The Athletic Hockey Show - Ottawa Senators reeling, Marc Bergevin GM of the year, projecting Olympic rosters

Episode Date: February 4, 2021

On this episode, Ian and Sean discuss the disastrous season of the Ottawa Senators, the somewhat surprising season of the Montreal Canadiens and the praise which is being heaped upon their once vilified General Manager, Marc Bergevin in Montreal. The guys ask, would you be disappointed if your favourite team traded for Tony DeAngelo and they take a look at preliminary Olympic Rosters, with the Beijing games one year out.Then in "Granger Things", Jesse Granger joins the show to provide an update on the Vegas Golden Knights coaches who are stuck in Covid-19 protocol. With the Superbowl taking place this weekend, Ian and Sean ask Jesse about Super Bowl/NHL prop bets.Finally, in the mailbag, Mendes and McIndoe answer querstions on Jeff Blashill's future with the Red Wings and the NHL's 20/21 divisional format.Have a question? Send it to [e-mail], or leave a VM at [phone]! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back for another edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. I'm Ian Metis alongside Sean McIndoo. Ahead on this episode, we'll discuss how you would react if your favorite team traded for Tony DiAngelo. Should we just go ahead and engrave Mark Bourgevan's name on the GM of the Year Award? Plus, we're a year out from the Olympics. We'll discuss how we feel about the preliminary rosters that have been floated out there. Jesse Granger will drop by for Granger Things, where we'll look at some fun NHL-related Super Bowl prop bets. We'll close out the show as always by opening up the mailbag

and doing a little this week in hockey history, including the commissioner, Gary Bettman, making an appearance. But Sean, I got to start with this because we're headed into a weekend series where it's the Montreal Canadians and the Ottawa Senators, two teams that are on polar opposite ends of the standings. Help me out here. As a guy who covers the Ottawaist senators, I'm asking for your help.

Please, help me. Help me get through this weekend. Are you like asking me this as a guy who grew up cheering for the Maple Leafs? Is this my area of expertise? Yeah. Yeah. It's the senators right now, they're one, eight and one, which is a big number because they are one loss away from having the same record that the Leifes had one year when the, I think it was the Toronto Star, ran one of my favorite headlines ever, which is one nine one is a joke. I remember seeing that as a kid and thinking that was really funny.

And we're one away from the same thing for the senators. And it's, you know, you would think it'd be impossible to be one, eight, and one. And have your record maybe flatter you. But that might be what's going on with the senators. Because when you look at a rebuilding team and you see them losing nine out of ten, maybe you're thinking, okay, if they're going out there and they're losing two to one, and giving teams a tough fight, maybe you can live with that. And that's obviously not what's happening.

I mean, they are just getting their doors blowing off. And I don't think anyone saw this coming. Certainly, this is not the opponent you want to run into when things are going bad. Who knows what will happen? It's hockey. It's the NHL. I don't think anyone would be completely shocked if the senators gave Montreal a much tougher ride than you'd expect. but this is a flat out very bad team right now.

And personally at least, that's not how I saw this season going for them. And it's almost like if you're an Ottawa fan, Sean, you're taken back, if you're old enough, to the expansion days, right? The early 90s where they were literally a doormat. And so now I've seen the number. And again, this is a truncated 56 game season. So it's a little bit different than we've seen in the past. I've seen people float out the number, Sean, of 10.

Will the Ottawa senators get to 10 wins this season? And look, I would have thought that's a ridiculous question two, three weeks ago. I think it's a valid question now. I still think they'll get to 10 wins. Come on. Like 10 out of 56 seems easy to do. But is there any thought that they may end up being historically bad? Remember that Colorado team from a couple years ago that was really bad?

Ended up with 40-some-odd points. Like, are we trending into that territory? I think you are. I think that's where you're going. I mean, when people say historically bad, you really have to count the history of the cap era because anything before that, before the age of parity, there were some really awful teams, especially around expansion. You go back to the capitals in the mid-70s and the senators and the sharks in the early 90s and some other teams were bad in a way that we will never see again. But yeah, I mean, the two standard Bears of the Cap era are last year's Red Wings and then that avalanche team from from three years ago,

which is a great team to have on there if you're a team like the Red Wings or the Senators, because you're looking back and going, that avalanche team got good real quick. So maybe there is hope here. Ten wins, I mean, they got to pick up the pace. I think they'll get there. Even last year's Red Wings as bad as they were, even if you pro rate it would have come in pretty comfortably ahead of that total. So it's got to get there because you would think even in a rebuild, even in a year where nobody thought you were going to make the playoffs,

how bad can it get before maybe you've got to make some changes and say, we've got to do something to put some wins on the board if only so that these kids that we're building around for the future don't have to suffer through a season that is so miserable that maybe it's saps something out of them for the future. Yeah, and I keep thinking about Brady Kachshon. I think, you know, I've seen, you've seen Jack Eichol, of openly, you know, start to complain a little bit about the culture in Buffalo. I wonder if and when we get to that point with Brady Kachuk in Ottawa, and he is in the last

year of his entry-level deal. So we'll see what kind of leverage he's got there. So Ottawa's got a double date with Montreal this weekend. And let's talk a little bit about the Habs, Sean, because, look, they finished 24th in the standings last year. I don't think anybody, I think a lot of people thought they'd be a better team this year. I know that some people were, like, really bullish on them. But now they legit, they might be the best team in the league.

And so here's the question. Should we just go ahead and call it right now? Mark Bergevans, your GM of the year. Yeah, we might need to do that. Look, I hate the NHL GM of the year award. I think it's a terrible award. It doesn't make any sense. The way it's handed out, the idea that you give a GM an award based on one year of work,

when, of course, most of what a GM does doesn't pay off for years down the line, always struck me as strange. It's basically a lifetime achievement award. It's very strange how it's been handed out. But this might be one of the few years where you could actually say, yeah, just going based on the last calendar year, Mark Bergervan deserves the award because he, you know, he made a couple of big trades. Rolled dice a little bit on Josh Anderson.

