The Athletic Hockey Show - Paul Maurice resigns as Winnipeg Jets head coach, NHL Olympic participation on thin ice, Multiple Choice Madness, and more

Episode Date: December 20, 2021

First, Ian and Hailey are joined by The Athletic’s own Murat Ates to talk about Paul Maurice’s surprising resignation as head coach of the Winnipeg Jets and discuss whether this kind of amicable split could become a template for other coaches around the league, what’s next for the Jets with Dave Lowry behind the bench, Mark Scheifele’s defensive lapses, whether an all-Canadian division could make a return or not, and Murat shares a great Paul Maurice anecdote.Then, Ian and Hailey discuss the NHL’s increasingly unlikely participation in the Olympics as more games get postponed amidst a resurgence of positive COVID-19 tests around the league, if the NHL will make exceptions for players like Alex Ovechkin and Steven Stamkos who still might want to play in Beijing, if now’s the time to let World Junior players take over, how the women’s national teams could be impacted by all of this, and more.Plus, they close things out with a couple of end-of-year questions in Multiple Choice Madness, including what was hockey’s biggest non-COVID-19 story in 2021 and who earned Villain of the Year honors.And, right now, you can sign up for an annual subscription to The Athletic for just $3.99 a month when you visit http://theathletic.com/hockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome, everybody. It is the last Monday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show here in the calendar year of 2021. It's Ian Metis Haley Salvean with you. Ahead on the pod, our Winnipeg Jets beat writer, Murat-Tesh, is going to join us. Talk about Paul Maurice and that shocking decision to step down as head coach. We'll get you caught up on the latest news with postponements of multiple games due to COVID over the next couple of weeks. And whether or not, we'll actually ask the panel here, if we'll see a tell. temporary return of the All-Canadian North Division.

We'll kick that off with Haley and Murat here in a second. We'll talk about Olympic participation, too. It kind of feels a little ominous, doesn't it? With all this stuff going on, we'll slide in some year-ending multiple-choice badness, too, talking about maybe the biggest non-COVID story of the year, and who deserves the mantle as hockey's villain in 2021? Hey, also want to say,

if you want to give us a slightest an early Christmas gift, and you're a fan of the Athletic Hockey Show, please go on Apple Podcasts, leave us a five-star rating and a review. We would certainly appreciate that. As I said, kicking off the show, it's Mendez and Salvian with you. And Winnipeg Jets, Haley, Murat, Atesh is joining us here. So it's the three of us. Before we get into the Paul Marie stuff, I'm going to ask you both this question,

because all three of us are covering teams that are kind of not playing games right now with the cross-border stuff. do we see a return to the all-Canadian division even temporarily, gang? What are we thinking here? I say yes, if only because every time that Winnipeg plays against Toronto, somebody gets suspended or perhaps multiple people get suspended. There's been just like an insane run of violence. You had the Neil Piong suspension, the Jason's Beds of suspension.

You go back to last season. It seemed like every time Winnipeg played Toronto in particular, there was an injury on the jet. side. And I'm under the understanding that Toronto was meanwhile getting beat up by Calgary and Vancouver, and they felt like victims, but it was this whole, a whole scenario and a whole scene. So if only for maximum chaos, because, you know, we were talking before we came on, it kind of feels like March 2020 in some way. I say that the most chaotic possible thing does in fact happen. Yeah, I mean, I think in terms of like, could we see it or is it too late to return to the divisional structure?

in some sense, no. You know, I think that if the border closure, I want to, so my understanding like the Sundays like kind of border closure and the changes that the league made was like a big part of it was to ensure that players aren't getting stuck in a different country over Christmas. So I don't know if we're like overreacting to that news or, if it is something that's possible to come. But in terms of, like, is it legitimately possible?

Like, yeah, the league could absolutely just make it up as they go. I like how rational you were about that. Irrational? Rational, completely rational. Like, the thought that, like, hey, we might be overreacting to this, like, this holiday news, which I think has legs for sure. I think you're right. And I don't even want to say overreacting because, like, this is, you know,

a global health crisis still. So I don't want to be insensitive in that case. But I think a big part of that change just before the holiday break is so players aren't getting stuck across the border. Lexi Brown, who is J.T. Brown's partner. Obviously, J.T. had a professional career. She tweeted about it. Like, just a reminder, these players could get stuck for 10 days, just 10 to 14 days without their families over the holidays, like, before we start getting upset about games being postponed. This is like a human thing.

But yeah, like the league has made stuff up along. as they go before and I don't see why they wouldn't be able to do that here. So I think it's possible. I kind of hope we don't see it. I was very, very sick of the Canadian division halfway through. That's what it takes to keep everyone safe. Sure, but like I don't, I don't want to do it. We saw each other too often, although we've never been in the same room. We've never even let. Yeah, it's wild after all these years. I'll give the Winnipeg example as well because we had Blake Wheeler contract COVID earlier on in this season. But the Winnipeg Jets just so happened to be across the border in Minnesota in Minneapolis, St. Paul, which is where he grew up and his parents were

around the corner. So he was able to stay there with his folks while, you know, as he returned to health and the Jets went to a couple of different places, then came home. But had that happened right now, then does he get to Winnipeg to be with his wife and his kids, all that sort of stuff? I mean, that's a very real thing. Definitely. And I know there's like, I think some, we saw with the Carolina Hurricanes players, some of them were able to kind of come back, go back into the United States via, what was, did they have like a, like an ambulance, take some of them across? I forget exactly. They ended up getting back, they left Canada. They ended up leaving Canada to go back to the U.S. basically on like very private, secure, isolated transport.

