The Athletic Hockey Show - Quinn Hughes not focused on 2022 Olympics. Alex Ovechkin ties Brett Hull all-time in goals and Jack Eichel set to have surgery on Friday.

Episode Date: November 9, 2021

Craig and Sean welcome Vancouver Canucks defensemen Quinn Hughes. The Orlando Florida native discusses the Canucks power-play, his friendship with Brady Tkachuk, looking ahead to the 2022 Winter Olympics and cooking with his brother Jack.Custance and Gentille praise the season to date for Alex Ovechkin who leads the league in goals, after tying Brett Hull for fourth all time in goals scored in the history of the NHL.The guys discuss the Sabres/Golden Knights trade, Alex Tuch's value to the Sabres, on and off the ice and Jack Eichel's time line to recover from his surgery, which will happen on Friday.Plus, the guys discuss the Hawks firing Jeremy Colliton and the Pittsburgh Penguins reaching an agreement with Erin and Jarrod Skalde in the sexual abuse claims towards Wilkes-Barre Scranton Penguins head coach Clark Donatelli, after an alleged incident during the AHL team’s road trip in 2018. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hey, this is Craig Custins of the Athletic. Joined. I'm almost embarrassed to say this. In Canada. This sucks. We are, I'm over, like, I'm looking at my window at, what body water is this? I honestly don't know. Toronto.

It's one of the Great Lakes, I'm pretty sure. Huron? Um, I don't know. I actually should know the Great Lake. It's homes. Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Uri, Superior. I just don't know where they're. arranged. I should know that as a

Michigander. I shouldn't. It's not my responsibility. Not your responsibility. Well, you should know your eight. Anything north of Cranberry PA is dead to me. It's true. So, Sean and I, this is the Tuesday Americans edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. We will be joined by American defenseman Quinn Hughes,

who plays, I believe, in Vancouver. Yes. That's hard to say, for sure. Later in the show, we had Quinn on because Jack was like, hey, I'm into cooking when we had Jack on. And we were like, what's your go-to meal? And he said, you got to ask Quinn. So we're simple people here. That was really the only reason we had Quinn on.

It's like a five-minute interview. We're like, hey, can we get Quinn on to asking this question? Quick question. We don't give a shit about what's going on with the Canucks. We just need to talk about steak, whatever. I asked about the power plate just to be like, hey, I want to like, sound like I'm doing some due diligence here in case a Canucks fan listens, but really it was just about Jack and grilling or whatever.

Also in full, in like the interest of full transparency, full transparency, I wasn't on the interview because I was caught in travel hell trying to get across the border. They let me in, which was good. Do you think if they would have,

if they would have, like, recognize you from the show, they wouldn't have? So when they asked, when they did the whole rigum roll with like, what are you here for, whatever, who are you working?

I was like work meetings. Who do you work for? The athletic. What do you do for them? I'm a hockey rider. They, I saw like a light in the eyes of the border crossing guy. Did you? I think he knew.

He knew. He's like, do you do the Tuesday. Are you the Tuesday show guy? Do you do the Manscape Reeds? Are you the pubic hair trimmer guy? One of the interesting things, we did talk with Quinn. I did. I can't say we because Sean was nowhere to be found when we were

recording in case in communicato just like hey Sean recording just pick up your phone and then later on he's like I don't think sells work in Canada it was a bad now I tried I tried to text producer Jeff a middle finger and turd emoji just a just really really ram at home just that was the only that didn't go through so once that happened I was like I'm out so that comes up but you know it was interesting because Conor Garland has been really good for Vancouver and that was, you know, Quinn, I asked him about his Olympic chance in terms of Connor because when you talk to people in Vancouver, they're like, this guy has been their best player. And he's not, the thing about Connor Garland is he's not, you know, he didn't come up to the program. I don't, you know, there's kind of some people that believe

if you're not, you're not part of that, that group that, that trained together and did all that stuff. Like, you know, maybe he's a USA hockey outsider who has to, like, bang down the door. But he's been really good. Yeah, he's behind some guys, too, just based on this. Like, there's some fringe guys that have performed, like, Kyle Connor, great example. Like, we were, when we did the roster building exercise, we're like, can you, can you bring, can we bring Kyle Connor? Because he's goals and nothing else, right? You either play him on a scoring line or you don't play him at all.

But he's, he's tearing it up. So, yeah. Garland's a good player, though. I feel like I was down on him more than I should have been whenever that trade happened. I think, I think he was easy to lose, you know, because of the situation he was coming out of, right? But yeah, I don't know. We'll see. It's hard to evaluate people sometimes in those teams like Arizona.

I mean, even look at Ekman-Larsan, not that we want to talk about him at all, but it's hard. A Swedish player on a Canadian team. No, thank you. Yeah, we don't. But here's where I want to start with this episode, Sean, before we get to. to Quinn is, let's talk about Alex Ovechkin because, um, besides playing in American City, Alex, it's unbelievable how the time stands still and he marches on. Um, he ties Brett Hall, uh, for all time goals is going to pass him. He's going to pass everybody. Like,

I don't know. Just on fire. Leads the NHL and everything. I, like, it's, it's been unbelievable. to watch. So I was from Dmitri Filipovich last night. 11 goals for Alex Ovechkin. That's first in the league. 12-5 on 5 points. It's first in the league.

104 shot attempts, first in the league. 60 shots on goal. First in the league. What the hell? The wildest part of all this, too, like for as good as he's been, it might be irony.

I can never quite tell. Is that he only has two power play goals? Like, how funny is that? he's he's accomplishing all of this off a five off a five on five heater this is after we've seen him do so much damage on the power play over the last 17 years or whatever and he's generating shots there too they're just not going in so if he can keep up some semblance of this at five on five in the power place chances start going in like what the hell is going to happen here are we we're going to see a

53 goal season from the world's oldest man. It's unbelievable. It's like, I guess aging curves don't apply to certain people. You know, you just throw everything out the window with Alex Ovecgen. I don't, like, I kind of be honest, I don't know what to do with the capitals. Like, we're,

mentally, we're to slot them. I mean, in the big picture. They're in that, we talked about this before. They're in that penguins class for me where, like, it's going to happen at some point. They're going to fall out at some point. For the penguins, it might be, it might be this year.

