The Athletic Hockey Show - Positive thoughts for eliminated teams, locked in playoff matchups, ballots for NHL player awards

Episode Date: April 28, 2022

Ian Mendes and Sean McIndoe kick off this week discussing Sean's piece sharing positive thoughts for the teams eliminated from the postseason. Which teams were to hardest to come up with nice things to say? Also, the guys discuss a few playoff matchups that were already locked in, and the potential for a Penguins- Panthers contest in round one. As the season wraps up, so does voting for the major awards, and the guys discuss their perfect ballots for some of the categories. Then, a dip into the mailbag to answer listener questions, and "This Week in Hockey History" tries to motivate Sean to finish his piece for Friday.Have a question for Ian and Sean? Email [e-mail] or leave a VM: [phone]!Save on a subscription to The Athletic: theathletic.com/hockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back, everybody. It is your Thursday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. It's the M&M boys, as we like to call ourselves. And this is Macadu with you. With you for the next hour or so coming up. Sean had an interesting column this week for the non-playoff teams, the 16 teams that we think aren't headed to the Stanley Cup playoffs. Well, 15 are definitely not going,

and we're pretty sure as we're recording this, there's going to be a 16th. But we're going to talk about positive thoughts for those teams. I want to talk about, you know, relative to what we thought these teams would be at the start of the year. Like, who is the most disappointing team in the NHL? We've got some locked in playoff matches we can sink our teeth into. Minnie St. Louis, Edmonton, L.A. I want to ask Sean if he wants to see Pittsburgh, Florida in round one.

Voting for major awards is coming up. What would a perfect heart trophy ballot look like? Norris Trophy Calder. Some really fun mailbag questions, too. One with Yuri Herdina's name in it. which is, that's all the teaser that we need for that. This week in hockey history, too, we're going to tee up something Sean's going to have later this week in the athletic.

We've got to get to all of that coming up in, like I said, the next 60 minutes or so. But suspiciously, no Jesse Granger today, Sean. Because I think that guy has been the most busy media guy. We decided there's not much going on in Vegas. So there's really, we gave him the week off. There's not, the nights aren't making any headlines or anything. No.

Yeah, he's running around chasing down whatever twists and turns of drama this whole. And plus he also might be the backup goalie tonight. So yeah, busy, busy times for Jesse. Yeah. And again, just a little peek behind the curtains here. We're doing this late on a Wednesday night. So again, by the time this drops on Thursday, the Golden Knights could very well be eliminated from the playoffs. All it's going to take is one point from Dallas,

which could happen here by the time we're done recording. But it's a perfect leaping off point, though, Sean, to your column this week where you look at all, and you did lump Vegas into this saying, look, they're not going to. Yeah, I'm not as charitable as you are. Dallas is playing Arizona. They're going to win that game.

There are by multiple goals. They're gone. It's finished. And if for some reason that has all turned around tomorrow morning and people want to yell at me, I'm willing to accept that. I feel pretty good on this one. This is where we get our producer, Danielle.

We're going to have an alternate version of this. Daniel, make sure you write, you put in the proper version of us talking about how Vegas. We will cut it in Simpson style. Mr. Black. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. So, okay. Now, you did the column this week where, and look, I cover the Ottawa Senators.

So I was keen to see what you said about them, fans of the Red Wings and the Jackets. and Anaheim, these are non-playoff teams. Your premise is simple. You do this, I think, every year, right? Like, hey, here's three positive things for the non-playoff teams that you can hang your hat on. Now I need to ask you, though, what was the toughest team? What was the team that you're like, ah, boy, I'm going to have a hard time finding three things that this fan base can be excited about. I'll tell you right now, there were two.

There were two that are the toughest because whenever I sit down to do this, there are two types of teams that tend to be pretty easy. to come up with at least a couple, if not three. Number one are the teams that are in a pure rebuild, right? I mean, when you're in rebuild, optimism is not hard to find. That's what you're selling during a rebuild. I mean, yeah, your team missed the playoffs, but they were expected to. You're not too worried about that. There's prospects on the way.

There's probably some young guys in the lineup that are already showing signs of something. You don't know where it's going to go. You don't know who's going to top out where, what the ceiling is, but you know that it's going to get better. So it's never, I don't find it too difficult to sell a rebuild on optimism. So, you know, those teams you mentioned, the Ottawa, Buffalo, certainly Arizona. Detroit, right? Detroit, yeah. Not too tough.

The other ones that are, that tend to be a little on the easy side, and this is maybe a bit counterintuitive, but the teams that are, the good teams that miss the playoffs. And those are always the teams that are most disappointed, but a team like Vegas, look, I mean, you look at that lineup on paper, that's still a pretty good team. And as far as they're being hoped for next year, obviously the fact that they miss is a disaster and is a, you know, just a huge, a huge miss for this year and does make you cast some doubt going forward on what the upside of that roster is. But there's still a lot of talent there. and there's usually one or two teams a year that miss the playoffs. Winnipeg, to some extent, I would maybe put in that category as well.

Here are the two that are the toughest. It's the teams that miss the playoffs, not by all that much, but they're not in a rebuild. These are usually the teams that are older, locked into bad contracts, and the two that I had the toughest time with was the San Jose Sharks, and the other one was the Philadelphia Flyers. Slightly different situations. Now, you know, in the Sharks case, as I think I wrote in their piece, it's been a few years now, and each year I write the same thing. I say, this is an old team that's locked into some bad contracts.

