The Athletic Hockey Show - Patrick Kane motors into Detroit, Corey Perry's contract terminated in Chicago and the John Hynes era begins with Wild

Episode Date: November 28, 2023

Ian and Julian discuss Patrick Kane's decision to sign a one year deal with the Detroit Red Wings, the Chicago Black Hawks termination of Corey Perry's contract, and the Ottawa Senators being pushed around on the ice in a 5-0 home lose to Florida, with fans once again demanding DJ Smith be fired. Plus, another E-Bug alert in the NHL, changes to the all-star game in Toronto in 2024 and Joe Smith joins from Minnesota to take a look at the mess in Minnesota with Dean Evason fired and John Hynes hired to coach the underachieving Wild.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Hockey Show. What's up, everybody? It is your Tuesday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. It's Ian Mendez. It's Julian McKenzie. And my goodness. Julian, my man, we have so much to get to. This is going to be an unbelievable.

In fact, look at this. We already got to comment in here as we're streaming live on YouTube. Christopher writes in, I'm sure this is going to be a quiet, uneventful episode. Boy, this is, I mean, the news cycle is popping right now.

Storylines everywhere. Boy, this is, you know, you talk about, sometimes you think like, ah, at the end of the U.S. Thanksgiving, it's kind of a quiet period in the NHL. This feels like about as newsworthy of a 24-hour period

as we've seen since the start of the regular season. Yeah. Yeah, and just off of the two stuff that we're going to start off with this show, it's just like a bit of a mind-blowing thing to think about. I mean, which one should we start with first? Is it the former superstar signing in Detroit, or do we deal with the former superstar who his contract has been terminated? Which one do you think we should pick first?

I'll tell you, well, let's go Patrick Kane first, because we talked about Patrick Kane. Well, we talked about Corey Perry as well in the Monday pod, but in Detroit, a one-year deal believed to be agreed upon by Patrick Kane and the Red Wings, Chris Johnson. I don't know if you've heard of CJ, but Chris Johnson, I believe it may have been the first person with that piece of news. I think he was the first person with that piece of news. He seems like he beat Elliot Freeman by a nanosecond. But regardless.

Oh, yeah. In the insider group chat, I know for sure CJ is going to celebrate getting the one-up on Elliot Freeman. Absolutely. That's how competitive those guys are. Yeah, and it's fun to watch, but the deal is this, Patrick Kane for one year in Detroit, essentially a pro-rated deal that's going to be, you know, 2.75 million. We talked about this with Mark Lazarus on Monday. You know, Detroit was the perfect landing spot.

They had the cap space. The team is kind of trending upwards, the Alex De Brinkett connection, all of that. Like, how do you look at Detroit now as, you know, they're not in that Ranger, Bruin, you know, Panther echelon. But I think when you start to look at the bubble teams that are trying to rise up or teams that are trying to secure a wild card spot, you've got to think that Detroit, now you take them pretty seriously by getting Patrick Kane. Absolutely.

And I think for them, a team that has not made the playoffs in seven years, them making the playoffs, whether as a wild card or anything better, that's progress for this organization, considering the efforts that they've poured into trying to rebuild. So I think for Patrick Kane to join this team, that's a really good shot in the arm, I think, for that organization players like Alex DeBrenkin, I mean, who's obviously very familiar with Patrick Kane. And that tells everyone that, hey, you guys have been off to a good start. We're going to get you a guy who's going to help you get to that next level. And everyone on that team now can learn a thing or two from a guy like Patrick Kane, at least in the locker room, at least with regards to playing on the ice about what it takes to get to that next step. I think purely as an on-ice move. this, this is, it's a good move for Detroit. And if this helps them get to the playoffs, even if it might not result in the championship that Patrick Kane may want, or may he, at least maybe, as maybe he might have indicated to teams when he was

looking for a new home to play in, I think that's still a positive for, for that organization. But you got to remember, this is Patrick Kane after the hip surgery after, you know, this is a serious, you know, procedure that he underwent. This is one that often ends athletes' careers. So we'll see what, you know, sort of gas is left in the tank for Patrick Kane. But I think if you're a Detroit fan, you feel like, okay, this is the definitive end of the rebuild. Like you've, you've at least pushed your chips into the middle.

For the people that said, you know, Steve Eisenman was super patient and, you know, was taking the long road. I think he's gotten this program to a point where he feels like, okay, we're ready to do this. maybe a year ago or two years ago, he wasn't ready. I don't even think Kane would have signed in Detroit a year or two ago, right? But they're off to the good start. They kind of, they just got some good mojo going. And, you know, that's the fan base that's starving for postseason hockey. It's what, seven years since making the postseason.

It's a great, smart hockey market. You're dying for it. So Kane goes there. And like you said, that's one big story on the Tuesday. the other one kind of came our way just before we went to air here, and we're recording this on Tuesday. And Chicago has announced officially that they are terminating the contract of Corey Perry. They placed up on waivers on Tuesday.