I mean, granted, the penguins are in last place in the metro, but they've also played, you know, two or three games less than the teams ahead of them, right? But point being is, like, I'm not going to pick those guys to fall. Like, they're going to have to knock themselves out before I pick against them. I'm not going to be the guy that, you know, predicts the end for these teams. I certainly didn't do it preseason. But yeah, I don't know, man.

caps are six, two, and four. You know, they're having crummy, crummy luck in, in overtime. We know that that's just a crap shoot, right? That changes, that changes month to month. I don't know, man. They're really, they're really good. They're really good. It's easy, it's easy to be really good whenever you have Alex Ovechkin passing Brett

Hull and, like, it seems like every night he's, he's doing something worth talking about. It's wild. Kuznetsov is back. You know, he's been as good as, he's been as good as they need him to be. A lot of this is happening in the absence of the Baxter. Like, man, danger, danger, danger, danger. Since we last talked, your Florida Panthers, your Florida Panthers, suffered their first loss.

Are you holding up? I renounced them last week. Did you? It's the meme where it's like friendship with Florida Panthers over Carolina Hurricanes are my best friend again. Are you back in Carolina? Yeah, I love that team. And buddy, I love their tweets. They're so...

I know that's not true. They're so funny. They're so edgy. It's like, how do you come up with this stuff, you know? I don't know. Every day it's something new from them. I know other people talk about Jack Eichol in the trades, so we don't have to, like, and you did the grades and all that stuff. But he's finally, he's having surgery Friday, which is so bizarre that this has.

like that this had to wait. I still can't wrap my head around how that's the case. That's how this is being operated. But he's, so this, he's having surgery Friday. Three month timeline. And I don't know if you saw Robin Lennar tweeting out pictures of them together at,

you know, at a steakhouse at the Cosmo. This is, I'm happy for Jack. This is, you know, he's like three months is going to go by in a blink and we're going to be like, oh, wow.

They have this, they have an elite center all. a sudden. I'm also happy for us, baby. Three months. Where's that put them? One month December, two month January. Three month,

Feb-9, bumping right up against those Olympics. Put them on the team. Oh, Jack. So that's happening. What did you think of that trade while we're here? Did you have any, did you have any thoughts on it?

Well, I mean, do you have the whole like inflated expectations with the Calgary? stuff. So I think when, when that situation, the Calgary situation, very funny, very funny to watch that play out the night, the night before all this stuff. Right, right. I like, so initially I thought maybe that's Buffalo, Buffalo leak to drive up the price, but I don't know, Kevin Adams seemed to deny, like, you know, I don't know, there's a lot of things that go on behind the scenes. So, you know, so I think in my, so I think that recalibrated the expectation of what the return would look like. So then when I saw the final thing, I'm like, oh, all right.

You know, Vegas did pretty well there. I just think what people really didn't appreciate, and when I would talk to people around the league about this, they're like, yes, Jack Iko, healthy is great, but you're taking on a player. You don't know what it's going to look like coming out of the surgery. Yeah. So you can't just gut your. team to acquire them. I also, I gave Vegas a C minus or no, I gave Buffalo a C minus on that return. Did you? Yeah. And I'll stick, I'll stick by that. But I think loss in the shuffle there for me is that Alex Tuck is a, he's a, he's a nice player. He's a really useful player. He's if not,

he's, first of all he's from Syracuse. That counts for something whenever you're is stuck in the mud as the sabers are and have been, right? Like, he wants to play there. Like, people have already taken a taking a shine to him. Really good player on a pretty good contract. And if like worse comes to worse and you're still shit a year from now,

you flip them. You trade him for something else. He's a player who's going to have value and he's good enough as is. So I feel like the initial response maybe I sold him short a little bit. I know all apologies to Alex Tuck and his family. I'm sure they were broken up about it.

Yeah, they were. I heard about it. I don't know. You get two pieces. It's fine. No, no knock on those guys. Krebs seems like he's going to be a good one. And Tuck is already, already exactly the kind of hockey player you want to see.

He's fun and all sorts of stuff. It's just, I don't know, tough to get all that excited about. I just felt like, hey, this, you know, you started to feel like they were holding out. And maybe this is going to be like a Matt Duchyne opportunity for the Sabres. And, you know, with what Joe Sack was able to do there. And I don't think it will be. But I understand why. why there was a ceiling on what what you're getting for jack ikel they should have kept cap you should

have done it yeah we're seeing that data data trade for johnny boychucks ghost to get to the cap to get to the cap floor yeah so why not just take some of it yeah Terry Terry I know the interesting I was talking to Scott wheeler about it yesterday he's we were talking about um he was actually talking about like the draft two years or now or something how good it is and all these these great Wheeler's talking about 0-9s or whatever. Yeah, and I'm like, you know, he's like, oh, there's going to, there's, actually, it started with Detroit because we were talking about cider and how good he is and Lucas Raymond and how good he's been. And then, you know, he's in, he's just like, oh, but, you know, the, whatever it is.

The, I don't know what birth year that would be for the draft. The not the coming draft, but the following draft. He's like, there's so many good players in that draft. No force. Two, like, elite, whatever. and I'm like, that's fine. You know, but I think the Buffalo, the gutting the franchise to tear it down, the mass of failure, like you're better off just trying to at least compete a little bit, keep the semblance of a roster in,

and I don't know, like I look at what Arizona's doing to get like a 20% chance at a player who may or may not be good. I don't know. I don't know. I don't think it's the best. I feel, I just, I feel so bad for Sabres fans. They're just like, they're like a kick puppy at this point. Like they get so mad in the con because they automatically assume that everyone's like dunking on them basically. And I, that's not the way I feel.

I love, I love Buffalo. I love that fan base. And it's like, you know, I don't know. It's like, you know, Terry, Terry Puehula poisoned all that groundwater in West Virginia with fracking. Like, for what? That's, I like it. You always work in whatever the owner does.

Yeah, because I hate them. Because you hate billionaire. which is yes shouldn't exist um so anything else my goodness um let's talk about progressive taxation let's go i do i mean god a lot has happened since i know john jeremy collin gets fired by the black hawks i you know we i think we what took what took so long they should have they should have canned his ass the moment those players handed him back that whiteboard when when he drew up a play and those guys, you're just like, uh-uh, no. Not do with this.

