The Athletic Hockey Show - Olympics roster projections, LeBron James wears a Mario Lemieux jersey, and the debut of NHL Rules Court

Episode Date: December 16, 2021

Ian and Sean dive into projected Olympic rosters, does Russia have the best top-six? Also, Tom Wilson being projected to make the USA roster, and Canada may have the weakest goalie lineup. Then LeBron James wore a Mario Lemieux jersey to a Lakers game, who is the biggest celebrity spotted wearing a jersey for your team?Then, in "Granger Things" Jesse Granger joins from New York to discuss the Carolina Hurricanes missing a bunch of players due to COVID-19, does it have an effect in the betting world? Ian and Sean discuss the debut of NHL rules court, give a pessimistic Rangers fan some optimism in the mailbag, and in "This Week in Hockey History", Jets rookie Daron Quint scores two goals in four seconds.Have a question for Ian and Sean? Email [e-mail], or leave a VM at [phone]! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back, everybody. It is a Thursday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. It's Ian Mendez and Sean McAdoe with you ahead in the next hour or so. We're talking projected Olympic rosters. We had a new piece drop on the athletic site on Thursday. We'll talk about which country might have the most formidable or powerful group of top six forwards. We'll introduce our listeners on the podcast side of things to the Rules Court concept, where we debate different ideas on how we can improve the game.

And yeah, some of these are zany, wacky, weird, wild ideas. Jesse Granger will be back for some Granger things later in the show. Plus, we get a voicemail from a Rangers fan. We'll try and convince him that maybe his team is actually good. We got some more submissions to via email on the one game you would show to a non-hockey fan to convince them to get on board with the sport. We had some fun with that last week, and we'll wrap up as we always do with a little this week in a hockey history. And I'll tell you why, Sean, we want to make a concerted effort.

And we kind of talked about this in the chat before we got on the podcast today. I feel like we're at this precarious spot where every day people are open up Twitter and, you know, this guy's in COVID protocol. This team has eight guys in COVID. And it's starting to feel like it's getting real pessimistic. So I think what we want to do, for the next hour is insert a little positivity into people's lives, some non-COVID hockey talk, right? Yeah, I think that, and it's tough to do because we're talking Olympics and obviously,

you're talking Olympics, every sentence could end with if they even go. But at this point, I feel like I'm with you. People know the situation. It's obviously evolving. It's very concerning what's happening in the NHL right now. and whether the players will want to go at this point, whether we even will have an Olympics to go to, is very much in doubt.

But we don't really have any insight to add to that beyond the same stuff that you're seeing. We're sort of waiting and seeing how the story goes the same as everyone else. So in the meantime, let's at least have some fun with it, have some fun with the rosters. This is, you know, if they go or not, This is, to me, always the fun part of any sort of big tournament like this is where you get to look at who's going to make the team, who won't, who got snubbed, who didn't deserve to be there. And at least right now, we can still do that with the possibility of the Olympics hanging in front of us. And we'll keep our fingers crossed that it actually happens.

But we figure a lot of you at this point, as big and important a story as it is, are probably getting a little worn out by it. So let's start with some of these Olympic rosters. And again, we had, if you go, if you check out the athletic site on Thursday, you'll see that the projected rosters are out. So Sean Gentilly, Dom, and I think it was Corey Pranman, right, that we're part of this trio to put together. The rosters for the big five. So Canada, the United States, Sweden, Finland, and Russia were the teams.

Can I ask you this? I think sometimes I'm guilty of We all do because look I cover the Ottawa Senators so I'm always I'm watching Thomas Shabbat every night I'm watching this guy logged 27 minutes a night I'm watching him be a plus player I'm like this is unbelievable

What this guy's doing is unbelievable then I open up the app and I see he's not even listed and I got to ask you here just for for a outsider's perspective Am I wrong to think that Thomas Shabbat should be on team? Canada or am I missing the boat here? I don't think you're wrong to

make the case or to put his name out there because that's again like I said that's that's the fun of this that said I think that one of the things that can be interesting about

this is you know we all do that your home team whether you're it's as media or or you're a fan you've got certain guys on the team that guy feels like he should be in a Olympic guy. And it's not until you see the roster and you go, okay, who does he, whose spot does he take? It's not enough because it's not like they just go around and say everyone who is Olympic quality gets to go. And then suddenly Canada has 50 guys on the team. There's only a certain number of spots.

So who does he bump out? And, you know, the thing with Thomas Shabbat, and you've written about this a little bit that his numbers this year aren't great, certainly offensively, even though you've made the argument that he's, he's playing as well as ever, if not better. The one thing with him is the unique skill that he brings to the table and really has since he got to Ottawa is he can just eat an enormous amount of minutes. And that's been so important on this young rebuilding Ottawa team. Team Canada doesn't need that. Team Canada doesn't need Thomas you're about to play 28 minutes a game. They need him to come out and, you know, probably be a third pairing guy and contribute that way. And if that's the role, I mean, who does he bump?

is he, you know, is he bumping Aaron Eckblad off the team? Is he bumping, you know, some of these other guys we can talk about? But yeah, and then as somebody who makes lists and, you know, is always, you know, ranking this or listing that, you hit on my favor, which is always like, okay, my guy didn't even get mentioned. How could you not mention? Yeah. It's like, dude, how many guys do you think I can, like, I can't list every player in the

NHL. I'm sorry if I left your guy out. But yeah, that's, I was mildly surprised to see that. I wouldn't be shocked if he made the team. Like, I wouldn't be blown away or think it was a bad call. But I also, I look at these guys, if the eight guys that they have plus one big one more that they didn't include are all healthy. I don't, I don't think Thomas Chavaut's one of the top eight for Canada. Okay.

There's another name on Canada's list that I'm really curious to see how hockey fans would react if he made. makes the team. And that's Washington Capitals forward Tom Wilson, who on the projected list, Sean, is kind of an extra forward. So, yeah, 13th, 14th forward. And look, he is arguably the most polarizing player in the game, or certainly the one who elicits the most emotion. We've had this in the past, right? Even Marchand has played for Canada before, and you're like, okay, I got to park my feelings for Brad Marchand for two weeks. are Canadian hockey fans going to be able to park their feelings on Tom Wilson? And is Tom Wilson one of the best 12, 13, 14 forwards that Canada has?