He will obviously clear. Chicago did put out a statement. And I know there's been a lot of uncertainty, lack of clarity on what happened with Perry, whatever. And I don't know if this helps. It doesn't help. I think it does shed a little bit more light into potentially what happened. Here's the statement from Chicago on Corey Perry on Tuesday. They wrote, quote, after an internal investigation,

Chicago Blackhawks have determined that Corey Perry has engaged in conduct that is unacceptable and in violation of both the terms of his standard players contract and the Blackhawks' internal policies intended to promote professional and safe work environments. As such, Corey Perry has been placed on unconditional waivers in the event Mr. Perry clears waivers, we intend to terminate his contract effective immediately. You know, that's a cold, detached, like, referring to him as Mr. Perry is a subtle, not so subtle way of, like,

we are distancing ourselves. Like, they're not calling him Corey or we don't wish Corey all the best. it is, he is engaged in, in, you know, violation of, you know, conduct that's in violation of team policies. And Mr. Perry, if he clears waivers, is going to have his contract terminate. Like this, to me it sheds a little bit more light, Julie. It doesn't tell you exactly what happened, but it does lead you to believe that, you know, Chicago has reason and cause to terminate Corey Perry here. I'll say this.

While you're right, in some respects, it sheds. a little bit of light in terms of the fact that they were able to say that his conduct was unacceptable, this doesn't exactly tell us what happened. And also, it seems like Mark Lazarus may have tweeted that Kyle Davidson, the Blackhawks GM will speak with reporters later this afternoon. I'll say this. Considering the rumors that are out there, which we're not going to engage on those, I'm still kind of in the dark about what happened. And yes, this statement does say that he engaged in unacceptable conduct, I still don't know what happened,

and I still don't know what to believe. And I'm still, I don't know if we're ever going to hear about what actually happened, and I don't know if we're entitled to that. But in some ways, yes, this statement tells us something. In some ways, I'm still asking a lot of questions about what's going to happen. And I wonder now, with Kyle Davidson speaking to the media,

how much is he willing to say about what Corey Perry did? To get to a point where, as you mentioned, at the end of that statement, they're saying Mr. Perry and they're trying to distance themselves. What did this person do to put himself in that situation? And one other thing I'll say too is what he did so bad enough that no other team's going to want him to play again. He's late in his career. He's not the same player that he was at his peak, but Chicago still felt it was worth having him in their locker room. is someone else going to look at Cory Perry

and say, you know what? What he did was what he did, but we're still going to bring him in anyway. I think maybe that's the cynical part in me, but you still have to look out for that. I know you're saying that he'll likely clear. It does make sense that he would, and his contract should be terminated after that.

But is someone else going to look at what he did and say, okay, we're not going to touch this guy at all? I have questions about that. You know, I think you raise a really good point. And I think because you and I are journalists, we're reporters, you know, we have a natural curiosity and we think that maybe we are entitled to those answers of what exactly he did. But, you know, I go back, remember Julian, and I'm just double checking here. Yeah, last month when Kevin Constantine was removed from his job as a head coach in the W.HL in the junior hockey. I'm just reading, I'm just double checking.

I want to get the wording right because it was weird. He was suspended indefinitely after an investigation determined that he violated WHOL regulations and policies by making derogatory comments of a discriminatory nature. And I remember thinking like, what does that mean? Like, why are you being so vague? I would prefer if you're going to suspend or terminate somebody, I think you should be allowed to and you should be encouraged to share this story of why.

I think that holds them accountable for their words and actions. I think by not knowing what Corey Perry did, there's a little avenue where people will be like, you know, maybe he didn't do something that bad and it leaves you not sure of what happened. And I think to have some definitive closure on this and maybe like you said,

Kyle Davidson is going to speak after we're done, recording and maybe he'll provide that context and the answers. But I do think that there is an obligation from professional organizations to be transparent about why they're parting ways with somebody. If they did something so egregious, then highlight what they did, say that it was wrong and you don't believe in it and you're cutting ties with them rather than keeping it kind of in kind of in a vagueness, you know? And to end to that point of all organizations to be under that spotlight,

And to be demanding to show transparency, Chicago, we all know about the Kyle Beach story and the unfortunate nature of that and everything that's come out from that. And as we talked about with Mark yesterday, they do not deserve the benefit of the doubt when it comes to how they've come along in terms of being transparent. This Kyle Davidson press conference will ultimately show how much they've learned from that past transgression and how they've tried to, if, if they've tried to improve their efforts at being transparent on those types of stories since. I think that press conference is going to be interesting because of what we could learn about the Cory Perry situation, but also how much has this organization learn with handling stories like this and being transparent with the media and their people? One thing I'll say before we, I know we got a deck out of here and Joe Smith's going to come in because there was a time in the last 24 hours when the Minnesota Wild were this story of the league.

and then all this other stuff happened. Oh, yeah, right. I wonder, and this is a great question posed by our producer, Jeff, how does this affect Corey Perry's Hall of Fame credentials? And I'll say this. I think he was a bubble guy at best. Like, like, and I'm going to bring up two other, quote, unquote, bubble guys that I think have had their Hall of Fame credentials or candidacies sort of,

I guess, diluted or compromised. one would be Theo Fleury and the other would be Jeremy Roanick both of whom I think when you look at it on balance if you were just going to hockey reference you would look at their stats, you would look at the numbers, you look at their peak seasons, he'd say, boy, that guy's a Hall of Famer.

Then you would fold in some of the off-ice stuff. With Roanick, it was unfortunate comments he made about Catherine Tappen. In the case of Theo Fleury, it's just been a bunch of polarizing and comments or whatever. And you can't help but think that those two things have,

those two players are sorry, have been kept out of the Hall of Fame based on those off-ice things. I can't help but think that Cory Perry might fall into the same bucket, Julia. That's an interesting way of looking at it. I think the fact that he was already a bubble case to begin with, I wonder about that. I mean, this is not a player who has reached a thousand points yet, but he has a heart trophy to his name. He has a Rocket Richard to his name.

