The Athletic Hockey Show - Offseason Bizarro-meter rankings, Mikael Backlund signs 2-year extension and becomes Flames captain

Episode Date: September 28, 2023

Ian and Sean dive into the offseason Bizarro-meter rankings, and everyone else playing for second place behind the Columbus Blue Jackets. Also, news out of Calgary of Mikael Baklund becoming the next Flames captain, after re-signing for only two years. Next, Josh Bailey wears an A in a preseason game while on a PTO with the Ottawa Senators. Then, in the mailbag, a listener wonders about the expectations for the Red Wings this season, a deep dive on Bob MacMillan, and to wrap up, a look back at an important rule change in "This Week in Hockey History".Have a question for the show? Email [e-mail] or leave a VM: [phone]!Subscribe to The Athletic Hockey Show on YouTube: http://youtube.com/@theathletichockeyshowYou’ll be amazed at what you can do with Grammarly. Go to grammarly.com/GO to download for FREE today.Head to factormeals.com/nhlshow50 and use code nhlshow50 to get 50% off. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Hockey Show. We're back for a Thursday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. It is Ian Mendez, Sean McIndoo, with you here as we're in the heart of training camp, kind of one week into training camp, less than two weeks to go to the start of the regular season. And it was time, as you said, this week, Sean, to dust out and bust out the old Bizarro meeting, Bizarro meter rankings, right? Let's talk about, yeah. Favorite pieces of the year to write

because it's for a couple of reasons. I have some fun with it, obviously. And it's also, it is a good refresher on what happened in the off season. It's a good refresher for me because I sit down to write it And obviously I'm going through each and every team and everything they did. And there are times where I'm like, oh, right, that guy is over there now, or they did this, or they made this move.

And then I put it out there. And for a lot of readers, it's a refresher. I was surprised how much feedback I got from people who read that piece who say, look, man, I tune out in the offseason. I haven't seen any of this stuff. So this is what gets me back into figuring out exactly. what's been going on. Like, you know, you and me and I think a big chunk of fans out there, we obsess on it, right? Like, we get right in there and every move, oh, who's going to do what, who's going to make what move? No, for a lot of fans, they tag out, they tag back in September.

Maybe that's the way to do it too. Yeah. Okay. I got to ask because I think people could probably hear that in the background. Yeah. Do you have a home phone still? I do. And I have no idea who's calling that because I don't get phone calls. I don't get phone calls. So now I'm having it and I think anyone who has the home phone, I now have that nervous moment where the home phone just rang and now I got to wait and see if the cell phone rings. Because if the cell phone rings, that means it's actually, you know, it's maybe the kid's school or it's something like that important. But if that doesn't go, I have no idea. I don't know who's calling me. And by the way, if you have my number, don't ever call me. Yeah, ever. Don't ever. Text? Yeah.

email or just, you know what, just it's probably not that important. There's nothing I can help you with. Yeah. Have you another thing where you text somebody and then you get a notification back like, you know, 30 seconds later? You have sent text to landline and you're like, oh, geez. You're like, oh, no. Have you ever gotten one?

Well, you mean, obviously you don't get them because you don't have a landline. We don't have a line line. It's the most awkward thing that you get this like automated message, this robot voicing, you've just received a text message. and then it tries to read to you in its little AI voice. It's absolutely terrible. Yeah. Yeah.

I don't know why I have that thing. And I don't know why I didn't unplug it, which I'm supposed to do. But when it went off, I was like, ah, the producer, producer Danielle will edit that out. And I'm sure Ian won't call me on it. So, yeah. No, no. You know what? You having a home phone, I think that that pushes you to the top of the bizarro

Bizarro rankings amongst writers. The old guy rankings is I think what it does. Okay. So after reading, and on Wednesday you did... Speaking of phones. Yeah, exactly. There's your segue. Yeah, exactly.

This is on Wednesday you did the Western Conference. Thursday, you do Columbus, and it was like Columbus wins the Bazaaro meter rankings by a good distance, thanks to the phone of them. Congratulations to Blue Jackets fans who have finally seen their team win something. for the first time in 23 years. Was there anybody else that came close?

Like, okay, so Columbus is number one, most bizarre offseason happens. Oh, listen, your coach, you hire a controversial coach and then part ways with him before he even takes over a training camp. You win, no questions asked. Yep. What was the race like for number two?

It was the interesting thing. And by the way, people don't read the piece or if they're not familiar with it, this is my annual attempt to rank the strangest off seasons. Strangest. Not best, not worse, not busiest, or who did what? It's, it's who surprised us? Who did those, you know, those strange offseason stories or you go, what the heck is going on over there? I'm trying to rank up that. And the thing that I found this year, and I didn't realize this until I sat down to write the piece,

most of the weirdness was in the east this year. There were a few things out west. But when I wrote the Western piece, and there were a few comments on the piece that said this where people are like, man, this feels like a really normal offseason. Maybe NHL teams are learning. Maybe NHL teams are starting to grow up a little bit. No, it was just that the weirdness was out east.