She's like, all right, you know what? You can find your own way back. Goodbye. Goodbye, Jeremy. It's funny how there's these moments that end up being like the breaking point or the comments. Like, you know, when someone's just like, like, I always like the press conference where the coach is like, I don't know what to do anymore. You tell me what to do.

And like he's fired the next day. You're like, yeah, that was, that was essentially the whiteboard version of it. Like, here's what I think, but what are you going to think? Yeah. It's like the, the shrug. the shrug emoji from from from from I'm doing this on camera right now I we had a great example of that with with Ed Ogeron right like he was like he was like the ultimate and whatever I don't we're talking about college football but I don't I don't give a shit like it's talk some

college it was after it was after LSU it was after LSU beat Florida like he had that his fate had already been decided and he's he's even though even though they won that game that was you know his last game before he got fired three weeks in three months into the future. And he was speaking in a capacity like at that pressur. He was like, I know, I know I'm gone. That's right.

Oh, okay. It's like the equivalent of a guy. Wasn't he shouting at fans and stuff too? Like the wheels fell off. Dude, he's a, he's a maniac. LSU hour.

Let's talk about Coach O for a while. Shout out to Tyler Battiste. The NBA managing editor at the athletic and my roommate and friend, I have talked more than. enough LSU shit over the last, over the last couple months. But like that was, you know, that's like, that's like the example, right? Like, you see these coaches and you're just like, buddy, buddy, you're, you know you're done. We know you're done. It's only a matter of time. And call it and had those vibes late. Like, right? Those last couple games, he was just like,

he was pissed and mean to people. Like, I just, I just do it already. What do you do there? Like, who do you plug in? I, like, I was talking with powers. We were texting back and forth. And I'm like, I heard Mike Babcock one. a job? I mean, but Babs, Mike will be back. So we need to come to terms with that.

The Blackhawks probably are not the franchise. I would say, not. I would say not you're Bill Peters. It's exactly what, it's exactly what Chicago needs right now. You have to just, you have to go young and fun, I think,

even though that didn't work out necessarily last time. Because, I mean. I saw, the Lazan Powers coach coaching. Yeah. Who do they have? It's alphabetical. Mike Babcock. Bruce Boudreau. Oh. He wants a job. I know that. I don't mind Bruce Boudreau.

Oh, he's... I don't mind that at all, actually. Bruce Boudreau. Well, he, you think, you think Dylan Strachan will play for him? That'd be fun. What's Bruce done wrong other than playing a ton of games all the time? Like, you know what you mean? I mean, playoff. stuff but I mean that doesn't I I I dude you're you he's no no Bruce Boudreau slander here like he's the best and you should have a job so okay Ricard Grodberg who's who's who's the Swedish coach Derek King yeah Gromberg's good

Lane Lambert yeah knocking on the door I don't know if one now it'd be but he's I mean because everyone just writes him off is not not writes him off you just think he's like a trots clone right because he's been with him for so long so you're like oh they needed a fun coach and you know He's interesting because he was really close with Steve Eisenman, and I think there was some people that felt like he would end up in Detroit if Blash Hill. Like, I really thought that was, you know, that was the direction if they decided to part ways with Jeff Blasheel. Redwoods off the nice little start. So, worked out.

Jim Montgomery. I forgot he was back on the bench with the Blues. He's an assistant with, uh, with, uh, with Baruby. Uh, Kirk Muller, Patrick Waugh, John Stevens. It's like kind of an uninspiring, uninspiring. list. The guy that I don't, the main reason I brought this up, the guy I don't want to get the job, says no knock on him because he's a great dude. Rick Tockett, we need him on, we need him on TV for a little bit longer. Yeah, let's keep him on TV. He's, he's very good. He's very good. And I, and I'm,

and I'm not surprised by it, right? Because he was always just like, whatever. I mean, you can't, you can't be a go-to quote when you're, when you're head coach necessarily, but he always cut that cloth of just, he's smart and funny. We need, we need him on TV for a the rest of the season. And torts and, of course, Ryan Worsowski, who's the H.L. coach. Yeah, I don't know. Not super, not super fun.

Worsovsky's interesting because he's like, he's 34 in an H.L coach, right? So he's like, call it in Redux. Yeah, I think you got to take it. Like, I think you do another run at that. I think it, I don't know if you can, if I'm bringing back, uh, let's say, an experienced coach out of that list, it's Bruce Boudreau. But I'm just getting through the season. And then I'm going to try to find the next great HL.

You know, when you have more options and you can go through other organizations. Just let, I'm going, I'm going to next, like, taking a stab at somebody that, that I think is really progressive. No, you let, you let, you let, you let, you let, you let, you let, you let, you let, see this out and see what happens. See what happens with him. But like, they're a disaster, dude. Like, you don't, you don't, it would be unfair to throw someone in midseason. Um, all right. Before we get to Quinn Hughes, I do wanted to mention this, this is happening like as we speak.

So we don't have a ton of context. But Penguins reached an agreement with Aaron and Jared Scaldi and the sexual abuse claims the suits. If you haven't followed that, it was towards Wilkesbury Scranton coach, former coach, Clark Donatelli. And this was this was the, you know, this is the one that that implicated Bill, Bill Guerrin. And it was, so this is, I'm trying to, I've got, I just got the email like this is happening as we speak. But I think, you know, it's good news, I guess, from the Penguins perspective, because there's a settlement and, you know, both sides seem to be satisfied. I don't think this, like, goes away. I don't think people are going to still be like, why was Clark done until he hired in the first place?

Like, what went wrong here? That's the question, right? Like, you look at the allegations. And, I mean, basically, the discolity's initial suit was filed under. whistleblower lies basically because they reported it seven months after the fact donatelli was was fired shortly thereafter bill garren according to the suit told them not to say anything basically and then a year later during covid jared scaldi lost his job as an assistant head coach so they or as an assistant coach so they said it was COVID related and scaldies think

differently i i mean this is the settlement is one step i don't i don't think i don't think i don't think we're done hearing about this. This quotes from Aaron Scaldi as part of the release said the events of the last three years have been deeply challenging and my hope is now to move forward as an advocate for others. I call this commitment my meaningful life project and my most fervent energy and efforts will be focused there to continue my personal growth, support others and be an instrument of change. That's Aaron Scaldi. That's good. Like what I hope at the very least this does, I mean, you know, like, I don't think, I don't know Clark Donatelli never dealt with them, but, you know, you need to vet. If you're giving these people positions of power, we need to vet better than come on.

