The Athletic Hockey Show - Pierre Dorion fired as GM after Senators stripped of 1st round pick, Nicklas Backstrom takes step back from hockey and what we learned in October around the NHL

Episode Date: November 1, 2023

Ian and Julian discuss the Senators punishment and surrender of their first round pick for their role in the voided Evgenii Dadonov trade in 2022 and Pierre Dorion losing his job as General Manager with the Ottawa Senators. The guys comment on Nicklas Bäckström's injury issues in Washington which have led him to step away from hockey. Down Goes Brown joins Julian to discuss NHL players who have started the season slowly, including reigning Calder trophy winner Matty Beniers, Stuart Skinner, Matt Duchene, Erik Karlsson and Trevor Zegras.Shayna Goldman stops by to tell Julian what we learned in the month of October around the NHL, including Detroit's powerplay, Auston Matthews shot locations and Minnesota Wild and Edmonton Oilers back end concerns.Subscribe to The Athletic Hockey Show on YouTube: http://youtube.com/@theathletichockeyshowYou’ll be amazed at what you can do with Grammarly. Go to http://grammarly.com/podcast to download for FREE today. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Hockey Show. Welcome to your Wednesday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. It's Ian Menace Julian McKenzie with you. And if you're watching us live on YouTube, you might think, hey, where's Ian? That doesn't look like his little bookshelf that he has in his home office. Folks, I am coming at you live from the Canadian Tire Center, where the Ottawa Senators have a major news conference scheduled for about 45 minutes, from now. So we're going to have an in live in podcast trade happening here.

Mendez out. Well, McKenzie stay. Julian, you stay for the whole show. Mendez out. Down goes Brown in. And then I think Shanea Goldman's going to join you. Because I got to zip down the hallway here. Something. Who says Otto is a dull, boring town, Julian? That's our reputation. It's fun. It's exciting, isn't it? I just, all I just have to say is I was really looking for. forward to the Ottawa Senators era where they were just going to be this fun, exciting product on the ice. They'd make the playoffs and we'd have all these great stories about Thomas Shabbat doing well and Brady Kachuk playing well. And, you know, if everyone was getting mad about the Jake Sanderson

contracting the off season and he'd prove everyone wrong, all the haters at least. And now it's Wednesday, November 1st. And it just feels like what can go wrong will go wrong. Like the Shane Pinto stuff was bad enough. And now we see the news today of the Ottawa senators losing their first round pick over the next few years. Now this press conference is coming in the next little while. Like this last week to be an Ottawa senator's fan is exhausting. No, it's not exhausting. It's just we're in a time machine back to 2018 when it was nonstop weird stories.

Remember there was like Uber stories and Carlson and Alton and, you know, it was it was nonstop. But I'll say this. So as we're recording this, the people that end up listening to just the podcast version of this, we're about 40 minutes, whatever, out from a press conference in Ottawa. If you're asking me to guess here, hey, Ian, give us a best guess because it was a vague press release announcing a news conference,

basically a major news conference is coming in Ottawa. My guess on this is that Pierre Dorian is going to be out as general manager. And the reason why I say that is, I think, you know, you got a new ownership group in and Mike Ann Lowren and Steve Steyos. And when you come in, you know, I think they came in with, okay, we got a fresh set of eyes. Let's see how this plays out.

And I don't think they were overly enamored with the fact that they were capped out. Like take the Pinto gambling story out of the equation for a second. I don't think they were happy that they were at the salary cap ceiling and didn't have Pinto's sign. So you kind of felt like, oh, okay, that's one strike against you. Now, if you were the general manager and your team has been stripped of a first round pick directly due to your actions or inaction, or whatever happened, I think it's two strikes in you're out. That's my guess.

So I think at 315, they're going to announce that we've got a significant change in, in leadership that now, now the question becomes, and I'd have to get, and I've tried to reach out the lawyers on this to see, like, could you fire it?

Like, is this termination with cause? Like, meaning, wow, this guy actually, like, one lawyer explained it to me, Julian,

and said, like, I think you can make an argument. that he, that there's been material damage done to your franchise. And you lose a first round pick. Like that's worth two million, three million real dollars or whatever, whatever it is. The actions of the person in charge caused your team to lose that.

And if I'm Michael Anlow, I'm livid. I'm like, I rolled into town, Julian on September 22nd as the new owner. And I'm guessing, maybe we'll get the answer to this soon. I'm guessing he didn't know that he was part of this here. You know, I'm guessing he didn't know that this was like he's on the hook for this.

You know? So to me, like I said, I am fully expecting that he will be removed as the general manager. And actually, well, now, let's listen, let's go ahead and listen, I can go ahead and confirm these. Like Elliot Friedman, Frank Sarvelli, have this out there. I can tell you this with unequivocally, Pierre Dorian will be out as general manager. I was, I was kind of just trying to not play it down the middle here,

but I was, you know, those 99, anyway, that's going to happen here. So my afternoon is going to be quite full, uh, as, as, as, as,

as, as, as, is going to be out as general manager. And, you know, Elliot Friedman, Frank Saravelli,

the first to put that out in the, in the public realm. All I have to say is, first off, wow. Uh, yes, day is going to be packed. But just

the fact that the Ottawa senators start to this season has been as controversial as it has been. It's making my headspin and I have nothing to do with that market. But what I will say about Pierre Dorian is this. I'm not surprised it's come to this point. I think entering this season, his seat

was very hot to begin with. I think the Ottawa senators was important for them to get out to a great start and to put themselves in a position where they'd be in a playoff position. But the fact that this situation surfaced with the Fgeti Dada Gnottnardt, where for a refresher for those not in the know, and you could fill in blanks if you can here, but the senators get rid of Dadenov,

he goes to Vegas, Vegas tries to stop, float him to Anaheim, details of a no trade clause were not necessarily known to Vegas, and then eventually this between Dadenoff and the Anaheim Ducks is scrapped. And at that time, we thought Vegas was the team in the wrong here. They had already had this reputation of the way they had handled guys coming and going

from their organization. So they were drawing a lot of criticism. And then in recent days, we hear about new information that suggests that the Ottawa senators may have been withholding information that essentially made it so that it was their fault, that they didn't tell the Vegas Golden Knights about what was happening here.

