The Athletic Hockey Show - Oilers drag Panthers back to Edmonton for Game 6

Episode Date: June 19, 2024

Sean, Frankie Corrado and Sean look back on game five of the Stanley Cup final, easily the best game to date in the series, Connor McDavid vaulting into the Conn Smythe Trophy conversation, the Panthers failing penalty kill and power-play and the recent struggles of Sergei Bobrovsky. Plus the guys marvel at Matthew Tkachuk's brilliant empty net save, all for not, and if Leon Draisaitl can play through his injuries and come up with an all-time performance in game 6 on Friday night in Edmonton. Plus the Sean's look ahead to the Hall of Fame candidates with the 2024 announcement coming up next Tuesday. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic hockey show. Everybody feels probably exactly the way I do right now. So I'm not feeling deflated. Neither's the hockey team. They're not feeling deflated. A little grumpy. Welcome, welcome, welcome. This is the athletic hockey show.

It's a podcast about travel plans between Edmonton and South Florida. The Florida Panthers are maybe doing it. Sean? They might be. They're halfway. Boy. Yikes. Game 6 back in Edmonton.

It's on Friday night. We're recording this on Wednesday. You have two more days of outstanding off day content to consume. So congratulations to you. Congratulations to all of us for having to try to put some together. It's going to be a fun time. Frankie Carado is here. We, you know, spoiler alert.

We recorded a segment already. It was good stuff, Sean, wasn't it? It was. It was fantastic. And as always, A problem that we continually run into is we record his segment first, and he's so good and he gets so much good stuff that then we have to do the first segment. It sucks. He makes all the good points.

He makes them better than either of us can. Not really a good team player. I got to be honest with you. He kind of hogs all of the, much like Connor McDavid. Like, Connor, you think maybe somebody else might want to get a few points in the Stanley Cup final? Like, really. I think that team mate is what I'm saying. I think that brings us right into what we've learned.

What have we learned, Sean? What have you learned? about Connor McDavid. I learned that Connor McDavid is going to win the Khan Smyth. I think that's become very clear over the last 24 hours. And I was not driving the bus because I wasn't super loud about it, but I did a couple radio hits. I was on in Vancouver with like Sat Shaw and Dan Richo.

And we were talking about this ahead of game five because a fellow whose name escapes me, he writes for ESPN. He was kind of leading the, he was leading the charge on McDiardial. for MVP. It was Greg Wichensky. And I just couldn't get there. I wasn't there after game four. Like regardless of how good McDavid has been, I

still was falling back on the fact that he had one points in the three games that they lost to start the series. Like I like maybe that was short-sighted. It certainly isn't a take that's going to age well. But I thought at minimum it was going to take this game getting to game seven for him

to win it. And even then, you know, maybe, maybe not. I think what we saw from him last night, I think what we saw from him, certainly in game four, is enough to just lock it in because he's in all-time company, Sean. Like, like, you are tapped into that as anybody on the planet.

Whenever I see graphics on ESPN or on whatever, on social, the names that he's in the mix with now, It's not just about beating Gretzky in the assists, in the all-time assists in one postseason thing. That's nice. The performance is across the board is wild. When you were in the mix in a bunch of different categories with Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux,

and you're about to vault past them more than once, I think it's kind of undeniable. And I think it would take, It would take whatever. Like triple over time, 86 save game from Bobrovsky to swing the back winner. I think that's probably it. Yeah. It's, it is.

It's amazing because, I mean, Gretzky and Lemieux are the only ones ahead of them. And it's not even like a lot of these records, you know, including the assists that he put up this year. Like you say, well, it's only these guys ahead of them. But then you look and it's like seven Gretzky seasons and four of me. Like, it's not even. that. It's the very best of the best. And I know that points is the big sexy one and he may or may not get there. It's now within range for him. But the fact that he beat Gretzky's all-time assists record in the playoffs. This is Wayne Gretzky, height of his powers, the greatest

playmaker in history, the guy who famously, if you took every goal he ever scored out of the book, would still be the leading score based on his assist. The greatest setup man that's ever been. playing on the 85 oilers with like six Hall of Famers around him. Playing in the 80s where each team had three defensemen who couldn't skate backwards and the goaltending style was to just stand up and pray. And Connor McDavid has set up more goals than Wayne Gretzky could that year. It's nuts. Let's just say this with the consmite.

If McDavid doesn't win it, it's just not. possible to win the possible to do it in a loss as a skater at least it's only happened once before and it was reggie leach set the all-time goals record in the playoffs that still stands in 76 um so i mean we're we're talking almost 50 years ago at this point it's it's just it's off the table if it's not because because that like i feel like the bobrowski's kind of exited the the conversation So it's down to McDavid-Barckoff. It's not a debate.

It's not. Not anymore. Unless you're giving a trillion bonus points to whoever wins to Stanley Cup. Then it gets close. And I think the way that Edmonton won that game last night, it's not just that they won it. I think the style in which they won it, the totality of their performance as a team in that game,

it couldn't have played out any better for, the McDavid, right? Because he, because he, okay, first off, we see the signature moment, maybe of his career, as Chris Johnson wrote this morning, certainly of, of this playoffs and of this final on the, on the goal by Cory Perry that he's set up. He's got that. That's important. Like, we always say, Mario Lemieux against the North Stars moment. How many times have me and you said this in one way or another when it comes to awards voting, when it comes to, you know, Hall of Fame debates when it comes to this sort of stuff. So much is narrative based and so much of so much of a narrative is based around like do you have the moment, capital T, capital M.

And I think we saw that from him last night. And also, this wasn't a game four style win when you have, you know, Dylan Holloway chipping in and Ryan McLeod getting goals and 15 out of 18 Oilers skaters had. points in the blowout win, right? This was not that. This was one dude on the ice being better than everybody else. So do I regret saying ahead of this game, like, ain't happening, wouldn't do it, don't see how you vote for him? I don't think so. Because I think, I think the fact that that's where I was, 48 hours ago or whatever, is a testament to how unbelievable he was last is that with that single game, he swung me from hard no to hard yes on whatever happens. I don't care.

