The Athletic Hockey Show - Pete DeBoer set to face former team in Conference Final, Conn Smythe odds, and is Salt Lake City a viable option for the Coyotes?

Episode Date: May 18, 2023

Ian Mendes, back from his European travels, reunites with Sean McIndoe to discuss where he was when the Ryan Reynolds news hit last week, Salt Lake City as a possible new home for the Coyotes if they relocate, waiting to see if the Maple Leafs will make any changes, and Pete DeBoer facing his former team in the WCF, and potentially another former team in the Cup Final. The conversation is continued in "Granger Things", as Jesse Granger shares his thoughts on who would have the advantage, DeBoer over his former team, or his former players over the coach's systems, and brings the latest Conn Smythe odds. To wrap up, a dive into the mailbag and a look back with "This Week in Hockey History".Have a question for Ian and Sean? Email [e-mail] or leave a VM [phone]!Subscribe to The Athletic Hockey Show on YouTube: http://youtube.com/@theathletichockeyshowGet a 1-year subscription to The Athletic for $2 a month when you visit http://theathletic.com/hockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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back in the chair. It's the amendment with you. It's been a while. It's been a while since I've been here. And I got to tell you, Sean, I realized now the last time you and I did a show together was a couple weeks ago.

It was the week I think I interviewed Snoop Dogg. And I think it was the first time that I ever swore. People were so excellent. excited about that. Well, and then I think... I got more positive feedback than on anything else we've ever done. Yeah. And then I'm wondering, do people think that I got suspended from the pod for a couple weeks? We're swearing. Drop in the F-Bob. But no, no, not the guy. I was away for a little bit, which we can touch on. We got a lot to get to you as we're kicking off the, uh, the conference final

here. So, but anyway, great to be back. Great to be back with you on the Thursday show. Hey, I got, I got a quick question for you. Yeah. I'm just going to throw this out as a, as a, as a, as, Since you're the senator's beat guy, and I'm a no-one-mapeleaves fan, okay? Yesterday, when noted Powerbroker and Super Agent Alan Walsh tweeted that the coyotes should become the second team in Ontario, which one of us should be insulted by that? Did you see that his tweet? He put this out. We need a second team in Ontario. Yeah, I think he just meant a second team in the GTA, right?

Like, I don't know, man. That felt like I took offense to that as the guy who covers Ottawa. Okay. Does he think that Ottawa is in Quebec? I can't imagine. I'm pretty sure he just forgot. But I just feel like that was, you know, it was one of those where like, you know, two people are sitting there going like, okay, one of us has got to feel insulted here.

But why would you feel? Maybe he's suggesting, well, I mean, the Maple Leafs just lost in the point. playoffs, maybe it's a dig at them saying, like, hey, let's see. We got the mighty senators. Or is he saying that, like, if you combine the senators in the Maple Leafs right now, you've got yourself one in HL team and then we bring a second one in. Is that maybe where he was going? Like, I saw it and I thought, I think he just meant the GTA.

I think he meant Toronto. Bad news for Thunder Bay. Sorry, guys. That's right. You were thinking you were putting that bid together. Yeah, the Thunder Bay bit. Let me just walk our listeners through something real quick, which I think you will be entertained by, which was my trip to Europe, which I went over to cover a little bit of Team Canada at the

worlds, like in their training camp in Budapest, which was fantastic, by the way. I never been there, loved it, beautiful city, all that. And by the way, I have a story up today. I caught up with Justin Pogi while I was over there. I saw that. Justin kind of is moving into a new role as a goalie coach and is hanging up the pads. Anyway, great conversation with him. And then I thought to myself, is this maybe my new niche?

Do I need to maybe be writing feel good profiles on X Maple Leafs? Like, what if that was my jam? Somebody's got to do it. Someone's got to do it. Maybe it should be B. Anyway, a lot of fun, great guy, Justin Pogi. I went over to Germany for a couple of days to spend time. with Tim Stutzler, which was amazing.

Like, went to his childhood home, went for lunch with him and his mom, hung out for, basically, I had like seven hours with him. And it was fantastic. So I'm excited to put that feature together. And then I pitched to the editors, the editorial team, just before my trip. Because you know what?

As you've seen, the rosters for the world championships itself are pretty thin. And I thought, I can't really, I don't think we, There's an appetite for people to read about Team USA, team Canada. When the rosters are, they're not great, right?

Can we be honest here? Can we? Yep. There's, I'm never really a big world championships fan, but this year especially there. Yeah. So I said,

what if on my way home from Germany and visiting Tim Stutzah, why don't you just stop in Wrexham, which is the town in the UK in Wales, where Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElwane have really transformed a soccer club into... What could go wrong? What could go wrong? So I land in Wrexham I guess exactly a week ago. It was Thursday.

I flew to Manchester from Dusseldorf to Manchester, take a train down, I get in the Wrexham, I kind of walk around the town. What a great town. People are friendly. Kind of tell a couple of people, hey, I'm here to do this story. They're like, oh, you should talk to this person, that person. that person, whatever, have a great meal. And then my phone buzzes.

Then it buzzes again. And there's a text from my editor back in North America. And it's Emily Kaplan from ESPN with the story that Ryan Reynolds is no longer proceeding with his bid for the Ottawa senators. Like of all the places to be in the world, imagine showing up in Wrexham on the day that Ryan Reynolds pulls up. Like the timing, like, I can't think of a worse, like, is there anything that's been worse timing-wise that you could think of from-off? Yeah, that was pretty, that was pretty rough.

And by the way, I got to say I'm disappointed to find out that he, Ryan Reynolds didn't notify you directly. Like, I mean, you think you did at least he'd shoot you a text. You guys are buddies and everything. Like, yeah, I mean, there's got to be. The best of friends. But I will say this. He did know I was going to Rex him. I'll say that.

Mm-hmm. And I will say that I have traded notes with them since, but I don't, again, I feel like the conversations I've had with him, I've been sort of under the kind of let's, you know, not for publication type of thing. Did he intentionally wait until you were out of, out of Ottawa? Exactly. He set you up. That's exactly what I did happen.

He's like, let's get him to wreck. And then we'll drop the bomb while he's not here and we don't have to, we don't have to worry about him. Is it help me out here? Because I'm looking at this story, and I'm sitting here going, okay, this feels to me like, you know, to put this in terms that Ryan Reynolds would be familiar with, this is like watching a movie. It's like watching a superhero movie. And the superhero dies. And you go, oh, no. And everyone's sad and crying. And then you look at your watch, you're like, we're half an hour into this movie. This guy's coming back. Is Ryan Reynolds, like, is Ryan Reynolds actually capital O out of this process? Or is he? temporarily out, and we're all sitting up for the heroic return in a little bit with potentially some other group, but that he's still going to be involved at some point. You know what?

And first of all, unfortunately right now, this feels like green lantern. Like, if we're doing a Ryan Reynolds super hero. Menda's throwing bombs here. Like, wow, okay. Kind of feels like this isn't Deadpool. This feels a little green lantern-y. All right. For me.