That's negligence. And the fact that it's gone to this point, you're right to bring up the Michael N. Lauer perspective in all of this, because you're entering this organization. I'm not sure that N. Lauer knew that the senators were truly at fault at that. And then you have to deal with this.

Already you were looking at your story on the hot seat here. This gives you the right to relieve him of his duties as far as I'm concerned. Yeah. And again, we're going to get some answers on that shortly. Here's something I think is interesting too. Is New Jersey, remember the New Jersey Devils in 2010? signed a Lea Kovalchuk to a 17-year contract, 17 years, which was clearly caps our convention.

The league investigated and said, New Jersey, you're being fined a first-round pick, a third-round pick, and $3 million in cash. You have to give up a first-round pick at some point in the next four years. Well, what happened in that four-year window? They had new ownership. Josh Harris and Dave Blitzer came in, took over the devils. And in 2013, when they took over the devils,

they were like, hey, we inherited this mess. Like this isn't us. They were able to negotiate that down to, they didn't lose the first round pick. They had to move to the bottom of the queue. If you remember this, they had to pick 30th. They had the fine drop from $3 million to $1 million and a half. I'm only saying, it's unclear to me if Mike And Lauer has the ability to appeal here. But I'm going to say he's going to exhaust every avenue to say that this wasn't my fault.

I terminated the person responsible for it. and I think, you know, for me, that's what I'm interested in. Does the league follow through on this and take the first rounder away from Ottawa or is Ottawa able to negotiate this down? Well, that's a good, well, I think the fact that you bring up the New Jersey Devils and what they went through, that's something that the league's going to have to consider here. And that's something that works as precedent if you're Michael Ed Lauer and the Ottawa Senator's organization.

Yeah, that's how I would see because giving up a first round pick over the next three years. My understanding is that they essentially have to announce, I think, within 24 hours of the draft lottery that year, if they're going to keep their pick or if they're going to offload it. Yeah, I think if you're the Ottawa senators,

I can understand why off the president's, why you'd want to argue this down. At the same time, I think this punishment is fitting of this issue here in this particular situation. I'll also say that I'm sure there are a lot of people who are looking at this situation and wondering,

well, why is it that this situation is merited of a first round pick being gone, whereas Chicago Blackhawks and everything that they went through a Kyle Beach doesn't merit anything like that. I think the biggest thing with that people should know, it's that the sentence were in clear violation of league rules in this situation. But that's not going to stop people from kind of comparing those two situations. I think it's disingenuous to do that. I think it's not right to the Kyle Beach situation. And I agree with you.

It's, it's, mind you, I'm not saying that I want to compare it to that. I'm saying, no, no, no, no.

I know. And I already. And yeah, and I think what, what's, what's important, too, is if you look at everything

in the NHL through the lens of, well, they didn't suspend or fine or whatever, Chicago for Cal Beach, then you're going to just be disappointed in everything.

Like, like, we should absolutely hold them to a higher standard on the beach thing. But I don't, like, I think it's a better comparison to compare what Ottawa was going through now with Dorian

to what Arizona, what happened in Arizona and John Shaker and, you know, and the draft combine stuff to Kovilchuk and the circumvention. To me, I think that's a little bit more apples to apples. I understand the frustration. If I'm an Ottawa fan, I feel like, are you kidding me? Like this deal that happened 18 months ago and you still like, let's be honest here. If you're Ottawa, you're an Ottawa fan, you're like, okay, so Vegas, you didn't get what you wanted.

Like you didn't get what you wanted in 2020. It blew up in your face. Okay, we get that. But you got a Stanley Cup since. And you got Mark Stone from us at some point, too. Like, what else do you want from us? Right. Okay, wait a minute.

Hold on. Hold on. My, my counterpoint to that is going back to what I brought up earlier, when that whole thing happened, that was in the middle of when we were looking at Vegas and the way that they were handling players like Mark Andre Fleury and remember the Allen Walsh photo. There was, there was a, I'm not going to say to use the word slander,

but the reputation was taking it at that point. That was like the latest in a string of things that happened with that organization, right? Like I, I think if you're the Vegas Golden Knights, you have every right to be angry about how you were perceived in that moment. And yeah, you ended up getting a Stanley Cup at the end of it. And funny enough, I've got any Dadnaw is in Dallas now. He has nothing to do with the Ottawa Senators or the Vegas Golden Knights or even the Anaheim Ducks in this situation.

But I also think, while fine, Ottawa Sanders fans could be upset about this, I think if you're a Vegas, if you're a member of the Vegas Golden Knights Organization, you have every right to complain about this, considering what reputation, the way it's been affected over these last few years. Absolutely. Oh, boy. Like, what's the one that came out? I'm too close to this, Julian, because I cover Ottawa.