I remember, this is a guy who had one goal last year and he comes in and gives him the big contract. There's a lot of people kind of looking at that going, is that really the guy you want to pin your hopes on. He's been fantastic. Tyler Tofoli, I think at the moment that signing happened, a lot of people said that's a great fit. That's great value. But it's, it's been even better than, than you would thought. Jake Allen has done what Jake Allen would be expected to do. And yeah, it's, it's, it really feels like this is a plan that is all coming together pretty much exactly the way Montreal thought it was going to be. And we're 10 games in. We, we don't want to get

too carried away. But, you know, I'll admit, I wasn't sold on this. team going into the season. I didn't necessarily see what some others were seeing, and I'm seeing it now on the ice, because they look real good and really deep, and they're just getting everything that they would want to get. And this is a team. You talk about Ottawa's record, maybe not reflecting. This team is good for their record. This is not just Kerry Price standing on his head and stealing games that they didn't deserve to win. This is a real good team that's going out there, and looking dominant most nights. Yeah, and I think you've got Jeff Petrie having a, again, everything is couched with a,

Norris caliber start to the season for Jeff Petrie. You've got Romanov looking like he's a stud. He's played fewer than 10 games in the league, and he's 21 years old, and he looks like a season veteran. So like the back end is taking care of, like you said, Jake Allen comes in and he really gives Kerry Price something that he hasn't really had the luxury in a long time, which is a dependable, capable backup to kind of, to give them a rest. And then the one knock on the habs for years was they're too small. They

don't have enough skill. Like they're just not enough. And now you look at that that top six, top nine, you're like, man, that's a deep, deep hockey team. And they're going to be, it's just amazing to me how they were able to go from. Mark Bershivan went from probably the general manager, I would say, Sean, and probably it's the market too. Like that market, they're savage in Montreal. So when they're, when they, when the media kind of smells blood, they, they're like, sharks that go after. They were circling around Mark Bergevan 2018, 2019, and now all of a sudden, not only does he

as he kind of escape the heat, I don't see this guy going anywhere for years. Like it's almost like he has he's completely changed the narrative and that's hard to do, isn't it, in the Canadian market, Sean? To change the narrative as a general manager in a short window. There was a window there where Jim Benning, I thought, had done it in

Vancouver, but again, maybe not, but it's tough to do. And I got to give Bergevin some credit there. Yeah, I mean, winning does cure everything and even in a market like Montreal, but you're like Mark Bergervan was criticized a lot in the years leading up to this season. And I would argue rightly so. I mean, some of the moves he made didn't work. Some of them were questionable at the moment they were made. There was that constant pursuit of this fable number one center who was going to come in and they just kept getting rejected on almost every opportunity there. I think there was lots of room for some valid criticism. And there was almost a bit of a change in strategy where it sort of went from, okay, instead of chasing that number one guy,

that big star that we need to bring in, we want to have a team that's got three or four dangerous lines where you can't pick one to shut down. And, and, and, and, and, you can't pick one to shut down. And that's exactly how they're winning right now. So, I mean, that's what I say. There are times in this league where you see a team get off to a good start, and you're kind of looking at it going, yeah, but that's not what you thought was going to happen. That wasn't the plan. You're just having things break in the right direction.

Montreal is having things go pretty much according to plan. The one thing you do wonder a little bit is when we get in the playoffs, if they're facing a Toronto or an Edmonton or some top heavy team, what does that look like when you've got the deep team versus a team? team that can say, you know what, we're going to play these guys 25 or 30 minutes at night. We're going to throw Connor McDavid out there, or Austin Matthews, or wherever it is. And Montreal can't really necessarily do that.

Which one of those narratives takes over? Is it the elite talent that wins out, or is it, hey, we're deeper. You know, you can't, you can't shut, you shut down one of our lines. Our other ones will pick it up and we're going to be okay. That'll be interesting to see. Still a long way away. But, I mean, at this point, we can pretty much pencil Montreal in for that playoff spot because they look like they're headed there.

and probably with the real good seed. And, you know, Tyler Tafoli's just been dynamite against, obviously, his old team, Vancouver. And I got it had me with the flashbacks. Remember, like the Habs traded John LeClair to Philadelphia there in the mid-90s. And every time LeClair would play the Habs, it was like the running joke, he's good for two goals. And that's what Tofoli's done was. He's got eight against Vancouver to start the year in five games against the Canucks. He's been dynamite.

Did the Leafs ever trade a guy, Sean, that, They traded him away and he just came back and haunted the Leafs in head-to-head games. Because I, you know, I think LeClaire is like the gold standard for going back and haunting the halves. But I think what Tyler Tofoli is doing is right on right on the same line. Yeah, it is. I mean, I think LeClaer is probably the best example. When you look at the Leafs, this is one of those funny things, right? Because every fan base will tell you every ex-player who comes back and plays us always does well.

We all notice that whenever it happens. We all have this. I mean, it's a running joke in the Leafs. They could have, they could be facing a team where the 12th forward on that team played two games for the Leafs years ago. And people will say, well, let's get ready for the Hatrick. We know what's coming tonight. But, no, I can't, off the top of my head, I can't remember the Leafs ever having like a To Foley or a John LaClair situation where it was just constant. I mean, LeClair, it was for years.

He just would not let these guys forget about it. maybe the thing with the Leafs is they haven't had enough talent to trade away over the years that they could have somebody really burned them like that. There's probably a few. I'm sure someone will remind me, but I don't know that until this year we've ever seen anything that was at that John Leclair level. Ponokrovsky and Anthropov never came back to haunt the Leafs. They probably did.

I mean, the famous one was Matt Sundin coming back and winning the shootout that first night with Vancouver. With Vancouver. Yeah, which I mean, that was the one where, you know, Every Lee fan, it's like, oh, Matt Sundeen's coming out with the game on a stick. We're like, just put the goal on the board. We all know how this is going to go. And, of course, it went that way.