Like, whatever. That dude can come out and go pointless in game six and he would still have my vote. That's where it is. And after and right. It's one of those games that, you know, we always say, especially this time of year when you got the NHL and the NBA finals happening at the same time. And we always go, hey, man, the NHL is not the NBA. One guy can't go out and single-handedly win a game. maybe a goalie, but other than that,

and you're playing 20, 23 minutes a night. You can't. Nobody can go LeBron and just say, I'm taking this game over. And McDavid was like, all right, challenge accepted. Like,

it's, I get that for some people out there, we're going to be, especially over the next few days, where we got lots of time to fill talking about this, it's going to feel like too much. It's going to feel like, all right,

I'm tired of hearing about Conner McDavid. Too bad. Like, this is, we are witnessing, greatness on a level that I'm not sure. Do you appreciate greatness or don't you? Like I think that's it. So if whatever. And I get it like sometimes we pick a guy this time of year and we go, Matthew Kachuk is the new face of the league. And it's like, yeah, it's because you guys don't

have anything else to talk about. I'm telling you here. Like I, I've written the book on NHL history. Like we've never seen anything like this. It's, it's, you should say that more often. I should say it all the time. I'm going to preface every statement. as the guy who wrote the book on NHL history, I think here's my travel plans. I'm going to get like a hoodie or a t-shirt made with you that said that. Like, I wrote the book on HL history.

Speak of travel. Can I tell you what I learned? What I learned is that the Edmonton Oilers embracing the war cry of let's make our opponents come back to Edmonton is fantastic and apparently effective. Apparently effective. Like that's the threat.

It's not like, hey, let's go out there and, you know, beat their faces in. Let's take it away for you, any of that. It's let's make them come back to Edmond.

Let's make them put their whole families on an airplane to Edmonton again. They did it. This is like surfaced, I think, on a greater level. I think it's like people who aren't media people

or even that big hockey. fans are understanding now that Florida is in one corner of the continent and Edmonton is basically in the other. Shout out to all our American listeners who finally figured out where Edmonton is on a map. Do you know how many times I've explained where Calgary and Edmonton are to people down here? It's constant. I'm like, Calgary, it's kind of above Salt Lake City.

You just go blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, everyone's understanding it now more because I got a text from one of my buddies last night after the game. He's laughing about the idea of having to travel back and forth. because I looked at flights for fun and appears that the best option involves a five and a half hour layover at LAX. Good God.

So you have like, you have unaffiliated, uninterested people being like, hey, how long does it take to fly from, to fly from the Miami area to edit? It's nice and simple, man.

It's three layovers and then there's a ferry and then you're going to hire a Sherpa at some point and that'll get you right there. By the way, can we maybe just, I'm throwing it out there to the Florida Panthers. You guys want to maybe like get to the airport a little early this time so that we don't have to get around the clock. Has the Florida Panthers plane taken off yet like we did before game three?

They arrived only 22 hours. Oh no. Oh no. That feels okay. An extra an extra three hours in the private plane airport. Jeez. So they still got a good night's sleep and everything was fine. All right.

We talked to Frankie about a little of that. We talked to Frankie about a lot of other stuff. He's coming up next. Enjoy. All right. Frank's here. Frankie, have you ever made a play on an empty net that was 25% as wild as the one that we saw from Matthew Kuchak last night?

No, I haven't. Maybe what was even more wild was the fact that Ekman Larson thought that puck had crossed the line. Uh-huh. And he completely gives up on it. And I didn't catch it in real time. And of course, Twitter is undefeated. So you go on Twitter and it's literally everywhere. And I start to think to myself, even if, like, even if you think it may have crossed the line,

don't you think in the Stanley Cup final, you kind of just, I don't know, maybe just hang with McDavid just to make sure the whistle goes or something. Man. The way this series is going, they should have a defenseman on McDavid 24 hours a day. like he should be walking down the hotel hallway to the ice machine and somebody should be there. I've never seen a play so in, I think in any sport, so jaw-droppingly spectacular, that was immediately rendered meaningless. Absolutely.

Like seconds later. Because that was maybe the most phenomenal goal save that there was one earlier this year too. and I can't remember which series, but that also had like the great net cam view. But it was like, oh my God, I can't. Oh, never mind. Well, the fact that the fact that he had premeditated his slide and the stick and everything, like he kind of knew when he was going to basically stop skating and do the big jump and lunge and swing the stick, it was perfectly.

And then his teammate kind of failed him afterwards. I'd be like, I'd be looking around if I was Kach and being like, what the hell is going on around here? Like we still got time. What are you guys doing? I just say, I gotta say, Chuck had a chance to make that save, man.

You need to make that save in that moment. Yeah, yeah, you got to give your team a chance to win ultimately. Should he not the net off? Like, can we, it stayed on.

It stayed on. And I, I've gone back and forth on this. Like, part of me was like, how did it possibly stay on? And then other people are, Like, well, because he didn't try to knock it off.

And I, like, there was 20 seconds left. Mm-hmm. So you knocked the net off. You have a face off in your own zone, but Brofsky has to come back in. Like, it's kind of pointless. I think maybe you do, it's the right play to keep the play alive. I was going to say, I was going to say that not knocking it off kind of detracts from Kach's, like, rat bonafides. but I don't think it does.

I think maybe that speaks to... Well, it just shows... Every other time he did knock it off. You're like, you absolutely are... Or every time he runs over a goalie and he's like, I was out of control. And exactly, earlier in the game, there's a little sequence where he's like stumbling,

but he makes himself stumble a little bit more just to knock himself into Stuart Skinner. And so when you have that kind of precision towards your own net, not only keeping the puck out, but keeping the net on the moorings. It's like, yeah, I don't necessarily buy that you stumbled an extra eight feet and had to hit Stuart's finger. And also, you have like the insane spatial sense in like next level combination of like brains and physical ability to pull off the save itself, right? Like, that is such a marvel of planning and execution. It went like, right?

That takes, that takes every card you have in the book. And then tomorrow we're going to see him, you know, baby fawn his way, like over, over. It's going to make it even funnier. And then you know what? It's a kick in the pills, obviously, to have to have that happen, where you make the big play. And then the puck goes in the back of the net. It sucks. And, I mean, I got to.

ask you guys because you guys are media members and I guess I'm a media member as well. Like, Newly. Frank. Don't have to. I hate to break it to you. I'm on the dark side. I'm on the dark side now. But now, you know, I travel a little bit for work. Like if you have to go back and forth now, how big of a kick in the pills is it? If you have to get flights that aren't affiliated with your like loyalty program and you got to do all this work to go from Fort Lauderdale to Edmonton, bad flights, bad time of night, and then you don't even get anything to show for it after. Like, you want, I don't know.

