The Athletic Hockey Show - Overreactions from NHL opening night

Episode Date: October 9, 2024

Sean, Frank and Sean draw some hasty conclusions after opening night of the 2024/2025 NHL season including the Seattle Kraken blowing a 2 goal lead in their home opener, the Joonas Korpisalo led Bruins getting crushed by the Florida Panthers, and the unstoppable Utah Hockey Club on a heater, dominating the Chicago Blackhawks in the first game in the history of the franchise. Plus, the guys over react to Igor Shesterkin reportedly turning down 88 Million dollars over 8 years from the New York Rangers and what Connor Bedard's sophomore season might look like. Hosts: Sean Gentille and Sean McIndoeWith: Frank CorradoExecutive Producer: Chris FlanneryProducer: Jeff Domet Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic hockey show. Welcome, welcome, welcome. This is the athletic hockey show. It is the Wednesday edition. I am Sean Gentilly. I am here with Sean McIndoo and if you've been under a rock, Frankicurado, he's here all the time now. Fellas, we're here.

It's time to overreact. Let's just, let's hit it right off the bat. The season started for real last night since we don't count anything that happens in the Czech Republic at this time of year. We had three games. We were ready to draw some very hazy conclusions based on the outcomes of them all. All right, boys. I predicted this week on multiple TSN platforms that I had the Seattle Cracken making the playoffs. And they are now 0 in one and they blew a lead night one. I am overreacting. I hate that I picked them to make the playoffs. I want it to happen. Brandon Montour, they needed help moving the puck. They got it.

They needed Chandler Stevenson to alleviate some of the pressure from Maddie Baneers and Shane right down the middle of the ice. Hey, it's a long contract. It's a lot of money. But right now, that should help them make the playoffs. And after last night, I'm overreacting because is Seattle actually going to take the jump? No one's giving them a chance to the playoffs. But I don't know. There's something about that team.

They were there two years ago. I have them coming back this year, but I'm overreacting on night one. I did not have them to make the playoffs. And I'm just putting a big checkmark right next to that prediction. ink because that was I was stunned. So I'll tell you, I watched the, the beginning of that game, the first half. And the St. Louis Blues looked terrible. It was wild.

They were just, they had nothing going. I was shocked because then I had to take one of my kids to something. And I got back and I looked and it was like blues pull off comeback. I was like, wow, you're kidding me. So that, yeah, that that hurt. I didn't come away from that feeling good about either one of them. teams. I didn't see the blues comeback. Maybe that would have changed it, but I did not like what I saw from either team there. I had like this sincere overreactive text of the night because it was when the cracking were up to a, we'd seen like the, we'd seen Drew Bannister on the bench for St. Louis. They're down, they're down two goals like relatively quickly. And they also look bad in the process, right? Like it wasn't just like two fluke goals. They like they had no zone time. It was it was brutal. They're showing.

and Drew Bannister, congratulations to a buddy for going 30 and night, whatever it was, like in his interim season. And then they do the cut to Claude Julian. I was like, this guy, he's, he's not, he's, as soon as they, as soon as his team loses five and seven, this guy's cooked. Like, we like, we spent

a chunk of last week's episode trying to find the coach who would be the first guy fired. And I'm like, oh, that's, they hired Julian to be like the top, like, Doug Armstrong hired Claude Julian to, to be the top assistant. Like, this is over. As soon as this, As soon as this team goes on his skin, this guy's cooked, and then they come back and win.

Did they hire Claude Julian? Because nobody seems to know when that happened or like, I had no recollection of it. Did you? I saw a bunch of other people who were like, wait, Claude Julian works for the blues. When did this happen? Yeah. Like, it's my job to know this shit. I wasn't on vacation.

Or is he like, Claudezum just lurking behind him? And he's like, oh, that's probably not good. He might just be pulling a Costan. showing up. Yeah. Hey? Or, no, Kramer. Kramer kept showing up to the office.

And what do you actually, what do you actually do here? TCB, baby, take care of business. Just shows it with a briefcase and just assumes that everybody thinks he's got a very important job. And then, you know, last,

I guess yesterday afternoon in that St. Louis comeback gets mixed in Broberg goal from Justin Falk and Dylan Holloway. the offer sheets on night one connect for a goal as part of that comeback. And like I saw like I, you know, you see the conjecture, right? On Twitter, you get a good, you know, a good feel for how the fan bases are feeling. And I think for the most part, Edmonton fans were like, hey, take Broberg. You know, it kind of looked like he was getting caved in at points in that game. And then he scores a goal and then all of the conjecture stopped. Mm-hmm.

What do you think of Broberg in general? Because he's the more interesting player as far as I know. We don't have to relitigate the opposite sheet stuff. No, I just, because that was a month ago. But he's, he's, he can,

like, he looks the part. He looks, he looks like he's like, like he can do it. And he looks like he's going to make that, like he has the potential to make that contract, you know,

stand up. He does. I guess for, for a defenseman's point of view, um, he's, he's still kind of like slender and slight. And I feel like the guys that,

that really are able to munch big minutes, you know, in the top four. If you're going to be that build of player, you do have to be fairly elite at moving the puck and being evasive. And I'm not quite sure he's at that elite level when it comes to like his puck moving ability. So like I think as time goes on, he's going to have to, you know, and that'll happen by osmosis, but just get bigger, faster, stronger so he can kind of handle that workload, but he's not, like for me, he's not quite there yet. Like, he's somewhere, he's somewhere in the middle. And it could happen. It also could not happen. Like, you know, how many times have you seen a defenseman on the right track? And then they hit a certain point.

