The Athletic Hockey Show - Opening night thoughts, Penguins and Capitals past and present, and betting trends to watch

Episode Date: January 14, 2021

Ian Mendes and Sean McIndoe share a memory of their college ball hockey glory days before jumping into some thoughts on the opening night of the NHL season, including the entertaining Maple Leafs- Canadiens game, is it possible to overreact to the Penguins loss, and how division realignment can affect old playoff rivalries.Then, Golden Knights beat writer Jesse Granger joins the show to discuss betting trends to watch, including tracking the seven teams that missed the playoffs, Cup favorites, and more.Finally, Ian and Sean wrap up with answering some listener questions, and hit you with some "This Week in Hockey History" knowledge.Have a question? Email the show at [e-mail] or leave a voicemail: [phone] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hey, welcome back for another episode of the athletic hockey show. I'm Ian Mendez. Ahead on today's show with Sean McIndoo. We'll reflect on opening night in the NHL, which got a lot of people excited about a potential Montreal-Toronto playoff series. We'll discuss the Golden Knights decision to dress five defensemen in a game on purpose. Speaking of which, our Vegas correspondent, Jesse Granger, drops by with some betting lines and tips for the start of the NHL season.

We'll also discuss whether or not we should overreact to the Penguins' opening night loss should the NHL follow the NFL's lead and have a TV broadcast directly aimed at children. Plus, I want to float my crazy Willie Wonka golden ticket idea to NHL games this season. All of that. Plus we tackle some of your Twitter questions. Wrap up with a little this week in hockey history because, as you know, NHL history, right up Sean Zalley. Most of you, you know him as down goes brown.

But of course, he's Sean McIndoo, senior writer for the athletic. And I wrote this last week or earlier this week, Sean, when we kicked off this podcast. You and I have quite the history, almost 30 years together, going back to journalism school at Carleton. We have literally known each other since we were teenagers, which is, yeah, it's impressive and depressing at the same time. But yeah, it's, we go back forever, and I still remember walking into that first journalism school classroom on the very first day and walking into a room sitting down next to you and was not, if you told me at the time,

we'd be hosting a podcast decades later, I would have asked you what a podcast was because there was no such thing back then. But this is still going to be fun. Yeah. And in fact, one of the questions we got asked on Twitter, and I apologize, I don't have this one in front of me, but one of the questions was,

you guys got to tell me a great story from your university days together. What people don't realize is Sean scored one of the greatest ball hockey goals of all time. We played in a ball hockey tournament. I think it was 1997. Do you remember what the grand prize was for us winning this? I think it was like a Molson Canadian street hockey tournament that we won.

We just got a bunch of guys together. Yeah. Got there, realized we hadn't really thought it through because we didn't have a goaltender, which is the other great part of the story, because we ended up making you strap the pads on and play goal. What was the prize? I feel like it was it, was it senators tickets? It was senators tickets to two games, okay?

We got 25 tickets per game and the opponents were the Florida Panthers and the New York Islanders. Like this is in the height of the Ziggy Palfi era of the Islanders. That sounds like a consolation prize, but it was the grand prize. First prize, 25 tickets to see the senators play the Panthers. Second prize, 50 tickets to see the senators play the band. And I don't even think I got to go to the games. But yeah, I did score the winner in overtime of the final, got called Paul Henderson for pretty much the rest of my university ball hockey career.

But for me, even haven't had that experience, the enduring memory of that day is we were all huddled up. It was an outdoor tournament. We're all huddled up. We're cold. They're blasting Billy Jean over the speakers. And we're trying to game plan and strategize. and somebody kind of like puts his elbow in my ribs and goes like, look over there. And we turn around and you are sitting there in full goalie pads just dancing to Billy Jean to keep warm, doing this weird little like twist thing dance.

And we're sitting there going like, that's our goalie. We're going to get shelled. This is going to be a disaster. We're going to be sitting in the bar by 11 o'clock a.m. But it didn't happen. You know, I was the Paul Henderson, but you were the Steve Penny of that story. It just came out of nowhere and stood up. on your head and it was it was enough to get us over the finish line.

See, I thought you were going to call me David Ayers, but I'll take Steve Penny because at least he want to play off round. That's too soon. That's too soon. Well, listen, this is the perfect segue into talking about those Toronto Maple Leafs opening night, Wednesday in the National Hockey League. And listen, the entertainment value of that game. And maybe it's because we haven't had NHL hockey in months that it was like, we were

all watching that, like inject this into our veins. But that Montreal-Toronto game last night was a 10 out of 10 in terms of entertainment, speed, offense. Like, that to me met all the expectations I could have hoped for on opening night. Yeah, it was lots of fun. And yeah, some of that, you're right. We've been waiting months for this. It's two good teams. It's, you know, we would expect to see some skill on display.

And then the other piece of it is everybody's right. Rusty. You know, like, I, I, I loved having no exhibition games. Just, just do the camp and get into it. I, you know, eight exhibition games. It's a cash grab. Nobody needs that, that many. But having the players go right in without anything at all, yeah, there's a little bit of

rust. There were mistakes. There were, uh, this was one of those games that the fans love. The coaches probably didn't. The coaches are probably sitting there going, we got a ton of things to work on. But that's good. That's what makes hockey fun. Hockey with mistakes.

is so much more fun than hockey played perfectly, because hockey played perfectly ends up being a two-one game with not a lot of chances either way, and hockey with mistakes starts going back and forth. That's why junior hockey is so much more fun to watch very often than the big leagues. And this was not junior hockey, but this was just those little mistakes,

and there's enough skill on the ice for both teams to turn those little mistakes into big plays. And it was a lot of fun to watch. and that was, it was, it kind of got more fun as it went even through regulation. And then, of course, you get to three on three overtime with those two teams. And I mean, let's let's go. You know, you're in for a ride then. Yeah, that was the overtime was terrific.