That's a, that's a great question from multi-platform media superstar, Frankie Carado. Hey, based on the media guys, I know that's not an option. They're not doing anything that they don't get points for. If all the Marriots are, have you ever tried to get a media guy to like stay at a non-marion be like, you know, it's actually a lot cheaper if we just, the diamond is called me in. They will fight you on. I made the pivot probably five years ago. I made the pivot when I started working here.

I worked for a newspaper for long enough and like for sporting news, long enough where there wasn't a ton of travel money where I was like, okay, I'll stay at some weird extended stay America if that means I can go on the trip. Tell you what, man, we got, we got New York Times company money now, baby. Ain't happening. What did you mean? My wife and I, we did not this year, but the previous year, we went all-star break. we decided we were going to go on a little vacation.

Funny enough, it was in Miami. We had no intentions of being around the All-Star game. Quinsidentally. No, we were like we were far away. We just wanted to go to Miami. But I was like proposing these hotels that are like Bonvoy hotels. And she looked at me and she's like, what the hell are you talking about?

We're in Miami. We're not staying at, you know, any of these Bonvoy-affiliated places, you dumbass. Like, what? You weren't real. You were staying at the, uh, at the like west, the West Fort Lauderd or the the West Palm Beach courtyard or whatever. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. You have not lived until you've checked into a hotel next to Michael Rousseau. And like they bring out the platform and load them on and carry him up to his room. You will know you've made it in the in the media when you're behind someone who's got like quadruple diamond titanium status at Marriott-Bond. at a courtyard that's, you know, 10 feet from a rank with a Buffalo Wild Wings in the, in the parking lot. That's, like that's the sign.

I just hope that, you know, for our sake, that we get some updates today on how the travel is going. We're never going to know. That's what sucks about this. They tend to keep it, yeah, pretty close to the vest. Yeah, yeah, no one, no one's going to be tweeting about it. And hopefully there's no monsoon for everyone trying to get out of there. but I don't know, man, here we go. Like, it's going back to Alberta.

And I don't know how you guys felt, but forget about all the storylines that could have happened in last night's game, whether it was Bob, Barkov, you know, the depth players for Edmonton, none of them would have mattered unless it was Connor McDavid doing something extraordinary. It begins and ends there. And that guy is on a mission. and the, you know, among the many crazy things that are happening with McDavid, the fact that he's doing it without dry sidel, basically his, his partner in crime. And I think when it's all said and done, we're going to, we're going to find out that dry sidle's pretty banged up. Like it just, he just has to be based on the way he's moving based on the lack of production and give him a lot of credit for, you know, for being out there and, and working through that. But the fact that McDavid is doing it by, a scoring goals, even though one's an empty netter, you know, going through the whole team like he had to do in order to feed Cory Perry.

And then I don't know if you guys like Gentilly, you would have been watching the ESPN probably, but DGB, like they had a great view last night on the Canadian broadcast. It was in the first period. And it's Barkoff in his own zone. And he's trying to spin away and get away from McDavid. and McDavid's like with him. Like he's on him. Stop, start, stick, like get through the body. And it was a great close up.

And I'm like, okay, like this guy is fully invested in doing it the hard way because it has to be done the hard way. There's legitimately no easy way that the Oilers can come back. And I thought McDavid was was all encompassing, brilliant from start to finish last night. Is it crazy that coming into that game, I was like hard no on him getting the, on him getting the con. I was like he did have, didn't have, whatever. You didn't have a goal. It had

one point in the first three games of the finals, which they lost. I was like, sorry. You know, tough luck. Give it the Barkhoff or whoever. Coming out of that game, I'm like, yep, it's him.

Yeah. All it, that was all it took. It does feel like it tilted overnight. It took, it took that 60 minutes of that game for me to go from no way to I don't really see how you give it to anybody else, regardless of what happens in this next game. I'm with you. I mean, I was kind of 50-50 on him already, even though I was like, boy, if they lose a series

in five games, I don't know. It's his now. I think so. And, well, because it's like, the fact that he's had as many points as he's had in the last two games means that Sergey Bavrovsky has been giving up goals. So he's kind of been removed from the equation. If he has 50

save shutout or something in game six, maybe that moves him back in. But I think Bobrovsky's out, which means it's now down to Barkov versus McDavid. And it's just, we all love Sasha Barkup. We all think he's fantastic. But I mean, it's not a comparison between those

two players. So I mean, how much, it just comes down to how much weight do you put on his team won versus his team didn't. I've never seen anything like this. Like I'm the history guy. I'm the guy who's supposed to come in and put it in context. And I don't think there is a context to put it in. The closest that I can come is probably Mario's first year of winning the cup,

where he was just phenomenal. I mean, I know Gretzky has the points record, and Gretzky did it in like 18 games, which is even more ridiculous. But that was an Edmonton All-Star team. playing at least a couple of rounds against, you know, borderline NHL teams. Like, there's nothing to compare it to what McDavid's doing in this parody era. It's funny, just quickly on that. Like, I was at an alumni game once, a Leafs alumni game, and I was talking to Wendell

Clark, and he's such a great guy, and he's great talking about hockey. But he goes, yeah, back in my day, we had about 10 players on each team that could play, and the rest of the guy stunk. it's like yeah you're okay it's not quite the case anymore um and i think to your point like that's probably what makes what mac david's doing even more impressive and and last night going back to florida like everyone's aware of what the challenge is going to be for macdavid and uh you know he's going to get bark off he's going to get forsling the matchup is going to be there for florida and not for a second in that game did i ever feel like they were

slowing McDavid down. And I think at best, if you're the Panthers, if everything goes well, you're probably not stopping him, but you are slowing him down to a degree. I didn't feel like he was slowed down at all. And, you know, some of the, if, if, if, if you're only chasing Gretzky and Lemieux when it comes to points in a, in a playoff season, chances are you're going to have a very good, compelling case for the con smith. And the thing about Bob is Bob has had, you know, one, you know, poor performance, let's say, in every series so far.