And it's, that's, that's what he is. That's, that's my worry with Brobert. Because if this, if this is what he is, he's fine, but he's not top four, four point six million dollar defenseman. Jordan Cairo, Rocket Richard. Is this the year that he, I don't want to say busts out, because that implies that he hasn't done anything yet. But is there a next step there for him? Because it feels like a lot of the St. Louis future has been him and Robert Thomas

and like one of those guys is going to be a star. And you're sort of waiting to see who it's going to be. Can we overreact to an answer based on one period? I think he scores 60. I think he scores 60 goals this year. Yeah. No, no. It's a hundred less than he's on pace for right now.

That's a huge drop. What a fall off? What do the analytics model say about that? No, but in all seriousness, like this, I think his career high is 37, 37 goals. He did it two years ago. There's no reason why this guy is not a 40 goal score, like, on a more consistent basis. And like a point per game guy, like he's just kind of got a. put it together.

And that, for me, starts with stuff away from the puck. And I think two years ago, two years ago, St. Louis was this team that, like, just lived and died by what they could do off the rush. One chance off the rush, not a lot of offensive zone time. And out they go. And, you know, I think as time went on last year and Bannister got in there, they did a better job. Their power play got better. So that'll be, you know, more added offense for a guy like him.

if they played in the offensive zone a little bit more. You know, now you're you're kind of wearing teams down, you know, finding more chances with some tired bodies. If that happens for him, I think he's, I think he's an 80 plus point guy and he's a 40 plus goal guy. Like the skill set is there. He's just, he's got to put it together, you know, in the other aspects of the game as well.

They're an interesting team at forward too, because I think the idea of Buccinovich playing center for an entire year, for an entire season, that seems like, that seems like it could be something, right? Like, because you're talking about him and Robert Thomas, Bouchnavich, and Robert Thomas as your,

as your two and your one. So, like, look, man, it's the blues. The defense was bad, is going to continue to, to be bad. But you can see where they're going to have, like, you can imagine them having enough pop

along that top sex, along that top sex, that top six, as long as Bouchinich is, is still, you know, as long as he can produce, like, from, you know, at the center position, I think they're, I think they're very interesting. And, and I guess they're, you know, they're playing in a, in a central division that's going to be crowded this year. Like, like, that's, they're always, you know, they're going

to be the victims of that as well. But it is, it is interesting with St. Louis. Like, it's a lot of guys that are in that same kind of age demographic, you want to call it that, right? Some guys that are on, you know, second chance you in the NHL. Like, last night I saw, I saw Matthew Joseph playing for the St. Louis Blues. And I'm like, that's a guy, Ottawa, you know, all the last year, they were like, okay, can they shop him around? Can they get rid of him? If he just plays hard, you know, like use your feet, speed, forechecking, tenacity. Like, he can kind of, he'll fill a role for that team.

So there's a lot of guys like that that kind of have something to prove in St. Louis. So I think that that can work for them as well. Like Cisbury Cappanin is another guy who continues to try and get back. on track. Like there's there's a few guys there that are, you know, pushing to have something to prove this year. So, you know, as we overreact, we, we see that St. Louis has some guys that that really want to show something. So Dylan Holloway played on the top line for that game. He was one of Thomas's winners, which is interesting. I think a lot of people, especially going into camp, are like, okay, this is, this is a third line guy, but he gets a look there.

he gets to look there on the on the on the Thomas line and they uh if you're a coach who's maybe on shaky ground you can do worse than putting the GM's new acquisition on the first line open he pops if that was if that was a banister call me wow if you see wow if you see claude julian over your shoulder you're like listen I got to make the GM wouldn't it be funny if tonight in one of the games claude julian was just on like a different just all year long it's just like where's cla what's that happening that's we all just go with it he's directly to the directly to Mike Sullivan's right what's happening here what do you think what

do you think what do you think Claude would say if he was still coaching the Bruins after that game last night he quit because they're done the Bruins is that your overreaction this is that my overreaction yeah it's Jeremy Swain and ruined this team uh with his his selfish uh holdout and he forced them to put Jonas Corpusallo in net

and is it an overreaction to say that Swamen's going to start like 71 games moving forward

He might now he might get all the rest of them that seems like that seems like a pretty unless Swain is in crutches

he is playing every game this year that first listen that was an onslaught by the Panthers

last night that was them obviously very emotional with the banner going up and seeing that and reliving all the memories and you're back on home ice where you finish the job in game seven. And then not to mention, you got the Bruins across from you, which it was very hostile between those two teams last year. And Boston tried to set a physical tone. Good luck with the Panthers trying to set the physical

tone because not only will they answer it, they'll up your ante. And I thought they did that last night, but Boston was on the back end, super sloppy with the puck. We talk about all these big defensemen that they have, these big hulking defensemen, it's not going to matter if you can't move the puck and you're playing in your own zone. And then a team like the Panthers that just jams it right to the front of your net, now all of a sudden they're winning all those little battles in front. We saw them score a few goals that way. Like that was, that was ugly, ugly night for the Bruins.

