The Athletic Hockey Show - Pierre LeBrun recaps a very active NHL trade deadline: did any teams get significantly better?

Episode Date: March 7, 2023

Craig and Sean welcome the Athletic and TSN Hockey Insider Pierre Lebrun for a post trade deadline discussion on the winners and losers of the deadline, the trades that almost went down and the seeds that have been planted by general managers for the next active time for the league at the NHL draft in Nashville.The guys talk about the NFL combine and how Anthony Richardson made a huge impact and leap forward during his time trials. Craig asks Sean, is there a system in place at the NHL combine which would enable an NHL prospect to leap forward in his draft ranking. Plus, Craig and Sean talk about that no matter how many trades a team makes, the ultimate team success relies heavily on the play of the goaltending and the guys ask, what team, if any, got significantly better at the deadline? The Tuesday boyzzz answer? One team.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/hockeyshowLinkedIn Jobs helps you find the qualified candidates you want to talk to, faster. Post your job for free at LinkedIn.com/NHLSHOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic hockey show. Hey, everybody. This is Craig Custins, your friend, friendly Tuesday. The Athletic Hockey Show co-host. Why are you shaking your head like that, Sean? I was approvingly. Okay, I'm saying everything the right way. The nod of approval versus the shake of dismissal, yes.

Here as always, with Sean Gentile. And boy, maybe the best show. Now, this show, I would say, is average. I was just, like, if we're going to just be average. It's a solid show today. No, it's great. Pierre LeBron joins us. Six percent chance to win the Stanley Cup, the show has.

This show had, this show is, like, would be the equivalent of, I don't know, the Dallas stars. We have a great show. Pierre LeBron joins us for my favorite conversation. It's my guilty pleasure to talk about the trades that didn't happen after the trade deadline. I love those conversations. I, you know, and I'm sure there's even more than we did. Like, time will tell what really we missed out on. Also, the return of Atlanta to the NHL, which is 100% happening, I think.

Out of nowhere. Beer wasn't ready for that question. Bougaraz from the top rope. Just unbelievable. And he's in like Alpharetta. As you might guess, I have some thoughts on that. So that's segment two. Segment one, Sean, and of course our usual shenanigans in the third segment.

But segment one, Sean, we're not going to, like, we've been talking about the trade deadline ad nauseum since Thanksgiving. I was going to say, is it November? Yeah, I would say, so we'll spare you the listener too much, except for one question, Sean. We are banking on you fine folks having like one more segment worth of trade deadline bullshit in your system. You can handle, you can handle a little bit more. Just a little bit, like just here's the vegetables.

Sean, a million trades, three, like a legit three weeks of action. Yeah. Did anybody get better? Like, is anybody significantly better? Bad news. Bad news, brother. It's the Bruins.

They got a lot better. One team. Oh, they were already pretty good, Sean. Yeah, they were fine. They were doing okay. And now they're doing, now they're doing it like dumb. posted his kind of heat check on where the league is overall after the deadline. And I truly do think this is the day, like Tuesday, Wednesday, coming out of the weekend, we're less than a week

out from the deadline. This is the last little bitter runway that we have to talk about this. And then after that, it does, we do need to reframe the discussion around actual hockey being played in what happens, you know, as far as that's concerned, over the next couple months. Like, there's a little bit more meat left on the bone deadline-wise, but after that, it's time to move on. And Dom, I think, framed the posts that went up on the site today on Tuesday in the right way, right?

Where you're taking the deadline additions and saying, like, what does this actually mean towards the greater goal, which is the cup? And the Bruins, it's top of the list, according to Don's model, have a 32% chance at winning the Stanley Cup winning I'm no mathematician Craig that is nearly nearly a

one in three chance is that what that works out to be believe so for those who don't crunch the numbers regularly I was having this conversation with the GM recently and he's you know he's just like generally you think maybe you have like a six to seven percent chance

if you're a good team you know you're somewhere in the mix it's six to whatever it is. It's like each, because everything's equal now, depending on goalie play, like each round is essentially a coin toss. So then you got to win four coin tosses. And that's hard to do. I've tried in Vegas.

I was going to say, maybe, maybe not coins. Well, it's like a roulette balls. Yeah. Like playing black and red. Uh, so like, so for 32%, is that what it was? 32%? Oh my gosh. That's a crazy number.

for the Bruins. And also, by the way, if you flip it, it's like, oh, but there's still most likely not going to do it. Not to. Yeah, I guess that is true. You can say, like, it's much less likely than so for the, for the Bruis to get it done. But that number is, uh, it's staggering. And I think all that just kind of speaks to, but you know what, though? Yeah.

If Linus homework goes in the tank. what happens to the chances? If he's great, you know, then the chances go up to 74. And if he stinks, they go down to two. That's the tough part about all this is like, and it's like kind of a weird existential question for GMs and team builders and data and data scientists or data analysts. Like, how do you proceed with your jobs when you know

that so much of it just hinges directly on goalie play, whether it's your own or the person or the person you're playing against. So to me, that's like, we're lucky. We're lucky that that's the case because otherwise, what's the point in paying attention to this, right? Where if you have a goalie that, you know, can get hot and stay healthy over the course of a few weeks, like, does it matter whether, you know, the rest of the math works out to give you a 6% chance? or an 11% chance? Like, no, it doesn't. Right.

Existential stuff. Why does this matter? Why does anything we're saying matter? When it all that all that comes down to is what Andre Vasilevsky does or Tristan Jarre does or Jake Ottinger does or whatever. So the trade deadline is so pointless, really. We can say that now that it's over. We can say that it was super important for three weeks.

This message is set to self-destruct by a Canadian thing. Thanksgiving, 2020, because... What is that, like, December? July. July.

Like, all these things happen, and if we're just talking probabilities, Dom is like, oh, Carolina still has probably, if you're picking another team in the East, all the, you know,

we talked about the East arms race and Toronto did this and whoever did that. It's still like Carolina who couldn't get, you know, really anything done of significance. And they,

you know, according to Dom, they're the team that's still probably has a second best shot. I think the funny thing about were out and got a Hall of Fame or Interested. Like, that didn't move the needle enough.

Like, what do you got to do? And then just, like, even on a larger kind of, like, conceptual level, we can talk about Carolina versus the Rangers because I think that is an interesting juxtaposition of those two teams where, yes, the Rangers got better. Did they move their chances? Maybe, maybe not. But the Rangers task in terms of improving at the trade deadline was almost, it was easier than Carolinas.

New York had glaring flaws in that roster, whether you say like, okay, if you look at them, you're like, they need a top six right winger, maybe two, and the bottom of their defense is brutal. And maybe if they had the two right wangers, you know, the rest of their forward lineup makes sense.

Like, you're like, it's cut and dry. It's easy enough to see that, you know, even a dumb, like me or a dumb, like you can see that that's what they do. Wow.