So I would say the contenders, I'm pretty sure, the second highest score. was the Toronto Maple Leafs for the whole Kyle Dubas mess. That, that, you know, and that was back at the very start of the offseason. You know, it's not as fresh certainly as the Babcock stuff. But that was a very weird situation. Not that they moved on from a GM, but the fact that Brendan Shanahan's press conference where he explained the thinking that basically was, we spent all year evaluating,

trying to figure out if we wanted to keep Kyle Dubas, we decided we'd did want to keep Kyle Dubas. We told Kyle Dubas we want him to stay. He told us he wanted to stay, and now he's not the GM anymore. And to this day, I don't fully understand what happened. And in fact, I went back and I read the piece that I wrote that day. And in that piece, I wrote, there's got to be something here we're not privy to yet, but it'll come out. And this will all make more sense down the road. And we're down the road now, and it still doesn't make any more sense to me. So the Leafs, and then the fact that that ends up being the only major change that the

Leafs make. They keep everybody else run it back yet again. That was a very, very strange offseason. Other teams that did well, Pittsburgh, you know, the other half of the Dubas equation. And I love how I think you wrote, you know, Dubas put out the call, like I'm looking for a GM. We knew where that was. Nobody bought it. Everybody's like, you're going to pick yourself.

And no, no, no, I'm going to. I'm going to scour. I'm going to search the world and find the best candidate. Yeah, actually, it's going to be me. I'm going to do it. The other Pennsylvania team was kind of up there a little bit for you, right? In the flyers? Philadelphia was up there for a few reasons. They, you know, you had the first offseason to Danny Breyer. And he made some moves to his credit. He wasn't, you know, he, he didn't sit back. He took some swings. They end up being the team that goes out and gets Matt May Mitchcove, which I think will pay off for them. They had a couple of weird moments that you may have missed if you don't pay attention to the offseason. One was that

that weird situation where somebody on their social media team got caught on a hot mic making fun of a reporter. So they had to put out an apology about that. And as I said in the piece, that would normally be the strangest official statement that gets put out by a team is when you have to apologize for your social media person ripping on a reporter. But even stranger than that, remember at the very beginning of the off season? They did this like this weird rebranding where they're like, yeah, we're not orange anymore. Now we're orange. And it was like the exact same shade of orange and we're not like, okay.

And they put out that weird statement about Flyers hockey. We're going to work our ass off or something. Was that the statement? Yeah, they're dry. I got them to swear again, guys. I did it. That's right. I got them.

Yeah, that's right. It was like, you know, this very strange, like official statement comes out from the team, which means, I mean, as you know, probably 18 different people had to see it and sign off on it. And, you know, they're like, no, no, we got to work blue on this one. So there was that one. And as I said, maybe the strangest thing of the Flyers off season, they look like they have a plan. They look like they're actually executing on a plan and have some confidence. They have, you know, they've got a path forward.

That's a little bit weird. The Flyers are usually one of those teams he can count on for the comic relief. But they actually finally seem like they're heading in the right direction. So that was good. Two other teams that did score high that I'll mention. First of all, the Seattle Cracken. And if you know what I mean when I say book talk. Yeah.

If you understand what that is a reference to and what that controversy was, then good for you, I guess. If you don't understand probably better for you, I don't fully understand it. And as I said in the – I was very explicit. This is not an invitation for someone to explain it to me. I know as much as I wanted – I know it involved books. It involved players. It involved, like, erotic literature. That's all I need to know.

All I know is as soon as I have to write the word erotic, you're a minimum seven on the on the Bizarro meter scale. So they were up there pretty much exclusively for that. And then the other one was the Nashville Predators. And I feel like maybe we're not talking as much as we could be about the fact that they went from the single most experienced GM in the history of the league in David Poil, a guy who has been a GM. for almost four decades. Yeah. And has won more games than NGM. And they went from him stepping down, retiring,

and they had a succession plan, but the succession plan was Barry Trots, a guy with absolutely zero front office experience. Now, a guy who's been around the league a lot, been around that organization, great hockey mind. I mean, this isn't, you know, they're not pulling in some random guy.

out of nowhere. But it's not common to see a guy who is a head coach. And we all spent, I remember last summer, we spent the summer, where's Barry Trott's going to wind up? And then, you know, hey, okay, maybe he's going to take a year off, and this will be the year of Barry Trots. And no, he's not behind the bench. He's a GM with virtually no experience on that job

and going in and making some big moves. the buyout of Matthew Shane, the trade of Ryan Johansson, you know, was basically a giveaway changing the culture, I guess you could say of that team, very interesting. Again, when I say bizarre, I'm not saying bad. I'm not saying these weren't the right moves or they couldn't work out. But sort of a strange situation where, I mean, you know, maybe Nashville being a smaller market, it didn't, or the fact that Trots is just so respected as a hockey guy. But I mean, you imagine Toronto or Chicago or Montreal or something going from all the experience in the world to basically a rookie at the job.

And then he starts making weird moves. Hey, that's pretty strange offseason in my mind. Yeah, I'm really curious about Nashville as a team, right? Because, you know, I think Ryan O'Reilly is an interesting signing. I think when you have UC Saros, you give a chance, if he's healthy, you give yourself a chance to win. their defense, it's an older group, obviously led by Roman Yose. I feel like if everything goes well for Nashville, I could see them slipping into a wildcard spot.

Yeah. But I also feel like everything could age terribly. All of a sudden, everybody is, you know, the Shenz and the O'Reilly's and whatever. They look like they're in their 30s and all of a sudden you're a lottery team. Like I get, they're one of the most interesting, even saying, Louis, like St. Louis and Nashville to me are like the teams. I'm like, man, this thing could go either way. Like I could, I totally see the upside. Don't get me wrong. But boy, I don't know where this is going with either of them. Yeah. And, you know, Nashville is a team that they just missed last year. They were in the mix right up to the very end on that. And when you have one of the best goalies in the world, and I think you could make a pretty good argument, they've got the best goalie in that conference. you've got a puncher's chance for sure. But you're right, you could see it all going bad.