I feel like there's a less than five, like I'll never see. say never. Like I haven't received word from anybody that it's definitively not going to happen all caps. But I think it's really remote. And the reason why I think that the odds are remote are, I think he had a real distinct vision for how he wanted to execute this. And that's why he aligned, I think, with the Remington group. And now that they're out, I don't know that any of the remaining groups would allow him the space to do what he wanted to do. Now, the only thing I'll say is I think that there's going to be a lot of behind the scenes posturing this week. The only thing I could see would be is there any way that Gary Bettman would go to one of these groups or two of these groups,

try and marry them together and say, you can have this team on the condition that this guy is allowed to have a certain say in the marketing slash content production. because that was kind of his vision, was specifically, and community engagement. But I don't know, if you're going to pay 900 million U.S. or a billion U.S. for a team, you want to have both hands on the steering wheel, right? Are you willing to let somebody have a hand? That's my only question. Yeah. Yeah.

No, I mean, and that's fair. It's, you know, to me, I'm looking at this thinking, okay, if I'm some boring real estate guy or whoever who maybe wins this bid, which is going to be a, you know, it'll be a tough sell after we've had snooped up. We've had Ryan Reynolds has been this, all this star power. And then I just show up in my suit going, hey, everyone, I'm the new owner. It to me would seem to make sense to pick up the phone and say, hey, Ryan Reynolds, do you want to come and, you know, just be part of this? Just, you know, you sit in the owner's box with us.

You know, maybe you're not, you know, a full investor, but we get you involved. We still figure out a way to do the documentary series and whatever else. But it sounds like, you know, from what you're saying, maybe that's not something that he's interested in. if it's just purely going to be, I don't want to say figurehead, but, you know, somebody who's, who's just there as a marketing component. Yeah. I don't know. It'd be interesting to see.

I still feel like, man, if those, we don't have Granger right now to set the odds for us, but if you're putting it at 5%, I feel like I'd, I feel like I'd take those odds because you would, hey? I just, I feel like he's on the way back at some point. Yeah, Granger's going to pop by. We're going to talk some playoffs with him. And by the way, for the listeners that are interested in the sale process, if you are, I got the feeling earlier this week that there would be an answer on who secured the bid

and was given like conditional ownership of the team as early as today, like meaning Thursday. But as we've kind of moved in, now there's a little, it sounds like there's some hesitancy from people to say that they will know for sure. But I always felt like if there was going to be a bit of a delay that maybe it was because there was some last minute wrangling kind of trying to marry some people together, that type of thing. So we'll see. I never say never, but it, boy, it doesn't feel like that's going to happen.

Okay. Yeah, anyway, stranger things. Look, when I say stranger things have happened, I mean, Snoop Dog is in on the senator. So let's just understand where this process has taken us here. You know, there's probably a good segue into real quick for us. I know the Wednesday pods talked about it. It's been the talk of the hockey world, what's happened in Arizona here. you're familiar with some of the teams that have moved before,

be it Atlanta, Quebec, Winnipeg. From your recollection, like, I remember, like, when the Nordiques moved and the Jets moved, we kind of found out about it as that season, their final season was playing out. And the thrashers obviously moved right in the middle, like just before the Stanley Cup final. And that was, like, kept under wraps right until the last minute. Has there, if we know that the coyotes,

this is their last year in Arizona, have we ever had a scenario? We're a franchise and its fan base new, like in September. This is it, definitively. We've been pretty close once. And I'll go back to like the 90s when all of this movement started happening. I don't remember exactly what happened with, for example, Colorado or the original Atlanta team. But in the more modern era, you're right.

Generally speaking, this has been something we have found out either early in the offseason, in the case of the Thrashers. I believe the Nordiques was the same sort of thing. I think when it was the Minnesota North Star is going to Dallas, it was finalized with a few weeks left in the regular season, which was nice because it meant that Minnesota fans at least had like that last chance to, A, say goodbye to the team. And B, wish Norm Green all the best, which they did in very, they were, they were, they were, very passionate about doing that. Hartford to Carolina, I think was essentially the same thing. But the one comparison that feels similar to this, somewhat ironically, is that Jets move

to Phoenix, because initially there was a feeling that the Nordiques and the Jets were both going down the same path at the same time. Not that the two processes were directly related in any way, but in the 94-95 season, a lot of people said this is going to be it for the Nordiques and the Jets. And the Nordiques, the sale and the move to Colorado was all announced. You know, it certainly felt by the end of that season like it was done. I mean, I think Nordique fans understood that the team was gone, but didn't necessarily nowhere had been finalized.

That happened in the offseason. The Jets, a lot of it felt the same way. And you felt like the 94-95 season was potentially their last. And then they get sold in the off-season. And there's talk about, oh, they're going to move. And at the time, it was Minnesota. It was actually, it was, the NHO was going to go back to Minnesota with the jets. And that fell through it.

And didn't end up happening. And it took long enough to follow through that at some point, the decision was made, okay, we're going to play another year in Winnipeg. And did not know where the team was going to go. I wouldn't say definitively knew that this was the last year in Winnipeg, but all the signs were pointing there. It was very clear that this new ownership, group wanted to move the team. It didn't feel like there was a few. In fact, even in the summer of

95, if I'm not mistaken, there was like a goodbye Jets rally in Winnipeg. You know, they basically were under the impression that their team was gone. And then it was a mild surprise that they got stick around. And then by, I want to say December, it was announced that the move was going to happen to Phoenix. So that was maybe the closest comparison to what we're seeing. And to what we're in Arizona now because, you know, again, we don't know for sure that this team is moving. All signs seem to point that way, but we don't know where. It's never done until it's done, and the Winnipeg example is part of that. I certainly can't remember something where this early in the process, they had already announced

we're definitely not going to move next year. But you got to remember, like that old NHL, that was a bit of a different thing. Like you would, hey, you know, do you have an arena? No, we got a baseball stadium. him good enough. You can have a team and take a few years. And so, and I think the standards are higher. Certainly the price tags are higher now. So the NHL wants to get it right. But yeah, if it's, it's a little bit ironic that if you, if you're a coyotes fan looking for some hope of all the teams you got to look back on, it might be that Jets team. You know, and it's interesting too, because

and Sean Gentile has the, the piece out for us kind of looking at where this team could end up if they move from from Arizona. And it's the usual suspects. It's Kansas City. It's Houston. You know, people talk about Quebec City. Maybe a second team in Ontario. Yeah.

It'd be nice. Yeah, you know, Alan Walsh. The one that is really all of a sudden to me, and correct me if I'm wrong here, I feel like two weeks ago, I never heard of like, boy, Salt Lake City really wants an NHL team. And now, like, all of a sudden in May, and this is coming from smart people, connected people,

in the Elliott Friedmans and the Greg Woschinskies and the, like, this isn't just coming from Randos. All of a sudden, Salt Lake City seems to be near the top of the list for destinations for the coyotes. Like, am I wrong on this or did this just kind of come out of left field for you too? It did for me too. And you're right. I mean, there's clearly smoke here because this is, there's been a lot of reporting on this. There was, I guess the owner of the Utah Jazz headline.

like one tweet where he replied to somebody who was like, you know, with like two words. In motion. Yeah. In motion. Yeah. But, you know, that's, that suggests that the conversations are at least being had. What was interesting to me was the framing in Gentilly's piece because the way that he made it sound is that, look, if you're looking to move the team in the short term, this is the best option.

They have an arena. They have a place to play. Yeah. You know, there is the ownership there with the jazz and the NBA already being established. If you're looking for sort of a plug and play solution, maybe this is the best one. It's a small TV market. It's not a market that really fits as far as what you would think the NHL is trying to do as far as growing the footprint. Now it is a Western market, or at least a Western conference market.