My goodness. What Clark Donatelli did was, according to Viscalities, was assault the wife of his assistant coach in an Uber while the coach was in there. That is not, is that one time? behavior? Is that is is is that is that is is that is that is that is that your first move if you're, you know, do you have a spotless record and then just, you know, go into whatever like it do you have a spotless record and and have that be your first transgression? I don't think that's, I don't think that's particularly likely. So we'll see we'll see what happens with that. Yeah. I mean, it just it's marching forward with cleaning up the game and like so all the things we talked about on the on the

podcast last week just bringing these to like good for the scaldies for bringing this forward making it a public thing and like you know just got to do better in terms of how it's handled and and how we're vetting people that empower like that's it yeah just hope you know not obviously billy garin is the guy who was implicated in it jim rothaford was his boss at the time like these guys whether it's whether their capacity for answering to this doesn't doesn't end now. Like, this needs to be a thing across, across every franchise.

But yeah, it's, it's tiring to talk about this every week, but it needs to happen. Yeah. All right, Sean, let's take a quick break.

And then we're going to come back and I alone am going to chat with Quinn Hughes. That's right. With an interview, as you'll hear, it was really about one question. and it was like, how can I get through these other questions to get to one and move on. I can't. I can't wait to listen to this.

I haven't even heard it yet. Believe me, this is like, I don't even know if it's five minutes. Does it end with you just being like, all right, dude, like, see. I'm like, thanks for the cooking tips. See you, Quinn. See you later, man. No, it was, we, like, Quinn was good. And it was, but really, like, that was the motivation.

I'm, you know, we weren't in, we talked a little Donnie Granato, who our favorite coach. Oh, yeah. in who Quinn played for. He gave some good insight there. The Conner Garland stuff was good. It's good. So we'll be right back in chatting with Quinn. Or I will be.

Not me. Not Sean. Hey, Quinn. How you doing? Good. How are you doing? I'm doing all right. Appreciate you doing this.

Yeah, no problem. All right. So, yeah, let's dive right in. Let's talk a little bit about the team and your success for second here before we get to really why we want to. to get you on in the first place. But let's just start with the success. It seems like the power play is going.

I was talking to someone in Vancouver earlier today. They said, you know, watching practice, it seems like there's some collaborative conversations with Jason King and the players. What's that process like right now? Yeah, it wasn't going well for, you know, the start of the season. I think at home, we scored one goal and we're like 29th in the league or something. So we're usually not like that. So, I think we just had a couple of.

talks and talked it out and, you know, just keeping it simple and staying positive. And, you know, we had a good stretch house. I think we went three for five, which is huge. And then for us, it's always been like, you're going to have hot streaks and not hot freaks and you just got to stay the course. So that's what we've been doing. How much do you, um, tinker with, you know, systems or strategy approach versus just, hey, we got to get, we're going to get hot. We have the personnel here. It's going to work. Like, how do you balance that. Yeah, that's a, that's a good thing because, you know, you want to like tinker it and make plays

and be cute and fancy and like dive here and this guy should be open and overthink it. And sometimes that works because, you know, if it's crisp and stuff, but at the same time, you know, I find when we get back to the simple things and just make plays and have fun, we're usually pretty good. So, so really we want to, you know, Sean and I have this podcast and we talk a lot about U.S. hockey. We really lean heavily into U.S. hockey. And I want to get you on a couple of things. First of all, somebody you know well gets the captaincy in Ottawa and Brady Kachuk. What did you think when you saw that with Brady? You know him so well.

I was just waiting for that to come out. I think that I thought they were going to give it to him right when he signed. But obviously, I think it's the right choice and I'm really happy for him. and he's going to do good things to him. And I'm sure he's pretty excited. And I know he put a lot of money on the board pretty good. And yeah, he was excited. And it's good for their team. I mean, he's, he's their leader.

And he's an important piece for him. So I think that was a good decision for them. Did you reach out to him after that came out? Yeah, of course. I mean, I pretty much talked to them every other day. Yeah. We talk all the time. So it's not like I sent him some formal text.

I was just like, you know, it's just another. day congrats pro something like that that that's amazing i mean you guys are all getting business done and what i thought was fascinating about you i mean you mentioned his getting his deal done about your deal is there always was this this kind of drew dowdy cap when you talk about that the the young decont you know the next contract for the young defenseman and now we look at you and adam fox and we've reestablished the the price take was that do you think was that intentional like how did you what was their approach there in terms of of kind of breaking through that.

I have no idea. I have no idea what he's body made or any of that. Really? Yeah, I have no idea. I don't know. I think that I was just, I think Werenstki and those guys set a number, three years, five million. And then I think we were going to be a little bit, you know,

Dowling went to three times six. And I think we were going to be in that area. So then we, you know, went up every year and figured, you know, came to a whatever it was 7.25 and i think you know pat and jim did a lot of it and i didn't really talk to pat that much throughout the summer because i didn't want to beat the death so um yeah i don't know i'm happy with the deal not sure i don't know what drew dowdy's contract was but um i think also you know with mccar's deal at nine or whatever he got since i was nine um helped me get to where my deal is too yeah the cal maca deal was big it's it's interesting to me because

It always seemed like the young forwards got paid, but the D seemed like it was a different animal. And they seemed tempered. But that's not the case now. You mentioned K.L. Adam, you yourself, do you think it's just teams are now valuing defensemen more and their impact on the game? Yeah, I have no idea.

I don't beat it to death. I mean, I don't overthink these things. I spend zero time thinking about these things. You know, these guys got what they got. I got what I got. And, you know, Pedy got a big time deal too. I think that's the most money on a three-year contract for a four, too. So I think it's not just a defenseman.

It's everyone. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Another guy wanted to ask you about in terms of American is Connor Garland, who has been incredible for you guys. I don't know where he is on the team USA radar for the Olympics, but what have you seen from him? And what's the case there to make the Olympic case? Yeah, I mean, I knew he was a good player.