You don't even really have to squint that hard to figure out how that could go. And then you look at St. Louis, which was, I think what was maybe the strangest about St. Louis was, and there's a few teams that fit into this category, the moves that they didn't make, that you looked going into the offseason and you kind of went, man, St. Louis has been contenders. least playoff spot contenders for years and years, and then it just all falls apart last year. And you're looking at this going, okay, Doug Armstrong isn't going to let this just sit. It's either time to take the big step back and do the rebuild, or you're going to reload. But they're going to do something.

They're going to make some moves. And you didn't really see it. I mean, they did a few things. Every team does a few things. But they didn't redefine themselves the way that maybe you thought they were. And the two other teams that I think fall into that category, maybe even in more obviously, are two Canadian teams at West, Calgary and Winnipeg,

where you went into the offseason going, watch these two teams because both of these teams felt like they were in disarray. They felt like they were breaking apart at the seams a little bit. And, okay, change has got to come. And you saw it in Calgary where, I mean, it almost felt like there was a mutiny going on where the players didn't want to be there. And we get the change at behind the bench, Daryl Sutter gone.

You get the change at GM with Craig Conray coming in for Bradger Living. But the big player moves don't really end up happening. And the Sutter situation maybe is the answer to that. You say that the problem there was the coach. He's gone. Now the players are ready to sort of give another opportunity. But what's interesting to me is Craig Conrace said at the beginning of the year, look, I'm not going to wind up in the situation we were in before where we've got players going

in the last year of the deal, the Johnny Goodrow scenario. We can't let that happen. So you looked at the guys that they needed to resign. You thought, okay, there's got there going to be some trades, some big contracts, something's going to happen. And it hasn't really yet. Winnipeg. Same thing.

That looked like a team where certainly Mark Scheifley and Connor Hellebe. You thought, okay, one, if not both of those guys are going to get moved. Those will be big trades. again, not really happening to the point where now you look at Connor Hellebrook, to me, he's one of the most interesting players in the league this year because he is going into the final year of his deal, doesn't seem especially interested in staying in Winnipeg, seems happy enough to play out the contract with the Jets, but doesn't seem to have a huge amount of interest in sticking around,

especially going through what could be a quasi-rebuild. He's at the stage in his career. he wants to go and be a contender somewhere. Look at the goaltending market. What's he going to get? What's he going to get either from Winnipeg, from a team that trades for him at some point in the season or in free agency next year? Is he going to get the Vasilevsky-style contract?

Do we still do those for goalies? Is it going to get something less? It's going to be very interesting to see. But again, you kind of felt like Winnipeg was going to have to, you know, to use a phrase that I like to use sometimes. They were going to have to shoot or get off the point. and they didn't really do either. And so you're still kind of waiting.

Again, strange, not necessarily bad. Sometimes, sometimes, you know, calm hand at the wheel is the right approach. But if I had told you that neither Calgary or Winnipeg made major roster changes, if I'd said that to you back in June, it would have seemed very strange to you. Yeah. Shoot or get off the point. The family-friendly hockey version of another phrase. But we don't swear on this show.

We don't swear on this. Unless we're quoting directly from Snoop Dog or the Philadelphia Flyers. Exactly. That's the only time. We swear. You talk about Calgary. They had some guys to get done. And they did get one done on Wednesday.

Michael Backland gets a two-year deal. And he also gets the captaincy. Now, look, he's an older guy, right? He's in his mid-30s, whole career in Calgary. I'm trying to think, though, has anybody ever gotten the captaincy on a two-year extent? Like, you know, we're giving you a two-year extension and you're the captain. Usually oftentimes you see like, hey, we're giving this guy a five-year extension and he's going to be the captain.

I think it's the right choice. Does it not feel like to you a little bit like we've moved away from the era of like shorter term captains? Like there used to be not to go all old guy on everyone, but it used to be barely common. Not to go all home phone. Not to go all home phone on people. Exactly. Yeah. It used to be that you would, it wasn't rare to see a team pick a guy's captain. And you knew he was going to wear the sea for one year, two years. Maybe there were young kids coming along the way. Maybe there was, you know, somebody else that you were waiting for them to establish themselves. And that was fine. And I think these days you see much more often teams just going without the captain, just saying, you know, we're not there yet. So we're just not going to name anybody. But, you know, it wasn't that rare to have like the veteran guy. And, you know, we've talked before about having the. depth guy as the captain and that's not really the case here with Backland, but I don't, it does feel a little bit unusual in this, this modern sense where it feels like every team, you name a

captain, it's like, that's my guy for the next 10 years. But I don't, I think we all figured that he would likely be the guy if he re-uped, if they could get him, get that commitment, ended up getting it, not, you know, short-term deal, but inappropriate one. And yeah, I, you know, I have no issue with it. But it does feel a little unusual, only in that today context where everybody's looking for the long-term fit. Okay. Tell me then, is this weird to you? And maybe this could, you could have snuck this into your bizarro meter ratings. Ottawa played Montreal Wednesday night in a preseason game. Josh Bailey spent his entire career with the Islanders. on a PTO in Ottawa,

meaning he's here on a professional tryout. And they gave him an A, like an alternate captain on his jersey. And he's a PTO. Now, the Ottawa iced a pretty HLE lineup, we'll call it. But you're given a guy,

like, to me, I read into that, like, I kind of feel like you're going to be signed here at some point. Yeah. And first of all, shout out to everybody who, like me this morning, is just finding out that Josh Bailey is with the Ottawa senators. I'm breaking.

