The Athletic Hockey Show - NHL trade deadline is 5 days out, Officiating needs to be overhauled in the NHL and Analytics are an acquired taste in hockey

Episode Date: March 16, 2022

Rob Pizzo, Sara Civian and Jesse Granger discuss the trades that Colorado made the past few days, in acquiring Josh Manson and Nico Sturm and how those deals might open the floodgates for the struggling Vegas Golden Knights, the metro leading Carolina Hurricanes, the Pacific leading Calgary Flames, the forever frustrating Toronto Maple Leafs and the NHL best Avs who aren't done yet dealing. Plus we look at Jack Eichel's salty return to Buffalo, Auston Matthews two game suspension for cross checking in the Heritage Classic and Nick Foligno becoming the tenth player this season to hit the 1000 game mark.The roundtable welcomes The Athletic's numbers man Dominik Luszczyszyn to discuss Jonathan Huberdeau's season in Florida and if it is indeed MVP worthy. We wonder, why the use of analytics still isn't widely accepted by hockey fans, and what trades Dom could see happening leading up the deadline including where Timo Meier, Claude Giroux and Marc-Andre Fleury might end up.Finally, in our twitter segment, we debate how to fix NHL officiating which has taken center stage again, and not in a good way, for the NHL. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What's going on out, everybody? Welcome to another athletic hockey show, the Wednesday Roundtable Edition. I am Rob Piesel from CBC Sports, joined, as always by Sarah Sivian, who apparently has a best friend named Advil this morning because of a bench you met last night. How are, Sarah? I had to say it. Yeah, thanks, everybody. I had to.

I know. Guys, I'm hanging by a thread right now because of some of you who joined me for a live podcast with Tripp Tracy last night. It was so much fun, but I can't kick them back like I used to. Shout out to Boodoo Ranger for a plan. Those IPAs, they hurt today, but worth it last night. What's up, Jesse? What's up?

Yeah, I just got back from a road trip. I have also have a not feeling great this morning, but it's just because I'm old and I feel jet lag now, not because I was drinking. Well, look at this. Everyone, we're just starting this off, great. I just love, we jumped on our Zoom call to do the show. And before Sarah even said, hello, she goes, full disclosure, guys.

I'm not feeling 100%. My camera was about to start, and it was like, I can't have people thinking I just look like this. Well, look at you guys, just toughen it through, like the hockey reporters that you are. I want to tell everybody a little later on, we're going to speak to Don Lushishin, who's going to come on. He was kind of one of our main topics last week when he wasn't on the show, and we're going to get his opinion on a little bit of everything, including what it's like, to put something on Twitter and be called every name in the book. But we're less than a week, guys, trade deadline. And, you know, a few weeks ago, we talked all about how, oh, trades are going to start

flowing in now in the last few weeks. And we're still kind of waiting. We saw the Josh Manson deal, which kind of, you know, got people's juices flowing a little bit. We're going to talk about your individual teams in a minute. But, man, the salary cap really has this trade deadline to me kind of stalled because so many great teams are up against the cap. So many teams, I think, want to make moves, but have to maneuver before they could do so. Are we now looking at a trade deadline day? And it's true of sense where a lot of this stuff's going to happen on March 21st. What do you think, Jesse? Maybe. I mean,

we've only got a few days to get there. I've been saying this whole time, I think that these salary cap complications are going to make things happen earlier. And it hasn't worked out that way. I mean, maybe we're just not going to see as many moves. I mean, I was on with the the Thursday guys talking about and they had an over under set. And I think the total number of players, like, you can bet how many players will we moved on deadline day? And it's like 36 and a half. And I'm like, wow, that seems really high. But I mean, you have to remember that like every trade has like two guys that you'll never hear of that just get sent from like minors. And like all those players count too in those trades. But that still seems like a really high number. It seems like

it's heading for the under for sure. Those are the guys that as I'm, I'm one of those guys that's like reporting all the trades that happened. A lot of times I'll look and I'll go, ever heard those three guys. So three prospects going the other way for Clodgeroo and blah, blah, blah, you know what I mean? Sarah, what do you think of the delay that we've seen so far in this last, I don't know why we're calling a delay. I'm calling a delay a week and a half. Well, yeah, like the dominoes, you thought with Tofoli, the dominoes might have started falling, but I think maybe with defensemen, the dominoes will actually start falling because it's such a defense heavy deadline right now. And I, I don't know, you look at the return for Manson and it's like,

it shouldn't be that difficult for teams if he's only getting, what was it, a second rounder a prospect. Yeah, it was a super high. Yeah, I look at that. I'm like, the cane should have got that done, but I guess they didn't want it enough. Yeah, I mean, I think GMs are all asking for first round picks, and the GM on the other end of the line is saying, no.

And again, I don't know if that's going to loosen up, come closer to March 21st, but I feel like first round picks are really, really valuable this year. And I just don't see GMs letting them go for necessarily rental players. and Eric DeHatche had a great piece where he talked about just the actual act of the salary cap being one of the delays. And some of the biggest names are UFAs. You know what I mean? And they're not only UFAs, they're UFAs who teams are trying to resign.

So if you've got Thomas Hurtle and he's like, well, we're trying to resign him, well then he's not necessarily quote unquote trade bait, as people like to call them. But you two both cover obviously your own teams and I think you're both in very interesting situations. Jesse, while we were waiting to get you on, we were joking about how you asked a month ago, you know what? What are the chances the biggest goldenites making the playoffs?

We would have said that's the stupidest question ever. Those chances have plummeted. A five-game losing streak will do that and so will half your roster getting injured do that. But can you believe that the team you cover is now fighting for a playoff spot? And suddenly, whether they're buyers or sell, seems to be a big question mark.

