The Athletic Hockey Show - NHL front office confidence rankings, does Nazem Kadri have a deal in place, lack of buzz around WJC

Episode Date: August 18, 2022

Ian and Sean discuss the Nazem Kadri situation as of Thursday morning, is this one of the weirdest offseason stories? Also, Dom Luszczyszyn's piece about fan confidence in their teams' front office is out, and the guys share their thoughts on some of the teams that dropped the most over last year's rankings, and where the Red Wings sit. Then, the appetite for the World Juniors Championship is low this year, and they dive into the reasons why.Next, they dig into Sean's latest piece creating lineups of players with two tours of duty with one team, and to wrap up, a listener question sends Ian and Sean down a rabbit hole, if Ian is too hard on pretzels, "This Week in Hockey History", and is Corey Perry a redhead?Have a question for Ian and Sean? Email [e-mail] or leave a VM @ [phone]!Save on a subscription to The Athletic: theathletic.com/hockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We are back. It is a Thursday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. It's Ian Medeshawn McIndoo with you for the next hour or so. We're going to hit on, you know, it's been a quiet time in hockey, but look, Nazim Cadry is still in the news cycle. We'll talk some World Junior Hockey. Our pal, Domloos Chichen, has his latest front office confidence rankings out. We'll hit on all of that.

Got some fun mailbag questions a little this week and hockey history. you a lot to, listen, even though it's quiet, there's a lot to get to and I got to tell you, Sean, like, you and I were talking about this before, as we kind of batted around some ideas for topics this week, you're like, hey, can we please hit on Nazim Cadry?

And it is, like, can we at least admit it's kind of weird that a player of this ilk who had the season that he had is still sitting there an unrestricted free agency here on, and again, we both said, we're going to drop this episode on Thursday afternoon and the Islanders are going to announce a seven-year deal with Nazim Gadry.

100%. Yeah. We're going to wield this into existence. Yeah. Yeah. But it is weird, right? So let me start here. You just said, is it weird that he's still sitting there?

Is he still sitting there? Right. Or is Nazim Cadry's deal done? And we just don't know about it because it feels like over the last couple of weeks. And you and I, we've both been like, you know, off on quasi-vacations and that. So, you know, maybe sometimes you've missed some of the last. the subtlety or the details as the story is unfolding. But it feels like a couple weeks ago, it was like, man,

Kendry's still out there. Somebody's going to get a bargain. And now it's sort of flipped to, you know what, he's got a deal somewhere. There must be some team that he has got a handshake with, maybe something more than that, and they just are not putting it out there, which of course leads everyone to look at the Islanders,

because last year, we remember they had some smaller deals that they had in place, and they just didn't announce. They just didn't tell us for reasons that I don't think anyone was ever 100% clear on, but it had to do with the cap and some other things. And are they doing that again with Nazm Cadry? I don't know. It's very confusing to me. I'm taking off my media hat.

I'm putting on my fan hat here. It is very confusing and frustrating to me. that arguably the number two free agent in the entire league in the off season is in this limbo where he may have already signed somewhere and they're just not telling us. You're right when you say if he has a deal in place, the one GM who would sign a deal that says if you leak this to anybody, it ain't happening is Lou Lamarillo, right? Now, I others might have to move some money and they have some other things to do. Like, I get that.

But you're right. Like, it is odd that if he's got a handshake deal with the Islanders, that we would get to the 18th, 19th of August and there's not even a leak about it. There are, by my count, about a dozen teams that are over the cap right now. And by when I say over the cap, I mean over the opening night cap. Yeah. Some of which are only over by a couple of money bucks. Now, remember, you can go over the cap in the.

summer, I think it's 10%. So I everybody is under that number and almost the entire lead could fit Nazim Cadry under quote unquote under the offseason cap right now. They would have to move money and make moves to to get under to get compliant by opening night. But they could do it. The New York Islanders are 10 million bucks under the cap. So what possible incentive?

Like I get that if you're a cap team, maybe you think, hey, if we got to move money, you know, it's going to be a little tougher to do if they know we've got cadre and, you know, maybe the prices go up a bit. I could see that. And I could certainly see if he's, you know, let's just say he's signing with Tampa Bay, which is the most capped out team.

You know, they might say, we literally can't afford it. So give us a couple of days so we can move somebody out. but that doesn't explain a couple of weeks. And like there's something there's something going on here which is either maybe we're just all seeing something that isn't there.

And he just doesn't have a deal with any team yet and he still try to figure out where he wants to go. Or maybe there's a reason that we don't understand. But I'll just say this. Like if it's the islanders are 10 million under the cap. If he's got to deal with the islanders and they're just not telling us because Lou, that's dumb, right?

Can we just say that? Like, this is, this is, this is dumb and annoying and it's not, you know, like, I know it's Lou being Lou and all of this and, you know, he's, he's 35 years in the league and, you know, this, this is just dumb. If, if, and the NHL should not allow a big name, free agent to sit in limbo like this just because some team wants to flex its muscles and say, you can't make me tell you what I'm doing. I'm with you.

Look, look, I get why organizations might want to keep certain parts, I guess, of a contract under wraps. I guess, like, I'm a believer of in the cap era, you got to be transparent with your family. Tell them, this is the year. This is the AAV. like term, AV, all of that. We finally got to the point,

more or less, where we got teams to stop doing that stupid thing where they would tell us they'd sign somebody but not give us the cap hit. You know, I remember they'd be like,

oh, we've signed so-and-so to a two-year extension. And you're looking at it going, you guys, it's a hard cap league. We have to know the number. And yet so many teams were,

and I remember I wrote, I wrote piece on it years ago and I was, like, I talked to some teams. I'm like, why do this? And they're like, we don't actually know.

We just, you know, the GM just tells us to because other teams do it. Right. Like this league is so, it's like the default setting for the NHL is don't tell the fans anything that we don't want to tell them.

And, you know, remember Gary Bettman years ago famously had the, you know, I don't think the fans care about the salary cap. It's like, dude, you made it, you shut the league down for a whole year to get it. We do care about it.

We need to. And I don't want to rant too much on this because, again, this is pure. speculation on our part. Like the, you know, the Islanders might be sitting there going, we haven't even talked and has some Cadre, leave us alone.

But there's so much smoke around Cadry is going to the Islanders, but they just haven't announced it yet. But, man, I know everyone's like, everyone respects Lou Lamarillo slash is afraid of him. But I just feel like, if this is what's going on, let's just say it. This is stupid.

And Gary Batman or whoever should step in and be like, Guys, we're not doing this. The offseason is part of our entertainment product. Big name for e-agents is part of our entertainment product. And you're not going to just secretly sign guys and not tell anyone for a month until it's mid-August and nobody's paying attention to hockey anymore. Knock it off.

Yeah. Look at how much excitement we got out of the Matthew Kichuk, Jonathan Huberdow trade, where we were like, wow, this is what it must be like to be an NBA fan, right? Like the middle of the offseason, a huge, juicy trade. We loved it and it was great. And, you know, it's funny. Like, I remember, like, years ago, I used to work in the Media Relations Department

of the Ottawa Senators. And, like, we had, it was almost like a boilerplate, uh, if we signed a player to a contract, there was a line that was put in there that said, under club policy, uh,

you know, terms of the deal are not disclosed, you know, and you're, and you didn't even think twice about it. And then we'd get leaked to an insider. Yeah. 10 minutes later.