And I look around the league last night and I see Toronto, Montreal, nine goals. Philly, Pittsburgh, nine goals. Vancouver hangs five on Edmonton. Tampa does the same to Chicago. Every year, we don't you feel like we do this every year? Like the scoring, and usually it's October. so it's a little bit different with the calendar being in January. But don't you feel like every year we're like,

maybe the offense is going to go up? But I think that we might, because of what you mentioned, the lack of exhibition games, I think we might, like eight or nine goals at night, might be the norm for the first three or four weeks. At least that's what I'm hoping in the first month of the season. For the first little while, we might see it. You're right.

We do this every year. And I, anybody who's followed my stuff over the years knows, that I'm always banging this drum of offense is fun. Every other league focuses their rules around creating more offense. We've seen the NFL do it and how that's paid off for them. And the NHL hasn't. And we're in year 25 of the dead puck era. And every single year, scoring goes up a little bit in October,

and we all hang the big mission accomplished banner saying, dead puck era is over. We have done it. We have got the offense back up. And then, yeah, the closer we get to the playoffs, everything tightens up. and the scoring drops. So I don't want to get suckered in again.

But this is a unique season. So maybe we'll see some different stuff. And maybe as players have to come in and out of the lineups and we see guys coming in on taxi squads who maybe haven't played, you know, some of that rust, some of those mistakes, that could maybe lead to a little bit more. In which case, great. That's, you know, I know there are people out there who love a zero-zero tie.

They love a 1-0 game, tight defense, back of it. Offense is what sells. Offense is what entertains. And offense doesn't necessarily have to be goals. It can be scoring chances. You go back and forth and it's 1-0 because the goalies are standing on their head. That's great. That's fantastic.

One-nothing because both the coaches get their systems implemented perfectly and it's just the puck's getting chopped back and forth in the neutral zone. That's not fun. That's not what hockey should be. Hockey should be fast, skilled, and get some offense. get some goal scoring in there. And if that's what we see for the first few weeks, even better. We've been waiting long enough for this league to come back.

That'd be a great way for it to happen. And it would really be entertaining if we saw more games that look like this. Well, listen, speaking of long waits, it's been a long time since the Montreal Canadiens and Toronto Maple Leafs have met in a Stanley Cup playoff series. In fact, it's been since the 70s. And even then, it wasn't really an epic series. It's been a long, really since pre-expansion that they've met with any

sort of degree of consequence on the line. And I think last night, what people got really excited about was this is the first time you can actually realistically envision a Montreal, Toronto playoff series because they look like they might be, maybe they're the two best teams in this division here. Certainly the Habs, I think, impressed some people yesterday. So as we look at the divisional alignment here, I'm going to throw out a couple of potential series that could happen that we haven't seen in a long time. Like I said, Habs leaves haven't seen it since the 70s.

weirdly enough, the Battle of Alberta, Edmonton, Calgary, we haven't seen that since 1991. That was that Theo Fleury celebration series, and then they collapse and lose game seven. And Rangers Islanders, we haven't seen since 94. I think that was a sweep in 94 where the Rangers won the President's trophy and took out the aisles in four straight. But we have the potential for some great rivalries

that haven't met in the postseason to meet this year based on the way the divisions are set up, if you had to pick one of those Habs, Leaves, Islanders, Rangers, or Battle of Alberta, are you going Habs Leaves? Are you just looking through the blue and white lens here? Is there something else that you might be interested in? I am. I'm going to put on my homework glasses and I want to see Montreal, Toronto. I haven't seen that in my lifetime as a fan. I have never been able to sit down and why. And even though they were in different divisions for all through the 80s and a big chunk of the 90s, but it's been 20 years that these two teams have been in the same division.

And it just, it feels like it's, it's one of those weird laws of hockey that it, you look back in those last 20 years, the Leafs and the Habs are almost never good at the same time. It's, and, and, you know, the, when the, when the Leafs moved over, it was the pack-win era that that Leafs team absolutely were Stanley Cup contenders. they kept running into the senators, never got Montreal. Montreal wasn't very good back then. Montreal gets it back together. The Leaves fall apart, the Ferguson era, and don't dig out of that for years after. There have been a couple of near misses.

I remember there was one year, I think it came down to the final night. It was going to be Toronto, Montreal, and I think it was the senators who screwed it up. I don't remember who they beat, but it was, I think, 2013. It was the year that, you know, if you're a senators fan, you want some, you want to claim that you've got a playoff, win over the Leafs. I pretty sure it was the Senators beat somebody and that flipped it from Toronto Montreal to Toronto Boston, the infamous Game 7 Collapse series. And that was the closest we've come. I'd love to see that. That's what I'm looking for. Now, haven't said that, what series do I want to

see? It's Toronto Montreal. What series would I enjoy? Calgary, Edmonton, serve up Calgary Eminton because there is nothing better than playoff rivalry hockey where you're neutral. If you can be Switzerland and you're just sitting there going, I don't care who wins. I'm not invested. Toronto, Montreal, I want to see it, but that'll be agony for every Leafs fan, every Haps fan. Nobody will have any fun. You'll hate every second of it until it's over and then half the fans will be happy and half will be miserable.

Something like Calgary, Empton, I would love to watch that. And you're right. It's inconceivable that those two teams have been in the same division all along. We haven't seen it. I would love it. I mean, it almost sounds selfish, but you're sitting there saying, hockey gods, if you're out there, give us Toronto, Montreal in one first round matchup, Calgary, Edmonton, and the other one.

And then let's see where it goes from there. And if not that, honestly, almost any of the Canadian matchups would just be so much fun. I mean, we haven't seen Vancouver, Montreal since the very, very beginning. getting back in the 70s. And, you know, we, we haven't seen Winnipeg, Edmonton. That used to be a great rivalry one-sided, granted. But, you know, we haven't seen that, I think, since the Dave Ellett series back in 1990. All sorts of possibilities that would just be great.

And, of course, you know, Ottawa's never played most of these teams in the playoffs. It's so many different ways it could go. So much potential for matchups that are going to be great. I mean, honestly, I look at the. Canadian division, I'm not sure I see any matchup where I'm like, I don't know if I'd want to see that. Everyone would offer something unique. But yeah, Toronto, Montreal in one, Calgary, Edmonton, and the other.