He's a triple goal club member. He's won everything he could win as a pro hockey player in the national a hockey league and at the Olympics as well. So on his resume, I mean, if he was able to finish out his career and get to that a thousand point threshold, it might be a lot easier to put him in the hockey All of Fame. If this is the incident that keeps him from playing again, and this is a guy who's been the league since like 2005, 2006, he's 38 years old.

He doesn't have that much mileage left. This could essentially be the thing that keeps him out, whereas the other players, you could say that they had done so much. in their peak where you could look at their credentials and say, hey, you know what, maybe their resume on their own should be good enough. Corey Perry, you can look at his resume and maybe have a genuine debate, I think. And if this is the, whatever the instance is, if this is what keeps it from playing again, that might be enough to shut him out.

But I don't know. That's maybe that's a very immediate take. And maybe you need more time distance from that because that's also going to play into that too. If Cory Perry retires after this and then you go through the three. year waiting period or however long it is, and then you look at his resume, I wonder how much what conversation are we having about him then? There's something about time that allows us to kind of forget about things that happened immediately in the moment. And then we just look at a guy and then it's going to be like a, oh yeah, right, what happened in Chicago that it led to the end

of his career. I wonder what that will be like for him in the next how many years. Yeah, no, that's an excellent point. Like I said, though, we got Joe Smith standing in the on deck circle. So why don't we step out for a second. We'll come back. We'll talk about the firing of Dean Eveson with our wildbeat guy, Joe Smith. All right. Let's bring him in. Joe Smith, here we go. He's my traveling companion, by the way, Julian. I hung out with Joe Smith in Arizona at the end of October and in Stockholm in November. Joe, where will December take us, the traveling duo, Mendez and Smith? Where should we go this nice in December, right? Want to meet me in Tampa in January?

Maybe for like a long week there or something like that? Like a Tampa sunrise trip or something like that. How about we go somewhere like that? Let's do it. Let's do it. The power couple, Ian Meditio, Joe Smith. But yeah, listen, we got you on because it's funny because obviously Corey Perry and Patrick Kane on Tuesday have dominated the news cycle.

But Monday, that new cycle belonged to the Minnesota Wild. And Joe, in both those trips that I took with you, both in out to Arizona and over to Stockholm. We had a lot of conversations about Dean Eveson and about the wild, and it felt like something was going to be imminent. So what was the breaking point here? Why did they finally decide to part ways with Dean Eveson on Monday? Well, it's a good question. I think as of like about a week or so ago, kind of the leaning was to like, let's give this a little more time. As he wrote in the athletic, general manager Bill Guerin kind of laid into the team the Monday before their trip to Stockholm, you know, kind of talk to each player. And, you know, and, you know, and, you know,

the team is at a whole, like, hey, let's just, you know, you need to step up individually as a group, still believing that they could turn it around, and they haven't won a game since then, 02 and 2. And so I think as the loss is piled on seven in a row now in 13 of 16, Garin, obviously, the owner of Craig Leopold, who haven't used the word rebuild in their whole entire time they had been here, firmly believe that there's still a chance of the season can be salvaged. And in a Western conference that might be good up top, but I'm in a mushy middle, they can chance to make the playoffs. So there was a time was now to make something had to change, they felt.

And the change, they can't trade 23 players, as Bill Garron said today, but you can fire a coach. And Dean Everson was the guy that was let go along with Bob Woods who ran their penalty kill, which was the worst in NHL this year. So obviously big changes there. They play the St. Louis Blues tonight, Predators Thursday and Blackhawks Saturday. So three divisional teams, you win those three all of a sudden, you have a better chance given the standings.

But yeah, clearly, you know, Everson paid the price for an underachieving team considered they had 100 points each of the last two seasons. Did Eveson lose the room? Was there something between him and players? We get it's easy to fire a coach in those instances. But how did the players take this? They all felt bad. Like, I mean, anytime you've been in a couple of a long time, you know that any time their coach gets fired,

the first thing that the I say is, hey, we feel bad. We let them down. You know, you can't fire the players. You can fire the coach. So the all fed felt bad individually called it a wake-up call for the group to do it. But I never got a sense that they quit on Dean Evanston. I never got the sense that they stopped trying or the workout that wasn't a problem, I think, for the group. I think it was execution.

I think they lost their confidence in their, they kind of swag, I guess, in themselves, right? Like, the harder they tried, the worse it got, it seemed like. And the same answers were coming from the locker room every game of, you know, we need to be better. be accountable. It's not us. Once you start hearing all that stuff and the coach kind of has less answers than he than he should and maybe starts calling on players publicly, then you know they're kind of near the end of the road there. So John Hines was brought in a guy that Belgarren knows, known for a long time since

they're both days in the Pittsburgh organization, Volkspar. So we'll see if this could be the spark that they needed to get back going in the Western conference. But anytime you see a coach, multiple coaches lose their jobs, it's not a, a great feeling around the room. You know, you mentioned, Joe, that John Hines comes in, and the obvious you can draw the easy line between him and Bill Garan, so it's not hard to figure out why that decision was made.