Yeah. And, you know, and it's out there. So why not, look, I understand, like, I do think that there's something, like I think of the NFL, remember a couple of weeks ago when that one element of Kyler Murray's contract got leaked and they're like, the Arizona Cardinals are asking Kyler Murray to study X amount of hours. And they turned into a story.

You're like, okay, I can understand why you want that kept under wraps because that, that makes the player look bad, the organization look bad, everybody looks bad. I get that. But when it comes to, yeah, we've signed the guy and here's the term and the dollar. Like, that's in the public interest and your fans interest. It's the public. And look, it's all of it is. And I, look, I hate the take that you hear sometimes where, you know, I pay your salary and, you know, I'm.

But this is one of those cases where, look, guys, this league exists because of fans being interested in the product. You guys make millions of dollars because fans are willing to pay our money to watch you guys play. And so you deserve that money for that reason. You built a product that people are interested in. It's an entertainment product. I'm willing to pay money for it. That money should go to the players. It should go to everyone involved.

Great. I'm all for it. I hope the players make more money. I'd like to see them making more money than they do. It's great. But you can't then, for 364, days take my money to build this billion dollar league and you know give it to the players and give it to the orders and give it to everybody and then on the day that something happens go actually

Sean you don't matter you don't you're cut out of the process this is a private thing that we're just doing over here no no it's this is again like I'm and and I understand I'm ranting about something that may be imaginary but you know because because this the situation may not even have played out the way we're describing it. But it did last year. And I said last year with the Islanders, this is dumb. And I asked people, like, what's going on? Explain to me, because usually when I see something, even in the NHL that strikes me as very dumb.

Yep. And I then go to someone and go, like, what am I missing? And they'll tell me, like, you're, okay, here's what you might be are missing. And I go, okay, so maybe now it's, I might not agree with it. But the people who run the NHL, people who run the teams are not dumb. this is just dumb. If this is what is happening and the league is so-called leadership is allowing this to happen,

like there's no benefit to it for the hunters. They're 10 million under the cap. They signed Nazim Cadre. They're still under the cap. There's no team out there that they're trying to like deal a bad contract to that's like, well, you know, if you guys had Nazim Cadre,

I'd charge you a first round pick, but you don't. So, okay, it's a fourth round pick. Like, that's not a thing that's happening. Just put it. it out there, man. Yeah.

And the other thing I think, preferably, preferably right before one of my podcast dropped. So I got something to talk about. Right. Yeah. Put it out midweek, Wednesday or Thursday for Sean.

Yes. I also think, though, if you're like, and I don't know the season ticket numbers for the islanders, but I would assume that they're not one of these. Like, they would be one of those teams that need to get,

uh, their season ticket number up. I'm guessing. I mean, it's, it's a new arena. So maybe not. I mean,

they're probably upset. Like, but you need a buzz. But certainly. some optimism coming off a terrible season. Like it was cute last year when Lou Lamarillo was the back to back GM of the year.

You know, I'm looking at, we're going to get to it in a bit, but Dom's front office ratings, let's just say the Islanders have plunged down the list. So I think that the, you know, the taller, you know, Lou Lamarillo is, he's cute and quirky when he's like making people shave their

beards and everything, but he's winning you Stanley Cups or, you know, getting you deep into the playoffs. When he's not, this just feels like annoying, silly stuff. You know, listen, speaking of Dom's front office confidence rankings, those dropped Thursday morning, as you mentioned. And, yeah, the Islanders took a beating. Nobody took a beating as much as the Vegas Golden Knights, right?

Like, the Vegas Golden Knights went from having the 12th, in terms of confidence rankings from the fans, they were 12th a season ago. They've dropped to 31st. Like, you've basically gone to the bottom of the road. Philadelphia, by the way, the only team to rank below Vegas. But you want a snapshot of how things have changed in a hurry in the desert?

Check out Dom's confidence rankings and see where Vegas is. Like, was there anything? And I just had a chance to read it here as we kind of got on the air here. Was there anything that surprised you? you're like, wow, I can't believe that team ended up here or there? I mean, the two big ones that surprised me just in terms of the drop were Vegas and the Islanders. I mean, the Islanders dropped even further.

They were fifth last year. So a year ago, we're all, you know, we were all in the cult of Lou big time. I mean, we're thinking these, you know, the Islanders are fantastic. They dropped all the way to 28. And, you know, there's an argument there that you look at, okay, the Islanders dropped and the Golden Knights dropped. This is just fans being reactive to what happened in the last season. You know, the Islanders were good for a few years, so there was confidence, and then they were bad, and so now there's a lack of confidence.

And the Golden Knights, even more so. You could say there's a bunch of injuries, they missed the playoffs by a couple of points, and now suddenly they're all dummies. But it does, the Vegas one is really. interesting because it's not just they miss the playoffs and i i don't i would hope that the robin lender news isn't reflected in i mean the survey was going on as that was as that news was breaking so and you can't you wouldn't think blame a team for injuries but they did they moved on from mark andre flurry that didn't really work out they the back max patcher ready uh giveaway essentially

uh due to the cap the the the of getting didodov thing with you know with not knowing about the no trade, didn't look good. But what's interesting to me is Vegas, like they have dropped, you know, whatever it was, 20 spots in the last year.

The fan base, by the way, it's worse for the fan base. Don breaks out the public at large and then the fan base. The fan base ranking is even worse for the Golden Knights than the public. Right.

96% of Vegas Golden Knight fans are less confident than they were a year ago. None of them are more confident. than they were a year ago. And what's fascinating to me is in the last year, they pulled off the Jack Eichael trade. A year ago, remember, this year ago was the summer of Jack Eichael.

Who's going to get him? Who's going to get Jack Eichael? And the Vegas Golden Knights were the team that went out and made that happen. And yet nobody, not one of their fans, you know, is saying, I feel better about this team's front office after landing, arguably the best player who've been available in the trade market in the last five years, I don't feel better about it and they almost all feel worse. That's really rough.

And then the fact that given everything we just said that the flyers are still behind. And the flyers are 32nd. It is just D minuses across the board. Oh, my God. Yeah. On every say, Dom has got six. different subcategories and a D minus is as low as you can go. And they are ranked D minus 31st or 32nd in every single category, which is difficult. I mean, it's usually when you see a T,

you know, you might say, hey, you know, they stink at trading, they stick at this, but at least they're good at drafting and developing. Or at least they've got, you know, they've been okay when it comes to free agency. The Philadelphia flyers are just absolutely a mess. And I mean, you could point and say, well, you know, it's Philly, tough market. But the public, too. Just, you know, I'm looking at literally 13 D-minuses on this card. It's absolutely brutal.

You know, and on the flip side, there's a couple of teams that took some jumps or at the top that I think is interesting. The team I cover the Ottawa Senators, they go from 21st to 8th. which is a huge job. 97% you talk about Vegas fans having less confidence. 97% of Ottawa fans have more confidence in the team year over here. That's about as stunning of a turnaround as you can have. They get the brinket. They get Giroux.

They get rid of Murray. They pick up Talbot. They do all these things that I think have injected optimism in the fan base. What I want to ask you about, though, and it's not surprising, Colorado one, Tampa, two. Those are your last three Stanley Cup winners. They met in the Cup final last year. That's not a surprise. What I do want to ask you about is Detroit sitting at three for a second year in a row.