And then, you know, who cares what comes out of that? By that point, the whole country will be so in each other's throats that anything will feel, feel great. So at that point now, we can go ahead and lock in Ottawa, Winnipeg in round one. Yeah, I know. Sean says, there's every matchup is appealing. Oh, man. That's absolutely. I'm sorry.

by bad. Some of that. By the way, in 2013, you're right. It came down to the last game of the season. Ottawa actually went to Boston. It was a game that was rescheduled due to the marathon bombing. And it ended up being played at the last. And the entire Eastern Conference playoff scenario came down to Ottawa, Boston, end of April of 2013.

And J.G. Pajot, who was a little known guy at the time, scored with like four minutes left. And that's what sealed Ottawa, Montreal, Toronto. Boston. Otherwise, if that game had ended in a different, even if it went to overtime, I believe Boston would have gotten a point and everything would have been different and you never would have had to hear it was 4-1. I remember that because I wrote a whole big thing for Grandland where I was like, hey, let's not get ahead of ourselves, but Toronto's going to play Montreal and it's going to be so amazing. And I just, I, again, the hockey gods saw that. They realized I was getting ahead of myself and they had to smack me down.

And so yeah, congratulations, Senators fans. You can at least take some credit for the 2013 Leif's playoff disaster. Yeah. And, you know, that year in 2013, Ottawa beat Montreal in the round one and then lost to Pittsburgh in round two. The Penguin, Sean, have been a lock-it-in playoff team, essentially since Sid Crosby came into the league since 07. They've been in the playoffs.

I loved your little weirdly specific season preview where you're like, Pittsburgh is going to be a big player at the deadline. Just can't tell if they're going to be a buyer or a seller. So let's overreact, shall we? Do a 6-3 Penguins loss opening night against their state rivals, the flyers. Should there be some concern that if Pittsburgh is going to be kind of left out in the cold in a very strong, and I even forgot the corporately named was at the mass mutual East Division, whatever. It's the east.

Could Pittsburgh potentially miss the playoffs this year? I mean, a good team's going to miss the playoffs in that division. There are five teams, not even counting the Rangers, who a lot of people would see on a trajectory towards a playoff spot, there's five lock them in playoff teams and there's four spots. So somebody is going to be the one left without a chair. And I've been saying this for a little while on the Penguins. And part of this is, I still have the scars from last year.

I did not see the sharks collapse coming. Now, not a lot of people did to the extent that it happened. But the sharks, people forget, they went to the conference final 2019, good team, veteran team. But I remember saying, you know, boy, when the window closes in San Jose, it's really going to close, but it's not going to happen for a little while. And of course, it did. It's slam shut. And now I'm kind of looking around going, okay, who's going to be this year's sharks? Who's going to be the team that we all assume is a contender that has been a contender for long enough that we're,

We just penciled them in. And then when they take the step back, it's not the step back to, oh, we missed the playoffs by two points. It's a step back further than that. And to me, Pittsburgh checks a lot of the boxes for that. You know, they're an older team. Some of the depth isn't there. The goal tending, you know, we'll have to see if that can hold up. I'm not saying it's going to happen.

I could absolutely see that we get to the end of this season. And there's Pittsburgh again in holding down. one of the top two spots in that division. And we all go, yeah, of course, Sydney Crosby, of Gennie Malkin, of course they're going to be good. But you just look at them and you go, okay, if somebody's going to take a step back and maybe a bigger step back than we think,

I feel like Pittsburgh has a chance at potentially doing that. And I've written that in a few places. When we did our preview for the athletic, I put down Mike Sullivan as my bet to be first coach fired. Not because I necessarily think it's the most likely scenario, but because I could see it happening. Jim Rutherford's not messing around. He doesn't seem to have a lot of patience.

And I've had pushback from Penguin fans going, you're crazy. He just got an extension. They're not going to pay them to not coach and all of that. And I take that point. Penguins, again, I wish I had the guts to sit here and say, you know what, I'm stamping it. Penguins miss the playoffs. Penguin, the windows closed, all of this. I'm not doing that.

I'm just saying that if we get to the end of the season and Pittsburgh has kind of flatlined a little bit, you're going to see some people going, oh, no one could have seen it coming. I think some people can at least kind of see it coming. Well, you know, it's funny because we got a tweet here from the only Puckster. And by the way, I want to remind our listeners here, you can hit us up on Twitter, but also email. If you have any questions for us, the athletic hockey show at gmail.com. The athletic hockey show at gmail.com as well, we're going to start incorporating this

because it's the first show that you and I've done together. But we're going to try and incorporate some voicemails from listeners too. You can leave us a voicemail at 845. 445-845-845-8-4-5-8-4-5-8-4-9. And don't worry, at some point, we will come up with something clever, like a hockey-related thing to remember, just call 8-4-5 whatever.

Don't worry. And we'll leave that to the wit and the pun of Down Goes Brown here to do that. But the tweet that we got here is, could the caps be this year's version of the San Jose Sharks? So we just walk through Pittsburgh. Would you not argue that, the capitals have, you know, Oshy and Baxter and Ovi.

And obviously, Lundquist is out of the equation. Now, you bring in Chara. Like, that's a, look, they got a couple of guys in their 20s that I like, but the core of that team is on the quote, unquote, wrong side of 30. That could be this year's version of the sharks, no? Yeah, absolutely. A lot of what I just said about Pittsburgh applies to the caps as well. somewhat unproven goal tending.

You know, I think they'll be okay, but Braden Holpe leaves that there goes your veteran safety net at the very least. Yeah, I think they're the Washington capitals, especially when you look at, and man, with both Pittsburgh and Washington, we said at the beginning of last year's weird qualifying playoffs that we're not going to overreact to what happens. I think everyone said we can. They're playing playoff games in August. We can't overreact to it. But then, man, Pittsburgh, we saw what happened with them with Montreal. Washington looked awful. I mean, they just didn't look like they were interested at all.

The one thing that maybe makes me a little more hesitant to be doom and gloom on Washington is Peter Lavillant, who is, A, a very, very good coach, but B is a guy especially that tends to get results in year one. He's one of those old school guys, kind of like a Ken Hitchcock, kind of like a Pat Burns. where it feels like as soon as you bring him in, the clock starts ticking on how long it's going to work. But that year one, that first year or two, I mean,

I think he's been to the final, isn't it? Like two or three times in his first year with the team, I really feel like for a team like Washington where the window is closing, clearly, and the Ovechkin era has got whatever it's got left, you want to squeeze every drop out of that.