Had no idea. Because he's on a PTO. Yeah. That's why. And yeah, maybe at the very least, it's an indication that this is a real tryout. We all know that the way that this works is a lot of teams. If fans don't know, teams are required to dress a certain number. of experienced NHLers for...

It's eight, eight, I think is the number for a preseason game. Yeah, and, and, you know, the reason for that is, as any season ticket holders out there, well know, you're selling tickets to these games. You're forcing people in a lot of cases to buy tickets to these games. At the very least, you don't want people showing up

and seeing 20 no names out there. So they want at least a few veterans in the lineup. And the way that a lot of teams get around this they sign guys to PTO is that they really have very little intention of offering a roster spot to, but those guys count and they let you get to that eight player minimum. Maybe that's not the case in Ottawa. Maybe they're actually looking at Josh Bailey as a potential option. It, you know, maybe it's also just a nice gesture to say to someone like, hey, part of the reason,

maybe especially a young team like Ottawa brings a guy like this in is because you want the young guys to see, you know, see a veteran, see what he does, see the work that he puts into it, see the way that he approaches, preparing for the games, you know, gives him a chance to, you know, to sit with some of the younger guys. And, you know, maybe they can learn a little from it. Maybe it's just, you know, kind of your way of saying, hey, thanks, or your way of highlighting, saying, hey, man, this is a guy that we're putting some stock in his experience. Or, as you say, maybe it is a tip-off that this is, there's more to this. But, I mean, you're the senators guy.

Is there a roster spot available for Josh Bailey on this team? I mean, right now, they're pinched on the cap. They don't have the money for Shane Pinto. So how are you shoehorning Josh Bailey in, too? That's the part I don't understand. You're going to have to clean out. You talk about bizarre. The Ottawa senators are up against the cap.

Okay, but you know what? There's a significant caveat to that, which is, yeah, okay, they're up against the cap. But five million of that is to guys who aren't playing for them this year. Bobby Ryan, Colin White, Mike Delzado, Matt Murray. Like, they kind of put themselves into this spot. And I feel like a lot of Ottawa fans maybe don't understand that. They think, oh, we're up, we're finally spending the cap. And now we just don't have room for Shane Pinto.

It's like, well, hang on a second. you should have had room for Shane Pinto. And you didn't because some of the previous, at some point when you kick the can down the road, you have nowhere else to kick it. And that's where they're at right now. So I don't know where you find the room for Bailey. But it just feels like an NFL situation, right?

Like we're both football fans. And you're always used to hearing about dead money in the NFL. And, you know, wow, they just got to eat the dead money this year. And then they'll have cap space. Yeah. But I got to say, like a lot of teams you look at, them. And if you say up against the cap, it's bad management. And you know, you've certainly highlighted some of the decisions they've made. I just, if anything, if I'm a senator's fan,

I don't like that there's dead money. I don't like that they're in this pinch. And it may affect their ability to get guys signed. But I do like that we're up against the cap now instead of having 20 million in cap space just sitting there. Or it's, or Marion Gabburic sitting in the, you know, on LTIR making seven million just to get us up to the floor. You know, new. way to do in business in Ottawa of maybe actually spending some money. It's not the worst thing in the world. Yeah. So, again, we'll see what happens with Bailey.

I just thought him wearing an A seemed to be a little bit of a window. Like, there was other guys that could have, you know, Eric Brandstrom has played for Ottawa for a number of years. He could have worn the A yesterday. He did it. They gave it to Bailey. So anyway, that's just. Is it maybe assigned to some of those players that, you know, we haven't seen enough

from you guys. And maybe, and this is me putting on my, you know, my 200 hockey men hat of, you know, but is this your way of sending the, hey, guys, nothing's going to be given. Nothing's just going to be handed just because you've been here for a few years. That is a classic 200 hockey men. That is. That is exactly. And they sit, as they sit around in a table, the 200 of them, they're like, what's,

what's a way we could send a message? Yeah. You're like, let's send messages. Let's call each other's landlines and send messages. Those are the two things that old hockey guys love. You know what we should do? It would be great. You know how the NFL has that ad campaign right now

that the whole season is quote unquote scripted? Yeah. We do it with the 200 hockey men sitting around the table and like they're strategizing about. Yeah. Just these decision making. Old, old guys sitting around talking about. Yeah.

Yeah. And they're taking calls on their landline and just different. fun things we could do with the 200. In fact, I want some feedback from the listeners. I want like the, you know, what are those 200 hockeymen? Like, what are the 10 commandments of the 200 hockeymen? What are, what's going to be on their list of just the classic, classic 200 hockey man? Message sending.

How do you send a message? I always love the backup goalie with the Stanley Cup ring who's going to like come into the locker room. And oh, yeah, that's the guy we need. because that's who, you know, when the going gets tough, that's who the first line center is going to turn to. You know, hey, man, how did you handle this situation the year you won the cup? Well, what I did is I sat on the bench in a baseball cap

and I ate a hot dog during triple overtime. And that seemed to work for me, but I don't know, maybe not so much. Yeah. Oh, bad. I love it. Hey, let's get, we have a ton of emails and a voicemail to get to because we love, you know, one of the things we love about the show is just interacting with our listeners. So like Sean said, we'd love to hear from you.

