. Do you think Sid is like, you remember when Drew Dowdy would always be like have a chip on his shoulder when these rankings, and ratings would come out and he's not on certain list or whatever.

You think Sid Crosby, at his age, he's 36 now, looks at this and he's like, you know, does the old Michael Jordan, yeah, I'm going to write that down. I'm going to take some notes here. I'd say that'd be pretty cool if he did, to be quite honest. Like, like, this is part of me that thinks of it and says, well, why would he care? He has three Stanley Cups, but also Siddy Crosby is still an elite player at his age. and the best players in the world, they use any little thing as motivation to maintain their spot as being among the best.

So I would find it hilarious if Sidney Crosby would look at this list and would be like, you guys only think of me as two A. I'm not even 1B? I don't know, you guys are sleeping on me. That would be really fun to see. I would love if, like, you know,

now that training camps are starting to come up, if we had like, I mean, starts Thursday. I don't know the send start. But if you go to some of the players on on on on the teams that we cover and we show them this tier list and we're like, hey, we put you as to be. What do you think about that? It'd be fun if like NHL players would look at stuff like this and they actually would care as opposed to, you know, oh, it's just a team thing or whatever. I let you guys write that.

It would be so fun. If somebody in the league looked at this list and said, you guys only ranked me here, I'm way better than this. Like what if Jack Hughes, who's a one, C. He's in that top tier, mind you. He's in a piece, I don't want to disagree with him being at one C. That's probably the ideal place for him. He's already a top 10 player. Wouldn't it be something if someone in New Jersey went to him and was like, hey, this is happening. And he's like, I think I'm 1B. And what would people think about that? No, it would never, no. You're, that would be so cool. That would be so cool. You're asking for, I think I'm the best player in this league. I would love it if a player did that.

I just don't think it's in their DNA. I know it's not in their DNA. I know it's not. But I'm saying it would be so cool. You know, but what I think is interesting on this list is we're going to jump down to the third tier for a second. Because in tier three, which is kind of described as these are players that would be considered top 60 players. In fact, the way that it's described, a player, that wouldn't be the best player on a contending team, but would be an integral part of a contending

or a championship core. A strong top line forward or an average number one defenseman. There's two names that jump out to me here, and they're both at 3C. One is Connor Bedard. The other is Carter Verhege. Carter Verhege is in the same class as Connor Bedard. And I like Verhege. I do. He was clutch. He was money in the postseason for Florida.

I think this guy is a classic middle six forward. I don't know that I have him in the same. I would put him in the same, you know, district as some of the guys he's hanging with here, which include in his. addition to Connor Bedard, he's hanging with Moritz Sider. He's hanging with Stephen Stamco's. He's hanging with Dylan Lark and Matt Barzell. That was the one name. I think you were the same as me. Like, wow, Carter Verhege came out really high on this list. Yeah, I don't like if Carter Verhege was in the tier below, like a top line player, like I don't, I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to that.

I feel like he would be comfortably slotted there. And I don't think too many people would disagree. And I know some people are going to be like, oh, well, Carter Verhege had a 40-gold season. Like, you know, he's actually a really good player. You know who's a player who's in that tier below who's also had 40 goal seasons? Kyle Connor, he is criminally underrated in the national. And again, his dual tolls have dropped to 31. He's still a high-quality. He had more points last year than Carter-Fer-Hagie.

I don't know if you'd necessarily go off to switch, but all that to say, I think Carter-Ver-Hagie is a slept-on player. I agree he's a great guy to have in the middle of your lineup. Maybe on some teams he would be a top line player, but I was very surprised to see him as a 3C. He could be at all. He's 28. He's entering his peak years now.

If he sustains this, I will gladly eat my words on this one. But this is a guy who's at the same level. You're saying he's at the same level as Dylan Larkin, Clayton Keller, Joe Pavelsky here and there. I mean, he's playing, we're talking about older players playing well.

Joe Pavelsky is there. Stephen Stapkos would be in that same list too. Drew Dowdy, Matthias Echol. Like, is he really 3C? I think four is fine for Carter Verhage. I guess that's the only one I'd split hairs with. You're saying Carter for Hagee. I mean, you tell me if I'm wrong, Ian Mendez.