Pierre Lavillette, I thought was a great choice. and I could see him, even if they're heading in the wrong direction, I could see him slamming the brakes on that long enough to get them another season or two of contending. Yeah, I still think Lave you a lot. Like, look, he won the cup with Carolina in 06 and then took Philly in 2010 and Nashville. I still think people sleep on what he did with the Islanders in the early 2000s. Like, that wasn't a great team.

And he took them to the playoffs. So you're right. He seems to have that kind of whatever new coach smell that comes in. And it just, it seems to work. I think a lot of people would think it would be absolutely delicious if both Pittsburgh and Washington missed the playoffs in the same year. Yeah. Like if you don't have a horse in the race, boy, that I think a lot of people would be happy with that. It's going to be delicious right up until Pittsburgh wins the draft lottery.

Yeah. And then we all lose our minds. That's a good point. You know, Crosby yesterday, Sid Crosby, Sean scored an unbelievable goal with the hand-eye coordination. Then he kind of one-handed put it in the net. And it got me thinking after I saw that. like, you know, when you close your eyes, you think of Alex Ovechkin, you're like, what's the best goal of Etchen score?

There's that kind of behind the back, the one against Arizona. There's one where he kind of spun around the neutral zone. I think it was against the Habs where he like, he kind of passed it to himself off the board. It's like, there's a couple of like absolutely electrifying highlight reel Alex Ovechkin goals. And then I was thinking about Sid and I'm like, okay, obviously the golden goal is there. But if you remove that from the equation and you're just looking at it from like a spectacular

highlight reel metric. What comes of mind for Sid? And is that one in the opener on Wednesday, potentially on the short list of the most impressive goals, 87 has ever scored in the NHL? Yeah. You know, his signature move, if he has it, is, and we saw it last night,

is that puck batted out of the air. It's that, and he's got a few like that. And I wrote a thing about this a few weeks ago, where I said that I don't understand why hockey, fans, we, we tend to get so excited when a player bats the puck out of the air. And I've never really understood that. And I'm, I'm saying that not because I think it's easy to bat a puck out of the year. I'm saying everything these guys do out on the ice is so difficult. You know, anyone who's ever played the sport, anyone who's put the skates on, you go out there. And you just, you got a

puck into your skates and you try to kick it up. And I mean, I don't know about you, but for me, that's, that's it. I, I'm, I'm, I'm going to be, I'm going to be in traction for a week if I try some of this stuff that these guys do with no effort, but I can bat something out of the air. I know how to do that. And so I wrote that, hey, you know, we could stop getting too excited when there's a shot and the goalie pops a rebound up and somebody bats it out of the air and it goes in. You know, that's not a great goal. But when Sidney Crosby comes in full speed, fires one hits the post into the air and then without breaking stride, he bats it back in behind the goalie. That's a great goal. Like that's a phenomenal goal. And he does have that

hand eye where, you know, again, a puck that's kind of floating in the air, you knock it out of the air, that doesn't impress me. But when it's something like we saw last night where a goaltender fires the puck pretty hard and it's almost like just slow motion for sit. He just said, nope, I'm just going to pick this out of the air with my stick and put it there. Those are real nice goals. And that is kind of his signature. And yeah, I will make an exception to my let's not get too impressed rule when it's him doing it, because half the time he's doing it at full speed before anyone else even realizes where the puck is.

Okay, one of the cool things is, again, we were starting this athletic hockey show podcast. We're starting it from scratch is that we get to build out the show. And one of the cool elements for Sean and I is every week we're going to be joined by Jesse Granger out in Vegas talking about some of the betting lines, money lines and over unders, that type of thing. This is going to be a lot of fun. Now, Sean's probably going to shoot down this idea,

and maybe Jesse will too. I want to call this segment Granger Things. And I know that I'm hearing the moans, you know, but I think Granger Things works unless you guys can come up with something better than that. All right. I got to jump in here. I've known this guy for decades. If you've got a problem with puns, you got to get off now.

Because this is, if you thought that was bad, this guy is, he's coming in light. It's sort of easing his way in. Yeah, I'm on board. Let's do it. I wasn't expecting any puns, but best pun with my name that I've ever heard, so we'll go with it, Ian. There we go. We could even maybe work the stranger things, that kind of creepy music into it. We roll with Jesse Granger, Granger things.

Hey, we're going to talk to some betting with you, but the first thing we want to talk about that both Sean and I are quite curious about, and I think hockey fans around the league, Jesse are curious about, is the Vegas Golden Knights rolling into their home opener on Thursday and going ahead and announcing preemptively, they're going with five defensemen. This is very rare. We've seen seven defensemen. We've very rarely seen five. Can you walk us through the rationale,

the explanation for why the Vegas Golden Knights would dress five defensemen on purpose in a game? Yeah, this one is definitely more of a out of necessity than out of this is something they feel like trying. I don't think that the impression I got talking to Peter DeBore yesterday was that this was something that they just had to do because this team has crashed up against the salary cap. They don't have a ton of space.

They're going to be shuffling guys with paper transactions back and forth between the HL and the NHL, basically all season in order to gain as much salary cap space as they can. And I think it's a combination of that and the fact that they didn't want to waive Keegan Colissar, who's a second round pick, and he hasn't played much in the NHL. He made his debut last year. But he's a guy who they think is kind of on that bubble for the roster. I don't know if they thought he'd be claimed or not, but he's going to be the 13th forward tomorrow night, or sorry, tonight.

and they're going to play with five defensemen. I think it's, like I said, salary cap situation. They didn't have the space to have Nick Holden up there, who they probably would have liked. He and Zach White Cloud were on that bottom pairing last year in the playoffs. They played really well together. So they had to waive Nick Holden. Luckily for them, he cleared waivers. He's on the taxi squad now, but that saves them a little over a million dollars in salary cap space,

which gets them under and cap compliant, which they haven't been all offseason. So out of necessity, Keegan Colossar will be the 13th forward tonight. and they're going to run with five defensemen. And if you're going to do that, it's nice to have Alex Petrangelo and Che Theodore, two guys who can play 20 plus minutes, and you can just throw them out there every shift and you're not worried about it.