I knew he was competitive and skilled and worked hard, but I'm very impressed. Like, he's been unreal and he's an awesome guy too. I've really enjoyed, you know, spending time with him. He's just like a hockey guy. He loves hockey. He's really competitive. He's pretty funny. And as far as the Olympics goes, I think he's definitely earned a shot.

And he's playing well. I know there's a lot of guys playing well out there and Brockney. They're doing their thing. But, you know, he's been one of our best players for sure. So he deserves a lot of credit. Have you heard? And do you have any communication with USA hockey in that regard in terms of just updates? No, I don't think so.

Yeah. Have you even sketched out with the D might look like? Sure. Certain you might have done that. Honestly, no. Like, I was dashed whatever I was last year. And my mindset has just been like, have a good, you know, 10 games this season. Like I missed camp too. So I was just worried about,

you know, getting ready for the season. Um, so honestly, I haven't worried about it at all. And then, uh, you know, the seasons, it came, it came up quick. I think I got to Vancouver with like five or six days before the season. So I had to ramp that up. And then I wanted to, uh, you know, have a good start to the season and make sure, you know, I didn't have the start ahead last year. And, um, I'm sure as it gets closer, I don't know when they said they were announcing it, but I'm sure it gets closer. I'll definitely get more antsy. But honestly, my honest answer at this point is just like, you know,

we need to have a good season with the Canucks here as a bad season last year. And that's my priority right now. Yeah. All right. So we had Jack on and we were talking to him and Maddie Williams and said there's a couple, you know, he was into reading and cooking. We got down that path. And we asked what his go-to meal was.

And he said, you got to ask Quinn. that. So really, that's our motivation for having you here. Are you into cooking? And what would you say the answer to that question is? What did he say? You asked someone his favorite meal was and he said, ask Quinn? He said, he literally said, we said, what's your go-to meal in terms of preparing and making? And he started laughing. He goes, you got, he goes, have Quinn on and ask him. And that's funny. Well, I, so what was happening was I would cook for us at the start of summer. Because me and Jack, we got our own house and we lived there together. And like, grilling is the easiest thing, but like, you don't think it's that easy.

So he never tried it before. And I kept telling him, like, I could teach you in like 30 seconds and he didn't want to. And so I would cook for us for probably the first month and a half. And then towards the end of the summer, he got into it and started cooking for me. And he's probably just as good as me now. But I was, I think his favorite meal, what I was making for him at the start. the start of the year was, you know, steak. We were doing rice.

We were doing avocado, which I call a cooling system because it's cold and it's a nice, it's a nice little cooling system. And then sometimes I'll do a salad and we'll do tomatoes and stuff like that. But I think, you know, usually it's either salmon or steak for him. For him and when he's cooking or for when you're cooking? For when I'm cooking. That's what he likes. Yeah.

And he'll cook the same thing. He's learned to do everything I can do. What's your strategy on the grill with the steak? You said it's easy to explain, but there are some strategies. No, I don't have any strategies. I just put it on. I'm not some crazy chef here. And I'm just, you know, I season it before.

I got my couple seasons I like. And then I put it on and it looks like it's medium where I take it off. There's nothing crazy. It probably takes me 15 minutes, you know? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. All right, Quinn. Last thing I want to ask you about is Donnie Granato has been great for Buffalo. And he's somebody who you played for. What is it about his style that you think brings out the best young players? Yeah, I think he's like, first of all, I love playing for Donnie. And I think he's really, it's been a while, though. It's been five years.

I know. I can't believe that, by the way, Quinn. Yeah, I think he's really detailed and like he, um, He wants guys to make plays. He wants guys to support the puck and his team's going to work hard. That's for sure. And I think he's a motivator. He can motivate his players. And especially those young guys, I'm sure he can, you know, he motivates them.

And, you know, they're probably excited to play for him and want to play for him. And, you know, I just remember he was, you know, always wanted me to get up the ice, making plays and pushed me in practice and in the games. and I'm sure he's doing that with, you know, Dalene and those guys. And when power gets there, too, same thing. So I think he's going to be really good for all those guys and cousins and whoever else they have there. Awesome. Well, Quinn, I appreciate you hopping on and doing this. Thanks a lot, no problem.

Thank you. We'll see it. Yes, yeah. All right. Thanks to Quinn for joining. He was just wrapping a practice. I think he was still peeling off equipment when we talked. I'm glad he was able to hop on.

And I don't know if we even got to the bottom of what his favorite meal was or what Jacks go to meal-wise, but always good to hear from Hughes, the first family of the Tuesday American's edition of the podcast. As I said, we just need, we need better answers on the food thing, right? And if that means, if that means calling, you know, the Hughes family dog or, or, uh, or whoever else, we got to get it done. That's good. Who would you take in a hockey game of only Hughes family members or Kachuk family members?

It's got to be the Hughes, right? The Hughes is because they have more skaters. The Kachucks are Brady and Matthew and then the youngest daughter. I apologize, I forget her name. She plays lacrosse or something. Like she's an athlete, but she's not a player. I think Ellen Hughes puts you over the top. It's true.

Yeah. Stick. Hall of Famer. She's in the University of North. North. University of New Hampshire, Athletic Hall of Fame. Play some,

play some four on four. Stick, gym and goal. Yeah. Yeah. It sounds like the good. It sounds like the move. All right.

Coming up next, we are going to dive into the comments section. Oh. My favorite part of the podcast. Oh, yes. Taryn. Shout out to Taryn. Taryn Kach.

That is, that's the lacrosse player. Thank you. Thank you, Jeff. All right. This is my favorite. Like, I feel like I'm recording everything in this podcast just to get to this point.

This is far and away my favorite part of the podcast. If I was a listener, I'm not telling you what to do the listener, but I would just fast forward to this part, listen to this first. And then if I had time, go back and listen to the rest. There was strong. We're just killing, killing time vibes in the first segment. Just to get to this. Like, we should have just been like, yeah, this is like, how much time do we?

So, so this is where we go into the athletic app. Find the specific. episode that we recorded previously, click the details button, then answer 15 questions from a troll under a bridge. And then you can leave a comment. We answer his riddles three. If you can do all those things and leave a comment, we will answer it live on the podcast. Oh, you wish to come in the comments, dear boy.