You're telling me that Carter Hagee right now is at a higher tier than Kyle Connor, Pierre Lue Dubois, Eilers, Philip Forsberg, Anzay Kopitar, who is still among the elite defensive forwards in this game. Wow, I have, I don't know. That's, I would think he's in that tier and not necessarily above those guys. That's my initial thinking, but I think, yeah, he had, like, that's what he's listed for. Verhegey last year was his breakout year, right? Like, like prior to last year, he had never scored 25 goals, never.

So I almost feel like I view him the same way I did Tage Thompson a couple years ago, which is, okay, I just want to see you do it again. That's all. Like you do it again, I'm sold, or was it an aberration? I think it's interesting too. Like two players, like we talk about Crosby taking a little bit of a dip. You know, the two players that I think are most closely associated with Sid

and kind of his generation of stars are, Obviously, his teammate, Evgeny Malkin and his art travel Alexander Ovechkin, those guys end up in the fourth tier and not even 4A, there are 4B. Malkin and Ovechkin are now kind of hanging around that stratosphere, which is, I guess it just shows you how much talent we have now in the league that those guys have been relegated to kind of that fourth tier, middle of the fourth tier status. And they're still highly effective players.

Yeah. you know, and depending on what franchise you have and where you're at, they're your top line forward. It could easily be that for those two players, not for every single franchise. There are some franchises, both those players would be second. I don't know about third, but second line players, but like those are still really good players playing in their late 30s.

That's, yeah, the fact that they're, that I feel old, seeing the fact that they fall into that point, considering that I remember them coming up in 2005, or whatever. Like, that's, time keeps on slipping into the future, I guess. But I still can't help but think about that Carter Verhegey selection. Like, I, I think about this. So you're willing to put Carter Verhege in the 3C after a breakout year. Fine. And, but like, like Matthew Kachuk is in the 1B slot after what he went through in this postseason where he, he balled out. And I get that, uh, Sergey Povsky, Kairate the Florida Panthers. But I think

Matthew Kachuk carried himself like a top five player in the NHL after this postseason. So I figured, okay, all right, you showed restraint with that and you put him in the one seat. Why are you showing restraint to Matthew Kachuk, but you're all in on, on Carter for Hagey being a tier up from what he should be? That is my biggest question. So we got to bring Dom and Shana and Gentilly on the pod and we need to demand the answers. Demand them. Yes, demand. I demand to know why you put these people here.

I slam my fist on my desk, but I don't want to break anything. I, you know, I mentioned that Connor Bedard ends up kind of in that same class as Verhege. Badard scores a hat trick in his debut in a Chicago jersey. Now, granted, it's Prospects game, all of that. They're playing against St. Louis. But he gets a hat trick. What, like, what can Bardard do, in your estimation, Julian, that will... kind of live up to the height because I worry that the young man,

I mean, you got high expectations coming in. People say you are the next one in the lineage of Crosby to McDavid. It's Badaard. And now the first time you step on an ice wearing your team's jersey, you score a hat trick. Like, man. Against rookies, mind you, against prospects.

But even then, like the way he did it was insane. He looked really, he was the best point. Like that wrist shot, the release was crazy on the one wrist shot, right? It's the filthiest release I've ever seen. And you can tell me if I'm wrong, but in terms of NHL players releases, in terms of hockey players releases, I can't think of a more disgusting,

more filthy, more insane release point than for any other NHL player than his. I can't, like, even what you're watching at the World Junior's, I was like, I can't think of anyone who's ever had a more violent, like, shot like that.

That's insane. You know, the guy for me, I always said that I've never seen an NHL player with a release like Austin Matthews. And I say that with a ton of respect to like Ovechkin and Hull and Bossy and all these guys. But I think Matthews comes along and it's different, right? Technology is different. The way these guys train is different.

The way that they shoot. But everything's different, right? But I've never seen anything like Matthew's release. But Bardard is the one that I think, I wonder if in 18 months from now, two years from now, we're like, that guy's got the best release in the NHL. I'm telling you, man, we've already seen it. Again, we have to see it at the HL level. We have to see him with more space and time on the ice.