So I think for the short term, the five defensemen can work. This is probably not a strategy they want to employ over 56 games, but for tonight, it'll be all right. All right. So, Jesse, like I said, a big thing that we're excited about having you on is kind of walking us through some of the betting lines here. Let's look at the seven teams

that kind of didn't participate in the return to play. the three teams from California, Ottawa, Detroit, Buffalo, and Jersey. How interesting is the first couple of weeks of the season going to be tracking them and trying to figure out some trends as they've got the longest kind of stretch between games of all the teams of the league? Right. So like, as you guys mentioned, I'll be on here weekly, and I think we're going to look a lot at trends.

And early in the season, we obviously don't have those yet with just the first few games being played last night. But one of the trends that I'm excited to just see what happens. I don't know which way it's going to go. and I'd kind of like to get you guys thoughts on maybe which way you think it's going to go. But those seven teams, Buffalo, Ottawa, Detroit, New Jersey, Anaheim, L.A., and San Jose, it's been a long time since they've played hockey. And that could be a good thing.

These teams could be excited. Maybe these teams that aren't as talented as some teams they're going to be playing against will play over their head early in the season. And maybe that's something to watch. Or maybe they're going to be rusty. And these teams that played in the bubble up in Edmonton and Toronto are going to be a little sharper. And it'll be something you want to play against and you want to fade those teams. I don't know which way it's going to go. None of them played last night, but six of them will be playing tonight, and all six are underdogs.

So you're going to get good prices on these teams if they are maybe overperforming what they should be early on. So like I said, not a trend that we can track yet, but just something early in the season that I'm interested in watching, especially these teams like Anaheim and L.A. who have young teams. Like those teams were old, and that that core group of guys who are going to Cups is now kind of getting older. I feel like this is the first year that they really have that injection of youth into their kids. team. So if those teams can get off to an early start, maybe they, they think they're better than they are. And you could make some money with those good lines. Yeah. To me, I don't know what, like, Sean, like out of those seven teams, like San Jose is the one that I could actually see being a

playoff team. Whereas, boy, I, I don't, Buffalo and Jersey are going to have a hard time in that division. Detroit is still in the rebuild. Ottawa is in a tough division. I don't know. I think, Sean, I'm looking at San Jose out of those seven teams and thinking that might be where I would put a little bit of money if I had to pick one out of those seven to make. the postseason. I think the sharks and I think potentially the other one might be the ducks just because of the goaltending situation. You've got with John Gibson, who did not have a good year last year and maybe is starting to lose some of the luster as far as being considered an elite guy, but he's done it before. That's a situation where maybe you could see, you could

see him putting together a hot year and and you know that division you've just got to catch one of Arizona or sorry both of Arizona and Minnesota it's it's not a huge hill to climb so that would be the other one I could see as a playoff team and then you know I have said it before but I do feel like there's a little bit of sleeping being done on the Buffalo Sabres not as a playoff team because as you mentioned that division is just so tough but it's it's like there's this decade of failure attached to this team, and people just kind of roll their eyes and goes, ah, it's the Sabers, you know, Sabers, Sabers, Sabers said, they're bad every year. Yeah, but you know what, they don't have to be great to be, to represent good value if you're dropping a couple

of bucks on the game. If they're, you know, if it's that extra half goal penalty that they're paying in the, in the lines because of, uh, what's happened years ago, you know, this, this team added an MVP. This is a young team. If it, if it does come together, again, not predicting there are going to be a cup contender this year. But if I'm looking to make a drop a wager every now and then on an individual game, Sabres are a team that I might take a look at. Right. And that's a great point, Sean. Like you said, these teams don't have to win all the time for you to win money betting on them because you're going to get really good prices. You look at some of the lines tonight. And like Anaheim, who you mentioned, they're plus 190 tonight,

almost a two to one underdog against the Golden Knights. And Vegas is really good. But I also think maybe no team in all of major sports gets a bigger home ice advantage boost or home field advantage boost in the lines than the Vegas Golden Knights. And that's partially because they're the Vegas home team. And whenever they're playing at home here at Team Mobile Arena, the fans like to bet them. But also just, I think it's a little overinflated. So you can find value betting against the Knights at home, especially in a season where the home ice doesn't mean nearly as much as it normally would. So like you said, those teams, you don't have to win a lot to win money on them because you're going to get good lines.

So it's going to be something I'm interested. And maybe we end up playing against those teams. Maybe we find out early on, like I said, six of them playing tonight. Maybe those teams aren't ready for the speed that these teams coming from the bubble are at. So maybe it'll be a play against. And I think what's going to be interesting, too,

you're seeing it in the NBA, home court advantage is out the window. And if that comes in, that's going to make some of these lines, especially early in the season, like you said, this is where you want to jump on some of those things before the trends are kind of established. Let's move guys from the kind of the seven non-playoff teams to some of the contenders here.

And this is going to either this is going to make Sean super excited or super nervous. The Toronto Maple Leafs, 11 to 1 to win the Stanley Cup. How do we feel about that line? Yeah, when I'm looking at futures, that was one that stood out to me. And it's not as much a reflection on I think the Leafs are better than they have been. I think it's more just they don't have Tampa Bay and Boston staring down at them in that division. and the way the playoffs are structured this year, you almost have to, and I'm kind of, I mean, we're just getting into this season, you almost have to think of the future betting in a totally different way than you normally would. Normally you're thinking, okay, if I'm betting on a team to win the cup, I need them to be one of the four or so best teams in the league. Because once you get to a conference final, you can hedge bets and because of the odds, you can win some money. You just need to get them to that final four. But the way it's structured now where they're going to get to a final team on each division before they ever even play anyone in the league, it's a it has nothing to do with their standing in the overall league.