Is it a good sign when you give up six goals and everybody after the game is saying that the score flattered you? Is that a good sign for your defensive and goal tending? Is that was, uh, I, there was a point in that game where I was like double digits as in play. They look, they look that way. The first goal was ugly by Corpusallo. That I got flashbacks to watching Sends games last year. It's like, dude, all you got to do, that's a. block or save. You just, you push it into the corner. I'm not a goalie, but I can figure that one out.

And it's like, no idea where it is. And now it's in the back of your net. I think sense fans were watching that thinking, I'm happy. I don't have to see that this year. We've seen that. We've seen that movie before. Do you, would you, would you have pulled Corpusalo? Like, would you have, like, given them the yank after the first? No, you know why? You know why I wouldn't have done it? Because They said they wouldn't. I just, but I, they said they wouldn't. for sure. But also, Swayman just got there. You just signed this guy to a $66 million deal. And if you put him in a game like that where now he gets run over by Sam Bennett and what if he twists something or what if he holds something? And it's like, your season hinges on this guy

and you're just going to spring him into action kind of unexpectedly cold off the bench. He needs, you know, he needs a reasonable amount of runway before he goes in. So that was, if it was a 10 spot last night, Corpuselho was going to have to chew. on that 10 spot. Yeah, in Florida's dominance, I think, in that game made it an easier decision. Because after the second, you're like, this isn't, just shower this one off. Pull the plug. Like, there's no point in trying to kickstart anything or whatever.

Like, it's over. You're in there if you're in there if they make it to 15. And you know what? So, okay, the Trent Frederick going after Matthew Cichuk, what did you guys think of that? because I saw some of the quotes after the game and basically it was like, well, he said, let's go. That's what he was under the impression. He said, let's go.

And then he said something about, you know, not respecting the game. I was like, I think that's a stretch. Like, I think that's a stretch. You kind of dropped your gloves and he was not even really, like, he wasn't a willing combat. And also, it's a two nothing game at that point. Why is Matthew Kachuk going to give you that fight when you guys have one shot on net and you have nothing going in that game. Are you already in like send a message mode like for the rest of the season there?

Like is it possible? That's just how boss. Yeah. That's just like that's just how they do things. And I respect that they do it. Like I respect that he's willing to do it. And that's just how they operate because there's some other teams where you wish like you wish if you're a leaf fan, you wish someone would do that to a Matthew Kachuk or a

Brad Marchand and just say no choice. We're going right now. It's just and you know, it's not been in their. DNA. But it just like this is how, you know, how far gone that game felt last night where it felt like that. That wasn't, that wasn't going to do anything. The one thing I'll say on that is let's not forget in the playoffs last year, maybe the

most memorable moment of that series was David Pasternak stepping up to fight Matthew Kachuk, which I thought was, I thought was great. And I thought as a Leafs fan, I was like, man, I'd like to see that sort of. energy from some of the guys and I'm sure there were fans of plenty of other teams feel the same way but I can kind of see where Boston would be coming from going all right you drop the gloves with our superstar who never fights try me but it's two nothing early in the first if he says no he says no that's that's going to be the end of it yeah didn't you swim and start game two I mean you said he need to run away but Montreal tomorrow

so I'm I'm flying out today right after this this pod and I'm getting ready for the game, Montreal and Boston. And I'm trying to think, okay, so they would have flown back from Florida to Boston last night. So you probably got in. That's a long flight. You get in at 2 a.m. Let's say you get home at. Now, today you have like a recovery day, practice, whatever.

And then you're back into it Thursday. Like, is that enough time for Jeremy Swayman to feel comfortable? I think that's almost, I think that's almost the best argument for him to get in there in the third period. I'm not saying I agree with it, but it's like a warm up. Yeah, like what is one day a practice going to do that, you know, that not, that none wouldn't have. You know what I mean? Like, get him like a little bit more. I don't, I like, I would not have done that if you were the dude who, A, I just signed for a bazillion dollars and B, clearly, is the most important player on my team, even more so than most starting goaltenders are moving forward, right? I'm not doing it,

but I can see where the logic could be like, yeah, throw them there for the third, see what happens. So you can have that. tacked on to a day of practice time because it is like what's what's going to change exactly. Yeah. There's a there's a little mileage involved now. So I selfishly, I hope he is playing because I would love to call a game where Swamen is playing and it's the home opener. And, you know, I think that would be there's a good buzz around that.

I would also like to see how he looks. Like we've kind of seen now where, you know, whether it's the COVID year or the lockout year, guys don't need that much time. But a goalie you just invested so much time in, or sorry, so much money in. And your backup option doesn't seem like he's going to help you all that much. Like I think they, I think they're thinking about it more than they thought they would at this point leading into Thursday's game. And just one last point on the goaltending in Boston, because I, you know, we're having a little bit of fun with Corpusallo and getting lit up. And I'm sure there are probably some people listed this going, like, come on, it's a bit, the backup goalie.