That's the bigger question to me. I mean, I think, yeah, you can. You can put it aside, you know, what do we always say? Every time there's a Tom Wilson argument, somebody always says, yeah, but if he was on your team. If he was on your team, you wouldn't be saying this. You'd love the guy. Well, this is the one chance for him to temporary. can temporarily be on your team if you're a Canadian hockey fan.

I feel like they'd, we'd put it this way. We'd park it unless he did something dumb. And then we'd all be all over him. And that's, you know, that's the thing with him is because, first of all, Tom Wilson's numbers are real good this year. Like, he's having a good year. This is, this is not just a case of bringing a guy because he's physical and, you know, we need somebody who can play that style and we've decided, you know, like his, just, just,

putting aside the physical stuff, just based on the numbers, he's in the conversation, as is Zach Hyman, who's another guy that they considered, but ultimately didn't put on the team. I, man, I would worry, though. I worry, it's, it's, here's the thing with me, there's, there's always players on Canada, especially on the blue line that are really gifted, excellent offensive players, but everybody says, I don't know about the defense. And boy, what, what if he makes the one, turnover that costs us a goal, that costs us a game in a tournament where there's no margin

for error, there's not enough time for the bounces to even out. You know, what if we bring this guy, you know, years past it was always P.K. Suban, you know, he's great. He's, he can do all sorts of things. But what if he makes one of those plays, one of those turnovers, one of those sloppy passes, and that causes the game? And I'm looking at Tom Wilson going, what if he throws one of those, you can't hit up high in the international play? What if he goes out there, gets a little caught up, tries to make a big play, and he's suddenly he's got a five-minute major, and that's what costs Canada game.

That's what would make me nervous compared to, you know, the no shortage of other guys that you could put out there because they have got, like, I don't think Mark Schifley's on their team. There's some other guys that you could put on there, and they don't bring the element that Tom Wilson brings. But, again, in a short tournament, I don't know that you're, like, if we're playing you're playing Russia. Are you really sending Tom Wilson out there to set the tone and throw a bunch of big hits knowing that you've got international rules and international, not officiating because it's typically the North American guys, but who knows how it's going to be called?

Do we want to take that risk that he's running around out there? And if he's not, is he actually better as a 14th forward than Shifley or any number of other guys that you put out there? So you just laid out the scenario, Canada, Russia. I want you to put yourself in the shoes of a Washington Capitals fan who's likely cheering for Team USA in that scenario. Imagine seeing Tom Wilson hit Alex Ovechkin. Like what's going through your mind is a Caps fan? Exactly.

Or, you know, he lays out John Carlson or something like that. Yeah. You know what? And I would never, ever, ever hope for an injury or anything. But I would love to see that happen because I want to see Capitals fans be on the other side of it for once. I want to see Washington Capitals fans be like, you know what, maybe this Tom Wilson guy, now that I look at it, maybe he did leave his feet a little bit on this. Maybe that hit was a little bit late.

I'm not sure. And then we can all send them freeze frames that go, no, no, look, his skates are still on the ice in this freeze frame. And you're like, yeah, that's from the pregame warm up. It doesn't matter. It's still good. That would certainly be interesting. Does Hockey Canada send out a tweet with a living rent free in the... in your head.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, they do that. And then Russia just spends the next four years acquiring. Like, how did Ryan Reeves get a Russian passport? What's going on here? Yeah. Hey, speaking of Ovechkin, as I'm looking at these projected rosters that got put out today. And again, these are just the best guest from Dom, Sean and Corey.

I look at that Russian top two lines, Sean, and I see Ovechkin, I see Panarin, I see Kuturov, I see Malkin. I'm like, that might be the best group. Like, as you kind of look at these rosters, if you had just in terms of pure talent in the top six, where do you put the Russians? Because I kind of feel like maybe they have the best top six out of the group with those four guys leading the charge. Ivan Barbashev is their number two center on this route.

So, you know, and their number one center is Evgeny Malkin, who is a phenomenal player. But we haven't seen them this year. So, I mean, who even knows there? Russia is spectacular down the wings. Panera and Ovechkin, Kuturov, Kaprizov, Andrei Kovov, is, you know, just seems like one of those guys that maybe comes out of an Olympic tournament with a much increased reputation to match his level of play.

But the thing with Russia, and this is always kind of the case, not even necessarily a top six as far as the top three lines, but if you just say, you know, here's their five best players, you go, man, that's, that's scary stuff. I don't, I, I know, maybe Canada can't match that. Maybe Team EOS can't match that. But then you get down the list and, you know, there's guys, you know, there's some guys that are going to be on the roster that aren't in the NHL, they're KHL guys and that's fine. But, you know, the Messnikov, Adonov, guys like that, good players.

But guys like that on those, those deeper, lines whereas, you know, you go to Canada and you look at the top six as in the top two lines and, okay, you know, maybe it's similar, but then you look at the third and fourth line and guys like Mitch Marner, Mark Stone, Patrice Bergeron, Braden Point, you know, if he's healthy. And then you look at Matthew Barzell as probably even a spare. That's the level of depth. So, you know, depth-wise, it's Canada and it always will be probably. But as far as the very top level of talent, rush is right up there, especially if, you know, with Alex Ovechkin, looking as good as he has, and then, you know, the chance that Nikita Kuturov could be ready to go, that would

obviously be enormous for them as well. Yeah, I love that. That group of American forwards is pretty darn good, too, you know. Yeah. This is, I mean, we say this every year that, you know, team is saying it's getting better and better, but, boy, I mean, Austin Matthews is the top guy. Kachuk and Johnny Godreau who's kind of had sort of fallen off

I wouldn't say falling off the map but had dropped on for for a lot of us over the last couple years he looks real good again you know Max Patcheretti is unstoppable these days they're they've got some real good talent there

and some real good pieces and up front let alone the blue line looking very good for them and young too you know to the point where you go, geez, what, four years from now, who knows, they could really be head and shoulders above other teams. And then you get to the goaltending for team USA.