It's more, can Toronto win this division? And when you look at the other contenders, I mean, the next closest team, as far as the odds to Tampa Bay is the Oilers. And they're all the way at 27 to 1. So if you're looking for not a long shot, a team that actually has a real chance at winning the cup that has some value, I think Toronto, just because they don't have those other, like Colorado has Vegas and St. Louis. Tampa Bay has Carolina and Dallas. That Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, Pittsburgh Division is stacked. I feel like Toronto is the team that has the easiest path to make it to that final four to where once you reach that point, you've made money.

Yeah. And I mean, you get to the final four. And I know I've seen people say, yeah, but they get to the final four, they're going to have to play Tampa. They're going to play. Who knows by that point? I mean, who's healthy and who's not? It's, you know, maybe not a one and four shot, but pretty close to that. They said something on the broadcast last night of the Leafs game that really made me kind of stop and do a double take and have to think about it.

But they said, if you're the Leafs or any team in that Canadian division, you've only got to beat seven teams this year. You've got to beat, or you've got to beat eight teams. You've got to beat the six teams in your division to get out of that division. And then there's going to be two teams left, one in the conference final, one in the Stanley Cup. And that's it. Those are the only teams you're ever going to play. You don't have to be the best team in the league. And so, you know, I see where it's coming from.

I'm always, I've got too many scars from the Leafs over the league. the decades to get too excited. But I see it. How much, when you see a line like that on a big market, big attention team like the Leafs, how much of that is the odds makers real perspective and how much of it is influenced by money that might be coming in from Leafs Nation wanting to drop a couple of bucks on the home team? Right. That's a great point. And it's something that I actually had written down and I didn't mention is like, this might be good, like the best value you. ever get on Toronto because I feel like that's a team you don't get great value on. The same like I mentioned with the Golden Knights. You're not getting the best of the number

anytime you bet the Golden Knights in Vegas ever. And Toronto is another very public, publicly backed team that any given night, even here in Vegas, you go to a sports book, majority of the tickets on a Toronto Maple Leafs game are going to be on the Leafs. So there is that. You're not getting amazing value and you never will with a team like Toronto or Vegas or like even a Tampa Bay that that's won a ton lately. You're not going to get great value on those games. And, like, I don't think I would be betting on the Leafs regularly on individual games, because on those games, you're probably not getting the best of the number.

But, like I said, I think the unique playoff format has given us value on a team that you normally couldn't get value on. Just as we wrap up with your two, with you two more here to hit on, Sean and I talked about this earlier about could watch. Washington potentially be this year's San Jose where they missed the playoffs completely. But also, I'm looking at some of the future bets here, and I'm also seeing them at five to one to win their division. Where do you see Washington kind of potentially being in terms of being a division winner? And is that smart money to put down on the caps?

Yeah, I was looking at just the odds to win divisions. And that one, I think Washington and the islanders are right there with them. Washington's five to one, and the islanders are six to one. And to me, that division is so tough. And that's the group of death, to use a soccer term, with Boston and Philly and Pittsburgh and Washington and both the New York teams. And like even Sean mentioned, Buffalo could be improved this year. I just think in a division with that many good teams and I feel like there's going to be chaos and this is hockey, things never end up the way we expect them to. I just don't think it's going to be Boston, Philly, Pittsburgh at the top of that division like the odds suggest.

And that's really where you see the big jump. When you look at, you go down the list and it's like, okay, Tampa Base 5 to 2, Boston 7 to 2, or sorry, Boston's 7 to 2, Philly's 5 to 2. And then Washington's 5 to 1. There's that big jump right there. So to me, maybe if you like the Islanders more than the capitals, I think either of those teams, I just feel like if you're going to take a flyer on a team to win a division, that's pretty good value for a Washington team that has a ton of talent. And if they put it all together, can be really good. And was the first place team in that division last year. You know, we kind of value the playoffs are such a mess that you forget about that. But that was, they were first place when the season paused last year. See, I thought if you were going to take a flyer on a team to win that division, it would be Philadelphia. There it is. I told you there would be some bad puns.

Hey, let's wrap it up here. We're looking at one individual kind of player prop bet, if we can hear, Jesse. And that would be, you're looking at the Draft Kings player prop bet on Nate McKinnon in Colorado to lead that, that team in goal. Yeah, usually when you find the player prop bets, you find value in players that aren't super well known to the public. But in this case, Nathan McKinnon, I'm looking down the list and like, there are so many interests. And like, this is the great thing about sports betting, becoming more nationally accepted, is just there's so much to bet on. And draft kings, you can bet just about anything you can think of. And in this case, you can bet which player will lead that team in

goals. And Nathan McKinnon's minus 155, meaning you'd have to bet 1505 bucks just to win 100. That's that is a lot on a player to win to score the most goals. But at the same time, who else is going to lead this team in goals? I just don't see a possible scenario other than Nathan McKinnon having a major injury that leads to anyone other than him leading this team and goals. So while minus 155 is a very high price to pay for a single player to lead his team and goals, I just feel like that one is a slam dunk. And if I can bet $155 to win $100 on Nate McKinnon leading the Colorado avalancheon goals, That seems like of all the individual player prop bets I gazed over,

that one definitely caught my eye. Well, listen, Jesse Granger, I hope you enjoyed the initial installment of Granger things. We're looking forward to having you on with us every Thursday. Listen, enjoy the opening of the season this weekend. Have a great week, and we'll get you again next week. Thanks for having me, guys. Thanks, Jesse. You know, one of the things, I think, Sean, a lot of people had their eyes on last night

were it was the, on Wednesday, was the first time we were going to see advertising on the helmets. and I know that it came with mixed reviews. I got to tell you, watching the, I'll use Toronto, Montreal as an example, it didn't really bother me. It didn't really stick out as much as I thought. I have a feeling that this is here to stay. I don't see how they put this genie back in the bottle.

Yeah, I'll even go one further. I didn't even notice it last night when I was watching. I mean, I, and part of that is me. I'm one of those people when I, even when I've got the hockey game on, I've usually got a second screen. So, you know, I'm flipping back and forth between games. I'm checking Twitter. I'm maybe doing some writing.