It's an interesting situation where, you know, Swayman because he wasn't at camp, can't start the opener. But hey, big deal. Backup goalie. This is a backup goalie that they're on the hook for $3 million a year for four more years, including this one. Three years after this one, they took him in that trade with Ottawa. And I will tell you, from an Ottawa perspective, being up here, that was almost the bigger news of the trade than the, the fact that they got Olbar was they found somebody to dump the corporasalo contract on. They're on the hook for a pretty big chunk of money.

Like most teams, you look at it, hey, your, your million dollar backup comes in and gets sheled. Well, that's why he's the backup. No big deal. They kind of got to make this work.

What do you do if you throw him out there against Montreal and he gets shelled and the crowd's booing and, you know, all of this stuff. Four periods into his, like Boston is a ruthless fan base. And like they are not going to put up with that because think about the goaltending they have experienced for the last 15 years.

And they complained about Tuka Rask constantly. Yeah, they're not going to put up with Corpus Allo for four years of this guy. That's that's such a great point. Think about this. They complained about Tuka Rask at times. There's people in Toronto that would give up, I don't know, something. They would give up their pet to have Tuka Rassack. That doesn't say their dog is on the offer block for, for, yeah.

This dude is a borderline Hall of Famer who played his entire career with one team, and that one fan base spent the entire time being like, we need more from this guy. So they went, they went Tim Thomas. Like, I don't know how far back you want to go, but let's,

they went Tim Thomas into Tuka, into Linus and Swamen, now to Swamen and Corpus Allo. I mean, I mean, Corpus Allo, it obviously drops off significantly, but that's a pretty nice stretch of not having to worry about,

uh, arguably, well, arguably the most important position in sports, although we don't necessarily value it as much when it comes to contract. Isn't that funny, like, that some of the way it was framed, it still blows my mind that, you know, you can say, oh, forwards are definitively worth more than goaltending or whatever. There's ways of frame the Swamen contract where you're like, no, he's only going to play

and he's going to start 65 games or whatever, 60 games. Do you want to, do you really want to give him that much? money, it's like, yeah, absolutely. He's in there, he's in there 100% of the time. He is more involved Yeah, right. And also he's on the ice all the time. Connor McDavid,

great as he is, is on the bench for two thirds of every game. The math doesn't math in the way some of these guys wanted to. Igor Shisterkin, we now know, has turned down 11 million per year.

Are we overreacting to that? Are we overreacting to that? Or is that just, I think that's just normal business for him. I'm not going to overreact until I've seen him play one period. And then I will, based on that one period, I will be able to tell you either his head's not in the game. This contract is a distraction and the Rangers need to cut loose. Or he's got a chip on his shoulder and the Rangers really screwed up.

They should have given him 12 million because now he's worth 14. It's going to be one of those two things, but I need to see 20 full minutes to know. If you are Shasturkin, why would you take $11 million on October 8th when that's $500,000 more than Keri Price got however many years ago that was? And it's less percentage of the cap. And it's like how much, like how bad would Shisterkin have to play for his value to drop below $11 million? But if Shastirkin goes out this year and he's the best player on the team, which he more often than not is,

and he has a 926 save percentage. How much is it going up? I think he stands for his value to go up more than he stands for his value to go down with poor play. I agree. You would think so, but the flip side of that is, if I'm a Rangers fan or I'm in the Rangers front office,

I'm saying we've offered to make you the highest paid goaltender in history. How much higher do we need to go than highest ever? highest percentage of the cap. That's what I would argue. Like, Kerry Price was, I can't remember exactly, 12. something percent or 13 percent. So that's what it's got to be because cap's going to go up. All these, like, this is the thing now.

When the cap goes up to 92 and, you know, we'll see how far it goes up from there. You know, we talk about numbers now. These numbers should look pretty team friendly at some point. But they look kind of, they look odd when they're signed right now because we We've just been so conditioned in this flat cap world. But at some point, these numbers are going to look fairly mundane, I think. Well, and yeah, that's true, except that you look at the carry price deal, that at the time it was signed, a lot of us went, yeah, okay, this is the new market for a goaltender. That never looked for Montreal at any point until it was on LTIR.

And even then, it's still having an impact. I mean, this was a guy who had been absolutely without question, the best goalie in the world. Won an MVP, won the Vezina, all that stuff. Never got close to those numbers again under that contract. Now, he did. He had a few good weeks in the playoffs in 2021, I'm told. But never had a full season where he was in the league guy. That's what keeps up at night if you're the Rangers.

Do you, yeah, like I guess that's the thing. we see often where goalie, like Markstrom's a great example, has an unbelievable year, has an average year. You know, like even Connor Hellebuck has had really good years and somewhat average years based on his standard. Now, he doesn't make $10 million, but the Brobrovsky thing has to come into play where if you could fire that contract into the sun and be out of it, there is a time that that would have been the elected choice for the Florida Panthers.