That that's what they need to do. So, so all that, so you're like, okay, here's a, here's a pretty obvious need. So they went out and got maybe the two best right winger's of their generation, let's say, like just for, for argument's sake. And whatever. And so they go from maybe a 1.5% to a 2% chance, like they have a 98% chance of not winning it. Okay, again, according to these probabilities, anything can happen, play the games, etc. but like what are we even doing here what else do you want christ jury to do besides go out and get

two hall of famers at the deadline to to improve an obvious weakness his hope that he Gusha Sturkin plays the way he played last season versus the then that's it all right okay people can't accept us I can't this this is pointless none of this matters it's all about goaltenders Imagine like you're trying to explain that to your owner who's like go do something and you're like my job would I do right now doesn't matter my job is You're the Carolina Hurricanes trying to trying to trying to you're trying to you're trying to like you've explained this to Dundon's in some capacity I feel like that might be the one you might get it yeah because it's like and if you're Carolina and you look at their roster and it's like it's strong from top to bottom there's no glaring you know weakness so they go out and get a better 12th defense man yes you pull a yard and they go out and get a better six or a better six defenseman in Shane Gosses bear because every because all

the other pieces the upgrades are marginal enough where it's not going to be worth the cost right so I don't know I don't know whose approach I like more like if you're Carolina and you're saying like it's just not worth it to try to improve in these spots like the the the the um opportunity cost is just not going to be there versus the Rangers who are just like, okay, fine, we can get Patrick Kane, we get Patrick Kane. I mean, at some point you're just like, hey, we're an entertainment business. That's what I would, that would be my pitch. Carolina.

Yeah, if you and I sat there and made pitches to front offices, we're like, do it, let's go. We just just do this for fun. Like, maybe that's the move. Wouldn't it, wouldn't it be fun if you guys went out and got Vladimir Tarasenko? So when is the, like, if you're a GM? when are you, like, what are you proving your value? Is it draft?

It's got like that, like, when are you making your biggest impact on making a substantial difference or is it just goalie situation? So the highest paid guy should be the goalie coach or the goalie of, I would have 10 goalie scouts. Isn't part of it just like harm reduction if you're the GM that, if you're the GM that makes the least glaring errors, whether it's at the deadline day or or in June or July? like that's how you prove your worth, right? Like I think, I think to me, the best GMs are the ones that make middle of the roster upgrades

for reasonable cost. I think a lot of guys, if they're empowered by their owner or however, however you want to look at it, if they have the Caps Bayes, can go out and get Patrick Cain. Like, good for Chris Jury, for realize it for, you know,

for landing the plane. But like, the Cain deal. it happened because of him. It happened because of circumstances that led to Patrick Kane being available. So he cleared the space and good for him and like awesome. That's not necessarily a bit of work that's done by Chris Jury. That's a, that's a benefit that comes from being the gym of the New York Rangers. I'm not saying that anybody can do that, but most NHL general managers given that set of directives can be like, okay, we've cleared enough cap space to bring in Patrick Kane. To me,

the best GMs are the ones that figure out a way to build that supporting cast in a cost effective asset effective way. And then Don Swaney, who apparently has managed to do all of that over the last couple months.

Yeah. 32%. So, Sean, you'll be at the GM meetings next week. Yes, as well, you, by the way. Well, I may or may not be. we don't know for sure I think I know for sure

yeah we're gonna have this planning meeting coming up is gonna be weird if it turns out you can't actually go so so I can't wait for you

to tell the GMs hey fellas there's nothing you can do none of this matters none of this matters how good is your gold tender do you think do you think you have a top 10

capable goalie no pack it up it's over So we know, like the teams that are that have positioned themselves generally are the teams that have drafted well or gotten lucky in the draft, right? So Corey Praman has, we just keep on moving at the athletic. Corey Praman has his 2023 NHL draft prospects ranking. Of course, Connor Bedard is number one.

No surprise there. The question I wanted to ask you, Sean, and check out Corey's work, et cetera, all the usual things I would tell listeners. The question I have for you... Adam Vantilly number one. Oh, my God. So I was at Indianapolis for the NFL draft combine. If you're not an NFL fan or you don't follow closely, Anthony Richardson blew the doors off all of his measurables.

This is a quarterback from Florida who is, I would say, generally, you know, in the 10 to 15 range. And all of a sudden, based on what happened last week, people are saying, this guy's the number one pick or at least the bearer should consider or someone should trade up in that spot. And I'm a bit of an outsider in that world. I'm a huge outsider in that world. I'm just a fan, essentially. But I'm like, that's pretty wild to me that you can do whatever you're doing your whole life. Then go to Indianapolis, run whatever you run, and all of a sudden you're a topic.

So what would an NHL prospect have to do in Buffalo? Because we'll probably all be there again in a few, June at the NHL Combine. Is there any scenario where somebody does anything there to jump 10 spots into the top? What would the hockey equivalent have to be for somebody to move? I'm not even saying this to be a smart ass. I know. I don't think it exists. Because so if you look at Anthony Richardson, why is this happening?

It's because A of the player he was at Florida, which is this physically gifted, you know, pretty productive quarterback on an SEA. DC team. He was a big time recruit. They got, you know, maybe not the most mature guy, but also got screwed with coaching changes. Like Florida is just a mess, right? So there were extenuating circumstances for him not putting the skill that we saw on tape for the last couple years. That's, that's one. But to me, the biggest thing, the biggest variable, and there's no hockey equivalent there, is that he's a quarterback. It speaks to the importance of the quarterback position in the NFL where every, where everybody is looking,

where everybody is looking for an excuse to reel in the number one five tool, beast mode quarterback at the top of the draft. That's always where every team will look because we know now even more so than in the past that having a young quarterback on a rookie deal, on an entry level of deal is like, that gives you a leg up on everything. That's how the chiefs did it. That's how teams, The Eagles have done it.

That's how teams are finding success where they have these guys who are capable of winning Super Bowls in their first five years in the league. So everybody, everybody, everybody is looking for that in a way that they weren't before. And there's no positional. There's no positional because they're all centers. Like all the top, the top three or five, nine times out of ten, it centers in demon. There's no position that completely separates itself in terms of importance at the top of the draft. I don't know. You told me 15 minutes.

to go that everything hinges on the goalie. Maybe if teams were better at measuring and projecting goalies, that would be the one where, okay, A, there's two issues here. This is kind of a thought exercise that's probably, we're spending too much time on. This is something that me and you would talk about for an hour and a half on the phone. If we didn't have to do this for public consumption. A, if you're the NHL, do the, get guys on the ice and let's see how fast they go around, do a lap, like do the equivalent of the 40.

Do the equivalent. Like, nobody's going to go on the, the V-O-2 bike and go, oh, yeah, look at this guy, gutted it out, and then puked twice, I'm moving them up three spots on my draft board. But if you had whatever the equivalent of, like actual hockey skills sessions and you're sitting there watching, maybe somebody blows the doors off of how fat, like they're faster than Connor McDavid or whatever. And you're like, I didn't realize that.

That maybe would be the one scenario. And B, if you could measure goalies impact and project goalies in any way that doesn't seem possible right now because teams just won't use a first-arm pick because it just seems like it's a wide variable there, then that becomes the version of what you're saying. Because imagine having Andre Vazolevsky on an entry-level deal. It's the same thing, but nobody's confident enough. So to answer the question, I think if there was some way to measure goalies in a way that you could be confident, or at least they would give you a fighting chance that they could be that player, that might be the answer. I mean, think about how

unpredictable goalie performance is when they're established NHL players. Like guys have bad, guys have bad seasons. You're just like, oh, okay, like whatever. When they're 26 and have been good for the duration of their career, they're terrible. They're like, oh yeah. They're just bad. He had a bad year. Like, what are you going to do? Right. You take that and you drop it down when you're trying to evaluate teenagers, like at the start of their, of their, at the start of their developmental process, as far as NHL players are concerned.

