The Athletic Hockey Show - Ovechkin scores 900th career NHL goal

Episode Date: November 6, 2025

Alex Ovechkin finally scores career goal No. 900, but the historic feat was upstaged by Blues goalie Jordan Binnington trying to hide the prized puck in his pants. Sean Gentille, Max Bultman and Dom Luszczyszyn discuss that and take a look at how parity in the East is helping and hurting teams in that conference. Plus, the guys take a closer look at five players who have leveled-up this year.Host: Sean GentilleWith: Max Bultman and Dom LuszczyszynExecutive Producer: Chris FlanneryProducer: Jeff DometWatch full episodes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@theathletichockeyshowJoin our Discord Server: https://discord.gg/VTm9VjkFSubscribe to The Athletic: https://theathletic.com/hockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Hockey Show. What up, what up? It's the Athletic Hockey Show. Thursday edition with me doing the intro. Very strange, very abnormal. Haley, Salvian, is covering the U.S. Canada women's rivalry series in Cleveland, so she's got better things to do. I am here. Frank is not. Sean McIndoo is not.

I'm here with two other goofballs who are along for the ride. Max Bolton and Domestrishian fellas. How are we? How are we doing? Doing great. I'd like to get ahead of things here. I had no involvement in the plot to steal the 900th goal puck last night. I was, I have an alibi.

You can't prove anything. We need to, I know, I know it's Thursday. I don't want to make this just a series of callbacks to the Wednesday show. But we do need to call a certain co-hosts of mine to the Carpenter. for a take that he had last night, or yesterday afternoon. Frankie Corrado saying that Jordan Bennington, he's misunderstood.

Not that, not that, not that, not that bad of a guy. Really good dude off the ice. His reputation is, is, uh, undeserved. That's basically what Frankie said. We're paraphrase to compete there. Last night, Jordan Bennington, with one of the ultimate attempted jerk bag moves, he tried to pocket Alex Ovechkin's 900th goal puck after Oveston scored it.

On a very funny shot, by the way. Let's start there. There was something very appropriate about the way that Wetchkin scored goal number 900. It was a completely harmless, just, you know, throwing on net and see what happens. That felt appropriate. me, didn't it, fellas? It was like a no look. It was just like, here, let's see what happens with this.

I think that's part for the course for Jordan Bittington this season, though. It should have been Joel, Joel Hofer. Are we sure? Are we sure he wasn't, he didn't want to just personally congratulate Alex Ovechkin, shake his hand, give him the puck, have a nice little moment in the lower concourse last night? Yeah, I'm pretty, I'm pretty sure. So that could be it. That could have been it. It's doubly funny knowing how obsessive Ovechkin is about collecting memorabilia and all that stuff.

Like whenever his career is over, whether it's in Moscow or D.C. or whatever it is, he's going to have an incredible collection of sticks and jerseys and all sorts of stuff from all sorts of players. I actually asked him about it a couple weeks ago. I think he's waiting for his career to end to really to totally put it on display. But it would have been really funny. If goal number 900, the puck from it, just magically disappears. I'm glad the camera caught it. We would have had a whole,

this would turn into a whole, you know, a whole series of video reviews and who done it's and whatever. It would have been a situation like when Pronger stole the puck during the cup final a million years ago. I keep going back and forth on whether I'm annoyed at Jordan, for doing this or whether I think or whether I think was funny enough to, you know, deserve some credit.

I think it was hilarious. Obviously, he plays a bit of the villain role in the league sometimes with his, let's just say, shenanigans. And considering this is the first goal to ever be a 900 goal puck, the fact he tried to hide it in his pants is, I think, just funny. If we lean into the fact that he is, quote, unquote, misunderstood. stood. Maybe we should give him both of the doubt that this was just a funny thing that he did. No, no, we shouldn't. It's not. We can, let's let's bail on that immediately. That dude wanted to keep it for him. What do you think? Like during the handshake line,

he just magically whips out the puck and gives it to Ovechkin and that's that. He says, ha ha, gotcha. No way. That'd be a good bit. We know this. The two likeliest scenarios are keeping it himself or doing what Pronger did and literally throwing it in the garbage. And I don't know which of those is more insane. Like that's like throwing it in the garbage would literally be throwing away. I don't know what relative to like, you know,

home run balls. I don't think goal pucks are going for like that much. But we're talking about a significant sum of money that would literally just be like no one can have this. Or you're keeping the puck for yourself, a puck that you got scored on just so the guy couldn't have it. Those are the two likeliest options by far. we need to come up with some ranking.

We're not going to do it right now, but we need to have a collection of all of Jordan Bennington's jerky moments. Like this is it is it a top, is it a top 10? Is it a top 15? There's three things we know about this too. It's that he wins big games.