But if he's able to let that go, and he's going to be able to score some goals in this league, man. I don't know if he's a 100-point player. I think some people are already looking to crown him as a 100-point player at his rookie season, but I also wouldn't be surprised. I also would not be surprised. He just looks that talented. opening night of the regular season, which is, you know,

less than a month away, which is super exciting, Chicago and Pittsburgh play each other. Oh, yeah. That's going to be kind of Bardard's first game. Is there any way that the opening face off that night is not Crosby Bedard? Like, imagine Luke Richardson just rolls out like Nick Folino, you're taking the draw or something like that. Like, because you know the NHL, they're going to want that image, right?

that sort of the passing of the torch that that sort of that wonderful photo here's badard here's crosbie or they should kick they should kick one of them out actually have you ever seen this right and explain this to me and maybe that i really need some help from listeners okay all right has anybody ever been thrown out of the draw on an opening face off and if not why why why does that never happen i don't know let me If you get thrown out of the very first draw of the game, like, what do you do it? But have you ever seen that? I can't think of a time I've ever seen that.

But why? I don't know. I don't know. It's just. Or even, or have you ever seen anyone get thrown out of a face off at center ice? So after a goal, start a period, whatever. It's never happened.

Why? Like, if you play, like, if you play at EA Sports NHL, like, you could definitely find a way to make that happen. But like, I can't think it. It doesn't happen right away. It doesn't pop up in my mind right away about thinking of some player getting in that situation. You could think of watching random face-off lineups and you're like, oh, Kevin BXA shouldn't be there, but I've never thought of a player getting thrown out. No.

We need to sink into this. Why has nobody ever been thrown out of a face-off at Center Ice? Here's one thing I'll say, though. Here's one thing I got to say about Crosby versus Bardard at Center Ice. if I'm a TV exec and I'm in the building for that game and Luke Richardson or somebody decides to put someone else there I'm going down to see. I'm going down, I'm going to the benches and I'm shaking the coach myself.

I'm like, you can't do this. You want to make money? I would be so pissed. What? Are you kidding me? You got to put that out. You got to put that out. You got to put that.

Like, that is like, think about this. The photo, like getting images, the NHL fanatics, you should be able to sell photos of that for years to come. Absolutely. You better make that happen. Yeah. That's what I think. I think that's going to be the case.

That's going to be the case. But if I'm... Oh, no. I was just going to say, as we were talking, I had put out a tweet about the tears. And Shado Goldman tweeted at me be like, no Verhegey slander allowed. That's our boy.

I just tweeted at her, defend him on the pod. So, you know. Yeah. No, my takeaway is that while I'm talking on this pod, you're tweeting. So I could have just said. No, I didn't tweet. I didn't tweet.

I didn't tweet. Okay, actually, no, sorry, I lied. I did tweet. But that came because of a tweet I'd already written, and I saw that, and it was relevant to our discussion. It was very relevant. What? Like, look, I mean, look, if Sheda Goldman and Dom want to come on the podcast and

defend Carter Hagee, being a 3C, I'm all for it. You know what? We don't need that. It's better to slander them without allowing them a chance to defend themselves. Oh, because I like, I like, you don't want the smoke with them. You don't want the smoke with them. Well, I'm all for the smoke.

The problem is they bring like analytics and underlying numbers and all these things in. And, and it's indefensible. How am I going to push back against that? We did you? Look, we're both writers. I don't know. Verhiki just doesn't feel like a three C to me. That's my only comeback.

I don't know, man. Look, that's my only come. We're both writers. We both can get access to advanced statistics as well. We could make cases too. I say we look at the people in the tiers below and make cases for why those people should be above Carter for Hagee. Look, man, look, I'm not scared of Shana and Dom, man.

They're really good friends of mine. They know what they're talking about. And look, if I lose that debate, I lose that debate. I'm not afraid. Come on the pod. We want the smoke. Carter Raheke should not be a 3-seat. I said, done.