And the only thing that seems to change every year is they get a little bit older. So there's really not a ton of optimism because you look at that team. And yeah, there's a new GM coming in and he's probably going to come in and say, we need to tear it all down. I don't even know how you do tear it down, though. Those contracts that you're locked into, there's really not a lot of room for a real. rebuild there. So that was tough. And then Philadelphia, you know, they've got some young pieces, including some that are that are on the roster right now and doing pretty well. There could be some reason for optimism. But the part that scares me there is was that press conference earlier

this year where Chuck Fletcher sat there next to ownership and they talked about an aggressive retool instead of a rebuild. Like they were going to be able to get this right back on track. That is always the scary thing when from the outside. And even I would argue an awful a lot of Flyers fans are saying this needs to be stripped down. We need to do the rebuild. But you've got an owner saying, no, no, no, we're going to be back in the playoffs next year. That really worries me. And the fact that they did move Claude Giroux and got a decent return for him, that, you know,

maybe that suggests that this could go the right way. But again, you look at Philadelphia, a lot of guys on big contracts, a lot of guys that are not old in the sense that of San Jose, but a lot of guys who seem to have hit their ceiling and maybe not quite where you were hoping they would get to. I don't see a ton of optimism for Philadelphia that I can sell those fans right now. And luckily, Flyers fan base is such a cheery and optimistic one by nature. I don't have to work too hard. So let me phrase it this way because look, Philadelphia, I think, what's weird,

Philly is going to end, this year, they end that pattern. Remember they were in the playoffs out of the playoffs for whatever, 11 years in a row. It was, it was crazy. It was like, good year, bad year, good year, bad year. Well, there's two straight bad years. and I'm with you, I tend to think that, you know, them making the playoffs next year might be a bit of a stretch, but you never know. They might completely alter the roster in the offseason.

But I think the easy answer to this question is Vegas, but I don't know if it's the right answer. And here's how I'm going to phrase the question. Kind of vis-a-vis or relative to your preseason expectations this year, who is the biggest disappointment in the NHL this year? I'm going to throw out a few teams here that I think fit the bill. And again, I think everyone's reflex answer would be, oh, it's Vegas, right? Like, they're in the new cycle. They've been a perpetual playoff team.

They're imploding. They're a soap opera. Okay. So Vegas is in that mix. I think the islanders are there. The HABs we've got to remember went all the way to the Stanley Cup final last year. There's Philly who we talked about. There's Winnipeg who's been pretty much a playoff team or close to it the last four or five years.

And then I'd like to throw Chicago in there only because I think there was some like a curiosity factor with them, with Flurry, with Seth Jones, with some things that they did. You're like, man, maybe Chicago, maybe they're going to be good again. Like, based on what you thought these teams would be at the start of the year, who do you think underperformed the most relative to preseason expectations? Yeah, I would put the Flyers and the Hawks in the same category of teams that underachieved the expectations of the front office. Those are two teams where I think thought they were going to be, certainly,

in the playoff mix. The Flyers feeling like they were going to bounce back. And people forget, the Flyers were a really good team in 2020. So it wasn't completely unreasonable to think that they could bounce back. And the Blackhawks, you know, with what they did going out, getting Mark Andre Fleury, getting Seth Jones, they were acting like a team that thought they were going to be back in the mix. I would argue both of those teams, I think there were an awful lot of people on the outside, saying, I don't know about that.

I don't know that they're going to be playoff teams. And so I don't know that they underachieved consensus expectations that much, although obviously they underachieve the expectations of the people in the room making the decisions. Montreal, you could put in that category too in the sense that a lot of us thought Montreal would have a tough time making the playoffs. I didn't see anybody predict what we saw. So as far as, you know, sheer drop at number of points, you know, place in the standings, nobody saw them winding up where they did. But I think a lot of us did say probably not making the playoffs. And we thought not making the playoffs based on having Kerry Price around and certainly not having the degree of injuries that they had.

Like I said in the piece today, I think there's sometimes it's just you just burn the tape. And you just say, you know what? Everything that went wrong did. And we just move on and hope that we can find our footing next year. So to me, it comes down to Vegas, the Islanders, and the Jets. And to me, Vegas is the right answer here. This was a team that was absolutely all in on not the playoffs, but on a Stanley Cup. I mean, this is a team that if they had gone out in the second round, it would have been viewed as a major disappointment.

The Pacific was their division to win. And so to not even make the playoffs is just catastrophic. It's almost beyond imagination, even given all the injuries, even given the drama and the fact that it went out and got Jack Eichael knowing he wasn't going to be able to play immediately. It's almost unfathomable to me how that is all played out. But I will give a special nod to the Winnipeg Jets because I had the Jets overachieving based on the expectations at the beginning of the season. I looked at the Jets and I said, this is a top five team in the NHL. I think I thought they had a top two or three goal tender. I thought they had one of the best forward groups.

And I thought the blue line was going to be good enough that they were going to be a really elite team. So I was ahead of the pack on that one. So just personally, as far as teams underachieving, they'd be up there for me. But no, I don't think anything can touch the Vegas Golden Knights. I can't even think of a recent example of a team. that was this much of a lot, this much of a sure thing to make the playoffs that ended up missing out. You know, it's funny, too. I had to chuckle at your comment about the Seattle Cracken.

And your first sentence was, hey, it's the best season in franchise history. Yeah, it's as good as it's ever been. Yeah. Now, I do want to ask about Seattle only because, remember before the season started, it was more around the expansion draft. We were like, oh, man, like the expectations around Seattle or high. look, Vegas set the bar really high. Well, at the end of the year now, Seattle's kind of where I think a lot of us thought they would be.

