The Athletic Hockey Show - Most miraculous NHL returns from injury, Buffalo Sabres eliminated from playoffs for 11th season in a row, Calder trophy odds

Episode Date: April 7, 2022

One of Sean McIndoe's favorite obscure records were broken, and Ian pitches his first of many piece ideas in this episode for Sean to write later. As Tiger Woods makes his return to the Masters, the pair discusses some of the most miraculous returns from injury in the NHL. Also, the Sabres were eliminated from the playoffs for the 11th straight season, can their fans claim the crown for experiencing the worst decade ever for an NHL team?Then Jesse Granger stops by for "Granger Things" to discuss the Golden Knights 5-1 loss to Vancouver on Wednesday, and if they still have hope for a playoff berth. Also, as the regular season is rapidly coming to a close, the latest on Calder trophy odds. To wrap up, some questions for listeners in the mailbag, and a goalie edition of "This Week in Hockey History"Have a question for Ian and Sean? Email [e-mail] or leave a VM at [phone]!Save on a subscription to The Athletic: theathletic.com/hockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back, everybody. It is your Thursday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. As always, it's Ian Mendez. Down Goes Brown, Sean McAdoo, with you in these seats on the Thursday. Coming up, as always, we're going to have Jesse Granger for Granger Things. Boy, we've got to talk about the Golden Knights as they continue to be on the playoff bubble. So Jesse Granger will stop by, as always, the Buffalo Sabres, well, they weren't even on the playoff bubble. And NHL record 11th consecutive season that Buffalo has been eliminated from the playoffs.

We're going to talk about some of that. We're seeing the return of Tiger Woods at the Masters. So I want to put a little hockey spin on this and talk about miraculous returns from injuries in the hockey world. I got a bunch of mailback questions, some goalie related on this date in NHL history. We got a lot to get to. But Sean, I want to start this piece, this pod by talking about your piece because it felt like all you wanted to do this week was cram some. Joe Juno content down our, down our throats.

Yeah, I think that's a reasonable, that's a reasonable way to look at it. It was, look, I, I am a big believer in personal responsibility. And I feel personally responsible for the fact that one of my very favorite obscure NHL records was broken in the last week. And that was Joey Juno holding the all time record for a in a season by a left winger.

And I'm willing to bet that if you aren't somebody who reads my stuff regularly, where I've mentioned this a few times over the years, unless you were a fan of the 92, 93 broods, you probably had no idea that it was Joey Judo who held that record. You probably never even thought about the record for assists by a left winger. But it was a great record because it was such a low number compared to, I mean, I think it wasn't even in the top 50 for all-time single-season assist totals, but because left-wing is just a weird position.

He held the record for years and years and years. And unfortunately, I got a little too excited. I banged the drum a little too loudly at the beginning of the year, mentioning that with all the left-wingerers in the league, not just Jonathan Eubrudeau, but Brian Marchand and Tommy Panarin and all these guys, somebody was going to break it this year and sure enough it happened and I felt personally responsible. So I wrote this piece getting into into the record books and look, I don't want to give away the twist ending, but I feel like I've, I feel like I've made things right with Joey Juno.

And I hope we're okay going forward. Yeah, all we'll say is that this column was bookended by Joe Juno. Yeah. That's fair to say. Yeah. And I think it's fair to say that if you're. reading the beginning of the column going, what the hell is this guy

keep talking about Joey, it's going to pay off, trust me. It's foreshadowing. Yeah, exactly. Chekhov's left winger is being introduced early on. Yeah. And don't worry. It'll all make sense by the end.

Okay. So I want to throw a potential column idea. I think one of the things we've got to do a little more on this podcast is kind of come up with some ideas for your column. Absolutely. Okay, because you always have fun, unique,

and borderline wacky, but it's fun. And they're different ideas. So I know that you've done a column recently was the, hey, it's the team, guys who have been traded once against guys who've been traded twice, okay? So have you ever done this one? And I guess maybe you only would do it with active players. But have you ever done what a team of players who have never won a playoff round? How would they stack up against a team of guys who have only in their career won one playoff?

round or what about a team of guys who only got to the conference final and then a team of guys that got to the cup but never won it like who like interesting yeah yeah i don't know is that is that too weird is it like yeah no that that could be uh well we'd make it weird i mean people i i throw a bunch of like unnecessary rules to complicate it into it yeah yeah no that would be that would be an interesting one and you know how uh i think you'd have to put probably some limit on how long a guy had been in the league. We don't want, you know, guys who, you know, who are rookies and putting them on team never won around, but maybe you do.

I mean, I feel like I'm being set up here because I'm guessing team never one around just ends up being the Toronto Maple Leafs. And that's, you know, you're, I mean, this is, well, hey, we've, maybe this is the way we bring senators and Leafs fans together for the first time. We get them in, throw in a couple of sabers. we're all good. You know what? I like this idea.

It's around playoff time. I'm going to get that out there. It feels like a first round. Exactly. In between games three and four. Yes. This was my point. Yeah.

I was looking to create some playoff content for you. So. I mean. But now here's my question. Dude, I don't think you can do, I think you may only have to do active players, right? Because,

and the only reason why I say this is, what would team never want a playoff round look like if you're doing? Like, how many, like, really good players in their entire career never, or maybe let me spin it this way. Who's the best player that never want to playoff round in his career? See, I can't imagine that there are guys who had great careers that never won around. Because remember, if we're talking about guys whose careers are done and have been done long enough that we're putting them in context, you're talking about guys who played in the era with many fewer teams.

You know, we have never been in a situation in the NHL like we are this year where half the teams don't make the playoffs. And three quarters of the league doesn't even go to the second round versus, you know, when used to even in the original six area, you had four out of six teams making it. And the era that you and I grew up in 21 teams, 16 of them going to the playoffs every year, it was very rare for any team to miss the. playoffs more than a couple of years. So I can't imagine that there were too many players out there who never so much has won around in a 10 or 12 or 15 year career. There might be some guys. But I don't think there'd be all that many.

I think it would be mostly active guys. And guys from this era where, you know, again, it's much harder to win around just in terms of the number of teams and how the odds are playing against you. Okay, so as you were speaking, I came up with the guy who might be the best player to never win a playoff round. You're ready? Yep. Oli Yokinen. That's a good one.