I think it borders on impossible. And then you look at all the things that are measured at the combine, too. This is, I think this is a big part of it. There's a level, like, even if you're saying, let's get them out there and have them do a lap, let's have... Shoot the buck.

Yeah, sure. Do a skills competition bit. Matt Fiamishkov. Like, we'll say, get out there, have him do a lap. or something. Like, does anybody, like, how fast is Connor me? Like, you would have data if you did this every year. And if someone turned in the fastest lap of all time or whatever these guys are doing based

on their size, like that happens in the NFL, I think it would move the needle. Like, this is the, this guy's six, four, and he's skating. You know what you mean? Now, now of a sudden you have these data points that you don't have now. I feel like there should be. And then you have the pro day part of the NFL prospect evaluation. It just shows, like, how much. different. They'd be starting from zero. Like, you'd have to come up with a standardized set of

tests for hockey players, because everybody knows what the 40 means or the cone drone means or the shuttle or the shuttle drone means for football players. We have nothing like that. The only thing that we talk about when it comes to combine prospect evaluations for, at least in the public sphere, is the VO2 max drill in bench press or whatever. Guys can hurt themselves there. Your Sam Bennett. million years ago you go and you can't you you can't do reps with 225 or whatever like you get clown publicly and maybe drop maybe drop a pick or two but it seems like all that's all that can happen there there's no one like you and you said this already there's nobody's saying like

holy shit you see you see what the cussons kid from from michigan state did on the on the on the on the on the on the on the on the on the on the two bike like wow let's take him nobody's so yeah because you actually don't know how to ride a bike even if it's even if it's an exercise but you know how quickly I would quit that. The second it like increased a little bit, I'd be like, and I'm out. I'm out. I would sit on it and just be like, nah, this isn't going to work.

I don't know. That's it's tiring. So Dan Marr, because I know you're listening, let's revamp the combine, put me in charge of all the categories. It takes teams wanting to do it. That's the thing. And players, I guess, willing. Like, what's the hold up?

Like, why wouldn't teams want as much information on making the biggest decision? If we're saying GMs can't make an impact at the trade deadline, which I think we are, they can on the draft. That's how you're building your roster. We have trouble. This is a billion dollar industry. This is anything. Yeah, no shit. Wouldn't you want as much information as you possibly could get?

But like, but what is that, has that principle been applied to existing NHL players yet? You still have GMs that are pushing back against the concept of data mining and, you know, information gathering when it comes to players who are already in the, the league. It's a weird situation where still, even after all this, after the progress that's been made for the last 10 years or however long, there's still pushback on the base concept of making informed decisions. It's the NHLO. So it would take a degree of willingness from the GMs, because that's who would decide

this, that it just doesn't seem like it's there. Did we just decide on something to do, by the way? Yeah, this has to happen. At the draft combine? Yeah. At the GM meetings. Well, yeah, you need to ask everybody these questions. I don't, of course.

No. Like, here's an example. Here's the plus side. Besides making better informed decisions as teams in player evaluation, I met the combine where they're selling tickets and fans are into it. And my son's obsessed with 40 times. And both my kids are watching people run. laps or whatever players are doing.

Meanwhile, the NHL trade deadline, that's probably one of their biggest moments. It's being overshadowed. I know it's football and hockey. It's an unfair comparison, but it's become an event. Make another event. If you don't want to do it for the player evaluation reasons, do it because you can increase league revenues because we're going to turn Adam Fantilli into a star beforehand because he blows things up at the, you know what I mean?

Like, let's make these kids into it. the names so that these mock drafts mean something. And like, that's totally. They had a preexisting process and a preexisting set of data points 40, 40 times whatever. Yeah. That, the front offices and GMs cared about.

That, that, that was like check box one, right? And then the NFL media industrial complex over the last 15 years has turned, has found a way to turn it into an even, an even bigger. I'm not saying it's impossible. Like, I don't think it is.

You got to start somewhere. You got to start somewhere. And I think that it's going to take a level of pain and a level of foresight and a level of if your GM's like long view, good for the game type stuff that you have to, did you have to sell yourselves on? Yeah. And sell each other on because like, this isn't going to help anybody. It's easy.

It'll be easy for GMs to like, what the fuck? This isn't going to. it's not going to help you to know the measurables of a player that you're going to invest potentially millions of dollars in. I think there's weird like, because then you have, then you can't, you know,

make picks based on whatever, compete evaluations and stuff. Like, I, I think, I think part of it is that they like doing that sort of stuff. They don't want to know necessarily that,

you know, because that, how much is that, how much does that help you? I disagree. These teams now have, How much does that help you play hockey? That's a question.

If you come up with a cone drill or whatever. I think it helps Connor McDavid to play hockey to be really, really fast. I agree. I think it really helps Connor. To have like footspeed, basically. Just normal, normal and to be able to make decisions, like that, you'd have to come up with something. We spent wait too much. Listener, I'm sorry, this was not, this is, you're getting a glimpse into Sean and I's real life where we just argue over the dumb, dumbest stuff.

and this should not be I think we're arguing here. I think we agree. I think this should happen. So what Mike's Connor great is he's fast, faster than everybody, but also can make decisions and plays at that high speed. You have to find us something that measures that.

You want the NHL Wonderlich test, which there's certainly no problems with the NFL version of that. That's a mental thing. I want like sprint down the ice and then you've got to, you've got like something pops open and you got to hit that, make that pass. Like a light goes out and across the me. You were suggesting is an obstacle course for these.

Yeah, what an obstacle course. Then a cloud. You get to jump over the windmill. Rope swings for. All right. Well, I'm glad we solved that. Coming up next, Pierre LeBrun, the Athletic Zone, joins us to talk all things. Trade deadline, missed opportunities, the return of the thrashers 2.0.

Fun conversation here. Noted. left-handed bass is Pierre LeBron. Stay tuned. Welcome back and welcome to segment two where we are thrilled to be joined by Pierre Lebrun, who of course you all know him as the base, left-handed playing bass, guitar, superstar. I think it's a gold record now, Badford for Bedard.

It was on the top of my Spotify charts. I don't know about you, Sean. Just great work out of the TSN voice. James Duffy can sing. That's what's scary. Was that real? Like, he can't, what a tail of the dude. The rest of us were not actually playing instruments.

I hope everyone's caught on. Oh, I couldn't. Wait, what? I knew that. I didn't think that Chris Johnson was playing the electric ukulele or whatever he was holding. But that was actually Duthy singing? I think so. Oh, man.

That did not occur to me. That was actually him. Wow. He truly is a Renaissance, man. How about that? Yeah. So how long you've been playing the bass guitar up here? Since last Friday, when we take a Friday before?

No, yeah. Yeah, a natural. I said yes to that. I can't say no James Dutley. So James literally organizes these skits. Like, he's in charge of them and it puts a lot of time and effort into them. The email went out a couple weeks ago. Would you mind being part of this band?