I think, is it fair to say that we've now, whenever the league does expand again, that maybe we've recalibrated expansion expectations back to what, like Seattle did what I think we thought an expansion team should do, which is finishing the bottom five of the standings. Yeah, and Seattle was a strange one because you're right. Vegas set the bar, unreasonably high. And I think even a lot of us understood that. I mean, nobody was looking at Seattle saying, I bet you this team goes to the stand like a final in year one.

I bet you this team has 110 points or whatever it was. But I think certainly we looked at in time, well, you know, playoffs at the very least. What was interesting to me of Seattle was when they came out of that expansion draft and you looked at not only who they wound up with, who they took, who they didn't take. Remember, they left a ton of big names on the board that they could have taken. No trades, virtually no assets picked up, no side deals. And I think a lot of us were looking at that going, this is not going to be a very good team. But we were hesitant to say it because a lot of us felt that way with Vegas.

Like that's the thing everyone forgets about Vegas. Nobody coming out of that expansion draft with the Golden Knights was like, this is a great team. We all looked at that team and went, they're not going to be very good. And then they surprised us when the season started. So I think a lot of us got burned on that. And we didn't want to go as far as maybe we should have in saying that that Seattle team wasn't going to be very good. And again, as you said, there's nothing wrong with not being good as an expansion team. You're trying to build a foundation.

You're not trying to win in year one. But they were not very good. That became clear very soon. I feel like we did recalibrate the one nice thing between. Seattle finishing where they did and maybe the fact that Vegas has finally missed the playoffs, please tell me that we never again have to hear about how the expansion draft was rigged or how Gary Bettman set it up. So this expansion team would, what Vegas pulled off in year one was a miracle.

We will never see it again, probably in any sport. And the fact that, you know, to have Seattle do what they did should just reinforce that. It was a once in a lifetime thing. I know there was a lot of bad feelings about a lot of jealousy. Let's just call it what it was. People were jealous at this new team, new fan base comes in and had success right away. But can we please put to rest the narrative that anything was handed to these guys? It wasn't.

And the fact that Seattle face planted as hard as they did just reinforces that. Yeah. And you know what? If we're going full circle here too, I think there's some level. of enjoyment from hockey fans who are watching Vegas implode this season and saying, you know what? Huge level of enjoyment. Yeah.

There you go. I've been taken off guard, caught off guard a little bit by how overjoyed so many other fan bases seem to be that's something bad. And I think it's part of, part of it is all the success that they've had, you know, this feeling that, you know, this team's never had true adversity, you know, in the hockey sense. And, you know, I remember I wrote, I think it was earlier the year or maybe it was last year's playoffs. I said, this is a fan base that's been sad for one five-minute power play in their entire existence. And then also the fact that, you know, the salary cap shenanigans and the fact that they were always the team going out and getting the big player.

I think there's just a lot of, you know, a lot of people that's when you see the guy at the poker table push all the chips in and he's real confident, it's really nice to see those cards flip down and watch them go bust. but I really didn't get a sense up until a couple of weeks ago how much bad feelings were out there about the Golden Knights because the the Shaddenfrewd here is I mean this is like Toronto Maple Leaf's first round exit levels of a plan the parade among other fan bases and you know whether you like that or not I I'm surprised at how how intense it's been So we've got a couple of playoff matchups already set. And a couple that look like they're going to happen. But the two that are set up in the West are intriguing to me.

And I saw this thrown out on Twitter and I thought this might, this was really, I didn't even think of this as a story angle. But Mike Smith against Jonathan Quick, Edmonton, L.A. Smith and Quick met each other in the Western Conference final 10 years ago. Oh, well. 2012. Arizona had that kind of weird run where they got to the conference final

lost to L.A. and L.A. ultimately won the Stanley Cup over New Jersey. Mike Smith and Jonathan Quick went head-to-head in the playoff series there. And I'm thinking, we got a job for the Down Goes Brown internship program here. You want to get in on that internship? You tell us if there's ever been

another 10-year gap between goalies facing each other in the playoffs. the one that came to mind immediately, but it's not 10 years, and you could maybe correct me if I'm wrong, Mike Vernon, Patrick Waugh. They meet in 89 with the habs and the flames. But now, now here's the thing. They technically met in 86 with the habs and the flames. And then later on, like, you know, 10 years later, but they had the one in between. I'm talking about a full out 10 year gap. We don't play each other in the playoffs. you know, has this ever happened before? It's a really, and I think it was like, what's his name on Twitter? Jayfresh. Okay. I think he was the one who put it out.

And I was like, man, I never even thought of that. What a great angle. And I'm telling you, maybe this is one of your quirky things you got to look up. Have we ever seen a goalie matchup that went a decade in between the two guys facing each other? That's a great call. And I mean, my guess is they're. there's got to be one out there. But I mean, back in the day,

in the original six, there were a lot of goalies that played, they came in early and played well into their 30s, if not their 40s. But when there's only six teams that playoff, there were so many playoff matchups over. Expansion era? Expansion area, yeah,

especially back then there would have been some goalies who, you know, you went to the wrong team and that was it. You weren't even in the playoffs for, for a while. Oh, wait, hold on, hold on. I think I just thought of one. I think I just thought of one. Hear me out on this.

No, I'm wrong. I'm wrong. I thought, I just thought for a second, I thought Mark Andre Fleury-Carrie Price, because I thought of last year, Vegas and Montreal in the, whatever that was, semi-final. And then I thought, well, remember when the Habs shocked the penguins in 2010, but that was a lack. Yes, that's right. That was a lack. And that was. There you go. Price may have got in a little bit on that. No, but we can't deem that as a head-to-head. No, no, I wouldn't. I would. I'd like. had clearly I thought I had it. I thought I had it. All right. I'm going to stay on this one and

and hopefully somebody will will maybe even get back to us. I'm just, you know what I'm looking at right now? If all the guys that I just started Googling with Sean Burke, Sean Burke played when Sean Burke's last career

playoff matchup was against the Ottawa senators and it was Dominic Hasick that year. Oh, man. So now I got to go back and see, but I don't think he ever played. No, no, no. No, that wouldn't have been. Hachick. That would have been Ray Emery.