And it was, that was a fun one. But I don't think anyone was shocked that Matt Sundeen was playing well, especially when he came back against a team where he had a bit of a chip on his shoulder. You know, it's funny, it's funny you bring up Sundeen because I think it's a perfect segue into our next conversation. I think when Sundeen was originally traded to Toronto for Wendell Clark, did you embrace Matt Sundin right away? Or were you just too much of a Wendell guy that it took, it was like a slow embrace of Matt Sundeen? Yeah, I mean, it was a little bit slow. We hated the trade at the time. I mean, that trade obviously worked out brilliantly for the leaves in the long term.

But at the time, everybody hated that trade. Now, that didn't necessarily mean you hated the guys coming over in the trade. But it was a little bit tough, especially since, you know, that trade happened in 94. The lockout happens right after that. So you don't even get to see Matt Sundeen in action for months. And then he plays the shortened season. And, you know, his numbers are okay, but nobody's putting up crazy numbers in a 40-something game season. And, you know, it took a little bit of time.

And plus the fact is when you trade at Wendell, that made it Dougie's team officially. This is now Doug Gilmore's team. He becomes a captain. So it's not like Sundin even gets to slide in and be the guy. It definitely took a while. And I'm sure there were a lot of fans that kind of held the trade against Sundeen and the players that came over. But in my case, it was more like, this guy's fine, this guy's good. Man, I wish we had Wendell back.

And then we did. And that opened the doors maybe for people to say, okay, now we can get. give this Sundeen get a fresh look. And the reason why I bring that up is, look, it took a while for Toronto fans to maybe to embrace Matt Sundeen. And I threw this out on Twitter today. We'll hit on some of those. But the sort of catalyst for this, Sean, is that Tony DiAngelo, the controversial,

we'll call him offensive defensemen. You can interpret the term offensive however you'd like. He's available in a trade with the Rangers. Look, he's never going to play for New York again. And the question I floated out there was, as a hockey fan, and maybe even a sports fan, because I know they ended up getting some answers that went beyond the scope of hockey.

Have you ever had a player that your favorite team traded for where you're like, forget it? I ain't cheering for that guy. Because DiAngelo has that feel to him, doesn't he? Like there's a lot of fans are like, I don't want him on my team. So if he ends up playing for your team, you're going to have to reconcile it. And it's one of the most awkward things, isn't it?

Sean, in sports, when your favorite team has a guy who you don't either stand for or you just, you don't believe in that person, and yet he's wearing your team sweater. So first of all, has that happened to you where the Leafs just traded for a guy? You're like, forget it. I'm out.

I don't care if this guy scores an overtime winner. I'm not going to be happy. Yeah, I have one of those and only one. And because I'm generally pretty forgiving. I didn't like Shane Corson. And then the Leafs brought him on, and it was fine. I remember the Leaveshead run-ins

with Darcy Tucker when he was with the Lightning. Who is this punk? I can't stand this guy. He comes over. He starts doing it for your team. You're fine with it. Garth Butcher came over in the Wendell Clark Trade. All sorts of Norris run-ins and I was able to get over that. It's not a Tony DeAngelo situation

because it wasn't an off-the-ice thing. It wasn't a personality thing. The one guy I could not forgive and forget was Brian Marchman. He when he was with the Blackhawks, We're talking back in the early 90s, but this is old school Norris Division stuff. And he and the Leafs, he was public enemy number one. He low bridged a couple of guys.

He got Wendell one time. He got Glenn Anderson, put him out of the lineup on low hits. And then there was like a season where he had some sort of facial injury. So he was skating around with a full face mask, which back then nobody ever did. I mean, this was like pro wrestling heel stuff that he's out there running around wearing like the full face protection. I just remember being like, I can't wait until somebody gets him. And finally one night in Chicago, Wendell Clark did. Wendell got him down.

And according to the story, started popping the face mask off one button at a time. And it just turned. That was the night that Stu Grimson went nuts. You think people remember that. Stadium was going crazy. And years later. And, you know, I remember Brian Marshman as a Black Hawk. This guy played for like six teams.

He played for the Blackhawks for like three years. But to me, it was a decade where I just couldn't stand this guy. And he comes over to the Leafs at the end of his career. at the end of the Pat Quinn era. And I just, I just couldn't. And that was back when that Leafs team was hated. I mean,

that was a heel team. Sports Illustrated in 2003 said that the Toronto Maple Leafs were the most hated team in all of sports. That was like the Tideomi, Travis Green, Tucker, Corson, like go on down the list. Very easy team to hate. In theory, I should have just embraced it. Like, yeah, let's bring Brian Marchman on too. But I just couldn't do it.

I was, he was the one guy where I was like, I can't get my head around this. There's no way this is, I, I have too many Wendell Clark Norris Division memories of this guy. And I cannot cheer him on. And it, you know, it's a little easier to feel that way also when you're talking about a defensive defenseman veteran who's not going to score that overtime winner. But, yeah, that was the one I just couldn't let go. So as I look on Twitter to kind of some of the reactions that I got from throwing that out there. So here's a couple that have come out. Like a lot of Rangers fans wrote back, Sean,

and said, I could never get behind Bobby Holick. Bobby Holick signing with the Rangers. But I wonder, was that more of a function of the deal? Like, there was a massive contract. If Bobby Holick came over for three years and five million, would people have cared in New York? I mean, I think they would have because that devil's rivalry was pretty intense at the time and he was front and center on it. I do have to say, and I think this is a theme with some of the names that are getting thrown out there, is there's some revisionist history going on here. Because Bobby Holieb, was the big free agent that year. And there were a lot of Rangers fans that were real happy that they landed him. They outbid everybody.

This is back before the cap when the Rangers could do that. And, you know, I think part of it is the contract. But part of it's also that in hindsight, the contract didn't work out. It didn't pay off. It's one of those things where people look back now and they're like, Bobby Holilik was making as much as the Armory Yeager? What was going on with that? It made sense at the time, we thought.

But now people look back and go, yeah, that definitely didn't work out. I think they had to buy them out. Yeah, I never liked Bobby Holick. And I'm sort of thinking, yeah, if we had a time machine, I feel like if we went back to that signing day, maybe you wouldn't have felt quite the same way. Well, along the lines of revisionist history, another name that came up repeatedly. And again, this one wasn't a trade. This was a signing.