And I'm like, you know, we're chasing trades and we're busy. But I said, I know that dude, man. He's too good. So we, you know, we take that within the. couple of ours. It was good. That was amazing. I mean, the hangover one is the all-timer with, I mean, that's the best one. It's part of that one. They went all the way to actually tape all that. Oh, my goodness. That was unbelievable. How you feel in Pierre? Just it, yeah, I know you wrote about it a little bit, but this, you know, the trade deadline's already

exhausting, but when it decides to span whatever this one did, three, four weeks of like action, not like speculation. This was a whole on action. It really was a different dynamic this year. It really, I mean, Horvatt was late January, but basically the second week of February on, it was on until three weeks of absolute action. And, you know, it's not that the names that were traded surprise me. It's that they got so spread out. And you were just so conditioned in the cat era that teams have to wait and count their pennies and wait for the last moment to make these moves. And I got into it in my piece today asking GM to why they felt it went this way and whether this is the new norm. and sort of got some counter opinions on that.

Some think yes, some think no, some say they don't know. Yeah. But I think my own opinion is that I think every deadline is its own organism that has all these underlying factors that are different every single year so that I don't know that this is a trend. But the one thing that could be a trend is that because it is complicated in some of these instances, I mean, the Tim O'Mire Blockbuster had a million pieces. and all these different things.

Actually, didn't have a third team, but it was complicated to the point where you don't want to wait until March 3rd to do that team on the irony because something could grow up. That's right. So I think that aspect might stick. But, you know, one of the things that one of the GM said to me is, you know, we had some longstanding winning programs that suddenly became sellers. Washington, it was a Nashville.

All they've been doing is winning for 15 years. and suddenly they were sellers. Nashville were late sellers. And that was a curveball because those teams were right on the line for the longest time this year, right? And especially Nashville and Washington. I mean, a month ago, Washington's thinking of adding, remember talking about the caps. Yeah. And so those teams getting in late had a dramatic impact.

St. Louis was in early, but Nashville and Washington getting in late had a real dramatic impact for me. Because I'll give you a specific example, as you guys know, Boston's died. I'll then on Gabriqa. Some people in Columbus might say all the way now then. But anyway, it depends on who you talk to. And suddenly Brian McLaughlin sends a note on Sunday February 19th through all the GMs. It says, I'm listening on Orlock. Game changer.

And so the Bruins pivot and get what they feel is a better fit for them. And so, you know, there's a lot of different things that happened that I don't know that we can look at this and say, all right, we're going to have a two-week crazy period. every year now. I don't know. I don't know if we can say that. Were those deals like the Orla one especially? Was that a function of the early start? Like, it seemed like it seemed like it was under under a normal in a normal year. That's a deal that certainly doesn't get done 10 days ahead of time or whatever.

Yeah. I know that Brian McClellan felt that he he felt a lot of urgency to get that deal done as early as possible because he was concerned that there weren't that many first round picks and did not want to wait. So that was all that he made. To me, that was the one where it's like, oh, whoa, what is what is going on here? That was like, that was the kind of seismic one where like the Bruins are loading up. They're loaded for bearer in a very, very real way. But also just the amount of pieces that were in play there. You have the cap selling.

That would, that to me, from, you know, much. further outside the new pier that that one felt like the signal flare that things are going to be different here in a way in a way that we haven't really seen big time and now and then sent yormo kegel in having to sort of scramble and he did a pretty good job with scrambling in the yeah packaging with la getting what looks like to be at first unless the you know the paying on the king's playoffs but but also realizing that attaching corpusallo to gabercoph would augment his return why not corpus shallow spending UFA. So he found a nice need and a niche there with L.A.

That L.A. needed both a Goli and a D. So he did well to scramble. But, you know, I wrote about this last week. I'm sure you guys have talked about it at length. What's fascinating about all of the D trades and how they're all interconnected. You know, Ken Holland was literally having parallel conversations with Arizona on Chickren and Nashville on Ekholm on the same days. Okay, let's do 20 minutes of Bill Armstrong.

on. And it really came down to the wire on both and almost had a trick and deal done and fell apart last Tuesday morning and then had the echo deal done by Tuesday afternoon. But, you know, completely going parallel tracks on that. And my point is that you could redo this whole deadline period and have a different outcome. You know, you have a cavern of Boston and Chickren and Edmonton and therefore what does Ottawa do? Like all these different things could have gone differently and who knows what that means. I thought it was interesting. Sometimes you see teams that make the tough call and say, okay, we're going to sell. And there's usually one team that does that. It seemed like there was teams that were really jumping. Maybe it was the early action. Maybe it was the prices being paid. But you saw Washington. You mentioned Nashville. Detroit. Like Steve Eisenman, I don't know if those losses to the senators was like, okay, I think we've seen enough here. Like I, you know, I'm obviously in Detroit and one week removed from everybody tweeting about how they're in a playoff spot. And then like the dust settles and Bertuzzi's gone. Herodic's gone. And like, I don't know, it seemed like teams were much more decisive this year or at least willing to take advantage of what seemed like a seller's market. Yeah, I love what a GM is really honest about us. Doug Armstrong's history of that was St. Louis. Always, yeah. Yeah, Army. I'm going to tell you how I feel about our chances, but what I'm about to do.

And Iseman and Armstrong are really close and make a lot of truth between each other and have the whole team kind of thing between them. And I think that's what Eisenman did for sure, Greg. I think he just looked, you know, the two Ottawa losses punctuated. I just think he looked at the top heavy east and said, really? Yeah, what are we doing here? Like, this is not the, you know, the year where he suddenly shocked the world. I mean, I love where Detroit's headed, but, so he made an honest call there. And, you know, sort of Washington, right?

I mean, Washington has had a litany of injuries and, you know, they're not allowed to go into rebuild because of the man who built the arena downtown for them. But certainly doing that. a little pivot here and I think they chose the right moment to do it because they're not meeting anyone in the first round if they end up making it, which I don't think they will. Was that always part of the plan for them to pivot quickly and add a guy like, and add a guy like C and Dean? Like when when McClellan did say like, all right, we're going to move on Orloff, we're going to move on Halfaway because the prices are just obviously, you know, too,

too fantastic to pass up. But was that trade made with an eye towards adding a player like C&D? big time and it may not have necessarily been before March 3rd it ended up being but they could have waited chan tell the draft as well but there'll be an ample opportunity to pivot which they still hoped to but they got in hard on tricker I was trying to set you up for that see that was a that was a lob within 24 hours of the or law they were uh Bill Armstrong and Brian Mckellum were having conversations about making tricker in it and at the end of the day I mean you know chatting with Bill Armstrong.

I mean, you know, he got piled on pretty good throughout what this ended up being given the price and he had asked for 18 months. But I think in his eyes, the Ottawa pick was a difference maker than all the other offers you have.

Like, I do think he actually had an offer potentially with two furors, but they were late first. And the Ottawa first, you know, we'll see. Let's see how the rest of the season goes here. But there's a certainly a different deal. degree of where that pick could be from the senators. And I think that was too hard to pass up.