It's that he loses a lot of regular CEC games. And it's that he acts like a bastard in a lot of, in a lot of different circumstances. I don't know. Stick, tap, wag of the finger, whatever, whatever side of it you're on to, to Jordan Bennington, he gave us something to talk about today. If we do that, you need Frankie to be the guy to show us what Jordan Binnington really meant during these situations as a misunderstood player.

Misunderstood. You know, a lot of people look at, no, no, man, sorry. Tough, tough morning for Francisco. I want to talk about the Blues for a second. They're a disaster. I think that's fair to say. They get absolutely smoked by Washington last night. 4-8 and 2, 10 points.

puts them in a group with the Calgary Flames out west, which is where nobody else wants to be. Post-game vibes from them were putrid. You can go to the Blues official account to see some video from Braden-Shen in Paraco at Jim Montgomery. This is unacceptable tonight. It's that simple.

We have to dig in and show up for our fans, our city and our owners. This is like, that's, that's Braden Shand talking. This is like red alarm, red alert, siren going off stuff for November 6th in a season. And I guess the caveat, Dom, let's hear from you on this, is like, we've seen this from them in the past.

This is a team that started out horribly last year and then obviously made the big coaching change and their fortunes kind of switch. That's clearly not in the cards this time around. St. Louis has their coach. They can't do the Drew Bannister to Jim Montgomery glow up that seemed to work so well for them last year. So yeah, I'm interested to hear what you have to say

about the St. Louis Blues is one of our foremost blues haters over the last few years. Me. I love the Blues. Not the model, man. Don't hide behind the model. You personally hate the St. Louis Blues. You can just admit it. Yeah, I don't hate the blues, despite their entire fan base thinking I hate this team.

It has been really funny this season because I have a very normal, tepid prediction that they would be mid, that they'd be an average team, which is roughly what they were last year. It's roughly what they've been in the past. I didn't think much of it. But then we got, I think, our only author rebuttal from old JR saying, why I'll be wrong. And so I do think it's really funny that I am wrong. They are just bad. And they're 4-8 and 2. I didn't think they'd be bad.

And I have already had a few blues fans saying, you're right. And I will say that I actually do think I'll be wrong. Hold on a second time. I actually, yes, that is true. That blues fans are very rich. guys with tears in their eyes come up to me all the time saying, Dom, magician,

you were right about the St. Louis blues. Well, they're on Twitter, so I don't know about big strong guys. But it's been wild to see because I don't think they're this bad. I think they're probably going to turn around, but they think they don't tell you about bad PDO is that it feels probably horrible and demoralizing in the moment

that it feels like there's no light at the end of the tunnel, even the process is good. Is there anything about that scene that surprises you in terms of how bad they've been? Like what is the specific thing outside of PTO or PDO that you can look at and say like, all right, things might swing at some point? Is there any individual performance? Like, what's the reason for optimism for this team? Because it seems like they're a short supply right now.

I think the main reason for optimism for me is that the process is, that the process is good. And we know that as misunderstood as Jordan Bennington is, he is generally an average to good goalie. And I know that falls into the PDO bucket, but that really is it. He probably should have made some more saves over the first 14 games or ever mainly played. I think one of the things I have noticed is that Jordan Kairu has been defensively strong and It's a bit overshadowed by the fact that the goalie behind him cannot make a single save. So I think once that starts unfolding, he might have a bit of a glow-up season himself, but right now the pucks aren't going for him.

Bennington is doing his words a version of himself in more ways than one. And I don't know, I do still believe in this team. I think they have a lot of good forwards. I think the top four is very strong. they need to do something about that third pair because Logan Mayu may be one of the worst defensive players we've ever seen and I

I do not say that lightly like it's it's bad their eighth and expected goal share in the league they're ahead of the Vegas Golden Knights in that metric the problem is so are the Calgary flame so I don't think it's actually all that reassuring for whatever reason but but I do think there are reasons that to believe in their process but to Dom's point like I was there early when this spell

started, right? They had the game against Utah where they went down 4-0 in the first period. They showed some fight. Their next game was in Detroit. And the Red Wings had given up seven to the Islanders too. I'm thinking, okay, this is going to be tight checking, get-right game for two coaches, McClellan and Montgomery that are going to reel this in. And the Blues go up 4-0. And I'm like, okay, well, I guess the Blues got the message until McClellan calls a timeout and the Red Wings come back and they beat them six to four. And like the Red Wings did play better. after that. But to Dom's point, a lot of this was just like Bennington let the Red Wings back into this game. And I don't know if that is something, sometimes goaltending can just go in spurts

and you lose it for a stretch and you get it back and it can solve all ills. But it's been a disaster over the last three weeks here. It's funny to see the outcome last night against the Washington Capitals too, who are, to some degree, they're like the face of parody in the Eastern conference, right? Like, that's been true the last couple years. It's, it's certainly true now. The caps with that, with that one, it actually puts them back into into wildcard position, which is wild. They jump up the standings. It's easy to jump, it's easy to jump up the Eastern Conference standings. It's easy to fall down them because there's two points that separate the wildcard spot from the bottom of the league. And I think six total separating first from first from last.