So that's good. It means you don't have to disrupt a bunch of things. as far as we're in teams around. But it's just, you know, to me, man, that feels a little bit weird, right? Because it's this Arizona situation, I mean, decades, decades that we have seen the league try to make this work. How many times have we written this franchise off and said, okay, well, this is clearly the end of the story. And then been told, nope, not this time. We're still committed, even up to this week.

You know, we're still getting some reports saying this thing might not be dead. It feels like it's been such a long-term vision. Some people would say way too long-term vision in Arizona. It would just seem strange to me that to get to finally the finish line and say, well, let's just take the easiest, quickest answer now versus saying like, okay, you know, if Houston's a better market, what do we have to do in the meantime to make it work there? or what do we have to do somewhere else versus just saying, like, let's just do the quick. And, I mean, if you're willing to play in, in Mullet Arena for three years in Arizona to wait for a new arena, I mean, can we not be creative in the same way to make sure we get the perfect fit for this? And we're not sitting there five or 10 years from now going, oh, we're in the same situation in a smaller market because we just took the easiest, fastest, most convenient solution after spending 25 years, refusing. to do the easy, convenient, maybe common sense thing.

I'd love to hear from listeners, too. I don't know if we have any in Utah or if we have anyone who's familiar with that market. Like, is there a passion for hockey there? I mean, the history of the Winter Olympics, right? I mean, some of the greatest hockey ever played. And they're going back, right? Has been there. Well, they're trying, yeah, they're trying to get back.

What, 234 or something like that? Gentile's piece said, you know, 2030. Oh, yeah, that's right. Yeah. Which means, and if they do get it, then that could mean like new arenas, new facilities and everything. So there's definitely some pluses there. I mean, if you're a hockey fan, whether you know it or not, you have watched some great hockey play out in that area because of the Olympics, obviously in 1980 and then again in 2002. But, you know, is there a great passion? Maybe.

You know, there absolutely could be. I'm willing to be open-minded on it. It's just very strange that we haven't heard anything about it. And I will say the other thing is, this was already going to be real tough on fans in Quebec City because there's already a feeling that it's just not a realistic option. And part of the reason for that is a lot of people are just saying, look, Quebec City, we love you guys, beautiful city. You haven't, you know, maybe you have an arena that at least would be good enough to start with.

But it's just not a big city, man. There's not a big corporate presence. and that's what you need to be a big league. And I think if you're in Quebec City and you see the coyotes go to Houston, let's say, there's a part of you that goes, I get it. Top 10 TV market in the United States, you know, all sorts of bit.

I get, we just can't compete with that. We're a much smaller place. You see them go to Salt Lake City. There's definitely got to be a part of you going, hey, wait a second. You're telling me we can't financially be on the same platform as those guys. but it might be where that's headed.

Yeah, it's really fast. Anyway, it's interesting. It finally feels like this is it. I know, again, it's one of those stories. Like you said, this feels like decades of this, 30 years of it. This one does feel like it's definitive. So we'll see where it goes. I do feel bad.

Like I know that they end up being low-hanging fruit and people like, oh, there's like, what are there like six fans in Arizona? There's thousands of fans there. And I do feel for them because they, they tried to make it work. They clearly created a, you know, a legacy. Look, and Austin Matthews is a great example of, look at, like, Austin Matthews probably doesn't happen if not for a team there.

He's probably in the, he's probably a major league baseball player right now if the coyotes aren't there. And Matthew Nyes is from that area too, no? Am I right on that? Oh, he may be. I don't know. Anyway, but let me ask you this real quick. you know you've heard the rumblings for years.

Austin Matthews to Arizona. Austin Matthews is going to go to Arizona. You want to go home. Is there any part of you selfishly as a Leafs fan that thinks, you know, if the coyotes are not there, then maybe that's not a leverage play. You know what I mean? Yeah, man. First of all, I know B when I see it, man.

We've already got the Small Market Panthers fans all mad at Lee fans. Already. You know what? I've never necessarily bought into that. I've made some jokes about him going back to the coyotes. But I've never bought into that just because Austin Matthews to me, if he's not going to be in Toronto, doesn't strike me as a sort of guy who wants to go play in a 5,000 seat arena. He strikes me as this. I'm more worried about him going to the Kings in a year or somewhere like that or the Rangers or somewhere like that. That feels like it would fit his personality more. But I don't know. We will we will see how it goes. But you're right. I mean, if you're a Canadian hockey fan, especially if you're a Leaf fan and you want to look down your nose at Arizona, well, I mean, the only player to win an MVP award for the Toronto Maple Leafs in your lifetime, you can thank the coyotes and coyotes fans for that having happened. Yeah.

I want to dive into the final four here of Carolina and Florida and Dallas and Vegas. And we'll get Jesse Granger here to help tee up some, especially the Vegas stuff, I think is great. I do want to ask you, though, as we, as we sit here, and this again, this is not, it's not me trying to be a jerk and rub salt in the wound of, but we're about a week out. This guy swears one time.

This guy swears. And he's just gone completely, like the heel turn is complete. He's just, you guys can't see him. He's dressed all in black. He's got like the Hollywood Hulk Hogan stubble. It's really, boy, it's, he's gone all the way, guys. But I do want to ask you this. We're about a week out from Toronto losing to Florida.

And I think a lot of us thought, speaking of, okay, well, this is definitive. This time it feels different. We felt like by this point, maybe there would be an announcement on Shanahan, on Dubus, on Keefe. Not on the player. Look, the core four, that's another argument that can be punted for four to six weeks or whatever. But I think a lot of his thought by here we are, like a week out, they're making this, are you surprised that there hasn't been anything really on that front? I'm somewhat surprised, but I'm less surprised than I would have been a week ago if you told me

this, because seeing the Kyle Dubas press conference where he basically said, look, I'm not going anywhere else. If I'm going to be a GM, it's going to be in Toronto, at least in the short term. But I'm not sure what I want to do right now. when you look at it in that context, it makes sense. I mean, look, I don't think anybody watched that press conference and thought, oh, this is a guy who needs 24 hours to make his mind up. And, you know, if it now, if the Maple Leafs ownership,

if the decision makers or Brandon Shanhan have decided that we're moving on, we don't want Kyle Dubas as a gym anymore, then you would think, yes, at some point, you just make that decision. But it suggests to me that they're at least interested in having that conversation with him. And then you just got to wait and find out if he wants to have that conversation and what it's going to look like. And then that holds up Sheldon Keefe. And I'm a little bit surprised at Brennan Shanahan hasn't spoken to the media yet. We were told on Monday when he, for the first time in a few years, he did not address the media sitting next to Kyle Dubas.

And we were told, yeah, that's coming later. we haven't heard from him yet, so you know, you can maybe read a few different things into that. But it's tough. There's decisions that have to be made at a high level for the Leafs. And remember, that ownership group is weird, right? It's, it's Bell, it's Rogers, and then it's Larry Tannenbaum sort of in the middle of them. It's probably tough just to get that group to decide on anything, let alone something as big as the future of this team. but it does have to happen soon.