Yeah, that's what I wrote about yesterday was, could this team be a seller at the deadline? And I think there are plenty of logical reasons that they could be sellers. And yeah, they're super injured. This team, I would not have expected them to be this way because even in the early in the season when they were this injured, and that was before they had Jack Eichel and they were this injured, they stayed above their head above water.

I mean, they actually were in first place for a lot of that. That's partially because the Pacific struggled, and then Calgary actually caught fire. so there's actually a good team in that division now that they're having to compete with. But they, I mean, they've got $37 million in players injured right now. This year they've had, if you take all their games, they've averaged $19.4 million out per game with injuries, which is incredible. But that just shows you how injured this team is. They're one of the most injured teams in NHL history, not just this year.

So it's not all that surprising. And then the thing is, when they were really, really injured earlier, Robin Lennar was keeping them games. Now Robin Lennar's injured. They've got backup goalies who are playing awful. Their goaltending has been bad the last couple games. And it's just falling apart. I could see a, so I wrote about, like I said yesterday,

I could see this team selling at the deadline because I could see Kelly McCrimmon saying, you know what? We've raised our hand a few times and the cards, we're not getting the cards we thought we were going to get. Let's just sit on this one. And you don't have to fold. You don't have to like give up on the season. but let's just let's just let this season play out and see what happens.

And you've got some pending UFAs in Riley Smith and Matthias Yanmark. And if you think there are going to be some tough decisions to make this off season, they're going to lose some players from this team. If Kelly McCriman can make a move, whether it's by trading one of those UFAs or by trading another contract that will give you a chance to re-sign a Riley Smith, I could see them selling at this deadline to try to set themselves up for a better off season and just kind of start looking to the 2022-2020-23 cup, because I'm not saying it's over for this version of the Golden Knights,

but man, it doesn't seem like anything has gone right, and they're going to need a lot of things to go their way down the stretch, not just the health, but these guys have got to figure out how to play together in a small time span. So I could see this team selling. Well, I think this road trip really said a lot. Obviously, you alluded to the injuries, but you look at the teams they lost to, Philly, Buffalo.

Okay, you've got Pittsburgh, Columbus, Winnipeg. I count one playoff team in there. Those are not teams you can. can lose to in succession, have a five-game losing streak in regulation, no points, and expect that, oh, once a few guys come back, everything will fall into place. And right now, they're clinging to that first wildcard. I just never thought I'd see it. And you talk about goaltending. I think I read it on your Twitter feed where Peter DeBor said, you got to get in front of one. Right. And I remember kind of thinking, is it that what goaltending is? When your coach is saying

get in front of the puck, problems are arising right now. Yeah. And not only in that last wildcard all the teams around them have games in hand. Like points percentage, the Golden Knights are out of the playoffs right now. If you go by points percentage, like Dallas, I think is like one point behind them, but they've got three games in hand. So in all, like in reality, the Golden Knights are not even in playoff position at this moment. You can just say it. Jack Eichols is a locker room cancer.

Yeah. I know. That's what everybody wants to believe. I mean, if you go off my, if you go off my Twitter mentions, it's for sure Jack Eichael's fault. Oh, my God. Seriously, he's been the best player on the team. He went from Buffalo where. he has to carry everyone and he can play great and still lose to Vegas where he has to carry everyone

and can play great and still lose. What a plot twist there. I know. Maybe the surgery wasn't the answer. And then we've got the Carolina Hurricanes battling for top spot in the Eastern Conference. And Jesse, you know this. Our co-host over here is always complaining. We don't talk about the hurricanes enough.

I'm complaining about the uses of battling. They aren't battling. their top in the league. They beat the abs. Come on. Yes. I said they're the battling for top spot in the Eastern Conference. They're second in the Eastern Conference as we speak,

which means you're battling for spot. And I've got to quote you, Sarah, quote, you don't want to make a move just to make a move and you don't want to overestimate the impact one player really can have on your playoff run, which I completely agree with. And we've seen it so many times in the past.

A team battling for first place, there's that word again, but they still feel they need to make those tinkers, those, you know, the depth moves. Do you see that happening with the hurricanes this year? Do you see them really at least testing the waters to see how they can improve? Yeah, I mean, they've made calls on Mance and they made calls on Chickren, things of that nature. And I think they were looking at defense, but now their defense in the past month has improved a lot.

Ethan Bear is playing really, really well kind of suddenly. Jalen Chatfield is someone they can call up. I know Brendan Smith actually lost his hearing in his ear. It's supposed to come back, but he fractured his skull. So that's kind of a big question mark there. It was a horrific injury, but they now know Chatfield can come in and help him. And then Tony DeAngelo is going to come back in a few weeks, and he just started practicing again with the team yesterday. So I think that's more of kind of DeAngelo's going to come back and things are going to fall into place.

They only have $1.6 million in cap space right now. So it's just kind of like what can they do? they'd have like in the Manson situation even if the ducks retained 50% of a salary they'd still have to do some juggling so it's just kind of like that is the issue they'd have to offload a player and I think I personally think they need to score more goals and in the past month they've really dropped with their goals per game average I think they're like eighth in the league now and it's just kind of like something they need to get back at so I would like like to see them go for maybe a scoring winger, but then they'd have to let go of somebody. And I don't know if they want to mess with the chemistry too much. What team other than the teams you guys cover are you the most interested to see what they do between now March 21st? Is there a team that really sticks out? Because for me, it's, it's Colorado because they are just, man, you talk about the rich getting richer.

They go out, they get Manson, and what does every quote unquote insider say? They ain't done. My insiders are telling me they're not done. They're not done. This is a bloody all-star team. You watch this team play and they look like they're on a different level. We heard Daryl Sutter say this week, I don't ever want to be the team that has to face Colorado. Because that's a waste of eight days. He literally said making the playoffs and facing Colorado is a waste of eight days.