But I'm wondering how that choice has gone over with the fan base, because, you know, fans will often have their favorite, we should have hired this guy. This is, like, what's the feeling like on Hines? And is there somebody that they didn't bring in that people are like, I wish they brought in that guy to be the coach? I think it's typically underwhelming from a fan perspective.

I think for all the fans that wanted Dean Evans and fired, not like John Cooper was going to leave the lightning and all of a sudden join the Minnesota Wild or Scottie Bowman was going to come out retirement and coached Minnesota Wild. There's not a lot of names out there, no names. Like, obviously, Gerard Glant's one that's bounced around and had that pedigree. Jay Woodcroft got let go a few weeks ago from the Oilers. But unless you wanted to go kind of the younger kind of up-and-coming approach, Chris Knoblock, of course, with the Oilers, there are not a lot of kind of known guys,

not talk about Joe Quenville at all, too, either. So I think a guy that Garan is known for a long time, comfortable with a guy who's had experience coming in mid-season to Sparker team, like he did with the Predators a few years back, if you remember. Obviously, he's been fired, too, so not like it's a perfect choice or a slam-dunk choice, but a guy that Garron has, this is his first time he's hired his guy, right? He inherited Dee Devesant, game an extension without doing a coaching search. And so he's kind of, this is his guy now, and he's going to ride with it and see if he can kind of build the confidence of the players that have had some trouble so far this year.

By the way, Sheda Goldman has a column about John Hines, and it's titled Goldman. John Hines isn't the solution to what really ails the wild. What do you know about John Hines in terms of him as a person and also his coaching style? And does it seem like it's a fit for what the players, for what this, this, this roster in Minnesota consists of? Well, you know, he's a very detail-oriented coach. The players I've talked to have played for him, said he's been really good as far as the details on the penalty kill

and, you know, defending, which are two things that the wild definitely need to improve on. A very engaging guy, a good personality, guy from the Boston area, obviously a B, you know, two Boston guys with, with Garon and Heinz together. So I think maybe just the fresh voice, different voice,

kind of a kick in the rear, so to speak, that the players to know that they have, once the coach gets fired and brought a new one, the pressures on them, of course, to make a difference. So I think he's going to focus on trying to build the confidence of each player and find one or two things with each one

that's kind of not been working or should be working and going from there. So I don't think he's a huge, like, 180 from what Dean Aviston brought. He still wants to be defensive oriented, he still wants to be a hard team to play against. He also wants to, he also wants the players to be creative offensively, which is how to be so important for a team that's been so star for scoring,

especially with the two best players offensively, Matt Boldy and Capol Prisov having an overwhelming season so far. Yeah, and I wanted to expand on that for a second because I think Boldy's got one goal. Caprisoff, he's got six, but he's a guy that you think of as a 40 goal guy, so he's only on pace for whatever, 25. is there a feeling like it was a tactical issue with them that that's why they weren't you know maybe feeling it offensively and that the new voice can come in like like because

boldly in particular they they gave this guy a huge contract that you feel like he is a core piece and it's just been a really tough start for him i don't know if it's a tactical thing because like last year like caprice i scored 40 goals right and boldie scored 31 goals last year and that was the same system the same coach right um they didn't forget how to score forget how to be dynamic players. But when you're the head of coach and your top players aren't your best players, then all of a sudden, and your goal attending isn't up to snuff,

that all of a sudden you become, have a less smart coach in that instance. So I know towards the end, Eveson was probably more publicly critical of his top guys, even this last day as head coach on Sunday that some guys aren't, you know, pulling their weight, so to speak, and public critical of Matt Boldie.

So clearly towards the end, you could sense that the president, or kind of the frustration was getting to him, kind of pulling all the strings and practices and tweaks and everything else to where anything was getting it done. So maybe with a little breath of fresh share with the new coach, maybe builds them up, maybe just gets them to kind of reset and make a new chapter,

new fresh, fresh look at things might get them going. But honestly, it's up to them because, you know, they're going to drive this team offensively. They're now, they have $15 million dollars of dead cap space right now.

So they could have another forward defense and they don't have that for the next couple of years. So they have what they have. this team that they believe in and they hope that they can pull it around. And John Hines will have to start his Minnesota Wild coaching tenure without Ryan Hartman, who got suspended after a tripping incident with him and Alex DeBringit. What did you think of that instance and the suspension that came after? Well, Hartman's a repeat offender.

So you kind of sense that there be a multiple game suspension there. And I think it just more telling of kind of the frustration with both him and the dressing room, right? The team struggling. You're losing seven straight. You're in a game in Detroit where you kind of kind of kind of, control a lot of the play five-on-five, but give a couple of power play goals and just lose the game. I've got kind of like one of those recipes that happened this year.

So I can see the frustration building with Ryan Hartman, a very emotional play on the edge kind of player. You can hear when he talks after the games, like enough talking, let's go out and do it. So obviously tough for them because they have no cap space. So they had to call it Venilateri today. Maybe play 11 and 7 in some cases because they don't have the cap room to call up the top prospects. They only have like $800 grand in cap space. So that means some of their best offensive prospects they can call up right now. So that's where they're in. So no changes can

be made kind of trade-wise for this group. They signed other guys' extensions in the preseason, Polino, Hartman, Zookorello. So they really don't have any major trade ships at the deadline. So their focus was this is a playoff team. They should be a playoff team. Let's see if they could turn it around because the only change they could make was the coach because the roster is pretty much set at this point. Well, before we let you go, Joe, I know, I used to mention John Heinz will make his debut behind the bench tonight. So do you and Mike Russo, you play like rock paper, scissors to see who writes the game story, who, like, how do you guys determine that because you both do an excellent job covering the Minnesota wild? So how do you guys figure that out?