I think a couple different times. Yeah. Meanwhile, now it's like two cup runs later and a ring later and a banner ceremony later. It doesn't look so bad. So how worried are you? I guess I would be thinking this. If I know I'm signing you to $12 million plus eight-year deal, and then I know you're going to give me at least two or three cracks,

legitimate cracks out of Stanley Cup where you play to that value, I will live with that, and I'll do away with the rest. Whatever, it is what it is. But I just want to know that I'll have a chance, like a legitimate chance. I just don't know how if you're the Rangers,

you're willing to pay a guy $11 million a year, but it's like 11-25-11-5, like, timeout. That's too much. It's such as, it's a drop in the bucket relative to what you're already paying him, and frankly, relative to the player's importance to the overall operation. Because if they don't, like, their whole, their whole identity, their whole method of winning games is like, yeah, we just need, like,

just hope, hope Igor is, you know, a 925 goalie and that the power play, you know, doesn't disappear. Okay. And if you're Igor, you look at your team around you, let's just, you know, let's just say, okay, we're not going to look at outside stuff. let's just look inside the organization. Who's more valuable to that team? Panarin or Shisterkin?

You can say it's Panarin, but I would argue that Shasturkin is more important to that team. It's 11.62 million. I just did the numbers to match the percentage of carry price if he signs it right now. 11.62, higher if you're basing it on next year's cap. Right. You can throw even a little bit more on.

So still got a ways to go, even if the offer's at 11. Well, and you know what? I think if there was two teams out there, let's say New York didn't want to do it. And they were just like, go, we can't do that. Two teams played last night that would love to have that kind of goaltender. And I think like the Chicago Blackhawks,

when you're trying to build a team around Connor Bedard for the future, and you can lock in a position and just say, we're done. This is our guy. We never have to worry about this anymore. And we're just going to try and build the rest. the team around Connor Bedard. Like, that's, I mean, that's another team that would be willing to give him, I'm not going

to say a blank check, but they would, they would meet his number for sure. Connor, don't do eight years, buddy. God. Don't do it. Call up somebody in the NBA or some other league and ask them, don't do eight years. Was there a side deal between Bedard and Sergachev last night where Bedard was like, hey, man, if I come flying down the wing, don't beat me up and just let me go and have a dirty Apple. Yeah, Sergachev was like, yeah, I'll do that as long as you don't immediately

score and put me on the highlight. Oops. Oh, well. Yeah, that's, that's, well, we're, we're going to talk about Padard, I think, in the second, in the second segment on a little bit, right? Because we want to go a little deeper on the season that he might have. But I think from Utah, Chicago, man, my, I think the fans in Salt Lake City already beat us to the overreaction from that game. They're chanting, we want the cuff last night. I love it. I love it. We haven't had a nickname yet. I don't, like, great. Keep it going. We are not inscribing hockey club on the Stanley Cup.

No, sir. You win it all this year. You got to have a name by the time it gets to an engraver. That's the all. I'll tell you what, if I am calling a Montreal versus Utah hockey club game this year, there will be a time where I will, and you guys have to be watching. I'll let you know, but I'm going to say something along the lines of. And as the puck is in the hockey club zone, because I feel like we're getting a lot of hockey club out there.

Yeah. Yeah, hockey club does a great job of killing that penalty. All right. The teams are heading on the ice. Here come the Canadians. And here come the hockey clubs. You guys call them hockey club, not the hockey club, though. Here comes hockey club.

Oh, check out that movement by hockey club on the power play there. What a goal by Dylan Gunther of hockey club. Hockey club's doing a real nice job of making sure that Montreal can't gain clean entry into the zone right now. I think it's not, yeah, we cannot be doing this. It's just you got to go with Utah. Speaking of weird names for things, Frankie, I wanted to ask you this as a former player. Did you ever have a situation where maybe you had an issue or, you know, something was bothering you and you wanted to go to team leadership? And you didn't feel like you wanted to approach the captain, but maybe it was too big a deal for the alternate captains.

And you were like, you know, I wish there was someone in the middle, like an associate captain that I could talk to about this. But it's just it's just not there. What are they doing in Utah? Why are we inventing new things? We already have these silly arguments where it's like, it's an assistant captain, no one's an alternate captain. So let's just throw a third word. The worst people in the world come out of the woodwork to yell at you if you say the wrong one.

Let's throw a third. But you know what? As far as Utah goes, skill is starting to shine through on that team. They looked fast. They look like they're an exciting young group. So and Dylan Gunther, who, you know, spent some time in the American Hockey league last year, like significant amount of time. Significant amount of time.

He looks good. Like that looks like a guy who's ready to, like, he looks like he's ready to play. And that's, you know, that's good news for them because they signed him up for a long time and they gave him a significant amount of money. Speaking of significant amounts of money,

we have Alinas Olmark extension to report. Dregor's first on his four years, 8.25 million per for Allmark in Ottawa. What do we think? That number from, hey? Where'd they get that number from? Here's the thing, though. If you just signed the other guy, the other tandem guy to 8.25 and the guy who won the

Vesna trophy is up for a contract extension, there's your number. Like, if anything, like, all things considered, that's a good deal for Ottawa. They both played on the same team. One guy won a Vesna. The other guy didn't. The other guy got 8.25. Vesna winner just got 8.25. I know those guys are buddies, but

Omar should ask for like 8.26 or 8.251? 8.251. Come on. It was right there. They could have done the right thing. Yeah. Let's listen.