So for me, it's Colorado. Any other teams or do you just agree with the apps? That quote is so great by Sutter because he's amazing. He's giving bulletin board material for the opponent. of his biggest opposition. Sutter's sitting there saying, all right, who's my biggest opposition

to win a Stanley Cup? Colorado Avalanche. Let's just throw some fire on their first round matchup for no reason, because you know that quote's going to get drug up as soon as the playoff series

gets set. It's amazing. I agree, Colorado. I think overall, Colorado, I'm super interested. You know me. I've got to go towards the goalies. I'm excited to see what Toronto does

just because I think, I know everyone's going to roll their eyes and say, yeah, Toronto's talented every year and they lose. But, like, I think, that Toronto team is good enough to go to make a deep run. And I think obviously the way Austin Matthews

is playing right now, that team's fun to watch. I think they can go on a deep run. But I thought Jack Campbell was the answer early in the year. He's clearly not. I'm interested to see in what Colorado does and specifically what Toronto does in that. I'll take the L on the Morazic thing. I think I said last week, just be patient with him. I don't think you should be patient with him anymore. The patience has run out. Yeah. Ever Shalgren last night, guys. 35 safe shutout and his first ever career start. Playoff,

goaltending issues done for the Leafs, that's it. Yeah. Con's my trophy candidate. That's the way it works. But Sarah, is there a team you're looking at? Definitely the abs.

I mean, that's the point. Like, you don't want to make a move just to make a move, but when you see what your potential Stanley Cup final opposition is doing and you're not getting better,

then you kind of have, there's pressure on. Like, they're getting better. So that's scary. And I, It's ballsy. I love it from them. A couple quick topics before we go to break that I wanted to get your opinions on.

You were there, Jesse, and I know we haven't had a chance to talk about it. We dedicated a lot of our last show to Jack Eichols' return. But he's been so – and I don't want to say this wasn't classy, but he's been so nice during this whole thing. No hard feelings. Buffalo. I love you. Everything else. The crowd was so loud.

And afterwards, quote, that's the loudest I've heard this place ever. It only took seven years and me leaving for them to get into it. I love the parting shot. What'd you think? Yeah, I loved it, too. I thought it was all great. It was just such a fun night. Like, it was Eichols return. The Sabres, a franchise that never hasn't won anything.

They win the Jack Eichael return with the two players that they got in the trade. They both score Alex Tuck and Peyton Krebs. And they booed him mercilessly the entire night. It was even worse than I. We talked about like, is there going to be venom? There was venom pouring out of the windows of that building. It was, I've never been in an atmosphere like that. And you can't be, you can't get 20,000 people together.

It wasn't that many. You can't get thousands of people together and be, yeah, yeah. It was like, it was like nine. You can't get 9,000 people together and be a complete asshole to someone for three hours and then put a mic in front of that person's face and expect them to not be a little bit of an asshole back. Come on. Like, come on.

Yeah. So, so. It was good fun. Eichol said all the right things all week. He said there's no hard feelings. I loved my time here. I wish we could have won. And then they were, they, they booed him. So you put, and then you put a mic in front of his face. And like, it was all Buffalo media. Like there was like me and like nine Buffalo writers. So I asked him, I asked him a couple questions. And then they just started like one after another after another. And he like answered him the right way, the right way. And then finally you could see it. He was just like, we've lost three in a row. We just lost to the worst team in the league. I'm having a bad day. And he's just like, he's just like, he's just. just let one rip and it was hilarious. It was great. Exactly. That's what the people wanted.

He finally gave us what we wanted. Right. And now Buffalo is kind of feeling. Oh, you mean, a hockey player was honest. A hockey player said what was on his mind? For shame. This is the crap we need, guys. This is what we need to stop getting the pucks in deep.

You know, good bunch of guys in the room give 110% cliches. I want to hear stuff like this. Whether it's nice, mean, whatever, I like it. Austin Matthews, two games for the across-stitch check. to the head of Talene. I thought, as soon as I saw it, I said two games, which means I thought it was going to be one game. Like, I think it's a two game infraction.

I thought it was going to be one game because he had no priors. What did you guys think of this whole situation? Because this is the first time people are saying, wow, it's actually kind of good. Yeah, I think it's hilarious watching Leafs fans bend over backwards. And, like, a lot of them will admit that, yeah, maybe he should have been suspended, but what about this other guy who did this last week? What about this other guy?

And it's just like, guys, he deserved to be suspended for this. This was like a flagrant thing that he did that everybody saw. And I think two games was completely fair. Yeah, I agree. I think maybe a little surprising that because he's the star, he didn't get less. Like some, like we have seen that in the past. So, but I, but I agree. I think it's, they're going in the right direction.

I think you've seen suspend. I think the suspensions have gotten better this season. Like, I feel like in past years, I'm yelling a lot more about like, I can't believe this guy got nothing for this. It seems like this year, guys have been getting suspended when things like this happen. I think for certain infractions, you can take into account that somebody's never done anything before. When you cross-check someone directly to the head, I don't care. I don't care if you've played 20 years in the NHL and never had a penalty before. Right.

I think that supersedes the clean record. Now, if this was like a little bit of a high hit, a little bit, something that happened at a quick pace, something that happened where you're like, you were a little reckless there, I'm okay with it to say, hey, he's never done anything before. Clearly this was, he cross-checked a man to the head. I don't care who it is. It was flagrant. And then the fact that after the game, he had the hockey pucks to go out there and say, well, I kind of got him on the shoulder and it rode up to his head. Absolutely not. That did not happen.

you hit him in the head. I don't care if you're an altar boy before this. You're getting two games. So it's been a while for me to kind of go like, I think that's right about where it should be. Last thing before we go, Nick Folino played in his thousandth game, 10th player to hit the thousand game mark this season.