I think that's a big through line for the early chunk of the season here, right? Is that there are teams who are better than we thought they'd be. There are teams that are worse than we thought they'd be, and they're all kind of jockeying for position already. And I think Washington's certainly in that mix, aren't they? Yeah, this is a team that we saw win the conference last year. We all expected some level of regression, but that they'd still be a playoff team. And the fact that the Washington cabals are smack. Deb in the middle of the Eastern Conference, I think, is telling of the entire situation where

that's like the one thing we did expect. Everything else seems to be kind of messy. No one expected the eight four and two penguins. Flyers are hanging around the playoff race. The islanders are doing their thing. Tampa Bay, Florida, New York, they're not doing as well as I think a lot of people thought they would. So it all just creates a mess where the biggest thing is that no one is doing poorly.

everyone is above 500 even the Bruins are winning more games and are losing so it's just it is tough because this is probably a year where with the cabinet kind of coming up we'd usually see more teams tanking and there's no reason to tank in the east right now I mean the Florida Panthers are tied

for last place and points percentage that tells you something I know we've they've got the injuries we've dissected that ad nauseum like this isn't the fully operational Florida Panthers, but also they're in last place with a 500 boards percentage. So the fact that that's even in the mix is just wild. They're tied with the Rangers who's a team that a lot of folks

at the start of the season were due for a glow up under Sullivan and all that too. So those are the teams at the bottom of the standings right now, which is just wild. The problem with that is if you're one of these upstarts that's outperforming, what everyone expected of you. If you're Pittsburgh, if you're Detroit, if you're Boston, Philly, like, you're like, oh, great. Like, you know, we've got this great start. Florida's in the last place.

That can only mean good things for us, right? Well, you're probably only a game, maybe two games clear there. So it really doesn't have any margin for you. You've banked some points, but kind of so is everybody. And so the good news is it's wide open. It's as open as I think I've ever seen it. Maybe then we will ever see it. I haven't looked at like,

what this usually means for a playoff threshold. But my gut instinct is that it probably would indicate more of a, you know, it's been like 91, 92 in recent years. Like that's, I think where it's probably headed again. And, you know, if you're one of those teams that's trying to make up ground from where you've been in recent years, yeah, it's good to not have to probably get to 98 or 97 this year to live there. But it seems like everybody's going to be like if everyone's going to be a 500 or better

team, then yeah, 82's last place, you know, 92 might be eighth, but that's going to be a crowded mix that's going to go right down to the very end. I was talking to somebody about the Penguins of Horace recently, and that was exactly how I framed it with them. Because there is reason to be excited about that team. We all thought that's a potential bottom five roster at minimum coming into the season. Eight, four, and two. They had a nice October. Everyone's excited about Ben Kindle, of Gennie Malkins hooked up to the rejuvenation machines. Sydney Crosby, getting good goal attending, yada, yada, yada. There's a lot of reasons to be excited about the Pittsburgh Penguins.

But there's second in the division right now. And like you guys said, there's so little breathing room between that phase and then being, you know, outside the wild card race. So for as good as Pittsburgh has played and for as much reason for optimism there is, you know, it feels like there. at their ceiling. It's not possible to imagine the Pittsburgh Penguins playing any better than they have the first month of the season and they only have a three point cushion or whatever it is in the wildcarts. So yeah, it's, I think it's, it is going to challenge us and it's going to make us think differently about, at least in the short term, but how we view playoff point thresholds and the Thanksgiving standing, you know, rule of thumb and all that. This seems like

there really is potential this season for that to kind of get upended. Is there, who is the team from the mix, like the, you know, from the, from the, from the muck and from the mud of the, of the mushy middle of the conference right now.

Who are a couple teams who we think could emerge from it? Like, who are we feeling more good about than bad when we look at that, you know, 16 through 13 point? range right now. Yeah, I think I'm feeling really good about the Tampa Bay Lightning, upstart team. That's boring.

It's a boring answer. That's the, I, I'm still going to look with my Buffalo Sabres. No. Come on, dude. They have been injured from the first month. They're still hanging in there. Josh Done has been unbelievable for them. Alex Lyon, one of the,

greatest unsung heroes of all Todd. And there's, this is season preview stuff that's now bleeding into a November podcast from like, I still believe.

We can't do it. We can't do this again. I still believe, baby. People need to know that I have not given up on our sabers. Ross Mistalline is playing horribly and they're still in it.

So I think he's leading, as of a couple days ago, he was leading the league in defensive zone giveaways. Rasmus Mastaline. Yeah, that's, That was our number three defense team in the league. I think I picked him knowing the Norris, maybe.

Yeah. Oops. So just wait until we get that version. Tage puts up 60 goal pace. They're fine. They're going to be fine. Some of these teams are going to fall off. Flyers, penguins, see you later.