Because this is a team that has a sniff of the playoffs in the last few years, they've been languishing at the bottom of the standings. And yet there is this inherent trust in Steve Eiserman in the direction. And they're in love with them still. And I think they had a great offseason. Trust me, they had a great off season. But seeing Detroit third. back-to-back years is remarkable to me.

Yeah, it's the Eiser plan. I do not think they would rank this highly if it was anyone else other than Steve Eism, let's put it that way. And, you know, I've said for a couple years, it's, you know, he came into Detroit, he understood that he had time to work with because of who he was and his reputation and all success he'd had in Tampa. He used that time. He was very patient.

And I kept saying, like, at some point, don't they have to get better? They made their moves this summer. I mean, you said they had a great summer. I thought they had an okay summer. I mean, they spent a lot of money to bring in C plus and B minus pieces, and you need those. But I'm, you know, I don't look at Detroit right now as being much of a contender. But we'll see. I could be wrong.

But, yeah. Like I like, you know, like I thought getting Villay Huso was a shrewd move potentially. You know, I like, well, they got Andrew Cop and David Perron. Like, I thought they improve their team like in terms of being competitive. I think they improved their team significantly. Did they not? Or am I out to lunch on this? Maybe I'm good.

I think I think they improve their team. I think a significant improvement on a team that's been lousy for years maybe gets you, like, yeah, they improved significantly from complete afterthought to. playoff bubble team if everything breaks right. And save that clip, by the way. When they're beating the Leafs in the playoffs, oh man, save that clip and throw that back in. But I just, yeah, I don't think if it's anyone other than Steve Eisenman, they rank that high.

Okay. I need your opinion on this because I do look at you as a neutral observer on this particular question. Who has a better season this year, Detroit or Ottawa? I think Ottawa is better positioned. but it's it really is you know it's going to come down to who gets the goaltending who gets you know all of this i i put those two teams in the same group um which you know you could argue it's you know go up back to ottawa here's the thing that i found really interesting um because we've all heard about you know it was the summer of pierre summer of and and look

not not to get not to get grim here but i i you you can't separate the massive jump in confidence in the senator's front office from the fact that we had change in ownership. And, you know, the tragic situation with Eugene Melnick, that's part of it. Like, you know, this is, this is front offices, which is GMs and scouts and all that. But ownership is a huge part of that, especially in Ottawa, where we had a very hands-on owner. And now it's an era of transition. We don't know quite to what, but that certainly feeds the optimism. But what I found interesting is, as I say, dog,

splits it, public and fan base. And the Ottawa Senators, as ranked by the public, A-minus, fifth overall in the entire league, including an A-minus in drafting, an A-Mina, developing, an A-in-Trade, an A-Minares in free agency, B-plus and in vision, like all sorts of great marks. You look at the fan base? The fan base gives the senators a B-minus. which is 17th, middle of the pack, including B plus in drafting and developing pretty good, but only a C plus in trading, only a C plus and free agency, a B minus for the vision.

This is interesting to me because I think most of these, you look down and you go, hey, you know, fans are fans. You would expect the fans to be more optimistic about a team, especially a team on the way up, which Ottawa clearly is, than the public at large, especially a team like Ottawa, it's a smaller market. hey, you know, we all know the deal. We got to do 10 minutes of reporting about Austin Matthews new pair of shoes before we say anything about what the senators are doing. You would expect the fan base to be the optimism and the public to maybe be not catching up. In this case, it feels like the public, like, you know, the fan base feels good, but the public has overshot the runway here and anointed the senators, the offseason champions, where the fan base is kind of going, hold on a little bit here.

Like we're, we, we, we like what Pierre Dorian is done, but we're not ready to an elite GM quite yet. I'll tell you, if they get a defense, if they get Jake Chikrin or they get something like that, I think the fan base is ready to anoint him, uh, with that. But look, I think part of it is it's been such a terrible road here for four years, five years, that, um, that, um, you know, it's going to take time to build back that confidence and trust maybe for some people. And that's what I think is happening.

because, you know, for the last, let's say, let's say four years, because they go to the conference final in 2017, they get Matthew Sheen the year after. Like, we still think the senators are a team that matters. And then for four years, if you're a fan of some other teams, especially, you know, in the West or, you know, down in the States, you just tune out on the Senate. You may not have thought about the Ottawa Senators for four years, except for like off-ice, crazy stuff that was going on. You don't, you, you haven't paid any attention to any roster moves that they've made, other than trading away. hey, good players. And then this summer happens, and they get to break out, they get your room.

And you suddenly go, wow, this Pierre Dorian kid is great. And meanwhile, there's this fan base that has lived through the last four years and, you know, has lived through some of the stuff Pierre Dorian's done that just is going late. Let's, we're happy. We're moving in the right direction, but pump the brakes a little bit. Maybe on this summer of Pierre stuff. I don't know.

I just found that really interesting. As I'm looking, that is, I think, the largest discrepancy that I've seen, certainly as far as the fan base being behind the public at large. Yeah. And listen, we think that I love that because it's a great temperature check for almost every fan base going into a season. Can I make one other observation just real quick? Is one other team that I found interesting is Chicago way down at the bottom? Right at the bottom at 30, right? 30. Yeah. And again, and again, if we look at this as being largely a proxy of just how a team is doing, you would expect Chicago to be way down there. They're ranked 31st by the public, 29th by the fan base. It's D plus from the fan base. And what I find interesting there is, look, we all know what's going on in Chicago. It's a tank. It's a rebuild. They are tanking. They are trying to finish last. Get those good odds for Connor Bedard.

And usually when you see a team embrace that strategy, the fan base tends to go along with it. And the fan base tends to go, hey, we get what's happening. As long as it's communicated clearly, you know, we saw it in Buffalo, you know, fans cheering for the team to lose and all of this stuff a few years ago. And it was Connor McDavid. And the fact that Chicago ranks this low, I think some of it's probably, you know, the leftover stain from the last year. but some of this, you know, if I'm Kyle Davidson, I'm sitting there going, look, I've been as clear and transparent as I can about what the deal is. That's supposed to buy me some time, right?

Like your new GM, you come in, you're supposed to get, you know, and you say, I'm going to tear it down to the studs. That's supposed to buy you a few years and you look at these rankings. I don't know if he's getting that yet from the team. Obviously, if they finish dead last and they get Connor Bredard, everyone will love a guy. But if not, boy, this is not a great look. Because remember, this is, you know, Seth Jones, that was the last GM.

That's not Kyle Davidson. You know, the moves he made getting, you know, he traded to Brinket, but he got the three first round picks. He's done a lot of the things that a rebuilding tear it down team does. And yet he doesn't seem to be getting the benefit of the doubt from that fan base. No, not at all. And look, there's, man, there's a lot to. kind of unpacked with the Chicago organization, right? Like that probably also factors into all of that.

The other team real quick that really took a massive drop was Winnipeg, where Winnipeg went from being in Dom's rankings a year ago, being a top 10 team in terms of fan confidence to a bottom five team. And that was a pretty significant drop for the Winnipeg Jets. Yeah, a big draw for them. And a big draw for Boston too, is interesting because, you know, unlike all these other teams, Boston did make the playoffs last year.

I wonder if we had, you know, and I think a lot of that is the coaching change, but I wonder if we had done this a little bit later, and the news of the Bergeron and Creachie signings had come out, if that would feel a little bit better. But yeah, Winnipeg, it does feel like Kevin Shevoldeoff is kind of, you know, remember, this guy's been on the job for, 10 plus years now. Yeah.