And that's happened in two of the last three years. I don't mean to diminish this or I don't mean to, you know, shit all over somebody's, accomplishment. But I feel like a thousand games doesn't hit me the same way as it did 10 years ago. Well, is there a stat for you guys that used to be like so celebrated that now you're kind of like, okay. I mean, Claude Drew's got his thousand tomorrow. So there's another one. I mean, is it? Is it a thousand games it? Is it 500 goals? It's a thousand points. For me, it's a thousand games. It just doesn't hit me the same way. Yeah. And I think it's because it's getting easier,

like medical. Like the way they treat players is getting better. The way these guys treat, their bodies. It wasn't that long ago where, like, they didn't have the same type of diets and nutrition that they have now. And I think you're, you're seeing players, like, in all sports, you're seeing players playing later and not just certain, like, special guys, like that it used to take a special person to be able to, like, make it that many games. But now it's like, everyone you see in the league is going to play a thousand games as long as they're good enough, right? Like, it's, to me, it's a case of, like, it used to be, you've got to be a warrior. You've got to be this tough, like your body's got to be indestructible. Now it's, are you good enough to hold a roster

spot, especially with young kids, like, coming into the league, taking your job, like, faster than they used to. I think it's a more of a stat of this guy was good enough to hold an NHL roster spot for this long. So it's kind of different, but like more guys are going to be able to do that than used to be able to. So yeah, I think it kind of has lost some of it. Sarah? I love when someone makes a point that I hadn't thought of that makes so much sense. Like that point makes so much sense. I was wondering why that seemed less significant to me. And it's definitely because more people are doing it these days. I still think it was really impressive that the Stahl brothers, like three of them got

a thousand games. And then four of them got a thousand two games. Thank you very much. Shout out to Jared Stahl. But I still think a thousand games is special, but I feel like we celebrate. And I don't know if I'm an asshole for this. But I feel like every week, it's somebody in the press corps asking the Keynes, how does it feel to score your 50012 goal?

How does it score to play? feel to score your 800th, I don't even know. It's just like there's so many little landmarks that I don't really care about. Like, it's not that significant to me. Yeah, no, and I think I agree with this era that Jesse hit it right on the head. I mean, it used to be crazy. Like, I remember when somebody hit 30, 31, 32 years of age, they were veterans. They were old guys.

They're knocking on retirement. Now players play into their 40s and, you know, upper 30s quite easily. And they do it effectively. Just look at what Ovechkin is doing. but yeah I agree this one just and I hate like I said I hate shitting on somebody's accomplishment because it's a thousand games is still a thousand games

in the edge it's a thousand more than I played in the NHL but I just it just doesn't it doesn't feel the same to me and I don't know if that's I don't know if there are others that thousand points maybe not necessarily but a thousand games to me is one of those but congratulations

to Nick Folino for his thousand games but look what it is sure time congrats we're so pumped for you It took three Stahl brothers to do it for Sarah to be like, that's cool. You didn't say anything about anybody else with their 1,000th game. But congratulations to Nick Bolino on his thousandth game. Stick around after the break. We're going to speak to Don Lus Chasian about a little bit of everything,

including fun on social media. So don't go anywhere. Well, our next guest is not only the member, but the actual president of the Jonathan Hubertoe fan club. Tom with Chishin joining us. Dom, just starting shit out there in Twitter world, aren't you? I didn't mean to. You know, we talked.

It just sort of happens. Yeah, we talked a lot about you and what you did last week, and I'm glad you can come on this week and talk about it. And we defended you. Just, I don't know if you went back and listened, but we defended you. But are you surprised anymore when you put something out there? there. That's not even a full-blown opinion. It's not even like, here is what I think. All you did was

present some numbers and Twitter just kind of went like, I can't believe his agent went after me. That hard. Like, I am flattered that he thinks that I have enough sway that he needed to bring his own opinion into it. But I think it was wild because I mentioned Huberto in the piece saying hey, he's not here, but I think because a lot of people like him, that warrants a deeper investigation. And people weren't super willing to wait for that. They looked at the chart and say, why isn't Hubert over here? And called it a day and took out their pitchforks and marched straight to my front door. So I'm glad you brought that up because Alan Walsh joining us on the line.

Now, Alan... And I was the reporter that called you an embarrassment. We're all having us. intervention. But the funny thing is, is you had other reporters kind of jumping to your defense, too, the Jim Mathisons

of the world coming out saying, guys, like, why are we jumping on each other? This is sports talk. This is hockey talk. This is, we should enjoy this. And it,

you know, we talked about this last week. The part that we didn't like was when everything got super personal. And it felt like there were, there were personal tax during this whole thing. Yeah. I sort of just looked at him making personal tax

and felt he was mostly just embarrassing himself in doing that because it was just a hockey opinion. I have been around this sphere a few times, and I know that analytics can be super polarizing. And when it says something that a lot of people don't necessarily agree with, the first instinct is to go into defensive attack mode and sort of defend your own perspective. And there was probably a better way for,

a lot of people do it, especially his agent. But I guess that's the way he decided was the best way to handle it. And here we are. We were talking about this last week where and like, and you actually just mentioned it. Like when the stats say something, our first reaction should be why. Like, why do those stats, like we need to like, we need to like, because I think I test is just as important as the numbers. But when you see a stat that doesn't agree with what your eye test says, the first thing you should say is, okay, why? Like, we need to look into this deeper. Why do you think the reaction, because you see the reaction more than anyone to analytics? Like, you are the, you embody analytic, like you are that your Twitter feed is people who hate analytics. Why do you think the

reaction is not, like, let's see why these numbers are this way. And they're just, they immediately go to like, nope, the numbers are wrong. I, I don't know. And in this case, like, it's not illogical. Everyone knows John and Hubbardo is not the best player on the Florida Panthers. They know it's Barkov. They know Huberto is not completely sheltered, but doesn't face the toughest matchup because Barkov exists. They know he's an offensive first player. They know he plays off the rush and sometimes leaves the team a bit vulnerable to rush chances against. And for some reason, that all gets thrown out the window once numbers put all that together and say maybe he's not as valuable as his point totals suggest.