Red Wings are kind of fine, I guess. Yeah. I'm still rock with the savers. I mean, you expect me to pick Boston, Columbus maybe? I don't know, Max, who you got? I still believe in Ottawa. I mean, I think that, and obviously, I assume we would all say Florida here if it was an option because Sean said 13 to 16 range.

Fort is done, obviously. I'll exempt them. I still really believe in Ottawa. And, you know, they got to just avoid being in too big a hole before they get Brady Kachuck back. And obviously it starts with Linus Olmark. They need more out of him. He was a difference maker for them at times last year.

But I don't think he's been sapped of his mojo here. Like, he'll be back at some point. He may need the time machine to go back. and get it from 1960 or whatever, but I still believe in the senators. I just like their build. I like the center core that they have there. I like the D.

And if they have Allmark going, I still think they're a team that can be a top three team in the Atlantic. I'm not sure they're going to hang around, although much longer, but I love what the Islanders are doing. They're fun to watch. This is fire wagon hockey on Long Island.

And Matthew Schaefer, you know, he's becoming he had another incredible interview with the TNT crew yesterday, by the way. I like everything about him. I like the way he plays. I like the way he talks. I like the way he behaves. I'm all in favor of the start of the Matthew Schaefer era here,

but I'm still just not. I'm not sold in that team overall, certainly as a playoff contender or as a wildcard contender. But you know what, man, they're one point out. So who the hell knows? And they are a team that like at the start of this year, we talked about they're in like a sticky situation, right? Because they're, they're clearly, they know, they had three first round picks. They're clearly going to be kind of going into this,

you know, new era, but you still had these two prime age top six centers in Beau Horset and Matt Barzell. And do you trade one? You have, you know, your, your captain, Andrews Lee is a pending free agent. What do you do with him? Well, for now, it doesn't look really like a sticky situation at all. It looks like the decision will make itself for them. They're either going to be good and they're going to push forward with this or it'll fall off and then they can make those decisions, but it's a good problem to have right now on the island. Maybe a little bit of a late Olympic push from Beau Horvette, too. He's got nine goals already.

I saw Elliot Friedman mentioned him in his 32 thoughts right up this morning as a guy who's maybe got some attention. That doesn't surprise me. I think Bo Warvats's a guy who's always had some degree of, there's always been some degree of shine on him, I think, when it relates to the international discussion. I think they've always thought pretty highly of him. And the fact that he is, you know, putting together a pretty solid, season so far. Do I think he's going to make the final roster? No, but I think he's pushing himself

into the discussion in a pretty real way. Don't think just answer both of you. Better chance to make the Olympic team Bohorvatt or Matthew Schaefer. I was just wondering that. What does Matthew Schaefer have to do to make the Olympic team? Because I don't think they're going to take a rookie defenseman. He's not taking tough minutes right now. He probably could or should, but he hasn't proven that fact to the point where you can really trust him in best on best, but at the same time, he's been so unbelievable. He's so fast. He had such a different element.

At the start of the season, I think one of the concerns was losing Dobson, losing that impact, and I did not expect Schaefer to completely replace it within the first 10 games. He's already that good and arguably better, which is a crazy thing to say about a rookie. like it's only been however many games and I already have a projection for him that is higher than no adoptions, which is a wild thing for a guy who was 17 a month ago. It's impossible for me to imagine him ultimately making an roster.

Great as great as he's been as much international hockey as we're going to see from that kid over the next 20 years or however long it is. It doesn't feel like that's in the cards right now. And I think a big reason for that. We've seen this logic apply certainly to the Four Nations. roster is the presence of Kilm McCar. Like the fact that he's there, he's like the no doubt, you know, he's going to get every second of power play time. They use that as some kind of crutch, whether we're talking about Evan Bouchard or whatever,

lesser similar versions of him. I think they use that logic, understandably, to be like, well, we don't need a Keel McCar impersonator. We've got the real thing. Like, we've got Keel McCar at home. We don't need to, we don't need to buy in any. anything else. So it's tough for me to imagine them trusting Schaefer enough to be like a situational, you know, injury call up or whatever. I think that job can go to someone who's more established

and more boring in, you know, 32 years old or whatever. But what do I know? My only caveat to it is that like one of the stories of the Four Nations for Canada was a pretty unproven. And I granted, I know he wasn't 18, but Thomas Harley, right? If you go, go back to Drew Doughty. I think Drew Doughty was 20 at the time when he made his first Olympic team. It's not like Canada has never gone with a young defenseman before and benefited from it. So I would not say it's a zero. I would lean. If you ask me Horvatt or Schaefer, I would lead Schaefer. Schaefer's not going to get a chance to be young Drew Doughty because his spot's going to be taken by old Drew Doughty. That's what's going to happen. Let's take a break.