I mean, this isn't the sort of thing you can just drag your feet and wait on for a long time. And so hopefully within a few days we'll know. But some of that may just be waiting on Kyle Dubas. So like I said, Jesse Granger is going to pop by here. Getting set for Vegas and Dallas game one. Thursday night is Carolina, Florida game one. I think this is going to be an interesting final four, certainly a unique final four. Peter DeBoer, head coach of the Dallas Stars,

is taking on his old team, Sean, in the conference model, the Vegas Golden Knights. And then I was thinking to myself, wow, if he gets to the final Dallas does and the Florida Panthers are the opponent, well, there would be two teams of ex-teams that he used to coach of. He used to coach to Panthers about 10, 12 years ago.

Has we ever seen that before in the NHL where a coach faced an X team in the conference final and then another X team in the Stanley Cup final and I know I'm just kind of throwing this at you but I thought this is unique and the candidates would likely be like a Kenan or a Burns or a Tortorella or whatever

but maybe not even Ken Hitchcock but anyway I was thinking about this I think Peter DeBoer might be the first guy to do it Yeah I can't think of anyone else I mean, certainly in the NHL, there's a long history of guys bouncing around and coaching a lot of different teams. But, you know, to certainly to have a guy like Pete Boar face his former team, like his immediate former team, like a team that just fired him, this laid into the playoffs would be rare. And then part of that is that obviously to have that situation happen, you have to have two teams that have made coaching changes.

And teams that make coaching changes typically aren't teams that are strong enough to, to go deep into the playoffs right away. So I can't think of too many examples like that and certainly to go back to back. I mean, you look in the other conference, I'm like, Paul Maurice is the former Carolina Hurricanes coach a million years ago, but it was, he's got the experience there. So, yeah, it's interesting. It's, you know, this has been, it's been a weird year when you're looking at the final four, at least, as far as that feeling of,

hey, we got to stop recycling these coaches. It can't just be the same guys over and over again, getting dropped into jobs. You look at that. I mean, you've got Rod Brindamore, who's only ever coached the Hurricanes, but you got Paul Maurice has bounced around forever. Pete DeBore, I believe, is on his fifth team.

And then, you know, and then Cassidy as well is on to team number three in, Vegas. And, I mean, you look at Dallas. Pete DeBore is number two in the entire NHL as far as active coaches for having had the most jobs. The only guy ahead of him is the guy he replaced Rick Bonas. So the Dallas stars, if you're someone saying, hey, get some fresh eyes in there, get some fresh thoughts. Yeah. The Dallas Stars are maybe an example that it doesn't have to be that way. But no, I can't remember anyone doing this level of, you know, hitting up former teams and certainly

if he ends up going into the final against him, I can't remember ever seeing, ever seeing that happen back to back. All right. Actually, this is the perfect time, Sean. We're talking about Peter DeBore and Vegas and Dallas. Let's bring our guy in, Jesse Granger, for Granger Things, brought to you by BetMGM, the exclusive betting partner with the athletic. Jesse, here's a question for you. We're just talking about DeBoer.

Who has the advantage here? Would it be Peter DeBore who might know the tendencies of some of his Vegas players that he coached? Or would it be the Vegas players who would maybe have a good idea of some of the tactics

that DeBore likes? likes to deploy. Is there an advantage here for one or the other? That's a great question. I've actually been kind of going around the room asking players that over the last couple days. And they obviously have a bias that they think that they've got the advantage. But I've been very interested in how much of an advantage they think knowing the system is because they think they're going to have a good idea of what the Dallas stars are going to want to do to them, especially the way they defend. Pete DeBore, he runs a swarm defense where it's kind of a zone where the defensemen kind of sit back around their net,

but the forwards swarm guys in the offensive zone. They're constantly trying to outnumber the opposition. Basically, the goal is force a turnover as fast as possible. We want to spend as little amount of time as possible in our defensive zone. That's what Vegas did for the last three, four years. It's what the stars do now. And the Golden Knights are obviously very familiar with how that defense works and maybe where the openings are when you do swarm. I think getting around that and actually executing to beat it is going to be a lot harder than maybe you think.

But yeah, and then obviously Pete does have an advantage knowing these players' tendencies. He knows which defensemen maybe don't like to bring the puck out on their backhand or don't like to send it D to D as much so you can kind of pressure that guy. I don't know. There are going to be lots of tendencies. The one thing I will also say is that maybe the tiebreaker that might give Vegas the advantage in terms of the familiarity because there's so much familiarity between these teams is the Golden Knights also have John Stevens as their defensive coach, their assistant coach, who just coached in Dallas for a few years. So he knows Miro Heiskin and all these guys, just like Pete knows the tendencies of the Golden Knights players. We were talking to Cassidy about it, and he was brilliant as he always is. And he basically said it can be, this can sort of fast forward the process.

So in a playoff series, you obviously get to know the team really well. And by games four, five, six, whatever, you know everything the other team's trying to do. Because there's so much familiarity with the coaches and the players in the series, maybe we're like that just right from the jump from game one. And it kind of advances that and it makes the chess moves by each coach and the adjustments that much more important. It should be really fun to watch. I am just personally really excited for it.

Like watching Pete coach for three years here in Vegas, knowing exactly the type of tactics he runs. I've never covered a playoff series where I know exactly what both teams are doing this intimately. So I'm excited for it. It should be a really fun series in terms of all those types of storylines. Man, we were just talking about recycled coaches

who keep showing up and John Stevens, man. There's a name. That guy has been around forever. Okay. So just real quick then, because that was interesting what you're you were talking about and how familiar you are with this. Is there, can you give us like a, just a cliff notes of when we're watching this series,

what should we watch for that would tell us, okay, the knights know what to do with, with the divorce system or the divorce system is working against the knights? I mean, obviously, who wins and loses and what the score is, but, you know, is there something that if we see it happening, that that should click something in our brains to tell us that there's maybe a bigger picture here. Yeah. So like I mentioned, with the Stars defense, they're trying to end possession as quickly as possible. We are not spending any time in our defensive zone.

We want to control the puck as much as we can. Whereas Vegas' defense is the opposite. Under Cassidy, they play a tight zone defense where they kind of just build a shell around the front of the net. And because Pete and the Stars like to run their defense through, or their offense, sorry, through the point. They like to get the puck low and send it up to the point and then let those guys wheel and deal and then eventually shoot and go for a high tip, usually with Pavalski, but they can do it with everyone. I think because the stars run their offense from the perimeter of the zone and the Goldenites are very content letting teams hold the puck on the perimeter and just protecting the middle,