Usually you got to win something to last that long. And it's, yeah, the D-minus from the fan base for vision for this team, I think is really all you need to know. I also want to hit on this because, look, it's the end of August or middle of August. And there's a significant hockey tournament being played right now that I don't think is getting the same type of traction that it normally does. of course, the World Junior Championship taking place at Edmonton right now. If you watch the games on television, you'll notice that the attendance is not what we're used to seeing with this tournament. Lots of empty seats.

And look, there's when you talk to people, you talk to, let's see you talk to four different, five different people from Edmonton. How come you're not going? You'll get four or five different answers. You'll hear, hey, the Hockey Canada scandal is disgusting. And until they fix that, I'm not supportive. in this tournament. I've heard that from people. I've heard, hey, it's August. It's cottage time for people. I'm not going to hockey. I'm not paying attention to hockey. I've heard the fact that the ticket prices are just ridiculously high. I think up to about $200 per game for a

team Canada ticket. People are saying, look, I don't have that money. I'm not going to do it. The start times are a little bit weird too because of the, they're catering to the Eastern audience and start time at Edmonton, maybe it's 5 o'clock or whatever. And the people are just saying, like it doesn't work for me. I guess my question is, should there be some concern from HACCA, the double IHF, that maybe the appetite for this tournament is different?

Or is this a complete one-off because it's in August? Or is there something here? I think all those factors you listed add up to the point where you can just kind of throw your hands up on this one and say, you know, we didn't know how it was going to be received. It was a unique situation. But clearly,

it's it's not worry i don't know i haven't seen what the tv ratings look like i would yeah neither of all not not great um but certainly you know the fans in emminton emminton's a great sports town it's it's it's not it's not on those fans um you know look if especially if you're down in the states you probably cannot appreciate how much in the last 25 years or so the world juniors has become a core part of the calendar up here in in Canada where it's it's been marketed so well that it's I mean literally you you open the presence on Christmas morning and now it's boxing day and it's time to go on the on the world juniors and you know you get the that week between Christmas and New Year's tournament kicks off new year's Eve there's usually

a big matchup it's a lot of times it's the that that's where they'll put either the Canada U.S. or the Canada Russia game and then into January for the the playoffs. It's become so ingrained in us. And then you flip it to August. I mean, there is, there is nothing more different than, you know, waking up Christmas morning going, World Junior time versus looking out and it's August and, you know, we're all, we're all sweating to death. Yeah. You know, TSN has done a masterful job promoting and marketing this tournament over the years. And that's hurting them now because they've marketed as so much associated with with one time. I mean, it'd be like, it'd be like the NFL trying to do their Thanksgiving games,

but do them in March for some reason. Like, you're just going like, this isn't, this isn't how it goes. You know, I, I want to be watching these games with Turkey and my family and, you know, all of that. You put them on in March. It's not the same thing. And I think it's, it's kind of like that. If you're hockey Canada, certainly you're worried about this, this ongoing scandal, uh, the ongoing controversy and, and the beating you're taking from a PR perspective, rightfully so. Is that a factor here? I think if you want to, you can probably shrug that off and say, like, you know, if you want to live in denial and say, you know, we don't know, maybe it's more of the timing.

I think that is a factor. I think certainly if I was on the fence going, you know what, do we want to go, do we want to get over to a game? Do we want to pay that money? I'm looking at that hockey canada logo on the ticket going, no, I don't, no, I don't want my money going to this. But I think it's just, it's just the timing of it. Look, man, it's a mess.

And it was one thing to get, you know, to have the NHL do the bubble two years ago. And, you know, that was weird. But we all got into it because it was the NHL. It was a Stanley Cup. This, I mean, even a lot of the best players aren't at this tournament. It just, it just, it's not there. And it's, you know, like any world juniors, if Canada goes deep and goes to the gold medal game, we'll pay attention to some extent. But I don't see it anywhere else.

Team EOSA got knocked out last night. I saw one tweet. I saw one tweet on my whole timeline, even mentioning it. And otherwise, I probably wouldn't even know. Yeah, I always say to American fans that the World Junior Tournament around Christmas is our equivalent of March Madness.

Yes. Yeah, that's the right example. Right, like, and it's a short tournament with amateur athletes, and we all go crazy for it. But what would happen if March Madness was in late October and you'd be like, you know, it would feel off to you because you would associate with the start of spring and like just different. And remember when they, yeah, two years ago when they canceled the, you know, which was really,

I remember in the 2020, that was the first thing that really made me go, holy smokes, this pandemic is a very, very big deal when they canceled. March Madness. But they canceled it. They didn't say, you know, we're going to do it in August. They didn't say we're going to hold, we're going to wait. You know, back then, we still thought pandemic was going to be. you know, maybe only a month.

They didn't say, you know, we're going to delay it. They just canceled it outright. Partly, I think, because they understood that, like, if it's not in March, it's not March madness. And I'm glad they did the tournament. You know, I remember when it, you know, remember last year, it got started and then, you know, they had to shut it down. And I remember thinking, like, it, boy, you know, it's, it's too bad.

It's too bad for the kids, too bad for everyone. And when they said, you know, we're going to do it in the summer. I thought, okay, great. But it just, it isn't clicking for people. No, no, exactly. And so it's going to be interesting. I've been looking for the television. I haven't seen anything on the TV numbers.

I think the one that's going to be interesting is the gold model game. If Canada gets to the gold model game, we have seen the television numbers. I think a couple of years ago, the number peaked at about seven and a half million Canadians tuning in. I'm curious, do we get to even half of that? No, no way. Tiny, tiny, tiny fraction. I mean, there's no buzz here at all. it's uh look i mean everyone's doing the best they can with it but no i'd i'd be i'd be stunned if

uh if the numbers were anywhere near that and and like i said look it's a quiet time on the on the hockey calendar uh usually we're not conditioned for this but what we are conditioned for in the quiet times of the season in the off season are some some zany down goes brown columns okay which is all of them but but i loved you one this week because i think this this will make for some fun podcast fodder. Because every fan base can kind of weigh in on this on where their team would rank. And you did a column basically,

hey, what if we try to reconstruct rosters for every franchise in the NHL, make a starting lineup of three forwards, two defensemen and a goalie, and the caveat being the player had to have two tours of duty with that team? Like Mark Messier being the first guy

that comes to most people's minds, right? Because Messier played with the Rangers he left, boy, we'll have to ask Canucks fans where he went in between. I think he just, I think he just did a three-year, he went away, packed across Europe. Exactly. He went to live on a farm upstate and then came up.

Yeah. Did some lays commercials and came back. That's right. The pilots. Yeah. And so, you know, you're like, hey, what franchise could ice the best starting lineup of players who came back for a second tour of duty?