We're going to talk about some surprise players after this. Stick around. I were back. We talked about teams in the first segment. I want to talk about some players in segment number two. We want to check in on some players who seem like they either have leveled up or in the process of leveling up. Frankie and Sean and I talked about Cutter-Gotier last night, or yesterday afternoon, rather, coming off a hat trick at the time. Everyone loves the ducks. There's certainly plenty of like about the roster, about the way they're playing. but I wanted to hear from you guys and see what your perspective is on on the cutter goche experience specifically max let's start with you because I know I know he's a player who you paid a lot of attention to as a as a prospect which wasn't which wasn't all that long ago what have you

what have you seen from him and you know how much of a surprise has all this been well it's it's the surprise is the degree of it right like you just don't see guys scoring 10 goals this early into a season this young too often but this is who you wanted to do you want to Cutter-Gote to be, right? And when he's going fifth overall, the one thing you're thinking is this guy is going to be able to score goals and not be intimidated and in a playoff kind of setting, we haven't seen the latter part yet. But on this Ducks team that's a little running gun still, you need guys who are just going to be putting the puck in the net and Cutter-Gotee with his shot, with his skating. Like, he's certainly a guy who's going to get himself in position to do that.

And the good news is so far it's happening. I don't know that I'm going to call this like a sustainable breakthrough here. It's just very encouraging to see. Was he always a shot volume guy? Like, how much of that is new from him? Because he's second in shots at five on five behind McKinnon so far this season. And that's crazy. Is that something we saw from him as a draft eligible or a prospect? The shot's always been one of his best traits.

You know, I don't know if I could tell you he's quite at that level, right? That's a pretty jaw-dropping staff. But yeah, when you can shoot the puck like that, that's what you're looking to do. And I don't think he was so much of a dangling. or a setup, man. It is shoot the puck and get north and south and do that. And so, yeah, I'm not like surprised to see him shooting it a lot. That is a, I mean, that's elite company, obviously. So it's there's, there's more elite company to that because I looked into this, uh, for 16 stats. There's one player season, uh, Alex Lvetchkin 2008,

who has had more shots per 60 than Cutter Goce this season was 16.4. That's incredible. Like he is ripping it. He, Like per game, he has more shots than McKin right now by like a hefty margin. I did not see this coming, but when you talk about sustainability, the amount of times he's firing the puck, I think, speaks to be able to score a lot of goals. That is the Ovetun playbook, and he is firing away. Yeah, well, I mean, it's funny too. Like, I think he's at six expected or so. Like, he's, you know.

Still pretty good. That's still pretty good. still pretty good, but also outstripping it to some extent. You know, like that's a, he's the kind of guy they needed. The ducks, he needs some, one of those other, one of those other guys, not Leo Carlson, not Mason McTavish. They needed someone else from that next layer of prospect to really, to really step up. And the fact that it's Sam is not much of a surprise, obviously. He's certainly super well regarded.

But the fact that has happened so quickly is really, is really, really interesting. And it's just like the collection that the ducks have of these guys, not to shift this. back to teams. But like, if you could design a forward core, like, it's going to have a little bit of everything. Yeah, you have your, your two-way centers, Leo Carlson, Mason McTavish, you got your sniper and cutter-Gotier, you have Beckett Seneca as your playmaker. Like, I'm missing somebody off the top of my head here.

But, yeah, I mean, Roger McQueen's on the way. All of their young guys have a little bit of everything. They've got size. They've got skill. They've got scoring. You've got some two-way guys. Like, it's just going to be a terror of a team to play. against in a very short amount of time.

I talked about the caps earlier, as it relates to the St. Louis blues, but I wanted to bring up the goaltender, which is another guy we talked about yesterday, but I want to get, I want to get y'all's take on it, honestly. Logan Thompson, just another, another solid night against St. Louis. He's certainly played his way to me to the top of the Olympic goalie discussion for Canada, hasn't he? And what is this season met Dom, I guess, in, you know, in the greater arc of his career. I think you and I talked about it at the start of the season.

We talked to people around the league who kind of wanted to see him repeat the performance that we saw from him last season. And he's certainly, we're a month in, but he's made that stand up so far. Yeah, our motto in player tiers is basically do it again. If you had a great season and it's your first great season, just do it again and you will get the love you deserve. Thompson obviously is very early in the season, but he is looking like he is doing it again. He's fourth in GSAX.

He has been stealing games for Washington. He has been as good or better than last year to the point that if Jordan Bennington is the starter for game one, I may break my brand new TV because Logan Thompson has been unbelievable. He's misunderstood. No, no, no. He should understand how Pucks go find him. Don't break your television.

Jordan Bennington is understood. It's also going to happen, Dom. Like, they're not going to go away from the guy that want him a gold medal. He's been so bad this year that it's, it would be, it would be crazy. Crazy. And yet, it's your guys are right. You guys are right. How, like, if you, you guys are both American.