And if you're, if you're an American, this is the part that you're happy about. If you're any other fan of any other of the teams, this is what scares you because Conner, Hellebuck, John Gibson, and they made the call to swap in Jack Campbell as the third guy. That's the best goaltending in the tournament. and, you know, with apologies to probably, you know, Russia with Vasselowski and Chesterk and Sergei Bavrovsky, who might be good again. And, you know, then Sweden's got Markstrom. And if he stays as hot as he has been, they're looking good.

That's always the position that seems to matter most. And if you're Canadian and you're excited that I just pumped your tires about all the forward depth that you're getting nervous that we haven't talked about Canada in goal yet because I think the other countries have got team Canada beat there. Well, and you look at Canada, the projected roster, Mark Andre Fleury, Jordan Bennington, Carter Hart. Flurry, of course, is won a Stanley Cup. Bittington is one is Stanley Cup.

Hart has certainly not been at the core of Philly's issues this year. Like, I think on the whole, you'd be like, okay, they're fine, but when you measure them up against everybody else. It feels like they have the fourth or fifth best best goal tenning. And I'm trying to think back to all of the best on best tournaments that we've ever seen in Canada play. And I don't recall, Sean, at time when we would say, yeah, you know, Canada's goaltending might be third or fourth best in the tournament. Like, I was thinking back, like, maybe, like, when Bill Ranford was like the guy

for a brief period there, like, was that it? Or like, remember when they, again, this is probably before our, like, it wasn't, not probably was before our time. We were too young for this. but they played like a Canada Cup in like 1981 where like Mike Liu was the goalie. Yeah, and poor Pete Peters. Yeah, they just got lit up in that. 8-1 or something like that.

8-1 in the final, yeah, to Russia. That's kind of how I feel right now. I feel like, man, I don't ever recall going into a tournament and feeling like Canada's goaltending might be the weak link, right? Yeah, certainly. I mean, we were spoiled for a lot of years where it was, you know, Patrick Waugh, a lot of times didn't want to play in these tournaments, which is why you had guys like Bill Ren for coming in.

But even then, you know, Broder, Ed Belford, so that's three Hall of Famers. Curtis Joseph is right there as well. Yeah, it was kind of spoiled. I mean, the one thing I would say is I would argue there had been times, certainly in the past, where we've gone into tournaments with questions about Canada's goaltending. And then you come out the other side and Canada wins anyways. and then suddenly the goaltending wasn't a question anymore. Like, you know, Roberto Lwango in 2010,

I think some people were kind of, you know, he's never won anything. Is this the guy? And then Kerry Price in 2014 at the time, remember, this was before his big MVP year and everything. He wasn't, you know, he didn't have the legend of Carrie Price as the clutch guy. That sort of started around that time and then carries it into 2016. And that is the guy, I guess we should mention, because with Flurry Binnington and Hart, they don't have Carrie Price on the roster right now for obvious reasons until we see him back, until we see him playing.

And you're certainly not going to count on him. And who knows if he'd even want to go, he's got higher priorities in life right now that he's doing the right thing and looking after those. If Kerry Price should return to the NHL and look like Kerry Price, then maybe that. That changes the perspective a bit. But yeah, look, if you're a Canadian looking for optimism or you're somebody else looking for a reason to be, you know, scared of Canada, you'd say, look, we're talking about a team that has the reigning Vezina winner as their goalie. And we're talking about it like it's this black hole or this real weak spot.

And Mark Andre Fleury was not good to start the year. But he's been much better since. I mean, he's starting to look like maybe not last year's Mark Frui, Mark Andre Fleury, but a real good version of it. Bennington and Carter Hart, I don't know. That's, I think it would be the Flurry show. And May it would be a great exclamation point on a long and Hall of Fame-worthy career. And, you know, the thing always with Canada is you don't need your goalie to be the best goalie in the tournament.

You need him to be good enough that being the best up front and having a very strong blue line gets you over. the finish line. And I think Flurry could do that, but it's not when, if you run into Russia, Team USA or whoever in a single elimination, they're going to have a guy across the ice. You're going to be real nervous about. Yeah. My fear is that Andre Vasilisky goes full Dominic Hachik and Nagano and just steals this tournament. It could. It could happen. And that's, you know, and it's really interesting. There's a real smart guy on Twitter, Jack Hahn, who has has done, he's sort of an analytics guy, but also an ex is an O's guy, and he's done work with the, with the Leafs and the Marley's. And he made a great point last week where people were

talking about Tom Wilson and then Zach Hyman and guys like that. And, you know, you need, you need the grit and you need this and that. And Canada's got enough scoring. And his argument was, you know, yeah, Canada on paper has enough scoring, but what are you always scared about when you get to these tournaments? You know, do you ever really go into this if your team Canada or a Canadian fan and say, man, I'm really worried that Russia's going to beat us six to five. I'm really worried that those

Team USA forwards are going to, you know, that Joe Pavelski is going to light us up. No, what you're worried about is you run into the hot goalie, you know, on Russia or USA or Switzerland or Lafey or whoever, and you lose one to nothing, right? That's always seems to be. And even in the years where Canada wins, it always feels like there's that one near miss.

You know, there's always that one. one game against Germany where you're out shooting them 47 to 6 and it's still zero zero in the second period. And, you know, he was saying, forget about your identity, forget about you grinding and your checking line. Have a fourth line that's all offensive guys. Just nothing but, you know, and let those be the guys that you can send out in those games because that's what you should be worried about.

And I just found that really interesting because I never thought of it that way. I always think about, yeah, we need the defensive guys. And so, you know, that's a case where, for example, a guy like Dougie Hamilton, who's not on this team Canada projection, and it sounds like is kind of dicey to make the team, maybe you should have a guy like him on there where you go, yeah, you know, what? Is he great in his own zone? No, he's better than people give him credit for. But what happens when what do we do when we're down a goal going into the third period and everyone, the callers are getting tight? You're starting to think, oh, no, single elimination. Let's make sure we have some guys out there who can make that play that's going to turn into the goal that saves the tournament. I figure we would have learned our lesson from 98 in Nagano when, you know, kind of they built that fourth line with Rob Zaminor and others. But here we are. That was the ultimate exam. Remember the whole shadow roster thing that the Team Canada went through for years where it wasn't, you didn't pick the best players.