The Vancouver Canucks bring in Mark Messier. in 1997. And Mess signs a three-year deal there. And now, if you're a Vancouver fan, I mean, first of all, Messier does them in in the cup final in 94, and then three years later he signs there, and he's really underwhelming. A lot of Vancouver fans are like,

I never got behind Mark Messier. When we signed him, it was bad. I never cheered for him. But I think, are you throwing a revisionist history flag here on this one? I mean, yeah, I am. And for some. And look, I'm not going to sit here and act like I know exactly what every Canucks fan was thinking. But, you know, I certainly remember when he signed, I didn't hear a lot of complaints back then from Canucks fans right off the bat saying this is awful.

It did get off to a bad start pretty quickly. You know, they sign him and that's great. This guy is considered one of the big stars in the league. He's chosen Vancouver. They were going to have, remember that Messier, Barry McGillney line. Oh, this is going to be unstoppable. That's like what you'd load up in NHL 94.

This is going to be great. It did go off the rails pretty quick because he takes the captaincy from Trevor Linden, he takes the number 11, which has been retired. So already people are wondering a little bit. I still feel like that one didn't really go off the rails until Trevor Linden was traded. And that's when, you know, between that and the fact that Messia wasn't a 90-point guy anymore is when I think a lot of Canucks fans started to sour on it.

and certainly now, I mean, there's sometimes we have that debate where you go through the team, who's the most hated player for each team? There's no debate with Vancouver. You can't mention Mark Messia to a Canucks fan without them hissing at you. So I don't deny that they don't like the guy now. I do think at the time he signed, you know, there was maybe some hesitancy. But I think a lot of Canucks fans would probably, if they were being completely honest, would say that they were willing to give him a shot at the time.

You know, again, we're just on the topic of the guy. that you couldn't get around to cheering for. And I got a couple of notes here from Flames fans who were like we were really never on board with Todd Bertuzi coming. And I'm like, wait, Todd Bertuzzi played for Calgary? I have no recollection. And this is terrible.

I have no recollection of Todd Bertuzi in Calgary. I had to look it up. I'm like, what happened here? And he played a full season there. Do you have any recollection of Todd Bertuzzi's season in Calgary? I mean, if you had just grabbed me this morning and said, name all the teams Todd Bertuzzi played for, there's a real good chance I would have missed Calgary. Like when I saw Flames fans saying that, I was like, yeah, that is right.

He did have that brief stint. And but yeah, I mean, that is one that absolutely fits the category because, you know, Todd Bertuzzi on the ice, off the ice, you know, everything that goes in with him, he would be a tough guy to cheer for under the best of circumstances, let alone when it's the end of his career. I mean, you're not even getting the 40-gold Todd Bertuzi. You're getting a much diminished version of that. So yeah, that is one where I did see a few flames fans responding with that one. And yeah, absolutely. I think that one qualifies really well. You know, we're exactly one year out. A year from today. So February the 4th, 2022, Sean, it will be the opening ceremonies, touch wood, fingers crossed, for the Olympic Games,

the Winter Olympic Games next year. And I'm wondering, as you look ahead, first of all, we were flooded with projected Olympic rosters for Team Canada, Team USA. Like, are you excited about that? Or is there still enough uncertainty in the COVID world where you're like, you know what, until we get there, I'm not going to get excited about seeing best on best in the NHL. I know I mean I there is a lot of uncertainty and I you can't ignore that you know even given what's happening in the NHL this week looking looking ahead a year it feels it feels tough but I am excited you know and I'm excited in a hopeful way hoping that this actually comes together and happens but yeah I mean it's it it is tough not to see those projections and kind of

and go, yeah, we've never seen Connor McDavid represent Canada in a best-on-best tournament. Like, yeah, what would it look like if you put, you know, McDavid, McKinnon, and Mitch Martyr on a line together? Throw all that speed out there and see what that looks like for Team Canada and go on down the list and look at some of the other roster. I mean, Team NSA looks really good, you know, some of these other rosters. You're at least sitting there going, hang, man, there's some star power there. I love best-on-best hockey.

I have always been back in, you know, even before players were going to the Olympics, I love the Canada Cup. I love the World Cup. That was a highlight for me to see these games play out. And I'm excited about finally getting a chance to see it again. It's been a long time. I really hope that we do get to see it. Obviously, the risk here is not low.

But I think it would just be so cool to see. And yeah, I look at every one of those rosters. And I kind of go over in my head and, okay, who play with who and how do you work the lines? because this stuff is all sorts of fun when it does happen. Yeah, and, you know, Thomas Drans and Eric Dehashik put out their kind of projected lineups, Sean, for Team Canada. And, you know, the one name, and there's a discrepancy, and let's go right to Drew Dowdy. In fact, what we're going to do is we're going to make sure we isolate this audio,

and then we're going to make sure we tweet it out, make sure Drew Dowdy sees it, because apparently he feeds on the Hater Aid, right? But would Drew Dowdy be on your, would he make your top six? for Team Canada, best on best Olympic team. And I guess we have to say like right now, right? Because it's tough to say where we're going to be in 12 months.

But right now, if Sean was putting together his team Canada, is Drew Dowdy on it? Yeah, I was a little surprised to see him on, on both the teams that Eric and Thomas put out there. And then Pierre LeBron put his team out as well. And he had snuck him on, I think, in the last spot. You know what? There's two sides of this, right? There's the argument that says, hey, the Olympics are a different thing. It is the most pressure you will ever be under as a hockey player. It is if you're playing for Team Canada, it is gold or nothing. There is no room for error. It's a single elimination tournament. There's such a high margin of risk and error. There is something to be said for having a guy in the room who has been there.

who has won everything there is to win, a veteran guy who, you know, some of these younger guys are going to be asked to drive this team. If things do feel like they're starting to go off the rails, if you had a couple of tough periods in an elimination game, they can kind of look over and see this guy, calm, ready to go, saying, you guys, it's going to be fine. We've been here. We will get through it.