And that's going to happen. He's a goalie. And I think like Vasilevsky had to have bounce back games when Tampa was going to the finals three years in a row. It's just that was the one where Bob didn't come back and have the stellar performance. And, you know, I think if you take a look at the goals, it's a breakaway. Okay. Would have been nice if you had it. but he's probably due to give up a breakaway goal.

You know, there's the McDavid one from the side of the net. That one can't go in. So that's the one that you should have had. The one that goes off Hyman. And then I'm missing one more. What am I missing? The Perry one wasn't. The Perry one.

It's a backdoor. Yeah, exactly. It's a backdoor tap. And so I think it's an average game from Bob at best. The problem is the Panthers kind of need him to play well above average. And if let's say that let's say next. game. The only thing that Bob gives them is average or slightly above average, then I think the Panthers need to make more of an effort to, A, be better on the power play, not give up a

short-handed goal, and just play more to that defensive, whatever you want to call it, structure scheme in front of him and help him out a little bit because he's bailed their ass out many times in these playoffs. What is going on with this Panthers power play? giving up all these short-handed goals. Like, is it, you know, you do the X's and O's breakdowns and like, are they doing something? Because I mean, I know that,

I don't know the X's and O's, but I'm pretty sure there's, there's no play being diagrammed up saying, like, let's do like a weak pass from point to point when there's a forward way up high, a sticks length away from where the puck's going to go. Like that is just,

yeah, you're begging for disaster or you make that play. So what's the deal? How is a power play with this much talent and this much firepower, you know, almost giving up as much offense as they're creating? I think there's two things that really come to the forefront for this.

Last night was day 60 of the playoffs. So day 60 means, and everyone's on the same, it's everyone's on the same playing field. But the guys that are on the power play, they play a lot. And there's a lot of mental fatigue. and I see a lot of that mental fatigue happening on the Panthers power play.

And what I mean by that is, you know, Montour gets that puck on the wall. Every defenseman has been, like, it's been ingrained in your head that as soon as you get that puck, it touches your blade, you got to take three hard strides to the middle of the ice and kind of see how things open up from there. Montour gets it. And the first thing he's thinking is let me sling this across to Barkoff, who's not even up, you know, on the blue line. He's a little further in. So that even allows Connor Brown a little more space to get a stick on that puck.

And it's like, that's a mental error. There's no real pressure on you in that situation. And if you had to, if you wanted to, you could just put it back down the same side. It's not ideal because you want to get it away from the pressure. But we could understand in that situation. So I think there's a mental aspect to it. But in general, the Panthers power play. I find there's not a lot of people working away from the puck right now.

It's like someone has the puck. It's a couple stick handles. It's head up. Okay, who do I have? The guy that you have is probably stationary. Like there's a couple sequences where it's like Barkoff and Kachuk, and they're just going half wall down low, half wall down low. And I'm like, okay, that's great.

You didn't actually open anything up. No one's moving. There's no motion away from the puck. And conversely, watch Edmonton's power play. All there is is motion. All there is is movement. It's a little more unpredictable. Predictable for your teammates in a sense that you know you have someone kind of working away from the puck to get open and give you an option.

I don't see that with Florida. Florida's power play is, you know, the basic stock model that you get. And Edmonton's power play is kind of working its way up to that, that souped up sports car that we usually see it run like. I mean, we saw that from Florida's power play at certain times throughout the season, even last year, where productive as it is, unbelievable as a season as Sam Reinhardt had there, he leads the league and power play goals, all that stuff. There was an element there where they were prone, a little bit more prone to dry spells than you would think. They had stretches throughout the regular season where it was like, is everything okay there? even though you have a crazy collection of talent, and even though you have Reinhardt,

who's just clearly like an elite finisher at this point, it seemed like something that could pop up and be a problem for a four-game stretch or a five-game stretch. So, I mean, now, conversely, would we guess that they'd be given up prime chances and huge, huge shorthanded goals on the reg? Like, I don't think so.

But this is something that I feel like is coming back and biting them in the ass that showed itself as a potential problem, really at multiple points throughout the last couple seasons. Okay. So let's, and let's, you know, we're in a series now, right? It's three, two, going back to Edmonton. And we can now say that both teams have had that phase in this series where they shot themselves in the foot, where they're the ones who made the critical errors, right?

Like Florida is making the critical errors on the power play. It's leading to Edmonton getting short-handed goals, taking some momentum. them away. Those are bonus goals. Those are those are cookies, right? And then, you know, earlier on in the series, it's like a second period that goes awry for the oilers. And it's like, that costs you a game. So I think both teams now can check that off and say, okay, we did it. And that gets sought off. And what's next? Well, what's next is Matthew Kachuk finally entered the chat. And now going into Alberta, listen, it's, you know, game to game is different. There's time off and all that kind of stuff.

But if Florida was looking for something extra, they finally got something extra from Matthew Kachuk. And I think they would have wanted that to happen earlier. And if it did happen earlier, maybe there's a chance that this series is actually over by now. Yeah. And so here's my question. We've talked about McDavid and I want to come back to him for a minute.

Is it Matthew Kuchick, entered the chat or is it Leander Seidel enters the chat in game six. Is this like are we one at a time reintroducing all of these stars who've kind of been missing? That could be the answer to the

series. It seems it seems hard like it seems like it's going to be hard for him. I feel like if Dreysidal would have had the big night, it would have happened already. Dries title was doing some extra skating in between the games. Like he was he was out there extra

extra. Does that tell us anything about what he might be dealing with? Because normally you'd think if somebody's hurt, they stay off the ice and rest it up. But does that suggest anything to you? I kind of feel like sometimes, and it'll depend on the injury, you almost need to numb it out. Like you get enough blood flow going. Um, you know, obviously you're going to have some kind of enhancements to help you get through the pain, which is a very real thing that happens, whether people like it or not, it's a reality. Um, but yeah, I don't know. Maybe it's one of those things where if he feels like he puts it in in park it's going to be too hard to get it back up

and running and so you almost kind of feel like you have to keep the motion going and keep uh keep keep trying to work through it in a way but i don't know like dry dry sidle there's been so many opportunities um and i give him a lot of credit because he's out there and he's taking hits and he's not shying away from it and uh you know he deserves a lot of credit for that i just think there's he's he's limited in what he's actually capable of doing right now. Just he's got it. He has to be banged up. That's the only, the only way I can explain it.