You picked the best guy who was like fourth line checking face off. specialist and that's and that gets you Rob Zamner and that's that's not where you where you want to go no hey listen we had a lot of fun with this conversation about the Olympic stuff and I want to have fun with something else that dropped on on Wednesday night on social media and that was the picture of LeBron James L.A. Laker's star rocking a Mario Lemieux jersey and certainly it's there's the obvious connection right LeBron James is part of that Fenway ownership group that that now has a steak or all of the ownership of the penguin. So there's a natural kind of synergy there.

But look, it was cool to see, right? It's like LeBron James rocking a Mario Lemieux jersey. Because I think sometimes we wonder, like, does LeBron James even know who Mario Lemieux is or was? So that part is cool. I'm wondering, though, and you've got a great memory for this type of thing. And I was thinking about it. I couldn't think off top of my head.

Like, have we ever seen an iconic athlete from another sport? rocking NHL gear like LeBron did on Wednesday? Boy, I don't know. That's... I can't think of any. Yeah, I... Yeah, and, you know, maybe a little bit... I'm sure there's some examples

and people can email us and let us know for next time. But yeah, LeBron, I feel like he does know who Mario is, probably. God, that's a depressing thing to say about, like, the greatest player in the history of the sport. We're like, I think that maybe. But I feel like there's a certain level. of like, you know, when you are literally at that very top tier of your sport where you kind of recognize the other guys that, that have done it in other sports. But I'm like, I've always been kind of fascinated with like this whole subculture of like celebrities wearing hockey jerseys and how excited we always get because we're so, us, I mean, hockey fan. We're so into, nobody else gets to watch our sport.

We don't want anybody new. But then like Rihanna wears a senator's jersey. We're all like, oh, did she like us? Are we, are we called out? And it's like, no, she had a concert in your town. And that's why she put on the jersey or whatever. But like Sean Gentile had his great interview with Snoop dog this week where he asked him about that, like, he asked him about because it's a thing in hip hop where a lot there are a lot of them are wearing jerseys. And he actually got Snoop on the record because there's this, you know, famous photos of him wearing the Leafs jersey.

And people are like, oh, what's that all about? and, you know, he said it's blue and there's a leaf on it. Like, figure it out, but that, that was it. He wasn't trying to, you know, he wasn't like a real, like, Alan McCauley fan or whoever it would have been back then. He just, you know, he just thought it looked good. But, yeah, I don't know, man. That's a, that's a piece that I want to write someday.

And I haven't got around to it. But people can maybe send me some suggestions or maybe get the intern working on it. I want to do a power ranking of the coolest person who has ever wore in your team's jersey in public. and, you know, just go down the list. Because I feel like every team's got somebody, but like, I don't know, like, who's the coolest person who's ever wore in a Florida Panthers jersey? Like, are we going to find out it was like, like Walter Cronkite wore one in 95?

And that's it. Like, you know, you're going to put them way down the list. It was Walter Cronkite even alive when the Florida Panthers were around? My apologies to the of all the Cronkite family. Yeah, that was a weird pull, right? Yeah, that kind of gives you a sense of where I met pop culture-wise. Yeah. That's my guy.

You know what I just thought of randomly? There's that photo of a young David Letterman wearing the Leafs jersey. That's the best one for the Leafs. With apologies to Snoop Dogg and also to Axel Rose, you know, personal favorite of mine who there's a photo of him wearing the Leafs jersey. But yeah, like the young, like even like I think pre-late show Letterman. Like, you know, this is like morning show David Letterman. And he's just wearing like the old school like, you know, early 80s. builder legal style

jersey, uh, jersey. No idea where it came from. No idea, uh, why he was wearing it. But,

uh, that's, I think that's number one for the Leafs. And I think that that might hold down number one in the power rank. You can come up with someone cooler than David Letterman. I don't know. But, uh,

it's going to be a tough, tough ask. Okay, before we bring Jesse Granger on here, I can't believe I'm about to utter these words. I never thought I would. Walter Cronkite passed away in July of 2009. So,

you know what? Lots of time. Yeah. Lots of time to wear. He could have been there when the rats were being thrown on the ice in 96. Yeah, he could have, he would have been absolutely all over that. He would have been 80 years old, but he could have absolutely been there. Well, I mean, the style that that team played, the 80 year old would be just about right.

So I accept your apology. And, yeah, Walter Cronkite, Florida Panthers fan. Somebody Photoshop that for me. All right. As always, time to bring in our pal, Jesse Granger for a little Granger things. brought to you by BetMGM, the exclusive partner with us here at the athletic. Jesse Granger, I want to ask you something here because Sean and I were just talking about who's the coolest person or the biggest celebrity to ever wear your respective teams,

NHL jersey. And look, even though Vegas is kind of in their infancy as a franchise, they've kind of got some celebrity pull and some power. So right now, if we asked you, who's the biggest name or biggest celebrity? And this is just kind of coming off the heels of LaBron. Braun wearing a Penguins jersey on Wednesday. Who's the biggest star celebrity that's either come to T-Mobile or been out in public wearing golden nights gear?

Oh, man, that's tough because they've had a bunch. I would say probably Shaq, Shaquille O'Neal. Well, there you go. All right. We were talking like big athletes. They don't come much bigger than that. Yeah, he, I mean, he's got so much stuff going on in Vegas. He has a couple restaurants out there, and he's been to a couple Golden Knights games and, like, cranked the rally siren before.

But, I mean, they've also had, like, the Golden Knights have so much celebrity, like, I guess there are so much celebrity presence in that building. Every night they've got a different, like, athlete, actor, singer, cranking the siren. They even had a Golden Knights remix of Viva Las Vegas with Wayne Newton and Lil John. And they kind of combined to sing Viva Las Vegas, and they were both wearing the new gold jerseys. That was when they released their alternate jersey this season with the gold jersey. That's kind of how they announced it was Wayne Newton and Lil John wearing them singing that song. So being in Vegas gives them an advantage in that category. All right.