If you see Jordan Bennington on the other side instead of Logan Thompson, like, how happy are you? I just watched Jordan Bittington beat him in a gold medal game. Right. Like I feel like I've learned my lesson on that one here. I don't know if I won them on the other side for a random game in February when it's, you know, blues cracking or something. But if it's a big game, if it's an international game, I don't think I want any parts of Jordan Bittington.

To your point, how much is Jordan Bittington just going to be sending the game film of this exact game where he beat Jordan Bittington so resoundingly to hockey Canada people over the next? No, they're going to say it's November 6th. Who cares? Um, another funny bit from 32 thoughts, uh, this morning was the concern, and I'd heard, I'd heard some degree of this too. The concern from team Canada was how Logan Thompson would, as it related to the four nations roster was how Logan Thompson would react to being the number two behind

Bennington. And what Elliott reported essentially is that there's been some, there was some degree of like reassurance from Logan Thompson to the team Canada brass. Like, no, I'm, I'm, I'm good. I'm good in whatever role, you know, you see for me. I think that makes Canada's right. If they take it to the logical endpoint and if they believe him, and if Logan Thompson, you know, has done what he needed to do on his end

to put himself on that roster, I think that makes, I think that makes Canada much, much scarier. Because what we do know about Jordan Bennington is, like, as good as he is in big games and as good as he was in Four Nations, the possibility for self-combustion and self-destruction is always there. too, right? So in the event that he does have some kind of meltdown, you know, as an American, I would much rather have someone other than Logan Thompson be the guy to step up and take over. All things considered, I'd rather have Aden Hill or whoever else is part of this group.

So yeah, keep Thompson off the roster if you're if you're if you're if you're if you're if you're can enough for me because I think I think it would make a weaker. There's always team building dynamics like that to consider. but like Canada does not have the luxury of leaving the NHL's save percentage leader off their roster with what the goaltending mix is for Canada. It's just not something you can do. Nope. The other guys who are high and goal save above expected from Canada after Logan Thompson are Darcy Kemper, Tristan Jari and Stuart Skinner. Among Canadians, you're saying.

Yeah, among Canadians. And to their credit, Jari has been good, but he's still Tristan Jari. Stuart Skinner is still Stuart Skinner. Like, it's probably going to be Camper of Hill still injured or if he doesn't play well. I'm just wondering how bad do the first three months have to go for Jordan Bennington for them to say maybe we could use the better goalie number one? Like, I understand his big game mentality, but like there has to be a certain threshold where you say

there's not there isn't that's insane to me that is crazy to even he just won he just won John Cooper a big shiny trophy

it just happened like we're not we're not gonna see that this is hockey and this is goalies like it should matter a little bit did they get trophies

at the Four Nations what was the prize there okay I thought you meant do goalies get trophies they kept Bennington away like that's fine yeah they

They don't get trophies. They get souvenir puck says we learned last night. Okay. I want to talk about Moritz cider, too. Max, you're the world's foremost more at cider expert. What have you seen from him this year? It's been a gradual climb, I think, for him over the last couple, where he's gotten to a point now that a lot of people expected him to be at.

And I think now a lot of the performance and a lot of the production kind of matches the opinion that people held of him maybe maybe a few years ago. That's what it feels like from the outside at least. Yeah, I mean, I don't know how many conversations, Dom, you and I have had about Siders' minutes over the last three years, but they've been at like inhumane levels, basically, like far and away the toughest in the league. This year, they're back into the realm of humanity. They're still very hard, but he's crushing them.

And I think that was always like the kind of the question, Dom and I would lob back and forth is like, do you assume that if the minutes were, you know, merely like the 10th hardest in the league instead of number one with a bullet? that, you know, that makes up for the difference in some of the underlying numbers, the play driving the territorial. We're seeing it live right now. And the answer is yes. He's running like a 56% expected goal share.

Like you see him, you know, the skating, the physicality, all those things have always been visibly excellent. But when you know it has kind of the territorial backing when they're tilting the ice in those minutes against those tough players, that's how you win games. I mean, you win games by keeping your opposing team star players either to the perimeter in the defensive zone or stuck in their own zone. and that's basically what Moritz Sider's been able to do this year. I think that actually started last year.

Two years ago is when he got the most ridiculous usage I think I've ever seen. Not just defense's own starts, not just quality competition, but he had to do it next to Ben Chirot. And it's not a place I think many defensemen could succeed, but you'd still wanted to see something a little stronger than what he put up. Last year was, I think, him showing. okay, these are minutes I can handle, I can win these minutes, I can be the kind of guy who can lead a franchise from the back end. And just like it was with Thompson, it was a conversation of,

okay, do it again. And Sider has been even better this year where all the tools, all the I test stuff, people were saying three years ago, like, no, this is a very good defenseman. They're finally getting the results where I actually don't think people are talking about Sider enough right now. Like, he has been one of the best two-way defense been over the last two years now. And I think he can be in a Norse conversation at the end of the year if his defense continues being this good. Like, we're talking about someone that is Drew Dowdy like and his ability to influence the game at both ends of the ice and really make it hard for other teams to score. I mean, it's water finding its level. Isn't it?