If you got some of the 10 commandments for the 200 hockey men, we'd love to hear from you, The Athletic Hockey Show at gmail.com is the way to get us, the athletic hockey show at gmail.com. Or leave us a voicemail at 845-4-4-5-8459. That's exactly what Ben from Vancouver, Washington. That's right, not Vancouver, British Columbia, Vancouver, Washington, just down the coast. He's got a question for us about Detroit and expectations for this season. I'm calling, because I'm just curious, what are your guys' expectations for the Red Wings within the next few years?

Me personally, I feel like they can at least compete for a playoff spot this season. It's definitely a wild card. I don't know if they can make the way into the number three or number two stock. but I can see them the next few years being competitive. I was just curious what everyone else's opinion is on that. All right, yeah. Detroit's a really interesting team to me, Sean, because I think, you know, Steve Eisenman has preached patience.

I don't think he has been as sort of maybe a group, even though I know they got the brinket and comfort and they've done some things this summer. I still don't think that the expectation from Detroit fans is like it is in Buffalo and Ottawa, which is kind of, it feels a little bit. playoff or bust for those places. Detroit feels like a little bit more patience there.

I think that they could fight for a playoff spot maybe this year, but I don't know. I think that they're just a mini step behind those other teams. Yeah. And that's what's interesting to me. Because you said, you know, what's the feeling in Detroit? And I'm not sure on that, but I know that if you go outside of those three markets, Detroit, Buffalo, Ottawa,

it really does feel like there's far more excitement for Ottawa and Buffalo right now Buffalo is like the feel good story feels like everyone's rooting for Buffalo to finally get back in Tage Thompson and that entertaining crew of guys that they've got

and then you look at Ottawa and hey the pieces are in place and we're going to find out now what the ceiling is for that team and that that makes Detroit very interesting to me because they've almost been doing this rebuild, maybe not longer, but they've been doing the classic rebuild longer than I would say either one of those two teams. Even though Buffalo hasn't been in the playoffs forever, Ottawa's had a long drought. It took Buffalo and Ottawa a little while to sort of find their footing in the plan.

And Detroit's been on that path. Obviously they bring in Steve Iserman, the hometown hero comes back, and he's going to get all the patience in the world. and he's done a lot of good things. And yet the results haven't been there. And this year they go out and they make arguably the biggest move, the biggest trade of the Eisenman era to get to brink it. And it's a situation where it feels like there should be some excitement and some optimism. And hey, we've got the young team.

We've had two busy off-season in a row as far as bringing in the veterans and adding the pieces. and yet when you look around and we're getting into prediction season, we're getting into season preview time, man, the Red Wing show up seventh in an awful lot of Atlantic Division previews right now, don't they? Yeah. It feels like we've got those four playoff teams in the Atlantic in some order or the other.

You've got the three up-and-coming teams, and it really feels like there's there's starting to be some separation. Ottawa, Buffalo in some order, then Detroit, and then obviously Montreal at the bottom. I don't know. Is that enough? And that's been, it's been an ongoing discussion. I've seen flare up a few times over the summer with Detroit fans and fans in other markets. Because I think there's a lot of fans outside Detroit who look at this and say, you know,

Eisman hasn't done enough. The results aren't there. At what point do you? you have to get out of seventh place and start making some progress? At what point is it not okay that the Ottawa's and Buffaloes have maybe blown past you on this list? At the same time, I know, and there's some frustration in Detroit too, but I know a lot of Detroit fans would say two things. First of all, we trust the plan.

I mean, look, Steve Iserman is there is not a GM that you're ever going to have that's going to get more patience than Steve Iserman in Detroit. You know, Joe Sacking Colorado was probably the other guy. But Eisenman had actually gone and done it somewhere else, built a cup worthy team somewhere else. He comes into Detroit. It's a perfect situation. The other thing that a lot of Detroit fans will tell you, and this is absolutely true, is, hey, we've had terrible luck in the lottery. So what do you want us to do?

We have never picked in the top three. We picked, you know, we had one absolutely terrible year. We finished dead last. Three teams pass us in the lottery. We get Lucas Raymond fourth overall. Good player, but, you know, not a star. And you or not a franchise. You know, yeah, not a Tim Soussela.

Not, you know, a Tage Thompson or Erasmus Dallon or an Owen Power. I mean, they're sitting there going like, what do you want Steve Isamond to do? Yeah, great, good for the Sabres. They won the lottery twice. Is it Steve Eisenman's fault that Detroit didn't do that? You know, Ottawa a little different where they've kind of hit some home runs on some picks potentially. But, yeah, I think a lot of people would say the problem with the Red Wings right now is you go, okay, in a league where the conventional wisdom right now is elite talent is what drives success, the superstar players, and then you build around them. Where's the superstar talent on Detroit?

if Dylan Larkin is your number one forward, is that good enough in a league where you're going up against Matthew Kachuk and Nikita Kucharov and, you know, and Austin Matthews and guys like that in the division? If, you know, if Alex De Brinkett is number two or number three on your list, is that good enough? And, you know, Mawr, a guy who he felt like he was the guy, even this time a year ago. A lot of us are looking at him going, hey, that could be your next Norris guy. Yep. Took maybe a bit of a step back last year. I don't want to exaggerate, you know, his season last year. But it wasn't the season you hope for if you're thinking this guy's going to be Arkell McCar.