What's the one that came out of left field for you more? The Pinto thing last week or this whole Dadov thing resurfacing and then it leading to Doreon, which is the one you're like, whoa, I didn't see that coming? I mean both of them for me like yeah I kind of have them on an equal playing field because Pinto we're still trying we were still trying to figure out okay when is he going to sign when is he going to be available to play and then all of a sudden it's like wait a minute there's this news popping up and then it ends up being that and then there's an entire discussion to be had about gambling within the NHL this dad enough situation coming out of nowhere I first heard

about it like what over the weekend when I was busy doing heritage classic stuff and you're like wasn't this this like two years ago this was something like what that was completely out of sight and out of mind, and all of a sudden, it has led to, well, this, maybe this is the answer because, I mean, with Pinto, the suspension's doled out. He could come back and we'll figure out

what his contract thing is. This, a man is about to lose his job or has already lost his job, has already been relieved of his duties. And now the Ottawa senators, who again, this has been an exhausting week. Because the Pinto stuff was announced

like Thursday, right? Like, this has been such a while, but more than that, really, if you account for the injuries with Thomas Shabbat being out for a while too and the bad start. Like, this is a really wild time for the Ottawa senators and this start. This is crazy. Oh, boy.

Yeah. So anyway, I will have more on this. You know, I'll have more on this. Obviously, as the day unfolds, we get a little bit more information. It's timelines, it's things like that we want to get to. So I'm going to step aside from this podcast here in a second. Before I step aside, though. I did want to weigh in on a big piece of news today.

The Washington Capitol is announcing that Nick Baxter, who has been one of the great playmakers of the salary cap era, like I put him, I probably put Thornton as the number one guy, Julian, on playmaking in the cap era. But after that, like to me, it's a short list and Baxter's on it. Maybe Jason Spetzer is there.

Maybe Ryan Gatslough is there, but this guy's there. And he's stepping away because right now he's just not physically, and it sounds like maybe even mentally in the place where he can play eight games, one point for him so far this season. That's tough for him, man. You're absolutely right. One of the better starters we have seen over the last decade plus.

I think, I mean, I don't want to call it for this guy. I'd be surprised if he plays again, considering the injury issues he's had to deal with over the last little while. It would be a great shame for him to go out this way. Great career. To be able to spend it all with one franchise.

able to get a Stanley Cup as a result of it. And look, I get it, you know, a lot of that time being played with the greatest goal score of the current era, as far as I'm concerned. But in his own right, just as a number one center on this team, a fixture for the Washington Capitals. It sucks to see that he's not 100% healthy and he's not going to be able to contribute to this team going forward. And I'd be really surprised if he's in a situation where he's able to play again. Yeah, it's too bad. Like I said, I think I looked at up today, Julian. nine seasons in which he had 50 assists,

five zero. That's remarkable. Oh, yeah. You look at Washington and you look at that team and you think, hmm, they're a, I mean, they're an older group. And when Nick Baxter can't go, it's the end of an era there, one of the great, great playmaking centers of our time. So that's a huge piece of news.

We wanted to get to that. We don't want to make this just about Ottawa because there are other things happening in other nations capitals that are, it's nation capital day. We're just talking about that. That's it. That's it. You're not even the provincial capital there in Calgary. So we can't even.

No, not even. No. It's a three hours. Okay. So like I said, I got a nutty day ahead of me here with a press conference coming up shortly. So what we're going to do is Julian's going to stick handle the rest of his pod. I'm going to duck out. Sean McIndoo, Down Goes Brown is going to join you next.

Shane of Goldman a little later. So I'm going to step aside. We'll hear a word for me. our sponsors. We'll come back, Julian on the other side with that. All right. We are back at it here on the athletic hockey show. For those of you who are just tuning in and are weirded out about why it's just me and know Ian Mendez. Ian Mendez is at the Canadian Tire Center moments away from a press conference involved with the Ottawa Senators in which it should be announced that Pierre Dorian, the general manager, will be fired. This comes after the news today that the sends will have to forfeit a first round pick in either 20,

2024, 2025, or 2026 as a result of their role in the aborted Evgeny Dandenov trade that would have sent him from Vegas to Anaheim. Essentially, Vegas felt that they did not get all of the details of a no trade clause, a limited no trade clause when they acquired him from the Ottawa senators. And now we're in the present day where Pierre Dorian is about to lose his job. And we're already on the timeline. We are seeing people speculate about who could be Pierre Dorian's replacement. I'm sure we will get more details as they come. But we still have a show to do for the athletic hockey show. Down Goes Brown. Sean McIndoo,

should be joining us at any moment. We're going to get his thoughts on the Ottawa Senators and a few other things going on in the NHL. DGP, what a wild day in your neck of the woods when it comes to the Ottawa Senators. I would love to know your thoughts about how today and really the last week or so has unfolded. If you're a Senators fan, you must be exhausted. Yeah, you probably are exactly. that first of all i just want to say i love this thing where like ean leaves and then i immediately show up like we're given a real pokeroo energy right here so this is this is good you're two decades

too young to get that reference it's okay yeah i just laughed along because you know improv it's yes and say yes exactly it boy is this this is this has been a rough week for an ottawa fan base that thought they were done with this stuff Remember, for a few years now, the senators have been kind of a side show situation. A lot of it was Eugene Melnick. There was that awful summer a few years ago where there were just all sorts of controversies and there was the Uber and all this other stuff. And ownership changing really felt like, okay, we're going to settle down.

We're going to spend some money. We're going to hire people. We're going to be a professional organization. We've got all these young pieces in place, certainly a team on the rise. It's time to put that all behind us. And it seemed like they were. And now, wow. I mean, Shane Pinto, now this, losing the first round pick, before we even get to the GM change,

I guess the one thing I will say, if I was a Senators fan, clearly I'm not. But if I was a Senators fan, boy, I would be just so frustrated with the fact that I have seen twice now. In a week, I've seen my team hit with penalties that were close to unprecedented with no. No details. No details about who did what. What is the actual punishment happening here? It's just, I've got one guy getting suspended for half a year. And now I've got my team losing a first round pick, which we've seen, you know, a little bit in the past.