Keep playing our game. There is something to be said for having value in that. The counter argument is that Drew Dowdy might not be very good anymore. you know, just flat out. This is a guy who has had a great career, but even the last couple of years, you look at some of the numbers, and we can all argue over what numbers we should be looking at,

but they have not been kind to him. And there is something to be said for, is he one of the six or seven or eight best Canadian defensemen right now? I don't think he is. That doesn't necessarily mean you can't find a roster spot for him, but I think it's a roster spot down towards the bottom of the lineup, up and then it gets into, well, if he's going to be on the taxi squad, how much does that veteran leadership really help you? Do we put him in as a third pairing guy? How much do we

trust him? Do we want him to be on the ice when, you know, the Soviets are throwing out the Ovechkin line? It is a tough one. That's going to be a real tough debate. And, you know, a year from now, we'll have a lot more insight into what Drew Doughty is right now, because typically when guys get to his age, it only goes in one direction. It's just a question of how fast. I wouldn't rule them out for my team, but I certainly wouldn't want him playing a prominent role when those games get into do or die.

Speaking of guys, maybe being troublesome when they get to a certain age, I want you to understand you just called them the Soviets. I did, yeah, yeah. So please understand, you just called them the Soviets. Hey, just to wrap up this conversation on the Olympics, when you go back and look at Team Canada

in the past, I think, Sean, their biggest strength has been goaltending, right? Whether it was, I don't know they lost in 98, but they had Patrick Guam, and other times they've had Brodour and Belfour is there kind of in a backup role and Luongo and Kerry Price was dominant in Sochi. But right now I'm a little iffy on the goaltending, to be honest with you. And you look at it and you see that the three names that get thrown out the most are obviously Kerry Price, but Jordan Bennington and Carter Hart, like, would you be a little bit worried

if that's how we were rolling into the Olympic Games? Or do you just trust Kerry Price because he's Kerry Price? I mean, I, Carrie Price is a good goaltender, but yeah, there's no question that this is the weak spot now. I mean, I'm writing on this right now because I'm writing a piece for next week where I'm going to pick a team Canada B team. And we're going to see how many teams in the tournament on projector rosters we think Canada's B team could beat. And there's a ton of good forwards available for me on that team. There's some real good defensemen. Goaltending is the issue.

I mean, you're right. We are a long way from the years where it was Patrick W. versus Martan Broder versus Curtis Joseph versus Ed Belfour for two or three spots on one team. I mean, you're talking, that's an embarrassment of riches. It's, and it hasn't been like that for a while. And this certainly won't be the first time that we're talking about goaltending as a weakness for Team Canada

because I feel like we did that last time in the time before. You only need one guy. You know, Kerry Price and 2014 goaltending was going to be weakness, but Carrie Price looked great, and that's all the. you need it. But, yeah, I mean, Jordan Biddington had a fantastic rookie year in playoffs, has not been great since then. Carter Hart looks like he's on the way to being great, but whether he's there right now, you know, I'm not sure. And it's not like there's a ton of obvious names coming after that. I mean, I think if you're putting the B team together,

you're probably looking at maybe Mark Andre Fleury as your veteran guy and McKenzie Blackwood is your young guy. And then, you know, maybe like a Darcy Kemper would be another guy that you would consider. But, you know, those aren't marquee names either. And especially when you look at the United States, having Connor Hallibuck, who's last year's Vezina winner, and John Gibson, who is maybe this year's Vezna winner, they've got a big edge in goal. And we all know how hockey works, right?

You get the edge in goal. All the forward and defensive depth in the world doesn't necessarily overcome that. All right, Sean, as always, our weekly visit with Jesse Granger, a little Granger things. And before we get into some of the lines and hopefully have a little bit of fun with some NHL-related Super Bowl prop bets, Jesse, we've seen the NHL really be affected by COVID in the past week. We're up to, I think it's 19 or 20 games that have been postponed at this stage of the game. And the team that you cover on a daily basis, the Vegas Golden Knights have certainly been front and center. So maybe you can just give the listeners a little bit of an update on where things stand as it pertains to the COVID situation in Vegas. Yeah, so it has been a crazy.

It's a little over a week here in Vegas when it comes to the COVID situation all the way down the organization to the HL level here. They've had quite a few issues. But we do see the light at the end of the tunnel. They were at practice yesterday at City National Arena. Everything seemed back to normal. They will be at practice. I'll be heading there right after this at City National Arena. And then they're expected to host the Kings on Friday.

So last week they had three coaches enter the NHL's COVID protocol. And because of that, the entire coaching staff had to isolate, which we obviously saw led to Kelly McCriman getting behind the bench. And some AHL staff coaching staff had to coach the actual NHL team, which then left the Henderson Silver Knights with no coaching staff. So just newly retired Derek Anglin jumped in and coached them in their exhibition game, which also got canceled because of COVID. So two periods into their AHL exhibition,

player on the San Jose Barakuta tested positive for COVID. So then all the HAL players had to isolate. None of them here in Vegas at least for the Henderson Silver Knights had any positive tests. So they're back to normal. The Golden Knights are still without the three coaches in COVID protocol, which we based on who was on the ice yesterday, we assume that's Peter DeBore, Ryan Craig, and Ryan McGill, which are the three main coaches on this team. Yesterday at practice, it was Misha Donzkov, who's the player development guy, goalie coach Mike Rosati and assistant coach Steve Spott. So those three may have to run this game against the Kings.

Steve Spot said he's not sure if they're going to have the coaches back. They're hoping they will. There's a chance they won't. They're prepared for all scenarios, but they are expected to play the Kings on Friday and finally get these games rolling. So they did miss three games that have all been postponed and rescheduled within the rest of the schedule. So we see a light at the end of the tunnel.

It seems like things are starting to finally get back to normal here in Vegas. And, you know, Jesse, we get you on every week because we love kind of picking your brain on some of the lines, money lines, betting odds. And again, we want to remind our listeners that the bet MGM is the exclusive betting partner with the athletic. So as we start to look at some, let's try and see if there's some fun, Super Bowl, NHL-related prop ads.