You must answer my riddles three. When I say live, we read them and we have, we've never read them before and it turns into Ron Burgundy, as we've mentioned it multiple times. Last week we did a bonus episode for Apple podcast subscribers. And so we do want to, we had a comment on that. Like, that's a very special person. This is Josh. Shout out to Josh N. Who subscribes to the Apple podcast, listen to the bonus episode, then found the comment section and says, and ask this question, Sean.

Can Troy Terry keep up? hot start. Give some love to your Anaheim ducks. That's like, he gets extra points for asking a serious question too. I know. That was, that's wild. That's wild. He didn't, he had on the cycles. Dude, I was just, I was just talking to about, about the ducks with Dom last week when we were, when we were doing the power rankings. Like, I capped on them for, for a lot of last season, just because they were, just because they were so boring. Like, there weren't many reasons to watch them. That is not, that's not true anymore. Trevor Zegris, obviously, he's, you know, We've talked about him on the pod and, you know, John Gibson's bouncing back and Jamie Driesdale

looks like he's going to be a good one. But, man, Terry, dude, he's found money. 11 game points streak. He's got 14 points in 12 games, 8 goals, 6 assists. Like, they're, how many pieces away from being interesting do you think the ducks are? Let's put it that way. Several. Two, maybe?

I think you got to get a huge package for John Gibson. like that I think that should have already happened. John Gibson should be a Pittsburgh penguin. Yeah, like that. Make it happen. Yeah, let's bring Whitehall. Bring Whitehall Johnny back to Southwest PA. Which roster would you rather have the devils or the ducks?

Devils probably. Oh man, that's interesting. I, okay, so I watched, I mean, this is, this is, whatever, 10 days ago now, but I watched Penguins Devils at the rink and I was sitting next to Corey Mazasak. And we were talking about about the. devil's roster specifically and it's like you can look at it and you see obviously hues and he'sher and and tie smith and in whatever but i was like i had kind of the same question for them i said to corey like is there someone else on this team because it seems like they're you know blackwood obviously is

you know still beyond and very good so they seems like they have the goalie thing figured out but cori said d'assin mercer he's like he's like the guy he's like the guy in that group who yeah if the devils if the devils are eventually what we think they can be he's one of those guys that's going to level up a little bit so yeah I don't know that's a good that's a good question I think it really just comes down I it's got to be the devils because it because it's because of Jack and because of Dougie like the the the the ducks don't have even if you think that Zegreus and Jack are a wash and I don't know that I necessarily am quite on board with that yet Dougie's Doug is the trump card so the key like the the triutary development is

great because you do need, if you are going to get out of a rebuild or whatever the ducks are doing, I don't know what we call that. You do need to pop on like a late round pick. Didn't they finally say that they finally copped it being a rebuild after not really doing it for however many years? No. So this is like you, if you get lucky in the late rounds, you do need one or two of those to and you can't just all be like top three picks. All right. We got to get through these comments.

William C. writes, is this the fabled comments section? first-time listener, long-time subscriber, really enjoyed the insights both from you guys regarding Betman and from Bryce, this is Bryce Salvador interview, hoping the sport in this league are salvageable, and the spirit of fun questions amidst the horror we're all constantly talking about. And in line with the music talk during this episode,

what are some of your favorite shows slash concerts you've ever been to? Oh, man. Do you have a number one, Sean? My number one's very obnoxious. It was a punk show that I went to see in a VFW when I was, when I was 16. Anatomy of a ghost

and Bear versus Shark were the two headliners. Bear versus Shark, Michigan band, they're the best. They did some reunion shows like over the last couple years up in Detroit

and I seriously thought about going to see them play. They're awesome. That is a reference for 15 people. That's great. For all the dads out there, my favorite show

was I saw Radiohead open for REM. Oh, that's awesome. Reson Center, and he slancing. When was this? This would have been like 1998, if I'd guess. It was okay computer era radio head. It was great.

Yeah, it was amazing. And like that was a fun era because, you know, I'm in college and we're just like, that's what you do when you go to shows. And, you know, so like a saw Pearl Jam a couple times. Like, you know, all these iconic 90s. you know, I loved like the, you know, like the kind of the Americana. So there was like the Jayhawks and we would go see like, you know, bands like that and Wilco and all that.

Yeah. Like really, it was like Sunbolt and stuff like that. And like it was, it was, you know who else? And, you know, it's not cool to like him, but I loved the counting crows in that era. And we would go see. And the other thing we would do is always try to meet the band. I don't know why. Like just go,

like we'd hang out and just give our feedback. And, um, my favorite. It was fine. Yeah. Like,

I don't know. I just felt like we just, yeah, we were like, hey, I remember seeing, um, talking,

like, you talk about college, whatever, uh, seeing OAR at like the height of the crazy game of poker phase. Yeah. And telling them, I thought they,

they mailed it in. That was my feedback to OAS. That's like, that's like you asking Johan Headberg to please lose a game. So we don't have to cover the rest of the, of the, of the cup finals that year. I was just trying to be helpful.

I'm like, look, I'm sure you guys are busy. I felt like you mailed it in a little tonight, fellas. And they're like, well, we do have a show tomorrow in Orlando. We kind of felt like we had to get to. I'm like, yeah, that was, I felt that. This isn't allowed. I'm trying to think. I went to Riot Fest in Chicago a couple, a couple months ago.

It's a, you know, saw, oh, God, that was, that was awesome. Saw the Lawrence Arm, saw Lupe Fiasco, played a pool straight through. What else? What else? I saw the stones when they came to Heinz Field. That's right. Kind of randomly. It was really good.

You mentioned Counting Crows. Also, producer Jeff chiming, and he saw, he saw rage. I never got to see rage against the machine. I got that taken from me by the pandemic. That tour got canceled. You mentioned Counting Crows. That was the worst show that I've ever seen. It was Counting Crows.

It was Counting Crows and Goo Goo Goo Goo Dolls. I was 21. It was outside Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Got free tickets. somehow my girlfriend and her parents at the time were in town. And I somehow had to be the designated driver out of the sticks to go to go watch this, to go watch a show that I didn't give a shit about. And Adam Dirt from the Counting Crows was going through something.

