The Athletic Hockey Show - New York Rangers, Tom Wilson, and a wild night at Madison Square Garden

Episode Date: May 6, 2021

Ian Mendes and Sean McIndoe dig into the news dominating the week including Tom Wilson, the Rangers firing John Davidson and Jeff Gorton, and Wednesday's Rangers vs Capitals game.In "Granger Things" Jesse Granger compares the betting lines for Stanley Cup winners vs Dom Luszczyszyn's analytics, Ian and Sean discuss a listener's suggestion for the NHL to adopt the NBA's 2-3-2 playoff structure, look back at Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin's scoring matching hat tricks in "This Week in Hockey History", and more.Have a question for Ian and Sean? Submit your questions at [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.

And we're back for another edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. I'm Ian Menace alongside Down Goes Brown, Sean McAdoe. On this episode of the podcast, we're going to go heavy into the Tom Wilson, New York Rangers' drama from this week. We'll discuss how the league handled the situation and what the fallout might be from an interesting and some would say ugly night at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday. In Granger things, Jesse Granger. We'll talk about the futures market.

and how it stacks up against the analytics of our own Dom Luce Chichen. We'll answer some mailbag questions, including something about the 232 format that you see in the NBA. Would that ever work and be better in the NHL? And this week in hockey history touches on a great anniversary between Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovetkin and Sean Alex Ovechkin's Washington Capitals. Speaking of them, front and center. you know, usually when we set up the podcasts, we kind of go through like, let's hit on this and this and we try to go super wide ranging, touching on everything. I mean, honestly, and there's some great stories in the NHL this week from Michael Housie with the Buffalo Sabres to David Backus going back to St. Louis and all these wonderful stories.

And yet it seems like the entire landscape of the NHL has just been overshadowed by Tom Wilson v. The New York Rangers. Yep, this is the Tom Wilson experience. This is what he does and what he brings to the table. And as soon as that stuff started going down Monday night, you sort of knew how the week would play out. And they've thrown us some curveballs. I'll give them credit for that. But it's, yeah, it's a wild week. And the capitals and the Rangers are just kind of sucking all the oxygen out of the room for everybody else.

Yeah, where I feel really bad is that that T.J. Oshie hat trick should have been or would have been, in normal circumstances, would have been the dominant storyline, a heartwarming storyline. And yet it feels like this anecdotal footnote to what was going on on the ice on Wednesday in New York. Yeah. And it's, it'll be interesting to see how it's remembered. I honestly don't know. I've seen some people say that no one's even going to remember the T.J.O. thing. It's all going to be about the fights. I'm not convinced to that. I mean, the, the, the fights were obviously a big part of the story, but they got everything out of the way in the first five minutes of the game. And, you know, the OSHA thing was, I mean, it was, it was an obvious contrast to the rest of the night. But I do think that'll stick with people. I think people will remember it. And, you know, this might be one of those things where a couple years from now, you look back and you say, like, yeah, remember that T.J. Osi-Hatrick? That was great. That was really,

That was really a nice moment. Remember that night that the Rangers and the Capitals had all those crazy fights in the first few minutes? That was wild. And then someone will be like, yeah, that was the same game? You'll be like, no way. Was that really the same game? Yeah, it'll turn out to be. I don't know.

I could see it going like that. But that was a really great moment and a great story. And I hope we don't lose sight of it. Yeah. And, you know, I think what's interesting. And you can usually tell if the hockey world has its collective attention on one game by looking at social media, right? And so listen, on Wednesday night, I'm in Ottawa covering the Montreal, Canadian's Ottawa Senators game. And I felt like I was one of the only people in the country

watching that game. It felt like the entire hockey world was focused on Madison Square Garden and the Caps and the Rangers. And it brings up an interesting question, doesn't it, Sean, because you have these two camps, the, this is terrible for the game. And then on the other hand, the counter argument is, well, look how many people are paying attention. So I, I don't know where I hate being one of these, it's this or that people. I think you know me well enough. I'm pretty much, I try to look at all angles, try to live in the gray area. But it's hard to do.

And Tom Wilson makes it almost impossible for us to live in the gray area. But I want to know what you think of the people that said, look how many people tuned into the game on Wednesday. Look at how many eyeballs. Look at the traction in the discussion. Guys, this isn't bad for the game. What do we say to that argument? Yeah, I mean, this is an extension of the argument that's been around forever when it comes to fighting. Because you and I are both in the same age group.

We grew up in the 80s where, you know, when did the height of Don Cherry and Rockham Sockham and all of that. And there were people then saying, this fighting is bad. It's wrong. It shouldn't be part of the game. And then the argument back then was, you know, do you ever see anybody sitting down? during a hockey fight. Do you ever see anybody get up and leave? No, you never do. It's the loudest the building is on any given night. And this kind of becomes an extension of that. I would say this.

Yes, it brought a lot of attention to the league. And certainly, this is a league that could use some attention. I think there's a difference between bringing in viewers and bringing in new fans. and what this league needs is new fans. And if they serve up a sideshow and it puts a lot of eyeballs on the product, but none of those viewers stick around and become fans, then what have you really gained? You know, yeah, maybe you spike a slightly higher number than you normally would in the ratings, but that's not something that is going to be meaningful

unless some of those people become. fans and end up watching more than they would. And what I would be interested to see is, yeah, everybody, everybody was talking about this game. But what happened after the first five minutes when the fights died down, when the bad blood went away, did people stick with it and go, okay, well, you know, now that I'm here, I was here for the fights, but I'm kind of, I'm kind of into this game now. I'm sort of enjoying the product I'm seeing.

Or did they watch a pretty typical low-scoring NHL game and sit there and go, You know what? Geez, once these guys stop punching each other, this wasn't really for me. I don't know. We'll see. Maybe we'll look back and say, yeah, that moment did create some new fans. Some big rivalries have done that. I know there's a lot of people who will say I fell in love with hockey during the Red Wings

Avalanche rivalry. That's what got me. I don't think that this is the same level of stuff. The Red Wings and Avalanche had a bunch of Hall of Famers and they were playing high stakes and it was the playoffs and all sorts of stuff. this wasn't that. And I don't think this ultimately is going to translate to any kind of boost for the league. But we'll see. We don't know until we know. You know, here's what I find fascinating about the sports landscape, right? On one hand,

we have so much more knowledge about concussions and kind of maybe some of the dangers of fighting that we didn't have. When we were kids in the 80s and 90s, we didn't know. We didn't think about concussions, right? So on one hand, we're much more informed about it. And so you see this sort of people even in our age group are like, you know, fighting probably should be minimized, right? At the same time, Sean, what I find really fascinating is that when you look at the larger sports landscape, there's this seemingly unsatiable appetite for the UFC at a time in which people seem to be on one hand saying, you know, let's get rid of violence and hockey.