So I'm not watching as much of the between whistle action. And that's when you would really notice when they cut to the bench or they cut to a player. During the game, you can't see them at all. And even between, I mean, once or twice I was like, oh, right, there's the ad on the helmet. Didn't notice it. Didn't bother me. You know what? If this is going to stick around.

and it stays the way it is now with one, for the most part, they're pretty subtle. That doesn't bother me. I don't want this to be step one of covering the whole helmet with these things, but it didn't bother me at all. I'll tell you what I didn't like is they slipped in that extra line of advertising around the glass that you saw in the Canadian games especially. That to me was far more noticeable than anything that they were doing. doing as far as the helmets. And I didn't love that because that's a situation where that could actually interfere with you being able to see where the puck is.

That's the one that if I'm going to pick something to hike up my pants around my waist and be the old-timer crotchety guy, I'll complain about what they did on the glass. Helmets didn't bother me at all. Yeah, I like it when you lean into the get off my lawn version of Down Goes Brown. Hey, look, look, we know the league is trying different things. and the helmet advertising is a great example of kind of thinking outside of the box. Now, I'm going to pitch something to you, and we're going to workshop this. You're going to tell me if this is a good idea, bad idea, or somewhere in between.

So everybody is probably familiar with Willie Wonka, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, right? They mail out five golden tickets. If you get one, you get an exclusive trip inside the chocolate factory, which turns out to be a hellish trip, but that's another story for another day. Here's what I'm thinking. We know that you can't in 90% of rings in league are not allowing anybody. But what if you allowed five people, Sean? What if you allowed five people? Now, this is where you work with your sponsors.

Maybe it's a beer company. Maybe it's a chip company. Maybe it's a pizza company. And to kind of drum up support, you're like, hey, hidden in a bag of chips is a ticket to a Philadelphia Flyers game. And the Flyers work with their sponsors. And then there's a little bit of buzz. And people like, is there any merit to the goal?

didn't take an idea. And again, maybe it's five people that get to go to the game. Yes, no, dumb. I mean, I don't hate it. I don't, you know, I'm not, if, like, if I'm the guy that you're pitching this to, I'm not kicking you out of my office right now, but, uh, I've got to be honest, the, the first thing that comes to mind as soon as you say this is I'm picturing like a Leaf Senators game in Ottawa with five fans spread around, but like three of them are wearing Leafs jerseys and then now like the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, you know, sense fans are trying to figure out, like, can I hit that guy with a beer from three sections away? I don't know if my, I got to warm my arm up to really, to really get into it. But yeah,

I, you know what? I don't hate it. But I'll tell you this, the very first time that those five fans get together and try to do the wave, it's over. The whole thing is done. We're pulling the promo off the shelves immediately. Okay. You know what? I'll take that. It was a lukewarm response to the Willy Wonka golden ticket idea. I'm telling you, I think it's got some traction here. So the other thing that I like to float, and this is something that the NFL did in conjunction with Nickelodeon and CBS, and that was during Wild Card weekend, Sean. I know you're also an NFL guy.

You're also a guy that has kids that might fall into this demographic of, should the NHL potentially be doing this? Should the NHL take a page out of the NFL's book, Sean, and have a Nickelodeon or kid's style broadcast of an NHL game to engage a younger demographic? Yeah, I'm all for. trying new things. And I think that that's what the NHL should be doing. When you're a distant number four, especially down in the United States, and that might be generous to say number four at

this point, get creative. You try some new things. And if the NFL can do it, then of course the NHL could. We didn't get that up here in Canada. You couldn't watch the Nickelodeon version. So I didn't see a ton of it other than a couple of clips that were getting posted on social media. But I'll tell you right now, I, you know, I got a 10-year-old and I told him, hey, you want to watch some football this afternoon. And he, he lasted about 10 minutes watching the traditional broadcast. And then he wandered off to go do something else. If we'd had the Nickelodeon with like slime in the end zones and that, he would have absolutely watched that. He would have been there for that. And, you know, is it for everyone? No, of course not. It was never, never pitched that way.

But yeah, try something new like that. Let's, let's see. It's, you know, the NHL, unfortunately, for various reasons over the last couple of decades has lost a lot of a generation of sports fans. Let's get the next one. Let's try to break that back. I remember in the mid-90s when the NHL kind of very briefly when they were working with ESPN and they were trying to be cool and it was like that. It's the coolest game on ice and the weird ads and those crazy Fox sports intros where like there'd be body checks and guys would explode and all sorts of crazy stuff.

That was good. Even at the time, I know I wasn't even old yet, but I was still like, I don't know, this is a traditional game. You can't have stuff like that. I look back on that now and I'm like, yeah, of course you try something like that. Bring some new fans on board. Why not? What's the worst that can happen? If it doesn't work, it doesn't work, people don't watch it.

A lot of people aren't watching anyways. Take a shot. Have some fun with it. To me, I could just see, can't you just see this now? Tomorrow, the NHL sends out a press release. We have a 20-year agreement with Cayu. Yes. Yeah, exactly.

It would be, yeah, we have connected with Kaiu. you a 20-year deal. But yeah, I think I agree with you. I think just try things that are out of the box. That's what you have to do if you are the fourth. In fact, that that's almost gives you creative license to be a little. And if the NFL is willing to gamble on something like that, then my goodness, yeah, the NHL should probably do that.

Let me hit on a couple of emails and tweets that we've received. A reminder, you can email us your questions to the athletic hockey show at gmail.com, the athletic hockey show at gmail.com. We got a couple of tweets here, Sean. This one's from Amber, who tweeted wondering, how do you think that with a divisional format that this season series will affect rivalries? And do you think this will become too played out and stale?

Or do you think those later games this season are going to become pretty heated? Like, do you think that, but let me put this way. When we get to like April and May, are you going to be tired of Toronto, Vancouver, Toronto, Winnipeg, you know, Montreal, all, Edmonton. Are we going to be tired of that? There's going to be certain teams that just aren't going to be interesting and you're going

to be sick and tired to see in them. But I think this is a great question because this season is going to be a really interesting test of whether we can still do rivalries in the NHL the way that we used to. I mean, you and I, we both grew up in the, you know, for me, it was the Leafs in the Norris Division. For you, you had the Montreal and the Adams. you're watching Smythe Division at West. There were some great rivalries, just some all-time classic ones, and bad blood and just must-see TV.