Now, what the calories can't come out and say publicly, but we all know the three of us is that they couldn't take money back in this deal. A lot of financial pressure on the team playing in a 5,000 C rate the next few years. So the Edmondton deal fell apart because of that. The Oilers couldn't make a chicken deal without sending at least one contract back, even with setting fully aggregate in Carolina. They needed, they needed Arizona to take someone, as we saw what the deal they did with Nashville, right? And Arizona just couldn't do it. So, you know, Ottawa played this great because Ottawa announced themselves out of it the

week before because they didn't want to give up Ridley-Gieg and other top prospects. You know, completely softens and falls into Pierre-Darno's hand. So that was interesting. What's your sense of where the Kings stand and stood and all the check-in stuff? Because they're the team where it was easy to connect. It means so much sense, right? because not just because they needed a left of pension, but because we were there in the market for a goaltendery of Amalka in Arizona.

And that was that was one that obviously didn't pan out. So where do you think they stood in the landscape of the chicken stuff? Yeah. And listen, the speculation was absolutely legitimate. As far as I can tell, no team had actually had more conversations with Arizona over the past 12 months than LA on Jake. It's not just because it filled the perfect need for them. I think they really like Jacob Chicker.

And his age fits into what they're doing with their core or they're headed. And so they really wanted him. But I was also told by King's Source when this was all over that, yes, we had a number of conversations with him, but we never felt close. So it tells me that they had a bar that they had set to where they would go. And they just thought in playing the game of over Arizona that the deal would eventually fall back to them, which it did for Ottawa. So it wasn't a crazy thing to think, right? But, you know, L.A. fall in Arizona for one last time, I'm told on Tuesday and said, okay, this isn't going to work.

And that's, you know, before Ottawa got him. And then they later that night, they cemented the Gavikov and the Corpus Salo. I don't want to turn this into like a chicken discussion. But like that, that dynamic. But let me, but I got three more chipping questions. I mean, no, because the dynamic of that of that whole thing is, it's for, it's fascinating. We just watched it. It took 18 months for this to happen. Like, there's, there's a lot of, there's a lot of stuff to unpack on it. So the last one, but I promise, were there other teams

who were willing to not ask them to take any money back? Like, or was it, or was it just as simple as the, as the, as the, as the, as the, as the, as the, as the, as the, is meeting that particular ask. Yeah. I mean, obviously I'm not privy to every single trade conversation, but I will say, I thought you were. I would have a second. But from what I can gather, The answer is no. You're talking about a straight-up traditional deal. Certainly there were teams that I think were willing to try to get a three-team involved, or at least make a separate deal to get cap space ready.

I mean, Pittsburgh was in their heart. Pittsburgh talked Arizona multiple times about Chikrin. Columbus tried to get back in. The Buffalo Sabres very sneakily kept tabs on that more than I think a lot of people realize. Again, our Buffalo Sabres is. I mean, I don't have been in with Deline and power, perfect. I mean, honestly, right? Yeah.

So there are lots of teams in there, but I don't know that anyone could have had the cleanest financial transit. It turns out of Ottawa did because, you know, Ottawa didn't need to send a contract back. All right, Pierce. I know you touched on this on your pod with Ryan Rashog. And if you're not a listener to, got your back, anybody out there. It's a great podcast. But I know you guys got a little bit into the deals that didn't happen.

Any other, like, those are my favorite, you know, post-deadline conversations is give me your best one that nearly happened or didn't happen. Anything good on that front? You know, I used to have competing blogs on that at ESPN, Craig. I know. I like when they, at least, at least they didn't compete with each other with the information. You were like, okay. Direct cannibalism between you guys on that. You know, I often Craig and I would text and be like, oh, that's exactly what I was going to rank.

I know. That's great. Yeah, there were lots of interesting things. You know, let's start in Pittsburgh. I'm not sure. I don't want to talk about this. I've had enough. Enough to demonstrate.

There's no question that the Penguins and Canucks had some pretty meaningful J.T. Miller trade conversations. And to the point where I know of a couple of teams that were approached either late Thursday night or early Friday morning by the Canucks about taking player X that they were getting from Pittsburgh to make all the thing work in a three way. So, but it just ended up not working. And I get that Patrick Alweeney in his media availability that the Caducson obviously

want to put a lid on this storyline because they still have J.T. Miller. Yeah, they still have the player. And although we'll see what happens at the draft. Yeah. You know, there's no moot kicks in July 1st. But that was certainly a thing and legitimately a thing. And listen, there were lots of, I mean, you know, Montreal didn't end up moving Joel Edmondson. Teams are just so worried that he just came back the night before the deadline.

Not missing out six weeks with his back injury. But that'll be revisited at the draft, I think, with one year left on his deal. We'll see how he plays the rest of the year. The Eric Carlson one is a lot of people who are like, ah, come on. I'm telling you, the Oilers had more than a conversation with this. I was rooting for that. I got to say, I was rooting for that. They were really, and then was trying to see how they could make that work.

And it really just came down to, you know, the sharks just couldn't eat enough money for it to make sense for, for evidence. And I'm not 100% sure at Carlson would have waived either. We don't know that. But that's going to be revisited for sure the summer. It has to be the offseason where San Jose is able to move. them not just because they need to for where they're headed, but Eric Carlson wants to play in a winner.

Brian and I on our podcast this year, and it was the moment in that interview that really stuck with me is winning will trump all these other factors, because you know, life in San Jose amazing, his family's happy there, but well, winning will trump every other factor is what he said on our podcast

and stuck with me. So I think this summer, you know, Eric Carlson's agent is Craig Auster of Newport Sports who a master trademaker the last few years. He's not a guy that seeks to limelight, but he's the one that got Matthew Kachuk from Calgary to Florida and made that trade work,

and he's had a few other ones. So Craig Oster and Mike Greer will be working in conjunction this summer, for sure. The other one that didn't get done was JVR. I know Flyers fans were kind of upset of how this went down. I thought the Detroit stuff was interesting at the last second there. Yeah, that was well. I feel for JBR because obviously for him having the chance to be in the playoff team with enhances July 1st market case.

And, you know, the guy is a competitor. He wants to play the winning team. Listen, we can just go. I mean, I, you know, I traded messages with Chuck Fletcher right after the deadline to confirm that JVR had moved. And he said to me what he ended up telling the Philadelphia writers later that day. He did not get a firm offer for JVR. you know the Detroit thing even though Chuck didn't name Detroit he said there was a team where conceptually we could have got something done had that team been able to move some money before

the deadline and that didn't happen um so yeah I mean and I don't think he was being greedy he was asking for a second round pick in the lead up to the deadline and that dropped a third round pick on deadline date the guy's a 20 goal score I don't know um but do we have any idea what the thought process would have been there for for eisenman like is it just adding adding a guy just to just to you throw you throw your players you know a little bit of a lifeline and say like here congratulations here's you know your your veteran your veteran wing for this for the stretch yeah it's a good question Sean I think that the idea was that he probably would assign him and said this is almost like an off-season move a veteran guy and you know I you know as Craig knows Eisenman's been

it's been interesting his moves over the last year or two because in the middle of this young rebuild, he's added to David Brown and a Ben Chirot. And he's, I think Eisenman's clearly part of this group of GMs that doesn't believe that when you rebuild it, your entire team should be kids. That people in the dressing room

that are illegal drinking age and that, you know, that show the kids, you know, what it's like to be a pro. And so I feel like JBR would have fit that mold of a David Braun and Ben Chirot for Detroit. Yeah, I mean,

I think he's probably in that, And you've had these conversations here with GMs who believe that you almost need the three layers. You need the kids coming up on entry level, high-end skill. You need the like 26 to 29 range where peak theoretically. And then you need the veterans. And we've seen so many rebuilds just get sidelined because it's all kids and it's a disaster. You throw in like one random veteran to try to like, here, this is going to be the adult in the room. Yeah, here's the babysitter.