Over, over under, or ballpark the odds here for me, celebrity power at any random Golden Knights home game versus the entire history of the Columbus Blue Jackets. That's mean. I would say probably Golden Knights. Yeah, okay, me too. Yeah, like I said, there are so many, like, celebrities that live in Vegas because they have residences there, that there's always someone at one of the games. Listen, you're on the road with the aforementioned Vegas Golden Knights. Why don't you just give our listeners a little sense of you got a little bit of a roadie here,

but you're not moving. Like, you're kind of staying put for three consecutive Vegas games. Yeah, this is one of my favorite road trips. It's been a while, obviously, because COVID, so we haven't been traveling as much. But the New York trip is always fun because they play the Devils, Rangers, and Islanders. They always play them consecutively in three games. And normally a four-game road trip is pretty hectic for us. You guys know this.

It's early morning flights to every city. You're never really unpacking your bag. But this time I did, I started in Boston. That was my first time in Boston. Really cool trip to Boston. I had fun there. And that arena was awesome. And now I'm in New York for six days.

So I get to unpack, settle into this hotel room, and they play the Devils tonight. They play the Rangers tomorrow. It'll be Gerard Gallant and Ryan Reeves, their first game against their former team. So that'll be fun. And then I get the Islanders in three days. But yeah, it's like I said, one of my favorite trips, New York right before Christmas, doesn't get much better than that. All right. But listen, one of the things that we're keeping an eye on, obviously, is there's a lot of teams playing games without key players.

There's games being canceled or, sorry, postponed. So maybe just tell us here kind of from a betting perspective how the odds have shifted, have they shifted for some of these games where we're seeing players leave the lineup and teams playing kind of shorthanded. Yeah, I mean, the big one is the Carolina Hurricanes. Obviously, their game against Minnesota got postponed. And they had six players and one staff member test positive for COVID. A lot of them are still in Minnesota.

But the show must go on. They are hosting the Detroit Red Wings tonight in Raleigh. And they're going to be without Sebastian Ajo, their team leader in points with 32, and no one else is even close. I mean, the next closest is Andre Semenikov with 21 points. He's also out. He's still in Minnesota. He's not even in the same state as the team tonight, along with defenseman Ian Cole,

veteran center Jordan Stahl. Their leading score amongst their defenseman is Tony DiAngelo. He's also out with COVID. Seth Jarvis. He's maybe not as crucial. some of those guys, but he's got 11 points in 20 games as a 19-year-old. So some really important players for the hurricanes are out. And they started out as massive favorites. Yesterday, they were as, or two days ago, they were as high as minus 220 to beat the Red Wings. And the Red Wings were plus

175. Now, the market has corrected itself a little bit, but not all the way. To me, it still hasn't corrected nearly enough. The Hurricanes are down to minus 175. The Red Wings are plus 145. So you're still getting plus money with the Red Wings. And the go, I mean, the Hurricanes have only, so they're, their roster with all those players out, they've got seven forwards and six defensemen. They don't have the cap space to bring five players up in the lineup to fill the lineup. They're going to use LTIR to get one of them that leaves them for short. The NHL is granting them an emergency exception to bring two more up, but those players can't be more than $850,000 in salary. So you're talking minimum salary players.

So they're going to be playing with two players short. As someone who covered the Golden Knights last year, they were kind of up against it cap-wise, not really for COVID reasons, but just because they got themselves into that trouble. And it really affected the Golden Knights. When they played games short-handed, it hurt them. The biggest game of the regular season last year for the Golden Knights

was against the Avalanche. They hosted the Avalanche late in the season with the President's Trophy on the line, and they lost that game playing short-handed. The hurricanes are going to be too short tonight. They're going to have three AHL players in the lineup, and they're not even the best AHL players that they could get because they have to stay under that minimum salary. So there are a lot of reasons to like the Red Wings tonight at Plus Money.

And also on top of that, even without all of that, I think there's another betting angle. A lot of people, when you're looking to bet games, you're looking for an edge, a reason, a motivating factor to bet the other team. This is Alex Nadelcovic's first time back in Raleigh. The team decided not to re-sign him. Oh, revenge game. Yeah, after he was a Calder Trophy finalist.

I mean, he was one of the best rookies in the league last year. Everyone thought, oh, the hurricanes, they finally have some stability. They've got this young netminder, and then they let him go to Detroit. So I think even if you ignore all of the roster trouble, the hurricanes are in, I think this is still a good spot for the Red Wings. I'd like to get you guys' opinions on it. Like, would you, like, what do you expect out of the hurricanes? A team that everything's up against them right now.

All their players are stuck in Minnesota and they're having to do these emergency recalls. Yeah, and here's the thing that scares me maybe a little bit is most teams in the league, under this situation, you would look at it and you'd say, look, yes, everybody, of course, gives full effort every night, et cetera, et cetera. So that's how hockey goes. But it's an 82 game season. You're not going to win them all. This would be one of those nights where you could understand if the hurricanes kind of looked around and said, all right, this isn't going to be our night. Here's what scares me.

Rod Brindamore. I think he's not letting anybody do that. And I mean, if they get to, even if they get real shorthanded, I'm worried that Brindamore tears the suit off and he's got a, he's got a uni on underneath. And he opts over the boards. And he's probably still throwing guys around. So that makes me a little bit nervous. but it is, it's strange to me that they're not, that you don't see the lines move.

And I guess that leads to a question and maybe we already know the answer to this. But aside from goalies, is there, are there any players in this league that in them not playing with significant? Like if Connor McDavid, if we find out on game day that Conner-McDavid's not going to play, does that move the numbers significantly against the Oilers or is it just one of those things where it's 20 guys and nobody can make a big enough different? in a single game that the odds makers really worried too much about it. Yeah, this is a question I get a lot, and you're right. The odds don't move much. And I guess that's kind of why we all like hockey so much, right?

I mean, it's the ultimate team sport. In football, if a quarterback goes out, the line moves seven points, maybe even more than that. Like when Aaron Rogers goes out and the Packers, I mean, the line will move 10 points for one guy. In basketball, if LeBron James isn't playing tonight, the line moves significantly, because there are only five guys on the court and one player makes such a big difference. In hockey, a guy, he's only playing a third of the game at the very most.