And I think there is some kind of loophole where if you're a Canadian team with, like, if there's a Canadian citizen on the Calgary Flames, let's say. And Ian, this happened with the Ottawa senators, actually. If there's a Canadian citizen on a Canadian team who gets stuck in the United States, you can technically get back into the country as long as you're going right to isolation. Is that right? And that's what happened with Connor Brown, right? He drove home from Boston after testing positive for COVID.

Yeah, they had a couple of players. Exactly. Drive back. I think Josh Brown. It was Josh Brown and Victor Mette, I believe for Ottawa that had to drive back. So anyway, this is obviously all depressing stuff. And we don't want to sink our teeth too much into that. But Murat, the reason why we had you on was we were all shocked with the Paul Maurice news on Friday.

It's not often you see a head coach in professional sports essentially orchestrate his own departure. Right? You don't often see it come out this way. So let's talk a little bit about how this played out. And from your perspective, were you shocked, as the rest of us were, that this is how it played out on Friday? Well, it is a surprise and it is shocking to a lot of folks. And, you know, the idea that they were sort of essentially preparing to play their game on Friday

and Paul Maurice came in and spoke to the players directly first and before the announcement got made, I think surprised a lot of them to hear them talk over the last. last few days. You know, I was asking Paul Stassany just yesterday. Was there any sense of perception that Paul Maurice's joy levels had dropped, that he wasn't enjoying coming to the rink any day, that there was some fatigue on his part? And he says, honestly, no, because of the degree to which Paul Maurice was able to sort of protect his players from that sort of, not message, but that emotion or insulate them against that. So I think a lot of them were taken off guard. At the same time, I'm under the impression that last season was particularly tough for me.

Maurice, the pandemic's impact on it, the struggles that Winnipeg went through. It's been two years that they had finished with a really subpart D. It was always scrambling to try to get everything going. I think that his passion sort of had started to wane a little bit. And I don't know if you remember this is we're all doing our own end of season stuff when teams exit from the playoffs or what have you. But Winnipeg spent a few days in kind of media silence after the playoffs ended last year before the Jets spoke. And I think that part of that, if I think that, not exactly in that window or the time coming after it, is that Paul Maurice, among others in the organization, did a lot of soul searching at that time. I think that this has been a long, since that,

since roughly that time, a long process for him where he was questioning himself, you know, do I want, do I have the fire to keep going at this? Can I be the guy that's going to get these Winnipeg Jets who, in his case, he'd been around for, it was almost eight years just now when he resigned, you know, is the message stale, are they still hearing me? Can somebody else get them to that next level. Ultimately, optimism won the day. Kevin Shevoldyoff upgraded the defense. Nate Schmidt arrives. Brendan Dillon arrives. Everybody thinks it's kind of going to be, that's going to put all those emotions away. But this year was also a grind and a struggle. And I think that, you know, in the end, Paul Maris realized or decided that it would be somebody else's job to take this team to

that next step because things had gotten a little bit stale for him personally. And I think that he perceived that amongst his team as well. And I mean, Marat, you wrote in your story. I I mean, the Jets have played with a sense of complacency, lack of accountability, and just something had been holding them back. What kind of self-awareness does it take for a man in that kind of position where we see them hold on sometimes way too long? They don't want to give it up. Step back and say, I'm going to do what's right for like these players, this team and this city who loves the Winnipeg Jets. Yeah, imagine. I mean, Paul Maurice spent most of eight years here.

His children became adults here in Winnipeg. He was an ambassador for the team and the community in so many ways. I mean, I get stories that I don't write all the time about Paul Maurice doing wonderful things within the community. And there's one in particular that I did write about his friendship with a fellow named Matt Legacy towards the end of Legacy's life, that you just see him go above and beyond and above and beyond. I mean, he was integrated in this community.

So there's an emotional tie. before you even get to the rink where he's been competing and he's had a couple of playoff runs, especially 2017, 2018. That's a tough decision, I sincerely believe. And when you talk about that sort of sense of complacency, I do think after eight years, certain habits get repeated, certain messages get repeated. And maybe they refresh a little while ago, maybe not so much. There was an example I pointed to actually the night before Paul Maurice announced it or the day before he announces resignation.

of Mark Sheifley in Winnipeg, whose defensive commitment has been, you know, lacking at times over the last couple of seasons. He's really struggled to add that dimension to his game. He's one of the world's best offensive players. He can do so many different things. There have been some games where he's had particularly poor defensive efforts and results, and he's still averaging two minutes plus more than Pierre Luc Dubois, who's had a phenomenal season at five-on-five. So that's where the accountability angle came in, and I wrote about that as well. it seemed as though there were a couple of players Sheifley being one of them who got the minutes regardless of performance and then further down the lineup it wasn't quite that much. So I think there are performance reasons why you can make the argument, but as a person, as a human being, a step aside, I mean, I think that would have been very, very difficult and I certainly admire him for having the courage.