But this is something the NHL very rarely does. And in both cases, the message from the NHL is basically, you did something wrong. We're not going to tell you what. You're being punished. Shut up and don't ask any more questions because we have no further comment. And that's not good enough. for this fan base. I mean, I would hope that there's more information to come on on this, this draft pick situation. Maybe we get it at this press conference. But I think the fan base is

owed an explanation. What is going on here? And why are we being so harshly punished when we can all think of cases where other things have gone on that the punishment was not as harsh? It may be perfectly justified. It could be. But you've got to tell the fans, why you can't just say we're taking away your first round pick and we'll have no further comment not good enough they they're owed something more than that at the very least uh the opportunity for them to make some kind of explanation should be coming what in the next 20 minutes or so as the press conference you see it on the screen there if you're watching it live up here doryon uh being fired as the general manager of the ottawa senators in a press conference at 315 easter one other point

I'm thinking about as well that Ian brought up just before you got in here. The idea that maybe the senators could find a way to negotiate this punishment down just based off of precedent with a situation that involved Ilya Kovalchuk and the contract that he signed and the New Jersey Devils from a couple of years ago where they were able to turn away their punishment to something lesser. The fact that there is that precedent, what do you think of the idea that the senators could also do this? Because Michael Ann Lauer is inserting himself into a situation as the new owner. and he doesn't have anything to do with what happened with Pierre Dorian. And in fact, he did get rid of the dude who is responsible for this.

Any decently well-run league would never have that happen. They would never announce a punishment and then revoke it shortly after. Now, luckily for Ottawa Senators fans, this is the NHL we're talking about. So yeah, they've already done this once before. I'd absolutely be open to, you know, not necessarily saying that this should happen. But yeah, you can't rule it out. Absolutely. I mean, we all, we saw it with the devils. I think a lot of us felt like the fix was in on that one,

especially remember shortly after the devils were in a similar situation of having to decide when they were going to lose their first round pick. They made it to the final unexpectedly and did not offer up their pick, even though it was essentially as low as it could ever be. And at that point, I think a lot of people went, okay, we know where this is going to go. And sure enough, Lou Lamarillo got the punishment. lessened. Now, it didn't happen with the coyotes, which is the other team that you can point to as an example here where they got in trouble for things involving the draft combine.

Yeah, legal workouts. And, you know, we didn't see it there. So, you know, you'll see, again, if I'm a senator's fan and you're not going to give me any other information about what happened, I'm absolutely going to be screaming, you know, well, why are we getting punished like this? The devils were able to eventually, you know, have it overturned? Why can't we? You know, I know, I've seen people say that they're surprised at this level of punishment, given that it was new ownership. They thought maybe that would, you know, get you a bit of a clean slate. I don't know. Again, it shouldn't work that way, but absent other information, and again, you know, as early as 15 minutes from now, maybe this whole conversation feels obsolete because maybe the senators

sit down and say, look, here's exactly what happened. This is why we felt the need to make a change. this is the agreed upon set of facts. Okay. Then, you know, then people can make their minds up. Until then, yeah, guess what? If you're the NHO, you've got some furious fans, and rightly so. You brought this on yourself.

Absolutely. As this podcast goes on, we will continue to bring up the Ottawa senators. We'll have Shane a Goldman in the next hour, and we'll get our thoughts on that too. We're going to try to get to some other stuff with you, DGB, particularly with players off to rough, starts. We've talked about teams who have not been having a good time to start the year. We just spent the last few minutes talking about one that's going through a very terrible time right now.

What about individual players? Guys like Stuart Skinner not off to a great start right now. A safe percentage at 863 and a GAA of 351 as an example, or Devin Levi in Buffalo or Eric Carlson in Pittsburgh. We had Josh Yoie on earlier in the week and we were talking about how the Pittsburgh Penguins and a power play in particular has not been good. What are some players and some names that have stood out to you in terms of the fact that they've started off the season terrifyingly slump? Yeah, first of all, I've been saying scary.

And then I think it's the headline got, you know, they started talking terrifying. I know, maybe I'll pump the brakes a little bit on that. But this is like, you know, a call of my do every now and then this time of year, the scary starts, right? It's Halloween. We've all got to get our little topical hooks into that. You know, who's scaring you a little bit? And yeah, the names you mentioned, the one that was a little interesting was, was Eric Carlson. Because obviously he comes in with big expectations and a really big paycheck, too.

I think a lot of people forget he's still the number two highest paid defensemen in the league, even factoring in the retained salary with San Jose. He's still costing Pittsburgh more than any other defenseman in the league is costing anyone other than Drew Dowdy in L.A. And it's kind of funny because whenever I write this, I write the, I write the, column the day of Halloween, the day before, get it all again, get it all, you know, as is, as you know the whole drill, we get it into the, into the system and ready to go for the next day. And then because I've said these guys are off the bad starts, I sit back and watch hockey that night, knowing these guys are going to, you know, this guy's going to get a hat trick, this guy's going to get his first

goal and all of this stuff. And sure enough, you know, right away in that Pittsburgh game, uh, on, on Monday night, I, you know, I get a message from the editor say, well, Eric Carlson just scored. What do we do now? Do we have to take them out? I thought, well, let's wait and see. Maybe I'm not feeling so good about that pick. And then we get the giveaway at the end, the five on three, that absolute disaster. I mean, look, there are teams. I mention every team in the piece.

I do one guy per team because I want everyone to feel included. And I can tell you, some teams are tougher than others. And there are some teams where the challenge is, how do I narrow this down? And Pittsburgh would be one of them because they're off to a, you know, a terrible start. where you're just sitting there going, you know, what do I, what do I do here? You look at San Jose. I mean, there's not a player on San Jose having a decent start right now. So, you know, you go down that list and a few others, including to Calgary Flames.