What do you mean? Five AirPods. What's wrong with the Well, the biggest news, obviously of the weekend. We were really bearing the lead here. Our old colleague at ESPN, John Bucci Gross, tweeted out something about Atlanta. I didn't know where you were going.

The return. No, I was, you and I exchanged text just for, you know, it's obviously I have an Atlanta connection. And Bucci, you know, riling things up with the return to Atlanta. And also, by the way, weeks added a lot to the fire. too. Did he see that? He did the eyeball emoji move.

So ESPN, man. They're driving the bus on this. It's a big market in the United States. There are times a charm, Pierre. So does make this happen. By the way, so is Phoenix. That's big. I'm just saying it hasn't worked yet, but they are a big market.

Yeah, I mean, I did send a text to a source, this auto curiosity. I totally missed it on the, which he tweeted that because I was, face down on my phone on your deadline day. But when I got back was that, yeah, it sounds like someone from Atlanta has reached out to the NHL to say hi, we're here. But that's also something that happens a lot, actually, for the NHL, right?

They'll get a message from Houston. They'll get a message from, you know, obviously, still they take on meetings of people from Quebec City once or twice a year. So these things happen. as far as we can tell, the league right now has no position on wanting to expand. That could change,

but right now we're not showing any into wanting to expand. And clearly, depending on the vote from Tempe, what is that in May, I think, on the arena plan. Yeah. You know, the league is totally behind that project. They want that to finally happen. But I guess what I would say, and this is me and not from the source that I spoke to,

but I guess if the Tempe thing went sideways, then all bets are off at that point. Well, the thing about Atlanta is, wasn't that the NHL didn't like the market or that there weren't fans. It was nobody wanted the team. And the mayor wasn't going to, like there was nobody there that wanted to.

Yeah. Yeah. Because what? The Atlanta spirit, Atlanta spirit or whatever was. The Atlanta spirit was tired of cutting checks. Yeah, they were like, they were like losing money

and they were just over that. And they were like, does anybody want to keep? And there was nobody with money. Now, if there's somebody with money now, if there's a legitimate group, then that, you know, that becomes, I don't know. If you're not expanding and everything works out in Arizona, I don't know what you do there. I also, if you're a Quebec city and it goes back to Atlanta for a third time, I, oh. I mean, emotionally, I miss the Nordiques, just like I miss the Hartford Wailers.

The Thrashers? Oh, I mean, the Whalers, yeah. I didn't say the Thrasers. I missed the Hartford Whalers and I missed the Quebec Nordiques. I mean, those are teams of my team. Their teams in the Adams Division. Look at, hey, Ray Ferraro, Bobblehead Ray's got issues with you,

not mentioning the thrashers. You know, emotionally, I mean, I've been to the rink in Quebec City. Oh, my goodness. What a rink. It's great. It's awesome. Yeah, I've been there.

You don't buy that in the ring. It's unbelievable. Enjoy your concerts. Quebec had their chance in an official expansion process with Vegas, and they didn't get it. Like, there's just not enough corporate money in Quebec. That's the bottom line. I saw someone frame it this way, too, from a population standpoint.

And since the thrashers have left, since the thrashers left in 2011 or whatever that happened, Atlanta, the Atlanta metro area has added more people than the overall size of the Quebec City metro area. Like the population, the population demographics there are just, it's overwhelming. It's been a smart ass when I said Phoenix is a great market. No, no. It is. It is. market. It's never figured out at Tocke team because of unstable ownership and building the

rink where no one lives. We can finally, it's finally going to be over. Like in May, in May, we're finally going to get the answer there with the Tempe Arena vote. I'm so, I'm, thank. Sure. Sure, Sean. This seems like it's, it has to be the end. The three of us have been saying this since 2004. The Jerry Moyes bankruptcy hearing that I watched on my desktop computer at sporting I wanted to work in Arizona. I mean, I was there when they were in the conference finals against Sallay

Kings in 2012, Mike Smith against Jonathan Quick, unbelievable golden. And the place was nuts. It's there. It's just that, you know, I love to use this example because obviously I live in Canada and Canadians are so tired of the Arizona thing. I think a lot of Americans are too. But what I try to say to people is, what makes San Jose sharks so different than Arizona's market. The difference is San Jose's had unbelievable top five ownership forever and they built

the ring downtown from the get-go. See you. That's it. It's not because for some reason there are more hockey fans to begin with in San Jose, California and there would be in Phoenix, Arizona. It's stability at the top and stability with the building. That's it. I think the building stuff is something that I came around to and even in the last few years. I think it's maybe something I don't know if people appreciated that enough during coyote's, you know, ownership catastrophes chapters 1 through 5. But the building thing is huge. And that's why, I mean, I'm saying this not even facetiously.

Like, we finally have our answer because we know where the rink needs to be. We know that there's some kind of, you know, that that will make an actual difference. And it's either going to happen or not. Yeah. And by the way, it's the same where you're. reason there was an instability in Ottawa for a long time because that break shouldn't be where it is either. Obviously there's a lot of occupants in Ottawa, but they really do part of this new ownership transition here. They really need to build a new rink at LeBretton Platt's downtown. That'll be huge

for the senators. So it really doesn't matter what market you're in. You got to get it right with your rank. No question. Yeah. Put it where the people are. Like it sounds, it sounds, you know, so basic and so simple, but sometimes that's all it needs to be. Well, Pierre, thanks for joining us. Appreciate. Great work, as always, at the trade deadline.

Yeah, you do. Shaw did. I didn't do it. I didn't lift a finger. Fingers are broken. You can read Pierre at the Athletic, of course. You can watch them on TSN. You can listen to them on the Got Your Back podcast with Ryan Ash.

We're a friend. We're not rival podcasts. for friends, all adjacent neighborhoods. Pierre, great work. Good to see you. Thanks for joining us. So I say, thanks for having me on. Next time I'm on, let's do a mock USA Canada,

best-on-best roster projection and debate there. Yes. Yeah, I saw some people do that on TV for about an hour during deadline day. I don't know if you're paying too much attention to the broadcast. I hear the background. I think Craig Button announced that he thought his own team Canada would lose to Team USA and people were threatening his passport.

But yeah. That's amazing. It's all bad for you guys. That one popped up at about 1046 Eastern. Like, let's go. It was, by the way, we mentioned Bruce Boudreau was outstanding. Bruce Bucero. MVP.

MVP. I just want to see like commercials. I went to that's all. I just want Bruce Bidro commercials from here on out. That's it. What was he? Thanks, Pierre. Sean, if you had to do like a TSN promo where you and me and Pierre

had to be like in a band what would it be I think we could do a really like I think the athletic we're missing opportunities here where you're like a lead singer of some sort of I could do it yeah you do it Russo Keyboard

Show Russo on keys keyboard bass for Russo on keys keyboard bass for Russo actually Pierre thanks for joining us good to catch up and coming up next

Sean, my favorite segment, as always, where we dive into the listeners' comments on our app. Maybe there's some. Maybe there's not, because as you know, we don't look until during this break. We'll be right back. This is the only good segment on the show. We must enlist you folks to return to the comments on this episode because Craig was out last week. A little bit of a deadline, you know, precursor. or what have you.