You know, one of the things that I'm curious is to know, do you, do either of you think that maybe this is now going to be the new template for coaches walking away from, like, can we have these sort of amicable splits? Like, this felt like it was like, if you look at this, it's what is it, conscious uncoupling or whatever term you want to use. Like, but it felt like this was really, it's, it's really a mutual decision. and the one guy, as I look through the list of coaches the NHL, really, there's not that many that have been around, you know, eight, nine years. John Cooper is one, I think of in Tampa. I feel like, hey, when John wants to leave, he'll probably leave on his own terms. I don't expect to get a press release saying the lightning of fired John Cooper, right?

But I'm wondering, do you think that we might see this more often in the National Hockey League where two parties look at each other and say, you know what? Maybe it's just time and we move on? Or is this an aberration? I'll throw to Haley, but I'll give the Winnipeg context on this first. The first day that Mark Chitman, Winnipeg's, you know, the chairman of True North Sports and Entertainment, member of the board of governors of the NHL, met and hired Paul Maurice. And let's rewind.

I had an interview with Mark Chipman about a month ago where we talked about all sorts of these things. The first day they met, he told Maurice his hope was for him to be around for a long time. Winnipeg and True North is a uniquely loyal organization. They believe in continuity. I don't know if that's kind of an educated gamble based on Winnipeg being a small market and it might be difficult to attract high price, shiny, free agents and therefore a real culture of security and honesty and loyalty is extra important or whether that's a Mark Chipman True North thing. But the plan from day one was for Paul Maurice to be around for a long time. I believe that he had a one-year club option at the end of this season as well.

So the club could have walked away if they wanted to just do it the cold way. But the relationship had become so good over these several years between Mark Chitman and Paul Maurice, the full leadership group as well, that based on the strength of that and his integration in Winnipeg, there was no way in my mind that they were going to fire him out right. It was always going to be on his terms, whether now at the end of the year, whenever it was going to be. and I don't have the context on the rest of the NHL, but that feels unique to me in Winnipeg. I'm not sure what you guys think.

Yeah, you know what? I don't know if it's something that I think we're going to see this happen all the time. Like, we've seen coaches with legacies get fired before because they stumble out of the gate or they have a bad season or they just stop producing. Like John Cooper might be an extreme example because he has two Stanley Cups and he's a good coach and the players seem to like it. him, but I don't know if this is something we can just, like, expect to keep happening. I don't,

I don't know if I give these guys who've been used to being in positions of power for such a long time, that kind of credit to be doing this all the time. Like, Paul Maurice just legitimately seems like a very smart and good man who made the right call for himself and the team. I don't know if that's something we can say we're going to see a whole lot. Maybe I'm just a pessimist, but I don't know what you think, Ian. I don't know. It's rare, right? I mean, calling your own, like, I even think of John Cooper a couple of years ago. Imagine John Cooper when they got swept by Columbus in 2019. Imagine John Cooper was like, you know what, I've taken this group as far as I can. I can't, like, you would have been like,

what? Like, there's, like, it's so, you're right. I think that this was a unique and special circumstance. And we, we may never, we may never see this again. I, I, you know what, I loved your piece on Maurice. because, and I think anytime writers are able to just weave in a tiny little personal anecdote, I think it helps the reader. And I think what you did with your piece on Paul Maurice leaving, if you could just explain for the listeners, your interaction, one of your first interactions with Paul Maurice and how there was a mutual respect

and how he kind of treated you with respect right off the hop and that all was stuck with you. Yeah, absolutely. This is a day one thing. And, you know, for context to everybody listening, the Winnipeg Jets are my first NHL beat. And, you know, there was a certain amount of pressure to that or overwhelmed to that the very first time that I got my credentials. And I was covering, you know, in the room, but also the post practice coaching press conference. And back in those pre-COVID kind of innocent days that we all had, we shared microphones in Winnipeg. And I don't know that it's this way in literally every city.

But in Winnipeg, when Paul Maurice was speaking at the podium, there would be two microphones going around the room, there'd be PR staff in charge of them. All you had to do to ask a question, throw your hand up, get their attention. They pass you a microphone, you ask the question. It's good to do it that way, in my opinion, because, one, it's really civil. Questions get asked one at a time. Everybody gets their piece. It also makes good audio of the questions that are being asked.

And I'm a big context guy. So if you hear a coach or a player say something, well, why did he say? say what was prompting that? I really, I find that particularly important as well. But on this day, it was overwhelming. And I remember sitting there, you know, in the seats and press row. And the reporter in front of me had just asked a question, Paul Maurice was answering it. Paul Maurice was coming to an end with his answer. And I was like patting on his shoulder aggressively, like trying to try to get his attention to give me the microphone or maybe shyly because it was my first day. But I like to think of it as aggressively and frantically. But he didn't notice. I guess he was

listening to Paul Maurice. I was turning around the room. frantically, I was looking for one of the PR staff. Could I get somebody's attention to, I just had this pressing thing. It was probably some obscure analytical thought. But it felt really urgent to me. Nobody saw. And as soon as I did make eye contact with one of the PR staff, another one stands up and says, all right, thanks everybody for coming in today. And everybody in the room stands up as if to leave. People are about to file out, except for Palm Maurice. Paul Maurice stays at the podium and says, hey, Marat, didn't you have something that you wanted to ask? And so the microphone gets turned back on.