And honestly, like with Matthew Kachuk, too, like I know last year, that was the big storyline, right? Like, you barely get out of bed and he was in so much pain. Like, how do we know he's not dealing with anything this year? Like, it's me just purely speculating at this point. But, you know, you think about what he went through last year at this time, quick recovery in the summer, play a whole season, go through the rigors of that. Now we're in day 61 of the playoffs. He finally found something, which is great for the Panthers, but he's obviously not at the level that they had him at last year when he was at his best in the playoffs.

Every time I see like post or between game work like that, I always think of Steve Nash with the, with the Lakers. His back was trash. Like he was he was he was, he was, at the end. But he has still had this insane pregame regimen that he went through off day regimen where he went through where basically the whole plan was for him to stop his back from tightening

up. Like he was in a constant state of motion, just constantly doing stretches and and work in work just to get warm enough to play a game. So yeah, I don't know. Part of me part of me watches dry so I don't work like that. I'm like if

he's just trying to stay stay loose in one way or another for sure. Yeah. I mean, it's part of it for sure. Like in, I know guys that are older, like Mark Giordano,

he wants to take every morning skate in Toronto. Because he's like, if I don't take it, I feel like I'm, I'm stiff and I'm not moving. And so there is something to be said for that. But like, all it takes now for Drysidal is to have that one shot

that you get on the power play, that one, one-timer. And the reality and the dangers, I think, for the Oilers, as much as they have won two in a row, and it feels like the momentum is on their side, the scary thing is, they're one bad Skinner goal, their one bad defensive zone lapse in coverage away from their season being over. And, you know, that's the tight rope that they're playing on as much as I feel like, I don't know how you guys feel, I feel like all the pressure is on the Panthers just based on the way the last couple of games have gone. And now they got to fly the parents and the families back to Edmonton again.

And, you know, that's a hassle. And you've had two chances. And Bill Zito's doing his fastball impression up in the press box with the water bottle. Like all these things are happening and leading to the pressure for the Panthers. But it's one play away from them winning a Stanley Cup. One bad play for the Oilers away. But you're, I mean, you're right. Like the pressure on the Panthers right now, like from a player's perspective, I know they're going to say all the right things.

I know they're going to say, hey, if you told us back in September that we'd be game six of the Stanley Cup final, two chances to win it. They've got to be thinking it. Because I can tell you, again, history guy here, there is, if they lose this. series. It's the biggest collapse in the history of the NHL, and it's not even close. Like, there's even an argument to be made. Like, that is the sort of thing that defines coaches, players, legacies, franchises. Like, they've got to be feeling that.

Like, there's no way that they can. Can you honestly compartmentalize so much as a player that you can put that aside? No. you have to be thinking it to a certain degree. The best thing to do is just keep yourself busy. Like, keep your mind busy. That's the issue now with having these days off between the games is you're going to have some time to think about it.

But, you know, you bring up a good point there about, you know, if someone told you you could sign up for being up three, two, going into the game six. Like, that has to be Paul Maurice's main message to his group. Like, let's take a step back. Let's take a look at the bigger picture. Let's have a little perspective here. We are up three to.

No matter how we got here, we have a chance to win. And everyone, including myself, would have signed up for this, you know, prior to the playoffs, prior to this series, whatever you want to call it. I don't know how you guys felt, but I got a great text last night as the game had finished. And I'm in a group chat. And a buddy of mine goes, I guess we're not going to get the Paul Maurice Giggle Factory after this game. out of my mouth. I was like, yeah, I guess we're not going to get the giggle factory. Like, I wonder how he plays it, how he kind of, what his demeanor is like with the team.

But if you're Maurice, like, that's the number one message that you need to get across. It's like, let's, we're not going to burn the tape. We're not going to forget about it. But let's remove ourselves from what we just went through, the tunnel vision. I always described it as this. When you're a player, you have tunnel vision. You're just focused on what just happened, what's happening right now. He has to find a way to remove the blinders and make the players see the bigger picture about where they're at and not have them feel that pressure.

And maybe that's the way you can do it by just taking a greater scope to things. how much if you're a player how much uh stock can you put if you're a panther how much stock can you put in the total ass kicking dominance to some degree that they put in in five on five because like like do you care if you play for the panthers do you care in in or if you're palmerice or whatever is it worth saying like hey uh when darnel nurse was out there we had 14 scoring chance chances and they had two. Or when Matiasia, like the fourth line got absolutely caved in constantly.

Like nobody on the ice, you know, was on the ice for, for more shots or scoring chances at five on five. That includes McDavid, right? So is there anything to pull out from that game? And you're like,

hey, we're doing stuff right. Or do you just like totally, you totally? No, you know what I think you do? Like, you're probably not going to go to the,

group and talk about we had 14 scoring chances with Darnel Nurse on the ice, but you probably are, like you probably are going to pull some video and say, if we do this again, you do this, yeah, more scoring chances. Like, you're probably going to have, you're going to have a talk with your players about, you know, being more responsible on the power play. That's going to be first and foremost. And then what I think you're going to do is you're going to have the good times clip rolling. I think it's important to have that. I think it's going to be, you know, like a five minute. kind of presentation of video of all the good things that you did and kind of hammer this home and say if we do this, if we do this again, if you get on Darnel Nurse on the forecheck,

you know, all those types of things, we will get rewarded for it. I think a lot of the five on five like looking at Money Puck last night too and the expected goals. Like I think a lot of that was just, you know, a flurry at the end. Flurry at the end of the second period. Flurry at the end the third period. But that's important, just as important as it is to be better on special teams. And so there's going to be a little Lexus and O's as far as stuff they clean up. There's going to be a little bit of like a mentality kind of sweep that they need to do within their group.