There's another team where I heard from a lot of fans saying, it's not that I disagree with who you did pick, but what about this guy or this guy or this guy? Oh, yeah. It's, it, I've written about it too. A lot of fans in that market, very impatient, especially with the higher end, at least in terms of money, those type of players. One last one for you, DGP, before we let you go here. Really interesting moment that happened on Monday Night Football earlier this week. A non-call occurring in a game, I believe, involving Jared Dahlf, excuse me, and a play that should have been called for intentional grounding, but wasn't.

And then the league's vice president of officiating joins the broadcast to describe why the call was done, which has drawn a little bit of criticism. I would love to know your thoughts on that. And could you imagine the NHL doing something similar? Like we have the, the refs, the former refs on some of the broadcasts, but like what if it got to a point where you have the equivalent in the NHL on those broadcasts? Well, so here's the thing. Yeah, you're right. It was it was one of those it was a, you know, a controversial call or slash non call. It wasn't really obvious one way or another, but the NFL famously has these former officials that are ready to jump on the broadcast. And in this case, he said, you know, I think they, I think the refs got it wrong, which he does say sometimes,

which is why the segments have credibility. And a few minutes later, you had the VP of officiating from the NFL, joining the broadcast live and saying, okay, well, here's what we saw. And here's why we think it was the right call. Now, you know, to me as a viewer, that's helpful because I'm seeing both sides. I'm at least understanding the logic of it. And the joke is, could you ever imagine the NHL doing that? This is the NHL where constantly it's just we have the best officials in the world.

that nobody ever asks any questions or answers any questions. And we're just constantly told, no, we got it right. And there doesn't seem to ever be in any accountability. Now, here's where I'm going to blow your mind. The NHL has done this in the past. The NHL used to do this back in the 90s, which, you know, again, forever ago maybe, but Brian Lewis at the time was the, I want to say director of officiating was the title. And he would go on Hockey Night in Canada.

He would go on these broadcasts when there was a controversial call. and try to explain the league's side of things. He famously went on after the Kerry Fraser missed high stick on Doug Gilmore, which you may have heard of once or twice, if you ever talked to a leaf fan. He came on during the intermission on game seven, the next game, and said, here's, you know, and he actually even said, yeah, we got it wrong.

We missed it and we're sick about it, but here's how that happened. Really did kind of help you. And the same thing in the later in the 90s with the Brett Hull, skate in the crease. They had him there. He went on the broadcast and said, here is our side of things.

And do people buy it? Not necessarily, but it helps. It is a far better system than having the current one where we just, the only answer to the question is our officials are the best in the world. They never make any mistakes. And nobody buys it at all. Nobody believes it for a second. DGB, that's all the time we have with you, man.

Hey, man, can I just say real quick? Yeah, go ahead. Nice job on the wardrobe by us. Hey, like look at this. Yeah, I'm not to say. Yeah, come on. I didn't even send you the text this morning. Yeah.

Yeah. So, yeah, good job by us, man. We got an official uniform and let, let Mendez know whenever he gets back. Yeah, we need to find a way to ensure that the next time all three of us are on screen together, we will all wear the same corresponding athletic hoodie. DGB will be on the lookout for his weekend rankings as per usual. We'll have you on back next week to talk about more NHL nonsense, as I'm sure we are due for some. Thanks so much, dude. Thanks.

Sean McIndoo, there he goes. For those wondering again, those two and again, wondering why it's just me, Ian Mendez is at Canadian Tire Center in Ottawa moments away from a press conference where it should be formally announced that Ottawa Senators general manager, Pierre Dorion, will lose his job as GM in light of the Evgeny Dandenov debacle that has led to the Ottawa senators losing their first round pick. They will have to forfeit it in either 2025 or 2025 or 2020. I understand for people we're going to listen to this on the podcast after.

It's going to be very funny to hear this repeated over and over. But since we are live on YouTube, it's very important that we repeat this. And for the next few moments, we're going to be joined by Shana Goldman to talk about a variety of other NHL topics. But I need to get your opinion on what is going on with the Ottawa senators. You don't have to limit yourself with just the Dadov debacle. It has been quite a week for that franchise. I mean, it's really funny the things the NHL doesn't. doesn't remember, right? Like how often the NHL's like, let's hold on to this situation and actually

do something about it versus let's not and pretend it doesn't exist. So this was one of those things. And I almost wonder if ownership, like it felt like when they came in, they were going to change management anyway because that tends to happen. And I think with the senators, a year ago, it was, you know, hot Dory in summer and he was doing all of the work. And then now you look at it and you think there's a reason to make a change, right? The coaching could use the change as well. There could definitely be a refresh. So, is this an excuse to do it? I don't know, but when you completely screw up a situation like this, it does feel like it might be the right course of action. If you're Dorian had this perfect track record

to this point, it would be a different story. And there's definitely been some good. The Jake Sanderson contract, the Tim Stutzel contract, the Chickren trade, the Claudeau acquisition. Like, there's been some good, but there's also been some bed. Like the big bed on Corpusallo is, you know, up in the air. And, you know, there's definitely been some issues on the back end still that haven't been worked out. Yeah. You bring up a really good point with the fact that Pierre Dorian was on the hot seat to start this season. This is not a situation where the team has to move on from a general manager who had this

sterling track record, who was the best general manager this team has ever had. And it's this dilemma in the front office about who do you want to bring in as a replacement. If Pierre Dorian, the Ottawa senators were not off to a good start and maybe around like American Thanksgiving or January or I don't know, it'd be. it's easy for the Ottawa senators to say, you know what, we're getting him out of here, we're getting someone else to take over. In this case here, we're November 1st.

We're a month into the NHL season and we are already at this point. I'm really fascinated about who could replace him. I don't know if you've seen the timeline about people wondering about who could replace him as general manager. Remember Peter Shirelli? Remember him? Ever his time as GM? I've seen that name floated around.