Wow. Okay. So Oli Yokinen, 1,200 career games, 750 points, and one trip to the playoffs with Calgary that ended in, looks like it looks like in six games. So unless the flames won around and he got hurt, no, it doesn't look like it. Like so there you go. They lost in six games to Chicago. I think that's the one because I remember, you know, I've a couple of times talked about the record for most career games without playing in the playoffs, which is one of those. That's a fun record because you can have that record more than once.

Like it's one of the few records that somebody can break and then lose. So, you know, there's, and off the top of my head, I don't actually remember who holds it, but I know Oliokinanen was held it at one point. I think Jay Beaumister headed at one point. Right. And, but then both those guys get into the playoffs and then it goes back to like Greg Jolie or whoever it is that actually has the record. Which is always got to be fun.

You know, you get that phone call, hey, man, saw you said in NHO record today. And you're like, dude, I'm 57. Leave me alone. Yeah. I'm tired of having this record over and over again. and I'd like somebody to take it from me. But yeah, you know what, Oliokin, that's a great, that's a great call.

He's just never in the right place to be on a playoff team. And you're right, I think he got in finally at the end of his career, but just for the one series. Yeah, you know what? So, listen, if you need some help with researching that, that who's won, whatever, this is again, we're putting out the call for the Down Goes Brown internship program. I mean, I really feel like we should slowly over time shift

this podcast to the point where it's just you coming up with ideas and the listeners doing the research and then maybe we get an intern to write it. We slap my name on it and I'm done. Yeah. This is, this will be, I'll be like one of those old comic strip guys who doesn't actually draw anymore. You just put his name on it. You're like, and I'm good to go. Yeah. You're like crushed you the clown. You're just rolling in and signing off on a bunch of inferior products. You got it. Yeah. The, the Masters is taking place this week. Usually this is a great weekend in sports. If the calendar was normal, it would be the start of the Stanley Cup playoffs, right?

It's usually this week. It's the Masters, the weather for a lot of people. It's getting nicer. And the reason why I want to bring up the Masters here, obviously, Tiger Woods coming back to play from really, I think what can only be described as a catastrophic injury, sustaining a car accident. I think at the time, a lot of us thought, man, this guy's never going to play golf again. So to see him come back and play and potentially play the Masters is one of the most remarkable stories. And then, of course, because this is a hockey podcast, I thought, well, how can we spin this into a conversation here?

So I want to ask you this here. If Tiger Woods coming back to play is the most, you know, one of the most miraculous returns from injury we've ever seen, certainly in golf, what's the most miraculous return from an injury in hockey history where we're like, you see a guy, you're like, I don't think this guy. ever going to come back to play. And he does. Like for me, the one I always think about is Eric Lindross. When Eric got hit that one time in the neutral zone by Scott Stevens and he's lying there

and he's not moving and you knew he had a concussion history. And even then our knowledge of concussions wasn't quite where it is obviously today. But even then we were like, I don't know that this guy's ever going to be the same or come back. That's the one for me that always jumps out. Like, is there somebody that you're like, wow, I never thought he would play again. and then he suited up again and then HL again. And not for, not for like he retired and came back, like Lefleur or even to some extent LeMew,

but like was just hurt so badly. You're like, this guy's never coming back. Yeah, I mean, there's a few. And obviously, you know, if we're limiting it to injury, that takes a few guys because we've seen guys where it was illness, off the ice stuff.

Merrill LeMew always being the, I think the gold standard twice in that 92-93 season where he's diagnosed with cancer. And at the time, there was some talk that it could be career ending. But at the very least, he was done for the year. You knew that. And then he comes back and not only comes back, but wins the scoring title. And then his later comeback from retirement was also phenomenal.

Purely, if we're talking in terms of injury, I think there's three. And it's three on different timelines. The first is the shortest timeline, Paul Correa, the big hit in the Stanley Cup final, where he gets laid out by Scott Stevens and goes down. Again, similar to the Lindros situation, you're going, that's, boy, that's it for him. I mean, we're not going to see him again in the series probably, and you just hope he's okay for next year. And then not only does he come back, but he comes back later in that game, scores the goal.

Still, to this day, one of those very, very, very. strange conflicting memories for a hockey fan where at the time you at the time we saw it we thought it was the greatest thing ever and now you look back and you go man how the hell was a guy who got hit like that allowed to come back into the game just just a few minutes later so that would be one um you can't have a conversation about hockey injuries without mentioning clint milarchuk uh of course that one of the one of if not the most horrifying injuries ever um if if you if you've if you've never seen it, don't go looking for it. It's truly awful, but he had his neck sliced, he was a goaltender for the Sabres, has his neck sliced by a skate. It comes extremely close

to literally dying on the ice from blood loss. I mean, it, this, it was a literal life and death down to the second's situation. And I think everyone remembers that injury or knows about it if you weren't around at the time. What I think a lot of people don't remember is he came back and played like two weeks later. He got into, he came back that season and he played one game. And I think at the time, it was sort of like from his perspective, it was, you know, because once he was stitched up and everything, it was, you know, it was an injury that he could play with.

But it was kind of like, man, do you want to go back out there? And I think from his perspective, it was a little bit like, if I, don't go back now. I don't know that if I sit around all summer, I might never go back. So I've got to do it now and, you know, whether that was a right decision or not. But that, that one to me is truly amazing. It was, I believe, 10 or 11 days after that horrific injury, he goes out and plays, plays just a few minutes. I mean, I think he even came in just, I mean, they basically let him just get onto the ice.

And then that was it. but truly, truly an amazing, an amazing comeback. And then the one that maybe is the closest to the Tiger Woods situation, in the sense of a guy that you went, okay, he's done, that's it, we're not going to see him again. Not quite the same star level, but Gary Roberts was a guy who, for the Calgary Flames, played for a decade, was a great power forward, but about eight years into his career, he has a neck problem. And it's a degenerative neck issue.

And at one point, he misses almost an entire season. He's only in his late 20s. He's like 27, 28 years old at this point. He comes back. He plays half a season. He wins the Masterton. But it's just not getting any better. All the doctors have looked at it.