Was Hachick not? Oh, not in the playoffs because he got hurt at the Olympics. You're right. But anyway, Burke never played, wouldn't have played Hachick because he was, oh, unless with Philadelphia, he might have. Man, I'm going to send you down a rabbit hole here. Like, they did. They played the Sabres in 98. So that could have been it. So that, but that would have been, even that would have only been eight years. Eight years. Yeah. No. We're going to, we're getting the intern on this. I feel like Dwayne Rollison is going to play a role in this somehow,

like some 40-year-old goaltender that they were not even thinking of is going to be. I mean, Marty Brouer. One of those 17 Tom Barrasso teams that he played for late in his career that nobody has any memory of. Carolina. Tom Barrasso, Carolina. There it is. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. So anyway, interns get on it. We'll, I'm sure we'll look around on it. Anyway, I just thought it was a cool angle. Smith and Quick. Smith and quick for that. So would you agree with me that like all of the pressures on the oilers here? Yes.

Like all of it? Yep. Yes. Absolutely. I think it's clearly, especially, I mean, there was always going to be, if you had said at the beginning of the year, hey, the oilers are making the playoffs and the kings are making the playoffs. Who's going to be under more pressure? We'd all have said the Oilers.

We know the Connor McDavid error, all the narratives around that, their lack of success. what happened last year versus the Kings who were a rebuilding team, I mean, you're never just happy to be there. But the fact that they are in the fact that they are in the playoffs at all is a victory. They have overachieved on what you were hoping for this year, let alone the fact that they're playing each other. Yes, absolutely, it's the Oilers. And I mean, how much, when you look at what the final standing is going to look like, it's still possible that Kings could be number 16 as far as the 16 playoff teams, just in terms of their regular season

standings. And I mean, if you're the Oilers, there are no easy matchups, but having this one fall into your lap, when the Oilers are only going to finish like 12th or 13 out of the playoff teams, and they're going to get potentially 14, 15, 16th, seated, if we did it that way, L.A. Kings, I'm not going to call it an easy matchup.

There aren't any easy matchups in today's NHL. But this is the one that you want. If we did that thing to people want where you could pick your playoff matchup, the Kings would be right up there. Nashville, if Saros is out probably, it might even be a better pick. But the Kings would be right up there. And the fact that we're going to get some of these other matchups in the East with teams with much better records playing each other, you've got to take that. If you're Evanton, you've got to look at that and say, this is an opportunity.

It's a lot like the Leafs last year getting to play Montreal. You got to say, look, this is the perfect matchup on paper for a team that needs to get. get over the hump. We saw what happened when the Leafs didn't do it. It's not the same with the Oilers because of the history. And I don't think the expectations are quite the same, but it's a similar sort of thing where you're going, hey, man, if we can't win this one that's dropped into our laps, we got to really wonder what's going on. You know, I had somebody yesterday tweet at, I think they tweeted at both of us. You mentioned, you know, Montreal ended up getting in the cup final.

And again, this is another one for the Down Goes Brown internship program. But the way it was phrased was basically, when you look at the lightning's path to the cup final last year, has there ever been a team where it almost looked like they did it in reverse, meaning their toughest series was round one, which was Florida. And then it progressively got easier. and ultimately ending with Montreal in the cup final. Like it's almost like if you found out, okay, Tampa won the cup and they beat these four teams,

you'd be like, okay, well, they beat the Habs first. And like, you know, but it almost went in reverse order. Like, have we ever seen that before? That's interesting. I didn't see that. So that's, yeah, no, you're, you're right. That was a very strange path. And I'm, you know, now I've, we've certainly seen some,

weird teams make the final. So it's not all that unusual to get to the final and have a team that maybe wasn't all that good waiting for you. But to do it the whole way like that, yeah, that's an interesting point. I never really thought of it that way. Okay. So we have one other locked in matchup in the West. And this might sound like a weird comment that I'm going to make.

But I just hear me out. Minnesota, St. Louis. I feel like this series is either going to go seven games or one of these teams is sweeping the other. it's I don't know how to explain it and I don't know who's going to win I just feel like it's either going to be four and out or it's going seven I don't know like I have no idea how to to judge this series that well I mean that yeah that feels about right and I think it's I think it's a lot more likely to go seven in fact this is that one and maybe this is the angle you're coming

from because it feels like every year there's one series that everyone just pencils in for seven and then that's usually the one that goes four or five and ends up being all day. So, you know, maybe that's the same thing that we see here. But yeah, no, it's, that's going to be a great series. I'm already looking for. I like that we got that one set early and, you know, we can see. And we watch the two teams bounce back and forth for whole mice, which feels like it's going to be important because these are two teams that both have significantly better whole mice

records and then on the road, still not settled. It's going to be a lot of fun. There's some bad blood. You know, it's going to get, you know, it's going to get nasty in seven games if it goes that far. That one should be a lot of fun and high expectations for both teams, obviously. Okay. One other one I'm going to throw at you, and this is, there still would need to be some things to transpire for this matchup to occur. And I know that one of your big series in playoff history that kind of ruined the course of the NHL was the 96 rat throwing panthers taken out Lemieux and Yager in their peak. Okay? So I'm going to present to you what I think is a delicious opportunity at redemption or revenge

for the penguins. And that is, how about this? Hey, Penguins fans, just sit on that. You know, we ask you to sit on that for 26 years. But then 26 years after you're the high-flying, high-octane, highest-scoring team in the league, you get to come back and do in the Panthers in round one. But I know the Panthers and the Penguins back in the day was a conference final. It's a little bit different.