Maybe Alexander Barkov has been better this year. He just has played fewer games. It's crazy when you actually go in and read your articles. It's very clear. Like, you aren't your model and you have like five disclaimers and people still just want to. I read them all on the show just to like, yeah, last week I read. I'm like, he's saying this is not an opinion. How are people?

And like, we know this. People like, you put the graphic up. And as soon as the graphic. went up and then I read the piece, I'm like, oh, this is going to go nuts. Because people are just going to see the graphic. Sorry to interrupt you, Sarah, but I'm like, we even, we say the disclaimers and people still just don't buy it. It's hilarious.

Oh, I have a great story about this one. That's about the same article, not about Jonathan Hubertow, but I had a Detroit radio show, apparently a very popular one. I've never heard of these people in my life. They saw the graphic, which had Maurice Sider 5th. The entire section that. I wrote, probably like 500, 700 words, talks about how Morit Sider is underrated, should be rated higher, I'd have him in my top three, and I'm listening to this radio show, and they're saying

the exact points I had in the article as if I did not write them. Like, word for word, he, this guy is saying, like, I'd understand if you have a top three with bunting Zegrois and Sider, and I'm like, that was in the article, dude. Just like read past the chart. People see the chart and they get mad immediately. It's like a visceral response to charts. Yeah. You almost have just not chart it.

But the chart creates all the excitement. Anyways, we didn't just get you on to talk about this. We've been talking about trade deadline day coming up on Monday. And is there a team right now that you're really intrigued to see what they're going to do between now and March 21st? I think obviously the Leafs are intriguing because their goaltending has completely imploded over the last two months to the point where they brought in some guy I've never heard of until last week and I followed this team and he posts a shut on his first game. So who knows what's happening there? They're always an exciting team to look at. I think the Bruins are interesting because they're sort of playing a lot better now, but they still have that pretty large hole at 2C.

and I think there's a perfect fit with Thomas Hurdle from San Jose, but is San Jose going to trade him? That's probably another interesting storyline for sure. What do you think, like how, from the numbers perspective, how much does a goaltending move impact Toronto? Like, like, can that be, I always say like to me, goalies, that's the position that affects the standings the most? Like, do you think that that's the single move that can have the biggest impact on like Stanley Cup percentage at the deadline? definitely but the the issue is picking the right goalie and that goalie might be the one of the roster jack campbell he looked the part for the first two months and then he looked the complete opposite part for the next two months so goalie is a very high variance position and it can have

by far the largest effect but it can also change on a dime i mean john gibson for the ducks had, I think, the fourth best goal of state above expected, I think, midway through February, and he ranks like 70th or 80th now because his last two months have been an absolute horror show. And mid-February, if the Leafs somehow had a deal in line for John Gibson,

it would have looked like a home run. And two months later, he looks exactly like he has the past two years where he's struggled. So it's a strange position where you might not want to invest too many of your assets that's in improving it, especially if there is an option already on your roster, but at the same time, that option hasn't been working, so you have to sort of explore what else is

out there. And then you've got the ever popular no trade, no movement clause, because obviously Mark Andre Fleary's name gets brought up a lot. This is a guy who's known for being happy go lucky. It's a guy known for always having a smile on his face, love of life, loves being an NHL player, but might not necessarily want to come to Toronto. and you can kind of see why. I mean, how much is a monkey wrench?

How much of a monkey wrench is that when maybe a deal is there where you can bring in a Stanley Cup winning goaltender, but he says, I'm much happier playing elsewhere where everything I do is not necessarily under a microscope. Yeah, I can definitely see that by think Flurry in Toronto, if he does well, could also become a cult icon. And the sheer vibes of a Flurry Jack Campbell tandem in terms of happy, go lucky, golden,

retriever energy would be incredible. I think he's an improvement, but at the same time, aside from last night's game where he was incredible, over the last month or so, he's been just as bad as Jack Campbell. And that's the thing with goalies is Flurry has this very large sample size of being a strong goalie, and he is probably an improvement because we can trust that. But over a month period, who knows what happens in that? you have the vassalewski's of the world the shistericans you have ucissaros now and you have literally everyone else even connor helbuck in winnipeg was incredible last two years and there was the

reason they were a playoff team this year they're out of the mix and he's just not been as elite as he usually has and that's part of the reason i think you guys would break mark andre flurry sorry you guys when when did i become a member of the toronto maple leaps Well, I'm talking about Dom. The Leafs would play. For me, it's the ceiling with Flurry. Like, I agree with you, Dom, that, like, his floor is probably just as low as Jack Campbell's is when you look at this season. But, like, if you're saying which of these goalies, if they play the right way, can take this team to the Stanley Cup?

Like, I feel like Flurry, you know for sure. His ceiling can get you to the Cup. Like, that would be my thought process on that. I would love to see those two as a tandem, though, like you said. I would, too. And I think Flurry can impart a lot of wisdom on. to Jack Campbell as well, because Flurry has gone through these confidence issues before in the past. He's had really bad stretches, and he's found a way to get back and be this elite goaltender.