And they basically tell him, Gary, you're done. There's nothing that we can do for you. He announces his retirement, I think, at the age of 30. And he's just a classic case where you look at him and you go, well, that's a career. cut short. It's tragic. But he's, you know, he can't play anymore. His quality of life is what matters here. He sits out a year and then he comes back.

And basically what happens is he finds some new treatments and some new options open up to him. He ends up coming back for what is expected to be like, you know, he's going to give it a shot kind of thing. Calgary trades him to Carolina, not because they didn't want him, but because he went to them and said, I need to play for an Eastern team because I can't do the travel. I don't know sitting on planes and everything with my neck and my back could cause problems for me. So he wanted to go someplace where the travel wouldn't be as much. Well, he ends up not just being able to stick around in the league.

He actually plays longer after the injury than he did before. He played 10 years. He plays 11 more after the injury and becomes the poster child for fitness and for, you know, to this day, I mean, that's anytime anyone on your team isn't good conditioning, or what do you say, right? Like, send him to go see Gary Roberts. He's, he's Mr. Kale smoothies and all of this stuff. And that all sprung from that, the fact that this was a great player who was all sorts of fun

to watch in Calgary. And we were all told, his career is over. And then after a year, he suddenly is able to not only come back, but come back and and play at the same or similar level. And for a very, very long time, it was just a completely amazing story. Yeah, it's funny. Like, you know, in light,

and we're going to talk about the Buffalo Sabres here in a second, but in light of the Jack Eichael stuff, and, you know, he had issues with his neck and all that. Like, I was curious, it's interesting that nobody really wrote about Gary Roberts in around this time, right? Like a potentially career altering neck injury and came back and was, he was dominant.

Hey, just asking Otto with senators. fan if Gary Roberts was dominant post- That's exactly it. I mean, this is a guy where I mean, there's probably younger fans listening to this who didn't know any of that background. They're sitting there going, well, wait a second. You know, Gary Roberts is the guy who played forever and he's the guy

who's in, you know, great shape and too much man and all of that stuff. And yeah, absolutely. But for a while, it looked like it was not going to happen because he was done. And, you know, you say the story even back then

it wasn't really covered as much as it probably should have been because that's just what the NHL was back then. If you were a power forward, Cam Neely at around the same time was having his career read, Wendell Clark was breaking down, certainly a lot of the enforcers in that were going through issues. That was just kind of what the NHL was back then. Eric Lindross, you mentioned, same sort of thing. It was like, yeah, it's a meat grinder and some of these guys, the careers end short.

and we thought that was the case of Gary Roberts, and to his credit, stuck with it, tried to comeback that, you know, at the time we thought, hey, man, if he can play one more a year, that's going to be great. That'll be, he'll go out on his terms. And instead, it was another decade and another decade of being an impact player. I mentioned the Buffalo Sabres here. And we're at the point in the season where every day you wake up,

a new team has been officially eliminated from the Stanley. the Cup playoffs. And, you know, you're looking at those teams at the bottom and, you know, they're getting ticked off in the Arizona and, you know, Montreal and it was Buffalo's turn. And as a result, we've known this was going to be the case, but now we can say it officially, the Sabres will miss the Stanley Cup playoffs for a record 11th consecutive season. Sean, 11 straight years of miss the playoffs. A couple of things here. First of all, Mike Harrington, who covers the Sabers for the Buffalo News, he points out that tomorrow, Friday, is the 4,000 days.

anniversary of Buffalo's last playoff game. So think about that. Four thousand days between playoff games for the Buffalo Sabers. That is that kind of paints the picture. I know you kind of you touched on this, I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, and I think it was a recent mailback

about what's the most futile, depressing decade for an NHL team. And now the Sabres I guess my question is, do Buffalo Sabres fans now having missed the playoffs in 11 consecutive seasons. Can they lay claim to that? Can they stake the claim to this is the worst decade of any

any NHL team has had to endure? They're up there for sure. The question in the mailbag wanted a specific decade. They wanted the 70s, the 80s, and a full decade. So it was a little bit different. The Sabres obviously are a little bit stretched over. But yeah, they're, they're, They're right up there.

And look, missing the playoffs for a record 11 years, as we just said, making the playoffs is a lot tougher now. I mean, I grew up watching the 1980s Maple Leafs, who I would argue were the absolute worst team for a decade. They still made the playoffs a few times because it was the Norris Division. You could make the playoffs with 50-something points. and that was the case for most of the teams in the league. So I don't know that just the fact that they've got the record playoff drought necessarily moves them ahead of some other teams. But just in terms of the context around it, I can't imagine, you know, the worst team. I don't know who the worst team is.

I have a hard time imagining anything a worst decade for a fan base than this one. I mean, we've seen bad teams come in as expansion teams, but back before Vegas, if you were an expansion team, you expect it to be bad. You were supposed to be bad. You, you know, buckle up. It's going to be a rough five or six years before this team can contend for anything. The Buffalo Sabres, man, I mean, 2006 and 2007, they had an absolute Stanley Cup worthy team. I mean, that team did not win the cup, but they absolutely could have, but probably should have two trips to the conference final. excellent team. Then 2007 comes around and free agency hits them and they get they get decimated by that.

They lose Chris Drury. They lose Danny Breyer. And for a couple of years, they missed the playoffs. They build it back up though. They get to the playoffs 2010 and 2011. At this point, they're kind of doing it a little bit with duct tape. They got a little bit of a Montreal Expos thing going on. But they're a good team. And then, oh, look, here comes the new owner. Here comes Terry Pagula. And he's going to spend much. money and we can go out in free agency and actually get some guys and we have turned the page and I think if you had gone to a Sabers fan then and said you've you've just seen the last playoff game for a decade it would have been devastating because this this was a team that thought they were going to be good and was supposed to be good and was not awful the first year

or two of that but obviously the free agent signings didn't work out and then you just start churning through coaches churning through GMs there's the dysfunction and the front office and all of that. And they go into, they spend a couple of years doing a very obvious and blatant tank job, hoping to get Connor McDavid, knowing that Jack Eichel is the, is the plan B. And okay, you know what? Rebuilds happen. Now we got Jack Eichael.