There's this other subset or like, watch the numbers of UFC paper views. It's through the roof. I have a hard time reconciling the two entities, and I wonder if there's going to be some people who love that element of violence in sports that will be drawn to something like Wednesday night at Madison Square Garden. Look, I mean, fighting is a part of the entertainment package

for the NHL, whether we like it or not, whether we want it to be or not. And I feel like you can say that And at the same time, say, we shouldn't have it in the game or we should have it a lot less. Because, as you said, we understand the risks and we understand the dangers here. And it's, I don't have any issue and I don't think there's any conflict in saying, I want there to be less fighting in the NHL. But also, man, the NHL was a lot more fun.

When we didn't know all this stuff and there was more fighting and you had the bad blood and the rivalries, you know, I don't think anyone's being a hypocrite. if they say, I love the Red Wings avalanche robbery. That was absolutely the best. But also, I don't want to see it happen now. And you're right. I mean, this is, there's, you look at the biggest sports, and I'm using the term loosely, sports events of this year in terms of attention and buzz, especially among a younger audience.

It's some idiot YouTuber doing boxing matches and people to tune in by the millions and pay money to because they want to see this guy get his lights knocked out. You know, this has always been, I mean, you don't even, it doesn't even have to be sports. You know, go to any movie, all right? You know, what movies do well? The ones with lots of sensitive dialogue or the ones where stuff blows up. You know, this is, we're wired for conflict and we're wired for, you know, for violence or whatever you want to, however you want to phrase it. And there is an element for a lot of us.

It's not everybody. but for a lot of us where that is part of the entertainment package. And I, you know, I've struggled with this a little bit over the years because, look, I don't want to see us go back to the Norris Division days. We can't have bench clearing brawls anymore. We shouldn't have enforcers whose only job is to go out and fight 40 times a year and get punched in the face. I don't see how anybody could look at everything we know about that era now and ever

wanted to come back. And at the same time, it was fun. hell to be a fan during that era for the NHL, and that is missing from today's game. I don't know how you reconcile that, but I don't think the answer is just to pretend that one or the other of those things isn't true. Okay, as you talk about feeling conflicted, can I ask you a question? I don't even know if I've ever had this conversation with you. Your Twitter handle is down goes brown.

A lot of people know you as down goes brown because that's your Twitter handle. But the genesis of that is from a fight back in the day. in the Norris Division, right? Rob Brown gets knocked out in a fight with the Toronto Maple Leafs. Do you ever wrestle with that yourself and think, maybe I should change my Twitter handle? Yeah, I mean, this was a guy,

it wasn't just a fight, this was a guy getting K-O'd at Center Ice and getting left line there. And, you know, if we saw that today, you'd think, oh, my God, is he okay? Is this, you know, why, what was that fight even about? How was this allowed to happen? And back then, we thought it was great. And yeah, I'm, I'm very aware that, you know, I don't, I, I, I still tend to be more

on maybe the old school side of things than at least some, some of my, my fellow colleagues in the media. But I've, you know, I push back on a lot of it. I've said, hey, the NHL needs to fix this or it needs to get rid of that. And I'm very aware that I'm doing it next to a little image of a guy getting punched in the face. there's there's a conflict there and and I think you know for a lot of us maybe it's it's not something obvious like that but yeah I mean there there's a lot of people sitting there going get the fighting out of the game but they got the Wendell Clark jersey hanging in the back of the closet or the Bob Probert or whatever it is and it's you know it's it's it's tough

for them and I think it's also tough for a lot of the people who for many of the right reasons want to get this stuff out that's all well and good, but you've got to acknowledge what you're up against. You've got to acknowledge how a lot of fans grew up with this game and how they still think of it. And look, there is a very large percentage of hockey fans. And I don't know if it's a majority and I don't want to try to put a number on it. But it's a high number who thought last night was absolutely great. There's a lot of fans out there, I guarantee you, who watched the beginning of that game and said,

man, I have not enjoyed the NHL this much in a long time. This feels like it used to feel. This is great. I loved it. Now, you can call those people knuckle-draggers. You can call them Neanderth. You can do whatever you want. Or you can acknowledge that they're out there.

They're a big part of the audience. And, okay, how do we navigate these waters of having a product that is safe and, you know, even ethical, but also understanding the impact on the entertainment. And it's, I don't envy the NHL for having to feel. figure out how you how you thread that needle. At some point, maybe in the summertime, we'll do a show where we come up with potential alternate Twitter handles for you. Okay?

That seems like a summer show. Yeah. We might have to do that. Yeah. All right. So let's talk about the Rangers and the firing of President John Davidson and general manager Jeff Gordon. And I think, come on.

Like, I see the people reporting that this had nothing to do with the statement that the Rangers made earlier this week, voicing their displeasure with. the lack of supplemental discipline really handed out to Tom Wilson. But come on. Like, I'm sorry. There's no way that these two things aren't directly connected, right? That's where I started. I mean, I was like everyone.

As soon as you saw that, you went, oh, oh, okay, something really hit the fan behind the scenes as far as that whole statement or the Tom Wilson thing, whatever was. But everybody who seems to know things keeps reporting that this is not related. It defies common sense. But the first time I saw somebody report that kind of rolled my eyes. And then the second time he thought, no. But I mean, I've seen three or four different people who I trust on this stuff have said, no, it's not related. So maybe not, I guess.