So I think just from that alone, I think it might be a worthwhile venture, but it obviously depends on the cost. Dom, what do you think about Freddie Anderson right now? I can't imagine him dealing this in Toronto, and I think it's hilarious that this has happened, because it's classic leaps. But he's had stretches like this in the past with Toronto. They've just only lasted a month or two before he goes ice cold,

sort of like Jack Campbell has. And I think part of that is the pressure that Toronto puts on its players. And halfway through the season, Campbell and Anderson's numbers were almost identical. It looked like a fine trade for both teams, not like an actual trade, but like Carolina getting Anderson,

Toronto with Campbell. and since then Anderson has been able to be this consistent presence while Campbell has been consistently bad instead. How much does this all depend on when Jake Muzin comes back too? Cap-wise, right? I mean, if he's skating, but it's a concussion. It's such a wild card when you're dealing with a concussion. If he's not coming back for the rest of the regular season,

maybe that frees up that cap space to improve in goal-tending. But if not, then you're also still missing what are your top forward? You're top defenseman, excuse me. Yeah. have one of the best capitalists in the league. So I think they'll have ways to figure this out. If they need to bring Flurie's huge salary, and they'll probably just do some sort of shenanigans to make it work.

But yeah, the muzzan situation definitely plays a factor in that. Dom, are the Golden Knights making the playoffs? Today, for the first time, their chances were under 50%, which is absolutely wild to me. I might honestly even be overselling it, because I am not projecting Stone to come back, but I am expecting some other players to come back

and Patcheretti and Lennar. And right now, the team has constructed that I just don't think they're deep enough to withstand those injuries. But at their best, this is still, I think, a cup contending team. We just haven't seen that put together at all this season. It's been very strange for sure.

Yeah. But if they all do come back, they're going to have like a $200 million team in the playoffs. Right. Well, a $200 million team that will have like a GSVA of like a billion, but have never played one minute of hockey on the same ice together. So it's like, good luck. Yeah, I just gotta assume it'll work. Speaking of stat boys, Don, we were talking about this in the previous segment.

I'm curious to get your impression on this. We've had double digit players hitting a thousand games played this year. It's happened two of the last three years. And we were talking about how a thousand games just doesn't hit the ear the same way as it is it used to for whatever reason. will be it health, be it the fact that players are just playing longer because of strength and anything like that. Is there a stat that used to be super important that you look at now and it just doesn't feel, be it a career stat, be it a, you know, an end of the year set?

Is there something that really just has faded away as far as importance goes? That is definitely a tough question. I think before like the recent scoring boom, it was being a point per game player because it was so rare. There was that year that Jane Ben won the Art Ross with like 87 points. And I remember writing something where we have to like change how we think of about this, where 85 points might be the new 95 or 100 points. And then the recent generation of talent has been so good that that has completely been blown out of the water. And it's not really a factor anymore. But I would have to say a thousand games definitely doesn't feel like it used to. I think you were

on the money there. Was it Nick Felina? know yesterday or the other day hitting a thousand is just and clod jeru tomorrow i mean and yeah the point thing about clod jeru is could we see him traded the day after he hits a thousand games because they want to do it and wants to do it in a flyer uniform i mean yeah he's he's been on record saying that that i'm maybe not on record but it's been reported that he's that milestone is extremely important to him so the day after seems like the best bet for jeru getting moved you heard it here first that's hilarious that that is hilarious that this other team is like needs claude jeru for a playoff run and he's like you guys i just need to do this

ceremony in philly and then i'll come over and play for you guys and that's like the actual reason it's being held up well could you imagine closed jeru playing 999 games with the philadelphia flyers and then his thousandth game is like with colorado are you kidding they're stupid they'd have a huge ceremony all the players would be so happy for him all his new teammates yeah it's not like yeah it's not like 987 or like you know nine it's it's he's at nine 99 games. It's got to wait one more game whether you're like or not. He's got to take the one shift and then skate off like Kessel did for his kid and then get traded mid-game. I think it'll be the best outcome. He has been traded to the Colorado

Appalach. Dom, stop causing shit on Twitter. You know, thank you because then you come on with us and we talk about it and it's always fun. Thanks for doing this. Yeah, no problem. Thanks for having me. Again, the president of the Jonathan Hubertoe and Alan Walsh fan clubs now, two different fan clubs. He is the president of Dom Lushishin, joining us on the Wednesday roundtable. After the break, we're going to get to your Twitter responses to something we're going to talk about. Dom loves to rip on these guys too. Referees in the NHL. Okay, guys, since the first penalty was ever called in a hockey game, people have been bitching and moaning about referees. You're never going to hear two fan bases say, oh, that was a really good

call. Yes, no, I agree. Our guy did this and your guy fell. And we should get a penalty. But this year feels really, really different to me. The voices that are complaining are more recognizable. They're louder. They're really almost calling for some change. And just in case people don't know what I'm talking about, we saw a few different instances where calls,

and I don't want to say missed because they couldn't have been missed. They happened to the guy with the puck. They were decided on to not be called. Austin Matthews in overtime gets his stick held by Chickren. Two seconds later, the puck's in the back of the net, courtesy of Chickren. We saw Zach Hyman, minute left in a game, water-skied on by Alexander Ovechkin, no call. 0.8 seconds left, the puck's in the back of the net. We saw Gabriel Landisg start a press conference by saying,

in 11 years, I've never sat and talked about referees in a press conference ever. Then goes on to criticize the referees saying that, now certain players are not getting calls because of who they are. Like I said, this one feels different to me. Referees are not held accountable. And the other thing is, we're seeing referees try to put the whistle away in an effort to not decide the game. But by putting the whistle away, guess what they're doing? They're deciding the damn game.

Are you guys with me on the referee complaining just feels like this could be the beginning of a turning point, Jesse? You were nodding your head. That's why I'm going to you first. Yeah. I think it definitely, I mean, it feels like the wave of momentum, like you said, the type of players who are speaking out, not just how many, but the names of the players that are speaking out. It feels like it's coming. I feel like the answer is to have them call the game the way it's supposed to be called. And I think that will piss pretty much everyone off for like the beginning of that. Like, it's going to take a while because the players commit too many penalties, to be honest. Like, the players are breaking the rules too often in a game. And that's why there's issues in

refereeing because they have to decide which ones to call and which ones not to because there are too many. And if we call them the whole time, there'd be no even strength play. So I think you have to start calling them all. And then eventually the players will stop committing all those penalties. But it's going to be rough early if that's what you do. What do you think, Sarah? Yeah. I think that's kind of the tradeoff that people aren't fully considering. But at the same time, when I reported after Red Rendamore got fined $25,000 earlier this season, that there was a memo sent out that you need to stop complaining about the refs. I think that pissed a lot of people off.