It's amazing. It's amazing how much you can fall on your face in the NHL. and just be handed another opportunity. Yeah. I don't think that's going to happen here. I feel like we're going to get a fresh name. Like who is it? Like Staeos' name keeps like.

Steve Steyos's name is popped up on it. That one, it definitely makes sense, right? Like it definitely would be a fresh face to the NHL. So I would be, I would be okay with that. I think that he could bring, it seemed like in the,

where is he had a pretty innovative approach. So why not? Yeah. Yeah. And he has that history with the new ownership in Michael Landlauer as well. So I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up being that. But hey, we'll be on the lookout over the next few minutes

as we start to get some details from that press conference in Ottawa. But let's look at some other teams and their starts for the month of October. I would love to know what you've learned from just kind of perusing around the league and looking at teams who particularly have started off not so great and other things you might have learned through the first month of the season. I know. I think the entire vibe check was actually. accidentally negative. That was not the intention, but sometimes it's easier to talk about the bad

than the good, especially in the early going, because with everything, we're going, well, it's a small sample, but it's a small sample, but this could change. But I feel like the negative is a little bit easier to pinpoint because it's how can they improve from here, not Vegas Golden Knights are stomping all over everybody. What do we need to know? We know their championship caliber. So for this, you know, you look at a team like the Penguins, right? They're a very big topic of discussion right now because they had a big off season. It's the Kyle Dubus show. You have Eric Carlson coming into the fold. and they're falling flat on their face. They lost the ducks.

They really just haven't had a strong start, and they're towards the bottom of the Eastern Conference standings, which doesn't mean much right now. You can't lose a playoff spot right now. You can dig yourselves a hole, and it feels like that's what they're doing when this is the team that has a lot on these next couple of seasons. So the pressure is up there.

What's the answer? You know, that's going to be the big question. What is the answer? How do you get bottom six scoring? Your fourth line has zero goals for. You have four goals. combined at five on five between your bottom six. You don't want to break up your top six that's obviously clicking.

How do you make it work with Carlson? They haven't figured that out yet. How do you get the power play going when you have all this talents on it? There's a million questions to ask. And a lot of it falls on the players, especially those outside the top six who aren't making things work. And a lot of it falls on the coaches too, right? How do you adjust to what this team looks like now versus what this team look like at

his peak of the Mike Sullivan era or Todd Reardon coming in? What has he done to, you know, help this defense and help. this team move forward. I think that there's a lot of big questions in Pittsburgh and, you know, they should start scrambling to figure out answers because it's not the most encouraging start from them, you know, above or below the surface. Just stunned to see that Pittsburgh's power play, which we all hyped up in the off season is off to a really bad start. But I'd like to talk about another team that's actually, they were off to a really good start with their power play. And, and now we're at a point where they're cooling off a little bit, but they're still in the top five

of the Detroit Red Wigs and their start. What have you made of that team? Well, they're collapsed the last couple of games did stop me and Max from writing about them because we were questioning, you know, are the Red Wings for real? And the two of us were discussing it and going, well, there's a lot of reason why they're not for real. You look below the surface, you know, the top line is killing it. The switch to Luke Sermann on the top line has been perfect. Larkin and De Brinket are the perfect pairing together. We've seen Larkin pick up his playmaking in recent years, and that's perfect pair alongside of Sraingat.

But below that, you see the production from that second line. The numbers below the surface don't back it up at all. So you look at it and go, well, that's probably unsustainable. You know, they're running 11 forwards and seven defensemen, and it seems to be working for them based on the roster that they have right now with the Fabry injury. But, you know, pretty much every element of their game, except for goaltending, had sustainability concerns. The power play was creating a lot off the rush or off the draw.

But when they're really in formation and going against penalty kills information, they're struggling. You can see, you know, Larkin and to Brinket doing the most to make it work. But they're running with this five, three forward two defensemen unit, which generally we're seeing in recent years trend down, you know, in terms of expected and actual goals. And here's a team going in with it because of the roster they have. And having Shane got this beer on the power play makes all the sense in the world. But the fact that, you know, they're coming back down to Earth, which was going to happen when you shoot and score at, you know,

50 percent, it makes sense that it did. But the fact that it's crashed down the way it did the last couple games, you have to wonder maybe if they should move a defenseman off, maybe move someone like side or off, whose job is really just holding the blue line and putting. going to be there instead, and then you put Raymond up, so you have for forwards. Like, is that the approach that they need? So right now it's all going to be about adjustments because it feels like the momentum from the power play was such a game, a game changer for them. Alex DeBrickett, as of right now, leads the league in goals.

He's tied with one other player. Without looking, do you know who that player is? Frank Fratrono, nine goals. Oh, right. You got it. That was just no hesitation. I literally just wrote about Frank Petrono. I did someone like the top duos in the league.

like I stopped writing it to do this. So Retrano McTavish were up there and so we're to bring Cat and Larkin. Dang it. Okay. I was hoping for a fun guess of Gabe with that. What about some other players who were doing really well? Like Austin Matthews, seven goals to start off this year. What have you made of how he's been shooting the puck and where he's been shooting the puck this year?

Well, it's interesting because it comes into the league. It comes into the season with back-to-back hat tricks. So you're thinking he's back. That down year by his standards last year, which was not a down year at all, just by his super lofty standards. he didn't, he had one goal since then, you know, since the first two games. But it's not for a lack of trying. It's interesting to see that his average shot location,

his average shot distance is around 20 feet, which is closer than years past. It was 27 feet around, you know, the last two years. And right now it's the highest that it's ever been. But obviously it's only a couple games. So we could see that easily get weighted down as the season goes on. But it's going to be interesting to see, like, is it that he's shooting too close to the net?