And I've been one of the people, I know a lot of people don't like the playoff format these days that's trying to kind of go back to that divisional base thing. And I did like it when they brought it in, because I said, I want to go back to that. I want to see those same matchups coming in the playoffs every year and build that bad blood, and let's get that going again. And I have to acknowledge it, it hasn't really worked.

And part of that is because it's not five-team divisions anymore. It's eight teams and you don't get the exact same matchups year after year like you used to in some of those old divisions. But also it's just the way the game is nowadays. I remember back in the early 90s, if there was a Norris division home and home, two teams are going to play each other twice and two nights, look out. You knew there were going to be fireworks. There was no way around it. And if you had told me then that, hey, someday there's going to be schedule where you're going to play the same team four times in a row. oh boy look out i mean that's going to be crazy will it be this year in the way the nchel is these days it

maybe not and and i you know if we don't get if if we don't come out of this season going wow those are some great rivalries that were built there was some boy there was so much intensity so much bad blood if we don't come out of this season saying that i think we can probably safely put the idea to rest that we're ever going to get back any piece of that that we used to have in in the quote-unquote old days i'm going to circle back to you after the seventh Ottawa Winnipeg meeting and we'll see if that thing gets spicy or not. Okay, one of the things that I'm really excited about with this podcast is I'm going to wrap up every episode with this, Sean, because this is right up your alley.

In fact, let's do a shameless book plug here. For anybody who doesn't know about your Down Goes Brown hockey history, here, free platform to pitch your book here. It is the Down Goes Brown history of the NHL and it's basically what the title sounds like. It is the entire history 100 plus years of the NHL, but with a focus on the weird and strange and the way that couldn't actually have happened sort of stories that this league provides a lot of. The subtitle of the book is, it's the world's most beautiful game is presented by the world's dumbest league. And that is a kind of an ongoing theme. So it covers

all the big stuff. It also covers all of the weird stuff where if you're a new fan, you're going to be sitting there going, this guy's making this stuff up. There's no way. Yes, there is because this league is so filled with completely bizarre stories. that they just leave you scratch in your head. So one of those stories, and we'll hit on this here to wrap up the show. So we'll do on this week in hockey history. So January the 15th, 1990, Sean,

the Washington Capitals relieved Brian Murray of his duties as head coach of the team. And Brian had been there about eight years and replaced him with, drum roll, please, his brother Terry. It's one of the hottest replacements in hockey history. Like, I would want to know. Here's a question for you.

Like, if your sibling got fired from a job, and you got offered the job, would you take the job? Yeah, that is the question. And let's clarify, because people might be hearing this and going, oh, like, was Terry Murray, like the assistant on his brother's staff and they promoted him up? No, like Terry Murray was coaching it. I don't remember if it was junior or the H.L. or something, but he was, he was an up-and-coming coach.

And the Washington Capitals just decided that they were going to fire Brian Murray and that the best coach out there to replace him happened to be his brother. It wasn't a napatism thing. It wasn't a, you know, their plan of succession or anything like that. And yet, Terry Murray said at the time that he wasn't sure what to do when they called him and said, we're firing your brother. Do you want the job? Obviously, there was a part of him that was, I'm sure, thinking like, no, I'm not going to go in and take my brother's job.

But he also, and he said it at the time. He said, when am I going to get this opportunity again? This door doesn't open all that often. And it was, it was really interesting because you go back and you read news articles from around the time. And even a few days after, the brothers hadn't spoken about it. They hadn't talked to each other. Not because there was animosity necessarily, because they weren't coordinating on this. They weren't on the same, you know, they hadn't been talking about this. They didn't realize it was a possibility. It's just one of those things where you're like, of all the people

that you could potentially hire to take over from a guy to call up his brother is just such a such a bizarre thing. But they did it, and he took the job. And to this day, I think probably the strangest coaching change that I can remember in NHL history. You know, also on this date as we wrap up the show here, Sean, it is the week of 1993, January the 12th, the Pittsburgh Penguins announced Mario Lemieux has been diagnosed with cancer and would be away from the team for an extended period of time. This is one of the most remarkable stories in the history of hockey.

Mary O'Ale-Lamue and the 93 Penguins. Yeah, history of sports, I would say. I mean, I've written before and people who know me know, to me, that 92-93 season is the most fascinating, interesting, entertaining season in the history of hockey. And this was a big part of it. And at the time, you know, when we got that news, I mean, it was jaw-dropping. And this was, of course, back before the 24-hour news cycle and, you know, Twitter and all of that stuff. So, you know, a lot of people had no clue that there were health concerns with Mario Lemieux beyond the fact that, you know, we knew his back was bad and stuff like that. But this kind of came out of nowhere.

We didn't know if he was going to be back at all. There was talk at the time, like, this could be it for Mario Lemieux. Certainly, we won't see him again this season. And then, of course, people know he goes away, he misses 20 games, comes back. and still wins the score. It doesn't just win the scoring title. Like just blows past everybody, wins the scoring title in a 60-game season,

leads his team back into the playoffs and resumes his career that would go on for years to come. A great story. But at the time, this week in history, just an awful story that I think had a lot of us think of the worst. Yeah. And how about that? We talked about the penguins and capitals in the present.

We wrap up. I talk about the penguins and the capitals in the past, and I'm sure we're going to get a lot of hatred from Rangers and Flyers and Devils fans for that. Listen, Sean, that doesn't seem like that. That doesn't seem right at all. Hey, listen, this was a lot of fun. Enjoy this next, this first weekend of hockey. And again, we want to remind people to hit us up on Twitter and email. But listen, this was a lot of fun. Yeah, this was great. And I'm looking forward to this every week. And I hope people enjoy it and looking forward to hearing from them as well. Yeah, all right. And again, thanks for joining us. We'll

again next week again email any questions to us at the athletic hockey show at gmail.com leave us a voicemail at 845 445 8458459 and if you're not an athletic subscriber, join us at theathletic dot com slash hockey show.