And maybe that's why we're hearing more about it too, because they said, you can't criticize us at all. And it's like, okay, then I'm going to criticize you harder and take that penalty. Or players are going to do that because it just was for coaches and GM. So it's kind of like we're seeing a lot more of people standing up against that. I don't think they like that rule. And I totally understand that. For as long as I can remember, I hate complaining about referees.

And I hate complaining about missed calls because we get to watch. from 75 different angles in slow motion and then go, oh, why didn't he call that? But like I said earlier, these aren't missed calls. These are choices. And I think these are choices based on a very old school way of thinking. I think these are choices made on, well, it's the last two minutes of a game. You've got to pretty much kill someone to get a penalty.

Well, you know, it's overtime. I want to let them play. And I do believe there is an element of game management in refereeing where, okay, you know what, this game's getting chippy. let's give some penalties to calm everything down. But I don't believe in makeup calls. I don't care if a team got five penalties in a row. I don't think that automatically means the other team should get a penalty.

I think that when a player has the puck, you can't ever say, well, I miss that call. He's got the puck. You got two referees out there. I think the old school way that we all kind of enjoyed watching this game for so long is pivoting. And I'm wondering, guys, you both cover games on a regular basis. Would you love to be able to go, okay, guys, we're speaking to this player, this player, and then Wes McCauley's coming out

to explain that penalty in the third period? Yeah, I'd love that, but at the same time, it's kind of like an existential question where the reps can only be as good as the league allows them. And I just remember that memo from Colin Campbell that said, like, remember his son and like that whole situation with he wants them to manage the game more. It's like they can only do what their boss tells them to do,

so I feel like it needs to be a structural fix, you know? Yeah, I completely agree. I don't think, I think the way it's currently constructed in that they are expected to make some calls and not make other calls is the issue. It's not the individual decision making of the referee because if you leave that up to them, like, there are going to be calls that half the people agree with and half the people don't. There's going to be controversy. I think I agree with Sarah. It needs to be a structural, like big picture.

overhaul of the way they call games. Like, you are calling this penalty regardless of the situation, regardless of the player, regardless of the score. And like I said, everyone wants that right now. I think if we actually got that, we would hate it. We would hate it. We would be like, this is miserable. But you have to go.

Like, I feel like that's the first step. And then the players have to realize, oh, shit. Every time I touch this guy's hand, I'm getting a penalty. Stop doing that. And then I think they would stop committing the penalties. And then it would. And then overall, the in-prone. would be much better.

I think your idea, Jesse, works in theory. I don't think it would work in practice because I think eventually, just like every other quote unquote crackdown, it slowly gets back to the old way. Yeah. We had a crackdown on interference and obstruction. And for two years, it felt like if you looked at a guy as he's coming through the neutral zone, you got called. And it slowly kind of went back.

Everything just slowly goes back to that. Remember the faceoff dot? The face off. It was insufferable. Like, I couldn't watch the game. Drop the damn puck. I scream at the rest. Drop it.

Yeah. So, and I know they tried that. I think they tried doing that, jessian again, I agree with you in principle. Hey, if you, it's kind of like speeding.

If you tell someone they're going one mile over the speed limit and they're going to get a ticket from now on, they should essentially all start going to the speed limit. It ain't going to happen. So I just, I just look at this as, like I said,

I always never understood why anyone would want to be a referee. Because if you do your job perfectly, no one says a damn thing. But if you make one little mistake, everyone's talking about you on radio shows, podcasts, newspapers, everything. But this one just feels like something's got to be done because games

are being decided. I know a referee doesn't want to make a bad call with 30 seconds left that ends up being wrong, but by not calling it, they're just affecting the game too much now. I do think the best, like, realistic thing you can do to fix this, though, is the thing Brindamore brought up to Sarah, like a while back

about having a official that has an earpiece in that can talk to all the officials on the ice that's watching the game from all these camera angles that we have. You mention how easy it is for us to see. Have one guy who's watching all that that can just talk to them and be like, hey, yeah, he tripped him. Hey, he didn't actually trip him.

It looked like he did, but he didn't. I can see it right here. I think that is the most practical way to make the biggest improvement immediately. Yeah, the NHL didn't like that one. They find him for that when it's like, that's the logical answer. And it just, that's why I'm hesitant to go after certain refs when it's like it's a, that issue they won't even hear out. But it's so funny that they're so hesitant

to make any changes and this is the league that went from one to two referees. I mean, there was a point where there was one referee and they made such a huge change to officiating. And now that there seems like there is a problem because I think, I also think we do have to remember. They're human

beings, guys. And I think sometimes the lack of a call isn't them saying, well, that's Nazan Khadri. I'm not making that call. The lack of a call is we're in overtime. If I make this call and I'm wrong, I'm going to be the goat in this whole thing. They're human beings. We can't, they're not machines.

This isn't like, you know, there's no black and whiteness to this. So anyways, we put this out on Twitter. Sarah, I know you said we're getting some responses. Fill us in on what we were getting here. Yeah, a lot of them is what Jesse and Rod were saying. Little loaf boy with a little piece of bread next to his name said, add more referees, but not on the ice. video reps are watching from multiple angles in real time to help get calls correct.