Is there enough there? How high is the ceiling for this team? And to bring it back to the question that our listener asked, is the ceiling a playoff spot this year? Is it competing for a playoff spot? Yeah, I think competing for a playoff. spot is certainly is certainly reasonable for this team. I think if we get to February and the Red Wings are out of the running,

that's going to be a real tough situation. Remember, they competed for a spot last year. They had that two-game series in Ottawa. With Ottawa, yeah, absolutely. Where they came in and got their doors blown off right before the deadline, and then Eisenman basically waved the white flag and started moving guys out, which again, probably the right move. but at some point you just look at it and you say, okay,

how does this team get to the playoffs? You know what? There's probably a path there. How does this team get to being a Stanley Cup contender? Is there enough there without that number one overall pick level of potential young star that build around? And if it's not there, then what do you do? Yeah, my concern on Detroit is definitely on the back end, like where you got like

Sharada is there, right? Olimada, Petri, Gostis Bear, Hall. Like, those are older guys. Like, Sidor is like the one young guy, right? Like, it's not like you've got this, like, like you said, power in Dahlene in Buffalo, Sanderson, Shabbat in Ottawa,

like guys that are sort of in their early 20s and kind of up and coming. Detroit's not like that. And then my other question is the confidence level in the goaltending, where I think people might, people might forget that, you know, James Reimer is backing up there. And Vili Huso is the number one, right? Like, I don't know.

Like, is that good enough to cover up any deficiencies that they might have? I don't know. And you know what? If I'm a Red Wings fan, I'm sitting there going, well, okay, hold on. If we're going to talk about the goaltending, you know, Billy Hussos had some success in the league, not, you know, hasn't been fantastic. He's certainly, you know, he's not in anyone's top 10 list.

But if I'm a Red Wings fan, I'm saying, hey, if, If it's three teams competing for that spot, look at Buffalo, have not done anything to address goaltending. They're basically relying on Devin Levi to be a star, which he very well might be, but that's a big question mark. And then you look at Ottawa where goaltending's been an issue for years and with Corpus Sallow absolutely may still be. That's maybe the one spot where if I'm a Detroit fan, I'm going, yeah, our goaltending might not

be great. but our goal-tending absolutely could be the best of those three. And how much of this league where we sit around and, well, you know, I don't know about the depth here or this here, and it just ends up being whose goalie can stay hot for an entire season. Maybe at the end of this year, we're looking at the standing saying, yeah, Detroit did finish ahead of Buffalo and Ottawa. And part of it is they actually had the better goaltending. And we should have seen that coming. Yeah, I think this is going to be the year.

I think Detroit fans have been super patient. this is the year where I think we start to talk about how patient are they going to be. Because I think Buffalo fans have been the most patient in arguably in all of sports the last decade. And, you know, Ottawa fans have been through the tire fire, all that. Detroit never, it was never a flaming pile of garbage in Detroit

like it was like a dumpster fire in Ottawa and Buffalo. It's almost a slow burn, right? But yeah, even the organization was always well run. Yeah, exactly. So anyway, we'll see, but we appreciate. The thing that blows me away, whenever I look at that Detroit roster, is considering how bad they've been and for how long. And it's, I mean, again, we're not going back 10 years to when they made the playoffs. But this is a team that, you know, for four or five, six years has been.

a bad team. They've got Mo Sider. They've got Lucas Raymond. Raymond's 21, Sider's 22. That's kind of it as far as impact young players on the roster. Dylan Larkin's not young anymore. He's 27. That's not young in the context of the NHL.

Alex DeBrenka, and yes, they have prospects. Every team has prospects. Of course, they're, you know, don't email me and be like, what about this guy who might come up and compete for a spot on the third line? I'm talking guys that you build around. And you compare that to a team like Ottawa where, you know, it feels like there's more of those guys. Buffalo, certainly. More of those guys.

And again, I mean, if you're a Red Wings fan, I know I can hear you right now. You're throwing your hands up going ping pong balls, man. Like, what were we supposed to do? And yeah, I absolutely get that. But what are you supposed to do? I mean, sometimes the balls do bounce that way and okay, now what? And now what, I think is the big question for the Red Wings. into the season. And they're a very interesting team to watch for me for that reason.

Last week, I think we saw the last show we did, we talked about, boy, how many times have you seen a multi-year contract for a player? We had a question, right, from a listener who said, somebody signs a contract, let's say three years times three million. And at the end of the contract, both sides look at each other and say, you know what, that was awesome. Let's do it again. And off the top of our head, we couldn't think of, you know, great examples. And that's why we have you, the listener to help us out. So we got a couple here, both Eric and George pointing out, Sean, that Andre Markov did this multiple times with the Montreal Canadians signing consecutive multi-year deals at a $5.75 million hit. In fact, George points out, he says, what's really

interesting, these deals were all signed by different GMs, Ganey, Gautier, Bergevan, and George says, I think the reason why Markov took the same money over. and over, he negotiated his own deals and didn't have an agent. I love it. I love the copy and paste negotiations. Yeah, according to him. And I mean, I guess we could look and verify this, but Andre Markov, is this right, 10 straight years with the same cap hit in terms of his contracts, four years, three years,