Like, they found, like, two seasons ago, minutes were too hard. they would have been too hard for anybody. But last year it feels like they unlocked something where they're like, here's the level of, this is the level of high end, you know, competition that we believe he can play out consistently. And he's got better partners now, right? Well, in Red Wingsland, everything also kind of comes back to this Todd McClellan coaching change at Christmas a year ago. And I think that plays a role in this too, right? Like, Lone was feeding Cider and Edvinson together that diet of minutes, right? And it was similar to the one that Cider had had two seasons ago.

Then McClellan comes in. He splits up cider in Edvinson. Cider's still taking hard minutes, but it's not quite as like loaded all up on his plate. So it's him and Chirot and they're getting hard minutes, but it's not quite that extreme. Starts the year that way, but they're back to Cider and Edvinson together. And they've kind of managed to keep it balanced in spite of that. I think the idea when you split up Cider and Edvinson is they can share the load.

When you put them together, they're kind of supposed to eat the whole thing. And they've managed to keep it manageable. if I can say manage twice like that. You may not, sorry. Damn. Nick Schmaltz in Utah, man. He was always a guy, I feel like, for people to play fantasy hockey, you knew you could rely on Nick Schmaltz to give you some pretty consistent, you know, bench production, right? And he is leveled up from that so far this season.

We talk about a lot of other people in Utah. We talk about Logan Cooley and we talk about Clayton Keller. I think what they've gotten from Schmaltz has been huge in terms of their overall success. He's got 18 points, which is the same as, you know, Connor Bedard and Carol Caprizov and Dylan Larkin and John Tavares. Like, this is pretty high-end production from him so far. He's doing it in a sustainable way, too. Like, all their on-ice results with him are fantastic.

He's played most of his minutes with Clayton Keller and Barrett Hayton. I think that's big, too, because you're getting, you know, you've found someone to put on the Keller line that isn't Gunther, that isn't, you know, one of those guys. really give you some more diversified production throughout throughout the lineup. So I think Schmaltz has been, has been impressive and I think he's been really important to it seem that's been one of the early season stories. It's a bit of a contract year bump for him. I think we see that often. I love seeing contract year poems. Get paid for it. Oh, some money's on the line. Boom. Greatest player

alive. It is wild that a team with Keller, Cooley, Gunther, Schmaltz has been their best player. year. And it's not just that he has 18 points. Like the underlying numbers are coming during tough minutes. Like the Hayton line with Schmaltz and Keller, that's their shutdown line. They allow Cooley, Gunther, and Peturca to fly all over the ice and be the fastest kids alive. And I think having that substance at both ends the ice for Schmalz is what really takes him to another level. I thought the start of the season they might give his power play spot to Petrka, the new guy in town. And that has not been the case. And thankfully because he's been their go-to guy there.

I've only been able to watch Utah a little bit this year, but it's the defensive number that jumps off the screen to me there, Dom. It's not something I really associated with Schmaltz's game prior to this. And I'm wondering, like, at least from what you've seen and what the model says, like, how different is that in his game? Because that leapt off the page. There was always like a little bit to that. Like, I think he was a bit underrated.

I think Hayton especially is underrated as a two-way center. he's had some great numbers in that regard of the last two years. But Schmaltz has leveled up to a level where he's a lot more responsible. I think going to this year, I had him a bit above average. Now he looks like one of the better defensive players in the league and it's just

a two-way evolution where if he had the puck more, the other team has the puck less and they are just dominating right now. It wouldn't be a show if we didn't talk about Macon Celebrini in one way or another, but he's number five for us here. He's tied for the league lead in points

we mentioned it in power rankings last night or last week, Don, you and I, like, is it possible that we see the second year explosion from him, the way we've seen from the Sydney Crosby's and Connor McDavid's of the world, where it's like, all right, we're, when our second NHL season,

it's time to go out and win a scoring title. Like, at some point, if this keeps up, we're going to have to seriously explore the possibility. I think it's definitely possible. He's already tied with Connemick-Dapert points. It feels like San Jose plays in a fast and loose way that also allows him to play to pace where he can keep the offense up. I think a couple of high ranks ago, we noticed that his XG wasn't great.

The sharks were getting crushed a bit in his minutes. But when you're scoring 21 points in 12 games, whatever, it truly does not matter. he has been unreal. I think last year, just how complete his game felt. He has some Crosby-like shifts against Mo Cider over last week. He looks like the guy you can go from star first year to absolute superstar second year where I would not be shocked to finish top five in points. And if he won the scoring title, the only surprise would be that he did it on the Shark's team.