I mean, the reports are that when that statement came out from the Rangers that we really never seen anything quite like that before where a team has come out and said, the head of the Department of Player of Safety shouldn't not have that job anymore. I guess it probably should have clued us in that something was up when there was no name attached to that. It wasn't, you know, like John Davidson's a guy who has a ton of credibility around the league

and he has a ton, his reputation is really pretty immaculate around the league. So if he had put his name on that and he said, you know what, I'm going to be the new spokesperson for saying that we need some change, that would have that would have meant something. The fact that there wasn't a name on it,

maybe should have tipped us off that it wasn't there and from everything we've heard, John Davidson, Jeff Gordon didn't know this statement was going out, probably didn't support it. It came from ownership. I still can't imagine

even if this was already a decision that James Dolan had made, even if this was unrelated, it was just all on performance. I can't imagine that the events of this week weren't the tipping point to make it happen right now. Because otherwise, you don't do this in between the Monday and the Wednesday games because you know people are going to make that connection. So I don't know.

Maybe there were a few phone calls. Maybe there was a few, hey, what the hell was this statement? What are you doing? And maybe that just becomes the final straw. But I got to say, it's bizarre because I don't understand. I think Jeff Corton's one of the best GMs in the league. And I don't understand how you fire a team. president less than two years after you hired them.

Because I'd sit in there from the outside looking at the Rangers rebuild saying, seems like it's going pretty well to me. Exactly. I think all of us, again, if you truly felt like this was an issue with the direction of the team, just wait a week and make the change after the regular season. And I still think people would be like, well, that seems odd, the timing. But this one just makes it seem like it's obvious. That's all.

And I think a lot of Rangers fans are feeling like, you know, James Dolan always has his hands in the New York Knicks and the Rangers are like the, I don't really worry about them. And they feel like this is James Dolan having his hand running the Rangers like he runs the Knicks. This is the nightmare scenario if you're a Rangers fan because this has been the thing all along is, you know, James Dolan, he owns the Rangers, he owns the Knicks. If people aren't basketball fans, James Dolan's reputation as an NBA owner is like in the Melnick zone, I think we can say.

He is considered just one of those meddling owners and he always messes up. And every time there's all sorts of controversies with the Knicks and players getting kicked out of games and just the Charles Oakley thing. It's just ridiculous. And yet, same guy owns the Rangers and hasn't been an issue. And in fact, we did that draft last summer where we got everyone together at the athletic and we picked cities and players and GMs and coaches and owners. And a few of us were like, is anyone going to take James Dolan? And then people were like, yeah, you know what? James Dolan's a great hockey owner.

He's got money. He stays out of the way. He hires good people and he lets them do their job. And there's a lot of Rangers fans who have never had an issue with this guy. And yet there was always that kind of cloud hanging over. Okay, what if the Knicks version of James Dolan shows up at the Rangers someday? And I don't know, maybe the Knicks are finally good this year. Maybe this is, maybe he's feeling it a little bit now and thinking,

okay, I got the magic touchback. But this was a very Knicks type of move from the owner who has not been that guy for years with the Rangers. If he's run out of patience

for this rebuild already, I don't like where this is headed. So as we record this podcast on Thursday, we still don't know what the fine will potentially be to the Rangers for that inflammatory statement. And we also don't know what Pavel Bouchnevich might get for a cross-check to Anthony Manta on Wednesday night. And those are kind of two things that people are waiting to see

what's the league going to do in light of them going really soft on Tom Wilson. How do you think they come down? What's your best guess here, Sean, as you look at the potential to find the rangers for the statement and Pavel Bushnevich's cross-check to Anthony Manta? Yeah. I mean, I think we can assume that they'll get fined. and it'll be a big fine. There is not a maximum allowable fine under the CBA of $5,000 when it comes to defining teams. And I imagine we'll see something in probably the six figures.

And, you know, if James Dolan is anywhere as smart as he thinks he is, he knew that was coming and he probably has the checkbook out and ready to go. And maybe he'll figure it's money well spent. but the league typically does not view this sort of stuff favorably. I think it's safe to say. They don't love it when you criticize behind closed doors, but they really don't love it when you put it out in the open like that. And I imagine that we'll see an impact on that.

And I would love to know even more so than whatever the dollar value is. I'd love to know what those conversations behind the scenes look like. What was that first phone call from Gary Batman or whoever else? when they saw that statement. As far as as Buchennevich, look, he should get suspended. He cross-checked a guy right in the mouth, like right up high. And that's absolutely a play that, I mean, if it's any other set of circumstances, you see that and you go, yeah, that's two games, of course it is.

And you don't even really think twice about it. But because of the whole Tom Wilson mess, because the league went light on him, Uh, it now is this is just setting up, uh, I mean, we know how this is going to play out. Rangers fans will be furious when this decision comes down. I mean, we've seen just this morning that he's getting a hearing. So that implies that there will be a suspension. There almost always is, uh, when there's a hearing. Uh, and, and you can imagine what your action is going to be like.

There's going to be people saying, you know, Tom Wilson gets nothing, but which name, you know, the guy that Tom Wilson attacked. Yep. Is the only guy who ends up getting suspended from the whole thing. but he should be because you can't, you know, I know, I know the mantha was kind of following him around, giving him the stick tap a few times. I know the man that was kind of skating towards him, but you can't, you can't just put a stick into a guy's face.

That has to be a suspension. And it would be without question in any other circumstances, but because the NHL screwed this up from the start on Monday night, they've put themselves in a situation where they're going to look bad no matter what they do. Here's my issue with the Tom Wilson thing is, you know, he's a serial offender, repeat offender. And I think when you, there needs to be an implementation of some sort of sliding scale, meaning Tom Wilson got, he got seven games, right? When he hit, was Brandon Carlo from the Bruins, seven games?

Okay. That has to be the starting point for the next suspension. Otherwise, if you go five games, one game, nine games, $5,000 fine, there really isn't, the whole point of suspensions, okay, is to deter future actions from occurring. People think it's to punish the action. It really should be to deter future actions from occurring. And this is the issue I have. Tom Wilson doesn't get the benefit of the doubt anymore. That's it. He does not get to live in the gray area. You don't get to look at a Tom Wilson hit and be like, well, I don't know. No, there's no more gray area for him. It's over. It's either black or white. And the $5,000 fine to me,

What bothered me, Sean, is there was an acknowledgement that he did something wrong, but it didn't, wasn't that bad. It's like, that's the problem I have with it. It's, it really did feel like the fine was almost worse than if they had done this. Yes. If they had just said, hey, you know what? It was a scrum. Stuff happens on the ice. He deserved the penalties he got, but that was sufficient.