And there's also going to be a reaffirming of what they did well. I don't know like how you guys felt about this, but the oilers felt content to just punt everything. let's put the neutral zone off the glass high flip foot races let's back them off and so if you're the panthers you still want to maintain like your your sense of gap and being that smothering type of team but when when the oilers kind of find a way in behind you and they create a little separation like they're they're definitely they're not even looking for it they're not even thinking about it it feels like it's an automatic at this point

that's what they're doing anytime they're under pressure there's a piece that just went up on the athletic this morning. CJ, I don't know if you guys saw CJ's piece about the, well, he's writing about McDavid, but he talks about the Cory Perry goal. And I just, I have an NHL defenseman sitting in front of me. I got to ask this question because he,

the way he describes it, the Oilers are doing a line change. It's supposed to be Darnell Nurse hopping on. They see McDavid has got the puck and he's going and nurse tells Cory Perry, you go instead because you're a forward. and he jumps on, goes up, scores the goal. Very cool story, but that breaks everything I think I know about how NHO benches are right. Can you do that? Can you just turn to the guy next to you and go,

now, you know what, you go ahead. And what happens if there's a turnover and it goes back and instead of darnel nurse, it's Corey Perry and they get scored on? Like, does he get just strangled by his coach immediately? What is that all about? In my experience, the bench is crazy enough as it is. I don't, know if you could make those happen in real time. The only time when I really do think that that might happen is, you know, when there's a penalty that finishes, like maybe you were supposed to go into the zone and the puck moved up the ice. So now you're going to change for a forward. But like it's it's really hectic around there. We did, we did a breakdown on that, that peri goal

and what McDavid did as he was coming up the ice. It was like vintage McDavid. Because as he crosses the red line, it looks like he's going to his right and he makes the most drastic cut to his left. Okay, so that's like McDavid checkpoint number one, basically. And then he's got Mikala and Kulikov are the two defensemen. And you have to think at some point, McDavid was going to expose guys like that. Like there's a reason why McDavid is who he is. He has like victimized many a defenseman like that in his career. And the crazy thing is, Once he gets through both those guys, if you stop the frame, it kind of looks like he could shoot. And McDavid, of course, is not a shoot first guy.

But when you pause it, like Bob has bitten so much on McDavid having the blade, basically facing him that like if he wanted to, he could do like that quick five whole sweep shot that he does every once in a while. And instead he passes it over to Perry, which everyone in the building knew he was going to do. But even the pass over to Perry, it's like McIntyre. it's like McDavid takes that one extra cut, like a one extra cut with his skate to really make sure he has the lane. And then it's in the back of the net. And it's like just the most, you know, from start to finish, the most McDavid-esque play. And very fitting that it happens in that moment in the Stanley Cup final.

And I'm sure it's going to live on highlight reels for a very, very long time. Real, real quick, if you are Paul Maurice and the hockey gods come to you and they say, we're offering you a deal. Game six, McDavid's going to have a goal and an assist. You basically start that game down two goals in the hole because we're giving McDavid a goal and an assist. Do you take it or do you go, I'll take my chances? I think you say something witty, you giggle a little bit, and then you take it. Everybody compliments you.

Oh, we love this. I look at it. Yeah. Yeah. This is going to be like, you know, when a famous comedian like passes away or something, There's always like the lost tapes, the lost session. I'm going to want to know if they lose this series, what was Paul Maurice's cup winning material? Like that's going to be all time.

We're going to get him deep faked into like a George Carlin, all black get up on a stage. Forget about the Panthers championship shirts getting shipped off to, you know, whatever, you know, third world country. I want the Paul Maurice jokes. I want it to go full Don Rickles. Like, I want, if he wins, he should go Don Rickles on all the media members. that are in that press conference room. It might happen. All right, bud.

We'll let you go. Probably talk to you next week. Okay, boys. See ya. All right, welcome back. Before you get back to the show, we did want to flag some great content elsewhere on the podcast network.

Big soccer summer. Euros started this weekend. Cop America is going to the Athletic F.C. podcast across all the big stories in both tournaments. It also has a great mini-series, profile in the 12 most exciting players. you should definitely check it out because I've certainly enjoyed watching the Euro

casually over the last couple days. Casual soccer fan, Sean, is one of the best versions of myself. I can just sit on the couch and not really care about what's going on and luxuriate in it. It's fun. DGB.

No, I'm not a soccer guy. I never really. I do, like, I'll follow it when it's World Cup or that sort of thing. Maybe I'll check in Euro. I might. Just check in later. You can wait out group.

And then I'm going to bandwagon some team just randomly. You're going to be one of those guys who's up at 7 o'clock, you know, tweeting unintelligible quasi-English, gibberish slang. Yeah, that's right. I expect people know about it. Yeah, and everyone else gets to play a fun game of soccer or F1. What is he talking about? Neither.

I know you're a Hall of Fame guy. You are a hockey Hall of Fame guy. Tis the season, my boy, As a guy who wrote the book about initial history, I do love a Hall of Fame debate. And the Hall of Fame class is being announced next week on Tuesday. Because nothing will be going on in the hockey world. Can imagine what else could be going on at that point in time. Nothing happening Monday night potentially.

So who you got? Because we did, you know, we brought back our. athletic panel where we basically get 18 of us together and we simulate the actual we have Eric Duhatchik who is the who was on the actual committee is no longer but he guides us through the same setup so we know the results of that we won't get into into that list but you know we we sort of had the debates let's start with the guy who in theory is the obvious first ballot edition this year, except for some complicating factors, Pavel Datsuk.

Does he get in, do you think? I think he gets in. And again, we're trying not to spoil the entire, you know, the entire athletic exercise here. But I'll talk about who I voted for. I put him in. I mean, on the ice, that guy. was a Hall of Famer.

Like I, I, I'm also at the point now where, oh boy, because we're all getting older each and every day, but Datsook is a guy who's, you know,

every second of his career I watch, right? There was no, there was no point in Pavel Datsook's career where I was in locked in as either a hockey fan or, or part of the media. Maybe the best two-way player of his, two-way forward of his generation.

Highlights a plenty. winner across the board, you know, really he's the best player on some championship level Red Wings teams. To me, he's a no-brainer. And I know that there's some ugly stuff going on with, you know, some, his Putin connections and all that, all that, those are not ideal. But I'm also just not willing to open that door because of a bunch of other mitigating factors. So I put him down. When I made reference to like some complicating factors, it's it's that, right? It's sort of two levels.

There is, do we want to induct any Russian players? Because keep in mind right now, international hockey has sort of isolated the Russians. And, you know, do we do we say like just no to that period, which would also affect some other guys than Alexander Gilney, Sergey Goncher, guys like that that are. potentially in the discussion. And even if you say no, that's that's not our job to make political statements where we're going to still open the door. Is there, do you say, yeah, but when it's a guy who has been a little more vocal politically, as that's who has.