And when he's on the ice, it's still a team game. I think you're spot on with that. One player, you're right about goalies. The goalie is the position that makes the biggest difference because if you go from a star goalie to a below replacement level goalie, that can make a huge difference in a game. One or two goals that they let in that's soft, that's the game. right there. So that position affects it more. But yeah, I mean, I've seen a ton of times where a major player will go out. I'll go look at the lines. They don't really move at all. Connor McDavid would

probably move it, I don't know, maybe 10 cents on the line. So if they were minus 175, it'd go down to minus 165, maybe 20 cents down to minus 155, but not much at all. It's nothing like compared to the other sports where a star player really takes it out. And like, so I agree with you, Ian, or sorry, Sean, about the, I'm a little worried too. Rod Brindamore's a great coach. So say you wanted to bet this game, say you wanted to take advantage of this awful situation the hurricanes are in. If you were worried to bet the Red Wings, the other way you could look at it is, okay,

say Rod Brindamore is going to put on a coaching show tonight and he's going to get his team to play structured hockey. They're without Svesnikov and Ajo and all these, and their leading defenseman score in DeAngelo. They're going to pack the house. They're going to play good defense. And then on the other side, you've got Adelkevich, who doesn't want to let his former teammates score on him and he knows their tendencies, you would think, from practicing with

them. Maybe you want to bet the under. I mean, the game is, the total is five and a half, which is about as low as an NHL game will go. But it's shaded toward the over. The over is minus 115. The under is minus 105. So you're basically betting straight, you're getting a straight one-for-one bet.

betting the under in this game, under six goals. I think if you wanted to try to look at this game for an angle and you're worried Rod Brindamore is going to coach his team to victory despite all this, maybe that's the way to look at it. Dude, you're giving me flashbacks to the Zamboni game, the Zamboni goalie game where they're just absolutely that same Hurricanes team just strangled the life out of it. That might be the pick right there. There we go.

Hey, listen, Jesse, appreciate this. Enjoy your time in New York. It's always a great, like you said, magical time of year. We expect to see a photo of you skating at Rockefeller here. Awesome. Thanks for having me, guys. Thank you. All right.

Great chat, as always with Jesse Granger there. We're going to get to some, we've got a great voicemail here, a couple emails. Before that, though, Sean, I want to give you an opportunity. You came to Sean Gentile and myself earlier in the week, or maybe it was late last week. I can't remember now. But basically with the idea of a rules court. And why don't you walk our listeners through this concept? Because we had a lot of fun putting this together,

writing this column that kind of got posted on Thursday. And I think it's something that's got some legs in the future. Yeah. Well, this is, again, it's just a chance to have some fun. And I think there's, if there's one thing that unites every NHL fan, it's that we all have at least a few ideas for ways that they should change the rules. And, you know, and stuff that we think. think is just, it's obvious, oh, the game would be so much better if they would just do

this thing. And sometimes it's a big thing. Sometimes it's small. Some of them are kind of silly. Some of them are little tweaks. The NHL, I mean, geez, every year, there's like some minor, they move the faceoff dot a quarter of an inch. And they go, okay, we're done. We got it. And everything else is perfect. And as fans, we're all sitting there going, no, no, there's this list of things they need to do. But everyone's list is different. And you always feel like if I could just, if I could just make my case, everybody would agree with me. And so this is a chance to do that. You've got basically an opportunity where we're asking the readers to send in their proposed rule changes. You make the case. You, you know, you type out how, you know, however you want to argue it.

And then you and I and Sean Gentilly will basically each give our view and we'll take a vote. And if you get two out of three of us, your rule is passed. And that's it. It's a new. rule in the NHL pending them returning our phone calls. They haven't, we haven't quite figured out how we're going to make that happen. But, so it was pretty good. We had to, you know, I just kind of quietly put out the call to enter for the, for the first batch on the weekend to see how it would work. We got seven that we ended up using that, that sort of ranged from ones that I expected

to get because they're pretty common, like, you know, make, make the power play always be two minutes, even if the team scores. And we got some, some pretty strange. ones too and I think we ended up passing three out of the seven which is which is not bad so it's uh it it was fun and I mean the comment section is has already exploded with people arguing for and against the the rules that were mentioned and making their own pitches and I have a feeling that we'll do this again and um there'll be more opportunities for everyone to make their case but it's it's fun because every single one of us has got a list somewhere

of obvious stuff that Gary Betman should do if he would just only listen to us. Yeah. Do you ever think to yourself, like, does Gary Betman, Bill Daly, whoever you want to put on that list, do you think that they ever read these columns and they're like sitting there and looking at it and they're like, ah, you know what that is? And that is a pretty good idea. I hope not. Put it this way.

If Gary Betman is seeing these ideas for the first time, then that's, we've got a problem. But yeah, no, I don't, I don't know. Maybe Gary Bettman's got a burner account. And he's down in the comment section, just throwing ideas at the wall. That's possible. We should look into that. The only way we'd know, wouldn't you love, if you had Gary Betman's phone for 40 seconds, would the first thing you do to see if he has the athletic app?

Yes. Yeah. And then you go into Twitter and you see. Yeah, exactly. You've got to find the burner account and all of that. And then you see, then you go into his old emails. and see if you can find like the 1993, like, mission statement from David Stern. Okay, I'm sending you over to take out the competition.

As per our discussion, here is the plan. And you'd say, I knew it. Hey, listen, speaking of emails, we want to remind you that you can hit us up at the athletic hockey show at gmail.com, the athletic hockey show at gmail.com. But you can also leave us a voicemail. 845-4-5-4-5-844-9. That's exactly what Ryan did. Ryan is a big Rangers fan.

Have a listen here as he wants us to help him, I guess, be a little bit more optimistic about his New York Rangers. I was reading Sean's piece and the Rangers not making the top five. And as a Ranger fan myself, I have to say, I'm a lot more pessimistic than Sean seems to be about this team. I mean, I get that their record is very good, but the underlying numbers are pretty terrible, and I'm pretty concerned for the future. So my question is, can you convince me to not be so pessimistic? I mean, I trust the goaltending, and obviously Adam Fox has proven himself, but we've got a lot of big money tied up in some players like Truba and Mika Zabanajad, who I'm not really sure deserve that big money.