I think people would still be furious who we'd still be having a lot of the same argument. but the fine almost made it worse because the fine, you're right. It did say that this did rise to the level of supplemental discipline, but just not a suspension. I would disagree with you in the sense that I think the fact that he had seven games before, I wouldn't have had a problem with them suspending him for two or three games. I don't think that has to be the new minimum. And I think if anything, that might contribute to why some of these guys don't get the second suspension

because the league is sitting there going, oh, geez, if we get them again, You know, we got to hit them with seven games. So, and that's too much. So we drop it back down to zero. My, the thing with Tom Wilson is, and, man, I feel like we put too much emphasis on the makeup of the guys who are in the Department of Player Safety, especially George Perros. The fact that he's a former tough guy, you know, I know there's a lot of people who are like, oh, he just, he loves the violence. He loves this and that. No, he doesn't.

George Peros is a very smart guy. But him being the player that he was, I'm sure that he has been in a position many times in his career where he felt like he was getting singled out based on reputation by officials, by whoever, you know, that situation where everybody's in the scrum and the ref comes over and he says, you got 10 minutes, get out of here. And you're sitting there going, well, I didn't do anything. You're giving me that penalty because of who I am because of my reputation. And that's probably very frustrating for those sorts of players who have lived through it. And I just feel like they're almost bending over backwards with a guy like Tom Wilson to give him the benefit of the doubt and to make sure that they're not doing that to him. They're not punishing him based on what he's done in the past. Hey, every incident should be a fresh set of eyes.

Every incident should be, you know, we start from square one. And we figure out the logic of the Department of Player Safety is, as we all know by now, is they don't take any of the, they're not supposed to take anything in the past into account as far as figuring out, is this suspendable? If you decide it's a suspension, then the number can go up based on who the player is, but it doesn't affect whether something should be a suspension or not. And I actually don't mind that. If we're talking about, you know, a high hit and you're sitting there going, did he make contact with the head? Was the head the principal point of contact? You got to look at that and you've got to say either yes, it was or no, it wasn't.

And just because it's Tom Wilson, if Tom Wilson throws a hit that's high, but you look at the tape and you say, I don't think it did make contact with the head, then Tom Wilson shouldn't get, you know, a close enough consideration. He should get the same ruling that anyone else would get, which is, no, that was a clean hit. It's when you get to situations like this where intent suddenly plays a role. And now it's about, okay, was that just a scrum, or was he actually trying to slam that guy down to the ice?

Was he actually trying to hurt Buchenavich? Was he trying to hurt Artemni Penner? Was, or was this just a guy defending himself and, hey, somebody jumped on his back and he didn't even know who it was. This is where I think you absolutely have to say, you know what, we don't have to pretend this is just an average player and we're trying to read his mind. This is a player with a history of trying to hurt people. This is a player with a history of stepping over the line.

And, you know, even in that game, he was mad at the reps before that shift. He goes off. He's flexing like an idiot in the penalty box. Like he clearly was in the red for a big chunk of that. period in that game. And we saw the result. And, and, you know, people on a play like this, people say, well, what if it was Sidney Crosby? What if it was Conner McDavid? What if it was, well, it wasn't. It was Tom Wilson. And those guys don't have a history of injuring fellow players. And he does. So this is the one area where I would have liked to have seen the NHL say,

no, you don't get the benefit of the doubt. We're trying to figure out if you hit a guy from behind or not, we will give you the benefit of the doubt, but we're not going to do it on this because we're not going to sit here and pretend you're not a player who does this and tries to hurt guys and makes that part of your game and does it often. And so when we see you do it, we don't have to sit around and pretend like we're confused about what we're seeing. We're going to hammer you for it. And it should have been a suspension. And I don't think it should have been a long record setting suspension, but give him two or three or four games. At the very least, That gets them out of last night's game and you avoid the whole circus by doing that.

All right. Every week, we do a little segment called Granger Things with Jesse Granger. It is presented by our exclusive betting partner with the athletic, BetMGM. Jesse Granger, we got to ask you, Sean and I have just spent a good chunk of the podcast talking about the theatrics at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday night. Got to ask you your opinion on that because it's been the dominant topic of discussion in the league. Like, how do you see a story like that? And Sean and I discussed, like, is that good for the game, bad for the game?

Like, where do you come down on what happened on Wednesday at Madison Square Garden? Yeah, I think we've come a long way in the last few years in terms of the way we view that. I think just not that long ago it would have been viewed as very good for the game in terms of like the players, the players are policing themselves and that whole thing. But I think we've kind of gone away from that a little bit. And I think I have too. I think I would rather the people who actually are supposed to punish the players, punish them. and then they don't have to do this. And you're right.

It was an old school night of hockey last night. I got to catch the beginning of the Rangers Capitals game, and it was at all that craziness. They couldn't fit all the guys in the penalty box. And then I switch over to Vegas, Minnesota. And the first period in Minneapolis was very similar, not quite as out of hand, 100 penalty minutes. But it was these teams, the playoffs are starting to get here.

I don't know if you guys feel it in the games you're watching, but certainly the ones Vegas has played amongst, between Colorado and Minnesota, the playoffs are pretty much here. And these games are starting to get a playoff feel to them. And obviously, that chippiness after the whistle comes along with that. Jesse, I cover the auto with senators. There's been no playoff feel around here for four years. Maybe the national games you watch, though, Ian.