I think you're going to see a lot of play in the Goldenites zone, which I think if you're not paying super close attention, you can kind of of think, well, man, the stars are dominating this game. And the shot totals in this series are probably going to favor the stars. But I watched this when Pete was in Vegas, where the Golden Knights would dominate the possession and dominates the shots and lose games because the high danger chances weren't there. I think you're going to see similar in this series. And it's going to be, it's going to come down to can the Golden Knights defend the front of their net and not let those high tips from Pavelsky and let those deflection screens, all those dirty goals that come from those

shots from the point, can the Golden Knights avoid those? If they can, they're going to be in probably, probably be in really good shape. And spending all that time in your defensive zone, you're hoping the team eventually makes a mistake and you can get a rush chance the other way, which is where I think the Golden Knights are probably the most dangerous team on the rush in the NHL. They convert those types of three on twos, two on ones at an insane rate. So I think that's what they're looking for. Another thing I would look for that I'm going to be watching that's a very specific detail in what's

going to happen in the defensive zone is Pavelsky likes to, rather than being low right in front of the net, he likes to kind of drift out to like the mid to high slot and look for that really, really high tip. And the Golden Knights defensemen, like I said, they protect the front. They don't stray too far from the crease. They usually stay really close to the front of the net. And Cassidy even mentioned yesterday, our defensemen are going to have to tow that line of maybe leaving the net a little more to get out there on Pavelsky and pressure him so that he can't get those high tips, which could maybe open some spots up in the back. I don't know. It's going to be interesting. I'm going to be watching Pavelsky very closely in the offensive zone

and seeing how the Goldenites defenders check him. You know, one of the things I'm really fascinated to watch guys in this Final Four is the goaltending because, you know, you look at Carolina, for example, like we've seen a little Freddie Anderson, right? And we've seen a little anti-Ranta. And you look at Vegas, a great example, right? There was Laurent Brassois, now it's Aidan Hill. Sergei Bobrovsky always feels like a little bit of a wild card. And even the funny thing is I thought Ottinger was terrific in game seven.

But I was just double-checking. Like, Jake Ottinger's just been kind of okay in the playoffs this year. They get 903, save percentage, not the guy that we saw against Calgary last year. You know, we talk so much, right? Jesse, about, boy, you need to have a hot goalie to get deep in the playoffs. and I kind of feel like this year, the final four teams, they're all kind of running counter to that. Like, it's been a little bit of a roll of the dice in the crease, right?

I totally agree this year, and it breaks my heart. Yeah, this year has been an anomaly for sure. I mean, you look at the first round and all the goalies that got knocked out of the first round of the playoffs, like Andre Vasselowski, Igor Shisterkin, Ilya Seroq, Conner Hellebuck, Linus Olmark, like all the top guys got to lay. eliminated in the first round. And it leaves you with some very inexperienced in most cases. And some Bobrovsky obviously has a lot of experience, but hadn't been playing all that well

the last couple of years. But he's stepping it up. And I think that's a big reason why we saw a lot of these blowout games in in round two, because I think these goalies that are in can play at a high level. They're NHL goalies and they've got to this point for a reason. They are fully capable of playing to a really high level and shutting teams down, but they're also capable of having a bad night and giving up six or seven. So I think that's part of the reason we saw a lot of those blowouts in the last round was just the inconsistency maybe of some of these goalies. Yeah, but it's going to be super interesting.

I think in both series, Babrovsky was phenomenal in that last series against Toronto. Just spectacular. To me, he is the, like if you're looking for who's the hot goalie that at the end of the season, we're going to say, wow, that's the guy. It's Babrovsky for Florida, if he can keep this up. But Freddie Anderson's 5-0. I mean, since he came in, they started the playoffs with Ranta, and he played okay, not great. Since Freddie Anderson's coming, I think he has like a 930 save percentage. Anderson's been very solid behind a really good defense that's making his life easy. And then in the other series, Ottinger, like you said, hasn't been great, but you just have

the feeling that it's going to, he's going to figure it out at some point. And that's going to be a big factor in this series is can Aiden Hill at least come close to matching Otenger? I don't think you expect him to outplay Jake Otenger. That's a big ask, but can he come close? And so far, the Golden Knights goalies have done it. I mean, the first round, they were facing a Vezina winner, Connor Hullough, and Laurent Breslaught played him. Second round, they're facing a Calder finalist in Stuart Skinner, and Aiden Hill outplayed him. So they're going to have to do it again. Thank you very much for reminding us of how great Sergey Burowski was that I really enjoyed that. Thanks.

Is he now, given how great he's been and also just how great the story is of this guy that had been written off, is he the cons of my favorite at this point? Well, so that's hard for me to answer because you have to believe Florida's going to win it all in order for him to be the cons of my favorite. So the odds actually have Matthew Kachuk as the highest Florida Panther. And that surprised me. And not only the odds, but in our athletic. poll that we do before every round when we poll the writers, Sergey Babrovsky didn't get one vote for Kahn Smythe. So to me, that's like, okay, well, nobody's picking the Panthers to win. But no, Matthew Kachuk got 7% of the vote. So I'm a little surprised at both the odds and our writers

having Kachuk over Bobovsky, because like you mentioned, not only has he been probably the biggest reason that they're here, but the story, like if there's a tiebreaker in a Kahn Smyth ever, like if you got two really deserving players, the story pretty much always wins out. We are writers, after all. We love ourselves a good comeback narrative, whatever it is. And so, yes, I agree with you. I think Bobrovsky is the favorite if you've got Florida winning. Obviously, they're not the favorite to win at all right now.

So he's not going to be the odds-on favorite. But yes, I love his chances. And we, in yesterday's show, Rob asked us, like, is there anyone who's still left that you've got like some sentimental, like, that you would like to see win the cup? For me, it's Bobrovsky. after how great of a career he's had and how much people have talked about his inability to perform in the playoffs when he was at his peak and some of the duds that they had in Columbus, the years that he carried them to the playoffs, it would be so cool to watch that guy lead a team to the cup. Yeah, and like as we look around here to wrap this up, like Carolina, like it feels like there's been a few teams that have kind of gotten through by committee, right? Like Carolina would be a good example. Like right now, who is the clubhouse leader

when we're just strictly looking at cons my thoughts for the entire league out of the final four? Who's like the, is there a runaway leader or favorite right now? Not runaway, but the leader, the player with the best odds to win the cons smith right now is going to surprise you guys

because it surprised me. Wait, Jack, can we take a guess? Sure. Okay. Uh, boy. I'm going to say Jack Eichel. nailed it. Jack Eichel is the favorite to win the consmite.

I just wrote a big story on it yesterday. What a turn of events for this player's career. Talk about having a story, man. The guy who couldn't win in Buffalo and isn't, so many people questioned if this guy is a winner. He's obviously a talented player that can score a lot of goals, but can you win with him? And here we are.

We're halfway there. It's still a long way to go. Still need eight more wins. But for Jack Eichel to be the current favorite to win the consmite trophy, he's been phenomenal for the Golden Knights. I mean, he's got 14 points in 11 games. He's third of the players remaining in points behind Rupé Hanson and Kachuk in Florida. So his offense has been good.

His defense has been really, really good. Bruce Cassidy can't say enough good words about how he's checked in his own end. So, yeah, he's the favorite right now. And then after him, he's at plus 550. Second place after him is Sebastian Aho, plus 600. And Aho's been good. I think that kind of tells you, that's a little bit more about the hurricanes are probably the best team remaining right now on paper. So he's going to be way up there.

Matthew Kachuk at plus 750. And then the fourth best odds, Freddie Anderson. Like I said, he's 5 and 0. He's got a 930 safe percentage. He's been really good for the hurricanes. But again, that kind of tells you the odds are saying that the hurricanes are the best team right now, the most likely team to win. And then after that is Rupert Hintz, who is the current points leader, and he has been absolutely on fire. He's at plus 900.