Because right now, like, he's not actually converting, those attempts into shots on goal as much as he has before. It's super close. It's like 67% versus 70%. So it's really not that big of a deal. But sometimes when a player does make a change like this, you have to wonder, like, are you shooting too close? Maybe.

Like, are you getting in a little bit too tight for how his shot tends to be the most effective? That might not be the case. Are you gripping the stick too tight when, you know, you only have one goal since the first two games of the season? Like, there's definitely a lot of pressure in Toronto. So it's going to be interesting to see how it works out. Or if this is where we expect him to see, This is the adjustment he made to be better than last year.

But as it stands right now, you know, he has all the dangerous shots in the world. And we know he's one of the most versatile and effective goal scores. So we'll see how it works out. Yeah. Two more before we let you go here, Shana. What about Minnesota and Edmonton, some other teams who have been allowing a lot of goals? I know last week, Fluto Shenzawa and I, we did a piece on teams who have transitioned from man-to-man defense to zone. And Edmonton's at least one of those teams that have done that.

and it hasn't really worked out for them to start. I know their defense has always been in question with them, but they have allowed 32 goals to this point in the year. They're still in the top 10 of goals allowed. Calgary actually has allowed one more. They also transitioned to zone defense. Seattle, San Jose, Carolina, I'm stunned about this. Minnesota tied for the most amount of goals allowed with Carolina.

That's a team that we consider to be among the best defensive teams, at least we did last year. But now we're at this point where they're on the opposite end. What have you made of that? Well, Caroline, I think a lot of it is goaltending based with Frederick Anderson injury. I think that was the biggest problem and it was less the defensive efforts. They were going to be in the vibe check. And then Anderson came back and they seemed to have cleaned it up a little bit.

And also, like they're not going against the worst team. So it was a little tricky. But we're seeing with other teams like Minnesota, it's part of its defense, right? They're allowing more shots against, more quality chances against and they're allowing more goals against. And the loss of Jared's version is super clear at even strength and on the penalty kill. That's something I know Joe Smith and I are working on after this to kind of see what's breaking down on the penalty kill because it obviously is, you know, different than it was last year. And they're going a little aggressive right now and I think it's burning them. Some teams are built for that like the games.

Not all teams are. It depends on the personnel. And, you know, sometimes it takes time to wrinkle out any changes when you tweak your penalty kill. But a team like the Oilers changing their systems is really tricky because the roster didn't change that much from where they left off last season on the blue line. to change these, you know, because they got beat by Vegas, right? You know, we see it. It's a copycat league. And if you can't beat them, you want to join them.

And that's what it feels like the oilers are doing there with the Golden Knights, which makes sense because the Golden Knights were so successful, but the teams are so differently built. So it's kind of interesting that they're focusing more on protecting the middle instead of getting the puck out as quickly as possible and let the forwards work their magic that, you know, worked so well for them before. But because they kind of fell apart in the playoffs, it does make sense why, you know, they want to be a stronger team defensively to kind of stack up. It's always been a weakness. And the

challenge for them is that their goaltending isn't great. So that unreliable goaltending might have forced the conversation even more. What really hurts, though, is that their goaltending has absolutely fallen apart behind the defense. You know, no, they have no support, but you need it that they can respond a little better to their workload. And it feels like they've just been absolutely positively struggling to do that right now. You see, I think, as of Sunday night, as of Monday night, I'm sorry. They only had one quality start on the season, and that was a game against Nashville that Jack Campbell had. Otherwise, it's been a mess from everybody. Yeah, it's just not looking good in the Albertan provincial capital and also in the city to the south of them as well. And for other teams up on that list. One last one for you, Shana, the NHL putting out about an hour ago, the three stars for the month of October. Jack Hughes, Elias Patterson, David Pasternak for the way that they went about the first month of the NFL season. I love to know your thoughts on the Fiatjong got that right and who you feel should be in that conversation for often being on a great start. Your first three stars for the first month of the season.

So I did have David Pachanak in contention. He's been killing it in the fact that he's that last bit of star power up front. It feels like for Boston right now, considering some of the subtractions, it's all the more important. What underwhelmed me is that the Bruins have had the easiest schedule to date so far. So I kind of took off points for that. Pedersen definitely could have been up there. I thought about him and Quinn Hughes as well. But for me, I went with Leon Dreisidal, who has been scoring a ton, as we all know, he does.

But more importantly, his play below the surface has been a topic of conversation for years because defensively, he's not the best. And offensively, sometimes he doesn't drive his own line. And yes, he's been with McDavid. I think it's like 45% of his 5-on-5 minutes this year, which is, you know, a good amount. But it does seem like in his minutes, you see the Oilers' offenses as dangerous as ever. So I gave a lot of credit to that. Jack Hughes, obviously, star of the month, leader in points right now, absolutely killing it for the devils.

I didn't have him higher, though, because the five-on-five numbers have slipped a bit defensively. It's not just a matter of the team's on-eye shooting percentage being like five percent at five-on-five like it was. And it's a lot of power play influence, which is important for the devil's. It's been, you know, an area before where they've struggled. But it just feels like, you know, it's a little too much for me right now. but the second star was Alex of Brinket because he's just been fantastic. And, you know, for him, I think there was a lot of pressure on him to show that he could bounce back this year, that he could be that superstar and he has been exactly that.

Yes, a lot of it's the power play. But I like this five-on-five numbers below the surface as well. You really see, you know, the damage that him and Larkin are doing. And that put Larkin right in the conversation, too. You know, it's tough this month. You have guys like Quinn Hughes for making the case. At that point, he hadn't been on the ice for a five-on-five goal against with Philip Ronek. he had it until last night when two were scored against by the Predators.