It gets handed to me. Everybody shuffles back to their seats and weights. I ask my question. And I honestly don't even remember what it was, but it was probably analysis heavy. Like, it was probably something he didn't have to give a whole lot of weight or time to at the end of a lengthy press conference. But he teed off on it. And I just remember feeling seen, heard, welcomed. and it's such a foundation of respect from Paul Maurice for everything that came after it

because it was so obviously something he didn't have to do. And I like it when people use their positions of, in this case, power within that room to be inclusive and welcoming. And I think that it was a huge moment. It really was a huge moment for me feeling welcome in that room. And really the engagement that he and I had after that, like, has meant everything and has been, incredibly meaningful for the kind of content that I produce at the athletic. Yeah. That's awesome.

We got hired at the same time, by the way. We've never met, which is very funny. I know, it's very weird. But I think that's great. I mean, stories like that are awesome. I think we've even, it's not quite the same, but like here in Calgary, I know there's been a couple times like Daryl Sutter will walk into the meaty room, be like, all right, Haley, kick us off. What do you got today? I'm just like, oh, it's not the same. It's not like this grand, nice, welcoming gesture, but I can just speak to, I'm sure, like, what that means to have a coach in that position.

I mean, this is my first year in Calgary with a pretty intimidating head coach to have them do those little things. Like, it helps you feel comfortable and, like, safe to do your job properly, I think. It's a reminder that we're all people, right? Yeah. That they see you as a person, that you see them as a person. And I mean, you can criticize the decision, but it's not about the person, right? You can write however you feel about how the Calgary Flames or Winnipeg Jets are playing,

but that foundation of respect is there. And I think we all give each other so much more grace and honest empathy, not the fake, like, oh, everything's fine, no matter what kind, but like the honest I can put myself in your shoes kind when we treat each other like people, which it sounds like Daryl's doing. Okay. I want to ask you a little bit about Mark Schifely, because as I've kind of, of followed along with some of the stuff you've written, Murat. I think Shifley's taken some heat for maybe his 200-foot game and maybe not quite

elevating to the level that we would expect somebody of his stature to be at. So, like, if we're in the Winnipeg market, is that the guy who's taken the most heat from fans? Is it Shifley? Is it somebody else? You know, I honestly think in terms of the mentions and the comment threads that probably Paul Maurice had been in, at least in my experience for the last little while. But Mark Schifley, not far behind, and I don't think it's a sense, you know, I'll keep this grounded in realism. This isn't one of those, send the star out sort of business. You know, sometimes the team struggles and the stars get disproportionately blamed. It's as if they're

not helping them win games. Well, really, it's either the depth or something else going, going on around that situation. Mark Scheifle is a good hockey player who's helping the Winnipeg Jets win games. I want to ground all of this in that. But you start to look at the things that make him special as a national hockey league player. I mean, he has size to him. Sure, that's one thing. He skates well. Sure, that's another. But it's his brain. He is so smart offensively. He has a sense of timing that other players don't have. He can hold on to the puck for that extra half beat, quarter beat, whatever that is to freeze defenders, find an extra lane. He's good at protecting the puck with his body to buy himself that time, to make consistent passes in

the dangerous areas of the ice. And, you know, over the years, we've seen him set up and for so many goals because he's really quite gifted at that. At the other end of the ice, however, he doesn't use those same skills consistently. And you can see him short back checks. This is a real thing. I've got the video and it's not once. It's part of his game where he lets other, he lets other people go and make the back check. And there's a couple of examples recently where he's actually pulled up in a two-on-two situation to allow it to become a two-on-one and have chances go in. When it's sort of set up in Winnipeg zone as well,

you know, when Winnipeg gets a step behind, it can fall into man to man, which means it's okay for a center to end up in strange places or a D to end up in strange places if they followed their player to the other stretch. But there have been some moments as well where Mark Schifley plays his defense, like it's kind of somebody else's job to win it back

and that his job is to pick the puck up in transition and go be that brilliant offensive player. So that's the visual. In terms of the numbers, I mean, goal differential should flatter Mark Schifley. He creates some of the most dangerous chances you've ever seen. He scores a whole bunch. He has Connor Hellabuck playing behind him. That helps as well.

But I think he's 56th in the last three seasons in terms of his five-on-five goal differential amongst NHL centers. That's not players. That centers. That puts them well outside the top number one sort of list. And then if you get into shot-based metrics and chance-based metrics and all those sorts of things, his impact is disproportionately bad. And that's just part of his game, which I'll wrap up by saying it has been frustrating

because there have been moments where he's good at it. And I think that for him, I think he's still rounding into that player who chooses to make the hard play every single time instead of waiting for the puck to go the other direction so he can work his magic. And Morat, what comes next for the Winnipeg Jets? Well, Dave Lowry is the interim head coach through the rest of the season. And he, at this point, as we're talking, he has a tough loss against Washington and a big win against St. Louis to his record. Both tough games, one win out of that's completely reasonable. His mission is going to be to bring out that accountability.

Mark Schifley had an amazing game yesterday against St. Louis. The goal was one thing. The assist was the other thing. But there was more of a sense of a completion to his game for this one game. that we can talk about. And it will be up to Dave Lowry to bring that out of him, because Mark Sheifley cannot just help Winnipeg win hockey games, but he can be one of the best players in the league. And that's going to be a bit of a push-pull, making sure that those minutes are in line with that, especially because a huge story in Winnipeg is Pierre-Luc Dubois and his emergence.