Now we got some other pieces. And it just never clicks it. Now, to be going through a second full tear it down rebuild in, uh, in, uh, in the same set without even having a playoff to show for it. I don't know that there's any, any worst decade that a really, really good fan base has had to endure because, I mean,

it sure doesn't look like that. Streaks can end anytime soon. They're back to tear it down again. Man, it's been miserable. And to do it all, I mean, it's harder to make the playoffs these days than ever

because of how many teams there are. But we're also in the era of paragon. It's also supposed to be harder to be awful right now. You know, everybody is a 70 point team at least. I mean, with the loser point, you can at least fake your way to that. And for them to be as bad as they've been year after year after year. And I know there's some optimism now. There's, you know, some fans will say, you know, it feels like maybe it's turning around.

You and I well know from watching the senators last year. The last 20 games of the season can mislead you sometimes when you're obviously out of the running. But I hope so. I hope Don Granado is building something. I hope they can turn this around because that, that man, that fan base deserves it. Yeah, it's a great fan base, very passionate, very intelligent. I'm going to end with this. Let me ask you this question because you mentioned,

I'm actually going back to a Buffalo fan in 2011, maybe during the Villil-Lano press conference or whatever you go to them and you're like, you will not make the playoffs for the next 10 years. See you later. Now I'm thinking of a great, maybe, again, This is too weird of a column idea for you. But you get to go back in time. Not a concept I'm familiar with.

Okay. Okay. You get to go back in time and visit all 32 fan bases for one brief. Like, you get to deliver one 15 second warning message. Like, where do you go back to each fan base and tell them, ah? You know what I mean? Like, wouldn't that be fun? Like to think, like, what's the one warning sign you wish you knew?

Yeah, wouldn't that be, but just to go back and wreck every fan base. Just, no, you're not wreck it. You're giving them a heads up. Something bad's about to go down and you don't realize it. You don't, you have no idea what's about to happen. I mean, I can definitely think of a few. I think they, I think again, you're trying to trick me into going in on my my maple leaves and that that would probably have to narrow that one down.

Yeah, and then you'd get the other teams. Boy, wouldn't you imagine going to an Islanders fan. 84 you've just lost the Stanley Cup to the oil. That's all right. We'll be back. That's our first playoff loss in 20 series. We're going to be okay. And you just sit down and go, I got,

I got some bad news about how the next four decades or so works out for you. Yeah, there are. Yeah. There are definitely more than a few that would be, it would be pretty rough. Time traveling. Time traveling with down goes down. Imagine having to go back to a Pittsburgh Penguins fan in 83 and go next year,

you're not going to have an all-time legendary top five player in the lineup for a whole season. and then, you know, for the next four decades, you will. So it'll be fine. Exactly. Always ends with bitterness towards the penguins. All right. All right, as always, on a Thursday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show, time to bring in our pal, Jesse Granger for Granger things.

A segment brought to you by BetMGM. They are, of course, the exclusive betting partner with us at the athletic. Jesse Granger, for the last few weeks, we've been monitoring the Vegas Golden Knights. They've been such a compelling storyline. And we keep wondering, are they going to make the playoffs? are going to miss the playoffs. And I got to tell you, when I, I didn't stay up late, I'm on Eastern Time and wake up in the morning

and I go to the first thing I do, I check the scores. I'm like, whoa, 5-1, beat down. How are people feeling there about Vegas's chances of making the Stanley Cup playoffs after what can I think can only be categorized as probably an embarrassing and crushing loss to Vancouver? Yeah, I would say people are feeling not great. The Golden Knights, Twitter fans last night

We're pretty doom and gloom thinking that that was kind of it. Obviously, they still have 10 games left, but they're probably going to have to win eight or maybe at least seven, maybe eight of those last 10 with. And you're going to need some help from Dallas, Nashville, Edmonton, L.A. one of those teams is going to have to collapse. But in terms of last night's game, I mean, they just got Pete DeBore, basically. I asked him a couple specifics, like they struggled on breakouts and he's like not having it. He's like, we struggled at everything. Yes, we struggled to breakouts, but we struggled at 10 other things.

We were awful. They were better than us. Jack Eichol, I thought, had a good mentality. He was basically saying, like, look, we won five games in a row prior to this. We knew we weren't going to go undefeated. Like, yes, this was a game. We should have won. But we still have 10 games left.

We weren't going to win them all. They're basically, Braden McNab said, we're in the playoffs now. This team has been in the playoffs four years in row. He's like, when you lose a game in the playoffs, you can't think about it. You've got to just go on to the next game. that's kind of where they're at. It's going to be tough. I think their chances are not great. And I don't think it's even really because of that loss. Like I said, they won five in a row prior to that, but the teams around them are not losing. The Golden Knights have like they won five games in a row

and made up basically no ground because Edmonton and L.A. and Nashville and Dallas just seemed to win every night. So yeah, it's going to be really, really tough for this team to make the playoffs. At this point, it seems highly unlikely. Yeah, and it's, you nailed it, right? It's five wins in a row. You think you should be gaining ground. And when you looked at the schedule after they beat Nashville, and they had that really impressive guy, the 6-1, I think, was the final,

you looked ahead at the schedule, and it was all bad teams. You know, in Chicago, Seattle, Vancouver has, you know, maybe been better lately, but Arizona's on there coming up. You're thinking, this is their time to make hay, and they did. you know, if you've gone back and said, would you take five wins in your next six? You'd take it. But that's the thing in the NHL these days.

It's so much harder to gain ground. The NHL loves to talk about the close playoff races. We got to have the close. That's what our standings do. They make the playoff races closer. And how many teams and how many fan bases are used to being three or four or five points back? And then you go on a hot streak and then you look at the standings. You go, we didn't gain anything.

And I look ahead at the Vegas schedule the rest of the way. And what really jumps out of me is they've got, they're in Dallas at the end of April. That's pretty much it as far as the teams they're chasing. No games left against the Kings. No games left against Nashville. They've got Edmonton, I guess, if you still consider that a chase. But they're going to be looking at the scoreboard. And I think of all the teams now at this point, I'm probably thinking LA is the team that they have the best chance to catch.

They got to gain two games on them. I think Nashville, if you look at Nashville, their schedule is brutal. I think starting next week, the predators play, they play the flames twice. They play the lightning, the avalanche, and the wild all like six games in a row. So talking six games against contenders. who knows what the motivations will be for those contenders. Some of them are locked into playoff spots. So maybe that schedule is not as tough as it looks.