There is that element of it, which is like, do we want to let this guy give a speech in a few months? or do we want to say maybe we wait a year, maybe we wait two years. And the argument that I made in when we were sort of, I kind of played the devil's advocate in our group. Because everything you said about him is true. But we're also talking about a guy with 300 goals, 900 points. Yeah. He is, I believe, I think when you watched him play,

you said this is a Hall of Fame. I'm not sure I've ever in the era that I've been covering this and talking to players that I've ever had anyone who like they respected as much like the guys just raved about him. But he's a 900 point guy. I don't think he's such a slam dunk that we have to move mountains to get him in in year one. And I wonder the secret of old boys committee that, you know, I just wonder where they'll wind up. It's going to be interesting. What I'll say to this is if we're setting that precedent

where it's like we're not going to elect Russian players with major Putin ties in their first year of eligibility. My friend we're going to have a very unpleasant conversation in five or six years. Because there's no better hockey player than Alex Ovechkin and there's no bigger Putin guy than Alex

Ovechkin. And what Russia has done to Ukraine is not going to get any less immoral and horrendous and repulsive over the next five years, right? Like, we're not, we're not going to all of a sudden be, you know, on the other side of that argument. Like, that's still going to be there. So if we're drawing moral, moral lines in the sand like this, I think we got to be, I think we got to be really careful of. And I, and I will say this. I'm very thankful that this is just me and you BSing about this on a podcast and talking about this for a fake induction

process for the website we work for and not actually having to do any of their real and shining because it could be unpleasant. It could be unpleasant, but here's the thing. You and I at least are doing this publicly. We're at least having the conversation because we're so brave, really. And here is the word that I hear. Without question. Whereas the committee famously is one of the most secretive, to the point where a

you know, not to lift the curtain too much, but it is very funny listening to Eric talk about it. Because you can tell there's times where he wants to tell us a story and he's just like, I can't. I can't do it. He has taken an oath of silence. And so, I mean, it's possible that that's who could get in. It's possible they might debate it, have, they might debate it just on playing merits and decide yes or no, they might get into the politics. They could just, somebody could say, Pavel Datzug, and they could go around the table and 18,

old men and women could just go, nope, and that's it. I mean, it's even possible he could not be nominated. That sounds ridiculous, but we don't even know who they discuss. They could just be like, you know what, we're not doing this this year and that's it. Or he could fall one vote short. He could be unanimous. We don't know. There's zero context.

And when he gets induct, this goes for him, this goes for any player. When they get inducted, when they don't get inducted, we don't know whether they were like like you said we don't know how many votes they got we don't know how close they came we don't know if they were brought up for discussion at all like that's in in eric to his which speaks to his integrity i guess and and as being part of this process over the years he's not even telling us that telling us that about discussions that happened that speaks to 20 years ago and it speaks to my need to take him out in Vegas and pour about 18 beers into him and then be like, all right, what's the deal with Roji Vachon?

What happened there? 35 years suddenly he gets, he gets it. But that's the thing, right? Like, I mean, I'm exaggerating, but I mean, Vachon was like 20 years. He could have been 19 years in a row, one vote short, you know, like just ebb and flow and all of this. And other sports, you know, do it differently. And at least in like baseball, you get the actual total because it's the writer's,

totally different system. But you can track. You'll be like, all right, this guy's up to 70%. Now he's at 73. Like, or, or this guy is down to 15%. This guy is down to 10.

So let's not argue. This guy is off. This guy is off the ballot and we're not going to have the discussion anymore. And, and, and, you know, even the NFL,

right, like they have sort of the levels where they say like, all right, these guys have made this. And then, okay, now we've narrowed it down to these guys. And so I,

I just feel like as a fan, I really wish there was more visibility. I do get why they don't necessarily want to get into, the full on like here's how like I get why they don't want to say here's everyone's ballot here's all 18 people like

who's they voted for who they didn't because not only from a personal standpoint with that affect friendships and you know all that stuff but you know

you don't want to be known as the guy who kept somebody's favorite player out of the Hall of Fame by one vote but could happen who else did you vote for because you voted

you've ended up I did not vote for on the first ballot because I felt like he was going. I had four other. I can only vote for four men and I wanted to use my four to boost other cases, figuring that Datzouk would certainly get enough votes to at least make a second ballot. And if he didn't get in, then I could consider, you know, throwing some support over. So I kind of went a little bit strategic on that. My ballot was, now let me see if I got.

I went, I voted for Shea Weber, who is the other potentially interesting first time name. And if people are curious, it's based on the Chris Proger precedent. It's based on when you last played. So Shea Weber, even though he still has an active contract in the IGO, is eligible this year. Carrie Price is not because Carrie Price played a few games the following year tried to come back. So Carrie Price is another year. But Shea Weber's eligible. You mean, wait a second, you mean future Utah mammoth legend, Shea Weber?

That is exactly who I mean. I voted Shea Weber. I voted Curtis Joseph. I voted Alex McGilney, who by the way, we have inducted every time we've done this exercise, but because we're mapping to what the real Hall of Fame does, like we keep inducting them and then we yank them back out because we have to reset to theirs. And then the other guy I voted for was Keith Kachuk. Wow. 560 goals.

You know, head of stretch as a dominant player, international success. I feel like he's a borderline candidate, but I wanted to throw his name out there. Who did you have on the men's side? McGilney, Cujo, Datsuk, and this was kind of my approach. I took the approach with Shea Weber that she did with Datsuk. I voted for Sergey Ganchar in the first in the first round. I think both of those guys, I think Weber and Gonshire are both Hall of Famers, or should be at least.

And, you know, wanted to try to push that along a little bit farther. I'm glad you voted for Curtis Joseph. He was my nominee. I was the one who made the case for him. I will leave it as far as whether he gets in or not. People will have to check out the article. But, yeah. women's side

women's side yeah women's side is it's always yeah can we just say it's a joke at this point I don't want to sound flippant here when I say I don't even care who gets in that I mean that's the wrong tone that makes it sound like

put two women in put you have three women in put four women in like it is right now according to the rules they have two rules and Eric gave us a real good history of why that is and you know, all it. You have two spots. The rules, like, we don't have to debate how many women should get in.

What's too many? What's the rules are spelled out. Four men, two women. You can be, you can like that. You can not like it. You can think it should be equal. What have you. Four men and two women.