I don't know if it was emotional or chemical or whatever. But I was just, I was stone sober. I was pissed off because I was going to be riding back like a van full of drunk people or whatever it was. And I sit there sober as a judge watching this dude. just, you know, fart his way through the big yellow taxi song or whatever it was. I was miserable. I'm sorry. I blame, and you know what?

I blame you for that because of the glowing review you gave out those guys in 1998 or whatever it was. All right. I'm going to keep it moving. I once saw Live open for Counting Crows and live, this was in Atlanta. And Live was like, hey, we love Atlanta. So we're going to go extra long. And they brought like Dennis Rodman on stage. It was really bizarre.

bizarre. It went like for four hours and then counting came out and they were like, hey, there's like, we have to be like out of here by 11 because of like outdoor noise violation potential. So they just had to bang out their set in like 15 minutes. Oh, that's horrible. I'm like for like four hours. Like yeah. Thanks. I hope you guys. I hope you guys enjoy Dennis Rodman banging a tambourine during lightning crashes or whatever the fuck was. This is, um, can we say the effort on the fund? I just slipped up and I just slept up and dropped in that. I think you always have. I don't know, man. Whatever, I'm about to find out. Kevin, Chris E. writes, trying to think of the most American question I can, and this is what I've got, which NHL arena has the best hot dogs?

Not true. You're not going to like the answer. It's Montreal. Mike H. I kind of want Craig on Stick to Sports. Is that another, is that like a podcast or some sorts? So we can get his takes on Dune and Gordita crunches. Can we make this happen?

There's no way you've watched Dune, right? No, or eating gordita crunches You're not a You were never like a Taco Bell guy Never? Yeah, when I was 16 or 14 We used to go get like a 10 pack of tacos And knock them out

I ate 14 once 14 Taco Bell tacos once on But now like I couldn't If I had No there's no way So Dude you were off meat for a while Weren't you?

Yeah, I'm like Flexitarian or whatever Yeah, I'm back on but like try not. I certainly don't eat ground beef or Taco Bell. Oh my gosh. Whatever. It's not ground beef.

I think you're safe. I haven't had Taco Bell in a while in fairness. Okay. Chris Jay says, talking about the ads, but Sean may have come up with the fantasy team, the ball tremors. I did do that last week.

I meant to say ball hair trimmers and just said ball trimmers. Ball trim. That's like a torture implement. Like in Funny Farm with Chevy Chase where he's eating sheep balls. It's like, where they trim. He's like, you got to cut them like this.

this. Really want to change, really want to change in the sport. Oh, then Chris got serious. Oh, man. We went from Baltimore's to really want change in the sport. It's time for a change at the top. Yes, we all, we're all, yeah, that's good. I just had to change gears. Travis B. Gentlemen, I'll suggest a new segment for consideration. I love this. I like that where this is going already. I think you should take time each week to call out every game where an American team beats a Canadian team. In addition, you could track which American-born player scores the most goals against Canadian teams throughout the entire season.

It might just be one player who hilariously jumps out to a big lead, holds it for the year, or a close race where a few players are trading back and forth. Either way, it could be an excellent way to continue to dunk on our neighbors to the north. Okay, so you got to figure it's going to be somebody from the Pacific Division or the east. Is that something we could track fairly easily? I'll get down on that. I have a feeling that's, if that's not a drop down on, on hockey. reference, then it's going to be a lot of work. But I think it's worth looking into.

It was like our idea that we just wanted to run through like the top 100 American, like, we just like start talking only American. Number, number, number, number 86. Yeah. Phil Cosley says, wow, what a great interview with Bryce. It really was. Like, we should have just ran that episode again this week. It was, it was good. Like, honestly, Bryce was so good. He was awesome. It was so refreshing to hear a player actually show some compassion, maturity, and self-awareness. Really hope that more people like, him step up to make changes in this league. You both do a great job of balancing laughs with difficult and important topics.

Thank you. We'll see. Quite a compliment, man. That's all we're trying to do. Yeah. Yeah. I appreciate that. We try.

Slurms M says retouch tunes. Oh, this is because we're Sean. We learned last week from his house. Just psycho psychopath shit. Me playing. I've thought a lot about that too, Sean. That was really just like the more, like I thought it was funny at first. then I thought it was really disturbing.

Like that you're ruining people's nights by playing the monster mash on repeat from the comfort for nobody but myself. Like that, like nobody knew it was me. I would just sit there on my couch and smugly smiled at myself and play Xbox or whatever, whatever I was doing at the time. Slurm says, I played space hog in the meantime so much from my condo on the tavern,

tabern of tacos, Lake Street, Minneapolis touch tunes, that the artist Spacehog is now straight banned by the bar. I have screenshots to prove it. Now they just get the top gun theme way more than they want. I love that. That's like, oh, man. You're kidding. He gets,

he gets, he gets, extra points for killing a, for killing a good song. So he, so he killed, he killed in the meantime. So,

so, so people on that bar can never hear it again. It's not like, it's not like me being an asshole and playing the monster mash. He wants to hear the monster mash. Nobody. Love it. Uh,

Cicay writes, what, uh, what an incredible interview with Bryce. I screen, record quotes from podcasts I listen to off in 30 seconds to three minutes just depending on the subject matter. I recorded seven minutes worth of quotes from this episode. It was, it was all Bryce too. Yeah. Oh my gosh. How wild was like he was just like, he just, he rolled. That's the longest

anybody's spoken uninterrupted on this podcast ever. We didn't interrupt him. We'd get points for that. That's true. We didn't, we didn't talk over him and whatever. Casilla writes, I don't have kids and I'm not around youth hockey, but after hearing Bryce talk about the state of the sport at that level, I'd love to volunteer and help organizations out in my geographic area. Can you guys share some resources about where I could look for those kind of volunteer opportunities? I don't know anything about the amateur side of the sport. All right. Can I get permission to just pin that and actually do the work and come back with this? I think that's a really good question that we will hit next week.

Is that fair? Yep. I think that's fair. I don't have a good answer for that. I don't want to like just like Google something real quick and then send somebody into like a terrible organization. Check the USA hockey website. I'm sure they're like looking for volunteers or whatever. That's probably not like actual. Yeah. Let's make sure to have actual actionable stuff for sale. Like if we're really trying to like change and it's like we got to get in the rinks. Like let's let's I love that. Like that's the that's the appropriate response. And so let's give some thoughtful answer to that that's not going to happen in this moment.