It kind of goes day by day. Like today, I wrote a column off the press conference and Garan kind of the focus shifts towards him after the coaching change and the chip that he played there. And Mike said to do a story on John Hines and then obviously off the game, see what happens there. And I'll be in Nashville for Thursday's game where Hines returns to play a team that he used to coach. So we split the road trips 50-50

and then the game of stories and stuff like that. We kind of back and bounce out and forth and see who wants to write what. But they're good collaboration. And obviously we wondered all summer why it was such a boring summer to write about nothing, you know, right? No free agency signing, no big deals.

And all of a sudden, nothing right about. And everything's right about. We had four stories yesterday in the athletic. Be careful what you wish for, Joe. Remember what you wish for, you just might get it, right? Yeah. Oh, exactly. Well, the two of you have done a phenomenal job,

not only this week, but all season long, covering the Minnesota Wild. Listen, thanks for dropping by and filling in for Russo on the pod today, and I'm sure we'll get you again real soon. Sounds good. Thanks so much for having me, guys. And Ian, let's pencil on that Tampa trip next month. So we'll get that going.

There you go. We'll escape Minnesota and Ottawa when it's cold. Sounds good. Thanks, guys. Take care. Yeah, you too. It's a date. Me and Joe Smith.

I don't mind hijacking that trip, by the way. Florida seems pretty nice. Yeah. Sometimes hockey you can get like that. That's part of why the game's so darn great because it's graceful and beautiful and physical and angry at all at the same time. So it's good.

It's probably good for both teams. You can both, you know, you get to make it part of the story of your ear. That's us dropping a Paul Maurice soundbite into the pod. That's Maurice after a, real weird third period last night in Ottawa where a bunch of guys got misconduct penalties. Guys were going thrown out left, right, center, and it was just, it was bananas. Maurice is one of the best quotes in the game. And he's like, that's something at the end of the year you'll look back and enjoy.

But it was, it was weird, Julian. The ref yesterday was like, came out and he's like, everybody on the ice gets a 10-minute discontic penalty. I've never heard that before. I was funny. I was watching the flames at the same time and one of my colleagues, Aaron Vickers, he was showing me the video of the referee doing that. And someone had posted a meme,

you know that popular Oprah meme where she's all like, you get a car and you get a car. It's like, you get a 10 minute misconduct. You get a 10 minute misconduct. What the heck was going on? Then there was like that video of Matthew Chukh, going at Jake Sanderson and

he's yelling from the bench. like, I mean, we'll eventually get to my game and why that was interesting, but like it seemed like it was a very fascinating game to watch. Julian, for a 5-0 game, it was super compelling. There was a lot of animosity in bad blood. Zach McEwen went after Matt Kachuck and got thrown out of the game. By the way, McEwen told me today he thinks he'll get a call from George Peros. He's not 100% sure about a suspension or whatever, but, you know, he got thrown out of the game.

that'll be enough. But the thing I want to talk about is this real quick, because I know the Calgary game had a real fun wrinkle to it with an, anytime we have a chest to talk to eBug, we got to talk an eBug. Absolutely. You know, I'll be honest with you. I walked out of the arena last night. Ottawa loses 5-0. They get booed off the ice. There were loud chance, uh, calling for DJ Smith's job again on home ice. I'll be honest with you. I walked out of the arena with other reporters yesterday. I thought, that's it. Like that is it. There's like, It'll be awfully hard to come back from all of this for DJ Smith. And so I went to bed.

I woke up and I thought, okay, keep the phone by you because you're going to get a text or you're going to see an alert. There's going to be something that happens. And 9 o'clock came, 10 o'clock came, and 11 o'clock came. And then I went to the arena. And 1126, DJ Smith walked out on the ice. And I thought, my goodness, this is, this is interesting. And so, you know what? I think what's happening here is we have a problem.

push and pull situation at play, a mechanism at play. You have a very angry, irate, passionate fan base who is absolutely tired of being stuck in this sort of in this purgatory almost of you're not good enough to be a playoff team and now you're too good to be a top five draft pick team, whatever, and they're frustrated by it. And then you have a brand new ownership group at Mike Antlauer and Steve Steyos, who have just come in and they are being super patient, super meticulous, and they're like, guys, we just got here. We've been here for two months. And they're like, we just want.

So there, it's, it's, these two things are meeting each other now. The patience, the meticulousness and the sort of the calmness of Mike Antlauer and Steve Steyos is meeting head on with the venom. the toxicity and the anger of a fan base that has missed the postseason in six consecutive years. And these two things do not get along with each other. And so I think the only thing I will say is that it became abundantly clear to me that if you weren't going to fire DJ Smith after losing five nothing on home ice, then I think it's safe to say he's safe in the here and now.