But what do you think? You have a little karma going on here? If that happens. It could be karma. It could also be like I've decided sort of in my own mind because I've been pushing the Florida Panthers as the bandwagon team. Since week one, you can go back to my very first power ranking when the season was two days old. and I said, the Florida Panthers are now your second favorite team. There's whoever you like, and you've got to be rooting for the Panthers number two,

because this was, you know, they've just got all the pieces. They've got Joe Thornton. You know, now they've had a Clodgeroo, too. All these great stories, never won anything, always getting picked on by the other teams, by Tampa or whoever. This is your team. My one hesitancy on that is this is the team that I blame for the dead puck here. People have listened to me on this, even more so than the dead puck. We all point the finger at the 95 Devils, but I really think it was the 90.

The 95 Devils were hard to score on, but they had Broder, Neidermeyer-Myer Stevens. Yeah, you have a Hall of Fame goalie and two Hall of Famers on the blue line. You're going to be hard to score on. The Florida Panthers in 96 had nobody, except they knew how to clutch and grab and tackle and slow the game down. And it was awful to watch. And I blame them more for the dead puck air than anyone else. But here's the redemption tour.

Now it's the high flying Panthers. I mean, what better thing, 26 years later, so, you know, that the team that killed offense by showing us how you could win by just clutching and grabbing could be the team that brings offense back by showing us that you can actually go out. Everybody always says, oh, you can't win a Stanley Cup winning six to five. We didn't say that in 1996. That's a recent thing. Right. You know, that we've, you have to win two to one and all this. sense. Wouldn't it be great if the Panthers won a Stanley Cup, six to five, you know, go out there.

Yeah, let it be Pittsburgh, the team that, you know, they shut down, that should have been in the final. And then if they get to the Stanley Cup final and they play the team we're all expecting to see there, who is it? Good old Colorado avalanche. You get the rematch. It would be perfect. You get to, you, it's, this is, this whole season I'm viewing as the Florida Panthers, apologies to the hockey gods. They're going to make it right. They're going to be. redeemed. And I hope they win the Stanley Cup. Like I say, I hope it's six to five every single night, up and down the ice. You know what?

You got skill. We got skill. You want to play. We'll play. Let's go fast and furious. And then everyone in the league sees that and says, now that's the way to win. And we enter a new era of offense and a real offensive era, not this, you know, the scoring rate goes up.

Point one goal a game. And we all pat ourselves on the back like we've been doing for the last few weeks. a real offensive explosion because of the Panthers. I love it. It's not going to happen because I'm rooting for it, but you know what? We're going to hope. You know,

and one other thought, and I mentioned this on the Monday podcast, and not to be a downer on the Panthers, because I'm with you. I'm on the Panthers bandwagon. I love the idea of the Florida Panthers redemption tour. I look this up. And again,

maybe this is a good nugget for you for at some point in a playoff preview or something next week. in the cap era, no team that has had a 12-game winning streak at any point in their season has won to stay on the cup. It's weird because, again, you would think to yourself, well, you wouldn't intend, in case of Florida, they won 14 in a row. You would think at some point they have, you know, kind of hit on all cylinders. None of them. Like, go back and look, you can, you can double-check my work, but it's a weird stat.

but I go back to the 2010 Capitals won 14 games in a row at one point in the second half of the season and they got halak. That would be my fear with the Panthers is that. Very interesting. Yeah. So anyway. That's right up there. The other thing with the Panthers and somebody pointed this out to me and look, I'm not trying to knock the Panthers. Obviously, they're a fantastic team.

They have almost 60 wins, 120 points. You look at their record in over. time. Right. And it's phenomenal. It's all overtime. 13 and two, something like that. They're just purely in terms of regulation wins. And look, I mean, they're playing by the same rules as everyone else, but they are well behind Colorado, well behind Carolina, also behind Toronto, behind Calgary, behind St. Louis, behind the New York Rangers. And the reason that I bring this up is obviously there's no three on three in the Stanley Cup playoffs. So if this is a team that is, inflating their record based on what happens in overtime.

Hey, I got no problem with that because that's how the rules are. That's how the seasons played. But that maybe doesn't tell us as much as we think about how they're going to play once the playoffs start. Can I hit you with one more thing? Yeah. Because this is just my brain's been working on parallel tracks here. That going back one more time to that 96 Stanley Cup final. Avalanche and Panthers, let me ask you this.

What was the goaltending matchup? Patrick Waugh, John Van Biesbrook, wasn't it? 10 years before in 1986. Yeah, Rangers and Habs in the conference finals. Rangers and Habs. Oh my God. Van Biesbrook versus Patrick Waugh. So there's a 10-year gap and also four different teams involved.

Both guys switch teams and then they meet again. So that's at least one 10-year gap that I go on. Oh, there you go. Look at that. Perfect. Yeah, that was Patrick Waugh's coming out party. It was 86 when he, I think he had a 13 save performance in an overtime at Madison Square Garden.

And yeah, that's unbelievable. There you go. We found at least one other. I'm sure there's probably a couple of other ones too. There's definitely going to be some, but it'll be interesting to dig into. And I'm looking forward to the tweets and the emails and the, hey, you idiot, I can't believe you forgot about this one. Yeah, Mike Palmetteer and somebody or some random 80s. Exactly.