But when I look at the L.A. and Vegas both have pretty easy schedules down the stretch. And the way I'm looking at it, especially after last night's loss, is the Golden Knights can't really win their way into the playoffs. They're one of these teams that they're chasing, they're going to need them to go four and eight or something down the stretch. Like they need one of these teams in front of them to collapse. So I think while Nashville has been playing good hockey, and I think Nashville actually might be the better of all those four teams, their schedule, to me, gives the best opportunity for maybe Vegas to claw their way back. Yeah, I'm looking at the Kings, and they've got Oilers Wild and Avalanche through their next four.

If it's not then, because then they finish off against a bunch of teams that aren't in the playoffs. Right. The reason the Kings jump out of me is because it's one of the only teams that they've, the Knights of Play, same number of games as. Because you look at that points column as a Knights fan and you think, oh, we got a shot at this. And then you look at the games played and you go, Nashville's got three games in hand on us. Right. With three weeks left in the season,

how is that even possible? It's, man, it's a rough one. Yeah. Listen, that Western Conference race, to me, it's compelling because there's four or five teams that are in it, right? L.A., Nashville, Dallas, Vegas, Vancouver. That's what we love. At this time of year, we love races that involve multiple teams.

And I think as we flip the conversation over to individual awards, I think that same theory holds true. When four or five people are involved in a legitimate debate for one award, it makes it really interesting. And that takes us right to the Calder Trophy for rookie of the year, Jesse. And would love to sit here and chat with you with a few weeks left in the season and talk about like, where's some smart money? Is there some smart money to be had here on some of these candidates?

because I feel like this is a flip of the coin. You talk to 10 different people. It feels like you get four or five different answers of who should get the Calder Trophy. So walk us through the odds here with three weeks left in the regular season. Yeah, it's a fascinatingly close race. And to be honest,

I was a little surprised when I looked at the odds. And that's kind of what prompted this conversation is, like I personally love Mosider. I love his game. I love watching him play. If I were to start a franchise today and I was going to pick one of these rookies, I think I would pick Mo Cider. But I honestly expected, like, that to be kind of in the minority.

And I go to that MGM odds. And Mo Cider is the favorite right now to win the Calder Trophy. He's minus 200 right now. Lucas Raymond, his teammate, is plus 450. He's the second best odds. Trevor Zegris, who I expected would be the favorite. And by the way, like the midway point in the season, Trevor Zegris was the runaway favorite.

obviously around the All-Star game. He had a lot of hype around it. I mean, he was minus a big number at one point. But now you can get five to one odds on Trevor Zegris to win rookie of the year. Michael Bunting, who leads all rookies in points. I know he's like 30 years old, but he does lead all rookies and points, and he's eight to one. And then a guy who's interesting to me, who you can get at 20 to one right now, Tanner Geno is like you can make an argument for Tanner Geno. I mean, he leads all rookies and goals.

I think he's got 23 goals now. He's all over the ice. He's kind of that Brad Marchand under the other team's skin type of guy. And 20 to 1 on a player that has at least an argument for a trophy this late in the season. You just don't, you never see a number like 20 to 1 on a player this late in the season. And then there's another, Jeremy Swayman is also 20 to 1 in there. I don't, you wouldn't be a guy that I'd be. particularly lean to. What do you think of Sean? That was the name I was waiting to hear because I feel

like at some point, and maybe it's because he played a decent chunk of last year, maybe people don't really realize that he's got the eligibility still. At some point, this guy is kind of taken over as the starting goaltender for a very good Boston Bruins team that has been very hot down the stretch. You look at his numbers, he's put up very good numbers. He's hovering around 920 save percentage. This is a guy I feel like, you know, we're running out of runway for the light bulb to go off on a lot of people as far as the buzz here. I'd have them number two on my ballot right now behind Sider and maybe, you know, right

there with Zegrois would be the other one that would be tough. But, you know, we talk about goalies not getting in much of love for our trophy. They tend to get, you know, at some point, I feel like voters are going to say. sit down and go, okay, who's the best rookie goalie? And they're going to look and they're going to go, wait a second. This isn't some rookie who's played 20 games and had good numbers. This guy's taken over as the starter for a Stanley Cup contender and he's playing great. 20 to 1, I would jump on that just in case he gets red hot down the stretch and

starts really getting some attention. And to me, too, another name that's not there, and this is more of a function of, he struggled under his initial coach this season would be Cole Cawfield. If you look at Cole Cofield under Marty San Luis, I mean, you can only think, man, if this guy had that all year, right? What are his, is he even on the board year? Yeah, so Cole Cofield has the ninth best odds. He's behind those six that I mentioned, Matt Boldy and Anton Lindell.

Cole Cofield, you can get 80 to 1 at the moment. So if you think there's even a sliver of a chance. And like, so I mentioned he's ninth. Eighth is Anton Lindell. He's 35 to 1. So the jump from 8th, 35 to 1 to Cole Coughfield is 80 to 1. He's got the same odds as Alex Neuhoek and Alex Nadelcovic. It's funny, Sean, you mentioned. People might not realize swimming. Alex Nadelcovic is just going to be up for Calder for every year for the rest of his life. I was hoping so much that he would get, you'd be a finalist again and just people would lose their minds. But yeah, boy, Cole Cawfield at those numbers.