Yeah, exactly, exactly. But, hey, listen, engrage your things every week where we have you on. We kind of look at the sport through, you know, obviously a betting lens and looking at some of the favorites and the underdogs. And now we're on the doorstep of the Stanford. Cup playoffs. So let's talk a little bit about good odds to win the Stanley Cup. Where's a good place to put your money? And let's use our pal, Dom Luce Chichen, who is our analytics guru at the athletic. Let's use some of his numbers, Jesse. Let's put them up against some of the odds you're

seeing at places like MGM. And let's talk about where it would be a smart place to put some money heading into the Stanley Cup playoffs. Definitely. Yeah. Yeah. So for those listening, what I did here was I took the Stanley Cup odds to win the Stanley Cup and every money line odd you can translate into an implied odd meaning for example Colorado is the favorite right now. They're plus 450 to win the Stanley Cup, four and a half to one. That implied odd is 18.18% according to the sports books. They have an 18.18.18% chance of winning the Stanley Cup this year. Then you look at Dom Luce Sisson's odds like you just said, which by the way, I think the reason and I chose his partially because he's with the athletic, but also his odds have been the most

accurate over the last few years. You will not find an analytics number that is a better indicator of future success than Dom, so I think they're a good one to put up against it. He has the avalanche with the highest odds in the NHL, 24% odds. So that is a plus 5.82% difference if you're betting on them, meaning according to the analytics, the avalanche have a 24% chance. your implied odds at the sports book are only 18%. So you're actually getting almost 6% value on the avalanche, which is great. But it's not the best in the league. If you look up and it's crazy because I go up to you guys and I feel like I'm always praising

Toronto on this podcast. And I assume that there are a lot of listeners from Toronto. So every time I come on here, they probably love me. But the analytics are pointing that direction again. The Toronto Maple Leafs have a better difference in the analytical odds. to the implied odds of any team in the entire NHL. And I think that's mainly because of the massive gap between Toronto and the rest of that division when you look at the odds. You go to Dom's odds.

Toronto has an 18% chance of winning the Stanley Cup according to his odds. That is the second best behind only Colorado. The next closest team, according to Dom's odds, is Edmonton at 2%. So there is a massive 16% gap between them. And I think that once you start looking at the way these playoffs are format and it's like, I think you're just trying to figure out which team is most likely to make it out of their division. So you look at Toronto, they're only plus 800 at the sportsbook. That's implied odds of 11%.

So you're getting almost seven full percentage points of value betting on Toronto. It's interesting that there are only four teams, out of all the teams that have not been eliminated yet, there are only four teams with positive value when comparing them to Dom's odds. So as I mentioned, Toronto's number one, Colorado's number two, Tampa Bay Light. are number three at plus four percent odds of value. And then Boston is just a little bit over value, undervalued by the sports books at 1 percent. So you can get some value betting on the Boston Bruins. And what I found interesting about that was it's basically the four teams with the best odds according to Dom in each division, or sorry, the one team in each division with the

best odds according to Dom has positive value. Every other team, you're getting negative value you if you bet them at the sports book right now, according to the analytics, based on the underlying numbers and their past success. So then I flipped it around and I said, okay, who are the teams that you're getting the absolute worst value on? And the one that sticks out and it's, no one is even close to it. And it's actually doesn't come as that much of a surprise because the Golden Knights have been shaded by the books since they came into the league. That obviously has something to do with the team plays in Vegas. Most of the casinos are in Vegas. The fans love to bet them out here. So they kind of, you're never getting good value in betting on the goldenites.

Anytime you bet on the golden nights, you know you're getting not great value. But this is actually, I was surprised by how drastic the difference was. You look at the third least valuable team you could bet on is Pittsburgh Penguins. You're getting minus three percentage points in value. The second worst is the Washington Capitals. You're getting minus five percentage points in value. the Golden Knights, you're actually getting minus 9.38% percentage points of value if you bet on them, simply because according to Dom's odds, the sportsbook odds are way off on Vegas. They've got, the bet MGM currently has Vegas as plus 550, which is the second best odds in the entire league to only Colorado. But according to Dom's odds, they only have 6% chance of winning the Stanley Cup.

And that's because the Colorado Avalanche have been so dominant. their coursey percentage, their expected goals percentage, their scoring chance share is just so high this season. And they have just been rolling through these teams in the Western Division that his odds don't give Vegas much of a chance at beating them. I'm curious if you guys have any teams that you were wondering about or anything like that. I have all the numbers right in front of me so we can go over anything if you guys want. Well, I mean, if we're talking about Colorado and Vegas, I guess I want to know about Minnesota because, man, I'm like everyone. else. I'm already fast forwarded to that Vegas, Colorado round two matchup. But boy, Minnesota looks like they're going to have something to say about that. They definitely do. They have given the

Golden Knights major, major issues. And the Golden Knights were finally able to overcome that last night. They had lost five in a row to them this season prior to that. And last night was only their second win in Minneapolis in their franchise history in four years. And both of them came in overtime. So they have yet to beat the Minnesota Wild in regulation in Minnesota. Minnesota's odds, I mean, if you're looking for a long shot to bet, and to be honest, you don't even need Minnesota to win the Stanley Cup if you were to bet them to win the Stanley Cup to make money, because once they get, if they could somehow beat Vegas and Colorado and get out of that, you're in phenomenal position to hedge and win some money. They are plus 2,000 right now, which is an implied odds of 4.76% chance. According to Dom, they've got, a 3% chance. So it's minus 1.76 value. So you're not getting positive value. Like I mentioned, there are only four teams with positive value, but it's hard to get positive value while betting on sports. If you were to go through every day and look at the odds and then compare them to the implied odds,

you're not, it's hard to get positive value. So I think Minnesota is a team that is pretty close to, to the correct value in terms of the implied odds. So if you're looking for a long shot, the wild aren't a bad one. I'm disappointed that Dom isn't backing his favorite team. Yeah, I know the odds. Yeah, his model clearly does not go along with his brain. Maybe his heart. I want to ask you about the, I guess it's the central division. I always have to remember what these divisions are.

And I'm looking at that and I'm really curious. Because it's funny that you say that Vegas and Colorado have the, because it's kind of a two horse race there. That central division's a three horse race. And I'm curious what the numbers look like amongst Carolina, Florida, and Tampa. Yeah, it's funny because you mentioned two horse race, Carolina and Tampa. And Carolina's, I mean, considerably ahead of Tampa right now in the standings. They're most likely going to get home ice for that division in the playoffs.

But according to Dom's odds, it's really a two horse race. I mean, Tampa Bay has 16% chance to win the Stanley Cup, which is the second highest behind, or sorry, the third highest behind Colorado and Toronto. Carolina has 8%, which is not bad. That's right behind him. But then Florida is only at 1%. He actually has Nashville and Florida, both with 1% chance to win the Stanley Cup. You look at their odds at the sports book, Tampa, plus 750.