I can see Sean already saying, hey, here's one for you. Patrick Mahomes touchdowns or Ottawa Senators wins this season? But, yeah, yeah, I. I don't know which way to go on that one. But hey, let's maybe have some fun here with some prop bets heading into the Super Bowl, Jesse, as it pertains to the National Hockey League. Yeah, so as we know, there are tons of prop bets, and I actually just went down to the MGM. I hadn't been in a casino on the strip for months.

And I went down there yesterday to just see what it was like, see what they're prepping for the Super Bowl, and grab my giant packet of prop bets. You can bet on everything from the amount of yards each individual player, we'll get, you can even bet on the color of the Gatorade that will be dumped on the coach at the end of the game. And by the way, orange is the plus 140 favorite. That's what they dumped on Andy Reid last year when the Chiefs want. So orange is the favorite Gatorade. But the thing is, usually there are a ton of Golden Knights related prop bets. The MGM, particularly T-Mobile Arena as part of MGM. They like to do a lot of Golden Knights ones. But this year they haven't partially because they weren't sure if the Golden Knights were going to be playing games because of all the COVID situation.

their last three had been canceled. So there was only one NHL crossover prop bet, but it is a fun one. And it's, it's to me, two guys who kind of have mirrored career sort of, obviously not as many championships for Ovechkin, but Alex Ovechkin and Tom Brady are two guys who continue to defy father time and well into their mid-40s for Brady, mid-30s for Ovechkin are still at it. And the prop bet is, what will be higher, Tom Brady's touchdown passes in the Super Bowl, or Alex Ovechkin's points against the Flyers. And they are playing. Capitals and Flyers are playing right before the Super Bowl. So you'll be able to watch hockey all morning.

See how many points Alex Ovechkin. Get as soon as that game ends, the Super Bowl takes over. And now you've got to root for Brady to throw either more or less touchdowns than that. Brady's touchdowns are the pretty heavy favorite at minus 250. And I dug into it to see if that should be the case. And it appears so. I mean, Brady, this year, he's thrown three or more touchdowns in 42% of his games. eight of the 19 games. So I'd say it's not quite 50-50 that he'll throw for three, but you're thinking he's

going to throw at least two. And then I went back into his Super Bowls, and the guy's been in nine Super Bowls. So there's plenty of stats to dig into. He's thrown three plus in three of those Super Bowls. He's also thrown one or zero in three. So there's a chance he could have a bad game, but you also look at those defenses. And he played against the Rams, and they had an awesome defense. The Chief's defense, this looks like it's going to be a shootout. So you're expecting two or three touchdowns out of Brady. So now let's look at Oveschkin. How likely is he to score three points? He's Alex Oveskens. You'd think it's likely. But what I found out is it's way harder to score three points in an NHL game than I thought it was. Over his career, he's only scored three or more points

80 times in about 1,100 regular season games. So 6.9% of the time, not very good. Obviously, it's good compared to most NHL players, but compared to Tom Brady's touchdown passes, it's not a great percentage. Even against the Flyers, where he's had a ton of success, he's only topped three points in 7% of his games against the flyer. So I realize saying this, Alex Ovechian's probably going to go off for a hat trick and two assists, but I think it's highly unlikely that Ovechkin scores more points than Brady has touchdown passes. So even at minus 250, I think bet and Tom Brady, I know this is a hockey show and we all want to back the hockey guy. But I think Brady's touchdown passes at minus 250 is a solid bet.

Yeah, I'm thinking that. That seems like the way to go, right, Sean, especially the way that Jesse lays it out. feels like that would be an easy choice to take the Brady touchdowns over the Ovechkin points, right? Yeah, and I usually don't often back the favorites, especially when it's big odds like that. But, yeah, against the Chiefs, give me Tom Brady all day on that one. Right. Yeah, you're right. We probably have a few.

Capitals fans can send us the thank you cards now because we've just guaranteed the Alexander Ovechkin's biggest game of the year. It's funny. I wrote the story this morning it published on The Athletic, and it already, he has like, I don't know, five or six comments and all of them are people saying, great, hopefully Ovechkin doesn't see this or there's no chance that this bet is going to win. Yeah, I don't think that's what Alex Ovechkin needs is motivation, right? Like that's just a random, a random prop bet to file.

I'll show them with that. Hey, as we wrap up with you here, Jesse, and again, so much of the league schedule has been thrown into flux here with COVID. So how is that sort of had an impact, if at all, on the betting landscape? appear in the last week. Yeah, and I've been kind of tracking that to see, like, I had those early trends a few weeks ago, and they've, they've kind of been going along a similar path, and the lines aren't changing. That's what I've really been watching is I mentioned that stat, and I haven't been tracking it the last few days, so I don't have an updated, but when underdogs, or sorry, when the favorite loses the first game, they come back real strong and second one. The books aren't really

accounting for that too much so far, and we're still super early into it. But to me, They're kind of just letting these games. The lines lay as they would if these teams were playing a normal schedule. They haven't made a ton of adjustments to the numbers based on the back-to-backs or they're playing the team for the fourth time in a row, things like that. So to me, what that tells us is if we can get into these numbers and find some trends, there's some money to be made. Well, Jesse, listen, always great to have you drop by and give us a little bit of insight.

Enjoy, obviously, the NHL games on the weekend. I know you'll be closely glued to the Super Bowl as well. Enjoy that and we'll hit you up again next week. Awesome. Thanks for having me, guys. All right, Sean, always great to get that visit in with Jesse Granger. So let's open up the mailbag here, shall we? Open up the mailbag. And a reminder, you can always send this an email to The Athletic Hockey Show at gmail.com.

The athletic hockey show at gmail.com. This one comes in from Justin in New York. Sean wants to know this. the way that the divisions are set up this here, he says, with teams only playing against each other in their own division this year, wouldn't it make less sense to play for overtime, knowing that you're just giving you're a direct competitor an extra point? Do you guys think, as the season plays on,

teams will eventually try and win in regulation time and decrease the number of overtime games, or do you think that teams will not even think on that level? So again, that's from Justin in New York. Yeah, it's a great question. And I think I think the answer is yes, it does make less sense.