And I don't really trust him as a number one center, and it feels like down the middle we are kind of lacking some depth. So I'm not sure I trust this team as much as some other people and a lot of my fellow fans. What do you guys think? I'll tell you what, Sean, like, man, get the pessimism flowing through. The Rangers are solidly in a playoffs. The pessimistic fan is a great, it's one of my favorite subgenres of fans. I've been there, so I'm feeling him a little bit. Is there any other subgenre other than pessimistic?

Like, I feel like that's the old genre. Well, you get the mindless Homer fan, right? Oh, yeah. That's the guy who's always, you know, the, to, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, I always say like, you know, at the game one of the NFL season, they always find like one dude in a Bengals jersey holding a sign that says like Super Bowl. And you're like, I don't think so, man. But that's the other. But maybe those are the only two, the two extremes.

I hate these guys or they're the best team ever. That might be it. Yeah. But look, your team's got arguably one of the best five goalies, at least the way he's playing right now. You've got the raining Norris trophy winner. You've got a heart trophy candidate type of. guy in Artemi Penner? Like, what's Ryan's problem here, John? Well, I mean, his, I think his, his main concern that he puts out there is, and it's true,

that you look at the underlying numbers, you look at some of the, you know, the analytics as far as possession, scoring chances, you know, all the expected goals, and they're below water on all of them, which in a lot of cases would suggest that this is maybe not a team that is playing as well as their record indicates, but is a team that is maybe not playing as well, and is getting some bounces, getting some shooting luck, getting some great goaltending, and great goaltending is part of hockey, of course, but it does tend to ebb and flow as the year goes on, and that we should be looking at this team to maybe take a bit of a step back, and to some extent, we've kind of seen that over the last week or two where they've had,

they've lost three of five. but that having been said, I do think there's a lot of cases for optimism here and you laid out the amount of talent that's on there. I do think I'm getting real close to buying in fully on the goaltending and saying, you know, Schisturkin is one of the best goalies in the league. I mean, he's doing the impossible and following Henrik Lunkwist and maybe he can actually do that and be that level of guy

for the next decade, in which case you're halfway there in this league and they do have a bunch of young talent. Another thing that, you know, when I look at the Rangers, one thing that always jumps out at me, and it's really still the case, even as we get well into this season, really not a lot of production from Alexis Lefrenier, really not a lot of production from Capocaco.

And there's two ways you could look at that. Because the first ways you could say, man, the Rangers famously never had high picks in the draft ever, ever. They finally, they win the lottery twice, get the second pick, get the first pick. and boy, did we wind up with two busts? Did we wind up with two guys that are, you know, not going to be franchise level players? Oh man, what a missed opportunity.

The flip side of it is you go, we got two real good young players and it just hasn't clicked yet. And sometimes it takes a while. Some players, it takes two or three years before they find that superstar gear. If one or both of those guys still find it on top of everything else that this team has, they're in really good shape. that could really look like a great roster up front, especially. I don't. I agree with him that obviously the Jacob Trubid deal doesn't look great right now.

Miga Zabanajet, I think I'm higher on him than he was. I like Gerard Galand as a coach a ton. Jury is still out probably on Chris Drury, but that's just a case of not having enough time. The one other thing that I have made mention of in my rankings a few times when it comes to the Rangers is the record looks great. They had the seven-game win-street, you know, lots of nice numbers.

But when you look at who they're beating and who they're not beating, they're not beating a lot of real good teams. I think they've beat the Panthers. And other than that, that's it. If you count the Leafs as a real good team, they've split two games with the Leafs. And other than that, they've lost to Colorado.

I mean, you go down the list of the other top teams and they've lost most of those games and even the win streak that they had. I'm looking at it now. The seven-game win streak with Sabres, Islanders, Bruins, Flyers, Sharks, and then Blackhawks back to back. Out of that group, the Bruins are really the only team that feels like even a playoff team at this point. Now, you can only play who the schedule gives you, but we would like to see them do it against the better team. So I'm not sold on the Rangers being an elite team.

I keep not putting them in my top five, and most Rangers fans are mad at me for that. here's one who, you know, maybe shares my view, but I think he's going further on the pessimism than he would put it this way. There's a lot of fans, fan bases in the league that I think would love to swap rosters and prospects and all that with the Rangers because they've got a lot of good pieces in place. I don't think they're a top five team yet, but they're headed in that direction. I'll tell you, if you think that you need to beat heavyweight teams to be considered a legitimate contender. Do not bring your Ottawa Senators nonsense in here. The giant killers, I know. Ten days.

They've beaten Carolina, Colorado, Tampa, and Florida. What's going on? That's, you know, that's good. How many starting goalies did they face on there? I don't actually know the end. Oh, like number one goalies, you mean? Yeah, like how many times versus. Well, who's Florida's number one guy?

I guess is Bobrovsky. Yeah, it's Barbowski. This year. Brian Elliott is Tampa's number one goalie? Yeah, I think so. It's a 1-A. It's a 1-A situation. Yeah.

Exactly. And it was the Brian Elliott revenge game, right? The former senator, I'm sure he was really ramped up to. You could have asked of that. 10 years later. I don't think I did. Yeah.

Yeah. 10 years later. Because it a ring a belt. As we wrap up this show, I just, before we get to this week in hockey history, last week we talked about a crazy game involving Edmonton and Chicago. And we're like, hey, if you could pick one game to show to somebody to convince them to be a hockey fan, you know, what game would you have? We have tons of emails that came in from listeners who said, you know what, I love this.

What a great idea if we ever did, you know, and maybe that's a future idea for you there. Pick the one game that you're going to show to somebody to convince them to be a hockey fan. Chris from Ohio wrote in and said, you know, Columbus, Tampa in 2019, what a great series that was. Columbus erasing a three-nothing deficit to win game one. I'd show that to fans. Philip says Panthers Lightning last year, game one was wild. That would be something. Or there was a crazy Leafs Chicago game member, Matthews.