They're right up there with Colorado and Vegas in terms of favorites. Carolina right behind them plus 800. Florida plus 2,200. So I just told you Minnesota is plus 2,000 to win it. Florida is a longer shot than Minnesota. I've watched both of them play. I think Florida's a better team than Minnesota is just watching them, just the eye test, watching them on TV.

But they've got to get through Carolina and Tampa who are two really, really good teams. So I think, like I mentioned earlier, these odds aren't necessarily as predicated on like, here's the order of the best teams in the league. One, two, three, four. It's more which teams have the easiest route to get to the Stanley Cup and have the least chance of getting tripped up. And that's why Toronto ends up number one in the first. the value because according to the analytics, there's just not much to compete against them. Whereas, like you said, in the other divisions, it seems like there are at least two powerhouses

per division. Excellent. Hey, listen, Jesse, as always, we love the visits. And we're looking forward to once we get the Stanley Cup playoffs underway, kind of picking your brain. I think what's great about this, too, is even for there's some people that obviously like to put money down. But this is great information for hockey pools. As people start to think about playoff pools

and should I draft four people from the Panthers, should I draft four from the, you know, this is great information. So it's always great to have you. And that would be a great thing for us to focus on here in the next couple of weeks is kind of gearing up to the playoffs. Enjoy the week and we'll get you again next week. Definitely talk to you guys then.

Thanks, Jesse. All right. I'm sure Sean, you must have been just full of optimism when you hear Jesse Granger say that Toronto Maple Leafs have the easiest path to at least get to the final four. I tell you that the Leafs bandwagon is growing. Jesse's on board. You joined us a couple weeks ago.

It's grab your seat now. We're starting to get into overflow. Okay. So obviously, look, I think one of the things that the Leafs might have to deal with at some point might be Connor McDavid if they lock horns in the playoffs. McDavid's quest for 100 points in a 56 game season took a step in the right direction this week. and it feels like now, Sean, it feels like it's going to happen, right?

Don't you feel like McDavid's getting to 100 points? It feels like it's going to happen. And, you know, I was I was a little bit worried for a while. I was looking at it going, geez, you know, Edmonton, they're going to be locked in in their playoff spot. Are they maybe going to rest him? Is he going to miss out on 100 points?

Because they sit him down for a game or two. At this point, they probably could do that. And he's still, I mean, he is just on fire so much that the, it's starting to feel like, Like it's a done deal, which is just yet another testament to how good this guy is, because what other player in the league would you look at and say, oh, yeah, seven points in four games or whatever it is?

Yeah, no problem. That's a sure thing. But with him, it just feels like a slam dunk. Yeah, and people are saying this is one of the most impressive statistical seasons in NHL history, right? If you get to 100 points in 56 games in this era, it's amazing. Now, I want to throw this out at you and let me, I don't know if this is a future downgoes, Brown, call him an idea, or just like an anecdote, okay?

What is it about the greatest offensive seasons in the modern era, resulting in zero playoff success? Okay, so hear me out. Gretzky's 92 goal season is the same year the L.A. Kings shocked the Oilers, okay? So they get out. Gretzky's 215 point season is the same year Steve Smith puts it into his own net. Mario Lemieux's 199 point season

I think they got to the second round and got knocked out by Philly Mario Lemieux's unbelievable back from cancer might be the greatest points per game, all that stuff. They lose on the David Volick goal. Bobby Orr's best season

they get shocked by Ken Dryden. Like, is it weird? Or like, is it, is there anything, any connection here that the greatest offensive seasons in the history the NHL by the greatest superstars seem to have no traction in the postseason. And you're bumming me out by mentioning that because I'd never put that together.

But yeah, you're right. I mean, look, you make the playoffs. You got a 1 and 16 chance of winning the Stanley Cup. We should expect that the teams with the best players and best off as a performance is are going to lose more often than not. But yeah, you would think at least a few of those would flip over into Stanley Cups. You want to go old school. this is this is your opportunity it's the whole you know defense is what wins and those flashy

offensive guys with the numbers um maybe it is that uh or or maybe in at least some of the cases it's guys are putting up big numbers because they don't have as much of a sporting cast as they should have maybe there's that lack of depth i don't know it's uh it's interesting though now i now i'm going to have to go back and find some of those big uh big statistical years that did result in a stanley Cup make me feel a little bit better. I know Gretzky had a few in the Euler days, but yeah, you're right. Most of the really great ones that we think about did not end with the championship. Yeah. Again, yeah, it could just be a coincidence, but it is, it is weird. It's almost like there's that one stat where like the teams that have had the best regular season record in every

single sport have never won the championship in that year. Like the Detroit Red Wings in 95-96, best season ever in terms of points, they didn't win the cup. The New England Patriots in the NFL had the best 16-0 season. They didn't win the Super Bowl. The Seattle Mariners, I think 2001, I want to say, had an unbelievable year, then got beaten out by a allegedly roided up Roger Clemens in the ALCS. And then the NBA, who could.

forget Golden State, right? Was it not Golden State that went whatever it was? And then LeBron beat them in the final. So anyway, sometimes it's weird. Like you see these things like, obviously you would want to have the best regular season record. Nobody's saying don't have the best regular season record. It's just weird that sometimes this dominance in the regular season just doesn't seem to translate into the postseason. And you know what? We just, this connects to a bigger thing, which is I feel like a sports fan. we don't really get our heads around how low the odds are that your team's going to win in any given year. I'm willing to bet that segment we just had with Jesse where, you know, people are listening to him talk about these great teams and say, yeah, 20% chance, 10% chance, 5% chance.

You're sitting there going, wait a second, this team's one of the best teams in the league. What do you mean they have a 5% chance or a 10% chance? But you know what? The number is add up to what they add up to. And when you've got, especially in a league like the NHL where there's so much parity, but really in any league, there's a lot of teams buying for these titles and the numbers get low. I know I've done a thing a couple of times now where I've taken all the teams in the league. And I've said, who's got the best chance of winning a Stanley Cup in the next five years?

And what the way I did that is I took, I said, okay, five years, I'm giving myself 500 percentage points. and I got to divide it up among all of these teams. And it's amazing how quickly you run out of points. I mean, you're sitting there going, I mean, what are the odds that the, you know, that the lightning are going to win in the next five years? Well, they're really good. I mean, it's 50%, 60, 70%. I mean, golden nights, okay, they're probably 50%.