This, I mean, I know a lot of your, columns take a ton of, you know, research and time. I'm, man, I'm, I'm, I tip my hat to you because you got to be thorough on this one. Like, it's easy that you could have an oversight and miss a guy, right? I missed one guy in Craig Conroy for the Flames. And I've been there, flames fans are not letting me hear the end of which is always the nightmare here. But yeah, and to be clear, when I say a guy came back, I'm saying he has to have played for

your team. he has to play for another NHL team and then he has to come back and play for your team again. So we're not talking like Mary Lemieux retiring and then coming back. That doesn't count. We're not talking guys who, you know,

left and then got reacquired immediately or guys that you traded as a prospect who came back. Like Peter Forsberg for the Flyers doesn't count because he never played for the Flyers before he left. But that still gives us a ton of guys. And yeah, I went through. Usually with these things, I do about a dozen teams, and then I turn it over to the comments and, you know,

people try to fill in the rest of them. And I try to get a mix in like the old time teams, the newer teams. And it was interesting. It was kind of a fun exercise to go through. So you kind of settled on at the end of your column, you settled on three teams that you're like, you know what? I think these teams ice the best lineup. And that was the Oilers, the Flyers.

And the ducks. I got to tell you, the best line, you always have, you always have the great one liners in your columns. The line, I just want to make sure I get the right. Okay. Yeah, I have it here because I wanted to make sure I had it right,

where you looked at the flyers and the number of goalies who have come back for a second tour of duty, duty affiliates, it's impressive. It's Ron Hextall. It's Bernie Paran, you know, even Pete Peters, Brian Bouchet. And you said, we did it, everyone.

We found the one roster exercise where the flyers have the best goal. attending. There it is. That's it, man. All you flyers fans with no confidence in your front office,

at least we finally found it. Yeah. The Flyers have the best goal tending as long as we're only counting guys who left and came back. And yeah, the Flyers end up being

a pretty good team, certainly based on the goaltending, but up front they've got Mark Recky, who shows up on a couple of these rosters. Rick McLeish and Rick Tockeet, two real good players.

The blue line's okay. Kerry Hoffman and Shell Samuelson, not bad, you know, two very solid defensemen. And Bernie Perron in goal, although, you know, again, you could put Ron Hector still in there, but you've got to go with the Hall of Famer. That's a solid lineup. I like that team a lot. The other two, and I'll just read them off to you. The Edmonton Oilers, they love bringing guys back from the dynasty.

So you had to figure they'd be good. So they've got their forwards, they've got Glenn Anderson, they've got Peter Clema, and then they got Ryan Smith. Remember, he left in free agency, that weird situation, and he did end up coming back for a second tour of duty. Blue line, you've got Hall of Famer, Kevin Lowe, who did come back to Emerton. And then Marty McSorley, and I've often said,

Martin McSorley, man, people remember him as like some sort of enforcer, and he was, but Marty McSorley was a good player. He was a real good player. And in goal, they got Bill Rampert, who came back. And that's a consmite winner right, there. So that's a solid lineup. And then the one that was maybe my favorite was the Anaheim ducks. Because they just fit like whenever I come up with an idea like this, it's always like, you know, I sit down, I'll usually go through a couple of teams just as proof of concept,

just make sure it's going to work. And then, you know, when I sit down to actually do it, there's always a couple of teams that surprise me. And the ducks were that team that like, they just seemed to fit the idea perfect. because I'm going to read you this lineup and every single one of these guys in my mind is a duck and yet I can also picture them going somewhere else and coming back. So Anaheim Ducks forwards, Timuselan. Obviously, you know, arguably, you know, either he or Messier probably the best player in this entire exercise. Joffrey Lupel, classic guy, you know, goes and comes back. And then Dustin Penner, you know, famously we we remember the circumstances where he left. And, uh, and, uh, He ended up coming back. The defenseman, Francois Bocherman, had two tours of duty. Ola Gtevardovsky, classic early Anaheim duck guy. And then the goalie, Yulia Brzgalov had a second, you know, returned, came back to Anaheim after leaving with the big contract with Philadelphia.

I just love that group. To me, that's six Anaheim Ducks slash Mighty Ducks. And yet each one of them, you're like, yeah, I remember them leaving. I remember them coming back. Man, yeah, I think those are. I don't know which of those teams. And then the other team that I just, I have to give a hat tip to. And, you know, especially since we were, we were talking about the guy earlier in the show.

Lou Lamarrello in New Jersey. Oh, did he love re-inquired his guys back? Forward, okay? Because here's the thing. The reason I don't have the Devils as a contender here, they're defensemen, the best two I could come up with with Tommy Albulin and Mark Fraser. Fine. The goalie was Chris Tereree. Decent backup.

You know, real good backup in the broader years. He had a couple tours of duty. But listen to these forwards, okay? For the New Jersey Devils, you're going to pick three forwards out of this group. Brandon Shanahan, Hall of Famer. Scotty Gomez, real good player. Bobby Hulip. Claude LeBue, Jason Arnott, Brian Rolston, Peter Sikora, Stefan Rishay,

Alexander McGilney. Like, at some point, was Lou doing this on purpose? Yeah. Like, was he just, maybe that's the hold up on Nazim Cadbury. Maybe Lou's like, look, we're going to, you, then we're going to trade you, and then we're going to reacquire you. Because you're a good forward and I have to lose and then reacquire you. Like, Lou Lamarillo loves to recycle forwards and coaches because Jacques Lamarer and

Larry Robinson would, you know, take turns coaching that team too for a while there. Doesn't do it with defensemen and goalies too much. So I couldn't work anyone in there. I wasn't counting these stupid like one day. contract, retire as a member of blah, blah. Like, yeah. Yeah, I'm not putting Marta Ambroder on the team just because he, you know, came back as a consultant or whatever.

But you got to give a special hat tip to Lou Lamarillo for this because, man, he, he loved doing it with forwards. Yeah. Anyway, so we'd love to hear from listeners too. If you didn't weigh in in the comment section on Sean's column, you can, by all means, hit us up in the comment section. This is a podcast. Let us know.

if you think that there's a team other than Philly, Edmonton, Anaheim that had the second tour duty guy or lineup that was maybe the best. And I did not do this just so that I could build a lease lineup around Doug Gilmore and Wendell Clark. Yeah, exactly. If it turned out that way, you know, I wasn't going to fight it. Yeah. Hey, listen, it is the middle of August, which means it's vacation time for a lot of people, including our pal, Jesse Granger. So usually we get Jesse to drop in for Granger Things, brought to you by BetMGM, the exclusive betting partner with us at the Athletic.

However, Jesse's off this week. Well deserved a little downtime for him. But we've got tons of questions in the mailbag. I'll tell you what, why don't we pick a handful of them here? We love to hear from our listeners. In fact, we had so much fun doing those back-to-back shows where we just answered your or kind of questions you're afraid to ask. We're even thinking about it in the fall.

we might kind of fold that back in on a more regular basis. A reminder at all times you can reach us at the athletic hockey show at gmail.com. The athletic hockey show at gmail.mill. Hit us up any question. We love to tackle these. You can also leave us a voicemail at 845, 445, 845-845-845. Tell you what, let me read a couple of them here. Paul writes in and Paul says, look, I was on a hockey game recently.

One of the players scored a hat trick, but what made this hat trick interesting is they scored a short. short-handed goal, an even-strength goal, and a power-play goal. I know that that's not the first time it's ever happened in a game, but we know that we have the Gordy Howe hat-trick, which is a goal, an assist, and a fight, a natural hat-trick in which a player scores three consecutive goals, but I've been rocking my brain and looking on the web for a name to describe a hat-trick that includes a shorty,

an even-strength goal, and a power-play goal. Are there any names for this that comes in from Paul? Yeah, and no, there's not, at least nothing that I've heard that catches on. And, you know, because that is, that's an interesting achievement because it means you are playing on the power play and shorthanded, which an awful lot of players these days don't do. Yep. You know, obviously when you hear what Paul is describing, what comes to mind is the Mary Lou Amieu five goals, five ways where he did, he had five goals, shorthanded, even strike power play. penalty shot and empty netter, which, and that was back in, what, the late, late 80s. 88, I think.