What? Huh? Hey, can I say something, Sean? Yeah. Hey, listener. Just because I'm out, just because I miss a week and we have Sheeon on. Doesn't mean you don't have to comment. I think that might have been me, honestly.

Did you not tell people that, like, I think I may have forgotten to tell people to go back to the comments. We are begging you. Do not make us do work for this last segment. Do not. Because here's what happens. Because occasionally I miss. occasionally, not often.

I'm out next week, by the way. I think both of us are. But that's just, look, beyond that, who knows what's going to happen. Then we have old references. We don't like old references. Like, there's lots of funny comments, but they're about Poonchki Day. Poonchki Day was months ago. That might as well have been six months ago.

But you do have some that you like here. Well, I like David O was correcting me on pasties. I said pasties. He was, he was, I think, something else. It's a, if you live in Michigan, the UP, if you get up there, there's some food that's unique to that. Is that a Polish thing too? Because I know that Poo, no? I don't know.

Don't care. Also, we might as well talk about Poonchki Day because here we are. But somebody accused you of making things up. Poochiki Day is huge. This is Justin S. Huge in Buffalo, but I've never seen them made with anything besides fruit filling. Sean, did you describe them as like full of, uh, I think I might have said you could have gotten them. gotten them done like with savory,

savory stuff. Am I wrong? I could be wrong about that. So as Justin S writes, I think Sean is making things up again. Next he's going to tell us about pierogi with smoked salmon filling or something. You can get that shit.

That's true. That is true. You can get that, there's all sorts of, you can get bougie pierogies around in the, in the Pittsburgh metropolitan area for sure. I don't know about smoked salmon,

but you can get other stuff. Also, Justin S wishes us a happy new year. Thank you. Happy, Justin, Happy New Year to you. Speaking of outdated, Robert S. writes, Hey, the Red Wings beat the Capitals.

This is before they change the after roster. Am I allowed to have false hope they'll get in a wildcard spot? I mean, you can, Robert. I don't know how long that moment of fun lasts a few. I will say Steve Isman, he did the right thing. I know. Yeah, what are you?

Okay, so as someone who's, you know, been around, Steve Eiserman in professional capacity for years and years and years. On a scale one to ten, how surprised were you by what he did at the deadline zero? Zero. Steve is Ruthless isn't the right word. It sounds negative. He's going to make the best decision. Like he's not going to false hope and all this stuff.

How about this? How about this? He's going to cut bait at the highest possible time for the largest possible impact long term. Do you think individually, not that he would ever. tell this to any to any living person. Do you think he was happy when they lost those two games to the senators right ahead of the trade? Yeah.

Because there was part of him that was like, okay, great. I don't have to, I don't have to. I can do what I want, which is, you know, make some more future focus moves. No, because I think you're assuming he cares like about any perception about a, I think he's just like, you know what I mean? Like, oh, now we lost. Now I can do this under the cover of losing to Ottawa. He was, he was making a call.

By the way. Look, if you would have said, was, was erotic and all that stuff. That was all happening regardless of, you know, I can't. The results in those games. I feel like he's sitting there going, he's running it and going, okay, I'm building something for the long term here in Detroit. We're not there yet. They're not there yet.

Like, look, they're not, they're not close, really. No. Like, of being, so you're going to sneak in and get, like, your clocks cleaned by Boston. Stunt by the Bruins. And then. And then, Tyler. Liberty Tusi leaves. And look, if they had traded like Dylan Larkin and said, hey, we couldn't sign them and we

have to do this and got a massive return, I'd be like, yeah, that's what you do if you're running a program. So I, like, I would have been, you know, more surprised. Like, the JVR stuff I was like puzzled by, to be honest, like that was like, I'm like, because that's almost like, oh, you're throwing the team of bone or whatever. That I was more confused by than the trades. So I saw a very interesting stat about the Red Wings a couple days ago. buddy Adam Gretz, who's

one of the best in the biz, did crunch a bunch of numbers, because the context for this was about the, was about the Penguins, but it applied to the Red Wings, too. No team has a bigger negative gap in point differential from starting goalie to backup goalies this season than the Penguins.

With Tristan Jari, Pittsburgh, gets 0.693% of points without a negative 0.45. So they're first. That's an almost a negative you know, point two four point differential. Number two is Detroit

which is fascinating for me. Like I like Coont and whatever there's other factors I suppose you know than just then just the goaltender but that made me think you know Red Wings maybe a little

closer than we thought you have someone who is more competent than Adelkevich or whoever but behind who so who knows who knows what they look like moving forward you know if they they can short shore that up a little bit more Jesse W.

I like this question too. This is a really, this, it fits the theme of our day a little bit, which is GMs and what really can they do? Why do fans yell at GMs when they don't understand a team's direction? Looking at you, Vancouver and Pittsburgh.

That's him saying that, not me. Those are his parenthetical comment. It seems to me the GMs are just following ownership's direction. So should fans not be mad at the owner rather than the GM? I would say almost 100% of the time fans should be mad at the owner. Yeah. Especially in Vancouver.

Like what's stayed the same and what's changed Vancouver? All the stuff you're a Vancouver fan, you were mad at Jim Benning for doing all these kind of moves. Now you want to Jim Benning. What is the control factor? What is the control factor in the Benning? Yep. I think with Pittsburgh, it's a little bit more of an interesting thing.

situation because it's obviously not an acquittany situation there. Well, we don't know the ownership there. That's what I'm saying. So they're not a known negative. Yeah. They might not, that doesn't mean that they're, it certainly doesn't mean that they're a positive,

but it's, the level of involvement is not on par with what we've seen in Vancouver. It just, it just isn't. I can, I can say that with a degree. degree of certitude. So, yeah, I mean, nine times out of ten, blame, blame the ownership. It's, it's tough. It's tough. It's tough for everybody. It's tough for media to drive narratives that way because I think if this does go back to like, what can GMs do? It absolutely does.

Because it's tough to say like, well, what do you want Patrick Olivine to do? His, his boss's boss is telling him to, you know. Yeah, we can't rebuild. We can't miss the playoffs again over the next, over the next two. seasons. So what does any of it matter? But we attach importance to it because if we don't, then we're admitting that there's no sense in analyzing this and there's no sense in trying to predict it. Because there isn't. Anyways, what was what was it? What was the question? We'll keep this thing going. Shana M. writes, there's a Pizza Hut in Lancaster that is a medical dispenser for marijuana. This is, so we're just, for those who don't know, we're compiling a

of former pizza huts and Taco Bells that are now different things because of course we are. Definitely a PA thing because Shauna's coming from Lancaster. Did I say it right? Is it, does I say Lancaster right? Does I do two? I think that's like a Midwestern A's. I think people there call it Lancaster and people who aren't from Lancaster call it Lancaster. But either way, I think that's true.

true. That's the greater point, which is like, it's true, it's even true in Pennsylvania than in a lot of other places is where, um, vape shops in, uh, medicinal weed dispensaries have popped up in the most random ass places. Like, you can guarantee that if there's, you know, some, uh, vacant building. It will be a vape shop. Yes. That's, momentarily. Oh, in the last 10 years, it will be a vape shop in anticipation. of Pennsylvania legalizing the sale of marijuana completely. That's what all these, all these, all those people thought they were pulling one over and be like, oh, just open up a vape shop for the next, how many years until it can just be like, you know, a walk in, walk out, non-medicinal dispensary and that hasn't happened yet.