He's the guy now. He can drive, he's playing with Kyle Conner on a line right now, and those two can do it just about any way. Pierre-Luk Dubois, big, strong, fast, great playmaker as well. Defenses are having a really tough time handling him. Kyle Conner's speed's pretty incredible. His hands are brilliant. Those two guys are going off. And I think there's going to be a push, pull of balance in terms of Dave Lowry trying to get the most out of everybody and rewarding performance when performance is due. And as of right here right now, Sheifley had a great game last yesterday afternoon, I should say. Well, listen, Murat, we really appreciate you dropping by the podcast here because, again, that was pretty significant news that dropped in Winnipeg on the weekend. I

we're still kind of just processing the way that Paul Maurice left. So you adding some context here on that decision to leave, but also kind of what we might expect from the jets ahead here. It's invaluable for our listeners. Listen, stay safe over this next little uncertain window here. And we look forward to reconnecting with you at some point in 2022. And we've got to get the two of you together. If you were hired at the same time, then we got to get the two of you in a room together at some point. Hey, so good to talk to both of you and to see your faces on the screen as well. I mean, At least this is community. This is connection right here.

Yeah, it's something. I was driving across when I drove home from Toronto back here to Calgary over the summer, like I drove through Winnipeg and was like texting Mara. Like, where can I, is there Starbucks in Winnipeg? I didn't actually, I don't think I actually said that. But he didn't direct me to a second cup. He actually directed me to a Starbucks. And we were going to meet up, but then it was like, I've been in the car for 16 hours.

I need to get to Regina so I can go. to sleep. So that's on me. And didn't you have Bono with you as well? So, I mean, there was some dog considerations. Yeah, Bono was with me and it was insanely hot in Winnipeg that day. Like I got out, went to grab coffee, went to get gas, walked a dog. And he was like dying. It was really, really hot. But I bailed on Marat. Someday. Someday, I'll meet both of you and Bono too. And Ian, if you have a dog, I would like to be him or her as well. He has a cat who like bar. He has a cat who like barges in sometimes and he never lets me see the cat. Two kids and a cat. Pickles, right? Pickles the cat. Pickles the cat. Great name. Yeah, exactly. Awesome. Hey, man, thanks for this. This is awesome.

Good on. Thank you. All right. Great conversation there with Murat from Winnipeg as the Jets were certainly front and center last week. And this week, again, it's the feeling of impending doom with a bunch of games being postponed. All cross-border games have been postponed. A whole bunch of teams, both north and south of the border, Haley, have seen their schedules paused. And now it feels awfully ominous when it comes to the Olympic Games. So I think if we're reading between the lines here, it feels like, and as we're recording this at, you know, around 12 noon Eastern time on Monday, there's no definitive decision. But now it really feels like the needle is pointed towards these guys aren't going, right?

Yeah, and I think it's interesting. If you would have, like, gone through and clipped every time we'd talked about this throughout this year, I think you and I both started getting a little bit more, like, you know what, they're going, they're going, ah, well, maybe not. Oh, maybe not. And now it's like, yeah, no. When I saw the, the NHL-NHL-LPA joint press release last yesterday afternoon, that a decision will be made in the coming days, they're not going.

that was my, right when I read, I was like, it's, no, it's done. Like, they're, they're not going. And and even when I was looking at the Calgary Flames, um, their shutdown specifically, the flames at the time, I was projecting them to have, like, six to seven games postponed. This was when they'd only been postponed through to the 18th. We were all expecting them to be done until Christmas and potentially have that game on the 27th against the Oilers push back as well. And I was looking at it and I was like, I don't know where we're supposed to slot these games in without making the flames play a back-to-back-back-to-back-than-a-day off and a back-to-back-than-a-day-off and be on the road all the time.

And just it's crazy, crazy schedule in what was supposed to be their downhill kind of slide in the schedule because the opening part of their schedule was really busy. They had the most road games of any team in the league. And their back-half was going to be crazy, busy, too, because of all these postponements. And I was just like, I don't know if I really. see a realistic slotting of some of these games unless they get into that 16-day window where there's no NHL games scheduled. And I just think with the amount of games now that are postponed, I think when the release came out, it was 27. That has now grown to even more. Forgive me,

I don't know the actual number. I believe there's more than 30 games around the league that have been postponed through till Christmas. I don't know if I see them being able to do anything. but essentially take the schedule, say, we got to redo the entire thing with these three weeks at the Olympics. Because I don't know if they can just drop in games into that period. They're going to have to reshuffle a lot. I don't really know how that's going to work. I mean, I never envy the schedule makers.

But I just don't realistically seeing the league play an 82 game season without that 16-day window that was meant for the Olympics being part of the actual season. That's unfortunate. We all wanted to see it. everyone wanted to see McDavid and Crosby and all the American, every country, you know, name whatever player you want. Everyone wanted to see it, Ovechkin, et cetera. I just don't. I don't know.