I've been, as you mentioned that on Eichol, I've been scrolling through and trying to figure out the answer to the question, has a non-goly ever won the Kahn Smythe in his first playoff appearance? And from scanning it, I don't think that has ever happened. Obviously, you know, with guys like Cam Ward, Ken Dryden, Patrick Waugh, but non-goleys, I don't think so. I'm going to tell you, if I can have a long shot and I don't know if you have the odds ahead in front of you. The guy that I picked when we did our writers pick, Muriel Heiskenen, I feel like we're sleeping on that candidacy. You talk about a story, you talk about a signature moment, him coming in with the busted up face and playing 30 minutes and all that. I feel like on a team where, with apologies to hints, there hasn't been an obvious candidate, I could definitely see him.

We do love our defenseman, consmite winners. Yeah, he's, so he's currently, he has the 15th best odds at 25 to 1. So that is a great long shot to look at. I would jump in on that at 25 to 1 if I was so inclined. On the Eichol note that you mentioned about, like it's because it's such a unique situation, right? Like how many times has a player this good had to wait until like usually a player this good, they have their first playoff run when they're 21, when they're 22, whatever it is. To have the, to be this far into his career, this much of an established player while playing

his first playoffs is super rare. I can find a couple of guys who did it in second or third year, including Jonathan Taves, the year that the Blackhawks won the first cup, but they had been in the year before. I can't. maybe I'm missing someone, but I can't see anyone who's done it their first year. But you're right, certainly to have your first playoff appearance in your mid-20s is rare on its own. Yeah. Hey, listen, Jesse, we're looking forward to your coverage of the Golden Knights and the Stars in the conference finals.

This has been a tough stretch for you. You know, you had to go a whole year without covering a playoff team. So welcome back to the conference final. Long-suffering fans here in Vegas. Long-suffering writer. Yeah, all this attention to the Maple Leafs, but the, Congratulations with Golden Knights. The franchise record playoff drought has come to an end.

Good for you. Yeah. Nice to see. Four conference finals in six years for this team. I was looking at it the other day. The Golden Knights have more conference finals appearances than the Calgary Flames in franchise history. How is that even possibly a real staff? And here's my question.

Have they done any of those with the same coach and GM combo? I mean, they have gone through. I think it may be four different ones. It definitely, you know, at least three or four, yeah. Okay. Like, wow. Three different coaches. Yeah.

Cassidy, Gallant and DeBoer. Yeah, it's, that's remarkable. But there's only been one writer who's been the constant. That's you. Correct. Figure it up. Do the math, kids. There you go.

Do the math. All right. Hey, listen, like I said, looking forward to all your coverage here coming up in the week or so or 10 days ahead. And hopefully we'll be able to catch you again next Thursday. Awesome. Thanks for having me, guys. Thanks, Matt.

Always great to visit with Jesse. Actually, by the way, I guess we should point this out. I know that Mike Rousseau, they kind of plugged a chat with Jonathan Marcioso of the Vegas Golden Knights that was supposed to run on our pod today, Sean. But I guess Jonathan Marcioso had better things to do. Yeah, I guess he found out that you were back and he was like, no. No, not going to happen with that guy.

Anyway. I feel bad. I forgot to, with Jesse, I forgot to offer him after, seeing the stat that the Vegas Golden Knights are the northernmost team left in the Stanley Cup playoffs. I was going to offer him

some of our leftover We the North shirts from the Raptors 2019 see if they wanted us to ship some of those down. Can you imagine how crazy that would drive the traditionalist if Vegas took the mantle of the hockey as a northern game? We got to be here.

Between that and the Florida Panthers the oldest, most established market in the playoffs. It's Don Cherry somewhere is probably just punching holes in the wall. Wait, hold on though. Like, the Panthers came in in 93, 94. Did Dallas not go in the year before? Like, are the Dallas stars not older than the Panthers? Or am I messing with going on?

No, the Panthers came in 92, 93. No. And I feel like Dallas was... 93-94. You're right, yeah. They may have come in at the same time or when did Dallas come in. You know what? I think Dallas came in 92-93.

I think Dallas came in 93. I think Dallas came in 92-93. All right. Well, then there you go. There you go. Dallas, you know what you need to do. Can you imagine, though, going back 10 years ago, whatever, like, and just saying that there's going to be a final four in the NHL and the northernmost city is Vegas.

You'd be like, what are you talking about? That would not make sense to you on so many different levels. It would just be completely bizarre. Yeah, no, it's kind of wild. But before we open up the mailback, too, I want to just ask. about this because we got Carolina, Florida, an old Southeast division, right? Everyone loves the old Southeast, didn't we? Oh, the Southeast.

What a great division that was. Well, they get the last laugh. We get Carolina and Florida, the Panthers, the Hurricanes, the Final Four. Let's go back real quick to the trade deadline. And remember what it was like in the East when it felt like everybody was, every day you would, you know, wake up either check Twitter, whatever, and it'd be like, wow, the devil's got Timo Meyer. Holy smokes, the Rangers got cane.

They got Teresenko. Boston was loading up, Toronto, Tampa. Everybody loaded up. Remember, Islanders got Bull Horvatt. They kind of kicked it all off. The two teams that didn't do anything, really, Carolina Hurricanes and the Florida Panthers. Now, for different reasons.

Jesse Ployarvey is insulted right now. He would not count him as... He's not coming on this pod. No. Anytime. He's pulling a Marsha. He's not going to come on a pod. But like, what does this say anything like about loading up at the deadline, about the amount of attention we pay to the deadline?

But it's interesting, right? It's sure going to say something at next year's deadline when every GM who can't get off his butt and make a move is going to be pointing at this. I here's what I said. Yes, you're right. It might mean that, you know, maybe we put too much emphasis on it. it tells us something about hey, you know, when you bring guys in late, it's tough for them to necessarily

fit in or to, you know, although most of the guys that you mentioned played great. I mean, the Boston guys were Bertuzi and Orlov and that were some of their very best players in that loss. Boorovat, not so much. Ryan O'Reilly was good for the Leafs on down the list.

The one thing I would point out, Florida Panthers made the biggest blockbuster of the summer last year. Carolina Hurricane went out, they got Max Patcher Ready, they got Brett Burns. So I would just say next year when your GM is saying, oh, I can't, you know, I might not do anything because look at the Panthers and Hurricanes and how the deadline worked last year, let's not forget, okay, then the question is, what have you done leading up to that?

You know, because, and you look at Vegas, right? Vegas has been very aggressive, always going after trades, even Dallas to various extent. So you know what? Maybe the deadline isn't the time to do it. It's certainly not the only time to do it. But if you're going to point to these teams as evidence that, you know, hey, maybe trading isn't something that should be in my toolkit. No way.

These are teams that were largely built through trades. Oh, yeah. Yeah. No, it's interesting. And I'm happy for those two franchises, particularly Carolina. It's been an interesting four or five years for them, new ownership, but like they, they're so engaged. I'm happy to see them.

the Panthers obviously they've had their own attendance issues but to me this is how you grow the game like I know that for us in Canada it's frustrating to not see you know a Canadian team in the final four I know that you know sometimes we think like we would like the New Yorks or the whatever but there's something to be said for like we need to start embracing this stuff like yeah and and it's okay to point out the obvious and to live in the real world and say these matchups are not going to be great for ratings. Okay. And at the same time to say, luckily, I'm not a TV executive. So I can point to that. I can accept that reality and I can not really care. I can sit down and go, this series is going to be fun as hell, man, Carolina,

Florida. These are two fast teams that play, you know, to some extent, similar forecheck styles and all that. It's going to be great. It's going to be a lot of fun. And yeah, not a lot of people might watch it. It compared to, you know, if it was New York or Toronto or whoever else, Okay, that's And as you say, you want to grow the game? Now this is on the NHL to jump on this and to realize that, hey, maybe instead of promoting the same six teams over and over again, we spread it out a little bit more.