Next thing you know, you're three or four teams in. You've used up all your odds and you're going, I, you know, I got nothing left. It feels like we like to think that every team's got a 10% chance. It's a 32 team league. every team, if all else being equal, there's a 3% chance in any given year. You make the playoffs. You're now, you're up to like 6%. I feel like it's almost a defense mechanism that we don't get our heads around that

because, man, we'd all be pretty depressed if you realize that every single year, there's a 97% chance. It's going to end badly for your team. Yeah, that's why the CFL is great, you know? Yes. You won in nine chance winning the championship. Let's open up the mailbag here. We've got a couple of emails coming in.

The Athletic Hockey Show at gmail.com. The athletic hockey show at gmail.com is where you can reach us. Paul in Winnipeg writes in, Hey guys, really enjoying the show, especially Sean's ability to research and recall obscure trivia. Like talking about last week, the Islanders coming back to potentially win a couple of playoffs series from down 03. Therefore, I'm surprised you guys omitted the fact that

when talking about 49 goal seasons in NHL history, that Gordy Howe was stuck at 49 goals in the 1952-53 season, and in the season finale, they went head-to-head with the Montreal Canadiens and his great rival Rocket Richard, who at the time held the record of 50 goals in his season. As Paul writes into his Sean, he says, as the story goes, Gordy Howe needed one goal to tie Rocket Richard's record two to break it. Montreal, Detroit played each other, and the Habs absolutely shadowed how all night long game ended up one to one.

And after the game, Canadians head coach Dickervin Sr. held up Richard's arm on the ice in front of the Detroit fans to boast that Rocket Richard was still in fact the goal scoring champ. Pretty cool story that, you know what, I'll be honest. I didn't really know about this story. Yeah, no, and neither did I. That's why I didn't mention it. but I love the story. It's,

in fact, I don't even want to dig into it and find out how much truth there is to it. Because the way he told that, that's, that's fantastic. And yeah, it's one of those things about Gordy Howe. Now, granted,

he played in an era where the seasons were shorter. Gordy Howe never had a 50 goal season. In his entire career, that 49 was his career high. So, I mean, just one of those weird quirks of history that a guy who,

was for a long time, the all-time leading goal score in NHL history. He had on the list of Detroit Red Wing 50 goal seasons, Ray Shepard is on the board, and Gordia is not. We have a couple of other emails coming in here. Jesse writes into the show. Last week we talked about side hustles for hockey players. Remember I said Al Seacord is, you know, was a pilot. What did you mention again?

I can't remember. Yeah, and I had Jim Schoenfeld's music career. Of course. Yeah, yeah, Jim Schoenfeld's music career. Well, speaking of music careers, Jesse writes, and I'm disappointed, Ian. You didn't mention Mika Zabanajad doubling as a DJ and a producer. He's actually performed at some Swedish music festivals under the name DJ Zibat. And listen, that was totally, I obviously knew that, so I just totally forgot about it. In fact, when Zabanajad got traded out of Ottawa in 2016, there was a narrative that they tried to say that,

you know what, that guy cares too much about music. He's not committed enough to hockey. So unfortunately, I know all about the DJZ bad story, Sean. Yeah, I love that they run them out of town for being a DJ. And then who do they hire as the new coach? DJ. DJ, yeah. I guess maybe that's it.

Maybe Ottawa's got to have one DJ in that dressing room at all times. Exactly. Okay. One last one here, George from Washington, D.C., writes in and says, you guys did discussions about potential changes to the Stanley Cup playoffs in the formats and got myself thinking about some changes that might mix things up. Specifically, George says, I started thinking about people who say that the NBA's 232 format in the finals is actually advantageous for the lower-seeded team.

So here's my idea and I admit it's not maybe logistically feasible. How about the team that is the higher seed gets to choose the order of its home games. So I know the NHL would probably stick with the 2-1-1-1 format to avoid taking any risk, but what would you guys pick if you were a higher-seeded team and you had to choose the way that the games were played out? That comes in from George from Washington, D.C.

So again, just so people know the 2-3-2 format is, the team with a better record, you host game 1 and 2, then the lower-seeded team, they actually host games three, four, and five, and then game six and seven, and necessary go back to the higher-seated team. And the NHL has dabbled with this, Sean, back in the 90s. They did.

They brought that in. That was one of Gary Bettman's first kind of changes. They did bring that in. And the logic has always been that it helps with the travel. And it was especially the case back in the 90s where with the way the conferences, were set up, you still had some Eastern teams that could play Western teams. And the rule was that if one of those matchups happened, that you could go to a

232 format. And in fact, you saw that with the Leafs one year, they played San Jose and then they played Vancouver. And those series were played 232. And the downside of it, or at least what would be perceived as the downside of it, came to pass in that Leaves-Connuck series because the Leafs were the home team. in theory had home ice advantage. They split the first two games in Toronto.

They go to Vancouver. The Canucks win all three games. And that's it. Series over. You don't get to come back. Even though you were, you know, ostensibly supposed to have home ice advantage. The other team gets more home games than you do.

And that's part of the reason why I suspect you'd see some teams not want to go down that road. But the other piece of it was the NHL did make it an option for teams. for the home team to start on the road and to play those three games at home. And I'd have to go back and dig into this because I mentioned this in a piece I wrote a little while ago. And I said, you know, they made the option available, but nobody chose it. Nobody wanted to start on the road.

You're always going to start a playoff series at home. And some people pointed out to me that that actually wasn't true and that it was, there was one team and I feel like maybe it was Colorado. And I think there were circumstances around it. It wasn't a strategic decision, but that they actually did choose to start a playoff series on the road. But I don't think you would see very much of it. I think you'd see GMs or whoever was making the decision. They want to start at home.

You want to get off to a good start. And I think travel aside, which is a consideration, the preferences for that 2-2-1-1, because you don't want to get into a situation where, oh, oh, we only got one win in our two home games. now we got to go on the road and we know we might not be coming back. Yeah, you know what? I have no recollection of a team deferring the first two home games. But I'm sure, like you said, maybe somebody remembers that happening back in the day. Speaking of the back of the day, that's how we like to wrap up our show.