80s matching up. Hey, listen, regular season is wrapping up. And I just want to hit you up real quick on a couple of awards here. And like in your estimation and maybe just a top three, like what should a perfect ballot look like for the hard trophy? Like in your estimation, and this, look, this is the first year that I think, man, this is, this is tough. Like, I almost feel like Connor McDavid is being shortchanged.

Like, this guy's having unbelievable. He's going to end up with 125 points. And it doesn't feel like. like he's the runaway leader or the, it's almost like we've become desensitized to McDavid's greatness. And I'm worried. There's a little bit of McDavid fatigue. I worry about that.

I worry that we, we fatigue of someone's greatness to the point where we water down their accomplishments. But, you know, McDavid has a case for it. He's not the only guy in Alberta. I think Johnny Guadro has a case for it. Yeah.

I think obviously Austin Matthews has a case for it. I would argue and I would listen to the argument on Shisterkin. I would listen to an argument on Carreal Capit. freeze off. There's some guys that, like, deserve to be in the top two or three. So if you have a perfect ballot, what does it look like for you, top three for the hard trophy? And you know who I'm really interested to see if they wind up on any ballots? But Jason Robertson. 40 goals. 40 goals. And if you really want to go, if you're one of these people who views

the MVP as most valuable to his team as far as making the playoffs, I mean, this guy, Dallas doesn't make the playoffs. If this guy isn't scoring big, like big goals, if you drop him down to 35, if it's the right five goals, that takes Dallas out of the playoffs. He scores two goals against Vegas with their season on the line. I mean, he wouldn't be on my ballot, but I wonder if he's going to show up on a few.

I, by the way, do not have a ballot this year. So not that I'm bitter about that or anything, but this is purely for fun. Yeah. My top three would be at this point, I think I would have to go Matthews number one. I do think I'm back to Shisterkin as number two. And I think it would be Johnny Godreau as my third guy, just because I think, you know, the fact that he rediscovered his game that way really put is what became the foundation that the rest of what the flames were doing was built on.

And I think about two more spots on my ballot, you know, if I had the, the typical five, I think McDavid and probably Romaniosi are the other two guys that I put out there, which means I'm leaving off Jonathan Hubertoe means I'm leaving off a handful of other guys that are probably deserving. But I think that's where I go. And you're

right on McDavid. Like normally if somebody runs away with the scoring, he's not running away, but if somebody wins the scoring title on a team that was kind of a bubble playoff team, that's your MVP most years. But you're right. There's just some people

seem to have, I don't know if it's fatigued, taking for granted, whatever you want to call it. McDavid isn't maybe getting the buzz he deserves. Okay, another, again, I don't mean to just throw potential column ideas and nuggets at you, but I mean, I need it. How many times has a player

got to 125 points, been the only guy to get to 120, again, McDavid would have to get there, and not win the MVP. Because I'm thinking in my mind, Kucherov was at that point, got the MVP, Joe Thornton got to that point, got the MVP. Did Crosby, I think, get there?

He got the MVP. Like, I'd love to know in the kind of recent years where getting the 125 is a rare, like, how rare is this, that McDavid would get to that threshold and not win the MVP? Yeah, no, it's a great question. And I mean, it can't be a long list. I'd be very surprised. Yeah. Anyway, this entire podcast is just me giving you homework.

Yeah, exactly, which I'm not going to do, by the way. I feel like I'm back in school. The teachers, are you even making notes right now? Oh, yeah, no, I'm absolutely. Yeah, I'm on it. You're treating this with the same level of seriousness as a first-year polyside class. Yeah, yeah. Exactly.

I got it. I'll be copying someone else's not. I'm going to watch it on ITV later. That's fine. Don't worry. Oh, man. Okay, the other ballot I want to run through real quick, because I think it's equally compelling in terms of having four, maybe five candidates.

It's the Calder Trophy for Rookie of the Year, where I think, I think more insider can lay claim to it. Zegris had a great year. I love Taylor Janot and what he's done in Nashville. Michael Bunting has had a wonderful year. Like, I mean, you go through, like, there's two or three other guys that Cole Cofield all of a sudden is north of 20 goals. Like, there's a bunch of guys that I think can lay claim.

If you could vote for three, what does your perfect Calder trophy ballot look like? Yeah, cider and Zegris, I think, are won two. and then you get into, it starts getting a little bit tougher. The guy that I've mentioned lately, and I do think I'd find a spot on my ballot for him, is Jeremy Swayman. The fact that a guy on a real good team

is playing half the games as a goaltender, he's the best of the rookie goaltenders, and in theory, goal is it, it's tough for a rookie. You're out there on your own, you know? You can't put them with an experience, defense partner or put him on a line where, you know, protect him in the, in the offensive zone. It's tough.

So, you know, he'd be up there for me, Lucas Raymond as well. And then, yeah, you mentioned the other guys. I might have room for bunting on my ballot. And I do not hold it against him that he's that he's older or anything like that. That doesn't matter to me. It's he fits the criteria as a rookie. So he deserves support if you think his numbers warrant it. But yeah, it is a tough one.

this year. But Swayman's the one guy that I would probably, if I had a ballot, have a little bit higher than maybe other people seem to want to put them. All right. Like I said off the top, no Jesse Granger this week. He is tied up. We're recording this late on Wednesday where the Vegas golden night, surprise, surprise, are losing at the time of this recording while Dallas is up 3-0 on Arizona. So like everything we said off the top, we think that'll hold at least all Dallas has to do. We know. Yeah. It's done. It's over. Yeah. Forget it. Okay, but we got some mailback questions to get to. So again, usually Jesse Granger, which is a presentation of a bet MGM, the exclusive betting partner with the athletic. We're going to hold off on Jesse this week. We'll get back to him, probably do a recap of the night season and look at some playoff money lines next week.