I can't see it anymore. Yeah. And, you know, venue and building availability becomes an issue, right? In certain places where games have been postponed. It's one thing in a place like Ottawa where there's not really a ton going on, but in, you know, Toronto, for example, where there's concerts and an NBA team. Like, it's going to be hard to find that. window. So we'll see how this plays out. Now, here's a question for you. Do you think there's any way that I still expect this to be a blanket decision. But if you're, I'm going to give you two

examples of players who I wonder if they will try their best to, I don't know, be a part of the Olympics or would they, would they make a case? And those two players are Alexander Ovechkin and Stephen Stamco's. And the reason why I bring them up, Haley, is Stamco is a guy who in 2010 scored 50 goals, but didn't make team Canada. He was too young for that team that won gold. 2014, he breaks his leg. 2018, they don't send NHLers. So all of a sudden, Stephen Stamcoast is probably looking at this.

It's probably my last chance to compete at the Olympic Games. I wonder, would he go to Jeff Vinnick? And he goes to the Players Association. He says, this is my dream. I want to go play at the Olympic Games. Would you let me go? And then Ovechkin's another guy who remember back in the last Olympic cycle said, I don't care.

I'm going to play. Like I don't care what anybody says. And, you know, he's delivered a Stanley Cup to Washington. He's got a wonderful relationship with the owner Ted Leonsis. Do you think that there will be any players that are kind of like, you know what, I would still go over? Or do you think it's A, a blanket decision. But B, if it's not going to be best on best, then Stephen Stamcoast doesn't want to go over and play with like a bunch of Spengler Cup guys and kind of end up being part of a non-best on best tournament. I don't even know if it gets that far.

Like, I don't know how you can just let one or two guys do it. Like, I don't know. Again, I don't think you can, but I wonder if a couple of players will be like, damn, this is my last chance to do what I really want to go. Yeah, I mean, I'm sure they're all going to want to go. I just, I don't know. Like, and I don't, yeah, will they care about the level of competition? Like, is Stephen Stamcoe's going to want to play against? either the younger group or an older group who's not really,

who's not currently in the league. And is the league even going to let him go? Like, or they're just going to say, sorry, this is what we're doing now. I feel like if someone were to complete, I mean, that's a CBA. It's going to be a CBA thing. Like, I don't think you can just break the CBA because you really, really want to go to the Olympics. So I don't know. It's interesting.

I just, I don't, yeah, just from a philosophical. Yeah. I don't know. Like I, who knows what Stephen Samcoast thinks about it? Didn't he have something to say about the Olympics? Yeah. Yeah, recently he sounded like he wanted to go. He was one of the guys that was like, yeah, this is, this is something I'd like to do.

And you got to remember guys like Stephen when you're that age, like you grew up dreaming about the Olympics, right? Like he doesn't know any other world other than, you know, Nagano and Salt Lake and, you know, all that stuff. So it's really interesting to me how this is going to potentially play out. Now, the other question I have is, if we don't send NHLers, which looks more likely by the day, there's talk, look, Canada just pulled out of the Spengler Cup on Monday. And the feeling is they're pulling out of that tournament because they want to preserve that roster to go to the Olympic Games.

One thing I've always wondered about, would there ever be an appetite for just Send the year, send the world juniors over and have them play for the Olympic gold. I remember I brought this up years ago, Haley, to Bob Nicholson when Bob was, they had a hockey Canada. And I said, would you ever be open to every four years? If we can't send NHL to the Olympics, would you send the world juniors? And he said absolutely unequivocally, never, never going to happen because they value that world junior tournament so much. their thinking is we would water that down and make it less important. So that was always their feeling.

So I know there's going to be people saying, well, okay, if we can't send NHLers, let's send the juniors. But I'm just going to say, I think that's the mentality here is that they don't want to mess around with the world juniors. Yeah, I mean, that was my initial thought. Like when I went through the rundown and as you're talking about this now, I was just like, ah, if you put that exact roster and just, Plunk it in the Olympic Games, you are taking away from the whole thing of the World Junior Championships.

And are people going to want to watch the same team that they just watch the World Junior Championships? I mean, let's say the U.S. and America, the U.S. and Canada, the U.S. and America. Jesus Christ, Hay. I don't know. Some would argue there are two countries going on right now down there. But hey, that's another story for another day. the U.S. and Canada face off in the gold medal game at the World Juniors. Then you could have this interesting storyline of like, okay, now they can have a rematch very

quickly down the road at the Olympic Games. That would also kind of mess up major junior schedules. NCAA players would need more time off from those schedules too because they're not just leaving for World Juniors. They'd be yet to get to Beijing sooner than you're in Beijing, then you've got to quarantine like there's a whole lot of, I don't think that's something you could just do this year. You can't just like, oh, yeah, this is going to be who we bring because, I mean, it's not like the entire leagues are getting wiped out. It's not going to mess up their schedules, but I mean

the league schedules, the individual player schedules. I don't know. I do think it's interesting because in soccer, but it's totally different. So like in soccer, football, have, you know, whoever's listening, call whatever you want. The World Cup and like the Euro are the big ones in, you know, these kind of world championships. Those are, those are the big, in the Copa for the other teams. But those are kind of the big tournaments. And the Olympics send their youth teams in soccer. So like the French national team who goes and wins the World Cup in 2018, they don't go and play in the Olympics.