Yeah. To me, I think it's interesting that Mo Sider is minus 200. That big of a favorite, considering he doesn't put up the numbers that the other guy. Like, when you watch a Red Wings game, it's pretty clear that that kid is really good and he's out of relaying hits. He's got so much skill. But I don't know. When I look at the numbers, like I was reading Dom LeSision's story the other day about like kind of breaking down just from an analytics standpoint. And Sider is like eighth on his, just on the on the models. rankings of the of the rookie. So I was I was surprised to see Sider be that big of a favorite,

although he probably is at the top of my ballot also right now. Yeah, there does, you know, when you think about the buzz or whatever you want to call it, he, that is the name that really seems to be standing out right now. But I don't know, man, I don't feel like it's over. And there's definitely some opportunity there where, I mean, look, I think Sider probably wins, but at this point, you're not throwing, I mean, you're not dropping your, your, you're 20 bucks or 50 or whatever you want to put down so that you could win 10 right some guy you you want the long shot and you know Cole Cawfield like he probably has run out of runway um but both him and swayman I mean if I want it you want to drop five bucks and uh you know maybe have a turn

into something that's that's more what I'm looking at to for guys like that for me Tanner Jeanneau at 20 to 1 I mean he's got 23 23 goals and like sometimes it takes a number like that and say he scores seven over the last 11 games or whatever or 13 games, whatever Nashville has left. If he gets 30 goals, suddenly like that, to me, that like changes the discussion. Everyone's, you're going to hear people saying, this, this rookie's got 30 goals. You've got to give it to him. Even though he, he hasn't, he's kind of been the dark horse. Like, you've never really heard Geno's name mentioned with the Siders and the Zegras's, but 23 goals. And he's on a team that's, like, it's not like he's on some bad team where he's getting top line

minutes just because they're out of it. Like the predators are making a playoff run and he's, he's been a part of that. And let's be honest. Like the writers who vote on this stuff, they put a lot of thought into it. But for the Calder, I think a lot of,

a lot of them probably get to the end of the season and then sit down and go, okay, let's look at these numbers and you're right. They maybe get surprised. I didn't know. This guy had 30 goals. I didn't know this guy played this many games as a goalie and then suddenly things shifted around. And I agree with this.

As we wrap up, I think, you know, Jeannot playing on a team and he's playing a big role. They could make the playoffs. You know, Zegris and Anaheim, they're not going to make the playoffs. Detroit's not going to make the playoffs. Cole Cofield.

Like some of these guys are, they're playing games that don't necessarily impact. So if Geno can get five or six goals in the last three weeks of the season and their meaningful goals and imagine he scores the goal to play naturally into the playoffs or whatever it is. Like there's something to be said for an end of season kind of look back and maybe we're having a different conversation in a couple of weeks. But hey, Jesse, as always, this was. a fun visit and hopefully an informative one for anybody looking to lay down some money on the Calder Trophy. Thanks for this and we'll hit you up again next Thursday.

Awesome. Thanks for having me guys. Thanks, Jesse. All right. As always, terrific to have Jesse Granger there for Granger Things. I want to open up the mailbag here. We've got some great emails. You can email us, The Athletic Hockey Show at gmail.com. The athletic hockey show at gmail.com. You can also leave was a voicemail, by the way. 845-4-4-5-844-59. All right. We talked rules court last week, and we did a fun column.

You, me, Sean Jantilly, you took your ideas as listeners and subscribers to the athletic. You gave us sometimes off-the-wall, weird, wacky, fun ideas to improve the game. We put it to a court, and we came up with a vote. Justin has a follow-up here with a proposal that we can maybe make a quick ruling on here on this spot. Justin says in regards to your rules court column,

I think we all know that the NHL standings and how points are awarded is in need of an overhaul. Many have proposed the 3-2-1 format similar to soccer, and that would end the play for overtime mentality, i.e. you get three points for a regulation time win, two for an overtime win. So Justin is saying, what if the NHL went one step further, though,

and borrowed another mainstay. from soccer tables. And that is gold differential. That means, in this case, gold differential wouldn't just be used as a tiebreaker. It would actually be what determines the standings. Now, before you scoff at me, think about how much excitement this would add.

Playoff races that so often resemble a long slog of attrition, i.e. this year's Eastern Conference, would suddenly be up for grabs because one of the two big games could swing a team's fortunes drastically. Imagine the Pittsburgh Penguins, having beat Detroit 11 to 2, all of a sudden gain plus,

nine in the standings. Now that would put real pressure on the hurricanes the first place of the metro or the caps losing 8 to 1, Carolina, all of a sudden allows somebody else to sneak into the mix. What do we think about this? You know what? I respect the creativity. I'm always, I feel like as hockey fans, we're not creative enough as far as what we are looking for in terms of rule changes and that sort of thing. So I respect the spirit here. this wouldn't work. And, you know, there may be some way to factor in goal differential as, or even goals four, as either a tiebreaker or, you know, somehow factor them more into the standings. The problem with this, though, would be, and, you know, Justin basically nails it.

You know, imagine the Pittsburgh Penguins beat the Red Wings 11 to 2 and gain nine goals. Yeah, that's great if you're a Penguins fan. What if you're the team that they pass? imagine how furious you would be watching that game as the Red Wings who have nothing to play for go through the motions and get smoked 11 to 2. Imagine flipping on a game and realizing it's bad enough when you need a team to lose and you find out that they're going up against a backup goalie or that some team star player has been scratched. Imagine watching that goalie get pumped for eight goals and you know, you're screaming at your TV.

It would be it would be all sorts of fun in the times that it worked. something like that Leaves Panthers game. Imagine the Leaves being a 5-1 thinking we're going to gain all this ground. And then the Panthers, each goal, each goal, they come back and go, and that's, man, that's two that we just lost in the standings. There definitely would be an element of fun here. But I'm with Justin in the first half. Go to 3210. I've got a piece coming next week on the loser point that, you know, hopefully people will check out.

but I'm well and officially on the record on this. I hate the way the standings work now. I agree with Justin. Teams are encouraged to play boring hockey to try to get to overtime. It stinks. We need to fix it. Three to one standings would fix it. I'm on board with those.

But goal differential. Nobody loves high-scoring hockey more than me. But even for me, this is a pretty important. Okay, if you like high-scoring hockey, then I think you liked what you've seen so far from defensemen this year. We're seeing some, you know, potentially two defensemen could crack the century mark and points in Roman Yossi and Kel McCar. So that leads us to Chris's question, into the mailback. Chris says, what the incredible seasons we're seeing from, Yosey, McCar, Headman, Eckblatt, Fox, and McAvoy. Is this the best season for NHL defensemen in league history?

I'm looking for a more qualitative answer from you guys, rather than one concern only with the statistical totals. So maybe we're thinking about a season, though, in the 80s of the 90s. And as a follow-up, why do you think we're seeing so many talented game-breaking D-Men in the sport? You even look at more at Cider, Jimmy Drysdale, Quinn Hughes, Jake Sanderson, own power. And it seems like we're getting a ton of great young defensive. And that comes in from Chris.