And then he responded to his own tweet. The NHL saw this tweet and promptly find her out Brindamore at $25,000. It does seem, yeah, that seems like the most logical answer to this, right? Someone said, Ben Jeff said, I would simply have them stop screwing over my team, am I right? Well, everybody loves to blame the reps. The only problem is, okay, let's use the Matthews. example in overtime. His stick is held for a good three seconds. So are you guys saying that that guy pushes a button, stops the game and says there was a penalty? Or the goal that's called back.

No, I think, I think have that person have the same ability to stop play as the other referee does. He hits a button. The referee gets a buzz on his watch, whatever it is, holds his hand up. We've got a delayed penalty. He doesn't even know what it is. He just tells him what team it's on. We have a delayed penalty. And then once the thing happens, he can tell him, yeah, this guy held a stick. It's a penalty. It hasn't been that long that we've had HD TV and a billion slow-mo replays. We didn't know the refs suck. Like, the refs have always sucked because it's an impossible job.

And it's not their fault. It's not their fault. It's an impossible job. Everyone's moving too fast. There's too much going on for them to see all of it. We used to not be able to see it either because our TV broadcast was crap because our cameras were crap. Now they're not. We see everything and suddenly we're like, man, the refs are terrible.

It's like, no, it's the same that's been going on this whole time. Yeah. Yeah. The rest sucks. Mike in Portland says NBA style or MLB style postgame explanations by officials like we were talking about. Let us understand rather than speculate on calls. I do think that would be helpful. And I do think when the other leagues have it, we deserve it too.

Like I'd love to pick someone's brain even to just have more sympathy for them and what they're, how difficult the job is. And it is. Like I said, it's so easy for us to say, how'd you miss that call? But like Jesse, we're talking about like the fastest game on Earth. here and they have one flash at it. And those aren't the calls I'm talking about. I want to be very clear on that. I'm not talking about a call that's so quick that you didn't see it. I'm talking about the fear to blow the whistle. And that's what we're seeing. We're seeing non calls. We're not seeing bad calls. We're seeing non calls that are flat out affecting hockey games. Any more there before we

go? Here's something. Yeah, here's something really interesting from Sinban Vegas. With players, coaches, GMs, basically everyone but refs, they're constantly younger and or better people pushing to take the jobs. But with reps, I mean, I disagree with GMs, but with reps, once they get to the NHL, they're there until they decide to give it up, treat them like everyone else, perform, be replaced. I think this is something I want to bring up. There's a nationwide, international shortage of refs right now because people don't want to do the job and be abused the way that they are. So maybe we need to treat them better to get better quality refs. I agree with all those points, though, that younger, better, like, it should be, like, just like when a younger

player comes up and he's faster and better at this than this player is, he takes his job. I think it could absolutely be the same way with the ref. And on the, like, interview aspect, like, I think the NHL thinks they're protecting the refs by not letting them speak, but I actually think they're hurting them. I think they're doing them a disservice. We hear Gabriel Landisog, we see his face, get up there and explain why he thinks that ref is wrong. And we all immediately take his side because he's a human and we can hear him explaining it. And we're like, yeah, that makes total sense. Like, I get why he's mad. And then the ref has no ability to respond and there's no humanizing of them. And we just see them as this faceless person in a shirt and screw that guy.

Whereas if they came up there and explained their thoughts after every call, I think a lot more people would see their side of things. And it would shift the overall just how we view them. So true. I think Tim Peel's Twitter has helped a lot in me humanizing refs. Like now that he's done, he's been tweeting a lot. And it's like very interesting. Here's my counterpoints of what you guys are saying about the younger refs pushing out the older guys. I feel that then that would transfer the, I don't want to call it abuse, but, you know, players know they can get away with things more with a younger ref versus somebody who's been around the game for a long time. And whether we like it or not, there is an element of game management here, guys.

There is an element of, let's say somebody's pushing the envelope. We've seen all those videos where refs are miced up. they skate to the bench, they go, hey, Jesse, one more time, and I'm giving you, you're going to the box. And if Jesse goes out and does it one more time, we may look at that call and say, are you kidding me? That was barely a tap. Well, I gave them four warnings before doing this.

There's an element to that. And young referees, I've heard interviews before say the hardest part is you are still a little bit in awe. You are suddenly going from, you know, doing a Guelphstorm game in the OHL to Cindy Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin going head. to head. You know what I mean? So I think there are issues with everything, but this one just feels different. I'm really curious to see how this is going to go. Guys, the next time we talk, the trade deadline will have come and gone. What are you guys working on between now and next week's show?

I'm assuming a lot of that. Yeah, I'm trying to get injury updates right now. It is, I feel like a mash unit here in Vegas. I'm trying to find out when all these players, because I think over the next week, the Golden Knights have some decisions to make, whether they're going to be buyers or seller. So I'm trying to figure out some injury updates and figure out what the hell this team's going to do below 50% playoff percentage. So lots of drama in Vegas for me to write on. Sarah? Yeah, a lot of trade deadline stuff. Will they won't meet? Will they won't they? Coked in the Emmys. I got one day I'll learn I pronounce that. It just doesn't work. But his contract might be coming up, might be not. There's so many caveats with that. So just trying to unpack all that answering some of your who says no questions. And, and trying not to screw up too much. And we will unpack all of that next Wednesday, guys. Thanks, as always for a great show.

And I want to let everybody else know what we've got coming up on some other great coverage on the athletic hockey show. Bruce Boudreau, head coach of the Vancouver Canucks, joins Farhan, Lulji and Thomas Dran's on the Vancast. And remember, for us, guys, it's pretty simple. Follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Don't forget to leave us a rating and a review. You can subscribe to the Athletic Audio Plus

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for six months when you visit theathletic.com slash hockey show. The athletic hockey show returns Thursday with Ian Mendez and down goes brown for Sarah and Jesse. I'm Rob. Talk to you next week.