That's putting, I think he's going to do well in Ottawa. I really do. They've just had this bad track record of picking the wrong goalie. I do think they got this one right. I think they got a guy who wants to play there. And they've obviously built a team around him that's going to be better. This is, I'd be shocked if this is not,

this is not the right goalie for them. And if it's not him, if it's not him, you have to wonder, like, is the position just cursed? Like, can it, is a big number, though, for a guy who couldn't even be the obvious starter on his own team last year? DGB hates Linus Allmark.

We're learning new things every week. I think DGB, that's because Swayman was Yeah, 16.5 million in goaltending on the Boston Bruins last year. I guess you look back, that's pretty good. Here's the thing I do like about this. It's a big number, but it's four years. Yeah. And four years is manageable.

Four years is in that sweet spot where if it's a disaster, it's not a franchise decimating disaster. And if it's good, you're still happy with it. It's not like he gave him one year or two years. And now it's, you know, so this would be four years after this year, though, I'm assuming. So in fact, I'm not assuming you would have to be. So that takes you a little while. But fewer years, he's under contract for years in Eunice Corpusalo.

And remember the senators, you know, they had the Debringate situation in that where it's, it means something here for guys to commit early and sign on. So that's a good, that's a good vibe for Ottawa, I'm sure. I agree. It's time for a break. Go back sec. All right, we're back. I had an overreaction from the first segment that I forgot to drop in. It's that Connor Bedard has stagnated as a goal score and is already, already in his second season,

already in his second season, he's becoming like a glorified Adam Oates type. He's strictly strictly. Remember, Gretzky started offscore 90 goals, and then in the second half, his second act, he wasn't a goal scorer, but he was still a setup guy. That's caught up a bad dark. Quasai legendary Pittsburgh Penguins internet lore with Sidney Crosby is that someone a million years ago called him glorified Adam Oates when he was like, you know, when he had 25 and yeah, whatever. And it's something that just, it's never, it's never left my brain. Was it you? It doesn't matter who it was.

Are you the same guy who said he was mad at face-offs and then he went down. He was all insane for four months. Sean was all grumpy. He had to go down to the Pittsburgh Steelers' visitors' room and do some interviews. Oh. Apparently that locker room does not smell great. We'll leave it at that. And we're not going to get too far into this.

This is going to become a recurring segment on this show. I'm making the decision right now. We're going to have the locker room review with Frankic Carado. It's going to be various dressing rooms throughout North America. We can get the dirt on a dude who's been to most of them. All right. Let me just get something off my chest. Okay.

If you are going to sit here and tell me that Connor Bedard has to get 100 points this year and has to win a heart trophy because Crosby and McDavid did it. I want to sentence you to have a shower in the Binghamton visitors room. That's where I need to sentence you to go. I want to go to Binghamton for any reason, let alone. Just gentilly getting off a plane in Binghamton with a towel wrapped around his waist. That visitor's shower is some kind of experience. And no one deserves that.

No. I had someone pose the question to me. If Connor Bedard really is a generational player that's what he should do this year. Did I post that to you? Was this a conversation that we had? Because I'm like, that's something

that I can imagine myself. Is that what you're thinking? Is that like? Not really, but in the interest, but in the interest of starting shit on a podcast. Yeah, I can imagine, I can imagine devolving into that mode. Okay. It's just not it's not a realistic thing. For, for

a number of reasons. Okay, first of all, Crosby had Malkin right away. McDavid had dry sidel right away. Who does Bedard have? Elyam McAev? Like, what are we talking about? He's got... Ilya Mikaev catching strays already. I'm okay, sorry. Elyne McKeyev serves a purpose on the ice, okay? Good NHL player. Not going to finish... You're going to pull that in the arbitration hearing. Not going to finish the purpose. But, you know, good, good NHL player. So he doesn't have that, like, perfect wingman. He also is not playing on a team that's going to the playoffs this year.

In McDavid's second year, the Oilers made the playoffs. I believe they were second in their division. Anaheim was first. Crosby and the Penguins, they made the playoffs his second year. So he doesn't have the number two, who, by the way, could be on any given year, you know, in Malkins Prime in Drysidal right now could be considered the second best player in the world. Doesn't have that and doesn't have a team making the playoffs.

So in what world is he going to be able to get 100 points and win the Hart Trophy this year? It's just, it's not a realistic expectation for the guy. If he has, I think if he has 40 goals and 85 points, that should be considered a very good year for Connor Bedard. All right. Counterpoint. first of all, he's got an MVP on the wing available to him if they want to match him up.

And the reason that those teams made the playoffs, Pittsburgh and Edmonton, is because their best players willed them to the playoffs, pick them up and carry them. And if Connor Bedard is a real stud, he's going to do the same Chicago. I love it. I don't believe any of this of what I'm saying. But didn't I pick him, Sean, in our, remember we did, we did this. that piece in summer. We tried to do long shot picks. And I can't remember if I picked him for the heart or the Art Ross or Rock of Richard or sorry, but one of those, I was leaning on the second year.