Boom, I said it. Wrapping up this Monday pod, and this has been a ton of fun, the hour has flown by. Camps are opening up this week, all around the league. The team that you cover, the Calgary Flames, are super interesting to me in that they got a lot of balls in the air that we thought would have been handled in the offseason. season, right? Alias Lindholm and Hannafin and Backlin too? Michael Backlin is there. There's a larger group of pending UFAs,

but we've focused on those three in particular because those were among the names that, at least it was reported in the off season, they had expressed hesitancy on resigning. No one specifically asked to be traded. I know there's a common misconception with that. No, those guys specifically asked to be traded. they just said they were leading towards not resigning.

I'll say this with Lynn home, though. I mean, Chris Johnston, the group you guys know at the Chris Johnson show, they've been on the side that says they've been waffling back and forth and not so much leading towards not resigning. But yeah, there's a lot of, there's a lot for Craig Conroy to handle. And the fact that it's at a point where these players are still, we still don't know what their futures are going to be beyond next season. There's going to be so much discussion about it at training camp.

It's a distraction that I thought the franchise would try to avoid. heading into training camp and ultimately it's at that point. And I think, especially in the case of Elias Lindholm, you're in a no-win spot, I think. Because if you move on from him now, I mean, good luck finding a team that could afford the cast face. There are only a small handful that will. And already you have guys who are getting excited about the season

and they think they're going to be competitive. And then you make that move. Well, what do you do from there? You lose your number one center. What are you going to get from him in exchange? And if you do sign him long term, what you're going to have to essentially overpay him. Because I think if this was simple enough,

they would have come up with a deal already. We've written about this before and figured that, okay, a projected contract for him, slightly above what Bo Horvatt is getting with the Islanders at $8.5 million. Maybe Elias Hillenholm should be getting $8.7. This seems to me like Elias Linholm wants nine and more, and he's drawn his line in the sand.

That's what it seemed like to me at the media availability that he had last week. This is going to be really interesting coming up this week as you just bounce around the league. You know, Calgary's got their situations, as we mentioned, with Lindholm, Hannafin. Vancouver's got an interesting one with Elias Patterson. They do. Tampa Bay, we don't talk about this. Stephen Stamcoast is heading into the last year of his deal.

Toronto's got Willie Neelander, Shifley, in Winnipeg. And I know that we always say, like, oh, the summer of 2024 could be crazy with free agents or whatever. but boy, this is a lot of high-end talent that is not locked up one year out where traditionally teams and players have been pretty quick to make sure you lock guys up. All I can say is thank goodness Austin Matthews is signed because I don't know that I could handle the coverage of day one of Toronto training camp and it's all about Matthew's not is you going to sign or are you going to sign what you get. So at least that part has been to leave it.

but Stamco's and the guys in Calgary, Elias Patterson, Willie Neelander. There's some really interesting storylines going into a training camp of, I wonder, is this the last ride for these guys with these teams? And Stamcoach is the one that I'm super interested in in Tampa. Because do you, I don't know how old Stephen Stamck,

how old is Stephen Stamco? I want to say he's 33. I'll double because it. It feels like he's been in the league forever, but he entered the league as a teenager. he'll be 34 in February. So like if you're Tampa and you look at your salary cap structure, like what deal do you sign to keep him around for the next few years?

Do you sign him to that deal? Do you use that as an opportunity to say, hey, maybe we could start to add some younger players and we just let Stephen Stampco's go? Here's another thing with all these pending UFAs, especially if there's situations don't get resolved. You really, if you're a fan and you like chaos, you really root for the salary cap to go up. Everyone's saying it's supposed to go up.

We don't know by how much, but if that salary cap goes up next summer by a decent amount, that's opening the door for those teams to kind of throw that money out at free agents. So because we've had other years where you're looking at different free agent classes and then you look at the salary cap and you're like, some teams don't have enough to make that work.

I mean, this past off season, we saw a handful of guys sign one-year proof-it deals thinking that next summer they'll be able to get more money. So I think if we're at a situation where that salary cap does go up, maybe we do see those explosions. But Steve at Stamcoast, you're absolutely right. We have not made a bigger deal about his situation. Yeah. No, it's going to be fun.

I'm excited that we get some actual, we get to overreact about line combinations this week. We get to talk about how people have come into camp in the best shape of the their lives and all like, I'm excited. I'm excited for the, the return of cliches. Okay. I got it. I go back to Twitter one last time or X, whatever you call it. I tweeted at Shana Goldman, defend him on the pod, and she wrote back, let's do it.