Sportsnet stats had a tweet last night. points by a teenager. I know which one you're going to use. I had it at Bookmark. You can, you can drop it. Most points by a teenager in the first 14 games of a season. You had Steve Eiserman and Wayne Gretzky tied at the top, 23, Sidney Crosby at 22, and tied for fourth with Brian Trache's Macklin Celebrini at 21.

So I would say it's okay company for the kid. Anytime you're saying tied with Brian Trache and anything, you're probably. And he's the low name on the list. You're probably, yeah, he's in he's the worst play. out of that group. Not bad. I saw Tweety Sharks were 5-2-1, their last eight. Celebrini has 15 points in those eight games. So, yeah, that'll do. That'll do.

Correlation does equal causation in those two stats. Yeah. Future Canadian Olympian Macklin Celebrini. I feel like he makes it. Me and Haley talked about that last week. This is just a Macklin Celebrity fan podcast now, I think. Thank you, boys. We back for segment three.

All right, folks, we're back. Keeping it simple today, we're doing a round of stick taps from the three of us. I'm going with Nazim Khadry. Scores a goal in his thousands game last night. Spoke afterwards about how much it meant to him, which I think is cool. It's always seeing when, it's also interesting to see what milestones and what nice round numbers mean things to people, mean to people and which ones kind of don't. In thousand games is a big one. Guys always get up for that.

seemed, it certainly seemed like it meant it meant a great deal to him. He scores, the Flames win, blah, blah. I'm glad this happened. I'm glad it happened early. I'm glad that the flames got to put some butts in the seats for that game. And now they can trade him. Just move on. Give the people what they want. Give 31 other NHL teams what they want, which is Nazim Kajadri as a second or third line center. We can just move on from this. So stick that to him. And now it's time for Greg Conroy to pick up the phone and make this happen. Where do you want to see him land? That's a great question.

Carolina? They can't have everyone, but like that feels like the perfect trading partner. Carolina would be fun. Last year, I really wanted him to end up back in Colorado just for, just for parallelism's sake. It doesn't seem like that's going to happen. Obviously, they have Brock Nelson now. I think, I think the Canadians were the one that I was kicking around.

I think that would be really fun. The idea of Nazam Khadry playing play in playoff games for the Montreal Canadiens against maybe some other Atlantic division teams is very appealing to be. Could he go back to the Leafs? Like is that completely out of the realm of possibility? That to move out salary. It's in the realm possibility if no one else is offering anything.

I feel like the Leafs would be like, all right, here's a couple magic beans, fourth round pick. You guys want a conditional second round pick? We don't have anybody under the age of 25 He's any good. And then the HABs will be like, yeah, we can beat that one, I think. Let's just check.

Oh, yeah, we've got enough assets. Nick Robertson, you are a Calgary flame. To your point, Don, like the can'ts still have half of that ranton and return sitting around that they can just flip the other way to Calgary for Nazim Qadry. So maybe Carolina can have everyone. They have the cap space for sure.

Interesting. in. Max, who's your guy this week? I'm going to go with Spencer Knight, but it's going to kind of broadly just be the Blackhawks. They've been way more fun than I think anyone expected them to be to start out this year. Knight's been one of the best stories in the league, right up there with the league leaders and save percentage. I think the league leader and goals saved above expected. So awesome kind of comeback story for Spencer Knight. But the Blackhawks as a whole are really fun. Tyler Bertuzzi had a hat trick last night.

Frank Nazer's been really good. They're young guys just like are making a difference. Jeff Blaschell is a pretty good comeback story in his own right. So I'm going to go to Chicago Blackhawks and the very rich story ground that they're providing for Scott Powers and Mark Lazarus right now. I'm happy we're living in the time of Frank Naser. He's a fun, he's a fun, fun player.

I'm looking forward to seeing more of him over the next few years because God knows the Blackhawks are going to be nationally televised in America quite a bit moving forward. So let's go. Don, do you have one? I do have one. Naturally, we have to have one segment about everyone's favorite hockey team. I told you not to do this.

Okay. And I'm going to do it anyway. Because this is not about the Leafs. This is about America. And how last year, Austin Matthews was a little too injured to be the impactful top center that the United States needed at the Four Nations, which they lost. to a superior nation. This year, that may be different

because Austin Matthews, or the last couple of games, looks like he's back. He scored two vintage Austin Matthews goals. He looks like he can shoot the puck again. And I think that is great for my American friends on this podcast, where they might actually win goals.

They could, maybe Monday. You framed it in the only acceptable way. You're a smart young man. I've always said that about you. Thank you. Thanks to both of you for stepping up in Haley's absence. She's doing much more important things, obviously. Thank you fine folks for listening to this.

The Prospect Boys have the next show. That's tomorrow. They're going to talk Wheeler's latest rankings. Shocker, who's at the top of that one? Scouting McKenna, but there's plenty of interesting stuff on there. I perused it a couple days ago. They're going to dive deep into that. Frank, Sean and I are back on Wednesday.

and Haley is back in the driver's seat next Thursday, so see you then.