Email here. Patrick from Chicago writes into this show. Yeri Herdina played five seasons in the late 80s in the early 1990s. 250 games played in his career, 45 goals, and had a couple of game seven goals for, I don't even know if that was from, I'm assuming Pittsburgh. But anyway, seven points in 45 playoff games, but guys, Yuri Herdina has three Stanley Cups in five seasons. Do you believe YerreDina is the luckiest depth player in NHL history, guy basically batted 600? Like, yeah, three for five, five years in the league, three Stanley Cups. Pretty impressive.

And probably not something that will necessarily ever see again. People who don't know, he came. He was a Czech player. He came over in the late 80s. He was already 30 years old. So that's what, you know, it wasn't like he was a guy toiling in the minor leagues. This was back when it was very difficult to get players from behind the Iron Curtain to come over. And so, you know, that's why his NHL career was so short.

But yeah, he absolutely. In fact, when I first read this question, I was like, oh, no, he played longer than that. I was thinking of Yan Herdina. So, right, yeah. You got to, he's not even, he's not even the most famous Herdina of the bunch. That one's hard to argue with. I mean, he's, he's sort of the, the, he was Pat Maroon before Pat Maroon came along. I don't know that there's too many guys who, I mean, he was a good player.

He had a 30-goal season. But, yeah, good time. timing, right place at the right time, absolutely. So 600 batting average for Herdina. The only guy I can think of that I'm pretty sure has a higher, quote-unquote, batting average in terms of winning championships would be Ken Dryden, right? Because didn't Dryden play only eight seasons and wins six Stanley Cups? Like he had one year that he just missed.

He's like, I think I'll go to law school or whatever, right? Like he just randomly missed a year in 73, 74 or whatever. Yep. And I think Ken Dryden played eight seasons as credit. it, I think, with eight season in the league and six cups, which is a seven-fifty batting. Eight seasons, six cups. And one of those seasons, he only played a few games. That was the year that he, then he won a cup that year where he was kind of the rookie

goalie who showed up out of nowhere, won the cons might. Yeah, I mean, I don't think there's a higher percentage other than I'm sure there's guys out there who won a cup in, you know, they're one and only year that they appeared in the league. But other than the guys who are a 100 batting average on one. maybe two cups. I can't imagine there's anyone who can be Dryden. Okay, we don't have Jesse Granger, but we

do have an email from Jesse. And by the way, you can... Interesting. But it's not related to the Golden Knights. But a reminder, you can reach us at the athletic hockey show at gmail.com, the athletic hockey show at gmail.com. Or drop us a voicemail. We love to hear your voice. 845. 445.

845.49. So that's how we got Patrick in Chicago as an email. So is Jesse who says, does any team have a better collection of jerseys than the Vancouver Canucks. They got three distinctive jerseys. I think all three of them are great. Some teams can't even find one. So Jesse thinks Vancouver's gone three for three with their jerseys.

Yeah, I, I, here's my problem with Vancouver. I love the black flying skate so much. The Burr-A edition, right? The early 90s. That's what I, you know, that's what I grew up with the, the Bray edition. I love that so much that it, I can't get on board with the one. that they've had since. I've never liked, you know, the, the or the orc, you know, when they, they switch the color scheme.

To me, that one was just so perfect. And it's so much what I identify with, with some of the very best years of that team that I don't, I don't love the other ones. But it's not because I, it's not because I think they're bad. It's just that, you know, it's, it's like asking somebody to pick their favorite kid. I mean, there's one clear favorite and then the rest are fine and you're, you know, whatever. I love it. And we got one other email here, okay, from Jim. And like a lot of us, Jim has been tripped up on something that he saw on Reddit. Jim says, look, I saw this on Reddit. That'll do it. Yeah. That is more or less consumed my entire morning at work. Somebody on Reddit mentioned that the Hurricanes Wailers franchise has won four different division titles over the years.

The Metropolitan, the Central Division last year, the old Southeast, and the old Adams. Got me thinking has another team, won more unique divisions than the whaler slash hurricanes. Obviously, this would skew towards older teams, but the kicker to me is that if you had won the Patrick division nine times, that only counts as one unique division title. So Jim wants to know, is anybody won five different titles? They have, and I'll say this, it doesn't skew as much to the old teams as you would think,

because remember, in the original six era, there's no divisions. Right. So, you know, unless you're counting the whole league as a division, there was, there was no division when there's only six teams. And in fact, for most of before the original six, there were, there were not divisions. It was just one group of teams. So if we're, you know, if we're counting it that way, they wouldn't fit there. Now, having said that, yes, there is a team that they can beat the hurricanes.

And it is the team that you would assume. It is the Montreal Canadians. And I'll go down the list. The Montreal Canadians, they won, and again, when we say win here, we're saying finish first in, because I think that's the criteria that's being used in this email. They won the Canadian division. There was a back in the 20s when the NHL started to add American teams. They did, for a period of a few years, have a Canadian and an American division. That was the first time that we had divisions in the NHL.

The Montreal Canadians did win that division a few times. Then they get into the original six era. They win. They finish first there a lot, but we won't count that. They win the East Division after expansion. That's when the NHL puts all the original six into the East. They put all the expansion teams into the West, kind of ignoring geography to do it. But Montreal wins that.