The here now means like the next couple of weeks. Like if they were on the fence about this guy and that game didn't push them over the edge, then he's not going anywhere in the here and now. That's my takeaway from it. And also, Julian, they don't have a general manager. They don't have a GM. So there's also a line of thinking that, you know, let's bring in a general manager and that guy can make the call on the head coach

and bring in his own person. That might be a part of it too. But it became clear to me when you get smacked around, like Julian, it was capital E, embarrassing last night. That was a that was a terrible performance by Otto. I never want to, I will never question

players in like sort of their integrity and their will to win. I'm not questioning that. I'm just questioning their ability to execute because they couldn't execute and it was atrocious. And if you can survive that, I don't think you're going anywhere in the here and now. And that's just

that's my feeling on it. DJ Smith already ought to vote of confidence earlier this year, right? Because this is not the first, because this is not the first time that you felt that D.J. Smith was going to be at the end of that firing line. And it got to a point where the organization had to step out and say, we are sticking behind this guy. And maybe this is just because I'm not in Ottawa. But when I saw that happen, that made me think, okay, they're sticking by this guy through thick and thin here. Seeing them lose to Florida, that may be say, well, they had their chance to let go of D.J. well, early in the season. And they said that they weren't going to do that. So the fact that they're

sticking with him, that tells me that there's this yearning for some kind of stability, at least for this season, as everyone in the new ownership transitions over. And it doesn't mesh because this was supposed to be a year where the Ottawa senators were supposed to make the playoffs, which is something we said the year before. And I think Pierre Doran, when he was still GM, might have even thought that the year before that too. So I think when you get to a point where you've been starving for this playoff success and you look at all these players and all these good things that are happening and you don't have to worry about the sins of the previous ownership, the fact that it's not working and you have this new ownership that's coming in that's I think they're right to be patient and they're right to kind of take their time about things and not just rush and jump the gun. Yeah, that's why it doesn't work.

That's why it's not meshing and that's why people are so frustrated by this. At this point now, a month ago, I would have thought, okay, DJ Smith is going to be gone. Now entering Christmas, at this point, if he can't, you're right, if he can't get fired after a loss to Florida the way that it has, at this point, I think it's going to take, it might just take players stepping up and going to ownership themselves because they don't have a general manager. It might take that for a change to happen. And maybe the opposite is happening too. you would know better than me, but I would have to imagine someone in that locker room would have to step up and say enough is enough with this guy.

Yeah, and I think unless it's a Claude Jeru or Brady Kachuk, and I have every reason to believe that they still believe in the coach, it's not going to happen from that perspective, right? Like, the only thing I'll say on this, and I got to write a column, I feel like I'm going to put this line in there, but it's like I think Mike Adler and Steve Stales, They just wanted to dip their toe into the water and kind of see what's going on.

And Ottawa fans are like, no, man, you've got to run and jump and do a cannonball. And it's like, it's two opposite things at play here. You have a super patient owner and a new president of hockey operations and you have a rabid fan base. And I think that's why we're seeing some of this stuff play out in Ottawa. Eibund. My favorite phrase in hockey. Dustin nickel, right? Was the gentleman's name?

Dustin or Dustin, Dustin nickel or dusty nickel Both are. Yeah, let's go. Like, when did you first realize because Vladar played last name, right? Correct. Dan Vladar played and yes. Oh, I thought you're going to say it. Yeah, yeah, no, no, I just want to know like, when did you realize

this was an ebug situation? Okay, so let me play out the events of the evening for everybody here. So I got to the arena. I want to say close to like 530. And for those who are not familiar with the Scotia Bank Saddle Dome, there's like a little parking lot area that you park in. And then you, for me anyway, I walk along the parking lot area. I go through this gate and I go to this back entrance at the dome.

And there's a security guy at the front that I see. And like, we talk every now and again. And I'm like, hey, man, like, how's it going? What do you think the prediction is going to be for this game? And he looks at him and he's like, I saw Jacob Bergstrom leave. and I'm like, what? So my first thing is okay, like, what is going on? Like, why would you-

5-30, so like 90 minutes, whatever, two hours before the game? Yeah, yeah, two hours before the game. And we're like, why would Jacob Markstrom be gone? Like, that doesn't make any sense. Then another reporter, so I'm up at the press box level now, and another reporter from another outlet is up there, and he's like, yeah, I heard he's not here too.

So we're all kind of looking out at warm up, trying to think, okay, why wouldn't Jacob Markstrom be here? And then we see the update from, the team saying, okay, Markstrom is ill and he has to go. And because it happened after the 5 p.m. local time roster transaction deadline, which means they couldn't call up Dustin Wolf, which is the Dustin that I think a lot of Flames fans expected to see on the bench. Dusty Nickel is the guy, the eBug, in that situation.

And I've seen Dusty around the dome a couple times. You know, you see him just like his suit and everything. And he's there just to like, you know, just in case someone needs. that e-bug, but to see him step out onto the ice with his helmet and his uniform, like that was just like a bit of a surreal thing. We knew Dan Vladar was going to start, and it was going to take a lot for Dan Vladar to not play that game. And I'll tell you this, there were three separate instances in that game against Vegas

yesterday where he got barreled into, someone knocked him in his head and his helmet came off. McKenzie Weiger, like, slipped into him. And there were all those instances. And we're thinking, oh, my. my God, Dusty Nickel might have to actually play in this game. It did not happen, but I mean, it was still just kind of fascinating to kind of at one hand, one end be like, oh man, you hope that Dan Vladar's not hurt, but at the other end, you're like, well, you know what the story is if Dusty Nickel gets to play in this game.