I feel like that was like a new year, was that a New Year's Eve game? Oh, you know, it could have been. Or like right around, like, I don't know why. In my mind, I feel like Mario did that at the end of December one year. So that was, that was huge. And, you know, that, I don't even think it has a name, but, you know, other than just the five goals, five ways, the Mario. And I've said before it, I think it was maybe even on this show. One thing I'm really looking forward to is at some point in our lifetime,

if you think about that Mario Lemieux five goals, five ways, you can score all five types of those goals without scoring five goals, right? Because empty netter goals and penalty shot goals can be on the power plate. They can be short-handed. At some point, we're going to have somebody score the five ways, but do it with four or even three goals. Yeah. At which point that fan base is going to go, hey, he just did the Mario Lemieux.

And everyone else is going to be like, no, he didn't. And we're going to have, oh, man, that's going to be a fun fight, especially if it's, you know, depending on who the player is. But when they're like, no, no, they, he had three goals. And then the empty net goal was on the power play. So that's it, you know, five goals, four goals, five ways. It's the same thing. And people are just going to flip out.

and, you know, Penguin fans who, you know, I'm not on great terms with right now after last week, but that's cool. We're mending fences. Penguin fans are going to, you know, batten down the hatches and fight for their guys. So I'm really looking forward to that as a future controversy. But in the meantime, no, I don't have a great name for this. This is one where, you know, maybe we get some suggestions from the, from the listeners. Power play, short-handed, even strength goal. I don't know.

Yeah. Who's like, you know, I'm thinking of like a great two-way player. You know, you almost want to name it after. Because it'd be the thing like, like, you know, famously the Gordy Howe Hattrick is not something that Gordy Howe himself did all that often. It was other players who did it far more often. But I wonder what the, I wonder who would even lead in this academy. You know what? All right.

You start talking. I'm going into stathead. We're doing it. Okay. You're going to go. I was about to go into stathead myself and look up on the GameFinder app. Yeah. And look at it up.

You know, okay, I'm going to talk a little bit while you, while you, you know, research to see if we can figure out who's got the most shorties, hat tricks that include a shorthanded goal, even strength and a parplea goal. I've often talked to myself, too. There is only one way in which you could theoretically surpass the Lemieux goal. And listeners can tell me if I'm right or wrong on this. But theoretically, I guess you could score a goal six different ways. If you do what Lemieux did and score even strength, power play, short-handed, penalty shot, empty net.

You would need to add a shootout goal. But it would be almost impossible to do if you've put an empty netter in, right? Like the odds of you scoring an empty net goal and that game requiring overtime. is small, but there is a chance of it, right? It's only happened once in history that a team has been up by a goal, scored an empty net goal to go up by two, and the other team has scored two to tie. It was just a couple years ago. It was the capitals and sharks, I think.

Now, there are other types of empty net goals. You can have those goals where a team scores on themselves and you get credit for it. But yeah, you're right. Plus the fact that you know, you'd have to. have a shootout in a game where one team scored at least five goals, which that, you know, we very rarely see. Would you count an overtime goal as a seven? I don't think you would.

But, yeah. Yeah, anyway. And then you need to go to the seventh goal, which is the empty net, the other team throws their stick and you are awarded a goal. Awarded a goal. Yeah. That'll be impressive. If anyone ever gets the seven goals, seven ways, I will, I will absolutely be impressed.

Okay. And if I sound like I'm stalling here, it's because Stadhead is taking a long time. I was going to say, did I rag the puck long enough? No, no, keep going on. For you, because, okay, and for our listeners, so Stadhead is a subscription website, just so people know, that is part of the hockey reference umbrella. You've got to pay extra for Stadhead, but it is amazing because it's, I would say 70% of the research I do comes from Stadhead. or a good chunk or at least half of it anyway.

Like, able to find out. And so you're able to go through and find single games that have like match certain criteria. So you could look for a game to say, hey, has anybody scored a hat trick in a game in which they had, you know, 15 minutes in penalties or, you know, whatever, like whatever parameters you want to put in? So what Sean's trying to do now is see, can I find who's got the most games ever with minimum three goals in which at least two of those goals came in special teams. One power play, one penalty kill.

Yeah, and I got it. I got to listen. Okay. It's going to shock you. You're going to be blown away who the top two players are. Are you being facetious here? Yes, 100%. Okay.

It's Mario Lemuel and Wayne. It's Mario, right? Mario's done it eight times. Gretzky's done at six. The next few guys, this is kind of interesting, Phil Esposito. So again, I mean, we're just kind of listing legendary offensive players. Bernie Nichol's. is the other guy who has done it four times or more.

What was Bernie Nichols doing killing penalties? This is, it was the 80s, man. He did it. And actually, what's interesting here is he did it twice in a week in 1983, then 87, and then one more time in 95.

So if you're thinking with Bernie Nichols, we all think of that crazy 70-go, 150-point season, but it wasn't just him. It wasn't just him racking it up during that era. And then here's the next, Here's the guy, the only other guys, again, according to Stadhead, that have done it at least three times. Brandon Shanahan, okay.

Brett Hall, a little bit surprising, not a guy you think of as a penalty killer, but, you know, back then you would, you know, throw your offensive guy out there. And then here's the guy, maybe this is the guy we need to name it after. Petri Screeco. How is that great? The Vancouver connects Petri Screeco. Three times. And he did it three times in just. over a calendar year.

He did it November 19, 85, and then in 1986, he did it again, twice in a week. Did it on the 21st and the 26th. And that's it. That's the only times that he did it. But he had, so I don't, is it a, is it a Screeko hat trick? A screech? I don't know how you. Yeah, I was thinking how can we.

Played nine years. Classic 80s guy because you're like, oh, I vaguely remember him. And then you see that he had like four straight, 30 goal seasons. Yeah. And yeah, he did it. And now I'm looking down the list. A bunch of guys have done it twice, including Mika Zabanajad among active players and Sebastian Aho,

have both done it twice. Antoine Vermet, Danny Heatley, a couple names for you there. Yari Curry, only twice. Because that's a guy I thought might be way up there. Because he used the defensive conscience of that team. And then interestingly, I'm not seeing it of guys who did it multiple times. Like I haven't seen Peter Forsberg.

I haven't seen Sergey Federer. I haven't seen Doug Gilmore. Patrice Bergeron. Bergeron? Yeah. Like I'm going to. Matt Federoff would have been the guy I would have thought would be up there, right? Okay.

According to this, it does not look like Patrice Bergeron has ever done it. Sergei Federov has done it once. I do not see Doug Gilmore. I do not see Peter Forsberg. Yeah, I don't see a bunch of the guys that we would consider great two-way players. Very interesting. And part of that is, you know, the era of the great two-way player kind of, I don't want to say it started in the, you know, in the night. But like Federov and Forzburg and those sorts of guys at the same time that scoring drops down.

And you see fewer Patrick's fewer goals scored in general. But yeah, I'm not seeing a lot of guys, Gordy. Howe did it once. Maurice Richard did it once. Bobby Orr did it once. That's, I don't know for sure, the only defenseman, Bobby Clark. So, you know, there are some names popping up that you would expect to see. But interestingly, it's a lot of, you know, a lot of offensive players.