Unfortunately, the current system, the incentive to get to overtime is so high because the value of the game increases by 50%. I mean, you just look at your,

as a coach, you're sitting there going on my expected points if this game ends in regulation is one point a night and if it goes to overtime, that's an extra half point.

And over the course of the season, we've seen how that ends. up. And so, of course, teams play for overtime. The league and people can say as much as they want that it doesn't happen. Of course it does. We all have eyes. We've all watched the last 10 minutes of a game. And the issue this year is when you've got everyone playing in the same division, you know, these guys might be the team you're fighting for a playoff spot. Should you let them have that extra point? Probably not. And as we get deeper into the season and it crystallizes what the actual playoff races are and who's fighting for spots, you will see games where teams will go

into it saying, no, we can't let this be a three-point game. We got a game two. The problem is the strategy of going for the two points works for the team that's trailing, and right now we're early enough that all teams don't think they're going to be the trailing team. They all think that they're going to be the team holding down the spot, and so they're happy to get as many points into circulation as we can. It would be great if it changed. I mean, I've seen a bunch people say, and I agree with this, this would have been the year to, quote, unquote, experiment with the three, two, one format. You could have sold it as, hey, you know, things are different, everyone's playing in the same division. We're just going to try it for a year, slip it in that way.

Would have been great. The league didn't take advantage of that. And unfortunately, I think we'll see maybe a little bit less of those third periods that we all hate, but I don't think it'll be a real notable difference, unfortunately, because the incentives are just too high. right now. You know, I couldn't agree with you more on the, this was the year to do three points for regulation win, two points if you win in extra time and one if you get to, again, if you get to extra time. Because it felt like that's the one thing COVID gave us in the sports world, right? The ability to try different things. Short and regular seasons, expanded playoffs, wild card play-ins. Like, we've seen it all. Like, all sports have taken the ideas that were sort of

being tossed around and said, okay, well, this is the year to put it in, this is like a test tube, and let's see what works and what doesn't. And so I'm, I've never been more pessimistic about the NHL going to a three-point system, because this was it. This was the year. This was the year for, and I know you were a big proponent of this years ago, and it's what it called the gold plan, where this was the year, right? This was the year, right? Where if you were going to try to incentivize winning down the stretch for those non-playoff teams. This was the year to do it. If you were, let's say you're Ottawa or Detroit this year and the day you're mathematically eliminated from the playoffs, then you start accumulating points towards, you know, getting

the first overall pick. Like this was the year. And so I feel like it's never going to happen because this was the year to put it into the test tube. It would have been. And look, I'll, defend the NHL to an extent in that I'm sure their response would be, hey, we had our handsful just getting a season on the ice. And they did make a ton of changes. And obviously in the format and everything that was sort of forced on them, the divisions we have, the schedule is all different.

So there were lots of changes made. And yeah, I can see them saying, look, we just didn't have time to get something like that in or even think about that. But it does feel like a missed opportunity. Because, I mean,

we know when it comes to the loser point, we've all heard the arguments. The NHL keeps telling us, it keeps the playoff races closer. It doesn't. Look at the math. It doesn't do anything about that. All it does is inflate everyone's record, make everybody over 500,

lets GMs go to their owners and say, see, we're a winning team, and the owners get to sell that to the fans. And it's all a little pyramid scheme. They love it. The league thinks this is working absolutely perfectly. And yeah, you're right. If it wasn't going to be this year, I still hope that at some point, fans and media and everyone are just going to stop buying these excuses

and they're going to start saying what's plainly true, which is that we've got a system in place that makes the third period boring, and it makes teams try to play for overtime, and we need to change that. This would have been the year, though. It didn't happen for understandable reasons, and we're probably locked into the dumb system we have for a while longer. I'll take one other question or thought out of the email bag here, Sean.

And this one comes in from Chris, and we've kind of talked about this before in that, I have a really hard time seeing a coaching change in the COVID season. But Chris is obviously a frustrated Detroit fan and saying, look, in this market, bloggers, podcasters are livid. They're back in the bottom of these standings, back to identical as last year. The metrics are the same. Do you guys think that there's any way that Jeff Blaschell could be relieved of his coaching duties?

That comes in from Chris who says he loves Canada. So I still think it's going to take something extraordinary for a coaching change to occur. And I also feel like, and I know it's tricky because obviously in that market, Sean, Chris and people who are in Detroit and Red Wings fans, they have certain expectations on the team. But it doesn't feel like Detroit is one of those teams that's ready to take a step, right? Yeah. I think you look at the expectations for this year. Detroit was expected to be better than last year because it would almost be impossible not to. But this wasn't a team that was penciled in for a playoff spot or anything like that. So they probably are. underachieving in a sense, but not to the point where I think you're going to get a move. Look, I thought, I don't root for anyone to ever lose a job, but I thought Detroit would make a change in the off season. I was like a lot of people.

As soon as Gerard Glant came on the market, I thought, there's your next Red Wings coach, and it'll probably happen at the end of that miserable season, and Steve Eiserman decided not to do that. I think when you make the decision after the season they had last year to bring Jeff Blasiel back for another year, you're basically, acknowledging that you're going to give him that full season. And, you know, look, it's, it's tough. When you're in a rebuilding situation, there is always that awkward feeling of,

okay, is the coach guiding us through the rebuild going to be the same coach who's behind the bench when we're ready to go back to the playoffs? And a lot of time, it's not. I think that's the situation in Detroit. Obviously, the roster there is, is the big problem. I don't think Scotty Bowman himself could turn this team into a contender. No one's expecting that. But I do think we'll see a change there.