So there's still a lot of vape shops around. Well, big waste of real estate because who gives it shit about vaping? Corey E. writes, Hi, gentlemen. Another great interview. I'm sure. I think he's referring to the one that I set out. Yeah, I think this is, well, either of them,

either of the backup goal interviews you said. You said out with Charlie Lindgren. I just want starting goalies. That's all. That's fine. Send me some starting goalies and I'll participate. But I, I'm just joking. I would, but I do got a request, I don't know why I feel like I have to say that.

But I do got a request as we head into fantasy hockey playoff season soon that you refrain from any interviews with Austin Matthews, Charlie McAvoy, Tage Thompson, Brady Kachuk, and the Dallas Top Line. and Jack Hughes until season is finished. I think we're being accused of injuring people. Yeah. Definitely jinx Phoenix Copley. He went out and maybe lost his job at the trade deadline because Eunice Corpusolo gets added.

He's played well. Hey, Corey, I have a question for you, buddy. Yeah. Is anybody else in your league? He just rattled off like 10 for 10 best players. Is this a 14 league? He's got the entire Dallas first line? What the heck?

The other dude has Connor McDavid. And that's it. He's the Oilers. Yeah, the other guy, the link is McDavid and Dry Settle. I mean, the goodness for Corey is that all those guys are still rolling, right? I tried to make mental notes of all the names you rattled off there. I don't recall hearing somebody who's either tanked or gotten injured in the last couple of weeks, so that's good. We'll see, though.

Producer Jeff, I hope write down those names and cross them off the list of people we can't have until fantasy season's over. fuse again so he can separate his shoulder within moments again. I'm not even sure the episode went. It was that night. Was it? I'm pretty sure we talked to him on a Tuesday and he went out and heard himself that night, if I remember right. Not our fault, though.

Let me, can I be clear on that? Not our fault. Who can say? Michael D. You want to take one? I feel like I'm like, I don't know which one you're reading these off of snow. You're fine. Okay.

Michael D writes, hey Tuesday, boys, with one Z. I mean, you can write it however you want. Incorrect. Just wondering if you think the devils are good enough to be considered contenders or if it's just not worth talking about because Boston is such a wagon. It's a good question. Again, going back to the start, Boston has a 70% chance of not winning the Stanley Cup. So that leaves a lot of room for other teams.

it's unbelievable that we're having this conversation about the fifth best team in the league based on the based on a lot of different factors fifth highest cup percentage we're just like that doesn't matter do they have a chance um dom says no dom flat out says um oh no wait that's actually incorrect i didn't read just i didn't read the second sentence um do you subscribe Does that work cut off before the description kicked in? This is right below the jump, so I wasn't, I can give me my password. He's got the devil, yeah, he's got the devil's at five according to himself and according to the odds makers. Okay.

And I agree with that. I think, I don't think what they've done is a fluke. I think they're awesome. I love them moving forward because of my ear and whatever else. but do you VEDEC V-DVanecheck am you sure? I'm sure about that.

Here's, this is where I'm going to introduce my like old school thought, you know, dinosaur brain that still exists. How about this? They need to lose. I believe they need to get some experience before I'm,

like, I'm sorry, I know it's not cool and hip or whatever. It doesn't happen. You got to go through. And I'm like, Well, the Blackhawks or what, yeah, fine. Okay.

There's always an exception to the rule, but you got to have those, you got to have like four years of pain and losing and losing in the second round and breaking through and figuring out how to win in the playoffs. Generally, I believe that in hockey. I know it's not. Backed up back. So that's where the devils are. Backed up by years, years of proof on that one, dude.

So Mike D, you need a first round exit. Then next year, missed the playoffs. I don't know. This is how it's going to go with the devils. What happened? Somebody got hurt, missed the playoffs. then a second round loss, then can they get past a second round, and then maybe a breakthrough in the year, I don't know, 27?

I think what we're, I think what we're not accounting for is the amount of bullshit that they've had to go through over the last couple years with high expectations and not meeting them and Jack Hughes getting hurt and whatever else. So that, that doesn't count. Okay, yeah, okay. That's regular season stuff. They have to go together as a group.

That's why I kind of like the Leafs. You know what I mean? No. This is... I don't. Boston knows how to win. The lightning knows know how to win. The Leafs are in that year where they just need that puck to bounce in off of somebody's rear end and then they're going to go on a run.

That's where they are in the development. That's, that's, this is where I'm going to attach my horses, not the devils. Not because I don't like them. And not the Rangers, not because I don't like them. It's just, that's not where they are. I'm with you. I think, um... Rangers are a year away.

I don't know. I like the devil as it went around. How about Vegas being the team that just pulls it together? I can see them in the West. Yeah. Logan Thompson's good. They'll be good. I know. So let's just say that every episode.

Let's say podcasts that says if this boy's good, they're good. If he's not, they're not. Okay. Okay. David Poyle of the Nashville Predators and Jamie Hirsch. Wow, look at the wind. Wednesday show. Just loading up for bear.

Rob Pizzo, Mike Russo, and Jesse Granger on the Wednesday show. That's tomorrow. For those of you, keep the track. Yes, Craig. It is tomorrow. Sailboats have sales. Don't forget to subscribe to the athletic hockey show on the YouTube's. Go to www.

www. YouTube.com forward slash at sign the athletic hockey show. And you can see where they put all three of us on a screen and I move my head a bunch. I disappear like I tilt my head. It's so brutal. It's so brutal. I'm looking up to the sky. We're both bad at it.

I didn't know. Why do I have such a tiny sliver? So I got to be a statue when we're talking to people? Is that how it works? You just don't move. You should have seen me, dude. I don't know if you, I know you didn't see this in the moment. The deadline show on Friday, it was me and at one point it was me and Ian and Haley on

screen at the same time. And I was like, I was so focused on trying to stay still that I almost, that I almost did a bad job at talking. Like, it's like my brain, my brain couldn't handle doing both of the same time. Sean,

that's like a hostage situation. Yes. Good look. I do like what the stars did. Blinked twice, Sean. Yeah, it's weird. I've been captured by Ian Mendez. It's forcing me to talk about

what the what the what the what the islanders did so listen listener leave comments on this episode because we're off next week so that means two weeks from now we're off because we're at the gm we're working we're going to be the gm meetings like digging in hopefully squirling away some good interviews bringing some podcast equipment this is we're hitting the road this is the road show the athletic Tuesday boys road show so we'll come back with some good stuff and we'll just say hey gm what really can you do AGM Can I do that?

That's how we talk to people Just like walk right up to Walk right up to You know Julian Breezebaugh AGM AGM Is that fun they do

That's the plan That seems reasonable Also want to wish a happy new year To all our new listeners Yep And Happy New Year That's it

Hashtag et cetera Hashtag et cetera Et cetera Thank you.