Montreal, a lot of people forget this. When they, the dynasty years, the Gila Fleur, four cups in a row at the 70s, they were actually in the Norris. Yeah, Norris Division back then. So they win the Norris Division. That's number three. And then they win the Adams, of course. That's for my era and yours. That's the team we associate them with.

So that brings them to four. And then they have won finish first in both the Northeast Division and the Atlantic Division. So that's two more. Wow. And then of course, we're the playoff winner of the North Division last year. but, you know, we're just based on finishing first. They have finished first in each every, in fact, the North, oddly enough, was the only division

the Montreal Canadians have ever played in that they didn't win in terms of finishing in first place. Regular season, yeah. But I think I'm pretty sure they take how that turned out over finishing first. Yeah. Okay, well, listen, speaking of, you know, the HABs and going down hockey history, it's a perfect time for us to segue into that to wrap up the pod. It is a little segment we like to wrap up the show with called this week in hockey history.

And all we're going to do is actually tee up something that you've got coming. Now this is coming out on Friday. Am I right on this? That is the plan. If I can get off my butt and finish it tomorrow. Okay. So give our listeners the premise of your- I guess I have to now.

Yeah. Well, now we're just motivating you to work all day on Thursday to hit the deadline here. Yeah. The premise here is I want to get out a little bit ahead of celebrating the 30-year anniversary of what I would consider the greatest night in NHL playoff history, which is May the 1st, 1992. So this coming Sunday will be 30 years. The only night in NHL history that we had four game sevens going on at the same time.

And this was back in the days where it was the first round of the 92 playoffs, The first time that the first round had gone into May because of the very brief player strike at the end of the 92 season. And this was back in the day where the NHL just said, hey, we don't do any fancy scheduling. One conference goes on even number of days and one conference goes on odd number of days and just every second day for all of the playoffs. And so the Wales conference, which was what we would now consider the Eastern Conference, all four of their series were playing at, the same nights, all four of those went to a game seven. And because it was the Eastern Time Zone, all the games, I don't think they all started at exactly the same time, but they were all going on at the same time.

You had four game sevens. You talk about drinking out of a fire hose. It was as good as it could possibly get. I'm calling it the single best night in the history of the NHL playoffs. Man, okay. So, yeah, four games. I remember, because I grew up a Habs fan. This was the night Russ Cortnell

scored a overtime goal against Hartford. This was the night Russ Cortnell murdered the Hartford Ballers. And the Whalers, Yvonne Coro hit the goalpost. Like, he could have knocked out the Haps. And I think he hit the goalpost in overtime.

And the whalers were just, you know, they were right there. And couldn't beat the haps. You know, you'll appreciate this fun fact. When Russ Cortnell scored that goal against Hartford. That's the last game Pat Burns ever won as head coach of the Montreal Canadiens.

Because they would go on to get swept, I believe, by Boston in the next round. And then he leaves five days later in like a weird bomber jacket with Leafs paraphernalia. There's nothing weird about it, man. That was great. All right. You know what? I'm just going to make a little note, Pat Burns. Okay.

There you go. Throw that in there. Just double check it. Always double check. It works. No. Nah. Ah, Ian said it.

You said it. Yeah, Ian said it, it's on a podcast. It's got to be true. Okay. That was the Hartford Whalers, a bad Hartford Whalers team playing a very good Canadian's team. But already the Whalers were on shaky ground and you're just thinking they'd never won anything, never really gone deep. You're thinking if they could pull this off and Peter Sodorikovitz against Patrick Waugh,

in overtime, double over time of a game seven. I feel like it was Frank Peter Angelo, Petrangelo. It might have, wasn't it? You know why it might have been. I get, I'm getting my shady, shady, Shady, long, long-winded last name. Frank Peter Angelo.

Yep, it was Peter Storkowitz, was on that team. But Frank, and now, how did this have? Frank Peter Angelo played only five games in the season and then played that entire. He played the, I remember, okay, again,

this is how my mind worked as a Habs fan. I was petrified. I'm pretty sure that the year before, Frank Peter Angelo won a game seven for the Penguins and like shut out. somebody like the Devils or somebody in a game seven in round one do you remember this you're you're sending no not at all but you're sending me down the he had i frank Peter Angelo won game seven for the for the penguins in round one of 91 i just don't remember if it was the devils or the caps i want to

say the caps maybe it it it was the new jersey devils okay i'm looking at right now four nothing win he shut them out and then all i could think about was oh my god what if frank peterangelo is like the game seven whisperer and all he does is win game sevens Like, that's how my life. He could have been Mr. Game 7. Yeah. Move on.

Before there was a Mr. Game 7. Yeah. But he, no, and it didn't. And he played well. And it was, I mean, he, I think, you know, 40 or 50 saves by the time that game ended. But that, that was the only one of the four that went to overtime. Um, but we, we got some, some game seven overtime.

And I, I will say that was the death knell of the Hartford Whalers. I don't think they ever won another playoff game or, or, you know, certainly not a series. and they were gone off to Carolina shortly thereafter. All right, listen, we'll leave it there because apparently you got work to do. If you want to get this May 1st 92 story in for Friday, we've got to let you go. Yeah, I only had 30 years to work on it. I think I wouldn't be leaving it to the last minute. Yeah, all right, I want that Frank Peterangelo reference in there, though.

You're getting it. All right, there we go. Okay, we'll leave it there. Thanks, everybody, for listening to this Thursday edition of The Athletic Hockey Show. We'll get you again next week. as I mentioned earlier, you can always email us your questions. The Athletic Hockey Show at gmail.com. Leave us a voicemail to 8458-845-4-4-5-8-4-5-8-4-5-8-4-5-8-4-5.

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