I think it might have been, it might have been, it might have been, it might have been Art Ross. Yeah. I think I picked Mitch Marner for the Art Ross, but Badard was was right up there as well. Hittsburg Penguins 2006-07 roster in statistics. We have Sydney Crosby with 120 points. We had Malcolm with 85. Okay. Who do you guys think was the third leading score on the, on the Penguins that season. It's, oh, I love to Jordan Stoll.

Is it, is it Mark Recky or is it Gonchar? It's Recky, okay. It's Recky and then Gonchar. And then Whitney, Michelle Willett,

who that's one for the, that's one for the true, for the true Pittsburgh hockey sickos. And then it was Stahl with 42 points in it, in his rookie season. Those are the, those are the top.

And they lost, they lost in the first round of the playoffs that year. But they got to the playoffs. You know, like I just think, Bedard's playing on a different, And he's just playing on a, he's playing in a different situation than both McDavid and Crosby had in year two.

So I don't know. Like what's, what's a reasonable expectation for him this year? Let me ask this question then. If you're, because, you know, all jokes aside, you're right. There's no Dres Idol there. There's no Malkin there. How do you get one then if you're Chicago? Because presumably, like those guys were in place by the time that Crosby and McDavid showed up,

presumably Badaard's at least going to lift this team, wouldn't we think out of the hunt for dead last? The equivalent would have been if like Rikl or Kirby Doc or one of those guys who they picked before they, before they bought really truly bottomed out with the Baderd season would have been in place as a difference maker already. Well, I guess the other thing is they just picked second overall this year, right? And they picked the defenseman and like, listen,

I'm not going to sit here and pretend I know a lot about the defenseman. I'm sure he's going to be a hell of a player. Like no one goes second overall if they're not going to be a significant player. But I guess if you were trying to build out of that model, the Crosby-McDavid model, you would have picked a forward that you thought could be that second in command. And, you know, like you had the chance to do it. I still think, though, like don't you think Chicago's still going to be picking in the top, I don't know, five to seven?

this year? Is that? You can still get that type of player. And you can get some luck with the lottery and everybody who's not a Hawks fan right now is nodding along going yet. They're going to be fine because. So I think we figured it out. They have Bedard. They've got their future number one defensemen.

They're going to get Schisturkin and they're going to pay them a ton of money. And they're going to draft their Malkin or Drys Idol this year. Like, that's, they've got it all. They've got it. He signed Mitch Marner in the offseason, so... Easy, easy, easy, easy. Yeah. And then, then we're talking about Bedard hitting, you know, his generational player type numbers.

Okay. So, year three. Frankie's saying, be patient. Connor Bardard is not a bust. Yeah. Unless he hasn't won. They are going to go from... The Chicago Blackcocks are going to go from the Binghamton Visitors Room shower to the Toronto Maple Leafs

home dressing room showers, which are just the... best. The water pressure is unbelievable. The temperature, perfect. I've had many nights there as a healthy scratch, just standing there 20 minutes while the game is going on saying, I can't watch this anymore. I'm taking a 20 minute shower in the most perfect shower. That's like, that's the benefit of playing hockey in Canada is like they, you think they couldn't like pulled some strings and called in some figures. like from the from the city for water pressure down there like whole neighborhoods have no water pressure in Toronto because it's all diverted that's a you can have your tax your lower tax rates that should

be the pitch when the when the when the leaf stock to a free agent is the dude just yeah like 10 minute or the showers just have a look and tell me our steam room and our shower are unbelievable that's that's your pitch right there another thing these green kind of arenas Tough water pressure. Tough water pressure. I'm all for helping the environment. We have to do it. But the real green...

Not if it means the millionaire athletes. You got to go into... I sound like such a D-Bag right now. You got to go back into Kramer mode and buy the black market showerhead. Yeah. He was like, yeah, this is the one they use to clean off elephants at the zoo. Install that bad boy out in the dressing rooms. Let's go.

Yeah. Just start. washing your salad in the in the shower preparing dinner. Frankie, do you have time for a 20 minute shower now? Are you off to you off to dad? I'm off to Pearson. I'm off to Pearson flying into Boston and I'm going to try my luck tonight to see if there's any restaurant that's willing to show the Habs versus Leaps at the bar.

That might be a tough, tough call. Boston piece it is, brother. Let's go. Tell them you're a podcaster, man. They'll get their attention. I'm a guest on a fairly significant podcast once a week. You're not a guest. I feel like you're co-host at this point.

Yeah. Just whatever. Drop back at Disney. You're an associate post. How about that? I love it. Travel safe, but I'll talk you next week. Thanks, guys.

All right. Frank's gone. Macandoo. What have we learned? What have we learned, Sean? Here's what I learned last night. I think definitively at this point. This was something I have been wondering about.

I've mentioned it a few times, and I didn't feel like we really knew for sure. And now I think we do. They are treating Utah as a brand new team. We are all supposed to act like this as an expansion team that just happens to be last year's Arizona Coyotes and not a franchise that has moved in the way that the Thrasher's moved to Winnipeg and Winnipeg still assumed their history and that sort of thing.