The comparison I always make is the NFL, right? You talk about small markets. Hey, Peyton Manning went to Indianapolis in the draft, first overall, very small market. So did he just vanish? Did he disappear? No, they turned Indianapolis into a big market team as far as how they were promoted.

I mean, look at Green Bay, the smallest market in all of pro sports, not just the NFL, anywhere. They had Brett Farrve, they were a marquee team. They had Aaron Rogers, they were a marquee team. That's how you should be promoting because you're promoting players and not just logos. The NHLs never learned that lesson.

Maybe this year shoves them in that direction. To the mailbag, we go. On a Thursday, we love to hear from you. You can leave us a voicemail at 845-4-45-8. 8459, but you can also send us an email to the athletic hockey show at gmail.com. Let's start off with, oh, I like Evan in Barcelona, Sean. Oh, boy. The Spanish, you fellow European world traveler here.

That's right. I was over there, and yeah, Evan in Barcelona writes in, in the era of parody, there are a lot of complaints that the regular season doesn't really matter. The playoffs are way too random. So, proposal for you guys. why not shorten the regular season to something in the ballpark at 60 games and extend the playoffs to a best of nine or best of 11? Would this make a meaningful difference in series outcomes?

What is the history of playoff series length? Why did they land? And on a best of seven, what's so special about that? Thanks and keep up the great work. Evan in Barcelona. Yeah. It's an interesting idea. And I like the concept just because I like any time somebody sends us

an idea that sort of breaks out of the box of what we just assume things have to be. You know, with this work, hey, it wouldn't work for the accountants. The NHL right away with the, the NHL is a league where they make their money in the regular season and that that's why we have the 82 games. I think almost everyone agrees that in terms of the quality, yeah, we'd probably be better off with the 70 game season, but then you lose those 12 home dates. And if you do it this way, yeah, the playoff does generate more revenue and what have you, but you've got half the teams.

It doesn't work from a financial point of view. But if you put that aside, it would give you truer results as far as the playoffs. You know, the bigger, the sample size, the more likely you are to get the quote-unquote right result. Now, a lot of fans would say we don't need the right result. We like upsets. We like it when, you know, the Panthers beat the Bruins. That's a great story. Don't make that less likely to happen.

And other fans would probably take the approach. that Evan's taking, which is, man, this regular season feels like it doesn't, it isn't worth anything at all. And the parody has tipped too far. It'd be interesting. I, you know, why a seven game series, that's what it's always been in, in all sports. I wonder what it'd be like watching an 11 game series. I mean, you know, obviously, one team's ahead, five nothing, man, that six game is going to feel like a grind. But I wonder, I wonder if you get sick of watching, would you get sick of a series if it was into week three and you're like, hey, tonight's, game 10 as they try to force a deciding game 11 or would you just be like, man, this is great.

I guess it would depend on the matchup and how the series was going. Yeah. At least it would give us some new cliches though, right? Like we get players say, hey, this is what you grow up dream. You dream about a game 11. Who would be the first Mr. Game 11? That would be. Mr. Game 11.

Yeah. Yeah. Imagine that. And by the way, the other thing I can say is if we ever did this, if we ever expanded the playoffs to nine games or 11 games, guarantee. the Toronto Maple Leafs would win four of the first seven games of every series. They would play for the rest of our lives. They would start off up four three in every series and then lose all of them.

Oh, man. And by the way, you know, I, you're saying that, you know, every sport has always done a best of seven. Just to take Evans' idea one step further, the very first world series that was played, and I think it was 1903, Sean, was Boston and Pitt. Pittsburgh. It was a best of nine. Okay, there you go. The very first World Series was a best of nine.

I think whoever won, they won in eight games. I think it was Boston won five games to three. But the very first, you know, World Series was the best of nine. So there is president. There we go. Got a little precedent. Yeah. Dan in Chicago writes in, as a longtime Chicago fan,

should I feel bad about my team winning the draft lottery? I understand why other teams are mad. I don't think the Blackhawks were probably punished enough for their recent scandal, and they're not too far removed from a dynasty. As a Chicago fan, I am extremely excited, however, to watch Connor Bedard grow as a player, hopefully take this team back into contention. My question for you guys is, how bad am I supposed to feel? Our other fans just mad at us because they lost the draft,

and they hate online in the podcast, to me, has been over the top. Sean, how would you feel? If the Toronto Maple Leafs turned around this summer, they traded Austin Matthews, all the core players, and then next year, they landed a generational player at the top of the draft. How am I supposed to feel? That's from Dan in Chicago.

I mean, to some extent, that's how the Leafs got Austin Matthews in the first place. Look, as far as how bad did you feel as a Chicago fan? I mean, the Kyle Beach situation, the draft lottery shouldn't change how you feel about that. I know Chicago fans, many of them, have had to work through some kind of complicated feelings about their loyalty to the team in the wake of finding out that, how do they feel about that mini dynasty era team legacies and all of that? Winning or losing the draft lottery doesn't change that.

And that's sort of up to each individual fan to figure out how they want to handle that and their own mind going forward. Beyond that, you don't know any apology to anybody. I mean, this is, the NHL has the rules that they have. They have the incentives that they have. We can talk about how we don't like tanking or we don't like this or that or how there's better systems in the lottery. But this is the system that is there. And your team tanked, you won the lottery. You got Connor Bedard.

And so, you know, everyone else is, of course everyone else is mad. I, you know, I get a secret for you. Everybody was going to be mad no matter who won. Everybody was going to find a reason. because it's not your team. We all want Connor Bedard on our team, and if he's not on our team, then we're going to grumble about it.

And same thing we did with Connor McDavid, and geez, we spent whatever it is, eight years since then, trying to come up with reasons for Connor McDavid, or Conor McDavid rather, to get traded to some other team. Yeah.

It's just, it's sour grapes, and no, you do not, based on just the results of how some ping pong balls bounced, you do not owe any apologies or bad feelings at all. Enjoy the Connor Bader.

there. Alex says, love the podcast. Guys, you were just talking about McDavid. Sean, Alex says, love the podcast. One thing I was curious about after Edmonton was knocked out, how many players like McDavid have won the scoring title but then got on to win the Stanley Cup that same year? I looked it up. It's only happened 11 times since expansion in 1967, only three times since 1990, and only once here in the salary cap era. Only Wayne Gretzky ever had more than a hundred 40 points in a season, by the way, in which he won the Art Ross and then won the stand the cup. Do you guys think we should say there is a curse on the Art Ross trophy?

Would love to get your thoughts on this. And Alex has even put out the list here of players to do it. So since expansion, it's been Orr Esposito Le Fleur, Gretzky three times, Lemieux once in 92, Marty, Saint-Louis in 2004, and then the only cap-era guy to do it. Evgeny Malkin, 2009. It's an interesting point and it certainly drives home the idea that hockey is not a sport where one superstar can win you a cup. That said, I point out that it has only happened three times since 1990.