And, you know, a handful of other defensemen there, Jeremy Roanick has one. But not a lot of the guys that you might consider the legendary two-way players of there are. All right. So it is the Petri-Scriko. Scroko. We're going to call it the Screeco. Man, I'm, you know, I just look this up as you're speaking.

It's got to be the Petrick, right? Yeah, the Petri. Exactly, the Petrick. Okay, there we go. There we go. The Petric. Petri Screeco score even strength, short-handed, and power play. So I'm looking this up.

Without looking, how many short-handed goals that Bernie Nichols score in his career if you had the ballpark it. Oh, boy. I mean, there were a lot more back then. The record in the season was eight for anyone.

He played a lot of years. Just kind of, I'm going to say 30. Yeah, you're 28. Oh, wow. 28, like you're pretty much bang on. Like, 28 times Bernie Nichols scored a short-handed goal. Like, if you had asked me before this podcast,

Did Bernie Nichols even killed 28 penalties? I'd be like, I don't think so. Okay, but so here's the thing. Like, Bernie Nichols scored as many short-handed goals in his career as Guy Carboneau did with Montreal. Wow. Is that not strange to you? Yep, that's surprising.

Guy Carbino scored 28 short-handed goals with Montreal in 13 seasons with the Habs. That's Hall of Fame. Scored five other ones with Dallas. But here's one. Okay. Not to jump in on you here, but how many shorthanded goals do you think Bob Ganey scored? Bob Ganey?

The ultimate defensive. The ultimate penalty killer. Yeah. I mean, if Giacarbono scored, so I'll say 25. He scored 20. Doesn't that seem strange? Like, what did you think? That's as many?

Okay, without looking. Now I'm going to look this up. Okay. Because you brought this guy's name up. This podcast is going to go for another four hours. Just going to be us going down. We'll take a break. Yeah.

Like, now I need to know. Who scored more short-handed goals? Bob Ganey or Brett Hall? It is. I feel like this. Okay, I'm going to look it up right now. Holy smokes. It's the same number.

Wow. Brett Hall scored 20 short-handed goals. I'm looking at Brett Hall, and he scored 18 of them with St. Louis, and then only two more for the entire rest of his career. Yeah. You know, again, like back then, especially, I think the way you can explain.

and Bob Ganey is, you know, if you're the Montreal Canadiens in 70s, oh, we got a penalty. Yeah. Well, we're still sending Gila Fleur out there and Steve Schott. Then, you know, we're going to send you out good luck. I guess we'll be even for a game. But that is, yeah. Okay. That's pretty amazing.

Yeah. Okay. So this is fertile ground for the next time you do one of your evil trivia, like, which of these players scored the most career shorthanded goals and just be like, Bernie Nichols, Guy Carboneau and Bob Ganey or whatever. And I had to look up, I had to look up Dave Reed because I remember him getting eight with the Leafs. He's also 28. He's in the 28 club. Did Dave Reed have 14 one year, or am I making that up?

In one year? Did Dave Reed have 14 short-handed goals in one year? No. He had. What did he do? Did he get a shorthanded a hat-trick or something? He may have done something, but I remember he had the eight. He led the league with eight one year with the Leafs.

And it was, you know, back when the Leafs stunk, so we kind of hung on to anything that we could. Yeah. I don't know for some reason. That's a good listener question. When it sends us down that kind of rabbit hole, that is an A plus question by Paul. All right.

Real quick, well, let's do a couple of other ones here. Olivier writes in and says, if you remove the fair play aspect of this, is there anything that would actually prevent a team from scoring a goal early in a hockey game to go up one-nothing. And then for the rest of their game, they would simply, I'm laughing as I say this,

clog up their net with the goalie and the five skaters basically just standing in front of the net. Also, just wondering, could a team have a sumo wrestler-type backup goalie for these exact situations and make the job easier for everybody else that comes in from Olivier? In theory, yeah, you could.

Let's take the sumo goalie first. The net's 6 feet wide. So you need a real big dude to cover 6x4, even if you put them on his side or whatever. I don't, at some point, I'm not sure of that really worth, especially since goalies are 6'7 these days anyways, I think. But you remember it was the Islander's owner Charles Wong, who actually,

and I think Garst Snow would have been the general manager. He went to Garth Snow and said, have you ever considered using a sumo wrestler as a goalie? Do you remember this? You know, vaguely, vaguely. Vaguely, this should have been the lead of your book, the history of down goes Brown's history of hockey. Charles Wong actually, as the owner of the islanders,

in whatever years he owned the team with Sanjay Kumar, like in the early 2000s there, went to Garth Snow and said, have you examined the idea of using a sumo wrestler as a goalie? Yeah. And Garth Snow said, no, I just wore shoulder pads. Exactly. Maybe.

I'm looking at this. There is a YouTube video in which a channel called Sports Science put a sumo goalie in goal. And so you can go watch that and see why that would not be effective. They prove that it doesn't work. Now, as far as throwing five players in the net, again, yes, you could do that. And maybe there's a way you could kind of tetris everybody in, you know, I don't know if you could do it like off the opening face off.

I will admit, I don't know if, you know, you have to have some sort of formation off off. I don't think so. But again, it's not going to be effective because the other team's going to just get the puck down there. They're going to, first of all, they're going to be blasting slap shots at players who, you know, aren't wearing goalie equipment. And they're going to have, there's going to be rebound. There's going to be spots. And also remember, the one thing you cannot do, and sometimes new fans ask this, is, hey, you could pull a goalie for an extra attacker.

Can you pull an attacker for an extra goalie and put two goleys in there? You cannot do that. Only one goal tender at a time. That means only one player has a right to wear goalie equipment. Only one player has the protection of a goalie, which means if you stick five skaters in the crease, I'm going to shoot the puck at one of those guys. And then I'm going to go dig him right into the net with the puck under him because he does. doesn't have all the goalie interference rules, don't apply to him. He's just a guy in the crease. He's a defenseman. It would not be effective, but you could do it. And we see team,

like, we see very, very low levels versions of this sometimes in the dying seconds where, you know, you do see all five guys piled into the crease. Yeah. And it's just chaos rules out there. But no, as a strategy, there's nothing in the rulebook to stop you, but it, it would not work. All I'm thinking when you said, let's try and tetris all the players in. I can see them. It's not fitting. Somebody said Nathan Kirby out here. We got to.

Exactly. We got to flip this in. One piece that we need is not. Yeah. Oh, man. Hey, okay, I'm going to read one more here from Larry because a few weeks ago we talked about arena, stadium food and concession stuff. And I basically made a comment in which I said, you know, pretzels, if you really think about

it are just pieces of bread with salt on it that you sometimes dip in mustard. But anyway, Larry says, hey, just a quick word in, unless I miss something, while you guys were talking about stadium foods and talking about nachos, I heard you denigrate the great pretzel for being bread that is simply boiled and dipped in stuff. Did I get that right? That's even forgetting that a nice salted pretzel or cinnamon pretzel can be good on its own without a dip. I would argue this makes it a better in-orina snack

since you can eat it with one hand and not get your hands dirty. We the pretzel lovers of America urge caution and your insults of this great arena slash mall snack. That comes in from Larry. And I guess was that too hard on pretzels by saying, if you just think about it, it's a piece of bread with road salt on it

that you dip into mustard, which if you have, Explain it that way seems weird. The road salt might have been. Yeah. The road salt was. But no, no. Like, look, Larry, hey, I'm at that stage of my life.