And to talk to him after the fact, he was just so happy to be there. He was really just grateful for the opportunity. He himself only learned at like 5.30 local time that he was going to get that opportunity. he says he lives close enough to the domes. We got there for six. He signs the tryout agreement. He gets on his stuff. He's out there for warm up.

The best part of warm up, or I should say the best part, but the most notable part for work for me is seeing him just kind of do his thing, do his stretches. He gets a moment where he takes shots. And at one point, he just kind of skates around in his own end as some of the other flames players, just skating around in circles and knuckle and nickels around the boards.

And Michael Backlin kind of comes out of nowhere and then bam, like runs into him along the board. you're like, oh my God. Like it's just kind of like a starstruck feeling. He just kind of doesn't pay attention for a second. But like, it was just kind of a funny thing to notice. There were so many things that happened with that experience. And it felt like it was kind of, at least in the way that I wrote it,

sort of lost in the fact that Dan Vladar played the best game he's played of the season. McKenzie Weeger scored the overtime winner. And that's a guy who at the end of overtime just had like nothing left. H.A. Greer was like a fourth line player who was actually turning. into a solid waiver wire pickup for them, scores a tying goal. They do this against the reigning cup champions too. There's so many other stories that are noteworthy from that game.

But Dan Vlodar ends up being the star of that game. And Dusty Nickel, at the end of it all, getting to talk to him and just getting to know his story too. That was also a fun part in this as well. Oh, and I love that name. Dusty. It's one of the best hockey names I've ever heard.

Ever. Do you want a shiny quarter? no, no, I want a dusty nickel. Like I love it. It's such a good name. It's a great name. It's elite. Like, anyway, I'm trying to come around on the ebug thing.

I'm telling you, man, it's stuff like that. That's fun. I know. I know. He got the, he got a text from the goalie coach at like 5.30. He has enough time to text his dab be like, hey, I think I'm dressing.

Dude only had a banana. Could you imagine if that you had to step up and play in that game? And he's like other guys talking about like eating. and parm and all no, hang on. Hang on. My man only had a banana. That's what he told us.

If you got told, you have 90 minutes before you're going to go and potentially suit up in an NHL game. I'm not eating anything with cheese. I'm not eating it. The banana seems like this safe approach. I would eat bananas and like a snack bar. Like I'm going in one banana.

Like I'm not going in with chicken parm and pasta and. done. And I'm nervous too. I mean, I guess so. I understand that. But like being, I mean, then again, you know what? You might be so nervous. You just, you just can't eat. I guess I could understand that. I guess I'm saying. I guess you're right. I can understand that. Yeah. Banana is, it seems like the smart call. But also like, you know, you need a bit. I mean, then again, this is a guy who hadn't played a competitive game of any sort. It's like 2012. So, arguing back and forth about whether or not a banana is sufficient for, play in an NHL game is probably a mood point.

Oh, man. Hey, let's wrap up on Monday. The NHL announced plans for the All-Star weekend coming up in Toronto. It's going to be a three-day event, Julian. Yeah. And one of the cool things is that the PWHL is going to be involved. There's going to be like a three-on-three team showcase there that's taking place. That's cool.

We got the return of the draft, meaning the all-star players. So there'll be four captains that will choose teams with the help of a celebrity co-captain. And we can talk about that in a second. But the one concern that I think the NHLPA had was we don't want the draft happening like back when Phil Kessel was the last pick and it was, you know, everyone mocked them or whatever. So what they're going to do is the draft continues. But once it gets down to the last four guys, they just get randomly assigned to the four teams. and then the draft ends.

Do you like this? Do you like the return of the draft? Are you serious about that last part? Are you serious about that last part? That's my understanding. The last four guy. Isn't that what they're doing? No, no, no, no.

I thought that's what they're doing. Time out, time out, time out. Time out. Time out. Time out for a second. We hear people talk about how hockey players are some of the most intense, wild athletes.

out there. I watched a game yesterday where Chris Tanna blocked a puck with his face. He went down on the ground to try block a shot and went off his face and he went out there. Some of the bravest people, some of the toughest athletes out there.

And you mean to tell me that these NHL players can't handle the idea of being picked last in a fantasy draft. What are we talking about here? What are we talking about here? You mean to tell me that these dudes are so caught up in their own ego that they do not want the idea of being the last guy picked in a fantasy draft.

In a fantasy draft, you are already at the All-Star game. You are already considered to be among the best at your profession, but you can't handle being the last player picked in a draft and potentially getting a car to the point where they have to randomize the last four players to get picked. I'm sick of this. This is ridiculous. Get over yourselves, people. It's ridiculous.

It's absolutely ridiculous. But wouldn't you feel? I'm getting wild over such a small thing. I love the passion. It's ridiculous that we're at that point. You have to save people's feelings. You mean you tell me we're in an era now where, oh, we care so much about feelings and everyone's so sensitive.

Why are people so sensitive? But we have this crap going on? Please. Please. I don't want to hear that crap no more. I don't want to hear that when players are doing that. Oh, my God, this is unbelievable. Folks.

Boo. Julian McKenzie. This is stupid. Of the 20-something age demographic has just gone off about a soft society. It's soft. They're soft. And I don't want to hear anything to tell us that my generation is soft or anyone else is soft. If players are going to do this, this is ridiculous.