they're under 23 or their young group of players, their world junior roster plays at the Olympics. But that's because the Olympics aren't the big medal to win in terms of like world football. It's the World Cup. So like it's kind of a comparable, but also not because like, you know, winning a gold medal at the Olympics is like you said,

a very big thing for some of these athletes still. So I don't know what they're going to do. Yeah. I think it's going to be a roster of kind of some what they would have sent to It's going to be like we saw in 2018. Yeah, yeah, exactly. A roster of some, you know,

ex-pros and, you know, guys that can't quite make the NHL. So, well, again, we'll see how this plays out. Now, I'm curious because you cover the women's side of the game and you have a new piece on Monday, kind of looking at Team Canada's potential roster, which will be unveiled later this week. We know, well, listen, let's just go ahead and lock in

Mary Philippe Poulan. I think she's going to make it. I think she's going to be there. point. Just clutch with a capital C. It's awesome to see what she accomplished last week. But is there is there going to be any effect to the women's tournament because of COVID that you can potentially foresee? Yeah. It's tough because I think I've been asked this before just in doing some of this stuff. And to be honest, I haven't reported a lot of it out. So this is kind of just me speaking on what my belief and my understanding is. But it is something to start looking into for. sure. But I think right now these women are so focused on just trying to make the Olympic roster

that hasn't really been an opening for these kind of conversations, although I should have done that sooner. But anyways, I think the stakes and like the situation is quite different for the women. They're not playing in a professional league right now. They don't have, that's part of the fight that they're trying to have, is they don't have a truly professional league to play in. So they don't have a league that's being paused for three weeks so they can go. They don't have a league that if you test positive in Beijing, you're going to miss five weeks because you're quarantining in Beijing for five weeks. They're not potentially missing out on league salary if they test positive in Beijing. I think the health and safety concerns are probably there for some of these women.

I'm sure that is unsettling, but I don't think it's the same for them as the NHLers. like this is what they have. They have the world championships and they have the Olympics. And for two years, they didn't even have a world championships because of COVID, they haven't had a league to play in. Like, this is it. This is what, it's the Olympic quad, right? So this is what they have to try to do for four years.

That's what elite women's hockey players have is an Olympic gold medal every four years. And I never want to say never to anything because, as we've learned over the last two years, COVID sets the schedule. COVID sets the rules, really. But I would be surprised if these women said we don't want to go. Because then what do they have to work towards? The World Championship, the only tournament they've played since 2019. It's not the same for them. All right, Haley, I can't believe it.

This is actually our last show of the calendar year, 2021. Like it's, well, in some ways it's flown by. In other ways, it feels like forever. But I want to end with some kind of a couple of year in review multiple choice madness questions, okay, that we're going to tackle because it's been a colorful year in the sports world and certainly in hockey. So since this is our last show of 2021, here we go. Haley, what's been the biggest non-COVID story of 2021 in hockey?

I'm going to give you four options. If you want to go off the board, go off the board. Okay. Is it A, Carolina Offer Sheeting Yesperi Kotkenyemi? Is it B, Jack Eichel and his messy divorce from the Buffalo Sabres? Is it C, Tampa Bay repeating his Stanley Cup champions, pulling off the rare back-to-back trophies? Or is it D? Connor McDavid doing the unthinkable, cracking 100 points in a shortened season.

So we're taking COVID right out of the mix. Haley, what was the biggest non-COVID story in hockey in 2021? Yeah, it's hard because I think you can pinpoint any of these ones and say, I mean, you can I don't think the Carolina offer shooting cockney. I mean, is like an impressive feat, you know, that's not what I mean. But I think like Tampa repeating a Stanley Cup champs, that doesn't always happen. McDavid cracking 100 points in 56 game doesn't always happen. To me, I almost found that Eichel's.

Showdown with the Sabres was maybe one of the biggest stories just because you have a star player who can't get a surgery. His career is being put on pause. It dragged out so long just for him to go to the Vegas Golden Knights. Like that was a big one. And I don't know if that's partially because the flames were so intertwined with it that that was a really, really big story for me this year is the Jack Eichel saga. And we talked about it so much for so long. Like that was a topic of conversation, I think longer in the year than any of these. I think we talked about the Jack Eichael Buffalo Sabres things, more than we talked about McDavid, more than we talked about Tampa Bay and the Carolina

hurricanes. So I'm going to say that. You know what? I think I'm going Kotkinemi because it turned into such a circus. Why? Because they had a funny little tweet about it. Yeah. It was how, listen, the hockey world is too stuffy.

And for like eight days, it was like, what's that? Are you calling me Stuffy? Yes. Well, no, I don't call you. What's the term we use for you? Not stuffy. Snarky. Snarky.

So I think that for like a little window, there was like some colorful, energetic, fun discourse in the hockey world. And Carolina was smack talk in Montreal and Habs fans were losing it. And we got the thing that every, like the offer, like to me, offer sheets are like the boogeyman in the NHL. and they never come to fruition. So I think we need to embrace it. And I love the chaos that fault.

So I think Kotkinemi going to Carolina and all the meltdowns and the tweets and I think that was to me the biggest non-COVID story because it actually felt like a non-hockey story for a change. And I like that. Okay. One other question here. Can I just say I'm just like, sorry, I'm just really over the sassy clapback brand account stuff. It's not because I'm snarky and stuffy. They're mowing your lawn. I think that's why.

No, no. I think we saw. I think I think that it can be funny. I think it can be kind of quirky. But then I think it gets old. I think the Golden Knights Twitter account got old. I think the canes can sometimes go over the top. Like they're always looking for that second punch.