And every year, they're using three or four of the male slots. And they're, they keep doing one or zero. women and it's so frustrating. Like it feels stubborn at this point, doesn't it? It's stubborn and it's, you're not going to tell me what to do, so I'm not going to. First off,

the easy fix here is to just acknowledge that the women's game has made major, major inroads over the last 10 years and change the rule and have a class or two where it's four and just end this, end this lot. I'm not using two, so who cares? Well, well, we know why, though.

We got a little bit of a taste of why they're not using two. And it is a failure of the system because you need a certain amount of votes to move on. And what's happening is that there are so many qualified women, like here's a great example. The discussion we had yesterday, it was Megan Duggan, it was Shannon Sabados, and it was Jen Botryl for the millionth year in a row. all three of those are Hall of Famers. What happens is that people have different preferences and maybe different priorities. And votes get split. And then you have two players that almost say one player that gets in and two players that almost get in because the voters can't quite get on the same page with like, hey, let's make sure we start to clear the decks here.

Let's make sure that Megan Duggan or Botryl or Zabados gets in because we are creating. a ridiculous bottleneck. So there's only, there's two ways out of this. One of them is, one of them is to amend the rule for a year or two, or permanently, where you say that from now on,

if we want to elect four women per cycle, we're allowed, and that's just the way it goes. Or engage in some level of collusion, if you're a voter where you're like, this is the year that everybody votes for Botrol and Duggan. And next year, next year we'll vote for Zabadoz.

that's just there's those are the only two ways around this and without spoiling what the results of our of our discussion were we almost did it again like it almost happened with us we almost only elected one woman and that was not that was not for lack of trying that was not for lack of effort everybody in that conversation was like damn we need to make sure that we put in two women as players in this class and we still almost didn't right so it's a It is a very weird system. Yeah, it's a failure of the system. And on some level, I'm sure it's a failure of the people that are that are arguing the points and men making the votes. It's a tough on the issue. The other piece of it that makes it tough on the women's side is you've got the concept of a player and then you've got concept of a builder. And I don't think there's a lot of point getting into who's getting in as a builder this year because the concept is so wide and huge. It involves coaches and GMs and league officials and whoever else.

It's like you never know. There are worthy candidates. I think we inducted the, you know, our builder class was was very worthy, but it may or may not match at all. It's just, it's impossible to predict. But on the men's side, for example, I'll use it. The example that always comes up is Rod Brindamor. Okay, 1,200 points, two Selkees, Stanley Cup, borderline Hall of Fame case. but some people say, well, yeah, but he's also one of the great coaches.

So shouldn't that push him over the finish line? And the answer is, at least, there's that eye roll again, at least according to the rules of the Hall fan committee, they're completely separate. You have a playing career, then your playing career stops and you start fresh. So if you're a Doug Wilson or a Rob Blake or whoever it is that has had your feet in both sides, you make it based on one or the other, which makes sense to an extent. but like on the women side these days every woman is a builder like every like to say like well Megan Duggan like we're gonna we're gonna consider her as a playing career and we can't consider her you know the the impact that all these women have had on really building up it just it feels

so bizarre so so do we focus on the fact that Megan Duggan is was one of the absolute best American players ever ever generation and captain that team and was like a great was an on-ice force or do we focus on the fact that she led the crusade for like somewhat equal pay at at international events from USA hockey one or the other pick your pick your bucket and look there's there's lots of people who would go well either like they're both she's hall of fame were elect her twice so you wind up being the donkey that can't decide like which bail a hay to go to so it's very frustrating i i again not to say it dismissively but i don't care who gets in as long as it's too. Haley Salvin wrote a good column two years ago about just this subject. Because it still shock

you, Sean. I'm sure, I'm sure you remember. It came up in 2022 as well. And it came up in 2023 and it came up in 2024 and it's going to keep coming up until they figure this out and make some actual changes. When Haley wrote it, it was about Caroline Willett. It was the year she got, she got inducted. But there or some down-ballot, you know, silliness that happened exactly the way that you would think. So, yep, it's, uh, man, it's a tough process. I, I can't tell if I look forward to this exercise or not.

Like, I go back and forth on it. I can tell if I love it or hate it. And again, like the lack of visibility plays a role here. Because we're sitting here. We're saying things like they're stubborn or, you know, maybe are they just, are these just 200 hockey men who don't think that, you know, those dames can play the. sport, the sand. And they might be sitting there going, no, it might be the voting process. Like you

say, they might be like, we're voting for a ton of them, but there's just, you know, because of the system, if we saw that, maybe we wouldn't be projecting some less charitable interpretations, but if you give a vacuum of information on something that fans, which is to say your audience, which is to say your customers care deeply about, it's going to get filled. People are going to speculate. So. And on our end, too, I mean, like I know, it's difficult and whatever else. But I will say in our defense, even though, you know, it took a couple of ballots and we had to really get deep in the nitty gritty of the process, which you guys can hear about in a few days if you're so interested.

We got it right. We did induct two women. I'm not going to say which two they were because that'll spoil the article. But we inducted two women as players. We figured it out. And these guys need to figure it out. I will say, and then we'll leave it here. This will be my dad.

We got it right on the women's side. I think we got it right on the builder's side. I do not think we got it right on the men's side. And I'll just leave it there. And we'll let people read the piece. And I'm sure the comment section will be very cool. Very normal, very charitable and very normal. When is this running?

Is it running on the day? I don't know. I don't know. I would assume maybe even early. next week to coincide with the announcement. But get your, hey, all of you out there, get ready to make your arguments for the weird players that you are super concerned about. I can't wait to hear you.

I almost wanted to nominate Patrick Aliyos, just so you'd have to sit there and listen and grit your teeth. Yeah, just a half an hour of Henrik Zetterberg debate. Oh, man, you push the red button, though. I would think about Zerner. What about that Chris Osgood? Did you know that he won multiple Stanley Cups? That's enough.

That's enough Hall of Fame talk. That's enough of the Thursday show, of the Wednesday show. Of course, this isn't Thursday. Thank you for listening. Sean. Goodbye. Bye-bye. Haley, Max, and me are back on Thursday, not Wednesday.

We'll be talking ahead of game six of the Stanley Cup final. Again, that's in Edmonton on Friday night. Me and Sean Mack are back next Wednesday. we'll talk about the drafts we'll talk about it's going to it's going to be days days out yeah there's be a million things going on frank you'll be back to hit on all of that enjoy enjoy your week we'll talk to you soon