Get over yourselves. People get picked last all the time. It happens in life. People get picked last all the time and they find ways to succeed. And you mean you tell me you can't do that for a fantasy draft in the NHL? Man, get out of here. I don't want to hear it. This makes me so mad.

This makes me so mad. You know what I love is sometimes when we do these shows, Danielle, who does a great job kind of doing the video editing for us. She's always looking for like those one to two minute sound bites where somebody goes off and a rant. And I think you just, I'm so mad. I'm just mad at how people. We put hockey players up this pedestal of, of braveness and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and

this. last in an all-star game competition. Like, I, I don't know. It's going to work. This doesn't mean. Four teams. Four teams. They pick and then when there's four guys not to get randomly assigned.

Here's my other issue or question. Okay. There's going to be four celebrity co-captains. And the word celebrity, when it comes again, NHL, it's a very fluid term. What's the fear or the concern level that there's going to be at least one, if not multiple celebrities where you're like, I don't know who that is? It's entirely possible.

Didn't they have something similar last year? They had a celebrity portion of the Florida thing. I mean, Anna Ivanovich was like a tennis star. I think was part of it. There was a tennis star that was there. But everyone else was like, I kind of, you kind of don't really know. We could end up in a situation where like the four celebrity co-captains. could be what John Ham well I guess is sort of famous but like but but this is in Toronto so

do we factor that is Wendell Clark is Wendell Clark going to be a co-captain Wendell Clark's not a celebrity is he yeah but like he's not a celebrity to you and I but for people at Toronto he's damn near their daddy oh man I don't know you can't have what Toronto is it Clark you then then you got to call them alumni or something Celebrity sort of has a connotation that this is going to be somebody of the film, music, television realm, doesn't it? Maybe, maybe it's so, so if it's going to get to that point,

uh, John Hamm has to be one. Um, forgive me. I forget the actress's name. Jenna Fisher. No, yes. In the office? I don't, that, that is amazing that you thought of exactly who I was thinking of. So it's all St. Louis Blues fans.

Oh, that's it. John Hamm and Jenna Fisher. Like John Hamm. Uh, I know. producer Danielle and Jeff are mentioning people. I wonder if Snoop wants to be involved after he lost out on owning the Ottawa senators.

That's a really good question. Maybe he would. Maybe he's chill enough. Maybe he's chill about it. Ain't nothing but a G-thang, baby. I get it. God. Tate McCray, that really popular singer

from Calgary, who has that her album art has like the goalie pads that are on the wrong way that upset so many people online. It triggered everybody. It triggered everyone. That's probably a possibility. pads are on the wrong way.

You know who I would love to see who we haven't called on in a long time, but I still think his contributions to making the gay popular, you know, should not be understoodated. Chance the rapper. You remember that as an... Remember as a man who... Yeah, he's followed on some tough times with his music. He had that big day album from a couple years ago that was just not good people.

It was bad. He basically just talked about how much he loved his wife. And there's nothing wrong with loving your wife. but he just did it in a real corny way. His career has not been the same since. What a way for him to make a comeback than by having him a part of the NHL All-Star draft. Having the NHL embrace him the way that he did in that sketch,

why not just have him do it? Okay, here's what we're going to do. At some point between now and maybe in the next week or two, because they're going to probably announce this soon. We are going to come up with our own lists. We'll invite the listeners. let's see who can get the most number of celebrities right. Yes, I love that.

You pick your four that you really think are going to be there as you also are co-captains. And we'll see who can go. I think they might be able to give Bieber. Like in Toronto, Beaver makes sense. Bieber feels like they're going to get it. That's a pretty big celebrity too.

Yeah, I think they could do it unless he's like on tour or something. Which I don't know if he has he been on tour in a while? I feel like he had, I can tell you. Yeah, like Justin Bieber tour. It doesn't seem like Don't act like you don't have

it's bookmarked, by the way. I mean, don't act like, let me go to Google and it comes up in your auto fill. Well, I'll say this.

We're at a time, we're at a time now we're like Justin Bieber. Oh, right, that's true. He had the issue with his face, right?

Where like half of it was frozen and he had to cancel a tour. Okay, so he might not be available to do any of that stuff. who knows. But that being said, I'll say this about Justin Bieber.

There was a time where it was not cool to like Justin Bieber. And then, like, he sort of matured a little bit and now it's kind of cool. So, like, the idea of me having that bookmark, maybe not,

but, like, is not the roast you think it is. Okay, I'll tell you what. As we wrap up, we invite our listeners, hit us up,

the athletic hockey show at gmail.com. Just give us your four celebrities. Yes. That you think we'll end up at the All-Star game as the captains. The Athletic Hockey Show at gmail.com. You can also drop us a voicemail at 845, 445-8459. So one of those two ways, hit us up,

and maybe next week, we'll compile them. We'll chat them over and we'll see, we'll submit everything. We want to remind you Wednesday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show, as always, Sean McAdoo, down goes Brown will drop by. Jesse Granger will also be by. So we got a jam-pack Wednesday show for you.

want to thank you for listening to the Tuesday edition of the athletic hockey show. I'll let you know about a deal we've got going on right now. You get a one-year subscription to the athletic for 1999 or a two-year deal for $39.99 when you visit the athletic.com slash hockey show. So that does it for the Tuesday show. Julian and I will be back with Down Goes Brown and Jesse Granger on Wednesday.