And sometimes it's that second punch that's like, ah, what la? It's a little bit, I don't know. And then we saw with the Nashville Predators. what snarky clapback brand account stuff can quickly become like cringe and offensive and not appropriate. So anyways, personality is great in hockey, but let's not be cringe.

That's my motto for 2022. Yeah. Stop being cringe. Stop being cringe. Okay. Anyways. Last question. Last question.

I'm going to give you the opportunity today. hand out a villain of the year award, Haley. So who gets the NHL's villain of the year in 2021? Is it A, in Nikita Kutjarov, B, Tyler Bituzy, C, Tom Wilson, or D, somebody else? Who is the NHL's villain of the year in 2021? Oh, man. I thought the chirp against Bertuzzi the other day was pretty funny, just like very simple, very effective, go get vaccinated.

It was quite funny. I'm probably going to say Kutrov. He really upset a lot of people. There were T-shirts made. There was upset Habs fans. I don't know. I think it's Tom Wilson's the easy answer. And you know what?

Gosh, he did injure a lot of people. Exactly. It's funny. I'm going to say Kutrov just because people were just like so enraged by this guy crushing beers. But not, it was Bud Light, too, wasn't it? Yeah, it was a couple Bud Lights. It was a bud light. It was Stanley.

It was the T-shirt, right? The 18 million over the cap. I've got to say Kutrov. Yeah, I think I agree with you. I think Wilson, see, the thing is like Kutrov kind of came out of nowhere. You know what I mean? We've never heard this guy talk that much before and all of a sudden he's just like kind of like low key drunk on the podium like really stirring shit up. And it was just like, oh, this is great.

Yeah. There's just not enough of that type of upbeat fun type of type of humor in the NHL that gets people talking and having fun. Like, again, I'm with you. I don't know how many times I heard Nikita Kutrov speak up until this. past spring and then all of a sudden like this guy's like a hidden gem maybe we just weren't maybe we were missing this guy all along maybe he's always been like this we just never talked to him and it was great i loved i loved it i think he's the villain of the year in the nchel but in a in a kind of a good way like yeah kind of a fun kind of good way but uh yeah we'll we'll we'll see what

2022 brings but can you imagine if if tampa wins another stanley cop and this guy misses a big chunk of the season again. Yeah. Here we go again. All right, Haley. So listen, we handed out our villains of the year and we handed out our, you know, storyline of the year. But that's it.

Like last episode of the podcast on the Monday until 2022, although who knows? Are you just going to sneak into the Tuesday show again and cheat on us on the Monday show like you did last week with Trevor Ziegress? Yeah. You know what? Podcast infidelity. It's a real thing. You know what?

Sean stepped in when you were stuck in Chicago, Montreal, whatever. He was helpful. Craig Custin's is very busy and too important for us at the Athletic Hockey Show now. So he wasn't available for the Trevor Ziegress interview. So I stepped in to help. And you know what? I might leave you again, Ian. if we can get Trevor Zegris back on to talk about his little baby Yoda thing he wore.

Oh, yeah. As soon as I saw that, I'm like, that's a Haley special. Haley wants to do a deep dive. Trevor, why do that a date? Like literally like two days sooner. It's all I was asking for. Yeah. Two days sooner.

I don't think that's too much to ask, but it's fine. No. It's fine. But, I mean, I don't think I'm not, I won't leave you again in 2021. You know, one of my favorite comments. read on the comment section was somebody said, Craig Custin's is the podcast host who said he was just going out for a pack of cigarettes. And he never came. Oh no. Like that's such a good comment. It's a little sad though. Who hurt you? I don't know,

but I thought that was good. I hope that guy's okay. Yeah, I think so. But speaking of that team America and cheating, looks like they're going to have Bobby Ryan with them on. on the Tuesday edition. Yeah, everyone's just, this is just a free-for-all here. But I think, there's no loyalty anymore. No.

But they'll have them coming up on, on Tuesday, I think is the plan. Bobby Ryan's going to join them on the Tuesday edition. This is kind of, we're kind of going to the holiday week, but Pranman and Bolton will be back for a prospect series.

And you're going to tee up world junior rosters. And down goes Brown and I. We'll be back on Thursday. And I think we'll kind of do a year in review, maybe some, something fun with the holiday. So we'll get all of that going. So Haley, you and I aren't going to reconnect until the new year. So listen, stay safe.

I feel really, it feels dumb saying that now. Like I'm sick of saying, stay safe. But I don't know. What else am I supposed to say? I got happy holidays, obviously. But I feel like an obligatory stay safe needs to be slid in there. Stay safe out there. Yeah.

Thanks. Yeah, thanks, I guess. You too. Yeah. See, that's the perfect way to end it because that's a full, year of chemistry that we've developed. I think the listeners can, but we do. Honestly, for the listeners.

Yeah. The listeners, we do appreciate all the support over this year. It's been a lot of fun. We're looking forward to 2022 and starting up again in January. So again, like I said, Tuesday edition of the podcast comes your way. Bobby Ryan's going to drop by in the podcast. And then I'll be back on Thursday. We want you to remember, subscribe to the Athletic Audio

Plus on Apple Podcast. We'll get all of our bonus content from our network. Start with a 30-day free trial. It's just 99 cents a month after that. And right now, annual subscriptions to the Athletic, they're available to you for just $3.99 a month when you visit theathletic.com slash hockey show.