three years, three years. Wow. That's, I mean, that's exactly what we're looking for. And yeah, you're right, the three different GMs, but the same, the same guy doing his doing his own thing. Do you think he had a form letter that he just sent to the new GM? Or they had to just like print their name at the top and then just sign at the bottom and that was

all good. Yeah, absolutely. I've just, I've confirmed it here on cap friendly. First deal signed by Bob Ganey at 5.75. Second deal signed by Pierre Gautier at 5.75. Third one, Mark Bergevan, 5.75. All of them for at least three years in life. exact same each time. Not bad. Not bad at all, yeah. That's exactly what we were looking for. But we also have a Rob who says Boone Jenner in Columbus

has done consecutive contracts of $3.75 million on the cap hit multi-year deals. This time, and it sounds like each time they were four-year deals at $3.75 on Boone Jenner. Yep. That's that. So that's another. good example and we did have a few people on Twitter as well. Thrilled that out there. So yeah, that's not common. Certainly. I think the fact that there's two main examples but not unheard of, which is what we're wondering. So good job by the listeners digging those names up.

Okay, a couple of quick hitters here. This one comes in from Joe via email. Joe Juno or Bob McMillan, who's the worst player to ever get 70 assists? in a single season in the NHL. I'm going to be straight up honest. I don't know anything about Bob McMillan. Yep. I'm that one.

I think he may take the, he may have to take the crown because I'm having to hit up a hockey reference page right now. And I'm looking at this. And I've never heard of Bob McMillan. Is that wrong of me? Wow, what a strange. Yeah, I'm looking at his page.

Okay, so let's dig it. Bob McMillan. I'm assuming he's a forward. He's a forward. He's a right winger. was the 15th overall pick in this 72 amateur draft, just to give you a sense of work coming from. I've never heard it.

He had 100 points. So he's one of those guys. He's drafted by the Rangers, but he's one of those guys who goes to the WHA first. Has OK numbers in the WHA playing for the wonderfully named Minnesota Fighting Saints. Plays one year with the Rangers, ends up in St. Louis. Again, I mean, this couple of 20 years. 20 goals, 50 point guy.

And this is in the 70s. Scoring is way up in the diluted NHL. So, I mean, 50 points is not nothing, but nothing that would suggest superstar. And then he goes from St. Louis to Atlanta, gets traded midway through the 77, 77, 78th season, and suddenly explodes for 31 goals and is a point of game player. in 52 games with the Atlanta Flames. And then in his first full season in Atlanta, he has 37 goals, 71 assists,

108 points, and wins the Lady Bing. I've never heard of this guy. And then settles in for a few more years with the flames. Atlanta moves to Calgary. He has 60 points. And then finishes his career, Colorado, New Jersey, and then Chicago.

Just tell him. Have you ever heard of him? No. No, I had, I have no memory of this guy. And he won the Lady Bing and a hundred points and neither of a, again, it's before our time, but still, I feel like we're pretty good. Here's why, if the name rings a bell, other than that one crazy season, where may come from is he, the flames traded him to Colorado for Lanny McDonald. as part of that deal. There were a couple other names involved.

But that's how the flames get. Because remember, Landy McDonald goes from Toronto to Colorado in that whole, that whole dumpster fire. Was that John Lever? Was that the guy, the main guy in that deal? Yeah.

John Lever. Yeah. So Bob McMillan's in that deal. So, yeah, I mean, hey, worst player to have 70 assists.

You get 100 points in the NHL. I don't care where you're playing, what the era. That's pretty impressive. But, that's a guy that I think a lot of us would not know the name very well. And also, just while we're on the topic, I am not going to sit here and stand for any Joe Juno slander. So can we just put an end to that?

Because Joe Juno was a pretty good player. He wasn't the, man, you talk about weird seasons. Joey Juno has 70 assists as a rookie. in 92-93, as a left-winger sets the all-time NHL record for assists by a left-winger in a season. That's not that obscure a record, right? Now, I'm not talking like, you know, plus-minus in day games or whatever on Tuesdays. This guy has sets the all-time record as a rookie for assist by a left-winger in a league where there have been lots of, you know, left wing is usually the weakest position in the NHL,

but there have been some superstars out there for sure. That record stands all through the 90s and for three decades basically, and finally got broken a couple of seasons ago. Was it Panarin? Panarin broke it. Yeah. Panarring and Johnny Goodro.

Not Johnny Goodro. Hubertow, both passed it. But that record stood for a long, long time. Joey Juno does it as a rookie. And by the way, doesn't get a single rookie of the year vote that year because there was some kid named Timuselani had a slightly better rookie season in 92-93. 70 assists in your rookie season

and you don't even sniff the calder. That's crazy. Yeah, absolutely wild. And also does not ever sniff getting that close to that total again. Yeah. Anyway, you know what, Bob McMillan, I appreciate this email from Joe

because I never knew that I didn't do anything about this guy, ever. I never heard of him. And he won a Lady Bing. So thank you for. He won a Lady Bing and he's the father of Logan McMillan, who was the first round picked by the ducks 15 or 16 years ago, and apparently also served in Parliament. So nice job, Bob McBillan.