That was a good pick. Yeah, as a regular season game, that was a real, that was a good one. It was 7-6, and again, for the same reason that I wasn't sold on the Oilers-Hawks game, I think it's almost too much offense where you're maybe misleading a new fan. But that was a fun one because if people don't remember, It was all the stars scoring. Like it was the Matthews versus Kane, but I think John Tavares had a hat trick in that game,

and it was one of his first games with the Leafs after signing. Like, it was all the big names. Morgan Riley scored the overtime winner. That one was a real fun one. As far as regular season games, that one was, as soon as I saw that, I thought, you know what, that's a great pick. Yeah. And one other one here, Christopher wrote in and said,

you know what, love that conversation and would say, 2010 USA Canada gold medal game. at the Olympics. That's a pretty good one too. That was a good one. And, you know, three, two, that's, you know, that's not bad because you got to get, if you're going to be a hockey fan, you got to get used to three, two games. That would have been a good one. And obviously, you know, the stakes will never be higher and the, you know, the crowd and everything. That's a great one. Okay. That was a conversation that was spawned from this week in hockey history. Let's wrap up

this podcast as we always do with this week in hockey history. We're just going to do one this week. And it is a really weird one from December of 1995, December 15th, 1995 to be exact. Winnipeg Jets rookie Darren Quinn scores two goals in four seconds to tie an NHL record for the fastest two goals scored by the same player. So two goals in four seconds is remarkable. Now, I ask you this, I don't know, did you go back and rewatch the clip by chance of his two goals in four seconds? Yeah, I've seen this before too. It's, in fact, I wrote about, uh, I think Darren Quint was one of my obscure players when it came to. And here's the thing.

If you're sitting there going, who's Darren Quint? Like what was, you know, Derek Quint was like a defensive defenseman who didn't score goals. Like, that's what made this all the more remarkable. It was, and, you know, I won't, I'm almost hesitant to describe it because I feel like, you know, the NHL needs the, the Darren Quince, right? The unsung heroes of this league, the third-paring defensemen, hard-nosed guys. And I almost want to let him have his moment and just let people picture him taking a face off and just going through the whole team. That's not what happened.

He scored the first goal was, you know, kind of a typical, ugly goal from the point sort of thing. And then what happens is they go to center ice and they win the face off back to him. And he skates it up to the red line and dumps it in for a dump and chase. And it hits Stanchin and goes in as the oilers goalie is already behind the net waiting to play it. So it was one of those those fluke, total fluke goals. But two and four seconds, man, that's like, that's like, Bill. Why do we all know Bill Moiseenko, but we don't know Darren Quint? Right.

You know? It's not like Bill Moiseenko is some sort of superstar. Like, he, that was his thing. The hat trick, I think this is, I think you'll see the hat trick record broken someday before you'll see the, the Darren Quint record broken. Yeah. And that, okay. And by the way, do you remember who the Oilers goalie was by chance?

No, but let me look. No, no. I got it. Let me tell you. Okay. Because I, this is one of those names that will make you laugh. Like, it's just a classic 90s goalie. Walking gauge.

Oh my gosh. Yeah. That's, uh, that's, uh, that's. That is, yeah, that is, this, the whole clip is just remember some guys. This is, oh, man. Yeah, Wachey engages the goalie. So, again, just for the benefit of our listeners who may not, because like you said, Bill Boiseenko is not a household name.

He's a guy who played for Chicago way back in the day. He holds the record. It's three goals in 21 seconds. So he scored a hat trick, Bill Moisienko did, in 21 seconds. So what you're saying, and I think I tend to agree with you. somebody has a better chance of scoring three goals in 20 seconds than they do scoring two goals in three seconds, right? Is that fair to say? Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, I don't even, because the NHL record for the fastest goal off of, like off of a centerized faceoff is two seconds. And that was basically empty net, pulled it straight back. And even then, you needed some help from the timekeeper. I mean, I don't, three seconds to me. to actually shoot and score, even into an empty net, is almost as fast as you could possibly do it. And Darren Quinn did it against a goalie, kind of.

So, I mean, I can't imagine that getting broken three in 21 seconds. Yeah, that's doable at least. But yeah, no, Darren Quinn, I'm looking at his career stats. Yeah, he have 46 career goals. Hold on. So he scored. Darren Quinn scored 46. Like, that's way hot.

I'm actually surprised. He scored like 12. He had a couple of seven goal seasons in his in, but yeah, that, that first guy, he must have been, I'm looking at this. What, what was the, what was the date? Did you say? December, December 15th, 1995. Yeah, okay. So he's 1995. He was old. He was 19 years old. Yeah. It's time of rookie with Winnipeg. Because I've looked at it. Yeah, you only played the one year with Winnipeg before they moved. Yeah, so that definitely, that's the unbreakable NHL records. Number one is the 502 straight starts.

Number two is fastest two goals by a teenage defenseman. Yeah. Back in the day where they're just, yeah, 19, you're probably good. Now, come on up. You can play 20 minutes a night for us. Yeah. And he got, yeah, two of his five goals that season, 46. So he scored 5% of his NHL total of goals in a four-second stint.

There we go. We'll leave it there. Listen, as we wrap it up, I always think, like, sometimes when I finish a podcast, I'm like, I don't know, was that a good show? Was that a bad show? Was it somewhere in between? I know it's a good show when I think back and I'm like, man, we dropped a walking gauge and a Walter Cronkite reference into the same pod.

It was a good show. We learned a little bit about Walter Cronkite. We all came away a little bit smarter. Yeah, good show for sure. Exactly. All right. Listen, have a great week. We'll get you again next week.

Thanks, everybody for joining us for this edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. Like I said, we'll get you next week. You can drop us an email to the athletic hockey show at gmail.com or like the Rangers fan. You can leave us a voicemail. 845-445-845-85-85-85-85-5-5-85-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-ththe. You can join us at the athletic. athletic.com slash hockey show. There, you'll get an annual subscription for just $3.99 a month,

and you can also subscribe to the Athletic Audio Plus on Apple Podcasts. Get all the bonus content from our entire network. You'll start with a 30-day free trial, and then it's just 99 cents a month. Good night.