I just don't think it's going to be during the season unless things go really, really bad. Well, Sean, as always, as we wrap up our show, we do it with a little this week in hockey history. Okay, so let's wrap up the show by looking kind of at the first week of February in hockey history. Let's start with this, Sean, February the 1st, 1993. Gary Bettman takes over as commissioner of the NHL. And I guess the thing I want to point out here, and maybe you outed yourself your age when you called them the Soviets earlier in the show. show. But how, I feel terrible knowing that I am now older than Gary Bettman was when he took over as the commissioner of the NHL. Like I start to think, like, what have I done with my life? Like, what have,

like this, Gary Batman was 41 and changed when he took over as NHL commissioner. Does that make you feel terribly depressed that we're now older than Gary Bettman when he took over as the commissioner of the NHL? I had never thought of it that way. you put it in the notes for the show. And like last night when I saw that, I'll be honest, like I had to get up and take a bit of a walk and to just really get my head around it. Because I'm, yeah, like I should not be running a hockey pool at this point,

let alone a hockey league. So, yeah, it's, it's, that is something. And, yeah, I remember when Gary Bettman came in, he was viewed as this, you know, fresh set of eyes and, you know, new way of thinking. but I don't remember at the time thinking, wow, what a bright-eyed young guy this guy is, but maybe in hindsight he was.

And as you look back, and I know you've been, you know, pretty vocal and opinionated about, you know, Gary's tenure as the commissioner, if we had to pick, like, the one thing that exemplifies or personifies the Batman era of the NHL, is it, is it parity and the, you know, the spawn of the kind of three-point game, Is it lockouts?

Is it, you know, like, what would you say is the hallmark of Gary Bettman's tenure as commissioner of the National Hockey League? I mean, there's a few, and there's good and bad, and he's been a busy guy in the last almost three decades. I think that when the day comes to Gary Bettman leaves that job and people have to write their stories about the Gary Bettman era ending, the stuff that's going to be mentioned in the very first paragraph, it's going to be the lockouts. including the league being the only major North American sports league to miss an entire season. The fact that there wasn't a Stanley Cup by choice, the fact that there were two other lockouts, that's obviously a big piece of it. You will look at concussions. The way he managed through this COVID situation is going to be a major part of that story.

We don't know how that part ends yet. And then the other piece of it is you will look back and say, this is a guy who brought in the cap. this is a guy who stabilized the league where there were lots of teams moving and lots of teams in trouble and largely, although not entirely eliminated that and got them back on firmer ground. He's mostly done what he was brought in for. And I think the owners that brought him in are probably happy with the job he's done, even if I imagine a lot of the fans would not be. And one more this week in hockey history, Sean, Groundhog Day, February the 2nd,

just happens to be the date for a couple of really impressive offensive single game performances by guys that, you know, you may not have thought have done this or be able to do this. Sam Gagne had an eight-point game on this date, February the 2nd in 2012. And Ian Turnbull of the Toronto Maple Leaf set a single game record scored five goals. We've never seen the defensemen do that since five goals in a game for Ian Turnbull against the Detroit Red Wings. Now, I was looking this up. So the goalies that Turnbull scored, first of all, I had no idea.

Ian Turnbull-Shan became the first player in NHL history to score five goals on five shots. So it's not like he took 10 shots, 12. Five goals, five shots. That's pretty cool. He's efficient. Yeah, exactly. The goalies that he scored the five against, he had a hat trick against Jim Rutherford, who of course would later become, you know, better known as a general manager.

And the other one, I guess maybe my lack of. I always thought that this guy was like a 60s goalie. He scored two against Ed Jackman. Oh, wow. Okay. I don't know. Maybe I just thought Ed Jackman was like this 60s goalie, but then I looked at it.

I guess he played more in the 70s, but there you go. He scored two goals against Ed Jackman, three against Jim Rutgers. Yeah, classic names. What's more impressive to you, Sean? Sam Gagnet getting eight points in a game or Ian Turnbull scoring five goals in a game? I mean, in theory, we should say it's Turnbull scoring five in a game.

because that has literally never happened before or since. And I mean, how many, geez, you ask a hockey fan who's the only defenseman ever score five goals, they're going to say Bobby Orr, Al McKinnis, Paul Coffey, Ray Bork. And no, it's the fact that it's Ian Turnbull is pretty amazing. But the one that sticks with me is Sam Gagne, because, you know, players getting, you look at the list of players who've had eight points in a game. And obviously, Daryl Sittler in the 70s had the 10-point game. Beyond that, there's a, but a dozen cases.

of guys have an eight and it's Gretzky a few times, Lemieux a few times, some other big names. But it ends in the 1980s. Like Merrill Lemieux in 1989 was the last guy to do it. And then we go all through the 90s and the dead puck era arrives. We go all through the 2000s and nobody comes even close. And then just one night in February out of nowhere, Sam Gagne, of all people, has eight points. And I don't know about you, but I remember being on Twitter that night as it was happening. And it was like, it Gagne up to three points. Gagne's got five. points. Wow, this is, this is crazy. And then it was like, all right, now he's at six. This is, this is, oh, oh my gosh, now he's at seven. This is, this, he's, he's going to maybe tie Wayne Gretzky for the

franchise record. And then when he got to eight, it was like, what's, what's even going on here? I mean, you talk about a career game. I mean, Ian Turnbull wasn't Bobby Orr, but he, this guy was an all-star. This guy, he holds the least record for points in a season by a defenseman. Sam Gagne, being the one guy in 30 years to hit that eight point mark is. just one of those kind of glitch in the matrix moments that I'll always remember. Yeah, you know, and as we wrap up the show, I couldn't help but think of on the weekend, on the weekend, Leon Drysidal and Carter McDavid-Shan had five points each midway through that game against Ottawa, and that's when you were starting to see the Sittler stuff.

Yeah, you know. I was getting nervous. Yeah. I was starting to wonder, yeah. Yeah. No, I guess it really shows you how impressive the Gagne eight-point effort was when Drysidal and McDavid didn't even get to it, right? Like, it's remarkable, remarkable.

So listen, we'll leave it there. Obviously, I know you're a football fan too, so enjoy the Super Bowl coming up on Sunday, and I know you'll be super busy watching the hockey too. So listen, have a great week, and we'll get you again next Thursday. Yeah, sounds good. All right, and hey, listen,

thanks everybody for joining us. I'll be back on Monday with Haley Salveen. We'll do a complete wrap of the weekend in the National Hockey League. If you've got any questions for us between now and then, hit us up at The Athletic Hockey Show at gmail.com. That's The Athletic Hockey Show at gmail.com. And if you're not an athletic subscriber,

join us at theathletic.com slash hockey show.