This is a brand new team that was hit several times as a key point by ESPN last night. If you weren't a hockey fan and you were just flipping on, you would have thought this was a pure expansion team out of nowhere. So I don't know how I feel about that because I kind of get that you want to start over. I know the background here is obviously when they did the whole weird thing with Arizona and they were going to give them five years to get an arena together. They let Arizona keep the history. But I thought once that fell through and the ownership was out that they would maybe transfer it over,

but they're not going to. So this is brand new. We now have the all-time leading scores in the history of the franchise. That's a four-way tie, unfortunately, Logan Cooley, Dylan Gunther, Barrett Hayton and Nick Schmaltz. Imagine the only team. Yeah, you could probably win a barbed. Name the only NHL team that has a multi-way tie for the all-time scoring lead. It's Utah.

And if you run into team of Solani today, go off to it and be like, hey, man, those 76 goals he scored. Is that like the record for any NHL team? And he'd be like, it's, it was, but it's not anymore. Now it just kind of is floating out there in the defunct world of non-existent stats. what happens if they'd never put another team in Utah or in Arizona that's it because it's just a defined franchise and even what happens if they do put another team in Arizona

which we all assume is happening it's going to be different ownership now do they want to come and assume all that history which is not you know wasn't the most impressive history let's just say so do you do you not want to start fresh and

no you come in and you honor you honor Arizona the Arizona coyote is lengthy yeah lengthy lengthy lengthy history and you retire Mike Smith's jersey like you can still put Shane Doan's number in the rafters but are you are you adopting Dale Howardchuck stats from the 1980s is a question that probably only interests me I was going to say this is something this is something that I that has to keep you up at night and somebody's got it like Has anybody checked on Tepo Numenin? Like, do we know how?

I periodically, you know what I periodically do check in on Tepo Numen. And I just give him a call, see how he's doing. He's sorry. Tell him, give him my best. What I learned is one day in, I think we already have, we have a strong contender for best photo of the NHL season.

It's Jess Campbell, the new assistant coach for the Seattle crack and the first woman to be behind the bench shelf. as a full-time assistant in NHL history. She's standing there. She's diagraming on a play for the power play. She's wearing a white suit. All the dudes are, you know, paying attention and watching the chalk talk.

And it's a, it's a photo from above. And there was something about CNN that this morning where I was like, yeah, okay, this is, this is pretty cool. It hammered home, I think, how momentous an occasion that was. last night. And Haley Salvin wrote a really great story about it that's on that's on the site. She talked to Campbell and she talked to Dan Bilesma and she really laid out just how qualified Jess Campbell is for this job. Aside from it being momentous, this is a person who is who is more than ready to be an assistant on an NHL team. But there was something about seeing that overhead shot last night where I was like, all right, this is cool. And it's night when it's

night one of the season and I'm not sure in terms of still photography how much better we're going to do than that. I haven't read the the piece he just referenced. So I don't know if this is mentioned in there, but they told the story last night. I don't know if you heard it on the broadcast about her how she got the job and how she got an email. Was it from Balzma? Like, yeah.

It just showed up in her inbox and I get, they kind of glossed over this, but they made reference to him having like a weird email address. So she wasn't. She just thought it was like some space. because it said coaching inquiry as the... I'm not going to... I know what the email address was because I talked to Haley about the story.

Like all this stuff was included. All this stuff was included in Haley's story. You can read into that. She wasn't mentioned on the broadcast. I want to find the... Was it spicy tuna at... It was very... Hockey Club.org.

It was very generic. in a funny way. And it was, I'm not saying, don't email Dan Bilesman at gmail.com or whatever, because that's not, that's not what it was. But yeah,

she got, she got, she got an email from, from a funny email address sent directly to like her, her, her personal consulting, you know, do you want to,

do you want to schedule a power skating session with Jess Campbell website, right? And it was, it was from Dan Bilesmo. Very funny. I'm going to, I'm going to check that out.

And like I said, I'll pass the email along to you specifically so you can so you can email Dan Biles Manager. Which I will do, by the way, to your heart's content. I will congratulate him on being the winning as coach in the history of an NHL franchise. That's it. We're closing on that. That's a good note to end on. Got a bunch more games tonight.

I'm psyched about this. Do I wish, do we wish that there would have been 16? games on night one like maybe maybe not this is the world we live in now we got a bunch of good ones tonight Toronto Montreal Rangers Pittsburgh Avs golden nights

jets oilers flames canucks that sounds like a recipe to sit in front of the TV for a very very long time this evening that is the plan or throw a remote through my TV six minutes into the Leaves game I was gonna say I feel like there's something there's something that could happen tonight that send you to bed a little early

Let's see that works out. Thank you folks for listening to The Athletic Hockey Show. If you're a Spotify listener, you can leave comments on our episodes. Congratulations. Tomorrow, Haley and I are back with the Thursday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. Oddly enough, it's on a Tuesday. We recorded last week's a couple days in advance. Tomorrow's will be about as close alive as we can get, though.

So we'll talk to you then. Enjoy your night. And Frankie and Sean and I will be back next week.