This guy was crushing it out there. Good job. Man, okay, well, there you go. Look, we got tons of emails. I'll tell you what, Jeff in Seattle, you have an awesome email about. realignment. Why don't we punt that to, like, I feel like we'll punt that to next week, because I actually think that that's a fun debate we can have. And it's tough, isn't it? Because it's, it's, it, you can see it in, even in this email just to tease it where it's like,

you know, what if we realign, it's like playing whackamol when you try to realign the NHL. Yeah. You're like, everything's perfect. And then you're like, well, what do we do with the avalanche? You're like, as long as I put Columbus in the Pacific division, it works perfectly. You just thought, oh. Always, yeah. There's always the one team somewhere in middle America where you're like, I just don't know what to do with them. Anyway, Jeff, we love that email. We're going to get to it next week.

And, you know, listen, we got other emails. We'll get to them next week. By the way, I love that it's Jeff in Seattle, the Cracken fan. Like, they've been in the league two years. Yeah. And they're already. All right. Okay.

I feel like I've seen enough. I'm going to tell you how this league needs to get reorganized. I love it. Love it from Crackin fans. Yeah. So look, keep those emails coming in, the athletic hockey show at gmail.com. We love it. We'll get to them next week.

I just want to wrap with one little thing about this week in hockey history because it's cool. And again, you know, you and I, you know, Bob McMillan, notwithstanding, we like to think of ourselves as kind of hockey historians and we look back at fun little things. 1929, September 28th, 1929, the NHL announces that we're going to change the rules. and for the first time ever, we are going to permit, we are going to allow forward passing in the offensive zone. And I want our listeners to really think about this for a second. Think about what the game would have been like prior to September 28, 1929, meaning you couldn't pass it forward in the offensive zone.

You'd have to carry the puck or throw it backwards. You couldn't pass it forward. And so they all got together in late September of 1929 and said, what if we change the rules? Yeah. And here's my question. Do you think there were the 1920s equivalent of the 200 hockey men back then going like, we can't do this?

This is a slap in the face with your radical changes. I don't even want to want to. You know what? If you want to see forward passes, go watch basketball. You think there was somebody doing that? 100% there was, right? 100%. People are wondering where this came from.

Let me just, I'm just going to read you the average goals per game. This is per team. When the NHL first launches for the first four years, it's over four goals a game. There's a lot of high scoring. You know, this is where you get like the Joe Malones and guys like that putting up the crazy number. Yeah. Yeah, the first NHL, it wasn't the first game in NHL history.

It was like a 10-9 final, that sort of thing. Yeah. But then it settles in, starts to become more defensive, drops under four goals. drops down to 3.26 goals per game by 19-10-23, then down to 2.66, 2.5, 2.31, 2 goals a game by 1927. This is per team. Two goals a game, then drops to 1.9, and then in 1928-29, 1.46 goals per game per team. So in other words, less than three goals. that boy. You talk about these days. In other words, you're watching a lot of two to one. A lot of two to one.

You talk these days, man, like we just went through the dead puck era, six goals a game, five point five for a while. And I mean, it was just, you know, brain numbingly boring hockey. Imagine half of that. And to their credit, this is back, this back, the NHL's 10 years old at this point. You know, believe it or not, and cover your ears, Gary Betman, because this will blow your mind. The league watches scoring drop and drop and drop and drop.

goes, hey, what if we actually did something? What if we actively did something? What if instead of just talking about, you know, and I'm sure somebody put their hand up and said, what if we moved the offensive face zone dot like a couple of inches over? And somebody else said, what if we made like a minor change to goaltending equipment that we won't even enforce? And then somebody else put their hand up and said, what if we did something actually bold that would actually change the game?

And they did. And scoring doesn't shoot up, certainly. but it goes up significantly and the NHL is on its way to actually being, in fact, yeah, scoring essentially doubles the next year up to a whole three goals a game per team. And we never, thankfully, ever get anywhere down near that 1.46 goals a game. If you've ever looked in the record book, if you're ever like sitting down going, I wonder what the record for lowest goals against average in. a game is or rather in a season, you've probably encountered this where you're like,

why are all these guys I've never heard of from 1927 who had like a 0.87 goals against average? Yeah, that's because there was no forward pass back then in the NHHA. Yeah. Think about that. It's wild to think about it. But anyway, that's your little trip down this week in hockey history. I just want the listeners to imagine what the game would look like today if you couldn't pass it forward in the offensive zone.

This is, again, we've bounced this idea before where when teams are eliminated from the playoffs, both teams, they should have to mess around through. Let's do this one. Let's just, you know, go, hey, Montreal against Arizona, guess what? Yeah. You know, are you interested in watching Montreal and Arizona in late March? No, of course not. You'd have to be crazy.

What if I told you, hey, it's no forward pass night? You're watching that game. I'm 100% glued into that game. Yeah, you're 100% watching that. And boy, how exciting would it be, right? Because think of all those, you know, in the NFL, right? We see it, you know, was that a lateral or was it a forward pass? The Frank White, the Frank Whitechacked, the Dyson.

Dude, imagine every pass in the NHL. We could have replay a review on every single pass to just get it right. That one time, for everything. Cole Cofield. Is that going forward? Yeah, I don't know, man. Let's slam the brakes on this game. The game would take eight hours to play.

Yeah. And it would finish one to nothing. And you'd watch every second of it. Yeah. Let's make this happen. We'd be hooked. All right. We'll leave it there.

This was a lot of fun. Thanks, everybody, for listening to Thursday edition of The Athletic Hockey Show. You got any ideas for rule changes, fun things like that, 200 hockey men commandments, all that stuff. You know what to do. Send us an email, the athletic hockey show at gmail.com, or leave us a voicemail. at 845-4-45-845-8459.