So there were a lot of good contenders this month. But I like my picks or the NHLs just a little bit. I like the idea of us having Shana's three stars of the month and having the reasonings behind all of that. Always appreciate it whenever we're able to kick it, especially on these podcasts. You've got a lot of work to do, so we'll let you get back to with Shana Goldman from The Athletic. Thank you so much for hanging out.

Thank you. There she goes. Sheena Goldman from the Athletic. And with that, we are into the final stretch of the athletic hockey show for this Wednesday. The press conference with Pierre Dorian and the Ottawa senators should be underway any second now. And that is exactly where Ian Mendez is right now. Normally, whenever Ian can't make these shows, I try to do like a fun little joke about why he can't be here. Like, oh, you know, he's tapped out from watching too much hockey or he's stuck in an air balloon or anything like that.

But today there's a very legit reason. why Ian Mendez is not here and why I have to finish the show. And with that, let's get to these final topics here. Paul Statsney, normally what we do on the other show that at one of the other shows I do, the CJ show on Thursdays, we have a thing called stick taps where, you know, we just show some love to somebody who, you know, did their thing in the hockey world or they don't even have to be from the hockey world. And I guess one person deserving of a stick tap this week is Paul Statsney, who announces his

retirement after over a 11th. 1,100 career regular season games, 822 points, 17 NHL seasons for Paul Stasney, spent some time with some different teams across the league, Winnipeg, St. Louis, Colorado, Carolina. I don't have the fullest in front of me, but he's been around it. He's very much been a hockey lifer. Obviously, you go back to the history with his family as well, playing for the Nordiques, with all the brothers.

And now to this point with Paul not playing in the league anymore, It's a very, well, good career for Paul and all the best to him as he pursues other interests. And if you haven't done so already yesterday, Pierre LeBrun, caught up with Paul Stasney and wrote a really great article for the athletic there. So after 17 seasons of Paul Stasney retiring from the National Hockey League. One other story we'd like to get to of Calgary Flames. For those who don't know, I cover the team in that market for the athletic. it looked as if they were close to signing Noah Hannafin to a contract extension. Contracts, the discussions were progressing in a sense.

That was announced about a week or two. It felt like a world ago since that has been announced. And now we've reached a point according to reports where contract negotiations and extensions have been put on hold. Obviously, the Hannafin deal up in the air, Elis Lennholm also up in the air. This team's trying to figure itself out. are in the midst of a five-game losing streak. They have the Dallas Stars tonight, and they're looking to do everything they can to avoid it going to six.

But if they're at a point where this team continues to not play well, especially by American Thanksgiving or by Christmas or by the trade deadline, Craig Conner is going to have to put himself in a position where he's going to have to move on from those assets. And signing those guys before any of those pressure points I mentioned, that might not be the right decision to make. there's definitely an article to be written about what's next for this team and hopefully they'll be able to do that. But right now, if you're the Calgary Flames, if you're if you're, if you're, if you're correct Conroy, the general manager of the team, you're going to have to continue that wait and see approach that you've been doing since the summer with these players. It doesn't make sense to make any type of rash move now about their futures. And I also wonder for the players themselves if they feel compelled to do that. I mean, if you're off to the start that you're at, just looking at the standings right here, it should be near the bottom of the league in terms of, of points. right now. There they are. Only five points accumulated to this point.

The only other team with a worst record with fewer points, the San Jose Sharks, and that team has yet to win a game all season with an 08 and 1 record. That is, jeez, I wouldn't want to be the San Jose Sharks. One last one here. I'll just, you know, recap the big news of the day with the Ottawa senators here. Pierre Dorian gone as general manager. That press conference should have started at any point now. There seems to be some quotes that are surfacing online.

It looks as if Steve Steyos has been named interim general manager. That seems to be the big thing right now. Some quotes kind of floating around. Michael Landlauer, I always talk about accountability. I'm just reading this off of Chris Johnston's Twitter. He adds that losing a first round pick is a stiff penalty for the Sends, stemming from the Dadanoff issue, but acknowledges that the organization was at fault.

And another quote here, just again, just going through the timeline, trying to get as much as I can for everyone here. One quote going around, I am looking forward to less phone calls from the NHL. Some of the issues that we have could have been avoided. That's another quote that's going around. The big thing for people to know right now is that Steve Staeos is the interim general manager in place of Pierre Dorian, who has been relieved of his duties as of today in light of the interim general manager. of his duties as of today in light of the Evgeny Dattanoff debacle.

And again, I've said it a couple times on today's episode, very embarrassing for this team to handle. There will be more details that will come out. Ian Mendez, I'm sure we'll have a column to follow in light of today's news. But at this point, we're pretty much at the end of today's show. Thank you so much for tuning in and bear it with us as we've gone through the transition of having Ian Mendez start the show and then leave. part way through. Special thank you to

Down Goes Brown and Shana Goldman for tapping in as well. If you have any questions or any thoughts on the show, please shoot us an email at the athletic hockey show at gmail.com. You can also leave us voice messages. We have a phone number, 845-4-4-5-8-459,

and you can leave us a voice message. And hey, maybe we can get to it on a future episode of this show. If you have not done So already, follow us on YouTube, YouTube.com slash at the athletic hockey show. And no matter where you're listening to us, whether on

Spotify or Apple, please just leave us a five-star rating if you can. Just leave some kind of rating, some kind of review. We would really, really appreciate it. Tomorrow's show, hopefully less tumultuous than today's show. Haley Salvia, Max Boltman, and Sean Gentile

will take over for the Thursday edition of our show. In the meantime, time for us to get on out of here. We'll be back, Ian and myself, back on Monday, as we normally do here, back on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday for the athletic hockey show. Thank you so much for tuning in, and we'll talk to you all next week. Peace.