I know every every youth team is always. looking for people to track stats and just just keep, keep boxes and whatever. But yeah, we'll have actual real answers next week. That's good. Ryan B says, Jen, this is my second season following the NHL and hands down your show is my go-to. It's fantastic. Thanks, Ryan. Buddy.

I was hoping you could help. I'm from the UK and I've struggled to find a team to support. Also, any book wrecks to further my knowledge of the game would be great. Oh, buddy. Do I have a book for you? I have one for you, but not too. So the first question, if you're in the UK, who should you support? So you want a team that's coming into their own, fun to watch, and...

Not problematic. Yeah, like, you want to be able to root unabashedly for them. Oh, God. I almost said, I almost said Calgary. We can't, we can't say that. Colorado? Like, I still, like, they're doing good. Whatever.

You know what? How about this? I, and I see this, I've had this conversation about, about English soccer, ironically. Don't pick a, don't pick a shitty team. Like, like, just, just have fun. Pick a team you know is going to be good for a while and enroll with that. Honestly, Florida would be fun.

Colorado would be fun. Buffalo. Get in on the rebuild. Like, you don't have the baggage of previous rebuilds if you're joining right now. So you're just wiping the slate clean. You've got great young players, a good coach. maybe Buffalo. And so then you get to do, you get to do like I'm bad,

but then we get to enjoy the whole rise. If you jump on Colorado now, it's kind of cheating, I think. Yeah, it's true. Just like find a player, find a young player you like and read accordingly. Like, I'm going to just end up, whenever Ricardo Pepi ends up in the Premier League,

I'm just going to, I'm going to root for whatever team he ends up on. That's right. Find the best young player you enjoy watching. Devils are good. I know Jack's hurt, but. That's a good one, too. That's a good strategy.

Dude, how about the Red Wings? Yeah. You know they're going to spend, so they'll start supporting this team. You've got Moritz cider and Lucas Raymond are fun. Who are fun in good. personalities. GM and Steve Eisenman, who seems to know what he's doing and has a plan and is enacting it. Very fun guy, too.

Very serious guy. Original 6, if that's important to you, et cetera, great town. Yeah, I think Detroit's should be in that conversation. Chris Kay says, now that the American edition has infiltrated other days of the podcast, is that true? I guess Sean's done some appearances. Yeah, I did. Philin for Mendez when he had traveled difficulties of his own this week. Can you begin a pressure campaign for them to ban phrases like you guys do?

If I hear Ian say rando one more time, all right, I will pass that along to Ian. Yes. We got to have a pun jar for Ian. I'm not going to ban him from saying puns, but he should have to, whatever, a dollar to chair. for every grown-worthy pun he drops because he's he's the king um he's good and so i'm officially banning rando and i'll let you know he can never say it again every time ian makes a pun and haley like sighs and disgust they should have to they should have to donate a dollar to charity good eric b says congrats on the dual coups this week first sean infiltrating the canadian

addition good job sean just sabotaging it yes you're welcome thank you can i hear to the impersonation of me because I don't, what could that possibly sound like? I don't have any. Haley Salvian. Haley Salvian. That's not what I sound like. That is not what I sound like. This is like when someone's like. That's like a Wichinsky impression. That's a Wichinsky impression. This is you doing Sean, there's Wisch doing me.

Like Puck Soup is mainly Greg doing bad impressions. That show exists mainly so we can, so we can, you know, C minus impressions of, you know, some of them are good, actually. Phil Ossesia was really good. Eric B continues, Craig, I was a 90s baby, but I also have fond memories of 89x growing up. I was sad to discover it was gone when I was back in Michigan this summer. I think we can agree that station was the one good thing Canada has given us. Eric B., you are correct. You got to find that long-form story about the DJ.

You mentioned that last week, and I want to read it. If somebody is listening to this and you know this to save me a step, send it to me, and I'll retweet it. But otherwise, I will find it because it was fascinating. And it was great. The writing was well. The reporting was great. The reporting was great. The writing was well.

The speaking was well, too. Andy B. says, this version of the show is objectively taken. Very good. Thank you. Thanks, buddy. You're from the fans. But it is comfortably the second best edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. I wonder who's first.

I disagree, Andy. That assessment of our show. Number one is the Mac and do DGB show, which we, or the, the Mendez Mac and do show, which we've never spoken of. I don't even, is that on the same network? Who is Down Goes Brown, really? really. Before we wrap up, I do want to suggest give Rob Pizzo and Jesse Granger and Sarah Sivian a listen.

They're the Wednesday show. They're good. They got Julian McKenzie on, who we had dinner with last night, who's amazing. Julian, we should have just recorded the dinner conversation because he was on. He was, we were debating. He was rolling. It was fun. Him and I got in a fight over what a better party school, Syracuse or Michigan State.

And that would have been a great segment. So that's what you missed by not joining us at dinner last night. Wednesday show. What they've done in three episodes so far, three or four. Yeah, they're good. So we're friends of that show, I would say. There's enough American flavor on that. Siv, Granger.

Also, if you're still listening to this. Yeah, I know. Go to wherever you listen to podcasts, give this a review, but specifically mention this episode just to make us a story. just to make us feel better. Like, review it and then talk about this episode, and you can say what you want about the other ones. I'll leave that to your own.

But, like, really, like, we can, that's really helpful to us. We're having a bad day. We need, we need some compliments. It's good. It's good for interaction. Subscribe to the Athletic Audio Plus on Apple Podcasts to get all the bonus content from our entire network. Start with a 30-day free trial, then 99 cents after that.

And lastly, if you're not subscribing to the athletic, go to the athletic.com slash hockey show. and you get in to the athletic for $3.99 a month, and you too can leave comments on the athletic app. If you go to the athletic, go to a podcast, click on the episode, then, uh, excuse me, click on the podcast, um, which is the athletic hockey show, then find our specific episode,

then click on details, then scroll down, answer three questions from the troll and leave a comment. Also, there would be a very difficult capture. Now, click all the boxes that have street lights in them. Find the four things at Art to Bus. Have a great week.