Everyone can like what they like. I'm good with it. Larry wants to defend the pretzel. He wants to sit down and enjoy a pretzel. That's great. Larry, you can have my pretzel. I'll trade you for some nachos. But don't act like nachos and pretzels are in the same category.

Right. You know, and he's calling nachos a snack of bread that is fried and dipped and stuff. First of all, it's not bread. They're corn chips. and, you know, that's, it's, that's a stretch. Well, I got to call you on that, learn. Like, let's not, the noble nacho, hey man, you can like what you like without denigrating what I like and, and let's not, let's not act like, like a good nacho, a good stale

maple leaf gardens nach chip that you're eating in 1988 that was made in 1984 is, is the same as a pretzel. It's just not. Oh, man. Okay, we'll leave it that. Hopefully we didn't just poke the, What did Larry say? Pretzel Lovers of America.

I know. I don't need those people writing letters. Don't. Yeah. Yeah. Getting all salty with us here. All right. Wrap it up with a little.

Oh. That was terrible. That was bad. This week in hockey history. This is going to do one of them here because this is a big trade that happened this week in 1996. Chicago Blackhawks traded Jeremy Ronek to the then Phoenix coyotes in exchange for Alexei Zanoff and a round pick. That first round pick, by the way, guy named Ty Jones, who only played 14 games in the NHL. So really, this came down to Roanick for Jamnov. I ask you this, Sean. Now some

quarter of a century later, who won that trade? Ronik for Jamnov this week in 1996. You know what? It's a, that's a fair question. You know, Alexei Jamnov was really good. He was one of those guys that, you know, he's an underrated 90s guy. Um, you know, Roanick, I still feel like, was, you know, he was a special player. I might give the edge to Arizona there. But that, that was one of those trades where, you know, back in those days, and you see a lot of trades like that back then where if a team had to trade a star player. And if I remember, right, I don't know if it was a salary dispute or Bronick wanted out of Chicago, but like this wasn't a pure hockey trade. If I remember correctly, there was a reason that Jeremy Roanick was being traded away.

But rather than doing what teams do these days, which is, oh, I have to trade a star player, give me draft picks, give me prospects, I'm rebuilding. Teams would go out and try to get another good player. And, you know, in this case, they also got the first round pick. So, you know, there was an element of future assets, but they would go and try to get another good player. And Lexi Jamnov was a real good player. And, you know, you've got the numbers here, six years, 380 points for Roanick, eight years, 420 points for Jamnov, pretty comparable.

I see Jamonaut was a good player. Yeah, he was. Like, it's a weird one because, man, it's actually in hindsight, it's a pretty fair trade. Like, I know we sometimes talk about, like, what's the most fair trade in the actual history, even trade?

People often talk about a ginnler for Newindyke because it kind of worked out for both sides. I would argue Ronik for Jamroff. Seems like it kind of was the same for both teams. I mean, certainly if I'm remembering correctly and the Hawks, you know, sort of didn't have much of a choice in moving him, they did okay. In fact, they did more than okay.

Now, the flip side would be this was, so this was 96, all right, the Blackhawks don't win another playoff series for over a decade. They don't win another playoff series until the Kane and Taves era starts. So, you know, Jamnob was very productive on teams that weren't very good. So you could argue, you know, maybe they should have done the future. trade and just give us picks and prospects and that sort of thing. But Lexi Jamnov, real good player for, and you know, you get eight years of a guy who's basically your number one center.

Hard to argue. Yeah. But you know what? I now look forward to a future Down Goes Brown column. Is Alexei Jamnov a top five all-time redheaded player in the NHO? Boy. All right. So who do we got?

We got Claudey Roo. Lanny McDonald, right? Lanny McDonald. Am I right on, am I right on Lenny McDonald? Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, red mustache. I mean, red mustache. Yeah, he's got to be there.

Yeah. So, Landy McDonald, Clodgeroo. Although, what's funny when I think of Clodgeroo. All the flyers. You know who I think of right away? First guy I think of his head, but you're going to laugh at this, is Mike Commodore. And I. Oh, wow.

Yeah, yeah. You know what? It's because of the hair, right? He did. Yeah. It's because of the hair. That's right. Man.

Kevin, Kevin Constantine is our coach. Can we put together as starting, this is a starting lineup? Like, is there a goaler, red-headed a goalie? I feel like the guy the flames drafted years ago,

they drafted this Leland Irving kid. Do you remember this? Like in the first round, I'm like, I feel like that guy was a redhead. I know. Because I'm like, I remember I was,

I think I covered the draft. I'm like, this guy looks like Napoleon dynamite. Like, wow. I feel like he was a redhead, but I could be wrong about it. Okay.

This is, yeah, we're going to, Carding lineup. Oh, Corey Schneider. Was it Corey Schneider? Yeah. I think so.

Corey Hirsch. And also, I, uh, Corey. Actually, what if every goalie named Corey was a redhead? Okay. We got to get on this. There's, there's something happening here. Yeah. How deep does it go?

Yeah. Guys, if we're not on the air next week, you know we got a little too close. We get taken out. Yeah. Oh, man. Okay, we're going to leave it there. And you know what? We'd love it.

If our listeners submit it, give us your all time. Give us the best starting lineup of redheaded players. Maybe we'll see, we'll see if that has any trash. Cory Perry, kind of a redhead. Is he? No, he's blonde. He's got reddish. He's like.

Is that what strawberry blonde is called? Yeah, I think so. Yeah. What's with all of course? No, I wouldn't consider Cori. I would consider Corrie Perry Perry. I would consider Corrie. Like in the zone.

He's like, I mean, he's more blonde. I will get you. But he's one of those people. I bet you his parents would claim that he's like, redheaded in the sunlight or something like that. He's definitely got the... The redheaded Corey theory. I love how you introduce the redheaded Corey theory and then immediately cut my legs out from

under me when I go back you up. One more example. You're like, no, I'll get out of here. Yeah. All right. You're with that. All right. Listen, we're going to get out of here.

And by the way, Hawks fans, I don't want to hear about Cory Crawford will, you know, exception to peruse the roof. Like, let's check Corey Crawford's garbage. Is there a hair dye in his garbage at the end of his driveway? Is there? Oh, man. I'm just asking questions here. I'm just asking questions.

It's like when we all found out that was it Jose Theater using propitia? Yeah. Exactly. It's another one of those scandals. All right. We'll leave it there. We want to thank everybody for listening to this. Whether you want to weigh in on Bernie Nichols' short-handed prowess or whatever we've

talked about today, The Atlantic Hockey Show at gmail.com, 845, 4458, 8459. If you want to leave us a voicemail. A little programming. We got something really fun coming next week. We got our regular episodes of the Athletic Hockey Show. But Monday through Thursday, Corey Prondman is back. Going to be dropping every day his 2022 NHL pipeline ranking. So each morning, Monday through Thursday next week,

Cory Prondman pipeline rankings look for that. If you're not a subscriber with us, you can join us at theathletic.com slash hockey show. Get an annual subscription. It's a dollar a month for the verse six months. You can also subscribe to the Athletic Audio Plus on Apple Podcast. Get all of our bonus. content from the entire network.

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