Yeah. So the second half of the question first, yeah, we do seem to be going through an era with some real great young defensemen, and especially the one. in the league. I mean, I'm going to hold off on putting Jake Sanderson or even Owen Power in that category until we've actually seen them. But yeah, and this happens. Sometimes certain positions just, it feels like there's a flood of great young can't miss guys. And then some of them always do miss and some of them don't. And it's it's kind of tough. You end up looking back with the historical perspective and the hindsight and can maybe write things a little better, which makes it a bit

tough now to sit there and say, you know, is this, is what we're seeing from some of the guys Chris mentions, is this one of the greatest seasons ever for defensemen? You know, it's hard to say because we don't know, especially with Kail McCar, especially with Adam Fox, Charlie McAvoy to an extent, they're not anywhere close to finished products. We don't know what their legacy is going to look like. It's a little bit hard to say. I will give you one season in particular. And it's from that mix in the 80s and 90s where it was, You know, we really did have some all-time defensemen at the height of their powers at the same time. Ray Bork, Chris Chelyos, Paul Coffey were kind of always in the Norris talk for about a good decade there.

But I'm going to give you the 93-94 season. Yeah. Okay. There were 10 guys who showed up on Norris Trophy ballots that year. I'm going to read you the 10 names, okay? Ray Bork won. Scott Stevens and Al McKinness were finalists. Sergei Zubov, Brian Leach, Christchelios, Paul Coffey, Nicholas Liddstrom, Larry Murphy,

and then Sandus Ozilinch had one third place vote. That was 10 names I just gave you. Nine of those guys, Hall of Famers. And then Sandus Ozilich. So one guy showed up on the third, one third place vote. Every other name on every other ballot that year. was a future Hall of Famer. And, you know, in most of these cases other than maybe Zubov, no doubt about it,

Hall of Famers. I mean, first ballot, obvious guys. I don't know that we'll ever see something quite like that again, where basically the entire Norris conversation was just guys that there were total legends. And you know what? Zubov, people forget, like, for Zubov, like, he led the Rangers in scoring in the regular season in the year that they won the Stanley Cup, right? Like that, that's remarkable.

Like he, he was, and this was, he was 23 years old, 89 points, uh, as a defenseman. And, you know, even in that era with the scoring was higher. Uh, I mean, that was, that was pretty phenomenal and, uh, probably you're right. I mean, that that's, you ask anyone who led the 94 Rangers in scoring. I was obviously Mark Messier. No, it was the, uh, 23 year old rookie defense. Okay.

Um, one other one here real quick from Greg. And we talked about, I think, think it was in the mailbag last week where somebody said, hey, what happens if a team wins the Stanley Cup without a captain? Who does the trophy go to? Greg's like, hey, FYI guys, the 1970 and 72 Boston Bruins did not have a captain. It was Johnny Bucic presented with the Stanley Cup,

but it was actually he was one of three alternate captains with Esposito and Westfall. P.S., I'd like some more trivia shows, please, that comes from Greg. So hold on here. And I'm pretty good with hockey history. you're telling me when the Boston Bruins won the Cup in 70 and 72, Bobby O're wasn't so much as an alternate captain. That surprises me.

Yeah, I guess so. I mean, Esposito and Johnny Bucic, obviously, Esposito was the superstar. Johnny Bucic already established as a legend there. And Eddie Westfall was a good veteran piece of those Bruins teams. I am a little bit surprised, but, you know, these young guys, these glory boys like Bobby. or, you know, I don't know, let him prove himself a little bit.

I'm sure it was probably the thinking. But yeah, that is a little bit of a surprise. I will, I will admit that. All right. On to this week in hockey history where we wrap up the show. And I'll tell you what, why don't we start right back in that same era in the 70s? So I did not know this name. You tell me if you knew this.

And you knew this fact. April 7, 1974, Sean, Pittsburgh Penguins goaltender, Andy Brown, became the last goalie to play an NHL game without a mask. I didn't know that. Like obviously we know about Jacques Plont and he's the first guy to wear a mask. I didn't know the last guy who went it without a mask. Like did you know anything about Andy Brown? Nope.

The name was kind of vaguely familiar to me when I saw it in that context. But no, I didn't know that. And it's interesting given that I think a lot of fans, if you ask them who was the last guy to play without a helmet, know that one. They know that it's Craig McTavish and, you know, who was never a superstar but was, you know, a recognizable player. It is a little bit maybe surprising that we don't know the name of the last goalie to play without a mask. I will tell you, it feels very surprising to me that it's as late as 1970. I mean, you would think, you would think Jacques Plan comes in and wears it and after the initial controversy blows over,

you think it wouldn't take long before every single goalie in the league was going. Yeah, I'll do that too, please. To make it to 1974, I really wonder what that conversation with the equipment guy was like. Where he's like, you know, Andy, give it a try. I think a lot of these guys are shooting the puck really, really hard. This Andy Brown has got to be in the conversation. Like, if you did a power ranking of the most stubborn people in sports history, How's this guy not at the top of the list?

Like, dude, everybody else is wearing a mask to protect themselves. What are you doing here? Yeah. Like, what's the argument? What's the argument against at this point? And by the way, I'm just, I'm looking it up. He was the last player in the NHL, last goalie in the NHL not to wear a mask. 1974 was his last season in the NHL.

Then he goes to the WHA for three more years and does not wear a mask in the WHA. So this guy's going into the late. 70s and playing without a mask. According to Wikipedia, his nickname was fearless. I'm guessing there maybe had a few other nicknames for him behind his back. But as, yeah, I'm not going to say anything else about Andy Brown because even at he's apparently 78 years old, I'm guessing if he could take a slap shot to the face, I don't think I want him showing up at my door upset over something I said.

podcast because that's a that's a special kind of you know what i'm going to do i'm going to reach out to him and tell him that your twitter handle is actually mocking him you don't want to know why he's called down goes brown it's because of yeah it's uh yeah well that would uh he'd probably be he'd be insulted that you were suggesting that as a goalie he ever dropped to the ice in that era that was that was the era of the stand-up goaltender so yeah that's that would get me in trouble in more ways in one okay one other kind of weird goalie factoid that I didn't know. And again, I'll ask you if you knew this.