Sean, with a little this week in hockey history. And of course, as we move into the month of May, most of these are playoff related. Let's go back to May 4th, 2009. This is actually a game I covered. I actually covered this series for Sportsnet. I was in the building in Washington the afternoon. It was an afternoon game. Alex Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby get matching hat tricks in a playoff game.

And, you know, I remember that, Sean, because going into that series, there was so much hype. I remember doing a story for Sportsnet on, this was the NHL's opportunity to have their Larry. Bird Magic Johnson. This was going to be the start of a great rivalry. Look, they have met a bunch of times in the playoffs. But this is the signature moment in that they both had a hat trick.

It was on national TV in the United States. It was a great series that ended up going seven games. But May 4th, 2009, Ovi and Sid with matching hat tricks. Yep. Fantastic game one that I think most fans still remember. And this is exactly what the NHL wanted. This is this was the moment and unfortunately it never they were never really able to build on it. They just didn't get those matchups and didn't get those moments when they did get the matchups because that that was the game where it really felt like it because, you know, we've talked,

I think in the past how, you know, Gretzky and Lemieux never played in a in a playoff series. And there were other matchups that just just never seemed to happen. And that was the one we did get caps and pens several times, but that was the one. day where it really caught the magic and it was, uh, it, it was that, that perfect that, you know, we talk about making new fans. That was the sort of game where if you sat down going, okay, I'll check it this Ovechkin guy, this Crosby guy, I'll check it out. That was the sort of game that would make you into a fan. Uh, and it, we didn't, didn't really get any oncores at that level, but, uh, it, it did give us a moment that we really haven't seen with most of the other

rivalries between two stars in this league. Yeah. And the caps had a, a two nothing. They won that was game two, if memory serves me, had a two nothing series lead and then watched it evaporate in that series in seven games. Also this week in hockey history, Sean, this is a name that I don't think enough fans know about and realize, and that's Reggie Leach. On this, this week, May 6, 1976, Reggie Leach, Sean ties a playoff record with five goals in a playoff game. And I believe he's the last guy to do that. I don't think anyone's got five goals in a playoff game since Reggie Leach is five. Like, is he one of the least known, unknown, underrated. I don't even know what the word is, but like I feel like not enough people know

who Reggie Leach was. Because when you think of the Broad Street bullies, you think of Bobby Clark, maybe you think of Bernie Perron, maybe you think of Dave Schultz. And maybe you don't think about Reggie Leach if you're a casual hockey fan. Yeah, I mean, Flyers fans would say that they know him. But yeah, he is one of those guys where it's a little bit forgotten. And, you know, the five-goal game, I mean, here's, I'll give you the whole list of players who've scored five goals in an HLayoff game. You tell me if you've heard of these guys. There's Reggie Leach. There's Darrell Sittler, probably heard of him, Newsy Lalone, which we're going back of ways. Oh, if you're Nick names Newsie, you know that that's in the 1920.

But the first great superstar of the NHL. And then the only other two guys, Maurice Richard and Mario Lemieux, pretty good company to be in four Hall of Famers and then Reggie Leach. But the thing is, it's not like this is just like a Patrick Sundstrom situation where the guy just exploded for one game. Reggie Leach was a real good goal score. Reggie Leach had a 61 goal season. Led the league.

You know, if the Rocket Richard Trophy had existed back then, he'd have one. And he scored a lot at in around that, had another 50 goal year, didn't have the long career and didn't really maintain those big huge numbers. But this, he got close to 400 goals for his career. He was a real good player. Yeah. And I think if I'm not mistaken, Sean, he won that year that he scored the five goals. He won the Khan Smyth in a year in which the Flyers didn't win the cup. Yes.

And I think might be the only time that that's happened as a skater. For a losing team as a skater. We've seen it with goalies, JSG Gehr, some other guys where the goalie stands on his head and gets the consmite in a losing cause. But I think Reggie Leach is the only one to do it when losing in the Stanley Cup Stanley Cup final, which also makes the Flyers one of the very few teams

that can say that they had three straight consmite winners because they had won the Cup the two previous years and Bernie Perron had won in both years. You know, speaking of one game wonders, You said, look, Reggie Leach isn't a one-game wonder. He was a 60-goal guy. But also this week in NHL history, Sean, May 6, 2000, Andy Delmore becomes the first and only rookie defenseman

to score a hat trick in the Stanley Cup playoffs. I only remember Andy Delmore from this one. Like, I have no other recollection of Andy Delmore. Right? This is it. Yeah, this is the Andy Delmore Wikipedia entry is probably like 98% this game. It's great, man.

It's part of what makes the playoffs so much fun is you get occasionally those wild outlier games that turn somebody into a hero. And it's, yeah, it's great. It's a lot of fun. Yeah, I think at some point, and maybe, again, maybe these are fun off-season things to do. We need to come up with like a starting lineup

of one game wonders. Like, but like, like, we, I know we talked about Patrick Sunstrom last week, but Patrick Sunstrom had like a 92 point season. I don't know that he's a one, like he had one game where he exploded, but he was a pretty good player, right? I'm talking about these Andy Delmore's that come out of nowhere.

And I'm going to give you a name here. And this is just off top of my head, okay, as a goalie. And I don't even know if this guy played in the playoffs. I don't know what this guy's story. Do you remember Ray LeBlanc? Who's Ray LaBlanc? What is that guy's story? All I know is that he think he came in for,

one game, he was great. And then I think that's all he ever played in the NHL. He didn't play much. I think wasn't he like an American goalie back in the days when that was, that was rare. But yeah, no, he, it's, yeah, there are guys up there. I call it, call it the Sam Gagne All-Stars. And we'll put that roster together.

Oh, yeah, I like that. The eight-game performance from Sam Gagnet. All right. Listen, Sean, this has been a lot of fun as always. Hope you have a fantastic week coming up, and we'll do this again next Thursday. Right on. Sounds good. All right.

Thanks, everybody, for joining us. We'll get you again, as I just mentioned, next week. Again, the email address for us. It is the athletic hockey show at gmail.com, the athletic hockey show at gmail.com, or you can drop us in voicemail. 845-4-45-8459. And if you're not a subscriber and reading our stuff,

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