Well, there's 32 teams in the league and there have been 32 Stanley Cup since 1990. So you would think in theory you got a 1 and 32 chance. It sounds to me like you're three times more likely to 1.5. win a Stanley Cup, putting aside the expansion and all that with the leading score than you would be otherwise. I mean, it's a 32 team league. You're not going to find any great patterns that fit that we can say, oh, the team that has this wins the Stanley Cup.

I mean, it's an interesting reminder that this stuff is, it's far from a one player league, but I don't know about you. I'd rather have Connor McDavid on my team and take my chances. Yeah. No, it's, but it is remarkable. Like even if you think of Lemieux's best season ever, which I mean, he almost had a 200-point season, but a lot of people would tell you that Mario's best season was the one in which he came back from the cancer in 1993, won the scoring title and they didn't win the cop, right?

Like it is wild that you look at some of these great seasons, McDavid this year, Lemieux in the 90s, some of the other ones, and they just couldn't quite put it over the finish line. Sure. In the Stanley Cup playoffs. All right. Let's wrap up with a little this week in hockey history, shall we? We're talking earlier with Jesse Granger about Kahn-Smith winners. This is an interesting one. We'll take our listeners back to the May of 19.

Actually, no, you know what? Before we do that, we're just talking about Mario Lemieux. Let me just do Lemieux here real quick. May 17, 1991. This week in 1991, Sean, Mario Lemieux set an NHL record by scoring in his seventh consecutive playoff game. He caps it off with a brilliant goal against John Casey, Minnesota North Stars. Fans will remember this one. He deeks out Sean Chambers, deeks out John Casey, Bob Cole with a great call.

My question to you is, is that goal from Mario Lemieux against John Casey in the Stars, the most beautiful, most whatever we want to call highlight real goal, I've scored by anybody in the Stanley Cup final. Yeah, you know what? That might be number one on my list. And you combine it all. You combine, you know, including that Bob Cole call, it might be. It is certainly, I would say this, and this might be controversial and people can argue with me if they want.

I think that is the single greatest play in the history of sports that ended with somebody kicking someone else in the crotch. That was a really nice, you know, the way that is even in the running. Well, I mean, I don't know. that's up to that's up to everyone else I guess but that's that's that's my pick right there that to finish it off with the you know the flying drop kick to John Casey. Man, there's a thing of beauty. It's it's impossible to explain to young fans like what it was like watching Mario Lemieux, especially in those days when there was so much hooking and holding and guys hanging off his back that if he ever did get the puck in open space,

you were like, uh oh look look out because here uh here we go and man that he he absolutely carved the North Stars up on that one. Would you agree with me on this then too? Like, because you and I are at the same age. Like, you know, we grew up watching hockey, loving hockey. But we're just that we're just a slightly bit. We were a little bit too young to really, I think, absorb Gretzky's greatness in Edmonton.

Like, like when Gretzky was scoring 92 goals, like we didn't know. We didn't like. You were just like, all right, this is, I guess this is what great players do in the NHL. Mario Lemieux, is the greatest player I ever saw in my life. Yeah.

And I'll say that even, you know, even even with Gretzky, Gretzky's numbers are phenomenal, but there has never been somebody, like a lot of what Gretzky did was just being in the right place, being in, you know, making the perfect decision every time. But as far as pure skill, pure talent, pure, like, bring you out of your seat, drop your job, pop your eyes, whatever you want to say, I've never seen anyone like Mario,

ever and I can't I can't even imagine seeing it again no exactly uh and then the other one I want to bring up for this week in hockey history take our listeners back to this week in 1976 May 16th 1776 the Montreal Canadians kickstart their dynasty they they win their first of four consecutive Stanley Cups 1976 they sweep the Philadelphia flyers four nothing boom you're out four four and done and yet when the series ends they hand out the playoff MVP, the Konsmite trophy to Reggie Leach of the Philadelphia Flyers, even though they got swept in the final. Now, you look back in hindsight, should a guy who got swept in the Stanley Cup final get the playoff MVP? I mean, you certainly wouldn't see it today, right? I mean,

this is, and it's famously, this is the only time that a non-goly has ever won the Kahn Smyth on a losing team. So, I mean, right there, it's hard to even imagine that happening. But if it's a seven-game series, like if the Oilers had moved on and Leander Seidel kept doing what he had been doing and they lose in a game seven, you know, could you imagine that, hey, maybe he gets the award? Maybe. I mean, 2006, there were a lot of people who said Chris Pronger should have won the consmite for dragging that Oilers team to within one game of a championship. To get some, to get some, swept in the final and win the consmite. I mean, that just seems completely bizarre.

Because the consmite is the award for the playoffs. It's not for the final, but it kind of is for the final. At least these days, that's how it tends to be voted on. And yeah, it just sounds completely bizarre to a modern ear to hear that. And Reggie Leach was great. 19 goals. Still a record in 16 games. Even for that era, that was absolutely phenomenal.

but I feel like it's pretty safe to say we will never see that again. No, and you know what's interesting? So I looked it up. So Reggie Leach had 19 goals, like you said. Reggie Leach had more goals than any player on Montreal even had points. Like Gilafleur led the Habs with 17 points. Reggie Leach had 19 goals. Okay.

So you know what? I could understand why the argument is there. That guy was the best player. But here's the thing. Ken Dryden, Sean, lost one game in the playoffs. They went 12 and 1. He had a 192 goals against average

and a 929 safe percentage. Okay? Like, if you're, like, those are good numbers today. Back in the mid-70s, those were phenomenal numbers. Okay. Leach in the cup final itself four games, four goals.

Like, it wasn't like he eight goals. Like, four games, four goals. Like four points in the final. That's it. He didn't have an assist. Yep. And I mean, Dryden's numbers in the final weren't great. Obviously, they were good enough to win four straight games.

But again, we're clearly not basing this just on what happened in the final because it's hard to imagine given the award to a team. Or maybe, you know what, maybe you flip it around. You say, this is how we should be voting on it. It shouldn't, you shouldn't have to be on the winning team to be the MVP. You should be able to, you know, pick guys for it. Maybe even you pick someone whose team went out in the conference finals. It's the most valuable.

But that's not the way that the award has evolved, certainly. It was still early-ish back then. We won't see it again, period. No. All right. Okay, we'll leave it there. Maybe next week when we connect on the Thursday edition of the podcast. Maybe there'll be an update on the senator's sale.

Maybe there'll be an update on the Leafs front office. We'll certainly have our hands full with the conference final too. So it should be a really fun week ahead in the National Hockey League. And for us, it's a long weekend in Canada, too, by the way. Yeah. And to that end, okay, to that end, Sean. The Tuesday boys, Sean Gentilea and Craig Custins have reluctantly agreed to do the Monday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show next week

so that Julian McKenzie and I can have Victoria Day off. Wow. That, you know. How noble of them. Yeah. Well done. Yeah, there you go. So that's a little update for you. On Monday, it'll be Gentilly and Custens,

I believe, doing the fun. But we'll be back on Tuesday. You and I'll be back on Thursday. I want to thank everybody for listening. Thursday edition of The Athletic Hockey Show. You can always email us any questions that you have. Like I said, the email address, it's simple. The Athletic Hockey Show at gmail.com.

a voicemail as well. 845, 445, 8459. And right now you can get a one-year subscription with us at The Athletic for $2 a month for 12 months when you visit athletic.com slash hockey chute.