This week in hockey history, April 4, 2003, Mark Deney, then of the Columbus Blue Jackets, sets the NHL record for minutes played in a season by a goalie. Now, a couple of years later that Mark would be surpassed by Marty Brodour, but there was like a three-year window that Mark Deney held the record for most minutes played ever in a season by a goalie. I don't think I knew this. Like maybe it was somewhere in the past.

back of my, I have no recollection of Mark Denise setting the all-time record for minutes played. Did you? Did you know this? Okay. No, I did not. This one, I did not even have a flickering of recollection on this one. And I may be a little bit surprised if I'm supposed to be the obscure history and trivia guy. But not only was I surprised to see that. My first reaction was that can't be right. And I went and looked and sure enough it was. My, you know, obviously when you're talking about minutes played, that connects very strongly to games played. And in the era back when there were even, even when there were no backups, when the game, their seasons were only 50 or 60 or 70 games long, those goalies, even if they

played every second, weren't going to get to the same total that somebody could get in the 80 game era. But I was pretty shocked. I did not remember. Mark Dennyte playing 77 games for the 2000, 2003 Columbus Blue Jackets. That's just a ridiculously high total. The guy that I would have bet everything I owned held the record would have been Grant Fear. Right. From that insane 1996 St. Louis Blues team under Mike Keenan, where Mike Keenan just decided in the midnight, and we're talking 25 years into the backup goalie era, he goes, yeah, I'm going to just start the same goalie.

every single game of the season. I am never going to start my backup. I mean, these days, you can't start your one goalie every game of a week without being told that you're tiring him out. Mike Keenan started Grandfure every single game, back to backs, everything else, until the very, the last couple weeks of the season, he finally got hurt and he missed a couple of games.

And Grandfier ended up playing 79 games, but finished a little bit by, in fact, not even over 100 minutes back of Mark DeNean. So I guess, Grant Fier, that's the Mike Keenan effect right there, right? The hook, Captain Hook. Even when he's starting you every single game, you still, you get off to a rough start and he pulls you.

That's pretty shocking to me that Mark DeNey held that record at all. I am looking at that Blue Jacket season. It was Dave King and Doug McLean splitting time as coaches. So even in a season where they clearly, it wasn't a great year when you're making a coaching change. Jean-François Labet was the backup goalie. So that might be your explanation right there as to what was going on. Not a lot of goaltending depth, but no, not a record that I knew. And man, if you'd hit me with that on one of the trivia challenges, we would have set a record for the longest episode

because it would have been a long, long time before I said Mark Denny's name. Yeah. So, okay, I'm glad to know I wasn't alone because I had no recollection of it. I was like, I had the fact check it myself. Now I'm thinking, I'm laughing because you said, you know, Grant Fier played in 79 games with the Blues, but he was, you know, the Captain Hook. Imagine we looked it up and like, damn, John Casey played 55 games as well. Yeah.

You know what? I wouldn't be surprised. I'm going to look it up right now because that's, that is absolutely the, yeah, John Casey. Let's put the overrunner without looking. or do you already have it up there? Okay, I've got it here, actually. And yeah, how many games do you think were played by all the other blues goalies?

Okay, now keep in mind, it's an 82 game season, and Grant Fierer plays 79 games. So in theory, there's three other games that goal is going to play. Three other game, minimum is your, is your floor. Okay, I'm going to say 16. It's higher. It's John Casey, Pat Chablons. and Bruce Racine combined to play 20 games with Racine actually being the leader

in that group. Pat Chublonsky played one game for eight minutes. John Casey played nine games for a total of 395 minutes. And Bruce Rossi, this has got to be one of the most remarkable stat lines ever. Played 11 games. No wins, three losses, no ties,

and played 230 minutes. So almost exactly, in 11 games. So basically, period. 20 minutes per game. Yeah, period per game. And that was, and I don't believe he would have started even one of those. Now I'm going to look up his, and by the way, Bruce Racine, if people don't know, that was his only season in the NHL.

So he, I did know this. He, he, I believe, holds the record for most career NHL games without ever having a start. Because he, yeah, the St. Louis Blues lost every game that he played. played in, not surprisingly, I guess, given that he's going in when they're getting pulled. And he, in several of those had single digit saves ranged from a two-minute 57-minute performance. And then he had one game that he lasted 56 minutes. The other ones were all two periods or less. So he didn't?

So, if you must have got hurt then or somebody got hurt? must have been an injury because it was a two one game. So I'm thinking Grant Fier must have gotten bounced out with an injury there. That's not. You know, you should think about doing an obscure rule record column where, you know, obscure rules held by different guys. Yeah. You know what?

I've done it a few times and I did one even on goalies and I didn't have the Bruce Rstein in there. But I feel like somebody flagged it to me and they're like, how about this? Most career games by a guy who never got a start. And then, of course, they go to John Casey. And, you know, if people remember the way that season ends is Fear, they go into the playoffs. Nick Kiprios tragically gets pushed onto or in the general vicinity of Grant Fier, he lands on his leg, blows out his knee. And John Casey is the guy who has to come in for the playoffs and is the goalie for that famous Steve Eiserman, overtime winner that ended the blue season.

And definitely one of the all-time, strangest teams start to finish. Man, I would read a book just on those 95-96 blues. Yeah, no, crazy, crazy with Shane Corson and the Brett Hall and all the stuff going on there, Gretzky. Yeah, it's a fascinating thing. All right, we'll leave it there. This was, once again, a fun hour that they just absolutely flew by. I want to thank everybody for listening to the Athletic Hockey Show, Thursday edition.

You can always email your questions to the Athletic Hockey Show at gmail.com. Give us a voicemail, 845, 445, 8, 4.5, 8459. If you're not a subscriber with us, we got a really good deal going on right now. Annual subscription, it's a dollar a month for the first six months. And you can also subscribe to the Athletic Audio Plus on Apple Podcasts. You'll get, we talk about our fun trivia competitions that we have. We put that out on Apple, on the bonus content. You can access that.

Starting with a 30-day free trial. 30-day free trial. I can speak. 30-day free trial. There we go. And then it's just 99 cents. month after that.