Okay. This would have been helpful if you had the interaction before the show and then we brought her on. Okay, but like, I mean, I don't know. I mean, it'd be nice if we were able to do this more than just Monday and then you have Shana on like Tuesday or Wednesday or something. Good point. Okay. Well, we'll keep that in mind. We'll keep that in mind. All right. We will leave it there. We look forward to, listen, you and I are covering teams. We're looking forward to the started training camp this week. And we're excited to get back at it. So this was a fun hour here. Just flew by. And a huge thanks again to Portsline, Aaron Portsline for joining us. But we got to welcome our boy back. Chris Flannwood. Our producer is back after a.

much needed parental leave in the summertime. And now he's got his hands full, though, right? You got two. Yeah, I don't know what I was thinking. Yep, I have a four-year-old and a three-month-old now. It's a lot. I have to deal with you, too. So I got a lot of stuff going on.

It's like four kids. That's right. Yes. That's exactly what I'm saying. No, Julian can be one of your kids. Not me. I'm too old. I can't be one of your kids if I'm older than you.

That's the rule. No, you have to help me. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you should be co-parenting. That's right. We're co-parenting, Julian. No.

No. That didn't mean that. No. Julian, no texting. No tweeting. No, doing the show. No, Julian. Put your phone where I can see it.

No. Yeah. Damn you guys. I love you guys. I love you guys. Thank you for welcoming back to the show. It's a pleasure to be back with you guys. It's awesome.

By the way, for people who don't know, Chris Flannery. Yeah. Die hard. Die hard. Die hard. New York Rangers. fan. How does he feel, like on a confidence level, because the East is going to be just stacked this

year, Eastern Conference. Scale of 1 to 10, 1 being not confident, 10 being super confident. How confident are you that the Rangers make the playoffs this year in the East? Oh, they're going to make the play. I mean, I'm very confident they're going to make the playoffs. Yeah, I'm very sure. Like you're like a 9, 7, 8, 7, 8. Or 7, 8, okay.

Yeah, well, 8, I think. You know, I'm very serene about. this. I didn't know about Lavellat at first. Now I'm starting to be very comfortable with his kind of philosophy going into the season. I think they're going to be a harder team to play against. I'm just, I'm just excited to watch it all play out. I'm not, uh, not overconfident. I'm not too worried. I'm just, just ready to watch it all play out, you know? I don't know, man. I feel like I, I'm, I still are very bullish on the Rangers core. I still think they have enough to figure it out and go on a deep run, man. I know Carolina is really good. I know. I know,

New Jersey is really good. The Terrace and Cocaine acquisitions last year didn't really work out. It made them slower. But if they figure it out, man, they could take some teams by surprise. I still think the Rangers have what it takes to go back to that conference final, man. I'm really high on that core.

I don't know if maybe this year it could be different, but I really think the Rangers have something. They have an elite defenseman. They have an elite goalie. Their top end is good. Maybe they need to fill out the middle part. Maybe the younger players, Alexei Lafranier, obviously, maybe just kind of so-so with that organization.

but I really think the Rangers have something. They just need like that one act, one more player to put them over the top. They're right there. Yeah. Oh, they got the goal tening. Well, that's the thing, right? They have, they have, um,

they have the goal tenting. And the thing is, I feel like the team is a little bit vanilla, whatever the word is. Lobby Let is not a vanilla coach. I mean, that guy's going to come in. He's got a real, uh, I think a vision.

I think he's a, he's got a tough attitude when he needs to have that, which I think is something that, was maybe missing from this team. So, you know, you get a different voice in there and you run it back and hopefully they can, they can make a deep run. We will see. We will see.

Okay. Well, hey, listen, excited to have you back in the saddle, excited for another season of the athletic hockey show coming your way. And like I said, finally we get some games and storylines and stuff to sink our teeth into later this week. So we want to thank everybody for joining us for the Monday edition of the pod. Follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Leave us a rating and review.

We would certainly appreciate that. You can follow us on YouTube at YouTube.com slash at the athletic hockey show right now. This is the time to jump in for subscription to the athletic. I can't stress this enough. It's a dollar a month when you visit theathletic.com slash hockey show.